China

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China's growing propaganda edge

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios

America's pullback from the global information war has left an opening for the Chinese Communist Party to ramp up investments in state-backed propaganda, Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn report in a briefing for Axios Media Trends Executive members. Why it matters: For decades, China's propaganda efforts centered on spreading a positive image of the CCP. But post-COVID, the CCP has focused more on spreading disinformation strategically targeting its adversaries, mirroring the approach long championed by Russia and Iran. ?? State of play: China has been ramping up its investments in propaganda outside of the mainland for years, but has faced challenges in Europe, Africa and the Global South trying to compete with U.S.-government-backed information and influence operations. At the same time, a slew of actions by the U.S. government and private sector are leaving the field wide open for exploitation. That includes the Trump administration's gutting of several agencies, including Voice of America and USAID, that aimed to counter Chinese propaganda. ? The Trump administration's decision not to enforce a law banning TikTok in the U.S. speaks to a broader unwillingness by the West to cut off Chinese consumer tech the way U.S. tech is throttled on China's mainland. That leaves U.S consumers and companies vulnerable to data security breaches and content manipulation. Data: Gower Street, Comscore, Motion Picture Association. Chart: Axios Visuals ? Film front: In just over a decade, China has proven it can sustain its box office with domestic productions and compete with Hollywood globally. The strategy has reshaped the global movie business and could grow even more complicated as the Trump administration threatens new tariffs on foreign films. ? Ads ascending: China's digital ad industry continues to expand globally, fueled by mobile platforms that are innovating in live shopping and short-form entertainment. Ban transcends TikTok: The majority of downloads of ByteDance-owned apps in the U.S. this year go beyond the main TikTok app, according to Apptopia data. These include TikTok Lite, the popular lifestyle-focused video and picture app Lemon8, and the video editing/design app CapCut.

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? China's energy edge

Data: Ember. ("Batteries" includes power storage, EV batteries and consumer batteries.) Chart: Jacque Schrag/Axios Chinese exports of "clean tech" hit fresh records in August, mainly on the back of EVs and batteries, Axios' Ben Geman reports. Why it matters: It's the latest sign of the divide between "electro-states" and "petro-states." ? "At stake is not just the future of energy systems, but the contours of geopolitical power," two Columbia University scholars, Tatiana Mitrova and Anne-Sophie Corbeau, wrote in The National Interest.

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China Strikes Gold

The Chinese government yesterday announced that a state-run mining group has unearthed the largest gold deposit found in over seven decades. The site is estimated to yield roughly 1,444 tonnes of gold, worth about $193B at current prices. The news comes amid a recent surge in gold prices, with the cost per ounce hitting an all-time high of over $4.3K last month. The World Bank expects gold prices to rise about 42% this year, marking the strongest annual increase since the late 1970s. While gold's value has steadily climbed for several years, the current spike has been largely attributed to the increased accessibility of gold exchange-traded funds and to emerging markets seeking to diversify their holdings amid global economic uncertainty.

 

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?? China's clean power lead is growing fast

Data: McKinsey Global Institute; Chart: Axios Visuals; Note: EU-27 stands for the 27 countries that comprise the European Union Not only is China winning the clean energy race, but it's picking up the pace as most other countries slow down, Axios' Amy Harder writes from new McKinsey data. ?The energy transition is changing geopolitical alliances and power centers, and China is solidifying its lead while the U.S. backtracks. The global clean energy transition is slowing for several reasons, including the end of key incentives for businesses under President Trump. ? Fossil fuels are likely to dominate worldwide energy systems for decades. ⛽️ That will deepen the geopolitical power of the U.S. — the world's largest oil and gas producer. Go deeper.

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A Chinese whistleblower now living in the US is being hunted by Beijing with help from US tech The Chinese government is using an increasingly powerful tool to cement its power at home and vastly amplify it abroad: Surveillance technology, much of it originating in the U.S., an AP investigation has found. Read more.

What to know: After being accused of corruption, retired Chinese official Li Chuanliang fled to the U.S. seeking asylum, fearing persecution from the Chinese government. He was warned not to return to China. Li says he’s being targeted for openly criticizing the Chinese government and denies criminal charges.   More than 40 friends and relatives — including his pregnant daughter — were identified and detained, even by tracking down their cab drivers through facial recognition software. Three former associates died in detention, and for months, shadowy men Li believed to be Chinese operatives stalked him across continents, according to interviews and documents seen by The Associated Press.   Within China, surveillance technology helped identify and punish almost 900,000 officials last year alone, nearly five times more than in 2012, according to state numbers. Outside China, the same technology is being used to threaten wayward officials, along with dissidents and alleged criminals, under what authorities call Operations “Fox Hunt” and “Sky Net.” Beijing says it is cracking down on corruption, but critics charge that such technology is used in China and elsewhere to stifle dissent and exact retribution on perceived enemies.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ WATCH: Whistleblower describes being in China’s crosshairs

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? China's EV takeover

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Canada is slashing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles as part of a broader trade deal. Why it matters: Chinese-made cars are closing in on America despite attempts to keep them out, Axios' Nathan Bomey reports. ⚡ State of play: While Chinese vehicles have already become popular in Mexico, there are effectively none sold in the U.S. Chinese automakers have targeted the U.S. market for ages, but only recently have their cars improved in quality enough to be competitive on a global stage. ? The intrigue: Chinese-brand vehicles aren't an uncommon sight in the U.S. close to the Mexico border, which suggests the same could become true near the northern border once Chinese EVs head to Canada. Chinese vehicles are expected to control about 30% of the global market by 2030, according to AlixPartners. Keep reading.

