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• Chinese American man convicted in US of spying on dissidents for China
• [Sport] Zheng, 11, becomes China's youngest Olympian
• China begins work of setting up vast network of internet satellites
• Buyout of China’s drug companies by global pharma giants sparks national security fears
• Creditor China ‘closely monitors’ conditions in post-Hasina, debt-heavy Bangladesh
• China’s AI-related companies total 1.67 million in first half of 2024 amid ChatGPT frenzy
• China’s winter sports push heats up as experience economy gathers pace with indoor skiing
• China warns office workers foreign spies can steal data via commonplace online software
• 70% of South Korean manufacturing firms fear fallout from China dumping stockpiled products
• [Sport] 'Our gold medals are squeaky clean' - China responds to doping doubts
• Jealous China doctors brawl over two-timing nurse, one ends up in intensive care
• China issues Lebanon travel warning as Israel tensions spark ‘grave’ security scenario
• China’s anti-corruption squads target funeral officials making a killing from the dead
• China industrial parks whip up new formula for success as foreign firms balk at old recipe
• China’s future tech race with US set for a boost with new Fudan brain chip centre
• China wife disconnects life support of dying husband who cheated on her
• Like the US before World War I, China is staying above the fray
• Blinken’s Asia trip a boost for bilateral ties, reinforces stance in South China Sea row: analysts
• Snail shells, a ‘once-in-a-millennium’ storm and what it all means for climate studies in China

Chinese American man convicted in US of spying on dissidents for China

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/06/chinese-american-spy-convicted-shujun-wang-new

A Chinese American scholar was convicted on Tuesday in the US on charges of using his reputation as a pro-democracy activist to gather information on dissidents and feed it to his homeland’s government.

A federal jury in New York delivered the verdict in the case of Shujun Wang, who helped found a pro-democracy group in the city.

Prosecutors said that at the behest of China’s main intelligence agency, the ministry of state security, Wang lived a double life for more than a decade.

“The defendant pretended to be opposed to the Chinese government so that he could get close to people who were actually opposed to the Chinese government,” assistant US attorney Ellen Sise said in an opening statement last month. “And then, the defendant betrayed those people, people who trusted him, by reporting information on them to China.”

Wang was convicted of charges including conspiring to act as a foreign agent without notifying the attorney general. Faced with up to 10 years in prison, he pleaded not guilty.

Wang’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment.

Wang came to New York in 1994 to teach after doing so at a Chinese university. He later became a US citizen.

He helped found the Queens-based Hu Yaobang Zhao Ziyang Memorial Foundation, named for two leaders of the Chinese Communist party in the 1980s.

According to prosecutors, Wang composed emails – styled as “diaries” – that recounted conversations, meetings and plans of various critics of the Chinese government.

One message was about events commemorating the 1989 protests and bloody crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, prosecutors said. Other emails talked about people planning demonstrations during various visits that Xi Jinping, Chinese president, made to the US.

Instead of sending the emails and creating a digital trail, Wang saved them as drafts that Chinese intelligence officers could read by logging in with a shared password, prosecutors said.

In other, encrypted messages, Wang relayed details of upcoming pro-democracy events and plans to meet with a prominent Hong Kong dissident while the latter was in the US, according to an indictment.

During a series of FBI interviews between 2017 and 2021, Wang initially said he had no contacts with the ministry of state security, but he later acknowledged on videotape that the intelligence agency asked him to gather information on democracy advocates and that he sometimes did, FBI agents testified.

But, they said, he claimed he did not provide anything really valuable, just information already in the public domain.

Wang’s lawyers portrayed him as a gregarious academic with nothing to hide.

“In general, fair to say he was very open and talkative with you, right?” the defense attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma asked an undercover agent who approached Wang in 2021 under the guise of being affiliated with the Chinese security ministry.

“He was,” said the agent, who testified under a pseudonym. He recorded his conversation with Wang at the latter’s house in Connecticut.

“Did he seem a little lonely?” Margulis-Ohnuma asked a bit later. The agent said he did not recall.

Wang told agents his “diaries” were advertisements for the foundation’s meetings or write-ups that he was publishing in newspapers, according to testimony. He also suggested to the undercover agent that publishing them would be a way to deflect any suspicion from US authorities.

Another agent, Garrett Igo, told jurors that when Wang found out in 2019 that investigators would search his phone for any contacts in the Chinese government, he paused for a minute.

“And then he said: ‘Do anything. I don’t care,’” Igo recalled.

[Sport] Zheng, 11, becomes China's youngest Olympian

https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/articles/c6288jjrv51o

China begins work of setting up vast network of internet satellites

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3273446/china-begins-work-setting-vast-network-internet-satellites?utm_source=rss_feed

China officially started setting up a giant internet satellite constellation by launching the first components of the network on Tuesday afternoon.

The 18 communication satellites entered their designated orbits smoothly after lifting off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in Shanxi province, according to state news agency Xinhua.

The project to set up the Qianfan Constellation, also known as the G60 Constellation, was established last year with the ambitious goal of establishing a Chinese global low earth orbit (LEO) satellite internet network that can challenge the likes of SpaceX’s Starlink.

The Qianfan project, operated by the state-controlled Shanghai Yuanxin Satellite Technology Company, will have three phases of development.

By the end of 2025, it aims to have 648 satellites in orbit to provide regional network coverage, then make its coverage global by 2027. Finally, by 2030, it hopes to operate more than 14,000 satellites to provide multi-service integration directly to mobile devices.

The satellites launched this time were produced by GeneSat in Shanghai. In an interview with the Shanghai Securities News in June, an executive from GeneSat revealed plans to “explore launching configurations of 36 and 54 satellites per rocket to accelerate the pace of launches”.

LEO satellites operate between 160 and 2,000km (100-1,200 miles) above Earth, offering reduced transmission delays and lower link losses compared with geostationary satellites, making them highly suitable for satellite internet services.

Starlink exemplifies this type of communication, creating a satellite Wi-fi network that, once operational, allows high-speed, seamless internet access anywhere on the ground.

LEO satellites can also offer quicker communications across oceans compared with undersea cables and are strategically important due to their minimal blind spots and cost-effectiveness in remote areas.

But given the limited space available in orbit, the global race for LEO satellite resources has intensified.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to launch 42,000 satellites by 2027, while China has told the International Telecommunication Union it intends to deploy 51,300 satellites.

Besides Qianfan, other large-scale Chinese projects being planned include China Satellite Network Group’s GW constellation, which is expected to launch 12,992 satellites, and Lanjian Aerospace’s Honghu-3 project, which will deploy around 10,000, according to digital blogger Li Yan.

With its early start, the United States currently holds a significant lead in the number of satellites in orbit.

“The future of satellite internet is likely to see fierce competition between the US, China, the European Union and Russia, said Zhang Rui, a council member of the China Market Research Society.

“These are the only major economies with integrated capabilities in satellite manufacturing, launching, ground equipment and operational services.”

Buyout of China’s drug companies by global pharma giants sparks national security fears

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3273444/buyout-chinas-drug-companies-global-pharma-giants-sparks-national-security-fears?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese pharmaceutical industry insiders have warned that foreign takeovers may damage the sector and even threaten national security.

