• National security: China warns military buffs not to photograph classified equipment
• China’s Christian groups told to ensure ‘strict’ oversight of religion as Communist Party controls tighten
• Mainland Chinese tourist assaulted, threatened with stabbing by bogus Hong Kong police officers in her hotel room and robbed of HK$38,000
• China vaults salt with saline-tolerant crops, increasing yields and advancing food security goals
• The unfair trial of Jimmy Lai begins in Hong Kong | China
• ‘Good deeds bring good fortune’: China man, 88, who leaves US$460,000 flat to caring fruit seller is challenged by relatives but court dismisses claim
• China’s video gaming watchdog speaks out after draft spending rules roil market
• Several Chinese workers among 13 killed after a furnace blast at China-owned Indonesian nickel plant
• How Chinese carmakers are overtaking Japanese, European rivals in South African market
• China’s giant pandas at Chengdu base will take Mondays off from tourists starting Christmas Day
• Chinese experts call for accountability over wildfire emissions, but US scientist says blame game ‘makes no sense’
• Taiwan elections: Andrew Hsia takes KMT message to business faithful on mainland China
• Chinese tech IPOs to watch in 2024: global fast-fashion online retailer Shein leads the pack
• ‘We can’t change our neighbours’: Sy-Coson’s call for diplomacy with China reveals rift among Philippines business leaders
• ‘Too stingy’: Chinese eatery owner brutally beats up customer, knocks out teeth for putting too much vinegar on dinner
• China’s inaction over Red Sea shipping attacks could exact a high price
• China punches up private security to protect overseas interests in hostile, unstable regions

National security: China warns military buffs not to photograph classified equipment

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3246167/national-security-china-warns-military-buffs-not-photograph-classified-equipment?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s top counter-espionage agency has warned military enthusiasts not to post photos online of sensitive military equipment, saying they could endanger national security.

The Ministry of State Security said on its WeChat account on Saturday that anybody photographing such equipment could face jail time.

“Photographing sensitive military equipment without permission is an act that seriously endangers national security,” the ministry said.

It said the images could potentially expose sensitive information such as technical details and progress in military equipment, such as aircraft carriers, and be used by “hostile foreign forces” to analyse combat effectiveness.

They could also put defence planning at risk by revealing key information such as location of deployments and frequency of use of the military equipment.

The ministry said there had been cases in recent years of people using professional equipment such as telephoto lenses and drones to secretly photograph military equipment at military airports, ports, and national defence industrial units.

“[These] individual ‘military fans’ illegally obtained national military information for personal reasons to show off and gain traffic. It spreads to the internet, where it is used by people with ulterior motives, causing serious harm to national military security,” the ministry said.

The offenders were punished, it said.

In 2021, a military enthusiast was sentenced to one year in prison on multiple charges of illegally obtaining state secrets after secretly photographing the Fujian aircraft carrier with a remote high-definition camera well before its official launch in June 2022.

According to state broadcaster CCTV, intelligence experts said the photos had time details that could enable foreign intelligence to assess progress on the aircraft carrier and had enough resolution to gauge the parameters of its sensitive devices.

Also that year, a man was sentenced to 14 months in prison for illegally obtaining state secrets after taking photos containing military secrets near a dual-use airport in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province.

The ministry warned in the post that individuals illegally obtaining or possessing documents, data, materials, and items containing state secrets but that not amounting to a criminal offence could face up to 10 days in detention.

Serious and repeat offenders who obtain state secrets through theft, spying, or bribery could face up to seven years in prison.

China tightened its anti-espionage law this year, broadening the definition of espionage and banning transfer of information containing state secrets.

The ministry also encouraged Chinese citizens to do their part against spying, creating channels and platforms for the public to report suspicious activities that could endanger national security.

China’s Christian groups told to ensure ‘strict’ oversight of religion as Communist Party controls tighten

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3246162/chinas-christian-groups-told-ensure-strict-oversight-religion-communist-party-controls-tighten?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing’s top political adviser Wang Huning has urged Chinese Christian groups to ensure “strict” management of religious affairs, seen as the latest effort by the ruling Communist Party to tighten controls on organised religion.

The call from Wang, a member of the party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, came as he met Protestant religious leaders during their once in five years national congress in Beijing last week.

The 11th National Chinese Christian Congress, held over Wednesday and Thursday, elected new leaders for the two state-sanctioned Protestant groups in the country, state news agency Xinhua reported.

The National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China and the China Christian Council run state-approved churches and carry out pastoral work. They aim also to address the needs of faith within a socialist society, by balancing religious belief with allegiance to the party and country.

The meetings were led by Wang, whose role as chairman of the national committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – the party’s top advisory body – includes overseeing religious affairs in the country.

The two groups had, over the past five years, upheld the principle that Protestantism in China must be Chinese in orientation and guided the Chinese Protestant community to unite closely around the party and the government, Xinhua quoted Wang as saying.

He called on the leaders to guide Protestant figures and believers to be patriotic and to enhance their identification with the nation, Chinese culture, the party, and socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Leaders of Christian groups “should adhere to the direction of sinicisation of Christianity” and “interpret the doctrines that conform to the development and progress requirements of contemporary China, the core values of socialism and the excellent traditional Chinese culture”, Wang said.

He also urged them to “adhere to comprehensive and strict governance of religions, and carry out religious activities in accordance with laws and regulations”.

Beijing has tightened its oversight of religions including Islam and Christianity under Chinese President Xi Jinping. In 2015, Xi introduced the concept of “sinicisation of religion”, seen as an effort to strengthen national security and counter foreign influence.

Addressing a national religious work conference in December 2021, Xi called on religious groups to study the history of the Chinese Communist Party and strengthen the governance of online religious affairs.

The party’s policy on freedom of religious belief must be “completely, accurately and comprehensively” implemented, and religions must adapt to the fact that China is a socialist country, Xi said.

The United States has placed China on its list of countries of “particular concern” under its Religious Freedom Act, over accusations of severe violations. International human rights groups have accused Beijing of crackdowns on Christianity, including a large-scale shutdown of house churches.

The annual US State Department report on International Religious Freedom released in May said Beijing had characterised a number of Christian groups as “cult organisations”, censored online posts referencing Jesus or the Bible, and removed articles published by Christianity-related platforms.

US report says China jailed as many as 10,000 religious adherents

In Beijing last week, Wang urged Chinese Christian groups to acquire a profound understanding of the party’s theories and policies on religion. They should implement these while adhering to the principles of independence and self-management, and engage in international exchanges on the basis of independence, equality, and mutual respect, he said.

China recognises five official religions – Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism. According to Boston University’s 2020 World Religion Database, cited by the US State Department report, about 7.4 per cent of Chinese identified as Christians.

A Pew Research Centre analysis of the latest available survey data collected by academic organisations in China says roughly 90 per cent of Christians in China are Protestant.

Mainland Chinese tourist assaulted, threatened with stabbing by bogus Hong Kong police officers in her hotel room and robbed of HK$38,000

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3246169/mainland-chinese-tourist-assaulted-threatened-stabbing-bogus-hong-kong-police-officers-her-hotel?utm_source=rss_feed

Two bogus Hong Kong police officers assaulted and threatened to stab a 25-year-old woman before they stole HK$38,000 (US$4,861) after they forced their way into her hotel room.

A source said on Sunday the two men told their tourist victim they were police and pushed her against the wall when she answered the door of her hotel room.

They tried and failed to snatch her mobile phone, but dragged her onto the bed, slapped her face several times and threatened to stab her if she did not unlock the room’s safe.

The insider said the men took the HK$38,000 from the safe and fled.

Police were alerted to the robbery at the Harbour Grand Kowloon in Hung Hom at about 10.15pm on Saturday.

Detectives from the Kowloon City district have launched an investigation into the crime, but no arrests have yet been made.

Hong Kong police probe burglaries amid 50 per cent rise in break-ins

The victim, identified by the source only by the surname Chen and who has a Chinese two-way entry permit, said she was alone in the room and that she had never seen the two men before.

The source said the injured woman refused to be taken to hospital for treatment, despite a reddened and swollen face and injuries to her knees and elbows.

Impersonation of a police officer can lead to up to six months in jail and a HK$1,000 fine. Robbery is punishable by up to life imprisonment.

