Mistral点评

• Pentagon not denying secret campaign to discredit Chinese vaccines
• Asean all adrift over South China Sea consensus
• Chinese scientists create and cage world’s first AI commander in a PLA laboratory
• Australian writer’s sentence upheld ahead of China premier’s visit, supporters say
• Chinese firm sought to use UK university links to access AI for possible military use
• China calls for Russia-Ukraine peace talks ‘as soon as possible’ after skipping Swiss summit that shunned Moscow
• Tragic China girl, 19, coerced into engagement after blind date takes own life, uncaring fiancé wants bride price refund
• As China decries US plans for an Asian Nato, is it all a ‘political gimmick’?
• Chinese Communist Party warns members not to criticise policy ahead of major economic policy meeting
• China woman causes commotion by bringing pet sugar glider onto plane, leading to evacuation
• Extreme weather hits China, bringing drought to some areas and flooding further south
• A Hong Kong with no foreign judges risks being just another Chinese city
• China’s Li Qiang promises Australia more pandas: ‘pick a pair’
• China looks to Africa to meet rising demand for seafood, but can it balance local interests with its own needs?
• In Huawei’s home province, lychee farmers reap the benefits of China’s rural 5G push
• Top professor urges China youth to date more, says ‘hook-up’ culture cannot replace authentic love
• Chinese premier promises more pandas and urges Australia to put aside differences
• Sinovac hits back over reported US campaign to discredit China’s Covid-19 vaccine
• ‘Hong Kong open to running more high-speed sleeper trains to mainland Chinese cities’
• Malaysia pins its belt and road infrastructure hopes on deepening China ties
• ‘Divorce pals’: new China trend sees single mothers team up, live together, share resources and childcare duties
• Chinese Nvidia distributor pairs graphics cards with Black Myth: Wukong game in offbeat promotion
• Chinese government rushes to shore up struggling property sector with new policies
• US military still has an edge, but China is catching up with hi-tech weapons

Pentagon not denying secret campaign to discredit Chinese vaccines

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3266836/pentagon-not-denying-secret-campaign-discredit-chinese-vaccines?utm_source=rss_feed

The US Defence Department did not deny a report accusing the Pentagon of orchestrating a secret campaign meant to discredit Chinese Covid-19 vaccines, and suggested that the move was an attempt to counter “malign influence campaigns” run by Beijing.

The department said on Sunday, in response to a query about a Reuters report that the Pentagon tried to discredit the quality of Chinese face masks, test kits and the country’s Sinovac vaccine, that it conducts “a wide range of operations, including operations in the information environment (OIE), to counter adversary malign influence”.

The report said the campaign to discredit the Chinese vaccine began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021, several months into the administration of US President Joe Biden.

It was within that time frame that Chinese officials suggested in social media posts and press conferences that Fort Detrick, a US Army facility that had a biological weapons programme from the 1940s through 1960s, should be investigated as a potential source of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

The latest development on this front underscores how far Washington and Beijing were, and still are, from cooperation on efforts to end the pandemic that had by that point killed more than 4 million people worldwide.

One White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said staff “were still trying to chase down” the report’s details to confirm them. The State Department referred the Post’s query to the Pentagon.

Sinovac, whose vaccine was the first Covid-19 jab to become available in the Philippines, reacted quickly to the report, calling the Pentagon campaign a “wrong attack that will create enormous disaster”.

The Defence Department “uses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter ... malign influence attacks aimed at the US, allies and partners”, said Lisa Lawrence, a Pentagon spokesperson. “As it relates to Covid-19 disinformation, China [in 2020] initiated a disinformation campaign to falsely blame the United States for the spread of Covid-19.”

“In line with the US National Defense Strategy, the [Defence Department] continues to build integrated deterrence against critical challenges to US national security, including deterring [China’s] spread of disinformation under the scrutiny of the Department’s coordination and deconfliction process,” she added.

James Mattis, who served as defence secretary under US President Joe Biden’s immediate predecessor, Donald Trump, released his National Defence Strategy in January 2018.

That document references China’s “influence operations” as part of Beijing’s efforts to displace the US military from the Indo-Pacific region.

“China is leveraging military modernisation, influence operations, and predatory economics to coerce neighbouring countries to reorder the Indo-Pacific region to their advantage,” it said.

“As China continues its economic and military ascendance, asserting power through an all-of-nation long-term strategy, it will continue to pursue a military modernisation programme that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future,” it added.

Disinformation is also mentioned in the National Defence Strategy released by Biden’s Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin in 2022. The term shows up under the heading of “competitors’ grey zone activities”, applied only to Russia explicitly and without any specifics on how such activity would be countered.

That section said that China “employs state-controlled forces, cyber and space operations, and economic coercion against the United States and its allies and partners”.

Russia, meanwhile, “employs disinformation, cyber, and space operations against the United State and our allies and partners, and irregular proxy forces in multiple countries”, it said.

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Asean all adrift over South China Sea consensus

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3266516/asean-all-adrift-over-south-china-sea-consensus?utm_source=rss_feed

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim recently talked down the Philippine approach to disputes with China in the South China Sea and talked up Malaysia’s “more aggressive way of diplomatic engagement” as being more successful.

With Malaysia set to chair Asean next year, Anwar’s statement carried immense strategic significance.

Speaking at the 37th Asia-Pacific Roundtable in Kuala Lumpur earlier this month, Anwar admitted that Malaysia and China had also faced “some very serious issues” but managed “relatively more successful” relations as Malaysia is deemed “really neutral” amid the superpower rivalry in the region.

In an indirect criticism of America’s growing strategic involvement in the South China Sea, Anwar underscored that “there should not be involvement with other parties” beyond China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, so as not to “complicate the matter”.

This is a direct contradiction of the Philippines’ strategic orientation, which involves doubling down on security cooperation with Western partners as a counterbalance to China.

It is hard to overstate the divisions within Asean, where leaders often seem to inhabit parallel geopolitical universes.

A combination of differing strategic priorities, domestic political dynamics and the consensus-based decision-making process will continue to undermine Asean’s centrality and complicate efforts to negotiate an optimal diplomatic response to the maritime disputes.

Anwar’s intervention came just days after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, in a keynote speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, said “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive actions continue to violate our sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction” in the South China Sea – seen as a reference to China.

In the past year, Filipino and Chinese maritime forces have come into conflict several times over disputed land features, most notably Second Thomas Shoal, which hosts a de facto Philippine military facility on the grounded Sierra Madre vessel.

Manila has accused Beijing of deploying water cannons to disrupt and intimidate Philippine patrol and resupply vessels, leading to several servicemen being injured.

Marcos Jnr also warned in Singapore that “China’s determining influence over the security situation and the economic evolution of this region is a permanent fact” while “the stabilising presence of the United States is crucial to regional peace”.

Framing his foreign policy orientation as a defensive measure against a far more powerful China, Marcos made it clear that “Filipinos do not yield”, signalling his commitment to stay the course by deepening his country’s wide network of security partnerships, which include the trilateral grouping with the US and Japan, and the quadrilateral “Squad” that includes Australia.

Still, he emphasised that the Philippines is not interested in fully aligning with the West in a new cold war, since choosing sides is “never a choice” and, crucially, that both China and the US “are important” for Asia’s peace and stability.

Marcos, whose father’s regime was a founding member of Asean, has consistently called for growing solidarity and cooperation among regional states while pursuing “minilateral” cooperation with like-minded countries such as Vietnam.

There are reasons to be sceptical about Asean members’ cooperation on South China Sea disputes. To begin with, Asean’s unanimity-based decision-making makes it extremely difficult to agree on a shared language and mutually acceptable legal regime to effectively manage the maritime spats. This largely explains why, after decades of negotiations with China, no breakthrough has been made on a South China Sea code of conduct.

More importantly, Asean members have extremely divergent threat perceptions towards China. Malaysia, for instance, has managed to broadly stabilise its maritime tensions with China despite unilaterally developing energy resources in the contested waters in 2020. This stabilisation is partly thanks to Malaysia’s diplomatic resistance to US-led security initiatives in the region, most notably the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine deal between the US, Britain and Australia.

As for Vietnam, its booming trade and investment ties with China and their shared concerns over a “colour revolution” at home have brought the communist regimes closer than at any time since the Cold War.

In stark contrast, the Philippines’ relations with China have been shaped by its long-standing alliance with America and growing frustration over the former Duterte administration’s largely fruitless strategic flirtation with Beijing – and its potentially deleterious “secret agreements” reportedly made with China at the expense of Philippine sovereign rights and claims in the South China Sea.

Perhaps the most important obstacle to a more unified and robust Asean response, however, is domestic politics. In the Philippines, Marcos is under growing pressure to adopt a tough stance on China, with surveys showing that up to 91 per cent of Filipinos distrust China while 76 per cent see it as the “greatest threat”. As Marcos’ approval ratings slide amid the rising cost of living, he can ill afford to be seen as weak or compromising on maritime disputes.

In Muslim-majority Malaysia, meanwhile, there is a growing backlash against the West over the Gaza crisis, with China positioning itself as a champion of Palestinian rights. Anwar has a political incentive to adopt a far more critical stance of the United States than China.

In Vietnam, intra-regime political upheaval and uncertainties over the leadership transition militate against a more adventurist foreign policy, especially on great powers such as neighbouring China. If anything, the rise of more conservative and inward-looking “securocrats” in Hanoi signals growing party-to-party ties and shared Sino-Vietnamese concerns about potentially nefarious Western influence over the country’s rapidly expanding middle class.

It’s unclear how Malaysia and the Philippines, let alone the whole of Asean, can arrive at an optimal consensus, one that would reinforce the regional body’s centrality in shaping the trajectory of South China Sea disputes.

Chinese scientists create and cage world’s first AI commander in a PLA laboratory

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3266444/chinese-scientists-create-and-cage-worlds-first-ai-commander-pla-laboratory?utm_source=rss_feed

In China, where it is forbidden for artificial intelligence to lead the armed forces, scientists have created an AI commander.

This “virtual commander”, strictly confined to a laboratory at the Joint Operations College of the National Defence University in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, mirrors the human commander in all ways, from experience to thought patterns to personality – and even their flaws.

In large-scale computer war games involving all branches of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the AI commander has been granted unprecedented supreme command authority, learning and growing fast in the endlessly evolving virtual wars.

This groundbreaking research project was publicly revealed in May in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Chinese-language journal Common Control & Simulation. The team, led by senior engineer Jia Chenxing, said AI technology held both potential and risk in military applications, yet this project offered a “viable” solution to the growing conundrum.

In China, the military must strictly abide by this principle: “The Party commands the gun.” Only the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China has the authority to mobilise the PLA.

As AI technology gains the ability to make independent decisions, forward-deployed units including drones and robotic dogs are granted more freedom of movement and the power to fire. But command authority back at headquarters remains firmly in human hands.

The PLA has prepared many operational plans for potential military conflicts in areas such as Taiwan and the South China Sea. An essential task for scientists is to test these plans in simulations, to “weigh the good with the bad and gain insight into the chaos of battle,” Jia and his colleagues wrote.

Campaign-level military simulations often require the participation of human commanders to make on-the-spot decisions in response to unexpected events. But the number of senior PLA commanders and their availability is very limited, making it impossible for them to participate in a large number of war simulations.

“The current joint operations simulation system suffers from poor simulation experiment results due to the lack of command entities at the joint battle level,” the researchers said.

The AI commander can stand in for human commanders when they cannot participate in a large-scale virtual battle or exercise command authority. Within the boundary of the laboratory, it can freely exercise this power without any interference from humans.

“The highest-level commander is the sole core decision-making entity for the overall operation, with ultimate decision-making responsibilities and authority,” Jia and his colleagues wrote. This is the highest-level role publicly reported for AI in military research.

For instance, the AI of the US Army only serves as a “commander’s virtual staff”, providing decision support. The AI pilots of the US Air Force only participate in frontline training and do not interfere with war room operations, according to Jia’s team.

Different senior PLA commanders have different combat styles. General Peng Dehuai, for instance, wreaked havoc on US forces through unexpected swift strikes and infiltrations during the Korean war. Like US General George Patton, Peng favoured victory through risks.

