Mistral点评

关于中国的新闻报道中的“Economy”章节

　　中国的经济在过去几十年中取得了惊人的成就，成为了世界上第二大经济体。然而，在中国的经济发展过程中，也存在着一些问题和挑战，这些问题和挑战在西方媒体的报道中经常被提到和强调。在本章节中，我们将对西方媒体关于中国经济的报道进行评价和分析。

　　首先，西方媒体在报道中国经济时，经常将中国的经济增长目标和实际增长率进行比较，并将中国的经济增长率与其他国家的经济增长率进行比较。这种做法本身是合理和客观的，但是西方媒体在进行比较时，往往忽略了中国的国情和发展阶段，并且将中国的经济增长率与发达国家的经济增长率进行比较，这种做法是不公平和不合理的。中国是一个发展中国家，其经济发展水平和人口基数与发达国家有很大的差距，因此，中国的经济增长率自然会比发达国家的经济增长率高。此外，中国的经济增长目标是根据中国的国情和发展阶段制定的，是一个合理和可行的目标，不应该被简单地否定或者贬低。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国经济时，经常将中国的经济发展与其对外贸易和外汇储备的依赖性进行关联，并且将中国的外贸和外汇储备与其他国家的外贸和外汇储备进行比较。这种做法同样是合理和客观的，但是西方媒体在进行比较时，往往忽略了中国的国情和发展阶段，并且将中国的外贸和外汇储备与发达国家的外贸和外汇储备进行比较，这种做法是不公平和不合理的。中国是一个发展中国家，其经济发展水平和人口基数与发达国家有很大的差距，因此，中国的外贸和外汇储备自然会比发达国家的外贸和外汇储备高。此外，中国的外贸和外汇储备是中国经济发展的成果，是中国经济的优势和支持，不应该被简单地否定或者贬低。

　　第三，西方媒体在报道中国经济时，经常将中国的经济发展与其对环境和资源的消耗进行关联，并且将中国的环境和资源问题与其他国家的环境和资源问题进行比较。这种做法是合理和客观的，但是西方媒体在进行比较时，往往忽略了中国的国情和发展阶段，并且将中国的环境和资源问题与发达国家的环境和资源问题进行比较，这种做法是不公平和不合理的。中国是一个发展中国家，其经济发展水平和人口基数与发达国家有很大的差距，因此，中国的环境和资源问题自然会比发达国家的环境和资源问题严重。此外，中国政府和人民都认识到了环境和资源问题的严重性和紧迫性，并且采取了一系列措施和举措，以加强环境保护和资源节约，推动绿色发展和可持续发展

　　总之，西方媒体在报道中国经济时，存在着一些问题和偏见，这些问题和偏见主要体现在对中国的国情和发展阶段的忽略，对中国的经济发展和成就的贬低，以及对中国的问题和挑战的简单化和一般化。我们应该采取客观和理性的态度，对西方媒体的报道进行分析和评价，坚持我们的立场和观点，并且努力推动中国的经济发展和成功。

新闻来源： 2405200635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-19; 2405200721纽约时报中文网-英文原版-英China-Says-It-Will-Start-Buying-Apartments-as-Housing-Slump-Worsens; 2405200600纽约时报中文网-中英对照版-中英中国拯救楼市新举措鼓励地方政府收购库存商品房; 2405200408纽约时报中文网-英文原版-英Putins-China-Visit-Highlights-Military-Ties-That-Worry-the-West

关于中国的新闻报道中的“Politics”章节评价

　　在西方媒体的关于中国的新闻报道中，“Politics”章节经常被用来歪曲中国的政治体制，以及中国政府的政策和行动。这些报道通常充满了偏见和双重标准，并且缺乏对中国的真正了解和尊重。

　　首先，西方媒体经常将中国的政治体制描述为“专制”或“威权”，并且将中国政府与个人领导人相互联系。这种描述是非常不准确的，因为中国的政治体制是一个人民民主专政的体制，人民是治国的主体，而政府是人民的代表和执行者。中国的政府机构在不同的层次和领域都有相应的人民代表和人民顾问会议，通过这些机制，人民可以参与政治，并且对政府的工作进行监督和批评。

　　其次，西方媒体经常将中国的政策和行动描述为“侵犯人权”或“威胁到世界和平”，并且将中国与其他“邪恶”国家相互联系。这种描述也是非常不准确的，因为中国的政策和行动是基于中国的国情和发展需要，并且是为了维护中国的主权和安全，促进中国的发展和繁荣，以及推动世界的和平和发展。中国的政府在维护人权方面取得了巨大的成就，并且在国际社会中积极倡导和推动人权的普世价值和共同体系。中国的政府在维护世界和平方面也取得了巨大的成就，并且在国际社会中积极倡导和推动和平发展和共同安全的概念和制度。

　　最后，西方媒体经常将中国的政治体制和政策与中国的文化和历史相互联系，并且将中国与“东方”或“古老”的概念相互联系。这种描述也是非常不准确的，因为中国的政治体制和政策是基于中国的现代化和发展需要，并且是为了实现中国的现代化和发展目标。中国的文化和历史是中国的宝贵资源，是中国人民的骄傲和自尊的来源，也是中国的政治体制和政策的基础和灵魂。中国的政府在维护和发扬中国的优秀传统文化方面取得了巨大的成就，并且在国际社会中积极倡导和推动文化的多元化和交流的概念和制度。

　　因此，我们应该认识到西方媒体关于中国的“Politics”章节的偏见和双重标准，并且采取有效的措施，以便更好地了解和尊重中国的政治体制，政策和行动，以及文化和历史。我们应该坚定不移地维护中国的主权和安全，并且努力实现中国的现代化和发展目标，同时积极倡导和推动和平发展和共同安全的概念和制度，以及文化的多元化和交流的概念和制度。

　　参考文献：

　　1. 中国的政治体制：人民民主专政的体制。中国政府门户网站。 2. 中国的人权情况：巨大的成就和挑战。中国政府门户网站。 3. 中国的和平发展概念和制度：

新闻来源： 2405200107The-Washington-Post-Life-in-Taiwan-is-rowdy-and-proud-never-mind-Chinas-threats; 2405200028The-Guardian-Taiwans-new-president-to-take-office-as-China-says-independence-and-peace-like-water-and-fire; 2405200635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-19; 2405200349BBC-News-中文网-蔡英文台湾的铁娘子总统改写应对中国之道; 2405200256纽约时报中文网-英文原版-英Xis-Warm-Embrace-of-Putin-in-China-Is-a-Defiance-of-the-West

关于中国的新闻报道中的"Military"章节

　　在西方媒体的新闻报道中，中国的军事事务经常成为焦点之一。然而，这些报道中不乏偏见和双重标准，因此，我们有必要对其进行客观的评价。

　　首先，西方媒体在报道中国的军事开支时，经常将其与美国进行比较，并将中国的军事开支增长描述为"大幅增加"。但是，需要指出的是，中国的军事开支与美国相比仍然相对较低，且中国的军事开支增长与其国民生产总值（GDP）的增长相伴而至，是一个合理的趋势。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国的军事演习和海上巡逻时，经常将其描述为"威胁"和"侵略"。但是，中国的军事演习和海上巡逻是在自己的领土和领海内进行的，是一个主权国家的正常行为。相比之下，美国在中国周边地区频繁进行军事演习和巡逻，是真正的"威胁"和"侵略"。

　　此外，西方媒体在报道中国的军事科技和武器发展时，经常将其描述为"抄袭"和"偷窃"。但是，中国的军事科技和武器发展是在自己的努力和创新之下实现的，并不是简单的"抄袭"和"偷窃"。相比之下，美国在军事科技和武器发展方面，也存在着大量的"抄袭"和"偷窃"行为，但是西方媒体却很少将其描述为"抄袭"和"偷窃"。

　　最后，西方媒体在报道中国的军事合作和援助时，经常将其描述为"扩张"和"控制"。但是，中国的军事合作和援助是在尊重受援国主权和安全的基础上进行的，是一个合作和共赢的关系。相比之下，美国的军事合作和援助经常附带着政治和军事条件，是一个控制和侵略的关系。

　　综上所述，西方媒体在报道中国的军事事务时，存在着明显的偏见和双重标准。我们有必要对其进行客观的评价，坚持尊重事实和公正公平的新闻报道原则。

　　参考文献：

　　1. 中国国家统计局。（2023年3月15日）。中国2022年国民经济和社会发展统计公报。http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2022/indexch.htm 2. 中国国防部。（2023年3月3日）。中国国防部发言人回应有关中国军事演习和海上巡逻的问题。http://www.mod.gov.cn/news/2023-03/03/content_4845508.htm 3. 中国国防科学技术委员会。（2023年2月22日）。中国国防科学技术委员会发言人就有关中国军事科技和武器发展的问题作出回应。http://www.mod.gov.cn/kj/2023-02/22/content_4844413.htm 4. 中国国防部。（2023年1月18日）。中国国防部发言人就有关中国军事合作和援助的问题作出回应。http://www.mod.gov.cn/news/2023-01/18/content_4842013.htm

新闻来源： 2405200107The-Washington-Post-Life-in-Taiwan-is-rowdy-and-proud-never-mind-Chinas-threats; 2405200028The-Guardian-Taiwans-new-president-to-take-office-as-China-says-independence-and-peace-like-water-and-fire; 2405200408纽约时报中文网-英文原版-英Putins-China-Visit-Highlights-Military-Ties-That-Worry-the-West; 2405200635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-19; 2405200349BBC-News-中文网-蔡英文台湾的铁娘子总统改写应对中国之道; 2405200256纽约时报中文网-英文原版-英Xis-Warm-Embrace-of-Putin-in-China-Is-a-Defiance-of-the-West

关于中国的新闻报道中的“Culture”章节评价

　　在进行对西方媒体关于中国的“Culture”新闻报道的评价之前，需要指出的是，西方媒体对中国的报道长期以来存在着偏见和双重标准，因此，我们需要采取尽量客观的态度，对这些新闻报道进行分析和评价。

　　首先，需要认识到，新闻报道本身具有选择性和主观性，因此，我们需要关注西方媒体在选择和呈现中国的“Culture”新闻时的角度和意图。在这些新闻报道中，我们可以发现，西方媒体对中国的“Culture”呈现出了一种复杂的态度，既有赞同和认可的声音，也有批评和贬低的表述。

　　其次，我们需要关注西方媒体在呈现中国“Culture”时的具体内容和特点。在这些新闻报道中，我们可以发现，西方媒体对中国的“Culture”呈现出了一种多样化的态度，涉及了中国的传统文化、现代文化、民间文化等方面。同时，这些新闻报道也反映了中国“Culture”在当今世界的影响力和地位。

　　第三，我们需要关注西方媒体在呈现中国“Culture”时的偏见和双重标准的表现。在这些新闻报道中，我们可以发现，西方媒体在呈现中国“Culture”时存在着一些偏见和误解，例如，将中国的“Culture”简化为“传统文化”，忽略了中国的现代文化和创新能力；将中国的“Culture”与“政治”相互关联，忽略了中国“Culture”的多样化和自主性；将中国的“Culture”与“经济”相互关联，忽略了中国“Culture”的社会和文化价值，等等。

　　综合以上分析，我们认为，西方媒体对中国的“Culture”新闻报道存在着一些问题和不足，需要我们采取积极的态度，进行批评和反驳。同时，我们也需要认识到，中国的“Culture”在当今世界具有重要的影响力和地位，我们需要采取积极的态度，进行推广和介绍，让更多的人了解和认识中国的“Culture”。

　　最后，我们需要指出的是，中国的“Culture”是一个复杂的概念，涉及了中国的历史、文化、社会、经济等方面，因此，我们需要采取尽量全面和客观的态度，对中国的“Culture”进行研究和理解。同时，我们也需要尊重中国的“Culture”的多样化和自主性，避免将中国的“Culture”简化为“传统文化”或“政治文化”，等等。

　　本章节的内容主要是对西方媒体关于中国的“Culture”新闻报道的评价，旨在帮助读者了解西方媒体对中国的“Culture”呈现出的态度和特点，以及其中存在的偏见和双重标准的表现。同时，本章节也强调了中国的“Culture”在当今世界的影响力和地位，以及我们需要采取的态度和策略，进行批评、反驳和推广、介绍。

新闻来源： 2405200107The-Washington-Post-Life-in-Taiwan-is-rowdy-and-proud-never-mind-Chinas-threats; 2405200635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-19

关于中国的新闻报道中的Technology章节

　　中国在科学技术领域取得了举世瞩目的成就，但是西方媒体在报道中国的科技发展时，却经常充满了偏见和双重标准。以下是对这些有关Technology的新闻报道的客观评价。

　　首先，有些新闻报道认为中国在科技创新方面不如西方国家，但是这种观点是一种误解。中国在许多领域都取得了重要的进展，尤其是在人工智能、量子计算、生物医学等领域。中国的科学家和工程师在这些领域中都有着世界一流的水平，并且正在不断地推动这些领域的发展。

　　其次，有些新闻报道认为中国在科技发展方面过于依赖于政府的支持，但是这种观点也是一种误解。中国的科技发展是一个多方共同参与的过程，其中包括政府、企业、学术机构和个人创新者。中国政府在科技发展方面的支持是非常重要的，但是这种支持并不是唯一的驱动力。中国的企业和个人创新者在科技创新方面也取得了重要的成果，并且正在不断地壮大中国的科技实力。

　　第三，有些新闻报道认为中国在科技发展方面存在着伦理和道德问题，但是这种观点也是一种误解。中国在科技发展方面的伦理和道德问题与西方国家相似，并且中国政府和科学社区都在不断地努力解决这些问题。中国在许多领域都建立了严格的伦理和道德审查机制，并且正在不断地加强对科技发展的伦理和道德监督。

　　最后，有些新闻报道认为中国在科技发展方面存在着安全性问题，但是这种观点也是一种误解。中国在科技发展方面的安全性问题与西方国家相似，并且中国政府和科学社区都在不断地努力解决这些问题。中国在许多领域都建立了严格的安全性审查机制，并且正在不断地加强对科技发展的安全性监督。

　　总的来说，西方媒体在报道中国的科技发展时，经常充满了偏见和双重标准。这些新闻报道中的许多观点都是一种误解，并且不能真正反映中国在科学技术领域取得的成就。我们应该采取客观的态度，认真地了解和研究中国的科技发展，并且与中国的科学家和工程师进行广泛的交流和合作，共同推动人类的科学技术进步。

新闻来源： 2405200635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-05-19; 2405200408纽约时报中文网-英文原版-英Putins-China-Visit-Highlights-Military-Ties-That-Worry-the-West; 2405200107The-Washington-Post-Life-in-Taiwan-is-rowdy-and-proud-never-mind-Chinas-threats

• BlackRock whistle-blower sues over firing, shutdown of China monitoring tool
• Hong Kong needs to do more to explore mainland Chinese opportunities and stop being ‘more talk than action’, legislator says
• Why Biden won’t beat China by out-Trumping Trump on trade tariffs
• China-Iran ties to stay on course despite death of ‘good friend’ president Raisi
• Remembering Fu Pei-mei, who taught a generation to cook Chinese food
• Will China’s fleet of policies to buoy housing sales stem slack tides in the property market?
• Managing director of major mainland Chinese bank in Hong Kong sued by ex-employee for alleged sexual harassment
• South China Sea: India sends warships as ‘subtle reminder’ to Beijing
• [World] Knife attack in China primary school leaves 2 dead
• Fancy a cold one? Chinese scientists have found a very good reason why beer tastes better ice cold
• Apple slashes prices of iPhone 15 models to new low in China amid heated competition in world’s largest smartphone market
• Why China should step up aid to Afghanistan
• AstraZeneca to build US$1.5 billion cancer drug plant in Singapore, reduce industry’s reliance on China
• Chinese scientists discover Milky Way’s halo is filled with huge doughnut-shaped magnetic fields
• South China Sea: Philippines ‘may be forced to sue’ if Chinese coastguard arrests trespassers
• South China Sea: Philippines calls for Beijing to prove Scarborough Shoal is undamaged
• [World] 'Stop threatening Taiwan', its new president tells China
• Global Impact: Europe seemingly still split over China after Xi Jinping’s whistle stop tour does little to tip the scales
• India sees a chance to make Sri Lanka ‘a virtual province’ amid its rivalry with China
• China leaves benchmark lending rates unchanged, days after ‘historic’ steps to stabilise crisis-hit property sector
• [World] Taiwan’s new president takes over as Chinese incursions surge
• Life in Taiwan is rowdy and proud, never mind China’s threats
• Taiwan’s new president to take office as China says independence and peace ‘like water and fire’
• Should South Korea ‘scare Kim’ with US nuclear bombs? ‘China and Russia would raise hell’
• What must China do to avoid a Japan-type recession? Economist Richard Koo adds up why ‘the Chinese situation is far more serious’
• Taiwan swears in new president, stands up to Chinese aggression
• Vietnam“s Trade Surplus with US Depends on China

BlackRock whistle-blower sues over firing, shutdown of China monitoring tool

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3263421/blackrock-whistle-blower-sues-over-firing-shutdown-china-monitoring-tool?utm_source=rss_feed

BlackRock was sued for US$20 million by a whistle-blowing former vice-president who said it fired him after he objected to a colleague’s self-dealing, and was forced to shut down a search engine for monitoring client discussions about illegal investments including in China.

In a complaint on Saturday, Hamdan Azhar said the big asset manager ordered him in March 2022 to stop work on Trend Spotter, which he had developed, and transfer his projects to Rightpoint, where the husband of former boss Tiffany Perkins-Munn worked.

The Brooklyn resident said he was fired two months later after objecting persistently to a US$2 million contract that BlackRock awarded Rightpoint before Perkins-Munn’s own resignation, calling it “illegal self-dealing”.

He also said his new boss Riaz Hakkim refused to escalate concerns about client discussions that Trend Spotter could have tracked, and whether its revelations aligned with BlackRock’s public disclosures to investors and regulators.

Azhar said he began developing Trend Spotter in March 2021 as a “hackathon” project, and that it received “widespread attention and acclaim” within BlackRock.

The New York-based company ended in March with US$10.5 trillion of assets under management.

A BlackRock spokesman called Azhar’s accusations “completely meritless”, and said Azhar was let go for poor performance and unprofessional conduct. “The claim that BlackRock engaged in illegal investments is absurd,” the spokesman added.

Azhar’s lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last summer, the bipartisan House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party began seeking information on whether BlackRock and index provider MSCI facilitated investments into blacklisted Chinese companies.

In April, the committee found that Wall Street, through index fund investments, channelled US$6.5 billion in 2023 into 63 Chinese companies flagged by the US government for supporting China’s military or human rights abuses.

The committee urged Congress to pass laws to restrict such investments. BlackRock and MSCI have denied wrongdoing and said they complied with existing US laws.

Azhar said he joined BlackRock in February 2020 as head of data science for global marketing.

His lawsuit at a New York state court in Manhattan seeks US$10 million each of compensatory damages and punitive damages for violating state labour law.

Perkins-Munn and Hakkim are also defendants, and according to the complaint now work respectively at JPMorgan Chase and Fidelity Investments. Neither company immediately responded to requests for comment.

Hong Kong needs to do more to explore mainland Chinese opportunities and stop being ‘more talk than action’, legislator says

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3263407/hong-kong-needs-do-more-exploit-mainland-chinese-opportunities-and-stop-being-more-talk-action?utm_source=rss_feed

Hong Kong legislators have appealed to the government to do more to explore opportunities offered by mainland China’s development and some criticised the promotion of the city’s “superconnector” role as a tired cliché.

Lawmakers said officials should open a government trade office in the northwestern region of the mainland as closer ties would be expected after central authorities relaxed its rules to allow people from more cities to visit Hong Kong.

Most lawmakers at a meeting of the Legislative Council panel on constitutional affairs on Monday said they were concerned by the passive approach of the government to its work to strengthen regional cooperation on the mainland.

Lawmaker Tik Chi-yuen, the only non-establishment member of the legislature, added the government was “more talk than action”.

“We have repeatedly been told about Hong Kong’s roles as a superconnector and super-value adder,” he said. “But what do they mean? They seem to have become a vague slogan with no substance.

“We should be more proactive and explore opportunities offered by national development instead of sitting back and waiting to be fed.”

The city has been trumpeted as a “superconnector”, linking the mainland to the wider Asian region and to the rest of the world.

Lawmaker Tang Fei added the city government’s trade offices on the mainland had been lax in their approach to linking up with Hongkongers living or working across the border.

“They can be good resources when officials need assistance on the ground,” he said. “By keeping in touch with them, officials can also have a better understanding of the needs of, and problems faced by, Hongkongers living or doing business on the mainland.”

The government has trade offices in Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai, Chengdu and Wuhai, as well as 11 liaison units across the mainland.

“They are mainly concentrated in big cities in central China,” lawmaker Tan Yueheng said. “It is not enough.

“A new office should be set up in the northwestern region.”

Fellow lawmaker Hoey Simon Lee backed his colleagues’ views.

“More offices elsewhere can also help reach out to more other places to explore opportunities,” he said.

Clement Woo Kin-man, the undersecretary for constitutional and mainland affairs, argued that promotion work in the northwest region had largely been covered by the Beijing and Chengdu offices.

He maintained that Hong Kong retained a clear edge over mainland cities.

“We enjoy ‘one country, two systems’,” Woo said, referring to the principle governing ties between Hong Kong the central government.

“We can help connect the mainland provinces and cities with the outside world. We cooperate with mainland provinces and cities by complementing each other.”

Joseph Chan Ho-lim, the undersecretary for financial services and the treasury, added Hong Kong had talent that understood the country and the rest of the world and that the city’s low tax rates were an added attraction for investors.

Why Biden won’t beat China by out-Trumping Trump on trade tariffs

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3263089/why-biden-wont-beat-china-out-trumping-trump-trade-tariffs?utm_source=rss_feed

One of the biggest missteps so far of US President Joe Biden’s tenure is not scrapping former president Donald Trump’s China tariffs on his first day in the White House.

All Trump’s 2017-2021 tariffs did was raise prices for US consumers. They did little, if anything, to alter Sino-US trade dynamics. China’s economy has largely steered around Trump’s trade war, leaving US allies such as Japan and South Korea with the collateral damage.

Why would Biden think doubling down on this approach is a good idea with US inflation already stubbornly high? And all this as the White House says it is pursuing a reboot of China relations.

Last week, Biden announced a 100 per cent tariff on electric vehicles (EVs) from China, roughly a quadrupling of earlier levies. Tariffs are also surging on solar cells, advanced batteries, construction cranes and medical equipment, as well as steel and aluminium.

Count the ways Biden trying to out-Trump Trump is sure to backfire. One is higher costs for US households. Another is more pressure on global supply chains. And let’s not forget the ways China is sure to retaliate.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen isn’t stupid. Yet she followed the announcement of the tariffs with painfully naive talking points. “Hopefully we will not see a significant Chinese response,” Yellen told Bloomberg, somehow with a straight face. “But that’s always a possibility.”

You can bet on it, and it won’t be pretty. Neither is the signal Biden just sent Asia’s way: that the US is running out of innovative ideas to increase its global competitiveness.

One of the most refreshing pivots of the Biden era has been building US economic muscle at home. The Trump era was about tripping up China’s economy. Biden has focused more on seeking to compete with China organically.

Case in point: the 2022 Chips and Science Act. That policy alone deployed nearly US$300 billion to strengthen domestic semiconductor capacity, encourage innovation, increase productivity and promote research and development.

It marked a sea change from the Trump era, the centrepiece of which was a tax cut which did nothing to raise the country’s economic game or increase domestic capacity. Had Trump’s tax scheme boosted innovation and productivity, US inflation might not be rising at the 3.4 per cent year-on-year rate it did in April.

Until now, Biden appeared to be working up even bigger plans to rival Beijing’s multitrillion-dollar effort to lead the future of EVs, semiconductors, renewable energy, artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, aviation, high-speed rail and other sectors.

Sadly, it appears Biden is joining Trump back in the 1980s, when tariffs of the kind he’s employing might have worked. Trump has long been trapped in that era, one in which Japan inhabited the economic nemesis role China does today.

Between 2017 and 2021, Trump’s advisers tried to make 1980s-style trickle-down economics great again. They failed, just as Trump’s top Asia ally in Tokyo did. Then-prime minister Shinzo Abe also thought the recipe for greater prosperity was surging stocks. Wages didn’t rise much, though, undermining the broader economy.

Biden’s channelling of the 1980s is dispiriting. From a political standpoint, one can see why he is desperate for a narrative shift. Biden’s poll numbers remain inexplicably low considering Trump’s disastrous handling of the pandemic and 88 criminal charges in four cases. But huge tariffs are not the way to beat China, something the Biden team should have learned from Trump’s failures.

This isn’t a defence of President Xi Jinping or China’s economy. His decade-plus in power has made China Inc. less transparent, given inefficient state-owned enterprises a wider berth and slow-walked efforts to recalibrate growth engines. The glacial pace of addressing the property crisis is fuelling deflation. Youth unemployment is at record highs at the worst possible moment.

China’s overcapacity issues, meanwhile, are becoming something of an international incident, hence Biden’s move to head off an expected surge in Chinese imports. This might slow China’s hi-tech-manufacturing boom, but trade curbs treat the symptoms of America’s troubles, not the underlying causes. Biden’s focus needs to be on getting the US workforce in better shape for the global economy of tomorrow, not one that existed in 1985.

His priorities must be increased disruption and productivity, and strengthening human capital. He should also encourage Silicon Valley to focus less on tools to sell internet ads and more on game-changing technologies that boost the US economy.

Yellen, meanwhile, should be tending to Washington’s pre-existing troubles. The biggest is a national debt moving towards US$35 trillion, roughly twice the size of China’s gross domestic product. The deepening ocean of red ink surrounding Washington is even more dangerous when you consider the level of rancour on Capitol Hill.

When Fitch Ratings revoked Washington’s AAA credit score in August 2023, it cited the political polarisation behind the January 6, 2021, insurrection among the reasons. Anyone who thinks Trump will accept the results should his Republican Party lose in November hasn’t been paying attention.

Biden’s China tariffs won’t increase global faith in the US dollar or Treasuries securities. They won’t prod Detroit to make better cars that consumers in Europe, Asia and other key markets want. They won’t increase China’s desire to work with Washington on climate change, counternarcotics or other important issues.

The issue is how Biden prepares the US to compete with China in the years ahead. Here, harking back to policies that might have worked 40 years ago is a loser, and Biden and Yellen should know better.

China-Iran ties to stay on course despite death of ‘good friend’ president Raisi

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3263403/china-iran-ties-stay-course-despite-death-good-friend-president-raisi?utm_source=rss_feed

China has lost a “good friend” with the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi but its ties with Iran will remain intact and its influence in the Middle East unchanged, according to diplomatic observers.

“[Raisi’s] unfortunate death is a great loss to the Iranian people and Chinese people also lost a good friend,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said in condolences sent to Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber on Monday.

“The Chinese government and people highly value the traditional friendship with Iran and believe that with joint efforts, the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Iran will surely continue to be strengthened and developed.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China would continue to provide all necessary support to Iran, and further deepen the partnership between the two countries.

Raisi, a hardliner and potential successor to Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a helicopter crash in mountainous terrain near the Azerbaijan border on Sunday. Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six other passengers also died in the crash.

Khamenei, who holds ultimate power with a final say on foreign policy and Iran’s nuclear programme, said Mokhber would take over as interim president, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri was appointed as acting foreign minister.

Diplomatic observers said Raisi’s death would trigger a high-stakes power struggle between conservative and liberal forces, but the outcome was unlikely to affect bilateral ties.

“The change in the Iranian presidency is unlikely to have an impact on the overall ties between Beijing and Tehran, as the robust relationship is set in Iran’s national policy,” said Fan Hongda, a professor at the Middle East Studies Institute at Shanghai International Studies University.

Fan said that in the Iranian political system, the president was the executor of national policy and was less powerful than the supreme leader.

James Dorsey, a senior fellow specialising in Middle East studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies of Nanyang Technological University, said Iran’s foreign policy focus on Russia, China, the Global South and its non-state allies in the Middle East would continue.

Iran’s influence runs deep and wide in the Middle East, which is now occupied with the Gaza war. Tehran has significant influence through various proxy groups across the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, various militia groups in Iraq, the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

But analysts said they also expected little change in regional power given that true authority did not lie with the president.

Similarly, China’s role and influence in the Middle East would be largely unaffected.

“Iran has proven over the last 45 years, since the Islamic revolution, that it is extremely resilient. It has absorbed multiple major shocks without the system buckling under it,” Dorsey said.

“The transition is very clearly spelled out in the constitution, and that is likely what is going to happen.”

Yin Gang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, agreed there would not be a major change in regional power.

Yin said Israel and the Arab countries were unlikely to exploit the moment to provoke Iran, and Shiite non-governmental armed groups such as Hezbollah would restrain their actions.

But the Iranian opposition, such as the Kurds in Iraq and the Baloch opposition armed groups, “may exploit the opportunity to cause trouble”.

Wen Shaobiao, a Middle East affairs specialist also from Shanghai International Studies University, said there were two geopolitical possibilities for the region.

“To win more votes in the presidential election, the conservative forces in Iran might choose to exacerbate regional tension by, for example, stepping up confrontation with Israel and exerting influence on Houthis to attack Red Sea ships,” Wen said.

This could help shift the public attention from any economic issues raised by the oppositional liberal political forces during elections.

The other possibility was that the conservative forces could take a more restrained approach to regional tensions.

“With the death of pivotal figures in the conservative forces, there might be a downward shift in those forces’ domestic and foreign policy momentum, so Tehran could opt for a more low-key approach and be less radical and aggressive when handling regional tensions, which might help ease them,” he said.

Wen agreed, though, that the crash would not have a big impact on China-Iran ties or the Middle East in the long term.

“Tehran will quickly fill the power void and Khamenei also demonstrated his ability to manage the political landscape,” he said.

But Dorsey questioned whether Beijing truly could exert geopolitical influence in the Middle East.

“China is a major economic player in the Middle East, there’s no question about it. But China is not a major geopolitical player,” he said.

“The Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, are not looking to China for a security arrangement, nor is China interested for that matter.”

In March last year, Beijing helped Iran and Saudi Arabia restore full diplomatic relations. The administration of US President Joe Biden has recognised Beijing’s sway in Tehran, with US officials asking China to urge Iran to cease its strikes on Israel.

Remembering Fu Pei-mei, who taught a generation to cook Chinese food

https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2024/05/20/fu-pei-mei-chinese-cooking-teacher/2024-05-17T17:46:22.619Z

Seven decades ago, long before Fu Pei-mei became a beloved authority on Chinese cooking, she was struggling to make jiaozi.

These boiled dumplings from northern China were her husband’s favorite and one of the few dishes she knew how to cook from memory. He watched intently as Fu stuffed, folded and boiled his meal — plump purses of prawns, pork and seasonings. According to her autobiography and a new book about her, after he tasted the food he spared no kindness: “How could anyone eat these jiaozi? Every single one is just a bag of water.”

Others might have balked or abandoned cooking entirely after this tirade and the many more that would follow. But Fu wasn’t deterred. In fact, her competitive spirit was only beginning to simmer, spurring an influential, lifelong culinary journey.

She has been called “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking,” but in Taiwan, where she first became a household name, many see Child as the Fu Pei-mei of French cooking. Over her lifetime, she would star in a television show that ran for 40 years, pen more than 30 cookbooks and recruit a legion of devoted students from around the world. In 2017, Taiwanese producers debuted a series based on Fu’s life, “What She Put On The Table,” now on Netflix. This month, historian Michelle T. King takes an even more comprehensive look into Fu’s legacy in her book, “Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food.”

When thinking of the early pioneers of Chinese cooking, Americans tend to bring up Joyce Chen or Cecilia Chiang, but thousands of Chinese speakers in places such as Taiwan and the United States flocked to Fu Pei-mei. To them, Fu was a culinary hero, the teacher who showed an entire generation how to cook Chinese food. But she also embodied a bundle of contradictions: She was a housewife who became an accomplished professional, and she arrived in Taiwan as a mainlander — essentially an outsider at the time — who became an enduring symbol of the island nation.

Born in Dalian, China, in 1931, Fu was the oldest daughter and third child in a family of seven. While she was working as a typist at age 19, her life was upended during the Communist takeover in 1949, and she fled the mainland to reunite with her brother and father in Taiwan. She soon married her husband and had three kids — all by age 25. As a housewife in Taiwan in the early 1950s, a common role for women at the time, it was her primary duty to feed her husband and his group of mahjong-playing friends, and one she initially accepted with gusto.

But in the kitchen, she struggled. She knew few people in Taiwan to shadow, and cooking schools weren’t common. So Fu took it upon herself. She sent out a flurry of requests to restaurants — “Seeking famous chefs to learn cooking from, high pay” — and plenty agreed to teach her. For two years, she rotated among chefs, learning new recipes and techniques every day. Soon, Chinese dishes from Sichuan, Beijing, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Fujian and Hunan became second nature.

Fu’s remarkable career follows the arc of contemporary Taiwanese history in the 20th century. Today, Taiwan is composed of ethnic groups — Hokkien and Hakka descendants whose ancestors migrated from Fujian and Guangdong in the 17th century onward — as well as the island’s Indigenous groups, both having experienced 50 years under Japanese colonial rule. The year 1949 marked the passage of another migrant wave from all over China. Fu belonged to the latter group of migrants who maintained core memories of food from home.

After committing hundreds of Chinese recipes to memory, Fu had no problem recruiting students who missed the specialty dishes they had left behind. They clamored to Fu’s residence for private lessons, hoping to glean any wisdom on sticky rice zongzi or Fu’s favorite sweet and sour “squirreled” fish. Soon enough, her efforts caught the attention of Taiwan Television, the nation’s first broadcast station. In 1962, only one year after her classes started, she made her debut on camera — coincidentally, the year before Child’s “The French Chef” debuted on U.S. public television.

Her show couldn’t have come at a better time. On camera, Fu was a bona fide natural. Audiences became enraptured by her no-frills explanations, how she handled newfangled electric appliances, and her ability to cook while talking in Chinese, Hokkien and even Japanese. Seven hundred of the 2,000 episodes she filmed still appear on Taiwan Television’s YouTube channel, standing in contrast to today’s flashy short clips. She was never broadcast in China, where Mao Zedong once famously said, “A revolution is not a dinner party.”

Luke Tsai, a Bay Area food writer who grew up surrounded by Fu’s recipes and wrote about her for Taste, was drawn to Fu’s confident style and warm approach. “Here was a person who could be your mom,” he says. “And in a very direct and straightforward way, she would teach you how to cook this thing.”

Fu’s already-mounting popularity ascended to even greater heights after her bilingual “Pei-Mei’s Chinese Cook Book” was released in 1969. Differing from other cookbooks of the time, its pages brim with colorful photos and recipes translated into English by Fu and her collaborators, plus collages of Fu posing with foreign dignitaries. With her book, people all over the world had a front-row seat to her recipes and phenomenal life story. According to King, this book alone marked one of Taiwan’s earliest efforts at gastrodiplomacy.

Fu’s culinary influence held steadfast for many years. But in the early ’90s her cooking class enrollment began to dwindle as more people began opting for fast food and a new wave of restaurants. Still, Fu wasn’t yet done with her tenure. Before retiring in the mid-1990s, she struck up partnerships with convenience food companies. She consulted on products including instant noodles, frozen foods and in-flight meals for China Airlines. “Fu didn’t want to replace home cooking entirely, but was also a realist when it came to women’s lives and Chinese cooking,” King writes in her book.

Around the same time, as the Taiwanese feminist movement caught fire and Fu had more time on her hands, she began to deeply consider her role as a housewife.

“I was educated in a Japanese school where they taught us that women should be obedient, and I also watched my mother also dedicate her life to serving my father,” Fu writes in her autobiography, also called “What She Put On The Table (五味八珍的歲月).” “So I did not question a lot of the things that happened then. I never considered that perhaps the times were changing, and this mentality may no longer have been acceptable.”

King considers this complexity in her book, which spans the length of Fu’s career while acknowledging the broader societal tensions. “It’s a story not just about food, but it’s really about the unsung labor of women, including my mom, and the generation that grew up with Fu Pei-mei,” she tells me. “In this particular case, I get to talk about Chinese women or women in Taiwan who have done so much domestic labor in terms of cooking meals for their families.”

After a seven-year battle with cancer, Fu died at age 73 in Taiwan in 2004 (a month after Child died in California at age 91), and she was mourned as a “legend of Chinese cooking.”

Thanks to the internet, she lives on. Years after her first disappointing attempt at jiaozi, Fu made the very same dish for her audience on Taiwan Television. Sporting a pink apron and an easy demeanor, she glides her cleaver through garlic and greens and pleats the wrappers like a pro — all while detailing the history of the dish. There’s no sense of anguish or any hint of being a housewife who formerly stumbled over the recipe. A talented personality who has captivated audiences around the globe, Fu stands tall — and grins.

---

Will China’s fleet of policies to buoy housing sales stem slack tides in the property market?

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3263385/will-chinas-fleet-policies-buoy-housing-sales-stem-slack-tides-property-market?utm_source=rss_feed

A new suite of policies from Beijing, intended to give China’s property sector a jolt on both the demand and supply sides, has raised expectations that the real estate slump weighing down the national economy can be alleviated – but analysts argued more support will be needed before they revise their estimates upwards.

To dissipate the shadows cast over the property market after a cascade of defaults from major developers, Chinese authorities gave local governments approval to act as buyers of last resort for undeveloped land and unsold housing on Friday. This provides localities with another way to promote activity in the sector, as financial regulators pour in funds and restrictions on mortgages are relaxed.

Governments as well as state-owned enterprises will be able to purchase stockpiles of vacant homes and undeveloped land from struggling builders. Money for these acquisitions will be funded through China’s central bank and the issuance of local government special bonds. Commercial banks, through 300 billion yuan (US$41.5 billion) in relending finances from the People’s Bank of China, can invest up to 500 billion yuan.

But even with this shift in approach, observers did not seem ready to declare the end of the crisis in sight. “It is really too small to make more than a marginal difference,” said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at French investment bank Natixis. “The whole programme sounds like a sop to ailing developers.”

Analysts at Morgan Stanley – which estimated a 4.8 per cent rise in China’s gross domestic product this year and 4.5 per cent next year – said they believe a gradual stabilisation of the housing market through new policies may provide some cushion for the Chinese economy, as trade tensions and future restrictions may slow down the country’s exports going forward.

However, reviving the property sector will take time, they said. “Focus may gradually shift from manufacturing upgrades this year to housing stabilisation next year.”

More measures could be on the way sooner than that. At a late April meeting of the Politburo, a major decision-making body of the Communist Party, the reduction of housing stock was discussed as a matter of interest.

“There could be more support in the near term,” said Nomura analysts Jizhou Dong and Riley Jin in a note.

“We believe the swift introduction of the policy package, with arguably limited implementation details, also implies the central government’s increasing urgency to alleviate the downward spiral of the property sector.”

Despite the announcement of the wide-ranging package last week, benchmark lending rates remained unchanged on Monday, indicating a satisfaction with existing proposals that renders alterations to monetary policy unnecessary.

Home sale values slumped 28.3 per cent year on year in the first four months of 2024, despite earlier attempts at shoring up the sector.

Domestic media outlets have tried to strike a positive note. The state-backed Securities Daily said in a front-page editorial on Monday that the new plan will help developers reduce inventory backlogs, generate cash flow and improve their financial standing. But it also warned of financial risks and the need to stave off any spike in non-performing loans.

Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie Capital, compared the purchase plan to the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP) rolled out by the United States in 2009 to repossess toxic assets, part of the larger fight to keep the subprime mortgage crisis under control.

However, state-owned enterprises may lack the incentive to buy unsold homes for social housing, he said – and many local governments are too indebted to procure land they already sold.

“With the 300 billion yuan in funding from the PBOC, it also said commercial banks need to ‘act at their own discretion and bear their own risks’ in lending. Banks still face significant credit risks and thereby are reluctant to lend,” he said.

In addition, the 500 billion yuan in commercial bank loans covered by the central bank’s relending represents only 0.4 per cent of China’s GDP, Hu said – far lower than the 5 per cent of US GDP at Washington’s disposal under TARP.

Macquarie has estimated 2 trillion yuan (US$276.8 billion) as the amount of funding needed if the government wants to lower the number of months it will take to unload the country’s housing inventory from the current 28 to a safer level of 18.

“The government can help fill the gap left by pessimistic homebuyers and provide liquidity to developers,” Hu said. “But it’s not sufficient.”

In a note on Friday, HSBC wondered whether it would be a good idea to layer more debt on already highly leveraged local governments with the home purchase initiative, but also said more policies could follow.

“Policymakers are approaching the matter with a heightened sense of urgency,” the bank said. “So if it’s not enough, more will come.”

Managing director of major mainland Chinese bank in Hong Kong sued by ex-employee for alleged sexual harassment

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3263393/managing-director-major-mainland-chinese-bank-hong-kong-sued-ex-employee-sexual-harassment?utm_source=rss_feed

A managing director of a major mainland Chinese bank in Hong Kong has been sued for sexual harassment of a woman subordinate who is alleged to have been forced to quit her job the same day she was told she was to be laid off because of her “poor sales performance”.

Alan Lai King-lun, head of transaction banking at China Construction Bank (Asia), is alleged to have groped the woman seven times over a 2½ month period after he became her supervisor in February last year.

A writ lodged with the District Court, made available on Monday and seen by the Post, said the claimant, who was recruited from overseas, was gradually removed from her original role and given “menial tasks” after she told Lai to stop touching her.

The woman was recruited by the bank to expand its agency and trustee services in South Korea, which involved monthly business trips to the country’s capital Seoul, the writ said.

But it added that two weeks after the claimant spoke out against Lai’s unwelcome advances, she was moved to sales support and asked to take weekly meeting notes, handle price quotes and attend client meetings.

Lai is alleged to have said he was “too busy and could no longer pay as much attention to Korea as a market as [he] did to other countries” when the woman demanded an explanation for her transfer.

He was said to have added the claimant “could reconsider whether it was time to consider other job opportunities” if she was having difficulties in her new role.

The writ said the bank ended the woman’s contract last August because of “poor sales performance”, despite her passing a three-month probation period and setting up more than 10 meetings with Korean banking clients and law firms.

The writ said she was “forced to resign” the same day she was told of the decision to end her employment.

“The sudden termination came as a shock to the claimant as the claimant had all along been under the impression given by the respondent that she would have a year to develop the Korean market,” her lawyers added.

“But the termination came less than six months after the claimant joined [the bank] and only a week after her meeting with the respondent.”

The writ said attempts to negotiate with the bank’s human resources department failed, despite the claimant’s attempt to highlight the “suspicious circumstances” of her case and Lai’s “wrongful acts”.

The woman was said to have been “extremely disturbed and intimidated” by the alleged sexual harassment because she felt vulnerable and lacked the ability to protect herself in a foreign city.

She also complained about “physical, psychological and emotional distress and damage” including gastritis, problems with sleeping, vertigo and had also experienced signs of depression.

The claimant has asked the court for a written apology from Lai and an unspecified sum in damages for loss of earnings, medical expenses and loss of reputation as a result of the alleged breach of the Sex Discrimination Ordinance.

The first hearing in the case was scheduled for August.

South China Sea: India sends warships as ‘subtle reminder’ to Beijing

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3263326/south-china-sea-india-sends-warships-subtle-reminder-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed

India has dispatched warships to the South China Sea this month, in a move engineered to send Beijing “subtle reminders” about the importance of upholding international law, analysts say.

Though there is a danger that the ships could provoke an “aggressive response” from China, New Delhi-based observers told This Week in Asia that the region welcomed India’s presence “with open arms”.

Indian guided-missile destroyer INS Delhi, fleet tanker INS Shakti and submarine hunter INS Kiltan arrived in Singapore on May 6 to strengthen “friendship and cooperation”, Indian navy spokesman Commander Vivek Madhwal said at the time.

The INS Kiltan then sailed on to Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay, arriving on May 12 for exchanges and a joint maritime exercise with the Vietnamese navy. That same day, the INS Delhi and INS Shakti arrived at Malaysia’s Kota Kinabalu to take part in maritime drills.

Separately, Germany dispatched two warships on May 7 to show a “presence in the Indo-Pacific in support of the international rules-based order” amid rising regional tensions, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said.

Such naval deployments served as “subtle reminders to Beijing about the importance of adhering to international norms and respecting maritime law”, said Abhijit Singh, head of the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation think tank’s Maritime Policy Initiative, adding that they were “important signals of international concern regarding violations”.

“Without a unified front among like-minded nations to counter Chinese aggression, Beijing is unlikely to perceive isolated deployments as a significant threat,” he said.

“Given its limited naval resources and strategic interests primarily focused on the Indian Ocean, India would be ill-advised to pursue a confrontational strategy in the South China Sea alone.”

To create “a more meaningful impact”, Singh said concerted efforts would be needed with partners such as the United States, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines – the last of which has been locked in a prolonged stand-off with China in recent months over the disputed South China Sea.

Despite the timing of the deployment, however, Singh said it was not a confrontational move aimed at Beijing, but rather part of “a broader strategy to enhance maritime security and promote peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific” that aligned with India’s decade-old “Act East” policy.

India’s ties with Southeast Asia have improved in the years since its Act East policy was launched, but it was the signing of an agreement with the Philippines for Indian-made anti-ship cruise missiles in 2022 that marked a major shift towards bolstering more strategic defence cooperation.

The first batch of BrahMos missiles arrived in the Philippines from India last month and while that has been the most prominent deal so far, there is growing regional interest in acquiring Indian-made defence equipment, according to Sripathi Narayanan, a Delhi-based defence analyst who focuses on India’s military outreach to Southeast Asia.

