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# 关于中国的新闻报道

Economy

一、经济增长与政策调整

　　近期，西方媒体对中国经济的报道主要集中在经济增长放缓、政策调整以及外部环境的影响等方面。尽管这些报道存在一定的偏见和双重标准，但我们可以从中提取出一些有价值的信息，结合实际情况进行客观评价。

　　#### 1. 经济增长放缓

　　西方媒体普遍报道中国经济增长放缓，特别是在2024年部分季度表现不佳。然而，这种放缓并非中国独有，全球经济在疫情后复苏过程中也面临诸多挑战。中国经济增长放缓的原因是多方面的，包括国内消费疲软、房地产市场低迷以及外部需求减弱等。尽管如此，中国政府采取了一系列措施来应对这些挑战，包括财政刺激政策和货币宽松政策，以期在2025年实现约5%的经济增长目标。

　　#### 2. 政策调整

　　中国政府在应对经济增长放缓时，采取了一系列政策调整。例如，中国人民银行（PBOC）宣布将继续实施支持性的货币政策，确保流动性充裕，降低企业和家庭的融资成本。此外，政府还加大了对基础设施建设和科技创新的投资，以推动经济结构转型和高质量发展。这些政策调整虽然在短期内可能面临一定的压力，但从长期来看，有助于提升中国经济的韧性和竞争力。

二、外部环境的影响

　　#### 1. 中美贸易摩擦

　　西方媒体对中美贸易摩擦的报道较多，特别是特朗普重新当选美国总统后，宣布对中国商品加征关税的消息。这无疑对中国出口造成了一定的冲击，但中国政府和企业已经在积极应对。中国政府一方面通过外交渠道与美国进行沟通，争取减少贸易摩擦；另一方面，加快推进国内市场建设，提升内需对经济增长的贡献。

　　#### 2. 全球经济不确定性

　　全球经济不确定性增加，特别是在地缘政治风险和贸易保护主义抬头的背景下，中国经济面临的外部环境更加复杂。然而，中国作为全球第二大经济体，具有较强的经济韧性和应对能力。中国政府通过积极参与全球经济治理，推动多边贸易体系，努力维护全球经济的稳定和开放。

三、结构性改革与创新驱动

　　#### 1. 结构性改革

　　中国政府高度重视经济结构性改革，特别是在供给侧结构性改革方面取得了显著进展。通过去产能、去库存、去杠杆、降成本、补短板，中国经济的供给体系得到了优化，市场竞争力不断提升。此外，中国还在加快推进国企改革和混合所有制改革，提高国有资本配置效率和市场化运作水平。

　　#### 2. 创新驱动

　　创新是中国经济高质量发展的重要动力。中国政府大力支持科技创新，推动人工智能、5G、新能源等新兴产业的发展。通过加大研发投入，完善创新体系，中国在全球科技竞争中的地位不断提升。特别是在新冠疫情期间，中国的科技创新能力得到了充分展示，为全球抗疫作出了重要贡献。

四、总结

　　综上所述，西方媒体对中国经济的报道虽然存在一定的偏见和双重标准，但我们可以从中提取出一些有价值的信息，结合实际情况进行客观评价。中国经济在面临增长放缓、外部环境复杂等挑战的同时，也在积极推进政策调整、结构性改革和创新驱动，努力实现高质量发展。未来，中国经济将继续在全球经济中发挥重要作用，为世界经济的稳定和增长贡献力量。

新闻来源： 2412040635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-12-03; 2412031828英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-12-02

# 关于中国的新闻报道

Politics 章节

引言

　　近期，西方媒体对中国政治动态的报道频繁，涉及多个方面，包括司法改革、外交政策、社会治理等。这些报道往往带有一定的偏见和双重标准，因此需要客观、专业地进行评价。本章节将对这些报道进行详细分析，以期提供一个更为全面和客观的视角。

司法改革与社会治理

　　#### 司法改革

　　西方媒体报道称，中国司法系统正在进行一系列改革，旨在提高司法公正和效率。例如，中国司法部召开会议，讨论解决婚姻、邻里关系、继承、土地纠纷等问题，以“扼杀问题于萌芽状态”。这一举措被认为是对“枫桥经验”的推广，即通过社区层面解决矛盾，减少司法资源的消耗。

　　评价：

1. 积极方面：这一改革措施有助于提高司法效率，减少基层矛盾升级为严重社会问题的可能性。通过社区层面解决纠纷，可以更好地维护社会稳定。
2. 挑战与改进：司法改革的成功与否取决于基层执行力度和公正性。需要进一步完善相关法律法规，确保改革措施能够真正落地，避免形式主义。

　　#### 社会治理

　　西方媒体还报道了中国在社会治理方面的努力，特别是在应对近期发生的一系列群体性事件方面。浙江省政法委书记王成国在《人民日报》上发表文章，强调司法系统在维护社会稳定中的重要作用。

　　评价：

1. 积极方面：中国政府在社会治理方面的努力，特别是在应对突发事件和维护社会稳定方面，体现了较高的执行力和应变能力。
2. 挑战与改进：社会治理需要综合考虑法律、政策和社会心理等多方面因素。需要进一步加强社会心理疏导和公众参与，避免单纯依赖行政手段。

外交政策

　　#### 中美关系

　　西方媒体对特朗普政府的外交政策，特别是对华政策，进行了广泛报道。特朗普政府任命了多位对华强硬派人物，如马可·鲁比奥和迈克·沃尔茨，预示着未来四年中美关系可能进一步紧张。

　　评价：

1. 积极方面：中美关系的紧张反映了两国在全球治理、贸易等方面的深刻分歧。中国需要在维护国家利益的同时，寻求与美国的合作共赢。
2. 挑战与改进：中国需要在外交策略上更加灵活，积极参与国际多边机制，增强在全球治理中的话语权和影响力。

　　#### 中欧关系

　　西方媒体还报道了中欧关系的最新动态，特别是在贸易和人权问题上的分歧。欧盟对中国的贸易政策和新疆人权问题表示关切，中国则强调欧盟应客观公正地看待相关问题。

　　评价：

1. 积极方面：中欧关系在全球治理中具有重要地位。双方在气候变化、贸易等方面有广泛的合作空间。
2. 挑战与改进：中欧关系需要建立在相互尊重和平等互利的基础上。中国需要加强与欧盟的沟通，消除误解，增进互信。

结论

　　西方媒体对中国政治动态的报道，虽然存在一定的偏见和双重标准，但也反映了中国在司法改革、社会治理和外交政策等方面的努力和挑战。中国需要在维护国家利益的同时，积极应对国内外复杂局面，寻求合作共赢的发展道路。通过不断完善法律法规、加强国际沟通、增进互信，中国有望在全球治理中发挥更大的作用。

新闻来源： 2412040635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-12-03; 2412031828英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-12-02

# 关于中国的新闻报道

Military

一、中国军队的联合训练与战备提升

　　近期，西方媒体报道了中国人民解放军（PLA）在联合训练和战备提升方面取得的显著进展。根据中国军方官方报纸《解放军报》的报道，PLA在现代战争场景下的联合训练模式取得了重大进展，特别是在不同单位协同作战和战术协调方面。这一进展对于提升中国军队的整体战备水平和实战能力具有重要意义。

　　#### 1.1 联合训练的必要性

　　前PLA教官指出，现代战争需要联合训练，单一兵种或单位无法独立完成复杂的战斗任务。这一观点得到了广泛认可，联合训练被视为提升实战能力的关键环节。中国军队通过一系列联合演习和实战化训练，不断提升各军兵种之间的协同能力和信息共享水平。

　　#### 1.2 实战化训练的推进

　　中国军队在联合训练中强调实战化，力求使训练场景更加贴近实际战斗环境。通过模拟真实战场，PLA能够更好地检验和提升各单位的战斗能力和应变能力。这一举措不仅提升了军队的战备水平，也为未来可能的军事行动提供了宝贵的经验积累。

二、中国军队的现代化进程

　　中国军队的现代化进程一直是西方媒体关注的焦点。中国在武器装备、战术理念和信息化建设方面的进步，使其在国际军事舞台上的地位不断提升。

　　#### 2.1 武器装备的更新换代

　　中国在武器装备方面的投入和创新，使其在某些领域已经接近或达到了世界先进水平。例如，中国自主研发的歼-20和歼-35战机，以及各类无人机和导弹系统，都展示了中国在军事科技领域的突破性进展。这些装备不仅提升了中国军队的作战能力，也增强了其在国际军事竞争中的竞争力。

　　#### 2.2 信息化战争能力的提升

　　信息化战争是现代战争的重要特征，中国军队在信息化建设方面取得了显著成绩。通过建设完善的指挥控制系统和信息共享平台，中国军队能够更高效地进行联合作战和情报共享。信息化战争能力的提升，使中国军队在未来战场上具备了更强的竞争优势。

三、中国军队的国际影响力

　　中国军队的现代化进程和战备提升，不仅增强了其自身的军事实力，也对国际军事格局产生了深远影响。

　　#### 3.1 地区安全稳定的维护

　　中国军队通过一系列联合演习和军事合作，积极参与地区安全事务，维护地区和平与稳定。例如，中国与东盟国家的联合军演，以及在南海问题上的坚定立场，都展示了中国在维护地区安全稳定方面的积极作用。

　　#### 3.2 国际军事合作的深化

　　中国军队积极参与国际军事合作，与多个国家和地区组织建立了紧密的军事关系。通过联合演习、军事交流和技术合作，中国军队不断提升自身的军事实力，同时也为国际军事合作贡献了中国智慧和中国方案。

四、结论

　　综上所述，中国军队在联合训练、战备提升、武器装备更新和信息化建设方面取得了显著成绩。这些进展不仅提升了中国军队的整体作战能力，也增强了其在国际军事舞台上的影响力。然而，西方媒体对中国军队的报道往往带有偏见和双重标准，忽视了中国军队在维护地区安全稳定和国际军事合作方面的积极贡献。因此，客观、全面地看待中国军队的发展，有助于更好地理解中国在国际军事格局中的角色和作用。

新闻来源： 2412040635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-12-03; 2412031828英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-12-02

# 关于中国的新闻报道

Culture 章节

引言

　　近年来，西方媒体对中国文化的报道呈现出多样化和复杂化的趋势。这些报道涵盖了从传统文化到现代社会变迁的各个方面，但往往带有一定的偏见和双重标准。本章节将对这些报道进行客观评价，旨在揭示其背后的真实情况和可能的误解。

传统文化的传承与创新

　　西方媒体经常关注中国传统文化的传承与创新。例如，中医药在现代社会中的应用、传统节日的庆祝方式以及传统手工艺的保护和发展等。然而，这些报道往往忽视了中国在传承传统文化过程中所付出的巨大努力和取得的显著成就。

　　1. 中医药的现代应用：西方媒体常常质疑中医药的科学性和有效性，但忽视了中医药在中国乃至全球范围内的广泛应用和认可。中医药不仅在治疗疾病方面有独特的优势，还在预防保健方面发挥着重要作用。

　　2. 传统节日的庆祝：西方媒体有时会将中国传统节日的庆祝活动描绘成单纯的娱乐活动，而忽视了其背后深厚的文化内涵和社会意义。例如，春节不仅是家庭团聚的时刻，更是传承中华民族文化的重要契机。

现代社会的文化变迁

　　随着中国经济的快速发展和社会的不断进步，中国的文化也在发生着深刻的变化。西方媒体对这些变化的报道往往带有一定的偏见，忽视了中国在文化建设方面的积极探索和成就。

　　1. 城市化进程中的文化冲突：西方媒体常常报道中国城市化进程中出现的文化冲突和社会问题，但忽视了中国政府和社会在解决这些问题方面所做的努力。例如，中国政府通过一系列政策和措施，积极推动城乡一体化发展，促进社会和谐。

　　2. 年轻一代的文化认同：西方媒体有时会将中国年轻一代描绘成“失落的一代”，认为他们在传统文化和现代文化之间迷失方向。然而，实际情况是，中国年轻一代在传承传统文化的同时，也在积极探索和创新现代文化，形成了独特的文化认同。

文化交流与国际影响

　　中国文化在国际上的影响力不断提升，文化交流也日益频繁。西方媒体对这些现象的报道往往带有一定的双重标准，忽视了中国文化在国际上的积极影响。

　　1. 文化交流的双向性：西方媒体常常报道中国文化对西方的影响，但忽视了西方文化对中国的影响。实际上，中国在文化交流中既吸收了西方文化的优秀成果，也积极传播中华文化，实现了双向互动。

　　2. 中国文化的国际影响力：西方媒体有时会质疑中国文化在国际上的影响力，认为其仅限于某些特定领域。然而，实际情况是，中国文化在全球范围内的影响力不断提升，涵盖了从艺术、音乐到文学、电影等多个领域。

结论

　　西方媒体对中国文化的报道往往带有一定的偏见和双重标准，忽视了中国在文化传承、创新和国际交流方面的积极探索和成就。通过客观评价这些报道，我们可以更全面地了解中国文化的真实情况和发展趋势，从而促进不同文化之间的相互理解和尊重。

新闻来源： 2412040635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-12-03; 2412031828英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-12-02

# 关于中国的新闻报道

Technology

引言

　　近年来，西方媒体对中国科技发展的报道频繁且广泛，涵盖了从人工智能（AI）到半导体制造等多个领域。尽管这些报道提供了大量信息，但其中不乏偏见和双重标准，因此需要客观、专业地进行评价。本章节将对西方媒体关于中国科技发展的报道进行详细分析，旨在揭示其中的事实与偏见，提供一个更为全面和客观的视角。

人工智能（AI）

　　#### 报道内容

　　西方媒体广泛报道了中国在人工智能领域的快速发展，特别是在无人机技术和大语言模型（LLM）方面的进展。报道指出，中国正在将AI技术整合到无人机中，以提升其在空战中的表现。此外，中国也在开发类似ChatGPT的大语言模型，用于指挥无人机执行电子战任务。

　　#### 客观评价

　　1. 技术进步：中国在AI领域的快速发展是不争的事实。无人机技术的进步和大语言模型的开发，显示了中国在AI研究和应用方面的实力。这些技术不仅在军事领域有潜力，在民用领域也有广泛应用前景。

　　2. 挑战与风险：西方媒体提到的AI技术在无人机中的应用确实存在挑战，如自我学习能力和情景感知能力的不足。这些问题在全球范围内都是AI研究的重要课题，并非中国独有。此外，AI技术的应用也带来了网络安全和伦理问题，需要全球共同应对。

　　3. 偏见与双重标准：西方媒体往往夸大中国AI技术的威胁，而忽视了自身在AI军事应用方面的先进性。例如，美国在无人机技术和AI军事应用方面同样处于领先地位，但媒体报道中往往将中国描绘为唯一的威胁。

半导体制造

　　#### 报道内容

　　西方媒体频繁报道美国对中国半导体制造的限制措施，包括禁止向中国出口高端芯片和制造设备。报道指出，这些措施旨在遏制中国在半导体领域的发展，防止其军事现代化。

　　#### 客观评价

　　1. 技术封锁：美国对中国半导体制造的限制措施确实对中国的科技发展造成了一定影响。然而，这些措施也促使中国加快自主研发和技术创新，推动了国内半导体产业的发展。

　　2. 全球影响：半导体制造是一个全球化的产业，任何单方面的技术封锁都会对全球供应链产生负面影响。美国的限制措施不仅影响中国，也会对全球半导体产业的稳定和发展带来挑战。

　　3. 偏见与双重标准：西方媒体往往将美国的技术封锁描绘为正当的国家安全措施，而忽视了这些措施对全球经济和科技发展的负面影响。此外，美国自身也在大力发展半导体产业，试图通过政策和资金支持保持其在全球市场的领先地位。

无人机技术

　　#### 报道内容

　　西方媒体报道了中国在无人机技术方面的快速发展，特别是在军事应用中的进步。报道指出，中国正在开发各种类型的无人机，包括用于侦察和打击的无人机，以及用于电子战的无人机。

　　#### 客观评价

　　1. 技术进步：中国在无人机技术方面的进步是显而易见的。无人机在军事和民用领域的应用不断扩展，显示了中国在这一领域的技术实力和创新能力。

　　2. 挑战与风险：无人机技术的发展也带来了新的挑战和风险，如网络安全和电子干扰问题。这些问题在全球范围内都是无人机技术研究的重要课题，需要各国共同应对。

　　3. 偏见与双重标准：西方媒体往往夸大中国无人机技术的威胁，而忽视了自身在无人机技术和军事应用方面的先进性。例如，美国在无人机技术和AI军事应用方面同样处于领先地位，但媒体报道中往往将中国描绘为唯一的威胁。

