The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has announced a proposed rule under which schools applying for the Optional Practical Training program must pay a fee of $70,000 per person, and $30,000 to extend the program, in an effort to address fraud and abuse.
The U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice program announced a reward of up to $10 million for information on the identity and whereabouts of hacker Zhang Yu from Shanghai, China, accusing him of alleged cyberattacks and theft of research data.
The U.S. State Department announced that, due to significant corruption, it has barred Fiji-based Chinese national Zhao Fugang and his immediate family members from entering the United States, accusing him of paying bribes on behalf of Chinese-related individuals to advance interests.
John Moolenaar, chairman of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, sent a letter to the University of New Haven demanding that it terminate its engineering education cooperation with Xi'an University of Posts and Telecommunications in China, claiming the partnership is suspected of having ties to the Chinese military.
North Korea's Korean Central News Agency published a commentary condemning U.S. fighter jet sales to Taiwan, warning that the United States should think twice about the consequences, while the White House stressed that Trump would decide on arms sales to Taiwan as planned.
The Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th CCP Central Committee is scheduled to be held on October 26, facing an agenda that includes filling seats on the Central Military Commission, retroactive approval of personnel appointments, and a decision on comprehensively and strictly governing the Party.
On October 9, EU Trade Commissioner Sefcovič announced after meeting with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing that the two sides had reached an understanding on limiting exports of Chinese hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles to Europe, which could cut export volumes by more than half.
One year has passed since the Beijing Zion Church "October 9" church case; eight pastors and church workers, accused of fraud and illegal business operation, are detained in Beihai, Guangxi, and the case has been transferred to the court awaiting trial.
On October 9, the CCP Central Committee and the State Council released the Opinions on Developing New Quality Productive Forces, warning localities not to turn away from the real economy toward the virtual economy and to avoid creating bubbles, demanding serious accountability for major losses caused by blind investment and herd behavior, and prohibiting the violation and abuse of policies in the name of new quality productive forces.
On October 8, Xinhua News Agency's Weibo and WeChat official accounts published a whitewashing press release involving Maextro, and large numbers of questioning voices appeared in the comment section; the relevant comment section was switched to featured comments, and over a thousand comments were deleted across the entire internet at 1 a.m. on October 9.
Maextro announced that it has no problems of its own, attributing responsibility for vehicle issues to national standards, while rolling out a free upgrade plan; the announcement made no mention of a recall. Netizens pointed out that Harmony Intelligent Mobility (HIMA) has repeatedly used the free-upgrade routine before.
On October 9, near Xiaobanqiao in Guandu District, Kunming, Yunnan, more than ten young people, wearing handcuffs on both hands linked one after another into a long line, were escorted by multiple law enforcement officers on foot across the street. One of them held a loudspeaker playing a propaganda warning that read, "Fighting and brawling will result in detention without exception." Netizens commented, "They've started parading people through the streets now?"
On October 9, near Xiaobanqiao in Guandu District, Kunming, Yunnan, more than a dozen youths suspected of fighting and brawling were handcuffed together in a long chain and escorted on foot across the street by multiple law enforcement officers. One of them held a loudspeaker playing a propaganda warning that read, "Fighting and brawling will be detained without exception." Netizens questioned, "Have they started parading people through the streets?"
Data from Hong Kong's Census and Statistics Department show that births from mid-2025 to mid-2026 totaled 29,700, falling below the 30,000 mark for the first time and hitting a new low since records began in the 1960s.
On October 9, CATARC sent a survey questionnaire on brake pedal assembly materials to multiple carmakers, focusing on the use of non-metal materials. The move stems from the controversy over a broken pedal in a Huawei Stelato test vehicle and may be preparation for standards adjustments.
On October 9, police deployed a large number of officers at the Zhejin Center in Hangzhou and the Zhangjiaba petition reception point. Some rights defenders were visited late at night by multiple batches of police officers who harassed them after they posted messages such as "unite as one, never give up" in rights defense groups.
On October 9, Xiangyuan Culture and Tourism announced that its actual controller, Yu Faxiang, had received a Case Filing Notice from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) over suspected violations of information disclosure laws and regulations. The company said its production and operations were normal and unaffected.