China vaults salt with saline-tolerant crops, increasing yields and advancing food security goals

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3246033/china-vaults-salt-saline-tolerant-crops-increasing-yields-and-advancing-food-security-goals?utm_source=rss_feed

As extreme weather events battered China’s traditional breadbaskets and abrupt geopolitical shifts made reliable grain prices a thing of the past, Beijing has ramped up its campaign to safeguard food security, employing a variety of methods to expand yields and cultivate more efficiently.

To guarantee its 1.4 billion people can be fed without despoiling its limited stocks of arable land – a paradox that has always been a major hurdle to self-sufficiency -the country has explored ways to grow in soils dense with plant-killing salts and minerals.

These efforts have, so far, met with success. The country’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced this month that China’s 2023 grain output was the largest in history.

“Saline-alkaline land” refers to soil that contains an excess of both soluble salts and exchangeable sodium, both of which make land more difficult to farm.

China has the world’s third-largest surface area of saline-alkaline land at about 100 million (247 million acres) hectares, with about one-third carrying the potential for utilisation.

That land is distributed throughout the country, found in 19 provinces spanning China’s southeastern coast as well as the arid north and northwest.

The cultivation of saline and alkaline soils is one of many areas Beijing has identified to bolster its domestic food supply.

Others include the strict protection of arable land, building “high-standard” land, amending and drafting laws on food security and improving per-unit yield through mechanisation and new technologies.

Saline-alkaline soil has been named as a “non-traditional farmland” worth targeting for reclamation.

China and Russia supercharge trade with record US$25 billion grain order

Turning seemingly toxic stretches of land into workable tilling ground would be a major accomplishment, as it would demonstrate China can overcome limitations on its natural resources and “steadily expand the space for agricultural production”.

President Xi Jinping, who has on many occasions called for the country’s “rice bowl” to be “firmly held” by the Chinese people, acknowledged “farm protection [had become] more difficult” in a high-level meeting in July.

By then he had already broached the subject of saline-alkaline soil twice, once during a visit to the northern province of Hebei in May and again on a June tour of an agricultural park in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

China has employed several approaches to making saline-alkaline land more fertile. It has ameliorated mineral content, developed more tolerant crops – or both, depending on the area – to strengthen self-reliance and reduce dependence on imports.

In June, China Science Daily reported new salt-tolerant species had been planted in Dongtai of east China’s Jiangsu province, making “record” progress in growing rapeseed in salty soil.

An aquaculture firm in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region reported in August it had used the area’s saline mix to simulate seawater, opening the country’s inland to seafood farming.

Saline-alkaline land in northeast China’s Jilin province has also seen impressive harvests after soil treatment and the improvement of tolerant crops, People’s Daily reported last month.

Different types of saline or alkaline farmland should be managed with tailored approaches, Xi said during the meeting in July.

Those which have been effective, he added, should be widely applied, with the government formulating fiscal and monetary policies to support projects that have proven successful.

A guideline on the comprehensive utilisation of saline-alkaline land has also been reviewed and approved, the official Xinhua News Agency has reported.

In the meantime, efforts are likely to continue to breed more tolerant varieties of crops and testing newer methods that could increase yields or widen the scope of usable soils.

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The unfair trial of Jimmy Lai begins in Hong Kong | China

https://www.economist.com/china/2023/12/18/the-unfair-trial-of-jimmy-lai-begins-in-hong-kong

IT HAS BEEN more than three years since the police in Hong Kong arrested Jimmy Lai and stuck him in Stanley Prison. But as Mr Lai stood in court on December 18th, facing charges of sedition and colluding with foreign forces, it felt like the culmination of a much longer saga. The pro-democracy media tycoon has spent decades challenging the administration in Hong Kong and the national government in Beijing. They, in turn, consider Mr Lai a traitor and have been relishing the chance for more payback.

Revered by many Hong Kongers for his bravery, Mr Lai has led a rags-to-riches life. At the age of 12 he escaped Mao Zedong’s China by stowing away on a boat. Once in Hong Kong he worked his way up from factory dogsbody to clothing impresario and media mogul. The government in Beijing forced him out of the garment industry in 1994 after he wrote a column in one of his magazines calling Li Peng, China’s prime minister at the time, “the son of a turtle’s egg” (a rather nasty insult).

In 1995 Mr Lai founded Apple Daily, a popular tabloid that mixed tittle-tattle with criticism of the government. By 2021 the authorities in Hong Kong had had enough. Acting under the national-security law, they froze the paper’s assets, raided its offices and arrested several of its leaders. (People across Hong Kong queued to buy the paper’s farewell edition.) The charges against Mr Lai are based in part on articles in Apple Daily that called for international sanctions against Chinese and Hong Kong officials. Prosecutors argue that this amounted to collusion with foreign forces. Six of the paper’s former staff members pleaded guilty to the charge in 2022.

The government in Hong Kong has gone to great lengths to ensure that Mr Lai’s trial goes its way. It prevented him from appointing his preferred barrister, a Briton named Tim Owen. (The fight over that contributed to the trial’s being delayed for months.) Paul Lam, Hong Kong’s justice minister, insisted that Mr Lai be tried not by a jury, but by three judges approved by John Lee, the city’s chief executive (this is now the norm in national-security cases). Chris Tang, the security minister, has already proclaimed that the proceedings will prove Mr Lai is “bad”. The government likes to boast that it has a 100% conviction rate in national-security trials.

In 2022 Mr Lai was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison for fraud, a verdict denounced by human-rights groups. Now he looks set to spend the rest of his life behind bars. America, Britain and the European Union have condemned the trial. Mr Lai’s legal team hopes this will help. But the defendant is said to be reconciled to his fate. ■

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‘Good deeds bring good fortune’: China man, 88, who leaves US$460,000 flat to caring fruit seller is challenged by relatives but court dismisses claim

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3246023/good-deeds-bring-good-fortune-china-man-88-leaves-us460000-flat-caring-fruit-seller-challenged?utm_source=rss_feed

A court in Shanghai decided that a market stall owner should inherit the assets of an old man, including a property worth 3.3 million yuan (US$460,000), despite relatives challenging the validity of his will.

The deceased man, surnamed Ma, caused a sensation three years ago when notary officials witnessed his decision to leave his entire estate to a fruit seller who was not related to him.

The octogenarian gifted all his property to the man, surnamed Liu, and his family to thank them for the care and support they had given him in the last few years of his life.

Years ago, the elderly man invited Liu, his wife and their three children, who had been living in a shabby place, to move into his home and live with him.

When Ma died on December 31, 2021, his three sisters who also occupied the house, refused to hand his bank account certificates to Liu, insisting they were entitled to their brother’s money. So Liu took them to court.

Ma’s relatives said the agreement, signed between the old man and Liu in 2020, stipulating that Liu was responsible for taking care of Ma until he died when all his property would then be passed to him, was invalid.

They claimed Ma had developed mental illnesses, including Alzheimer’s disease, and lacked the psychological capacity to sign the document.

However, the notary officials refuted the relatives’ claims and said there was nothing wrong with the old man’s mind.

In a verdict made by the Baoshan District People’s Court at the beginning of this month, the judges concluded the agreement was valid and ordered that Ma’s house and any money should be transferred to Liu.

According to reports, the close relationship between the two men began when they chatted at Liu’s fruit stall near Ma’s home.

When Ma’s only child, a son who had mental illness, died suddenly, it was Liu who handled everything. None of Ma’s relatives attended the funeral.

On one occasion, when Ma was unconscious after a fall at home, Liu found him and took him to hospital and was his only visitor during his stay.

After Ma was discharged, he invited Liu’s family to live with him to form a “special family”.

News of the recent court verdict has attracted more than 100,000 comments and online interactions.

“The judgment is fair and reasonable. Good deeds bring good fortune,” one online user commented.

“Even if the fruit stall owner coveted the house, the old man did not lose out. He lived a happy, dignified life being well cared for in his last days,” said another.

“It is simple and straightforward; I will be kind to the person who is kind to me,” added another.

China’s video gaming watchdog speaks out after draft spending rules roil market

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3246161/chinas-video-gaming-watchdog-speaks-out-after-draft-spending-rules-roil-market?utm_source=rss_feed

Draft rules to rein in spending on online video games are designed to promote “healthy development” in the industry, the regulator said on Saturday, a day after the announcement of the changes sent shock waves through the sector.

As well as clarifying conditions for game operation permits, the draft contained an entire chapter on “insurance and ” to encourage original games while also protecting minors and consumer rights.

Under the rules, online games will not be allowed to force players to fight each other, and must not offer rewards that entice people to excessively play and spend money.

