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• [Sport] Peaty questions China relay win amid doping row
• China-led team caught ray produced by the biggest explosion since the Big Bang
• China-US flights struggle to fill seats amid high prices, visa issues and cheaper stopovers
• Southeast Asia must factor Big Tech firms into its US-China calculus
• Xi Jinping’s letter to Hong Kong entrepreneurs ‘is wider call to support China’s development’
• Is China’s Monkey King set for global game glory, despite cultural differences?
• How an early Chinese-American fishing village fuelled shark fin trade before being burned to ground
• Hong Kong’s health diplomacy could debunk idea of China turning inward
• Philippines looks to diversify project funding beyond China amid maritime row
• Chinese man, 24, becomes rugged ‘uncle’ after 5-month hike, tough break-up and depression
• China’s new ambassador to Germany faces ties tested by spying accusations
• China looks for new ways to boost spending on services, from senior care to tourism
• Women in China spread secret, female-only language nushu – it’s a bond of sisterhood
• China’s drills with Tanzania and Mozambique show ‘blended approach’ to military diplomacy
• Hong Kong can not only survive, but thrive in the US-China rivalry
• Philippines’ military upgrade gets boost from US$500 million aid amid South China Sea row
• China woman hires delivery man to climb mountain, destroy ‘love lock’ of cheating ex
• Does a deal over 2 fishermen mean Taiwan and mainland China are ready to restart talks?
• India cannot afford to lose plot while chasing Chinese investment
• Can China balance climate and energy concerns as it endures more extreme weather?

[Sport] Peaty questions China relay win amid doping row

https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/articles/cxx226nlgrwo

China-led team caught ray produced by the biggest explosion since the Big Bang

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3272767/china-led-team-caught-ray-produced-biggest-explosion-big-bang?utm_source=rss_feed

In the wake of what might have been the biggest cosmic explosion since the Big Bang, matter and antimatter collided at nearly the speed of light, annihilating each other and releasing their energy back into the universe, a new study from China has suggested.

By analysing data from Chinese and US space telescopes, a team led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) identified a spectral line with energy levels peaking at 37 million electron volts (MeV) during an exceptionally powerful gamma-ray burst, now known as the Brightest Of All Time, or BOAT.

As the BOAT comprised various high-energy particles, including electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons, it is likely these particles underwent annihilation, released gamma-ray photons and led to the observed spectral line, they reported in the journal, Science China: Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy, last week.

“Our findings have important and unique value for studying the physical properties and production mechanisms of gamma-ray bursts,” Xiong Shaolin, the paper’s lead author from the Institute of High Energy Physics, told Chinese media on June 26.

The 37 MeV line energy is “the highest detected from any gamma-ray bursts – and any object – so far,” said Bing Zhang from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who is not involved in the research.

It means that the gamma-ray burst ejecta was moving at least 99.98 per cent the speed of light, he told the South China Morning Post on Tuesday.

Scientists now know that the BOAT was caused by the death of a massive star in the direction of the constellation Sagitta more than two billion years ago. The star ran out of fuel and collapsed into a black hole, spewing out a pair of jets into space.

When one of the jets reached Earth in October 2022, it was first spotted by a number of space telescopes, including Nasa’s Fermi Space Telescope and China’s GECAM-C (Gravitational Wave High-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor).

In fact, the burst was so bright that it blinded the detectors of some telescopes and left them with completely white pixels, astronomers found later.

Thanks to GECAM-C’s design and a special operational mode setting, it managed to record high-resolution, unsaturated data, and provide a uniquely accurate measurement of this once-in-10,000-years event, according to the Chinese team.

Last year, a team from Italy first discovered a gamma-ray spectral line from the Fermi data, with a starting time about five minutes after the detection of the burst, and an initial energy of about 12 MeV which decreased with time, Zhang said.

The GECAM team processed the Fermi data independently, and jointly analysed it with the GECAM-C data. This allowed the researchers not only to confirm the line in the time range claimed by the Italian team, but also to recover a line at an earlier time (four minutes after the detection) and a higher energy at 37 MeV, he said.

“The combined analysis allowed the Chinese team to recover the line emission with a higher significance over a wider range of timescale,” Zhang said.

While China’s Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory on the Tibetan Plateau had recorded gamma ray photons as energetic as more than 10 tera-electron volts, individual photons are different from a spectral line, Zhang explained.

“A line needs to accumulate a large enough number of photons around a particular energy, such as mostly around 37 MeV. Photons above or below the energy are not as impressive because they are easier to make with known radiation mechanisms,” he said.

Notably, only specific mechanisms can make photons at a particular energy, Zhang said. In this case, the line identified by both teams was caused by the annihilation of electron and positron pairs, a process which is supposed to produce 0.511 MeV lines.

Therefore, the measured 37 MeV line can help scientists to measure the so-called Doppler effect, or the change in the wavelength of light that occurs when an object is moving towards or away from the observer.

A Doppler factor of 72 (37/0.511) means that the gamma-ray burst ejecta was moving at least 99.98 per cent the speed of light towards Earth, Zhang said.

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China-US flights struggle to fill seats amid high prices, visa issues and cheaper stopovers

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3272980/china-us-flights-struggle-fill-seats-amid-high-prices-visa-issues-and-cheaper-stopovers?utm_source=rss_feed

Direct flights between China and the United States are outpacing market demand despite cautious and incremental moves to restore the routes to pre-Covid levels.

Planes are flying without full passenger loads as travellers find it more difficult or simply not worthwhile to visit the other side – be it because visas are harder to come by or because their trans-Pacific business may be in a slump – and there is a growing preference for cheaper and more circuitous routes.

Passenger loads on direct China-US flights have reached 75 per cent this summer, said Li Hanming, a China-based aviation analyst and consultant. The average passenger load on international flights was 85 per cent as of June, according to the International Air Transport Association.

The frequency of flights between China and the US in July stood at a mere 23.6 per cent of what was seen in July 2019, noted British aviation data firm OAG, with seat occupancy at 25 per cent compared with five years ago.

The China-US market had made up 7 per cent of a 75 per cent overall decline in weekly seats in May compared with May 2019, according to CAPA-Centre for Aviation, a research consultancy based in Australia.

OAG analysts said they saw little change in that demand during the June-July summer travel wave.

“I would like to say there are too many [flights]. China and the US require visas for each other, so the number of visas issued determines the demand,” said Li, with neither side extending visa-free treatment for round-trip passengers.

In 2023, the US government issued less than one-third of the total visas given to Chinese citizens in 2019, the US Department of State said, and this translated to 263,000 non-immigrant business or tourism visas for Chinese nationals.

Younger Americans envision few job opportunities in China, while Chinese tourists lack money to spend on travel in the US, said Ker Gibbs, executive-in-residence at the University of San Francisco’s Centre for Business Studies & Innovation in Asia-Pacific.

“People in China who would ordinarily be considering overseas holidays aren’t feeling wealthy or optimistic, which makes them reluctant to spend money on a big trip,” Gibbs said.

The US has fallen to 13th place on China’s list of top international markets, according to the CAPA-Centre for Aviation.

Business travel has diminished as investors on both sides worry that the other may be hostile to their investments – a casualty of the US-China trade war that started in 2018, Gibbs added.

China-born inhabitants of the San Francisco Bay Area can fly directly to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Wuhan, but some will not pay more than US$1,600 per round trip ticket, and they may transfer in Seoul, South Korea, or in Taipei, Taiwan, to save up to US$300 per ticket, according to reviews of current flight prices.

“Many of us are going back to China, so we have been talking about who has the better flights,” said Carl Chan, president of the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce in Oakland, California, who also pointed to cheaper options via Seoul or Taipei.

Stopover flights may cost less because nonstop fares are “very high” due to a limited number of seats, said Brendan Sobie, founder of Singapore-based aviation consultancy Sobie Aviation.

Passengers bound for their hometowns in mainland China’s Guangdong province often fly to Hong Kong, where they can link to cross-border land transport, but they resent the idea of spending money on hotels or taxis if they arrive at odd hours, said Helen Wu, a front-desk manager with the Dream Holiday travel agency in San Francisco.

“We have too many flights to Hong Kong,” Wu said. “The airlines want to put more flights in place to mainland China, but the US government isn’t having it now.”

Passengers can almost always find seats on direct flights to China, Wu said, though she anticipated an increase in trips between San Francisco and Guangzhou during the relatively cheap September-November period.

Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan have “benefited from air connectivity due to the shortfall in frequency” of direct China-US flights, OAG Asia head Mayur Patel said.

The US Department of Transportation has allowed Chinese airlines 50 round-trip flights per week since March 31, up from 35.

American carriers are allowed their own 50 flights per week but were holding at 35 as of May, according to the CAPA-Centre for Aviation. Before the pandemic, 150 flights operated weekly between the world’s top two economies.

“Regulatory constraints” limit the number of flights that Chinese airlines can operate between the two countries following pandemic-era curbs, the CAPA-Centre for Aviation report added.

US airlines asked President Joe Biden’s office in April to stop approving more direct China flights because they felt Chinese airlines had unfair advantages.

They “expressed concerns” about Chinese airlines that fly over Russia and “how that’s an unfair competitive advantage for them”, Sobie said.

Flights over Russia save time, but US and European carriers are avoiding the airspace because of the war in Ukraine.

Airlines are reluctant to provide more flights due to worries about low loads, analysts said, but carriers will probably keep whatever they have in case demand picks up.

“I do not anticipate any cutbacks, as capacity is already at a low base,” OAG’s Patel said, adding that flights could increase as geopolitical situations improve.

Delta Air Lines increased its Shanghai flights from US airports from four to 14 per week over the past year, and it has no “immediate plans” to add more, a company spokesman said.

United Airlines holds the largest share of the US-China market, followed by Air China, according to the CAPA-Centre for Aviation.

United Airlines has said it will add four weekly Shanghai-Los Angeles flights at the end of August and make that service daily in October, bringing its total weekly direct China-US flights to 21.

Passengers are “a good mix” of corporate travellers, tourists and students, the airline told the Post.

Southeast Asia must factor Big Tech firms into its US-China calculus

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3272811/southeast-asia-must-factor-big-tech-firms-its-us-china-calculus?utm_source=rss_feed

At the recently concluded Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) meetings in Laos, the region’s foreign ministers met their counterparts from 17 other Asia-Pacific states to discuss a range of strategic challenges. It was clear as they did so that Southeast Asia remains a Rorschach test – a projective experiment of what is possible for different, sometimes fiercely competing interests.

For larger Asia-Pacific countries, Southeast Asia offers a toehold to project influence. Russia’s suggestion to China that the two cooperate to “counter interference by forces from outside” Southeast Asia and positively contribute to the region was matched by the United States’ reassurance that Asean lies at the heart of Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

In courting Southeast Asian states at these regional meetings, larger powers have also become better at refining their message. They now take care to centre Asean in speech while advancing their own objectives in substance.

