Mistral点评

• China has cut rates, now it needs a fiscal policy package: former central bank adviser
• Chinese travellers prepare for ‘golden week’ exodus as long-haul interest returns
• Chopsticks date back thousands of years with silver versions used by elites in China, Korea
• Are Chinese scientists inflating their influence through ‘biased’ citations?
• US scientist and family appear on a ‘kill list’ for working with China
• Chinese EVs face EU vote to raise tariffs to up to 45% on Friday
• Ultra-cheap energy, Chinese cars drive EV revolution in Nepal
• China beefs up computing power by 25% as AI race drives demand
• Chinese drug maker Wuxi AppTec’s upbeat business update boosts stock despite US bill
• China urges Israel to ‘de-escalate’ after air strike kills Hezbollah leader in Lebanon
• Singapore jails Chinese national who overstayed for almost 19 years
• Can China’s new ambassador to EU build bridges after doomed efforts in Israel?
• Los Angeles Chinatown fire leaves 50 homeless, residents angry over ignoring warnings
• What to know from the UN: China, Russia have their say, and a frog metaphor makes a cameo
• China’s anxious youth, with no plans to marry, buy a flat or save, focus on life’s needs
• China’s Xi honours science pioneers to mark 75th anniversary of nation’s founding
• ‘We saw this coming’: citizens react to China increasing its retirement age
• Japan Airlines woos tourists from US, China and other nations with free domestic flights
• China works to keep the peace in East Africa as security issues threaten investments
• China mother wins online applause for pouring water on son after he wilfully wet classmates
• Japan a Good Fit for Chinese Intellectuals, Investors
• China’s military in ‘competition for partnerships’ with US in Southeast Asia

China has cut rates, now it needs a fiscal policy package: former central bank adviser

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3280436/china-has-cut-rates-now-it-needs-fiscal-policy-package-former-central-bank-adviser?utm_source=rss_feed

China urgently needs a fiscal policy package to fully boost market confidence following stimulus measures announced last week, a former central bank adviser has urged.

“I think the ball is now in the Ministry of Finance’s court. We hope to see new actions from them,” outspoken economist Yu Yongding told a forum in Beijing on Saturday.

The call from the former policy adviser to the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) comes as all eyes are on whether Beijing will roll out more fiscal support after markets rallied following the central bank’s aggressive rate cuts on Tuesday.

The stimulus package has received “positive feedback”, but to enhance its effectiveness, greater fiscal policies are necessary, Yu told the Tsinghua PBCSF Chief Economists Forum.

With only three months left of the year, achieving the government’s 5 per cent growth target for 2024 would be challenging, said Yu, who now serves as academic adviser for the Beijing-backed think tank China Finance 40 Forum.

Economists at the Beijing forum largely agreed on the serious challenges ahead and the need for more expansionary fiscal and monetary policies.

China, the world’s second largest economy, has seen growth momentum weaken in the past months. It reported largely disappointing economic data in August, including for retail sales and industrial output, after gross domestic product growth slowed to 4.7 per cent in the second quarter from 5.3 per cent in the first.

While advocating for greater fiscal expansion, Yu noted that China should start with increasing infrastructure investment, “or we won’t meet this year’s 5 per cent growth target”.

On whether economic revival should rely on stimulating consumption or investing in infrastructure, he argued that consumption would not be enough to prop up growth, pointing to weak consumer confidence amid declining income growth and falling asset values.

Raising infrastructure investment would work more directly and bring results faster, he asserted, but cited one major issue.

“China has significant infrastructure gaps and many projects to undertake. [But] we are facing a funding shortfall.”

Yu said there was still substantial room for expansion in China’s fiscal policy despite worries about government leverage.

The authorities needed to re-evaluate some fiscal policies as they were pro-cyclical rather than countercyclical, he said, citing some local governments’ bans on new investment unless previous debts are cleared.

According to Yu, China’s priorities for the rest of the year should be looking at infrastructure projects and releasing a comprehensive policy package, including fiscal and monetary stimulus.

“Even if it’s too late to implement now, it’s crucial to signal such intentions to boost market confidence,” he said.

“And even if this year’s growth rate falls below 5 per cent, the outlook for next year will be better.”

Lu Ting, chief China economist at investment bank Nomura, also emphasised the importance of infrastructure building for short-term results, especially cross-regional key projects that had been fully assessed and launched in places where the population was still flowing in.

“We should find ways to spend money in the short term without causing serious problems in the medium to long term,” Lu told the same forum.

A slew of investment banks have lowered their forecasts for China’s full-year growth rate after worse-than-expected figures in recent months.

Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup lowered their full-year projections to 4.7 per cent, from previous forecasts of 4.9 per cent and 4.8 per cent, respectively.

Chinese travellers prepare for ‘golden week’ exodus as long-haul interest returns

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3280260/chinese-travellers-prepare-golden-week-exodus-long-haul-interest-returns?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese travellers are set to journey farther and stay longer during the upcoming “golden week” holiday, as lower airfares and a growing appetite for cultural adventures fuel interest in faraway destinations within and outside China.

Some 60 per cent of Chinese domestic travellers would embark on long-haul trips over the seven-day National Day holiday, which starts on Tuesday, representing a significant increase from the 39 per cent estimated to travel long-haul last year, according to travel booking platform Trip.

Lower travel costs are one factor driving the trend, said Zhang Chen, vice-president of online travel platform Fliggy, noting that hotel and flight rates are more favourable compared to last year.

“Flight tickets weren’t particularly expensive this year,” said Yao Jiapei, a Shanghai-based educator who will be spending an extended holiday in Shenzhen and Macau.

The cheapest direct flight from Shanghai to Shenzhen during the holiday period started at just 297 yuan (US$42) before taxes, at least 200 yuan lower than typical peak-season fares.

The discounts also applied to other routes, with domestic airfares for the holiday season as of mid-September on average around 21 per cent cheaper than last year, reported Chinese flight data tracker Dast.

Travellers are also venturing farther this year due to a growing desire to enjoy different scenery and culture, said Janice Meng, market research analyst at business consultancy Dragon Trail International.

“We see that Chinese travellers are venturing further in 2024, with October expected to be the peak season for outbound travel for the remaining months of this year,” she said.

Searches for museum reservations and music events during the holiday have increased across various travel platforms.

Hugely popular game Black Myth: Wukong, which was only released a month ago, has also spurred a surge in tourism to the previously lesser-known cliffside temples and grottoes in China’s central Shanxi province.

Reservations for tickets to scenic spots in Shanxi rose by 135 per cent during September’s Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, according to travel platform Tongcheng.

Chinese travellers venturing across its borders are especially active, with 70 per cent having taken part in a cultural activity while abroad, noted Meng, citing a recent company survey with over a thousand respondents with an interest in travel.

Yao travelled to Macau to attend a concert by South Korean rapper and singer I.M on Sunday, before taking the ferry and train back to Shenzhen to spend time with family.

“I like K-pop, but they cannot perform on the mainland. It’s rare that the star I like is having a show around vacation time, so I decided to go spend a few days in Macau,” she said.

Travel demand has remained strong for outbound trips, even amid a sluggish economy, with some 67 per cent of respondents to the survey by Dragon Trail International having either travelled or have plans to travel abroad this year.

The growing number of countries that Chinese travellers can enter visa-free, or with an easier visa application process, together with cheaper airfares and the resumption of global travel, has also helped.

Outbound travel reservations during the National Day holiday season have grown this year, according to various travel platforms.

While Hong Kong, Macau and neighbouring countries continue to top the list, long-haul destinations like Australia and the United Kingdom are gaining traction.

Tech worker Xia Zijian will be travelling 15 hours from Hangzhou to Melbourne in Australia on Tuesday to enjoy the cooler weather and take a road trip down the iconic Great Ocean Road.

He will also catch a concert by pop singer The Weeknd in Melbourne before returning to China.

“I don’t like travelling to places with too many people, so I would rather spend a little more money to go abroad to have a better travel experience,” said the 23-year-old.

And for Xia, with the National Day break China’s longest holiday of the year excluding the Spring Festival at the start of the year which is traditionally spent with family, it makes sense for the bulk of the year’s travel expenses to be spent at once.

China’s air traffic volume during the golden week holiday is projected to well exceed pre-pandemic levels, with Dast reporting that an average of 2.3 million passengers are expected to fly per day, marking an 8.3 per cent increase from last year’s National Day holiday and a 21.9 per cent rise compared to 2019.

Railway tickets are also being snapped up, with some 175 million passengers expected to travel by rail from Sunday until October 8, according to the China Railway Group.

Some of the most popular high-speed rail routes departing from the Yangtze Delta – a major metropolitan area encompassing Shanghai – during the holiday are over four hours long, covering destinations such as Beijing, Guangzhou and Kunming, according to the Shanghai Railway Bureau.

“Travellers on long-distance journeys typically stay at their destinations longer and engage in a wider variety of activities compared to those on short trips,” said Fliggy’s Zhang, who noted that an increasing number of travellers are seeking more authentic local experiences.

Last year, Chinese travellers made over 5.9 million outbound trips and 826 million domestic trips during the combined Mid-Autumn and National Day holidays, generating over 753 billion yuan (US$107 billion) in domestic tourism revenue, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Chopsticks date back thousands of years with silver versions used by elites in China, Korea

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3280410/chopsticks-date-back-thousands-years-silver-versions-used-elites-china-korea?utm_source=rss_feed

Some inventions have remained virtually flawless since their inception, requiring only the most subtle adjustments throughout history. Chopsticks exemplify this beautifully.

An excavation in southwest China’s Sichuan province in mid-September unearthed a pair of metal chopsticks from the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) that appear as though they could have been cleaned and set for the evening meal.

The remarkable stability of chopsticks over the past millennium is particularly noteworthy, especially considering that their design would have closely resembled the utensils used by ancient hunter-gatherers. In essence, chopsticks have undergone little change for over 3,000 years.

“Chopsticks were found from the Neolithic period (around 1200 BC), but I believe their evolution into dedicated eating utensils began during the Warring States period (475-221 BC), or in the ages following Confucius,” noted Q. Edward Wang, eminent professor at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Rowan University in the US and author of Chopsticks: A Cultural and Culinary History.

