US charges Chinese hackers, government officials in broad cyberespionage campaign
Over the past two decades, Chinese state security's demand for overseas intelligence has soared, giving rise to a vast network of these private hackers-for-hire companies that have infiltrated hundreds of systems outside China.
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Los Angeles Times
3 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
India's Modi meets China's top diplomat as Asian powers rebuild ties
NEW DELHI — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met China's top diplomat on Tuesday and hailed the 'steady progress' made in improving the bilateral relationship after a yearslong standoff between the nuclear-armed Asian powers. Modi also noted 'respect for each other's interests and sensitiveness' in a statement on social media after meeting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. China's foreign ministry said the countries have entered a 'steady development track' and the countries should 'trust and support' each other. Wang arrived in India on Monday and has met with Foreign Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar as well as National Security Adviser Ajit Doval about the countries' disputed border in the Himalayan mountains. India's foreign ministry said Wang's meeting with Doval discussed 'deescalation, delimitation and boundary affairs.' Relations plummeted in 2020 after security forces clashed along the border. The violence, the worst in decades, left 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers dead, freezing high-level political engagements. 'The setbacks we experienced in the past few years were not in the interest of the people of our two countries. We are heartened to see the stability that is now restored in the borders,' Wang said Monday. Modi emphasized the importance of maintaining peace and tranquility on the border and reiterated India's commitment to a 'fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question,' his office said in a statement. The rebuilding of India-China ties coincides with friction between New Delhi and Washington after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed steep tariffs on India, a longtime ally seen as a counterbalance against China's influence in Asia. India is part of the Quad security alliance with the U.S., along with Australia and Japan. The chill in relations after the deadly clash in 2020 between troops in the Ladakh region affected trade, diplomacy and air travel, as both sides deployed tens of thousands of security forces in border areas. Some progress has been made since then. Last year, India and China agreed to a pact on border patrols and withdrew additional forces along some border areas. Both countries continue to fortify their border by building roads and rail networks. In recent months, the countries have increased official visits and discussed easing some trade restrictions, movement of citizens and visas for businesspeople. In June, Beijing allowed pilgrims from India to visit holy sites in Tibet. Both sides are working to restore direct flights. Last week, the spokesman for India's foreign ministry, Randhir Jaiswal, said India and China were in discussions to restart trade through three points along their 2,167-mile border. 'Settling the boundary issue between the two countries requires political compromise at the highest political level,' said Manoj Joshi, a fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank. He also served as a member of the advisory board for India's National Security Council. The thaw between Beijing and New Delhi began last October when Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at a summit of emerging economies in Russia. It was the first time the leaders had spoken in person since 2019. Modi is set to meet Xi when he travels to China late this month — his first visit in seven years — to attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional grouping formed by China, Russia and others to counter U.S. influence in Asia. Earlier this year, Xi called for India and China's relations to take the form of a 'dragon-elephant tango' — a dance between the emblematic animals of the countries. Last month, India's external affairs minister visited Beijing in his first trip to China since 2020. The renewed engagement comes as New Delhi's ties with Trump are fraying. Washington has imposed a 50% tariff on Indian goods, which includes a penalty of 25% for purchasing Russian crude oil. The tariffs take effect Aug. 27. India has shown no sign of backing down, instead signing more agreements with Russia to deepen economic cooperation. Trump's renewed engagement with India's arch rival, Pakistan, has also encouraged New Delhi's overtures to China, said Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda, who led the Indian military's Northern Command from 2014 to 2016. In June, Trump hosted Pakistan's army chief for a White House lunch and later announced an energy deal with Islamabad to jointly develop the country's oil reserves. Both followed Trump's claims of brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan after the two sides traded military strikes in May. That clash saw Pakistan use Chinese-made military jets and missiles against India. 'China is heavily invested in Pakistan and, practically speaking, you can't have any expectation that Beijing will hold back support to Islamabad,' Hooda said. 'But you can't have two hostile neighbors on your borders and simultaneously deal with them also.' Saaliq and Roy write for the Associated Press. AP writer Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India, and video producer Liu Zheng in Beijing contributed to this report.
