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• German Foreign Minister Baerbock slams China’s support for Russia ahead of Beijing trip
• What Biden’s visit to Angola says about Lobito Corridor and US-China rivalry
• ‘Wealthy’ China KOL sells supplements as ‘miraculous’ cancer cure, claims US$36 million sales
• Chinese county grapples with how to lure and reward workers for difficult, low-level jobs
• Visa-free entry taking China tourist numbers ‘closer to pre-Covid levels’
• China’s narrative war with West goes beyond Confucius with focus on other ancient schools
• How a Jesuit priest and Chinese literary icon Sanmao found love beyond romance
• China seeks to boost energy ties with Turkmenistan
• Taiwan president stops in Hawaii during Pacific tour, drawing ire from China
• China property market faces long recovery road despite restructuring progress
• China’s 1,000km/h trains will support 5G, study on beating near-sonic challenge says
• In a world of tariff threats, China opts to share green tech dividends
• ‘Bored’ Chinese man creates fake arrest notice for himself offering US$4,000 reward, detained
• China’s digital yuan roared out of the gate, but stumbling blocks could give it pause
• UFO expert not ruling out Russia or China links to drones seen at RAF bases

German Foreign Minister Baerbock slams China’s support for Russia ahead of Beijing trip

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3288896/german-foreign-minister-baerbock-slams-chinas-support-russia-ahead-beijing-trip?utm_source=rss_feed

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has criticised China’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine ahead of a visit to Beijing.

“Instead of shouldering responsibility for peace and security in the world as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China is going against our core European interests by providing economic and military aid to Russia,” Baerbock said on Sunday before her departure for a brief visit to China.

Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine poses an immediate threat to peace, the top German diplomat asserted.

“The fact that we cannot simply ignore this in our relations with China is something I will also be discussing in Beijing,” she added.

Baerbock is meeting China’s top diplomat Wang Yi on Monday.

One of the main topics of her planned talks in Beijing is likely to be allegations that China is supporting Moscow’s fight against Ukraine by supplying drones or drone parts.

The Green Party politician recently warned Beijing that there would be consequences. Monday’s talk will be the third in-depth meeting between the two politicians this year.

The European Union is currently in the process of preparing a 15th package of sanctions against Russia, which will in part target companies based in China that are involved in the manufacture of drones for Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Beijing regularly calls for de-escalation in view of Russia’s war of aggression and, according to its own statements, plans a political solution to the conflict.

However, Beijing is considered to be Moscow’s most important source of support and has not condemned Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

What Biden’s visit to Angola says about Lobito Corridor and US-China rivalry

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3288759/what-bidens-visit-angola-says-about-lobito-corridor-and-us-china-rivalry?utm_source=rss_feed

When Joe Biden arrives in Angola on Monday on his first African visit as US president, he is likely to land at a China-built airport and then be driven along a highway also built or financed by China.

That goes to show how deep Chinese influence runs in Angola, where post-civil war reconstruction was largely bankrolled by Beijing, while Western lenders shunned the African nation as a risky Cold War proxy.

Biden’s three-day visit at the tail-end of his term is expected to seal his legacy in Africa, specifically the Lobito Corridor – a US-invested railway and logistics project connecting Angola with Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Angola is seen as a test case for US ambitions to counter Chinese influence in Africa, where Beijing has funded many megaprojects under its Belt and Road Initiative. US investment in Angola is part of the Group of 7’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which aims to provide US$600 billion for global infrastructure by 2027.

The US challenge to China in Africa also comes amid a race for access to mineral resources, at a time when Angolan President Joao Lourenco is seeking to diversify the country’s oil-dependent economy and reduce excessive reliance on China.

Angola received billions of dollars from China to build its housing, roads, hydroelectric dams and railways after a decades-long civil war ended in 2002, and used oil shipments to repay those loans until 2017, when the late Jose Eduardo dos Santos was president. Lourenco, his successor, says some of those resource-backed loans hurt the economy.

In an interview published by The New York Times on Thursday, Lourenco said having debt bound to collaterals such as oil “was disadvantageous for the country”.

“We are paying off the debt. If you would ask me now if I had to take a new loan under the same conditions, I would say no.”

The Lobito Corridor is Washington’s biggest project in Africa in decades. It involves refurbishing an existing section of the 1,344km (835-mile) railway line from the Angolan port of Lobito to the southern DRC, and building a 800km track through northwestern Zambia, with plans to also extend it to the Indian Ocean shores of Tanzania.

The move is seen as part of attempts by the US and its European allies to gain access to African critical minerals in their drive to de-risk from Chinese supply chains.

According to Carlos Lopes, a professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town, Angola is a logical choice for Biden due to its critical role in the geopolitics of minerals and the race for resources essential to the global energy transition.

“The Lobito Corridor, backed by US funding, is not only a key logistics project but also a counterweight to China’s entrenched presence in Angola and the broader region,” Lopes said.

“Angola is emblematic of this rivalry,” he said, while noting that China had not only invested heavily in Angola’s oil sector and infrastructure but its footprint extended also into financing roads, railways and telecoms technology.

The oil-rich coastal nation is also increasingly pivotal to the supply of minerals like copper and cobalt from its landlocked neighbours Zambia and the DRC. Both are critical materials for electric vehicle batteries and other renewable technologies.

“By choosing Angola, Biden underscores the strategic importance of the Lobito Corridor as a US-backed alternative that connects regional economies to global markets without relying on Chinese capital,” Lopes said.

Biden will also be the first ever US president to visit Angola, keeping a promise he made during the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit in 2022, according to Ovigwe Eguegu, policy analyst at Beijing-based consultancy Development Reimagined.

“It also shows the importance of the Lobito Corridor project, which is the most practical step the Biden administration has taken towards securing the US critical and strategic minerals supply chain,” Eguegu said.

He also highlighted Lourenco’s efforts to tilt Angola’s mostly China-facing foreign relations towards more balanced ties with both the US and China.

“Angola is an indisputable partner of the Lobito Corridor project which the Biden administration has clearly shown commitment towards realising,” he added.

W. Gyude Moore, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based Centre for Global Development and a former ­Liberian public works minister, said the Biden administration and its allies in Europe had put significant political capital behind not completely ceding the African infrastructure space to China, using Lobito Corridor as the marker.

“Angola thus became a focal point as the end of the [Lobito] line. That the line would increase access to strategic minerals made it even more important,” Moore added.

A White House briefing last week revealed that the US had spent or invested more than 80 per cent of the US$55 billion that Biden promised the continent at the 2022 Leaders Summit in Washington, and a record number of senior US officials had travelled to Africa since then.

