August 4, 2026

03a China

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Beijing slammed on Monday an EU plan aimed to bolster the bloc’s industries against fierce competition from China, vowing countermeasures if it is enacted.

The EU unveiled in March new “Made in Europe” rules for companies trying to access public funds in strategic sectors including cars, green tech and steel, obliging firms to meet minimum thresholds for EU-made parts.

The proposal, held up for months by wrangling over the measures, is a key part of a European Union drive to regain its competitive edge, reduce its industrial decline and stave off hundreds of thousands of job losses.

Beijing’s commerce ministry said on Monday that it had submitted comments to the European Commission on Friday, expressing China’s “serious concerns” regarding the act it called “systemic discrimination“.

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Dual-use items are goods, software or technologies that have both civilian and military applications, including certain rare earth elements that are essential for making drones and chips.

The ministry also said foreign organisations and individuals are prohibited from transferring or providing dual-use items originating from China to the seven entities and any related activities must be stopped immediately.

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BEIJING — Chinese tech giant Alibaba said Friday that its Qwen artificial intelligence model will be integrated into vehicles from automakers including BYD and a local joint venture of Volkswagen, as the industry pushes to add more in-car digital services and compete for buyers in a slowing electric vehicle market.

The model will run on Nvidia‘s automotive chip system and is designed to function even with limited network connectivity.

Alibaba said select models will allow drivers to order food delivery, book hotels, buy tickets to attractions and track packages, among other features, through voice commands.

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A Chinese national was arrested April 7 after he allegedly illegally photographed U.S. Air Force planes at a military base in Nebraska, authorities said.

Tianrui Liang, 21, was charged with illegally photographing Air Force planes at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue, Nebraska, which is a key base in the Air Force’s Strategic Command, according to a Justice Department (DOJ) press release. Liang crossed the U.S.-Canada border on March 28, 2026, from Vancouver to Washington on a valid B1/B2 visa, the DOJ said.

He was also allegedly at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota ahead of visiting Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. In addition, Liang was interested in visiting Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), The Associated Press (AP) reported.

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The White House on Thursday accused China of stealing U.S. artificial intelligence labs’ intellectual property on an industrial scale in a memo that threatens to strain relations ahead of a summit between U.S. and Chinese leaders next month.

“The US government has information indicating that foreign entities, principally based in China, are engaged in deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns to distil US frontier AI systems,” Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in a memo shared on social media on Thursday and first reported by the Financial Times.

“Leveraging tens of thousands of proxy accounts to evade detection and using jailbreaking techniques to expose proprietary information, these coordinated campaigns systematically extract capabilities from American AI models, exploiting American expertise and innovation,” he added.

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The Wall Street Journal this month caught up with President Trump’s softness on China, only six years late. The President’s long-standing chase for China deals has pushed the US to avoid hard choices, only to get burned later. The Trump administration hiked tariffs right away, then caved because they didn’t even see vulnerability on rare-earth magnets. There are other glaring blind spots now, starting with land versus pharma.

Somehow Chinese land ownership here may have become the Sino-American issue most discussed outside the beltway. The PRC shouldn’t be allowed to own land near military sites or large amounts of farmland. But it hasn’t, doesn’t, and won’t. Many politicians around the country loudly trumpet solutions to what is currently a minor problem. No harm, no foul? When we simultaneously shy away from much tougher issues, there’s harm.

A mainstay issue being suspiciously soft-played is pharmaceuticals. Our industry is dangerously dependent on China and companies are actively trying to make it worse. Dependence on some Chinese drugs and ingredients for drugs has been recognized since at least 2017. Less recognized is that the leading source of our imports is European nations, now topped by Ireland, which are themselves facing China dependence.

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Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig is sounding the alarm about Canada seeking deeper trade ties with China in the face of growing tensions and uncertainty with the U.S., warning the pivot carries significant risks to Canada’s economic security.

Speaking Tuesday at the Future of Business Summit in Ottawa, Kovrig — a longtime China analyst who was arbitrarily detained by Beijing for more than 1,000 days after Canada detained Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou — said Ottawa’s new China strategy is a “risky play” that will not be viewed kindly by Washington and could threaten trade talks.

