• US lawmakers want Biden to hike tariffs on Chinese-made vehicles
• China is struggling to recruit enough highly skilled troops | Special report
• The National Zoo’s giant pandas leave for China today
• China warns against maritime “camp“ confrontations but stops short of naming US
• China releases methane plan as hopes rise for new climate agreement with US
• Philadelphia Orchestra Returns to China to Mark 50 Years Since First Visit

US lawmakers want Biden to hike tariffs on Chinese-made vehicles

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china-vehicles/us-lawmakers-want-biden-to-hike-tariffs-on-chinese-made-vehicles-idUSKBN3231EV

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers want the Biden administration to hike tariffs on Chinese-made vehicles and investigate taking steps to prevent Chinese companies from exporting to the United States from Mexico.

Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican who chairs a select committee on China, and the panel's top Democrat, Raja Krishnamoorthi and two other lawmakers urged U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai in a letter to boost the current 25% tariff on Chinese vehicles.

"It is critical that tariffs on (Chinese) automobiles not only be maintained but also increased to stem the expected surge in (Chinese) imports," they wrote in the previously unreported letter.

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China is struggling to recruit enough highly skilled troops | Special report

https://www.economist.com/special-report/2023/11/06/china-is-struggling-to-recruit-enough-highly-skilled-troops

In February 2023 the PLA navy undertook an unusual mission. Its warships and aircraft were confronting their American counterparts in the South China Sea. Chinese forces were escalating operations around Taiwan too. But the PLA naval command’s new target was to be found in more placid surroundings, such as the leafy campus of elite Tsinghua University in Beijing.

For the first time, the Chinese navy was seeking fighter pilots for its aircraft-carriers among graduating students at Tsinghua and other leading civilian universities. Applicants should be unmarried and under 24 years old, with majors in science, technology and engineering, the navy said. They should “love the air and sea” and have “good vision and suitable nutritional condition”. In another first, women could apply too.

Senior PLA officers admit that recent recruitment drives have fallen short. “We need to do a lot more work, including changes to the recruitment system and making sure that people can develop after serving,” Major General Tang Yongsheng of the PLA’s National Defence University told this correspondent. “Salaries can’t be too low either”, he said, if the PLA is to attract the “outstanding, creative” young people it needs.

A paper published in a Chinese defence journal in April 2022 was more blunt. PLA recruitment was at a “rudimentary stage”, it said. “Young recruits don’t know what they’ll do after enlisting, military authorities don’t know what units need, and units don’t know what new recruits can do.”

China’s Communist Party had no such trouble when it built the Red Army (as it was then known) in the 1920s. It began as a volunteer force of workers, peasants and mutineers from the forces of the then-ruling Nationalists. After the Communist victory, it switched to conscription. In the late 1970s it adopted the current hybrid system of volunteers and conscripts.

The PLA now has about 2m personnel, including some 700,000 enlisted troops, 850,000 non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and 450,000 officers and civilian staff. Enlisted troops mostly volunteer (but can be forced to join to meet quotas) and serve two years. After that, they can do another two years, return to civilian life, volunteer as NCOs or take exams to become officers. NCOs, officers and civilian staff are all volunteers.

The PLA began trying to improve the calibre of its personnel in the 1990s, partly in response to America’s display of high-tech firepower in the first Gulf war. The Soviet collapse months later allowed China to start buying billions of dollars of Russian weapons. But to operate them the PLA needed better-skilled troops than the poor rural recruits on which it had previously relied.

Recruitment dive

It tried initiatives to recruit more graduates, but struggled to compete with the private sector. The PLA was also riddled with corruption. Poorer families bribed recruiters to enlist their children. Richer ones paid to avoid it. PLA personnel at every level bought promotions. So blatant was the rot that PLA licence plates were often seen on Porsches, Jaguars and other luxury cars.

After Xi Jinping took power in 2012, he made personnel quality central to the PLA’s biggest overhaul since the 1950s. An anti-corruption campaign bagged senior military figures. Quotas for rural recruits were largely scrapped. And the PLA began recruiting in summer, better to attract graduates before they found other work.

