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• China has cut off some Vietnamese durian imports. Is a ‘gold rush’ tarnishing quality?
• Police bust gang using luxury cars to smuggle Chinese migrants into Italy
• China and Vietnam must build stronger ties, ‘shared destiny’, Xi Jinping tells counterpart
• Chinese migrants smuggled into Italy in luxury cars and exploited, police say
• Amazon to offer direct US shipping from China amid rise of Shein and Temu, report says
• Pair of Chinese giant pandas set off for California
• China property: Beijing becomes last major mainland city to ease housing rules
• Beijing talks the talk with foreign, private firms as they await action at China’s third plenum
• 94% of Hong Kong public schools partner mainland China institutions: Education Bureau
• Chinese scientists detect ‘spy balloon’ as small as F-35 stealth fighter on radar
• Chinese telecoms giant Huawei signs deal to train thousands of Peruvians in new technology
• Ex China e-commerce tycoon Cai Lei with deadly brain disease wows to save a million sufferers before he dies
• China’s third plenum to target ‘most urgent’ economic reforms: People’s Daily
• OpenAI’s ban on Chinese access to ChatGPT to spur growth of local alternatives, experts say
• Burned-out China worker quits job to earn US$280,000 a month selling green bananas as stress relievers
• China won’t give up on ‘win-win’ US trade despite ‘unsustainable’ tariffs
• South Korea shuts battery plant where 17 Chinese workers were killed in fire, begins probe
• Hero China son swept away and killed by raging floodwater after saving mother
• Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese coastguards in tense stand-off near Quemoy
• Filipino sailor recounts how thumb was torn off in South China Sea clash
• Provinces along Yangtze on alert for more flood emergencies as heavy rain continues in China
• Meet Yu Donglai ‘silliest boss’ in China who puts staff happiness ahead of making money
• China, Saudi military cooperation on ‘fast track’ as top defence officials meet
• Vietnam’s proposed South China Sea talks with Philippines raises hopes of resolution pathway
• Hong Kong helps relieve yuan pressures as mainland China grapples with capital outflows
• Graphene find in China’s Chang’e-5 moon samples challenges lunar origin theory
• Hozon files Hong Kong IPO to raise funds for its global growth, skirt China’s discount war
• Taiwan: rare sighting of mainland Chinese helicopter points to test of island defences
• Foreign vlogger in China goes viral with ‘city or not city’ meme, imitated by celebrities
• China must be better prepared for extreme weather and disasters, influential newspaper says
• South China Sea: Filipino troops who fought axe-wielding Chinese coastguards get medals
• China’s power grid equipment makers see boom ahead as Beijing underscores renewables push
• China plays ‘crucial role’ in global economy: Vietnamese leader tells ‘Summer Davos’
• US ambassador Nicholas Burns says Beijing making US-China exchanges ‘impossible’
• Peru resolves Chinese megaport dispute as president prepares to meet Xi
• How China’s ‘dual circulation’ drive is shaping up – and what’s next on the agenda
• Chinese subsidies for drones, chips put U.S. at risk, House panel says
• Chinese Spacecraft Brings Moon Samples Back to Earth

China has cut off some Vietnamese durian imports. Is a ‘gold rush’ tarnishing quality?

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3268128/china-has-cut-some-vietnamese-durian-imports-gold-rush-tarnishing-quality?utm_source=rss_feed

China suspended imports of Vietnamese durians from 33 sources this month, in a move suggesting some growers may have cut corners to quickly enter its vast, competitive market – and providing an opening for a slew of eager competitors to step in.

The General Administration of Customs told officials in Vietnam in a June 11 letter that it would stop shipments from 18 durian plantations and 15 packers over excessive amounts of “heavy metals” in the fruits.

China had initially deemed 33 plantations and 40 packers “unsuitable” in the letter, which was posted by several Chinese and Vietnamese news outlets. The document said customs officials chose which ones to suspend based on domestic laws, a bilateral agreement and an abiding interest in minimising damage to the durian trade.

Vietnam’s swiftly expanding share of sales for the spiky, pungent and lucrative fruits in China – the world’s biggest durian market by a wide margin – may have pushed growers to seek volume at the expense of quality.

“Even though Vietnamese durian growers can benefit from exporting to China, the sudden rise in exports without quality control may harm the prestige of Vietnamese durians in the long term,” said Nguyen Thanh Trung, a political scientist at Fulbright University Vietnam.

Vietnamese growers first received permission to ship durian into China in 2021 and became the country’s second-biggest source of the fruit last year, only trailing Thailand.

China imported 1.4 million tonnes of durian in 2023, and Thailand’s share in US dollar terms dropped from almost 100 per cent in 2021 to about 68 per cent last year.

In the first five months of 2024, Thailand shipped US$2.2 billion worth of durians to China, a year-on-year drop of 2.5 per cent according to Chinese customs data. Vietnam’s exports, meanwhile, surged 61 per cent to a value of US$661.48 million.

The influx of Vietnamese durians has been cited as a cause of falling prices in China, where the fruits command enough cachet to be gifted at special occasions such as weddings.

The Chinese customs administration urged Vietnamese authorities to learn where the suspended companies had gone wrong, take measures to fix the problems and step up their scrutiny “to prevent related situations from happening again”.

An official from Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, plus two Vietnamese agricultural provinces, issued warnings last year about an oversupply of durians and possible quality problems, the domestic VnExpress International news outlet reported in October.

The ministry’s horticulture head said that when durians are grown in “unsuitable areas”, they produce “low-quality fruits, causing damage to farmers and to the Vietnamese durian brand”, according to the report.

As of April, China’s import price for durians from Thailand was US$5.80 per kilogram according to the customs administration, while Vietnamese durians stood at US$4.22 per kilogram.

The suspension comes at a moment of particular pressure for Vietnam, as Malaysia has been given a first chance to ship fresh durians to China – making it an effective competitor with the other two Southeast Asian countries.

A deal signed with China last week will benefit 63,000 Malaysian growers, according to Kuala Lumpur’s government-owned Bernama news agency. China had previously allowed imports of Malaysian durian pulp and paste in 2011, and frozen durian in 2018.

Malaysian growers are likely to meet China’s export standards through “better agricultural practices, leading to higher-quality produce”, said Lim Chin Khee, an adviser with the Durian Academy, an institution that trains Malaysian growers.

Competition from Malaysia may “shock” Vietnamese durian growers into paying “more attention to durian quality than quantity”, Nguyen said.

China’s customs officials, however, indicated in their letter they were keen to move forward on Vietnamese imports.

“The Chinese side wants to increase dialogue and cooperation with your side, appropriately resolve issues that come up in the context of fruit imports to China and protect the healthy development of trade in agricultural products between the two countries,” it read.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang and his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Minh Chinh also pledged to pursue “more fruitful achievements” when meeting in China on Monday, state media reported.

Additional reporting by Mia Nulimaimaiti

Police bust gang using luxury cars to smuggle Chinese migrants into Italy

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/26/police-bust-gang-using-luxury-cars-to-smuggle-chinese-migrants-into-italy

Italian police have busted a trafficking network that used luxury cars to smuggle Chinese migrants into Italy before confiscating their passports and treating them like slaves.

The smugglers had the migrants pose as “unsuspecting Asian citizens, well dressed, with little luggage, travelling in powerful and expensive cars, driven by Chinese citizens who had lived in Italy for years and spoke Italian”, police said in a statement.

Investigators were alerted to a possible ring after a Chinese citizen was stopped at the border between Italy and Slovenia in April during routine checks, and found to be transporting four undocumented Chinese.

They uncovered “the existence of a consistent, continuous flow of irregular Chinese citizens who, in small groups, were flown to the external European borders in countries (mainly Serbia) where they entered with a visa exemption”, a statement said.

“And then, from there, they were accompanied by car, through Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia, up to the Italian state border,” it said.

Smuggled migrants were transported to a safe house near Venice, where they stayed for one or two days before being taken on either to areas of Italy or other EU countries such as France and Spain.

The traffickers confiscated their passports at the safe house and “from then on … (they) were exposed to severe exploitation until the debt incurred for the journey had been repaid”, the statement said.

The migrants were kept “without any possibility of a free or semi-free life, without medical assistance, with nothing except a bed and a place to work indefinitely”, police said, describing it as a sort of “slavery”.

Police arrested nine alleged members of the trafficking network during the operation and identified 77 undocumented migrants, “many of them women and some minors aged between 15 and 18”.

China and Vietnam must build stronger ties, ‘shared destiny’, Xi Jinping tells counterpart

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3268179/china-and-vietnam-must-build-stronger-ties-shared-destiny-xi-jinping-tells-counterpart?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing and Hanoi should further strengthen cooperation while properly handling their disputes in the South China Sea, President Xi Jinping told Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Wednesday.

“The two sides should properly handle our maritime issues, accelerate joint maritime development and together maintain regional peace and stability,” Xi said to Chinh at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

Their meeting followed on Xi’s visit with Hanoi’s leadership last December and took place as China seeks to bolster ties with Vietnam amid fierce competition with the United States for regional influence.

Chinh’s working trip came on the heels of an official visit to Hanoi last week by Russian President Vladimir Putin. And it marked the prime minister’s first official visit since Vietnam’s political turmoil in March when three of its top five leaders stepped down.

On Wednesday, Xi restated his pledge made in December with Vietnamese Communist Party boss Nguyen Phu Trong to build a “China-Vietnam community of shared destiny with strategic significance”.

The two countries should expand cooperation in their economies and trade, the Chinese leader said, as well as maintain high-level exchanges and advance the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s global trade and infrastructure investment scheme.

“China is willing to encourage more Chinese enterprises to increase their investment in Vietnam and [we] hope that the Vietnamese side will provide a fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises,” Xi said.

For its part, Vietnam regarded strategic mutual trust and pragmatic cooperation with China to build a community of shared destiny a “top priority and strategic choice” in its foreign policy, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV quoted Chinh as saying.

“This cannot be undermined by outside provocations and interference,” Chinh reportedly said.

Vietnam supported China’s entry to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the prime minister added, and “opposes the politicisation of trade and tech issues”.

Chinh said Vietnam was willing to boost multilateral collaboration and manage differences “appropriately”.

During his trip to China, Chinh attended the World Economic Forum in Dalian. There he met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and called for enhanced trade and investment.

China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner and a major foreign investor.

In recent years, Vietnam has become a popular destination for manufacturing and supply chains as some companies exit China against the backdrop of Sino-American trade tensions.

At the same time, Hanoi has elevated aspects of its relations with Washington and its allies into strategic partnerships.

Notwithstanding closer Sino-Vietnamese economic ties, the neighbouring Asian countries have unresolved territorial disputes in the South China Sea, alongside claims by the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Taiwan.

China and Vietnam have each argued they have rights to the resource-rich waters and built artificial islands to reinforce actual control there. In 1974 they fought briefly over the Paracel Islands and in 1988 engaged in a military skirmish over the Spratly Islands.

Chinese migrants smuggled into Italy in luxury cars and exploited, police say

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3268182/chinese-migrants-smuggled-italy-luxury-cars-and-exploited-police-say?utm_source=rss_feed

Italian police said on Wednesday that they have busted a Chinese trafficking network that used luxury cars to smuggle Chinese migrants into Italy, before confiscating their passports and treating them like slaves.

The smugglers had the migrants pose as “unsuspecting Asian citizens, well-dressed, with little luggage, travelling in powerful and expensive cars, driven by Chinese citizens who had lived in Italy for years and spoke Italian”, police said in a statement.

Investigators were alerted to a possible ring after a Chinese citizen was stopped at the border between Italy and Slovenia in April during routine checks, and found to be transporting four undocumented Chinese migrants.

A probe uncovered “the existence of a consistent, continuous flow of irregular Chinese citizens who, in small groups, were flown to the external European borders in countries (mainly Serbia) where they entered with a visa exemption”, the statement said.

“And then, from there, they were accompanied by car, through Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia, up to the Italian state border”, it said.

Smuggled migrants were transported to a safe house near Venice, where they stayed for one or two days before being taken on either to areas of Italy or other European Union countries like France and Spain.

The traffickers confiscated their passports at the safe house and “from then on … [they] were exposed to severe exploitation until the debt incurred for the journey had been repaid”, the statement said.

The migrants were kept “without any possibility of a free or semi-free life, without medical assistance, with nothing except a bed and a place to work indefinitely,” police said, describing it as a sort of “slavery”.

Police arrested nine alleged members of the trafficking network during the operation and identified 77 undocumented migrants, “many of them women and some minors aged between 15 and 18”.

Amazon to offer direct US shipping from China amid rise of Shein and Temu, report says

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3268184/amazon-offer-direct-us-shipping-china-amid-rise-shein-and-temu-report-says?utm_source=rss_feed

Amazon.com plans to launch a section on its shopping site featuring cheap items that ship directly to overseas consumers from warehouses in China, The Information reported on Wednesday, citing slides shown to Chinese sellers.

The new marketplace, Amazon’s most aggressive response to the growth of bargain sites like Temu and Shein, will offer unbranded fashion, home goods and daily necessities, according to the slides, and will be delivered between nine and 11 days to customers, the report said.

The e-commerce giant in a recent closed-door meeting told Chinese sellers it would start signing up merchants this summer and begin accepting inventory in the fall, according to the Information.

“We are always exploring new ways to work with our selling partners to delight our customers with more selection, lower prices, and greater convenience,” an Amazon spokesperson said when contacted for comment on the report.

Sellers joining the bargain site can determine their product selection and pricing, and can produce in small batches to test the demand for any new products they plan to launch, the report added.

