• [Sport] China calls for 'win-win' solution to trade tensions
• Will Trump create opening for China by quitting the WHO and Paris Agreement?
• China’s vice-premier says chaotic competition on AI could bring ‘grey rhino’
• Xi and Putin hold talks, China ‘ready to work’ with Trump: SCMP daily highlights
• China softens stance on TikTok deal in US as Trump offers 75-day grace period, sources say
• Beijing meeting puts spotlight on China’s new face of AI, DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng
• Deflation risks see most Chinese provinces shy away from ‘legacy’ 3% CPI target
• Myanmar deports over 50,000 scam centre workers to China amid crackdown
• ‘Gradual’ US tariffs on China may foreground Trump-Xi summit: Citi
• China’s state media runs blow-by-blow account of Trump’s return, calls for ‘more bridges’
• ‘We’ll be surprised’ by US-China improvements, Harvard scholar argues in Davos
• Trump’s speech signals more ‘cajoling and containing’ for China, analyst says
• China teacher uses AI to make professional portraits, inspires pupils to chase dreams
• Ding Xuexiang speaks at Davos, shedding light on China’s Trump 2.0 policies
• By going soft on China on first day, Trump leaves room for deal making: Tsinghua’s Da Wei
• Thailand under pressure to revise Chinese tourists’ visa-free travel to combat crime
• China’s leaders put spotlight on tech self-reliance, private sector confidence
• Philippines’ arrest of Chinese ‘sleeper agent’ sparks fears of widespread spying
• China’s nuclear fusion scientists set record span for plasma 6 times hotter than the sun
• Chinese yuan surges after Trump goes easy on China in inaugural address
• Astronomers hail blacklisted Chinese institute’s contribution to US telescope
• ‘It’s a win’: Philippines, China uphold South China Sea deal on resupply missions
• Malaysians shun Chinese work culture as diverging values make hiring hard
• Kindergarten kids in China who played husband and wife at school tie knot 20 years later
• Initial reaction to Trump speech muted in China but space competition could rise
• Trump’s inauguration, from TikTok to reactions in China: everything you need to know
• [Sport] 'Hell on earth': China deportation looms for Uyghurs held in Thailand
• How US-Philippines quiet show of South China Sea strength sent ‘a clear message’
• Chinese consumer sentiment nears ‘tipping point’ after stimulus barrage: UBS
• Beijing’s US$3.2 trillion question: how much of China’s forex reserves go to Hong Kong?
• Donald Trump goes light on China on Day One, except where the Panama Canal is concerned
• Founder of Chinese developer Zhenro faces action on ‘suspected illegal activities’

[Sport] China calls for 'win-win' solution to trade tensions

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Will Trump create opening for China by quitting the WHO and Paris Agreement?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3295703/will-trump-create-opening-china-quitting-who-and-paris-agreement?utm_source=rss_feed

US President Donald Trump has pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO) – decisions analysts said were likely to deal a heavy blow to global governance on climate and public health while leaving a leadership vacuum for China to fill.

They added that while China appeared poised to lead global climate initiatives, its potential to gain influence in the WHO’s public health governance was limited.

Trump signed executive orders to exit both frameworks on his first day back in the White House on Monday, though the formal withdrawal process will take about a year.

On the Paris Agreement, Trump told supporters on Monday that “the United States will not sabotage its own industries while China pollutes with impunity”. Nearly 200 countries have signed the international climate change treaty to work together to limit global warming.

Meanwhile, the withdrawal from the WHO was “due to the organisation’s mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises”, according to the order. It added that the agency was “unable to demonstrate independence from political influences”.

In response, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Tuesday that China was “concerned” about Trump’s decision on the Paris Agreement. He added that China would work to address climate change and promote the global green transition and low-carbon transition.

Alex Wang, a law professor specialising in China’s environmental governance at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), said the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement would significantly harm global efforts, but the American absence would give China an opportunity to gain economic and political advantages through climate leadership.

“At a critical time, this positions China to innovate and lead in climate governance,” he said.

Under President Xi Jinping, China has pledged to reach carbon neutrality by 2060 and peak carbon emissions by 2030.

Wang added that the US could continue to move forward on climate action at the state level in places such as California, but a retreat at the federal level would be harmful.

China is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, followed by the US. Beijing has invested heavily in renewable energy industries, including photovoltaics and electric vehicles, positioning itself as a global leader in green technology.

Pang Zhongying, a visiting senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute at the National University of Singapore, agreed that China could more easily assume climate leadership due to its consistent support for green industry.

“China will maintain its engagement on climate change, and since at least 2015, a large domestic interest group has emerged to drive governance in this area,” he said.

On the US withdrawal from the WHO, foreign ministry spokesman Guo expressed strong support for the agency on Tuesday.

“China will, as always, support the WHO in fulfilling its duty, deepening international cooperation in public health, advancing governance and promoting the building of a global community of health for all,” Guo said.

The global public health agency said in a statement that it regretted the announcement and hoped the US would reconsider.

The WHO added that it looked forward to “engaging in constructive dialogue” to maintain its partnership with the US.

This is not the first time Trump has moved to withdraw the US from the WHO. In 2020, during his first term, his administration notified the agency of its intent to leave, but Joe Biden reversed that decision when he succeeded Trump as president months later.

Pang said the American departure from the WHO would undoubtedly hurt the organisation, and China might struggle to fill the leadership vacuum.

“The US’ withdrawal is a significant shock because the country has an irreplaceable role in this international organisation,” Pang said.

The US has long been the WHO’s largest funder, contributing nearly one-fifth of the agency’s budget in 2023.

In contrast, China’s financial support for the WHO remains limited, covering only 0.35 per cent of the agency’s 2024-2025 total budget, trailing countries including Italy, according to official data from the agency.

“China may increase its contributions to the WHO, but whether it can fill the vacuum left by the US remains to be seen,” Pang said, adding that China’s own economic challenges could limit its ability to invest heavily in the agency.

Pang also noted that US non-government actors, such as the Gates Foundation – currently the second-largest donor to the WHO – would continue to influence the organisation.

Josef Gregory Mahoney, a professor of politics and international relations at East China Normal University, added that even if China sought to fill the leadership void in global public health, obstacles remained.

“China has a much stronger commitment to national and global public health than Trump and remains committed to [the] WHO despite unfortunate politicking over Covid-19 origins,” Mahoney said.

“However, it’s fair to say that [the] WHO, even with strong Chinese support, has struggled to effectively mitigate global crises like the pandemic and needs to do more to prepare for future outbreaks.”

He cautioned that while global leadership on climate and public health might naturally shift towards China, it would also create new challenges.

“China’s rising influence in these areas will inevitably face resistance and bring about its own set of obstacles,” he said.

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China’s vice-premier says chaotic competition on AI could bring ‘grey rhino’

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3295705/chinas-vice-premier-says-chaotic-competition-ai-could-bring-grey-rhino?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s vice-premier warned that the development of artificial intelligence could pose a major risk if it is not carefully managed, amid a rivalry with the US that has seen the emerging technology take centre stage.

Ding Xuexiang addressed the risks of AI and outlined China’s economic goals while addressing the World Economic Forum at its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday.

His remarks offered the first clue from Beijing on how its competition with Washington might be managed after Donald Trump returned to the White House on Monday, bringing more uncertainty to the relationship.

“AI holds immense promise, akin to the treasures hidden in Ali Baba’s cave, but if not properly managed, it could become a Pandora’s box – unleashing unforeseen consequences,” Ding said during his speech.

“If countries continue to engage in chaotic competition over AI, the ‘grey rhino’ – a clear and looming risk – will soon be upon us,” Ding said, stressing the need for responsible global governance.

In response to a question from Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, Ding took the opportunity to play up China’s role in shaping the global order.

He also said that despite external and structural challenges, China’s development was “high quality” – pointing to the country’s 5 per cent economic growth last year.

Ding said China was constantly improving its policies to make the economic environment better, which benefited both domestic and foreign business.

“We recognise both foreign and domestic enterprises may sometimes encounter issues such as ‘glass doors’ or ‘spring doors’,” Ding said, referring to the barriers and recurring challenges that businesses face. “China’s door to openness will never close; it will only open wider.”

He said China would introduce more proactive policies to boost consumption and investment, as well as science and technology innovation.

And he said growth in science and technology had been made possible by opening up and collaboration, adding that the country would continue to collaborate with nations around the world.

“China has long adhered to the idea that science knows no borders and should benefit all of humanity … to bridge the technological gap and prevent innovation from becoming a game for the rich and wealthy,” he said.

Asked by Schwab about fears of the world falling apart into two different systems, Ding said the consequences of that would be “unimaginable”. He said it would be difficult to address common challenges and the world could relapse into confrontation.

Ding said all countries were in the same boat, and that nations must “resolutely oppose Cold War mentality and zero-sum games, and work together to create a more just and reasonable international order”.

China has had ongoing tensions with the US and Europe over trade-related issues, including concerns over Chinese overcapacity in different industries.

In a keynote speech before Ding’s, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen addressed the “China shock” caused by industrial overcapacity, highlighting the EU’s response with trade measures to overcapacity in the Chinese electric vehicle industry.

Von der Leyen mentioned China more than a dozen times and stressed the need for more constructive engagement with Beijing.

“It is time to pursue a more balanced relationship with China in the spirit of fairness and reciprocity,” she said, calling for deeper cooperation and expanded trade ties.

In his speech, Ding said China was not pursuing a trade surplus and was willing to promote balanced trade development – including importing more competitively priced high-quality goods from abroad.

“Protectionism offers no solution, and there are no winners in a trade war,” he said.

Trump downplayed his stance on China during his inaugural address on Monday, which could indicate a willingness to engage with Beijing.

While Trump had previously said he would impose tariffs on Chinese products – potentially up to 60 per cent – that was not among the slew of executive orders he signed on the first day of his second term as US president.

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed trade and other topics during a phone call on Friday, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social account the same day.

Xi told Trump he was willing to promote greater progress in US-China relations, and that while the two countries may have differences they also have common interests.

“Confrontation and conflict should not be our choice,” Xi said during the call, according to state news agency Xinhua.

In Davos on Monday, Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said the city had a vibrant fintech ecosystem and was the best entry point for the mainland Chinese market, during a meeting with UK-based fintech firm Revolut. Chan said the city wanted to boost economic and financial cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council in a separate meeting with its secretary general, Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi.

Xi and Putin hold talks, China ‘ready to work’ with Trump: SCMP daily highlights

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3295693/xi-and-putin-hold-talks-china-ready-work-trump-scmp-daily-highlights?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 .

The virtual talks came hours after US President Donald Trump returned to the White House and said he would meet Putin “very soon”.

Beijing has signalled its readiness for greater engagement with Washington under US President Donald Trump, who also appeared to tone down the rhetoric on China during his inaugural address on Monday.

Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang addressed China’s economic vitality, global cooperation and concerns over artificial intelligence at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Scientists in China on a quest to build a nuclear fusion reactor capable of producing unlimited low-cost energy have achieved a sustained plasma temperature exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million Fahrenheit) for an unprecedented 1,066 seconds – a world record.

On his first day in office, US President Donald Trump followed through on his campaign promise to delay a controversial TikTok divest-or-ban law by signing an executive order and warning that he would impose significant tariffs on China if Beijing failed to approve a deal regarding the app.

At least 27 people were injured when a magnitude 6.4 earthquake – the equivalent of two atomic bombs – struck the county of Chiayi in southwestern Taiwan soon after midnight on Tuesday.

As US astronomers cheer the completion of the state-of-the-art project to rejuvenate the iconic Hale Telescope, one key collaborator is locked out of the celebrations and banned from exporting to the United States.

China softens stance on TikTok deal in US as Trump offers 75-day grace period, sources say

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3295679/china-softens-stance-tiktok-deal-us-trump-offers-75-day-grace-period-sources-say?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese authorities appear to be softening their stance on the fate of TikTok, possibly paving the way for Beijing-based ByteDance to begin talks with American investors, according to people familiar with the matter.