Wang told the Post that the earliest chopsticks emerged in northern China, crafted from bamboo and wood for centuries. However, due to the biodegradable nature of these early chopsticks, which led to rapid deterioration, metal chopsticks were developed for greater durability.

The Southern Song dynasty chopsticks, made of copper, are particularly intriguing given that metal chopsticks were more widespread during the Tang dynasty (618-907).

Zheng Lu, a PhD student in East Asian Cultural Studies at the University of Arizona in the US, explained that chopsticks gained rapid popularity due to their versatility, as they could be used for eating and cooking.

“The demand for cooked food and the prevalence of ceramic cooking likely spurred the invention of chopsticks. While spoons appeared earlier, chopsticks proved more versatile in cooking, allowing users to check, stir, and taste their dishes,” she said.

Zheng further suggested that the dissemination of chopsticks was tied to evolving dietary habits.

“In Han Chinese civilisation, which traditionally consumes less meat and employs varied cooking methods, food was often cut into small, manageable pieces, in contrast to the simpler roasting methods found elsewhere,” explained Zheng. She believed this cooking style made chopsticks “more suitable for eating”.

Wang added that the earliest chopsticks gained popularity because people “wanted to eat food hot”. He compared chopsticks to other simple food inventions, such as a teacup handle that allows one to drink hot coffee or tea without burning their hands.

Wang proposed some theories regarding the appeal of chopsticks as an eating tool in East Asia.

First, the rise of noodles and other wheat products made chopsticks practical. They also proved to be an excellent tool for eating rice, especially sticky rice, when this grain became Asia’s primary source of starch.

Second, the popularity of tea and the small dishes that often accompany it helped integrate chopsticks into the social fabric of Asia. Finally, stir-fried foods were found to be easier to consume with chopsticks.

Beyond East Asia, Wang noted several factors that contributed to their global appeal.

“They are easy to learn, even if you do not use them perfectly,” he noted. He also highlighted the global spread of Chinese takeaway and Japanese sushi, which introduced chopsticks to wider audiences.

Chopsticks are frequently compared to forks, though this analogy is historically inaccurate since the earliest known forks originated in China. Researchers discovered them at a site linked to the Bronze Age Qijia Culture (2200-1600 BC) in Gansu province, northwest China.

Zheng told the Post: “Forks were in use as late as the Warring States period. A tomb in Luoyang, Henan, yielded a bundle of 51 forks from that era. After this period, forks seem to have fallen out of favour, likely due to advancements in cooking techniques.”

She also noted that spoons and chopsticks had distinct roles before the Qin dynasty (221-206 BC). Spoons were designated for eating rice while chopsticks were used to pick up food from stews.

At one time, silver chopsticks were favoured among the elites in Korea and China.

John Gibbens, owner of Everything Chopsticks, a chopsticks importing company, explained: “They were used by emperors in China and Korea as a safeguard against poisoning. While silver does not actually detect poison, silver chopsticks were popular among wealthy families.”

He added that chopsticks made of silver have been used for around 2,500 years.

Regarding the English term itself, Gibbens noted that “chopsticks” first appeared in English explorer William Dampier’s Voyages and Descriptions published in 1699.

Are Chinese scientists inflating their influence through ‘biased’ citations?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3280429/are-chinese-scientists-inflating-their-influence-through-biased-citations?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese scholars tend to cite papers from their own country significantly more than scholars from other nations, potentially inflating China’s scientific prominence, according to recent studies.

One analysis by Japan’s National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) revealed that 62 per cent of citations to China’s top-cited papers came from within China, compared with 24 per cent for the United States, which had the second-highest rate.

A separate study, conducted by a team of researchers from China, the US, and Germany, found that China’s internal citation rate was 42 per cent higher than expected based on its publication output, while that of the US was 16 per cent higher.

The authors of the second study, titled “Paper Tigers? Chinese Science and Home Bias in Citations”, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, argue that this bias has exaggerated China’s rise in science.

According to the study, a bias-free ranking that places China lower in terms of global research impact could shed new perspective on the idea that the country is eclipsing the West in science.

In 2018, China overtook the US in total scientific output to become the world’s top producer of scientific papers, according to Nature and other sources.

By 2022, the NISTEP annual report found that China had also surpassed the US in the number of most-cited papers, highlighting its dominance in both the quantity and quality of scientific research.

A citation occurs when a research paper mentions or refers to another paper to give credit or support an idea. The more a paper is cited, the more it indicates that the research has influenced other work, contributing to the field.

While scientists working in one country often cite papers produced domestically, some may cite work that is only tangentially related to their own to boost the citation counts of colleagues and institutions – with the expectation that their colleagues will reciprocate.

Because China and the US have larger scientific workforces, they naturally produce more publications, citations, and home citations.

To identify how much scientists cite their compatriots beyond what would be expected for their country’s research output, the second study introduced a metric called “home bias”. This aims to provide a more accurate picture of citations that are not simply a result of having a large research community.

The researchers first calculated how many citations a country would receive from its own researchers if citations were distributed proportionally based on the country’s overall share of global publications.

For instance, if a country produces 10 per cent of the world’s research papers, it would be expected that around 10 per cent of its citations would come from within the country.

They then compared this expected rate with the actual citation rate. For China, they found that the actual rate was 42 per cent higher than expected. Iran and India, which ranked second and third, had a rate that was 23 per cent higher than expected.

Using a “de-biased” citation counting method to exclude inflated home citations, the team found that the US remained the most-cited country based on papers published in 461 top journals from 2000 to 2021.

The US was followed by Germany, Britain and China, while rankings for other countries remained largely unchanged.

“Should it emerge that the quality of Chinese scientific output still lags even as its quantity leaps ahead, there may be an opportunity to encourage Chinese leadership to recalibrate their emphasis from the latter to the former,” they wrote.

“Conversely, in the Western context, alleviating the existential dread of losing a scientific showdown with China could … foster international collaboration, rather than contribute to emulating a potentially overstated Chinese model of ‘success’,” they added.

US scientist and family appear on a ‘kill list’ for working with China

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3280216/us-scientist-and-family-appear-kill-list-working-china?utm_source=rss_feed

A leading US disease ecologist says he has faced death threats and harassment because of his work with Chinese scientists on virus research before the Covid-19 pandemic – an experience he describes as a “medieval” witch hunt.

Peter Daszak, president of scientific research organisation EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), said he and the non-profit had endured four years of “relentless” and “damaging” attacks, online and in the press, including actions directed at him and his family.

He said an envelope containing white powder had been sent to his home address in the United States, while the names of his children and wife had appeared on a “kill list” on 4chan, an anonymous online forum.

“That is not appropriate or normal for a scientist to be put through. And you get zero sympathy for this,” Daszak told the Post in an interview

“You talk to the FBI to try and help. They are the same guys investigating you and do not believe that you did not do something wrong. It is awful.”

“No one has come and punched me in the face yet, or shot me. But I am certainly expecting that – which is weird as a scientist,” he said.

Daszak’s decades-long scientific partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) ended after allegations that their research caused the Covid-19 pandemic. The laboratory has been at the centre of unproven claims that a leak led to the Chinese city’s first Covid-19 outbreak at the end of 2019.

“It takes me back to medieval times, almost,” Daszak said. “When the person that predicted there might be a famine the next year, when it happened, they were the first ones to be strung up. It feels like that is what is happening here.”

A year after the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), New York-based EHA, which researches emerging disease threats, began working with scientists in China to identify the wildlife reservoir of the original Sars-CoV and assess the likelihood of a similar coronavirus causing a global outbreak.

Its partnership with China’s leading virology lab in Wuhan began in 2005 with approval from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the State Department, according to EHA.

“EHA and WIV collaborators published works of critical importance to understanding the origin of Sars, helping to raise awareness of the risk of further coronavirus outbreaks,” the non-profit wrote in a report responding to allegations from the US House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released to the public on Tuesday.

Ever since Covid-19 swept the world in 2020, EHA has come under fire for its US-funded coronavirus research in China, with questions over whether it followed grant protocols or conducted risky research.

“Many of [the claims levelled against EHA] are built on the false assumption that Covid-19 emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology because of a lab leak during research supported by the NIH under a sub-grant from EcoHealth Alliance: There is not a scintilla of verifiable scientific evidence for this,” EHA said in the report.

The “open and transparent” scientific collaboration ended abruptly when former US president Donald Trump terminated NIH funding to EHA in 2020, it said in the report.

The targeting of China-linked scientists in the United States peaked in 2018 with the Trump administration’s China Initiative, which led to investigations into researchers suspected of hiding Chinese connections. Most cases were quickly dismissed due to lack of evidence, and the programme ended in 2022.

Geopolitical tensions have also made it increasingly difficult for researchers from the two most scientifically productive nations to collaborate, despite the benefits of working together.

“I think this is, unfortunately, based on geography,” Daszak said, referring to the fact that EHA received backlash for collaborating with Chinese scientists, while other labs did not receive the same scrutiny by US agencies. This was despite their conducting “actual gain-of-function work” – medical research that genetically alters an organism in a way that may enhance its biological functions, such as virulence or transmissibility.

EHA cited NIH’s official decision in 2016 that the proposed experiments at the Wuhan lab were not covered by the definition of gain-of-function and were not subject to a pause initiated by the US government at the time “on the types of experiments that expected viruses that are known pathogens of people to ‘gain function’”.

“This was confirmed repeatedly by NIH officials, including in public testimony, under oath,” it said in the report.

Daszak said the American public viewed the scientific partnership as “inappropriate and wrong”.

“Somehow, collaborating with Chinese scientists is not good,” he said.

“We were funded by the [US] government to collaborate with Chinese scientists. We openly applied for funds specifically to work in China.”

Tensions in the research community as a result of turbulent US-China relations have not only affected EHA, but are also affecting other scientists attempting to conduct bilateral research, according to Daszak.

“We have scientists who used to work with Chinese colleagues, who are now not working with them for obvious reasons,” he said, adding that some stopped after facing attacks for publishing papers in collaboration with Chinese researchers.

Daszak said the attacks over the last few years have shown him that ending up in the middle of a politicised issue, especially one that involves US-China relations, means you are “left out there hoping for the best”.

About 85 per cent of EHA’s funding was from federal sources, Daszak said, and now all NIH grants have been suspended as the organisation faces the threat of debarment, which would cut it off entirely from federal funding.

