• China is stoking a controversy in order to influence Taiwan’s election | Asia
• Can China’s international courts meet the challenge of the country’s global ambitions?
• Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com wins antitrust lawsuit against Alibaba, which was ordered by a Beijing court to pay US$141 million in damages
• China names former navy chief Dong Jun as new defence minister
• South China Sea: Beijing will ‘respond resolutely’ if Manila builds permanent structure on disputed reef
• China braces for Covid surge as JN.1 variant spreads around the world
• China to focus on finance, tech and farms in 12-sector digital push for real economy by 2026
• China names new defence minister to replace ousted Li Shangfu
• China population: reluctance to marry, have kids continued in 2022 as demographic woes deepened
• Openness needed for Xi Jinping’s goal to bring 50,000 young Americans to China: talent expert
• ‘Best landlord’: woman in China praises property owner for offering 20 per cent rent rebate every month so she can buy ‘nice food’ for her children
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China is stoking a controversy in order to influence Taiwan’s election | Asia

https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/12/27/china-is-stoking-a-controversy-in-order-to-influence-taiwans-election

Our frequently updated Taiwan election poll tracker: who will be the next president?

ALICE OU DOES not mince words when criticising education officials in Taiwan. She has accused them of turning young people into “moral dwarves and historical idiots”. She says the government’s actions amount to “self-castration”. Ms Ou, a Chinese-literature teacher at the prestigious Taipei First Girls’ High School, is angry that the state has reduced the number of recommended classical Chinese texts in the high-school curriculum. She believes this is an effort to “de-sinicise” students.

Ms Ou’s opinion, first aired at a press conference in early December, went viral. It quickly became part of a narrative promoted by the Chinese government and Taiwan’s opposition parties. Both accuse Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which takes a defiant stance towards China, of trying to stamp out Chinese culture. The messaging comes as Taiwan prepares for a presidential election on January 13th. The outcome could lead to a big change in Taiwan’s posture towards China, which sees the island as part of its territory.

In the two weeks after Ms Ou’s moment in the spotlight, China’s state-affiliated media and social-media accounts published more than 200 articles about her comments, according to the Taiwan Information Environment Research Centre. “Hear the cry of sorrow and anger from Taiwan’s education sector,” said Xinhua, China’s state news agency, in an indicative piece. Ma Ying-jeou, a former Taiwanese president and elder statesman in the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party, praised Ms Ou’s “moral courage”.

The outrage, though, is misleading—and a little late. The high-school curriculum guidelines that are under scrutiny were introduced in 2019. They did not restrict the teaching of classical Chinese. But they did reduce the required amount of it in high-school Chinese-language textbooks. A list of suggested readings on the subject was cut in half and made more diverse, with female and Taiwanese writers included. This was part of a broader reform effort, begun in the 1990s, that aimed to give teachers and schools more freedom to shape their syllabuses, says Lan Wei-ying, an education expert. Many teachers say the changes have increased their workload, yet they remain broadly supportive of the guidelines. Few talk of de-sinicisation.

Ms Ou stands by her criticism. “Taiwanese culture is Chinese culture,” she says, noting that Taiwan preserved this shared heritage in its “purest form” while it was being destroyed on the mainland during the Cultural Revolution. She accuses the DPP of undermining young people’s confidence in their culture: “They will think everything about us is backwards, and that our values must come from the West.” That chimes with Xi Jinping Thought on Culture, the latest instalment of the Chinese leader’s philosophy. It preaches “cultural self-confidence” and aims to diminish Western influences.

Ms Ou admits that she is speaking up now because of the coming election, in the hope of drawing more attention to her cause. She doesn’t mind if China’s Communist Party or opposition candidates in Taiwan make hay of her comments, as long as it leads to changes in the curriculum. She shrugs off questions about China’s propaganda efforts or Taiwan’s democracy coming under threat. Political systems come and go with the tides of history, she says, and laobaixing, common folk, have no control over that. “What we can hold on to is our culture. As for political systems, just go with the flow.”

Such views are not uncommon among older conservative voters who were raised during the KMT’s authoritarian rule from 1949 to 1987. The party, which lost China’s civil war, continued to instil a sense of Chinese identity in the island’s residents. But for years the mood has been shifting. Today less than 3% of Taiwanese people identify as only Chinese, while about 30% identify as both Chinese and Taiwanese. More than 60% say they are only Taiwanese. So the messaging around Ms Ou will probably have a limited impact on the election. At most it may help to shore up the KMT’s nationalist base.

China may be looking beyond the vote. Though Mr Xi says he aims for peaceful unification, the Communist Party’s propaganda looks like justification for a possible invasion. It portrays the DPP as a radical separatist group that is imposing an anti-China agenda on Taiwan against the wishes of its people. Should China move in, it wants to be seen as a liberator, not an invader. If it can use Taiwanese voices to paint that picture, all the better. ■

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Can China’s international courts meet the challenge of the country’s global ambitions?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3246675/can-chinas-international-courts-meet-challenge-countrys-global-ambitions?utm_source=rss_feed

As Chinese President Xi Jinping celebrated the 10th anniversary of his pet project – the Belt and Road Initiative – in October, a massive enterprise was under way to ensure the country’s legal system was up to the task of meeting the initiative’s geopolitical needs.

One such requirement was the ability to handle an increasing number of foreign-related business disputes – a natural result of global trade. More international commercial courts have therefore been created, in a move that is also hoped will help forge a better relationship with the global community.

Over the past three years, 12 such municipal-level courts, carrying the mission of “a stable, fair, transparent and predictable legal environment” for both Chinese and foreign businesspeople, have popped up in China’s major economic hubs – and more are expected.

Observers say that creating such courts indicates Beijing’s commitment to integrate into the global economy amid intensifying rivalries with Washington and its allies, and a challenging international environment.

But they have warned more improvements are needed, as constitutional limitations like no foreign judges, an overall lack of expertise in foreign-related law and the potential interference of the ruling Communist Party cast doubts on the courts’ impartiality and independence.

China’s Supreme People’s Court first set up two national-level international commercial courts in 2018 to handle belt and road-related disputes – one in the southern city of Shenzhen, Guangdong province, to solve maritime-based cases and the other in the western city of Xian, Shaanxi province, to process land-based cases.

At the belt and road judicial cooperation forum in October, the top court’s vice-president, Tao Kaiyuan, said “providing both domestic and foreign parties with more equitable, efficient, convenient and cost-effective dispute resolution services” had become a shared goal for countries taking part in the initiative.

Following the top court, the first municipal-level international commercial courts were formed – one in 2020 in Suzhou, a manufacturing hub in the eastern province of Jiangsu, then one in Beijing in 2021.

Five more cities followed in 2022, with courts set up in Chongqing and Chengdu in the southwest as well as Quanzhou and Xiamen on the east coast and Nanning in the south. This year, four more cities in wealthy eastern provinces have also created the courts – Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi and Nanjing. Changchun in northeast China, near the Russian border, also joined this year.

Matthew Erie, associate professor at the University of Oxford and principal investigator of the China, Law and Development project, said the creation of the courts was “very supply-driven” and signalled China was still committed to further integration into the global economy through trade and investment.

“There is a strong signalling dimension to the new courts, the message being, ‘We’re open for business’,” he said.

Hong Kong lauded for its potential to boost legal sector ties with Asia, Africa

Beijing declared it would build a “top-tier preferred destination” for resolving international commercial disputes in a plan packed with more “opening up” measures endorsed by the State Council in late November.

It came as China reported its first ever quarterly deficit in foreign direct investment (FDI) since records began in 1998. At the time, exports dropped as Western trading partners called for a “de-risking” approach over a perceived overreliance on China.

Xi has repeatedly called for legal backing in areas related to foreign affairs so that China can better manage its opening up and mitigate risks, especially under a more challenging international environment over the last three years.

But despite the Chinese leadership continually vowing to stay committed to opening up, foreign investors have not been convinced due to its overarching priority in national security.

Erie said the courts may have been more “performative than substantive” as they derived from the choice of the country’s ruling Communist Party and constitutional limitation.

Some of the reasons stopping them from being effective include China’s constitution forbidding foreign nationals as judges, a lack of incorporating foreign experts in the legal system, a shortage of expertise in foreign law and the Covid-19 pandemic, Erie said.

“Ultimately, the use of courts derives from party choice. Litigants need to feel that the courts are impartial and independent forums. Until then, such initiatives will remain more performative than substantive,” he said.

A way around this, Erie said, would be for the courts to serve as legal “carve-outs” which would function differently to the broader Chinese legal environment.

He added that some of the initiatives had been labelled as part of the “foreign-related rule of law”, which is partly a response to the US extraterritoriality.

Similarly, James Zimmerman, a partner at the Beijing office of US law firm Perkins Coie LLP, said the new courts did not provide an “attractive dispute resolution forum” for foreign business, with doubts cast over the courts’ lack of practical international experience as well as their ability to remain impartial.

“Most foreign lawyers would likely steer their clients away from litigation in any court in mainland China, except in situations where they are required to, or have no other alternatives,” said Zimmerman, who has practised law in China for over two decades.

Lack of practical experience in international settings, the party’s influence and interference over the legal system and judiciary would all raise questions about the courts’ impartiality and independence, he said.

