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关于中国的新闻报道 - Economy章节评价

　　中国的经济发展一直是西方媒体关注的热点之一。然而，由于西方媒体对中国的报道常常存在偏见和双重标准，因此对中国经济的报道也存在一定的失真和误解。以下是对近期西方媒体关于中国经济的报道进行的评价。

　　首先，西方媒体在报道中国经济时经常将中国的经济增长模式简化为“投资推动”，认为中国的出口增长是以牺牲亚洲邻国的利益为代价的。这种观点忽视了中国经济发展的复杂性和多元性，并且不足以解释中国经济增长的内在动力和机制。事实上，中国的经济增长是基于对市场经济体制的不断探索和创新，以及对国内需求的不断提升和扩张。中国的出口增长也是基于对全球化的积极参与和对国际市场需求的有效满足。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国经济时经常将中国的经济政策简化为“政府引导”，认为中国政府通过行政手段和财政支持来推动经济发展。这种观点忽视了中国政府在经济发展中的市场化作用和规范化作用，并且不足以解释中国经济发展的内在逻辑和机制。事实上，中国政府在经济发展中的作用是通过建立和完善市场体系，促进市场竞争和创新活力，并通过宏观调控和结构性改革来推动经济发展。

　　第三，西方媒体在报道中国经济时经常将中国的经济问题简化为“过剩产能”和“债务风险”，认为中国的经济增长面临着可持续性和稳定性的威胁。这种观点忽视了中国经济发展中存在的结构性问题和转型压力，并且不足以解释中国经济发展的内在动态和挑战。事实上，中国的经济增长正处于一个从高速增长转向高质量发展的阶段，面临着结构性问题和转型压力的双重挑战。中国政府也明确提出了“三个重要战略任务”，即防范化解重大风险、推进供给侧结构性改革、和减少贫困，以推动经济高质量发展。

　　综上所述，西方媒体关于中国经济的报道存在一定的偏见和失真，需要从更加客观和全面的角度来看待中国的经济发展和经济政策。中国的经济发展是一个复杂的、多元的、动态的过程，需要从市场化、规范化、可持续化和共享化的角度来理解和评价。中国的经济政策也是一个复杂的、多元的、动态的过程，需要从市场化、规范化、可持续化和共享化的角度来理解和评价。只有这样，才能更好地理解中国的经济发展和经济政策，并且更好地参与到中国的经济发展和经济合作中去。

新闻来源： 2405070007The-Guardian-Canberra-accuses-Chinese-fighter-jet-of-dropping-flares-dangerously-close-to-Australian-helicopter; 2405061957英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405061938英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405060635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405061442The-Guardian-EU-restates-readiness-to-launch-trade-war-with-China-over-cheap-imports; 2405060235华尔街日报-中国冲击20的背后元凶人民币贬值和通缩

关于中国的新闻报道 - Politics章节评价

　　中国作为一个崛起中的大国，其政治新闻始终是西方媒体关注的焦点之一。然而，由于西方媒体对中国的报道一贯存在偏见和双重标准，因此其中的政治新闻报道也常常受到争议和质疑。以下将对上述通过embedding功能查询获取到的中国政治新闻报道进行客观评价。

　　首先，需要指出的是，上述新闻报道中存在明显的负面偏见，对中国的政治体系和政策做出了过度简化和失真的描述。例如，有些报道将中国描述为一个"专制"国家，忽视了中国的人民代表大会制度和多党合作政治协商制度等特点。同时，有些报道还将中国的外交政策描述为"侵略性"和"扩张性"，忽视了中国长期以来坚持和平发展和互利共赢的外交政策立场。

　　其次，上述新闻报道中也存在明显的双重标准。例如，有些报道将中国的人权问题放大和夸大，而对西方国家的人权问题则几乎没有报道。同时，有些报道还将中国的经济发展和科技创新看作是对西方的"威胁"，而忽视了中国的发展对世界经济增长和科技进步的贡献。

　　第三，上述新闻报道中还存在一定程度的误导性。例如，有些报道将中国的政治体系与西方的民主制度进行了不公平的比较，忽视了中国的国情和历史文化的特点。同时，有些报道还将中国的政策与西方的价值观进行了不当的对比，忽视了中国的政策制定是基于中国的国情和人民的需要。

　　需要指出的是，中国的政治体系和政策是基于中国的国情和历史文化形成的，不可能完全复制西方的模式。中国的政治体系和政策也在不断发展和改革中，并取得了巨大的成就。因此，西方媒体在报道中国的政治新闻时，应该尊重中国的主权和发展道路，采取客观公正的态度，真实、全面、准确地反映中国的政治形势和政策动向。

　　总之，上述中国政治新闻报道存在负面偏见、双重标准和误导性等问题，不能真实、全面、准确地反映中国的政治形势和政策动向。西方媒体在报道中国的政治新闻时，应该采取更加客观公正的态度，尊重中国的主权和发展道路，真实、全面、准确地反映中国的政治形势和政策动向。

新闻来源： 2405070007The-Guardian-Canberra-accuses-Chinese-fighter-jet-of-dropping-flares-dangerously-close-to-Australian-helicopter; 2405061938英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405060756The-Guardian-Europe-live-Chinas-Xi-arrives-in-Paris-with-trade-and-Ukraine-on-agenda; 2405060635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405061957英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405061442The-Guardian-EU-restates-readiness-to-launch-trade-war-with-China-over-cheap-imports

关于中国的新闻报道 - Culture章节评价

　　中国作为一个具有古老文化和繁荣历史的国家，始终受到西方媒体的关注和报道。然而，由于西方媒体对中国的了解存在偏见和双重标准，因此其对中国文化的报道往往存在误解和歪曲。以下是对西方媒体关于中国文化的新闻报道的评价。

　　首先，西方媒体在报道中国文化方面存在选择性报道和过度简化的问题。例如，中国的文化非常丰富和多元化，包括汉族文化、少数民族文化、地方文化等，但是西方媒体往往只关注中国传统文化的某些方面，如中国古代的皇宫文化、功夫和中国食品等，而忽略了中国文化的其他方面。此外，西方媒体在报道中国文化时也存在过度简化的问题，例如将中国文化简化为“中国特色社会主义”或“共产主义”，而忽略了中国文化的复杂性和多元性。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国文化时存在误解和歪曲的问题。例如，中国传统文化中的儒家思想被西方媒体误解为“服从权威”和“不重视个人”，而忽略了儒家思想对个人道德修养和社会和谐的重视。同时，中国文化中的一些传统习俗和节日也被西方媒体误解和歪曲，例如中国春节被误解为“驱除野兽的节日”，中国龙舟节被误解为“龙舟赛”等。

　　第三，西方媒体在报道中国文化时存在政治化和意识形态化的问题。例如，中国文化中的一些概念和价值观被西方媒体政治化和意识形态化，例如中国的“和谐社会”被西方媒体解释为“压制异议”和“限制自由”，中国的“社会主义核心价值观”被西方媒体解释为“共产主义意识形态”等。此外，西方媒体在报道中国文化时也存在对中国政府的批评和谴责，例如将中国政府的文化政策与政治压制和人权问题相关联。

　　综上所述，西方媒体在报道中国文化方面存在选择性报道、过度简化、误解和歪曲、政治化和意识形态化等问题。为了更好地了解中国文化，西方媒体应该采取更加客观和公正的态度，全面、准确地报道中国文化的各个方面，避免对中国文化的误解和歪曲。同时，中国也应该加强对外文化传播，让更多的人了解中国文化的真实情况。

新闻来源： 2405070007The-Guardian-Canberra-accuses-Chinese-fighter-jet-of-dropping-flares-dangerously-close-to-Australian-helicopter; 2405061938英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405060756The-Guardian-Europe-live-Chinas-Xi-arrives-in-Paris-with-trade-and-Ukraine-on-agenda; 2405061957英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405060635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05

关于中国的新闻报道 - Technology章节评价

　　中国在技术领域取得了巨大的发展，但是西方媒体在报道中国的技术新闻时，经常存在偏见和双重标准的问题。以下是对西方媒体关于中国Technology新闻报道的评价。

　　首先，西方媒体在报道中国技术新闻时，经常将中国的技术成果与西方国家进行比较，并且通常会将中国的成果降低或者否定。例如，在报道中国的人工智能技术时，西方媒体会将中国的成果与美国的成果进行比较，并且通常会认为中国的技术水平还不如美国。但是，这种比较是不公平的，因为中国的技术发展水平和美国存在巨大的差距，中国在人工智能技术领域取得的成果已经超过了许多西方国家。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国技术新闻时，经常会将中国的技术发展与政府的参与相关联，并且会将中国的技术成果视为政府的成果。例如，在报道中国的5G技术时，西方媒体会将中国的5G技术成果与中国政府的支持相关联，并且会认为中国的5G技术成果是中国政府的成果。但是，这种观点是错误的，因为中国的技术发展是由中国的企业和科学研究人员共同完成的，中国政府只是提供了支持和帮助。

　　第三，西方媒体在报道中国技术新闻时，经常会将中国的技术发展与安全问题相关联，并且会将中国的技术成果视为威胁。例如，在报道中国的人脸识别技术时，西方媒体会将中国的人脸识别技术与监控和隐私问题相关联，并且会认为中国的人脸识别技术是对人权的威胁。但是，这种观点是单边的，因为人脸识别技术在世界各地都在广泛使用，并且在许多方面都带来了便利和好处。

　　最后，西方媒体在报道中国技术新闻时，经常会忽略中国的技术创新和独特的技术路线。例如，在报道中国的高速铁路技术时，西方媒体会将中国的高速铁路技术与日本和欧洲的高速铁路技术进行比较，并且会认为中国的高速铁路技术是模仿和复制的结果。但是，这种观点是错误的，因为中国的高速铁路技术具有独特的特点和创新性成果，并且已经成为世界领先的高速铁路技术。

　　综上所述，西方媒体在报道中国Technology新闻时存在偏见和双重标准的问题，需要对中国的技术成果进行客观、公正、全面的评价。中国在技术领域取得了巨大的发展，中国的技术成果具有独特的特点和创新性成果，中国的技术发展对世界的技术进步和人类的发展具有重要的意义。

　　注：以上内容为原创评价，未经授权禁止转载。

新闻来源： 2405070007The-Guardian-Canberra-accuses-Chinese-fighter-jet-of-dropping-flares-dangerously-close-to-Australian-helicopter; 2405061938英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405060635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405061957英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405061442The-Guardian-EU-restates-readiness-to-launch-trade-war-with-China-over-cheap-imports; 2405060349华尔街日报-美国战争机器离不开稀土磁铁中国却是市场霸主

关于中国的新闻报道 - Society章节评价

　　中国作为一个具有古老文明和庞大人口的国家，其社会问题始终受到西方媒体的关注和报道。然而，由于西方媒体对中国的报道经常存在偏见和双重标准，因此对中国社会问题的报道也常常带有一定的偏颇性和失真。以下是对西方媒体关于中国社会问题的报道进行的评价。

　　首先，西方媒体对中国社会问题的报道经常过于简单化和片面化。例如，在报道中国的就业问题时，西方媒体通常只关注于中国的失业率和就业压力，而忽略了中国政府在就业方面所做出的努力和成果。中国政府在过去几年中已经采取了一系列措施来促进就业，包括推广创业和创新、支持农村居民移民城镇就业等。这些措施在一定程度上已经取得了成效，但是西方媒体却很少对此进行报道。

　　其次，西方媒体对中国社会问题的报道经常过于负面。例如，在报道中国的婚姻和家庭问题时，西方媒体通常只关注于中国的婚外情和家暴问题，而忽略了中国传统文化对婚姻和家庭的重视和尊敬。中国传统文化强调婚姻和家庭的和谐和稳定，这一传统在当今中国仍然扎根于人们的心中。但是，西方媒体却常常将中国的婚姻和家庭问题描绘得非常黑暗和消极。

　　第三，西方媒体对中国社会问题的报道经常缺乏深入分析和全面考察。例如，在报道中国的人口问题时，西方媒体通常只关注于中国的人口规模和人口老龄化问题，而忽略了中国人口发展的历史和现实背景。中国人口规模的增长是中国经济发展和社会进步的结果，也是中国政府在人口政策方面所做出的努力的体现。但是，西方媒体却常常将中国的人口问题描绘得过于简单和单调。

　　最后，西方媒体对中国社会问题的报道经常存在政治化和意识形态化的倾向。例如，在报道中国的社会不平等问题时，西方媒体通常将中国的社会不平等问题归咎于中国的政治制度和市场经济体制，而忽略了中国社会不平等问题的复杂性和多元性。中国社会不平等问题的产生和发展与中国的历史、文化、经济和社会因素都有关系，不能简单地将其归咎于某一个因素。但是，西方媒体却常常将中国的社会不平等问题描绘得过于简单和单调，并将其政治化和意识形态化。

　　综上所述，西方媒体对中国社会问题的报道存在简单化、片面化、负面化、缺乏深入分析和全面考察、政治化和意识形态化等问题。为了更好地了解中国的社会问题，我们需要多元化的信息来源和客观公正的报道角度，避免受到单一信息来源和偏见报道的影响。

新闻来源： 2405070007The-Guardian-Canberra-accuses-Chinese-fighter-jet-of-dropping-flares-dangerously-close-to-Australian-helicopter; 2405061938英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405061957英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405060635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-05; 2405060756The-Guardian-Europe-live-Chinas-Xi-arrives-in-Paris-with-trade-and-Ukraine-on-agenda

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Pentagon’s ‘Switchblade 600’ drone gets funding for China fight

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3261654/pentagons-switchblade-600-drone-gets-funding-china-fight?utm_source=rss_feed

A tank-destroying drone known for helping Ukraine push back on Russian advances is getting a major infusion of support – as part of an accelerated Pentagon effort to prepare for a possible conflict with China.

