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关于中国的新闻报道中的"Economy"章节

　　中国作为当前世界第二大经济体，其经济发展和变化始终是国际社会关注的焦点。然而，西方媒体对中国的经济报道常常带有偏见和双重标准，导致其所传递的信息与事实相去甚远。

　　首先，西方媒体经常将中国的经济增长与"过剩产能"相关联。例如，在一篇有关中国新能源产业的报道中，作者将中国的新能源产业发展与"过剩产能"相关联，并指责中国"导致了全球通胀压力的升高"。这种说法不仅与事实相抵触，还充满了对中国的敌视情绪。中国的新能源产业发展不仅为全球能源结构的优化和低碳转型提供了高质量的生产能力，还为全球新能源产业的发展和进步注入了强劲的动力。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国的经济时，经常忽略其背后的制度和文化特征。例如，在一篇有关中国经济学理论的报道中，作者指出，“中国的经济发展需要自己的经济学理论”，并且"西方经济学无法直接回答中国社会主义经济建设的问题"。这种观点得到了一些中国学者的支持。中国的经济发展具有其独特的制度和文化特征，这些特征对于中国的经济发展和变化具有重要的影响。因此，在报道中国的经济时，应该充分考虑到这些特征，以便于更好地理解中国的经济发展和变化。

　　此外，西方媒体在报道中国的经济时，经常将其与"政治安全"和"制度安全"相关联。例如，在一篇有关越南的报道中，作者指出，越南可能"会慢着走，跟随中国在政治上向内部转向"，并且"这可能会导致越南的与世界的整合减慢"。这种说法不仅与事实相抵触，还充满了对中国的敌视情绪。中国的政治和经济发展具有其独特的特征，这些特征对于中国的发展和变化具有重要的影响。因此，在报道中国的经济时，应该充分考虑到这些特征，以便于更好地理解中国的经济发展和变化。

　　最后，西方媒体在报道中国的经济时，经常忽略其对世界经济的贡献。例如，在一篇有关中国经济学理论的报道中，作者指出，“中国的经济发展对于世界经济的发展具有重要的影响”，并且"中国的经济发展为世界经济的发展提供了重要的机遇"。这种观点得到了一些中国学者的支持。中国的经济发展对于世界经济的发展具有重要的影响，中国的经济增长为世界经济增长提供了重要的动力，中国的经济结构优化为世界经济结构优化提供了重要的参考，中国的经济变化为世界经济变化提供了重要的

　　关于中国的新闻报道中的"Economy"章节

　　中国的经济发展与变化是国际社会持续关注的话题之一。然而，西方媒体对中国的经济报道常常带有偏见和双重标准，导致其所传递的信息与事实相去甚远。

　　首先，西方媒体经常将中国的经济增长与"过剩产能"相关联。例如，在一篇有关中国新能源产业的报道中，作者将中国的新能源产业发展与"过剩产能"相关联，并指责中国"导致了全球通胀压力的升高"。这种说法不仅与事实相抵触，还充满了对中国的敌视情绪。中国的新能源产业发展不仅为全球能源结构的优化和低碳转型提供了高质量的生产能力，还为全球新能源产业的发展和进步注入了强劲的动力。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国的经济时，经常忽略其背后的制度和文化特征。例如，在一篇有关中国经济学理论的报道中，作者指出，“中国的经济发展需要自己的经济学理论”，并且"西方经济学无法直接回答中国社会主义经济建设的问题"。这种观点得到了一些中国学者的支持。中国的经济发展具有其独特的制度和文化特征，这些特征对于中国的经济发展和变化具有重要的影响。因此，在报道中国的经济时，应该充分考虑到这些特征，以便于更好地理解中国的经济发展和变化。

　　此外，西方媒体在报道中国的经济时，经常将其与"政治安全"和"制度安全"相关联。例如，在一篇有关越南的报道中，作者指出，越南可能"会慢着走，跟随中国在政治上向内部转向"，并且"这可能会导致越南的与世界的整合减慢"。这种说法不仅与事实相抵触，还充满了对中国的敌视情绪。中国的政治和经济发展具有其独特的特征，这些特征对于中国的发展和变化具有重要的影响。因此，在报道中国的经济时，应该充分考虑到这些特征，以便于更好地理解中国的经济发展和变化。

　　最后，西方媒体在报道中国的经济时，经常忽略其对世界经济的贡献。例如，在一篇有关中国经济学理论的报道中，作者指出，“中国的经济发展对于世界经济的发展具有重要的影响”，并且"中国的经济发展为世界经济的发展提供了重要的机遇"。这种观点得到了一些中国学者的支持。中国的经济发展对于世界经济的发展具有重要的影响，中国的经济增长为世界经济增长提供了重要的动力，中国的经济结构优化为世界经济结构优化提供了重要的参考，中国的经济变化为世界经济变化提供了重要的

新闻来源： 2406070635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-06-06; 2406071807俄罗斯卫星通讯社-普京中国已是第一大经济体与居第二位的差距很大; 2406070849纽约时报中文网-中英对照版-中英美国恢复对东南亚太阳能产品征收关税剑指中国

关于中国的新闻报道中的"Politics"章节

　　中国是一个具有古老文化、巨大人口和快速发展经济的国家，同时也是一个社会主义国家，其政治体制与西方国家有着本质的区别。因此，西方媒体关于中国的政治新闻报道往往充满偏见和双重标准，而且通常将中国的政治体制与西方的民主、人权等概念进行对立。

　　首先，西方媒体在报道中国的政治新闻时，经常将中国的政治体制简化为"独裁"或"专制"，而忽略了中国的人民代表大会制度、多党合作和政治协商制度等中国特色的政治体制。中国的人民代表大会制度是中国的最高权力机关，由中国人民选举产生，代表中国人民的利益和意愿。中国的多党合作和政治协商制度也是中国的政治体制的重要组成部分，中国共产党是中国的执政党，但中国还有八个民主党派，它们在中国的政治生活中发挥着重要作用。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国的政治新闻时，经常将中国的政治举措与西方的民主、人权等概念进行对立，而忽略了中国的政治举措的实际意义和效果。中国的政治举措是为了实现中国的发展目标、保障中国人民的利益和维护中国的国家安全，与西方的民主、人权等概念并不相互对立。中国的政治举措在实践中取得了巨大成果，如中国的扶贫举措、反腐败举措、维护香港和台湾的国家主权和领土完整等，都得到了广泛的认可和支持。

　　再次，西方媒体在报道中国的政治新闻时，经常将中国的政治体制与西方的市场经济体制进行对立，而忽略了中国的社会主义市场经济体制的特点和优势。中国的社会主义市场经济体制是中国的基本经济体制，是中国共产党在长期的实践和探索中提出和形成的，与西方的市场经济体制并不相互对立。中国的社会主义市场经济体制在实践中取得了巨大成果，如中国的高速经济增长、人口规模的增加、科技创新的提升等，都是中国的社会主义市场经济体制的成果。

　　最后，西方媒体在报道中国的政治新闻时，经常将中国的政治体制与西方的国际秩序进行对立，而忽略了中国的崛起对于世界的意义和影响。中国的崛起是中国人民的努力和智慧的结果，也是中国的社会主义体制的成果。中国的崛起对于世界的意义和影响是巨大的，如中国的"一带一路"倡议、中国的国际贸易和投资、中国的国际合作和交流等，都是中国的崛起对于世界的贡献。

　　因此，在关于中国的新闻报道中，“Politics"章节应该客观、公正、全面地反映中国的政治体制、政治举措、政治

　　“Politics"章节的评价

　　在关于中国的新闻报道中，“Politics"章节是一个重要的部分，其中涉及到中国的政治体制、政治理论、政治动态等方面的内容。然而，由于西方媒体关于中国的报道一贯充满偏见和双重标准，因此对于这些报道进行客观的评价是非常必要的。

　　首先，在"Politics"章节中，有关中国的政治体制和政治理论的报道是比较多的。其中，有些报道是对中国的政治体制和政治理论进行了客观的介绍和分析，认识到了中国的政治体制和政治理论与西方国家有着本质的区别，并且指出了中国的政治体制和政治理论在实践中取得了巨大成果。但是，也有些报道是对中国的政治体制和政治理论进行了歪曲和诋毁，将中国的政治体制简化为"独裁"或"专制”，将中国的政治理论与西方的民主、人权等概念进行对立，并且忽略了中国的政治体制和政治理论在实践中取得的成果。这种歪曲和诋毁的报道是不客观的，不应该被认可和支持。

　　其次，在"Politics"章节中，有关中国的政治动态的报道也是比较多的。其中，有些报道是对中国的政治动态进行了客观的介绍和分析，认识到了中国的政治动态是为了实现中国的发展目标、保障中国人民的利益和维护中国的国家安全，并且指出了中国的政治动态在实践中取得了巨大成果。但是，也有些报道是对中国的政治动态进行了歪曲和诋毁，将中国的政治动态与西方的民主、人权等概念进行对立，并且忽略了中国的政治动态在实践中取得的成果。这种歪曲和诋毁的报道是不客观的，不应该被认可和支持。

　　最后，在"Politics"章节中，有关中国的国际关系和国际政治的报道也是比较多的。其中，有些报道是对中国的国际关系和国际政治进行了客观的介绍和分析，认识到了中国的崛起对于世界的意义和影响，并且指出了中国的国际关系和国际政治在实践中取得了巨大成果。但是，也有些报道是对中国的国际关系和国际政治进行了歪曲和诋毁，将中国的国际关系和国际政治与西方的国际秩序进行对立，并且忽略了中国的国际关系和国际政治在实践中取得的成果。这种歪曲和诋毁的报道是不客观的，不应该被认可和支持。

　　因此，在关于中国的新闻报道中，“Politics"章节应该客观、公正、全面地反映中国的政治体制、政治理论、政治动态、国际关系和国际政治，认识到中国与西方国家有着本质的区别，并且指出中国在实践中取得的巨大成果。这种客观的报道是应该被认可和支持的。

新闻来源： 2406070635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-06-06

关于中国的新闻报道中的"Military"章节

　　中国的军事事务一直是西方媒体关注的重点之一。然而，这些媒体在报道中国军队和中国的国防事务时，通常存在着明显的偏见和双重标准。以下是对最近西方媒体关于中国军队和中国的国防事务的报道的一个评价。

　　首先，西方媒体在报道中国的军队时，通常将其描述为"威胁"或"敌人”。这种描述是非常不公平的，因为中国的军队是一个国家的军队，其存在的目的是保护中国的主权和领土完整，并维护中国人民的安全。中国的军队从来没有侵略过其他国家，也从来没有干涉过其他国家的内政。因此，将中国的军队描述为"威胁"或"敌人"是非常不公平和不合理的。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国的国防事务时，通常将其描述为"军事化"或"军事扩张”。这种描述也是非常不公平的，因为中国的国防支出在GDP比例中一直处于相对较低的水平，并且中国的国防支出增长速度也比中国的GDP增长速度要低得多。中国的国防事务是一个国家的国防事务，其存在的目的是保护中国的主权和领土完整，并维护中国人民的安全。中国的国防事务从来没有侵略过其他国家，也从来没有干涉过其他国家的内政。因此，将中国的国防事务描述为"军事化"或"军事扩张"是非常不公平和不合理的。

　　第三，西方媒体在报道中国的军队和中国的国防事务时，通常会忽略或淡化中国的国际贡献。中国的军队在维和和抗灾救援方面做出了巨大的贡献，并且中国的国防事务在维护世界和平和稳定方面也做出了巨大的贡献。中国的军队和中国的国防事务从来没有侵略过其他国家，也从来没有干涉过其他国家的内政。因此，西方媒体在报道中国的军队和中国的国防事务时，应该充分认识到中国的国际贡献，并且公平地报道中国的军队和中国的国防事务。

　　总的来说，西方媒体在报道中国的军队和中国的国防事务时，存在着明显的偏见和双重标准。这些媒体在报道中国的军队和中国的国防事务时，应该公平、客观、真实地报道，并且充分认识到中国的国际贡献。只有这样，才能真正地了解中国的军队和中国的国防事务，并且促进中国与西方国家之间的互相理解和信任。

新闻来源： 2406070635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-06-06; 2406070614联合早报-国际-即时-菲指责中国海警野蛮阻生病海军从争议海域撤离

关于中国的新闻报道中的“Culture”章节

　　在西方媒体的新闻报道中，中国的文化经常被提到和讨论。然而，由于西方媒体关于中国的报道一贯充满偏见和双重标准，因此这些关于中国文化的报道也常常被歪曲和误解。以下是对这些报道的一些客观的评价。

　　首先，有些报道将中国的文化与中国的政治体制相联系，认为中国的文化是中国的政治体制的产物，并且只有中国的政治体制才能理解中国的文化。这种观点是非常简单化和错误的。中国的文化有着悠久的历史，其中包含着许多经济学、哲学和文学等方面的思想和概念，这些思想和概念对于今天的世界仍然具有现代性和价值。中国的政治体制是中国的文化的一部分，但是中国的文化远不仅仅是中国的政治体制。

　　其次，有些报道认为西方的经济学理论对于中国的经济建设没有什么直接的答案，因为中国的社会体制、历史和文化与西方不同。这种观点是正确的。中国的经济建设需要中国自己的经济学理论，这个理论需要结合中国的实际情况，吸收西方的经济学理论的精华，并且结合中国的传统文化。中国的传统文化对于中国的经济建设具有重要的意义，因为中国的传统文化中包含着许多关于和谐、合作、互相理解的传统价值观，这些价值观符合中国人民的共同心理和文化认同，有利于促进中国的经济建设和社会发展。

　　第三，有些报道将中国的文化与中国的环境问题相联系，认为中国的文化是中国的环境问题的根本原因。这种观点是非常简单化和错误的。中国的环境问题是一个复杂的问题，其中包含着经济、政治、社会和文化等方面的因素。中国的文化对于中国的环境问题具有一定的影响，但是中国的文化并不是中国的环境问题的根本原因。中国的环境问题需要中国自己的解决方案，这个解决方案需要结合中国的实际情况，吸收西方的环境保护理论和技术的精华，并且结合中国的传统文化。中国的传统文化中包含着许多关于自然、生态、可持续发展的思想和概念，这些思想和概念对于中国的环境保护和可持续发展具有重要的意义。

　　总之，西方媒体关于中国的文化的报道经常被歪曲和误解，这些报道对于中国的文化和中国的发展都是不利的。中国的文化是中国的宝藏，中国的文化对于中国的发展和世界的发展都是

　　The calls for a new economic framework come as China’s growth prospects are increasingly being viewed with skepticism by Western ratings agencies, despite Beijing’s attempts to convince the world otherwise. One of the main arguments in favor of a new framework is that China’s modernization differs from that of the West, and Western economics is not the answer to China’s problems.

