US-China relations

The United States has offered to supply Taiwan with weapons that can strike targets on the Chinese mainland as it helps the island increase its ability to counter any attack from Beijing. Military experts said the latest US arms sales, the first of their kind for more than four decades, were intended to enable Taipei to counter the increasingly modernized firepower of Beijing, which considers the self-ruled democracy to be part of its territory and has vowed to take the island – by force if necessary. The latest batch of proposed arms sales – the eighth to be approved during Donald Trump’s presidency – was welcomed by Taipei on Thursday in the face of growing military intimidation from Beiji

When the US-China trade war kicked off in 2018, Xu Yanlin, a senior sales manager for a Guangzhou company selling clothes and household items on Amazon, worried that her US market would collapse. But instead, her online store thrived, as the firm jacked up prices and passed Donald Trump’s trade war tariffs on to customers. “The tariffs were absorbed by American consumers themselves. We have generally increased the unit price this year. For example, a design for which we charged $16 before is now priced at about $19.99,” said Xu. Some 6,959 miles away in Phoenix, Arizona, Barry Vogel, CEO of industry group Audio & Loudspeaker Technologies International, said the tariffs were a “double whammy

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Inkstone Index features one important number about China to give you insight into the rising power 180,000 to 900,000: The wide-ranging estimation of the number of Chinese casualties during the Korean War.  Fought between 1950-1953, the Korean War is often forgotten in American discourse, overshadowed by World War II and the Vietnam War. But across the Pacific, several countries in Asia are honoring the 70th anniversary of the start of the first major conflict of the Cold War, and the only one in modern history where American and Chinese troops fought against one another. An estimated 36,574 American troops were killed, according to the Korean War Veterans Memoria

The potential acceptance of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists as political refugees led to a war of words between Beijing and governments in countries including the United States and Canada.  A number of developed countries have pledged to open their doors to Hongkongers, but the Chinese government has attacked them for what it describes as foreign interference in its domestic affairs.  Some of those who took part in the anti-government protests in Hong Kong have fled the city or are trying to leave over fears that they could face prosecution.  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week responded to a veiled threat made by a Chinese diplomat after US National Security Advisor Robert O’

Chinese President Xi Jinping has charged the southern metropolis Shenzhen with taking China’s innovation and economic reforms to a higher level at a time when the world had entered a time of “turmoil and changes.” In a wide-ranging speech to mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, Xi also called on the municipality to better integrate the two economies of Hong Kong and Macau into the Greater Bay Area and to attract young people from Hong Kong to study and live on the mainland. In the 50-minute-long speech, Xi laid out a wide range of economic and political missions for Shenzhen, which has been a front runner of China’s reform experiment for 40 ye

China has joined a WHO-linked program seeking to ensure a fair global distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. The move could bolster the struggling vaccine project, called Covax, which aims to make and deliver 2 billion doses of the vaccines to people most at risk by the end of 2021. China is the world’s biggest economy to have pledged support for the program, after the US opted out, citing the involvement of the World Health Organization. Covax, co-led by the vaccine alliance Gavi, pools resources from wealthier countries to allow an equitable distribution of approved vaccines to poorer nations, but it has so far struggled to obtain enough funding. The Chinese foreign ministry said it signed an

Walking into the yet-to-open Chinese-American Museum in Washington, visitors are greeted with a simple message: “The Chinese-American story is an American story.” Located four blocks north of the White House, the museum hopes to tell the story of the Chinese-American experience, beginning with the first four recorded Chinese visitors who sailed to Baltimore aboard a merchant ship in 1785. “Chinese are not recent arrivals,” said the museum’s executive director, David Uy, himself a first-generation Chinese-American. “We see ourselves as an American history museum. That’s one of the main points we’re trying to get across.” In the 235 years since those first arrivals set foot in the nascent Unit

The United States has released guidance on its immigration laws that will make it almost impossible for members of a communist party or similar to be granted permanent residence or citizenship of America. The announcement, made on Friday by the US Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS), potentially makes it harder for at least 91.9 million members of the Chinese Communist Party to immigrate to the US. In a sign Washington is dusting off its Cold War-era legislation, the agency said: “In general, unless otherwise exempt, any intending immigrant who is a member or affiliate of the Communist Party or any other totalitarian party … domestic or foreign, is inadmissible to the United States.” T

When Donald Trump was elected US President in 2016, almost all of M Group Corporation’s high-end hotel furniture fittings were made in China. Now, after four years of being pummeled by anti-dumping duties, tariffs and extreme political volatility, about half are made in China, with the balance of production scattered around Vietnam, Malaysia and Eastern Europe. “We eventually came up with a solution, and the only real winner was my frequent flier program,” said the American company’s president H David Murray. “My eldest son and I traveled just about all over the world to find resources.” First Trump slapped 341% anti-dumping duties on Chinese-made quartz worktops, then followed up with tari

Reports of Trump’s positive test result for Covid-19 have been met with ridicule and glee on Chinese social media, underscoring the enmity many in China hold against a US president who has made blaming China a central theme of his re-election campaign. Trump said on Friday that he and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus. The announcement came hours after Hope Hicks, the president’s close adviser, was reported to have tested positive after developing symptoms this week. The announcements have prompted a wave of ridicule and schadenfreude by internet users in China. “It’s fine, he can just get an injection of disinfectant,” says one of the most liked comments on the so