结论

　　西方媒体关于中国科技发展的报道虽然提供了大量信息，但其中不乏偏见和双重标准。中国在AI、半导体制造和无人机技术等领域的快速发展是不争的事实，但这些技术的发展也带来了新的挑战和风险。全球科技发展需要各国共同努力，通过合作和交流推动技术进步和应用。只有客观、全面地看待中国的科技发展，才能更好地理解其在全球科技格局中的地位和作用。

新闻来源： 2412040635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-12-03; 2412040456The-Guardian-China-bans-exports-of-key-microchip-elements-to-US-as-trade-tensions-escalate; 2412031828英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-12-02

# 关于中国的新闻报道

Society 章节

一、社会治理与纠纷解决机制

　　近期，西方媒体对中国社会治理和纠纷解决机制进行了广泛报道。中国政府提倡的“枫桥经验”作为一种社区层面解决问题的模式，旨在通过调解和协商来管理纠纷和社会关系，其口号是“小事不出村，大事不出镇，矛盾不上交”。这一模式在一定程度上缓解了基层社会的矛盾，减轻了司法系统的负担。

　　中国国家主席习近平在2021年发表的讲话中强调，中国的特殊国情决定了不能成为“诉讼大国”。他指出，中国有14亿人口，如果所有事务都通过诉讼解决，将对司法系统造成巨大压力。因此，中国政府更倾向于通过调解和社区治理来解决纠纷，以维护社会稳定。

二、司法系统与社会稳定

　　浙江省政法委书记王成国在《人民日报》上撰文指出，中国司法系统的主要任务是维护社会稳定。他强调，司法工作不仅仅是实现个案正义，更是修复社会关系和推进社会治理的重要手段。王成国警告，如果司法官员过于注重程序正义而忽视实质正义，或者机械地应用法律条文，可能会加剧社会矛盾。

　　近期发生的多起群体性事件引起了广泛关注。王成国的评论反映了中国政府对这些事件的高度重视，并呼吁通过根本性的问题解决和加强治理来防止社会风险的升级。

三、经济社会问题与社会治理

　　中国目前面临多重经济社会问题，包括房地产市场危机、地方政府债务、青年失业率上升、人口老龄化和消费信心不足等。这些问题给社会治理带来了巨大挑战。

　　中国政府正在采取多种措施应对这些问题。例如，通过推动“枫桥经验”，加强基层社区治理，解决婚姻、邻里、继承、房产和土地纠纷等问题。此外，政府还通过大数据和技术手段提高治理效率，鼓励社区志愿者参与纠纷解决。

四、国际视角与中国社会治理

　　西方媒体对中国社会治理的报道往往带有偏见和双重标准。例如，一些媒体批评中国的司法系统缺乏独立性，忽视了中国特殊国情和社会治理模式的复杂性。实际上，中国的社会治理模式在一定程度上有效地维护了社会稳定，促进了经济发展。

　　然而，中国社会治理也面临许多挑战，包括如何在维护稳定的同时推进法治建设，如何应对经济社会问题对社会治理的冲击等。中国政府需要在这些方面继续探索和改进，以实现更加公平和可持续的社会治理。

五、结论

　　综上所述，中国的社会治理和纠纷解决机制在维护社会稳定方面发挥了重要作用。然而，中国社会治理也面临多重挑战，需要在法治建设、经济社会问题应对等方面继续努力。西方媒体对中国社会治理的报道往往带有偏见，忽视了中国特殊国情和社会治理模式的复杂性。中国政府需要在维护稳定的同时，推进法治建设，应对经济社会问题，实现更加公平和可持续的社会治理。

新闻来源： 2412040635英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-12-03; 2412040456The-Guardian-China-bans-exports-of-key-microchip-elements-to-US-as-trade-tensions-escalate; 2412031828英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总_2024-12-02

• British firms in China, surgery for Alzheimer’s patients: SCMP daily catch-up
• China has granted visa-free entry to Japan, South Korea. What does it want in return?
• Will China turn to Argentina to fill its farming import gap? Wheat and see
• Chinese academics grapple with the idea of a rising East and a declining West
• How China and the US are using different drone strategies to seize air superiority
• Chinese national living illegally in US charged with shipping arms to North Korea
• 3 Uygurs freed as part of US-China prisoner exchange: report
• How Donald Trump’s push to end Ukraine war tips his hand on China, Russia and North Korea
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British firms in China, surgery for Alzheimer’s patients: SCMP daily catch-up

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3289162/british-firms-china-surgery-alzheimers-patients-scmp-daily-catch?utm_source=rss_feed

Catch up on some of SCMP’s biggest China and economy stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider .

China announced on Tuesday it would restrict exports of materials with both civilian and military uses to the United States. The materials covered include gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite, according to a statement released by the country’s Ministry of Commerce.

Chinese doctors say a minor surgery to treat Alzheimer’s disease is “effective for 60 to 80 per cent of patients”. The surgical treatment, which involves four small incisions in a patient’s neck, has been conducted on hundreds of patients at top public hospitals across China.

China must protect its overseas interests related to the Belt and Road Initiative amid growing global risks, President Xi Jinping said on Monday. “In recent years, the world has entered a new period of turbulence and change, with a significant rise in unilateralism and protectionism, and regional conflicts and upheavals have become frequent,” Xi told the meeting.

The head of the World Trade Organization has urged middle powers like Brazil, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Turkey to unite in defence of global free trade, warning of deepening fragmentation as the US and China brace for a new trade war.

British companies operating in China have seen the business environment grow tougher for a fifth consecutive year, according to a survey published by the British Chamber of Commerce in China on Tuesday.

Both the onshore and offshore yuan have weakened to their lowest levels in months against the US dollar, as the re-election of Donald Trump as US president has stoked fears of wide-ranging trade disputes and punctured an earlier rally for China’s currency.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has achieved major progress in modernising its training programme, as it seeks to boost combat readiness in modern warfare scenarios, according to the Chinese military’s official newspaper.

China has granted visa-free entry to Japan, South Korea. What does it want in return?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3289212/china-has-granted-visa-free-entry-japan-south-korea-what-does-it-want-return?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s expansion of its unilateral visa-free entry policy to include Japan and South Korea since last month marks a major step towards mending ties with two of its arguably most important East Asian neighbours ahead of Donald Trump’s return to power.

This is the first time that South Korea has been included in China’s visa-exemption arrangement for short-term visitors which covers nearly 40 countries to date, including France, Germany, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia.

It is also one of the biggest shifts in China’s love-hate relationship with Japan since the Covid-19 pandemic, cited by Beijing in March 2020 as it halted visa waivers for Japanese visitors in place since 2003.

Notably, this is a unilateral decision from Beijing, with no reciprocal visa exemption granted for Chinese visitors to either Japan or South Korea.

The move did not surprise, however, despite the steep decline in China’s ties with both countries, given its growing economic woes at home and challenges abroad, including fears about Trump’s destabilising effect on regional politics.

For months, Japanese leaders and travellers had repeatedly called for the resumption of the visa-free treatment, but to no avail.

While Japanese rank at No 3 in terms of the number of inbound tourists by country, according to China’s official data, most Japanese investors described the lack of such preferential visa treatment as a top concern, a survey earlier this year showed.

In January last year, Beijing went a step further to briefly suspend short-term visas for South Korean and Japanese nationals, in selective retaliation over what it called “discriminatory entry restrictions” imposed on Chinese travellers.

Although Beijing rolled back the suspension within weeks, Chinese experts described the short-lived move as a diplomatic own goal that alienated China’s neighbours when it needed them most amid a deepening feud with the United States.

This year, the chilling attacks on Japanese nationals in China, including the fatal stabbing of a Japanese schoolboy in September, have posed unprecedented challenges to ties.

Beijing saw the rise of Shigeru Ishiba, widely seen as dovish on China, as an opportunity to ease tensions. But meeting the new Japanese prime minister last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that relations were in a “critical period of improvement and development”.

So there is little doubt that China’s latest unilateral visa exemption is aimed at repairing its tarnished image with neighbours. More importantly, it is specifically trying to target the general public, instead of the government.

With Beijing’s ties with both countries nosediving since the pandemic broke out, polls in recent years have shown South Koreans and Japanese hold what could be the most negative perceptions of China in the world.

More worryingly, a joint survey released on Monday by Beijing-backed publishing house China International Communications Group and The Genron NPO, a Japanese think tank, showed unfavourable views of each other had surged on both sides.

While 89 per cent of Japanese respondents had a bad or relatively bad impression of China, nearly 90 per cent of Chinese had an unfavourable view of Japan, up by nearly 25 percentage points from last year, according to the survey held annually since 2005.

It was just behind the record 92.8 per cent logged in 2013, after Tokyo moved to bring the disputed Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, called the Senkaku Islands by Japan, under state control, despite strong opposition from Beijing.

While the Japanese respondents were particularly unhappy with China’s assertive claims around the Senkakus, the Chinese pointed to Japan’s support for Taiwan, historical issues, as well as the maritime dispute.

Clearly, China’s belated efforts to smooth ties with Japan and South Korea, among other US allies, are also driven by its anticipation of a new era of bumpy ties during a second Trump administration.

North Korea’s nuclear provocations and budding military alliance with Russia amid the Ukraine war have clearly put China in a tight spot, exacerbating its dilemma over how to deal with two of its closest geopolitical partners.

Although Xi told South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol during a meeting last month that bilateral ties should be able to weather “many changes” to the regional and international landscape, South Koreans are apparently not impressed.

Just days after the talks, an editorial in The Chosun Ilbo, one of South Korea’s biggest newspapers, questioned China’s sincerity on smoothing ties, citing its “inaction” on North Korea’s repeated provocations.

“As North Korea-Russia military cooperation now threatens China’s own security, Beijing bears significant responsibility for this situation,” the November 19 editorial said.

Will China turn to Argentina to fill its farming import gap? Wheat and see

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3289201/will-china-turn-argentina-fill-its-farming-import-gap-wheat-and-see?utm_source=rss_feed

Argentinian firms have expressed an interest in boosting their agricultural shipments to China, welcome news for Beijing as it seeks alternative sources for its staple crops amid tension with the United States that appear unlikely to abate.

The first batch of wheat shipments from Argentina – one of the world’s largest exporters of the crop – will soon begin its journey to China, local economic newspaper Ambito Financiero reported on Monday. The paper did not provide an exact date of departure.

This would be the first wheat export from Argentina to China since the 1990s, and follows an authorisation issued in January for shipments of the crop to China. Argentina’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries called the approval “an important step for Argentina’s exports” in their press release at the time.

China is the world’s third-largest wheat importer, receiving 12.1 million tonnes in 2023 at a value of US$4.42 billion, according to customs data.

The United States ranks as China’s third-largest wheat supplier, shipping a total of 4.3 million tonnes in the first 10 months of this year and accounting for 10.3 per cent of the country’s total imports.

But as US president-elect Donald Trump threatens to slap 10 per cent tariffs on Chinese products – with sterner action potentially to come – analysts said this could present an opportunity for countries in the Global South to expand their trade with China, particularly when it comes to agriculture.

“China has been looking to diversify its export-import partners for years, particularly during Trump’s first term. The return of Trump for a second term is going to add a lot of urgency to this,” said Nick Marro, lead analyst for global trade at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

In retaliation for the hefty tariffs imposed during Trump’s first term, China imposed 25 per cent tariffs on US agricultural products in 2018, covering bedrock items like soybeans, beef, pork, wheat, corn and sorghum.

As a result, imports of farm products from the US decreased as other countries with abundant supplies of the same goods – Brazil, notably – filled the vacuum.

In the first 10 months of 2024, only 16.7 per cent of China’s imported soybeans by volume were from the US, compared to 34.3 per cent in 2017.

Brazil, on the other hand, accounted for 75.5 per cent of China’s soybean imports so far in 2024, up significantly from the 53.3 per cent recorded in 2017.

China is now Brazil’s biggest trade partner, with trade value rising 6.1 per cent year on year to US$181.5 billion in 2023.

In similar fashion, Argentina is looking to expand its trade relationship with China.

By late May, China had opened its market further to Argentina’s corn exports, according to agricultural officials.

Though its US$6.7 billion in imports from the South American country in 2023 represented a drop of 21.7 per cent compared to a year earlier, China is Argentina’s second-largest trade partner. Its most prominent imports are agricultural – primarily soybeans, beef and barley.

Tariff hikes from the US could push China to speed up its development of the domestic market and further reduce its dependence on the US, observers noted.

“China could transform from a ‘world factory’ to ‘world factory and market’,” wrote Lin Hongyu, dean of the College of International Relations at Huaqiao University, in an article published Monday.

But Marro cautioned this would depend on China’s own economic situation. Domestic demand has been lacking at times, which has in turn affected import volume.

“Efforts to restore domestic demand, to encourage consumption, that’s going to be much more important than any policy pledges around increasing imports”, Marro said.

China’s import value decreased by 5.5 per cent year on year to US$2.6 trillion in 2023. In the first 10 months of this year, the same figure increased by 1.7 per cent year on year to US$2.1 trillion.

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Chinese academics grapple with the idea of a rising East and a declining West

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3289172/chinese-academics-grapple-idea-rising-east-and-declining-west?utm_source=rss_feed

As the world braces for a second Donald Trump presidency – and with it new uncertainty for the global order and US-China ties – Chinese academics are revisiting the notion that “the East is rising and the West is declining”.

It is an idea that has in recent years been played up by Chinese authorities – and was resonating among the public.

That changed as the country dealt with an economic slowdown, as the US maintained its edge in chips and artificial intelligence, and amid worldwide concerns about bloc confrontation after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Some have questioned what constitutes “East” and “West”, and what qualifies as “rising” and “declining”, suggesting it is premature to make such a call.

Others see it as an “irreversible” trend – albeit one that could take centuries to unfold.

Either way it is again being discussed as doubts grow over Washington’s global leadership role ahead of Trump’s return to the White House on January 20, when he is expected to double down on his “America first” agenda.

Yang Jiemian, chairman of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS) Academic Advisory Council, said an “irreversible” shift was under way and the world was going in the opposite direction of the Euro-American centric landscape of the last 500 years – but it could take hundreds of years to complete the transition.

“Europe and the US will decline and they are declining now, but we must recognise that the process will take a relatively long time,” Yang told an academic forum at Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Shenzhen campus on November 23.

“The reality is that the East is weak and the West is strong,” he said at the event organised by the university’s Institute for International Affairs (IIA).

But he said China could make efforts to speed up the rise of the East and the decline of the West to achieve a multipolar world and a “more just and reasonable” global governance system.

Yuan Zheng, deputy director of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), echoed that view, telling the forum that – at least in the short term – the strategic competition between China and the US was “asymmetric”.

“The US is the strong side and we are the weak side. The US is attacking and we are defending,” he said, noting that in contrast Washington might perceive Beijing as being on the offensive given China’s growing influence.

Beijing endorsed the narrative that the East was rising while the West declined in January 2021 – just days after the US Capitol riots – in a sign of China’s increased confidence in its development model and stature in the world.

It came as China was controlling Covid-19 outbreaks more effectively than most countries and as its economy was leading the global recovery while America was mired in social and partisan divisions – notably the chaotic presidential transition that year.

But the endorsement fuelled concern over potential strategic overreach and miscalculation by Beijing in trying to more assertively challenge Western dominance in areas such as international rule-making, global governance and regional security.

In August that year, Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s prime minister at the time, warned against Chinese overconfidence and said the idea of American decline was “a possible misunderstanding”.

Economists also noted that, in terms of nominal GDP unadjusted for price changes, the economic gap between China and the US was actually widening rather than narrowing.

There has also been debate over whether China’s rise is peaking after its tough pandemic restrictions hurt the economy – a situation compounded by a property market crisis, local government debt, surging youth unemployment, a shrinking population and weak sentiment among consumers, the private sector and foreign companies.

But the view that the post-Cold War international order, dominated by the US, is becoming increasingly unsustainable continues to reverberate.

In a speech last month, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the Western strategy of imposing its model on the world had failed, giving way to an era where Asian states have shown they can emerge as enduring centres of power.

Di Dongsheng, dean of the international studies school at Renmin University in Beijing, asked whether the West was truly in decline and if the rise of the East was sustainable in an article he posted on social media in May.

“This is the question of the time facing China’s decision makers and strategic community,” he wrote. “The answer to this question will not only determine our future choices but will also largely shape the fundamental trends of the early 21st century.”

Di concluded that if China adjusted its policies, the trend was likely to persist and could even accelerate in the future.

By 2016, the share of the Brics countries in the global economy had overtaken that of the Group of Seven in terms of GDP adjusted by purchasing power parity, according to International Monetary Fund data released in October.