With US President Donald Trump’s recent enthusiasm over striking a deal on TikTok, Beijing is seeing the value of a fair arrangement for the sake of improving the bilateral relationship, said one person who was briefed on the Chinese government’s considerations.

On his first day back in the White House on Monday, Trump signed an executive order delaying by 75 days federal enforcement of a law that requires American firms to stop hosting TikTok unless ByteDance sells its US operations. Trump expressed a desire to give a US entity a 50 per cent stake to keep the app available to its 170 million users in the country.

Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on Chinese imports if Beijing does not approve a deal. “We may have to get an approval from China too. I’m not sure, but I’m sure they’ll approve it,” he said.

The Chinese government has not directly responded to Trump’s request, but China’s foreign ministry has recently softened its rhetoric about a potential deal. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a press briefing this week that corporate operations and acquisitions “should be decided by businesses upon market principles”.

“If Chinese companies are involved, the deals should comply with Chinese laws and regulations,” she said at a separate briefing.

The wording was a noticeable shift in tone from the last time China’s foreign ministry weighed in on the TikTok saga. Beijing’s previous official line was that it strongly opposes US mistreatment of Chinese businesses in the name of national security. In 2020, Beijing warned the US of “consequences” to a TikTok ban, which it likened to “opening Pandora’s box”.

Trump said that he discussed TikTok with President Xi Jinping during their latest phone call on Friday. “It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together, and starting immediately. We discussed balancing trade, fentanyl, TikTok, and many other subjects,” Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform.

Trump’s demand that the US get 50 per cent of TikTok is “blackmail”, said another person briefed on considerations for a deal. “But it is better than giving away 100 per cent,” the person added.

Analysts said China and the US may be edging closer to each other regarding the app’s fate. TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi attended Trump’s inauguration on Monday, alongside other US tech tycoons including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.

Thomas Liu, founder and CEO of the consultancy Policy Nexus, said the tone from both sides signals that “the deal might be ongoing already, even before Trump’s inauguration”.

It remains unclear how such a deal might satisfy the requirements of the law, under which ByteDance cannot control an app operating in the US. However, an arrangement “involving regulatory compliance, transparency measures, and possibly US-based ownership could serve as a model for navigating the intersection of international business and geopolitical tensions,” Liu said.

In China, ByteDance told several Chinese media outlets that the company has not reached a deal with the US government. Publications including Yicai and 36Kr quoted a person close to ByteDance as saying that TikTok resumed operations after briefly blocking access in the US because the government decided not to implement the law immediately.

The law, which set a January 19 deadline for ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US operations, does not prevent TikTok from serving content to Americans, but the hosting providers within the US cannot legally service TikTok while it is owned by ByteDance. The law technically remains in force even with an enforcement delay.

One obstacle to a potential divestment is China’s unwillingness to allow ByteDance to export its powerful algorithm, which is considered the secret sauce for TikTok.

However, a deal could still be possible without transferring ownership of the algorithm, said the person briefed on the government’s considerations. “After all, it is not difficult for potential American shareholders to find a good algorithm given the app’s large US user base and content stock,” the person said.

Beijing meeting puts spotlight on China’s new face of AI, DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng

https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3295662/beijing-meeting-puts-spotlight-chinas-new-face-ai-deepseek-founder-liang-wenfeng?utm_source=rss_feed

The founder of artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek, touted as 2025’s “biggest dark horse” in the open-source large language model (LLM) arena, emerged as the industry’s new face in China at a symposium hosted by Premier Li Qiang in Beijing on Monday.

Liang Wenfeng, 40, took part in the meeting where a select group of industry experts – in the fields of technology, education, science, culture, health and sports – offered Li their opinions and suggestions for a draft government work report, according to official news agency Xinhua.

Hangzhou-based start-up DeepSeek last December made waves in the global AI industry after benchmark tests showed that its DeepSeek V3 LLM, which was built on a shoestring budget, outperformed rival models developed with more resources by the likes of Meta Platforms and ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

LLM refers to the technology underpinning generative AI services such as ChatGPT. Open source gives public access to a software program’s source code, allowing third-party developers to modify or share its design, fix broken links or scale up its capabilities.

At Monday’s meeting, Li called on the economy’s “new growth drivers”, created via scientific and technological innovation, to help “secure and improve people’s livelihoods”, according to the Xinhua report.

Liang’s participation at Monday’s meeting with Li reflects DeepSeek’s growing prominence in the AI industry.

But beyond the start-up’s recent achievements, gathering Liang’s input at the meeting reaffirms AI as a national strategic priority, according to Jeffrey Towson, founder of TechMoat Consulting.

Beijing made AI a national priority amid a heightened tech war between the United States and China, the world’s two largest economies. China’s AI market is expected to be worth 5.6 trillion yuan (US$765 billion) by 2030, according to state-backed investment vehicle China International Capital Corp (CICC).

“In the age of AI geopolitics, tech companies inevitably would have tighter connections with governments than before,” Winston Ma, a New York University Law School professor on sovereign funds, said on Tuesday.

Apart from being a regulator, “governments could be a sovereign investor or a cross-border deal mediator”, Ma said.

In September last year, CICC estimated that China’s AI industry could see US$1.4 trillion in investments over six years from 2025.

Hailing from southern Guangdong province, Liang went east to study electronics information and computer vision – a field of AI that trains computers to capture and interpret information from images and video data – at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. Along with a group of university classmates, Liang started exploring how AI can be used to automate stock investments.

That experience subsequently led Liang to become one of the co-founders of High-Flyer Quant, which uses AI to manage one of the largest quantitative hedge funds in mainland China.

High-Flyer Quant grew its assets under management more than tenfold over a four-year span, from 1 billion yuan in 2016 to more than 10 billion yuan by 2019, according to local media reports and information from the company’s website.

“Over the years, High-Flyer Quant spent a large portion of profits on AI to build a leading AI infrastructure and conduct large-scale research,” the company said in a statement in April 2023. Months later, High-Flyer Quant spun off DeepSeek, which launched a series of AI models used by developers to build third-party applications and by the start-up to create its own chatbot.

High-Flyer Quant managed to buy more than 10,000 Nvidia graphics processing units before the US government imposed AI chip restrictions on China, according to local media outlet 36kr. On its website, the hedge-fund manager said it spent 200 million yuan and 1 billion yuan in 2020 and 2021, respectively, to build its Fire-Flyer series of AI computing clusters.

In a New Year’s Day post on social-media platform X, Jim Fan – a senior research scientist at Nvidia and lead of its AI Agents Initiative – wrote that DeepSeek has emerged as this year’s “biggest dark horse” in the open-source LLM arena, following the release of its updated namesake LLM.

“[The new AI model] shows that resource constraints force you to reinvent yourself in spectacular ways,” Fan wrote, referring to how DeepSeek V3 was developed – on a US$5.58 million budget over a two-month period – at a fraction of the capital outlay that other tech companies invest in building LLMs.

Deflation risks see most Chinese provinces shy away from ‘legacy’ 3% CPI target

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3295660/deflation-risks-see-most-chinese-provinces-shy-away-legacy-3-cpi-target?utm_source=rss_feed

As deflationary pressures persist across China amid weak domestic demand and knock-on effects from industrial overcapacity, Beijing appears hard-pressed to lower the national inflation-control target for the first time in four years.

The vast majority of Chinese provinces have already slashed their consumer price index (CPI) targets to about 2 per cent for 2025 – markedly down from last year’s norm of 3 per cent.

The adjustments came after China’s national CPI grew by a mere 0.2 per cent last year and in 2023 – the lowest annual increases since 2009 – with multiple monthly readings dropping into negative territory.

Twenty-seven of China’s 31 provincial-jurisdictions set such a lower CPI target, which is often used as a gauge for monetary policy and has increasingly become an indicator of demand, according to the Post’s review of local governments’ annual work reports.

A few exceptions include the central province of Hunan, which said its target would be consistent with the national one; east China’s Shandong, which expected consumer prices “to remain reasonable”; and the Tibet autonomous region, which kept its annual CPI target unchanged from last year at 3 per cent.

Xu Tianchen, a senior China economist with the Economist Intelligence Unit, said that a 2 per cent target, while lower, is more realistic and implies that the central government will take it more seriously.

In contrast with the United States, where President Donald Trump has vowed to beat back inflation that saw the headline consumer price index rising in recent months – 2.7 per cent in November and 2.9 per cent in December, year on year – Beijing wants China to achieve a mild recovery in prices.

“The 3 per cent [CPI target] is a legacy from China’s high-flying years marked by high growth and high inflation; now that’s no longer the case, as China is grappling with deflation,” Xu said.

“Reflating the economy still has a long way to go,” Xu explained. “So, we need to see more policy measures being rolled out.”

Chinese authorities will release the national CPI target, together with the year’s gross domestic product growth target, fiscal deficit ratio and bond quotas, during the National People’s Congress annual session in March.

China has been wrestling with a slowing economy that is on the brink of deflation.

Consumer demand has remained subdued, weighing down the sluggish price levels and reflecting a broader lack of confidence in the economy and ongoing challenges in stimulating domestic consumption.

Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie Group, said in a report last week that in 2025, the strength of domestic demand will depend largely on the domestic stimulus measures taken to achieve the GDP target.

“Modest tariffs result in modest stimulus – deflationary pressures may persist, with CPI inflation at 0-0.5 per cent in 2025,” Hu said. “Strong tariffs result in strong stimulus, and thus better domestic demand. If so, we could see higher CPI inflation in 2025.

“However, given that inflation is a lagging variable, the upward pressure on prices could be more pronounced in 2026.”

Myanmar deports over 50,000 scam centre workers to China amid crackdown

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3295675/myanmar-deports-over-50000-scam-centre-workers-china-amid-crackdown?utm_source=rss_feed

Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Tuesday it had deported to China more than 50,000 people suspected of involvement in online scam operations since October 2023, as it made a rare call to neighbouring countries to intervene.

Scam compounds have mushroomed in Myanmar’s borderlands and are staffed by foreigners who are often trafficked and forced to work, swindling their compatriots in an industry analysts say is worth billions of dollars.

An editorial published in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Tuesday detailed the extent of the criminal activities – including online scams and gambling – publicly for the first time.

It said the junta had caught and deported more than 55,000 foreigners involved in border scams to their home countries since October 2023, including 53,000 to China.

The second-largest contingent – more than a thousand individuals – was from Vietnam, followed by Thailand with more than 600. The rest came from around 25 other countries, according to the Global New Light of Myanmar.

The article added those responsible were not Myanmar nationals or ordinary foreign civilians, but “fugitive offenders” who illegally entered Myanmar from neighbouring countries.

The junta called on its neighbours to “participate in combating online scams and online gambling”.

Thai and Chinese authorities have not responded for comment.

Myanmar’s northern border with China was previously a hotbed for online scam centres, often run by militias aligned with the ruling junta.

But a sweeping offensive by an alliance of ethnic rebels cleared many of the scam centres out.

Local Myanmar media have reported that scam bosses who escaped the offensive have since set up shop further south along the border with Thailand.

Myanmar’s junta and Thai military officials have agreed to “jointly eradicate online gambling and online scams”, according to Myanmar state media.

Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, on Friday called the compounds “one of the most pressing regional crises the region is facing”.

The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the military junta ousted democratically elected civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi from office in a 2021 coup.

‘Gradual’ US tariffs on China may foreground Trump-Xi summit: Citi

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3295664/gradual-us-tariffs-china-may-foreground-trump-xi-summit-citi?utm_source=rss_feed

With much-anticipated trade actions against China absent on the first day of US President Donald Trump’s second term, a chief Citi economist said there are better odds of “delayed, gradual tariffs” being imposed on the world’s second-largest economy in advance of potential direct negotiations between the two countries’ leaders.

A slower onset of tariffs on China’s US-bound imports would “create conditions” for a potential summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the financial services firm’s chief China economist Yu Xiangrong wrote in a research note on Tuesday.

