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• China’s stimulus offers shot in the arm for global firms amid consumption, capital boost
• Intel invests US$300 million in China chip packaging and testing plant
• Chinese plane designed to travel twice as fast as Concorde completes test flight
• China shifts supply-chain focus to ‘least-developed countries’ for November expo
• Chinese government workers call up women to urge pregnancy in latest birth rate push
• First US national security memo on AI sparks fear of escalating tech war with China
• Chinese state-owned nuclear company claims breakthrough with radiation detection chip
• Chinese police detain Halloween party-goers in crackdown in Shanghai
• From ‘little fat kid’ to muscle goddess in China, Bian Ruiying recalls transformation
• China’s idyllic Xinjiang grasslands hid a salty soiled secret that’s been solved
• China’s kindergarten numbers shrink as policymakers struggle to arrest falling birthrate
• Beloved China ‘Useless Edison’ rumoured to have retired continues to create bizarre gadgets
• China’s property market shows signs of recovery as deals surge in top cities
• Chinese flag dispute in Malaysia sparks nationalist backlash, escalating tensions
• China’s critical mineral dominance puts Washington’s supply chain hopes at risk
• PetroChina to downsize in northern China, shut its Dalian refinery in 2025, sources say
• China’s steel and oil industries face mounting losses amid economic slowdown
• How US election may affect Singapore, Chinese rice wine: 5 weekend reads you missed
• Who is China’s ‘beautiful robot’ hotpot eatery boss known for realistic mechanical movements
• Thousands of Chinese kindergartens close as falling birth rate takes its toll
• Could India become Asia’s next real estate investment hotspot, surpassing even China?
• Chinese cities ease residency requirements as ‘war for people’ heats up
• China’s regulator hits CICC with over US$1 million in penalties for chip company’s IPO
• Chinese hackers collected audio from unnamed Trump campaign adviser: reports
• Removal of Chinese tariffs sees imports of Australian wine surge
• Mainland China sanctions academy that urges Taiwanese public to prepare for war
• Why North Korea is starting to become a ‘forgotten’ space for China and the US

China’s stimulus offers shot in the arm for global firms amid consumption, capital boost

https://www.scmp.com/economy/policy/article/3284186/chinas-stimulus-offers-shot-arm-global-firms-amid-consumption-capital-boost?utm_source=rss_feed

Major foreign investors in China have seen a tentative uptick in consumer spending, easier access to capital and an opening for deeper change after China’s wave of economic stimulus over the past month, overseas business organisations said.

Some American retailers found Chinese customers spent more, while they also anticipated that it would be easier to access funds for new investments.

European companies in the world’s second-largest economy, meanwhile, view the stimulus as a step toward government spending that could further raise consumption and structural changes, which refer to more seismic shifts in a country’s business environment.

“One of the most significant changes our member companies have begun to observe is a rise in consumer confidence and spending,” said Harley Seyedin, president of the Guangzhou-based American Chamber of Commerce in South China.

The chamber, which has more than 2,300 members including multiple Fortune 500 companies, had discovered that American entrepreneurs can easily obtain capital due to lower interest rates, Seyedin added.

“As a result, businesses can pursue larger projects that may have previously been on hold due to financial constraints,” he said.

Beijing has released its stimulus in spurts since the end of September in response to a property market crisis that has shaken consumer confidence.

Despite retail sales growth rebounding to a four-month high in September, the growth in the first three quarters had slowed to 3.3 per cent from 7.2 per cent in 2023.

China stimulus package also slashed mortgage rates for homebuyers, pledged to double credit to white list property projects and christened a swap facility to enhance stock market liquidity.

Adam Dunnett, secretary general with the 1,700-member European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said the stimulus measures would encourage homeowners to spend more.

“More than anything else, it’s important to use this time to take on direct structural reforms,” he said, adding that multinationals would continue to monitor for changes.

Many offshore investment banks and other financial institutions have raised or maintained their 2024 economic growth projections due to the stimulus.

China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, is scheduled to meet for five days at the start of November to discuss a wide range of issues, with the market expecting the approval of a fiscal stimulus plan.

Lawmakers could approve adding between 1 trillion yuan (US$140 billion) and 2 trillion yuan to a central government special bond issuance quota, Goldman Sachs said on Sunday.

Fellow investment bank Nomura said that after the meeting, some stimulus may go to low-income households and help encourage childbirths.

“It is important to recognise that while the immediate impacts may be encouraging, sustained growth will depend on the effective implementation of these initiatives and ongoing economic adjustments,” Seyedin said.

However, James Zimmerman, former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce for China, warned that businesses may eventually find the current stimulus “half-baked”.

“They need to move toward more market reform and support an innovation-based economy, and not continually drive infrastructure and export sales,” he said.

Spending has risen since September at a 48-seat Shanghai restaurant co-owned by Max Modesti and two others operated by his partners, but the Italian national cautioned that business normally booms in October because of the National Day break followed by China’s trade fair season.

And any boost in consumption from stimulus, he added, would become clear starting in December.

Modesti hopes China would eventually slash income taxes to stoke spending and offset employee benefits.

“Right now, we’re just surviving,” he said.

Intel invests US$300 million in China chip packaging and testing plant

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3284195/intel-invests-us300-million-china-chip-packaging-and-testing-plant?utm_source=rss_feed

US semiconductor giant Intel said it would expand its chip packaging and testing base in Chengdu, in a show of commitment to the mainland market despite a recent call by a Beijing-backed cybersecurity group to review the company’s products.

In addition to enlarging packaging and testing capacity for server chips, the facility will also establish a “customer solutions centre to improve the efficiency of the local supply chain, increase support for Chinese customers and improve response time”, Intel China said on Monday on its WeChat account.

The Santa Clara, California-based company will inject US$300 million into its local entity, Intel Products (Chengdu), to support the expansion, according to a WeChat post published by the city’s Reform and Development Commission.

Launched in 2003, Intel’s Chengdu plant is responsible for the packaging and testing of more than half of the company’s laptop processors shipped worldwide. Packaging and testing is the final step in semiconductor manufacturing, ensuring the quality and reliability of a product.

The facility plays a critical role in Intel’s global supply chain, while Chengdu provides a “favourable” business environment that paves the way for the company’s “stable growth”, Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger said during a visit there last year. Chengdu is the capital of China’s southwestern Sichuan province.

The fresh investment comes less than two weeks after the Cyber Security Association of China recommended a cybersecurity review of Intel products sold in the country, citing a series of vulnerabilities previously found in the firm’s central processors.

Intel’s China unit said at the time that it would “maintain communications with the relevant authorities” and demonstrate its “commitment to product safety and quality”.

Despite rising tensions between Beijing and Washington, China remains Intel’s largest market, contributing 27 per cent of the firm’s total revenue last year, compared with 26 per cent from the US.

Intel, which is struggling to compete against rivals in a chip market that is increasingly focused on artificial intelligence, reported a loss of US$1.6 billion in the second quarter, swinging from a year-earlier profit of US$1.5 billion. The firm warned of “weaker spending across consumer and enterprise markets, especially in China”.

Chinese plane designed to travel twice as fast as Concorde completes test flight

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3284206/chinese-plane-designed-travel-twice-fast-concorde-completes-test-flight?utm_source=rss_feed

A Chinese company says it has conducted a test flight of a prototype commercial transport plane that can travel at Mach 4 – or twice the speed of a Concorde.

Space Transportation, which is headquartered in Beijing, on Sunday said its Yunxing prototype had successfully completed the test flight a day earlier.

The company, also known as Lingkong Tianxing Technology, said a follow-up assessment of its engine technology would take place in November.

It aims to have a full-sized supersonic passenger jet ready to take its maiden flight in 2027.

According to the company, that aircraft will be able to whisk passengers from Beijing to New York in about two hours, at a cruising speed of more than four times the speed of sound.

The last civilian supersonic jet was the Concorde, developed jointly by French and British aerospace companies. It entered service in 1976, cruising at twice the speed of sound until it was retired in 2003.

The Concorde had four turbojet engines and could perform horizontal take-offs and landings, flying at altitudes of 60,000 feet (about 18,300 metres).

With more aerospace technology incorporated into its design, the Yunxing supersonic jet can travel twice as fast, take-off and landing is vertical, and it can reach altitudes above 20,000 metres (about 65,600 feet), according to its developer.

An animation on the company’s website shows how the Yunxing moves in a similar way to stone skimming. Qian Xuesen, the engineer known as the “father of Chinese aerospace”, used this concept to explain hypersonic flight as skipping from one point on the globe to another like a stone being skimmed.

The Space Transportation animation shows the Yunxing being sent into the sky by a booster, which then separates from the aircraft. The aircraft then glides for a long distance. As it nears its destination, it glides to reduce its speed to subsonic levels before its liquid rocket engine ignites for a secondary deceleration to achieve a vertical landing.

The company – which also develops hypersonic flight technology and services – says it has completed multiple tests of the active deceleration and vertical landing technique.

Space Transportation was founded in China’s southwestern Sichuan province in 2018 and has R&D and manufacturing centres in Beijing and Xian, in Shaanxi, as well as in Anhui province. The company also has a test base in the far west of the country in Korla, Xinjiang.

The company’s research and development plans include technology validation platforms, suborbital space tourism vehicles, and global hypersonic flight vehicles. It has provided hypersonic technology services to the military, universities and research institutes, and worked on rocket development and test flights with several universities.

That includes taking part in the Feitian 1 hypersonic aircraft project led by Northwestern Polytechnical University. That aircraft completed a test flight in 2022.

On Saturday, several key technologies of the Yunxing supersonic jet were put to the test, including its aerodynamics, thermal protection and control systems.

In terms of aerodynamics, the Yunxing has a high lift-to-drag ratio – so as altitude increases and air density decreases it maintains an efficient performance, making the flight more economical and comfortable.

Thermal protection is also important. During high-speed flight, the aircraft’s surface undergoes continuous aerodynamic heating, with temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 Fahrenheit). Materials and structures that are lightweight, high-strength and heat-resistant are critical. The company said that the all-composite structure successfully withstood these extreme conditions during the test flight.

The prototype’s flight control system, avionics and structural strength were also evaluated.

Space Transportation has said it aims to develop supersonic aircraft that can be used for global commercial flights and affordable space tourism.

Its vice-president, Shen Haibin, said in a 2021 interview with NetEase that the company hoped to carry out a maiden crewed flight for suborbital space tourism by 2025 and to achieve high-speed global transport by 2030.

“The company aims to reduce the cost of space tourism tickets from Virgin Galactic’s US$450,000 to 450,000 Chinese yuan [US$63,180],” Shen was quoted as saying.

China shifts supply-chain focus to ‘least-developed countries’ for November expo

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3284196/china-shifts-supply-chain-focus-least-developed-countries-november-expo?utm_source=rss_feed

China is expanding the scale of its upcoming supply-chain expo by ramping up efforts to invite some of the “least-developed countries” while attempting to showcase resilience against trade barriers from the United States and other trade partners.