According to former US official Cameron Hudson, the US believes that it has moved Angola from the Chinese orbit into the American orbit and Biden’s visit is intended to cement that change.

“This visit plants the flag of US influence in Angola earned over many years of diplomatic and financial investment,” said Hudson, who is now a senior associate with the Africa programme at Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

He also expects incoming president Donald Trump to continue to deepen ties with Angola because of its strategic value to the United States and “because he will also want to prevent China from regaining its momentum in the country”.

Washington had invested more diplomatically and financially in Angola than in any other African country, Hudson said. “The problem for Washington is that it is simply unable to replicate this level of engagement across very many countries in Africa.”

‘Wealthy’ China KOL sells supplements as ‘miraculous’ cancer cure, claims US$36 million sales

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3288397/wealthy-china-kol-sells-supplements-miraculous-cancer-cure-claims-us36-million-sales?utm_source=rss_feed

A Chinese influencer, who claims to be a Harvard Business School graduate and cultivates a “wealthy persona”, has had her social media account banned after promoting health supplements as cancer-curing medicines.

The fashion blogger, known by her alias Maiqila, boasts 143,000 followers on Xiaohongshu.

The majority of her income comes from selling health-enhancing products, alongside jewellery and cosmetics, according to The Paper.

During a live-streaming session in mid-November, Maiqila claimed to have sold health products worth 20 million yuan (US$2.8 million) in a single day, with weekly revenue reaching 260 million yuan (US$36 million).

She suggested that her products could treat various diseases and employed tactics to evade regulatory scrutiny while promoting their miraculous effects. For instance, she used the English abbreviation “CA” to refer to cancer.

One of her products, a monk fruit compressed slice marketed as a dietary supplement, was touted as capable of eliminating various cysts and even malignant tumours.

Another product, a powder made from dragon tree leaves, was claimed to cure conditions associated with blood blockages, such as cerebral infarction, uraemia, and cancer, and even to treat acute poisoning.

Additionally, she promoted a type of lutein capsule as a miracle cure for cataracts, glaucoma, and vision impairment.

The Paper discovered that none of these three products carried medicinal labels on their packaging.

To build customer trust, Maiqila displayed screenshots of several US-based English-language newspapers, asserting that the beneficial effects of her products had been reported by foreign media.

“If you have nang and zhong (the two Chinese characters for cyst) or CA (cancer), or other issues that cannot be resolved by doctors, our products can help. We can assist you in overcoming these problems,” Maiqila stated during her live-stream.

“Purchase our products and send them to relatives or friends with serious illnesses. They will surely be grateful to you. You are helping others and accumulating virtue for yourself,” she added.

On November 25, Xiaohongshu informed The Paper that Maiqila’s account was suspended for violating rules regarding product promotion.

Her account has been labelled as “risky”, with all her videos removed from the platform, the Post found.

False advertising is not uncommon during live-streaming events in China.

Two months ago, a prominent Chinese KOL, Crazy Xiaoyangge, who has 100 million followers on Douyin, was fined nearly 70 million yuan (US$9.7 million) by authorities in eastern Anhui province for false advertising related to a domestic mooncake brand and an imported beef roll product.

Chinese county grapples with how to lure and reward workers for difficult, low-level jobs

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3288717/chinese-county-grapples-how-lure-and-reward-workers-difficult-low-level-jobs?utm_source=rss_feed

A county in eastern China is seeking better perks for grass-roots government workers engaged in social affairs after it struggled to lure talent willing to take on the demanding jobs.

The Social Work Department of the Communist Party committee in Feng county in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, attributed the shortage of talent in grass-roots government organisations to unattractive remuneration packages and a heavy workload, and called for more financial support.

A report summarising the findings of a survey undertaken in the county was published on the official WeChat account of the department on November 21 and later carried by people.com.cn, the online version of party mouthpiece People’s Daily.

However, the report appeared to have been removed from the WeChat account since the original post. And the People’s Daily website has replaced its initial report with a condensed version that now omits details about problems facing the county.

The report highlights the difficulties facing local governments – especially those in less affluent areas – when tasked with managing the many social responsibilities required under institutional reform measures.

The Social Work Department of the Central Committee is a party organ that was created last year to handle public grievances, grass-roots governance, building the party apparatus in the private sector and coordinating volunteers.

It was created to tighten the party’s grip at all levels and local governments were asked to form local branches to carry out the work at the grass-roots level.

According to the Feng county report, most of the local governance tasks were carried out by contract or temporary staff, including many without professional training.

The report pointed out that among more than 5,000 community workers in the county, fewer than 2 per cent were licensed social workers. Many local government workers in the countryside or townships were older workers with little education.

“A large number of contract or temporary staff members form the backbone of daily operations at the grass-roots level. Without formal positions, they are not only prone to unfair treatment but also suffer negative impacts to their professional dignity and work motivation, which can easily prompt them to quit,” it said.

Grass-roots government workers in China have long been subjected to a heavy workload while carrying out a wide range of duties, including rehabilitation, educating teenagers, medical services and correctional services in the community as well as handling complaints.

“Daily grass-roots tasks are complex, heavy and fragmented. Many frontline workers are overwhelmed and spend whole days on administrative work. This leaves them little time or energy for systematic learning or professional development,” the report said.

Various schemes encouraging university graduates to serve in low-level government agencies or public institutes have helped bring a batch of high fliers to work in the county, but most only stay a short time.

The report said such initiatives had failed to ensure a stable workforce, as the graduates usually considered the services a springboard to further studies or government positions.

The report also hit out at the county’s talent import policy, which it described as lacking any unique benefits for potential recruits and “not very targeted and relatively unattractive to talent”.

Meanwhile, young people from the local area tended to look for better jobs in bigger cities, and few wanted to stay.

To ease the shortage of grass-roots government workers, the report urged the government to roll out more incentives, including providing suitable housing for talent, aiding the job hunt for employees’ spouses and arranging schools for their children. It added that the government should also look to local residents who had studied or started a business elsewhere and try to lure them back to work.

“[The government should] establish reasonable salary policy, standardise the salaries of community workers without formal positions, improve incentive systems, address the issues of low wages and poor benefits for these workers and enhance their social status and professional prestige,” it added.

Visa-free entry taking China tourist numbers ‘closer to pre-Covid levels’

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3288875/visa-free-entry-taking-china-tourist-numbers-closer-pre-covid-levels?utm_source=rss_feed

The number of foreign tourists entering China is edging closer to pre-pandemic levels, industry insiders said on the weekend as visa-free access for nine more countries took effect.

Since Saturday, passport holders from nine countries, including Japan, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania, have been able to enter China without a visa for stays of up to 30 days for business, tourism, family visits or transit.

