China offers parents $500 a year in bid to boost births
The scheme, which was announced on Monday, will offer parents a total of up to 10,800 yuan per child.The policy will be applied retroactively from the start of this year, Beijing's state broadcaster CCTV said.Families with children born between 2022 and 2024 can also apply for partial subsidies.The move follows efforts by local governments to boost birth rates in the country of 1.4 billion people.In March, Hohhot - a city in the northern region of China - started offering residents up to 100,000 yuan per baby for couples with at least three children.Raising a child to the age of 17 in China costs an average of $75,700, according to a study by China-based YuWa Population Research Institute.The country is among the world's most expensive places to have children, in relative terms, the study found.In January, official figures showed that China's population fell for a third year in a row in 2024.The country's shrinking population is also ageing fast, adding to Beijing's demographic concerns.
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Telegraph
4 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Xi Jinping can't afford for Russia to make peace in Ukraine
Of particular importance is China's role as an enabler of Russia's drone warfare campaign, a combat tactic that has been the hallmark of the war in Ukraine. Russia is believed to import millions of dollars worth of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from China each year, in addition to producing UAVs jointly with Chinese firms inside Russia. Intelligence assessments suggest that Russia established a secret UAV factory in China through IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey, where engineers developed and flight-tested a new model of a long-range combat drone called Garpiya-3 (G3). Helping to fuel the Russian wartime economy, China (along with India) has been a top importer of Russian oil, having accounted for 47 per cent of Russia's crude oil exports in June 2025. Much of Russia's oil exports are transported by a shadow fleet of unmarked tankers in order to bypass the sanctions regime. Last week, Beijing rebuffed US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's threat of a 100 per cent tariff if it continues this practice. Further aligning itself with Moscow against the US, China has set out to increase gas imports from Russia, while cutting liquefied natural gas purchases from the US. Why is China so invested in assisting Russia's fight against Ukraine? Beijing's rationale can be illustrated by the following Chinese allegory. 'As two tigers are fighting ferociously in the valley, a sage monkey is sitting on top of the mountain, looking down and waiting to see how it will end.' Beijing sees itself as the wise monkey, waiting patiently as Moscow and Washington erode their respective combat arsenals. Indeed, although China and Russia publicly portray themselves as allies, having declared a 'no limits partnership' in 2022, they are in fact strategic opponents, linked in an opportunistic relationship aimed at achieving the common goal of limiting US and Western geopolitical dominance. China and Russia have had multiple border clashes during their turbulent history and to this day maintain a territorial dispute in Russia's Far East. Demographically declining, Russia views decades-long migration of Chinese citizens into its Far East region as a grave threat. Putin warned as far back as 2000 that if Russia did not undertake the 'real effort' to develop its Far East in the short term, then 'a few decades from now its Russian population will mostly be speaking Japanese, Chinese, and Korean'. China is incentivised to prolong the conflict in Ukraine by its desire to reduce the US weapons stockpile, which has already been depleted to dangerous levels as a result of US assistance to Ukraine and to Israel. China sees the erosion of American combat readiness as crucial in preventing the US from intervening in China's future invasion of Taiwan, which some US military commanders assess as probable around 2027. For Beijing, fulfilling its 'One China' grand plan by 2049 by securing control over Taiwan is likely to take priority over maintaining a transactional relationship and avoiding a trade war with Washington. Thus far, Russia has largely brushed off President Trump's various manoeuvres. Beijing, meanwhile, has been conducting joint Chinese-Russian naval exercises in the Sea of Japan. The signal from Moscow and Beijing to Washington is clear – peace in Ukraine is counter to both of their agendas.