More than 600 companies are expected to participate in the five-day China International Supply Chain Expo that kicks off in Beijing on November 26. That would mark a 20 per cent increase in businesses from the inaugural expo last year, according to the host, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT).

While noting that almost half of the roughly 190 foreign participants will be US or European companies, the council emphasised that developing countries will get extra attention.

“We will focus on expanding participation from the least-developed countries while providing free exhibiting opportunities and support to African exhibitors to help developing countries promote their businesses,” Yu Yi, head of the CCPIT office, said on Monday at a press briefing for the event.

Institutions and companies from the African Union, including Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Morocco and Ghana, will be among the foreign participants, Yu said.

Beijing has been increasingly cultivating its relations with neighbouring countries and developing nations amid what it sees as a hostile trade environment due to expanding trade barriers from the West.

Foreign investors and even Chinese investors have been, particularly over the past six years of the US-China trade war, moving some of their production outside China – including to the most popular destinations of Vietnam and Mexico – to avoid tariffs and geopolitical uncertainties. Next week’s US presidential election is also expected to bring new trade policies that affect the global supply chain.

Premier Li Qiang, speaking to leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) earlier this month, vowed to “strengthen connectivity of regional supply chains” and to “enhance the stability and competitiveness of regional industrial systems”.

On top of the themes from the inaugural expo last year, which included smart cars, green agriculture, clean energy, digital technology and healthy living, this year’s expo will also showcase China’s abilities in advanced manufacturing. There will be exhibitions showing off Chinese companies’ R&D, applications, and processing of new material and critical manufacturing parts, as well as intelligent manufacturing.

The organiser emphasised that a few multinational carmakers will be showcasing at the expo with Chinese ones, including British-Australian company Rio Tinto Group, German company Bosch, Chinese state-owned iron and steel company Baowu, and leading Chinese electric-vehicle maker Xpeng.

Last year, Apple and Tesla were among the 130 foreign companies participating in the exhibition, which showcased 550 companies that were operating in China.

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Chinese government workers call up women to urge pregnancy in latest birth rate push

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3284192/chinese-government-workers-call-women-urge-pregnancy-latest-birth-rate-push?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese grass roots government workers, who implemented decades of birth control policy, are now calling up women in their neighbourhood to urge them to get pregnant amid China’s demographic crisis.

When Jane Huang picked up the phone to answer a call earlier this month, her first response to the person on the end was to laugh.

“Ni Hao! Is that Ms Huang? Sorry to disturb you. I am from your sub district office, are you pregnant now?”

Huang, a 35-year-old working mother of one son who lives in the southeast coastal province of Fujian, said the overly-enthusiastic social worker even asked about the timing of her most recent period and offered to give her a reminder call when it was “the right time” to conceive another baby.

“I laughed so hard when I told my husband about it. The surveyor must be from the previous generation, who did not realise that she was talking to a whole different generation that values privacy, quality of life and choices much more,” she said.

Huang is among tens of thousands Chinese women of childbearing age who are being pursued through a vigorous campaign organised by vast district administrative networks. Grass roots government workers have been mobilised to contact women in their neighbourhoods to urge them to get pregnant.

The central government also hopes to learn why so many women are reluctant to have more children, and devise new policy options as a plummeting birth rate steers the country toward a demographic crisis.

On October 17, China’s Population and Development Research Centre announced that it would conduct a nationwide survey in a bid to “obtain new data on views on marriage and fertility and key influencing factors”.

The Sample Survey on Population and Family Development in China, approved by the National Bureau of Statistics on October 11, is targeting women of child-bearing age – defined by the bureau as women from 15-49 – from about 30,000 families, covering 1,500 communities or villages across 150 counties.

The centre said the survey will focus on understanding “the actual difficulties and needs of families in birth and parenting”, as well as the reasons for “not wanting or not daring to have children”, to provide a scientific basis for improving fertility support policies and incentives.

In Huang’s case, the government effort was cut short. She said she ended the conversation quickly, telling the social worker that she had no immediate plans for a second child.

“When she asked why, I told her I have no money, no time and no energy for a second baby.”

Huang’s sentiment was “very common”, according to district level officials from three coastal provinces, who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity. They said many respondents had vented “strong grievances” towards the one-child policy as well as considerable worries about the economy and employment.

Many, who had been fined by the government for breaching the previous birth control rule, said the authorities should refund the penalties imposed on families, said one official from Fujian, surnamed Lin, who is involved in the survey.

“They said that is the best way for the government to show sincerity if it wants to promote births,” Lin added.

China scrapped its birth control policies in 2021, when Beijing raised the limit of children per family to three, and stopped imposing fines on families who exceed the quota.

Various local governments have pledged to “properly handle” historical issues resulting from the birth control policies, but there is no known case or policy of the government refunding fines that were collected while the policies were in place, and no clear guidelines have been put in place on how to handle previous fines.

Previously, couples who had more children than allowed were required by the local birth control department to pay “social maintenance fees”, to have the child legally registered in the household.

In 2020, one couple in Guangzhou was fined nearly 320,000 yuan (US$44,870) for having a third child, according to mainland media reports.

A Guangdong district official surnamed Chen, said that besides the national survey, Guangdong and other coastal provinces had been trying to build their own provincial “population monitoring and research” database to keep track of population trends since 2022.

“It is a joint effort by the civil affairs, education, police, health, statistics, medical insurance, social security departments, to understand how many women in our district are of child bearing age, their intentions to have more children, their physical condition and the family’s financial condition,” he said, adding that they have communicated with other provinces, including Zhejiang and Fujian, to learn the best practices.

Chen said some districts even offered women who intend to have more children in the near future free folic acid supplements, to help reduce the chance of birth defects.

A report published on October 19 by the YuWa Population Research Institute warned that the pro-birth policies aren’t enough to counter the declining birth rate, as more women choose not to marry or become mothers.

In 2022, China’s fertility rate dropped to 1.09 in 2022, according to the China Population and Development Research Centre, while the total fertility rate in Shanghai, one of China’s wealthiest cities, dipped to 0.6 in 2023, according to the municipality.

A replacement fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman is widely accepted as the necessary rate for a country’s population to remain constant.

If China’s fertility rate remains on its downward trajectory, for every child born in the future, six people will die – a trend that threatens to intensify the nation’s demographic crisis, the report warned.

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First US national security memo on AI sparks fear of escalating tech war with China

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3284118/first-us-national-security-memo-ai-sparks-fear-escalating-tech-war-china?utm_source=rss_feed

The first US national security memo on artificial intelligence could “escalate” its technological rivalry with China and deepen the rift between the two powers in that sector, analysts have said.

Observers also expect Beijing to place greater emphasis on self-reliance in AI in response to pressure from the United States and its allies.

The White House outlined the nation’s “first-ever” strategy for harnessing powerful AI in United States military and intelligence agencies in a national security memorandum released last week.

It said the aim was to advance American technological leadership over “rivals” such as China and address “adversary threats” while providing safeguards.

Introducing the document on Thursday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said talks between the two countries had not diminished Washington’s “deep concerns” about the ways in which Beijing used AI to “undermine the security of the United States and our allies and partners”.

He said China was developing a technological ecosystem with digital infrastructure “that won’t protect sensitive data, that can enable mass surveillance and censorship, that can spread misinformation and that can make countries vulnerable to coercion”.

The memo shows the US is trying to counter China’s rise and development in a global competition over AI, according to Chen Li, a researcher with the Beijing-based think tank Anbound.

“That will strengthen US restraints on China’s development in the field of AI, escalating the tech competition between China and the US,” Chen said.

She added Washington might further limit China’s access to AI-related advanced technologies and critical materials while stopping Chinese firms integrating with global AI supply chains and markets to “isolate” the country.

The world’s two largest economies remain locked in a fierce tech war where AI is a key battlegrounds.

Proposals from the Treasury Department that will ban certain US investments in AI, semiconductors and other technologies in China are reportedly under final review with an expected release this week.

Although lacking access to advanced chips because of Washington’s export controls, analysts said China is still narrowing the AI gap.

Both countries are stepping up their domestic regulation and racing to develop international standards and global governance of the technology, but struggle to work together to regulate the military use of AI.

During their first intergovernmental meeting on AI five months ago in Geneva, Switzerland, Beijing expressed its “solemn position on the US restrictions and repression” of China in the sector while Washington raised concerns about China’s “misuse” of the technology.

In the October 24 memo, the White House said the US “must lead the world’s development of safe, secure and trustworthy AI” and called for guarding against a risk of “strategic surprise” potentially posed by the country’s competitors, including China.

Chen of Anbound expected the US was likely to add more types of chips and manufacturing equipment to its export control lists while continuing to rally its allies for joint action to limit China’s access to semiconductor technologies.

The US could tighten restrictions on technicians working in AI and semiconductor-related fields from working with Chinese researchers and expand blacklists targeting Chinese tech firms, she said.

She also said the US could use its influence to block Chinese technology from expanding into overseas markets or military applications on grounds of non-compliance with international standards, or use transparency requirements to increase oversight of China’s activities.

“That will deepen the divide between China and the US, hinder innovation in both countries and lead to a waste of resources and a more fragmented global AI innovation landscape,” she said.

Chen said China should improve its ability to innovate to to cut reliance on Western technology and take steps to safeguard its AI data assets to minimise the impact of foreign sanctions.

Weifeng Zhong, an affiliated scholar at George Mason University’s Mercatus Centre, said several security concerns in the AI memo were pointing directly at China.

“In the information space, China has long been using technology (including AI) to harvest data both at home and abroad, resulting in an increasing wealth of open-source intelligence potentially compromising the interests of the United States and its liberal-democratic allies,” he said.

He said the thinking in the US memo was “surely” shared by many other countries in the West, which suggested that China’s choices were “quickly narrowing”.

“While it’s unwise to write off China’s prospects right away, we should recognise that genuine innovation on the edge of the technological frontier is extremely difficult,” he added.

Chinese state-owned nuclear company claims breakthrough with radiation detection chip

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3284168/chinese-state-owned-nuclear-company-claims-breakthrough-radiation-detection-chip?utm_source=rss_feed

A Chinese state-owned nuclear company said it has started mass production of the world’s first chip that can detect X-ray and gamma radiation, in the latest sign of China’s unrelenting efforts to seek semiconductor technology breakthroughs.

The state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) said in a statement on its official WeChat channel that the self-developed chip can measure dose rates of X- and gamma-ray radiation ranging from 100 nanoSievert per hour to 10 milliSievert per hour. The typical dose rate of radiation exposure when flying on a commercial aeroplane, for instance, is around 3,000 nanoSievert per hour, while that of exposure to natural background is around 60 to 200 nanoSievert per hour.

CNNC said the proposed applications were “broad”, as customers can use the chip to monitor radiation doses in various scenarios including nuclear-related workplaces, personnel and environmental settings, after adapting the circuit based on instructions in the manual.

It can also be integrated into smartphones and drones as a radiation sensor, which could then be used as smart devices with a radiation detection function, according to CNNC.

The chip’s sensitivity is comparable to a Geiger-Muller counter widely used in environmental measurement, despite its small size of 15mm by 15mm by 3mm, according to CNNC.