For Asean’s own member states, this annual meeting of top diplomats provides external validation of the grouping and recalls the region’s historical role as an entrepot for commodities as well as ideas and dialogue. In Southeast Asia, power and persuasion have been traded as long as goods and services have been.

However, the preference among Asean and its member states for separating complex international politics from economic engagement leaves Southeast Asia with three blind spots: the expanding interpretation of national security considerations overlapping with business concerns, the role of large technology firms in this conflation and the risk of inadvertent geopolitical alignment through tech dependency.

One of the more significant examples of national security creep as a function of US-China competition is in the building out of the digital tech infrastructure in and around Southeast Asia. As part of the Trump administration’s Clean Network initiative, countries in the region planning their 5G roll-out a few years ago received both inducements and warnings by the US about choosing Huawei as their core network provider.

Similarly, where US, Chinese and other companies once formed consortiums to fund the capital outlay for undersea communication cables crossing the region, such collaboration is becoming increasingly rare as Washington seeks to not only reduce its exposure to Beijing but gain the upper hand in some instances. A Reuters investigation from last March found US government intervention in at least six undersea cable agreements in the Asia-Pacific region.

Additionally, companies such as Google and Meta are entering into national security agreements with the US government as they lay their own transpacific undersea cables in countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam. These companies have spent heavily in Southeast Asia over the years – Microsoft recently announced around US$4 billion worth of artificial intelligence and cloud investment between Indonesia and Malaysia, while Google has committed US$2 billion in Malaysia – and are likely to continue serving as an anchor of the region’s digital strategies.

However, with market capitalisation and annual revenue streams that exceed the gross domestic product of some countries’ economies, longer-term questions of outsize influence on policymaking, infrastructure dependence and the impact of the Washington-Silicon Valley nexus on Southeast Asia should be asked if regional agency is going to be meaningfully exercised.

The link between politics and technology comes into sharper focus when considering the positions of US industry leaders such as Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and chair of the US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Schmidt is now the chairman of the Special Competitive Studies Project, whose mission is to ensure the US is “positioned and organised to win the techno-economic competition between now and 2030, the critical window for shaping the future”, has argued that “Washington must develop incentives that can appeal to ‘swing states’ that are currently calculating whether China or the United States offers a more attractive approach to technology”.

The world’s major powers often see Southeast Asian states as objects to be won over and swayed into their camp. But as tech giants extend their reach into the national security and military domains across the world and as geopolitical tensions intensify and spill over to non-aligned countries, the region can expect to face more difficult choices.

As Southeast Asia prepares for a leadership change in the US, the Silicon Valley heavyweights backing the Republican and Democratic nominees might provide some insight into the direction of any strategic shifts. SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has fully endorsed former US president Donald Trump, as have influential venture capitalists such as Joe Lonsdale. Meanwhile, Vice-President Kamala Harris has pulled in the support of big-ticket tech personalities such as former Meta CEO Sheryl Sandberg, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Netflix executive chairman Reed Hastings.

To be sure, the battle for tech support in the upcoming US presidential election will largely be carried out through domestic issues or political ideology rather than grander strategic machinations. But as with political campaigns in any other country, big money has a tendency to move big policy.

These days, it is not only states but also large corporations – particularly in the tech industry – which shift the power calculus on the international stage. For Southeast Asia and Asean, recognising this fact should provide grounds to take a more comprehensive, cross-sectoral and long-term approach to engaging with their external partners. Otherwise, the region will be viewing the world as it wants to, not as it really is.

Xi Jinping’s letter to Hong Kong entrepreneurs ‘is wider call to support China’s development’

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3273156/xi-jinpings-letter-hong-kong-entrepreneurs-wider-call-support-chinas-development?utm_source=rss_feed

A rare letter from President Xi Jinping to Hong Kong entrepreneurs with roots in Ningbo also serves as a wider call for city residents and overseas Chinese to help shore up investor confidence in the nation and a signal that the country’s open-door policy is still going strong, analysts have said.

The message from Xi urged Hong Kong entrepreneurs with familial ties to the mainland port city of Ningbo to make greater contributions to the nation’s modernisation.

It was also a response to another letter from Hong Kong business leaders who traced their roots back to entrepreneurs from the port city, including Anna Pao Pui-hing, daughter of late shipping tycoon Pao Yue-kong, and Ronald Chao Kee-young, eldest son of the late industrialist Chao Kuang-piu.

Xi expressed his gratitude to the business leaders for their ongoing support of their hometown and motherland through acts such as the building of businesses and schools.

He also acknowledged the group’s active engagement in innovation, entrepreneurship, philanthropy and education.

Xi sent the letter at a time when Hong Kong’s business community is contending with an economy still struggling to shake off the after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lau Siu-kai, a consultant with the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, a semi-official think tank, said the message was a call for city residents and Chinese living overseas to help build a prosperous motherland to counter Western narratives.

“This expectation is particularly meaningful as the United States and the West continue to suppress the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” he said.

“When the country faces a severe international environment, it is particularly urgent and important for the Chinese people at home and abroad to unite and contribute their own efforts to promote Chinese-style modernisation.”

Lau said enhanced investment into the mainland from Hong Kong entrepreneurs and support helping businesses in the north to go global could help restore foreign investors’ confidence in the country.

Such a push was especially important only a month after the Chinese Communist Party held its third plenum of the 20th Party Congress, where Beijing announced its support for the private sector to take the lead in major national technological research tasks.

Xi’s message also coincided with the 40th anniversary of late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s call to mobilise the global “Ningbo bang” – usually formed by merchants – to develop the port city.

In Chinese, bang means a cluster of people who are bonded together by the same goals and ideals.

Lau said the letter’s timing carried the subtle meaning that Xi was determined to continue reforms and opening-up policies pursued by Deng.

Ningbo is known as an important port and an industrial hub on the mainland and forms part of Zhejiang province, where Xi served as party secretary from 2002 to 2007.

Cliff Sun Kai-lit, vice-president of the International Ningbo Merchant Association, said the group hoped the nation could deepen certain initiatives amid the push for rapid development.

The association’s president, William Lee Tak-lun, was among the 10 business leaders who penned the letter sent to Xi.

“For example, we propose whether the high-speed rail can turn Ningbo into a transit hub to maximise its function in the country’s reforms and opening up,” Sun said.

Sun also responded to Xi’s call for greater contributions to national modernisation, saying the next generation of Hong Kong’s Ningbo bang would push for more exchanges and cooperation between the two cities in the political and commercial sectors, such as taking part in innovation and technology (I&T) projects.

Ning Po Residents Association chairman John Fan Kau-cheung, another signatory of the initial letter, said the signatories had intended to thank the country’s leader for his care and concern for Hong Kong.

He also agreed that Xi’s reply was meant for all Hong Kong residents and overseas Chinese.

“The president’s reply actually expressed his expectations for all of us, including Hong Kong people and overseas Chinese, to work together towards a strong rejuvenation of our motherland,” Fan said.

The association chairman said the organisation, which currently runs two local secondary schools, would conduct more exchange activities with the mainland to foster patriotic values among students and teachers.

Andrew Fung Ho-keung, chief executive of the Hong Kong Policy Research Institute, said he believed Xi’s reply was encouragement for local entrepreneurs to be more aggressive when investing in some national projects such as satellites or I&T initiatives.

“Xi’s reply also denotes a message that China’s opening-up policy will remain unchanged and that our nation will continue to welcome investors, including both local and foreign ones. That is why we’ve seen more easing of travel restrictions for foreigners.”

Raymond Kwok Ping-luen, chairman and managing director of Sun Hung Kai Properties, said he was encouraged by Xi’s reply.

He noted that the company was the first to return to its hometown for construction projects in the early days of reform and opening up, and had never stepped away throughout the process.

“As the country’s reform continues to advance and the door to opening up opens wider, Sun Hung Kai Properties will continue to implement the general secretary’s instructions with practical actions, leverage its own advantages to serve the needs of the country, and show greater responsibility in contributing to the high-quality development of the motherland,” he said.

New World Development said Xi’s letter showed special care for Hong Kong’s business community, vowing to fulfil its responsibility amid unprecedented internal and external challenges.

“In the process of the country’s construction of Chinese-style modernisation, we in Hong Kong’s business community have a duty to fulfil our historical responsibilities, give full play to our unique advantages, and maintain Hong Kong’s hard-won stability and prosperity,” it said.

Jonathan Choi Koon-sum, chairman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, said the local business community should adopt the mindset that the city was an integral part of the Greater Bay Area when pursuing opportunities.

“If you talk about manufacturing and the development of technological innovation industries, you can’t do it without Shenzhen and the Greater Bay Area, so we should join forces, we should join a boat and go to sea,” he said.

Additional reporting by Kahon Chan

Is China’s Monkey King set for global game glory, despite cultural differences?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3272954/chinas-monkey-king-set-global-game-glory-despite-cultural-differences?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s first triple-A video game , rooted in the 16th century novel , is slated for release later this month. And, like the literary classic, it has risen above cultural differences to roaring global success.

The action role-playing game has topped US distributor Steam’s “wish list” chart and is enjoying strong pre-orders, with developer Game Science banking on the enduring appeal of its iconic hero, combined with the newest top-tier mechanics.

The game is the latest iteration of the Ming dynasty story of Sun Wukong, which has been repeatedly adapted for film and television – most recently in the Netflix animation The Monkey King (2023) and Disney+ series American Born Chinese (2023).

Hangzhou-based Game Science spent six years developing the game, which is the first in China to bear the industry’s informal triple-A classification, signifying a large-budget, high-profile game produced and distributed by well-known publishers.

Not all of the interest in the game has been positive, with some misgivings expressed at gaming interest website IGN over claims of a misogynistic workplace culture and a demo version’s lack of female characters.

The site’s recent review of the game was largely flattering, calling it “stunningly gorgeous”, “incredibly fluid” and “immensely satisfying”. There will be women in the final game, it added.

But despite these concerns, the indications are that the gamified Wukong, also known as the Monkey King – with his trademark fighting staff and ability to transform into different beings and creatures – will once again transcend cultural barriers.

Sheng Zou, an assistant journalism professor with Baptist University in Hong Kong, said that while reusing the classic could “trigger fatigue”, when done well the familiar stories and characters can be leveraged to draw in a larger audience.

“Each rendition of the character breathes new life into it, and there is much space for retelling the old story and recreating the classic persona,” Zou said.

“This is certainly the case for Black Myth: Wukong, which makes use of the original classic by infusing new musical arrangement, new action scenes and new storylines.”

Zhang Chi, an associate lecturer in international relations at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, said the combination of cutting-edge graphics with an ancient icon offered a fresh, visually stunning experience of a classic tale.

“There is no limit to how much a literary classic can be reimagined in media; these works are a reservoir of continuous inspiration, allowing contemporary creators to reinterpret and reconstruct mythology endlessly,” she said.

