US-China relations

There has been mounting pressure on celebrities to avoid angering Beijing and Chinese netizens, and risk losing access to China’s lucrative market, with a growing number falling afoul of Chinese fans and regulators for remarks deemed politically incorrect in the past year. BTS K-pop sensation BTS was the latest to spark boycott calls in China, after the group’s leader Kim Nam-joon, known as RM, delivered a speech last month about remembering the “history of pain” and “sacrifices” by the US and South Korea during the Korean war. The comments drew backlash from Chinese netizens, who took to social media to complain that BTS had not acknowledged Chinese suffering during the war. The Korean war,

Donald Trump’s earlier moves to sanction Hong Kong officials and end the city’s special trade status are unlikely to be rolled back, even if his challenger Joe Biden secures the US presidency, political watchers say. But while Biden was expected to press on with tough policies against China – especially in relation to technology and the economy – he was less likely to use Hong Kong as a pawn than his predecessor, and would be more inclined to return to diplomatic norms in the United States’ ongoing tussles with China, they added. “Biden will still have to deal with some of Trump’s legacies,” said Wilson Chan Wai-shun, secretary general of the Global Studies Institute (Hong Kong) think tank,

Every morning since September, Frank Fu has started the day with a cup of coffee and news about the US presidential election. Fu, 45, a business analyst with an American financial institution in Beijing, has never been so keen to follow an election. Although he lives behind “the Great Firewall” along with most of China’s 1.4 billion people, whose access to foreign media is largely blocked, Fu tries to form a picture of what future US-China trade relations will look like despite the mostly censored and limited information available domestically. “As far as I know, many Chinese like me have an unprecedented interest in the election because China’s fate will be more intertwined with the United

Four Hong Kong activists entered the US consulate on Tuesday afternoon in a dramatic bid for asylum. The drama took place just hours after the city’s police national security unit arrested the former leader of a pro-independence group as he was planning a similar move at the diplomatic mission. A South China Morning Post reporter saw the four running toward the consulate and talking to security guards at the entrance before they were allowed into the compound. It is understood that they were later rejected, but there was no official confirmation. Sources said mainland Chinese officials in Hong Kong were aware of their attempt and closely monitoring what could have erupted into a major diplo

Taiwan’s ability to strike back at a potential attack from mainland China has received a further boost after the US approved its second arms sale to the island in a week, to boost its coastal defenses. The Taiwanese defense minister said the deal would help the island achieve its goal of being able to destroy half of any invading force. In a statement on Monday, the US state department said it had notified Congress of its approval for the $2.4 billion package, which includes 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, 100 launcher transporters, radar and support systems. The arms deal is the ninth approved since Donald Trump became president in 2017. According to the state department, Taiwan will be abl

In the 2020 US election, China has become an issue not just in the presidential race but also at the state and local levels. As President Donald Trump and former vice-president Joe Biden have sparred over who would be tougher against Beijing, candidates up and down the ballot have campaigned on concerns about China and Chinese influence. From Trump strongholds Montana and Georgia to swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania, candidates have sought to one-up their opponents with talking points such as Beijing’s culpability in the coronavirus pandemic, the US trade imbalance with China, and Chinese influence and interference in the United States. Montana In Montana, one issue is just how stro

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’