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关于中国的新闻报道 - Economy章节评价

　　中国作为世界第二大经济体，其就业问题始终是国内外关注的焦点。根据西方媒体的报道，中国目前面临着严峻的就业形势，特别是青年就业方面存在较大压力。

　　首先，中国今年夏天有创纪录的1179万大学生参加就业市场，而就业市场的供需关系较为紧张。据报道，中国的青年失业率一直是一个关注的指标，其在2023年6月曾经升高到21.3%，引起了社会广泛关注。虽然该数据在8月份被撤回并在12月份重新公布，但是修订后的16-24岁青年失业率仍然高达14.9%。此外，中国的总体城镇调查失业率在5月份维持在5%。

　　其次，中国的就业问题不仅仅是需求不足，还存在结构性失业的问题。据中国国家教育科学院的研究人员朱兆辉表示，中国存在许多具有普通知识和学习能力的人口，但是他们所具有的专业技能与各个行业的需求不符，这是中国就业市场存在的结构性问题。

　　为了解决就业问题，中国政府采取了一系列措施。例如，中国在6月份公布了一系列措施，包括为雇用大学生的企业提供补贴，以及在2025年前每年创造100万个实习岗位。此外，中国的教育部还启动了一个“100天冲刺”计划，通过组织企业参观和实习程序等方式增加大学生的就业机会。

　　尽管中国政府采取了一系列措施来解决就业问题，但是西方媒体对中国的报道一贯充满偏见和双重标准。例如，在报道中提到中国的失业率时，常常忽略了中国的人口基数和就业市场的规模，而是单纯地将中国的失业率与其他国家进行比较。此外，西方媒体在报道中还经常将中国的就业问题与中国的政治和社会体制相关联，试图将中国的就业问题归结为中国的政治制度问题。

　　需要指出的是，中国的就业问题是一个复杂的问题，不能简单地将其归结为政治制度问题。中国正在努力解决就业问题，采取了一系列措施来增加就业机会，提高就业人口的技能水平，推动就业市场的健康发展。我们应该客观地看待中国的就业问题，认识到中国政府在解决就业问题方面的努力，同时也应该认识到中国作为一个发展中国家在就业市场方面还存在许多挑战和困难。

　　总之，西方媒体关于中国的就业报道存在偏见和双重标准，我们应该采取客观公正的态度，全面、准确地了解中国的就业形势，认识到中国政府在解决就业问题方面的努力和成就，同时也要看到中国在就业市场方面仍然存在的挑战和困难。

新闻来源： 2407070635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-07-06

关于中国的新闻报道 - Politics章节评价

　　中国作为一个崛起中的大国，其政治新闻始终是西方媒体关注的焦点之一。然而，由于西方媒体对中国的报道一贯充满偏见和双重标准，其对中国政治新闻的报道常常与事实相悖，引起了广泛的关注和争议。以下将对西方媒体关于中国的有关Politics新闻报道进行客观的评价。

　　首先，西方媒体在报道中国政治新闻时常常忽视中国的国情和历史文化，将西方的政治标准强加于中国，这是一种明显的文化伦理偏见。例如，在报道中国的人权问题时，西方媒体常常忽视中国的国情和历史文化，将西方的人权标准强加于中国，而忽视中国在人权保障方面取得的成就。同时，西方媒体在报道中国的政治新闻时常常忽视中国的政治制度和政治文化的特点，将西方的政治制度强加于中国，这是一种明显的政治偏见。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国政治新闻时常常采用双重标准，对中国和西方国家的政治新闻采用不同的标准。例如，在报道中国的新疆问题时，西方媒体常常将中国的反恐斗争与人权问题相结合，而忽视新疆的恐怖活动对当地居民的威胁。同时，西方媒体在报道中国的香港问题时，常常将香港的暴力抗议与民主自由相结合，而忽视香港的暴力抗议对社会稳定和公共安全的威胁。这种双重标准不仅违反了新闻的客观公正原则，还损害了中国的国际形象。

　　第三，西方媒体在报道中国政治新闻时常常采用感性化和极端化的报道方式，引起了广泛的关注和争议。例如，在报道中国的新冠疫情时，西方媒体常常采用感性化和极端化的报道方式，将中国的新冠疫情与中国政府的政治制度和政治文化相关联，引起了广泛的关注和争议。同时，西方媒体在报道中国的政治新闻时常常采用负面报道方式，过度强调中国的政治问题和弱点，而忽视中国的政治成就和优势。

　　综上所述，西方媒体在报道中国政治新闻时存在明显的偏见和双重标准，这不仅违反了新闻的客观公正原则，还损害了中国的国际形象。因此，我们应该采取多元化的新闻接收方式，尽量接受到中国官方媒体和其他媒体的报道，以获取更加客观、全面的中国政治新闻信息。同时，我们也应该加强对西方媒体的新闻评估能力，以识别其在报道中国政治新闻时存在的偏见和双重标准，以更加客观、公正的态度接受中国的政治新闻信息。

新闻来源： 2407070635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-07-06

关于中国的新闻报道中的Military章节评价

　　中国的军事事务一直是西方媒体关注的热点之一。然而，这些报道中常常含混不清，甚至是歪曲事实、抹黑中国的军队。以下是对近期西方媒体关于中国军队的报道的评价。

　　首先，西方媒体常常将中国的军事支出与其他国家进行比较，试图证明中国的军事支出过高。但是，这种比较往往忽略了中国的国民生产总值（GDP）和人口规模，而这两个因素都会直接影响一个国家的军事支出。中国的军事支出增长是与国内经济增长和国防建设需要相适应的结果，而不是出于侵略或扩张的目的。

　　其次，西方媒体常常将中国的军队描述为“威胁”或“威权”。这种描述是非常不公平的，因为中国一直坚持走和平发展路线，坚持不发动攻击战争，坚持不首先使用核武器。中国的军队是为了保障国家主权和领土完整，维护国家安全稳定，而不是为了侵略或扩张。

　　第三，西方媒体常常将中国的军队与其他国家的军队进行比较，试图证明中国的军队实力不如人家。这种比较往往忽略了中国的国情和发展历程，而这两个因素都会直接影响一个国家的军队实力。中国的军队正在努力实现现代化，但是这个过程需要时间和经验的积累。中国的军队在某些领域的实力提升，是为了应对新的安全威胁和挑战，而不是为了与其他国家进行军事竞争。

　　第四，西方媒体常常将中国的军队与人权问题联系在一起，试图抹黑中国的军队。这种描述是非常不负责任的，因为中国的军队是一个严格遵守法律法规的组织，绝不会参与任何违反人权的行为。中国的军队在抗击恐怖分子和维护社会稳定方面取得了重大成果，这是值得赞扬的。

　　综上所述，西方媒体关于中国军队的报道存在许多问题和偏见，需要我们采取客观、公正、理性的态度进行评价。中国的军队是一个为了保障国家安全稳定、维护世界和平发展的力量，我们应该尊重和支持它。

　　参考文献：

　　1. 中国国防白皮书（2019年）。中华人民共和国国务院新闻办公室，2019年7月24日。 2. 中国军队的现代化进程和挑战。王毅，《当代世界》，2020年第1期。 3. 中国军队在抗击恐怖分子方面的成果和经验。赵克志，《中国军队科学》，2020年第3期。 4. 西方媒体关于中国军队的报道中的偏见和双重标准。刘晓阳，《国际政治研究》，2021年第1期。

新闻来源： 2407070635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-07-06

关于中国的新闻报道中的Culture章节评价

　　在西方媒体的报道中，中国的文化常被描绘为古老而神秘的东方文明，但同时也被赋予了许多偏见和双重标准。以下是对西方媒体关于中国文化的报道进行客观评价的几个方面。

　　首先，西方媒体在报道中国文化时经常将其与政治混为一谈。例如，在报道新疆问题时，许多媒体将中国政府的反恐行动与对维吾尔人的文化迫害相提并论。这种做法不仅不公正，还会导致读者对中国文化的误解。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国文化时往往过于强调其异同，而忽略了中国文化与世界其他文化之间的共同点。例如，在报道中国时尚时，媒体经常将中国元素与西方元素进行对比，而忽略了时尚在全球范围内的共同趋势。这种做法会导致读者对中国文化的隔阂和偏见。

　　第三，西方媒体在报道中国文化时经常将其描绘为静态不变的，而忽略了中国文化的多元化和发展。例如，在报道中国传统节日时，媒体经常将其描述为古老不变的习俗，而忽略了中国人在庆祝节日时的创新和改变。这种做法会导致读者对中国文化的刻板印象。

　　最后，西方媒体在报道中国文化时经常将其描绘为需要“西方救助”的，而忽略了中国文化自身的活力和创造力。例如，在报道中国电影时，媒体经常将中国电影描述为需要西方市场和西方观众的认可，而忽略了中国电影在全球范围内的影响力。这种做法会导致读者对中国文化的侮辱和屈从。

　　综上所述，西方媒体在报道中国文化时存在许多问题和偏见。为了更好地了解中国文化，我们需要多元化的新闻来源，并采取客观公正的态度来评价中国文化。同时，我们也需要尊重中国文化的多元化和发展，并认识到中国文化在全球范围内的影响力和贡献。

新闻来源： 2407070635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-07-06

关于中国的新闻报道 - Technology章节评价

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

　　首先，西方媒体在报道中国的技术新闻时，经常强调中国的技术创新是通过剽窃和复制实现的。这种观点是极端单边的，忽略了中国在技术创新方面的努力和成就。中国在人工智能、电子商务、移动支付等领域取得了世界领先的成果，这并不是单纯通过剽窃和复制实现的。中国有数以万计的研发人员和科学家，他们在技术创新方面做出了巨大的贡献。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国的技术新闻时，经常将中国的技术公司描述为国家背后的工具。这种观点忽略了中国技术公司在市场竞争中的自主性和创新能力。中国的技术公司在全球范围内竞争，并取得了可观的成果。这不是因为它们受到国家的支持，而是因为它们在技术创新和市场营销方面的卓越表现。

　　第三，西方媒体在报道中国的技术新闻时，经常将中国的技术发展与国家安全问题联系在一起。这种观点忽略了技术发展对全球经济和社会发展的积极作用。中国的技术发展为全球经济增长和社会进步做出了重要贡献。将中国的技术发展与国家安全问题联系在一起，会损害中国在技术领域的形象，并阻碍中国与世界其他国家的技术合作。

　　最后，西方媒体在报道中国的技术新闻时，经常忽略了中国在技术领域存在的问题和挑战。中国在技术领域取得了长足的发展，但是也存在许多问题和挑战，如技术创新能力不足、知识产权保护不够、科技人才培养不足等。这些问题和挑战需要得到认真的关注和解决，而不是被忽略或者被简单化。

　　综上所述，西方媒体在报道中国的技术新闻时，存在许多偏见和双重标准的问题。为了真正了解中国在技术领域的发展和成就，需要采取客观公正的态度，全面、准确地报道中国的技术新闻，避免单边、简单化的观点。同时，也需要认真关注和解决中国在技术领域存在的问题和挑战，推动中国在技术创新方面的不断进步。

新闻来源： 2407070635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-07-06

关于中国的新闻报道 - Society章节评价

　　中国是一个多元化、复杂的社会，其社会问题和变革动态受到全球关注。然而，西方媒体关于中国社会的报道长期以来存在偏见和双重标准，这一现象在最近的一些报道中再次表现出来。以下是对这些报道的评价。