The visa-free policy now applies to 38 nations, while nationals of 54 countries can take advantage of 72-hour or 144-hour visa-free transits.

Wu Liyun, a tourism professor at Beijing International Studies University, said the visa-free entry policy, including the transit-visa exemptions, “will undoubtedly provide a significant boost to China’s inbound tourism, enhancing the country’s global tourism image”.

“There’s no doubt that this year will be the best for inbound tourism since the pandemic, with overall interest in China rising steadily,” Wu said.

Travel platforms have reported big increases in searches for Chinese destinations and international flight bookings since the decision to expand the visa-free scheme was announced on November 22.

Within 30 minutes of the announcement, searches for Chinese destinations surged 65 per cent on Trip.com’s European sites and 112 per cent on its Japanese site.

Inquiries about flights from Japan to China also rose significantly, the company said, adding that travellers from visa-free countries accounted for around a third of its travel bookings to China.

At the same time, the number of flights from Japan to China in November increased by more than 70 per cent compared to last year, while the average one-way fare, including taxes, dropped by about 15 per cent, Trip.com said.

In 2019, the year before Covid-19 ground international travel to a halt, nearly 32 million foreigners visited China.

According to the National Immigration Administration, 24.7 million overseas passport holders visited between January and September this year.

In the third quarter alone, 8.2 million foreigners entered China – about 50 per cent more than last year – and of those 4.9 million used visa-free entry.

In Sichuan, one of the most popular provinces for overseas travellers, the number of accommodation registrations for foreign visitors reached 980,000 in the first 11 months of 2024, more than three times that for the same period in 2023, according to local media reports.

And, by the end of November, Beijing Daxing International Airport had processed five times as many 144-hour temporary entry permits as the previous year.

Zhou Mingqi, founder of tourism consultancy Jingjian Consulting, said the visa-free entry scheme was not just about tourism or economic benefits, given that inbound tourism revenue was not even a fraction of outbound tourism.

Zhou said it was about improving international exchanges, particularly at the grass-roots level.

“The main goal is to increase communication with other countries, showcasing China’s positive image and inviting people to experience the country for themselves,” he said.

Zhou said the policies would also “give room” for foreign investment to expand.

China’s narrative war with West goes beyond Confucius with focus on other ancient schools

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3288687/chinas-narrative-war-west-goes-beyond-confucius-focus-other-ancient-schools?utm_source=rss_feed

China has set up a research institute on early Chinese philosophies, taking the discourse beyond Confucius in its latest effort to win the narrative war with the West on governance values.

The “Chinese Zhuzi Research Institute”, or “institute of early Chinese philosophies” opened earlier this month at the East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai.

It aims to explore the country’s rich philosophical heritage dating back more than 2,000 years and use that ancient wisdom for contemporary governance in China and beyond, scholars attending the inauguration ceremony last month said.

Analysts see the institute as the latest testament to China’s focus on reclaiming its intellectual heritage for modern governance as it fights a narrative war with the US-led West, albeit with a focus on the less popular schools of thought to encourage a more inclusive dialogue.

Addressing the inauguration ceremony, ECNU vice-president Lei Qili highlighted the institute’s role in revitalising traditional culture in response to the “second combine”.

The term, coined by President Xi Jinping in 2021 during the centenary of the Communist Party, is part of Beijing’s campaign to “Sinicise Marxism” through traditional Chinese culture.

The “first combine” adapted Marxism to China’s unique realities, such as the reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping in the late 20th century.

Traditionally, Confucianism has been the predominant ideology in Chinese cultural and intellectual contexts, while other philosophical schools were usually sidelined.

According to Stephen C. Angle, professor of philosophy and East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University, the new institute presents “a wider framework for understanding [Chinese] civilisation – which is appropriate.

“Any attempt to equate Chinese culture with Confucianism alone is deeply mistaken.”

Confucianism, which emphasises morality and hierarchy, is one of the diverse, flourishing philosophical schools that arose from social and political upheaval in China’s Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 BC).

Among the other leading schools of thought are Taoism, which advocates for living in harmony with nature; Legalism, which focuses on strict laws and places little faith in ethical persuasion or moral leadership; and Mohism, which promotes universal love and meritocracy.

Others include the School of Names focusing on language and logic, and the School of Yin-Yang, which advocates a balance of opposites.

Debates among and the integration of various schools have laid the groundwork for thousands of years of Chinese governance.

Chinese traditions were never “exclusivist” in the way that “monotheistic religions” are, Angle said.

“As these traditions developed, they drew on one another’s insights – sometimes critiquing but sometimes co-opting. The new institute is designed to emphasise these connections and interactions.”

According to a Shanghai-based historian who wished to remain anonymous, bringing Confucianism down to “equal status” with other schools reflected a “significant shift in academic perception”.

Chinese philosophers had been turning to other ancient schools to interpret contemporary events for centuries, especially during times of war and turmoil, the historian said. But the endeavour gained added traction after the First Opium War during the Qing dynasty, with the introduction of Western ideologies. This gave rise to a vibrant and evolving discourse with varying focal points over the decades, according to the historian.

“But in today’s context, the study of Zhuzi [various schools of thought] has just become a resource that serves [Beijing’s] purpose of justifying itself as a unified civilisation,” he said.

The new institute also comes as Beijing revisits China’s cultural roots to support its governance, with various “Chinese culture projects” seen to strengthen the image of China as a global power with a long-standing legacy.

Rana Mitter, ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at Harvard Kennedy School, highlighted a “narrative competition between the liberal world and China”.

“In the early 20th century, China’s radicals, including the [Communist Party of China],, turned away from Confucian thinking, but today they have embraced ancient philosophy as wisdom that has global significance,” he said.

The new institute “is an attempt to find a more detailed and rigorous intellectual basis for arguments that China’s long-standing ways of thought can offer solutions at a time when the liberal world seems less sure of itself.”

Central to the institute’s mission is the “Zizang Project”, an undertaking launched in 2010 to compile classical texts of all schools of thought from the pre-Qin to the late Qing dynasty.

Pioneered by Fang Yong, an ECNU professor who is now director of the new institute, the scale of the project is larger than the – imperial China’s largest collection of books that was compiled during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).

A counterpart compilation, the Confucianism canons of “Ruzang”, is being led by Peking University.

As of 2021, Zizang had released six batches of works – involving around 1,016 volumes of books and 2,981 texts from early Chinese philosophical traditions. The project not only preserves important works but also seeks to reinterpret their teachings for modern relevance, Fang has been quoted as saying in media reports.

Sam Crane, a political scientist at Williams College in Massachusetts, acknowledged the academic benefits of the project but expressed concerns that politically it might simply reinforce China’s governance pattern as “Confucianism on the outside, Legalist on the inside”.

