🎧This week, Noah Berman joins @rachelcheung.bsky.social to discuss his scoop on one reason why the U.S. government gave Nvidia permission to sell its H200 chips to China: a report outlining the alleged threat to Nvidia's business from Huawei. Listen: pod.link/1873741567

🗞️ Free to read this week: Rapid adoption of artificial intelligence could deal another blow to China’s weak jobs market. The CCP is determined to lessen the impact, but at what cost to its larger ambitions to lead the AI revolution? Rachel Cheung reports:

Beijing has rapidly expanded its stockpile of nuclear weapons in recent years, while resisting making commitments to transparency. Savannah Billman analyzes the growth of China's nuclear stockpile:

Free to read this week: Why Washington needs a robotics strategy. "Beijing’s edge lies in how deliberately it has pushed robots into real-world use, turning deployment itself into a source of advantage," write Sunny Cheung and Nathanael Cheng.

Before Nvidia won approval to sell more chips to China, it told the U.S. government that Huawei could have enough chips to satisfy global demand. Noah Berman reports:

Read our Q&A with Katrina Manson on about how the rise of China’s military has shaped the U.S. effort to put AI at the heart of its fighting capability: buff.ly/13WXBnr

Get The Wire China in your inbox, not just your feed. Subscribe to our free newsletter for our daily magazine, subscriber-only deals, and more: buff.ly/7fZMMmw

Briefly famous in the U.S. for absorbing "TikTok refugees" last year, Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu is pursuing an IPO. Is now the right time? Peiyue Wu breaks down the geopolitical headwinds facing Xiaohongshu:

🎧️ Beijing wants to win the battle for advanced technologies. Much of its efforts will depend on one organization: The Chinese Academy of Sciences. Meet the institution behind China's leading science and technology companies on our podcast: pod.link/1873741567

This week’s cover story: Meet the Chinese mega-company with a big dream(e). You may know Dreame as just a vacuum manufacturer, but its founder wants to build “the first $100-trillion company in history.” Is it legit? @rachelcheung.bsky.social reports:

Amid a global chip shortage, Apple is now looking to buy from a blacklisted Chinese company. Noah Berman investigated the attraction Chinese chipmakers have for U.S. tech firms in May:

🎧Meet the organization at the heart of China's science and tech landscape. Little known outside of the country, the Chinese Academy of Sciences is both a research juggernaut and prolific investor: pod.link/1873741567

Op-Ed: Delaying action on China's China’s destabilizing economic imbalances is not an option. @grzegorzstec.bsky.social writes on the critical challenges facing the EU's economic relationship with China:

"We recognized that there would not be a huge gap, but our goal was to sustain as big a gap as we could in this space." Read our Q&A with Alan Estevez, former head of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security: buff.ly/Lp1kkY9

📊 Chart of the Week: Chinese solar firms are exporting far more to Africa as their U.S. and European markets fade. Read more: buff.ly/XIKKlbg

Op-Ed: Chinese state investment should not be dismissed as another case of inefficient resource allocation — it is moving toward a more sophisticated model. Angela Huyue Zhang writes on Chinese and U.S. visions for government investment in AI:

Like Mao Zedong’s famous revolutionary strategy of “surrounding the cities from the countryside”, Beijing hopes that Chinese AI will similarly prevail against American AI. @colvap.bsky.social reports on China's AI expansion into Southeast Asia:

This week’s big picture cover story: just how big is the Chinese Academy of Sciences? Savannah Billman takes a long look at China's top research institution — which is also the state's highest advisory body for science, and a key investor behind many leading tech companies:

Despite rules restricting Chinese auto firms from entering the U.S. market, one company is forging ahead with a partnership anyway. Noah Berman breaks down recent moves by ECARX, a London-based auto technology firm with China links, for this week’s issue of The Wire China:

In a new feature at @thewirechina.bsky.social, Savannah Billman takes a long look at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, explaining how the institution works, invests, and carries out its extensive research program.

🎧️ Jupiter Systems is an American company that makes video screen technology for the U.S. military. In 2024, the government discovered something shocking — it had been sold to a Chinese tech company years earlier. Go behind the scenes on our podcast:

Op-Ed: Among possible areas for U.S.-China coordination, open‑weight model governance stands out as both underexplored and unusually promising. Kristy Loke and Stephen Casper write for this week’s issue of The Wire China:

"Part of the problem today is everyone’s focused on the trade wars that Trump is engaging in and starting, and much less focused on the bigger underlying issue — which is what China’s doing." Read the full Q&A with @soumayakeynes.ft.com and @chadpbown.com: buff.ly/ZXrN0t1

The newly updated list of Chinese military companies operating in the U.S. had more surprises than the addition of Alibaba and BYD. For the first time, it also included the rationale for why these companies were added. Get the big picture:

This week's cover story: Until recently, the U.S. did not know that a California firm supplying its military with video screens was purchased by a Chinese company. Now, the U.S. wants it back:

Op-Ed: China’s trillion-dollar trade surplus is being recycled in new ways. Miao Yanliang addresses the changing role of markets in China's export-driven economy:

The very great @andypeaps.bsky.social sat down @soumayakeynes.ft.com and I (1) to grill us about HOW TO WIN A TRADE WAR for @thewirechina.bsky.social (2) TO ASK YOU which trade (nerd) warrior looks more menacing when drawn in pencil 🗞️ 👉 www.thewirechina.com/2026/06/14/s...

