Despite a sharp and record-breaking rise in overall global arms sales last year, the combined revenue of the eight Chinese firms listed in the weapons industry’s Top 100 fell drastically, a Swedish think tank has found.

The 10 per cent fall to US$88.3 billion was also the biggest aggregated percentage drop among the countries with companies in the list, released on Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The performance of the Chinese weapons giants was in stark..…

Zhou Bo is a retired senior colonel in the People’s Liberation Army and a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Centre for International Security and Strategy. His military career included roles in the Ministry of National Defence’s Foreign Affairs Office and as a defence attaché. Zhou is the author of the recent book Should the World Fear China?

This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here.

With the independence-leaning Democratic...

The recent flurry of sporting events has thrown up a number of aspects which I found particularly inspiring. With much of the media focus on China’s 15th National Games naturally on the sporting contests, less attention was paid to the fact that the event could only have been successfully organised with the support of local volunteers.

The Agency for Volunteer Service appealed for help in marshalling competitors and spectators, and tens of thousands of ordinary Hongkongers applied. The target...

Eight more wild boar with suspected cases of African swine fever were discovered near Barcelona, La Vanguardia newspaper reported on Sunday, as Spain struggles to limit the damage to a pork export industry worth billions of euros a year.

The newspaper cited sources close to the Catalan agriculture ministry. Two cases have been confirmed, and 12 others have shown signs they may also have the disease but are undergoing tests to confirm this. If confirmed, it would bring the number of infected...

US and Ukrainian officials held what both sides called productive talks on Sunday about a peace deal with Russia, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressing optimism about progress despite challenges in ending the more than three-year war.

“We continue to be realistic about how difficult this is but optimistic, particularly given the fact that as we’ve made progress, I think there is a shared vision here that this is not just about ending the war … it is about securing Ukraine’s future, a...

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Madrid on Sunday to protest against Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, accusing his left-wing government of corruption and demanding his resignation and early elections.

The demonstration was organised by the conservative People’s Party (PP) under opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo.

The rally in central Madrid carried the slogan “Mafia or democracy?”

Participants waved Spanish flags and carried signs reading “Resign now!” and “Sanchez, go...

British finance minister Rachel Reeves on Sunday denied she misled the public over official forecasts ahead of this month’s budget, saying she had been honest about the need to build up a bigger financial buffer.

In a speech on November 4, Reeves appeared to lay the groundwork to break the Labour Party’s promise to voters before the 2024 election and raise income tax rates, citing a “weaker than previously thought” productivity performance.

In a letter published on Friday, the head of Britain’s.…

Thousands of mourners poured into Tai Po on Sunday, forming a solemn river of remembrance for the 146 lives lost in Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in more than seven decades, while Beijing called for unity and healing as a massive rescue and recovery operation continued amid the charred ruins.

The scale of the calamity was evident, as the Disaster Victim Identification Unit (DVIU) discovered 18 more bodies in the wreckage of Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po following Wednesday’s blaze.

They have completed..…

A Filipino domestic worker who fled Hong Kong’s deadly inferno with her employers’ three-year-old daughter in her arms has expressed regret that she was unable to persuade a neighbour who perished in the blaze to also try to escape.

Reinalyn Niere, who arrived in the city last year, said she was asleep with the child in the family’s third-floor flat in Tai Po’s Wang Fuk Court when disaster struck at the housing estate on Wednesday afternoon. The child’s parents were at work at the...

Hong Kong’s deadly fire in Tai Po has prompted an outpouring of generosity from the public, with donations already surpassing the total raised in the initial aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

By noon on Sunday, the government’s support fund had grown to HK$1.2 billion (US$153 million), with HK$900 million in public donations and HK$300 million in government grants, just days after Wednesday’s fire began.

The total does not include donations to non-governmental organisations such as the..…

Police have issued warnings for a second day in a row about scammers preying on grieving Hongkongers under the guise of donations and relief efforts, with aid pouring in for victims of Wednesday’s deadly inferno at a Tai Po housing estate.

