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President Donald Trump's acceptance of Beijing's demand that he re-commit to a "one China" policy was heavily influenced by his new top diplomat, who argued behind the scenes that relations would remain on hold until Trump cleared up doubts about a longtime bedrock of U.S.-China ties, officials said.

Hong Kong said on Tuesday it would release the nine Singaporean armored vehicles it seized in November on their way home from military exercises in Taiwan, easing tensions between China and Singapore. After the troop carriers had been seized, Beijing, which regained sovereignty over the former British colony of Hong Kong in 1997, warned countries against maintaining military ties with Taiwan, which it views as a wayward province. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong wrote to Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying requesting the return of the carriers, and Hong Kong said it would handle the matter in accordance with...

China’s President Xi Jinping warned on Tuesday against scapegoating globalization for the world’s ills or retreating behind protectionist walls, staking out an alternative vision for the international economy days before Donald Trump takes office. The global economic order has been led for decades by the United States, but the president-elect is threatening to tear up the rule book, and Xi used his debut appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos to insist that globalization was irreversible. “Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in a dark room. Wind and rain may be kept outside, but so is light and air,”...

U.S. companies feel less welcome in China and some are shifting operations to other countries, a business group reported Wednesday, amid rising tension between President-elect Donald Trump and Beijing over trade. The report by the American Chamber of Commerce in China reflects frustration among companies that see China as a key market but face growing efforts to block access to technology and other promising industries. […] Communist leaders have promised to make China’s state-dominated economy more productive by opening more industries to private and foreign competitors. Business groups say such initiatives have had little impact. The American chamber said 81...

A Chinese professor has been sacked after he criticized Chairman Mao Zedong on his 123rd birthday in an commentary he posted online that enraged leftists. Mao, who died on Dec. 9, 1976, is still officially venerated by the ruling Communist Party as the founder of modern China, and his face appears on every yuan banknote. But he is particularly respected by leftists who believe the country has become too capitalist and unequal over three decades of market-based reforms, and attitudes towards Mao and his legacy mirror differences between reformers and traditionalists. Deng Xiaochao, 62, an art professor at Shandong Jianzhu...

A pledge by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to advance efforts this year to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile received a blunt Twitter slap down Monday from President-elect Donald Trump: “It won’t happen!” “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S.,” Trump tweeted. “It won’t happen!” In a subsequent post, the president-elect criticized China — North Korea’s closest ally and biggest trading partner — for not doing enough to rein in its unstable neighbor. “China has been taking out massive amounts of money & wealth...

China and São Tomé and Principe officially resumed diplomatic relations on Monday, in a triumph for Beijing over rival Taiwan after the African island nation abruptly broke away from the self-ruled island last week. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his counterpart from São Tomé, Urbino Botelho, signed books at a ceremony in front of their flags at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. Wang said the re-establishment of relations would bring benefits to both countries and that they would hold exchanges in tourism, the media and other areas. The move is a victory for Beijing, which considers the self-governing...

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously proclaimed the “end of history”, seeing the triumph of the United States as the only remaining superpower and the leader of Western democracies. “The end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy (is) the final form of human government,” he wrote in his best-selling 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man.Twenty-five years later, Fukuyama’s certainties have all but vanished. Liberal democracy in Europe and the United States is in crisis, while China and Russia demonstrate that authoritarian regimes are...

Another day, another shot across the bow from Donald Trump aimed squarely at China. Having already participated (and in the case of one, precipitated) two mini diplomatic snafus with Beijing in just the past two weeks, Trump is sending a clear message to Beijing that US-China trade under his administration will be anything but business as usual, by creating a National Trade Council inside the White House to oversee industrial policy and has decided to appoint a hard core China hawk to run it. According to the FT, which broke the news, Trump has chosen Peter Navarro, a Harvard-trained economist...