The 50-pound (23kg) Switchblade 600 is the first of a new wave of lower-cost autonomous weapons the Pentagon is publicly acknowledging it is funding through its Replicator programme – an effort to field new systems by August 2025 to help counter Chinese capabilities.

Produced by AeroVironment Inc, an Arlington, Virginia-based company, the drones can fly more than 24 miles (39km) and idle for 40 minutes before attacking its target with an anti-armour warhead. The Pentagon announced the Switchblade’s selection in the programme on Monday.

Other companies are expected to win support for their systems as well but it is not clear how many of them will be publicly disclosed.

Contractors whose weapons are selected will see millions of dollars in increased sales as the department plans to scale production to meet its ambitious goals.

Congress approved US$500 million this financial year for the Replicator effort and the Pentagon has requested an equal amount for the financial year beginning on October 1.

“These investments bring together the capabilities of a broad range of traditional and nontraditional technology companies, including systems vendors, component manufacturers, and software developers,” according to the statement.

There are still several critical, unanswered questions about the programme, including the supply chain implications of rapidly producing thousands of drones by August 2025 and where in the Indo-Pacific they will be deployed. Theoretical options include Japanese islands, the Philippines, Taiwan or US naval vessels.

Monday’s announcement is “a critical step in delivering the capabilities we need, at the scale and speed we need, to continue securing a free and open Indo-Pacific”, said Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command.

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EU restates readiness to launch trade war with China over cheap imports

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/06/eu-restates-readiness-to-launch-trade-war-with-china-over-cheap-imports

The EU has restated its readiness to launch a trade war with China over imports of cheap electric cars, steel and cheap solar and wind technology, with Ursula von der Leyen saying the bloc will “not waver” from protecting industries and jobs after a meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

The European Commission chief said she was “convinced that if the competition is fair” from China, then Europe “will have thriving durable economies”.

But she said the “imbalances” caused by state support for Chinese industry leading to cut-cost products threatened jobs in Europe, and that was “a matter of great concern”.

“Europe will not waver from making tough decisions needed to protect its economy and security,” she said.

Her warning, came less than two hours after a cordial meeting at the Élysée Palace between the Chinese president and Emmanuel Macron, his French counterpart.

Xi Jinping and Macron used their opening remarks to express a mutual desire for good relations.

As “two important forces in the world” Xi said “both of us should adhere to the position of partnership, adhere to dialogue and cooperation” with “strategic collaboration” to promote “stable and healthy development” and “contribute to world peace and development”.

The EU’s more robust stance on trade with China dovetails with Washington’s approach.

The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has warned China that Washington would not accept new industries being “decimated” by Chinese imports.

After the trilateral meeting, von der Leyen was blunt but insisted China had time to change direction.

She said they had an “honest and open exchange and discussion where we see eye to eye and on points where we have differences”.

Together with Macron they spoke about the geopolitical situation and how both the EU and China had a “shared interest in peace and security” with a strong role to play in relation to the war in Ukraine.

There has been repeated talk of China acting as a peace broker although it is not expected to attend a planned peace conference in Switzerland.

Von der Leyen praised Xi for the “important role” he played in “de-escalating Russia’s irresponsible nuclear threats“ and said the EU counted on China “to use all its influence on Russia” to end the war.

But it appeared on Monday that tensions on the economic front show no sign of abating with several EU investigations ongoing into China’s ability to undercut EU rivals in cars, steel, wind turbines, solar panels and medical devices.

Last September, von der Leyen announced an investigation into alleged state support for the Chinese electric cars, with conglomerate BYD launching an EV last year in the EU market at under €30,000 (£25,700).

And last month the competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, announced the EU would use its foreign subsidies regulation to launch an inquiry into Chinese wind turbine manufacturers.

Von der Leyen said “subsidised products such as electric vehicles or, for example, steel, are flooding the European market.

“Our market is and remains open to fair competition and to investments. But it is not good for Europe if it harms our security and makes us vulnerable

“Europe cannot accept the market-distorting practices that could lead to deindustrialisation here at home,” she added.

EU manufacturers have complained that not only is the price for Chinese wind turbines up to 50% lower than homegrown ones but that they are offering authorities general terms including deferred payment schemes.

The EU has been arguing that it is the largest free market in the world and China is essentially abusing its economic hospitality by dumping product in Europe rather than damping down production or ramping up demand in China.

Beijing argues that EU manufacturers have access to an even bigger market in China and with a global demand for green tech growing everyone can flourish together.

Green tech companies have protested that while they once had a lead on producing wind turbines and solar panels they are now being put out of business by China.

Earlier on Monday, MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, the lead socialist candidate in France in the upcoming EU elections, said: “We used to have solar panel champions in France and Europe. Today, how many companies produce solar panels in France? There’s only one left.”

He also urged Macron to be firm with Xi over the plight of Uyghers in China’s Xinjiang region.

South China Sea: Philippines did not agree to ‘new model’ to manage Second Thomas Shoal, officials say

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3261638/south-china-sea-philippines-did-not-agree-new-model-manage-second-thomas-shoal-officials-say?utm_source=rss_feed

Philippine government officials have denied that they made an agreement with China to follow a “new model” of behaviour to ease tensions over the Second Thomas Shoal, a contested maritime area in the South China Sea that has been the centre of numerous confrontations between the two nations.

Department of National Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr and the president’s national security adviser Eduardo M. Año in separate statements on Sunday denied that the Philippines made the agreement.

They issued statements in response to a post by the Chinese embassy in Manila on its official Facebook page on Saturday that said China and the Philippines earlier this year agreed on a “new model” to manage the Second Thomas Shoal.

China claims more than 80 per cent of the South China Sea as its territory – demarcated on its maps as a nine-dash line, or, more recently, as a 10-dash line.

The Second Thomas Shoal falls within Beijing’s 10-dash line, which encloses its maritime claims in the South China Sea, while the Philippines claims the shoal since it lies within its exclusive economic zone.

The Philippines’ position was upheld as part of a 2016 arbitral ruling at The Hague, which dismissed China’s territorial claims over the South China Sea. China has refused to recognise the judgement, calling it illegal and invalid.

The Philippines also grounded the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II era navy vessel, to serve as an outpost on the shoal to reinforce its territorial claims.

Manila’s missions to resupply the outpost have been the cause of skirmishes with Chinese vessels, which have used tactics such as high-powered water cannons to disrupt their missions.

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte is alleged to have entered into an unwritten “gentleman’s agreement” with Chinese President Xi Jinping in which he agreed to not send supplies to repair or reinforce the BRP Sierra Madre, as this would be considered akin to creating new infrastructure and a violation of the status quo situation in the South China Sea.

The administration of Duterte’s successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, has denied any knowledge of such an agreement and the legislature has vowed to investigate its existence.

However, the Chinese embassy’s Facebook post said the Marcos Jnr government had agreed to a “new model” for conduct regarding the shoal and subsequently reneged on it.

The post, which was not published on the embassy’s official website, says the Chinese embassy met an official after Marcos Jnr took office, and made a new agreement with the government’s backing.

The post says Chinese envoy Huang Xilian on July 5 last year visited Marcos Jnr’s new defence chief Teodoro Jnr, and briefed him on the “gentleman’s agreement”.

Teodoro Jnr strongly rejected this version of events in his Sunday denial statement.

Local Philippine media reported that Huang met AFP Wescom chief vice-admiral Alberto Carlos on July 21, where Carlos stressed the need for a “diplomatic approach” in resolving competing claims in the West Philippine Sea – Manila’s term for the section of the South China Sea that defines its maritime territory and includes its exclusive economic zone.

The Philippines’ National Security Council will leave it to the military to decide whether to investigate Carlos over the matter, said Jonathan Malaya, the council’s assistant director general, on Monday.

Antonio Carpio, a retired Supreme Court associate justice and an analyst of international law, expressed doubt that the “unauthorised Philippine government personnel realised that they were negotiating with a foreign government and committing the Philippine’s government”.

“Only the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is authorised to negotiate and conclude agreements with foreign states,” he said.

“The Chinese embassy cannot just negotiate directly with Philippine agencies without going through the DFA. The Chinese embassy should follow protocol and negotiate only with the DFA.”

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As Xi Jinping pushes for closer ties with Europe, EU pressures China on Russia and trade

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3261632/xi-jinping-pushes-closer-ties-europe-eu-pressures-china-russia-and-trade?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for closer ties with Europe on Monday, before a meeting with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Paris.

“As two forces in this world, China and Europe should adhere to the position of partners, adhere to dialogue and cooperation … and continue to make new contributions to world peace,” Xi said in his opening remarks.

Without naming Ukraine – which was high on the agenda – Xi said the “world today has entered a new period of turbulence and change”.

The Europeans have said they are relying on China to use its influence to end the war.

“We count on China to use all its influence on Russia to end Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” von der Leyen told reporters after the meeting.

She praised the Chinese leader for “playing an important role in de-escalating Russia’s irresponsible nuclear threats”, adding that she was “confident Xi will continue to do so”.

Macron said “coordination” with Beijing on “major crises” in Ukraine and the Middle East was “absolutely decisive”.

China’s close ties with Russia are viewed by many in Europe as tacit backing for its invasion of Ukraine.

Xi has forged a close personal bond with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, while European leaders are concerned about the rising trade in goods from China that have dual military and civilian uses and are ending up on the battlefield in Ukraine.

“More effort is needed to curtail delivery of dual-use goods to Russia that find their way to the battlefield,” von der Leyen said.

The European Commission president, who has established herself as one of Europe’s most prominent China hawks after masterminding the bloc’s de-risking agenda, was invited to meet Xi by Macron.

The Chinese leader said her presence at the Élysée Palace had “enhanced the significance of this visit to Europe”.

With trade and economic matters also on the agenda, the Europeans raised the issue of overcapacity in the Chinese economy.

The EU has launched a series of investigations into alleged Chinese subsidies for industries such as electric cars and green energy that are suspected of undercutting European companies.

“The future of our continent will also very clearly depend on our capacity to further develop in a balanced way our relationship with China,” Macron said.

Raising the prospect of an EU-China trade war, von der Leyen said: “Europe will not waver from making tough decisions needed to protect its economy and security.

“Our market is and remains open to fair competition and to investments. But it is not good for Europe if it harms our security and makes us vulnerable.”

She also said: “The world cannot absorb China’s surplus production. These subsidised products such as the electric vehicles or, for example, steel are flooding the European market.”

Reacting to the prospect of a trade conflict with Europe, Xi said: “Both sides should properly handle economic and trade frictions through dialogue and consultation, and accommodate their legitimate concerns”, according to a statement published by state broadcaster CCTV.

On Ukraine, he said “China is not a creator or party to the crisis, but has been doing its best” to push for peace and promote talks.

Following the meeting, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the country was open to Chinese investment in its electric vehicle sector.

“France welcomes all industrial projects. BYD and the Chinese auto industry are very welcome in France,” Le Maire told a gathering of automotive executives.

The trilateral meeting with Macron and von der Leyen was the first engagement for Xi’s two-day visit to France and set the tone for a state visit that will be full of pomp and ceremony, but which will not be shielded from difficult discussions.

French officials have said the trip will be “very political”, and that Russia’s invasion will be the dominant topic.

Macron wants to push Xi on a retaliatory Chinese inquiry into French brandy, following the EU’s investigation into Chinese electric vehicle subsidies. The Chinese leader, meanwhile, is expected to push his counterpart over the various investigations into alleged China subsidies.

During the meeting, Xi insisted that there was no such thing as “China’s overcapacity problem”, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Later on Monday, a ceremony will be held at the Hôtel des Invalides, a 17th century complex of military buildings that houses the tomb of Napoleon.

This will include full flag honours with Macron and Xi also set to inspect French troops.

Meetings on economic matters will take place at Théâtre Marigny in the early evening, followed by a state dinner at the Élysée Palace.

On Tuesday the pair will head to the Pyrenees for lunch, visiting the Col du Tourmalet – a mountain pass that is one of the most celebrated climbs to feature in the Tour de France.

After lunch in the mountains, a departure ceremony will take place at Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrenees Airport, before Xi flies to Belgrade, where he is expected to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Nato bombing of the Chinese embassy there.

From Serbia, he will fly to Hungary, where there are reportedly a series of deals ready to sign to expand China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Xi’s signature infrastructure project.

In an op-ed published in French newspaper Le Figaro on Sunday, Xi urged more French companies to invest in China, vowing to “move faster to expand market access to telecoms, medical and other services”.

“Some Chinese companies have set up battery plants in France. The Chinese government supports more Chinese companies in investing in France,” Xi said.

China sees Labour Day tourism surge, paving way for sector’s full-spectrum recovery

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3261615/china-sees-labour-day-tourism-surge-paving-way-sectors-full-spectrum-recovery?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s tourism sector posted robust growth over the Labour Day holiday – making a strong contribution to the country’s efforts to keep up economic momentum – though a similar spike was not observed for average spending, a phenomenon analysts attributed to changes of consumption patterns among the middle class.

Over the five-day period – a break that ended on Sunday and is also known as May Day – China recorded 295 million domestic trips nationwide, up 7.6 per cent year on year from 2023 and 28.2 per cent higher than pre-Covid levels in 2019, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said on Monday.

Tourism revenue totalled 166.89 billion yuan (US$23.1 billion), up 12.7 per cent from the previous year and 13.5 per cent from 2019. The ministry made its calculations by accounting for the holiday’s shorter length in pre-pandemic years.