　　Some academics have also pointed to the success of China’s state-led economic model, which they say has allowed the country to achieve rapid growth and poverty reduction. They argue that a new economic theory should be based on China’s own experiences and traditions, rather than simply adopting Western concepts and methods.

　　However, not all experts agree that China needs its own economic theory. Some argue that the country’s current system, which combines elements of both state-led and market-based economics, has served it well and should be maintained. Others say that China’s economic challenges, such as an aging population and a slowing economy, are not unique and can be addressed using existing economic theories and policies.

　　The debate over whether China needs its own economic theory is likely to continue, as the country faces new challenges and opportunities in the coming years. However, one thing is clear: China’s economic success and its growing global influence mean that the world will be watching closely to see how the country approaches this important issue.

　　

China’s Covid-19 response rallied the public up until Shanghai lockdown: study

　　A new study has found that China’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic was initially met with widespread public support, but that this support began to erode following the strict lockdown measures imposed in Shanghai.

　　The study, which was conducted by researchers from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, analyzed eight online surveys of urban Chinese residents between May 2019 and September 2022. The surveys, which each had around 1,000 respondents, were conducted by the China Data Lab of the 21st Century China Centre at UCSD’s school of global policy and strategy.

　　Respondents were asked to rate their level of trust in the central government, but were not questioned on their opinions towards local governments. The study found that trust in the central government was high at the beginning of the pandemic, with 86% of respondents expressing trust in the government’s ability to handle the crisis.

　　However, this trust began to decline following the lockdown measures imposed in Shanghai, which were among the strictest in the world. The study found that the decline in trust was particularly pronounced among residents of Shanghai, who were directly affected by the measures.

　　The study also found that trust in the government was closely linked to perceptions of the government’s handling of the pandemic. Respondents who believed that the government was doing a good job of managing the crisis were more likely to express trust in the government, while those who were critical of the government’s response were less likely to do so.

　　The findings of the study suggest that the Chinese government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic was initially successful in rallying public support, but that this support began to erode following the strict lockdown measures imposed in Shanghai. The study also highlights the importance of effective crisis management in maintaining public trust and confidence in the government.

新闻来源： 2406070635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-06-06; 2406070128韩国中央日报-第四届中国大学生韩国语短视频大赛在杭州圆满落幕; 2406070635The-Guardian-Three-arrested-in-Hong-Kong-for-insulting-Chinese-anthem-at-World-Cup-qualifier

关于中国的新闻报道 - Technology章节评价

　　中国在新能源汽车和自动驾驶技术等领域取得了长足的发展，但西方媒体在报道中 souvent 表现出明显的偏见和双重标准。以下是对最近一些关于中国Technology方面的新闻报道的评价。

　　首先，中国在新能源汽车产业方面的成就非常突出。根据中国旅游车联盟的数据，中国是全球最大的新能源汽车生产和销售国，其中纯电动汽车的生产和销售量都位于世界第一。但是，西方媒体在报道中却经常将中国的新能源汽车产业描述为“过剩”，并指责中国政府对该行业的支持措施是“市场干预”。这种描述是不公正的，因为中国政府的支持措施主要是为了鼓励新能源汽车的研发和推广，而不是为了干预市场。此外，中国的新能源汽车产业也为全球汽车产业的低碳转型提供了重要的贡献，有助于缓解全球通胀压力。

　　其次，中国在自动驾驶技术方面也取得了重大进展。根据中国交通运输部的数据，中国已经成为全球最大的自动驾驶测试场所之一，并且已经实现了部分自动驾驶功能的商用化。但是，西方媒体在报道中却经常将中国的自动驾驶技术描述为“不成熟”和“不可靠”。这种描述是不客观的，因为中国的自动驾驶技术已经通过了大量的实际测试和验证，并且已经在一些场合实现了商用化。此外，中国的自动驾驶技术也为全球自动驾驶技术的发展提供了重要的参考和经验。

　　再次，中国在人工智能技术方面也取得了重大进展。根据中国科学院的数据，中国在人工智能领域的研究成果和专利申请量都位于世界前列。但是，西方媒体在报道中却经常将中国的人工智能技术描述为“威胁”和“不透明”。这种描述是不公正的，因为中国的人工智能技术主要用于提高生产效率和改善人们的生活质量，而不是用于威胁他国或危害个人隐私。此外，中国的人工智能技术也为全球人工智能技术的发展提供了重要的贡献。

　　最后，需要指出的是，中国在Technology方面的发展并不是单方面的。中国政府和企业也在积极推动技术创新和技术共享，并且积极参与国际技术标准的制定和贸易规则的谈判。中国也在积极吸收外国技术和引进外国投资，并且鼓励中外企业之间的合作和交流。这些努力为中国在Technology方面的发展提供了重要的保障和动力。

　　总之，西方媒体在报道中对中国在Technology方面的成就和贡献存在明显的偏见和双重标准。中国在新能源汽车、自动驾驶技术和人工智能等领域取得的成就是值得赞赏的，这些成就为全球Technology的发展提供了重要的参考和经验。中国在Technology方面的发展也为全球经济增长和可持续发展提供了重要的机遇和动力。我们应该客观公正地看待中国在Technology方面的发展，并且积极推动中国与世界其他国家在Technology方面的合作和交流。

新闻来源： 2406070635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-06-06; 2406070849纽约时报中文网-中英对照版-中英美国恢复对东南亚太阳能产品征收关税剑指中国

关于中国的新闻报道中的Society章节评价

　　在中国的新闻报道中，Society章节是一个重要的部分，涉及到中国的文化、社会、人权等方面的内容。然而，西方媒体关于中国的报道一贯充满偏见和双重标准，因此，对于这些报道进行客观的评价是非常必要的。

　　首先，在文化方面，西方媒体经常将中国的传统文化与现代化相反立，认为中国的传统文化是障碍现代化的因素。这种观点是非常单边的，忽略了中国的传统文化在现代化中的作用。中国的传统文化具有丰富的内涵，含有许多经济学概念和思想，是中国经济发展的重要基础。中国正在努力建立自己的经济理论体系，将马克思主义政治经济学的精华与中国传统文化的精华相结合，这是一项非常重要的工作，将为中国的经济发展和社会发展带来重要的影响。

　　其次，在社会方面，西方媒体经常将中国的社会制度与西方的社会制度相比较，认为中国的社会制度是不公平的、不民主的。这种观点是非常主观的，忽略了中国的社会制度与西方的社会制度存在着本质的区别。中国的社会制度是建立在中国的历史、文化、社会基础上的，具有自己的特点和优势。中国的社会制度在保障人民的基本权利和利益方面取得了重要的成果，是中国人民自愿选择的、符合中国国情的社会制度。

　　再次，在人权方面，西方媒体经常将中国的人权情况与西方的人权情况相比较，认为中国的人权情况是非常严重的。这种观点是非常不客观的，忽略了中国的人权情况与西方的人权情况存在着本质的区别。中国的人权思想是建立在中国的历史、文化、社会基础上的，具有自己的特点和优势。中国的人权思想在保障人民的基本权利和利益方面取得了重要的成果，是中国人民自愿选择的、符合中国国情的人权思想。

　　总的来说，西方媒体关于中国的报道存在着许多问题和偏见，对于这些报道进行客观的评价是非常必要的。在文化、社会、人权等方面，中国具有自己的特点和优势，正在努力建立自己的经济理论体系、社会制度、人权思想，为中国的经济发展和社会发展带来重要的影响。我们应该认识到这一点，尊重中国的历史、文化、社会基础，认识到中国的发展道路是中国人民自愿选择的、符合中国国情的发展道路。

　　最后，在评估新闻报道时，我们还应该注意到新闻的真实性、准确性、公正性和完整性。这些是新闻报道的基本原则，是新闻工作者应当遵循的规范。我们应该尽可能地了解新闻的来源、背景和动机，以及新闻的影响和后果，以此作出客观、公正的评价。同时，我们还应该积极发挥新媒体的优势，通过多元化的新闻渠道，获取更加丰富、多样化的新闻信息，以此提高我们的新闻识别能力和新闻评估能力。

新闻来源： 2406070635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-06-06

• China’s exports set to ‘defy’ tariffs: 5 takeaways from May trade data as shipments rose
• EU officials headed to China for human-rights dialogue as rare Tibet field visit planned
• 22 Chinese nationals jailed in Zambia over multinational cybercrimes
• China’s exports surge in May, boosted by Asean, but US and EU tariff headwinds cloud outlook
• Shimao is latest developer to see sales rise since China’s property rescue package
• Xi Jinping asks Pakistan to guarantee ‘the safety of Chinese personnel and projects’ as he pledges more economic cooperation
• China ‘Comb Sisters’ style hair into buns or long queues as pledge to lead unmarried life
• China envoys deliver Xi’s invite to African leaders for September FOCAC summit
• Bybit, a major cryptocurrency exchange, opens up trading to Chinese users living overseas
• China rolls out ‘zero tolerance’ crackdown on fake government officials, financial crimes
• Chinese provinces bring in AI to stop cheating in gaokao university entrance exams
• Philippines faces risk of Beijing’s economic coercion amid South China Sea row: analysts
• Backlash in mainland China calls for Nvidia’s Jensen Huang to clarify Taiwan comment
• Philippine navy boosts reservists as China tensions, mandatory military training calls grow
• Three arrested in Hong Kong for ‘insulting’ Chinese anthem at World Cup qualifier
• Japanese chef Wataru Kakiuchi stabbed to death in Vancouver Chinatown
• China firm offers weight loss bonus to staff using US$140,000 fund as ‘carrot’
• China, US security chiefs agree to keep talking on anti-narcotics cooperation
• China space watchers hail SpaceX Starship’s ‘breathtaking’ test flight
• China’s Chang’e-6 lift-off, Cathay’s cadet troubles: 7 highlights of the week
• China’s export growth rebounds in May despite trade tensions
• As India plays catch up with China’s aircraft carriers, high costs loom large
• Third term for Modi likely to see closer defense ties with US as India’s rivalry with China grows
• South China Sea: Philippines accuses Chinese coastguard of blocking sick soldier’s evacuation
• Why Malaysia’s big chip dreams hang in the US-China balance
• A Beijing police unit is hiring. Those who’ve lived outside mainland China need not apply
• What is green hydrogen and what is China’s role in its production and use?
• Trump suggests tariffs against nations, including China, over illegal immigration
• For China’s eager emigrants, the FOMO is real, and a move overseas may be now or never

China’s exports set to ‘defy’ tariffs: 5 takeaways from May trade data as shipments rose

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3265811/chinas-exports-set-defy-tariffs-5-takeaways-may-trade-data-shipments-rose?utm_source=rss_feed

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China’s exports beat expectations and rose by 7.6 per cent from a year earlier to US$302.4 billion in May.

Analysts at Capital Economics said China’s export values rose at the fastest year-on-year pace since April 2023, with export volumes also picking up.

“We think exports will remain strong in the coming months, defying the expansion of Western tariffs,” they said.

Junyu Tan, a regional economist for North Asia with credit insurance company Coface, said China’s exports in May expanded due to a lower base from the previous year, while shipments of cars, ships and electronics “remained solid”.

China’s imports rose by 1.8 per cent from a year earlier, compared with an 8.4 per cent increase in April.

“Import volumes were little changed last month, but they will probably rise soon, with increased government spending supporting the import-intensive construction sector,” said analysts at Capital Economics.

The “significant” slowdown was partly due to softer global energy prices and a higher base, but the mixed trends across products still hinted at an imbalance in domestic demand, said Tan at Coface.

China’s exports to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) rose significantly in May, by 22.5 per cent – the highest monthly growth rate since March 2023.

Shipment to the United States also reported the first year-on-year rise in three months, having increased by 3.6 per cent in May.

Exports to Russia, meanwhile, fell in May by 1.96 per cent, year on year, following a double-digit decline in April.

“The resilience of exports stemmed not just from the improving global manufacturing activities and electronics cycle, but also from a more diversified trading portfolio,” said Tan at Coface.

“The rebound in export growth to emerging economies, especially to Asean, has mitigated the improving but still weak demand from the US and EU.”

China’s trade surplus stood at US$82.6 billion in May, compared with US$72.4 billion in April.

“The trade data came out in the direction we were expecting, with exports rebounding and imports slowing,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING. “While export growth was in line with our forecasts, imports came in weaker than expected, which resulted in a better-than-expected trade surplus for the month.

“Overall, May’s data is supportive for this year’s second-quarter GDP growth, as the trade balance came in a little stronger than expected.”

Analysts at Capital Economics expect China’s exports to remain strong in the coming months, supported by a weaker real effective exchange rate, and they anticipate double-digit growth in export volumes this year, which could allow the overall economy to grow by 5.5 per cent.

“Foreign tariffs are unlikely to immediately threaten exports; if anything, they may boost exports at the margin as firms speed up shipments to front-run the duties,” they said. “Even once tariffs are in force, their impact could be mitigated through trade re-routing and adjustments in the exchange rate.”

They also expect imports to increase in the coming months due to a fresh wave of fiscal support, which is likely to bolster construction activity, driving up demand for industrial commodities.

Analysts at Nomura expect export growth to further rise in June, and to likely remain high over the next few months.

EU officials headed to China for human-rights dialogue as rare Tibet field visit planned

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3265872/eu-officials-headed-china-human-rights-dialogue-rare-tibet-field-visit-planned?utm_source=rss_feed

In an unexpected turn amid high bilateral tensions, European Union officials are to visit Tibet this month as a side outing to their annual human-rights dialogue with China.

The dialogue will take place on June 16 in Chongqing, an EU spokeswoman confirmed

Brussels is understood to have requested a field visit to the Tibet autonomous region to examine human-rights conditions there, having given Beijing the names of some prisons it hoped to see.

“As it stands now, a side visit to Tibet is also being organised by the Chinese authorities for a small group of officials from the European External Action Service who follow human rights issues,” said Nabila Massrali, the bloc’s foreign affairs spokeswoman.

The EU team will be led by Paola Pampaloni, the second-in-command on its Asia desk within the union’s diplomatic corps.

Brussels can be expected to raise the many concerns it has about human rights in China, including hot-button issues in Tibet, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and Hong Kong.

