• With Europe tour and Putin visit on Xi’s calendar, China faces scrutiny over Ukraine war stance
• Argentinian foreign minister’s visit to China may signal effort to stabilise ties after President Javier Milei’s pivot to US
• Chinese and Russian defence ministers reaffirm close bilateral ties
• Bad blood with China? Antony Blinken buys Taylor Swift album in Beijing
• Sri Lanka’s Chinese-financed white elephant airport leased to Indian-Russian joint venture
• Like the US and EU, China uses subsidies. It just does it more effectively
• TikTok owner ByteDance earns praise from Chinese social media for rejecting US sell-or-ban ultimatum
• ‘Ukraine of Asia’: pro-Duterte coalition slams Philippines’ involvement in US ‘proxy war’ against China
• [World] Blinken says China helping fuel Russian threat to Ukraine
• China’s exporters shun the yuan, embrace alternatives as depreciation fears build
• Official of China’s securities watchdog under investigation for ‘serious violation’ amid uptick in market regulation
• China highlights extremism threat, pledges deeper military ties with Kazakhstan
• China eyes food security boost from gene-cloned Asian soybean rust ‘breakthrough’, could save US$2 billion per year
• China hosts talks between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah in bid to end internal divisions: report
• Chinese spy claims: Beijing summons German ambassador to protest after 4 arrested on espionage charges
• China KOL with 19 million fans shut down for faking story about school homework left in Paris café toilet apologises
• China aims to beat US in race for Mars samples with 2030 goal: space official
• [World] Xi meets Blinken as China warns US against crossing 'red lines'
• [Sport] China warns US not to step on its 'red lines'
• Chinese food-delivery giant Meituan to debut in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh as international expansion quickens
• How much of Gaza has been destroyed in the war? Chinese satellites detail the damage
• China-US relationship is more stable but still at risk if ‘red lines’ are crossed, Wang tells Blinken in Beijing
• China mistress uses frozen embryos to conceive son after lover’s death, sparks controversy over battle for inheritance
• EU to tell Beijing envoys of plan to blacklist more Chinese businesses for supplying Russia
• Philippines says ‘foreign actor’ behind Marcos Jnr deepfake urging military action against China
• US-China talks start with warnings about misunderstandings and miscalculations
• China foreign minister tells Blinken relations with the US could slip into ‘downward spiral’
• Car wars: international marques from VW to Honda fight to regain ground lost to their EV rivals in China
• [Sport] TikTok's Chinese parent firm says no plans to sell
• China strikes oil with new high-yield rapeseed, making strides in food security
• Academics in Japan shun events in China amid fears over professor’s disappearance in Shanghai
• China youth embrace independent approach to dating – ‘suicidal singleness’ and ‘single love’ – to avoid risks of romance
• China’s Henan province sees drop in smartphone exports as Apple diversifies manufacturing supply chain outside the mainland
• Vladimir Putin to visit China in May, as Moscow seeks to strengthen ties with Beijing
• No imminent US sanctions on Chinese banks for their trade with Russia: Janet Yellen
• US Federal Communications Commission bars Chinese telecoms carriers from offering broadband services
• China’s beefed up statistics and accounting laws under review, robust fines to increase cost of fraud
• Blinken set to meet Chinese leaders as superpowers manage rivalry

With Europe tour and Putin visit on Xi’s calendar, China faces scrutiny over Ukraine war stance

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3260569/europe-tour-and-putin-visit-xis-calendar-china-faces-scrutiny-over-ukraine-war-stance?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s position on the war in Ukraine will face close scrutiny next month when President Xi Jinping is expected to set off on a European tour and receive his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at home.

Putin announced at a business forum on Thursday that “a visit in May is planned”. It was the latest sign of deepening ties between China and Russia since the war broke out in 2022. Putin last visited China in October.

In what will be a busy diplomatic month for China, Xi is also expected to kick off a European swing next month, with stops in France, Serbia and Hungary.

China has yet to confirm its leader’s trip to France and Serbia, but Gergely Gulyas, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, said on Thursday that Xi would visit the central European country from May 8 to 10.

Putin to visit China in May as Moscow seeks to bolster Beijing ties

Dylan Loh, an assistant professor of foreign policy at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the war in Ukraine would feature “heavily” in talks during Xi’s time in Europe.

Loh said this was especially true for the Chinese leader’s meetings with French officials, but he said he did not expect Hungarian officials to discuss Ukraine as prominently due to Budapest’s relations with Moscow.

Reuters quoted Gulyas as saying that China was among the world’s leading powers – “stronger than the European Union” – and that it was in Hungary’s interests to have a good economic relationship with as many countries as possible.

“Hungary thinks that it is not worth setting up ideological boundaries when it comes to economic relationships, and we are happy about the Chinese president’s two-day visit,” he said.

The Chinese leader will visit the continent as the West grows increasingly concerned about China’s support for Russia.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is in Beijing, is expected to press Chinese officials to halt exports of machine tools and other dual-use items that have helped Russia’s defence industry. China has dismissed allegations that it has aided Russia in the war.

“I think the pressure [from the West] has always been there but so far, we have not seen any concrete effects of that pressure other than for China to largely sit on the sidelines of the war,” Loh said.

He said that the “limits of persuasion and diplomacy on reining in Russian behaviour was quite clear”, and that talks with Xi would probably be centred on preventing China from providing direct, substantial support for Russia.

Loh said China’s diplomatic activities in May – especially Putin’s visit – would be closely watched.

He said people would be watching for any substantive outcomes to help prop up Russia’s economy and any indication that China was shifting towards directly supporting Moscow’s war effort.

Although the Chinese leader is likely to be pulled in two directions, Loh suggested there were few expectations of a significant shift when Xi visited Europe. “I do not think China’s position on the war will be tested,” he said.

He said China’s position so far had generally been to allow events to unfold without intervening too much by directly supporting Russia’s war efforts or directly condemning Moscow.

Wang Yiwei, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said Putin’s visit to China, his first overseas trip of his new presidential term, showed the “strategic mutual trust” between Moscow and Beijing.

Putin also made China his first foreign visit in 2018 after securing his fourth term.

Why China is keeping its distance as Russia and North Korea cosy up

But Wang, noting that Putin also had plans to travel to North Korea, cautioned that the Russian leader’s visit could add to Western concerns about how China and North Korea could aid Russia’s war efforts.

Washington earlier raised concerns with China over North Korea’s growing ties with Russia amid reports that Moscow was using Pyongyang-supplied missiles in Ukraine.

In a rare overseas trip, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un travelled to Russia last year and met Putin, sparking Western concerns about a potential arms deal.

Wang said China could seek to use Putin’s visit to reach an agreement with Russia over a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland next month.

Both China and Switzerland have pushed for Russia to be invited to the summit, which will take place outside the city of Luzern. Similar conferences in the past have left out Russia.

Wang said it would be “great” if China could reach a consensus on the issue with Russia, noting that the summit would be “pointless” if there was no Russian representation.

If a truce or some form of peace measure were achieved, Wang said it would benefit not just the countries involved but also Western powers such as the US and Europe.

“China has always been willing to facilitate negotiations. This has always been China’s position,” he said.

Argentinian foreign minister’s visit to China may signal effort to stabilise ties after President Javier Milei’s pivot to US

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3260582/argentinian-foreign-ministers-visit-china-may-signal-effort-stabilise-ties-after-president-javier?utm_source=rss_feed

Argentinian Foreign Minister Diana Mondino will start a four-day visit to Argentina on Sunday after relations came under heavy strain since President Javier Milei came to power in December.

Mondino will be accompanied by financial officials – including Central Bank President Santiago Bausili and Secretary of Finance Pablo Quirino and the foreign ministry’s secretary of international economic relations Marcelo Cima – triggering speculation that she may be hoping to convince Beijing to renew a currency swap to boost Argentina’s dwindling foreign reserves.

Milei, an economist and a right-wing libertarian, threatened to cut off ties with China during his campaign and since taking office, has strongly pivoted towards the United States while pursuing radical economic reforms.

After taking the office, he cancelled the previous government’s plan to join the Brics bloc of emerging economies and has also expressed support for Israel and Ukraine.

Earlier this month, his government sent a delegation of scientists and experts to inspect China’s deep space observation station in Neuquén Province in Argentina’s south after US officials described it as a military installation.

Why a speech by Argentina’s Javier Milei strikes a chord in China

In another move that highlighted Milei’s tilt to the West, Argentina formally requested to join Nato as a global partner last week, days after sealing a deal to buy F-16 fighter jets from Denmark.

Gonzalo Ghiggino, a researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, said “the real reason” for Mondino’s visit is to extend part of the currency swap between the two countries’ central banks that is due to expire in June.

“This is for the moment the most important issue – vital for Argentina – between the two countries,” Ghiggino said.

The country has been mired in an economic crisis since 2002 and defaulted on its sovereign debt for a ninth time in 2020. There have been growing fears that another default will take place under Milei’s watch.

Its US$18 billion swap line with China is the main source of foreign reserves for its central bank’s depleted coffers, but US$5 billion of this is due to expire in June.

The deal is also the biggest yuan swap line in the world, as Beijing is steadily pushing a wider use of yuan to counter the dominance of the US dollar and to expand its global influence.

“The Argentine government has a serious problem finding financing from other sources. Even the IMF said no to a new loan” said Ghiggino. “If the Chinese government doesn’t agree to extend the expiration date, the Argentine government could face a very strong crisis.”

China ranks as Argentina’s second largest trading partner, behind only Brazil. It is the largest buyer of Argentinian soybeans and beef, and a key investor in lithium, an electric-vehicle battery metal. Argentina owns the world’s largest share of salt-lake lithium resources, 21 per cent of the global total.

Jiang Shixue, a professor at Macau University of Science and Technology, said Mondino’s visit should help stabilise relations.

“Some of Milei’s remarks and actions have indeed created some uncertainty in the future of China-Argentina relations, but I think a cooperative relationship benefits both sides as it has in previous decades,” Jiang said.

But China’s strong presence in the country has drawn suspicions from the US. During a recent visit to Argentina, General Laura Richardson, who heads US Southern Command, warned that Beijing’s expanding influence in Latin America and the Caribbean “could present increasingly greater threats” to the US.

She also claimed the Chinese space station in Neuquén Province could provide the PLA with “global tracking and surveillance capabilities” which “could translate into global military capabilities”.

In a statement, the Chinese embassy in Argentina said Richardson’s remarks were “absurd to the extreme and lacking in minimum respect for China and Argentina”.

“The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, including Argentina, are independent and sovereign States, not the backyard of the United States,” the statement said. “The Government and the people of Argentina have the wisdom and the ability to choose partners that serve their interests.”

China cuts tariffs on 143 Argentine products amid tense bilateral ties

Mondino will be accompanied by dozens of businesspeople and investors on her visit to Beijing and Shanghai, where she will “have a number of official meetings and a tight schedule of trade promotion events and meetings with investors”, according to the Argentine foreign ministry.

It also said Mondino would be holding working meetings with high-ranking Chinese officials, including her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to discuss “the main bilateral matters”.

Beijing has confirmed the visit will run for four days. Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that both countries are “important emerging economies”, adding: “China is ready to work with Argentina to deepen mutual political trust and to promote the stable development of the China-Argentina comprehensive strategic partnership”.

Chinese and Russian defence ministers reaffirm close bilateral ties

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3260584/chinese-and-russian-defence-ministers-reaffirm-close-bilateral-ties?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s defence minister said on Friday that maintaining close ties with Russia was of “particular importance”, even as Washington presses Beijing to stop what the US contends is its continued support for Moscow’s military.

Minister Dong Jun made the statement on Friday during a work session with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu in Astana, Kazakhstan, on the sideline of a defence ministers’ meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

“In a volatile international environment, it is particularly important that the relations between our armed forces maintain a high dynamic and respond to the trends of the times. Our interaction is important for strategic stability on the planet,” Dong was quoted by the TASS news agency as saying.

Shoigu said that friendly relations between Russia and China “continue to develop at a high rate, expanding in all areas”, and that Moscow-Beijing military cooperation was essential for enhancing defence capacities and maintaining global and regional stability.

“We regularly carry out operational and combat training on land, at sea and in the air, successfully practising combat training tasks of varying complexity,” he was quoted as saying.

Shoigu attributed worsening military and political tension in the world to “the West’s geopolitical escapades and selfish neocolonial activities”, adding that Moscow and Beijing generally agreed “on the fundamental issues of the current world order and pressing international problems”.

It was the second meeting between the two in three months, following a video conference in January, which was also Dong’s first international engagement since being named defence minister in December.

The Astana session coincides with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing, where he has raised the issue of China’s support for Russia’s military.

China under scrutiny over Ukraine as Xi prepares for Europe tour, Putin visit

Although it declared a “no limit partnership” with Russia in the weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, China maintains that it is neutral in the conflict and that it has not provided weapons to the Russian military.

Washington has accused Beijing of exporting dual-use goods – supplies with both civilian and military applications – to Russia that were having “a material effect in Ukraine”.

After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday in Beijing, Blinken said he had challenged Xi on the issue and “was extremely clear about our concerns”.

“I reiterated our serious concern about the PRC providing components that are powering Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine,” he said.

“China is the top supplier of machine tools, microelectronics, nitrocellulose, which is critical to making munitions and rocket propellants, and other dual-use items that Moscow is using to ramp up its defence industrial base,” he said.

It had been reported before Blinken’s trip that the US was considering sanctioning Chinese banks for that reason. On Friday Blinken did not respond to a question about whether Washington would indeed impose those sanctions.

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Bad blood with China? Antony Blinken buys Taylor Swift album in Beijing

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3260591/bad-blood-china-antony-blinken-buys-taylor-swift-album-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken snapped up a Taylor Swift album along with one by classic Chinese rocker Dou Wei during an unexpected detour to a Beijing record store on Friday after talks in China meant to ease superpower tensions.

En route to the airport after a visit that included a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Blinken popped into the Li-Pi record store in the Chinese capital’s arts district where the owner handed him an album by Dou Wei, which he bought along with Swift’s 2022 record Midnights.

One of the aims of Blinken’s trip has been to emphasise the importance of what the State Department calls “people-to-people ties” as part of efforts to improve relations.

In the Beijing record store, he described mega pop star Swift, whose hits include “Bad Blood” from her fifth album in 2014, as a successful American export.

In 2019, Swift’s album Lover broke a record for an international artist in China as it surpassed 1 million combined total streams, downloads and sales within a week of its release.

The combined total made it China’s most-consumed full-length international album ever in such a short space of time.

Is Taylor Swift a ‘Pentagon asset’? Conspiracy theories stalk pop star

Blinken, an avid musician and guitar player, described music as “the best connector, regardless of geography”, and said he loved vinyl records because of the liner notes.

Asked by the shop owner what music he was into, Blinken, who is 62, said he loved everything but added: “I’m a bit stuck in the ’70s.”

Sri Lanka’s Chinese-financed white elephant airport leased to Indian-Russian joint venture

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3260566/sri-lankas-chinese-financed-white-elephant-airport-leased-indian-russian-joint-venture?utm_source=rss_feed

Sri Lanka said on Friday it had leased a white elephant international airport built with Chinese loans to a foreign joint venture, as the island nation’s bankrupt government seeks to offload loss-making assets.

The small airport near a wildlife sanctuary on the southern coast opened in 2013 but was immediately plagued by problems, and has been a running sore on state coffers since.

Government spokesman Bandula Gunawardana told reporters that cabinet had awarded a 30-year lease to a joint venture between India’s Shaurya Aeronautics and Russia’s Airports of Regions Management Company.

Sri Lanka says China to develop strategic seaport, Colombo airport

He did not give further financial details, but said only four other companies had shown an interest in managing the isolated airport, which currently has no scheduled flights.

The airport is named after former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who borrowed heavily from China for infrastructure projects that quickly became commercial failures.

Since receiving an International Monetary Fund bailout last year, Sri Lanka has sought to privatise a host of loss-making state-owned enterprises.

The Mattala airport is in the middle of a migratory route for birds, with several aircraft forced to ground after striking airborne fowl.

Sri Lanka’s military were once forced to deploy hundreds of troops to clear deer, wild buffalo and elephants off the airport’s runway so it could continue operations.

The first foreign airline to operate out of the facility was Air Arabia in 2013, but they pulled out after six weeks of scheduled services.

Flydubai quit in June 2018 without giving a reason, but officials said poor passenger traffic may have spurred the budget carrier to leave.

National carrier Sri Lankan Airlines stopped flying to Mattala in 2015 soon after Rajapaksa was defeated in the that year’s presidential election.

The company later said it saved US$18 million annually by not flying to the isolated airport.

China pledges to support Sri Lanka and develop ports through belt and road

Debts to China are partly blamed for an unprecedented financial crisis which prompted Sri Lanka to default on its US$46 billion foreign debt in 2023.

In 2017, unable to repay a huge Chinese loan, Sri Lanka allowed China Merchants Port Holdings to take over a nearby port at Hambantota.

The deal, which gave the Chinese company a 99-year lease, raised fears about Beijing’s use of “debt traps” in exerting its influence abroad.

Like the US and EU, China uses subsidies. It just does it more effectively

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3260347/us-and-eu-china-uses-subsidies-it-just-does-it-more-effectively?utm_source=rss_feed

If US President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are to be believed, China’s exporters are trade cheats bent on subverting critically important sectors of their economies and jeopardising American and European national security.

At the heart of this devious strategy are subsidies, comprehensively deployed across the Chinese economy, with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) at the core.

Talking to US steelworkers in Pittsburgh recently, Biden was unabashed. “For too long, the Chinese government has poured state money into Chinese steel companies, pushing them to make so much steel…” he said. “They’re not competing. They’re cheating.”

Von der Leyen is also unequivocal, though her primary concern is the threat of China’s electric vehicles (EVs). “Global markets are now flooded with cheaper Chinese electric cars. And their price is kept artificially low by huge state subsidies. This is distorting our market,” she said in her annual state of the union address in September, before announcing an investigation into the scale of the problem.

There is no disputing China’s strategic use of subsidies to shape its economy. They sit at the heart of the “Made in China 2025” industry policy, unveiled in 2015. There is also probably no disputing the threat that this set of policies poses for many leading industries in the United States and Europe.

China’s decade-long focus on reducing fossil fuel consumption and greening its economy has made it a world-leading producer of low-cost solar and windpower equipment, EVs and batteries, creating severe competitive challenges for companies and workers across the US and Europe.

My bet is that the next “big threat” will come from China’s development of hydrogen power and hydrogen-powered vehicles, where estimated subsidies of about US$10 billion are being used to drive competition between 28 private-sector enterprises and four SOEs across the country, and where prices for “green hydrogen” produced by renewable energy is now on a par with the cheapest in Europe.

Manufacturers in the US and Europe are baying for protection. The argument is that protection is needed not just to save jobs, but to ensure national security: that economies cannot afford to have strategically important sectors at the mercy of Chinese manufacturers, even if that means paying more for cars, energy and a wide range of consumer goods.

There are valid concerns about national security – and about “de-risking” economies by ensuring healthy competition and diversity of supply along manufacturing chains – even if the security narrative has in recent years been stretched to preposterous and paranoid extremes. But before resorting to costly and controversial trade protections, a number of questions should be addressed.

Is China distinct in resorting to subsidies as an industrial weapon? What are China’s excuses for the extensive use of subsidies, and is there evidence of malevolent intent? However powerful the temptation to deploy retaliatory protections, would such a response be in the best interests of our economies?

After all, for many small and medium-sized economies that can’t afford subsidies, the temptation is strong to decide that if someone is foolish enough to offer you something at an artificially low price, then you would be foolish not to take it.

Western protectionism will fail – China’s success isn’t down to subsidies

Let’s look at these questions separately. The argument that China is a distinctly pernicious user of subsidies sits on weak foundations. Subsidies have been endemic worldwide for decades. Privileged “national champions” are commonly subsidised, often because of their disproportionate political influence. Farmers are famously cosseted worldwide.

Globally, farm support in 54 countries added up to US$851 billion per year between 2020 and 2022, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Last year, the International Monetary Fund calculated that subsidies for fossil fuels worldwide amounted to US$7 trillion, jumping by US$2 trillion after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine cut oil and gas supplies.

A 2022 report by the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization and OECD, drawing on data from Global Trade Alert, identified around 18,000 subsidy programmes worldwide since 2008 – with the number split almost equally between the US, the European Union and China.

The Centre for Strategic and International Studies, an American think tank, estimates that China’s manufacturing subsidies amounted to US$248 billion in 2019, three times more than America’s (US$84 billion) and over 15 times more than Germany’s.

This predated the US Chips and Science Act, which provides hi-tech subsidies worth US$280 billion, and the Inflation Reduction Act, estimated to offer as much as US$1.2 trillion in incentives. Clearly, different methodologies lead to very different calculations of subsidies and their impact.

Such studies also duck the issue of whether subsidies are automatically bad. Subsidies for research and development can be seen as good in stimulating innovation. China’s subsidies aimed at curbing fossil fuel use and encouraging green technologies in the battle against global warming have been widely regarded as helpful, making EVs cheaper and speeding up the energy transition.

China’s rise as world’s green factory has put West on the back foot

The reality is that China’s subsidies have been more effective than in most parts of the world because they are embedded as an intrinsic part of a distinct economic model. As with differing tax rules or currency policies, subsidies are a natural part of any government’s fiscal tool box. They are good when implemented well, and bad when directed wastefully.

Biden or von der Leyen might do well to examine the effectiveness of their economic strategies instead of building walls that benefit no one.

TikTok owner ByteDance earns praise from Chinese social media for rejecting US sell-or-ban ultimatum

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3260545/tiktok-owner-bytedance-earns-praise-chinese-social-media-rejecting-us-sell-or-ban-ultimatum?utm_source=rss_feed

ByteDance has earned praise from Chinese social media for denying a report that it was weighing a divestment of TikTok’s operations in America, a day after the United States government enacted into law a sell-or-ban ultimatum against the popular short video app.

Beijing-based ByteDance late on Thursday rejected a report by US digital publication The Information, which said that it was “exploring scenarios” to sell a majority stake in TikTok’s US operations to firms outside the technology industry and without the algorithm that powers the platform.

In a statement posted on its Jinri Toutiao news platform, ByteDance said that it had no plans to sell TikTok. This marked the second time this year that ByteDance broke its silence on TikTok, following its denial of a report by The Wall Street Journal that company co-founder Zhang Yiming had discussed a sale of the short video platform’s US business to potential buyers.

The official denials issued by ByteDance show the company’s confidence in TikTok’s anticipated legal challenge to the US sell-or-ban measure against the social media platform.

ByteDance sees TikTok as having “a chance to win” when its challenge to the US measure finally ends up in court, according to a source close to the matter, who declined to be named because the legal strategy is private.

The company would also prefer to shut down TikTok’s US operations rather than divest it after exhausting all legal options to fight the US sell-or-ban measure, according to a Reuters report on Friday that cited four sources.

Of the 52 comments to ByteDance’s denial on Jinri Toutiao, seven extolled the firm for “having a backbone” and sticking to its principles in spite of a potential commercial backlash in the US. Four other comment praised the company for “never bowing down to the US”.

On Weibo, China’s biggest microblogging site, the reaction to ByteDance’s denial noted broader issues at play. Some commenters pointed out that TikTok’s problems in the US have become political and that “a sale would be seen as treason”, while others added that ByteDance “wouldn’t dare” divest the platform’s business in America.

TikTok chief executive Chew Shou Zi had earlier expressed optimism about the social media platform’s legal position. “The facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail again,” Chew said in a video message posted on Wednesday, moments after US President Joe Biden signed into law the legislative measure against TikTok.

The Chinese government, meanwhile, has indicated that it would strongly oppose a forced sale of TikTok. Privately held ByteDance is subject to Chinese laws, which means regulatory authorities can veto any deal involving the sale or transfer of the platform’s technology.

In 2020, then-US President Donald Trump had pushed for a sell-or-ban ultimatum on TikTok that led to deal between ByteDance and Oracle to acquire the platform. Beijing, however, stepped in after updating the nation’s export control list and requiring government approval for the sale or transfer of the algorithm behind the app.

TikTok accounts for a small share of ByteDance’s total revenue and daily active users, according to sources cited in the Reuters report. At present, the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, accounts for a hefty share of ByteDance sales.

Biden has set a January 19 deadline – one day before his term is to expire – for the sale of TikTok’s US operations, but he could grant a three-month extension if it is determined that ByteDance is making progress.

‘Ukraine of Asia’: pro-Duterte coalition slams Philippines’ involvement in US ‘proxy war’ against China

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3260574/ukraine-asia-pro-duterte-coalition-slams-philippiness-involvement-us-proxy-war-against-china?utm_source=rss_feed

Supporters of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte have formed a coalition opposing the country’s growing alliance with the United States in its conflicts with China, which they warn is becoming a “proxy war” that could turn their nation into “the Ukraine of Asia”.

At the end of the launch event for the Citizens’ Coalition Against War in Manila on Wednesday, the group released a petition calling for signatures supporting an end to the proxy war as well as a manifesto criticising the government’s position on the Second Thomas Shoal, a highly contested maritime landmark in the South China Sea that the Philippine refers to as Ayungin and Beijing calls Ren’ai Jiao.

The coalition, led by Herman Tiu Laurel, founder of the Philippine-Brics Strategic Studies think tank and board chairman of the Association for Philippines-China Understanding, objected to the Philippine’s defending its territorial rights over the shoal against China’s claims, saying: “The Ayungin incidents have been described as Chinese ‘aggression’, but appear to be a valid response to the US-BBM EDCA military ‘provocations’.”

BBM refers to President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s nickname “Bongbong” while EDCA is the abbreviation for the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement, which the Philippine government signed with the US, allowing the latter’s troops to have a rotational presence inside Philippine military facilities.

The incidents he referred to are the numerous instances in recent months in which Chinese maritime vessels disrupted – through the use of water cannons and other “grey zone” tactics – missions by Philippine forces to deliver supplies and building materials to the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II era navy vessel that was purposefully grounded on the shoal in order to strengthen Manila’s territorial claims to the area.

The coalition’s petition states: “We strongly reject, as the world must reject, the false narrative that China has acted as ‘a naked aggressor’ in these non-lethal incidents. To begin with, China has been circumspect in making sure that no weapons of war were used, and there were no fatalities in these unfortunate incidents.”

The text of the petition also argues that the United States’ “pivot to Asia” strategy – aimed at strengthening Washington’s bilateral security alliances with a number of countries in the continent – “has led to the escalation of tensions in the region, using the Philippines, among others as a strategic pawn in its dangerous game”.

One of the speakers at the event, Anna Malindog-Uy, claimed that other countries now perceived the Philippines as being well on its way to becoming “the Ukraine of Asia”.

Malindog-Uy, who describes herself on her Facebook page as a doctoral candidate in economics at Peking University, acknowledged that “the Philippine’s strategic location makes it a pivotal player in any potential military conflict in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in the context of rising geopolitical tension between the US and China.”

However, the Philippines should not take sides if war should break out since the conflict would be “American-orchestrated”, she said.

“Why should we allow the Philippines to be dragged into a conflict which is not of its own making and where it should not take part,” she added.

Duterte’s former spokesman, Harry Roque, also spoke against the presence of US troops in Philippine military facilities, saying these were “a threat to our security because with their presence the country becomes a target by other countries opposed to the US”.

Former president Duterte himself vowed in a recent interview with Chinese state-run news agency Global Times that should he ever succeed in removing Marcos Jnr from the presidency, he would remove the EDCA bases.

During his time in office, Duterte shifted the country’s foreign policy towards closer alignment with China and away from the US. He recently revealed that he had made a handshake agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping to maintain the “status quo” in the South China Sea, including refraining from missions to reinforce the BRP Sierra Madre’s position on the Second Thomas Shoal.

Roque revealed the so-called “gentleman’s agreement” between Duterte and Xi, and suggested that China’s aggressive actions towards resupply missions to the shoal were because they felt Marcos Jnr’s administration had violated the unwritten pact made by his predecessor.

Although Duterte was highly popular during his time in office, his rants against America and his threats to eject the EDCA bases and scrap the 1951 US-Philippine Mutual Defence Treaty apparently did little to dent most Filipinos’ positive attitudes perceptions of the US, which has long been an ally to their country.

A survey by private pollster Pulse Asia conducted in December 2022 showed that 84 per cent of 1,200 Filipino respondents wanted the government to work closely with the US to assert its sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea – which includes the country’s exclusive economic zone and other features like Thitu island in the South China Sea that Manila considers part its maritime territory.

[World] Blinken says China helping fuel Russian threat to Ukraine

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-68905475

China’s exporters shun the yuan, embrace alternatives as depreciation fears build

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3260529/chinas-exporters-shun-yuan-embrace-alternatives-depreciation-fears-build?utm_source=rss_feed

The recent volatility of the yuan, depressed profits and unexpected shifts in external demand are combining to make some Chinese exporters less sanguine about their business prospects – and more likely to park their assets in anything but the national currency.

Many feel further depreciation of the yuan against the US dollar is all but certain, as the US Federal Reserve defied expectations and indicated a predicted reduction of interest rates would not be forthcoming due to lingering inflation pressures.

“At the beginning of this year, it became clear that my circle of friends, all of whom are exporters, were short of US dollars,” said a Guangdong-based manager in the textile equipment industry. The manager, who elected to remain anonymous, has a nearly US$1 million investment in a US factory.

“Perhaps, on the one hand, it is because the economy and exports are not that good, and everyone is earning fewer dollars. On the other hand, companies like us that are developing markets overseas have also encountered difficulties.”

China’s exports declined by 7.5 per cent in March compared to the year before, hitting US$279.7 billion and falling short of expectations. This was in sharp contrast to the 7.1 per cent growth in combined figures for January and February.

Meanwhile, the yuan has dropped about 2.1 per cent against the US dollar since the start of this year, driving many exporters to hold onto their US dollars and only converting what is necessary.

“In the past two years, some merchants I know have put their foreign trade receivables in Hong Kong first, and then remitted as much as they needed,” said Liu Kaiming, a supply chain specialist who has partnered with many global brands.

China’s inflation data disappoints again, fuelling calls for swift policy action

Due to large interest rate differentials between China and the US, regular inflows from domestic exporters have dried up. Businesses have chosen to keep their US dollars offshore in deposits that earn them over 5 per cent – compared to around 1.5 per cent on yuan deposits at home – and wait for better exchange rates.

According to a Wednesday report by Bank of America, while there has been greater use of the yuan in cross-border transactions in recent years, domestic firms have preferred to hold the US dollar since the US central bank began to raise interest rates in 2022.

“Goods trade surplus has risen notably since 2020 and underpinned China’s decent current account surplus. However, the transmission from trade surplus to foreign exchange selling has been weakened in the face of more attractive US dollar interest rates,” Bank of America said, adding that US dollar demand from bank clients continues to outweigh supply.

Donald Gao, an investor in several Southeast Asian factories and real estate markets, said anticipation of further yuan depreciation has driven many Chinese to return to safe haven assets like gold.

“Most companies are now unable to make money. Although the cost of loans [in China] is lower than before, we can’t even earn back the interest on the loans, so we don’t borrow,” Gao said.

“Profits earned from foreign trade will be used by companies going overseas to operate and invest in overseas markets, or turned into US dollar deposits. However, some profits still need to be converted into yuan for purchasing raw materials and [paying for] production.”

Weak domestic demand persists and systemic risks – especially in the real estate sector – have not been contained, driving Chinese investors to invest in overseas assets to hedge against risks, according to the Beijing-based think tank the National Institution for Finance and Development.

“This behaviour of diversifying investments globally to hedge domestic risks will naturally cause massive short-term capital outflows [from China] and intensify the pressure on the yuan to depreciate against the US dollar,” said the think tank in a report on Thursday.

Expectations are for the yuan to stay weak until there are clear signs that a rate cut is back on the table for the Federal Reserve and the US dollar softens.

Although there is some optimism for China’s exports, analysts argued lower prices for Chinese goods might not be sustainable and could also stoke trade tensions.

“The reality is that, even with falling export prices, China has not managed to increase exports until very recently, opening a big question mark as to whether the rest of the world will willingly absorb China’s additional manufacturing capacity,” said French investment bank Natixis on April 16.

“China’s exports are still very strong,” said Liu, the supply chain specialist. “[We expect] China’s central bank will be able to take the pressure.”

Official of China’s securities watchdog under investigation for ‘serious violation’ amid uptick in market regulation

https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3260562/official-chinas-securities-watchdog-under-investigation-serious-violation-amid-uptick-market?utm_source=rss_feed

An official with China’s securities regulator, who also directed a research institute within China’s central bank, is under investigation for “serious violation of discipline and law”, days after directives from authorities to further regulate the country’s financial markets.

Yao Qian currently serves as the director of the department of technology supervision at the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), and was the first director of the digital currency research institute within the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).

He is being investigated by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCPI) and a local inspection unit, according to official announcements published on Friday. The CCPI is the highest supervisory body of the Chinese Communist Party.

The investigation comes amid a series of moves led by the CSRC to tighten screws on the country’s capital markets and restore confidence among domestic and overseas investors.

“The latest round of inspections led by China’s regulatory authorities covered various aspects of the financial system, signalling a strengthening of oversight,” said Shen Meng, director of Beijing-based investment firm Chanson & Co.

The department of technology supervision’s functions, which were laid out late last year after the securities watchdog revamped its organisational structure, include drafting and implementing rules for securities, futures and fund industries, as well as regulating data, cybersecurity and other “relevant critical information infrastructure”, according to an official document published in December on the CSRC’s website.

Regarding Qian’s previous affiliation with the digital currency think tank under the PBOC, Shen said: “While casualties are unavoidable, digital currency still plays an important role in the future of China’s financial system, and this investigation won’t stop regulatory authorities from pushing for further development of the technology.”

Chinese market watchdog’s support to divert IPOs from mainland to Hong Kong

Earlier this week, in response to nine financial reform measures unveiled by the State Council to improve the performance of listed companies and protect investor interest, the securities watchdog pushed for a revamp of the country’s long-standing securities investment fund law, as well as greater accountability for fund managers.

In February, the securities regulator also said that it would strengthen supervision of derivative businesses and clamp down on “misbehaviour” in high-frequency trading, both of which fall under the purview of the CSRC’s department of technology supervision. This came after Chinese stock exchanges slapped a fine on a top-performing hedge fund for high-frequency trading and suspended its trading accounts.

In another move to curb derivatives risk, regulatory authorities were reportedly telling some of the country’s biggest brokerage firms to stop increasing their net exposure to products including “snowballs”, according to Bloomberg. A snowball is a type of exotic option product that saw near record-high returns recently as brokers tried to lure investors back to the market after a period of relentless sell-offs earlier this year.

China’s watchdog finds winning strategy for investors in US$9 trillion market

Yao, 54, is a technocrat with degrees in computer science and information systems management from top Chinese institutions. He joined the CSRC in 1997 and held various roles, including deputy head of the computer administration department of its information centre.

He was appointed as the director of the department of technology supervision in March 2020. His role at the PBOC’s digital currency institute started in 2017, until he was succeeded two years later by current director Mu Changchun.

China highlights extremism threat, pledges deeper military ties with Kazakhstan

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3260479/china-highlights-extremism-threat-pledges-deeper-military-ties-kazakhstan?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun has pledged to deepen military cooperation with Kazakhstan – Beijing’s key Central Asian partner – while also highlighting regional extremist threats.

Speaking to Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana on Thursday, Dong said the region was facing a “complex” security situation as the “three forces” – Beijing’s term for terrorism, separatism and extremism – were “becoming more active”.

Dong arrived in Kazakhstan on Wednesday for the annual defence chiefs’ meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Eurasian security bloc initiated in 2001 by China and Russia.

Since 2021, when the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, Beijing has repeatedly warned against a revival of terrorist forces in the region. In a 2023 position paper on the Afghanistan situation, China warned that the “three forces” still posed a “major security threat to the region and the world”.

During their meeting, Dong and Tokayev agreed to strengthen “strategic coordination”, according to a defence ministry statement.

“The Chinese military is willing to continue to expand areas of cooperation with Kazakhstan and promote the in-depth development of relations between the two militaries,” Dong said.

As part of his second overseas visit since taking on the role, the defence minister also met his Kazakh counterpart Ruslan Jaqsylyqov for an exchange on “pragmatic military cooperation and the regional security situation”. Dong was in Vietnam earlier this month to set up a naval hotline.

According to Kazakh state news agency Kazinform, Jaqsylyqov said the ministries “have the possibility to hold joint drills as well as the potential to train personnel [and] expand ties in the field of culture and sport”.

Dong will return to China on Friday, after the SCO meetings wrap up with his counterparts from fellow members India, Pakistan, and other Central Asian states like Kyrgyzstan.

Beijing regards stability in the landlocked, resource-rich states in Central Asia as key to China’s energy supply chain and trade flows and has regularly referred to the “three forces” in relation to the region and unrest in Xinjiang in far western China.

In recent years, Beijing has improved its security and economic cooperation with Astana, describing the two countries’ ties as a “permanent comprehensive strategic partnership”.

When violent anti-government unrest spread across Kazakhstan in January 2022, China slammed the protests as driven by “external forces” and pledged to deepen its law enforcement cooperation with Astana.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi described the unrest as terrorism and, after a phone call with his Kazakh counterpart, said the two countries had agreed to work together to fight the “three forces”.

President Xi Jinping visited Kazakhstan eight months after the unrest, on his first trip outside China since the pandemic, and secured a joint statement calling for mutual support on issues of sovereignty, national security, and territorial integrity.

China has been stepping up its energy trade with Kazakhstan in recent years, as it increasingly looks to Central Asia for diversified sources of oil and gas.

Astana has also been a vital partner in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, with Kazakhstan home to a number of infrastructure projects, including a transport hub in the border city of Khorgos.

Last year, the two countries started work on a third rail link as transit container traffic increased. The railway is scheduled to be operational by 2027 and will connect the eastern city of Ayagoz to the town of Bakhty on the border with northeast China.

China eyes food security boost from gene-cloned Asian soybean rust ‘breakthrough’, could save US$2 billion per year

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3260495/china-eyes-food-security-boost-gene-cloned-asian-soybean-rust-breakthrough-could-save-us2-billion?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese researchers have found a way to avert a fatal soybean plant disease that afflicts Latin American exports to China and undercuts Beijing’s drive for food security.

The team, led by a group of Chinese researchers with the Oil Crops Research Institute within the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, have cloned a specific gene that is resistant to Asian soybean rust, said a paper published last week in Nature Communications – a peer-reviewed journal under the Nature Portfolio.

Asian soybean rust – a fungal infection which shows up as brownish or grey spots on a plant’s lower leaves – is also ubiquitous in Latin America, with the severe disease found in all major soybean producing regions.

Chemical control is the only method so far found to control the disease due to limited resistant soybean germplasm, or genetic resources, said the paper.

6 things to know about China’s GM food progress amid its food security push

The new solution to Asian soybean rust, which is caused by phakopsora pachyrhizi, would ensure China has access to more of the key ingredient used for oil, protein and livestock feed.

China is the world’s largest soybean importer, making up 60 per cent of global trade, with Brazil and the United States its major suppliers.

Latin America supplies most of China’s imported soybeans, but its crop loses US$2 billion per year to rust disease, said Alberto Vettoretti, a managing partner at business management consultancy firm Dezan Shira & Associates.

Beijing has increased food security efforts and tech self-reliance amid climate change and geopolitical uncertainty that have the potential to impact trade and disrupt the global market.

“If science and technology can help ensure the safety of the crop, then it’s useful,” said Zhao Xijun, a finance professor at Renmin University in Beijing.

“Soybeans are very important for China. They’re good for agricultural security.”

China’s soybean imports grew by more than 11 per cent last year to 99.41 million tonnes compared to 2022, according to customs data.

Severe outbreaks of Asian soybean rust can override fungicide treatment and completely defoliate soybean plants within two weeks, according to the Ohio State University Extension in the United States.

China to expand GM corn and soybeans trials, seeks to dispel safety concerns

Gene cloning as a solution to rust disease marks “a breakthrough from zero to one”, the Oil Crops Research Institute said on Wednesday.

The scientists spent 30 years examining soybean rust disease, with researchers successfully cloning the Rpp6907 resistant gene, the institute added.

“The broad-spectrum, durable soybean rust resistance gene was cloned from soybeans for the first time in the world, providing valuable genetic resources for soybean rust resistance breeding,” it said.

The use of rust-resistant genes, protected by Chinese intellectual property rights, would increase soybean production in Latin America and may reduce import prices “due to higher yields and cost savings”, Vettoretti added.

China hosts talks between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah in bid to end internal divisions: report

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3260508/china-hosts-talks-between-rival-palestinian-factions-hamas-and-fatah-bid-end-internal-divisions?utm_source=rss_feed

China has not confirmed whether two rival Palestinian groups are meeting in Beijing, saying only that Beijing backs “internal reconciliation among Palestinian factions through dialogue and consultation”.

It followed a report from Riyadh-based Arab News that Hamas and Fatah were holding talks in Beijing on Friday aiming to end their internal divisions.

The foreign ministry has not responded to a request for comment from the Post.

The report came after a major power shuffle in the Fatah-led West Bank as Washington pressured the party to step into the Israel-Gaza war and prepare post-war reforms in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Following last year’s peace deal reached between China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, Beijing said it was willing to mediate the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Beijing has not condemned Hamas for the October 7 attack on Israel despite pressure from the West.

As strikes pummel Gaza, Israel says US military aid sends ‘strong message’ to enemies

Last month, the Palestinian Authority, the Fatah-led interim governing body, formed a government led by newly appointed Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, who said ending the war was a “top national priority”.

But Hamas, which overturned the Palestinian Authority’s rule in Gaza 17 years ago, has opposed the move, saying the change was “a reinforcement of a policy of exclusion and the deepening of division”.

In an official statement with other Palestinian factions, Hamas said the new government pointed to a “huge gap between the [Palestinian] Authority and the people, their concerns and their aspirations”.

In response, Fatah said Hamas’ “October 7 adventure … caused the return of the Israeli occupation of Gaza”, and led to a “catastrophe even more horrible and cruel than that of 1948”, referring to a war during which Israel was established, resulting in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

China, like most countries that recognise Palestine, regards the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority as the legitimate government. But Beijing has also maintained communication with Hamas.

The only publicly acknowledged meeting between the two sides since the war erupted was in March when Chinese envoy Wang Kejian met Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, in Qatar.

After a tour of the Middle East last month aimed at laying the groundwork for ceasefire and improving humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip, Wang told China’s state-owned CGTN Arabic that Haniyeh, along with other Arab leaders “expressed their aspiration and hope for a greater role for China”.

Beijing has sought a more proactive role in Middle East affairs beyond economic influence after it brokered the Riyadh-Tehran peace deal last year.

Washington, the major player in the region for decades, has also called on Beijing to help rein in the regional conflict, including the crisis in the Red Sea, as well as issues related to Iran.

In Hamas video, US-Israeli hostage says living in Gaza ‘hell’

Earlier this month, as Iran and Israel exchanged air strikes, China called on Iran and Saudi Arabia to cool down the escalating spillovers of the Israel-Gaza war.

Tehran told Beijing that it would exercise restraint and would not escalate the situation.

During an interview with Doha-based Al-Jazeera on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing would “firmly support” the internal reconciliation among Palestinian factions through dialogue.

He reaffirmed that Beijing supported Palestine’s full membership of the United Nations, which was vetoed by the US earlier this month, and supported Palestinian nationhood and the right to self-government.

“We advocate convening a larger, more authoritative, and more effective international peace conference as soon as possible, and formulating a concrete timetable and road map to implement the two-state solution,” Wang said in the interview.

“Ultimately, [We should] achieve the peaceful coexistence of the two states of Palestine and Israel and the harmonious coexistence of the two peoples – the Arabs and the Jews.”

Israel prepares forces as conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon intensifies

The Palestinian death toll on the Gaza strip had risen to more than 34,000, according to the Hamas-run health body.

Israel has said the Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on October 7 killed 1,200 people, with more than 200 others taken hostage.

In February, the former Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh met Hamas officials in Moscow, as the parties agreed on the need for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the creation of a Palestinian state.

Chinese spy claims: Beijing summons German ambassador to protest after 4 arrested on espionage charges

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3260517/chinese-spy-claims-beijing-summons-german-ambassador-protest-after-4-arrested-espionage-charges?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s foreign ministry summoned the German ambassador over Berlin’s arrest of four German citizens accused of spying for Beijing.

Patricia Flor posted on X, formerly Twitter, that she had been summoned by the foreign ministry in Beijing on Thursday “after four Germans were arrested this week for allegedly spying for Chinese secret services” adding that it was a “quite telling move”.

China’s security ministry hails move to reward postal workers for spy tip-offs

In her tweet, Flor stressed that Germany did not tolerate spying “regardless of which country it comes from”.

She added: “We protect our democracy and our constitutional state by constitutional means. An independent court will decide on the accusations.”

On Friday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a scheduled press conference that Beijing “has made solemn representations with Germany over its groundless accusations”.

“We demand that Germany remain alert to attempts to damage bilateral relations, strengthen its restraints, immediately stop malicious speculation and anti-China political farce, and effectively safeguard the stable and healthy development of bilateral relations,” he said.

Earlier this week, German prosecutors announced the arrest of four Germans suspected of spying for China in two separate cases, fuelling European concerns about Beijing’s spying activities amid a wider debate about economic security.

On Tuesday, Berlin arrested an aide to Maximilian Krah, a member of the European Parliament for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), on suspicion of spying for Chinese intelligence.

Krah, the AfD’s lead candidate in the European Parliament elections in June, is known for his frequent pro-Chinese statements and appearances in state media.

A statement released by Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office on Tuesday said the suspect “is an employee of a Chinese secret service” and “also spied on Chinese opposition figures in Germany”.

On Monday, three other Germans were arrested on “strong suspicion” of spying for Chinese intelligence, according to German federal prosecutors.

The suspects were accused of collecting sensitive industrial data with military applications for the purpose of “expanding China’s maritime combat power”, according to a statement by the prosecutors.

“We are aware of the significant threat posed by Chinese espionage in business, industry and science,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said after the arrest of the three.

The arrests of the alleged Chinese spies were announced after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made a visit to China last week, in which the two countries pledged to boost trade ties.

Germany, Britain move in on suspected Chinese spies: ‘tip of the iceberg’

Also on Monday, British authorities charged two men, one of them a former parliamentary researcher, with spying for China.

The Chinese embassy in London described the case as “completely fabricated”, “malicious slander” and “anti-China political manipulation”.

China KOL with 19 million fans shut down for faking story about school homework left in Paris café toilet apologises

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3259128/china-kol-19-million-fans-shut-down-faking-story-about-school-homework-left-paris-cafe-toilet?utm_source=rss_feed

The social media account of an online influencer in China has been taken down after videos she posted earlier this year – which gripped the nation – were exposed as fabrications.

The blogger, who uses the name Thurman mao yi bei online, had 18.8 million followers on Douyin before being punished in the middle of April by the authorities in Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang province in eastern China.

On April 12, the police said content in two viral videos about a mainland primary school student who lost his winter holiday homework in Paris were made up.

The creators of the videos were a 29-year-old blogger, surnamed Xu, and her colleague, surnamed Xue, state media CCTV reported.

Xu is Thurman mao yi bei.

Investigators said the widely circulated footage had a serious impact on the public. As a result the authorities slapped an “administrative punishment” on Xu’s company.

In China, administrative punishments usually target people or companies which threaten public order and cause bad social consequences.

Penalties can include a warning, a fine, a revocation of a business licence and up to 10 days detention. The exact nature of the punishment in this case was not identified.

In the first video released by Xu on February 16, she was seen being given a book of Chinese unfinished winter holiday homework by a French cleaner who found it in a restaurant toilet in Paris.

The blogger said the book belonged to a Primary One student called Qin Lang. She bought a pencil and completed the homework, the video showed.

“Qin Lang, I will fly back to China immediately and bring back your homework. I easily completed it for you. No need to thank me, haha,” Xu said in the video.

Days later, a man in Jiangsu province in eastern China, who claimed to be Qin’s uncle, but was not, leveraged this fake identity to attract online attention. He has also received an administrative punishment from the police.

On February 19, Xu released a second video saying she had contacted Qin’s mother and had returned the homework to her.

She also shared a screen capture of online chats between her and the so-called mother of Qin, saying: “The story has come to a happy ending.”

However, the authorities said there was no record of a young student called Qin Lang leaving the country during the winter holiday.

Xu confessed to the police that she and her colleague Xue concocted the story to boost her online profile. They bought the winter holiday homework book from a mainland shopping website before going to France to shoot the videos.

Xu apologised in a video on April 12 before her account was shut down the next day.

“I apologised to the public. I feel deeply guilty and sorry. I call on my counterparts in this industry to learn the lessons of my case and not to fabricate or circulate fake content,” she said.

Xu studied fashion design in France and worked as a designer there before moving back to China to be full-time blogger in 2022. She shot to fame over the past three years thanks to her wacky chatting style.

She lost 440,000 followers in the 24 hours after her videos were exposed as fakes.

“Bloggers striving for online traffic should not ignore the law or the society’s bottom lines. The internet is still governed by law. Those challenging the law or regulations will be punished by law,” CCTV said in an editorial about the case.

China aims to beat US in race for Mars samples with 2030 goal: space official

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3260416/china-aims-beat-us-race-mars-samples-2030-goal-space-official?utm_source=rss_feed

The chief designer of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Programme predicts China could beat the US in the race to bring rocks from the red planet back to Earth, in the first such suggestion from the country’s space authorities.

“China will launch the Tianwen-3 spacecraft around 2030 to implement its Mars sample return mission,” Wu Weiren said on Wednesday, in a keynote speech to the China Space Conference in Wuhan, in the central province of Hubei.

“In view of the progress being made around the world, we are expected to become the first country to deliver samples from Mars,” said Wu, who is also director of the recently established Deep Space Exploration Laboratory in Hefei, Anhui province.

Wu, the first senior Chinese space official to make such a prediction openly, also revealed that China has started planning on a project to build the world’s first Mars sample laboratory.

Sun Zezhou, Wu’s colleague and chief designer of the 2021 Tianwen-1 Mars mission, previously said that all key technologies needed for Tianwen-3 were in place and work was progressing smoothly.

China and the US are the only two nations that have soft landed on Mars – one of the few places in the solar system where life may have existed, making it a major destination for exploration.

Nasa had also hoped to bring Martian rocks to Earth in around 2030. Its Perseverance rover has already collected a number of samples in tubes that are waiting on the planet’s surface to be picked up.

However, a spike in the programme’s budget – from about US$4 billion to US$11 billion – forced the US space agency to abandon its original plan earlier this month, leaving the mission date uncertain.

An independent review found last year that even if Nasa could afford the US$11 billion needed for this mission, any samples would not be returned to Earth until 2040.

Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said the agency was seeking proposals for quicker and cheaper ways to retrieve the samples. “We need to look outside the box to find a way ahead that is both affordable and returns samples in a reasonable time frame.”

Nasa’s exploration of Mars started five decades ago. In 1976, its Viking 1 and Viking 2 landers became the first spacecraft to touch down on the red planet. Landing attempts by then Soviet Union and European Space Agency ended in failure.

China is a latecomer to Mars exploration. In 2021, its Tianwen-1 spacecraft successfully deployed an orbiter into the planet’s orbit and put down a lander and rover on the Martian surface.

China is also the only country in the past 50 years – since the end of the Apollo era in 1972 – to have brought back rock samples from the moon.

The US tried a return to the moon earlier this year. A Nasa-backed commercial lunar lander failed to reach its destination while a second craft tipped over during touchdown and survived for a few days.

[World] Xi meets Blinken as China warns US against crossing 'red lines'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-asia-68904075[World] Xi meets Blinken as China warns US against crossing 'red lines'

[Sport] China warns US not to step on its 'red lines'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2547ll8z0ro[Sport] China warns US not to step on its 'red lines'

Chinese food-delivery giant Meituan to debut in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh as international expansion quickens

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3260482/chinese-food-delivery-giant-meituan-debut-saudi-arabias-capital-riyadh-international-expansion?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese on-demand local services giant Meituan plans to launch its international food-delivery platform in Saudi Arabia’s capital, marking the company’s first overseas expansion amid slowing growth in its home market.

Beijing-based Meituan is working to debut its KeeTa app in the Middle East with Riyadh as the first stop, according to people familiar with the matter. Meituan has explored an expansion into the Middle East for months, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information. That launch could come as early as in coming months, one of the people said.

Meituan’s global expansion is emblematic of a push by Chinese companies abroad, seeking growth as local competition intensifies even while consumption wanes. The move into Riyadh, one of the wealthiest cities in the region, follows a successful Hong Kong foray in 2023.

The company’s foray into Riyadh will pit Meituan against local rivals including Jahez International Co, Delivery Hero’s Talabat and HungerStation and Uber Technologies-backed Careem. The move comes as Saudi Arabia, already the region’s biggest economy, devises plans to invest trillions of dollars to become a tourism and commercial hub.

A Riyadh debut could mark a broader foray into a friendlier region that Chinese companies have warmed towards, as their home economy buckles.

Meituan’s Middle Eastern approach is likely to rely on a familiar subsidy-heavy strategy to draw in users and delivery workers at the outset. As with Hong Kong, the firm is likely to roll out its KeeTa platform in phases and target certain districts to begin with.

The company has already posted at least a dozen KeeTa job openings for Riyadh on LinkedIn and its own website, including for user acquisition and business development.

While Meituan has spent months devising a blueprint for entry, plans could still change and the company could decide to hit pause on any expansion. The company has explored other Middle Eastern markets in the meantime.

Representatives for Meituan did not respond to an email seeking comment.

KeeTa – a nod to the fast-moving cheetah – was launched by Meituan last May and took just months to vault to the No 2 spot in Hong Kong, ahead of Deliveroo, according to independent research.

That move to Hong Kong was regarded as a trial run for a broader global expansion over the long run, as Meituan seeks growth at a time rivals like ByteDance’s Douyin are undercutting its margins.

“The slide in Meituan’s fourth-quarter core local-commerce margin, which fell below 15 per cent for the first time in seven quarters, could persist through December if the firm aims to lift revenue by more than 20 per cent year over year,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Catherine Lim and Trini Tan said in a note. “Rivalry could intensify, not just from Douyin but also Alibaba’s Ele.me, where a leadership change on March 31 may prompt new measures to gain delivery market share.”

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding owns the South China Morning Post.

Meituan’s latest expansion comes after chief executive Wang Xing from February took direct control of the company’s overseas businesses, a decision that elevates the importance of its international ambitions.

Wang said during the company’s earnings call in March that Meituan was actively exploring international expansion, and that the firm’s cash reserves and cash flow from its domestic business would help it break into new markets.

Like its peers, Meituan has been looking outside its home turf for growth during China’s severe economic downturn, including at one point considering an acquisition of Delivery Hero’s business in Southeast Asia.

A growing number of Chinese tech firms have explored a deeper presence in the Middle East in particular, anticipating less political scrutiny compared to places like the United States and Europe. Apart from hit global short video app TikTok and e-commerce fashion platform Shein, Chinese-origin social apps like Yalla Group and Joyy’s Bigo Live have also built a strong following in the region.

How much of Gaza has been destroyed in the war? Chinese satellites detail the damage

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3260476/how-much-gaza-has-been-destroyed-war-chinese-satellites-detail-damage?utm_source=rss_feed

About 60 per cent of all the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed in the past six months, according to analysis of Chinese satellite images presented at a space conference.

The estimate is the first to come from China and examines the destruction in detail over time.

“Comparative analysis shows that as of March 2, 2024, 58.4 per cent of buildings and 34.1 per cent of farmland in the Gaza Strip were damaged,” Li Deren, a professor of remote sensing at Wuhan University, told the China Space Conference in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on Wednesday.

The estimate was based on comparison of observations by the university’s Luojia-3 and Dongfang Huiyan Gaofen01 satellites taken since October 17, before Israeli forces invaded the Gaza Strip.

Using advanced automated recognition algorithms, the satellites detected and assessed damage to various types of structures including schools, universities, hospitals, and places of worship. They then categorised the destruction.

Li said that before November 10, 18.7 per cent of buildings in Gaza had been damaged. This increased to 32.6 per cent by November 29, and 56 per cent by January 22, before stabilising at 58.4 per cent by March.

According to researchers at the City University of New York and Oregon State University, 55.9 per cent of buildings in Gaza, or about 160,800 structures, had been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombings as of November 29.

The BBC reported on December 2 that about 100,000 buildings had been destroyed.

The Chinese researchers were also able to identify the location, size, and number of missile craters over time, detecting a total of 3,747 craters in the Gaza region by March 2, while Gaza City sustained twice the damage compared to Deir al Balah City, on the strip’s central coast.

At 365 sq km (140 square miles), the Gaza Strip is roughly the size of Nagasaki, the Japanese city targeted by a US atomic bomb in 1945. In that blast, about 39 per cent of the municipality’s buildings were damaged or destroyed, according to the city – a level that has been surpassed in Gaza.

The Chinese estimate helps fill in some of the holes in knowledge about the extent of damage in Gaza, with surveys on the ground not possible.

Google satellite imagery, for example, does not reveal the level of destruction to Gaza, with streets and buildings in the city appearing to be intact on its maps.

China has some of the world’s biggest Earth observation networks and Li said its space-based observations were growing in influence because of the data’s “broad scope, timeliness, and geopolitical independence”.

“Over the past decade, China’s remote sensing satellites have undergone transformative development, advancing from experimental stages to operational and commercial use,” Li told the conference.

“Further advancements are expected with more frequent imaging, larger coverage areas, and faster data transmission.”

China-US relationship is more stable but still at risk if ‘red lines’ are crossed, Wang tells Blinken in Beijing

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3260454/china-us-relationship-more-stable-still-risk-if-red-lines-are-crossed-wang-tells-blinken-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed

China has warned visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the United States must not cross any red lines on sovereignty, security or development or risk a downward spiral in relations.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the remarks on Friday as the two settled into a long discussion to cover issues on which they differ. The two countries diverge on a range of matters from trade, tensions in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and their nations’ tech rivalry.

It was Blinken’s second trip to China in a year as Beijing and Washington try to stabilise ties ahead of a crucial presidential election in America and amid concerns about growing tensions on international hotspot issues that spark worry of a conflict between the two countries. He arrived in Beijing on Thursday afternoon after visiting Shanghai.

Wang told Blinken bilateral ties had generally stabilised, including greater cooperation and dialogue following the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden in San Francisco in November, according to a readout from China’s foreign ministry.

However, the readout said “negative factors” were building, including unreasonable suppression of China’s legitimate right to development and constant challenges to China’s core interests.

“Whether China and the United States adhere to the right path of stability and progress, or repeat the downward spiral, is a major issue before the two countries, testing the sincerity and ability of both sides,” Wang said.

He said China’s attitudes, position and demand had been consistent, and Beijing was committed to a stable, healthy and sustainable bilateral relationship.

“China’s demand has been consistent, always advocating respect for each other’s core interests, and the United States should not interfere in China’s internal affairs, suppress China’s development, or step on China’s red lines when it comes to China’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” Wang said.

Blinken, who is in Beijing on the last leg of a three-day visit to China, replied that “face-to-face diplomacy” was needed to move forward with the agenda set by the leaders’ summit in November.

“Moving forward on the agenda that our presidents set requires active diplomacy … but also to make sure that we’re as clear as possible about the areas where we have differences, at the very least to avoid misunderstandings, to avoid miscalculations,” Blinken said, according to a US State Department readout.

The State Department signalled before the trip that the meeting was likely to focus on China’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, according to the Wall Street Journal, some Chinese banks face the sanction of being removed from the global financial system.

China has repeatedly said it would “resolutely defend” its “inviolable” right to trade with Russia.

Intensified trade tensions hung over the talks after Biden last week called for tripling the existing tariff rate on Chinese steel and aluminium, and the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office announced the launch of yet another Section 301 investigation into China’s maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors.

During his stay in China’s economic powerhouse of Shanghai, Blinken also raised concerns about “non-market practices” with the city’s top official, Chen Jining.

Washington has accused China of undermining the interests of American firms through unfair competition and manufacturing overcapacity, floating the possibility of placing further tariffs on Chinese goods such as electric vehicles.

China mistress uses frozen embryos to conceive son after lover’s death, sparks controversy over battle for inheritance

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3259082/china-mistress-uses-frozen-embryos-conceive-son-after-lovers-death-sparks-controversy-over-battle?utm_source=rss_feed

The mistress of a dead man in China who tried to inherit his assets by giving birth to a son using embryo transfer surgery, has shocked mainland social media.

The woman, surnamed Leng, from Guangdong province in southeastern China, sued her deceased lover’s wife for a portion of his estate, but the court did not support her claims, Guangzhou Daily reported.

The dispute began after the death of the man, surnamed Wen, in a traffic accident in January 2021.

Prior to his death, Leng had frozen some eggs which she said had been fertilised by Wen’s sperm at a private clinic.

In December 2021, Leng successfully delivered a baby boy she named Xiaowen.

Believing Xiaowen had a right to inherit some of his deceased father’s assets, Leng filed a lawsuit on his behalf in August 2023.

She demanded Wen’s wife share part of the estate with Xiaowen, including property, insurance benefits and company equity shares.

It is not clear if Wen’s wife responded, but she was apparently unaware that Leng had given birth to Xiaowen by embryo transfer surgery.

During the trial, Leng could not prove that the frozen eggs were fertilised by Wen, nor could she prove that he had given her permission to use his sperm to have a baby.

As a result, the court dismissed her claim.

Feng Qinjuan, a lawyer at the Tahota Law Firm in Beijing, said that the Civil Code enacted in 2021, stipulates that any living foetus in a mother’s body is entitled to inheritance and gifts.

Feng added that whether a frozen embryo has the same rights is unclear because there is no law for that.

Another lawyer, Huang Dehao, from Zhonglun W&D Law Firm in Zhengzhou, central China, said embryo transfer surgery at qualified private clinics is legal, but surgery should be agreed by the owners of frozen embryos.

At the time of writing, the story on Weibo news had attracted 4,201 comments, with many online observers aiming criticism at the mistress.

“How terrible. She’ll do anything for money,” one person said.

“Her poor son. He comes into the world as a bargaining chip,” said another.

“I hope the wife makes a counter-claim against the mistress,” a third person chimed in.

EU to tell Beijing envoys of plan to blacklist more Chinese businesses for supplying Russia

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3260446/eu-tell-beijing-envoys-plan-blacklist-more-chinese-businesses-supplying-russia?utm_source=rss_feed

European Union officials plan to inform Chinese diplomats on Friday about the intent to add more Chinese companies to a blacklist because they had helped Russia evade EU sanctions.

The Chinese companies stand accused of buying European-made goods that are not permitted to be sold to Russia, then exporting them to Russian military buyers.

The aim of the meeting is to enlist Beijing’s help in closing the loopholes, people familiar with the planning said.

Previous consultations like this have resulted in the removal of Chinese firms from a draft blacklist before it got published, after Beijing committed to stopping the trade.

Those earlier talks came after a frantic bout of lobbying in Brussels by Fu Cong, then the Chinese ambassador to the EU, who recently took up a new post at the United Nations in New York. Fu has yet to be replaced in Brussels.

Even so, three mainland Chinese entities and one registered in Hong Kong were blacklisted in February for flouting EU sanctions, as part of the bloc’s 13th package of punitive measures to hobble Russia’s military.

The latest salvo comes as Brussels readies its 14th package. The Chinese entities form part of a broader group of companies that also include some from Hong Kong. Bloomberg first reported on the latest list, saying that the firms from China have “provided Russia with satellite images and other technologies”.

China’s supplying of dual-use goods – products that have military applications – to Russia has been a cause for concern in Europe, as the West looks to support Ukraine on the battlefield. Beijing says it is neutral in the war, now in its third year, but Brussels broadly considers it to have sided with Moscow.

In Berlin on Thursday, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg accused China of “propping up Russia’s war economy”.

“Last year, Russia imported 90 per cent of its microelectronics from China, used to produce missiles, tanks, and aircraft. China is also working to provide Russia with improved satellite capabilities and imagery. All of this helps Moscow to inflict more death and destruction on Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said.

Even apart from Ukraine, Friday’s meeting would come at a testy time for EU-China relations, with a series of explosive events piling pressure on bilateral ties all week.

On Tuesday, EU officials spearheaded dramatic raids on the local offices of Chinese surveillance kit maker Nuctech in Warsaw and Rotterdam.

Nuctech raids send shock waves through EU amid fears of crackdown on China firms

Officers sought evidence of state subsidies from Beijing, as part of a preliminary investigation under the new EU foreign subsidies regulation. A pipeline of cases is believed to be coming under this tool in the months ahead.

A separate EU trade probe was launched on Wednesday into market access for EU firms into China’s vast medical devices sector. This was the first case begun under the bloc’s international procurement instrument, intended to pry open public tenders outside Europe that are closed to EU operators.

Also this week, four German nationals were arrested for allegedly spying for Chinese secret services, including an assistant employed by a high-profile member of the European Parliament.

Jian Guo, an accredited assistant to far-right politician Maximilian Krah, was detained in Germany on Tuesday. A day later, Krah confirmed that authorities have also begun an inquiry into him.

On Thursday, Patricia Flor, Germany’s ambassador to China, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that she had been summoned by the Chinese foreign ministry to discuss the arrests.

Also on Thursday, the Belgian foreign ministry called in the Chinese ambassador after local media reported that Els Van Hoof, chair of the country’s Foreign Affairs Committee, has been hacked by China.

“Members of Parliament must be able to work freely. That is the basis of our democracy,” Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib wrote on X. “Following recent reports of intimidation and hacking of Belgian parliamentarians, the Chinese ambassador will be summoned.”

All these topics are expected to be discussed on Monday, when Executive Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Ma Zhaoxu comes to Brussels for talks with EU officials, sources told the South China Morning Post.

They will also no doubt be on the agenda when Chinese President Xi Jinping touches down in Paris the following weekend. Xi is expected in the French capital for talks with his counterpart Emmanuel Macron from May 5 to 7, according to media reports.

Hungarian media reported on Thursday that Xi would also travel to Budapest for talks with Prime Minster Viktor Orban from May 8 to 10. He is also expected to visit the Serbian capital of Belgrade.

Philippines says ‘foreign actor’ behind Marcos Jnr deepfake urging military action against China

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3260449/philippines-says-foreign-actor-behind-marcos-jnr-deepfake-urging-military-action-against-china?utm_source=rss_feed

A “foreign actor” is likely behind deepfake content that made Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr sound like he is urging military action against China, according to his communications office.

The government is investigating the spread of the manipulated video and will file cases against those responsible, the communications office said in a statement on Friday. The deepfakes “seemingly asking the armed forces to act against another nation” have since been taken down, the office said, without mentioning China.

The fake content circulated this month amid mounting tensions between the Philippines and China on their overlapping claims in the South China Sea.

Marcos had repeatedly said he is not trying to provoke Beijing as his nation asserts its rights and sends ships to disputed waters where encounters with China have become more frequent.

A local media report said the deepfakes portrayed the Philippine leader to be calling for the use of force to retaliate against China. His communications office flagged the manipulated content earlier this week, and said there’s no such directive from the president.

Deepfake of Marcos Jnr ordering military action against China causes alarm

“It has come to the attention of the Presidential Communications Office that there is video content posted on a popular video streaming platform circulating online that has manipulated audio designed to sound like President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jnr,” the PCO said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The audio deepfake attempts to make it appear as if the president has directed our Armed Forces of the Philippines to act against a particular foreign country. No such directive exists nor has been made,” it added.

According to the PCO, it is working on measures to combat fake news, misinformation, and disinformation through its Media and Information Literacy Campaign.

“We are also closely coordinating and working with government agencies and relevant private sector stakeholders to actively address the proliferation and malicious use of video and audio deepfakes and other generative AI content,” it said.

The Marcos deepfakes show how nations around the world from the US to India are grappling with manipulated online content attempting to influence politics as artificial intelligence takes off.

Last year, Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr warned military and security personnel against using apps that harness AI to generate personal portraits, saying they could be “maliciously used to create fake profiles that can lead to identity theft, social engineering, phishing attacks, and other malicious activities”.

Three lawmakers have also sought through a bill heavier penalties against crimes committed using deepfake technology.

Philippines’ Marcos rules out sacking Vice-President Duterte amid wife’s feud

The draft bill defines a “deepfake” as “any audio, visual or audiovisual recording created or altered through technical means, such as video recording, motion-picture film, sound recording, electronic image, or photograph, which are so convincing that a reasonable person would mistake it for an authentic representation of an individual’s speech or conduct.”

Illegal deepfakes can “infringe on copyrights, violate data protection, defame individuals, and intrude upon privacy”, according to the bill.

Additional reporting by SCMP’s Asia desk

---

US-China talks start with warnings about misunderstandings and miscalculations

https://apnews.com/article/us-china-blinken-wang-yi-8c1c453df3afbd6ec87ced0c8d618064China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, right, gestures to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Friday, April 26, 2024, in Beijing, China. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)

2024-04-26T02:23:03Z

BEIJING (AP) — The United States and China butted heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global issues as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Friday with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Both diplomats underscored the importance of keeping lines of communication open but they each lamented that divisions between their countries were increasing and becoming more serious in nature.

“Overall, the China-U.S. relationship is beginning to stabilize across the areas,” Wang told Blinken. “But at the time, the negative factors in the relationship are still increasing and building and the relationship is facing all kinds of disruptions.”

“Should China and the United States keep to the right direction of moving forward with stability or return to a downward spiral?” he asked. “This is a major question before our two countries and tests our sincerity and ability.”

Wang also outlined, without being specific, well-known Chinese complaints about U.S. policies and positions on the South China Sea, Taiwan, human rights and China’s right to conduct relations with countries it deems fit.

“China’s legitimate development rights have been unreasonably suppressed and our core interests are facing challenges,” he said, demanding the U.S. refrain from interfering in China’s internal affairs.

Blinken responded by saying that the Biden administration places a premium on U.S.-China dialogue even on issues of dispute and noted that there has been some progress on bridging divisions in the past year. Still, he suggested that the discussions would be difficult.

“I look forward to these discussions being very clear, very direct about the areas where we have differences and where the United States stands, and I have no doubt you will do the same on behalf of China,” Blinken told Wang.

“There is no substitute in our judgement for face-to-face diplomacy in order to try to move forward, but also to make sure we’re as clear as possible about the areas where we have differences at the very least to avoid misunderstandings, to avoid miscalculations,” he said.

Blinken arrived in China on Wednesday, visiting Shanghai shortly before U.S. President Joe Biden signed a $95 billion foreign aid package that has several elements likely to anger Beijing, including $8 billion to counter China’s growing aggressiveness toward Taiwan and in the South China Sea. It also seeks to force TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell the social media platform.

China has railed against U.S. assistance to Taiwan and immediately condemned the aid as a dangerous provocation. It also strongly opposes efforts to force TikTok’s sale.

Still, the fact that Blinken made the trip — shortly after a conversation between Biden and Xi, a visit to China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and a call between the U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs — is a sign the two sides are at least willing to discuss their differences.

China foreign minister tells Blinken relations with the US could slip into ‘downward spiral’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/26/antony-blinken-beijing-visiit-china-us-relations-foreign-minister-wang-yi

China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, has warned the US that the recent improvements in the two countries’ relations were being jeopardised by “disruptions” which could take them back to a “downward spiral” leading to rivalry, confrontation and even conflict.

Wang was speaking at the start of a meeting in Beijing with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at a time of renewed tension in the relations between the superpowers.

Blinken’s three-day visit to China comes five months after a largely successful summit between US and China leaders Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.

But the US is now threatening sanctions against Chinese companies for supplying the Russian defense industry, and is considering tariffs in the face of what Washington says is Chinese manufacturing over-capacity. The Biden administration has also tightened export controls on advanced computer chips.

While Blinken was on the way to China, Congress passed legislation that would ban the social media platform TikTok within a year in the US – if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, does not sell its stake – as well as provide billions of dollars in aid for the Indo-Pacific that would largely benefit Taiwan.

At the start of a meeting between US and Chinese delegations at the Diaoyutai state guest house in Beijing, Wang suggested the bilateral relationship was at a turning point. Since the Biden-Xi summit in San Francisco in November, he said it was “beginning to stabilise” with increased dialogue and cooperation.

“This is welcomed by our two peoples and the international community,” Wang said through an official interpreter. “But at the same time, the negative factors in the relationship are still increasing and building and the relationship is facing all kinds of disruptions.”

“China’s legitimate development rights have been unreasonably suppressed and our core interests are facing challenges,” he said. “Should China and the United States keep to the right direction of moving forward with stability or return to a downward spiral?”

“This is a major question before our two countries, which tests our sincerity and ability,” Wang added. “Should our two sides lead international cooperation on global issues and achieve win-win for all, or engage in rivalry and confrontation or even slide into conflict, which would be a lose-lose for all? The international community is waiting for our answer.”

In response, Blinken said he welcomed the opportunity to have face-to-face talks “to avoid misunderstandings, to avoid miscalculations”.

“That it really is a shared responsibility that we have, not only for our own people, but for people around the world, given the impact that the relationship between our countries has around the world,” Blinken said.

“It’s important to demonstrate that we’re managing responsibly the most consequential relationship for both of us in the world.”

Car wars: international marques from VW to Honda fight to regain ground lost to their EV rivals in China

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3260444/international-marques-vw-honda-fight-regain-ground-lost-their-ev-rivals-china?utm_source=rss_feed

International marques from Volkswagen to Honda, grappling with falling market share in China, are mounting a spirited fightback in the world’s largest automotive market, focusing on reliability and safety as they build cars for a new generations of local customers.

Most of them plan to take a balanced approach – focusing on both conventional and battery-powered vehicles – to pursue sales growth in a market where electric vehicles (EVs) are rapidly gaining ground.

That strategy stands in stark contrast to their home-grown rivals, who are betting on the swift adoption of pure-electric and hybrid cars to lure consumers away from petrol-guzzlers.

“We believe that competitiveness originates from the long-time accumulation of strength and experience,” Li Jin, vice-president of GAC Honda, told reporters in a press conference at the Auto China Show in Beijing on Thursday.

“Reliable and high-quality vehicles are supposed to give users a sense of safety.”

He said the venture between Honda and its Chinese state-owned partner Guangzhou Automobile Group viewed petrol and hybrid cars as growth engines just as important as EVs.

Volkswagen, the single largest carmaker in mainland China, announced it would develop 40 new models for Chinese consumers by 2027, half of which will be powered by combustion engines.

“We have a strong position [in China] due to our balanced set-up,” Ralf Brandsatter, VW’s China chief executive, told reporters at a media briefing on Monday.

Foreign carmakers have seen their dominant position in mainland China dwindle. Twenty years ago they held an 80 per cent share of the market, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, as they reaped the benefits of the rising affluence of local consumers.

Their combined share had fallen to 48 per cent last year, as electric cars built by domestic companies like BYD increasingly came to replace petrol vehicles on the mainland’s roads.

It was the first time that Chinese car brands had surpassed their foreign rivals in their home market.

About one in every three new cars sold on the mainland is battery-powered, with local brands taking an 86 per cent share of the electric segment.

Wang Chuanfu, chairman and president of BYD, the world’s bestselling EV assembler that was narrowly beaten by VW in terms of mainland deliveries last year, recently predicted that the accelerating pace of electrification on the roads would erode the market share of foreign carmakers to just 10 per cent in the next three to five years.

New-energy vehicles – a term that captures fully electric and plug-in hybrid cars – will make up about half of new car sales in mainland China by 2030, as state incentives and an expanding network of charging stations win over more customers, Moody’s Investors Service said in a report released in early April.

“Electrification will be the trend, but it may not turn out to be as fast as some optimistic industry officials predict,” said Eric Han, a senior manager at Suolei, an advisory firm in Shanghai. “Petrol cars will still be an important segment even in the world’s largest EV market.”

Gao Huan, a Beijing-based sales manager for PSA Group that owns the Peugeot and Citroen brands, said conventional carmakers still have loyal customers who understand their history and vision.

“Companies like PSA will still be attractive to those customers and they will build cars for those who understand the brands,” he added.

Swiss bank UBS forecast last year that Chinese carmakers would control a third of the global market by 2030, nearly double the 17 per cent share they enjoyed in 2022, buoyed by the rising popularity of battery-powered vehicles.

“The key to remaining relevant in China will be first to fully embrace electrification, whether it be through partnerships or self-developed models,” said Stephen Dyer, Greater China co-leader and head of the Asia automotive practice at global consultancy AlixPartners.