Since December, five Chinese biotech drug makers have been sold to global pharmaceutical giants.

Industry insiders have warned that this could have a negative impact, especially given the risk that the United States could extend its technology sanctions to essential medicines.

John Cai, chairman of China Healthcare Innovation Platform Academy, a healthcare think tank in Shanghai, said: “When national conflicts occur and drugs are sanctioned as strategic products, it will affect the health of a country’s population.

“Considering that China’s biopharmaceutical and broader healthcare industry are now facing international competition and restrictions, Beijing should act with a sense of urgency.”

He also said that research and development is a long process and if innovative products are sold as soon as they are developed, it will be difficult for China to cultivate world-class pharmaceutical companies.

But Wang Haoran, chief executive of biosciences company Neoland, said selling up to pharmaceutical giants is a common practice among smaller companies around the world.

“Drug research and development is very cash intensive and involves a long industrial chain, it’s hard for a small company to sustain the whole life cycle just by raising venture capital,” he said.

Ding Sheng, a professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Pharmaceutical Sciences and head of the non-profit research organisation Global Health Drug Discovery Institute in Beijing, said: “The ability to initiate and lead the development of revolutionary, first-in-class medicines is a crucial component of national strength and security.

“A great country should also have a responsibility to take on the most challenging tasks,” adding that this also brings benefits such as opening up new opportunities and nurturing talent.

The first full takeover of a Chinese biotech firm by a multinational drug maker was last year’s deal to sell Gracell Biotechnologies, a developer of cutting-edge cell therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases, to AstraZeneca.

This was followed in January by Novartis’s acquisition of Shanghai-based SanReno Therapeutics, which specialises in developing therapies for kidney diseases.

Last month the US investment news platform StreetInsider reported that Legend Biotech, which has made its name with a cutting-edge cell therapy, had received a takeover offer.

The FiercePharma website later reported that Johnson & Johnson and Novartis could be interested in the firm.

Founded in 2014 in Nanjing, Legend Biotech specialises in developing cell therapies for cancer patients, including Carvykti, a type of CAR-T therapy.

CAR-T is a type of immunotherapy that takes disease-fighting white blood cells called T-cells from a patient, re-engineers them and then infuses them back into the body.

Carvykti was approved by US and European regulators in 2022 and global sales revenues have risen to third place among all CAR-T therapies.

Last month, the Chinese healthcare research organisation Yiyao warned in an article published on its WeChat account that selling the company might raise the price of CAR-T therapies in the domestic market.

Domestically produced drugs are often cheaper in China than foreign ones as a result of factors such as intensifying market competition and a government-dominated pricing system that encourages companies to lower their prices.

But Ding said a key underlying issue is that under China’s current state-led pricing system, developing and investing in original medicines has become largely unprofitable for Chinese companies.

But he said the government could help by “providing support at various levels, including a more dynamic financial environment”.

In recent years, China has significantly increased its investment in pharmaceutical R&D from both the government and private sectors, but most observers warn the industry is finding it harder to raise capital now.

Ding said two or three years ago, scientists found it relatively easy, but since 2021, the sector has experienced a broad slowdown in venture capital activity and a decline in market confidence.

The reasons behind this downturn are complex. They include a more cautious investment sentiment and stricter rules on initial public offerings.

Creditor China ‘closely monitors’ conditions in post-Hasina, debt-heavy Bangladesh

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3273456/creditor-china-closely-monitors-conditions-post-hasina-debt-heavy-bangladesh?utm_source=rss_feed

Uncertainty hangs over the future of Bangladesh’s debt repayments to China, with the South Asian country engulfed in political turmoil and fears of a US recession adding to market volatility.

Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina reportedly fled the country on Monday following weeks of deadly anti-government protests against job quotas amid high unemployment and debt pressure.

The military has formed an interim government and is in discussion with all parties on holding an election.

In a short statement on Tuesday night, the Chinese foreign ministry said Beijing was “closely monitoring the situation in Bangladesh”.

“As a friendly neighbour and comprehensive strategic partner, China sincerely hopes that Bangladesh will restore social stability at an early date,” it said.

Hasina’s chaotic exit came just as global markets were hit by a panic sell-off fuelled by various factors including weaker-than-expected US jobs data. The volatility is expected to put further strain on the lending capacity of some low-income countries, as well challenge their major creditors such as China.

China is the third biggest bilateral creditor to Bangladesh following Japan and Russia, and Dhaka had more than US$5 billion in outstanding loans to Beijing by the end of 2023, according to the Dhaka-based Daily Star newspaper.

The protests erupted in June, not long before Hasina’s trip to China in July, when she asked for an additional US$5 billion loan.

There was no direct public response from China to the requests, but Beijing did offer 1 billion yuan (US$140 million) in economic assistance, according to the Bangladeshi foreign ministry.

Lin Minwang, deputy director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University, said Hasina’s resignation raised uncertainty over Bangladesh’s repayment capacity. It was also not clear what the policy of the country’s next administration would be towards Beijing.

“China has supported the Hasina government over the years, and Hasina has harshly suppressed the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Assuming the BNP comes to power again, China’s past support for Hasina may upset it,” Lin said.

Nevertheless, Lin said, the BNP had traditionally been friendlier to Pakistan and China than to India.

And China has maintained ties with the BNP over the years. During a visit to Bangladesh in 2016, President Xi Jinping discussed the Belt and Road Initiative with BNP chairwoman Khaleda Zia. Zia, a former prime minister, was released from house arrest on Tuesday after Hasina’s ousting.

The World Bank said on Monday that it was assessing the impact of events in Bangladesh on its loan programme with the country. By the end of June, the bank had US$2.85 billion in total commitments in the country.

But the debt pile is much greater. Bangladesh’s external debt exceeded US$100 billion for the first time last year, owing most to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It is repaying US$251 million in interest to China per year, according to the Daily Star.

Jayant Menon, a former ADB lead economist, said it was too early to say how the political turmoil in Bangladesh would affect its repayment of loans to China, “but it would appear to have no real effect, at the moment”.

“These are sovereign obligations that any new government will have to honour, if it is to retain credibility in global financial markets,” said Menon, who is now a senior fellow at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

At the same time, China is under high pressure to breathe new life into its economy, which lost momentum in the second quarter as a property crisis dragged on.

China has been one of the major funding providers to developing nations. According to AidData, China gave US$1.34 trillion dollars in grants and loans for nearly 20,000 projects in 165 low-income and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2021.

Some countries have also turned to China as US Federal Reserve rate rises have sent up interest rates in the global financial markets, increasing US dollar-denominated debt repayments for low-income countries.

But has been seen to become increasingly cautious in lending overseas, shifting the focus of its Belt and Road Initiative from big spending on infrastructure to smaller, “high-quality” projects.

At last month’s third plenum, a gathering that sets out the country’s future economic policy, the Communist Party’s Central Committee highlighted green and digital projects as some of the major directions for the plan.

Bangladesh is the second country in South Asia in two years to have gone through such a political crisis. Three months after a government default in 2022, then-Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa – whose family is seen as Beijing-friendly – resigned amid economic and political chaos. In the months following, Colombo sought an agreement with major creditor nations, including China to restructure its US$10 billion in bilateral debt.