The Tibet trip will be sure to raise eyebrows. It is rare for a European delegation to be granted access to the secluded region. For years, Brussels has pummelled Beijing for breaching human rights there.

Last year, in a statement to mark human rights day, the EU pointed to practices including “obligatory boarding schooling and DNA sampling” as “further indications of the dire human-rights situation”.

“The EU continues to call for meaningful, unrestricted and unsupervised access by independent international experts, foreign journalists and diplomats to Tibet, Xinjiang and elsewhere in China,” the statement read.

In a report published ast month, global advocacy group Human Rights Watch said the Chinese government since 2016 “has dramatically accelerated the relocation of rural villagers and herders in Tibet”.

The relocations, “often to areas hundreds of kilometres away”, the group added, have been described as voluntary by Beijing, which justifies them as improve people’s livelihood and protecting the ecological environment.

Beijing denies all charges of human rights violation in Tibet. It has long rejected allegations of curbing religious freedoms in the region, while also while stressing that Tibetan Buddhism should adapt to the Chinese context.

The situation in Xinjiang will also be on the agenda in Chongqing.

Last year, in a statement after the human-rights dialogue held in Brussels, the EU “referred to the report issued by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human-rights situation in Xinjiang, underscoring the urgency of implementing the recommendations included in the report”.

During that meeting in the Belgian capital, the bloc also raised the “deterioration in the situation of freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and freedom of expression in Hong Kong”, according to an EU statement on the talks.

China, the statement said, “focused on the situation and treatment of refugees and migrants in the EU and manifestations of racism and xenophobia in the EU”.

The long-running exchange had been an annual fixture in the diplomatic calendar until a tit-for-tat sanctioning blitz put it on ice during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

At 2022’s EU-China summit, a pledge was made to restart the talks.

The sanctions, still in place, pertain to human-rights conditions in Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has been accused of conducting widespread persecution targeting Uygurs and other ethnic Muslim groups across the region, located in northwest China.

Since then, the EU has finalised a new law making big companies responsible for human rights and environmental abuses in their supply chains.

Lawmakers have said that if the businesses are unable to perform the requisite due diligence on suppliers – as can often be the case in Xinjiang, where most Western auditors do not operate – they should leave the region in question.

A second law, banning the use of forced labour, was formulated with the situation in Xinjiang in mind. However, to comply with World Trade Organization rules, it bans products made using forced labour anywhere in the world from the EU market.

The UN’s human-rights chief in 2022 accused China of committing “crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang in a blockbuster report.

Beijing countered that the allegations were “based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces and out of presumption of guilt”.

Human rights, often a thorny issue in the Sino-EU relationship, have slipped down the agenda in recent years, supplanted by geopolitical concerns over China’s relationship with Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Economic concerns have also risen up the priority list, with the EU set to slap import tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles next week.

22 Chinese nationals jailed in Zambia over multinational cybercrimes

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3265874/22-chinese-nationals-jailed-zambia-over-multinational-cybercrimes?utm_source=rss_feed

A Zambian court on Friday jailed 22 Chinese nationals over cybercrimes that included internet fraud and online scams targeting Zambians and other people from Singapore, Peru and the United Arab Emirates.

The Magistrates Court in the capital, Lusaka, jailed them for periods ranging from seven to 11 years.

The court also fined them between US$1,500 to US$3,000 after they pleaded guilty to charges of computer-related misrepresentation, identity fraud and illegally operating a network or service on Wednesday. A man from Cameroon also received prison sentence and fine on the same changes.

They were part of a group of 77 people, majority of them Zambians, arrested in April over what police described as a “sophisticated internet fraud syndicate”.

The director general of the drug enforcement commission, Nason Banda, said investigations kicked off after authorities noticed a spike in the number of cyber-related fraud cases and many people complained about inexplicably losing money from their mobile phones or bank accounts.

Officers from the commission, police, the immigration department and the anti-terrorism unit in April swooped on a Chinese-run business in an upmarket suburb of Lusaka, arresting the 77, including those jailed on Friday.

Authorities recovered over 13,000 local and foreign mobile phone SIM cards, two firearms and 78 rounds of ammunition during the raid.

The business, named Golden Top Support Services, had employed “unsuspecting” Zambians aged between 20 and 25 to use the SIM cards to engage “in deceptive conversations with unsuspecting mobile users across various platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, chat rooms and others, using scripted dialogues,” Banda said in April after the raid. The locals were freed on bail.

China’s exports surge in May, boosted by Asean, but US and EU tariff headwinds cloud outlook

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3265815/chinas-exports-surge-may-boosted-asean-us-and-eu-tariff-headwinds-cloud-outlook?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s exports remain under increasing pressure from intensifying trade frictions and looming tariffs from the United States and European Union, analysts said, despite shipments having accelerated in May for a second consecutive month – partly due to a surge in demand from Southeast Asia.

Exports beat expectations and rose by 7.6 per cent from a year earlier to US$302.4 billion in May, the highest monthly export value since September, according to customs data released on Friday. The year-on-year figure was also better than the increase of 1.5 per cent in April.

The quick uptick in growth was partly due to a lower base in the same month last year, when China reported a steep export decline of 7.5 per cent year on year, but exports to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) also rose by 22.5 per cent in May, hitting the highest monthly growth since March 2023.

Junyu Tan, a regional economist for North Asia with credit insurance company Coface, said China’s exports in May expanded due to a lower base from the previous year, while shipments of cars, ships and electronics “remained solid”.

“This month’s export data shows strong performance, continuing the robust export trend seen over the past four months, and China’s economy is primarily driven by exports,” said Gary Ng, senior economist at Natixis Corporate and Investment Bank.

“The rapid growth in exports to Asean is mainly benefiting from the shift in the industrial chain, with most of these products ultimately destined for the United States.”

Within May’s export data, the value of car shipments rose in May by 16.63 per cent, year on year, with the volume also growing by 29.9 per cent, while the value of ship exports surged by 57.1 per cent.

Exports of integrated circuits also rose by 28.47 per cent by value last month compared with a year earlier, while the value of shipments of hi-tech products rose by 8.1 per cent.

But headwinds are looming for China’s exports, which Beijing is eager to strengthen amid sluggish domestic demand, after the US last month proposed import-tariff increases on Chinese goods, including semiconductors, electric vehicles, steel and batteries, with some set to take effect from August.

The European Union is also set to release the result of its investigation into China’s electric vehicle subsidies, which could result in tariffs being imposed.

“Exports have become a rare cyclical driver, stabilising China’s economic growth in 2024 supported by strong global demand in electronics and green tech. Such a rebound will remain apparent in the coming months, bringing export growth to 6 per cent or above,” Ng added.

“However, there is also growing concern about overcapacity and geopolitics, which may bring further headwinds in 2025 and beyond.”

Ding Shuang, chief Greater China economist at Standard Chartered Bank, pointed to the export-orders component of May’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ index, which indicated that shipments were “already beginning to weaken, suggesting that China’s exports are under increasing pressure”.

“However, China’s products remain highly competitive, whether in hi-tech or labour-intensive sectors. China needs to enhance its industrial chain layout in more emerging markets and even consider relocating parts of the industrial chain to the US or Europe,” he said.

“China’s cross-border e-commerce is also performing well; these are typically small trades that generally do not incur additional tariffs.

“However, it remains to be seen whether the EU and the US will impose tariffs on them in the future.”

Shipments to the US reported their first year-on-year rise since March, having increased by 3.6 per cent in May.

Exports to the EU, meanwhile, fell by 1 per cent in May compared with a year earlier.

“By export product, the trends from the year to date continued. Auto exports continued to be a source of strength,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING.

“With the US tariffs on electric vehicles coming into effect in August, and reports of EU provisional tariffs also to take effect in July, we could see a pre-emptive boost to exports in next month’s data, but auto-export growth could slow later in the year.

“However, looking ahead, the trade environment is likely to continue to see headwinds as tariffs are implemented. If these tariffs are very aggressive, with the market often looking at 50 per cent plus tariffs as a threshold to watch, there is potential for retaliation and an escalation of trade friction.

“We remain cautious about the trade outlook for the second half of the year and expect its contribution to growth to decline.”

Imports, meanwhile, rose by 1.8 per cent from a year earlier, compared with an 8.4 per cent increase in April.

“China’s trade data reflects the cyclical recovery in exports and the still challenging domestic-demand situation,” added Ng at Natixis Corporate and Investment Bank.

“China’s lingering real estate problem and weak consumer confidence will continue to weigh on import growth.”

Elsewhere, China’s trade surplus stood at US$82.6 billion in May, compared with US$72.4 billion in April.

“The trade data came out in the direction we were expecting, with exports rebounding and imports slowing,” added Song at ING. “While export growth was in line with our forecasts, imports came in weaker than expected, which resulted in a better-than-expected trade surplus for the month.

“Overall, May’s data is supportive for this year’s second-quarter GDP growth, as the trade balance came in a little stronger than expected.”

Shimao is latest developer to see sales rise since China’s property rescue package

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3265849/shimao-latest-developer-see-sales-rise-chinas-property-rescue-package?utm_source=rss_feed

Shimao Group Holdings, one of several mainland Chinese developers facing liquidation suits for failing to repay debts, has become the latest to report higher property sales aided by Beijing’s stimulus package aimed at reviving its crisis-hit real estate sector.

The Shanghai-based company said sales in May came to 2.92 billion yuan (US$402 million) worth of properties covering a total area of 229,177 square metres (2.47 million square feet), in a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday.

That was about 12 per cent higher than the 2.61 billion yuan of properties spanning 203,099 sq m that Shimao recorded in April. Compared to May last year, however, sales fell by 27 per cent.

In the first five months of the year, Shimao shifted 13.78 billion yuan worth of properties, a 42 per cent slump from the 23.86 billion yuan of sales it reported in the same period of 2023.

Lat month the Chinese government launched a rescue package for the property segment with measures such that included a 300 billion yuan relending facility and cuts in mortgage rates.

Besides Shimao, China Vanke and Country Garden, two of China’s biggest home builders, also saw their sales increase, by about 11 per cent, in May.

Beijing’s intervention in the property market did not immediately boost the fortunes of every developer, however.

State-backed Poly Property saw its home sales drop 18 per cent in May, adding to a mixed picture of the impact of the rescue initiative.

“We assess that the policy support should help market sentiment and subsequently developers’ sales, but the impact may not be very significant,” said Raymond Cheng, managing director and head of China and Hong Kong research for CGS International, in a note on Friday.

Still, Cheng said developers “expect better month-on-month sales in June due to more project launches.”

“Sales for the second half of 2024 should also improve due to the low base last year,” he said.

However, there are risks that could hamper the improving fortunes of China’s developers, he warned. These include “weak implementation of the latest new policies and further declines in home prices.”

Shimao is facing a liquidation suit brought by China Construction Bank, the country’s second-largest lender, for a financial obligation amounting to HK$1.58 billion (US$202 million). In March, the company said it was seeking to restructure US$11.7 billion worth of offshore debt.

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Xi Jinping asks Pakistan to guarantee ‘the safety of Chinese personnel and projects’ as he pledges more economic cooperation

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3265853/xi-jinping-asks-pakistan-guarantee-safety-chinese-personnel-and-projects-he-pledges-more-economic?utm_source=rss_feed

China is willing to expand and upgrade the country’s economic ties with Pakistan but hopes Islamabad can create a “safe, stable, and predictable” business environment, President Xi Jinping told Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday.

The trip to Beijing was Sharif’s first visit to China since starting his second term as prime minister in March and comes as the country’s economy continues to struggle with the impact of a debt crisis, inflation and fiscal deficits as well as ongoing political instability.

Xi said China will continue to promote high-quality construction with Pakistan under the Belt and Road Initiative, and pledged to expand cooperation in areas such as “agriculture, mining, social and livelihood affairs in accordance with the local conditions”, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

He also vowed to upgrade the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), saying the two countries will seek to cooperate on innovation and green industry.

However, he added that Pakistan should continue to “create a safe, stable and predictable business environment and effectively guarantee the safety of Chinese personnel, projects and organisations”.

His message follows a string of attacks on Chinese citizens working on CPEC projects in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.

In the most recent attack, five Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver were killed in a suicide bombing on their way to the Dasu hydropower dam project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in March.

It followed the deadliest attack involving Chinese citizens in 2021, when a suicide bomber on a bus killed 13 people, including nine Chinese workers.

Sharif said Pakistan will deepen its cooperation with China on belt and road projects and promised to “ensure the safety of Chinese personnel and institutions in Pakistan”.

“The government of Pakistan … will resolutely combat and severely punish the terrorists involved and take effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel and institutions in Pakistan,” Sharif said, according to the Chinese statement.

Abdul Basit, an associate research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said he believed that “China is not satisfied” with Pakistan’s current security measures.

But Zhu Yongbiao, a professor with the school of politics and international relations at Lanzhou University, said China was “generally satisfied” with Pakistan’s counterterrorism operations, although it wanted closer cooperation on security.

He also said Beijing would continue to invest in the country and the main focus of the visit “is still economic and trade cooperation, in order to help Pakistan’s development and enhance its capacity for self-reliance.”

Afghanistan is also becoming an increasingly significant element in both countries’ thinking on security, as divisions start to emerge.

The Post has previously reported that Chinese diplomats in Islamabad and Kabul are seeking to persuade the Taliban to rein in Pakistani Taliban militants and prevent a surge in cross-border terrorist attacks

China is seeking to leverage its growing influence over the Taliban authorities in Kabul, which it has not formally recognised, to rein in the Pakistani Taliban and prevent cross-border attacks on Chinese personnel and interests.

But Pakistan is taking an increasingly tough stance towards Afghanistan’s Taliban regime and has repeatedly accused it of sheltering terrorists.

Earlier this week, Islamabad said it had arrested 11 militants accused of being involved in the March attack, adding that the suicide bomber who targeted the Chinese convoy was an Afghan national.

“There was a time when Pakistan had more influence and friendly ties [with the Taliban] compared to China. But now I think some things have changed. China has more influence and friendly ties with the Taliban than Pakistan,” Basit said.

He added that “Pakistan, sees the Taliban as a challenge, but for China, it sees the Taliban as an opportunity”.

Before meeting Xi, Sharif and a business delegation of more than 100 people visited Shenzhen, the country’s innovation hub and a model for China’s economic reforms, on Tuesday and Xian, a centre for science and technology in the northwest of the country, on Friday.

Local media reported that he met government and business leaders from the two cities, discussing closer cooperation in areas such as new energy and information technology.