The phrase refers to a system where “the moral theory of Confucianism is manipulated to veil the power political reality of Legalism,” according to Crane, who studies ancient Chinese philosophy and its contemporary application in Chinese politics. “[China] is a Legalist state that uses Confucianism to present itself as moral.”

Beyond its borders, China is also revitalising ancient philosophies to position them as viable alternatives to Western-centric models, as exemplified by Xi’s “Global Civilisation Initiative” launched last year.

At the Zhuzi institute’s inauguration ceremony on November 16, Fang reinforced its aim of using early Chinese philosophy as “a bridge for communication” with Western civilisations and aiding the “advancement of world civilisation”.

Scholars from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and the United States sent congratulatory messages on the institute’s opening, according to a report on the ECNU website.

Angle sees the institute as a “hopeful sign” as East-West tensions rise. “Such openness to other perspectives also suggests a further openness to engagement with perspectives from outside China,” he said.

But Mitter at Harvard warned of the need for self-reflection. “To make this effective, Chinese thinkers will need to have space to critique their own society as well as that of others, something which traditional philosophy was very good at doing.”

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How a Jesuit priest and Chinese literary icon Sanmao found love beyond romance

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3288742/how-jesuit-priest-and-chinese-literary-icon-sanmao-found-love-beyond-romance?utm_source=rss_feed

This is a love story, specifically a literary love story. Yet, for Jesuit priest Father Barry Martinson, it transcends romance. He speaks of sacrificial love, “which is something I really believe in”, which shaped his life alongside the closest friendship he has ever known.

This morning, beauty reveals itself in the small township of Wufeng, situated 1,000 metres above sea level in the mountains of Taiwan. Mist gently rises from the valley, while the mountains resemble vibrant, child-like drawings—green and sharply pointed, with winding roads and clouds resting on their peak.

For 48 years, Father Barry has devoted himself to his congregation of the Atayal and Saisiyat Indigenous tribes here, leading what he describes as a hermit-like life – a solitude that suits him well.

Amid this isolation, one woman came to know him intimately. Born Chen Maoping in Chongqing in 1943, she was also known as Echo Chan, the first name she used in Latin script.

For millions of devoted readers, she is immortalised by her pen name: Sanmao. As one of the best-known Chinese language authors, she has inspired a generation of young women during China’s opening to the world.

Sanmao once wrote to Martinson about their bond: “The love between a man and a woman is too narrow. Such a deep love cannot be understood by the world. They … only care about gender differences, not knowing the soul sometimes has no gender at all.”

Sitting in the kitchen of his modest home on top of the church, Martinson tells This Week in Asia that, next to his brother, Sanmao was the person whogot closest to him.

“She wanted me to share as much as I could about my life. And I did, as far as I could go.”

They talked for hours about films and literature. The book The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – a gentle allegory on friendship and wonder – became a metaphor for their relationship.

Sanmao, who passed away in 1991 at the age of 47, remains a publishing phenomenon. She was renowned for her autobiographical memoirs and travel writing. During her lifetime, her books sold 15 million copies, many of which are still in print in English and Chinese.

Her followers considered her a revolutionary, embodying the spirit of freedom and feminism. Her fans retrace the footsteps of her travelogues through the Sahara and the Canary Islands. In 2019, The New York Times acknowledged her as one of the significant world figures overlooked in its obituary column at the time of her death.

And yet the story of her friendship with Martinson is largely unknown.

They met in 1972 when Martinson, a Californian of Lebanese descent, was a seminarian on Orchid Island, off the coast of Taiwan. One day, two young women peeked around the door; visitors were rare at the time. One of those girls was Echo Chan – not yet a writer, she was already an adventurer. At 26, she was one year older than Martinson.

She was not beautiful, he says. “But it was like that first line of the book Gone with The Wind. ‘Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but people seldom noticed because they were so captivated by her charm’”.

“She had a high voice and she was very expressive. And her eyes would grow wide … She had a very, very beautiful smile with some teeth that were not straight, you know, like Audrey Hepburn.”

He gave her a tour of the island. Most visitors barely noticed the people of the island but “She was very curious … and I was the same way. And I had never seen someone like me in that way.”

She invited him to visit her for dinner in Taipei, where she lived with her parents. He eagerly looked forward to the occasion, but on the day of the visit there was a mix-up. He had her address written on a slip of paper, but lost it.

He spent hours frantically wandering her neighbourhood, knocking on doors to ask if anyone knew her or her family. But, he never found her.

He described it as “the most blackest day ever”. First, he felt he had let her down. Second, he longed to be her friend.

He insists there was no tension with his priestly vows of celibacy. “I had a tremendous desire for friendship, but not so much for sexual. To be frank, I was never much attracted to her sexually.”

Nine years passed, and Echo Chan began her travels. In Spain, she met and married marine engineer José María Quero y Ruíz. They moved to the Sahara, where she said “that vast and unfamiliar land” inspired her writing, This collection was published as Stories of the Sahara, in May 1976, marking the birth of Sanmao, the literary vagabond and self-described “black sheep.”

In 1979, her husband died in a diving accident. After that, Sanmao concluded her 14 years of travel and settled in Taiwan.

Meanwhile, Martinson was ordained and began his life’s work in Wufeng, just as Sanmao the literary sensation took the Chinese world by storm. He was only vaguely aware of her and didn’t realise that she was the woman he had accidentally stood up all those years before.

In 1981, she tracked him down and mailed him a copy of Stories of the Sahara with a note from the author asking if he remembered her from Orchid Island.

“I don’t read Chinese very well … but I started reading, and I could understand the stories. And I liked it.”

Martinson had written a book of stories about the people on Orchid Island and had tried unsuccessfully to publish it. Now, he noticed their shared writing style – journalistic, sometimes poetic and curious about the vagaries of human nature – and decided to send his manuscript to Echo.

Although hopeful, he was still surprised when there was a knock on his door. It was Echo, dressed in overalls and with her hair in pigtails, “like a farm girl”. To his astonishment, she was accompanied by her publisher.

They were interested in publishing his manuscript. Echo would oversee the translation into Chinese, and both their names would appear on the cover.

Song of Orchid Island sold 100,000 copies. Encouraged by this success, he wrote another book, which Echo also translated, and it performed well too. Several more books followed.

During those years, he visited her in Taipei, and she came up to the mountains to see him, staying in his flat on top of the church. She would often attend his mass and sometimes weep, despite her love of all religions.

One day on a walk, they came across a derelict red brick house on the opposite side of the valley from the church, and she fell in love with it. With her own money and the help of some of the local young people, they “made it really nice for her”, Martinson said.

