Taiwanese voters rejected a bid to oust about one-fifth of their lawmakers, all from the opposition Nationalist Party, in a recall election Saturday, dampening hopes for the ruling party to flip the balance of power in the self-ruled island's legislature.

The vote has coincided with efforts by Beijing to raise its military and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan. China has for decades claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and has never renounced the possible use of force to annex the self-governing island and unify it with the Chinese mainland.

The recall groups say theirs is an "anti-communist" movement, accusing the KMT of selling out Taiwan by sending lawmakers to China, not supporting defence spending and bringing ch

China's Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu told a roundtable of representatives from over 30 countries, including Russia, South Africa, Qatar, South Korea and Germany, that China wanted the organisation to promote pragmatic cooperation in AI and was considering putting its headquarters in Shanghai.

Speaking at the opening of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai on Saturday, Chinese premier Li Qiang said AI innovation was hindered by “bottlenecks” such as the supply of computer chips.