However, Gu Weixia, an associate law professor at Hong Kong University, said that assuming having Chinese judges would lead to partiality in ruling decisions was a “perception” only. She said other countries with similar civil law systems, such as Germany, also only used judges of their own nationalities.

She said there was no concrete evidence to support such a “perception” based on her observation of the court in Suzhou, which has operated the longest compared to other city-level courts.

“We cannot see that any rulings have been unjustly influenced by Chinese judges,” Gu said.

The Suzhou court hailed its first case of enforcing a ruling made by the foreign arbitration institution of Ukraine as a typical example showing Chinese courts protecting the equal legal interests of both Chinese and foreign parties, according to state-run Legal Daily.

In the case, a Ukraine company paid US$80,000 to a Suzhou material supplier but never received the goods, and the Suzhou business did not return the prepayment even after a Ukraine arbitration institution ordered it to do so, it said.

The Ukraine company applied to the Suzhou International Commercial Court in 2021 to enforce the ruling made by a Ukraine arbitration institution, and the Suzhou court decided to recognise and enforce it after “carefully examining if this follows the New York convention” – an arbitration code China signed up to in the 1980s, it said.

Xi calls legal backing on foreign affairs an ‘urgent task’ for China

The default proceeding law in China’s international commercial courts is Chinese law, but parties could also choose a foreign law as their governing law by agreement.

Suzhou has accepted more than 3,000 cases involving around 53 countries and regions, including the United States and Japan, and disputes covering areas in trade, finance and cross-border investment, according to a Legal Daily report in late November.

Gu said the courts, as part of the national judicial infrastructure, reflected the country’s geopolitical and geoeconomic ambitions. They are created out of need, as China expands its global presence, with more Chinese companies going abroad and foreign investment increasing due to the massive Belt and Road Initiative.

She also sees a demand for city-level courts to process the large number of small and medium-sized foreign commercial disputes.

Gu said China’s creation of international commercial courts aligned with the global trend. Similar courts have emerged in post-Brexit Europe, Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates in the past decade, and they have been a “game-changer” in the international dispute resolution market, offering more flexibility to avoid local national courts and legal systems.

But she also agreed there was “certainly room for improvement” in terms of making the judicial system more “international” as not all judges have proficient legal English. According to Gu, China could also take lessons from Germany and use non-legal professionals, like businesspeople, as jurors in the future.

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com wins antitrust lawsuit against Alibaba, which was ordered by a Beijing court to pay US$141 million in damages

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3246715/chinese-e-commerce-giant-jdcom-wins-antitrust-lawsuit-against-alibaba-which-was-ordered-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com said it won an antitrust lawsuit against main rival Alibaba Group Holding, which was ordered by a Beijing court to pay 1 billion yuan (US$141 million) in damages, more than two years after the Taobao and Tmall operator was slapped with a record fine by market regulators for its monopolistic practices.

The Beijing High People’s Court on Friday ruled that Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post, “abused its market dominance” and conducted the monopolistic tactic known as “picking one from two”, which caused damage to JD.com’s business, according to a statement released on the same day by the Beijing-based online retailer.

JD.com hailed the court’s ruling, as it asserted that monopolistic practices, such as “picking one from two”, have hampered market competition and hurt the rights of brands, merchants and consumers.

That tactic, in which online merchants are forced to choose only one platform as their exclusive distribution channel, had been a common practice for years in China’s e-commerce market until it triggered an antitrust investigation against Alibaba in December 2020.

Alibaba said it was informed of the judgment and respects the court’s ruling, according to a company spokeswoman on Friday.

The conclusion of that lawsuit comes amid the escalating rivalry between JD.com and Alibaba in the domestic e-commerce market, where the two firms are also trying to fend off younger challengers such as budget online retailer Pinduoduo, operated by PDD Holdings, and live-streaming shopping platform Douyin, owned by TikTok parent ByteDance.

JD.com, China’s second-largest e-commerce player, filed the lawsuit in 2017, about two years after it made an official complaint to China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce against Alibaba for unfair competition and called for an investigation.

The months-long inquiry by antitrust watchdog the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) on Alibaba’s practices concluded in April 2021, when the company was slapped with a record 18.2 billion yuan fine and ordered to correct its misconduct.

JD.com, Alibaba’s Taobao push ‘refund only’ policy to rival Pinduoduo’s strategy

At the time, the SAMR said Alibaba had “abused its dominant market position in China’s online retail platform service market since 2015” by forcing online merchants to exclusively open stores and take part in promotions on its domestic shopping platforms.

Earlier this week, both JD.com and Alibaba’s Taobao platform rolled out a “refund only” policy so consumers can keep the goods they had bought but later complained about – matching an option that Pinduoduo has had in place since 2021.

JD.com on Wednesday announced that it will nearly double the salary for frontline employees, including those in procurement and sales from January 1. Staff at its retail unit will receive an average raise of 20 per cent or more by early next year.

China names former navy chief Dong Jun as new defence minister

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/29/china-names-former-navy-chief-dong-jun-as-new-defence-minister

China has announced the appointment of a new defence minister, two months after the previous office holder Li Shangfu was stripped from his position without explanation.

The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress – China’s de facto legislature – announced on Friday that Dong Jun, 62, would be the new defence minister. Dong was most recently the chief of China’s navy.

The announcement comes days after three senior executives from the aerospace defence industry were removed from a top advisory body to the Chinese Communist party (CCP) as part of a shake-up of the military that is thought to be linked to an anti-graft campaign that may have ensnared Li.

Li was formally removed as defence minister in late October, but he has not been seen in public since 25 August. He is thought to be under investigation for corruption related to the procurement of military equipment. He was head of the military equipment procurement department of the central military commission between 2017 and 2022.

Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist at Australian National University, wrote on X that the appointment of a navy chief as defence minister “is a sign of China seeing South China Sea as a new priority area of geopolitical contestation between China and the US”.

In August, two senior rocket force commanders were replaced in a shake-up of what is considered to be one of the People’s Liberation Army’s most important divisions. The new rocket force commander is Wang Houbin, who came from the navy.

Li also lost his position as state councillor in October. Dong has not been appointed to fill that role, nor will he fill the vacancy left by Li on the central military commission. As defence minister, Dong’s job is to be a public representative of the military and engage in diplomacy, but he does not have control over the armed forces. That power is held by China’s president, Xi Jinping, who is the chairperson of the central military commission, as well as the general secretary of the CCP.

Unlike Li, Dong is not thought to be subject to US sanctions, which may ease his ability to engage in military diplomacy with the US. During his seven months as defence minister, Li did not meet his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, in protest at the sanctions from Washington.

Dialogue between Washington and Beijing is seen as important in lowering the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. When Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met in San Francisco in November, they agreed to resume senior-level military talks.

South China Sea: Beijing will ‘respond resolutely’ if Manila builds permanent structure on disputed reef

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3246710/south-china-sea-beijing-will-respond-resolutely-if-manila-builds-permanent-structure-disputed-reef?utm_source=rss_feed

China warned that it would “respond resolutely” if the Philippines built a permanent structure on a disputed reef in the South China Sea.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Friday that Manila’s plan to establish a permanent base on the Renai Jiao – or Second Thomas Shoal – in the Spratly Islands amounted to “a significant move” that would “seriously infringe on China’s sovereignty”.

Philippines says it’s not provoking conflict, accuses China of ‘dangerous’ moves

“China will respond resolutely to any provocation and infringement and firmly safeguard our territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” she said.

Clashes between China’s coastguard and the Philippine navy around the Second Thomas Shoal have intensified in recent months, prompting the Philippines to step up plans to strengthen its occupation of the land feature with a potential “civilian structure” like a lighthouse or research centre. The Philippine congress recently allocated funding under its 2024 national budget for the project.

But Mao said the Second Thomas Shoal was an uninhabited reef and the establishment of any permanent structures would be a significant change to the status quo.

“All parties should ensure that the Renai Jiao remains uninhabited without facilities,” she said, citing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, a non-binding agreement China and the Southeast Asian nations signed in 2002.

“[Building a permanent structure] would be a major attempt by the Philippine side to renege on its commitments, change its policy and ruin the unmanned and unbuilt state of the Renai Jiao once again.”

The Second Thomas Shoal is located within the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, but China claims sovereignty over the reef, as well as the entire Spratly Islands, through a self-proclaimed “nine-dash line”. The declaration was declared invalid by an international arbitration court at The Hague in 2016.

Mao repeated the foreign ministry’s stance in denouncing the arbitration ruling, insisting that China’s sovereignty over the Spratly Islands, including the Second Thomas Shoal, and its surrounding waters was “formed and established in long history” and was “indisputable”.

Simmering tensions over the Second Thomas Shoal boiled over in recent months as China’s coastguard repeatedly blocked the Philippine navy from resupplying military personnel stationed on a ship that was deliberately stranded on the reef in 1999.

Manila accused Beijing’s coastguard vessels and its maritime militia of firing water cannons at its resupply boats, and “deliberately” ramming them. Earlier this month, the chief of staff of the Philippine armed forces, Romeo Brawner, was reportedly on board one of the boats that was rammed.

China accused the Philippines of “provocatively ramming Chinese coastguard ships”, actions it labelled as “dangerous and unprofessional”.