Zou noted that there had also been a “long tradition” of incorporating elements of wuxia, or the legends and mythologies of ancient martial artists, into Chinese games, with some developers counting on the genre’s steady popularity to “mitigate the uncertainty in returns”.

But as Chinese creations become globalised, it remains to be seen whether home-grown developers will continue to exploit facets of “Chineseness” in their creative process, according to Zou.

“It is more about how they can sell a story or idea to users who crave interesting storylines, riveting aesthetics, and/or fulfilling experiences. Often, you find Chinese-made media products hybridised with both local and global elements and flavours.”

As Chinese game developers increasingly explore overseas markets, they must also confront diverse cultural elements, from content to workplace culture, which some say has been very male-dominated in China, until recently.

According to Zou, it has become harder for developers to neglect their audiences’ “heightened awareness” of matters concerning gender and sexuality, as “more progressive views” are adopted worldwide.

The “increasing presence [of female gamers] requires game developers to be more conscious about different audiences in their design process, as well as the cultural – rather than simply technical – dimensions of the games”, he said.

Zhang, who researches propaganda, noted that it would be in Chinese game developers’ economic interests to “be sensitive to liberal values” and align their products with “globally accepted norms”.

“However, in China, the industry has generally resisted ‘political correctness’, particularly regarding race and gender, as these issues are not traditionally predominant in public discourse,” she said, noting China’s “entrenched traditional gender norms”.

In today’s highly politicised climate, the fact that there were no overtly political elements or messaging inside Wukong may have counted towards its success overseas, Zhang said.

“Chinese culture is generally well-received in Western markets as long as it is not perceived as propaganda. There is no essential ‘guarantee’ for winning appeal. Success depends on the nuanced presentation of cultural elements.”

Cao Xuenan, assistant professor of cultural studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said that games and other products from China were not unique in facing criticisms that stemmed from a mismatch with US mainstream or “progressive” cultural values.

According to Cao, music from European states like Serbia and the Czech Republic have also been accused of being “insensitive”.

“It’s very interesting to see how these criticisms are applied to productions that were probably intended for a global audience, which includes everywhere. It’s not really targeting just the US, which focuses a lot on political correctness, or Europe, so it could be a very successful story in many other places.”

Those criticisms stem from the “cultural hegemony of [political standards]” from American or European societies, she said.

Cao noted that games are developed to appeal to young people, “so perhaps [developers] are not really thinking about political correctness as a whole category”.

Like all creative output, there will be times when an interpretation of a Chinese classic is not understood completely across a range of cultural contexts, and that may not be a bad thing, according to Cao.

“Sometimes cultural misinterpretations are bound to happen, and that’s what makes things interesting.”

This approach, intentional or not, has won the hearts of many, judging by the rave reviews for Wukong on the top gaming websites.

Video Games Chronicle called it “frantic, hard as nails and visually stunning”, while GamesRadar writer Austin Wood said it was “easily among the best and best-looking action [role-playing games] I’ve played in years”.

How an early Chinese-American fishing village fuelled shark fin trade before being burned to ground

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3273134/how-early-chinese-american-fishing-village-fuelled-shark-fin-trade-burned-ground?utm_source=rss_feed

On May 26, 1906, a fire swept through Point Alones, California, devastating one of the largest Chinese fishing communities in America, with newspaper reports suggesting the fire was started by nefarious individuals, evidenced by the water hoses being cut and direct anecdotes of looting.

The legendary American author John Steinbeck visited the village in his younger years and, decades after the fire, said about Point Alones: “I remember the night the whole thing burned to the ground. We felt that a way of life was gone forever.”

Before it burned down, Point Alones was a crucial fixture in the global shark trade. Sharks caught in Monterey Bay were often processed, and dried shark fins were sent to China as premium products, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Human Ecology in late June.

“While much of the fish harvested by these villages was being exported to China, some was being shipped to other Chinese settlements in the American West, including railroad work camps,” said Thomas Royal, a study author who works at both Simon Fraser University in Canada and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Norway.

“For instance, one account from 1882 notes Chinese fishers in California were shipping dried and salted grey smooth-hound to Chinese railroad labourers.”

Royal told the Post that the village was initially started by migrants from Guangdong province in southern China in the middle of the 19th century. He said oral histories suggest the initial settlers may have landed at the location due to a shipwreck. The new arrivals brought with them “a deep knowledge of fishing”.

The study aimed to paint an in-depth picture of how the Point Alones community harvested sharks, including details about the species they targeted and how the animal was processed for sale.

The researchers analysed the DNA from 54 shark vertebrae and learned that the fishermen were likely harvesting sharks from the local waters around Monterey Bay, a widely-known diverse ecosystem off the coast of California.

The most common sharks the fishermen caught were tope sharks, which were widely harvested in the US in the first half of the 20th century. Later, white-owned commercial fishing companies in the 1930s and 1940s heavily exploited the species and tope sharks became one of the country’s most important sources of Vitamin A during World War II. The sharks have since been added to the global critically endangered list.

Royal said that while tope sharks were expected to be discovered in the vertebrae analysis, their dominance was surprising. The researchers only found three species of sharks in the research (the other two being leopard sharks and brown smooth-hounds), and the tope sharks outnumbered the other animals at a rate of five-to-one.

“This suggests that the Chinese fisheries based at Point Alones were being fairly selective when it came to sharks, preferentially harvesting tope sharks,” said Royal.

Royal hypothesised that because the sharks typically lived closer to the shore, they were likely being fished when workers went out at night to hunt for squid, which was also economically important to the village.

Much like today, these sharks were being harvested in California to feed the craving for shark fins and tails in China.

American fishermen would tap into the personal network of businesses, friends, and family from the mainland, facilitating the movement of goods, money, people, and knowledge between China and the US.

Hong Kong businesses called Jinshanzhuang or “Gold Mountain firms” specialised in shipping goods between the two countries, and the Monterey Bay area (which included Point Alones) became a hotspot for international trade.

One estimate said 100 tonnes of dried fish were being shipped from California to China yearly. Dried shark fins were a particularly valuable commodity in this trade.

The researchers believe the Point Alones fishermen were not “finning” the sharks —cutting off the fins and tails of the sharks while they were still alive and dumping them back in the water — which is a fairly common practice today.

Point Alones fishermen typically brought the whole shark back to the village for processing. Its meat was sold throughout America, and the liver and carcasses were turned into oil and fish meal for markets.

The fishing village at Point Alones appeared to have been moderately successful financially, and selling a pair of shark fins was enough to cover a day’s wage.

“The trade in shark fins did provide the inhabitants of Point Alones with a degree of wealth, but it wasn’t making them rich,” said Royal.

A major challenge for Point Alones at the time was institutionalised racism from white Americans. Private and public individuals expressed “concerns” about the Chinese fishermen’s impact on the local animal population, but these fears were driven by racial resentment.

As a result, local governments passed laws to make fishing a headache for the Chinese population, and white fishermen would often physically and verbally intimidate the workers.

Royal said some restrictions included “a ban on Chinese participation in commercial fishing, a prohibition on shrimp fishing (which was popular among Chinese fishers) during months when shrimp were abundant, and restrictions on the use of gear preferred by Chinese fishers.”

One goal of the study is to help modern conservation efforts. Royal said that understanding the history of fisheries can help scientists identify when humans began to impact local populations and adjust conservation targets accordingly.

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Hong Kong’s health diplomacy could debunk idea of China turning inward

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3272846/hong-kongs-health-diplomacy-could-debunk-idea-china-turning-inward?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s recent third plenum highlighted the importance of making the country a champion of innovation through generating disruptive technology and scaling up into high-end manufacturing. Many, however, focused on doubts over China keeping its doors open and questioned if it was too focused on national – or political – security.

Even before the meeting of China’s top leaders had concluded, pessimism had surfaced over the possibility of concrete and effective solutions to revitalise China’s economy, as suggested by a Brookings Institution commentary. After the plenum, the Cato Institute uploaded a video of a talk by Johan Norberg titled: “The Paper Tiger: Why China Won’t Fulfill Its Potential”.

In it, Norberg, a Swedish author and historian, points to the “large-scale return of authoritarianism and the planned economy” in China under President Xi Jinping, suggesting the country was moving away from the free market and international society.

Meanwhile, the British Royal Institute of International Affairs – better known as Chatham House – warned that the “progressive sagging of private sector ‘mojo’ in the past few years is important to bear in mind as a root cause of the Chinese economy’s current slump”.

Coincidentally or not, around the same time, the Peterson Institute for International Economics published a piece questioning whether manufacturing can still provide inclusive growth. And the Council on Foreign Relations, based in New York, continues to push the narrative that China is engaged in a cold war with the United States.

The stream of negativity from foreign academics and commentators comes as no surprise given the increasingly intense relations between China and the West. Ten years after China first started putting together its comprehensive national security outlook, any statement making reference to “national security” is still often seen as reeking of hostility and a threat.

Yet how has China given up on its commitment to international cooperation and backchannel Track 2 diplomacy? Even during the high-level third plenum, for instance, Beijing also hosted the Global Health Forum of the Boao Forum for Asia.

The low-key event was nevertheless attended by nearly 1,000 delegates from 41 countries and regions. Speakers included Boao Forum chairman and former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, the health forum’s chair Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun, director general emeritus of the World Health Organization, as well as Japan’s health, labour and welfare minister Keizo Takemi.

Despite the third plenum, Beijing party secretary Yin Li made time to attend the health forum. In particular, former Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam-Cheng-Yuet Ngor highlighted the contributions the city has made and can make in improving global health.

It’s worth pointing out that Hong Kong has a role in China’s Track 2 diplomacy and its efforts can help turn the argument that China is moving away from international society. In this respect, it would be wise of Hong Kong to pay special attention to the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), in health or otherwise, as such efforts can lay the foundation for Track 2 diplomacy.

Earlier this year, on my study strip to Tokyo, Kyoto, Tokushima and Kobe organised by the Japan Foundation, almost all of Japan’s government departments, universities and companies were discussing SDG-related action, including recycling, evaluation of zero-waste centres and strict air conditioning temperatures.

If Hong Kong wants to engage in a deeper conversation and collaboration with countries such as Japan, the SDGs can be a medium.

Besides, the health industry has become a new vector of economic growth after the Covid-19 pandemic, as more people keep a closer eye on the latest developments in the sector. Advances in areas such as biomanufacturing and telemedicine would easily qualify as some of the “new quality productive forces” highlighted in China’s third plenum and can help boost China’s hi-tech manufacturing industry.

Given Hong Kong’s plans to become an international centre for innovation, it makes sense for the city to develop its health industry. This would also help to address common health concerns and challenges domestically and internationally, such as the speed of response to public health crises, population ageing and the balance between privacy and health tech development.

If Hong Kong can establish an internationally competitive health industry, it could also potentially end its era of structural deficits and help the city revitalise the mainland economy.

Many in Hong Kong involved in public health would readily support the city’s efforts to contribute more actively to global health. But we also need more active participation from all sectors of society.