Police said in an online post on Sunday that officers had noticed a fraudulent “Tai Po Wang Fuk Court victims registration form” circulating, warning residents to remain vigilant when providing their personal details.

“The force urges residents to stay...

China is launching a second satellite constellation to monitor objects in orbit to help commercial operators lower collision risks and ease the country’s long reliance on foreign tracking data.

When complete, the Xingyan – or Star Eye – space situational awareness constellation will have 156 satellites up and running to identify the orbits of other satellites and debris, detect unusual movements, and provide collision warnings and maneuver advice every two hours.

Its developer, Xingtu Cekong, an…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the country’s president on Sunday for a pardon in his years-long corruption trial, arguing that criminal proceedings were hindering his ability to govern and that a pardon would be good for Israel.

Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, has long denied the bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges. His lawyers said in a letter to the president’s office that the prime minister still believes the legal proceedings would result in a…

Pakistan dismissed on Sunday a warning by the UN rights chief of potential “far-reaching consequences” for the rule of law in granting the head of the all-powerful military legal immunity.

The foreign ministry said Pakistan was “fully committed to protecting … basic freedoms and the rule of law as enshrined in the constitution,” responding to criticism from UN rights chief Volker Turk.

A constitutional amendment approved by parliament earlier this month, shielding Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir..…

Hidden in the frozen highlands of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau – often called the “Third Pole” – lies an unexpected trove of biological innovation: animal poop.

Chinese scientists have discovered that the faeces of yaks, Tibetan sheep, antelope and other native herbivores harbour thousands of previously unknown microbial species, some of which could be game changers for biotechnology.

They include novel strains that have the potential to degrade cellulose – used for paper, cardboard and clothing –.…

Pope Leo challenged Lebanon’s political leaders on Sunday to be true peacemakers and put their differences aside, as he sought to give Lebanon’s long-suffering people a message of hope and bolster a crucial Christian community in the Middle East.

At Beirut airport, where his plane landed with a Lebanese military jet escort, Pope Leo XIV was greeted first by President Joseph Aoun, then by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.

Leo arrived in Beirut from Istanbul on the...

A hotel guest in central China died after the staff held on to life-saving medicine for five hours without delivering it, sparking heated online debate over the hotel’s responsibility.

The 51-year-old man, surnamed Hu, was found dead in his room at a Yeste Hotel in Wuhan, Hubei province, on November 20.

Hu’s death confused his friend, Han Shun, who delivered his medicine earlier that day.

Han took Hu, a Wuhan local, to stay at the hotel the previous evening after he finished work in the district…

Kazakhstan told Ukraine on Sunday to stop attacking the Black Sea terminal of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which handles more than 1 per cent of global oil, after a major drone attack halted exports and seriously damaged loading infrastructure.

The CPC, which includes Russian, Kazakh and US shareholders, said it had halted operations after a mooring at its Russian terminal on the Black Sea was significantly damaged by a Ukrainian naval drone attack.

Ukraine this year mounted wave after…

Hong Kong’s “top priority” is to resettle residents displaced by the Tai Po fire so they can get through the winter, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po has said, pointing to measures rolled out by the banking industry to ease their immediate financial burden.

Chan highlighted on Sunday the banking industry’s emergency support measures that came into effect over the weekend, including repayment grace periods for affected residents and extended operating hours at bank branches in Tai Po.

“We will…

A district in China’s northern city of Tianjin, the site of one of the country’s worst industrial disasters a decade ago, has launched a comprehensive fire hazard inspection campaign.

The drive by the Binhai New Area district comes days after a catastrophic high-rise blaze in Hong Kong claimed more than 120 lives.