NBC News
5 minutes ago
- NBC News
In another AI push, China holds the world's first sports event for humanoid robots
BEIJING — They aren't the most graceful athletes, or the fastest. But they're learning. From Friday to Sunday, human handlers from 16 countries put about 500 bipedal robots through various motions to showcase the promise and limits of embodied artificial intelligence at what was billed as the first-ever World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. The robotic participants came in all shapes, sizes and structures and competed in 26 different sports events ranging from running to kickboxing to soccer. The unusual state-backed sports tournament at the National Speed Skating Oval, a Beijing Olympic venue, came as the United States and China race against each other to shape the future of AI. There were no speed records being set, and many of the athletes were prone to fizzling and face plants. Some robots broke down unexpectedly while competing, while others didn't complete their tasks as planned. One viral video showed a running robot veering off course and accidentally knocking over a person on the track. But for the robots' developers, the games were less about winning or losing and more about testing their agility, endurance and battery life, all of which have made great advances in recent years. Some humanoids were also competing in more practical job skills, such as sorting medicine and hotel concierge duties. A team from StarBot, a California-based tech company that specializes in developing robots skilled in customer service, said they were 'really excited' to be part of the games. 'We thought it was a really good opportunity to come to China and be in an environment where everything is so modern and up to date,' company representative Gregorio Velasco told NBC News. StarBot's machines, developed based on the Chinese-made Unitree model, competed in service-related races as they excel at restaurant scenarios such as taking orders and delivering food to tables, he said. Going forward, Velasco said, 'we hope to be in people's homes and restaurants, hotels, and I think in the future, many people will have robots involved in their life.' The venue was packed with spectators who laughed, clapped and rooted for the robot athletes as the games kicked off Friday. During the tai chi event, a group of judges watched carefully as the robot competitors moved gracefully to the rhythm of soft music in the background, jotting down notes and scoring the performances with the seriousness of an Olympic panel. 'For robots, a single movement needs to be repeated many times before they can perform it with stability,' martial arts judge Zhang Jidong told Chinese state newspaper The Beijing News. 'Considering the very short preparation time, the robots' upper-body movements were impressively smooth.' The games did not just showcase how far robotics have come and how humanoids might one day be integrated into daily life. They also revealed how heavily China's government has been backing the development of these technologies, to close the artificial intelligence gap with the United States. In July, China announced its global action plan for AI just days after the Trump administration released the U.S. version, which experts note is 'no coincidence' as the two countries race to win others over to their respective visions for AI governance. Both countries consider AI a national security issue, and the U.S. has sought to restrict China's access to the advanced semiconductor chips needed to train AI models. While the U.S. backs market-driven AI in alignment with liberal norms, China promises to help developing countries with AI as a means to promote state control, according to the Atlantic Council, a think tank based in Washington. Videos of robots dancing, punching and performing have been all over Chinese social media and state TV as Beijing has deepened its AI investment and promotion. In April, the Chinese government organized a half-marathon in Beijing where robots and human runners raced against each other. For years, Beijing has been funneling tens of billions of dollars into AI research and state subsidies, just as it did with the electric vehicle industry, drawing accusations of unfair competition from Western critics. While American robot developers such as Boston Dynamics still dominate high-end research and innovation, Chinese companies, spurred by government policy, are focused on mass-producing affordable robots, according to Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank based in Washington. Research published by Morgan Stanley predicts that by 2050, China will have 302.3 million humanoid robots in use, well ahead of the U.S. projection of just 77.7 million. Although the production disparity between the two countries may grow larger, experts said the U.S. will maintain its advantage in total compute capacity, a metric more likely to be the key in deploying and integrating AI systems at scale. Wang Xiaoyin, a representative from China-based robot developer NexAurora, said robots today still lack a 'robust AI brain.' The 'real AI age,' he said, will begin only when robots like the ones competing in Beijing can think and behave independently after training. While the robots' performance over the weekend showed that day is still a long way off, the games were part of China's larger goal: getting ahead in the global race for AI domination, one clunky step at a time.
Business Insider
5 minutes ago
- Business Insider
A shipbuilding behemoth is rising in China. By scale, nothing else comes close.