In its report, EHA stated that the proposal for debarment suggested there was a “rush to judgment” against its work, which was “reminiscent” of the termination of its NIH grant in 2020.

Daszak said that while EHA had been able to receive outside funding support, it was “not to the same level” and not enough to support some of the expensive, hi-tech research the organisation undertakes.

“There is a huge reputational damage, even now, even if we are not debarred, without a doubt, to me and to the organisation. That will take years to pull back,” Daszak said.

After EHA’s grant to work with China was terminated, Daszak said they applied for funds to work with countries in Southeast Asia, such as Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar.

EHA conducts its work in tropical and subtropical countries with high biodiversity and human activity, as most emerging diseases begin in these regions, he said.

Daszak said his colleagues working in Thailand had also been subject to social media attacks, and researchers in the country were worried about possible damage to their reputations or grant suspension if they published new information about viruses they found to be closely related to Sars-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

“We have got scientists in the countries that are most at risk of the next pandemic now out of work and unable to help prevent the next one,” Daszak said.

Chinese EVs face EU vote to raise tariffs to up to 45% on Friday

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-evs/article/3280414/chinese-evs-face-eu-vote-raise-tariffs-45-friday?utm_source=rss_feed

The European Union is planning to vote on Friday about whether to impose tariffs as high as 45 per cent on imported electric vehicles made in China, according to people familiar with the matter.

Member states have received a draft of the regulation for the proposed measures, the people said. The vote among the bloc’s member states was slightly delayed amid last-minute negotiations with Beijing to try to find a resolution that would avoid the new levies.

Talks between the two sides can continue even if member states adopt the tariffs, Bloomberg previously reported. The new date could still change, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The vote comes after a probe by the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, found that China unfairly subsidises its EV industry and that tariffs are needed so that European manufacturers are not at a disadvantage.

China denies any unfair activity on its part, and has threatened retaliatory tariffs on European products such as dairy, brandy and pork, as well as cars with large engines.

The vote would pave the way for new duties as high as about 35 per cent to kick in from November for five years unless a qualified majority – 15 member states representing 65 per cent of the bloc’s population – opposes the move. The new tariffs would be on top of the existing 10 per cent rate.

Member states including Germany and Spain have warned against imposing the tariffs, saying it could trigger a trade war. China is Europe’s second-largest trading partner and the two did €739 billion (US$825 billion) in trade last year.

European officials are confident the bloc has the numbers to approve the tariffs, Bloomberg reported earlier this week, but are wary about making predictions after Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez spoke out against the levies, while Germany has kept pressing for a deal with Beijing.

“I am not a fan of countervailing duties because this will likely lead to countermeasures and involve us in a tariff dispute, perhaps a tariff war, with China,” German economy minister Robert Habeck said on Monday. “I am working to find a political solution that will not drive us into a tariff war with China.”

The EU and China are discussing a negotiated solution that would include a mechanism to control prices and volumes of exports instead of the tariffs.

The EU has so far rejected proposals offered by China. The bloc’s executive arm has frequently said that any solution would have strict requirements: it would need to be in line with World Trade Organization rules, address the impact of China’s subsidies and be something the EU can monitor for compliance.

Ultra-cheap energy, Chinese cars drive EV revolution in Nepal

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3280418/ultra-cheap-energy-chinese-cars-drive-ev-revolution-nepal?utm_source=rss_feed

Taxi driver Surendra Parajuli’s decision to buy an electric cab would have been unthinkable a decade ago, when chronic power cuts left Nepalis unable to light their homes at night.

But a dam-building spree has led to dirt-cheap energy prices in a landlocked Himalayan republic otherwise entirely dependent on fossil fuel imports, meaning the switch has put more money in his pocket.

“It has meant huge savings for me,” Parajuli, the proud new owner of a battery-powered and Chinese-made BYD Atto 3, said in the capital Kathmandu.

“It gives 300km in a single charge and costs me a tenth of what petrol does. And it’s environmentally friendly.”

Kathmandu is ground zero of an incipient transport revolution set to see the clapped out cars that clog its traffic-snarled streets make way for emissions-free alternatives.

More than 40,000 electric vehicles are on the roads around the mountainous country, according to official estimates – a small fraction of the 6.2 million motor vehicles currently in service.

But demand is insatiable: more than a quarter of those vehicles were imported in the 12 months to July, a near-threefold increase from the previous year.

Neighbouring China, now the dominant player in electric vehicles globally, is supplying nearly 70 per cent of the market.

“EVs are genuinely suitable for Nepalis,” Yajya Raj Bhatt, a prospective buyer at an electric vehicle motor show, said.

“Before, we had to rely on petrol cars, but now we can drive independently.”

More than four in five Nepalis did not have access to electricity at the turn of the century, according to the International Energy Agency.

But rapid investment in dams, which generate 99 per cent of Nepal’s baseload power, has transformed the energy grid since.

Hydropower output has increased fourfold in the past eight years, according to government figures, while 95 per cent of the population now has access to electricity.

The country has already signed deals to export surplus power to coal-dependent India and has its sights set on future revenues by raising its current 3,200 megawatts of installed power generation capacity to 30,000 megawatts over the next decade.

Making electricity universal, and universally cheap, has the potential to jump-start an economy that has historically depended on remittances from Nepalis working abroad.

Kulman Ghising of the Nepal Electricity Authority said that the benefits have already been felt by setting the favourable conditions for widespread electric vehicle adoption.

Nepal is entirely dependent on imports from India to meet its fossil fuel needs, imposing additional costs on motorists, but Ghising said curbs on demand had saved the country around US$224 million.

“The EVs have great potential for us,” he added. “EVs in India and Bangladesh need to depend on coal, but in Nepal, it’s fully green energy,” he said.

Road transport accounts for just over five per cent of greenhouse gas emissions and has fuelled a worsening air pollution crisis.

Kathmandu was this year listed as one of the world’s most polluted cities for several days in April.

Experts say that getting more petrol-powered vehicles off the road will be a major step towards alleviating that problem.

Electric vehicles are subject to much lower import duties, and the government expects them to help Nepal reach its ambitious aim of becoming a net-zero greenhouse gas emitter by 2045.

Its plan aims to have electric vehicles account for 90 per cent of all private vehicle purchases by the end of the decade.

But not everyone is convinced that the advent of Nepal’s electric vehicle boom portends an environmentally friendly future.

Nepal’s ambitious hydropower plans are contentious, with campaigners warning that the construction of new dams risk damaging sensitive ecological areas.

The government this year approved a new policy allowing the construction of dams that could impact previously protected areas, including forests, nature reserves and tiger habitats

Hydropower projects also face the risk of damage from floods and landslides common in the country, both of which are increasing in frequency and severity because of climate change.

Campaigners also say the government, in its rush to embrace electric vehicles, has neglected to make proper plans for managing the sizeable electronic waste burden.

EV lithium-ion batteries contain materials that are hazardous to humans and the environment, and their disposal is costly.

“The government does not seem farsighted on this issue, it is just concerned with solving only immediate problems,” Nabin Bikash Maharjan of recycling enterprise Blue Waste to Value said.

“It is high time for the government to prioritise it. Otherwise it will create additional pollution.”

China beefs up computing power by 25% as AI race drives demand

https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/3280420/china-beefs-computing-power-25-ai-race-drives-demand?utm_source=rss_feed

Total computing power in China, a critical infrastructure element for processing data and performing digital tasks, grew 25 per cent in the first half of the year, driven by the needs of artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies.

As of June, computing capacity in the country reached 246 EFLOPS, or 246 quintillion floating-point operations per second, according to a report published on Saturday at the annual China Computational Power Conference in Zhengzhou, the capital of central Henan province. One quintillion is 1 followed by 18 zeros and is equivalent to a billion billions.

This represents a nearly 25 per cent growth from 197 EFLOPS a year before, according to data from last year’s conference, held in Yinchuan of Ningxia Hui autonomous region. If this pace continues, the world’s second-largest economy is on track to meet a target set last year to achieve total computing power of 300 EFLOPS by 2025.

Among the overall resources, the growth of intelligent computing power used in AI-related tasks surged 65 per cent, the 2024 report said, without revealing the exact size.

China remains the second-strongest computing powerhouse after the United States. The report, compiled by state-backed China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), showed that the US accounted for 32 per cent of the world’s total computing power of 910 EFLOPS as of the end of last year, higher than China’s 26 per cent. The report counts both government and commercial facilities.

Although the report did not provide updated data on geographical breakdown, Zhao Zhiguo, chief engineer at the Ministry of Information and Technology, said at the event that China “is among the world’s best”, according to state-backed newspaper Science and Technology Daily.

He said that the accelerated pace of digitalisation and intelligent transformation of various industries have created “more urgent need” for digital information infrastructure such as computing power facilities.

Zhao added that it is necessary to achieve greater breakthroughs in core technology, including “high-end chips, architecture design, large-language-model algorithms and high-speed transmission protocols.”

CAICT director Yu Xiaohui said that the challenge for China’s computing industry is that it’s still “fragmented”, which makes it a challenge to precisely match demand and supply.

To address regional imbalances in digital resources, Beijing in 2022 launched a project called Eastern Data and Western Computing to seek a balance between the more prosperous areas of eastern China and the energy-rich west. The plan includes building 10 computing clusters across the country.

Chinese drug maker Wuxi AppTec’s upbeat business update boosts stock despite US bill

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3280421/chinese-drug-maker-wuxi-apptecs-upbeat-business-update-boosts-stock-despite-us-bill?utm_source=rss_feed

Wuxi AppTec reported a surge in orders for drug development and manufacturing amid a push by US lawmakers for global pharmaceutical companies to sever ties with the Chinese service provider, pushing the stock to a record gain.

The Chinese drug research and contract manufacturer, in an investor presentation on Thursday, said its main chemistry business, which accounts for the bulk of the its revenue, remains robust, with increase in new projects and active customers in the first half of 2024.

The upbeat outlook sent the company’s shares higher in Hong Kong. It closed up 23.9 per cent on Friday, the most since its listing in 2018. The company’s shares listed in Shanghai also rose by the daily limit of 10 per cent. The broader market in Hong Kong also rose on Friday, with the Hang Seng Index adding 3.6 per cent.