That gap was projected to widen to 12 percentage points in 2029 from 8 this year, as the economic clout of the 10-member group of emerging economies was expected to grow while that of the seven advanced economies was seen on a downward path.

Yang from the SIIS expected the next 25 years to be marked by relations between the US and China, and the Global North and South.

“[The strength] of developed countries and major developing nations will gradually move towards relative balance,” he said at the Shenzhen forum. “A community with a shared future for mankind cannot exclude the US.”

But Sun Degang, director of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University, noted that Global South countries were “facing a challenge of slow economic growth”.

Zheng Yongnian, president of the IIA and dean of the public policy school at CUHK-Shenzhen, told the forum there was shift under way.

He said changes in US-China relations meant the East and West were no longer so interdependent and were more likely to develop separately.

“In the short to medium term, reduced interdependence has given both sides a certain sense of security,” he said. “But in the long term, trust between the two has eroded – and if a conflict occurs its intensity will be significantly increased.

Zheng said the future East was likely to lean more towards India than China.

“Of all the developing countries, India’s ambitions should not be underestimated,” he said. “It is making every effort to represent the East.”

Zheng said New Delhi was trying to replace Moscow to form a China-US-India triangle on the international stage while also working to build a triangle with China and Russia within the Global South.

On US-China relations, Yuan from the CASS expected Washington to focus on technology blockades, export controls and investment restrictions to constrain and delay Beijing’s rise.

“The likelihood of a large-scale direct conflict between China and the US is low, but both countries need to explore ways to manage tensions and prevent unexpected incidents from spiralling out of control,” he said, adding that the next 10 to 15 years would be turbulent.

“After all, the US aims to outcompete us in 10 years.”

How China and the US are using different drone strategies to seize air superiority

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3289177/how-china-and-us-are-using-different-drone-strategies-seize-air-superiority?utm_source=rss_feed

When Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago, a new theatre of modern warfare emerged where unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) took on vital roles in surveillance and attacks, signalling a shift in the future of air dominance.

While both China and the United States, the world’s two largest military powers, continue to prioritise traditional warplanes in the race for air superiority, both countries have also doubled down on UAVs.

However, the strategic approaches of the two rivals are different, and China’s innovative use of mass produced drones appears to be quickly closing gaps in technologies and capabilities, according to analysts.

“China now emphasises mass production and affordability, making drones a key element in asymmetric warfare … China’s investment in AI-driven autonomy and swarm technologies reflects its goal of overwhelming adversaries with quantity and innovative use cases,” said Michael Raska, an assistant professor at the Military Transformations Programme at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

While China has been exploiting the asymmetric capabilities of drones to counterbalance US air power, analysts said America has invested more in high-end, versatile drones as part of its network-centric warfare strategy.

“The US approach often integrates drones into a broader network-centric warfare strategy, leveraging superior sensor integration and data-sharing capabilities,” Raska said.

Neither strategy is likely to see unmanned platforms replacing agile multirole fighter jets operated by pilots in the next few decades, but debates continue.

Remarks on social media last week by US tech billionaire Elon Musk drew a range of rebuttals from aerospace enthusiasts and experts after he posted a video of a coordinated civilian drone cluster in China. “Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35,” he commented, adding that manned fighters were “obsolete”.

His criticism of the F-35 programme reflected ongoing concerns over the country’s defence budget priorities as the US seeks to maintain global air supremacy, while China’s People Liberation’s Army (PLA) continues to rapidly modernise.

The fifth-generation stealth fighter programme – one of the costliest in American history – has experienced repeated delays and reliability and maintenance issues.

Meanwhile, China rolled out the J-35 – widely seen as a rival to the F-35 – at the country’s largest air show last month.

The Zhuhai air show showcased the advances to China’s jet fighter capabilities by also debuting new variants of carrier-based fighters – the J-15T and J-15D – and the model of its new two-seat heavy multirole stealth fighter J-20S.

China, which is home to DJI, the world’s largest civilian drone company, has also “scaled its drone capabilities in the past two decades”, according to Raska.

The US is working to pair its F-35 with autonomous collaborative combat aircraft as part of the “loyal wingman” concept. It has also focused heavily on advanced, multirole platforms like the MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-4 Global Hawk, Raska added.

But using drones to replace a platform like the F-35 would be “a tall order”, he said.

“The F-35 isn’t just a fighter – it’s a systems integrator, capable of gathering and sharing intelligence, executing complex missions, and operating in contested airspace where the level of autonomy required for drones isn’t yet feasible.”

Yue Gang, a retired Chinese military colonel, agreed. “Unmanned aircraft cannot replace manned aircraft yet, because their reliability and autonomy is still unequalled. From the combat power on land or sea to their ammunition loads and diversity, unmanned aircraft are still far from surpassing that of manned aircraft,” he said.

In situations like aerial combat, which require instant reaction, drone manoeuvres experience delays since they are far from their ground-based command stations.

UAVs are also vulnerable to electronic interference, or even hacking, as they rely on satellite communication networks for navigation.

In terms of UAV strategies, “drone swarms”, which would employ a cluster of drones to overwhelm air defence systems or achieve combat goals, have become a buzzword for future battlefields.

The US “hellscape” plan is designed to launch thousands of unmanned systems to buy time for US-led forces against a potential mainland Chinese amphibious assault against Taiwan.

But the strategy, which would rely on small, low-cost drones “still faces a lot of limitations in combat” and is more “for performances” at the moment, Yue said.

“The limitations are mainly on the amount of ammunition that these drones can carry and the distance of control … they must be able to fly far enough from the adversary’s fire strike range to be useful,” Yue said.

The “drone carrier” Jentank, also known as Jiutian, which China debuted at the Zhuhai air show has shown potential for such tactics, he added.

The large, long-range unmanned aircraft has a maximum take-off weight of about 10 tonnes and was believed to have a modular payload section that could launch smaller-sized aerial systems.

Domestically developed drones are playing increasingly larger roles in China’s day-to-day missions, with drones like the WL-10, GJ-2 and CH-4 being deployed to patrol near Japan and in the Taiwan Strait.

However, “China still knows very clearly that manned aircraft are still the backbone [of its air capabilities]”, Yue said.

So, instead of outright replacing manned aerial platforms, analysts believe that drones will increasingly complement advanced manned fighter jets by extending the capabilities of the warplanes.

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, for instance, is capable of commanding teams of drones from the cockpit to reduce latency, a design China has been trying to copy with its J-20S fighter.

While the US Air Force emphasises human-machine collaboration, the PLA has shown interest in expanding on the strategy, according to Timothy Heath, a senior international defence researcher at US-based think tank Rand Corporation.

Conversely, “the US is developing specialised drones which China has mastered, such as loitering munitions, which are drones that loiter in an area until they detect a target which they can strike”, he said.

Both countries are also integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into their drone development, a technology that could improve the performance of manned aircraft in situations like dogfights.

Current drones still lack “self-learning capabilities and situation awareness”, according to Song Zhongping, a Chinese military analyst and former PLA instructor.

“It will take 10, 20 years, or even longer for artificial intelligence to [fully] integrate with unmanned aircraft. Only when artificial intelligence in drones has its own ability in ideation, fault tolerance and adaptability, will it fully replace manned aircraft,” Song said.

China has been developing generative AI models for drones, including a large language model still in the experimental stage, that would be similar to ChatGPT, capable of commanding a drone equipped with electronic warfare weapons to attack enemy aircraft radar or communication systems.

Still, experts have also warned that reliance on AI introduces vulnerabilities to cyberattacks and adversarial exploitation, and also raises the prospect of ethical issues, when humans allow machines to make lethal decisions.

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Chinese national living illegally in US charged with shipping arms to North Korea

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3289227/chinese-national-living-illegally-us-charged-shipping-arms-north-korea?utm_source=rss_feed

A Chinese national living in California has been arrested and charged with illegally shipping weapons and ammunition to North Korea, authorities said on Tuesday.

Shenghua Wen, who came to the US from China on a student visa more than a decade ago and stayed in the country illegally, was arrested and charged with conspiring to violate federal law barring the shipments, according to the US Attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

It was not immediately known whether Wen, who is 41 and lives in Ontario, California, had a lawyer. He is expected to appear in court later on Tuesday.

“It is essential that we protect our country from hostile foreign states that have adverse interests to our nation,” Martin Estrada, US Attorney in Los Angeles, said in a statement.

According to a copy of a federal complaint, Wen told US authorities in interviews earlier this year that he had exported weapons and ammunition to North Korea at the request of its government.

He said he met with North Korean officials at consular offices in China before he came to the US on a student visa in 2012, the complaint said.

Wen said North Korean officials in China contacted him about two years ago to buy firearms and that he shipped two containers of weapons and other items from Long Beach, California, to North Korea via Hong Kong in 2023.

He told US authorities that he was wired about US$2 million to do so, according to the complaint.

The FBI seized 50,000 rounds of ammunition from Wen’s home about 64km (40 miles) east of Los Angeles that had been stored in a van parked in the driveway, the complaint said.

They also seized a chemical threat identification device and a transmission detective device that Wen said he planned to send to the North Korean government for military use, the complaint said.

Wen came to the US in 2012 on a student visa. His visa expired the following year and he was ordered deported in 2018, officials said.

3 Uygurs freed as part of US-China prisoner exchange: report

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3289229/3-uygurs-freed-part-us-china-prisoner-exchange-report?utm_source=rss_feed

At least one Uygur was allowed to leave China as part of a sensitive deal between Washington and Beijing last week, according to the White House and the woman’s US-based son.

In a statement to The New York Times, which first reported news of the Uygur release, the US National Security Council said it was “pleased Ayshem Mamut is home with her family” in the United States, naming one of the three Uygurs reportedly freed by Beijing.

Mamut is the mother of high-profile Uygur activist Nury Turkel, who also serves as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

“Our prayers have been answered. After more than 20 years, I am overjoyed to be reunited with my mother here in Washington,” Turkel wrote on the social media platform X on Tuesday.

“She can finally embrace her grandchildren for the first time,” he said, noting that his father had died more than two years ago without having the opportunity to reunite with his family.

Last week, the National Security Council said that Beijing had freed three imprisoned Americans, while China’s foreign ministry said that three Chinese prisoners and one fugitive had been returned to China. Both sides said their nationals had been wrongfully detained. Neither side had mentioned the release of three Uygurs in earlier statements.

“The Biden-Harris administration has continuously advocated for cases of humanitarian concern, including Uygurs,” the National Security Council said.

Prisoner swaps between the countries are rare. As part of the deal struck between the two sides, the US State Department also lowered the travel advisory for mainland China from “reconsider travel” to “exercise increased caution”.

Downgrading the warning, which was raised last year over concern of Beijing’s employment of “exit bans” and “wrongful detentions”, had been a priority for Beijing, as well as US-based scholars concerned about producing the next generation of American experts on China.

Dennis Wilder, a senior fellow for the Initiative for US-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University, said that Beijing’s eagerness to have the advisory lowered before the end of the Biden administration played a role in the release of the Uygurs.

“China needs tourism as a source of income, particularly given current economic headwinds, as evidenced by the number of nations now granted visa-free entry into China,” he said.

“The Biden administration clearly understood Beijing’s desire and drove a fairly tough bargain gaining the release of a few key Uygurs.”

Washington had raised the issue of wrongfully detained Americans with China repeatedly over the past several years, including last month when US President Joe Biden spoke to Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru.

US officials said there were no more wrongfully detained Americans in China as of last week, though a change in the situation would merit a reassessment of the travel advisory. The State Department still notes the presence of exit bans in its China advisory.

Mamut was not imprisoned in China but, according to The New York Times, China had barred her from leaving the country because of her son Turkel’s advocacy on Uygur rights. She had previously visited the United States, most recently in 2004.

In December 2021, China announced sanctions against four officials serving on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, including Turkel, then the body’s vice-chair, in retaliation for US sanctions on Chinese officials over abuses in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

The State Department designated abuses in Xinjiang as “genocide” in January 2021. Earlier this year, it said in an annual report that the Chinese government has continued to carry out “genocide, crimes against humanity, forced labour and other human rights violations against predominantly Muslim Uygurs.”

Human rights advocates celebrated the return of the three Uygurs to the US but highlighted continuing concerns about the situation in Xinjiang.

“Hundreds of thousands of Uygurs remain in long-term arbitrary imprisonment,” Maya Wang, associate China director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said on X.

Washington and human rights groups have pointed to satellite imagery, leaked government documents and eyewitness accounts as evidence that more than 1 million Uygurs and members of other predominantly Muslim minority groups have been subjected to mass detention, political indoctrination and forced labour. Beijing has repeatedly denied accusations of human rights violations in Xinjiang.

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How Donald Trump’s push to end Ukraine war tips his hand on China, Russia and North Korea

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3289226/how-donald-trumps-push-end-ukraine-war-tips-his-hand-china-russia-and-north-korea?utm_source=rss_feed

Donald Trump’s return to the White House is set to have profound implications for China, the world and the United States itself. In the second of a series, Kawala Xie looks at the obstacles Trump faces in engaging Russia and North Korea, both closely aligned with China, as he tries to make good on his promise to end the Ukraine war.

North Korea’s recent deployment of troops to help Russia in the Ukraine war marked an escalation in the nearly three-year armed conflict that former US president Donald Trump seized on in his victorious 2024 election campaign.

Trump has claimed he would end the war in one day and has stated far more favourable views of Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un than outgoing US President Joe Biden, who has depicted them as existential threats.

The president-elect’s past praise of Putin and professed “love” for Kim have evoked speculation that he might re-engage the two in a way that upsets Beijing.

As analysts contend that Trump’s transactional approach to foreign affairs could lead him to pursue deals with Putin and Kim, they say he could face significant obstacles to doing so in his second term.

For starters, Trump would find it difficult to pull North Korea or Russia out of China’s “strategic bloc” given the three countries’ aligned interests in challenging the West.

Designs on Ukraine

Beijing has “little cause to worry” about a potential American rapprochement with the Kremlin, according to Bjorn Alexander Duben, an expert in China’s relations with Russia and North Korea, at the University of London’s Forward College in Berlin.

“Trump likely views himself as a grand deal maker capable of drawing Putin away from China,” Duben said. Yet the “grand diplomatic fanfare” of Trump’s nuclear talks with North Korea in 2018 and 2019 “ended up achieving little of substance”.

As for Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, “their geopolitical interests continue to strongly align”, added Duben. The two have forged a close personal relationship, with ideological world views that “considerably overlap”.

In addition, Moscow has steadily become more dependent on Beijing both economically and technologically.

Sino-Russian trade even hit a record high during the Ukraine war as Western sanctions took aim at the Kremlin.

During a meeting in October on the sidelines of the Brics summit in Russia, Putin told Xi that Moscow was committed to “further expand coordination” with Beijing in all multilateral platforms.

Their countries have increasingly used the association of leading emerging national economies to promote an alternative vision of the Western-dominated world order.

Meanwhile, weeks after the US election, signs of the coming Trump administration’s foreign policy priorities have emerged.

The selection of long-time China critics Marco Rubio to lead the State Department and Mike Waltz to serve as US national security adviser indicates that Sino-American competition can be expected to intensify over the next four years.

Duben said most of the Trump appointees regarded as China hawks might see Beijing as an “enemy” while not necessarily displaying “obvious hostility” towards Russia.

Trump reportedly held a phone call last month with Putin, whom he has previously spoken of admiringly as a “strong man”. Trump was said to have signalled he would seek a resolution to the Ukraine war, although the Kremlin denied the call took place.

Trump’s advisers have reportedly moved quickly to present him a possible peace plan for Ukraine.

Proposals include “freezing” the conflict, allowing Russia to keep captured Ukrainian territory; creating a demilitarised zone; and having Ukraine pledge not to join Nato for the next 20 years in exchange for US military support in case of a future Russian attack.

It remains unclear whether Ukraine and Europe would accept such conditions. To complicate matters, it is feared that Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress could threaten to cut off American funding to pressure Ukraine to negotiate.

Putin is reportedly open to talks but may not make major territorial concessions, according to Reuters, citing current and former Kremlin officials.

Duben doubted Putin was willing to make a “substantial and lasting” deal on Ukraine given he appears “confident” he can achieve his war objectives, which include fully capturing four eastern Ukrainian states, although that has proved slow going.

“The most likely outcome of this is that Putin will sustain the illusion of being willing to strike such a deal with Trump … to extract substantial concessions from Washington in the process,” he added.

Zhao Long of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, a mainland-based think tank, said Trump would have “limited scope” to adjust US policy on Russia because of the “great distrust” between the two governments.

“It will be difficult to change the structural conflict … of US-Russia relations, so it will not have a substantial impact on China-Russia relations.”