🎧AI is driving layoffs and discontent across the United States. China wants to avoid the same problems — or is it already too late? Listen on our latest episode: pod.link/1873741567

📊 Chart of the week: China's pharmaceutical industry is on a hot streak. Over $50 billion worth of deals between Chinese and multinational firms were signed in the first 2 months of 2026. buff.ly/BBkYCUo

China may be relatively insulated from the Iran war's oil shock, Rachel Cheung writes. But in sectors from bottled water and household appliances to electrical vehicles and steel, Chinese manufacturers are grappling with shipping disruptions and feeling the crunch:

"China has not exactly been silent in taking actions against the United States. In response to sanctions on its oil refineries, we’ve seen them impose new supply chain restrictions..." Read our Q&A with Liz Cannon in The Wire China: buff.ly/CykExII

This week’s cover story: Will China's AI revolution come at the cost of stable jobs for its people? @rachelcheung.bsky.social analyzes the labor challenges facing Chinese workers from AI to industrial transitions:

Op-Ed: A new, Global-South-focused, breed of Chinese multinationals is taking shape. Andrew Cainey writes on the Chinese companies turning export boom to established presence:

The PLA relies on a broad network of suppliers to get advanced technology, including U.S.-made semiconductors. Listen to our latest episode covering a new report: buff.ly/pfTe88F

🎧U.S. export controls have not stopped the Chinese military from trying to get Nvidia’s products. Listen to our latest episode on how the PLA tries to obtain advanced chips: pod.link/1873741567/e...

How did China's People's Liberation Army try to get around U.S. export controls to obtain advanced AI chips and GPUs? Get the big picture:

"I argue that 1989 in China was actually a lot like 1968 in Central and Eastern Europe: an effort to have Communist Party rule go on but with different leadership." Read our full Q&A with historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom: buff.ly/f2QbnPD

📊 Chart of the week: Who is funding quantum research? The fear surrounding China’s quantum advances is compounded by the logic-defying nature of quantum technologies. But China's supposed quantum breakthroughs deserve a second look. Free from the archives: buff.ly/nC26fEx

China excels at making good stuff for cheap. Can it do the same with AI? Peiyue Wu writes on why the world of AI may prove harder to conquer with the same trick:

Each week we bring you news and analysis on the biggest China-focused stories that you won’t find anywhere else — now for less, for a limited time only. Register for our free newsletter to get the discount: buff.ly/63YCJA9

China’s solar industry, under fire due to Washington’s suspicion of both Chinese tech and renewable energy, is on its way out of the U.S. Meet JinkoSolar: One of China's biggest solar firms, it sold its Florida-based subsidiary last month.

This week’s cover story: Is China really so unsuited to democracy? In his forthcoming book, Why China Needs Democracy, Dongxian Jiang argues that constitutional democracy is not a laughable fantasy. Read an excerpt:

Op-Ed: "Trump ignored those in the U.S. and elsewhere who still want to prioritize stopping China’s rise...His way is to accept China as it is, and to seek to make deals with it instead." David Henig writes on what Trump's trip to China reveals about a multi-polar world order:

📖 Free to read from the archives: Can AI fix China’s public healthcare system? "In China, gathering data is an arduous task....Even at municipal level, companies often have to go door-to-door to persuade medical institutions to share data that is deemed sensitive."

📖 Free to read from the archives: China’s book publishers face an existential crisis. “Everybody is embroiled in a price war,” said a former publishing exec. “If this situation does not change, there will be no books worth reading in China in five to ten years.”

Earlier this month we reported on the expulsion of a @nytimes.com journalist from Beijing, and the chain of events that has led to the smallest number of U.S. reporters on the ground in China since the 70s. Read more: www.thewirechina.com/2026/05/10/no-country-for-american-reporters/

🎧 The world is facing a global memory chip shortage, with companies scrambling to buy what they can. The crunch puts desperate U.S. firms in a bind: will they need to start purchasing chips from China? Listen now: pod.link/1873741567

"Factory labor in China now costs around $6-700 a month per employee; in Ethiopia or in Madagascar it’s $60-65 a month." Read our Q&A with Joe Studwell on whether the ‘Asian tigers’ model is one African countries can emulate: buff.ly/QT5y5gX

The Wire China’s @rachelcheung.bsky.social has been named a finalist in two categories of this year’s Society of Publishers in Asia awards: Young Journalist of the Year and Excellence in Arts and Culture Reporting 🎉 Read all of her nominated reporting for free: buff.ly/CNkaESo

Op-Ed: Germany and its Western peers must urgently understand China's advances if they are to withstand the growing pressure on their key industries. Elisa Hörhager writes on the need for a new German approach towards China: