Mistral点评

• China’s scientific sea voyages might rile India, but will they lead to clash?
• China ties strong enough to weather Thailand’s political turmoil: analysts
• China and Vatican discuss Ukraine peace plan as Russia continues to lose ground
• Influx of mainland Chinese and talent offset emigration wave in Hong Kong
• China’s interbank system promoted as safeguard against Swift consequences
• Vietnam’s To Lam makes China his first stop after becoming party chief
• China to control exports of critical mineral antimony from next month
• China woman kicked off flight, causes delay after refusal to store luxury bag under seat
• China vows to get foreign firms’ pricey mega projects under way as FDI outflow persists
• Japan – and world economy – at high risk of crippling megaquake: Chinese seismologist
• China’s July home prices fall at a slower pace as state support shows ‘some effect’
• Will African students’ embrace of China opportunities build support for Beijing?
• ‘Not a bad thing’: Chinese students offered paid tours of Singapore universities for extra cash
• A swine romance, China pig farm cleans up as unlikely wedding venue
• China’s economic activity continues to drag in July as key indicators miss expectations
• Singapore charges 2 former Chinese bankers in US$2.3 billion money-laundering scandal
• SM Group of the Philippines sees China as ‘formidable’ market force even amid uneasy ties
• Chinese scientists say they can strengthen pure gold by adding tiny holes
• China calls for ‘national unity’ in Myanmar as rebels gain ground near Yunnan border

China’s scientific sea voyages might rile India, but will they lead to clash?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3274603/chinas-scientific-sea-voyages-might-rile-india-will-they-lead-clash?utm_source=rss_feed

Three Chinese research vessels have been operating in the Indian Ocean this week, according to open-source data, in the latest sign Beijing aims to expand its scientific excursions at sea.

While Beijing has insisted the voyages are for scientific research purposes, observers warned that regional powers such as India could become increasingly concerned about the blurred boundaries between China’s military and civilian technology, though they say open confrontation is unlikely.

According to the latest data by tracking website MarineTraffic, research ship Zhongshan Daxue approached the eastern edge of the Indian Ocean near the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Wednesday, while the Xiang Yang Hong 03 sailed near the Bay of Bengal.

The Yuan Wang 7, a member of China’s space support fleet, was seen heading towards Africa’s eastern coast on Wednesday. The ship is outfitted with advanced sensors and communication equipment.

Notably, it was the first time that the Zhongshan Daxue, the country’s largest and most advanced oceanographic research vessel, was spotted patrolling in the region. With a displacement of 6,800 tonnes, the ship was commissioned in 2021 and made its maiden voyage in the South China Sea last year.

China has built one of the world’s largest fleets of civilian research vessels, with 64 now in use, according to a recent report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

China has vastly increased its presence in the Indian Ocean in recent decades, largely through economic activities and scientific research, which India has seen as a threat.

While India has not publicly commented on the latest expeditions, it has repeatedly accused Chinese research ships of “spying” on its military, adding tensions to ties between the neighbours, which have been locked in an intense stand-off along their Himalayan border since 2020.

Zhang Jiadong, director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said China’s scientific research in the Indian Ocean was under intense scrutiny because of the potential “dual-use” of the data it collected, but added that this ambiguity over how data would be used was not limited to China.

“China’s scientific expedition is following international law, and there is no guarantee by any nation that their research will not be used for military purposes,” he said. “Marine science around the world has always been controversial.”

“If anyone wants to criticise China about its [scientific] research being used for military purposes, there is no way for China to object to that possibility; however, it is the case with all countries’ oceanographic expeditions,” he added.

Zhang noted that behind the “controversy” surrounding China’s research activities was the growing competition “between global maritime powers and littoral countries, and it will not be limited to China and India, or China and the US”.

Observers said the link between the survey activities and the Chinese military – including ties with the People’s Liberation Army – would also deepen suspicions about Beijing expanding its power in the Indian Ocean.

Most of China’s marine research organisations, including the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the State Oceanic Administration, have cooperated with the PLA.

The Xiang Yang Hong class of ships, for instance, was originally built for China’s military but was later transferred to its civilian fleet.

Amit Ranjan, a research fellow with the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies, said India was unlikely to openly confront China over the latter’s research activities at sea as long they did not threaten what New Delhi saw as its sphere of influence.

“Once [the survey vessel] crosses into the Indian radar – that is, in the Bay of Bengal – that will concern India. If it’s not, India may not be very vocal,” he said.

He added that Delhi would probably also be unnerved if Chinese research vessels were to travel close to or dock in Sri Lanka or the Maldives – two strategically important island nations that India considers to be within its sphere of influence.

In February, Sri Lanka refused to allow the Xiang Yang Hong 03 to dock at its port, reportedly under pressure from India.

Later that month, the Chinese vessel stopped in the Maldives with the permission of the country’s Beijing-friendly government, which in June stopped allowing India to conduct hydrographic surveys in its waters.

Amid an intensifying power rivalry between China and the US in the Indo-Pacific, China’s expanding presence in the Indian Ocean has drawn scrutiny from Washington and its allies in the region.

Following a foreign ministers’ meeting in Tokyo last month, the members of the Quad security dialogue – the US, Japan, Australia and India – agreed to expand a maritime domain awareness initiative to the Indian Ocean to bolster security and counter illegal activities, a move made with China in mind.

“Given the growing strategic importance of the Indo-Pacific region in the eyes of the US and other major Quad members, they have risen against China,” Ranjan said.

China ties strong enough to weather Thailand’s political turmoil: analysts

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3274646/china-ties-strong-enough-weather-thailands-political-turmoil-analysts?utm_source=rss_feed

The sudden ousting of Thailand’s prime minister could drag the country further into political turmoil but China is expected to be able to weather the uncertainty, observers say.

In a 5-4 decision on Wednesday, Thailand’s Constitutional Court ruled that prime minister Srettha Thavisin, who took office almost one year ago, breached ethics standards for appointing a cabinet member who served a jail term 16 years ago.

The decision came a day after Beijing announced that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi would visit Chiang Mai this week for a meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, as well as a gathering with his counterparts from Thailand, Laos and Myanmar.

Commerce Minister Phumtham Wechayachai has been named as acting prime minister and the ruling Pheu Thai Party-led coalition has nominated Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the youngest daughter of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, to replace Srettha.

Paetongtarn is considered friendly to China, observers said.

Just days before the dismissal, the court also dissolved the progressive Move Forward Party, the country’s main opposition party.

Thailand has been through two coups and series of street protests since 2006, and before Srettha, three prime ministers had been brought down by court rulings as political struggles played out between the powerful military, royalists and business elites represented by Thaksin’s Pheu Thai.

Zhu Ming, a researcher with Chengdu-based Fudan Western-China International Institute of Finance, said that whatever the changes, Bangkok and Beijing had the experience and strong economic bonds to get through them.

“Thailand’s political environment is inherently fragile, with various factions taking turns in power,” Zhu said. “However, given its national interests, Thailand will not allow dramatic changes in its ties with China.”

A newly industrialised country, Thailand is the second-largest economy of the 10 member states of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

China has been Thailand’s biggest trading partner for a decade and bilateral trade totalled US$126.3 billion last year.