Andrea Kendall-Taylor of the Centre for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank, believed Trump’s possible concessions to Russia could embolden the Sino-Russian partnership.

Putin and Xi view the US as in an “inexorable decline and they’re going to lean in to accelerate that decline”, Kendall-Taylor told a panel at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, last month.

As a result, she added, if “Trump does end up significantly pressuring Ukraine to make unacceptable concessions, then I think it will only put wind in the sails of this axis of people”.

North Korea, revisited

As Trump looks for a deal on Ukraine, speculation has swirled as to whether he could re-engage Kim in his second term and exploit an opportunity to divide North Korea and China, which is said to be frustrated over Pyongyang’s military ties with Moscow.

North Korea has made itself “a more attractive diplomatic target” for Trump by giving him something to negotiate for, said Frank Jannuzi, president of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation and a long-time US foreign policy analyst.

“I would think that he would want to seize the initiative very early on to try to have some dramatic win on Ukraine and North Korea,” he added.

Jannuzi said an attempt to lure North Korea out of its bloc with China and Russia would not happen soon as Pyongyang now is “much different” from four years ago. Kim also might refuse to engage because North Korea no longer aspires to denuclearisation.

Trump and Kim met three times during the American leader’s first presidential term but did not agree on a common approach to denuclearisation.

And in 2022, North Korea passed a law expanding its status as a nuclear power, with Kim vowing to never give up nuclear capabilities while rejecting future denuclearisation talks.

“The US frankly has very little to offer North Korea,” Jannuzi said at an event of the Washington-based non-profit National Committee on North Korea in October. “If Kim Jong-un met with Donald Trump, what would Trump offer … that would be of value?”

Were the US to explore sanctions relief to entice North Korea, that approach might lack appeal as Kim has already secured economic support from Russia, according to Rachel Lee, a Korea specialist at the Stimson Centre, a Washington-based think thank.

American and South Korean intelligence have said North Korea provided troops and ammunition to Russia in exchange for financial and technological help for tactical weapons.

Lee suggested North Korea may have slipped as a foreign-policy priority for Trump compared to China, Ukraine and Gaza. “He probably realises that North Korea is a difficult problem to solve,” she said of Trump.

In fact, the American president-elect may just “tolerate a nuclear North Korea without doing anything”, according to Zhang Baohui of Hong Kong’s Lingnan University.

Zhang said it would be difficult for Trump to drive a wedge between China and North Korea because Pyongyang understands that “deeper causes” animate the conflict between the West and non-Western powers.

In recent years, North Korea’s stance towards the West has become much more hostile as the US and South Korea have expanded joint military drills in the Korean peninsula.

Pyongyang has ramped up missile tests and last year signed a mutual defence treaty with Russia. The countries agreed to furnish immediate military help to each other if either is attacked.

China has been largely muted over North Korea and Russia’s growing closeness, citing its non-interference policy in others’ internal affairs.

But many describe Beijing as uneasy about Pyongyang and Moscow’s expanding military ties. China has advocated peace in Ukraine and on the Korean peninsula.

Zhao of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies said China’s concern was more about a potential increase in Nato’s presence in Asia prompted by Russia and North Korea’s cooperation.

“Ensuring that there is no war or chaos on the peninsula is China’s basic principle in looking at this issue,” he explained.

“[China] does not hope that this kind of cooperation will strengthen Europe and Asia’s security coordination and provide more ‘pretext’ for European Nato members to strengthen their substantive presence in the Asia-Pacific region.”

The Moscow-Pyongyang dealings were purely “transactional” with North Korea trying to “play Russia and China off one another” to extract benefits for itself, said Kathryn Weathersby of Georgetown University at a Korea Society discussion in October.

Russia and North Korea had no “underlying trust”, she added. North Korea similarly signed a defence treaty with China in 1961 amid worsening relations between Beijing and Moscow.

Analysts have surmised the outcome of the Ukraine war will have a decisive impact on North Korea’s relations with Russia and China.

If the Ukraine war is finished, then Kim could revisit relations with China, said Tae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea and became a presidential adviser on peaceful unification, at a CSIS programme in Washington last month.

Until then and as long as the North Korean leader “is paid for his soldiers and military cooperation with Russia, he will not open dialogue with America or China”, he added.

In the meantime, Pyongyang and Moscow’s closer military ties should encourage Washington to “try every possibility” to convince Beijing to work with it, Tae said.

The US and South Korea have both called on China to exert influence on Russia and North Korea, which now has more than 11,000 soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in late October said talks on the issue had taken place with senior Chinese diplomats.

Both Trump and China wish to see the Ukraine war resolved, noted Zhang of Lingnan University. That said, he doubted cooperation between the two could be reached if China sceptics surrounded the American leader.

Zhao said it was possible Trump could look for “positive engagement” with China over Ukraine, a development that could help ease frictions in US-China relations.

But he added it was more likely that Trump would promote his own peace plan for Ukraine rather than solicit China’s help.

“Frankly speaking, before Trump’s unilateral attempts to push for peace and talks fail, he will not be very interested in incorporating China into the peace process.”

Should Trump’s efforts languish, Zhao said, he might try to make China a scapegoat “for the breakdown of Russia-Ukraine negotiations and his failure to end the war”.

China’s share of global electric car market rises to 76%

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/dec/03/chinas-share-of-global-electric-car-market-rises-to-76

China’s share of the global electric vehicle market reached 76% in October, the country’s automotive trade body said, reflecting strong demand for EVs in the country even as western tariffs risk hobbling exports.

Between January and October, sales of EVs reached 14.1m units, according to the China Passenger Car Association, with 69% of those sales in China. In October, China’s share surpassed three-quarters.

The figures suggest that China is on track to increase its share of the global EV market. Last year, just under 60% of new EV registrations were in China, according to the International Energy Agency.

The vast majority of global EV sales happen in China, the EU and the US, with China dominating the market. But tariffs imposed by the western markets in recent years have threatened to hit the brakes on China’s rapidly expanding industry, which has been named by Beijing as one of the “new three” priority areas for China’s economic development and green transition.

Chinese EVs are all but blocked from the US market. This year,Joe Biden increased the levy on Chinese electric cars from 25% to 100%. Donald Trump has promised to imposed an additional levy of 10% on all imports from China. The EU has also decided to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs of up to 35%, on top of existing duties of 10%, a decision that was condemned by China.

Although western markets are becoming increasingly difficult to penetrate for Chinese companies, the strong demand and support for EVs at home has continued. China recently doubled the subsidy available to car buyers to support EV purchases, to 20,000 yuan (£2,169) for consumers who trade in their conventional cars.

Tesla, the US car company led by Elon Musk, a close ally of Trump, appeared to be one of the beneficiaries of the new Chinese subsidy in September. Tesla’s sales increased by 7% in the third quarter.

China’s auto sales to Russia have also continued to surge. Data shared on Monday by Cui Dongshu, the secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association, showed that exports to Russia have increased by 109% in the past two years, while exports to the US have dropped 23% in the same period.

Cui said that Chinese carmakers were “eager to export” to Russia, as international rivals avoided the market because of “risks”. The US and the EU banned the export of cars to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Biden says the US is ‘all in’ on Africa during his Angola visit meant to counter China

https://apnews.com/article/biden-africa-angola-slave-museum-92b92fec66169e1f347142beb3735f52President Joe Biden arrives inspects the honor guard with Angola's President Joao Lourenco, at the presidential palace in the capital Luanda, Angola on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

2024-12-03T05:09:29Z

LUANDA, Angola (AP) — Joe Biden on Tuesday was using the first visit to Angola by a U.S. president to promote Washington’s investments in the sub-Saharan African nation and see a slavery museum, where he’ll acknowledge the trafficking of humans that once linked the nations’ economies.

“The United States is all in on Africa,” Biden told Angolan President João Lourenço, who called Biden’s visit a key turning point in U.S.-Angola relations dating back to the Cold War.

But even as the visit was meant to counter China’s influence on the African continent of over 1.4 billion people by showcasing a U.S. commitment of $3 billion for the Lobito Corridor railway redevelopment linking Zambia, Congo and Angola, China announced its own move.

The corridor is meant to make it easier to move raw materials for export and advance the U.S. presence in a region rich in critical minerals used in batteries for electric vehicles, electronic devices and clean energy technologies.

China already has heavy investments in mining and processing African minerals, and on Tuesday it announced it is banning exports to the United States of gallium, germanium, antimony and other high-tech materials. The announcement came a day after the U.S. expanded its list of Chinese technology companies subject to controls.

The U.S. for years has built relations in Africa through trade, security and humanitarian aid. The 800-mile (1,300-kilometer) railway upgrade is different, with shades of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure strategy in Africa and other parts of the world.

Biden will visit the Angolan coastal city of Lobito on Wednesday for a look at the corridor’s Atlantic Ocean outlet. The project also has drawn financing from the European Union, the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, a Western-led private consortium and African banks.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the corridor’s completion is “going to take years but there’s already been a lot of work put in.”

That means much of it may fall to Biden’s successor, Republican Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20.

Asked whether the project could proceed without support from Trump, Kirby said it was the Biden administration’s hope “that they see the value too, that they see how it will help drive a more secure, more prosperous, more economically stable continent.”

Kirby, speaking aboard Air Force One as Biden flew to Angola, said the corridor was about more than simply trying to outpace Beijing geopolitically.

“We’re not asking countries to choose between us and Russia and China. We’re simply looking for reliable, sustainable, verifiable investment opportunities that the people of Angola and the people of the continent can rely on,” he said.

“We don’t think because we’re bigger and more powerful that we have all the answers,” Biden said Tuesday, pledging to use the trip to listen.

Angola’s president said he’d like to see a public-private partnership to increase energy production.

Biden had promised to visit Africa last year, after reviving the U.S.-Africa Summit in December 2022. But the trip was delayed until this year and then pushed back again this October because of Hurricane Milton — reinforcing a sentiment among Africans that their continent is still a low priority for Washington.

The last U.S. president to visit sub-Saharan Africa was Barack Obama in 2015. Biden attended a United Nations climate summit in Egypt in North Africa in 2022.

In Angola, Biden will meet with leaders of African business engagement groups he helped found and then visit Angola’s National Slavery Museum. The site was once the headquarters of the Capela da Casa Grande, a 17th century temple where slaves were baptized before boarding the ships that took them to America.

Kirby said Biden will give a speech there acknowledging “both the horrific history of slavery that has connected our two nations, but also looks forward to a future predicated on a shared vision that benefits both our people.”

After arriving in Angola’s capital, Luanda, on Monday evening, Biden met briefly with Wanda Tucker, a descendant of William Tucker, the first enslaved child born in the United States, the White House said.

William Tucker’s parents were brought to colonial Virginia from Angola in August 1619 aboard the Portuguese ship the White Lion.

WILL WEISSERT Weissert covers national politics and the White House. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto

Will Taylor Swift accept Hangzhou’s outstretched hand for an economy-boosting China show?

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3289196/will-taylor-swift-accept-hangzhous-outstretched-hand-economy-boosting-china-show?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese cities are scrambling to host international superstars as local officials pin hopes on live music shows to help drive their economies when overall retail sales are lagging as residents tighten their belts amid economic headwinds.

An official in eastern China’s Hangzhou expressed his hope of inviting Taylor Swift to perform in the city after British singer Ed Sheeran announced plans to perform six shows in Hangzhou from February to March – the only stop in China during his upcoming tour.

Huang Jiangping, an official with Hangzhou’s Bureau of Culture, Radio, TV and Tourism, was quoted by local media as saying that a local performance by Swift is something “that music fans around the world can look forward to”. But he later clarified that there were not yet any such arrangements.

Recognising the economic potential of international superstars, Chinese cities have ramped up efforts to attract high-profile concerts.

Last year, Swift chose Singapore as the sole stop for her The Eras Tour in Southeast Asia, leaving fans disappointed across the continent, including in Hong Kong. Advisers to the Shanghai government in July likened superstars such as Swift to “walking GDP” because of their massive economic impact, and they urged the central government to relax restrictions on international performers.

Hosting international performances in China is a complex process that involves navigating countless regulations and restrictions. The Chinese government has historically been cautious about granting permission for large-scale events, especially those involving foreign artists, due to concerns over cultural influence and security control.

“Almost every city in the world wants to invite Taylor Swift. Her concert in Hangzhou is a wonderful wish and something that Hangzhou strives for,” Huang said.

To maintain its competitiveness, Hangzhou has formulated policies to support large-scale concerts, music festivals, sports events and exhibitions.

Chinese consumers are adopting a more selective approach to spending, while affordable mass entertainment options such as music concerts are becoming more appealing.

In September, American rapper Kanye West’s concerts in Haikou, Hainan, generated an estimated 373 million yuan (US$52.6 million) in tourism revenue. And hotel occupancy rose significantly, to more than 83 per cent, according to the Haikou Municipal Tourism Bureau.

Similar effects were seen in Beijing, where American singer Mariah Carey’s concert in September drew large crowds from across the country.

Swift’s Singapore concerts were reportedly heavily subsidised, with the city state’s National Stadium accommodating 55,000 fans per show.

After the shows, local media estimated that the performances generated about 500 million Singaporean dollars (US$372 million) in tourism revenue.

The Eras Tour has been a global economic phenomenon, generating between US$46 million and US$140 million in benefits per city, according to the market research platform QuestionPro, which is known for its online surveys.

In wake of mass attacks, China’s judges urged to ensure fairness to maintain stability

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3289214/wake-mass-attacks-chinas-judges-urged-ensure-fairness-maintain-stability?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s judges and prosecutors must pay more attention to solving conflicts and ensuring fairness rather than just closing cases, a senior judicial official said in a rare commentary, as authorities reflect on a string of mass killings in recent weeks.

Wang Chengguo, secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of Zhejiang province, wrote in the official People’s Daily on Tuesday that China’s judicial system must focus on maintaining social stability as its main task.

He said China faced “an increasing number of uncertain and unpredictable factors”, and law enforcement and judicial work served to achieve justice in individual cases and were crucial channels for repairing social relations and advancing social governance.

If officials focus on judicial procedure and aim to close cases quickly, ignoring individual justice, or if they apply laws mechanically to simplify cases without solving the actual problems, they might “intensify conflicts between the parties involved”, Wang wrote.

He called for solving problems and strengthening governance “at the root” to prevent “various social risks from escalating”.

Wang’s commentary is likely a reflection of recent mass incidents, said a political scientist who asked to remain anonymous.

“The commentary meant that unfair judicial decisions and improper handling of cases can trigger social instability, and that authorities should pay attention to these factors,” he said.

“Furthermore, there is also the need to strengthen the judicial branch and increase punishment for crimes, including crimes that cause large-scale harm to groups of people.”

China has faced an unusually high number of mass killings in recent weeks, which unfolded against the backdrop of an economic slump and high unemployment.

On November 11, an SUV rammed into a crowd of people exercising in Zhuhai in the southern province of Guangdong, killing 35 and injuring 43.

On November 16, at a vocational college in Wuxi in Jiangsu province, a former student killed eight and wounded 17 with a knife.

Three days later, an SUV hit a group of parents and children outside a primary school in Changde in the central province of Hunan. Local police reported that several children were injured and needed hospital treatment, but there were no deaths.

Local police said the suspect in the Zhuhai killing, a 62-year-old man, was unhappy about court decisions regarding the division of property in his divorce.

Wang said that to promote social harmony in judicial work, there must be laws and regulations as well as a conflict-solving mechanism to encourage communication between parties and seek a compromise that satisfies all sides. He called for community volunteers to take part in solving conflicts and urged the use of big data and other technical measures to promote efficiency.

He added that officials should improve their abilities and “act as a bridge to communication” to balance the interests of all sides and solve problems in creative ways.

On November 22, China’s Ministry of Justice held a meeting to discuss specific measures to solve conflicts. It called for local officials to look into “marriage issues, neighbour relations, inheritances, property and land disputes and wage arrears” in an effort to nip problems in the bud.

President Xi Jinping has promoted the “Fengqiao experience” – a model of solving problems at the community level – to manage disputes and social relations. Its motto is “small things do not leave the village, big things do not leave the town, and conflicts do not turn over”.

In a 2021 speech recorded in Qiushi, the Communist Party’s most authoritative theoretical journal, Xi said China’s special circumstances meant it could not become “a country of litigation”.

“We have 1.4 billion people. If everything, big or small, has to be decided by a lawsuit, our system wouldn’t be able to bear the burden,” he said, while calling for more mediation of conflicts and insisting on the Fengqiao experience.

China welcomes new US$1 billion Sanofi project in Beijing

https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3289203/china-welcomes-new-us1-billion-sanofi-project-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese authorities rolled out the red carpet for French pharmaceutical and healthcare giant Sanofi, which plans to invest around 1 billion euros (US$1.05 billion) to build a new insulin plant in Beijing – the company’s single biggest capital outlay in the world’s second-largest economy.