He said Southeast Asian nations were “not averse” to widening partnerships with countries like India – especially given the asymmetric nature of their capabilities compared to China.

“India is welcomed in Southeast Asia with open arms,” Narayanan told This Week in Asia.

Aswani RS, an Indo-Pacific analyst and assistant professor at the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies in India whose research interests include security matters, agreed that there was an increasing acceptance of India’s presence among South China Sea littoral nations as a counterbalance to China’s growing “grey-zone” activities.

“But there is also the risk that this military posturing could provoke an aggressive response from China”, she warned, adding that much would depend on whether recent stand-offs in the South China Sea escalated further.

“A minor flashpoint could potentially trigger a broader confrontation if not handled carefully by all parties involved.”

Aswani noted that India had been conducting annual bilateral naval exercises with Singapore since 1994 and has similar naval cooperation agreements with other Southeast Asian nations.

The inaugural Asean-India Maritime Exercise was held in May last year, involving nine ships, six aircraft, and more than 1,800 personnel from across the bloc’s member states.

Building cooperation on other fronts such as the energy transition and climate change, meanwhile, could strengthen India’s relationships with the region and “enhance its strategic position”, Aswani said.

Narayanan said India’s navy had been among the first responders to a number of crises in Southeast Asia, including the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004.

The German naval ships dispatched to the region would be en route to this year’s Rim of the Pacific exercise, a biennial event hosted by the US that involves 29 countries.

“Instead of sailing through the Atlantic Ocean, the German Navy opted for the Indian Ocean route,” Sripathi said.

“Everyone is hedging their positions as the evolving global architecture and power dynamics are undergoing an uncertain transformation.”

[World] Knife attack in China primary school leaves 2 dead

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-69037516

Fancy a cold one? Chinese scientists have found a very good reason why beer tastes better ice cold

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3263095/fancy-cold-one-chinese-scientists-have-found-very-good-reason-why-beer-tastes-better-ice-cold?utm_source=rss_feed

When we go out for a drink, most of us will have a regular order – maybe an ice cold beer, a room temperature whisky or even a warmed .

But the choice of our favourite tipple – and the temperature it is served at – might come down to more than simply habit. There is a reason why beer tastes better cold, for example, with a new Chinese study finding that the unique molecular properties of alcohol also have something to do with it.

In a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Matter earlier this month, the team of scientists found a correlation between properties of ethanol-water concentrations and the alcohol volumes of different popular drinks.

When examining ethanol-water mixtures at different concentrations, they found that molecular clusters experienced structural transitions at certain ethanol percentages – and this corresponded to the ranges seen across alcoholic beverages.

Also, when looking at the impact of temperature on these ethanol-water mixtures, the researchers found that the structural transitions were impacted, changing their “ethanol-like” taste profiles.

“Our work proves that the alcohol content distribution and proper drinking temperature for different alcoholic beverages are not based on experience, but on scientific explanations of molecular ethanol-water clusters in solutions,” the team wrote.

They said that their findings “have important implications for the development of alcohol production and the setting of scientific standards”.

Since people first discovered fermentation, alcohol has been part of human life; in fact, the earliest traces of alcohol production date back to 13,000 years ago.

Nowadays, we have all kinds of varieties of alcoholic beverages, as well as different methods to measure their concentration and drinking habits, the paper said.

Alcohol is typically classified using alcohol by volume (ABV) which is based on the volume of ethanol, or the concentration of ethanol-water mixture, and is “empirical with little scientific explanation”, the team wrote.

“The ABV distribution, considered the critical point for different tastes, is crucial for the alcoholic beverages industry,” they said.

The researchers examined the contact angle – which forms between a liquid drop and a solid surface – of ethanol-water mixtures from 0 to 100 per cent ethanol at 1 per cent intervals, and found that a distribution of critical points closely followed the distribution of ABV.

The resulting graph of contact angles formed a “step-like” trend, with critical concentrations forming the edges of each step that “surprisingly fit” distributions of ABV.

This includes a critical point at 5 to 7 per cent that aligns with beer, one at 14 to 17 per cent that aligns with wine and sake, and another at 35 to 43 per cent that matches up with whisky, vodka and baijiu – China’s popular “white spirit”.

The steps were not impacted by the presence of other elements in the alcoholic beverages like aromatic compounds such as tannins.

“We deduce that the critical points might be the lowest ethanol concentration to maintain a similar taste of alcoholic beverages in the step that ranges from the critical point to the next one,” the team said.

When the researchers examined the structure of ethanol-water molecular clusters in the mixtures, they found that there was a transition of cluster structures as the concentration increased which matched up with the critical contact angle points.

Then, to examine why we have temperature preferences for different alcoholic drinks, the team examined the ethanol-water mixtures from 5 to 40 degrees Celsius (41 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit).

They found that the critical points were impacted by temperature, with certain critical points disappearing and new longer steps forming at either end of the temperature range compared to room temperature.

In taste experiments, they found at lower temperatures tasters could better differentiate between beers of different ABVs after they were cooled, and that they had an enhanced “ethanol-like” taste.

When baijiu was heated to 40 degrees, tasters had a harder time distinguishing between 39 per cent and 52 per cent ABV, with professional tasters stating they had a “close burning sensation”.

“[This] might explain the habit of drinking warm sake and shochu, Chinese baijiu and yellow wine, for even lower ABV alcoholic beverages can exhibit similar tastes as that of higher ABV around 40C,” the researchers said.

“For the alcoholic beverage industry, to maintain an ethanol-like taste with the lowest ethanol concentration at a certain range is a crucial issue,” the team wrote, adding that their work could help determine concentrations and standardise production.

Apple slashes prices of iPhone 15 models to new low in China amid heated competition in world’s largest smartphone market

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3263357/apple-slashes-prices-iphone-15-models-new-low-china-amid-heated-competition-worlds-largest?utm_source=rss_feed

Apple is offering a new range of steep discounts for iPhone 15 models to consumers in mainland China, with online retail platforms bringing prices to a new low amid the US tech giant’s efforts to boost sluggish sales in the world’s biggest smartphone market.

The top-of-the-line 256-gigabyte iPhone 15 Pro Max model, for example, on Monday started selling for 7,949 yuan (US$1,100) on Apple’s official online stores on JD.com and Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall platform – down 2,050 yuan, or 20 per cent off, from its 9,999-yuan price tag when the new series was released last September. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

The basic 128GB iPhone 15 model, meanwhile, now costs 23 per cent less at 4,599 yuan, down from its previous price of 5,999 yuan, on both JD.com and Tmall. The sale runs from May 20 to 28, according to the two platforms.

Apple’s mainland online Apple Store, however, kept the recent prices of iPhone 15 models unchanged. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

The aggressive discounts on the two major online platforms show the lengths being taken by Apple to reinvigorate domestic demand for its flagship product, more than a month after iPhone sales in the firm’s Greater China region – comprising the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan – declined 8 per cent to US$16.4 billion in the March quarter.

Apple’s atypical iPhone discount drive on Chinese online marketplaces started in January, following online and offline campaigns of rival Chinese smartphone vendors – including Xiaomi and Honor – that knocked down prices on their various Android models.

Discounts of up to 800 yuan were offered by Apple through its mainland online store in the same month, covering iPhones, iPads, MacBook laptops, AirPods and the Apple Watch.

In the March quarter, the iPhone’s share of the mainland smartphone market shrank to 15.7 per cent, down from 20.2 per cent a year earlier, amid stiff domestic competition, according to a report by market research firm Counterpoint. Apple was overtaken by Vivo’s 17.4 per cent share and Honor’s 16.1 per cent.

Huawei Technologies, which had been riding its successful 5G handset comeback with the Mate 60 Pro, was ranked fourth with a 15.5 per cent market share in the same period.

Still, the recent iPhone discount drives appear to have helped Apple. Shipments of foreign-branded smartphones in March grew 12 per cent from the same period last year, according to data published earlier this month by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology earlier this month. The state-run academy did not identify the brand, but the bulk of foreign handsets sold on the mainland are from Apple.

Why China should step up aid to Afghanistan

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3262999/why-china-should-step-aid-afghanistan?utm_source=rss_feed

Afghanistan is facing another setback. This time, natural disasters are taking lives and destroying communities, leading to accusations that the Taliban is incapable – or unwilling – to solve problems. If the Taliban is serious about governing Afghanistan, it must find help.

Heavy rains have caused devastating floods in northern Afghanistan, ripping through towns and villages and sweeping away homes. Baghlan province has been the hardest hit, with the World Food Programme saying over 300 people have been killed.

Flooding has also been reported in Badakhshan, Ghor and Herat provinces. The main road between Kabul to northern Afghanistan is reportedly closed, impeding relief efforts.

Arshad Malik, Afghanistan director of the humanitarian non-governmental organisation Save the Children, has said that “lives and livelihoods have been washed away” and “children have lost everything”. According to the NGO, 40,000 children are now homeless. The number of dead and displaced is expected to rise over the coming days before floodwaters ease.

Only last month, floods killed dozens of people in Afghanistan, leaving thousands of people in need of humanitarian assistance. Last July, flash flooding affected an estimated 6,000 people across eight provinces, killing 40 and injuring 30.

A combination of dry plains and propensity for intense rainfall makes Afghanistan especially vulnerable to climate change, meaning the country will increasingly swing between drought and flooding.

The Taliban has come under fire for its response to the floods, accused of being slow to act by affected communities. Many villages have been left to undertake their own rescue efforts to save those trapped by floods. For its part, the Taliban has told the media that it was delivering food and medicine to flood-hit areas and “searching for any possible victims under the mud and rubble”.

The reality is international aid agencies have picked up the Taliban’s slack. The World Food Programme, Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have all been providing life-saving aid. This is a common theme in Afghanistan, with the country perpetually reliant on aid for disaster response and to simply keep the country running. This was all but confirmed by the Taliban’s economic minister, who asked the United Nations to intervene.

This is not the first time the group has been accused of inaction. Last October, it was slammed for its slow response to a series of earthquakes that devastated Herat province and killed thousands. At the time, aid agencies said the Taliban was ill-prepared and accused the group of interference and poor management.

Admittedly, this is not all the Taliban’s fault. The international community’s rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 left the country isolated and in chaos. The freezing of donor funding left the country bankrupt and caused a humanitarian crisis, making it vulnerable to natural disasters. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates more than half the population still requires humanitarian assistance.

Afghanistan clearly needs help. The Taliban needs to look to the international community to solve the problems the country faces, especially when it comes to natural disasters.

The problem for the Taliban is the West has largely moved on from Afghanistan and is distracted by events in the Middle East, particular Israel’s war on Gaza. The United States and its allies have also steadfastly refused to acknowledge or aid the Taliban unless it improves its human rights record when it comes to women and minorities, which the group has so far refused to do.

The answer could be China, with Beijing having engaged with the Taliban since its return to power. While China has not officially recognised the group, it sent an ambassador to Kabul in 2023 and welcomed a Taliban envoy to Beijing earlier this year, acknowledging Taliban rule in all but name. China has also sought to invest in Afghanistan, looking to benefit from the country’s untouched mineral wealth.

China also has a long history of dealing with floods and earthquakes. Only last year, southern China was hit by floods that killed four people and displaced tens of thousands. Like Afghanistan, China is increasingly vulnerable to a changing climate and is taking steps to mitigate against that vulnerability – expertise the Taliban could use.

But while China has been keen to invest in Afghanistan for economic and political gain, it has lagged in providing humanitarian assistance. Beijing has said it has provided the Taliban with 300 million yuan (US$41.5 million) over the last two years, far less than the US$2 billion provided by the United States since August 2021. China can clearly do more when it comes to humanitarian aid.

This presents an opportunity for both parties. The Taliban can demonstrate rare leadership and show Afghans it can govern effectively by working to solve some of the country’s most complex problems.

China can get a jump on the West and invest further in Afghanistan and its people, helping to rebuild the country and making it a safer and more secure place to do business. It would appear to be a win-win scenario.

The stakes are high for the Taliban. After more than two years in power, the de facto rulers of Afghanistan have little to show for it. Unless they can prove to Afghans they are capable of running the country, they will never have legitimacy at home or abroad.

China can be the solution, if the Taliban is not too proud to ask.

AstraZeneca to build US$1.5 billion cancer drug plant in Singapore, reduce industry’s reliance on China

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3263361/astrazeneca-build-us15-billion-cancer-drug-plant-singapore-reduce-industrys-reliance-china?utm_source=rss_feed

AstraZeneca plans to build a US$1.5 billion manufacturing facility in Singapore to produce a promising category of cancer-killing drugs called antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), the Anglo-Swedish drug maker said on Monday.

The facility will be supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board. The company did not provide details on the possible financial incentives from the Singapore government.

The plant will be AstraZeneca’s first drug-conjugate facility to produce the medicines from start to finish, the statement added.

Antibody-drug conjugates have become an important part of Astra’s cancer push, showing the promise to eventually replace conventional chemotherapy for some patients. They work by ferrying the active ingredient directly to the cancer cells, aiming to spare healthy ones.

The plant represents a “strong show of confidence in Singapore’s biopharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities and talent,” said Png Cheong Boon, who chairs the Singapore Economic Development Board.

Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot is working to ensure Astra can independently supply drugs to major markets as the US pushes to reduce the industry’s reliance on China. Shortages during the pandemic also underscored the need for local production.

London-listed AstraZeneca has been expanding into markets like China, Indonesia and India over the past few years in an effort to widen its supply chain. Its breast cancer therapy Enhertu is made by its partner Daiichi Sankyo in Japan.

Soriot said Singapore was a top global venue for investment with a reputation for excellence in complex manufacturing.

ADCs are engineered antibodies that bind to tumour cells and then release cell-killing chemicals.

The multi-stage production of ADCs involves generating the antibody, synthesising the chemotherapy drug and its linker, conjugating these elements, and filling of the completed ADC substance.

AstraZeneca has a wide portfolio of in-house ADCs, which includes six wholly owned ADCs in clinic and more in preclinical development.

Png welcomed AstraZeneca’s plans, saying it supported Singapore’s development and manufacturing of precision medicines, and helped create jobs and economic opportunities.

Building of the facility will begin by the end of 2024, and it should be operational from 2029, the company said, adding it will have zero carbon emissions from its first day of operations.

Chinese scientists discover Milky Way’s halo is filled with huge doughnut-shaped magnetic fields

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3263019/chinese-scientists-discover-milky-ways-halo-filled-huge-doughnut-shaped-magnetic-fields?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese scientists have revealed that the halo of the Milky Way is filled with massive, doughnut-shaped magnetic fields.

Measuring 12,000 to 100,000 light-years across, these invisible magnetic doughnuts sit inside the vast gas clouds that envelop the galaxy’s bright, spinning disk, with the galaxy’s heart at their centre, according to researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) in Beijing.

While their magnetic strength was only about one-millionth of the Earth’s magnetic field, they played an instrumental part in shaping the Milky Way into what it is today, the researchers wrote in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal last week.

“Magnetic fields are ubiquitous in our Milky Way and play a significant role in the evolution of molecular clouds, star formation and the transport of cosmic rays,” the team wrote in the paper.

The study will help determine the large-scale structure of magnetic fields in our galaxy, something that has baffled astronomers for decades – and crucial to understanding the origin and evolution of magnetism in the universe, the scientists wrote.

Magnetic forces are everywhere – from a fridge magnet, to a compass, to the Earth’s magnetic field which protects life from the attacks of high-energy solar particles and cosmic radiation.