Taiwan says the African island nation of São Tomé and Principe has broken their diplomatic ties. Just 21 countries and governments now have diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Most of the world and the United Nations do not formally recognize Taiwan as a condition of maintaining relations with Beijing, which considers Taiwan a part of its territory. …

BEIJING — Only a day before a small Chinese boat sidled up to a United States Navy research vessel in waters off the Philippines and audaciously seized an underwater drone from American sailors, the commander of United States military operations in the region told an audience in Australia that America had a winning military formula. “Capability times resolve times signaling equals deterrence,” Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr. told a blue-chip crowd of diplomats and analysts at the prestigious Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, the leading city in America’s closest ally in the region. In the eyes of America’s friends in...

China said Monday that it had “serious concern” about President-elect Donald Trump’s most recent comments about Taiwan, and warned that any changes to how America deals with the self-governing island could damage diplomatic ties between Washington and Beijing. China’s comments came a day after Trump said in a television interview that he didn’t feel “bound by a one-China policy.” Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said that established policy is the “political foundation” of any diplomatic relationship between China and the U.S., and that any damage to it could render cooperation “out of the question.” …

China remains opposed to unilateral sanctions against North Korea taken without the approval of the U.N. Security Council, the country’s chief negotiator on the North’s nuclear program was quoted Saturday as saying. Wu Dawei also told his South Korean counterpart in talks Friday that China is “adamantly opposed” to the South’s deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system that China says poses a threat to its own security, China’s foreign ministry said in a statement. […] China demands that South Korea “give weight to China’s concerns” about the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile system, which is intended...

Officials: China flew nuclear-capable bombers around Taiwan Less than a week before President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Taiwan’s president over the phone, China flew a pair of long-range nuclear-capable bombers around Taiwan for the first time, two U.S. officials revealed to Fox News.

President-elect Donald Trump is using Twitter to renew his defense of his engagement with the leader of Taiwan, a breach of diplomatic protocol as the U.S. shifted recognition from Taiwan to China nearly 40 years ago. In a series of Sunday evening tweets, Trump groused about criticism that he didn’t work with China ahead of the contact. China considers Taiwan a rogue province. “Did China ask us if it was OK to carry out a number of actions such as build up disputed islands in the South China Sea or take economic measures hurtful to the United States,” Trump tweeted....

The foreign ministers of China and Iran on Monday urged governments not to violate the deal that limits Iran’s nuclear activity in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, in remarks apparently directed at President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said during a visit to Beijing that the seven nations who agreed to the deal in July 2015 “have the obligation to fully implement” it. “Iran will not allow any country to take unilateral action to violate the agreement and Iran has the right to take action against that,” Zarif said at a news conference after...

Citing a national security risk, President Barack Obama on Friday blocked a Chinese investor’s proposed takeover of Aixtron SE, a German maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, a rare move that drew objections from Beijing and complaints that the U.S. was injecting politics into the deal. Obama ordered Fujan Grand Chip to “fully and permanently abandon” its proposed acquisition of Aixtron SE’s California-based subsidiary, Aixtron, Inc. The decision upheld a recommendation from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which reviews foreign purchases of U.S. companies. The decision threatens to jeopardize the larger deal, which is under scrutiny [by] Berlin...

Microsoft’s MSFT 0.13% Chinese-language AI chat bot filters certain topics, the company confirmed Monday, although it did not clarify whether that included interactions deemed politically sensitive. Last week, CNNMoney and China Digital Times reported that Xiaoice would not directly respond to questions surrounding topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese state. References to the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 or “Steamed Bun Xi,” a nickname of Chinese President Xi Jinping, would draw evasive answers or non sequiturs from the chat bot, according to the report. “Am I stupid? Once I answer you’d take a screengrab,” read one answer to a question...

A Beijing trade official said Tuesday that Chinese companies have “very big” enthusiasm about investing in railways and airports and other major infrastructure projects in the Philippines, and his government will encourage them to build an industrial park. Wu Zhengping of China’s Ministry of Commerce said the two countries have agreed to hold a meeting of a joint trade and economic commission early next year and sign a six-year plan to boost trade and investment. …

This will be first major achievement for both the countries under the CPEC, as China is already working to make Gwadar a state-of-the-art port. Under the 'One Belt, One Road' policy, this port will increase the volume of trade between Pakistan and China, while the neighbouring countries will also benefit from it. Sources said that Russia and Iran have already showed their interest in joining the CPEC,