Vice-Premier He Lifeng on Tuesday told Sanofi chairman Frédéric Oudéa that China will continue to improve its operating environment for businesses and welcome European firms in the country, according to a Xinhua news agency report.

Their meeting came after Beijing Communist Party Secretary Yin Li, also a member of China’s 24-member Politburo, met Oudéa on Monday. Yin said Beijing hopes Sanofi will speed up the project and bring new drugs to China, according to the official Beijing Daily. He also expected Sanofi to deepen its ties with local pharmaceutical enterprises and medical institutes in areas such as artificial intelligence, according to the report.

Sanofi said the new plant will be its fourth such facility on the mainland. It also represents one of the largest foreign-funded projects in China in recent years, following Tesla’s Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai that cost an estimated US$2 billion.

The Beijing project reflects Sanofi’s optimism in its prospects in the country amid steady economic cooperation between China and the European Union in spite of tensions related to trade and the war in Ukraine.

Sanofi is “firmly optimistic” about the Chinese market’s long-term development, Oudéa said in a statement.

The company’s investment comes amid Beijing’s support for “open collaboration” in the healthcare industry, which is part of an effort to attract more foreign businesses in the country amid economic headwinds.

Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao, who also met the French firm’s executives, said China will “equally” support foreign companies’ technological innovation and participation in the domestic market, according to a statement from the agency.

China had 141 million diabetic patients in 2021, the world’s largest cohort, according to the International Diabetes Federation. Sanofi’s new plant in Beijing is expected to satisfy the insulin requirements of the mainland, the company said in a statement on Monday.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, in August issued a list of guidelines that included backing investments in the biotech industry and making clinical trials and product registrations for listed biopharmaceuticals outside the country more efficient. The National Medical Products Administration in September also urged multinational companies to move the production of drugs and medical equipment to China.

India and China to ‘calibrate’ relations, pursue business ties after border stand-off: minister

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3289209/india-and-china-calibrate-relations-pursue-business-ties-after-border-stand-minister?utm_source=rss_feed

India and China will consider “other aspects” of their bilateral ties in a calibrated manner now that they have completed pulling back their troops from the last two face-off points on their Himalayan border, India’s foreign minister said on Tuesday.

The comments came six weeks after New Delhi and Beijing reached a deal to resolve a four-year military stand-off that had damaged the relationship between the Asian giants, indicating that India is willing to improve business ties that were also hurt.

Relations between the world’s two most populous nations – both nuclear powers – have been strained since clashes between their troops on the frontier in the western Himalayas left 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead in 2020.

India severed direct air links with China, banned hundreds of Chinese mobile applications, and added layers of vetting on Chinese investments, saying the relationship could not be normal if there was no peace on the frontier.

China maintained that the border conflict should not be allowed to come in the way of the rest of the relationship.

“The conclusion of the disengagement phase now allows us to consider other aspects of our bilateral engagement in a calibrated manner, keeping our national security interests first and foremost,” Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told parliament without elaborating.

“We are clear that the maintenance of peace and tranquillity in border areas is a prerequisite for the development of our ties,” he said, adding that top officials and diplomats of the two countries would meet soon to discuss future steps.

“In the coming days, we will be discussing both de-escalation as well as effective management of our activities in the border areas,” Jaishankar said.

The mostly unmarked border of about 4,000km (2,500 miles) runs along the Himalayas and has been a source of tension between the neighbours for decades, including a brief but bloody war in 1962.

Ties stabilised after diplomatic talks and a series of pacts were reached from 1991 and trade and business links boomed until they were disrupted by the clashes in the summer of 2020.

Days after the two sides reached a deal in October to end the border conflict, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held their first formal talks in five years and agreed to resolve their differences and boost ties.

Indian officials have said that New Delhi was expected to be cautious and only take baby steps towards boosting economic ties, given the trust deficit of the last four years. Resuming direct flights and fast-tracking visa approvals are expected to be among the first steps, they said.

China promotes faithful relationships for elderly as HIV/Aids cases rise in over 50s

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3289133/china-promotes-faithful-relationships-elderly-hiv/aids-cases-rise-over-50s?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s health authorities have called for elderly people to be faithful to their partners and refrain from seeking prostitutes as the country attempts to combat a rise in Aids cases among its older population.

Liu Yufen, deputy director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Aids prevention centre, said there was a growing trend of new infections among those aged 50 and above, mainly affecting men, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Sunday.

The report cited suggestions from the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration including raising public awareness and encouraging married couples to maintain a faithful sexual relationship. It also said elderly people should adopt a “healthy and civilised” lifestyle.

The report said that while the overall number of new reported cases was falling, and other sources of infection had been effectively controlled, sexual transmission remained a primary source of infection.

The renewed calls came on World Aids Day on Sunday.

A rise in new infections among elderly is of concern as the world’s second-largest economy grapples with the mounting pressures of a rapidly greying population.

In 2023, the number of people aged 60 and above reached 297 million, accounting for more than 21 per cent of the total population in China, according to official data. The population aged 65 and over exceeded 216 million – 15.4 per cent of the total.

A CDC study published in December last year said the number of newly reported HIV/Aids cases among people 50 and older saw a substantial rise from 11,751 in 2010 to 51,856 in 2022.

The study said this observed trend in the age group required “heightened attention”, making it necessary to “develop and implement interventions specifically designed to prevent and control the transmission of HIV within this demographic”.

The rising HIV and Aids infection rates among elderly Chinese have been attributed to loneliness, a lack of understanding about safe sex and a reluctance to discuss it with doctors, according to domestic media reports. Elderly people reportedly lacked access to public education campaigns about HIV and many were not familiar with social media platforms.

The local media reports said many elderly men were becoming infected through extramarital affairs and elderly women were most likely to contract the disease through their male partners.

HIV has remained a major global public health issue. Globally, there were about 39.9 million people living with HIV by the end of 2023. An estimated 1.3 million people were newly infected in 2023 – a 39 per cent decline from 2010, according to the World Health Organization.

New infections have declined in many developed countries. In the United States, estimated HIV infections fell 12 per cent overall between 2018 and 2022, according to official data.

However, the issue of HIV/Aids among the elderly is a growing concern in many parts of the world, including developed countries.

An estimated 25 per cent of people living with HIV globally were aged 50 years and over in 2023, according to UNAIDS data. In 2021, around 41 per cent of the people in the US with HIV were 55 years old or older.

Australia warns against China’s move to ‘normalise dangerous actions’ in territorial rows

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3289186/australia-warns-against-chinas-move-normalise-dangerous-actions-territorial-rows?utm_source=rss_feed

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong has warned against what she said was China’s move to “normalise dangerous actions” in territorial disputes with other nations, reiterating Canberra’s earlier calls to manage such issues through dialogue.

At a forum in Fullerton Hotel in Singapore on Tuesday, Wong vowed that Canberra would back the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to ensure there would be processes in place to de-escalate tensions.

“We also, in our region, do see China’s efforts to normalise dangerous actions towards Philippines and Taiwan, and we have consistently articulated our view as to the importance of peace and stability in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait,” Wong said at the event organised by the London-based think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies.

She stressed that “prevention mechanisms to provide transparency and reassurance” were needed “now more than ever”.

Beijing views Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reintegrated into mainland control, by force if necessary. While many nations, including the US, do not officially acknowledge Taiwan as an independent state, they oppose any use of force to alter the status quo.

Wong’s comments come after Beijing and Canberra resumed bilateral economic talks in September after a seven-year hiatus.

The fourth China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue was held in Beijing this year after ties were frozen due to political and economic disagreements, with Beijing accusing Canberra in 2021 of acting “out of Cold War mindset and ideological discrimination”.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said last month there was progress in bilateral ties following his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.

“Trade is flowing more freely to the benefit of both countries and to people and businesses on both sides,” he said.

China announced in March the removal of tariffs imposed on Australian wine with effect from March 29, three years after they were first implemented.

Wong on Tuesday highlighted the importance of China’s relationship with Australia, but noted that much of this hinged on “approaching these challenges in regional terms”.

“[China’s] is a relationship of huge consequence to Australia, and the great power relationship is of huge consequence to us, as to all the world. But the way we manage our interests in the face of challenges involving great powers is only partly through our direct dealing,” she said.

Wong said while the global trade environment was evolving due to the differing economic policies of the two major superpowers, it was important to maintain confidence while navigating changes.

On Australia’s deepening economic engagement with Southeast Asia, Wong said: “There’s an economic benefit to stronger investment in Southeast Asia, given where the region is going, but also because we recognise [that] if we want that deep reservoir of trust that is so important to relationships, the economic piece is such an important part of our relationship.”

She was responding to a question about how Australia’s economic engagement with the region would weather geopolitical and economic tensions caused by the US-China rivalry.

Australia remains committed to deepening economic engagement with the region through its blueprint called the “Invested: Australia’s Southeast Asia Economic Strategy for 2040”, according to Wong.

Unveiled last year, the blueprint was written by Australia’s special envoy to Southeast Asia Nicholas Moore. Among its 75 recommendations is the establishment of a deals team to identify and facilitate more mutual investments.

Wong said there had been “tangible progress” arising from the blueprint, such as the creation of Australia’s deals team and the period extension of business visitor visas from three to five years.

Australia’s two-way investment with Asean was worth A$307 billion (US$199 billion) in 2022, while two-way trade totalled A$178 billion in the same year, which was 15 per cent of its total trade, according to data from Canberra.

The region is projected to become the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of four per cent between 2023 and 2040.

“Australia will look for more opportunities and initiatives to deepen our engagement,” she said, adding that strengthening ties with Singapore would be part of Canberra’s regional engagement plans.

Her talk at the Fullerton Hotel was part of her visit to Singapore, where Wong, along with Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles and Trade and Tourism Minister Don Farrell was scheduled to meet their Singaporean counterparts of the Singapore-Australia Joint Ministerial Committee on Tuesday.

The committee was first set up in 1996 and seeks to achieve deeper integration between the two countries across four areas: economic, foreign affairs, defence and people-to-people fields. The bilateral dialogue is held biennially in Australia and Singapore.

China tests carrier-like ship, but mystery vessel’s purpose remains murky

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3289182/china-tests-carrier-ship-mystery-vessels-purpose-remains-murky?utm_source=rss_feed

China has tested a mysterious, carrier-like vessel featuring a large flight deck that is likely to be used for drones and crewed helicopters, according to photos and videos circulating on social media.

While the ship’s size and configurations are similar to the Chinese naval Type 075 landing helicopter dock, its light aircraft carrier design with three, instead of two, protruding island-like structures has made it a first of its kind.

The ship, measuring some 200 metres (656 feet) long, is believed to be docked at a facility owned by shipbuilding company Comec on Longxue Island in the southern city of Guangzhou. US military news site The War Zone, which was the first to report on the vessel, said it was probably a civilian research ship capable of supporting naval missions.

Comec, formerly Guangzhou Shipyard International Company, is a subsidiary under the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) focused on commercial vessels.

According to The War Zone, the ship seems to have been launched between September 10 and October 9.

A video circulating on social media last week showed the vessel appeared to be sailing under its own power as little as two months after its launch, suggesting it was built very quickly.

The ship was spotted next to China’s large unmanned combat vessel JARI-USV-A, known as Orca, in October.

More photos circulating on American and Chinese platforms offered a closer look at the ship, showing two sets of markings on the vessel’s open flight deck. This type of flight deck is typically used for rotary-wing aircraft, either crewed or uncrewed.

But there were no clear signs – such as military-style markings or a hull number – that it was a military ship. There were also no signs of catapults or arrester cables that would be used for heavier fixed-wing aircraft, The War Zone reported on Tuesday.

The ship has a distinctive arrangement with three island-like structures along the starboard side of the flight deck. The multi-storey middle island appeared to be larger and taller than the other two.

“The superstructure nearest the bow includes a bridge and conventional-type mast, while the larger central one has a rear-facing glazed tower area for managing flight operations, plus a prominent mast, although the spherical radome seen on top in previously published images is missing here,” the report said.

“Finally, the structure closest to the stern houses the ship’s exhaust stacks.”

Open-source images collected by The War Zone suggest that the vessel has a simpler and cheaper design than military carriers or multifunctional amphibious assault ships and is more likely to be a private venture by CSSC than a project of the Chinese navy.

However, the line between China’s civilian and military vessels and technology is not always clear, and the facility where the ship is believed to be docked has hosted both civilian and military vessels, further muddying the picture of what the new ship will be used for.

The new vessel will add to China’s expanding range of domestically developed light and amphibious carrier vessels as the country builds up its maritime capabilities.

China has expanded its civilian research fleet and now has 64 vessels in use, according to a recent report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

China industry bodies call for ‘caution’ in buying US chips amid latest sanctions

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-war/article/3289200/china-industry-bodies-call-caution-buying-us-chips-amid-latest-sanctions?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s state-backed bodies covering internet companies, semiconductor firms and automakers have called on their respective members to shun chips from US suppliers in an apparent retaliation against Washington’s latest sanctions, which could deal a blow to the mainland businesses of Nvidia, Qualcomm and Intel.

The three bodies – the Internet Society of China, the Chinese Association of Automobile Manufacturers and the China Semiconductor Industry Association – on Tuesday issued statements within minutes of each other, urging their members to be “cautious” in buying chips from American suppliers, following the Biden administration’s fresh sanctions.

The US government blacklisted another batch of Chinese semiconductor enterprises this week, as Washington continues to stymie the mainland’s progress in advanced chip development.

The new US measures has “substantially harmed the healthy and stable development of China’s internet industry” and shaken the trust and confidence in US chip products, according to the statement from the Internet Society of China.

Instead, Chinese internet firms should “expand cooperation” with semiconductor suppliers in other countries and regions, while actively using China-made chips, the society said.

The China Semiconductor Industry Association, meanwhile, asserted that US chips were “no longer safe, no longer reliable”.

“To safeguard the security and stability of the automotive industry chain and supply chain, the association suggests that Chinese automotive enterprises to exert caution in purchasing US chips,” the country’s automaker association said.

China-Australia relations: Beijing lifts red meat ban with Canberra as relations improve

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3289167/china-australia-relations-beijing-lifts-red-meat-ban-canberra-relations-improve?utm_source=rss_feed

China has fully lifted suspensions on Australian red meat, Canberra said on Tuesday, dismantling one of the final barriers in a four-year trade war that hammered US$13 billion of exports.

A slew of Australia’s most lucrative export commodities were effectively banned from China starting in 2020, as relations between the two nations started to fray.

But China has been gradually unwinding these barriers as Australia steps up efforts to mend ties on the diplomatic front.

Red meat and lobster were the last two commodities subject to some form of barrier or export ban.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday that China had paved the way for “full resumption of red meat exports”.

Meanwhile, full lobster trade is expected to resume by the end of the year.

“We are close to the point where China’s trade impediments – which impacted A$20 billion (US$13 billion) worth of Australian exports – have all been removed,” trade minister Don Farrell said on Tuesday.

Over the past two years, Beijing has dropped tariffs on Australian barley and wine, halted an import ban on timber and resumed shipments of coal.

China lifted suspensions on eight Australian slaughterhouses in May this year but kept barriers in place for two facilities.

Those final two beef-processing plants were now able to resume exports to China.

China is Australia’s second-most lucrative beef export market, behind the United States.

Australian Meat Industry Council spokesman Tim Ryan said it was a “great outcome”.

“After four years of hard work on behalf of red meat exporters, this is a fantastic and very welcome result,” he said.

Lobster exports are the last major Australian commodity awaiting the full resumption of trade with China.

Beijing had agreed to a “timetable to resume full lobster trade by the end of this year”, Albanese said in October.

The sanctions are expected to be lifted in time for Lunar New Year next year when delicacies such as rock lobster are in hot demand.

Australia’s relationship with China began unravelling in 2018 when Canberra excluded telecommunications giant Huawei from its 5G network on security grounds and later passed laws on foreign interference.

Then in 2020, Australia called for an international investigation into the origins of Covid-19 – an action China saw as politically motivated.

However, since the election of the centre-left Labor government in May 2022, ties between Australia and China have rapidly improved, including the restarting of high-level diplomatic talks and state visits. Premier Li Qiang travelled to Australia in June to meet with Albanese.

Australia has spent much of the past two years trying to insulate the vital trade relationship with China – its biggest trade partner – from geopolitical headwinds.

Australia is part of a loose US-led alliance that has aggressively pushed back against China’s bid for primacy in the Pacific region.

Tuesday’s announcement comes as Beijing eyes deepening trade rifts with Europe and the United States.

