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Briefings

Trump and Xi Discussed U.S.-China WWII Alliance, Prompting Concern in Japan

During a September 24 welcoming ceremony for Chinese President Xi Jinping, U.S. President Donald Trump recalled that China and the United States were allies during World War II, highlighting the American volunteer pilots known as the Flying Tigers. He expressed hope that the two countries could build on their wartime cooperation to create a better future. At a state dinner that evening, Xi echoed the historical theme, recalling how Chinese and American forces fought against Japanese militarism, established the Hump air route, and rescued American pilots during the war.

Trump’s remarks reportedly surprised some Japanese government officials and received extensive coverage in Japanese media. On September 26, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi held a roughly 20-minute telephone call with Trump, who briefed her on his meeting with Xi. Takaichi emphasized that Japan and the United States had become each other’s “most trusted allies.” The two leaders exchanged views on China-related economic and security issues and reaffirmed bilateral cooperation and their shared commitment to regional and global peace and stability.

Sources:
{1} Radio France International, September 25, 2026
https://www.rfi.fr/cn/国际/20260925-特朗普称中国为-盟国-震惊日本
{2} Kyodo News, September 26, 2026
https://china.kyodonews.net/articles/-/16131

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend US-China Relations

Chinese Firms and Local Governments Roll Out Marriage Incentives to Boost Birth Rates

A growing number of Chinese companies and local governments are offering cash rewards to encourage marriage and childbirth, as the country pushes to build broader social support for family formation.

In Daye, Hubei, beverage maker Jingpai organized a collective wedding for 52 couples, covering all costs and giving each pair a 10,000 yuan (US$1,490) gift package. The company also runs a matchmaking service for employees that has paired 58 couples, resulting in 10 marriages and three births so far.

Retailer Pang Dong Lai has been even more generous: since January 2025, 73 employees have received marriage bonuses totaling 3.65 million yuan (US$544,000), with 54 recipients sharing 2.7 million yuan (US$402,000) in 2026 alone. At a company event in Wuhan in February, over 50 employees who married or had children in 2025 received bonuses—10,000 yuan (US$1,490) for a single employee, doubling to 20,000 yuan (US$2,980) if both spouses work at the firm.

Local governments are joining in too. Shengzhou, Zhejiang offers free premarital and prenatal checkups plus a 300 yuan (US$45) reward for qualifying first-time marriages. Mingxi County, Fujian gives 3,000 yuan (US$447) to couples registering their first marriage locally who complete premarital checkups. In Lüliang, Shanxi, couples marrying for the first time where the bride is 35 or younger receive 1,500 yuan (US$224). Several other regions, including parts of Guangzhou, Dongguan, and Foshan, along with cities like Hangzhou, Ningbo, Yiwu, and Wuhu, have introduced similar rewards or wedding consumption vouchers.

The measures align with China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, which calls for strengthening family-support policies and promoting a positive marriage and childbirth culture. Scholars note that since most Chinese births occur within marriage, encouraging marriage is an extension of birth-support policy and a way to ease the broader costs of marrying, having, and raising children.

Source: Yicai, September 21, 2026
https://www.yicai.com/news/103372556.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

China’s Service Sector Gap Seen as Key Drag on Growth

Chinese economist Lu Ming has identified structural imbalances between manufacturing and services as the core obstacle facing China’s economy, according to an interview published by the Communist Party-affiliated newspaper China People’s Political Consultative Conference Daily on September 21.

Lu, a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Antai College of Economics and Management, said that despite sustained fiscal and monetary easing, growth has continued to slow—evidence that the problem lies not in aggregate demand but in economic structure.

He argued that China’s traditional growth model, based on expanding capacity and cutting prices, has reached its limits. Domestic manufacturing now faces saturated demand, while trade surpluses draw international pressure. Excessive, inefficient competition has triggered a price spiral that is difficult to break.

Meanwhile, the service sector—covering elder care, education, healthcare, childcare, culture and sports—suffers from mismatches in quantity, quality, diversity and distribution relative to demand.

Lu attributed the sector’s underdevelopment to several factors: a lower value-added tax rate for services (8 percent) versus manufacturing (13 percent), which makes local governments favor manufacturing projects; a collateral-based lending system unfriendly to asset-light service businesses; entrenched social bias viewing service work as low-skill; and lingering regulatory barriers to private investment in services.