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?? China birthrate lowest in 76 years

People pull their children on inflatable tubes as they visit the Harbin Ice and Snow World in Harbin, China's Heilongjiang province. Photo: Andy Wong/AP China's birthrate last year was the lowest on record since 1949, the year that Mao Zedong's Communists took over, according to data out today. Why it matters: It's the fourth straight year of decrease, leaving the second-most populous country (after India) "smaller and older ... as policymakers failed to slow a demographic crisis," the N.Y. Times notes (gift link). China's population in 2025 stood at 1.4 billion, down 3 million from 2024. Go deeper.

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Why experts question whether China’s one-child policy was necessary in the first place

China’s one-child policy, one of the harshest attempts at population control the world has seen, forced abortions on women, made sterilization widespread and led to baby daughters being sold or even killed, because parents wanted their only child to be a male. Now, experts say, the question is whether it was all necessary. Read more.

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Analysis: China’s birth-rate struggles underscore its millennia-long effort to manage ‘the masses’

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?? China's nuclear secrets shocker

Wild news from China this weekend, with a top general fired … The N.Y. Times' Nick Kristof, who won a Pulitzer for Tiananmen Square coverage, reposts coup rumors, saying that "something serious happened in the Chinese military leadership, leading to the purge."

China's top general was removed and placed under investigation for "leaking information about the country's nuclear-weapons program to the U.S. and accepting bribes for official acts," The Wall Street Journal reports.

• Gen. Zhang Youxia, once Xi's most-trusted military ally, is accused of leaking "core technical data on China's nuclear weapons to the U.S.," the Journal writes.

Why it matters: "By decapitating the command structure … Xi is signaling that rampant corruption, entrenched patronage networks, and the compromise of state secrets are existential threats to his goal of gaining control over Taiwan," The Journal notes.

?️ The money quote: "This move is unprecedented in the history of the Chinese military and represents the total annihilation of the high command," Christopher Johnson, head of China Strategies Group and a former CIA analyst, told the Journal and the N.Y. Times.

• Keep reading.

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China overturns death sentence of Canadian in sign of diplomatic thaw

China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as prime minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/07/china-overturns-death-sentence-of-canadian-robert-lloyd-schellenberg-in-sign-of-diplomatic-thaw?

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• 🔥🐴 China expects a record 9.5 billion trips tied to Lunar New Year, a week from today (Feb 17). Tian Yunxia, a woman from Henan province working in Beijing, tells AP: "I want to go home to see my children, my grandchildren and my husband." Year of the Fire Horse, explained.

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🇨🇳 China's AI propaganda

Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios

Chinese AI models that are gaining adoption around the world are spreading Beijing-friendly narratives, two reports out this week suggest, Axios' Dave Lawler writes. Researchers at the China Media Project goaded Alibaba's Qwen3 into laying out its internal parameters for answering questions about China. When asked about China's international reputation, Qwen explained that it needed to "follow specific guidelines" to "make sure" its answer would be: "Positive and constructive." "Focus on China's achievements and contributions to the world." "Avoid any specific and negative statements." Separately, a new report from Estonia's foreign intelligence agency found that when asked about security matters, DeepSeek "conceals key information and inserts Chinese propaganda into its answers." China Media Project report ...

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☢️ China expands nuke arsenal

China's DF-5C intercontinental ballistic missile in a military parade in Beijing last year. Photo: Tingshu Wang/Reuters Satellite images from deep inside China show an accelerating nuclear buildup, including a vast laser ignition lab in Sichuan Province that could be used to study nuclear warheads without detonating actual weapons, the N.Y. Times reveals in a new report replete with before-and-after photos (gift link). China's buildup, which began in 2019, "complicates efforts to revive global arms controls after the expiration of the final remaining nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia," The Times notes. 🇨🇳 China's stockpile is much smaller than that of the U.S. or Russia, which control nearly 90% of the world's nuclear warheads. But Matthew Sharp, a former State Department official who's now a senior fellow at MIT's Center for Nuclear Security Policy, called the situation "dangerous," since the U.S. is "now forced to react and plan around the worst-case interpretation of a concerning trend line." Keep reading (gift link).

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Key takeaways from China’s new 5-year economic blueprint and growth target

China has set an economic growth target at the slowest since 1991, in what some economists interpreted as a reflection of pragmatism as a weak domestic economy bites. China’s ruling Communist Party on Thursday also released the full draft of its five-year plan for until 2030 outlining its economic and political policy priorities, which focused on technological advancements and self-reliance in areas like artificial intelligence, robotics and other advanced technologies as its rivalry with the U.S. heats up. Read more.