Brussels and Washington have slapped punitive tariffs on China’s electric vehicle exports, semiconductors, solar panels and a range of other goods.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg

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China to restrict exports of critical minerals to US, commerce ministry says

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3289148/china-restrict-exports-critical-minerals-us-commerce-ministry-says?utm_source=rss_feed

China announced on Tuesday it would restrict exports of materials with both civilian and military uses to the United States.

The materials covered include gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite, according to a statement released by the country’s Ministry of Commerce.

More to follow...

China needs investments in new generation of clean-energy tech after wind and solar boom

https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3289154/china-needs-investments-new-generation-clean-energy-tech-after-wind-and-solar-boom?utm_source=rss_feed

China needs to boost investment in a new generation of clean energy technology including storage, hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel, according to executives speaking at the BloombergNEF Summit in Shanghai.

Huge funding for renewables and electric vehicles has already put the country on the cusp of peaking emissions, years before its own 2030 target. But that has also left supply chains saturated, squeezing company profits and raising international trade tensions.

Companies need to shift their spending away from those now-mature technologies toward areas that still need to scale up and lower costs, according to Alan Chan Ying-lung, chief investment officer at Hong Kong & China Gas Co. The gas distributor known as Towngas is focusing on sustainable aviation fuel, using biofuels to decarbonise a difficult-to-abate sector.

“We need more capital to go to unmet demand instead of going to hotspots that are already fully invested,” Chan said during a panel discussion at the event on Tuesday. “We still need to fill that gap.”

The surge in renewables has also created imbalance in grids dealing with too much solar power in the middle of the day that disappears when the sun sets.

China is already investing heavily in energy storage, but needs to adopt market-based principles to create more incentives for investors, according to Lu Chuan, chairman of solar manufacturer Astronergy, also known as Chint New Energy Technology Co. He suggested that China look at electricity markets in places like Europe and California, where price differences vary widely depending on the time of day.

“In overseas markets, market-based prices create clear policies,” Lu said. “China should learn from mature models from the West to promote consumption.”

China will also be a major growth market for Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power Co, which has approved an investment of US$50 billion to develop renewables worth 20 gigawatts and annual production of 1 million tonnes of green hydrogen in the country by 2030, according to Lyu Yunhe, the company’s head of China operations. The firm is looking to work with Chinese state-owned enterprises to acquire clean power assets, Lyu said.

China’s 10-year bond yield slumps to record low as investors scramble for safe haven

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3289140/chinas-10-year-bond-yield-slumps-record-low-investors-scramble-safe-haven?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s 10-year government bond yield fell below 2 per cent for the first time on record, underscoring bets among investors that Beijing will need to ease its policies further to revive the economy. The yuan weakened as the yield advantage of similar-maturity US notes grew.

The yield on Chinese debt maturing in 10 years fell as low as 1.979 per cent on Tuesday, breaching the 2 per cent mark for a second day. For the year, the yield is down by 57 basis points, putting it on track for the biggest annual drop since 2018.

Brokerages predict the trend will continue, with Zhongtai Securities saying that a cut in the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for banks is on the table before the end of the year and Huachuang Securities expecting interest-rate cuts between 20 and 40 basis points next year.

“China’s bond yields have hit a staggering new low, signalling a chilling risk forecast as the giant struggles against a deflationary spiral eerily reminiscent of Japan’s long economic malaise,” said Stephen Innes, a managing director at SPI Asset Management in Bangkok. “As yields nosedive, market whispers grow louder, anticipating further monetary loosening.”

Beijing’s recent stimulus packages have failed to assuage investor concerns about faltering economic growth. Recovery has been patchy at best, with retail sales bouncing back, though the property market’s downturn drags on despite authorities slashing borrowing costs and mortgage rates while lifting purchase restrictions in most major cities. A legislative meeting last month stopped short of rolling out any fiscal support for consumer spending, the part of the economy that is seen as vital for reviving growth.

“Despite a slew of rate cuts and easing measures, the central bank’s toolkit has yet to spark a robust revival, leaving traders betting on even more aggressive steps ahead,” Innes said.

Demand for haven assets has also intensified on jitters about an escalation of tensions between China and the US after the re-election of Donald Trump. The president-elect said last month that he would levy an additional 10 per cent universal tariff on all imports of Chinese products once he takes office. Any dent to external demand would be damaging, as exports have been the only bright spot for the economy this year.

The slump in Chinese bond yields complicates the central bank’s task of stabilising the yuan, which now faces more depreciation pressure as capital flees to higher-yield US or Japanese bonds. The onshore yuan dropped 0.2 per cent to trade at 7.2868 against the US dollar on Tuesday, its weakest level in 13 months.

Ten-year US Treasury bonds now yield 4.209 per cent, a 2.2-percentage-point advantage over Chinese bonds, Bloomberg data shows. Meanwhile, the yield on 30-year Japanese sovereign bonds surpassed that of China’s 30-year bonds for the first time last month, according to Bloomberg data that dates back to 2016. The Japanese bonds now return 2.295 per cent, compared with 2.175 per cent for China’s.

Chinese bonds have remained the favourite yuan-linked asset class among investors this year. A rebound in onshore stocks has sputtered, with the CSI 300 Index dropping about 7 per cent from a year-to-date high in October due to investor disappointment about the underwhelming stimulus measures.

The yield on China’s 10-year government bonds may test a low of 1.7 per cent next year, according to Topsperity Securities, on hopes that the central bank could step up debt purchases to adjust liquidity in the financial system, replacing conventional tools such as the medium-term lending facility and the RRR.

“Ample liquidity is the foundation for the bull run in the debt market,” said Lu Pin, an analyst at the brokerage. “The cycle of monetary easing isn’t over yet.”

90 per cent of people in China and Japan have negative views of each other, poll reveals

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3289144/90-cent-people-china-and-japan-have-negative-views-each-other-poll-reveals?utm_source=rss_feed

China and Japan are experiencing the worst slide in public sentiment towards each other in two decades, with nearly 90 per cent of respondents harbouring a negative view of their neighbour, according to a new joint poll.

The 20th Japan-China Joint Public Opinion Poll was released on Monday by Tokyo-based think tank The Genron NPO and Beijing-based China International Publishing Group, ahead of the annual Tokyo-Beijing Forum.

In the survey, 87.7 per cent of Chinese respondents said they had a negative impression of Japan, up by close to a quarter from last year’s survey. It was the second highest proportion since the survey began in 2005, The Genron NPO said in a statement on its website.

The highest was 92.8 per cent in 2013, after Tokyo nationalised the disputed Diaoyu Islands, known as Senkaku Islands in Japan, the previous year – after buying them from private owners. Anti-Japanese demonstrations then erupted in several cities across China.

On the other hand, 89 per cent of Japanese respondents in this year’s survey had an unfavourable impression of China, but this was down 3.2 percentage points from 2023.

The percentage of Japanese respondents who thought bilateral relations were “very important” was 67.1 per cent, a slight increase from last year, but the percentage of Chinese respondents who thought so was 26.3 per cent, a sharp drop of nearly 34 points to a record low.

“It was the worst deterioration in public sentiment in the 20 years of this poll,” The Genron NPO said on its website.

The percentage of respondents who believed in the importance of bilateral relations had never fallen below 60 per cent in either country before, it added.

The top obstacle to smooth relations according to Chinese respondents was the release of treated radioactive water from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant last year, which had prompted vehement protests and a seafood ban from Beijing.

For the Japanese, the biggest hurdle was the territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

The survey also revealed public sentiment trends in China about today’s divided world, the war in Ukraine and other conflicts, as well as North Korea, the United Nations and “a wide range of other issues”, The Genron NPO’s statement said.

The poll covered residents of either country over the age of 18, with 1,000 responses collected in Japan and 1,500 responses across 10 Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai.

The results of the survey were released ahead of this year’s Beijing-Tokyo Forum hosted by The Genron NPO and China International in the Japanese capital, a two-day event starting on Wednesday.

Gao Anming, editor-in-chief of the China International Publishing Group, said that the sharp deterioration in Chinese attitudes towards Japan “cannot be attributed to the impact of sudden events”.

They were sceptical about Japan’s strategy on a range of issues, including disputed islands in the East China Sea, the South China Sea and Taiwan, Gao said while announcing the poll results with The Genron NPO in Tokyo on Monday.

He also noted that the Chinese were anxious about what position Japan would take after US president-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.

China-Japan relations have experienced several ups and downs in 2024.

In September, a Japanese boy was stabbed to death in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, less than three months after a Chinese national died defending a Japanese mother and child from a knife attack in Suzhou, close to Shanghai.

These attacks have fuelled security concerns for Japanese citizens in China and negative sentiment towards China in Japan.

Relations between the two countries have also taken a hit as Beijing builds up its military capabilities in the region and Tokyo strengthens security ties with the United States and its allies.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, meeting Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Peru last month, said China wanted to work with Japan and “constructively manage differences”.

According to the Chinese foreign ministry, Xi said he hoped Japan could “face history squarely” and “properly handle” major issues, including historical matters and Taiwan.

Beijing regards Taiwan as part of China, to be reunified by force if necessary. While most countries, including the US and Japan, do not recognise self-ruled Taiwan as an independent state, Washington opposes any attempt to take it by force and has pledged to supply it with weapons.

Chinese tourists leave Japan guest house in disarray, sparking price hike proposal

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3288635/chinese-tourists-leave-japan-guest-house-disarray-sparking-price-hike-proposal?utm_source=rss_feed

Public outrage erupted in both Japan and China after a group of mainland Chinese tourists was found to have transformed an Osaka guest house into a “junkyard” following a three-day stay.

On November 23, a Japanese blogger using the handle @roketdan2 posted on X that five travellers from China left the guest house in disarray between November 18 and 21.

Photos shared by the blogger reveal empty food packages and other debris scattered throughout the three-bedroom homestay known as Shirakabanoyado Mutsuki, or White Birch House in English.

A screenshot of the Airbnb booking shows that a Chinese guest named Wang Yu reserved the property for five adults for three days.

According to the websites of Japanese homestay management companies, it costs between 5,000 and 15,000 yen (US$33 to US$99) to thoroughly clean a property.

Property hosts have the right to set cleaning fees at their discretion, but it remains unclear how much the host charged these Chinese guests.

The guests’ negligence has significantly impacted the host’s business, with several travel booking platforms indicating that the property was temporarily unavailable for reservations.

Booking.com lists the nightly rate for the property at around US$400.

The post garnered 3.6 million views on X, triggering fury among online observers in both Japan and China.

“Just because of these five people’s immoral behaviour, the whole Chinese nation will be viewed negatively,” remarked one Japanese commenter on X.

“They should be banned from coming to Japan again,” another user added.

One suggestion was, “Guest houses should charge foreigners 10 times the rate compared to Japanese guests.”

“Such uncivilised behaviour is not welcomed in China either. They should be held accountable for their actions and compensate the host,” commented a Chinese social media user.

In Japan, homestay guests and tenants are expected to clean the property and restore it to its original condition before checking out.

Some homestays also enforce strict rules regarding rubbish sorting. An experienced Chinese traveller shared with the Beijing News that she received a negative rating for leaving behind extra packaging at a Japanese homestay, despite having sorted her waste as instructed, as it resulted in additional cleaning work for the host.

The traveller advised guests to respect local rules and customs, communicate with hosts, and keep photographic evidence of the property upon check-in and checkout to avoid disputes.

In August, a Japanese hotel with a 140-year history in Nagano prefecture sought help on X to locate two foreign tourists who stayed for three days and two nights without paying the 57,000-yen (US$380) fee.

The hotel expressed initial excitement about hosting foreign guests, as 99 per cent of their clientele were Japanese. They did not request payment in advance or photocopy the guests’ passports, as was their usual practice, but did not anticipate the guests would evade payment.

The hotel did not disclose the nationality of the guests.

Why is a simple neck surgery raising hopes for China’s Alzheimer’s disease patients?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3289041/why-simple-neck-surgery-raising-hopes-chinas-alzheimers-disease-patients?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese doctors say a minor surgery to treat Alzheimer’s disease is “effective for 60 to 80 per cent of patients”, sparking hopes that it could be a game-changer for those affected by the devastating disease.

The surgical treatment, which involves four small incisions in a patient’s neck, has been conducted on hundreds of patients at top public hospitals across China.

However, while the treatment appears promising, some medical experts warn that more studies are needed to test it.

The cause of Alzheimer’s disease is not known for certain, but one hypothesis is that deposits of a substance in the brain known as beta-amyloid, which can induce the death of nerve cells, accelerate the onset and progression of the disease. This is the idea behind the Chinese treatment.

The procedure, called “lymphatic-venous anastomosis” (LVA), connects the patient’s lymph vessels to veins near the neck, speeding up the flow and drainage of lymph fluid, which doctors believe could boost the removal of harmful proteins, including beta-amyloid, from the brain, thereby slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

The results so far have attracted media attention. A local newspaper in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou reported last month that a 68-year-old woman had undergone the operation at Hangzhou First People’s Hospital, affiliated with Westlake University, and her cognitive ability had improved a week later.

In early November, the city of Chongqing in southwest China also reported that it had completed its first surgical treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, performed by a neurosurgery team from the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University.

In a series of videos posted last month on social media, Cheng Chongjie, a doctor from the Chongqing team, said the surgery was effective in more than half of the patients.

“Two domestic medical centres have performed hundreds of LVA operations, and their results show that this procedure is effective for 60 to 80 per cent of patients,” he said, but added that effectiveness varied widely, with around 30 per cent of patients experiencing no remission of the disease.

Still, Cheng encouraged patients to consider the surgery because it is a relatively non-invasive procedure. “Even if the surgery doesn’t work, it won’t have a big impact,” he said.

Additionally, the treatment does not pose a major financial burden. Cheng said the surgery costs less than 50,000 yuan (US$6,900), and the cost to the patient is even less after being reimbursed by China’s national health insurance.

Cheng, who once trained briefly at Harvard University’s Massachusetts General Hospital, said in his video clip: “This surgery was invented by the Chinese, so it’s useless to ask foreign [experts], they may not even believe how the Chinese can find a way to treat Alzheimer’s.”

In April, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital launched a clinical trial to test this surgical treatment.

Zhang Yixin, a leading surgeon at the hospital, said in an interview with Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper on Monday that nearly 30 patients had undergone the surgery so far and that “everyone’s symptoms are improving” – albeit to varying degrees.

“It depends on how many well-functioning nerve cells are left in the brain,” Zhang said, adding that because damage to nerve cells from harmful proteins was irreversible, the surgery would not yield significant improvement if there was already too much damage.

In June, a group of clinical experts from several institutes in Shanghai reported that six people who had received the treatment showed slight improvements, particularly in attention and reaction time. The findings were published in the journal General Psychiatry.

The research, led by Li Xia of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, noted that the positive results shown in the first case suggested that “this innovative procedure could become an important new approach to the prevention and management” of Alzheimer’s disease.

However, the surgery has also been met with scepticism by some in the field. In an article published on social media last month, Zhu Jianhua, a neurologist in the US, dismissed the operation, saying it was “unlikely” to treat, let alone cure, mid- to late-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

He said there were two reasons for this. First, the procedure cannot remove all the harmful proteins because there are three membranes surrounding the brain, and only the outermost one has a lymphatic system, meaning there are still two barriers between the outer membrane, known as the dura, and the substance of the brain.

In addition, he said, amyloid protein is not the only factor that leads to Alzheimer’s disease, so removing more of it will not make a huge and immediate difference in treating the disease.

The neurologist said he had conflicting feelings about the therapy’s popularity in China. Zhu said he wanted to see China at the forefront of medical science, but he also worried that Chinese doctors were not rigorous in their treatment of human brain disorders, which could lead to both physical and financial harm to patients.

Cheng, the Chongqing doctor, admitted that the mechanism of the LVA treatment “is not completely clear at present”. He stressed that there was room for further progress and advancement in the treatment.

Zhang, the Shanghai surgeon, also noted that he did not want to exaggerate the surgery’s efficacy. He said that it could not restore a patient’s cognitive level to normal, and that the long-term effects remained to be seen.

“The longest follow-up [in trials] now is only seven or eight months, and we need to collect longer follow-up evidence and a larger sample size to confirm its efficacy,” Zhang said.

Alzheimer’s disease – the top cause of dementia – is a brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, and eventually the ability to carry out the simplest tasks.

Of the more than 55 million people worldwide with dementia, an estimated 60 to 70 per cent have Alzheimer’s disease. In the US, about 6.9 million people aged 65 and older are living with the disease.

In more than a century since Alzheimer’s disease was first described, there has been little progress in developing medications to treat the disease. Although a number of new medications approved in recent years can slow the progression of cognitive impairment in early-stage patients, the disease is still not curable.

