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Are Chinese biotech firms an ally or an existential threat?
The question of whether to partner with Chinese firms — or see them as rivals — is tearing biotech apart.
Chinese scientists leave posts after whistle-blower raises alarm over their work
The trio faced heightened scrutiny after a former doctoral student and blogger known as Student Geng raised questions about their work.
Why a Chinese-owned company is bringing factory jobs back to the U.S.
GE Appliances is a poster child for the president’s promised manufacturing revival. But tariffs are making it harder to onshore jobs.
In Taiwan, ‘Mainland Spouses’ From China Become a Focus of Infiltration Fears
A Chinese-born woman accused of infiltration has set off a debate over how Taiwan defends its democracy without profiling migrants from China.
Chinese scientists create ‘kill-them-all’ algorithm for drone warfare
Smart web identifies objects as friend, foe or terrain, meaning drone swarms can hunt even when communication is jammed and vision blocked.
Rep. Young Kim Introduces BOOST for American Business Act toStrengthen U.S. Economic Competitiveness Abroad
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Congresswoman Young Kim (CA-40) introduced the Building Overseas Opportunities & Strategic Trade (BOOST) for American Business Act to support American businesses abroad and protect critical American industries from foreign adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). American businesses competing in international markets too often lack a strong advocate in their corner.
After China Orders a Times Reporter to Leave the Country, the U.S. Reciprocates
The Trump administration ejected a Chinese journalist amid fresh concerns about Beijing’s growing pressure on foreign correspondents.
A Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective on seasonal health and nutrition - Baylor College of Medicine Blog Network
Learn more about Traditional Chinese Medicine and its emphasis on living in harmony with seasonal rhythms.
[Rumor] Persona 6 Character Designs and Background Art Leaked
Persona 6 character designs and background art have supposedly leaked via Chinese social media, featuring a male and female character.
Temu Hit With Fine in E.U. Over Sales of Unsafe Goods
The Chinese e-commerce platform faces a penalty of more than $230 million for selling baby toys and other products the European Commission said could harm consumers.
Control Without Ownership: How China's Party-Business Networks Dominate Indonesia's Mineral Supply Chains
In 2024, when Jiangsu Delong, the world’s second-largest stainless-steel producer, filed for bankruptcy, several Chinese firms and state-owned enterprises
China Is Exporting Its Factories Across the World and Spooking the Competition
Faced with higher Western tariffs and weak demand at home, many Chinese factories are moving abroad.
Chinese Startup Fires 'Blazing' Oxygen-Rich Engine for Deep Space Missions
The liquid propulsion system can be reused with variable thrust and multiple restarts.
Yerba mate has lots of health benefits but Chinese may be drinking it wrong
Ancient South American fusion may reduce risks of Parkinson’s and is enjoyed by top footballers, but the indigenous drink should be shared.
Chinese human rights cases in limbo after Trump-Xi summit
Trump and Xi said they had discussed political prisoners in China, including Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Ahead of Xi's September visit to Washington, advocates are urging the US to apply more pressure on China.
Semiconductor decoupling. Powell's politics. Industrializing Ogaden. Free trade and the Magna Carta.