With inflation standing at 20 per cent and the country’s economy struggling, Islamabad is increasingly looking to upgrade and expand the CPEC, which is designed to link the western Chinese region of Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea and Middle East.

“The second phase of CPEC, according to Pakistan, is about industrialisation. They want to set up Special Economic Zones in partnership with China, and they want to move towards reforms in agriculture, and cooperation in emerging technologies such as information,” Basit said.

“Pakistan also believes that China is relocating some of its low-end industries because China is moving towards more high-end ones … so Pakistan wants to attract China to locate some of its industries.”

He also expects that the two countries will negotiate for a framework to extend Pakistan’s loan repayment date.

Last year Pakistan’s external debt reached around US$130 billion, double the figure in 2015, according to the State Bank of Pakistan.

China accounts for 13 per cent of the country’s total foreign debt, according to Zhao Shiren, the country’s consul-general in Lahore.

“I think China will show flexibility. We may see a framework of how Pakistan is going to pay the loans [to China] in the next five years and what the mechanism is. They can’t pay it now,” Basit said.

China ‘Comb Sisters’ style hair into buns or long queues as pledge to lead unmarried life

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3263506/china-comb-sisters-style-hair-buns-or-long-queues-pledge-lead-unmarried-life?utm_source=rss_feed

A tradition used to exist in China which saw women mark their commitment to remain unmarried for the rest of her life in an unusual manner.

Known as zi zhu, or “self-combing”, the practice flourished between the late 19th and early 20th century in the Pearl River Delta area, a network of cities that covers nine prefectures in Guangdong province, southern China.

It involved women of marriage age arranging their hair into buns or long queues to signal that they would stay single.

Village elders selected an auspicious day to preside over so-called hair-combing ceremonies.

The women would style their hair into buns or long queues and the occasion would be as celebratory as a wedding.

The Post delves more deeply into the ritual.

Origins and significance

The custom originated during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and flourished towards the end of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), with Shunde in Guangdong province being its key point of origin.

In the 1930s, there were more than 10,000 confirmed comb sisters among a population of 400,000 women in Shunde.

The reasons for choosing this path were complex and often rooted in economic necessity and a desire for independence.

Many such women were eldest daughters who needed to help with farm work and household chores plus share the responsibility of caring for younger siblings.

As a result, they chose not to “marry out” but stay in their original families.

Also, some women rejected arranged marriages after witnessing the challenging lives of daughters-in-law, who were expected to devote their lives to serving their in-laws.

Scholar Xu Jingjie also cited another reason: “If a woman passes the age of marriage without marrying, it can delay the marriages of her younger siblings. However, after self-combing, the taboos would be broken.”

Professor Ye Hanming from the Chinese University of Hong Kong said that at its peak, comb sisters in the Pearl River Delta area accounted for 10 per cent of the female population.

“These women had a strong sense of ancestral respect and family ethics. Supporting the family was considered their sacred duty and families regarded them as no different from sons who maintained the family’s livelihood,” said Ye.

Gupo House

This was a residence arranged by comb sisters for their final days, existing primarily to manage their affairs after death since they could not die in their own home or that of their brothers.

In some villages with more taboos, comb sisters were not even allowed to die in the village.

Typically, a Gupo House was initiated and funded by one or several comb sisters.

Gupo means “great aunt” but is also a colloquial phrase for “spinster”.

Tradition dictated that after one of their number died, fellow comb sisters would cover the house door with a plank, lay down a straw mat, and dig a pit for burial.

If there were no comb sisters in the village to take care of a funeral, villagers would throw their bodies into a nearby river.

Decline

In the 1930s, due to the decline of the silk industry in the Pearl River Delta region, on which the majority of comb sisters had relied to make a living, such women chose to move away to places in Southeast Asia for work.

Many, still unmarried in their fifties and sixties after years of working in Southeast Asia, performed a so-called self-combing ritual, thus becoming the last known generation of comb sisters.

China envoys deliver Xi’s invite to African leaders for September FOCAC summit

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3265778/china-envoys-deliver-xis-invite-african-leaders-september-focac-summit?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese diplomats are delivering invitation letters to leaders across Africa for the next key diplomatic event between Beijing and the continent, which will take place in September against a backdrop of economic uncertainty.

In a departure from tradition – which dictates that details of major summits are released a few weeks or days in advance – Uganda’s foreign ministry said the ninth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) will open in Beijing on September 3.

According to the ministry, the Chinese ambassador to Uganda Zhang Lizhong handed over a formal invitation from President Xi Jinping to his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni at a meeting last week with Foreign Minister Odongo Jeje Abubakher.

The summit, from September 3-8, will include four simultaneous high-level meetings on different themes as well as a business forum, according to a statement about the meeting from the Ugandan ministry.

Libya, Burundi, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have also made public their invitations, which were delivered to officials in the latter two countries by Liu Yuxi, China’s special representative on African Affairs.

FOCAC, held every three years, is China and Africa’s most important engagement mechanism and where Beijing has traditionally made huge financial pledges to fund major infrastructure projects such as ports, railways, power dams and highways.

At the last FOCAC in 2021 – held virtually in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic – Xi pledged a billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Africa. Financial promises were lower than in previous forums, at US$40 billion, compared to around US$60 billion in 2015 and 2018.

While Chinese investments might be lower again this year, they are expected to focus on agriculture, industrialisation and adding processing capacity to the continent’s vast minerals extraction sector, observers said.

This would be in line with initiatives that Xi unveiled last year – during the China-Africa leaders’ dialogue on the sidelines of the Brics summit in South Africa – for the continent’s industrialisation, agricultural modernisation, and talent development.

Hannah Ryder, chief executive of Beijing-based consultancy Development Reimagined, said this year’s forum would be different from the summit in 2018 – the year the US-China trade war began and before the economic ravages of Covid-19.

The intervening years have seen defaults by some African countries – with Zambia, Ethiopia and Ghana among those seeking debt relief from their major creditors – as well as a property crisis and weak business and consumer confidence in China.

“Fast-forward to today, and the summit comes during a very different world, but also after a slump in financing and people-to-people engagement with Africa due to Covid-19,” she said.

According to Ryder, who organised a retreat in April for African diplomats in Beijing to discuss and build consensus on the agenda for FOCAC, “it’s only been trade that has really stayed stable and in some cases grown”.

Two-way trade between Africa and China reached US$282 billion last year, an increase from US$185.29 billion in 2018 and US$231.88 billion in 2021.

Key ideas that African governments could propose for new commitments during FOCAC included more value-added Chinese investment, more exports to China, and support for financial architecture reform, Ryder said.

The latter could include scaled-up contributions to African institutions, such as special drawing rights to the African Development Bank, she said.

According to Ryder, African leaders want support for renewable power generation projects and associated localised manufacturing of environmental goods, as well as support for Africa’s global governance reform agenda.

The message from African governments to China would be to “continue to scale up engagement with Africa, and localise, localise, localise”, she said.

“Invest in localising manufacturing of everything from food to medicine, invest in local African talent, invest in local African institutions, and invest in localising the African agency internationally.”

Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia Programme and director of the Washington-based Stimson Centre’s China programme, said there would be a lot of attention on how China positioned itself on Africa and what its new economic priorities would be.

According to Sun, there will also be interest in Africa about how China plans to deal with the political volatility that some countries on the continent are facing.

“In the past, people were focused on what China’s financial commitment to Africa looks like as announced at FOCAC. I doubt it will remain China’s priority, given how much China’s approach to Africa has evolved,” he said.

Lauren Johnston, associate professor at the University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre, said she expected agriculture to feature prominently during the FOCAC talks, especially on raising productivity, with both sides eyeing growing African trade and investment numbers, and on realising food security.

Johnston said China could also make announcements on talent development through providing scholarships, funding technical and vocational education training, as well as investing in more education and training colleges in Africa.

According to Johnston, another recurring topic in recent years has been yuan internationalisation as a way for China and its allies to reduce the excessive need to accumulate US dollars for settling trade payments.

“China has been the continent’s largest trade partner for more than a decade, yet African currencies and the [yuan] are secondary to that exchange,” she said.

“Finding ways to internationalise the [yuan] in ways that also support both the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) agenda and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement roll-out may be in focus too.”

Zhou Yuyuan, deputy director at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies’ Centre for West Asian and African Studies, said development financing cooperation would remain an important area, and would be expected by all parties.

China and Africa may continue to strengthen cooperation in traditional areas such as infrastructure and energy, as well as information and communications, he said.

“One possible direction is that China and Africa will continue to strengthen consultations on trade and investment issues, support African countries in developing local industrial chains, and increase the added value of export goods.”

According to Zhou, China-Africa cooperation is “undergoing a stage of transformation from field expansion to deepening cooperation”, with the summit likely to propose trade aid measures, cooperative trade policies and free trade agreements, along with support for Africa to expand its exports to China.

On international affairs, Zhou said China and Africa would express a common position on major issues and strengthen coordination of positions on issues such as the reform of the UN Security Council and global financial institutions.

Bybit, a major cryptocurrency exchange, opens up trading to Chinese users living overseas

https://www.scmp.com/tech/blockchain/article/3265787/bybit-major-cryptocurrency-exchange-opens-trading-chinese-users-living-overseas?utm_source=rss_feed

Bybit, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, has begun to let mainland Chinese citizens living overseas trade on its platform, as the company tries to bring in new users amid the country’s strict crypto trading ban and growing regulatory scrutiny worldwide.

The Dubai-headquartered company is allowing the “overseas Chinese community” – mainland users residing outside their home country – to open accounts and trade on its platform, Bybit said in a statement late Thursday.

Users can sign up with mainland Chinese identity documents, including national IDs and passports, Bybit’s registration page showed.

The exchange continues to block account applications that originate from mainland Chinese internet protocol (IP) addresses or are tied to phone numbers in the country, according to tests conducted by the Post on Thursday.

An IP address indicates the approximate geographic location of an internet-linked device, but cryptocurrency investors based in China commonly use virtual private networks to mask their actual location and circumvent IP address restrictions.

When asked about the methods it is using to verify whether a Chinese user lives outside the country, Bybit declined to comment beyond referring to its statement and know-your-customer guidelines, which said users who have a daily withdrawal limit of roughly US$2 million must submit an address proof.

Still, by blocking Chinese IP addresses, Bybit’s measures might already be more stringent than those of some other exchanges.

Binance, founded in Shanghai in 2017, continued to allow access by users in China even after closing much of its operations there. Mainland users could even sign up with their national ID numbers simply by selecting Taiwan as their location.

Bybit said on Thursday that it “remains committed to adhering to all applicable regulations” in the markets it operates in.

The company’s announcement came after cryptocurrency news outlet Wu Blockchain reported on Wednesday that the exchange had opened up registration for “users in China”, fanning speculation that the country was relaxing its cryptocurrency crackdown.

Beijing has in recent years tightened its grip on cryptocurrency-related activities.

Bybit began blocking mainland Chinese IP addresses in September 2020 and later said it was closing down all accounts registered with mainland phone numbers. The next year, 10 mainland government agencies jointly declared cryptocurrency businesses illegal.

Bybit said its latest move was made “in response to the growing demand for secure, reliable and user-friendly cryptocurrency trading platforms among Chinese expatriates and international Chinese communities”.

Commercial considerations may have driven Bybit’s decision to extend access to some Chinese users, according to Liu Honglin, founder of Shanghai-based Mankun law firm, which deals primarily with issues in the blockchain industry.

Bybit could be aiming to attract more retail investors in a crypto bull market, especially with global regulatory scrutiny expected to become increasingly stringent, Liu said.

Both bitcoin and ether prices have climbed more than 60 per cent this year.

Bybit, founded in 2018 and the world’s second-largest crypto exchange by 24-hour trading volume based on CoinGecko data on Friday, is among several China-linked exchanges that recently ended their pursuit for an operation licence in Hong Kong.

Their withdrawals came after the city required applicants for its virtual asset trading platform licences, as well as their controlling and related entities, to not take any mainland Chinese residents as customers – one of the many rules authorities are enforcing under a restrictive crypto regime.

Bybit said on Thursday that while it currently cannot serve Hong Kong residents, it is “proactively seeking to understand the licensing requirements and expectations set forth” by relevant authorities in the city.

Additional reporting by Wency Chen

China rolls out ‘zero tolerance’ crackdown on fake government officials, financial crimes

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3265789/china-rolls-out-zero-tolerance-crackdown-fake-government-officials-financial-crimes?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing has launched a nationwide “zero tolerance” crackdown on people who pretend to be government officials to defraud investors by selling fake official seals – among other schemes.

In a meeting last week, the Ministry of Public Security called on agencies nationwide to target people who impersonated officials from government ministries or state-owned companies to dupe investors.

The rackets had “severely damaged the image of the Communist Party and the government and disrupted social and economic order”, according to a statement posted to the ministry’s website on Thursday.

In an effort to maintain a “good business environment”, the ministry said, law enforcement agencies should leverage mechanisms like big data to uncover illegal fundraising, contract fraud, and illegal deposits.

The crackdown was announced after state media published several reports about individuals or groups that have scammed investors and the public by leveraging the credibility of state institutions.

According to a November report by state news agency Xinhua, more than 20 central ministries and agencies, including the ministries of finance, agriculture and rural affairs, and science and technology, as well as state-owned enterprises, had issued “fraud prevention statements” warning the public to be aware of impostors.

In one case from a court in the city of Dezhou in the eastern province of Shandong, a gang had defrauded 286 victims of almost 29 million yuan (US$4 million) by claiming to have “government backing”, according to the Xinhua report.

In another case from May 2023, fraudsters who pretended to be a working-group affiliated with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top national economic planner, told local government officials that could obtain subsidies of up to 10 billion yuan, according to a report in March by state broadcaster CCTV.

The scam forced the NDRC to issue a statement on its official WeChat account saying that it had no such working group and there were no such government subsidies.

Chinese authorities have also been battling frauds in which scammers use artificial intelligence to commit financial crimes with increasingly sophisticated technology.

The frequent media presence of some high-profile government officials had offered scammers abundant content to create realistic simulations for scams using facial and voice recognition, CCTV reported.

Earlier this year, Beijing vowed to ramp up a crackdown on financial crimes and pledged to improve monitoring of transactions to reduce risks.

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Chinese provinces bring in AI to stop cheating in gaokao university entrance exams

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3265764/chinese-provinces-bring-ai-stop-cheating-gaokao-university-entrance-exams?utm_source=rss_feed

A number of Chinese provinces have used artificial intelligence to monitor the national college entrance examination, or gaokao, and crack down on cheating and other violations.