Why the Asia-Pacific is likely to see an even more geopolitically perilous 2024

On Thursday, Chinese defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian accused the Philippines of “staging a show of conflict” by embedding journalists on its supply boats and “releasing fake news”.

“China … will not stand by idly as the Philippines repeatedly provokes trouble and creates a scene,” Wu said.

China braces for Covid surge as JN.1 variant spreads around the world

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3246709/china-braces-covid-surge-jn1-variant-spreads-around-world?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese health authorities are calling for vigilance over the holidays as the country braces for a rise of Covid-19 cases caused by JN.1, a new variant of the coronavirus dominating in the United States and spreading rapidly elsewhere.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said earlier this month that JN.1 was first detected in the US in September and although it was likely to be more transmissible than other variants, it did not appear to cause more severe illnesses.

In China, the most prevalent variant is EG.5 but health authorities are expecting a rise in JN.1 because of an increase in imported cases, as well as mass travel over the Lunar New Year holidays in early February.

“Due to continued stream of imported cases of JN.1 and the mass movement of people before and after the Lunar New Year, the JN.1 variant is likely to become a prevailing variant in the country, and that will cause an increase in Covid-19 cases,” Li Zhengmao, from the National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control, said on Friday.

Li added that China was bracing for an uptick in multiple respiratory diseases during the winter.

“[The rise in JN.1 cases] will increase the risks of severe cases and deaths among elderly and vulnerable people with underlying diseases. It will also create pressure on the health system in rural areas as they are less able to treat the infected,” he added.

Li said the bureau would closely monitor the spread of the variant, and step up vaccination of at-risk groups with shots developed from the XBB strain.

According to the World Health Organization and scientific studies by the medical community, vaccines developed to counter the XBB variant in the Omicron family are still effective against JN.1.

Li said China would also pay special attention to weak links in the rural health system and allocate more resources to enable effective diagnosis to ensure hospitals were not inundated with less severe cases.

China’s health system was strained earlier this year with a spike in hospitalisations for various respiratory diseases, especially among children.

It was first hit by a surge of mycoplasma pneumoniae in May, then respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus and influenza virus, from October.

Health authorities and scientists said the spike was caused by a lack of immunity against other common respiratory diseases following three years of mask requirements. Many other countries also saw an increase in respiratory diseases after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted.

But the unusually high rate of serious mycoplasma pneumoniae cases was also blamed on drug resistance.

Respiratory diseases often increase in winter as most people stay indoors. In China, that trend is exacerbated by mass travel around the Lunar New Year – as was the case with the rapid spread of sudden acute respiratory syndrome in 2003 and the Omicron variant in 2022.

JN.1 evolved from the BA2.86 Omicron subvariant and by mid-December was responsible for about 44 per cent of Covid cases in the United States, according to the US CDC.

The WHO identified it as JN.1 as a variant of interest on December 19, saying it was on the rise in various countries, but the threat of an additional global public health risk was low.

The number of new cases of Covid-19 rose by more than half in the 28-day period to 17 December 2023, with more than 850,000 new cases reported, the WHO said.

But the number of new deaths fell by 8 per cent as compared to the previous 28-day period, with more than 3,000 new fatalities reported.

China to focus on finance, tech and farms in 12-sector digital push for real economy by 2026

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3246678/china-focus-finance-tech-and-farms-12-sector-digital-push-real-economy-2026?utm_source=rss_feed

Finance, technology and agriculture are among 12 areas earmarked by China’s newly formed data agency to spearhead digitalisation as an economic driver.

The National Data Administration (NDA)’s three-year action plan for digital resources follows a week-long consultation period that ended last Friday.

Aims set out in the draft 2024-2026 plan released for public consultation included more than 20 per cent annual growth for the data industry, and the doubling of data transactions by 2026.

By 2026, China will have more than 300 “typical” data applications, a few data application demonstration zones and an array of “innovative and influential” data providers and third-party agencies, according to the draft plan. The final document has yet to be released.

Beijing launches AI platform to meet country’s rising demand for computing power

“We aim to fully utilise the value of data and provide solid support to high quality [economic and social] development,” NDA deputy head Shen Zhulin said in Beijing on Friday.

“We selected 12 industries and sectors after considering their foundations, application scenarios and different demands,” Shen said. “We also consulted other government departments, experts and companies, and will adjust the plan in a timely manner to reflect feedback from society.”

The 12 areas in focus are industrial manufacturing, modern agriculture, trade, transport, financial services, technological innovation, culture and tourism, medical care and health, emergency management, meteorological services, smart city governance, and green and low-carbon economy.

The digitalisation push will include smart manufacturing to improve industrial and regional synergy, integration of agricultural production, and the sharing of tax and industry data with financial institutions for better credit checks by banks. Also, scientific and research data will be opened up to boost technological innovation and large AI models, such as those that power prominent chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The NDA was inaugurated in October amid a flurry of party and government body reshuffles since March, as Beijing seeks to outpace the United States and other Western rivals in setting norms and standards in artificial intelligence and the digital economy. The digital economy has taken on added significance as Beijing seeks new ways to rise up the industrial value chain and drive growth while navigating US-led technology chokepoints.

The NDA and planning body the National Development and Reform Commission recently jointly released a plan to expand the application of digital technology to support the development of China’s real economy.

The NDA, which takes over many duties of the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s top internet watchdog, has been tasked with driving digital development by creating blueprints, introducing unified standards for data sharing, and supporting the digitalisation of public services.

China’s digital economy was worth an estimated 50.2 trillion yuan (US$7.07 trillion) last year, accounting for 41.5 per cent of the national GDP. But rapid growth in the sector has brought management and regulatory challenges. For instance, about 15 government organisations are responsible for data regulation and governance, resulting in bureaucratic red tape and inefficiency.

China names new defence minister to replace ousted Li Shangfu

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3246689/china-names-new-defence-minister-replace-ousted-li-shangfu?utm_source=rss_feed

China has named a new defence minister, two months after Li Shangfu was removed from the post with no explanation.

General Dong Jun, the commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, was named as the new minister.

Li’s ousting was confirmed at the National People’s Congress Standing Committee meeting in October.

He had disappeared from the public eye in late August and no reasons have been given for his removal.

Li, was the first Chinese defence minister to be placed on a US sanctions list – because of arms sales from Russia – and was the second government minister abruptly removed from his post this year.

US defence secretary to meet Chinese counterpart ‘when that person is named’

The foreign minister Qin Gang has also disappeared from view and was replaced by his predecessor Wang Yi in July.

Both Li and Qin were also removed from their posts as state councillors – a senior cabinet position with a higher ranking than regular ministers – in the October meeting.

Dong, whose age is not known, has served in all major naval divisions in the PLA. Before becoming the navy’s top commander in 2021, he served in the Northern Sea Fleet, now a regular player in joint drills with the Russian navy; the Eastern Sea Fleet, which focuses on potential conflicts with Japan, as well as the Southern Command Theatre, which oversees the South China Sea.

China’s navy has in recent years played an important role as the PLA expands its diplomatic reach, with more port calls arranged.

The defence minister’s job is not comparable with the role in other countries, and the holder has less direct authority and instead acts rarely as the military’s public representative.

Command power falls under the Central Military Commission (CMC), chaired by President Xi Jinping.

The appointment may further facilitate high level military-to-military communication between the US and China, whose defence ministers have not talked since November last year.

In November, Xi met US President Joe Biden in San Francisco and agreed to restore the military communication channels between the two countries, China suspended in August last year in protest at House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan – a move China saw as a breach of its sovereignty.

Tensions between Beijing and Washington have been increasing in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait in the absence of reliable lines of communication, increasing the risk of misunderstandings or the situation escalating.

China population: reluctance to marry, have kids continued in 2022 as demographic woes deepened

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3246680/china-population-reluctance-marry-have-kids-continued-2022-demographic-woes-deepened?utm_source=rss_feed

Willingness to get married and have children continued to fall in China last year, with a significant drop also seen in the interest to raise a second child, an official yearbook on population and employment statistics for 2022 showed.

Over 51 per cent of people aged between 25 and 29 in China remained single in 2022, up from 48.7 per cent for the previous year, the 2023 China Population and Employment Statistical Yearbook showed.

The unmarried rate for the thirty-something age group also rose mildly, according to data based on a sample survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics in November 2022.

Meanwhile, the annual fertility rate for women of childbearing age – the number of births for every 1,000 women aged between 15 and 49 – dropped from 31.27 in 2021 to 30.22 in 2022, the survey showed.

The fall in China’s fertility rate was largely caused by a plunge in the number of babies born as a second child, which slumped from 13.48 to 9.58 per 1,000 women, according to the yearbook.

Authorities have issued a series of incentives to encourage couples to have bigger families over the years after China introduced a three-child policy in May 2021 having officially ended its one-child policy in January 2016.

Reasons for the growing reluctance to get married and have children include the high cost of starting a family and pursuit of diversity and individuality.

It underscores the demographic pressure China is facing as its population shrinks and grows older, which threatens long-term economic development.

The number of newborns in China has fallen since 2017, while the total population declined for the first time in 60 years in 2022.

Independent demographer He Yafu has estimated that the number of newborns in 2023 could have fallen below 9 million, based on data issued by some local governments. The official data for 2023 is expected to be released in January.