He says he has kept all her letters and published some of them after her death. But there is one “I will never show to anyone”. In it, she confessed she had fallen in love with him. Knowing it couldn’t be, she would leave for the United States.

She wrote, “Barry, let the little red house remain a dream … At least I got something real from you – a dream house.” But she never lived in it.

In 1989, he saw her during a visit to Taipei with his mother. That was the last time he laid eyes on her.

In January 1991, he picked up the telephone. It was a journalist, asking if he had a comment on Sanmao’s death. She had died by suicide the previous day.

It was, he recalls, “a shock, and yet I wasn’t completely shocked … I was angry. I thought, ‘why does it have to be this way?”

He still misses her. The house he renovated for her is now a coffee shop and museum. From the balcony, you can and gaze through the mist, over the chasm to the church.

China seeks to boost energy ties with Turkmenistan

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3288860/china-seeks-boost-energy-ties-turkmenistan?utm_source=rss_feed

China is keen to expand energy cooperation with Turkmenistan, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday.

Wang met his counterpart Rashid Meredov, who is also Turkmenistan’s vice-president, on the sidelines of the China-Central Asia Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Chengdu, state news agency Xinhua reported.

Wang also said China was willing to further expand the scale of trade and investment cooperation with Turkmenistan and would encourage more Chinese enterprises to invest in the country.

The meeting, which ends on Sunday, was also attended by the foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, Central Asian partners that are growing in importance for China.

Wang also met Jeenbek Kulubaev, the Foreign Minister of Kyrgyzstan, a key player in an US$8 billion rail project that starts in Kashgar in Xinjiang and goes through southwest Kyrgyzstan before ending in Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan.

The rail project is designed to cut the freight journey between China and Europe by 900km (560 miles), serving as a faster and cheaper alternative to existing China-Europe land routes, most of which pass through Russia.

The project was first proposed in the 1990s but had been beset by a series of technical, political and geopolitical problems before the three countries reached an agreement in June.

While in Chengdu, Wang also met his Nepalese counterpart Arzu Rana Deuba on Friday.

Deuba was visiting to prepare for the visit of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, which starts on Monday.

According to the Nepalese foreign ministry, the talks focused on trade, tourism and connectivity projects – including a cross-border railway project and a tunnel linking the capital Kathmandu to Chhahare in Nuwakot district, a stop on a major trade route between the two countries.

“China is ready to work with Nepal to embrace new prospects for the development of China-Nepal relations by taking the opportunity of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties next year,” Wang said, adding that the two sides had made joint efforts to promote cooperation.

Deuba said Nepal appreciated the concept of building a community with a shared future for humanity, and was willing to take part in President Xi Jinping’s Global Development Initiative.

Taiwan president stops in Hawaii during Pacific tour, drawing ire from China

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/01/taiwan-president-stops-in-hawaii-during-pacific-tour-drawing-ire-from-china

The Taiwanese president, Lai Ching-te, has begun a two-day US stopover in Hawaii as part of a Pacific tour after declaring his democratically governed island a key force for promoting global peace and stability.

The trip has sparked fury from China, which views Taiwan as its own territory and opposes any foreign interactions or visits by the island’s leaders. China’s foreign ministry said on Sunday it had lodged “serious protests” with the US.

China has been stepping up military pressure against Taiwan, including two rounds of war games this year, and security sources have told Reuters that Beijing may hold more military exercises to coincide with Lai’s tour, which also includes a stopover in Guam, a US territory.

It is Lai’s first foreign trip since taking office in May. After Hawaii, he will go to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau, three of the 12 countries that retain formal diplomatic ties with Taipei and a part of the world where China has been exerting stronger influence.

Speaking to reporters before his departure, Lai said: “Thank you to the US government for upholding the principles of safety, dignity, comfort and convenience for helping the smooth process of this trip.”

Hawaii’s governor, Josh Green, said in a statement after he, the mayor of Honolulu and the city’s police chief greeted Lai on the tarmac of Honolulu airport on Saturday and that the meeting was a “momentous occasion”, highlighting Hawaii’s shared values of resilience and collaboration with Taiwan.

Green later hosted Lai for an emergency management briefing to discuss handling natural disasters, he added.

Ingrid Larson, the Washington office managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the body that serves as the unofficial US embassy in Taiwan, was also at the airport to welcome Lai. Laura Rosenberger, chair of the institute, posted on X that “Ingrid Larson and the great community of Hawaii are excited to greet you!”

Taiwan’s official Central News Agency said the welcome exceeded those of past visits.

“President Lai’s transit was the first time that he was received at the airport, and a red carpet was rolled and flowers were presented, which was the highest level of courtesy ever, different from the past mode of entry into the terminal, and the level of the reception also exceeded previous norms,” CNA said.

Asked about this, a spokesperson for the US State Department said: “The transit is private and unofficial and squarely within precedent.”

Later on Saturday, Lai was to visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbour, which marks the resting place of some of those killed during the 1941 Japanese attack that brought the US into the second world war, CNA said.

Hawaii and Guam are home to major US military bases.

China also vowed “resolute countermeasures” on Sunday to a recently approved US arms sale to Taiwan, saying it had lodged a complaint over the sale, which it said seriously infringed on China’s sovereignty.

The US State Department approved the potential sale – worth an estimated $385m – of spare parts and support for F-16 jets and radars to Taiwan, the Pentagon said on Friday, a few hours before Lai set off from Taiwan.

The Taiwanese leader’s trip comes as the Republican US president-elect, Donald Trump, prepares to take office in January. Taipei publicly congratulated him on his victory. During his campaign, Trump suggested Taiwan should pay the US for its defence.

Taiwanese presidents often make use of what are officially only stopovers in the US to meet friendly US politicians and give speeches. Such stopovers are typically on visits to far-flung allies in the Pacific, Latin America or the Caribbean.

“This trip is the beginning of a new era of value-based diplomacy,” Lai said. “Democracy, prosperity and peace are the expectations of the people of Taiwan, and they are also the values that I, as president, must actively promote.”

The US has only unofficial relations with Taiwan and follows a “one-China” policy under which it recognises Beijing diplomatically, but the US government is obliged by law to supply the island with the means to defend itself.

Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and says it has a right to engage with the world and for its leaders to travel abroad.

With Reuters and Agence France-Presse

China property market faces long recovery road despite restructuring progress

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3288745/china-property-market-faces-long-recovery-road-despite-restructuring-progress?utm_source=rss_feed

Over the past few months, several major Chinese developers have secured fresh approvals for their debt restructuring plans, with creditors accepting substantial haircuts in hopes of recovering what is left of their funds.

Analysts call it a “positive signal”. Yet cash-strapped builders face relentless liquidity woes and may be forced into drastic price cuts to offload unsold properties.

