newsmart – Latest News

koreatimes.co.kr | 56 min. ago NEW

From drinks to cars, Chinese brands take over Southeast Asia

BANGKOK, HANOI — Tana-wat, 34, an office worker who works in central Bangkok, starts his morning by turning on his BYD Atto 3, a Chinese electric vehicle (EV). On his way to work, he stops for a 20-baht ($0.60) lemonade at Mixue, a low-cost beverage chain from China. When he has a spare moment, he scrolls through TikTok, a Chinese short-form video platform, and clicks links at the bottom of videos to shop on TikTok Shop. His daily routine is surrounded by Chinese brands, known colloquially as "C-brands." Just a few years ago, C-brands were synonymous with “cheap” in Thailand. The picture has now changed dramatically. Their reach has expanded from inexpensive food and beverages to high-end fashion and cutting-edge electric vehicles. Chinese companies’ expansion into Southeast Asia has moved beyond large-scale infrastructure investment and manufacturing and into consumers’ everyday lives. C-brands on every floor of luxury malls At Iconsiam, one of Bangkok’s most upscale shopping malls, C-brands are found on virtually every floor. Among them are Urban Revivo, a fashion brand; Pop

cnbc.com | 2 hrs. 39 min. ago

GM plans U.S. battery development as Trump's DOT attacks Ford for China ties

Most battery cells currently rely on raw materials from China. GM is seeking to establish domestic supply chains both for EVs and energy storage.

thenextweb.com | 2 hrs. 46 min. ago

China’s AI industry is moving from models to agents, a state report says

China’s AI industry is moving from competing on models to deploying agents, and the China Telecom Research Institute expects inference to reach 80% of the country’s compute market by 2029. Europe’s answer is seven gigafactories whose bids close in November and whose machines are due to run by mid-2028, on a EUR 30bn budget of […] This story continues at The Next Web

ft.com | 3 hrs. 9 min. ago

[$] Can China’s Icicle woo global shoppers in a luxury downturn?

Cashmere brand wants more stores in Europe and the US after being backed by Gucci owner Kering

thehill.com | 3 hrs. 41 min. ago

Trump says he would allow Chinese automakers to build cars in US

President Trump said Friday he would permit Chinese automakers to move manufacturing to the U.S. over the protest of American automakers. “If China wanted to come in and open a plant to build their cars here, I’d be OK with it,” the president told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham on “The Ingraham Angle.” “Japan does it,...

scmp.com | 4 hrs. 3 min. ago

US-China decoupling could benefit other countries, China trade war game suggests

Chinese researchers have modelled a war game scenario suggesting that a complete economic decoupling between the US and China could, unexpectedly, yield dividends for most other nations. Using a quantitative trade model – a data-based economic framework that estimates how changes in trade affect economies – two researchers based in southern China’s Guangdong province found that if the world’s two largest economies were to sever trade relations entirely, a number of other countries, including...

aljazeera.com | 4 hrs. 8 min. ago

China’s marriage crisis: The search for love

101 East explores how ancient traditions are getting a modern makeover as young Chinese seek new ways to find love.

livemint.com | 5 hrs. 57 min. ago

Xi Jinping's Hongqi N701 in Delhi: All you need to know about his armoured limousine

Explore the Hongqi N701, China’s secretive presidential limousine carrying President Xi Jinping. Discover its armour, engine specs, security tech, and how it rivals US ‘The Beast’.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com | 6 hrs. 52 min. ago

China rejects Anthropic allegations of using Claude to train their models

defence-blog.com | 6 hrs. 57 min. ago

China’s nuclear stockpile climbs to 620 warheads, SIPRI says

China’s nuclear weapon stockpile grew to an estimated 620 warheads as of January 2026, up from about 600 a year earlier, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s newly published World Nuclear Forces assessment. SIPRI researchers Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda say the increase is part of a broader expansion that shows no […]

scmp.com | 8 hrs. 7 min. ago

Chinese men warned over bridal scams as marriage squeeze drives search for wives in Africa

