China

极端天气四问

Xinhua | Local Language | News | Dec. 12, 2025 | Extreme Weather Events

From the night of December 10th to the 13th, China will experience the largest-area cold wave this winter, affecting the country from west to east with strong winds, significant cooling, and rain-and-snow weather. The China Meteorological Administration has issued a level-four emergency response for major meteorological disasters, including cold waves, strong winds, and heavy snow. So far this winter, there have been three cold waves with warnings, characterized by widespread strong winds and temperature drops, intense precipitation, and low-temperature freezing that impact energy supply, agriculture, transportation, and human health.

Extreme weather events in China have increased notably in frequency and intensity, particularly high temperatures, droughts, heavy rain and floods, and typhoon impacts. Typhoon landfalls in China have become more frequent and shifted northward, with recent examples including super typhoon Doksuri in 2023 causing severe floods and super typhoon Mojie in 2024 being the strongest autumn typhoon to hit mainland China. The summer of 2024 saw a prolonged heatwave lasting 74 days with numerous temperature records broken, signaling a trend of more frequent, intense, and prolonged extreme weather phenomena.

New characteristics of extreme weather in China include an increase in compound events where multiple weather hazards occur simultaneously or in succession, such as combined high temperatures, drought, heavy rain, floods, storm surges, and astronomical high tides. These compound disasters heighten risk complexity and make forecasting and mitigation more challenging. The geographic scope of extreme heavy rainfall and floods has expanded beyond southern China to northern and western areas, with increased typhoon risk in northern regions demonstrated by multiple typhoon impacts in the Northeast in 2020.

To build a strong defense against meteorological disasters, China is shifting from simple forecasting to risk-based disaster warning systems. Measures include improving institutional mechanisms, establishing dense observation networks, enhancing integrated early warning systems, and elevating disaster resistance of infrastructure. Scientific research and public communication on climate risk and disaster mitigation are being prioritized to improve society’s overall preparedness and responsiveness to the escalating challenges posed by climate change and extreme weather.

China Daily | English | News | Dec. 12, 2025 | Climate Change

China is advancing its carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology to reconcile sustained economic growth with its goal of carbon neutrality by 2060. Facing an energy system heavily reliant on coal and heavy industry, the government and state-owned energy companies are shifting from pilot projects to large-scale industrial CCUS clusters. Beijing has incorporated CCUS into its national 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) and updated its technology roadmap, stressing CCUS as essential for the low-carbon use of fossil fuels and overall carbon neutrality efforts.

The National Energy Administration (NEA) has promoted CCUS to transition from experimental stages to industrial demonstration and scaled production through enhanced policy support and technological innovation. The oil and gas sector is operating over 90 CCUS projects, including more than 10 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) initiatives, with annual CO2 injection reaching 4 million tons. As of the end of 2024, China had 126 planned or operational CCUS projects, capable of capturing 6 million tons of CO2 annually, led by energy conglomerates.

Sinopec operates the first million-ton scale CCUS project at its Qilu petrochemical plant, capturing 1 million tons of CO2 per year and injecting it for EOR at the Shengli oilfield. This project provides key engineering experience to support nationwide CCUS expansion. Sinopec views CCUS as critical to upgrading traditional industries and fostering new productive forces, and it aims to collaborate internationally on technology breakthroughs and cluster development. Meanwhile, China National Petroleum Corporation is developing major CCUS hubs in Heilongjiang, Gansu, and Tianjin, integrating emissions from nearby industrial sources.

Globally, CCUS is gaining momentum as an important tool in the energy transition. Although much captured CO2 is currently used for EOR, Chinese state firms are increasingly exploring geological storage in deep saline aquifers, especially near coastal regions, to secure long-term carbon sequestration.

Xinhua | English | News | Dec. 12, 2025 | Geopolitical Conflict and Disputes

A spokesperson for China's State Council Taiwan Affairs Office condemned Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for challenging the one-China principle and distorting historical and international legal interpretations. The spokesperson accused the DPP of using the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which China considers invalid, to promote a secessionist narrative and mislead the public.

The spokesperson emphasized that multiple international legal documents, including the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation, affirm China's sovereignty over Taiwan. The shift from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China represented a change in government, not a change in China's legal status, maintaining Taiwan's status as part of China.

China also reiterated its position that the San Francisco Peace Treaty, drafted without China's involvement, holds no authority over Taiwan's status or China's territorial rights. China has consistently refused to recognize the treaty from the beginning.