“There’s no doubt that 2023 would mark the seventh consecutive year of decline in terms of the number of newborns, due to factors including fewer women at a childbearing age, a lower number of marriage registrations, and weak motivation for having kids,” he wrote on Tuesday.

China could end a nine-year streak of declining marriage registrations this year, with a swift rise in the number of newlyweds during the first three quarters likely to push the annual total above 7 million.

The total fertility rate – the average number of children that are born to a woman over her lifetime – could drop below one in 2023, compared with 1.05 in the previous year, He warned.

A total fertility rate, or replacement rate, of 2.1 children per woman is generally seen to ensure a stable population.

He Dan, director of the China Population and Development Research Centre, said despite the government’s increasing investment in supporting childbirths, it still needs to weave a tighter supportive net to boost the birth rate.

Childcare services in China only cover 7 per cent of all young children, with the others cared for at home, she said in an article published in the December issue of the Population and Health journal.

“There’s also a mismatch between government directives and related laws,” she said.

“The phenomenon of gender discrimination at work, including the motherhood penalty, is getting worse.”

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Openness needed for Xi Jinping’s goal to bring 50,000 young Americans to China: talent expert

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3246610/openness-needed-xi-jinpings-goal-bring-50000-young-americans-china-talent-expert?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing should create an atmosphere of openness if it wants to attract many more young Americans to the country, according to a veteran expert on China’s talent recruitment and retention efforts.

David Zweig, professor emeritus of the social science division at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said China’s plan to have 50,000 young Americans go to China over the next five years, was a “good goal” but also would be a “challenge”.

“It’s important that China creates an atmosphere that says to these young people you’re welcome here – to come, study and get a job – and that China is open for business to the foreign companies,” he said on Thursday during a seminar at the Centre for China and Globalisation (CCG), a Beijing-based non-governmental think tank.

Zweig said students, like him, who went to study in China before the country’s opening up to the outside world saw that “times were pretty tough” then and there had been great changes since that time.

“That whole group of people knows the changes that have happened and we support an open China. Our commitment is to an open China that engages with the world and our own governments engaging with China. That’s what we support.”

Why more Chinese students are looking to Europe – not the US or UK – for study

Addressing a dinner with US business leaders in San Francisco in November, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China was ready to invite 50,000 young Americans to China for exchanges and studies in the next five years.

It followed an agreement between the Chinese leader and his US counterpart Joe Biden to encourage the expansion of educational, student, youth, cultural, sports and business exchanges.

Before that, experts on both sides had warned that a years-long, pandemic-induced hiatus in such interactions had bred mutual misunderstanding, suspicion, blame and invective between the two powers.

Amid an economic slowdown and rising tensions with the West, there have been growing questions about whether China is losing its lustre as a favourable place for foreign students and investors.

The number of American students in China fell to just 350 last year from 15,000 “six or seven years ago”, although it doubled to 700 in 2023, Washington’s envoy to Beijing Nicolas Burns said at an event at the Brookings Institution earlier this month.

The number of Chinese studying in the US has also fallen, although much less dramatically and Chinese students continue to outnumber any other foreign group in the United States. During the 2022-23 school year, 289,526 Chinese studied in the US, down 0.2 per cent from the previous year and a third year in a row of declines – according to an annual US government-funded study by the Institute of International Education.

Zweig, who is now vice-president of CCG, said it was important that Xi called for China to attract more American students “but there also needs to be an effort on the Chinese side to say let’s have a dialogue about this”.

He added that China had not seen a rebound that it had hoped for in students from other parts of the world.

The US has lost its charm, maybe forever, to China’s brightest students

Wang Huiyao, founder and president of CCG, said it would be a challenge to meet the 50,000 US student target given the tense geopolitical situation.

But as the world’s second-largest economy, China still had a great need for global talent and Xi’s announcement sent a signal to local authorities, universities and companies across China to welcome American young people.

“If everybody is mobilised to work on the American counterparts, I think it could be not that difficult,” he said.

‘Best landlord’: woman in China praises property owner for offering 20 per cent rent rebate every month so she can buy ‘nice food’ for her children

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/social-welfare/article/3246214/best-landlord-woman-china-praises-property-owner-offering-20-cent-rent-rebate-every-month-so-she-can?utm_source=rss_feed

A landlord in eastern China gave a 20 per cent rebate on his tenant’s rent every month so that she could “buy nice food” for her children, moving many online.

The woman, surnamed Yang, praised the property owner in a video on December 14, calling him “the best landlord” after he offered her a 200 yuan (US$28) monthly rebate from her 1,000 yuan rent so the mother of two primary school boys could use the extra money to buy food for her children who are living with her in eastern China’s Zhejiang province.

Yang called the landlord “the most beautiful local and best landlord in Zhejiang”.

The woman left southwestern China’s Guizhou province to work in Zhejiang, becoming one of China’s 295 million migrant workers who move from rural villages to big cities to find work opportunities.

Rental costs can be the biggest challenge migrant workers face, as rooms in tier-1 or tier-2 cities typically cost 1,000 to 3,000 yuan (US$140 to US$420) per month. Those prices can represent a significant chunk of the migrant worker’s paycheck, whose average monthly salary was 4,615 yuan (US$645) in 2022.

Yang’s generous landlord moved mainland Chinese social media, prompting many to share their own heartwarming stories of their landlords.

“This landlord set the rental to 1,000 yuan a month to keep the market stable but gave her a rebate because he is a great person,” commented one person.

Another commenter from Zhejiang said: “When I was ill last winter, my landlord took me to hospital and only left after my family came. He also waived my rent for a month.”

In March, a tenant in eastern China’s Anhui province said her landlord had introduced her to a new job so she could keep renting his apartment after she resigned from her previous position.

She told Chinese media outlet Jiupai News the landlord’s offer made her believe that “the world is kind”.

China to revive top science awards after 2-year suspension

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3246471/china-revive-top-science-awards-after-2-year-suspension?utm_source=rss_feed

After being put on hold for two years, China’s National Science and Technology Awards are back in business, with the nomination and reviewing process under way.

A staff member from the National Office for Science & Technology Awards in Beijing said on Monday that the awards would return, saying the suspension was not due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but was “a decision of senior officials”. He declined to explain further because he was not authorised to talk to the media.

The annual awards are the most prestigious for scientists in China.

The Ministry of Science and Technology oversees the awards and updated the nomination rules on December 12.

“These rules further regulate the nomination process, for example, local governments are required to consult no fewer than five experts in the relevant fields before making nominations,” an expert on science and technology policy said.

In the past, there was no such requirement but the key was whether the rules would be followed, he added, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, set up the awards in 1999 to promote the development of science and technology in China. There are five categories: the State Preeminent Science and Technology Award, the State Natural Science Award, the State Technological Invention Award, the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award and the China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award.

The State Preeminent Science and Technology Award is the highest scientific award among the five, with no more than two winners selected each time for their outstanding achievements and great contributions to society.

It has been likened to China’s Nobel Prize, awarded by the president, with each winner receiving 5 million yuan (US$700,000). Tu Youyou, a co-recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and agronomist Yuan Longping, known as the “father of hybrid rice”, have previously received this honour.

However, over the past two decades, the award system has been mired in controversy, with some criticising it for not being scientific and transparent enough.

For example, in 2011, the science ministry revoked the second prize of the National Scientific and Technology Progress Award for the design and manufacture of a scroll compressor, a device for compressing air or refrigerant, after an investigation found serious plagiarism and data falsification in the awardee’s recommendation materials.

In 2014, a team led by Zhang Yaoxue, then a professor at Tsinghua University, won the first prize of the State Natural Science Award – China’s highest award in the field of natural sciences – for a new “model and basic theory research on network computing”, also known as “transparent computing”.

But in the academic community the work was considered insufficient in terms of innovation and international significance to win the honour.

From 2017, reforms began to be made to the awards, including changing from a process of self-recommendations to nominations, as well as emphasising the ministry’s “zero tolerance” for falsification, plagiarism and misappropriation of other people’s achievements.

“Nomination is an international practice, but the credibility of the results should ultimately be evaluated by peers and the public,” said Fan Xiudi, a researcher at the Institute of Higher Education at Tongji University in Shanghai.

“The Nobel committee would not dare show favouritism because it is the focus of global public attention,” she said.

“But in China we have too many different awards, so there is no guarantee of impartiality for all the reviewers. It is thus very important that the review process can be monitored with different opinions.”

The review systems used in China’s academic sector, including the various award policies, have long been criticised by scholars, although authorities have made improvements in the hope of plugging the loopholes.

Yet various scholars, like Fan, are worried that some problems have not changed.

One reason for that is many in the scientific community are afraid to express their opinions – and if someone does raise objections, the results are unlikely to change anyway, while the person who spoke up may even be “punished”.

“Academic assessment activities are increasing, but ‘diverse voices’ in reviews are declining,” she wrote in an article published in the mainland’s China Science Daily in early December.

Fan said assessment was a key part of education and scientific research because it was like a “baton” that affected the production of knowledge and the development of science and technology.

Goodbye to science funding bias in China? Graft-busters target ‘saying hello’

An unscientific assessment system could therefore have many side effects, she said, such as superficially pursuing a number of published papers without caring whether they were really valuable. In some cases, it could also lead to resources being allocated to fields of study that were misleading, while others missed out or were treated unfairly.

