Gold prices reached an all-time high on Tuesday, after U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico added to concerns about inflation that could dent economic growth. On Chinese social media, “gold price” has become the most talked-about topic during the Chinese New Year holidays. Why is gold so valued in China? Have investors’ lack of confidence in real estate and the stock market been pushing the prices up? How long will this trend last? 

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The U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday that it was suspending acceptance of inbound packages from China and Hong Kong, then reversed that decision Wednesday. VOA’s Steve Herman reports.
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Several governments, including the U.S., Taiwan and Australia, have banned the use of China’s AI software DeepSeek on official devices. Analysts say these restrictions are justified, as tests show DeepSeek not only collects excessive user data but also filters sensitive topics and promotes Chinese government narratives more aggressively than Baidu and WeChat. This raises concern that it could become a powerful tool for controlling speech and public opinion. 

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The new tariffs on Chinese imports, imposed by President Donald Trump this month, include a provision that will close a loophole that Chinese online retailers used for their U.S.-bound exports. The “de minimis” exemption that applies to packages worth less than $800 is commonly used by Chinese online retailers such as Shein and Temu to ship goods at a lower price directly to U.S. consumers.

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The U.S. state of Missouri is suing China over the coronavirus pandemic, accusing it of “unleashing COVID-19 on the world.” The lawsuit threatens to seize $25 billion in assets if Beijing refuses to pay damages. Although the state attorney general is confident in winning the case, legal experts said there are still hoops Missouri needs to jump through due to laws protecting foreign state assets in the U.S.

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HONG KONG/SEOUL/SHANGHAI — The U.S. Postal Service said it would temporarily suspend parcels from China and Hong Kong, after President Donald Trump ended a trade provision this week used by retailers including Temu and Shein to ship low-value packages duty-free to the U.S.

The Trump administration imposed an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods that came into effect on Tuesday and moved to close the “de minimis” exemption that allows U.S. shoppers to avoid paying tariffs for shipments below $800.

The extra tariff and the elimination of de minimis follow repeated warnings by Trump that Beijing was not doing enough to halt the flow of fentanyl, a dangerous synthetic opioid, into the U.S.

Reuters reported previously that Chinese suppliers use the duty-free provision to export chemical materials for fentanyl by disguising them as gadgets and other low-cost goods.

“This is huge… People waiting for orders from Amazon, Shein and Temu have no way of knowing when they can receive those orders,” said Ram Ben Tzion, founder of Ultra Information Solution, the firm behind digital shipment vetting platform Publican.

USPS said the change will not impact the flow of letters and ‘flats’ — mail that can be up to 15 inches (38 cm) long or 3/4 inches (1.9 cm) thick — from China and Hong Kong. It did not immediately comment on whether this was tied to Trump’s change to ending de minimis shipments from China and other countries.

“The USPS would require some time to sort out how to execute the new taxes before allowing Chinese packages to arrive in the U.S. again,” said Chelsey Tam, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar.

“This is a significant challenge for them because there were 4 million de minimis packages per day in 2024, and it is difficult to check all the packages — so it will take time.”

At a Hong Kong post office, a businessman who had come to check the status of a package he sent to the U.S. earlier expressed frustration after a staffer told him it wasn’t possible to ascertain where his delivery might be now.

“This political war is affecting the local people, not just in Hong Kong but in other places too. It’s very disturbing for us,” John Khan, who has run a trading business for nearly 30 years, told Reuters.

China’s foreign ministry called on Wednesday for dialog and consultation between Beijing and Washington, adding that reducing demand for drugs at home and enhancing law enforcement cooperation was the fundamental way for the U.S. to solve its fentanyl crisis.

Greater scrutiny

Logistics provider Easyship warned clients who regularly send sub-$800 shipments to the U.S. were likely to face much greater scrutiny and advised them to set up distribution centers within the U.S., partner with a local warehouse or U.S. fulfillment center.

Some other international couriers including FedEx FDX.N and SF Express, China’s largest express delivery company, said they continue to send packages to the U.S.

FedEx, however, added it had suspended its money-back guarantee for U.S. inbound shipments effective Jan. 29, citing recent regulatory changes, according to a notice on its website.

Fast-fashion retailer Shein and online dollar-store Temu, both of which sell products ranging from toys to smartphones, have grown rapidly in the U.S. thanks in part to the de minimis exemption.

The two firms together likely accounted for more than 30% of all packages shipped to the United States each day under the de minimis provision, the U.S. congressional committee on China said in a June 2023 report.

Nearly half of all packages shipped under de minimis come from China, according to the report.

Shein and Temu did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

“Doing the paperwork for customs declarations was not something these companies had to deal with very often before,” said Basile Ricard, operations director at Ceva Logistics Greater China.

“So this is a very new process for them. If this remains a largely manual process it will be incredibly difficult… It’s really not clear for us at this stage how they are going to manage that.”

Amazon also has a large seller base in China, with e-commerce consultancy Marketplace Pulse estimating in February that China-based sellers represent nearly half of the top 10,000 sellers on Amazon in the U.S. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In November, the U.S. company set up Amazon Haul to allow shoppers to purchase $5 handbags and $10 sweaters from China-based sellers.

Delays in deliveries

Trump’s crackdown on de minimis would make the products sold by the likes of Shein and Temu more expensive but is unlikely to dramatically impact shipment volumes, experts said.

“E-commerce volumes out of China grew 20-30% last year, so it’s going to take a sledgehammer to crack that level of consumer demand and I’m not sure de minimis alone is enough,” said Niall van de Wouw, Chief Airfreight Officer at freight platform Xeneta.

“They will still be cheaper than buying through retailers in the U.S. Delays in receiving the goods due to operational disruptions could have a bigger impact than price.”

Shein has previously said it supports reform of the de minimis provision.

Both Temu, a subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings, and Singapore-headquartered Shein, which plans to list in London this year, have taken measures such as sourcing more products from outside China, opening U.S. warehouses and bringing more U.S. sellers on board, to mitigate the impact.

In what would be another blow to the two China-founded e-commerce platforms, the U.S. is discussing whether to add Shein and Temu to the Department of Homeland Security’s ‘forced labor’ list, Semafor reported on Tuesday.
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U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled an expanded 14-count indictment accusing former Google software engineer Linwei Ding of stealing artificial intelligence trade secrets to benefit two Chinese companies he was secretly working for. 

Ding, 38, a Chinese national, was charged by a federal grand jury in San Francisco with seven counts each of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets. 

Each economic espionage charge carries a maximum 15-year prison term and $5 million fine, while each trade secrets charge carries a maximum 10-year term and $250,000 fine. 

The defendant, also known as Leon Ding, was indicted last March on four counts of theft of trade secrets. He is free on bond. His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Ding’s case was coordinated through an interagency Disruptive Technology Strike Force created in 2023 by the Biden administration. 

The initiative was designed to help stop advanced technology from being acquired by countries such as China and Russia or potentially threatening national security. 

