Mainland Chinese arrivals to Hong Kong surged at the start of the National Day “golden week” holiday before easing towards last year’s levels, with a lawmaker attributing the early rush partly to the city’s fireworks display and tourists making the most of a shorter break. Immigration Department figures showed that 277,304 mainland visitors arrived on October 1, up 19.1 per cent from 232,751 on the first day of last year’s holiday and 25.1 per cent from the 221,644 recorded in 2024. “The...

A 74-year-old retired Hong Kong police officer lost control of his paraglider in strong air currents and suffered multiple injuries after crashing on Lantau Island, a probe into the fatal 2024 accident has found. A report published by the Air Accident Investigation Authority on Monday detailed the incident involving the pilot at Sunset Peak, Hong Kong’s third-highest mountain, on June 17, 2024. The authority urged paragliding groups to stress the importance of thorough risk assessments before...

Hong Kong’s first Chinese-owned department store, Sincere, will close its historic branch in the city’s central business district in December after 126 years of retail history. The company revealed, however, that it would seek a new location in Central or Sheung Wan. Economists cautioned, however, that despite strong retail sales in the city overall recently, the market had changed, and running physical stores had become highly challenging. Sincere announced on Sunday that the flagship store...

Adrian Cheng Chi-kong, former heir apparent to Hong Kong’s New World Development (NWD), is expanding his K11 cultural retail business in mainland China, launching a venture of his own as his family’s property group grapples with heavy debt. Xiamen K11 Select, developed by Cheng’s K11 by AC Group along with state-owned Xiamen Rail Transit Group in the city in the southeastern province of Fujian, has attracted more than 2 million visits since its opening on September 22, with sales rising 32 per...

Built to hunt tanks and support ground troops, the People’s Liberation Army’s main attack helicopter is increasingly being prepared for operations at sea. Crews of the Z-10 are training to fly from ships – a shift that could give Beijing extra firepower in an amphibious assault on Taiwan. Manufactured by AVIC subsidiary the Changhe Aircraft Industries Corporation, the Z-10 entered service with the PLA Army in late 2010. It began documented shipboard trials in 2014, when Chinese navy imagery...

Brazil is set for a presidential run-off after right-wing challenger Flavio Bolsonaro won a surprise first-round victory, threatening Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s grip on power in South America’s largest economy. Bolsonaro, son of imprisoned former president Jair Bolsonaro, took 47 per cent of the ballots in Sunday’s election, beating out Lula on 45 per cent. Brazilians will vote again on October 25 as neither candidate got the 50 per cent share needed to claim outright victory. US-China...

This article was translated from Chinese into English using Alibaba’s Qwen3.7-Plus, then checked and tweaked for accuracy by a South China Morning Post journalist. It is for reference only, and is not the official English version of the original Chinese document. Alibaba owns the SCMP.

A reported plan to station US defence personnel inside Taiwan’s military headquarters would take mutual cooperation into the heart of defence planning, potentially angering Beijing while raising questions over Taipei’s policymaking autonomy and military secrecy. According to Taiwanese media reports at the weekend, the Pentagon plans to send one official from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Policy and one expert from the Institute for Defence Analyses (IDA) to work on a long-term...

For decades, China’s property sector was defined by spectacular scale: farmland transformed into suburbs, skylines rising across regional hubs and, more recently, the prominent unravelling of heavily indebted developers. Yet beneath those dramatic changes, a far quieter and more consequential transformation is taking shape. Official figures published by the National Bureau of Statistics in September reveal that secondary market home transactions have surpassed new residential builds in volume....

Eight more companies from countries belonging to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative have applied to list in Hong Kong, the city’s trade promotion chief has revealed. Frederick Ma Si-hang, chairman of the Trade Development Council, also said on Monday the city’s economy would benefit from improving China-US ties. Speaking on the sidelines of the Global Youth Powerhouse Summit, Ma said interest in Hong Kong’s capital markets from Central Asia had surged after a high-level delegation led by Chief...

Chinese doctors have performed an unprecedented surgery to save an unborn child who developed a fast-growing tumour. A medical team from Shenzhen and Hong Kong recently completed a challenging, precise reduction of a foetal chest tumour while the baby was still in the womb, offering new hope to families facing similarly dire prognoses. Jointly performed by doctors from Shenzhen Baoan Women’s and Children’s Hospital and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the procedure was detailed and published...

Taipei’s top diplomat is in Arizona this week to open a de facto consulate and tour the state’s semiconductor corridor, just days after US President Donald Trump wrapped up the pageantry of a state visit for President Xi Jinping. Lin Chia-lung, Taiwan’s foreign minister, arrived in Phoenix late on Saturday for a three-day visit that highlights the deepening economic ties between Washington and Taipei. His visit will not include stops in Washington or meetings with anyone at the State Department,...

The mother of slain Hong Kong socialite Abby Choi Tin-fung has accused her former in-laws of living off her family’s wealth, stating that her daughter never intended to gift them a HK$72 million (US$9.2 million) flat she had bought for her children. Cheung Yin-fa on Monday recounted how her family maintained an amicable relationship with her former son-in-law, Alex Kwong Kong-chi, and his family after he and her daughter separated in 2015, only for the relationship to break down over the sale of...

Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Hospital launched its first phase of operations, treating about 350 patients at its family medicine centre on Monday, with the daily number projected to reach 1,800 by the end of the year. While patients welcomed the service, lawmakers called for more frequent feeder transport and better publicity about transit options. Positioned to become Hong Kong’s largest public hospital once fully operational, Kai Tak Hospital opened its family medicine integrated centre on Monday to...

DFI Retail, the food and beverage unit of Hong Kong-headquartered conglomerate Jardine Matheson, is looking to sell its mall at The Peak, one of the city’s wealthiest neighbourhoods. The entire commercial portion of the Dairy Farm Guildford Road Shopping Centre will be sold via a public tender closing at noon on November 19, according to sole agent CBRE. The property is near The Peak campus of the German Swiss International School. The mall consists of a two-storey retail podium with a gross...

Hong Kong has unveiled a four-step artificial intelligence (AI) “talent ladder” strategy to counter entry-level job shock and foster industry leaders by treating the technology as a “catalyst, not a threat”. Permanent Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry Kevin Choi Kit-ming warned on Monday that the “entry-level shock” was genuine because AI performed well in many routine tasks that traditionally formed the core of a graduate’s initial role, such as basic coding and first-line...

Chinese scientists have built a small, stable co-production plant that uses one system to extract hydrogen and fresh water from seawater, while also recovering uranium and bromine and improving electricity use efficiency by about 15 per cent. The team, led by Deng Dehui and Liu Yanting from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, improved on an existing technology that is both costly and power hungry, according to a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Nature...

Hong Kong’s largest public hospital, built on the former airport site in Kai Tak, began its first phase of operations on Monday after more than a decade of planning and preparation. The South China Morning Post looks at the hospital’s key features and what its opening means for the city’s healthcare development. 1. What makes Kai Tak Hospital special? With a gross floor area of roughly 500,000 square metres (5.38 million square feet) and 2,400 beds, Kai Tak Hospital will be Hong Kong’s largest...

Housewife May and her three children were overjoyed last September when they moved into a 200 sq ft subdivided flat in Kwai Tsing, a Hong Kong district with one of the city’s lowest average monthly household incomes. For years, the 50-year-old single parent had lived in a squatter hut with her son and two daughters, where they had to climb hundreds of stairs daily. They later moved into a 100 sq ft subdivided flat before securing their current place. Located on the 15th floor of a lift-equipped...

In February 2023, the budget shopping platform Temu announced itself on the world stage in the brashest way possible: becoming one of the youngest ever brands to buy a Super Bowl advertising spot. “Download the Temu app and shop like a billionaire,” a voice proclaimed in the 30-second commercial, as a woman danced on screen and ordered a series of outlandishly cheap items: from a US$8.99 dress to a US$4.99 wig. The commercial – which aired twice during the game, costing Temu an estimated US$14...

The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is looking to secure more laboratory space in the Northern Metropolis university town to expand its research capacity and attract talent, its new vice-president for research has said. Professor Anderson Shum Ho-cheung, who took up the vice presidency in August, also called for more government funding, saying grant applications took time and returns on investment could be slow. Shum said the university’s research development would align with the government’s...

Hong Kong refrained from setting overly rigid economic indicators in its first five-year plan to avoid fuelling concerns that it was moving towards a planned economy, according to the city’s constitutional affairs minister. The current priority should be hitting targets instead of dwelling on accountability mechanisms for potential shortcomings, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Janice Tse Siu-wa said. Tse also emphasised the government’s efforts to explore administrative...

Zheng Yongnian is a political scientist in China and a government adviser. His academic work is mainly about contemporary China, particularly politics, the country’s transformation and its external relations. This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here. Many have offered a lukewarm assessment of the Xi-Trump summit in Washington, citing the lack of a breakthrough. What is your take? There are two primary views right now. One is...

Ambassador Xie Feng Attended "ShanghaiEye Night" Events

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Nine young construction competitors from the Construction Industry Council returned from WorldSkills Shanghai with three Medallions for Excellence, the strongest finish the CIC has recorded at the competition. The honours went to Law Chak-sum in painting and decorating, Tse Yu-lok in welding, and the concrete construction work team of Huang To-kong and Wan Tsz-ho. It was Hong Kong’s first WorldSkills honour in concrete...

Police have arrested a woman on suspicion of attempted robbery after she allegedly brandished a knife at staff at an MTR station customer service centre and demanded Octopus cards and cash. A source familiar with the case told the South China Morning Post on Monday that the woman, a Hong Kong resident surnamed Lai, was armed with a ceramic knife and demanded all Octopus cards and HK$100 (US$13) banknotes from staff at the Diamond Hill MTR station customer service centre on Sunday evening. “When...

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Saturday dismissed allegations from a US congressional committee concerning northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region as lies and smears.

More than 1,500 Hong Kong residents toured the revamped Huanggang Port border crossing on Sunday as authorities pushed ahead with preparations for its opening. A Security Bureau spokesman said that participants took franchised buses or cross-boundary coaches from various districts to reach the crossing and were shown the new port building in groups. “The event effectively enhanced participants’ understanding of the public transport arrangements, immigration and customs clearance and...

Losses linked to the abrupt closure of Hotstone Yoga have risen to nearly HK$8 million (US$1 million), with close to 700 reports filed by affected customers in Hong Kong, according to authorities. The Customs and Excise Department said that as of 6pm on Sunday, it had received 694 reports relating to the yoga chain, involving service contracts worth about HK$7.8 million. The Consumer Council said it had received 416 complaints by 5pm the same day, with claimed losses totalling HK$5.42...

Beijing has been urged to do more to protect its overseas interests with a call for diplomatic engagement to reshape international rules and deeper security cooperation with other countries. As China’s expanding global footprint comes under pressure from geopolitics and restrictions from the West, a Chinese analysis posted on the Global Security Research social media account has called for a major shift in strategy. The author was not identified, but the account regularly posts analysis and...