District officials attending a fire safety meeting on Saturday were shown footage and a preliminary report from the blaze in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district, which took firefighters more..…

Some residents of the flood-hit Indonesian island of Sumatra have resorted to stealing food and water to survive, authorities said on Sunday, while Sri Lankan officials said deaths from floods and mudslides in that island nation have risen to 193.

The floods, which hit Indonesia nearly a week ago, have killed 303 people and displaced thousands, with the number expected to rise as more bodies are recovered. The deluges triggered landslides, damaged roads, cut off parts of the island and downed...

Hong Kong’s financial identity is entering a new chapter, shaped as much by strategic alignment as capital flows. By co-launching a US$1 billion investment fund with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the city is taking one of its most assertive steps yet to redefine Hong Kong’s financial identity in a rapidly changing global economy.

The message is clear: Hong Kong intends to be a serious player in the next phase of global capital realignment.

This comes as Hong Kong companies are...

Nepal is preparing to open one of its last untouched frontiers for foreigners by slashing the costly permit to enter Upper Mustang, a rugged plateau of ochre cliffs, hidden valleys and centuries-old Buddhist heritage.

The government has announced plans to replace the flat US$500 charge for a 10-day stay with a daily US$50 rate, a shift that tourism entrepreneurs believe will make the destination more accessible and help drive the local economy.

“We have been lobbying to reduce the permit fee for…

During past flare-ups in diplomatic tensions between China and Japan, Chinese consumers spontaneously boycotted Japanese goods.

But the latest row, sparked by controversial remarks on Taiwan by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, has met with a markedly different response, with almost no one in China calling for a boycott of Japanese products.

Part of the reason for the turnaround is a seismic shift in China’s consumer market, with the Japanese home appliances, digital gadgets and cars once.…

Beijing’s state media has praised the swift rescue and relief efforts by the Hong Kong government after the city’s worst fire in decades, commending its leadership and pledging support in its first editorial commentary on the tragedy.

Published on Sunday, the commentary by Xinhua, which typically reflects the stance of the central government, focused on how the disaster had united the city and urged Hong Kong to move forward.

It praised Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu and his leadership was...

MTV kick-started a new era of music and pop culture in 1981, when it went on air for the first time, emblematically playing “Video Killed the Radio Star” as its debut music video.

More than four decades later, the channel, now owned by US media giant Paramount Skydance, will wind down its international music broadcasting by the end of the year as it struggles to compete with online streaming and social media.

MTV Music, MTV Hits and its 80s and 90s music shows will be shut down in the UK and...

Japan has often prided itself on its orderly, low-crime society, but cracks in that image are widening amid rising car thefts and home intrusions fuelled by export markets and public complacency.

At a seminar in May on car theft held by the Aichi prefectural police in central Japan, a man in his fifties listened intently – he was twice targeted in the past.

When he woke up one morning in 2011, his prized Toyota Land Cruiser had vanished. Then, one night in 2015, he found a bicycle blocking his..…

China’s factory activity contracted for an eighth consecutive month in November, according to official data, as external headwinds and weak domestic demand continued to drag on the world’s second-largest economy.

The manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) stood at 49.2 in November, up from 49 a month earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Sunday.

The reading was in line with a forecast of 49.2 based on economists polled by financial data provider Wind.

The monthly index...

A 14-year-old Chinese boy who turned his bedroom into a small history museum and spoke like an ancient scholar has attracted an army of followers online.

The secondary school student from central China’s Henan province, Xie Zhaoyutong, loves ancient Chinese history and literature and has filled his bedroom with his antique collections.

A recent video of Xie passionately introducing his collections went viral online. It attracted 837,000 likes and 40,000 comments.

Xie collects pottery, china,...

Thousands massed in the Philippine capital of Manila on Sunday demanding accountability over a multibillion-dollar infrastructure scandal that has seen scores of officials, lawmakers and construction firm owners accused of corruption.

Rage over so-called ghost flood control projects has been mounting for months in the archipelago country of 116 million, where entire towns have been buried in floodwaters driven by powerful typhoons in recent months.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has seen friend.…

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Get faster notifications on the latest updates by downloading our app.