The presentation offered a rare insight into how Wuxi has fared under intense political pressure and suggests limited impact on its actual business.

Wuxi and four other Chinese life sciences firms are the target of US legislation in the works that seeks to blacklist them and their US subsidiaries from accessing federally funded contracts. The bill, which has passed the US House, needs Senate approval before it can be signed into law by the president.

Morgan Stanley analysts led by Sean Wu, in a report to clients, said they were “impressed with Wuxi’s performance amid macro headwinds”.

The company’s executives also noted how the window for the proposed Biosecure Act to become law in the US is narrow as the Congress has limited days in session as the end of 2024 nears, the analysts wrote.

On the other hand, Wuxi highlighted broader trends it could benefit from, including a rebound in global biotech funding and “China biotech’s rising recognition in the global market”, as shown by growth in out-licensing deals and acquisitions.

One example is the ‘Tides’ business, which covers oligonucleotides and peptides – including the popular GLP-1 drugs for diabetes and weight loss. The unit achieved “unprecedented growth”, and Wuxi now makes eight out of 47 global peptide drugs in the clinical stage, according to presentation materials.

China urges Israel to ‘de-escalate’ after air strike kills Hezbollah leader in Lebanon

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3280423/china-urges-israel-de-escalate-after-air-strike-kills-hezbollah-leader-lebanon?utm_source=rss_feed

China called on Israel to take immediate actions to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East and issued a security alert asking its citizens to avoid travel to Lebanon as the killing of Hezbollah’s leader has driven the two sides closer to a full-scale war.

The warnings come after Hassan Nasrallah, the long-time leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah, was killed in a heavy Israeli bombardment that levelled multiple buildings in the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Friday.

“China is highly concerned about the relevant events and deeply worried about the escalation of regional tensions,” the Chinese foreign ministry said on Sunday.

“China opposes actions that infringe upon Lebanon’s sovereignty and security, opposes and condemns all actions that harm innocent civilians, and opposes any moves that intensify conflicts and lead to an escalation of the regional situation.”

“China urges the parties involved, especially Israel, to take immediate measures to de-escalate the situation and prevent the conflict from further expanding or getting out of control”.

In a video statement on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said eliminating Nasrallah was necessary to change the balance of power in the region and was essential to Israel’s broader military strategy, particularly in light of ongoing threats posed by Iranian-backed groups.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Nasrallah’s death “will not go unavenged” and announced five days of public mourning. Tehran also called for an emergency meeting with the United Nations Security Council, urging actions against Israel to avoid dragging the region into a full-scale war.

According to Reuters, Khamenei was taken to a secure location inside Iran following Nasrallah’s assassination.

Israel’s air strikes have continued since Nasrallah’s death, and the Israeli military said on Sunday that its targets included projectile launchers aimed at Israel.

More than 50,000 people have fled Lebanon into Syria, according to a UN report.

The Chinese embassy in Lebanon warned its citizens about escalating violence along the Lebanon-Israel border and significant casualties from recent air strikes, describing the situation in Lebanon as “severe”.

“We advise all Chinese citizens to pay close attention to the developments and refrain from travelling to Lebanon at this time. Those currently in the country are urged to evacuate or move to relatively safe areas as soon as possible,” the Chinese embassy said in a statement released on Saturday.

“Chinese nationals are advised not to travel to Lebanon and to evacuate or find safer locations if already present. Those remaining could face high security risks that may hinder assistance,” it added.

An Israeli security official said Israel has struck more than 1,000 Hezbollah targets, and “a very respectable portion” of Hezbollah’s missile stocks had been destroyed, according to Reuters.

Including Nasrallah, Israel’s military says it has killed eight of Hezbollah’s nine most senior military commanders this year, mostly in the past week, the report added.

The US Department of State also elevated its travel advisory for Lebanon to its highest level on Saturday, warning citizens not to visit the country “due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, unexploded landmines, and the risk of armed conflict”.

US citizens currently in Lebanon have been advised to leave while commercial flights are still available. It noted the “increased volatility following air strikes within Beirut and the volatile and unpredictable security situation throughout Lebanon” and warned that the Lebanese government was unable to guarantee the safety of Americans.

Meanwhile, Washington is assessing its military presence in the area. US President Joe Biden said he had instructed Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin to improve the country’s defence posture in the Middle East to minimise the risk of a wider regional conflict.

The escalation has increased fears that the conflict could spin out of control, potentially drawing in Iran, Hezbollah’s principal backer, as well as the US.

The United Nations warned of the potential repercussions, with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres expressing “grave concern” about the marked escalation in violence.

“This cycle of violence must stop now, and all sides must step back from the brink. The people of Lebanon, the people of Israel, as well as the wider region, cannot afford an all-out war,” said a statement by Guterres’ office on Saturday.

He called on all sides to reaffirm their commitment to fully adhere to a nearly two-decade-old Security Council resolution that called for an end to the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and to promptly halt hostilities.

Guterres also reiterated his demand for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the liberation of all hostages being held there.

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Singapore jails Chinese national who overstayed for almost 19 years

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3280409/singapore-jails-chinese-national-who-overstayed-almost-19-years?utm_source=rss_feed

A woman from China was jailed for six months and fined S$4,000 (US$3,125) on Friday for overstaying in Singapore for more than 18 years.

Chen Yueying, 54, pleaded guilty to one count under the Immigration Act for remaining in Singapore for 18 years, 10 months and one day from November 2005, after her special pass had expired.

Chen had been issued a special pass on November 2, 2005, permitting her to remain in Singapore until November 23, 2005, as she was initially asked to be a prosecution witness for an unidentified case.

When she was supposed to report for repatriation, she did not show up, instead staying in Singapore for almost 19 years until she turned herself in at Bukit Merah East Neighbourhood Police Centre on September 24 this year.

She was remanded and attended proceedings via video-link, sporting shoulder-length hair, glasses and a mask.

The court heard that this was Chen’s second offence. She was charged on September 16, 2005 for another immigration offence.

On September 23, 2005, she was jailed for 18 weeks and fined S$3,000, with six weeks’ jail in default.

After she was released from prison, she was given a special pass by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) issued on October 14, 2005, for her to be a prosecution witness for a police case.

The special pass was extended several times, with the last extension for her to leave Singapore by November 23, 2005, as she was no longer required as a prosecution witness.

On November 23, 2005, she was supposed to report to ICA’s repatriation branch to be repatriated.

However, she did not show up. Instead, she wanted to remain in Singapore to work and earn money. No mention was made in court by the prosecutor or by the woman herself of what work she did.

The ICA prosecutor on Friday asked for the maximum jail term of six months, saying Chen was a repeat offender with an “extremely long” period of overstay.

As for the fine in lieu of caning, he asked for an uplift of the S$3,000 fine that was last imposed on her.

Chen said nothing substantial in her mitigation, pleading only for leniency through a Mandarin interpreter.

She said she cannot pay the fine and will serve another eight weeks’ jail in default.

For overstaying in Singapore, she could have been jailed for up to six months. A male offender would have also faced at least three strokes of the cane, but because she cannot be caned as she is a woman, she faced a fine of up to S$6,000 in lieu of caning.

ICA said in a statement it would like to reiterate that the law treats overstaying as a serious offence, and that the penalties are “correspondingly severe”.

“ICA conducts rigorous and regular in-land enforcement checks with other law enforcement agencies such as the Singapore Police Force to arrest offenders, including overstayers,” said the spokesperson.

She added that the public must also do its part to deter overstaying.

“Employers and homeowners must exercise due diligence and ensure that prospective foreign employee or tenant’s status in Singapore is legal, before offering employment or renting out their premises,” said the spokesperson.

“This includes checking their original immigration or work pass, cross checking their particulars on their pass against their passport, and verifying the validity of their pass through the issuing authority’s website.”

Members of public should report suspected cases of immigration offenders to ICA at https://go.gov.sg/icafeedbackio, she added.

Harbourers or employers of immigration offenders face jail terms of up to 24 months and or a fine of up to S$6,000.

This story was first published by

Can China’s new ambassador to EU build bridges after doomed efforts in Israel?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3280372/can-chinas-new-ambassador-eu-build-bridges-after-doomed-efforts-israel?utm_source=rss_feed

A Chinese diplomat beams with satisfaction as an unlikely world leader smiles while leafing through a book dedicated to Xi Jinping Thought, plucked from a box on the desk that separates the pair.

The remarkable photo was taken a little over a year ago, in July 2023. The leader is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the diplomat is Cai Run, at that time the Chinese ambassador in Tel Aviv.

It was taken at a moment of relative stability in bilateral relations: Cai was brokering a visit to Beijing by Netanyahu that would have been designed to send a message to US President Joe Biden at a point when his relations with the Israeli government had come under strain.

Around about the same time, in a previously unreported effort to curry favour in Beijing, Netanyahu had sent a copy of his own memoir – Bibi: My Story – to the Chinese leader.

“If the war hadn’t happened, if October 7 [the Hamas attack on Israel] hadn’t happened, the massacre and the invasion that we’re in, then remember that Netanyahu would have visited China,” said Tuvia Gering, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council specialising in relations between China and Israel.

Had Netanyahu gone to Beijing, Gering said, Israel’s ties with China would probably have been upgraded to the “strategic” level, as they were with the Palestinian Authority in June of last year, “because they always like to raise and match”.

“Cai Run perhaps could have come out as a hero overseeing this upgrade in relations,” Gering added.

Fast forward to today: China’s relationship with Israel is in tatters after Beijing became the most prominent global supporter of Palestine following the invasion of Gaza.

Cai, meanwhile, landed in Brussels on Friday to take up his post as China’s ambassador to the European Union, charged with recharging Beijing’s standing there.

While the situation is less dramatic than the one he left in Tel Aviv, war will also be top of the agenda of every meeting Cai has as the EU’s efforts to support Ukraine run up against China’s close ties to Moscow.

Last week, EU sanctions envoy David O’Sullivan said “80 per cent of hi-tech parts reach Russia through Chinese territory” and outlined a plan to punish European subsidiaries in Southeast Asia who are flouting EU embargoes by indirectly selling to Russia through Chinese buyers. Beijing has repeatedly denied supplying weapons or parts to either side in the war.