Prosecutors said Ding stole information about the hardware infrastructure and software platform that lets Google’s supercomputing data centers train large AI models. 

Some of the allegedly stolen chip blueprints were meant to give Google an edge over cloud computing rivals Amazon and Microsoft, which design their own, and reduce Google’s reliance on chips from Nvidia. 

Prosecutors said Ding joined Google in May 2019 and began his thefts three years later when he was being courted to join an early-stage Chinese technology company. 

Ding allegedly uploaded more than 1,000 confidential files by May 2023 and later circulated a PowerPoint presentation to employees of a China startup he founded, saying that country’s policies encouraged development of a domestic AI industry. 

Google was not charged and has said it cooperated with law enforcement. 

According to court records describing a December 18 hearing, prosecutors and defense lawyers discussed a “potential resolution” to Ding’s case, “but anticipate the matter proceeding to trial.” 

The case is U.S. v. Ding, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 24-cr-00141. 
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TAIPEI, TAIWAN — The Chinese government on Tuesday launched four consecutive trade measures against the United States, including 10%-15% tariffs, an antitrust investigation on Google, a blacklist of two U.S. companies, and export controls on five types of metals. Analysts said that Beijing’s four consecutive countermeasures were intended not only to retaliate against the United States but also to increase bargaining chips in negotiations with the U.S.

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white house — Arms control advocates are hoping U.S. President Donald Trump’s fresh words of support for denuclearization will lead to talks with Russia and China on arms reduction.

U.S. negotiations with the Russians and Chinese on denuclearization and eventual agreements are “very possible,” according to Trump, who addressed the World Economic Forum a week ago in Davos, Switzerland.

“Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear [weapons], and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about because you don’t want to hear,” he said. “It’s too depressing.”

Trump noted that in his first term, he discussed the topic with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We were talking about denuclearization of our two countries, and China would have come along,” according to Trump. “President Putin really liked the idea of cutting back on nuclear [armaments], and I think the rest of the world — we would have gotten them to follow.”

Just months before leaving office, former U.S. President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC summit in Peru where both agreed that decisions regarding the use of nuclear weapons should remain under human control. That consensus was seen as a positive step after the Chinese, four months previously, suspended nuclear arms control talks with Washington to protest American arms sales to Taiwan.

The horror of nuclear attacks first became evident to many in the world through magazines in the West, which printed photographs of the radiation-burned survivors of the U.S. atomic attack on two Japanese cities in 1945 to end World War II. In subsequent years during the Cold War, U.S. government films captured the destructive force of test detonations in the Nevada desert, eventually prompting public demonstrations to “ban the bomb” and diplomacy to reduce or eliminate all nuclear weapons.

A major breakthrough occurred in 1987 with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) between the United States and the Soviet Union. It entered into full force the following year. By 1991, nearly 2,700 missiles had been dismantled. That was the first time the two nuclear superpowers achieved a reduction of such weapons rather than just limiting their growth.

Over the years, the Americans and the Russians lost their monopoly on nuclear weapons. Nine countries presently have nuclear arsenals, although Israel has never acknowledged possession of such weaponry.

The United States and Russia each have more than 5,000 nuclear warheads — 90% of the world’s total. The combined global force of all countries’ nuclear weapons could destroy the world many times over, according to arms control advocates.

The current New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed in 2010 by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, set limits on the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems, while including on-site inspection and exchanges of data for verification.

The treaty expires in early February 2026, which adds urgency to Trump’s call for talks with Russia and China, according to Xiaodon Liang, senior analyst for nuclear weapons policy and disarmament at the Arms Control Association.

“And because of that, this issue has to be at the top of the agenda, and having a signal that the president is concerned about this issue and thinking about it is very positive,” Liang told VOA.

Since a formal, comprehensive agreement could take years to negotiate — possibly spanning beyond the four years of the second Trump presidency — Liang suggests the U.S. president consider an “executive agreement” with Putin, an informal consensus or a series of unilateral steps to continue adhering to the numbers in New START for an indefinite period.

“That would be a stabilizing factor in this important bilateral relationship,” Liang added.

There are analysts who advocate a more aggressive tactic.

Trump should consider ordering a resumption of nuclear testing to demonstrate to America’s adversaries that the U.S. arsenal of weapons of mass destruction remains viable and as an act of resolve, writes Robert Peters, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank seen as having a dominant influence on Trump administration policies.

Peters also suggests that Trump might want to withdraw from the 1963 Test Ban Treaty made with Moscow and “conduct an above-ground test either at the Nevada National Security Site or in the Pacific Ocean over open water, where nuclear fallout can be minimized” to stave escalatory moves by an adversary to the United States.

The Heritage Foundation did not respond to multiple requests from VOA to interview Peters.

Moscow is not known to have conducted any sort of test causing a nuclear chain reaction, known as criticality, since 1990. Two years later, the United States announced it would no longer test nuclear weapons, although subcritical simulations continue. The other nuclear nations have followed suit except North Korea, which last triggered a nuclear test explosion in 2017.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Tuesday moved up the hands of its “Doomsday Clock” by one second to 89 seconds to midnight, meant to signify the peril from weapons of mass destruction and other existential threats.

“We set the clock closer to midnight because we do not see positive progress on the global challenges we face, including nuclear risk, climate change, biological threats and advances in disruptive technology,” said Daniel Holz, a physics professor at the University of Chicago, just after the hands of this year’s clock were unveiled at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

While the Doomsday Clock is merely symbolic, Liang at the Arms Control Association sees it as an annual important ritual highlighting the risks to Americans and everyone else posed by the world’s nuclear arsenals.

“It is a good tool for bringing this to more people’s attention, and you can’t blame Americans for having so many other issues on their plate. And having this [clock] as a reminder, I think, is an effective communications tool,” Liang said.

At the Doomsday Clock ceremony, VOA asked former Colombian President and Nobel laureate Juan Manuel Santos what he viewed as the biggest hurdle to Trump, Putin and Xi making progress on denuclearization.

“The biggest challenge, in my view, is for them to understand that they should sit down and talk about how the three of them can take decisions to save their own countries and the whole world,” he said.

Liang compared the situation to U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s call to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, which led Washington and Moscow to pull back from the brink of nuclear war.

That resolution turned the hands of the Doomsday Clock the following year back to 12 minutes to midnight in recognition of the Americans, Soviets and British banning nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in space and under water.

It has been several years since the United States engaged in any denuclearization negotiations. Those working-level talks in 2019 in Sweden between the first Trump administration and North Korean officials did not yield any agreement, with Pyongyang’s chief negotiator, Kim Myong Gil, telling reporters that the Americans had raised expectations with promises of flexibility but would not “give up their old viewpoint and attitude.”