“It will be critical to be able to keep their product portfolios fresh, by rapidly launching updates and facelifts for their models.”

[Sport] TikTok's Chinese parent firm says no plans to sell

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c289n8m4j19o[Sport] TikTok's Chinese parent firm says no plans to sell

China strikes oil with new high-yield rapeseed, making strides in food security

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3260364/china-strikes-oil-new-high-yield-rapeseed-making-strides-food-security?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese researchers have developed a new rapeseed variety that improves upon typical yields by roughly 50 per cent, an innovation that will aid the country as it looks to buoy its self-sufficiency in vegetable oils and guard against unexpected disruptions to production.

The new crop has a harvested yield of 11.07kg per hectare, representing a potential oil output of around 4.89kg per hectare according to its developer, the Oil Crops Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

The yield is 51 per cent higher than the conventional variety, the institute said on Monday.

“The technology can be implemented in winter fallow fields across the Yangtze River Basin and southern regions of China, ensuring the security of the country’s edible oil supply,” the institute said.

The discovery represents the latest advancement in the country’s efforts to build self-sufficiency in seed oils, as escalating geopolitical tensions, trade frictions and extreme weather events pose challenges to food security.

According to the institute, if the variety is widely planted on about 7 million hectares of viable southern fields which normally idle in the winter, it could increase rapeseed oil supplies by about 6.16 million tonnes annually.

This widespread cultivation would increase the self-sufficiency rate of edible vegetable oils by 14.5 percentage points, which “is significantly important for ensuring the security of the edible oil supply,” the institute said.

The variety’s fertility period has also been reduced from 170 days to 130 days in southern Guangxi province, which the agency said has addressed a major limitation in rapeseed cultivation in southern China.

“The shorter fertility period is an important breakthrough,” said a professor at Hubei University who asked not to be named.

EU agriculture commissioner wants fresh start for China-Europe food trade

“There is an absence of major breakthroughs in rapeseed cultivation in China,” he said. “Due to the lack of mechanised production, farmers see higher production costs and domestic rapeseed prices surpass those of imports.”

The professor said China’s rapeseed production is at risk of decline this year, as extensive rain and snowstorms in February caused many seedlings to perish in key producing regions like Sichuan and Hubei.

“China will rely more on imports this year to meet its domestic demand,” he added.

Last month, securities firm Citic Futures reported that the winter cold damaged 20 to 30 per cent of rapeseed crops in Hubei and Hunan provinces, with the latter representing over 35 per cent of China’s rapeseed acreage. The damage is expected to lead to a decrease in rapeseed production this year.

China relies on imports for nearly 70 per cent of its edible oil, mainly sourced from Canada and Russia.

Beijing has pledged to increase the self-sufficiency ratio of oil crops – including soybeans, peanuts, rapeseed and sesame – from 32 per cent last year to 43.8 per cent by 2032.

According to Shanghai-based commodity consultancy Mysteel, China’s rapeseed imports totalled 513,800 tonnes in the first two months of 2024, a year-on-year decline of 51.6 per cent.

In January and February, 87 per cent of China’s rapeseed imports came from Canada, 10 per cent from Russia and another 2.7 per cent from Mongolia, Mysteel said in a report issued Monday.

China’s edible vegetable oil imports stood at 1.67 million tonnes in the first quarter, a year-on-year decrease of 19.8 per cent according to the General Administration of Customs.

Academics in Japan shun events in China amid fears over professor’s disappearance in Shanghai

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3260381/academics-japan-shun-events-china-amid-fears-over-professors-disappearance-shanghai?utm_source=rss_feed

Academics in Japan have expressed deep concern over the apparent disappearance in Shanghai of a Chinese professor who had been teaching in Japan, the latest in a series of similar incidents.

Some scholars said they worried about meeting a similar fate if they were to travel to China due to Beijing’s opaque laws and have little confidence that the Japanese government would intervene on their behalf out of fear it could upset bilateral relations.

Fears have mounted since Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi confirmed on Monday that Tokyo was “aware” that professor Fan Yuntao has been missing after making what was meant to be a brief return to Shanghai in late February 2023.

Fan, 61, is an expert in international law and politics at Asia University in Tokyo. One of his papers, available on the university’s website, examines Beijing’s “Belt and Road Initiative” and asks how it could “change the international order in East Asia”.

Fan had told family and friends that he intended to return to Japan in April last year but managed to get word to relatives shortly before his disappearance that he had been told to accompany Chinese government officials for questioning, Kyodo News reported.

Is Japan joining Aukus? Not just yet – but it has a keen interest in its success

In a statement issued to This Week in Asia, Fan’s university said the professor is “currently on leave of absence” but declined to elaborate “in order to protect personal data”. The university “sincerely hopes that the individual will return to work,” it added.

A professor at the university declined to comment on the disappearance of his colleague.

Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo, Hayashi said: “This could be a matter related to the human rights of the professor, who has been engaging in education at a Japanese university for years.”

Japan is “closely monitoring” the situation but has declined to comment further as the matter is “sensitive”, Hayashi said.

The government’s position was met with scorn on social media. A comment on a story about Fan’s disappearance on the website of The Mainichi newspaper said: “The government should stop its irresponsible attitude of ‘closely monitoring’ and doing nothing but pander to China. As a politician, you should have some pride.”

Another online user said: “‘Closely monitor’ – what empty words. We need effective ways of dealing with this situation.”

Fan’s disappearance is the latest in several similar incidents involving Chinese academics based in Japan. Hu Shiyun, a professor at Kobe Gakuin University, has been out of contact since returning to China in August. Zhu Jianrong, a professor at Toyo Gakuen University, vanished in 2013 in Shanghai. He was released six months later and returned to Japan.

In 2019, Yuan Keqin was detained during a visit to China for his mother’s funeral on suspicion of espionage. Yuan, a professor of Asian politics for 25 years at Hokkaido University of Education, was later indicted on espionage charges by Chinese authorities, but there has been no news on the status of his case.

Several academics told This Week in Asia they fear going to China for academic events over concerns that they might be detained.

“I would definitely not accept an offer to attend an event in China as there are absolutely no assurances that I would be allowed to return to Japan,” said Yoichi Shimada, a professor of international relations at Fukui Prefectural University.

“There have been quite a few Chinese academics who have been arrested after returning to their homeland as well as several Japanese businesspeople,” he told This Week in Asia. “There seems to be no clear reason for these arrests. It is impossible for me and other academics to go there now.”

Japan’s bears are coming out of hibernation. And they’re in a ‘bad mood’

Another Japanese professor said while he had previously authored papers on China, Taiwan and security issues in northeast Asia and conducted academic research in China on several occasions, he would not want to return to the mainland.

“With that background, I would be asking for trouble if I tried to go there again,” said the academic, who declined to be named.

One Chinese academic who had met Fan through his work in Japan said he has “no concerns” about returning to China in the future as he has always been careful to distance himself from any actions that could be misunderstood by either the Japanese or Chinese side.

The academic, who also declined to be named, said he avoided Fan after he knew the Chinese national was working for a Japanese university.

“Both the Japanese and Chinese intelligence communities want information on the other side so it is important to keep a good distance from both,” he said. “If anyone asked me for information, I always said no.”

He declined to elaborate on what he had been asked to do or for which country.

Japan warns of scorching summer as it experiences ‘very worrying’ temperatures

Jeff Kingston, an American who is the director of Asian Studies at the Tokyo campus of Temple University, said he would be willing to travel to China for an academic event, but agreed that for Chinese expatriate academics and – increasingly – Japanese professors, “It is a tough call.”

“A lot of people realise that China has a very spotty track record on academic freedom,” he said. “I would not worry too much about going as I’m not important enough, but for members of the Chinese diaspora who stray into certain areas, that is more dangerous.”

For Shimada, the possibility of being detained for contravening Beijing’s draconian new anti-espionage laws is a serious concern, but equally so is Tokyo’s potential inertia when an academic goes missing in China.

“Assuming everyone is a spy is like something out of the Cold War,” he said. “But it is what China is claiming and Tokyo has done nothing to push back on that for either Japanese nationals accused of espionage or Chinese who have lived and worked in Japan for years.

“I have no faith that the Japanese government would do much to get me home if I was accused of something; they are weak-kneed when it comes to China,” he said.

The Japanese academic who declined to be named said there is little Tokyo can do regarding any such incident as it involves another country’s laws.

“It is hard for Japan to intervene because that is the law of China,” he said. “We may not know exactly what the law says and the authorities there can interpret it however they want, meaning that they can effectively accuse anyone of breaking the law, but it is their law and Japan cannot influence that.”

China youth embrace independent approach to dating – ‘suicidal singleness’ and ‘single love’ – to avoid risks of romance

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/gender-diversity/article/3259067/china-youth-embrace-independent-approach-dating-suicidal-singleness-and-single-love-avoid-risks?utm_source=rss_feed

Young people in China are increasingly adopting new approaches to dating and relationships, largely due to societal changes and how they impact life for the individual.

One of these is what has become known as the “single love” strategy.

Its adherents believe that the spiritual and financial independence of an individual is more important, and practical, than wasting time on emotion-charged issues shaped by traditional notions of romance and love.

In other words, look after yourself and the rest will take care of itself.

This attitude has echoes of another approach known as “suicidal singleness”, in which people do not date and remain alone even when they have feelings for someone.

These stand-offish takes on romantic involvement could go some way to explaining China’s growing population of single people, which hit a record 239 million in 2021.

The average age for a first marriage has also risen since 2010.

Here, the Post delves into the notions of “single love” and “suicidal singleness”.

Single love

After two years together, first loves Momo and Chen from Shenzhen in Guangdong province, southern China, are more like acquaintances than girlfriend and boyfriend.

They live in different districts and meet once or twice a week when they go Dutch on dates. Their chat messages are formal as they find flirting “disgusting”.

They rarely get excited about their relationship and they seldom argue.

Momo said she enjoys Chen’s company, but values her independence and freedom.

In China, such a relationship is known as “single love”.

This means rather than sacrificing things for their partners, an increasing number of young Chinese have decided to put their own feelings first.

They have disdain for “love brain”, a condition that describes those who allow their emotions to overwhelm them.

“Those who believes in ‘till death us do part’ are fools,” Momo said.

Suicidal singleness

People who adhere to the somewhat clumsily termed “suicidal singleness” approach to relationships may claim to have a commitment to remain single, but they appear to have a deep desire for romantic love.

In their fantasies, they picture the moment they fall in love, and countless other romantic scenarios.

But they only allow these notions to happen in their heads, and will do nothing to make them a reality.

“What can be more fun than playing with my phone?” one such adherent said.

They also believe that if they need to work hard to find or keep a relationship, then it is not for them.

A website specialising in psychology, Jiandanxinli, explained that the burnout young people feel as a result of work stress has exhausted their desire for relationships.

They fear a failed relationship might damage their mental health, so they would rather stay in their comfort zone.

China’s Henan province sees drop in smartphone exports as Apple diversifies manufacturing supply chain outside the mainland

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3260386/chinas-henan-province-sees-drop-smartphone-exports-apple-diversifies-manufacturing-supply-chain?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s central Henan province, home to the world’s largest iPhone manufacturing complex in its capital Zhengzhou, reported a 60 per cent year-on-year drop in smartphone exports in the first quarter, showing the impact of Apple’s moves to diversify production outside the mainland.

According to data released by Zhengzhou’s local customs authority, Henan’s smartphone exports totalled 6.65 million units in the first quarter, down 60.1 per cent from the same period last year. The customs data did not provide a breakdown of the handset exports by brand.

Henan last year exported 57.6 million smartphones, down 14.5 per cent from 2022, as production resumed across all handset assembly facilities in Zhengzhou after Covid-19 control measures were lifted.

Those figures reflect a broad push by Apple’s suppliers, including primary iPhone assembler Foxconn Technology Group, to expand their manufacturing supply chain in markets such as Vietnam and India, the world’s most populous nation. India has been the world’s second-largest smartphone market since the third quarter of 2017, according to data from research firm Canalys.

Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, stepped up its diversification efforts last year after it struggled to keep up with production targets in late 2022 after it was hit by an exodus of workers, who fled over fears of coronavirus transmission, followed by violent protests over employee allowances.

In the aftermath of that fiasco in Zhengzhou, a top Henan official went on a charm offensive in February last year to convince Foxconn chairman and chief executive Liu Young-way to keep the Taiwanese firm’s local operations and investment in the province. Foxconn is the single largest importer and exporter in the province, according to a report by local newspaper Henan Daily.

Lou Yangsheng, the Chinese Communist Party’s Secretary in Henan, assured Liu that the government would provide comprehensive services to its local operations, showing mainland China’s effort to preserve its major role in Apple’s manufacturing supply chain.

Foxconn last December won approval to invest at least US$1 billion more in a plant it is building in India that will make Apple products, which marks a major ramp-up in its goal to build a vast production hub beyond China.