By leveraging Hong Kong’s unique East-meets-West cultural fusion and as the only common law jurisdiction in China, we can use our knowledge in international cooperation and global standards to find a different path for China and the West than the oft-cited Thucydides Trap.

It is ironic that despite Hong Kong’s world-class universities and research, we have paid so little attention to health diplomacy – a popular item of cooperation on the global health agenda. We shall have to catch up quickly to engage in global health cooperation and diplomacy, learning while contributing.

While geopolitical pressures remain challenging. Hong Kong’s potential in developing biotechnology is, fortunately, widely recognised.

It is time for Hong Kong to leverage its distinctiveness to advance public health cooperation between China and the world, and to show that true patriots are those who dare to fulfil the promise of China and respond to its critics with concrete action.

Philippines looks to diversify project funding beyond China amid maritime row

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3273077/philippines-looks-diversify-project-funding-beyond-china-amid-maritime-row?utm_source=rss_feed

The Philippines is looking to diversify its infrastructure funding through allies such as the US and Japan after what analysts say is a withdrawal of several China-backed projects in the Southeast Asian country over geopolitical reasons.

On July 26, the Philippine transport department said funding for a feasibility study on the Subic-Clark-Manila-Batangas railway was in the works. The railway project is a joint initiative by the Philippines, Japan, the United States, Sweden and the Asian Development Bank.

The 250km project is part of the proposed Luzon Economic Corridor, announced during the trilateral leaders’ summit in April attended by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, US President Joe Biden and Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Once completed, the project will run along and connect four cities on Luzon island, linking three main ports and two international airports.

The Subic-Clark-Manila-Batangas railway project is an updated initiative of the original Subic-Clark railway project that was initially backed by Chinese investments.

Nikkei Asia reported on Monday that officials from the Philippines’ Bases Conversion and Development Authority, the agency overseeing redevelopment projects in former US military bases such as Subic and Clark, were in Tokyo earlier in July to seek funds for the latest railway project, as well as other developments in the former bases.

The Philippines backed out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in October after Beijing became unresponsive to its funding requests for three railway projects. As a result, the projects under the initiative have been dropped.

China had initially pledged nearly US$5 billion of funding to build three railway lines in the country including the Subic-Clark railway project, the South Long Haul railway project in Luzon and the Mindanao railway project in southern Philippines.

The first phase of the Mindanao railway project, which costs 83 billion Philippine pesos (US$1.4 billion), was supposed to be set for construction in January 2019. Last year, the Philippines’ finance department wrote to the Chinese embassy and said Manila was “no longer inclined to pursue the Chinese ODA [official development assistance] financing for the Mindanao railway project.”

This followed comments from a senior Chinese economic official, who cited “geopolitical factors” for hindering funding of the Philippine projects.

Chester Cabalza, president of the International Development and Security Cooperation think tank, told This Week in Asia that China had “obviously backed out from the railway deal under the Belt and Road Initiative with the Philippines to isolate and punish the Marcos administration’s diplomatic and strategic rapprochement with the US”.

Although Chinese officials did not mention maritime disputes as a reason for the stalling in funding, Manila and Beijing have been at odds over the South China Sea for years, which intensified after former president Rodrigo Duterte, who was known for his pro-Beijing policies, left office in 2022.

Duterte claimed at the start of his presidency in 2016 that he had secured pledges of US$9 billion in official development assistance from Chinese companies for infrastructure projects. But the commitments had fizzled out by 2019 when Duterte was still president, according to media reports.

Dindo Manhit, president of think tank Stratbase ADR Institute, said the Marcos administration’s move to veer away from Chinese funding, particularly those under the Belt and Road Initiative, was a “calculated move” to ensure that the Philippines’ national interests were protected.

Manhit said that the loans under the Belt and Road Initiative could be viewed “as a form of economic coercion”. Previous projects such as the Kaliwa dam and Chico river pump irrigation projects were subject to higher interest rates compared with other financing sources and circumvented Philippine laws that could lead the country to a debt trap even without them materialising, Manhit added.

“By looking into other sources of funding, either through official development assistance or public-private partnership, the Philippines ensures the realisation of projects under terms that are deemed favourable to the Philippines,” he said.

The funding saga happened against the backdrop of China’s heightened assertiveness in the West Philippine Sea, Manhit said. He was referring to Manila’s term for a part of the South China Sea that includes its exclusive economic zone, where several clashes involving Chinese and Philippine vessels had happened in recent months, including one that led to a Filipino serviceman losing a thumb.

A June survey from Pulse Asia and Stratbase revealed that 95 per cent of Filipinos did not want the Marcos administration to work with China.

Matteo Piasentini, a geopolitical analyst and lecturer at the University of the Philippines’ political science department, said that it was difficult to say whether maritime disputes in the South China Sea were linked to the withdrawal of China-backed infrastructure projects.

China was relooking its Belt and Road Initiative while it took “strong political will” for recipient countries that have projects under the initiative to push for their completion, Piasentini said.

“Third, Belt and Road Initiative financing doesn’t happen in a vacuum: there are other countries that offer similar projects and compete with the Belt and Road Initiative,” he added.

Cabalza said Beijing has also reinvested in some projects under the Marcos administration’s infrastructure programme. Conversely, it made sense for the Philippines to partner with the US and Japan rather than to have a “short-lived and volatile economic dependency” on China as Beijing used economics to maximise its interests in the South China Sea, he added.

The Chinese pullback from the infrastructure projects is likely to have a limited impact on the Philippine economy, according to analysts.

Manhit cited data from the Philippine central bank that showed the top sources of foreign direct investment inflows in the Philippines in 2023 were Japan, the US, and Singapore, while China only accounted for 0.18 per cent of the total.

Meanwhile, analysts are optimistic about investments from the US and Japan, particularly the Luzon Economic Corridor, which can become a catalyst for economic growth.

“These investments are expected to enhance development in different sectors, focusing particularly on increasing critical infrastructure. Such initiatives are crucial for laying the foundation for larger investments,’ said Manhit.

The Philippines is strengthening its economic security by forging closer links with countries such as the US and Japan in infrastructure projects, according to Piasentini.

Cabalza said: “As the Philippines draws commercial interest from like-minded nations, this will widen its economic options and show to China that they cannot boss around the Philippines.”

Chinese man, 24, becomes rugged ‘uncle’ after 5-month hike, tough break-up and depression

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3272922/chinese-man-24-becomes-rugged-uncle-after-5-month-hike-tough-break-and-depression?utm_source=rss_feed

A man born in the year 2000 has been given the moniker “uncle” – which normally denotes being middle-aged – by people on social media in China because of his weather-beaten face.

The unidentified man changed his alias on Douyin from “Traveller Taishan” to “Uncle Born After 2000” after so many people assumed he was middle-aged, Jiupai News reported.

A native of northern China’s Hebei province, the man was forced to show the media his identity card to prove he was born in December 2000.

He began looking older very quickly after hiking in northern and western China, especially the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau with its high altitude and strong ultraviolet rays.

The traveller pulls a wooden cart containing all his necessities for daily living and is accompanied by a stray dog he picked up along the way.

Before embarking on his solo journey, the man said he was too depressed to live a normal life after his girlfriend left him.

He had been dating her for a few years, during which time he was mostly at sea working on a freight ship moving around Southeast Asia.

When he heard that hiking on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau could “purify one’s mind”, he started his journey at the end of February.

The man said other backpackers called him “big brother” or “uncle” when they met him for the first time.

“I showed them my ID card and told them I was born after 2000, but some people still did not believe me,” he said.

“After some time, I accepted that some people just cannot believe that I am a guy in my 20s.”

He said his premature baldness was the result of extensive exposure to the sun while on the plateau, and that sunburn had damaged his hair follicles.

He did not shave for a long time after he realised a moustache could protect his skin.

While internet users suggested he take care of his skin and improve his unkempt look, he firmly rejected their advice.

“What’s the point of doing that? I think I am fine right now,” he said.

He is not the first person in China who has aged dramatically on a long-distance journey.

Earlier this year, the story of a 28-year-old woman nicknamed Xiaxia, trended online after she was filmed hiking on a national highway, surprising observers who thought she was 30 years older.

China’s new ambassador to Germany faces ties tested by spying accusations

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3273137/chinas-new-ambassador-germany-faces-ties-tested-spying-accusations?utm_source=rss_feed

China has picked a seasoned diplomat with decades of US affairs experience to be its next top envoy to Germany, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

Deng Hongbo is deputy director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, a primary body for shaping and coordinating China’s foreign policy. He will succeed Wu Ken as Beijing’s ambassador to Berlin.

The nomination, which has not been made public, comes as ties between the two countries are tested by Berlin’s espionage accusations against Beijing.

Germany on Wednesday accused China of being behind a 2021 cyber spying attack against its federal cartography agency and summoned Beijing’s ambassador to lodge a complaint.

China rejected the German claim, calling it a “baseless” accusation.

“It’s smearing for political purposes,” the Chinese foreign ministry’s top Europe official, Wang Lutong, wrote on Friday on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

That was about four months after the Chinese ministry summoned German ambassador Patricia Flor over Berlin’s arrest of four Germans accused of spying for Beijing, urging Germany to stop “malicious speculation and anti-China political farce”.

China’s ambassador to Germany is considered a vice-ministerial post – the same level as its envoys to permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and a rank Deng already holds.

Deng, 59, has years of experience working on Beijing’s relations with Washington.

After being posted in Vietnam for about five years, Deng began a long career at the Chinese embassy in the US in 1993, serving in various positions until 2005, when he left for the Chinese foreign ministry’s department of North American and Oceanian affairs.

After two years as a deputy head of the department and a stint of less than one year as China’s ambassador to Kenya, he was reassigned in 2010 to the embassy in Washington as China’s No 2 diplomat there until his departure three years later.

In November 2018, it was confirmed that Deng had taken up his current position at the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party’s Central Committee.

His public appearances include a visit to the southwestern megacity of Chongqing last September to inspect a local agricultural project supported by the commission and a November 2022 briefing to his colleagues about the 20th party congress.

Wu, who has served as China’s ambassador to Germany since 2019, was officially confirmed to be leaving the post last week.

During a farewell speech at the Chinese embassy in Berlin on July 24, Wu said bilateral ties had navigated the tests of the Covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical conflicts over the past five years.

“China-Germany relations have always been an important stabilising factor in China-EU relations. Exchanges and cooperation in various fields have remained close and fruitful,” he said, adding that frequent high-level exchanges had “provided strong strategic guidance for the development of bilateral relations”.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited China for three days in April. In his public remarks during the trip, Scholz did not throw his support behind Brussels’ de-risking agenda.

His previous trip to China in November 2022 was the first by any leader from the Group of Seven nations since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Germany has long been China’s biggest trading partner in Europe.

China was Germany’s top trading partner in the world for eight years in a row until it was dethroned by the US in the first quarter of this year, according to data from the German Federal Statistical Office.