A record number of 13.42 million students have registered this year for the exams, which start on Saturday, according to the Ministry of Education.

Provinces including Guangdong and Hainan in China’s south and Shandong in the east have adopted an “artificial intelligent patrol system” to supervise the exams to strengthen monitoring and ensure the fairness of the examination, according to domestic media.

“[We should] actively promote real-time intelligent inspection of examination rooms and confidential rooms, to further strengthen the hi-tech system that prevents cheating,” the ministry said on its website on June 1.

In China, the gaokao is widely considered the most important exam, the one that could make or break a young person’s future. Competition remains fierce to gain admission into the country’s top universities, with authorities taking extra measures to prevent cheating.

Regulators have adopted various technologies in recent years, including deploying drones to detect cheating activities in 2015.

And since 2016, cheating in the gaokao can be treated as a criminal offence.

According to the official Guangdong Daily, the province has deployed AI across 386 examination sites to detect cheating, plagiarism and other abnormal behaviours through image and video data. If abnormalities are detected, the system immediately triggers an alarm alerting the supervisor to take action.

However, the AI system does not completely replace human eyes. The warning information provided by AI will be manually verified, and the human exam officials will be the final decision-makers in the event of disputes, said Hongxing News, a Chinese media outlet.

Exams last between 75 and 150 minutes, and each exam room typically has two invigilators, or supervisors, to monitor 30 candidates, according to provincial government regulations.

Even though security checks and online supervision have been in place at exam site since 2013, there have still been cases of cheating. In 2021, a candidate uploaded a photo of a maths question to a search app during the examination period.

Through repeated training of AI, its accuracy rate is now far greater than that of human supervision, according to a paper analysing the use of AI to police exams. The paper, written by a research team from the Sichuan Educational Examination Authority and led by its IT department director Yang Xiaoling, was published in Education Test and Evaluation journal in March.

AI allows massive amounts of surveillance video to be processed and shortens the review time. Through AI’s learning abilities, the large data set can be turned into learning materials to help improve future exam monitoring.

To develop an AI-based system to detect cheating, a large data set of normal and abnormal exam behaviours must first be collected and annotated, the Sichuan research team said.

Computer vision technology is used to capture and process images of the exam environment, extracting visual features. Machine learning algorithms then train on these image features to establish a model for identifying abnormal exam behaviours, which can be applied to real-time exam supervision.

But the research paper also describes challenges for the AI system. Although it can monitor in real time and report any abnormalities to different administrative levels, it may still need to rely on manual reporting in some cases because of the strict controls on wireless communication in standardised exam rooms.

Philippines faces risk of Beijing’s economic coercion amid South China Sea row: analysts

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3265793/philippines-faces-risk-beijings-economic-coercion-amid-south-china-sea-row-analysts?utm_source=rss_feed

The Philippines risks becoming a target of China’s economic coercion as their bilateral trade balance continues to weigh heavily in Beijing’s favour amid the ongoing maritime dispute between the two countries, analysts say.

Last year, China was the biggest importer of goods into the Philippines with a total value of US$29.4 billion, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. The Philippines exported almost US$11 billion of goods to China over the same year, indicating that the Southeast Asian country ran a trade deficit of about US$18 billion with its neighbour.

In contrast with the strong bilateral trade flows, the two countries have clashed repeatedly in the South China Sea in recent months, ranging from naval skirmishes involving vessels from both sides to the alleged environmental damage caused by Chinese fishermen.

The Philippines has accused China of aggressive naval manoeuvres in the disputed waterway while Beijing has said that Manila regularly trespassed into its maritime territory.

Don McLain Gill, a geopolitical analyst and lecturer at the Department of International Studies of De La Salle University, said trade between the two countries reflected a preference by Philippine businesses for Chinese manufactured goods.

A hasty diversification away from Chinese imports amid international political uncertainties could cause the Philippines to face major socio-economic challenges in the short to medium term, according to Gill.

Calling on Manila to attract more inward investments and enhance the country’s research and development capabilities, Gill said: “It is crucial for the Philippines to slowly develop its manufacturing capabilities in select critical industries for long-term economic resilience especially since labour costs in China are also increasing.”

Edmund Tayao, a political analyst and professor at the San Beda Graduate School of Law in Manila, said China had scaled the value chain to become a manufacturing powerhouse of goods such as tech products and it was difficult for Philippine businesses to find alternative supplies.

“Considering it is the biggest and cheapest producer, countries especially like us would no doubt be inclined to source from China,” Tayao told This Week in Asia.

Tayao warned there was a pressing need for import diversification as there were signs of China easing its relations with the Philippines and potentially using trade as a weapon against Manila.

“The long term should be the fundamental consideration of everyone, not only the policymakers. Trade will always be the weakness that China has been using and continues to use to keep us in line. The more we delay developing alternative trading arrangements, we will remain vulnerable,” Tayao said.

Philippine business organisations, such as the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc, are calling for stronger bilateral trade ties despite the spat in the West Philippine Sea, an area in the South China Sea that includes Manila’s designated exclusive economic zone.

Speaking in March in Manila ahead of a trade roadshow in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, Cecilio Pedro, president of the organisation of Filipino-Chinese traders, said: “We have to trade with each other in spite of the West Philippine Sea. So we have to set aside our problems in the West Philippine Sea and continue trade to foster better understanding.”

Ceferino Rodolfo, Undersecretary for the Department of Trade and Industry, said at the same event that trade could lead to better relations between the Philippines and China amid their maritime row.

“Trade is a potent force for peace. Even President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr said that we should separate politics from the economy because there are grave things that are happening... the challenge is on the economic side, that we should be working doubly hard so that we can further enhance our economic and trade relations,” Rodolfo said.

The Philippines has enhanced military cooperation with the US and other allies in recent years, primarily to meet the security challenges in the South China Sea.

In contrast, former president Rodrigo Duterte favoured closer ties with China and disregarded the US. Weeks before Duterte stepped down from office in 2022, his administration borrowed 17.4 billion Philippine pesos (US$297 million) from China to build a bridge connecting his hometown in Davao City to Samal Island.

As soon as Marcos Jnr won the 2022 presidential election, he reversed his predecessor’s pro-China policy and expanded cooperation with the US in areas ranging from trade to military. In February 2023, Marcos Jnr gave the US wider access to military sites in the Philippines under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the two countries.

Ray Powell, a maritime security analyst at the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University, told This Week in Asia that China had a track record of using trade as a weapon. He cited a low point in bilateral relations in 2012 when China restricted the import of bananas from the Philippines over their dispute in the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.

He said: “The Philippines will of course continue to trade with the region’s largest economy, but would be wise to diversify where it can to avoid making itself the target of Beijing’s economic coercion.”

Backlash in mainland China calls for Nvidia’s Jensen Huang to clarify Taiwan comment

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3265776/backlash-mainland-china-calls-nvidias-jensen-huang-clarify-taiwan-comment?utm_source=rss_feed

Semiconductor firm Nvidia Corp and its founder Jensen Huang have been targeted by angry Chinese citizens and a mainland media outlet after Huang’s comment that Taiwan is a country, with some calling for a boycott of the company.

Last week, on his latest visit to Taiwan, Huang was seen touring a night market in Taipei. When asked in an impromptu interview aired on May 29 by Taiwan’s Chinese Television System (CTS) on the importance of the island, Huang replied, “Taiwan is one of the most important countries in the world. It is at the centre of the electronics industry”.

Huang, 61, was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States at the age of nine. In Taiwan, he has been treated like a pop star, signing autographs and stopping for selfies.

In an article on Thursday that directly called Huang out, the mainland’s nationalist outlet Guancha.cn said he “got too carried away”.

“Nvidia is a strong tech company and is willing to expand its mainland market, but it’s not stronger than the feelings of 1.4 billion people, and mainland companies would never work with any enterprise that supports ‘Taiwan independence’,” the article said.

It called for Huang to give “mainland compatriots and work partners” some clarification on whether he misspoke.

Following the article, the news became among the most trending topics on the microblogging site Weibo on Friday, as some netizens also called for a boycott.

“We should ban all Nvidia products and any other association with the company,” one said.

“Businessmen will only care about profits … you have no idea where their bottom line is,” another said. “But at this stage, we might hurt ourselves if we boycott Nvidia, because we need to rely on their chips. We need to be stronger or else we’ll face a dilemma.”

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China, to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to arming Taiwan.

Nvidia has been caught amid Sino-US geopolitical hostilities. The mainland remains the most important market in Asia for Nvidia, contributing more than 20 per cent of the firm’s global revenue in the past several years.

However, the US government tightened chip export restrictions to China in October, blocking the mainland’s access to graphics processing units that Nvidia had specifically designed for Chinese clients in response to earlier curbs.

In January, Huang visited the mainland for the first time in four years. His trip was seen as a goodwill gesture towards the chip designer’s staff and clients in the country.

At that time, state broadcaster CCTV said in a commentary that the visit “reflected his concern about the possibility of losing the China market”.

“China’s artificial intelligence sector is growing rapidly and is leading the world along with the US … Nvidia knows what’s at stake,” CCTV said.

Philippine navy boosts reservists as China tensions, mandatory military training calls grow

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3265768/philippine-navy-boosts-reservists-china-tensions-mandatory-military-training-calls-grow?utm_source=rss_feed

The latest batch of 48 civilian workers enlisted under the Philippines’ reserve force for its navy marks a coup of sorts, comprising Senate staff who could potentially aid in nudging through military bills.

The special Basic Citizen Military Training course, arranged by actor-senator Robinhood Padilla, also reignited debate on whether mandatory or voluntary training served to better assist the country’s armed forces to deal with the mounting geopolitical tensions in the region.

Padilla is among senators vigorously pushing to turn the current voluntary Reserved Officers’ Training Course (ROTC) programme for university students into a compulsory one.

The obligatory rule, implemented by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Snr in 1967, was made optional by a 2001 law following public outcry over the death of student Mark Welson Chua who exposed corruption in ROTC training.

Invoking “patriotism” and a “common cause”, Navy Flag Officer-in-Command Vice-Admiral Toribio Adaci Jnr on Tuesday told the new reservists: “We really appreciate you joining the Philippine navy at this time when our country is facing formidable challenges in our maritime environment.”

The navy now has 215,000 men and women in its reserve force, according to Major General Joseph Ferrous Cuison, chief of the Naval Reserve Command.

The Philippine Senate, with only 24 lawmakers, performs a special role in crafting legislation, while 13 of its members also have a hand in approving the promotion of all senior military officers through the powerful Commission on Appointments.

The latest recruits, who attended the passing out ceremony at the navy headquarters, comprised mostly Senate employees across a range of positions, aged 27 to 63.

They also underwent an arduous 20-day training that included target shooting and taking apart a firearm, culminating in a survival mission where they trudged three days and two nights in wild terrain, scaling a mountain in the town of Ternate, Cavite, northeast of Manila.

The participants slept on the ground, survived on crackers and canned food, and were not allowed to carry mobile phones, toiletries or any comforts of modern life.

“I joined the navy because it’s on the front lines,” recruit Francesca Jucutan, 47, a staffer at Senator Christopher “Bong” Go’s office, said, referring to Manila’s territorial dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea.

Mitcheln Palmerola, 45, who is in staff support for a Senate committee, said the drills would be useful in case of any emergency. “I learned to conquer my fear of water and of heights,” she said. “Part of the training included jumping off a navy ship, climbing a mountain and rappelling down.”

Scarlet Odulio, who works at the Philippine Postal Corporation, sported pearl earrings to mark the special occasion, saying she signed up for “the love of country”. “I won the award for best in physical training at my age of 52,” she added, grinning.

Navy chief Adaci told the graduates a programme was being prepared to vastly improve the reserve force’s “interoperability” with the navy. “The reservist plays an important role in our national security and during times of disasters, crises and other challenges.”

The navy has attracted celebrities, too. In a videotaped message to the recruits, actor Jose Sixto “Dingdong” Dantes III shared that when he joined as a reservist in 2006: “I only had one question: how else can I serve the country and the people.”

The force hoped its officers in the Senate would help push forward long-pending bills, a task reservist Rommel Escudero pledged to prioritise.

“It’s a perfect match between the [Senate and the navy]. We will help [the navy] out in their legislative needs and matters,” said the director of the Senate Legislative-Executive Liaison Service, who serves as president of the fresh recruits, collectively called the “Sandigang Alab Batch 10”.

A bill introduced last year to develop a home-grown arms industry is still stuck in the Senate defence committee.

At Tuesday’s event, Senator Padilla underscored the need to make ROTC compulsory as a way of further boosting external defence and the government’s ability to cope with humanitarian and environmental crises.

A bill Escudero co-sponsored and awaiting the Senate’s approval would require all college graduates to undergo a two-year course of basic military training.

Ricardo Jose, a University of the Philippines professor emeritus of history, said enhancing the reserve force, not compulsory enlistment, was the key to preparing the country for any conflict in the contested waterway.

“Build up the reserves, not so much through mandatory training, but through appealing to nationalism and a sense of duty.”

Jose recalled his own ROTC which consisted mostly of marching drills, and only once did he practice firing a gun. “When we finished, what were our ranks? We were just privates (the lowest), not even private first class.”

Lawmakers’ bid to roll out the scheme got a boost in a December 2023 survey by private pollster Pulse Asia that showed 69 per cent of Filipinos supported the initiative for “all youths”.

But the Catholic Education Association of the Philippines disclosed a poll conducted by it last April found 53 per cent of students in private schools opposed the move, which a former education secretary said had the “right motivation but the wrong strategy”.

“From a youth perspective and an educational perspective, anything that you legislate as mandatory is taken very negatively by young people,” Armin Luistro told This Week in Asia.

“So instead of appreciating the programme, even if it is a good one that builds nationalism … the effect will be exactly the reverse … most of them will end up resenting the military.”

Luistro, who went through the drills at the high school CAT (Civil Army Training) and enforced ROTC in college, said “obviously there’s abuse, but I will not use that to argue against it”.

He said that when he was De la Salle University president and ROTC became an elective, “I saw that those who actually enrolled were the ones who really liked to go through the training, and they were happy to do it.” Some went on to join the military, he recalled.

Luistro suggested that instead of making ROTC mandatory, the military should instead project how many reservists it needs yearly and target “good quality reservists who are patriotic about the country”, and offer incentives such as army college scholarships and free uniforms.

Three arrested in Hong Kong for ‘insulting’ Chinese anthem at World Cup qualifier

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/07/three-arrested-in-hong-kong-for-insulting-chinese-anthem-at-world-cup-qualifier

Three people have been arrested for turning their backs and remaining seated when China’s national anthem was played prior to Hong Kong’s home World Cup qualifier against Iran, police have said.