On October 9, Jiaojian Shares announced that its actual controller Yu Faxiang has been placed under investigation by the CSRC for suspected violations of information disclosure laws and regulations, and that its daily production and operations are normal.
According to an internal US memorandum from August cited by Kyodo News, some participants in Chinese exchange programs to the US were interfered with by Chinese authorities; some were forced to withdraw, were harassed and threatened, and were even arrested. The US government has suspended recruiting participants for the International Visitor Leadership Program and the Professional Fellows Program in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau since late July, while American Institute in Taiwan programs are unaffected.
On October 9, multiple owners of Binjiang Times Ruifu in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, unfurled banners at the construction site to protest and defend their rights, as the housing project had halted construction with no set date for delivery.
On October 9, 2026, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an, who is seeking re-election, gave an exclusive interview to media personality Tang Hsiang-lung. Pressed on questions of identity, he stressed that he is Taiwanese and a citizen of the Republic of China, without acknowledging a Chinese identity; Tang Hsiang-lung later criticized him for dodging the issue.
On October 9, Trump announced on Truth Social the appointment of former Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Katie Zakaria as White House press secretary, succeeding Leavitt, who left in August.
According to The Wall Street Journal, prediction market Kalshi is investigating several bets placed before the appointment announcement that correctly picked Zakaria; outside observers had previously given her roughly a 1% probability, and no connection between her and the bets was found.
According to a post by the Twitter account @ChinaSelect on October 9, 2026, allowing connected cars linked to the Chinese Communist Party into the U.S. market would threaten U.S. national security and the auto industry. The Connected Vehicle Security Act introduced by House Representative Moolenaar (@RepMoolenaar) is gaining increasingly strong bipartisan support and aims to protect American workers and safeguard the security of the auto industry.
U.S. Representative Moolenaar publicly criticized Starbucks on the NewsMax program, accusing the company of boasting about so-called "social responsibility" while opening stores in Xinjiang, where the Chinese Communist Party carries out genocide against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, thereby helping the CCP normalize its atrocities against minorities.
A recent investigation by the U.S. House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (Select Committee) found that the brokerage firm Webull Global was not transparent about its ties to China, exposing U.S. investors' financial data to the risk of surveillance. The committee noted that the Chinese Communist Party is exploiting U.S. financial data and markets.
On October 9, the official website of the School of Insurance at Central University of Finance and Economics published a legal education article stating that college students who circumvent the Great Firewall are “violating the law simply by using it,” warning that relevant records could affect scholarship evaluations, postgraduate recommendation, civil service exam political vetting, and military enlistment reviews, and demanding that students not promote, not forward, not purchase on behalf of others, and not build proxy tools.
On October 9, Zhejiang Technical Institute of Economics issued a tender with a budget of 300,000 yuan to procure a cross-border VPN monitoring system, requiring that synchronized online accounts link violations to individuals, generate user profiles and behavioral heat maps, and add VPN service IPs to a blacklist linked with the firewall for interception.
A netizen submission alleges that Fujian Xinshiying E-Commerce Co., Ltd. unjustly deducted performance pay and transportation and meal subsidies, paid wages below the minimum wage standard, made social insurance and housing fund contributions at a low base, failed to pay social insurance during the probation period, arbitrarily cancelled annual leave and frequently changed compensation rules unilaterally, and threatened employees with dismissal whenever they raised objections.
A netizen submission claimed that employees at Guangdong Dongbo Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. don't get off work until after 11 p.m. every night, with monthly overtime reaching over 100 hours.
BYD employees, angry over the company withholding profit bonuses, posted big-character banners inside the company to express their dissatisfaction; the banners were subsequently removed by security guards.
On October 9, a Weibo tech big V with 3.01 million followers revealed that the Dongchedi app was unable to properly play a review video of the Maextro V800's brake pedal, and was subsequently bombarded with a large number of spam text messages; netizens in the comments section said it was related to retaliation by Huawei fans.
On October 9, netizens found that the Vancouver villa where Meng Wanzhou was placed under house arrest after her detention in 2018 is marked on Google Maps as "Meng Wanzhou's Grand Villa," with the English name Huawei's Princess Villa and the category listed as a shrine, prompting ridicule.