But Pang Zhongying, an international affairs professor at Sichuan University, said the situation in Bangladesh was different.

“The economic situation in Bangladesh is not that bad yet, though it may have its own problems, which will be blamed on Hasina.”

Additional reporting by Laura Zhou

China’s AI-related companies total 1.67 million in first half of 2024 amid ChatGPT frenzy

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3273400/chinas-ai-related-companies-total-167-million-first-half-amid-chatgpt-frenzy?utm_source=rss_feed

Mainland China added more than 237,000 new companies involved in artificial intelligence (AI) during the first half of this year, according to corporate database platform Qichacha, taking the total to 1.67 million amid Beijing’s efforts to foster the technology’s development.

Of that total, more than 1.48 million – almost 90 per cent – were set up after 2017, when the State Council, the country’s cabinet, published the Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan that outlined a goal to become a world leader in the technology. The Post’s search included all companies with AI in their name, patent portfolio and scope of business.

The annual number of new AI-related company registrations hit a record of more than 467,000 last year, which came on the heels of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022 – when the public gained access to a chatbot that can quickly draft emails, craft speeches or summarise documents based on simple prompts from users.

That number eclipsed the mainland’s 56,000 new AI-related company registrations in 2018, a year after Beijing’s AI development plan was published, as more firms scrambled to become involved in developing chatbots and large language models – the technology underpinning generative AI services like ChatGPT.

That growth in AI-related company registrations reflects China’s new unicorn boom that has so far yielded four “AI tigers” – Baichuan, Zhipu AI, Moonshot AI and MiniMax – each of which has raised billions of dollars from deep-pocketed investors.

Still, brutal competition is also cutting the number of AI firms in the market. About 419,000, or less than 90 per cent, of mainland AI enterprises that set up shop last year, continue to operate, Qichacha data showed.

Beijing, however, remains undeterred in providing further policy support for the nascent AI industry.

Premier Li Qiang earlier this year at the Two Sessions – the collective term for the annual plenary sessions of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – introduced the AI Plus initiative that aims to integrate the technology across traditional industries to help boost efficiency and economic growth.

China’s winter sports push heats up as experience economy gathers pace with indoor skiing

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3273412/chinas-winter-sports-push-heats-experience-economy-gathers-pace-indoor-skiing?utm_source=rss_feed

Average temperature reached record highs in China in July, but Shenzhen’s indoor ski resorts offered a stark contrast to the heat that had descended on China’s Southern tech hub, while also providing a boost to cooling consumption that is weighing on the national economy.

With sub-zero temperatures, artificial snow, glass igloos and customers bundled up in colourful ski gear, indoor skiing has emerged as a surprise hit in Shenzhen, with bookings via Chinese shopping platform Meituan almost tripling in July from the previous month, according to CCTV.

“In rapid urbanised cities like Shenzhen, due to the rising levels of disposable income, residents have a growing appetite for new experiences like skiing,” said Lu Baoying, senior industry analyst at Zhiyan Consulting Group.

The surge in popularity of snow and ice sports following the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing has spurred the rapid development of indoor ski resorts across China, especially in its southern provinces, despite slugging retail sales amid weak domestic demand.

An indoor ski resort – spread over more than 10 hectares (24 acres) – that could become the world’s largest is set to debut in Shenzhen within the next year following the opening of the world’s second-largest in Guangzhou in 2019.

China is home to some of the world’s largest indoor ski facilities, with the largest the Wanda Snow Park in the northern Heilongjiang province covering an area equal to about nine football pitches.

Winter sports are being eyed as a new consumption growth engine, with guidelines on further developing consumer services issued by the State Council last week proposing to actively promote the sector as a means of stimulating domestic consumption.

“Due to the lack of similar indoor ski facilities in Hong Kong, we’ve seen an explosive increase in customers from Hong Kong after the travel restrictions were lifted, especially during weekends and public holidays,” said Feng Chao, who works as marketing director at Karoo Ice and Snow World in Shenzhen.

Hong Kong teacher Minnie Ho spent half a day at a ski resort in Shenzhen two weeks ago, with a two-hour ticket costing 250 yuan (US$35).

“The price was quite reasonable for me compared to leisure activities in Hong Kong,” said Ho.

However, some residents in Shenzhen found indoor skiing less attractive.

“The current ski resorts in the city look dull to me. And given the cost, I don’t think it’s great value for money. I’d be more tempted to try it out when the new, larger one opens next year,” said Sue Su, who works for a media company in the city.

Prices at the major indoor ski resorts in Shenzhen average at around 100 yuan per hour, with most requiring a minimum two-hour stay.

On Meituan, the most popular package at Karoo Ice and Snow World in Shenzhen was a two-hour snow play option, which does not include skiing.

“But it’s quite hard for customers who paid for snow play to become loyal customers as there are cheaper options in Shenzhen – with lower quality of the artificial snow, of course,” added Feng.

“However, customers are price sensitive. As long as they can play in the snow, they will be more willing to choose the cheaper option.”

But despite the 40 per cent increase in customers at Karoo Ice and Snow World in the first half of this year, there were fewer visitors from Hong Kong in July following the opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link – a combination of two bridges, a tunnel and two artificial islands connecting the two sides of the Pearl River Delta – which has provided Hong Kong residents more travel options within mainland China.

Visitors to the attraction from Shenzhen last month only increased by 4 per cent from a year ago.

During the first half of the year, retail sales in Shenzhen increased by only 1 per cent, while retail sales in Guangdong province increased by 1.2 per cent.

But Feng remained optimistic as the resort targets middle-class skiing enthusiasts, who would be able to maintain their spending, while Shenzhen’s large population also provides a substantial customer pool.

“The experience economy is gaining momentum, with consumers increasingly valuing unique and unforgettable experiences,” added Lu at Zhiyan Consulting Group.

“Skiing, as a distinctive experiential activity, holds significant appeal and can attract those seeking novelty and thrill.”

China warns office workers foreign spies can steal data via commonplace online software

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3273404/china-warns-office-workers-foreign-spies-can-steal-data-commonplace-online-software?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s Ministry of State Security has warned office workers that online work tools can pose espionage risks, and that leaks have “occurred repeatedly” in recent years.

“Many online platforms gathered powerful ‘dark technology’ functions that combine both social and office work features,” the ministry said on its official WeChat account on Sunday.

It cited instant communication, format conversion, file transfer and group discussion tools as examples of risky applications.

Uploading confidential files to those platforms increased the risk for “overseas spying and intelligence agencies” to “steal” sensitive data and should be “strictly prohibited”, the ministry said.

A similar call about file transfer tools went out to government officials and employees in June, and last month a major Chinese tech company announced it was suspending a file storage and transfer tool.

The ministry singled out a type of product called File Transfer Assistant, which bears the same name to a file backup service provided by Tencent’s WeChat, allowing users to send files to themselves.

The ministry said that when employees uploaded classified documents from personal devices to cloud storage systems such as File Transfer Assistant, it “greatly increases risks of overseas spying and intelligence agencies obtaining relevant documents through [inserting] Trojan viruses”.

“The back end of the transfer software company can easily obtain confidential documents, and cannot effectively control the scope of access, which easily causes leakage,” it said.