A young Malagasy woman was stopped at Madagascar’s Ivato International Airport last month as she prepared to travel to China for a proposed marriage, according to local media reports citing police. She had reportedly been promised 10 million ariary (US$2,300) once she arrived and married a Chinese man. The case led police to investigate a suspected network involved in arranging similar marriages. Four people were detained, and police reportedly recovered false stamps, documents and 10 Malagasy...

thehindu.com | 8 hrs. 52 min. ago

China Southern Airlines to resume Guangzhou-Delhi flights after 6 years

With the resumption, the airline will operate more than 100 weekly flights across eight round-trip routes in South Asia

scmp.com | 10 hrs. 8 min. ago

US wants Taiwan to ‘serve as cannon fodder’ against mainland China: state broadcaster CCTV

“Separatists” and the United States are putting Taiwan in greater danger, China’s state broadcaster CCTV warned on Friday after Washington’s de facto ambassador said the island could convince a potential adversary that landing forces would be very difficult. Raymond Greene, the director of the American Institute in Taiwan, said in a keynote address at the 2026 Taipei Security Dialogue on Wednesday that “Taiwan doesn’t need to demonstrate that it can win a war outright”. He added that Taiwan had...

scmp.com | 10 hrs. 8 min. ago

State funeral for Hong Kong’s first leader Tung Chee-hwa set for September 20

The state funeral for the city’s first chief executive, the late Tung Chee-hwa, is scheduled for next Sunday, the South China Morning Post has learned. A source confirmed on Saturday that the funeral would take place on September 20, with details being arranged. State leaders and central government officials are expected to join the funeral committee, following previous practice. The SCMP reported earlier that a state funeral would be accorded to Tung to honour his legacy as a deputy...

newsbeep.com | 10 hrs. 17 min. ago

Karaoke for one: China’s $1 trillion ‘loneliness economy’ gives a glimpse of the world’s future

Hong Kong —  Rachel Xia has grown quite used to flying solo in the decade since leaving her hometown…

independent.co.uk | 11 hrs. 42 min. ago

Satellite images show China advancing into contested India border territory as Xi travels to New Delhi

Exclusive: While China’s leader is due to meet with Narendra Modi in India this weekend, people living in remote frontier villages tell Shweta Sharma they fear being pushed out of their ancestral lands by an advancing Chinese Army that claims the region as its own

livemint.com | 11 hrs. 45 min. ago

BRICS can help Global South build resilience beyond supply chains: China Daily ahead of Xi-Modi meeting

BRICS Summit: Chinese President XI Jinping is landing in New Delhi to take part in BRICS Summit 2026 in New Delhi today. This will be Xi's first visit to India in nearly seven years. Xi will hold bilateral talks with PM Modi in the evening.

nytimes.com | 11 hrs. 46 min. ago

[$] India Wants to Buy Fewer Chinese Imports, but Keeps Needing More

Trade between India and China has nearly doubled in five years, leaving New Delhi with a widening deficit and a difficult choice over how to build its industrial future.

nytimes.com | 12 hrs. 1 min. ago

India Wants to Buy Fewer Chinese Imports, but Keeps Needing More

Trade between India and China has nearly doubled in five years, leaving New Delhi with a widening deficit and a difficult choice over how to build its industrial future.

scmp.com | 12 hrs. 48 min. ago

What is AGI? How China’s AI firms are catching up as OpenAI Astra sparks debate

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s declaration that artificial general intelligence (AGI) has arrived following the release of OpenAI’s latest model, Astra, has ignited debate over whether AI’s holy grail is now reality. As China races to close the gap with the US, leading Chinese AI companies are declaring their ambitions to pursue AGI, even as Beijing appears to maintain a cautious stance towards the concept. Here is a primer on what AGI means, where top Chinese AI developers stand, and how Chinese...

koreatimes.co.kr | 13 hrs. 12 min. ago

Why did everyone in old Korea wear white?