It can detect energies from 50 kiloelectron volt to 2 mega electron-volt, and has extremely low power consumption of one milliwatt.

The US sanctioned CNNC said its team was involved in the whole development process, from chip design and tape-out to packaging and testing, and has now outsourced mass production to “authorised factories”.

The development comes as China continues to push for self-reliance in technology, especially in semiconductors, amid an intensifying tech war with the US, which has sought to curb China’s high-tech access over national security concerns.

Earlier this month, Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated the importance of science and technology in China’s modernisation, and the need for self-reliance.

“High-tech development cannot be begged for; we must accelerate the realisation of high-level technological self-reliance and self-improvement,” state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying during his visit to the southeastern high-tech hub of Hefei.

Chinese police detain Halloween party-goers in crackdown in Shanghai

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3284172/chinese-police-detain-halloween-party-goers-crackdown-shanghai?utm_source=rss_feed

Shanghai police have detained some Halloween party-goers, with some saying they were forced to remove their make-up at a police station.

Chinese social media posts said people wearing Halloween costumes who were detained on October 26 were required to register their names, ID numbers and phone numbers with police before being released.

In 2023, Halloween revellers thronged streets in the central part of the Chinese city. Some dressed in costumes poking fun at the nation’s stock market, youth unemployment and strict Covid-19 policies.

From ‘little fat kid’ to muscle goddess in China, Bian Ruiying recalls transformation

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3283391/little-fat-kid-muscle-goddess-china-bian-ruiying-recalls-transformation?utm_source=rss_feed

A young Chinese woman, having faced body-shaming due to her weight, has amazed many on Chinese social media by donning traditional Chinese attire that highlights her impressive physique after 12 years of dedicated workouts.

The woman, known as Bian Ruiying, hails from Suzhou in Jiangsu province in southeastern China and boasts 2.9 million followers on Douyin.

Recently, she shared her experience cosplaying as Wu Zetian, the first and only female emperor of China, during her visit to Luoyang in central Henan province.

In her video, she begins playfully, asking: “What’s it like to visit Luoyang as an emperor?” and humorously adds: “Look at my physique – could I even cosplay Lin Daiyu?”

Lin is a well-known character from the classic 18th-century Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, celebrated for her delicate beauty, fragile health, and melancholic nature.

In the video, Bian adorns herself with an ornate headpiece and traditional attire, confidently drawing a sword from its scabbard.

The camera captures her as she removes her shawl, revealing her muscular arms – a vivid contrast that underscores both the strength she embodies and the elegance of her outfit.

The voice-over resonates powerfully: “This world does not belong solely to men. I want everyone to understand that the strength men possess, women can possess too. I may not be the most beautiful empress, but I will undoubtedly be the most powerful emperor.”

Born in 1984, Bian struggled with her weight during childhood, often being teased as a “little fat kid” while standing 154cm tall and weighing 70kg.

Determined to shed the weight, she experimented with various methods, including diet pills, acupuncture, and starvation, before finally joining a gym at the age of 30.

“My goal in joining the gym was to achieve a Victoria’s Secret model body. I never aimed to become a muscular woman. Initially, I thought having big muscles was excessive, and I didn’t appreciate them,” she shared with the Yangtse Evening Post.

After just a year of training, Bian won her first championship at a bodybuilding competition in Suzhou in 2015.

In 2020, she claimed the title at the IFBB Chicago Pro Women’s Physique qualification, making history as the first female bodybuilder from China to compete on the Olympic stage.

Today, Bian is not only a professional athlete but also a fitness and dating influencer on Douyin.

Her inspiring life story and her portrayal of Empress Wu Zetian have captivated audiences on Chinese social media, earning her widespread acclaim.

One viewer commented: “Wow, she is so powerful!”

Another quipped: “If Wu Zetian had truly looked like this, the Tang dynasty could have thrived for another hundred years.”

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China’s idyllic Xinjiang grasslands hid a salty soiled secret that’s been solved

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3284167/chinas-idyllic-xinjiang-grasslands-hid-salty-soiled-secret-thats-been-solved?utm_source=rss_feed

Nationwide efforts to convert salty soil into arable grasslands have extended to a high-elevation part of China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region where a quartet of mountains converge and the arid climate has long quelled attempts to cultivate crops.

After eight years of intensive work in the region’s Pamir Plateau, about 1,300 hectares (3,200 acres) of salt-affected desert in Tashkurgan Tajik county have been transformed into productive plains, the official People’s Daily reported over the weekend.

The announcement came as Beijing has been sowing the seeds of agricultural security to ensure that 1.4 billion Chinese people continue to have adequate food supplies while geopolitics affect trade supplies and an influx of extreme weather events wreak havoc on farmlands.

With a vegetation coverage rate exceeding 85 per cent, and a hay yield of more than 4,500kg (9,920 pounds) per hectare, the achievement is reportedly the first large-scale success in cultivating high-quality forage across the dry and salty lands of the plateau.

The breakthrough will relieve demand pressure on high-altitude livestock feed and allow for the natural grasslands to recuperate, Professor Xi Linqiao, deputy chief scientist of Xinjiang’s high-quality-forage production initiative and a professor with the region’s Tarim University, was quoted as saying.

Tashkurgan, with 418,000 hectares of natural grassland, supports 250,000 livestock, including the Tashkurgan sheep and Pamir yak, both designated as national genetic resources.

But with poor natural pasture growth due to climate conditions forcing the county to import hay from other areas, the county launched its saline-soil reclamation project in 2017 and built a research team in partnership with several local institutions. People’s Daily said the team managed to lower the pH level, a measure of acidity, from 9.5 to approximately 8 using acid-base balancing agents and halophilic bacteria – extremophilic organisms that thrive in high salt conditions.

The initiative also included irrigation infrastructure, eco-restoration, and innovative “dry seeding, wet germination” techniques to maximise irrigation effectiveness, addressing the region’s uneven terrain.

With decades of urbanisation and economic expansion reducing China’s arable land, the reclamation of saline-alkali soil has gained national importance as a vital reserve for agricultural use. Efforts to transform saline land into productive farmland have intensified across China in recent years.

In a paper published in September, Professor Wang Guangzhou from China Agricultural University said that China had about 36.7 million hectares of saline land, of which 12.3 million hectares have agricultural potential while 6.67 million hectares could be converted into farmland.

“Reclaiming and improving this portion of saline-alkali land could significantly expand usable land, boost grain production and safeguard national food security,” he wrote.

Local media reports illustrate the success of these initiatives, as seen in Tangshan, Hebei province, where about 80 per cent of the city’s saline land had been transformed into arable land by the end of 2022.

China’s kindergarten numbers shrink as policymakers struggle to arrest falling birthrate

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/28/chinas-kindergarten-numbers-shrink-as-policymakers-struggle-to-arrest-falling-birthrate

The number of kindergartens in China fell by more than 5% last year, the second year in a row that preschool institutions were in decline, reflecting the country’s falling birthrate.

In 2023, there were 274,400 kindergartens across China, down from 289,200 in 2022, according to a Ministry of Education statistical bulletin published last week.

China is grappling with a falling birthrate and an ageing population, related trends that are causing a headache for policymakers who have tried various measures to encourage people to have more children, with limited success.

The number of children enrolled in kindergartens also fell. In 2023 there were 40.9 million children in preschool education, according to the government’s figures, a decrease of more than 11% from the previous year.

In 2022, the number of kindergartens fell by 1.9%, while the number of children enrolled in kindergartens fell by 3.7%.

Several kindergartens have been converted into elderly care facilities in order to cater for the increasingly greying population.

Some regions are offering subsidies for families who have second or third babies. In Guangdong, a populous province in southern China, one village is offering bonuses of 10,000 yuan (£1,083) for a second baby, and 30,000 yuan for a third, according to Chinese state media.

Lian Jianzhang, an influential economist and demographer, argues that such incentives do not go far enough. In an article published in June, Lian called for monthly subsidies of up to 3,000 yuan for third and subsequent children, and also suggested a one-time cash reward of 100,000 yuan (£10,821) for new babies.

“The downward trend in fertility has a self-reinforcing inertia that can only be broken by policy tools,” Lian wrote.

In 2016, China’s decades-long one child policy was scrapped, and couples can generally now have up to three children. Sichuan, a province of more than 80 million people, has removed all restrictions on the number of babies that a parent can register.

Last year, China’s population dropped by 2.08 million, the second consecutive year of decline. The birthrate hit a record low of 6.39 births per 1,000 people.

Additional research by Chi-hui Lin

Beloved China ‘Useless Edison’ rumoured to have retired continues to create bizarre gadgets

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3283655/beloved-china-useless-edison-rumoured-have-retired-continues-create-bizarre-gadgets?utm_source=rss_feed

An inventor in rural China widely known as the country’s “Useless Edison” is rumoured to have retired because he has “made too much money” and disappeared from social media for five months.

Shougong Geng, or Handy Geng, denied the rumour on October 21, saying he was only “dissatisfied” with the things he made and promised to publish videos soon.

The 36-year-old was known by his real name Geng Shuai for the first three decades of his life.

After dropping out of school at 16, he left his village in northern China’s Hebei province and became a migrant worker in Beijing.

Geng worked on construction sites, repaired houses, sold mobile phones, and welded rails for the Beijing-Shijiazhuang high speed railway.

He learned welding techniques from his blacksmith father, who believed his children should settle down with a stable job.

Geng said he was bored of the changeless life, and began posting his steelwork inventions online in 2018.

He shot to fame after many of his “useless inventions” went viral.

One of his most classic creations was a mobile barbecue cart/piano, with which the user could play piano and make lamb skewers at the same time.

Another was steel forehead flicker, which Geng claimed to “power up weak people’s middle fingers” when they tried to play a harmless joke with their friends.

It is the best-seller among the four items on sale at his onlineshop and costs 189 yuan (US$27). One buyer said it could make a watermelon explode.

In another video, Geng showcased a treadmill trapped in a cage, which would only open after set time had passed, forcing the users to complete their exercise goal.

Some compared this invention with Taiwan artist Tehching Hsieh’s Cage Piece, in which he spent a year inside a cage in the 1970s.

Geng said he was inspired by the sci-fi films he watched when he was young, and Hong Kong comedy film director Stephen Chow Sing-chi whose movies make people “smile with tears”.

An online observer said that he enjoyed Geng’s invention because “it is comforting to see something useless in a world where everything has to be of some use”.

Rumours about his retirement circulated after Geng said in an August interview that he had “made too much money that his knowledge and mind cannot control”.

He did not disclose his income, but according to a mainland social media marketing agency, Guangeryi, he charged up to 650,000 yuan (US$91,000) for each advertisement he did.

Geng has almost 20 million followers on several social media platforms combined.

On social media some joked that he retired because his inventions had become more and more useful.

“We look forward to more useless ideas from you,” one online observer said.

China’s property market shows signs of recovery as deals surge in top cities

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3284127/chinas-property-market-shows-signs-recovery-deals-surge-top-cities?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s property market is on the mend, with transactions in the top cities surging following a number of measures introduced late last month to stimulate demand and shore up confidence.

