Mistral点评

• China-focused ‘Red Ventures’ pilot brings tech gaps message for next US president: analyst
• EU ‘condemns dangerous actions’ by China against Philippines ship
• Podesta’s China trip a chance for Biden to seal his climate legacy
• As Boeing flails, does China’s C919 jet have ‘window of opportunity’ in global market?
• China EVs: Leapmotor, Xpeng set the pace in August while Li Auto and Nio stumble
• China will fund 240 students to go to US universities despite geopolitical tensions
• China’s electric vehicle makers scramble for EU tariff deal, with price floor on the table
• South China Sea: Philippines calls for ‘restraint’ after ‘deliberate’ Chinese coastguard ramming
• Archaeologists reveal remarkable tales of resilience among women throughout China’s history
• Saudi Arabia seeks Chinese tech as it reinvents itself as car and automation hub
• Rare disease China ‘doctor in a wheelchair’ from top university, inspires students
• Japan protests Chinese naval intrusion into territorial waters, days after airspace incursion
• Pope embarks on longest, farthest and most challenging trip to Asia, with China in the background
• Why Malaysia has stayed quiet but firm on South China Sea: ‘let sleeping dogs lie’
• New guidelines boost China’s teachers, including right to discipline students
• China thief steals 20 Buddha statues for worship, claims they can change his fate – how so?
• Super Garuda Shield vs Falcon Strike: inside the US and China’s military drills
• Can China’s yuan, now a familiar face around the world, become a must-have currency?

China-focused ‘Red Ventures’ pilot brings tech gaps message for next US president: analyst

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3276773/china-focused-red-ventures-pilot-brings-tech-gaps-message-next-us-president-analyst?utm_source=rss_feed

Washington’s new China-focused programme to address economic security concerns underscores its focus on the innovation and hi-tech race with Beijing ahead of US presidential elections, according to a Chinese observer.

“Red Ventures”, a pilot programme focused on mapping gaps in technological innovation with China, has entered its second phase, months after being launched by the National Security Agency, according to US news website Defense One.

The programme aims to form an “innovation pipeline” to fix US vulnerabilities to China and to “provide a single list … of challenge problems for our China mission, for a whole bunch of different innovation communities,” the NSA’s assistant deputy director for China, Dave Frederick, was quoted as saying in the report.

“We’ve run a pilot … focused on the economic security topic because we knew that was going to be a shift for us,” he said.

The report comes close on the heels of US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s first visit to China last week, with economic security and technology competition high on his agenda along with a string of trade and geopolitical hotspot issues.

After meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, Sullivan said he had raised concerns about China’s focus on economic security and its impact on foreign businesses and supply chains.

“We had a vigorous give and take on the issue, obviously didn’t come to agreement,” Sullivan told reporters in Beijing as he wrapped up his three-day trip.

According to Lu Xiang, an expert on US-China relations at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, while Sullivan had sought to reassure Beijing that the US did not want to contain China’s rise or decouple their economies, the launch of programmes such as Red Ventures sent out a different message.

“While it is probably a pilot at a preliminary stage based on the report, the programme is in line with what the US has been doing since the Donald Trump administration, that is, to intensify its battle against China’s industrial upgrades and technological advances,” Lu said.

Building on the Trump-era restrictions on China’s tech development, President Joe Biden has adopted a “small yard, high fence” approach of toughened curbs on technology and equipment transfers to China, citing national security concerns.

Beijing has responded to the expanding restrictions with an increasing focus on economic and technological self-reliance and state-led innovation.

“This is not going to change” regardless of the results of the US presidential elections in November, Lu said.

He said the reported update on Red Ventures was also probably aimed at sending a message to the next US administration, especially if the Democratic Party nominee, Vice-President Kamala Harris, were to win the race she joined after Biden dropped out.

“They certainly hoped that all the current work would be carried over to the next administration,” Lu said.

Frederick admitted things had not proceeded as quickly as they had hoped with Red Ventures, according to Defense One.

“We’ve [got] through phase one of that. So we’ve curated a set of problems. We’re now moving into phase two, where we’re going to work with all the different solution organisations,” he said. “We’re still piloting it, so we’re running slower, but definitely think it’s going to be very useful tradecraft for us to use in terms of prioritising.”

Frederick said last September that the NSA, an intelligence arm of the US Department of Defence, was facing a “big shift” from counterterrorism to focusing on competition with China.

He was the first to take up the China-focused NSA role created in November 2022, the DefenseScoop website reported earlier this year.

A study by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute last year showed China leading in 37 of 44 technologies tracked, including electric batteries, hypersonics and advanced radio-frequency communications such as 5G and 6G.

Last week, the think tank published its 2024 report, which was partially funded by the US State Department.

The report says China was the leading country in 57 out of 64 critical technologies in 2019-2023, covering areas from defence, space and artificial intelligence to energy, the environment, and cyber and biotechnology.

Former US assistant defence secretary for space policy John Plumb said last week that the US was “falling behind” China on GPS development, according to a separate Defense One report.

Plumb – who stepped down in May – said while the Pentagon relied on about two dozen satellites to guide its planes, ships, and weapons, China was developing a comprehensive and modernised position-navigation-timing architecture that integrated space and ground layers.

But Lu said the reported tech gaps had been “greatly exaggerated”.

“While China may have done well on the integrated application of certain technologies, it still lags far behind the US when it comes to innovation, research and development, especially with the tightening restrictions on advanced technologies, such as chips,” he said.

EU ‘condemns dangerous actions’ by China against Philippines ship

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3276784/eu-condemns-dangerous-actions-china-against-philippines-ship?utm_source=rss_feed

The European Union accused China on Sunday of taking “dangerous actions” against the Philippines, as Beijing and Manila blamed each other for deliberately ramming their coastguard ships.

The collision marks the latest in a spate of similar incidents in recent weeks in the South China Sea, where Beijing claims almost all of the economically vital body of water despite competing claims from other countries and an international court ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

“The EU condemns the dangerous action by Chinese coastguard vessels against lawful Philippine maritime operations in the area of the Sabina Shoal,” said Nabila Massrali, spokeswoman for the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell, in a statement.

A Chinese coastguard spokesman had said Saturday’s incident took place off the disputed Sabina Shoal, which has emerged as a new hotspot in the long-running maritime confrontations between the two countries.

The incidents “endanger the safety of life at sea and violate the right to freedom of navigation to which all nations are entitled under international law”, the EU statement said.

“The EU condemns all unlawful, escalatory and coercive actions that undermine these principles of international law and threaten peace and stability in the region.”

Since President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr took office in 2022, Manila has more firmly asserted its claim to sovereignty over disputed reefs despite Beijing showing no intention of backing down on its own claims.

Podesta’s China trip a chance for Biden to seal his climate legacy

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3276530/podestas-china-trip-chance-biden-seal-his-climate-legacy?utm_source=rss_feed

John Podesta, the top US climate diplomat, is heading to China. It is no coincidence that Podesta may be the last high-level US official to set foot in Beijing before the presidential election and that his predecessor, John Kerry, was the first dignitary to visit China in 2021 after Joe Biden took office.

In fact, this reflects the important role climate has played in tempering bilateral ties. However, as the 2022 suspension of talks showed, this current model of engagement also has its limits and could be tested again after the US election.

Yet, the envoy’s visit could position the Biden administration to cap off its climate legacy with China by allowing for a reset of the relationship on a stronger footing come November, if the Democrats are elected.

This will require tapping into China’s desire to stabilise bilateral relations as the US transitions to a new administration and working with Beijing to take advantage of a confluence of events later this year, especially a potential meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

At a basic level, Podesta’s visit is an opportunity to sustain discussions with his counterparts on key US-China working group topics, including accelerating the energy transition away from coal and strengthening the regulation of potent, non-carbon gases such as methane.

Podesta is likely to share US expectations for China’s updated climate targets, which are due by early 2025. According to our modelling at the Asia Society Policy Institute, by 2035, China needs to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 30 per cent from an imminent peak to align with the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius – which Beijing said it would do in last year’s Sunnylands Statement.

Podesta has hinted that the US could announce its own targets before the end of 2024, thus raising the stakes for China’s plans. At the same time, Beijing might want to see evidence that the US is capable of achieving its own lofty goals and is willing to work collaboratively with all countries to help them do the same.

A discussion pushing towards agreement on a new global goal for climate finance could also be on the cards ahead of the negotiations this November at the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan.

China has chafed at pressure from the US, the European Union and other advanced economies to require contributions from emerging economies with the “capability” to do so, while advanced economies want an expansion of the contributor base. Achieving a US-China consensus has historically paved the way for multilateral outcomes, including the Paris Agreement, and might be critical this time as well.

Yet, while Podesta’s points might be heard, there is less likely to be substantive progress. For true leadership from the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters to be possible, the current bilateral dynamics need to be reset.

Of course, this trip to China takes place against the overwhelming backdrop of the US presidential election in early November. Any authority that Podesta yields could shift dramatically, depending on the outcome.

