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• China completes unprecedented Olympic diving sweep as Cao Yuan wins another gold in men’s platform
• China-Philippine tensions flare in skies over Scarborough Shoal waters
• China’s third plenum highlights the quiet rise of political theorist Wang Huning
• Chinese scientists drilled holes in a plane wing to reduce sonic booms. It worked
• China accuses US group National Endowment for Democracy of ‘ideological infiltration’
• Thieving China law graduate swipes US$4,200 in temple donations by switching QR codes
• Project woes spotlight reliability of Pakistan as an ‘all-weather’ partner for China
• Could stomach cancer be spotted early with a drop of blood? A Chinese team has an idea
• Lammy plans China visit for September to kick-start high-level engagement
• Witty China professor tells students not to flirt at seminars or overeat at tea breaks
• Philippines and Vietnam coastguards hold first joint drills near South China Sea
• China watching Britain for signs of a thaw as new Labour government weighs up its options
• China courier refuses to transport corpse even for extra fee, sparking complaint, debate
• The joyless club: why make generations of Chinese children dread piano?
• China pushes to preserve deep-sea interests with national security legislation
• China’s booming ‘panda economy’ is black, white and spreading all over
• Hong Kong’s super-connector role can help Chinese EV makers tap more markets, experts say
• China’s hi-tech scientists have a moment in the Beidaihe sun at political elite’s retreat

China completes unprecedented Olympic diving sweep as Cao Yuan wins another gold in men’s platform

https://apnews.com/article/2024-olympics-diving-china-d3db1fed04c5952f5d82e1b45ef5dcb7China's Cao Yuan competes in the men's 10m platform diving semifinal, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

2024-08-10T10:52:26Z

SAINT-DENIS, France (AP) — Cao Yuan defended his title in the men’s 10-meter platform on Saturday and gave China an unprecedented sweep of the diving gold medals at the Paris Olympics.

The Big Red Machine won all eight golds at the Olympic Aquatics Centre, most of them with dominating victories.

That wasn’t the case in the final diving event of the Games. With teammate Yang Hao having an uncharacteristically poor day and Rikuto Tamai of Japan keeping the pressure on until a botched dive in the next-to-last round, the burden of completing the sweep fell entirely on Cao’s slender shoulders.

He was up the task.

The 29-year-old Cao essentially locked up the gold with big scores on his toughest dive of the competition, a forward 4 1/2 somersaults in the fifth of six rounds. He finished with 547.50 points to become the first male diver since Greg Louganis in 1988 to win a second straight gold off the big tower.

Cao now has four golds in his career. He also won the springboard at Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and a 10-meter synchro gold at London in 2012.

Tamai bounced back on his final dive to lock up the silver with 507.65. The bronze went to Noah Williams of Britain at 497.35.

Yang already had captured a gold at these Games, teaming with Lian Junjie to win the platform synchro title during opening week at the diving pool.

Cao and Yang were 1-2 in the morning semifinals, but Yang totally fell apart after a big splash in the second round. He had only one stellar dive the rest of the way, finishing last in the 12-man final.

But Cao made sure China stayed on top of the medal podium, making his nation the first to claim all eight golds since the diving program was expanded from four to eight events at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Three times China has won seven of eight golds, but never all eight.

Until Saturday.

The last sweep of any kind was the United States taking all four golds at Helsinki in 1952.

Tamai actually grabbed a slender lead over Cao with his second dive — only the second time in the entire meet that a China diver or synchro team was not atop the leaderboard at the end of a round.

Cao edged back ahead in the third round and was still on top by a mere 2.75 points after the fourth set of dives. But Tamai badly over-rotated his next dive — actually one of his easiest in a very tough list — and a big splatter of water shot up from the pool as he disappeared under the surface.

A groan went up from the crowd. Tamai’s gold medal hopes were essentially over after he received marks of ranging from 3.5 to 4.0.

The U.S. once dominated the diving events, but China began its rise to prominence with its first gold in 1984 at Los Angeles. Beginning in 2000, the Asian powerhouse has captured an astonishing 46 of 56 gold medals in diving.

With teams limited to two divers in the individual events, China claimed gold and silver in women’s platform and men’s springboard. Before Yang’s dismal performance, the only slipup was Chang Yani settling for a bronze behind Maddison Keeney of Australia in women’s springboard.

China finished with 11 medals overall, one shy of its record-tying total at the Tokyo Games. The only other nation to win a dozen diving medals at a single Games was the U.S. in 1932, when the Americans swept the podium in all four events at Los Angeles.

The Americans finished these Games with only a single medal, the silver won by Sarah Bacon and Kassidy Cook in women’s synchronized 3-meter. It was their worst Olympic performance since they were shut out of the medals at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Over the last three Olympics, the U.S. claimed a total of 10 medals.

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

China-Philippine tensions flare in skies over Scarborough Shoal waters

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3274020/china-philippine-tensions-flare-skies-over-scarborough-shoal-waters?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing hit back on Saturday at Manila’s claims that the Chinese military made “dangerous manoeuvres” in the South China Sea, accusing Philippine forces of intrusion.

The People’s Liberation’s Southern Theatre Command said the Philippine Air Force ignored China’s warnings and “disturbed Chinese military’s normal exercises by intruding” to Scarborough Shoal.

The command said it deployed marine and air personnel to “legally identify, verify, track, monitor, repeatedly warn and dispel” a Philippine Air Force NC-212 light transport plane in the area.

“We warned the Philippines to stop infringing on our legitimate rights and stop provocative actions and distorting facts,” the command said.

It added that the Chinese military was on high alert and would firmly defend its sovereignty and maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea area.

Scarborough Shoal, known as Huangyan Island in China and Panatag Shoal in the Philippines, is claimed by both Beijing and Manila and has been effectively controlled by China since an intense stand-off in 2012. It is about 220km (120 nautical miles) west of the main Philippine island Luzon.

The shoal has been the focus of hostilities between Chinese and Philippine coastguard and navy forces in the past year as has another hotly disputed atoll, Second Thomas Shoal.

Earlier, Philippine military chief General Romeo Brawner said two Chinese air force aircraft took provocative action on Thursday morning, executing a dangerous manoeuvre and dropping flares in the path of a Philippine Air Force plane on a routine patrol in the South China Sea.

All those aboard the Philippine Air Force NC-212i were unharmed and returned safely to Clark Air Base north of Manila after the incident over Scarborough Shoal, Brawner said.

“The incident posed a threat to Philippine Air Force aircraft and its crew, interfered with lawful flight operations in airspace within Philippine sovereignty and jurisdiction and contravened international law and regulations governing safety of aviation,” he said.

Associated Press quoted a senior Philippine security official as saying the Chinese jets flew at a “very close distance” to the Philippine plane and “put the lives of our pilots in real risk and danger”. Another security officer said at least eight flares came from the Chinese fighter jets.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the incident.

Brawner said the incident was reported to Manila’s Department of Foreign Affairs, which has filed numerous diplomatic protests against China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed waters.

Brawner suggested the incident would not stop the Philippines from undertaking such patrols in the contested region.

“We reaffirm our commitment to exercise our rights in accordance with international law,” he said.

China’s third plenum highlights the quiet rise of political theorist Wang Huning

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3273809/chinas-third-plenum-highlights-quiet-rise-political-theorist-wang-huning?utm_source=rss_feed

In March 1994, Wang Huning was a star professor in political science at Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University, whose dream was to “write more good books and teach more good students”, according to his diary from the time.

Instead, Wang’s career has taken him deep into the heart of elite politics in China. He has been an ideology guru for three of the country’s leaders, including President Xi Jinping, and is the ruling Communist Party’s fourth most senior official.

In a sign of his status, Wang was a deputy head on the Xi-led team that drafted the resolutions for last month’s third plenary session of the party’s Central Committee, setting China’s economic development tone for at least the next five years.