The secondary market in Shanghai has recorded more than 20,000 transactions so far this month, a month-on-month jump of 52.3 per cent, according to data published by Shanghai Real Estate Trading Centre, an official platform, on Sunday. On Saturday alone, 1,301 deals were transacted, the second-highest daily figure this year.

In Beijing, 11,699 pre-owned homes were sold between October 1 and 24, according to a report published last week by Centaline Property Agency. The agency expects overall transactions this month to cross 16,000, a 19-month high.

“The rebound in home sales in major cities signals a broader recovery in China’s housing market,” said Yan Yuejin, vice-president of the Shanghai-based E-House China Real Estate Research Institute. “It also reflects a recovery pattern, where higher-tier cities experience a rebound earlier than lower-tier markets.”

The strong numbers come on the back of a policy “bazooka” unleashed by Chinese authorities in September to bolster the economy and the property market, which has seen prices fall for 16 consecutive months following a deleveraging campaign launched in late 2020 to rein in heavily indebted developers.

The measures introduced include reductions in down payments and mortgage rates, the expansion of a property “white list” that offers liquidity buffers for developers, and the easing of restrictions on home purchases in major cities.

In Shenzhen, the country’s tech hub bordering Hong Kong, new home transactions reached 8,405 as of October 22, surpassing the “prosperity line” of 5,000 units per month, an indicator of healthy market activity, according to data published by the city’s government.

Between October 1 and 26, a total floor area of 1.3 million square metres was transacted, “a record high in recent years”, according to local media reports.

New home transactions in 15 Chinese cities surged by 24 per cent in the second week of October to 24,287 units, according to data from Lingping Real Estate Data Research Institute, from a week earlier. Secondary home transactions rose by 20 per cent to 20,724 units, the data showed.

“It is important to note that the current data does not fully capture the extent of the recovery, as many transactions have yet to be updated online,” said Yan.

“By the end of this year, we will see a very positive outcome, whether it’s a ‘warm winter’ for the market or a record high. This is something worth looking forward to.”

Chinese flag dispute in Malaysia sparks nationalist backlash, escalating tensions

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3284140/chinese-flag-dispute-malaysia-sparks-nationalist-backlash-escalating-tensions?utm_source=rss_feed

A dispute over the display of Chinese flags at a festival in Malaysia’s Perak state intensified over the weekend after hundreds converged on the same town to unfurl their country’s banner in a retaliatory show of national pride, drawing a stern warning from local police and escalating tensions further.

The sudden flare-up of nationalism began after China’s red national flags were out in force on Thursday at the International Guan Gong Cultural Festival in Teluk Intan waved by participants from China.

As video from the flag-waving went viral, outcry percolated across social media, with commentators claiming the predominantly Chinese town of 170,000 people in Perak “feels like Shanghai” among other barbs aimed at Chinese influence in Malaysia.

In response, some 300 people converged on Teluk Intan’s town square on Saturday where they unfurled Malaysian flags and sang the national anthem as well as other patriotic songs.

Perak Police Chief Azizi Mat Ari said that, over the weekend, they received over 16 reports from the public, adding that the police were not informed of the rally.

“We are warning and advising the public not to be part of any gathering that can cause disruption and public disorder,” Azizi said on Sunday in response to Saturday’s rally.

The issue has highlighted lingering suspicions of China among the Malaysian public and also rekindled old resentments toward’s the country’s Chinese community among segments of the Muslim Malay majority, whose leaders are often accused of exploiting ethnic and religious dividing lines for political gain.

The flag fracas has also taken on a political dimension with Razman Zakaria, the Perak state chief of Islamist party PAS, making racially charged remarks against Chinese people at the rally.

“We ask those whose eyes are like [mine], skin like [mine], and blood like ours, we must unite,” Razman, an ethnic Malay, said while gesturing to himself during the flag rally on Saturday.

The Guan Gong Cultural Association of Malaysia, which organised the festival, has since apologised to the public, clarifying that the flag-waving seen in the viral video was not part of the official program.

Flags from other countries were also paraded at the international event, including Vietnam and Thailand, as seen in other photos from the festival.

Despite the apology, PAS, a key component of the opposition Malay nationalist Perikatan Nasional coalition, has refused to let the issue subside.

Slamming Perak state Chief Minister Saarani Mohamad for stating that it is not a crime to wave a foreign country’s flag in Malaysia, Razman described last Thursday’s display as the latest in a series of disrespectful acts against Malaysian sovereignty.

“No one is taking care of our country’s sovereignty, so we have to take care of it,” Razman said, referencing China’s repeated intrusions into Malaysian territorial waters – where Beijing’s claims overlap with Malaysia’s in the South China Sea – and the recent visit of two Chinese navy vessels to Penang, where the Chinese flag was similarly displayed during school visits.

In contrast, Chief Minister Saarani likened the festival’s flag display to Malaysians flying their national flag abroad during gatherings.

“What is problematic,” Saarani said, “is if Malaysian citizens of Chinese ethnicity suddenly carry China’s flag, as it gives the impression that they revere a foreign flag.”

While defending the flag display, the chief minister’s comment played on the persistent suspicions surrounding the Malaysian-Chinese community, despite their citizenship.

Making up one-fifth of the country’s 34 million population, they continue to have their loyalty to Malaysia questioned and are often implicated by the actions of the People’s Republic of China.

That sentiment was voiced by former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who in January remarked that the loyalty of Malaysian-Chinese and Malaysian-Indians to the country is “not complete.”

“They want to identify themselves with their countries of origin (China and India),” said Mahathir, who led Malaysia for over 23 years during two non-consecutive terms.

Racial tensions, which culminated in deadly riots in 1969, have been on the rise in recent years, particularly following the opposition Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition’s 2022 election campaign, which focused on uniting the majority Malay Muslim voters against other races.

At the same time, Malaysia’s heavy reliance on China as its largest trading partner has forced the country to temper its responses to Beijing, even regarding sovereignty disputes such as those in the South China Sea.

In June, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Li Qiang, Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, issued a joint statement on the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, calling each other “good neighbours for hundreds of years” and “true, sincere friends”.

“Such a friendship has witnessed profound changes over half a century and shown renewed vigour and vitality,” the joint statement said.

China’s critical mineral dominance puts Washington’s supply chain hopes at risk

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3284132/chinas-critical-mineral-dominance-puts-washingtons-supply-chain-hopes-risk?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing’s dominance in the resource-rich central African nation Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) may complicate Washington’s ambitions to de-risk its critical minerals from China’s supply chains, according to new analysis.

London-based minerals research and pricing firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence said that most of the DRC’s cobalt – a crucial component in electric vehicle batteries and other electronics – is already in the hands of mining companies from China.

Chinese companies control two-thirds of cobalt in the DRC, which accounts for an estimated 74 per cent of global output, putting it at a “high risk” of falling foul of the foreign entity clause in the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

CMOC, previously known as China Molybdenum, is a top cobalt producer from its two main sites in the DRC – Tenke Fungurume mine and Kisanfu project – and a potential target for the IRA’s foreign entity of concern clause (FEOC), Benchmark Minerals said.

Benchmark’s study noted that 60 per cent of the global supply of mined cobalt in 2024 is expected to come from assets classified as FEOC or at “high risk” of becoming part of that category.

The clause captures entities owned, controlled or subject to the jurisdictions of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

The Benchmark study also found that 79 per cent of the world’s supply of refined cobalt in 2024 will originate from assets that are either already FEOC or at high risk of becoming so.

“The majority of DRC volumes fall under the ‘high risk’ category, owing to high levels of Chinese ownership in assets in the country, and therefore are likely to be ineligible for consumer tax credits under the IRA,” said Will Talbot, research manager at Benchmark.

“Over time, we do expect the share of material coming from high risk or FEOC countries will decline marginally as more ex-China supply comes online, but we forecast it to remain significant,” he said.

DRC President Félix Tshisekedi, who began his second term in January, pushed for a renegotiation of the previous administration’s minerals-for-infrastructure deals with China, to ensure that the DRC’s citizens benefit from its mineral wealth.

Tshisekedi’s visit to China in 2023 was followed by this year’s revised agreement on the Sicomines copper and cobalt joint venture that will see Sinohydro Corporation and China Railway Group invest up to US$7 billion in infrastructure.

The Benchmark study found that Chinese firms are deeply embedded in the DRC’s mining sector, having secured several of the country’s key assets in the past decade as Western countries ceded many of these interests to China.

According to Benchmark Minerals, chief among these acquisitions was the sale by US-based Freeport-McMoran of two of the world’s largest cobalt assets – the Tenke Fungurume mine and Kisanfu project – to CMOC in 2016 and 2020, respectively.

The acquisitions more than doubled CMOC’s cobalt supply and the company last year surpassed its Swiss rival Glencore to become the world’s largest producer of the mineral in terms of output.

Concerns over the Chinese mining giant’s outsize role in the DRC have led to Washington’s recent initiatives to challenge China’s grip on the critical minerals market.

The US is angling for a share of the battery metals and in 2022 signed a memorandum of understanding with Zambia and the DRC to bring funding and expertise into their mining industries.

The US is currently leading its allies in a multibillion-dollar investment to revamp the Lobito railway corridor between Angola and Zambia through the DRC, with the aim of developing transcontinental connectivity from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

The project involves refurbishing an existing section of the 1,344km (835 miles) Benguela railway into southern DRC, and construction of an 800km (497 miles) railway line through northwestern Zambia.

Tanzania has also signed a deal with the US to allow the expansion of the Lobito Corridor to reach the Indian Ocean and Tanzania’s nickel deposits. An expanded Lobito could also bring copper-cobalt exports from the DRC or Zambia into Western markets.

Chris Berry, president of ­New York commodities advisory firm House Mountain Partners, said that US investment in the Lobito Corridor is indeed part of a plan to de-risk and diversify cobalt supply chains.

“[However] it’s likely that the US and much of the world will be reliant on DRC-sourced cobalt for years to come,” he said, adding that the assets in the DRC are extraordinarily large and high grade – “a very tough combination to compete with”.

According to Berry, various US government entities, including the Defence Department and the Export-Import Bank, have provided capital in the form of grants and loans to North American cobalt, copper and nickel assets such as Electra or Jervois.

Berry said this “positive momentum” must be sustained through volatile metals price cycles. “There is no quick fix here, as there is a dire need for FEOC-compliant material, but it will take some years to build a sustainable supply chain.”

Washington was also reported to be behind moves to block Norin Mining – a subsidiary of China’s state-owned defence company Norinco – from acquiring Chemaf Resources, operator of the Etoile copper mine.

According to the Financial Times, US officials encouraged state-owned miner Gécamines to review the sale of Chemaf, which is also developing Mutoshi, one of the DRC’s largest pipeline copper-cobalt projects. The deal was rejected.

The Benchmark study said that the US has also reportedly tried to assist Swiss trading firm Mercuria’s bid to acquire copper-cobalt mines from Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), contingent upon the removal of sanctions against Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler.