Should former president Donald Trump secure a second term, he has threatened to demolish American credibility by pulling the US out of the Paris Agreement again and potentially even the entire UN climate regime.

Direct climate talks between the US and Chinese governments are likely to be eliminated during his first year. This would be a serious setback for multilateral climate progress, not to mention that Trump’s policies could add emissions equal to the annual footprint of the EU and Japan combined by 2030.

To plan for a worst-case scenario, the US and China could further institutionalise subnational and nonstate climate cooperation. While California has long cultivated a climate agenda with China and several of its provinces, involving more regions and cities could scale up progress. Non-governmental actors and expert groups could also advance outcomes on the same issues that have been prioritised in official US-China working group discussions.

On the other hand, a potential Kamala Harris-Tim Walz administration could deliver the much-needed opportunity to reset the entire dynamic of US-China cooperation.

The greatest achievement by Podesta, therefore, would be an affirmation from his Chinese counterparts that climate progress can be enabled by both sides and that disagreements on thornier issues should not block making headway on the most existential ones.

If the US and China were to move together on their respective climate targets, as they did back in 2014 ahead of the Paris negotiations, that could jump-start such a reset. Washington and Beijing could then pursue joint goals and actions that advance global progress, such as by working together to supercharge much-needed climate finance and technologies for the Global South.

Voting will take place in the US election just before COP29 and the Group of 20 meeting of the world’s largest economies in Brazil. The G20 is the most likely opportunity for Biden and Xi to meet after their summit in San Francisco last year. Its timing near the end of COP29 also offers a potential opportunity for the two leaders to inject momentum by coordinating their messaging on climate change.

Biden has only a few more months to seal his legacy. If he can work with Xi to transcend politics for the sake of our planet’s future, the entire world will thank him.

As Boeing flails, does China’s C919 jet have ‘window of opportunity’ in global market?

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3276766/boeing-flails-does-chinas-c919-jet-have-window-opportunity-global-market?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s home-grown C919 passenger jet has a “window of opportunity” to establish itself in the global market as American aviation giant Boeing grapples with technical and safety concerns, but it still faces challenges ahead to compete with its bigger rivals, state media said.

Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), the developer and producer of the narrowbody passenger jet, delivered its first C919 planes for Air China and China Southern Airlines on Wednesday.

It marked another milestone for the nation’s aviation industry as the C919 joined the fleets of all three major Chinese airlines.

Comac previously delivered seven C919 jets to China Eastern Airlines – the first airline to fly the aircraft, which began commercial operations in May of last year.

“The C919 has been proven to possess the conditions necessary for entering into scaled commercial operations, and it can be launched for full-scale operation in the domestic civil aviation market,” the state-owned Economic Daily said in a commentary on Sunday.

“With the current duopoly of Airbus and Boeing for civil-use aircraft, the increasing presence of the C919 is a rare breakthrough,” it added.

But the C919 still has a long way to go to gain consumers’ trust through a consistent safety record. And if it wants to compete with its bigger aviation industry rivals, Comac must develop a variety of aircraft and build a comprehensive after-sales support network.

As of Sunday, the C919s operated by China Eastern Airlines had conducted more than 3,700 flights, with accumulated safe flight time exceeding 10,000 hours and passenger traffic surpassing 500,000 people, the commentary said, citing the airline.

“Boeing has faced a series of security accidents in recent years that have significantly impacted its market position, creating a rare strategic window of opportunity for emerging competitors,” it said.

“Meanwhile the increasing demand for environmental protection and the shortening of passenger aircraft replacement cycles have led to a growing need for airlines to update their fleets, presenting new market opportunities for later entrants.”

From 2022 to 2041, global passenger jet sales will reach 42,000 aircraft with a total value of US$6.4 trillion, and more than 9,000 jets worth US$1.5 trillion will come from China, the article stated, citing industry estimates.

“China can’t give up such a big market,” it continued, calling the C919 the “pillar and pioneer” of China’s competition for the civil aircraft market.

The three Chinese airlines have placed total orders for over 300 C919 jets, marking a “good beginning” for the aircraft, the Economic Daily said.

However, it noted that it was still “just the beginning”. To compete with Airbus and Boeing, Comac must obtain international certifications, improve production capacity, reliability and the stability of supply chains, as well as increase the economic value of the aircraft.

European Union regulators made on-the-ground inspections of the C919 in July in Shanghai, and China’s civil aviation authorities have become more optimistic about receiving EU certification for the plane in 2025.

The Economic Daily noted that production of big aircraft leads to the development of high-end manufacturing, providing impetus for the development of other technologies.

The commentary pointed out that downstream customers play a key role in the process of shaping an aircraft as the experiences of passengers, detailed flight data, and responses from various segments will help improve the product.

Comac entered into a personnel exchange and training agreement with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in August, allowing the aircraft manufacturer to draw on the city’s international talent pool to spin up production and meet a surge in demand.

China EVs: Leapmotor, Xpeng set the pace in August while Li Auto and Nio stumble

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3276765/china-evs-leapmotor-xpeng-set-pace-august-while-li-auto-and-nio-stumble?utm_source=rss_feed

Major Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers reported mixed sales in August despite the lure of generous incentives to boost sales in the world’s biggest car market.

Leapmotor, backed by Stellantis, reported record deliveries, while sales at Li Auto and Nio fell amid escalating competition.

Leapmotor said on Sunday that it handed 30,305 cars to buyers, beating the previous record of 22,093 units by 37.2 per cent. It delivered more than 8,000 units of its midsize SUV, C16, which hit the market in July.

Li Auto, Tesla’s nearest rival on the mainland, however, saw deliveries drop 5.6 per cent month on month to 48,122 units.

“Nearly all EV builders were either reducing prices or conducting promotional activities, such as free charging services, to compete in the cutthroat market,” said Phate Zhang, founder of Shanghai-based electric-car data provider CnEVPost. “The rising EV penetration does not necessarily mean higher sales for every player.”

The mainland’s 50 or so EV assemblers have been embroiled in a discount war since late February amid mounting overcapacity worries in the market. However, the government’s cash subsidies to encourage EV ownership and companies’ massive investment to expand the charging infrastructure have spurred sales for some time now.

Shanghai-based Nio’s deliveries in August fell 1.6 per cent month on month to 20,498 units, but the carmaker achieved monthly sales of 20,000 vehicles for the fourth month in a row.

As Nio begins delivering cars this month under the newly Onvo brand targeting the mass-market EV segment at prices ranging from 200,000 yuan (US$28,196) to 300,000 yuan, sales are set to jump in the coming months, dealers said.

Zeekr, the premium EV builder controlled by Geely Auto, said it delivered 18,015 units last month, 15 per cent higher compared with July.

The company, which currently assembles only pure EVs, said last month that it would design and build hybrid models.

Xpeng supplied 14,036 cars to mainland customers in August, an increase of 26 per cent month on month. Last week, it launched a compact sedan under its new mass-market brand, Mona, aimed at middle and low-income buyers.

Some 878,000 pure electric and plug-in hybrid cars were sold in July, accounting for 51.1 per cent of the country’s total vehicle deliveries, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). It was for the first time that EVs outsold petrol cars in the world’s largest automobile market.

The country’s EV sales during the first half of 2024 represented 65 per cent of the global total, CPCA data showed.

In April, Goldman Sachs estimated that the profitability of China’s EV industry could turn negative this year if BYD, the world’s largest electric car maker, were to slice another 7 per cent, or 10,300 yuan, off the price of its cars.

To date, only BYD and Li Auto are profitable among China’s home-grown EV builders.

Last week, the two companies posted handsome second-quarter earnings buoyed by surging deliveries despite a bruising price war.

BYD said it earned 9.1 billion yuan for the three months to June 30, nearly doubling from the first quarter and rising 32.8 per cent year on year.

Li Auto said its second-quarter profit jumped by 86.2 per cent from the previous three months to 1.1 ­billion yuan.

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China will fund 240 students to go to US universities despite geopolitical tensions

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3276581/china-will-fund-240-students-go-us-universities-despite-geopolitical-tensions?utm_source=rss_feed

The government of China is continuing to help young talent pursue graduate education in the United States, despite increasing geopolitical tensions between the two countries.

Up to 240 outstanding Chinese students will be selected to work towards a master’s degree or doctorate at seven partner universities in the US next year, according to an announcement posted on the China Scholarship Council (CSC) website earlier this month.

Their studies will be jointly sponsored by CSC and the US universities, which include the University of California (UC) Irvine, UC Davis, UC Riverside, Dartmouth College, the University of Notre Dame, Temple University and the University of Tennessee.

Various programmes across a wide range of research fields, such as agriculture, public health, liberal arts and sociology are open for application, according to the post from the CSC, which is affiliated to the Ministry of Education and the primary body providing state-funded scholarships to facilitate academic exchange.

Most of the universities offer PhD programmes in computer science, biomedical engineering and other key areas where China and the US are competing for global leadership.