In other words, the three-year slump in China’s property market shows no clear signs of resolution.

“Too much inventory, too little confidence,” S&P said in a report in October. “Addressing this imbalance is key to improving China’s beleaguered property market. The market has swung in favour of homebuyers, but before they jump in, they will need signs that developers are healthy.”

Beijing-based Sino-Ocean is the latest developer to receive partial approval for a debt revamp plan, getting approval on November 25 to restructure US$5.64 billion in offshore debt. Creditors had nixed its initial offer involving an average haircut of 63 per cent in August.

The new plan features US$2.2 billion in new debt, alongside US$4.02 billion in mandatory convertible bonds and perpetual securities. It offers little improvement in terms of fund recovery, but will “significantly enhance creditors’ outcomes compared to a liquidation”, according to Liu Yi, managing partner and liquidation and reorganisation team leader at Shanghai-based Everbright Law Firm.

Shanghai-based Shimao Property Holdings is also pressing ahead with its restructuring. It announced on November 26 that it has applied for a January 16 hearing with the High Court of Hong Kong seeking approval of a new plan to repay offshore debt, which includes options for creditors to recover up to 50 per cent of the principal.

The recent approvals are “a first positive signal” in the industry and could set the precedent for more developers to follow, said John Lam, managing director and head of China and Hong Kong property research at UBS.

“A restructuring or a haircut on the outstanding debt will free up more equity value for developers to repay banks,” he said, adding that this could in turn qualify builders for more bank lending via the “project white list” scheme and enable them to complete unfinished projects.

However, developers are finding little relief as sputtering property sales – triggered by the Chinese government’s nationwide campaign in late 2020 to curb debt in the property sector – continue to strain liquidity. Meanwhile, buyer confidence in developers’ promises has evaporated.

“Property sales are still challenging for most of the private developers because their accountability is basically gone,” said Lam. “It’s like a chicken-and-egg problem. If builders want to complete projects, they need extra capital resources, which they can’t access because people are not willing to buy properties unless they are completed.”

More onshore restructuring and haircuts, especially on the debt owed to banks, are therefore crucial.

“So far, most of the restructuring is for offshore debt and only for the public bond market,” Lam said. “For banks, it’s still about extending their maturity. So we have to see that banks are willing to accept a haircut on the loans, so that at the project level, there will be more equity left.”

In late September, Chinese authorities unveiled a surprise stimulus package aimed at restoring confidence in the struggling sector. The measures, including cuts to mortgage rates and down payments, along with increased funding for local state-owned enterprises to purchase excess housing inventory, have helped the stock market recover US$4 trillion in value and boosted home sales.

However, they have fallen short of delivering a more sustained recovery. With property prices down 30 per cent from their peak three years ago, and home sales at less than half, developers are bracing for more challenges ahead.

Fitch Ratings estimated China’s home builders could see a further 15 per cent decline in new home sales to 7.3 trillion yuan (US$1 trillion) next year, driven by a 10 per cent decline in gross floor area sold and a 5 per cent decrease in average selling prices.

“[While] the government has introduced new supportive policies to stabilise near-term market sentiment, the sustainability of any short-term recovery is subject to a high degree of uncertainty as the sector remains fraught with structural issues,” said Shi Lulu, director of Asia-Pacific corporate ratings at Fitch. “These include high unsold home inventory, uncertain employment and low housing affordability.”

Low residential rental yield compared with mortgage rates also indicates further pressure on average selling prices, she added.

China’s 1,000km/h trains will support 5G, study on beating near-sonic challenge says

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3288682/chinas-1000km/h-trains-will-support-5g-study-beating-near-sonic-challenge-says?utm_source=rss_feed

Passengers will be able to watch ultra-high-definition videos or enjoy online gaming on their smartphones while travelling at 1,000km/h (621mph) on high-speed trains, after Chinese scientists discovered a way to achieve it.

Still under development, China’s new generation of high-speed trains can travel at speeds faster than commercial airliners through near-vacuum tubes using magnetic levitation.

At present, high-speed trains in the country operate at 350km/h, and can connect to 5G services provided by telecoms operators, maintaining connectivity even in long tunnels.

However, maintaining high-speed communication between mobile phones and base stations becomes extremely challenging at near-sonic speeds.

This is because when a phone rapidly approaches or moves away from a base station, the frequency of the signal it receives changes, and high-speed data communication heavily relies on stable high-frequency signals.

Installing and maintaining base stations in near-vacuum tubes is also very difficult. If an antenna falls off due to vibration, it could pose a serious threat to the rapidly moving train.

A research team, led by Professor Song Tiecheng with the National Key Laboratory of Mobile Communications at Southeast University, found that simply laying two parallel cables on the inner wall of the tube could solve the problem of base station installation.

These special cables can “leak” electromagnetic signals and establish continuous and stable connections between smartphones and mobile service providers.

By using efficient coding techniques and adjusting certain key signal parameters, the disturbances caused by frequency changes can be further overcome. Computer simulations have initially verified the method, showing that this solution can maintain stable communication quality during data exchange under the mainstream 5G standard.

Engineers from the magnetic levitation and electromagnetic propulsion general department of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation took part in the research. The corporation has built the world’s largest research base for vacuum-tube maglev trains in Datong, Shanxi province, and started high-speed propulsion tests on full-scale prototype vehicles.

Currently, many Chinese cities are seeking approval from Beijing to build the first commercial vacuum tube maglev line.

This revolutionary mode of ground transport – or “hyperloop” – was first proposed by Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX. Similar technologies could also be used to propel spacecraft into space at a lower cost.

But Musk abandoned the project late last year due to technological and financial challenges. This makes China the only country currently advancing this technology.

Song’s paper was published in the peer-reviewed journal Railway Signalling & Communication last month.

In a world of tariff threats, China opts to share green tech dividends

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3288259/world-tariff-threats-china-opts-share-green-tech-dividends?utm_source=rss_feed

With Donald Trump elected again as US president, China is concerned about the self-professed “Tariff Man” and his threats to kill off Chinese imports with big increases in tariffs, which are to be imposed on his first day back in the Oval Office next January.

Over the past five years, China’s trade landscape has been marked by the burgeoning of its electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and photovoltaic products – dubbed the “new trio” – all technology-intensive exports leading the global energy transition.

In response, the Biden administration and its Western allies complain about China’s “industrial overcapacity” and attribute the competitiveness of the “new trio” to government subsidies. The United States and Canada are working to close their doors to Chinese EVs and the European Union recently levied additional tariffs of up to 35 per cent.