Daily Mail
34 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
China is being urged to explain 'secret basement' under its London 'mega-embassy'
has ordered China to explain why it has redacted blueprints for its 'mega-embassy' set to be built in London, amid fears the building's basement rooms could be converted into 'spy dungeons'. As Housing Secretary, Rayner has given Beijing two weeks to either provide unredacted plans, according to the FT. If China does not do this, the deputy prime minister has ordered it to 'identify precisely and comprehensively' the withheld parts and explain why the floorplan for the basement and other areas of the Royal Mint Court development have been 'greyed out'. According to Rayner's letter to the Chinese embassy, she highlighted that two suites of anonymous rooms and a tunnel were redacted 'for security reasons'. Other buildings on the plans were also partly greyed out, including the Cultural Exchange Building and Embassy House. It also highlights a Home Office request for a 'hard perimeter' around the embassy that may represent a 'material amendment to the application that would require further consultation'. The letter asked for further information in order for the Housing Secretary to make a 'lawful determination' on whether to allow the site to go up, adding that 'no view has been formed yet.' The new embassy, if built, would sit opposite the Tower of London in the former Royal Mint and would be China's largest in Europe. Critics fear the site will become the centre of increased espionage operations and may be used to harass Chinese dissidents. The US has already expressed 'deep concern' over the project, as it sits close to the City of London, home to some of the world's largest financial institutions. MPs in the Netherlands have also raised similar concerns. The site was sold to China by the UK government in 2018 for £255million. A full decision on whether the embassy will be allowed to be built will be made by September. It comes after diplomatic sources warned the Mail on Sunday that the new embassy will have on-site accommodation for more than 200 intelligence officers. A source said: 'There will effectively be a student-style campus for spies in the heart of the City. 'And those spy dungeons are so deep that the sensitive cables are virtually at head height.' The MoS can also reveal that the embassy plans exempt a 'cultural exchange' section from 'inspection and verification' by UK authorities. A US security source said 'cultural interests/exchange' is a 'euphemism for intelligence and security services', adding: 'It's where they often stuff their security and intelligence staff, among other diplomats. 'And if it's a "cultural" centre/space, why do they always declare it off limits in planning documents?' Ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said: 'Everywhere there is a mega embassy... Chinese state-sponsored, trans-national repression of those who have fled the Chinese state or who criticise it grows dramatically. 'It's simple: a bigger embassy has more spies and more repression.' Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Kevin Hollinrake said Labour had been 'caught red-handed trying to ram through this sinister embassy' in a 'desperate attempt to woo the Chinese Communist Party to bail out their failing economic policies'. He added: 'It is shocking Labour want to sign a legal document that will ban British officials checking what is being built in the embassy building. This is yet another surrender document from a Labour Government that puts foreign interests over British interests.' 'The so-called cultural exchange will clearly be used by Chinese spies and communist bullies to further their political ends.'
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
There are questions Beijing must answer about its Embassy plans
The saga of the new Chinese Embassy in London has reached its climax. Having bought the Royal Mint, a huge and historic site of more than five acres opposite the Tower of London, for £255m in 2018, Beijing is now developing it. Much of this building would be used for normal cultural and diplomatic purposes. But the plans include a vast basement with no obvious function. More concerningly, details of these plans have been redacted in Beijing's application. There are justifiable fears that the basement could become a high-tech centre for espionage, surveillance and monitoring of Chinese nationals. The basement might even include facilities where pro-democracy activists from Hong Kong could be interrogated. Lawyers for the Chinese are already exploring legal loopholes to extradite its opponents and rewards are offered to those who turn them in. The decision on granting planning permission now rests with the Housing Secretary. Angela Rayner is, of course, also the Deputy Prime Minister. As such she will be more concerned about global than local issues. Britain's economic dependence on China means that it seems most unlikely that Ms Rayner will refuse planning permission, apart from minor modifications. But it is welcome that she has at least asked for an explanation as to why the plans have been redacted. This is, however, an issue that transcends normal diplomatic relations. We cannot allow the largest embassy in Europe to be erected in such a strategic location in London without proper parliamentary and press scrutiny. Ms Rayner must elicit more information from the Chinese about what would go on inside their proposed basement. Until the Beijing authorities are more forthcoming about their intentions, the public is entitled to presume that they are sinister.