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WATCH: AP explains key challenges for China's National People's Congress as it opens in Beijing Honduras weighs shift in China-Taiwan ties as Trump pushes for US dominance in Latin America Winter Paralympics 50th anniversary: Chinese dominance expected amid boycotts over Russian flag   China Growth Slowdown China set a 2026 economic growth target of 4.5% to 5% at its annual Two Sessions meeting, the lowest since the early 1990s and the first cut since 2023’s shift to “around 5%,” as Beijing faces persistent deflation and US trade tensions. Officials say the target allows room for reforms amid weak consumer spending, a property slump, a shrinking population, and an energy shortage—exacerbated by US actions in Iran and Venezuela. China’s economy grew 5% in 2025 but slowed to 4.5% in the final quarter. Exports, which produced a $1.2T surplus last year, have become a growth driver for the country, even as President Donald Trump’s tariffs weigh on the economy. Draft outlines for the 15th Five-Year Plan, covering 2026 through 2030, emphasize innovation, high-tech industries, scientific research, and stronger household consumption. Chinese officials say boosting domestic demand will remain a top priority this year as they try to reduce the economy’s reliance on external demand.

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🇨🇳 China 5-year plan: All-in on AI

Chinese President Xi Jinping, 72, arrives Thursday at the opening session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Photo: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images China this week set out a five-year roadmap to turbocharge scientific breakthroughs and embed AI across its industrial economic machine, framing tech dominance as a core national-security goal in its sharpening rivalry with the U.S., Reuters reports. Why it matters: The plan shows China's clear calculation — enforcing a unified focus on the long game, while the U.S. is scrambled and distracted. In its 15th strategic plan since adopting Soviet-style quinquennial policy cycles in the 1950s, Beijing outlined a bet that technology, not consumption, will drive its next phase of development despite growing structural pressures. Ambitions span biomedicine, quantum tech, atomic-scale manufacturing, hyperscale computing clusters, nuclear fusion, brain-computer interfaces and commercializing AI-powered humanoid robots. Takeaways from the plan.

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China adopts an ethnic unity law that critics say will cement assimilation The country’s ceremonial legislature approved a sweeping law to promote what China is calling “ethnic unity,” a measure that critics say would further erode the rights of some minority groups as authorities cement a push toward assimilation. Academics and observers say the new provision represents a setback for the identity of ethnic minorities because it mandates the use of Mandarin Chinese in compulsory education, among other things. There is concern about impact on the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority group. Read more.

Key points: Mandarin is already the primary language of instruction in Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang — Chinese regions with large ethnic minority populations — but the new law essentially states that minority languages cannot be the primary language of instruction nationwide.   Many countries, including the U.S., pursue similar assimilation policies. China has said its approach is to bring development to ethnic minorities areas. But Maya Wang, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the law is not about ensuring equality.    Ethnic Uyghurs have been the target of a long-term campaign of detention, and later incarceration by China. Experts have said they were targeted for their identity and not for actual crimes.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ China to unveil priorities for coming 5 years at major annual political meeting  Photos: Recent meeting of China’s National People’s Congress  Watch: AP explains closing of annual National People’s Congress

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China's nuclear arsenal

The modernization of nuclear sites in China's Sichuan province supports claims by the Trump administration that Beijing is pursuing its most significant nuclear weapons infrastructure expansion in decades, a CNN investigation has found. This comes as President Trump is set to visit Beijing next month, where he is expected to press Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing those ambitions. Experts are closely monitoring a facility called Site 906, which saw little development for decades — until now. CNN's analysis of satellite imagery shows new buildings and underground infrastructure, including a massive dome that appears to be designed to keep highly radioactive materials such as uranium and plutonium trapped inside.

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Human Rights Watch: China raises pressure on underground Catholics to join official church Chinese authorities are increasing pressure on underground Catholic communities to join the state-controlled official church while tightening surveillance and travel restrictions on all of China's estimated 12 million Catholics, according to Human Rights Watch. A report from the U.S.-based group said the heightened pressure was part of a decade-old campaign to ensure that religious denominations and independent churches are loyal to the officially atheist Communist Party. A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said China protects religious freedom and accused Human Rights of falsehoods. Read more.

Why this matters: China’s Catholics have been divided between an official, state-controlled church that didn’t recognize papal authority and an underground church that remained loyal to Rome through decades of persecution.     Pope Francis, in 2018, sought to ease Vatican-China tensions with a deal giving the state-controlled church a say in naming bishops — a task traditionally exclusive to the pope.   Despite that deal, “Catholics in China face escalating repression that violates their religious freedoms,” said Yalkun Uluyol of Human Rights Watch. “Pope Leo XIV should urgently review the agreement and press Beijing to end the persecution and intimidation of underground churches, clergy, and worshippers.”

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ China and the Vatican agree to extend an agreement on appointing bishop  Pope Leo XIV names first Chinese bishop, signaling he is continuing Vatican’s controversial accord  Christian heartland opens window into fight for China’s soul