Amid continuing negotiations, the EU has proposed that Chinese EV makers commit to a minimum export price, or price undertaking, in exchange for the EU dropping the countervailing duties. This is reminiscent of the 1980s US-Japan trade war, when the US demanded that the Japanese car industry commit to voluntary export restraints – which the World Trade Organization prohibits.

Rather than a subsidy-induced overcapacity, the success of Chinese EVs is, at its core, due to science and technological advancements. Having learned lessons from the US, China has chosen the challenging path of independent innovation over convenient short cuts such as tech imports and forced technology transfers. For companies like Huawei Technologies that bore the brunt of the US tech war, that determination has hardened.

China’s success is also thanks to its entrepreneurship. Over a decade ago, the West initiated a ruthless battle against Chinese solar panel imports, levying anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties. It turned out to be counterproductive, forcing Chinese enterprises to intensify innovation and rise from the ashes, while killing the West’s ailing solar panel industry.

China’s renewable energy sector is dominated by spirited private companies such as Trina Solar, an innovative solar panel manufacturer, Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), which makes lithium-ion batteries for EVs, and BYD, a global leader in EVs, hybrid cars and car batteries. Their products help the global decarbonisation movement.

When advances in science and technology lead to greater productivity, it produces overcapacity in any market, even if only temporarily. For example, America’s rapid technological development in the 1920s led to a market oversupply, depressing goods prices and driving many farmers and enterprises into bankruptcy. In the last several years, China’s EV market has also seen fierce competition as a result of rapid innovation, cutting the number of manufacturers from over 400 to around 40, with the number expected to shrink further.

The lesson of America’s Great Depression is that president Franklin D. Roosevelt chose to intervene robustly in the market with his New Deal, a set of plans that boosted infrastructure investment, employment and consumption, succeeded in driving up domestic demand and led to an economic recovery.

Similarly, China, after wrestling with deflation over the past two years, recently unveiled an unprecedented stimulus package, synergising the three pillars of fiscal, monetary and industrial policies. In particular, the 10 trillion yuan (US$1.38 trillion) debt swap scheme is committed to freeing up local governments’ fiscal space, enabling them to focus on economic growth and social welfare.

I bought my first home in Beijing recently, more than 10 years after I earned a doctorate, seeing as how home prices are at a low and mortgage rates in decline. It is part of a residential community built almost 30 years ago, now under renovation with a budget of roughly 50,000 yuan per home, all subsidised by the government. With pavements, footbridges among other facilities coming under refurbishment, my neighbours have dubbed the project a “metropolitan upgrade”.

When I went shopping for home appliances, I found refrigerators, washing machines, television sets, air conditioners and kitchen devices mostly offered at a discount of 20 per cent or so, depending on their energy efficiency rating. A supermarket saleswoman told me that of the 20 per cent discount, 8 per cent came from a government subsidy while the remaining 12 per cent came from a manufacturers’ subsidy.

China’s New Deal is quickly paying off, as October retail sales rose by 4.8 per cent year on year, industrial output by 5.3 per cent and EV production by 48.6 per cent, while the drop in home sales slowed down.

Meanwhile, the Belt and Road Initiative continues to open up alternative markets, and China is committed to speeding this up. Last September, when I visited Uzbekistan, a local representative of BYD told me its joint venture in Samarkand has been able to produce 50,000 hybrid cars annually, starting last year.

Yang Yang, a classmate of mine and a successful businesswoman, who runs a car company based in Ghana for over 14 years, recently expanded sales into Chinese EVs. Trade and investment in China’s “new trio” of products are flourishing in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa and South America, even as the West turns them down.

Great power rivalry is a regrettable reality but the trickling down of tech dividends to peoples in different corners of the world marks a new trend in globalisation. In Chinese parlance, it contributes to a community with a shared future for mankind.

‘Bored’ Chinese man creates fake arrest notice for himself offering US$4,000 reward, detained

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3288380/bored-chinese-man-creates-fake-arrest-notice-himself-offering-us4000-reward-detained?utm_source=rss_feed

A man in northern China has been placed under temporary police detention for fabricating an arrest warrant for himself on the internet out of boredom.

The individual, surnamed Wang, posted a message on social media titled “Wanted Order”, accompanied by a picture of himself, on November 11.

In his post, he claimed to be Wang Yibo, the name of a prominent mainland Chinese actor and dancer.

“I am a native of Qinyuan county, Changzhi city, Shanxi province. I extorted 30 million yuan (US$4 million) from a company on November 10, 2024.

“I possess a submachine gun and 500 bullets. If you find me, you will be rewarded 30,000 yuan (US$4,000),” the man stated in the post.

On November 12, local police in the county noticed this unusual entry from Wang, whose online alias is haoyunsuishiyou, meaning “have good luck anytime”.

Officers initiated an investigation and arrested him just hours later, according to the Legal Daily.

After thorough searches, the police determined that Wang did not possess any illegal items, such as guns or ammunition.

He also did not extort any company, the police confirmed.

Wang admitted to fabricating the wanted order because he was feeling disheartened and bored with his life.

His post had significant social repercussions, garnering 350,000 views within less than 24 hours, receiving 2,500 likes, and prompting about 80 netizens to comment, with 1,155 shares, according to police reports.

The police have imposed a “criminal coercive measure” on Wang for creating and disseminating false information.

A criminal coercive measure refers to police actions that restrict a suspect’s personal freedom, including detention, arrest, bail, and monitored living for a specified period.

“The internet is not beyond the reach of the law. Fabricating a story and spreading it are both criminal acts. Anyone who concocts or circulates rumours will face judicial consequences,” the police stated regarding the case.

The incident sparked a lively debate on mainland social media, with many users expressing amusement at Wang’s actions.

“This is the silliest guy in the news this year, haha,” commented one user.

Another viewer remarked: “I laughed a bit when I saw he was wanted by himself, but couldn’t help giggling when he claimed to be Wang Yibo.”

“Fine. You really are caught by the police now. Isn’t this what you wanted?” another commenter added.

China’s digital yuan roared out of the gate, but stumbling blocks could give it pause

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3288723/chinas-digital-yuan-roared-out-gate-stumbling-blocks-could-give-it-pause?utm_source=rss_feed

The downfall of Yao Qian, who spearheaded China’s digital currency design at the People’s Bank of China, has raised concerns over the digital yuan’s development.

China’s top anti-corruption watchdog has accused Yao, who was the inaugural director of the PBOC’s institute overseeing digital currency research, and later head of the securities regulator’s tech-supervision department, of taking bribes through cryptocurrencies.

The country’s first cryptocurrency-related corruption case raises questions as to whether Beijing may slow the pace of the digital yuan’s roll-out to strengthen internal supervision.