Thank you for opening your Chartbook email. Feliks Topolski, 1907-1989 8th Army’s Front, Italy 1944 Semiconductor decoupling Source: FT One thing that Jerome Powell deeply understood is that chairing the Fed under current conditions is a deeply political job. “Powell has successes and mistakes to his name. But he stands out as having thought more carefully about the Fed’s democratic legitimacy than any chair since Paul Volcker,” said Paul Tucker, a former deputy governor at the Bank of England, referring to the Fed chair who successfully fought the great inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. … While Powell was at the Treasury in the early 1990s, he watched Alan Greenspan build relationships within the government. That convinced Powell he needed to follow the former Fed chair’s lead and spend more time in Congress than his predecessors Yellen and Bernanke. “The accountability for the Fed runs through Congress,” said Claudia Sahm, a former Fed official who is now chief economist at New Century Advisors. “That’s not just about having people on speed dial — it’s answering questions, explaining policy and getting feedback.” Source: FT Ethiopia’s PM Abiy and Nigerian business tycoon, with Chinese engineering, are driving industrialization in Ogaden/Somali region of Ethiopia. - Michael Masri’s reporting for Africa Report if fascinating. Ethiopia has launched a cluster of large industrial schemes in the Somali region, laying foundation stones for a urea plant and an oil refinery in Gode while opening the first two phases of the Ogaden LNG project. Abiy Ahmed framed the push as part of a broader strategy to link energy, agriculture and industry. “These projects embody more than industrial growth,” he said. “They represent our shared responsibility to harness opportunities, strengthen co-operation and promote peace.” The Gode urea plant, backed by Dangote Group and Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH), is designed for 3m tonnes a year. Dangote owns 60%, while EIH holds 40%. Officials say Dangote’s equity totals about $2.5bn, while the state provides land and implementation oversight. Gas from the Calub fields will be piped 108km to the site. Construction is slated for 40 months, with operations targeted for 2028. Ethiopia imports most of its fertiliser, spending more than $1.2bn a year for 1.5m–2m tonnes. Usage was roughly 1.7m tonnes in 2023, almost half of it urea, and demand for 2024–25 is put above 2.4m tonnes. If delivered on time, the Gode plant could cover domestic needs and allow exports to neighbours. Brook Taye, chief executive of EIH, called the venture “a significant milestone in the journey toward industrial self-sufficiency”. Dangote told the groundbreaking crowd that the complex would be integrated with gas supply and a polypropylene unit to support local inputs. He pointed to Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), with a capacity of more than 5,000MW, and noted his group’s cement operations and expansion plans. The Gode refinery is being developed by Golden Concord Group of China. It is designed to process 3.5m tonnes a year of crude and condensate from the Hilala field, with associated storage. Backers say it will ease foreign-exchange pressure from fuel imports and anchor further industrial activity, including a proposed steel smelting site in Dire Dawa. GCL’s chair, Zhu Gongshan, cast the project as “a key step in Ethiopia’s path to energy sovereignty”, underscoring the Beijing–Addis ties. Financing details are still being finalised, but the refinery is central to the government’s energy-security narrative. Source: The Africa Report Dangote’s Ethiopian vision: Dangote began with cement. His crown jewel, Dangote Cement, dominates Nigeria’s market and has 10 operations in other nations in Africa. The formula has been consistent: identify sectors with chronic shortages – cement, fertiliser, sugar – commit massive local investments, and scale up to serve regional demand. Ethiopia was a natural extension of that model. In 2015, Dangote launched the Mugher Cement Plant outside Addis Ababa at a cost of $600m, with an annual capacity of 2.5 million tonnes. The investment gave him a firm foothold in one of Africa’s fastest-growing construction markets. But success came with risks. In May 2018, violent unrest led to the killing of Dangote’s country manager and temporary shutdowns at Mugher. While other investors might have retreated, Dangote doubled down. Today, he is preparing to spend $400m to expand Mugher’s capacity to 5 million tonnes, alongside a new grinding unit near Addis Ababa. Cement is just one market Dangote is targeting. Ethiopia’s enormous state-controlled sugar industry, long plagued by inefficiency and debt, has struggled for years to reform. Its Omo Kuraz Sugar Development Project, touted as one of the continent’s largest initiatives, continues to face delays and mismanagement. … The most ambitious venture of all is the planned fertiliser production complex in Gode, Somali region. Publicised on 28 August 2025, the Dangote Group and Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH) deal plans one of the world’s largest single-site urea manufacturing plants. The project costs an estimated $2.5bn and has an estimated capacity of 3 million metric tonnes annually, a rate that would not only render Ethiopia independent, but even a net exporter of fertiliser. EIH, the state wealth fund of Ethiopia, will hold 40%, while 60% is held by Dangote Group. … For Dangote, Ethiopia is a trifecta: Cement demand is projected to grow by 10% annually, its sugar consumption is growing with rapid urbanisation, and fertiliser demand is all but insatiable, given that farming supports the livelihood of 70% of Ethiopians. Source: The Africa Report The stakes for Abiy are high: For Addis Ababa, the $4bn fertiliser project in Ethiopia’s Somali region is no longer simply a manufacturing investment. It is increasingly being framed as a strategic state project tied to food sovereignty, import substitution and the government’s broader attempt to build economic resilience under mounting fiscal pressure. “Becoming self-sufficient in food is our main agenda,” Abiy says during the visit. “Land is needed; we have it. Water is needed; we have it. Human resources are needed; we have it.” The scale is enormous even by African industrial standards. Once operational, the plant is expected to produce three million metric tonnes of urea annually, potentially making it one of the continent’s largest fertiliser complexes. Ethiopian officials say the project now includes a 110km gas pipeline, a 120MW power plant, a polypropylene packaging facility and a two-million-tonne NPK blending plant. For a government grappling with chronic foreign exchange shortages, ballooning import bills and pressure on agricultural productivity, the numbers matter politically as much as they do economically. The decision to anchor the project in Gode is deliberate. Long viewed as peripheral to Ethiopia’s industrial economy, the Somali region is now being repositioned by the federal government as a future irrigation and agro-industrial corridor. Officials argue that the area’s vast land reserves and access to water could eventually support large-scale commercial farming capable of reshaping Ethiopia’s food economy. The government is simultaneously building housing infrastructure for about 5,000 residents near the plant, while officials project broader industrial expansion along the corridor. Abiy goes further, comparing the long-term revenue potential of the Gode development zone with Ethiopia’s flagship state enterprise. “The investments we are making in this Gode area, combined, will generate high revenue for Ethiopia, at par with Ethiopian Airlines,” he says. Source: The Africa Report Feliks Topolski 1907-1982 Topolski’s Chronicle, ‘Nazi Revival’, Vol. 8, Is. 1-2, 1960 HEY READERS, THANK YOU for opening the Chartbook email. I hope it brightens your day. I enjoy putting out the newsletter, but tbh, what keeps this flow going is the generosity of those readers who clicked the subscription button. Photo by Jakub Dziubak on Unsplash If you are persuaded to click, please consider the annual subscription of $50. It is both better value for you and a much better deal for me, as it involves only one credit card charge. Why feed the payments companies if we don’t have to. Subscribe Grim vision of drone warfare by Sylvie Kaufmann For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe The state of the art in Colbert-studies. Jean-Baptiste Colbert was Louis XIV chief minister from 1661 to 1683 and traditionally seen as an architect of absolutism and mercantilism. Alexander Hamilton later cited him as an inspiration in 1782. Now his legacy is disputed. Daniel Dessert, the chief critic, sees Colbert as the orchestrator not so much of an absolutist state as of an elite cabal. Would be great to have a good English-language review of this important debate. Source: lhistoire Didn’t know that the Magna Carta included free trade provisions Fighting for the right to the beach in Oregon in 1967: Source: Research Gate RAF Station – British and Polish Flags, c. 1940-45, The Ingram Collection Feliks Topolski, 1907-1989 ink and wash If you’ve scrolled this far, you know you want to click: Subscribe
Property challenges put Chinese firms’ go-global plans at risk: JLL
Some firms have scrapped investment plans to ‘restart from scratch’ after difficulty securing property, researcher says.
Agitators united by Chinese money, hate for America target data centers, experts warn
Experts warn climate activists, anti-Israel protesters and other movements have formed an anti-American alliance now targeting U.S. AI infrastructure.
Chinese traders in Iran keep business afloat as war capsizes naval shipping
Extended disruption caused by conflict has prompted Chinese merchants to turn to railway and land transport routes to trade goods.
The 4th BOCHK Science and Technology Innovation Prize Award Ceremony Concludes with Great Success
The 4th BOCHK Science and Technology Innovation Prize Award Ceremony, organised by the Hong Kong Alliance of Technology and Innovation (HKATI) and title-sponsored by Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited (BOCHK), was concluded successfully. The Ceremony was officiated by distinguished guests including Mr Leung Chun-ying, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (NCCPPCC); Mr Zhang Yong, Deputy Director of the Liaison Office of the Central Peop
Chinese scientists grow heart’s ‘master conductor’ that could replace pacemaker
Exclusive | U.S. Warns of Growing Russian and Chinese Spying in Cuba
The new findings on signals-intelligence facilities are being used to bolster the case for the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against Havana.
Apple Could Reverse Controversial Clear Case Design With iPhone 18 Pro
Images of third-party clear cases for the iPhone 18, iPhone 18 Pro, and iPhone 18 Pro Max suggest there is a chance Apple may revert back to a more familiar MagSafe ring design, and away from the controversial opaque white panel introduced on last year's iPhone 17 Pro cases. The images have been circulating on Chinese social media and were spotted by MyDrivers.
Will science scandals ruin reputation of century-old journal Nature in China?
Chinese academic watchdogs and online detectives are exposing growing numbers of problematic papers in Nature journals.
iPhone 19 Pro prototypes are being tested with quad-curved screens, new rumor says
Expect Chinese Android smartphone makers to go back to curved screens too. Apple's iPhone 19 Pro and iPhone 19 Pro Max prototypes are currently undergoing...
Opinion | A Teochew hit film shows what’s ailing Chinese entertainment
A new box-office surprise is a warning to the industry that visually stunning fare featuring ‘traffic stars’ is not good enough.
Business - Stellantis - Dongfeng Joint Venture will see Chinese maker's EVs built in France
Taiwan’s president says future will not be decided by ‘external forces’
President Lai says Taiwan's future is up to its people as the island faces Chinese and US headwinds.
Stellantis to push US revival, brands and Chinese deals in high-stakes pitch to investors
Stellantis' CEO Antonio Filosa will outline a new long-term strategy to investors on Thursday with a focus on reviving crucial U.S. sales, tightening the group's sprawling portfolio, and leveraging tie-ups with Chinese firms.
Baidu beats first-quarter forecasts as AI business drives strong growth (BIDU)
Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) shares climbed more than 2% in premarket trading on Monday after the Chinese technology group delivered first-quarter revenue and earnings ahead of market expectations, supported by rapid expansion in its AI-related operations. AI-powered business becomes major revenue contributorThe company reported quarterly revenue of 32.
<em>Science </em>magazine investigates FBI’s witch-hunt against Chinese researchers</em>
Science magazine, one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed publications in the world, has published an investigative report titled “Researching While Chinese,” detailing the Department of Justice (DOJ) persecution of Chinese researchers at the University of Michigan and Indiana University.
Did Chinese scientists simulate what could be the ‘end of the universe’?
Tsinghua University team’s tackles one of most unsettling ideas in theoretical physics to possibly open a new pathway in quantum computing.
China unveils a giant rideable robot straight out of sci-fi movie
A Chinese robotics company has started selling a giant pilotable robot. It costs €500,000, walks on two legs, and can also smash through walls. Welcome to the future?
Ancient Chinese movement shows promise for reducing blood pressure at home, study says
An ancient Chinese exercise called baduanjin could help lower blood pressure as effectively as some medications, according to a new clinical trial.
Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success
At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)
The Chinese Lens Boom Continues With a Flood of New Releases
Chinese lens brands drop a wave of new releases for the 2026 trade show season.
Fake lawyers, scientists, chefs and punters: meet the ‘white monkeys’ paid to make Chinese businesses look global
A foreign face is often thought to add prestige to a product or business – what’s behind this unregulated economy?
Russia’s Putin to visit China following Trump’s trip
Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping plan to 'further strengthen the comprehensive partnership', the Kremlin says.
Spotlight on China Adds to Some Chinese Americans’ Fears
The Trump-Xi summit emphasized stability. But China’s recruitment of foreign agents has fueled suspicion of Chinese Americans.
Top Singapore-based physicist moves to China after superconductor breakthrough
Prominent young professor becomes doctoral supervisor at leading Chinese research university amid high-level recruitment drive.
When Trump met Xi as peers
The image of two superpowers on similar footing was exactly what Chinese President Xi Jinping aimed to achieve with the visit, analysts said.
Trump and Xi set for second day of talks after Taiwan warning
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet on Friday to wrap up a two-day state visit that has featured pomp and business deals but also a stark warning from Xi that mishandling the Taiwan issue could push U.S.-China relations to a very dangerous place.
Nvidia Stock Extends Winning Streak On China News
Nvidia stock gapped higher on Thursday on a report that Chinese firms are lining up to buy its AI chips if they can secure China's approval.
Cruz, Durbin lead Senate efforts urging Trump to free 5 China prisoners
Sens. Ted Cruz and Dick Durbin led a Senate resolution urging Trump to push for the release of five Chinese political prisoners during his China visit.