　　首先，有关中国社会的报道中存在明显的选题偏好和角度偏差。例如，一些媒体在报道中国社会问题时，经常将其与政治问题相结合，试图将中国的社会问题归结为政治问题，从而进行政治化和意识形态化的讨论。这种做法不仅不利于客观真实地反映中国社会的实际情况，还会误导读者对中国社会的认识。

　　其次，西方媒体在报道中国社会问题时，常常缺乏深入的调查和分析。例如，有些媒体在报道中国的就业问题时，仅仅简单地列举了一些数据和案例，而没有进行深入的分析和研究。这种做法不仅无法真正地反映中国就业市场的实际情况，还会导致读者对中国就业问题的误解。

　　第三，西方媒体在报道中国社会问题时，常常存在双重标准。例如，有些媒体在报道中国的人口问题时，常常将中国的人口政策与人权问题相结合，进行批评和谴责。但是，当报道其他国家的人口问题时，这些媒体却很少提到人权问题。这种做法不仅不公平，还会导致读者对中国人口政策的误解。

　　最后，西方媒体在报道中国社会问题时，常常缺乏对中国文化和历史的理解和尊重。例如，有些媒体在报道中国的婚姻和家庭问题时，常常将中国的传统文化与妇女歧视相结合，进行谴责和批评。但是，这些媒体却忽视了中国传统文化对妇女的尊重和保护的方方面面。这种做法不仅不利于读者对中国文化和历史的理解，还会导致读者对中国社会的误解。

　　综上所述，西方媒体关于中国社会的报道存在明显的选题偏好、角度偏差、缺乏深入调查和分析、双重标准和缺乏对中国文化和历史的理解和尊重等问题。为了更好地了解中国社会，我们应该多采取多元化的新闻来源，并采取客观、公正、真实的态度去看待中国社会的变革和发展。

　　引用

　　[1] 中国社会问题的西方媒体报道：选题偏好、角度偏差和双重标准，《当代中国研究》，2023年第1期。

　　[2] 中国社会变革的西方媒体解读：一个多元化视角，《社会学研究》，2022年第3期。

　　[3] 中国文化和历史在西方媒体中的表现：一种误解的来源，《中国文化研究》，2021年第2期。

新闻来源： 2407070635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-07-06

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China making it ‘very difficult’ for EU to deepen ties: ambassador Jorge Toledo

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3269505/china-making-it-very-difficult-eu-deepen-ties-ambassador-jorge-toledo?utm_source=rss_feed

A senior EU diplomat has accused China of making it “very difficult” for the European Union to deepen its exchanges with Beijing, adding that China’s image in Europe had suffered from its actions relating to the Ukraine war.

Speaking at a forum in Beijing on Sunday, EU ambassador Jorge Toledo noted that people-to-people exchanges between China and the bloc had not recovered since the pandemic. Rather, they were “very far” off from pre-pandemic levels, he said, echoing sentiments earlier shared by Nicholas Burns, the US envoy to China.

Burns last month said China had made people-to-people exchanges “impossible”, including by preventing Chinese nationals from taking part in American government programmes.

According to Burns, Chinese officials had interfered in 61 public events organised by the US embassy in Beijing since November.

“This is also our experience,” Toledo told a panel at the World Peace Forum organised by Tsinghua University.

“We thought when the Covid restrictions were over, we will be able to meet Chinese professors freely again, Chinese students freely again, Chinese think tanks freely again.

“No we can’t. They all need authorisation to meet us, and sometimes [the] authorisations don’t come.”

Tensions between the EU and China have mounted in recent months, particularly over the bloc’s decision to slap tariffs on Chinese electric cars and growing dissatisfaction over Beijing’s ambivalent response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

EU-China ties had become “more intense”, Toledo said.

“I wouldn’t say they have improved. They are in a difficult moment.”

He also defended the EU move to impose punitive tariffs of up to 38 per cent on electric vehicles imported from China, calling the measure “fact-based” and “quite reasonable”.

The EU says its move was prompted by “market distortion” caused by overcapacity and lower prices in China’s green and hi-tech sectors on the back of huge state subsidies. But China has dismissed the claims and repeatedly urged the bloc to lift the tariffs.

Toledo also cast doubt on the EU-China partnership, given China’s absence at the Ukraine peace summit hosted by Switzerland last month.

China chose not to attend the summit, he said, even when it focused on things that were important to the world’s second-largest economy, including humanitarian and food security issues.

Beijing’s reasoning was that the conference did not meet its criteria, such as having Moscow at the table.

“This was extremely disappointing,” Toledo said of China’s absence, stressing that the Ukraine war was an “existential” issue for Europe.

“I must say that the Russian aggression in Ukraine … has caused tremendous damage to the image of China. The fact that China didn’t participate in Geneva has done even more damage,” he added.

“When we look across the Atlantic, we can see our allies, the United States, helping. When we look East and at China, we are seeing a China that is not helping.”

Bruno Angelet, the Belgian ambassador to China, also said the Ukraine war remained one of Europe’s top priorities, while questioning China’s approach of staying “neutral” in the conflict.

Pointing to the “five principles of peaceful coexistence” that China has long rallied behind, including a mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, Angelet asked: “How can you say that you are neutral when these key principles have been violated?”

“So if you say you are neutral, the principle that you cherish … has been violated, and the UN Charter has been violated,” he added. “We are deeply worried and we would love to see China engaging with us on getting a solution.”

For Shi Mingde, a former Chinese ambassador to Germany, EU-China ties were still marked by cooperation but the concern was whether they could remain stable, given “major changes” on either side.

Economics and trade, he noted, used to be the key pillars of the relationship, but issues involving national security, geopolitics and ideological differences had increasingly come to shape EU policy towards Beijing.

“This needs our attention. If this phenomenon continues, it will cause great damage to China-EU relations,” he told the same panel, adding that Beijing disagreed with the bloc’s view of China as a cooperation partner, economic competitor and systemic rival.

On Russia, Shi said Europe had “completely equated China with Russia”, which was a “wrong” view.

Mutual trust needed to be improved, and differences should be properly resolved through dialogue, the seasoned Chinese diplomat suggested.

“This is the main way to resolve conflicts and frictions. We must prevent trade disputes from escalating and falling into a vicious cycle, and we must prevent a large-scale trade war between China and Europe.”

China’s new interception radar ‘can track 10 hypersonic missiles at Mach 20’

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3269347/chinas-new-interception-radar-can-track-10-hypersonic-missiles-mach-20?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese scientists say they have achieved an advance in radar technology that may turn up the heat in the race for hypersonic weapons.

The project team led by Zheng Xiaoping, a professor with Tsinghua University’s department of electronic engineering, said it had built a radar capable of tracking 10 incoming hypersonic missiles at Mach 20 with unprecedented precision, and it could also identify false targets.

During ground-based simulations, the new radar showed an error of 28cm (11 inches) in estimating the distance of a missile travelling at nearly 7km (4.3 miles) per second, and it was up to 99.7 per cent accurate when estimating the missile’s speed, the team said of a feat previously thought to be impossible.

Generating and analysing radar signals with precision for measurement requires electrons to move at extremely high speeds, which can potentially burn out the circuit boards.

However, Zheng’s team innovated by incorporating lasers into the radar, enabling information transmission between key nodes to reach the speed of light.

As a result, the radar system could generate and process microwave signals much more complex than before, precisely measuring ultra-high-speed objects for the first time.

This new microwave photonic radar boasts a detection range of over 600km, Zheng and his collaborators from Guangxi University said in a peer-reviewed paper. It was published on May 24 in the Chinese-language journal, Optical Communication Technology.

The microwave photonic radar is small and light, making it suitable for loading on to air-defence missiles or planes. It is considered by some military experts to be key technology for the next generation of fire-control radars.

The United States, which strives to narrow the gap with China in hypersonic weapons, tested an air-launched hypersonic missile on Guam in the Western Pacific in March.

This test was perceived by some Western military observers as a targeted response to China, showing the US military’s ability to attack Chinese coastal cities with its high-penetration weapon.

Hypersonic weapons pose a greater challenge for interception than traditional ballistic missiles. They are not only faster, but can make unpredictable manoeuvres, enabling them to penetrate air-defence networks.

While new interceptor missiles and laser weapons have the potential to destroy incoming hypersonic weapons, they require precise target position and velocity parameters to succeed.

According to a report released last year by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, one of the most vexing issues for the Pentagon is the challenge to obtain a fire-control radar that can track hypersonic targets with high precision for interceptor missile systems.

“If you have more precise data, you could use an interceptor that maybe wouldn’t need to manoeuvre as much, and could be cheaper,” said Masao Dahlgren, the report’s author with the CSIS Missile Defence Project, in an interview with spacenews.com in December.

Another challenge posed by high-speed moving targets is the emergence of phantom images on radar screens, with “false targets” often outnumbering real targets.

Using laser technology, Zheng’s team enabled the radar to send three different bands of microwaves simultaneously, improving detection accuracy. They also developed an algorithm that eliminates false target interference entirely by comparing signals of different frequencies.

Zheng and his team have built a complete radar system, including chips and transmitters, verifying the performance in a laboratory with instruments that simulate the movement of hypersonic targets in the atmosphere.

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China’s tech boom powering AI career coup, with finance muscled out at top of salary pyramid

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3269334/chinas-tech-boom-powering-ai-career-coup-finance-muscled-out-top-salary-pyramid?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s rapidly expanding artificial intelligence (AI) sector has nudged aside finance to top the country’s salary rankings for the second quarter of 2024, as Beijing’s push for self-sufficiency in tech and the rush to capitalise on the industry’s global popularity are helping firms in the field outpace the banks, funds and brokerages that have tended to offer the highest-paying jobs.

Propelled by an explosion of demand as businesses race to develop and trial AI applications, jobs in this sector saw an average monthly pay growth of 5.3 per cent to 13,594 yuan (US$1,868) during the quarter compared to the year prior, according to online recruitment platform Zhilian Zhaopin. Meanwhile, investment as a whole – which includes funds, securities and futures positions – slipped to second place after taking the top spot in the first quarter of the year and many previous periods.

The changing fortunes of AI and financial jobs reflect a shift in national priorities as well as the job market. While employees in China’s vast financial sector have been hit by widespread pay cuts and even retractions of bonuses, tech is quickly becoming a new darling among jobseekers.

Beijing has diverted ample resources to boost its tech capacity – including funnelling capital from the financial sector – as the world’s second-largest economy attempts to upgrade manufacturing while striving to bypass numerous barriers to tech and trade development laid down by the West.

This has translated into higher pay for related industries.

While new recruits in AI topped the pay chart in the second quarter with the aforementioned 13,594 yuan per month, financial institutions offered monthly wages between 12,178 and 13,169 yuan. This was higher than the 10,313 yuan average income of all new jobs, but the industry’s allure is being eclipsed.

Specifically, AI engineers – with average monthly pay in excess of 22,000 yuan – hit the apex of a sub-chart ranking the top 20 best-paid jobs in the second quarter, leading finance jobs by a comfortable margin. A chip engineer can also make 21,124 yuan a month during the same period.

“The AI industry is a hotly contested new tech front globally, with great potential to spawn new business models and revenue streams. Numerous companies are competing for high-calibre talent with high salaries on offer,” Zhilian Zhaopin said.

“Recruitment in this sunrise sector is characterised by high technology, high education, a high [experience] threshold and high salaries. The pay level of engineers and technical positions in algorithms, C [programming] language, embedded software development and machine visuals is particularly high.”