But the PLA’s problems ran deeper. One was the increasingly sedentary lifestyle of youngsters, which caused obesity and myopia. In 2013 one recruiting office found that 60% of college recruits failed physical tests for such reasons. Three years later, PLA medical experts found that infantry recruits suffered stress fractures almost twice as frequently as their American counterparts.

Mental health had deteriorated too. In a survey of PLA personnel in 2016, almost 30% reported psychological problems—almost double the rate a decade earlier. Worst affected was the missile force, whose members often worked in remote underground silos.

“There are more incentives to leave the PLA than to remain in it,” says an expert on personnel

Mr Xi cut the PLA’s ranks by 300,000, or 13%, from 2015 to 2017 and promised better treatment for personnel and their families. Officers and NCOs were given a 40% pay rise and more home visits. A new ministry for veterans was created. And each PLA service began recruiting directly from universities.

Such changes have helped. So too has an upsurge in nationalism as tensions with America have escalated. The PLA has enhanced its image through operations like rescues of civilians from Yemen in 2015 and Sudan in 2023, and through military-themed action movies like “Wolf Warrior 2”, released in 2017.

A national census in 2020 showed the proportion of PLA personnel with higher education had increased to 57% from just over half in 2010. Still, that was well short of the PLA’s target of around 70%. And the proportion with postgraduate degrees had declined.

New incentives were part of the problem. College students were attracted by subsidies for their studies and preferential access to state-sector jobs after leaving the PLA. But many quit as soon as they qualified for such benefits. “There are more incentives to leave the PLA than to remain in it,” says Ken Allen, a former American air-force officer who studies PLA personnel issues.

Another alarming trend, noted in a study in 2020, was an apparent increase in the numbers refusing to serve after volunteering to join the roughly 400,000 troops enlisted annually. The PLA has stopped dealing with them internally and started drawing attention to them in state media—to shame culprits and advertise the harsh punishments they suffered. But desertions continue.

Since 2020 the PLA has made new tweaks. It started recruiting twice a year, instead of just once, to ensure a more steady flow of trained troops. It began crunching data on volunteers to find those with requisite skills. It also adopted more nuanced health checks, raising standards for some posts, such as special operations, while lowering them for others requiring more technological prowess.

Military pay has improved too. Basic annual salaries for college graduates start at around 12,000 yuan ($1,640) for enlisted troops (plus a sizeable bonus for their families) and 72,800 yuan for NCOs. Those from top universities get more. Peking University estimates that for two years’ service, its students earn as much as 314,300 yuan when educational and retirement benefits are included.

By comparison, the average annual salary for graduates in 2022 was 70,000 yuan. But tech grads can earn twice that (or quadruple for AI specialists). Tsinghua confers about 8,000 degrees each year. On average, according to the university, just 16 students a year have joined the PLA since 2005. Last year that number was 12.

The PLA is also contending with a trend among young people to drop out, or “lie flat”, and seek an easier lifestyle. Even industrious youngsters can be put off by the PLA’s austerity. It tightly restricts internet access. All personnel need approval from superiors to marry or divorce. Enlisted troops live in barracks; most officers and NCOs can only live with spouses after serving ten years.

The PLA’s appeal may grow if youth unemployment gets worse. Still, it will be years before enough skilled recruits reach the upper ranks. Personnel problems would not stop Mr Xi from attacking Taiwan if he felt he had no option. But given a choice, he may prefer to wait—at least until he has enough carrier pilots. ■

The National Zoo’s giant pandas leave for China today

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/11/08/pandas-leaving-china-dc-zoo/2023-11-01T17:08:27.290Z

The National Zoo’s giant pandas will board a flight to China on Wednesday, ending an era that spanned half a century, brought joy to generations of fans and left an enduring black-and-white imprint on the Washington region.

Mei Xiang, 25, a female; Tian Tian, 26, a male; and their son, Xiao Qi Ji, 3, are being loaded into three large shipping crates on Wednesday morning, to be placed on a truck bound for Dulles International Airport and a 19-hour, 9,000-mile journey on a FedEx cargo jet to Chengdu, China.

Details of the departure were not released earlier for security reasons, the zoo said. The zoo is closed Wednesday morning until 10 a.m., after the pandas have left.

It is the fourth departure of members of the zoo’s giant panda family for China. But before this journey, there have always been giant pandas who stayed behind when the others left.

Soon, their compound at the zoo in Northwest Washington will be empty, and the joyous decades of pandamania will be over, at least for the time being.

The bears had become symbols of Washington, alongside the White House and the Capitol.

Their images appeared on buses, Metro cards, sneakers, shirts, slippers, pajamas, onesies, mugs, water bottles, totes, scarves, scrunchies and hats. They had legions of passionate followers.

In 2001, composer Julius P. Williams wrote an orchestral piece for them, “March of the Giant Pandas.”

“It is going to be emotional,” veteran giant panda keeper Nicole MacCorkle said in a recent interview. “To have had them here for almost 23 years, and to interact with them almost daily, it certainly is going to be a change. It’s going to be life-changing for us that had been working with them.”

She added: “But we knew that this day would come. It’ll take us a while, but life will go on here at the zoo. It’ll be a void that all of us will feel, and I think all of Washington’s going to feel.”

China owns and leases all giant pandas in U.S. zoos. The National Zoo’s current lease expires on Dec. 7.

Mei Xiang and Tian Tian were born in China. They came to the zoo as youngsters, arriving on Dec. 6, 2000, as part of a lease agreement. Xiao Qi Ji was born at the zoo on Aug. 21, 2020.

The staff at the Smithsonian facility has been preparing for the departure for months. Two keepers and one veterinarian are also making the trip, along with more than 300 pounds of bamboo for panda snacks.

The animals have been acclimated to the traveling crates, zoo officials said. And keepers do not expect the pandas to be distressed during the flight.

Members of the zoo staff, however, have expressed heartache over the loss. Several keepers have cared for the giant pandas for many years.

Laurie Thompson, the zoo’s longest-serving giant panda keeper, was present when Mei Xiang and Tian Tian arrived 23 years ago. She is scheduled to go along on the trip to ease the journey. “We’re mostly there to keep them happy,” she said.

“It’s definitely a hard time,” Bob Lee, the zoo’s director of animal care sciences, said last month. “These animals are like family to us and the folks that come here.”

“I almost can’t let myself think about how I will feel when these animals are gone — Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, who I’ve known for 15 years, and their cubs,” zoo director Brandie Smith, a former giant panda keeper, said last month. “It’s the end of an era for us.”

The zoo’s giant panda story began in February 1972, when President Richard M. Nixon and first lady Pat Nixon made a historic Cold War visit to communist China.

At a banquet in Beijing, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai promised Mrs. Nixon that China would give some giant pandas to the United States as a friendly gesture.

Later that year, giant pandas Ling-Ling, a female, and Hsing-Hsing, a male, both about 18 months old, arrived at the zoo.

Ling-Ling died suddenly in 1992, and an ailing Hsing-Hsing was euthanized in November 1999.

The zoo was then without giant pandas until December 2000 — a gap of just over a year.

Aside from Xiao Qi Ji, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian produced three surviving cubs.

A male, Tai Shan, was born in 2005 and sent to China in 2010. A female, Bao Bao, was born in 2013 and sent to China in 2017. A male, Bei Bei, was born in 2015 and sent to China in 2019.

It is not clear when, or if, the zoo will get giant pandas again. The zoo in San Diego sent its giant pandas to China four years ago. They have not been replaced.

Smith, the National Zoo’s director, said last month that while the zoo is interested in having more giant pandas and would like its program to continue for another 50 years, no official discussions with China have taken place.

“The National Zoo is unique” in the giant panda research it has done and the relationships it has built with scientists in China, she said. “No other zoo in the world has the kind of program that we have.”

She said there’s “optimism” at the zoo that pandas will one day return, which is manifesting in upgrades the zoo is making to its panda habitat. “Because we are hopeful,” she said, “that we’ll have pandas here in the future.”

China warns against maritime “camp“ confrontations but stops short of naming US

https://reuters.com/article/china-diplomacy-maritime/china-warns-against-maritime-camp-confrontations-but-stops-short-of-naming-us-idUSKBN32306I

China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, said maritime disputes should be resolved through talks and warned against "camp" confrontations, but stopped short of naming the United States, days before an expected meeting between the countries' leaders.

The Philippines, Japan and the United States have complained about what they say is growing Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. Beijing says most of the region is part of its territory, a claim that is hotly disputed by several littoral nations.

Last month, China and the Philippines traded barbs over a collision in the South China Sea as Chinese vessels blocked the passage of Philippine ships. Beijing said the vessels were "trespassing" on Chinese territory when trying to send supplies to Philippine troops stationed on a disputed shoal, which lies in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

The tense encounters between China and the Philippines at the contested shoal have led Japan to call for trilateral cooperation with the United States on helping Manila bolster its security capabilities.

"Historical maritime disputes should be resolved through friendly consultation between direct parties, and maritime camp confrontations and zero-sum games should be resisted," Wang said at a symposium on maritime governance in Hainan on Tuesday, without identifying any nation.

Crisis communication mechanisms should also be improved, Wang said, without referring to the incidents.

China has long criticised what it labels as "cliques" among nations, especially countries that have no direct claims in disputes. Beijing has been especially critical of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, which identifies China as an aggressor in the region, including the South China Sea, undermining international maritime law including freedom of navigation.

Last year, at the same symposium, Wang said a "certain major country" created the Indo-Pacific strategy, put together exclusive "small circles", and doubled down on "provocative" close-range manoeuvres and muscle-flexing.

But in his remarks on Tuesday, Wang took a more dovish tone and avoided overt references to the United States, amid broader bilateral efforts to ease tensions and days ahead of an expected meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of an upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

China will continue to fulfil its obligations under international maritime laws, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Wang said, again without referring to Washington.

A year earlier, he had criticised the "certain major country" for refusing to join UNCLOS, of which more than 160 countries are parties. The United States, while accepting the UNCLOS, has yet to ratify it.

China releases methane plan as hopes rise for new climate agreement with US

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/08/china-methane-plan-climate-agreement-us

China has published a long-awaited methane reduction plan, in a sign that the country is moving closer towards a new climate agreement with the US.

Beijing first committed to reducing its methane output at Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021, as part of a joint agreement with the US. But for two years the reduction plan failed to materialise. Its publication on Tuesday, as the US and Chinese climate envoys wrapped up four days of talks in Sunnylands, California, signalled that the two countries may soon break ground on a new climate agreement ahead of a presidential meeting next week and the UN’s climate conference, COP28, at the end of this month.

Even the location of the meeting between Xie Zhenhua and John Kerry this week was viewed by some as auspicious. The luxurious estate is where Xi Jinping, China’s leader, had his first presidential meeting with Barack Obama, in 2013.

Xi and Joe Biden, the US president, are expected to meet at the Apec summit in San Francisco next week, with the Xie-Kerry meeting laying the groundwork for a potential climate agreement.

The Xi-Obama meeting led to a historic US-China climate agreement in 2014, in which China pledged to peak CO2 emissions by 2030 (a target that it is expected to meet ahead of time). That in turn established the foundation for the Paris Agreement the following year, in which 196 countries agreed to limit the increase in the global average temperature to below 2C, compared with pre-industrial levels.

Now insiders are cautiously optimistic that a new US-China climate agreement could be on the horizon. It is a “golden opportunity”, said Li Shuo, the incoming director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Policy Institute, adding that elections in the US and in Taiwan could distract both sides from climate discussions in 2024.

Both the US and China want to show that there are “some guardrails in the US-China relationship, with climate being one of the bright spots,” said Byford Tsang, senior policy adviser at E3G, a climate change thinktank.

At Cop26 in Glasgow, China and the US agreed to establish a working group on climate action. That plan was put on ice after Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, but recent US-China meetings appear to have put negotiations back on track. When Kerry visited Beijing in July, he described the meetings as “extremely warm and productive”.

Still, there are likely to be major sticking points in reaching any agreement, especially when it comes to specific commitments.

The methane reduction plan, for example, avoids making numerical targets. “China is very cautious in making international pledges,” said Tsang. Beijing “doesn’t like when its hands are constrained on the international stage.”

The US, along with over 150 other countries, has committed to cutting methane emissions by 30% by 2030, but China has so far not joined any such pledge. “Methane is not a technical issue, it’s a political issue,” said Li, adding that progress on a plan reflected the state of US-China relations.

Another increasingly contentious point, the curbing of fossil fuel emissions, primarily through phasing out coal. China is the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gases, nearly 90% of which comes from the energy sector. Over 60% of power generation comes from coal.

Phasing out coal is an essential part of China’s net zero by 2060 goal, but since power cuts and blackouts closed factories across China in 2021, the government has focused on energy security and coal phaseout is increasingly sensitive. Campaigners say the topic has become hard to discuss.

According to experts, China’s energy security problems could be solved by improvements to the country’s grid and reforms to the domestic energy market, rather than burning more coal.

Local governments in China approved 50.4 GW of new coal power in the first six months of this year, meaning that China is on track to approve a similar amount of coal to 2022, which was a record high since 2015.

That is despite the fact that in a speech in January last year, Xi called on China to gradually “reduce traditional energy sources while promoting reliable substitution of new [renewable] energy sources”, a slight departure from his previous emphasis on building new renewable capacity before dismantling coal infrastructure. But local incentives still support the permitting of new coal power plants, even if they don’t contribute to China’s energy needs.

Kerry and Xie are publicly at odds on the coal issue, with the US climate envoy calling for the issue to be the focus of COP28 negotiations, while his Chinese counterpart has said that phasing out fossil fuels completely is “unrealistic”. Still, analysts are hopeful there will soon be some kind of agreement, at least in principle, on new climate goals. With a presidential meeting on the horizon, both sides are aware that now may be the only moment in the next 12 months to break new ground.

Philadelphia Orchestra Returns to China to Mark 50 Years Since First Visit

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/philadelphia-orchestra-returns-to-china-to-mark-50-years-since-first-visit/7345556.html

The Philadelphia Orchestra arrived in Beijing Tuesday for a tour that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the group’s first visit to China.

The visit comes as the United States and China prepare for a meeting next week between their top leaders.

The orchestra’s 1973 trip has been called “historic” as an early example of the start of diplomatic relations between China and the U.S. The orchestra’s visit followed President Richard Nixon’s visit in 1972. He was the first American president to visit China while in office.

Orchestra officials say 14 members are on the trip, including 73-year-old violin player Davyd Booth. Booth was among the visitors in 1973, as well.

“This constant 50-year connection with China has been really very deep and very wonderful,” Booth said after the group arrived at the Beijing airport.

The orchestra is making its 13th visit to China. It last visited in 2019.

The American musicians will perform with the China National Symphony Orchestra starting Friday. They will also visit the cities of Tianjin, Suzhou and Shanghai and hold special classes at schools.

Another cultural exchange is going on, too. The American Ballet Theatre is currently in China.

The music and dance group trips follow visits from high-level U.S. representatives. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo all traveled to China recently.

The U.S. and China have slowly been returning to normal communications after years of rising tensions and disputes.

The two countries are preparing for a meeting between President Joe Biden and Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation event in San Francisco next week.

I’m Dan Friedell.

 

Dan Friedell adapted this story for Learning English based on a report by the Associated Press.

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Words in This Story

anniversary –n. a date that is remembered or celebrated because a special or notable event occurred on that date in a previous year

orchestra –n. a group of musicians who play usually classical music together and who are led by a conductor We want to hear from you. Do you think the relationship between China and the U.S. will get better?