On October 9, some netizens said that when they filled in “Chapman To” as the delivery contact name on Meituan, the page prompted that the “name contains non-compliant content,” while the same name worked normally on Meituan Shangou, and the comment section questioned whether the platform was carrying out political censorship.
On October 9, an uploader on Bilibili posted a lyric-adapted work titled “Breakpoint,” satirizing the breakage of the brake pedal bracket on the Huawei Stelato during a Dongchedi test. Netizens, imitating Yu Chengdong’s tone, quipped “the best lyric adaptation under 10 million.”
On October 9, a stir-fry restaurant in Guixi, Jiangxi, hung up a sign in front of its door announcing that a 125% service charge would be added for American customers starting that day, drawing attention and mockery from netizens.
Responding to questions about his background during an interview with Tang Hsiang-lung, Chiang Wan-an said that his background is used against him in every election and that people will get tired of it, stating clearly that there is no problem with his surname being Chiang.
On October 9, a video of two girls playfully acting out lines from the poem "Some People" sparked discussion on Douyin; netizens left comments mocking themselves for not daring to speak out, and the video has now been taken down.
Shih Wing-ching, founder of am730, published an article in a Hong Kong newspaper claiming that the appearance of condoms is the main cause of declining birth rates, and suggesting that the government mandate that a certain proportion of condom products be leaky defective goods, in order to fine-tune the birth rate.
On October 9, Chinese netizens posted videos showing many Chinese people in Russia waiting at customs to return home; other netizens, worried about the risk of the epidemic spreading, demanded that all returning personnel be rounded up and quarantined.
On October 9, on Huaihe Road Pedestrian Street in Hefei, Anhui, a man held up a sign in protest, bearing slogans including "Down with the unscrupulous foreign media Dongchedi," and was photographed by netizens.
On October 9, netizens reported that a BYD employee got into a physical and verbal altercation with their supervisor and manager after requesting leave and expressing a desire to resign from their supervisory role, slapping the supervisor and splashing water on them. The employee's corporate WeChat profile quickly received over 10,000 likes, with netizens calling it a 'refusal of workplace bullying.' The related account was subsequently suspected of being throttled.
On October 9, a parent in Jiangxi posted a video in which a boy says that the motherland mother is more important than his own mother, sparking heated discussion among netizens.
On October 9, a netizen suggested to the Central Steering Group that an online public opinion office be established to promptly collect and sort out key issues raised by the public online, forming mechanisms for reporting, forwarding, and feedback. One day after the video was posted, it received 242,000 likes, and the comment section and bullet comments showed netizens' support.
On October 9, a video of a cracked manhole cover circulated on Douyin. The cover was badly damaged, with the cross-section showing a dark outer layer and a light-colored, rough, fibrous inner layer exposed. The poster questioned whether it was caused by low-price procurement or seller fraud, and netizens sarcastically remarked that it passed inspection yet the quality is so poor.
On October 9, reporters from The Beijing News visited and called four MAEXTRO stores in Beijing and received different explanations: some said reinforcing the pedals, some said adjusting materials, some were unaware of the upgrade content, and some directly said they did not know.
On October 9, the voice of the China Association for Science and Technology published a commentary stating that the Nobel Prize does not include categories such as engineering technology or applied research and development, and therefore cannot be used to fully measure a country's scientific and technological strength, sparking sarcasm from netizens.
Taiwanese pundit Guo Zhengliang said on a program that Xiao S is a thorough deep blue who has never been vague on major questions of right and wrong, that one cannot equate the two just because she has partnered with Kevin Tsai for more than ten years, and that he once lived upstairs and downstairs from Xiao S and knows what kind of person she is.
Bigo Group, controlled by Stephen Chow, issued an announcement selling all equity in its mainland cinema business for 1 Hong Kong dollar; its Hangzhou Bigo cinema has already closed due to lease expiration, with revenue of 2.25 million yuan and a loss of 1.2 million yuan last year, and the company's overall debt at 8.6 million yuan.
On October 9, staff at a police station in Pingtan, Fujian told media that even if a property is rented out in its entirety, the living room still counts as a public area and the landlord may install cameras, so no case was filed; the room fee has been refunded, and Ms. Guo is preparing to sue the business.