China news roundup / Nachrichten 2026-07-10/11

16 days ago

China's second typhoon in a week makes landfall

"More than 1.7 million people were evacuated in Zhejiang and thousands more in neighbouring provinces
[...] Parts of southern China are still reeling from the devastation brought by Typhoon Maysak earlier this week.
Maysak left at least 39 people dead and killed large numbers of livestock, resulting in massive agriculture loss."

--- It seems to become another very interesting year for China's weather. But don't you worry, we will surely have another record year for harvests anyway.

cf.: Flooding from days of heavy rain in southern China has killed 39 people

Factory fire kills at least 28 in China's 'shoe capital'

"A fire at a shoe factory in the south-eastern Chinese city of Jinjiang has killed at least 28 people, according to the state news agency."

--- At least 28, but at most 29 probably, because whenever there is a mass casualty incident in China, you rarely find casualty numbers of higher than 29. If there are 30 deaths or more, the central government needs to be involved and nobody in China wants to involve the central government.

OpenAI and Anthropic warn China is using tens of thousands of fake accounts to copy their AI models

"Much of the world already seems to view China as leading the sector"

--- Much of the world is falling for Chinese propaganda, it seems.

""This narrative that all of the capabilities of these models are coming from Anthropic is not as true as people say it is," one lawyer told the Times in June."

--- And lawyers are famously experts on everything AI.
Anyway, I haven't heard this narrative. What I have heard is that the Chinese use distillation to make their own models better, to improve them, not to completely program new models.

Zelenskyy: China urged Putin not to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine

"“I think you heard such voices in Russian media: 'What if we respond to Ukrainian strikes with nuclear weapons?' And it seems to me that this was the first time China ... directly responded in an ultimatum-like form — that there can be no thought whatsoever of using nuclear weapons,” Zelenskyy said."

--- Well, I don't know whether I would trust EU leaders on that. They are notoriously naive when it comes to China and its influence on Russia and the Ukraine war.

China lands reusable rocket for first time, state media says

--- China Uncensored features the usual weekend news variety again:

Warum Chinas Exporterfolge Jobs bedrohen

"Obendrein haben chinesische Online-Händler wie Temu und Shein lange Zeit europäische Zoll-Bestimmungen unterlaufen."

--- Der Schrott von Temu und Shein hat deutschen Unternehmen wohl eher kaum Konkurrenz gemacht. Das heißt, den Industrieunternehmen. Dem deutschen Handel dürfte durch Temu et al. durchaus einiges entgangen sein.

""Die chinesische Wirtschaft läuft gut." Lege man die aktuelle IWF-Prognose zugrunde, wachse China im laufenden Jahr mit 4,4 Prozent, der Anstieg der Verbraucherpreise liege bei 1,2 Prozent. "Also mehr Stabilität und Stabilität ist gut.""

Mindestens 28 Tote bei Brand in Schuhfabrik

"In China sind bei einem Brand in einer Schuhfabrik mindestens 28 Menschen ums Leben gekommen. Die Ursache ist bislang unklar. Trotz strenger Auflagen für Betriebe kommt es in China immer wieder zu schweren Industrieunglücken."

--- Über diese Unglücke berichtet die Tagesschau aber leider so gut wie nie. Obwohl es wirklich sehr viele gibt.
Was die Opferzahl angeht, so sieht man dabei selten Zahlen über 29. Denn ab 30 Todesopfern muss die kommunistische Zentrale in Peking eingeschaltet werden. Das wollen die Lokalfürsten lieber nicht.