A brewing trade war will also be prominent in Cai’s in-tray, with Beijing working furiously to convince the bloc’s members to vote against tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles while launching retaliatory shots on a near-weekly basis.

Cai’s predecessor Fu Cong had been frustrated in his attempts to bypass European concerns about the relationship with Russia in an effort to resurrect a stalled bilateral investment pact.

He succeeded in keeping Chinese firms off the EU’s sanctions list for several months before the scale of re-exports of blacklisted goods to Russia became too big to ignore.

Fu was also broadly liked in Brussels, where he was seen as gregarious and outgoing, even if he stuck to the party line.

Cai, on the other hand, is regarded as a taciturn operator who was never seen without a translator in Israel and has rarely been heard speaking English in public, despite spending years as a minister councillor at the embassy in Washington.

Gering, who monitored Cai’s time in Tel Aviv closely, said he was a “quintessential diplomat in the new [Xi Jinping] era … first a party man, and then a diplomat”.

“He was able to foster some good ties with the higher ups. I think this will also be his focus in Europe – finding these people that are in positions of power that are relevant to Chinese interests,” Gering said, pointing to Cai’s pre-war efforts to bolster cooperation with tourist groups and start-up incubators.

Brussels has taken a decidedly hawkish turn towards China in recent years, leaving Cai with an uphill challenge in manoeuvring around the city’s power structures.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – who has just started a second five-year term – is pushing the bloc to de-risk the relationship, while her proposed team of commissioners has been instructed to place economic security at the heart of everything they do.

Cai may also struggle to make major inroads with the bloc’s next top diplomat, former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. She is a fierce critic of Russia and many expect her to see ties with Beijing through the lens of its close relations with Moscow.

However, at a closed-door meeting with lawmakers from her centrist Renew political group at the European Parliament in Strasbourg last week, Kallas made clear that China should not be lumped into the same basket as Russia, according to people who were present.

At least one door in Brussels may be a little easier to nudge open: the next European Council President Antonio Costa was the Portuguese leader during Cai’s last stint in Europe as Beijing’s envoy in Lisbon. That period coincided with significant Chinese investment into a broke Portuguese economy.

Cai’s appointment “seems geared toward leveraging [the pair’s] past connection to strengthen ties and foster a more favourable environment for China within the EU”, according to a recent profile of the diplomat from the Mercator Institute of China Studies.

The think tank’s analysts wrote that this may mean he focuses more on the European Council, which represents member states, and individual governments rather than the commission, the bloc’s executive, “which Beijing views as increasingly hostile”.

“His appointment signals Beijing’s intent to explore new personal channels for dialogue with European leaders, despite the overall cooling of EU-China relations,” they added.

Los Angeles Chinatown fire leaves 50 homeless, residents angry over ignoring warnings

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3280407/los-angeles-chinatown-fire-leaves-50-homeless-residents-angry-over-ignoring-warnings?utm_source=rss_feed

When Andy Liang stepped outside his apartment building to investigate the fumes he smelled in the early morning of September 13, he saw there was a small fire at the abandoned construction site next door on Bunker Hill Avenue in Los Angeles.

Liang turned around and walked back into the second-floor apartment that he shared with his parents. Their apartment faced the construction site, but this wasn’t the first fire that had broken out next door.

“I thought it was nothing serious until it started spreading,” Liang said.

The fire jumped to a neighbouring three-storey apartment building, injuring six people and displacing 50 individual tenants and families. Liang, who called 911 after the blaze started growing, roused his parents and evacuated when the flames threatened his unit.

The construction site has been an ongoing issue for the neighbourhood, attracting squatters and forcing first responders to put out a number of small fires there after it was abandoned at the end of 2022.

Wilson, who declined to give his last name because of privacy concerns, said he moved into a unit on New Depot Street with a friend and her three children about three months ago. Right away, he said, he noticed squatters living nearby in the construction site. Every night when he was trying to sleep, he’d hear people moving around or making noise.

“I had the feeling that it wasn’t safe,” said the 60-year-old. An immigrant from China, he has lived in Los Angeles for 40 years.

Wilson said the owner of his building called the police several times about the squatters, but nothing ever happened. About a month ago, Wilson said, he saw the fire department at the construction site battling a small fire and chatted with one of the firefighters. They told him that they had been there “many times”.

Neighbours on Bunker Hill Avenue and New Depot Street told the Los Angeles Times they had previously voiced their concerns about the construction site to council member Eunisses Hernandez’s office, the city’s Building and Safety Department and the Los Angeles Police Department.

The tenants said officials told them that the city could not act on their complaints about the campers because the tenants did not own the construction site, so they did not have a say over who could or could not be on the property.

On the morning of the fire, Wilson said, his roommate thought she heard rain. But when she looked outside, she saw there were flames everywhere.

After running out to safety together with his friend and her children, Wilson said, he remembers thinking that the blaze wouldn’t reach his building. But then saw the flames get blown over by the wind.

Around 8am Daisy Ma and other staff members of the Chinatown Service Centre arrived to find the 50 tenants, a majority of whom were seniors, standing or sitting across the street from the burned buildings in shock and some in tears.

Recognising that many of the individuals and families whose homes were engulfed in flames were clients of their health centre, staffers there stepped in to translate for their clients and other tenants whose first language is Cantonese, said Ma, chief government and community relations officer for the non-profit. That enabled the residents to interact with the Red Cross, city officials and others who stepped in to help the victims obtain food, clothing, medicine and a place to sleep.

Many of the units were red-tagged and could not be re-entered by the tenants, Ma said, so the non-profit worked with firefighters to recover the residents’ medications, canes and walking frames, as well as state and federal representatives to obtain new copies of their Social Security numbers and naturalisation certificates.

Many of the displaced residents spent the night after the fire at the Alpine Recreational Centre, which the Red Cross and the city’s Emergency Management Department jointly opened. After that the group was split, with some staying temporarily at the Best Western Plus Dragon Gate Inn or the Royal Pagoda Motel.

Three displaced tenants who needed specific medical care – for example, routine catheter cleaning – were temporarily placed in a rehabilitation centre where they could receive 24-hour medical attention.

Ma said it’s been difficult for the fire victims to be separated from one another and away from their community. The feelings were compounded by the arrival of the Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar.

The festival is a time to gather with family, share a meal and wish for luck or prosperity. This year, the festival was observed four days after the fire; the Chinatown Service Centre and the Red Cross coordinated with Best Western to use the hotel’s meeting space to host a dinner that day for the whole group of fire victims.

Liang said his parents are staying at the Best Western and will be moved to the Royal Pagoda Motel at the end of the month.

They’re “holding on,” he said, especially his dad, who was recovering from colon-cancer surgery he underwent two days before the fire.

A week after the fire, Liang returned to University of California, Santa Barbara for his second-year with some financial help provided by the First Chinese Baptist Church and the computer he recovered from his burned unit.

He calls his parents daily to check in on their situation.

Wilson has been living in his friend’s house in Temple City. His Chevrolet coupe, which he bought only a year ago, burned up in the flames. His insurance company is willing to cover a portion of the car’s cost, but Wilson still has to pay the remaining US$10,000 on his car loan.

His passport, along with the tools he uses for his job as a handyman, were inside the car and were also destroyed.

What to know from the UN: China, Russia have their say, and a frog metaphor makes a cameo

https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-un-general-assembly-guide-d7c5688de44e59be538dff0b74858644Grenada's Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

2024-09-29T02:37:52Z

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — China and Russia got their turns at the U.N. General Assembly podium on Saturday, but — per usual — their top leaders didn’t speak. Instead, they turned to their foreign ministers, WANG YI and SERGEY LAVROV.

Wang’s speech, per usual for China at the U.N., didn’t break much new ground. He weighed in on the importance of national sovereignty — a frequent talking point for Beijing — and insisted, as he usually does, that Taiwan incontrovertibly belongs to China.

Wang warned fellow leaders against an “expansion of the battlefield” in Russia’s war with Ukraine and said the Beijing government remains committed to shuttle diplomacy and efforts to push the conflict toward its end. He warned against other nations “throwing oil on the fire or exploiting the situation for selfish gains,” a likely reference to the United States.

Lavrov, meanwhile, waded into the topic of nukes three days after Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN aired a shift in his country’s nuclear doctrine, “I’m not going to talk here about the senselessness and the danger of the very idea of trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power, which is what Russia is,” he said.

Later, holding court at a news conference, he accused the United States of seeking “to preserve their hegemony and to govern everything.” He pointed to NATO’s deepening relations with four partners – New Zealand, Australia, South Korea and Japan — as well as the so-called Quad which groups the U.S., India, Australia and Japan.

From the podium

ELOQUENCE BLUE RIBBON: The leader of Grenada, DICKON MITCHELL, went personal in his speech about resilience, spinning it into a mini-memoir that started with his birth in a small hillside village without running water or electricity. He went on to tell the story of his nation — and its people’s resilience — through his eyes. “My personal resilience, in the face of the many difficulties that crossed my path over the years, allowed me to achieve the dream I sought. Finally, I was in a position to give back to my community,” he said. But he emphasized: “There is a limit to resilience.” And he called for the people of smaller nations like his to have more access to digital education, skills training “and the tools they need to compete in the global economy.”

PERVASIVE PESSIMISM: “The Middle East is going into one of its darkest hours,” Norwegian Prime Minister ESPEN BARTH EIDE said in his speech. He called out Israeli leader BENJAMIN NETANYAHU’s remarks that people are either with Israel or against it. “We have seen this film before. I didn’t like the ending.”

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“We are just looking at managing these crises rather than solving them.”

—PRINCE FAISAL BIN FARHAN AL-SAUD, foreign minister of Saudi Arabia

Voices you might have missed

“Empowering women is empowering prosperity for all.”

—Indonesian Foreign Minister RETNO LESTARI PRIANSARI MARSUDI

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“The increasingly evident interrelationships among global challenges highlight the need for member states, today more than ever, to work together to overcome difficulties.”

—LUCA BECCARI, foreign minister of San Marino

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“If you try too hard to get rid of a pesky frog, it will end up settling in your own pond.”

—Deputy Prime Minister ABDOULAYE MAIGA of Mali, citing a saying by national literary figure Amadou Hampâté Ba. The reference to unintended consequences came during Maiga’s discussion of regional politics.