The State Department spokesperson at the time, Morgan Ortagus, said in a statement the two countries could not be expected to “overcome a legacy of 70 years of war and hostility on the Korean Peninsula in the course of a single Saturday,” but such weighty issues “require a strong commitment by both countries. The United States has that commitment.”
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Despite the Hong Kong government’s optimistic projection about Hong Kong’s economic recovery, vendors and shoppers at the New Year’s Eve’s Market at Victoria Park, the biggest of its kind in Hong Kong, told VOA they were pessimistic about economic prospect in the Year of the Snake.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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MANILA — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. offered on Thursday to remove a U.S. missile system from the Philippines if China halts what he called its “aggressive and coercive behavior” in the disputed South China Sea. 

The U.S. Army installed the Typhon mid-range missile system in the northern Philippines in April last year to support what the longtime treaty allies described as training for joint combat readiness. 

China has repeatedly demanded that the Philippines remove the missile system, saying it was “inciting geopolitical confrontation and an arms race.” 

Asked by reporters about China’s criticism of the missile system, Marcos said he did not understand the Chinese position because the Philippines does not comment on China’s missile systems which “are a thousand times more powerful than what we have.” 

“Let’s make a deal with China: Stop claiming our territory, stop harassing our fishermen and let them have a living, stop ramming our boats, stop water cannoning our people, stop firing lasers at us and stop your aggressive and coercive behavior, and we’ll return the typhoon missiles,” Marcos told reporters in central Cebu province. 

“Let them stop everything they’re doing and I’ll return all of those,” he said. 

Chinese officials did not immediately comment on the Philippine leader’s remarks. 

The U.S. Army’s mobile Typhon missile system, which consists of a launcher and at least 16 Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, was repositioned about two weeks ago from the northern Philippines to a strategic area nearer the capital, Manila, in consultation with Philippine defense officials, a senior Philippine official told The Associated Press. 

The Philippine official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to discuss the sensitive issue in public, said the U.S. missile system is now nearer an area where Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy forces have been involved in increasingly tense faceoffs in the South China Sea. 

Tomahawk missiles can travel over 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers), which puts parts of mainland China within their range. The missile system will remain in the Philippines indefinitely, the Philippine official said. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said last week that the Philippines is “creating tensions and antagonism in the region and inciting geopolitical confrontation and an arms race” by allowing the U.S. missile system to be positioned in its territory. 

“This is a highly dangerous move and an extremely irresponsible choice,” Mao said. 

Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro has rejected China’s demand that the missile system be removed as interference in Philippine internal affairs. 

The U.S. and the Philippines have repeatedly condemned China’s increasingly assertive actions to press its territorial claims in the South China Sea, where hostilities have flared over the past two years with repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine coast guard forces and accompanying vessels. 

Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims in the busy waterway, a key shipping route which is also believed to be sitting atop large undersea deposits of gas and oil.
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Days after Chinese upstart DeepSeek revealed a breakthrough in cheap AI computing that shook the U.S. technology industry, the chief executives of Microsoft and Meta defended massive spending that they said was key to staying competitive in the new field.

DeepSeek’s quick progress has stirred doubts about the lead America has in AI with models that it claims can match or even outperform Western rivals at a fraction of the cost, but the U.S. executives said on Wednesday that building huge computer networks was necessary to serve growing corporate needs.

“Investing ‘very heavily’ in capital expenditure and infrastructure is going to be a strategic advantage over time,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a post-earnings call.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said the spending was needed to overcome the capacity constraints that have hampered the technology giant’s ability to capitalize on AI.

“As AI becomes more efficient and accessible, we will see exponentially more demand,” he said on a call with analysts.

Microsoft has earmarked $80 billion for AI in its current fiscal year, while Meta has pledged as much as $65 billion towards the technology.

That is a far cry from the roughly $6 million DeepSeek said it has spent to develop its AI model. U.S. tech executives and Wall Street analysts say that reflects the amount spent on computing power, rather than all development costs.

Still, some investors seem to be losing patience with the hefty spending and lack of big payoffs.

Shares of Microsoft — widely seen as a front runner in the AI race because of its tie to industry leader OpenAI – were down 5% in extended trading after the company said that growth in its Azure cloud business in the current quarter would fall short of estimates.

“We really want to start to see a clear road map to what that monetization model looks like for all of the capital that’s been invested,” said Brian Mulberry, portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management, which holds shares in Microsoft.

Meta, meanwhile, sent mixed signals about how its bets on AI-powered tools were paying off, with a strong fourth quarter but a lackluster sales forecast for the current period.

“With these huge expenses, they need to turn the spigot on in terms of revenue generated, but I think this week was a wake-up call for the U.S.” said Futurum Group analyst Daniel Newman.

“For AI right now, there’s too much capital expenditure, not enough consumption.”

There are some signs though that executives are moving to change that.

Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said the company’s capital spending in the current quarter and the next would remain around the $22.6 billion level seen in the second quarter.

“In fiscal 2026, we expect to continue to invest against strong demand signals. However, the growth rate will be lower than fiscal 2025 (which ends in June),” she said. 
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A report issued Wednesday by Google found that hackers from numerous countries, particularly China, Iran and North Korea, have been using the company’s artificial intelligence-enabled Gemini chatbot to supercharge cyberattacks against targets in the United States.

The company found — so far, at least — that access to publicly available large language models (LLMs) has made cyberattackers more efficient but has not meaningfully changed the kind of attacks they typically mount.

LLMs are AI models that have been trained, using enormous amounts of previously generated content, to identify patterns in human languages. Among other things, this makes them adept at producing high-functioning, error-free computer programs.

“Rather than enabling disruptive change, generative AI allows threat actors to move faster and at higher volume,” the report found.

Generative AI offered some benefits for low-skilled and high-skilled hackers, the report said.

“However, current LLMs on their own are unlikely to enable breakthrough capabilities for threat actors. We note that the AI landscape is in constant flux, with new AI models and agentic systems emerging daily. As this evolution unfolds, [the Google Threat Intelligence Group] anticipates the threat landscape to evolve in stride as threat actors adopt new AI technologies in their operations.”

Google’s findings appear to agree with previous research released by other large U.S. AI players OpenAI and Microsoft, which found a similar failure to achieve novel offensive strategies for cyberattacks through the use of public generative AI models.

The report clarified that Google works to disrupt the activity of threat actors when it identifies them.

Game unchanged 

“AI, so far, has not been a game changer for offensive actors,” Adam Segal, director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, told VOA. “It speeds up some things. It gives foreign actors a better ability to craft phishing emails and find some code. But has it dramatically changed the game? No.”

Whether that might change in the future is unclear, Segal said. Also unclear is whether further developments in AI technology will more likely benefit people building defenses against cyberattacks or the threat actors trying to defeat them.

“Historically, defense has been hard, and technology hasn’t solved that problem,” Segal said. “I suspect AI won’t do that, either. But we don’t know yet.”

Caleb Withers, a research associate at the Center for a New American Security, agreed that there is likely to be an arms race of sorts, as offensive and defensive cybersecurity applications of generative AI evolve. However, it is likely that they will largely balance each other out, he said.

