On Monday, Yan Junjie, born in 1989, walked into a conference room in Beijing. At 37, he was likely the youngest entrepreneur at a symposium chaired by Chinese Premier Li Qiang to solicit opinions on the draft government work report and the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30). Who is this young man, and why does his voice matter to China’s economic strategy? Yan is the founder and CEO of MiniMax, an AI startup that became China’s second “AI tiger” to go public on January 9. The company achieved in four years…
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Australia has joined a growing chorus of anger – from France, the UK and Denmark, among others – over comments by US President Donald Trump suggesting NATO allies had stayed ‘a little bit off the front lines’ during the war in Afghanistan. Trumps’s remarks before the weekend have drawn sharp rebukes from European partners and forced a partial retreat from the White House. The backlash was swift and wide-ranging, stretching from Paris to Canberra, and comes just as tensions over Greenland had begun to ease. For many US allies, the…
In response to a media inquiry about reports that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to visit China this week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Tuesday that in a turbulent and volatile world, China and the UK, as permanent members of the UN Security Council, will benefit the world and the two countries themselves by stepping up exchanges and cooperation. “On the visit you mentioned, information will be released in due course,” Guo said. Starmer will head to China and Japan late Tuesday, his spokesman confirmed,…
In his annual address to French ambassadors in January, French President Emmanuel Macron sharply criticized the US for “gradually turning away” from some of its allies and “breaking free from international rules,” and rejected what he described as a “new colonialism and new imperialism,” the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. Macron’s remarks have put the term “new imperialism,” or “neo‑imperialism,” squarely in the international spotlight, with many observers linking it to what some describe as a series of predatory actions by the current US administration. From the forcible seizure of Venezuelan…
Determined to push back against online falsehoods, the French state is turning to facts, humour and a new digital voice to challenge misleading narratives wherever they spread. France has set up a new digital rapid-response unit – titled “French Response” – to push back against what it sees as a rising tide of online disinformation, and it wasted little time making its presence felt. When the US secretary of state Marco Rubio took a swipe at European culture on X this week, the English-language account run by the French foreign…
The renewed campaign by United States President Donald Trump to acquire Greenland has escalated, with tariff threats against European allies. Asked on Tuesday how far he is willing to go to “acquire” Greenland, Trump replied: “You’ll find out”. This is the latest episode in a long-running effort under Trump 2.0 to remake the international order with major geopolitical implications: There is a chance of both escalation and de-escalation when Trump holds meetings this week on Greenland with European leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. US–Greenland relations and…
Amid the first cold wave of this year, several southern cities including Shanghai and Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu Province, witnessed snowfall on Tuesday, while some southern cities saw their daily high temperatures fall below zero for the first time this winter. Affected cities have taken response measures, with some leveraging big data to facilitate smoother traffic flow, while others stocked up on vegetables in advance to ensure adequate supplies for residents. Shanghai Meteorological Bureau said on Tuesday morning via its official Sina Weibo account that light snow fell intermittently in…
Across the country, community leaders gathered to celebrate the life and legacy of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday. Some leaders took the opportunity to criticize the Trump administration. Early in the afternoon, there were no significant disruptions being reported. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrates the Jan. 15 birthday of the civil rights leader on the third Monday of January. He would have been 97. King delivered his “I have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, in sight of the Lincoln Memorial and Washington…
U.S. allies in Europe are banding together against President Donald Trump’s ultimatum: tax imported goods from their countries unless Denmark surrenders control of strategically important Greenland. Trump said that U.S. ownership of Greenland – an 800,000-square-mile Arctic island and Danish territory – is vital to national security. He says Denmark cannot defend its mineral-rich territory from China and Russia. On Monday, Trump criticized NATO, saying the alliance has failed to compel Denmark to comply. “NATO has been telling Denmark, for 20 years, that ‘you have to get the Russian threat…
There are no Chinese warships operating in Greenland and no significant Chinese investments in the region, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said in Washington on Wednesday, as he countered US threats to seize the Arctic island. Rasmussen, together with Greenland’s Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt, had an hourlong meeting with US Vice-President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House, the first face-to-face meeting between the high-level officials as Washington’s rhetoric of taking full control Greenland has run high. “It was a great opportunity also for…