Singapore’s government has broken its silence on China’s decision to block Meta’s $2 billion acquisition of AI agent startup Manus, which is based in the city-state, saying the intervention did not violate local laws, reports Caixin.

Addressing the issue publicly at the Singapore-China Forum on Monday, Chee Hong Tat, Singapore’s national development minister and deputy chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said the government had no need to comment earlier. Singapore respects the national security considerations of both China and the US, he said.

The official also said whether a technology company is allowed to leave its home country and relocate to Singapore is not decided by Singapore but by the home country’s government based on national security concerns. Singapore focuses on providing a stable environment and a global base for companies to operate and raise capital rather than focusing on a firm’s origin or industry, he noted. 

 Alibaba Group and ByteDance will take offline persona-based chatbot features on their popular AI assistants on July 15, reports Caixin. The move coincides with the enforcement of China’s new rules governing human-like AI services.

On Saturday, Alibaba’s Qianwen and ByteDance’s Doubao notified users that they will discontinue services allowing them to build and chat with customizable AI characters. The removed functions are distinct from autonomous AI agents designed to carry out multi-step tasks such as shopping, booking or workflow automation. Instead, they refer to persona-driven chatbots built for role-playing, language learning and scenario-based writing—features that predate the mainstream rise of agentic AI products in 2025.

The measures come amid growing concerns over AI companionship tools. One expert involved in drafting ethical standards for AI applications warned that such systems risk making users more socially isolated by weakening their ability to interact with people in real life.

China’s state auditor has uncovered RMB 1.08 billion ($160 million) in irregularities involving maternity insurance and subsidy funds, reports Caixin, affecting the benefits of more than one million people.

The National Audit Office (NAO) in its annual report on the central budget execution examined RMB 53.1 billion across 26 provinces and found that local governments failed to issue RMB 1.03 billion in benefits to over 900,000 people. In 19 provinces, authorities failed to cover maternity insurance premiums for nearly 340,000 unemployed individuals, violating regulations that require unemployment insurance funds to make these payments on their behalf. 

The audit also revealed widespread fraud, with RMB 54.3 million illegally obtained or distributed. In 17 provinces, 279 employers scammed RMB 31.1 million from the maternity insurance fund by fabricating employment relationships and artificially inflating the payment base to maximize payouts. 

China’s top auditor has accused one of the country’s biggest state-owned banks of exploiting investment fund structures to evade billions of RMB in taxes, reports the South China Morning Post. This comes as Beijing steps up efforts to strengthen financial compliance.

Bank of China evaded RMB 2.37 billion yuan ($348 million) in taxes by misusing preferential treatment intended for publicly offered mutual funds between April 2023 and August 2025, according to the National Audit Office’s annual report.

The bank channelled investments through two affiliated financial institutions and recruited large numbers of employees as nominal investors, each contributing between RMB 1 and RMB 100, to disguise 11 privately offered funds as public ones, the report said.

Chinese authorities have summoned representatives of US-based membership-only retailer Sam’s Club for a “formal accountability interview” in response to “frequent food safety issues”, reports the South China Morning Post.

According to a notice from the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), the Walmart-owned supermarket chain was urged to “prioritize food safety, strictly fulfil social corporate responsibilities, mitigate risks across the entire supply chain and safeguard public health” in its physical stores and online shops.

With its marketing emphasizing quality control and product selection, the warehouse retailer has in recent years become a status symbol among middle-class Chinese families. Quick expansion across mainland China gave it 63 stores in that market by the end of last year. But Sam’s Club has been hit by a series of food safety incidents across China over the past year, including reports of rats and maggots being found in its products.