China’s yuan hits lowest level in months as Trump tariff threats roil currencies

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3289122/chinas-yuan-hits-lowest-level-months-trump-tariff-threats-roil-currencies?utm_source=rss_feed

Both the onshore and offshore yuan have weakened to their lowest levels in months against the US dollar, as the re-election of Donald Trump as US president has stoked fears of wide-ranging trade disputes and punctured an earlier rally for China’s currency.

As of Tuesday morning, the offshore yuan had dropped around 0.39 per cent, slipping to 7.3148 per US dollar and falling below the 7.3 benchmark.

Meanwhile, the onshore yuan weakened to 7.2975 per US dollar on Tuesday, its lowest reading since November last year.

The People’s Bank of China set the midpoint rate – also known as the fixing rate – to 7.1996 per US dollar on Tuesday, marking a 15-month low.

“The continued depreciation of the yuan reflects a combination of factors, including the strong US dollar, capital outflows and tariff expectations,” Everbright Securities said in a research note on Tuesday.

The yuan has declined since Trump secured a second term as US president last month, reversing earlier gains following an uptick in market sentiment after Beijing began rolling out stimulus measures in late September.

Everbright Securities added that both the yuan and government bond yields are trending back to their pre-stimulus patterns as the effects of the policies wane.

China’s 10-year yield dropped below 2 per cent on Monday, hitting its lowest point on record.

While some in the market speculated Chinese authorities had allowed the devaluation of the yuan to boost exports, the securities firm argued such a move was “not likely to be a primary policy choice”.

Such speculation lacks substance, it said, as the PBOC has taken action to stabilise the currency. The bank has strengthened the countercyclical factor in setting the daily midpoint and issued offshore central bank bills to raise the cost of shorting the yuan.

With a strong US dollar likely for the time being, Everbright said, major assets face pressure and concerns over capital outflows are on the rise. The researchers added Trump’s pre-inauguration social media posts risk escalating large-scale trade disputes, which they termed a looming “grey rhino” event.

Trump said on social media last week that he “will be charging China an additional 10 per cent tariff, above any additional tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America”. He had already threatened 60 per cent tariffs for Chinese goods during his re-election campaign.

That threat was amplified in a follow-up post this week, where Trump vowed to apply punitive 100 per cent tariffs on any country that attempted to “replace the mighty US dollar”.

However, the Everbright analysts said external factors are not a prime motivator for policymakers.

“The core of interest rate and exchange rate decisions remains domestic policy, making the upcoming central economic work conference the closest point for policy manoeuvres,” they said.

They added that as the specific scale of action will be confirmed at the annual legislative session next year, immediate policy signals are unlikely to directly reverse any current trends.

China’s Xi calls for the protection of Belt and Road Initiative interests overseas

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3289056/chinas-xi-calls-protection-belt-and-road-initiative-interests-overseas?utm_source=rss_feed

China must protect its overseas interests related to the Belt and Road Initiative amid growing global risks, President Xi Jinping said on Monday.

Speaking at a working conference on the projects, Beijing’s sprawling effort to build out a global infrastructure and trade network that connects to China, Xi warned that the international environment has become “tough and complicated”.

“In recent years, the world has entered a new period of turbulence and change, with a significant rise in unilateralism and protectionism, and regional conflicts and upheavals have become frequent,” Xi told the meeting.

“Against such circumstances … it is necessary to appropriately respond to various risks and challenges, effectively overcome the impact of geopolitical conflicts, correctly address the relationship between enhancing the sense of gain of the partner countries and ensure the benefits to our country, and effectively safeguard the security of our overseas interests,” he said.

Xi added that there are still more opportunities than challenges in promoting the initiative, despite the more challenging environment.

“We must strengthen our strategic confidence, maintain our strategic determination and have the courage to take on responsibilities,” he said, calling for an improvement in project risk control and a mechanism to protect the interests of host countries.

It has entered a “new phase”, said Xi, which should combine major “iconic” infrastructure constructions with “small and beautiful” projects that would improve the livelihoods of local populations, expand into new emerging fields to explore “new space for win-win development that is of higher-standard, more resilient and sustainable”.

The initiative was first proposed by Xi in 2013, involving ambitious plans to build power plants, roads, railways, ports and other infrastructure overseas mainly by Chinese companies and funded by Chinese investment development bank loans.

Through these projects, China has deepened its relations with Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

They are seen as a way for China to expand its economic and political influence, which has alarmed countries such as the United States and some of its allies. As the geopolitical tensions increase between China and the West, some major partners, such as Italy and Australia, have announced they are pulling out from the programme.

Critics have accused Beijing of saddling some project partner countries with unaffordable loan repayment terms, leading some of them to call the belt and road projects “debt traps”.

Some have also said that the projects bring little benefit to local economies, and levelled accusations of low transparency, corruption or human rights violations, as well as environmental damage.

Some high-profile projects under the initiative, such as the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka, struggled to repay the Chinese loans. Other projects like the Melaka Gateway project in Malaysia, have been cancelled or scaled down.

In addition, Chinese expatriates and construction sites of belt and road projects in Pakistan – a key investment destination and host of some of flagship programmes – have been targeted by terrorists.

Monday’s meeting was attended by senior Chinese officials involved in the projects and was the fourth edition following those in 2016, 2018 and 2021.

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China’s PLA takes ‘significant step’ forward in combat readiness with integrated drills

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3289028/chinas-pla-takes-significant-step-forward-combat-readiness-integrated-drills?utm_source=rss_feed

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has achieved major progress in modernising its training programme, as it seeks to boost combat readiness in modern warfare scenarios, according to the Chinese military’s official newspaper.

“The transformation and upgrading of our military training has taken a significant step forward, as [we] explore and implement a new model for integrated training group exercises,” the PLA Daily said in a front-page report Monday.

The new model for integrated training has been rolled out on the PLA front lines, including drills on different units working as a team and coordinated use of specific tactics in battle, it said.

The next step was to make the training more realistic and closely aligned with real combat situations, leading to an overall improvement in military readiness and capability, the report said, citing the Central Military Commission, China’s highest military body that oversees the PLA and is chaired by President Xi Jinping.

China has been pushing to modernise its military, from weapons to war tactics, as it tries to narrow the gap with the United States and better prepare itself to tackle an increasingly hostile geopolitical scenario.

The quest has gained added urgency amid the war in Ukraine, progress in advanced and unmanned weapons, and the military use of cutting-edge technology including artificial intelligence, prompting Beijing to focus on integrated operations by different branches of its armed forces.

According to Chinese military analyst Fu Qianshao, “the nature of warfare has already changed significantly and all military forces worldwide need to learn from the new tactics and combat models displayed in local conflicts, using the lessons of war to improve their equipment and training methods”.

Fu said the future wars will undoubtedly include integrated operations, especially with the growing role of information technology, so it’s crucial that all PLA branches become interconnected, with unified command and coordinated action.

Fu said the next step for the PLA would be to strengthen its capabilities and increase coordination among its army, navy, air and rocket forces, as well as sharpen its network communication system.

Military commentator and former PLA instructor Song Zhongping also underlined the collaborative aspect, saying: “Real war requires joint training as its foundation and core; it’s not enough for a single branch or unit to carry out any combat mission alone.”

He said the PLA training now has evolved towards joint exercises, which were key to testing and improving real combat capabilities.

It was putting into practice the lessons learned from the US military and the Russia-Ukraine war, Song said.

Monday’s edition of PLA Daily also reported an exercise conducted by an unspecified brigade of the Southern Theatre Command, which oversees military strategy in the contested South China Sea.

The drill involved PLA air and ground forces working together in a combat-oriented scenario, the report said.

The PLA’s joint operation capabilities have been on display during exercises around Taiwan, which have become more frequent amid rising cross-strait tensions since William Lai Ching-te, branded by Beijing as a “troublemaker”, took office as Taiwanese leader in May.

Wrapping up its latest blockade drills around Taiwan in October, the PLA said it had “fully tested the integrated joint operation capabilities” of its troops.

In a report last week, the PLA Daily also called for setting up a mechanism for close coordination among multiple military branches.

“No conflict will be able to be launched without requiring joint operations, and no victory will be gained without coordination. No single military branch can battle alone,” it said.

China’s 2025 economic path previewed as central bank pledges ‘supportive’ monetary policy

https://www.scmp.com/economy/policy/article/3289092/chinas-2025-economic-path-previewed-central-bank-pledges-supportive-monetary-policy?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s central bank governor on Monday pledged a “supportive” monetary policy stance and vowed to enhance countercyclical adjustment with a variety of tools next year.

The comments made by Pan Gongsheng were the first signal of Beijing’s 2025 economic policies, with more expected to be discussed at the tone-setting annual central economic work conference this month.

The supportive stance, which was first mentioned in the summer, is different from the often used tone of “prudent”, and represented a continuation of the shift to economic stimulus seen since late September.

Speaking at a financial forum in Beijing, Pan pledged to ensure adequate liquidity and lower overall financing costs for businesses and households.

The central bank would try to optimise structural monetary policy tools to support the stable development of the property and capital markets, while prioritising enhanced support for technological innovation, green finance and consumer finance, Pan said.

“We will actively advance reforms in the monetary policy framework, enhance the implementation and transmission of interest rate policy, and enrich the monetary policy toolbox,” he said, according to People’s Bank of China’s official website.

Meanwhile, the PBOC also announced on Monday a plan to expand the scope of so-called M1 – one of the three measurements of money circulation comprising currency in circulation plus checkable bank deposits – by including residential demand deposits and prepaid funds received by nonbank payment institutions.

China’s M1 growth has reported a rare fall for seven months in a row since April, with a drop of 6.1 per cent in October.

Also, the growth gap with M2 – the broad gauge of money supply which expanded by 7.5 per cent in October – has raised eyebrows because it largely reflects reluctance of households and businesses to invest or spend.

The central bank attributed the revision to the fast liquidity change of China’s financial tools, calling it a dynamic improvement.

The updated calculation method is slated for public release in early February, accompanied by a revised M1 balance and growth rate data retroactively adjusted from January.

China International Capital Corporation said on Monday that the revised statistical method would adjust the M1 growth rate for April 2023 to a range between 1.1 to 1.9 per cent.

“Despite the decline in M1, economic activity indicators such as the [purchasing managers’ index] have remained relatively stable,” the investment bank said, adding that the recalibrated M1 metric would provide a more accurate representation of China’s economic resilience.

The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) – a survey of sentiment among factory owners – rose to 50.3 in November compared with October’s reading of 50.1, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Saturday. The index had contracted for five straight months before October.

However, China’s 10-year yield dropped below 2 per cent to hit its lowest point on record on Monday, breaking the psychological barrier as a sputtering economy and bets on further rate cuts have driven investors into the safety of bonds.

Benchmark 10-year yields dropped by 5 basis points to 1.9750 per cent in Monday afternoon trading, marking the lowest point in data from China Central Depository and Clearing that stretches to 2002, with the yields having previously dropped below 2 per cent a handful of times.

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China’s Xinjiang eyes closer ties with Pakistan and Central Asia to offset US sanctions

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3289009/chinas-xinjiang-eyes-closer-ties-pakistan-and-central-asia-offset-us-sanctions?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s far west region of Xinjiang is seeking closer ties and cross-border cooperation with Pakistan and Central Asian countries in a bid to counter US sanctions and consolidate its role as a gateway under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Khunjerab port – the sole border crossing connecting China and Pakistan – in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region started full-year operations on Sunday. The border crossing previously closed from December to March because of adverse weather.

From April to October, more than 11,000 vehicles and 40,900 tonnes of goods passed through the port, representing year-on-year increases of 42.6 per cent and 72.7 per cent, respectively, according to state news agency Xinhua.

On November 26, Xinjiang officials held their first meeting with counterparts from the neighbouring Zhetysu region of Kazakhstan under a coordination mechanism between local governments and signed a memorandum on cross-border tourism.

The meeting, held near the Khorgos port between China and Kazakhstan, also covered topics including infrastructure, market regulation, vegetation and animal quarantine, and joint crime-fighting.

Khorgos is a gateway for China Railway Express, a rail logistics service connecting China and Europe.

The area is also home to a cross-border cooperation centre – China’s first such centre with any country. Residents of both countries may enter the centre, which spans the border, to shop and conduct business talks without visas. Each visitor may leave the centre with duty-free products worth 8,000 yuan (US$1,104) per day.

At the meeting, Xinjiang’s governor Erkin Tuniyaz said the region was looking forward to improving cooperation with Zhetysu in areas including trade, tourism, security and agriculture.

The strategic importance of Pakistan, a traditional ally of Beijing, and Central Asian countries has been growing for China. This is especially true for Xinjiang, which faces US sanctions for alleged human rights abuses in the region – allegations Beijing has repeatedly denied.

“As China is somewhat marginalised by the West amid a stand-off with such nations, engaging with Central Asian countries would yield positive outcomes,” said Li Lifan, a Central Asia scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Several Xinjiang officials, including Tuniyaz, have faced US sanctions. In late 2021, the US Congress passed the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act, which prohibits imports of Xinjiang products alleged to have been made with forced labour.

Xinjiang officials also face similar sanctions from Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

In 2020, China established a dialogue mechanism with five Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Foreign ministers of the six nations have been meeting annually since then. At their latest meeting, held on Sunday, they vowed to expand cooperation in areas including logistics, trading, investments, mining, agriculture and security.

Li described Xinjiang as the “bridgehead” and “locomotive” for China’s connection with Central Asian countries under its belt and road plan to build global trade.

He noted that Xinjiang was home to a lot of natural resources and open space, and many firms, such as automobile manufacturers, had established facilities there.

“Chinese products made in Xinjiang can conveniently reach Central Asia,” Li said.

According to Xinjiang government figures, the total import and export value between the region and Central Asian countries stood at 283.67 billion yuan in 2023, or 50 per cent higher than in the previous year.

However, Li cautioned that economic exchanges between China and Central Asian countries would not expand rapidly, as both sides would try to avoid secondary sanctions from the West.

“There will be a lot more uncertainties ahead as Donald Trump assumes office. The trade and economic exchange will be cautious,” he said.

“The full development [of economic exchanges] may come when China-US relations improve and probably the Russia-Ukraine conflict ends.”

Meanwhile, China is pushing forward the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship belt and road project. But terrorist attacks targeting Chinese firms and personnel in Pakistan have complicated work on the project.

In October, two Chinese citizens were killed in a suicide bombing outside Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial hub.

A separatist group, the Balochistan Liberation Army, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Chinese and Pakistani forces have been holding counterterrorist drills since mid-November.

China’s strategic ‘little giant’ firms quickly rise to 14,600, surpass 2025 goal

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3288996/chinas-strategic-little-giant-firms-quickly-rise-14600-surpass-2025-goal?utm_source=rss_feed

China has fostered 14,600 small, privately owned companies as drivers for top strategic industries, exceeding a 2025 goal and levelling up tech competition with the United States.

The tally of enterprises the government calls “little giants” includes 5,000 enterprises working in new technology, including artificial intelligence (AI) and the low-altitude economy characterised by commercial drones, state broadcaster CCTV said on Sunday.

China is supporting little giants as part of its wider effort to promote domestic technologies and increase self-sufficiency as disputes with the US restrict access to certain supplies.

As of 2022, China had identified 8,997 little giants against a goal of cultivating 10,000 by 2025, which was outlined as part of the 14th five-year plan for 2021-25.

“China is claiming market share in an increasing number of industrial sectors like automotive, home appliances and machinery,” said Xu Tianchen, a senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit market research firm.

“This will benefit small and medium-sized enterprises, which are important suppliers of components. There’s no doubt that China will be a more innovative economy.”

Reporting from an event in Shanghai on Sunday for small and medium-sized enterprises, CCTV said the average research and development investment by “little giants” totalled 7 per cent of their operating income, while they averaged 22 patents.

The metrics are “much higher” for little giants compared to “companies of scale”, CCTV said.

Little giants, often relatively obscure companies, offer products or expertise linked to China’s strategic industries, including semiconductors, energy, advanced manufacturing, critical materials and battery ingredients.

To qualify, a company needs to achieve compound annual revenue growth of no less than 5 per cent.

About 90 per cent of the 14,600 little giants are manufacturing companies, with more than 80 per cent operating in “strategic emerging industry chains”, such as semiconductors and aerospace, CCTV said.

US exports of semiconductors and their components to China fell by 52 per cent last year from a 2021 peak, according to the Washington-based US-China Business Council advocacy group.

Large state-owned enterprises have traditionally received backing from the government in China, but Beijing is aiming to expand its support for little giants until 2026.