On the other hand, General Lin Biao, renowned for his triumphs against the Japanese and Kuomintang armies, shunned risk and boasted a meticulous decision-making style similar to that of Britain’s Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery.

Jia’s team said that the initial setting of the AI commander mirrored a seasoned and brilliant strategist, “possessing sound mental faculties, a poised and steadfast character, capable of analysing and judging situations with calmness, devoid of emotional or impulsive decisions, and swift in devising practical plans by recalling similar decision-making scenarios from memory”.

However, this setting is not set in stone.

“The virtual commander’s personality can be fine-tuned if deemed necessary,” they added.

Under immense pressure, humans “struggle to formulate a fully rational decision-making framework under stringent timelines,” Jia’s team said.

Instead of using pure analysis, the AI commander relies more on empirical knowledge for its combat decisions, seeking satisfactory solutions, retrieving similar scenarios from memory and quickly formulating a viable plan.

However, humans are also forgetful. To simulate this important weakness, the scientists have also imposed a size limit on the AI commander’s decision-making knowledge base. When the memory reaches the limit, some knowledge units will be dumped.

The AI commander enables the PLA to conduct a large number of “human-out-of-the-loop” war simulations. It identifies new threats, crafts plans and makes optimal decisions based on the overall situation when battles falter or results fall short. It also learns and adapts from victories and defeats.

All these happen without any human intervention, “boasting advantages including ease of implementation, high efficiency and support for repeated experimentation,” Jia’s team said.

Countries worldwide are locked in a race in AI military applications, with China and the United States leading the charge.

While Beijing and Washington strive not to be outdone in this crucial domain, they share concerns about the threat AI’s unchecked development poses to human security.

Senior officials from China, the United States and Russia have been negotiating to craft a set of regulations to mitigate the risks of AI militarisation, including prohibiting AI from gaining control over nuclear weapons.

Australian writer’s sentence upheld ahead of China premier’s visit, supporters say

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3266824/australian-writers-sentence-upheld-ahead-china-premiers-visit-supporters-say?utm_source=rss_feed

Australian writer Yang Hengjun’s suspended death sentence has been upheld by Beijing’s High People’s Court, with the decision relayed to Australian officials two weeks before China’s Premier Li Qiang arrived in Australia, his supporters said on Sunday.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will meet Li, who is making the first visit to Australia in seven years by a Chinese premier, in Canberra on Monday. Albanese said last week he would raise Yang’s case with China’s second-highest ranked official.

Yang, a pro-democracy blogger and spy novelist, is an Australian citizen born in China who was working in New York before his arrest at Guangzhou airport in 2019.

A Beijing court handed Yang a suspended death sentence on espionage charges in February, which the Australian government described as “harrowing”. The case has cast a shadow over a recent rebound in bilateral ties that followed several years of strained relations between Beijing and Canberra. Yang has denied the charges.

In a statement on Sunday evening, Yang’s supporters said Beijing’s High People’s Court had reviewed and upheld the lower court’s sentence. Australian diplomats were informed on May 30 and were denied a consular visit last week, and Yang was being moved to a permanent prison after five years in a state security detention centre.

“Our most immediate concern is that Yang’s medical conditions remain serious and unaddressed,” said the statement.

“For these reasons, we urge Prime Minister Albanese to use his meeting with Premier Li Qiang to directly demand that Yang be released on medical parole or otherwise be transferred to safety in Australia”.

Yang’s two sons, who live in Australia, have previously asked Albanese to seek their father’s release on medical grounds. Yang was told last year he had a 10cm (4-inch) cyst on his kidney that may require surgery, and has been unable to walk at times.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong told ABC Television on Sunday that Australia “will continue to advocate for Dr Yang wherever we are able, and we will continue to advocate, including for appropriate medical treatment”.

A suspended death sentence in China gives the accused a two-year reprieve from being executed, after which it is automatically converted to life imprisonment, or more rarely, fixed-term imprisonment. The individual remains in prison throughout.

China’s foreign ministry has previously said all procedures were followed in Yang’s case.

Chinese firm sought to use UK university links to access AI for possible military use

https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jun/16/chinese-firm-sought-to-use-uk-university-links-to-access-ai-for-possible-military-use

A Chinese state-owned company sought to use a partnership with a leading British university in order to access AI technology for potential use in “smart military bases”, the Guardian has learned.

Emails show that China’s Jiangsu Automation Research Institute (Jari) discussed deploying software developed by scientists at Imperial College London for military use.

The company, which is the leading designer of China’s drone warships, shared this objective with two Imperial employees before signing a £3m deal with the university in 2019.

Ministers have spent the past year stepping up warnings about the potential security risk posed by academic collaborations with China, with MI5 telling vice-chancellors in April that hostile states are targeting sensitive research that can “deliver their authoritarian, military and commercial priorities”.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, said: “Our universities are like lambs to the slaughter. They try to believe in independent scientific investigation, but in China it doesn’t work like that. What they’re doing is running a very significant risk.”

The Future Digital Ocean Innovation Centre was to be based at Imperial’s Data Science Institute, under the directorship of Prof Yike Guo. Guo left Imperial in late 2022 to become provost of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

The centre’s stated goals were to advance maritime forecasting, computer vision and intelligent manufacturing “for civilian applications”. However, correspondence sent before the partnership was formalised suggests Jari was also considering military end-uses.

The emails were obtained through freedom of information request by the charity UK-China Transparency.

A Mandarin-language email from Jari’s research director to an Imperial College professor (whose name is redacted) and another Imperial employee, dated November 2018, states that a key Jari objective for the centre is testing whether software developed by Imperial’s Data Science Institute could be integrated into its own “JariPilot” technology to “form a more powerful product”.

Suggested applications are listed as “smart institutes, smart military bases and smart oceans”.

“Our research presents evidence of an attempt to link Imperial College London’s expertise and resources into China’s national military marine combat drone research programmes,” said Sam Dunning, the director of UK-China Transparency, which carried out the investigation.

“Partnerships such as this have taken place across the university sector. They together raise questions about whether British science faculties understand that China has become increasingly authoritarian and militarised under Xi Jinping, and that proper due diligence is required in dealings with this state.”

There appears to have been a launch event for the joint centre in September 2019 and funding from Jari is cited in Imperial’s annual summary in 2021 under prestigious industry grants it has attracted.

However, the partnership was ultimately terminated in 2021. Imperial said that no research went ahead and the £500,000 of funding that had been received was returned in October 2021 after discussion with government officials.

“Under Imperial’s policies, partnerships and collaborations are subject to due diligence and regular review,” an Imperial spokesperson said. “The decision to terminate the partnership was made after consideration of UK export control legislation and consultation with the government, taking into consideration national security concerns.”

Charles Parton, a China expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the partnership was “clearly highly inappropriate” and should never have been signed off.

“How much effort does it take to work out that Jari is producing military weapons that could be used in future against our naval forces?” Parton said. “These people should have been doing proper due diligence way before this. It’s not good enough, late in the day having signed the contract, to get permission from [government].”

At the time of the deal, Imperial’s Data Science Institute was led by Prof Guo, an internationally recognised AI researcher. A Channel 4 documentary last year revealed that Prof Guo had written eight papers with Chinese collaborators at Shanghai University on missile design and using AI to control fleets of marine combat drones. In December 2022, Guo was appointed Provost of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and he is no longer affiliated with Imperial.

Imperial received more than £18m in funding from Chinese military-linked institutes and companies between 2017 and 2022, but since then it has been forced to shut down several joint-ventures as government policy on scientific collaboration has hardened.

“Governments of all stripes have taken a long time to understand what the threat is from China and universities for a long period have got away with this,” said Duncan Smith, who has been sanctioned by China for criticising its government. “There’s been a progressive and slow tightening up, but it’s still not good enough. Universities need to be in lockstep with the security services.”

An Imperial College London spokesperson said: “Imperial takes its national security responsibilities very seriously. We regularly review our policies in line with evolving government guidance and legislation, working closely with the appropriate government departments, and in line with our commitments to UK national security.”

“Imperial’s research is open and routinely published in leading international journals and we conduct no classified research on our campuses.”

Prof Yike Guo, declined to comment on the Jari partnership, noting that he left Imperial at the end of 2022. Of his previous collaborations, Guo said that the papers are classified as “basic research” and are written to help advance scientific knowledge in a broad range of fields rather than solving specific, real-world problems.

China calls for Russia-Ukraine peace talks ‘as soon as possible’ after skipping Swiss summit that shunned Moscow

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3266809/china-calls-russia-ukraine-peace-talks-soon-possible-after-skipping-swiss-summit-shunned-moscow?utm_source=rss_feed

China has called for direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine “as soon as possible” as it shunned a weekend gathering in Switzerland that aimed to boost international support for Kyiv’s position.

“China calls on the parties to the conflict to demonstrate political will, come together, and start peace talks as soon as possible to achieve a ceasefire and halt military actions,” Geng Shuang, China’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, told the United Nations Security Council on Friday.

He was speaking on the eve of the Summit for Peace for Ukraine at the Swiss resort of Burgenstock, an event to which Russia was not invited, and which 90 countries attended.

Beijing’s absence from the two-day meeting, which was attended by more than 90 countries and focused on rallying support for Ukraine’s peace proposals, has raised questions about China’s self-proclaimed neutrality in the Ukraine war.

Ukraine invited China to the summit in January, but Beijing, which reaffirmed its commitment to the “no limits” partnership with Moscow last month, insisted any peace process would require Russian participation.

Geng’s appeal was largely in line with China’s own peace proposal unveiled a year ago, which was praised by Russia as an alternative to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s plan, but largely dismissed by the US and its allies.

During Friday’s UN briefing on arms supplies to Ukraine, Geng defended China’s “objectivity and impartiality” and accused the US of “spreading the lie that China has supported Russia in its war efforts”.

“This is unacceptable … It is an attempt to divert people’s attention from the conflict and create differences,” he said.

He said China “urges the US to stop using the Ukraine issue as an excuse to smear China and to impose unilateral sanctions and unreasonable suppression on Chinese companies”.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on the sidelines of the summit on Saturday that China’s absence was probably a result of Russian pressure and was in line with Beijing’s “supply of inputs for Russia’s war machine”.

“I presume they are not here because [Vladimir] Putin asked them not to come, and they obliged Putin,” Sullivan told reporters in the Swiss mountaintop resort. “China has asserted that it stands for peace in Ukraine. A good way to have shown that would be to come here.”

According to the Swiss government, more than 90 countries accepted the invitation to the two-day summit, which concludes on Sunday.

Top leaders from 57 countries, ranging from France, Germany and Japan to Argentina, Fiji and Qatar attended the summit, but US President Joe Biden skipped the gathering after the Group of 7 summit on Friday, sending Vice-President Kamala Harris.

India, South Africa, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand also sent delegations, while Brazil attended as an observer.

Zelensky, who secured strong support at the G7, hailed the Swiss event’s attendance rate and said it would be the start of a process to force Russia to end its aggression and secure peace.

“Even if they are not here today at the first summit, we have succeeded in [showing] the world that joint efforts can stop war and establish peace,” he told reporters at the start of the meeting on Saturday.

Earlier this month Zelensky accused China of “working hard” to help Russia pressure smaller countries to skip the event, accusations Beijing denied.

But it remains to be seen how many countries will back the drafted final declaration.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer cautioned that “without parts of Asia, Africa and South America, we will not be able to get the Russian Federation to change its mind”.

Alexander Gabuev, director of the Berlin-based Russia Eurasia Centre of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, posted on X, formerly Twitter, that Beijing did not expect clear results from the event.

“The failure of the Swiss summit that Beijing anticipates may give China a shot to make itself a central player in diplomatic efforts, or at least pretend to be one,” he wrote.

Ryan Hass, a China specialist at the Brookings Institution in Washington, tweeted that Beijing’s view was that the Ukraine conflict was “far from a mutually hurting stalemate and thus isn’t yet ripe for resolution. They don’t view the Swiss as neutral. And they won’t get drawn into a negotiation that Moscow refuses to join”.