“US-China relations under Trump 2.0 have had a better than expected start,” Yu said. The economist added that if tariff hikes occur steadily, it would present an upside risk to the bank’s forecast for China’s 2025 gross domestic product growth and market sentiment as a whole.

In light of the two phone calls that have taken place between Trump and Xi since the US election in November, Yu wrote, high-level bilateral dialogue has become more of a possibility.

As a gesture, he added, China could agree to cooperate on hot-button issues such as fentanyl trafficking while making “meaningful concessions” on imports from the US and increasing access to its market for American firms.

In his inaugural address on Monday, Trump – while issuing broad warnings of tariffs and speaking of the need to protect American workers – did not specifically mention China or outline any punitive measures, as he had frequently during his campaign.

Meanwhile, legislation presented for ratification at the annual session of China’s National People’s Congress will “not be contingent” on Trump’s first day in office, the economist said – though he expected a “modest stimulus package” to be passed at the March meeting, with other economic support “delivered in a reactive fashion”.

“If trade headwinds phase in later than expected, the easing pace may also slow down, especially on the monetary side amid recent regulatory concerns on bond yields,” Yu wrote.

A July session of China’s Politburo – a high-level decision-making body of the Communist Party – could be the main venue for gauging new US policies and the level of policy support on the way for the economy, he said.

Chinese officials have rolled out numerous economic stimulus measures since September to cushion an economy needled by a lingering property crisis, employment woes and diminished consumer confidence.

In another move that could steer relations between the powers, Trump signed an executive order on Monday to explore alternative solutions to perceived privacy issues with the short video platform TikTok – owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance – without banning the app outright. The order provides a window of up to 75 days for this process.

Citi has projected 4.2 per cent economic growth for China this year compared to 2024, and a “base case” tariff rate of 15 percentage points coming about in phases.

In another reaction to Trump’s inauguration, a Singapore-based economic monitoring organisation said on Tuesday it expected a 25 per cent US tariff against China in the second half of the year, with regional impacts becoming increasingly apparent over time.

That organisation, the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office, lowered its 2025 forecast for China’s economic growth accordingly, reducing its estimate by 0.3 percentage points to 4.8 per cent.

“Protectionist trade policies from the US have emerged as our main concern,” the office’s regional surveillance group leader Allen Ng said at an online news conference. “The new administration has signalled aggressive measures, including substantial tariff increases. There’s still a lot of uncertainty on how this will pan out.”

China’s state media runs blow-by-blow account of Trump’s return, calls for ‘more bridges’

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3295692/chinas-state-media-runs-blow-blow-account-trumps-return-calls-more-bridges?utm_source=rss_feed

US President Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony and his activities on day one were covered extensively by Chinese state media, as commentaries called for a responsible handling of ties.

Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily offered spot news on the ceremony and some of the executive orders signed by Trump on his first day back at the White House. These included revoking dozens of Biden-era executive orders and the withdrawal of the US from the World Health Organization (WHO).

The newspaper published excerpts from Trump’s inaugural speech, including that Washington was confronted with “a crisis of trust” and unable to “manage even a simple crisis at home while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalogue of catastrophic events abroad”.

Earlier, the People’s Daily urged the US to “dig fewer pits and build more bridges” for a smooth transition in relations with China.

“China-US relations are at a new historical juncture,” it said in an online commentary published hours before the inauguration ceremony.

“It is hoped that the US … stops its erroneous remarks and actions concerning China, digs fewer pits and builds more bridges, creates favourable conditions for the stable, healthy, and sustainable development of bilateral relations.”

Global Times, another state-run newspaper, reported the ceremony in full detail and also published an opinion piece within hours.

The article emphasised collaboration between China and the US, urging the economic giants to “bridge differences and share responsibilities” in maintaining the security and stability of global economy and trade, especially the industrial supply chain.

“It is impossible for the United States to achieve its goal of blocking and suppressing China, and a more rational approach is to strengthen cooperation with China in stabilising the macro economy and dealing with global challenges, so as to achieve a win-win and multi-win situation,” the article read.

The inauguration was closely watched by Chinese internet users. On Weibo, one of China’s largest social media platforms, the hashtag “Trump’s inauguration” topped the trending list with nearly 1 billion views.

Weibo’s trending news list under the hashtag listed 26 headlines about Trump’s first day in office. His remarks on the Panama Canal and the US withdrawal from WHO gained the most attention, with hundreds of thousands of views each.

The topic clocked up more than 260,000 discussions on Weibo, with the mood among users indicating a wait-and-see attitude or even sarcasm – especially under a trending video post of Trump claiming that China ran the Panama Canal.

“Lying has become the norm. The lie is ‘the truth’,” one comment read.

Another asked: “Does Trump think that if the world’s assets are not in the hands of the US, they must be right here in ours?”

‘We’ll be surprised’ by US-China improvements, Harvard scholar argues in Davos

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3295687/well-be-surprised-us-china-improvements-harvard-scholar-argues-davos?utm_source=rss_feed

Donald Trump’s return to the White House could bring about a surprising improvement in US-China ties, including in trade, a prominent American scholar contended in Davos, adding that Trump may not even be categorised as a “China hawk”.

Instead of the widely discussed “trade war 2.0”, Graham Allison, a professor with the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, said during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday that ties between the two superpowers could tick up.

“I’m betting this time next year … we’ll be surprised on the upside in the relationship,” said Allison, best known for his 2017 book, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap.

“I have a piece, it’ll be published next week, that asks: ‘Is Trump a China hawk?’ I think, if you look at what he said and did, you’ll find it difficult to classify him in those terms.”

Regarding Trump’s concerns about deficits with China, the Harvard scholar said the “very tight” relationship between Trump and President Xi Jinping could help solve the issue.

“I think Xi and Trump get on very well and understand each other,” Allison said. “They both think of themselves as great men. They like each other in that respect. So, that’s one place to start [for better ties].

“[On the deficit], if I were Xi, I would say, ‘I’m going to take the initiative. We’ll eliminate it over three years.’ How hard is that? Just buy oil, gas and food from the US, rather than from another source.”

Allison was well received by top Chinese officials, including Xi, during a visit to China last year. His latest China trip was a month ago, when he met Wang Huning, China’s No 4 political figure, in Beijing.

His sanguine take on trade and broader ties was reinforced less than a day after Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States and failed to follow through on his promise to impose steeper tariffs on China on his first day as president. Instead, Trump toned down his China rhetoric in his inaugural address.

While vowing protection for Americans, he did not mention punitive measures against China. In an executive order he signed soon after his inauguration, though, he threatened tariffs if Beijing failed to approve a deal regarding the fate of TikTok.

Reiterating Trump’s recently expressed belief that Beijing and Washington could work together “to solve all of the problems of the world”, Allison also argued that China could help conclude the war in Ukraine. He also said Trump’s interest in the Panama Canal is “no big deal” for Xi.

But Ian Bremmer, founder of the Eurasia Group consultancy, another panellist at Tuesday’s discussion, sharply disagreed and said ties could be “materially worse” in 12 months.

“China is convinced Americans want to contain it,” Bremmer said. “They have ample evidence … Even though Trump is going to make a deal, the ability and the willingness of China are not propitious.

“I would make a fairly strong bet that US-China relations will be in materially worse condition.”

Trump’s speech signals more ‘cajoling and containing’ for China, analyst says

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3295694/trumps-speech-signals-more-cajoling-and-containing-china-analyst-says?utm_source=rss_feed

Donald Trump declared “America’s decline is over” in his inauguration speech on Monday, outlining an ambitious plan to reclaim the country’s “rightful place” in the world in the face of growing challenges from rivals including China.

Compared to his address when he became US president in 2017 and the one by his predecessor Joe Biden four years ago – both of which had a domestic focus – Trump spoke for considerably longer and put more emphasis on foreign policy.

Analysts said Trump appeared more confident than at the start of his first term, when he promised a “new era of national success” and called out China for the first time in an inaugural address.

They said the speech also underlined the changed reality for Washington over the past decade as Beijing’s influence has grown, along with its economic, technological and military capabilities.

Trump sought to portray himself as a “peacemaker and unifier” during his half-hour speech and talked more about “hope” and “restoration”, while in his 16-minute speech in 2017, Trump offered a grim view of the country, saying “this American carnage stops right here and stops right now”.

Trump’s partisan remarks and a series of executive orders he signed hours after his inauguration – to curb immigration and withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord and World Health Organization – contained mixed messages about his priorities. But the elephant in the room was China.

“I don’t think this is a day very favourable to my country,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

Shi said Beijing would probably be alarmed by Trump’s claim that “we will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer”.

Trump also said that America would be “a manufacturing nation once again” and it would again regard itself as a “growing nation” – one that not only increases its wealth but also “expands our territory”.

Shi noted that it was just the first day of Trump’s administration. “Compared with four or eight years ago, Trump will be required to deal with China even more. But his approach will remain largely constant: cajoling, exacting and containing,” he said.

Pang Zhongying, a visiting senior fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, also said Trump’s promise on manufacturing was part of Washington’s efforts to restructure the global supply chain and reduce its dependence on China.

“There is little doubt that the US feels the heat from China because of the latter’s rapid rise amid talk of ‘the East is rising and the West is declining’,” he said.

The US Senate unanimously confirmed China hawk Marco Rubio as Trump’s secretary of state hours after the inauguration, which Pang said was another sign of the hardening bipartisan consensus on confronting China.

But as he frequently did during his first term, Trump also sought to use the China threat to justify tariffs and other confrontational policies aimed at Beijing, especially when compared to Biden’s approach, according to Pang.

Trump’s first presidency saw the biggest shift in Washington’s China policy in five decades with the end of America’s engagement policy with China and the launch of an all-encompassing, tit-for-tat rivalry – from trade and technology to geopolitics.

Biden took a more balanced approach, shifting Washington’s emphasis from tariffs to export controls and regulations while seeking to strengthen US alliances, build up resilience in supply chains and lessen American dependence on China.

Unlike Trump, who sought to portray the US as being in crisis mode on Monday, Biden used his 22-minute speech four years ago to stress democratic resilience and deliver a call for unity to “end this uncivil war” in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and internal divisions.

Trump, however, wasted no time denouncing Biden’s domestic and foreign policies on Monday, while promising to build “the strongest military the world has ever seen” and send US astronauts to Mars – clear references to Washington’s intensifying military and space race with Beijing.

“The future is ours, and our golden age has just begun,” he said.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, a key Trump ally who is to lead a Department of Government Efficiency, aims to send uncrewed missions to Mars by 2026. China, meanwhile – a strong competitor to the US in space – has been steadily advancing its space programme and could potentially bring samples from Mars to Earth as early as 2028.

Despite Trump’s tough talk, Sourabh Gupta, a senior policy specialist with the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington, said the new administration lacked “a clear-eyed appreciation of the scale of the China challenge”.

“The strategies are essentially premised on the US remaining the dominant global economic power and using this abundance, and leverage, to exert collective discipline among the key centres of industrial and military power in their dealings with Beijing,” he said.

According to Gupta, for the near-term future, Washington could still enjoy “the luxury of being able to fall back on emotional responses to China’s growing influence and capabilities, as well as hope that the Chinese system will run up against the natural limits of its own contradictions much like the Soviets did”.

But he said that China’s continuous rise could present America with a peer that is without precedent in its history – one whose economic size and capabilities could outstrip those of the US one day.

“This will test the core strategic proposition on which US primacy has rested since its international rise at the turn of the 20th century: that America could meet the strategic challenge of the day from a position of national strength,” he said.

China teacher uses AI to make professional portraits, inspires pupils to chase dreams

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3294517/china-teacher-uses-ai-make-professional-portraits-inspires-pupils-chase-dreams?utm_source=rss_feed

A primary school teacher in China has used artificial intelligence technology (AI) to create professional portraits, inspiring her students to chase their dreams.

Xiao Yuan, who lives in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province, is beloved by her students for her warm and lively personality.

On January 3, she posted a video of a special activity held during her class’s New Year’s Eve party on a mainland short-video sharing platform.

She used an image generation app to create future career portraits for each student, gifting them as New Year presents.

One boy, who dreamed of becoming a chef, was thrilled to see himself in his AI-generated photo, complete with a chef’s white hat.

Another aspiring soldier exclaimed “Wow!” when he saw himself in a sharp military uniform.

A girl dreaming of stardom shyly admired her portrait, glowing in a red dress and sparkling necklace, then whispered: “I’m so beautiful!”

A boy aspiring to join a top university and become a professional e-sports player was shown in a photo focusing on a computer, headset on, alongside his AI-generated teammates.

Other students also shared dreams of becoming firefighters, historians and artists.

However, one netizen criticised careers like e-sports and celebrities as “controversial” and “unhealthy”.

Xiao defended the value of all professions, and said: “Every career has its worth as long as it does not harm society or break the law. The world is diverse because everyone has different dreams.”

Xiao further explained that her goal was to inspire children to “dream big” and chase their future with courage.

“This is also the wish and ideal of every teacher,” she added.

The AI-generated career portraits quickly gained traction on mainland social media.

One online observer applauded Xiao’s creative teaching: “This is the true meaning of using AI. I am deeply moved by the children’s joyful laughter and the teacher’s kind heart.”

Another person, who claimed to be an education student, expressed admiration for Xiao’s approach, calling her “fun” and “smart”.

A parent also shared how their child proudly presented their portrait after school, saying: “Mum, this is what I will look like when I grow up.”

The mother wrote: “Thank you, teacher Xiao, for planting a seed of hope in my child’s heart. It will inspire them to keep striving to become who they want to be.”

Many parents in China have shared their experiences using AI in parenting.

One mother from southern China’s Hainan province used ChatGPT to help her four-year-old son practice spoken English, claiming his skills now match those of a fourth-grader in the country.

In November 2023, a couple with PhD degrees used ChatGPT to console their son after he was mocked following a playground fall.

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Ding Xuexiang speaks at Davos, shedding light on China’s Trump 2.0 policies

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3295674/ding-xuexiang-speaks-davos-shedding-light-chinas-trump-20-policies?utm_source=rss_feed

This live blog has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by . Get faster notifications on the latest updates by .

Chinese Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang will deliver a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday, making him the first senior leader from China to address global concerns about the country’s economic prospects and foreign policy priorities since Donald Trump kicked off his second term as US president.

China, which posted economic growth of 5 per cent last year, has pledged to create more jobs, revitalise private and foreign investments and spearhead tech self-reliance to ensure resilience and counter external challenges. It remains to be seen how strong the stimulus dose will be this year.

Ding’s speech is expected to offer a glimpse into Beijing’s policies for managing risk and engaging with the new Trump administration as the rivalry between the two powers faces new turmoil and uncertainty.

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Reporting by Victoria Bela, Meredith Chen, Enoch Wong and Wendy Wu

By going soft on China on first day, Trump leaves room for deal making: Tsinghua’s Da Wei

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3295632/going-soft-china-first-day-trump-leaves-room-deal-making-tsinghuas-da-wei?utm_source=rss_feed

Da Wei is director of Tsinghua University’s Centre for International Security and Strategy in Beijing. His research focuses on China-US relations and US security and foreign policy. In this interview, he discusses US President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech and first day back in the White House.

As you said, in his inaugural speech, he didn’t mention China a lot. It’s mainly about the domestic agenda like illegal immigrants, the so-called culture war, and also criticising the Democratic Party and the Biden administration, and boasting [about] the bright future of the United States. So mainly, it’s not about foreign policy issues.

His inaugural speech mainly focused on domestic issues, so that shows that for the early stages of his term, I think the domestic agenda will be his top priority – at least in the early phase, in the first several months.

Of course, the tariff issue is still there and it’s a very important topic for Trump during the campaign trail. And he did mention that he will set up the External Revenue Service, a new government agency, which I think one of its jobs … is about raising tariffs to get more revenue from other countries internationally. So I think this is still on his agenda. I think he will do that sooner or later. He also mentioned, very interestingly, President [William] McKinley, who also raised tariffs in his term almost 130 years ago.

He postponed the imposition of the tariff … to give room to, on the one hand, his government and, on the other hand, other countries, including China, for some negotiation.

Of course, we don’t know what [Chinese] President Xi Jinping and President Trump talked about during their phone call three days ago. But I think that China and the United States are now in a quite good communication process. I’m not sure if tariffs are one of those issues [discussed] but I think it would be reasonable if that’s one of the topics.

So postponing the imposition of the tariff, I think, gave room for future discussion and negotiation between the two countries. I think this is the reason why he didn’t do that on the very first day in office.

For the “America first” foreign policy, I think first it will focus on some issues that are not directly related to China. For example, the Panama Canal, and also the State Department will work with other government agencies to deal with the illegal immigrant issue. This is also a foreign policy issue with a neighbouring country of the United States. I think this is a top priority of the State Department right now.

Of course, it also represents a change in style of the American policy under President Trump’s leadership. An “America first” foreign policy means a kind of nationalistic approach in its foreign policy. The US will pay less attention or invest less in the multilateral institutions and focus more on so-called narrowly defined US interests. The US will show less interest in the foreign policy agenda like climate change and other global issues. These are the implications of the “America first” foreign policy.

Also, interestingly, he didn’t talk a lot about the US alliance system in his inaugural speech. I’m not saying that the Trump administration is going to do something very negative to the alliance system. I think we still need to wait and see, but of course obviously it’s not his immediate top priority to strengthen the alliance system. That is my reading of the so-called “America first” foreign policy.

Now, the situation is quite uncertain. I mean, there are different possibilities but a free fall of China-US relations is still one of the scenarios. I cannot exclude that possibility. But on the first day of the new administration, I won’t say we are necessarily doomed to have a bad relationship during the Trump administration. We still need to wait and see.

I mean, both China and the United States are communicating with each other quite smoothly. Since the presidential election in November, President Xi and President Trump have already talked twice, according to Trump. But officially, [according to] the Chinese foreign ministry, at least they have talked to each other three days before the inauguration. This time, China also sent a special envoy to the inauguration ceremony, so all of that shows that the two countries are trying to communicate and trying to at least manage bilateral relations. For that part, I think we should not be too pessimistic about bilateral relations.

There are different possibilities, but at the same time, we cannot say that we exclude the bad or negative scenario. I think it’s too early to say, but we do have a chance that through communication and negotiation, the two countries [will] have relatively stable relations and cooperate on certain issues that both sides feel [have] mutual benefits. Of course, we don’t know yet at the current phase. Comparing with my earlier prediction, I think my view now is maybe we need to wait and see for a moment.

Generally speaking, people believe that President Trump is someone who delivers his campaign promises quite well – at least in his first term – so there’s no reason to believe that President Trump will not deliver his campaign promises this time.

Having said that, I don’t think he will necessarily deliver every campaign rhetoric and promise that he has made. We don’t know how many of those promises he has made will be delivered, but I will say it’s a relatively high percentage compared with other US presidents. He did have a good record of delivering promises. We cannot predict if he will do this or that, particularly [as] President Trump [intentionally] wants to keep everything unpredictable.

Of course, if he imposes tariffs on China, China will more or less retaliate, particularly if we believe that it is not a fair deal, [if it’s done] unilaterally without negotiation with China. If the US does it in a unilateral way, my hunch is that the Chinese side will retaliate.

But by retaliation, I’m not saying that we will do it in a tit-for-tat way. For example, if the US imposes a 60 per cent tariff on China, China also imposes a 60 per cent tariff on the US. I don’t think we will do it that way.

I guess China will, through tariffs and other economic means, show our opposition to the US side and also use some instruments to deter the US side from moving forward. I don’t know at the current phase what we will do concretely and what our policy instrument is, but I think China will, by some kind of retaliation, send a signal to the American side that we oppose what they are doing and we want to stop them from moving forward further.

I think Trump is a person who really wants to make deals. We’ve interacted with President Trump during his first term on those deals and we did reach some agreement on the economic side like the phase one [trade] agreement.

Actually we also cooperated on some other issues, so I think there are opportunities that we can work with President Trump in his second term on striking a deal. I think it’s possible. I guess the Chinese leadership and Chinese government, of course, [assign] really great importance to this possibility. We know that bilateral relations are difficult, so we want to stabilise relations through these kinds of negotiations, and President Trump provides such an opportunity.

In order to strike a deal, I think the very important thing is to maintain open communication channels. This is the priority. This is the precondition of any potential deal. The two sides need to talk to each other. We need to understand each other’s intentions well, and then we need maybe very hard efforts to reach a deal.

I think the most important thing is the communication between the two leaders. Strategic communication between the two leaders is the most important thing because firstly, through that channel, the two sides can understand the other side’s goal or intention clearly.

And secondly, particularly on the US side, there are different views [within] Trump’s team regarding [US] policy towards China. Of course, in China we also have different ideas regarding our US policy. So if the two presidents talk to each other and set the tone for [Trump’s] second term, that will lay the foundation for the two sides to strike the deal [and] overcome or manage internally different ideas … in the two countries. These are very critical for any potential negotiation between the two countries.

The competitive or difficult relationship between the two countries will be there for quite a long time. I don’t think it will change under Trump’s leadership. But it’s possible that the two sides can manage bilateral relations and stabilise the situation. I think now it’s hard to say if we can have a long-term or new equilibrium.

It’s too early to say because an equilibrium not only requires the two governments to talk to each other and strike deals but it also requires deeper compromise. This is a very complicated relationship because the players evolve in this relationship. An equilibrium requires the two sides to reach a point of balance in terms of, for example, their economic operating system.

The two sides [have to attain] relative peace and stability in their economic relationship. Both sides [have to] feel at least accepting of their economic relationship.

But at the same time, the two sides also need to reach that kind of status with their militaries – for example, [about] their nuclear capabilities and also their military relationship regarding hotspot issues like Taiwan and the South China Sea. It’s too early to say if the two sides can reach a kind of equilibrium, because I think it’s related to the medium term.

But in the shorter term, the two governments do have the opportunity to maintain stability and short-term peace. After November 2023, the bilateral relationship has been OK. It has been quite stable. So now we may have the opportunity to have another kind of stability. It’ll be a stability led by President Trump or the Republican administration.

I believe it will be very different from the Democratic one, under a Democratic White House. I think it will be very different, but it could be another kind of stability. No matter what kind of stability, if [the US] can continue the earlier stability from the Biden administration to the Trump administration, I think that will be a good way for the two countries to set up a new equilibrium and a new balance between the two countries.

The relationship between China and the US regarding multilateral institutions is not just zero-sum [in a way that] if the US withdraws [from the institutions], China fills the vacuum. Of course China is [important] too, but the United States is the most important country in multilateral institutions and on global issues. Without US participation, those multilateral institutions will be weakened, and those global issues cannot be solved. So I think we have to admit that.

When withdrawal from the US side happens, superficially you may say China’s influence could grow. To some extent, it’s true because China may have a bigger say or influence in the multilateral institution, and other countries in the world may think that China still adheres to multilateralism while the US is doing something irresponsible [and] undermining the multilateral institution.

But if we step further, we will see that China’s influence could grow, but it’s within a less important and less relevant multilateral institution, so it’s not so meaningful. So maybe it’s good for China’s image, but more importantly, it’s bad for the US’ image. If something bad happens to the US image, I don’t think it will automatically be translated into a good thing for China’s image.

And also, as I said earlier, if the multilateral institution becomes less relevant and less important, I don’t think it can be a good venue for China or any other country to fill the vacuum to their benefit. I still hope that the Trump administration can participate at least to some extent in the more important multilateral institutions. No matter through those existing institutions or through other ways, major countries like China and the United States need to find a way to have effective global governance.

Thailand under pressure to revise Chinese tourists’ visa-free travel to combat crime

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3295633/thailand-under-pressure-revise-chinese-tourists-visa-free-travel-combat-crime?utm_source=rss_feed

The Thai government has come under increasing pressure to tweak its visa-free policy for Chinese visitors to combat transnational crime rings run by mainlanders in a bid to protect the tourism-dependent kingdom’s image.

Last year, Thailand expanded the scheme to holidaymakers from 93 countries and territories, including China, allowing them to stay for up to 60 days.

But Senator Wanchai Ekpornpichit said the measure to capitalise on the post-pandemic travel rush had created a lucrative opportunity for Chinese gangs that targeted their compatriots with scams and kidnappings, raising safety concerns among Chinese tourists and prompting sightseers to shun the destination known for its pristine beaches.

Scam compounds have sprung up along Thailand’s porous border with Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos where trafficked workers are forced into crime ranging from dodgy investment schemes to illegal gambling and cryptocurrency fraud.

Cybercriminals raked in US$37 billion in 2023 despite enhanced law enforcement efforts, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in a report last year.

Wanchai urged the government to plug immigration loopholes by rolling out a visa-on-arrival initiative for Chinese tourists that would require them to furnish details of their travel itinerary.

Deputy Defence Minister Nattaphon Narkphanit said that visa-free arrangements came with economic benefits and pledged to boost border controls and cooperation with Thailand’s neighbours to tackle the scourge of scams, The Bangkok Post reported.

“As the ministry of defence is responsible for border security, it has engaged in discussions with neighbouring countries through available mechanisms,” Nattaphon said.

“It has also tightened inspections of individuals crossing the borders, both through checkpoints and natural crossings.”

Meanwhile, the Tourism Authority of Thailand said it was in favour of reducing the duration Chinese tourists could stay in the country to up to 15 days rather than scrapping the visa-free feature.

Thapanee Kiatphaibool, the agency’s chief, added that most Chinese revellers spent only seven to 10 days in Thailand, which attracted 6.7 million mainland travellers in 2024.

Safety in Southeast Asia has been a rising concern for many Chinese visitors in recent years.

Last week, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra insisted Thailand remain safe for holidaymakers following the abduction of Chinese actor Wang Xing in a Myanmar town near the Thai border early this month. His subsequent rescue days later led many tourists to cancel their trips to the kingdom.

“Though such incidents were not caused by Thai people, they have raised safety concerns among Chinese tourists,” Paetongtarn said in a social media post.

Thai Hotels Association president Thien Prasit Chaiphatranant said the fallout from the abduction resulted in more than 4,000 room cancellations involving Chinese travellers.

Thai police chief Kittirat Panpetch held a meeting on Monday with regional commanders and instructed them to step up tourist safety measures and surveillance of border areas.

China’s leaders put spotlight on tech self-reliance, private sector confidence

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3295657/chinas-leaders-put-spotlight-tech-self-reliance-private-sector-confidence?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s leaders exhorted industry heads to turn their attention to the country’s tech sector in the search for new drivers of economic growth, laying out priorities for the new year as the geopolitical landscape becomes more uncertain by the day.

During a Monday gathering of members of the country’s “united front” – individuals from non-communist parties and other societal groups – President Xi Jinping called for “high-level technological self-reliance and improvement” and “sound development momentum” in 2025, the last of China’s 14th five-year plan.

The All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce – a semi-official business chamber – should guide those in the private sector to sustain their enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and enhance their confidence, Xi said.

On the same day, Premier Li Qiang spoke with a group from artificial intelligence and robotics among other sectors, emphasising their potential as future sources of economic growth. He also stated – in the presence of representatives from the banking industry – the country’s monetary policy should “create the necessary liquidity” to support the real economy.

Both focused on domestic development in their remarks, delivered the same day as the inauguration of Donald Trump as US President – though neither mentioned foreign affairs.

Referring to the country reaching its 2024 gross domestic product growth target as a “hard-won” victory, Li said China continues to face challenges, especially from an increasingly fraught external environment.

“By managing our own affairs well, we can promote the stable and healthy development of China’s economy.”

So far, 31 provincial-level economies have disclosed their own GDP growth targets for 2025. Most are aiming for growth rates exceeding the 5 per cent recorded by China as a whole last year, with powerhouse regions like Zhejiang aiming for around 5.5 per cent.

At the symposium Li attended, industry leaders were invited to comment on a draft of the government work report. The final version of the document, which summarises the past year’s achievements and lays out benchmarks for the months to come, will be released during the annual parliamentary meetings in March.

Those present for the address included notable figures from the realm of science and technology.

Among them were Liang Wenfeng, the founder of High Flyer Quant, a hedge fund supporting the Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek; Wei Hongxing, the founder of AUBO Robotics Technology Co; and Chen Xuedong, an authority on mechatronic equipment dynamics and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

In the face of potential tariffs from the US and escalations of trade disputes with Europe, Li reiterated Beijing’s commitment to “voluntary and unilateral opening up”. The phrase, also used at the recent central economic work conference, is generally used to describe reductions to restrictions on foreign investment, cuts to tariffs, and granting visa-free access to China for citizens from an expanding list of countries.

He said the country’s proactive fiscal policy should be converted into actual spending in a timely manner, and capital should fuel the real economy through a “moderately loose” monetary policy – a change in rhetoric from the “prudent” stance encouraged for China’s central bank since the 2008 financial crisis.

Philippines’ arrest of Chinese ‘sleeper agent’ sparks fears of widespread spying

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3295612/philippines-arrest-chinese-sleeper-agent-sparks-fears-widespread-spying?utm_source=rss_feed

Philippine authorities have arrested a Chinese national suspected of conducting espionage operations, recovering equipment in his possession that they believe might have been used for spying on military facilities.

Law enforcers and military officials presented the suspect, identified as Deng Yuanqing, at a press conference in Manila on Monday, and two Filipinos who were allegedly also involved in the case.

Officials from the Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said Deng was a “control engineering” specialist and was arrested with his Filipino companions in Makati City on January 17.

Authorities added that Deng was affiliated with the Army Engineering University of PLA (People’s Liberation Army), a military university based in Nanjing.

NBI Director Jaime Santiago said local authorities received intelligence information about Deng and his group in December, indicating they had arrived in the Philippines to conduct surveillance on critical structures such as military bases and police camps.

Cybercrime chief Jeremy Lotoc said Deng, whom he dubbed a “sleeper agent”, might have been in the Philippines for about five years based on his passport.

Deng’s group had even managed to visit sites under the Philippines’ Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) with the United States, Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Romeo Brawner warned. US troops are allowed access to selected military bases in the Philippines under EDCA.

Authorities found data-gathering devices in their possession capable of sending sensitive information, such as exact coordinates and topographic details, which could be used for military targeting or drone operations.

They added that Deng and his group were also found surveying other locations such as airports, seaports, power facilities, and shopping malls.

The Chinese embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request from This Week in Asia for comment.

Analysts said Deng’s arrest was unsurprising, with Beijing seeking to exploit Manila’s vulnerabilities as both sides remained embroiled in tensions over the disputed South China Sea.

The development happened just days after Chinese and Philippine diplomats met in Xiamen for the two countries’ 10th bilateral consultation mechanism (BCM) meeting, during which Manila pushed back against what it believed were rising incursions by China’s vessels in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Julio Amador, interim president of the Foundation for the National Interest and a trustee at the non-profit organisation Facts Asia, said the arrests confirmed that China could run covert operations in the Philippines, including “targeting our security infrastructures”.

Amador said Manila should summon Beijing to demand an explanation of the activities of Deng’s group and raise the matter in the next BCM.

Chester Cabalza, president of the Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, said the investigations showed sleeper agents “have faces, which tell us to even be more wary of hybrid warfare in a hyperconnected world”.

“Cyber warriors look like any ordinary people with an extraordinary mission to gather information, scan and send data, and plot future scenarios to weaken our institutions,” he said, adding that the incident would deepen Manila’s doubts about Beijing’s sincerity in establishing a credible BCM.

Sherwin Ona, an international fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taiwan, said malign actors in China were long aware of ways to exploit the vulnerabilities of security and other systems in the Philippines, such as through the now-banned offshore gaming operators (Pogos), which had been suspected of carrying out espionage activities.

“In the past, we were complacent in accepting development assistance and loans [from Beijing], whose onerous terms can also be used to influence local officials. Plus, China knows the country has limited maritime domain awareness and cyber abilities,” Ona said.

The presence of EDCA sites in the Philippines posed a “direct threat to the PRC’s intention in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait”. “Therefore, surveillance of these sites is crucial,” he added.

Analysts believe such espionage cases will continue alongside other China-led cyber and disinformation acts. As such, Cabalza called for a robust national ID system in the Philippines to counter such activities.

Last year, over 1,000 Chinese nationals were found to have acquired fraudulent identity documents in the Philippines, such as birth certificates and national IDs.

“The government should hasten a flawless system and legal remedy to include cyber espionage, severely punishable under our domestic laws,” Cabalza said.

China’s nuclear fusion scientists set record span for plasma 6 times hotter than the sun

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3295609/chinas-nuclear-fusion-scientists-set-record-span-plasma-6-times-hotter-sun?utm_source=rss_feed

Scientists in China on a quest to build a nuclear fusion reactor capable of producing unlimited low-cost energy have achieved a sustained plasma temperature exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million Fahrenheit) for an unprecedented 1,066 seconds – a world record.

The milestone, achieved at the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) facility at the Institute of Plasma Physics in Hefei on Monday, surpassed the previous record duration of 403 seconds set by EAST in April 2023.

The researchers have been conducting their tests on an experimental device for China’s “artificial sun” project, seen as a critical step towards making fusion reactors a reality.

“To achieve self-sustaining plasma and enable fusion power plants to generate electricity continuously, a fusion device must operate highly efficiently in a stable state for thousands of seconds,” said the institute’s director Song Yuntao.

Achieving viable nuclear fusion on Earth will require plasma temperatures hotter than the sun to compensate for our planet’s smaller mass, according to scientists. The temperature at the core of the sun is about 15 million degrees Celsius, according to the mainstream estimate.

Monday’s breakthrough recreated the conditions required for future fusion reactors. “Crossing the threshold of 100 million degrees and 1,000 seconds demonstrated our capability to simulate the operational environment of a future fusion power plant,” Sun told state news agency Xinhua.

Song said the experiment also employed a high-confinement mode – regarded as the primary, high efficiency operational mode for future fusion reactors – which provided valuable insights for ongoing projects like the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

“We hope to expand international collaboration through EAST and bring fusion energy closer to reality,” Song added.

Fusion combines light atomic nuclei into heavier ones, releasing vast amounts of energy in the process. It is the same reaction that powers the sun and other stars, and is one of the most fundamental sources of energy in the universe.

Unlike traditional energy sources, fusion uses abundant raw materials and produces no greenhouse gas emissions, making it one of the most promising solutions to humanity’s energy challenges.

However, replicating the conditions inside the sun remains a monumental challenge. Fusion devices must heat plasma – an intensely hot, electrically charged state of matter – beyond 100 million degrees Celsius and maintain it long enough to trigger fusion reactions.

Tokamaks are at the forefront of fusion technologies scientists are currently working on. The doughnut-shaped devices use powerful magnetic fields to confine and heat plasma to extreme temperatures.

Completed in 2006, EAST is one of the world’s leading platforms for fusion research, with more than 150,000 plasma operations to date. Through a series of tests, the team has gradually extended plasma operation times from 30 to 1,066 seconds.

Operating in high-confinement mode presents formidable challenges, such as sudden collapses in plasma temperatures and densities that can damage a tokamak’s critical components.

Researchers at EAST have addressed some of the issues by optimising heating systems, improving control precision, and refining diagnostics. The advances have allowed scientists to achieve operational stability for more than 17 minutes, team leader Gong Xianzu told Xinhua.

China is also one of seven members of ITER, with the Institute of Plasma Physics contributing to the design and manufacture of major of the reactor’s components, such as superconducting conductors, correction coils, and magnetic feed systems.

Scientists working on China’s own next-generation “artificial sun” project, the Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR), have completed the engineering design phase, and the facility is expected to be operational by 2035, according to Chinese media reports.