“During the drafting process, we received suggestions from the government, industry associations and companies in many ways,” the National Press and Publication Administration told the China Press and Publication News, its official paper.

“The regulator will take public concerns on the … clauses into account and amend the regulations accordingly,” it said, adding the draft would be open for public comment until January 22.

All gaming-related stocks fell in Hong Kong on Friday, with Bilibili shedding 10.4 per cent.

Shares in Tencent Holdings, the world’s biggest video gaming company by revenue, closed down 12 per cent to HK$274 on Friday, wiping out about HK$300 billion worth of value while NetEase lost 27 per cent in pre-market trading in the United States.

Some online commenters questioned whether the announcement ran counter to the focus on growth and stabilisation of market expectations that emerged from the agenda-setting central economic work conference in Beijing earlier this month.

League of Legends ‘makes world warmer’: Chinese game makers tout ‘social values’

The gaming industry is still recovering from the government’s previous crackdown.

As part of a national campaign to reduce video gaming addiction among Chinese youth, Beijing issued new rules in 2021 limiting the game time for players aged under 18 to between 8pm and 9pm, and only on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and statutory holidays.

There was no reprieve during the summer, when Tencent reminded minors that they could only play a total of 21 hours from July 11 to August 31.

The slow resumption of game licensing in China has also stalled the release of new titles. The administration stopped granting game licences for eight months until April 2022, when it approved 45 titles, followed by 67 in July and 69 in August.

In 2022, China’s total gaming industry revenue declined 10.3 per cent year on year owing to economic headwinds, slower user growth and regulatory scrutiny.

Several Chinese workers among 13 killed after a furnace blast at China-owned Indonesian nickel plant

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3246156/several-chinese-workers-among-13-killed-after-furnace-blast-china-owned-indonesian-nickel-plant?utm_source=rss_feed

Thirteen workers were killed and 38 were injured on Sunday in the explosion of a nickel smelter furnace owned by Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel (ITSS) on Sulawesi island, the owner of the industrial estate where the smelter is located said.

The blast occurred when workers repaired the furnace and installed plates at 5:30am on Sunday,, killing several Indonesian workers and as many as six Chinese workers, Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) said in a statement. The fire was extinguished at 09:10am local time, it added.

It was the latest of a series of deadly accidents at nickel smelting plants in Indonesia that are part of China’s ambitious transnational development programme known as the Belt and Road Initiative.

“Based on initial investigations, the explosion [was] possibly caused because there was still some explosion-inducing liquid at the bottom of the furnace. During the repairing process, an explosion occurred,” an IMIP spokesperson said.

The first explosion triggered several other explosions because there were many oxygen cylinders used for welding and cutting furnace components for the repair, the spokesperson added.

IMIP is a nickel-focused industrial estate owned by China’s Tsingshan and its local partner Bintang Delapan Group, which produce stainless steel and carbon steel. ITSS is one of the tenants at the industrial estate, IMIP said.

IMIP will coordinate with related parties to investigate the incident and cover all treatment costs for victims, the company said.

“We sincerely apologise for this incident and we are working closely with authorities to investigate what caused the accident,” said company spokesperson Deddy Kurniawan.

Nickel has become increasingly crucial for resource-rich Indonesia, the world’s biggest nickel producer, with billions of dollars of global investment flowing in after the government banned exports of unprocessed ore in 2020.

Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is trying develop downstream nickel industries and lure big-ticket investment from manufacturers of electric vehicles and their batteries.

However, several fatal accidents have occurred in Indonesia’s nickel processing industry in recent years. President Joko Widodo is keen to develop the sector but has also called for improvements in safety and has pledged to enhance monitoring of environmental standards.

This was the third deadly accident this year at Chinese-owned nickel smelting plants in Central Sulawesi province, which has the largest nickel reserves in Indonesia.

Two dump truck operators were killed when they were engulfed by a wall of black sludge-like material following the collapse of a nickel waste disposal site in April.

In January, two workers, including a Chinese national, were killed in riots that involved workers and security guards at a Indonesia-China joint venture in North Morowali regency.

Last year, a loader truck ran over and killed a Chinese worker while he was repairing a road in PT IMIP’s mining area, and an Indonesian man burned to death when a furnace in the company’s factory exploded.

Nearly 50 per cent of PT IMIP’s shares are owned by a Chinese holding company, and the rest are owned by two Indonesian companies. It began smelter operations in 2013 and is now the largest nickel-based industrial area in Indonesia.

Three Chinese workers last month filed a complaint to Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights, alleging that their health is deteriorating due to dust and smoke exposure while working seven-day weeks without a break at PT IMIP. They added that workers there don’t have adequate safety equipment.

Data collected by the Mining Advocacy Network, an Indonesian watchdog, showed that at least 22 workers from China and Indonesia have died in nickel smelting plants in Central Sulawesi province since 2019, including two Chinese nationals who committed suicide.

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How Chinese carmakers are overtaking Japanese, European rivals in South African market

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3245988/how-chinese-carmakers-are-overtaking-japanese-european-rivals-south-african-market?utm_source=rss_feed

On the streets of South Africa’s major cities, Chinese car brands are becoming an increasingly common sight in a market that has for years been dominated by Japanese and European-made cars.

Generally, when it comes to total car registrations or sales figures, Japanese brands such as Toyota, Suzuki and Nissan dominate in South Africa. European brands, like Germany’s Volkswagen, as well as the South African subsidiary of US carmaker Ford, also have a large share of the market.

But it is in the family SUV category where Chinese carmakers have begun to claw back some of the market share. Companies such as Haval, a subsidiary of Great Wall Motors (GWM), and Chinese state-owned carmaker Chery are now selling more SUVs than some Japanese, European and American brands.

According to data by the Automotive Business Council or Naamsa, Haval and Chery had some of the bestselling family SUVs and crossovers in the first 11 months of this year.

In fact, analysis done by South African car advertising site Cars.co.za, based on the Naamsa data, showed that while previously the Volkswagen Tiguan had been the country’s top selling SUV, in the first 11 months of 2023 the Haval H6 was ahead with 5,032 units, while Tiguan was in second place with 3,165 units.

Meanwhile in third place was the Chinese Chery Tiggo 8 Pro which sold 2,195 units. It beat South Korea’s Hyundai Tucson which registered 1,767 units in the 11-month period, followed by the Mazda CX-5 with 1,283 units.

‘China has the strength, Russia the demand’: Chinese carmakers shift into gear

Toyota’s RAV4, which last year was the world’s bestselling car, was ranked sixth in South Africa’s most popular SUVs, with 1,021 units registered. Meanwhile SUVs such as the Peugeot 3008 and the Citroen C5, which share the same European parent company Stellantis, did not feature in the top 10, according to Cars.co.za.

The figures mark a turnaround for some Chinese carmakers, particularly Chery which has had a rough history in the South African market. The brand was previously sold in South Africa from around 2008, but in 2018 it was forced to pull out when customers complained about the quality of the cars, lack of spare parts and poor after-sales support.

According to analysts, the carmaker worked hard on improving the quality of its cars as well as establishing a network of reliable dealers before re-entering the market in 2021, starting with its smallest SUV, the Tiggo 4 Pro.

Chery then launched its medium-sized Tiggo 7 Pro, as well as its top-range model, the Tiggo 8 Pro.

The company is also supporting South African dealers and customers with a large parts warehouse, a strong mechanical warranty and service plan, and 24-hour roadside assistance.

Industry analysts have said that price is playing a large part in the market shift towards Chinese cars. Vehicles such as those made by Haval and Chery represent value for money, offering more features at slightly lower prices than similar cars made by some European or Japanese carmakers.

“Indeed, the Chinese carmakers have taken the South African market by storm,” Walt Madeira, principal analyst for Europe, the Middle East and Africa vehicle forecasting at S&P Global Mobility, said.

According to Madeira, in the first 11 months of the year, GWM’s Haval sold 3,000 units of its standard H6 model while the H6 GT model, which was introduced into the South Africa market last year, sold 2,000 units.

Madeira said the successful results of the Chinese brands were due to “value for money”.

Looking at prices for the various SUVs in the South African market, Madeira said the Haval and Chery were sold below 500,000 rand (US$27,000), while most of the other brands, especially European cars, were well above that price (525,000-700,000 rand or US$28,600-38,000).

“The consumer will get a large, robust SUV at a more competitive price versus traditional rivals,” Madeira said. “This also confirms that the South African consumer has become even more price sensitive over recent years.”