Tragic China girl, 19, coerced into engagement after blind date takes own life, uncaring fiancé wants bride price refund

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3264358/tragic-china-girl-19-coerced-engagement-after-blind-date-takes-own-life-uncaring-fiance-wants-bride?utm_source=rss_feed

A young woman in China took her own life after she was coerced by her family into an engagement with a blind date who only cared about the bride price refund.

The plight of the tragic 19-year-old has been described as a “horror story” by concerned people on social media and reignited discussions about marriage and women’s rights.

Tongtong, from central China’s Henan province, was pressured into getting engaged to a man she had only met five days before, because her mother thought his better-off financial situation would “make her life easier”.

She and her mother ran a small clothes shop in their hometown.

Tongtong felt reluctant when the man proposed, but her mother and a matchmaker persuaded her to accept.

The man’s family gave Tongtong’s mother a 270,000-yuan (US$40,000) bride price at the engagement ceremony. The matchmaker received a 4,800 yuan (US$700) fee.

She later told the newspaper Beijing Youth Daily that her daughter did not like the man, who was rude and demanding.

Tongtong wanted to break off the engagement, but the matchmaker dissuaded her, saying her mother, a single parent with six children, needed the money.

Always a considerate eldest daughter, Tongtong dropped out of school to work and help her family financially, and looked after her younger siblings.

The desperate young woman threw herself into the river near her home, 17 days after the engagement.

After Tongtong’s death, her fiancé demanded her mother return the bride price.

She gave him 180,000 yuan, but refused to return the rest because the man lied about his age – he said he was four years older than Tongtong but was in fact eight years her senior.

The man’s family insisted on payment, blocking her shopfront with a car and playing messages in a loop over a loudspeaker, demanding the money. They also asked a local television station to report the story.

The mother, the matchmaker and the man all blamed each other for Tongtong’s death.

“This is such a horror story. The girl is a daughter, a wife-to-be, a good financial resource, but never herself,” one online observer wrote on Weibo.

Forced marriage is not uncommon in China, especially in underdeveloped areas.

In 2020, a 17-year-old girl was made to marry a man she had met only six times.

She reported it to the local government, which ordered her parents to cancel the engagement and send her back to school.

In urban areas, unmarried women aged over 30 are usually stigmatised as “leftover women”. They also face pressure from their parents.

In 2021, a doctor in Zhejiang province, eastern China told of a patient, a woman in her 30s, who suffered from serious depression because her father said she “dropped in price” the longer she stayed single.

China has seen a persistent decline in marriage rates until last year.

The number of newlywed couples dropped from 13.47 million in 2013 for nine consecutive years to 6.83 million in 2022. It rose to 7.68 million in 2023.

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As China decries US plans for an Asian Nato, is it all a ‘political gimmick’?

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3266693/china-decries-us-plans-asian-nato-it-all-political-gimmick?utm_source=rss_feed

At the Shangri-La Dialogue security conference in Singapore earlier this month, Chinese Lieutenant General Jing Jianfeng accused the United States of creating an Asian version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), with the goal of hemming in Beijing.

However, the emergence of a large, collective US-led anti-China military alliance in the region – under unified command and fielding a common army – is far-fetched, analysts say. China’s actions are instead pushing regional countries to seek partnerships in smaller, more focused groups that have come to be called “minilaterals”, they noted.

Asked if an Asian Nato was in the works, Rommel Jude Ong, a retired rear admiral of the Philippine Navy and current professor at the Ateneo School of Government in Manila, said, “I don’t think so. Most likely, you will see informal partnerships built around minilateral arrangements.”

Analyst Collin Koh thinks the idea of a Nato-like Asian security alliance is a propaganda ploy.

“It’s nothing more than a Chinese political gimmick to try to shape the public narrative about the network of US alliances and partnerships and its role in maintaining regional peace and stability,” said Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies’ Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore.

“The narrative of ‘Asian Nato’ had its origins around the time the Quad was formed [in 2007], and this narrative intensified with the formation of Aukus in 2021,” Koh told This Week in Asia, noting that the same narrative had also been used by North Korea and Russia, “which is unsurprising given their strategic convergences”.

The Quad is a security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the US, while both Washington and Canberra are also in Aukus, a trilateral security partnership that includes Britain.

Ray Powell, a former US Air Force colonel and director of SeaLight – a project based in Stanford University that aims to track maritime “grey zone” activities – called China’s Nato accusation “hyperbolic”.

“There really is no evidence for that,” he told This Week in Asia. “For example, the US has one treaty ally in the Philippines, it has separate treaty allies in Japan and South Korea, but it does not have a combination. Nato is a very large and well-integrated organisation … it has taken decades to build and it has very well-organised structures and institutions.”

Powell likened American strategic ties with the Asia-Pacific to a wheel, with the US serving as the hub and the spokes leading out to various allies.

Beijing’s contention is that the set-up will eventually morph into a super alliance “to maintain the US-led hegemony” in the region.

US Lieutenant General Stephen Sklenka has said he would “sleep better at night” if there were an Asian Nato, but told The Sydney Morning Herald in report published on MondayJune 10 “that’s not happening”.

Powell said that Asian countries with ties to the US were now forming their own relationships “out of necessity” amid China’s aggression in the region, but such a network was a long way from turning into a Nato analogue.

An Asian Nato would require of its members “high levels of interoperability and even commonality, which involves not just common tactics, techniques and procedures but even joint defence procurement”, Koh said.

Yet countries such as Japan and South Korea were not allied with each other despite being treaty allies of the US, Koh said, due to Seoul having “an abiding reservation” against any direct involvement by the Japanese military on the Korean peninsula.

“I’m not sure Beijing seriously believes an Asian Nato could be formed in the same vein as the original transatlantic Nato,” Koh said. “If the bar is set this high, I don’t think it’s even possible to conceive of such a multilateral alliance being constituted.”

There is also the dismal spectre of a past attempt to form a regional Nato-like pact. In 1955, US pressure led to the creation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (Seato), meant to be a Cold War anti-communist military alliance. However, its membership comprised only the Philippines and Thailand from Southeast Asia, the other members being Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, Britain and the US.

According to Ricardo Jose, a professor of history at the University of the Philippines, “Seato failed entirely because most of the members were colonial powers.”

Most regional countries simply ignored the alliance, with Jose noting that “Indonesia wanted to be neutral and was more open to China and the Soviet Union, whereas Seato was definitely anti-Russian and anti-communist”.

According to Jose, Seato’s defence policy also differed significantly from Nato’s. Whereas Nato members are obliged to come to the aid of any ally that is attacked, Seato members were only required to follow their own domestic constitutional processes before deciding whether to take action.

Seato members did not commit to a joint command or standing army, and the alliance was formally dissolved in 1977.

Analysts say the same problems that hampered Seato would similarly afflict any effort to create an Asian Nato, given the vastly different interests and lack of common ground among potential member states.

“Even if the US wants to form a Nato here, I don’t think it will happen,” retired admiral Ong told This Week in Asia. “Asia is made up of diverse cultures and religious affiliations.”

Powell said he did not expect any interest from Asean members in joining such a military bloc, given that “each one sort of perceives China in a different way”.

The US’ only treaty allies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are Thailand and the Philippines. Vietnam would also be “constitutionally incapable” of joining a Nato-style security alliance, owing to its “very strict policy” against having military alliances and foreign powers basing troops in the country, Powell said.

Koh agreed. “I don’t think regional countries would want an Asian Nato to form; and I don’t think Washington and its allies even seriously entertain such an idea,” he said.

Koh questioned why regional countries would opt for a Nato-like organisation if it was “more flexible” to stick to the current format of alliances and partnerships.

“Will they wish to lock themselves in, considering that being part of an alliance does carry with it commensurate responsibilities and obligations, given the need for burden-sharing and division of labour – all of which require immense political and resource commitments?” he said.

Some regional governments might not want to be seen as “part of an anti-China containment scheme”, he said, and likely see the current partnership network, which could be expanded to include more minilaterals, “prudent as a way forward”.

The Philippines is already taken steps in this direction, recently securing a new logistical support pact with New Zealand while also nearing a military access deal with Japan. Ong described the Philippines as an “outlier within Asean” – it has been a vocal opponent of Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea, in contrast to the bloc’s more cautious approach – and said it likely felt the need to forge additional alliances.

But such initiatives are a long way from the Nato-style regional pact of Beijing’s imagining.

“Beijing has essentially overhyped this Asian Nato narrative, creating a red herring while it embarks on an assertive, and in many ways more muscular and coercive, approach in dealing with regional hotspot issues such as the case of South China Sea,” Koh said.

Chinese Communist Party warns members not to criticise policy ahead of major economic policy meeting

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3266767/chinese-communist-party-warns-members-not-criticise-policy-ahead-major-economic-policy-meeting?utm_source=rss_feed

The Chinese Communist Party’s watchdog has issued a stern reminder to members not to criticise party policy ahead of a major party meeting that is likely to set the direction of economic policy for the next five years.

But analysts warned this effort to “unify thought”, to use the party’s own jargon, amid challenging economic conditions may further damage Beijing’s credibility and erode business confidence if it is seen as “unreasonably trying to control the storyline”.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection published a special report via state news agency Xinhua on Wednesday that warned against “openly speaking ill of the party on major issues” as part of the watchdog’s latest internal disciplinary drive.

The report said “public statements that contradict the decisions of the Central Committee are absolutely not allowed”.

It added that public comments that “irresponsibly discuss” the party’s main policies, “disrupt the thoughts” and undermine the unity of party members, warning that those who hinder policy execution must be “dealt with strictly”.

Explaining its rationale, the report said the party leadership “fully listened” to different voices before it made a decision, and once it had decided all party members “must resolutely implement” that policy.

It also said there were internal party procedures that should be used to address any problems that may arise.

The disciplinary message came weeks ahead of the third plenum – a key meeting of the party’s Central Committee next month that will set the country’s economic strategy for the coming five years.

The event was moved back from its customary time slot in the latter months of last year, possibly to give the leadership more time to prepare in the face of growing economic headwinds.

The event is expected to be one of the defining moments for President Xi Jinping’s third five-year term as the party’s leader.

Its outcome is also likely to play a major role in determining whether the country can avoid the increasingly obvious middle-income trap – where rising costs and declining competitiveness prevent emerging economies reaching high-income status – and reach the party’s goal of becoming an innovation-driven developed economy.

The country is also facing multiple challenges on other fronts, including the property crisis, sluggish growth, tariffs from the United States and the European Union’s de-risking strategy.

In the run-up to the plenum senior leadership figures have been touring the country to solicit opinion on economic policy, including Xi himself, who held a rare meeting with business leaders in Shandong province and pledged to carry out further reforms.

“Now, as the third plenary session is about to be held, the central leadership undoubtedly wants to control the pace of the discussion,” said Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago.

“The talk of reforms suggest that everyone is encouraged to speak out, but the ban on public criticism is a stark reminder that dissenting voices will face consequences,” he said.

Deng Yuwen, former deputy editor of Study Times, the Central Party School’s official newspaper, said the message being sent was “everyone should unify their thoughts before the Third Plenary Session and do not say anything that does not align with the central leadership’s main themes and spirit”.

He said: “Disciplinary moves of this kind are nominally confined to the party, but it is always the aim to regulate society as a whole.”

The rules against public criticisms were included in a major revamp of the party’s disciplinary code in 2015 that tightened its control over the membership.

The first person to fall foul of such a charge was Zhao Xinwei, the former editor-in-chief of Xinjiang Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece in the far-western region.

He was expelled from the party in 2015 for a series of charges including openly opposing key policies aimed at combating terrorism and extremism.

Since then, more than 16 officials have been placed under investigation on suspicion of publicly speaking or going against major party policies, according to a report by the official newspaper Legal Daily in 2021.

Such moves have heightened fears the party is further chipping away at differences of opinion in line with the wider trend of tightening access to information and data.

James Zimmerman, a partner in international law firm Perkins Coie and former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said “any attempt to unreasonably and dishonestly control the storyline will only further erode Beijing’s credibility”.

