German Chancellor Merz visits Chinese robotics firm Unitree - CGTN
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited the Chinese robotics firm Unitree Robotics in east China's Zhejiang Province on Thursday. Accompanied by Wang Xingxing, founder and CEO of Unitree Robotics, Merz examined the company's robot components and watched demonstrations, including robot martial arts and boxing performances.
Feb 21, 2026 Study in China Podcast
What is it like being Black in China? In this episode of the China Essentials Podcast, we share real experiences of being Black international students in China — from curiosity and cultural differences to stereotypes, language, and the warmth we’ve encountered from Chinese people.
Guest: Naomi, Kenyan student in China
China’s shop rents have slid back to 2018 levels as subdued consumer spending continues to weigh on the retail sector, with analysts expecting the pressure to persist for another one to two years.
In the second half of 2025, average rents across 100 major commercial streets in 15 key mainland cities fell to 24 yuan (US$3.50) per square metre per day — the lowest level since the second half of 2018 — according to a report published on Monday by independent real estate research firm China Index Academy.
The pace of decline accelerated compared with the first half of the year, with rents slipping 0.8 per cent for 2025 overall, a steeper fall than in 2024.
Universities in China are shifting focus from traditional language degrees to country-specific and regional studies – a move analysts say reflects a broader strategy to craft a uniquely Chinese framework for understanding the world, independent of Western paradigms.
The field of regional or area studies examines the politics, economics, culture, military affairs, geography, linguistics and other dimensions of countries and regions worldwide. Ministry of Education data shows that the interdisciplinary field has rapidly grown in popularity as an academic programme.
At least 450 regional studies centres across more than 180 institutions have been set up nationwide since the ministry launched a “cultivation base” project in 2011, with about 20,000 faculty members deployed in the field.
ui Thomas is, by any measure, a remarkable woman.
Now 33, she is believed to be the world’s fourth-oldest survivor of Harlequin ichthyosis. This extremely rare genetic disorder causes the body to be covered with thick plates of skin – a condition so severe that when Mui was born in Hong Kong in 1992, it was considered universally fatal.
She has survived medical emergencies that would have killed lesser fighters. Despite her ongoing health struggles, she has become a rugby coach, a certified yoga instructor, an ambassador for the yoga-themed charity Yama Foundation, a public speaker, and an advocate for those with visible differences – roles that earned her two Spirit of Hong Kong awards in 2016.
Zichen in FT: Let Chinese mainland tourists return to Taiwan
Restoring cross-strait travel is the most immediate way to lower the temperature — and Washington can help
Zichen Wang The writer is deputy secretary-general at the Center for China and Globalization, a non-governmental think-tank.
The Taiwan Strait is widely seen as one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the world. Discussions increasingly focus on military drills, arms sales and “greyzone” activities. What is striking is the absence of practical steps to lower tensions.
There is at least one area in which both sides have expressed support for de-escalation: tourism, particularly the return of mainland visitors to Taiwan. It will not resolve the deeper political disputes across the strait, but it is one of the few steps that is immediately actionable, visibly stabilising and operationally feasible.
Li Xunlei: a data-driven analysis of China’s economy challenges conventional wisdom
Despite significant contributions from exports to China’s GDP, its share of global exports has been on a downward path since 2021. The trade surplus of over USD 1.19 trillion in 2025 is largely due to a falling export price index, combined with a stagnant PPI over the past 15 years—pointing to long-standing overcapacity that has persisted for more than a decade.
The idea that a rising stock market boosts consumption is flawed. A significant portion of Chinese stock market activity is driven by speculative trading in small-cap stocks, while large-cap A-share companies, dominated by traditional industries and state-owned enterprises, contribute little to trading value. This suggests that, despite economic upgrading, China still lacks large, high-growth, high-tech firms capable of driving significant market returns and broader consumption.
Real estate trends should be assessed using valuation metrics such as the rent-to-price ratio, as well as population mobility data. New-home sales volume is unreliable for predicting market bottoms. Changes in China’s share of global luxury consumption and fluctuations in the Chinese art price index may also serve as leading indicators, with changes in the Moutai price index acting as a coincident indicator.
How do people preserve history in China, secretly, sometimes with the help of a miracle
My grandpa passed away more than 4 years ago.
