Day: April 22, 2024

Taiwan’s Hualien county was hit by a series of earthquakes – with the highest magnitude at 6.3 – in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The county, along the east coast of the island, experienced the two strongest shocks in about six minutes, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration which recorded a 6.0-magnitude quake at 2.26am at a depth of 10km (6.21 miles). 02:25 ‘We have to toughen up’: Hualien residents flock to night markets following killer earthquake ‘We have to toughen up’: Hualien residents flock to night markets following…

South China Morning Post economy desk reporter He Huifeng has been reporting on the semi-annual China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou since the early 2000s. She recounts her experiences from the ongoing 135th session of China’s largest trade exhibition, widely known as the Canton Fair. I have witnessed waves of highs and lows in export orders at the Canton Fair over the years, but this year, what hit me was the surprisingly strong return of foreign importers. Even the heavy downpours, which are very rare in the spring in…

During the 1980s and 1990s, one of the most read books in China was The Third Wave by American writer and futurist Alvin Toffler. The biggest takeaway for China was that it could not miss the third wave of transformation of human society, which involves the internet and information technology, after being left behind during the previous wave of industrialisation. People glued to their smartphones crossing a street in Shanghai. Photo: Reuters Three decades on, it is fair to say that China is one of the most successful countries in…

The United States and its European partners have no intention of expanding Nato’s presence in the Indo-Pacific region, a senior Biden administration official said on Monday, claiming Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns were behind such reports. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said all parties involved in dialogues with Nato “understand exactly what the nature of our conversations are about and the limitations of what is being discussed”. The senior diplomat’s remarks came at the launch event of a report published by the United States Institute of Peace on…

The State Department report, which assesses some 200 countries and territories based on standards enshrined in international human-rights agreements, contained an extensive catalogue of China’s alleged violations, as it has for several decades. China, the report’s preface stated, “continues to carry out genocide, crimes against humanity, forced labour and other human-rights violations against predominantly Muslim Uygurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups”. Blinken’s remarks come ahead of his trip to Beijing and Shanghai later this week, where he plans to raise the US’s concerns over China’s human…