Trump delights in his deference to Xi, his strongman fantasy made flesh
Chinese leader appears to be in the driving seat as the unusually polite US president ignores questions on Taiwan
Scientists discover hidden math secret inside Chinese money plant leaves
Scientists have uncovered a hidden mathematical secret inside the leaves of the Chinese money plant: a naturally occurring geometric pattern known as a Voronoi diagram, something typically associated with city planning, computer science, and network design. By mapping tiny pores and looping veins in the plant’s leaves, researchers discovered that the plant organizes itself using the same kind of elegant spatial logic humans use to solve complex distance problems — without ever “measuring” anything.
More than Education, Not Quite Foreign: The Politics of Taiwan’s Overseas Chinese Students
Written by Chiao-Yuan Jo Ko. Taiwan’s category of ‘overseas Chinese student’ may appear administrative, but it reflects a much longer political history. Tracing the system from the Cold War era to …
Xi Jinping tells Nvidia, Tesla and Apple CEOs that China will ‘open wider’
US business leaders praise ‘great importance’ of Chinese market on visit to Beijing alongside Donald Trump
Trump marvels at Chinese power as summit kicks off
President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping began a two-day summit with a welcome ceremony at Beijing's Great Hall of the People that featured an extraordinary display of power.
Trump to meet with Chinese leader Xi in Beijing today as trade, tariffs and Taiwan loom over visit
President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet in Beijing, a high-stakes summit as the two countries aim to stabilize their trading relationship and grapple with uncertainty over Iran.
Trump administration 'eager' to announce business deals during China trip
NBC News correspondents Gabe Gutierrez, Brian Cheung, Courtney Kube and Semafor China Columnist Andy Browne discuss President Trump’s trip to China and what he hopes to get from Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Protein reveals the oldest episode of sex and procreation among human species
Chinese scientists obtain the first molecular evidence of interbreeding between our ancestor ‘Homo erectus’ and the Denisovans, relatives of the Neanderthals
Taiwan anxiously eyes Trump’s summit in China, with $14 billion in US arms sales up in the air
As President Donald Trump meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week, Taiwan will be nervously monitoring from afar to ascertain whether its political status and critical arms purchases come up in discussions between the two leaders.
Dakar 2026: The three sports making their Youth Olympic Games debut
From baseball5 to skateboarding to the ancient Chinese martial art of wushu, the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games will be more inclusive than ever
Trump says he’ll ask Xi to ‘open up’ China to top business leaders joining him on trip
President Trump on Tuesday said he’ll ask Chinese President Xi Jinping to “open up” the country to top business executives who are traveling with him during the state visit to Beijing. “I will be …
PepsiCo's Eugene Willemsen on meeting Chinese consumers' demand for experiential beverage experience
Eugene Willemsen, CEO of International Beverages at PepsiCo discusses emerging consumer trends in China and how the company uses AI to enhance operation efficiency.
"Project Saluki": A new Xbox Game Pass tier has been unearthed, alongside a curious "Positron" potential disc-to-digital program — and it could be huge
The newest Xbox Game Pass tiers appear to be specifically targeting the lucrative Chinese market, and is Microsoft also working on a disc-to-digital program?
Paxton accuses Chinese national of running fake childcare businesses in Texas
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against a North Texas business he said is being used to issue fraudulent work visas for employees.
US adversaries using the 'political theater' Democrats created as a point of weakness: DHS Secretary Mullin
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin discusses Chinese infiltration efforts in the United States and DHS funding issues on 'The Story.'
Unitree Robotics unveils GD01, world’s first production-ready manned mecha
Unitree Robotics unveiled the GD01 on Tuesday, a manned transformable mecha priced from 3.9 million yuan ($650,000), quickly sparking heated discussion on Chinese social media, with many netizens describing it as highly futuristic and saying it felt like “science fiction becoming reality.”
Trump visit opens door to ‘casual’ networking for US and Chinese business chiefs
Sources said that Beijing’s exclusive Capital Club had been reserved for networking opportunities in a ‘less formal’ setting.