Wang, 68, stepped away from his ideology role and became chairman of political advisory body the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) last year.

But he continues to serve on the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s top decision-making body, where he was ideology and propaganda chief from 2017, in his first five-year term.

While Xi has remained exclusively in the pilot’s seat of the drafting process for all party plenum resolutions since 2012, he has always selected two or three deputy heads from the seven-strong Standing Committee.

Two sources with relevant knowledge said that, besides seeking his assistance in drafting the resolution for the latest plenum, Xi regularly asks for Wang’s input on his major speeches and statements.

Since 2017, when he first gained a seat on the seven-strong committee, Wang has served as a deputy head on one of these drafting teams three times, for some of the party’s most historic resolutions.

In 2021, he co-led the team that composed a resolution on the history of the Communist Party – only the third of its kind in the party’s 100 years. A year earlier, he played a similar role in drafting the outline for China’s 14th five-year plan.

Wang was also a vice-director of the drafting team for the 20th party congress in 2022, when Xi delivered the report which laid out his vision for the next five years to more than 2,000 delegates in Beijing.

Wang has also retained his position as deputy director of the Central Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Commission, a party group founded and chaired by Xi that met for fresh discussions on a range of issues just before the third plenum.

Wang’s positions have given him sway in a long list of policy areas, including Taiwan, ethnic minority groups, the border regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, as well as Beijing’s courtship of the country’s private sector.

According to Neil Thomas, a Chinese politics fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Centre for China Analysis, Wang’s role on the drafting team “shows that his political influence exceeds what is normal for a CPPCC chairman”.

“Wang appears to still serve as Xi’s brains trust for his domestic reform agenda,” Thomas said.

Wang had gained Xi’s trust because he “is a believer in centralising power, fighting corruption, and prioritising hi-tech growth and has helped to make these issues central to Xi’s political agenda”.

“He is a political survivor who loyally served Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao but found his greatest supporter in Xi Jinping. Wang’s neo-authoritarian intellectual project is a perfect complement to Xi’s centralising political project,” he said.

Wang’s reputation was established in the early 1990s, with a number of published works – including a collection of his diaries – that made him a rarity among China’s career bureaucrats and articulated his political vision of “neo-authoritarianism”.

Rather than a Western-style system based on checks and balances, China “must discover new political values from our own cultural traditions”, Wang wrote in his 1994 diary.

He also noted that “China’s development requires an authority that can regulate the whole of society in a unified way” and weighed in on how to fight corruption.

In his 1991 book America Against America, Wang said Japan’s economic race with the US in the 1980s taught him that “individualism, hedonism and democratism” could be defeated by “collectivism, altruism and authoritarianism”.

In the 1980s, when he was developing his political theories, Wang attached great importance to the concentration of state power, according to Xia Ming, one of his former students at Fudan, who now teaches political science at the City University of New York.

“He believed that with its unique political ecology, China has a unique political path,” Xia said. Despite his familiarity with political thinkers like Hegel and Rousseau, Wang believed that he should be a defender of that path, Xia added.

“[Wang] thinks that with its large size, China must keep its authority on the central level to maintain its stability [and the West’s] path of liberalisation is not suitable for China because it is too big and too poor, especially with the conditions in rural areas and with its clans,” he said.

A political-science professor at Tsinghua University, who asked to remain anonymous, said Wang was very different from the Chinese intellectuals who looked to the West for inspiration after China opened its doors.

“Wang was not impressed by the Western style democracy of the US after he visited twice. He believed that was not suitable for China. Wang believed China must take a different development path from the US if it wants to overtake the US one day,” he said.

In 1995, Wang left Shanghai for Beijing to begin his political career as head of the policy team at the Central Policy Research Office, in support of then president Jiang Zemin.

The office is involved in drafting key documents for the leadership and advising the party on inner-party and domestic policies.

According to a mainland political analyst who interacted with Wang several times before his promotion to Beijing, it was after this move that the academic “retreated behind the scenes to provide advice to his political leaders”.

The party’s long-standing trust in Wang showed “its deep-rooted need for a sophisticated intellectual to explain the legitimacy of China’s one-party rule and party-state system both externally and internally”, he added.

For decades, Wang was known as purely a party theorist. In 2002, he was appointed director of the research office, a position he held for 18 years – the longest tenure of any official in the role.

While his position at the research office remained unchanged, his ranking in the party kept climbing – another rarity among Chinese officials. Notably, when Wang left the role in 2022, his successor’s party ranking was far below his own.

Wang helped Jiang and his successor as president, Hu Jintao, to build their own ideological systems that were later written into the party’s constitution. He also stood quietly behind them on numerous domestic and international trips.

He also helped to launch the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, also enshrined in the constitution, and is believed to be behind Xi’s promotion of the concept of the “Chinese dream” for China’s renaissance.

Wang remained in the background for the first years of Xi’s presidency but gradually moved into the spotlight after 2017 and his accession to the Politburo Standing Committee, when the public started to hear Wang’s voice for the first time.

In January 2018, as China’s ideology chief, Wang used a meeting of the country’s propaganda officials to call for the “construction of a socialist ideology with strong cohesion and guiding force”.

On becoming CPPCC chairman, Wang’s role expanded further to include management of sensitive issues such as ethnicity, religion and Taiwan, making him the top official in these areas.

In a meeting with Christian groups late last year, Wang asked them to ensure “strict” supervision of religion and to insist on the “Sinofication” of Christianity.

In February, a month after the election of the pro-independence Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te, Wang called for a “tough crackdown” on Taiwan independence and “interference from outside forces”.

But decades in the party’s research arm has left Wang with very few protégés in the rank and file, unlike other officials who have years of local governance experience under their belts.

Wang’s most visible protégé, Lin Shangli, was also his student and colleague at Fudan University. He left the Central Policy Research Office in 2022, after only a year as deputy director, to take up the presidency at Renmin University of China.

Wang is the only known official of his rank to have written a book on the US and his 1991 work America Against America is still popular among observers of Chinese politics.

Sun Yun, co-director of the East Asia Programme and director of the China programme at the Stimson Centre in Washington, said Wang’s knowledge of the US was “unique” among China’s top leaders.

“He has dedicated experience studying and dealing with the US, while his colleagues on the Politburo Standing Committee are primarily domestic generalists,” she said.

But Sun noted that “Wang is seen as a political theorist rather than a grand strategist”, adding that his book on the US “is primarily about domestic politics rather than US-China relations”.

Sun observed that Wang “plays a key supportive role” in China’s US strategy, given that “Xi is the key decision-maker”.

While Wang has said he remains largely critical of the political system in the US, he did have some positive takeaways from his experiences in the late 1980s when he was learning about American society and its perceived successes and failures.

As he wrote in his 1991 book: “Although America is a commodity society, a money-oriented society, when it comes to science and technology education, they have a deep understanding of how to spend money to get the most out of it.”

Additional reporting by Alcott Wei

Chinese scientists drilled holes in a plane wing to reduce sonic booms. It worked

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3273941/chinese-scientists-drilled-holes-plane-wing-reduce-sonic-booms-it-worked?utm_source=rss_feed

Scientists in northwest China wanted to find a way to reduce the shock waves and sonic booms created when an aircraft flies at supersonic speeds – so they drilled holes into a plane wing.

It was an unorthodox approach, but the holes facilitated airflow from beneath the wing to its upper surface. And that effectively mitigated the shock wave vibrations that cause sonic booms, according to the team from Northwestern Polytechnical University, who used wind tunnel data and computer simulations to carry out the study.

The holes also improved aerodynamic efficiency by a margin of more than 10 per cent, they said in a report published last month in the peer-reviewed Chinese aviation journal Acta Aerodynamica Sinica.