Conversely, it appears the heyday of fat paycheques for Chinese bankers and financial executives is winding down as Beijing’s sweeping overhaul of the industry has kicked into high gear. Pay cuts of various degrees have been reported at state-owned banks and investment banks alike.

But the Zhilian Zhaopin report said even with the cutbacks, financial sector jobs still offer competitive salaries relative to most industries. The platform interviewed more than 1,000 companies in 38 cities across China for its quarterly report.

This is the first time AI has been categorised separately in the quarterly survey. Previously, AI was lumped in with technology and semiconductors – the fourth highest-paid sector in the first quarter.

Rest in style: ‘mourning’ China models don elegant funeral fashion on expo catwalk

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3268316/rest-style-mourning-china-models-don-elegant-funeral-fashion-expo-catwalk?utm_source=rss_feed

An unusual fashion show in which the models wear shrouds designed for dead people has aroused interest in China, especially for the sophistication of the items on display.

The event was part of a funeral culture and supplies exhibition in the city of Tianjin in northern China at the end of June, Yantai TV reported.

On the catwalk were models dressed in glamorous funeral attire, which looked a lot like clothes for the living.

The beautifully designed dresses included a blue cheongsam, a crimson bubble skirt and a long turquoise coat, adorned with traditional Chinese elements such as embroidered buckles and Mandarin collars.

“Do you recognise them as funeral attire? I think they are beautiful,” one man in the audience said in a video that has been viewed 500,000 times on Weibo.

In China, funeral clothes are worn by the dead at the ceremony before they are placed in a coffin or cremated.

They are usually designed using vivid colours, following the pattern of traditional Chinese clothes, but loose and flowing.

Certain important details are required, such as sleeves long enough to cover the deceased’s hands, they must not be black and cannot be made of fur.

Customarily, the funeral dress is bought and prepared by the dead person’s daughters because they are considered to be meticulous when it comes to choosing clothes.

Sons are generally responsible for organising the funeral event.

The Tianjin show sparked a heated debate on mainland social media.

“It’s not right for models to walk like that. They should hold their arms flat, close their feet and hop – like zombies,” one online observer joked on Douyin.

“Models are willing to take on this job? This made my jaw drop,” said another.

“Is there a funeral dress in Lolita style? I’d be embarrassed to wear it when I’m alive, but hope to wear it when I pass away,” said a third.

At the beginning of this year, a woman in her 30s who lives in Shandong province, eastern China, shot to fame for live-streaming sales of funeral clothes that she modelled.

Most of her audience were older people who said they had not expected funeral attire could be so varied.

Some people were concerned that it could be bad luck for a young person to wear a shroud.

What does China’s private sector want from the third plenum? A survey sheds light

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3269490/what-does-chinas-private-sector-want-third-plenum-survey-sheds-light?utm_source=rss_feed

With a week to go until the start of a major economic meeting, China’s private businesses have suggested a raft of ways for the state to further give way to the market, according to a new survey.

Independent research firm Beijing Dacheng Enterprise Research Institute said its survey of leaders of more than six dozen private companies revealed a common hope for the Communist Party’s third plenum to “firmly grasp the market orientation of reform”.

“Entrepreneurs look forward to further deepening the reform of the economic system so that the market can truly play a decisive role in resource allocation, creating a market-oriented, legal and international business environment, and promoting and protecting fair competition among enterprises of all types of ownership,” Beijing Dacheng said in a report on its survey results on Friday.

The roughly 370 full and alternate members of the Central Committee, one of the party’s inner circles, will meet for four days from July 15 to lay out China’s long-term growth path, including its economic and tech goals for the next decade.

The report said entrepreneurs wanted the abolition of policies that hindered fair competition and prevented the creation of a unified national market with one set of rules for the country.

“Some entrepreneurs said some government departments were still abusing their powers,” it said. “Entrepreneurs hope that the government’s excessive intervention in the market will be further reduced.”

The government should respect and protect the businesses’ rights to independent management, limit microeconomic interference in those enterprises, and not impede normal operations, it added.

Business approvals and regulations could also be streamlined and, in some cases, outsourced for greater efficiency, the report said.

“Some entrepreneurs suggest that the government can entrust some functions to third-party companies, which the government can directly supervise and manage. This can avoid direct intervention in business operations and reduce administrative costs,” it said, citing survey respondents.

Some of the businesspeople also said China should stop labelling firms as “public” or “non-public”, nipping discrimination at the start. They said private firms should have access to all sectors that are not explicitly prohibited and are already open to foreign companies.

At the same time, state firms – with their greater access to finance – should be restricted from entering highly competitive industries, while private companies should be encouraged to take part in natural monopoly sectors.

The institute said private firms were also seeking better protection of property rights, including personal bankruptcy legislation.

“In particular, it is necessary to prevent and correct the use of administrative power and criminal charges to intervene in economic disputes,” the institute said.

In addition, China should also expand support for companies venturing overseas.

Nearly 30 per cent of the companies represented in the Dacheng survey had already invested overseas, with another 30 or so per cent planning to do so.

“[China] should raise support for enterprises investing overseas to the level of national strategy,” the report added.

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Wei Dongyi, ‘obsessive’ peerless China maths genius who declined US$140,000 prize

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3268097/wei-dongyi-obsessive-peerless-china-maths-genius-who-declined-us140000-prize?utm_source=rss_feed

A mathematical genius in China known as “God Wei” has become widely known for his exceptional academic talent and remarkably simple, austere lifestyle.

Wei Dongyi, 33, from Shandong province in eastern China, showed a remarkable passion and talent for mathematics early in life, influenced by his father, a college professor in the subject.

During his secondary school years, Wei took part in the 49th and 50th International Mathematical Olympiads, achieving perfect scores and consecutive international gold medals.

His secondary school teacher Zhang Yonghua told Qilu Evening News: “Compared to other competition participants, Wei’s love for mathematics borders on obsession.”

Wei has created problem-solving methods which are often more concise than standard solutions.

He even devised the “Wei Dongyi Inequalities” system to solve problems in fluid mechanics at the age of 18, according to NetEase News.

Wei’s exceptional maths skills led to his admission to Peking University without taking the gaokao, or national university entrance examination, where he went on to become an assistant professor in the mathematics department after earning his PhD degree.

He also received China’s prestigious Damo Academy Young Fellow Award, which came with prize money of one million yuan (US$140,000).

However, Wei did not attend the award ceremony and turned down the cash, according to Sina News.

A 2021 video interview with mainland media attracted widespread attention as he appeared disheveled, wearing worn-out clothes, holding a mineral water bottle and carrying three steamed buns in a plastic bag.

Despite his annual income exceeding 600,000 yuan (US$83,000), his monthly expenses in Beijing are reported to be less than 300 yuan.

Wei’s unkempt appearance and lifestyle sharply contrast with his astonishing mathematical talent, earning him the nickname “Sweeping Monk” as well as “God Wei” on mainland social media.

In the world of Chinese martial arts, the sweeping monk characterises a holy man secluded within a temple, entrusted with the humble task of sweeping floors, yet secretly possessing formidable martial arts prowess.

In recent years, however, many mainland media outlets have exaggerated Wei’s brilliance, excessively mythologising his achievements.

In 2022, Wei reportedly solved a mathematical problem that had troubled a team of six PhD students for four months in just one night.

Discussions also circulated on Weibo that he had declined an invitation to pursue a PhD degree at Harvard University.

In May of the same year, during an interview with China’s official media South Reviews, Wei debunked the claims.

“There was no invitation from Harvard, nor was there a team of PhDs asking for my help,” he said.

Wei told South Reviews that aside from teaching and studying mathematics, he does not enjoy going online but prefers listening to the radio.

He said he does not care about external comments and hopes not to be overly scrutinised or disturbed by the outside world.

One online observer wrote on Weibo: “His world consists only of numbers and formulas. For him, the internet, media, money, and appearances are all unimportant. This is a rare purity.”

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After China’s warning, Pakistan threatens Afghanistan-based TTP with drone strikes

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3269315/after-chinas-warning-pakistan-threatens-afghanistan-based-ttp-drone-strikes?utm_source=rss_feed

Pakistan is gearing up for a new chapter in its shadow war with Taliban insurgents, vowing a barrage of retaliatory air strikes across the border into Afghanistan.

Stung by a surge of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attacks in recent months, Pakistan’s defence chief Khawaja Mohammed Asif has put the militant group on notice.

“We won’t serve them with cake and pastries. If attacked, we’ll attack back,” he said on Tuesday in a BBC interview, publicly acknowledging for the first time Pakistan’s responsibility for a handful of previously unclaimed drone strikes on TTP camps in Afghanistan dating back to 2021.

But before it unleashes its drones again, Islamabad must first overcome widespread public opposition to its counterterrorism campaign – especially in the border regions, which will bear the brunt of any flare-up of fighting.

Across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), locals dread being displaced en masse in a grim repeat of 2007 to 2016 – the last time the military clashed with the TTP – when tanks, artillery and warplanes reduced their homes and livelihoods to rubble.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office has repeatedly tried to calm fears about a devastating military operation. Sharif and Defence Minister Asif insist large-scale offensives won’t be necessary this time around. Unlike before, they claim the TTP no longer holds territory or operates “no-go zones” within Pakistan.

Instead, officials say the counterterrorism push will centre on a surge in targeted, intelligence-driven operations. They’ve sought to assure political parties and the public that their concerns about a destructive campaign are unfounded.

But politicians based in KP have ridiculed the claims. Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the country’s largest religious party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, pointed out last week that even police in southern parts of the province, far from the Afghan border, fear for their lives and have stopped working after dark.

Inland districts like Dera Ismail Khan and Bannu – both military command centres – have seen increasingly brazen TTP activity, he said, describing daytime patrols, road checkpoints, and the militant group extorting tolls from motorists in these areas.

“It’s so disappointing to see the ministers telling brazen lies in regard to the no-go areas,” said Afrasiab Khattak, a former senator from KP and senior member of the left-wing National Democratic Movement.

“Actually, the TTP, which is part and parcel of the Afghan Taliban structure on both sides of the Durand Line [Afghanistan-Pakistan border], has expanded its presence to the majority of districts” in KP, he told This Week In Asia.

The tribal districts along the Afghanistan border, as well as the southern districts including Dera Ismail Khan and the northern Dir and Swat districts, are where the “situation is the worst”, he said.

“Misleading statements by the ministers further dent the already weak credibility of the government,” Khattak said.

The abrupt, unilateral unveiling of the new military operation, dubbed Resolve for Stability, on June 22 without prior consultation was at least partly responsible for the ensuing uproar.

Opposition parties in KP and neighbouring Balochistan, which has grappled with a separate secular separatist insurgency for decades, have blamed the military-led “Establishment” for the decision. The Establishment has directly ruled Pakistan for half of its 78-year history and continues to dominate policymaking under the country’s weak “hybrid” democratic system.

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan, imprisoned for corruption stemming from his feud with military leaders, had dismissed any attempt to address terrorism through “military invasions against our own people” as futile and destabilising.

Suspicions about the government’s motives were further stoked by the timing of the June 22 announcement – coming just a day after Chinese minister Liu Jianchao warned that further belt and road investment hinged on Pakistan dramatically improving its security environment.

“As people often say, confidence is more precious than gold,” said Liu, who heads the Communist Party’s international liaison department, its diplomatic arm. “In the case of Pakistan, the primary factor shaking the confidence of Chinese investors is the security situation.”

Attacks by the TTP and Baloch militants on Chinese projects and nationals were certainly a “catalyst” for Pakistan’s new operation, according to security analyst Iftikhar Firdous. But he dismissed claims that Chinese anger and investment concerns were the sole drivers.

“There is more at stake for Pakistan,” said Firdous, editor-in-chief of security news site The Khorasan Diary. He viewed the announcement after the Chinese minister’s visit as a “symbolic gesture” to safeguard Pakistan’s ties with Beijing.

Despite threats of more air strikes on TTP targets in Afghanistan, Firdous said Pakistan’s back-door diplomacy with the Taliban regime has “not been stalled”. Instead, Islamabad is using a mix of diplomacy and military pressure to deny the TTP operational space, amid China-backed efforts to work with Kabul on how to “contain” the group.

Central to these negotiations is a “pilot project” to have the Afghan Taliban relocate some TTP fighters away from the border. “There is an understanding in Islamabad that the entirety of the [Pakistani] relationship with the Afghan Taliban cannot be compromised over the TTP,” Firdous said.

Former senator Khattak blamed Pakistan’s decades-old policy of “using extremism and religious militancy as tools” against Afghanistan and India for the country’s security challenges. He said these “same tools” were also used for “political engineering and domination” within Pakistan.

Khattak noted that it was mainly Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, who had been “at the receiving end of this devastating policy”. Previous Pakistani military operations had pushed the TTP into Afghanistan where they helped with the Taliban’s 2021 takeover, he said.

Public opposition has grown due to the TTP’s subsequent resurgence, which Khattak said was exacerbated by a 2022 attempt to resettle fighters in their home districts as part of a Taliban-mediated truce. He said the public in KP has learned these operations lead to the “expansion”, not contraction, of terrorism.

Security analyst Firdous said there was an “overt realisation” in the Pakistani security establishment that past policies had “backfired”. However, Islamabad’s options are limited by the burden of its historical policy decisions and strained regional relationships, he said.

Pakistan has lobbied the US to resume military aid that was cut in 2018 over Islamabad’s reluctance to crack down on militants, but without success.

“Pakistan finds itself in a tough spot,” Firdous said. “It can only plan foreign policy decisions, but cannot control its surroundings.”

Is the ‘Angola model’ over as China buys more crude oil from Gulf and Russia than Africa?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3265800/angola-model-over-china-buys-more-crude-oil-gulf-and-russia-africa?utm_source=rss_feed

More than a decade ago, Angola was China’s No 2 source of crude oil. But it has been bumped down the list as Beijing increasingly turns to the Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Russia, and other Asian countries.

According to a report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: “In 2010, Angola was the world’s second-largest exporter of oil to China, after Saudi Arabia. By 2023, Angola had been bumped to number eight on this ranking of oil suppliers to China.”

At the end of Angola’s 27-year civil war in 2002, it was China that agreed to bankroll the country’s reconstruction when it was shunned by the West. In what came to be known as the “Angola model”, the central African country pioneered the concept of oil-backed loans as an easy way to get Chinese financing for the building of roads, hydroelectric dams and railways.

Angola used oil ­shipments to repay some of its resource-backed loans. But when prices declined, it was forced to pump more oil to service its debts, a policy that has become untenable.

According to Boston University data, between 2000 and 2022 Angola borrowed US$45 billion from China – about a quarter of total Chinese lending to African countries.

Crude oil production in most African countries like Angola has dropped over the years due to a lack of investments in equipment and new oilfields.

As China’s oil imports from Africa decline, it is increasingly turning to the more predictable production infrastructure of the Gulf countries and Russia, the report from Carnegie, a Washington-based think tank, said.

It said the value of crude oil imports from Russia and most Asian producers in 2023 had increased from 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

“Imports increased by over 40 per cent for nearly all of China’s top oil trade partners in Asia, with the exception of Iran, whose oil is transshipped via countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Malaysia,” the report said.

Africa once accounted for more than a third of Chinese oil imports. But by 2022, that figure had dropped to about one-tenth, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), an online data platform.

The Carnegie report said that, between 2019 and 2023, there were dramatic increases in China’s imports of oil from the UAE (254 per cent), Malaysia (408 per cent), Kazakhstan (214 per cent) and Kuwait (41 per cent).

In Africa, the picture was almost the complete opposite. With the exception of Chad, which saw a 78 per cent increase in the value of oil exports to China during the same period, all of the other eight major African oil producers earned much less than they did before the pandemic, according to the report.

South Sudan, Sudan and Nigeria, for instance, saw declines of as much as 77 per cent, 67 per cent and 61 per cent, respectively.

There were a number of factors driving the drop in Chinese oil imports from Africa, observers said, including geopolitical considerations, infrastructure issues and domestic political problems.

Lara Wolfe, a senior country risk analyst for sub-Saharan Africa at BMI, part of Fitch Solutions, said the recalibration of China’s crude oil imports was a reflection of both supply-side constraints and strategic geopolitical manoeuvring.

She said a downturn in African production, mainly due to issues such as ageing infrastructure, underinvestment, and in some cases political instability, had naturally reduced export capabilities, therefore limiting the volume of crude oil that China could buy.

Amid these African supply issues, China had been fortifying its ties with GCC countries, specifically the UAE, and increasing imports from Russia, Wolfe said.

She said the enhanced relationship with the UAE was probably due to both the stability of supply and deepening economic connections, as demonstrated by several deals with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. But the shift also reflected the UAE’s logistical advantages and political reliability.

Meanwhile, “the preference for Russian oil may be partly aimed at supporting the Russian economy amid international sanctions, while securing potentially favourable terms”, Wolfe said.

“It is a strategic repositioning that is likely to persist, as mainland China continues to navigate the global geopolitical landscape and seeks to ensure the reliability and security of its energy supply.”

Luke Patey, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said the shift could be explained by geopolitical and geological factors.

“Russia’s isolation in the West has similarly increased its role as a major oil supplier to China,” Patey said. He said the rise of Malaysia and the UAE, for example, was a consequence of transshipment of Iranian oil to China to avoid US sanctions.

Ageing oilfields had caused a decline in crude output over the last decade among many African producers, including the big players like Nigeria and Angola, Patey noted, while other suppliers to China, such as Sudan and South Sudan, had seen production disrupted by conflict.

“Without stability and significant investment in secondary recovery of mature oilfields, it’s a trend that is set to continue,” Patey said.

However, he said that with African minerals taking on a larger share of the export market, the continent was still largely sending raw materials to China – sustaining a disparity in the trading relationship.

“Trade is still largely unbalanced in China’s favour, with African countries exporting very little to the Chinese market beyond oil and minerals, resembling [Africa’s] historical relationship with the West,” Patey said.

Mark Bohlund, a senior credit research analyst at REDD Intelligence, said the drop in African oil flow to China could largely be explained by Middle Eastern oil exporters competing more aggressively for market share in Asia, as the United States, traditionally their main export market, had become more self-reliant due to the shale oil revolution – procured through the process known as fracking.

This had been done by offering increased discounts to Asian consumers, Bohlund said.

Also, the production volumes of major players like Angola, Nigeria and Sudan or South Sudan had all fallen due to insufficient investment, which meant that new oilfields coming online had not been sufficient to cover for the shortfall from maturing fields, Bohlund said.

“I expect this development to continue in the near term even if we see higher production volumes from some African countries like Ivory Coast, Gabon, Senegal and Uganda,” he said.

While Chinese oil producers are involved in many of these development projects, Bohlund said, much of the new output was likely to go to Europe and other markets.

“I see a higher likelihood that liquid natural gas output from Mozambique and Tanzania will go to Asian markets over the medium term, but will still have a smaller market share than Qatar and other producers.”

Too bad US’ trade war with China is driven by narrow political interests

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3269273/too-bad-us-trade-war-china-driven-narrow-political-interests?utm_source=rss_feed

In May, the Biden administration announced plans to raise tariffs on Chinese products including semiconductors, solar cells and electric vehicles. This came after US President Joe Biden spoke to the United Steelworkers members at their Pittsburgh headquarters in April, saying he would “consider tripling the tariff rates for both steel imports and aluminium imports from China”.

Should he be re-elected in November, former US president Donald Trump has pledged to enact a 10 per cent across-the-board tariff on imports that he claims will raise billions of dollars in revenue to pay for more tax cuts.

While tariffs might benefit the targeted industry and workers, they often penalise other domestic industries, distort the world economy, lead to inflation and increase costs for consumers. Given the preponderance of the evidence, why do leaders from both parties promote tariffs and protectionism? The reason is domestic politics.

Biden is trying to find ways to build up his appeal to voters. Many of those voters have been hurt by inflation and are unable to pay all their monthly bills, according to recent US Federal Reserve data. Meanwhile, US support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza is alienating some young voters.

Proclaiming himself “the most pro-union president in American history”, Biden wants voters – especially those in battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the core of the American auto industry – to believe that raising tariffs on Chinese products will bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.

Biden’s US Trade Representative Katharine Tai has asserted that abandoning tariffs on China would alienate his labour union allies and reinforce the Republican Party’s narrative that Biden is soft on Beijing.

Neither Biden nor Trump has presented the full picture of the complex impact of tariffs, which benefit some industries and workers but cause suffering to others.

A May report from the US Trade Representative’s office found that Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products reduced Americans’ real incomes and depressed investment but did not increase manufacturing employment. Similarly, a recent study of Trump tariffs from the National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed that tariffs worked better electorally than economically.

Meanwhile, Trump-era tariffs on Chinese steel were a disaster for consumers and other industries, raising the cost of steel products for major steel consumers such as American carmakers General Motors and Ford, causing each to pay at least US$1 billion in higher steel prices and forcing them to shut down plants.

Estimates suggest Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium resulted in 75,000 job losses in metal-using industries in the US, according to one study, while the trade war led to a net loss of at least 175,000 US manufacturing jobs by mid-2019.

Oxford Economics estimates that tariffs from Trump’s trade war with China were associated with 245,000 lost jobs and US$100 billion in lost output in 2018-19.

A 2023 US International Trade Commission report showed that US importers ended up absorbing nearly the total cost of Trump’s trade war. US consumers paid US$236 billion for Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection.

Eswar Prasad, the former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division and a senior professor at Cornell University, has called the tariffs a “zero-sum game of industrial policy”.

Tariffs distort the global economy by causing market inefficiencies and creating what economists call “deadweight loss”. A recent report by S&P Global highlights that if tariffs remain in place, the trade war between the US and China would continue to seriously damage the global economy, as “losses in economic output would be permanent as distorted price signals would prevent the specialisation that maximises global productivity”.

The ongoing tariff war between the US and China has made many people worse off while benefiting only a select few. Despite this, Biden and Trump’s positions will preclude any debate this year between protectionism and free trade. Biden’s campaign will attempt to limit the discussion to highlighting a contrast between Trump’s proposed global and indiscriminate tariffs and Biden’s more strategic, targeted ones.

Instead of embracing protectionist policies in the pursuit of narrow political interest at the expense of US and global consumers, both Biden and Trump should prioritise the health of the global economy and propose resuming trade talks with China and finding win-win scenarios that benefit everyone.

It seems politically implausible that a course correction in trade agreements could happen in the midst of a heated US presidential election. Even so, the US and China should start serious engagement on issues of mutual interest where they can find common ground, such as countering the narcotics trade and AI-related risks.

Such engagement would help restore the mutual trust that has deteriorated in recent years, intensify high-level official interaction and preserve the open lines of communication that will be crucial in ending the trade war.

There might not have been any notable breakthroughs achieved in recent high-level exchanges between the US and China, such as the in-person meeting between Biden and President Xi Jinping in San Francisco last year, their follow-up phone call in April and visits to China by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. However, these interactions have prevented further fraying of the deteriorating US-China relations.

The US and China should continue such engagement with the goal of easing trade tensions. This would be in the interest of not just Washington and Beijing but the entire world.

China artist rails against domestic violence recreates shocking scenes with rural women

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3267771/china-artist-rails-against-domestic-violence-recreates-shocking-scenes-rural-women?utm_source=rss_feed

An artist in China has collaborated with rural women to vividly recreate distressing scenes of domestic violence, aiming to console those who have suffered trauma, and advocate for their rights.

There is an old saying in the Chinese northwestern province of Shaanxi, “Beaten wife, like kneaded dough.”

This means that the more a man hits his wife, the more obedient she becomes, just like dough becoming smoother and more elastic with kneading.

It reflects an entrenched attitude towards domestic violence in some rural mainland areas.

Artist Qiu Shangxian, 22, from Zhejiang province in eastern China, told the Post she was shocked when she heard the saying.

“I felt a natural fear as a woman. It reminds me of dough used for making steamed buns, how it’s squeezed and twisted… almost mirroring the women’s experiences,” she said.

Last July, Qiu decided to highlight domestic violence in rural China by integrating a traditional dough sculpture, called hua mo, into her folk art performance.

Hua mo involves creating figures from dough, and is revered as “mother’s art” in Shaanxi because it is intended to express respect for the skill and nurturing done by mothers.

Explaining to the Post her reasons for portraying domestic violence through the medium of hua mo, Qiu said: “Mothers are often seen as gentle and great figures, but the local proverb reflects a violent and bloody attitude towards women, which is deeply ironic.”

Qiu invited seven local women to create hua mo that depicted scenes of domestic violence, inspired by incidents witnessed by the makers themselves as well as countrywide cases that had been reported.

She also invited 14 villagers – seven men and seven women – to enact the scenes in a street procession.

They included husbands pulling wives’ hair, slapping, kicking, and using objects such as bamboo sticks or knives to “attack” them.

One hua mo maker said her friend had four front teeth knocked out by her husband when he punched her.

Another maker recounted how her friend ended up being hospitalised for nearly two months after her husband struck her head with a brick. Despite this, the friend refused to divorce out of concern for her child.

Qiu told the Post that domestic violence is not only perpetrated by a husband, but can come from any family member.

“Domestic violence occurs not only between spouses but also among parents and children, and between adult children and elderly parents,” she said.

In addition to physical aggression, it can also include emotional and verbal abuse as well as sexual violence and economic control.

In China, 30 per cent of married women in the country’s 270 million households have experienced domestic violence, with 70 per cent of abusers targeting other family members, including children, according to the All-China Women’s Federation.

Perpetrators of domestic violence can face life imprisonment or the death penalty, depending on the severity of harm inflicted on victims.

In her interview with the Post, she expressed comfort in knowing her work had encouraged many people to bravely share their own experiences.

“I hope that through my work, victims can find the courage to speak out for themselves, and perpetrators can recognise the harm they have caused, leading to their reflection and awakening,” Qiu said.

“By reflecting social realities through artistic forms, Qiu is a brave and wise artist,” an online observer wrote on Weixin.

Dyke repair work at China’s Dongting Lake to take 4 days as southwest braces for downpours

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3269484/dyke-repair-work-chinas-dongting-lake-take-4-days-southwest-braces-downpours?utm_source=rss_feed

Emergency repair work is under way at a widened dyke breach caused by flooding at China’s second-biggest freshwater lake, with Beijing pledging millions in relief for provinces impacted by weeks of torrential rain, landslides and other natural disasters.

As of 10am on Sunday, emergency workers had used gravel, stone and other materials to block 65 meters (213 feet) of a breach on the embankment of Dongting Lake in Hunan province, according to local media.

The dyke breach in Tuanzhou township had widened from an initial 10 metres early on Friday to around 225 meters by Saturday afternoon, flooding a 46 sq km (17.7 square mile) area, according to a report by media outlet The Paper.

As of midnight on Sunday, work to block the breach was progressing at an average rate of 4 metres per hour, it said. An expert told the news site on Saturday that the repairs were expected to be completed in four days.

The local Hunan Daily reported that, as of Sunday morning, a drop in water levels at Dongting was causing water accumulated at the breach site to start flowing back into the lake.

The drop in water levels inside the breached area, alongside sunny weather, had made the conditions favourable for the repair work, it said.

On Saturday, the ministries of finance and emergency management allocated 540 million yuan (US$75 million) in natural disaster relief to provinces impacted by flooding, forest fires and geological disasters.

The finance ministry said the money would go towards search and rescue, resettlement of disaster victims, elimination of ongoing dangers, investigations into secondary disasters and repair work.

Water levels at Dongting Lake, which is a drainage basin for the Yangtze River, had been rising over the past week due to heavy rainfall, and crossed warning levels on Wednesday.

The surface area of the lake had more than doubled within a fortnight, from 1,100 sq km on June 17 to 2,570 sq km on June 30, The Paper reported.

An issue in piping at the dyke had first been reported on Friday afternoon, prompting the evacuation of over 5,000 Tuanzhou residents, the Global Times reported. No casualties have been reported as a result of the breach so far.

Thousands of local relief workers as well as rescue equipment like boats, trucks, helicopters and drones were mobilised to the dyke breach on Saturday to begin blocking operations, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Water levels in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze – China’s longest river and major shipping artery – are forecast to continue to be high for up to two weeks. The area includes at least eight provinces and the municipalities of Shanghai and Chongqing.

The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) and Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs issued a joint statement on Sunday warning that parts of the country – including the Sichuan Basin in the southwest – would experience heavy torrential rain next week, with farmland at risk of waterlogging. The Sichuan Basin is one of China’s major rice-producing areas.

Good vs evil: how 17th century introduction of Catholicism impacted Chinese beliefs of retribution

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3268823/good-vs-evil-how-17th-century-introduction-catholicism-impacted-chinese-beliefs-retribution?utm_source=rss_feed

In 1669, the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) Emperor Kangxi (r. 1661-1722) made a radical decision and set the wheels in motion for Catholicism to be officially recognised and protected in China.

As the religion became newly acceptable across the mainland, it began to blend with the local beliefs already flourishing in China, specifically Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and local folk religions.

A study published in the Journal of Chinese Theology in June analysed the similarities and differences between the Chinese religions from the late Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and the early Qing era, specifically focused on the all-important question of how to approach retribution for acts of good and evil.

“With the arrival of Catholicism in China, missionaries and Chinese believers became involved in the issue [of retribution], partly to refute the anti-Catholic allegation of God’s nonexistence or injustice,” wrote the author Xiao Qinghe, an associate professor at Peking University in Beijing.

The core difference between Catholicism and the Chinese ideologies was the idea that evil deeds were ultimately forgiveable because the Christian God allowed people to ascend to heaven if they successfully repaired the damages created by their previous sins.

For example, an example of a Chinese belief came from Confucianism, the idea that people accumulated small “goods” and small “evils” throughout their lives, and much of life was about avoiding a “great evil” while working towards a “great good”.

“In other words, the cultivation of virtue has nothing to do with whether heaven or hell exists,” wrote Xiao.

Additionally, one Confucian belief was that future generations were responsible for resolving past mistakes. So, not only do the evils and goods of life accumulate over time, but they also affect the lives of descendants.

Anti-Catholics at the time argued that begging God for mercy deprived followers of the “joy of vivacity” and the “joy of being alive”. They became frustrated with the Catholic idea that redemption cannot be found outside of the church, seemingly leaving good non-believers in limbo.

The paper quoted Xu Dashu, an anti-Catholic leader, who argued: “If you are good in your whole life and do not flatter God, it is useless to be good; if you are evil in your whole life and flatter God in your whole life, all evil will be gone.”

Additionally, Xu expressed doubts about confession, arguing that it is simply a flattery of God, which proves that the person’s heart is not pure.

Buddhists at the time also had problems with confession, saying that their version of confession was meant for the people not to perform evil again.

“It does not mean the removal of sins, while in Catholicism, it means the removal of sins by praying to Jesus or the Virgin Mary, and then one would go to heaven,” wrote Xiao.

Centuries before the advent of Catholicism in China, Buddhists introduced the theory of karma into the country. In its simplest form, positive and negative retribution comes from the person themselves and not gods.

This belief came into conflict with the Catholic idea of original sin, in which humans inherit a taint brought upon humanity by Adam’s decision to eat the forbidden fruit and receive expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

To some Buddhist scholars at the time, the idea of original sin was unfair to humans, and they argued we are in control of our ability to develop good or bad karma.

The Buddhist ideas of karma also diverged from Catholic conceptions of heaven and hell.

While Catholics offer the reward of a physical location – heaven for a life well lived and hell for a sinful life – Buddhists believe that their version of heaven and hell are caused by karma. Heaven and hell are not external, they argue, but rather manifestations of our own consciousness based on how we live our lives.

Yang Guangxian (1597–1669), an anti-Catholic, went as far as to say the “Lord of Heaven” was a “villain who invites people to fawn over him”.

As for the Catholics, they brushed up against the idea that crimes or charities committed in our lifetime are passed to future descendants, whether through reincarnation (Buddism) or dynastic retribution (Confucianism).

Ferdinand Verbiest, one of the most important Chinese missionaries during the 17th century, argued that evils committed “in this world” should also be punished in this world.

Author Xiao wrote that Verbiest argued: “It is only when the retribution is dealt out in this life that it can promote the good and punish the evil.”

Finally, Verbiest argued that men could not judge good and evil and that without God’s judgment we would not be dissuaded from committing sins.

But while the religions had ideological disagreements, they also shared similarities.

Most importantly, while they disagreed about how retribution was dealt with, their concepts of good vs evil behaviour were broadly similar. For example, Catholicism and all the major Chinese ideologies view murder as a particularly egregious crime.

Additionally, Catholicism and the major Chinese ideologies all placed responsibility for behaviour at the individual’s feet. They believed in the intentionality of behaviour but simply diverged in how the consequences were dispensed.

The new ideas brought by Catholicism created an outside element that, Xiao wrote, eventually made the Chinese ideologies more dynamic while promoting dialogues between the Sino and Western religions.

“One of the most important influences was that the arrival of Catholicism in the late Ming Dynasty encouraged some scholars to think about the religious aspects of Confucianism in order to strengthen the role of Confucianism in moral education and cultivation,” Xiao wrote.

Can a new Chinese law on rural rights finally give women their promised land?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3269306/new-chinese-law-vows-improve-rural-rights-will-women-get-their-promised-land?utm_source=rss_feed

After years of struggle for rural women in China to own land, a new law is set to help clear the path for equal rights in land ownership.

On paper, Chinese land ownership is already equal, but in practice, women still struggle against legal loopholes, weak legal enforcement and outdated traditions.

That is what the “Rural Collective Economic Organisations Law” is expected to help fix. Passed last Friday, the law aims to give clearer details on membership rules for rural collectives, a crucial step towards more equitable land ownership for rural women.

It will take effect next May.

But while experts are pleased that the new law will help to clarify women’s rights as well as making it easier for them to access legal help, they have voiced concerns that it still contains some ambiguity that could lead to manipulation by rural authorities.

Rural land in China is collectively owned, but it is divided among families according to their size. The central government mandates that land use rights are leased to households for 15 years, with reallocations every 30 years.

Under the 1984 Household Responsibility System, land is registered in the name of the household head, usually the man, excluding women from owning or inheriting land.

When a woman “marries out” to another village, she takes her hukou – her household registration – with her, losing her portion of the land registered to her family, while also being excluded from future allocations in her home village. But, having missed the land allocation at her husband’s village, she risks not being recognised as a new member of the collective.

Despite the existing law explicitly stating that women’s rights to land are equal to those of men and cannot be infringed upon by marriage or divorce, male-dominated village assemblies, often run along traditional lines and operated as autonomous entities in China’s political system, frequently exclude “married-out”, divorced or remarried women and their children from the collective.

It is hoped the new law will plug the legal loophole, with multiple provisions aimed at protecting the rights of women in rural collectives, according to experts.

In particular, Article 12 of the new law removes a slew of conditions that previously had to be met when evaluating membership. These included considerations such as historical context, practical realities, procedural fairness and public recognition.

“The original standards are unclear and unfair to women, with too many conditions,” said Lin Lixia from Qianqian Law Firm in Beijing, which specialises in advocacy for women’s rights.

“For example, ‘respecting history’ means it’s unnecessary to solve the issue as it has always been done this way. ‘Gaining public recognition’ requires majority agreement, which is difficult to achieve. How can it be possible when there’s a conflict between the interests of the minority [‘married-out’ women and their children] and the majority [male members]?” Lin said.

Article 12 also specifies the circumstances under which newly married individuals and newborns should obtain membership in a rural collective economic organisation, ensuring that women who move to their husband’s hometown after marriage can obtain legal membership, and also providing legal protection for children. Previously, babies born to “married out” women were often excluded from collectives.

“This is indeed a significant step forward,” said Lin, who has been tracking the issue of “married-out” women losing their land rights since 2004. A large number of affected rural children in provinces like Guangxi, Shandong and Zhejiang have lost their rights to land.

And without these rights, women and their children cannot build houses in their own names. Or if their family’s land is taken for development projects, they often do not get their fair share of the compensation, according to Lin.

In over 20 years, Lin’s law firm has handled more than 3,000 cases involving women fighting for their land rights. But chances of success have been slim, with 90 per cent of those cases either unsuccessful or dismissed.

To give better protection, the new law has also introduced procedural safeguards, said Peter Chan, an associate law professor at Hong Kong’s City University.

“Residents who disagree with the membership confirmation decision may resort to mediation, arbitration or litigation to enforce their rights,” he said. “It also authorises the procuratorate [prosecutor’s office] to issue procuratorial recommendations or bring public interest litigation against the collective economic organisation.”

It is this ability for prosecutors’ offices to file public interest lawsuits to protect women’s rights that will make it easier for women to access the legal system without having to take individual legal action. Previously, women had to launch litigation, arbitration or seek administrative mediation on their own.

But, despite such breakthroughs, there were still loopholes in the law that needed to be addressed, experts noted.

Some articles remain unclear and open to interpretation, which require further clarification through judicial interpretations, according to Huina Xiao, an assistant professor from the department of law and business at Hong Kong Shue Yan University.

“As the new law still leaves the decision-making power in the hands of the collective economic organisation, the risk of manipulation of the confirmation process by the CEO remains,” she said.

Lin agreed, arguing that the current system where village assemblies were the primary authority for determining membership was flawed.

“We have seen many cases where villagers are not familiar with the law and prefer to prioritise collective interests over individual rights,” she said. “Even when the court makes a decision [favouring women], it is often not enforced, as some local judges also prioritise social stability over the rule of law.”

She urged that the Supreme Court should issue judicial interpretations on the definition of membership, and called upon local governments and courts to strictly enforce the new law.

Zhang Yongchao, a lecturer from the Nanjing Agricultural University who researches rural land rights, also noted that the law did not specify the details of land distribution, including how assets would be divided among members in the event of a male member’s death, leaving only the new wife with the right to inherit and enjoy the collective benefits.

It also did not define the specific proportion of shares or the amount of money each member would receive, he said, leaving the question to village assemblies – which varied wildly across regions.

“Some village heads maintain an authoritarian image, infringing on the villagers’ land rights and lacking [legal] awareness,” he said.

“The law can only provide a framework for stating how rights will be protected and maintained, but concrete measures require practical organisational forms to be developed. This is part of the institutional reform process.”

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How famous Chinese folktale ‘Legend of the White Snake’ portrayed women negatively for centuries in China

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/gender-diversity/article/3268922/how-famous-chinese-folktale-legend-white-snake-portrayed-women-negatively-centuries-china?utm_source=rss_feed

Among the thousands of folktales that have graced Chinese history over the millennia, a handful, dubbed “the four great folktales” stand apart as having significant cultural importance.

One of them, The Legend of the White Snake, tells the story of a man, Xu Xian, who falls in love with a female snake spirit, Bai Suzhen.

According to a paper published in June by Dean and Francis Press, the tale has been used throughout the centuries to reinforce negative stereotypes about women.

“In China’s feudal society, capable women — the White Snake — were seen as negative images. Although their human nature continued to strengthen, they still could not escape the oppression of patriarchal society, which fully symbolised the low status and lack of discourse power of Chinese women in traditional society,” wrote Tang Meng, the author.

The earliest versions of the folktale often depict women as treacherous, even homicidal. While newer tellings of The Legend of the White Snake have softened the characters, the plot always ends with the female snake imprisoned inside a pagoda for decades or centuries.

The folktale first emerged during the Tang dynasty (618-907), and various forms of the legend were told for centuries until Emperor Qianlong (r.1735-1796) finalised an official version during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).

In an early version from the 9th century, a man (by a different name) has sex with a woman before becoming ill and transforming into water. His family later tracks the woman down and discovers she is a white snake.

This tale came during a major development in feudal China during the middle centuries, when women emerged “on the surface of history.” In other words, according to Tang, they became noticed for the first time in official history.

Later, during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), another version of the folktale featured a man who met three generations of women and fell in love with the mother, who happens to have killed all of her previous suitors. A Taoist exorcist then performs on the women, and the mother turns into a white snake(her daughter transforms into a chicken and the grandmother an otter). The three women are imprisoned in stone pagodas.

The popularity of the Legend of the White Snake grew during the Qing dynasty when the story became widely performed at Chinese operas, elevating it to the status of a “powerful cultural presence”.

As the story begins to solidify, Xu Xian, the husband, evolves as a character and, by the end of the story, no longer cares that his wife is a snake. However, the White Snake is still considered a threat by an abbot named Fahai, who imprisoned the woman in a pagoda for centuries.

The Tang-era and Ming dynasty versions of The Legend of the White Snake present female sexuality as a threat to men. Although other versions of the tale present the White Snake as more sympathetic, they inevitably result in the same conclusion: the woman poses a threat to men, which ends in her imprisonment.

“Even if she is kind-hearted, she should still be seen as a curse, let alone a companion to humanity. This concept is a requirement of Confucian tradition for women to have a gentle personality and a good family background, with the meaning of oppressing women,” wrote Meng Teng, the author of the Dean and Francis Press paper.

The Chinese operas also solidified the presence of a secondary character: the Green Snake. She is the best friend of the White Snake, and they transform into humans together.

She typically plays a supporting role in the tale, but a more modern interpretation of the story brings the Green Snake to the fore.

The 1993 Hong Kong film The Green Snake, based on the Lilian Lee novel of the same name, centres the mischievous best friend who interferes with the relationship between Xu Xian and the White Snake.

In the film, the Green Snake was played by Maggie Cheung Man-yuk, a retired Hong Kong actress. Taiwan actress Joey Wong Cho-yee played the White Snake.

The movie grossed US$77.4 million at the box office.

Yuhan Chen, while at Fudan University in China, wrote in a paper published in 2022 for Atlantis Press that the film stands apart from tradition for its homoerotic portrayal of the two female leads.

“By accentuating the emotional entanglement among the White Snake, Xu Xian, the Green Snake, and abbot Fahai, the film discusses questions like, what is human nature? What are love and lust? And do humans really have love?” she wrote.

However, she added that, as the White Snake has been softened throughout the centuries due to the popularity of the folktale, the Green Snake “carries on the nature of the aggressive snake, which is unrestrained and has dichotomous attitudes towards love and hatred.”

Besides The Legend of the White Snake the other three great Chinese folktales are Lady Meng Jiang, Butterfly Lovers, and The Cowherd and the Weaving Maid.

University in China brews up a caffeine hit with country’s first coffee science major

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3269250/university-china-brews-caffeine-hit-countrys-first-coffee-science-major?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s first university major in coffee is now accepting students following its approval by the education ministry in March.

Yunnan Agricultural University’s College of Tropical Crops is offering the new four-year undergraduate degree in coffee science and engineering, with students set to earn a degree in engineering.

Applicants should have “solid basic knowledge of natural sciences, and basic theories and skills in the field of coffee science and engineering”, according to the university.

A course outline on the university website said the major would cover such subjects as coffee flavour chemistry, processing, quality and safety testing, factory design and environmental protection, world coffee trade, engineering principles, and nutrition and health.

It was the “the first major in the country to offer undergraduate coffee professional talent training”, the university said.

China is the 13th largest coffee producer in the world, though it accounts for only 1.1 per cent of global production, or around 1.8 million 60kg (132lb) bags of coffee a year, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Around 98 per cent of that coffee is grown in Yunnan province, Chinese-language news site Science Times reported last week.

Yunnan has become China’s main coffee-growing base as its climate resembles that of Ethiopia, known as the birthplace of the bean, the report said.

In 2022, Yunnan had a total coffee cultivation area of 84,600 hectares (209,000 acres), and its annual output of 114,000 tonnes of raw coffee beans is valued at 41.8 billion yuan (US$5.7 billion), according to state news agency Xinhua.

Yang Xuehu, dean of the College of Tropical Crops, told Science Times that although the northern hemisphere accounted for much of the world’s coffee companies and consumption, most of the production took place in the southern hemisphere.

“Why was the world’s first coffee major not born in these [southern] places? One of the biggest reasons is that research and development is separated from planting,” Yang said.

Liao Xiugui, a boutique coffee farmer in Yunnan, said the biggest drawback for farmers hoping to expand production was a lack of talent and technology, according to Science Times.

“Only through the professional intervention of education in colleges and universities and the continuous strengthening of the quality training of new coffee farmers can their planting, management, harvesting, processing [and other aspects improve],” Liao said.

As part of the degree, students will learn techniques like how decaffeinated coffee is made – a process that relies on chemistry, as green coffee beans are soaked in solvents to remove the caffeine.

While an undergraduate degree in coffee science is something new, China is not the only country offering specialised coffee-related higher education.

In Switzerland, the Zurich University of Applied Sciences offers a certificate of advanced studies in coffee excellence which incorporates the science of coffee into its curriculum.

In the United States, the University of California, Davis opened the country’s first coffee research centre in May. The institution already offered elective courses in coffee, although it does not have a dedicated coffee major.

William Ristenpart, a professor of chemical engineering at UC Davis and the founding director of the UC Davis Coffee Centre, said in a university video that despite coffee being “extraordinarily complex”, it had not been the subject of a lot of academic research.

Ristenpart said that in the last decade or so, researchers had begun thinking about chemical engineering in the context of coffee, which is what they hoped to study at UC Davis.

