China

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, leader of one of the world’s hottest chipmakers, is under immense scrutiny after he admitted to an extramarital affair, and the company’s board said it plans to investigate him in light of recent reporting that he was the target of a foreign intelligence effort.

The stunning admission follows a series of reports that Nvidia’s leader was targeted by former Megaspeed International executive Alice Huang, who the U.S. government suspects was recruited by a Chinese spy agency. The CEO previously denied having anything but a “normal” relationship with the woman.

Analysts say this will prompt calls for closer examination of tech companies’ dealings with China.

“This is a black eye moment for Jensen and will spark multiple congressional inquiries at a minimum and will create an overhang on the stock for a myriad of reasons,” said Daniel Ives, partner and senior managing director at merchant bank Yorkville Ives & Co. in an equity research note. “This will also increase major scrutiny regarding selling chips to China, which remains a key battleground issue in DC,” wrote Ives, who has an “outperform” rating on the stock.

Nvidia’s board said in a statement on Sunday that it has confidence in Huang and his leadership team. On Sunday in after-hours trading, Nvidia’s stock was $188.70 a share, up about 1%.

“While the Board has no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised, the Board’s inquiry will examine all available information,” Nvidia’s board said.

In a staff memo, Huang apologized to his family and Nvidia employees.

“I was unfaithful to my wife,” Huang wrote. “My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.”

Huang wrote that he is committed to protecting Nvidia and supporting America’s national security, adding that he is “proud and grateful to be an American” and supports the investigation.

The transgression blemishes Huang’s leadership, which has been admired by many people in Silicon Valley. Huang, a former microprocessor designer and Denny’s dishwasher, discussed the idea behind Nvidia inside a Denny’s in San Jose with fellow entrepreneurs Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. They co-founded the Santa Clara-based chipmaker in 1993.

Since then, Huang’s profile has risen to the status of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, with thousands of people gathering to hear his keynotes.

The company’s valuation has risen dramatically in recent years alongside AI’s boom. The company reached a record market capitalization of nearly $5.8 trillion in October. That has slipped below $5 trillion, however, weighed down by concern about the sustainability of AI infrastructure build-out.

“It certainly is going to put a cloud over Jensen and Nvidia for a while,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at advisory services firm Enderle Group, adding that Nvidia sells products to the U.S. Department of Defense. “If it turns out that he was intimate with the Chinese spy, Nvidia could face some pullback from the U.S. government.”

The company has no public succession plan, and Huang has no obvious heir apparent. He has repeatedly said he wants to continue in his role for decades and has created an informal organizational structure around him that eschews a conventional hierarchy. Instead, his direct reports are tasked with rapidly implementing his decisions.

Huang has said that this system gives his company the flexibility to react to rapid changes in technology and remain agile. But it has also created a situation where there’s no replacement ready to step in and take over Huang’s relentless schedule.

Concerns that sensitive information might leak through Nvidia’s contacts with China have fueled calls for investigations and greater scrutiny of Huang and the company, ratcheting pressure in what has already been a difficult geopolitical balancing act.

“The big issue is China is all out in everything they can do to try to compromise U.S. security, whether it’s running a honeypot scheme or whether it’s blackmailing or extorting existing employees across U.S. firms,” said Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research. “The issue here is if the extortion resulted in Nvidia making policies or the CEO making policies that would compromise national security. That’s what’s at stake.”

Legislators, including Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), said Congress will look into these relationships.

“The more I learn about the insane relationship between the Trump Administration, Chinese spies, and AI billionaires, the more I’m convinced there is nothing this administration does that isn’t corrupt,” Coons wrote on X on Saturday. “Congress will investigate and get answers.”

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment on Coons’ statement or Nvidia’s board investigation.

While Nvidia is allowed to ship a limited range of products to China under a licensing program granted by the current Trump administration, Beijing has restricted imports of the chips — an impasse that continues to curb the chipmaker’s sales in the world’s second-largest economy.

Megaspeed, based in Singapore, has been accused of breaking U.S. export restrictions and smuggling Nvidia chips to China. Huang had told Bloomberg that his contacts with Megaspeed employees were typical of business relationships he has with many Chinese customers and executives.

Bloomberg contributed to this report.

The unnamed individual will be the first foreign national to visit China’s space station as part of Shenzhou-24 mission.

China’s Manned Space Agency has selected a Pakistani astronaut as a payload specialist for its upcoming Shenzhou-24 mission, making the unnamed individual the first foreign national to visit the country’s space station.

The Pakistani astronaut would join China’s Shenzhou-24 mission, as part of bilateral cooperation under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese state media reported on Saturday.

China has not identified the astronaut nor given a date of departure, but the mission is expected to take place by the end of the year.

Pakistani pilots Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud spent months training at the China Astronaut Research and Training Center in Beijing for a mission.

Last February, Pakistan and China, longstanding strategic and diplomatic partners, entered into an agreement, establishing a Chinese government-led programme to train Pakistani astronauts. China is Pakistan’s largest trading partner and a key foreign investor.

The China National Space Administration will also deploy Jinnah-1, Pakistan’s inaugural lunar rover. Weighing 35kg (77lb) and fitted with specialised scientific equipment, the rover is tasked with analysing plasma behaviour, radiation, and the composition of lunar soil.

The training programme includes practical operational exercises and intensive Chinese language lessons to prepare the candidates for the mission.

Beijing’s China Central Television reported that after completing a short-term in-orbit flight, the astronauts would return to Earth on board the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft.

China invested heavily in its space programme in recent years – catching up with its main rival, the United States – and aims to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030.

The US, Russia, and China are also racing to build nuclear reactors on the Moon. While the US space agency, NASA, announced plans to develop a nuclear reactor on the Moon by the end of 2030, Russia has been working with China and aims to do the same by 2036.

The reactors will be needed to power the mining of frozen water trapped deep in the moon’s craters, which scientists believe could supply drinking water, air, and rocket fuel for future bases. The reactors would also provide power for lunar bases.

On the sidelines of this month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen, China, an unprecedented three-way meeting between United States President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin could take place.

“China is in communication with relevant parties regarding a meeting between the three heads of state,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.

“Work is under way to coordinate such a meeting,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, adding: “We hope that it will be finalised in the coming days.”