Trump heads to China today for high-stakes meeting with Xi
Trade, Taiwan and tensions with Iran are surefire topics for President Trump's meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
In war with Iran, China sees a familiar pattern of U.S. mistakes
President Trump arrives in Beijing this week for talks with a Chinese government that is confident as ever in its ascendance on the world stage.
How the Iran war could weaken Trump in his strongman showdown with Xi
Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week is a capstone event meant to demonstrate the president’s indelible mark on world history.
U.S. business leaders to travel with Trump for China trip
President Donald Trump will be accompanied by 16 senior business executives for his trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Who’s Traveling to China With Trump in the U.S. Business Delegation?
More than a dozen top U.S. business leaders will travel to China for President Trump’s visit this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, representing various American industries from finance to manufacturing. Elon Musk, the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, is expected to join the delegation, a White
When does Trump go to China? Details on Xi Jinping meeting
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to meet this week in Beijing. Here's what to know.
Next Apple Watch Models Unlikely to Add Touch ID, Focus on Battery Life
Apple is prioritizing larger batteries and more advanced health sensors over fingerprint authentication for the Apple Watch, according to a new claim from a prominent Chinese leaker. In a new Weibo post, Instant Digital pushed back on recent speculation about biometric recognition coming to Apple's wearable lineup, claiming instead that the company remains content to let users unlock their devices via their paired iPhone.
China expanding its industrial dominance, warns US business group
Chamber of Commerce says west is running out of time to sever its growing reliance on Chinese supply chain
China’s assault on the Tibetan language
Tighter policies in schools reflect the ‘narrowed’ tolerance towards Tibet from the Chinese state
Why tai chi and qigong are great for health, and English classes in Hong Kong
The Chinese ‘internal’ arts of tai chi and qigong offer a host of health benefits and are slowly becoming more accessible to English speakers.
Business Lookahead: Trump on Tour
STORY: From Trump's trip to China, to a slew of new U.S. data releases, these are the stories to watch in business and finance in the coming week. :: Trump goes to Beijing U.S. President Donald Trump visits Beijing on Thursday and Friday.It will be his first visit to China in eight years.He'll try to lock in the trade truce agreed to in October in South Korea, and avoid a rerun of the tit-for-tat tariff battle that he set off a year ago.Fresh trade data should offer a reality check on whether a protectionist White House has managed to dent Americans' appetite for Chinese-made goods.:: Saudi Aramco posts resultsThe world's biggest exporter of crude oil, Saudi Aramco, reports first-quarter results on Sunday.The numbers are expected to show the pain from the more than two-month-old Iran war.This comes as efforts to end the conflict appeared to stall after the U.S. and Iran traded fire in recent days, with some of the biggest flare-ups in fighting in and around the Strait of Hormuz since a ceasefire began a month ago.:: U.S. economic dataA bunch of new data should give a clearer view of inflation in the U.S.Tuesday's April consumer price index is expected to rise 0.6% according to a Reuters poll.Prices at the pump are likely to loom large in the numbers.Producer price data for April on Wednesday is another inflation checkpoint after the Fed’s last meeting exposed a more hawkish tilt among some policymakers who are increasingly uneasy about price pressures.And retail sales figures on Thursday should show whether higher gas prices and other costs are starting to bite into household spending.
Gov. DeSantis sign legislation banning Floridians' surrogacy contracts with Chinese, Russian citizens
'China ships people here for birth. It's really a seedy thing.'
Chinese buyer plans partial residential conversion at Wacker Drive office building
The deal is part of two major trends: A wave of downtown office buildings trading at fractions of their pre-pandemic values and office-to-residential conversions.
Family of imprisoned Chinese journalist pleads for his release over health concerns
Family members and activists are calling for the release of imprisoned Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu due to health concerns
Family of imprisoned Chinese journalist pleads for his release over health concerns
BANGKOK (AP) — Family members and activists have called for the release of imprisoned Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu due to health concerns.
Can the US Democrats beat Trump by becoming more like him?
Fighting fire with fire may deliver electoral wins, but risks hurting the party’s brand eventually, Chinese academic argues.