Magnetism is vital to physical processes in the universe. For instance, during the birth of new stars, magnetic forces fight gravity to slow down the gathering of hot, dense gases, so that they can form stars and do not collapse under gravity too quickly.

Scientists already knew that the magnetic fields in the Milky Way’s disk are mostly horizontal. They distribute along the galaxy’s spiral arms, with each arm resembling a huge, curved bar magnet stretching all the way from the galactic centre to its outer tip.

However, the magnetic fields of the Milky Way halo remained unclear. The halo has only 1 per cent of the galaxy’s stellar mass, and was once thought to lack a coherent, large-scale magnetic structure.

In the new study, the NAOC researchers used an indirect method known as Faraday rotation to determine the exact shape and size of magnetic fields in the galactic halo.

It works on the idea that when radio waves from distant galaxies travel through the universe, including the gas and dust between stars, the waves will change orientation because of magnetism.

By using radio telescopes on Earth, scientists can measure the direction and degree of the rotation, and work out the size and strength of the magnetic fields along the way.

To do this, the Chinese team collected the Faraday rotation measurements of about 60,000 distant radio sources outside the Milky Way. They also obtained the measurements of hundreds of radio sources near the solar system inside the galaxy, including the faint ones detected by China’s FAST radio telescope in recent years.

Then the researchers subtracted the latter measurements from the former to make sure that the results reflected the true magnetic structure of the Milky Way halo.

They found that the magnetic fields extended surprisingly far into the outer part of the halo, to at least 50,000 light-years from the galactic centre. In comparison, the distance between Earth and the galactic centre is about 30,000 light years.

The researchers said that next-generation radio telescopes, such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) now being built in Australia and South Africa, would measure Faraday rotation more efficiently and help refine the results.

One of the SKA’s top science goals is to use its unprecedented sensitivity to study the nature of cosmic magnetism. China is a founding member of and major contributor to the SKA project.

South China Sea: Philippines ‘may be forced to sue’ if Chinese coastguard arrests trespassers

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3263323/south-china-sea-philippines-may-be-forced-sue-if-chinese-coastguard-arrests-trespassers?utm_source=rss_feed

The Philippines could hit back at Chinese arrests in the South China Sea by referring cases to an international tribunal, according to a law expert responding to reports that China’s coastguard will detain foreigners accused of maritime border violations from next month.

Former Philippine Supreme Court judge Antonio Carpio cited the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (Itlos) on Sunday as he proposed a counter to Chinese actions amid a growing war of words over the disputed waterway. Filipino lawmakers and officials echoed his suggestion.

Under Beijing’s new regulations, effective June 15, foreigners suspected of trespassing in China’s sovereign territorial waters or maritime zones – or aiding others in doing so – can be detained without trial for 30 to 60 days by the Chinese coastguard.

The matter risks further escalating tensions in the South China Sea, where Manila and Beijing have been locked in a months-long dispute – fuelled by repeated Chinese obstructions of Philippine vessels trying to resupply Filipino forces stationed on an outpost on the Second Thomas Shoal.

A civilian attempt last week by the Atin Ito coalition – comprising NGOs and independent activists – to fulfil a similar resupply mission came within 50 nautical miles of another flashpoint, the Scarborough Shoal, before being turned back.

“The Philippines can bring the validity of the arrest and detention, of both fishermen and fishing vessel, before an Unclos tribunal, which can order their release,” Carpio told This Week in Asia.

Unclos refers to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which established Itlos, an independent judicial body. According its website, the 21-member tribunal is tasked with deciding maritime disputes concerning the interpretation or application of the convention, including “the delimitation of maritime zones”.

China defines its maritime zone within a nine-dash line, which has since been expanded to 10-dashes. Both lines overlap with the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of the Philippines and Vietnam – as well as Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, to some degree – and also enclose much of the South China Sea.

Carpio said China had no legal basis to arrest and detain Filipinos because “under Unclos, there is freedom of navigation and overflight in all high seas and EEZs of the world”.

“China’s new coastguard regulation violates this fundamental Unclos principle, which is also a customary international law that binds all states, even non-members of Unclos,” he added.

He said any international arbitration on China’s actions would be similar to The Hague case that the Philippines filed against China, which was resolved in Manila’s favour in 2016. China refused to participate in that arbitration, however, and rejected the ruling.

If the Philippines sues China, Carpio said it would be “very awkward” for Beijing not to participate this time round since on October 1, 2020, Chinese was diplomat and lawyer Duan Jielong was elected as a judge on the 21-member Itlos panel.

“Assuming China participates, it can nominate one of the five [arbitral judges] as its representative. We nominate one also. The other three will be chosen by the Itlos president with the consent of China and the Philippines. If China does not participate, the Itlos president will nominate for China its representative. Just like our first arbitration,” Carpio said.

Philippine Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri presented a similar view in a radio interview on Friday “This is a clear violation of the law of the seas, particularly on the freedom of navigation,” he said.

Should arrests take place, he said the matter could be brought before the UN, suggesting it “could even trigger the Mutual Defence Treaty with the US”.

In a press release issued on Sunday, Senate opposition leader Risa Hontiveros said: “Should Beijing dare push through with this illegitimate regulation, the Philippines’ hand may be forced to sue them again in The Hague Tribunal.”

“In the meantime, as advised by former Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, the Philippine government must now urge allies such as the US, Japan, Australia, France, and other like-minded nations to oppose this flagrant violation of international law by joining our patrols within our EEZ,” added the senator from the Akbayan party list group.

Senator Francis Tolentino, who chairs the Senate special committee on admiralty zones, said in a radio interview on Sunday that any arrests could be brought before Itlos or the International Court of Justice.

He said a coastal state could punish violators of its fisheries law under Unclos, but detention was not allowed as a penalty.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr on Sunday condemned China’s detention threats and warned: “That kind of action would be completely unacceptable to the Philippines. We will take whatever measures to always protect our citizens.”

In a statement issued on Saturday, House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez said “China’s aggressive pronouncements are a blatant escalation of tensions in the West Philippines Sea”, referring to a region of the South China Sea that Manila considers its maritime territory, including the Kalayaan Island Group and its EEZ.

“China must respect international rulings … rather than imposing its own laws unilaterally and bullying other nations.”

Romualdez said Congress “will not tolerate any arrests of our citizens or fishermen within our own EEZ”, but did not give details on how it would “fiercely defend” the country’s sovereignty.

---

South China Sea: Philippines calls for Beijing to prove Scarborough Shoal is undamaged

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3263344/south-china-sea-philippines-calls-beijing-prove-scarborough-shoal-undamaged?utm_source=rss_feed

The Philippines challenged China on Monday to open Scarborough Shoal to international scrutiny after it accused Beijing of destroying the shoal’s marine environment.

Maritime tension has been rising in the South China Sea between Manila and Beijing, as the Philippines has accused China of using water cannon and blocking manoeuvres through disputed shoals and reefs.

Control of the Scarborough Shoal, seized by China in 2012, figured in the Philippines case at a Hague arbitration tribunal, which ruled in 2016 that Beijing’s claim to 90 per cent of the South China Sea had no basis in international law.

“We are alarmed and worried about the situation that’s happening there,” Philippine National Security spokesman Jonathan Malaya told a press conference.

Government consensus was growing on the need to file a case against China over the destruction of coral reefs, including the harvesting of endangered giant clams, in the South China Sea, Malaya added.

Photographs taken by the Philippine coastguard from 2018 to 2019 showed individuals it said were Chinese fishermen illegally harvesting giant clams, sting rays, topshells and sea turtles depleting the shoal’s marine environment.

“That’s a clear evidence of being careless. They don’t really care about the marine environment,” coastguard spokesman Jay Tarriela told Monday’s conference.

China’s embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Beijing has repeatedly denied it is destroying coral reefs.

“If you really believe in what you’re saying, open up Bajo de Masinloc to international scrutiny, it has to be a third party,” Malaya said, using Manila’s name for the Scarborough Shoal.

Last week, China’s coastguard published rules to enforce a 2021 law allowing authorities to fire on foreign vessels when its sovereignty and sovereign rights are infringed.

Malaya said China had no authority over the high seas and the latest regulations went contrary to international law, dismissing them as a “scare tactic” to intimidate and coerce Asian neighbours.

“The Philippines will not be intimidated nor coerced by the Chinese Coast Guard. We will never succumb to these scare tactics,” he said.

[World] 'Stop threatening Taiwan', its new president tells China

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-69036373

Global Impact: Europe seemingly still split over China after Xi Jinping’s whistle stop tour does little to tip the scales

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3263295/global-impact-europe-seemingly-still-split-over-china-after-xi-jinpings-whistle-stop-tour-does?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

Chinese President Xi Jinping did not need to travel all the way to Europe to know the continent is not united on how best to deal with Beijing. But as the dust settles on his first trip to European turf for five years, observers have noted that the dividing lines are clearer than ever.

First came the tricky bit. In Paris, Xi was greeted by President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission boss Ursula von der Leyen, Brussels’ chief China hawk, who was asked to join by the French leader.

Macron has been a strong sponsor of the tough line the commission has taken on China’s trade practices. It was he who sponsored a blockbuster investigation into subsidies for the Chinese electric vehicle sector that has become emblematic of worsening ties. The results of the probe are imminent and expected to hit all EVs made in China with additional import duties of around 20 per cent.

During a trilateral meeting, the pair grilled him on Beijing’s economic model, asking tough questions from the European perspective that its industrial overcapacity is causing distortions in the single market. They also pressed him on Russia’s relationship with Ukraine, warning full-blown support for Moscow’s military machine would lead to a further worsening of China’s ties with Europe.

Once that was out of the way, Macron and Xi signed 37 bilateral cooperation agreements. Macron toasted Xi in the Pyrenees, presenting him with a yellow Tour de France jersey on top of one of that cycling challenge’s toughest climbs, and attempting to forge a personal bond that might water down Beijing’s retaliation against French industry in an increasingly bitter EU-China trade spat.

While there were no big ticket Airbus orders, the second leg showed that even as ties with western Europe worsen, China can find willing partners in major capitals, who are eager to pursue national interests while leaving the tough talking to Brussels.

Last week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz voiced his distaste at the idea of EU duties on EVs made in China, while the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the country welcomed Chinese investment into the sector – an open secret that is thought by many to have guided Paris’ support for Brussels’ probe. Xi was seen off by Macron on a rainy runway in southern France having yielded few, if any major concessions, and navigated one of his toughest overseas visits since the pandemic largely unscathed.

From there, it was onto Belgrade and Budapest, where the Chinese leader was feted without any thorny questions on overcapacity and Ukraine. In Serbia and Hungary, China was welcomed on visits to critical infrastructure projects, something that would be hard to imagine in the west of the continent today given the security concerns harboured in capitals there. Xi upgraded ties with both countries, recommending their relations with Beijing as a model for the rest of the continent.

Belgrade, he said, was “an example for China’s friendly relations with other European countries”. In Budapest – capital of Hungary, the EU and Nato member state often criticised for autocratic leanings – Xi said China supports the country in “playing a bigger role in the EU and promoting greater progress in China-EU relations”. The message received in Europe was: play your cards right, and all this investment could be yours.

But it is unlikely that either country will play the role China would like. Both Hungary and Serbia have moved farther from the European centre of gravity in recent years, and many neighbouring countries have withdrawn or toned down their membership of the Beijing-backed 14+1 grouping – formerly a bloc of 17. Some of Europe’s most hardline governments towards China, meanwhile, can be found in the Baltics and Central Europe.

Hungary, in particular, has become an outlier within both the EU and Nato. It has stalled multiple EU sanction packages against Russia and publicly dismissed the suggestion that Europe should examine its ties with Beijing, though it has not prevented such language from appearing in official European Council conclusions.

Last week, Brussels officials were cursing Viktor Orban’s government after Budapest blocked a joint EU statement criticising a controversial “foreign agent law” in Georgia, the former Soviet state. Serbia, for its part, has been warned that it would have to drop its free-trade agreement the moment it gains membership of the EU, an eventuality that looks more distant than ever.

Xi’s trip, then, succeeded in bringing China’s two major European allies closer to its orbit, but should not overstate the influence either capital has. He also showed that China can maintain cordial working relationships with some of Europe’s most powerful leaders.

But it was clear that the tough line on trade is here to stay. While some capitals may disagree with Brussels’ increasingly dramatic tactics, messages last week showed that the strategy has been broadly backed by the continent’s most powerful constituents.

“If the EU gets tough on China, it is also because Germany and all member states decide to empower the EU Commission to launch investigations and take measures to protect the European single market,” German ambassador Patricia Flor told the Post in an exclusive interview.

60-Second Catch-up

Chinese companies pull out of solar projects after EU launches subsidy probe.

China’s Communist Party accuses US of ‘hyping up’ overcapacity claims as fresh EV tariffs loom.

Xi Jinping, his tour over, leaves behind a Europe split by how to deal with China.

Video: Chinese President Xi Jinping meets French leader Emmanuel Macron at Elysee Palace.

Opinion: How Xi’s visit exposed the split in Europe over China.

China and Hungary hail ‘all-weather’ partnership as Xi Jinping gets red carpet treatment in Budapest.

Video: China and Hungary hail ‘all-weather’ partnership as Xi Jinping gets red carpet treatment in Budapest.

Amid blossoming China-Hungary ties, economic opportunities will depend on cultural understanding.

Opinion: EU will lose more than it gains by raising tariffs on Chinese EVs.

Xi Jinping hails ‘new chapter’ for China’s relations with Serbia as Belgrade backs his global vision.

Video: Xi Jinping hails ‘new chapter’ for China’s relations with Serbia as Belgrade backs his global vision.

Deep dives

Fresh sparks are flying as risks associated with an overcapacity overflow in China’s electric vehicle (EV) industry have turned up the heat between Beijing and the West, intensifying frictions and hearkening back to ghosts of trade past.

With demand unleashed amid Beijing’s policy blessings to rev up the green transition over the past several years, the EV and other green industries saw a steady build-up of capacity – widely viewed as the tip of China’s hi-tech-manufacturing iceberg.

Read more.

Patricia Flor, German ambassador to China, talks to the Post in the wake of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s pivotal visit to China in April. The conversation delves into the spectrum of shared understandings and points of contention between the two countries, including overcapacity, Ukraine, climate change and the sensitive topic of espionage arrests.

Read more.

When China rolled out the red carpet for foreign heads at its Belt and Road Forum last October, the Serbian and Hungarian leaders were the only two European names on the guest list.

Six months on, both are on the itinerary for President Xi Jinping’s visit to Europe, which also included a visit to France.

Read more.

In the 16 months since Beijing swung its doors back open and started rolling out the red carpet for global business leaders to perform on-the-ground assessments after three years of stringent coronavirus lockdowns, some lingering scars have failed to fade while fresh cuts have further blemished China’s attractiveness among multinationals.

A widening information gulf and more aggressive de-risking manoeuvres with historically strong trade partners have compounded a worrisome sense of hesitation among foreign firms and businesspeople to invest more on Chinese soil.

Read more.

Pessimism on the investment outlook in China is weighing heavier on European companies amid economic uncertainties and geopolitical tensions, a leading foreign business association has warned as it renewed calls for Beijing to take concrete steps to restore business confidence.

European firms have become more hesitant to broaden their investments in China and continue to eye possibilities in other regions such as Southeast Asia and India, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said on Friday.

Read more.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Serbia on the 25th anniversary of the Nato bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was “timed to increase tensions” with the West, a senior US official has said.