He was not a famous person, but he was remembered by friends and relatives for many intellectual legends.
Born in rural Zhejiang in the 1930s, he was soon found to be a child prodigy. One of his uncles sponsored his education in the county high school. Yet, unfortunately, he had to terminate his studies because his school was bombed in the war.
Not a quitter, going back to the same rural town that our ancestors had lived in for over a thousand years, he taught himself the whole curriculum and became a teacher. What’s more amazing is that he taught math, Chinese literature, and Chinese history to students from grade 1 all the way to high school seniors.
…. One thing I do know about him is that he dedicated his twilight years to revising a book of genealogy of our clan. I knew from my parents that it was a huge endeavor. But it was only until the last few days, during the Spring Festival holiday, when I finally opened its pages that I had an understanding of its magnitude.
The book, as revised by a committee headed by my grandpa, spanned 38 generations all the way to the year 779, in the middle of the Tang Dynasty. This revision, the 15th revision in history, was nothing short of a miracle.
Northwestern University urged to apologize for “unjust treatment” of Jane Ying Wu
More than 1,000 U.S.-based academics have signed a letter pressing Northwestern University to publicly acknowledge and apologize for its unjust treatment of the late Professor Jane Ying Wu.
According to recent reports, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began an administrative investigation of Dr. Wu in 2019. Based on these reports, Dr. Wu was not charged following the NIH investigation. Despite this, Northwestern University allegedly conducted a number of concerning actions against Dr. Wu during and after this investigation, despite her ultimately never being accused of any wrongdoing. These efforts include “limiting her work, partly closing her lab space, breaking up her research team and reassigning her grants to white, male faculty colleagues and isolating her.
Even more concerning is that Northwestern University allegedly continued to punish Dr. Wu even after the close of the NIH investigation in 2023. After the conclusion of the NIH investigation in December 2023, it was reported that “[her] grants were not returned to her” and her lab was “shut down by May 2024, preventing her from applying for new NIH funding”. Moreover, Northwestern University allegedly “cut her salary and raised new requirements she had to meet to restore her funded status”. Even more concerning are the report allegations that “university and Chicago police removed [Dr.] Wu from her office in handcuffs” and then “admitted against her will to the psychiatric unit of Northwestern Memorial Hospital” “without notifying loved ones or consulting outside doctors”. Weeks after her release, Dr. Wu took her own life.
China Taxicab Chronicles 8: Mr. Huang Likes Dogs
I’m fresh back from a short trip to the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southwestern China over the spring festival holiday. My travel was cut shorter than I’d hoped by illness and the general unpleasantness of traveling in China during the national holidays. But I did get a few interesting taxi conversations. Here’s one.
Attribution Error: A Case Study in How China Narratives Are Built on Sand
Examining the thin evidence behind claims of a state-led propaganda campaign against Tesla.
The article points to a brief China.com post about a Tesla Model Y that allegedly lost power on a highway despite showing roughly 72 km of remaining range. The Electrek argument is not really about the malfunction itself; it’s about what the author presents as a political signal—“state-controlled media” choosing to amplify a Tesla failure story, supposedly suggesting shifting government sentiment toward Tesla.
The key claim—the one doing almost all of the work—is Electrek’s assertion that the Chinese report was published by China.com, “which operates under China’s State Council Information Office.”
That attribution is incorrect. And once it falls apart, the “tea-leaf reading” needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
China.com is not China.com.cn. The latter outlet, also known in English as China.org.cn, describes itself as being led by the State Council Information Office. China.com is a different domain and entity with no publicly known affiliation to the Chinese government’s press office.
This weekly newsletter is put together by DeLisle Worrell, President of the ABCF. Visit us at Association for Barbados China Friendship | (abcf-bb.com).
Thanks to everyone who sent contributions for this week’s Update. Please send items of interest to me via the contact page at ABCF-BB.com or to info@DeLisleWorrell.com
The ABCF mission is to build a deeper understanding between the Chinese people and Barbadians and Caribbean people from all walks of life. The association’s focus is on personal experiences, people-to-people contact, cultural exchanges and exchanges of ideas, and the facilitation of travel, business and study. From the outset we aim to learn from and build on the experiences of the Caribbean and China, and to develop mutual understandings and support that will be to the benefit of both sides.