The team’s discovery challenges a fundamental principle of aircraft design that goes back to the Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903.

Separation of air by the wing is seen as the reason behind a plane’s ability to fly. The design of the wing – with a curved upper surface and a flat underside – induces airflow above to accelerate, creating lower pressure, while airflow below the wing moves slower, generating higher pressure.

That difference in pressure creates lift, and when other conditions remain the same, the faster the plane, the greater the lift. Every plane in the air today owes its design to this idea, known as Bernoulli’s principle.

But as the plane approaches the speed of sound, it encounters a formidable barrier. Shock waves create turbulence at the wing’s trailing edge, and this can introduce drag, diminish lift and unleash destructive vibrations.

Only specially hardened planes can overcome the sound barrier, but that is an expensive and difficult process and only a few countries are making supersonic fighter jets at present.

The US military’s latest F-35 stealth fighter, for example, cannot sustain supersonic cruise because it could cause structural damage.

The sonic booms created by shock waves can sound like an explosion and they can even shatter windows. The Concorde was banned from flying over land because of its thunderous sonic booms, and that was part of the reason it was retired in 2003.

Adding holes to the plane’s wing could resolve these problems, according to Gao Chao, a professor with Northwestern Polytechnical University’s School of Aeronautics who led the research in Xian, Shaanxi province.

For their study, the team added a cover over the holes that only opened when the plane surpassed the speed of sound.

As the airflow beneath the wing converged with the airflow above, it stopped shock waves from forming behind the wing, according to the paper.

It said an air pump in the holes was used to modulate the intensity of the jet stream, halting the progression of turbulence towards the wing’s front and nearly eliminating wing vibrations.

“When using jet stream control to suppress shock wave buffeting, although there is a slight loss of lift, it can reduce overall drag, so the lift-to-drag ratio increases rather than decreases,” Gao and his colleagues wrote.

Other research teams – mainly from China and the United States – have looked at adding grooves or protrusions to the wing surface to regulate turbulence, installing a mechanical device at the rear of the wing to suppress shock waves, or adding a piezoelectric film coating on the wings to manipulate airflow.

Nasa is expected to conduct the first test flight of its new X-59 supersonic jet sometime this year. The experimental plane, built in partnership with Lockheed Martin, aims to reduce the noise of supersonic flight. Its nose is as protracted as its body and the cockpit does not have a forward-facing windscreen.

Gao’s team believes their solution is the simplest, and in the paper said they would conduct more wind tunnel tests to “bring the application of this technology to life”.

China accuses US group National Endowment for Democracy of ‘ideological infiltration’

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3274000/china-accuses-us-group-national-endowment-democracy-ideological-infiltration?utm_source=rss_feed

China has accused a US-based group of “ideological infiltration”, including funding anti-Beijing forces in Hong Kong and supporting separatist forces in Taiwan, in a lengthy report aimed at “unmasking” its operations.

In the article published by China’s foreign ministry on Friday, Washington was accused of “subverting state power in other countries” and “conducting ideological infiltration” through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – claims that have been echoed by countries in Latin America and the Middle East.

NED is funded by the United States Congress with the stated aim of supporting “democratic struggles everywhere”. It funds overseas groups, unions and institutions. In 1997, founding chairman of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party Martin Lee Chu-ming received the Democracy Award, the group’s top honour.

“NED has long been colluding with those who attempt to destabilise Hong Kong by providing funds and public support,” the report stated, naming organisations including Hong Kong Watch and Amnesty International, as well as “anti-China lawmakers” in the US, UK and Germany.

In 2020, NED funded projects in Hong Kong totalling US$310,000 amid anti-government protests against the introduction of a now-scrapped extradition bill, it said.

The foundation, sometimes referred to as Washington’s “regime-change arm”, also nominated Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, a leading figure of the Hong Kong movement, for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize.

NED makes more than 2,000 grants each year to groups in more than 100 countries “working for democratic goals”, according to the group’s website.

Michael Pillsbury, a former US Department of Defence official, stated in 2014 that Washington had “funded millions of dollars of programmes” targeting Hong Kong through the NED.

“Every country has the right to pursue a development path suited to its national realities and the needs of its people,” the foreign ministry’s report stated, while calling for “greater democracy in international relations”.

“No country is in a position to lecture others on democracy and human rights, [or use] democracy and human rights as excuses to infringe upon the sovereignty of other countries, interfere in their internal affairs and incite ideological confrontation.”

Beijing has long denounced the organisation. In 2022, the foreign ministry issued a “fact sheet” accusing Washington of weaponising democracy through the NED, which it said had been “meddling in Hong Kong’s elections and interfering in China’s internal affairs”.

The latest report also accused NED of working with Taipei’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party “to mobilise ‘democratic forces’ to open up the ‘frontline of democratic struggle in the East’ and hype up the false narrative of ‘Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow’.”

It noted that in 2022, the two sides co-hosted the World Movement for Democracy’s Global Assembly event, which was attended by European parliamentarians and think tank representatives. A year later, Taiwan’s then-leader Tsai Ing-wen was presented with the group’s Democracy Service Medal by NED President Damon Wilson.

The report also mentioned NED’s support for the World Uygur Congress – a Munich-based organisation that alleged Uygurs, a predominantly Muslim minority group, were being “genocided” in far west China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

NED’s average annual funding for the World Uygur Congress ranges from US$5 million to US$6 million, the report stated.

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Thieving China law graduate swipes US$4,200 in temple donations by switching QR codes

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3273810/thieving-china-law-graduate-swipes-us4200-temple-donations-switching-qr-codes?utm_source=rss_feed

A top university law graduate in China has been arrested for stealing donation money from Buddhist temples in a number of provinces by changing their receipt QR codes to his own.

The man, whose identity was not released, confessed to the police that he had stolen more than 30,000 yuan (US$4,200) from temples in the southwestern provinces of Sichuan and Chongqing, and the northwestern Shaanxi province this year, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.

He is believed to have a master’s degree in law from one of the country’s most prestigious universities.

The case came to light after police in Shaanxi released video footage of him at Famen Temple of Baoji city this month.

A clip from the temple’s surveillance camera shows the man kneeling in front of a statue of Buddha that was next to the donation box, along with other visitors.

He then places a piece of paper with his personal QR code over that of the temple’s code on the box.

The man then bows towards the Buddha three times with his hands clasped together in prayer.

Before leaving the temple, he put a banknote in the box, the value of which is not clear.

After the police caught him, he confessed he had applied the same technique to steal from other Buddhist institutions in other provinces.

All the money he took was returned, police said.

The story has attracted widespread interest online, with 6.1 million views on Douyin alone.

“A Chinese saying goes that there is a deity above us, so we should not do bad things. Now this should be changed into that there is a surveillance camera above us,” one online observer said.

“He studies law, but still breaks the law,” said another.

Stealing donations from Buddhist temples is not a rare occurrence in China.

In July, a man in southeastern Jiangxi province was arrested for sneaking into a temple and breaking into the donation box several times.

Also, a man in Shanghai was arrested last year for stealing money from the box in a Buddhist nunnery.

He defended himself by saying he had just borrowed the cash after receiving approval from Buddha whose hand gesture signified that “it is OK to do that”.

Project woes spotlight reliability of Pakistan as an ‘all-weather’ partner for China

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3273878/project-woes-spotlight-reliability-pakistan-all-weather-partner-china?utm_source=rss_feed

A delegation of Chinese officials and corporate executives visiting Pakistan last week to discuss future Belt and Road Initiative investments was greeted by the unwelcome sight of violent clashes between security forces and nationalists in Balochistan province, home to the Chinese-operated Arabian Sea port of Gwadar.

Despite a rare public call by senior Chinese diplomat Yang Yundong for the two sides to “set aside their differences” and build consensus over economic development in the restive province, roads linking Gwadar to the rest of the country – and overland to Xinjiang – remained blocked as the authorities clamped down on Baloch activists.