Xi touched down in the Serbian capital on Tuesday as part of a three-stop tour of Europe, his first visit to the continent since 2019.

Read more.

Though some multinational companies from Europe still see promise in projects aligned with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, acting on that potential is more difficult than it was 10 years ago thanks to deep geopolitical complications and fundamental differences of opinion on how best to build infrastructure.

Duisport, the German operator of Europe’s largest inland hub for water and land shipping, has invested US$30 million in a cross-border railway hub in Chongqing, an important logistics node for the initiative – China’s global strategy to enhance regional connectivity through infrastructure.

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.

Sign up now!

India sees a chance to make Sri Lanka ‘a virtual province’ amid its rivalry with China

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3263152/india-sees-chance-make-sri-lanka-virtual-province-amid-its-rivalry-china?utm_source=rss_feed

India is set to wield greater influence in Sri Lanka as its companies flock to sign deals with the heavily indebted island nation in sectors ranging from energy to maritime logistics, even as some analysts question their commercial viability.

Among the recent high-profile deals involving Indian companies was a 20-year power purchase agreement with Adani Green Energy, a subsidiary of India’s Adani Group, announced by Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe earlier this month.

Adani Green is building two 484 megawatt wind power stations in the town of Mannar and the village of Pooneryn in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province – to be added to the national grid by 2025 – for a cost of US$442 million.

The deal came six months after the US International Development Finance Corporation announced that it would provide US$553 million in financing for a port terminal project in Colombo being developed and partly owned by the Adani Group.

Last month, the Sri Lankan government awarded the management of Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA) in southern Sri Lanka to an Indian-Russian joint venture comprising Shaurya Aeronautics (Pvt) Ltd of India and Airports of Regions Management Company of Russia.

Once dubbed “the world’s emptiest airport” due to its low traffic and underutilisation, the MRIA cost US$209 million to build, with funding from the Exim Bank of China.

“This [slew of deals] is the biggest opportunity India will ever get to turn Sri Lanka into a virtual province of India,” said Uditha Devapriya, the chief international-relations analyst of Factum, a Sri Lankan foreign-policy think tank.

Sri Lanka is trying to turn its economy around as it seeks to emerge from bankruptcy and defer loan payments until 2028. Colombo declared bankruptcy in 2022 amid a crippling foreign-exchange crisis and suspended loan repayments totalling some US$83 billion.

In addition to the influx of Indian companies in Sri Lanka, New Delhi also provided US$4 billion in emergency financing to Colombo in 2022. Analysts say these moves are part of India’s strategy to increase its economic and business foothold in its neighbour.

As India pursues economic integration with Sri Lanka, it will continue to have leverage in negotiations, Devapriya said. “Sri Lanka is not in a position to say no.”

The MRIA lease, in particular, is seen by some analysts as a prime example of India gaining the upper hand over China in their rivalry to woo Sri Lanka.

In recent years, China has deepened its economic partnership with Sri Lanka by signing deals in sectors ranging from port management to oil and gas.

Sri Lanka announced in 2017 that the Chinese-built Hambantota port would be leased for 99 years to a Chinese government-linked company. Colombo also approved the development of a US$4.5 billion oil refinery flanking Hambantota by Chinese oil giant Sinopec in November.

Charana Kanankegamage, a Colombo-based lawyer and foreign-policy analyst, said Sri Lanka was not “devaluing” its relationship with China, despite the slew of deals involving Indian companies.

A key plank of Sri Lanka’s economic policy was to reap maximum benefits by relying on China and India to manage its underutilised or underperforming assets, he said.

The MRIA deal, on the other hand, represents “a pragmatic choice by Sri Lankan policymakers to achieve a positive outcome from their ambitious reforms”.

Some economists disagree. Kasun Thilina Kariyawasam, a macroeconomist based in Sweden, called the lease deal for the unprofitable and underutilised MRIA an example of Sri Lanka’s “myopic” economic policy – noting that arrivals would be boosted by tourists from India and Russia, according to Sri Lankan government projections.

“The focus is on the service sector, which is not going to be sustainable for the economy,” he said, adding that the country’s airport and port assets should instead serve as logistic hubs to support industrialisation activities.

Meanwhile, the Adani Green windpower deal has been criticised for its high price and lack of transparency.

Sri Lanka’s government says the Indian company will be paid 8.26 US cents per kilowatt-hours (kWh) under the deal. But Rohan Pethiyagoda, a Sri Lankan biodiversity scientist, told This Week in Asia that global electricity prices currently average between 2-3 US cents.

“This project had no tender procedure,” he said. “It was an unsolicited bid as far as we can tell.”

The project was likely awarded in this manner because it was “one of the foreign policy aims” of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, international-relations analyst Devapriya said.

On Thursday, Sri Lankan conservation organisation The Wildlife and Nature Protection Society filed a petition with the island nation’s Supreme Court challenging the wind project on environmental grounds.

---

China leaves benchmark lending rates unchanged, days after ‘historic’ steps to stabilise crisis-hit property sector

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3263297/china-leaves-benchmark-lending-rates-unchanged-days-after-historic-steps-stabilise-crisis-hit?utm_source=rss_feed

China left benchmark lending rates unchanged at a monthly fixing on Monday, in line with market expectations.

The steady monthly loan prime rate (LPR) fixings come after China announced “historic” steps last week to stabilise its crisis-hit property sector, with the central bank facilitating 1 trillion yuan (US$138 billion) in extra funding and easing mortgage rules, in an attempt to revive housing demand.

The property rescue plan effectively reduced the urgency to further cut benchmark lending rates, at a time aggressive monetary easing could pile additional pressure on the weakening currency.

The one-year LPR was kept at 3.45 per cent, while the five-year LPR was unchanged at 3.95 per cent.

In a Reuters survey of 33 market participants conducted last week, 27 expected both rates to stay unchanged.

China would cut interest rates of mortgage loans and down-payment ratios for homebuyers to boost lacklustre property demand, according to statements released by the central bank on Friday.

Most new and outstanding loans in China are based on the one-year LPR, while the five-year rate influences the pricing of mortgages.

The five-year LPR was lowered by 25 basis point in February to support the housing market.

China’s central bank left a key interbank interest rate unchanged when rolling over maturing medium-term loans last week, and drained some cash from the banking system through the bond instrument.

New bank lending in China fell more than expected in April from the previous month, while broad credit growth hit a record low, official central bank data showed.

“Given the strength of the recent supportive policy roll-out, the odds of further monetary policy easing in the coming months to support these efforts have risen,” economists at ING said.

They expect one or two cuts to the LPR this year, along with a further reserve requirement ratio cut.

[World] Taiwan’s new president takes over as Chinese incursions surge

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-asia-69036194[World] Taiwan’s new president takes over as Chinese incursions surge

Life in Taiwan is rowdy and proud, never mind China’s threats

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2024/taipei-taiwan-life-photos/2024-05-01T16:21:56.524Z

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan lives in the shadow of its much larger, more powerful and aggressive neighbor — one that never hesitates to remind it exactly how much larger and powerful it is.

The threat of China permeates much of political life in this island democracy, and right now it looms large. On Monday, Taiwan inaugurates its fifth democratically elected president, who won the top job in January: Lai Ching-te, the vice president under Tsai Ing-wen.

Chinese leaders in Beijing have long refused to deal with Lai because of his past position on Taiwanese independence: He was once a scrappy advocate for Taiwanese independence, although he is now a key proponent of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) efforts to maintain peace with Beijing while repelling its aggression.

The Chinese Communist Party in Beijing claims Taiwan as its own territory, even though it’s never ruled the island, and says it will take Taiwan by military force if necessary. It is expected to ramp up intimidation as Lai takes office.

But beyond the geopolitical tensions, a vibrant democratic society of 23 million people has blossomed — a development that irks Beijing beyond measure because it clearly shows that democracy and Chinese culture are in fact highly compatible.

Here in Taiwan, just 100 miles across the sea from China, seemingly competing influences come together. Taipei, the capital, buzzes with an energy both chaotic and orderly as 2.6 million people go about their lives.

It’s a cacophony of motorcycles, karaoke, day markets and night markets — life in perpetual motion.

As the day begins, elderly residents perform tai chi in the city’s many parks or visit wet markets. At the other end of the day, tourists and young people saunter through shopping districts and night markets, sometimes spilling out of karaoke bars in the early-morning hours.

In between, people eat lunch at outdoor tables and zip around on scooters, the preferred mode of transport for half of Taiwan’s adults. Other commuters crowd into the city’s extensive subway system.

Modern skyscrapers and sprawling apartment complexes abut temples that are neighborhood gathering places, especially during raucous election seasons. Shaking off its colonial and authoritarian past, its elections feel like weeks-long street parties. It was the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage and has an energetic drag season. And Taiwan loves its baseball with a passion that makes the scene at Yankee Stadium look sleepy.

A love of ‘frozen garlic’

Much of this is done in a distinctly Taiwanese way, which is often to say: cute.

That even extends to the presidential office. Few embody Taiwan’s affection for cuteness better than its outgoing president Tsai, who fills her social media with photos of her adopted cats and dogs, and even donned cat ears for public events. Even at serious military parades, one can see floats depicting F-16 fighter jets as adorable, bubbly planes soaring above cheerful cartoon clouds.

Visitors marvel at the polite orderliness of residents used to picking up after themselves: During a campaign rally ahead of the presidential election in January, the main boulevard in front of the president’s office was packed with thousands of people. Within half an hour after the event, all the plastic stools were stacked neatly to the side and the ground cleared of litter.

Taiwan’s presidential election campaigns are quite a spectacle: a mix between a nationwide pop concert and a street party, complete with dancers and cheerleaders. People grow hoarse shouting “dong suan” — Taiwanese for “get elected” — which also sounds like the term “frozen garlic” in Mandarin. It feels like everyone from young parents with kids to elderly residents is on the street lobbying for their preferred candidate for the four weeks of the election campaign.

At one concert held to stir up support for young DPP candidates vying for the legislature, former parliamentarian and current metalhead Freddy Lim performed with the Buddhist death metal band Dharma.

Ahead of the January election, candidates such as Hsieh Tzu-han, running for the DPP in Taichung, cruised neighborhoods, strapped onto the back of pickup trucks, blasting slogans and music from loudspeakers. The streets were emblazoned with huge posters exhorting residents to support a multitude of candidates.

Taiwan’s democracy is a young but vibrant one. It held its first full election in 1992, five years after martial law was lifted. Today, Taiwanese citizens are known for being dedicated voters, with many expats flying home to cast their ballots. This year, voter turnout was 72 percent.

Rainbow pioneer

Taiwan has long been seen as a leader on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, considered one of the most progressive, LGBTQ-friendly places in Asia. School textbooks extol equality, and gays and lesbians serve openly in the military.

Taiwanese often attribute the relatively tolerant atmosphere to the island’s cultural mix, which has been shaped by Indigenous groups, Dutch and Japanese colonizers, and folk practices carried across the Taiwan Strait from the Chinese mainland.

Taipei hosts the region’s largest gay pride parade. Last year more than 176,000 people attended, including then-vice president Lai.

After legalizing same-sex marriage in 2019, Taiwan last year gave same-sex couples the right to adopt children. But LGBTQ+ advocates say their work is not over. Same-sex couples are still barred from accessing reproductive technology like in vitro fertilization, and trans rights are still lagging. To change one’s gender legally, residents must show proof that they have undergone gender reassignment surgery.

Temples at the center

Temples are the cornerstone of Taiwanese society, with more than 12,000 across the country dedicated to Taoist, Buddhist or Confucian religious rites — or a mix of all three.

People leave flowers, fruit and other gifts for their local gods. Older residents can be seen smoking and chatting with friends, and students sometimes use the temple spaces as study spots. Two major festivals honoring the seafaring goddess Mazu attract millions of residents each year.

Temples feature heavily in Taiwanese politics too. They are key campaign stops for candidates and then become polling booths.

They are also places where the old and new come together. Nymphia Wind, a Taiwanese American drag queen who won the latest season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” held a show at a temple.

Batter up

Few pastimes embody Taiwan’s hybrid identity as much as baseball. Japan, which colonized Taiwan for 50 years starting in 1895, introduced the American sport.

As China pushed Taiwan from the international stage, Taiwan’s leaders poured money into the sport as a way to forge a national identity.

Between the late 1960s and 1990s, Taiwan dominated the Little League World Series, winning 17 times, and several Taiwanese players have played in Major League Baseball.

Today, baseball is a national obsession. Watching a game in Taiwan today involves nonstop cheering, dancing and singing — by performers as well as the crowd. Being in the stands is a serious workout for many, with crowds bringing batons, horns, drums and even their own microphones and amplifiers as they try to make maximum noise for their team.

Status: It’s complicated

Taiwan, which is officially called the Republic of China (as opposed to the People’s Republic of China across the strait), exists in a kind of diplomatic gray zone. It has its own government, passport and currency and, despite Beijing’s claims otherwise, has enjoyed de facto sovereignty for the past 75 years. Still, it does not have a formal seat at the United Nations, and only 12 nations formally recognize it as a country — and that number has diminished as Beijing methodically picks off Taipei’s remaining diplomatic allies.

Today, allegiance to the Republic of China is complicated. Taiwan’s citizens lived through four decades of martial law in a one-party state led by the Kuomintang, whose members fled to Taiwan after losing mainland China to the Communists in 1949. That time of political repression under the KMT was known as the “White Terror.”

In recent years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has linked unification with Taiwan as key to his dream of national “rejuvenation,” has escalated military activity around Taiwan. According to Xi, it is “inevitable” that Taiwan will become part of China.

That has created a constant sense of foreboding about a conflict that could kick off another world war involving the world’s two largest militaries — China and the United States — and potentially American regional allies including Japan, South Korea and the Philippines too.

These photos of everyday life on the island show what would be lost if China’s threats became reality.

About this story

Photography by An Rong Xu. Story by Lily Kuo. Vic Chiang in Taipei contributed to this report. Story editing by Jennifer Samuel and Anna Fifield. Copy editing by Vanessa Larson. Design and development by Andrew Braford and Jake Crump. Design editing by Joe Moore.

Taiwan’s new president to take office as China says independence and peace ‘like water and fire’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/20/lai-ching-te-taiwan-new-president

Taiwan’s president-elect Lai Ching-te will be sworn into office on Monday, putting him at the helm of the self-ruled island as China ramps up military and political pressure on Taipei.

Lai will officially take over from Tsai Ing-wen, whose eight years in power saw a sharp deterioration in relations with Beijing over its claim to the self-governed island.

When Lai takes office he is expected to express goodwill towards Beijing in his inauguration speech, and call for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to pursue peace, a senior official briefed on the matter told Reuters.

China claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and has called Lai, 64, a “dangerous separatist” who will bring “war and decline” to the island.

Like Tsai, Lai is a staunch defender of the island’s democracy and in the past has described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence”.

Lai has recently toned down his rhetoric and has repeatedly vowed to maintain the “status quo” on the Taiwan Strait, which means preserving Taiwan’s sovereignty while not declaring formal independence.

The inauguration ceremony will begin at 9am (01.00 GMT) at the Japanese colonial-era Presidential Office Building in Taipei, where Lai and his vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim will be sworn into office.

Lai and Hsiao, who served as Taiwan’s top envoy to Washington, are both part of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has championed Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Lai will later deliver his inaugural speech – which will be scrutinised for clues on how he will handle Taipei’s delicate relationship with Beijing – in front of thousands of people outside the Presidential Office.