It is not clear if these shipments will be made using a US trade provision that exempts individual packages worth less than US$800 from US customs duties, The Information reported.

E-commerce powerhouse Shein, which is trying to expand its market share before going public, and PDD Group-owned e-retailer Temu, depend on the expedited clearance process, which is available for direct-to-consumer shipments valued at US$800 or less.

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Pair of Chinese giant pandas set off for California

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3268176/pair-chinese-giant-pandas-set-california?utm_source=rss_feed

For the first time in more than 20 years, giant pandas are travelling from China to the United States.

The five-year-old male Yun Chuan and nearly four-year-old female Xin Bao are expected to arrive at the San Diego Zoo in California later this week after setting off from China on Wednesday.

The pair will travel 7,000 miles, accompanied by caretakers who will help them adjust to their new environment.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria travelled to Bifengxia Giant Panda Base, a research and conservation facility, in China’s Sichuan province to attend the pandas’ departure.

“I’m honored to have been invited to join in the farewell ceremonies in China for Yun Chuan and Xin Bao – the giant pandas coming to our @sandiegozoo,” he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

In a statement on Wednesday the zoo said that after the pandas arrive safely in San Diego, they will not be publicly viewable for several weeks while acclimatising to their new home, where they will stay for 10 years.

“As soon as wildlife health and care teams confirm Yun Chuan and Xin Bao are ready to meet the public, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance will share a debut date and specific information about how to see” them, it added.

Paul Baribault, president and chief executive of the zoo, said it was “incredibly excited” to welcome the pandas.

“This farewell celebrates their journey and underscores a collaboration between the United States and China on vital conservation efforts,” he said.

San Diego first received giant pandas in 1996, and has not welcomed any new bears from China in more than 20 years.

In April, the San Diego Zoo said that its team had met Yun Chuan and Xin Bao and discussed with their care-givers how best to collaborate on “specialised care and nutrition programmes” for the bears.

After that meeting, a zoo statement described Yun Chuan as “mild-mannered, gentle and lovable” and Xin Bao as “gentle and witty introvert with a sweet round face and big ears”.

Yun Chuan’s father Zhen Zhen was born in the San Diego Zoo in 2007, and his grandmother Bai Yun lived at the zoo for 23 years until 2019.

More giant pandas are expected to arrive in the US in the coming months – at the National Zoo in Washington, as well as zoos in San Francisco; Atlanta; and Memphis, Tennessee.

China initiated its panda diplomacy with the US by giving two bears to the National Zoo in 1972, following US President Richard Nixon’s trip to China.

As relations between the two countries have strained, only four pandas now reside in the US, all at the Atlanta zoo. They will be returning to China by the end of the year, when their loan agreement expires.

China property: Beijing becomes last major mainland city to ease housing rules

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3268160/china-property-beijing-becomes-last-major-mainland-city-ease-housing-rules?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing, China’s capital, has finally joined other major Chinese cities in relaxing home buying restrictions to bolster the property market.

The Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban Development said on Wednesday that it was lowering the down payment ratio for first-time homebuyers to 20 per cent from at least 30 per cent previously. For buyers of second homes, the ratio is being reduced to 30 per cent for areas outside Beijing’s fifth ring road and to 35 per cent for areas within.

The minimum five-year mortgage rate will be reduced to 3.5 per cent for first homes, according to the housing department. The interest rate on second homes outside the fifth ring road will be cut 3.7 per cent and to 3.9 per cent for second homes within the ring road.

“It is worth noting that the adjustment this time is made regarding to whether the [second-home] location is within or outside the fifth ring road,” said Chen Wenjing, director of market research at China Index Academy. This is consistent with the purchase restriction policy on April 30, which is more conducive to the policy’s implementation and execution, he added.

The move mirrors the decisions of Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou to lower their mortgage rates and ease home buying restrictions to boost sentiment. The southern city of Guangzhou has the lowest minimum down payment requirement of 15 per cent and 25 per cent for first and second homes, respectively.

“Reducing the down payment ratios is the most significant policy [move so far this year],” said Yan Yuejin, director of the Shanghai-based E-house China Research and Development Institute.

The move by Beijing’s municipal government to reduce the down payment ratio will have the obvious effect of reducing buying costs and also help boost housing demand, Yan said.

Last December, China’s capital rolled out similar measures to lower the down payment ratio. The city also reinstated the 30-year maximum period for homebuyers to pay off their mortgage loans, which was cut to 25 years in 2017 to cool an overheated housing market.

China’s central government issued an ambitious plan to rescue the crisis-hit property sector last month, including a 300 billion yuan (US$41.4 billion) relending facility and allowing local governments to buy excess inventory.

About 10 provincial cities, including Nanjing, Tianjin and Chengdu, recently adjusted their property policies, with measures such as lowering the down payment ratio and providing subsidies on trading in of homes.

Shanghai was the first mover among tier-one cities. China’s biggest metropolis decreased the down payment ratio for first-time buyers to 20 per cent from 30 per cent, and to 35 per cent from 50 per cent for buyers of second homes. Each household opting for the trade-in scheme is eligible for subsidies of up to 30,000 yuan.

However, respite for China’s property sector may still be some way off despite such measures. New home prices in 70 medium and large cities fell 0.7 per cent month on month in May, the steepest in nearly a decade, according to official data published last week.

After the dismal property data, S&P Global and Fitch Ratings cut their China’s property sales forecasts for the second half of 2024, with declines ranging from 15 per cent to 20 per cent for new homes compared with last year.

Additional reporting by Yulu Ao

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Beijing talks the talk with foreign, private firms as they await action at China’s third plenum

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3268144/beijing-talks-talk-foreign-private-firms-they-await-action-chinas-third-plenum?utm_source=rss_feed

With foreign businesses seen to be closely watching whether policymakers “walk the walk after talking the talk” ahead of a much-anticipated party gathering, Beijing is restating the need to lure foreign investors and support private sectors that have suffered big blows to confidence.

Premier Li Qiang on Tuesday said China would “continue to expand a high-level opening”, ease market access and “implement the comprehensive lifting of foreign-investment-access restrictions in the manufacturing sector”, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Meanwhile, the nation’s top economic planner stressed the need to support China’s private sectors in terms of credit, fundraising and by putting an end to selective law enforcement.

“The success of foreign enterprises in China is closely related to China’s economic development,” Li reportedly told a roomful of more than 200 business representatives from about 40 countries and regions who had gathered for the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions, which is also known as the Summer Davos.

“Everyone is welcome to invest in China, delve into China, and share in the dividends of China’s high-quality development,” Li told the crowd.

Also on Tuesday, the National Development and Reform Commission’s deputy director, Zheng Bei, submitted a report on the progress of supporting private enterprises to a National People’s Congress committee meeting, Xinhua said.

Qualified private enterprises should get help with market listings, financing and refinancing, Zheng said, while measures would be taken in the capital markets to drive the development of technology companies and fund start-ups. “Selective” law enforcement, Zheng said, should be prevented.

The remarks, ahead of the much-anticipated third plenum – a party gathering to set economic strategies for the next five to 10 years – join a raft of ongoing pledges to improve expectations and boost confidence.

Earlier this month, media reports about the opening of joint task forces between police and tax authorities sent ripples through China’s business community, with lawyers saying such operations could send the wrong signal to the public amid weak confidence over China’s economic outlook.

In the first five months of the year, foreign investment inflows into China dropped 28.2 per cent from the same period in 2023, to 412.5 billion yuan, according to Ministry of Commerce data.

“While discussion of opening up is nothing new, Premier Li’s comments offer encouragement that reform and opening up remain a significant priority for top-level policymakers,” ING Greater China economist Lynn Song said. “Foreign businesses will likely watch to see if policymakers walk the walk after talking the talk.”

The pandemic’s years of restricted overseas travel to China had already let an “environment of excessive pessimism set in” among foreign investors, he added.

Modest economic growth, the six-year-old US-China trade war, and regulatory uncertainty in China have hampered investment from offshore this year, said Ker Gibbs, executive-in-residence at the University of San Francisco’s China Business Studies Initiative.

Gibbs, who is visiting the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao this week, senses that “there’s still enthusiasm” among foreign entrepreneurs. “It’s not just the size of the market,” he said, “it’s the quality of the companies and the products.”

Amid persistent accusations about excessive state subsidies and overcapacity in some Chinese sectors, Li said at the forum that Chinese products are “competitive” because enterprises, including foreign ones, are “on the track of fair competition”.

“We are willing to work together with companies from all over the world to better promote innovative development of the global economy,” he said, as quoted by Xinhua.

94% of Hong Kong public schools partner mainland China institutions: Education Bureau

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3268165/94-hong-kong-public-schools-partner-mainland-china-institutions-education-bureau?utm_source=rss_feed

About 94 per cent of public and semi-private schools in Hong Kong have formed partnerships with mainland China counterparts to foster exchange and national identity among students, according to education authorities.

The Education Bureau also revealed that it had granted nearly HK$130 million (US$16.6 million) for the “Sister School Scheme” in the last academic year, and had no plan to extend funding to private and international institutions.

The bureau said in a written reply to the Legislative Council on Wednesday that 935 schools in Hong Kong had formed 2,933 sister pairings with their mainland counterparts as of last month.

Those schools include public and special ones, as well as those under the direct subsidy scheme (DSS). Each of the local schools can pair up with more than one mainland institution.

“Schools arrange exchange activities, such as school visits, student activities, seminars, teaching demonstrations, lesson evaluation, video conferencing and experience sharing, with their sister schools at student, teacher and school management levels based on their school-based development needs,” Choi Yuk-lin, Secretary for Education, said in the reply.

Schools that are paired with mainland institutions represent 94 per cent in Hong Kong, given the city has 991 public, DSS and special institutions.

The government launched the sister school scheme” in 2004 to encourage pairings with their mainland counterparts, with a goal of broadening students’ horizons and enhancing their sense of national identity.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu had said in his 2022 police address that the government planned to raise the number of local schools participating in the scheme by 10 per cent by the end of last year.

Back then, around 780 schools had established over 2,100 sister school pairs with their mainland counterparts. That meant there was an increase of 20 per cent of schools of pairings forged since then.

A recurrent grant, HK$163,000 per school for the current school year, will be granted to schools signing the partnerships with their mainland counterparts.

In the last school year, HK$129.31 million were offered to the schools joining the scheme.

Asked if the scheme would be extended to include international schools, Minister Choi said the government had no such plan to cover private and international ones as they were self-funded.

But she said the bureau would continue to encourage them to promote students’ understanding of Chinese history and culture.

Chinese scientists detect ‘spy balloon’ as small as F-35 stealth fighter on radar

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3267512/chinese-scientists-detect-spy-balloon-small-f-35-stealth-fighter-radar?utm_source=rss_feed

While the US military struggles to detect spy balloons, Chinese scientists can offer a simple, efficient and low-cost solution.

According to recently declassified official information, the Chinese military conducted a field test of this unprecedented air-floating balloon detection technology in Wayao village, Neijiang, in the southwest province of Sichuan in January 2022.

The radar cross-section (RCS) of the balloon used in the test was only 16 square centimetres (2.48 square inches) . In comparison, the RCS of the F-35 stealth fighter is generally considered to be 15 square centimetres.

These balloons have a very low speed and are therefore more difficult to detect than aeroplanes. Under complex terrain and electromagnetic interference in the open environment, traditional radar detection methods cannot distinguish them from background noise.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has launched 14 such balloons at various times and locations. With the help of the new radar technology, their probability of detecting and locking onto such targets soared from close to zero to 100 per cent.

“In military terms, air-floating balloons have functions such as creating false air situations, dropping lethal weapons, creating public opinion or psychological warfare, and intelligence reconnaissance,” wrote the project team led by Yin Jiapeng, an associate researcher on radar technology with the PLA National University of Defence Technology, in a peer-reviewed paper published in journal Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica on May 29.

“It is of great significance and increasingly urgent to detect and warn air-floating balloons in a timely and efficient manner,” Yin and his colleagues said.

In January 2023, a balloon from China entered US airspace.

Many Americans saw this giant balloon. Some even thought it was a UFO and shared videos on social media.

But the powerful air defence system of the US military did not detect it. Under intense public pressure, the military used fighter jets to track the balloon, which flew over a large part of the country.

The Pentagon admitted similar balloons had often entered the United States before, and that their radar had limited detection abilities for such objects.

“I will tell you that we did not detect those threats, and that’s a domain awareness gap,” Air Force General Glen VanHerck, head of the US Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD), said after the balloon was shot down by an F-22 on February 4, 2023.

The White House said they would take measures to monitor these balloons in the future, but defence suppliers said this would require a large-scale hardware upgrade to the existing radar system.

“We don’t, as a country, have persistent sensors that can detect low profiles and low heat signatures on our borders,” Riki M. Ellison, chairman and founder of the Missile Defence Advocacy Alliance, told Time magazine in February last year.

Ellison’s group has urged the US government to spend more money on radars and interceptors designed to defend American airspace.

“It’s about spending money the right way … the American public has to be protected,” he said.

However, Yin’s team have said this is not necessary. They only used a common weather radar in their test and did not make any hardware modifications.

The Chinese scientists say that existing civilian radar is already very powerful and it can even map the outline of a floating cloud. It only requires upgrading the signal processing software to detect various types of balloons.

In the paper, the PLA team disclosed a unique algorithm they developed that could accurately detect the spatial disturbance of the electric field caused by the balloon and identify and locate it based on other physical parameters.

The difficulty of this technology lies in how to extract the balloon’s signal from background noise such as ground clutter and radio frequency interference. Researchers provided detailed methods for eliminating noise and reducing false alarm rates in the paper.

This technology even eliminates the need to change the radar’s operating mode. It is “easy to implement, does not require prior knowledge about clutter, does not require the accumulation of multi-frame data and does not require staring at the target,” Yin and his colleagues wrote.

High-performance weather radars are widespread around the world, and using them to track balloons is more economical and effective than military radars.

“Software upgrades can achieve the detection of air-floating balloons, giving weather radars new functions without changing the radar hardware configuration and without increasing hardware costs,” Yin’s team added.

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei signs deal to train thousands of Peruvians in new technology

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3268156/chinese-telecoms-giant-huawei-signs-deal-train-thousands-peruvians-new-technology?utm_source=rss_feed

Peru has signed a deal with the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei Technologies to train thousands of its citizens in new technology.

President Dina Boluarte visited Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen on Wednesday as part of a week-long visit to China designed to attract more investment.

The Peruvian president’s office said she had signed an agreement to train 20,000 young professionals, women and entrepreneurs from small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in new technologies, especially in artificial intelligence.

In an article published by the state-owned newspaper China Daily on Monday, Boluarte also said her visit is “paving the way for greater investment and cooperation” with China in key sectors such as infrastructure development, digital transformation, artificial intelligence, clean energy and people-to-people exchanges.

In a news clip published by China Daily on its WeChat official account, Buluarte was also shown meeting Huawei’s chairman Liang Hua and testing its new M9 smart car.

She was also expected to visit BYD’s headquarters in Shenzhen to discuss plans for the electric car giant to build a plant in Peru before travelling on to Shanghai and Beijing, where she will meet her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

While in the southern city, she also visited an exhibition on Inca culture which the president’s office said features more than 150 pre-Columbian items from Peru.

Peru is a major destination for Chinese investments under the Belt and Road Initiative and has received US$2.9 billion last year – the third highest total worldwide, according to Fudan University’s Green Finance and Development Centre.

But one major belt and road scheme, the Chancay Port located near Lima, has been a source of controversy.

Peru granted the state-owned Chinese shipping firm Cosco exclusive rights to run the port in 2021, but it tried to overturn the decision earlier this year saying it was an “administrative error”.

The government had threatened legal action against Cosco over its business model for the port only to withdraw the lawsuit days before Boularte’s trip to China.

The Peruvian leader is set to meet representatives from Cosco in Shanghai on Thursday and will also attend a meeting with China Railway Construction, according to Reuters, to discuss plans to build a rail link connecting the Chancay Port with Bolivia and Brazil.

Xi is expected to visit Peru in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and his hosts hope he will also attend the inauguration of the Chancay Port.

The port has also caused concern in the United States, which is worried that it could be used for military purposes in the Pacific.

However, Peruvian Prime Minister Gustavo Adrianzen told reporters on Monday: “We do not believe that our friends... like the United States will feel resentful because we’re bringing Chinese intestments to Peru”.

“We believe this is an invitation for Western capital to arrive, including from the United States.”

Ex China e-commerce tycoon Cai Lei with deadly brain disease wows to save a million sufferers before he dies

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3265172/ex-china-e-commerce-tycoon-cai-lei-deadly-brain-disease-wows-save-million-sufferers-he-dies?utm_source=rss_feed

A former e-commerce tycoon in China who was struck down with a fatal disease is devoting the rest of his life to supporting research and hopes to save one million patients before he dies.

Cai Lei, 46, who was born in Henan province in central China, is the ex-vice president of Jingdong, one of the country’s biggest e-commerce companies.

In September 2019, he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS, a rare neurodegenerative disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

ALS is a type of motor neurone disease (MND) that severely impacts mobility, breathing, communication, and mental well-being, with symptoms that gradually get worse over time and are irreversible.

At present, there is no cure.

After the diagnosis, Cai decided to do all he could to support ALS research and fight the disease, according to China Entrepreneur Magazine.

“My only goal is to help the medical community conquer ALS as quickly as possible,” Cai said.

To enable timely information sharing among ALS patients, he led a team that has established a medical data platform.

In autumn 2022, Cai and his wife hosted live-streaming sales on Douyin to fund ALS drug research. His account has 4.8 million followers.

On January 27 this year, he announced that he would donate 100 million yuan (US$14 million) to support ALS research. He also reportedly sold some of his properties and cars.

Cai said he knows he has little time left and may not live to see the new ALS drug come on the market.

“There are about 10 million patients with major neurodegenerative diseases, such as MND. I want to save one-tenth of them, which is one million people, before I die,” he said.

Cai’s health has deteriorated in the four years since his diagnosis.

In 2022, he could move his right hand and arm independently, but within months, he needed help for basic tasks.

By April this year, his limbs were almost immobile, his spine was distorted, and his tongue and lower lip became atrophied.

Despite his condition and the limitations it foists in him, Cai still works until midnight every day, attending online conferences for ALS drug research projects, according to China Entrepreneur Magazine.

In May, his condition dramatically worsened due to a cold, and he was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) for treatment.

Some people online claimed he was faking his illness to gain sympathy and traffic.

On May 28, Cai’s friend, Yin Ye, the vice-chairman of the board for the genomics service provider BGI Genomics, wrote on Weibo: “I could never have imagined that someone would spread rumours and defame Cai Lei in his situation.”

Yin posted a photo of his friend lying in a hospital bed and a screenshot of his WeChat.

Cai wrote that after leaving the ICU, he could not wait to discuss new research findings with Yin and did not want to waste his valuable time engaging with people who spread rumours.

Yin said BGI Genomics will announce new findings on ALS muscle biopsy technology in June.

“Cai is truly selfless and admirable for supporting ALS research to benefit others despite his unfortunate circumstances,” one online observer wrote on Weibo.

“Although he is impressive, shouldn’t he spend more of his remaining time with his family?” asked another.

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China’s third plenum to target ‘most urgent’ economic reforms: People’s Daily

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3268137/chinas-third-plenum-target-most-urgent-economic-reforms-peoples-daily?utm_source=rss_feed

China will continue on the path of economic reform, tackling the “most urgent things” first, a high-profile commentary in the Communist Party’s official newspaper pledged ahead of a long-awaited conclave next month.

The new reforms will focus on “reform of the economic system”, including “upholding and developing the basic economic system” and “building a high-level socialist market economy”, according to the article published on the front page of People’s Daily on Wednesday.

The article appeared under the byline of Ren Zhongping, a pseudonym that means “important commentaries by People’s Daily” and is often used to set the official tone on major policies and current affairs.

The reforms are expected to be unveiled at the party’s third plenum next month, a gathering that is widely seen as an opportunity to set economic strategy for the next five to 10 years.

According to the commentary, new policies are needed to strengthen “coordination” between the various reforms to “prevent and overcome the phenomenon of each department working separately and restraining each other”.

The process should become a “major political responsibility” for officials, and should “uphold fundamental principles and break new ground”, but not “make subversive mistakes”.

The article also looked back at the gains that it said had been made since the third plenum in 2013, after Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power.

The 2013 meeting proposed “letting the market play the decisive role in allocating resources”, which was seen as a signal of a freer economy.

“No country or party has been able to promote such a wide range of reforms on such a large scale and with such determination in such a short period of time,” the commentary said.

These achievements were both political, such as the party’s “self-revolution” – referring mainly to the ongoing, decade-long anti-corruption campaign – and economic, it said.

Among the economic achievements highlighted was the start of construction in May of Tesla’s second “Gigafactory” in Shanghai. The factory “took only one month from negotiation to signing”, a process that was helped by “an optimised business environment”.

The commentary also cited China’s 22 free-trade zones and the Hainan Free Trade Port as examples of “high-standard opening up”.

Other examples included Xiongan New Area in Hebei province, one of Xi’s signature projects, and the Greater Bay Area, a scheme to link Hong Kong, Macau and neighbouring cities in Guangdong province into an integrated economic and business hub.

The party congress, held every five years, endorses some 370 members of the Central Committee, including the Politburo, the party’s top decision-making body, as well as ministers, provincial party secretaries, senior military officers and heads of state-owned enterprises. They usually meet seven times during the committee’s five-year term.

The third plenum has been a landmark event since 1978, when paramount leader Deng Xiaoping set China on the road to reform.

OpenAI’s ban on Chinese access to ChatGPT to spur growth of local alternatives, experts say

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-war/article/3268124/openais-ban-chinese-access-chatgpt-spur-growth-local-alternatives-experts-say?utm_source=rss_feed

OpenAI’s upcoming ban on China-based developers’ access to its service is set to contribute to the growth of the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) sector rather than hinder its progress, industry insiders and analysts said.

“OpenAI halting China market access will only accelerate the Chinese large language model (LLM) industry’s growth,” Zhou Hongyi, founder and chief executive at cybersecurity firm Qihoo 360, said in a social media post on Wednesday.

Zhou - whose Beijing-based company has developed its own LLM, the same technology behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other generative AI services – said the US firm’s ban on China-based developers would only push away its users, forcing them to pick local AI model builders, who have been vying for a bigger slice of the market.

OpenAI has not officially made its service available in China, including Hong Kong, which is excluded from a list of 188 countries and regions where OpenAI offers service.

Developers in China, where local authorities have cracked down on the use of foreign AI services, have been using virtual private networks to bypass restrictions and could also gain access through OpenAI’s application programming interface (API).

Chinese tech firms acted swiftly to capitalise on the ban, which will take effect from July 9, by offering migration options and free tokens to lure local customers to their services.

Beijing-based Zhipu AI, considered one of the country’s best hopes to compete with OpenAI, was the first to react. It announced a “special house-moving plan” to help China-based OpenAI users “easily switch to home-grown [LLMs]”, according to a post published on its official WeChat public account.

Joining Zhipu were Big Tech firms and other AI high-flyers, including South China Morning Post owner Alibaba Group Holding, search engine giant Baidu, and AI start-ups Baichuan and 01.ai, which all offered perks ranging from steep discounts to freebies, as well as technical support, boasting that their LLMs matched OpenAI in capability.

Baichuan, the new venture of Wang Xiaochuan, founder of Chinese search engine Sogou, promised it would only take as few as five minutes to make the switch from OpenAI to its platform.

One of the ways to monetise AI models is to sell access through APIs, the use of which is measured by the consumption of tokens, which are discrete units of data that a model reads or generates.

The swift response from Chinese AI players was indicative of the mounting competition in the local industry, according to Zhang Yi, founder and chief analyst at consultancy iiMedia.

China has more than 200 home-grown LLMs, of which 117 had been approved for public release by Chinese authorities as of March.

Earlier this year, intense competition prompted some AI heavyweights to declare a price war, with some, including Baidu, offering free use of their less powerful models to entice customers.

Burned-out China worker quits job to earn US$280,000 a month selling green bananas as stress relievers

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3265166/burned-out-china-worker-quits-job-earn-us280000-month-selling-green-bananas-stress-relievers?utm_source=rss_feed

A burned-out tech employee in China decided to quit his job and start a fruit e-commerce business. Now the 32-year-old earns two million yuan (US$280,000) a month selling green bananas.

Lin’s success came as a result of turning a social media wellness trend – selling green bananas as symbols of “stress relief” – into a business opportunity.

The marketing strategy involves a play on words in which the phrase “stop banana green” in Chinese sounds similar to “stop anxiety”.

Bananas are sold while under ripe and with their stems attached, which allows customers to cultivate them in vases of water until they become edible within one to two weeks.

It is a process people find peaceful compared to the hustle and bustle of many workplaces.

The idea came to Lin during one of his live-streaming fruit selling sessions, when some viewers insisted on buying bananas with the stems still on.

Initially puzzled by why anyone would buy the bananas this way, Lin was surprised by the positive feedback from the first batch that he sold as a trial.

In March, Lin partnered with Alibaba’s Tao Factory, whose marketing experts suggested he focus on the “stop anxiety” marketing strategy. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

With their help, Lin provided buyers with vases for easy cultivation, along with small cards inscribed with motivational messages such as “stop worrying”.

He also upgraded the packaging to include slogans such as “escape banana worries” and “stop banana green”.

Before the changes, only a few thousand daily orders were being placed. Now, sales have skyrocketed to 15,000 orders, or about 50,000 kilos of bananas sold every day.

“We eventually realised we were selling not just bananas but emotional value,” Lin’s business partner Hua Dawei said.

“Today’s young consumers value fun and aesthetics,” Lin said.

“This is quite creative, I want to try it too,” one online observer said of Lin’s story.

Consumers who buy the “stop anxiety” bananas say cultivating them is a peaceful, meditative process that helps support them emotionally.

Sometimes, people write their colleagues’ names on the banana skins to “reserve” them, before giving them out to the named recipients.

The fruit costs Lin 3 to 4 yuan (40 to 55 US cents) a kilo from farmers and is sold for 33 yuan for a four-kilo bunch that comprises 35-40 bananas.

The “stop anxiety” banana trend has helped many farmers who previously sold their produce for half the price, sometimes at a loss, Lin told the National Business Daily.

Lin joked that it is he who ends up feeling anxious due to the overwhelming demand. He says, at his busiest, he only rests for five hours a day.

In addition to bananas, Lin has launched “Hey! Pineapple”, or hei feng li in Mandarin, phonetically similar to a Cantonese phrase meaning “I like you”. He also plans to market passion fruit products.

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China won’t give up on ‘win-win’ US trade despite ‘unsustainable’ tariffs

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3268114/china-wont-give-win-win-us-trade-despite-unsustainable-tariffs?utm_source=rss_feed

Despite rising economic tensions and trade barriers, China would never give up tapping the US market for exports, said a top Chinese official on international trade.

“We are still willing to deepen cooperation with the United States in trade and investment, because everyone knows that the essence of Sino-US trade is win-win cooperation,” said Ren Hongbin, chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade – a trade body affiliated with the Ministry of Commerce.

“Our biggest export market is in no doubt the US,” Ren added during the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions – also known as Summer Davos – on Tuesday in Dalian.

In 2023, China was dethroned as the top source of US imports for the first time in 17 years after being outpaced by Mexico in terms of total value of goods shipped amid Washington’s tariff and supply-chain diversification efforts.

“Traditional markets are still very important to us, and we work hard to develop emerging markets, so both are important,” added Ren, who is also a former commerce vice-minister.

Emerging markets and developing countries account for 56.7 per cent of China’s trade volume, exceeding traditional partners like the US and Europe, he said.

Geopolitical tensions and protectionism are the biggest challenges facing international trade, which have pushed up costs and disrupted global trade flows, Ren added.

Last month, the US announced sharp tariff increases on a range of Chinese new-energy imports, including a 100 per cent duty on electric vehicles (EVs) – even though the US imports very few from China.

The European Union announced earlier this month that it would raise tariffs on Chinese EVs by up to 38 per cent from next week following a seven-month investigation.

And Canada also said on Monday it was considering whether to impose tariffs on EVs from China.

Li Dongsheng, founder and chairman of electronics giant TCL, said that economic globalisation was driven by market forces, and disrupting the trade flow with administrative power was an “unsustainable” approach.

“As an enterprise, we are quite helpless. We cannot influence the decisions of the US government, nor can we influence the decisions of governments of other countries, but I believe that the general trend of economic globalisation is unchangeable,” Li also said during the World Economic Forum event in Dalian.

The US is the biggest export market for TCL, whose major products include televisions, washing machines and small electrical appliances, Li added.

“In the past, we purchased parts and materials from the US, then assembled the products in China and exported them to the United States. This trade route was the most efficient,” Li said.

But after the US raised tariffs on Chinese products, TCL must first make the core components in China and then ship the parts to the likes of Vietnam and Mexico to be assembled into the final products, he said.

“So the trade routes become a triangle,” Li said. “We still maintain our sales in the US market, and the positive result is that we have made greater value contributions to the economic development of these countries, such as in Southeast Asia.

“But it may not be good news for American consumers, because this extension of the route will definitely increase costs.”

Li added that China’s manufacturing sector accounted for 30 per cent of global output, but as the share should not increase any more, companies should go overseas by exporting their manufacturing capacity instead of just exporting goods.

“The development of China’s manufacturing industry should provide opportunities for other countries around the world, especially those countries with relatively backward industries … and make greater contributions to the growth of the global economy,” he said.

South Korea shuts battery plant where 17 Chinese workers were killed in fire, begins probe

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3268119/south-korea-shuts-battery-plant-where-17-chinese-workers-were-killed-fire-begins-probe?utm_source=rss_feed

South Korean authorities ordered a halt on Wednesday to the operations of a manufacturer of lithium batteries after a fire killed 23 people, as they investigate three company officials for suspected safety violations.

Monday’s fire at unlisted battery maker Aricell was one of the deadliest industrial accidents of recent years. Dozens of South Korean workers lose their lives on the job each year, despite tougher laws and measures to improve safety.

The company in the industrial hub of Hwaseong southwest of Seoul, the capital, was told to shut its only factory for inspection, Min Gil-soo, an official of the labour ministry, told a briefing.

Police raided the company’s offices on Wednesday, the Yonhap news agency said. Authorities did not identify the company officials being investigated, however. Safety code violations can lead to jail terms for fatal accidents.

Aricell Chief Executive Park Soon-kwan apologised on Tuesday for the fire, but said the company had followed all safety regulations and training requirements.

Flames quickly engulfed the factory, where 35,000 lithium batteries were stored, and the spread of toxic smoke probably rendered workers unconscious within seconds, fire officials have said.

Only three of the dead, all of them South Korean men, have been identified. The rest, including 17 Chinese, have yet to be identified as their bodies suffered severe damage in the fire.

Investigators are trying to determine the cause of the blaze, amid questions about Aricell’s hiring of foreign workers on a temporary basis and whether they received adequate safety training.

The office of a lawmaker, Kim Sung-hoi, provided a copy of a March inspection report by the Hwaseong fire department that showed it had flagged serious risks, including possible “rapid combustion” at the building where the fire broke out.

The fire department was not available for comment.

Set up in 2020, Aricell has 48 full-time employees and makes lithium primary batteries for sensors and radio communication devices.

It also supplies batteries to the military for use in some communication and crypto devices, a spokesperson for South Korea’s defence procurement agency said.

The agency’s annual safety inspections cover suppliers in some categories, such as firearms and chemicals, but exclude battery makers such as Aricell, the spokesperson added.

Its parent, S-Connect, supplies lithium-ion battery parts to Samsung SDI, one of the country’s major secondary battery makers.

Hero China son swept away and killed by raging floodwater after saving mother

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/environment/article/3267912/hero-china-son-swept-away-and-killed-raging-floodwater-after-saving-mother?utm_source=rss_feed

The sad but heroic story of a man who died after rescuing his mother from flooding in China has touched the hearts of many on social media.

The 48-year-old swam to his mother and lifted her onto the roof of a nearby house, but was then washed away by the water.

The dramatic incident happened in Shexian county, Anhui province in eastern China, when it was battered by a deluge on June 20.

Rainfall reached 158.5mm within 12 hours, and about 27,000 people in the county were affected, including 4,000 residents who were evacuated, Jimu News reported.

A woman was trapped in a pigpen by the flood when she was feeding the family’s pigs. Realising his mother’s plight, the man, surnamed Xiang, swam to her. He pulled her away and helped her up onto the roof of a neighbour’s home.

As he attempted to swim back to his own home, he was dragged away by the powerful current, his mother said.

The next day, Xiang’s body was found in a river about four kilometres away. He had a 15-year-old daughter.

According to Xiang’s mother, she did not notice anything unusual when she went to the pig sty and started to feed the animals. Then suddenly, she heard a rumbling sound as the flood arrived, and the water level rose to her waist in less than a minute.

“My son had intended to swim back home in an oblique line, but did not make it because the water flow was too fast,” she said.

A neighbour who saw the son engulfed by the water said, Xiang was a strong swimmer and fit.

“But his swimming speed could not beat that of the water. He tried to swim towards a house about 50 metres away, but he failed and was finally pushed to the river about 100 metres away,” said the neighbour.

A village official said the water level was more than two metres high during the heavy rains on June 20. Many houses collapsed due to the weight of the water.

Xiang’s story has touched millions on social media in mainland China, with many applauding his filial piety.

“I’ve seen many stories of mothers saving sons. It’s the first time I saw a report that a son saved his mother. Well done. You are definitely a hero and a martyr,” said one online observer on Weibo.

“Mother gave you a life while you sacrificed your life to protect her. You have exhibited what filial piety is. Rest in peace,” another person wrote.

“His mother will be extremely grieved. As a mother, I would prefer it if my son did not swim to save me. I would rather he lived instead of me,” another commented.

Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese coastguards in tense stand-off near Quemoy

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3268089/mainland-chinese-taiwanese-coastguards-tense-stand-near-quemoy?utm_source=rss_feed

The mainland Chinese and Taiwanese coastguards have been involved in a tense stand-off near Quemoy, the latest flare-up near the Taiwan-controlled island also known as Kinmen.

The incident came after four coastguard ships from mainland China were patrolling in waters just 5 nautical miles from the island’s defence outpost, according to the Taiwanese coastguard.

It said the vessels entered the restricted waters at around 6am on Tuesday. Two vessels approached from the north of Beiding Islet, while the other two entered waters south of Fuxing Islet.

The Taiwanese coastguard sent three patrol boats to monitor the mainland Chinese vessels and issued radio warnings for them to move away.

It said there was a stand-off for two hours until the mainland Chinese ships left the area at around 8am.

Taiwanese Defence Minister Wellington Koo said the mainland Chinese boats were attempting to challenge Taiwan’s boundary claims around Quemoy.

In a statement, Taiwan’s coastguard said the actions of the mainland Chinese coastguard “do not contribute to maintaining the relationship between Quemoy and Xiamen, nor do they enhance regional stability”.

In response, the mainland coastguard said its actions were “legal”.

“Since June, the Fujian Coast Guard has organised fleets to continuously strengthen law enforcement patrols in the waters near Kinmen, further enhancing control over the relevant maritime areas,” the mainland coastguard said in a statement.

It said the patrols effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests, as well as the safety, of fishermen including those from Taiwan.

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of its territory to be united with the mainland, by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise the self-ruled island as independent but oppose any unilateral change to the status quo by force.

Filipino sailor recounts how thumb was torn off in South China Sea clash

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3268092/filipino-sailor-recounts-how-thumb-was-torn-south-china-sea-clash?utm_source=rss_feed

A Philippine Navy sailor has recounted how he lost a thumb during the latest South China Sea clash with Beijing’s coastguard, when a Chinese vessel “intentionally” rammed into his.

Jeffrey Facundo was giving evidence to a Senate inquiry into the June 17 incident at Second Thomas Shoal, where Manila has accused China’s coastguard of blocking resupply missions to a Philippine military outpost and boarding a Filipino vessel while wielding knives and an axe.

Facundo said Chinese coastguard personnel arrived soon after his crew had reached the BRP Sierra Madre, which was deliberately grounded atop the shoal in 1999 to assert Philippine territorial claims.

“They came near us and just rammed us. That’s it. I saw that one of them was carrying what looked like an axe, but the others were carrying long poles with sharp ends,” he said on Tuesday.

Facundo told the hearing he lost his thumb after it became caught when a Chinese boat slammed into his vessel, adding that corals were also hurled at Filipino troops stationed on the Sierra Madre.

He said the Chinese coastguard towed the Filipinos’ boats away from the shoal and seized their belongings, including mobile phones and firearms. His medical evacuation was delayed due to their inflatable boats being intentionally punctured to stop them resupplying and boarding the Sierra Madre, Facundo said.

Beijing said its personnel behaved in a “professional and restrained” way and has blamed Manila for the clash. Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr called it an “aggressive and illegal use of force”.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr last week awarded medals to 80 sailors, including Facundo who took part in the resupply mission, urging them to “continue to fulfil your duty of defending the nation”.

Manila has lodged a diplomatic protest over the stand-off and raised the issue with Chinese envoy Huang Xilian, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said on Wednesday.

There were signs that China wanted to lower the temperature in the hotly contested waterway, according to the Southeast Asian nation’s National Security Council, which called on the Marcos administration to be “realistic” when holding talks with Beijing.

Jonathan Malaya, the agency’s spokesman, said official and non-official channels were being used to resolve issues in the disputed waterway, GMA News reported.

Beijing claims sovereignty over nearly the entire South China Sea, despite a 2016 arbitral ruling that rejected China’s assertions as having no legal basis. Several nations, including the Philippines, have competing claims in the region.

Provinces along Yangtze on alert for more flood emergencies as heavy rain continues in China

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3268093/provinces-along-yangtze-alert-more-flood-emergencies-heavy-rain-continues-china?utm_source=rss_feed

Zhejiang province in eastern China is on high alert for dyke breaches and casualties as heavy rain is expected to continue along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

The provincial government’s water resources department on Tuesday raised the emergency response level to 2, the second most severe, as water levels in several hydrological stations approached flood-stage level after persistent heavy rain.

The flood level is based on the design for flood-control infrastructure and historical water level records.

Zhejiang’s provincial government has urged all departments to safeguard “three bottom lines”, remaining vigilant against: the risk of floods breaking river banks; large-scale and long lasting flooding in urban areas and; a large number of casualties.

As Yangtze River levels have rapidly risen, the Three Gorges Dam has increased discharge volumes and the reservoir in Zhejiang’s Xinan River has opened more floodgates to release water.

In Zhejiang, more than 16,000 people in Jiande, Tonglu county and Fuyang district have been evacuated.

Provinces along the Yangtze River – including Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou and Sichuan as well as Shanghai and Chongqing municipalities – will receive persistent heavy rain on Wednesday and Thursday, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) forecast.

It also warned that on Wednesday there was a high risk of flash floods, geological disaster, urban and rural waterlogging and flooding in small and medium-sized rivers in these regions.

The middle and lower Yangtze region has entered its annual “plum rain” season, which is characterised by heavy rainfall, humid weather and high temperatures in June and July. Rain is forecast to continue in these areas for at least the next few days.

Floods have ravaged the southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, as well as the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in the past few weeks, leaving several dead and countless people homeless.

The bodies of eight people were found on Sunday after a landslide hit their homes in Hunan province in central China.

Chen Tao, chief forecaster at the National Meteorological Centre, told state news agency Xinhua the recent heavy rainfall often intensified at night, leading to severe precipitation across a wide area of the country.

In addition to eastern and southern China, flooding has also reached northeastern parts of the country.

On Tuesday, a level 4 emergency response to flooding in northeastern Heilongjiang province was activated by China’s Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

Some 35 rivers across the nation have had flood levels exceed warning levels, with three rivers exceeding the flood-stage level by Tuesday morning, the water resources ministry said.

Among them, 15 rivers in the Ussuri and Songhua river basins in northeastern China remain above warning levels. The Woken River – a tributary of the Songhua River – hit a record flood level, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Tuesday.

Work teams from the water resource and emergency management ministries have been sent to the Yangtze and northeast regions to help local governments carry out flood prevention measures.

Meet Yu Donglai ‘silliest boss’ in China who puts staff happiness ahead of making money

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3265740/meet-yu-donglai-silliest-boss-china-who-puts-staff-happiness-ahead-making-money?utm_source=rss_feed

The boss of a supermarket chain in China has been dubbed the country’s “silliest boss” for putting staff happiness at the top of his list of priorities.

In March, Yu Donglai, the president of the Pang Dong Lai chain, announced that his company was going to offer its 7,000 employees 10-days of so-called unhappy leave, and let them freely decide when they want to rest.

“I want every staff member to have freedom. Everyone has times when they are not happy, so if you are not happy, do not come to work,” Yu said.

The special leave was given in addition to 30 days annual leave and five-day Spring Festival break, which is rare for a Chinese company.

Yu said he wanted his company to have a “European-like working environment”.

His move to cherish employees, give them high salaries and set up bonus schemes to comfort them if they are treated unfairly by customers has landed him the nickname “China’s silliest boss”.

The standard amount of paid time off is five to 15 days a year in China.

Pang Dong Lai chain also set up a “Grievance Award” of between 5,000 and 8,000 yuan (US$700 and US$1,100) for employees, as compensation for when they received unreasonable complaints and treatment from customers.

Yu’s generosity has paid off. He said fewer than five per cent of his employees leave the company each year.

The company has 13 outlets in Xuchang and Xinxiang, three and four-tier cities in central China’s Henan province, and has a reputation as a “customers’ paradise” for its meticulous service.

At a time when the bricks-and-mortar retail industry is struggling, Yu said Pang Dong Lai made 140 million yuan (US$19 million) last year, seven times more than forecast.

Yu, 58, was born into a farming family and started work after leaving junior secondary school.

He opened a 40-square-metre grocery shop in 1995, and stuck to the policy of only selling authentic goods, despite fake products being rampant in the market at the time.

Yu’s business rocketed and he opened a tobacco and liquor company in 1997.

However, his shop was set on fire by a group of gangsters after he stopped one of them harassing his female staff.

Yu soon got back on his feet, eventually building the retail empire Pang Dong Lai.

He said he has chosen not to expand his business to other provinces because it is already big enough and his goal is to “run a shop well”.

Yu said he does not overvalue money and fame, preferring to run his business with honesty and integrity.

Of the business chiefs who focus on massive profits at the expense of their employees’ happiness, Yu said: “They are not entrepreneurs, but slave owners.”

He said a true entrepreneur should be “healthy, happy and lighthearted”, and does not think Pang Dong Lai is a legend despite many calling it so.

“We are only a little more honest and kinder. It is sad if this makes you a legend,” he said.

“Yu is the pioneer of a future society with a better working environment and employment benefits,” one person said on Douyin.

“Thank you for setting an example for Chinese bosses,” another commented.

China, Saudi military cooperation on ‘fast track’ as top defence officials meet

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3268083/china-saudi-military-cooperation-fast-track-top-defence-officials-meet?utm_source=rss_feed

Two of China’s leading generals met the Saudi defence minister in Beijing on Tuesday as part of a stepping up in military cooperation between the two countries which has accelerated in recent years.

Central Military Commission (CMC) vice-chairman Zhang Youxia – China’s top uniformed official – and defence minister Dong Jun held separate talks with Prince Khalid bin Salman.

According to the Chinese defence ministry, Zhang told Salman that “China values its traditional friendship with Saudi Arabia” and said relations between their armies were on a “fast track”.

Cooperation in “army exchanges, personnel training and joint exercises and drills” had been “fruitful”, Zhang said, adding that “China is open to cooperation with the Saudi military”.

As China’s second-ranking military official after President Xi Jinping – who also chairs the CMC, the country’s top military decision-making and command body – Zhang rarely meets defence ministers.

The meeting with Salman was Zhang’s first with a foreign defence minister this year, and followed several meetings with defence ministry heads at the high-profile Xiangshan Forum in Beijing in October.

Zhang also travelled to Russia in November – the most senior PLA figure to visit Moscow since it was sanctioned over its invasion of Ukraine – where he met President Vladimir Putin and then defence minister Sergei Shoigu.

In his talks with Salman, Dong said China and Saudi Arabia “firmly stand together on issues of mutual core interests, communicate and coordinate in a timely manner on international and regional affairs, and vigorously safeguard common interests”.

According to the Chinese defence ministry readout, Salman said Riyadh was ready to strengthen “strategic communication” with Beijing to “raise bilateral military ties to a higher level”.

China is Saudi Arabia’s largest economic and trade partner and the largest importer of Saudi oil. While the US remains Riyadh’s largest arms supplier, the Middle Eastern power has increased its Chinese weapons imports in recent years.

China’s state-owned defence industry displayed the latest model FC-31, its fifth-generation fighter jet, and more than 30 unmanned aerial vehicles at the World Defence Show in Riyadh in February, hoping to ramp up exports to the region.

The Chinese and Saudi navies also held a joint counterterrorism exercise in October, against the backdrop of the Israel-Gaza war.

In addition to their growing military ties, China and Saudi Arabia have deepened their cooperation in a range of other fields, including artificial intelligence and infrastructure.

Beijing has also been working to increase its influence in the Middle East and brokered last year’s peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which restored diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Vietnam’s proposed South China Sea talks with Philippines raises hopes of resolution pathway

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3268094/vietnams-proposed-south-china-sea-talks-philippines-raises-hopes-resolution-pathway?utm_source=rss_feed

Vietnam’s willingness to hold talks with the Philippines on their overlapping claims in the South China Sea is indicative of Hanoi’s restraint in resolving the territorial issue but it will be an uphill task for both sides amid China’s “coercive diplomacy”.

Analysts say strong political will from Manila and Hanoi is required after Vietnamese state media on Friday reported that the country was ready to discuss territorial boundaries for an undersea continental shelf in the disputed waters.

The Philippines earlier said it had asked a UN body to formally recognise its right to the seabed extending from its western coast into the South China Sea. The continental shelf claimed by Manila could overlap with areas claimed by other coastal states such as Vietnam.

Philippine officials have expressed their readiness to hold talks to resolve such issues based on the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), the international treaty that provides legal guidelines to define coastal states’ territorial waters.

Under Unclos, a coastal state has the exclusive right to exploit resources in its continental shelf, a stretch of seabed that can extend up to 648km, including the right to authorise and regulate drilling activities.

Describing Vietnam’s stance as a positive sign, Minh Phuong Vu, a PhD candidate in international relations at Australian National University’s Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs, said Hanoi was adopting a restrained approach to managing differences and tensions in the South China Sea.

“Instead of protesting the Philippines’ unilateral action or using force to intimidate and communicate disagreement like Beijing, Hanoi chose to express its willingness to settle the dispute via peaceful means,” Vu said.

The only hint of dissatisfaction was “subtly communicated” by Hanoi through its statement asking Manila to respect the legal and legitimate rights and interests of other nations, Vu added.

This willingness to negotiate does not mean that a formal process will begin between the two parties, according to Vu, as determining a continental shelf boundary is a complex process that would take a long time to resolve.

China’s presence in the South China Sea and its determination to assert its claim through force or coercive diplomacy was also likely to derail any further discussions, she added.

“[Hanoi’s] statement is perhaps more of a subtle way for Vietnam to call on Manila to refrain from taking unilateral actions that could spike tension in the region,” Vu said, adding that there was ground for optimism, citing past negotiations between Vietnam and Indonesia to discuss their territorial claims.

In 2002, Hanoi and Jakarta delimited their respective exclusive economic zones after 12 years of negotiations.

Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Honolulu, said a settlement between the Philippines and Vietnam on the matter would require strong political will from both sides.

Noting that it was almost impossible for either government to cede or trade territory, Vuving said the best option for the two neighbours was “to freeze their disputes or minimise them and set them aside so they can cooperate and share resources”.

Noting that Vietnam had already submitted its claims on the continental shelf about a decade ago, Vuving said talks on this central section of the South China Sea were conditioned by the UN deliberations on the two countries’ submissions.

“A solution depends not only on the two countries but also on the UN decisions,” Vuving said.

He added that this would be complicated by Vietnam and the Philippines’ objections to China’s “nine-dash line” claims – Beijing’s U-shaped marking encircling much of the South China Sea, which was rejected by a 2016 arbitral ruling in The Hague.

“While a final solution to the disputes between the Philippines and Vietnam is nearly impossible, the two can agree on temporary solutions if they have the political will to do so,” he added.

Joshua Espeña, vice-president of the International Development and Security Cooperation think tank in Manila, said while the negotiation process between both sides remained uncertain, it would be less difficult than discussions over the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea between Asean and China.

“That’s because Hanoi and Manila confront serious challenges from China and are Asean members committed to the regional norm of amity and cooperation,” Espeña said, noting that the only short-term complication was the “divergence in style” for negotiations.

“Manila brings its megaphone in diplomacy, Hanoi prefers quieter conversations”, he said, adding that each has “unique strategic cultural nuances” but noted that they must accommodate each other.

While Manila should tone down its “megaphone diplomacy”, Vietnam must be more committed to leveraging its relations with Manila to deal with the matter and should not downplay its neighbour as a “mere US sheriff in the region”, Espeña said.

“The outcome will most likely involve a commitment to uphold international standards on collisions at sea” as well as sharing information on their maritime activities to avoid collisions, he added.

China and the Philippines have been involved in several naval clashes in the South China Sea recently, including last week when Manila accused China’s coastguard of launching a “brutal assault” with bladed weapons.

Negotiations over a code of conduct to mitigate the risk of conflicts in the South China Sea began over two decades ago. Earlier this month, Asean said it hoped to speed up negotiations and conclude talks by 2026.

On the timing of Manila’s submission to the UN, Hanh Nguyen, a PhD scholar at the Australian National University, said the Philippines was signalling to the international community that it was a responsible state actor committed to international law and the rules-based international order.

“[This stood] in contrast with China’s recently more aggressive actions in the South China Sea,” she said, noting that negotiations would help clarify and prevent potential disputes from escalating and complicating Vietnam’s planned activities in the South China Sea such as drilling activities.

Vietnam’s efforts to diffuse intra-Asean tensions and resolve disputes among small claimants can serve a wider purpose, Hanh said.

“If successful, it could create momentum for small claimants to resolve their differences and reach a consensus on how to respond to China’s advancement in the South China Sea.”

Additional reporting by Associated Press

Hong Kong helps relieve yuan pressures as mainland China grapples with capital outflows

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3268106/hong-kong-helps-relieve-yuan-pressures-mainland-china-grapples-capital-outflows?utm_source=rss_feed

The yuan is facing its highest level of capital outflow in eight years, according to new research, and data suggest a wave of offshore yuan remittances from Hong Kong to mainland China have helped offset some of the currency’s looming depreciation pressures.

China’s trailing 12-month net capital outflows stood at US$139 billion as of May 2024, the worst year for the figure since the period from 2016 to 2017, said the French investment bank Natixis in a presentation on Tuesday.

Firms are reluctant to convert their US dollar holdings into yuan, pushing the currency’s foreign settlement ratio down to 60 per cent last month – the metric’s lowest level since 2017, per Natixis. While China’s outward foreign direct investment grew over the past year, foreign direct investment to the mainland stagnated.

Large differentials between the interest rates of the US and China, weak confidence in China’s economic outlook and perceptions of geopolitical risk over using the yuan have contributed to the trend, the French investment bank said – and led to a slowdown in yuan internationalisation for the first half of 2024.

The yuan has dropped 2.3 per cent against the US dollar since the start of the year, and the People’s Bank of China – the country’s central bank – has in recent days been weakening its daily reference rate, 7.1248 today versus 7.1225 on Tuesday.

But data from Hong Kong, the world’s largest offshore yuan centre, tells a different story. A sizeable level of foreign currency conversion into the yuan has been observed there, as well as increasing remittances of yuan into mainland China despite growing depreciation pressures elsewhere, according to Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis.

“There’s strong momentum supporting the yuan,” Ng said. “It’s hard to see where this money is coming from or where it goes; we don’t observe an [overall] increase in yuan deposits in Hong Kong. At the same time, remittances of yuan from Hong Kong to the mainland have grown massively. I think the key takeaway is that Hong Kong’s role as an offshore yuan centre has been used to support the yuan.”

Monthly yuan remittances from Hong Kong to mainland China amounted to US$1.28 trillion in April 2024, surging 117 per cent from US$588 billion in September 2023, Ng estimated.

Huang Yiping, dean of Peking University’s National School of Development, said at a forum in Shanghai last week that Hong Kong’s role as an international financial centre makes it an apt platform to help the yuan go global. This is all the more vital as Shanghai, he added, has yet to become a fully fledged hub amid elevated risk controls from Beijing.

“Shanghai still faces hurdles in capital accounts and other trading restrictions, for now, but China also has Hong Kong,” Huang said.

“If foreign institutions and individuals need to trade and hold the yuan but they cannot do so on the domestic market, they can go to Hong Kong to trade,” said Huang, who sat on the monetary policy committee of the PBOC until 2018.

As Hong Kong has played an essential role linking the mainland to the rest of the world during China’s era of opening up, Huang said the city is now in a position to do more.

“If Hong Kong’s function [as the world’s largest yuan trading hub] can be consolidated, it can help China project its economic strength to the global market. The city can also channel international investors and capital to the mainland economy,” he said.

Huang admitted that developing and promoting Hong Kong’s offshore market poses new challenges for the central bank. “The prerequisite is, of course, to uphold financial stability and security.”

In May, the Chinese currency retained its position as the fourth most active currency for global payments by value after the US dollar, euro and pound sterling with a share of 4.47 per cent, according to data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The US dollar, meanwhile, held a dominant 47.89 per cent.

PBOC deputy governor Tao Ling said separately in an interview with state media last month that the central bank would support the development of the offshore yuan market, as well as the long-term mechanism for issuing overseas sovereign bonds. Tao also said the bank would expand the interconnection between the financial markets of the mainland and Hong Kong.

Graphene find in China’s Chang’e-5 moon samples challenges lunar origin theory

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3268064/graphene-find-chinas-change-5-moon-samples-challenges-lunar-origin-theory?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese scientists have discovered graphene – a form of pure carbon – in lunar soil samples collected four years ago by the Chang’e-5 mission, a finding that could challenge a prevalent theory of the moon’s origin.

According to the Jilin University-led researchers, the presence of carbon challenges an assumption behind the commonly held view that the moon was formed in a collision between the Earth and another small planet.

“The prevalent giant impact theory has been strongly supported by the notion of [a] carbon-depleted moon derived from the early analysis of Apollo samples,” they said, in an unedited manuscript published online by the National Science Review.

The researchers said that a recent study from Japan had also challenged the giant impact theory by showing the moon had emission fluxes of carbon ions all over it, “suggesting the presence of indigenous carbon”.

To understand the origins of this carbon, the Chinese research team said a study of young lunar samples – just 2 billion years old – could help them to “unravel the crystalline structure of the indigenous carbon” present on the moon.

After analysing the graphene found in the sample, the researchers concluded that the moon may actually have a carbon capturing process on its surface that could explain its presence.

The team, which included scientists from the Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science and China Deep Space Exploration Lab, said the findings “may reinvent the understanding of chemical components … and the history of the moon”.

Graphene is a carbon allotrope that consists of a single layer of atoms arranged on a hexagonal lattice nanostructure to form the thinnest and strongest material in the world.

In 2010, Nasa researchers found graphite – a mineral made up of stacked layers of graphene – in lunar samples collected nearly 40 years earlier by the Apollo 17 mission. After ruling out the effects of solar winds, they attributed the finding to the impact of meteor strikes on the moon.

The Chinese scientists acknowledged that the impact of meteorites could also lead to the formation of graphitic carbon, as proposed by the Nasa researchers.

“Further in-depth property investigation of natural graphene would provide more information on the geologic evolution of the moon,” the Chinese team wrote.

According to the Chinese scientists, their study – which utilised a variety of characterisation techniques – is the “first … to verify the presence of natural graphene in lunar soil samples by examining its microstructure and composition”.

Graphene “plays an increasingly important role in extensive areas including planetary and space science,” they wrote.

And because graphene can be artificially prepared with different techniques that yield distinct properties, studying the structure of natural graphene can provide insight into the process that led to its formation, the researchers said.

The team used Raman spectroscopy – a chemical analysis technique that can determine structure and crystallinity of samples – along with other microscopy techniques to study a lunar soil sample measuring around 2.9 x 1.6mm (0.1 x 0.06 ins).

The sample, retrieved in 2020 by the Chang’e-5 mission, is a relatively young 2 billion years old and comes from a volcanic region on the moon’s near side that “has not been heavily affected by human interference”, the paper said.

According to the researchers, graphene was found in the form of individual flakes, as well as part of a “carbon shell” enclosing elements like sodium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, calcium, tin and iron.

“Further examination under high magnification confirms the graphite carbon detected by Raman spectra to be few-layer graphene”, made up of two to seven layers of graphene, they said.

Iron found in the sample was only present in regions that also contained carbon, suggesting it played a role in the graphitisation of carbon as a catalyst for carbon-rich precursor materials, they added.

The structure of the graphene suggests it was formed as a result of “high-temperature processes resulting from volcanic eruptions” which may have allowed the iron-bearing lunar soil to interact with carbon-containing gas molecules in the solar winds, leading to mineral catalysis.

“Importantly, this mechanism suggests the presence of a carbon-capture process on the moon, which might lead to the gradual accumulation of indigenous carbon,” the team said.

According to the researchers, the findings could also shed light on how to develop low-cost and scalable synthesis techniques for creating high quality graphene.

Hozon files Hong Kong IPO to raise funds for its global growth, skirt China’s discount war

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3268074/hozon-files-hong-kong-ipo-raise-funds-its-global-growth-skip-chinas-discount-war?utm_source=rss_feed

Hozon New Energy Automobile, the start-up behind the Neta brand of electric vehicles (EVs), has applied to raise capital in Hong Kong, joining BYD, Xpeng and Li Auto in using the world’s fourth-largest stock market as the launching pad to fund its overseas expansion and escape China’s brutal discount war.

Hozon plans to use the money from its initial public offering (IPO) to support its “internationalisation strategy”, where it plans to “localise” its production facilities in different markets, the Shanghai-based carmaker said, without disclosing the size of its fundraising.

“We will accurately address global user needs and fine-tune our product mix,” Hozon said in the filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. “The company will continue to expand sales, service and charging networks worldwide.”

Hozon is the latest company to jump at the opportunity to raise funds abroad after China’s securities regulator opened the floodgates in mid-April to support qualified industry leaders to raise capital in Hong Kong. As of June 18, 158 firms had obtained approvals for overseas listings, the China Securities Regulatory Commission’s vice-chairman Fang Xinghai said last week during the Lujiazui Forum in Shanghai. Among these, 85 are for Hong Kong and 73 are heading for the New York stock market.

Hozon, founded in 2014, has raised 26.4 billion yuan (US$3.63 billion) in venture capital funding over 11 rounds from 19 investors, according to Crunchbase’s data. Its backers include the Chinese cybersecurity firm Qihoo 360 Technology, Citic Securities and the Beijing municipal government’s EV maker BAIC-BJEV.

Hozon’s loss widened 3 per cent last year to 6.9 billion yuan, after blowing out by almost 40 per cent a year earlier. Its Neta budget EVs – the name is a variation of Nezha, the Chinese patron deity for professional drivers – are priced at between 100,000 yuan (US$13,763) and 200,000 yuan.

The company could raise up to US$1 billion in Hong Kong, according to a Bloomberg report last June, which would make it one of the city’s top 5 fundraising exercises this year.

At the end of last year, Hozon started assembling vehicles in Thailand at its first overseas factory to tap the Southeast Asian market.

The company said it had built the first right-hand-drive version of its Neta V-II, an electric compact sport-utility vehicle, at its Bangkok plant in November, about two months ahead of schedule.

The factory, which it built along with its Thai partner, Bangchan General Assembly, has an annual capacity of 20,000 units.

“Chinese carmakers are looking to accelerate their outbound moves to bolster sales as they face difficulties chasing high growth at home,” said Eric Han, a senior manager at Suolei, an advisory firm in Shanghai. “Hozon has opportunities in Southeast Asia where its low-priced cars are attracting local EV fans.”

Hozon shipped 17,019 Chinese-made vehicles abroad in 2023, which represented 13.7 per cent of its total deliveries last year.

Most of China’s EV makers are unprofitable now except for top players like BYD, the world’s largest electric car assembler and Li Auto, Tesla’s nearest rival on the mainland.

Taiwan: rare sighting of mainland Chinese helicopter points to test of island defences

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3268000/taiwan-rare-sighting-mainland-chinese-helicopter-points-test-island-defences?utm_source=rss_feed

Taiwan’s rare reporting of a long-distance helicopter drill by the People’s Liberation Army is likely to be another sign of the mainland Chinese military increasing its anti-submarine exercises.

A helicopter near the northeastern coast of the island flew as close as 45 nautical miles (83km) to the coastal city of Keelung during a two-hour patrol on Sunday afternoon, according to the Taiwan Ministry of National Defence.

PLA helicopter operations were also detected and reported near southeastern Taiwan on five consecutive days between last Tuesday and Saturday although over shorter distances. PLA air activities reported by the ministry around the island are usually dominated by fighter jets and drones.

Analysts said long-haul helicopter patrols were rarely reported, but not all PLA movements are tracked and identified by the Taiwan military.

Mainland China has been carrying out almost daily military activities near the Taiwan Strait since August 2022. Some 23 PLA aircraft and seven vessels were detected in a 24-hour period starting on Sunday morning, including another helicopter near southern Taiwan.

Taipei said 19 aircraft, including the two helicopters, had entered the island’s air-defence identification zone to the north, east and southwest.

Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said the helicopter operating east of the self-ruled island was likely to be shipborne.

“It is common practice [that] if you have a warship out there and you’re on anti-submarine warfare duty, you will usually send a helicopter on its way,” he said.

The helicopter could be coordinating with the mother warship or other navy surface forces, or the ship’s sonar had “picked up something and then you dispatch your helicopter to check it out”, he said.

Ultimately, the operation appeared to be aimed at “testing Taiwanese defences”, he said.

He said the development was not surprising because in recent times “the PLA Navy is starting to train much more intensely in anti-submarine warfare”.

Song Zhongping, a former PLA instructor, said the main tasks of PLA helicopters included finding, tracking and deterring submarines, as well as carrying out surveillance and rescue operations.

Song said that without seeing an image of the helicopter, it was not certain whether it belonged to the mainland’s military or coastguard.

Koh, however, said it was not likely to be a coastguard helicopter because coastguard vessels, such as the Type 056 corvette, did not have on-board facilities to hold the helicopter and were not usually found on the northern and eastern seaboard of Taiwan.

Koh also said the five consecutive days of helicopter activity last week was “unusual”.

“It could mean, for example, an ongoing Chinese exercise that involves anti-submarine warfare … which requires the helicopter to fly that intensely over consecutive days,” he said.

“The other possibility is that there could be some pretty interesting underwater contact that they are trying to pursue and they are trying to localise and track. So, there are many possibilities.”

Military manoeuvres in the Taiwan Strait have become more sensitive as tension between Beijing and Taipei rises.

Beijing claims the Taiwan Strait and the airspace as its own, as it considers the self-ruled island part of China and has not renounced the use of force to bring it under its control.

Most countries do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but its main international backer the United States is opposed to any attempt to take the island by force.

In recent years, the Chinese military has increasingly invested in underwater warfare, including nuclear-powered subs.

A PLA Navy nuclear-powered submarine was spotted by Taiwanese fishermen near the Taiwanese-controlled island of Quemoy, also known as Kinmen, last Tuesday.

Foreign vlogger in China goes viral with ‘city or not city’ meme, imitated by celebrities

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3267946/foreign-vlogger-china-goes-viral-city-or-not-city-meme-imitated-celebrities?utm_source=rss_feed

An American vlogger in China has shot to fame on mainland social media – and attracted the interest of celebrities – with his invention of the “city or not city” meme

Among the stars Shanghai resident Paul Mike Ashton has grabbed the interest of are Richie Jen Hsien-chi and Ada Choi Siu-fan.

Known as “Hug Hug Bear” or Bao Bao Xiong in Chinese, Ashton captured viral attention with a vlog during a visit to the Great Wall in Beijing with his sister, garnering more than 380,000 likes on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.

In the video, Ashton, speaking in less-than-fluent Chinese, asks his sister, “Is the Great Wall beautiful?” to which she replies: “Beautiful.”

He followed this with: “City or not city? Ah,” to which she responds: “Not city, ah.”

“Not city in nature, right?” he continues, and she concludes: “Absolutely no city, ah!”

The video also featured them both holding a cup of Chinese milk tea and taking a synchronized sip after their quirky dialogue concluded.

How the conversation unfolded and the odd tone amused many people online.

“It seems his Chinese wasn’t learned through conventional means,” one online observer joked.

“Foreigners are amazing. They have moved from learning Chinese to creating Chinese memes,” added a second.

Ashton continued to create videos using the “city or not city” format, featuring family outings across China.

Each segment begins with a call to his family members who respond in a humorous “ah?” tone, followed by Ashton questioning whether an activity is “city or not city,” and ending with a drink together.

The phrase “city or not city” queries whether a place is fashionable or has the flair of a major city.

Walking along Shanghai’s Bund is “city”, whereas sitting amidst mountains and sipping tea is not.

The videos have become wildly popular, with some videos receiving more than 1 million likes. Ashton now boasts 540,000 followers on Douyin.

He moved to Shanghai in 2017 after earning a Bachelor’s degree in China-focused Asian Studies from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the US.

He worked as a food tour guide, English tutor and translator and completed a Master’s in Tourism Management from Shanghai’s Donghua University in 2021.

A year earlier, he founded an arts and culture consulting firm, leading bilingual workshops and promoting art and drag events.

Ashton began posting videos in Chinese on Douyin in early 2021, and began gathering his initial following with his sense of humor.

In 2023, he made a video teaching his American nephew Chinese, humorously tagging it with “Thai accent” to poke fun at both their accents, much to the delight of online viewers.

The inexplicably catchy “city or not city” meme quickly became popular in various fields such as travel, fashion styling, and everyday life.

When planning a trip, asking if a city is “city or not city” queries whether it is a modern, cosmopolitan place.

Asking if an outfit is “city or not city” questions its stylishness.

Complimenting a restaurant with fine decor and delicious food with “so city” praises its ambience and style.

The phrase also plays on the homophonic Chinese meaning of “Is it thrilling or not”. For example, saying “so city” during a rainy bike ride expresses the thrill.

Many celebrities also joined in the trend.

During a concert in Chengdu, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, Richie Jen Hsien-chi, was filmed asking fans: “Is Chengdu city or not city?” to which fans enthusiastically responded: “City, yeah!”

In a travel vlog, Hong Kong actress Ada Choi Siu-fan also posed the question “city or not city?”

Taiwan actress, Evonne Sie Yi-lin also posted a video eating pineapple cakes in an airplane cabin, joking it was quite “city”.

China must be better prepared for extreme weather and disasters, influential newspaper says

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3267994/china-must-be-better-prepared-extreme-weather-and-disasters-influential-newspaper-says?utm_source=rss_feed

An influential financial newspaper in Beijing has warned that China must improve its disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities to counter the impact of more frequent extreme weather events on the country’s agricultural production.

“Meteorological disasters are the most important factor in reducing food production,” a commentary published by the state-owned Economic Daily said on Tuesday.

Over the past 10 years, China has lost an average of more than 30 million tonnes of grain per year because of extreme weather events, according to the commentary.

“In the past two years, extreme weather has been more common, with frequent droughts and floods, and pests and diseases are becoming more severe, posing a severe situation for disaster prevention and reduction in agriculture,” the article said.

Recent extreme weather events, such as heavy rains and flooding, have swamped large parts of China’s south this year, while the north is already seeing some of its highest temperatures of 2024.

The Economic Daily commentary said China should use advanced technology to build effective disaster warning systems as well as post-disaster reconstruction measures. China should also reinforce the infrastructure of agricultural production and irrigation projects to boost resilience to extreme weather.

The National Meteorological Centre issued the first red rainstorm warning of the year on Monday and Tuesday for five provinces along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

China has a four-tier, colour-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe warning, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

In addition to the provinces of Hunan and Hubei, parts of Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Anhui also faced the risk of of geological disasters, such as flooding, landslides and mudslides.

At least 13 people have died as the result of flooding and landslides in Hunan, according to state news agency Xinhua. On Monday, the Hunan Meteorological Bureau had issued three alerts for rainstorms, geological disasters and flash floods at the same time.

A red extreme heat warning was also issued for the city of Turpan, in the northern part of Xinjiang.

On Sunday, Huoyan (Flaming) Mountain, one of the hottest places in China, located in the Turpan region, saw the surface temperature soar to 81 degrees Celsius (178 degrees Fahrenheit) with the air temperature exceeding 40 degrees Celsius, according to CCTV.

The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs activated a Level-III emergency response to drought on June 17 as sweltering heat blanketed the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong and Henan.

China has a four-tier drought-control emergency response system, with Level I being the most severe.

A day later, the Ministry of Finance said that the authorities had earmarked 443 million yuan (US$62.26 million) in disaster relief funds for drought control relief and agricultural production support across the country.

The money was being used to replenish parched soil, replant crops, and apply fertiliser in the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Henan, and Shaanxi, according to the statement.

Soon after, authorities earmarked another 346 million yuan in disaster relief funds for flood control and drought relief efforts, according to China’s finance ministry.

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South China Sea: Filipino troops who fought axe-wielding Chinese coastguards get medals

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3268031/south-china-sea-filipino-troops-who-fought-axe-wielding-chinese-coastguards-get-medals?utm_source=rss_feed

Filipino soldiers who reportedly used their bare hands to fight off Chinese coastguards armed with swords and knives were awarded medals by the Philippines for de-escalating tensions.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr bestowed the Order of Lapu-Lapu on 80 soldiers on Sunday, according to the Manila Bulletin.

“I salute the 80 officers and troops who sailed the waters and exercised the greatest restraint amid intense provocation,” he said, adding: “You demonstrated to the world that the Filipino spirit is one that is brave, determined, and yet is compassionate.”

The newspaper reported that 79 Filipino soldiers received the Kamagi Medal, with Seaman First Class Underwater Operator Jeffrey Facundo receiving the Kampilan Medal, an award given to individuals who are “seriously” wounded or injured.

On June 17, Chinese coastguard personnel rammed their boats into Filipino vessels and boarded and attacked them, according to the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which shared photos of the confrontation.

Two days after the incident, the Philippines also released a video that it said showed China Coast Guard personnel wielding an axe, flinging rocks, and slashing boats with “bladed and pointed weapons.”

General Romeo Brawner, the Philippines’ top military commander, criticised China for what he described as “reckless and aggressive” behaviour, which he said happened while the Philippines navy and coastguard were delivering supplies to soldiers in the disputed South China Sea.

He said that the clash resulted in injuries and one soldier losing a thumb.

Brawner described the incident as “a blatant violation of international maritime law, Philippine sovereignty, and sovereign rights.”

But China has defended the move, with China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian saying it acted in accordance with the law.

The incident is being seen as the latest aggressive act from Beijing in the South China Sea, with others involving lasers, water cannons, maritime militias, and even the alleged poisoning of fishing waters.

However, this latest move by the Philippines is unlikely to calm tensions in the contested waters, and is likely to be seen as a further provocation by China.

“As we award these medals, we remember that on June 17, we made a conscious and deliberate choice to remain in the path of peace,” Marcos Jnr said when bestowing the medals, the Manila Bulletin reported.

China has claimed sovereignty over the South China Sea for decades, a claim that was roundly rejected in The Hague in 2016.

On June 15, China enacted a law allowing its coastguard to detain foreign vessels and people in waters under China’s jurisdiction for up to 60 days, according to a paper by the US Indo-Pacific Command.

Sari Arho Havrén, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute specialising in China’s foreign relations, said that China wants to change the status quo in the waters “by force” and aims to “exhaust” neighbouring countries into giving in to its territorial claims.

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China’s power grid equipment makers see boom ahead as Beijing underscores renewables push

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3267968/chinas-power-grid-equipment-makers-see-boom-ahead-beijing-underscores-renewables-push?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s power grid equipment sector is set to boom as state-owned utility firms boost spending amid rising electricity demand and a renewed call from Beijing to better incorporate the country’s record-breaking renewable energy generation capacity into the power system.

China Southern Power Grid, one of two state-owned grid companies, has budgeted 173 billion yuan (US$24 billion) for capital expenditure in 2024, up 23.5 per cent year on year and a significant acceleration compared with a 12.1 per cent increase in 2023, state media outlet People’s Daily said.

The money will flow mostly to 194 energy-related projects in power grid development, pumped-hydro storage and additional energy storage capacity, the report said.

“We attribute the capex growth acceleration to facilitating more renewable project addition,” Pierre Lau, head of Asian utilities and clean energy research at Citi, said in a report on Monday. The other state-owned utility, State Grid, is likely to boost its capital expenditure for similar reasons, the report added.

Analysts are positive on China’s power equipment sector because rapid growth of wind and solar capacity has led to increased rates of power curtailment – when more power than the grid can handle is being generated. This means investments in grid capacity, smart grid infrastructure and energy storage must accelerate to keep up.

China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) published a notice on June 4 that called for ensuring the consumption and high-quality development of renewable energy. It highlighted the importance of management and support for transmission projects, especially for utility-scale wind and solar bases, and specifically pointed to 70 transmission and substation projects that are due to start operations or begin construction in 2024.

The notice reflects Beijing’s aim to accelerate the implementation of better transmission networks, according to Dennis Ip, an analyst at Daiwa Capital.

Shares in companies in the sector surged following the notice. Shanghai-listed Henan Pinggao Electric, a major manufacturer of electric power transmission and conversion equipment, has surged 25 per cent this month while Shenzhen-listed XJ Electric has added nearly a tenth from last month’s levels.

Demand will be strong for high-voltage transmission equipment, including transformers and converter valves, as well as energy storage systems, Ip said.

China’s rapidly growing power demand, driven by electrification in sectors including transport and manufacturing, as well as the rise of online services and power-hungry artificial intelligence products, will also boost grid equipment suppliers, according to Citi’s Lau.

The US banking group said China’s power demand will grow 7.5 per cent this year and 7 per cent in 2025, compared with 6 per cent last year.

“We see the higher power demand growth benefiting grid-equipment suppliers with more grid capex, and coal-fired plants with higher utilisation,” Lau said.

China’s capital expenditure on the grid will rise at least 7 per cent year on year in 2024 to 565 billion yuan, including 230 billion yuan for ultra-high-voltage projects, Citi said.

However, the sector has less competition and therefore a lower risk of the overcapacity seen in China’s solar panel and wind turbine sectors, according to Daiwa’s Ip.

“High-voltage power grid equipment has a higher entry barrier given the tender list has limited suppliers for major grid operators including State Grid,” he said. “Many of them are state-owned companies whose capacity expansion plan is not as aggressive as private companies, and hence there is less chance of a huge overcapacity.”

China plays ‘crucial role’ in global economy: Vietnamese leader tells ‘Summer Davos’

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3267992/china-plays-crucial-role-global-economy-vietnamese-leader-tells-summer-davos?utm_source=rss_feed

Vietnam’s prime minister on Tuesday backed Chinese efforts to push multilateralism, telling an international forum that China would continue playing a “crucial role” in the global economy despite its unstable recovery.

Addressing the 15th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, Pham Minh Chinh said China had made significant contributions to the global economy with its rapid growth over the past decades, and that China’s development would “inspire many opportunities” for other countries.

“Vietnam is pleased to witness China’s strong development and rise,” he told the World Economic Forum meeting.

“China is among few countries that increasingly takes on the leadership role in addressing regional and global challenges, promoting various cooperation initiatives … and occupying a pivotal position in global production and supply chains.”

China, he went on, had emerged as a front-runner in fields including science and technology, renewable energy and information technology.

“We are confident that China will continue to play a crucial role in the global economy,” he said. “A strong, self-reliant Chinese economy with fair competition and deep integration will have positive impacts on the world.”

Chinh, who is on a working visit to China until Thursday, was speaking at the conference’s opening plenary session alongside Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Polish President Andrzej Duda.

This year’s theme for the forum – also known as the “Summer Davos” – is “Next Frontiers for Growth”. The three-day event is expected to draw some 1,600 business leaders and officials to the northeastern Chinese coastal city of Dalian.

Chinh’s assessment of the Chinese economy comes amid growing concerns over a host of problems faced by the world’s second-largest economy, including slowing growth, high youth unemployment, and an ailing real estate sector.

The Vietnamese leader also devoted part of his address to the challenges facing the world, issuing a warning on growing fragmentation as well as intensifying geopolitical and geoeconomic rivalry.

While the world had “predominant stability”, peace had been marred by regional tensions, he said, without naming any conflict or country.

“We are faced with issues pertaining to wars and conflicts, the ageing population, the depletion of natural resources and climate change,” he said.

“All these issues [are] on a global level … so we have to respond with a new methodology, a new approach that is global.”

That approach, he elaborated, should be rooted in multilateralism, and “people should be at the heart of the subject”.

To that end, Chinh said Vietnam “strongly [encourages] China’s continued commitment to work with the international community, to vigorously champion multilateralism … and safeguard a peaceful, stable and cooperative environment for prosperous development in the region and the entire world”.

In pushing for growth, he said countries have to address regional and global issues “based on the principles of law and ensure the harmonious interests of all parties” instead of “politicising or discriminating” things like science, technology, and innovation.

Chinh, who called China a “close neighbour bound by shared mountains and rivers”, also held up China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc as emerging “key drivers” of global economic growth.

The voices of developing nations were increasingly recognised, and the roles of those economies were “essential”, he said, while urging developed economies to work more closely with poorer, emerging ones.

Even though China and Vietnam remain at odds over territorial claims in the South China Sea, the communist neighbours maintain considerably warm ties. During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Vietnam in December, the two sides pledged to deepen ties and build a community with a “shared future”.

Chinh met Li, China’s No 2 official, after arriving in Dalian on Monday, with the Chinese premier calling for a boost in trade and investment, and fostering new cooperation in sectors including new energy and the digital economy.

“China is willing to deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges with Vietnam in fields such as tourism, medical education and youth to consolidate public support of the China-Vietnam friendship,” Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported Li as saying.

According to the report, Chinh said that deepening long-term cooperation with China was Vietnam’s “strategic choice” and a “top priority” for its foreign policy.

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US ambassador Nicholas Burns says Beijing making US-China exchanges ‘impossible’

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3268037/us-ambassador-nicholas-burns-says-beijing-making-us-china-exchanges-impossible?utm_source=rss_feed

The US ambassador to China has accused Beijing of making it “impossible” to boost ties between ordinary Chinese and Americans in a strongly worded interview published in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

China and the United States have tussled in recent years over a range of issues from trade to technology, human rights and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Relations stabilised somewhat after US President Joe Biden met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in San Francisco last year, but tensions persist between the world’s two largest economies.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns told the Journal that Beijing was trying to scupper engagement between Chinese and American citizens, intimidating Chinese participants in embassy events and fuelling anti-American fervour online.

“They say they’re in favour of reconnecting our two populations, but they’re taking dramatic steps to make it impossible,” Burns told the paper.

He said Chinese officials had pressured citizens not to attend 61 public events organised by the embassy since November, and tried to intimidate those who did, including with late-night interrogations at their homes.

In one case, he and other US diplomats said, a venue cited a power outage for abruptly cancelling an embassy concert, only to then host other events on the nights directly before and after.

“This is not just episodic. This is routine. This is nearly every public event,” he said.

Burns also said he was “not satisfied” with the level of transparency around the motives of a man who stabbed four American college instructors in a northeastern Chinese park this month.

He expressed concerns about “very aggressive Chinese government … efforts to denigrate America, to tell a distorted story about American society, American history, American policy”.

“It happens every day on all the networks available to the government here, and there’s a high degree of anti-Americanism online,” Burns said.

China’s government did not respond to an Agence France-Presse request for comment.

Beijing often complains that Washington curbs the movements of its US-based diplomats and harshly interrogates or deports some Chinese holders of valid US visas.

It also accuses the United States of implementing policies designed to contain China’s rise as a major world power.

The US embassy in Beijing also did not respond immediately to a request for comment about Burns’ Wall Street Journal interview.

Peru resolves Chinese megaport dispute as president prepares to meet Xi

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3268041/peru-resolves-chinese-megaport-dispute-president-prepares-meet-xi?utm_source=rss_feed

Peru and a Chinese state-owned company resolved a dispute over the business model of a massive US$1.3 billion port ahead of a meeting between the presidents of both countries this week.