The leaders of the Baloch Yakjeti Committee (BYC) said they had timed their call for a mass gathering in Gwadar on July 28 to highlight to the Chinese delegation that Beijing’s plans to turn Balochistan into a key connectivity node between Xinjiang and the western Indian Ocean remain tied to the resolution of the 20-year insurgency there.

For that to happen, the committee said widespread human rights violations by Pakistan’s security forces and allied tribal militias, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, have to cease.

Likewise, the protest leaders sought to press China to deliver on its promise that the local population would be the main beneficiary of its infrastructure projects in Balochistan, claiming that locals have been denied their rightful share by Pakistan’s ruling elites.

The protests enraged Pakistan’s powerful military, with chief spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry on Monday calling the BYC a “proxy of terrorist organisations and criminal mafias and nothing more than that” at a press conference held soon after the Chinese delegation met with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

The divergent positions of the Pakistani state and Baloch activists contrasted with Yang’s expressed view on July 30 that “without the stability of Balochistan, there’s no stability of Pakistan”.

Yang, China’s consul general in Karachi, reiterated Beijing’s recent warnings that future investments under the envisioned US$65 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) programme launched in 2016 depend on Islamabad’s ability to protect Chinese nationals and businesses working in the country.

“Without security, there is no guarantee of development,” Yang told journalists at a press conference in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest commercial hub and home to the country’s two busiest ports.

The security threat to Chinese nationals in Pakistan has grown in tandem with the development of CPEC, with 17 Chinese nationals killed in three terrorist attacks in northern Pakistan and Karachi over the last three years.

The casualty figure would have been much higher if Pakistani security forces had not averted many other attacks, including an assault on Gwadar port in March by Baloch rebel suicide squads that took several hours to repulse.

Pakistan’s failure to deliver on its promises to China before the 2016 launch of CPEC to ensure security and political stability has been compounded by the mismanagement of its economy and CPEC.

Billions of dollars of CPEC “early harvest” infrastructure and power generation projects boosted Pakistan’s economic growth rate to nearly 6 per cent in 2018 but the record imports of Chinese machinery also created a balance of payments crisis that the country is still struggling to overcome.

Since 2021, when Pakistan was scheduled to begin repaying CPEC project loans, it has depended on the annual rollover of debts owed to China and its other major allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to prevent a Sri Lanka-type default on international obligations.

The three countries recently agreed to another year-long extension for US$12 billion worth of loans and central bank deposits to consolidate Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves, finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said on Tuesday.

This cleared the way for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to approve Pakistan’s request for a US$7 billion bailout package covering the coming three and a half years, he said. But Islamabad had assessed further annual rollovers would be required during that period, he added.

Under IMF pressure to further reduce the debt burden on Pakistan’s finances, Prime Minister Sharif on August 2 said he had requested Beijing for a repayment extension of five to eight years for the US$15 billion that Islamabad borrowed to finance CPEC early harvest power projects.

Islamabad already owes the Chinese corporate operators of these power projects about US$2 billion in back payments, prompting state-funded insurance firm Sinosure to withhold guarantees for new CPEC projects.

Nonetheless, Islamabad is pressing Beijing to persuade Chinese independent power producers to renegotiate and soften the terms of their agreements.

Pakistan’s multiple failures to live up to its CPEC commitments have raised questions about its reliability as an “all-weather strategic partner” of China.

Josef Gregory Mahoney, a professor of politics and international relations at East China Normal University in Beijing, sees them as evidence of a “double game” that Pakistan has “long played” between China and the United States.

While it was not a new source of tension between Islamabad and Beijing, he said the “broader problem is that Pakistan perpetually puts itself ... in a slippery position, one that favours its strategic interests in some respects while also accommodating a lack of firm resolve to deal effectively with entrenched issues, from rampant corruption to complicated relations with India and Afghanistan”.

Mahoney said neither Washington nor Beijing wanted to abandon Islamabad, but “both are regularly frustrated”.

Unlike some countries that “play a double game with the US and China to find a strategic balance” as well as opportunities for growth and development, “Pakistan seems to play this game as a means to perpetuate its systemic problems”, he told This Week In Asia.

However frustrated Beijing might be with Islamabad, it would not have been surprised by its shortcomings, said Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Centre, a Washington think tank.

“Pakistan has always been a challenging country. There is no illusion in China about that from the beginning,” she said. “Pakistan is always going to be China’s partner and its strategic importance will not diminish.”

But with the current ups and downs of the relationship, she expects China to be “more careful about its financial involvement” in Pakistan.

The next stage of CPEC, which is focused more on building Pakistan’s industrial capacity through the relocation of Chinese manufacturing, will not require the multibillion-dollar investments made during the hard infrastructure-focused early phase.

“I don’t think China will be allocating as much loans and investments as before, but it will not stop providing financial resources,” Yun told This Week In Asia.

According to Mustafa Hyder, executive director of the Pakistan-China Institute in Islamabad, Beijing still has “complete trust and faith” in Islamabad as “its best friend in its international partnerships”.

This was reflected in the joint statement issued during Prime Minister Sharif’s visit to China in June, he said.

“However, Pakistan has not been able to deliver on CPEC like it could have and should have,” Hyder said.

Most pressing is the security threat faced by Chinese enterprises and nationals, for whom it has become “very difficult to just move around, let alone do business” in Pakistan, he said.

Security problems and Islamabad’s failure to uphold the terms of its agreements with CPEC independent power producers have “led Chinese enterprises to consider other options – such as Asean countries – as their investment destinations”, Hyder said.

But CPEC-related problems should not be seen as reflective of the overall bilateral relationship between China and Pakistan, he said.

“These are two separate things which are often mixed up and confused as one, which they are not,” Hyder said.

Could stomach cancer be spotted early with a drop of blood? A Chinese team has an idea

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3273702/could-stomach-cancer-be-spotted-early-drop-blood-chinese-team-has-idea?utm_source=rss_feed

Early detection of stomach cancer could soon be as easy as having a blood test, thanks to technology developed by Chinese scientists.

The simple test achieved nearly 90 per cent accuracy in identifying gastric cancer in a study, according to a paper published in international academic journal Cancer Science on July 22.

Gastric cancer is the world’s fifth most common cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths globally.

That mortality rate is affected in a large way by the lack of early detection. In China, more than 80 per cent of gastric cancer cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage, and the five-year survival rate is below 30 per cent. But if it is detected early, the survival rate can exceed 90 per cent.

Currently, diagnosis relies mainly on endoscopies and serum markers. However, endoscopies are often uncomfortable for patients and carry the risk of complications, while serum markers only have a detection rate of about 20 per cent.

Addressing these challenges, researchers Wang Hongzhi and Nie Jinfu from the Hefei Cancer Hospital, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Sun Ruifang from the Shanxi Provincial Cancer Hospital, used AI to develop the non-invasive, pain-free screening method that does not require intubation or imaging and still maintains an accuracy rate of nearly 90 per cent.

This novel method detects cell-free DNA (cfDNA), which originates from both normal and tumour cells and circulates in the blood, released mainly through cell death and active secretion mechanisms. Tumour-derived cfDNA contains specific genetic mutations such as methylation changes, which are critical for early detection.

Usually, bisulfite sequencing is used to detect such methylation changes. But it lacks the precision needed, especially in early disease stages when the proportion of tumour-derived cfDNA is less than 1 per cent.

Instead, the team used AI algorithms in conjunction with the cfMeDIP (cell-free methylated DNA immunoprecipitation) technique, which can detect low initial quantities of DNA, to develop a detection model that identifies 21 methylation biomarkers unique to gastric cancer.