“The default assumption should be that absent certain trends that we haven’t yet seen, these tools should be roughly as useful to defenders as offenders,” he said. “Anything productivity enhancing, in general, applies equally, even when it comes to things like discovering vulnerabilities. If an attacker can use something to find a vulnerability in software, so, too, is the tool useful to the defender to try to find those themselves and patch them.”

Threat categories

The report breaks down the kinds of threat actors it observed using Gemini into two primary categories.

Advanced persistent threat (APT) actors refer to “government-backed hacking activity, including cyber espionage and destructive computer network attacks.” By contrast, information operation (IO) threats “attempt to influence online audiences in a deceptive, coordinated manner. Examples include sock puppet accounts [phony profiles that hide users’ identities] and comment brigading [organized online attacks aimed at altering perceptions of online popularity].”

The report found that hackers from Iran were the heaviest users of Gemini in both threat categories. APT threat actors from Iran used the service for a wide range of tasks, including gathering information on individuals and organizations, researching targets and their vulnerabilities, translating language and creating content for future online campaigns.

Google tracked more than 20 Chinese government-backed APT actors using Gemini “to enable reconnaissance on targets, for scripting and development, to request translation and explanation of technical concepts, and attempting to enable deeper access to a network following initial compromise.”

North Korean state-backed APTs used Gemini for many of the same tasks as Iran and China but also appeared to be attempting to exploit the service in its efforts to place “clandestine IT workers” in Western companies to facilitate the theft of intellectual property.

Information operations

Iran was also the heaviest user of Gemini when it came to information operation threats, accounting for 75% of detected usage, Google reported. Hackers from Iran used the service to create and manipulate content meant to sway public opinion, and to adapt that content for different audiences.

Chinese IO actors primarily used the service for research purposes, looking into matters “of strategic interest to the Chinese government.”

Unlike the APT sector, where their presence was minimal, Russian hackers were more common when it came to IO-related use of Gemini, using it not only for content creation but to gather information about how to create and use online AI chatbots.

Call for collaboration

Also on Wednesday, Kent Walker, president of global affairs for Google and its parent company, Alphabet, used a post on the company’s blog to note the potential dangers posed by threat actors using increasingly sophisticated AI models, and calling on the industry and federal government “to work together to support our national and economic security.”

“America holds the lead in the AI race — but our advantage may not last,” Walker wrote.

Walker argued that the U.S. needs to maintain its narrow advantage in the development of the technology used to build the most advanced artificial intelligence tools. In addition, he said, the government must streamline procurement rules to “enable adoption of AI, cloud and other game-changing technologies” by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, and to establish public-private cyber defense partnerships. 
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BEIJING — Lunar New Year festivals and prayers marked the start of the Year of the Snake around Asia and farther afield on Wednesday — including in Moscow.

Hundreds of people lined up in the hours before midnight at the Wong Tai Sin Taoist temple in Hong Kong in a bid to be among the first to put incense sticks in the stands in front of the temple’s main hall.

“I wish my family will be blessed. I hope my business will run well. I pray for my country and wish people peace. I hope this coming year is a better year,” said Ming So, who visits the temple annually on the eve of the Lunar New Year.

The holiday — known as the Spring Festival in China, Tet in Vietnam and Seollal in Korea — is a major festival celebrated by diaspora communities around the world. The snake, one of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, follows the just-ended Year of the Dragon.

The pop-pop-pop of firecrackers greeted the new year outside Guan Di temple in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, followed by lion dances to the rhythmic beat of drums and small cymbals.

Ethnic Chinese holding incense sticks in front of them bowed several times inside the temple before sticking the incense into elaborate gold-colored pots, the smoke rising from the burning tips.

Many Chinese who work in bigger cities return home during the eight-day national holiday in what is described as the world’s biggest annual movement of humanity. Beijing, China’s capital, has turned into a bit of a ghost town, with many shops closed and normally crowded roads and subways emptied out.

Traditionally, Chinese have a family dinner at home on New Year’s Eve and visit “temple fairs” on the Lunar New Year to watch performances and buy snacks, toys and other trinkets from booths.

Many Chinese take advantage of the extended holiday to travel both in the country and abroad. Ctrip, an online booking agency that operates Trip.com, said the most popular overseas destinations this year are Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, the United States, South Korea, Macao and Vietnam.

Russians cheered, waved and took smartphone photos of a colorful procession with drummers, costumed dancers and large dragon and snake figures held aloft that kicked off a 10-day Lunar New Year festival in Moscow on Tuesday night.

The Chinese and Russian governments have deepened ties since 2022, in part to push back against what they see as U.S. dominance of the world order.

Visitors shouted “Happy New Year” in Russian and expressed delight at being able to experience Chinese food and culture in Moscow, including folk performances and booths selling snacks and artwork.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Southeast and East Asia strategies will be aimed at countering China by toughening U.S. policies to secure regional peace and maximize American interests, analysts say.

Rubio gave a glimpse of what U.S. foreign policy will look like as he began his first day as the head of the State Department last week.

Speaking to his staff after he was sworn on Jan. 21, Rubio said, “Our job across the world is to ensure that we have a foreign policy that advances the national interest of the United States.”

Referencing President Donald Trump’s objective, Rubio continued that the “overriding goal of global policy is the promotion of peace, the avoidance of conflict.”

Putting “America First” and achieving “Peace through Strength” are twin pillars on which Trump said he will prop up the U.S. as he took office on Jan. 20.

Rubio is currently likely to consult with country directors of the region and coordinate with the Pentagon and intelligence agencies to formulate Asia Pacific strategies, said Richard Armitage, who served as deputy secretary of state during the Bush administration, to VOA Korean on Jan. 24.

“Secretary Rubio’s Southeast Asia policy will focus on countering China through stronger U.S. trade, security partnerships and supply chain diversification,” said Mark Kennedy, director at the Wilson Center’s Wahba Institute for Strategic Competition, to VOA on Jan. 23

On Pyongyang and Moscow, “Rubio will ask China – as Trump did – to help convince North Korea to resume negotiations with the U.S.,” said Joseph DeTrani, who served as special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration.

“If successful, with or without China’s help, this may help to distance North Korea from Russia,” DeTrani told VOA on Jan. 24.

Rubio’s roots

In shaping and executing regional policies, Rubio’s strong opposition to authoritarianism, communism, and human rights violations is likely to “color his approach at the State Department,” said Evans Revere, who served as acting secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs during the George W. Bush administration.

The former senator grew up in Miami with Cuban immigrant parents and has exhibited an aversion toward communist governments throughout his political career.

This stance, mixed with the twin foreign policy pillars, are likely to result in tough strategies for countries like North Korea and China and their activities in the region, according to analysts.

Rubio signaled this on a call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday, stressing that “the Trump Administration will pursue a U.S.-PRC relationship that advances U.S. interests” and “the United States’ commitment to our allies in the region.”  China’s official name is the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

He also expressed “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan and in the South China Sea.”