Germany’s direct investment in China in the first half of the year grew 18.1 per cent year on year in Chinese yuan terms, while overall inflows into the world’s second-biggest economy fell 29.1 per cent during the same time frame, according to the Chinese commerce ministry.

Beijing also shares some concerns with Berlin when it comes to EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

During his trip to China in June, Germany’s vice chancellor and minister for economic affairs Robert Habeck said that “tariffs only ultimately hurt the market, I don’t want them. I hope nobody in Europe wants the tariffs. Therefore, we should work to avoid it.”

While in Beijing, Habeck said that Germany’s China strategy, which was released a year ago and labelled the country a “partner, competitor and systemic rival”, needed to be updated to include a long-term plan and take Europe’s approach into account.

However, Habeck also said China’s support for Russia in the war against Ukraine was the main reason for the deterioration in economic relations between Berlin and Beijing.

China looks for new ways to boost spending on services, from senior care to tourism

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3273135/china-looks-new-ways-boost-spending-services-senior-care-tourism?utm_source=rss_feed

China is pinning more hopes on the services sector to lift demand and breathe new life into the economy, with a raft of new measures to boost spending in areas ranging from tourism to care for the elderly.

In a 20-point directive released on the weekend, the State Council, the country’s cabinet, said it would increase support for nursing care, consider extending visa-free policies to more countries, and encourage “low-altitude tourism” to spur spending on services, a sector that is growing faster than goods.

The measures follow the release last week of the Politburo’s midyear economic review, which underlined services as an “important solution” to expanding overall consumption, something Beijing is banking on for future growth amid subdued external demand.

The country posted a 5 per cent increase in gross domestic product in the first half of the year from 12 months earlier, but momentum took a hit in the second quarter as year-on-year growth slowed to 4.7 per cent, according to official figures.

The authorities are looking to unleash new demand in emerging sectors including low-altitude aviation – an area that includes airships and parachuting – as well as cruises, yachts, and recreational vehicle camping.

They are also considering further extensions of its visa exemption programme, which has contributed to a surge in inbound tourism this year.

In the first half of 2024, 14.64 million overseas visitors entered the country, roughly 2½ times the number for the same period last year, as authorities reinstated the 144-hour free transit visa to cover 54 countries and 37 entry points, according to the most recent official data.

The directive vowed to “optimise entry policies and the consumption environment, and speed up the resumption of flights”.

In addition, services related to basic home-based needs such as catering, elderly care, childcare and housekeeping should also be expanded, it said.

Abandoned rural property should be developed into accommodation such as inns for travellers, it said.

China’s use of services was growing faster than commodity consumption and had become the main source of incremental spending, Chen Lifen, a researcher with the State Council’s Development Research Centre, was quoted by state news agency Xinhua as saying in a report on Sunday. Incremental spending refers to new consumer demand.

In the first half of this year, retail sales of services increased by 7.5 per cent year on year, 4.3 percentage points faster than retail goods sales in the same period, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

However, services account for a “relatively low” proportion of consumption in China compared with the average level observed in high-income economies when they were at the same stage of development, Chen said, adding that “there is great room for growth”.

China’s retail sales, a figure that tracks consumer demand for finished goods, rose by 2 per cent year on year in June, a notable slowdown from the 3.7 per cent gain in the previous month.

Shanghai reported a 9.4 per cent fall in the same period, its worst monthly figure since the city imposed a two-month Covid lockdown in the spring of 2022.

Women in China spread secret, female-only language nushu – it’s a bond of sisterhood

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3272786/women-china-spread-secret-female-only-language-nushu-its-bond-sisterhood?utm_source=rss_feed

Chen Yulu never thought her home province of Hunan had any culture that she would be proud of, much less become an ambassador of.

But these days, the 23-year-old is a self-proclaimed ambassador of nushu, a script once known only to a small number of women in central China.

It started as a writing practised in secrecy by women who were barred from formal education in Chinese. Now young people like Chen are spreading nushu beyond the women’s quarters of houses in Hunan’s rural Jiangyong county, whose distinct dialect serves as the script’s verbal component.

Today, nushu can be found in independent bookstores across the country, transport advertisements, craft fair booths, tattoos, art and even everyday items like hair clips.

Nushu was created by women from a small village in Jiangyong, in the south-central province where late Chinese leader Mao Zedong was born, but there is little consensus on when it originated. Scholars estimate the script is at least several centuries old, from a time when reading and writing were deemed male-only activities. The women developed their own script to communicate with each other.

The script is slight with gently curving characters, written with a diagonal slant that takes up much less space than boxy modern Chinese with its harsh angles.

“You won’t allow me to go to school. OK, I get it. So what’s my way out? I’ll find ways to educate myself,” said Xu Yan, 55, the author of a textbook on nushu.

Women lived under the control of either their parents or their husband, and used nushu, sometimes called “script of tears”, in secret to record their sorrows: unhappy marriages, family conflicts, and longing for sisters and daughters who married and could not return in the restrictive society.

Xu is also the founder of Third Day Letter, a nushu studio in Beijing named after a centuries-old practice of the script’s practitioners. The third-day letter is a hand-sewn book presented in farewell to a woman in Jiangyong on the third day after her marriage, when she is allowed to visit the childhood home she left.

The script became a unique vehicle for composing stories about women’s lives, typically in the form of seven-character line poems that are sung. A secret world sprang from the script that gave Jiangyong women a voice through which they found friends and solace.

That secret world still resonates today as a source of strength for young women dissatisfied with patriarchal constraints.

Chen, who studied photography at an art school in Shanghai, said her male professors often doubted that she could keep up with the male photographers because of her slight physique. That attitude, she said, is “in every aspect of life, there’s nowhere it doesn’t touch”.

She was frustrated but did not see much room to retaliate – until she learned about nushu.

“I felt that I had received a very strong power, and I think a lot of women need this power,” she said.

Chen wanted to make a documentary about feminism and came across nushu in her online search. When she realised the script originated from Jiangyong, just a few hours from her hometown, she immediately knew that she had found her graduation project’s topic.

The more she learned about this script, the more she learned about its duality: that it was as much a painful thing as it was a source of strength.

In her documentary, she follows He Yanxin, a formally designated inheritor for nushu who is now in her eighties. She asks Chen: “Do you think nushu has any use?” Chen says yes. In response, He says: “Nushu is useless.”

He comes from Jiangyong and says she was forced to marry a man she did not want to be with, who physically abused her and tore up photos from nushu meet-ups and workshops she attended. She did not feel that the script had made her life materially better, according to Chen’s first-person account, published on social media.

Yet He is the one who urged her to learn the script.

Formal inheritors of the script have to be from Jiangyong, Chen said, and have to master nushu, but there was nothing stopping her from sharing her love of the script with others.

Beginning in 2022, Chen began spreading the practice. She started an online nushu group, taught writing workshops and set up nushu art exhibitions in cities across China.

Most participants at her writing workshops are women, she said, and some people even bring their mothers. Chen also runs a social media account to promote nushu and its culture beyond Hunan.

Lu Sirui, a 24-year-old working as a marketer, learned about nushu from online feminist groups and joined Chen’s nushu-focused group on messaging platform WeChat.

“At first, I just knew that it was a women’s inheritance, belonged only among women,” Lu said. “Then, as I got to know it better, I realised that it was a kind of resistance to traditional patriarchal power.”

For Lu, nushu means “a very powerful rebellion” and a bond of sisterhood. She said it was important for women to stick together.

Lu once encountered a property agent in Beijing who, drunk in the middle of the night, knocked on her door and tried to enter her home. Lu said that she picked up a stick at the doorway and ran out to confront him.

Afterwards, she confided in a small feminist community online, where she received comfort and advice on how to handle the situation.

She says communities like that have supported her in the face of gender-based violence, inequality and mother-daughter relationship problems, among other challenges.

Seeing nushu as another representation of sisterhood, Lu bought a textbook and practises the script in her spare time. Even though she is not a formal nushu ambassador, she began hosting nushu workshops at bookstores and bars in Beijing. When organising these events, Lu discovered that very few people had heard of nushu, but the feedback was always positive.

“It’s a manifestation of female strength that transcends time and space,” Lu said.

China’s drills with Tanzania and Mozambique show ‘blended approach’ to military diplomacy

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3272891/chinas-drills-tanzania-and-mozambique-show-blended-approach-military-diplomacy?utm_source=rss_feed

Troops have started tactical training in a trilateral counterterrorism drill between China, Tanzania and Mozambique, as Beijing steps up its military diplomacy with African countries.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted battlefield surveys and set up command posts ahead of the start of the “Peace Unity-2024” military exercise, which is set to run until mid-August.

They also held some tactical training using armoured fighting vehicles and self-propelled assault guns at the Tanzanian military’s Chinese-built comprehensive training centre in Mapinga, Bagamoyo district, in the days leading up to the official start of the joint drill on July 29.

Beijing has sent ground units from the PLA Central Theatre Command as well as a naval flotilla from the Southern Theatre Command to take part in the East African exercise.

The joint drill will have a range of benefits for both China and the African countries taking part, analysts have said, not just in military training but also in strengthening political ties.

Paul Nantulya, a China specialist at the National Defence University’s Africa Centre for Strategic Studies in Washington, said the exercise would entail land and sea-based counterterrorism operations, boarding and seizure, anti-piracy patrols and joint maritime patrols.

“It is what I call a ‘blended approach’ to military-to-military partnership,” Nantulya said.

On the non-military side, he said the Chinese contingent would host cultural and deck receptions, as well as vessel open days for the public, as part of China’s military and cultural diplomacy.

“This is part of what I term ‘blended military engagement’ that mixes military, defence, political, diplomatic, cultural and commercial engagement,” Nantulya said.

The Chinese navy contingent taking part in the drills are from the 45th naval escort force, and include the guided missile destroyer Hefei, plus the Qilianshan and Wuzhishan – both amphibious dock landing ships.

Nine operations will be practised at sea, according to China’s defence ministry, including port joint defence, counterterrorism tactics, boarding and seizure operations, visit board search and seizure, anti-terrorism and anti-piracy, and joint maritime patrols.

The vessels arrived in Tanzania shortly after Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark finished providing a week of medical services to the nation during its Mission Harmony-2024.

In March, China’s 45th naval fleet, including guided-missile destroyer Urumqi, missile frigate Linyi and comprehensive replenishment vessel Dongpinghu, also visited Tanzania and Mozambique.

It is all part of Beijing’s bid to strengthen and entrench political, commercial, ideological, cultural and wider defence ties, as well as increase China’s global prestige among African audiences, Nantulya said.

China also hopes to achieve interoperability with select African militaries, showcase and advertise its military assets to secure more customers, and test and field new equipment and doctrine, he added.

African countries benefit too. They enhance their exposure and diversify their foreign defence ties, Nantulya said. They also get professional military training, secure alternative sources for weapons and strengthen political ties.