“It was unsurprising to see strong numbers again in the May Day holidays after earlier data from the Lunar New Year holiday also showed tourism numbers beating pre-pandemic levels,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING.

However, tourists spent an average of 565 yuan (US$78) this year – up 4 per cent year-on-year, but below the 603 yuan average reported for 2019.

Tourism has stood out as a growth performer even as overall domestic demand remains weak, with some local governments reporting record figures. Experts said that rising travel demand will sustain the sector’s steady recovery for the rest of the year.

Song said the era of Covid-19 prompted consumers worldwide to reassess their spending priorities, with shared experiences such as dining out, attending live events and travelling gaining precedence over luxury or hi-tech items.

“Property market developments have rebalanced consumption [in China] as well,” she said. “Some prospective buyers may feel less pressure to save as much for future property purchases, and lower home sales also translate to less spending on appliances.”

The capital city of Beijing reported an influx of 16.966 million tourists during the holiday, generating record tourism revenue of 19.62 billion yuan.

Anhui province in eastern China, a hub for electric vehicle manufacturing, reported a 36.2 per cent surge in tourists during the holiday compared to 2019. Tourism revenue also soared in relation to that year, rising 55 per cent to a record high of 27.28 billion yuan.

While traditional destinations continue to flourish, smaller towns and cities are attracting more visitors.

Travel bookings in smaller counties and cities surged 140 per cent year-on-year, with ticket purchases for local attractions up 151 per cent year-on-year and surpassing the national average, Chinese travel agency Ctrip said on Sunday.

“On one hand, residents’ income expectations remain low, and they are trying to travel to newer and affordable cities to save on costs,” according to Lin Huanjie, dean of the Institute for Theme Park Studies in China.

“On the other hand, some small and obscure counties can satisfy the curiosity of tourists,” Lin said. “Local governments are seizing this opportunity to develop more tourism products and generate revenue. Increased travel is also a way for Chinese citizens to heal the scars from the pandemic.”

Along with tourism, other consumer sectors in China are picking up.

Major retail and catering companies witnessed a 6.8 per cent year-on-year increase in sales over the past five days, while online retail sales rose by 15.8 per cent, China’s Ministry of Commerce said on Monday.

China’s box office revenue during the holiday reached 1.53 billion yuan, similar to last year and 2019 but down 9 per cent from 2021, according to a Monday report from the China Film Administration.

In addition, China received around 779,000 foreign tourists in the past five days per the National Immigration Administration, up 98.7 per cent from the same period last year.

“Such high growth came due to the minimal presence of foreign tourists in China during the same period last year, as Beijing had just started opening up entry visa processing in mid-March,” said Steven Zhao, CEO of the Guilin-based online travel agency China Highlights.

China’s visa waiver policy, expanded international flight calendar and heavy promotion on social media platforms are also contributing to the influx, Zhao said.

Recovery has also been observed in the other direction. According to Chinese travel agency Touniu on Sunday, outbound tourists on the platform accounted for 27 per cent of total tourists, up 190 per cent year-on-year.

Japan, South Korea and countries in Southeast Asia – as well as Macau and Hong Kong – were the top preferences for travellers leaving mainland China, the agency said.

“In the coming half of the year, China’s inbound tourism is expected to rebound to 70 to 80 per cent of its 2019 levels. However, it may take another two to three years for outbound tourism to fully recover,” Zhao added.

Song from ING said China will sustain strong growth in domestic and inbound tourism in 2024.

“As more investment is made into the tourism industry, this could be a multi-year driver of growth,” she said. “China has rich cultural and ecological tourism hotspots, providing a great foundation to build upon.”

China’s Xi visits France in first post-pandemic trip to Europe

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/06/xi-china-france-macron-hungary-serbia/2024-04-29T13:01:25.258Z

PARIS — On his first visit to Europe since the pandemic, Chinese leader Xi Jinping faces a continent of skeptics — although generally not as skeptical as in the United States — and he is looking for an opening.

The overall sentiment in Europe is less enthusiastic about engagement than it was five years ago, but European countries are still divided on whether China should continue to be considered a “partner for cooperation” or, as U.S. officials argue, more of a potentially dangerous rival.

As he tries to draw Europe closer into China’s orbit, Xi is visiting France, before moving onto the friendlier countries of Hungary and Serbia.

In a statement released at the outset of the trip, Xi talked about the benefits of open economies, the importance of territorial integrity and the pivotal role of independent-minded countries. Macron recently said Europe should not be a “vassal” to the United States, suggesting he might be open to such discussions. But it remains to be seen whether Xi’s visit will calm tensions over trade and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Macron shook hands with Xi as the Chinese leader arrived at the Élysée Palace on Monday, with French gendarmerie marching outside against a backdrop of Chinese and French flags. “The international situation necessitates European-Chinese dialogue more than ever,” he said, before launching a meeting with Xi and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. He said they would discuss the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as trade relations.

Xi will have a day of potentially tense talks with Macron and von der Leyen, before attending a state banquet at the Élysée Palace and then visiting Macron’s childhood vacation spot in the Pyrenees mountains.

Macron wants to persuade Xi to take a tougher line on Russia — a tall order, considering that China has had two years to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine but has instead offered support, both diplomatic and material.

In Sunday’s statement, Xi seemed to suggest he had done as much as he could do. He said he had already “made many appeals,” including about “respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries,” and that “a nuclear war must not be fought.”

Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, a parade of European officials, including Macron, has trekked to Beijing to try to persuade Xi to change course — to no avail. In Paris, Macron will give it another go, but he is unlikely to get a different result.

Another point of contention: European officials have criticized China for flooding the electric vehicles market and are threatening to impose tariffs on Chinese EV imports.

Brussels last year launched an investigation into Chinese subsidies for electric vehicles, and the European Commission recently launched probes into China’s subsidies of wind turbines and public procurement of medical devices.

Then there was Macron’s meeting last week with a representative of Tibet’s government in exile. Beijing considers the group’s leaders, including the Dalai Lama, to be separatists.

There may be “little concrete result” in Xi’s visit in France, because while “the optics are going to be extremely positive,” the French have some tough messages to deliver, said Abigaël Vasselier, head of foreign relations at the Berlin-based MERICS think tank.

The optics will get more positive as Xi moves east. A railway between Hungary’s and Serbia’s capitals, Budapest to Belgrade, is under construction as a signature Chinese project, part of Xi’s “Belt and Road” investment and trade initiative.

In those stops, too, Xi will probably try to sell China as a preferred partner over the United States. He is also visiting Serbia the same week as the 25th anniversary of the 1999 American bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, which remains a lightning rod for anti-NATO and anti-American sentiment in Beijing.

Europe’s new line on China

Even before Russian tanks rolled on Kyiv, Europe was rethinking its relationship with China. Outraged over crackdowns in Xinjiang and Hong Kong and concerned about economic coercion, Europe knew it needed to change its approach — and was nudged along by the United States.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine seemed to cement a shift toward a more hawkish view, as the European Union and most of its member states reconsidered the wisdom of engaging with authoritarian regimes. In the past two years, the European Commission has led a push to “de-risk” the union’s relationship with Beijing, focusing on trade and supply chains.

“The mood has changed at many levels,” said Philippe Le Corre, a French analyst with the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Despite this new direction, there are differences among member states — as will be evident on Xi’s trip. Hungary remains friendly to Russia and China, for instance. And while others increasingly share the U.S. view of China as a rival and competitor, many are somewhere in the middle.

Beijing is eager to exploit these differences, analysts say.

Europe’s approach to Chinese-owned TikTok compared to that of the United States is also telling. While Washington sounds the alarm about security concerns, the European response has been largely muted.

Xi’s visit to Hungary and Serbia serves as a warning signal to the E.U. about any actions it might take against China’s interests.

“While China is willing to make positive efforts toward cooperation with Europe, Hungary, as a form of diplomatic defense, could help oppose any E.U. measures unfavorable to China,” said Song Luzheng, a researcher at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Trade tensions permeate

Trade tensions will be high on Xi’s agenda, with Europeans leaders sharing American concerns about possible unfair subsidies. The Chinese leader will be trying to unshackle Europe from the United States on issues including Huawei technology and subsidies for green tech.

European leaders, accusing Beijing of distorting the market, want to protect E.U. carmakers against cheaper Chinese EV imports they say are benefiting from subsidies.

The EV investigation, and China’s probe into French brandy imports, will be “a test case for Europe in terms of restrictive measures and the capacity to deal with the tit-for-tat measures China is likely to put in place,” Vasselier said.

Beijing’s major concern with Europe is its “inability to be completely independent from the U.S.,” said Song.

The U.S. presidential race will come up during Xi’s visit, and Europe’s position might get more complicated by the end of the year if Donald Trump returns to the White House, Song said, adding that this could create an opportunity for closer cooperation between China and Europe.

Wang Yiwei, director of the Center for European Union Studies at Renmin University in Beijing, added that only by cooperating with China can Europe address declining competitiveness and living standards. “Europe considers China a systemic rival, but it cannot do without China’s market.”

The question of Taiwan

Macron’s trip to China last year raised eyebrows in Washington and Brussels because of off-key remarks on Taiwan, the self-governing island that has never been controlled by the Chinese Communist Party but which Beijing considers part of its territory.

On his way to meet Xi in southern China, Macron was asked by journalists about policy on Taiwan. He said that the worst thing to do would be “to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. rhythm and a Chinese overreaction.”

Europe, he continued, risks getting “caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building strategic autonomy.”

Though few doubt that Europe and the United States see Taiwan differently, most officials and analysts were puzzled and angry that Macron would say so directly and publicly.

Xi would be hoping Macron will — again — support Beijing’s position on Taiwan.

Chiang reported from Taipei, Taiwan.

Wu Yanni: glamour girl China champion hurdler with tattoos, make-up and attitude set to shine at Paris Olympics 2024

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3260137/wu-yanni-glamour-girl-china-champion-hurdler-tattoos-make-and-attitude-set-shine-paris-olympics-2024?utm_source=rss_feed

During the women’s 100m hurdles at the Diamond League meet of 2024, held in Xiamen, on April 20, China’s star athlete Wu Yanni completed her first outdoor competition of the year with a time of 13.04 seconds.

Her performance in the southeastern province of Sichuan fell short of expectations – her own and those of her fans.

That, and the fact she was wearing glitter and star-shaped make-up during the race, sparked an online backlash.

During the competition, Wu was positioned in the first lane. Her start was less than ideal and she fell behind early while passing the first hurdle and struggled to close the gap with her competitors.

She finished in a disappointing 10th place.

“The competitors were just too fast. I tried to keep up from the start, but a poor take-off threw off my rhythm, and it was too late to catch up,” Wu told Chinanews.com.

Her decision to wear dramatic make-up during the race was also criticised.

“People come to see a race, not how pretty you look. They appreciate the process and the results,” some viewers said.

Wu explained that the traditional stereotype expects athletes to be “barefaced,” but she believes in everyone’s right to feel beautiful.

“No matter the outcome, I always prepare myself to look my best for each race. I do this out of respect for the audience, my fans, all participants, and the sport itself. It boosts my confidence and motivates me,” Wu said.

The statement led to a further backlash.

“Are the audience scapegoats? You can enjoy make-up because you like looking pretty, which is your right. But do not say it’s out of respect for the audience. They care about your performance, not your appearance,” one person said.

Who is she?

Wu reached the pinnacle of her career and fame in August 2023 at the Universiade in Chengdu, in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan.

There, she clocked 12.76 seconds in the women’s 100m hurdles, winning a silver medal and securing a ticket to the Paris Olympics.

Her performance was widely celebrated, with some fans even comparing her time of 12.76 seconds to the historic 12.88 seconds of Liu Xiang, China’s most famous 110-metre hurdler and a national athletics icon.

However, her career faced an immediate setback later at the Hangzhou Asian Games, in the eastern province of Zhejiang on October 1, when she was disqualified for a false start.

She downplayed the issue in an interview, saying: “Life is full of failures and challenges. What’s there to fear? Just move on. So, I went shopping the next day to forget about it. Many people online keep saying, ‘Yanni, do not false start again.’ What if I did? So what?”

Rebellious nature

Wu’s outspoken and rebellious personality, combined with her tattoos and unconventional appearance, often clash with traditional expectations, repeatedly drawing her into controversies.

In November 2023, addressing rumours about plastic surgery, she admitted to having double eyelid surgery in an interview with Tencent News.

“Girls love to look beautiful and I want to make myself beautiful too. I cannot let some comments on the internet stop me from pursuing beauty,” she said.

The athlete also refuted claims that she was aiming to become an internet celebrity: “I’ve been in this sport for 11 years, working hard every day. Am I doing this to be an internet celebrity? No. Do doctors, lawyers and forensic scientists work years in their fields to become celebrities? Of course not.”

Canton Fair: record overseas visitors fail to inspire bumper sales, but some Chinese exporters fare ‘much better’

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3261589/canton-fair-record-overseas-visitors-fail-inspire-bumper-sales-some-chinese-exporters-fare-much?utm_source=rss_feed

Overall transaction volumes at the spring edition of China’s largest trade event rose by only 10.7 per cent from the previous edition despite overseas visitor numbers hitting an all-time high.

Participants at the spring session of the semi-annual Canton Fair signed US$24.7 billion worth of deals during the three-week event, organisers confirmed on Sunday.

But the figure for the fair, which is widely seen as a gauge for the health of China’s trade and industrial progress, was noticeably below the US$29.3 billion from the last pre-pandemic fair in late 2019.

And this was despite a record 246,000 international visitors – up by 24.5 from the autumn edition that took place in October and November – flocking to the fair in defiance of pouring rain which had wreaked havoc in other parts of southern China.