But the biggest worry was the tendency for the domestic academic community to say nothing, she said. One explanation was that those who speak out may be seen as “deviants”, while those who follow the existing rules were often rewarded with more honours, awards and promotions, she said.

One scientist, who wished to remain anonymous, said he knew of a well-established scientist who was asked by a university official to vote for a project at a review meeting, but he refused. Since then, he said the scientist had been marginalised at the university and the study discipline he led has lost influence because it had not been supported in reviews.

“If we fail to establish a robust review mechanism, it would deprive the most outstanding researchers of effective support, which could have a profound impact on basic research for China,” Dou Xiankang, who heads China’s National Natural Science Foundation, told China Newsweek in April.

Science has become a national focus, with rivalry with the West fuelling a push for self-reliance.

“An academic environment that truly encourages innovation should be created, rather than motivating scientists to pull strings and chase after various honours and titles for talent projects,” Fan said.

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Caffeine boost: China’s rising coffee demand spurs cutthroat cafe competition

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3246684/caffeine-boost-chinas-rising-coffee-demand-spurs-cutthroat-cafe-competition?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese coffee consumption is growing quickly, spurring cutthroat competition between local and foreign coffee chains that have opened thousands of branded shops in recent months and surpassed the number of coffee stores in the United States.

Analysts expect China’s growing thirst for coffee to be a key driver of future demand for the beans as coffee shops expand beyond Beijing and Shanghai to dozens of mid-sized cities where young professionals have warmed to the drink.

China’s rising coffee demand is an opportunity for international chains like Starbucks and Tim Hortons that are investing heavily in China, though they face a steep challenge from rapidly expanding local brands.

Data from the International Coffee Organization shows coffee consumption in China grew 15 per cent in the year-long season ended in September from the previous cycle to 3.08 million bags.

“The Chinese consumer is increasingly adopting Western lifestyles and coffee is obviously one of the beverages that represent that,” said Jason Yu, managing director for Greater China at market research firm Kantar Worldpanel.

The number of branded coffee shops in China grew a staggering 58 per cent in the last 12 months to 49,691 outlets, according to Alegra Group, a company that tracks growth of coffee chains.

There is harsh competition between the local chains and international chains, said Matthew Barry, a beverages analyst for Euromonitor. Each one is trying to grab as big a share as they can of the growing market, he said.

Alegra Group estimates China’s Luckin Coffee added 5,059 stores in the last 12 months, while another Chinese chain, Cotti Coffee, opened 6,004 outlets in the period.

“The scale of the opportunity is such that both [local and international chains] will have to be very aggressive in facing off against the other and I think that should ensure a very dynamic marketplace in the next few years,” Barry said.

US-based Starbucks opened 700 stores in China in the last year and said it is on track to operate around 9,000 stores in the country by 2025, while Canada’s Tim Hortons plans to have 3,000 stores in the country in four years.

Seizing market share is one of Luckin’s core targets, CEO Jinyi Guo said during the firm’s third quarter earnings call.

Store openings are now happening in China’s smaller cities, Kantar’s Yu said, which have millions of inhabitants each.

“So that basically means in those places there’s still a lot of white space for coffee chains to grow,” he said.

Flash Coffee quits Singapore, but vows to maintain hold in Hong Kong

Zixi Zhao, a 20-year-old Beijing student, said he drinks coffee every day.

“I started drinking when I went to college,” he said. “I don’t drink much tea in general, but my mom, my dad, my grandmother they all drink tea.”

Ruoxuan Zhao, a 19-year-old student from Beijing, said drinking coffee was part of the fast-paced lifestyle of young people in China, who welcome the caffeine boost.

The development is good news for coffee producers already benefiting from high prices due to adverse weather in some growing regions. Arabica coffee futures are trading near the highest in eight months, while robusta coffee hit the highest in 15 years last week.

China imports coffee mostly from Africa and South America.

Brazil’s coffee exporters group Cecafe said that shipments to China will nearly triple in 2023 to surpass 1 million bags for the first time, making China its eighth-largest market.

The US Department of Agriculture sees China using 5 million bags of coffee in the new 2023-24 season, which would make it the world’s seventh-largest consumer.

Chinese coffee consumption still pales when compared with top consumers the United States and Brazil that use more than 20 million bags per year. But the growing demand signals China is undergoing a cultural change similar to other tea-loving Asian countries including Japan and South Korea.

Apple supplier Luxshare to take control of key iPhone plant in eastern China via US$300 million deal with Taiwan’s Pegatron

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3246686/apple-supplier-luxshare-take-control-key-iphone-plant-eastern-china-us300-million-deal-taiwans?utm_source=rss_feed

Apple’s key Chinese manufacturing partner Luxshare Precision Industry Co is set to gain control of an iPhone assembly site run by a Taiwanese rival, as the US tech giant fosters ties with mainland China-based suppliers to improve relations with Beijing.

Luxshare is set to buy a 62.5 per cent stake in Pegatron Corp’s unit in Kunshan, China’s most affluent county in eastern Jiangsu province, for about 2.1 billion yuan (US$300 million), according to an exchange filing by the Taiwanese firm on Thursday. Taipei-based Pegatron currently assembles iPhones at its Kunshan campus and another site in Shanghai.

The acquisition is expected to give Luxshare, which is also known as Luxshare-ICT, a better chance at competing with Foxconn Technology Group, Apple’s primary contract manufacturing partner.

Formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, Foxconn is the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer and makes about 70 per cent of all iPhones, with the bulk assembled at its main production site in Zhengzhou, capital of central Henan province.

Luxshare did not respond to a request seeking comment.

Shares of Luxshare rose more than 4.5 per cent in early Friday trading in Shenzhen, while Pegatron shares fell as much as 4.4 per cent in Taipei. Hon Hai shares were little changed.

Apple has been cultivating Chinese suppliers, including Luxshare, to help boost its standing in Beijing.

The Cupertino, California-based company relies on the Greater China region for about 20 per cent of its total sales, prompting chief executive Tim Cook to say in March that the company’s relationship with the world’s second-largest economy is a symbiotic one.

Apple’s Cook ‘optimistic’ on China after record iPhone revenues

Luxshare’s prominence within the Apple supply chain has risen swiftly in recent years. It now makes a range of products for the US customer, including iPhones, iPod, Apple Watch and mixed-reality headset Vision Pro.

In October, Cook visited a Luxshare plant and praised the Chinese company’s commitment to help Apple reduce carbon emissions.

Yet as Apple cultivates mainland Chinese suppliers at the expense of Taiwanese contract manufacturers, it is also shifting some production away from the region amid tensions between Washington and Beijing. Apple is now relying on Foxconn and Pegatron to expand its manufacturing footprint in India.

China is shoring up the great firewall for the AI age | Business

https://www.economist.com/business/2023/12/26/china-is-shoring-up-the-great-firewall-for-the-ai-age

China faces a problem familiar to dictatorships throughout history: how to strike a balance between growth-boosting innovation, which thrives in a free society, and the paranoia of an authoritarian state. Its leader, Xi Jinping, wants the country to become a hyper-advanced economy. His government is aggressively promoting the commercialisation of high technologies it likes, from electric vehicles to quantum computing.

At the same time, it is tightening the screws on those it disapproves of. In 2021 it regulated a booming online-tutoring industry into oblivion almost overnight, apparently out of fear that high tuition fees were making children’s education so expensive that Chinese were put off the idea of parenthood. On December 22nd the government took a wrench to the video-gaming industry, introducing rules to, among other things, limit how much players can spend on in-game purchases—and so how much developers can make. The market value of Tencent, one of China’s most innovative firms that also has a big gaming business, tumbled by 12%.

Nowhere is this tension clearer than in the hottest technology of 2023—artificial intelligence (AI). In many countries, command of AI is seen as both economically and strategically important. Politicians everywhere fret about machines going rogue or, more realistically, being harnessed by human mischief-makers. In Beijing the added worry is that the technology, which thrives on unlimited data and, at its current stage of development, in unregulated spaces, could prove subversive if not kept in check. It is therefore busily shoring up its “great firewall” for the AI age.

In 2000 Bill Clinton, then America’s president, likened China’s attempt to control the internet to “trying to nail Jell-O to the wall”. Today the jelly seems firmly in place. Western internet services, from Facebook and Google search to Netflix are unavailable to most Chinese (apart from those willing to run the risk of using illegal “virtual private networks”). On local platforms, any undesirable content is deleted, either pre-emptively by the platforms themselves, using algorithms and armies of moderators, or afterwards, as soon as it is spotted by government censors. A tech crackdown in 2020 brought China’s powerful tech giants, such Tencent and Alibaba, to heel—and closer to the government, which has been taking small stakes in the firms, and a big interest in their day-to-day operations.

The result is a digital economy that is sanitised but nevertheless thriving. Tencent’s super-app, WeChat, which combines messaging, social media, e-commerce and payments, alone generates hundreds of billions of dollars in yearly transactions. Mr Xi now hopes to pull off a similar balancing act with AI. Once again, some foreign experts predict a jelly situation. And once again, the Communist Party is building tools to prove them wrong.