For instance, students can apply to study at UC Irvine’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering, including its department of mechanical and aerospace engineering. There are 10 slots available for PhD students and five for visiting students, according to the institute’s website.

CSC will cover in-state tuition and offer a monthly stipend for the first two years. Starting from the third year of doctoral studies, UC Irvine will provide full tuition and health insurance as long as the student maintains good academic standing, according to UC Irvine and CSC.

All CSC scholarship recipients are required to return to China upon graduation and work there for at least two years.

Last year, CSC sent more than 10,000 students abroad for advanced education. Besides the US, other popular destinations included Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

While China still comprised the largest group of international students in the US in 2023, most were graduate students without a scholarship or funding from the Chinese government.

The total number of Chinese students in the US dropped to about 290,000 during the 2022-23 academic year from a peak of more than 372,000 three years earlier, according to the latest Open Doors report compiled by the New York-based Institute of International Education.

While the Covid-19 pandemic affected numbers, heated geopolitical tensions between China and the US also played a role. Chinese students wishing to enter the US face visa denials and intense scrutiny – turning many away from what was once a top study destination.

Earlier this year, more than a dozen Chinese students enrolled in PhD programmes at prestigious American universities, including Yale and Johns Hopkins, were denied entry to the US after visiting family in China, according to domestic and international media reports.

Despite holding valid visas, they were put on a plane and deported back to China. Some faced a five-year ban on returning to the US, leaving their research and degree plans in limbo.

The reason for such treatment remained unknown, according to Science magazine’s reporting in March.

China’s electric vehicle makers scramble for EU tariff deal, with price floor on the table

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3276747/chinas-electric-vehicle-makers-scramble-eu-tariff-deal-price-floor-table?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s car industry was scrambling to cut a last-minute deal with the European Commission last week, with representatives offering to set a minimum price on imported electric vehicles (EVs).

Companies would in return be granted some amnesty from hefty import tariffs due to be slapped on Chinese-made EVs by the commission by October. The EU has complained that cheap, exported Chinese vehicles threaten the future of Europe’s car industry.

The companies would also be willing to put a limit on the volume of EV exports to the European Union should Brussels cut the punitive tariff, according to people familiar with the meetings. Above that volume, imports would face the duties the commission proposed earlier this month of up to 36.3 per cent.

Online hearings took place on Wednesday, with car companies including BYD, Geely and SAIC, and Friday with the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products (CCCME). The details of the proposals were first reported by Politico.

Such a deal would closely mirror one reached 11 years ago during a trade war over cheap Chinese solar panel imports. Under that agreement, Chinese producers agreed to set a minimum price at which their panels would be sold.

Panels sold at a higher rate or above a certain sales volume were subject to punitive import duties designed to bring the products in line with local market rates.

The commission is considering the proposals, but insiders thought it improbable that they would fly at this stage, given the fact that they were pitched as a “gentleman’s agreement” that would not be watertight.

Nor does the commission have fond memories of the solar panel resolution, which ultimately fell apart when powerful member states including France and Germany withdrew their support for EU measures.

China had slapped trade tariffs on French wine and threatened the German car industry in response, and a decade later the EU solar industry has been decimated by Chinese competition.

Nonetheless, it has given Brussels pause for thought. Even last week, it was thought that a negotiated settlement would be nigh on impossible to reach, given that car companies and the Chinese government denied that there were any undisclosed subsidies in their supply chains.

Beijing has already lodged a complaint at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and launched retaliatory probes into EU brandy, pork and dairy products.

Last week, China closed its brandy investigation and is expected to impose anti-dumping duties of up to 39 per cent on French cognac brands at a later date, after declining to introduce provisional measures.

“Our sector seems to be a collateral victim of a broader trade conflict, which will limit the access of Chinese consumers to products they greatly value and appreciate, if not resolved as a matter of priority,” said Adam Ulrich, director general at Spirits Europe, a lobby group.

Brussels has always been open to making a deal on EVs, but it must have the same equalising effect as the tariffs, which are designed to protect European-based companies from the market-distorting impact of subsidised Chinese competitors.

While an official consultation period expired on Friday, the offer will be analysed this week as officials continue trickling back from their extended summer holidays.

Since the deal would involve pledges from individual car companies rather than the Chinese government, it is unlikely that it would flout WTO rules that outlaw preferential treatment based on corporate nationality.

Chinese companies’ willingness to make such an offer comes as its industry faces being blocked out of other major markets. Last week, Canada joined the United States in slapping a 100 per cent import duty on Chinese-made EVs.

The EU tariffs, even after punitive duties are applied, would be comparably low. BYD EVs, for example, would take a total 27 per cent total tariff hit at EU ports, while Geely would face a 31.3 per cent rate.

Even the EU’s top rate of 46.3 per cent for companies such as SAIC – including the 10 per cent base rate – is less than half the North American import tax.

The deadline for introducing long-term duties is October 30. In a vote anticipated in the coming weeks, 15 of the 27 EU member states constituting 65 per cent of the bloc’s population must vote against the tariffs to stop them from being imposed.

Chinese companies are already planning for life under tariffs. This week, executives from BYD and Xpeng said that they were going to increase their European manufacturing footprints as they look to avoid paying punitive duties.

Xpeng’s CEO He Xiaopeng told Bloomberg that the company was scouting Europe for sites for factories and data centres. BYD boss Stella Li told the same publication that the company wanted 50 per cent of its revenues to come from overseas markets, and that it would set up its own data centres in individual European countries to avoid sending data back to China.

The scramble for data centres comes amid mounting security concerns about the levels of data collected by electric and connected vehicles.

Earlier this week, Uber was fined €290 million (US$322 million) by Dutch authorities for transferring European driver data to the US. The ride-sharing app recently partnered with BYD in a deal that will see the Chinese carmaker provide 100,000 EVs for its fleet in Europe and Latin America.

Regardless of whether a tariff amnesty is reached, industry analysts expect Chinese EVs to remain competitive in Europe

“The Europeans are in denial. They don’t want to acknowledge that European carmakers have been out-engineered and outclassed,” said Tu Le, managing director of Sino Auto Insights, a consulting firm.

He added that EU countries would struggle to hit their zero-emissions goals without Chinese EVs and that governments were facing difficult choices.

“Chinese carmakers are fighting the long game. They see Western governments as changing hands, changing philosophies, changing policies every four to six years, and so these are kind of just the ebbs and flows that they kind of deal with on a regular basis,” Tu said.

“There’s this tension between, are we going to hit our zero-emissions goals, and if so, how do we do that without Chinese electric vehicles?”

South China Sea: Philippines calls for ‘restraint’ after ‘deliberate’ Chinese coastguard ramming

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3276757/south-china-sea-philippines-calls-restraint-after-deliberate-chinese-coastguard-ramming?utm_source=rss_feed

The collision of a Philippine coastguard vessel with a Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) ship has resulted in conflicting reports from Manila and Beijing, prompting President Ferdinand Marcos, Jnr.’s most senior state official to ask for “restraint” following the alleged “deliberate” and “unprovoked ramming” of BRP Teresa Magbanua.

The National Maritime Council, chaired by the president’s Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, issued a statement saying the Philippine vessel “was deliberately rammed three times”, which endangered lives and caused significant damage.

Bersamin called for the Chinese coastguard “to exercise restraint and prioritise the safety of vessels at sea and aircraft within our airspace.”

He added that despite this, “the Philippines will continue its sovereign operations in its maritime zones,” with the damaged vessel maintaining its operations in the West Philippine Sea, referring to the portion of the South China Sea within and beyond its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone.

The incident took place at noon on Saturday in the vicinity of Escoda Shoal, also known as Sabina Shoal, 146 kilometres west of Palawan island and 1,200 kilometres from the Chinese island of Hainan.

Bersamin called the vessel’s patrol “peaceful and lawful” and “within its own maritime jurisdiction”.

According to a post on X by Philippine coastguard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela, Saturday’s incident saw 10 Chinese vessels, including two tug boats, surround the Philippine vessel.

He also released videos of the incident and the damage that the boat sustained.

Retired Supreme Court associate justice Antonio Carpio confirmed to This Week in Asia on Sunday that this was the first direct ramming incident involving BRP Teresa Magbanua since it started patrolling near Escoda Shoal in April.

Carpio also noted that two other coastguard vessels – BRP Cape Engano and BRP Cabra – were rammed the previous week while trying to deliver supplies.

According to the Philippines coastguard, the two vessels were swarmed by “an excessive force of 40 Chinese vessels which included six CCG, three People’s Liberation Army Navy warships and 31 Chinese maritime militia (CMM) vessels”.

Asked why BRP Teresa Magbanua was being targeted, Carpio said it was because “China is enforcing the 10-dash line as its ‘international boundary’.”

The Global Times, a mainland nationalist newspaper, presented a conflicting account of Saturday’s incident, releasing a video alleging the Philippine vessel deliberately rammed the Chinese ship.