In a study involving 150 gastric cancer patients and 100 healthy controls, this method achieved sensitivities of 88.38 per cent and specificities of 94.23 per cent.

Despite recognised associations between age and gastric cancer risk, the study found no significant differences in cfDNA concentrations across different age groups. Similarly, although men are twice as likely to develop gastric cancer as women, the concentrations of cfDNA did not differ significantly between sexes, showing the universality of this detection method.

The team also validated their model using The Cancer Genome Atlas public data set, which showed that the model could accurately distinguish between tumour and normal samples based on the gene expression and methylation of 21 genes, effective across multiple tumour types.

The study is being applied at the Hefei Cancer Hospital under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“It holds significant potential in comprehending tumour biology and could contribute to the development of diagnostic and prognostic tools in gastric cancer,” the team said in the paper.

However, they also noted that due to the limited survey sample size, the model’s applicability to non-tumorous gastric conditions, such as infections by Helicobacter pylori and the Epstein-Barr virus – both risk factors for gastric cancer – remains uncertain.

Lammy plans China visit for September to kick-start high-level engagement

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/10/lammy-plans-china-visit-for-september-to-kick-start-high-level-engagement

David Lammy is planning a visit to China in September that would fall within the first 100 days of him taking office.

The foreign secretary is in talks over a trip to Beijing next month that would signal the UK wants to resume high-level engagement with the country.

No date has been officially confirmed. A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) spokesperson said: “Foreign secretary travel will be confirmed in the usual way.”

Lammy had planned to travel to China while Labour was still in opposition earlier this summer, but his trip was postponed when the general election was called. After Labour won the election, Lammy met China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on 26 July.

The FCDO said that, at the meeting in Laos, the foreign secretary “set out that the government would cooperate where we can, compete where needed and challenge where we must”.

Lammy will come under pressure to take a robust stance on human rights. As shadow foreign secretary in 2023, he reaffirmed Labour’s position that it would take steps to recognise China’s treatment of Uyghurs as genocide.

China has imposed sanctions on seven parliamentarians, including the Labour peer Helena Kennedy, for criticising its human rights record.

Whitehall is carrying out an “audit” of UK-China relations, which Labour’s manifesto said would aim to “improve the UK’s capability to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities China poses”.

The last foreign secretary to visit China was James Cleverly in August 2023. The Conservative government came under pressure from hawkish backbenchers to take a robust stance on China.

A senior British source working on UK-China relations said: “Under the Conservatives, with the exception of the one Cleverly visit, there was no senior-level engagement with China.

“If you look at Starmer’s foreign policy messages you have a reset with Europe and he’s talked about reconnecting with the rest of the world. If that doesn’t include China, then it doesn’t count as reconnecting with the rest of the world.”

Ruby Osman, a policy adviser on China at the Tony Blair Institute, said: “Despite having their own – sometimes more serious – differences with Beijing, the US, France, Germany, Australia and Italy have all still had head-of-state meetings with President Xi.

“Meanwhile, the UK has seemed almost uniquely uncomfortable with engaging with China in the past few years. We’ve had just three ministerial visits in five years, with little to show. Labour’s challenge will be shifting the mood in Westminster back to a recognition that engagement doesn’t have to mean agreement.”

Osman added: “David Lammy has been setting the stage for greater engagement since well before the election … There’s also likely to be a lot of appetite from the Chinese side to boost engagement. Beijing’s aim will be to use the election as a reset in relations after a rocky few years.”

Catherine West, now a Foreign Office minister, travelled to China last spring for meetings with senior government officials. She said at the time she had raised Labour’s concerns about Chinese interference in British democracy and national security, underlining that “this is something we will act on in government”.

Witty China professor tells students not to flirt at seminars or overeat at tea breaks

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3273798/witty-china-professor-tells-students-not-flirt-seminars-or-overeat-tea-breaks?utm_source=rss_feed

A professor in China who compiled rules of etiquette for students attending academic gatherings and seminars has brought joy to many on mainland social media.

The witty behaviour guidelines for master’s and PhD students were drawn up by Zeng Ming, an energy economist at North China Electric Power University in Beijing.

The list of rules trended online at the beginning of this month, according to the news outlet NetEase.

Zeng said they were based on a format for primary school students and were designed to prevent his students from “losing face in front of outsiders”, the report said.

The first rule is that academic gatherings should not be treated as opportunities to travel or flirt.

Then Zeng also urges his students not to be a “giant baby” by bothering meeting organisers with trivial matters. Students should try to deal with their own problems.

During tea breaks, he advises repeatedly: “Don’t eat your fill, don’t eat your fill, don’t eat your fill,” adding: “Don’t drink too much coffee, don’t fight with renowned professors for the last sandwich, and don’t take two bananas into the meeting room after finishing your dessert.

“If you behave in any of these ways during the tea break and I come to be aware of that, I will postpone your graduation for a year.”

Regarding speaking in English, Zeng says the students should nod frequently, even if they do not understand, and should sometimes frown to pretend they are contemplating.

During question and answer sessions, students should not praise speakers: “Your compliment is meaningless. It will only delay other people’s time for lunch,” says Zeng.

He also urges students to pay attention to the quality of their questions: “Don’t let others think you are low when you open up your mouth,” the professor advises.

If the students encounter Zeng’s mentors at academic events, they should simply address them respectfully and leave.

“Don’t hang around to let my teachers ask about your academic achievements. Then my teachers might realise what a poor student I’ve taught,” one of the rules reads.

Another rule reads: “For a girl you like very much, don’t ask her about her studies. You should check her thesis paper on the internet. If a person’s paper is reliable, this person should be reliable, too.

“If she asks you about your studies, don’t reply to her quickly but adopt a stalling tactic. Check with me first and I will give you a document proving your academic abilities.”

The professor says if his students cannot remember the rules, they should bear one thing in mind. If they make trouble, do not reveal their teacher’s name.

Zeng’s code of conduct attracted 6 million views on Douyin and attracted about 20,000 comments.

“Professor Zeng not only teaches students academic research but teaches them humanity and basic etiquette,” said one online observer.

“Such an interesting teacher! I want to be his student,” said another.

Philippines and Vietnam coastguards hold first joint drills near South China Sea

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3273997/philippines-and-vietnam-coastguards-hold-first-joint-drills-near-south-china-sea?utm_source=rss_feed

The Philippine and Vietnamese coastguards have held firefighting and search-and-rescue exercises off Manila, the first such drills between the two countries with maritime disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea.

The Philippines and Vietnam claim part of the strategic waterway’s Spratly archipelago but said the drills at the mouth of Manila Bay contributed to maintaining peace and stability in the contested sea.

“It’s a good thing that we are going in one direction, which is the rules-based approach of the Philippines,” Lawrence Roque, captain of the Philippine ship BRP Gabriela Silang, told reporters following the drills on Friday.

“We hope also that the Vietnam coastguard, particularly the Vietnamese government, will also … follow the Philippines in enhancing or following the rules-based approach,” he added.

The Gabriela Silang and Vietnam’s CSB 8002 vessel fired a water cannon at a second Filipino vessel to simulate the rescue of a boat on fire in choppy waters at the mouth of the bay, which opens into the South China Sea.

A Filipino helicopter then dropped orange dummies into the sea as the two vessels launched tiny rubber boats which bobbed violently above the metre- (3.3-foot) tall waves to retrieve the make-believe victims.

The crews stood on deck and saluted each other as the two vessels did a passing manoeuvre to conclude the drills.

“We hope this will be the start of many more exercises of this type,” Roque added.

The exercise stood in stark contrast to violent confrontations between Philippine and Chinese vessels in recent months, which have fuelled fears of a conflict that could drag in the United States, a Manila ally.

Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea, brushing off rival claims of several Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, and an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

One of the most serious incidents took place in June, when Chinese sailors brandishing weapons including knives and an axe boarded Philippine naval vessels during a resupply mission to Filipino-held Second Thomas Shoal.