He pointed to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s criticism last week of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s deal with China, announced early this year, which included importing a limited number of Chinese electric vehicles.

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Should a war break out between China and the U.S. in the Pacific, “what you are seeing in the Strait of Hormuz will be a dry run,” Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said Wednesday.

Balakrishnan made the remarks at CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE event in Singapore, responding to a question on whether the city-state was facing any pressure from Washington and Beijing to choose between the two.

Singapore has relationships with both the countries, and is uniquely positioned to take advantage of developments in the U.S. and China, Balakrishnan told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick.

The U.S. is Singapore’s largest foreign investor with around 6,000 American companies based in the city-state. Singapore also runs a goods trade deficit with Washington to the tune of about $3.6 billion, according to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

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So far, America has remained ahead in the new space race. But its biggest rival is making continual steps to catch up. China announced another step in that direction with the unveiling of its first ever reusable five-meter-wide composite propulsion module, announced in a press release on April 11th.

The module was designed by the China Aerospace and Technology Corporation (CASC), the primary state contractor for the Chinese space program. Specifically, it was developed at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), which is also known as the First Academy of the CASC. It marks the largest integrated composite structure ever manufactured domestically for China’s aerospace sector. The first prototype was completed in just seven months, from initial design to delivery, underscoring the rapid development timeline.

Composites are becoming a critical feature of modern launch systems. Traditional metal components simply weigh too much. The more structural weight a launch vehicle has to carry into orbit, the less cargo or fuel it is able to carry due to the tyranny of the rocket equation. Composites are significantly lighter while still having the physical properties of metal, allowing for more payloads, or, crucially, more fuel for reentry burns.

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As major artificial intelligence breakthroughs arrive on what seems to be a near-weekly basis, the race between the US and China continues to intensify. In this post and the next, we will examine the good and bad news for the prospects of American triumph in the battle for AI superiority, a skirmish that could well determine the future of global innovation.

Let’s start with the bad news.

Last week, I attended a hearing of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party entitled “China’s Campaign to Steal America’s AI Edge.” Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) opened the proceedings by asserting that “China’s smuggling of advanced AI chips is a pervasive threat facing law enforcement” and observing that “just last month, the Department of Justice announced a $2.5 billion chip smuggling case, which would be the largest export control violation in US history.”

Moolenaar then asked, “Why is China so desperate to acquire US-designed chips? The reason is obvious. AI is a truly transformative technology. It’s already changing how we fight wars, run our government, and operate companies.” Critically, the chairman contended, “it is essential for the United States to maintain a decisive lead in the AI race. We cannot afford a future where Beijing dominates this technology.”

At the hearing, Dmitri Alperovitch, the founder and chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, echoed Moolenaar, arguing that “we are in a race, and the stakes could not be higher. Artificial intelligence will transform every industry, every battlefield, and every government.” Critically, Alperovitch asserted, “whoever fields the best models running on the best infrastructure will likely win not just the AI race itself but the 21st century. The single most important input to winning is compute—the processing power used to train and run AI models.”

China hopes to soon deploy robots to control future rioters. The People’s Armed Police Force (PAP) is already testing the possibility in preparation for a potential mass riot event.

China may control riots in the future using robots – NewsBytes
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China‘s internal security forces are exploring the use of autonomous machines for riot control, according to a recent study. The research, conducted by engineering experts from the People’s Armed Police Force (PAP), imagines a future where urban unrest is managed without any human intervention. This futuristic approach was envisioned in response to a hypothetical scenario of mass protests triggered by rumors following a military takeover of a large city.

Machine intervention

How will it work?

In the imagined scenario, a large crowd gathers in a central square with the intention of attacking important government sites. However, their protest is met with an immediate response from autonomous machines. Roadblocks are suddenly deployed to cut off their advance and key instigators are quickly identified and captured by these machines. The protesters, cut off from the internet and unable to broadcast their cause, eventually disperse on their own without any direct confrontation with human soldiers or police officers.