Football spectators in Hong Kong used to boo the Chinese anthem as a show of political discontent, but the government banned the practice in 2020 as part of a wider crackdown after huge democracy protests in the city.

At Hong Kong Stadium on Thursday, police said, two men and a woman were arrested because they “turned their backs toward the pitch and did not stand for the playing of the national anthem”.

“Police stressed that anyone who publicly and intentionally insults the national anthem in any way commits a crime,” a police statement said.

The three arrested were between the ages of 18 and 31. If convicted they face up to three years in jail and a fine of HK$50,000 (£5,000/US$6,400).

Hong Kong’s hopes of reaching the next stage of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup were already over and they went on to lose the game to Iran 4-2.

Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China but competes in its own name in many international sports, including football.

During the politically tumultuous 2010s, the Hong Kong team became a vessel for civic pride and occasionally anti-government sentiment.

At the time, the Chinese national anthem was routinely drowned out by boos before Hong Kong matches, enraging local and mainland officials.

Soon after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, the finance hub passed a separate local law criminalising insults towards the anthem.

Japanese chef Wataru Kakiuchi stabbed to death in Vancouver Chinatown

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3265755/japanese-chef-wataru-kakiuchi-stabbed-death-vancouver-chinatown?utm_source=rss_feed

Japanese chef Wataru Kakiuchi was fatally stabbed in Vancouver earlier this week, the local Japanese consulate general said on Thursday after being notified of the attack by police.

Kakiuchi, 32, was found fatally injured at around 3:30am local time on Wednesday on a street near the city’s Chinatown and died before he could be taken to hospital, local media said.

Kakiuchi, who was popular among locals, was waiting for a ride home after going out drinking on Tuesday night when he was attacked, according to media reports.

He began working in Vancouver at a Japanese-style izakaya restaurant in 2015, sometimes bringing his guitar for jamming sessions, and had expressed his desire to remain in Canada permanently, the media reported.

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim issued a statement calling the stabbing “senseless” and offered his condolences to Kakiuchi’s family, friends and colleagues.

“Wataru Kakiuchi was more than a talented chef … he was a positive presence and a cherished friend to many,” the statement said.

China firm offers weight loss bonus to staff using US$140,000 fund as ‘carrot’

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3263467/china-firm-offers-weight-loss-bonus-staff-using-us140000-fund-carrot?utm_source=rss_feed

A tech company in China has won plaudits on mainland social media for putting nearly one million yuan (US$140,000) into a fund to encourage its employees to lose weight.

The firm, Insta360, which is based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, in the country’s south, launched a slimming initiative at the beginning of last year.

Since then, 150 workers have taken part in the programme and have lost a total of 800kg. The combined cash bonus amounted to 980,000 yuan, mainland news outlet Jiupai News reported.

The initiative is like a weight-loss boot camp. The company designs each camp to be three months long, recruiting 30 workers each time. So far, five camps have been held, according to the report.

Since there were so many staff applying for the programme, the company prioritised the quota to those with obesity.

Members in each camp are divided into three groups, with two groups comprising 10 people each while the third has five people.

Individuals are weighed every week and will each be rewarded 400 yuan (US$55) for every 0.5kg the group has lost on average.

If any member of the group gains weight, no one gets a bonus and they will each be fined 500 yuan.

Not a single employee joining the camps has put on weight in the three- month period since the programme began, the report said.

“Creating groups is adding a moral dimension for the employees. They do not want to fail their colleagues,” a member of staff, surnamed Li, said.

“If you are not slimmer, you will not only affect your own bonus, but also drag other members behind. So this method really catapults people to motivate each other as well as themselves to do more sport,” he said.

He said he joined a camp in November last year, lured by the company’s bonus scheme as well as health concerns because he weighed more than 90kg, which was heavier than a standard weight for his 1.75m height.

Li did physical exercises, such as running, swimming and playing basketball every day after work. He also went on a diet.

He lost 17.5kg during the three-month period and received 7,410 yuan (US$1,000) in total.

“After losing weight, I am in pretty good shape. My chin is more pointed and my belly is smaller. I can feel I am much lighter. I am more energetic when playing basketball,” he said.

The company also attracted a flood of praise on mainland social media.

“What a fairy company it is. I wish I could work there,” an online observer said on Weibo.

“I would run 10km every day and the company would soon be bankrupt with a staffer like me,” another joked.

China, US security chiefs agree to keep talking on anti-narcotics cooperation

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3265758/china-us-security-chiefs-agree-keep-talking-anti-narcotics-cooperation?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s public security minister Wang Xiaohong and US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas agreed in a video call on Thursday to maintain their communications on anti-narcotics and law enforcement cooperation.

According to state news agency Xinhua, Wang said that both sides should “continue to deepen cooperation” on drug control, repatriation of illegal immigrants and combating transnational crime.

Wang also said the two countries should “promote law enforcement cooperation to achieve more practical results,” the Xinhua report said.

“The United States should attach great importance to China’s concerns, demonstrate its sincerity with practical actions, and inject positive energy into bilateral cooperation.”

China and the US have ramped up talks on law enforcement cooperation since Xi Jinping and Joe Biden’s November summit in San Francisco where the two leaders agreed to promote cooperation and manage tensions in a range of fields.

The summit included an agreement to form an anti-narcotics working group to tackle fentanyl, the No 1 killer of Americans aged between 18 and 45. China also agreed to curtail shipments of chemicals that can be used to make the drug, after long complaints from the US that China’s lack of action has helped to fuel the crisis.

Wang headed the first anti-narcotics working group meeting in Beijing in January and also met Mayorkas in Austria for further talks in February.

When US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited China in April, he thanked Wang for the “important progress” in China’s efforts in helping the US to curb fentanyl.

These included putting industry on notice, taking enforcement action against companies that produce precursors, and providing information to help international law enforcement to track and intercept illicit drugs and their precursors.

In his meeting with Blinken, Wang called on the US to stop the “harassment” of Chinese students at the US border. Many have been barred from entry after long interrogations by immigration officials, which the US said were necessary for national security reasons.

Biden has recently tightened immigration policy as the presidential election nears, while there has also been a surge in illegal Chinese immigrants attempting to enter the US from Mexico.

In an interview with NBC in April, ahead of his latest meeting with Wang, Mayorkas said the US was in high-level discussions with China to deport more illegal immigrants, an issue he also raised during their February talks.

The Associated Press reported last month that US border officials arrested more than 37,000 Chinese nationals on the southern border in 2023, 10 times more than the previous year.

According to the report, China agreed to work with the US on the illegal immigration issue, including accepting deportation flights. One flight carrying Chinese nationals reportedly landed in the country in March.

China space watchers hail SpaceX Starship’s ‘breathtaking’ test flight

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3265714/china-space-watchers-hail-spacex-starships-breathtaking-test-flight?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese space enthusiasts and media outlets have highly praised Thursday’s performance of SpaceX’s Starship rocket, after both stages made it back to Earth intact on its fourth flight attempt.

Starship is not only key to chief executive Elon Musk’s vision of sending people to Mars, but also critical in Nasa’s plans to return US astronauts to the moon, now slated for 2026.

Standing 121 metres (nearly 400ft) tall, the world’s most powerful rocket lifted off at 8.50am Eastern time from the US company’s test site in Boca Chica, Texas.

About eight minutes into the flight, Starship’s first stage – also known as the Super Heavy Booster – successfully landed in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, despite the failure of one of its 33 engines at ignition.

More than an hour later, the second stage of the rocket splashed down in the Indian Ocean in a controlled manner, although its heat insulation tiles were severely burned during atmospheric re-entry.

“How powerful and breathtaking,” wrote a Chinese space start-up employee on her Weibo account.

A Beijing-based rocket engineer, who spoke to the South China Morning Post on the condition of anonymity, said he would give the flight’s achievement a score of 90 out of 100.

“With this flight, Starship has completed 60 per cent of its work towards the ultimate goal,” he said.

State-owned China Space Daily hailed Starship’s performance as “approaching maturity” and said it surpassed the space shuttle to become the largest and most massive re-entry spacecraft in human history”.

The report noted that the rocket was making “remarkable progress” with each of its test flights and said it could be “one step away from full reusability”.

Starship’s first integrated flight test in April 2023 lasted four minutes. Several main engines failed after lift-off and the two rocket stages did not separate. The second flight in November lasted about eight minutes, ending in what SpaceX called “a rapid unscheduled disassembly”.

The rocket came closer to a sea landing on its third flight in March, but its first stage went into an uncontrollable spin before splashdown while failed heat shields caused the second to disintegrate.

Despite the success of Starship’s fourth attempt, its overall development progress has not met expectations, especially for Artemis III, the first planned US crewed moon landing mission since Apollo 17 in 1972, the China Space Daily article pointed out.

SpaceX’s biggest challenge after the launch-re-entry-reusability tests will be to master how to refuel the mammoth rocket multiple times after it has left the planet, it said. According to the company’s latest plan, in-orbit refuelling tests will not begin until 2025.

Last week, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa cancelled his trip to circle the moon in a Starship rocket, originally scheduled for 2023. “I feel terrible making the crew members wait longer,” he wrote in a statement.

China’s Chang’e-6 lift-off, Cathay’s cadet troubles: 7 highlights of the week

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/3265719/chinas-change-6-lift-cathays-cadet-troubles-7-highlights-week?utm_source=rss_feed

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider .

China’s Chang’e-6 ascent vehicle lifted off from the lunar surface with the first rock samples from the far side of the moon, embarking on a three-week-long journey home.

A US training centre for Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways has halted solo flights for cadet pilots after an “alarming” rise in serious blunders in which students were involved in a wingtip collision, a bounced landing and an erroneous exit from a runway.

Workers in the state sector and beyond face stiffer overseas travel barriers as authorities try to reduce corruption and spying risks.

Syndicates send thousands of Bangladeshis to Malaysia for fake jobs, labour advocates say, forcing them to illegally overstay while they seek new jobs to pay debts.

High-speed sleeper trains will run overnight between Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai from this month in a new measure Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has said will boost integration with mainland China.

Rising interest in China travel among Malaysia’s Malay-Muslims has seen demand pick up, with agencies handling tour groups in the “double digits” this year.

The Chinese love for char siu is strong – so strong, in fact, that frustrated parents often resort to hollering, “Giving birth to char siu is better than giving birth to you”. Crystal Jade in Singapore has been at the centre of a heated debate over its use of the insult to promote its barbecued pork.

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China’s export growth rebounds in May despite trade tensions

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3265725/chinas-export-growth-rebounds-may-despite-trade-tensions?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s export growth rebounded better than expected in May, fuelled by a lower base from the previous year and sustained overseas demand despite escalating trade tensions, offering Beijing a promising path toward its annual growth target.

Exports rose by 7.6 per cent from a year earlier to US$302.4 billion in May, according to customs data released on Friday.

The reading beat the expected increase of 6.35 per cent surveyed by Chinese financial data provider Wind, and was also better than the increase of 1.5 per cent in April.

Imports, meanwhile, rose by 1.8 per cent from a year earlier, compared to a 8.4 per cent increase in April.

Elsewhere, China’s trade surplus stood at US$82.6 billion in May, compared with US$72.4 billion in April.

The quick uptick in export growth in May was partly due to a lower base in the same month last year, when China reported a steep export decline of 7.5 per cent year on year.

Export growth in the world’s second-largest economy fell in 2023 for the first time in seven years, but rising overseas demand this year is boosting China’s trade sector and giving Beijing hope that it can buffer sluggish domestic demand and meet its 5 per cent annual economic growth target.

The United Nations has revised its prediction for China’s economic growth in 2024 to 4.8 per cent, while the International Monetary Fund also revised its projection this year to 5 per cent.

“A more pronounced rebound in global trade is likely in the second half of 2024, especially if the United States Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank begin to cut policy rates,” the United Nations said.

More to follow …

As India plays catch up with China’s aircraft carriers, high costs loom large

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3265705/india-plays-catch-chinas-aircraft-carriers-high-costs-loom-large?utm_source=rss_feed

India’s aspiration of owning five to six aircraft carriers might take “decades” and could be complicated by obstacles such as budget constraints and changing priorities, though having at least three to four such vessels would be ideal, according to observers.

India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said last month that his country would soon start building its third aircraft carrier, the proposed INS Vishal, adding that New Delhi “will not stop at that [three carriers]. We will make five, six more”.

The Indian Navy currently operates two 45,000-tonne aircraft carriers, the INS Vikramaditya and the INS Vikrant, both conventionally powered. The former was bought from Russia and deployed in 2014, while the latter was produced domestically and commissioned in 2022.

Singh’s comments came days after China’s third and latest aircraft carrier, the Fujian, completed its maiden test voyage. By the end of 2035, China is expected to have six aircraft carriers, making it the world’s second-largest blue-water navy after the United States, which currently has an 11-strong carrier fleet.

Swaran Singh, an international-relations professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, said the strategic challenge from China’s increasing naval presence across the Indian Ocean had been a matter of concern for Indian policymakers and defence planners.

But the time needed “from visionary blueprints to operational trial sails on blue oceans” was long, he said, and acquiring five to six carriers could take decades.

“[This] means one has to really plan far in advance to meet future needs, which is what Defence Minister Singh seems to be doing,” said Singh, who is also a member of the governing board at the Delhi-based Society of Indian Ocean Studies.

In recent years, China has increased its military presence and expanded its influence in the Indian Ocean, primarily through the establishment of its military base in East Africa’s Djibouti in 2017, alongside the development of dual-use facilities in Pakistan’s Gwadar.

Beijing deployed its navy and submarines in the Gulf of Aden in 2008 and 2014 in support of anti-piracy operations.

Long seen as within India’s sphere of influence, the Indian Ocean is strategically vital to Delhi as roughly 80 per cent of the country’s crude oil and 95 per cent of its trade passes through the region.

Singh added that there had always been a contest between the building of an “offensive submarine force versus defensive aircraft carriers”.

“India has had a mix of both of these,” Singh said, noting that given Delhi’s growing role in naval diplomacy, its navy would be expanded to address security and development challenges.

The Indian Navy currently operates 14 conventionally powered diesel-electric submarines and two nuclear-powered submarines.

The country’s military conducts exercises with several countries, including bilateral ones with the US, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, as well as multilateral ones such as the Malabar with Australia, Japan and the US.