Carlos Lopes, a professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, said Washington’s approach to “de-risking” cobalt supply chains is a sign of intensifying geopolitical competition.

According to Lopes, the US seems increasingly focused on securing critical minerals for its own economic and security interests.

“This rivalry-driven approach narrows the scope for a partnership with Africa based on mutual benefit and long-term development. The continent, and the DRC in particular, should not be seen merely as a resource base to fuel external interests,” he said.

Lopes noted that while the significant investment in the Lobito rail corridor aligns with the broader US agenda to diversify and secure mineral supply chains beyond Chinese influence, there are also risks.

“Without a genuine commitment to local development, it risks perpetuating Africa’s role as a supplier of raw materials rather than fostering economic transformation on the continent,” he said.

To be truly beneficial, these efforts must include investment in value-addition industries and infrastructure that support African economies and employment, not just US supply chain security, according to Lopes.

PetroChina to downsize in northern China, shut its Dalian refinery in 2025, sources say

https://www.scmp.com/business/commodities/article/3284115/petrochina-downsize-northern-china-shut-its-dalian-refinery-2025-sources-say?utm_source=rss_feed

PetroChina is set to shut its largest refinery in north China’s Dalian around mid-2025, marking the first major closure at a state-run oil plant, part of a long-mooted project to replace it with a smaller facility at a new site, sources said.

The planned shutdown of the entire 410,000 barrels per day (bpd) Dalian Petrochemical plant, representing 3 per cent of the country’s total refinery output, comes as Chinese refiners struggle with overcapacity and weakened fuel demand from slowing economic growth and the electrification of its car fleet.

PetroChina has already shut in 210,000 bpd, or about half of the plant’s total crude processing capacity at its Dalian Petrochemical subsidiary, said the sources, declining to be named as the matter is not public.

PetroChina did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The closures are part of a long-proposed plan pushed by Dalian to relocate the refinery, which is in a densely populated area near downtown, after several deadly accidents including a major oil spill in 2010, an explosion in 2013 and a fire in 2017, the sources said.

Under a framework agreement announced by Dalian authorities in November 2022, CNPC, parent of PetroChina, agreed to build a new 70-billion yuan (US$9.84 billion) refinery and chemical complex on Changxing island, about two hours’ drive from downtown Dalian.

The new project would encompass a 200,000 bpd crude refinery, which is half the current plant’s capacity, and a 1.2 million tonne-per-year ethylene complex, Dalian’s government said at the time.

However, the project remains at a pre-feasibility stage and PetroChina has not taken a final investment decision, said two of the sources.

PetroChina earlier this month shut a 90,000 bpd crude distillation unit (CDU) indefinitely at Dalian, sources said, one of the country’s oldest refineries, with history dating to 1933.

This follows closure of a 120,000-bpd CDU around October last year, sources said, leaving the third and the last unit, a 200,000-bpd CDU running.

“The shutdowns are based on a preset timeline,” said a senior industry executive with direct knowledge of the matter.

China’s steel and oil industries face mounting losses amid economic slowdown

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3284117/chinas-steel-and-oil-industries-face-mounting-losses-amid-economic-slowdown?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese commodities producers centred on the old economy are still bearing the brunt of the nation’s economic slowdown, with steelmakers and crude oil processors in particular continuing to rack up losses.

Cumulative losses in the world’s biggest steel industry swelled to 34 billion yuan (US$5 billion) over the first nine months of the year, according to data for September released by the statistics bureau on Sunday. The oil refining sector saw losses deepen to 32 billion yuan over the period. Profits at industrial firms more broadly declined at a faster pace than a month earlier.

Steel mills have been forced to slash output to protect margins hammered by China’s protracted property crisis. Bankruptcies could beckon. Oil refiners are also cutting runs, with weak demand for fuels exacerbated by the country’s rapid uptake of electric vehicles. China wraps its third-quarter earnings season this week, with releases due from both its biggest steelmakers and oil and gas companies.

Steel stocks rallied sharply on Monday after China’s main industry association said it would propose policies to encourage consolidation among members, and urged firms to refrain from cutthroat competition.

Beijing’s recent measures to stimulate the economy are being closely watched for their impact on raw materials demand. Oil consumption could get a modest lift, according to Goldman Sachs, although the focus on clearing China’s housing stock rather than boosting new starts will limit the impact on the steel market.

The steel and oil refining industries are the only major sectors tracked by the statistics bureau that have failed to accumulate profits over the year so far. But other commodities producers are also feeling the pressure of a tepid economy and problems with overcapacity.

Coal mining profits have dropped 22 per cent year to date, because of the impact of oversupply on prices. Chemicals-makers, which typically use fossil fuels as feedstock, have seen income fall 4 per cent.

Investors inured to years of US-China trade spats seem willing to brave the risk of even higher tariffs following the US presidential election, and are favouring Chinese assets on bets for more stimulus.

Optimism towards China’s copper prices prevailed at this month’s Shanghai Metals Market conference in Qinghai, with smelters set to expand in 2024-25, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

It may not get the same attention as solar panels and wind farms, but few pieces of infrastructure are more crucial for the fate of the planet than China’s cascade of hydroelectric plants.

How US election may affect Singapore, Chinese rice wine: 5 weekend reads you missed

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/3284103/how-us-election-may-affect-singapore-chinese-rice-wine-5-weekend-reads-you-missed?utm_source=rss_feed

We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider .

Who is China’s ‘beautiful robot’ hotpot eatery boss known for realistic mechanical movements

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3283642/who-chinas-beautiful-robot-hotpot-eatery-boss-known-realistic-mechanical-movements?utm_source=rss_feed

A street performer in China who disguised herself as a “robot” to distribute flyers and who turned out to be the owner of a hotpot restaurant skilled in mechanical dance, has become a sensation on mainland social media.

On October 15, the performer, notable for her flawless skin and striking figure, hit the streets of Chongqing in central China, distributing flyers while dressed in a red leather jacket and a short skirt.

She immediately captured the attention of passersby who mistook her for a realistic robot and rushed to take flyers from her.

Her lifelike skin particularly fascinated onlookers, and left many asking if it was synthetic.

“Her skin looks so beautiful,” said one passerby.

In fact, she is the very human 26-year-old owner of a hotpot restaurant, surnamed Qin, and is widely known on social media as Hotpot Robot Jiaojiao.

The skilled dancer has amassed over 490,000 followers online.

According to Jiupai News, Qin has been passionate about dance since her childhood and began professional training at the age of 12.

She also frequently shares videos online of herself cosplaying as a robot while serving customers.

“When customers or friends come to the restaurant, we dance together. By chance, they thought my impersonation was very realistic and recorded a video of me, which was then uploaded online,” said Qin.

“It’s about having fun using my talents and adding a unique feature to the restaurant,” she added.

It is not the first time she has captured online attention.

Earlier this year, Qin captivated the internet by impersonating a robot waitress at her hotpot restaurant, performing so convincingly that customers struggled to believe she was not a machine.

Beyond serving hotpot, she also regularly portrays robots at commercial events and even performs daily tasks like shopping and household chores in robot character.

This time, Qin has not only enhanced brand visibility by integrating flyer distribution with lively performances but also provided an enjoyable experience for passersby.

“She greets customers in our hotpot restaurant in this playful way, and now our restaurant has become a must-visit spot. We also hope to promote our hometown of Chongqing through these creative methods,” said Wu, another restaurant owner.

The latest news has sparked discussions online in China and overseas.

One online observer said: “It’s really competitive in China. Even in the restaurant business, you have to know to entertain customers.”

“People ignore flyers from humans, but when a robot hands them out, everyone rushes to grab one!” said another.

A third said: “Her movements and expressions are so robot-like. Her skills are amazing. It must take years of practice!”

However, some expressed concern, worrying that it might attract inappropriate behaviour, particularly from men who might mistake her for an actual machine.

“I’m genuinely worried that some older men might think it’s a real robot and try to touch her. The way some were looking at her was unsettling,” an online commenter said.

Thousands of Chinese kindergartens close as falling birth rate takes its toll

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3284049/thousands-chinese-kindergartens-close-falling-birth-rate-takes-its-toll?utm_source=rss_feed

The number of kindergartens in China dropped by more than 5 per cent last year in the latest indicator of the country’s falling birth rate.

In 2023 the number of kindergartens fell by 14,808 to 274,400 – the second consecutive annual decline – according to an annual report by the Ministry of Education.

Meanwhile, the number of children enrolled in kindergarten declined for a third consecutive year – dropping by 11.55 per cent, or 5.35 million, last year to 40.9 million, according to the report.

The number of primary schools also dropped by 5,645 to 143,500 in 2023, a 3.8 per cent fall.

The decline reflects a broader demographic shift in China – where both birth rates and total population continue to dwindle – posing a serious threat to future economic growth, which is already slowing.

Last year, China’s population dropped for the second year in a row, to 1.4 billion, a decline of over 2 million. Only 9 million births were reported in China in 2023, the lowest figure since records started in 1949.

The China Population and Development Research Centre has calculated that the country’s fertility rate dropped to 1.09 in 2022, and demographers estimated that it fell below 1.0 last year, although there is no official figure available.

The fertility rate refers to the average number of children born to each woman, while a replacement fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman is widely accepted as the necessary rate for a country’s population to remain constant.

In Shanghai, one of China’s wealthiest cities, the total fertility rate dipped to 0.6 in 2023, according to the local authorities.

“Meanwhile, the burden of elder care is intensifying, all amid economic stagnation,” said He Yafu, an independent demographer based in Guangdong province.

“Kindergarten operators need to adjust strategically to meet new challenges, such as expanding early childhood education to include children under three and establishing an integrated care-education system.”

National Health Commission data from 2021 showed that more than 30 per cent of Chinese families with infants and toddlers in China need child care, but only 5.5 per cent have enrolled their children in nurseries or pre-kindergartens.

An increasing number of kindergartens have been converted into care centres for senior citizens, and many of their staff members have switched jobs to care for the elderly.

Chinese families are increasingly reluctant to give birth, deterred by hefty housing and child-rearing costs, cutthroat competition for good schools and universities and jobs as well as the uncertain economic and political outlet.

A recent survey of women of childbearing age in the eastern city of Ningbo found that nearly half of single, childless women expressed a preference for having only one child, over a third did not want any children, 15 per cent wanted two, and less than 1 per cent said they wanted more children.

It also found that 56 per cent of those questioned regarded marriage as optional rather than essential and nearly 6 per cent saw no need to get married at all.

Could India become Asia’s next real estate investment hotspot, surpassing even China?

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3283945/could-india-become-asias-next-real-estate-investment-hotspot-surpassing-even-china?utm_source=rss_feed

India, known as the world’s back office, could supplant China to become Asia’s top real estate investment destination, according to analysts.

Known for attracting multinationals to set up their global capability centres (GCC), India is becoming a major investment magnet for many global players, they said.

However, it will take time before Asia’s third-largest economy solidifies its position as the premier investment destination, given that China and Japan have a more developed ecosystem to facilitate investment, according to Ada Choi, head of research for Asia-Pacific at CBRE.