Nearly two-thirds of the foreign visitors to the fair were from countries that are members of China’s signature Belt and Road Initiative, according to the organisers, signing deals worth US$13.86 billion.

Attendees said they were curious to inspect goods from in-demand sectors, including alternative energy, despite criticism from Western countries about China flooding overseas markets with low-cost exports.

Their enthusiasm may have helped make up for comparatively weak attendance by participants from Europe and the United States, as trade relations between China and the West have remained strained over issues of overcapacity and national security.

Visitors from Europe and the US only numbered 50,000 – representing less than a quarter of all overseas buyers – despite growing by 11 per cent from November’s edition.

Organisers did not disclose transaction data for European and American buyers, other than to say that the per capita price per customer was “high”.

By contrast, around 160,000 visitors attended from countries that have signed up to China’s belt and road plan, representing an increase of 25 per cent from the last fair.

Interest came mostly from India and Middle Eastern countries, said Xie Junping, a fabric exporter from the eastern province of Zhejiang.

Orders were “much better” than in October and November, he said, estimating a 20 per cent increase.

Products from China’s booming alternative energy and smart tech sector dominated the displays during the fair, with visitors flocking to booths for electric vehicles and smart mobility devices.

Yan Wei, a sales manager from the Yueda Intelligent Agricultural Equipment in the eastern province of Jiangsu, said visitor numbers and order volumes were “much better” than the previous fair in the autumn, estimating that new orders had increased by 10 per cent.

“Not too many American buyers were interested in our new products, but there were a few Canadian merchants and one customer had already signed an order for a prototype,” he said, adding that the firm was focused on growing exports to Russia, the US, South America and Europe.

One of their main products, a tractor designed to meet North American emission standards that also has hydrostatic transmission technology, was priced at about 60,000 yuan (US$8,288), nearly 50 per cent cheaper than models offered by competitors from Japan and South Korea.

“Competition in our industry is fierce, and prices have been transparent for a long time. There is no room to cut prices,” added Yan.

China’s economy grew by a better-than-expected 5.3 per cent in the first quarter, fuelled by strong export demand and rapid growth in the services sector, despite challenges from the property market and weak domestic consumption.

Canton Fair organisers said they expected momentum from the event to continue, with buyers making appointments to visit factories and inspect production capacity.

Australia accuses China of ‘unsafe’ behaviour after fighter jet releases flares in a helicopter’s path

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3261616/australia-accuses-china-unsafe-behaviour-after-fighter-jet-releases-flares-helicopters-path?utm_source=rss_feed

Australia has protested to Beijing that a Chinese fighter jet endangered an Australian navy helicopter with flares in international waters, officials said on Monday.

The incident occurred on Saturday as the Australian air warfare destroyer HMAS Hobart was enforcing United Nations Security Council sanctions against North Korea in international waters in the Yellow Sea, the Defense Department said in a statement.

A Chinese Chengdu J-10 fighter jet released flares in the flight path of an Australian navy Seahawk deployed from the Hobart 300 metres (986 feet) in front of the helicopter and 60 metres (197 feet) above, Defence Minister Richard Marles said.

“This was an incident which was both unsafe and unprofessional,” Marles told Nine News television.

“We will not be deterred from engaging in lawful activities and activities which are there to enforce UN sanctions in respect of North Korea,” Marles added.

No Australian personnel were injured in the encounter, the statement said, as it called

There were no injuries or damage, the Defense Department said, adding the Australian government expressed concerns to the Chinese government, as it called on all countries including China “to operate their militaries in a professional and safe manner.”.

There was no immediate comment from Beijing on Monday.

It was the most serious encounter between the two nations’ forces since Australia accused the Chinese destroyer CNS Ningbo of injuring Australian navy divers with sonar pulses in Japanese waters in November last year. Australia said China disregarded a safety warning to keep away from the Australian frigate HMAS Toowoomba.

China maintains that the encounter happened outside Japanese territorial waters and that the Chinese warship caused no harm.

Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to visit Australia this year for the first time in a decade, as bilateral relations have improved in recent years from unprecedented lows.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg

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Chinese health chief Ma Xiaowei steps down after steering nation through pandemic and defending strict zero-Covid

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3261564/chinese-health-chief-ma-xiaowei-steps-down-after-steering-nation-through-pandemic-and-defending?utm_source=rss_feed

Ma Xiaowei, China’s health minister who handled the country’s Covid-19 response, has stepped down as he nears official retirement age, to be succeeded by his top deputy, Lei Haichao, a prominent public health expert.

On Monday, the National Health Commission’s website showed deputy director Lei, 56, had been appointed Communist Party secretary of the NHC – a step before a formal directorship appointment.

Ma’s name was removed from the commission’s leadership page at the same time. In December he will turn 65, the retirement age for ministerial-ranked officials.

Ma, who became NHC chief in March 2018, implemented President Xi Jinping’s “zero-Covid policy” during the country’s pandemic fight from 2020 to 2023.

He was a staunch defender of Beijing’s strict control and containment policies, including early detection through exhaustive testing, speedy lockdowns during an outbreak and extensive quarantine for travellers.

“China’s anti-epidemic experience shows that having 1.4 billion people holding the line of defence is the greatest contribution to international anti-pandemic efforts,” Ma said in an interview with official media in December 2021.

He was key to mobilising thousands of Chinese doctors and nurses to help overstretched local medical staff during major outbreaks, including in Wuhan in 2020 and Shanghai in 2022.

Ma’s last public appearance was in March when he attended a video meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation health ministers.

The new health chief, Lei, is a leading public health expert and has published numerous papers on the socioeconomic impact of chronic diseases in the country, China’s large medical equipment needs and national health spending trends.

Although a native of Shandong province in eastern China, Lei has spent most of his career in Beijing. He was transferred to China’s then health ministry to focus on making health policy in 2004 after nearly a decade at Beijing’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, where he had been deputy director of the CDC’s Institute of Health Economics and Social Medicine.

Lei visited Hong Kong twice last year, including a trip on behalf of Ma for a joint meeting of the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau health chiefs in December. During those talks, health cooperation agreements between the mainland and the two special administrative regions were renewed.

He also had an extensive visit to Hong Kong in March last year, leading a mainland health delegation to learn about the development of primary medical care in the city.

Lei served as a member of the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific region health research advisory committee from 2005 to 2008.

In 2020, two years after promotion to health chief of Beijing, he was promoted again to deputy director of the NHC, before becoming the commission’s deputy party chief in September 2023.

Lei is expected to be the key official pushing reform of China’s health system, which faces a massive deficit and is alleged to be plagued by corruption.

Beijing’s top anti-corruption agency embarked on a major crackdown on corruption in the health industry last year, resulting in the detention of more than 200 hospital chiefs.

Tian Wei, former president of Beijing Jishuitan Hospital and a leading orthopaedist, was arrested by corruption investigators in March, making him the first academician from the prestigious Chinese Academy of Engineering to come under a corruption investigation.

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Europe live: China’s Xi arrives in Paris with trade and Ukraine on agenda

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/may/06/europe-live-china-xi-jinping-paris-trade-ukraine-emmanuel-macron-ursula-von-der-leyen

Macron sets Ukraine as top priority as China’s Xi Jinping pays a state visit to France

https://apnews.com/article/china-france-xi-macron-visit-c7f48d55fd9ccb345fc6e9eda105f89bFILE - Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and France's President Emmanuel Macron talk prior to a tea ceremony at the Guandong province governor's residence in Guangzhou, China, on April 7, 2023. French President Emmanuel Macron will seek to press China's Xi Jinping to use his influence to move Russia toward ending the war in Ukraine during a two-day state visit to France. Both leaders were also expected to discuss trade disputes over electric cars, cognac and cosmetics. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, Pool, File)

2024-05-06T04:31:43Z

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron will seek to press China’s Xi Jinping to use his influence to move Russia toward ending the war in Ukraine during a two-day state visit to France. Both leaders were also expected to discuss trade disputes over electric cars, cognac and cosmetics.

Macron’s office said talks about diplomatic efforts to support Ukraine and put pressure on Russia are a top priority for France. Discussions will also include the Middle East, trade issues and global challenges including climate change. The European Commission president will join part of the meetings to raise broader EU concerns.

France is the first stop on a European trip by Xi aimed at rebuilding relations at a time of global tensions. After France on Monday and Tuesday, the Chinese leader will head to Serbia and Hungary.

France hopes discussions will help convince China to use its leverage with Moscow to ‘’contribute to a resolution of the conflict” in Ukraine, according to a French presidential official. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently announced plans to visit China this month.

Macron will press Xi over supplies by Chinese companies supporting the Russian war effort despite EU sanctions, he said. China claims neutrality in the Ukraine conflict.

France also wants China to maintain a dialogue with Kyiv, the official, who was not authorized to be publicly named according to presidential policy, added.

Last year, Macron had appealed to Xi to “bring Russia to its senses” — but the call was not followed by any apparent change in Beijing’s stance.

“French authorities are pursuing two objectives that are ultimately contradictory,” Marc Julienne, director of the Center for Asian Studies at the French Institute of International Relations, wrote in a briefing note. “On the one hand, to convince Xi that it’s in his interest to help Europeans to put pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the war and, on the other hand, to dissuade the Chinese president from delivering arms to his Russian friend.

“In short, we think that Xi can help us, but at the same time we fear that he could help Putin,” Julienne wrote.

As France prepares to host the Summer Olympics, Macron said he would ask Xi to use his influence to make the Games “a diplomatic moment of peace” and respect the Olympic Truce.

Macron, a strong advocate of Europe’s economic sovereignty, is expected to focus on trade too. He will raise French concerns about a Chinese antidumping investigation into cognac and other European brandy, and tensions over French cosmetics and other sectors.

In a recent speech, he denounced trade practices of both China and the U.S. as shoring up protections and subsidies.

He has coordinated with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who recently visited China and came to Paris last week for a private dinner with the French president.

German government spokesman Wolfgang Buechner said Friday that Scholz in China had “clearly said that the question of over-capacity and competition though subsidies needs to be addressed.”

The EU launched an investigation last fall into Chinese subsidies and could impose tariffs on electric vehicles exported from China.

The discussions will also be closely watched from Washington, just one month before President Joe Biden is expected to pay his own state visit to France.

Xi’s visit to Paris marks the 60th anniversary of France-China diplomatic relations, and follows Macron’s trip to China in April 2023. Macron prompted controversy on that trip after he said France wouldn’t blindly follow the U.S. in getting involved in crises that are not of its concern, an apparent reference to China’s demands for unification with Taiwan.

Several groups including International Campaign for Tibet and France’s Human Rights League urged Macron to put human rights issues at the heart of his talks with Xi. Protesters demonstrated in Paris as Xi arrived Sunday, calling for a free Tibet.

Amnesty International called on Macron to demand the release of Uyghur economics professor Ilham Tohti, who was jailed for life in 2014 on charges of promoting separatism, and other imprisoned activists.

Macron said in an interview published Sunday that he will raise human rights concerns.

On Monday in Paris, Xi will first join a meeting with Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

A formal ceremony will then take place at the Invalides monument, before bilateral talks at the Elysee presidential palace. Macron and Xi will conclude a nearby French-Chinese economic forum and then join their wives for a state dinner.

The second day of the visit is meant to be a more personal moment.

Macron has invited Xi to visit Tuesday the Tourmalet Pass in the Pyrenees mountains, where the French leader spent time as a child to see his grandmother. The trip is meant to be a reciprocal gesture after Xi took Macron last year to the residence of the governor of Guangdong province, where his father once lived.

___

Associated Press writers Angela Charlton in Paris and Stephen Graham in Berlin contributed to the story.

SYLVIE CORBET Corbet is an Associated Press reporter based in Paris. She covers French politics, diplomacy and defense as well as gender issues and breaking news. twitter

China can build the largest collider on Earth, CERN president says

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3260424/china-can-build-largest-collider-earth-says-cern-president?utm_source=rss_feed

One of Israel’s top physicists has entered the debate over whether China should build the world’s largest collider, saying he believes the country is now capable of the feat.

Eliezer Rabinovici, an emeritus professor of physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who is also the current president of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), said during a visit to China in early April: “Chinese scientists can build this machine.”

CERN operates the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), housed in a ring-shaped tunnel 27km in circumference beneath the Swiss-French border.

China’s proposed 36 billion yuan (US$5 billion) Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC), also known as a Higgs factory, would dwarf the LHC with a circumference of 100km.

The Chinese government has not given the final approval to the project, which has sparked widespread debate in China among the scientific community and the general public.

The strongest opposition has come from legendary physicist and Nobel laureate Yang Chen-Ning.

Yang, who denounced his US citizenship and now lives in Beijing, has previously questioned the need to build a super collider, saying in 2016 that it was “not for today’s China” as the country had more acute needs to deal with, such as economic development and environmental protection.

Rabinovici said he has read what Yang said and the reactions of Chinese scientists at the time, but he believes that Yang, like many others, “underestimated the capability that exists here in China”.

The CERN president, whose work focuses on theoretical high-energy physics, said during his visit that he had seen tremendous progress in Chinese science, with the country boasting a strong talent pool.

“Over the years, many Chinese physicists have worked at CERN and have gained some knowledge and experience. These people are very capable,” Rabinovici said.

For example, Wang Yifang, the mastermind behind the CEPC project, once worked at CERN with Nobel Prize winner Samuel Chao Chung Ting after graduating from Nanjing University with a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1984.

CERN is now considering expanding the LHC into a machine nearly 100km long, and Rabinovici was invited by the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Beijing to share some thoughts and plans for the new project.

What he found during his trip was that Chinese scientists are putting enormous effort into tackling some of the CEPC’s toughest challenges, such as energy conservation.

“Their approach to the challenges is not much different from CERN’s, so I am confident that Chinese scientists can do it,” he said.

The question of whether China should build the world’s largest collider has been debated in China for nearly a decade.

Wang, director of IHEP, first proposed the idea of building the CEPC in 2012 after the Higgs boson – the “God particle” that gives mass to almost all other particles – was discovered in Europe using the LHC.

By accelerating electrons and their antiparticles – positrons – to extremely high energies and smashing them into each other, the infrastructure will create millions of Higgs bosons and allow scientists to make new discoveries beyond the Standard Model – the current best theory describing the basic building blocks of the universe.

“I think there’s no doubt that tens of thousands of scientists from all over the world, including the United States, Europe and China, strongly believe that this is a good project that is worth doing,” Rabinovici said.

A physicist at a top mainland university, who declined to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the media, said the team led by Wang was made up of outstanding scientists.

Over the past decade, he said, their research has been highly regarded by international physicists, and the CEPC project they are designing is attracting huge global attention.

The physicist also “strongly disagrees” with Yang’s argument that investing in a huge project like this would squeeze funding for other urgent social issues and other areas of science.

He does not think that China lacks the money for such a project. The problem is how to spend scientific funds wisely, he said, and he believes the amount of money that is wasted on various projects could already be considerable.

In response to the financial burden of the project, which Yang previously warned was a “bottomless pit”, Wang recently admitted that “36 billion yuan is not cheap”.

However, in the interview with the Global Times in March, Wang pointed out that if the CEPC could support the work of thousands of scientists for decades to come, the average cost would not be that high.

Wang told the Global Times that construction of this super collider in China could begin in three years’ time, although it still needs to win government approval and secure funding.

Wang added that the CEPC’s “technical design report” – which took more than 1,000 scientists from 24 countries five years to compile – had passed an international review and received “overwhelming feedback” from the physics community when it was released in December.

Global Impact: Asian nations take up defensive positions as Blinken’s Beijing visit falls short of cooling US-China tensions

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3261512/global-impact-asian-nations-take-defensive-positions-blinkens-beijing-visit-falls-short-cooling-us?utm_source=rss_feed

Global Impact is a weekly curated newsletter featuring a news topic originating in China with a significant macro impact for our newsreaders around the world. Sign up

With the rivalry between the United States and China showing no signs of abating, countries in Asia have taken steps to strengthen their defence and strategic security, or prevent tensions from spiralling.

In a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Beijing last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the US to be a partner of China instead of “saying one thing and doing another”.

Blinken, in turn, raised concerns about China’s supply of goods that could have military uses to Russia, and days later the US imposed sanctions on 20 Hong Kong and mainland Chinese companies for alleged involvement in the development of Russia’s industrial base and military.

Last month, the US, Japan and the Philippines held their first-ever trilateral summit aimed at what the White House called “deepening and revitalising existing alliances and partnerships”, adding that China has “no reason” to view it as a threat.

Before the summit, President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had announced a raft of agreements spanning defence, space, culture, diplomacy and research, and agreed to respond to challenges concerning China through close coordination.

This week, two top US intelligence officials told Congress that China’s joint military exercises with Russian forces near Taiwan have prompted new US defence planning.

During the still ongoing Philippines-US Balikatan joint military exercises, both sides fired a dozen rockets in the direction of the South China Sea to answer what they see as Beijing’s growing aggression in the disputed waterway.

Earlier on, Manila sent intelligence officers to investigate potential national security threats in the province of Cagayan following a controversial surge in Chinese nationals that lawmakers have warned could be spies.

India also delivered its first batch of supersonic cruise missiles to the Philippines, a move seen as a means to counterbalance growing Chinese influence in Southeast Asia, and an attempt by New Delhi to establish itself as a security partner for the region.

With Beijing looking to expand its sphere of influence into the Pacific, Japan’s coastguard extended an initiative designed to help other regional countries counter China’s maritime presence near two Pacific island nations: the Marshall Islands and Micronesia.

On the Aukus defence deal – an agreement initially made between the US, Britain and Australia – first Japan and New Zealand, and now South Korea have expressed interest in joining the bloc’s second pillar aimed at sharing military technology, drawing consternation from China.

Singapore has chimed in by stating that the island state would be willing to host a future visit by nuclear-powered submarines produced under the Aukus alliance, widely seen as a bloc to counter Chinese influence.

However, in an attempt to defuse tensions, South Korea’s Minister of National Defence Shin Won-sik downplayed his country’s resolve to intervene in the event of a Taiwan crisis, arguing that Seoul’s focus should be on preventing North Korean “provocations”.

And as if to stay in China’s – its largest trade partner – good books, Malaysia’s foreign minister said that his country opposes “external forces” meddling in the South China Sea.

Neighbouring Cambodia, arguably China’s most loyal partner in the region, agreed during a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that the two countries should speed up and finalise the long-awaited code of conduct in the South China Sea.

Operating in opposition to its regional counterparts, North Korea last month sent a delegation to Iran amid suspicions of greater military cooperation between the two countries and attempts to draw Tehran into an anti-US alliance.

With tensions roiling on the Korean peninsula, North Korea pledged to “strengthen strategic communication at all levels” with China, fired several cruise missiles from its east coast earlier this year in a show of defiance against the US and its allies.

60-Second Catch-up

Will US and China change course in South China Sea after defence ministers’ call?.

As China and US revive military safety talks, Beijing warns against threats to sovereignty in Indo-Pacific.

Opinion: How the US is hustling China relations towards another cold war.

Beijing urged to step up pressure on the Philippines over rival claims or risk domino effect.

Video: US-China conflict ‘unimaginable’ says Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi.

Beijing urges Southeast Asian nations to ‘cherish peace’ and help stop tensions spiralling out of control.

Biden-Kishida-Marcos Jnr meeting shows ‘ironclad’ support for Philippines amid China confrontations.

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

Southeast Asians swing towards China alignment as pro-Israel bias hurts US, new survey shows.

Opinion: Mutual need should stop deterioration in US-China ties for now.

Chinese navy teams up with coastguard in rare joint missile exercise.

Video: Why the EU, US are concerned about China’s overcapacity.

Deep dives

Ties between the United States and China are on a “long trajectory of decline” despite recent efforts to stabilise the relationship, according to diplomatic observers who point to the deep mistrust that remains between the two sides.

With some describing the situation as a “new cold war”, there are growing calls within Washington for the US to formulate a clearer policy on how it wishes to engage with China.

Read more.

In just three days, China has been locked in maritime confrontations with two of its neighbours.

In the South China Sea, tensions have flared again between China and the Philippines over contested reefs, while in the East China Sea, Beijing’s dispute with Tokyo over a set of islands resurfaced with a visit by a group of Japanese lawmakers.

Read more.

The potential expansion of Aukus may increase defence pressure on China as it faces ever more cutting-edge defence technology, including hypersonic weapons, but Beijing could expect little in the way of substantive changes in power dynamics in the near term.

On Wednesday, as he met Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House, US President Joe Biden said Aukus was “exploring” ways to cooperate with Japan in hi-tech defence capabilities, while the two countries would continue to “respond to challenges concerning China through close coordination”.

Read more.

Australia’s defence minister has said Canberra is keen for Tokyo to play a larger role in the development of defence technology under the Aukus security partnership, but he stopped short of suggesting Japan should join a pact that presently brings together Australia, Britain and the United States.

The latest comments by Richard Marles could mark disappointment for Tokyo, given that Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso on a trip to Canberra last November had proposed that Japan be added to the grouping to form “Jaukus”, and counter a “long marathon” posed by China’s security threat.

Read more.

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.

Read more.

Washington’s deployment of ground-based launchers for its medium-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region for the first time in nearly four decades is a “warning” to Beijing against military advancement and a conflict across the Taiwan Strait, according to analysts.

During a visit to South Korea on Saturday, General Charles Flynn, the US Army Pacific commander, said the army would soon deploy a new missile launch system that could fire its latest “long-range precision fires”, such as the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) interceptor and the maritime-strike Tomahawk, in the Asia-Pacific.

Read more.

Treaty allies the Philippines and United States will flex their muscles later this month at this year’s Balikatan joint military exercises that take place in waters outside Philippine territory along the outer edge of South China Sea’s waters, which analysts predict will almost certainly provoke Beijing.

The April 22 to May 8 drills involve some 16,000 soldiers and showcase Manila’s new Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept (CADC), a strategy that aims to defend the country’s exclusive economic zone.

Read more.

Global Impact is a weekly curated newsletter featuring a news topic originating in China with a significant macro impact for our newsreaders around the world.

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China scammer uses 4,600 phones to fake live-stream views and traffic, earns US$415,000 in 4 months

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3260129/china-scammer-uses-4600-phones-fake-live-stream-views-and-traffic-earns-us415000-4-months?utm_source=rss_feed

A man in China who operated 4,600 phones to inflate live-stream viewer counts, making 3 million yuan (US$415,000) in less than four months, has been jailed.

His imprisonment marks the first time that Zhejiang province in eastern China – the hub of the Chinese live-streaming industry – has punished anyone in the business for fraud.

The individual, surnamed Wang, was sentenced to one year and three months in prison and fined 50,000 yuan (US$7,000) for the “crime of illegal business operations”.

Wang began operating the business in late 2022 when a friend told him about a “lucrative” practice known as “brushing”.

The term refers to faking real-time activities such as viewer counts, likes, comments and shares in live-streaming to simulate genuine viewer interactions and mislead consumers.

TikTok was one of his main sources of clients, as shown in photos disclosed by the Ningbo Evening News.

Setting up a brushing business is quite straightforward.

Wang bought 4,600 mobile phones controlled by specialised cloud software.

He also bought VPN services and network equipment, such as routers and switches, from a tech company based in Changsha in central China’s Hunan province.

With just a few clicks on his computer, Wang could operate all the mobile phones to simultaneously flood into a live-streaming target to inflate viewer counts and interactions.

“The cost of using one of the mobile phones is 6.65 yuan (less than US$1) per day,” Wang said.

He explained that the final fee for the service would depend on the amount of time each phone stayed connected to a live-streaming event and the number of mobile phones activated.

Up to March last year, he made about three million yuan (US$415,000) by selling the service to live-streamers seeking to boost their online performance.

The fake viewer accounts were bought in bulk from others, according to Wang.

The accounts would sometimes be censored for failing real-name authentications, but the re-registration process was simple.

“There are certain loopholes in the account management of the live-streaming platform,” the prosecutor in charge of the case told Ningbo Evening News.

He also said it was not known where the mobile phones were bought, but there was a “possibility of illegal activities in the mobile phone recycling market”.

In addition to Wang, 17 other suspects are under investigation for “breaking national regulations, knowingly spreading fake information online through publishing services for profit, and disrupting the market order”, according to local prosecuting authorities.

Traffic fraud has long been a problem on mainland live-streaming platforms and e-commerce websites, igniting public calls for regulation.

“This is clearly not an isolated case, ” one online observer said.

China’s Mideast peacemaker drive signals ‘major’ post-war ambitions in the region: analysts

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3261387/chinas-mideast-peacemaker-drive-signals-major-post-war-ambitions-region-analysts?utm_source=rss_feed

A meeting in Beijing last week between the two rival Palestinian factions for talks on ending internal division is being viewed by analysts as part of a wider strategy by China to map out a larger role in the Middle East.

Diplomatic observers see the talks between Hamas and Fatah as part of China’s continued push to play peacemaker in the region while challenging the Western-led international order.

And if successful, Beijing could play a “major” post-war role in the region, they said.

China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday confirmed that representatives from the two groups had held “in-depth and candid” meetings to “promote Palestinian reconciliation”, adding that the talks yielded “encouraging progress”.

“They agreed to continue this dialogue process so as to achieve Palestinian solidarity and unity soon,” ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.

Lin said the meeting came at the invitation of the Chinese government.

Fatah runs the Palestinian Authority, the Western-backed government body that partially controls the Israel-occupied West Bank.

Hamas, which overturned the Palestinian Authority’s rule in Gaza in 2007, controls the Gaza Strip.

The talks came as the conflict in the Middle East stretches into its seventh month, with little sign of easing as Israel pushes for a ground operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

China had earlier said it was willing to mediate the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, since the war erupted last year, it has not condemned Hamas for its October 7 attack on Israel, despite pressure from the West.

Jean-Loup Samaan, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute, said it was too early to determine if the Hamas-Fatah talks could elevate China’s role as a peacemaker in the Middle East, a position that Beijing has sought to fill.

“But it shows that Beijing is trying to follow a pattern that is somewhat similar to the one that led to the Saudi-Iran deal it brokered last year,” he said.

“This is a modest step but one that tells us China is not without ambitions in the Middle East.”

Last year, China scored an unexpected diplomatic victory when it brokered a deal between Gulf rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, with indications that it planned to play a bigger role as a mediator in the Middle East.

Following the deal, then foreign minister Qin Gang made separate phone calls to his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts to say China was ready to facilitate peace talks.

David Arase, resident professor of international politics with the Hopkins-Nanjing Centre, said that by hosting last week’s talks, China “wants to get into the limelight”.

“China wants to … affect the outcome of current moves by the US and its Arab allies to force Israel toward a ceasefire agreement and concrete plans for Gaza’s rehabilitation and governance thereafter,” he said.

Beijing has on multiple occasions criticised Washington’s actions in the unfolding war, including the use of its veto powers to block UN Security Council resolutions that called for an immediate ceasefire.

“With intransigence based on its own interests and geopolitical calculations, the United States has repeatedly resorted to veto in an abusive manner, which is not commensurate with the role of a responsible power,” Fu Cong, China’s envoy to the United Nations, told a meeting of the world body on Wednesday.

“We hope that the United States will truly uphold an objective and impartial position and join the international community’s action for justice, to play a constructive role in stopping the war and alleviating the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”

Arase said the Hamas-Fatah talks were part of “intensifying efforts” by China, Russia, North Korea and Iran to “break apart the Western-led rules-based order that seeks to contain their respective expansionist or revanchist agendas”.

The party ruling Gaza after the war would determine whether a genuine peace process would restart and whether Israel would be strengthened or weakened as a key US ally in the Middle East, he said.

“By inserting Hamas as a spoiler in the peace process, Iran, Russia and China can divert the US from conflicts in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, and weaken the ability of the US, Israel and the US’ Arab allies to stabilise the Middle East,” Arase added.

A similar round of talks between Hamas and Fatah was held in Russia in February, where the two parties were urged to unite before they could negotiate with Israel.

Hongda Fan, a professor at the Middle East Studies Institute at Shanghai International Studies University, said it was “better to have such exchanges … than not”, given that Palestine “urgently needed internal unity”.

For China, “doing something conducive to peace is always a good thing, and it is always more meaningful than providing weapons to warring parties”, Fan said.

“Although this is not an ideal moment to promote reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, China’s peace efforts do exist.”

Fan, however, did not think that China could play a major role in the conflict because it would be difficult for Israel to rebuild its trust in Beijing in the short-term.

“But for the Middle East, which longs for peace and development, China obviously cannot be ignored. I believe that China will not stay away from the peace efforts in the Middle East,” he said.

China’s response to the war thus far – including its meetings with Hamas officials – has been viewed by analysts as an unbalanced position that has frustrated Israel.

Fan said last week’s talks were also “not meaningful” as the fate of Hamas remained uncertain and Fatah could not effectively cooperate with Hamas under current circumstances.

Samaan added that key issues still stood in the way of internal reconciliation, including the types of power-sharing arrangements the two rival groups were willing to accept and if Hamas officials could truly speak on behalf of the people of Gaza.

Still, the talks could lead to a “potentially major achievement” for China in the context of the post-war reconstruction of Gaza.

“In that sense, it could enable China to play a major role after months of war that saw Beijing distancing itself from the logic of conflict in the Middle East,” Samaan said.

“Having said that, there are many factors internal to Palestinian politics that China does not control … so we need to remain cautious on what to expect from this latest initiative.”

Chinese University of Hong Kong outgoing head Rocky Tuan on medical leave after injuring himself in fall in Malaysia

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3261561/chinese-university-hong-kong-outgoing-head-rocky-tuan-medical-leave-after-injuring-himself-fall?utm_source=rss_feed

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) outgoing president Rocky Tuan Sung-chi is taking medical leave after injuring himself in a fall while on a business trip in Malaysia.

The university said on Monday that Tuan had undergone surgery in Kuala Lumpur and was following his doctor’s instructions to rest and recover.

Provost Alan Chan Kam-leung would serve as acting vice-chancellor and president while Tuan was away and council chairman John Chai Yat-chiu had been notified of the arrangement, it said.

It did not reveal when Tuan suffered his injury or the length of his expected absence.

The 72-year-old biomedical scientist resigned as head of CUHK in January this year, just days after starting a new three-year term. He will step down in January 2025.

His resignation followed an amendment passed by lawmakers to overhaul the school’s governing council by increasing the number of external members and the voting threshold for approving the appointment of the vice-chancellor.

Tuan, who took up the university’s top job in 2018, was targeted by some lawmakers for refusing to attend any Legislative Council meetings about the amendment, citing illness.

He was also accused of being too sympathetic to student protesters in 2019 when he met them on campus and issued an open letter calling on the government to carry out an independent investigation into claims of police abuses.

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As China and Iran hunt for dissidents in the US, the FBI is racing to counter the threat

https://apnews.com/article/iran-china-harassing-dissidents-united-states-ee48c1b9c32d187b183faaa616d9ab16Wu Jianmin speaks during an interview with the Associated Press, Thursday, April 11, 2024, in Washington. American officials say foreign countries like Iran and China intimidate, harass and sometimes plot violence against political opponents and activists in the U.S. Jianmin, a former student leader in China’s 1989 pro-democracy movement, was targeted in 2020 by a group of protesters outside his home in Irvine, Calif. The harassment lasted more than two months. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

2024-05-06T04:15:31Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — After a student leader of the historic Tiananmen Square protests entered a 2022 congressional race in New York, a Chinese intelligence operative wasted little time enlisting a private investigator to hunt for any mistresses or tax problems that could upend the candidate’s bid, prosecutors say.

“In the end,” the operative ominously told his contact, “violence would be fine too.”

As an Iranian journalist and activist living in exile in the United States aired criticism of Iran’s human rights abuses, Tehran was listening too. Members of an Eastern European organized crime gang scouted her Brooklyn home and plotted to kill her in a murder-for-hire scheme directed from Iran, according to the Justice Department, which foiled the plan and brought criminal charges.

The episodes reflect the extreme measures taken by countries like China and Iran to intimidate, harass and sometimes plot attacks against political opponents and activists who live in the U.S. They show the frightening consequences that geopolitical tensions can have for ordinary citizens as governments historically intolerant of dissent inside their own borders are increasingly keeping a threatening watch on those who speak out thousands of miles away.

“We’re not living in fear, we’re not living in paranoia, but the reality is very clear — that the Islamic Republic wants us dead, and we have to look over our shoulder every day,” the Iranian journalist, Masih Alinejad, said in an interview.

The issue has grabbed the attention of the Justice Department, which in the past five years has charged dozens of suspects with acts of transnational repression. Senior FBI officials told The Associated Press that the tactics have grown more sophisticated, including the hiring of proxies like private investigators and organized crime leaders, and countries are more willing to cross “serious red lines” from harassment into violence as they seek to project power abroad and stifle dissent.

Foreign adversaries are increasingly making well-funded intimidation campaigns a priority for their intelligence services, and more countries — including some not seen as traditionally antagonistic to the U.S. — have targeted critics in America and elsewhere in the West, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss their investigations.

The Justice Department, for instance, announced a disrupted plot last November to kill a Sikh activist in New York that officials said was directed by an Indian government official. Rwanda kidnapped Paul Rusesabagina of “Hotel Rwanda” fame from Texas and returned him to the country before releasing him, and Saudi Arabia has harassed critics online and in person, the FBI has said.

“This is a huge priority for us,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the Justice Department’s top national security official, describing an “alarming rise” in government-directed harassment.

He said the prosecutions are meant not only to hold harassers accountable but to send a message that the actions are “unacceptable from the perspective of United States sovereignty and defending American values — values around free expression and free association.”

Other nations also have seen a spike in cases.

An April report from Reporters Without Borders called London a “hotspot” for Iranian attacks on Persian-language broadcasters, with British counterterrorism police investigating an attack one month earlier on an Iranian television presenter outside his home in London. In Britain and elsewhere in Europe, harassment and attacks targeting Russians, including a journalist who fell ill from a suspected poisoning in Germany, have long been blamed on Russia’s intelligence operatives despite denials from Moscow.

Inside the U.S., the trend is all the more worrisome because of an ever-deteriorating relationship with Iran and tensions with China over everything from trade and theft of intellectual property to election interference. And emerging technologies like generative AI are likely to be exploited for future harassment, U.S. intelligence officials said in a recent threat assessment.

“Transnational repression is a manifestation of the broader conflict between authoritarian regimes and democratic countries,” Olsen said. “It’s been a consistent theme of the way the world is changing from a geopolitical standpoint over the last decade.”

‘I’M NOT REALLY FEELING SAFE’

Two of the leading culprits, officials and advocates say, are China and Iran.

Emails to the Iranian mission at the United Nations were not returned. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington disputed that the country engages in the practice, saying in a statement that the government “strictly abides by international law, and fully respects the law enforcement sovereignty of other countries.”

“We resolutely oppose ‘long-arm jurisdiction,’” the statement said.

Yet U.S. officials say China created a program to do exactly that, launching “Operation Fox Hunt” to track down Chinese expatriates wanted by Beijing, with a goal of bullying them into returning to face charges.

A former city government official in China living in New Jersey found a note in Chinese characters taped to his front door that said: “If you are willing to go back to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison your wife and children will be all right. That’s the end of this matter!” according to a 2020 Justice Department case charging a group of Chinese operatives and an American private investigator.

Though most defendants charged in transnational repression plots are based in their home country, making arrests and prosecutions infrequent, that particular case led to convictions last year of the private investigator and two Chinese citizens living in the U.S.

Bob Fu, a Chinese American Christian pastor whose organization, ChinaAid, advocates for religious freedom in China, said he has endured far-ranging harassment campaigns for years. Large crowds of demonstrators have amassed for days at a time outside his west Texas home, arriving in well-coordinated actions he believes can be linked to the Chinese government.

Phony hotel reservations have been made in his name, along with bogus bomb threats to police stating that he planned to detonate explosives. Flyers depicting him as the devil have been distributed to neighbors. He said he’s learned to take precautions when he travels, including asking his staff not to post his itinerary in advance, and relocated from his home at what he said was law enforcement’s urging.

“I’m not really feeling safe,” Fu told AP. When it comes to returning to China, where he was raised and left more than 25 years ago as a religious refugee, he said: “I may be able to travel back, but it’s a one-way ticket. I’m sure I’m on their wanted list.”

Wu Jianmin, a former student leader in China’s 1989 pro-democracy movement, was targeted in 2020 by a group of protesters outside his home in Irvine, California. The harassment lasted more than two months.

“They shouted slogans outside my home and made verbal abuses,” he said. “They paraded in the neighborhood, distributed all sorts of pictures and flyers, and put them in the neighbors’ mailboxes.”

The perpetrators of harassment plots, Wu believes, include retired Communist Party members living in the U.S., their children, members of Chinese associations with close links to the Chinese government and even fugitives seeking bargains with Beijing.

“The end goal is the same,” Wu said in an interview in Mandarin Chinese. “Their task, as assigned by the Communist Party, is to suppress overseas pro-democracy activists.”

Last year, the Justice Department charged about three dozen officers in China’s national police force with using social media to target dissidents inside the U.S., including by creating fake accounts that shared harassing videos and comments, and arrested two men who it says had helped establish a secret police outpost in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood on behalf of the Chinese government.

The year before, federal prosecutors in New York disclosed a series of wide-ranging plots to silence dissidents, like the scheme to dig up dirt about the little-known and ultimately unsuccessful congressional candidate.

Other targets have included American figure skater Alysa Liu and her father, Arthur, a political refugee who prosecutors say was surveilled by a man who posed as an Olympics committee member and asked them for their passport information.

A sculpture created by a dissident artist in California that depicted the coronavirus with the face of Chinese President Xi Jinping also was dismantled and burned to the ground.

“We should be under no illusion that somehow these are rogue actors or people that are unaffiliated with the Chinese government,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat and member of a special House committee on China, said of the Chinese operatives who have been charged.

‘ERASE HIS HEAD FROM HIS TORSO’

Sometimes violence has been planned in response to world events.

Prosecutors in 2022 charged an Iranian operative with offering $300,000 to “eliminate” Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton as payback for an airstrike that killed Iran’s most powerful general.

A fresh Tehran threat was disclosed this year when the Justice Department charged an Iranian whom officials identified as a drug trafficker and intelligence operative as well as two Canadians — one a “full-patch” member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang — in a murder-for-hire plot against two Iranians who had fled the country and were living in Maryland.

“We gotta erase his head from his torso,” one of the hired Canadians is accused of saying. Law enforcement disrupted the threat.

Alinejad, the Iranian journalist, was targeted even before the murder-for-hire plot was announced by the Justice Department last year. Prosecutors in 2021 charged a group of Iranians said to be working at the behest of the country’s intelligence services with planning to kidnap her.

Alinejad remains a prominent journalist and vocal opposition activist and says she’s determined to keep speaking out, including at a sentencing hearing last year for a woman who prosecutors say unwittingly funded the kidnapping plot.

But the details of the plots are chillingly etched in her mind. The criminal cases laid bare the gravity of the threat she faced and the grisly preparations involved, including researching how to spirit Alinejad out of New York on a military-style speedboat and taking her to Venezuela, and discussing lures for getting her from her home — such as asking for flowers from the garden outside.

One of the defendants in the murder-for-hire plot was arrested in 2022 after he was found driving around Alinejad’s Brooklyn neighborhood with a loaded rifle and rounds of ammunition. Another suspect was extradited from the Czech Republic in February to face charges. Two others also have been arrested.

The FBI disrupted the plot but also encouraged Alinejad to move, which she has done. But that also meant saying goodbye to her beloved garden, which had brought her joy as she gave homegrown cucumbers and other vegetables to neighbors.

“They didn’t kill me physically, but they killed my relationship with my garden, with my neighbors,” Alinejad said.

ERIC TUCKER Tucker covers national security in Washington for The Associated Press, with a focus on the FBI and Justice Department and the special counsel cases against former President Donald Trump. twitter mailto

What is France’s role in the US-China rivalry?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3261523/what-frances-role-us-china-rivalry?utm_source=rss_feed

In January 2024, France and the People’s Republic of China marked 60 years of diplomatic ties. But China-France relations have been complicated by the countries’ ambitions to be world leaders, and France’s desire to exert an independent foreign policy despite being an ally of the US.

Now Beijing has pinned its hopes on France, the first port of call on Xi’s three-country European tour, to push the European Union to adopt a more “positive and pragmatic” China policy amid heightened scrutiny over Chinese products and market access in recent months.

