China endured its hottest summer on record in 2025

China’s Searing Summer Sends Ripples to Malta’s Shores
by Maria Vella, Hot Malta correspondent

Valletta – While the Grand Harbour’s limestone walls glow calmly under a 31 °C September breeze, meteorologists in Beijing have just confirmed what many suspected: China has endured its hottest summer since records began in 1951. Average temperatures from June to August 2025 reached a blistering 23.4 °C nationwide – a figure that sounds almost pleasant to Maltese ears until you realise it includes the wind-scoured plateaus of Tibet. For the world’s most populous country, the milestone means power cuts, wilted rice paddies, and new heat-stroke wards. For Malta, an island whose economy is wired into global supply chains and whose culture is stitched from centuries of exchange with the East, the news lands closer to home than the 8,600 kilometres separating us.

Walk into any café in Sliema this week and conversation flickers between the usual beach plans and something heavier. “My brother-in-law ships tiles to Shanghai,” says Martina Pace, stirring a lukewarm cappuccino. “Last month the factory closed for ten days – too hot to run the kilns. Our container is still stuck outside Ningbo.” Her story echoes across the Malta Chamber of Commerce, where analysts warn that delays in Chinese manufacturing could nudge up prices just as local families brace for winter fuel bills. Already, some supermarkets have tacked an extra 20 cents onto imported soy sauce and canned lychee, subtle reminders that global warming does not politely stop at border control.

The cultural reverberations cut deeper than commerce. In the shadow of Mosta Dome, the Chinese Cultural Centre has cancelled its annual Mid-Autumn Festival lantern parade for the first time in fifteen years. Organisers cite “solidarity with communities suffering heat-related losses,” but also a practical hitch: the traditional silk lanterns are crafted in Hangzhou, where workshops slowed to a crawl during July’s record 45 °C highs. Instead, volunteers will host a smaller gathering under string lights, collecting donations for the Red Cross Society of China. “It feels strange,” says centre director Li Wei, “to celebrate abundance when so many are rationing water.”

Malta’s universities are responding, too. At the Institute of Earth Systems, Professor Ritienne Xerri has retooled her final-year syllabus to include real-time data from Beijing’s heatwave. “Our students grew up worrying about sea-level rise,” she explains, “but now they see extreme heat as the silent driver of migration, trade disruption, even food flavour.” She points to a lab experiment comparing the yield of Maltese tomatoes grown under simulated Chinese heat stress. The early results? Smaller fruit, thicker skins – a preview, perhaps, of what Mediterranean summers could look like by mid-century.

On the streets of Marsaxlokk, fishermen swap stories over early-morning lampuki catches. “Fuel prices are already climbing,” grumbles Nenu, mending a turquoise net. “If China needs more diesel for emergency generators, we’ll feel it here.” His observation is not paranoia. Global energy markets jumped 4 % last week on reports that Chinese provinces extended air-conditioning subsidies, siphoning liquefied natural gas away from European buyers. For Malta, heavily reliant on LNG imports, the ripple could translate into steeper electricity tariffs announced in the next budget.

Yet the crisis has also sparked unexpected collaboration. A new twinning project between Għarb and the Chinese village of Hongtudi – both famed for limestone craftsmanship – is swapping heat-resilient building techniques via Zoom. Maltese artisans are teaching the use of traditional ħitan tas-sejjieħ (rubble walls) that naturally regulate temperature, while Chinese engineers share reflective roof coatings designed to bounce back the sun’s glare. Funded by the EU’s International Climate Initiative, the exchange is small but symbolic: two islands of stone and terraced fields, separated by continents, sketching a shared blueprint for survival.

Back in Valletta, as the sun dips behind the honey-coloured bastions, the city’s evening crowd spills onto Republic Street. A busker strums a mandolin riff that morphs, improbably, into the opening bars of a Chinese folk melody. Coins clink into his case – euros and, tonight, a single yuan note. It is a quiet gesture, but it captures the mood: Malta, no stranger to sieges and storms, knows that weather is never just weather. It is trade routes, dinner tables, the songs we choose to learn. China’s hottest summer has scorched fields and factories, but here on our limestone outcrop, it has also lit a conversation about how tightly our futures are woven together.

Conclusion: As Malta navigates its own warming trends, the record-breaking summer in China offers both a cautionary tale and a call to action. From supermarket shelves to university labs, from village squares to shipping lanes, the heatwave underscores that the climate crisis is not a distant headline but a lived experience stitched into the fabric of everyday Maltese life. Our response – whether through policy, culture, or simple acts of solidarity – will shape not only the next Maltese summer but the summers of generations yet unborn.