• For some China retailers, US still offers path to profit, one toy or tea order at a time
• New rules to set boundaries for China’s top decision-making bodies
• Why China sees US trade deals with partners as a threat – and how it could react
• Canada is playing a ‘risky’ game with tough moves against US and China: analysts
• China-Ghana row over gold, how to claim tax refunds as a tourist: SCMP daily highlights
• Will Trump visit China for WWII Victory Day? ‘Cautious optimism’ as speculation swirls
• Chinese chipmaker Sophgo adapts compute card for DeepSeek in Beijing’s self-reliance push
• US, Japan put Philippine railway project back on track after China plans fall through
• China’s first 3-on-3 autonomous AI robot football match kicks off
• Chinese artist dedicates 2 months to crafting giant Buddha Ultraman, sparks official probe
• Billions misused in China 2024 stimulus, from flood controls to gym equipment, audit finds
• China steps up deep-sea science role with UN-backed oceans exploration project
• Why India’s real estate surge doesn’t make it a substitute for China
• China’s Communist Party: 100 million strong and growing
• China teen boy forced to do 1,000 deep squats at delinquent centre gets kidney failure
• Ghana at loggerheads with China over rampant illegal gold mining
• First batch of tickets for Hongkongers to see Chinese aircraft carrier gone in 45 seconds
• Can China’s partial lifting of Japanese seafood ban aid a post-Fukushima reset?
• China’s US trade deal warning, Japanese princess flies economy: 5 weekend reads you missed
• ‘Determined’ China thief steals 8 cars during travels to avoid cost of air ticket home
• History tells us US-China ties will survive current rupture: Neysun Mahboubi

For some China retailers, US still offers path to profit, one toy or tea order at a time

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3316434/some-china-retailers-us-still-offers-path-profit-one-toy-or-tea-order-time?utm_source=rss_feed

On a recent Sunday afternoon in lower Manhattan, a small shop inside the Oculus, a soaring curvilinear mall at the World Trade Center, stands out for the bustling crowd thronging its space.

“We’re out of stock,” more than one employee can be heard telling customers.

This is not one of New York’s many top-brand boutiques but Pop Mart, a Chinese designer toy brand that has become a sensation in the United States.

Its signature “blind box”, containing collectable figurines revealed only when the box is opened, runs for a mere US$20.

In a sign of the buzz around Pop Mart, Xie Feng, Beijing’s ambassador to Washington, recently cited one of its offerings, Labubu, as an example of a Chinese brand touching American consumers’ hearts.

During remarks at a US-China Business Council event in Washington in June, Xie mentioned the toy in the same breath as DeepSeek, the Chinese AI firm that took its burgeoning industry by surprise earlier this year.

Pop Mart is not the only Chinese offline consumer brand making waves in New York. Miniso, another retail and lifestyle brand, has opened four Manhattan stores.

HeyTea, one of China’s leading tea chains, is also flourishing, drawing a steady stream of customers to its 15 locations across America’s most populous city.

These brands and more are placing big bets on the American market despite Sino-US tensions that have driven down Chinese investment that surged before Washington’s regulators and policymakers began scrutinising and blocking it.

Motivated by long-held ambitions of global expansion and headwinds at home, many of these brands see the US as the ultimate prize, surpassing other commercial hotspots like Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East, according to observers.

“Some leading companies have chosen to advance into Southeast Asia first, while others have chosen to go to the United States first. But in terms of market size and growth potential, they will almost all ultimately focus on the US market,” said Ivan Liu of WeFood, a New York-based consulting firm focused on China F&B expansion.

For instance, Haidilao, one of China’s largest hotpot chains, signalled it would focus on expanding with the US market providing the “biggest potential”, Bloomberg reported last year.

Pop Mart is charting a similar trajectory. The toy company first gained international traction and most of its overseas revenue in Southeast Asia. Multiple times this year, its billionaire CEO, Wang Ning, has called North America an important market.

HeyTea now operates more stores in New York City than in any other city outside China. Chagee, a rival to HeyTea in China, recently opened its first store in Los Angeles.

Luckin Coffee, China’s competitor to Starbucks, just opened its first two stores in New York. And fast-fashion brand Urban Revivo has launched a flagship store in the city’s trendy SoHo neighbourhood.

“When you ask what kind of advantages the US market holds … it’s [market] size,” said Jiang Yaling of Aperture China, a consultancy in consumer and lifestyle goods.

“For us as Chinese brands from a big country ourselves … we tend to correlate ourselves to other big markets,” Jiang added.

“That is something that smaller countries in Southeast Asia and Europe don’t necessarily have.”

America’s appeal is clear. Post-coronavirus pandemic, the US is arguably the fastest recovering retail market in the world, a title many once expected China to claim.

According to Capital One, a bank, US bricks-and-mortar retail sales last year increased to US$5.93 trillion, despite inflation risks largely easing, accounting for nearly 25 per cent of the global figure, citing US Census Bureau numbers.

It suggested that, in 2030, stateside retail sales would climb to US$6.61 trillion.

China’s weak consumption power is another reason brands have sought greener pastures. The country’s consumer price index has hovered near zero since 2023, heightening concerns about a potential deflationary future.

Its consumer outlook in 2025 remains sluggish, with food and beverage, automobiles and clothing being the hardest-hit sectors, according to a report by S&P Global Ratings.

“The US market has a huge consumer base and strong growth potential,” said Lu Chaoyang of Fish With You, a Chinese F&B brand with more than 2,500 stores.

Lu’s company chose the US as its first overseas expansion destination, running stores in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

“With fierce domestic price competition in China, expanding overseas has become a path to profitability,” said Gary Ng of Natixis, an investment banking company.

Robust performances by leading Chinese retail brands in recent years have proved that the American consumer is worth targeting.

In 2024, for instance, Haidilao’s North America stores recorded the highest per-capita spending across its global operations. Although they accounted for merely 16 per cent of overseas stores, they generated 21.2 per cent of the company’s overseas revenue.

Pop Mart’s revenue from the Americas in the first quarter of 2025 skyrocketed by an astonishing 895 to 900 per cent year-on-year, with its growth rate outpacing that of its overseas Asia-Pacific market.

Miniso posted its own breakthrough: in the first quarter of 2025, its North American revenues surpassed those of all of its Asian markets combined, excluding China.

“The mainstream American population is not as keen on saving money as the Chinese are,” said Liu of WeFood. “They place greater emphasis on enjoying life and prefer to eat and drink out.”

“Although the current domestic and international situation is quite complex … we believe that these fluctuations will not have a fundamental impact on the American food and drink market,” she added.

Yet the other reality in America is that hostility towards Chinese companies has risen, coupled with Chinese investors’ greater reluctance in the market, often because of economic and geopolitical uncertainty.

Indeed, US investor sentiment regarding China has declined sharply.

According to a survey in May by the China General Chamber of Commerce-USA, nearly half of the more than 100 Chinese companies that responded said they planned to reduce their investment in America.

Chinese direct investment in the country stood at US$28 billion in 2023, down 6.2 per cent year-on-year, according to the latest data from the US State Department’s diplomatic missions in China.

Against that backdrop, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February restricting Chinese investment in technology, critical infrastructure, healthcare, agriculture, energy, raw materials and other strategic sectors.

In addition, throughout America, Chinese-backed manufacturing ventures have been shelved, delayed or scaled back.

Gotion, a Chinese EV battery maker, saw its US$2.6 billion project in Michigan stall.

Similarly, Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd, or CATL, the world’s largest manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries now only licenses its technology at a Michigan plant after facing a Pentagon blacklist in January.

The experience of China’s DJI, the world’s dominant drone maker, is revealing. The company has maintained a heavy retail presence in the US.

But it was put on several US government blacklists such that it could effectively face a mass ban in America.

Another corporate giant, BYD, the world’s largest maker of electric vehicles, has also been turned away from the US market through high tariffs, EV tax credit exclusions and restrictions on connected vehicles.

Even China’s online shopping stalwarts, Shein and Temu, have encountered more difficulty, largely due to US tariffs, with congressional and House committees accusing them of evading forced-labour reviews.

On balance, Chinese retail companies that have expanded offline without relying intensely on technology seem to face fewer business hazards in the US, said Xu Tianchen of the Economist Intelligence Unit.

“These investments won’t be a problem in the foreseeable future. They are too innocuous to pose a national security threat,” Xu explained.

“Nowhere in the US do you see these stores as prevalent as McDonald’s and Chipotle, so they are unlikely to catch politicians’ attention.”

For retail companies, especially those in F&B, supply chains and localising a brand’s culture and management loom as significant hurdles, said Li Yu, the co-founder of MenuSifu, a North American software solution company for the F&B industry.

“Top brands’ supply chains remain a critical issue. Most are seeking to reduce their reliance on international supply networks,” he added.

Li noted many Chinese brands were now eager to work with domestic supply chain firms that were likewise expanding abroad to be closer to overseas clients.

Challenges aside, many companies are drawn to the US market because of the country’s global brand power, according to Jiang of Aperture China.

“When consumer brands look at which overseas markets they’re going to explore … [they look at] whether it will be ideal for brand building,” Jiang said.

The leading Chinese consumer companies are advancing their American ambitions by stepping beyond traditional Chinatowns and into the centres of major shopping districts.

The decision appears to be timely, coinciding with more favourable views of China held by a notable portion of America’s younger generation.

According to Pew Research, in 2025, only 19 per cent of Americans aged 18 to 29 would call China an enemy. For those above age 65, the number is 47 per cent, and for those aged 50 to 64, it is 40 per cent.

The survey was conducted after a wave of American users flocked to RedNote, a Chinese social media app, amid a threatened US ban of TikTok, whose parent company is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese tech firm.

Nick a 33-year-old from New York who declined to share his surname, described public perceptions of Chinese brands as “not as bad as they once were”.

“People are starting to understand that China has been wrongly stigmatised [for] being cheap quality, and that’s slowly changing with people seeing how many brands in the US … get supplies from China,” he said.

That said, Nick identified product quality rather than a brand’s Chinese affiliation as the determining factor for his consumer choices.

Kevin Li, a 24-year-old New Yorker, echoed that assessment. “I want to visit these Chinese shops like HeyTea and others that focus on quality ingredients and are known for fun flavours,” he said.

Nevertheless, Jiang of Aperture China cautioned Chinese brands against expressing their identity as many Americans remain watchful of Chinese-made products.

Chinese brand Anker, a global leader in power banks and charging accessories, garnered attention after Trump was seen using one of its products last year, igniting a debate on his support for American manufacturing.

Meanwhile, offline retail brands are still too small to shift the overall dip in Chinese investment in the US.

“The scale is nowhere near those in the capital-intensive manufacturing and property sectors,” said Xu of the Economist Intelligence Unit. “They won’t help much in changing the broader direction of travel of US-China ties.

“But their success shows good things are borderless, and geopolitics can’t stop everything.”

New rules to set boundaries for China’s top decision-making bodies

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3316414/new-rules-set-boundaries-chinas-top-decision-making-bodies?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s Communist Party is preparing to set in regulatory stone the boundaries of various commissions and groups under its top decision-making Central Committee, with new rules clarifying their often nebulous responsibilities.

The rules were reviewed by the party’s top echelon, the 24-member Politburo, on Monday in a meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping, state news agency Xinhua reported.

The report did not spell out the regulations but did say they were meant to standardise the policy coordination and review process at the top.

The rules were also designed to ensure these bodies coordinated with other bureaucratic departments without overstepping their authority.

“[The rules] are of great significance for giving full play to the top-level design, overall coordination, overall promotion and supervision of the implementation of major work,” the report said.

The regulations largely apply to the various “central commissions” and “party leading groups” that have been established during Xi’s tenure under the Central Committee, a party inner circle with about 300 members.

These groups oversee policy in a particular area such as finance or Taiwan affairs, and have to coordinate input from various branches of government.

For instance, a “party leading group” on Hong Kong and Macau affairs was set up in 2020, comprising senior officials in charge of the two cities, security, foreign affairs and regional officials from Guangdong province.

A typical commission will convene periodically and include personnel from a range of levels, up to state leaders and down to ministerial officials.

They will define the broad policy direction, with state and party organs of various levels left to determine how to put those guidelines into practice.

But the limits of the groups’ reach are not always clear – an absence that the rules are meant to remedy.

The Xinhua report said the groups should focus on “planning, discussing and checking on major matters”, to have more effective leadership and coordination over implementation of “major works”.

It also ordered the groups to conduct “in-depth investigations and studies” so as to improve the quality and efficiency of decision-making and deliberation, and put forward “practical and effective” policy recommendations.

The decision comes at a critical time, with China facing intense headwinds domestically and internationally.

In addition to sluggish economic growth and a shrinking population, the country is grappling with a trade war with the United States and geopolitical pressure from the US’ allies, making policy coordination a priority.

It is also finalising its five-year plan for 2026-2030.

The new rules build on the broad regulations approved in September 2020 covering the operations of the party’s Central Committee, the Politburo and the Politburo Standing Committee.

Xie Maosong, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Strategic Studies at Tsinghua University, said the new rules would “complement” those endorsed five years ago.

“The 2020 rules chart the work of the upper political structures of the Central Committee, the Politburo and its Standing Committee. But there is a need to chart the work of the many commissions and leading groups working under them,” Xie said.

“It is very important to clarify their roles, which organs are decision makers, which are coordinators, which are advisers, etc.

“Also, how shall decision makers make decisions? How shall coordinators coordinate? How shall the advisers advise? All these questions need to be clarified for better efficiency and accountability in policy formulation and implementation.”

Meanwhile, there was no word from Monday’s Politburo meeting on a date for this year’s Central Committee plenum, which is expected to lay out a framework for the next five-year plan, its 15th.

Xi announced at the end of May that the party’s central leadership was “organising the drafting of a proposal for the 15th five-year plan”. The Politburo also announced the start of a one-month online public consultation on the formulation of the plan.

Why China sees US trade deals with partners as a threat – and how it could react

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3316406/why-china-sees-us-trade-deals-partners-threat-and-how-it-could-react?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing has renewed its warning to other countries not to strike deals with the United States on terms that come at China’s expense – ahead of Washington’s looming deadline to conclude tariff negotiations with most of its trade partners.

Chinese officials are concerned that nations from Europe to Southeast Asia may enter into trade agreements with the US that divert supply chains, reduce bilateral trade with China or compel governments to exit Beijing-led projects, analysts said on Monday.

“The first important one is not to shift the supply chain,” said Liang Yan, professor of economics at Willamette University. “There’s a possibility that other countries would disengage from China.”

Issued over the weekend, Beijing’s latest warning echoed a similar statement in April. It came after US President Donald Trump hinted at lower tariffs or extended waivers for countries that negotiate in “good faith” – raising concerns in China, especially as many third countries maintain close ties with Washington, analysts said.

On April 2, the Trump administration imposed sweeping global tariffs – dubbing it “Liberation Day” – only to suspend most of the duties for 90 days to allow for talks.

Beijing and Washington have reached a trade deal, after tit-for-tat tariffs escalated to above 100 per cent on both sides, but the negotiation window for most countries closes on July 9 – though few details have emerged so far.

Beijing may see the talks as part of a broader US strategy to pressure other countries to impose duties on Chinese goods to secure better trade terms from Washington, said Andy Xie, an independent Chinese economist based in Shanghai.

In April, The Wall Street Journal reported that the US planned to pressure more than 70 countries to reduce trade ties with China.

Over the weekend, a Japanese government minister spoke twice with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about a pact that could expand trade, non-tariff measures and cooperation in “economic security”, Tokyo-based broadcaster NHK reported.

China is closely monitoring those talks over concerns that Japan could secure a deal for lower tariffs on US-bound cars in exchange for higher duties on Chinese electric vehicles, Xie said.

Beijing is also paying close attention to other US partners including the European Union, India, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand.

The fear is that other countries could follow Panama’s lead, Liang said. In February, the Central American nation announced it would quit the 12-year-old Belt and Road Initiative – a decision made shortly after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the country to voice concerns about China’s role in the Panama Canal.

Liang warned that Washington may be encouraging third countries to shift imports away from China and limit the transshipment of critical minerals to the US.

If countries comply, Beijing may retaliate by restricting crucial exports to those trade partners, Xie said. This could include raw materials, equipment or even food products from countries like Japan.

Chinese authorities could also increase scrutiny of non-US imports, Liang said – for instance, by stepping up inspections on Vietnamese durians.

Still, analysts said Beijing’s ability to retaliate is constrained, and that many countries would prefer to maintain strong trade ties with China.

“I think it’s just more of a reminder from the Chinese,” said Song Seng Wun, an economic adviser at the Singapore-based financial services firm CGS.

Vietnam, for example, relies heavily on China for factory investments and imports, said Adam McCarty, chief economist with Mekong Economics in Hanoi. “The Vietnamese haven’t, I hope, been limiting China imports... That would be prodding the dragon.”

Asian economies that trade with both China and the US would likely strike a careful balance, Song said. “It doesn’t make sense for them to throw their hat entirely in with American interests.”

Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh last week pledged to maintain a “good balance” between the US and China.

Even if trade volume fell, China would likely find it difficult to determine whether reduced activity is directly linked to US negotiations, Liang said. Persian Gulf countries may have suddenly invested more in the US and less in China, for example, following Trump’s visit to the Middle East in May.

“I think it’s hard for them to pinpoint why countries move or reposition their investments in China.”

Canada is playing a ‘risky’ game with tough moves against US and China: analysts

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3316372/canada-playing-risky-game-tough-moves-against-us-and-china-analysts?utm_source=rss_feed

The Canadian government appears to be caught between “a rock and a hard place” after trying to introduce tough measures targeting both American and Chinese companies last week, analysts said.

Ottawa raised eyebrows by ordering a high-profile Chinese company to cease operations in the country due to national security concerns on Friday – the same day that US President Donald Trump announced he was breaking off trade negotiations with Canada over its proposed digital services tax.

But Canada has already had to abandon the tax policy to get relations with Washington back on track, and its problems could be exacerbated if Beijing chooses to take action over the national security ban, underlining the difficulties Ottawa faces as it tries to manage relations with the two powers amid a global trade war.

“It’s always a risky choice to mess up relations with your biggest trade partners – Canada did with two,” said Xu Tianchen, senior China economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “If the US and China decide to play hardball with Canada, then it will be in trouble.”

Trump said he was terminating all trade talks with America’s northern neighbour on Friday, describing Canada as “a very difficult country to trade with” and blaming the breakdown on Canada’s digital services tax, which would impact American technology giants.

Just two days later, the Canadian government announced it had rescinded the digital services tax – which was due to go into effect on Monday – and that discussions with Washington had resumed over a potential trade deal.

Given the tense state of relations with America, analysts found Canada’s decision simultaneously to launch a move against a major Chinese company all the more surprising.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had previously said negotiations with China were “a top priority” for his new government, with Ottawa keen to increase exports to the world’s second-largest economy to offset the impact of fresh US tariffs targeting the steel, aluminium and automotive industries.

The US is Canada’s largest trading partner, while China is its second largest, figures from Statistics Canada showed.

But late on Friday, the Canadian government said it had ordered the Chinese surveillance camera maker Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology to cease operations in the country on national security grounds.

Hikvision, which had been operating in Canada for a decade, told Chinese media via an unnamed spokesman that Ottawa’s decision “ignores facts, seriously lacks procedural fairness and transparency, and is discriminatory and oppressive towards Chinese enterprises”.

China’s Ministry of Commerce said it was “strongly dissatisfied” and “resolutely opposed” to Canada’s move to halt Hikvision’s operations.

“It’s classic pan-national security behaviour,” a ministry spokesperson said. “It will affect the legitimate rights of Chinese companies, and the confidence of cooperation between companies of both countries, and it will damage the relationship of normal trade and investment between both countries.”

China will take actions to implement related measures to defend the legitimate rights of Chinese companies, the spokesperson said.

Canada is not the first country to flag Hikvision as a security risk. In 2022, US authorities imposed a ban on approvals of new video surveillance and telecommunications equipment produced by the Chinese manufacturer.

However, Xu said the timing of Canada’s ban sent a “quite confusing” message, as Ottawa could not fix ties with China and openly punish Chinese companies at the same time.

Stephen Olson, a visiting senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and a former US trade negotiator, said the decision to shut down Hikvision would “undoubtedly rankle in Beijing, and China can certainly make life more difficult for Canada if it so chooses”.

Though Ottawa and Washington share many of the same strategic and security concerns regarding China, there are also ample reasons for Canada to put its trading relationship with China on a more stable footing, according to Olson.

As a gesture of warming relations, Carney spoke with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on June 5, with an official statement released by the Canadian side noting that the leaders exchanged views on bilateral relations.

Meanwhile, Canada is still trying to secure a trade agreement with the US. After rescinding the digital services tax on Sunday, Canadian finance minister François-Philippe Champagne announced that Ottawa and Washington “will resume negotiations with a view towards agreeing on a deal by July 21”.