China’s GDP grew 4.7 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2026, slowing to 4.3 percent in the second quarter, with the government targeting 4.5–5 percent growth for the year. Lu noted that current growth is concentrated in capital-intensive sectors like AI, EVs and batteries, which generate limited employment and income gains—while AI simultaneously displaces jobs in programming, statistics and accounting. He called for greater investment in cultivating skills AI cannot replace, such as aesthetic judgment, empathy and communication.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), September 23, 2026
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202609230353.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Beijing-Organized Xi Supporters Clashed with Protesters Outside Andrews Airport as Xi Arrives in Washington

On September 23, clashes reportedly broke out outside Joint Base Andrews near Washington, D.C., between groups organized to welcome Xi Jinping and democracy activists and other protesters. Protesters carried banners calling for Hong Kong’s “liberation” and Xi’s resignation, while a large group of Xi supporters arrived on buses. According to China Democracy Party member Yang Lei, the groups initially remained separate, but a confrontation began after some Xi supporters entered the protesters’ area, allegedly attempted to take their materials, and attacked them with flagpoles. Protesters called police, who arrived shortly afterward.

Yang said the Xi supporters shouted that “Falun Gong hit people,” although he said no Falun Gong practitioners were present and the protesters involved were members of the China Democracy Party. He characterized the accusation as an attempt to blame Falun Gong for the confrontation.

After the clash, protesters reportedly obtained identification badges from Xi supporters representing two organizations: the United Chinese Community Organizations of the United States (美国侨学界社团联席会) and the America-China Enterprise Chamber of Commerce (美中企业总商会).

Also on September 23, former China Democracy Party chairman Wang Xizhe filed a civil lawsuit against Xi Jinping in a California federal court, alleging responsibility for an alleged attack on democracy activists outside the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles on January 4. The lawsuit claims consulate-hired security personnel used pepper spray against peaceful protesters, causing physical and psychological injuries, and seeks damages from Xi. The court accepted the case and issued a summons requiring a response within 21 days.

Sources:
{1} The Epoch Times Chinese, September 24, 2026
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/26/9/24/n14856206.htm
{2} The Epoch Times Chinese, September 24, 2026
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/26/9/24/n14856489.htm
{3} The Epoch Times Chinese, September 24, 2026
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/26/9/24/n14856800.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

China-Europe Arctic Express Moves from Trial to Regular Weekly Service

On August 15, Haijie Shipping’s vessel “Dubai Tower” departed Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, sailing north through the Bering Strait and the Arctic Northeast Passage toward the UK, a roughly 20-day voyage. The departure marks the China-Europe Arctic Express route’s shift from a single trial run last year to regular weekly sailings this summer, part of Beijing’s “Ice Silk Road” initiative outlined in its 2018 Arctic policy white paper.

Industry analysts attribute the route’s rapid commercialization to several factors: declining Arctic summer sea ice (down 5.8 percent in maximum extent between 2024 and 2025), extending the ice-free sailing window; growing geopolitical risk along traditional routes through the Red Sea and Suez Canal; strong demand from high-value, time-sensitive Chinese exports such as batteries, solar components, and electric-vehicle parts, which benefit from the route’s naturally cold environment; and improved ice-class vessels and forecasting technology, including a new Arctic weather and sea-ice navigation service launched September 8.

The route cuts transit time from about 40 days via Suez to roughly 20 days, while reducing carbon emissions by up to 50 percent. A supply-chain manager quoted in the report said freight rates run $4,500–5,000 for 20-foot containers and $8,500–9,000 for 40-foot containers — higher than Suez routes — but all weekly slots for 2026 are already booked.

Constraints remain: the route is only navigable from July to October, and high costs for ice-class ships, polar transit fees, and insurance persist. Analysts expect the route to serve as a seasonal supplement in the near term, potentially evolving into a more normalized strategic channel over six to ten years.

Source: 21st Century Business Herald, September 18, 2026
https://m.21jingji.com/article/20260918/herald/c5a79ae33da1c8d2d762bfd8bfe13df7.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

China’s “AI Mind-Reading” Industry Attracts Growing Investment

China’s research and technology sector is increasingly exploring AI systems that can recognize and decode human emotions. A recent project led by Zhejiang University researcher Xu Xin used a dynamic emotion-recognition system to screen students at a middle school in Weihai City, Shandong Province, reportedly measuring 14 emotional indicators, including stress, anxiety, and depression. The system can reportedly detect subtle physical movements with 0.01-millimeter precision and achieve 90.8 percent emotion-recognition accuracy.

