By Nestor Corrales and Karen Lema MANILA, June 10 (Reuters) - The Philippines said on Wednesday that it is urging Beijing to remove a floating structure placed at the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea,

Exports to the U.S. surged the most since March 2021, extending a rebound following a long streak of double-digit declines for the most of last year.

A task force confirmed the presence of a 20-foot by 20-foot floating structure and what appears to be an antenna in the disputed Scarborough Shoal.

President Trump’s warming with Xi Jinping of China, a leader he admires, has ignited anxieties in Washington and across Asia.

Yet its economy is still weighed down by a property slump and big debts accrued by the local government since the early 2010s. The Chinese economy has slowed considerably in recent years, never fully recovering from the unpredictable and disruptive lockdowns of the covid-19 pandemic.

HONG KONG — China’s exports picked up pace in May, rising 19.4% from a year earlier, its customs agency said Tuesday, as technology-related shipments remained robust despite impacts from the Iran war.

Archaeologists work at the Xianrendong site in Huadian, Jilin province, part of a cluster of sites in Jilin listed among China’s top 10 archaeological discoveries of 2025, which were announced in Beijing in April.

The Philippines has protested China’s deployment of what Manila describes as a floating “structure” with personnel on a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, fearing it could be a part of Beijing’s effort to turn the uninhabited atoll into an island base.

“China is a common and comfortable boogeyman in American politics, for right or for wrong,” one political scientist told Fortune.