Five decades have passed since the historic visit to the People’s Republic of China by then-US president Richard Nixon. China’s Communist Party rulers made the invitation after a secret visit by US security advisor Henry Kissenger. During the seven-day trip starting February 21, 1972, Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai would host the visiting US delegation led by Nixon who was looking for solutions to diplomatic issues regarding the Soviet Union, Vietnam. Beijing saw the trip as a way to end decades of diplomatic isolation, ease tension on the Korean peninsula and press its claims to Taiwan. Here’s a look at the key events leading up to the first visit by a US president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip that Nixon and others described as "the week that changed the world". Note: this video has been updated to correct a map showing China's borders at the time of the events described.

Covid-19 has driven dramatic shifts in nearly every aspect of our lives, and those changes could be permanent. Since the start of the global pandemic, architects and urban designers have been finding ways to reshape the spaces we live and work in.
Through the eyes of a Hong Kong family living 10 years after the first coronavirus infection was detected in China’s central city of Wuhan, the Post imagines how architecture and urban planning may transform cities into better and safer places in a post-Covid world.

The tiny Quemoy archipelago, also known as Kinmen, is only about 3.2km (2 miles) from the coast of mainland China, but is controlled by the self-ruled island of Taiwan. From 1958 until the late 1970s, Quemoy was frequently shelled by the People’s Liberation Army. Veteran soldiers still on the islands recall attacks from the mainland that killed a number of people before they stopped in 1978. That was the year the US formally switched Washington’s diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China in Taipei to the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. 

Hong Kong passed a long-delayed legislation to start charging residents for their household rubbish, beginning in 2023. Of the 5.67 million tonnes (6.2 million tons) of solid waste the city generated in 2019, only 29 per cent was recycled. The Post explains Hong Kong’s key waste management strategies, and how the city aims to clean up its garbage problem with a new waste-charging scheme.

Since its founding 100 years ago, the Communist Party of China has grown from only about 50 members to a membership of more than 95 million, meaning one in every 15 people in China is a member. As the nation’s only governing body in China, the CCP controls almost every aspect of life – from the government and army, to society and business. The Post explains how and why so many people want to join the Communist Party. 

America's war in Afghanistan is over, 20 years after the first Nato troops landed in the country for a deployment that cost the lives of several thousand soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians. The Taliban, an ultraconservative local religious faction, has retaken control of the country after a bitter fight with Afghan government troops. They were knocked from power in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in Washington. Accusing the Taliban of harbouring al Qaeda terrorists, the US invoked Article 5 of the Nato Charter setting the stage to lead its allies to invade Afghanistan on October 7 of the same year. Nearly two decades later, US forces have left Afghanistan, after a resurgent Taliban seized key cities from the Afghan government before retaking control of the country. The Post looks back at nearly two decades of conflict and the continuing impact of America’s longest war. 

China has restructured Hong Kong's electoral system to give loyalist parties a greater majority in two key decision-making bodies: the Election Committee and the Legislative Council. The Election Committee responsible for picking Hong Kong's leader has been granted new powers to send 40 representatives to the city's Legislative Council, which has been expanded from 70 to 90 seats. A committee will also be formed to determine candidates' eligibility to run in local elections, using information provided by the police's national security unit, with no judicial review or appeal of the decision allowed. Opposition activists say the changes will quash dissent and snuff out democracy in the former British colony. But the government says the moves are vital for Hong Kong's long-term stability.
 

Chinese smartphones were once thought of as cheaply made, unreliable and not very durable. But in recent years, Chinese smartphone brands have made large inroads to take a bigger share of the global market. The Chinese models have earned a reputation for being powerful yet affordable, and because they support advanced 5G networks across the budget range. Major brands from other countries have struggled to price their phones as low as their Chinese competitors do. As a result, top Chinese smartphone brands such as Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo are seeing growth in worldwide smartphone shipments to the point that they now provide stiff competition to the likes of Apple and Samsung across the range of smartphone models.

South China Morning Post graphic artist Han Huang travelled from Hong Kong to the Chinese mainland to visit her family in late November 2020. But the journey became a trip unlike any she had taken before, because the nation was embroiled in a fight against a resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic. This is her story about navigating China’s strict border protocols and 14 days in quarantine.

Changes to Hong Kong's political system will be comprehensive. They cover the membership of the committee that selects Hong Kong's top leader; how lawmakers are elected to the city's legislature and tighter vetting of potential candidates.

The Communist Party of China has been the dominant political entity running the nation since 1949. During that time, the body also known as the Chinese Communist Party has led the country from a poor, insular existence to a role as a global economic powerhouse. But along the way, the party has kept a tight grip on power and quashed any form of dissent. The Post explains how the Communist Party works and how it runs China.
 

China’s ruling Communist Party lays out its road map for developing the country economically and socially through a series of five-year plans. The policies touch every aspect of Chinese life, but even these comprehensive blueprints are often affected by unforeseen factors.
 

In 2020, relations between India and China fell to their lowest point in several decades after a deadly clash in a disputed border region in northwestern India and China’s southwest. The two Asian powers clashed over the Line of Actual Control (LAC). One of the most hotly disputed border zones in the world, the LAC demarcates Indian-controlled territory and Chinese-held areas. There is also bilateral friction in several other border areas, most notably in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. China’s annual defence budget of US$261 billion is more than triple India’s US$71 billion, but is China’s war chest big enough for Beijing to ensure it would inflict a knockout blow in a full-blown conflict?

US sanctions barring American investors from owning or trading in stocks allegedly owned or controlled by the Chinese military could deal a serious financial shock to millions of retail investors and pensioners in Hong Kong. The Tracker Fund, the biggest and most popular exchange-traded index fund in the city, has a dramatic U-turn within three days on its investment in several major Chinese-owned firms to its portfolio, because it is managed by a US-based company that must abide by the sanctions. 
 