In line with the policy goal of avoiding conflict, Rubio may support Trump’s personal diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration.

North Korea said Sunday it conducted a sea-to-surface strategic cruise missile test the previous day.

Rubio, doubtful initially about Trump’s summits with Kim during his first term,  said at a confirmation hearing earlier this month that Trump’s personal diplomacy was able to stop the country from testing missiles.

He spoke by phone with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul last week emphasizing the alliance is the linchpin of peace on the Korean Peninsula and across the Indo-Pacific. 

 In a meeting also last week in Washington, Rubio and Japanese Foreign Minister Iwaya Takeshi discussed North Korea’s ties with Russia. 

Rally against China

Among Southeast Asian countries, Rubio last week held calls with the foreign ministers of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, each time stressing stable maritime security in the South China Sea.

Particularly in his calls with Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo, Rubio underscored “PRC’s dangerous and destabilizing actions in the South China Sea.”

With Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son, Rubio expressed concern over “China’s aggressive behavior in the South China Sea.”

Gregory Poling, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told VOA on January 23 that the Trump administration “will look primarily to the Philippines and outside partners like Japan and Australia to defend freedom of the seas in the South China Sea.”

One of the first meetings Rubio held was with the Australian, Japanese and Indian leaders of the Quad security dialogue last week in Washington where they expressed opposition to unilateral actions to change the status quo of the region by force or coercion and vowed to keep the Indo-Pacific free and open.

Poling continued the administration will look “secondarily to Vietnam, Singapore, and Indonesia to deepen practical maritime cooperation.”

Rubio “may push Indonesia to take a stronger stance vis-à-vis Chinese activities in disputed waters, particularly in light of controversial Indonesia-China maritime development deal signed in November 2024,” Anreyka Natalegawa, associate fellow for the Southeast Asia Program at CSIS told VOA on Jan. 23.

Indonesia and China signed a $10 billion deal in November agreeing to develop fisheries, oil and gas exploration, among other things, across their private sectors. 

Diplomatic balancing

Analysts say Washington’s push to have regional countries align more closely with Washington could lead to some tensions. Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar tend to lean more toward Beijing, and Indonesia tends to balance its engagement with China and the U.S.

Robert McMahon, a foreign relations expert at The Ohio State University, said Rubio’s harsh stance on China could put Indonesia in a “difficult position, since it has not been willing to join the anti-China bandwagon.”

He told VOA in December after Rubio was nominated as the secretary of state that “to the extent that the United States tries to pressure Indonesia to move in that direction, that could lead to some conflict.”

Rubio said to his State Department staff last week that he expects other countries “to advance their national interests” but hopes “there will be many – in which our national interests and theirs align.”

Seng Vanly, an assistant dean and lecturer at the Techo Sen School of Government and International Relations at the University of Cambodia, said Washington is likely to increase pressure on Cambodia over concerns for human rights, democratic setbacks, and restricted civil society activities, coupled with its growing ties with China.

However, analysts say U.S. foreign policy under Rubio will likely balance issues such as human rights with regional security and economic goals.

Rahman Yaacob, a research fellow for the Southeast Asia program at the Lowy Institute, said, “Washington will be more practical.”

“While it could raise human rights issues with regional countries, the Americans understand if they disengage from the region because of human rights, China will fill in the void,” Yaacob said.
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TAIPEI, TAIWAN — As pet parents in China usher in the Year of the Snake and host Lunar New Year’s Eve dinners with their loved ones, some are also making sure that their fur babies, or “mao hai zi,” are not left out.

Over the past month, a growing number of consumers have been ordering pet-friendly versions of the traditional New Year’s Eve reunion dinner, ranging from freshly made meals to gift boxes of dried food.

A search for “dogs’ and cats’ Lunar New Year’s Eve dinner” on Douyin, the Chinese version of Tiktok and the most popular short-video app in China, lists dozens of choices.

‘Lucky’ dumplings

Some vendors even tout traditional Chinese delicacy dishes such as “Buddha jumps over the wall,” which includes seafood and meats, and “eight treasures duck rice” in addition to common ones such “lucky” dumplings and rice cake, adapted for dog palates.

The prices range from 19.9 to 168 yuan ($2.8 to $24) per set.

One vendor on Douyin, LAOTOU Pet Bakery, told VOA in a written reply Monday that it sold out of the special holiday pet meals more than a week before the Lunar New Year, which starts on Wednesday this year.

Lou Yu, vice president of Favor Pets Company in Beijing, also that the pet service firm has seen a boom year in holiday sales of pet food.

Business peaked during the Dragon Boat Festival in June, Mid-Autumn Festival in September and the Christmas holidays in December, when, respectively, rice dumplings, moon cakes and special Christmas treats were offered for pets, he said.

Booming holiday sales

“For [pets’] reunion dinner on Lunar New Year’s Eve, we’ve probably seen a 45% to 50% growth in sales this year, compared to a year ago, when sales were still tepid,” Lou told VOA by phone on Monday.

The company ran out of stock before the eight-day-long holiday began this week as a growing number of owners splurge on their pets.

Festive Fido and feline food have become an emerging and “under-supplied” niche market that is bucking the trend despite China’s economic slowdown. China’s “cat and dog parents” total more than 120 million, more than double from a decade ago, according to Lou.

Last year, there were some 9.54 million babies born in China. Pets are expected to outnumber children under 4 years of age by a ratio of 2 to 1 by 2030 — a shift that will likely create a substantial $12 billion market for pet food in China, U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs forecasted in a report late last year.

Authorities in China ended the country’s one-child policy in 2016 and started encouraging young couples to have three children in 2021 as the country’s population ages and the number of newborns declines.

Pets over kids

By contrast, many couples who find it too expensive to raise children are instead choosing pets over kids.

On Saturday, 11 dogs were treated with plates of shredded chicken and lettuce — a special Lunar New Year meal — in a Shanghai restaurant. Their owners were all female.

“He’s my soulmate! He gives me a lot of emotional support … and he’s a good friend that I’d like to be with and enjoy the New Year atmosphere together,” attendee Momo Ni told Reuters news agency, referring to her border collie, Yakult.

Daisy Xu, another 28-year-old owner, said her dog, named Niu Niu, is already a beloved member of the family.

“We will make her another dog meal. … When it comes to New Year gifts, I think my parents will probably give their granddaughter a red envelope,” Xu told Reuters. Adults traditionally give red envelopes containing money to children during the Lunar New Year.

Rich people’s world

While some Chinese social media users share postings of their pets’ special holiday treats, some users were not as enthusiastic, with several complaining that “these dogs and cats are better fed than I am.”

A Guizhou province-based Weibo user named “magnolia0526” said, “The luxurious lifestyle of cats and dogs highlights the uneven distribution of resources in human society, which is not cute at all.” The post was in response to the hashtag “sales of reunion dinner and dumplings for pets has seen a 480% growth.”