It quoted Zhang Qiyue, a research fellow at Shanghai Institute for International Studies, as saying that “the only way to solve the dispute is for the Philippine side to withdraw its coastguard ship.”

It also quoted Chen Xidi, a research fellow at China Institute for Marine Affairs, as saying that “the Philippines is not concerned about the safety of its ships, aircraft, and personnel at Xianbin Jiao (Escoda Shoal).

“The only thing the Philippines cares about is whether its actions in the South China Sea are aggressive and attention-grabbing enough, and whether it can win the ‘favour’ and ‘support’ of certain countries outside the region,” Chen also said.

The United States Department of State spokesman Matthew Miller released a statement on August 31 condemning the “the dangerous and escalatory actions” of the Chinese Coast Guard, while also reiterating Washington’s offer to help by reaffirming the Mutual Defence Treaty.

During a joint press conference on August 29 by Armed Forces chief of staff General Romeo Brawner, Jnr, and US Navy Admiral Samuel Paparo, Brawner declined the US offer to help deliver supplies to BRP Teresa Magbanua, stating, “We will exhaust all means possible, and we will do it on our own first. Kaya natin ito [we can do this].”

He said that the Philippines would seek help only when “the troops are already hungry and on the verge of dying.”

Archaeologists reveal remarkable tales of resilience among women throughout China’s history

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3276738/archaeologists-reveal-remarkable-tales-resilience-among-women-throughout-chinas-history?utm_source=rss_feed

The ongoing Paralympics exemplifies extraordinary human resilience, showcasing athletes with impairments, disabilities, and permanent injuries as they compete at the highest level.

This remarkable resilience has been a vital part of the human experience for thousands of years.

A study published on June 5 in the journal Archaeological Research in Asia tells the story of toughness among ancient women.

It pinpointed two case studies. One was about five women from Inner Mongolia who experienced a traumatic cranial injury, and the other, a single individual from the northern stretches of the Gobi Desert who navigated a challenging landscape despite having hip dysplasia.

“The investigation of human resilience, that is, the capacity to recover quickly from stressful conditions and situations, to even thrive, provides meaningful insights into human adaptation and strategies for coping with a myriad of challenges, including those that may be societal or environmental in nature,” the study authors wrote.

The researchers also said they wanted to focus on characters who were under-represented in dominant narratives of these mobile-pastoral societies, which typically focused on men.

Here are the stories of these women who overcame immense personal challenges and were likely “integral to the successful maintenance of the fabric of steppe society”.

The researchers analysed five skulls from Jinggouzi in Inner Mongolia that exhibited signs of cranial trauma and, in doing so, were able to paint a picture of potential local warfare that predominantly targeted men but also posed risks to women.

While they could not disprove accidental falls, the researchers believed these people lived during a time of immense chaos. Agrarian societies in northern China struggled to survive, allowing the horse-riding cultures, such as the Jinggouzi, to migrate into the region. This displacement was chaotic, likely creating conflict.

The team said the study showed a “greater propensity for traumatic injury among women”.

“However, if this consideration is turned around to focus on the women themselves, questions relating to the propensity for survivorship merit consideration as well,” the team wrote.

These nomadic tribes tended to have traditional gender roles but they were not set in stone, and the researchers wrote that “women were certainly impacted by community violence, and may have been combatants themselves.”

“Thus, despite the lack of evidence of outright warfare in the Jinggouzi site, women of Inner Asia were at risk of raids and surprise attacks,” the team wrote.

The five women all had healed cranial injuries that were likely from deliberate attacks. The fact that the injuries had healed was important, indicating that they had displayed remarkable resilience to recover well enough to be an active member of society.

The researchers wrote that the women’s survival would have “necessitated a level of individual resilience to cope with a severe injury at a minimum, and possibly [required] care and assistance from other members of their family or community.”

The second study focused on one woman discovered at Baga Gazriin Chuluu in Mongolia, who had bilateral hip dysplasia and lived during the transition into China’s Iron Age over 2,500 years ago.

The area was a natural stopping point for travellers into the southern portions of the Gobi Desert, and it features “granite rock formations situated in a rolling desert steppe environment.”

This type of environment would have been particularly painful for somebody with hip dysplasia, and this woman’s prolonged bone degeneration would have made it difficult for her legs to bear weight.

“However, this does not mean that this individual was fully immobile; indeed, the extensive bony changes at the hip joints indicate that they continued to be used for a considerable period,” the researchers wrote.

They also added that they would have been fairly mobile if the person could ride horses, even with help.

The woman’s resilience arose from enduring the pain of a long-term biological impairment that would affect her throughout her life.

“The anatomical reconstruction demonstrates continued physical activity and represents individual biological resilience and adaptation at a minimum. [It also has] broader implications of continued participation in family or community life,” wrote the authors.

The burials of the women in both studies were notably normal, suggesting that they were not marginalised due to their injuries and died as recognised members of their communities.

Saudi Arabia seeks Chinese tech as it reinvents itself as car and automation hub

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3276753/saudi-arabia-seeks-chinese-tech-it-reinvents-itself-car-and-automation-hub?utm_source=rss_feed

Saudi Arabia is seeking cooperation with Chinese companies in the car industry and automation as a top industrial official kicks off a tour of East Asia this week.

The Middle Eastern country’s minister of industry and mineral resources Bandar Alkhorayef will lead a delegation to visit Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Singapore from Sunday until September 8, according to a statement from his office. The trip is aimed at improving relations and exploring joint venture opportunities.

China and Saudi Arabia have strengthened ties in recent years while their relations with the US have soured. Riyadh is looking to diversify its economy and become an industrial hub in the Middle East, while the region is gaining appeal for Chinese companies that want to explore overseas markets in the face of growing containment by the US.

“The visit of the delegation to China aligns with [the country’s] objective to become a key automotive hub in the region and a leader in innovative [and] eco-friendly vehicle solutions,” Alkhorayef’s office said.

Key meetings in Guangzhou, capital of the southern province of Guangdong, will include discussions with GAC Group, a major Chinese electric vehicle maker, as well as lithium battery producer General Lithium and communication tech giant Huawei, the statement said.

China’s electric vehicle makers are facing punitive tariffs from the European Union and the US, which have accused China of flooding their markets with subsidised EVs that pose a national security risk.

According to Alkhorayef’s office, the automotive sector is a key focus of Saudi Arabia’s national industrial strategy, which emphasises developing the car industry and incorporating innovative technologies.

It added that the talks with Huawei will discuss opportunities for collaboration in “innovative smart solutions” and leveraging technologies for the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, referring to a 21st century wave of hi-tech progress aided by advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics and the Internet of Things.

“Saudi Arabia aims to attract high-quality investments in 12 promising industrial sectors, including automotive, pharmaceuticals, and food, supported by a stimulating investment environment,” the statement said.

“The visit is expected to result in partnerships that [focus] on mutual growth through high-quality investments, sustainable development, and economic diversification, particularly in strategic industrial sectors.”

According to figures from Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, China is the kingdom’s biggest trading partner, with trade exceeding US$100 billion in 2023.

It added that Chinese investment in Saudi Arabia last year included US$5.6 billion in original equipment manufacturing for the automotive industry and US$5.26 billion in the minerals sector, with semiconductor investment amounting to US$4.26 billion.

According to official Chinese data, the total value of goods exported from China to Saudi Arabia from January to July totalled US$27.55 billion, an increase of 11.9 per cent compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, the total value of goods imported from Saudi Arabia to China decreased 7.3 per cent compared to the same period last year for a total of US$34.97 billion.

In Hong Kong, the delegation will meet the city’s chief executive as well as officials in charge of technology and industry development.

In Singapore, the Saudi delegation will meet the deputy prime minister and senior trade and science officials.

Rare disease China ‘doctor in a wheelchair’ from top university, inspires students

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3276485/rare-disease-china-doctor-wheelchair-top-university-inspires-students?utm_source=rss_feed

A 30-year-old man in China who has battled a rare muscle disorder since childhood has earned a PhD from the prestigious Tsinghua University, providing inspiration to many.

Chen Bin is now a psychology teacher at a college in his hometown of Huizhou in southern China’s Guangdong province, reported the Huizhou Daily.

Netizens affectionately call him “a doctor in a wheelchair”.

He was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a rare genetic disorder characterised by muscle weakness, when he was seven years old, and has been unable to walk since he was 12.

He is also unable to hold heavy objects and needs help to complete daily chores, such as getting dressed, washing and eating.

But thanks to his parents’ persistent support, Chen excelled academically.

He was admitted to Sun Yat-sen University, a top university in Guangzhou in Guangdong province in 2012 to major in psychology.

Four years later, he enrolled at Tsinghua University as a PhD candidate without taking an entrance exam because of his extraordinary marks from Sun Yat-sen.

He graduated in June last year with a PhD, and by the end of the year he had been hired by Huizhou City College.

“Even though the disease restricts the movements of my body, I still can realise my dream because of the care and love from my family and many friends,” Chen said.

He said he was especially grateful to his mother who has given him “the biggest support and encouragement”.