The World Health Organization’s much-anticipated mission to uncover the origins of the virus behind Covid-19 is going ahead, with a research plan and 10 international experts selected for the team. In January 2021, the visiting delegation will join Chinese scientists working on the ground in Wuhan, the original epicentre of the outbreak, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Officials from the UN’s international public health agency say that finding the origins of the pathogen may help prevent future outbreaks, but the scientists' path to answers will not be an easy one.
 

Relations between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan have steadily grown more tense since 2016 when Tsai Ing-wen from the Taiwanese independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party became the self-ruled island’s president. Cross-strait tensions have only intensified since her re-election in January 2020, and because of a hardened US stance toward Beijing that has seen Washington step up its support for Taipei. News of American proposals to sell more advanced weaponry to Taiwan has been countered with word that Beijing is upgrading missile bases on its southeast coast, reportedly to prepare for a possible invasion. 

As the 2020 US Presidential election unfolded, various US media outlets projected the winner of each state, tallying up the Electoral College votes as they went along. The pathway to securing 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency took many dramatic turns in an election that remains contentious.

After Hong Kong was blindsided by a third wave of Covid-19 infections, the city’s government joined forces with authorities on the Chinese mainland to identify carriers of the coronavirus. Hong Kong’s first Universal Community Testing Programme (UCTP) started on September 1, 2020, and ran for a fortnight. The citywide testing programme cost the Hong Kong government an estimated HK$530 million (US$68 million). It ultimately identified just 42 new Covid-19 infections among the 1.78 million people who registered to be tested. So, did the results justify the time and resources put into the project?

The US presidential election is scheduled to take place on November 3, 2020. Running for a second term, incumbent Republican President Donald Trump faces Democratic challenger and former vice-president, Joe Biden. We take a look at the tumultuous backdrop of the 2020 US election and the candidates’ stances on China, the Covid-19 pandemic and the US economy, as well as on trade, foreign policy and environmental policy.

Once a person is convicted of a crime that requires a custodial sentence in Hong Kong, he or she will be sent to one of the city’s 28 correctional facilities. Hong Kong prisons are divided into three security levels, but what is common among all of them is a  strict set of rules and routines prisoners must follow during their time of incarceration. We talked to people who spent time inside Hong Kong’s prisons to get first-hand accounts of what life is like inside.
 

China shares over 22,000 kilometres (13,670 miles) of border with 14 countries, but Beijing has disputes with many of its neighbours over where some of these international lines are drawn. The various territorial claims, citing history, politics and geography, have resulted in clashes and occasionally, outright military confrontations. Land borders aside, China also says its territory includes nearly all of the South China Sea, despite competing claims to parts of those waters made by many Southeast Asian countries. As tensions rise between China and the United States, Beijing has adopted a more aggressive attitude, pledging to defend China's “sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Six months into the Covid-19 pandemic and there is some good news about countries easing lockdown measures meant to fight the coronavirus. But just as a semblance of what was “normal life” seems about to return, there is bad news about a surge in global infection numbers.

During the months it has taken for Covid-19 to emerge as a global pandemic, most people around the world have been waiting in hope for a vaccine or other intervention to stop the spread of the disease for good. But some are confronting the worrying possibility that the coronavirus might become endemic, meaning that with no effective countermeasures it would never go away, forever changing life on Earth.

Tai Kwun on Hong Kong's Hollywood Road is a popular arts and shopping hub that attracts tourists and locals alike. But the complex was once a place no one wanted to visit. It was the first prison in colonial Hong Kong, a complex that started with a few cells before it was expanded into a law and justice centre for the city over the years from 1841 until 2006. Tai Kwun was more recently redeveloped into the cultural hub that still preserves details of its rich history and culture dating back nearly 180 years.

China normally holds its most important annual political meetings in March, when the top political advisory body and national legislature gather. But in 2020, the meetings were postponed to May 22, 2020, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Although the “two sessions” take place only days apart on the political calendar, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress (CPPCC) and the National People’s Congress (NPC) are two very distinct gatherings.
Here’s a closer look at how the two sessions, known as lianghui in Chinese, shape the nation’s policies.
 

The novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was first detected in Wuhan, China in late 2019, and took only a few months to spread into a global pandemic. The Hong Kong government was quick to impose strict measures on inbound travellers to contain the spread of the coronavirus after most infections were confirmed to be imported. Since spiking in late March 2020, the number of new infections continues to fall. The measures keep people away from others so they don’t unknowingly infect anyone. But how does Hong Kong’s tough quarantine system exactly work?

China declared the central city of Wuhan, the initial centre of the Covid-19 pandemic, to be free of the disease on April 26, 2020, after the last patients being treated in hospital there were discharged. As the first country to battle the new coronavirus which causes Covid-19, China is hoping to take the lead role in helping the rest of the world overcome the pandemic. But critics are suspicious of the motives behind Beijing’s offers of assistance. 

The first outbreak of the coronavirus could have happened further south of the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where it is widely thought to have originated, and as early as September 2019, according to a team of scientists led by the University of Cambridge.

At least 15 veterans and supporters of the Hong Kong’s political opposition camp were arrested on Saturday April 18, 2020. They were arrested on suspicion of organising and taking part in “illegal assemblies” during protests in the city in 2019. The Chinese central government’s foreign affairs office in Hong Kong hit back at international criticism that has followed the arrests. 

China’s economy shrank by 6.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on April 17, 2020. The contraction is the first in the world’s second-largest economy since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, as well as since official quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) records were started in 1992. The plunge confirmed the economic damage done by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has paralysed China’s production and spending.