Since the deadly 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Delhi has emerged as a key player in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

To allow flexibility in deployment, three aircraft carriers is the bare minimum for a country like India to project power into its largely maritime neighbourhood, according to Anushka Saxena, research analyst at The Takshashila Institution, an independent centre for research and education in public policy based in Bengaluru.

Saxena noted that the Vikrant took 13 years to be commissioned into service after plans were first laid down in 2009, while Vishal – the third proposed carrier – would require a similar time frame. The goal of having five to six carriers would take 25 to 30 years, she said.

During this period, hurdles including fluctuations in the navy’s budget and changes in its priorities, such as the need to induct more submarines, “may impede plans for more aircraft carriers”, Saxena said.

“Of similar importance will be a new political dispensation’s views on carriers,” Saxena said, noting that the defence minister’s comments “stargazed without a concrete or predictable plan in place”, given that the government had previously said budgetary constraints would force the navy to defer plans for a third carrier.

India acquired the Vikramaditya and Vikrant for US$2.35 billion and US$11 billion respectively, while Vishal is expected to cost US$6 billion to US$8 billion, according to a 2020 report by the Australian National University’s National Security College.

While China could potentially deploy a carrier battle group in the Indian Ocean, the possibility is “at least a decade away” since Beijing currently only has three carriers in its fleet, two of which are in active service, according to Saxena.

“Given that the PLA Navy is pulled in many directions, especially the South and East China seas, as well as the Philippine Sea, an Indian Ocean region deployment for its limited carriers is simply not a priority,” she said, referring to China’s navy by its official name.

If India chooses to build two more aircraft carriers over the next 20 to 25 years, these vessels could be larger with higher tonnage, Saxena said, but if the goal is six carriers in the same period, the vessels will have to be much smaller than the 45,000-tonne Vikrant.

“Because the country does not possess global sea control ambitions and is primarily vested in maintaining regional maritime dominance, four carriers with medium-level displacements – between 40,000 and 60,000 tonnes – should be the way forward for the next two decades,” she added.

Pooja Bhatt, a Delhi-based maritime and regional security analyst, said India enjoyed a maritime advantage in the Indian Ocean region through its infrastructure, superior training and maritime partnerships.

Aircraft carriers are useful for power projection but are prohibitively expensive, according to Bhatt, who noted that faster, smaller vessels are more affordable and have the speed, lethality and manoeuvrability that are necessary for warfare.

“Strategically, a combination of the two will suit India’s geostrategic situation and aspirations better,” Bhatt said.

Third term for Modi likely to see closer defense ties with US as India’s rivalry with China grows

https://apnews.com/article/modi-indian-military-defense-production-1a9f42ec8dac4e0e9de9be1ea9066fc1FILE-Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at the Red Fort to address the nation on the occasion of Independence Day in New Delhi, India, Aug. 15, 2015. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das, File)

2024-06-07T03:03:50Z

NEW DELHI (AP) — Fresh from declaring victory in India’s election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered few details on the agenda for his third term, but went out of his way to underline he would continue to focus on raising the country’s military preparedness and clout.

That should come as good news to the United States and its other allies, as they focus increasingly on keeping China’s sweeping maritime claims and growingly assertive behavior in the Indo-Pacific region in check.

“The government will focus on expanding defense production and exports,” Modi told a crowd of supporters at his party’s headquarters after election results came in. He spoke of his plan to increase security by lowering India’s dependence on arms imports. “We will not stop until the defense sector becomes self sufficient.”

Defense cooperation with the U.S. has greatly expanded under Modi, particularly through the so-called Quad security grouping that also includes Australia and Japan.

It’s a two-way street, giving the U.S. a strong partner neighboring China, which Washington has called its “pacing challenge,” while strengthening India’s defense credibility against a far more powerful rival.

“India is currently a frontline state as far as the Americans are concerned,” said Rahul Bedi, a New Delhi-based defense analyst. “The Indian navy is a major player in the Indian Ocean region.”

The defense relationship was also at the top of U.S. President Joe Biden’s agenda when he congratulated Modi on the election results.

In a call, “the two leaders emphasized their deepening the U.S.-India comprehensive and global strategic partnership and to advancing their shared vision of a free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific region,” the White House said.

It added that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan would soon travel to New Delhi “to engage the new government on shared U.S.-India priorities.”

It was about a year into Modi’s second term when India’s defense focus took a sharp turn toward China, when troops from the two nuclear neighbors clashed in 2020 in the Galwan Valley in the disputed northern border region of Ladakh and 20 Indian soldiers were killed.

“China really is India’s long term strategic challenge, both on the border and in the Indian Ocean as well,” said Viraj Solanki, a London-based expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“This has resulted in a number of defense partnerships by India shifting, or just focusing on countering China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.

Beijing has a close relationship with Pakistan, India’s traditional rival, and China has been increasing defense cooperation with India’s neighbors, including Nepal and Bangladesh, as well as the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

“China is really trying to engage more with these countries and develop its own influence and presence,” Solanki said. “I think that is a concern for New Delhi and something that will lead to increased competition in the Indian Ocean over the next few years.”

In congratulating Modi on the election results, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that a “sound and stable ” relationship between India and China was “in the interest of both countries and conducive to the peace and development of the region.”

She also added that China stood “ready to work with India,” but her comments were significantly more muted than the Foreign Ministry’s remarks on Modi’s last win in 2019 — before the border fight. At that time, the Foreign Ministry called the two nations “important neighbors” and said China wanted to “deepen political mutual trust, carry out mutually beneficial cooperation and push forward the closer partnership between the two countries.”

Modi has always governed with his party in the majority, but after a lackluster performance in the election will now be forced to rely on coalition partners, and will face a stronger and invigorated opposition.

The main opposition Congress party is unlikely to challenge Modi’s defense reforms, but has been critical of how he has handled the border issue with China and may pressure him on that front, Bedi said.

“Modi has not been entirely truthful, or very economical with the truth as far as the situation in Ladakh is concerned,” he said. He referred to a Defense Ministry document that was published online, and quickly removed, which had suggested Chinese troops entered Indian territory during the 2020 confrontation.

“The opposition, I am sure, will raise questions and ask the government to come clean on what the real situation is.”

Under Modi’s program of military modernization and reform, his government has sought to grow the private defense manufacturing sector, a space previously occupied solely by the government-run organizations, and has eased foreign direct investment regulations to try and encourage companies to establish themselves in India.

In a flagship project, the country launched its first home-built aircraft carrier in 2022, part of a plan to deploy two carrier battle groups to counter China’s rising maritime power.

Much of India’s military equipment is of Russian origin, and delays on delivery and difficulties of procuring spare parts due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also provided impetus for India to diversify defense procurement, looking more to the U.S., France, Israel and elsewhere, Solanki said.

As it seeks to strengthen ties with India, Washington has agreed to a deal that will allow General Electric to collaborate with Hindustan Aeronautics to produce fighter jet engines.

Speaking at the Shangri-La defense conference in Singapore last weekend, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the countries were also co-producing armored vehicles.

“The relationship that we enjoy with India right now is as good or better than our relationship has ever been,” he said. “It’s really strong.”

DAVID RISING Rising covers regional Asia-Pacific stories for The Associated Press. He has worked around the world, including covering the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine, and was based for nearly 20 years in Berlin before moving to Bangkok. twitter mailto

South China Sea: Philippines accuses Chinese coastguard of blocking sick soldier’s evacuation

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3265717/south-china-sea-philippines-accuses-chinese-coastguard-blocking-sick-soldiers-evacuation?utm_source=rss_feed

The Philippine coastguard on Friday accused its Chinese counterpart of blocking efforts to evacuate a sick armed forces member in the South China Sea, calling it “barbaric and inhumane”.

The incident, which the Philippines said took place last month, involved a member of a small contingent of marines posted to guard the BRP Sierra Madre, a Philippine vessel grounded at the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, the site of repeated confrontations with China this past year.

Coastguard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said coastguard and navy rubber boats were harassed by the Chinese vessels, despite having informed them the operation was of a medical nature.

“The barbaric and inhumane behaviour displayed by the China coastguard has no place in our society,” Tarriela said in a statement.

China’s embassy in the Philippines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tarriela said the Chinese coastguard “engaged in dangerous manoeuvres and even intentionally rammed the PN RHIB while transporting the sick personnel.”

“What should have been a simple medical evacuation operation was subjected to harassment,” Tarriela said.

Philippine military chief Romeo Brawner said on Tuesday the first attempt to transport the sick soldier to the western province of Palawan failed after they were blocked by the Chinese.

Another attempt was made the next day with the help of the Philippine coastguard and the soldier was successfully evacuated, Brawner said.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a conduit for more than US$3 trillion in annual ship commerce, and has deployed hundreds of coastguard vessels as far as 1,000km off its mainland to police what it says is its jurisdiction.

The Philippines and China have sparred repeatedly this past year near disputed features that fall in Manila’s exclusive economic zone. China routinely accuses the Philippines of encroachment while Manila and its allies have condemned what they calls aggression by Beijing.

In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague said China’s claims had no legal basis, a decision Beijing has rejected.

Why Malaysia’s big chip dreams hang in the US-China balance

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3265659/why-malaysias-big-chip-dreams-hang-us-china-balance?utm_source=rss_feed

Malaysia has big semiconductor ambitions.

The Southeast Asian nation is already a major cog in the global supply chain, feeding about 13 per cent of demand in the packaging and testing space.

But it wants to be more.

Global semiconductor firms have been shopping around the region for suitable locations to either expand or shift their operations out of China, to “de-risk” from sanctions imposed by the US in an increasingly testy tech war.

This involves tens of billions of dollars in investments and the building of highly coveted wafer fabrication plants, or fabs, which developing nations believe will help fast track their growth towards becoming hi-tech economies.

Malaysia – much like Vietnam, Indonesia and India – wants in on the fab action.

Southeast Asia has already seen a flurry of fresh investments, amounting to billions of US dollars. But these have mostly focused on back end processes, as Washington looks to keep the more lucrative, and highly sensitive, front end wafer manufacturing among its closest allies in Europe and Japan.

Last week, in his strongest pitch yet, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim told a regional semiconductor industry conference in Kuala Lumpur that Malaysia was their best bet to avoid getting caught in the US-China crush, leveraging the country’s long-held policy of neutrality and non-alignment.

It’s arguably an attractive proposition. Anyone who sets up shop in “friend to all” Malaysia can conceivably claim that they are not acting for or trying to undermine any side.

This stance theoretically enables companies to engage with and sell to any party seeking to do business in the country – barring those entities or nations facing multilateral sanctions – allowing Malaysia to maximise the opportunities and profit.

For Malaysia, a surge in semiconductor investments would help speed up its transition to developed nation status, as more plants mean more jobs, including high-skilled roles that will boost per capita income.

But nations, like people, tend to have different motivations.

Malaysia is heavily reliant on external trade, which was a key driver of its rapid industrialisation from the 1980s to 1990s and remains an important contributor to economic growth.

Its often stated position of neutrality has been useful in paving the way for establishing bilateral ties, especially economic links, with numerous nations across the globe.

But what happens when one of your biggest partners starts pressuring you to pick a side?

Just last year, the US and EU envoys to Malaysia sent a letter to the government warning of national security risks associated with allowing Chinese tech giant Huawei to develop 5G infrastructure.

Analysts only expect such pressure from the US to intensify, especially if it escalates its sanctions and policy responses against China’s access to high-end chips that can be used to run supercomputers and develop sophisticated artificial intelligence.

The US began unilaterally imposing sanctions on China in the form of export controls under the 2022 Chips Act, which bars chip makers that have interests in the US from expanding semiconductor manufacturing in China or any country deemed by the Americans as posing a national security risk.

Malaysia has made it clear that it will not recognise any sanctions unless approved by multilateral bodies such as the United Nations.

Prime Minister Anwar himself has repeatedly said that Malaysia will not allow itself to be pressured into taking a position for or against any country.

But balancing Malaysia’s interests with the US, its biggest investment partner, and China, its top trade partner for 15 years as of 2023, will need more than bold public pronouncements.

As Anwar’s government pursues the reforms he long championed while in opposition, he will also need to consider putting the right people in the right positions to craft a convincing and actionable policy of engagement to manage ties with the two superpowers going forward.

A Beijing police unit is hiring. Those who’ve lived outside mainland China need not apply

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3265613/beijing-police-unit-hiring-those-whove-lived-outside-mainland-china-need-not-apply?utm_source=rss_feed

A district police bureau in Beijing is the latest public sector employer to rule out any job applicants who have lived outside mainland China – including Hong Kong and Macau – for more than six months.

Time spent beyond mainland borders is under growing scrutiny for roles deemed sensitive, with similar restrictions imposed by other law enforcement agencies and the immigration department in recent years.

It comes as the ruling Communist Party’s national security drive gathers pace amid an intensifying rivalry with the United States, and following anti-government protests in Hong Kong in 2019.

The Pinggu branch of Beijing’s Public Security Bureau is currently advertising to recruit 40 auxiliary police officers. Its ad posted to social network WeChat on Monday states that anyone who has spent six months or more outside the mainland will not be eligible to apply. Neither will those involved in drugs, gambling or prostitution.

The ad says people who have studied, worked or lived outside mainland China for more than six months and whose “experience and political conduct during their time abroad is difficult to investigate” need not apply.

Describing the role, the ad says auxiliary police officers are responsible for maintaining public order, traffic management, preventing and stopping crime, handling cases and assisting the public.

It describes the ideal candidates as people with “a spirit of loyalty, dedication and hard work”. The monthly salary, including performance bonus and overtime allowances, is 4,600 yuan (US$635) once the officer has passed the probation period.

Auxiliary police officers in China are treated as government contractors and do not get the same benefits as public servants.

People who have spent half a year or more outside mainland China have also been excluded from applying for other roles in the public sector in recent years, with several examples in the past few months.

Anyone who has lived beyond the mainland borders for more than six months has also been ruled out for jobs at the Key Information Infrastructure Protection Centre, according to its recruitment ad in April. The centre is also under Beijing’s Public Security Bureau and provides technical support to protect the city’s critical information network.

In the southern province of Guangdong, a drug research centre under the provincial Public Security Department was advertising for PhD graduates in May. Anyone who has spent more than six months outside the mainland is disqualified from applying.

The centre’s recruitment ad said it had achieved “a series of original research results, developed a number of key technologies with independent intellectual property rights” and had a leading position in drug control technology.

The National Immigration Administration, which works closely with the police, also took a tough line when advertising for new staff in April – anyone who has spent more than six months beyond the mainland could not apply. Its police service support centre, an IT research institute and a service centre for immigration affairs were all advertising vacancies. The immigration agency also imposed this restriction last year and in 2022.