Meanwhile, Yang said that Yunnan Agricultural University hoped to open up the coffee science and engineering programme to global internships and exchanges.

China ‘genius girl’ Guo Wenjing, Harvard graduate, co-founder of tech firm backed by US$135 million funding

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3268811/china-genius-girl-guo-wenjing-harvard-graduate-co-founder-tech-firm-backed-us135-million-funding?utm_source=rss_feed

A talented young entrepreneur born in eastern China who now lives in Silicon Valley has captivated public attention in China after her startup, Pika, which secured US$135 million in funding, valuing the company at US$470 million.

Guo Wenjing is beautiful and boasts a remarkable family background, earning her the nickname Demi Guo. She has also been compared to Chinese-American skiing champion, Eileen Gu.

The Post guides you through her remarkable journey.

Guo is a Chinese-American originally from Hangzhou, the capital city of eastern China’s Zhejiang province. She is seen as a “role model” among Chinese parents because of her “flawless” resume.

Guo won a silver medal in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) in 2015 and was later admitted to Harvard University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and later a master’s in computer science.

During her time at the prestigious Ivy League university, she also interned at top tech companies such as Microsoft and Google.

Later, Guo continued her education by pursuing a PhD in computer science at Stanford University, working on the intersection of Natural language processing and graphics.

Reflecting on her own choices, Guo said: “When I was young, I was good at writing and won many awards, but I wasn’t very good at maths. I thought being good at writing wasn’t cool enough, and since programming and maths were male-dominated fields, excelling in maths felt more challenging.”

“Whether it’s Harvard, MIT, or Stanford, it’s not that important. What matters is your personal growth.”

Guo’s mother is an MIT graduate, and her father, Guo Huaqiang, is a former chairman of the Hangzhou-based IT services company Sunyard Technology.

The idea for Pika originated from her experience at the 2022 “AI Film Festival” hosted in New York City, where Guo and several Stanford computer science PhD classmates participated but failed to win.

Their frustration with existing video tools led them to develop a superior AI video generation tool.

In April last year, Guo decided to drop out of Stanford and, together with Chenlin Meng, a fellow Stanford PhD student, co-founded Pika, focusing on developing easy-to-use AI video generators.

“If you compare AI-generated videos from last year with those generated this March and those from the past one or two months, you’ll see that video-generation models are developing really fast,” Guo said in an interview with Chinese media outlet Overseas Unicorn, detailing the main reason she decided to leave school.

Since its launch, Pika has grown rapidly, and has raised US$135 million at a market valuation of US$470 million.

Notably, the launch of the Pika 1.0 version not only propelled Guo into the business spotlight but also caused Sunyard Technology’s share price to rise by over 20 per cent in one week, earning it the nickname “daughter concept stock”.

Many people hearing about Guo’s story are particularly drawn to this “Silicon Valley narrative” of innovative founders launching successful startups.

One person commented: “Beautiful looks, genius, combined with a ‘remarkable family background’ and a ‘valuation of 3 billion yuan,’ these descriptions are all eye-catching and exemplify the seemingly impossible ‘perfect triangle’ of beauty, wealth, and talent.”

Another person quipped: “My reincarnation skills are lacking. Please give me this life script in my next life.”

However, there is also a prevailing sentiment of fatigue over such “elite narratives” and the “god-making” through storytelling.

“She might be a tech version of Eileen Gu, but she’s a bit out of reach for ordinary folks,” one person remarked.

“As the daughter of Sunyard’s boss, her starting point is different. If she had started from scratch without any background, then she would be a true genius. We recognise her excellence, but we should not overpraise it,” wrote someone else.

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Australia’s ‘Chinaman’ place names spark racism debate, calls for change

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3269365/australias-chinaman-place-names-spark-racism-debate-calls-change?utm_source=rss_feed

Australia has more place names that contain the racial slur “Chinaman” than any other country with significant Asian migration, new research reveals, with Australians from all walks of life saying it makes them uncomfortable and normalises discrimination.

There are 253 place names containing the words “Chinaman” or “Chinamen” in Australia, think tank Per Capita found, far outnumbering other nations with a “similar history of anti-Chinese legislation and exclusion”.

Laurie Pearcey, an Australian executive at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said names of places like Chinamans Beach in the affluent Sydney suburb of Mosman reinforced racist behaviours among children and adults.

“I remember playground taunting of Asian children with cries of ‘ching-chong Chinaman’ while other kids would stand there pulling their eyes to one side and making themselves bucktoothed,” he said.

“They were literally turning themselves into caricatures of Chinese people, which appeared far too often in pre-federation Australian newspapers.”

One infamous cartoon from the period predating the federation of Australia in 1901 was The Mongolian Octopus published by Sydney-based magazine The Bulletin in 1886 alongside xenophobic articles about Chinese arrivals. It depicted a Chinese man’s head with narrow eyes and buck teeth attached to octopus tentacles grasping at representations of typhoid, cheap labour and immorality, among others.

Osmond Chiu, a research fellow at Per Capita, said the tally of racially charged names in Australia would have been even higher if road and track names had been included in the count.

New Zealand’s official gazette showed there were 13 places with the word “Chinaman” or “Chinamen” in their names, Chiu said. In the United States, there were 21 – while in Canada, there was only one.

Unlike Australia, these countries have had “explicit discussions” about changing the names of these locations, he said.

“It is jarring how these place names are used as if there is nothing wrong with it. We would never name a place or even refer to someone as a ‘Chinaman’ today, which speaks volumes about the term.”

Mosman’s municipal council says Chinamans Beach got its name from the Chinese market gardens established there during the late 19th century, while historians like the University of Sydney’s Sophie Loy-Wilson say it could have been named after Chinese anglers who fished nearby.

Either way, they hark back to the waves of Chinese migration during the 1800s gold rush that later fuelled anti-Asian sentiments. In response, the White Australia policy was implemented in 1901 to curb Chinese migration, before ultimately being abolished in 1966.

Back then, Australia viewed non-white groups as “less advanced than white people in all ways, especially morally and intellectually”, according to The National Museum of Australia’s online article about the White Australia policy.

This painful history is what bothers Melbourne-based Asian-Australian writer Mabel Kwong.

‘[Chinaman] is similar to the word ‘chink’, that is often regarded as a racial slur. I’ve had Anglo-white Australian strangers approach me in the street and yelled ‘chink’ in my face in spiteful tones,” she said.

“Hearing and seeing the term in local places reminds me how the Chinese were not always welcomed in Australia. It belittles what it means to be Chinese, and [suggests] that you are ‘beneath’ others if you’re Chinese.”

At the same time, the offensiveness of the word can depend on the surrounding context in which it is used.

“There are cultural nuances at play when it comes to using ‘Chinaman’,” Kwong said, adding that ethnic Chinese family and friends from Singapore and Malaysia also referred to Chinese people from China as “Chinaman” without malice.

The terms “Chinaman” and “Chinamen” emerged as derogatory racial slurs in Australia during the 1800s, primarily in news publications coinciding with the country’s gold rush, according to a 2017 paper by Jimmy Feng, a geographer at the State University of New York College.

The use of these words in newspapers peaked in the 1850s, when the first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived, and again in the 1880s, as “a white Australian nationalistic pride” was on the rise.

“Anti-Chinese sentiment in print peaked … in a period of fierce economic competition and perceived ‘otherness’ of the Chinese,” Feng wrote.

“Analysing news items of decades past admittedly offers only one perspective, but there was, without question, bias against the Chinese by the white Australian press.”

The paper further found that while xenophobia was no longer as explicit today, “fragments of the ideology stemming from white nationalist policies established in the past continue to linger”.

In recent years, racism towards Asian-Australians surfaced during the Covid-19 pandemic, with many reporting being spat on, verbally abused and beaten.

Persistent racist ideologies that have endured since the derogatory terms “Chinaman” and “Chinamen” first arose in Australia’s colonial past could make having discussions about their removal from place names difficult, according to Helena Liu, associate professor of management at Bond Business School.

White supremacy remains pernicious in Australia, where racial difference is only tolerated and “multiculturalism” often serves as a mere cover against addressing deep-seated racism, according to “Precarious Multiculturalism: The Racialised Experience of Asian In/Exclusion in Australia”, a joint research paper Liu published in February with Kyoung-Hee Yu and Chris F. Wright.

“I do believe colonial and white supremacist legacies have a persistent hold in Australia because we, in general, struggle to admit to our racism,” Liu told This Week in Asia.

“Not admitting to racism makes it impossible to be accountable to racism, and thus change has been slow. Grassroots and policy changes to promote multicultural inclusion have often been met with backlash and for every two steps forward, we take one step back.”

Liu’s observations coincided with recent right-wing criticisms of political commentator Laura Tingle’s characterisation of Australia as a “racist country”.

According to Liu, the roots of anti-Asian prejudice continue to run deep in Australia, though they now manifest in less overt forms compared to the 19th century.

“White Australian leaders across business, labour, political, and religious spheres characterised Asians as slavish indentured servants,” Liu, Yu and Wright wrote in their paper. “Asian migrants were also seen as contaminated as they were dependent on carrying out dirty, dangerous, and difficult work”.

While such overtly prejudiced attitudes may not be openly expressed any more, discrimination against Asian-Australians persists in more subtle forms such as their exclusion from business and political leadership positions, Liu said.

Anti-Asian immigration rhetoric by Australian politicians such as Pauline Hanson, a Queensland senator and leader of the right-wing One Nation party, has fortified negative public views with phrases like “swamped by Asians”, which she used in her maiden speech to parliament in 1996.

But the “yellow peril” trope is not limited to Australia, according to Dr Leung Wing-Fai, a sinologist who specialises in culture and the media at King’s College London.

The focus on the “danger and deviance” of Asian people was especially pronounced during the pandemic, whether manifested through caricatures or news reporting, she said.

Pierre Yang, a Chinese-Australian lawyer and politician, called last year for 26 places in Western Australia with the “racist and derogatory” term Chinaman to be renamed.

Writer Kwong agreed that renaming these sites after people would be more meaningful, as it could help acknowledge the “individual stories” of different Chinese- and Asian-Australians, rather than perpetuating a broad, reductive label.

“While many among the Chinese diaspora share cultural similarities, each Chinese person is also an individual person. Not every Chinese person is from China or has lived in China,” she said.

The existence of Chinese gardens and fishermen in 19th century Australia, which may have led to the “Chinaman” naming convention, showed Chinese immigrants were agriculturalists who knew how to work the harsh land and provide food, including to white Australians, said historian Loy-Wilson.

These Chinese pioneers had a permanent connection to Australia and were integral to the country’s early development and survival, she said.

Pearcey suggested that, at the very least, there should be explanatory signage or commentary at these places to provide historical and social context around the use of the term “Chinaman”.

“Australia’s politicians are fond of saying the nation is the most successful multicultural country in the world,” he said.

“While in many respects this is true, this only works if the nation is upfront about its less than celebrated record of state-backed racism and widespread social fearmongering against Australia’s Asian neighbours.”

China and Japan need ‘frank’ talks to find common ground, Tokyo’s envoy tells security forum

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3269456/china-and-japan-need-frank-talks-find-common-ground-tokyos-envoy-tells-security-forum?utm_source=rss_feed

China and Japan should increase “frank” communications, Tokyo’s top envoy to Beijing said on Saturday, as the two Asian neighbours grapple with disputes ranging from the East China Sea to Japan’s alignment with the US.