Zhejiang University has also developed AI-based approaches to emotional and psychiatric assessment. In 2025, teams from the university jointly developed the Emoface model, which analyzes detailed facial features to distinguish major depressive disorder from bipolar disorder. Another Zhejiang University team published research in July 2026 on emotion decoding using an implanted brain-computer interface. The article describes these efforts as part of a broader push to quantify the links between brain activity, emotions, and behavior.

Growing demand for mental-health services, advances in multimodal AI, and the development of wearable sensors are creating opportunities for emotion AI. Major technology companies, including Huawei, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, have explored emotion- or sentiment-related technologies, while startups are developing AI companions and emotional-support toys. The global emotional-AI market is projected to grow substantially over the coming decade.

Source: 36kr.com, September 9, 2026
https://www.36kr.com/p/3976937208158087

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Huawei Sees AI as a Major Opportunity and Seeks to Become the “Nvidia” of ICT and Computing Infrastructure

Huawei Supervisory Board Chairman Guo Ping said Huawei views AI as one of its biggest opportunities and aims to become the “Nvidia” of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and computing infrastructure. He said Huawei’s goal is not necessarily to develop its own large language models (LLMs), but to help customers build competitive models and enable them to run efficiently on Huawei’s Ascend and Kunpeng processors, supernodes, and computing clusters.

Guo said Huawei’s core strategy is to “focus” on connectivity and computing, with no plans to expand into additional businesses. He identified computing power, data, and talent as the three foundations of AI competition. Compared with the United States, he said, China is relatively disadvantaged in computing power but has advantages in data applications and industrial use cases, while talent levels are broadly comparable.

Semiconductors remain an area where Huawei seeks to overcome technological constraints through closer integration of chip design and manufacturing. Referring to HiSilicon Chairwoman He Tingbo’s “Tao’s Law,” Guo said Huawei aims to replace “geometric scaling” with “time scaling” by integrating processes and manufacturing more closely. For the Ascend 950 series, Huawei plans to narrow the gap with competitors through architectural innovation and system-level advantages, including supernodes and computing clusters, rather than simply increasing specifications.

Guo also described AI as potentially the “last technological revolution” and said Huawei must align its organization, capabilities, processes, and talent to compete in the AI era.

Source: China Business Network, September 15, 2026
https://www.yicai.com/news/103365660.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources Information/Technology

South Korea Strengthens Anti-Industrial Espionage Measures Amid Technology Theft Concerns, Particularly from China

South Korea enacted a new law on September 13 that significantly strengthens penalties for stealing sensitive technologies from major technology companies. Under the new rules, prosecutors can pursue individuals who obtain “national secrets” on behalf of any foreign country, rather than only for an “enemy state,” as under the previous law. Violations involving undisclosed information whose disclosure could threaten national security—including economic, scientific, and technological information—can carry prison sentences of up to 30 years. Industrial-espionage experts in Seoul describe the change as a shift toward treating technology theft as a matter of national economic security rather than merely corporate theft.

French media Les Echos reported, citing Seoul prosecutors, that an engineer identified as “J” copied by hand approximately 600 steps of Samsung Electronics’ memory-chip manufacturing process over four days in 2016 before joining China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT). He reportedly avoided using email, screenshots, or USB drives to prevent leaving a digital trail. South Korean prosecutors last December indicted 10 former Samsung employees, including J, over the suspected transfer of Samsung’s memory-chip manufacturing technology to CXMT.

South Korea’s semiconductor industry is particularly vulnerable to technology theft. Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and thousands of related companies make the country a global leader in memory chips, which accounted for more than 40 percent of South Korea’s exports in the first half of 2026. Police detected a record 33 technology-leakage cases in 2025, more than half involving China.

The report also notes that Taiwan has tightened laws and enforcement against industrial technology theft. Japan has strengthened foreign-investment screening and export controls involving strategic technologies, while also restructuring its intelligence infrastructure and considering the introduction of its first comprehensive anti-espionage law around 2027.

Source: Radio France International, September 14, 2026
https://www.rfi.fr/cn/中国/20260914-回声报-遭中国-窃取-科技机密，韩国强化其-反工业间谍-武器库

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources Geo-Strategic Trend