A Chinese state-owned shipbuilding group was already the world's biggest. Now it's finishing up a merger with its main domestic rival, resulting in an absolute juggernaut of an industry force. China has been quantitatively dominating the global shipbuilding game, leaving the US and its allies playing catch-up. The merger only tightens Beijing's grip on the industry, handing China a critical advantage in generating commercial and naval power. Last week, trading in the shares of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) and China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) was suspended as CSSC moves to absorb CSIC, which is ultimately being delisted. CSSC previously received approval from the Shanghai Stock Exchange to absorb its competitor in a substantial share-swap deal. It marked the latest step in a merger that's been in the works since 2019, a move that will create a new streamlined shipbuilding behemoth. Though the companies merged years ago, industrial overlap continues to be an issue, as is unresolved internal industry competition. The mega merger cuts duplicated costs and redundant functions for more efficient, more coordinated operations. Post merger, Chinese media reports, CSSC will control some $56 billion in assets while generating $18 billion in annual revenue. Some estimates are higher. CSSC is China's — and the world's — largest shipbuilding group. It built more commercial vessels by tonnage in 2024 than the entire US shipbuilding industry has built since the end of the World War II, according to a report on Chinese shipbuilding earlier this year from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. And CSIC was the country's second-largest. Both are state-owned, meaning their operations and developments are overseen by the government, and they were originally part of the same firm until split in 1999 under Chinese Communist Party reforms. The reunion between the two is expected to result in a bigger, more powerful CSSC. It signals China's push for a more consolidated approach to its commercial and military shipbuilding. "When it's all said and done, CSSC will be the largest listed shipbuilding company in the world by a considerable margin, in terms of both assets and revenue," Matthew Funaiole, a CSIS senior fellow with the China Power Project, told Business Insider. "And maybe more importantly, it will have the full backing of the Chinese state and its industrial policy might." That kind of state backing means global rivals face not just a company, but an arm of Beijing's industrial strategy. A massive shipbuilding empire CSSC alone is a commercial shipbuilding giant, boasting expansive shipyards, factories, and research institutes controlled by political and military leaders in Beijing. It includes 84 subsidiaries and employs over 200,000 people across shipbuilding, engineering, research and development, and other areas, CSIS said earlier this year. Comparatively, the entire US shipbuilding industry directly employs just over 100,000 people, per available data. When the companies first began the merger process, CSSC and CSIC oversaw, by some estimates, $120 billion in combined assets — almost four times as much as South Korean rival Hyundai Heavy Industries. The companies shared resources, including financing, technologies, and personnel. The merger itself is part of China's long-standing push to consolidate its shipbuilding, as the "central government is trying to reduce horizontal competition between companies within its domestic market in order to be better positioned to extend its dominance over global markets," Funaiole said. And while the number of active Chinese shipyards has decreased since peaking in 2009 at just over 300 — as of 2024, it was around 150 spread across a handful of major production sites — the total production has continued to increase, substantially so in 2023 and 2024. China produced over 50% of global commercial shipbuilding in 2024, well beyond Japan and South Korea. And at its major shipbuilding hubs, especially in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Dalian, commercial vessels are pumped out at rapid rates. Similarly, CSSC and CSIC have thrived on foreign ship orders. Data reviewed by CSIS has shown that foreign firms have purchased hundreds of hulls from China's biggest yards, resulting in billions in revenue. Many of these yards are co-production for military shipbuilding, too. CSSC in particular has been a successful case of what Beijing has called its "military-civil fusion" strategy, which removes the barriers between its commercial and defense sectors, allowing one to fuel the other. China's dual-use approach has allowed its shipbuilding industry to quickly produce naval vessels using the same equipment and personnel it uses for commercial ones, which has resulted in a naval force buildup that has received increased attention from the US and its allies and partners. The Chinese People's Liberation Army's Navy is the largest in the world, the Pentagon has noted repeatedly in its more recent annual reports on China's military. China's navy maintains a battle force of over 370 ships and submarines. And because China can produce a wide range of ships, engines, weapons, and systems, it is "nearly self-sufficient for all shipbuilding needs," the most recent report said. Self-sufficiency is an essential capability in a serious conflict, when supply lines could face unexpected pressures. Challenges for the US and its allies and partners The finalization of this merger adds to long-standing concerns in the West about China's shipbuilding dominance and raises questions about what the US and its allies, specifically South Korea and Japan, can and will do to bolster their own industries. US President Donald Trump has made revitalizing American shipbuilding a top priority, and there's growing talk about having the US military and defense contractors work more closely with South Korean and Japanese companies. Rhetoric, however, has been somewhat out of sync with action. By combining CSSC and CSIC, China appears to be notably strengthening its domestic industry for continued dominance of global shipbuilding. In January 2025, China held around 62% of the global order book for merchant vessels through 2033, CSIS reports, with over 80% of orders for new container ships and 30% for LNG, or liquefied natural gas, carriers vital for global trade. The new CSSC will now have even more resources across its yards for building military vessels. The consolidation between CSSC and CSIC lends to further expansion of China's shipbuilding capabilities and capacity, especially as Beijing will have more centralized control that will make it easier to transfer technologies, personnel, and assets for building ships across divisions, Funaiole said. For Washington and its allies, the merger underscores how far ahead Beijing already is — and the difficulties in catching up.