Trump has said he is open to three-way talks focused on nuclear weapons. “If President Xi wants to have it, I’d have it,” he told reporters last month.

The three leaders have met separately but have never held formal talks together.

So could the meeting, pencilled in for November 18-19, actually happen, and what would it mean for the rest of the world? Here’s what we know:

What would Russia get out of a three-way meeting with the US and China?

At the very least, a photo opportunity.

“It is a big event,” Alexander Bratersky, a Moscow-based journalist and political analyst, told Al Jazeera.

He pointed to Pyotr Tolstoy, chairman of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, who he said has described the meeting as a path towards a new Yalta – the 1945 conference where the leaders of the Soviet Union, the US and the United Kingdom shaped the post-war order in Europe.

That allows Moscow to “talk big”, Bratersky said, while putting Ukraine on the sidelines.

Simply being at the table would make Putin “first among equals”, he added, giving him a photo opportunity to show the world that he will be among those deciding the future of Europe’s security architecture after the war in Ukraine.

If the meeting produced results, he said, it would reflect China’s influence on Russia.

“We should take into account that we are dealing with a much weaker US leader after elections,” Bratersky said.

Trump remains in charge of foreign policy, he explained, but will have less leverage if Democrats, who won control of both chambers of Congress in this week’s midterm elections, start sending money to Kyiv.

“A meeting by itself will be a success,” he said. “Putin will be able to sell it at home”.

Whether anything comes of it should become clear within a month or so, Bratersky said, and the meeting could lead to another during the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Miami in December.

If nothing is produced before Christmas, he added, “it will be just a photo op.”

What does Trump want?

Optics and leverage.

Trump wants “a personal, high-drama encounter” that lets him claim he is “dealing with” the other two great powers on his own terms, Inderjeet Parmar, a professor of international politics at City St George’s, University of London, told Al Jazeera.

A three-way meeting would allow Trump to present himself as “the indispensable deal-maker”, Parmar said, talking up potential deals on Ukraine, trade, energy or arms control.

“After the midterms the domestic political need for a foreign policy ‘win’ is real,” he said.

Any image of Trump sitting with Xi and Putin could be spun as evidence that American power still commands the table, he said, “even if the substance is limited or largely symbolic”.

“The domestic audience, and his eroding MAGA base, matters at least as much as the diplomatic one,” Parmar said.

What does China want?

Not a summit on Ukraine.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he raised the idea of discussing Ukraine with Xi when they met in Beijing on October 30, and could see the “surprise” on his face, Germany’s DPA news agency reported.

Steinmeier told public broadcaster ARD that Xi said the three presidents would probably meet in Shenzhen, but not to discuss Ukraine.

He said Xi explicitly pointed out that the Russia-Ukraine war is a European conflict in which the “Europeans must sit at the table”.

Beijing is also likely to swat away Trump’s push for nuclear talks.

Last month, China’s Foreign Ministry said it would be “neither fair, reasonable nor realistic to ask China to join the so-called trilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage”.

What would a meeting mean for the rest of the world?

Allies could be sidelined.

Parmar said a three-way meeting would mark “a clear break from the post-1945 pattern”, in which Washington coordinated closely with its European and Asian allies before engaging with Moscow or Beijing.

“A free-standing trilateral [meeting] risks treating those allies as secondary players whose interests can be managed after the fact,” he said, adding that those interests could even be traded.

That would be a shift towards “personalised great-power diplomacy”, he said. But the Trump administration still has hopes to drive a wedge between Russia and China, Parmar added.

Fears of a “G3” are “understandable but overstated in institutional terms”, he said, because the three capitals’ interests diverge sharply on Ukraine, Taiwan, technology and the rules of the international economy.

“The real risk is not a formal G3 secretariat, but the normalisation of great-power deals struck with little consultation of those most affected,” he said.

“History offers many examples of such moments. They rarely produce stable order and often leave the excluded feeling the costs,” Parmar said.

A tech stock rout that began overnight in the United States has persisted in Asian trading.

Market authorities in South Korea paused trading on Friday as prices plunged across the region. Global markets have been rattled by a sharp fall in the trading price of tech stocks, which is driven by fears that the Democrats’ victory in the US midterm elections will increase regulatory scrutiny of AI and slow the country’s data centre build-out.

Japan’s Nikkei index slumped 6 percent, its deepest one-day drop since April 2025. Indices in South Korea and Taiwan plunged more than 8 percent after the opening bell, before cutting losses as authorities scrambled to stem the selling.

Wall Street’s volatility “fear gauge” soared overnight on Thursday and the tech-focused Nasdaq sank 5.5 percent, wiping $3 trillion off S&P 500 firms, as investors fretted that the Democrats could put the brakes on the AI boom being encouraged by President Donald Trump.

“It was a brutal morning for many investors here in Asia. We saw that the AI sell-off continues here across many countries,” Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu reported from Beijing.

“Some of those major markets have fortunately recovered some of those losses, but all of them are still clearly in the red,” she said.

Analysts say the political jitters are hitting an AI trade already on shaky footing due to worries about returns on massive spending on related infrastructure.

“The selloff shows that AI stock prices had been built on rosy illusions about the future, and now that illusion is gone,” Dong Baozhen, chairman of asset manager Lingtong Shengtai, told the Reuters news agency.

“The US stock market has been the standard-bearer and backbone of the global AI bull run. Now that backbone has snapped. Can AI bull markets elsewhere hold up on their own?”

Authorities step in

Markets cut some of their losses by the time Asian markets closed, as authorities worked to stem the panic.

Trading on South Korea’s Kospi market was temporarily halted amid the sharp slide. Finance Minister Lee Hyoung-il also eased rules on retail investors’ leveraged investments.

In China, state entities stepped in to buy up equities in a bid to stabilise the market, said Al Jazeera’s Yu.

The Taiwan stock market closed down 4.5 percent, recovering somewhat from its early morning slump. For the week, the index clocked a 12.2 percent decline, its biggest since 1991, LSEG data showed.

The government of the island state, a key producer of chips, sought to talk up the prospects for the sector.