He said foreign businesses already had doubts about the credibility of China’s official data and information, and restrictions on policy discussions would further dampen investor and consumer confidence.

China has strongly hit out at questions about its future economic prospects, but last year when the country’s youth unemployment rate hit an all-time high, China’s national statistics agency simply stopped issuing the data. It said it needed to make adjustments and resumed publication six months later.

Nis Grunberg, a China analyst with the Berlin-based think tank Mercator Institute for China Studies, said the decreasing opportunities to speak out or gain access to opinion were not conducive to academic research or building business confidence.

“I don’t think obsessive streamlining of information and only making one single message available is good for business confidence or trust,” said Grunberg, adding that it is clear that Beijing wants everyone to speak with one voice.

He said the lack of transparency and trust in Chinese information also hinders academic research because it is hard to verify or test any assumptions.

“Now the third plenum is approaching and nobody knows what’s coming, really,” said Grunberg.

“So it’s very clear that everyone is supposed to stick to the official line and not to stir up some assumptions or even demands for [the reforms that are] coming.”

China woman causes commotion by bringing pet sugar glider onto plane, leading to evacuation

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3266794/china-woman-causes-commotion-bringing-pet-sugar-glider-plane-leading-evacuation?utm_source=rss_feed

Authorities detained a woman in Shanghai after she took a sugar glider onto a plane, forcing all the other passengers to disembark the aircraft.

According to a statement by the police authority in the city, the 34-year-old woman, surnamed Guo, violated safety rules by bringing a sugar glider with her to board the plane.

The China News Service reported that the China Eastern Airlines flight from Shanghai to Jinan, a city in Shandong province in eastern China, was set to take off on June 10.

But before the aircraft took off, the pet marsupial escaped from its owner before it was caught by other people in the passenger cabin.

All the passengers were told to evacuate from the plane, and the flight was delayed due to “safety issues”, the police statement said.

Guo was placed under administrative detention for “destroying the order of public transportation”, and her punishment could last up to 15 days.

The incident caused a one-hour flight delay, and the plane landed safely in Jinan.

China’s civil aviation authority forbids passengers from taking live animals into passenger cabins. Most airlines in the country only allow pet dogs and cats to fly, and they typically must be consigned to the luggage area of the plane.

Two short videos of the incident emerged on the mainland internet. One showed a flight attendant kneeling on the floor and bending over to search for something under passengers’ seats.

The other clip featured several angry passengers arguing with staffers at a gate counter at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport.

“I am very dissatisfied. And the security checkpoint seems to have loopholes. This passenger brought a live animal onto the plane, and it ran away, forcing all of us to get off the plane and wait for an hour,” said one male passenger on Douyin, China’s TikTok.

“Our trip has been delayed. However, the airline company has not apologised or offered us any compensation,” he said.

Guo’s behaviour elicited outrage among mainland Chinese netizens.

“I think she should be included on the blacklist of all airlines and banned from travelling by air forever,” said one person.

Another online observer said: “The security checkpoint at airports is strict. I wonder how she managed to pass the check with this small animal.

“Luckily, the sugar glider was found before the plane took off. Otherwise, it could have run around and chewed through the plane’s circuits. I dare not imagine what could have happened then.”

In 2022, a pet hamster was found in a plane flying from Zhengzhou in central China to Dalian in the northeastern part of the country. Crew members and its owner worked together before catching it. Luckily, the flight was not affected.

Extreme weather hits China, bringing drought to some areas and flooding further south

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3266803/extreme-weather-hits-china-bringing-drought-some-areas-and-flooding-further-south?utm_source=rss_feed

Several parts of China are struggling with the impact of extreme weather, bringing severe flooding to southern areas, while further north drought is taking a severe toll on agriculture.

The central province of Henan, along with Shandong to the east, has seen little rainfall since April and that, along with high temperatures, is causing water shortages that affect both agriculture and household use.

The local meteorological department predicts no significant rainfall in Henan until at least Friday exacerbating the problem at a crucial time in the summer planting season.

Henan is a major grain-producing area and, according to state broadcaster CCTV last week, the drought has prevented the planting of at least 1.3 million hectares (3.2 million acres) of farmland in Henan, accounting for 3.5 per cent of the area’s summer planting area.

The municipal agricultural bureau in the provincial capital Zhengzhou activated a level-four agricultural drought emergency response last Thursday, the lowest in a four-tier system, and then raised it to level three the following day.

“The timing is critical as the drought coincides with the planting season, a period when crops are heavily reliant on water. Insufficient soil moisture can hinder seed germination, while delayed planting could shorten the growth period and reduce crop yields,” a local farmer told South Reviews magazine.

Farmers are desperately sourcing water to irrigate their fields under the scorching sun, with people queuing up to use the limited wells.

“There are about 40 wells in my village, which serve 2,900 acres of farmland. Each well can accommodate only one or two households at a time and irrigating two acres of farmland takes about 15 hours,” Liu He, a sociologist conducting fieldwork in a local village, told the magazine.

“Additionally, the irrigation process requires frequent relocation of water pipes every three to four hours, forcing farmers to continuously monitor their fields. One local family, with only two elderly individuals in their seventies, has had to live in the field for three consecutive days and nights to manage irrigation.”

“This year’s drought is notably severe, probably the strongest in the past decade.” A farmer from Shangqiu City complained on Weibo.

At least 14 cities in Henan have activated emergency drought responses so far, opening irrigation gates to safeguard crops, while the city of Zhumadian has urged residents to save water and stagger useage.

But further south, heavy rainfall has caused a series of floods across several provinces.

The Ministry of Water Resources initiated a level-four flood defence emergency response in the provinces of Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan on Friday, while the authorities in Fujian raised their response to level three. On Saturday Guangdong also issued a level-four response.

Guangdong has already recorded serious flooding this year, with the Bei River recording a 50-year high in April, disrupting at least 110,000 residents.

The Xi River in Guangxi region, a major tributary of the Pearl River, reported its first major flood of the year on Saturday, prompting the authorities to prepare upstream reservoirs to intercept floods and empty the downstream reservoirs in advance.

The local hydrological department warned that in the next couple of days, water levels in the lower and middle sections of the river may rise by between two and five metres (6.5-16.4ft).

Further east, passenger trains were suspended on four railway lines in Jiangxi and Fujian on Saturday, with services not scheduled to resume until Wednesday.

“This prolonged and intense rainfall is a result of a clash between cold and warm air streams. It poses a high risk of triggering floods in small and medium rivers, urban and rural waterlogging, landslides, and other secondary disasters,” Huang Zhigang, from Fujian’s meteorological bureau, told state news agency Xinhua.

A Hong Kong with no foreign judges risks being just another Chinese city

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3266467/hong-kong-no-foreign-judges-risks-being-just-another-chinese-city?utm_source=rss_feed

The issue of foreign judges serving, or ceasing to, on our Court of Final Appeal has flared up, raising important questions about Hong Kong’s future. There has been a flurry of commentaries, some heated, not all of which have helped clarify matters.

To set the scene, let us start with the Basic Law. Article 8 provides that “laws previously in force in Hong Kong”, including “the common law”, “shall be maintained”. President Xi Jinping, visiting Hong Kong in 2022 for the 25th anniversary of the handover, reinforced the commitment in his July 1 speech. He twice mentioned the common law as continuing to apply in Hong Kong.

The question of foreigners serving in our judiciary is covered in two places in the Basic Law. Article 92 says that “judges and other members of the judiciary […] may be recruited from other common law jurisdictions”. Article 82 provides that Hong Kong “may as required invite judges from other common law jurisdictions to sit on the Court of Final Appeal”.

And earlier this month, a senior mainland official affirmed that “foreign friends” were welcome to remain part of Hong Kong’s legal system. Nong Rong, deputy head of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, in a speech delivered in English, told a conference that Hong Kong’s legal practitioners, including foreigners, supported the rule of law. Clearly, the central government fully supports Hong Kong’s common law system.

In summary, the rule of law, common law and foreign judges are all here to stay.

In the last few years, there have been a number of withdrawals from the list of foreign judges invited to sit on the Court of Final Appeal, by way of resignation or non-renewal of contract. These events have led some to query whether the arrangement is still in Hong Kong’s best interests.

One Post commentary suggested the time for the arrangement had passed because Hong Kong’s legal system could include mainland talent and incorporate some mainland legal practices I disagree. Such a sentiment plays into the hands of detractors looking for every opportunity to say we are becoming just another Chinese city. The rule of law and common law system are precisely what distinguishes us, and makes us more useful to the country.

More reasonably, Executive Council member Ronny Tong Ka-wah has asked whether we have not now built up a sufficiently large and respected body of common law practitioners that we can dispense with outsiders. It is a legitimate question and in theory, the answer must be yes. But that is to ignore the optics of the situation, the perception in the minds of the international business community.

Twenty years ago when InvestHK was just starting out and we talked about the advantages of doing business here, what often clinched the argument was the presence of foreign judges, including on the Court of Final Appeal.

The annual surveys of foreign and mainland businesses in Hong Kong seeking views on the city’s attractiveness invariably rank the rule of law, independent judiciary and common law system as key factors. Why would we give up what makes us the best?

The issue has become heavily politicised, particularly since the “Five Eyes” nations – the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand – have chosen to see China as a threat.

After Beijing promulgated the national security law for Hong Kong in 2020, there were calls in the UK for British judges to withdraw. In 2022, two serving British Supreme Court judges – Robert Reed and Patrick Hodge – did so in a high-profile way. It is widely believed they did so on British government direction, though this has been denied.

Earlier this month, two more British judges stood down. One, Lawrence Collins, expressed continued confidence in the judiciary here while the other, Jonathan Sumption, gave his reasons in a Financial Times commentary, saying the rule of law here was in grave danger.

Meanwhile, former Canadian chief justice Beverley McLachlin, aged 80, gave notice she would not be renewing her term when it expires.

Western media have used the withdrawal of foreign judges as evidence of Hong Kong’s decline, supporting the false narrative that Hong Kong is over.

Nonetheless, it would be wrong to claim there has been no change of mood or atmosphere in Hong Kong in recent years. Some public statements have taken on “wolf warrior” tones.

Perhaps the most egregious example of undesirable administrative behaviour is the abuse of the police bail system under which many young people not yet charged with, let alone convicted of, any offence have been kept in limbo, in some cases for many years. A mature, confident government would not behave like this, or pretend it did not know the scale of the situation.

Specifically on the matter of the Court of Final Appeal’s foreign judges, what are we doing to keep those we have and replenish the supply of willing ones?

The “Five Eyes” governments seem determined to browbeat their citizens into withdrawing, but are there any countermeasures we can introduce to bolster the morale of those who remain and inspire new ones to come and see for themselves?

Are there no alternative jurisdictions we could draw on? Both Ireland and India practice common law and both countries are familiar with and have a history of resisting British bullying.

If the presence of foreign judges in our courts is one of the distinguishing features that makes Hong Kong different and special, then we should be doing everything we can to preserve that difference.

China’s Li Qiang promises Australia more pandas: ‘pick a pair’

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3266797/chinas-li-qiang-promises-australia-more-pandas-pick-pair?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit to Australia on Sunday focused on positive aspects of the bilateral relationship including shared giant pandas and a rebounding wine trade as he promised a new breeding pair of the rare bears.

China’s most powerful leader after President Xi Jinping arrived late on Saturday in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia state, which has produced most of the Australian wine entering China since crippling tariffs were lifted in March that had effectively ended a 1.2 billion Australian dollar (US$794 million) a year trade since 2020.

Li visited Adelaide Zoo, which has been home to China-born giant pandas Wang Wang and Fu Ni since 2009, before heading for lunch at a restaurant at Adelaide winery Penfolds Magill Estate.

He announced that the zoo would be loaned another two pandas after the pair are due to return to China in November.

“China will soon provide another pair of pandas that are equally beautiful, lively, cute and younger to the Adelaide Zoo, and continue the cooperation on giant pandas between China and Australia,” Li said in Mandarin, adding that zoo staff would be invited to “pick a pair”.