When he was young, Chen’s mother, Li Huiyun, took him to school and home every day, carrying him on her back up and down five flights of stairs to and from their flat.

“Son, do not worry. As long as you want to go to school, I will accompany you and carry you,” she said.

Li, who quit her job to take care of her son, recalled he weighed about 50kg while she was only 55kg at that time.

“I really did not know how I managed to handle it through those difficult years. I just carried on,” Li said.

Even when Chen became a university student, Li went to live with him to look after him.

Chen’s father was a migrant worker who did a variety of jobs in other cities for decades until last year when his son told him to stop working for the sake of his health.

“Once I lamented why life was so unfair to me,” Chen said.

“Then I read in a book that if you only work a bit harder than most people every day, you will succeed. This has become my motto.”

At the college in Huizhou, Chen’s students are full of praise for his teaching style.

They say he is focused and patient and uses plenty of examples to help students understand psychology.

“Whenever I am frustrated or losing confidence, I think of Teacher Chen. He has lived through such tough challenges. Is there any reason for us not to keep going?” one student said.

“What a great mother and what an awesome son. I hope their family will be healthy and prosperous in the future,” an internet user wrote on Weibo.

“He is an encouraging role model. We should all learn from him,” another person said.

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Japan protests Chinese naval intrusion into territorial waters, days after airspace incursion

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3276736/japan-protests-chinese-naval-intrusion-territorial-waters-days-after-airspace-incursion?utm_source=rss_feed

Japan voiced “strong concern and protest” on Saturday after a Chinese naval ship entered its territorial waters, days after Tokyo accused Beijing of sending a military aircraft into Japanese airspace.

A Chinese naval vessel was spotted entering Japanese territorial waters near the southern Kuchinoerabu island at around 6:00am on Saturday and exiting southwest of Yakushima island nearly two hours later, the defence ministry said.

Following the incident, the foreign ministry “issued Japan’s strong concern and protest” to China’s embassy in Tokyo.

The ministry took “into account the past activities of Chinese naval vessels and others in the waters around Japan, and the recent intrusion into Japan’s territorial airspace by a Chinese military plane,” it said late on Saturday.

Japan on Monday scrambled fighter jets after a two-minute incursion by Chinese Y-9 surveillance aircraft off the Danjo Islands in the East China Sea, which Tokyo slammed as a “serious violation” of its sovereignty.

China’s growing economic and military clout in the Asia-Pacific region and its assertiveness in territorial disputes – most recently with the Philippines – has rattled the United States and its allies.

Last week, Japan’s defence ministry sought 8.5 trillion yen (US$59 billion) for the next financial year, its largest ever initial budget request, as part of the country’s five-year, 43 trillion yen defence build-up plans through March 2028.

The request includes funding for so-called stand-off capabilities to strike distant targets with missiles and unmanned vehicles.

It is higher than the ministry’s 7.7 trillion yen initial request last year, but smaller than the actual budget of 9.4 trillion yen approved for the current financial year.

Pope embarks on longest, farthest and most challenging trip to Asia, with China in the background

https://apnews.com/article/pope-asia-indonesia-timor-singapore-china-19930e8f324ffc7f0c59ce30ab995585FILE-- Pope Francis waves as he leaves after his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at The Vatican, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

2024-09-01T03:32:00Z

VATICAN CITY (AP) — If any evidence were needed to underscore that Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Asia and Oceania is the longest, farthest and most challenging of his pontificate, it’s that he’s bringing along his secretaries to help him navigate the four-country program while keeping up with work back home.

Francis will clock 32,814 kilometers (20,390 miles) by air during his Sept. 2-13 visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, far surpassing any of his previous 44 foreign trips and notching one of the longest papal trips ever, both in terms of days on the road and distances traveled.

That’s no small feat for a pope who turns 88 in December, uses a wheelchair, lost part of a lung to a respiratory infection as a young man and had to cancel his last foreign trip at the last minute (to Dubai in November to participate in the U.N. climate conference) on doctors’ orders.

But Francis is pushing ahead with this trip, originally planned for 2020 but postponed because of COVID-19. He’s bringing along his medical team of a doctor and two nurses and taking the usual health precautions on the ground. But in a novelty, he’s adding his personal secretaries into the traditional Vatican delegation of cardinals, bishops and security.

The long trip recalls the globetrotting travels of St. John Paul II, who visited all four destinations during his quarter-century pontificate, though East Timor was an occupied part of Indonesia at the time of his landmark 1989 trip.

By retracing John Paul’s steps, Francis is reinforcing the importance that Asia has for the Catholic Church, since it’s one of the few places where the church is growing in terms of baptized faithful and religious vocations. And he is highlighting that the complex region also embodies some of his core priorities as pope – an emphasis on interreligious and intercultural dialogue, care for the environment and insistence on the spiritual component of economic development.

Here is a look at the trip and some of the issues that are likely to come up, with the Vatican’s relations with China ever-present in the background in a region where Beijing wields enormous influence.

Indonesia

Francis loves gestures of interfaith fraternity and harmony, and there could be no better symbol of religious tolerance at the start of his trip than the underground “Tunnel of Friendship” linking Indonesia’s main Istiqlal mosque to the country’s Catholic cathedral.

Francis will visit the underpass in central Jakarta with the grand imam, Nasaruddin Umar, before both partake in an interfaith gathering and sign a joint declaration.

Francis has made improving Christian-Muslim relations a priority, and has often used his foreign travels to promote his agenda of committing religious leaders to work for peace and tolerance, and renounce violence in God’s name.

Indonesia is home to the world’s largest Muslim population and has enshrined religious freedom in its constitution, officially recognizing six religions -- Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Protestantism and Catholicism. Francis is likely to highlight this tradition of religious tolerance and celebrate it as a message for the broader world.

“If we are able to create a kind of collaboration between each other, that could be a great strength of the Indonesian nation,” the imam said in an interview.

Papua New Guinea

Francis was elected pope in 2013 largely on the strength of an extemporaneous speech he delivered to his fellow cardinals in which he said the Catholic Church needed to go to the “peripheries” to reach those who need God’s comfort the most. When Francis travels deep into the jungles of Papua New Guinea, he will be fulfilling one of the marching orders he set out for the future pope on the eve of his own election.

Few places are as remote, peripheral and poverty-wracked as Vanimo, a northern coastal town on the main island of New Guinea. There Francis will meet with missionaries from his native Argentina who are working to bring Christianity to a largely tribal people who still practice pagan traditions alongside the Catholic faith.

“If we suspend our preconceptions, even in tribal cultures we can find human values close to Christian ideals,” Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who heads the Vatican’s missionary evangelization office and is part of the Vatican delegation, told the Fides missionary news agency.

Francis will likely reflect on the environmental threats to vulnerable and poor places like Papua New Guinea, such as deep sea mining and climate change, while also pointing to the diversity of its estimated 10 million people who speak some 800 languages but are prone to tribal conflicts.

East Timor

When John Paul visited East Timor in 1989, he sought to console its overwhelmingly Catholic population who had suffered under Indonesia’s brutal and bloody occupation for 15 years already.

“For many years now, you have experienced destruction and death as a result of conflict; You have known what it means to be the victims of hatred and struggle,” John Paul told the faithful during a seaside Mass in Tasi-Toli, near Dili.

“I pray that those who have responsibility for life in East Timor will act with wisdom and good will towards all, as they search for a just and peaceful resolution of present difficulties,” he said then in a direct challenge to Indonesia.

It would take another decade for the United Nations to organize a referendum on Timor’s independence, after which Indonesia responded with a scorched-earth campaign that left the former Portuguese colony devastated. East Timor emerged as an independent country in 2002, but still bears the trauma and scars of an occupation that left as many as 200,000 people dead — nearly a quarter of the population.

Francis will literally walk in John Paul’s footsteps when he celebrates Mass on the same seaside esplanade as that 1989 liturgy, which some see as a key date in the Timorese independence movement.

“That Mass with the pope was a very strong, very important moment for Timor’s identity,” said Giorgio Bernardelli, editor of AsiaNews, the missionary news agency. “It also in many ways put the spotlight on the drama that Timor was living for the international community.”

Another legacy that will confront Francis is that of the clergy sexual abuse scandal: Revered independence hero and Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo was secretly sanctioned by the Vatican in 2020 for sexually abusing young boys.

There is no word on whether Francis will refer to Belo, who is still revered in East Timor but has been barred by the Vatican from ever returning.

Singapore

Francis has used several of his foreign trips to send messages to China, be they direct telegrams of greetings when he flies through Chinese airspace or more indirect gestures of esteem, friendship and fraternity to the Chinese people when nearby.

Francis’ visit to Singapore, where three-quarters of the population is ethnically Chinese and Mandarin is an official language, will give him yet another opportunity to reach out to Beijing as the Vatican seeks improved ties for the sake of China’s estimated 12 million Catholics.

“It’s a faithful people, who lived through a lot and remained faithful,” Francis told the Chinese province of his Jesuit order in a recent interview.