The party’s efforts begin with the world’s toughest rules for Chinese equivalents of ChatGPT (which is, predictably, banned in China) and other consumer-facing “generative” AI. Since March companies have had to register with officials any algorithms that make recommendations or can influence people’s decisions. In practice, that means basically any such software aimed at consumers. In July the government issued rules requiring all AI-generated content to “uphold socialist values”—in other words, no bawdy songs, anti-party slogans or, heaven forbid, poking fun at Mr Xi. In September it published a list of 110 registered services. Only their developers and the government know all the ins and outs of the registration process and the precise criteria involved.

In October a standards committee for national information security published a list of safety guidelines requiring detailed self-assessment of the data used to train generative-AI models. One rule requires the manual testing of at least 4,000 subsets of the total training data; at least 96% of these must qualify as “acceptable”, according to a list of 31 vaguely worded safety risks. The first criterion for unacceptable content is anything that “incites subversion of state power or the overthrowing of the socialist system”. Chatbots must decline to answer 95% of queries that would elicit unacceptable content (any that do get through would, presumably, be censored ex post). They must also reject no more than 5% of harmless questions.

Anything produced by unregistered algorithms is to be blocked and its creators punished. In May a man in Gansu province was arrested after he used ChatGPT to produce text and images of a fake train crash and publish them on social media. He may have been the first Chinese to be detained for spreading AI-generated misinformation. He will not be the last.

This heavy-handed strategy has slowed the uptake of consumer-facing generative AI in the country. Ernie Bot, built by Baidu, another tech firm, was ready around the time of ChatGPT’s launch but only released nine months later, in August—aeons given how fast the technology is evolving. It is still clumsy when it comes to expressing its devotion to the party. When asked sensitive questions about Mr Xi, it dutifully censors, offering no answer and deleting the query.

Model socialists

With more work the party may be able to make AI models into not merely good communists, but fluent ones. That would obviate the need for ex post censorship, says Luciano Floridi of Yale University. Yet the authorities seem in no rush to get there. Instead, they are promoting the technology’s business applications.

In contrast to consumer AI, enterprise AI faces few constraints on development, notes Mimi Zou of the Oxford Martin School, a research institute. As Steven Rolf of the Digital Futures at Work Research Centre, a British think-tank, explains, this has the effect of channelling capital and labour away from things like consumer chatbots and towards machine learning for business. This, the government seems to be betting, will allow China to catch up and even overtake America in AI without the hassle of dealing with potentially subversive AI-generated content.

In May the southern city of Shenzhen announced it would launch a 100bn-yuan ($14bn) AI-focused investment fund, the largest of its kind in the world. A number of city governments have launched similar investment funds. A lot of this money is going to firms such as Qi An Xin, which offers generative AI that manages data-security risks for companies. The company claims that the bot can do the work of 60 security experts, 24 hours a day. Before going public in 2020, it received big investments from state companies, like many similar startups.

For this strategy to work, the enterprise-AI firms need the right sort of raw material. Consumer chatbots use AI models trained on swathes of the public internet. Corporate applications need corporate data, a lot of which is squirrelled away inside companies. So the other plank of China’s strategy is to turn corporate data into a public good. The state does not want to own the data but—as with the other factors—to control the channels through which it flows.

To that end, the government is promoting data exchanges. These are meant to let businesses trade information, packaged into standardised products, about all areas of commercial life, from activity at individual factories to sales data at individual shops. Small firms will gain access to knowledge once reserved for the tech giants. Banks and brokers will get a real-time picture of the economy.

Chinese cities began launching data exchanges about a decade ago. Now there are around 50 around China. And they are finally gaining speed. The Shanghai Data Exchange (SDE), which was launched in 2021, has started dealing in a number of new data products. In one of its first transactions, ICBC, a bank, bought information from the energy sector. This can be used to assess companies’ power consumption and, because it reflects real levels of activity, to create alternative credit profiles for companies. SDE sells satellite-derived data on steel output in China’s heartland and environmental violations by mining companies. Another product gives real-time data on doctors, nurses and hospital beds across the country in order to help medical firms make business decisions. The SDE is also experimenting with using data as collateral for loans.

At scale, the datafication of industry could deliver a significant economic boost, says Tom Nunlist of Trivium, a consultancy in Beijing. And more data may be coming to the exchanges soon. In August the central government tasked state-owned firms with thinking about how to value their data. In the past few months teams of auditors have been trying to come up with ways to do this, with a view to adding such data to companies’ balance-sheets as intangible assets. They are meant to report back by January 1st (though the deadline looks likely to be missed, given the unprecedented nature of the task).

The government’s gamble on enterprise AI is not without problems, however. The car industry is a case in point. In 2022 about 185m vehicles on Chinese roads had an internet connection, and a national plan envisages mass production of semi-autonomous cars by 2025. For that to happen, companies devising self-driving algorithms need lots of data on which to train their systems. A company called WICV is building a platform for the data that is beginning to trickle out of cars.

For now, WICV returns a car’s data to the carmaker that built it, so BYD gets data from BYDs, Nio from Nios and so on. But the plan is eventually for the data to be traded on exchanges, where it could be bought by other developers of self-driving systems. For that to happen, though, driving data must first be “desensitised”, explains Chu Wenfu, WICV’s founder, by stripping out biometric and geolocation details that could help bad actors track the movements of specific people.

The potential for such tracking spooks Chinese authorities. A big reason why they cracked down on Didi Global days after the ride-hailing firm’s initial public offering in New York in 2021 was, it later transpired, a fear that data on Didi’s 25m daily rides, including geolocation information linked to passengers, could fall into the hands of the American authorities. The Chinese government is pre-emptively mapping out vast areas of China where data collection could potentially pose a national-security threat.

Many carmakers, including Western ones such as BMW, have little choice but to team up with state-backed companies to handle driving information and ensure that local data-compliance rules are followed. Just in case, some car companies are ditching certain features, such as allowing drivers to watch live footage of inside and outside their car on their phones. Some of that footage could, after all, inadvertently capture something sensitive.

Such trade-offs between innovation and security are unlikely to be limited to cars. Other industrial and corporate data, too, will probably need desensitising before it can be traded at scale on exchanges. That will slow the development of enterprise AI, even if algorithms remain unshackled. It is a price that the party appears willing to pay for its paranoia. ■

China social media shocked by young woman suing parents to divvy up grandmother’s home as she wants to accelerate inheritance to study abroad

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3246211/china-social-media-shocked-young-woman-suing-parents-divvy-grandmothers-home-she-wants-accelerate?utm_source=rss_feed

A 25-year-old woman in Shanghai sued her parents to force them to either sell her grandmother’s flat or split the sale among three people – including herself – so that she could use the money to fulfil her dream of studying abroad.

The grandmother had received the apartment from the government when her old place was demolished a decade ago. The parents had registered the place under their names and that of her daughter, surnamed Tian.

They agreed to sell the apartment after the grandmother dies and split the sale accordingly. But Tian wanted to accelerate the sale to pay for the costly expenses of studying abroad, and she insisted on her parents paying her one-third of the apartment price immediately.

If the parents sold the apartment, the older woman would have nowhere to live.

Tian then sued her parents to force the sale of the property.

During the proceedings, Tian’s parents said they had previously paid their daughter’s expenses and debts of around 500,000 yuan (US$70,000), and they had helped her connect with schools abroad, but Tian had turned them down because they did not rank high enough for her liking.

The Shanghai Baoshan People’s Court dismissed Tian’s lawsuit because the family was still together, meaning the parents could not be legally obligated to divvy up the unit.

The Shanghai Higher People’s Court also added that a person should fulfil their filial piety to their parents, which is “a traditional virtue of the Chinese people”.

Online, the backlash against Tian was harsh.

“So selfish,” said an online observer.

Another added: “She should be fulfilling her dreams independently instead of selling her parents’ property.”

According to data from the Chinese Ministry of Education, the number of outbound students from China plunged to 450,900 in 2020 after hitting a record high of 703,500 in 2019. It recovered to 662,100 in 2022 as the world continued to navigate the Covid-19 pandemic.

English-speaking countries such as the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia remained the top destination of Chinese overseas students, according to a report by Chinese overseas study agency EIC Education.

Chinese courts are no strangers to family disputes over real estate properties.

In 2019, a Shanghai court ordered a daughter to return a residential flat to her elderly father after she sold the home to pay for her mother’s medical expenses even though the man still lived there.

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ChatGPT-aided ransomware in China results in four arrests as AI raises cybersecurity concerns

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3246612/chatgpt-aided-ransomware-china-results-four-arrests-ai-raises-cybersecurity-concerns?utm_source=rss_feed

Four cyber attackers in China have been arrested for developing ransomware with the help of ChatGPT, the first such case in the country involving the popular chatbot that is not officially available locally.

The attack was first reported by an unidentified company in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province, which had its systems blocked by ransomware, according to a Thursday report by state-run Xinhua News Agency. The hackers demanded 20,000 Tether, a cryptocurrency stablecoin pegged one-to-one to the US dollar, to restore access.

The police in late November arrested two suspects in Beijing and two others in Inner Mongolia, who admitted to “writing versions of ransomware, optimising the program with the help of ChatGPT, conducting vulnerability scans, gaining access through infiltration, implanting ransomware, and carrying out extortion”, the report said.