Another Shandong province-based user mocked the trend, saying “this is the world of the rich people.”

Aside from pet food, Favor Pet’s Lou said China has experienced a booming pet economy in recent years with growing business opportunities from pet grooming and sitting services, especially during holiday seasons.

He said that a growing number of job seekers have signed up for the company’s training programs as they shift career paths to find opportunities in the pet service sector.

This article originated in VOA’s Mandarin Service.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand is reconsidering all development funding to the aid-dependent island nation of Kiribati, following a diplomatic snub from the island nation’s leader, government officials said.

The unusual move to review all finance to Kiribati was prompted by the abrupt cancellation of a planned meeting this month between President Taneti Maamau and New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters, Peters’ office told The Associated Press on Monday.

It followed months of growing frustration from Australia and New Zealand — jointly responsible for more than a third of overseas development finance to Kiribati in 2022 — about a lack of engagement with the island nation. Tensions have risen since Kiribati aligned itself with China in 2019 and signed a series of bilateral deals with Beijing.

A strategically important island nation

The bond between Kiribati — population 120,000 — and its near neighbor New Zealand, a country of 5 million people, might not appear the South Pacific’s most significant. But the acrimony reflects concern from western powers that their interests in the region are being undermined as China woos Pacific leaders with offers of funding and loans.

That has provoked a contest for influence over Kiribati, an atoll nation that is among the world’s most imperiled by rising sea levels. Its proximity to Hawaii and its vast exclusive economic zone — the world’s 12th largest — have boosted its strategic importance.

Powers vie for sway with aid

Kiribati, one of the world’s most aid-dependent nations, relies heavily on international support, with foreign assistance accounting for 18% of its national income in 2022, according to data from the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank. About 10% of development finance that year came from New Zealand — which contributed 102 million New Zealand dollars ($58 million) between 2021 and 2024, official figures show.

However, officials in Wellington and Canberra have expressed frustration over a lack of engagement from Tarawa regarding development projects. Frictions escalated when Kiribati suspended all visits from foreign officials in August, citing a need to focus on the government formation process after elections that month.

Kiribati switched its allegiance from pro-Taiwan to pro-Beijing in 2019, joining a growing number of Pacific nations to do so. Self-governing Taiwan is claimed by China and since the shift, Beijing has increased aid to Kiribati.

An official snub provokes backlash

Peters was scheduled to meet Maamau, who has led the country since 2016, in Kiribati on Jan. 21 and Jan. 22, Peters’ office said, but was told a week before the trip that Maamau could not accommodate him. It would have been the first visit by a New Zealand minister in more than five years.

“The lack of political-level contact makes it very difficult for us to agree joint priorities for our development program, and to ensure that it is well targeted and delivers good value for money,” a statement supplied by Peters’ office said. New Zealand will review all development cooperation with Kiribati as a result, the statement added.

The government of Kiribati did not respond to a request for comment, although Education Minister Alexander Teabo told Radio New Zealand on Tuesday that Maamau had a long-standing engagement on his home island — and denied a snub.

New Zealand cautioned that the diplomatic rift could have broader consequences, including impacting New Zealand resident visas for Kiribati citizens and participation in a popular seasonal work scheme that brings Pacific horticulture and viticulture workers to New Zealand. New Zealand — home to large populations of Pacific peoples — is a popular spot for those from island nations to live and work.

“In the meantime, New Zealand stands ready, as we always have, to engage with Kiribati at a high level,” said the statement.

Australia’s softer approach

The decision to review all development funding is a “different, and more forceful approach” than New Zealand has taken before, said Blake Johnson, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and contrasted with a different tack taken recently by Australia — which is Kiribati’s biggest funder.

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles traveled to the island nation this month as planned to deliver a patrol boat promised to Kiribati in 2023 — even though he did not meet with Maamau. Australia’s foreign ministry said in a statement Tuesday that the country “remains committed to its longstanding partnership with Kiribati.”
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Chinese researchers backed by a Hangzhou-based hedge fund recently released a new version of a large language model (LLM) called DeepSeek-R1 that rivals the capabilities of the most advanced U.S.-built products but reportedly does so with fewer computing resources and at much lower cost.

High Flyer, the hedge fund that backs DeepSeek, said that the model nearly matches the performance of LLMs built by U.S. firms like OpenAI, Google and Meta, but does so using only about 2,000 older generation computer chips manufactured by U.S.-based industry leader Nvidia while costing only about $6 million worth of computing power to train.

By comparison, Meta’s AI system, Llama, uses about 16,000 chips, and reportedly costs Meta vastly more money to train.

Open-source model

The apparent advance in Chinese AI capabilities comes after years of efforts by the U.S. government to restrict China’s access to advanced semiconductors and the equipment used to manufacture them. Over the past two years, under President Joe Biden, the U.S. put multiple export control measures in place with the specific aim of throttling China’s progress on AI development.

DeepSeek appears to have innovated its way to some of its success, developing new and more efficient algorithms that allow the chips in the system to communicate with each other more effectively, thereby improving performance.

At least some of what DeepSeek R1’s developers did to improve its performance is visible to observers outside the company, because the model is open source, meaning that the algorithms it uses to answer queries are public.

Market reaction

The news about DeepSeek’s capabilities sparked a broad sell-off of technology stocks on U.S. markets on Monday, as investors began to question whether U.S. companies’ well-publicized plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in AI data centers and other infrastructure would preserve their dominance in the field. When the markets closed on Monday, the tech-heavy Nasdaq index was down by 3.1%, and Nvidia’s share price had plummeted by nearly 17%.

However, not all AI experts believe the markets’ reaction to the release of DeepSeek R1 is justified, or that the claims about the model’s development should be taken at face value.

Mel Morris, CEO of U.K.-based Corpora.ai, an AI research engine, told VOA that while DeepSeek is an impressive piece of technology, he believes the market reaction has been excessive and that more information is needed to accurately judge the impact DeepSeek will have on the AI market.

“There’s always an overreaction to things, and there is today, so let’s just step back and analyze what we’re seeing here,” Morris said. “Firstly, we have no real understanding of exactly what the cost was or the time scale involved in building this product. We just don’t know. … They claim that it’s significantly cheaper and more efficient, but we have no proof of that.”

Morris said that while DeepSeek’s performance may be comparable to that of OpenAI products, “I’ve not seen anything yet that convinces me that they’ve actually cracked the quantum step in the cost of operating these sorts of models.”

Doubts about origins

Lennart Heim, a data scientist with the RAND Corporation, told VOA that while it is plain that DeepSeek R1 benefits from innovative algorithms that boost its performance, he agreed that the general public actually knows relatively little about how the underlying technology was developed.

Heim said that it is unclear whether the $6 million training cost cited by High Flyer actually covers the whole of the company’s expenditures — including personnel, training data costs and other factors — or is just an estimate of what a final training “run” would have cost in terms of raw computing power. If the latter, Heim said, the figure is comparable to the costs incurred by better U.S. models.