If you have the good fortune to spend time looking over photos and videos of Korea in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, you will notice something quite striking: nearly everyone’s wearing white. There is a uniformity in the appearance of the people, marked by their plain, unadorned white clothing. Contrast this with the bright pinks, blues and greens we see foreigners wearing around the palaces and bursting through our screens in high definition as part of the latest K-drama, and you realize that there’s a disconnect between the past as it was and as it is imagined today. Consider the following 1920s quote: “While China and especially Japan are using so many different colors in their dresses, there is no such trend in the neighboring country, Joseon. They wear no color but white. Even when they use a color, it's an almost colorless jade. What makes everyone, regardless of gender or age, wear white? There are many countries and nations in the world, but none are like Joseon.” But why did Korean people wear white? And why were they known as "Baekui Minjok" (People in white c

scmp.com | 14 hrs. 45 min. ago

Taobao’s ‘ugly’ goods find a growing market among China’s young consumers

Products widely considered “ugly” or “bizarre” have gone viral online in China as millions of young consumers embrace the items’ quirky humour and distinctive character. Cumulative sales of such products on Taobao – an e-commerce platform of Alibaba Group Holding – have surpassed 230 million yuan (US$34.3 million) since 2020, when Taobao launched its so-called Uglies Award to celebrate creatively unusual goods, the platform said recently without specifying exactly what constitutes an “ugly”...

scmp.com | 15 hrs. 36 min. ago

Senior official asked to resign over defective lifts at Queen Mary Hospital

A senior Hong Kong government official who oversaw faulty lift installation work that stalled the launch of a new block at Queen Mary Hospital was asked to resign and left her post last month to take responsibility for the defects and delays on other projects, the South China Morning Post has learned. But experts criticised the authorities’ handling of civil service management missteps, which bypassed the established disciplinary mechanism, saying it lacked transparency. Multiple sources said...

thenextweb.com | 17 hrs. 3 min. ago

China’s car exports beat last year’s record with four months to go

China exported more than 6.2 million passenger cars in the first eight months of this year, beating its full-year total for 2025 with four months to spare, while domestic sales fell 25.6% in August. Europe absorbed much of the growth through plug-in hybrids, which the EU’s tariff on Chinese cars does not cover, and BYD’s […] This story continues at The Next Web

foreignpolicy.com | 19 hrs. 54 min. ago

Who Wears the BRICS Crown?

India and China compete to shape the bloc’s agenda moving forward.

thenextweb.com | 21 hrs. 16 min. ago

China’s car exports beat last year’s record with four months to go

China exported more than 6.2 million passenger cars in the first eight months of this year, beating its full-year total for 2025 with four months to spare, while domestic sales fell 25.6% in August. Europe absorbed much of the growth through plug-in hybrids, which the EU’s tariff on Chinese cars does not cover, and BYD’s […] This story continues at The Next Web

time.com | 22 hrs. 2 min. ago

Why a Divided BRICS Poses No Challenge to America

BRICS is unlikely to become an anti-American or anti-Western power bloc anytime soon, and its clout is already limited by the rivalry between China and India.

thehindu.com | 1 days ago

Watch: India-China ties in bad shape since Galwan, says Shashi Tharoor

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said India-China relations have been in bad shape since the 2020 Galwan clash and called for greater flexibility, understanding and friendship from China.

scmp.com | 1 days ago

‘Pillar of Shame’ sculptor to ask Denmark to negotiate for artwork’s return

The creator of a sculpture commemorating those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown will ask Danish authorities to negotiate with Hong Kong for its return, with city officials disputing his claims of owning the confiscated artwork. The fate of the “Pillar of Shame” sculpture has come back under the spotlight after the High Court on Friday handed jail sentences to three former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China at the end of a...

euronews.com | 1 days ago

Azerbaijan’s state oil fund helps launch China-ASEAN investment council

SOFAZ is the only founder from outside East and Southeast Asia, reflecting Azerbaijan’s position on the trade corridor between Asia and Europe.

iol.co.za | 1 days ago

South Africa to showcase innovation at Pujiang Innovation Forum in China

Science and Technology Minister Blade Nzimande will lead the South African delegation.

dw.com | 1 days ago

India's BRICS strategy tested with Xi, Putin set to visit

New Delhi's "America Plus" approach sees India deepening its ties with China and Russia, while also trying to keep BRICS from turning into an anti-Western platform.