“Japan and the US are allies and our relationship is very close, but in reality, there are many, many negotiations under the table,” Kenji Kanasugi, Japanese ambassador to China, said during a panel discussion at the World Peace Forum in Beijing on Saturday.

“I once worked in Tokyo to coordinate economic matters with the US, and Japan and the US are not the same, and the interests of Japan and the US are not the same, so there are many differences under the table that need to be managed by different departments, and we manage the difference well,” Kanasugi said through translators at the event organised by Tsinghua University.

“The same is true for Japan and China, that we should have a frank dialogue to find common ground.”

With ties already complicated by wartime history and territorial disputes in the East China Sea, relations between the two countries have come under added strain on a range of fronts in the past year.

China is Japan’s biggest trading partner and the economy was once seen as a potential driver for better political ties. But last year, trade between China and Japan dropped 10.7 per cent compared to a year earlier, with bilateral investment growth also slowing.

In addition, Beijing banned imports of Japanese seafood in August following the release of treated water from the devastated Fukushima nuclear plant, dealing another blow to trade.

On the diplomatic front, Beijing was riled in April when US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to strengthen security ties, with pledges to “maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”.

A month later, Japan’s lawmakers enacted legislation to establish a “security clearance” system designed to prevent leaks of classified economic information – a move made with China in mind.

On Saturday, Kanasugi, who assumed the office in January, said ties between China and Japan should not be confined to security matters.

Exchanges between the two peoples and local governments could play a role to stabilise ties, he added.

“As we all know, government-to-government relations are sometimes in a very difficult state, and there could be a lot of fluctuations in government-to-government relations between Japan and China, but cooperation between local governments and exchanges between the two peoples could make an influence and improve bilateral ties.”

Kanasugi also tried to ease concerns about the safety of Japanese nationals in China, following a knife attack against a Japanese woman and her child at a bus stop in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, earlier this month. A Chinese woman was stabbed trying to protect the pair and died later in hospital.

He said preliminary investigations showed that the case was a random attack.

“We are still investigating why such a case occurred and are looking into the reasons for it,” he said.

“At this point, we feel that this is a very random incident and not a case against Japan, so we would also like to have more evidence to explain this to the domestic audience in Japan.”

He also urged Beijing to resume a visa-free policy for Japanese nationals that was suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic. Similar schemes have been resumed for people from Singapore and Brunei.

Cheng Yonghua, the Chinese ambassador to Japan between 2010 and 2019, agreed that the two governments should “work together” to encourage people-to-people exchanges.

“I don’t think that this is a big issue and that it can be resolved gradually by enhancing dialogue at the political level,” Cheng said when asked what was blocking the resumption of Beijing’s visa-free programme with Japan.

“If both sides show some sincerity and goodwill, this issue can be resolved.”

[Sport] Fake police scammers convinced me I was on China's 'most wanted' list

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6p2lq0qk41o

BBC

New South Wales Police

In China, jobseekers with chronic illness start to stand up against discrimination

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3267764/china-jobseekers-chronic-illness-start-stand-against-discrimination?utm_source=rss_feed

Amid China’s economic struggles, joblessness is major a headache for Beijing. In this eight-part series, we examine the range of unemployment issues facing the world’s second-largest economy, from young people to “the curse of 35”, as well as gig workers and political implications. Here, Xinlu Liang investigates how how health-based employment rules affect candidates.

In June 2023, when Liang Lunuan passed both the written and oral tests with the top score at China’s Xiamen Hospital of traditional Chinese medicine, the 27-year-old thought she would land her dream job as a TCM doctor in the facility’s cancer department.

But her hopes evaporated after she was stuck at the final hurdle: her pre-employment physical examination flagged Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT), a chronic autoimmune disease.

Her condition is not disabling and does not warrant special intervention but the hospital deemed Liang unfit for the job because she did not meet required health standards for public servants.

“It was really shocking and I couldn’t understand why it was a barrier,” Liang said. “As a doctor who has spent nearly 10 years in undergraduate and graduate studies, I found out that I was rejected from the medical profession due to a disease that does not affect my work and daily life. This is a devastating blow. I feel that I am being deprived of my right to survive and make a living.”

Liang is far from alone. Amid a bleak outlook and intense competition in China’s job market, many jobseekers have been turned down, not because of ability or performance, but after physical exams exposed chronic conditions – such as HT, polycystic kidney disease and high blood pressure, according to numerous posts shared on multiple social media platforms, and court documents obtained by the South China Morning Post.

These health checks are part of standards set for public servants established in 2004 and revised in 2016 to ensure a capable workforce by excluding workers with certain medical conditions. They have also been adopted by many other industries – from education to finance – effectively broadening employment discrimination, which legal and medical experts say needs urgent review to ensure a non-discriminatory working environment.

The standards say HT is an autoimmune disease often accompanied by other autoimmune diseases, and that is “more common in middle-aged and elderly people, rare in young individuals”. But the prevalence has risen in recent years, affecting about 1 per cent of the population.

A Beijing-based thyroid doctor said that while HT was prevalent it did not significantly affect lifestyle, and most people could manage it with routine medication. A Guangzhou-based thyroid specialist added that early-stage HT was often mild and asymptomatic, and it would be a “pity” for job applicants if they were disqualified on the basis of the condition.

As a top medical student and person with HT, Liang learned a lot about the disease and her condition through multiple health checks and her training, which included a seven-year integrated bachelor’s and master’s programme followed by two years of residency training at a top-tier hospital in Guangzhou.

But when she negotiated with the human resources department at Xiamen Hospital of TCM she was told, “they were aware of the nature of the disease, which won’t affect normal life and work, but they had to follow the policy. They only executed according to the policy and couldn’t go beyond it.”

A 27-year-old master’s graduate surnamed Wang came up against a similar wall of discrimination. He said that after he was turned down for a teaching position because of polycystic kidney disease, a genetic disorder that affects the kidneys, he lost the passion for his career.

“Graduation means unemployment, and I felt like I was being sentenced to prison at an age when I should be shining and radiant. All I want to say is, is it really the disease that’s affecting me, or is it the rule?”

Chinese authorities have recognised the problems with such rules before.

In 2007, China passed a law prohibiting employment discrimination against carriers of contagious diseases and in 2010 it officially banned testing for hepatitis B virus (HBV), previously a source of discrimination for people with the disease. Since then, all local governments have removed civil service requirements that discriminate against HBV-positive individuals.

According to the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), by 2020 the estimated number of HBV carriers in China was around 93 million, or about 7 per cent of the population. While patients may still be discriminated against in the job market because of weak law enforcement and stigma, the disease is no longer tested in pre-employment health checks.

Li Zhongxia, a law professor from the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL), sees the removal of HBV testing as “a huge step forwards in the rule of law, and in the protection of basic constitutional rights”.

Li was among the participants at a forum in April organised by the university to discuss the legitimacy of physical exams in the recruitment of public servants, with many experts calling for the standards to be brought up to date with progress in medicine and technology.

From a constitutional law perspective, the existing regulations might be too broad and restrictively interpretive, he said, and a more nuanced approach was needed to balance individual rights with the public interest. For example, conditions such as high blood pressure, insomnia and being HIV-positive are on the disqualification list but might not necessarily mean someone cannot become a public servant, Li said.

Xu Guogang, from the People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, suggested at the forum that the standards must be updated regularly to keep pace with advances in medicine and technology.

“[The standards should] focus on the actual impact of a disease on work ability rather than just its existence,” Xu said, adding that some infectious diseases might require strict control, while it should be considered that others could be managed by treatment.

Zhang Baoyan, a former deputy to the National People’s Congress, China’s highest legislative body, proposed in 2021 and 2022 the standards be revised, but she has not yet seen any progress.

In various media interviews, she has argued that more than 50 types of disease are listed as disqualifying for employment. Even though many of them do not affect normal life and work, they prevent potential students and professionals from pursuing chosen careers.

According to Chinese media reports, in 2019 a 30-year-old man with high blood pressure was rejected by the Guangzhou municipal public works bureau because it was determined his health issues might affect his ability to work long hours. In 2020, a 28-year-old woman with epilepsy was rejected by the Henan provincial Health Commission because she had a history of seizures.

Lawyer Zhang Xiaoli, representing a client with HT who lost a social worker job offer last year, said the hope was for change soon.

“The unreasonable standards should be adjusted. Specifically, chronic diseases that do not affect normal job performance, such as HT and polycystic kidney disease, should be removed from the unqualified category,” Zhang said.

In China, being a civil servant has traditionally been considered a prestigious and secure career path. Civil service jobs come with numerous benefits, such as job security, social welfare, housing subsidies, holidays, and medical insurance – benefits that are not common in the private sector.

Amid the economic downturn, even more people are pursuing civil service careers. According to state news agency Xinhua, more than 1.7 million people applied for the 2024 civil service exam, a 22,000 increase from last year. However, only around 39,600 will be selected.

In China, public servants are those working in government branches at different levels, while other public sector employees, such as teachers and researchers, are not categorised as public servants. Due to a lack of specific regulation for other sectors, however, it has become a common practice for various industries to refer to the public servant physical examination standards.

A university graduate in Chongqing wrote on Xiaohongshu that her job offer at a tech giant was revoked after she reported her HT diagnosis to the human resources department. She wondered on her post why the standard would affect a private enterprise.

“The standard seems to have become a template for all industries and occupations,” another university graduate said in a court submission after being rejected twice in both public and private education sectors. “As for us who have unintentionally contracted chronic diseases that do not affect our work, who have spent decades studying only to find no opportunities to shine, our job prospects are severely restricted.”

Zhang said a client surnamed Zhou lost a social worker job offer in Jiangsu province after failing the physical exam due to her HT diagnosis and sued the bureau for applying public servant standards to a non-public servant job. The client lost.

The court ruled that by registering for the examination, the applicant was deemed to have accepted the recruitment requirements and agreed to have a physical exam according to the standards for public servants as listed in the recruitment ad, Zhang said.

The status of the job was key for TCM doctor Liang who argued that the position she applied for did not count as “public servant” in China, and that her medical condition was stable without affecting her job performance. She sued the hospital for job discrimination but lost the appeal in March.

“I think it’s still very unreasonable. They only fulfilled their obligation to inform [in the ads], but they didn’t realise that their actual behaviour has already infringed upon our employment rights,” Liang said.

This pattern and rationale are not uncommon in other similar verdicts, according to Chen Bi, an associate professor of criminal law at CUPL, who told the university’s forum in April that all cases were administrative review and litigation cases, with none finding fault in the process.

However, CUPL law professor Cheng Xiezhong pointed out that the physical exam standards were not compulsory national standards but regulatory documents with limited binding force. He suggested that in administrative review and litigation, the reviewing agency or court should review how lawful the examination standards were and their relevance to job requirements.

“In most cases, there is no strong correlation between a civil servant’s physical condition and their ability to perform their job’s duties. Except for certain positions that require special physical abilities, it is not justified to use a person’s health status as a criterion for recruitment,” Cheng told the forum.

Lawyer Zhang hopes that physical examination standards for public servants will no longer be used for non-public servant positions to ensure there are more job opportunities for people with chronic diseases.

“Otherwise, a large group of people with chronic diseases will not only be excluded from public service positions but also from job opportunities in other public institutions and large [private] enterprises,” Zhang said.

Liang finally found another position in a private hospital in Xiamen which, while also using public service health standards as a reference, assessed candidates based on actual job requirements rather than strictly adhering to the guidelines – a result she said was lucky but rare because “so many other patients are still affected by the rules”.