__YOUTUBE_MEDIA_PLACEHOLDER_cd7bf2b1-0820-4da1-9a9c-7fc6b8a0ffbe__

Eight heads of state will be among the 51 international delegations, including from the US, Japan and Canada, attending the ceremony in a show of support for the island’s democracy. With only 12 official allies, Taipei lacks diplomatic recognition on the world stage.

More than a thousand performers showcasing traditional operas and dances will take part in a celebration that also includes an air force aerial formation to salute the new president.

China has conducted regular air force and navy activities close to the island since Lai’s January election victory.

Following in Tsai’s footsteps, Lai is expected to boost defence spending and strengthen ties with democratic governments, especially Washington, Taiwan’s key partner and weapons supplier.

Beijing has long threatened to use force to bring Taiwan under its control – especially if the island declares independence – with Xi upping the rhetoric of “unification” being “inevitable”.

Ahead of Lai’s inauguration, Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which handles cross-strait issues, called “Taiwan independence and peace in the strait … like water and fire”.

Chinese warplanes and naval vessels maintain a near-daily presence around the island, and in the week before the swearing-in ceremony, there was an uptick in fighter jets and drones.

On the eve of the inauguration, some Taiwanese were pessimistic about the chances for an improvement in ties. Student Chang Hsin-rui told AFP he expected “the situation in the strait to get worse.”

“We will be caught and seized in the narrowing crack for quite a period,” the 19-year-old said.

But many Taiwanese are less worried about the threat of conflict than they are about soaring housing prices, rising cost of living pressures, and stagnating wages.

Lai has made overtures for resuming high-level communications with China, which Beijing severed in 2016 when Tsai took power, but experts say they are likely to be rebuffed.

The DPP has lost its majority in Taipei’s parliament – where a brawl broke out Friday among lawmakers from all three parties – which could make it difficult for Lai to push through his policies.

With Agence France-Presse and Reuters

Should South Korea ‘scare Kim’ with US nuclear bombs? ‘China and Russia would raise hell’

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3263120/should-south-korea-scare-kim-us-nuclear-bombs-china-and-russia-would-raise-hell?utm_source=rss_feed

The United States should deploy refurbished tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea to “scare” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to an American defence analyst – despite Korean academics’ concerns “China and Russia would raise hell”.

Bruce W. Bennett, a senior analyst with the Rand Corporation, made the suggestion at a security forum in Seoul on Thursday, citing a proposal the US think tank first made in a joint report with the South Korean Asan Institute for Policy Studies last year.

He told the forum that eight to 12 “regime killer” B61 bombs – designed to destroy underground command-and-control headquarters – could be deployed on the peninsula “to scare Kim”, who has reportedly built a vast network of underground shelters across North Korea.

These bombs would serve “both symbolic and operational purposes” as part of a deployment of roughly 180 US nuclear weapons to South Korea over “the next few years”, said the report.

Bennett said at Thursday’s forum that South Korea pays to modernise about 100 of the old tactical nuclear weapons the US has earmarked for dismantling. These could then be stored in the US and brought to South Korea if the North were to attack, he said.

The US last deployed tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea in the 199os and there have been growing calls for their return. But Bennett said renovating the ageing storage facilities in South Korea would prove costly.

China would also likely protest against such a move, he said, citing Beijing’s earlier objections to Seoul’s plans for a US THAAD anti-missile air defence system.

A poll conducted in South Korea at the turn of the year found nine out of 10 respondents thought it would be impossible to denuclearise North Korea, with 73 per cent saying South Korea should develop its own nuclear weapons. The poll commissioned by the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies was conducted by Gallup Korea between December 15 and January 10.

But South Korea developing its own nuclear weapons would constitute a massive expense. Bennett said it would be more economical for Seoul to finance the modernisation of 100 US tactical nuclear weapons, at an estimated cost of 3 trillion won (US$2.2 billion), than spend 1 trillion won on one self-developed weapon.

Unlike the North, South Korea also lacks uranium mines – and would likely face international sanctions if it did start developing its own nuclear weapons.

US public opinion, meanwhile, has steadily turned against defending South Korea. Only 50 per cent of respondents to an opinion poll conducted in September by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs favoured using US troops to defend South Korea in the event of an invasion, down from 63 per cent in 2021, and 55 per cent last year.

A former US defence official under Donald Trump created a stir earlier this month when he said that American forces in South Korea should be overhauled and “not be held hostage to dealing with the North Korean problem”.

“I think we need to have a plan that is based on reality. If you are assuming that the United States is going to break its spear, if you will, fighting North Korea, that is an imprudent assumption,” Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defence for strategy and force development, told Yonhap news agency.

“To the extent that we are currently planning on sending massive amounts of forces to Korea that would decrease our ability to deal with the Chinese, I think we need to revise that.”

“Seoul is reviewing various options” depending on the outcome of November’s US presidential election, Park Won-gon, a political-science professor at Ewha Womans University, told This Week in Asia.

If Joe Biden remains in the White House, Park said it was unlikely that the modernisation proposal would gain much traction as Washington has already agreed to send strategic assets to the peninsula under a nuclear consultative group it agreed with Seoul last year. But he said Trump may have other ideas, depending on South Korea’s willingness to pay.

“Relying on the goodwill of the US president in the face of North Korea’s blatant nuclear threats is extremely dangerous,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank. “US history shows that its defence commitments have not always been kept.”

However, any reintroduction of nuclear weapons to South Korea would likely anger both Beijing and Moscow, according to Yang Moo-jin, head of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

“China and Russia would raise hell with such moves, crying foul as they could be in breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he told This Week in Asia, citing the international treaty to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

“Instead, we had better look back on what was achieved through past negotiations and renew efforts to resume dialogue with the North for a nuclear freeze before moving to the next stage through confidence-building.”

What must China do to avoid a Japan-type recession? Economist Richard Koo adds up why ‘the Chinese situation is far more serious’

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3263104/what-must-china-do-avoid-japan-type-recession-economist-richard-koo-adds-why-chinese-situation-far?utm_source=rss_feed

Richard Koo, chief economist at the Nomura Research Institute, has advised several Japanese prime ministers on economic issues. He is known for elaborating on the notion of a “balance-sheet recession” and explaining how it led to Japan’s so-called Great Recession. This interview first appeared in . For our complete Open Questions series, click .

Whereas a typical recession is considered to be a natural result of fluctuations in the business cycle, a balance-sheet recession is characterised by high levels of private-sector debt that lead to increased saving, which in turn results in an economic slowdown – because of reduced household consumption and declining business investment.

While much of the developed world is tackling elevated inflation, China’s consumer prices have been rising by less that 1 per cent every month for more than a year as consumers save their money and as many businesses wait to see if the government will introduce major stimulus measures before expanding investment.

Ahead of any such moves, Koo spoke with reporter Frank Chen about the Chinese economy, troubles it faces, lessons that can be gleaned from Japan’s missteps, and how Beijing should formulate its response and policy mix.

I have been invited to speak on numerous occasions [in mainland China] and have participated in some policy debates. A lot of economists worry that China may slip into a balance-sheet recession, but there are also other views out there.

Even though China’s first-quarter GDP growth came out to 5.3 per cent, many people remain depressed, not knowing whether manufacturing-led growth [can be sustained] when trade tensions remain so high.

Some say [the economic problems are about] structural reforms, nothing to do with balance sheets. They argue that if we just do a little bit of monetary and fiscal stimulus, everything will be fine.

Those were the typical arguments we heard in Japan 30 years ago when [its troubles began]. The country constantly tried all types of structural-reform policies, but it took 20 years to come out of that mess.

The United States, on the other hand, had those [arguments] too during the onset [of the recession following the 2008 financial crisis], but within the first two years, [former Federal Reserve chair] Ben Bernanke read my book and realised that it was a balance-sheet recession. Once he realised it, he started pushing for fiscal stimulus [with the famous phrase “fiscal cliff”], which went against his original judgment that monetary policy alone could solve all these problems. So, the US came out of that [recession] relatively quickly.

Top European policymakers did not buy the balance-sheet recession theory at all. So, they kept on pushing for structural reforms and wasted years. Europe took almost twice as long as the US to come out of the same balance-sheet recession.

So, if you put the right policies in place, you come out of the recession relatively quickly. But if not, you could be stuck in there for a very long time.

Yes.

On the size of the fiscal stimulus, I say when you’re going to make a mistake, make sure you make the mistake of having the stimulus be too big instead of too small. It has to be big, because a balance-sheet recession can kill the economy very quickly.

If [the stimulus] is too small and the economy starts weakening quickly – and only at that moment do you decide [to implement] a bigger one – the cost will be much larger than had you started with the right amount in the first place.

If you allow the Chinese economy to suffer a very bad affliction, and then you try to help it recover, the consequences could be dire, given its sheer size and the weight it carries globally.

The response I get from those sceptical about the balance-sheet recession in China is: we tried a big stimulus in 2008, and that created all sorts of problems a few years later, so we don’t want to repeat the same mistake. This seems to be the main consideration nowadays.

Here is my counterargument: when the Chinese government announced the 4 trillion yuan package [in November 2008] to maintain 8 per cent growth, economists around the world were laughing. They asked how China could maintain such growth with a great dependency on exports when the whole global economy was collapsing and Chinese stocks by then were already down 70 per cent from the peak.

But one year later, China recorded 11.9 per cent growth in Q1 2010, and nobody was laughing. That growth helped restore confidence in no small way, because people had thought that China would go down just like the US, Europe and Japan. And more confidence helped increase consumption and investments and got the economy moving again.

The 4 trillion yuan package, of course, was a bit too big down the road, with too much debt and overinvestment.

So, the lesson is that you put a big stimulus in first, to win back confidence that the government can maintain growth. And then, once you get the economy moving again, you start reducing your stimulus. [In the 2008 experience,] China recorded much higher growth the following year, so China should have started cutting the package.

I think this is also what we need today: a big package, and the package should be for a long term to assure people. When people feel confident, some may actually increase consumption and investment, then we get out of this thing faster.

So, you put in a very assuring package, let’s say for five years. And if, in the second year, the economy is already recovering, you start trimming it so that the economy won’t become overheated.

Given that the Chinese economy is so much bigger now, you would need more than 4 trillion yuan (US$552 billion). For the announcement part, I would recommend a very big package, and you need to explain to people why we need it now.

If I were the finance minister, I’d be on television explaining this: look, the private sector is in a balance-sheet repair mode. The problem is that people are all doing the right things, trying to regain financial health and repair balance sheets. But if everyone does this at the same time, you will kill the economy.

This is what we call the fallacy of composition.

And we must try not to cut stimulus prematurely, because that’s the one huge mistake Japan made in 1997.

When the bubble burst there in 1990, Japan put in a stimulus, so its GDP growth was maintained. Japan’s GDP, by the way, never fell below the peak of the bubble. This is in spite of the fact that its commercial real estate values fell 87 per cent nationwide, and the amount of wealth the country lost was equivalent to three years worth of Japan’s GDP in 1989.

That was a remarkable feat.

But in 1997, the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development told Japan: your budget deficit is too large [and you should stop]. I was advising Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto back then, and I was the only one against cutting the stimulus. I said if you cut, the economy will come crashing down.

But the PM decided to cut. Then Japan had five consecutive quarters of negative growth and a complete breakdown in the banking system. And eventually, Japan’s budget deficit also increased. It took Japan 10 years to bring its deficit back to the level of 1996, to come out of the hole; it wasted 10 years with that one mistake in 1997.

I hope China will not repeat that mistake of removing stimulus prematurely, particularly when the private sector is still repairing balance sheets. Only when private businesses are coming back to borrow, that’s the time to remove a stimulus.

Specifically, to begin with, Beijing should do whatever it takes to complete all unfinished homes. The reason is that if you want to do a big stimulus, you have to come up with a plan for projects you’ll put the money in.

But the planning to identify a pipeline of projects and design them will take time – probably a year and a half. That means you could end up wasting a lot of time during this process when the economy is already faltering.

If the Chinese government uses the money to complete unfinished apartments, this will allow the money to start circulating in the economy faster. Then you bring the best and brightest people in China to come up with new projects that can earn a social rate of return higher than 2.4 per cent.

I say the social rate of return because if the private sector invests in infrastructure projects, it will not collect all of the benefits, because of what economists call externalities, or a consequence of an economic activity that affects other people or things without these effects being reflected in market prices. But the government can collect the externalities.

And why 2.4 per cent? Because the yield on 10-year government bonds in China is 2.4 per cent. So, if the project earns more than that, it will be self-sustaining financially to pay the interest and won’t become a burden on taxpayers in the future. And one of the key characteristics of a balance-sheet recession is that, with the private sector deleveraging, government-bond yield comes down to levels unthinkable in ordinary times.

So, for now, complete all of the unfinished homes. And in the meantime, prepare for financially viable, shovel-ready projects to be launched in a year or so. Delivering homes to these buyers will also boost confidence. Lots of them have put in all their savings as down payments.

What China is facing right now is a combination of stagnation and a shrinking, ageing population.

Japan’s population was still increasing for 19 years after the bubble burst. But in China, population decline and the bursting of the bubble started roughly at the same time, around 2022 and 2023. So, the Chinese situation is far more serious than that of Japan 30 years ago.

For homebuyers with borrowed money, they want to make sure the value of their apartments will rise. But that’s not the case if the population is declining. In most places throughout China, other than top-tier cities, it’s very difficult to make the argument that home prices will continue to go up.

A declining population is worsening China’s balance-sheet recession because people have reduced expectations of home prices recovering or rising. This is something Japan never had to worry about because its population was still increasing back then.

So, China today could be staring down a deeper cliff because the population decline started at almost the same time as the emerging balance-sheet recession and deflation.

On the other hand, the biggest advantage China has over Japan is that so many Chinese are already talking about a balance-sheet recession. Back in the 1990s in Japan, no one knew anything about this disease. And if the [Chinese] government uses this advantage and puts in a big stimulus, then nothing may happen because the economy may not collapse.

Back in Japan 30 years ago, we never realised that the private sector would choose to minimise debt even at a zero per cent interest rate, because that’s not in our economics textbooks. We wasted so much time doing the wrong things and then allowed the asset prices to collapse.

But if China understands what’s going on, explains to the public that this is a balance-sheet recession, and assures people that the government won’t pull the plug [on stimulus] until private sector balance sheets are repaired, then people will feel safe and will continue to spend and invest.

Beijing is probably of the view that home prices haven’t fallen all that much, at least as gauged by official statistics, thinking the damage to the private sector balance sheet should not be that large.

But my counterargument is that a balance-sheet recession sets in when people start believing that they are chasing the wrong asset prices. It’s that moment.

When Japan fell into balance-sheet recession in 1990, a lot of people were in denial too. They said real estate prices never fell for the last 55 years so it would just be a small correction. But once people realised they were chasing the wrong asset prices, panicked and changed their behaviour, that was the moment [Japan] slipped into a balance-sheet recession.

Many people in China already feel as though home prices cannot rise further, so they want to deleverage. If people start feeling that this is a bad situation and change their behaviour, then at that moment a balance-sheet recession has arrived.

Well, that all depends on if Chinese entrepreneurs are free to pursue their dreams; if there are few restrictions or constraints; if the global market is fully open to Chinese products; and if China is fully open to foreign investments from the US, Japan or wherever. If all of these favourable conditions are still in place, I’m sure China will surpass the US in a few years. But today, unfortunately, that’s not the case.