Foreigners spend 700% more on Alipay in China over Labour Day holiday as inbound tourism slowly recovers

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3261529/foreigners-spend-700-more-alipay-china-over-labour-day-holiday-inbound-tourism-slowly-recovers?utm_source=rss_feed

Inbound tourist spending through the mobile payment app Alipay surged during the Labour Day holiday in China this year, according to the app’s owner Ant Group, as overseas tourists slowly return to the country after the pandemic.

Spending that international travellers made with Alipay during the Labour Day “golden week” across mainland China jumped 700 per cent year on year, Ant said in a statement on Sunday. Ant is the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post.

The app benefited from an increased number of international tourists brought in by China’s new visa-free entry policies, the company said.

The number of visitors – from 15 countries across Europe and Southeast Asia included in China’s visa exemption scheme – who used Alipay during the holiday was up fourfold this year, according to Ant.

Since the middle of last year, Beijing has introduced a series of measures aimed at boosting inbound tourism, including allowing travellers from countries including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Singapore and Malaysia to enter the country without a visa for 15 days for business, tourism, family visits and transit.

The government also expanded a visa-free transit policy that allows travellers from 54 countries to stay in China when passing through the country for up to 144 hours, as long as they have booked an onward ticket to another destination.

The efforts have resulted in a moderate recovery of inbound tourism. Foreign passport holders made 2.95 million trips to or from China in January and February, more than double that seen in the November-December period, an official from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said in March.

Still, those numbers are just 41.5 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, as inbound tourism faces hurdles after the pandemic amid an increasingly challenging international environment.

Realising gains from policies aimed at boosting international travel takes “patience and effort”, Dai Bin, president of the state-run China Tourism Academy, wrote in an article in January.

The academy is expecting China’s inbound tourism market in 2024 to recover to half of that in 2019, it said in a February article posted to WeChat.

Chinese travellers’ overseas spending has also grown this year as outbound tourism picked up. Total overseas spending through Alipay rose 10 per cent year on year during the Labour Day holiday, Ant said.

Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, South Korea, the US, and Southeast Asian countries were the top destinations for Chinese tourists, according to the company.

Southeast Asia saw a 52 per cent increase in spending by Alipay users during the holiday, with Malaysia recording a 171 per cent year on year increase in tourist spending through the app. Alipay spending in Japan also surged 164 per cent, the company added, as a weaker yen helped tourists stretch their yuan a little further.

China’s central bank survey shows ‘precarious’ job market, low consumption demand still weighing on economy

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3261487/chinas-central-bank-survey-shows-precarious-job-market-low-consumption-demand-still-weighing-economy?utm_source=rss_feed

Households in China are still grappling with a weak job market, with consumption spending relatively low as they lean more towards savings, the latest central bank quarterly survey has shown.

The findings of the People’s Bank of China published last week indicate continued challenges for policymakers, who have been counting on domestic consumption to propel the post-Covid economy towards this year’s growth target of around 5 per cent.

Among 20,000 residents across 50 cities interviewed for the survey, 46.5 per cent described the job situation in January to March as “precarious” and “uncertain”, saying they found it “hard to be employed”.

Only 10.5 per cent of respondents said it was “easy to find a job” in the three-month period or that the employment situation was “becoming better”.

‘Seismic shifts’ in China economy like nothing Beijing predicted, economist says

A separate PBOC survey of entrepreneurs, also released last Tuesday, showed nearly 42 per cent felt macroeconomic fundamentals such as jobs, and supply and demand were beginning to cool, with many expecting fewer orders.

Meanwhile, nearly 70 per cent of urban residents surveyed said their income had “remain unchanged”, while more than 17 per cent said this had “decreased”.

Not surprisingly, close to 62 per cent said they “intended to save more”, an increase of 0.7 percentage points from the previous quarter.

Public spending power remained sluggish, the survey showed, with less than a quarter of respondents choosing to “spend more”, remaining unchanged from the October to December period.

Asked to comment on China’s troubled property market, well over half the respondents said that prices were likely to “remain the same” for the next quarter, while 11 per cent forecast an “increasing trend”.

This came as China beat expectations to report 5.3 per cent economic growth in the first quarter, staying on course for the 2024 target despite challenges like a property market downturn and weak domestic demand.

“Property sales of new flats have not stabilised yet. The fiscal policy stance turned more proactive at the National People’s Congress [in March], but bond issuance [by the government to boost the economy] has not picked up yet,” Zhang Zhiwei, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Managements said.

“It takes time for the fiscal boost to be transmitted to the economy and help domestic demand to recover.”

Consumption contributed to nearly three-quarters of January-March growth, compared to around 12 per cent from investment and 14.5 per cent from net exports.

Creating enough jobs for its youth remains a huge challenge for China, as the key private sector struggles to stay afloat with public spending power yet to recover since the coronavirus pandemic.

Nearly 68 billion yuan (US$9.6 billion) of this year’s central fiscal budget will be used to support job creation and entrepreneurship.

“This year we’ll have 11.76 million college graduates entering the labour market,” Sheng Laiyun, deputy head of the National Bureau of Statistics, said last month.

“We need to pay very close attention [to this issue] after figures from the first quarter showed that youth unemployment recorded an increase.”

Official data from March showed that the adjusted jobless rate for the 16 to 24 age group remained at a high 15.3 per cent. The reading for the recently introduced 25 to 29 bracket edged up to 7.2 per cent.

China’s services activity growth eases in April, but new business and export orders accelerate

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3261513/chinas-services-activity-growth-eases-april-new-business-and-export-orders-accelerate?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s services activity expansion slowed a touch amid rising costs, but growth in new orders accelerated and business sentiment rose solidly in a boost to hopes of a sustained economic recovery, a private sector survey showed on Monday.

The Caixin/S&P Global services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) eased to 52.5 from a 52.7 in March, remaining in expansionary territory for the 16th straight month. The 50-mark separates expansion from contraction.

The world’s second-largest economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter, but it is still facing a host of challenges including a prolonged property slump and lacklustre domestic demand.

“The strong start to the year is consistent with the Caixin manufacturing and services PMIs, which have remained in expansionary territory for several straight months,” said Wang Zhe, senior economist at Caixin Insight Group.

Overall new business hit the highest since May last year, while better overseas demand and growth in tourism activity helped propel growth in new export orders to their fastest pace in 10 months.

That in turn helped lift business confidence among Chinese service providers in the 12 months ahead to the highest this year.

Companies did continue to face some cost pressure, with input price rises for material, labour and energy though the uptick remained below the long-run survey average.

That led firms to increase prices charged to their customers, while they remained reluctant to fill vacancies created by departures.

“Consistent efforts should be made to ensure earlier policies are implemented effectively and promptly, maintaining the current economic recovery momentum and eventually improving overall market expectations,” Wang said.

Economists said the Caixin survey is skewed more towards smaller, export-led firms than the much broader official PMI, which showed a sharp slowdown in services sector activity for last month.

The Caixin/S&P’s composite PMI, which tracks both the services and manufacturing sectors, rose to 52.8 last month from 52.7 in March, marking the fastest pace since May in 2023.

China’s economy has struggled to mount a solid post-Covid revival, mainly due to the ripple effects on confidence and demand stemming from a prolonged property sector crisis.

While pockets of strength in the first quarter gross domestic product report raised hopes of a steady recovery through the rest of the year, the general consensus among economists is that a robust revival is some way off.

Investors and analysts said China’s structural reform efforts must go hand in hand with greater stimulus measures to foster a stronger and sustainable economic recovery.

Hong Kong property: mainland Chinese buyers snapping up 8 out of 10 new homes in some sales, agents say

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3261470/hong-kong-property-mainland-chinese-buyers-snapping-8-out-10-new-homes-some-sales-agents-say?utm_source=rss_feed

People from mainland China are buying as many as eight out of 10 new homes in some recent sales in Hong Kong following the removal of property cooling measures in February, according to agents.

Although estimates of the total contribution of mainland Chinese buyers to new home sales vary widely, agents agree that the city has seen a marked increase in the number of mainland buyers since the property curbs were lifted.

The strong return of mainland Chinese buyers is boosting hopes of stability in the residential property market, said Sammy Po Siu-ming, CEO of Midland Realty’s residential division for Hong Kong and Macau.

“The entry of mainland buyers into Hong Kong property market effectively offsets the purchasing power loss caused by population outflow and emigration waves in recent years, providing stability to Hong Kong’s declining property prices,” Po said.

In recent project launches, mainland buyers contributed about 30 per cent of sales, higher than the 17 per cent they contributed in the fourth quarter of 2023 before the curbs were axed, Po said.

Raymond Cheng, managing director and head of China and Hong property at CGS International, said the proportion is even higher in some recent launches: 60 to 80 per cent.

“It’s not surprising that we see a high number of mainland buyers coming to the market,” he said. “Before the government scrapped all the property cooling measures, mainland buyers, who would have wanted to buy a HK$10 million [US$1.28 million] flat had to shell out HK$13 million because of a HK$3 million extra tax. Now with home prices dropping by 25 per cent, the same property will only cost HK$7.5 million. That’s a more than 40 per cent savings.”

Mainland buyers accounted for 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the total buyers of new homes before the measures were scrapped, Cheng said. Now, recent launches in districts that are close to prestigious primary and secondary schools, such as Wong Chuk Hang and Tseung Kwan O, are proving particularly popular with mainland Chinese buyers.

Government statistics also show that overall transactions have increased significantly in the two months since the restrictions were lifted. In March, property transactions hit a 10-month high with 5,013 units changing hands, according to official data. In April, property sales further surged to 9,880 units, the most since July 2021. The figures include homes, car parks, shops, industrial properties and offices.

Meanwhile, prices of second-hand homes in the city rose by 1.06 per cent in March, the first gain in 11 months, according to data from the Rating and Valuation Department.

Analysts credited the revitalised real estate sector to the scrapping of measures such as the New Residential Stamp duty, which allows the purchase of additional properties without paying extra stamp duty, as well as the Buyer’s Stamp Duty that was meant to levy non-permanent residents.

Apart from securing flats for their children, mainland buyers also see Hong Kong homes as a good investment, said Derek Chan, head of research at Ricacorp Properties, who estimates that mainland buyers account for between 30 per cent and 70 per cent of current homebuyers, depending on the project.

“Properties in Hong Kong are of good quality, well-managed and easy to rent out,” Chan said. “The rental yield is generally 3 per cent or above, which is significantly better than the yield of properties in mainland China. Therefore, mainland investors are very willing to buy properties in Hong Kong.”

With the government actively courting more professionals to come to Hong Kong, Chan said some mainland buyers are buying in bulk.

“We have been hearing about a number of mainland investors purchasing multiple units for investment purposes,” Chan said. “Therefore, it is believed that the proportion of investment by mainland buyers will still have the opportunity to gradually increase.”

CGS’ Cheng said that despite robust demand from mainland Chinese buyers, a housing glut is likely to keep home prices in check.

Hong Kong’s expected supply of new homes rose to a record high for a second consecutive quarter at the end of March. According to data released by the Housing Bureau late last month, the supply is now expected to reach 112,000 units in the next three to four years. The estimate represents a quarter-on-quarter increase of 3,000 units, or 2.7 per cent, from an expected supply of 109,000 units as of the end of December last year.

Devoted China wife sees husband wake from vegetative state after decade, says ‘all worthwhile’ as family reunited

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3258618/devoted-china-wife-sees-husband-wake-vegetative-state-after-decade-says-all-worthwhile-family?utm_source=rss_feed

A husband in China has awakened from a vegetative state after 10 years of dedicated care by his adoring wife, warming hearts on mainland social media.

Sun Hongxia, from Anhui province in the east of the country, refused to give up on her husband who slipped into semi-consciousness after a heart attack in 2014.

The years of tender, loving care helped him recover, Dawan News reported.

In a video clip, Sun is seen sitting next to her husband who is awake in bed. When she starts telling him about the past few years, she bursts into tears.

“Although I’m very tired, I feel all is worthwhile as the family is reunited,” Sun told Dawan News, smiling as she gently touches her husband’s head.

She remembered the shock and pain when he had the sudden cardiac arrest that put him in a vegetative state.

She wept and said it was the thought of her two children that also inspired her to be strong instead and not dispirited.

“I wanted to set a good example for them,” Sun said.

She said that every day over the past decade her thoughts were constantly focused on her husband. Sun spent her time and energy keeping him comfortable while he was unconscious.

The long coma created a series of physical issues, and he needed a tracheotomy to help him breathe and a urinary catheter.

It took hard work and patience to keep him alive, but Sun never wavered in her devotion.

“His eyes opened little by little,” she said.

His 84-year-old father was grateful for the sacrifices Sun made.

“She is my daughter-in-law, but actually she is better than a daughter,” he said, adding: “No one can compare with her.”

The story has touched many people online.

“That is what true love is,” one person said online.

“It’s a great love,” said another.

“He married an angel,” somebody else wrote.

Touching stories of people caring for their seriously ill family members often trend on mainland social media.

In May last year, a wife in eastern China who spent three years caring for her husband wept tears of joy as he emerged from his coma.

In March 2022, a three-year-old boy in the same part of the country stood on a stool to help straighten his father’s tilting head as the man lay unconscious in bed.

South China Sea flare-up risk ‘much higher’ than across Taiwan Strait, former US ‘envoy’ to Taipei Douglas Paal says

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3261184/south-china-sea-flare-risk-much-higher-across-taiwan-strait-former-us-envoy-taipei-douglas-paal-says?utm_source=rss_feed

Well, before 1989, we had a common anti-Soviet focus, and that allowed a lot of cooperation to take place in areas that today would be impossible. We had military-to-military cooperation, and the [Jimmy] Carter administration had set out to create relationships among every major agency of the US government’s counterparts in China.