China began laying the groundwork for its digital yuan in 2014 and has launched trials of its central bank digital currency (CBDC), known as the e-CNY or e-yuan, in select cities since 2019, becoming a pioneer among major economies.

Those pilot tests have been extended to 26 regions across 17 provinces, but China’s central bank has given no timetable for an official launch.

“We do have some bottlenecks in adopting the digital yuan today,” said Charles Chang, director of the Fintech Research Centre at Shanghai-based Fudan University.

He explained how existing online payment platforms such as Alipay and WeChat Pay “have done so well that users are reluctant to switch to a new option when they already have such handy tools”.

Chang predicted that Beijing’s push for its digital currency “will neither stall nor run aground”, as it aligns with a global trend of CBDC development. Many countries see such initiatives as essential tools for reducing reliance on the US dollar in cross-border payments and challenging its financial dominance.

A survey published by the Bank for International Settlements in June revealed that 94 per cent of 86 central banks surveyed were working on CBDCs, with most focusing on retail and wholesale applications.

The cumulative transaction value of the digital yuan had reached 7 trillion yuan (US$968 billion) as of the end of June – nearly four times the 1.8 trillion yuan recorded a year earlier, according to the PBOC.

Despite some hope that the digital yuan could help accelerate overseas use of the Chinese currency through cross-border payments or even by challenging the US dollar’s dominance, Chen Zhiwu, chair professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong, said it is actually closely tied to the level of the yuan’s internalisation.

“The digital yuan cannot fundamentally break free from the broader limitations of the yuan’s appeal,” he said. “Globally, the appetite for holding yuan remains weak.”

The yuan’s share in global payments has risen steadily in recent years but remains below 5 per cent, according to data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift).

Its share fell to 2.93 per cent last month – the lowest level since June 2023 – ranking as the fifth-most-active currency for global payments by value, following the US dollar, euro, British pound and Japanese yen.

Earlier this month, China introduced a “visible hard wallet” for the digital yuan in Shenzhen. It is a card-like device that displays the user’s balance and a QR code, enabling payments through tap-and-go transactions or code scanning.

Chang noted that the hard wallet is particularly convenient for older individuals who struggle with smartphones, making it a more inclusive alternative to mobile payment platforms.

Looking ahead, Chang highlighted the digital yuan’s potential beyond payments, particularly in improving the precision of fiscal subsidy distributions.

By utilising a “digital identity”, the currency could help prevent fraudulent claims, ensuring subsidies reach the intended recipients securely, he added.

Rui Meng, a finance professor at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, said that the technology embedded in the digital yuan makes it well-suited for stimulating consumption, by setting specific conditions for subsidy use and promoting targeted spending.

“To roll out the digital yuan nationwide, there must be practical application scenarios,” Meng said. “Consumption vouchers or subsidies for trade-in programmes, for instance, are suitable examples that can be implemented through the digital yuan.”

UFO expert not ruling out Russia or China links to drones seen at RAF bases

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/30/ufo-expert-not-ruling-out-russia-or-china-links-to-drones-seen-at-raf-bases

A British former UFO hunter has said he does not “rule out” recent drone incursions over RAF bases in England being connected to Russia and China and nuclear weapons.

Unidentified drones were spotted in November over three airbases in the east of England that are used by the US air force (USAF).

“Small unmanned aerial systems” were seen between 20 and 22 November over RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk and RAF Feltwell in Norfolk. The USAF, which occupies the bases, could not confirm if the drones were hostile.

According to a January US Department of Defense (DoD) notice, plans to deploy American nuclear weapons to RAF Lakenheath have progressed. The document states the work was in preparation for the base’s “upcoming nuclear mission”.

“I don’t rule out the activity being connected with nuclear weapons,” said Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defence official who headed the UFO desk in Whitehall from 1991 to 1994.

“Adversaries (probably Russia or China) might use drones to gather data on this, in parallel with using other intelligence-gathering strategies. But they’d be unlikely to risk an intelligence officer (either declared, let alone a highly prized illegal) on something like this.”

Pope thinks that if foreign adversaries were responsible, they might use third parties, perhaps by supplying local drone hobbyists with some equipment.

“Perhaps convincing them they’d be working for an independent news agency. Anti-nuclear groups or individual activists might also be potential culprits in this scenario.”

November’s incursions wouldn’t be the first time that unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP, the military’s preferred acronym for unidentified flying objects or UFOs) have poked around RAF airbases housing nuclear weapons.

On Boxing Day 1980, United States airmen spotted strange objects flying over Rendlesham forest on the doorstep of RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk, a former airbase used by the US air force.

Charles Halt, the on-base commander at the time, said he saw crafts shooting down beams of light to the ground and heard over his radio that “the beams went down into the weapons storage area”.

Pope said that, unlike other UFO tales, eyewitness reports from Rendlesham were backed up by hard evidence. “It’s the perfect storm of a UFO case. It’s multiple witnesses, including the military. It’s sightings over three consecutive nights.

“It’s physical evidence in terms of radar, radioactivity, ground trace indentations, burn marks, scorch marks. It’s a case where we have declassified and released documents, which you can see on the National Archives and the Ministry of Defence website. So, unlike a lot of UFO documents floating around, there’s no debate about their provenance.”

Former Pentagon officials like Luis Elizondo, who claimed to have led the US government’s UFO hunting office, claim there is a strong correlation between UFO sightings and nuclear weapons.

Over the years, dozens of military personnel have witnessed bizarre crafts hovering over bases housing humanity’s most devastating weapons. In one alarming incident in 1966, airmen saw a UFO flying over Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.

They claimed that as the craft was hovering above Minot, its nuclear weapons suddenly went online, then deactivated when the UFO disappeared. The following year, a similar fright occurred at an air force base in Montana.

Witnesses there claimed they saw a glowing red oval-shaped craft floating over its missile silos before all 10 of their nuclear warheads were disabled.

However, Pope said the most likely possibility was that the sightings were of commercial drones. “Perhaps some are operated by plane spotters but as most of these people abide by CAA rules on drone operation, it’s more likely to be the work of irresponsible hobbyists,” said Pope.

Pope added that Lord Coaker’s statement to parliament that the incursions were being treated as a criminal investigation, with the aim of prosecutions, supported his hypothesis.

“While adversary activity can’t be ruled out – not least because the incursions came to light at around the same time that Ukraine launched UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to strike the Kursk region in Russia – there’s currently no evidence of this.”

The sightings could also result from people confusing prosaic items like Chinese lanterns, road flares or bright stars with UFOs. Sirius is often confused by the public with a UFO.

An MoD spokesperson said: “We take threats seriously and maintain robust measures at defence sites. This includes counter-drone security capabilities. We won’t comment further on security procedures.”