Why China is still several moves behind in the AI chess game started by ChatGPT

The report did not mention whether the use of ChatGPT was part of the charges. It exists in a legal grey area in China, as Beijing has sought to curb access to foreign generative artificial intelligence products.

After OpenAI introduced its chatbot at the end of 2022, igniting an arms race in the field among tech giants, ChatGPT and similar products gained interest among Chinese users. However, OpenAI has blocked internet protocol addresses in China, Hong Kong and sanctioned markets like North Korea and Iran. Some users get around restrictions using virtual private networks (VPNs) and a phone number from a supported region.

On the commercial side, there are “compliance risks” for domestic companies that build or rent VPNs to access OpenAI’s services, including ChatGPT and text-to-image generator Dall-E, according to a report by law firm King & Wood Mallesons.

Legal cases involving generative AI have increased given the popularity of the technology. In February, Beijing police warned that ChatGPT could “commit crimes and spread rumours”.

In May, police in northwestern Gansu province detained a man who allegedly used ChatGPT to generate fake news about a train crash and disseminated it online, which received more than 15,000 clicks.

In August, Hong Kong police arrested six people in a crackdown on a fraud syndicate that used deepfake technology to create doctored images of identification documents used for loan scams targeting banks and moneylenders.

Controversies around the technology are arising overseas, as well. Brian Hood, mayor of Hepburn Shire in Australia, sent a legal notice to OpenAI in March after ChatGPT wrongly implicated him in a bribery and corruption scandal.

The US Federal Trade Commission issued a warning this year about scammers weaponising AI-cloned voices to impersonate people, which can be accomplished with just a short audio clip of a person’s voice.

More recently, people and organisations whose work was used to train large language models have been pushing back against what they see as mass intellectual property infringement. In a case expected to be closely watched for its legal implications, The New York Times this week sued OpenAI and Microsoft, the AI firm’s main backer, alleging that the companies’ powerful models used millions of articles for training without permission.

‘Fighting spirit’: Xi Jinping reveals China’s push for global power after rare closed-door meeting on foreign policy

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3246631/fighting-spirit-xi-jinping-reveals-chinas-push-global-power-after-rare-closed-door-meeting-foreign?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing has vowed to seize “strategic opportunities” and further raise its “international influence, appeal and power” to shape a rapidly changing world by strengthening Communist Party control of foreign affairs and standing firm against “bullying” and “hegemonism” from the West.

At a rare closed-door party meeting about China’s future foreign policy direction that concluded on Thursday, President Xi Jinping also urged the country’s diplomats and cadres to “break new ground”, “rally the overwhelming majority” of the world and adhere to the “fighting spirit”.

The two-day Central Conference on Foreign Affairs Work, which was last held in 2018, was attended by top party leaders such as Politburo members, senior government officials and diplomats, including dozens of Chinese ambassadors, state media reported.

Pundits believe the timing of the meeting is of particular significance amid growing signs of socio-economic headwinds at home and growing international scrutiny and resistance, despite Beijing’s recent efforts to dial down its rancorous rivalry with the US-led West.

In his speech, Xi touted China as a “responsible” global power rising under his head-of-state diplomacy since he took power in 2012 and said China had overcome “various difficulties and challenges” in its external work in the past decade.

But he also warned of “high winds and choppy waters” ahead because the world had “entered a new period of turbulence and transformation” – a thinly veiled reference to Beijing’s feud with the US and its allies over ideological and geopolitical differences.

“China has become a responsible major country with enhanced international influence, stronger capacity to steer new endeavours and greater moral appeal,” he declared, according to a readout by Xinhua.

“We have showcased distinct Chinese characteristics, style and ethos in our diplomacy, and established the image of a confident, self-reliant, open and inclusive major country with a global vision.”

China had taken “a holistic approach to our relations with all parties”, “expanded a comprehensive strategic layout and formed a wide-ranging, high-quality global network of partnerships,” he said.

Xi also hailed the Belt and Road Initiative, his signature foreign policy and outbound investment project, as “the world’s most broad-based and largest platform for international cooperation,” and said Beijing had “shown the way in reforming the international system and order”.

The meeting came on the heels of Xi’s remarks on Tuesday hailing Mao Zedong’s legacy and vowing “to build China into a stronger country and rejuvenate the Chinese nation on all fronts by pursuing Chinese modernisation”.

Xi, who has become China’s most powerful leader since Mao after securing a third leadership term last year, also pledged on Tuesday that “the motherland must and is bound to be reunited”, just days ahead of the presidential election in the self-ruled Taiwan.

Zhiqun Zhu, an international relations professor from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania said, “This is part of the CCP’s efforts to further centralise decision making, to highlight Xi’s contribution to China’s diplomacy in the new era, and to elevate Xi’s political status to the level of Mao”.

He said it was clear Xi called the shots on all important matters, raising some concerns about whether the party had completely departed from collective leadership.

“It’s unclear what Chinese diplomats can do to address serious external challenges. The party’s total control over foreign affairs leaves professional diplomats with little room to manoeuvre,” Zhu said.

The readout made no mention of former foreign minister Qin Gang and former defence minister Li Shangfu, whose removal this year grabbed international headlines, while the men are yet to be accounted for.

Xi calls legal backing on foreign affairs an ‘urgent task’ for China

In the face of unprecedented challenges at home and abroad, Xi was confident China still faced “new strategic opportunities” and said China’s diplomacy “will enter a new stage where much more can be accomplished”.

“We must unswervingly uphold the CPC central leadership’s ultimate authority over foreign affairs,” he said, while urging governments at all levels to “keep in mind the big picture” and implement Beijing’s decisions “in both letter and spirit”.

“We must focus on the central task of the CPC and the country, seek progress while maintaining stability, break new ground while upholding fundamental principles and firmly safeguard China’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” he said.

“We will explore new frontiers in China’s diplomatic theory and practice, foster new dynamics in the relations between China and the world and raise China’s international influence, appeal and power to shape events to a new level. We will create a more favourable international environment and provide more solid strategic support for building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through the Chinese path to modernisation,” Xi was quoted as saying.

He said Beijing would continue to “hold the international moral high ground and unite and rally the overwhelming majority in our world”, “carry forward our fighting spirit”, reject “all acts of power politics and bullying” and “leverage our institutional strengths” amid external uncertainties.

“An equal and orderly multipolar world is one in which all countries, regardless of size, are treated as equals, hegemonism and power politics are rejected and democracy is truly promoted in international relations,” he said.

“It is important to resolutely oppose the attempt to roll back globalisation and abuse the concept of security, oppose all forms of unilateralism and protectionism, firmly promote trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation, overcome the structural problems hindering the healthy development of the world economy, and make economic globalisation more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all,” China’s president said.

“Changes of the world, of our times and of historical significance are unfolding like never before,” Xi said. “Yet the overall direction of human development and progress will not change, the overall dynamics of world history moving forward amid twists and turns will not change, and the overall trend toward a shared future for the international community will not change. We must have full confidence in these trends of historical impact.”

According to Su Hao, a diplomacy expert at China Foreign Affairs University which is affiliated with the foreign ministry, the rise of China and other developing countries has altered the global power landscape.

“Since modern times, the world has been dominated by the West. But now it seems that with the group rise of developing countries, it is obvious that the role and status of the West is declining, then the trend of multi-polarity in the world advocated by China pushes the world to form a balance of power structure,” he said in an interview with Shenzhen TV.

Su said as the world became increasingly volatile amid the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Palestinian conflict, China faced strategic opportunities to act as a peace broker and a leader of the Global South in maintaining world peace and stability.

The Central Conference on Foreign Affairs Work has been held three times – in 2006, 2014 and 2018 – according to the state-owned Beijing Youth Daily.

Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia Programme and director of the China Programme at the Washington-based Stimson Centre, said similar meetings on diplomatic work have been held almost every five years, including the Periphery Diplomatic Work Conference in 2013.

“In 2018, it was the Central Diplomatic Work Conference. The pattern appears to be the diplomatic work conference is held the year after each party congress,” she said.

“The conference summarised the achievements of Xi’s diplomacy in the past decade and points out new priorities of Chinese diplomacy for the future. The key seems to be actively shaping China’s relationship with the outside world. The confidence in China’s path and its future is evident.”

Be alert to foreign infiltration, Chinese graft-buster warns diplomats

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international affairs at Beijing’s Renmin University, said the meeting’s readout had largely reaffirmed what the party said in its political report at the 20th national congress last year.

“Instead of rolling out new policies, the statement seems rather general, and one needs to look more at China’s specific diplomatic behaviour,” he said.

It is not clear if the meeting implies a shift in China’s foreign policy direction ahead of a potentially more tumultuous time in the lead-up to presidential elections in the US and Taiwan.

“[To discern possible changes in China’s foreign policy], we may need to look at China’s major diplomatic acts – not just one act, but acts over a period of time. While the wording may be similar, the foreign policy may contain some new features over time,” he said.

Additional reporting by Sylvia Ma

Nothing to sneeze at: Chinese researchers hope their nasal mask catches a virus before you do

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3246421/nothing-sneeze-chinese-researchers-hope-their-nasal-mask-catches-virus-you-do?utm_source=rss_feed

As millions of people worldwide battle the seasonal surge of misery caused by respiratory illnesses, researchers in China may have found a way to “dramatically” neutralise the kinds of viruses responsible for such infections.