Li was impressed by the 18-year-old male Wang Wang’s appetite and indifference to his high-ranking visitors.

“The panda is very obsessed with eating and doesn’t pay attention to us even when we are the people from its hometown visiting,” Li said at the panda enclosure.

“It has completely treated here as its second hometown,” Li said. “Very pretty, adorable, with charming naivety.”

The pair are the only pandas in the Southern Hemisphere and failed to produce offspring in Australia.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong thanked Li for ensuring that pandas would remain the zoo’s star attraction.

“It’s good for the economy, it’s good for South Australian jobs, it’s good for tourism, and it is a signal of goodwill, and we thank you,” Wong said.

Tom King, the managing director of Penfolds, one of Australia’s oldest wineries, told Chinese state media ahead of Li’s arrival that such visits helped strengthen economic and cultural ties.

“It’s pleasing to see the stabilising of relations between the Australian and Chinese governments, including regular high-level visits between the two countries,” King was quoted as saying by the Global Times newspaper last week.

Li’s visit is the first to Australia by a Chinese premier in seven years and marks an improvement in relations since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s centre-left Labor Party was elected in 2022.

Li noted that Albanese in November was the first Australian prime minister to visit China since 2016.

“China-Australia relations were back on track after a period of twists and turns, generating tangible benefits to the people of both countries,” Li said, according to a translation released by the Chinese embassy in Australia on Sunday.

“History has proven that mutual respect, seeking common ground while shelving differences and mutually beneficial cooperation are the valuable experience in growing China-Australia relations, and must be upheld and carried forward,” Li added.

Hundreds of pro-China demonstrators and human rights protesters and democracy activists gathered outside the zoo before Li’s visit.

China initiated a reset of the relationship after the previous conservative administration’s nine years in power ended.

Relations collapsed over legislation that banned covert foreign interference in Australian politics, the exclusion of Chinese-owned telecommunications giant Huawei from rolling out the national 5G network due to security concerns, and Australia’s call for an independent investigation into the causes of and responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Beijing imposed an array of official and unofficial trade blocks in 2020 on a range of Australian exports including coal, wine, beef, barley and wood that cost up to A$20 billion (US$13 billion) a year.

All the trade bans have now been lifted except for Australian live lobster exports. Trade Minister Don Farrell predicted that impediment would also be lifted soon after Li’s visit with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.

Wong said Li’s visit was the result of “two years of very deliberate, very patient work by this government to bring about a stabilisation of the relationship and to work towards the removal of trade impediments.”

“We will cooperate where we can, we will disagree where we must and we will engage in our national interest,” Wong told Australian Broadcasting Corp. before joining Li for lunch.

Li’s agenda will be more contentious when he leaves Adelaide to visit the national capital, Canberra, on Monday and a Chinese-controlled lithium processing plant in resource-rich Western Australia state on Tuesday.

Albanese has said he will raise with Li during an annual leaders’ meeting recent clashes between the two countries’ militaries in the South China Sea and Yellow Sea that Australia argues endangered Australian personnel.

Albanese will also raise the fate of China-born Australian democracy blogger Yang Hengjun, who was given a suspended death sentence by a Beijing court in February.

Australia is also concerned for Australian dual national Gordon Ng, who was among 14 pro-democracy activists convicted by a Hong Kong court last month for national security offences.

Li’s visit to Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia’s processing plant south of the Western Australia capital of Perth will underscore China’s interest in investing in critical minerals. The plant produces battery-grade lithium hydroxide for electric vehicles.

Australia shares the United States’ concerns over China’s dominance in the critical minerals, which are essential components in the world’s transition to renewable energy sources.

Citing Australia’s national interests, Treasurer Jim Chalmers recently ordered five Chinese-linked companies to divest their shares in the rare earth mining company, Northern Minerals.

Asked if Chinese companies could invest in processing critical minerals in Australia, Wong replied that Australia’s foreign investment framework was “open to all”.

“We want to grow our critical minerals industry,” Wong said.

Australia is the second stop of Li’s tour after New Zealand, and will end in Malaysia.

China looks to Africa to meet rising demand for seafood, but can it balance local interests with its own needs?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3266796/china-looks-africa-meet-rising-demand-seafood-can-it-balance-local-interests-its-own-needs?utm_source=rss_feed

A new Chinese fishing port on Tanzania’s Indian Ocean coastline that is expected to create thousands of jobs is on track to be completed next year.

The US$111 million port in Kilwa Masoko is being built by state-owned China Harbour Engineering Company under the Belt and Road Initiative, a transcontinental infrastructure project, with the aim of helping China meet its huge domestic demand for seafood.

But the means by which it meets this demand have come under scrutiny with critics warning that Chinese fleets are putting supplies at risk, particularly in West Africa, and sometimes fishing illegally.

Kilwa Masoko, which is home to beautiful beaches and ancient Swahili ruins, heavily relies on fishing, but the Tanzanian government says the city currently lacks the equipment and fishing infrastructure it needs to develop the industry.

The new port, which will support deep-sea commercial fishing, is expected to create 30,000 direct and indirect jobs and improve the fortunes of local fishing and seaweed farming communities.

Tanzania’s livestock and fisheries minister Abdallah Ulega told Chinese state-owned broadcaster CGTN Africa that the port will “bring about the development of the Tanzanian economy” and, unlike the small boats and canoes currently used by local fishing crews, it will be able to accommodate up to 10 larger vessels.

Its facilities will include fish-processing plants, an ice-making plant, a workshop for repairing fishing ships and boats and storage facilities that can store 90 tonnes of frozen fish per day.

“When completed, we would like to see this port contribute to the Tanzanian economy and help transform the blue economy in Tanzania,” Yao Huafeng, project manager at China Harbour Engineering Company, said.

The fishing port in Tanzania is part of a growing number of fishing facilities that China has built or is building in Africa but its fishing fleets have been accused of depleting fish stocks in parts of the continent, especially in West Africa.

Besides ports, China has fishery cooperation deals with dozens of African countries where Chinese companies have made multimillion dollar investments, including fishing and aquaculture training.

For example, Ghana signed a deal to borrow US$185.57 million from China Development Bank to fund 12 fishing ports and catch landing sites.

One of the biggest of these projects is the US$50 million Jamestown Fishing Port Complex, which is nearing completion and will house a fully functional dock, hydraulic structures, fish trading markets and fish processing plant.

Other major projects include work by China Harbour Engineering Company to rebuild port facilities at Beira in Mozambique that were destroyed by Cyclone Eline in 2000, a project funded by a US$120 million loan from China Exim Bank; as well as Jinzai Food Corporation’s processing factory in Kwale in Kenya.

But other projects have run into difficulty because of their possible environmental impact including a planned US$55 million industrial fishing harbour in Sierra Leone, which conservationists and landowners criticised as “a catastrophic human and ecological disaster” that would destroy pristine rainforest, plunder fish stocks and pollute fish breeding grounds and marine ecosystems.

Chinese ships have also been accused of fishing illegally off the West African coast, putting stocks at risk.

Dr Miren Gutierrez, a research associate at Overseas Development Institute (ODI), said China is the world’s largest seafood consumer, and by investing in fishing ports, it gains access to the rich fishing grounds of the African continent as well as expanding its ties and influence.

However, she said the presence of Chinese trawlers in African waters has raised concerns about illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and unsustainable practices that could put local livelihoods at risk and threaten food security.

She said that some countries had imposed regulations to limit foreign trawling, but fleets were looking for ways round this “for example, some vessels flagged to African fleets are really connected to Chinese interests”, she said.

“Therefore, there is a need for stronger regulations and enforcement mechanisms to prevent IUU fishing by Chinese trawlers, and by others, and ensure sustainable management of fisheries in African waters,” Gutierrez said.

She said foreign distant water fishing could put local livelihoods at risk and threaten food security. “To circumvent regulation that limits foreign trawling in some countries, for example, some vessels flagged to African fleets are really connected to Chinese interests,” she said.

Rebecca Ray, a senior academic researcher at Boston University Global Development Policy Centre, said that a recent paper she co-authored concluded that China’s seafood demand is growing much more quickly than its domestic supply.

“By 2030 projections anticipate that consumption will outpace production by 18 million tonnes, or roughly twice the total level of domestic production in 2020. Thus, for Chinese consumers it is important to quickly find reliable sources of increased seafood supplies,” Ray said.

Ray said governance of distant-water fishing fleets has long been difficult, as international waters are not fully regulated.

She said an alternative to this practice is investment in ports and seafood processing facilities. Apart from the possible economic benefits, this would mean that fleets are subject to local regulation.

“[However,] it is crucial in these cases to fully consult with traditional coastal communities who may be economically affected by the new fishing fleets, either from their competition for seafood resources by larger, better equipped fishing fleets or from diminished catches due to marine pollution related to seafood processing plants,” she said.

“This is an area where international cooperation will need to continue to strengthen to ensure that consumers have access to seafood, host countries around the world see economic benefits from investment, and coastal communities in host countries are not negatively impacted.”

In Huawei’s home province, lychee farmers reap the benefits of China’s rural 5G push

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3266726/huaweis-home-province-lychee-farmers-reap-benefits-chinas-rural-5g-push?utm_source=rss_feed

In the heart of an 11-acre lychee orchard, Yin Yaocheng begins his daily labour early in the morning. But unlike some of his fellow farmers, who spend the day ploughing fields or harvesting fruit, Yin films himself taking leisurely strolls among lush trees while talking into a smartphone.

Yin, the marketing head of Donglin Fruit Farm in the Zengcheng district of Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong province, has been live streaming since 2022 as a way to sell produce and draw visitors to its pick-your-own fruit operation, with the help of improving 5G mobile technology that enables smoother interaction with his audience.

“Live streaming has helped us achieve business growth of 20 to 30 per cent annually since we started in 2022,” Yin told a group of reporters at the Zengcheng Lychee Live Streaming on Thursday, where a 5.5G network was being tested in a rural live-streamed broadcast for the first time. The service was powered by Huawei Technologies and China Unicom.

5.5G, which Huawei calls 5G-Advanced, is expected to bring a tenfold improvement in network performance over 5G, with peak downlink speed climbing from 1 gigabit per second to 10Gbps, and peak uplink speed rising from 100 megabits per second to 1Gbps.

“The commercialisation of 5G-Advanced will support the creation of an ‘information highway’ that’s ubiquitous and fast, providing the infrastructure for an intelligent era,” said Hou Yingzhen, president of 5G marketing and solution sales at Huawei.

China Unicom, one of China’s big three telecommunications network operators, has offered farmers a 5G service package tailored for live-streaming users that gives subscribers priority in uplink speed and traffic through so-called 5G-slicing technology.

Yin said the enhanced 5G coverage has allowed him to live stream in wider areas of the farm with better video quality. In the past, he had to stick to one spot where the signal was the strongest.

“A leaf only moves when the wind touches it, and a flower becomes more vibrant when the sun shines on it,” Yin said. “With the technology, we can better showcase these details to our viewers through live streams, and ultimately boost sales conversion.”

Live streaming e-commerce has increasingly become a popular channel for Chinese fruit farmers to boost sales, especially for seasonal produce with a short growing season. However, supporting 5G infrastructure in the countryside comes with some unique challenges.

Building 5G networks in rural areas entails higher costs, as pieces of infrastructure are spaced further apart compared to those in cities, according to Wang Liang, deputy general manager of production innovation at China Unicom’s Guangdong branch. It is also more difficult to generate investment returns in less populous areas, he said.

Still, China has made a strong push in recent years to upgrade digital infrastructure in rural areas, an effort that has motivated enterprises to invest in and deploy connected devices to boost production and sales in agriculture, Wang added.

Guangdong had over 326,000 5G base stations as of the end of 2023, covering nearly all prefecture, county and town-level urban areas, as well as 94.5 per cent of village-level divisions, according to official data. This year, the province plans to add 38,000 stations and 18 million users.

Zengcheng has invested around 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million) annually in the past four to five years to upgrade its 5G network and other digital infrastructure, according to Tan Yushan, section chief of market information and science and education at the district’s agricultural and rural bureau.