It also warned there were risks of information being leaked when using optical character recognition software to extract text from images in confidential files, and when inputting confidential information to generate text in AI software.

China’s top spy agency warned government officials in June against storing classified information on cloud services because cloud data had become “a major focus of foreign spy agencies”.

Tencent suspended all file uploads to another cloud service tool, WeCloud, a month later, and said it would stop operation in October because of “business restructuring”.

A notice on Tencent’s WeCloud website urged customers to back up their files and said it would refund subscribers of the service.

The application regularly reminds users that confidential content is prohibited in the system during uploads.

The ministry’s call is part of China’s wider information protection campaign amid tech rivalry and geopolitical tensions with the US.

Another Chinese government department, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, released test rules in May for industry and information technology companies to conduct data security risk assessments, with China lagging behind the West in data protection.

Efforts also include a major overhaul of its broadly defined state secrets law for “the new era”, which widened the scope of restricted information to include “work secrets” – those that are not state secrets but that would “cause certain negative effects if leaked”.

The Ministry of State Security set up a WeChat page in July last year to push back against Western criticism of its national security efforts and enlist the public in counter-intelligence.

70% of South Korean manufacturing firms fear fallout from China dumping stockpiled products

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3273410/70-south-korean-manufacturing-firms-fear-fallout-china-dumping-stockpiled-products?utm_source=rss_feed

Seven out of 10 manufacturing businesses in South Korea said they have been affected by or expect negative impacts from China’s dumping of its stockpiled products, a survey showed on Tuesday, warning that this trend may persist for the long term.

According to the survey by the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), 27.6 per cent of 2,228 manufacturing companies in Korea said they are affected by China’s low-price exports. Among the respondents, 42.1 per cent said they have yet to experience negative impacts from such practices but expect to in the future.

The KCCI highlighted that China’s increasing product stockpiles are driving the country’s companies toward aggressive low-price strategies. It noted that this trend may persist for an extended period if China’s inventories continue to grow amid the country’s sluggish economic recovery.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the inventory ratio of finished goods in China was 1.68 per cent in November 2023 as companies began exporting the products accumulated during the Covid-19 pandemic at reduced prices. However, the ratio rose quickly to 4.67 per cent in June this year, as China’s economic slowdown protracts.

Among Korean industries, battery-related companies complained of hardships the most, as Chinese firms’ low-price strategies are coupled with the global slowdown in electric vehicle demand.

In the survey, 61.5 per cent of companies doing business related to secondary batteries said they were already affected by Chinese firms’ dumping and 23.1 per cent cast worries over future impacts.

Along with the battery industry, 46.4 per cent of textile and apparel businesses said they were affected, followed by cosmetics with 40.6 per cent and steelmaking with 35.2 per cent.

“Korean companies file five to eight anti-dumping cases against imports annually, but we’ve already seen six cases filed in the first half of this year alone,” KCCI research division head Kang Seog-gu said.

“As more cases of global trade disputes are being reported, the Korean government’s approach to address trade disputes needs to be reformed.”

[Sport] 'Our gold medals are squeaky clean' - China responds to doping doubts

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce4qp5ny0eeo

Reuters

Reuters

EPA

Jealous China doctors brawl over two-timing nurse, one ends up in intensive care

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3273327/jealous-china-doctors-brawl-over-two-timing-nurse-one-ends-intensive-care?utm_source=rss_feed

Two 50-something senior doctors got into a lover’s brawl over a nurse at a hospital in China which ended with one of them in the intensive care unit (ICU) which he runs.

The fight between the pair erupted on July 18 over a 27-year-old nurse who works at the same hospital.

It involved the director of the department of stomatology at Wuxi People’s Hospital, Jiangsu province in eastern China and his colleague, the director of the same hospital’s emergency department

They came to blows out of jealousy after discovering that they were both dating the nurse simultaneously, according to the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald reported.

The emergency department’s director, surnamed Xu, suffered serious injured to his head, neck and right hand.

Xu was knocked unconscious and told fellow doctors it was the result of “an accidental fall”.

Xu, who is a 50-year-old divorcee, was first sent to his hospital’s orthopaedics department for surgery on an injured finger before being transferred to the ICU he heads up.

It is not clear if the other doctor involved in the fight suffered any injuries.

According to online chat records of colleagues, the nurse was dating them both at the same time without letting them know about the existence of the other.

One of the doctors had bought her a villa while the other gifted her a luxury car.

The row erupted when the buyer of the villa, came to the house to pick her up and found the other man.

It is understood that the nurse, whose identity was not released, has returned to her hometown Chongqing, southwestern China.

An official at the hospital’s said an investigation has been launched into the incident.

“We are still looking into the incident. Whether these two doctors will be punished will be based on the result of the investigation,” the official said.

After the story emerged online it became the talk of the country, garnering 43 million views on Weibo and 9 million views on Douyin.

“I wonder how beautiful this nurse is,” said one online observer.

“They are warriors fighting for love, haha,” another online observer joked.

Another person said: “This incident has damaged the public image of medical staff.”

China issues Lebanon travel warning as Israel tensions spark ‘grave’ security scenario

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3273390/china-issues-lebanon-travel-warning-israel-tensions-spark-grave-security-scenario?utm_source=rss_feed

China issued a travel warning for Lebanon on Monday as heightened tensions with Israel sparked fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East.

The Chinese embassy in Lebanon asked nationals to be cautious about travelling to the country, calling the security situation there “grave and complex” following conflicts on the border with Israel and deadly Israeli air strikes last week on Lebanese capital Beirut targeting Hezbollah.

In a notice published on Monday night, the embassy also told its citizens and institutions in Lebanon to “stay on high alert and strengthen security precautions and preparations for emergencies”.

Those still going to Lebanon despite the warning “may face higher security risk and the efficiency of the assistance they receive may be affected”, it warned.

Several countries including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Turkey and Jordan have already issued similar warnings, after Iran vowed revenge on Israel following the assassination of Palestinian militant group Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in its capital Tehran on Wednesday.

This came hours after Israeli strikes on southern Beirut killed Hezbollah military chief top commander Fuad Shukr.

Israel is on high alert in anticipation of retaliatory attacks from Iran-linked armed groups including Hamas and Hezbollah, and US President Joe Biden convened a security meeting on Monday on “developments in the Middle East”.

The US has said it will move additional warships and fighter jets to the region as the Iran-aligned “Axis of resistance” – involving groups also from Yemen, Iraq, and Syria – readies its response.

The US embassy in Lebanon has urged citizens to book “any ticket available” while the United Kingdom has asked its nationals to “leave now”.

But the Chinese advisory on Monday stopped short of instructing citizens to leave.

Since the Gaza war broke out in October, Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged strikes nearly every day, as the Lebanese group showed solidarity with Palestinian group Hamas, which controlled the Gaza Strip.

Iran’s mission to the UN said it expects Hezbollah to hit deeper inside Israel and no longer be confined to military targets following last week’s assassinations.

On Tuesday morning, Israel said it had shot down a “suspicious aerial target” that infiltrated its airspace from Lebanon after sirens were triggered in two northern communities. There were no casualties in the incident, according to the Times of Israel.