Some

thing you might not know

YOU HAD ONE JOB: Ever feel like you have to do everything at work? You’ve got nothing on Grenada’s Mitchell. For the record, this is his title: “Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Physical Development, Public Utilities, Civil Aviation and Transportation and Minister for National Security, Home Affairs, Public Administration, Information and Disaster Management.” Hate to see his out-of-office note.

One notable number

Number of years China’s communist government will have been in power as of Tuesday, as noted by Wang in his speech: 75

Quotable

“If we carry on like this, the state of the world is only going to get worse.”

—Indian Foreign Minister SUBRAHMANYAM JAISHANKAR

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“We’re all used to third-rate series and YouTube videos. We’re being taught to receive information in this simplistic way, forcing us to forget the truths which many humanists and great authors penned in the past.”

—Belarusian Foreign Minister MAXIM RYZHENKOV, going on to mention works by writers O. Henry, Graham Greene and Kurt Vonnegut

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“Science without conscience is the ruin of the soul.”

—AMADOU OURY BAH, president of Guinea

Up next

After five days of unceasing oratory, Sunday is a day off for the United Nations and the General Assembly leaders’ speeches. The final slate of speakers, which convenes Monday, includes North Korea and Syria.

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AP writers Edith M. Lederer and Ted Anthony contributed. See more of AP’s coverage of the U.N. General Assembly at https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations

China’s anxious youth, with no plans to marry, buy a flat or save, focus on life’s needs

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3280244/chinas-anxious-youth-no-plans-marry-buy-flat-or-save-focus-lifes-needs?utm_source=rss_feed

“Since I live with my parents, I don’t need to pay rent. Now that I’m single, I have no plans to get married or buy a flat,” said 30-year-old Terry Huang.

The sentiment from the operations manager at an advertising company in Guangzhou in southern China’s Guangdong province points directly to the ongoing waning levels of consumption in China, particularly in a property market that has continued to drag down the world’s second-largest economy.

Huang and his 32-year-old colleague, though, have spent about 1,000 yuan (US$142) between them on attending three concerts this year.

They have also travelled to the Yangtze River Delta and to the nearby southern province of Guizhou, spending another 4,000 yuan each.

“The money I earn is just enough for my expenses, and I haven’t saved much over the past two years,” added Huang.

According to the 2024 Youth Lifestyles Report released by China Newsweek magazine at the end of August, almost 80 per cent of respondents had no plans to buy property this year and would only pay for necessities.

A majority of young Chinese consumers have seen their incomes remain stable or decrease this year, prompting a shift away from chasing brand names, and instead paying only for “essential, discounted, and emotionally rewarding products”, according to the China Newsweek survey.

The survey interviewed 7,725 people across China aged between 16 and 40, with 48.5 from first-tier cities.

The survey showed that in 2024, about 40 per cent of respondents expected their annual disposable income to remain unchanged, while nearly another 40 per cent anticipated a decrease compared to last year.

Over 14.6 per cent reported a significant decline in income, while only 3.4 per cent reported considerable growth.

In terms of savings, 17.6 per cent had no savings, while 55.5 per cent had savings below 200,000 yuan (US$28,357).

As for average monthly living expenses, 78.8 per cent spent less than 5,000 yuan, while only 4.3 per cent reported expenses exceeding 10,000 yuan.

Only 7 per cent had already bought or planned to buy a home within the year, while 79.9 per cent said they did not intend to spend on real estate this year.

When asked which items they spend most on, most respondents indicated spending on food and beverages.

At 37.1 per cent, catering and food topped the list of categories of consumer goods the respondents would be willing to spend more on, followed by travel, learning and training, performances and exhibitions and medical and health.

But they would cut back on spending on clothing, shoes and bags, as well as beauty and cosmetic surgery, according to 45.8 per cent and 35.2 per cent of respondents, respectively.

“Whether it is necessarily needed” topped the list of considerations for spending at 83.9 per cent, while 46.7 per cent would be attracted by big enough discounts and 44.1 per cent care about whether the product could provide emotional value.

Only 8.3 and 4.1 per cent, respectively, would be willing to pay extra for environmentally friendly products and brand premiums.

“I am a fitness enthusiast and hope to become a fitness instructor. Most of my income goes toward fitness because it makes me feel energetic and different,” said 21-year-old Guangzhou-based barista Wang Jingyi.

“However, I save on other expenses, including luxury goods and cosmetics.”

In terms of top travel destinations, niche domestic destinations topped the list in the survey at 41 per cent, followed by inner-city attractions, nearby counties, popular domestic destinations and the surrounding countryside, with only 13 per cent choosing popular overseas countries.

Data from online travel company Trip showed that hotel bookings and orders for tickets to visit scenic locations grew by 8 per cent and 151 per cent year on year, respectively, during the five-day Labour Day holiday in May.

“Smaller city” have also become a popular destination keywords on Chinese Instagram-like social media platform Xiaohongshu in the first half of the year, with the fourth-tier cities of Yuncheng in the central Shanxi province, Bijie in Guizhou province and Quzhou in the eastern Zhejiang province the most popular travel destinations for China’s youth.

The survey results reflected the consumption attitudes and trends of young Chinese people, according to David Wong, a lecturer in the Department of Management at the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, which makes it more difficult to revive domestic demand and may also affect foreign investment in China’s consumer market.

“With low income and employment stability, young people will not make long-term investments or large-scale consumption, and more funds will be used for basic living expenses and enjoyment consumption,” said Wong.

Career prospects for young people in China have dimmed amid the ongoing economic downturn, and in August, the revised jobless rate for the 16-24 age group, excluding students, rose to 18.8 per cent from .

August was the first month since a entered China’s job market.

The unemployment rate for the 25-29 age group, excluding college students, also rose to 6.9 per cent in August from 6.5 per cent a month earlier.

China’s Xi honours science pioneers to mark 75th anniversary of nation’s founding

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3280400/chinas-xi-honours-science-pioneers-mark-75th-anniversary-nations-founding?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for extensive efforts to push forward endeavours to build the nation to a modernised superpower.

Xi made the comments when awarding national medals and honorary titles on Sunday as a part of a celebration to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1.

Wang Yongzhi, a pioneer of China’s manned space programme, was awarded the Medal of the Republic, the highest honorary medal granted by the central government. Wang died in June at age 91.

China has spearheaded technological advancement to power economic growth and gain a stronger position in its tech rivalry with the US.

Wang Zhenyi, a pathophysiologist renowned for breakthroughs in the treatment of leukaemia, Li Zhensheng, a geneticist who specialises in the genetics of wheat, and war hero Huang Zongde were awarded the Medal of the Republic.

The space sector is seen as a priority in China’s heated rivalry with the US. China has also ramped up innovation efforts in seed science, considered a weak link in its efforts to raise crop production and ensure agricultural security.

Former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff was awarded the Friendship Medal, the highest honour bestowed to foreign nationals. She is now the President of the New Development Bank, a multinational bank under the Brics bloc of emerging economies.

More to follow...

‘We saw this coming’: citizens react to China increasing its retirement age

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3280251/we-saw-coming-citizens-react-china-increasing-its-retirement-age?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s government has announced it is lifting the retirement age for workers. The changes set to go into effect from January 1, 2025, are seen as an attempt to mitigate the effects of a rapidly ageing society and slow down the draining of pension funds.

About half of all provincial administrative regions across the nation recorded pension fund surpluses that could be turned over to the central government in 2023. Of these, only four – Guangdong, Beijing, Jiangsu and Anhui – were each able to hand in at least 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion).

The Post spoke with local residents to hear what they had to say about the policy change.

Japan Airlines woos tourists from US, China and other nations with free domestic flights

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3280405/japan-airlines-woos-tourists-us-china-and-other-nations-free-domestic-flights?utm_source=rss_feed

Japan is a popular spot for tourists, and a new initiative will make it easier – and more affordable – to visit than ever before.

Japan Airlines is offering free domestic flights to tourists from the US, Canada, Mexico, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, according to a recent announcement on its website.

It will also be available for tourists from Vietnam, the Philippines Indonesia, India, Taiwan and mainland China.

To claim the free tickets, passengers must book round-trip international flights with the same airline and the domestic flights must be booked in the same reservation as the international flights.

A stopover fee of US$100 will be charged to travellers from the US, Canada, Mexico and China who plan to stay in their first destination for more than 24 hours.

A spokesperson for Japan Airlines said that “no end date has been set” for the initiative.

The new initiative means lesser-known cities and towns will become more accessible.

Grace Cheng, a travel blogger based in New York, previously said that tourists visiting Japan often make the mistake of only going to the capital, Tokyo, which does not fully represent how broad and versatile the culture is.

Tokyo has become increasingly popular in recent years. In 2023, the number of international visitors to the city reached a record high of 19.54 million, according to data tracking website Statista.

That same year, the value of tourism expenditure by international visitors was around 5.31 trillion yen (US$37 billion), the website said.

“Tokyo is not Japan,” Cheng said. “And you need to explore the other cities to actually have a sense of what Japan is like.”

Cheng recommends visiting Sapporo in the Hokkaido prefecture in the north of Japan. She said it is often more affordable than the capital and has friendly locals.

Meanwhile, Harper’s Bazaar Singapore suggests visiting Kanazawa on the east coast of Japan’s Honshu island for its Edo-era architecture, historic tea-houses, and traditional Japanese artists, also known as geishas.

The outlet also named several other popular locations, including Naoshima, an island town in the Seto Inland Sea.

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China works to keep the peace in East Africa as security issues threaten investments

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3280187/china-works-keep-peace-east-africa-security-issues-threaten-investments?utm_source=rss_feed

An attack on a private Chinese gold mining company in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in July, reportedly carried out by local militia, “left several Chinese nationals dead or missing”.

It was not an isolated incident.

Security issues have become a growing concern for Beijing as China expands trade and investment projects in African countries under its Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese nationals are being targeted in attacks, as are Chinese economic interests.

As a result, Beijing has been taking a more proactive role in peace and security across the continent – seen most recently in a deal signed in early September with 14 countries that are members of the Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation, to address new challenges in law enforcement and security.

The deal followed the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit in Beijing, where Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to train 1,000 police and law enforcement officers in Africa and provide police equipment to African countries.