China had been increasing its military exercises with African countries before the Covid pandemic hit, said David Shinn, a China-Africa specialist and professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. But the global health crisis put a stop to them.

“The PLA is now resuming them, but apparently focusing on counterterrorism,” Shinn said.

Theoretically, Shinn said any African military exercise with a more advanced army is a positive development. In this case, he said the key to success would be the relevance of the exercise to the particular terrorist challenges in Mozambique and Tanzania.

Mozambique has been battling Islamic State-backed insurgents in its Cabo Delgado region on the Tanzania border. The insurgency has claimed more than 4,000 lives and displaced thousands more since 2017, and affected key investments for gas production.

Tanzania has emerged as a key destination for China’s military cooperation, with the current exercise their fourth joint drill since 2014.

“China has a long-standing relationship, particularly with the Tanzanian People’s Defence Force, and holds periodic exercises with it,” Shinn said.

Other possible African candidates for counterterrorist exercises with China, he said, were Somalia – though the US and Turkish militaries were already engaged there – and the Sahel countries, those south of the Sahara, where Russia’s Wagner Group and Africa Corps were already engaged.

Shinn said Nigeria could perhaps be the location of China’s next exercise. Last year, three PLA warships made port calls in the country, where China has invested heavily in the construction of railway lines as well as the Lekki Deep Sea Port.

Zhou Yuyuan, deputy director at the Centre for West Asian and African Studies, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said the counterterrorism theme for the current joint military drill showed the Chinese defence ministry’s commitment to it.

“But overall, this joint exercise remains a regular military exchange or military diplomacy,” Zhou said.

It will also be a “warm-up for this year’s FOCAC summit”, Zhou said, referring to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation event to be held in Beijing next month.

He added that the three Chinese warships taking part in the exercise were the main battleships of the PLA Navy and could provide important practice for future maritime security cooperation between African countries and China.

Francois Vrey, a professor emeritus of military science and a research coordinator at the Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, noted that Tanzania and Mozambique both border the Western Indian Ocean, which ties into China’s Maritime Silk Road and gives all three countries a common interest in stable seas in the region.

The anti-terrorism theme for the drill was not unexpected, he said, given that China had a vested interest in the offshore gas fields off the coast of northern Mozambique, with the Tanzanian side also entering the fold.

“China thus has an interest in landward and maritime stability in and off these two countries,” Vrey said. “This exercise is military diplomacy – and what better than bringing your ‘grey hulls’ into the picture?”

Vrey said Mozambique showed a Western military footprint – largely through the West’s training support to help it counter the Cabo Delgado insurgency.

“I think China is clever in its use of its navy as it is more impressive, albeit temporary. What one must watch is when Chinese army elements arrive, although this element is largely stationed in Djibouti and the landward part of the exercise can be navy-heavy or perhaps involve Chinese marines,” Vrey said.

China currently has thousands of military personnel stationed at its first overseas naval base in Djibouti, which officially opened in 2017, with an aim to protect Chinese investments and citizens in Africa.

Hong Kong can not only survive, but thrive in the US-China rivalry

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3272794/hong-kong-can-not-only-survive-thrive-us-china-rivalry?utm_source=rss_feed

As a major beneficiary of deepening Sino-American trade relations during the two decades after the Cold War, Hong Kong has borne the brunt of the recent decade of deterioration in relations between China and the United States.

From the trade war to the aftermath of the 2019 protests that led to international portrayals of Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland as indistinguishably one and the same, the city has been battered by daunting geopolitical headwinds in the eight years since Donald Trump’s fateful election as US president.

With bipartisan antipathy towards China in Washington and the Republican presidential front runner surrounded by a trenchant circle of China hawks as advisers – including his vice-presidential pick, Hong Kong must brace itself for a protracted period of embittered rivalry. I concur with political scientist Li Cheng. We could well be facing 10 to 15 more years of mutual antagonism.

Yet, there remains a silver lining. If we play our cards right, Hong Kong could well capitalise upon the unfortunate trend by optimising the possible upsides while minimising the downsides. We can escape the fate of being “kicked around” like a “football”, as renowned diplomat Kishore Mahbubani put it.

First, Hong Kong must position itself as the primary destination for ethnic Chinese professionals leaving the West amid escalating tensions and the increasing politicisation of higher education. A Stanford University study found that after the introduction of the China Initiative in 2018, the number of departures in China-born, US-based scientists increased by 75 per cent.

Trans-Pacific scientific research and collaboration – especially in sensitive or strategic technological sectors such as semiconductors, biotechnology and quantum computing – has become much more difficult, as insidious speculation creeps into both public and private discourses concerning Chinese scientists.

Hong Kong’s exceptional higher education institutions, prime access to the mainland and free flow of information make it well-placed to attract world-leading researchers in establishing a knowledge nexus that fuses Eastern and Western traditions. These advantages not only apply to the STEM fields, but also the humanities and social sciences.

A prerequisite, however, is that our universities maintain high degrees of academic freedom, and strengthen their support for early-career researchers who may be deterred by our exorbitant housing and childcare costs.

Second, Hong Kong should double down on helping Chinese firms navigate international markets – whether they be emerging giants, such as India and countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), or established powerhouses in the West and Persian Gulf. We must correspondingly step up our efforts to serve leading players around the world seeking access to Chinese capital and technology.

The “China plus one” strategy adopted by large multinational corporations is part of a broader de-risking trend in response to geopolitical uncertainty in the region. But it also provides an opportunity for Chinese state-owned and private enterprises as they strive to circumvent trade restrictions and protectionist measures imposed by the US.

Hong Kong must hone its role as a repository of regional knowledge, contacts and networks. It is the entrepreneurs, seasoned financiers and power brokers comprising our private sector that render us a true connector. The government should take advantage of these assets to build enduring ties with key players in priority regions such as Southeast Asia and the Gulf.

Furthermore, companies based in Hong Kong must absorb talent well-versed in regional cultural idiosyncrasies and business norms to open doors for our mainland counterparts. More scholarships and jobs must be offered to professionals from the Global South so Hong Kong can serve as the labour nexus conjoining China and the world. To serve these new partners, we must heed their concerns and truly cater to their needs, as opposed to what we think they need.

Through trade finance and blockchain-based supply chain management, we can publicly signal our resolve by streamlining the flow of goods, capital and data between the mainland and its potential partners. The time is ripe, as more countries diversify away from the United States and gravitate towards China. The multicultural, multilingual and emphatic dexterity of Hong Kong’s highly educated workforce are strengths that should be reinforced.

Third, the ingenious “one country, two systems” formula gives Hong Kong the prerogative to be the most open and international-facing part of China. In the face of our critics and sceptics, we must put our money where our mouth is and embrace our status as a buffer zone, one where voices and opinions dubbed too sensitive in the Chinese mainland can be expressed by interlocutors from Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities.

As China and the US are locked in intense strategic competition, both nationalistic and security-fixated talking points have gained considerable traction among bureaucrats on both sides. Yet, Hong Kong must steer clear of the perilous tendencies of pan-securitisation and excessive paranoia, and play the crucial role of platforming dialogues between Chinese and American state officials, academic and entrepreneurs.

Recent visits to Hong Kong by Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba and Asean secretary general Kao Kim Hourn attest to our significance as a key port of call for those looking to engage with China. Even in a seemingly hostile world, we must punch above our weight. We must not cave in to defeatist narratives of parochialism or slip into mindless complacency. We are far better than that.

Philippines’ military upgrade gets boost from US$500 million aid amid South China Sea row

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3273006/philippines-military-upgrade-gets-boost-us500-million-aid-amid-south-china-sea-row?utm_source=rss_feed

A recent announcement by the United States to allocate half a billion dollars in military funding to the Philippines is seen as timely by analysts as Manila is facing financial constraints to address the complex challenges posed by the South China Sea dispute.

Analysts say the financing is critical in enhancing the Philippines’ military infrastructure, troop capabilities, diplomatic initiatives and overall deterrence.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who were in Manila for the annual 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue with their Philippine counterparts, announced the US$500 million in military aid from Washington.

Blinken told a joint news conference after the meeting that the money would be used to “boost security collaboration with our oldest treaty ally in this region” and help modernise the Philippine armed forces and coastguard.

Asked by reporters how Manila would spend the funds, President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s defence secretary, Gilbert Teodoro Jnr, said the priorities of both countries would be outlined in a new bilateral security road map.

“Naturally, a lot of our inherent hardening capabilities are included, like cyber capabilities and the like. These and all Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement [EDCA] investments will serve to secure the Philippines’ credible deterrent posture,” Teodoro said.

First signed in 2014, the EDCA allows the US to rotate troops into the Philippines for extended stays and operate facilities in Philippine bases. In February 2023, Marcos Jnr increased the number of EDCA designated bases to nine.

Around US$128 million of the funds would go towards EDCA infrastructure projects, including boosting disaster relief response measures, according to Blinken.

Teodoro said: “Every peso or dollar spent on hardening Philippine capabilities to defend itself and to deter unlawful aggression will be a plus against any threat actor, whether it be China or anyone. So the EDCA investments are not only solely for defence purposes but are also for civil defence purposes, like humanitarian assistance and disaster response.”

The latest American commitment is a reflection of the close military ties between the Philippines and the US, underpinned by their 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty, which calls on both sides to help each other in times of aggression by an external power. President Joe Biden and other top US officials have reiterated their commitment to the treaty remains “ironclad” and that its scope extends to the South China Sea.

Sylwia Monika Gorska, a political analyst, told This Week in Asia the funds should be deployed not only to enhance the Philippines’ defence capabilities but also in diplomatic initiatives to address the complex challenges posed by the South China Sea row.

As Manila has already allocated 2 trillion Philippine pesos (US$35 billion) over a decade for its military modernisation plan, the cost of the project would continue to put pressure on the country’s financial situation, said Gorska, a PhD holder in international relations at the University of Central Lancashire.

“The US$500 million military aid package from the US is timely as it will alleviate some of the Philippines’ financial restrictions. This assistance should be used to leverage and expedite the procurement of advanced surveillance equipment, increase the number of multi-role vessels to balance China’s presence and purchase aircraft required to maintain security and assert sovereignty in the disputed waters of the South China Sea,” she added.

Gorska also said that the Philippines needed to increase efforts in boosting military exercises with its allies, including the Rim of the Pacific Exercise and Balikatan drills.

“With important allies like the US, Japan, and Australia, these exercises improve operational collaboration and interoperability.”

The spending on such exercises could strengthen the expertise of the Philippine military in emerging areas such as cybersecurity, Gorska added.

The Philippines should also tap the funds to support its diplomatic initiatives involving Asean countries and other regional partners, according to Gorska.

“Funds can be allocated to support regular conferences and cooperative forums, which would help the Philippines and its partners establish stronger unified positions and negotiation strategies in response to China’s maritime activities. This regional united front could urge China to ease its assertiveness in the South China Sea,” she said.