The world’s biggest electronics contract manufacturer will spend that amount on top of the US$1.6 billion it earlier set aside for the 300-acre (121-hectare) site close to Bengaluru’s airport, according to a Bloomberg report that cited people familiar with the matter.

India’s iPhone exports have been growing significantly and are set to nearly double to US$12.1 billion in Apple’s current financial year, up from US$6.27 billion a year earlier, according to data from consultancy Trade Vision.

Indian salt-to-steel conglomerate Tata Group has just made it debut on Apple’s latest supplier list, following the company’s acquisition of Taiwanese firm Wistron Corp’s factory in southern India last year.

Tata has also been exploring a takeover of Taiwanese electronics contract manufacturer Pegatron’s iPhone assembly operations in India as soon as May, according to a Bloomberg report, citing sources.

Apple also plans to raise its investments in Vietnam. Apple chief executive Tim Cook last week pledged to “increase spending on suppliers” in the country, adding that such expenditure has reached nearly 400 trillion Vietnamese dong (US$16 billion) since 2019.

Apple suppliers including Foxconn, Luxshare Precision Industry and Goertek have operations in Vietnam.

Still, Apple sees mainland China as its prime manufacturing base. Apple added eight Chinese suppliers and removed four contractors in the country in its past financial year ended September, the first time since 2021 that the US tech giant introduced more mainland production partners than it cut.

“There’s no supply chain in the world that’s more critical to us than China,” Cook told state media China Daily in March.

Vladimir Putin to visit China in May, as Moscow seeks to strengthen ties with Beijing

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/3260396/russias-vladimir-putin-says-plans-visit-china-may?utm_source=rss_feed

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he plans to visit China in May, his first planned trip abroad since re-election as Moscow seeks deeper ties with Beijing.

The West has viewed Russia and China with increased anxiety over the past two years as they boost military cooperation and seek to expand their global influence.

“A visit in May is planned,” Putin said at a business forum in Moscow, without providing further detail. The Russian leader last visited China in October 2023.

Days before Russia launched its full-scale military assault on Ukraine in February 2022, Beijing and Moscow declared a “no limits” partnership and have since boosted trade to record highs.

Moscow has looked to China as a crucial economic lifeline since the West hit Russia with unprecedented sanctions over its military offensive.

China has meanwhile benefited from cheap Russian energy imports and access to vast natural resources, including steady gas shipments via the Power of Siberia pipeline.

But their close economic partnership has come under close scrutiny in the West, which has threatened to sanction overseas banks and companies that work with Moscow.

The Izvestia newspaper reported in March that Chinese lenders Ping An Bank and Bank of Ningbo had stopped accepting payments in Chinese yuan from Russia, alongside several smaller banks.

The Kremlin admitted there were some problems with cross-border transactions, but said the West was to blame for putting “unprecedented pressure” on Chinese firms.

US-China relations: Blinken hits out at ‘non-market practices’

Putin’s announcement came shortly after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Beijing, in part to defuse tensions with the rival power.

Both Beijing and Moscow have been outspoken in their criticism of the United States.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin in February accused Washington of “interfering” in their countries’ affairs during a telephone call.

Beijing has refused to condemn Moscow’s Ukraine offensive, instead offering itself as a potential mediator between the two sides.

Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said China’s peace plan, which critics have called “vague”, was the most reasonable any country had put forward.

“This plan has been criticised for being unspecific … But it is a reasonable plan that the great Chinese civilisation has put forward for discussion,” Lavrov said.

China has itself been criticised by the United States over a number of thorny issues, including increasingly belligerent behaviour toward self-ruled democratic Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.

Many countries, including the US, do not officially recognise Taiwan as an independent state but oppose the use of force to change the status quo.

Most recently, tensions have grown over Washington’s move to ban the popular social media app TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.

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No imminent US sanctions on Chinese banks for their trade with Russia: Janet Yellen

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3260397/no-imminent-us-sanctions-chinese-banks-their-trade-russia-janet-yellen?utm_source=rss_feed

American sanctions on Chinese banks for their trade with Russia are not imminent, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Thursday.

“I have nothing to announce in terms of sanctions [on Chinese banks],” Yellen stated during an interview with Reuters.

But the policy option was something the US “would be prepared to use if necessary”.

“We’ve had intensive discussions with the Chinese about this. I think they understand our position, and it is a tool that’s available,” she said.

In December, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order giving the US Treasury authority to sanction foreign banks that facilitate the flow of military goods to Russia.

More recently, Washington was weighing sanctions against Chinese banks to help US Secretary of State Antony Blinken – now visiting China from Wednesday to Friday – persuade Beijing to halt commercial support for Russia’s military production, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Monday.

Blinken’s visit, his second to the country in 12 months, comes as the US and China scale up official contacts to keep their relations from fraying amid their ongoing disputes over issues like trade and Taiwan.

Yellen earlier this month travelled for a week to China, meeting with senior Chinese officials and members of the American business community. She voiced US concerns about China’s industrial overcapacity, especially in the new-energy supply chain.

US risks ‘gargantuan’ financial turmoil with threats against Chinese banks

“My responsibility is to emphasise the undesirable spillovers of excessive subsidies to everything in the clean-energy supply chain. And to make sure that that’s heard at the highest level,” she said in Thursday’s interview.

Chinese overcapacity was not just a US issue, Yellen added, describing it as affecting Europe, Japan and emerging markets like India and Mexico.

“We’re not trying to dominate the global market. We have no problem with China producing and selling globally and exporting,” she continued.

“But the United States and Europe and other countries also want to have some involvement in the ability to produce clean-energy products that are going to be of great importance.”

In the past decade, China has grown into the biggest player in the global new-energy industrial chain, helped by policy support, heavy government subsidies and the world’s most complete manufacturing infrastructure network.

It now dominates 80 per cent of the global supply chains of photovoltaic products and automotive batteries, while more than 60 per cent of electric cars in operation globally were made in China.

As a result, the country’s perceived monopoly of the sector has evoked some backlash.

The US has largely kept Chinese EVs at bay, thanks to an additional 25 per cent tariff imposed since the administration of former president Donald Trump. In 2022, the Biden administration enacted the Inflation Reduction Act that entails comprehensive subsidies for US domestic new-energy manufacturers.

Yellen said she has been engaging in “intense discussion” with Chinese senior officials on the issue of industrial overcapacity, including during the fourth meetings of the US-China economic and financial working groups that took place on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings in mid-April.

How far did Janet Yellen’s trip move the ball for US-China relations?

“This is a problem that developed over many years. It’s not going to be solved in a day or a week,” Yellen said.

“So it’s important that China recognises the concerns and begins to act to address them. But we don’t want our industry wiped out in the meantime, so I wouldn’t want to take anything off the table.”

The treasury secretary noted her thoughts on comparative advantage – a foundational principle in international trade referring to an economy’s ability to produce a particular good or service at a lower opportunity cost than its trading partners – has changed with respect to China, while denying it presaged further protectionism.

“It’s well documented that the United States experienced what’s referred to as a ‘China shock’, which was after China was admitted to the WTO, its exports to the United States utterly surged … And that really ended up with the huge loss of good manufacturing jobs in parts of the country that have really never seen employment recover,” she said.

“I’ve been in favour of free trade. But it has to be something that broadly benefits people throughout the country.”

US Federal Communications Commission bars Chinese telecoms carriers from offering broadband services

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3260401/us-federal-communications-commission-bars-chinese-telecoms-carriers-offering-broadband-services?utm_source=rss_feed

The US Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday it is ordering the US units of China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile to discontinue fixed or mobile broadband internet operations in the United States.

The FCC said it was requiring the Chinese carriers to discontinue services within 60 days of the effective date of the net neutrality order approved on Thursday.

The order also applies to Chinese company Pacific Networks and its wholly owned subsidiary ComNet.

The commission previously had barred the companies from providing telecommunications services.

FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said on Thursday the commission had evidence Chinese telecoms carriers were providing broadband services in the United States.

The FCC had cited national security concerns in revoking or denying Chinese companies the right to provide US telecommunications services.

The FCC had said Chinese telecoms firms were “subject to exploitation, influence and control by the Chinese government”.

US revives controversial web rules Trump worked to quash

This is the latest action by Washington to restrict Chinese telecoms carriers including on undersea cables handling internet traffic.

The FCC previously barred approvals of new telecommunications equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE and other companies saying they pose “an unacceptable risk” to US national security.

China’s beefed up statistics and accounting laws under review, robust fines to increase cost of fraud

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3260361/chinas-beefed-statistics-and-accounting-laws-under-review-robust-fines-increase-cost-fraud?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s revisions to laws governing statistics and accounting to mete out heavier penalties for falsifying data and financial reports include fines of up to 10 times any illegal income for businesses and other entities.

The revisions came amid Beijing’s increased focus on data accuracy and authenticity to inform decision making, while aiming to cleanse markets of fraud.

China’s top legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), on Tuesday began the review of the proposed amendments, with revisions and new clauses drafted to increase fines and the cost of violations, state media reported.

“In recent years, statistical work has faced challenges, like persistent data fabrication, ineffective supervision and low non-compliance cost for offenders,” said National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) director Kang Yi.

China should be more transparent about economic data, government adviser says

The 14 amendments to the law governing statistics would ensure local authorities, statistical agencies and department heads must not request, imply or guide their staff, subordinates or those subject to statistical investigations to submit false data.

The amendments also stipulate that offenders would be punished, including being publicly named and discredited.

The revised statistics law would also increase fines up to 500,000 yuan (US$69,000) for businesses and other entities that refuse to provide or delay data submissions, according to the People’s Daily newspaper.

Beijing has been eager to clamp down on local officials inflating or manipulating key economic statistics, including gross domestic product and debt.

Reliable data from genuine businesses is essential to gauge the state of the world’s second-largest economy, as well as to design policies and quell long-standing external concerns about the reliability of China’s performance metrics.

Last year, the NBS inspected several central and western provinces, including Guizhou, with the bureau warning that statistical crime was still rife.

In October, the NPC Standing Committee also sounded the alarm over asset quality data at small and medium-sized financial institutions, saying that the numbers did not “reflect the actual situation”.

China’s Accounting Law is also set to be updated, with Beijing vowing to crack down on financial crimes, including falsifying accounts.

The changes are aimed at protecting market order and upholding rules in the world’s second-largest financial market.

“Accounting supervision is weak when misconduct is difficult to pursue and offenders are let go lightly,” Liao Min, China’s finance vice-minister, said in a statement to the legislature.

“Accounting information is usually distorted and financial fraud and a lack of internal audits among listed companies is still rampant.”

The 17 amendments to the Accounting Law are also set to impose heavier fines, including a maximum penalty of 2 million yuan for falsifying financial reports, while offenders with illegal incomes of more than 200,000 yuan may be fined up to 10 times the amount of the illegal gains.

China claims ‘biggest corruption in statistical sphere’ amid fake data crackdown

Aligning with the provisions of China’s Securities Law, the revised accounting provisions would raise fines for a range of offences, including when businesses fail to set up account books as mandated by law and those who operate unofficial account books.

To strengthen deterrence, fines for businesses faking records and financial reports, as well as instigators of accounting crimes, would also be higher, although the specific sizes have not been disclosed.

In the aftermath of market routs, Chinese watchdogs have stepped up reforms and law enforcement to improve the quality of listed firms to restore confidence and revive battered stocks.

Blinken set to meet Chinese leaders as superpowers manage rivalry

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/25/blinken-china-wang-yi-beijing/2024-04-25T01:55:55.939Z

BEIJING — Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to meet top Chinese leaders on Friday, capping a trip that included a visit to a basketball game and a conversation with Chinese college students with a weightier effort to dial back China’s support for Russia’s defense industry and to get it to crack down on Chinese companies’ role in the global fentanyl trade.

Relations have improved significantly since Blinken last visited 10 months ago, after a Chinese spy balloon’s transit across the United States set off an unusually broad national blowback to China’s espionage activity. Since then, conversations have become far more routine, enabling the world’s two biggest economies and superpower rivals to return to managing their tense but interdependent relationship.

Blinken was expected to meet with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, for more than six hours on Friday, giving the sides ample time to air their differences about a host of issues that also include reviving military-to-military discussions and China’s frosty relationship with Taiwan. Beijing has also complained about U.S. efforts to cut off Chinese access to advanced semiconductors that would enable it to make progress on artificial intelligence that could have military applications.

Blinken spoke Thursday of “the necessity of direct engagement, of sustained engagement, of speaking to each other, laying out our differences which are real, seeking to work through them,” as well as looking for ways to cooperate.

“We have an obligation for our people and, indeed, an obligation for the world to manage the relationship between our two countries responsibly,” he said in a meeting with Shanghai Communist Party Secretary Chen Jining.

The top U.S. diplomat is also likely to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, although those kinds of conversations are usually locked down only at the last minute. Xi and President Biden spoke earlier this month by phone and clashed on the subject of export controls, which the Biden administration says are necessary to keep U.S. technology from undermining U.S. security and Beijing complains is simply an effort to restrict its economic rise.