China’s Cosco Shipping has been building the Chancay port near Lima expecting to be its exclusive operator when it opens in November.

But government lawyers sued to challenge that status earlier this year, saying the facility should be available to other companies offering services such as loading and unloading shipping containers.

The surprise lawsuit was criticised by the company, Chinese lenders and Peruvian industry groups that argued virtually all other ports in the South American country have exclusive operators. President Dina Boluarte’s government now says the issue has been resolved and the lawsuit will be dropped.

“Their exclusivity is now a fact and the issue of the lawsuit is history,” Juan Carlos Paz, head of Peru’s port authority, said in an interview.

Government lawyers formally asked a judge to dismiss the civil lawsuit on Monday, he added.

A Chancay representative concurred, saying the issue had been resolved in a way that was favourable to the port and to the broader shipping industry.

Boluarte, who is visiting China, has meetings scheduled with Cosco officials on Thursday and with President Xi Jinping on Friday.

The Chancay port is expected to transform trade between South America and Asia by slashing travel times for cargo ships.

The facility, which has become a lightning rod for US-China tensions in the region, is due to be inaugurated when Peru hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit later this year.

How China’s ‘dual circulation’ drive is shaping up – and what’s next on the agenda

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3267963/how-chinas-dual-circulation-drive-shaping-and-whats-next-agenda?utm_source=rss_feed

The Communist Party of China is about to hold its much-delayed third plenum, traditionally a time for unveiling major economic strategies for the next five to 10 years. The fourth of a examines the state of the country’s “dual circulation” campaign, a long-term plan to boost domestic markets and reduce reliance on international trade for the sake of security.

Though the days of four-legged transport - and the humble carrot as a fuel source - have passed, the root vegetable continues to serve as a rhetorical stand-in for incentives of all types. But in modern parlance, that incentive is rarely an actual carrot; humans have, after all, come to desire more than what might satisfy a mule.

But for Samuel Ling and his colleagues at an agricultural company in Shanghai, metaphor and reality have merged.

Two years ago, his employer – a specialist in seeds – was given an important mandate by the government, he said: replace imported seeds with ones “developed ourselves”. At the top of the list? A new variety of carrot.

Like countless industries in China, self-reliance has become a watchword for agriculture. The drive for building more domestic production capacity – already seen as vital since the start of a trade war with the United States in 2018 – was kicked into higher gear in 2020 after Beijing adopted a strategy of “dual circulation”.

From seeds to semiconductors, the world’s second-largest economy is rushing to replace Western technologies and goods with domestic alternatives under this new paradigm, where domestic consumption and international trade – “internal” and “external” circulation per official terminology – are rebalanced, granting the internal market preferential status amid a fraught geopolitical atmosphere.

Designated by the country’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs as a seed producer entitled to special financial support, Ling’s company – which he declined to name, as he has not been authorised to speak to the media – has yet to make any breakthroughs.

“It’s not easy to achieve in just a few years,” he said. “But I think it’s worth the effort, as it means Chinese farmers will have access to cheaper seeds of our own making.”

Four years have passed since the term first entered the lexicon, and progress has been visible in some fields, but researchers and observers said it will take far longer to see concrete results in most areas.

And with the third plenum of the Central Committee of the country’s Communist Party fast approaching – a conclave which typically ends with a long-range plan to support the next stage of economic growth – China will keep turning inward and is set to decouple itself further from the US, they warned.

“China is running quickly as it tries to swap Western technologies with its own, but even at a quick speed, it won’t catch up for a decade or two because it started late,” said Zhang Jun, dean of the Fudan University School of Economics.

That delay is manifest in China’s share of several bedrock technologies. Only about 7 per cent of core semiconductor devices used domestically are estimated to be home-grown, Northeast Securities said in a research note in April. The rate for semiconductor components was projected to be even lower – less than 5 per cent.

China accounts for less than 10 per cent of the global supply for 5-axis computer numerical controlled machines, the most advanced cutting tools in high-speed machining, according to a research note issued by Sinolink Securities in March. The world market value for these tools was estimated at US$7 billion.

For the numerical control systems which govern those tools, China represents a market of over 21 billion yuan (US$2.9 billion) per Sinolink’s projections of 2021 value. Three-quarters of that lucrative sector, however, is presently held by foreign companies.

But faster progress has been observed in certain areas since 2020, particularly those like telecommunications that are dominated by state-owned enterprises.

About 60 per cent of telecoms hardware has been made domestically, though software substitution has been slower due to poorer comparative performance from home-made options, research firm EO Intelligence said in a September report.

Progress in building up “internal” circulation can be seen in “consumer preference for Chinese movies, cosmetics, vehicles and so on that better reflect local values, deliver quality and are sold at lower price points”, said Han-Shen Lin, China country director at Washington-based consultancy The Asia Group.

“This has forced multinationals to assess how local they should go to tap into the China market, because they realise the days of foreign brands easily charging premium prices are numbered,” he said.

However, he noted, “the irony is that the struggle to be self-reliant – where consumption absorbs production – may increase China’s reliance on the global market.” He named the electric vehicle sector as an example, where production has already outpaced domestic demand.

“This excess will need to be exported,” he said. “Hence, China depends on the rest of the world to stay open, and in return, China will need to as well.”

Chen Fengying, a researcher with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations think tank – an institution with ties to the country’s Ministry of State Security – said emphasis on the domestic market is a choice forced by circumstance, as “external” circulation is not as reliable as it once was.

“We’re now doing business with a lot of small countries. But 100 small countries may not be equivalent to one big country,” she said.

China has diversified its trade in recent years to keep the “external” side of things flowing, in response to the US and its allies taking steps to reduce their dependence on the East Asian power.

The European Union and US contributed a respective 12.7 per cent and 10.6 per cent of the mainland’s total foreign trade value during the first four months of the year according to Wing Chu, an economist with the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

In comparison, nearly half of total import and export value in this period came from countries taking part in China’s Belt and Road Initiative – a strategy to enhance regional connectivity through infrastructure – while the Asean bloc of Southeast Asian countries accounted for over 15 per cent, he said.

Despite a more stable global economic landscape, future growth in China’s foreign trade “could potentially be shadowed by uncertainties such as geopolitical developments, as well as ongoing trade disputes between China and the US, and other trading partners,” he noted.

Concurrence came from Chen Zhiwu, chair professor in finance at the University of Hong Kong. “China has been shifting quickly to rely on domestic demand for growth in recent years,” he said, “but there appear to be greater challenges on the external side.”

At the highly anticipated third plenum next month, officials “will be using the word ‘reform’,” he said, “but no matter what decision they make, more decoupling [from the US and Europe] will remain a basic policy direction.”

Under the precedent set with most previous sessions, this meeting would have taken place last autumn. It was instead postponed to July, as the Chinese economy dealt with a host of issues weighing down its recovery after three years of pandemic controls.

As China is expected to keep up its inward-looking approach, no major shift is anticipated in US policy towards China, its only competitor, said Zhang, the Fudan University professor.

“With a big economy and talent pool, China will eventually transition out of relying on imported technologies, and bad US-China relations only made this transition happen earlier than previously expected,” he noted.

But local governments will remain eager to attract foreign investment in fields where domestic firms still lack core technologies, he said, adding authorities should treat companies equally regardless of background.

As China’s quest for self-reliance continues, it needs a loose policy environment to induce innovation of all types, said Bai Chongen, dean of Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management.

“We can’t require everyone to pursue the same type of innovation, such as pushing all businesses to solve ‘chokepoint’ issues, otherwise other types of innovation would be squeezed out,” he said in an interview with NetEase last month.

He was referring to a widespread obsession with the “0 to 1” principle of innovation -creating something wholly new – a philosophy he said has mired the work of many Chinese scientists and companies. Taking something that already exists and improving it in the “1 to n” mode, he added, is just as important and a practice where China has proved itself.

Ling, the employee at the Shanghai seed company, said it will take at least three more years for the company’s carrot research team to escape the “0 to 1” trap.

“Even after we succeed in developing a new seed,” he said, “it still needs time to be commercially applied.”

Chinese subsidies for drones, chips put U.S. at risk, House panel says

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/06/25/china-subsidies-house-panel/2024-06-25T18:54:45.719Z

The Chinese government is subsidizing a wide range of industries in a bid to dominate global markets and develop the ability to coerce the United States in a crisis, according to the new chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

Chinese companies produce 90 percent of commercial drones used in the United States and 77 percent of those flown by hobbyists, according to committee data. And the Pentagon has been eyeing battlefields in Ukraine for lessons on the combat value of unmanned aerial vehicles.

“We shouldn’t be dependent on the CCP for technology,” said Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), the panel chairman, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “I believe it’s all hands on deck [for] winning this strategic competition and addressing the threats that the CCP has towards our way of life.”

On Wednesday, the committee is scheduled to hear testimony on Chinese practices in the drone, semiconductor, shipbuilding and steel industries, “areas where the Chinese Communist Party seeks dominance and wants to exploit vulnerabilities we have in our supply chain,” Moolenaar said in a telephone interview.

Among those scheduled to appear is Adam Bry, chief executive of drone maker Skydio. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company produces drones for both commercial and military use. Ukrainian officials use Skydio drones, which can conduct three-dimensional scans of surface terrain, to investigate potential war crimes, according to Bry’s LinkedIn page.

In March, Moolenaar’s panel, formally known as the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, called for “immediate action,” including new tariffs, to counter China’s drone dominance. The committee later this year may propose legislative remedies.

“We’ve seen the Chinese economic playbook repeatedly in steel, aluminum, glass, paper, consumer electronics and other industries. And that playbook has created great damage to our U.S. industrial base. And so, we don’t want to stand idle as they utilize that same playbook, especially with regard to strategic sectors that could affect our economic and national security,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the panel’s senior Democrat.

China provides lavish subsidies to companies in a range of industries. Total support for favored businesses amounts to almost 2 percent of output, according to a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The $248 billion that China devoted to subsidies in 2019 exceeded its defense spending and was roughly twice what the United States spent, CSIS said.

Chinese steel mills, electric vehicle producers, semiconductor developers, solar panel manufacturers, shipbuilders and oil producers all benefit from a vast web of state backing. The central government doles out low-cost loans from state banks, free or inexpensive land, discounted electricity, and cash support from state investment funds.

The United States has complained about China’s industrial subsidies for years to little effect. World Trade Organization rules limit subsidies but do not prohibit them.

The Trump administration planned to press Beijing to overhaul its use of subsidies in negotiations intended to follow the “phase one” U.S.-China trade deal in 2020. But that never happened. President Biden recently imposed 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, seeking to prevent subsidized auto imports from swamping the American market.

U.S. dependence on China for an array of goods and materials is the outgrowth of several decades of bipartisan trade policy.

“I believe there was a misunderstanding on the part of our country thinking that China would become more like the United States and that they would become more freedom loving, more free-market oriented, more based on the rule of law. And as the Chinese middle class grew, people would have expectations for their government to be more open,” Moolenaar said. “And unfortunately, the opposite is what happened.”

Chinese Spacecraft Brings Moon Samples Back to Earth

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/chinese-spacecraft-brings-moon-samples-back-to-earth/7669742.html

A Chinese spacecraft has returned to Earth with rock and soil samples recently collected from the moon.

A parachute Tuesday floated the unmanned Chang’e-6 capsule back to earth in China’s Inner Mongolia area. The return flight came after Chinese space officials announced earlier this month that the spacecraft had successfully gathered the samples and stored them for the trip.

“I now declare that the Chang’e 6 Lunar Exploration Mission achieved complete success," said Zhang Kejian, the director of China’s National Space Administration. Zhang spoke during a televised news conference after the landing.

Chang’e-6 launched May 3 and touched down on the lunar surface about one month later. The spacecraft landed in an area near the moon’s South Pole called the Aitken Basin. The area is known as the far side of the moon because it always faces away from Earth.

The successful return makes China the first country to ever collect and bring back lunar samples from the far side of the moon. In a statement, Chinese President Xi Jinping called the return a “landmark achievement” in his country’s space development effort.

The American space agency NASA describes the Aitken Basin as the largest impact basin on the moon. The area is believed to have formed more than 4 billion years ago.

Chinese space officials said earlier that controllers on the ground had directed the space vehicle to use its drilling equipment and other tools to capture the soil and rock samples. The operation was expected to produce up to two kilograms of moon material.

The samples will be closely examined by Chinese scientists. They said they expect them to include 2.5-million-year-old volcanic rock and other material. Scientists hope the samples will help answer questions about the differences between the moon's two different sides.

It is not the first time a Chinese spacecraft has collected material from the lunar surface. The country’s Chang'e 5 spacecraft traveled to the moon in late 2020. It successfully brought back about two kilograms of moon rocks and dust.

That mission was carried out in an area known as Oceanus Procellarum. It sits on the western edge of the near side of the moon. That area is believed to have had intense volcanic activity in ancient times.

China is the third nation to successfully collect lunar samples, following the United States and the Soviet Union. Before China’s latest efforts, the last collection mission happened in 1976, when an unmanned Soviet spacecraft collected 170 grams of moon material.

I’m Bryan Lynn.

 

The Associated Press and Reuters reported on this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the reports for VOA Learning English.

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Words in This Story

sample – n. a small amount of something that gives you information about the thing it was taken from

achieve – v. to succeed in doing something good, usually by working hard

basin – n. a wide area of land that is more or less round in shape and lower than its surroundings

impact – n. the force or action of one object hitting another

drill – v. to use a tool or machine to make holes in a hard substance