Demand ⁠for emerging technologies like AI, ⁠high-performance computing and ⁠cloud services is expected to keep expanding, driving ‌demand for tech companies, the economy ministry said in a statement issued on Friday.

Korean AI chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix fell nearly 6 percent and 9.4 percent respectively, cutting steep losses from earlier. TSMC fell as much as 8.5 percent in Taiwan, before closing down 4.7 percent.

In Japan, Kioxia plunged 11 percent while AI investor SoftBank Group slid 11 percent.

New regulations

The selling indicates investors are starting to factor in increased opposition to data centres. Analysts say markets have yet to fully consider the cost such building work has imposed on communities.

Toby Walsh, the chief scientist for the AI Institute at Australia’s University of New South Wales, said he expected new regulations on data centres in many countries, including the US, Australia and the United Kingdom.

“The developers were building them in a way that wasn’t actually getting social licence,” Walsh told Al Jazeera.

“They were building them in places where they didn’t need to build. You don’t have to build data centres in urban areas. You can build them in the middle of nowhere.

“I think it’s actually for the good of the tech industry in the United States that this has happened,” he added. “We’re spending money a bit too quickly. And maybe this is the way to let that bubble deflate in a manageable way.”

Iran has exempted ships from India, China, Iraq and Qatar from its Strait of Hormuz restrictions, a senior Iranian lawmaker said on Tuesday.

“Ships from these countries pass freely, and the Americans do not intercept them either,” Amir Hayat Moqaddam, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA).

Iran effectively shut the strait early in the US-Israel war on Iran, which began on February 28, and the United States reimposed a naval blockade on Iran’s southern ports in July.

So why have these four countries been granted passage through the critical strait, and can their ships really sail freely while the blockade remains in place?

What does Iran get in return for letting ships pass?

It will receive medicine from India and political backing from China, according to Hayat Moqaddam. Iran already receives diplomatic support from Qatar, which is leading mediation efforts to end the US-Israel war on Iran.

Hayat Moqaddam said Tehran will also collect transit fees from Indian and Chinese ships, while Qatari vessels pass free. He did not say whether Iraqi ships will pay a toll.

“Whatever the lawmaker says is the rationale – the big question is if it works and, if yes, to what extent?” Rouzbeh Parsi, an Iran analyst and affiliated researcher at Lund University’s Department of History and Human Rights Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“Iran has been under sanctions for a very long time, so bartering and quid pro quos in trade are nothing new,” he said. The difference now, he added, is that “it’s about poking holes in an embargo and getting crucial goods/services in and out”.

Nader Hashemi, an associate professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University, said that “most likely Iran is charging a transit fee or a percentage of the cargo value to allow those ships to go through without being harassed”.

“It’s a clever move by Tehran for several reasons,” Wolfgang Pusztai, a security and defence analyst and Austria’s former defence attache to Libya, told Al Jazeera.

“If successful, this move will generate significant revenue for Iran, as China is by far the largest purchaser of Iranian crude oil, buying nearly 90 percent of Iran’s total oil exports,” he said.

By including Qatar, with its many liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyers, and India, Iran is also “trying to undermine acceptance” of Washington’s strategy in the conflict, especially as it charges Qatar no tolls, he added.

Why does it matter to these four countries?

All four are highly dependent on the Strait of Hormuz for exports.

Of the 10.23 million barrels a day of Gulf crude that passed through the strait in October, about 42 percent went to China and 13 percent to India, Muyu Xu, a senior crude oil analyst at the analytics firm Kpler, told Al Jazeera.

“China is the country most able to cross US interests. The question is whether Beijing considers it worth the potential political cost,” Parsi said.

Asia is particularly reliant on Gulf oil and gas usually shipped out via Hormuz. Countries there have much to offer in return for allowing ships to pass.

“For India, the shutdown of oil from the Gulf has been a great loss – and it is a big producer of the pharmaceuticals that Iran cannot manufacture itself,” he said.

Qatar, which is mediating between Washington and Tehran, shipped no LNG through the strait in August, but managed 1.8 million tonnes in October, Xu said.

Its crude transits fell over the same period, from 517,000 barrels a day to 193,000, while Iraq’s rose from 1.69 million to 2.65 million.

Kpler has been unable to trace the origin of up to two million barrels a day of Middle Eastern crude, so both countries’ flows may be higher, Xu said.

“India and Qatar have closer relationships with DC they need to maintain – while both of them also feel let down by Trump,” Parsi said, adding, “For Qatar, maintaining a relationship with Iran is also vital since it’s an unavoidable neighbour.”

“So for all of them, there are upsides for these exemptions from Iranian restrictions but also political dangers,” he said.

Is this announcement new?

Not entirely.

Iran began letting some vessels from countries it considers friendly pass within weeks of the war starting. And in April, its military command said “brotherly” Iraq was exempt.

With the Iraqi exemption, Iran “probably intends to support the economic recovery” of its western neighbour, a fellow Shia-majority country, Pusztai said.

Will ships be able to get past the US blockade?

That depends on Washington.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) has said the blockade applies to “all vessels of all nations entering or leaving coastal areas or ports in Iran”, while vessels avoiding Iranian ports are not affected.

It has also said humanitarian shipments, including “food and medical supplies essential for the survival of the civilian populations”, can pass after inspection.

But Hayat Moqaddam did not appear to limit the exemptions to ships trading with other Gulf states, Pusztai noted. “If this is really the case, this would also have a significant impact on the other Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia,” he said.

“This could make the continuation of the American naval blockade more difficult and less effective, assuming Washington accepts this Iranian move,” he said. The main change, he added, is that the exemption “would also cover Chinese/Indian ships from/to Iran”, if the US accepts it.

It is also unclear whether “ships of these countries” means the flag a vessel flies, its owner, its operator or some other link, Pusztai said.

Ending the blockade is one of Tehran’s demands before it will commit to broader peace talks with the US, which will include discussions about Iran’s nuclear programme. Qatar-mediated talks currently centre on an Iranian proposal to reopen the strait if the US meets seven conditions, including this and lifting sanctions.

“It seems to be that Iran tries to separate the questions of free passage through the Strait of Hormuz and oil exports from the nuclear question,” Pusztai said, adding, “The American reaction will show if this is successful.”