He said Chinese carmakers also had a cost advantage when compared with their rivals which allowed for competitive pricing.

The vehicles have even become a powerful diplomatic tool. In August, Haval and Chery provided hundreds of SUVs that were used to transport delegates around Johannesburg during the Brics summit – the annual meeting of the group of emerging economies made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

China and Russia pledge to defend core interests as Moscow faces new sanctions

The Haval H6 and other models were used to transport delegates and media, while Chery was the official presidential vehicle partner by providing 60 Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max vehicles that were used to transport VIPs and international delegates during the event.

Just like it did in South Africa, China also recently donated 70 Maxus D90 SUVs manufactured by Chinese carmaker SAIC Motor to be used by delegates attending the Non-Aligned Movement and Group of 77 plus China summits in Uganda in January.

Alex Mohub­etswane Mashilo, a visiting researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, said the Chinese brands mostly came with full-house electronic systems, including all-round cameras, navigation, induction charging and more.

This differed to other vehicle producers that treated most of these features – which come as standard in Chinese brands – as extras, with additional costs, Mashilo said.

At the end of the day, as people struggled with a high cost of living, it came down to money, he said.

“An increasing number of families opt for competitive Chinese brands to enjoy the technological features that they would otherwise be required to pay more for if they were to buy other brands,” Mashilo said.

“A Chinese brand introduced a 10-year or 1 million kilometre engine warranty, which no other brand offers. These are the things that the increasing number of people who buy Chinese brands consider.”

China’s giant pandas at Chengdu base will take Mondays off from tourists starting Christmas Day

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3246149/chinas-giant-pandas-chengdu-base-will-take-mondays-tourists-starting-christmas-day?utm_source=rss_feed

The giant pandas at a popular breeding centre in southwest China will take a weekly day off from meeting tourists starting Christmas Day, in the second crowd control measure announced within a week.

“Starting on December 25, the baby giant panda villa, which has a high number of visitors, will be closed every Monday,” the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding said on its website on Friday. “It will not be open to tourists, please plan your tour accordingly.”

The decision to close the popular enclosure for a day was aimed at better safeguarding the health and welfare of the once endangered animals, the centre’s managers said.

A previous announcement on Monday said the centre would no longer sell tickets through travel agencies. From January 1, tickets can only be reserved through official channels – such as the centre’s website or its WeChat social media account.

The tighter controls are in response to the huge popularity of giant pandas and the high numbers of visitors the base receives each year.

The giant panda is the rarest member of the bear family and among the world’s most threatened animals, according to the WWF, which has the animal as its logo.

Set up in 1987 in the capital of Sichuan province, the Chengdu base focuses on rescue, research and breeding of the once endangered species.

It is billed by tourist websites as the top attraction in Chengdu, with the large fluffy animals’ resemblance to giant soft toys helping to draw large crowds, especially children.

The base currently houses more than 230 giant pandas over a 3 sq km (1.16 square mile) area.

Giant pandas on loan to overseas zoos also come to this base upon their return. Most recently, the base welcomed four-year-old twins Meng Xiang and Meng Yuan, the first giant pandas born in Germany. The pair returned from the Berlin zoo earlier this month.

Some of the giant pandas have even become celebrities. He Hua, a female panda born in 2020, became a crowd favourite for her unhurried movements and gentle temperament. Nicknamed Huahua, her emoji went viral online and people shared her every move on social media.

“One day, I felt especially sad, but then I saw her eating bamboo quietly and she cured me,” one commenter posted on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging platform.

People would line up outside the panda enclosure to see her, to call out to her by her pet name. Some would even stand on stools or climb trees to get a glimpse of her.

According to data from the official China Travel Service, 461 million tourists visited the base last year.

In March, in response to repeated questions about overcrowding, the Sichuan government said the base would implement policies to reduce tourist traffic and increase security.

Large, noisy crowds can scare or otherwise cause stress to giant pandas, affecting the well-being of the notoriously shy breeders found only in the bamboo forests of southwestern China.

Their immense popularity even spurs irresponsible behaviour. In August, two tourists were banned for life from the base after they fed bamboo shoots and peanuts to one of the bears.

Visitors are told not to feed the animals without permission, throw water at them, or tap on the glass enclosures.

Using camera flashlights or smoking are also prohibited as this may scare the animals or damage their health.

In July, two men were banned from entering the base for five years after one of them spat water at a panda and the other struck the enclosure glass, state media reported. In April, a woman threw water at a giant panda, upsetting the animal. She was banned from visiting the base for a year.

In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature changed the status of giant pandas from “endangered” to “vulnerable” on its Red List because of a population rebound in China. There are currently more than 1,800 pandas in the wild, according to official Chinese figures.

Chinese experts call for accountability over wildfire emissions, but US scientist says blame game ‘makes no sense’

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3246151/chinese-experts-call-accountability-over-wildfire-emissions-us-scientist-says-blame-game-makes-no?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese scientists are calling for emissions from wildfires to be included in international carbon accounting, but a US expert warns that holding nations accountable for their wildfire emissions ignores the global impact of climate change.

In a report released on December 7, scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) called for the establishment of a full-scale, international carbon accounting system that “includes natural factors such as forest fires”.

Under this system, emissions from wildfires would be included in national carbon assessments and accounting mechanisms.

But the idea has been met with scepticism.

John Fasullo, a scientist at the United States National Centre for Atmospheric Research, said it “makes no sense” to penalise specific countries for fire-related emissions through national accounting mechanisms.

Increases in wildfires “are often the result of the emissions from other nations”, he said.

Chinese scientists calculate mammoth emissions from Canadian wildfires

The CAS scientists said climate warming and a subsequent increase in fire-prone weather was amplified at northern latitudes.

This means countries such as Canada, which experienced an unprecedented wildfire season this year, could be especially vulnerable to worsening fires that are not the result of their own carbon emissions.

From 2001 to 2022, a total of 1.03 billion hectares (2.55 billion acres) of forest burned globally, releasing 33.9 billion tonnes (37.4 billion tons) of carbon dioxide into the air, making wildfires “an important source of current carbon emissions”, according to the CAS report.

During this period, the average forest area that burned in wildfires each year was 11 times the area of new forests planted annually.

Extreme wildfires, which have been exacerbated by climate change and human activity, are “seriously weakening the carbon sink function of the ecosystem”, the report said.

According to a special report released in 2019 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations, it is difficult to separate the direct human effects on wildfires from natural ones.

This means that countries are not obliged to account for wildfire-related emissions when reporting to the UN panel, though some such as Australia choose to report their emissions from wildfires.

According to Zhu Jiaojun, a contributor to the CAS report and director of the CAS Institute of Applied Ecology, wildfires need combustible material and a source of fire to occur. These two factors are “partly controllable”, he said in an interview with state-owned news service CGTN.

Zhu said if we consider forest fires a natural disaster, it is “the most human-controllable disaster”.

Fasullo said studies had shown that despite year-to-year variations, human-induced climate change was leading to long-term increases in fire size and intensity as well as fire season length.

Because of these trends, the CAS scientists called for the inclusion of wildfire emissions in carbon accounting, as well as international cooperation to establish better forest and fire management practices.

The more frequent occurrence of “extreme wildfires” – defined as those that cover very large areas or have a concentrated impact – is the main driver behind increases in wildfire-related emissions, the report said.

This includes the 2019 Amazon rainforest fires, the Australian bushfires of 2019 and 2020 and this year’s Canadian wildfires.

Earlier this year, wildfires in Canada released over 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions – more than the total emissions from fires recorded in the country from 2001 to 2022, according to the CAS report.

This is higher than Japan’s total emissions from fossil fuels in 2021, the report said.

Canada’s fire season began early this year, with severe drought conditions and abnormally high temperatures starting in March, creating the perfect conditions for fire to spread rapidly, according to the report.

More people are living in flood-prone areas despite the risks, study finds

Wang Yuhang, an atmospheric sciences professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, told the journal Nature that he agreed with the CAS scientists’ suggestion that countries should include wildfire-related carbon emissions in their national monitoring and reporting plans.

“Global fire carbon emissions are expected to double, highlighting the emergence of fire as a more significant carbon source at short timescales in the future,” Wang said.

According to the CAS report, China’s wildfire and related emissions have fallen due to better forest management focused on prevention, especially with regard to early detection and control.

However, as the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter, China has contributed to the growing trend in fires at northern latitude.