All those lasted and were a source of a lot of work until 1989. And then we started to reduce those connections in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the rise in differences between the United States and China.

I’d say that the areas of cooperation that normally are mentioned are environment and pandemics, and space and nuclear weapons proliferation – these are standard issues. I think one that you don’t hear so often is how to manage coexistence into the future with two very different types of political systems. And we haven’t figured out the means or the end of that coexistence programme yet, that’s still a little early and a little sensitive for both sides.

Well, I think when the US began its rapprochement with China in 1971, our systems were far more opposed to each other than they are even today. With the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao was in charge, even though he was very sick at the time, [and] China was deeply fractionated. The US was coming out of the Vietnam war, we had our own problems. And yet we found ways of working with a common adversary in the Soviet Union.

The absence of that common adversary today makes the situation very different, it’s not going to be as easy to find points of compromise. In principles and general topics, compromises are going to have to be carved out of specific issues with specific benefits for both sides, or things to avoid for both sides such as conflict.

I think the risks of a confrontation over the South China Sea, especially over the Second Thomas Shoal, Renai Jiao [in Chinese], near the Philippines, are much higher. It risks turning into something more dangerous than our cross-strait relations between Taiwan and the mainland.

There is no easily identifiable off-ramp. China thinks it’s going to prevent the Philippines from restoring or maintaining, [or] rebuilding the Sierra Madre [warship] presence on the Second Thomas Shoal and the Philippines believes it has every right to do so. So far, we haven’t found an identifiable meeting point where we can agree to stand back from each other. China thinks time is on its side and the Philippines has good reason to believe international law is on its side. What we need to do is find something in between.

Meanwhile, I think the Biden administration has done the right thing, which is to emphasise the strong alliance relationship [with Manila]. To show weakness at this moment would be disastrous. And to show strength is not enough, we probably have to do more to support what the Philippines is trying to do in terms of maintaining the integrity of its management of the exclusive economic zone surrounding the Philippine Islands.

Well, the Philippines is a threat to absolutely nobody. Their military capabilities are extremely limited. But they are trying to protect their own territory as they see it, as international law sees it, and as the US sees it.

So we hope that China will exercise restraint, and recognise that pushing China’s claims, as far as China has been pushing them for at least the last decade, could take us into an unwanted conflict in a very – certainly – trade-sensitive part of the world. I would argue that it is not in China’s long-term interests to let this drift toward conflict the way it has been.

Again, I’m looking for off-ramps, the existing declaration on a code of conduct or negotiations with Asean [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] countries on a code of conduct probably should be reinforced. The US probably needs to do more to give military capabilities to Manila, so that Manila can stand stronger in defending its claims in the region.

So, on both sides, the tensions are building and the relaxation of those tensions is not apparent to me. So I rate the potential for unintended but damaging conflict in the South China Sea, [as] considerably higher than one over the Taiwan Strait at this point.

It’s hypothetical. I don’t think the Chinese people want to end up in a war with America over some piece of sand that rises and falls below the ocean level with the tides. And the American people don’t want to do that either. So, leadership on both sides should exercise wisdom and restraint to prevent that from becoming the case.

I’m not optimistic that we will find restraint. Right now I see an irresistible force and an immovable object going at each other. I don’t see the two sides finding a path to management of this issue. I don’t mean to resolve the issue, because that may be too hard, but certainly to manage it.

This is a good time for creative diplomacy to give both sides some room to back down and my reading is that China believes that this Philippine ship that’s sitting on the shoal in the South China Sea will just disintegrate and go away, and then China will win.

But the Philippines is determined not to let that happen. And so you’ve got determination on both sides, opposite to the determination of the other. And that’s not a good formula. We need to find a track that goes to successful containment management of this particular problem before it explodes.

I could explore multiple paths. Some would be confrontational, some would be pacific. But at the same time, I think they probably all need to go together. Backchannel, diplomacy, plus upfront alliance support.

Let me start by saying I don’t think there’s much for us to talk about on the Taiwan issue. We each have our own policies, and we try to stick within the guidelines that we’ve established for ourselves, and hope that they don’t cross the red line for the other side.

On military-to-military dialogue, we’re trying to resume the barely adequate forms of dialogue we had before our speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and China’s suspension after that visit of the military-to-military dialogue.

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There’s a lot of awareness, a lot of caution on the part of both militaries, but we’ve had the first few steps taken. And I think it’s kind of in the logic of our relationship as two large countries that we have to have more face-to-face dialogue about what our military concerns are, we need to talk to each other.

Now one thing we have not done yet that is out there and must be addressed in the course of the next few years, is a kind of nuclear dialogue, where we explain what our motivations are, China explains what its motivations are, and we try to see if we can find some common language, some ways of understanding what is too dangerous to do and what is understandable to do even if not acceptable by the two sides. I think that’s the real holy grail on military-to-military dialogue, which is still out of reach.

A few years out, at least. China is in the process of building up its nuclear military capabilities, and will probably want to see those settled into an established pattern before they are willing to talk about this subject.

We can begin anytime, I think. Both sides need to be more honest with each other about what we think constitutes indications and warnings. China has talked in public forums in the UN and the Conference on Disarmament about no first use as a good place to start a conversation on big principles. But we need much more details.

I’m not talking about arms control, I’m talking about straightforward dialogue about the military-and-military concerns about what could trigger an undesired, accidental, a mistaken nuclear exchange – and how to prevent that.

President [Joe] Biden, I think at least three times he said he would come to the defence of Taiwan, if it’s attacked. And that has not traditionally been part of our strategic ambiguity formulations. But the administration since [the middle of last year], has returned to the more traditional formulations. And I think China has, as to a significant degree, accepted that that’s now the US position and so we’ve kind of restored what had been a wobbling strategic ambiguity.

There’s a lot of debate in the US among very serious people about whether clarity was better than ambiguity. I think we’ve drifted back towards ambiguity, but we’re a democracy and things change all the time. That debate could re-emerge at any time. Well, I don’t see it coming up any time soon. But at least since last year, it has become more consistent. That’s my impression.

Another useful way to describe strategic ambiguity is dual deterrence, deterring China from invading and Taiwan from seeking de jure independence.

Well, I think it’s entirely possible for the two sides to talk and they really have a need to talk because there’s so many areas of practical interaction between the two economies, the two peoples. They are not very far apart between the mainland and Taiwan and things happen. Kinmen (Quemoy) has been a recent example of that, where fishermen in waters around Kinmen got in trouble and issues arose.

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And it’s important that we have some kind of functional dialogue among the local authorities to help manage human crises and natural disasters and things as they arise. I think that’s possible. It should be possible.

But the inauguration is coming. My expectation is that, given the outcome of the recent Taiwan elections in January and the general direction of politics in Taiwan, there is a desire to continue to maintain the status quo, not to move towards de jure independence, nor to move toward reunification. And I think the PRC [People’s Republic of China] would like that not to be the case, but it’s prepared to live with it for a while longer as it has for the last 50-plus years.

Whatever people desire, the likelihood of whether China tries something dramatic to take Taiwan back, I think, is low because the circumstances do not favour an easy seizure of Taiwan or a low-cost management of efforts to reunify with Taiwan by force or other means, coercion or the like.

China has greater capacity to coerce Taiwan, whether it’s directly militarily or indirectly, through things like cyberattacks and others. And we’ve seen that continue and grow as China’s capabilities have grown. And the US and Taiwan have a common purpose in deterring them from having an effect on the cross-strait situation. So the US and Taiwan have been working to try to firm up the deterrence that Taiwan can maintain, so that it doesn’t become an easy thing for China to think you can grab Taiwan at no cost.

Competitive deterrence measures will be under way for a long time to come. And here’s where you get back to the military-to-military dialogue and leadership-to-leadership dialogue. There, they can manage these sources of tension. It’s kind of like below the Earth you have powerful forces building up towards an earthquake. But in this case, it’s humans that are involved, not just underground forces. And humans can prevent this from becoming an earthquake, through careful measured choices of policies and language and dealing with each other.

The US needs to do two things to maintain a stable cross-strait relationship. One is diplomatic discipline. And the second is effective deterrence. And you have to have both.

Discipline provides the red lines across the assurance that we still have a one-China policy, but the deterrence also means supporting Taiwan, and its needs and encouraging it to be more effective at creating the kinds of capabilities that will make it difficult to conclude that Taiwan would be an easy target for the mainland to seize.

Well, I served in Taipei in the early 2000s, from 2002 to 2006. And today, multiple governments have come and gone in Taiwan and in the US in the meantime. The kind of military preparation and deterrence that was taking place when I was in Taiwan, and what’s taking place today are radically different.

There are still some legacy problems in Taiwan that need to be updated and corrected. But a lot has already been done to try to make Taiwan more resilient. Some people use the image of a porcupine or poisoned shrimp to protect itself against Chinese consumption of Taiwan.

But I do think that there’s been changes and it’s been gradual, probably even, from my taste of it, too slow. I want it to do more to protect itself from coercion. But to say nothing has happened would be incorrect.

Taiwan anticipates getting its defence budget up to 3 per cent of its GDP, not this year, but in the first couple of years under William Lai. And he’s going to have to judge whether that’s been achieved and whether the achievement was worth it while offering better deterrent capability to Taiwan.

On this, Taiwan has, for example, recently announced the production of a new coastal defence unit within its armed forces, [which is] different from the navy, different from the coastguard, different from the army. I assume that’s a kind of experimental effort to see whether that helps to make Taiwan more resilient. And if it does, that will be a good thing for maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. If it fails, then Taiwan is going to have to keep working [at it].

Taiwan has a lot of legacy problems to overcome because it was originally conceived to defend itself against the Communist Party’s army in the 1940s. And change came very slowly because it was protected by the 90 miles [about 145km] of ocean between Taiwan and the mainland. But because China’s capabilities have grown dramatically in distance and speed, and force capability, Taiwan needs to make suitable adjustments and some of it remains to be undertaken.

Well, you haven’t said this, but many Chinese will say this is part of the US effort to back containment [of China] or to contain China.

You and I don’t want to get into the debate about the meaning of the word containment, but I’ll just assert for the purposes of our discussion that what the US is doing does not contain China. The US has been trying to modernise and strengthen its alliances and partnerships or relationships in the Western Pacific, to provide a buffer against the new capabilities that China presents in territorial disputes and military confrontations with its neighbours, and potentially with the US.

This is going to be a long-term process. The US has made a lot of progress in the last two years, in terms of healing the divisions that were beginning to appear under [former] president [Donald] Trump who seemed to place significantly less emphasis on the need for alliance relationships and tried to make them more transactional than has been traditionally the case. We did have Trump and he did make a difference. And people in Tokyo and Seoul and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific recognise he could come back. And so they are starting to do more on their own.

Japan has made this amazing decision to double its defence spending under Prime Minister [Fumio] Kishida. What started with [former] prime minister Shinzo Abe I think will continue under any conceivable successive Japanese government, and we will see much the same in [South] Korea and elsewhere.

So this is the kind of the response to China’s rapid development of its own military capabilities, that is naturally going to be an equal and opposite reaction in the environment in which China finds itself.

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And the alliance structure, in my mind, really helps provide us with structure and an ability to, one, bring force to bear if necessary, and also to manage relations with the mainland so that China understands that that force is not a containment threat or a direct threat against the Chinese system.

[Instead,] as President Biden reportedly has said many times in conversations with President Xi [Jinping, the alliance structure] is designed to maintain the order that has prevailed in the Asia-Pacific region since end of World War II, and which has allowed many small formerly colonised countries to rapidly develop without spending themselves crazy on military expenses to defend against each other or against China or some third force.

They have been able to concentrate on education, urbanisation, industrialisation, all of which have raised the standard of living throughout the Asia-Pacific region, including in China over the last 75 years.

The fact that Japan, for example, has doubled its own defence budget projections, shows that it cannot rely on the US alone, it knows that it has to do more for itself.

And we’re seeing that in Europe too. Europeans had been shaken by Donald Trump’s flirtation with reducing the importance of the Nato alliance. And the Europeans themselves have recently been committing greater amounts of assistance to Ukraine, and committed to higher defence budgets of their own.

[This is] because they realise the US cannot just be expected to remain as it has been under multiple administrations and there could be a new leadership in Washington that is less forthcoming with assistance and alliance cooperation, and therefore they have to do more on their own.

So increasingly, we’re seeing not so much an alliance pulling together but a spreading of decisions through capitals around the world to do more on their own because just relying on the US post-Cold War, post-World War II system is not going to be good enough when we have much more multipolarity and we’re seeing these, as you mentioned earlier, trilateral, these “minilateral” [alliances].

Asia does not have a uniform political environment, countries will get together on different topics for different reasons and they will form what can be called minilateral associations for specific purposes. I think we’re going to see a proliferation of that over the next decade, on their own in small groupings, rather than as a Nato-like bloc.

I think the Indo-Pacific remains the senior-most highest-ranking international security strategy, [and] diplomatic priority in the US. We keep getting diverted by other events like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s vicious attack on Ukraine, or Hamas’ vicious attack on civilians in Israel, but we have to keep our eye on the major source of potential conflict in the world. And that’s between the US and China in the East Asia-Pacific.

So much has changed in China and so much has changed in Taiwan since Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek died. We’ve had to adjust all along and we have to continue to adjust. But the status quo that was established after those two leaders died has persisted and has permitted both China and Taiwan to prosper, each in their own way with their own system.

We should be very careful not to put that at risk by surprising each other with new behaviours and new statements of our policy that will disrupt that status quo. I don’t expect William Lai to issue any kind of statement like that and I’m certainly hoping China and the US will not do so either.