Headlines

China sanctions US defense, rare earth firms in retaliation

China hit back at Washington on Monday with a sweeping two-pronged retaliation, barring government departments from buying products from 46 US defense contractors and blacklisting 10 American companies from receiving Chinese dual-use exports. The Ministry of Finance announced

Asia

Before SpaceX IPO, investors in China secretly acquired stakes

This article was originally published by ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom. A businessman with ties to Chinese military contractors was among the overseas investors who acquired stakes in SpaceX while it was still a private company. An entity linked to the Qatari

Asia

Peace or not, the Middle East will now lean more toward China

The most important question about the US-Israel-Iran war is no longer one of who has lost. It is obvious that everyone has lost but that Iran has lost less badly than the others. Nor is it important to ask how humiliating the peace “memorandum” Iran and the US signed this week

Asia

Keir Starmer latest casualty in Britain’s premiership carousel

Keir Starmer has resigned as leader of the Labour party, and so in time as the UK’s prime minister. In the end, despite his numerous assurances that he would fight on, after Andy Burnham’s resounding win in the Makerfield byelection, the pressure on Starmer became too great to

Asia

China in hot pursuit of a wave-skimming hypersonic edge

China’s pursuit of a sea-skimming hypersonic missile could redefine naval warfare in the Pacific — but only if it can overcome the immense technical and operational barriers standing in its way. This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the Chinese Academy

Asia

Why Gaza’s genocide death toll is deliberately undercounted

The mainstream media has no problem guesstimating the deaths (500,000) from the Assad dictatorship’s civil war in Syria, nor the estimated deaths in the wars in Ukraine, Sudan or Iran. Somehow, media editors do not let their investigative reporters assess the extent of Israel’s

Asia

Reading the air on being Japanese

As birth rates fall and countries turn to immigration to address their labor shortages, a lot of countries around the world are struggling with crises of national identity. Japan is one of them. Over a decade ago, Japan began opening itself up to mass immigration. Because Japan

Asia

Trump threatens to invade Iran, torpedoing Swiss peace talks

US President Donald Trump’s threats to destroy Iran and send US forces to occupy the country on Sunday appear to have derailed peace negotiations in Switzerland, with the Iranian delegation reportedly walking out and demanding an apology. Following Iran’s announcement that it

Asia

China’s Malacca panic jails US scholar to appease Myanmar

The Strait of Hormuz isn’t China’s only chokepoint. The Strait of Malacca may be more strategically vital — and on June 12, Beijing arrested an American scholar to protect its access to it. Min Zin, a scholar of China-Myanmar relations and US citizen, was wrongfully detained in

Asia