Fasullo said if the system to account for wildfire emissions was an international one, it could be a “useful effort”.

Wildfires are one of the “invisible” emissions that are largely excluded from global greenhouse gas accounting, which “undermines climate mitigation”, according to a paper by Leehi Yona, a PhD candidate at Stanford University.

“The wider the deficit between accounted-for and actual [greenhouse gas] emissions, the less effective climate policies will be,” Yona wrote.

To address global wildfire emissions, the CAS scientists outlined three recommendations.

The first is to establish a carbon accounting system that takes into account all carbon emissions from natural processes, including forest fires, along with emissions from human activity.

The recommendation also calls for establishing comprehensive emissions monitoring, risk prevention and emissions control systems, and including forest fire emissions in forest carbon sink trading, which involves trading carbon credits and planting new trees to offset fire-related emissions.

Their second recommendation is to strengthen the management and prevention of extreme forest fires, including managing combustible materials through measures such as clearing and dredging, controlled burning and creating firebreaks.

Their third recommendation is to deepen international scientific research and cooperation on managing forest fire emissions, including improving fire risk identification and early warning systems, prevention equipment, and methods for post-disaster reconstruction and restoration of carbon sinks.

Through international cooperation, the scientists hope to establish unified standards and accurate emissions measurement and assessments systems for forest fires, as predicting, controlling and preventing fires is a “global problem”, the report said.

“There is still a lack of a standard accounting system for carbon emissions from forest fires. We hope to launch an international big science project and establish a more flexible and higher-resolution global fire database,” Zhu told the Science Times, a Chinese-language news site.

“Wildfire is just one of several feedbacks in the carbon cycle to anthropogenic climate change,” Fasullo said.

“But given that they are feedbacks, they should not be included in accounting.”

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Taiwan elections: Andrew Hsia takes KMT message to business faithful on mainland China

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3246116/taiwan-elections-hsai-takes-kmt-message-business-faithful-mainland-china?utm_source=rss_feed

A leader of Taiwan’s main opposition party wrapped up a whistle-stop mainland China tour on Friday, spreading the Kuomintang’s message with less than a month to go until a presidential election on the island.

In an apparent effort to win over mainland-based voters from the Taiwanese business community, Andrew Hsia Li-yan, vice-chairman of the Beijing-friendly KMT, visited five southern cities to rally support against the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

Hsia was following in the well-worn footsteps of his party.

According to Taiwanese media estimates, there are roughly 1.2 million people from the island living on the mainland, accounting for about 5 per cent of Taiwan’s population.

Most of the voters in this group tend to support the KMT and party officials often make the trip across the Taiwan Strait before elections.

People who attended events during Hsia’s trip said this visit was unusually high profile in its push for voters to travel back to the island and cast their ballot.

“He was speaking in a very straightforward way, and said he hoped everyone would go back home in advance. He asked business leaders to make it easy for employees to apply for leave to do so,” 32-year-old Xiamen-based Angel Wu said.

The port of Xiamen is directly across the strait from Taiwan and roughly a thousand Taiwanese businesspeople turned out to an event in the city for Hsia on Wednesday, Wu said.

In Zhongshan in the southern province of Guangdong, former and serving mainland officials turned out for a meeting for Hsia on Sunday, an unexpected presence given accusations of Beijing interfering in the elections.

Sharing the stage with Hsia, was Zhang Zhijun, president of the semi-official Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, according to Taiwan’s United Daily News.

Zhang, who headed Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office from 2013 to 2018, called on Taiwanese residents on the mainland to support the one-China principle and oppose Taiwanese independence, the report said.

The visit attracted criticism from the DPP, with Vice-President William Lai Ching-te, the party’s presidential candidate, describing the trip as “suspicious”.

Polls suggest Lai is the front runner in the race, with KMT candidate Hou Yu-ih gaining and the Taiwan People’s Party’s Ko Wen-je, another mainland friendly candidate, third.

Several members of Taiwanese business groups on the mainland said they expected a higher voter turnout from the mainland-based community.

Li Zhenghong, head of the Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland, said on Wednesday that 80 per cent of Taiwanese businesspeople were prepared to return to Taiwan to vote.

Wang Weiren, a Taiwanese entrepreneur in Kunshan, said he would go back to vote given “this election will be a turning point for the direction of cross-strait relations”.

Beijing has described the election as a choice between war and peace, and labelled Lai as a Taiwan independence force and the root of the risk of war in the Taiwan Strait.

In an apparent warning to voters, the mainland has in the past week suspended tariff cuts on several Taiwanese products under the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA).

But it has also said it will allow imports of Taiwanese grouper, after Hsia raised the issue of the ban during his visit to mainland earlier this year.

Lu Minghan, a Taiwanese businessman in Nanning, Guangxi province, said the shaky economic relations were concerning Taiwanese groups on the mainland.

“If cross-strait relations get worse and the ECFA is suspended, businesspeople will face higher taxes,” Lu said.

“We know very clearly which party is promoting peace and which one is stopping communication.”

Wang Jianmin, a Taiwan affairs specialist at Minnan Normal University in Fujian province, said Taiwanese residents on the mainland could play a significant role in the election.

“The election campaign is changing and the gap is narrowing, so the votes of Taiwanese businesspeople are significant,” Wang said.

He added that the group played a “key” role for the KMT in 2012.

Luo Dingjun, a mainland analyst of Taiwanese affairs, said some young people on the mainland from Taiwan were looking beyond the KMT to the TPP’s Ko.

Wu from Xiamen agreed. “[Young people] believe the DPP is corrupt and the KMT is rotten. Ko represents a new wave and he listens to the voice of youth,” she said.

Chinese tech IPOs to watch in 2024: global fast-fashion online retailer Shein leads the pack

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3246071/chinese-tech-ipos-watch-2024-global-fast-fashion-online-retailer-shein-leads-pack?utm_source=rss_feed

A handful of Chinese technology start-ups are poised to pursue an initial public offering (IPO) during 2024 or early 2025, with most of these firms looking to make their trading debut in Hong Kong.

The most high-profile enterprise in this group is China-founded e-commerce firm Shein, the world’s second-highest valued tech start-up behind Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is expected go public in the next 12 to 18 months, according to a list compiled by market intelligence firm CB Insights.

Six companies based in mainland China were on the list. By contrast, there are 153 potential IPOs from companies in the United States and 31 from India, according to CB Insights data.

While most of the Chinese start-ups plan to float their shares in Hong Kong, Singapore-based Shein has reportedly filed for an IPO in the US and was also in talks to go public in Britain.

“China’s tech companies face strong headwinds in the form of the country’s stringent regulatory stance on tech and its fraught relationship with foreign economic powers like the US,” CB Insights said in its report.

Chinese tech unicorns like Ant Group, the financial technology affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, and TikTok owner ByteDance did not make it to the CB Insights list owing to regulatory uncertainties.

“In China, what’s going to happen is that you’ll have two groups of companies,” said Drew Bernstein, co-founder and co-chairman of accounting firm Marcum Asia, which has been an auditor and adviser for Chinese companies since 1999.

“One group is going to be considered security sensitive, and they have to go public in the local markets, inclusive of Hong Kong,” Bernstein said. “The other group can go public outside China with government permission.”

Why US teens are going wild over Chinese fast-fashion site Shein

The fast-fashion retailer – which moved its headquarters to Singapore from Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu province, in late 2021 – was valued at more than US$66 billion after a fundraising in May.

Shein has confidentially filed for a US IPO, according to a Reuters report in November. It is expected to become the most valuable China-founded company to go public in the US since ride-hailing giant Didi Global’s trading debut in 2021 at a US$68-billion valuation.

The firm has also held talks with the London Stock Exchange for a possible public listing, according to a Sky News report earlier this month.

The Beijing-based artificial intelligence and semiconductor start-up has shifted its proposed IPO venue from the US to Hong Kong owing to Beijing’s increased scrutiny of overseas listings, according to a Bloomberg report in 2021.

That move was prompted by the action taken by Beijing against Didi Global after its public listing in New York in July that year. China’s internet regulator initiated a cybersecurity investigation into the company, which was concluded when the ride-hailing firm was slapped with a US$1.2-billion fine about a year later.

“Didi was a big deal and that’s perhaps one of the reasons you’re not seeing a lot of IPOs [by Chinese companies],” Marcum Asia’s Bernstein said.

