Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD has added an advanced driver-assistance system for most of its models at no additional cost, catapulting its shares to a record high.

Chinese customers can now experience the carmaker’s proprietary “God’s Eye” driver-assistance system in models that cost as little as 69,800 yuan ($9,555).

Analysts said the move could further fuel a brutal, ongoing price war in the world’s biggest car market.

Shares of BYD surged more than 4% to a record high, according to Refinitiv data, when trading in Hong Kong began on Tuesday. Its shares were last trading at 330 Hong Kong dollars ($42).

“2025 will be the first year of intelligent driving for all,” BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu said in an event from its headquarters in Shenzhen on Monday.

Previously, the “God’s Eye” feature, introduced in 2023 to assist car navigation, was only offered in BYD models costing more than $30,000.

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BANGKOK (AP) — The Chinese government said Friday that the Trump administration’s move to ban international students from Harvard would harm America’s international standing, and one university in Hong Kong looked to capitalize on the uncertainty by promising to take them in.

Chinese students make up a large part of Harvard University’s international student population. The university enrolled 6,703 international students across all of its schools in 2024, according to the school’s data, with 1,203 of those coming from China.

The Trump administration’s move, announced Thursday, was a hot topic on Chinese social media. State broadcaster CCTV questioned whether the U.S. would remain a top destination for foreign students, noting Harvard was already suing the U.S. government in court.

“But with the long litigation period, thousands of international students may have trouble waiting,” the CCTV commentary said. It went on to say that it becomes necessary for international students to consider other options “when policy uncertainty becomes the norm.”

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Chinese scientists appear to be on track to develop next-level artificial intelligence infused with Chinese Communist Party ideology, potentially pushing China ahead of the United States in the race for human-like artificial general intelligence (AGI), according to a recent study,

The central testbed for this effort is Wuhan—a city globally known as the origin point of COVID-19, but also increasingly recognized as a growing hub for scientific and technological advancement, including AI development.

With strong backing from the Chinese government, two leading AI institutes based in Beijing have opened branches in Wuhan to jointly develop sophisticated alternatives to large language models (LLMs), the generative AI systems that currently dominate the focus of Western developers and policymakers.

These findings come from a new report by Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), published Monday and shared in advance with Newsweek.

William C. Hannas, the report’s lead author, senior analyst at CSET, and a former CIA expert in Chinese open-source intelligence, warned that the US risks falling behind—and may already be losing ground.

Chinese labour is actively and visibly contributing to the construction of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Ironically, this reality stands in direct contradiction to China’s own stated policy; a decade ago, it forbade Chinese construction crews from working in Israeli settlements.

Back to 2015, China signed a bilateral labour agreement with Israel that included a stipulation preventing Chinese workers from being employed in the Occupied West Bank. Notably, this condition was motivated by safety concerns rather than by a principled stance against the illegality or immorality of settlement construction. However, in 2016, these safety concerns appeared to have diminished when China acquired Ahava, a settlement-based company located in Mitzpe Shalem.

One year later, both countries signed another labour agreement to bring in 6000 Chinese construction workers to Israel under the same conditions. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon confirmed the deal was “based on the concern for the safety and security of the workers”. However, Chinese officials responded by stating that “the real issue was not safety, but China’s objection to construction in the settlements.”

One of the most striking examples is Adama Agricultural Solutions, a former Israeli company now fully owned by the Chinese state-run firm China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina). Amid the Gaza war, Adama mobilised its workers “to support farmers who have been suffering from a shortage of workers … [including Israeli] farmers in the south, in the surrounding residents of the Gaza Envelope and in the northern settlements”, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post. Quoted in the same report, a representative of Adama said: “The farmers of the country, and the farmers of the settlements around Gaza in particular, are the pioneers of our days and their continued work is necessary to maintain the security of the country.

This is not an isolated case. In recent years, several state-owned Chinese companies, along with other private Chinese firms, have invested directly or indirectly in Israeli settlements or companies operating within them.

China has reportedly taken aim at last week’s trade deal between the UK and US that could be used to squeeze Chinese products out of Britain’s supply chains.

The deal - the first struck by Donald Trump’s administration since announcing sweeping tariffs last month - was announced on Thursday, and includes strict security requirements for Britain’s steel and pharmaceutical industries. It could make it harder for London to rebuild relations with Beijing.

Beijing said it is a “basic principle” that agreements between countries should not target other nations. China’s foreign ministry told the Financial Times:

Britain’s competition watchdog is reviewing Aviva’s proposed £3.7bn acquisition of its smaller insurance rival Direct Line to see whether it poses any competition concerns.

The deal would combine the companies’ UK insurance operations – covering a wide range of products such as car and home insurance.

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China’s exports grew sharply in April despite Donald Trump’s “liberation” day tariffs on shipments to the US, strengthening Beijing’s hand ahead of crucial trade negotiations due to start this weekend.

The strong performance came as Chinese companies diverted trade flows to south-east Asia, Europe and other destinations following the imposition of prohibitively high tit-for-tat tariffs between the world’s two largest economies.

Exports rose 8.1 per cent in dollar terms compared with a year earlier, China’s customs said on Friday, beating analysts’ forecasts in a poll by Reuters of 1.9 per cent growth but slowing from 12.4 per cent growth in March, when figures were buoyed by exporters seeking to get ahead of expected tariffs by frontloading shipments to the US.

Pakistan claimed it had downed five Indian fighter jets over Kashmir and other regions, including the 4.5th-generation Rafale operated by the Indian Air Force (IAF) after India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ on terror training camps in Pakistan as retribution for the Pahalgam terror attack.

Pakistan later claimed to have used its newly acquired Chinese-origin J-10C fighter for what it described as a brief encounter.

The Pakistani foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, told the National Assembly that the J-10C shot down five Indian fighter jets, three of which were Rafales. Pakistan has been unable to furnish evidence to back these claims, and the Indian side has not confirmed any losses.