South China Morning Post

With pork prices in China spiking in recent months, a food company thinks now is the perfect time to convince the world’s largest pork consumer to try something new: fake pork.

Since last August, a deadly swine epidemic has left 40% of China’s pigs dead or culled. Financial service firm Rabobank estimates China could lose half of its pig herd by the end of 2019.

Despite China’s move to release emergency pork reserves to the markets, pork prices have jumped close to 50% since July, according…

When it’s time for a selfie, many Chinese people would make a V-sign for the camera. V-for-victory is their way of saying cheese.  

But this popular ritual could expose you to fingerprint theft, said a Chinese cybersecurity expert.

Zhang Wei, the vice-director of the Shanghai Information Security Trade Association, said if held close enough to the camera, the picture could reveal a perfect fingerprint. 

Photo magnifying and artificial intelligence-enhanced technologies make it possible to…

In the latest setback for Chinese companies investing in the US during the current trade war, a state-owned chemical firm is hitting the pause button on a $1.25 billion plant in Louisiana.

Chinese firms operating in the US are facing growing headwinds amid a grinding tariff showdown, mutual recriminations and mounting visa and security restrictions as the world’s two largest economies battle for pole position.

William Day, a manager with Wanhua Chemical Group Co’s US operation, said the…

The growing use of force by anti-government protesters in Hong Kong took a new turn over the past weekend, with vigilantism being advocated as a way to tackle clashes with rival groups. 

The calls for “resolving things privately” – or si liu in Cantonese – threaten to deepen the worst political crisis to hit the former British colony since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Supporters advocate physical retaliation against aggressive groups rather than retreating or asking police – whom many…

The editor of the Chinese state-run Global Times newspaper made a rare departure from his loyalist views on Wednesday, complaining that the country’s strict internet control was “over the top” and made his job harder.

“As the National Day nears, it’s extremely difficult to visit foreign websites,” Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of Global Times, wrote on the Chinese social media site Weibo.

Beijing is preparing for the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist-rule China on Oct 1 and has…

A young woman in eastern China found her life turned upside down when plastic surgery altered her appearance so drastically that she was banned from online payment gateways and unable to sign in to work.

The issues she faced underscore the extent to which daily life in urban China has come to rely on one’s face, with the country embracing cameras and facial recognition technology.

The woman, who was identified only by the pseudonym Huan Huan, told her local television station in eastern China…

Despite breaking the Chinese internet with a new hit song, Taiwan’s “King of Asian Pop” Jay Chou has received some heat for promoting “sexist” values with a music video that features the female lead sacrificing for her boyfriend. 

The star’s latest single, Won’t Cry, has sold millions of digital copies and topped charts in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan hours after its release on Monday night. 

But for some fans, the song depicts an ancient and tired archetype of a self-sacrificing…

Asian-American performers are applauding Saturday Night Live’s decision to drop stand-up comedian Shane Gillis after footage of him making racial slurs against Chinese people resurfaced.

Joe Wong, a bilingual Chinese-American comic who works in both countries, told Inkstone that the firing was a significant step because discrimination against Asians, often stereotyped as “model minorities” in the US, was often disregarded by the establishment.

“Their attitude is ‘not you too,’ meaning ‘we…

The Chinese billionaire featured in the Netflix documentary American Factory has defended his country’s labor practices by criticizing unions, saying they hurt efficiency. 

In China, American Factory prompted a wave of soul-searching about the human costs of the country’s economic success and the rise of super-rich entrepreneurs such as Cao Dewang, who owns factories at home and abroad.  

The film, backed by Barack and Michelle Obama, documents what happens at two factories owned by Cao – one…

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that we’re in the Year of the Pig. Rarely has a single food source played as big a role in the nation’s politics as now.

Fears over a year-long outbreak of deadly African swine fever have steadily grown to the point that the topic now dominates the nation’s domestic and foreign agenda with talk of “pork politics,” “pork economics” and “pork diplomacy.”

There’s good reason for the fuss.

Pork is the principal source of dietary protein for the Chinese, who consume…