In the first six months of this year, there were only 66 technology and media firms based on the mainland that went public, down from the 124 that completed IPOs in the second half of 2022, according to consultancy PwC.

ByteDance offers investors US$5 billion share buy-back amid stalled IPO plans

Also known as Huolala on the mainland, Lalatech is the parent company of on-demand logistics and delivery service Lalamove. The company in November renewed its bid for a Hong Kong IPO after initially filing a listing application in the city in March.

In June 2021, Lalatech confidentially filed to sell shares in the US, with an aim to raise US$1 billion.

Founded in 2014, Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Hozon Auto has hired China International Capital Corporation and Morgan Stanley to work on its Hong Kong IPO, according to a Reuters report in September.

Backed by SoftBank Group Corp and Sequoia Capital China, automobile trading platform Chehaoduo was weighing a Hong Kong listing as early as 2021, according to a Bloomberg report at the time. The company denied that report, but has not provided an update since.

Online education start-up Yuanfudao in October announced a new US$2.2 billion funding round that put its valuation at US$15.5 billion. Although China’s education sector had been hit hard by Beijing’s crackdown on private tutoring, the industry saw its first IPO when services provider Fenbi listed in Hong Kong earlier this year. Fenbi, which caters to adult education, was spun off from Yuanfudao in 2020.

China’s WeDoctor prescribes digital cure for healthcare, eyes IPO

Tencent Holdings-backed healthcare solutions platform WeDoctor revived its IPO plans in January, with an eye on either a Hong Kong or US listing, according to a Bloomberg report. The company had filed an IPO application in Hong Kong in 2021, but it lapsed.

Second-hand car marketplace operator Taoche, another Tencent-backed start-up, was not covered by the CB Insights IPO list, but a recent Bloomberg report said it was considering an IPO by 2024, with the US among potential listing venues.

EV manufacturer Avatr Technology is a joint venture between Chongqing Changan Automobile, Huawei Technologies and EV battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology. The firm was said to be considering a Hong Kong IPO past next year to 2025, Chinese media Cailianshe reported this month.

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‘We can’t change our neighbours’: Sy-Coson’s call for diplomacy with China reveals rift among Philippines business leaders

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3246129/we-cant-change-our-neighbours-sy-cosons-call-diplomacy-china-reveals-rift-among-philippines-business?utm_source=rss_feed

The Philippine business community appears divided over President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s handling of the rising tensions in the South China Sea, with the head of the nation’s biggest conglomerate speaking out against his increasingly aggressive approach, while others advocate for a stronger, US-backed defence of Manila’s maritime rights against China’s encroachment.

Earlier this month, SM mall, real estate and banking magnate Teresita Sy-Coson, 70, hosted a Christmas dinner and shared with select journalists her concerns over the government’s handling of conflict in the contested waterway.

Just days before her dinner, the Philippines and China had traded accusations of deliberately ramming each other’s vessels on December 10 near Ayungin Shoal (which China calls Ren’ai Jiao) where Manila is trying to repair an old, beached navy vessel, BRP Sierra Madre, which serves as a military outpost.

China’s coastguard blames Philippine boats for ‘collision’ near disputed shoal

In an arbitration suit filed by the Philippines, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ruled in 2016, among others, that Ayungin is “within the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Philippines”, but China rejected the ruling.

The latest Ayungin incident had prominent Filipino lawmakers loudly calling for China’s envoy to Manila, Huang Xilian, to be sent home. Senator Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa, an ally of former president Rodrigo Duterte who had pivoted the country towards China and away from the United States, even changed his tune and said the Philippine Coast Guard should retaliate in kind.

“Our coastguard should also be armed and use powerful water cannons and lasers” like those of their Chinese counterparts, De la Rosa said. “I’m just being practical. We cannot forever be scrambling like mice avoiding a cat.”

Subsequent write-ups by those who attended Sy-Coson’s dinner indicated that she was not in favour of such tit-for-tat tactics. She was quoted as saying, “China is very close to us. We cannot be too antagonistic.”

She indicated she disagreed with the Marcos Jnr government’s strategy of publicising every sea encounter and becoming America’s most enthusiastic partner in its Indo-Pacific strategy, and advised the government to instead return to the table with China.

“Even though we know what is happening, I guess we have to do it through more peaceful negotiations,” she said without elaborating what she thought was happening.

“I think we have to look at our own position. We don’t want to get involved in the US-China tensions,” she added. “What we have to do is have peaceful discussions with them [China] because, after all, we can’t change our neighbours.”

It was the first time a top Filipino business leader spoke out on the ongoing geopolitical tensions.

Sy-Coson explained that the tensions could affect the country’s business prospects, saying that the Philippine’s economy was OK when “left to our own devices”.

“We just hope there will be no skirmishes in that area because whatever happens [in the South China Sea] will affect us, all of us,” she said.

Beijing flexes muscles in South China Sea as Manila puts it on the defensive

Although she did not say it outright, some write-ups on her Christmas dinner portrayed it as Sy-Coson arguing that further tensions could hurt business.

Many Filipino-Chinese businessmen share her sentiments, according to Teresita Ang-See, founding president of Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran (United for Progress), a movement to help Chinoys, or ethnic Chinese-Filipinos, to integrate into mainstream society.

Ang-See told the This Week in Asia that Chinoy businessmen preferred “peace and order, harmony [because these] are conducive to a good business climate. Unrest, uncertainties, threats, adversely affect business”.

She said this was “proven” during the conflict between the Philippine government and Muslim rebels in Jolo in the 1970s, which prompted Chinoy businessmen to leave Jolo, and again at the height of anti-Chinese kidnappings in the 1990s.

Despite being a minority, ethnic Chinese businessmen currently control large sections of the economy. Thirty of Forbes magazine’s 50 richest Filipino tycoons in 2023 are of Chinese descent, with one – David Consunji – tracing his lineage back to Confucius. Many have kept up their kinship ties to mainland Chinese relatives.

However, Ang-See explained that when it comes to Manila and Beijing’s conflict in the South China Sea, “Chinese-Filipinos in general condemn China’s action”.

“Many understand that China’s assertiveness and aggressiveness are responses to the US, Japan, Australia’s provocations and increasing military presence in the Philippines,” she said.

For this reason, “the Ayungin shoal harassment by China is very unfortunate,” she added.

When asked whether China could again resort to economic sanctions, as it did in 2012 following the stand-off in Scarborough Shoal, Ang-See said: “Remember, Spain, Britain, US, Japan, they all came to the Philippines in their gunboats and occupied our country. China came in their trading vessels for commerce. China wants nothing more than to continue its lucrative trade, especially with its neighbours.”

“Imposing sanctions is what the US does [like the embargo of Cuba] but not China.”

Ang-See added, “This is the best time to give diplomacy a chance, tap seasoned diplomats like Ambassador [to China] Jaime FlorCruz and Ambassador [and current Foreign Secretary Enrique] Manalo … Give the seasoned diplomats [a chance] to let diplomacy work. A handshake is always better than a fist-fight.”

Still, many top business executives and tycoons silently favour a closer military alliance with the US to ward off China’s aggression, according to Victor Andres “Dindo” Manhit, CEO and managing director of the Stratbase Group, a think tank in Manila specialising in geopolitical and economic risk assessments.

Manhit told This Week in Asia that a survey by multinational management consulting firm Price Waterhouse in July showed 64 per cent of CEOs surveyed said Marcos Jnr was “doing well in terms of stronger relationships with other nations”.

He said this had to be contextualised with the events that took place that month, which includes the Philippine and US marines stepping up joint military exercises and the Philippine military reporting an “alarming” increase in the “swarming” of Chinese fishing vessels in the disputed sea.

US says Beijing’s sea moves ‘risky’ as Chinese ships ‘swarm’ Philippine reef

Manhit said he found Sy-Coson’s recent statements on the dispute “quite intriguing” because “at the back of my mind is also the reality that [the Sy family] are big investors in China. Is she speaking in the interests of the Philippine business community or is she speaking because of pressures from the Chinese government?”

Insofar as the economic impact of a worsening feud was concerned, he pointed out that “economic data broadly shows that our economy is not driven by relations with China”. He said Manila imported more from China than the other way around, based on last year’s trade data.

In terms of foreign direct investments, China accounts for “barely 1 per cent” of all FDI. What mainly drives the local economy are foreign remittances and local business process outsourcing firms, both of which are mostly from the US, he added.

“So when you look at that, I don’t know what Ms Tessy Sy was referring to,” he said.

None of the country’s other top business leaders have spoken out on the dispute as Sy-Coson did.

The Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc (FFCCCII) has remained silent on the issue. However, it quietly sponsors events to improve relations with China. Last week, it funded an all expenses paid trip to China for a dozen local media practitioners.

Unlike FFCCCII, other business groups have been open about their position on the dispute as well as their support for closer relations with the US.

In April 2021, three of the country’s top business groups issued a joint statement, calling on China to remove the swarm of vessels barricading the Julian Felipe Reef (called Niu’e Jiao by China), which is also inside the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone.

“We call on China to refrain from becoming an imperial power” and respect Manila’s sovereignty over Julian Felipe, read the statement from the influential Makati Business Club (MBC), the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Management Association of the Philippines, along with other regional business groups.

Marcos shrugs off China’s warning, says Philippines will assert sea rights

While the MBC has not issued any recent statements on the issue, its first general membership meeting, held early this year, featured US ambassador MaryKay Carlson as its keynote speaker.

Marcos Jnr’s cousin Jose Manuel Romualdez, the current Philippines ambassador to the US, told business leaders at the meeting there would be “more activities as far as our defence cooperation with the US is concerned. I think we are going to have these enhanced patrols in the West Philippine Sea fairly quickly”.

However, one financial analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told This Week in Asia that since “most of the country’s food and raw materials come from China, increased tensions could have repercussions”.

The analyst said one had to read between the lines with Sy-Coson’s statements, noting that the conglomerate head “wants diplomatic solutions” but also favoured a quick solution to the Ayungin crisis.

“Either get the Americans to put another ship [there] or escort Philippine forces” but do it fast, the analyst explained.

At the same time, the analyst added, “we need to build resilience, show we can stand up [to China] while still doing business with them.”

‘Too stingy’: Chinese eatery owner brutally beats up customer, knocks out teeth for putting too much vinegar on dinner

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3245993/too-stingy-chinese-eatery-owner-brutally-beats-customer-knocks-out-teeth-putting-too-much-vinegar?utm_source=rss_feed

A young Chinese man had his front teeth punched out when he was brutally attacked by a dumpling shop owner who accused him of pouring too much vinegar on his meal.

The incident happened in Jiangsu province in eastern China, when the man, who would add the condiment to wonton dishes every time he dined at the eatery, did the same on December 13.

However, this time the owner took exception, angrily warning: “You’re not allowed to add vinegar,” and smacked the face of the young man who then stood up.

A waitress intervened, trying to prevent the confrontation from escalating.

“You consume too much vinegar every time you come here, so it’s best if you don’t come back,” she said.

“Get out of here, get out of here,” the owner shouted.

Although clearly shocked, the young man remained calm and invited the owner to take a seat while he finished his meal. But that further provoked the owner who started to push his customer.

“I’m the owner. You must get out when I ask you to,” he bellowed.

He grabbed the man in an attempt to throw him out, but paused when he realised he had not paid, and ordered him to settle the 10-yuan (US$1.4) bill.

The young man did not fight back but when he bumped into the owner on his way out, he further enraged the man.

He ran off down the street, but the owner caught him and violently attacked him, inflicting several injuries, including knocking out some of his front teeth.

Police are investigating the incident and it has caused widespread anger on Chinese social media, attracting more than 113,000 comments.

Unsurprisingly, many criticised the shop owner.

“The owner is too stingy,” one commenter wrote.

“It’s so scary. That poor young man,” another said.

“How come the owner is so grumpy?” One asked.

“Who would risk life to dine at that eatery? Surely, it’s just a matter of time before it closes down,” another shocked viewer who watched the video wrote.

Stories about conflicts between proprietors and customers often get posted on China’s social media platforms.

In April, a mother in Beijing angered the Chinese public because she bullied the owner of a small grocery store into not selling sugary snacks to children.

In 2016, a cafe owner in southern China was forced to eat a cockroach by a customer who said he found it in his plate of fried noodles.

The customer demanded 5,000 yuan (US$700) compensation, but the owner suspected it was a scam and refused to pay him, swallowing the cockroach instead.

China’s inaction over Red Sea shipping attacks could exact a high price

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3245913/chinas-inaction-over-red-sea-shipping-attacks-could-exact-high-price?utm_source=rss_feed

As the United States and its allies grapple with a wave of attacks on commercial ships by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, China is conspicuously absent from international efforts to protect shipping in the Red Sea.

US-led efforts so far have focused on defensive actions, intercepting Houthi drones and missiles on ships near the Yemeni coast, even as a diplomatic outreach is under way. The US is reportedly even considering joint military strikes to cripple the base of the Iranian-backed Houthis but remains wary of igniting a wider conflict in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia, which is negotiating a peace deal with the Houthis after being embroiled in Yemen’s civil war for years, has no desire to upend its fragile ceasefire.

As shipping in the Red Sea continues to be disrupted, the US wants China to leverage its influence with Iran to resolve the Houthi conflict.

Since the Israel-Gaza war broke out, Chinese officials have held several meetings with their Iranian counterparts to prevent the conflict from widening – Iran also backs Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based militant group with a history of border skirmishes with Israeli forces. At a meeting earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian accused the US, the key supporter of Israel, of not fully understanding the risks of escalation.

In response to Israel’s military assault on Gaza, Iranian-backed forces have carried out various attacks. Particularly alarming are those from the Houthis, who have fired drones and missiles at or seized over a dozen shipping vessels linked to more than 35 countries. They have pledged to attack any ship heading to Israeli ports unless a humanitarian ceasefire is achieved and aid provided to Gaza residents.

Major shipping companies, including China’s Cosco, have diverted commercial traffic away from the Red Sea or stopped using the route, which is a gateway to Egypt’s Suez Canal and normally carries up to 12 per cent of global trade.

The alternative route via the Cape of Good Hope adds 10 days to the Asia-Europe journey and is causing a spike in shipping and energy costs. The situation adversely affects countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria, which are highly dependent on the Suez Canal for their Asia trade. The supply chain disruption is also delaying shipments, and causing insurance premiums and freight charges to rise, which could push up inflation.

Yet China, with its significant security and economic interests in the region, is not part of efforts to stop the Houthi shipping attacks.

Although China has a military base in the Red Sea nation of Djibouti meant to counter piracy and terrorism, there is no evidence of Chinese warships being deployed in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. Beijing has also remained silent on the Houthi attacks.

When it comes to the Israel-Gaza conflict, China’s narrative is to advocate a ceasefire and two-state solution, projecting its alignment with Arab and Muslim countries.

But this stance lacks depth and relevance against the nuanced perspectives in Arab capitals, notably Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, where leaders also grapple with the violent threat of Iranian-backed groups like the Houthis.

While Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Cairo have not explicitly supported the US-led maritime task force against the Houthis, it is reasonable to assume they would at least favour a multilateral defensive action against this terrorist threat.

Diplomacy is preferred but the patience of these Arab nations can easily run out in the face of unrelenting Houthi attacks on their seaborne trade – they may eventually feel the need to support a military strike on the Houthis in Yemen. China’s inaction would be judged.

Analysts, such as Andrew Scobell of the US Institute of Peace, attribute China’s inaction to extreme risk aversion and a lack of real influence over the conflicting parties – Houthis, Hamas, Israel. This leads to what Ahmed Aboudouh of the Atlantic Council calls “anti-Western neutrality”: maintaining neutrality towards any actor undermining Western centrality in the world order.

With Hamas and the Houthis drawing American attention in the Middle East, Washington’s strategic focus could move away from the South and East China seas, giving Beijing the time and space to assert its influence in the region’s disputed maritime areas.

While China’s stance on Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza partially aligns with the diplomatic approaches favoured by Arab and Islamic countries, Beijing has shown no indication that it endorses the Arab nations’ opposition to the militaristic approach of Iran-backed groups.

China may criticise the US for turning the Middle East into a geopolitical arena but it appears to be equally engaged in geopolitical manoeuvres against the US rather than prioritising regional security.

Food or fight? Asia’s supply chains at risk amid Red Sea attacks

For China to show leadership in the Global South and through its much-touted Global Security Initiative, it should condemn the threat posed by the Houthis to maritime security, recognising the severe implications for Arab and African economies.

Even if it avoids supporting the US-led naval task force in the Red Sea, Beijing should engage in diplomacy with Iran and its regional proxies to prevent actions that have adverse economic consequences for the people of the Global South. Inflation ultimately hurts ordinary people as businesses transfer their costs to consumers.