Will this make a difference to oil markets?

Not much, for now.

“I think they make only limited difference at present,” Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG Group, told Al Jazeera.

“Markets are back to pricing in a peace deal, but if conflict flares up at full tilt, then Iranian commanders may not have time to distinguish their targets,” he said, adding: “At present, the focus remains squarely on the prospects of a broader deal.”

An exemption has not guaranteed safety. On October 30, the Qatari LNG carrier Al Mayeda was struck by “unidentified objects” in the Gulf, said its owner, Qatar Gas Transport Company.

More than 120 commercial ships have been hit in the region since the war began, with October being the worst month, according to data from the International Maritime Organization and United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations.

Wong, in prison since 2020, was found guilty of colluding with foreign entities in violation of the city’s national security law.

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, who has been in prison since 2020, has been jailed for an additional 10 years.

Hong Kong’s High Court found Wong guilty of colluding with foreign entities in violation of the city’s national security law on Thursday.

The sentence comes just two months before he was expected to be released in January 2027.

“The punishment must fit the gravity of ⁠the crime,” High Court Judge William Tam told a packed courtroom while delivering the sentence.

“It is also necessary for the court to express the community’s abhorrence of the defendant’s scheme and acts with others to collude with foreign forces or external elements to endanger national security.”

Wong, now 30, was accused of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others to ask foreign countries, bodies or individuals outside China to impose sanctions or blockades, or engage in other hostile activities against the government.

He pleaded guilty to the charge in September. Tam said he considered a 13-year prison sentence as a starting point but reduced it to 10 because of Wong’s guilty plea and mitigation.

Wong was once the face of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and has been in jail since 2020. He was imprisoned over his role in protests held a year earlier.

The demonstrations were prompted by plans to allow extradition to mainland China but soon evolved into a wider pro-democracy movement. Wong became a prominent representative of the movement, regularly appearing on news channels. He later pleaded guilty to inciting and organising an unauthorised antigovernment assembly.

‘Endless political persecution’

Governments and rights groups criticised the court’s decision on Thursday.

The United States consulate in Hong Kong said that it “strongly condemns” the additional sentence handed to Wong, and called for his “immediate release”.

“Wong has been unjustly imprisoned since December 2020, demonstrating that Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate for fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong,” a consulate spokesperson said in a statement to the AFP news agency.

After his sentencing, Taiwan also criticised the “endless political persecution” of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists.

Beijing and the Hong Kong government use “authoritarian tools” to “fabricate charges … engage in endless political persecution, and suppress the people’s legitimate rights to pursue freedom, democracy, and human rights,” Taiwan’s top China policy body said.

Human Rights Watch denounced the latest charge against Wong. “The harsh sentence on baseless charges against Joshua Wong is cruel and unjust. Young people promoting social change are an asset for any vibrant society, but the Hong Kong government puts them behind bars,” said Elaine Pearson, the group’s Asia director.

Amnesty International also criticised Wong’s additional sentence, saying it was “another grim reminder of how Hong Kong’s National Security Law has become a tool to punish dissent”.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Across the Asia-Pacific region, governments and businesses reeling from the energy shock of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran are watching Tuesday’s US midterm elections closely.

Many want to see “enormous changes” during the rest of President Donald Trump’s term, analysts say, from the war on Iran to his policies on trade and tariffs. But few expect that to happen, even with the Democrats poised to take the House of Representatives, and potentially the Senate, from Trump’s Republican Party.

“Of course, everybody is watching,” said Steven Okun, a trade specialist and the chief executive of APAC Advisors, a Singapore-based consulting firm. “It’s great political theatre.”

Outside the Middle East, no region has been hit harder by the war on Iran than the Asia-Pacific. Before the start of the conflict in January, the region took in most of the Gulf oil and gas that passed through the Strait of Hormuz.

When Iran closed the chokepoint in response to the US and Israel’s strikes, much of the region was left facing shortages.

The Philippines, which relies on the Gulf for more than 90 percent of its crude oil imports, has been under a national energy emergency since March. Soaring fuel costs have drained the foreign exchange reserves of the region’s poorest economies – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and East Timor, according to the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam have also spent heavily on fuel subsidies to shield consumers, it said.

Public opinion in the Asia-Pacific region remains firmly opposed to the war, but Okun said a Democratic-controlled US Congress was unlikely to force Trump to end the eight-month conflict.

“With Iran, I don’t see [a Democrat-controlled Congress] having much change at all, other than the fact that the war will be investigated and there will be oversight hearings,” Okun told Al Jazeera. “We might even see an impeachment of the secretary of defence, but it doesn’t change the overall impact of the war.”

Under the US Constitution, Congress holds the power to formally declare war, but Trump has claimed the attacks on Iran were in self-defence and has so far ignored congressional resolutions directing him to withdraw US forces from hostilities. If a Democrat-controlled Congress passes legislation restricting military operations or cutting funding for them, Trump can veto it. Overriding a veto requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers, which Democrats are almost certain to fall short of.

‘Tariffs don’t change’

On trade and tariffs, too, analysts see little room for Congress to rein in Trump.

The US president rattled global markets last year when he imposed “reciprocal” tariffs of 10 percent to 50 percent on some 90 countries, with the aim of shrinking the US trade deficit. Asia was again hit harder than most. Cambodia faced a 49 percent tariff and Laos 48 percent. Vietnam was slapped with 46 percent and Myanmar 45 percent.

After the Supreme Court struck down those tariffs in February, the Trump administration turned to other tools. In July, it imposed tariffs of 10 percent and 12.5 percent on goods from 60 trading partners, accusing them of failing to stop imports made with forced labour. In Asia, the list includes China, Japan, South Korea and seven Southeast Asian nations – Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

“In some ways, the new Congress is not going to matter to the Asia Pacific because it’s not going to affect trade policy,” Okun said. “Congress cannot change that … Tariffs don’t change. The war doesn’t change.”

Still, some analysts see a narrow opening.

Stephen Olson, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, argued in a recent essay that a “strong rebuke of ‘Trumpism’” at the polls could embolden a pro-free-trade wing of the Republican Party that has been “intimidated into standing down during the Trump presidency”.