This recent deal adds to dozens of existing public security and law enforcement agreements that China has with African nations, linked to China’s Global Security Initiative launched by Xi in 2022.

However, one country which refused to sign the security cooperation memorandum in Beijing was the DRC, despite its being the location of the July attack. The DRC said it would not sign due to the East African Community member countries’ lack of condemnation of Rwanda’s role in the ongoing conflict in the eastern DRC.

The DRC is rich in copper, lithium and gold, and is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, a critical component in lithium-ion batteries for electric cars and ­mobile phones. As such, it has attracted many Chinese companies.

But those companies have paid a high price for their investment, especially in eastern DRC, which has been plagued with violence and instability for the past three decades. Recently this has included a series of kidnappings and killings of Chinese and Congolese workers.

Beijing sent a team of security experts to the DRC in 2022 when the situation worsened, and offered to send criminal investigators to Nigeria after a rise in kidnappings and attacks on Chinese people there.

Francois Vrey, a professor emeritus of military science and research coordinator at the Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University, said East Africa hosted major Chinese investments – in both infrastructure and industry.

“East African littoral countries are the ocean outlets that connect China’s economy to the resource-rich African countries – both coastal and landlocked,” Vrey said.

So any instability in the countries on Africa’s east coast threatens the logistics of China’s trade with the continent.

Paul Nantulya, a China specialist at the National Defence University’s Africa Centre for Strategic Studies in Washington, said the China-East Africa security deal represented a push towards institutionalising Chinese engagement with African policing systems.

He said what started out as assistance with law enforcement training has grown deeper, with links between China and African policing institutions.

“China has significant investment portfolios in East Africa and also has security stakes in the region,” Nantulya said.

The push to establish links with regional policing bodies has been stated in nearly every FOCAC outcome document since 2012, but now this is taking shape, particularly after the 2021 FOCAC summit in Dakar, Senegal, according to Nantulya.

China has been engaging in Africa’s police and law enforcement for many years, he said, as a way to protect its expanding economic engagements, particularly state-owned enterprises which appear to be investing in unstable and fragile environments.

China also aims to shape African policing architectures, practices and policies, according to Nantulya, and wants to “secure African support in apprehending Chinese nationals wanted back in China for one or other reason given by the Chinese government”.

According to a 2023 study conducted by Nantulya, more than 2,000 African police and law enforcement personnel received training in China between 2018 and 2021. In that time, Beijing also negotiated extradition treaties with more than a dozen African countries.

Ethiopia and China’s public security ministry signed a cooperation framework to protect “major Chinese-assisted projects in the country”, such as the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway.

In neighbouring Kenya, the government worked with China to set up an elite police force to protect the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway.

Between 2000 and 2023, China advanced US$3.8 billion in loans for Africa’s public administration, according to Boston University’s Global Development Policy Centre. Part of the money went into the construction of police stations and training schools, the purchase of equipment for police and immigration, and the building of national security networks and surveillance systems.

Vrey at Stellenbosch University said the idea was that the host African government is helped to build the capacity to police its own country and so extend stability and security that serve Chinese economic interests.

“Military intervention is expensive and controversial so building policing capacity is a strategic initiative to avoid military entrapment. Here the events in Sudan demonstrate crisis behaviour to extract citizens and placing investments at risk,” Vrey said, referring to China’s evacuation of 1,300 of its citizens from Sudan last year after fighting broke out between rival groups.

According to Dr Ilaria Carrozza, a senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, China’s interest in Africa’s police and law enforcement focuses on expanding influence and securing political interests.

“Beijing promotes its policing models, which emphasise state control and security,” Carrozza said.

China provides training, equipment and infrastructure to African police forces, sometimes supporting regimes accused of human rights violations, she said.

“This cooperation strengthens ties with African governments while raising concerns about the potential erosion of democratic principles and human rights on the continent,” she said. Concerns have been raised by human rights groups over China’s Africa police training programmes.

East Africa hosts several Chinese infrastructure projects and Chinese nationals, “so aiding law enforcement in the region is mainly a way for China to protect its economic interests”, Carrozza added.

China-Africa specialist David Shinn, a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, said Chinese nationals had been subjected to a growing number of criminal or terrorist-related attacks.

“Better trained African police and military could reduce these attacks,” Shinn said. “China also sees the military and police training as a way to increase the sales of military equipment to African countries and to maintain contact with an important part of African society.”

China mother wins online applause for pouring water on son after he wilfully wet classmates

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3280293/china-mother-wins-online-applause-pouring-water-son-after-he-wilfully-wet-classmates?utm_source=rss_feed

A mother in eastern China poured water on her primary-school-aged son multiple times as a form of punishment after he doused his classmates at school, sparking applause online.

Nearly 6 million people on Douyin viewed the clip of the mother dumping water on her son, who was standing outside their housing block in Zhejiang province.

Identified by her Douyin account name, @lanxichen, she instructed her son to stand closer to their second-floor flat window while she continuously poured water on him from a small basin.

Despite her son’s protests, she insisted on carrying out the punishment.

When the boy began screaming “No!”, she asked him: “Why not? Didn’t you say this was fun?”

The mother was punishing her son because a teacher had called her earlier that day to report that her son had thrown water on his classmates from the school’s third floor, in addition to tossing milk cartons at them.

He claimed he saw his classmates horseplaying and thought it looked like fun.

As a consequence, the mother decided to “let him experience the water as if he were a victim.”

“Did you think about the kids downstairs when you threw water at them?” she asked her son when he complained that he was cold.

She ceased pouring water on her son once he expressed remorse.

Her teaching method garnered widespread support online.

“This is the best parenting I have ever seen. The mother was not venting her frustration but calmly teaching her son through experience and reason,” remarked one user on Douyin.

Another added: “Nobody loves kids as much as their mothers. She was doing this for his own good.”

However, some questioned whether the mother’s punishment was “too harsh”.

In response to those criticisms, the mother asked: “What if next time he thinks tossing stones at people is fun?”

Similar instances of tough love have also received acclaim online.

In 2022, a person shared on Facebook how two parents in Taiwan informed their rebellious sons that they would cancel their family trip if the children continued to be loud and disruptive on a train.

Believing their parents were bluffing, the boys persisted in their disobedience. The individual reported witnessing the parents purchase four return tickets after disembarking.

When the boys began to plead with their parents to change their minds, the children received a firm “no”. One parent stated: “We just gave you both a chance.”

The poster concluded: “I believe these kids will never misbehave on public transportation again.”

Japan a Good Fit for Chinese Intellectuals, Investors

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/japan-a-good-fit-for-chinese-intellectuals-investors/7773913.html

Chinese migrants are going all over the world, from Mexico to Thailand and beyond.

But one country has become increasingly popular among Chinese migrants: Japan.

Many Chinese who choose to move to Japan are wealthy or highly educated. They like the country’s ease of living, rich culture and immigration policies that favor highly skilled professionals.

Intellectuals

Jia Jia is a writer and speaker at the University of Tokyo. Eight years ago, he was briefly detained in China on suspicion of writing a call for China’s top leader to resign.

Jia planned to move to the United States. But after experiencing the coronavirus outbreak in China, he was in a hurry to leave, and his American visa application was delayed. So, he chose to go to Japan instead.

“In the United States, illegal immigration is particularly controversial. When I went to Japan, I was a little surprised. I found that their immigration policy is actually more relaxed than I thought,” Jia told The Associated Press.

Li Jinxing is a Christian human rights lawyer who moved to Japan in 2022. Li sees similarities to a time over one hundred years ago. Back then, Chinese intellectuals such as Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of modern China, went to Japan to study how the country modernized.

“On one hand, we hope to find inspiration and direction in history,” Li said of himself and like-minded Chinese in Japan. “On the other hand, we also want to observe what a democratic country with rule of law is like. We’re studying Japan. How does its economy work, its government work?”

Changing immigration policy

Over the past 10 years, Tokyo has softened its position on immigration. The policy change was a result of the country’s low birthrates and ageing population.

Foreigners now make up about two percent of its population of 125 million. But the Tokyo-based National Institute of Population and Social Security Research says that percentage is expected to reach 12 percent by 2070.

Chinese are the most numerous newcomers to Japan. Of the 3 million foreigners living in Japan last year, Chinese represented about 822,000, government data shows. That number is up from 762,000 a year ago.

In 2022, China’s “zero COVID” public health policies led many of the country’s young or wealthy citizens to leave. There is even a term for it: “runxue,” using the English word “run” to suggest “running away” to places considered safer and wealthier.

For intellectuals like Li and Jia, Japan offers greater freedom than China. But for others, such as wealthy investors and businesspeople, Japan offers property protections.

Property protections

A report by investment migration company Henley & Partners says nearly 14,000 millionaires left China last year. That is the most of any country in the world. Japan was a popular destination for Chinese millionaires.

Q. Edward Wang teaches history at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. Wang said a major reason is concern about the security of wealth in China.

“Protection of private property, which is the cornerstone of a capitalist society, that piece is missing in China,” Wang said.

In addition, the weakening Japanese yen makes buying property and other local assets a good deal.

And while the Japanese economy has not had major growth recently, China’s economy is facing problems. The property market is in crisis and stock prices have stayed at the level they were at in the late 2000s.

“If you are just going to Japan to preserve your money,” Wang said, “then definitely you will enjoy your time in Japan.”

Internet-based business leaders are among those leaving China after Communist Party crackdowns on the technology industry. For example, billionaire Jack Ma, a founder of e-commerce company Alibaba, took a position at Tokyo College, part of the highly respected University of Tokyo.

So many wealthy Chinese have bought apartments in Tokyo’s costly buildings that some areas have been called “Chinatowns,” or “Digital Chinatowns.” The term describes how many of the homeowners in those places work in high-tech industries.

“Life in Japan is good,” said Guo Yu, an engineer who retired early after working at ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

Guo does not concern himself with politics. He loves Japan’s snow in the winter and is a “superfan” of its hot springs. He owns homes in Tokyo and in other places.

Like Guo, many Chinese moving to Japan are wealthy and educated. The Japanese government has been careful about who it lets stay, placing importance on people to fill labor shortages for factories, construction and health care for the aged.

“It is crucial that Japan becomes an attractive country for foreign talent so they will choose to work here,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said earlier this year.