The trip comes a month before the Vatican is set to renew a landmark 2018 agreement governing bishop nominations.

Just last week, the Vatican reported its “satisfaction” that China had officially recognized Tianjin Bishop Melchior Shi Hongzhen, who as far as the Vatican is concerned had actually taken over as bishop in 2019. The Holy See said China’s official recognition of him under civil law now was “a positive fruit of the dialogue established over the years between the Holy See and the Chinese government.”

But by arriving in Singapore, a regional economic powerhouse which maintains good relations with both China and the United States, Francis is also stepping into a protracted maritime dispute as China has grown increasingly assertive with its presence in the South China Sea.

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AP writers Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia and David Rising in Bangkok contributed.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Why Malaysia has stayed quiet but firm on South China Sea: ‘let sleeping dogs lie’

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3276601/why-malaysia-has-stayed-quiet-firm-south-china-sea-let-sleeping-dogs-lie?utm_source=rss_feed

According to a recent spate of articles, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has recalibrated his country’s foreign policy, giving it a more pro-China and anti-Western slant.

In particular, it has been suggested that Kuala Lumpur has moved closer to Beijing’s position on the South China Sea dispute in stating that the row should be resolved among claimant states without the involvement of external parties, and that this could cause problems for Asean unity when Malaysia takes over as chairman next year.

In reality, however, the Anwar government’s stance on the maritime dispute remains broadly consistent with that of its predecessors. And for good reason.

In the early 1990s, under prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, Kuala Lumpur adopted a three-pronged policy towards its overlapping claims with Beijing in the South China Sea.

First, Malaysia seeks to steadfastly assert and defend the country’s territorial claims and sovereign rights inside its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Malaysia has deployed military personnel to the five atolls it occupies in the contested Spratly Islands, while the Malaysian navy and coastguard maintain a constant vigil in the country’s EEZ, monitoring, but not challenging, China’s activities. Since 2019, Malaysia has publicly rejected China’s nine-dash line claim, calling it “ridiculous”.

Second, Kuala Lumpur tries hard to decouple the dispute from the country’s vital economic ties with China, its largest trade partner and an important, if sometimes controversial, source of investment.

This is to prevent the dispute from overshadowing bilateral relations – as is currently the case between the Philippines and China – while allowing trade and investment ties to flourish. Malaysia therefore plays down the dispute, remaining quiet about the China Coast Guard’s near-constant presence at Luconia Shoals and its regular harassment of Malaysian drilling rigs and survey ships in Southeast Asian nation’s EEZ.

The third prong is to support the Asean-China conflict management process – that is, the ongoing negotiations for a Code of Conduct – and promote a peaceful resolution of the dispute through negotiations

Regarding the latter, Malaysia has consistently dangled the prospect of bilateral talks in front of China, possibly leading to the joint development of hydrocarbons. However, as Kuala Lumpur has exclusive rights to all living and non-living resources within its EEZ, it has never had any serious intention of discussing joint development with Beijing, let alone the sovereignty issue.

Since taking office in November 2022, Anwar’s government has adhered to this three-pronged policy.

The Anwar administration has not compromised Malaysia’s territorial claims or sovereign rights in the South China Sea. The state-owned energy company Petronas continues to drill for oil and gas in the country’s EEZ. On his return from China in April 2023, Anwar told parliament that while Beijing had raised “concerns” about Petronas’ activities, “Malaysia sees the area as Malaysian territory, therefore Petronas will continue its exploration activities there”.

When he added that Malaysia was “open to negotiations” with China, the opposition accused him of being “careless” in his remarks. But as noted earlier, a willingness to hold talks with China over the dispute is a long-standing position, and should be seen as more of a rhetorical device to string Beijing along than a serious commitment to dialogue.

Just in case there was any doubt regarding Malaysia’s position, within days of Anwar’s remarks, the foreign ministry quickly followed up with a statement asserting that the government was “unequivocally and firmly committed” to protecting the country’s sovereignty in the South China Sea. In August last year, China published a new map showing the nine-dash line, which Malaysia roundly rejected.

Nor is there any indication that the Malaysian navy or coastguard has reduced its presence in the country’s waters. Indeed, plans to build a new naval base at Bintulu in Sarawak, facing Petronas’ upstream projects, are proceeding on Anwar’s watch.

In accordance with the second prong, the Anwar administration continues to play down the dispute with China. In an interview in June, Anwar accused the West of exaggerating tensions in the South China Sea: “Do we have a problem [with China]? Yes. Have we encountered any serious clashes or problems? No.”

In another example, Nushirwan bin Zainal Abidin, the director general of the National Security Council, said in a recent media interview that while he would prefer Chinese ships not to loiter in Malaysian waters, their presence should not “colour” bilateral relations. “We can let sleeping dogs lie,” he said.

A statement by Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan at the recent Asean Ministerial Meeting provoked consternation in some quarters when he said “issues” within the region should be resolved through dialogue among the countries themselves. His statement was accurate: the Code of Conduct is between Asean and China only, and a resolution to the dispute can be achieved only by the disputants themselves. Both China and Malaysia have long agreed on these two points.

Hasan’s comment that any attempt by an Asean member to bring in “external influence” to solve its problems will cause “uncertainty” may have been a dig at the Philippines for its tight relationship with the United States. But Malaysia also has close defence ties with the US and facilitates its military presence in Southeast Asia through regular ship visits and joint exercises, most recently in Sabah, which fronts the South China Sea. In contrast, Malaysia’s military ties with China are much thinner.

To be sure, Malaysia has adopted a very different approach to the South China Sea dispute than either Vietnam or the Philippines, and sometimes it appears as if Kuala Lumpur is leaning towards Beijing’s position.

But the three-pronged policy allows Malaysia to maintain close ties with China while asserting its territorial claims and protecting its sovereign rights. Anwar understands this and will not deviate from it.

Ian Storey is a Senior Fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. This article was first published by ISEAS – Yusof Ishak’s commentary website .

New guidelines boost China’s teachers, including right to discipline students

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3276689/new-guidelines-boost-chinas-teachers-including-right-discipline-students?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing has issued a set of guidelines aimed at strengthening its teaching workforce and making the profession “one of the most respected and admirable occupations in China” by 2035.

The guidelines, released on Monday by the ruling party’s Central Committee and the State Council, China’s cabinet, focus on increasing teachers’ competence, protecting their rights and supporting them to “actively discipline students”.

The new rules also stipulate zero tolerance for teachers who commit malpractice and other violations, with strict enforcement of discipline and legal consequences for offenders.

At the same time, teachers should be protected from being humiliated or defamed, according to the guidelines, which also called for a lift in their social status by encouraging public respect and support.

The guidelines acknowledged that the knowledge and teaching skills of educators should be enhanced, and that the government should provide more training for rural teachers.

Salaries should be paid on time and any unnecessary additions to teachers’ workloads should be reduced, said the guidelines, which come as China tries to cultivate an innovation-driven economy amid its competition with the US.

At an official conference on Thursday, the State Council said there are 18.9 million teachers in China, who together hold up the “largest-scale teaching system in the world”.

Nevertheless, it is a system that has attracted much criticism over the years. Teachers are burdened with an over-bureaucratic workload and complaints from parents, while children are thrown into a fiercely competitive environment from an early age.

Disciplining of students is an old issue in China, where criticism, after-class detention, volunteer work and being required to stand during class are among the acceptable punishments teachers can use.

But in reality, teachers are vulnerable to being reported on by disgruntled parents. There is the added fear that interactions can be recorded and posted on the internet.

Cindy Wang, who teaches at a junior school in Hubei province, central China, said teachers were concerned that if anything happened, they would be portrayed in a bad light.

“It’s quite difficult to find the appropriate level of punishment. If it’s too light, it won’t work, if it’s heavy, it might hurt the students physically or mentally,” she told the South China Morning Post.

According to Xiong Bingqi, director of the Beijing-based 21st Century Education Research Institute, another problem is that some local education bureaus and schools evaluate teachers by whether parents file complaints against them.

“It doesn’t matter whether the teacher had good reasons to discipline the student, as long as others complained about them, there’s a problem,” he wrote in an article published by The Beijing News.

Under this approach, “teachers will only turn a blind eye when students break rules”, Xiong said.

According to Wang, on top of not being able to discipline their students, teachers are also under pressure because of the excessive bureaucratic burden, especially when officials visit.

“Often, our superiors come to the school for open classes and other inspections, so we have to prepare a lot of documents, which even takes up our time [for] teaching and grading,” she said.

“Once the officials leave, all these materials go into the trash can.”

Regardless of the new guidelines, Wang said she hoped teachers could return to basic classroom duties. “In the end, I think teachers should teach more, and do more things related only to their students. That’s what our occupation is meant to do.”

Numerous reforms to China’s education system have tried to lower costs and lighten the workload for students and teachers, but to little effect.

In 2021, China issued a sweeping ban on after-school tutoring, intended to narrow the gap between the haves and have-nots. But the education system remains exam-centric and hyper-competitive, so that extracurricular classes are now mostly underground.

Sally Wang, a Beijing mother, said she had opted to teach her son English and maths at home because she was dissatisfied with how little is taught in schools these days.

“With all this talk of reducing the workload, I don’t think the teachers dare ask too much of the students,” she said.

China thief steals 20 Buddha statues for worship, claims they can change his fate – how so?

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3276483/china-thief-steals-20-buddha-statues-worship-claims-they-can-change-his-fate-how-so?utm_source=rss_feed

In the wake of theft of more than 20 Buddha statues by a man in China who said he went on the thieving spree in the belief that it would “change his fate” the Post explains why such beliefs exist on the mainland.

The man, surnamed Wang, had moved to Shaoxing in Zhejiang province in eastern China for work.

He believed that worshipping more Buddha statues would improve his destiny.

He set up an elaborate altar adorned with fruit, pastries, incense and candles in his cramped home, and even repainted some of the stolen statues in his favourite colour, red, creating an eerie atmosphere that shocked police.

The case, reported by the mainland news outlet, The Paper, has prompted people to ask why people believe such actions can alter their fate in Chinese culture.

Disaster and karma

The Buddhist faith holds that misfortunes such as illness, car accidents, poverty and failed marriages are all the result of karma.

Therefore, many devotees believe that by worshipping Buddha statues they will act as proxies, enduring calamities in their place.

The more statues a devotee has and the longer they are worshipped, the more effective they are.

In an ancient case, while on death row, a man called Lu Hui, asked his family to acquire a statue of Guanyin (Goddess of Mercy) at home and prayed devoutly for divine intervention to avoid execution.

On the day he was supposed to die, the executioner’s blade shattered after three unsuccessful strikes, to which Lu said: “It must be due to the great compassionate power of Guanyin Bodhisattva!”

Officials carried out an investigation at his home and discovered three distinct knife marks on the neck of the Guanyin statue. A higher level court then released Lu.

Feng shui

Placing a Buddha statue at home can enhance feng shui, but proper placement is crucial.

The statue should not be placed in bedrooms, kitchens, or bathrooms, as these locations might involve killing, as in the preparation of food, or are unclean.

The ideal location for a statue is a high place in the living room, ensuring it is above waist level. The area must be kept clean, and offerings should be replaced daily.

Such statues are considered to possess sacred energy that brings peace and blessings, dispels negative energy, and fosters family harmony and health.

Spiritual redemption

While worshipping Buddha statues, some devotees not only express their gratitude through worship and prayer but also seek spiritual solace and blessings.

This act of devotion can inspire kindness and positive energy, helping them stay resilient and strong in the face of difficulties and challenges in life.

Also, the worshipping process allows devotees to reflect on their actions and thoughts, identify shortcomings and make improvements, fostering a deeper sense of spiritual purification and inner peace.

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Super Garuda Shield vs Falcon Strike: inside the US and China’s military drills

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3276591/super-garuda-shield-vs-falcon-strike-inside-us-and-chinas-military-drills?utm_source=rss_feed

As Indonesia hosts a sprawling joint military operation with its neighbours and the West, a quieter yet telling exercise has just concluded between China and Thailand – reflecting a different approach in Beijing’s quest for regional influence.

The annual Super Garuda Shield drills, which kicked off on Monday and will run until September 5, showcase a formidable coalition, with Indonesian troops joined by military counterparts from around the world – including the United States, Australia, Japan, Britain, France, Canada and Singapore.

By contrast, the Falcon Strike 2024 exercises, held from August 18-29, focused more on strategic aims such as cross-border support and joint air defence – essential components, Chinese state media reported, for “a small-scale war”.

Thailand’s involvement in Falcon Strike reveals its cautious stance towards the US, according to Yokie Rahmad Isjchwansyah, a research fellow at the Paramadina Graduate School of Diplomacy in Jakarta, particularly after Washington’s rejection of its bid for F-35 stealth fighter jets last year.

The US reportedly withheld the sale of its advanced F-35s – which are sold only to its closest allies like Australia, Japan, South Korea and Singapore – due to concerns over training and technical requirements.

While Washington engages its military in multilateral drills, such as the Malabar naval exercises with India and Japan, China has concentrated on building bilateral partnerships. Over the past year, it has conducted military exercises with Laos, Cambodia and Singapore, highlighting its intent to strengthen regional ties despite lingering suspicions among some Southeast Asian nations.

Yet China is beginning to adopt elements of the US military playbook by hosting multilateral exercises like the Aman-Youyi – or Peace and Friendship – drills with Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

“On the whole, however, China is still more comfortable with simpler bilateral exercises rather than more complex multilateral drills,” Storey said.

The evolving nature of the Thai-China Falcon Strike exercises reflects this trend, becoming increasingly sophisticated yet remaining “primarily performative in nature”, he said.

“It’s inconceivable that their armed forces would fight alongside each other in a regional conflict,” Storey added, underscoring the limitations of their partnership.

Abdul Rahman Yaacob, a research fellow with the Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia programme, highlights a crucial disparity: the number of multilateral exercises involving China pales in comparison to those conducted by the US, which has maintained a key security role in the region since World War II. This long-standing presence has allowed Washington to forge a vast network of security partnerships that it can leverage for joint exercises.

In recent years, China has expressed a growing interest in expanding its military collaborations with Southeast Asian nations. But Rahman’s insights, drawn from discussions with regional defence officials, reveal a cautious approach among these countries.

“There are some hesitations in regional countries because of their concerns about China’s intentions in the region and its territorial disputes with some Asean states,” he said.

The South China Sea remains a flashpoint, with conflicting claims over islands and maritime boundaries involving China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Brunei. This contentious backdrop complicates the dynamics of military cooperation.

Most past exercises between China and Southeast Asian nations have focused on non-traditional security areas and were “very basic” in nature, Rahman said.

“Most of these exercises do not lead to combat interoperability,” he said, emphasising that they primarily serve as a form of “defence diplomacy” – allowing Southeast Asian states to enhance their understanding of China while navigating the complexities of regional security.

Military exercises between the US and its partners are more complex than China’s, with the focus on larger-scale combat operations that enable participating Southeast Asian nations to enhance their defence capabilities.

“China perceives it is the target of these exercises and is not comfortable with them,” Rahman said, citing the “combat nature” of the drills and the fact that the US and China are competing for influence.

“As long as China is still involved in territorial disputes with Southeast Asian states, Beijing’s defence engagement [with the region] … will likely remain shallow and superficial in the long run,” he added.

China organises multilateral exercises to “signal to the US that it cannot be contained militarily”, said analyst Ian Seow Cheng Wei. “For Southeast Asian states, participation in these exercises signals their commitment to fostering closer relations with both powers while avoiding taking sides”.

Beyond combat operations, US multilateral exercises also encompass peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief, providing countries with valuable opportunities to align their military strategies.

Chinese military exercises, by contrast, typically focus on counterterrorism, counter-piracy, and humanitarian efforts, serving as a platform for Beijing to build trust with its regional neighbours. “By engaging in these cooperative activities, China aims to strengthen regional relationships and mitigate tensions,” said Seow, who is a master’s student in the University of Oxford’s politics and international relations department.

A notable example of this balancing act is the 34 joint patrols China has conducted with Vietnam on counter-piracy and search-and-rescue operations in the Gulf of Tonkin since 2006.

“This cooperation illustrates China’s strategy of using practical engagements to foster trust and collaboration, even amid broader geopolitical conflicts,” Seow said. However, he warned that larger-scale exercises can be perceived as threats, heightening geopolitical tensions.

This year’s Super Garuda Shield involves 5,500 troops, including 2,500 Americans, while Cobra Gold – annual multinational drills hosted by Thailand – sees participation from around 9,000 troops.

China prioritises bilateral exercises due to its cautious approach to information sharing with partners, according to Isjchwansyah, who specialises in researching diplomacy and intermestic relations.

Yet Beijing is actively seeking to increase the frequency of both bilateral and multilateral exercises to counter what it sees as US hegemony in the region.

“China’s success in this regard depends on many factors, such as language barriers and most importantly [its] willingness to be more open to information sharing,” he said.

Such exercises could also act as a platform to showcase China’s offensive military capabilities, and have implications for regional security, Isjchwansyah said – pointing to the deployment of advanced combat aircraft, including Y-20 transport planes and J-10C fighters, during Falcon Strike as evidence.

“This indicates that China is not playing games in holding their military exercises,” he said.

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Can China’s yuan, now a familiar face around the world, become a must-have currency?

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3276587/can-chinas-yuan-now-familiar-face-around-world-become-must-have-currency?utm_source=rss_feed

When China’s home-grown ARJ21 regional jet was delivered to Indonesian airline TransNusa in May, the leasing deal was carried out using the yuan, with the arrangement hailed as a milestone in the internationalisation of the Chinese currency.