Thailand is a major market for China’s booming electrical vehicle sector, and home to an EV factory owned by leading Chinese manufacturer BYD.

Chinese tourists are crucial to Thailand’s tourism sector, with 3.5 million visiting last year alone. That number is only expected to increase this year with the introduction of a mutual visa waiver programme.

Over the past decade, China has also steadily pushed for closer defence ties.

Thailand is the oldest US treaty ally in the region and its only one on the Southeast Asian mainland, but its ties with the United States were strained after the 2014 military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government.

In addition, Thailand is crucial to China’s ambitious pan-Asia railway, with plans for three main routes, including one between southwestern Chinese city of Yunnan to Bangkok, to eventually connect China with Singapore and all the countries of mainland Southeast Asia.

Zhuang Guotu, a Southeast Asia specialist from Xiamen University, said Thailand’s desire for China’s support to develop its economy was very strong.

“Despite the political division, Thailand needs China’s infrastructure, manufacturing sectors, and internet technology for the industrial upgrade, this cannot be changed,” he said.

Zhuang also noted the stabilising influence of China’s “soft power” in the kingdom.

“The royalty, military, and its challengers, all have close ties to China, through homogenous culture, blood, and history,” he said.

“Thailand is the country with the longest history of friendship and goodwill among all of China’s neighbouring countries, and there is no other country that can compete with their close ties over centuries.”

Zhu said stable ties with Thailand had a “positive” effect on China’s relations within the broader region.

“Asean is a priority for China’s foreign investment and trade, so in this sense Thailand will play a benchmark role in demonstrating China’s influence in Southeast Asia,” he said.

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China and Vatican discuss Ukraine peace plan as Russia continues to lose ground

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3274649/china-and-vatican-discuss-ukraine-peace-plan-russia-continues-lose-ground?utm_source=rss_feed

China held talks with the Vatican about its peace plan for Ukraine on Wednesday as the latest offensive continued to push into Russian territory.

The call between Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Vatican’s special peace envoy, and his Chinese counterpart Li Hui was a relatively rare occurrence because the Holy See does not have formal diplomatic ties with Beijing.

“Li Hui appreciates the Vatican’s constant efforts to mediate the Ukraine crisis and provide humanitarian assistance. He stressed that the current situation shows the significance of the six common understandings issued by China and Brazil,” the Chinese foreign ministry said.

The six-point plan includes a call for a ceasefire and a negotiated end to the settlement.

The Chinese foreign ministry said the call had taken place at Zuppi’s invitation. It added that he had thanked the Chinese government for its “unswerving efforts” to promote peace and expressed his appreciation for the six-point plan.

The Vatican has yet to comment on the call.

Although both sides have expressed willingness to talk – under specific conditions – the latest offensive has cast further doubt on the prospects of negotiations taking place any time soon.

Ukraine has urged Moscow to accept a “just peace” after it seized control of dozens of settlements inside Russia for the first time in the war.

The invasion has prompted the border provinces of Kursk and Belgorod to start evacuating residents, and on Wednesday Ukraine continued its offensive, striking four Russian airfields with drones.

China has positioned itself as a peacemaker and has recently stepped up its efforts to push for direct talks between the two warring parties.

Li has been travelling the world to drum up support for its six-point plan, especially among Global South nations.

China says it has so far obtained support from 26 countries and more than 100 have given it a favourable response.

Zuppi also carried out his own peace missions last year, including meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Joe Biden and top advisers to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Zuppi also made a three-day trip to Beijing last year to meet Li, but few details of those talks have been made public.

Pan Dawei, director of the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the Vatican and China share a similar position on the war.

“In terms of religious significance, the Vatican has a very high position among Western countries,” he said. “If it can join China in [its stance] on Ukraine, of course that is China’s goal.”

Although China insists it is neutral in the war, its position has been one of the main sources of tension with the European Union because of the widespread suspicion about its close ties with Russia.

A number of Chinese companies have been sanctioned by the EU and United States on suspicion of transferring products with dual military and civilian uses to Russia.

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Influx of mainland Chinese and talent offset emigration wave in Hong Kong

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3274656/influx-talent-mainland-chinese-offset-emigration-wave-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed

An influx of immigrants from mainland China and talent alongside a slight increase in births have offset an emigration wave in Hong Kong, the latest official data shows.

The Census and Statistics Department announced on Thursday the midyear population stood at 7,531,800, down by 4,300 from 12 months ago, accounting for a decrease of 0.1 per cent.

The government attributed the drop to the unusual situation of “quite a number of” Hong Kong residents who were living abroad returning to the city after pandemic travel restrictions were lifted early last year, temporarily inflating the number used for comparison.

“This situation then restored to normalcy gradually in the later part of 2023, resulting in a slight decline in the population as at end 2023 and mid-2024 as compared to mid-2023,” it said.

But the population still grew compared with the figure at the end of 2023 and the latest number was the second-highest yet.

Authorities noted the success of various measures to attract talent and labour, which drew “sizeable inflow of persons from the mainland and other places around the world to Hong Kong in the first half of 2024”.

In the 12 months to June, the city recorded a net outflow of 30,200 residents, following a strong net inflow of 143,000 people from mid-2022 to mid-2023, triggered by the new talent scheme and the resumption of normal travel.

Net outflows began to pick up from mid-2019 to mid-2020, when the anti-government protests erupted.

The city’s latest net outflow figure was the third-highest in a decade after peaking at 89,200 from mid-2020 to mid-2021 when Britain launched a bespoke immigration pathway in response to Beijing’s imposition of the national security law. The net outflow of residents then dropped to 60,000 in 2022.

According to the latest figures, 44,000 mainlanders arrived in the city through one-way permits, the highest in five years, which effectively offset the outflow of Hongkongers.

The scheme allows 150 mainlanders to settle in Hong Kong each day.

The number of births over the past 12 months also increased to 34,400 from last year’s 32,600, marking a 5 per cent increase.

The number of deaths stood at 52,400, down from the 54,600 recorded in mid-2023.

In 2022, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s administration launched a series of measures aimed at attracting talent to counter the emigration wave.

The policies included the Top Talent Pass Scheme launched in December 2022, which is open to candidates who earned more than HK$2.5 million (US$320,000) over the past 12 months and graduates of the world’s top 100 universities.

According to the Immigration Department, the scheme had received more than 93,000 applications as of July 31, with over 73,000 approved. The department’s data also showed 60,300 of the successful applicants had already arrived in the city.

Combined with other policies, the city had welcomed more than 130,000 people by June, surpassing the government’s target of bringing in 105,000 people over three years.

Paul Yip Siu-fai, chair professor of population health at the University of Hong Kong, said the latest data showed the emigration wave had not slowed down.

“The recent figure shows the number of Hongkongers leaving the city is not low,” he said.

The British government earlier said about 144,400 Hongkongers had arrived in the country by March 2024 since the launch of the scheme in January 2021.

Canada and Australia also offer bespoke citizenship pathways for Hongkongers.

Yip said the increase in births was not significant. The birth figure, according to his knowledge, also included the number of babies aged below one who arrived in the city after being born elsewhere.