On Monday, Hezbollah claimed to have launched a drone attack that hit a military target in northern Israel, calling it retaliation for the recent assassinations and a show of support for Gaza, the Associated Press reported.

Beijing has repeatedly called for restraint from all sides.

The soaring regional tensions have seen major airlines including Lufthansa, LOT Polish Airlines, Delta, Air France, Turkish Airlines and Singapore Airlines temporarily suspend flights to Israel, and they have also been avoiding Iranian and Lebanese airspace since last week.

China has deployed peacekeeping forces to Lebanon since 2006, as part of a UN peacekeeping mission established by the Security Council in 1978.

So far it has dispatched 22 batches to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, the latest in December, when 410 Chinese peacekeepers were designated to take on tasks including construction, medical assistance and mine clearance.

In July 2006, a People’s Liberation officer who also acted as an observer of the UN Truce Supervision Organisation in Lebanon, was killed in an Israeli air strike during the conflict with Hezbollah that year.

China’s anti-corruption squads target funeral officials making a killing from the dead

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3273287/chinas-anti-corruption-squads-target-funeral-officials-making-killing-dead?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s state-run funeral industry has become a fresh target for the country’s anti-corruption investigators, with a string of cases across the country in recent months.

In the latest case, Communist Party disciplinary investigators in Huainan, Anhui province, announced on Friday that they had detained Zhang Duo, from the Panji district funeral home for “suspected of serious violations of discipline and law”.

The watchdog did not elaborate on Zhang’s alleged offences but the phrase is a euphemism for corruption.

Most of China’s funeral parlours are managed under the direct supervision of civil affairs authorities, and are monopolies with a reputation for opaque pricing and substandard services – which in turn is fertile ground for corruption.

Zhang’s detention came three months after disciplinary authorities in the neighbouring city of Wuhu launched corruption investigations into Jiang Junsheng, the director of its municipal funeral service administrative office, as well as into Jiang’s deputy, Ren Yongsheng, according to Shanghai-based online news portal The Paper.

Staff at the municipal funeral centre in Benxi, in the northeastern province of Liaoning, were also the targets of disciplinary action in May, after customers accused them of asking for illegal tips, according to a report by provincial party mouthpiece Liaoning Daily last month.

Across the border in Jilin province, Lu Wanjun, former party secretary and director of the Huinan county funeral home, was stripped of party membership and job in May for charging families for services that were never provided. Lu was handed over to criminal prosecutors and will face trial.

Dozens of civil affairs bureaus – from Wanzhou in the southwest to Qidong in the east – have called meetings to try to rectify the “irregularities in the funeral industry”.

The meetings dovetail with President Xi Jinping’s call in January to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the top political disciplinary and anti-corruption body, to fight corruption that directly affects the people.

About 258 billion yuan (US$36 billion) was spent on funerals and associated services such as tombs in 2020, according to a report by Chinese investment bank Citic.

A 2015 investigation by state news agency Xinhua found that many funeral homes were making extra money selling overpriced urns and funeral clothes for the deceased, and the civil affairs officials in charge of the operations were taking a cut of the sales.

In 2015, the former director and former deputy director of a funeral home in Guangzhou were found to “partnered” with a paper coffin supplier over seven years, pocketing more than 250,000 yuan in bribes each.

Some funeral homes were also found to have given out fake cremation certificates, while allowing the deceased’s family to bury the body, a traditional practice now banned in most parts of the country because of the limited available land.

The Xinhua report said a few staff members at the Yinan county funeral home in Shandong province used straw, quilts and plastic to make fake corpses for cremation, helping more than 60 families to obtain fake cremation certificates, and receiving more than 200,000 yuan in bribes.

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China industrial parks whip up new formula for success as foreign firms balk at old recipe

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3273363/china-industrial-parks-whip-new-formula-success-foreign-firms-balk-old-recipe?utm_source=rss_feed

In the decades following China’s opening up and reform, industrial parks flourished across the Yangtze River Delta. Foreign investment poured into the nation’s biggest port city, Shanghai, and overflowed into the surrounding areas.

Eyeing opportunities in China’s huge market, multinationals with a presence in these parks were often lured by local governments’ enticing offers, including free rent and tax breaks.

But today, such incentives are no longer the magic formula for success as Beijing tightens taxation oversight and seeks to build a unified national market. The parks, which have been pivotal to China’s manufacturing advancements while serving as local economic engines over the years, have had to change the way they attract foreign firms as the external environment became less accommodative amid geopolitical tensions.

Amid the central government’s intensified scrutiny on investment-attraction measures, and with foreign investors’ bearish sentiment regarding China, even the most successful parks in the delta – one of the country’s most economically vibrant regions – are struggling to lure new investors.

“We used to rely on preferential policies, using land and reduced taxes to attract investors, but as the central government emphasises saving resources, this is not workable any more,” said Wang Aijun, director of the management committee of the Jiangning Industrial Park in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

In a comprehensive reform plan rolled out after their recent conclave known as the third plenum, central leadership vowed to “fully regulate taxation by law and standardise tax incentives”, and to “launch a special campaign to sort out the various types of land being used in industrial parks”.

Now, Wang said, the park is assessing a new approach, including fostering industrial clusters to attract firms along the value chain of major member firms.

The capability of industrial parks, also known as economic development zones, to lure investment is crucial to the world’s second-largest economy amid an ongoing downturn, according to Song Yingchang, a researcher of economic clusters with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

“The lack of new investment results in a shortage in capital and an inability to form big enough industries, without which industrial upgrades and the green transition will be empty talk,” he said.

About 12 per cent of China’s gross domestic product in 2022, and a quarter of its foreign trade, came from the country’s 230 state-level industrial parks, according to figures from the Ministry of Commerce in December.

The Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP), a flagship joint project between Singapore and China dubbed “an important window into China’s reform and opening up”, is focusing more on domestic firms as its appeal to foreign investors fades.

“We’re facing challenges mainly from the complex international situation, geopolitical tensions and risen costs in the domestic market,” Chen Liuying, head of investment promotion under the SIP’s management committee, told reporters during a media visit to the park in June.

Therefore, the park is looking more at home-grown businesses, particularly those in high-end, intelligent and green sectors, she said.

Amid a slump in China’s overall exports, the SIP saw a total trade volume of US$86.2 billion last year, down more than 6 per cent from US$92 billion in 2020, when the pandemic started affecting the global economy, according to data provided by the committee.

In the same period, the park’s actual use of foreign investment also slightly dropped to US$1.95 billion from US$1.97 billion.

A frontier for foreign investment, the city of Suzhou has experienced several rounds of exits by foreign investors since the global financial crisis about 15 years ago.

A combination of factors, including rising costs, geopolitical risks and supply-chain adjustments, has led more to follow suit in the past decade, such as Japan’s polarising-film giant Nitto Denko and leading hard drive manufacturer Seagate Technology.

However, “foreign firms still play a big role in the city’s economy, and luring more overseas investors remains an important task for the SIP”, said Zhu Huan, who heads the committee’s commerce department.

Those foreign firms account for more than 60 per cent of the park’s trade volume, more than 70 per cent of its industrial output, and more than a half of fiscal revenue, he said.

The Jiangning park in Nanjing is also seeking growth increasingly from domestic companies while encouraging existing foreign member firms to boost their presence, said Ni Lei, deputy head of the investment promotion department under the park’s management committee.

“We’re under tremendous pressure in attracting foreign investors, due to the current international situation,” he said, adding that most of the new joiners now are domestic firms in the supply chains involving electric vehicles and intelligent manufacturing.

Acknowledging the significance of foreign companies, he said that they now account for a third of all firms operating inside the park but account for half of its total gross domestic product.

Persuading the existing ones to stay and expand is one important approach, said the committee’s director, Wang.

“We must grasp what we have now and deepen our relations with them, and then push them [to increase investment],” he said, referring to efforts such as sending masks to their home countries during the pandemic and visiting headquarters upon reopening.

The return of high-end manufacturing industries to developed countries in recent years, led by the United States and Europe, has made it difficult for local governments to utilise foreign capital, said Tao Tao, a professor with Peking University’s School of Economics, earlier this year.

But that’s not all – a combination of new targets set by the central government, not just economic benefits but also supply-side reform, innovation, environmental protection and people’s livelihood, is making the situation more difficult for localities, he wrote in an article for the official biweekly journal People’s Tribune in May.

“Under the new goals and tasks, the traditional local investment promotion model has encountered bottlenecks. Tax, land and other offers make it easy to attract projects but difficult to retain them,” he noted.

Traditionally, to pull in investors, parks in China have offered a wide range of benefits such as free rent, reduced taxes or no taxes during the first few years of operation, as well as loans paid over several months or years. Some even would throw in rent-free offices or production facilities.

For example, incentives rolled out in 1992 by the Beijing municipal government to encourage investment in its Yizhuang park included no taxes for the first two years and a 50 per cent reduction in the following three years for manufacturers that vowed to operate there for more than 10 years.

But cracking down on such offers was prioritised by the National Audit Office this year, as the practice was considered damaging to equality and the formation of a unified domestic market that Beijing has been pursuing amid an uncertain global market.

In the office’s 2023 audit report issued in June, it vowed to “clear up outstanding issues including local protectionism, market segmentation and improper competition in introducing investment”.

Local governments are, therefore, becoming more prudent in using tax cuts and are instead turning to more direct cash incentives.

According to a long list of new preferential measures released in May by the economic development zone of Kunming in Yunnan province, cash rewards were offered to various types of businesses, including up to 60 million yuan (US$8.3 million) for foreign-invested enterprises.

Tax incentives were subsequently put at the bottom of the list, mainly targeting hi-tech companies and small and micro-sized businesses, according to the directive.

Hefei industrial park, an advanced manufacturing base in Anhui province, a late joiner of the Yangtze River Delta, is also looking for new ways to boost its attractiveness, said Zhang Lu, deputy director of the park’s committee.

“We’re not depending on preferential policies, nor blindly building new industries, but lengthening and strengthening the chains of our leading industries, such as electric vehicles,” she said.

She flagged the phenomenon of homogeneous competition, and emphasised that Hefei was “sticking to its own route”.

The homogenisation of products is one of the biggest issues challenging industrial parks across the country, said Song from the CASS.

“As traditional manufacturing sectors are facing a high level of overcapacity, many parks are turning to high-end manufacturing, but they are targeting the same market, and that’s led to cutthroat competition,” he said. “There will be no winner in this process.”

Hu Yongjun, an official with the State Information Centre under the National Development and Reform Commission – the country’s top economic planner – sent a similar warning in an article in the official journal of China Economic and Trade Herald in November.

Citing plans unveiled during the governments’ “two sessions” parliamentary gatherings last year, Hu noted that 18 provinces and cities had announced plans to boost the bio-health industry, 17 provinces and cities had vowed to cultivate brain-like intelligence, and 13 provinces and cities were eyeing industries related to hydrogen energy and quantum information.

China’s future tech race with US set for a boost with new Fudan brain chip centre

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3273285/chinas-future-tech-race-us-set-boost-new-fudan-brain-chip-centre?utm_source=rss_feed

A leading Chinese university has set up a research centre for brain-computer interface (BCI), a technology that gives humans the ability to control external devices such as computers or robotic limbs with their minds.

The 400 million yuan (US$56 million) facility at Fudan University comes as China continues to push the development of disruptive technology amid a race for tech supremacy with the United States, a long-time leader in BCI research.

Launched last Saturday, the university’s Neuromodulation and BCI Research Centre is expected to drive innovation for the technology’s revolutionary potential in the medical and healthcare industry – such as restoring a sense of sight for the blind and mobility for paralysed patients.

According to the centre’s deputy director, Shu Yousheng, industrialisation of innovative BCI has been held back by the lack of technical support from other disciplines.

The new research centre aimed to bridge the gap between brain disease research and industry, the public university in Shanghai said on its website.

The centre represented a systemic integration of Fudan’s brain science-related resources, and expected to power the clinical application and industrialisation of BCI, it said.

The Shanghai city government in December 2021 listed rehabilitation and training equipment with BCI technology as a focus for high-end medical equipment development under its latest five-year plan.

BCI is among the future industries being especially promoted by the central government as “new quality productive forces” – a concept for hi-tech, innovative development put forward by President Xi Jinping about a year back.

In January, an official guideline on the development of emerging and future industries released by Beijing emphasised the industrialisation of BCI technologies.

The country encourages “breakthroughs in key technologies and devices such as brain-computer fusion and brain-like chips, and exploration of applications in typical fields such as medical rehabilitation”, the document said.

The Beijing city government in April unveiled a road map for faster development of the BCI industry, aimed at breakthroughs in related core key technologies and incubating many leading companies by 2026.

A BCI laboratory was also set up in March 2023 in the northeastern port city of Tianjin near Beijing. In May this year, the lab established a BCI and Human-machine Fusion Association involving more than 40 financial institutions, research institutes and state companies, the Tianjin science and technology bureau said.

The United States has led the way on BCI technology for years, with significant research contributions from the University of California, Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

As China tries to close the gap, it has seen an explosion in research papers on the subject.

According to a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Brain Informatics in December, the number of BCI publications in China from 2019 onwards exceeded that of the US, which started to decline during the period.

Neuralink Corp, a BCI pioneer co-founded in 2016 by Elon Musk, has successfully implanted a second paralysed patient with a device designed to enable the use of digital devices using only their thoughts, according to the billionaire businessman and start-up investor.

The procedure “seems to have gone extremely well”, Musk told a podcast hosted by computer scientist Lex Fridman and released last Friday.

The trial patient had a spinal cord injury similar to the first patient, who was paralysed in a diving accident, he said. That procedure had been carried out in January.

In February, scientists at China’s Tsinghua University reported “breakthrough progress” in their first patient for a wireless BCI implant, and said their device was less invasive than Musk’s Neuralink chip.

China is also racing to set up industry standards for the future technology – which involves key ethical concerns including privacy, safety and autonomy – and released a guideline in February to regulate the development and application of BCI research.

And last month, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology completed seeking public feedback on a plan to set up a committee to develop standards for the use of BCI technology, such as brain information acquisition, preprocessing, encoding and decoding, data communication and data visualisation.

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China wife disconnects life support of dying husband who cheated on her

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3273212/china-wife-disconnects-life-support-dying-husband-who-cheated-her?utm_source=rss_feed

A woman in China who removed her sick husband’s life-support as revenge for his infidelity has attracted widespread attention online.

The 38-year-old man from Liaoning province in northeastern China had been living with his mistress while still married.

He suffered a cerebral haemorrhage at his lover’s house, and she took him to the hospital for emergency treatment, according to NetEase News.

After he was admitted to the intensive care unit, doctors tried to find the woman to get her consent for surgery, but she had left the hospital.

Another woman then arrived at the hospital and told doctors she was the man’s wife.

A doctor surnamed Chen informed her that the patient’s condition was critical and he was in a coma with a very low chance of surviving an operation.

Also, the current medical equipment could only temporarily sustain him, and the cost of surgery was extremely high.

The wife said she knew her husband had been unfaithful for more than a decade, that he had no feelings for her and provided no financial support. She had not loved for him for some time.

She refused to sign the consent form and asked doctors to remove her husband’s life-supporting tracheal tube, and give up any efforts to revive him.

It is unclear what other relatives of the man thought of the decision, or were consulted.

According to Chinese law, when a patient is unable to make decisions doctors should explain the surgery risks to the patient’s close relatives and obtain their written consent.

This means that in certain circumstances, parents or a spouse can make medical decisions for the patient.

However, if the family members cannot reach a consensus on whether to continue treatment, the appropriate medical measures can be implemented immediately with the approval of the head of the medical institution.

The wife’s action sparked a widespread discussion on mainland social media.

“She is heartless. No matter what, giving up treatment is giving up a life,” one online observer wrote on Douyin.

“This unfaithful man is in critical condition and the surgery is unlikely to save him. This is his karma,” another person said.

“Your wife will accompany you until old age. Treating your wife well is treating yourself well,” said a third.

There have been other reports of similar cases across China.

In February 2009, Wen Yuzhang, 33, from the southern city of Shenzhen took his unconscious wife to hospital.

She was kept alive by a ventilator, but on February 16, Wen disconnected her medical equipment, leading to her death.

He claimed he did it to end her suffering, but prosecutors believed it was because he had another woman in his life.

The court found insufficient evidence to prove his infidelity motivated his actions, ruling his behaviour to be impulsive with minor malice.

In September 2012, Wen was sentenced to three years in jail but the term was suspended for three years due to his guilty plea and a compensation payment of 1.28 million yuan (US$178,000) to his late wife’s family.

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Like the US before World War I, China is staying above the fray

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3272985/us-world-war-i-china-staying-above-fray?utm_source=rss_feed

A rising power attempts to uphold the international order of free trade amid resistance from various forces. It insists on resolving major conflict through negotiation and does not choose to directly intervene. At the same time, this rising power focuses on advancing domestic reforms, leveraging its comparative advantages and exporting its industrial goods to different camps.

This rising power was the United States in 1914-1917, before it abandoned its neutrality and entered the first world war on the side of the Allied powers – but the description also applies to China in 2022-2024. The US at the time pursued isolationism under immense pressure and ultimately reaped substantial benefits.

Since 2022, with the intensification of the US-China strategic competition, alongside the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war and Israel-Palestine conflict, offensive realism has once again dominated public discourse. With America’s deep engagement in the Middle East situation looking like a continuation of its Cold War posture, there are those who argue that China should start acting as the other pole.

Given China’s role in the historic reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and in promoting negotiations among rival Palestinian factions, Western scholars are convinced that China is projecting more power into the Middle East in a fierce competition with the US for global dominance.

On July 31, barely a week after 14 Palestinian factions signed the Beijing Declaration calling for unity, a Hamas leader was assassinated in Iran. Some saw this as a significant provocation of China and suggested Beijing go beyond condemning the killing with words, to respond with action.

But will these events really prompt China to play a bigger role in the Middle East, even directly intervene in the region’s affairs? The answer should be no.

When we distance ourselves from conceptual frameworks like the Thucydides Trap and look back on a longer history, we see that China today does not necessarily position itself like the US in the 1970s, when it brokered the Camp David Accords. China does not see the Beijing Declaration as a defence of its regional influence.

Instead, China is behaving more like the US in 1914, adhering to a neutral role in mediating conflict so as to create more opportunities for its own peaceful development, rather than obsessing over global hegemony.

Meanwhile, America today increasingly resembles the British Empire of the time, which had abandoned its “splendid isolation” to become dragged into wars in Europe and the Middle East, exhausting its hegemonic influence even as it failed to curb the rise of emerging powers from across the ocean. History has repeatedly shown that empires perish from overexpansion.

Chinese scholars could transform their theoretical perspective and consider isolationism, its value and the behavioural patterns. To do this, it is useful to examine the US of over a century ago and how it successfully navigated an increasingly chaotic world order.

After a period of rapid economic growth, during the progressive era between 1901 and 1929, America’s social contradictions intensified. If the US had chosen then to intervene in the European wars, both its German immigrants and Anglo-Saxon voters would have become destabilising factors during an already difficult time.

When the first world war broke out in 1914, president Woodrow Wilson declared US neutrality and concentrated on progressive reforms at home, such as the 1916 Keating-Owen Child Labour Act and Adamson Act, which established an eight-hour workday.

The government began protecting labour rights, creating a direct link between the state and labour, and consolidating the nation’s social foundations, which turned out useful later for wartime mobilisation.

Similarly, after decades of rapid development, China faces significant risks in areas like real estate and labour relations, which are detrimental to social solidarity. The Communist Party recognises these challenges and is committed to promoting comprehensive and deep reforms.

Therefore, in the wake of the third plenum, China’s leadership will allocate the most attention to economic reforms, rather than intervening in the chaotic international situation.

Isolationism does not mean diplomatic inactivity. A rising power can aim to create a safe environment so it can maintain its strategic focus; it can also contribute to international norms. President Wilson’s theory of public administration became the successful practice of political centralisation, and his “Fourteen Points” statement of the principles for peace was used to negotiate the end of the world war.

Similarly, China’s leadership has proposed global initiatives such as a shared future for mankind, and is exploring adjustments in the administrative relationship between the central and local governments. Notably, the Chinese leadership continues to fine-tune its mechanisms for feedback and discussion to harness collective wisdom, and to improve decision-making through consultative democracy, such as symposia with non-party individuals.

Finally, isolationism does not mean turning a blind eye to catastrophes such as the plight of Gaza; counter-intuitively, it can lead a country to behave in a more humanitarian way.

China, for instance, has held off directly intervening in the conflicts in the Middle East, perhaps due to an isolationist instinct. If it had, however, the likely result would not be a rescue but a more complicated situation and probably more conflicts. As often noted, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Blinken’s Asia trip a boost for bilateral ties, reinforces stance in South China Sea row: analysts

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3273304/blinkens-asia-trip-boost-bilateral-ties-reinforces-stance-south-china-sea-row-analysts?utm_source=rss_feed

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent visit to the Asia-Pacific region focused on strengthening bilateral ties with key countries and reinforcing a collective stance against China’s actions in the South China Sea, analysts have said.