“This pioneering transaction highlights the high level of openness in the Lingang Special Area, promoting yuan internationalisation and strengthening international cooperation,” the Shanghai government said at the start of June.

The aircraft was exported through Lingang, a free-trade zone in southeast Shanghai that was set up in 2019 to promote foreign investment and financial opening-up.

China’s growing economic influence and trade with the rest of the world has made the yuan more acceptable to foreign countries compared to 20 years ago when Beijing first began to experiment easing its capital controls.

Over the years, the yuan’s share in China’s cross border payment has climbed significantly, reflecting rising global confidence in settling trade and investment in yuan.

In the first half of 2024, the yuan made up 52 per cent of China’s cross border payments and receipts compared with 43 per cent for the US dollar, according to estimates from ANZ bank.

Ten years ago, the figures stood at 23 per cent and 67 per cent, respectively, according to ANZ.

Amid China’s pursuit of building the world’s second-largest economy into a “financial power”, a strong currency and infrastructure are key parts of the goal championed by President Xi Jinping, highlighting Beijing’s desire to boost the global status of the yuan and its role in international finance.

“A strong currency means everyone would like to hold it,” said Xia Le, chief economist for Asia at BBVA Research.

“It also means it could be used in financing, like the US dollar. It is a currency that can be used in multiple venues.”

In July, the yuan retained its position as the fourth most active currency for global payments by value, with a record-high share of 4.74 per cent, compared to the US dollar’s 47.81 per cent, according to data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift), the world’s largest interbank messaging service.

“It’s come to a certain stage that the use of yuan is no longer unfamiliar to foreign countries,” said Xia, who led research on the progress of yuan internationalisation in Spain, Mexico, Turkey, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Venezuela and Brazil last year.

“Whether it’s an Indonesian airline buying a plane [in yuan] or any other [products], those countries that have close trade ties and international relations with China will use the yuan more.”

The People’s Bank of China has signed 40 bilateral swap lines, which act as line of credit so that other central banks are able to exchange their local currencies for the yuan. These swap lines are intended to facilitate local currencies being used in trade.

As of the end of 2023, the PBOC’s bilateral swap lines had reached 4.2 trillion yuan (US$590 billion).

China has sought to maintain a relatively stable currency to advance its yuan internationalisation ambitions, and before the US Federal Reserve began to aggressively raise rates in March 2022, the yuan had been slowly appreciating against the US dollar since 2020.

In the last two years, depreciation pressure in emerging currencies against the US dollar, inflation and Washington’s increasing use of its financial power to impose economic sanctions have brought new demand for alternatives to the US dollar-denominated financial infrastructure that covers payment, financing and investment.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian banks were blocked from Swift, which forms a crucial part of the global financial infrastructure when it comes to processing of global payments.

And the yuan’s share in Russia’s exports increased from 0.4 per cent two years ago to 34.5 per cent so far this year, while its share in imports has risen from 4.3 per cent to 36.4 per cent during the same period, according to Russian central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina.

The escalating use of yuan in trade by Russia has also fuelled interest in other emerging countries that want to expand trade with China, highlighted by recent talks between financial authorities in Thailand and Hong Kong.

“The users are looking for it. China’s central bank, along with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), have the special role and ability to build this structure,” said Wilson Chan Fung-cheung, associate director of City University of Hong Kong’s master of business administration programme.

In January, the Bank of Thailand and the HKMA, Hong Kong’s de facto central bank, discussed the use of local currencies in cross-border trade, financial digitalisation and fintech, and potential initiatives to enhance cooperation between the financial sectors in Thailand and Hong Kong.

The HKMA has also engaged with financial authorities in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over similar initiatives.

“The financial infrastructure for currency settlement built by several central banks is in fact representative of the market needs, especially for the developing countries, which have to reduce the settlement risks by using Swift,” Chan said.

In addition to gaining ground in global payments and trade, the yuan is also increasingly used in financing, thanks to the large interest rate differentials with the US dollar, making it a relatively low cost currency to fund borrowing, as reflected in the surge in so-called Panda and dim sum bonds.

Yuan-denominated bonds, issued by offshore companies on the mainland Chinese interbank market – known as panda bonds – have grown in popularity over the past year after the Chinese government allowed the proceeds to be repatriated offshore in 2022.

Panda bonds allow foreign companies, particularly those with subsidiaries in mainland China, to tap into a deep investor base and find the yuan capital they need at attractive rates.

In the first half of 2024, 110.3 billion yuan of panda bonds were issued in mainland China’s interbank market, up by 54 per cent compared to the same period in 2023, according to China Chengxin Credit Rating Group.

Meanwhile, in the first half of 2024, 486.5 billion worth of offshore yuan bonds – known as dim sum bonds – were issued, representing an increase of 23 per cent compared with the same period in 2023, according to CSPI Ratings.

Dim sum bonds are yuan-denominated bonds that are issued outside mainland China, including in Hong Kong.

“While the wide gap between US dollar and yuan rates may narrow, the key is the yuan is considered and compared in fundraising activities, which reflect to a certain extent its status in the international market,” said Frances Cheung, head of foreign exchange and rates strategy at Singapore’s OCBC Bank.

To compete with Singapore and London, Hong Kong has invested in its financial infrastructure, offering an alternative to the US dollar-dominated system, while serving as a superconnector between mainland China and international financial markets.

But yuan internationalisation has been proceeding under a binding constraint that the Chinese authorities continue to maintain a tight control of fund flows under its capital account, and currency stability remains a top priority, even in the largest offshore yuan centre of Hong Kong.

Data from the HKMA showed that yuan deposits fell by 6.4 per cent to 1.06 trillion in June, while by comparison, the balance of yuan deposits stood at 295.72 trillion yuan in mainland China in June, according to the PBOC.

“Around 80 per cent of the global offshore yuan transactions took place in Hong Kong. However, the size of the offshore yuan as compared to the domestic yuan market is still very small,” said Heiwai Tang, an economics professor and associate dean at the University of Hong Kong Business School.

BBVA’s Xia said China would be mindful of how much influence the offshore markets have on the yuan’s exchange rate, its economy and financial stability.

And as much as the PBOC wants to promote its yuan swap lines for settling trade, the central bank is also wary of other countries’ access to large amounts of yuan funds for other uses because it could introduce depreciation pressure, Xia added.

“For a truly international currency, its [market] value isn’t necessarily determined by the currency country,” Xia said.

“If the yuan is to truly become an international currency, I believe its value will be driven more by offshore markets like Hong Kong.”

Due to global monetary policy divergence and weak domestic sentiment, China has seen large capital outflows since last year.

On a trailing 12-month basis – data from the past 12 consecutive months – net capital outflows stood at US$139 billion in May, according to French investment bank Natixis.

And since 2018, rising trade conflict between China and the United States have introduced instability in global supply chains, while restrictions and tariffs facing Chinese exporters in their biggest markets have also weighed on the outlook for the internationalisation of the yuan.

The balance of the PBOC’s bilateral yuan swap used by foreign monetary authorities accounted for just 2.8 per cent of bilateral local currency swap contracts at the end of last year, according to the Chinese central bank.

And data from the International Monetary Fund showed that the yuan’s share of global reserves has declined since 2022.

He Wei, China economist at Gavekal Dragonomics, said geopolitical risks emanating from tense relations between China and US are key reasons that some central banks have refrained from holding more yuan-denominated treasury bonds in their reserves.

In an interview published in June with the Guangdong-based Southern Daily, Yu Yongding, former adviser to the PBOC, said that yuan internationalisation should be approached as a long-term objective rather than an urgent task, even though the “weaponisation of the US dollar” has created a demand for a bigger role of yuan.

“China’s economic system has not yet completed market-oriented reforms, and its institutions tend to distort the market. It is almost impossible to promote the internationalisation of the yuan by market forces alone,” Yu said, adding that Chinese policymakers have not truly prioritised dethroning the US dollar.

The PBOC said in its second quarter monetary report at the start of August that it would “steadily and prudently” promote internationalisation of the yuan, further expand its use in cross-border trade and investment, deepen cooperation with foreign currencies and develop the offshore yuan market.

It said it would also carry out pilot projects for high-level opening up of cross-border trade and investment.

Amid China’s financial superpower drive, analysts said such goals mean policymakers would like to see more foreign investment in the yuan-denominated assets.

“The attractiveness of the financial markets in China is a constraint to foreign investors holding the yuan. If you are holding the yuan, you want assets that you are comfortable with,” He at Gavekal added.

BBVA’s research found that Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Turkey were actively seeking to increase the yuan usage in their cross-border transactions.

Peru and Colombia could potentially adopt cross-border yuan payments in the near future, BBVA said.

But Mexico and Spain are likely to stick with their traditional trade ties, preferring to use the US dollar and the euro.

“However, the developed economies are collectively much bigger and wealthier, so, if they continue to move away from their trade and investment ties with China, it will be difficult for yuan to become a truly international currency, which is especially true when it comes to yuan as a cross-border investment currency,” said Chen Zhiwu, chair professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong.