• Ghana court jails and fines Chinese national over illegal gold mining
• UK’s only pandas, Tian Tian and Yang Guang, return to China after 12 years without conceiving at the Edinburgh zoo
• Libya dismantles illegal gold mining network comprising Chinese, Chadian and Nigerian nationals
• Britain says no evidence Sellafield nuclear site has been hacked by China or Russia
• China’s credit reshuffle aims to squelch risk, restore confidence as recovery lags
• Sellafield nuclear site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China
• 5,000-year-old Liangzhu ruins take centre stage in China’s official history with Xi’s backing
• 5.5G: China is rolling out the next big thing in communications technology
• Indian diplomacy is getting a boost – but it’s still ‘no match’ for likes of US, China or UK
• [Sport] Pandas leave Edinburgh Zoo for return to China
• China’s 2030 carbon reduction goal to spare food industry from reforms as security takes priority
• China and Belarus renew strategic ties as Xi Jinping and ‘old friend’ Lukashenko meet in Beijing
• Is Malaysia’s visa-free entry enough to entice ‘picky’ Chinese tourists as TikTok changes travel habits?
• China’s top graft-buster warns of ‘risk of rebound’ in corruption cases
• ‘Is he a psychopath?’: China court grants order protecting woman from abusive husband who banned her from working, isolated her from family, friends
• China’s Evergrande wins more time to restructure debts
• Russia-Ukraine war live: inquiry into ‘execution’ of surrendering Ukraine soldiers; Lukashenko meets Xi in China
• Hong Kong has constitutional duty to play its part in China’s modernisation, says Beijing’s top official in city
• Food faux pas: China diner shocked by US$60,000 bill for meal after accidentally posting photo of dish ordering QR code online
• Global Impact: as uncertainties swirl over South China Sea, joint exercises and heightened tensions reverberate within the neighbourhood
• US to apply to study China’s moon rock samples, Saudi Arabian football, snake soup: 5 weekend reads you may have missed
• ‘Cash cow’ subsidies: China targets fraud in farm machinery sales scheme
• [World] A young couple's ordeal captivates Chinese internet
• ‘Too cold-blooded’: China animal lover who saved Border Collie marked for slaughter after original owner sold dog to meat vendor wins praise online
• China’s top defence contractors saw income grow for fourth year in a row, SIPRI global top 100 list shows
• Insurer HSBC Life draws customers from 46 overseas markets and China as customers throng to Hong Kong for its wider product range
• China’s military says US combat ship illegally entered territorial waters in South China Sea
• A China rivalry twist emerges in Sri Lanka’s new US-funded, Indian-built port
• Walmart Shifts to India, Cuts China Imports

Ghana court jails and fines Chinese national over illegal gold mining

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3243832/ghana-court-jails-and-fines-chinese-national-over-illegal-gold-mining?utm_source=rss_feed

A Ghanaian court has sentenced a Chinese national to prison for illegal gold mining in the West African nation, her lawyer said on Monday, ending a case that started in 2017 and shed light on Chinese involvement in the activity.

The court in the capital Accra sentenced Aisha Huang to four and a half years imprisonment and a fine of 48,000 Ghanaian cedis (US$4,000) for running an illegal mining operation, Huang’s lawyer Hope Agboado told Reuters.

Huang, who could not be reached for comment, initially pleaded not guilty but changed her plea to guilty as the trial progressed.

Agboado said he had asked the court to impose a fine and deport her instead of imposing prison time. He and Huang are still deciding whether to appeal, he said.

Libya dismantles illegal gold mining network comprising Chinese nationals

Ghana, a gold, oil and cocoa producer, is facing a scourge of illegal mining with Chinese nationals accused of leading some of the operations that have destroyed large areas of forest, polluted water bodies and sometimes encroached on the concessions of large-scale miners.

Ghana’s cocoa regulator COCOBOD told Reuters in September that around 150,000 metric tons of cocoa was lost due to smuggling and illegal gold mining, locally known as galamsey, on farmlands in the 2022/23 season.

Huang was known as the ‘Galamsey queen’ in the Ghanaian press.

Several Chinese nationals were brought to court for similar cases in Ghana in 2021 and 2022.

UK’s only pandas, Tian Tian and Yang Guang, return to China after 12 years without conceiving at the Edinburgh zoo

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3243824/uks-only-pandas-tian-tian-and-yang-guang-return-china-after-12-years-without-conceiving-edinburgh?utm_source=rss_feed

The UK’s only giant pandas left Edinburgh for China on Monday after spending 12 cubless years in the Scottish capital.

It was hoped that female Tian Tian (“Sweetie”) and male Yang Guang (“Sunshine”) would produce a cub during their stay at Edinburgh Zoo.

But the bears, who even had a special black, white, grey and red tartan created in their honour, never succeeded in conceiving.

“It’s sad that Tian Tian hasn’t bred here, we would obviously really have liked her to have done so, but this is not unusual with giant pandas,” said Simon Girling, head of veterinary services at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS).

“I think we’re all quite sad to see them go, they are two lovely individuals, lovely characters, and we’ve got to know them really well.”

The pandas were transported to the airport in metal crates and loaded into a cargo plane with a pallet of bamboo ahead of their flight back to China.

They will spend time in quarantine on arrival in China before being rehomed at a sanctuary in Chengdu, the capital of southwestern China’s Sichuan province.

The pandas arrived at Edinburgh Zoo in December 2011 as part of a 10-year agreement between the RZSS and the China Wildlife Conservation Association, which was later extended by two years.

During their stay in Edinburgh, the popular pair even had a special tartan created in their honour, in black, white and grey representing their fur, and red to symbolise China.

But it was soon clear the two were not eager to breed.

The zoo and veterinary surgeons from China made eight attempts at artificial insemination between the pair.

There was also a failed attempt to artificially inseminate Tian Tian in 2013.

The giant panda breeding programme was stopped in 2021 after Yang Guang was castrated after being treated for testicular cancer.

Giant pandas are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity, with bears losing interest in mating the natural way – or simply not knowing how.

A female panda has a single oestrous cycle in the spring in which she is fertile for only 24 to 36 hours, according to the Pandas International conservation organisation.

“We have made a significant contribution to our understanding around giant panda fertility, husbandry and veterinary care – which has been of real benefit to efforts to protect this amazing species in China,” said RZSS chief executive David Field.

Attempts to breed pandas in captivity first began in China in 1955. In 1963, Ming Ming, the first giant panda bred in captivity, was born at the Beijing zoo.

Pandas are found in the wild in southwest China, along the Tibetan Plateau.

Libya dismantles illegal gold mining network comprising Chinese, Chadian and Nigerian nationals

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3243829/libya-dismantles-illegal-gold-mining-network-comprising-chinese-chadian-and-nigerian-nationals?utm_source=rss_feed

An illegal gold mining network, comprising Chinese, Chadian and Nigerian nationals, has been dismantled in southern Libya, local authorities have said in a statement.

The network, led by a Libyan man, was mining four large sites in the southern desert, said the Tripoli attorney general, which posted photos of the mines and seized gold ingots on its Facebook page on Sunday.

Two-thirds of the vast oil-rich country is desert and difficult to monitor, though gold mining is not thought to be widespread.

Libya floods: reporters ordered out of Derna after protests

The foreign nationals who carried out the mining were staying illegally in Libya, the attorney general said, without clarifying when they were arrested.

This summer, the authorities dismantled an illegal cryptocurrency mining network on several sites in western Libya, arresting dozens of Chinese nationals.

Thrown into chaos since the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya is split between a United Nations-supported government in the west and a rival administration in the east.

Britain says no evidence Sellafield nuclear site has been hacked by China or Russia

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3243831/britain-says-no-evidence-sellafield-nuclear-site-has-been-hacked-china-or-russia?utm_source=rss_feed

Britain has no records or evidence to suggest that networks at the Sellafield nuclear site had been attacked by “state-actors” in the way described by the Guardian newspaper, the government said on Monday.

The Guardian had earlier reported that Sellafield in northwest England, which carries out nuclear fuel reprocessing, nuclear waste storage and decommissioning, had been hacked into by cyber groups closely linked to Russia and China.

“Our monitoring systems are robust and we have a high degree of confidence that no such malware exists on our system,” the government said. “This was confirmed to the Guardian well in advance of publication, along with rebuttals to a number of other inaccuracies in their reporting.”

China’s credit reshuffle aims to squelch risk, restore confidence as recovery lags

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3243786/chinas-credit-reshuffle-aims-squelch-risk-restore-confidence-recovery-lags?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s top leaders are expected to assemble at the central economic work conference in Beijing this month to hammer out economic goals for 2024. This is the second part looking at what to expect from China’s economy next year.

Over a year after a cash crisis triggered rare protests by depositors in the central Chinese province of Henan, a major financial overhaul has been rolled out: around 130 small rural lenders, previously scattered across the province, have been consolidated into a single entity to maximise oversight and minimise systemic weaknesses.

The Henan Rural Commercial United Bank, with registered capital of 6 billion yuan (US$847.2 million) when it was launched in October, is the fourth institution of its kind to be set up as part of reforms to the rural credit system. It has been tasked with acting as “a ballast stone” to guard against financial risks, according to state media.

Last year’s crisis involved some 40 billion yuan at four rural banks in the province, as well as one in neighbouring Anhui.

Preventing, resolving China’s financial risks are ‘eternal theme’: Xi Jinping

Several senior financial officials and rural lenders were placed under investigation as a result, and a criminal gang was arrested. In the aftermath, Beijing issued an order to crack down on financial crimes and maintain social stability.

Henan’s reshuffle comes at a time when President Xi Jinping reconfirmed financial risk prevention as an “eternal theme” at the end of October.

That high-profile task, most acutely demanded in the management of small banks and local government financing vehicles – as well as in resolving vulnerabilities in the country’s property market – is expected to remain high on the agenda at the annual tone-setting central economic work conference, usually held in December.

Analysts and officials expressed hopes the change would restore stability and address asset quality issues within the local financial sector, which has been plagued by bad governance, corruption, exposure to an ongoing property crisis and a preponderance of shadow banking – a headache in addressing the volume and quality of local government debt.

In an interview with the official Xinhua News Agency on Sunday, National Administration of Financial Regulation (NAFR) head Li Yunze said focus is presently on increasing reforms and addressing risks involving small and medium financial institutions.

Provinces should come up with their own plans, instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, he added.

“Weakness in the property sector and local government-related exposures could continue to weigh on overall loan demand and asset quality,” said Elaine Xu, director for Asia-Pacific financial institutions at Fitch Ratings.

Such risks are generally higher for small and mid-sized banks compared to larger state-owned institutions, despite efforts to reduce shadow banking activities in recent years, she said.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) had said in November that financial risks are “overall convergent” and “generally controllable”.

There were more than 300 high-risk banks in China as of June, but their assets accounted for less than 2 per cent of the overall banking sector. Cumulatively, that sector represents over 90 per cent of the 449 trillion yuan (US$63 trillion) in overall assets at all financial institutions in China, according to the PBOC.

The non-performing loan (NPL) ratio of all of China’s commercial banks was 1.61 per cent at the end of September, down from 1.66 per cent a year earlier, according to the NAFR.

‘Our debt burden is light’: China can assist local governments, PBOC chief says

The ratio for urban commercial banks at the end of September was 1.91 per cent, while that of rural banks was 3.18 per cent, much higher than 1.27 per cent for state-owned institutions.

The NPL ratio measures the share of loans in default for a specific period to overall banking lending, and is one of major indicators for credit risk controls used by lenders and financial regulators.

But it can be easily subjected to data manipulation, as China’s top lawmakers issued a rare warning about the reported asset quality at small and medium-sized financial institutions in October, saying their data was “too inflated and does not truly reflect the actual situation”.

Fitch Ratings’ Xu said reported asset-quality metrics, including the headline NPL ratio, do not take into consideration off-balance-sheet exposures or non-loan assets at banks.

Forbearance – a temporary pause in payments or an allowance to make smaller payments – around some property development loans could also understate reported asset quality metrics as these may not be reported as NPLs, she added.

“Risks remain in the economy, especially if prolonged property stress were to last beyond 2024, and more widely spread to different sectors,” she said.

Central bank governor Pan Gongsheng said during the Financial Street Forum in November that “the spillover effects of market adjustments within the real estate sector on the financial system are generally controllable”.

China has been long implementing a prudent personal housing loan policy, Pan said, adding that property-related lending accounts for 23 per cent of total bank loan balances, of which about 80 per cent are personal housing loans.

Ding Shuang, chief Greater China economist at Standard Chartered Bank, said while the risks associated with the personal housing loans are generally small, the precondition is that there would not be any steep falls in housing prices.

As many property developers are suffering from a liquidity crisis, some local governments have recently increased their tolerance to falling housing prices to push for more deals, Ding added.

“The key is to find a balance, a price where the market can clear [inventory] but avoid any overshooting that a sharp fall in asset prices prompts more people to sell off, and then becomes a vicious cycle,” he said.

Investors worry as China’s Communist Party cements control over finance

Risks associated with existing loans by property developers are relatively small, as banks have refrained from issuing additional lending in the past two years, but the potential crisis lies in the lack of credit support from the banks, Ding said.

Goldman Sachs expects the tone of the central economic work conference, which is expected to set economic goals for 2024, “to be dovish and pro-growth”.

“We also expect policymakers to continue highlighting key tasks discussed in the central financial work conference as priorities of economic work in 2024,” they said in a report on Friday.

“These tasks include facilitating the stable development of the property sector through urban village renovation and social housing construction programmes, and preventing risks around local government implicit debt and small to medium-sized financial institutions.”

While Beijing vowed to “meet the reasonable financing needs from developers”, economists said that is much easier said than done as banks are still reluctant to lend due to the credit risks involved.

Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura, said Beijing may need to eventually play the role of so-called lender of last resort to rescue some major troubled developers to boost confidence in the real estate market and enhance financial stability.

“Amid the collapsing property sector and widespread credit fallout among property developers, homebuyers might get increasingly impatient while waiting for the delivery of their purchased new homes,” he said in November.

“At some point next year, the issue of home delivery could turn into a social issue and endanger social stability, and Beijing may eventually need to significantly ramp up policy support.”

Sellafield nuclear site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/04/sellafield-nuclear-site-hacked-groups-russia-china

The UK’s most hazardous nuclear site, Sellafield, has been hacked into by cyber groups closely linked to Russia and China, the Guardian can reveal.

The astonishing disclosure and its potential effects have been consistently covered up by senior staff at the vast nuclear waste and decommissioning site, the investigation has found.

The Guardian has discovered that the authorities do not know exactly when the IT systems were first compromised. But sources said breaches were first detected as far back as 2015, when experts realised sleeper malware – software that can lurk and be used to spy or attack systems – had been embedded in Sellafield’s computer networks.

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It is still not known if the malware has been eradicated. It may mean some of Sellafield’s most sensitive activities, such as moving radioactive waste, monitoring for leaks of dangerous material and checking for fires, have been compromised.

Sources suggest it is likely foreign hackers have accessed the highest echelons of confidential material at the site, which sprawls across 6 sq km (2 sq miles) on the Cumbrian coast and is one of the most hazardous in the world.

The full extent of any data loss and any ongoing risks to systems was made harder to quantify by Sellafield’s failure to alert nuclear regulators for several years, sources said.

The revelations have emerged in Nuclear Leaks, a year-long Guardian investigation into cyber hacking, radioactive contamination and toxic workplace culture at Sellafield.

The site has the largest store of plutonium on the planet and is a sprawling rubbish dump for nuclear waste from weapons programmes and decades of atomic power generation.

Interactive

Guarded by armed police, it also holds emergency planning documents to be used should the UK come under foreign attack or face disaster. Built more than 70 years ago and formerly known as Windscale, it made plutonium for nuclear weapons during the cold war and has taken in radioactive waste from other countries, including Italy and Sweden.

The Guardian can also disclose that Sellafield, which has more than 11,000 staff, was last year placed into a form of “special measures” for consistent failings on cybersecurity, according to sources at the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the security services.

The watchdog is also believed to be preparing to prosecute individuals there for cyber failings.

The ONR confirmed Sellafield is failing to meet its cyber standards but declined to comment on the breaches, or claims of a “cover up”.

A spokesperson said: “Some specific matters are subject to ongoing investigations, so we are unable to comment further at this time.”

In a statement, Sellafield also declined to comment about its failure to tell regulators, instead focusing on the improvements it says it has made in recent years.

The problem of insecure servers at Sellafield was nicknamed Voldemort after the Harry Potter villain, according to a government official familiar with the ONR investigation and IT failings at the site, because it was so sensitive and dangerous. It involved highly sensitive data that could be exploited by Britain’s enemies. Sellafield’s server network was characterised by the official as “fundamentally insecure”.

The scale of the problem was only revealed when staff at an external site found that they could access Sellafield’s servers and reported it to the ONR, according to an insider at the watchdog.

Other concerns include external contractors being able to plug memory sticks into the system while unsupervised.

In one highly embarrassing incident last July, login details and passwords for secure IT systems were inadvertently broadcast on national TV by the BBC One nature series Countryfile, after crews were invited into the secure site for a piece on rural communities and the nuclear industry.

The ONR has prepared a notice of prosecution for Sellafield on cybersecurity – a form of enforcement action it can only take if it believes there is “sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction”.

Cyber problems have been known by senior figures at the nuclear site for at least a decade, according to a report dated from 2012, seen by the Guardian, which warned there were “critical security vulnerabilities” that needed to be addressed urgently.

It found that security resources at the time were “not adequate to police the internal threat [from staff] … let alone react to a significant increase in external threat”.

More than a decade later, staff at Sellafield, regulators and sources within the intelligence community believe systems at the vast nuclear waste dump are still not fit for purpose. They also believe that there was a deliberate effort by senior leaders to conceal the scale of the problems posed by cybersecurity problems at the site from security officials tasked with testing the UK’s vulnerability to attack in recent years. This is the subject of potential prosecution.

Security officials are also concerned that the ONR has been slow to share its intelligence on cyber failings at Sellafield because they indicate that its own scrutiny has been ineffective for more than a decade.

The latest annual report from the ONR stated that “improvements are required” from Sellafield and other sites in order to address cybersecurity risks. It also confirmed that the site was in “significantly enhanced attention” for this activity.

The ONR said it had found cybersecurity “shortfalls” during its inspections and noted that it had taken “enforcement action” as a result.

Such is the scale of cybersecurity concern, some officials believe entire new systems should be urgently built at Sellafield’s nearby emergency control centre – a separate secure facility.

Among the highly sensitive documents stored at Sellafield are disaster manuals, plans that guide people through emergency nuclear protocols and what to do during a foreign attack on the UK.

These documents include some of the learnings from a variety of sensitive operations, including Exercise Reassure in 2005 – and the regular Oscar exercises – which were aimed at testing the UK’s ability to handle a nuclear disaster in Cumbria.

The ONR was so concerned by the fact that external sites could access Sellafield’s servers, and an apparent cover-up by staff, that it interviewed teams under caution. The Sellafield board held an inquiry into the problem in 2013 and the ONR warned that it would require more transparency on IT security.

Cyber-attack and cyber espionage by Russia and China are among the biggest threats to the UK, according to security officials. The most recent National Risk Register, an official document that outlines the key hazards the UK could face, includes a cyber-attack on civil nuclear infrastructure.

Attackers from hostile states have targeted allies in the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing community in recent years. The US has been attacked, with its government agencies, including its energy department, targeted via file-transfer software in June this year.

The UK’s cyber wing of GCHQ, which has offices in central London and is part of the domestic intelligence network with headquarters in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, has warned of a heightened risk of cyber-attack on critical national infrastructure from Russia and China.

Growing government concern over Chinese involvement in UK critical national infrastructure has resulted in the Chinese state-owned energy company CGN being removed from the Sizewell C nuclear project in Suffolk and Huawei products being stripped from the heart of the telecommunications network in recent years.

That has reversed a spell of close Anglo-Sino relations, which culminated in the then prime minister, David Cameron, hailing a “golden era” between the countries and drinking beer with the Chinese premier, Xi Jinping, in a Buckinghamshire pub in 2015.

Rishi Sunak’s government has championed expanding the country’s nuclear industry after the energy crisis, picking up where his predecessor Boris Johnson left off. Earlier this year, the then energy secretary, Grant Shapps, launched Great British Nuclear, a body designed to provide new nuclear power plants. A generation of new nuclear projects will ultimately require an expansion of Britain’s decommissioning activities.

Interactive

Nuclear decommissioning, a large share of which is done at Sellafield, is one of the biggest drains on the UK government’s annual business department budget. The site costs about £2.5bn a year to operate. Decommissioning is such a huge, long-term bill that it was examined as a “fiscal risk” to the UK’s economic health by the spending watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility. It is estimated it could cost as much as £263bn to manage the legacy of the UK’s nuclear energy and weaponry industries.

This figure shifts wildly depending on how future cashflow is calculated, and the OBR has warned that the long-term costs of Sellafield could vary by as much as minus 50% to plus 300%.

A Sellafield spokesperson said: “We take cybersecurity extremely seriously at Sellafield. All of our systems and servers have multiple layers of protection.

“Critical networks that enable us to operate safely are isolated from our general IT network, meaning an attack on our IT system would not penetrate these.

“Over the past 10 years we have evolved to meet the challenges of the modern world, including a greater focus on cybersecurity.

“We’re working closely with our regulator. As a result of the progress we’ve made, we have an agreed route to step down from ‘significantly enhanced’ regulation.”

Interactive

An ONR spokesperson said: “Sellafield Ltd is currently not meeting the high standards that we require in cybersecurity, which is why we have placed them under significantly enhanced attention.

“Some specific matters are subject to ongoing investigations, so we are unable to comment further at this time.”

A spokesperson from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “We expect the highest standards of safety and security as former nuclear sites are dismantled, and the regulator is clear that public safety is not compromised at Sellafield.


“Many of the issues raised are historical and the regulator has for some time been working with Sellafield to ensure necessary improvements are implemented. We are expecting regular updates on how this progresses.”

5,000-year-old Liangzhu ruins take centre stage in China’s official history with Xi’s backing

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3243804/5000-year-old-liangzhu-ruins-take-centre-stage-chinas-official-history-xis-backing?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese President Xi Jinping has hailed Liangzhu as physical proof of China’s 5,000-year civilisation and “a real treasure for the world”, elevating the ancient city ruins amid a sweeping push to reinforce the country’s historical status as a global power.

State news agency Xinhua reported that Xi’s remarks were made in a letter – read out on Sunday by the Communist Party’s propaganda chief Li Shulei – to around 300 Chinese and foreign attendees of the first Liangzhu Forum.

“The Liangzhu ruins are concrete evidence of China’s 5,000-year civilisation history and a treasure of world civilisation,” Xi wrote.

The forum in Hangzhou was co-hosted by China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the southeastern province of Zhejiang where the archaeological ruins were discovered, according to the Xinhua report.

Its aim was to improve dialogue on civilisations with partner countries in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the massive multinational infrastructure programme that turned 10 years old in October.

Recent finds at Liangzhu, along with its Unesco World Heritage site status, have given the ruins a central role in the party’s official history, as well as Xi’s quest to build the country’s cultural confidence through a China-centric historic and scientific world view.

In his letter to the forum, Xi said Chinese civilisation “is open, inclusive and eclectic. It is constantly growing and changing, absorbing the best parts of other civilisations from around the world”.

Liangzhu: 5,000-year-old Chinese civilisation that time forgot

He also said Chinese civilisation had “distinctive innovations and continuous traditions” and established “numerous peaks of civilisation” that “greatly enriched” human history.

The 5,300-year-old Liangzhu ruins, on the outskirts of Hangzhou, have been dated to 1,000 years earlier than the Shang dynasty, which dates back to 1500 BC and is the first to appear in the written historical record.

According to Chinese tradition, the Shang was preceded by the Xia dynasty and features at the Liangzhu site – a thriving city in 2700 BC – appear to confirm accounts of the Xia in ancient texts written thousands of years after the period.

Many in the West dismiss the existence of the Xia dynasty and question whether China can lay claim to 5,000 years of continuous civilisation. But for Beijing, the discoveries at Liangzhu offer hard evidence to reinforce its narrative of an ancient global status.

Beijing regularly compares its long history with its 246-year-old rival, the United States, and presents itself an ancient global power with a superior status.

Breakthroughs at archaeological sites offer window into early Chinese civilisation

For a long time, people thought Chinese civilisation started in the Yellow River region. But archaeologists are uncovering evidence that suggests a more complex story.

The Sanxingdui site in the southwestern province of Sichuan, for example, has revealed large, sophisticated bronzeware and golden artefacts. These ruins are believed to be part of the mysterious Shu kingdom of 4,500 years ago.

The city at Liangzhu is even older and bigger than the Sanxingdui ruins, but thanks to these and other discoveries, many researchers say that modern-day Chinese people come from a mix of different ethnic backgrounds.

China’s leaders say this historical narrative has implications for what is happening with globalisation in the modern world.

While the Liangzhu ruins were discovered in 1936, it is only in recent years that the full extent and sophistication of the ancient city and its inhabitants have been revealed.

The city on the Yangtze River Delta was occupied for nearly 1,000 years and was among the most materially and technologically advanced Neolithic cultures in the world.

Liangzhu’s elaborate water management system, unearthed in 2015, is proof of an early urban civilisation, with rice at the heart of its economic foundation. It is also the oldest evidence of large hydraulic engineering structures in China.

In 2019, the same year Liangzhu was given World Heritage status, retired University of Cambridge archaeologist Colin Renfrew said in an interview with Xinhua that the site provided “compelling evidence” that Chinese civilisation started 5,000 years ago.

Why did an ancient civilisation collapse? Scientists point to climate

In his letter, Xi said he hoped everyone could make use of the Liangzhu forum to deepen mutual understanding among the countries taking part in the belt and road project.

“Mutual respect, harmonious coexistence and symbiotic growth are the right ways to go for the future of human civilisation,” he added, according to the Xinhua report.

The ruling party regards history as an important means of guarding its legitimacy. Archaeological discoveries are used to reinforce the official narrative, establish China’s historical status as a global power, and underpin its stance on geopolitical issues.

Two centuries-old merchant ships discovered at the bottom of the South China Sea in October last year were used to strengthen China’s historical status as a maritime power and add weight to its territorial claims to a series of disputed islands.

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5.5G: China is rolling out the next big thing in communications technology

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3243314/55g-china-rolling-out-next-big-thing-communications-technology?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese sectors, such as smart factories, are actively preparing for the launch of the new generation of 5G technology known as 5.5G.

The mobile communication industry typically follows a 10-year generational cycle. The move from 4G to 5G has already transformed the mobile internet experience, and the industry anticipates commercial application of the next generation.

But in the interim, 5.5G, also known as 5G-Advanced, is finding its growth in China.

International standards organisation 3GPP, which is responsible for releasing technical specifications, established the technical standards for 5.5G in 2021.

“An update named ‘Release 18’ that points out tech-advance directions for 5.5G, are expected to be finalised by 3GPP in the first half of 2024,” said Song Xiaodi, chief marketing officer of Huawei Carrier Business Group.

“This development indicates that global suppliers will align their products with these standards, with 2024 anticipated as the inaugural year for commercial 5.5G deployment.”

The development of 5G technology has been rapid and wide. To date, more than 260 5G networks have been deployed worldwide, covering nearly half the global population.

China, in particular, has emerged as a global leader in both the deployment and commercial development of 5G, having established more than 3 million 5G base stations and providing 5G services to 750 million mobile users and over 17,000 factories.

During the 5.5G phase, Chinese enterprises are aiming to replicate this lead in construction speed. Major telecommunications companies, such as Huawei Technologies and China Unicom, are swiftly implementing these technical standards to improve network speeds and facilitate the construction of smart factories and industrial upgrades.

IDC analyst Cui Kai, who specialises in 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, said 5.5G essentially optimised 5G network construction, offering significant improvements.

The improvements 5.5G will bring are substantial. Mobile user bandwidth is expected to increase from 1Gbps to 10Gbps, latency will be reduced significantly, and advancements in IoT technology due to spectrum optimisation and other technologies will help deliver high reliability and low latency to industrial production lines.

This technological evolution is not just about science and engineering – it is also about meeting user needs.

“In scientific progress, it is often the scientists who break new ground and engineers who bring it to life. In telecommunications, engineers customise equipment based on user needs,” Cui said.

While traditional 5G focused on a triad of bandwidth, latency and the number of connected users, not all three needed to be optimised simultaneously. With its dynamic spectrum allocation, 5.5G allows new base stations to actively distribute traffic, optimising network resources for each user and significantly enhancing the user experience.

China’s leadership in 5G technology has already led to numerous industrial applications. With 5.5G technology, these applications are set to be further improved.

For instance, 5G networks have enabled the remote control of robots in hazardous environments, such as deep well operations or mining carts, significantly improving operational safety. The high network quality improves the operators’ sense of control and enables real-time responses to on-site conditions.

Another notable example is Qingdao Port in northern China, Asia’s first fully automated terminal, which has set a world record for container loading and unloading efficiency thanks to the millisecond-level data refresh provided by 5G networks.

In another example of industrial application, China Telecom and fuel injection system supplier Nanyuediankong (NYDK) have built a 5G smart factory where robots, connected to 5G signals, precisely perform tasks like feeding, processing and transporting. The efficiency gains are remarkable, with logistics robots capable of making 90 trips a day, transporting 1,800 parts.

The advancements in IoT technologies based on 5G have also progressed with the introduction of 5.5G networks, according to Song.

This was seen during the Hangzhou Asian Games in September 2023, where logistics vehicles in the athletes’ village employed new lithium energy and used passive IoT technologies enabled by 5.5G to ensure safety.

Previously, manual temperature checks and reporting were necessary for battery safety, but with 5.5G, a small tag module installed on the vehicles communicates with a base station over 200 metres (650 feet) away without a power source, achieving a 99 per cent accuracy rate in improving operational safety and efficiency.

However the development and operational models of 5G technology differ significantly between China and the United States, with US providers focusing on more valuable business users.

According to an opinion piece on Huawei’s website, in the US, “the cost of a single base station is much higher, reflecting a high-value operational model with precise business coverage”.

This is in stark contrast to China’s approach. In the US, smart factory applications like those in China are less common.

Ericsson, a major supplier of 5G devices, has established a smart factory in Lewisville, Texas, to assemble its own 5G equipment. But such upgrades in production lines are not seen in other companies.

The Ford Motor Company has 5G connectivity from Ericsson in its factory in Spain, but its use of the internet is not specified on its website. Inquiries about the application of 5G in the company’s manufacturing processes sent to Ford and General Motors by the Post have not yet received responses.

This lag in industrial manufacturing during the 5G phase may be magnified in the 5.5G phase, especially in high-end core manufacturing processes that require rapid response, such as the machining of automotive parts.

China Unicom and Huawei have partnered with EA Automation, a leading automotive parts manufacturer in China, to pilot 5G-Advanced industrial applications. The collaboration tested a prototype network on an automobile welding production line, marking the first application of 5G-A in the core links of industrial control and the first technical verification of an all-wireless flexible production system.

Traditional industrial control relies heavily on wired networks for equipment operation. However, the movement and rotation of robotic arms in these set-ups can wear out cables, causing significant downtime. The introduction of 5.5G technology promises to solve this issue fundamentally.

China narrows mobile memory chip gap with South Korea, US

Reflecting on the developmental stages of mobile technology, Japan initiated commercial 4G use in 2010, while China issued its 4G licences nearly four years later in December 2013. In a similar pattern, South Korea announced commercial 5G use in March 2019, and China followed a few months later.

“Now, with 5.5G, China is not just catching up but is at the forefront of application-level technology,” Wu Hequan, an academic of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chairman of the China Internet Association, said in an interview with People’s Daily.

At the Global MBB Forum 2023 held in Dubai in October, Huawei presented several 5.5G-based technological upgrades for operators.

Song highlighted the introduction in its 5.5G modules of RedCap technology, which stands for Reduced Capability, a simplified version of 5G. This innovation significantly reduces the complexity of existing 5G modules, leading to lower power consumption and cost for the end modules.

RedCap maintains the unique advantages of 5G technology, such as low latency, precise positioning and slicing capabilities, all inherited within RedCap. For base stations, network coverage and capacity have significantly improved, and power consumption per bit has been reduced.

Yang Chaobin, Huawei director and president of ICT products and solutions, unveiled an indoor 5.5G solution at the conference. Named LampSite X, this compact indoor network terminal, with a volume of just one litre and a weight of 1kg (2.2lbs), can provide high-quality network connections in high-density areas like shopping centres, airports, train stations and stadiums.

The device’s ability to hibernate during idle times, consuming less than one watt of power and being quickly awakened on demand, ensures energy efficiency around the clock.

While the widespread application of 5.5G in B2B contexts like smart factories and mines is evident, consumer applications are still sparse. Cui pointed out that there was a lack of killer applications for 5.5G networks, and the per capita value conversion was not high.

Indian diplomacy is getting a boost – but it’s still ‘no match’ for likes of US, China or UK

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3243761/indian-diplomacy-getting-boost-its-still-no-match-likes-us-china-uk?utm_source=rss_feed

India plans to add some 200 employees to its “short-staffed” diplomatic corps over the next five years in a mark of its expanding global ambitions, but even as observers welcome the move, concerns linger about the calibre of such staff members to navigate the evolving geopolitical landscape.

The decision to restructure the foreign service represents a substantial revamp in nearly two decades and comes as New Delhi grapples with diplomatic challenges, including strained relations with Canada over a separatist leader’s murder, and the death penalty imposed on eight Indian nationals by Qatar.

Simultaneously, two conflicts on different continents, intricately tied to India’s interests, demand diplomatic finesse.

While the Indian government downplays the significance of the recent approval, the move has been lauded by members of the Indian diplomatic community and its close observers.

Sikh murder row: Canada pulls 41 diplomats out of India after immunity threat

“The news that we’re expanding our diplomatic corps is welcoming. Capacity issues have long influenced Indian foreign policy, and considering the extensive nature of India’s global engagements, it’s time to address this aspect,” said Harsh V Pant, Vice-President Studies and Foreign Policy at the Observer Research Foundation think tank in Delhi.

The foreign policy overhaul responds to recommendations from a parliamentary committee in March that emphasised the need for diplomatic reinforcement.

India’s diplomatic service was “perhaps the most short-staffed” among countries of a comparable size, the committee said. It urged a reassessment of Delhi’s diplomatic strength in comparison to nations like China.

India’s aspiration for a significant role in the evolving global order is reflected by the term “Vishwaguru”, a phrase coined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advisers to hail him as the guiding force of the world.

Nevertheless, the country is still missing the diplomatic resources, whether staff or overseas missions, to act as a backbone to buttress such lofty ambitions.

While India is the world’s most populous nation, with also the biggest diaspora, it does not rank among the top 10 nations in the number of diplomatic missions worldwide.

The United States has 30,000 diplomatic staff and China has 8,000, while Britain, France, Germany and Russia each have thousands of diplomatic workers at their disposal. In contrast, India has around 850 officers across 193 diplomatic posts worldwide, and only about 35 recruits join the Indian Foreign Service every year.

While the recent expansion is welcomed, a former Indian diplomat cautions that it remains insufficient to rival the diplomatic prowess of countries like China. “In diplomacy, whether we want to admit it or not, we’re still no match for any major player,” said the envoy, who declined to be named.

The Indian exchequer has allocated merely 0.4 per cent of the country’s annual budget to the Ministry of External Affairs in the last five years, and the foreign ministry is among India’s least-funded federal ministries.

India vows to free Qatar death row ex-navy staff ‘accused of spying for Israel’

Amitabh Mattoo, a professor of international studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, noted that the service was lacking in both “numbers and skills”.

“There are a limited number of diplomats with good language skills,” he said, adding that India also needed diplomats with expertise in cyber technology and artificial intelligence, and the ability to negotiate complex economic agreements.

As part of the expansion, Delhi plans to open nine new diplomatic missions in the coming years, with the locations and staff sizes still being worked out.

Pant from the Observer Research Foundation highlighted India’s need to strengthen diplomatic presence in regions such as Africa and Latin America.

“The Global South will be and should be a priority for India’s foreign policy in this expansion phase. It’s not enough to have ad hoc relations with a regional group of countries,” he said. “That engagement has to be sustained.”

India’s Ministry of External Affairs declined to comment on the latest expansion plans.

Among the myriad diplomatic challenges confronting India is the situation in Afghanistan, which has increasingly become a thorn in its diplomatic flesh, fostering confusion over Afghan-India relations.

On November 29, merely days after the Afghan embassy in Delhi said it had shut for good, the Taliban administration declared that the diplomatic mission would soon reopen. Afghan reports indicated that the country’s diplomatic staff in India, loyal to the previous administration, had resigned from their posts.

India had been a pivotal partner for Afghanistan before the Taliban took control in 2021, with Delhi having invested billions of dollars in Afghan infrastructure, health and food assistance, as part of its neighbourhood strategy.

“India’s approach in Afghanistan has always been people-centric, focusing on initiatives to improve people’s lives. However, with the Taliban in control, the trajectory of the country remains uncertain. At this point, articulating a concrete Afghan policy makes little sense,” Pant said.

While the Taliban had “benefited” from the multiple crises around the world, which shifted attention away from them, “India, of course, cannot ignore Afghanistan”, he added.

Mattoo, the academic, said: “India’s closure of its mission has meant that its development programmes and assistance will be severely impacted. It is also a loss of face.

“But, ultimately, India has invested in earning the goodwill of the people of Afghanistan. Hopefully, this will survive in the long term.”

[Sport] Pandas leave Edinburgh Zoo for return to China

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c032qg0p3rmo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

China’s 2030 carbon reduction goal to spare food industry from reforms as security takes priority

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3243798/chinas-2030-carbon-reduction-goal-spare-food-industry-reforms-security-takes-priority?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s focus on environmental problems in its food industry is set to only accelerate after passing an initial carbon reduction goal in 2030, with food security set to remain a priority in the short term, according to a new report.

But after China achieves its stated goal of reaching peak carbon dioxide emissions across all sectors before 2030, it would likely double down on reforms, said Even Pay, an agriculture analyst with Trivium China, the author of the report commissioned by the New Zealand China Council.

“China doesn’t need agricultural help before that year,” Pay told a webinar on Monday.

But leading up to 2060, when China aims to achieve carbon neutrality, it would likely be different, she said.

“Once China tries to pursue neutrality it will need the agricultural sector to contribute to that goal,” she added.

Emissions from the agricultural sector are not being built into China’s plans to reach peak greenhouse gas emissions before 2030, said the “Tasting the future: China’s Sustainable Protein Outlook” report.

“China can be expected to delay highly ambitious, costly, or punitive regulatory efforts to deliver on agricultural sustainability goals at least until 2030, and likely beyond – seeking to ensure an ample, stable, and affordable supply of key food products first, and pursue sustainability as a second priority,” the report said.

China would put food security ahead of environmental concerns, aside from “visible” issues such as agrochemical run-off and water pollution from livestock waste, it added.

China bamboo-zled? Why the plant hasn’t taken root as plastic alternative

“Where the two are at odds, food security will be prioritised over sustainability,” the report added.

Officials have said China’s grain reserves remain healthy, but overall food self-sufficiency has dropped since 2000 – exacerbated by war in Ukraine and supply chain disruptions.

But food and food packaging waste are among the key environmental issues, the report said, while China’s plan for methane emissions lacks specific targets and is “extremely unambitious”.

The plan, which was announced in 2021, is focused on methane released during coal mining and oil and gas drilling, rather than agricultural emissions.

In 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Ecology and Environment also introduced a five-year plan focused on pollution caused by plastics.

Food importers, particularly those based in New Zealand where the industry has undergone sustainability reforms, faces a crucial test over the next few years, participants told Monday’s webinar.

New Zealand ships milk powder, butter, cheese and meat to China, with imports across all sectors hitting US$16 billion last year, according to Chinese customs.

And with China nearly a decade away from translating its ambitious climate policy into strict targets for the agri-food sector “New Zealand should continue to take action to hone value propositions while we still have a head start”, the report said.

Just two Chinese food companies have voluntarily stepped up environmental safeguards, Pay said.

China represents significant potential for businesses from New Zealand and Australia because the large consumer market lacks certain foods, said James Chin, a professor of Asian studies at the University of Tasmania.

“[Exporters] have always understood that China needs to buy a lot of food from the rest of the world,” Chin said.

But when it steps up oversight on food-related environmental issues, the sector would change fast for foreign firms, said Christiana Zhu, CEO of New Zealand’s Marvelous Foods, which makes plant-based dairy products.

China might add food safety protections, improve nutrition requirements or cut packaging waste, the report said.

“When it changes, it changes at China speed,” Zhu told the webinar.

China and Belarus renew strategic ties as Xi Jinping and ‘old friend’ Lukashenko meet in Beijing

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3243801/china-and-belarus-renew-strategic-ties-xi-jinping-and-old-friend-lukashenko-meet-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed

China and Western-sanctioned Belarus have pledged to strengthen “strategic coordination”, as their heads of state met in Beijing on Monday.

Referring to President Alexander Lukashenko as “an old friend”, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said the two countries would improve relations in a range of areas, from industrial cooperation to cross-border transport.

China would also strengthen coordination with Belarus on multilateral mechanisms, including the United Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, of which Belarus is expected to become a permanent member next year.

“China is willing to continue strengthening strategic coordination with Belarus, support each other resolutely, promote pragmatic cooperation, and continue deepening our bilateral relations,” state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.

Xi said that since their last meeting in March “political trust between the two countries was further consolidated while coordination at the international level was further strengthened”.

Lukashenko arrived in China’s capital on Sunday for a two-day visit, aiming to discuss “trade, economic, investment and international cooperation” with its major partner in Asia.

The trip comes amid Western criticism about Belarus’ involvement in Russia’s war with Ukraine and Western scepticism about China’s role in the conflict.

According to the state-owned Belarusian Telegraph Agency, Lukashenko told Xi Belarus was “a reliable partner” and would “remain so”.

Lukashenko also lauded Xi’s “concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind”.

“Unlike Western countries that are trying to tear everything apart, you have set the single goal for all,” he said.

Rail routes between China, Europe go off track as freight operators skip Russia

When they met in March, the two leaders pledged to improve their “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership”.

At the time, Xi highlighted the strengthening of “political mutual trust” between the two countries while Lukashenko voiced support for China’s global security initiatives and peace plan for Ukraine.

They also committed to improve cooperation in areas ranging from defence and security, technology, joint investment, to manufacturing.

Over the past decade, trade volume between China and Belarus has risen steadily, with China replacing the European Union to become Belarus’ second-biggest trading partner after Russia.

The EU has imposed various sanctions on Belarus in the past year in response to its involvement in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Minsk has maintained friendly relations with Beijing since Belarus gained independence in 1991 and was one of the earliest supporters of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, under which the two countries collaborated on the Great Stone China-Belarus Industrial Park.

In August, with increasing diplomatic exchanges, Belarusian Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin said diplomatic relations with China had reached an “unprecedentedly high level of cooperation”.

Is Malaysia’s visa-free entry enough to entice ‘picky’ Chinese tourists as TikTok changes travel habits?

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3243803/malaysias-visa-free-entry-enough-entice-picky-chinese-tourists-tiktok-changes-travel-habits?utm_source=rss_feed

Tour agencies in Malaysia have reported a surge in interest from Chinese travellers following news of a 30-day visa-free entry announced by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on November 26.

But tourism insiders and experts warn the government needs to broaden the country’s appeal if it wants to climb to the top of the list of competitive destinations.

Just four days since the policy came into effect, Penang state, Malaysia’s food haven, is already seeing an increase in arrivals from China, according to Uzaidi Udanis, chairman of the Consortium of Inbound Tourism Alliance.

Compared with large tour groups before the pandemic, he said operators had observed smaller groups and “spontaneous” travellers.

“There are more and more spontaneous travellers flying in for the weekends,” Uzaidi told This Week in Asia. “They are also more brave to try new things.”

This includes an uptick in tourists coming to Malaysia to hike and fish, instead of just for golf, one of the more popular activities closely associated with Chinese tourists.

Healing holidays: how Malaysia’s Penang hopes to hook Chinese medical tourists

Since Friday, Chinese and Indian tourists have been able to enter the Southeast Asian nation without a visa for 30 days, as part of Malaysia’s bid to scoop up market share from neighbouring Thailand and revive its pandemic-battered tourist businesses as high season begins in earnest.

To get ahead of the expected demand, Malaysia-based regional budget airline AirAsia has said it will add nearly 25 per cent more flights to and from China, starting from the first quarter of 2024, translating into an extra 5.2 million seats per year.

Tour operator Albert Loh told This Week in Asia his company usually “received an average of three to five inquiries a week. But now we have 61 groups asking about our packages for this week alone”.

Loh said his company, which specialises in tour packages for Chinese tourists in Sabah state in Malaysian Borneo, handled around 5,000 clients in the year to November 30, down at least 30 per cent from the volume they used to manage in 2019 before Covid-19 hit.

Visa-free access to Malaysia could potentially boost his business by at least 50 per cent, Loh added, based on the spike in interest over the past week alone.

But to clamber above regional rivals such as Thailand and Indonesia’s Bali, Malaysia needs to promote distinctly local experiences across culture, eco-tourism and wellness, besides making it clear that it is safe to visit, Angeline Tan, a researcher with think tank ISIS Malaysia.

“The pandemic has made the world seem like a scary place and this affects the traveller’s mentality and decision-making,” she said.

Thailand’s own visa-free offer to Chinese tourists has fallen flat so far, with many reportedly frightened off by stories of Chinese kidnap gangs targeting visitors as well as the ongoing scam saga in the Mekong region, which has dragged in tens of thousands of unwilling Chinese workers.

Thai mall shooting: PM reassures tourists about safety amid gun law debate

Equally, social media has curated a more dynamic, curious and expectant tourist, with clients doing their own research pre-departure via TikTok or Douyin – the Chinese version of the popular micro-video blog – before deciding on what they want to do.

“[Before the pandemic] they were not picky. They would just spend and eat,” Loh said. “What happens now is they will spend only after some research, and they believe in what posts on TikTok, Douyin or other social media would recommend.”

Nigel Wong, the president of Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents, said that while it was still too early to put any figure to it yet, he was optimistic that tourists from China would deliver the shot in the arm the sector needed.

“It will definitely pick up,” Wong told This Week in Asia.

But surging inquiries alone don’t bring in the tourist dollars.

Questions remain over whether the lure of island-hopping, five-star golfing destinations and Malaysia’s famed food scene would be enough to convince Chinese tours to return in serious numbers, especially as many tourism-related businesses on islands and remote parts where the best beaches are have fallen victim to the pandemic.

Analysts expect the volume of Chinese tourists may not rebound as much as hoped, with their spending power likely diminished due in large part to China’s slow economic recovery from the pandemic.

China’s Bureau of Statistics reported in June that youth unemployment hit a record high of 21.3 per cent. The International Monetary Fund projected China’s economic growth at 5.4 per cent in 2023 before slowing to 4.6 per cent on persistent weakness in its property sector and the projected subdued demand for its exports.

“With rising costs and a daunting economic outlook, the Chinese may not even choose to spend on travel,” Tan said.

Echoing similar sentiments on China’s internal difficulties, Collins Chong Yew Keat at Universiti Malaya in Kuala Lumpur was also critical of the visa-exemption incentive, saying the Malaysian government’s plan to reform the economic landscape was “missing the picture” and a middle-income trap.

“It prolongs the trap of the country in the continuous overdependence on China as the easiest low-hanging fruit in short term gains in tourism and capital,” he said.

Instead, Chong said that visa-free entry should only be prioritised for legitimate and strategic investment, and in attracting top talent and human capital in targeted sectors that would not pose a direct competition and risks to Malaysia’s economic and security interests.

China’s top graft-buster warns of ‘risk of rebound’ in corruption cases

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3243774/chinas-top-graft-buster-warns-risk-rebound-corruption-cases?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s top graft-buster said corruption was becoming harder to detect, while a crackdown on extravagant government spending would be stepped up as the festive season approaches.

The warning from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection came on the 11th anniversary of the “eight directives” to improve conduct. The policy, brought in by Chinese leader Xi Jinping soon after he came to power in 2012, aims to stamp out extravagance in the ruling Communist Party and government.

In a post on its website and social media accounts on Monday, the CCDI said that in the first 10 months of the year it investigated nearly 80,000 violations of the anti-extravagance regulations and some 114,238 people were placed under investigation and received a warning. Of those, 80,096 have faced party or administrative disciplinary action.

The watchdog also said corruption was taking new forms and becoming harder to detect.

“At present, the soil where unhealthy tendencies can thrive still exists, as does the risk of a rebound in corruption cases,” the CCDI post said.

‘Cash cow’ subsidies: China targets fraud in farm machinery sales scheme

It said the “four forms of decadence” had become “better hidden or transformed” and the watchdog called for more investigation into the specific corruption activities taking place across regions and industries so that “precise supervision” could be carried out.

Beijing uses “four forms of decadence” to describe formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance – the problems it considers to be the most prevalent among the tens of millions of party cadres and government officials in China.

The president has stressed that the eight directives for improving conduct “must be implemented with perseverance until they become regular practice among party members”. Xi also listed the directives as a key part of the CCDI’s tasks for this year at a meeting in January.

In his work report submitted to the party’s Central Committee in February, Li Xi, who heads the anti-corruption watchdog, vowed to crack down on wasteful expenditure by naming and shaming those responsible.

He said graft-busters would dig deeper to tackle new forms of corruption such as bribes delivered via AirDrop on smartphones, those given in the form of inflated fees for lectures or consultancy work, and extravagant gifts such as luxury wine, mooncakes and cigarettes.

Chinese officials must feel they are being ‘followed by shadows’, Xi says

Alfred Wu, an associate professor with the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said the CCDI’s latest warning was apparently a message to cadres not to spend money recklessly in the name of “saving the economy” or to avoid losing unused budget at the end of the financial year.

“Beijing is telling local governments that it does not want the GDP to be generated from corruption or extravagance because, in the longer term, it actually creates an uneven playing field,” Wu said. “In the long run, it hurts private companies that don’t have close relationships with government.”

But he said the crackdown on extravagance did not “spell the end” for luxury products such as Moutai – a brand of the fiery Chinese spirit baijiu.

“We have seen some pickup in the private sector’s consumption of Moutai when the public sector’s sales drop due to the [eight directives],” Wu said.

‘Is he a psychopath?’: China court grants order protecting woman from abusive husband who banned her from working, isolated her from family, friends

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/gender-diversity/article/3243396/he-psychopath-china-court-grants-order-protecting-woman-abusive-husband-who-banned-her-working?utm_source=rss_feed

A Beijing court has granted a woman in China a personal safety protection order against her husband after he banned her from working and deleted her phone contacts in a case that sparked a stir on mainland social media.

In China, personal safety protection orders are similar to restraining orders, and have become a tool in the battle against domestic violence in the country.

They typically last for six months, and an August report from the Supreme People’s Court said 15,000 of such orders had been issued since 2016.

The Beijing woman, surnamed Li, said she sought the protection order because the work and phone bans were the final straw after what she claimed were years of physical and mental abuse from her husband, surnamed Zhang, according to btime.com online news platform .

She added that Zhang cut her off from her friends after they got married.

Chen Fengyuan, a judge at the local court, said Zhang had used “love” as a justification to restrict Li’s freedom, only tolerating communication with Zhang and his parents.

Although Li felt bitter and hurt after the violence, she said she typically forgave Zhang because he would kneel down and apologise.

However, she became less tolerant as the violence escalated, so she turned to the legal system to seek a personal safety protection order.

When the court investigated the case, they found sufficient evidence of long-term abuse during the marriage and granted Li the order.

It means Zhang will face significant legal trouble if he beats, verbally abuses or threatens Li.

The relationship dynamics involved in the story have outraged many people online and the story attracted almost 1 million views on Weibo at the time of writing.

“The husband is a control freak,” said one online observer, echoing the sentiments of many.

“Why doesn’t she file for a divorce?” asked another.

A third person suggested Li leave the relationship as quickly as possible, while another suggested Zhang might be a psychopath.

In October, another high-profile case dealt with by a local court in central China granted a personal safety protection order to a woman who returned to her abusive husband, only to suffer continued violence.

In May last year, a court in southern China granted a 49-year-old man the same protection against his wife, who he said had physically abused him.

China’s Evergrande wins more time to restructure debts

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/04/china-evergrande-restructure-debts-property-developer

The property developer Evergrande has been granted an extension until late January to try to restructure its debts and avoid liquidation in one of the most high-profile cases in China’s long-running property crisis.

Evergrande was once China’s biggest property developer, but a default on offshore debt obligations in 2021 started a lurch from one crisis to another. It has reported debts of more than $300bn (£237bn), much of it to individuals whose properties were never built.

The company is facing the prospect of liquidation after a creditor, Top Shine Global, filed a winding-up petition in Hong Kong that would put the company in the hands of liquidators who would then try to sell off its assets to pay its lenders. However, the case has dragged on as the company tries to reach a deal to extend its debts out of court.

Judge Linda Chan on Monday adjourned the case until 29 January, AFP reported. The judge had in late October given 4 December as be the deadline before appointing independent liquidators from the accounting firm KPMG.

Evergrande’s share price rose by 9% in trading on Hong Kong’s stock exchange, although the company’s market value is less than 2% of what it was in early 2021, shortly before the default.

The default sent shock waves around China’s property sector, which had boomed on the back of cheap borrowing.

The company’s finances had been under severe scrutiny for years, before it was dealt another blow in September that its chairman and founder, Hui Ka Yan, was under criminal investigation. In August it filed for bankruptcy in the US in an effort to protect assets.

Lawyers for Top Shine Global said they were “instructed not to present any argument” against another adjournment, AFP reported. “So far as adjournment is concerned, we are reluctantly not opposing it,” said a lawyer in court.

The delay was not expected by some of Evergrande’s creditors. The Financial Times reported that Neil McDonald, a lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis who represents a group of offshore creditors, said that “we are very surprised by the developments” outside the court after the hearing on Monday.

The creditor group had opposed the restructuring proposal and had expected liquidation on Monday.

The judge on Monday told Evergrande to have “more direct discussion with relevant authorities” on whether they would assent to its restructuring plan, meaning that China’s government may have a role in deciding if the company can continue. It is unclear if a Hong Kong liquidation would be fully enforced in mainland China.

Russia-Ukraine war live: inquiry into ‘execution’ of surrendering Ukraine soldiers; Lukashenko meets Xi in China

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/dec/04/russia-ukraine-war-live-latest-updates-volodymyr-zelenskiy-vladimir-putin

Hong Kong has constitutional duty to play its part in China’s modernisation, says Beijing’s top official in city

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3243760/hong-kong-has-constitutional-duty-play-its-part-chinas-modernisation-says-beijings-top-official-city?utm_source=rss_feed

Hong Kong should exercise its constitutional responsibilities by playing a part in the country’s modernisation, including supporting high-quality development, and passing a local national security law in a timely manner, Beijing’s top official in the city said on Monday.

Zheng Yanxiong, director of the central government’s liaison office, said innovation, green development, and transforming the economy into an open and shared one were among key concepts for the country’s progress, which would serve as guidelines for Hong Kong.

“Taking the initiative to contribute to China’s modernisation process is Hong Kong’s constitutional responsibility,” Zheng told a seminar to mark Constitution Day.

He said Hong Kong should devote itself to innovative development, accelerate the formation of a national innovation and technology centre, and eventually become a global hub for it.

The city should also coordinate development, vigorously drive economic transformation and lay a solid foundation with green and open mindsets, he added.

Beijing not taking Hong Kong’s current calm for granted: CY Leung

Zheng said safeguarding national security was the common obligation of all Chinese citizens as specified in the constitution. It was also a constitutional responsibility that Hong Kong had to fulfil, he said.

“National security is the foundation of national rejuvenation and the fundamental premise of China’s modernisation,” he said.

He told Hong Kong to steadfastly apply the national security law, lawfully punish acts and activities that endangered national security, and complete local legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, in a timely manner.

US reducing reliance on China ‘forces Hong Kong exporters to sever some ties’

Zheng said by doing so Hong Kong could create a favourable environment to secure development opportunities, and attract entrepreneurs and investors from around the world to invest in new industries in the city.

Article 23 requires Hong Kong to enact its own laws to also outlaw theft of state secrets, as well as ban foreign political organisations or bodies from conducting political activities in the city and local political organisations or bodies from establishing ties with foreign counterparts.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said at the seminar that the “one country, two systems” governing principle was protected by the constitution and the Basic Law.

“The central government’s comprehensive jurisdiction over Hong Kong is the foundation of the city’s high degree of autonomy,” he said.

To fully safeguard Beijing’s overall jurisdiction, Lee said, the city would stick to the “patriots-only” principle of governance and actively cultivate a generation who loved both the country and the city as well as were capable of contributing to their development.

Hong Kong, Beijing slam US committee over bill that could close trade offices

The city leader said the government was making every effort to complete local legislation on Article 23 next year.

The new legislation, together with the national security law, would form an effective legal system protecting national security and forming a strong protective shield for the city, Lee added.

Food faux pas: China diner shocked by US$60,000 bill for meal after accidentally posting photo of dish ordering QR code online

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3243392/food-faux-pas-china-diner-shocked-us60000-bill-meal-after-accidentally-posting-photo-dish-ordering?utm_source=rss_feed

A woman in China was shocked to receive a 430,000-yuan (US$60,000) bill at a restaurant after accidentally posting the QR code for ordering food online, which others used to place food orders.

The woman, surnamed Wang, said she only wanted to post photos of the dishes from a hotpot restaurant she visited with her friend on November 23, but she accidentally included a QR code that was stuck to the table for ordering and paying for meals.

While she only posted the photos on her restricted viewing WeChat Moments page, which can only be seen by her contacts in WeChat, that list included a large number of people who began to scan the code.

When restaurant staff came to confirm her table’s 430,000-yuan order, Wang discovered that people had used the QR code she accidentally posted.

Wang deleted her post immediately, but people kept making new orders to their table. She assumed someone had downloaded her photo and continued making orders using the code.

According to a screenshot of the order Wang later posted online, people ordered 1,850 portions of fresh duck blood, 2,580 portions of squid and 9,990 portions of shrimp paste, each priced at a few dozen yuan (a few US dollars).

The restaurant did not make Wang pay the bill and moved her to a new table, ignoring all the new orders made via the code.

The management said it could neither track down the people who ordered the food nor stop people from continuing to do so.

Wang said it was a learning experience and called for increased awareness of information security so people are more careful sharing pictures of their food.

Lin Xiaoming, lawyer from Sichuan Yishang Law Firm, told the mainland media outlet Fengmian News that the fake orders were not Wang’s original intention, making them invalid.

He said restaurants involved in similar cases could cancel the order and demand compensation from the people who made the fake orders if they caused financial loss.

Lin also suggested restaurant ordering system designers add a confirmation mechanism to the ordering procedure to prevent the problem in the future.

Many on social media felt for Wang’s predicament, with one person pointing out that restaurant QR codes carry “some risk despite their convenience”.

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Global Impact: as uncertainties swirl over South China Sea, joint exercises and heightened tensions reverberate within the neighbourhood

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3243712/global-impact-uncertainties-swirl-over-south-china-sea-joint-exercises-and-heightened-tensions?utm_source=rss_feed

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In the strategically important South China Sea, Philippine and Chinese ships have become embroiled in increasingly frequent naval skirmishes, including two recent collisions near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal.

Tensions appeared to have eased somewhat after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr told President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit last month that disputes over the waterway should not define bilateral ties.

But back at home, Marcos made it clear that the Philippines “will not give up a single square inch of our territory to any foreign power” and would continue to adhere to an international rules-based order.

Manila even scrapped US$5 billion worth of rail projects with China, citing foot-dragging by the Chinese over financing, but analysts have suggested that it was Manila’s refusal to back down in the contested waters that had resulted in the holding back of cash pledges.

Bilateral tensions, however, have not affected trade between the two neighbours. Chinese demand for Philippine minerals, including nickel ore, remained robust at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai last month.

Amid the maritime tensions, China held joint military exercises with five Southeast Asian countries – Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, but not the Philippines – in what has been seen as a bid by Beijing to play “catch-up” with America’s defence relationships in the region.

Not to be outdone, the United States followed up with an 11-day joint military exercise involving nearly 3,000 members of elite forces from the Philippines, the US, Japan, South Korea and Britain to reportedly improve “interoperability”.

Soon after, the Philippines and Australia began their first joint three-day sea-and-air patrols in the South China Sea to underscore what they say is a commitment to a “peaceful, secure and prosperous region”.

The maritime disputes and the lack of trust and confidence these have generated have prompted the head of a top Chinese think tank to call for a strategy of opening up the marine sector, which includes cooperation in the marine economic sector.

But this might be too little, too late. Vietnam is believed to be ramping up its dredging and landfill work in the Spratly Islands, creating an additional 330 acres of land since December last year, according to a US think tank report.

In the meantime, a Chinese carrier strike group headed to the South China Sea after completing a week-long drill near Japan’s waters, according to Japan’s defence ministry.

The drill was held shortly after Japan and the Philippines discussed strengthening maritime and defence cooperation, including a Reciprocal Access Agreement that would enable military personnel from each country to visit the other for joint training exercises - a move widely seen to be targeting China.

Global Impact: are we headed for a new dynasty of US-China relations after Xi-Biden meeting?

When Xi and Biden met during their summit in San Francisco, both sides pledged to “enhance trust” and “manage differences”, including over Taiwan and the South China Sea.

But within days, China conducted two one-day live-fire drills in the South China Sea as the US and the Philippine navies carried out joint sea and air patrols, with Beijing calling Washington “the biggest disrupter of peace”.

With tensions a regular feature in the disputed waterway, analysts do not appear to be holding out much hope, even as China and Southeast Asian nations agreed to start on the third reading of a long-delayed code of conduct for the South China Sea.

Citing the slow progress of the regional pact, the Philippines said it has approached neighbours such as Malaysia and Vietnam to discuss a separate code of conduct to ensure peace in the region.

60-Second Catch-up

South China Sea disputes should not define ties, Philippine leader Marcos tells China’s Xi at Apec

Beijing and Manila trade accusations over ‘provocative’ ship collisions near disputed atoll

Opinion: Amid choppy South China Sea waters, Philippines and Beijing should boost dialogue to calm tense ties

Beijing, Manila dispute details of latest Scarborough Shoal military encounter

Beijing rebukes Washington after warning off US warship in South China Sea

US, Chinese diplomats meet in Beijing to discuss maritime issues including South China Sea

Deep dives

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr said Manila will never abandon its claims in the South China Sea amid heightened tensions with China in the disputed waterway, according to a strongly-worded statement.

“As I have said before, and I will say again, the Philippines will not give up a single square inch of our territory to any foreign power,” he told a forum in Honolulu on Sunday, according to his press office, without explicitly naming Beijing.

Read more

China’s escalation of so-called grey-zone activities against the Philippines, and Manila’s response in seeking more allies, could cause already-brewing tensions in the region to spiral out of control.

This was the assessment by analysts weighing in on the recent spate of actions in the disputed South China Sea, particularly over the Second Thomas Shoal, which Manila calls Ayungin, an atoll about 190km (120 miles) northwest of the Philippine island of Palawan.

Read more

The government letter to Huang Xilian, China’s top envoy in Manila, was polite yet unequivocal as it ran a thick red line through a US$1.4 billion plan for a railway in the southernmost island of Mindanao, stating the Philippines “is no longer inclined to pursue” long-promised Chinese financing for the 100km track.

It was another signal, analysts say, of how disputes over territory in the South China Sea are scuttling the relationship between Manila and Beijing, as President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr cancels billions of dollars of promised Chinese loans to fund a network of much-needed railways – and China strangles its pipeline of cash for infrastructure projects.

Read more

An 11-day joint military exercise involving nearly 3,000 members of elite forces from the Philippines, United States, Japan, South Korea and Britain is under way and focused on “interoperability” to counter any crisis in the Indo-Pacific region, as geopolitical tensions mount in the south and east China seas.

“Kamandag 7” is part of a series of training exercises across Southeast Asia comprising 2,749 personnel, including 902 US marines. Some of the Americans hail from a newly created fighting unit, formed by the US last year to be the first responder in the Indo-Pacific.

Read more

China and the United States have been urged to work together and lead the way on global ocean governance.

An event held on the Chinese island of Hainan earlier this month heard that progress will not be possible without cooperation between the two superpowers, who were urged not to let regional maritime disputes overshadow efforts to address issues such as piracy, climate change and other environmental threats.

Read more

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US to apply to study China’s moon rock samples, Saudi Arabian football, snake soup: 5 weekend reads you may have missed

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/3243707/us-apply-study-chinas-moon-rock-samples-saudi-arabian-football-snake-soup-5-weekend-reads-you-may?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 .

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‘Cash cow’ subsidies: China targets fraud in farm machinery sales scheme

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3243671/cash-cow-subsidies-china-targets-fraud-farm-machinery-sales-scheme?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s agriculture ministry has sent teams to three provinces to investigate suspected cases of machinery subsidy fraud, opening up a new front in Beijing’s in the grain industry.

Beijing paid out 21.2 billion yuan (US$3 billion) to help farmers buy machinery last year in a bigger plan to stabilise agricultural production.

Food security is a major issue for the country as it feels the effects of climate change and an uncertain global market.

But some “wrong-intentioned” people had treated the scheme as a “cash cow”, according to a report on Economic Half Hour, a programme on state broadcaster CCTV’s finance channel.

“Unscrupulous enterprises” colluded with others to generate sales of agricultural machinery and misuse subsidy funds for suspected illegal activities.

The report cited the case of farmers in Xinghua in coastal Jiangsu who used the subsidies to buy fertiliser spreaders that ended up being unusable because they were so poorly made.

The equipment was manufactured in June 2021 but had been abandoned in farm sheds for more than two years, according to the report.

The manufacturer, Henan Saiteng Agricultural Machinery, is under investigation not only in Jiangsu but also in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region for allegedly defrauding the government of subsidies through their sales of fertiliser spreaders.

The ministry’s investigation teams were sent to Henan, Jiangsu and Guangxi and will work with other authorities, including the police and the market supervisors, to verify the issue and deal with the parties involved in accordance with the law.

The ministry pledged to “rectify” the national situation concerning subsidies for rice fertiliser spreaders and implement further measures, such as verification and identification of subsidised products.

The nationwide corruption crackdown on grain production started in 2021, and has brought down dozens of officials at state and provincial levels, including former Communist Party chief of the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration Zhang Wufeng.

In August, Beijing announced cash rewards of up to 150,000 yuan (US$21,000) for information on illegal practices in the buying and selling of grain meant for national reserves.

The state-owned Economic Daily newspaper had warned that despite the country’s ample stockpiles, “there are a lot of hidden dangers in food security due to increasing difficulty in stabilising farmland size, poor quality and worrisome food safety, huge waste, and repeated cases of corruption”.

[World] A young couple's ordeal captivates Chinese internet

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-67563596?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

‘Too cold-blooded’: China animal lover who saved Border Collie marked for slaughter after original owner sold dog to meat vendor wins praise online

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3243386/too-cold-blooded-china-animal-lover-who-saved-border-collie-marked-slaughter-after-original-owner?utm_source=rss_feed

A woman in China who saved a Border Collie dog destined for slaughter after it was bartered away to a meat vendor by its original owner has earned praise on mainland social media.

The woman, surnamed Liu, from Inner Mongolia in northern China, first came across the dog at the meat vendor, where she discovered it had been let go by its original owner following a car accident that left it unable to walk.

The dog had been exchanged for 20kg of pork and the new owner planned to kill the animal and sell its meat.

Liu was deeply concerned.

In an interview with Hebei Radio and TV Station on November 26, she said: “I have never raised a puppy before, but when I saw this little dog, I could not bear its fate. I didn’t think twice, I just rescued it.”

Liu then provided tender care to the canine by hand-feeding it and providing warmth and comfort.

Remarkably, as a result of her care, the dog managed to stand on its own the very next evening, a moment that surprised Liu.

To mark this remarkable transformation, the dog was given a new name, Xinxin. Xin means “new” in Chinese.

“I think that from the day I rescued Xinxin, the dog embarked on a new chapter in life,” Liu said.

The touching rescue has garnered praise for Liu and sparked outrage about the original owner who abandoned the dog.

One online commenter said: “How can anyone trade their pet for meat? That is too cold-blooded. Can irresponsible people please stop keeping pets?”

Another said: “Please be a decent human being! Border Collies are so smart. It might even be more intelligent than you!”

While eating dog meat is not widespread in China, it persists as a cultural practice in certain regions, highlighted by the Yulin Lychee and Dog Meat Festival in Guangxi in southern China.

The annual festival started in 2009 and has resulted in the slaughter of thousands, and sometimes even tens of thousands of dogs during a single event every year.

In April 2023, the national agricultural and rural affairs authorities issued a notice that dogs and cats had to be labelled non-food animals.

Some of those found guilty had been charged with “manufacturing and selling harmful food”.

In September, two people from Putian, Fujian province in southeastern China, were jailed for multiple years after being convicted of using poison needles to kill dogs and sell their meat.

China’s top defence contractors saw income grow for fourth year in a row, SIPRI global top 100 list shows

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3243690/chinas-top-defence-contractors-saw-income-grow-4th-year-row-sipri-global-top-100-list-shows?utm_source=rss_feed

Most of China’s top-tier defence contractors saw revenue grow for the fourth straight year in 2022, while their US counterparts suffered a sharp drop from 2021, a Swedish think tank report said.

Despite the dip in orders, US companies held on to their No 1 position overall, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s annual report released on Monday.

Chinese companies retained their overall No 2 spot in combined arms sales with an 18 per cent share, but still trailed their US peers who captured 51 per cent.

The top eight Chinese arms producers were listed on the “SIPRI Top 100 Arms Producing and Military Services Companies, 2022” report

Six of those posted an increase in revenue last year, and three made it to the top 10.

Combined revenue for the eight companies grew by 2.7 per cent to US$108 billion, a fourth consecutive annual increase.

Is a fall in China’s military exports a sign of stockpiling at home?

Norinco, the largest Chinese defence contractor and land systems specialist, ranked seventh on the list, with revenue rising by 4.4 per cent to US$22.1 billion last year.

China’s No 2 weapons company and leading military aircraft maker Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) was at eighth spot with a 4.7 per cent revenue hike, to US$20.6 billion.

But the most rapid growth in 2022 was at China South Industries Group, which saw revenue go up by 12 per cent to US$6.5 billion, taking it to 21st spot on the SIPRI list.

Xiao Liang, a researcher with the SIPRI military expenditure and arms production programme, said that the main driver for the Chinese defence industry in 2022 and previous years had been Beijing’s modernisation programmes aimed at becoming more “self-reliant” in arms production.

“This is supported by its rising military spending, which has been on [an] uninterrupted increase since 1995,” Liang said.

“AVIC, China’s main aircraft producer, saw revenue rise for the second consecutive year, reflecting increased production of its fourth-generation combat aircraft and the fielding of fifth-generation combat aircraft, that is the J-20.”

Liang said domestic defence contractors had developed the capability to fulfil up to 90 per cent of the Chinese military’s procurement needs.

“[China] is one of only three countries to have a fifth-generation combat aircraft in serial production, and it is a pioneer in armed UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles],” Liang said. “While some residual dependency on imports remains, mainly in aero engines and helicopters, it seems that China is also making rapid progress in those fields.”

Liang added that while most Chinese companies had so far primarily relied on domestic sales, many were looking to expand their export market and this could affect the scale of growth in China’s defence industry.

Apart from those in China, 22 companies from Asia and the Pacific also posted revenue gains in 2022, according to SIPRI.

“Domestic demand and reliance on local suppliers shielded Asian arms companies from supply chain disruptions in 2022,” Liang said. “Companies in China, India, Japan and Taiwan all benefited from sustained government investment in military modernisation.”

While the US still took the lead in arms revenue, this had dropped by nearly 8 per cent from 2021. Out of the 42 US companies on the top 100 list, as many as 32 posted a fall in revenue.

The report cited supply chain issues and labour shortages stemming from Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic among major causes preventing US contractors from significantly ramping up production capacity, despite a surge in orders as Kyiv fights back against the Russian invasion.

Pentagon chief pledges US$100 million to support Kyiv’s fight against Russia

“We are beginning to see an influx of new orders linked to the war in Ukraine and some major US companies, including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies, received new orders as a result,” SIPRI senior researcher Nan Tian said.

“However, because of these companies’ existing order backlogs and difficulties in ramping up production capacity, the revenue from these orders will probably only be reflected in company accounts in two to three years’ time.”

Due to a lack of transparency in data, only two Russian companies were included in the top 100 for 2022. Their combined arms revenue fell by 12 per cent to US$20.8 billion.

First created in 1989, SIPRI’s annual arms industry database compares and lists the top 100 global defence firms’ revenue generated from the sales of goods and services to domestic and international military customers.

Insurer HSBC Life draws customers from 46 overseas markets and China as customers throng to Hong Kong for its wider product range

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3243483/insurer-hsbc-life-draws-customers-46-overseas-markets-and-china-customers-throng-hong-kong-its-wider?utm_source=rss_feed

Mainland Chinese clients are not the only ones turning to Hong Kong to buy insurance products, with HSBC Life reporting policy sales to customers from 46 other jurisdictions in the first nine months of this year.

“This is a strong indication of Hong Kong’s re-emergence as an international financial centre in the post-pandemic era,” Edward Moncreiffe, CEO for Hong Kong and Macau at HSBC Life, said in an interview.

The company, which sold HK$29.9 billion (US$3.8 billion) worth of new policies, or a fifth of the industry aggregate, in the first nine months of this year, has the biggest market share among insurers in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong-based customers accounted for 60 per cent of its sales, with overseas customers comprising the rest. Among its overseas clients, about 70 per cent were travellers from mainland China, with customers from 46 different markets contributing the remaining 30 per cent.

Of these, the top six sources of customers were Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan, with each contributing more than HK$100 million in new business premiums.

Insurance policies issued in Hong Kong often have more comprehensive coverage and at times offer guaranteed returns, features that overseas customers are not always able to find in their home markets, Moncreiffe said.

“With more international arrivals coming to Hong Kong over the nine months of this year after the border reopened in January, we see continued growth in demand for our wealth and health solutions from travellers from many different jurisdictions,” he said.

The Hong Kong government’s promotional efforts, such as those made by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, which included roadshows in Southeast Asia and other overseas markets, have created greater awareness about Hong Kong’s insurance industry globally, Moncreiffe said.

In December last year, Lee issued a road map and vowed to introduce policies to convince international insurance companies to set up regional hubs in Hong Kong.

HSBC Life’s new centre in Macau targets Greater Bay Area clients

“We remain positive that this strong momentum will prevail for the rest of the year and 2024, supported by excess savings activity, higher demand for protection and the resurgence of the attractiveness of Hong Kong as an international financial centre.”

In the January-to-September period, sales of policies to mainland Chinese customers surged to HK$46.8 billion, or 32 per cent of the total, compared with HK$1 billion a year earlier, according to data the Insurance Authority released on Thursday.

Overall, new life insurance sales rose 30.6 per cent in the first nine months to HK$146.5 billion, from HK$112.2 billion a year earlier. This was also 4.8 per cent higher than sales of HK$139.8 billion recorded in the first nine months of 2019.

HSBC Life’s US$20 million tech investment cuts claims payment time to 5 minutes

About 23 million travellers visited Hong Kong in the first nine months, including 18.7 million from mainland China, according to data from the Hong Kong Tourism Board. This is almost 100 times more than a year earlier, when travel was brought to a standstill during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hong Kong’s insurance companies have traditionally attracted many overseas customers, according to the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers (HKFI) CEO, Selina Lau Pui-ling. The federation is an industry body representing 138 insurance companies in the city.