In May, Singapore’s GIC and partner Xander Group acquired a 100 per cent stake in Waverock SEZ, a 2.4 million sq ft office property in the southern city of Hyderabad, for about 22 billion rupees (US$262 million), according to agents.

CapitaLand India Trust, another Singapore-backed entity, also snapped up a 100 per cent stake in Phoenix Group IT buildings in Hitec City in Hyderabad.

Japan’s Daibiru Corporation is investing US$123.5 million to develop Atrium Place, an office project near the capital Delhi.

Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management has also invested in office and retail properties in Delhi.

These deals have helped India to become the fourth-largest real estate investment destination in the Asia-Pacific region after Japan, China and Singapore this year, according to CBRE. In terms of cross-border investment, India tied with Japan in getting the most investment at US$2.6 billion.

“India, I think, down the road, is going to replace mainland China as the highest growth market in Asia-Pacific,” said Choi. “At this moment, we see that the investment volume, or the penetration of international investors in India is still very low.”

In terms of land and development sites, India received about US$1.5 billion in cross-border investment in the 12 months to June, ranking third worldwide, according to Colliers. That was a far cry from the US$36.5 billion invested in China and US$1.93 billion in Singapore.

“Foreign investors mainly look into office assets because of the strong fundamentals supported by the growing demand of GCC,” said Choi. “Occupancy rates are high in mature business areas, with rental performance steadily improving.”

Badal Yagnik, CEO of Colliers India, said the country’s attractiveness as a property investment option is underpinned by its economic success.

“Institutional investments in Indian real estate have crossed US$60 billion in the last 10 years,” Yagnik said. “ A vast majority of the real estate-specific institutional inflows have come from foreign players and the trend is likely to continue.”

Given the anticipated rise of India as a preferred foreign capital destination, global investors are likely to increasingly partner with domestic institutions and provide tailor-made financing solutions to leading real estate players in the Indian market, Yagnik added.

With India on track to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2030 and continue rapid growth until 2047, Yagnik estimates that the property industry’s contribution to the overall economic output will be between 14 per cent and 20 per cent by then. The sector accounted for 6 per cent to 8 per cent of economic growth in 2021.

However, to realise its full potential as a top property investment bet, India still needs to develop a pool of domestic investors to fully support the industry’s growth, said CBRE’s Choi.

“It is too early to debate whether India will become the largest property investment market,” she said.

“There are still foreign investment and ownership restrictions on freehold land. Also, their REIT [real estate investment trust] market is new. The country needs to accumulate sufficient capital and brew its own institutional investors for real estate assets.”

While India’s growth has come from the export of its services sector, China was able to achieve its economic trajectory via its manufacturing industry, said Choi.

However, Colliers’ Yagnik cautioned that geopolitical and climate risks could act “as potential roadblocks in the accelerated growth journey of Indian real estate”.

India’s future economic growth and consequently its real estate depends on the seamless and phased transition from fossil fuels to green energy, he added.

Chinese cities ease residency requirements as ‘war for people’ heats up

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3283912/chinese-cities-ease-residency-requirements-war-people-heats?utm_source=rss_feed

A fresh round of what has been called a “war for people” is spreading across China, with major cities taking it in turns to ease residency requirements amid stubbornly low fertility rates and an ongoing property market crisis.

Chengdu, a southwestern metropolis with a population of 17 million – twice that of New York, will allow migrants to change their residency status as long as they buy a home in the city, according to a plan the city government released for public comment this month.

In pursuit of a larger population, it is granting homebuyers the right to relocate their permanent residency – as recorded in an identity document known as hukou that is tied to an individual’s social benefits – and gain access to local public services.

A hukou registered in a major city has long been sought after, but it was previously difficult to obtain because the authorities in China used the rigid system to control population movement.

Chengdu’s potential policy change, with no planned implementation date yet announced, is the latest attempt at a “hukou for home” strategy adopted by city governments in the past couple of years as the competition for talent among localities becomes fiercer.

“The current competition is a continuation of the ‘war for talent’ that began in 2017 … cities must retain a certain scale of population to support modern industries such as finance and culture,” said Lu Mingtao, an associate professor of economics at Capital University of Economics and Business in Beijing.

Falling birth rates and swollen real estate inventories are intensifying the need for an inflow of people as local governments struggle to bolster economic activity, he added.

Official directives that have been made publicly available suggest that almost all provincial capitals and many other prominent centres, including Hangzhou and Suzhou in eastern China, have extended residency rights to people who buy property.

Noteworthy examples also include Shenyang and Qingdao in the north, which have introduced even looser policies that grant residency to those who are renting.

Residency options have also been made more accessible in the mega cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, as well as the municipality of Tianjin, which have either adopted the “hukou for home” policy in certain locations or eased their points-based residency systems.

The competition for talent began seven years ago, when cities like Wuhan and Chengdu implemented policies to attract university graduates, Lu said.

Now, a talent war has been reignited as localities seek economic viability in the face of changing demographics.

“The low fertility rate across the country exacerbates this competition, as fewer births mean local populations are dwindling, leading to increased rivalry in attracting migrants,” he said.

China’s population declined for the first time in six decades in 2022 and fell further last year, underscoring concerns about the growth prospects of the world’s second-largest economy. It reported a population of 1.409 billion at the end of last year – a 2.08 million decrease from 2022.

Lu said a large population is not only needed to cultivate innovative sectors, but also critical for local authorities as China pushes forward with tax reform in which “individual and corporate income tax, along with consumption tax, are likely to be the main source of survival for local governments”.

With the country’s demographic dividend diminishing, the central authorities are shifting to a new approach of encouraging more farmers to move to cities by promising them equal urban citizenship rights in a bid to stimulate consumption and maintain urban vitality.

In an urbanisation plan issued in July, the National Development and Reform Commission pledged to eliminate residency restrictions in cities with populations below 3 million, and ease requirements in those with populations between 3 million and 5 million.

For larger cities, the plan aims to refine points-based residency criteria, with an emphasis on social insurance payments and the duration of residency, while encouraging the removal of annual residency quotas.

Over two-thirds of China’s population lived in cities at the end of last year, but that included hundreds of millions of migrants who did not have residency status in those cities.

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China’s regulator hits CICC with over US$1 million in penalties for chip company’s IPO

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3284095/chinas-regulator-hits-cicc-over-us1-million-penalties-chip-companys-ipo?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s market regulator has fined China International Capital Corporation (CICC), considered China’s Goldman Sachs, 6 million yuan (US$841,000) over its failure to perform due diligence as sponsor of local chip company S2C’s failed new share listing in 2021, according to the investment bank’s filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) also confiscated 2 million yuan from the company’s sponsorship business income, and issued warnings and fines of 1.5 million yuan each to CICC executives Zhao Shanjun and Chen Liren, the sponsor representatives of the initial public offering (IPO).

CICC’s “failure to exercise due diligence” in its sponsorship of S2C’s IPO on the science and technology innovation board, along with “misrepresentations” in the issuance sponsorship letter and other documents it issued, violates the Securities Law of the People’s Republic of China and constitutes an illegal act, the CICC disclosure said.

CICC said it “sincerely accepts the penalties and will learn lessons from this case for comprehensive rectification”. The company received notice of the CSRC’s case filing earlier this month.

“The company is committed to an investor-oriented approach, continuously enhancing the control of professional quality, rigorously safeguarding the ‘entrance’ to the capital market, fulfilling its responsibility as a ‘gatekeeper’, and better serving the high-quality development of the capital market,” it added.

CICC said its operations remain normal.

The CSRC has tightened the screws on potential and existing IPOs since March this year when so-called Wu Qing, freshly appointed as the watchdog’s head, vowed to weed out unqualified companies and revive confidence in the country’s US$9 trillion stock market.

Last month the watchdog , the China unit of the Big Four accounting firm, a record 441 million yuan (HK$483 ­million) and banned it from auditing work for six months over failures in checking the books of bankrupt developer , according to the CSRC and the Ministry of Finance.

S2C, which focuses on tools used to design integrated circuits, applied for an IPO on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style Star market in August 2021. The application was withdrawn in July 2022 after the CSRC led a probe into the company and found that it may have falsified financial results.

In February, the regulator slapped S2C with a fine of 16.5 million yuan for overstating its revenue and profits in its listing prospectus. In June, the Shanghai Stock Exchange barred S2C from listing its shares after the company was found to have inflated its 2020 financial results.

S2C inflated its profits for 2020 by 12.5 million yuan, or 118.5 per cent, the Shanghai Stock Exchange said in June.

Chinese hackers collected audio from unnamed Trump campaign adviser: reports

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3284088/chinese-hackers-collected-audio-unnamed-trump-campaign-adviser-reports?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese state-affiliated hackers intercepted audio from the phone calls of US political figures including an unnamed campaign adviser of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, The Washington Post newspaper reported on Sunday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said on Friday they were investigating unauthorised access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by people associated with China.

Trump’s campaign and the FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Post also reported the hackers were able to access unencrypted communications, such as text messages, of the individual.

Reuters reported on Friday that Chinese hackers also targeted phones used by people affiliated with the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, were targeted, various media outlets reported last week.

The Trump campaign was made aware last week that Trump and Vance were among a number of people inside and outside government whose phone numbers were targeted through the infiltration of Verizon phone systems, The New York Times newspaper reported on Friday.

The Trump campaign was hacked earlier this year. The US Justice Department charged three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps with the hack, accusing them of trying to disrupt the November 5 election.

Verizon said on Friday it was aware of a sophisticated attempt to target US telecoms and gather intelligence and is working with police.

Congress is also investigating and earlier this month US lawmakers asked AT&T, Verizon and Lumen Technologies to answer questions about reports Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers.

The Chinese embassy in Washington said last week it was unaware of the specific situation but said China opposes and combats cyberattacks and cyber thefts in all forms.

Removal of Chinese tariffs sees imports of Australian wine surge

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3283910/removal-chinese-tariffs-sees-imports-australian-wine-surge?utm_source=rss_feed

A thawing of relations between Beijing and Canberra saw the value of Australia’s bottled wine exports to China climb rapidly in the first nine months of this year – bouncing back from near extinction in January, when import volume totalled just one litre – while those from major European competitors dropped due to shipping problems.

The value of China’s imports of Australian bottled wine last month was 2,952 times more than in September last year, before the removal of punitive tariffs, with volume totalling 3.51 million litres, according to the latest customs data.

In the first nine months of this year, China imported bottled wine from Australia valued at US$335.5 million – 613 times more than in the same period last year, and 57 per cent of the amount in the first three quarters of 2019. That made Australia, with a 32.32 per cent share of the imported wine market, the second-largest wine supplier to China after France, which had a 1.65 percentage point lead.

The surge this year followed Beijing’s removal of punitive tariffs on Australian wine in March. In 2020, Beijing imposed tariffs of up to 218.4 per cent on Australian wine and banned imports of lobsters and coal in response to Canberra’s call for an investigation into the origins of Covid-19.

That saw Australia’s share of China’s imported wine market plunge to 0.06 per cent last year from 37 per cent in 2019, when it was the largest supplier.

Previously, Australian wines imported into China had been subject to zero tariffs after the signing of a free-trade agreement in 2015, giving them a 14 per cent tariff advantage over many other wine-producing nations.

In the first nine months of 2019, before the pandemic, China imported US$589 million worth of wine from Australia. For the whole of that year it imported 120.8 million litres of Australian wine valued at US$812.2 million.

Wine Australia, an Australian government statutory body, attributed the rapid increase in wine exports in the first half of the year to China’s removal of import duties.

“It’s important to note that shipments in these first six months are likely to be characteristic of restocking Australian wine after a long absence. Export levels are not equivalent to retail figures,” Wine Australia manager Peter Bailey said on Tuesday.

“It will take time before it is evident how Chinese consumers are reacting to having Australian wine back in the market.”

Australia’s total wine exports increased 34 per cent in value and 7 per cent in volume in the 12 months ending in September, according to Wine Australia.

Chinese consumers’ appetite for wine has increased, with the country’s total wine imports in the first three quarters of the year up 31 per cent year on year.

However, global wine demand is declining as consumers reduce their alcohol consumption, driven by a stronger focus on health and rising cost of living pressures, Wine Australia said.

“Shipping delays and increased shipping costs due to regional conflicts are also making it harder for wine exporters to get their products into market,” it said, adding there had been an overall decline in European wine exports.

China’s wine imports from France fell by nearly 10 per cent in the first nine months of this year, imports from Spain were down 21 per cent, and those from Italy dropped 16 per cent, according to customs data.

After lifting punitive tariffs on Australian coal and wine this year, China is set to resume imports of live lobsters from the country by the end of the year after talks between the two countries at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional forum in Laos this month.

Mainland China sanctions academy that urges Taiwanese public to prepare for war

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3283836/mainland-china-sanctions-academy-urges-taiwanese-public-prepare-war?utm_source=rss_feed

On the same day last week that Beijing was conducting massive military drills around Taiwan, in response to a “provocative” speech by the island’s leader William Lai Ching-te, it also slammed sanctions on a lesser-known organisation.

Kuma Academy, which encourages the Taiwanese public to prepare for war with the mainland and stand up for the island, was sanctioned on October 14 for “propagating secessionist ideas” and serving as a base for “independence separatist activities”.

Also sanctioned were two prominent academy figures – Puma Shen, one of its founders, and business tycoon Robert Tsao Hsing-cheng, a major donor to the organisation and an outspoken critic of the mainland.

Chen Binhua, a spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, said the academy “blatantly cultivated violent pro-independence activists under the cover of educational lectures, training, outdoor drills, and even parent-child activities”.

“[The academy] is openly engaged in separatist activities and is, without a doubt, a Taiwan independence base,” he said. Shen and Tsao were sanctioned for supporting what Beijing perceives as “violent” pro-independence sentiment and activities.

While the academy denied providing any sort of combat training programmes, observers noted that its goals align with Lai’s ambition for a resilient, whole-of-society approach to streamline Taiwan’s oft-criticised civil defence system.

Drawing on Israel’s swift mobilisation of 360,000 reservists in just 72 hours after last year’s attack by Hamas, as well as the resilience of Ukrainian civilians, Lai has overseen the creation of a special committee to strengthen civil defence on the island.

The whole-of-society defence resilience committee held its inaugural meeting in late September. Its task is to integrate civilian forces into responses to potential attacks from Beijing, manage emergencies, and maintain social order and stability.

The body, which is set to further provoke Beijing, has also enlisted non-governmental organisations, including Kuma Academy and Forward Alliance, to help raise public awareness and improve preparedness for potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

While experts underlined the merits of improving Taiwan’s mature but ineffective civil defence system, they also pointed out that the effort was likely to add to tensions between the island and mainland China.

Kuma Academy was founded in 2021 but did not come into the public eye until after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Later that year, Beijing staged more than a week of massive live-fire war games, simulating a blockade of Taiwan.

The drill, in August 2022, was a response to then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, against strong protests from Beijing which considers the island as part of its territory, to be reunified with the mainland by force, if necessary.

Most countries, including the island’s largest arms supplier the United States, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state but oppose any unilateral change to the cross-strait status quo by force.

The war in Ukraine and Beijing’s war games provided the academy with an opportunity to draw the public’s attention in Taiwan to the need to prepare for conflict. The Israel-Gaza conflict, which erupted after the Hamas attack in October last year, further fuelled public interest.

“Before the Ukraine war, not many people had a sense of preparedness, nor did they believe war was imminent, despite the fact that Taiwan has been under constant military threats from China for the past 70 years,” said the academy’s co-founder Marco Ho.

Nearly 56 per cent of respondents to a poll released on Tuesday by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation, said they were not worried about a possible blockade of the island by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

The same survey also found that 50.3 per cent of respondents lacked confidence in the Taiwanese military’s ability to defend the island.

At a public course held by the academy in Taipei on October 19, an instructor warned attendees about the risk of lacking a sense of preparedness for war. He asked not to be identified as he was not authorised to speak for the academy.

“While some experts from the US and other Western countries have warned that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could happen within five to 10 years, many people here are still unconcerned,” the instructor said.

According to the instructor, one of the academy’s key goals is to raise public awareness and preparedness for a potential conflict while encouraging a rational response to the PLA’s scare tactics.

“The purpose of this basic course is to help people understand various Chinese threats, including those in the non-military grey zone,” the instructor said.

The day-long course included lessons on identifying disinformation and other tactics Beijing might use to induce confusion and chaos, as well as to undermine public confidence in the government’s ability to protect the island.

In addition to teaching people how to protect themselves and help others in the event of war or an emergency, the course also covered what they could do to prepare, where to find shelters, and what to do if they encountered enemy troops.

“I want to know how to protect myself and my family in case of war or a natural disaster,” said Chang Hsiu-wen, one of the course’s 20 attendees, who were mostly young people.

So far, the academy has provided basic training in first aid, media literacy, and crisis response to nearly 40,000 people, who could help the government and military during emergencies.

The instructor dismissed rumours that the academy taught people to use weapons in conflict. “It’s nonsense. We do not have weapons, and it is the defence ministry’s responsibility to train people for combat,” he said.

In addition to training courses, the academy organises large-scale events, forums and outdoor activities to raise awareness about self-protection during emergencies.

In a Facebook post on October 14, the academy announced a campaign aimed at “awakening the spirit of resistance in Taiwanese society” and sending a message to the international community that “Taiwan does not want to be with China” and “Taiwanese people will defend their own country”.

Wang Kung-yi, head of the Taiwan International Strategy Study Society think tank in Taipei, said the academy’s aims aligned with Lai’s intention to heighten public preparedness through the new committee.

“Raising public awareness is a high priority for Lai’s government, which has emphasised the need for preparation, as many Taiwanese remain reluctant to believe that a potential attack from Beijing is imminent,” he said.

Wang also noted that Beijing found Lai unacceptable because of his perceived hardline pro-independence stance. “This is why Lai has emphasised the need to prepare for war.”

Since his inauguration in May, Lai has further strained relations with Beijing by repeatedly stating that Taiwan and the mainland “are not subordinate to each other” – a stance that Beijing sees as severing the island’s historical ties to the mainland.

Li Da-jung, a professor of international relations and strategic studies at Tamkang University in New Taipei City, noted that Taiwan’s civil defence and mobilisation mechanisms had been criticised as inefficient.

Critics say that even though the mechanisms have long been in place, they are ineffective in preparing for emergencies because of insufficient training and poor coordination between the government and mobilised personnel.

“By strengthening these mechanisms, Lai also aims to signal to the US and its allies that Taiwan is improving its civil defence resilience. This could make the US and its allies more willing to assist in the event of a cross-strait conflict,” Li said.

Washington seemed to be supportive of the idea, with Taipei’s efforts hailed by US deputy assistant defence secretary Michael Chase at a symposium hosted by Washington-based think tank the Global Taiwan Institute on October 16.

“The United States strongly supports Taiwan’s efforts to enhance its whole of society resilience,” Chase said, adding that the Ukraine war underscored that whole-of-society resilience could provide significant advantages “against larger aggressors”.

“Unlike Israel’s civil defence system, which is primarily a military-civilian operation requiring both men and women to undergo regular military training, Taiwan’s civil defence focuses on preparing civilians for emergencies,” Li noted.

Lai’s committee emphasises improving the training and mobilisation of civilian forces, streamlining the stockpiling and distribution of strategic supplies, and ensuring the protection of energy and critical infrastructure.

One of the committee’s plans involves mobilising 400,000 people, including active and former military personnel, to help during emergencies. Volunteers will be drawn from police stations, fire services, private disaster relief groups, and organisations like Kuma Academy.

Tung Li-wen, chief executive officer of the Foundation on Asia-Pacific Peace Studies, a think tank in Taipei, praised Lai’s efforts to build a resilient civil defence force in Taiwan.

“By establishing the committee under the Presidential Office, it aims to achieve comprehensive coordination and integration among all government and civilian units involved, ensuring effective civil defence operations,” he said.

Max Lo, executive director of Wang’s think tank, noted that Beijing was likely to view Lai’s war-preparedness efforts as a challenge. “While the strategy has its merits, it is crucial for Lai to also pursue dialogue with Beijing to prevent conflict,” he stressed.

Wang also suggested that Lai should soften his confrontational stance towards Beijing. “After all, the majority of people in Taiwan do not want a war,” he said.

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Why North Korea is starting to become a ‘forgotten’ space for China and the US

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3283918/why-north-korea-starting-become-forgotten-space-china-and-us?utm_source=rss_feed

Kim Heung-kyu is a professor of political science and diplomacy and director of the US-China Policy Institute at Ajou University in Suwon, South Korea. He is also founder and president of the Plaza Project, a bipartisan think tank affiliated with the Korean National Assembly, and was a policy adviser for the South Korean presidential office. This interview first appeared in . For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click .

North Korea had tried to improve its relationship with the United States through [former US President Donald] Trump in order to resolve its security issues, but this ended in failure. With the Hanoi summit [in 2019] as a starting point, Kim Jong-un seems to have completely made up his mind that it is impossible to solve North Korea’s security problem through negotiations or any improvement in relations with the US.

The only thing that can be done is self-help. To ensure that none of the great powers can harm North Korea’s sovereignty and interests, it needs a certain means – nuclear missiles. Thus it succeeded by pouring all of North Korea’s power and energy into it.

I think North Korea is a country that early on defined the strategic competition between the US and China as a new cold war and, in a way, welcomed the advent of US-China strategic competition. If it becomes a new cold war, there will be no choice but to decide whether you are an ally or an enemy, and if that happens, North Korea will benefit from the South Korea-US-Japan versus North Korea-China-Russia structure.

Who would even dare to attack North Korea with nuclear weapons and missiles? The US does not want that, and South Korea cannot do it either. From a security point of view, North Korea is completely safe now.