The latest birth number does not show the impact of a policy announced by the city leader last October to give HK$20,000 (US$2,570) for each new child born in Hong Kong to a parent who is a permanent resident.

China’s interbank system promoted as safeguard against Swift consequences

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3274621/chinas-interbank-system-promoted-safeguard-against-swift-consequences?utm_source=rss_feed

China should promote its indigenous cross-border interbank system to reduce risks to its financial security, a senior researcher for a state-owned bank has said, as the drawbacks of a US-centred global monetary system have become too prominent to ignore.

The deterioration of China-US relations and repeated threats from Washington to kick Chinese commercial banks out of the global financial system means it is difficult for the country’s financial security to stay unaffected, said Yuan Benxiang, who works in the operations management department at the Agricultural Bank of China.

“At present, the drawbacks of the international monetary system dominated by the US dollar have emerged, and the credibility of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) system has declined. Many countries are increasingly willing to seek alternatives,” wrote Yuan in an article published on Tuesday by the monthly Tsinghua Financial Review.

Yuan’s comments highlighted growing unease among Chinese financial institutions connected to Swift, a messaging system that facilitates rapid cross-border payments.

In recent months, the US government has warned China not to aid Russia as it continues to wage war in Ukraine and has threatened to introduce additional sanctions, including measures targeting Chinese banks.

China launched its Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) in 2015 to improve the efficiency of yuan transactions, and global tensions have created a window of opportunity to convince more financial institutions to connect to it.

But Swift – which has been in operation for more than 40 years – has a “first-mover” advantage and more than 11,000 participants globally, Yuan said, making it difficult for China to bypass the system.

“In view of a small number of direct participants, CIPS should demonstrate the feasibility of access for overseas participants, create convenient conditions for their access under the premise of controllable risks and increase the promotion and application of indirect participants,” Yuan said.

Messages on Swift are instrumental in the movement of funds, since they allow banks and other financial entities to easily and safely communicate with each other about transfers.

According to information on the CIPS site, there are presently 150 direct participants and 1,401 indirect participants.

Direct participants must be financial institutions incorporated in China, while indirect participants must deal with direct participants to use the service. Yuan said the latter group is still using Swift.

In the long run, Swift has “dominant control” over China’s payment and settlement and is a “choke point” to the country’s financial security that needs to be “urgently” resolved, Yuan said.

Other risks given voice by Yuan were more direct, as the researcher claimed the United States could mine data from cross-border transactions to better analyse the state of China’s economy.

The US also maintains a strong influence on Swift’s board of directors, mainly made up of nationals from friendly country blocs like the Group of 10 (G10) and the European Union, Yuan said. China and developing countries have little sway with the governing body, which is responsible for operations and management.

Yuan cited Swift data from 2022 showing the US dollar accounted for 41.2 per cent of total cross-border trade settlements and the yuan accounted for 2.2 per cent, indicating there is still room for improvement in the internationalisation of the yuan.

More transactions by foreign nationals using the digital yuan could “seize market shares” with consumers and grow the influence of the currency, he said.

Yuan added more effort should be made to encourage financial institutions from countries with strong trade ties to join the China-led mBridge project, which is experimenting with cross-border payments in non-dollar digital currencies.

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Vietnam’s To Lam makes China his first stop after becoming party chief

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3274585/vietnams-lam-makes-china-his-first-stop-after-becoming-party-chief?utm_source=rss_feed

Vietnam’s party chief To Lam is expected to have economic ties high on his agenda when he arrives in Beijing on Sunday, particularly when it comes to securing China’s support for his country’s rail projects, according to Chinese experts.

But one observer warned that the bond between the ruling communist parties – viewed by others as “unshakeable” – could have its limits, with the ongoing disputes in the South China Sea and their countries’ history of conflict.

Lam, who is also Vietnam’s president, will pay a three-day state visit at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, China’s foreign ministry announced on Thursday.

It will be Lam’s first overseas trip since he was named general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the country’s top post. He succeeded long-serving party head Nguyen Phu Trong, who died on July 19.

Cheng Hanping, a senior research fellow at Nanjing University’s Collaborative Innovation Centre of South China Sea Studies, said that Lam’s visit is likely to show the “ballast” role of the relationship between the two ruling communist parties.

“No matter how the world changes or what contradictions there are between China and Vietnam, the party-to-party relationship between the two parties in China and Vietnam is a ballast and unshakeable,” Cheng said.

Lam’s trip comes after weeks of simmering tensions and posturing between Hanoi and Beijing over their overlapping claims in the South China Sea. Vietnam has also continued to draw closer to the US and its allies – including Australia, the Philippines and Japan – in a move widely seen as like to raise China’s ire.

By making Beijing his priority destination, Lam is also following in his predecessor’s path. During his 13 years as party chief, Trong maintained frequent high-level exchanges with the Chinese leadership.

One week after the Chinese Communist Party’s landmark 20th Congress in October 2022, Trong arrived in Beijing, on his first overseas trip since starting his third consecutive term.

The visit also made Trong the first foreign leader to meet Xi and congratulate him in person after the confirmation of his historic third term as China’s party chief.

Xi made a reciprocal visit to Hanoi in December 2023, when the two sides agreed to step up their cooperation and build a community with a “shared future”.

According to Cheng, the two sides will be seeking to further build on their economic compatibility and party-to-party solidarity to strengthen bilateral ties during Lam’s visit.

“There is a need [for the two sides] to jointly deal with ‘peaceful evolution’ and ‘colour revolutions’ from the outside world,” he said.

Experts agreed that Lam would be seeking to bolster Vietnam’s economy through closer cooperation with China to solidify his political standing at home, after a period of leadership turmoil.

The political shake-up included the removals of the previous Vietnamese president and the chairman of the National Assembly, after they were accused of alleged links to corruption cases.

The observers said that Lam’s goals would include increasing Chinese investment and expanding trade volumes, as well as strengthening digital economy ties and working together on various supply chain issues.

Hanoi is also looking for Chinese investments and technological support to advance its national and cross-border rail projects.

Not only would cross-border rail bolster Vietnam’s connectivity with China, it would also integrate the Southeast Asian nation with the China-Europe Railway Express, a network of freight services that links various European countries, according to Cheng.

China has long been Vietnam’s largest trading partner and one of its major foreign investors, while Vietnam is China’s largest trading partner within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and its fourth-largest in the world.

Zhou Chao, a researcher with the Beijing-based independent think tank Anbound, said Lam may also be looking for an increase in Chinese imports of Vietnamese fruits, as well as stable electricity exports from China.

The latter would help Hanoi to overcome a power shortage that has been affecting local businesses and foreign manufacturers, particularly in Vietnam’s northern region.

“Deeper economic and trade relations undoubtedly signal a strengthening and optimisation of bilateral ties,” Zhou said but he added that there is a limit in the relationship between the two neighbours.

Since taking up the presidential office in May, Lam has reiterated to visiting Chinese officials that Hanoi gives “top priority” to its relationship with Beijing – most recently, when China’s No. 4 official Wang Huning visited on July 25.

Wang, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was in Hanoi as Xi’s special representative at Trong’s funeral.

After his elevation to the party leadership, Lam told a press conference that there would be no change to foreign policy, raising expectations that he would continue to strike a balance between Vietnam’s relations with China and the United States.

Zhou pointed out that there had been no sign of a softening in Hanoi’s stance on its territorial disputes with Beijing, adding that he expected Lam to remain tough on the issue.

“When it comes to the South China Sea, Vietnam’s stance will not change but it will seek to enhance communication with China or request that both sides reduce their related activities in disputed areas,” he said.

According to Zhou, Vietnam’s ruling elites could be looking for an external target as they seek to consolidate domestic support and tackle internal challenges, such as rampant corruption and economic setbacks.

China would be an “ideal” choice as a potential target, given the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war and the ongoing frictions in the South China Sea, he said.

China to control exports of critical mineral antimony from next month

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3274602/china-control-exports-critical-mineral-antimony-next-month?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing will impose export controls on rare antimony metals, ores and oxides, effective from September 15.

In an online statement on Thursday, the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs said the move was set to safeguard national security, defend its interests and also fulfil its non-proliferation obligations.

Antimony is used in the semiconductor industry for the production of certain silicon wafers, diodes and infrared detectors.

The United States considers antimony a mineral critical to economic and national security – a distinction also held by rare earth elements such as cobalt and uranium, according to the US International Trade Commission.

China’s antimony ore production stood at 40,000 metric tonnes last year, accounting for nearly half of the world’s total.

More to follow …

China woman kicked off flight, causes delay after refusal to store luxury bag under seat

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3274619/china-woman-kicked-flight-causes-delay-after-refusal-store-luxury-bag-under-seat?utm_source=rss_feed

A Chinese woman who refused to put her designer handbag under the seat in front of her when asked by a flight attendant caused a one-hour delay and had to be escorted off the plane.

The incident attracted 4 million views on Douyin and triggered heated discussions after a passenger posted a video clip of it.

The passenger, who asked to remain anonymous, said the woman who was sitting in economy class insisted on putting her Louis Vuitton handbag next to her, instead of under the seat in front.

The August 10 flight from an airport in Chongqing municipality in southwestern China was already departing and had to return to the boarding gate.

Passengers applauded when police escorted the woman off the plane.

The incident caused a delay of one hour and disrupted departure times of later flights.

A Louis Vuitton handbag costs about US$3,000 in China and the economy class ticket for the flight from Chongqing to northern China’s Hebei province, operated by China Express Airlines, costs 800 yuan (US$110).

The airline did not respond to questions about the case or reveal the outcome after speaking to the passenger. The offending passenger’s identity was not revealed.

The incident has sparked heated debate on mainland social media.

Some people criticised the passenger, while others said the flight attendant might have been overzealous in carrying out her duties.

“She valued the bag more than her life,” said one person on Weibo.

“The flight attendant could have offered her a bag to put her handbag in. Is it really necessary to waste an hour and kick her off the plane?” somebody wrote on Douyin.

Another online observer said she had seen many economy class passengers putting their small bags on the seat during take off and were not asked to remove them.

“The flight attendant did not insist on the rule for nothing. The woman should value her safety and that of other passengers rather than the bag,” another said.

Plane passengers are required to put bags under the seat in front of them, so if there is turbulence there is no risk of them being thrown around where they might injure people or block escape routes.

The LVMH luxury group, home to brands such as Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, reported a 13 per-cent drop in sales in Asia, excluding Japan, in the first half of this year.

However, the group’s CFO Jean-Jacques Guiony said “the Chinese customer is holding up quite well” as many travel to Japan to buy luxury goods where they are currently cheaper because of the weak yen.

China vows to get foreign firms’ pricey mega projects under way as FDI outflow persists

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3274617/china-vows-get-foreign-firms-pricey-mega-projects-under-way-fdi-outflow-persists?utm_source=rss_feed

To get foreign-invested mega projects off the ground quickly at a time when China’s economy needs a jolt of life, commerce authorities assembled representatives of 20 such projects – including by major pharmaceutical firms and the world’s biggest toymaker by revenue – for a round-table chat to address concerns and get the ball rolling.

The rare meeting on Wednesday came as Beijing amps up efforts to arrest a decline in foreign investment, and authorities are keen on empowering global giants to proceed with economy-driving projects that boast planned investments of up to €10 billion (US$11 billion).

“The Ministry of Commerce will take a task-force approach for these focal projects by increasing efficiency and protection,” it vowed in a statement. “[We] will also resolve problems – such as approvals, land use, environmental assessments, energy consumption, and financing – in a timely manner.”

“We’ll push ahead with the early signing of projects under negotiation, the early commencement of signed projects, and the early completion of projects under construction, so as to provide strong support to attract and utilise foreign investment in a more vigorous manner.”

According to analysts, the programmatic approach could help China pull in additional foreign direct investment, as the latest data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange released on Friday showed a net FDI outflow of US$14.8 billion for the second quarter.

The ministry’s official statement said the mega projects include those by German giants such as chemical producer BASF, software company SAP and industrial firm Siemens.

Other big names mentioned were medical device company Medtronic and pharmaceutical firm Moderna from America; pharmaceutical corporation Novartis and dental device producer Straumann from Switzerland; as well as the Danish toy producer Lego Group.

The ministry is looking to provide foreign investors with “sufficient support”, and it wants to see developing or planned projects commence operations “at their earliest convenience”.

BASF announced in 2022 that it would build an integrated production base in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province, with intentions to pour €10 billion into the project by 2030.

Moderna said last year that it would build a research and development centre in the Shanghai Xinzhuang Industrial Zone with a total investment of 3.64 billion yuan (US$510 million), which would mark the first project of its kind by an American pharmaceutical company in China.

Novartis is expected to have its radiopharmaceutical production base operational by the end of 2026 at the Radioligand Manufacturing Site in Haiyan county, Zhejiang province, with a total investment of 600 million yuan.

The Legoland Shanghai Resort is expected to open in the spring or summer of 2025. With a 10 billion yuan investment to build a theme park and hotel, the company hopes to attract 3 million to 5 million visitors per year.

“There is a high-level consensus after the third plenum meeting that China will strategically and continuously go down the path of globalisation,” said Wang Yong, deputy academic dean with the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University.

“Foreign investment, especially capital from the United States and Europe, plays a vital role in the process of integration between the Chinese and global economies.”

Wang Zichen, a research fellow with the Beijing-based Centre for China and Globalisation think tank, said the round-table discussion was “straight from the playbook of a typical ‘task force’ within the Chinese government on domestic affairs whenever authorities truly prioritise something”.

Wang Zichen explained that the Chinese government could be viewing a “systemic” and “institutional” opening up as the “optimal solution” for all parties involved.

A stable and trustworthy relationship between China and foreign investors would help smooth out the operations of supply chains across all sectors, according to Wang Yong at Peking University.

“It is a combination of development and job creation,” he added. “At the same time, the cohesion will lead to better interplay between political and strategic functions.”

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Japan – and world economy – at high risk of crippling megaquake: Chinese seismologist

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3274568/japan-and-world-economy-high-risk-crippling-megaquake-chinese-seismologist?utm_source=rss_feed

The risk of a mega earthquake from a fault line off the east coast of Japan is high, with potentially devastating threats to millions of people living in the zone and to the global economy.

The warning from the Seismological Society of China comes just days after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake originating in the Nankai Trough hit the Japanese island of Kyushu.

In a video posted online by the society, Gao Mengtan, from the Institute of Geophysics at the China Earthquake Administration, said a partial rupture in the trough could result in an earthquake above magnitude 8.5, and a complete rupture in a magnitude 9.1 earthquake.

The quake could trigger a tsunami of more than 10 metres (33 feet), destroying 2.38 million buildings and killing 320,000 people in addition to displacing up to 9.5 million people, Gao said.

“Cities near the Nankai Trough, especially in the Chugoku and Kansai clusters, are key economic centres, accounting for 70 per cent of Japan’s manufacturing,” he said.

“An earthquake in this region would not only affect Japan’s manufacturing sector but also affect the global supply chain, with potential economic losses reaching 220 trillion yen [US$1.5 trillion], twice Japan’s annual budget.”

The Nankai Trough is an area off the Japanese coast where the Pacific Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate meet and form a fault line.

The August 8 quake that hit Kyushu did not result in widespread damage but it prompted the Japan Meteorological Agency to warn of an increased chance of a significant seismic event near the trough within the following week.

In the aftermath, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida cancelled a planned trip to Central Asia and panicked travellers cancelled holiday plans for Japan.

The Japanese Cabinet Office said on Tuesday that the warning would be lifted on Thursday afternoon if no significant earthquakes occurred.

Japan’s Earthquake Research Committee estimates that an earthquake of magnitude 7 or higher could affect 151 towns across 10 prefectures, and a tsunami over 5 metres could hit more than 100 towns.

Kyushu is a hub for Japan’s semiconductor industry, with more than 200 manufacturers based on the island and about half of the national semiconductor output coming from the area, according to Shanghai-based news service The Paper.

Gao said the trough generated a major earthquake about every 117 years and the likelihood of another one remained high.

“The last significant earthquake in 1946, which resulted in a 6.9-metre tsunami, underscores the high probability of future seismic events,” he said.

He also said the Japanese government had prepared for such a disaster, making the threat of a Nankai Trough earthquake a priority in national disaster mitigation planning since 2012.

“The [Japanese] government has implemented comprehensive plans ranging from emergency response to post-disaster recovery,” Gao said.

“These include assessing the earthquake resistance of buildings, evaluating tsunami risks in low areas, and establishing evacuation plans.

“Emphasis has been placed on tsunami evacuation training and the creation of clear signage along evacuation routes.

“Additionally, businesses are encouraged to develop plans to ensure quick operational recovery after disasters.”

China’s July home prices fall at a slower pace as state support shows ‘some effect’

https://www.scmp.com/property/article/3274551/chinas-falling-home-prices-slow-descent-slightly-decline-extends-14-months?utm_source=rss_feed

Home prices across China suffered a 14th consecutive month of decline in July, a sign that authorities’ rescue package has done little to revive sentiment.

Prices of new homes in 70 medium and large cities dropped 0.6 per cent month on month in May, narrowing from the 0.7 per cent drop a month earlier, according to data published on Thursday by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Second-hand home prices also slid 0.8 per cent compared with the previous month, a slower pace than June’s 0.9 per cent drop and continuing a trend of slowing decline from May’s 1 per cent.

Once a growth engine powering a quarter of China’s GDP, the property sector has now become a drag on the economy since a nationwide campaign began in late 2020 to deleverage home builders and rein in debt.

The country’s economy expanded by a slower-than-expected 4.7 per cent in the second quarter, while weak consumption remains a burden, rising 2.7 per cent year on year in July, below the 3.06 per cent growth forecast by economists.

Authorities have recently issued a slew of measures to revive the property sector, including a 300 billion yuan (US$41.9 billion) relending facility in May to help local governments buy unsold homes – essentially a bailout for beleaguered developers. Shenzhen last week became the first tier-one city to join this initiative.

Among first-tier cities, where there is greater demand for housing, new home prices dropped 0.5 per cent in Beijing, 0.8 per cent in Guangzhou, and 0.9 per cent in Shenzhen. Meanwhile, second-hand home prices fell by 0.9 per cent in Guangzhou and 1.2 per cent in Shenzhen, and remained unchanged in Beijing.

Shanghai was the only city across China to see month-on-month growth in both new and second-hand home prices, rising by 0.2 per cent and 0.1 per cent, respectively.

“The month-on-month new home prices have shown marginal improvement, indicating that the government’s policy support is showing some effect, particularly in reducing home-buying costs and stimulating demand,” said Yan Yuejin, director of the Shanghai-based E-house China Research and Development Institute.

“Given that the year-on-year decline continues to widen, it is essential to further reinforce housing policies, with a particular focus on exploring home-buying demand.”

For second-hand homes, Yan said that local governments should “leverage” the decline in prices as “an opportunity to highlight the benefits of ‘affordable housing,’ while actively encouraging various forms of social capital to invest in second-hand homes”.

In the meantime, the nation’s developers are still struggling. China’s top 100 developers reported home sales totalling 2.1 trillion yuan in the first seven months of this year, a 37.5 per cent decline compared with the same period last year, according to China Real Estate Information Corp.

Will African students’ embrace of China opportunities build support for Beijing?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3274392/will-african-students-embrace-china-opportunities-build-support-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed

When Kenyan international relations student Adhere Cavince wanted to pursue his doctoral degree, “studying in China came as a natural choice” because of his academic interest and China’s global ambitions.

Cavince – who won a Chinese government scholarship to Central China Normal University from 2019-2022 – is among thousands of Africans benefiting from Beijing-funded scholarships. Many others self-finance their studies in China.

Observers say a growing number of African students are choosing China as their top study destination because of its affordability in terms of both tuition fees and living costs, as well as a lenient student visa regime and easy access to scholarships.

They could become an army of influencers in the future that is favourable towards China and its activities as Africa’s largest trading partner and bankroller of multibillion-dollar projects through the Belt and Road Initiative, the observers said.

“I had an offer to study at a European university but my interest area drove me to study in China,” said Cavince, now an international relations specialist based in Nairobi. He added that China’s education system has improved in quality to match the skill levels in Europe and North America.

According to Cavince, the cost of living is much lower for foreign students, who are also looked after better, so that many parents who are willing to privately fund their children’s education abroad are increasingly looking towards China.

China was outranked only by France as the top overseas higher education destination for African students four years ago, when Chinese statistics about international student numbers were last released.

The US was in third place, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank headquartered in Washington.

In 2018 at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Chinese President Xi Jinping promised Africans 50,000 scholarships and an equal number of training opportunities in China over three years.

The pledge dwarfed similar scholarship programmes for African students offered by France, Britain and the US.

According to the Chinese education ministry, there were 81,562 African students in China in 2018, with 6,385 of them pursuing a PhD – 17 per cent of its international student community and a leap from 2 per cent a decade earlier.

Enrolment numbers for international students at Chinese universities were hit by China’s strict zero-Covid policies during the pandemic. China only relaxed its lockdown rules in January 2023.

Unlike previous summits, China made no commitment on the number of scholarships at the 2021 FOCAC in Senegal, although Xi said in a virtual address that Beijing would continue to train professionals under the programme.

China is expected to make another commitment on scholarships for African students at the next FOCAC, planned for September in Beijing.

Sociologist Benjamin Mulvey from the University of Glasgow was cautious about the data on China’s international student numbers, pointing out that the country includes students on non-degree language programmes, while others tend to only count degree-level studies.

“So [China] might not be the second most popular destination,” Mulvey said. “In addition, they haven’t released any statistics for any academic year since 2018, so I am not sure if that would still be true.”

But he noted that African students perceive that Chinese language skills and an understanding of China’s culture will be valued in their home countries’ labour markets, because of the activity of Chinese enterprises across Africa.

“They tend to think that these skills would be valued for their rarity and make them highly employable,” said Mulvey, author of Mapping International Student Mobility Between Africa and China.

Cliff Mboya, another Kenyan who won a four-year scholarship to study for a doctorate in China, said his background in journalism and international relations “sparked my interest” in the country.

Mboya, who arrived at Shanghai’s Fudan University in 2016 to study international politics, said he was also intrigued by China’s massive engagement with African countries, which fed into his curiosity about China.

“My academic life was interesting. I learned a lot about the country, the people and culture. I realised how ignorant so many of us on the continent are about China and its people. It was an eye-opener and a wonderful experience,” he said.

According to Mboya, the Chinese student visa regime is open and “once you get your student admission or scholarship, it is almost guaranteed that you will get your visa to China”.

Obert Hodzi, a senior lecturer and associate professor in politics at the University of Liverpool, said admission requirements for most Chinese universities are less stringent than their Western counterparts.

African students can more easily gain admission to universities in China for medicine, engineering and other prestigious courses, he said. It is also relatively easier to get a student visa for China than it is to study in France, Britain or the US.

“This has been one of the major drivers as the anti-immigration drive grows stronger in the West, and more right-wing political parties push for reductions of illegal and legal immigrants, including students,” Hodzi said.

According to Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia Programme and director of the Washington-based Stimson Centre’s China Programme, “China wants to gain hearts and minds” by offering opportunities like scholarships to African students.

“The familiarity and affinity from those opportunities are hoped to bring African youth and future generations closer to China,” she said, adding that the scholarships are an affordable way for students from Africa to receive higher education in a great power.

“The opportunities China offers also are very attractive,” Sun said.

The University of Liverpool’s Hodzi said the scholarships – mostly from the central government – are part of Beijing’s “long-term strategy to train and build an alumni of African students who have greater appreciation of Chinese education, culture, and way of doing things”.

X.N. Iraki, an economics ­professor at the University of Nairobi, said China is generous with funding and acts as a counterweight to the restrictions imposed by Western countries, particularly since September 11, 2001.

He speculated that Beijing may be adopting a similar strategy to the 1960 US scholarship programme partly arranged by then presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and African independence activist Tom Mboya.

“China could be emulating the US airlift for Kenyan students before independence and for Soviet republics students after the end of the Cold War,” said Iraki, referring to the US scholarships offered through the programme.

“By educating such students, you get ambassadors who can give your country a positive image and increase the propensity to buy Chinese products and services. It can be seen as soft diplomacy. It’s a purveyor of Chinese influence,” he said.

However, when it comes to absorbing African trainees into the Chinese job market, there are fewer opportunities, the Stimson Centre’s Sun warned.

“The language barrier, the relative closeness of the society, and the difficulty to find jobs with local Chinese employers are all factors,” she said.

According to Sun, the expectation is that international students will return home and promote relations between their countries and China from there. “Staying in China is not part of China’s aspiration.”

Mboya – currently in South Africa where he is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Africa-China Studies at the University of Johannesburg – said more students return home after their studies because that is how the programmes have been designed.

“You are meant to go study and then go back to your country … to serve your country,” he said.

Nevertheless, there are avenues opening up that allow foreign students in China to obtain work visas, particularly in hi-tech sectors, according to Cavince.

“As China internationalises its education and research fields, we see young Africans finding work opportunities in specialised research institutes dedicated to African affairs,” he said.

‘Not a bad thing’: Chinese students offered paid tours of Singapore universities for extra cash

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3274499/not-bad-thing-chinese-students-offered-paid-tours-singapore-universities-extra-cash?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese postgraduate students were selling tours of the National University of Singapore (NUS) to tourists, amid unhappiness from local students over an influx of mainland visitors.

A listing of the two-hour tour, which has since been removed, was found on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu for 273 yuan (US$38). Thirty-one people had purchased the tour, which covered the Central Library, University Town and the NUS Museum, and left mostly positive reviews on Xiaohongshu.

One of the tour guides, a mechanical engineering masters student who declined to be named, told This Week in Asia on Tuesday that she and three other students started offering the tours four months ago to make extra money.

The average cost per person for such tours was 130 yuan, with prices dependent on what customers wanted to see, she said.

The 24-year-old claimed she removed the listing on Wednesday as the campus was getting too crowded with tourists.

She said she used to provide tours for a tour company, but while the company charged 350 yuan per person, she would only get 50 to 80 yuan.

She acknowledged that her tours occupied a “grey region”.

“Big business behaviour may not be allowed, but for us it’s just two to four persons each time,” said the postgraduate student, who noted that all of the tour groups they had taken had been tourists from China.

“Without us, the parents and their children may also rush [around] the school everywhere, so I think [our tours are] not a bad thing,” she added.

The postgraduate student noted that one of the group’s biggest selling points was that she and the other postgraduate students, which included doctoral students, could tell parents and their children about the application process and how they got into NUS.

NUS retained its eighth position in the latest Britain-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings 2025 and is the top-ranked among Asian universities, while Nanyang Technological University (NTU) was ranked 15th.

NUS referred This Week in Asia to an email it sent to students on Wednesday from Associate Provost of Undergraduate Education Daniel Goh. The university informed students it was “closely monitoring the influx of tourists during the summer travel season of Asian countries” and was implementing measures to manage visitor traffic and reduce disruptions to teaching and student activities.

It launched a two-month pilot Visitor Centre initiative from August 5 to September 30 involving 40 paid undergraduate students who lead guided tours on campus. These students had guided more than 25 tour groups and about 500 tourists over the first two weeks of the initiative, Goh said.

Goh also reminded all students and staff not to use their card access to help visitors gain entry to restricted areas including student residences, laboratories and classrooms. Students or staff found doing so will be subject to disciplinary action.

NUS students have also raised concerns about the increase in visitor numbers.

“There’s definitely been an influx of Chinese tourists on campus, and students are not happy about it,” said a fourth-year arts undergraduate who declined to be named. “The two main concerns are the inability to find seats at the canteens, and the extremely crowded internal shuttle bus services.”

The student, 24, noted that over the summer break, the gantries on the first and fourth levels of the Central Library were left open. They were previously only accessible by scanning matriculation cards.

Undergraduate Ryan Tan said Chinese tourists visited the university year-round and this picked up during China’s school holiday period from July to August.

“The unhappiness has always been here. Apart from the congestion issues, the bad behaviour does affect people as well, such as … throwing rocks at tortoises in ponds,” Tan said.

In February, local media reported that NUS and NTU had introduced measures to manage an influx of tourists on campus after students complained of overcrowded buses and eateries, and large crowds taking up seats on campus, among other things.

An NTU spokesman on Wednesday said while the university welcomed visitors to its campus, the needs of its faculty, staff and students came first.

In February, NTU clamped down on tour groups on campus, with local media reporting that the move was due to an “influx of tourists”.

According to the NTU spokesman, all visitors are expected to strictly observe campus rules, including no-stopping zones for vehicles, and keep only to public areas. Visitors are also not allowed to access restricted academic, research and residential areas.

A swine romance, China pig farm cleans up as unlikely wedding venue

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3274280/swine-romance-china-pig-farm-cleans-unlikely-wedding-venue?utm_source=rss_feed

A specialist pig farm in China has become a popular – and bizarre – wedding venue, especially for couples born under the animal’s zodiac sign.

The Panda Pig Farm in Jinhua, Zhejiang province in southeastern China has diversified into a holiday resort and a destination at which to tie the knot.

In 2023 it hosted more than 200 weddings, according to Shen Jianjun, the farm’s owner.

“People born in the Year of the Pig are especially drawn to this place. Some even include the animals in their wedding photos, finding it more meaningful,” said Shen.

The farm is home to about 3,000 officially named Two-End Black pigs and has installed technology to ensure it does not have the usual farm smells.

The pigs, which are compared to pandas because of their distinctive black and white markings, add extra charm to the celebrations and photo shoots.

“As someone born in the Year of the Pig, and having studied animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, I have a deep affection for the animals.

“The Two-End Black is one of China’s four most famous pigs, and is also renowned worldwide” Shen told Tide News.

He said that, due to their slower growth rate, longer breeding time, and higher costs, along with competition from foreign breeds, the pretty porkers were once almost extinct.

One bride who held her wedding at the venue wrote on Douyin.

“My nickname is Panda, his surname is Xiong, which means bear in Chinese, and we were both born in the Year of the Pig. Getting married at the Panda Pig farm felt like destiny.”

The farm is also a theme park, with attractions such as a cultural expo, as well as interactive and educational experiences which include a pig village, where visitors can get up close to the animals and learn about their habits and habitat.

Shen said the Panda Pig Farm has attracted about two million visitors over the past three years, with daily traffic peaking at 12,000.

Online observers have been captivated by the story.

“Getting married here sounds awesome. You can enjoy the wedding banquet while also having fun at a theme park,” one person said.

“ They’ve really elevated the status of pigs,” said another.

China’s economic activity continues to drag in July as key indicators miss expectations

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3274528/chinas-economic-activity-continues-drag-july-key-indictors-miss-expectations?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s property slump and weak consumption continued to haunt the world’s second-largest economy in July, fuelling market calls for stronger government actions in addition to the faster issuance of treasury bonds and ongoing upgrades in consumer goods.

Retail sales, a key gauge of consumption, rose last month by 2.7 per cent, year on year, compared with 2 per cent growth seen in June, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday.

The reading fell short of a 3.06 per cent growth projected by economists polled by Chinese financial data provider Wind.

China’s overall fixed-asset investments, including major items such as infrastructure construction, manufacturing and property spending, rose by 3.6 per cent in the first seven months of the year, compared with a rise of 3.9 per cent in the first half of the year.

The reading was below Wind’s estimate of 3.88 per cent growth.

Property investment, which has been a major drag on the economy amid a real estate crisis, saw a year-on-year drop of 10.2 per cent in the first seven months of 2024, compared with a fall of 10.10 per cent in the first half of the year.

Elsewhere, China’s industrial output rose last month by 5.1 per cent from a year earlier, compared with 5.3 per cent of growth in June.

And the overall urban unemployment rate for July stood at 5.2 per cent, compared with 5 per cent a month earlier.

The world’s second-largest economy is experiencing an unbalanced recovery: robust exports have fuelled growth, yet domestic demand remains weak. Rising trade barriers, coupled with a 4.7 per cent economic growth in the second quarter, have fuelled market concerns about the momentum of China’s economic growth.

Beijing sent a clearer signal of intentions to support the domestic economy at a recent Politburo meeting, allocating 300 billion yuan (US$42 billion) worth of ultra-long-term special treasury bonds to bolster its large-scale equipment upgrades and a consumer goods trade-in programme.

Meanwhile, recent data still pointed to weak domestic demand. July’s new yuan loans, an indicator for credit demand in China, fell to 260 billion yuan, according to data from the People’s Bank of China that also fell short of expectations of 450 billion yuan in a Reuters poll.

Total social financing in July was 770 billion yuan, mainly driven by government bonds, which amounted to 690 billion, according to PBOC data and calculations by the Post.

More to follow...

Singapore charges 2 former Chinese bankers in US$2.3 billion money-laundering scandal

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3274539/singapore-charges-2-former-chinese-bankers-us23-billion-money-laundering-scandal?utm_source=rss_feed

Singapore charged two former bank relationship managers in the city’s biggest money-laundering case.

Wang Qiming, an ex-employee of Citibank Singapore Ltd., was charged with 10 counts including forging documents for the purpose of cheating the bank, according to charge sheets read out in a local state court on Thursday.

Liu Kai, formerly with Bank Julius Baer & Co., was accused of aiding one of the now-convicted money launderers in submitting a forged Chinese tax document to open a bank account in Switzerland.

Both men, who are Chinese nationals, declined to comment after the hearing.

The scandal had sent shock waves across the Asian wealth hub after authorities last year seized cash, properties, cryptocurrencies and other assets totalling S$3 billion (US$2.3 billion). Ten people of Chinese origin were sent to jail this year for laundering illicit funds from illegal overseas gambling operations and other offences, while more remain at large.

“We take a very serious view of the laundering of criminal proceeds through our financial system,” David Chew, director of the police force’s commercial affairs department, said in a statement late Wednesday.

“Those who help clients circumvent their financial institutions’ due diligence processes or who help clients forge documents to conceal the true nature of their assets, must be dealt with robustly under our laws.”

SM Group of the Philippines sees China as ‘formidable’ market force even amid uneasy ties

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3274503/sm-group-philippines-sees-china-formidable-market-force-even-amid-uneasy-ties?utm_source=rss_feed

SM Investments Corp, the conglomerate controlled by the richest family in the Philippines, sees mainland as a growth driver that teems with opportunities in the commercial property market, in spite of recent economic struggles and uneasy ties between the two nations.

The group is looking to ramp up occupancy rates in some of its retail assets and expand the floor space in its flagship shopping mall there, according to a senior group official. The mainland’s 1.4 billion population will be a powerful source of growth, he added.

“Our investments in China have been largely opportunistic,” Franklin Gomez, executive vice-president in charge of finance, said in an interview in Hong Kong on Wednesday. “We have not lost the fact that China has more than a billion consumers and they will continue to be a formidable market force.”

The Manila-based conglomerate invests on the mainland’s property market through its 49.7 per cent-owned SM Prime, which owns eight malls in lower-tier cities, totalling 17.2 million square feet (1.6 million square metres). The occupancy rate averages about 85 per cent, Gomez said.

China’s post-pandemic recovery has been hobbled by a prolonged property crisis and an underperforming stock market, hurting investment and consumer confidence. The economy grew 4.7 per cent last quarter, slowing from an annual pace of 5.3 per cent in the January-to-March quarter.

Ties between China and the Philippines have been uneasy at best, amid territorial disputes that have dragged on for decades in the South China Sea.

“It is best left to the experts in our government to find meaningful and peaceful solutions to ease the tensions,” Gomez said. “As far as the business community is concerned, the last thing we need at the moment is big scale disruptions,” he added, noting that it is “busines as usual” for the rest of the country.

Even so, Gomez said the group plans to add about 355,200 sq ft of space this year in SM Laiya, its shopping mall in Xiamen in southeastern Fujian province. The mall, with 1.36 million sq ft of gross retail space, was its first retail foray into China in 2001.

“Some of our malls are at 100 per cent occupancy,” said Gomez, who was in Hong Kong to update investors on its businesses. “We have malls that are two to three years old and we are still ramping up their occupancy levels.”

“Our expansion in China has been very selective,” he said, adding that the country only contributed 3 per cent to the group revenue. “We are not in primary cities, we are in secondary and tertiary cities because that is where we feel we can make a difference. Our malls are profitable. They have healthy occupancy rates.”

SM Investments is the most valuable company traded on the Philippine Stock Exchange, with interests in banking, retail and real estate. The group was founded in 1958 by Xiamen-born billionaire Henry Sy Snr, who passed away in 2019.

The group last month raised US$500 million from an offshore bond offering, which attracted US$1.6 billion of orders from investors. The bond was SM Investments’ largest offshore issue since 2014.

Chinese scientists say they can strengthen pure gold by adding tiny holes

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3274419/chinese-scientists-say-they-can-strengthen-pure-gold-adding-tiny-holes?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese scientists have developed a method to create pure gold that is both lightweight and strong by forming uniformly small pores within the solid metal.

Researchers believe this technique could be pivotal for developing materials urgently needed in the aerospace, automotive and consumer electronics industries where lightweight yet high-strength materials are in demand.

In conventional metal forming methods such as casting, welding and 3D printing, bubbles are seen as significant material flaws and engineers take utmost care to avoid them.

Internal bubbles in metals can lead to strength loss, bubbles at metal junctions can reduce durability and surface bubbles can impair the material’s finish.

However, a team from the Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) found that instead of eliminating these voids, “refining their size and regulating their shape and distribution could not only mitigate their detrimental effects but also offer additional benefits”.

The research, led by Jin Haijun of CAS, was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science on August 8.

“[This] suggests an attractive way to manipulate the properties of solids,” said Brent Grocholski, a senior editor at Science.

The team used gold as a model material and created uniformly structured porous gold through a de-alloying corrosion process. By compressing and then annealing – or heating and cooling – the metal, they produced a new material filled with dispersed nanopores smaller than 100 nanometres.

Tests revealed that by adding nanopores at a volume fraction of 5 to 10 per cent, the strength of gold increased by 50 to 100 per cent, meaning it could bear higher loads while maintaining good plasticity. In some samples, the plasticity was even superior to that of fully dense gold of the same size.

“This improvement is due to the dispersed nanopores helping to alleviate stress and strain concentration around the voids, thereby inhibiting the initiation of cracks,” Jin said in an official report by CAS.

“The material’s large specific surface area facilitates interactions between the surface and dislocations, which enhances strength and strain hardening rates, the latter contributing to improved plasticity,” Jin said.

The size and density of the pores also matter.

“So far, our results indicate that voids with a diameter in the range of 10 to 100nm are beneficial to strengthening, without compromising ductility. Further refining the mean void size to below 10 nm may further harden the material, but will decrease the ductility,” the team said in the paper.

Traditionally, enhancing the strength of materials while reducing weight has been achieved by adding lighter alloy elements, such as aluminium in lightweight steel and lithium in aluminium alloys.

In contrast, the Chinese team’s subtractive approach offers an environmentally friendly and cost-effective strategy to enhance a metal with “no extra weight, no pollution”. The dispersed nanovoids reduce the density of pure gold by more than 10 per cent, aiding in material lightness and recyclability.

This approach largely preserves the physical and chemical properties of the material – such as thermal and electrical conductivity – and its corrosion resistance.

“For instance, gold with nanovoids can be utilised as connector or contact materials in electronics,” Jin said.

“This strengthening strategy might also be applied to other metals and engineering alloys as long as the nanovoids can be effectively integrated into the material, with potential applications across multiple fields.”

China calls for ‘national unity’ in Myanmar as rebels gain ground near Yunnan border

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3274522/china-calls-national-unity-myanmar-rebels-gain-ground-near-yunnan-border?utm_source=rss_feed

China supports peace, unification, territorial integration and political reconciliation in Myanmar, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Burmese military leader Min Aung Hlaing on Wednesday in Naypyidaw.

Wang’s visit to Myanmar came as a Beijing-brokered ceasefire collapsed and ethnic minority rebel groups gained ground against the ruling junta in regions bordering China’s southern Yunnan province.

Maintaining ties with both the military junta and the rebels, China sent special envoy Deng Xijun to Naypyidaw last week, followed by its new ambassador Ma Jia on Monday.

Wang repeated to General Hlaing China’s long-held principle of “non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs”, saying Beijing “firmly supports Myanmar in safeguarding its independence, sovereignty, national unity and territorial integrity”, according to a Chinese foreign ministry’s readout.

“As a friendly neighbour, China is opposed to chaos and war in Myanmar, opposed to any interference by extraterritorial forces in Myanmar’s internal affairs, and opposed to any attempts to drive a wedge between China and Myanmar or to smear China’s intentions,” Wang was quoted as saying.

To facilitate an early realisation of a political reconciliation and a democratic transition, Wang said China would support a new “five-point road map”, an updated version of a peace plan previously agreed upon between the junta and the loose alliance of ethnic minority rebel groups, which had failed.

The readout, however, did not provide details of the updated plan.

China has maintained ties with the military junta, which seized power in a coup d’état in February 2021 and liaises with some of the ethnic minority armed forces. Beijing has repeatedly called for ceasefire and truce, and expressed concern that fighting in northern Myanmar may spill over to Yunnan province.

According to the Chinese read out, Wang asked Hlaing to “effectively protect the safety of Chinese personnel and projects in Myanmar, maintain peace and stability along the China-Myanmar border”, while stepping up the crackdown on cross-border crime.

He promised more cooperation under China’s Belt and Road Initiative projects, including the operation of the Sino-Myanmar oil and gas pipelines that transport natural gas from Myanmar’s Kyaukphyu Port in the Bay of Bengal to China’s southwestern Yunnan province.

Hlaing thanked Wang for China’s “constructive role” in promoting peace talks in northern Myanmar and expressed hope that China would continue support for Myanmar in maintaining stability and achieving political reconciliation, according to the readout.

“Myanmar is also willing to continue to cooperate with China in combating transnational crimes, such as internet gambling and scamming, and will never allow any act that undermines China’s security and interests,” Hlaing was quoted as saying.

Wang also met with Than Shwe, former junta leader in the 1990s and 2000s.

After his trip to Myanmar, Wang will visit Thailand to co-chair the ninth Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and attend an “informal discussion” between counterparts from Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.