While tangible outcomes of the trip were more pronounced in East Asia, experts said key allies in Southeast Asia were strategically prioritised.

Tan See Seng, research adviser at the Singapore-based S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), said Blinken’s choice to visit the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam – all countries previously visited by US Vice-President Kamala Harris – was a continuation of President Joe Biden’s “emphasis on practical bilateral ties, rather than multilateral diplomacy with Asean”.

“His priority remains strengthening bilateral ties with selected Southeast Asia states that the US deems important to its strategy to counter China,” Tan said.

Blinken’s visit from July 25 to August 3 also took him to Laos, Mongolia and Japan. Most of the concrete outcomes occurred during his time in Tokyo.

During the Japan-US Security Consultative Committee, known as the “2+2” security talks on July 28, Washington and Tokyo agreed to further bolster military cooperation by upgrading the command and control of American forces in the East Asian country.

A day later at the Quad Ministerial Meeting, Blinken met foreign ministers from Australia, India and Japan, with the bloc saying in a statement after the meeting that they were working on a series of initiatives to maintain a “free and open maritime order”, including a plan to set up a new maritime legal dialogue.

In Southeast Asia, Blinken paid his respects to Vietnam Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, who died on July 19, while in Laos he attended the Asean Regional Forum where he criticised Beijing’s “escalating and unlawful actions” in the South China Sea.

In Singapore, Blinken said at a dialogue that the US would remain engaged with the world regardless who became president in the November election, and defended Washington’s trade policies against China as part of a plan to ensure fair competition and protect national security.

The only deliverable in Southeast Asia was during Blinken’s visit to the Philippines, where Washington announced US$500 million in foreign military financing to help modernise the Southeast Asian nation’s armed forces.

Tan of RSIS said Asian leaders would have wanted Blinken to speak on how the US intended to counter China, and how that policy would affect the region.

“Apart from China, Asian leaders would have pushed him to say how the US will continue to engage with the rest of Asia as a good in itself,” Tan said, adding that Blinken could have touched on what a potential Harris administration might mean for the region.

While there are strong indications that former president Donald Trump might return to the White House after November’s election, Harris, who secured the Democratic presidential nomination last Friday, is expected to pose a consideration challenge to Trump.

Should Harris become president, Tan said it would be worth paying attention to her current Deputy National Security Adviser Rebecca Lissner, whose ideas on the need for America to “de-risk” itself from China “could inform Harris’ China policy”.

Lissner’s ideas on the need to keep the global commons free, open and accessible are also worth looking into, according to Tan, alongside her views on the importance of the US as rule-setter rather than rule-taker.

Mark S. Cogan, associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Japan’s Kansai Gaidai University, said it was in Laos that Blinken expressed his criticism over China’s “destabilising actions” in the South China Sea.

“The location of which is strategic as there is an urgency among neighbouring states on how to manage China’s aggressive presence in their own backyard,” Cogan said.

Blinken’s visit as a whole was also “to move Southeast Asian partners closer towards a more assertive or proactive posture towards China in the South China Sea”, Cogan noted.

“The not-so-subtle message to Vietnam was that American resolve in the region is in line with Hanoi’s recent diplomatic complaints about the Hai Yang research vessel,” he said, referring to the Chinese vessel sailing around Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone in June.

Noting that what was made public versus what was discussed in private were often two different things, Cogan said it was likely that continuity of foreign policy was also on the agenda.

“I am sure that the US had circulated the message that Harris’ defiant rebuke of China during her Singapore trip a few years ago would be central to policy going forward,” Cogan said.

During a week-long visit through Southeast Asia in 2021, Harris delivered a sharp rebuke in Singapore of China for its incursions in the South China Sea, warning that Beijing’s actions amounted to “coercion” and “intimidation”, and affirming that Washington would support its allies in the region.

“This trip is not just about military aid or a contrast with China,” Cogan said, noting that it was also about foreign policy continuity.

“Southeast Asian partners are unsurprisingly nervous about a Trump second term, and the transactional diplomacy and accommodation that defined his previous four years in office. That is consequential for Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, which have a history of policy flexibility.”

Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor in political science at the National University of Singapore, said much of Southeast Asia appeared to be “ambivalent, confused, or even contradictory” about what they wanted from the US.

“They do not want to see a lack of US commitment, yet they also worry when [Washington] shows active engagement,” Chong said, adding that most Southeast Asian states also liked to criticise Washington for intensifying US-China competition.

“The rivalry is bilateral, [but] there is little corresponding criticism of [China]. Perhaps such behaviour is simply because it is easy and cheap to criticise Washington and not have to worry about costs, in contrast to Beijing,” Chong added.

Snail shells, a ‘once-in-a-millennium’ storm and what it all means for climate studies in China

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3273276/snail-shells-once-millennium-storm-and-what-it-all-means-climate-studies-china?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese scientists have found signs of a super rainstorm etched in the shells of snails, in an experiment that could help unlock evidence in the fossil record of ancient “tipping points” in the Earth’s environment.

The scientists, led by climate change researchers from the Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Xian, conducted the experiment on the shells of four living specimens – two collected in the Zhengzhou area before a devastating rainstorm hit the city in July 2021, and two after the storm had passed.

The storm caused catastrophic losses to life and property in Zhengzhou, at one point dumping a year’s worth of rain on the city in a few days.

The downpours were described as a “once-in-a-millennium” event but that definition was based on data of the past hundred years.

“With the acceleration of global warming, the climate background of extreme weather events is undergoing rapid changes,” the researchers said in a paper published in Science Bulletin last week.

“Whether the … Zhengzhou super rainstorm is a ‘once-in-a-millennium’ disaster or a new more regular event in a warmer world is a pressing question requiring clarification.”

The researchers cut up the shells and examined the ratio of two stable oxygen isotopes, oxygen-18 and oxygen-16, compiling a daily record.

The ratio is commonly used in paleoclimate research to gauge past climate change conditions, and the team found a dramatic negative shift that they attributed to the Zhengzhou rainstorm.

By comparing the theoretical calculations of water isotopic changes during the rainstorm with snail shell measurements, the scientists found that snail shells could be a record of large-scale precipitation events.

“This special microstructure associated with the … shell variation might have the potential to be a sufficient physical marker for identifying extreme rainstorms,” the team said.

Gathering this kind of information from fossils could offer data well beyond a hundred years and enable scientists to investigate the relationship between the frequency of extreme rainstorms and different climate backgrounds.

China has been under great pressure to minimise the damage of global warming-induced . The country has been further hit by floods and scorching weather this year.

The researchers said in their paper that the limits of modern weather data and climate models made it challenging to understand the “tipping points” triggering shifts to entirely different conditions.

Paleoclimate archives show the Earth’s climate change framework over millions of years, but they are limited in their ability to trace past weather variations, according to the paper.

Looking at specimens such as mollusc shells could fill that gap.

The paper said the work could be extended to a large number of fossil snail shells preserved in the Loess Plateau in north-central China that might reconstruct a relationship of extreme rainstorms under different climate backgrounds, such as the glacial period.

The researchers said extreme precipitation events could “offer a historical reference for future projections of extreme weather events in a warming world [and could] serve as a tool for evaluating the accuracy of climate models’ simulations of extreme weather event responses to external forcing changes”.