He also questioned the assertion that DeepSeek was developed with only 2,000 chips. In a blog post written over the weekend, he noted that the company is believed to have existing operations with tens of thousands of Nvidia chips that could have been used to do the work necessary to develop a model that is capable of running on just 2,000.

“This extensive compute access was likely crucial for developing their efficiency techniques through trial and error and for serving their models to customers,” he wrote.

He also pointed out that the company’s decision to release version R1 of its LLM last week — on the heels of the inauguration of a new U.S. president — appeared political in nature. He said that it was “clearly intended to rattle the public’s confidence in the United States’ AI leadership during a pivotal moment in U.S. policy.”

Dean W. Ball, a research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, was also cautious about declaring that DeepSeek R1 has somehow upended the AI landscape.

“I think Silicon Valley and Wall Street are overreacting to some extent,” he told VOA. “But at the end of the day, R1 means that the competition between the U.S. and China is likely to remain fierce, and that we need to take it seriously.”

Export control debate

The apparent success of DeepSeek has been used as evidence by some experts to suggest that the export controls put in place under the Biden administration may not have had the intended effects.

“At a minimum, this suggests that U.S. approaches to AI and export controls may not be as effective as proponents claim,” Paul Triolo, a partner with DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, told VOA.

“The availability of very good but not cutting-edge GPUs — for example, that a company like DeepSeek can optimize for specific training and inference workloads — suggests that the focus of export controls on the most advanced hardware and models may be misplaced,” Triolo said. “That said, it remains unclear how DeepSeek will be able to keep pace with global leaders such as OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Mistral, Meta and others that will continue to have access to the best hardware systems.”

Other experts, however, argued that export controls have simply not been in place long enough to show results.

Sam Bresnick, a research fellow at Georgetown’s University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology told VOA that it would be “very premature” to call the measures a failure.

“The CEO of DeepSeek has gone on record saying the biggest constraint they face is access to high-level compute resources,” Bresnick said. “If [DeepSeek] had as much compute at their fingertips as Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, etc, there would be a significant boost in their performance. So … I don’t think that DeepSeek is the smoking gun that some people are claiming it is [to show that export controls] do not work.”

Bresnick noted that the toughest export controls were imposed in only 2023, meaning that their effects may just be starting to be felt. He said that the real test of their effectiveness will be whether U.S. firms are able to continue to outpace China in coming years.
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New York — Wall Street is tumbling Monday on fears the big U.S. companies that have feasted on the artificial-intelligence frenzy are under threat from a competitor in China that can do similar things for much cheaper.

The S&P 500 was down 1.9% in early trading. Big Tech stocks that have been the market’s biggest stars took the heaviest losses, with Nvidia down 11.5%, and they dragged the Nasdaq composite down 3.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which has less of an emphasis on tech, was holding up a bit better with a dip of 160 points, or 0.4%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time.

The shock to financial markets came from China, where a company called DeepSeek said it had developed a large language model that can compete with U.S. giants but at a fraction of the cost. DeepSeek’s app had already hit the top of Apple’s App Store chart by early Monday morning, and analysts said such a feat would be particularly impressive given how the U.S. government has restricted Chinese access to top AI chips.

Skepticism, though, remains about how much DeepSeek’s announcement will ultimately shake the AI supply chain, from the chip makers making semiconductors to the utilities hoping to electrify vast data centers running those chips.

“It remains to be seen if DeepSeek found a way to work around these chip restrictions rules and what chips they ultimately used as there will be many skeptics around this issue given the information is coming from China,” according to Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities.

DeepSeek’s disruption nevertheless rocked stock markets worldwide.

In Amsterdam, Dutch chip company ASML slid 8.9%. In Tokyo, Japan’s Softbank Group Corp. lost 8.3% and is nearly back to where it was before spurting on an announcement that it was joining a partnership trumpeted by the White House that would invest up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure.

And on Wall Street, shares of Constellation Energy sank 16.9%. The company has said it would restart the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to supply power for Microsoft’s data centers.

All the worries sent a gauge of nervousness among investors holding U.S. stocks toward its biggest jump since August. They also sent investors toward bonds, which can be safer investments than any stock. The rush sent the yield of the 10-year Treasury down to 4.53% from 4.62% late Friday.

It’s a sharp turnaround for the AI winners, which had soared in recent years on hopes that all the investment pouring into the industry would lead to a possible remaking of the global economy.

Nvidia’s stock had soared from less than $20 to more than $140 in less than two years before Monday’s drop, for example.

Other Big Tech companies had also joined in the frenzy, and their stock prices had benefited too. It was just on Friday that Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg was saying he expects to invest up to $65 billion this year, while talking up a massive data center it would build in Manhattan.

In stock markets abroad, movements for indexes across Europe and Asia weren’t as forceful as for the big U.S. tech stocks. France’s CAC 40 fell 0.6%, and Germany’s DAX lost 0.8%.

In Asia, stocks edged 0.1% lower in Shanghai after a survey of manufacturers showed export orders in China dropping to a five-month low.

The Federal Reserve holds its latest policy meeting later this week. Traders don’t expect recent weak data to push the Fed to cut its main interest rate. They’re virtually certain the central bank will hold steady, according to data from CME Group.
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BEIJING — The top diplomats of China and India called for their nations to provide further mutual support but avoided publicly mentioning a long-standing border dispute in the Himalayas when they met Monday in Beijing. 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told top Indian foreign affairs official Vikram Misri that the sides “should seize the opportunity, meet each other halfway, explore more substantive measures, and strive to understand, support and achieve each other, rather than be suspicious of, alienate and consume each other,” China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported. 

It cited Misri as saying the nuclear-armed Asian giants have “properly managed and resolved differences and promoted the restart of practical cooperation in various fields.” 

Ties have been stable since the leaders of the two countries met last year on the sidelines of a multinational summit in Russia. Days before that meeting, India announced the two sides had agreed to a pact on military patrols along their disputed border in the Himalayas after a spike in tensions that began with a deadly clash in 2020. That turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi have since limited their joint public comments to pleasantries without openly discussing the border. India said the 2024 agreement would lead to the “disengagement” of troops at the Line of Actual Control, the long shared border in the Himalayas, although it’s unclear whether that meant the withdrawal of the tens of thousands of additional troops stationed along their disputed border in the Ladakh region. 

The Line of Actual Control separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety. India and China fought a deadly war over the border in 1962. 

Both India and China have withdrawn troops from face-off sites on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso, Gogra and Galwan Valley, but they maintain extra troops at Demchok and Depsang Plains. 

The army standoff damaged business ties between the two nations with halted investments from Chinese firms and major projects banned. India also banned Chinese-owned apps, including TikTok, which is operated by Chinese internet firm Bytedance. It cited privacy concerns that it said threatened India’s sovereignty and security. 