“Trump seems convinced that he has ‘all the cards’ when it comes to the trade relationship with Canada, and he is therefore inclined to squeeze very hard,” Olson said.

China-Ghana row over gold, how to claim tax refunds as a tourist: SCMP daily highlights

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3316377/china-ghana-row-over-gold-how-claim-tax-refunds-tourist-scmp-daily-highlights?utm_source=rss_feed

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

The leading academic finds grounds for “moderate optimism” after leading a group of American students on a 10-day tour of China.

Factory activity in China edged upwards in June but stayed in contractionary territory for a third straight month, as the country battles soft demand and the effects of a trade war with the United States.

After Chinese scientists pinpoint causes of EV motion sickness, Japanese researchers say a simple sound therapy may be the answer.

China and Ghana, Africa’s largest gold producer, are embroiled in a diplomatic row over the rampant problem of illegal gold mining, known as “galamsey”.

China has partially lifted its two-year ban on Japanese seafood imports in the latest step by Beijing to remove a diplomatic roadblock that has strained ties between the two neighbours.

China is making it easier for tourists to claim value-added tax refunds on purchases made during their trips - here’s how it works.

A China-led international deep-sea cooperative exploration project has won United Nations approval, paving the way for Beijing’s increased participation in global science and technology governance.

Will Trump visit China for WWII Victory Day? ‘Cautious optimism’ as speculation swirls

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316423/will-trump-visit-china-wwii-victory-day-cautious-optimism-speculation-swirls?utm_source=rss_feed

Speculation that US President Donald Trump may visit Beijing in September has sparked “cautious optimism” among some Chinese analysts about a possible diplomatic breakthrough as trade ties between the rival powers teeter on the edge of a fragile truce.

A Kyodo report on Sunday citing unnamed sources said that China was planning to invite Trump to its Victory Parade in Tiananmen Square on September 3, marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.

When asked to comment on the report on Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said she did not have “any information to provide” on the matter.

Last week, Beijing announced that it would hold a military parade to celebrate China’s victory in what it calls “the war of resistance against Japanese aggression”.

Some three weeks earlier, after a long-awaited phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping as trade tensions spiralled, Trump said that a trip to China may happen “at a certain point”.

The call on June 5 was the first official talks between the two leaders since Trump relaunched the US trade war in February. Following the call, Trump confirmed that Xi had invited him and the first lady to visit China, and that he had extended a reciprocal invitation.

The Chinese readout of the call also said Xi “welcomed President Trump to visit China again”, but made no mention of the US invitation.

Shen Dingli, a professor of international affairs in Shanghai, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the possibility of Trump visiting in September.

“There were no reciprocal visits during [Trump’s predecessor Joe] Biden’s four years, and there’s no reason [for things] to continue that way,” he said. “During World War II, China and the US were allies. So it’s only appropriate to invite a wartime ally to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory over Japanese invasion.”

Mutual visits should be the norm, regardless of whether ties are good or strained, Shen emphasised, recalling Xi’s remarks when he met Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2017: “There are a thousand reasons to make China-US relations a success, but not a single reason to break it.”

“The more difficult the relationship, the more vital such visits become,” Shen said. “A visit isn’t about concession or surrender; it’s about creating conditions for dialogue. Even if talks don’t bring immediate results, the real danger lies in not talking at all. It’s not the visits that carry risk, but the absence of them.”

A source familiar with the matter told the South China Morning Post that Trump hoped to visit China within this year, with a key objective being to seek Beijing’s support in reviving denuclearisation talks with North Korea.

Trump has repeatedly said that he “always had a great relationship” with Xi and has on several occasions floated the idea of reciprocal state visits.

According to a Nikkei Asia report on Saturday, US officials are also preparing for a potential Trump visit to China later this year, with his delegation expected to include dozens of business leaders for talks focused on trade and economic cooperation.

The Kremlin confirmed earlier this month that Russian President Vladimir Putin would attend China’s Victory Day parade.

Xi’s potential hosting of both Trump and Putin could elevate Beijing’s leadership profile in a multipolar world. However, former Chinese diplomat Wang Yiwei said that the presence of the Russian leader could complicate matters for Trump.

Trump – who has often spoken of his “great relationship” with Putin – was invited by the Russian leader to attend the May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow but declined, presumably under pressure from US allies critical of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Xi was by Putin’s side at the event, and his presence underscored the growing alignment between China and Russia.

Wang, whose diplomatic postings included serving at the European Union mission between 2008 and 2011, said the likelihood of Trump attending the parade was low.

“China and the US were allies during World War II – that’s beyond question,” he said. “But with Putin attending, the chances of other Western leaders taking part have dropped significantly.”

Wang, now director of the Institute of International Affairs at Beijing’s Renmin University, added that while Trump personally might not object to standing alongside Putin, “considering the position of the US and its allies, realistically, it’s very unlikely he will come”.

Sunday’s Kyodo report also said Washington had proposed that Xi visit the US in September, timed with the 80th UN General Assembly in New York from September 9 to September 23.

But Wang said it was unlikely that Xi would attend the New York session, given the event’s limited substance and the fact that it had been “already decided” that Premier Li Qiang would attend.

The South China Morning Post reported earlier this month citing diplomatic sources that Xi would not travel to New York for the event and Li would represent China instead.

“Xi doesn’t attend purely symbolic events,” Wang said. “The UN hasn’t played a meaningful role on issues like Gaza, Ukraine, or Iran. Without something significant to present, it makes more sense for Premier Li to represent China instead.”

Wang said more realistic scenarios were a state visit by Trump ahead of November’s Apec summit in South Korea, and a reciprocal visit by Xi next year.

Notably, the 2023 Xi-Biden summit in California which led to a major thaw in ties took place on the sidelines of the Apec summit held in San Francisco that year.

Trump is expected to host the Group of 20 summit ahead of celebrations for America’s 250th independence anniversary on July 4 next year and this could pave the way for Xi’s state visit, Wang said.

Diao Daming, a professor of international relations at Renmin University, noted how China’s warm welcome of Trump’s potential state visit during the leaders’ call had sparked global speculation on when that might happen.

But based on available information, the exact timing remained difficult to determine, Diao said. “As long as bilateral relations remain fundamentally stable, and the atmosphere and conditions are suitable for engagement between the two leaders, state-level diplomacy can take place at a mutually acceptable time and place,” he added.

Diao noted that in the 46 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1979, the Chinese and American heads of state had had 136 interactions, including visits, calls and meetings in third countries.

Such diplomacy had a “uniquely positive and lasting impact” on the trajectory of bilateral relations, he said, adding that the earlier the two leaders meet, the sooner US-China relations will stabilise.

Chinese chipmaker Sophgo adapts compute card for DeepSeek in Beijing’s self-reliance push

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3316363/chinese-chipmaker-sophgo-adapts-compute-card-deepseek-beijings-self-reliance-push?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese chipmaker Sophgo has adapted its compute card to power DeepSeek’s reasoning model, underscoring growing efforts by local firms to develop home-grown artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and reduce dependence on foreign chips amid tightening US export controls.

Sophgo’s SC11 FP300 compute card successfully passed verification, showing stable and effective performance in executing the reasoning tasks of DeepSeek’s R1 model in tests conducted by the China Telecommunication Technology Labs (CTTL), the company said in a statement on Monday.

A compute card is a compact module that integrates a processor, memory and other essential components needed for computing tasks, often used in applications like AI.

CTTL is a research laboratory under the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, an organisation affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The verification marked a milestone for Sophgo, affirming that its compute card supported domestic AI models in alignment with Beijing’s initiative to bolster its leading AI systems, such as the DeepSeek models, with self-developed infrastructure, the chipmaker said.

Sophgo attributed the progress to several innovations in the FP300 compute card, which was released last year. In particular, it features 256 gigabytes of high-bandwidth memory and offers up to 1.1 terabytes per second of memory bandwidth, enabling faster data transfer during model training and execution.

The card also improves integration between hardware and algorithms to maximise performance for reasoning models, according to the company.

The announcement comes as heightened US chip export controls pose challenges to Chinese AI development, prompting local AI and chip companies to collaborate to navigate these restrictions.

The development of DeepSeek’s anticipated R2 model, originally scheduled for release in May, has been delayed owing to a shortage of advanced Nvidia chips resulting from US export curbs, according to a recent report from tech news outlet The Information, citing sources from third-party cloud computing service providers.

DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Meanwhile, Chinese AI specialist iFlyTek said it had been training and deploying its latest AI models exclusively using chips from Huawei Technologies, eliminating the need for foreign semiconductor technology.

The company, which was using Huawei’s Ascend 910B chips to develop its Xinghuo model series, had increased its training efficiency from 25 per cent at the end of last year to 73 per cent when benchmarked against Nvidia’s A800 chips, said iFlyTek chairman and president Liu Qingfeng in June.

Liu acknowledged that using local chips generally delayed AI model development by three months, owing to the need for additional computing resources compared with using Nvidia chips and their established software ecosystem. Still, he affirmed the company’s commitment to improving training efficiency with local chips.

Both Sophgo and iFlyTek are under trade sanctions from Washington. iFlyTek was added to the US Entity List in October 2019, barring it from buying advanced US chips. Several Sophgo entities, including Sophgo Technologies, Sophon Technology (Beijing), and Xiamen Sophgo Technologies, were also added to the list earlier this year.

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US, Japan put Philippine railway project back on track after China plans fall through

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3316401/us-japan-put-philippine-railway-project-back-track-after-china-plans-fall-through?utm_source=rss_feed

A long-delayed railway that would link key military bases and economic hubs in the Philippines has been resurrected – this time with the backing of the United States and Japan, replacing an earlier plan funded by China that quietly fell through.

Analysts see the railway’s revival as part of broader efforts by the US and Japan to counter China’s regional influence, positioning the project as both a trade route and a strategic asset that enhances their military and security ties with the Philippines.

The 212km (132-mile) Subic–Clark–Manila–Batangas (SCMB) Railway is now set to become the central spine of the Luzon Economic Corridor – a flagship initiative launched in April of last year by the US, Japan and the Philippines to enhance regional infrastructure and supply-chain connectivity.

On Friday, the US embassy in Manila said Washington would kick-start the project by funding technical help through the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), though it did not specify the amount.

“The railway is envisioned to be the backbone of the Luzon Economic Corridor, which will accelerate critical infrastructure investment and drive economic transformation in the Philippines,” the USTDA said.

Thomas Hardy, the agency’s acting director, said the project underscored the “vital role” of the US-Philippines alliance in keeping the Indo-Pacific “free and open”, and would help create “an essential trading route that will mutually benefit American and Philippine citizens”.

The USTDA selected The Cadmus Group, a consultancy based in Virginia, to provide technical support including transport modelling, port-rail integration analysis and legal planning. Hardy added that funding for the railway’s construction was expected to come from the Asian Development Bank.

Analysts say the new plan allows Washington to counter China’s infrastructure diplomacy and project soft power in the region – at a time when its influence is seen to be waning.

“The road project may be a way for the US to match China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is making waves in Indonesia and other Asean countries through the speed train project that linked Bandung with Indonesia, and which Malaysia wants to replicate,” Roland Simbulan, chairman of the Centre for People Empowerment in Governance, told This Week in Asia.

“The US wants to show that it is not just military power but that it still has economic and other forms of soft power to support its declining influence in the region, after the retreat of USAID,” added Simbulan, who has written extensively on US-Philippines military ties.

The rail line’s strategic relevance is not new. The original plan – funded by China under former president Rodrigo Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” initiative – was to connect the former American military bases in Subic and Clark, now repurposed as commercial zones but still used for military operations.

In December 2020, China Harbour Engineering was awarded the contract to build the 71km (44-mile) segment, after technical studies were completed. But despite Manila submitting loan applications in 2021, the China Eximbank did not act on the requests.

By mid-2022, Duterte’s finance secretary Carlos Dominguez III declared the loan application “deemed withdrawn” due to inaction on China’s part.

A source who worked in the Duterte government told This Week in Asia that one of the reasons the project stalled was that the military and officials had objected for reasons related to security and defence.

Both Clark and Subic were being used by the military, and the railway would link areas close to three key Philippine military installations: Camp O’Donnell in the neighbouring province of Tarlac; the biggest army camp, Fort Magsaysay, in Nueva Ecija province; and Basa Air Base in neighbouring Pampanga province.

Armed Forces spokeswoman Colonel Margareth Francel Padilla declined to speak on the broader security implications of the rail project. “Rest assured, the Armed Forces of the Philippines remains committed to supporting all national infrastructure efforts in line with our mandate to ensure peace, security and development,” she said.

Under the newly proposed plan, the SCMB railway, which will mainly carry cargo, will be almost triple the length of the China-backed railway and will be extended to the port in Batangas and all the way to Manila.

“The development of a cargo railway presents substantial economic advantages, chiefly through the reduction of transport costs, the stimulation of trade and industrial expansion, and the alleviation of road congestion,” Ron Acoba, an investment strategist who founded the Trading Edge Training & Consultancy, told This Week in Asia.

He called the railway “highly beneficial”, “particularly given that the majority of freight is currently transported by trucks – resulting in significant road congestion and costing the country billions in lost productivity each day”.

Acoba said the railway could “transport large volumes of goods efficiently over extended distances, thereby facilitating stronger connections between key industrial centres and distribution networks”.

There was a risk, though, of “political discontinuity” if the next administration, which would take over in 2028, dropped the project. “There’s a long list of large-scale infrastructure and public-private partnership projects that were delayed or shelved after a change in administration,” he said. “The NorthRail Project, originally with Chinese funding, was repeatedly cancelled and revived over multiple administrations.”

Jonathan Ravelas, a former chief market strategist of the Philippines’ largest bank BDO, was equally enthusiastic about the railway, describing it as “a transformative project with strong potential to boost economic growth and deepen strategic – and security – ties” with both the US and Japan.

Besides cutting congestion in the Port of Manila, it would lower transport costs, attract foreign investment and create jobs – especially in manufacturing, logistics and construction, Ravelas, now the managing director of eManagement for Business and Marketing Services, told This Week in Asia.

But he cautioned on potential downsides such as problems with long-term financing and maintenance costs, possible delays and cost overruns which could strain Manila’s resources “if not planned sustainably” and hinder the project’s success and public trust.

“Large-scale infrastructure projects can [also] disrupt ecosystems and communities if not carefully managed,” he said.

For the average Filipino farmer, though, the railway would not be of much help unless the current small farms were consolidated into bigger commercial farms, said Fermin Adriano, a former agriculture and policy consultant in international agencies who once served as agriculture undersecretary under the Duterte administration.

“The problem is that the volume our farmers produce is just enough to fill up a Jeepney and not a huge wagon train,” he told This Week in Asia.

It could work if farm operations were centralised, he said, but “this will require farm clustering and consolidation, which will be resisted by agrarian reform advocates and leftists pushing for genuine agrarian reform”.

China’s first 3-on-3 autonomous AI robot football match kicks off

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3316358/chinas-first-3-3-autonomous-ai-robot-football-match-kicks?utm_source=rss_feed

The first autonomous AI robot football match to be held in China kicked off on June 28 in Beijing. A Tsinghua University team beat a team from China Agricultural University 5-3.

Chinese artist dedicates 2 months to crafting giant Buddha Ultraman, sparks official probe

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3315710/chinese-artist-dedicates-2-months-crafting-giant-buddha-ultraman-sparks-official-probe?utm_source=rss_feed

A giant stone statue called “Ultraman Grotto” which was crafted by a man in China has captivated social media and triggered an official investigation.

The 2.8 metre-high sculpture has a head like the Japanese superhero Ultraman and a body that adopts a sitting Buddha gesture.

It is located on a cliff face in Anyue County of Sichuan province, in southwestern China, the news outlet Shangyou News reported.

In early June, a blogger surnamed Zhou released a video introducing the sculpture which he spent two months creating at a cost of 3,000 yuan (US$400).

He said he did all the work, from putting up the scaffold, carving the gigantic hole with an electric hammer and crafting the sculpture with professional tools.

Zhou learned his trade from a local craftsman during a one-month stint under him at the beginning of this year.

He then began his Ultraman project as he wanted to leave “some trails”.

“Stone sculptures on cliff faces can be preserved for many years,” Zhou was quoted as saying.

He said he chose the Ultraman model because it is “fun and interesting”.

Zhou said before he began carving, he had checked with local officials who said they did not prohibit small-scale stone inscriptions.

But after his Ultraman statue went viral online, some internet users said he might have committed “cultural appropriation”. Zhou said he was not aware of that issue.

He said that a terracotta figurine dating back to the 2,000-year-old Han dynasty (206 BC to 220 CE), which is displayed at the Nanchong Museum in Sichuan, bears a strong resemblance to Ultraman.

Zhou visited the museum and took pictures of the figurine from various angles before returning to fix his Ultraman sculpture based on the image of the ancient artwork.

“I have to dismantle Ultraman. I cannot carve Ultraman any more,” Zhou said during a live-stream on June 22.

Now he says the head of his current sculpture is inspired by a Han dynasty pottery figurine, while the part below its head copies that of the famous Leshan Giant Buddha.

The culture and tourism bureau of Anyue County said it is investigating whether Zhou has violated any law by carving inscriptions on a cliff face, the report said.

Ultraman is the protagonist in a Japanese science fiction series that is popular among young boys in China.

Anyue County has been dubbed China’s Stone Sculpture Hometown.

It is home to 100,000 statues made during the Tang dynasty (618-907) and the Song dynasty (960-1276).

Billions misused in China 2024 stimulus, from flood controls to gym equipment, audit finds

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3316394/billions-misused-china-2024-stimulus-flood-controls-gym-equipment-audit-finds?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s top audit watchdog has revealed that tens of billions of yuan in funding were misused by localities amid a roll-out of stimulus measures and flagship projects that the nation adopted last year, as Beijing injected trillions to boost China’s economy.

The revelation – resulting from an assessment of the central government’s budget execution last year, as well as of other fiscal revenues and expenditures in 2024 – was spelled out in a report submitted by National Audit Office auditor general Hou Kai to the top legislature last week.

For the country’s key stimulus package, featuring subsidies for large-scale equipment renewals and consumer goods trade-ins, nearly 20 billion yuan (US$2.8 billion) was fraudulently claimed or misappropriated, according to the disclosed data report.

This includes nearly 3.8 billion yuan that was fraudulently claimed under the programme last year. For example, Xiamen University applied and got approval for 1.7 million yuan for new treadmills and barbells for its gymnasium in the name of “advanced teaching and tech equipment”.

Meanwhile, more than 15 billion yuan was misused during implementation, the report said, with four provinces using 7.06 billion yuan to cover basic public spending – from civil-service wages to essential social welfare – or other unrelated projects, and six provinces falsely recording 8.3 billion yuan as spent. Some enterprises were also involved in subsidy fraud, it added.

The funding came from 1 trillion yuan worth of ultra-long-term special government bonds that Beijing issued in 2024, with 700 billion yuan allocated for equipment upgrades and 300 billion yuan for trade-in consumption.

The subsidy scheme has remained at the centre of China’s efforts to energise its economy with fresh funding this year, as the country has doubled down on domestic circulation amid an unprecedented trade war with the United States.

In June, however, some provinces suspended their trade-in programmes for cars and appliances, citing depleted funds. Beijing later reaffirmed its support for the scheme, vowing that the remaining funding would be allocated to local governments in an orderly manner.

The audit report also said that, among the more than 350 billion yuan that Beijing transferred to local governments to rebuild and upgrade flood-control facilities in 2024, at least 32.4 billion yuan remained idle or was used for other purposes.

The money was funded by the unexpected 1 trillion yuan issuance of sovereign bonds in late 2023, as part of Beijing’s efforts to shore up the country’s economy amid a faltering property market and rising local government debt pressure.

Audits of 13 provinces showed that they had violated rules outlining the use of their dedicated flood-control funds by diverting 5.7 billion yuan to repay loans or cover basic government expenditures, according to the report.

Meanwhile, in 12 provinces, 120 projects involving 8.3 billion yuan were found to have breached bidding rules – either by skipping tenders, imposing restrictive clauses, or illegally subcontracting after winning bids, it added.

Despite tightening controls on local governments’ off-the-books “hidden debt”, some provinces breached regulations to issue more to finance public projects and service obligations and bridge shortfalls, the report also found.

China steps up deep-sea science role with UN-backed oceans exploration project

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3316070/china-steps-deep-sea-science-role-un-backed-oceans-exploration-project?utm_source=rss_feed

A China-led international deep-sea cooperative exploration project has won United Nations approval, paving the way for Beijing’s increased participation in global science and technology governance.

The Global Hadal Exploration Programme (GHEP) aims to penetrate the mysteries of the deepest waters, in response to the UN goal of protecting and sustainably developing the oceans.

The multi-country initiative, spearheaded by the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), was selected earlier this month for inclusion in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, which runs from 2021 to 2030.

Under the Ocean Decade framework, a global abyssal research centre will be established to run annual crewed expeditions into the hadal zone, which lies within the oceanic trenches, and provide regular public reports, according to a CAS release on June 18.

Rui Bao, professor of deep-sea science at the Ocean University of China, said the GHEP programme “serves our national marine science development and strategy”.

“Its endorsement by the UN Ocean Decade reflects China’s increasing leadership and influence within the specialised field of global deep-sea exploration,” he said.

The programme focuses on five key areas – abyssal life, geological processes, material-energy exchange, carbon cycling and climate change, as well as human-induced environmental impacts, according to the Chinese government.

More than 10 countries are already part of the initiative, with a mix of developed and developing nations that includes New Zealand, Denmark, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia and other sea-border states.

While the US remains the world leader in deep-sea exploration, it tends to work alone – in contrast to China’s marine strategy, which has seen rapid development, despite starting later and from a lower starting point.

In 2013, President Xi Jinping said China should become a “maritime power” that would care for, understand and strategise the ocean. He has also emphasised the advancement of ocean technology and the importance of building partnerships in the “blue economy”.

As early as 1960, the US submersible Trieste set a diving record of 10,916 metres (35,800 feet) in a descent of the Mariana Trench, which reaches the Earth’s deepest oceanic point.

The current world record for manned deep-sea diving is held by American explorer Victor Vescovo, who descended to 10,927 metres (35,850 feet) below sea level in the same trench in 2019 using a specialised deep-submergence vehicle.

American ocean exploration programmes are led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with nearly all of its partners coming from institutions, universities, the private sector and other organisations within the US.

NOAA’s latest campaign, Beyond the Blue: Illuminating the Pacific, is also a US-only endeavour. Its latest expedition, setting out on July 27, will be a telepresence-enabled study of the deep-sea habitats of the Marshall Islands.

China has now established a preliminary full-ocean-depth submersible hierarchy, with its three top-tier crewed deep-sea submersibles capable of going as deep as 4,500 metres (14,700 feet), 7,000 metres (22,900 feet) and 10,000 metres (32,800 feet), respectively.

“These vessels provide essential technical support and operational assurance for trench exploration, while marking China’s progress towards becoming a real maritime power,” Bao, from the Ocean University, said.

In 2020, the Fendouzhe, or Striver, set a national record for crewed deep-diving operations by descending to 10,909 metres (35,800 feet), returning from the floor of the Mariana Trench with samples that included rock formations, seawater and biological specimens.

In March, China and New Zealand led the world’s first crewed expedition to the base of the Puysegur Trench in the south Tasman Sea, arriving at the remote location on board the Chinese research vessel Tan Suo Yi Hao.

The submersible Fendouzhe descended 6,000 metres (19,700 feet) below sea level in the historic mission – a major achievement in the second collaboration between China and New Zealand.

The partnership between the two countries began in late 2022, when researchers used the Fendouzhe to reach the deepest point of New Zealand’s Kermadec Trench, descending 10,000 metres (32,800 feet) to the seabed.

New Zealand is still processing some of the data and samples collected from the 2022 voyage, according to Mike Williams, chief scientist – oceans – of the country’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, who expects the partnership to continue.

“We will be collaborating as part of the international GHEP programme. We value the opportunity to collaborate with other countries, particularly where they have capability or access to technology which we don’t,” Williams said.

The International Ocean Institute, an independent non-profit organisation, welcomed the high-calibre research and acknowledged GHEP’s efforts in shared responsibilities in decision-making about ocean sustainability amid intensifying geopolitical tensions.

“I see that as a very big benefit of the project,” the institute’s managing director Antonella Vassallo said.

“I am quite sure that people working on this programme are fully aware of the importance of their work, of the fragility of the ecosystems there, and they will take into account this precautionary principle in their research.”

Vassallo also cautioned against relying too much on artificial intelligence in hadal zone research, pointing out the importance of retaining human oversight when applying AI technologies, especially in new environments.

“There is that expression in English, that for those people who hold a hammer, every problem is a nail,” she said.

“Applying that analogy to AI, you need to be careful at the frontier of new knowledge, not to let similarity algorithms start to play a role in somehow reducing the frequency of novel species and situations.”

Human oversight should continue to have the guiding role in scientific study, Vassallo added.

Despite abyssal trenches being the most inaccessible locations on Earth, research expeditions are also learning that human pollutants have insidiously penetrated the organisms that inhabit these depths.

In March, the CAS Institute of Hydrobiology detected alarmingly high concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) pollution in the livers of hadal snailfish from the Mariana Trench.

“People, planet and the economic, political angle, they need to balance. The way forward is not easy and it will never be easy, really. But I think it’s quite important that these aspects are not forgotten,” Vassallo said.

Why India’s real estate surge doesn’t make it a substitute for China

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3316331/why-indias-real-estate-surge-doesnt-make-it-substitute-china?utm_source=rss_feed

Divergences and idiosyncrasies are an important part of Asia’s real estate landscape. Whether it is the stark contrast between Seoul’s remarkably resilient office market and its ailing counterpart in Hong Kong or the big difference between Japan’s mature and institutionalised rental housing market and its nascent peers elsewhere in the region, Asia’s property sector is far from homogeneous.

Yet among the leading economies in the region, the performance gap between China and India is far and away the most palpable divergence in Asian real estate. That the region’s two biggest emerging markets, and the world’s most populous countries, are expected to play a bigger role in driving global growth in the next five years makes their diverging fortunes all the more striking.

In China, the housing crisis has damaged confidence to such an extent that the government has considered scrapping the discredited pre-sales model and forcing developers to offer only completed flats, mainly to restrict supply and help stabilise prices. Unfinished properties accounted for 90 per cent of new home sales when the crisis erupted in 2021.

While there were signs of green shoots earlier this year, the contraction in new and second-hand house prices is deepening again on a monthly basis. Meanwhile, real estate investment was down 10.7 per cent in the first five months of this year. In the commercial property sector, sentiment in mainland China is the most downbeat among the leading real estate markets in the Asia-Pacific, according to the results of a CBRE survey of leasing activity in the office, retail and industrial markets on June 12.

While Chinese equities – particularly Hong Kong-listed shares – are attracting more interest from global investors this year, partly because of a stronger willingness to diversify portfolios away from the United States, mainland China and Hong Kong are the least-preferred commercial property markets in the Asia-Pacific among cross-border investors.

In China’s office market, net take-up has collapsed since 2021 while supply has remained at pre-pandemic levels, leading to an acute imbalance that pushed up the average vacancy rate among 10 leading cities tracked by CBRE to 23.5 per cent in the first quarter of this year. In Shanghai and Beijing, vacancy rates are among the highest in the region while rents for grade A offices fell at the sharpest pace in the first quarter.

In India, by contrast, the property sector is enjoying an epic boom. In the residential market, sales, launches and prices of new homes in the leading cities continue to grow at a rapid clip, especially in the high-end and premium segments of the market. The combination of rising income levels, improvements in infrastructure, the institutionalisation of the real estate market and strong home-ownership aspirations is turbocharging growth.

According to the findings of a Knight Frank survey of the preferences of homebuyers in eight big cities, homes under construction – as opposed to those ready to move into – were the most preferred stage of purchase. This is partly because of “renewed confidence in developers and project completion timelines”. The contrast with the fallout from China’s housing crisis could not be starker.

India’s office market, moreover, is going from strength to strength. Leasing activity in the first quarter reached almost 19.5 million sq ft (1.8 million sq m), the highest volume for the first quarter ever, according to JLL data. In fact, India accounted for 47 per cent of leasing demand in the Asia-Pacific last year, up from 36 per cent in 2015, according to Knight Frank.

Global capability centres – offshore facilities initially focused on back-office functions that have risen up the value chain to become innovation hubs – are driving demand as multinational companies tap into India’s vast technology-savvy talent pool while benefiting from cheaper office occupancy costs. Several of India’s top-tier cities, including Bengaluru and New Delhi, have recorded some of the strongest rates of rental growth in Asia in recent years.

Furthermore, India’s Tier 1 cities were the “top global improver” in the latest edition of the Global Real Estate Transparency Index published last year by JLL and LaSalle. The establishment of a publicly traded real estate investment trust (Reit) market has boosted liquidity and set new governance and sustainability standards for the property industry.

However, it is important to put the diverging fortunes of the Chinese and Indian real estate markets into perspective. First, India’s economy is only one-fifth the size of China’s. The gap is close to the size of the entire euro-zone economy. As HSBC notes, even though India’s economy is consumer-driven, its share of global consumption is less than 5 per cent, compared with China’s 14 per cent.

Second, Indian real estate lacks the infrastructure, liquidity and depth of demand shown by China and other widely traded markets such as Japan and Australia. MSCI data showed that among the most actively traded cities in the Asia-Pacific commercial property market, Shanghai was in the top five for the past two years, along with Tokyo and Seoul. In the first quarter of this year, no Indian city was in the top 10.

India’s property sector is booming, but China’s plays a much more important role in Asian real estate. While Asia’s third-largest economy has much going for it, not least the most compelling catch-up growth story provided India can seize its demographic dividend, China is the world’s second-largest real estate market after the US. All the more reason for putting India’s property boom in context.

China’s Communist Party: 100 million strong and growing

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3316367/chinas-communist-party-100-million-strong-and-growing?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s Communist Party had more than 100 million members by the end of 2024, an increase of about 1 per cent from the previous year, according to official data released ahead of the party’s 104th anniversary.

However, the rate of membership growth has continued to slow, with one insider attributing this to stricter screening by the Central Organisation Department (COD), the party’s top personnel office.

In keeping with tradition, the membership data for the previous year was released a day ahead of the July 1 celebrations marking the party’s founding in 1921.

According to the COD, the party had 100.27 million members by the end of 2024, a net increase of 1.09 million, or 1.1 per cent. That compares with 1.2 per cent growth in 2023 and 1.4 per cent in 2022, indicating continued slowing.

China’s ruling party continues to be the world’s No 2 political party by membership strength, after India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party – which claimed to have crossed 140 million members last week.

As of September 2024, the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States had 45.1 million and 36 million registered voters respectively, ranking them as the world’s fifth and sixth largest political parties by membership.

Unlike registered voters in western political systems, who may only have a loose affiliation with their endorsed political party, including casting votes and making occasional donations, Communist Party members in China are subjected to much tighter regulations. This includes membership fees of up to 2 per cent of their monthly pay, which goes into the party funds, and regular attendance at party meetings and basic organisational “cell” activities.

An official source familiar with the matter said the party wanted to “get the right people from the start”, as it has been tightening the political screening process, resulting in more rejections and longer probation periods.

“This is not a numbers game. It is not the more the merrier,” the source said.

“[Investigations by] the anti-corruption agency show many corrupt officials had wrong motives when they joined the party. The organisation department at all levels has been instructed to weed out those who show early signs of little conviction and could easily fall prey to temptation.”

The more stringent screening has resulted in a longer waiting list as applications to join the party continue to grow, since membership is still widely regarded as a prerequisite for a meaningful political career.

By the end of 2024, there were 21.42 million applicants waiting in line, an increase of 440,000 applicants over 2023, according to the COD data.

The party also continues to attract more educated members, with nearly 58 per cent holding a college degree or higher in the 2024 data. But while their numbers increased by 2 million, the growth was smaller than the 2.13 million recorded in 2023.

Members are also getting markedly older, with the number of those aged 35 or below falling by 2.4 per cent to 23.04 million in 2024.

Those above 61 years of age totalled 28.97 million, making up 29 per cent of the total membership and marking a 4 per cent increase, more than double the increase recorded in 2023, when their total number was 27.87 million.

China teen boy forced to do 1,000 deep squats at delinquent centre gets kidney failure

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3315647/china-teen-boy-forced-do-1000-deep-squats-delinquent-centre-causes-kidney-failure?utm_source=rss_feed

The story of a 15-year-old boy in China who was forced to do 1,000 deep squats as a punishment, leaving him needing a kidney transplant, has sparked outrage online.

The tragic tale began in August 2023, when the boy, identified by the pseudonym Ajun, from Guilin in Guangxi province, southern China, was caught stealing 3,500 yuan (US$500) in cash from a parked car.

However, because he was under 16, the minimum age for criminal prosecution, the police sent him to Yongqing School for “corrective education”.

His father, Jiang Peifeng, said Ajun was about to start his third year of secondary school and was going through a rebellious phase.

He believed that turning his son over to the authorities might teach him a valuable lesson.

“He was a bit mischievous but had never broken the law before. They did not tell me what he had done, they just said they would tell me once things became clear,” Jiang told Guangxi Daily News.

However, on September 13, Jiang received a call from the Central Hospital of Yongzhou, telling him that his son had been admitted in critical condition and needed to be transferred to a higher-level facility.

Jiang was shocked to find Ajun’s body swollen and covered in sores.

The father later learned that 20 days earlier, Ajun had been physically punished at the school, along with a classmate.

On September 1, a drill instructor surnamed Du had ordered them to do deep squats.

That day, around 30 students were punished and Ajun completed about 1,000 squats in just 45 minutes.

“The instructor made me do them with my hands clasped behind my head. I counted about 1,000. Afterwards, my legs were shaking and I could barely stand,” Ajun said.

Three days later, he noticed blood in his urine and that his legs had begun to swell.

Despite being diagnosed with kidney cysts, the physical training continued.

During a morning session, he was reportedly slapped and kicked by Du and forced to stand.

Ajun’s condition deteriorated rapidly.

He was later diagnosed with kidney disease and high levels of urine in his blood.

Last June, he underwent a kidney transplant.

Jiang said he had sold their home and taken out a bank loan of 450,000 yuan (US$63,000) to cover almost a million yuan in medical expenses.

Last June, Jiang filed a lawsuit against the Yongzhou Public Security Bureau Lengshuitan Branch and Yongqing School.

In March, forensic experts concluded that Ajun’s conditions were directly caused by excessive physical punishment and classified him as having a level five disability.

On June 18, the Yongzhou Intermediate People’s Court heard the case in a second trial, but no verdict has been announced.

The case has sparked outrage online.

One person said: “What kind of idiot instructor gives out 1,000 squats? That is something even special forces would not survive.”

“The instructor is inhuman. But, child, you should also have the right and courage to say no!” said another.

Ghana at loggerheads with China over rampant illegal gold mining

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316048/ghana-loggerheads-china-over-rampant-illegal-gold-mining?utm_source=rss_feed

China and Ghana, Africa’s largest gold producer, are embroiled in a diplomatic row over the rampant problem of illegal gold mining, known as “galamsey”.

As global gold prices soar, a growing number of Chinese firms are investing billions of dollars in Ghana’s lucrative gold sector. However, the alleged involvement of Chinese nationals in illicit mining operations has ignited major debate.

It has prompted the Chinese ambassador to Ghana, Tong Defa, to push back against accusations that Chinese nationals are solely to blame for the illegal mining activity.

He said Chinese nationals could not obtain local mining licences and were often brought in by Ghanaians who facilitated the illegal mining operations.

“The issue did not originate from the Chinese. Some of those who are even caught red-handed are simply migrant workers trying to make a living,” Tong told local media in Ghana last week.

He said the “perception is unfair to me, personally, and to the majority of Chinese nationals here”.

“For instance, when I post on social media, comments often suggest that galamsey is entirely caused by China, which is a significant injustice,” Tong added.

His response follows crackdowns on illegal miners that led to the arrest of hundreds of miners, including dozens of Chinese nationals.

Environmentalists say illegal gold mining is damaging Ghana’s environment, especially in the gold-rich Western, Ashanti and Eastern regions, by contaminating the country’s vital rivers with toxic chemicals, while also rendering vast tracts of land barren through deforestation and soil degradation.

This rush for gold has also seen a rise in Chinese nationals seeking fortunes in the country’s mining sector, with many among them accused of engaging in illegal mining activities. It is widely reported in Ghana that the Chinese provide financial, technical and technological support to locals who are engaged in the act.

One of the most widely cited cases is that of Aisha Huang, known as the “Galamsey Queen” for her illegal mining operations in Ghana. She was sentenced in 2023 to 4½ years in prison and ordered to pay a US$4,000 fine following her return to the country after previously being deported to China.

But the Chinese envoy said it was crucial to acknowledge the massive contributions of Chinese entities across many sectors in Ghana. He said Chinese companies had built numerous buildings, roads and ports. “Yet, do ordinary Ghanaians truly recognise these efforts, or do they consistently associate us solely with galamsey?” Tong said.

Against this backdrop of illegal mining, Hanna Louisa Bissiw, the Administrator of Ghana’s Minerals Development Fund (MDF), vowed last week to crack down on illegal miners, including Chinese nationals.

“Let me be unequivocally clear: there will be no compromise on what we have to do. It’s an absolute ‘never’,” Bissiw said, referring to the ongoing arrests of illegal miners.

However, she said that during a visit to China, she was “encouraged by them to push forward” in anti-galamsey efforts, with China affirming readiness to provide support to fight the problem.

While some Ghanaian analysts have voiced support for the Chinese ambassador’s assertion regarding local complicity in galamsey, others strongly reject solely blaming Ghanaians or absolving Chinese nationals from responsibility.

Baffour Agyeman-Duah, a former senior governance adviser to the United Nations, told Ghanaian news outlets that if one observed the Chinese involved, most were rural and not highly educated.

“This suggests a deliberate system must be in place to recruit and transport them here without issues at immigration entry points, then bus them to these forests. This is highly unusual,” Agyeman-Duah said. He said this indicated some form of official collusion with whoever was contracted to bring these people.

However, Gladys Nyarko Ansah, a professor in the department of English at the University of Ghana and a co-principal investigator on a galamsey research team, said that the fact Ghanaians were also involved in illegal mining did not make it right for Chinese to engage in it.

“Is the ambassador saying that because some Ghanaians engage in stealing, Chinese migrants in Ghana should also engage in stealing?” Ansah said.

Ndubuisi Christian Ani, a senior researcher and project coordinator for ENACT: Enhancing Africa’s Response to Transnational Organised Crime, based at the Institute for Security Studies in Abuja, said Ghana recognised the tremendous contribution of China to its economy, but “criminal activities need to be dealt with as such to prevent impunity”.

“Over the years, Ghana tends to be lenient on arrested Chinese persons involved in illegal mining, partly because of its respect and high regard for China,” Ani said.

He said while it was critical to blame local enablers, Chinese involvement in illegal gold mining was not limited to Ghana but extended across the region, including Nigeria. He added that this highlighted the fact that they were organised, well-resourced, and keen on exploiting local vulnerabilities to achieve their goals.

First batch of tickets for Hongkongers to see Chinese aircraft carrier gone in 45 seconds

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3316322/first-batch-tickets-hongkongers-see-chinese-aircraft-carrier-gone-45-seconds?utm_source=rss_feed

The first batch of tickets to get an inside view of a Chinese aircraft carrier, the Shandong, docking in Hong Kong from July 3 to 7, has been snapped up in less than a minute.

The Post found the tickets were picked up within 45 seconds after they were released on WeChat on Monday.

A total of 10,000 tickets, with 2,000 designated for the aircraft carrier and 8,000 for two other vessels – the Zhangjian missile destroyer and the Yuncheng missile frigate – are up for grabs, with real-name registration beginning at 10am, 3pm and 8pm on Monday until all tickets are claimed.

It remains unclear how many tickets are being offered in each session.

The five-day visit of the naval fleet, which includes another missile destroyer, the Yan’an, is part of the city’s celebrations on the 28th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule.

It marks the first time a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy aircraft carrier strike group has visited the city in eight years. The last visit was by China’s first commissioned aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, a refitted Soviet-era vessel, in July 2017.

Can China’s partial lifting of Japanese seafood ban aid a post-Fukushima reset?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316329/can-chinas-partial-lifting-japanese-seafood-ban-aid-post-fukushima-reset?utm_source=rss_feed

China has partially lifted its two-year ban on Japanese seafood imports in the latest step by Beijing to remove a diplomatic roadblock that has strained ties between the two neighbours.

According to a Chinese customs notice issued on Sunday, shipments of seafood originating from “certain regions” of Japan would resume “conditionally” with immediate effect.

The decision was made “under the premise of ongoing long-term international monitoring and independent Chinese sampling of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water discharge with no abnormalities found, and Japan’s commitment to ensuring the quality and safety of aquatic products exported to China”, the notice said.

The measure, which covers imports of aquatic products including edible aquatic animals, will not apply to 10 Japanese prefectures, including Fukushima, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano, Saitama, Tokyo and Chiba.

Beijing suspended food imports from those areas in July 2023 – before Japan began releasing treated waste water from its damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant, despite strong opposition from Chinese authorities.

Beijing extended the prohibition about one month later, imposing a full import ban on all Japanese seafood.

The latest easing, though limited in scope, comes as Beijing bids to reset ties with its East Asian neighbour amid growing US trade uncertainty.

Last month, Tokyo said that the two sides had agreed on technical conditions for the resumption of seafood shipments to China, while Chinese customs confirmed “substantial progress” in the latest round of bilateral technical exchanges.

Similar talks were held in early May, April and March, in which Chinese negotiators repeatedly noted the same criteria for the resumption of Japanese seafood imports, according to statements by Beijing.

The requirements were “the Chinese side’s continued independent sampling and monitoring of a series of scientific data and the Japanese side’s effective measures to ensure the quality and safety” of the products.

Last September, following an agreement with Tokyo to expand monitoring of the treated water, Beijing agreed in principle to gradually resume some imports.

In its announcement of the latest easing, Chinese customs said that it would continue to strictly regulate Japanese seafood imports.

“If any products are found to be non-compliant with China’s relevant laws, regulations and food safety standards, or if the Japanese side fails to effectively fulfil its official supervisory responsibilities, timely control measures will be taken to effectively protect the health and safety of the Chinese people,” it said.

China was one of the biggest markets for Japanese seafood before the ban, which put further strain on relations between the two neighbours – already at odds over historical and territorial disputes as well as Beijing’s military assertiveness in the region.

The tensions between Asia’s two largest economies intensified during the previous US administration under Joe Biden, as Washington stepped up efforts to rally its Indo-Pacific allies into a united front against China in areas such as economics, security and technology.

But President Donald Trump’s approach to trade and foreign policy is seen to have alienated Washington’s partners, at the same time that Beijing has prioritised strengthening ties with Tokyo – a US treaty ally – and other neighbours as it seeks to navigate the geopolitical challenges of the Trump era.

China’s US trade deal warning, Japanese princess flies economy: 5 weekend reads you missed

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316309/chinas-us-trade-deal-warning-japanese-princess-flies-economy-5-weekend-reads-you-missed?utm_source=rss_feed

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

‘Determined’ China thief steals 8 cars during travels to avoid cost of air ticket home

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3315620/determined-china-thief-steals-8-cars-during-travels-avoid-cost-air-ticket-home?utm_source=rss_feed

A man from northeastern China has shocked the internet after he stole eight cars and drove them on the journey home, one after the other, to avoid paying for an “expensive” flight.

According to mainland media outlet New Yellow River, the man, surnamed Chen, is from Liaoning province and had been travelling alone in Changsha, Hunan province, in central China.

On May 31, he bought a flight ticket home for 1,500 yuan (US$200) but cancelled it, deciding it was too expensive.

An inveterate car thief, Chen reverted to his old habit.

He entered unlocked car dealerships at night, took keys from cabinets and drove off in vehicles that were waiting to be serviced.

He also forced his way into quiet, unattended car parks, chose an older model of car and started them by tampering with the ignition.

Starting in June, Chen travelled north through seven cities, stealing eight cars along the way. Each time one ran out of fuel, he left it behind and took another.

To save money, he also took valuables from the cars to pay for food and road tolls.

Chen’s journey covered more than 14 hours on the road.

On June 2, a member of staff at a showroom in Wuhan, central China, noticed a vehicle worth more than 150,000 yuan (US$20,000) and car keys were missing, and called the police.

Officers tracked the stolen car and found it had left Wuhan, heading north.

The following day in Hebei province, Chen was caught trying to steal another car. He injured the owner while successfully fleeing in panic.

However, on June 4, police found Chen asleep inside a car in a Hebei car park and arrested him.

The eight cars Chen used were reportedly worth around one million yuan (US$140,000) in total.

All of the stolen vehicles have been recovered while Chen remains in detention.

People involved in serious cases of car theft can face more than 10 years in prison and a fine.

The story has gained more than 20 million views on social media.

“All this just to avoid spending 1,500 yuan? Totally not worth it. Why travel if you cannot afford it?” said one online observer.

“Chen clearly has determination. If he applied it elsewhere, he could have achieved something, what a waste,” said another.

Outrageous stories about travel often hit the headlines in China.

Over the past three years, a Shanghai graduate took more than 120 domestic and international trips using stolen cash and credit cards.

History tells us US-China ties will survive current rupture: Neysun Mahboubi

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316280/history-tells-us-us-china-ties-will-survive-current-rupture-neysun-mahboubi?utm_source=rss_feed

Neysun Mahboubi is a US expert on Chinese law and director of the Penn Project on the Future of US-China Relations at the University of Pennsylvania. He spoke to the Post shortly after leading a group of Penn students on a 10-day tour of Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou in May. The visit included wide-ranging discussions with Chinese students, think tankers, government officials and foreigners living in China. This interview took place before the announcement that the US State Department would “aggressively review” Chinese student visas and subsequent developments. A question was added later covering the strengthened international student visa vetting process.

This interview first appeared in . For other interviews in the Open Questions series, .

I feel relatively comfortable saying that there are many things about this moment that feel similar to what it was like 30 years ago.

Of course, China has changed immensely – beyond anyone’s imagination back then – but when I was here in the summer of 1995, foreign students, in particular American students, were just starting to come back to China after the disruptions of the 1989 moment.

And in the same way, we are just starting to see American students and scholars come back to China after the disruptions of the pandemic. So in both cases, for a student, it does feel like you are, in some ways, a pioneer in coming back to this context a little earlier than many of your peers.

And I think the reception that my students received in China on this trip, which was incredibly warm and welcoming, is some indication of how relatively rare it is for student groups like this – and American students in particular – to be coming back to China right now.

A major takeaway is that there are deep disagreements that are likely to be persistent between the US and China, and these include issues around Taiwan, the South China Sea, the trade relationship, technology competition and human rights.

My view is that the point of dialogue is not to paper over differences, but to speak forthrightly about those very differences.

They exist, whether we talk about them or not, so it’s better to talk about them and understand the different perspectives – to have the different perspectives be in dialogue with one another, rather than otherwise.

But to the extent that there are these major differences, I would not expect US-China relations broadly to be very smooth in the period ahead, nor to return to the type of relatively calm dynamics that were the case 20 or 25 years ago.

All of that said, the fact that my students were able to have these discussions here on the ground with such a wide range of different interlocutors, that alone is a moderate cause for optimism.

The biggest barriers, in terms of just being able to have the needed discussions in both the United States and in China, are the dynamics of securitisation which may have good reasons on their own terms in both countries.

But these dynamics have crept into the field of dialogue and academic exchange in ways that any of us who are part of the academic world find deeply troubling.

On the US side, that includes the ways in which we have, in the past few years, put increasing pressure on the ability of academic institutions and scholars to travel to China and to have the kinds of relationships with Chinese institutions and scholars that were quite unremarkable not so long ago.

And if we wanted to give particular examples, we see that different kinds of American and Chinese institutional partnerships are under great stress. Most recently, the chairman of the House Select Committee on China wrote to Duke University asking them to end their partnership with Wuhan University in regards to Duke Kunshan.

In general, because of how securitisation informs discussion of China in the US, anyone – including myself – who is trying to maintain some academic bridges to China has to be extraordinarily cautious not to run afoul of “red lines” back in the States.

And even with that extraordinary caution, it’s very possible that we would still run into some difficulty.

On the Chinese side, nominally the Chinese government remains extremely open to foreign students and scholars returning. You see that at the rhetorical level, but to be fair, you also see institutions making it easier for students and scholars to get the right letters of invitation and visas, and then to set up meetings here.

But there are dynamics of securitisation in China as well that impinge on this picture, and there is real concern that the kinds of research that American students and scholars were able to do before this more recent period would be under a different kind of scrutiny today.

You see rhetoric about anti-espionage, about reporting on suspicious activities of foreigners. And more generally, there is a level of caution in the first instance about how openly to speak, how robust to be when having a discussion with foreign interlocutors.

All of that said, my students had not expected to engage in conversations that were as robust, open and frank as the ones they ended up having here in May.

When they first arrived, many were a little hesitant to push the envelope in terms of discussing contentious issues with their Chinese counterparts. But with some gentle prodding from me, they quickly sought out more robust, challenging discussions.

The first instinct in China is not to embrace those kinds of discussions, but rather to have somewhat more superficial ones.

For Chinese interlocutors, the system certainly does not incentivise going out of your way to have robust discussions with foreigners. But, as a foreign scholar, if you do come in with the attitude of seeking out robust discussions, there is more room for that in reality than both American and even Chinese scholars might have anticipated in advance.

I’m extremely concerned about the pipeline. As an American, even if you look at this through the lens of strategic competition and presume we will have a difficult, fraught relationship with China for many years, if not decades – the idea that we are not training a new generation of experts within the US system on our “systemic competitor” should be a cause of huge alarm.

I’m doing what I can – such as bringing this group of students to China. Of course, not all of them will go on to pursue China-focused careers, but you have to get more people to at least consider it before you can have that yield.

During this trip, I met with one of my former students who is graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. He spent the past semester at Peking University as an exchange student and will spend the next year or two at Yenching Academy. He is following a trajectory towards a China-focused career – something that was more common among people like me and my colleagues some 30 years ago.

It was bracing to hear how unique his situation is: he’s one of only a handful of American exchange students in his programme, if not the only one.

There are many people in the China field who, like me, were forged through on-the-ground experience in the 1990s and 2000s. But for my student, he will have much less competition than I do today for being one of the China experts of his generation in 20 or 30 years’ time.

That can make a student feel like what they are doing today is of value. But in general, most students seem to place more weight on what they perceive as the negative consequences on their careers if they pursue the kind of training that my student is currently pursuing.

In that same vein, those of us who are acting to preserve academic exchange know we are rowing against the tide of US-China strategic competition, which is moving in the opposite direction.

Certainly we should understand that we are not going to reverse the trend. All we can do is try to keep some of these bridges of knowledge generation, dialogue, and exchange at least minimally functional in this next period of their deterioration.

Maybe if we work hard, we can prevent the infrastructure and bridges from being completely dismantled. That way, when there’s a moment in the future where we can lean back into more fulsome academic exchange, ideally we will not be starting from scratch. We will still have some functional structure to build on.

This may not be a supremely hopeful vision. It simply looks for some value we can salvage in a difficult period. But we’ve lived through a version of this not that long ago that historical reference gives me some hope.

If you look at the depth of connectivity between the US and China in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, you can understand how devastating must have been the rupture from 1949 onwards.

That rupture is likely to exceed – and will continue to exceed – the rupture we are facing now. Really, you would be hard-pressed to find any examples of connectivity during the 1950s.

But the people who had the experience from those earlier decades were at least still around when the tide began to shift, beginning in the 1960s, of course the 1970s, and then most robustly in the 1980s. Their knowledge and ties that dated from before 1949 were not completely lost.

If you know any of those stories – whether they be of the Chinese scholars, many of whom suffered immensely during the Cultural Revolution, or the American scholars, who for many decades had no connectivity with the country they had been so deeply enmeshed in – you would know that even so, there was just enough left over that it was possible to recreate the dynamics of academic exchange when conditions allowed.

Given that history, I think we can take comfort that the challenges of the current moment are not going to be completely overwhelming.

I think all these things you’ve listed that are happening in the US right now are outrageous. These pressures are striking at the heart of what has truly made America great, and that is our incredible strength and even predominance in higher education that has benefited tremendously from the contributions of the best and the brightest from around the world, including China.

When I try to explain such attacks on higher education and foreign students to audiences in China or elsewhere who know that this has been our superpower, it doesn’t make any sense to them. It’s like cutting off your own nose, which is beyond the ability of logic to capture.

And actually just because of that, I tend to think that a lot of this stuff is posturing and that it will go away in the not-too-distant future.

I could turn out to be hopelessly naive in holding that perspective, but it is just so beyond what makes rational sense – to cut off the talent flows and the overall ecosystem that has led to one of America’s most widely admired and celebrated strengths.

So I am both deeply concerned about what we read in the headlines, but also, at some level, confident that this stuff will go away because it simply has to.

Of course, I found that announcement deeply troubling, as did many of my academic colleagues who share my understanding of how the pursuit of knowledge in our institutions of higher education benefits from the presence of Chinese students, and how their presence actually serves our national interests. Any risks can be managed through much more tailored approaches than what was announced.

So I was relieved to see that President Trump walked back that announcement, quite clearly, and I applaud him for that. Hopefully his messaging in the days since will suffice to outweigh the effect of the prior announcement on any potential “brain drain” away from the United States.

It’s hard to say. If there is a change in narrative, I do not think those particular trends would be significant causes for that. Rather, if there is any particular variable that I would highlight, it is that President Trump himself – who was a major accelerator in his first term of the dynamics of strategic competition – does not seem to be as invested in pursuing that same approach now in his second term.

That “Trump factor” alone would be more significant in driving some narrative changes. But anyway, what I prioritise above all is genuine knowledge and genuine depth of insight.

So if there are youth perspectives about China that are rooted in the experience of a social media influencer having a fun time seeing a certain kind of China, that’s not something that I particularly would want to celebrate. It does not have the depth that is important to me.

I think it’s important for American students to understand this: social media influencers may show part of the “China story”, but there are other, less appealing aspects that are equally real.

So what I value most are real, informed, and robust exchanges – where American and Chinese students ask hard-hitting questions, grounded in genuine knowledge and inquiry.

That would be the foundation for any real shift in dynamics and narratives going forward. It’s hard work, but the only path forward.

In broad terms, to the extent that the US public still holds a majority negative opinion of China, it is rooted mostly in the dynamics of trade competition and what we sometimes call the “China shock” – the loss of manufacturing jobs and the way in which Chinese manufacturing has been so ascendant as to crowd out any attempts to compete with it.

I think that is the source above all for negative views. And of course, the Covid-19 pandemic didn’t help. China’s persecution of the Uygur population in Xinjiang has also broken through to the US public. All of that is part of the current picture.

What is less in the picture at the moment – but which would overtake all of that if things go badly in the near future – would be if China were to take aggressive action vis-a-vis Taiwan.

That is the big elephant in the field of vision before us. I am very mindful of that as an immensely damaging prospect – one I don’t think is likely to happen, but whose likelihood does seem to be growing. I’m finding a growing openness to that kind of prospect in China right now.

I feel it’s my responsibility to point out that if that were to happen, it would have an immensely negative and generationally defining impact – one that goes far beyond trade tensions, technological competition, and differences over human rights – on the entire field of US-China relations, including US public attitudes towards China and the ability of US scholars and students to do the kind of work that I do.

I hate to say that what I wrote back in 2020 was prescient, but I am sorry to say that it was. And I do believe that our field – China studies, broadly speaking – is facing a kind of epistemic crisis in the US right now.

To be sure, many long-time and recent scholars of China in the US – along with foreign journalists who, regardless of their own preference, have been kicked out of China, as well as non-governmental actors – are genuinely unable to operate on the ground in China, and so they do have to find alternative ways of studying China.

That said, it is vitally important to have at least some of us on the ground. So, to the extent that many scholars who probably could be here are still reluctant to come back – and we are not in the same way incentivising or training our students to come to China and learn how to navigate this context – I do think it essential to highlight the real and hugely negative consequences on our field.

Anyone who cares about how we maintain a robust field of China study in the US has to be thinking about who is able to come here and learn things when they do come. What are the best practices for how to navigate the new environment in China in a way that is both safe but also actually generates real knowledge? And how do we train future generations to do all this?

If we are not actively thinking about all of those questions in this current moment, we are doing the longer-term future of the field a grave disservice.

When people talk about Chinese exceptionalism, they can mean different things. But to the extent that one of the meanings could be that the only people who can understand China or have anything to contribute to the field of China study must be thoroughly Chinese – not just ethnically but who have been fully trained in China, are fully operational in China, and are seeing things on the ground in China – of course I would take very strong issue with that.

I am, at heart, a comparativist. I think having people who have a perspective that is rooted in another system and training, having them look at issues with fresh eyes, is extremely helpful to generating true knowledge and insight.

That said, all of this is more art than science. Ideally, even the people who are looking at China from a different lens are able to incorporate into their field of vision perspectives from on the ground here as well.

It’s not so much an on-off switch, it’s more that, in general, you want to have as wide a range of exposures as possible.

As long as we can maintain that full spectrum – that includes American scholars and students on the ground in China, and Chinese going to the US for training and bringing that knowledge back – these exchanges, on the whole, contribute to the growth of knowledge in a really important way that I hope we can sustain in the years ahead.

I should note here as well that when a government tries to steer the direction of academic inquiry and method, it is always to the detriment of the generation of true knowledge. Any Chinese academic notions that are rooted in government ideology are intrinsically suspect, in my view, and one that true academics would not take seriously.

It makes me sad to note this, but at this very particular moment that we are having this conversation, the earlier, and maybe more persistent, pressure that the Chinese government puts on Chinese academics and universities, trying to steer them in a certain direction, is at least being echoed by some of the pressures the US government is putting on American academics and American institutions.

It brings me no joy to note that there may be some shared aspect of experience here for scholars on both sides of the Pacific.

Well, when you have a law on the books that is promoted in public discourse, it’s pretty hard to ignore. It’s right there in your face.

For foreign academics who are already hesitant to come back to China – also for additional reasons, including just being out of practice since the pandemic – if you show them one of these posters with instructions for how to report a foreign scholar accused of espionage, obviously it will give them even greater pause.

What is interesting is, if you bring this up with Chinese counterparts – especially academics, but even officials – they will often downplay it and suggest, “Oh, you don’t have anything to worry about” – almost to make it seem like it’s more rhetorical than real. But that’s not a sufficiently calming approach, when there’s a law on the books.

When Chinese academics or government officials have this conversation with Americans, they do sometimes also reference dynamics in the US that concern Chinese scholars and students.

When that comes up, I agree that is a good response. As Americans, we do need some self-contemplation about how, in our academic context, there are also dynamics that put undue pressure and induce fear among scholars from another country.

Again, it brings me no joy to note that some of these dynamics are shared on both sides of the Pacific – but that’s the reality we live in today, unfortunately.

I think academics have to be bold. This is a moment that calls for academics, both in China and in the US, to really stand up for the importance and value of what we do that is rooted in our training, our perspectives, our method, and to push back against any encroachments from the outside, including, and perhaps especially, from our respective governments.

It is deeply concerning. I have to say, though, personally I’ve never encountered a negative interaction, even as a fairly easy-to-spot foreigner. But we do see news reports about incidents that spill over from time to time. So far, nothing has spilled out in any way that I would find broadly threatening.

So my perspective is both to acknowledge and highlight the concern, but also to be clear: as much as we should be thinking about this and addressing its causes, we should not overstate it.

And my theory is that whenever these kinds of dynamics surface – whether in China or in the US – the driving factor is often not primarily foreign influence, but rather what individuals are experiencing in their own lives.

The Chinese economy has suffered in recent years, and many young people are feeling deeply anxious about their futures. Whenever those anxieties take hold, it creates a breeding ground for blaming foreigners for one’s negative emotions.

Of course, it’s important to combat the consequences of such sentiments directly, but it’s equally important to recognise that when young people in China express these attitudes, they’re often ultimately responding to something else, something deeper. That’s a big problem for China.

Actually I’m quite sceptical about the notion of a “grand bargain”, especially because when the Chinese side puts forward that idea, they are often thinking about the status of Taiwan. I do not think that it is politically plausible, or frankly even desirable from a US perspective.

So I think a “grand bargain” is not the right framework. What I do think is plausible – and perhaps even growing in likelihood now – is a genuine stabilisation within a landscape of strategic competition that prevents it from spiralling out of control.

This was the notion of guardrails that the Joe Biden administration was pushing for during most of his time in office, which the Chinese side was initially extremely resistant to.

But my interpretation is that by the end of President Biden’s term, at least, even the Chinese side had grown more comfortable with the notion, accepting at some level that strategic competition would be the dominant narrative in the years ahead.

It could be possible to still preserve other areas of more cooperative and collaborative dynamics, including through academic exchange and dialogue. That is probably the best we can hope for in the coming years.

I am, as of today [in late May], more optimistic about the Trump administration pursuing that approach than I would have been in December and the months leading up to his taking office.

The pragmatism that the US side is showing in its trade negotiations with China recently, to me, indicates there is an acceptance that unrestrained competition that borders on conflict is not in the American national interest. And I think that is a good perspective to have.

I do think a lot of China’s tech innovation ecosystem is rooted in earlier dynamics of US-China engagement. I do not think you would have the same flourishing of the Chinese tech landscape were it not for the connectivity that was made possible by engagement.

It would be a tragedy if the further development of China’s tech ecosystem takes place against the landscape of not just US-China competition, but conflict.

I can’t say definitively whether I’m optimistic or pessimistic, but I do believe this collaborative legacy is difficult to fully scrub out. Scientific and technological advancement, after all, is largely driven by collaboration and joint inquiry.

I think what is anticipated has a good chance of coming to fruition. And to the way that I think as a lawyer, that’s a good thing.

What law can do is provide an arena of conflict and competition that is contained and is at least using, at some level, a shared vernacular, so you can have extremely sharp disputes that are still stabilised and even resolved – or at least tentatively resolved – through legal processes.

If it does come to pass that US-China competition grows in the arena of international law and international legal bodies, and in the formation of legal norms, that’s a robust competition.

And I’m very happy for the competition to be in that sphere – not in the waters of the South China Sea.