But mobile internet coverage is just one of many challenges facing lychee farmers in Zengcheng. A warmer winter and heavy rain in spring are expected to reduce production by 40 per cent this year, Tan said.

Yin, the farmer, is concerned that the shortage will drive up lychee prices by so much that consumers are no longer willing to buy them – even with the help of live streaming.

“Some premium varieties may see their prices more than double this year, which makes it harder to sell,” he said.

Top professor urges China youth to date more, says ‘hook-up’ culture cannot replace authentic love

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3264342/top-professor-urges-china-youth-date-more-says-hook-culture-cannot-replace-authentic-love?utm_source=rss_feed

A renowned psychologist in China has advised young adults to date more, and warned that a “hook-up” culture cannot replace romantic relationships.

On May 20, Chi Yukai, a psychologist from South China Normal University in Guangzhou, Guangdong province in the south of the country, delved into the attitudes of young people towards relationships in an interview with the mainland media outlet Phoenix News.

Chi said that the 18 to 25-year-old demographic – generally referred to as Generation Z – is the prime age group for dating.

However, he believes China’s young adults now tend to overthink and hesitate when it comes to starting a relationship.

The traditional Chinese view of teenage romance is often negatively labelled as zao lian, which means “premature love”.

Many parents on the mainland believe that early dating distracts students and harms their academic performance.

Chi opposes the societal notion of zao lian, calling it an “utterly toxic pseudo-concept”, explaining the misconceptions about romantic relationships that stem from the idea.

In China, while dating before college is frowned upon, after college, young adults are pressured into marriage, often realising their true partner preferences too late, which can lead to extramarital affairs.

“Therefore, it is appropriate to encourage secondary school students to express their feelings of love in safe conditions,” Chi said.

The willingness of young people to date scores about 5 out of 10 in China, according to the 2023 Young People’s Dating Attitudes Report.

Of the 2,801 participants surveyed, more than half believed that love relationships would impact their personal career and academic development.

Chi views the notion of not marrying or dating as a product of societal progress.

“Economic development diversifies marriage forms and romantic relationships. Many people now believe they can live wonderfully alone,” he said.

Meanwhile, the popular dazi, or “hook-up” culture, largely fulfils the emotional needs that romantic relationships typically address.

For young people in China, the concept of dazi culture is simple, people gather to engage in activities they enjoy.

These partners can be foodies, fitness buddies or travel companions.

Unlike friendships and romantic relationships, the concept of dazi, or partners, is built on brief and almost superficial companionship.

The younger generation believes that these weak ties and light social interactions with dazi provide more efficient emotional companionship than dating.

However, Chi warns that such a culture cannot replace authentic love experiences.

“Finding a dazi only seeks simple, immediate pleasure, but life requires more profound emotional support,” he said.

The psychologist’s dating advice has sparked a heated discussion on mainland social media.

“Indeed, finding a dazi isn’t a long-term plan. We should cultivate more meaningful intimate relationships, such as with family, a romantic partner, and close friends,” one online observer wrote on Weibo.

“This psychologist is too idealistic. People aged 18 to 25 are busy with their studies and jobs. Many do not have weekends off and work overtime every day. Where do they find the energy and time to date?” said another.

“I don’t accept your advice. Everyone’s life path is unique. Focusing on dating at this age could mean missing out on many other opportunities,” said a third person.

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Chinese premier promises more pandas and urges Australia to put aside differences

https://apnews.com/article/australia-china-li-qiang-pandas-wine-minerals-8f7f8cebf751d0adaa14554aa10fced0Chinese Premier Li Qiang reacts during a visit to Adelaide Zoo, Australia, Sunday, June 16, 2024. Li is on a relations-mending mission with panda diplomacy, rock lobsters and China's global dominance in the critical minerals sector high on the agenda during his four day visit to Australia. (Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/Pool Photo via AP)

2024-06-16T02:48:13Z

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit to Australia on Sunday focused on positive aspects of the bilateral relationship including shared giant pandas and a rebounding wine trade as he promised a new breeding pair of the rare bears and urged both countries to put aside their differences.

China’s most powerful leader after President Xi Jinping arrived late Saturday in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia state, which has produced most of the Australian wine entering China since crippling tariffs were lifted in March that had effectively ended a 1.2 billion Australian dollar ($790 million) a year trade since 2020.

Li visited Adelaide Zoo, which has been home to China-born giant pandas Wang Wang and Fu Ni since 2009, before he was to have lunch at a restaurant at Adelaide winery Penfolds Magill Estate.

He announced that the zoo would be loaned another two pandas after the pair are due to return to China in November.

“China will soon provide another pair of pandas that are equally beautiful, lively, cute and younger to the Adelaide Zoo, and continue the cooperation on giant pandas between China and Australia,” Li said in Mandarin, adding that zoo staff would be invited to “pick a pair.”

Li was impressed by the 18-year-old male Wang Wang’s appetite and indifference to his high-ranking visitors.

“The panda is very obsessed with eating and doesn’t pay attention to us even when we are the people from its hometown visiting,” Li said at the panda enclosure.

“It has completely treated here as its second hometown,” Li said. “Very pretty, adorable, with charming naivety.”

The pair are the only pandas in the Southern Hemisphere and failed to produce offspring in Australia.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong thanked Li for ensuring that pandas would remain the zoo’s star attraction.

“It’s good for the economy, it’s good for South Australian jobs, it’s good for tourism, and it is a signal of goodwill, and we thank you,” Wong said.

Tom King, the managing director of Penfolds, one of Australia’s oldest wineries, told Chinese state media ahead of Li’s arrival that such visits helped strengthen economic and cultural ties.

“It’s pleasing to see the stabilizing of relations between the Australian and Chinese governments, including regular high-level visits between the two countries,” King was quoted as saying by the Global Times newspaper last week.

Li’s visit is the first to Australia by a Chinese premier in seven years and marks an improvement in relations since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor Party was elected in 2022.

Li noted that Albanese in November was the first Australian prime minister to visit China since 2016.

“China-Australia relations were back on track after a period of twists and turns, generating tangible benefits to the people of both countries,” Li said, according to a translation released by the Chinese Embassy in Australia on Sunday.

“History has proven that mutual respect, seeking common ground while shelving differences and mutually beneficial cooperation are the valuable experience in growing China-Australia relations, and must be upheld and carried forward,” Li added.

Dozens of pro-China demonstrators and human rights protesters gathered outside the zoo before Li’s visit.

China initiated a reset of the relationship after the previous conservative administration’s nine years in power ended.

Relations collapsed over legislation that banned covert foreign interference in Australian politics, the exclusion of Chinese-owned telecommunications giant Huawei from rolling out the national 5G network due to security concerns, and Australia’s call for an independent investigation into the causes of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beijing imposed an array of official and unofficial trade blocks in 2020 on a range of Australian exports including coal, wine, beef, barley and wood that cost up to AU$20 billion ($13 billion) a year.

All the trade bans have now been lifted except for Australian live lobster exports. Trade Minister Don Farrell predicted that impediment would also be lifted soon after Li’s visit with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.

Wong said Li’s visit was the result of “two years of very deliberate, very patient work by this government to bring about a stabilization of the relationship and to work towards the removal of trade impediments.”

“We will cooperate where we can, we will disagree where we must and we will engage in our national interest,” Wong told Australian Broadcasting Corp. before joining Li for lunch.

Li’s agenda will be more contentious when he leaves Adelaide to visit the national capital, Canberra, on Monday and a Chinese-controlled lithium processing plant in resource-rich Western Australia state on Tuesday.

Albanese has said he will raise with Li during an annual leaders’ meeting recent clashes between the two countries’ militaries in the South China Sea and Yellow Sea that Australia argues endangered Australian personnel.

Albanese will also raise the fate of China-born Australian democracy blogger Yang Hengjun, who was given a suspended death sentence by a Beijing court in February. Australia is also concerned for Hong Kong-Australia dual national Gordon Ng, who was among 14 pro-democracy activists convicted by a Hong Kong court last month for national security offenses.

Li’s visit to Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia’s processing plant south of the Western Australia capital of Perth will underscore China’s interest in investing in critical minerals. The plant produces battery-grade lithium hydroxide for electric vehicles.

Australia shares the United States’ concerns over China’s dominance in the critical minerals, which are essential components in the world’s transition to renewable energy sources.

Citing Australia’s national interests, Treasurer Jim Chalmers recently ordered five Chinese-linked companies to divest their shares in the rare earth mining company, Northern Minerals.

Asked if Chinese companies could invest in processing critical minerals in Australia, Wong replied that Australia’s foreign investment framework was “open to all.”

“We want to grow our critical minerals industry,” Wong said.

Australia is the second stop of Li’s tour after New Zealand, and will end in Malaysia.

____

AP video producer Caroline Chen and journalist Ken Moritsugu contributed from Beijing.

Sinovac hits back over reported US campaign to discredit China’s Covid-19 vaccine

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3266786/sinovac-hits-back-over-reported-us-campaign-discredit-chinas-covid-19-vaccine?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac has hit back following a report that the United States military ran a secret anti-vax programme during the Covid-19 crisis to discredit China’s vaccine, calling the Pentagon campaign a “wrong attack that will create enormous disaster”.

A Reuters investigation published on Friday found that in the summer of 2020, 300 accounts were created on Twitter, now known as X, that disparaged the quality of Chinese face masks, test kits and the Sinovac vaccine – the first Covid-19 jab to become available in the Philippines.

According to the report, tweets from the accounts typically featured the hashtag #Chinaangvirus, which means “China is the virus” in Tagalog.

“Stigmatising vaccination will lead to a series of consequences, such as a lower inoculation rate, the outbreak and spread of disease, social panic and insecurity, as well as crises of confidence in science and public health,” Sinovac spokeswoman Yuan Youwei told Chinese media.

She said that Sinovac’s corporate goal is to provide vaccines that can eradicate viruses and contribute to the health of people.

“Currently we have overcome Covid, but the world is still not in peace,” Yuan added.

“Sinovac will continue to help people live good and prosperous lives by preventing disease. We reckon that each profession should focus on their specialities, which is the right attitude.”

The Reuters report said that the Pentagon’s campaign to discredit the Chinese vaccine began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021, tailoring its content to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East through fake social media accounts on multiple platforms.

In May 2021, former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte received his first dose of another Chinese jab, the Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine. After vaccination, Duterte said he “felt good”, adding that collaboration with Beijing had helped “manifest the friendship between both countries”.

In December 2021, the Philippines received an additional shipment of Sinovac vaccines donated by the Chinese government to help the Southeast Asian country recover from the pandemic.

The US Department of Defence and State Department did not immediately respond to questions about the Reuters investigation.

The US programme started under the administration of former US president Donald Trump and continued several months into Joe Biden’s presidency, according to Reuters.

According to the report, social media executives warned the Biden administration the Pentagon was trafficking in Covid-19 misinformation. The White House issued an order to ban the anti-vax effort in the spring of 2021, according to Reuters, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review.

‘Hong Kong open to running more high-speed sleeper trains to mainland Chinese cities’

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/transport/article/3266784/hong-kong-open-running-more-high-speed-sleeper-trains-mainland-chinese-cities?utm_source=rss_feed

Hong Kong will explore the possibility of running more high-speed sleeper trains to mainland Chinese cities if the current routes prove popular, the transport minister has said after one such rail service completed its maiden trip to Beijing.

Train D910 reached Beijing West railway station at 6.53am on Sunday after departing from Hong Kong at 6.24pm the day before, with its arrival marked by a welcome ceremony attended by a cheering crowd of banner-waving passengers.

The train and another one that left for Shanghai from Hong Kong on the same day carried about 1,000 passengers in total.

Among those who travelled to the capital was Secretary for Transport and Logistics Lam Sai-hung, who said he had enjoyed a good night’s sleep and even woke up slightly later than usual at around 5.30am.

“[I] woke up [during the journey] but quickly fell back asleep. I am very satisfied with the design of the bed,” he said. “After waking up and freshening up, I realised I could also enjoy the surrounding scenery from inside the train.