Chinese products are ubiquitous in India, from toys to smartphones to made-in-China Hindu idols. According to Indian government data, two-way trade has grown by the tens of billions in the past two decades, with the balance strongly favoring China, while China has drawn many Indian specialists and students, particularly in the medical field. 
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BEIJING — Police have detained a man suspected of involvement in the case of a Chinese actor who was duped into travelling to Thailand for a film job and then trafficked to Myanmar, China’s Public Security Ministry said.

The joint efforts of the ministry’s task force and the Chinese Embassy in Thailand, helped by Thai law enforcement, led to the arrest of a “major criminal suspect” on Saturday, the ministry said in a notice late on Sunday.

The ministry added that the suspect was surnamed Yan and returned to China on Saturday, but did not elaborate.

Wang Xing, a 22-year-old Chinese actor, traveled to Thailand early this month after receiving an unsolicited offer to join a film that was shooting in Thailand.

When Wang got to Bangkok, he was kidnapped, authorities said, and taken to an online scam compound, one of hundreds of thousands of people the United Nations says have been trapped into working for criminal networks running fraudulent telecommunications operations across the region.

Wang’s case drew national interest after his girlfriend began a social media campaign about his plight, and he was later freed by Thai police who found him in Myanmar.

The ministry said the police would step up their efforts to crack down on the scam centers, deepen international law enforcement cooperation, and coordinate with countries involved to detain the criminals and rescue Chinese citizens.

The scam compounds that have proliferated in Southeast Asia since the COVID-19 pandemic defraud people across the globe and generate billions of dollars every year for organized crime groups, many of Chinese origin.

Last week, officials from China, Myanmar and Thailand reached a consensus on eradicating the centers in Myanmar.

China and Thailand also agreed to set up a coordination center in Bangkok to investigate and combat the scam complexes that have mushroomed along Thai borders with Myanmar and Cambodia. The initiative is expected to start operations next month.
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TAIPEI, TAIWAN — As the Year of the Snake approaches, a pet store in Taipei is offering adventurous customers an opportunity to enjoy the company of snakes while sipping coffee, hoping to break down some of the prejudice against the animal.

Taiwan has been plastered with images of the reptile ahead of the start of the Lunar New Year, which starts on Wednesday and whose zodiac animal this year is the snake.

The snake has a mixed reputation in traditional Taiwanese and Chinese culture as a symbol of either good or bad.

Some of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples venerate snakes as guardian spirits, and while the island is home to species potentially deadly to humans, including vipers and cobras, deaths are rare given the wide availability of anti-venom.

Luo Chih-yu, 42, the owner of the Taipei pet shop Pythonism which opened in 2017, is offering potential snake owners the chance to interact with snakes over a cup of coffee.

“I provide a space for people to try and experience, finding out whether they like them without any prejudice,” he said.

Liu Ting-chih took his daughter to the shop, who looked curiously at the animals in their cages.

“Through this activity she can learn how to take care of small animals and cherish them,” Liu said.

Sub-tropical and mountainous Taiwan is home to some 60 native snake species. 
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WASHINGTON — The CIA now believes the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic most likely originated from a laboratory, according to an assessment released Saturday that points the finger at China even while acknowledging that the spy agency has “low confidence” in its own conclusion.

The finding is not the result of any new intelligence, and the report was completed at the behest of the Biden administration and former CIA Director William Burns. It was declassified and released Saturday on the orders of President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency, John Ratcliffe, who was sworn in Thursday as director.

The nuanced finding suggests the agency believes the totality of evidence makes a lab origin more likely than a natural origin. But the agency’s assessment assigns a low degree of confidence to this conclusion, suggesting the evidence is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory.

Earlier reports on the origins of COVID-19 have split over whether the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese lab, potentially by mistake, or whether it arose naturally. The new assessment is not likely to settle the debate. In fact, intelligence officials say it may never be resolved, due to a lack of cooperation from Chinese authorities.

The CIA “continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,” the agency wrote in a statement about its new assessment.

Instead of new evidence, the conclusion was based on fresh analyses of intelligence about the spread of the virus, its scientific properties and the work and conditions of China’s virology labs.

Lawmakers have pressured America’s spy agencies for more information about the origins of the virus, which led to lockdowns, economic upheaval and millions of deaths. It’s a question with significant domestic and geopolitical implications as the world continues to grapple with the pandemic’s legacy.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Saturday he was “pleased the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the lab-leak theory is the most plausible explanation,” and he commended Ratcliffe for declassifying the assessment.

“Now, the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world,” Cotton said in a statement.

China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately return messages seeking comment. Chinese authorities have in the past dismissed speculation about COVID’s origins as unhelpful and motivated by politics.

While the origin of the virus remains unknown, scientists think the most likely hypothesis is that it circulated in bats, like many coronaviruses, before infecting another species, probably racoon dogs, civet cats or bamboo rats. In turn, the infection spread to humans handling or butchering those animals at a market in Wuhan, where the first human cases appeared in late November 2019.

Some official investigations, however, have raised the question of whether the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan. Two years ago, a report by the Energy Department concluded a lab leak was the most likely origin, though that report also expressed low confidence in the finding.

The same year then-FBI Director Christopher Wray said his agency believed the virus “most likely” spread after escaping from a lab.

Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, has said he favors the lab leak scenario, too.

“The lab leak is the only theory supported by science, intelligence, and common sense,” Ratcliffe said in 2023.

The CIA said it will continue to evaluate any new information that could change its assessment.
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BEIJING — China’s state security ministry said that a foreign company had been found to have illegally conducted geographic mapping activities in the country under the guise of autonomous driving research and outsourcing to a licensed Chinese mapping firm.

The ministry did not disclose the names of either company in a statement on its WeChat account on Wednesday.

The foreign company, ineligible for geographic surveying and mapping activities in China, “purchased a number of cars and equipped them with high-precision radar, GPS, optical lenses and other gear,” read the statement.

In addition to directly instructing the Chinese company to conduct surveying and mapping in many Chinese provinces, the foreign company appointed foreign technicians to give “practical guidance” to mapping staffers with the Chinese firm, enabling the latter to transfer its acquired data overseas, the ministry alleged.

Most of the data the foreign company has collected have been determined to be state secrets, according to the ministry, which said state security organs, together with relevant departments, had carried out joint law enforcement activities.

The affected companies and relevant responsible personnel have been held legally accountable, the state security ministry said, without elaborating.

China has strictly regulated mapping activities and data, which are key to developing autonomous driving, due to national security concerns. No foreign firm is qualified for mapping in China and data collected by vehicles made by foreign automakers such as Tesla in China has to be stored locally.

The U.S. Commerce Department has also proposed prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on American roads due to national security concerns.

Also on Wednesday, a Chinese cybersecurity industry group recommended that Intel products sold in China should be subject to a security review, alleging the U.S. chipmaker has “constantly harmed” the country’s national security and interests.
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