SCMP China·Saturday, January 3, 2026

SCMP China - Saturday, January 3, 2026

10 stories~15 min

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Stories Covered

Trump says US will ‘run Venezuela’, keep oil flowing to China after Maduro capture

US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States would maintain direct control of Venezuela to prevent “somebody else” taking it over after a military operation that captured President Nicolas Maduro, pledging to keep oil flowing to China even as Washington signalled it would manage the transition itself. Trump’s remarks came hours after overnight air and ground strikes hit Venezuela, with explosions reported in Caracas and other states, prompting local authorities to declare a.

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What if China’s KJ-600 aircraft could serve older carriers as well as Fujian?

China’s first fixed-wing carrier-based early-warning aircraft may have sacrificed aerial refuelling to be able to operate from both ski-jump and catapult-equipped vessels, according to a Chinese military magazine. The KJ-600 airborne early warning and control aircraft was designed for catapult-launched operations and made its debut at the Victory Day parade in early September, flying over Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Later that month, video was released of its take-off and landing via...

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Travellers hoof it in China as horseback tourism makes strides

Hong Kong-based entrepreneur Chan Shan Shan is a frequent traveller to mainland China. But rather than the usual activities or sightseeing spots that fill the days of most tourists, Chan has something else on her itinerary: horse riding. Over the past five years, Chan, 29, has left Hong Kong to canter across varied terrains in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Zhuhai, all in neighbouring Guangdong province. She has mounted up in Yunnan province and western China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, as well.

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AI scientist Ling Haibin, father of world’s first plant ID app, leaves US for China

AI scientist Ling Haibin, the acclaimed computer scientist behind the world’s first mobile plant identification app, has left his position in the United States to take up a full-time role at Westlake University in Hangzhou, eastern China. One of Ling’s PhD research projects, which involved using computers to recognise leaves of different shapes, led to the creation of the identification app LeafSnap. The app teaches users about plant diversity, how to care for houseplants, diagnose disease and..

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China’s Communist Party paper warns of Japanese militarism seeping into culture and sports

Japanese militarism is infiltrating culture and sports, a key Communist Party publication has warned, spotlighting table tennis star Tomokazu Harimoto and others in a pointed commentary. According to the article in the Study Times, run by the cadre-training Central Party School, Japanese far-right forces are using cultural and sporting activities to “influence public perception and beautify the history of aggression”. These activities included football player Kaoru Mitoma being photographed with

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China doubles down on anti-corruption fight as crackdown snares 65 ‘tigers’ in 2025

China’s ruling Communist Party has vowed to press ahead with President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign after a record 65 high-ranking officials were detained by the country’s top anti-graft agency last year. In a front-page editorial on Saturday, the People’s Daily stressed that self-reform and anti-corruption efforts were key to ensuring the longevity of the party’s rule over China. “A new year, a new journey begins,” the party mouthpiece said, urging intensified discipline in the coming.

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China ‘deeply shocked’ as US attacks Venezuela, captures Nicolas Maduro

US military strikes hit Venezuela’s capital before dawn on Saturday, shaking Caracas as US President Donald Trump reported that Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife were captured and taken out of the country by US forces. The attack followed months of US sabre rattling and Chinese warnings over growing US military and economic pressure on its oil-producing ally. It also came hours after Maduro met China’s special representative on Latin American affairs, Qiu Xiaoqi, in Caracas. “This...

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China conflict won’t benefit South Korea, Lee Jae-myung says ahead of state visit

Ahead of his state visit to China, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said that while security cooperation with the US was an “unavoidable reality” for Seoul, its relations with Beijing should not move towards confrontation. In an interview with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Friday, Lee called for more frequent leader-level dialogues – at least annually – to explore mutually beneficial opportunities amid an increasingly complex global environment. His four-day trip to China, set to begin..

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China to lead joint naval drills with Brics nations in South African waters

China will lead a joint naval exercise with Brics nations in South African waters next week – the bloc’s first such defence cooperation that is likely to raise alarm bells in Washington. The South African National Defence Force on Wednesday said the exercise – dubbed Will for Peace 2026 – would bring together “navies from Brics Plus countries for an intensive programme of joint maritime safety operations, interoperability drills and maritime protection serials” from January 9 to 16. It said...

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Tech war: China takes confident strides to develop more AI innovation in 2026

On the last day of 2025, DeepSeek published a new technical paper, with founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng among the 19 co-authors, about “manifold-constrained hyper-connections” – a general framework for training artificial intelligence systems at scale, which suggested “promising directions for the evolution of foundational models”. That release was a fitting reminder to the world, especially during the peak of the Christmas holiday season, about Chinese AI companies’ sharpened focus on innovation.

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