False warnings

Chinese ballet dancer Du Hai said he has found a chance to use his talent in Japan. Leading a class one recent weekend, Du showed dance positions to a class of Japanese students.

Du liked Japan’s large ballet community, filled with professional groups and talented dancers. But he was also worried about warnings that Japanese people were unfriendly.

Such warnings turned out to be false, he said with a laugh. Now, Du is considering getting Japanese citizenship.

“Of course, I enjoy living in Japan very much now,” he said.

I’m John Russell.

And I’m Ashley Thompson.

Yuri Kageyama and Dake Kang reported this story for the Associated Press. John Russell adapted it for VOA Learning English.

_________________________________________

Words in This Story

migrant – n. a person who moves from one country, place, or locality to another

application – n. a formal, written request

controversial – adj. describes a discussion marked especially by the expression of opposing views

relaxed –adj. able to change to account for people’s needs

intellectual – n. a person who enjoys study, reflection, and careful thought

inspiration – n. the act of influencing or suggesting opinions

cornerstone – n. a basic element, a foundation

asset –n. a thing that has value that can be measured

preserve – v. to maintain; to keep alive, intact, or free from decay

crackdown –n. a campaign against a group or a behavior that uses law enforcement and strong punishments

crucial – adj. important

attractive – adj. arousing interest

talent –n. the ability to do a job in a skilled and effective way

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China’s military in ‘competition for partnerships’ with US in Southeast Asia

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3280378/chinas-military-competition-partnerships-us-southeast-asia?utm_source=rss_feed

Southeast Asia is playing an ever-growing part in China’s investment and diplomatic decisions, particularly as Beijing’s rivalry with Washington heats up. In the final instalment of a four-part series on China’s ties with Asean, Hayley Wong looks at Beijing’s efforts to expand defence cooperation in the region.

China is looking to forge closer defence ties with its Southeast Asian neighbours as it engages in a “competition for partnerships” with the United States in the region.

It comes as tensions have been soaring in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, where run-ins between Chinese and Philippine coastguards have intensified near disputed islands.

In Southeast Asia, China has traditionally maintained more in-depth military relations with Cambodia and Laos. But this year it has sought to deepen ties with countries like Indonesia, Singapore and East Timor.

Song Zhongping, a military commentator and former People’s Liberation Army instructor, said Beijing saw a growing need to build political trust with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

He said the US was holding more joint exercises in the South China Sea targeting “island disputes and China”, and that it had “persuaded regional countries to get into confrontations” – a move he said was aimed at “slowing down” China’s development.

China has repeatedly accused the US of emboldening its treaty ally the Philippines to conduct resupply missions to navy outposts near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal and more recently Sabina Shoal.

The PLA has also stepped up patrols in the South China Sea, including in response to drills and other military activities by the US and its allies. Beijing claims almost all of the resource-rich waterway as its territory – claims that overlap with those of Asean members Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.

There has been concern over the activities of Chinese military, coastguard and research vessels in the South China Sea – especially those within other countries’ exclusive economic zones.

Meanwhile, Washington has sought to boost its defence cooperation with Indo-Pacific allies like Manila and Tokyo.

Six Asean members took part in the biennial US-led Rim of the Pacific maritime exercise in June and July, but China was excluded due to its “reluctance to adhere to international rules or norms and standards”.

Chad Sbragia, a researcher at the Institute for Defence Analyses and a former US deputy assistant secretary of defence for China, said the current atmosphere in the region was largely defined by competition between the two great powers.

“It’s competition for partnerships, for alliances, and that’s just going to intensify and could get pretty ugly,” he said.

“I don’t like characterising countries by leaning one way or the other … but you are definitely seeing some leaning a little bit one way, and it’s just going to naturally fall out,” he said, giving the examples of China’s relationships with Thailand and Cambodia.

China’s joint exercises with Asean countries have tended to be about sending political signals and providing security support for less developed states. But the annual Falcon Strike exercise between China and Thailand, a US treaty ally, was in the spotlight this year because it included rare combat elements.

Meanwhile, China became the biggest exporter of arms to Thailand from 2019 to 2023, accounting for 44 per cent of its major weapons imports, according to data tracked by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). From 2014 to 2018, Thailand imported 18 per cent of its arms from China.

Alongside its economic influence in the region, China is hoping to “at least compel Southeast Asian countries to consider Beijing’s interests when it comes to the South China Sea and Taiwan”, according to Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

He said those interests, especially concerning key waterways, included whether or not to “provide access to US military forces or allied forces, or even provide overflight rights … basing or logistic support”.

While China’s security partnerships are based on a no-alliance principle, which does not grant access to military bases, it has reportedly gained “exclusive access” to Cambodia’s Ream naval base – which Beijing funded.

Other recent Chinese military engagements in the region include a joint exercise with Singapore earlier this month. It was the first time the drill has been held in a consecutive year and it is expected to become institutionalised.

China has also sought to expand its security partnership with the tiny underdeveloped island nation of East Timor, which is currently an Asean observer.

Southeast Asia is the only region where the number of China’s joint military exercises has recovered to pre-pandemic levels, with 14 such drills held last year, according to a report by the US Naval War College.

That compared to 13 joint drills between the PLA and Southeast Asian militaries in 2019.

In fact, most of China’s joint military exercises last year were conducted with neighbours from Southeast Asia, followed by five with Russia and three with Middle Eastern nations.

The report said Chinese navy port calls in Southeast Asia – the most frequently visited region – had also recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

Huang Chin-Hao, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said while engagement was growing, “in terms of increasing the level of sophistication of these kinds of military exercises, we haven’t seen it quite yet”.

“But that doesn’t mean that that won’t happen. It’s just we have to kind of wait and see how China and regional counterparts actually decide to expand on their level of military-to-military cooperation.”

He said it was “not so much about the quantity or the number of times, but more so the kind of engagement, the content, the substantive aspects of their cooperation, [and] how much intelligence and information are being shared between the different militaries in these sorts of exercises”.

Huang said a hurdle for deeper security cooperation was that as China’s military capabilities expand, “the intentions of what the PLA intends to do with those increasing capabilities is sort of in the unknown”.

He said it would take time to build trust and for Asean members to push for a better idea of China’s military intentions, but noted that Beijing had “a pretty good track record” in the Asean defence ministers’ framework.

But Abdul Rahman Yaacob, a research fellow in the Southeast Asia programme at the Lowy Institute think tank in Sydney, pointed out that “most Southeast Asian countries conducted military exercises with China due to diplomatic reasons, not military ones … so, these exercises are mostly a function of defence diplomacy”.

Abdul Rahman said most of the recent drills were “superficial in nature and lack interoperability”, but China’s aerial exercises with Thailand were the exception.

“It seems the Chinese are drawing lessons from those air exercises to improve their tactics and air fighting capabilities,” he added.

Dong Jun, China’s new defence minister, has also had to re-engage with the region after he replaced Li Shangfu in December.

Li – who was removed from his post last October after disappearing from public view for months – was expelled from the ruling Communist Party in June for corruption.

Just 16 senior-level military meetings were held between China and Southeast Asian members in 2023, compared to 25 in 2019 and 27 in 2018, according to the US Naval War College tally.

In talks with Vietnamese defence chief Phan Van Giang this month, Dong urged his counterpart to “seize the opportunity” by boosting military cooperation.

Beijing also held the first “2+2” ministerial dialogue with Jakarta last month, led by foreign vice-minister Sun Weidong and Zhang Baoqun, deputy director of the Central Military Commission’s Office for International Military Cooperation.

Zhao Weihua, director of Fudan University’s Centre for China’s Relations with Neighbouring Countries, said the 2+2 dialogue would be conducive to “managing disagreement and preventing crises”.

“As an overall trend, security cooperation between China and its neighbouring countries is strengthening,” he said, adding that cooperation platforms and joint drills like the one between China and Singapore were likely to become “regularised”.

He noted that communication between China and Southeast Asian nations was “very diverse” and not limited to the 2+2 framework, citing the party-to-party channel between Beijing and Hanoi as an example.

According to defence analyst Koh, while Beijing’s security engagements were increasing in the region, some countries – especially those with territorial disputes with China – were maintaining cooperation in areas deemed to be “low hanging fruit”.

“They are also concerned about the potential security ramifications of being close to China,” he said.

Koh added that countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia were balancing new security initiatives with China with those with other partners, to “maintain some sort of equilibrium and not let this slide too much towards one particular camp”.

When Vietnamese defence chief Phan met his Filipino counterpart Gilberto Teodoro last month – about a week after Phan’s talks with Dong – the two sides pledged to strengthen defence and military cooperation. Both countries have claims in the South China Sea that overlap with Beijing’s.

Koh also noted there were limitations on what kind of joint exercises countries in the region can conduct with China based on where their military hardware is from.

He gave the example of Thailand, which deployed its Swedish-made Gripen fighter jets instead of its American F-16s for the Falcon Strike drills with China. Koh said that would not have been possible for Singapore since its air force uses only US-made fighter jets.

China is a far smaller supplier of arms than the US, which exported 42 per cent of major arms globally from 2019 to 2023. Chinese arms exports accounted for just 5.8 per cent of the global trade in the past five years, after 5.9 per cent from 2014 to 2018, according to a report published this year by SIPRI.

Beijing has attempted to expand its cooperation with Asean members to the arms trade, but those efforts have had a lukewarm response.

Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher with the SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme, said the lack of major arms sales to the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia in particular was because the three nations “see China more and more as a military threat and that deters them from buying most Chinese weapons”.

China did receive more orders in the late 2010s – including the HQ-22 defence system and missiles, tanks and armoured personnel carriers – but Wezeman did not expect that trend to continue.

“US pressure on its allies and arms clients not to buy from China and Russia has also increased in recent years,” he added.

The reputation of Chinese systems in terms of quality is another issue, according to Abdul Rahman from the Lowy Institute.

“I understand from a few sources the Chinese weapons or systems they received are not in a good working order,” he said. “For example, a Chinese air defence system used by a Southeast Asian state could not operate properly, leading to the death of a few military personnel.”

“The quality of rifles is another example. Another Southeast Asian official spoke about how he prefers to use the old American M-16 rifle as it is lighter and more accurate than the more modern Chinese ones.”