The Philippines, China, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam have competing claims in the South China Sea. A tribunal in The Hague ruled in 2016 that Beijing’s claims over the South China Sea through its so-called nine-dash line had no legal basis and recognised Manila’s sovereign rights in the waterway. China, however, has refused to accept the ruling.

Don McLain Gill, a political analyst and lecturer at the Department of International Studies at De La Salle University, said there should be a focus on intelligence gathering systems for better tracking of ships in the West Philippine Sea, Manila’s name for South China Sea waters within its exclusive economic zone.

Gill told This Week in Asia that information-collecting devices were crucial to addressing concerns in the West Philippine Sea and improving the capabilities of the Philippine coastguard and navy to leverage the maritime data gathered.

“We can … [leverage] our partnership with South Korea, Japan and the US in helping us with the right technology. The main area for purchase now is technology because that’s exactly what we need. We need the right technology to supplement the efforts of the coastguard and the navy in the West Philippine Sea,” he added.

Jose Antonio Custodio, a defence analyst and fellow at the Consortium of Indo-Pacific Researchers, said a significant portion of the financial assistance should be allocated towards the Philippine navy to enhance its power projection in the West Philippine Sea.

The Philippine military should also focus on training its personnel to utilise the advanced systems acquired from the funding.

Chester Cabalza, a security analyst and president of the Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation, said the US funding should be allocated across various Philippine military units to bolster interoperability and counter emerging threats, particularly in the South China Sea.

“It should be invested not only on the improvement of the aerodrome and naval bases and capacity building of the coastguard [but also] for shared intelligence and military technological innovation,” he added.

The funding will also be a big step in boosting the responsibilities of the Philippine military as it partners with its American counterparts to confront new challenges in the Indo-Pacific region through joint exercises, according to Cabalza.

“It means that Manila will play a big role in the US simulation and war games in the region in terms of strategic foresight and decision-making,” he said.

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China woman hires delivery man to climb mountain, destroy ‘love lock’ of cheating ex

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3272901/china-woman-hires-delivery-man-climb-mountain-destroy-love-lock-cheating-ex?utm_source=rss_feed

A Chinese woman who hired a delivery driver to hike up a mountain and break a “love lock’put there by her and her ex-boyfriend, has amused many online viewers.

The unusual request unfolded through an online video on Douyin, shared by the driver, known as “Gold Medal Runner Brother”, which attracted 27,000 followers.

His IP address showed he was based in Henan province in northern China.

He often documented his “errand challenges” in which he fulfilled special requests for clients from being a proxy wedding guest to sending red envelopes or flowers on Mother’s Day.

In addition to dropping off meals, delivery drivers in China offer a variety of personal services, such as queuing up to buy milk tea, transporting documents, accompanying clients to hospital, and even caring for pets.

The cost of the services depends on the distance and time it takes to deliver them.

In this case, the client, Wang Mengmeng, paid 300 yuan (US$41) for the driver to climb Laojun Mountain in Henan to cut the metal lock she and her ex-boyfriend had placed there during their relationship.

“I went to Laojun Mountain with my ex-boyfriend and hung a lover’s lock, then I found out that he had done the same with so many girls. Now, when I think about it, I feel disgusted. Can you help me cut the lock?,” Wang said.

The delivery driver expressed his disdain for her ex-boyfriend and accepted the request, driving four hours to reach the mountain and taking a cable car to the top.

He discovered that identifying his client’s lock among the many others was a daunting task.

After a video conversation with Wang, he found the pink lock with the couple’s names on it and broke it.

During his journey up the mountain, passers-by were surprised to learn about the special service.

Wang also asked the delivery man to cut a lock put there by her ex-boyfriend and one of his other former girlfriends.

To the entertainment of onlookers, he initially tossed the two cut locks into a nearby creek. However, Liu requested further destruction to signify that the relationship was irrevocably over.

After figuring out that the lock was made of zinc, he went to a specialist shop where he had it melted down before declaring that the bond between the couple was completely broken.

However, staff at the shop pointed out: “Brother, you’re not ending the relationship, melting it is actually merging it into one.”

The video has caused much amusement on mainland social media.

“You only hooked up in April and you broke up in July, so fast,” one person said.

“I wonder what else the drivers would do,” said another.

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Does a deal over 2 fishermen mean Taiwan and mainland China are ready to restart talks?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3273106/does-deal-over-2-fishermen-mean-taiwan-and-mainland-china-are-ready-restart-talks?utm_source=rss_feed

It took five months and more than a dozen rounds of talks but officials from Taiwan and mainland China finally hatched a deal for the return of the remains of two mainland fishermen this week.

The fishermen died in waters near the Taiwan-controlled island of Quemoy – also known as Kinmen – on February 14 after their boat capsized during a pursuit by Taiwanese coastguard boats.

The incident set off a barrage of accusations from both sides of the Taiwan Strait but ended in an agreement that raised hopes for the reopening of a dialogue channel between the two.

But analysts remain cautious, saying neither is willing to compromise on the most critical issue.

Under the agreement reached on Tuesday, Taiwan agreed to compensate the victims’ families, apologise, and repatriate the bodies of the two men.

Chen Yu-jen, a legislator from the Quemoy constituency and a member of the main opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT), said the settlement marked a good start for mending fences between both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

“This will allow our two sides to accumulate more goodwill, which is advantageous for improving relations,” said Chen, who has promoted better communication between the island and the mainland.

Her KMT legislative colleague Hsu Yu-chen agreed, saying the incident could pave the way for further dialogue.

“Though the incident created a crisis, its resolution can serve as a stepping stone for re-establishing a cross-strait dialogue channel based on this format,” she said, adding: “This would help ease cross-strait tension.”

Communication was suspended in 2016 when Tsai Ing-wen of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was elected the island’s leader and declined to recognise the 1992 consensus, an understanding that Beijing sees as the foundation for any talks.

The consensus is a verbal understanding reached by Beijing and the KMT in Hong Kong in 1992, allowing the two sides to continue talks under the premise that there is only one China, but each side can have its own interpretation of what that China stands for.

Tsai’s successor, William Lai Ching-te, has also avoided the consensus, much to Beijing’s ire. Lai, who was elected in January, was inaugurated on May 20 and declared that Taiwan and the mainland “are not subordinate to each other”, a declaration that Beijing branded as proof of his “obstinate separatist” intentions.

In a statement on Wednesday, the DPP welcomed the agreement on the Quemoy incident, saying it “indicates that even with differing cross-strait positions, and regardless of political preconditions or labels, communication and problem-solving can occur based on equality and mutual respect”.

It said the government “is open to dialogue with the Chinese government without preconditions” and “will manage cross-strait affairs with a rational and pragmatic attitude”.

Analysts noted that both sides had softened their position on the February 14 incident, which would help enable cross-strait communication.

“The incident finally came to an end after both sides stopped stubbornly holding onto their positions and were willing to make concessions,” said Chang Wu-ueh, a professor of mainland China studies at Tamkang University in New Taipei.

“Cross-strait ties have remained tense and confrontational since May 20. The satisfactory resolution of this issue is a good sign as it could pave the way for normal personnel exchanges between the two sides.”

Chang said he thought there could also be a positive outcome in the case of a Taiwanese soldier held by the mainland since March, as well as that of the five crew members of a Taiwanese fishing boat that violated the mainland’s fishing ban by operating in waters near Quanzhou last month.

The soldier was detained after his boat drifted near Quanzhou in foggy weather during a fishing trip with a civilian friend. While the friend was released, the soldier from Quemoy remains in custody, accused of “intentionally” concealing his occupation.

Chen Yu-jen, who also helped communicate with the mainland for the soldier’s release, expressed confidence that Beijing would return the man on August 7.

But analysts said it was highly unlikely that the mainland would accept the latest settlement as a new basis for resuming cross-strait talks and improving relations more broadly.

“It would be too optimistic to assume that the resolution could lead to reopening the long-suspended official talks between the two sides, given their thorny political differences,” said Max Lo, executive director of the Taiwan International Strategic Study Society, a think tank in Taipei.

Like Tsai, Lai “is unlikely to accept the ‘1992 consensus’ and will adhere to his hardline counter-China-and-protect-Taiwan stance”, Lo said, adding that the hardcore pro-independence camp also would not allow him to appear to give ground to Beijing.

Bao Chengke, deputy director of the Institute for East Asian Studies in Shanghai, said the February 14 incident was treated as a humanitarian concern and handled as “a special case, a singular, isolated event”.

“I do not believe this is a routine way to solve cross-strait issues. The routine solution should still be based on the 1992 consensus, with the recognition that both sides belong to one China,” he said.

Bao said the incident had dragged on and a settlement was necessary to address public concerns and help the bereaved families.

Chen Binhua, a spokesman for the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office, echoed that position on Wednesday, saying the talks in Quemoy “had nothing to do with cross-strait negotiations.”

“The reason for the suspension of institutionalised cross-strait negotiation mechanisms is well known, and only by returning to the political foundation of the ‘1992 consensus’ can cross-strait negotiations be resumed,” he said.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which charts cross-strait policy, also said the incident was a “singular and isolated accidental event”, whose settlement was achieved through “persistent communication and efforts” by “various sectors of society”.

India cannot afford to lose plot while chasing Chinese investment

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3272664/india-cannot-afford-lose-plot-while-chasing-chinese-investment?utm_source=rss_feed

Of the many strategies to deepen India’s integration into the global value chain, the Indian Economic Survey 2023-24 says “it is inevitable that India plugs itself into China’s supply chain”. To do so, it argues that India must make a choice between relying solely on imported goods from China or attracting Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI).

The report, produced annually by India’s Ministry of Finance, favours the latter. Chinese FDI would help India kill two birds with one stone. It would help India address the growing bilateral trade deficit with China while at the same time enabling India to capitalise on the “China plus one” strategy, a strategy being effectively used by other developing economies.

However, the reasons India is seeking Chinese FDI are haphazard and show a lack of coherent economic reasoning. The Economic Survey suggests they stem from being economically submerged in the bilateral relationship with China while missing out on the benefits of “China plus one”. Indian policymakers seem to think they have no choice but to pursue Chinese FDI while leaving development of domestic technological capabilities as an afterthought.

India needs to redefine its objectives. Improving the country’s technological capabilities should be the focus of India’s FDI policies. Accordingly, its strategy towards China should rest on technological transfers and diffusion from Chinese FDI.

A paucity of data means there is little to no evidence to indicate whether wholly owned Chinese subsidiaries are better than joint ventures with Indian firms. Drawing from global studies on the impact of firm ownership on technological transfers in host countries, policies could be directed to encourage joint ventures between Indian and Chinese firms with technological transfers as the fulcrum of such partnerships.

Transfers can be direct through means such as technological handovers, with know-how shared with little restrictions in study groups or corporate joint ventures. Alternatively, transfers can also be indirect wherein the very presence of Chinese firms within India’s borders could initiate the process of technological transfers.