What we know so far:



146 people, including a firefighter, confirmed dead





79 injured, including 12 firefighters





Around 40 people deemed to be missing; about 100 cases categorised as “unresolvable”





The eight residential blocks in the estate had been undergoing renovations since July..…

China pledged to “actively consider” helping Syria with post-war reconstruction when its new foreign minister visited Beijing earlier this month.

But analysts said the two sides needed to first overcome the major hurdle of militant groups linked to China’s Xinjiang region integrated into the Syrian armed forces.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his counterpart Asaad al-Shaibani on November 17 that the two sides should gradually resume exchanges, adding that Beijing would consider helping...

Egypt is training hundreds of Palestinian police officers with an eye towards integrating them into a post-war security force in Gaza, according to a Palestinian official.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty announced the plan to train 5,000 officers for Gaza during talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa in August.

A first group of more than 500 officers was trained in Cairo in March and since September, the two-month courses have resumed to welcome hundreds more people, the…

A report due to be released next month by a South Korean foundation will attempt to settle some of the discrepancies over the sinking of a ship repatriating Korean labourers from Japan to Busan in 1945, although historians warn that it could dredge up decades-old accusations and further harm bilateral relations.

The South Korean government has commissioned the Foundation for Victims of Forced Mobilisation by Imperial Japan to conduct a thorough investigation into conflicting passenger lists and.…

As Hong Kong mourns the victims of the deadly Tai Po blaze and questions emerge on accountability, experts have called for much tighter supervision of building maintenance and fire safety by authorities to hold relevant parties responsible so that future tragedies can be averted.

They gave this assessment as the government set up an interdepartmental task force to probe Wednesday’s fire, including the cause, the reasons it spread so quickly and the factors leading to the heavy casualties.

The...

Amid the diplomatic fallout between Tokyo and Beijing, Hunanese accountant Echo He feels relieved she has chosen Southeast Asia for her year-end trip with her husband and colleagues, instead of the popular choice, Japan.

The latest spat between both nations arose on November 7 when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested her country could deploy its military forces in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

This infuriated Beijing, which sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited…

Recent weeks have seen a sharp decline in Sino-Japanese people-to-people exchanges. All flights on 12 routes from mainland Chinese cities to Japan had been cancelled as of November 24, reportedly due to low demand. According to the Civil Aviation Data Analysis System, some 12 per cent of flights between China and Japan scheduled between November 24 and January 18 have been cancelled. On some routes, more than half have been cancelled.

Chinese tourists, Japan’s largest inbound group, had...

A decades-old staple in the slums of the Philippines, known as pagpag or “second-hand fried chicken”, has unexpectedly trended on mainland social media.

Videos of Chinese influencers and bloggers filming themselves trying the food have gone viral.

Pagpag, which literally means “to shake off dust”, has been eaten in poverty-stricken parts of the Philippines for decades.



It is made from discarded leftovers which are cleaned, re-seasoned and deep-fried before being resold as “reprocessed...

The eight milk tea-coloured towers of Wang Fuk Court were special sentinels to many locals in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district.

Residents say that whenever they saw the blocks emerging into view on the northern-bound left side of Tolo Highway on their daily commute after work, they knew they were back home.

Home was their idyllic estate with its winding bicycle lanes and a canal bisecting it, far from the frenzy of Kowloon.

But now the landmark is blanketed by black soot, battered bamboo and frayed..…

As the pieces of Thailand’s political puzzle begin to fall into place ahead of an election set for early next year, the third incarnation of a reformist party that won the most votes last time around is seeking a repeat performance.

But the People’s Party, whose predecessor was not only denied the chance to govern but ultimately dissolved by the Constitutional Court last year for attempting to reform the country’s royal defamation law, has a steep hill to climb.

Conservative forces and the...