For China, undermining American credibility and diverting its political and military resources away from the Western Pacific region is coming across as more important than doing what it can to address the economic consequences of the shipping disruptions for countries and people in the Global South.

China punches up private security to protect overseas interests in hostile, unstable regions

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3246032/china-punches-private-security-protect-overseas-interests-hostile-unstable-regions?utm_source=rss_feed

When Wolf Warrior 2 swept through China’s cinemas in 2017, the harrowing war thriller resonated with audiences like no film ever had. Devoted to flag-waving patriotism, it scratched a nationalistic itch by featuring a one-man Chinese army standing up to foreign mercenaries while saving his compatriots.

And aside from smashing box office records, it gave rise to a term known as “wolf-warrior diplomacy”, with official rhetoric and practices that are more confrontational and combative than calm and cooperative.

Subsequent films further cashed in on nationalistic pride by depicting heroic Chinese forces abroad, as in 2018’s , which was inspired by the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s evacuation of Chinese citizens during the 2015 Yemen civil war.

These types of blockbusters – carefully edited and released under the scrutiny of state censors – fed into the narrative that China should protect its overseas interests when they are threatened, and by force if necessary.

But in reality, it is less likely to be the People’s Liberation Army swooping in to save the day, and more likely to be a well-paid private security contractor hired to protect the overseas interests of Chinese businesses – especially those with operations in less stable regions.

The Ukraine war and the Israel-Gaza war illustrate the types of dangers that Chinese investors could face in the course of doing business overseas.

And such conflicts may be further reinforcing the need for Beijing to make new contingency plans to safeguard Chinese interests abroad while ensuring that trade routes continue to bring home critical goods such as valuable minerals.

However, given Beijing’s limited military presence overseas – it has only one overseas base, in the Horn of Africa; contributes to a UN peacekeeping force; and uses naval warships in anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden – analysts say it appears that diplomacy and the use of private security firms will be increasingly relied on, particularly in facilitating the China-led Belt and Road Initiative.

At a seminar in early December, jointly held by the China-Africa Business Council and the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, participants raised the bar for Chinese security firms – pushing for them to become more internationalised, more localised with regional staff and political support, and more commercialised.

“Outbound Chinese investors face security challenges and a complex environment,” said an official statement summarising the meeting. “A tailor-made approach is needed for international security projects. It must differ depending on the industry or country.”

The African continent – the setting for Wolf Warrior 2 – is one of the regions China is invested heavily in, where the number of China-invested companies accounts for 7.1 per cent of the global total.

China defends Africa investments as it gears up for belt and road forum

The world’s second-largest economy has set up around 47,000 overseas firms across 190 countries or regions, mainly in energy, mining, infrastructure construction and manufacturing sectors.

They have hired a total of 4.1 million employees, including 2.5 million foreign citizens, according to a 2022 report by the Ministry of Commerce.

Outstanding outbound direct investment totalled US$2.75 trillion by the end of 2022, third-most in the world for the sixth straight year, and up from US$163.1 billion in 2021, ministry figures show.

Most of the new investment in the past decade flowed to countries included in China’s belt and road plans despite many being relatively high-risk regions.

China is the world’s major seaborne buyer of iron ore, copper, soybeans and many other commodities, while more than 1 million Chinese students are studying overseas and tens of millions of Chinese travel worldwide every year.

For their part, private security firms in China tend to fly under the radar.

However, the seminar this month drew some of the domestic security heavyweights together, including Huayuan Security Guard; Dewe Security, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed Frontier Services Group; Huaxin Zhongan Group; Shanghai-listed Anbang Save-Guard Group; officials from China’s foreign ministry; representatives from the China Security Association; and dozens of other Chinese firms.

“There are ongoing traditional safety issues in regions like West Asia, Africa and Latin America,” said Li Xiaopeng, CEO of Frontier Services, one of China’s largest private security firms.

Li has been in the business for almost a decade, and his biggest clients are state-owned enterprises with overseas construction projects.

“But there are also a lot of new issues to be tackled, including the Ukraine war and the Israel-Palestinian conflict. We have got inquiries about helping evacuate Chinese citizens,” he told the Post.

A Belt and Road Initiative working group issued an official document in late November highlighting the need to “hammer out the safety protection in a detailed way”, state media Xinhua reported.

“Guidelines are needed for corporations on containing risks,” it was quoted as saying. “[Corporations have to] strengthen their knowledge and ability to assess risks before they go out to invest elsewhere.”

In an online statement published last month, the Ministry of State Security also vowed to ensure the security of China’s overseas mining projects, personnel and assets.

“It is set to ensure the safety of Chinese companies ‘going global’, and safeguard the security of key mineral-resource supply chains,” it said, without elaborating on how.

Muhammad Jilani, a private security adviser in Pakistan, said that the growing presence and expanding scope of the Belt and Road Initiative makes it “natural” to see a rising demand for “robust security programmes”.

“The magnitude of security deployments include AI, digital (cyber/IT), physical,” he explained, adding that private security companies will operate by referencing each country’s national policy in their overall schemes of employment.

China turns to private security firms to protect interests along Mekong

The demand is high partly because many Chinese projects are operating in some of the world’s most dangerous regions, such as war-torn South Sudanese oilfields. Meanwhile, Beijing is encouraging more companies to go global.

In 2011, China launched its largest overseas evacuation in riot-torn Libya by rescuing 35,860 Chinese nationals via land, sea and air operations in about 10 days.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, for instance, is one of the regions that Beijing invested heavily in over the past 10 years to bypass the Malacca Strait by transporting goods from the Pakistani port of Gwadar to China’s far western region of Xinjiang.

Terrorist attacks on Chinese people and projects were reported, including one occurring in August targeting a convoy carrying Chinese citizens.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a new high of 55 overseas security alerts last year, when the Ukraine war ignited more conflicts across the globe.

When the Israel-Gaza war began, the Chinese embassy warned that Chinese citizens should avoid travelling to those countries, while advising any Chinese in the region to leave.

Tom Rembielinski, manager for safety and training at Germany’s Bremen Airport Training Academy, said that the privatisation of safety work is “nothing new”, and that it is a “logical step” for the Chinese government to outsource security needs to the private sector.

He added that the US, EU and Russia “have been doing this for years”.

Relative to some international security firms with decades of experience – including G4S, Olive Group and International SOS in the United Kingdom – China’s private security operations are new to the market.

“Internationally known and well-established foreign private security companies … typically would be allowed to carry firearms/weapons, which Chinese private security companies, due to domestic regulations, are not allowed to do,” said Yuan Jingdong, an associate professor specialising in China defence and foreign policy at the University of Sydney.

“Well-established foreign private security companies would also charge much higher premiums for protection.

“Chinese private security companies … on the other hand, could only compete with lower tenders or be given contracts by Chinese companies due to the ease in communication, shared culture and other factors.”

They are also fairly small compared with their Western peers. For instance, the annual revenue of the Hong Kong-listed Frontier was HK$964 million (US$123 million) in 2022 versus G4S’ revenue of about US$20 billion.

And even though some of China’s security firms are privately owned, they often have historical ties with the army or police forces.

Take Huaxin Zhongan, for instance. It was set up by military veterans in 2004, and 70 per cent of its mid-level or top management are veterans.

To serve more than 60 overseas clients in countries such as Uganda, Malaysia and Pakistan, the company has more than 800 employees overseas, of which 660 are expatriates, according to its website.

The company specialises in escorting shipments and countering low-altitude drones, but its main business involves providing security guards for Chinese projects, along with risk assessments and consulting.

The business potential is still quite large, as the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), which oversees the country’s 97 large industrial giants with combined assets of 81 trillion yuan, is becoming increasingly wary of the threats facing overseas Chinese projects.

“If the security work is not properly managed, the entire project will be subject to questions [by SASAC],” said Li at Frontier Services Group, warning that the international environment is also relatively poor.

“It’s a two-pronged strategy. One is the private security power provided by our own companies. The other is seeking the governmental support of related countries.”

He warned that the development of Chinese private security companies still has a long way to go.

“It’s more appropriate to let private companies develop China’s private security sector,” Li added, noting that companies such as Frontier are struggling to secure talent and the relevant legal support in China to carry out private security across the world.

“Other than that, there’s a need to consolidate a comprehensive system by researching the work of international private security practices, so that Chinese private security companies are ready to work with their global counterparts.”