Beijing has been tightening national security legislation, with a revised anti-espionage law taking effect last year that broadens the definition of spying and an expanded state secrets law adopted in May.

The state secrets law covers information deemed sensitive in areas ranging from education, technology and internet use to military facilities. One of the new clauses stipulates that workers with access to classified information cannot travel overseas without approval, including for a period after they leave the job or retire.

What is green hydrogen and what is China’s role in its production and use?

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3265291/what-green-hydrogen-and-what-chinas-role-its-production-and-use?utm_source=rss_feed

Decarbonising the global economy by mid-century is crucial in the fight against climate change, which requires a major overhaul in the world’s energy systems.

Hydrogen has emerged as a viable long-term solution that can reduce emissions in the most carbon-intensive sectors, including power generation, ground, sea and air transport and steel and cement.

To make the zero-emission fuel commercially viable, much work and investment lies ahead to enhance efficiency, reduce costs and scale up deployment.

Here is what you need to know about green hydrogen:

Hydrogen, the world’s most abundant chemical element, is a colourless, odourless and highly flammable gas. It is currently mostly used in oil refineries to lower the sulphur content of diesel and to make ammonia, a key fertiliser ingredient.

Globally, some 98 per cent of hydrogen produced in 2022 was from fossil fuels – mostly natural gas – through chemical reactions with steam, a highly carbon-intensive process, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Without expensive equipment to capture and store the emissions, each tonne of hydrogen produced from natural gas results in the emission of 10 to 14kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and contributes to global warming, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The remaining 2 per cent was produced using renewable energy – wind, solar and hydro – to split water into hydrogen and oxygen via a process called electrolysis, using an electrolyser.

The low-carbon product is known as “green” hydrogen, which differs from “grey” hydrogen made from natural gas without capturing the carbon emissions, or “blue” hydrogen where the emissions are extracted and stored.

Hydrogen, which produces no emissions when combusted, is already used to power fuel-cell vehicles, especially buses and lorries. But mass adoption has yet to take off in most markets because of high costs and competition from battery-powered alternatives.

Thanks to generous subsidies, China dominates hydrogen-powered heavy-duty vehicles, according to the IEA. More than 95 per cent of the world’s fuel-cell lorries and 85 per cent of buses are in use in China. South Korea leads in fuel-cell cars, accounting for more than half of the global total.

Green hydrogen also holds promise as a clean alternative in the shipping sector, but it is primarily derivative products – ammonia and methanol – that are used in vessels because of their advantages in storage and transport.

Other sectors with bright prospects for adopting hydrogen include steel, fertiliser and aviation, but adoption is limited as a major overhaul of the manufacturing processes and equipment will be required.

Hydrogen-based steel production requires much less energy, as the temperature required to “reduce” – or remove oxygen – from iron ore, is less than that in the coal-based process. Also, recycled steel can be used in hydrogen-based steel making, further cutting energy and emissions intensity.

China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is also the largest producer of coal power, steel, ammonia, cars and ships. Green hydrogen can greatly reduce emissions from their manufacture and consumption.

China’s wind and solar energy-rich northern, northeast and northwest regions are ideally situated to install green hydrogen production facilities.

However, the highly variable availability of weather-dependent energy presents significant technical challenges for electrolyser makers and green hydrogen producers.

Further research and development is needed to achieve cost reduction and high capacity utilisation to pave the way for commercialisation.

Lowering the storage and transport costs of green hydrogen is equally important, because China’s renewable-energy rich regions are thousands of kilometres from the most economically developed regions, where most of the hydrogen vehicles are deployed.

More than 30 large-scale green hydrogen projects have been announced, under construction or completed, involving 260 billion yuan (US$35.9 billion) of investment, according to industry portal newenergy.org.cn’s tally.

China Petroleum & Chemical (Sinopec), the nation’s biggest oil refiner, in mid-2023 completed the nation’s largest solar-powered demonstration green hydrogen plant at a cost of almost 3 billion yuan. The company expects the plant to reach the designed annual capacity of 20,000 tonnes in the fourth quarter of next year.

Located in Kuqa, in northwest Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the plant’s electrolysers have a total capacity of 260 megawatts, the world’s largest system in a single location, according to Sinopec. They are complemented by 10 spherical storage tanks with a combined capacity of 210,000 cubic metres.

The stored hydrogen is fed into the company’s oil refinery on site replacing grey hydrogen.

In March, China Huadian Group, one of the nation’s largest power producers, commissioned a green hydrogen project in Baotou, in Inner Mongolia autonomous region. With an annual capacity of 7,800 tonnes, it can meet the needs of 1,000 fuel-cell heavy-duty vehicles.

Francesco Stadler, a director at impact investing network Sustainable Finance Initiative, said there is growing interest among private family offices in Hong Kong and Asia-Pacific because of policy initiatives.

“While barriers to green hydrogen adoption remain, be it technological, infrastructural or economical, hydrogen is now a technically mature decarbonisation solution that can be deployed along with other [alternatives] as part of a net-zero [emissions] strategy,” he said.

A prerequisite for green hydrogen to achieve commercial success is a major scale-up and further cost reduction in renewable energy, said Ed Northam, head of Asia-Pacific at energy infrastructure investor Macquarie Asset Management Green Investments.

“Green hydrogen is a solution to help decarbonise the hard-to-abate heavy industries and heavy-duty transport sectors,” he said. “But to deliver the energy transition, we must invest across the spectrum of energy solutions, and at the heart of that is renewable energy, which is required to power the production of green hydrogen.”

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Trump suggests tariffs against nations, including China, over illegal immigration

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3265699/trump-suggests-tariffs-against-nations-including-china-over-illegal-immigration?utm_source=rss_feed

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday he may impose tariffs on countries, including China, that do not curb the flow of undocumented immigrants from their territory to the United States, if he wins the US election in November.

Trump made the remarks at an event in the border election battleground state of Arizona while responding to an audience question and did not specify the size of tariff he would impose in such a scenario.

Asked about ways he would curb the flow of migrants crossing into the US illegally, Trump said: “We have tremendous economic power.” Trump said if a country, such as China, does not help to curb the flow of immigrants in to the US, “we have these things called tariffs.”

Trump said he hoped he would not need to use tariffs to curb illegal immigration, but warned if other countries do not help to reduce it, then he could “tariff the hell out of that country” if re-elected.

Border security and immigration have emerged as top issues for Americans in the run- up to the November 5 election where Trump will face US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in a rematch of the 2020 White House contest.

For China’s eager emigrants, the FOMO is real, and a move overseas may be now or never

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3265627/chinas-eager-emigrants-fomo-real-and-move-overseas-may-be-now-or-never?utm_source=rss_feed

For affluent middle-class Chinese, 2024 may be the year they are most inclined to take action on emigration – seeing this as the final call for “the easy train” to a fresh start overseas – as some fear that the immigration outlook abroad could become derailed by factors beyond their control.

Dr Thomas Shen is among those who now see the light at the end of the tunnel growing dimmer with time. The deputy chief physician at a top-tier hospital in southern China’s Shenzhen recently decided to apply for a coveted EB-1A professional visa in the United States, where his daughter is in her final year of high school.

And if that doesn’t pan out, he would try to take advantage of an investment programme that would allow him to emigrate to Greece. Either way, his family has its sights set on permanent residency in a developed country.

But immigration policies in many countries and regions that have long been viewed as attractive to Chinese middle-class families are expected to start tightening in the coming year, according to those who specialise in expatriation.

“Various countries’ immigration policies are at a tipping point,” said Crystal Tan, an agent in Guangdong province who helps wealthy Chinese citizens emigrate and buy property overseas. “The timing is right this year, and as the cost is still within their financial capabilities, many middle-class individuals are willing to try.”

Meanwhile, the wealth of these affluent families in Chinese urban cities is dwindling, largely due to fallout from the plunging price of property, which had for years been seen as the most sensible safe-haven investment. As a result, budgets have shrunk and their purse strings have been tightened, effectively erecting a fresh roadblock in their path to overseas citizenship.

In the past, China’s property-led national development strategy has created huge income and wealth disparities in the country, but the widespread and rapid decline in housing prices and income in China has recently raised risks for the upper-middle-class group’s wealth.

The European Union’s investment residency and citizenship programmes have been offering enticing options for the Chinese, but this year is widely viewed as the last chance for them, as the European Parliament has confirmed the upcoming closure of all home-buying immigration next year.

“Industry peers estimate that, in 2024, up to 2,000 Chinese families will try their luck at Malta’s programme,” Tan said, referring to the island country’s Citizenship by Naturalisation for Exceptional Services by Direct Investment, while noting that another 2,000 families will look to Greece and about 1,000 will go for Portugal.

It usually takes a few months to get a second citizenship, which comes with a price tag of between US$250,000 and US$1 million, according to industry insiders and product packages.

“More than 4,000 Chinese families are expected to flock to apply for the US’ EB-1A [extraordinary ability] and NIW [national interest waiver] visas by this year, as the pass rate is looking to be significantly lower next year, with much stricter scrutiny,” Tan said, explaining how US Citizenship and Immigration Services is expected to propose changes to the processing rules and evidence-submission requirements for those types of visas in August

And industry experts suspect that a potential return to the White House by former president Donald Trump next year could result in even tighter immigration laws.

Shen said the market price for an EB-1A or NIW visa is about US$60,000, with a US$35,000 refund if the immigrant petition is not approved. “A large number of social media posts are also frantically promoting immigration programmes on popular platforms such as Xiaohongshu,” the doctor observed.

“The cost of the opportunity for my family of three to get a US green card via my speciality is attractive and worthwhile,” Shen said, and “the Greek Golden Visa Program, through a 250,000 euro (US$272,000) real estate investment is, so far, still affordable, compared with Shenzhen’s current property prices.”

Until this year, emigrating was not really on Shen’s radar. But he said his mind changed as he watched people suffer sharp declines in wealth and income – from fellow doctors to bankers and civil servants.

“My daughter needs overseas citizenship and says she wants to stay overseas if the economic and political environment in China changes even more in the future,” he said. “Besides, even if I continue to hold on to the properties I currently own, there is a high probability that they will continue to depreciate over the next year, or in years to come.

“So, selling some of my domestic properties in exchange for an apartment and citizenship in Europe for the family sounds like a better deal than it ever has.”

This is also a time when more young mainland-based talent are seeking employment in Hong Kong, said Sophie Su, a veteran translator who rushed to take advantage of the administrative region’s push to attract immigrants from various groups through talent immigration schemes such as the Top Talent Pass Scheme (TTPS) and the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme (QMAS).

Most successful applicants in these programmes came from mainland China last year, with authorities saying that 95 per cent of the nearly 50,000 TTPS applications were approved by the end of last year.

“I was told by immigration consultants that more than 30,000 people would file their applications later this year,” Su said. “I and many friends in their thirties and forties want to seize this opportunity before the programme caps the limit.”

Su paid 15,000 yuan to her immigration agent to help her apply through the QMAS, but she still worries that her odds of rejection could be high, based solely on her credentials.

“But if I don’t try this year, the bar will definitely be higher next year,” she said, adding that living and working in Hong Kong remains a strong draw for young middle-class Chinese people like herself.

“Children can get a more international education in Hong Kong, and you can invest in gold and foreign currencies more freely in Hong Kong, with higher interest rates than in domestic banks.”

According to the Industry Insights report of the Henley Citizenship Program Index 2024, released by advisory firm Henley & Partners, 2024 is projected to be a record-breaking year, with the biggest millionaire migration in history – projected to be about 128,000.

Affluent middle-class Chinese are keen to obtain a second, premium citizenship, since citizenship is the key status that determines a person’s position in a hierarchical global system, Henley’s report said. However, it is worth noting that mainland China does not recognise dual nationality for any Chinese national.

Travel freedom has become particularly valuable in today’s globalised world, where the ability to cross international borders plays a key role in determining individuals’ economic opportunities, consumption habits and social status – sometimes even their safety, the report added.

Just over 36 per cent of the surveyed high-net-worth individuals from China said their family members were considering emigrating overseas, according to the 2024 Hurun Chinese Luxury Consumer Survey released by the Hurun Report Research Institute in March. This marked an increase of nearly 6 percentage points from 2023. Singapore, Canada and the United States remained the most favoured immigration destinations among rich Chinese.

Meanwhile, there are concerns that the number of Chinese people who can afford to emigrate could peak this year and diminish from 2025.

“The popular belief in the past was that selling a two-bedroom apartment in Shenzhen or Shanghai would be enough for a middle-class family of three to immigrate overseas. Now it has become increasingly impractical, because we all feel that the momentum of China’s overall wealth growth is waning” said Ken Cai, a private entrepreneur in the Yangtze River Delta who obtained citizenship in Europe through an investment programme.

Cai said urban Chinese citizens have finally accepted that property prices are no longer perpetually rising, and that a dramatic decline in personal wealth can tank the value of housing assets.

“Many of those who had the means and inclination to emigrate last year will most likely not see that as a viable option next year,” he said.

Last month, another wealth report produced by Hurun also showed that, as of January last year, the number of affluent Chinese families had dropped by 0.8 per cent from the previous year. And it showed that the number of high-net-worth families – those with assets worth more than 10 million yuan – had also dropped 1.3 per cent to 2.08 million.

And a survey of middle-class members aged between 31 and 40, by finance and economic writer Wu Xiaobo, indicated that wealth growth slowed last year.

Less than one-fifth – 17.5 per cent – of the polled middle-class group said the value of their assets expanded in 2023, citing bottlenecks in increasing their wealth, according to the “2023 White Paper on the New Middle Class” released via Wu’s independent financial media company, Wu Xiaobo Channel.

Nearly half of the people polled had pre-tax personal annual income of between 200,000 yuan and 500,000 yuan, and household assets of between 3 million yuan and 10 million yuan. According to Wu’s report, 11.4 per cent of middle-class families reported that their wealth had shrunk by more than 30 per cent last year, with 28.9 per cent mentioning a decrease in wealth ranging from between 10 and 30 per cent. Only 24.8 per cent said their wealth had increased in 2023, compared with 29 per cent a year ago and 55 per cent in 2021, according to the white paper.

As a result, Tan, the Guangdong-based agent, spoke to the urgency of the situation for those looking to move abroad.

“You could say that this year may be the last chance to hop on the easy train for immigration, so everybody is sort of going crazy for fear of missing out,” she said. “The number of inquiries has increased significantly, and clients will have to go all-out.”