“I even had a cup of coffee in the dining compartment. These are things that cannot be done in a typical plane journey.”

China Railway announced earlier in June that it would run overnight high-speed sleeper trains between Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai from Saturday, with the services to operate from Friday to Monday each week.

Asked if the high-speed sleeper train services could be expanded between Hong Kong and more mainland cities, Lam said: “This is just the beginning, and the first step is to accumulate experience. The plan will be considered further based on the occupancy rates of the trains.”

Jacob Kam Chak-pui, CEO of the MTR Corporation, said high-speed sleeper trains offered a fresh alternative for passengers travelling to Hong Kong and hoped the services could attract more tourists over the summer holiday.

“We need to strike a balance between the demand of passengers and the need for rail maintenance when considering increasing the frequency of the sleeper trains,” he said.

“Just like flights, we need to negotiate with different mainland units to decide whether a train can come or not. We will maintain close communications to better cater to the needs of passengers.”

Another passenger, Selina Lam Po-kam, said she slept better on the train than at home after falling asleep at 10.30pm on Saturday and waking up at 5.30am.

“I guess the slight shakes throughout the journey made me sleep deeper. I am so happy and excited about this ride,” the 65-year-old metal material trader said.

Lam said the train looked newer and offered more quality service compared with past sleeper trains she had taken to the country’s northeastern provinces from other mainland cities.

Rick Wong Wai-ki, a passenger who works in the food packaging industry, said he would stay in Beijing just one day for a business meeting and take another sleeper train back to Hong Kong on Sunday night.

“I love to take trains, even in Europe. I had an experience of staying on sleeper trains for 10 days. I am happy with the Beijing-bound train,” the 48-year-old said. “But it would be perfect if the terminus station had shower facilities for travellers to freshen up, like those in Europe.”

Timothy Chui Ting-pong, director of tour operator Eat Play Travel, joined a group of 47 people travelling on the train as part of a four-day trip. He said he had struggled to sleep, but considered the ride to be an experience.

The group of mainly elderly holiday-goers, including Chiu’s mother, will stay in Beijing for two days and spend the other two riding trains.

“Taking the first ever high-speed sleeper from Hong Kong to Beijing itself is already an experience. Taking it is a unique experience,” he said. “Not being able to sleep and taking my mother to meet new people will also be a unique memory for me.”

Chui, who is also executive director of the Hong Kong Tourism Association, said the high-speed sleeper trains could offer a more appealing travel option for families or even some young solo travellers.

Over at Shanghai’s Hongqiao station, the other high-speed overnight train from Hong Kong completed its maiden trip when it arrived in the mainland city at 6.45am after an about 11 hour-journey.

Most passengers said they were satisfied with the service, but some added they had trouble climbing up to upper-deck beds.

Undersecretary for Transport and Logistics Liu Chun-san expressed his joy at taking the train to Shanghai.

“I slept for some time last night, which was still quite comfortable, while I was full of vitality,” he said.

The undersecretary said taking the high-speed sleeper train was better than sitting through similar journeys, but said he had not slept consistently in the night.

Lawmaker Gary Zhang Xinyu, who also rode the train, said the service allowed him to sleep more comfortably compared with flying, and also avoided the hassle of going to the airport hours in advance to check in.

“It is cosy to sleep on a train where I can arrive at the destination once I open my eyes,” Zhang said, describing the beds as spacious.

Wency Yuen, who works in the legal sector and slept on the upper deck, said it was her first time on a sleeper train, adding the toilets appeared to be quite clean.

“The bedding equipment was quite good, as slippers and tissues were provided for passengers,” the 35-year-old added.

Malaysia pins its belt and road infrastructure hopes on deepening China ties

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3266700/malaysia-pins-its-belt-and-road-infrastructure-hopes-deepening-china-ties?utm_source=rss_feed

Setting his sights on major investments from China, Malaysia’s Transport Minister Anthony Loke says he’s confident that ties will continue to deepen as the Southeast Asian nation powers ahead with an ambitious infrastructure agenda, including a slew of high-profile belt and road projects.

“There is a very strong bonding between Malaysia and China,” Loke told This Week in Asia during a sit-down interview in Hong Kong last week.

“The relationship has grown over the years, and right now, it is very stable,” he said. “We currently have many collaborations across many sectors between Malaysia and China, particularly in the transport sector.”

Loke was in Hong Kong leading a delegation to commemorate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties with Beijing. Malaysia is also expecting to welcome a visit by Chinese Premier Li Qiang later this month.

China has invested billions of dollars into the Southeast Asian nation’s infrastructure, including under its Belt and Road Initiative. One project, the East Coast Rail Link in Peninsular Malaysia that Loke is spearheading, is scheduled for completion in 2027 at an estimated cost of 50 billion ringgit (US$10.6 billion) and will offer both freight and passenger services once operational.

But Malaysia’s investment landscape with China has not always been so straightforward. A number of belt and road projects were either axed or left in limbo in the political instability that followed the ousting of corrupt former prime minister Najib Razak in 2018.

Exemplifying these challenges is the Forest City mega-project in southern Johor state. Once hailed as a flagship belt and road project, the US$100 billion development remains largely uninhabited, proving a continual source of embarrassment for successive Malaysian governments.

Loke insists that Malaysia has regained a sense of political stability under Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who took power in 2022 after forming a coalition government by uniting several opposing political factions. But questions remain over whether enduring rivalries within the alliance pose risks for Anwar’s economic and social agenda.

“By and large, we have managed to put up a cohesive government,” Loke said. “Policies are being formulated, government machineries are functioning as normal. We are beginning to see some results.”

He said this was a marked improvement on the turmoil that had gone before, with three prime ministers in the space of three years before Anwar took the helm. This political volatility had multiple knock-on effects, even leading to the mothballing of a high-speed rail link with Singapore that Anwar’s government is now trying to revive.

“There is more confidence from the international community, especially international investors coming to Malaysia,” Loke said, citing major investment announcements made by the likes of Microsoft, Tesla and other multinational giants in recent months.

“This has shown that investors have regained their interest and confidence in Malaysia,” he said. “Of course it’s very much upon us, the Malaysian government, to continue to formulate investor friendly policies, and also to provide stability and certainty for investors.”

Despite the domestic political hurdles, Malaysia’s position on China’s belt and road plans has held firm, according to Ngeow Chow-Bing, director of the University of Malaya’s Institute of China Studies.

Anwar’s government “appears to want to have more strategic and long-term cooperation with China” and has remained committed to belt and road projects, Ngeow said, dismissing concerns that Malaysia may be too reliant on Chinese investments.

Malaysia “will not be apologetic in terms of asking for more investment from China,” he said. “Malaysia is speaking with roughly the same terms to other countries, and remains very open and welcome to investment.”

“We see a large number of investments from China not because the focus is just on China, but sometimes Chinese companies react more proactively to our calling compared to companies from other countries,” Ngeow added.

There is always the risk of tensions between Malaysia’s ethnic groups affecting political stability and Loke acknowledged this, but he said that Anwar’s government is fully aware of the need to “win over the confidence of all the races in Malaysia”.

“We want to have a government that garners support from across the different races and different ethnic groups,” he said, noting that while the Malay majority largely backed the opposition in the last election, Malay leadership remains entrenched within the governing establishment.

While in Hong Kong, Loke said he met with the city’s MTR Corporation for insights on its ‘rail plus property development’ model and to learn how Malaysia could likewise maximise property values near its railway stations.

“Transit-oriented development is something we are adopting as well in Malaysia,” he said. “Already we are seeing a lot of interest from property developers from the private sector to bring on this transit-oriented development.”

Improving connectivity between Malaysia and China was also on the agenda, Loke said, “not only between big cities and Kuala Lumpur, but also secondary cities” in both countries.

He pointed to increased demand for flights to China from across Malaysia, including Johor Bahru, Penang, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu, while noting an “influx of Chinese tourists to Malaysia” following the relaxation of visa policies that now allow 30-day visa-free travel for Chinese visitors.

Loke drew parallels between China’s Greater Bay Area and a proposed special economic zone spanning Malaysia’s southern Johor state and neighbouring Singapore, highlighting the similarities in their integrated, cross-border vision.

“The concept of the Johor-Singapore special economic zone is similar to the Greater Bay Area in terms of the conceptual framework where you are integrating the island economy with the hinterland,” he said.

“This is a reference point for us to see how we can work this out in Malaysia, especially with Singapore.”

‘Divorce pals’: new China trend sees single mothers team up, live together, share resources and childcare duties

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3264303/divorce-pals-new-china-trend-sees-single-mothers-team-live-together-share-resources-and-childcare?utm_source=rss_feed

A trend has emerged in China which sees people post messages on social media looking for a “divorce partner.”

The objective is to bring two previously married individuals – predominantly single mothers – together to form new households, where they can support each other with shared living costs and childcare.

The Post takes a closer look at the phenomenon.

The rise of divorce partnerships involving lone mothers is primarily driven by the practical challenges they face after separation from their husbands.

Many need to work to pay the bills, which complicates their ability to care for their children.

According to the China Women’s News, a survey of 271 single mothers showed that 59.4 per cent had never received child support from their ex-husbands, and those who did often received payments lower than the courts ordered.

In this context, forming alliances outside marriage is seen as a solution for many single mothers, in which one party can work to earn an income while the other takes care of the children and household demands.

The arrangement is sometimes depicted as a symbol of female independence.

It does not always work out though.

This was the case in a partnership between a woman using the pseudonym Jingwen Lin from Guangdong province in southeast China and another, identified as Xiaoli Chen from Shandong in the east of the country.

Their partnership lasted just 108 days.

Lin became a single parent after unexpectedly becoming pregnant at the age of 35 in 2022. Her boyfriend suggested she terminate the pregnancy.

Lin faced severe financial challenges because childcare consumed her time and energy, forcing her to resign and live off savings from the sale of her house.

Last September, she posted a “divorce partner” recruitment ad, which attracted Chen.

They established a division of labour. Chen took care of the children, Lin was freed from household duties and could work.

However, by the Chinese Spring Festival of this year they separated.

Lin said the “break-up” was largely due to the demanding care their young children needed, along with an inability to provide an income that could sustain them all.

In a desperate attempt to boost their income, and inspired by vendors at night markets, they tried setting up a stall that ended up losing 3,000 yuan (US$400) in less than a month, ending the partnership.

Pros and cons

The positive aspects of such partnerships include children playing together and mothers sharing meal preparation.

Many online observers also believe it is a win-win situation, who post comments such as: “Life is so much better without that troublesome man, and with a strong helper instead.”

However, Chen Yijun, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has warned that impoverished single mothers are actually a vulnerable new group, especially in cities.

“Particularly those with low education and no skills, who were entirely dependent on their husbands before the divorce. Their economic independence is very poor, making it extremely difficult to sustain a living after divorce,” she said.

Furthermore, “partner families” are not legally protected under current Chinese family law.

Many scholars studying “partnering up for elderly care” have pointed out that non-marital cohabitation could lead to potential property disputes and rights infringements.

Chinese Nvidia distributor pairs graphics cards with Black Myth: Wukong game in offbeat promotion

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3266654/chinese-nvidia-distributor-pairs-graphics-cards-black-myth-wukong-game-offbeat-promotion?utm_source=rss_feed

A mainland Chinese distributor of Nvidia Corp products is looking to boost sales of the US firm’s graphics cards – hardware used by gamers to crank up computing performance – by offering these in a promotion with , the country’s first triple-A video game.

Guangzhou-based Maxsun, which distributes products based on Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices technologies, is offering free digital keys to action role-playing game Black Myth: Wukong for each purchase of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4070, 4080 and 4090 series graphics card or computers equipped with these hardware until June 18.

A standard copy of Black Myth: Wukong is priced at 268 yuan (US$37). The video game, developed by Tencent Holdings-backed studio Game Science, is set to be released on August 20 for Windows and Sony’s PlayStation 5.

Maxsun’s offbeat promotion reflects growing competition in the mainland graphics card market, where consumers are substituting Nvidia’s products with alternative made-in-China hardware from Moore Threads Technology, a graphics processor start-up that was added to Washington’s trade blacklist last October.