The Philippine coastguard said it was planning to send one of its ships to Vietnam later this year to boost maritime cooperation after their joint exercises.

In a Facebook statement on Friday night, the PCG said it would reciprocate Vietnam for its “gesture of goodwill” in sending a coastguard ship to Manila for its inaugural port visit.

The two Southeast Asian nations have recently submitted separate information to the United Nations, asserting exclusive rights to resources in the disputed sea.

In June, Vietnam offered to hold talks with the Philippines about overlapping maritime claims.

China watching Britain for signs of a thaw as new Labour government weighs up its options

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3273957/china-watching-britain-signs-thaw-new-labour-government-weighs-its-options?utm_source=rss_feed

China is hoping the advent of a new British government will offer a chance to reset the volatile relationship between the two countries, but it is unlikely to be plain sailing.

State media has latched on to reports that the new Foreign Secretary David Lammy is “considering” a visit at some point.

Zhao Junjie, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Global Times, a newspaper owned by party mouthpiece People’s Daily, that the government “is likely to uphold the relatively friendly approach” of Tony Blair’s previous Labour administration.

Appetite for engagement will doubtless be welcomed, but Beijing should not assume that Keir Starmer’s new Labour government will give it an easy ride. A lot has changed since Blair left office in 2007.

So far Labour has been vague about its plans for China and the slogans its leaders adopted on the campaign trail could be interchanged with those of the European Union’s leaders.

These bromides suggest that, like all Western governments, Labour is still grappling with how exactly it should deal with Beijing – although it finds itself in a position of relative strength.

“The government has a huge majority and a significant amount of goodwill both within parliament and the press to consider a different approach on China. That, of course, does require having the bandwidth and the desire to be proactive,” said Sam Goodman, senior policy director at the China Strategic Risks Institute think tank.

In fact Lammy had already been planning a visit but this was scuppered when Rishi Sunak unexpectedly called an election in June, according to people familiar with the plan.

The groundwork had been laid by Catherine West, now the minister responsible for the Indo Pacific, who travelled to the Chinese capital in March as part of a parliamentary delegation that met Wang Huning, one of Xi Jinping’s closest advisers, and foreign vice-minister Deng Li.

A China audit is expected to be announced within the government’s first 100 days, although there has been no commitment on delivering a “China strategy” document, even if most in Westminster agree that one is needed.

It also remains to be seen what campaign slogans – such as the “securonomics”, proposed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves or Lammy’s call for “progressive realism” – will translate into policy.

“The what and especially the how of securonomics remain unclear,” said Francesca Ghiretti, a research leader specialising in geoeconomics at the RAND Europe think tank.

“The focus of Labour’s economic security plans is likely to be on growth, which we can see from early statements. Yet, without an explicit strategy to guide the different initiatives and efforts, the government risks investing resources without seeing the needed results.”

A strategic defence review, however, suggests which way the wind is blowing. It is being led by George Robertson, the former Nato chief, who recently lumped China in with Russia, Iran and North Korea as a “deadly quartet”.

Other signposts include the proposed listing of Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein on the London Stock Exchange, which was refused a listing in New York over “supply chain problems”.

This would be a shot in the arm for the City of London, but presents a significant political challenge, with American lawmakers already pressuring the authorities to refuse the listing.

Accusations of forced labour, as well as concerns about the firm’s environmental impact and working practices, have also prompted concerns the listing could damage London’s reputation as a leading centre for ESG (environmental, social and governmental) investments. Reuters reported last month that the sector was likely to give the firm the cold shoulder.

Britain must also decide whether it joins the EU and United States in slapping tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles.

Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds last month suggested he would not follow their lead, saying: “I am not ruling anything out but, if you have a very much export-orientated industry, the decision you take [has to be] the right one for that sector.”

Charles Parton, who spent four decades working as a UK and EU diplomat on China, said there is a “political dimension” to this debate, suggesting there was likely to be pressure from Washington.

“Are you with us? Are you not with us? Are you the weak link? You’re a member of Five Eyes. You’re a member of Aukus. Don’t forget that – so watch this space,” Parton said, referring to Britain’s security alliances.

In opposition Labour called for the government to impose heavy penalties on Beijing over human rights issues, and observers are now watching how it will respond to the ongoing Hong Kong national security trials.

Last year, West, a founding patron of the Hong Kong Watch NGO, asked the government to “reassess whether it is in order for sanctions to be placed on leading members of the Hong Kong government” after “warrants and bounties were issued against pro-democracy activists by Hong Kong national security police”.

Lammy has also pledged to follow parliament’s lead in declaring that the Chinese government has committed genocide in Xinjiang. “Parliament took a decision about genocide, the international community is very concerned about genocide,” Lammy told Politico last year.

But over the longer-term, the government may find it faces similar problems to its European neighbours.

Like the EU, it has a ballooning trade deficit, which reached US$27.57 billion over the first half of this year, according to Chinese customs data.

As a service-driven economy, it is slightly less exposed to the industrial overcapacity challenges often cited in Brussels, but as a European leader in technology and engineering will be concerned about hi-tech competition.

It too walks a fine line between courting Chinese investment – such as a proposed US$1.5 billion in a gigafactory near Coventry from lithium battery maker EVE Energy – while screening perceived risky acquisitions.

Labour’s “challenge, compete, cooperate” framework for Beijing is an effective rehash of the EU’s “partner, competitor, rival” triptych – it could mean just about anything to anyone, but all too often in policy terms means nothing at all.

China’s close relationship with Russia, which has poisoned the well in most European capitals, is another ongoing problem. Lammy used his first meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, to urge Beijing to “prevent its companies supporting Russia’s military industrial complex”.

The result of the US election will also have a great impact and as a member of the Five Eyes security grouping and Aukus, Keir Starmer’s government will be more vulnerable to Washington’s cajoling on China regardless of who wins.

Labour is, however, far more ideologically aligned with Democratic candidate Kamala Harris than Donald Trump.

In some ways, though, Britain is in better condition than the EU to form a coherent China strategy.

While Brussels has recently started asking diplomats in foreign delegations to report on China’s activities in their regions, that is only one part of their job. By contrast London has a network of dedicated China officers dotted all over the world and is spending millions on the endeavour.

Nor does it need the unanimity of 27 governments to forge policy, a “Brexit dividend” the previous Conservative government was unable to explore because of its internal divisions and the resulting pressure from backbench hawks.

In his last post on the now defunct but widely read Beijing to Britain newsletter, Sam Hogg, from Oxford China Policy Lab, bemoaned the lack of clarity.

“Something is going wrong … the relationship between government, parliament and Whitehall is not working, and the reality that foreign, domestic and industrial policy are interlinked has not sunk in,” he wrote.

“Things can, and must, change. This is not a time to smuggle indecision dressed up as caution, or to hope things just work out. It is time to reform the systems which underpin how we understand the world.”

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China courier refuses to transport corpse even for extra fee, sparking complaint, debate

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3273783/china-courier-refuses-transport-corpse-even-extra-fee-sparking-complaint-debate?utm_source=rss_feed

A courier from a delivery company in China has prompted a customer complaint after he refused to transport a corpse even for extra money.

Lalamove, which was founded in Hong Kong in 2013, is a logistics and delivery company with a customer base that is rapidly growing in southern China.

The firm has a number of different vehicles, such as vans and box lorries, which provide a range of services covering short and long distances.

Recently, one of its couriers in Shandong province, eastern China, received a strange order via its app.

After communicating with the customer, the courier discovered that the “item” they wanted transporting was a dead body.

He posted a recording of his conversation with the customer on social media.

“Although I accepted the order, I did not know it was to transport a corpse,” the courier said to the customer. To which they responded: “I can give you more money.”