The idea is that the technological capabilities and management techniques of Chinese multinationals gradually leak out of Chinese firms and become common knowledge in the domestic Indian market. In other words, Indian firms could enjoy technological spillover benefits from incorporating foreign knowledge into their production processes without having to acquire it via a transaction.

Such technological spillovers can play a critical role. However, the magnitude of the spillover largely depends on a country’s ability to absorb and assimilate available knowledge, which in turn relates to the skills of its workforce, the state of its infrastructure, its institutional framework and openness to structural reforms.

For example, the presence and activities of Chinese firms in India could facilitate technological spillovers through imitation, whereby domestic Indian firms could reverse engineer technologies embodied in Chinese FDI. This could close the technological gap, putting domestic laggards onto an innovation trajectory. However, reverse engineering is only possible if the Indian workforce has the necessary skill set to make it happen.

Thus, India must invest time, money and effort in structural and institutional reforms. These reforms need to start delivering high-quality development rather than just ticking government boxes. For example, given India’s aspirational growth trajectory, it comes as no surprise that the country is witnessing an infrastructure boom.

In its budget for the coming year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government maintains that infrastructure will continue to receive “strong fiscal support”. However, upgrading the country’s infrastructure needs to go beyond improving India’s position in assessments such as the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index or delving into aspirational projects such as building the country’s largest sea bridge or biggest port.

Instead, the focus in infrastructure development should be to deliver seamless, effective and efficient connectivity across the length and breadth of India. This connectivity must go beyond national highways and include local roads that connect the country’s interior, leaving no Indian behind. Replacing crumbling infrastructure and ensuring pothole-free roads, especially during wet seasons, could be one ambition at the start of this journey.

India also needs to tap into the role that governments at the state and local levels can play in bringing along the development of the country’s infrastructure. While financial transfers and budgetary autonomy are indispensable factors, decentralisation that endorses adaptive government is also important to promoting good development outcomes.

Much like other multinational firms, Chinese multinationals would do a cost-benefit analysis before entering India. The presumption that Chinese firms are waiting with anticipation for India to open up needs a reality check, especially given India’s stringent attitude towards Chinese businesses to suit the government’s rhetoric over the border dispute with China.

India’s short-sighted approach to Chinese FDI needs to go beyond extending a cautionary welcome. It needs to actively bargain for a higher share in Chinese multinationals’ portfolios. The bargaining chip here is a robust and resilient domestic ecosystem, which also helps multinationals in managing their international risk exposure.

A country’s absorptive capacity can not only facilitate FDI spillovers within a country but also act as a determining factor for FDI inflows in the country. Essential reforms such as on visas can help ease labour shortages in the domestic economy as well as encourage FDI spillovers. Whichever path India chooses going forward, it will need a holistic approach to FDI policies with policy intervention on all fronts of economic development, domestically and internationally.

Can China balance climate and energy concerns as it endures more extreme weather?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3270686/can-china-balance-climate-and-energy-concerns-it-endures-more-extreme-weather?utm_source=rss_feed

It was 3.44am on June 19 and Tang Kaili, a housewares retailer in China’s southern city of Guilin, was sound asleep – when a short message from the local government appeared on her phone. It was an official alert that an upstream reservoir would begin releasing floodwater at 5am. Tang slept through it.

For a week, torrential rain had been soaking Guilin, a tourist destination in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, known for its tranquil lakes, winding rivers and karst caves. Several reservoirs, no longer able to accommodate the massive volumes of precipitation, had been releasing their contents.

But few had expected that the latest release from the Qingshitan reservoir would be the final straw in a deluge that would lead to the most severe flood in the city since 1998.

By 8.50am, the property manager in Tang’s residential area had called her with a warning that the water level was rising quickly. Tang rushed out to discover the water was already up to her knees. She decided to wade through the streets to salvage what she could at her shop. By the time she arrived, much of the store was submerged.

“A property manager asked me to evacuate immediately when the water level rose to around 1 metre (39 inches). So I did. Later it rose to 1.6 metres,” she said. “When I came back the next day, my exquisite shop had turned into a mess of mud.”

“I invested one million yuan (US$138,000) in the shop. Now it’s all lost,” Tang said despondently. “Everything just happened too suddenly.”

Guilin is not alone in suffering through this summer’s extreme weather. Large swathes of China – 12 provinces across the south to the northeast – have been swamped by heavy rain and floods, while four others – Hebei in the north, central Shanxi and Henan, and eastern Shandong – have been hit by scorching droughts.

China has just experienced its hottest July and the hottest single month since 1961, according to the National Climate Centre, with the western autonomous region of Xinjiang, the eastern city of Hangzhou and the southern cities of Fuzhou and Nanchang sweltering for more than 20 days in temperatures of over 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit).

The central government has not released the total death toll from the extreme weather episodes. But 30 people have been killed and another 35 reported missing since Typhoon Gaemi made landfall and hit the central province of Hunan, state media reported on Thursday. This came days after 15 people died in a landslide, as heavy rain swept away a guest house in the city of Hengyang, also in Hunan, on Sunday.

Before Gaemi, more than 20 rounds of flooding had hit China since April, leaving a trail of fatalities from Guangdong province in the south to Chongqing in the southwest and all the way to Hunan.

The extreme weather has impacted hundreds of millions of people, and caused losses worth billions of yuan. China is set to see a drop in its early-season rice harvest due to the floods in the production hubs of Jiangxi and Hunan, increasing pressure on annual output at a time when Beijing is fighting to strengthen food security.

China is well-versed in responding to natural disasters – from issuing warnings and taking precautionary measures, to mobilising the military, law enforcement, medical staff and volunteers for rescue and relief efforts. However, the country is being put to a new test by more sudden and violent episodes of extreme weather.

“Since the beginning of the 21st century, days of extreme heat in China have risen notably and so have the events of extreme rainstorms,” China’s Meteorological Administration (CMA) said in a report released on July 4. “China is especially vulnerable to extreme weather intensified by climate change.”

China’s annual average temperature last year was the highest since records began in 1901. Extreme heat and rainfall events have been intensifying. In coastal areas, average sea levels are rising more quickly, and glaciers in the western regions are melting faster than ever, according to the report.

Ronald Li Kwan-kit, an assistant lecturer with the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a fellow of the Hong Kong Meteorological Society, said greenhouse gas emissions were largely to blame.

“Southern China typically receives heavy rainfall in the summer as part of the … monsoon season. But the intensity of the rainfall is likely affected by climate change, becoming more severe,” Li said.

Extreme weather is having a profound impact on economic activities. Li said storms were taking a serious toll on the shipping industry, and floods and droughts, happening more frequently and with greater intensity, were damaging China’s agriculture sector.

The fundamental solution is to reduce carbon emissions, Li said.

China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter. In April 2021, President Xi Jinping said China would “strictly control” coal-fired power generation projects, reach peak consumption in 2025 and start phasing them out in 2026, as part of national goals for carbon emissions to peak before 2030, and to reach net zero emissions by 2060.

But those targets risk going off track, given that approvals for new coal-fired power plants increased fourfold over 2022 and 2023, compared with the five years from 2016 to 2020, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. The spike came as China pushed for post-pandemic economic recovery.

“Given the centrality of China to the global manufacturing cycle, what happens in China obviously does not stay in China – the shocks reverberate globally,” said Sourabh Gupta, a senior policy specialist with the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington.

The long-term solution, according to Gupta, is for China to graduate up the value chain at home.

“[China needs to] pare down its carbon footprint in manufacturing, and export its cost-efficient green energy generation capabilities and associated services so that Global South countries can reap the benefits of lower-value manufactured goods exports based on cleaner and greener Chinese energy source inputs, as well as imported Chinese parts and components,” Gupta said.

But the focus on coal continues as geopolitical tensions with the United States and its allies make China more keen to pursue domestic energy and food security.

This has led to the rebound of coal power capacity expansion and the unscientific use of mountain slopes to plant crops, according to Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing-based non-governmental organisation.

“Such moves are against the carbon emission goals and would exacerbate the environment,” Ma said.

China’s law on flood control should introduce higher standards for flood-proof facilities and expand the application of technologies in extreme weather forecasts, pre-warning and the digital management of barrier facilities, dams and flood storage areas, he added.

The last revision to the law took effect in 2016.

The Ministry of Water Resources hosted a symposium on July 2 to gauge opinions from experts on further revisions to the law to “to solve new and old problems” in the battle against natural disasters.

Last year, China built at least two powerful machine-learning weather forecasting models. According to Li at Chinese University, their predictive accuracy for extreme weather, such as tropical cyclones and heavy rainfall, has been better than traditional forecast models.

Faith Chan, an associate professor in environmental sciences with the University of Nottingham in Ningbo, said China had made good progress in improving disaster preparations and responses, but their success ultimately rested with the government.

“The information from [the CMA] is open and free of charge, including radar images, satellite images, rainfall predictions and soil water content status, wind conditions, humidity, and temperature predictions. These practices are improving the disaster preparation and recovery processes,” Chan said.

However, he warned that while a “whole-nation” system could enable “more organised and useful practices” to tackle natural disasters, and minimise casualties and economic losses, “the lack of flexibility and [persistent] rigidness in dealing with disasters caused by extreme weather may affect the operational effectiveness”.

“There is increasing demand for [technologies], but I think the key is still the decisions from the government, plus how the technologies are used, [for example] big data or AI.”

“These technologies are very new to the communities,” Chan said, adding that in terms of handling disasters with such technologies, a wait-and-see approach would be best to determine their effectiveness.

Three years ago, more than 300 people died in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province, when extreme rainfall and flooding inundated the city, immersing the subway system and trapping people in submerged vehicles. Experts described it as a “once in a thousand years” event.

The city has been a showcase in China’s “sponge city” programme, an initiative launched nationwide in 2015 to re-engineer cities to collect, purify and reuse floodwaters while reducing problems like urban heat island effect, freshwater scarcity and flooding.

But the programme has its limits, as it was only designed to help a city’s infrastructure withstand a once in 30 years rain event. Also, such upgrades can create a false sense of security, according to a study published in the journal Nature in June.

Last summer, after Beijing was hit by its heaviest rainfall in 140 years, the city opened up several zones in low-lying areas along waterways to help drain the floodwaters. Such zones are a central part of China’s flood control system. However, the decision caused farmland and homes to be submerged in neighbouring Hebei province, affecting more than 850,000 people.

The disaster left 51 people dead in Beijing and killed another 45 in Hebei, according to official data.

This summer, apart from Chongqing, Guangdong and Hunan, most regions or provinces affected by the floods have not reported any weather-related casualties.

The devastating floods that hit Guilin in 1998 lasted two months and hammered 24 provinces, killing more than 3,000 people and affecting another 220 million, official data showed.

Tang, the Guilin shopkeeper, said she was still waiting for compensation for the June floods.

“I’ve done the government registration to report property losses. Hopefully I can receive some money for a new start,” she said.