Meanwhile, the country’s commercial fusion companies are also gaining momentum. In 2023, Shanghai-based start-up Energy Singularity generated and maintained plasma with its Honghuang-70 device, the world’s first fully high-temperature superconducting tokamak built by a private company.

Chinese yuan surges after Trump goes easy on China in inaugural address

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3295601/chinese-yuan-surges-after-trump-goes-easy-china-inaugural-address?utm_source=rss_feed

The Chinese yuan surged on Monday night after US President Donald Trump struck a softer-than-expected tone on China during his inaugural address, with analysts forecasting the currency would remain “largely stable” in the near future.

The offshore yuan climbed steadily, rising from above 7.31 to below 7.27 against the US dollar. At midday on Tuesday, the offshore yuan was trading at around 7.269 per US dollar.

On Tuesday, the People’s Bank of China set the midpoint rate – also known as the fixing rate – at 7.1703 per US dollar, the strongest level since early November.

Zhang Zhiwei, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, attributed the yuan’s strengthening primarily to Trump’s failure to mention tariff policies against China in his inauguration speech.

“The concern in the market about trade war is pushed off, but it hasn’t disappeared. People are still waiting for more signals coming from the US government on tariff negotiation,” he said.

Looking ahead, Zhang expects the yuan to remain “largely stable”, with slight fluctuations largely driven by movements in the US dollar.

The yuan has remained under pressure in recent weeks as the safe-haven US dollar has strengthened amid expectations that the US Federal Reserve will slow the pace of rate cuts this year.

Rising uncertainty surrounding Trump’s planned trade policies have also dented confidence in the yuan during the run-up to his return to office.

But in his inaugural address on Monday, Trump, while broadly warning about tariffs and the need to protect American workers, did not specifically mention China or outline any punitive measures, as he had frequently done during his campaign.

Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis, noted that Trump still viewed tariffs as a key tool for achieving his policy goals, citing his recent threat to levy tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

“Therefore, it is just a matter of time before there will be actions against China. As such, the dialling back of risk-averse sentiment on the yuan may be short-lived if we begin to see stronger actions from the US,” he said.

Lynn Song, chief Greater China economist at ING Bank, said in a research note on Monday that the yuan had “held up quite well compared to most other currencies” in the face of a strong US dollar, attributing the resilience to “ the People Bank of China’s continued efforts in maintaining currency stability”.

The counter-cyclical factor hit a new record high in January, according to Song, implying the PBOC has strongly resisted any further depreciation of the yuan.

He added that the PBOC was likely to continue defending the yuan in the near term, with the bank likely to maintain a fluctuation range for the yuan against the US dollar between 7.00 and 7.40 this year.

The central bank has recently made frequent signals of its determination to stabilise the currency, with its governor Pan Gongsheng reiterating last week that the PBOC would “resolutely” correct procyclical behaviour and other disruptive moves while striving to prevent the risk of the yuan exchange rate “overshooting”.

On Monday, the PBOC kept the five-year loan prime rate, which commercial banks use as a benchmark for their mortgage rates, at 3.6 per cent. The one-year loan prime rate, the reference rate for corporate loans, also remained unchanged at 3.1 per cent.

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Astronomers hail blacklisted Chinese institute’s contribution to US telescope

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3295532/astronomers-hail-blacklisted-chinese-institutes-contribution-us-telescope?utm_source=rss_feed

As US astronomers cheer the completion of the state-of-the-art project to rejuvenate the iconic Hale Telescope, one key collaborator is locked out of the celebrations and banned from exporting to the United States.

The Next Generation Palomar Spectrograph (NGPS) has given the 76-year-old telescope at the California Institute of Technology’s Palomar Observatory an unmatched ability to capture fainter objects and reveal unprecedented details of the universe.

Mansi Kasliwal at Caltech, the project’s principal investigator, said the NGPS – which splits light, much like a prism, to uncover the age, distance, chemical make-up and other properties of celestial bodies – “blows the old one out of the water”.

“It’s the most efficient of any comparable instrument working at other telescopes,” she said.

The NGPS was jointly developed in a unique partnership of American and Chinese institutions that included Caltech and an institute which designs and manufactures spectrographs, reflecting mirrors and other optical components in eastern China.

The Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics and Technology (NIAOT) shipped the finished spectrograph to the United States in 2023 and not long afterwards was added to the US government’s export blacklist.

According to the Commerce Department at the time, the addition was based on concerns that NIAOT was procuring US items for potential military applications. Questions from the South China Morning Post about the specific items involved were not responded to.

David Zweig, a professor emeritus at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, noted that many technologies can potentially serve both civilian and military purposes. “Almost everything in science can be dual-use,” he said.

A source, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Post that the timing of the NGPS delivery “was lucky enough” to narrowly avoid the blacklisting. The entity list, while focused on export restrictions, also applies to in-country transfers.

The NGPS partnership included the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the National Science Foundation, and the Heising-Simons Foundation on the US side, along with Peking University’s Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, and the National Astronomical Observatories of China.

The US team contributed detectors, electronics and software for the instrument, while China was responsible for developing the instrument’s optics, in exchange for 10 observation nights annually for Chinese astronomers for the first five years of the NGPS.

Shri Kulkarni, a senior Caltech astronomer and one of the project’s initiators, also highlighted the NGPS’ impact. “The telescope can now finish observation in one-third of a night what it used to take a whole night to do, so it’s a big deal,” he said.

Kulkarni praised the collaboration with China, pointing to NIAOT’s engineering expertise and Beijing’s skilled astronomers. “You had engineers in Nanjing who know how to build telescopes and astronomers in Beijing who know how to use them – it’s a nice combination.”

He acknowledged that such partnerships have become nearly impossible because of the high geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing, noting that it is now US government policy to exclude China from many projects, with legal consequences for scientists who do not comply.

“As citizens of this country, we will follow the rules of this country,” Kulkarni said.

Despite the challenges, Kulkarni stressed the global nature of science. “If I use a telescope to find something tonight, no one can say, ‘we reject it because you’re from China’. That’s not how science works,” he said.

Kulkarni, who worked closely with Chinese colleagues for more than a decade, also reflected on China’s rapid progress in astronomy.

“When I was growing up, China and India were probably similar in astronomy. Fifty years later, the trajectories are extremely different. China is making excellent progress in many areas,” he said, adding that it needs to remain open to international collaboration.

“The US has benefited enormously by attracting talent from around the world. China needs to continue engaging globally, because not all the talent will be found at home.”

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‘It’s a win’: Philippines, China uphold South China Sea deal on resupply missions

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3295543/its-win-philippines-china-uphold-south-china-sea-deal-resupply-missions?utm_source=rss_feed

In a rare moment of accord amid their simmering feud over the South China Sea, Beijing and Manila have agreed to maintain a provisional deal allowing the Philippines to resupply a remote outpost at the Second Thomas Shoal – a move hailed as a “win” for Manila, albeit one fraught with uncertainty.

The agreement, reached during the 10th bilateral consultation mechanism (BCM) meeting in Xiamen on Thursday, comes as the Philippines continues to push back against what it calls a rising tide of Chinese incursions in the South China Sea.

The BCM, established as a forum for dialogue, has often been weighed down by the deep mistrust between the two neighbours. But this time, envoys described the talks as “frank and constructive”, according to the Philippines’ foreign affairs department.

Despite the diplomatic veneer, tensions remain high. Just days before the meeting, Manila lodged a fresh protest against the deployment of China’s 165-metre-long (180-yard-long) coastguard vessel 5901 – ominously dubbed “the monster” – which was spotted just 77 nautical miles (142km) off the Philippine coast.

The Philippines condemned the move as a violation of its exclusive economic zone, citing the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and Manila’s recently enacted Maritime Zones Act.

China, for its part, has shown no signs of toning down its presence in contested waters, including Scarborough Shoal, which it has controlled since a 2012 clash with Philippine forces. The shoal – known in the Philippines as Bajo de Masinloc – remains a flashpoint, and was the reason Manila filed an arbitration case against Beijing at The Hague.

Beijing has dismissed the 2016 ruling that invalidated its expansive claim over much of the South China Sea.

Still, the agreement on resupply missions represents a rare moment of compromise. For years, the Second Thomas Shoal has been a symbol of Manila’s defiance, with the rusting BRP Sierra Madre – a World War II-era warship intentionally grounded on the shoal – serving as the Philippines’ foothold.

Chinese coastguard vessels have repeatedly tried to block resupply efforts to the outpost, even resorting to aggressive tactics that led to a Philippine serviceman losing a thumb in a past skirmish.

Thursday’s meeting “shows that the Philippines is able to get [China] to agree to commit. It’s a win,” said Julio Amador, interim president of the Foundation for the National Interest and a trustee at the non-profit organisation Facts Asia. The agreement “commits both states to a status quo”, Amador said.

But he was quick to caution against complacency, saying that Beijing would continue probing for vulnerabilities. He urged Manila to “stop announcing to the world its weakness” and adopt a more strategic approach.

At last week’s meeting, the two sides also reportedly explored areas of cooperation, including ocean meteorology and coastguard collaboration. These proposals built upon a joint coastguard committee formed in 2016 and the “direct communication line” for maritime concerns that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr and China’s Xi Jinping agreed to set up in January 2023.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Theresa Lazaro said the continued implementation of the resupply deal was essential to the “de-escalation of tensions” without compromising national interests. Both sides had “exchanged views” and “acknowledged … positive outcomes”, she said.

“Our position is clear and consistent, but so is our willingness to engage in dialogue,” Lazaro added in a statement.

Beijing and Manila reached a provisional agreement on Philippine resupply missions to the Second Thomas Shoal last year.

Geopolitical analysts remain sceptical of China’s intentions, however. Don McLain Gill, a lecturer in international relations at De La Salle University in Manila, said Beijing had a habit of “throwing its weight around” and warned that Manila must not compromise on its core interests.

“The most important thing is that we hold our ground and we stay consistent,” he said.

National Security Council spokesman Jonathan Malaya recently admitted that the Philippines felt China was “pushing us to the wall” and said Manila may have to file another case against Beijing.

But analysts warn that litigation alone is unlikely to shift the dynamics in the South China Sea, where China’s strategy of incremental encroachment has left its neighbours scrambling for answers.

As the Philippines prepares to host the next BCM later this year, the question remains: can these fragile agreements hold against the tide of escalating tensions?

For now, Manila has secured what some see as a tenuous victory. But in the high-stakes chessboard of the South China Sea, every move counts – and every misstep could tip the balance.

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Malaysians shun Chinese work culture as diverging values make hiring hard

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3295586/malaysians-shun-chinese-work-culture-diverging-values-make-hiring-hard?utm_source=rss_feed

Staffing challenges at Malaysian businesses owe more to clashing expectations between bosses and younger workers than to a wider issue over work ethic, recruitment experts say, as debate over job culture rages following a viral internet rant by an entrepreneur at “difficult” Malay staff.

Malaysians were outraged after a video went viral two weeks ago by a businessman – apparently from China – warning investors against hiring Malay employees due to their unreliability and unwillingness to meet demands such as overtime work.

He complained that Malay staff would go missing “for the entire Friday afternoon” as they perform their religious obligations at the mosque.

Critics on Malaysia’s social media said the tirade was an attempt to justify enforcing China’s infamous breakneck work culture onto Malaysian workers, arguing that work-life balance is more important than earning more money as a wage slave.

“The Malays will try to balance work life & religion as best as they can without forgetting the reason we live on earth. We work to earn & to live NOT live to work,” read a retort by one Ana on Facebook.

But the real issue facing most businesses in Malaysia – regardless of whether they are run by locals or mainland Chinese – is getting younger people into work in the first place, according to industry experts.

“Not only Chinese firms. I believe many Malaysian firms are also facing the same problem,” Fiona Low, president of the Malaysian National Association of Employment Agencies (Pikap), said.

“This is especially so for small and medium enterprises, who are always facing staffing problems.”

Central to the difficulty in hiring and retaining staff are prevailing attitudes towards work among Malaysia’s youths, who Low said are “spoiled” by their parents into having a high sense of entitlement even for menial, albeit important, work.

“You get a different attitude from youngsters. They don’t want to do 3D jobs, but they also want to be comfortable, and they don’t want to be fixed to one place,” Low said, referring to dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs that Malaysia typically farms out to unskilled foreign labour.

Total unemployment in Malaysia edged down to 3.2 per cent in the third quarter of 2024, accounting for about 574,900 people out of the country’s estimated labour force of 17.3 million, statistics department data showed.

But more than half of those out of work were young – aged between 15 and 24 – with the unemployment rate among this category remaining stubbornly high at around 10 per cent since 2018.

The government has said that the situation was partly due to a mismatch in skills training and available jobs.

Employment agents think it also has to do with cultural views on work, especially when it comes to hiring by Chinese firms operating in Malaysia.

One agent who handles Chinese clients who set up shop in the Klang Valley – Malaysia’s centre of commerce and industry – said Chinese companies offer high salaries that are often more than double the rate of local employers.

“The only problem is the high salary means you have no life any more because you have to follow whatever the boss tells you to do,” the agent, who asked not to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media, said.

Cutthroat competition in China’s domestic market has seen criticism surge over a work culture of so-called 996 – which translates to 12 hour shifts from 9am to 9pm, six days a week – in an economy where tens of thousands of companies jostle to outdo each other.

The agent said it may be too much to expect Malaysians to embrace Chinese work culture, especially with more than 60 public holidays set aside by the government every year for Malaysians to enjoy a break.

But they warned that Malaysian workers will need to change tack and find their own ways to boost productivity, or risk getting left behind by the Chinese.

“We in Malaysia have to make some changes. If not, it will be very hard for us to keep up. The Chinese have a lot of money, they are very smart and their business ideas are very good,” the agent said. “They are very competitive. This is a mindset issue for us in Malaysia.”

Kindergarten kids in China who played husband and wife at school tie knot 20 years later

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3294503/kindergarten-kids-china-who-played-husband-and-wife-school-tie-knot-20-years-later?utm_source=rss_feed

A couple in China who got married earlier this month have trended on social media because they performed as husband and wife at a gala show at their kindergarten about 20 years ago.

The man, surnamed Zheng, and his wife, whose name was not revealed, held their wedding ceremony in Chaozhou of Guangdong province, in the south of the country, on January 7, reported Shandong Business News.

What amused internet users was that two decades ago, he and his wife, who attended the same kindergarten as him but in a different grade, posed as newlyweds on stage while at their kindergarten.

In a video clip of the old show, the younger version of the couple wore a dazzling wedding dress and a suit respectively, with both of them wearing heavy makeup.

Meanwhile, several other children danced and performed as bridesmaids and groomsmen and there was a big picture of two hands-holding cartoon figures, a boy and a girl, on stage.

After graduating from kindergarten, the boy and the girl were enrolled by different primary schools.

Thier paths had not crossed until 2022 when the video footage was circulated among Zheng’s kindergarten classmates.

Zheng’s mother, who happened to see the video, proposed to find the girl who posed as her son’s wife in the gig to see if they could date.

Zheng was single and his parents were anxious about his single status. It is not clear how old he is.

With the help of a kindergarten teacher, Zheng got in touch with his future wife who had also remained single.

He said both of them regretted not having met earlier and immediately fell in love.

People on mainland social media have been captivated by the story which was viewed 76 million times on one major platform alone.

“They should give the teacher a red envelope containing a hefty amount of money, haha,” said one online observer.

Another person said: “What magical karma! They are destined to be together.”

“What? Kindergarten holds this kind of game? How interesting it is!” said another person.

Kindergarten activities often fascinate internet users in China.

In 2023, a nursery in eastern Jiangsu province delighted its pupils and cyber space by holding a nuptials for its two pet rabbits.

The children at the kindergarten were invited as guests.

They were filmed enjoying the wedding banquet and were given presents, just like guests at human weddings.

Initial reaction to Trump speech muted in China but space competition could rise

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3295562/initial-reaction-trump-speech-muted-china-space-competition-could-rise?utm_source=rss_feed

While the initial reaction to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech was fairly muted in China, his pledge to plant the American flag on Mars is likely to escalate the space race between the two powers.

In his inaugural address, Trump downplayed his stance on China and other foreign policy issues, preferring to emphasise domestic priorities and his vision of a “golden age” for the US.

He promised to “overhaul” the US trade system to protect American workers and families and gave a general warning about tariffs.

China only got one mention in Trump’s speech – and that was to suggest that Chinese operations in the Panama Canal constituted a degree of ownership of the Central American waterway.

However, experts said that Trump’s commitments to sending astronauts to Mars and to build the world’s most formidable military are likely to perpetuate the ongoing rivalry with China.

“We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars,” Trump said.

“Like in 2017, we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”

Yang Dali, a political-scientist at the University of Chicago, said that the competition in space exploration between the two powers was not necessarily confrontational and also provided an opportunity for China to learn from the US.

With both countries aiming to reach Mars, there is competition, but it is “not necessarily intense or confrontational in nature and it is not the kind of negative competition that we might typically imagine”, Yang said.

China’s domestic media was tepid in its initial reaction to Trump’s speech, while the Beijing leadership remained focused on domestic priorities.

Chinese President Xi Jinping extended festive greetings for the coming Lunar New Year to non-members of the party on Monday afternoon, pledging more “proactive and effective macroeconomic policies”.

He also called for the pursuit of a high level of self-reliance in science and technology and to maintain a sound momentum in socioeconomic development.

In the consultation of a draft government work report on Monday, Premier Li Qiang acknowledged that China still faces many “difficulties and challenges in its development”, particularly with increasing uncertainty and instability in the external environment.

Nevertheless, “China has comprehensive strengths in such areas as institutions, the market, industry and talent, and that its overall trend of long-term economic improvement remains unchanged and will not change,” Li said.

Trump’s inauguration, from TikTok to reactions in China: everything you need to know

https://www.scmp.com/news/us/politics/article/3295569/trumps-inauguration-tiktok-reactions-china-everything-you-need-know?utm_source=rss_feed

We have put together stories from our coverage of Donald Trump’s inauguration to help you stay informed. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider .

On his first day in office, US President Donald Trump followed through on his campaign promise to delay a controversial TikTok divest-or-ban law by signing an executive order, warning that he would impose significant tariffs on China if Beijing failed to approve a deal regarding the app.

US President Donald Trump on Monday began issuing a raft of expected executive orders on immigration, energy and other issues, moving swiftly on some of his campaign pledges mere hours after being sworn in for a second term.

The inauguration of Donald Trump on Monday as the 47th president of the United States represents one of the greatest political comebacks in history as Trump, the only commander in chief with felony convictions, returns to power four years after his supporters stormed the Capitol building in a bid to prevent the peaceful transition of power.

China got only one mention in US President Donald Trump’s inaugural address on Monday, but the comment was threatening – especially to a country much closer to America.

While the initial reaction to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech was fairly muted in China, his pledge to plant the American flag on Mars is likely to escalate the space race between the two powers.

Donald Trump vowed his administration would be “taking back” the Panama Canal on Monday, in his inauguration speech following his swearing in as the country’s 47th president.

[Sport] 'Hell on earth': China deportation looms for Uyghurs held in Thailand

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ye63grvyko

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Hassan Imam

How US-Philippines quiet show of South China Sea strength sent ‘a clear message’

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3295540/how-us-philippines-quiet-show-south-china-sea-strength-sent-clear-message?utm_source=rss_feed

Days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, Washington quietly deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to the disputed South China Sea and staged secretive naval drills with the Philippines.

The timing was deliberate and the message unmistakable, analysts say – it signalled the US’ determination to continue challenging China’s increasingly provocative actions and regional dominance.

Over two days in waters near Palawan, US and Philippine forces held maritime defence exercises, part of a broader series of Maritime Cooperative Activities (MCA) that began in late 2023.

The drills on Friday and Saturday – kept under wraps until their conclusion – featured the USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group alongside Philippine vessels BRP Antonio Luna and BRP Andres Bonifacio. The exercises included tactical manoeuvres and communication drills aimed at bolstering interoperability between the two allies.

“With each exercise, we become increasingly prepared and effective in addressing the challenges ahead,” said General Romeo Brawner Jnr, commander of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, on Sunday.

“This is a result of our shared commitment and mutual effort to safeguard our national interests, and secure a peaceful region.”

US Rear Admiral Michael Wosje echoed this sentiment, describing the US-Philippine alliance as “ironclad” while emphasising the drills’ role in maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific.

But the message wasn’t just for Manila. Analysts say the timing and secrecy of the drills were squarely aimed at Beijing, which has ramped up military activities in the South China Sea in recent months.

China’s deployment of its double carrier battle group and the “monster” – its 165-metre-long (180-yard-long) coastguard vessel – has stoked tensions in contested waters, particularly near Scarborough Shoal, a flashpoint claimed by both Manila and Beijing.

“These exercises send a clear message to China, serving as both a statement of resolve and a deterrent,” said Chris Gardiner, CEO of the Institute for Regional Security in Canberra.

“The US has a defence treaty with the Philippines. The US military should and will be undertaking exercises based on threat assessments, not on domestic politics, and will do so until such time as the new commander in chief adopts new China or Philippines policies,” he told This Week in Asia.

Gardiner dismissed talk of the US drills as “secret”, however, saying they were merely not revealed ahead of time. The exercises should instead be viewed as “an expression of US commitment to and capabilities with the Philippines” and a sign that Washington was ready to act if deterrence failed, he said, noting China’s recent displays of force in the region.

“It is crucial that such posturing does not go unanswered,” Gardiner said, “or else both China and allies may misread US levels of commitment”.

Other analysts argued that Beijing’s aggressive posturing often backfired. “Sending the monster ship is creating more resentment,” said Jose Antonio Custodio, a defence analyst and fellow at the Consortium of Indo-Pacific Researchers. “It’s China creating the conditions [for these responses].”

Custodio noted the irony: while Beijing is increasingly assertive, its military assets, including its conventionally powered carrier groups, still lag behind the US Navy’s ageing but formidable Nimitz-class carriers.

The timing of the drills also indicated that the new Trump administration was likely to continue its policy on freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, Custodio said.

“It won’t change. The actions may become more intense, but they will remain consistent,” he told This Week in Asia. “I would expect the Trump government to do the same policy in the Asia-Pacific region.”

The South China Sea is a critical global trade route, with about a third of the world’s maritime trade – valued at more than US$3 trillion – passing through its waters annually.

Beijing claims nearly the entire waterway, dismissing overlapping claims from neighbours such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia. It also rejects a 2016 international arbitral ruling invalidating its claims, arguing the decision lacks legal merit.

Geopolitical expert Arnaud Leveau, an assistant professor at Paris Dauphine University and researcher at the Asia Centre think tank in France, noted that while Trump was likely to push for stronger financial commitments from partners such as the Philippines, strategic interests and regional security concerns would endure.

“The security partnership between the US and the Philippines is a key component of the US presence in the region,” he said, adding that strengthening alliances will only grow more critical as China’s military capabilities expand.

Yet, the risks of escalation are ever-present. In June 2023, a Chinese warship came within 150 yards (137 metres) of the USS Chung-Hoon in the Taiwan Strait, forcing the US destroyer to alter course to avoid a collision.

Lucio Blanco Pitlo III, president of the Philippine Association of Chinese Studies and a research fellow at Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress, warned that while the latest drills improve US-Philippine readiness, they won’t necessarily de-escalate tensions.

“If something happens, the US and China can test their crisis management hotline,” he said, underscoring the razor’s edge diplomacy at play in the disputed waters.

Chinese consumer sentiment nears ‘tipping point’ after stimulus barrage: UBS

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3295534/chinese-consumer-sentiment-nears-tipping-point-after-stimulus-barrage-ubs?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s consumer sector, long plagued by a property slump that has slowed the economy and dampened sentiment, could be nearing a “tipping point”, as consumers save less and spend more following last September’s stimulus blitz, analysts said.

Household excess savings grew at a slower pace in 2024 and declined in the third quarter, while social retail sales rose 3 to 4 per cent year on year, according to a UBS report published on Monday. The Swiss bank attributed this reversal to the diminishing “scarring effect” of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as supportive government policies.

Domestic brands stand to benefit, and private labels could emerge as this year’s growth driver given their low market penetration. But more importantly, they stand to benefit from a potential reversal of the “downtrading” trend seen last year.

“With the improvements in quality and channel convenience, consumers may not necessarily consider domestic brands and/or private labels as ‘inexpensive substitutes’ to foreign-branded products but increasingly opt for domestic brands and/or private labels with a pragmatic mentality,” UBS said.

A separate survey published by the bank in October found that nearly 50 per cent of respondents “converted” to domestic brands and private labels over the previous 12 months, citing “better value for money”. The shift was notably stronger among consumers in first- and second-tier cities.

Investor expectations for a consumption recovery remain subdued because of the potential for higher US tariffs and continuing pressure on property prices. China’s overall real consumption growth is expected to linger at around 3.8 per cent in 2025-2026, according to the Monday report.

“As we are turning positive towards 2025, we also note that an uptick in consumer intention to spend hasn’t fully translated into meaningful consumption growth yet, likely owing to a lingering bearish wealth effect as property prices continue to trend down [this year], albeit to a lesser degree,” the report said.

In the face of sluggish export and investment growth, Chinese authorities have an even greater incentive to stimulate domestic consumption to achieve a new target for gross domestic product, which is set to be announced during the Two Sessions in March, according to Richard Lin, chief consumer analyst at SPDB International.

However, uncertainty remains over whether the authorities’ stimulus measures will succeed in driving consumption.

“The key lies in whether the stimulus measures will be progressively strengthened,” Lin said. “The policy introduced in September and October has benefited the home-appliance sector, with noticeable retail growth in December, largely driven by the ‘trade-in for new’ programme.”

However, the programme essentially brings forward some of future market demand, he added.

“In other words, consumers who might not have planned to replace their appliances decided to do so because of the policy,” he said. “But once they’ve replaced their appliances, future demand might decline, making this a one-time stimulus.”

Beijing’s US$3.2 trillion question: how much of China’s forex reserves go to Hong Kong?

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3295512/beijings-us32-trillion-question-how-much-chinas-forex-reserves-go-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s central bank chief Pan Gongsheng promised to park more of the country’s US$3.2 trillion foreign exchange reserves in Hong Kong, fanning speculation about how much more Beijing can earmark for the city’s assets.

Beijing has always guarded the details of its forex portfolio reserves as classified information, so the exact amount of reserve funds available for Hong Kong markets remains unknown. Pan, who led the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe) for eight years until November 2023, said Beijing would “significantly” increase the weighting of Hong Kong assets, but did not reveal specifics.

Safe has offered a limited glimpse into the composition of China’s forex reserves in its annual reports since 2018, when it started disclosing the share of US dollar-denominated assets with a four-year lag. In its 2023 report, released in October, Safe disclosed the share of US dollar assets in 2019.

According to the officially disclosed data for the years 2014 to 2019, the share of US dollar assets in China’s foreign exchange reserves hovered between 55 per cent and 59 per cent during the period. In 2019, the share of US dollar assets fell to 55 per cent, while “other currencies” accounted for the rest. Safe did not break down what the other currencies consisted of, but it previously disclosed that China’s non-dollar reserves were made of euro, sterling, yen, won and a small percentage of Hong Kong dollars.

China is likely to keep around half of its portfolio in US dollars to prioritise “safety”. After all, the dollar assets, including US treasuries, remain one of the world’s most liquid and secure asset classes for Beijing.

Safe has been comparing the dollar weighting in China’s foreign exchange reserves to the global average. It said China’s reserves were already “more diversified” than the global level of 61 per cent in 2019, suggesting that the country is in no position to greatly cut its US dollar assets.

Some analysts have examined China’s trade and debt structure to understand its reserve composition. With Hong Kong dollar-denominated foreign debts accounting for 4 per cent of China’s total foreign debt, Hong Kong assets may hold a low single-digit share in China’s reserves.

In the future, China could increase the long-term share of Hong Kong dollars in its reserves to around 12.28 per cent, mirroring the yuan’s weighting in the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket. China’s central bank is a fan of the obscure concept, using it as a benchmark for certain financial decision-making.

It has highlighted the inclusion of yuan in the SDR basket as a big win for China in the global financial landscape, and it has been publishing China’s reserves denominated by SDR for years. There is a good reason to believe that the SDR weighting has a reference value for China’s forex reserve management.

The yuan holds the third-largest share in the SDR basket, after the US dollar’s 43.38 per cent and the euro’s 28.13 per cent. Since China is unlikely to include the yuan in its forex reserves, it could allocate an additional 10 per cent to Hong Kong dollars.

An additional 10 per cent of China’s forex reserves in Hong Kong, equivalent to US$320 billion or HK$2.4 trillion, would be a substantial inflow for the city given its total stock capitalisation of HK$35 trillion.

Beyond the numbers, Beijing’s commitment to using its forex reserves to support Hong Kong underscores its willingness to put its money where its mouth is. The central government is making clear that it will mobilise its vast resources to maintain the city as a vibrant financial hub and bolster investor confidence.

It is also worth noting that Pan made a reference to 1998, when China’s then-premier Zhu Rongji pledged Beijing’s support to help Hong Kong manage the impact of the Asian financial crisis. The allusion made the message clear: Beijing will not hesitate to act decisively if the city is again in need of support.

Donald Trump goes light on China on Day One, except where the Panama Canal is concerned

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China got only one mention in US President Donald Trump’s inaugural address on Monday, but the comment was threatening – especially to a country much closer to America.

Suggesting that China’s operations in the Panama Canal constituted a degree of ownership of the Central American waterway, Trump asserted that Panama – the country it runs through – violated the treaty that transferred the canal to it.

In his address, Trump also warned generally of tariffs and the need to protect American workers, a line of attack that usually involves China. But he did so without mentioning the country or any specifics on punitive levies as he had often done during his election campaign.

Trump’s ambition for the US to regain control of the Panama Canal is an idea he has repeatedly turned to after winning re-election in November.

Panama had violated “the purpose of our deal and the spirit” of the treaty that gave title to the canal and American ships are being “severely overcharged”, he said on Monday – adding that China is the one profiting the most there.

“And we didn’t give it to China; we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”

The US completed building the canal, a cut-through linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, in 1914 and controlled it until 1999, when it was transferred to Panama – the last stage of a 1977 treaty signed by then-President Jimmy Carter declaring it a permanently neutral international waterway.

Under the treaty, both nations pledged to defend the canal’s neutral status and keep it open to ships of all nations. The treaty grants the US the right to help maintain and protect the waterway’s accessibility and security.

Trump’s team claims that Panama violated this part of the agreement by allowing Chinese vessels to operate there.

Chinese involvement began in 2016 when the state-owned Cosco sent its first ship through the expanded canal. That same year, China’s Landbridge Group bought Panama’s largest Atlantic port on Margarita Island for US$900 million.

Chinese companies expanded their presence in 2018 when China Harbour Engineering Company and China Communications Construction Company won a US$1.4 billion contract to build the canal’s fourth bridge.

Today, about 70 per cent of ships that use the canal are linked to US trade. Trump has proposed buying the waterway outright or forcibly taking control of it, claiming it would strengthen US security.

House Republicans have introduced legislation that would authorise Trump to purchase the canal, citing concerns about Chinese influence in Panama.

During Marco Rubio’s confirmation hearing for secretary of state last week, he said “an argument could be made that the terms under which that canal was turned over have been violated”.

“While technically sovereignty over the canal has not been turned over to a foreign power, in reality, a foreign power possesses it through their companies,” Rubio said. “If [China] orders a company to shut it down or impede our transit, they will have to do so.”

Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino criticised Trump’s Inaugural Day remarks on X, emphasising that the “canal is and will continue to be Panamanian” and denied that any “nation in the world interferes in our administration”, responding to Trump’s allegations about Chinese influence.

Mulino noted that the transfer of the canal’s control to Panama resulted from “generational struggles that culminated in 1999”, adding that his country had since worked to operate and modernise the canal “to serve the world and commerce, including the United States”.

On potential legal action, Mulino said he would utilise “the strength of international law, which gives us a proper way to manage relations between countries and, above all, between allied and friendly countries”.

Concerning tariffs – an issue that Trump raised constantly during his campaign – he vowed on Monday to impose tariffs and taxes on “foreign countries to enrich our citizens” and, without giving details, said he would “immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families”.

Trump was not expected to announce new tariffs immediately, multiple news organisations reported; instead, they said, he would issue a broad memorandum directing federal agencies to assess unfair trade practices and currency policies – a first step for any future tariffs.

Citing people briefed on the plans, The Wall Street Journal reported that federal agencies are also directed to evaluate US trade deals with its partners. Those include the “phase one” deal Trump signed with Beijing in 2020 as well as the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, his restructuring of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The memo also calls for studies on counterfeit goods and the de minimis exemption for US imports with a value of US$800 or less. Nearly half of all de minimis shipments come from in China, according to a Congressional report.

During his campaign, Trump repeatedly floated the idea of raising tariffs, including an additional 60 per cent or more on Chinese goods, and a 25 per cent tariff on all products imported from Mexico and Canada.

There has also been speculation that Trump would invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which grants the president the power to impose duties and restrict exports, in response to threats to national security, foreign policy or the economy.

Bloomberg reported last week, citing people familiar with the matter, that Trump’s team is considering a schedule of graduated tariffs increasing by about 2 per cent to 5 per cent a month.

Founder of Chinese developer Zhenro faces action on ‘suspected illegal activities’

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3295539/founder-chinese-developer-zhenro-faces-action-suspected-illegal-activities?utm_source=rss_feed

The founder of Shanghai-based developer Zhenro Properties Group has been placed under legal compulsory measures, as the debt-laden home builders continue to struggle through the country’s long-running property-market crisis.

Zhenro’s actual controller, Ou Zongrong, is facing legal compulsory actions “due to suspected illegal activities”, the developer’s holding company said on Monday. It noted that “Ou does not currently hold any positions such as director, supervisor or senior executive at the company”.

The announcement came just days after Ou Guowei, the son of Ou Zongrong, tendered his resignation as the developer’s non-executive director and member of the audit committee. Before that, on January 2, the developer said a restructuring support agreement had expired when its final deadline passed on December 31.

The company defaulted in 2022, a little over a year after Chinese authorities implemented a nationwide deleveraging campaign to rein in debt in the country’s property sector. As of end June 2024, Zhenro had total liabilities of 123.4 billion yuan (US$16.9 billion), according to its interim report.

China Vanke, another cash-strapped developer backed by the Shenzhen government, saw its CEO detained by the police last Thursday, according to state media reports. The developer faces US$4.9 billion in onshore and offshore bonds that are maturing or facing redemption options this year, and the Shenzhen government is in talks to stabilise its operations, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

Other Chinese developers are also confronting challenges, with Sunac, Shimao and Country Garden among the builders facing new liquidation petitions and court hearings in January. Country Garden’s liquidation petition hearing was adjourned to May 26 on Monday in Hong Kong after the developer unveiled a proposal earlier this month to restructure as much as US$11.6 billion in liabilities.

Zhenro’s total contracted sales stood at 739 million yuan last December, down 18 per cent year on year. Its total sales for the full year fell 56.4 per cent year on year to 6.7 billion yuan.

Chinese authorities have introduced a series of measures over the past year to support the slumping property sector. These include allocating funds for state-owned firms to acquire surplus housing stock and reducing mortgage rates and down payment requirements to encourage home purchases. As a result, home prices in China’s largest cities have stabilised, with prices across 70 major cities recording their smallest decline in 18 months in December.