The great powers that can support the energy and economic aid that Pyongyang needs or contain any abuse of sanctions on North Korea are either Russia or China. Pyongyang has been quite successful in that the structure of the new cold war has become fairly comfortable for itself. The only problem is that the relationship with China is not as smooth as expected, and there is a contradicting aspect of China’s interest with North Korea.

Both South and North Korea are pursuing strategies to escalate the conflict. The Yoon [Suk-yeol] administration faces a crisis with low approval ratings and is attempting to increase tensions between the South and the North to reverse that situation. North Korea is also trying to resolve its people’s dissatisfaction over a long-term recession and economic crisis by stoking inter-Korean tensions.

Moreover, if the dispatch of North Korean troops to Ukraine is true, we are witnessing a catastrophe of South Korea’s northern diplomacy, which has been pursued since the previous Roh Tae-woo administration.

North Korea has defined the current situation as a new cold war, and although South Korea has not reached that stage, it is actually implementing a new cold war-like perception and foreign policy. Concerns are growing that the Korean peninsula is approaching its worst military conflict since the Korean war.

We seem to be underestimating the leadership of Kim Jong-un, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, [Chinese President] Xi Jinping, and even [former Japanese prime minister Shinzo] Abe. When we analyse from a Western perspective, it appears that the crisis of succession or leadership that exists in any authoritarian or dictatorship system has been emphasised and led to a relatively negative image.

However, if you look at the history of each country, whether it is Kim, Putin or Xi, they have all shown great leadership. As soon as Kim Jong-un rose to power, he purged all the pro-China factions and succeeded in eliminating forces that could pose a threat to him, such as [his uncle] Jang Song-thaek, thereby achieving a certain level of domestic stability. Then he established a nuclear missile capability, building up North Korea’s leverage. By dramatically strengthening relations with Russia, North Korea obtained the energy, minerals and military high technology that it needs. Kim is the one that achieved all of these three enormous goals.

Of course, some economic difficulties cannot be resolved now due to sanctions and especially difficult relations with China, but despite this, I think systemic stability has been greatly strengthened.

I fundamentally agree, because China does not want to be recognised or treated as a country like Russia or North Korea. Firstly, China is dealing with a much bigger vision and a long-term strategy. Secondly, China does not want the Northeast Asia region to fall into a new cold war. So there is a belief that it is not in China’s interests to be stuck in a structure of South Korea-US-Japan versus North Korea-China-Russia. Thirdly, I think China has already started to move forward with a much larger global strategy and vision, where the importance of traditional security in Northeast Asia has relatively decreased.

China is in a position where it does not want Northeast Asia or the Korean peninsula to become a variable or obstacle to China’s grand strategy or global strategy. There is a difference from North Korea’s strategy, which is much more focused on the Korean peninsula.

First of all, the US wanted to place as much responsibility as possible for the North Korea issue on China, which has the most influence over Pyongyang. This was not such a bad thing for China either, because it was an important issue in maintaining the relationship between the US and China and Beijing could provide what Washington needed – managing North Korea issues. Thus, China has taken on that role and hosted the six-party talks, but the problem now is that all dreams and hopes have been shattered.

This is because, from the US perspective, China does not really do much, and China does not see a need to help the US in managing North Korea as we are in an era of strategic competition. Also, now the US itself has lower interest in North Korea. If you look at the platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties, the content on denuclearisation is completely omitted.

In fact, it started to become a “forgotten” space for both the US and China. However, from South and North Korean perspectives, it actually has to become a growing concern to have a higher chance that they can use it to gain political support or economic benefit. In that sense, it is not a very good situation.

Yes, because interest is gradually decreasing. North Korea, nevertheless, already has support from Russia and nuclear missiles. It is possible that North Korea will strengthen provocations in order to increase attention.

And because the current Yoon Suk-yeol administration in South Korea pursues peace through force and it is necessary to unite domestic conservative supporters, it will respond more strongly. So it may escalate into a spiral of tension and conflict.

Surprisingly, 60 to 70 per cent of South Korean citizens support possession of nuclear weapons, while the intellectual community had relatively very low support and was negative about the possibility of possessing nuclear weapons. This is because possessing nuclear weapons is against the so-called non-proliferation regime of the five permanent members of the United Nations – an important system that guarantees the interests of the permanent members.

If South Korea possesses nuclear weapons, the non-proliferation regime will collapse, and Seoul will have to endure strong sanctions. Here, the country imposing the harshest sanctions will be the US, just like during the [former South Korean president] Park Chung-hee days [when Seoul attempted to develop nuclear weapons in the 1970s].

However, the problem with South Korea is that, unlike North Korea, it is a so-called trading country. Trade accounts for almost 80 to 90 per cent of South Korea’s GDP. South Korea is also a country without resources. North Korea has resources on its own and can endure [sanctions], but Seoul has almost no resources to do so. This means it cannot withstand sanctions.

Therefore, while this is still only latent, the US variable is important for now. Depending on how the US behaves, South Korea’s choices and support for nuclear armament may change. Some experts are suggesting joint nuclear armament between South Korea and Japan, and the discussion has become much more serious than before, with even conservative supporters taking a positive stance on such proposals – although there is still an “if” factor. In the end, distrust in the US-ROK alliance is becoming the catalyst for South Korea’s nuclear armament.

For now, the consistent message South Korea is sending to the US is that its most important contribution to the South Korea-US-Japan security cooperation system is suppressing North Korea’s provocations, instead of engaging in any direct military intervention [in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea]. Of course, based on the ROK-US alliance, it may be permissible to accept wounded personnel, provide repairs or general goods, but military participation in any actual military hostilities against China is beyond the scope of the ROK-US alliance. This is still the general perception in South Korea.

Moreover, an important variable in military cooperation between South Korea, the US and Japan will probably be the next South Korean presidential election. If the [opposing] Democratic Party wins or a candidate with a different political stance emerges from the ruling party, it will not be easy to continue to push for military and security cooperation between South Korea, the US and Japan. This is because the public’s feelings towards Japan are still not resolved, and Tokyo is not taking active measures to resolve any anti-Japanese sentiment among the Korean people.

I believe that Yoon’s current policy towards Japan is not sustainable no matter who becomes the next president. In other words, there is no choice but to take measures to balance the historical issues and the current need for some kind of cooperation between South Korea and Japan.

Secondly, the biggest pending issue between South Korea and Japan is probably neither the North Korea issue nor the China issue, but the issue of Block 7 [South Korea-Japan Joint Development Zone] in the southern part of the Korean coast [in the East China Sea, presumed to have natural resources]. The issue will arise starting next year [as the two countries can decide whether they will extend the joint development treaty or not in June 2025], which is highly likely to lead to a huge conflict between South Korea and Japan.

If that happens, there is a possibility that South Korea-Japan relations will rapidly deteriorate. This is because Japan has no intention of making concessions, but South Korean public sentiment against the current government is too strong for South Korea to accept it as is. This will also bring enormous pressure to the next administration and a very difficult relationship between South Korea and Japan is expected.

I still believe that China is the most important partner of South Korea’s economic cooperation, because it would not be in South Korea’s national interest if it decouples or widens the gap between a large market like China, a country that is still developing and leading the fourth industrial revolution.

Also, in a sense, the current structure to disperse the supply chain amid the US-China strategic competition is not only an effort to weaken the retaliation from Beijing if South Korea has too much reliance on China, but also because of changes in the economic structure. To put it simply, South Korea has nothing to sell and only things to buy. If you look closely, only exports have decreased significantly. This is also a problem with South Korea’s inability – it has become incompetent due to changes in its economic structure.

Hence, South Korea is now taking advantage of the opportunity of strategic competition between the US and China to sell goods that no longer come from China to the US. In that respect, the strategic competition between the US and China can be beneficial to the Korean economy. So there is no need to interpret the US-China strategic competition in a negative way just because of its structural nature.

Seoul wouldn’t even budge – the US considers the semiconductor field as having a direct link to its core interest in the strategic competition between the US and China and will enforce similar pressure. The patents for all of South Korea’s hi-tech products and machines to produce them are owned by the US. Will China provide them if South Korea does not bow its head to the US? South Korea makes a living out of semiconductors, so it has no choice but to succumb to pressure from the US in this field.

China is also expanding its capabilities in this field relatively quickly, so from South Korea’s perspective, this will be even more unsettling. This is because, on the one hand, South Korea has no choice but to depend on the US, and on the other hand, China is quickly catching up to South Korea’s capabilities. It will have little room to make any other choice now.

It is in South Korea’s best interest for China to have a moderate foreign policy and achieve rapid economic growth. Unfortunately, China’s diplomacy has become quite rigid recently with so-called Wolf Warrior diplomacy. Also, the current trend of taking economic retaliation … is a very burdensome situation for Korea.

The decline in China’s economy is also very burdensome. This is because South Korea’s economy is largely synchronised with China’s economy. So, when China is in trouble, South Korea is also in trouble, and when the Chinese economy recovers, South Korea also recovers. Since that structure is still large, South Korea wants China to develop quickly and well.

However, the structural constraints of strategic competition have become like shackles in the field of diplomacy and security, and South Korea is not free from them. Thus, South Korea is facing a significant dilemma.

In my opinion, the most core element underlying the Yoon administration’s strong security cooperation policy with the US, and between South Korea-US-Japan, is fear. What this means is the question of South Korea being left out in this newly changing diplomatic and security structure and economic decoupling and de-risking.

China is in a situation where it has not been able to present an alternative solution. And while it is engaging in the cooperative relationship with the US and Japan, Seoul has simultaneously activated both the fear that South Korea may be internationally marginalised if the necessity of South Korean industry weakens and the impatience that it must first secure the ROK-US alliance and South Korea-US-Japan cooperation, which it can quickly visualise.

We can fully expect that as well because the diplomatic stance of the Yoon administration ultimately comes from accepting the international political perception of the competition between democracy versus authoritarianism proposed by the Biden administration. However, the problem is, first, even the US no longer views international relations in this way.

The second thing is that there is a lot of resistance in South Korea. Although it is true that the South Korean public’s perception of China has worsened significantly since the THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defence anti-missile system] incident, the majority still oppose a hostile relationship with China, according to polls. It could be a trigger that could further weaken the current approval rating of the already unpopular and weakened Yoon administration. It would be more helpful for them to make the relationship with North Korea more hostile.

We need to move away from thinking that the current structure is simply a new cold war or a completely dichotomous one. The relationship currently being sought to be established between the US and China seems a bit far from that. Although there is fierce competition between them in core areas, there is a lot of room for cooperation in many others, such as manufacturing or emerging security-related fields. The more we zoom in on it, the better it will be.

In the case of South Korea, it can now actively cooperate with China and also with the US. In areas that the US designates as its core, South Korea does not have any leverage of its own, so it has no choice but to keep saying that it will comply with the ROK-US alliance. On the other hand, South Korea will also begin to increasingly consider security without the US in its North Korea-related policies. The arms race is inevitable, and it would be reasonable to say that South Korea’s modifications and new tactics and development of these strategies are in progress.