“In general, we have seen many overseas customers interested in buying high-end medical products in Hong Kong, such as the CEO medical plan, given that the premium rate is relatively attractive and we have different medical plans to choose from,” Lau said.

Hong Kong ‘excellent hub’ for international insurers to expand

The trend might be related to the fact that many insurance companies and insurance brokers are also promoting Hong Kong’s insurance products and wealth-management solutions to overseas customers.

Hong Kong’s leading insurers, including HSBC Life, Manulife, Standard Chartered Bank, Prudential and Sun Life have all expanded luxury customer centres where agents and brokers meet wealthy customers to pitch insurance and wealth-management products.

“We can see that foreigners are buying financial assets in Hong Kong to diversify their risks,” Lau said.

Hong Kong virtual banks WeLab, Mox, ZA Bank expand in insurance sales

Compared with other countries, especially developing ones, insurance products in Hong Kong are more comprehensive, which is why foreign customers like to buy policies here, said Kenrick Chung, director of Ben. Excellence Consultancy, an insurance broker in Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong, as a global financial centre, is a diverse insurance market, both in terms of customer sources and channels,” said Patrick Graham, CEO of Manulife Hong Kong and Macau.

“It is a hub for high-net-worth customers, the Greater Bay Area region, mainland Chinese visitor customers, as well as a strong domestic segment. The Hong Kong market also boosts diverse distribution channels including banks, brokers, agencies and direct [from insurers].”

China’s military says US combat ship illegally entered territorial waters in South China Sea

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3243709/chinas-military-says-us-combat-ship-illegally-entered-territorial-waters-south-china-sea?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s military on Monday said a US combat ship illegally entered waters adjacent to the Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed South China Sea atoll.

“The US seriously undermined regional peace and stability,” said a spokesperson for China’s Southern Theatre of Operations in a statement.

The spokesperson also said the US deliberately disrupted the South China Sea and seriously violated China’s sovereignty.

A China rivalry twist emerges in Sri Lanka’s new US-funded, Indian-built port

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3243542/china-rivalry-twist-emerges-sri-lankas-new-us-funded-indian-built-port?utm_source=rss_feed

A US-funded port project in Sri Lanka that is partly owned by a private group close to India’s ruling party could signal a new form of partnership to counter growing Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

The Adani Group, controlled by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and with businesses ranging from ports to edible oils, is developing the Colombo West International Terminal project in Sri Lanka’s capital and holds a 51 per cent stake in the project backed by more than US$500 million in funding from a US government agency. Sri Lankan conglomerate John Keells Holdings and the state-run Sri Lanka Ports Authority hold the remaining stakes.

India and the United States – alongside Australia and Japan – form the Quad diplomatic network, whose leaders have said they are focused on providing an alternative to Chinese infrastructure projects for developing nations. The new Sri Lankan port terminal, resembling a public-private partnership, would appear to be their first such endeavour.

Analysts say the move signals a new determination on the Quad’s part to guard against smaller nations leaning too heavily on China and its arterial trade and military routes. Another terminal at the port is run by China Merchants Port Holdings Co Ltd.

Cedomir Nestrovic, a professor of geopolitics at the ESSEC Business School Asia-Pacific in Singapore, said it would be too simplistic to characterise the US-funded project as just another business deal.

He said geopolitical interests could be seen in the fact that the US$553 million in financing from the US International Development Finance Corporation, a federal government agency, represents nearly four-fifths of the US$700 million required to build the terminal.

There are not many other cases “where America has invested institutionally in this way, with this amount of money,” Nestrovic said. “The political motivation is part of the larger rivalry that exists between the United States and China.”

US efforts to contain China militarily through the presence of American troops in South Korea and Japan have been expanded into the economic sphere via the larger Quad grouping and the push “to ‘cut the grass’ of Chinese investments”, Nestrovic said.

“How to put a little bit of pressure on China,” was a possible US motive for the port investment, he said, in addition to Washington’s desire to provide smaller nations with a non-Beijing alternative for infrastructure investments and “tell them you are not alone”.

If the partnership model for the port terminal proves to be successful, analysts expect it to be replicated elsewhere in the region.

“So this is part of the big game. It’s not just one investment that is done in Sri Lanka,” Nestrovic said.

For years now, Beijing and New Delhi have vied for influence in Sri Lanka and across the wider Indian Ocean with its busy shipping corridors. India sees the sea lanes as vital to defending its southernmost regions, prompting analysts to warn that they could emerge as a potential flashpoint with China amid deteriorating ties since a border clash more than three years ago.

India provided around US$4 billion in financial aid and humanitarian support to Sri Lanka last year, as the island sought an International Monetary Fund bailout to relieve its crushing debt burden after its tourism-dependent economy collapsed amid the pandemic.

Delhi has since pursued ambitious long-term investments in Sri Lanka, including renewable-energy projects and the expansion of a harbour at Trincomalee in the country’s northeast into a major port.

It is envisaged that the new terminal in the major transshipment hub of Colombo, meanwhile, will help smaller vessels plying their trade in the shallow harbours of eastern India get their cargo to world markets.

Adani Group is also developing India’s first transshipment port in the southern state of Kerala, which is expected to be fully operational by the end of next year, as the country eyes a bigger slice of international maritime trade currently dominated by China.

“China is already operating a terminal in Sri Lanka, and in the absence of the Adani venture, they [Chinese companies] could have drawn cargo away from India by outpricing us,” said an Indian industry shipping executive who requested anonymity, adding that it would make sense for the group to now invest in similar transshipment ports across Asia.

Adani Group is already India’s biggest port operator, owning more than a dozen facilities across both coasts, and is now looking to expand to Bangladesh, Vietnam and Tanzania, according to Gautam’s son Karan Adani, CEO of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. That’s in addition to its ports already under development in Sri Lanka and Israel.

The group, which bounced back from US-based short seller Hindenburg Research’s bruising allegations of stock-price manipulation in January, is representative of large Indian businesses’ increasing desire to go global, Nestrovic said.

“I think Indian businesses will start to become global businesses,” he said, adding that if the Adani Group’s Sri Lankan venture works out, it will pave the way for expansion elsewhere.

Analysts say the US likely chose to partner with the private sector on the new Sri Lankan port terminal as doing so involves less red tape than working with Indian state-owned enterprises.

“The Indian establishment has [also] realised private projects are more efficient and are more deliverable,” said Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy, associate fellow with the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation’s Strategic Studies Programme.

Such partnerships would also help the US bolster its low-key presence in South Asian nations, where it has mostly concentrated on providing aid. But even that is not always welcome.

A US$500 million grant to build power transmission lines in Nepal and allow load sharing with India ran into a storm of protests last year after opposition parties suspected the real motivation was establishing an American military base.

The South Asian nation’s development compact with the US Millennium Challenge Corporation was only officially launched in August after being stuck in limbo for five years.

Shivamurthy said there was the potential for such difficulties to be avoided in future through more US-India business collaborations.

“India knows that the US has the technology and cash and the US knows that India has the knowledge and leeway in these countries,” he said.

China, whose pockets are far deeper than India’s, has been growing its influence in Sri Lanka and the Maldives in recent years through major infrastructure projects, extending its sway in a region that Delhi has traditionally seen as its strategic backyard.

Is ‘India Out’ of the Maldives as China-friendly leader Muizzu takes charge?

“I think it’s a question of how you find the right balance. At the end of the day, who can deliver on the ground is the most important question,” said Harsh Pant, an international-relations professor at King’s College London.

“The US is looking at the reality of a China on the upswing and recognising that it needs to work with India with innovative outcomes.”

For a long time, India thought it could secure its interests in the Indian Ocean on its own, Pant said, but Delhi has now realised it can’t afford to work in a silo. “Unless like-minded countries work together, it will be very difficult to project a favourable balance of power.”

He said that would involve “a wider matrix of like-minded countries”, including Japan and Australia, working together on projects.

“Today, there is a pushback from India and like-minded countries. You’re going to see more of this going forward,” Pant said.

Walmart Shifts to India, Cuts China Imports

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/walmart-shifts-to-india-cuts-china-imports/7377475.html

Walmart, the world’s largest store, is importing more goods to the United States from India and reducing its dependence on China.

Between January and August this year, Walmart shipped 25 percent of its U.S. imports from India. That compares to just 2 percent in 2018. Import Yeti, a data company, shared the information with Reuters.

The same data shows that only 60 percent of Walmart’s imports came from China during the same period, down from 80 percent in 2018. China is still Walmart’s biggest country for importing goods.

The shift shows how the rising cost of importing from China and increased tension between China and the U.S. are leading American companies to import from other countries. Those countries include India, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Andrea Alright is Walmart’s executive vice president of sourcing. She said, “We want the best prices.” She added that Walmart has to deal with natural disasters to shortages in materials and cannot be dependent on any one supplier or area for products.

Walmart said the import information did not mean that it was reducing dependence on any of its markets. "We're a growth business and are working to source more manufacturing capacity," the company said in a statement. And Albright added that India has become an important part of Walmart’s efforts to build that manufacturing capacity.

Walmart has been increasing growth in India since 2018. It bought 77 percent of shares in the online company Flipkart. Two years later, it promised to import $10 billion worth of goods from India each year by 2027. That is a target it is on the way to meet, Albright said. It is currently importing around $3 billion worth of goods from India each year.

India’s workforce and technology

Walmart is importing goods including toys, electronics, sporting equipment, and medications from India. Foods like packaged food, dry grains, and pasta are also popular imports from India, Albright told Reuters.

India, whose stock market has risen to record highs this year, is viewed as the country best equipped to outperform China in low-cost and large amounts of manufacturing.

The South Asian country also has a growing workforce and increasing technological developments. China, however, recently reported its first population decrease in sixty years.

Walmart started its sourcing operations in the Indian city of Bangalore in 2002. Now, the company employs more than 100,000 people, including temporary workers, around the country.

Rising costs from China

The rising cost of shopping goods from China has also added to the shift to India, supply chain experts say.

Chris Rogers is a researcher at S&P Global Market Intelligence’s supply chain research group Panjiva. He said, “Sourcing from mainland China has become less competitive because of rising labor costs versus other manufacturing centers.”

China's minimum wage ranges between $198.52 to $376.08 monthly. Meanwhile, average wages for unskilled and semi-skilled workers in India are between $108.04 and $180.06.

The COVID-19 pandemic showed weaknesses in worldwide supply chains, showing U.S. importers were over-dependent on a small number of markets.

Albright said planning for an event like the pandemic is like planning for a natural disaster. She said, “What I can control is where my product is coming from and how do I make sure that Christmas still happens if something happens in our supply chain.”

I’m Caty Weaver.

 

Julie Steenhuysen reported this story for Reuters. Gregory Stachel adapted it for VOA Learning English.

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Words in This Story

supply chain – n. a network of businesses that supply the materials and parts needed to provide people with products and goods

shift – v. to move or to cause (something or someone) to move to a different place or position

source – v. to get something from a particular place

capacity – n. the amount of something that can be produced or managed by a factory or company

draw – n. someone or something that causes a lot of people to come to a place

versus – prep. used to indicate two different things or choices that are being compared or considered