Nine more people have been confirmed dead in the collapse of a budget hotel in eastern China, bringing the final toll to 17, as state media yesterday announced the end of search and recovery efforts.

China’s culture ministry is seeking to expand its regulatory authority to livestreaming stars and other online influencers by targeting for the first time the agencies that help personalities monetise themselves online, a move that could shape the future of the booming livestreaming industry that so many Big Tech companies, from ByteDance to Tencent Holdings, have come to rely on for growth.

Part of a hotel collapsed in the Chinese city of Suzhou killing eight people and rescue workers were searching on Tuesday for nine people missing in the ruins, state media reported.

Just 25 big cities – almost all of them in China – accounted for more than half of the climate-warming gases pumped out by a sample of 167 urban hubs around the world, an analysis of emissions trends showed. 

China criticized hasty withdrawal of troops by Washington as Afghan authorities yesterday prepared to retake a key border crossing seized by the Taliban in a sweeping offensive that the insurgents claim has helped capture a vast swath of the violence-wracked nation. 

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged the international community on Saturday to build a "Great Wall of Immunity" to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.

President Xi Jinping hailed China's "irreversible" course from colonial humiliation to great-power status at the centenary celebrations for the Chinese Communist Party yesterday, in a speech reaching deep into history to remind patriots at home and rivals abroad of his nation's -- and his own -- ascendancy. 

Hong Kong police arrested a former senior journalist with the now-closed Apple Daily newspaper on a suspected national security offence as he was trying to catch a flight out of the city, media reported.

The first two generating units of the world’s second-biggest hydroelectric dam were officially turned on Monday in southwestern China, the government announced.

A mammoth trek across southern China by a herd of elephants that has captivated the world with their playful antics has thrown a spotlight on the loss of their habitat and conservation challenges.

The first astronauts arrived at China’s new space station yesterday in the country’s longest crewed mission to date, a landmark step in establishing Beijing as a major space power.

China said yesterday radiation levels remained normal at one of its nuclear power plants and there were no safety concerns, after the station’s French operator reported a gas build-up.

The Group of Seven richest democracies yesterday sought to counter China’s growing influence by offering developing nations an infrastructure plan that would rival President Xi Jinping’s multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

China yesterday berated the US and EU consulates in Hong Kong for displaying candles to commemorate the June 4 Tiananmen crackdown, slamming it as a “clumsy political show” to destabilise the city.

Australia’s ambassador to China was barred from the trial of an academic held on spying charges yesterday, in a case that has exacerbated a bitter row between the two nations.

China’s Mars rover drove from its landing platform and began exploring the surface yesterday, state-run Xinhua news agency said, making the country only the second nation to land and operate a rover on the Red Planet.

China said yesterday a US warship had illegally entered its territorial waters in the South China Sea, the latest salvo in the two nations’ dispute over Beijing’s territorial claims in the busy waterway.

China said yesterday the risk of damage from a rocket falling back to Earth was “extremely low”, after the United States warned it could crash down on to an inhabited area.

Taiwan’s defence minister yesterday said authorities were investigating whether a man from mainland China had managed to cross the Taiwan Strait in a rubber dinghy in a bid to seek political sanctuary.

Hong Kong yesterday passed a new immigration law that includes powers to stop people entering or leaving the city, raising fears Chinese mainland-style “exit bans” could be deployed in the international business hub.