“No matter how much more you offer, I cannot transport a corpse,” the courier firmly replied.

The evidently frustrated customer said they would complain about the courier.

On August 3, a Lalamove employee told mainland media that the company’s vehicles are not equipped with the conditions for transporting corpses, and customers should choose a professional service specifically for that purpose.

“If this customer insists on complaining, the courier can appeal. If the review finds the courier not at fault, the responsibility will be revoked,” the Lalamove employee said.

The incident attracted widespread attention on mainland social media.

“The courier should report this to the police. Transporting a corpse without following proper procedures raises suspicions about the customer’s motivation and the origin of the body,” one online observer wrote on Weibo.

“This also highlights the issue of the high cost of professional corpse transport, which may lead people to seek cheaper alternatives,” another person surmised.

“Some funeral homes charge more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,400) for interprovincial corpse transport,” said a third person.

In China, corpses must be transported using dedicated funeral vehicles that meet national technical standards.

They usually have facilities for storing and refrigerating corpses as well as disinfection and protective equipment to prevent contamination from pathogens the dead bodies may carry.

Chinese law also stipulates that no unit or individual can provide corpse transport services without official approval.

There have been other reports of similar cases around the country.

In April last year, a cross-city transport order priced at more than 10,000 yuan appeared on a freight company’s app in Suzhou, a city in eastern China’s Jiangsu province.

The customer requested the use of a minivan to transport a deceased elderly woman.

After investigating, the app operator discovered that the order was not a genuine request, but probably somebody’s idea of a joke. The account that placed the order has been banned from the app.

The joyless club: why make generations of Chinese children dread piano?

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3271748/joyless-club-why-make-generations-chinese-children-dread-piano?utm_source=rss_feed

When I was five, my parents bought me a piano. It was a very East Asian thing to do. East Asian parents tend to buy their children either a piano or violin and sign them up for lessons, and for me it was the piano. It was a dark mahogany Baldwin, and a novelty for me to sit on the bench and swing my legs, my feet just grazing the floor.

An ingrained memory: my piano teacher looking at me sternly as I started playing a tune I had heard. I could listen to songs such as “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and then play the tune perfectly on the piano, but my teacher didn’t necessarily like that I didn’t play “by the book”, never mind that I might have been exhibiting signs of musical genius.

After a hiatus, I had a new piano teacher – an elderly woman who also led the church choir. My sister and I both took lessons from her and even performed at a concert held in her living room. But I disliked the metronome and found it somewhat scary (to me, it resembled an ancient device of torture). After I decided to disregard it and play instead to my own beat, my teacher suggested I find something else to my liking other than the piano. I was 11 – and I decided that I would play the piano in my own time and just the way I liked.

After my parents divorced, when I was 16, the piano disappeared (likely donated) and was never mentioned again. Yet, despite the litany of disapproving piano teachers who quit and the disappearance of my childhood piano, I never lost my love for the instrument.

I missed the weight of the keys and the syncing of the left and right hands that magically produced something beautiful. After a long day at work, I would listen to a piano piece on my smartphone and it would perk me up. At church, I secretly revelled in the hymns because they were accompanied by the piano.

Piano lessons have been a rite of passage for most of my East Asian friends, who either remember taking lessons or have signed their children up for them. While most who played no longer do and can offer no concrete reason except to say, “I really don’t have time for it”, they were adamant about their children learning.

The truth was often unspoken. What they didn’t say is that piano and violin lessons are a status symbol, comparable to sailing and golf. There is nothing wrong with this if the child enjoys the lessons. Learning the piano fosters discipline and can help enhance memory; unsurprisingly, piano companies are keen to highlight even greater perks – Steinway & Sons says playing the piano can “improve the body”, “calm the mind” and foster “lifelong health, healthy life”.

All this may very well be true. But for young children, being forced to learn a musical instrument can also, sadly, strip them of a lifelong enjoyment of it. Perhaps it is no accident that most of my friends who were forced to play as children no longer do – not even a little.

And this should not be a surprise. There are plenty of cultural references to the dreaded piano concert from the child’s perspective. In Amy Tan’s bestselling book The Joy Luck Club, later made into a film, young June clashes with her strict mother over piano practice, declaring “you can’t make me”, only to fumble at the concert later.

Piano lessons and practice crop up often when the discussion turns to raising children the Chinese way. Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, recounted how she forced one daughter to perfect a piano piece, going so far as to threaten to donate her dollhouse to charity and instituting a no lunch, dinner or birthday party policy until it she mastered it. It worked but I’d be surprised if her daughter continues to play today.

Why not consider a cultural shift where playing a musical instrument becomes a personal choice and a hobby? Life only gets more stressful and it’s good to keep some things as a joyful distraction.

Fast forward to today and I have reclaimed the piano. It was a bit of serendipity that I found a piano teacher last summer. She has a special place in her heart for teaching adults. Considering our busy work schedules, she said we could practise whenever we had time. Twice a year, she hosts a piano soirée for her adult students. “It’s not a concert,” she said. “It’s a fun gathering with good food.”

And so, on a late autumn day, I played the piano with other adults (many retired and well into their 70s), and our teacher, who came with a piece too. Our significant others were the captive audience. Everyone fumbled a little and when that happened, we all paused patiently. We all received an ovation. After a delicious dinner, we were motivated to keep on practising and return for the next gathering. Most importantly, we were playing for ourselves.

China pushes to preserve deep-sea interests with national security legislation

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3273848/china-pushes-preserve-deep-sea-interests-national-security-legislation?utm_source=rss_feed

China says it will press ahead with legislation to protect its interests in deep-sea areas, a new arena of competition in its rivalry with the .

In a commentary in Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily on Thursday, Public Security Minister said Beijing would “proactively push forward national security legislation in crucial areas such as space, deep-sea and data security”.

Wang’s comments reflect the stress on national security to come out of last month’s third plenum, a twice-a-decade gathering of the party’s elite to determine the country’s economic direction.

The legislative process is part of China’s ongoing law-making efforts to reinforce its claims in disputed waters and normalise its activities in the high seas.

China introduced legislation in 2016 to cover deep-sea resource exploration, underpinning its survey and research efforts in what could be a new frontier for power growth and technological progress.

But this time it is going one step further to protect what it sees as its “deep-sea interests and assets”.

These assets include subsea communications cables, a market that China dominates – much to the US’ concern.

Security concerns prompted Washington to sanction FiberHome Telecommunication Technologies, a major Chinese subsea cable supplier, in 2020 and Huawei Marine Network, now known as HMN Tech, in 2021.

The Ministry of State Security also warned in May that undersea communications cables had been targeted by the US, potentially leading to security risks.

“Deep sea” broadly refers to ocean depths below 200 metres (656 feet), environments that can contain a wealth of energy reserves and maritime life.

With greater competition for deep-sea resources and equipment, military powers have begun to increase deployment in deep-sea areas, according to the Knowfar Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies on Thursday.

“The United States and other military powers have begun to make the deep sea a new battlefield, following the battlefields of land, water, air, space and cyber-electromagnetism,” said the institute, which is based in Jiangyin, in Jiangsu province in eastern China.

“This will provoke militarisation and arms races in the deep sea, threatening the sovereign security of rival states and sustainable development of human society.”

Experts have also called for Beijing to establish a legal framework to address these issues.

Zhang Guobin, an assistant researcher in law at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said in an article published in Political Science and Law in November that work was needed to fix the flawed regulatory system.

“The inadequate laws have resulted in ineffective regulation and difficulties for future exploration and exploitation of deep-sea resources,” Zhang said.

The deep sea was also an arena for countries to showcase their most technology, as “competition between countries in the deep sea involves all the complex and integrated technologies in contemporary science and technology fields”, he said.