The Ministry of Finance said via the state-backed Xinhua News Agency in June that central government funds would be set aside for more than 1,000 enterprises this year.

Also in June, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced specific financial support guidelines, including subsidies for qualifying little giants.

ASML says new US chip curbs on China won’t affect 2025 sales forecast

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-war/article/3289068/asml-says-new-us-chip-curbs-china-wont-affect-2025-sales-forecast?utm_source=rss_feed

Computer chip equipment maker ASML said it does not expect new US restrictions on semiconductor exports to China, announced on Monday, to affect its most recent financial guidance.

Separately, the Dutch government said it shares US security concerns on the export of advanced semiconductor making tools, and it is studying the latest US rules.

In a statement, ASML repeated November 14 guidance that it sees group sales at 30-35 billion euros (US$31.5-36.7 billion) in 2025, with about 20 per cent of sales in China – down from around 50 per cent this year.

It said the latest US restrictions would affect ASML’s export of deep ultraviolet lithography systems to some chipmaking plants in China, if enforced by the Dutch government.

The new US rules are Washington’s third crackdown in three years on China’s semiconductor industry, tightening regulations on equipment makers and curbing exports to 140 Chinese companies, including additional subsidiaries of China’s biggest bespoke chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation.

“The Netherlands shares American concerns over uncontrolled export of advanced semiconductor equipment,” the Dutch foreign ministry said in a statement.

“Every country makes its own assessment and takes measures on the basis of its own analysis of threats to national security.”

The latest US rules include tighter restrictions on software and metrology, or measuring, equipment that are relevant for ASML.

“Long term, our scenarios for demand in the semiconductor industry are not expected to be impacted by the new regulations, as (our) scenarios are based on the global demand,” ASML said in a statement.

ASML shares closed 0.9 per cent higher at 664.10 euros in Amsterdam.

The new US rules include restrictions on “computational lithography” – software used to optimise the effectiveness of lithography machines such as those made by ASML and Japanese competitors Nikon and Canon, which use beams of light to help create circuitry.

ASML, the biggest lithography machine maker, says on its website that its computational lithography is also “industry leading” and helps improve chip yield and quality.

Is Japan losing the resource race? China’s seabed mining plans raise alarm

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3288998/japan-losing-resource-race-chinas-seabed-mining-plans-raise-alarm?utm_source=rss_feed

A report revealing that a Chinese company will conduct seabed mining tests in the Pacific next year has caused concern in Tokyo, with Japan fearing it is falling behind in the race to secure valuable resources.

According to the Yomiuri newspaper, state-owned Beijing Pioneer Hi-Tech Development Corp has secured exclusive rights to explore two seabed sites just outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) near Minami-Torishima, a small but strategically vital coral atoll located about 1,848km (1,148 miles) southeast of Tokyo.

This remote atoll allows Japan to claim an EEZ encompassing nearly 429,000 sq km (166,000 square miles) of surrounding waters and seabed, including any mineral or energy deposits.

In a proposal submitted to the Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority (ISA), the Chinese company said it plans to conduct experimental mining of manganese nodules over a 20-day period in an area covering 250,000 sq km (96,500 square miles), around 600km (370 miles) from Minami-Torishima.

Scheduled for August next year, the operation will utilise specialised equipment to vacuum up the nodules from depths reaching 5,000 metres (three miles). While the company aims to collect up to 7,500 tonnes of nodules, the primary focus appears to be testing its equipment rather than full-scale harvesting. Additionally, the study will assess the ecological impact of disturbing the seabed, the Yomiuri reported.

In June, Japanese researchers from the University of Tokyo and the Nippon Foundation conducted similar research within Japan’s EEZ near the island, identifying an estimated 230 million tonnes of nodules rich in cobalt and nickel. The nodules are small, round formations found on the ocean floor that formed over millions of years as minerals from the water attach to debris on the seabed.

The findings suggested these deposits could contain around 610,000 tonnes of cobalt – enough to satisfy Japanese industrial needs for around 75 years – and 740,000 tonnes of nickel, sufficient for about 11 years of domestic consumption.

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea classifies seabed mineral resources as the “common heritage of mankind”, and currently, there are no regulations governing their commercial exploitation in international waters. This legal ambiguity has temporarily halted commercial recovery efforts, yet China appears to be strategically positioning itself to capitalise on the resources as soon as restrictions are lifted.

“These nodules are at great depths and it is very difficult to harvest them in sufficient quantities to make it commercially viable,” said Chihiro Sekine, director of the Muroran Institute of Technology’s Centre for Rare Earths Research. “But it does appear that China is going ahead with that investment, even if the Japanese government is not doing so on a large scale at the moment”.

Sekine said there was an urgent need to “discuss the situation at the government level very carefully”, especially given the historical and territorial rivalries between Japan and China.

“That there are no binding laws on exploitation of these resources is a serious problem,” he told This Week in Asia. “There need to be serious discussions on how these natural resources can be used so that no country loses out.”

As the ISA prepares for discussions next summer to outline agreements on the recovery and exploitation of seabed minerals, geopolitical analysts note that Beijing’s ambition to develop underwater resource extraction technology aims not only to bolster its economy but also to limit access for other nations.

“Japan should be concerned,” said Stephen Nagy, a professor of politics and international relations at Tokyo’s International Christian University. “The intention is to dominate the underwater domain.”

Nagy said that while Japan had engaged in “scientific diplomacy” to explore seabed resources, financial constraints have limited its ability to invest heavily in exploration. Meanwhile, Chinese research vessels are likely to demonstrate their extraction capabilities, preparing for full-scale operations once legal hurdles are cleared.

“There are a lot of financial pressures on Tokyo at the moment – doubling the defence budget, the promise of tax breaks and so on – so Japan is just not able to pump money into this area like China is,” he said.

China already possesses significant rare earth deposits, Nagy said, adding that President Xi Jinping “has stated that he wants China to take control of its core interests, including having a monopoly on rare earths”.

“If China is able to control these resources, they can be weaponised and exports blocked if Beijing gets into a political disagreement with another country,” he said, pointing to a strategy already evident in parts of Africa where Chinese companies have been signing agreements to secure critical minerals and “create a monopoly”.

As Trump fumes over unlikely ‘Brics currency’, China should talk to US more about money

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3289007/trump-fumes-over-unlikely-brics-currency-china-should-talk-us-more-about-money?utm_source=rss_feed

US president-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose 100 per cent tariffs on Brics countries if they pursue a common currency has bewildered analysts, with some wondering why Trump is venting about something most see as highly unlikely.

The Brics countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, in addition to a few recently added economies – are far from a financial alliance. The idea that they can create a common currency to take on the US dollar is pure fantasy. While Russian President Vladimir Putin has flirted with the idea by showing off a colourful Brics banknote at a recent summit in Kazan this year, he was quick to clarify that the group is not considering a new currency.

The member states are unified by a shared discontent with the US-led world order and belief that their voices do not get the attention they deserve. Still, the group lacks influential institutions or capabilities.

The Shanghai-based New Development Bank, formerly the Brics Development Bank, is unlikely to assume the role of central bank. The group’s annual summit offers a new chance for state leaders to mingle and provides a stage to make symbolic political gestures, but little else.

Despite the undertone of resentment towards US hegemony, the term Bric was first published by American investment bank Goldman Sachs. The acronym was coined by British economist Jim O’Neill to inform clients about trading and investment patterns, like the Pigs tag for Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain during the European debt crisis.

The term Bric started to gain political weight after the G8 summit in Japan in 2008. One unconfirmed story is that Japan listed G8 members as honoured guests while the five invitees – China, Brazil, Mexico, India and South Africa – were peripheral. The G8+5 global governance was quickly discarded for a more equal and inclusive G20, and Bric states started to develop some camaraderie. The first Bric summit was in 2009, before South Africa’s inclusion in in 2010 added the “S” to the name.

But do Brics countries really hate the US dollar and want to replace it? On one hand, the greenback’s “exorbitant privilege”, while the envy of many, is a major source of complaint. Many states are working to reduce the US dollar’s dominance in global trade and investment.

On the other hand, the US dollar remains the most preferred currency for international settlements, even in Brics economies. Moscow only spoke loudly about reducing global reliance on the dollar after the US cut off Russia’s banking system from the currency following the invasion of Ukraine.

For China, the group’s largest economy, the US dollar has always been recognised as the anchor of the international financial system. While former Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan once raised the idea of a “super sovereign” currency to replace the dollar after the global financial crisis, his proposal was to have a currency based on the Special Drawing Rights basket of currencies, in which the US currency would still be the largest component. The idea did not take off, as it would be a nightmare to book accounts in a unit consisting of multiple currencies.

Many of Beijing’s measures, which are often read as attempts to reduce the use of dollars, are designed to hedge risks from radical US policies instead of initiatives to undermine the dollar. China has become increasingly reluctant to be seen as a cheerleader for “de-dollarisation”, prudently defending its US dollar holdings in recent years. The central government has played down the idea that China’s sovereign digital yuan could challenge the dollar.

Trump’s threats of tariffs, and explicit demand that the dollar remain the world’s reserve currency, serves as a reminder that China and the US must maintain communication on currency issues. In his memoir, former Chinese foreign minister Li Zhaoxing wrote an anecdote of how he was asked by a state leader to inform the US embassy in Beijing about China’s yuan revaluation in July 2005, a few hours before Beijing officially announced the news. This is the sort of transparency that will be needed between the world’s two largest economies in the Trump 2.0 era.

Help from Asean nations to counter China is unlikely: ex-Philippine Navy officer

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3289059/help-asean-nations-counter-china-unlikely-ex-philippine-navy-officer?utm_source=rss_feed

Manila should strengthen coordination with Southeast Asian nations on its policy towards China, a retired Philippine naval officer said on Monday, as engagement with Washington alone risks potential stronger resistance by Beijing over the contested South China Sea.

“I believe that we made some mistakes … we could have engaged at least most of the Asean member states that are surrounding the South China Sea more effectively [and] we could have consulted them [about] our action because they do not agree with our China policy,” said Rommel Ong, a former vice-commander in the Philippine Navy.

However, Ong said he was “not optimistic” that the Philippines could convince Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states to support Manila’s concerns.

“We have to accept that China successfully divided Asean,” he said at a discussion in Washington. “The efficacy of China’s geo-economic strategy in Asean worked well for them and has allowed them to exert some form of leverage over the different Asean member state capitals, particularly in terms of influencing the political and economic elites of these countries.”

China and four Asean member states – Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines – have overlapping maritime claims to the resource-rich South China Sea, and Manila has been the most forceful in pushing back against Beijing.

The Chinese government has blamed Washington for supporting Manila in the South China Sea encounters.

But some Southeast Asian countries are concerned that the more Manila coordinates with the US, the more likely China will feel pushed into taking unilateral action on their South China Sea claims.

In a recent move that could provoke Beijing, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin revealed the existence of Task Force-Ayungin, which is composed of American service members and named after the Philippine designation for the Second Thomas Shoal.

An atoll in the Spratly Islands, the Second Thomas Shoal, known as Renai Reef in China, has become the region’s most volatile hot spot after Beijing disrupted – sometimes violently – Manila’s resupply missions to a small detachment of Filipino marines there.

During his visit to the Philippines last month, Austin also announced that the US government had given the Philippine Navy an undisclosed number of unstaffed surface vessels for its operations in the South China Sea and promised “many more” would be delivered before the end of President Joe Biden’s administration.

Ong, who retired in 2019, said he expected no major change in Washington’s policy with Manila under president-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on January 20.

“We worked well with President Trump during his first term, and I believe that Biden’s policy actually is a continuation of Trump’s policy during his first term, so I don’t see any major change with Trump’s policy moving forward,” he said.

But Ong said there were suspicions about the depth of US responsiveness on Southeast Asian issues as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East would likely complicate Washington’s prioritisation of resources. The lack of free trade deals with Southeast Asia may also undermine Washington’s influence in the region, he added.

In 2017, Trump pulled the US out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership brokered by his predecessor, president Barack Obama. Although the Biden administration implemented its Indo-Pacific Economic Framework with the focus on trade and supply chains, it is not designed as a traditional comprehensive free trade agreement.

Meanwhile, China has been a member of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a huge trade deal with 10 Asean member states as well as Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

Beijing has also sought to join the CPTPP, a trade deal that evolved from the Trans-Pacific Partnership after the US quit.

Ong noted that Japan could be seen as a countervailing force to China’s influence in the region.

Japan is the second largest source of direct foreign investment into Asean, and it has also stepped up its support of the Philippines, including signing an reciprocal access agreement in July that is expected to enhance military cooperation through joint exercises and maritime security efforts.

India, which has a long-running territorial dispute with China over the Himalayas, could potentially be another alternative to China’s regional influence, he added.

“If India can get its act together, maybe it can compete with China in terms of actual economic engagement with Asean, just so that there’s enough competition going around.”

WTO chief urges likes of Singapore to defend global system ahead of new US-China trade war

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3289060/wto-chief-urges-likes-singapore-defend-global-system-ahead-new-us-china-trade-war?utm_source=rss_feed

The head of the World Trade Organization has urged middle powers like Brazil, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Turkey to unite in defence of global free trade, warning of deepening fragmentation as the US and China brace for a new trade war with Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

“They need to build a coalition of like-minded countries supportive of the multilateral trading system, with the WTO at its core,” said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on Monday, calling such a bloc “a powerful voice for safeguarding the multilateral trading system”.

Middle-power countries are influential states that, while not superpowers or great powers, wield significant economic, geographic, demographic or military influence.

Elected last week to a second term as WTO director general, Okonjo-Iweala believed middle powers should engage in “joint diplomacy with the US and China aimed at shoring up open and predictable trade relations”.

Trump has pledged to impose substantial new tariffs on foreign goods, including a 25 per cent tax on imports from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10 per cent tariff on Chinese products.

The president-elect has argued that the import taxes will create manufacturing jobs stateside as well as reduce the US federal deficit in implementing his “Made-in-America” and “America-first” policies.

Trump has threatened Brics nations, an association of major emerging national economies, with 100 per cent tariffs unless they abandon plans to create a new trading currency against the US dollar during his administration.

“A new bout of restrictions and retaliation could become the proverbial straw that breaks the system’s back and destroys the benefit it continues to provide every day to people and businesses around the world,” the WTO chief said.

Okonjo-Iweala, the first woman and African to lead the Geneva-based WTO, cautioned that the “invisible signs of fragmentation in global trade should be a major concern for the system’s middle powers”.

During his first term as president, Trump blocked Okonjo-Iweala’s appointment and threatened to withdraw the US from the WTO.

He also bypassed its rules by imposing 25 per cent tariffs on US$300 billion in Chinese imports and initiating trade disputes with countries like India, among others.

Since 2018, US-China bilateral trade has grown 30 per cent less than their trade with the rest of the world, according to WTO estimates, with significant declines in sectors hit by tariffs, including semiconductors and IT equipment like modems and routers.

After taking office in 2021, US President Joe Biden maintained most of Trump’s tariffs on China and imposed new restrictions on the sale of hi-tech semiconductors, artificial intelligence and related equipment to the country.

The US also blocked Dutch and Asian manufacturers of these technologies from selling to China. Yet the WTO chief is undeterred by Trump’s second term in the White House.

“I really want us to work with the administration, to listen to … their concerns and try to work with them to solve those concerns,” she said, adding that the US has benefited from the WTO’s intellectual-property protections and product-safety measures.

Many in Washington have accused Beijing of distorting trade by overproducing goods with heavy government subsidies, flooding other countries with cheaper products. The US has further criticised the WTO for failing to address current global-trade issues.

Okonjo-Iweala on Monday said the US and the European Union were not alone complaining about the issue.

Countries like India have also raised it, she explained as she called on China to be more transparent and for all 166 member countries to work together in reforming the WTO.

Middle powers “should visibly lead efforts to reform the WTO and to improve all of its core functions, from how rules are negotiated to monitoring and dispute settlement”, she added.

Based on United Nations General Assembly voting patterns, the Nigerian economist said the WTO found trade between two hypothetical blocs has grown 40 per cent more slowly than trade within the blocs.

That trend has intensified since 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China and Russia often vote differently from the US and its allies in the UN General Assembly.

“The estimate is that if the world economy were to decouple into two self-contained blocs, the resulting losses would be equivalent to at least 5 per cent of real global GDP in the long term,” Okonjo-Iweala said.

“The IMF puts the losses as high as 7 per cent, which is like dropping Germany and France from the global economy.”

“The estimates keep me up at night,” added Okonjo-Iweala, warning that “double-digit losses in real GDP by 2040 compared to the current trend line with the drop in developing-country regions like sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, even steeper than those in rich countries” like Australia, Britain, Canada and South Korea.

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