That, Olson wrote, offers “a glimmer of hope” for Southeast Asian countries that depend on the US market. A Democratic-controlled Congress, he said, could also push for carve-outs and exceptions that would give the region’s exporters “a modicum of relief”. But any deeper shift in US trade policy, he added, will have to wait for the 2028 presidential election.

Joshua Kurlantzick, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the region’s wish list goes beyond trade to security.

“I think nearly all of Asia would like to see enormous changes, across many domains, during the rest of Trump’s term,” he told Al Jazeera. “But I think much of the region believes this will not happen.”

Besides “more stability” in trade and tariff policy, Asia-Pacific countries “would like to feel more stable in security guarantees from the US,” he said. They would also like a “more clear, obvious US presence” in the South China Sea, where China’s claims overlap with those of five Southeast Asian nations, and in the Taiwan Strait, which separates China from Taiwan, the self-governed island Beijing claims as its territory.

Businesses will also be watching whether a major Republican loss leads to “greater GOP willingness in Congress to stand up to Trump, along with Democrats, on issues important to companies in Asia,” Kurlantzick said, including tariffs, trade policy, arms sales and “overall economic unpredictability”.

US-China ties

One area where analysts do expect some change is US policy on Chinese technology.

The new Congress, whichever party controls it, will pass tougher restrictions on China, said Okun at APAC Advisors.

These include the Remote Access Security Act, which would extend export controls to remote access of US goods, software or technology and the Chip Security Act, which would require companies to verify that advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips remain in authorised locations, to prevent diversion to foreign adversaries. It also includes the Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware Act, known as the MATCH Act, which would press allies to bring their controls on chipmaking equipment in line with Washington’s, to keep advanced chipmaking technology out of China’s hands.

“The next Congress is going to pass them regardless of midterms because both parties agree on them,” Okun said. “The person who is least restrictive now on China is the US president,” he added, referring to Trump’s courting of China’s President Xi Jinping.

The two men have met twice this year as ties have warmed after a bitter and costly trade war last year. To preserve the fragile trade truce, Trump has also held off approving a $14bn package of arms sales to Taiwan, which would be the largest ever for Taipei.

Some analysts meanwhile worry that a lame-duck Trump, hemmed in at home by a Democratic Congress, could turn more forcefully to foreign policy.

“We should not be surprised by continued erratic foreign policy,” said James Guild, an assistant professor at the Indonesian International Islamic University.

“The Democrats have a poor record of effectively opposing and holding Trump accountable using conventional tools of congressional oversight,” Guild said. “We will have to wait and see if they rise to the moment this time.”

It is being called the biggest cryptocurrency heist in history – and the shocks are still reverberating through the industry.

The target of this recent hack was Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange.

Attackers stole about $6.3bn in client assets.

Analysts suspect hackers backed by the North Korean government carried out the theft.

Critics are calling for more regulations to restore the trust of investors.

So, is cryptocurrency still safe? And can these kinds of attacks even be prevented?

Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom

Guests:

Lee Reiners – Lecturing fellow at Duke University and a former US Federal Reserve Bank examiner

Geoff White – Investigative journalist and author of The Lazarus Heist

Anupam Chander – Professor of law and technology at Georgetown University, who specialises in the global regulation of new technologies

A GJ-21 stealthy flying-wing uncrewed combat air vehicle (UCAV) has successfully launched from and recovered aboard the Type 076 amphibious assault ship Sichuan, according to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Visual confirmation of this milestone has yet to emerge, but there have been steady signs of preparations for flight trials from the Sichuan, which features an electromagnetic catapult. GJ-21s have already been spotted flying from airfields on land.

The GJ-21 and the land-based GJ-11 Mysterious Dragon it is based on are prime examples of China’s major investments in UCAVs and other flying-wing-type drones. These developments stand in particular contrast to the U.S. military’s eschewing of such designs, at least publicly. This is despite significant past U.S. achievements in this arena, including in the development of carrier-based UCAVs. The PLA Navy (PLAN) now looks to be on track to be the first country to field an operational capability of this kind.

“China’s first ship-borne stealth reconnaissance and attack drone ‘GJ-21’ recently made its first successful take-off and landing on [the Type] 076 amphibious assault ship, the ‘Sichuan’ (Hull 51),” according to a post today from the China Military Bugle account on X, an official PLA mouthpiece. “This is another significant breakthrough in the development of China’s amphibious assault ship, indicating that the Chinese Navy now has the capability to operate fixed-wing stealth drones from large maritime combat platforms.”

At the time of writing, neither the PLA nor Chinese state media have shared where or when these trials occurred or provided any other additional details, including how many total launches and recoveries were conducted. No official pictures or videos from the testing have been released so far.

Unconfirmed claims that a GJ-21 had been launched from Sichuan had already begun circulating on social media earlier this month. As an aside, the GJ-21 is readily discernible from the land-based GJ-11 by the catapult bar on its nose landing gear strut.

A review of satellite imagery from Planet Labs does show Sichuan was at its usual berth at Hudong-Zhonghua in Shanghai as of October 13, but absent four days later. When exactly it left port is unclear. The one-of-a-kind Type 076 does not appear to have returned until October 26. TWZ has also obtained a satellite image of Hudong-Zhonghua taken just today from Vantor, with the ship still seen sitting at the pier, as seen at the top of this story and below. GJ-21 drones, or more likely mockups thereof, have also been present on the pier for some time.

Even while Sichuan was still under construction, there were growing signs that a navalized version of the GJ-11, as well as other uncrewed platforms, would be major components of its future air wing. With its electromagnetic catapult and notably large overall size, the Type 076 is unlike any other big-deck amphibious warship in service today globally, as TWZ has previously explored in depth.

As mentioned, there have been further signs that the PLA has been preparing Sichuan for real launches and recoveries, especially of GJ-21s, since last year. Pictures emerged online in October 2025 showing a red-colored test ‘truck’ on the ship’s flight deck, indicating the start of catapult testing. Video from those tests has since been released. Weighted trucks like this have long been used to test catapults on aircraft carriers during construction or following maintenance. The Type 076 left port for the first time in November 2025.

Weighted carts catapult test on Type 076 LHD

three lines marked directly under and outside the wheels of the Red cart to ensure it is centered

the parallel alignment markings flanking the catapult slot serve as visual tips for precise positioning https://t.co/KJkC2ZrLgS pic.twitter.com/pZa0Vx56jG

— David Wang (@DavidWangPLA) August 1, 2026

“Two GJ-21 aircraft were displayed at the victory parade in September 2025, reportedly having entered PLAN service in mid-2025,” according to Andreas Rupprecht, an expert on Chinese aviation and contributor to TWZ. “By late 2025, several GJ-21 aircraft were reportedly undergoing simulated EMALS launches and arrested landings at the PLAN’s land-based facility at Huangdicun.”

In February of this year, GJ-21 mockups were spotted on Sichuan’s flight deck and riding on the ship’s port-side elevator to the hangar deck as part of what appeared to be deck-handling trials.

After the first Type 076 LHD/LAH “Sichuan” was seen yesterday with a GJ-21 UCAV mock-up on deck, the GJ-21 was seen for the first time with its wings folded and later lowered to the hangar deck on one of the elevators.

(Images @鼎盛大彪 from Weibo) pic.twitter.com/eMyz2QLHQX

— @Rupprecht_A (@RupprechtDeino) February 1, 2026

More recent satellite imagery had shown that the Type 076’s flight deck had received additional markings in line with progress toward real flight operations. Fittings for three arresting cables also became plainly visible. Those cables are also notably depicted in the graphic that the China Military Bugle shared online today.

The GJ-21 will of course not be the only aircraft in the Type 076’s future air wing. The ship is also expected to carry a variety of other uncrewed aircraft, as well as crewed helicopters. China has shown a range of other combat drone designs in recent years. Navalized versions could well be developed for deployment on Sichuan, as well as PLAN’s growing fleet of traditional carriers and other suitable configured vessels.

Loading the Type 076 with operational UCAVs would only underscore the significance of this particular ship. As we have previously written:

“The potential value to the PLAN of having a fleet of very large deck amphibious assault ships that are highly capable of large-scale drone operations as well as traditional amphibious assaults is clear. These ships could be used to launch and recover UCAVs like the GJ-11 and other types of drones to perform a host of missions from maritime strike to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). They could be used to provide additional ‘mass’ in support of the operations of larger carrier strike groups and help to free the air wings of flattops like Fujian up for tasks they might be better suited for. In addition, they could provide a lower tier of naval aviation support that could be employed independently.”

…

“Simply having more naval aviation capacity overall would give the PLAN added flexibility for various operations closer to the mainland, including a potential military intervention against Taiwan or defending its expansive and largely unrecognized territorial claims in places like the South China Sea. Type 076s could also help project naval and air power further from China’s shores, something that has also been a driving factor behind the country’s broader carrier ambitions.”

…

“The Type 076 could help provide support during humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. Big deck amphibious warfare ships, in general, provide their operators with immensely valuable platforms for projecting both hard and soft power.”

Chinese PLA Navy’s First Type 076 Amphibious Assault Ship “Sichuan” Conducts First Sea Trial

Last year, the PLA separately confirmed that the GJ-11 had entered at least limited operational service. That followed a steady ramp-up in testing of that drone based on what could be seen in satellite imagery and video clips that had emerged online. This included evidence of near-daily flights at Malan Air Base, a major hub for testing uncrewed platforms. GJ-11s had also been spotted at an operational air base in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.

New video out from the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) of China shows the new GJ-11 stealth drone (UCAV), and also the J-20 stealth fighter firing a live PL-15 air-to-air missile: pic.twitter.com/wraDqyMOht

— The STRATCOM Bureau (@OSPSF) November 11, 2025

As mentioned earlier, the continued development of the GJ-11 and GJ-21 are reflective of the PLA’s broader pursuit of stealthy flying-wing drones, which is not limited to UCAVs. Several larger designs that look most immediately suited to high-altitude, long-endurance ISR missions have also broken cover in the country in the past few years.

There is something of a trend in this regard globally, with Russia, India, Turkey, and France also pursuing flying-wing drone designs. The U.S. military continues to be markedly absent from this space, at least that we know, despite major investments and real demonstrations of relevant capability, before various programs were abandoned for reasons that still remain largely unclear. In the late 2010s, the U.S. Navy notably looked to be right on the edge of fielding a carrier-based UCAV, before changing course entirely to an uncrewed tanker instead. There are some signs now that the service may be taking another look at the capabilities it passed over.

It is still to be seen how quickly the PLA’s official statement today will be followed by real confirmation of the launching and recovery of a GJ-21 from the Sichuan.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Kylian Mbappe, Real Madrid and La Liga have apologised for the French striker’s comments about Mao Zedong, but the damage to their reputation in China will not be easily or quickly repaired, experts say.

The France captain, one of the best footballers on the planet, is at the centre of a controversy after a video emerged this week of him appearing to make fun of former leader Mao.

Mbappe talked about being amused by an internet meme of his face digitally altered onto “some guy, think he’s a Chinese dictator”.

Mao remains officially revered as the hero of the communist revolution and founder of the People’s Republic of China.

He is blamed by historians for millions of deaths, but publicly mocking him is taboo, and Mbappe’s remarks saw him become the latest foreign sports figure or entity to infuriate Beijing.

Leading Chinese brands cut ties with the 27-year-old, and Spanish top-flight matches will be pulled from state television broadcaster CCTV’s schedule.

Chinese state media and social media users lined up to lambast Mbappe, although they were left in the dark about what exactly he said.

China is the world’s second-biggest economy and most lucrative market. Within two days, as the video, purportedly filmed in April, circulated online, the striker, his club Real Madrid and La Liga apologised.

A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the government took Mbappe’s apology “seriously”.

‘Very damaging incident’

So is that the end of the matter?

“Viewed from a calm, objective and emotion-free standpoint, this is clearly a very damaging incident,” Yan Qiang, a veteran sports commentator, told the AFP news agency.

“It causes serious damage to the image of La Liga and Real Madrid in China.

“In the age of the mobile internet, things blow up on social media quickly and emotions run high.

“An apology does not necessarily mean the end of the story.

“It’s better to have an apology than no apology at all, but it’s definitely not the end of the story.”

The furore and the fallout are not an unfamiliar tale.

Various overseas sports leagues or players have found themselves in hot water for comments on topics that are politically sensitive to China.

China effectively cut ties with the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the United States in 2019 after then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for Hong Kong protesters.

NBA executives said Morey had the right to freedom of expression. In contrast, La Liga immediately distanced itself from what Mbappe said.

Basketball is among the most popular sports in China along with football. However, Morey’s remark saw the NBA wiped from CCTV for more than a year.

NBA preseason matches returned to China only last year.

Australian National University lecturer Debby Chan called the NBA case – and now Mbappe’s – an illustration of China’s consumer nationalism, where online sentiment and state media converge into “a spiral of outrage”.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” over the split.

No way back for Mbappe, Real Madrid and La Liga?

Spanish football also has a lot to lose.

A source within La Liga told AFP that China and the US alone finance the “majority” of international broadcasting rights, which were valued at 748 million euros ($834m) for the 2024-25 season.

According to the Real Madrid-affiliated newspaper Marca, the Madrid club generates 10 to 15 percent of its jersey and other merchandise sales in China.

Real Madrid also counts Chinese companies among its main sponsors, with Hisense, sports betting firm Kaiyun Sports and Linglong Tire all featuring prominently.

Adam Zhang, founder of the Beijing-based Key-Solution Sports Consulting, said showing fast and heartfelt remorse was the first step.

“This will influence the decision on whether to continue the broadcast ban and, if so, for how long,” he told AFP.

Sports commentator Yan cast doubt on whether the reputation of Mbappe, whose face has adorned drink bottles and advertising campaigns in China, can ever fully recover.

“Judging by commercial sponsorships and big ad campaigns he appeared in during the World Cup, he has a huge influence in China,” he said.

“If that influence can’t be sustained, there can be no talk of commercial interests, and La Liga and Real Madrid will definitely be badly affected.”

Yan said it was “genuinely hard to predict” what happens next.

“In the short term, I’m certainly not optimistic,” he added.

“If they want to repair their image and the relationship, their future actions and behaviour will be key.”

Mbappe appears to say that the funniest internet meme he had seen was of his face photo-shopped onto that of “a Chinese dictator”.

Kylian Mbappe has been dropped by two major brands in China after a video circulated online in which the French football superstar apparently joked about former Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

In China, jokes about Mao, the country’s founding leader who died in 1976, are considered disrespectful and remain a social taboo.

“Our company firmly opposes and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any behaviour that offends national sentiments,” drinks giant Dongpeng said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that “with immediate effect we are terminating all cooperation with Kylian Mbappe”.

Advertisements showing AI-generated images of the 27-year-old France captain drinking a Dongpeng sports drink were regularly shown in China during this year’s FIFA World Cup.

Mengniu, China’s largest dairy producer, also cut ties with the Real Madrid forward, who until this incident was hugely popular among Chinese fans with millions of followers on social media.

Mbappe is fondly nicknamed “Guigui”, the Chinese translation of “turtle”, due to his popularity as a character in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meme.

“With immediate effect our company is terminating all cooperation with Kylian Mbappe,” Mengniu said in a statement.

“Mengniu firmly opposes and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any words or actions that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people,” it added.

The announcements came after a video emerged online with Mbappe saying the funniest internet meme he had seen was of his face digitally altered onto that of “some guy – I think he’s a Chinese dictator”.

This was an apparent reference to a meme of Mbappe superimposed on an image of Mao, one of several using the footballer’s face and other historical figures.

“Dongpeng Beverage ends cooperation with Mbappe” was the top-trending topic on Chinese social media site Weibo.

One Weibo user said the “extremely serious wrong remarks … crossed the red line. They are completely unacceptable.”

Others urged Dongpeng to remove Mbappe’s image from their energy drink bottles.

Dongqiudi, one of China’s biggest online football outlets, said in a statement on Monday evening that Mbappe’s remarks were “offensive to China and the Chinese people” and “have hurt the feelings of Chinese football fans and the Chinese people”.

In September, Mbappe addressed a previous meme depicting him as a military dictator in an interview with French sports newspaper L’Equipe.

“There’s a part of it that’s funny. You can tell that, for some people, it’s all in good fun. But there is another part that’s a bit less funny because of the damage such people have caused throughout history,” he said.

“Being compared to individuals who murder others, or who have brought misery to millions upon millions of people – well, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like that in my life,” he said.

The furore in China came a day after Mbappe lost out to Harry Kane for the Ballon d’Or, the most prestigious individual award in football.

Global sports stars who have commented on sensitive topics such as Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong have previously caused controversy in China and been dumped by sponsors there.

Former NBA player Dwight Howard referred to Taiwan as a country in 2023 as he appeared in a video with the island’s vice president and current President William Lai Ching-te, causing fury on Chinese social media.

Beijing claims Taiwan is its territory and has threatened to use force to take control.

Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey posted a tweet in 2019 supporting Hong Kong protests, leading to China suspending sponsorship deals with the NBA and pulling games off Chinese television for a year.

The victory helped the Kazakh take a big step towards securing the year-end number one ranking.

Elena Rybakina blazed past unseeded Canadian Leylah Fernandez 6-2 6-2 in the Ningbo Open final to retain her title and lift her first trophy as the world number one ahead of the WTA Finals next month.

The victory on Sunday also helped the Kazakh take a big step towards securing the year-end number one ranking, further burnishing a spectacular season in which she won the Australian Open title before adding the US Open crown to reach the summit.

Top seed Rybakina made the breakthrough with her trademark power in the fifth game and then unleashed a searing crosscourt backhand winner to go 4-2 up, before the 27-year-old wrapped up the opening set in only 38 minutes.

World number 30 Fernandez made a bright start to the next set but Rybakina absorbed the pressure and raised her level to force an error and break for 2-1, with the three-time Grand Slam champion breezing to victory from there.

Rybakina’s latest triumph is a timely lift after setbacks in Beijing and Wuhan, as she turns her attention to the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo this week before launching her title defence at the season finale in Indian Wells from November 8.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waved to crowds as he crossed a newly opened bridge linking his country with China, Chinese state media reported. The Yalu River Bridge is seen as a strategic link in expanding trade ties between the two nations.

Pete Hegseth says the Pentagon dismantled 80 ‘propaganda cells’ operating under new names at 30 universities.

The United States Department of Defense has designated Confucius Institutes, Chinese-funded cultural centres on university campuses, as a threat to US national security.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the move on Friday in a video posted on social media, saying the Pentagon added the organisations to its list of institutions that threaten national security.

Washington has long accused the centres of serving as Chinese propaganda tools and has taken steps to crack down on them.

Hegseth said Confucius Institutes had operated in disguise after being restricted by Congress, calling them “sleeper organisations”.

“It turns out that 80 new propaganda cells across 30 universities had popped up using different names and different charters, but with the same mission: to steal intellectual property and to infiltrate the minds of American students,” he said.

In the video, Hegseth said that Chinese government-backed cultural programmes had infiltrated universities and reappeared in new guises despite congressional restrictions.

Over the past two months, the Pentagon has “systematically dismantled every single one of these organisations”, he said.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

Authorities warn of ‘destructive winds’ and urge residents to shelter as the storm passes the island’s northeast.

Typhoon Champi has struck Taiwan, killing one person and injuring at least 350 others, as authorities warned of “destructive winds” and instructed people to stay indoors.

The storm swept past the island’s northeast on Friday, toppling trees, shutting shops and schools, cutting power to thousands of households, and forcing more than 4,300 people to evacuate from their homes.

Champi is heading towards China and Japan, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights in the region.

“From tonight through tomorrow morning conditions will be very windy and stormy everywhere,” Central Weather Administration (CWA) forecaster Lin Ping-yu said in a briefing. “Please try to stay indoors.”

Champi was briefly a super typhoon with winds of nearly 300 kilometres per hour (186 miles per hour) but has since weakened. The US Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported maximum winds of 185km/h (115mph).

Worse is still expected to come on Saturday. Champi could drop up to 900mm (35 inches) of rain between Thursday and Saturday, with the northeast hit hardest, the CWA said. More than 400mm fell in Yilan County on Friday.

CWA forecaster Lu Kuo-chen said the typhoon could slow near the island’s northeastern tip, prolonging its impact.

About 8,400 households in Japan’s Okinawa islands were without power on Friday afternoon, according to the Okinawa Electric Power Company. Champi is forecast to hover near Okinawa and then China’s eastern coast before turning northeast towards mainland Japan.

Champi is the latest storm in a Pacific season supercharged by El Nino.

The United Nations said on Wednesday that El Nino, a natural cycle that warms the tropical Pacific, is heading off the charts.

“The current El Nino event could be unprecedented in strength. Literally off the monitoring charts that we have used for the past four decades,” said Celeste Saulo, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.

It is expected to peak in December, with its impact lasting into 2027 and beyond.

China finished 0.233 points ahead of the Americans, denying them a chance to win an gold eighth consecutive team gold.

China have denied the United States an eighth consecutive women’s team title at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships as Qiu Qiyuan sealed a dramatic victory with the final routine.

Qiu needed to score more than 12.600 points in the closing floor routine to give her country gold and did just enough with 12.833 on Wednesday.

The USA last failed to win gold when they were beaten by Russia at the 2010 championships, but were left to count the cost of several errors on the balance beam in Rotterdam.

China, who also led the way in qualifying, finished with 165.764 points, edging out the Americans by 0.233 overall.

Japan were a further 1.468 points behind as they completed the podium ahead of fourth-placed France.

USA superstar Simone Biles, a 23-time world champion including five times in the team competition, is taking a break from the sport and has not competed since the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she won three gold medals.

The reigning champions took a healthy lead at the halfway stage, helped by strong vault and uneven bars routines by Skye Blakely, the only gymnast on the team who was part of the quintet that won their seventh consecutive title in 2023.

But 18-year-old Caylor Dulcy stumbled on the beam, scoring just 12.333, as the Americans were outscored by more than four points on the apparatus by their rivals.

Zhang Qingying, who topped beam qualifying, in particular made them pay with a sparkling performance that earned her 15.066 points.

The Chinese were put under pressure on the floor, but Qiu held her nerve to secure their first women’s team world crown since 2006.

The championships continue in the Netherlands on Thursday as Japan’s Daiki Hashimoto defends his men’s all-around title, with a big challenge expected from his compatriot and Olympic champion Shinnosuke Oka.

Japan took the men’s team title on Tuesday, pipping Russia and China.

GDP growth picks up from Q2 amid AI-driven boom in exports.

China’s economy has grown faster than expected in the most recent quarter amid booming exports underpinned by artificial intelligence, according to official figures.

China’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 4.5 percent in the July-September period from the same quarter a year earlier, picking up from 4.3 percent growth in the second quarter and beating most analysts’ forecasts, figures released on Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

During the first nine months of the year, GDP grew 4.6 percent year-on-year, according to the preliminary figures.

While China’s technology-related exports have surged during the AI boom, growth in the world’s second-largest economy has been dampened by weak domestic demand and a sagging property market.

China’s ruling Communist Party has set a GDP growth target of 4.5 to 5 percent for 2026, which would be among the slowest expansions in decades, excluding during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chinese exports surged more than 16 percent in the first three quarters of the year to reach 23.19 billion yuan ($3.47bn), according to the official data, largely due to strong demand for semiconductors and other tech-related goods.

Retail sales, a key measure of domestic consumption, increased 1.1 percent year-on-year in September and 2.6 percent during the first nine months of 2026.

Industrial production, which measures output in sectors such as manufacturing and mining, rose 5.5 percent in September, taking growth in the first three quarters to 5.3 percent.

Investment in fixed assets, which covers spending on real estate, factories and machinery, edged up 0.7 percent last month but contracted 7.2 percent during the January-September period.

Zhiguo He, a finance professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business who studies the Chinese economy, said that while China’s economy is on track to hit official targets, Beijing will be wary of the continuing reliance on export-driven growth.

“I expect Beijing is getting 4.5 percent as wanted,” He told Al Jazeera.

“A managed slow slowdown is the best Beijing can hope for,” he said.

“Real estate is still shrinking. This is what Beijing wanted and a good thing, and China’s households have been adapting their expectations based on this.”