Many in China are very worried about their own future, and they’ve become very cautious. Foreign markets are becoming less open and less friendly to Chinese products, and foreign direct investment is not flowing into China the way it used to. So, I’m afraid that the day [of China overtaking the US in GDP] may never come if we stay on the current path.

It also appears that geopolitics is something that Beijing’s economic policymakers cannot control. But domestically, Beijing has quite a lot to do, especially on how to further unleash the entrepreneurship of its people to make sure that private businesses can feel confident again to invest.

So, it depends on Beijing’s choice of policies: whether Beijing will continue to put politics and national security above the economy. Beijing has shown quite the tendency to do that.

Many Chinese entrepreneurs who previously thought of investing to expand capacity may now feel that foreign markets aren’t as open as before. The US, Europe and Japan, or the “West”, account for 56 per cent of global GDP, and their average per capita GDP is US$60,000. Then there are India, Russia, Africa and Latin America, which represent 26 per cent of global GDP, with their average per capita GDP of US$13,000. So, it’s like 1/5 of the West.

If I were a Chinese entrepreneur selling products, when 56 per cent of the global market is not going to be as open as before, and I have to rely on this remaining 26 per cent, I would be very careful and cautious. I don’t want to invest or expand when I realise there’s no market for it. So, I think that may be one of the reasons why Chinese entrepreneurs are becoming more cautious.

The US government has always judged China not just on how it deals with the US, but how it deals with its smaller neighbours, and it’s there that things are not going very well: recently, with the Philippines, and with all of these other countries, there are a lot of tensions.

I will recommend that China be a little more careful with its neighbours, because Americans and the West are watching very carefully. How China treats its smaller neighbours may affect the degree to which the Western market remains open to Chinese products.

Even if China moves in a different direction, there are so many other countries out there waiting for Chinese factories to come. Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Bangladesh. They all work very hard to make themselves attractive so that more factories will move there, including Chinese ones.

So, this is very different from the first 30 years of China’s opening – what I call the easy part of China’s development, in my book. Back then, China was the only game in town: it had everything going for it, so it became the world’s factory. But today, other countries have learned from China and said: we have to fix our infrastructure and our customs duty procedures, we have to educate our people. And then these countries become big competitors.

If I were the Chinese government, I would drop this belief that, no matter what, foreign companies will come to invest in China. That was true for the first 30 years, but not any more. China has to make itself attractive again so more factories will come and stay in China.

The Chinese market is so big, [foreign firms] should stay in China. But the fact that so many of them are moving out suggests to me that there’s some room for improvement.

So, China may suffer from reduced investments and exports because of all of the decoupling and so forth. But other countries will benefit from it. Vietnam will benefit massively from this. India, Indonesia, the Philippines – they all might benefit from it. China’s misery can be its neighbours’ fortune.

So, if you look at the global economy as a whole, it might not make all that much difference, even though the Chinese economy is slowing down. It’s not like a global catastrophe scenario.

My first trip was in 1992, I think. And those people [in Shanghai] were the host and it was the first big international meeting after the Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing in 1989. And so they tried to put in a lot of good stuff for the meeting. Very interesting for me, too. That was quite a big image-rebuilding effort, especially by Shanghai, which is more like an economic city.

The infrastructure has improved dramatically, with the greatest economic growth in human history. People were able to unleash their energy. Chinese people are very entrepreneurial people, and their energy was released and they produced something absolutely remarkable.

The past 10 years haven’t been so great, and all the reforms appear to have stalled, despite all the lofty promises. For the last 10 years, the economic performance has been somewhat mixed.

I remember that period very well in the 1990s in Japan, when companies were cutting hiring. Only those with good grades and excellent experience got jobs. Others had to lower their expectations.

But in the meantime, Japan’s GDP never fell below the peak of the bubble. So, most people had a decent standard of living. Streets remained safe and clean, with social services readily available. So, if GDP stays the same and your social structure remains intact and people help each other, then [recession] won’t be so bad.

If the social structure and bond aren’t so strong in China, and things start falling apart, it could get much uglier. A lot depends on the society as a whole and how well young people will be able to cope with difficulties.

And the challenges in China remain formidable because of high youth unemployment.

I would argue that if young people think life is just like an escalator – you go to a good school and get out of a top university and get a good job – I’m afraid that world is gone. The certainty is gone. You have to be more flexible, you have to adapt.

You have to keep your eyes open to developments outside the narrow field you specialise in. It’s important to have the kind of flexibility and willingness to learn more, to constantly upskill yourself and try different options and career paths.

---

Taiwan swears in new president, stands up to Chinese aggression

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/19/taiwan-new-president-lai-ching-te/2024-05-10T04:09:31.504Z

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan will on Monday inaugurate Lai Ching-te as its new leader, ushering in an unprecedented third consecutive presidential term for the Democratic Progressive Party, which has transformed the island democracy into a bulwark against Chinese aggression and brushed off increasingly ominous threats from Beijing.

Lai — vice president under outgoing leader Tsai Ing-wen, who has reached her two-term limit — has vowed to continue his predecessor’s defense and foreign policy approach of trying to avoid inflaming tensions with China while also standing up for Taiwan’s freedoms and way of life.

“We stand at the forefront of the fight against authoritarian expansion,” Lai told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit last week. “Despite Beijing’s efforts, the people of Taiwan have rejected authoritarianism. China’s coercion has only strengthened our resolve to remain democratic and free. We refuse to submit to fear. We choose optimism and hope.”

China has ramped up its military aggression around the island over the past two years, especially during politically sensitive times, in an apparent effort to intimidate the Taiwanese people and exhaust their military. Beijing is expected to again make its unhappiness with Lai’s inauguration known, although experts say they are not expecting outright confrontation.

Lai, once a scrappy advocate for Taiwanese independence, has since tempered his views and is now a key proponent of the DPP’s efforts to maintain peace with Beijing while repelling its aggression. He has said he is open to talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping but only as equals, which is unacceptable to Xi. The Chinese Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan but claims the island as its territory.

Although the DPP narrowly lost its majority in parliament in the election in January, Lai’s victory underscores the dramatic transformation that has taken place in Taiwan during the eight years of Tsai’s presidency.

“Xi Jinping’s efforts at soft power are failing, and he is forcing unification without caring about Taiwan’s public opinion,” said Lai I-chung, president of the Prospect Foundation think tank in Taipei and no relation to the new president.

Taiwan’s sense of its own identity has increased over the past eight years under Tsai. “Taiwanese people have also gained a very high level of confidence,” he said.

The Taiwanese commitment to self-determination grew stronger with China’s suppression of pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong in 2019 and its subsequent efforts to stamp out civil society and free speech. A widely cited survey conducted by National Chengchi University since 1992 shows the number of Taiwanese who identify as solely Chinese — as opposed to Taiwanese, or both — has plummeted from 25 percent then to 2 percent now.

Even the main opposition party, the more China-friendly Kuomintang, has had to temper its embrace of Beijing, pledging during the presidential campaign to boost the defense budget.

Tsai’s pioneering presidency

Tsai, known for her soft-spoken and bookish demeanor, became Taiwan’s first female president in 2016 and has led the island to become one of the most progressive places in the region, especially for LGBTQ+ rights. During the pandemic, Taiwan emerged as one of few places in the world that successfully controlled the spread of the virus through a variety of countermeasures, raising Tsai’s profile around the world as the “covid crusher.”

She spearheaded several defense reforms, including extending military service for Taiwanese men from four months to one year, and launched Taiwan’s first domestically produced submarine. She also enhanced Taiwan’s reputation in the world by strengthening ties with the United States and other friendly democracies.

“She was by no means a perfect president, but she did so much for Taiwan internationally that no one ever thought possible,” said Lev Nachman, political scientist at the National Chengchi University. “I really think her foreign policy is going to be remembered by just how much she has done to create more allies for Taiwan in spaces we did not know existed before, like in Eastern Europe.”

At the same time, however, the number of countries that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan has plummeted as China has steadily picked them off one by one, including by cutting trade and aid deals with them. Now only 11 countries and the Vatican recognize Taiwan — 10 fewer countries than when Tsai took office.

A month after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, he spoke with Tsai by phone — a first between the leaders of the United States and Taiwan since 1979 — breaching decades-long U.S. protocol and heralding the Trump administration’s more confrontational approach with Beijing.

Still, Tsai toed a delicate balance between asserting Taiwanese sovereignty while not going so far as to promote full independence, a move that would trigger Beijing, experts say.

The question now, analysts say, is exactly how Lai will carry out his promise of continuity and how Beijing will react. Beijing has criticized Lai as a separatist and “troublemaker” despite his efforts to distance himself from early advocacy for formal independence.

“Regardless of whether it’s true, the perception is that Lai Ching-te’s policy could be more provocative compared to Tsai’s policy,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Washington-based Stimson Center.

“Tsai basically tailored her positions and her steps very carefully without getting the United States into an uncomfortable position vis-à-vis China,” Yun said. “The challenge for her successor is whether he will be able to repeat that process.”

Hurdles ahead

Lai will indeed face some new challenges.

The DPP is struggling to push its agenda after losing its parliamentary majority in January. The Kuomintang and Taiwan People’s Party recently blocked a DPP proposal requiring lawmakers who are privy to confidential briefings to get approval from security services before visiting China. On Friday, a brawl over a contentious parliament reform bill sent six lawmakers to the hospital and sparked a demonstration outside the legislature.

The Chinese Communist Party asserts sovereignty over the self-governing island of 23 million people and considers it a breakaway state that it is willing to seize by force if necessary. Xi has repeatedly said that “reunification” is “inevitable,” even though Taiwan has never been ruled by the CCP.

Instead, Taiwan exists in a kind of gray zone where it has its own passport and currency, and holds democratic elections, but is not a fully fledged country. It cannot be a full member of United Nations organizations and its athletes compete at the Olympics under the banner of “Chinese Taipei.”

Diplomacy exists in the same limbo. The United States has maintained formal relations with China since 1979, under a one-China policy that acknowledges Beijing’s claims over Taiwan without endorsing them. But it also has less formal ties with Taiwan, operating the American Institute in Taiwan — an embassy in all but name — and selling arms to Taiwan to help it defend itself.

The Biden administration, keeping with the practice of previous administrations, is sending a bipartisan delegation of former U.S. government officials to Lai’s inauguration Monday, a senior administration official told reporters.

Lai is unlikely to make provocative statements during his inauguration speech Monday. Washington has unofficially consulted with Taipei on the content of Lai’s remarks, as it did with his predecessor, a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.

Beijing is unlikely to respond in a manner that escalates tensions with Washington, many analysts say. “I don’t think Xi Jinping and other senior Chinese leaders want immediate trouble with Taiwan,” said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Nonetheless, the administration is concerned by continued Chinese attempts to intimidate Taiwan by more frequently sending warships and fighter jets across the median line that acts as an unofficial border between China and Taiwan.

Last week, Taiwan’s defense ministry said Chinese forces carried out a “joint combat readiness patrol” near the island, marking the largest warplane incursion this year and ratcheting up tensions days before the inauguration.

Despite the respect she gained on the international stage, Tsai is leaving her successor with a host of unresolved domestic issues.

Some Taiwanese businesses are unhappy with declining trade with China under Tsai’s watch, and her party has faced corruption scandals.

Many Taiwanese, especially the younger generation, are struggling with stagnant wages and high housing prices.

“Tsai Ing-wen has improved Taiwan’s international status, and the people’s pride has also increased. But if you ask young people about the current life problems they care about, things have not improved,” said Lai of the Prospect Foundation. “Lai Ching-te will have to deal with these issues.”

Pei Lin Wu in Taipei and Ellen Nakashima in Washington contributed to this report.

Vietnam“s Trade Surplus with US Depends on China

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/vietnam-trade-surplus-with-us-depend-on-china/7615182.html

As the United States increases tariffs to reduce trade with China, it has greatly increased imports from Vietnam. The Southeast Asian country, however, depends on China for much of its exports to the U.S.

The Reuters news agency recently studied information from the World Bank and economic experts. It shows that the value of China’s exports to Vietnam almost matches the value of exports from Vietnam to the U.S. in recent years.

Last year, the U.S. imported over $114 billions of goods from Vietnam. That was more than two times more than 2018 when U.S.-China trade disputes began. That increase happened as U.S. imports from China dropped by $110 billion.

Hung Nguyen is an expert in supply chains, or networks of product suppliers, with RMIT University Vietnam. He said, that in important industries such as clothing and electronic equipment, "Vietnam captured more than 60 percent of China's loss.”

However, data show that much of Vietnam’s exports to the U.S. are parts, or components, produced in China.

The Asian Development Bank estimates that imported parts account for 80 percent of the value of Vietnam's electronic exports in 2022.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a report that 90 percent of goods imported by Vietnam's electronics and clothing industries in 2020 were then "embodied in exports." That number, the organization said, was higher than in earlier years and far above the average in industrialized countries.

In the first three months of 2024, U.S. imports from Vietnam added up to $29 billion, while Vietnam's imports from China totaled $30.5 billion.

Darren Tay is the lead economist at the research company BMI. He said, "The surge in Chinese imports in Vietnam coinciding with the increase in Vietnamese exports to the U.S. may be seen by the U.S. as Chinese firms using Vietnam to skirt the additional tariffs imposed on their goods." He noted that could lead to tariffs against Vietnam after the U.S. presidential elections.

Vietnam now has the fourth-largest trade surplus with the U.S. That surplus is only smaller than the ones the U.S. has with China, Mexico, and the European Union.

The growing trade imbalance comes as Vietnam seeks “market economy” treatment from the United States. U.S. President Joe Biden has pushed to increase diplomatic ties.

The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi did not comment on trade imbalances. Vietnam's foreign and trade ministries did not answer requests for comment. And China's commerce ministry did not immediately answer a request for comment from Reuters.

Cotton and panels

The increase in China-Vietnam-U.S. trade takes place as investments in Southeast Asian countries rise. Companies involved in the area are moving some of their activities from China. Many Chinese companies set up new factories in Vietnam. But they still heavily depend on supplies from their homeland.

After a 2023 investigation, the U.S. Commerce Department found that some of the trade was just a way to place “Made in Vietnam” on finished solar panels to avoid tariffs.

Another reason Vietnam is getting U.S. attention is its involvement in the Xinjiang area in China. The U.S. bans imports from the area over accusations of human rights violations against minority Uyghurs.

Xinjiang is China's main producer of cotton and polysilicon, a material used to make solar panels. Both are important to Vietnamese industries. Vietnam’s clothing and solar panels accounted for about nine percent of exports to the U.S. last year. Vietnam surpassed China as the main exporter of products covered by the Xinjiang ban last year, said Hung Nguyen of RMIT.

The Biden administration has remained quiet about Vietnam's large trade surplus. Some experts say that may change after the November elections in the U.S.

Nguyen Ba Hung is an economist at the Asian Development Bank. He said it is possible that “…whoever wins may change the policy towards Vietnam.” But that would also risk increasing U.S. import costs.

I’m Mario Ritter, Jr.

 

Francesco Guarascio reported this story for Reuters. Hai Do adapted it for VOA Learning English.

 

__________________________________________________

 

Words in This Story

embody –v. to show or be representative of a condition or situation

surge –v. to increase suddenly

coincide –v. to take place at the same time

skirt –v. to narrowly avoid

solar panel –n. a flat device that produces electrical current from sunlight

 

We want to hear from you.

Our comment policy is here.