Xi Jinping: Advancing China's strength in science and technology
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday urged greater efforts and more concrete measures to strengthen basic research, enhance China's capacity for original innovation, and further solidify the foundation for building the country's strength in science
Leaker indicates that Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3060 returns this June, retaining its 12GB VRAM offering
Reports from Chinese industry forums and leakers claim Nvidia will restart production of the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB in June 2026, with add-in board partners targeting a July launch to offset delays and uncertainty around an entry-level RTX 50-series release amid ongoing GPU and memory shortages. The move would rely on newly fabbed Samsung 8nm Ampere chips rather than clearing old stock, but pricing and supply remain key uncertainties that will determine whether the card can credibly serve budget buyers.
India vs Chinese Taipei in Thomas Cup quarterfinals; Goa vs Jamshedpur in ISL: Indian Sports LIVE, May 1
Here are all the updates from Indian sports on May 1, 2026.
The Chinese Government Has Been Targeting Journalists in an Entirely New Way
Let’s just say I’m not going to be clicking on dubious email links any time soon.
Meta Deal Reversal Deepens Split Between China and Silicon Valley
Beijing’s insistence that Meta unwind its deal with a Chinese A.I. start-up escalates the geopolitical fight over advanced tech.
UK braces for further leaks after more private health records appear on Chinese website
Patrick Vallance says government working with Chinese officials to remove postings from Alibaba after Biobank data breach last week
Chinese scientists turn carbon dioxide into jet fuel as prices soar
Scientists use iron-based catalyst to overcome barriers in chemical process, bringing tech closer to industrial reality.
20th Anniversary iPhone's 'Liquid Glass' Display to Make Bezels Vanish
Apple's 20th-anniversary iPhone will use a new type of curved screen technology that more effectively hides the display bezels from the user's line of sight for a purer viewing experience, claims a Chinese leaker. Apple is reportedly planning a radical redesign for the 20th-anniversary iPhone that could feature a display that curves around all four edges of the device.
What's at stake for Meta if China kills its Manus deal
The Chinese government has ordered Meta to unwind its acquisition of Manus, potentially hurting Meta's push into building AI agents.
China Will Require Meta to Unwind Acquisition of AI Start-Up Manus
The impact of the ruling was not immediately clear, but it could send a chilling signal to Chinese tech founders seeking to team up with foreign companies.
Health insurance and end-of-life healthcare expenditures: evidence from Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey
npj Health Systems - Health insurance and end-of-life healthcare expenditures: evidence from Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey
Anta: The Chinese sports brand taking on Nike and Adidas
Now one of the biggest sportswear firms, Anta's rise follows a playbook adopted by many Chinese giants.
John Ternus, Apple’s new CEO, inherits a rebounding China business—and some messy headaches
Ternus must navigate a protectionist Washington, a prickly Beijing and a Chinese consumer less interested in foreign brands.
Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra Might Sport A 5,800mAh Battery – Here’s Why It’ll Be More Than Enough Even As Chinese Rivals Push 6,000mAh+ Batteries
Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra to sport the uber-efficient M16 OLED screen, with overall efficiency bolstered by Exynos 2700's new architecture.
Tired of high costs, some Americans are importing homes straight from China
Gennadiy Tsygan knows how expensive it is to build a home in the United States. That’s why he imported almost everything for his dream house from China.
Singapore emerging as neutral ground as AI firms navigate Sino-US rivalry
Singapore is transforming from East-West gateway to neutral ground for the AI sector, with Chinese startups hoping to operate beyond government reach while U.S. firms seek foreign talent without the headache of stricter visa regulations.
Exclusive | Iran War Complicates Contingency Plans to Defend Taiwan, Some U.S. Officials Say
The U.S. has burned through so many munitions in Iran that some administration officials assess that America couldn’t fully execute contingency plans to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion if it occurred in the near term, U.S. officials said.
Chinese Scientists Have Been Dying Mysterious Deaths Too
As the US questions the untimely deaths or the disappearances of top scientists, China is grappling with the same mystery at home.
To Tip Livestreamers, Chinese Woman Steals Millions From Family Business
After discovering his daughter had embezzled 17 million yuan, her father accompanied her to the police station to report the crime, hoping to recover the funds.
iPhone 18 Pro to Kick Off Apple's Four-Part Camera Upgrade Plan
Apple is evaluating four camera upgrades for future iPhone models, with the first new feature scheduled for this year's iPhone 18 Pro models, according to a reputable Chinese leaker.