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China’s booming ‘panda economy’ is black, white and spreading all over

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3273898/chinas-booming-panda-economy-black-white-and-spreading-all-over?utm_source=rss_feed

When Spanish tourist Maxim Gomez arrived in China on his first visit, the 24-year-old had one destination in mind: the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in the southwestern province of Sichuan, famed for its extensive collection of the country’s national mascots.

“This is probably the best spot in the world to see pandas, because it’s a reserve and not a zoo,” he said. “And pandas are very rare animals, which makes them unique.”

Like many of his friends, Gomez became enamoured of the animals for their clumsy, playful behaviour, as seen in videos shared en masse on his country’s social media platforms.

While the large bears and their distinctive black and white fur have become a ubiquitous presence online, they have also contributed to local tax revenues and created opportunities for enterprises in their habitats through tourism and merchandising, laying the foundation for what has been dubbed a “panda economy”.

During this year’s Labour Day holiday – a five-day period that saw an enormous travel boom – the Chengdu facility attracted a cumulative 264,000 visitors.

The city as a whole welcomed nearly 20 million tourists during that time, generating revenue of nearly 15 billion yuan (US$2.1 billion), with panda-related hotel bookings more than tripling over the previous year over the holiday, according to the Sichuan government.

Sales of panda-related merchandise have also surged, with Panda Factory – a renowned producer of plush toys of the bear – reporting sales of over 6 million yuan in the first quarter of 2024, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

“[Pandas’] cuddly appearance can inspire impulsive buying from consumers, and the rise of live streaming since the pandemic has further increased their popularity, thus enhancing related economic behaviour,” said Lin Huanjie, dean of the Institute for Theme Park Studies in China.

On Chinese short video platform Douyin, fans of the bear have firmly established themselves – and their own cottage industries. Panda GunGun, an account with over 7 million followers, sells a variety of themed items including dolls, bags and blankets. According to data from the app, the account sold 190,000 items in July alone.

Other accounts have built large communities over a shared love of the bears. iPanda, a user that shares videos of famous specimens like Hua Hua, Fu Bao and Ya Ya, has built a follower base of over 4 million.

“They are accelerating the growth of local economies, contributing to job creation and attracting both domestic and international tourists, since they are tourism resources exclusive to China,” Lin said.

Along with ticket sales, increased demand for panda products – as well as hotels and restaurants for the growing tourist population – are creating a greater need for sales staff, tour guides, security guards, cleaners and other service personnel, Lin said.

“Collectively, it is a 1 billion yuan per year business we are talking about, just in Sichuan,” he said.

The beloved animals, a “national treasure” in China, are not only celebrities in their home country. The presence of Fu Bao, South Korea’s first natural-born giant panda, significantly boosted the profile of her temporary habitat – and her return to China last March generated widespread mourning.

By late February, shortly before her departure, sales of panda merchandise soared to 2.7 million items – a 60 per cent increase over the previous year – with roughly one in every 10 visitors purchasing at least one item, South Korean media outlet Chosun Daily reported in March.

Tokyo-born giant panda Xiang Xiang was no slouch, either, having generated an estimated economic contribution of about US$433 million over her six-year stay at the city’s Ueno Zoo. According to Kansai University professor Katsuhiro Miyamoto, as cited by the Chosun Daily, this was higher than the proceeds from Japan’s high-profile victory over the United States in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.

Hong Kong’s super-connector role can help Chinese EV makers tap more markets, experts say

https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/3273929/hong-kongs-super-connector-role-can-help-chinese-ev-makers-tap-more-markets-experts-say?utm_source=rss_feed

Hong Kong can serve as a super-connector to help Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers increase their market presence overseas, according to a government official and industry experts.

The city aims to leverage its proximity to the mainland to help companies in the intelligent-vehicle supply chain gain a foothold in export markets, said Lillian Cheong Man-lei, Under Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry.

As a super-connector and value-adder, “we can help more mainland companies to set up their business in Hong Kong, and expand into overseas markets,” she said at a forum on Friday at Hong Kong Science Park.

The event was organised by Hozon New Energy Automobile, . The company signed an agreement with Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) in September to set up its international headquarters in Hong Kong.

with 11 advanced manufacturing enterprises so far this year as part of the city’s push to become an innovation hub.

“Hong Kong is not just a global financial centre and a bridge connecting Western and Eastern cultures,” said Fang Yunzhou, founder and chairman of Hozon. The city can also “serve as a strategic international innovation platform”, he added.

Fang Fang, a founding partner at Waterwood Investment Group, said Chinese EV brands can make good use of Hong Kong’s traditional advantages in financing, logistics and commerce to reach more customers globally. Policy support is also beneficial, he added.

Developing the automobile supply chain in Hong Kong can also attract many infrastructure companies, supporting the city’s economic growth and bringing in more talent and fundraising opportunities, Fang added.

Chinese EV brands nearly doubled their market share to 30 per cent in the Hong Kong market in the first six months this year, according to based on Transport Department data.

Nine Chinese EV makers have so far won approval to sell their cars in Hong Kong, with prices ranging from HK$160,377 for Hozon’s Neta AYA Lite five-seater SUV to HK$619,190 for SAIC Maxus’ MIFA 9 Premium multipurpose vehicle.

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China’s hi-tech scientists have a moment in the Beidaihe sun at political elite’s retreat

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Some of China’s leading lights in artificial intelligence, quantum physics, deep-sea exploration and aerospace were invited to the political elite’s annual summer retreat this year, highlighting Beijing’s priorities in its tech self-reliance drive.

Among the nearly five dozen researchers in the natural and social sciences at the Beidaihe seaside resort in Hebei province were computational scientist Andrew Yao Chi-Chih and award-winning physicist Xue Qikun.

The researchers were invited by the Communist Party’s decision-making Central Committee and the State Council, and greeted by Cai Qi, President Xi Jinping’s chief of staff and the party’s No 5 official.

Cai was joined by the party’s personnel chief, Li Ganjie, and Vice-Premier Shen Yiqin, a state councillor in charge of culture and education.

The retreat in Beidaihe, a coastal town on the Bohai Bay, about 300km (186 miles) east of Beijing, is also known as the “summer summit” and a traditional gathering of the party’s elders and power brokers.

This year it started on August 1 and wrapped up on Wednesday.

It came roughly two weeks after the party’s third plenum, where the Central Committee said it would pour more resources into science and give more leeway to its researchers.

“Education, science and technology, and talent function as a basic and strategic underpinning for Chinese modernisation,” the committee said.

The theme was reflected as Cai passed on greetings from Xi to the researchers on August 1.

Cai urged the scientists to “shoulder their historical responsibility and make new contributions” to China’s development in education, science and technology, and expertise, according to Xinhua.

In June, Xi singled out Yao, the computational scientist, for high praise, saying his “unwavering dedication” had resulted in remarkable achievements in both teaching and research innovation.

Yao left the United States two decades ago to teach at Tsinghua University and heads the university’s Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences and is on the academic advisory committee of Tsinghua’s newly established Institute for AI Industry Research.

Physicist Xue, also from Tsinghua University, last year became the first Chinese scientist to receive one of the United States’ most prestigious physics awards, jointly winning the American Physical Society’s 2024 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Physics Prize with Harvard University’s Ashvin Vishwanath.

Xue has been working with his university team to synthesise topological insulators – a class of materials that exists in a recently discovered state of quantum matter – for the development of next-generation, low-energy consumption electronics.

Other prominent researchers invited to the Beidaihe retreat included Zhou Qi, a Guizhou geologist instrumental in the discovery of a massive manganese reserve; Wan Buyan, who developed China’s first deep-sea drilling rig; Li Jiulin, the chief engineer of the Beijing Olympics “Bird’s Nest” stadium; and Shanxi University vice-president Cheng Fangqin, who is known for her work on repurposing coal waste.