Still, a number of mainland gamers have derided this novel marketing ploy by Maxsun, owned by Shangke Information Technology.

“This promotion has limited appeal because GPU [graphics processing unit] sellers should focus on their target market,” said Helen Ding, a gamer from northeast Liaoning province. “Those who want the game don’t want to buy a new GPU.”

Initial domestic pre-orders of , showing pent-up demand on the mainland, according to a South China Morning Post report on Tuesday. The title will also be available on Tencent’s flagship video gaming portal WeGame and rival platform Steam.

Mainland gamer Richard Chen was one of those who pre-ordered a physical copy of the deluxe edition of that costs 1,998 yuan. “I won’t buy a new GPU for the game because it isn’t worth paying around 5,000 yuan for the game [under that promotion],” he said.

The global video gaming GPU market is forecast to reach US$15.7 billion in 2029, up from a projected US$3.7 billion this year, according to market research firm Morder Intelligence.

Over the past few years, graphics cards – once Nvidia’s bread-and-butter business – have been surpassed by demand for the US company’s advanced GPUs used for training artificial intelligence systems.

Chinese government rushes to shore up struggling property sector with new policies

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3266633/chinese-government-rushes-shore-struggling-property-sector-new-policies?utm_source=rss_feed

More steps are being taken to stabilise China’s property market as various government departments implement policies to help the struggling sector, which remains both a major driver of the Chinese economy, and a major risk to it.

The latest moves made over the past week include an official notice to upgrade old communities, which is expected to optimise land use and drive construction, and a meeting by the central bank to fast-forward the refinancing of low-income housing, in an attempt to absorb inventory.

But while Beijing’s efforts to accelerate the clearance of excess inventory and shore up the property market, which accounted for a quarter of the country’s economic growth at its peak, have gathered pace, analysts have cautioned that the weak sentiment still persists.

On Wednesday, the People’s Bank of China held a meeting in the northeastern province of Shandong, which focused on speeding up the progress of refinancing low-income housing, according to an official statement.

“[The measure] responds to the national policy of consuming housing units in the inventory, optimising the efficiency of the housing market and pushing forward a new development model for the property sector,” the statement said.

Jinan in Shandong province, Tianjin, Chongqing and Zhengzhou city in Henan province all shared their experiences at the meeting after being involved in pilot programmes.

Then on Thursday, the Ministry of Natural Resources issued an official notice on renewing old communities by referencing the experiences of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Nanjing.

“The measure aims at deepening examination and assessment, strengthening coordination and policy support, as well as improving the approval process to steadily advance the guidance related to land-use planning,” a departmental statement said.

A report on China’s economic outlook, released on Thursday by Spanish bank BBVA, said “the weak market sentiments of households and enterprises” persist, and the “housing market remains the top priority of the risks”.

“Deflationary environment is not easy to reverse amid deep real estate [market] adjustment,” Dong Jinyue, principal economist at BBVA Research, said in the report. “China’s real estate market remains the primary risk of the economy in 2024.”

China recorded better-than-expected economic growth of 5.3 per cent in the first quarter, staying on course for this year’s growth target despite ongoing challenges from the property market downturn and subdued domestic demand.

China’s real estate sector has become a major pillar of its economy over recent decades, accounting for 25 to 30 per cent of the country’s GDP, according to a report released by French insurance company AXA in May.

“However, more recently … property developers have been slow to produce finished houses … In 2022, real estate developers defaulted on more than 50 billion yuan (US$6.89 billion) worth of bonds,” said Wang Yingrui, an economist of macro research at AXA. “Given the property sector’s significant influence on the economy, this has acted as a drag on broader activity.”

Earlier last month, the Chinese government announced a new suite of policies to restore the property market, including lowering the first-house purchase down payment ratio to 15 per cent and second-house purchase to 25 per cent.

Other measures include moving the lower bound of mortgage rate for homebuyers, setting a 300 billion yuan relending pool, and allowing local governments and state-owned enterprises to buy unsold land and housing from distressed developers.

US military still has an edge, but China is catching up with hi-tech weapons

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3266740/us-military-still-has-edge-china-catching-hi-tech-weapons?utm_source=rss_feed

This is the third article in a about China’s military development, from weapons and to its role in the global supply chain and how it compares with the United States.

While China and the United States work to restore defence communication channels, the growing military might of the two powers has intensified tensions in the Asia-Pacific, most notably in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

Analysts say that while the US still has an edge over China in military strength, the gap is shrinking, and in future this balance is likely to be determined by advanced technology and Washington’s cooperation with its Indo-Pacific allies.

Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun met his US counterpart Lloyd Austin two weeks ago on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore – the first meeting between the two countries’ defence chiefs in two years.

They each maintained their firm stances on Taiwan, with Austin expressing concern about recent “provocative” activity by the People’s Liberation Army around the self-ruled island.

Beijing conducted a two-day joint military exercise blockading Taiwan after the inauguration of the island’s new leader William Lai Ching-te in late May.

Washington expressed “deep concerns” and repeatedly warned about the PLA’s regional military build-up as Beijing stepped up drills near Taiwan.

Beijing views Taiwan as part of China that must be reunified – by force if necessary. The US, in common with most countries, does not recognise Taiwan as independent but opposes any attempt to take it by force and is legally bound to arm it to defend itself. optional cut ends

Timothy Heath, a senior international defence researcher at US-based think tank Rand Corporation, said the gap between the two militaries was “narrowing” as China invests in military modernisation, acquiring newer platforms and weapons.

China’s defence industry is “robust” as a majority of the companies are state-owned with strong connections to the central leadership and “generous” funding, Heath said.

Meanwhile the US is finding it more difficult to offer the economic incentives needed to motivate the private sector to reach the “size and scale” of Chinese firms, he added.

According to the Pentagon, the Chinese navy has surpassed the US navy in terms of the number of battle force ships over the past decade, thanks to China’s status as the world’s top ship-producing nation by tonnage.

A US Congressional Research Service report released in October of last year predicted the PLA would have 440 ships by 2030 while the US will have 290.

Senior US Air Force officials have also noted the PLA’s potential to become the world’s biggest air force. It now has over 3,150 non-trainer and non-drone aircraft, compared with about 4,000 for the American military.

While China continues to catch up on air and sea capabilities, “both sides have essentially come to a balance of power in military presence in the West Pacific”, said Hu Bo, director of Beijing-based think tank South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative.

Given their comparable conventional warfare capabilities, the results in a US-China conflict in the West Pacific “would be quite unpredictable”, he said.

However, military commentator Song Zhongping said that until at least the PLA’s centennial in 2027, there will still be a gap between China and the US.

“It’s without doubt that the US is the world’s strongest military power, leading in conventional to nuclear weapons,” said Song, a former PLA instructor, citing the US military’s 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and advanced fighter jets as examples.

China has begun sea trials of its third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, but it has yet to produce a nuclear-powered carrier.

The PLA has struggled to overcome corruption amid a military overhaul – including former commanders of its nuclear arms force – and a lack of combat experience dating back to 1979.

In contrast, the US military retains a “formidable advantage” in the quality of its personnel, who are “extremely well trained and experienced”, Heath said, adding that it also has superiority in submarines and aircraft.

“Even if the PLA has developed a highly trained workforce capable of effectively operating its new hardware, this does not give China any sort of ‘trump card’ against the US military,” Heath said. “Military advantage at the start of a war does not guarantee victory.”

But Hu pointed out that the American military’s recent combat experience has always been “against the weaker”.

“The ability required to deal with terrorism and adversaries like Iraq and Afghanistan, as compared with China, is obviously different, so whether the experience could be used in [conflicts with China] is questionable,” he said.

However, Hu agreed that China lagged behind in its underwater capabilities.

The Pentagon’s financial year 2025 budget request, announced in March, included US$4 billion worth of investments for its submarine industrial base.

It included a budget for developing the latest Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, expected to enter service in 2031. It is expected to have a quieter electric engine system and greater overall durability, replacing the nearly 50-year-old Ohio-class submarines.

Chinese decision-makers have argued that despite unprecedented global and economic challenges, “time and momentum are on China’s side” – echoing the words of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But some observers argue Washington’s efforts to consolidate its alliances in the region are complicating the catch-up game.

US President Joe Biden held the first three-way summit with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts Yoon Suk-yeol and Fumio Kishida last August at Camp David, where they pledged to raise trilateral security cooperation, including regular joint military exercises.

In April, Biden and Kishida took part in another trilateral summit with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, where the trio expressed concerns over China’s “dangerous and aggressive behaviour” in the South China Sea.

Ramon Pacheco Pardo, an international relations professor at King’s College London, said Washington’s strategy of strengthening alliances and partnerships across East Asia and the Indo-Pacific gave it a “significant advantage” over Beijing, which was without a “reliable” ally in the region.

“This helps explain why China is so critical of burgeoning ties between the US and countries such as South Korea or the Philippines. Australia and Japan will follow US policy no matter what,” Pacheco Pardo said.

“Their decision to work more closely with the US is a problem for Beijing … The US can strengthen military ties with reliable partners, which gives it more firepower in case of conflict.”

Washington is also seeking to strengthen ties with its allies by sharing defence technology.

In April, defence chiefs from the US, Britain and Australia said the three countries were considering expanding the second pillar of their Aukus security alliance to add like-minded partners. Japan, South Korea, Canada and New Zealand are reportedly among the candidates eyed for inclusion in the tech-sharing pact.

Launched in 2021, Aukus has two key pillars. Pillar 1 supports Australia’s acquisition of conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines, while Pillar 2 focuses on cutting-edge technologies, including quantum computing, artificial intelligence and hypersonic weapons.

Pacheco Pardo said the US understood that Aukus Pillar 2 requires cooperation with hi-tech countries such as South Korea and Japan, while it “makes sense” to include other countries such as Canada or New Zealand from a political point of view.

“This way, the US can create a very strong ‘minilateral’. Arguably, this would be the strongest minilateral in the Indo-Pacific in the area of new military technologies,” Pacheco Pardo said.

“I think that the gap between the US and China is narrowing thanks to Beijing’s huge investment in new technologies … Beijing will continue to narrow its military power differential with Washington, but I think that it will still take time for it to fully catch up given the US’s own investment and current advantage.

“In particular, I think that the US will benefit from cooperation with allies and partners, both in the Indo-Pacific and in Nato. This is a big problem for China, which lacks reliable hi-tech partners.”

Xi launched a plan to transform the PLA into a fully modern force on par with the US military in the Pacific by 2027 and to become a “world class” military by 2049, the centenary of the Communist Party’s rise to power.

In a push for military modernisation, Xi in 2022 pledged to “speed up the development of unmanned, intelligent combat capabilities”.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) arms transfer database, China has exported more than 280 combat drones over the past decade – mainly to the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

To counter China’s growing drone capabilities, the US has launched its Replicator initiative aimed at fielding thousands of military drones.

The unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, acquired under the programme were delivered to the US military in May, according to US deputy defence secretary Kathleen Hicks.

“The US is trying to catch up with China in the domain of small attritable, swarming and AI-enabled UAVs,” said Kostas Tigkos, head of mission systems and intelligence at global military intelligence company Janes.

“China has invested heavily in these low cost capabilities, which offer an advantage in the battlefield, especially against expensive and complex traditional platforms,” Tigkos said.

Hu stressed that both countries were “on the same starting line” regarding the military use of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and it was “still unclear who is stronger and who is weaker”.

Beijing has an advantage over Washington in hypersonic missile systems. Only two countries – China and Russia – have such weapons in service. Beijing’s DF-17 – a medium-range missile system with a hypersonic glide vehicle – has been in service since 2019.

According to an annual report on China’s military power published in October, Beijing has the “world’s leading hypersonic arsenal” and has dramatically advanced its supersonic missile technologies in the past two decades.

“Chinese hypersonics are among the most advanced in the world. This reflects long-standing strengths in China’s ballistic missile programme,” said Heath.

“The US lagged China because it did not prioritise missiles. The US has relied on its aircraft and forward-deployed military forces to carry out similar functions of long-range strikes and bombardment.”