A team of scientists said they have developed a nasal spray that turns into a gel when exposed to body heat, creating an invisible intranasal mask that can be tailored to trap specific viruses before they can invade the respiratory tract.

Viral receptors contained within the gel that help to inactivate the viruses remain active for up to eight hours, the researchers reported in a paper published in Nature Communications on December 18.

Get a flu shot, health expert says as China battles respiratory illness wave

The intranasal mask, which has been tested on mice and on a model of the human respiratory tract, “dramatically reduced the likelihood of respiratory viral infection,” the paper said.

Many infectious diseases thrive through airborne transmission in the form of tiny droplets that can easily enter the respiratory tract.

In the paper, the scientists said they set out to create a preventive treatment capable of intercepting and inactivating viral particles at the point of entry. The spray mask consists of a positively charged thermosensitive hydrogel that intercepts the negatively charged viral droplets when they are inhaled through the nose.

Once the viral aerosols are trapped in the gel, the virus is inactivated by microsized vesicles – tiny cellular-derived structures that have no cell organelles or DNA.

These vesicles have receptors on their surface that recognise the viral aerosols they are engineered to respond to, the paper said.

Once the virus meets its corresponding receptors, it is trapped within the vesicles and can no longer replicate, since the vesicles do not contain the cellular components necessary for it to do so.

New Chinese drug shows record treatment success against deadly lung cancer type

The result is a virus that is no longer able to infect host cells, the paper said.

During simulations, the researchers found that without a mask, around 55 per cent of viral particles inhaled had entered into the trachea, compared to only about 7 per cent when the intranasal mask was in place.

“The intranasal mask could intercept 93.2 per cent of viral aerosol particles in the nasal cavity”, preventing viral aerosols from entering the downstream lung, Wang Limin, corresponding author and a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Institute for Process Engineering, said in a press release.

Through tests on mice, the researchers said they were able to demonstrate that their gel mask system could provide “strong protection to the nasal cavity and downstream lung against viral aerosol infection”.

Calls for return of masks, airport scanners in Southeast Asia amid Covid surge

To find out how the intranasal mask would perform on human anatomy, the researchers scanned and 3D printed a human nasal cavity to model a human respiratory tract.

The nasal cavity model was then attached to a lung module derived from human lung tissue, along with a pump to model respiratory flow, the paper said.

The researchers found that the intranasal mask was able to protect against infection by preventing viral aerosols from reaching the lung module.

According to the paper, the mask could protect people from airborne viruses, including those “who cannot conveniently wear face masks, such as patients with asthma”.

The researchers said that people in higher risk situations, such as medical professionals, could use the intranasal spray as well as a regular face mask to “further reduce the risk of infection from aerosols containing threatening viruses”.

Tests revealed that the masks were capable of simultaneously protecting against multiple mutated variants of the same virus, such as Influenza A and Sars-CoV-2, since the binding of the virus variant onto the viral receptors in the gel was “independent of mutation”, Wei Wei, corresponding author and a professor at the CAS Institute for Process Engineering, said in a press release.

The intranasal mask system could also be applied to other viral infections, and could even be designed to neutralise “multiple viruses at the same time,” the paper said.

The intranasal mask maintained its protective properties after being refrigerated for three months, and the materials in the mask could potentially be stored separately and mixed before use, the paper said.

The research team said they were investigating hydrogels that could transform from liquid to gel regardless of temperature, to address the sensitivity of their hydrogel, which could affect its performance under very cold or very hot conditions.

The next tests for the intranasal mask would be on hamsters and monkeys, which are “preferable models” to mice, the researchers said.

Adora Magic City, the first made-in-China cruise ship, to set sail from Shanghai

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3246626/adora-magic-city-first-made-china-cruise-ship-set-sail-shanghai?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s first domestically built cruise ship is set to begin its maiden voyage on January 1, offering travellers from the mainland a way of getting overseas while still not entirely leaving the comforts of home.

The Adora Magic City will depart from its home port of Shanghai on Monday for a six-day trip that will take in South Korea’s Jeju island and the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Fukuoka. Its operator, CSSC Carnival Cruise Shipping, is a joint venture between China’s largest shipbuilding company China State Shipbuilding Corp and Carnival from the US.

Built by CSSC Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, Adora Magic City is 323.6 metres long and can accommodate up to 5,246 passengers in 2,125 guest rooms. The 16-deck liner boasts 22 restaurants and bars – including a mahjong lounge, beer brewery and hotpot outlet, duty-free shops and theatres showing musicals with a decidedly Chinese bent, such as Marco Polo: an Untold Love Story.

State media have touted the ship as a major milestone, evidence the country’s shipbuilders can handle the most challenging of projects, along with aircraft carriers and large liquefied natural gas carriers.

But it’s also a way to ease Chinese into venturing abroad again, while still allowing for food, experiences and surroundings that are intimate and familiar.

Despite steps by authorities to get people flying overseas, such as resuming group tours, appetite for international travel is limited. Morgan Stanley does not expect China’s international air travel to fully recover until 2025, another whole 12 months away at least.

Builder of China’s first home-grown cruise ship confidently chases more orders

Domestic travel, on the other hand, has sprung back with a vengeance, with locals traversing the vast nation to hit up favourite tourist spots like the Great Wall and the spectacular Karst mountains of Guilin.

The Chinese built and designed Adora, which for now will mainly cruise in short hops around Northeast Asia, is seen as one way of bridging the gap.

“Most of our clients are families with the elderly and kids,” said Liu Liu, a sales rep with local travel agency Chang Tu Travel, which has been booking customers on Adora’s inaugural voyage.

“Cruise ships offer them a way to travel to different places and still enjoy recreational activities without worrying about traffic jams and lodging,” she said, adding many people had wanted to book to specifically show their support for a China-made liner.

Bookings for Adora’s first sailing opened in September. According to the ship’s official online store on Tmall, a premium cabin for two runs to about 8,500 yuan (US$1,200) for a trip in early February, when many Chinese will be heading off for the important Lunar New Year holiday. Tickets for January and most of February are sold out.

“Tickets are pretty hard to book,” Liu said, noting that sailings on February 9 and February 14 were particularly popular. While Valentine’s Day isn’t typically a holiday in China, this year it falls over the Lunar New Year, meaning for many young Chinese couples it will be a double celebration.

Further out, Adora Magic City plans to add Southeast Asia routes and possibly a longer-haul ‘Maritime Belt & Road’ route.

Axe Hong Kong’s Japanese seafood ban based on data and to show contrast from mainland China with ‘one country, two systems’, Japan’s envoy in city says

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3246550/axe-hong-kongs-japanese-seafood-ban-based-data-and-show-contrast-mainland-china-one-country-two?utm_source=rss_feed

Hong Kong should end its ban on Japanese seafood imports as the Fukushima nuclear waste water discharge had not caused contamination and doing so will show it can make decisions separately from mainland China under “one country, two systems”, Japan’s top diplomat in the city has said.

In an exclusive interview with the Post, Japanese Consul General Kenichi Okada said the city had already taken a different approach from the mainland by applying a more narrow ban on only 10 prefectures.

“Mainland China banned all seafood imports from Japan, while Hong Kong banned imports from only 10 prefectures,” he said. “[This] already shows a stark contrast between the mainland and Hong Kong.”

The consul general said he believed the city could “continue to show one country, two systems in various manners”.

“For example, if Hong Kong can lift the ban earlier than mainland China, Hong Kong can showcase the beautiful merits of one country, two systems in front of Japan,” he said.

The governing principle guarantees Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy for 50 years after reunification, and is stipulated in the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution.

Japanese consulate in Hong Kong urges end to ban on seafood imports

In August, Japan began discharging into the Pacific Ocean some of the 1.34 million tonnes of treated nuclear waste water that had collected since a tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in 2011.

The waste water is filtered through a process known as ALPS – advanced liquid processing system – which is approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency, to remove most radioactive elements.

The decision prompted the Hong Kong government to ban aquatic products from 10 prefectures: Tokyo, Fukushima, Chiba, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano and Saitama.

The mainland decided to ban Japanese sea products from all prefectures.

Since the process started on August 24, the plant has released 23,400 tonnes of treated waste water in three rounds, with the fourth scheduled to begin in late February.

In 2022, the mainland and Hong Kong were the largest and second-largest markets for Japanese seafood, accounting for 87.1 billion yen (US$611.8 million) and 75.5 billion yen worth of Japan’s seafood exports, respectively.

Okada said the exports had dropped sharply since the bans were introduced.

According to data from Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the value of marine exports from the country to the city in October fell by 16.1 per cent year-on-year to 5.9 billion yen, down from 7 billion yen last year.

Export values to the mainland in the same period plummeted from 8.6 billion yen last year to 1.4 billion yen, an 83.8 per cent decrease year on year.

The ban also caused Hong Kong to overtake the mainland as Japan’s top seafood export destination, according to Okada.

No room to ease Hong Kong’s ban on Japanese seafood, environment chief says

Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan earlier said the government had taken a conservative approach towards the ban as the discharge was unprecedented and difficult to monitor.

The city has been testing seafood imports, local fishery products and seawater samples since the discharge. So far, all tests by the centre have been satisfactory.

Industry leaders have said almost a third of Hong Kong’s 1,400 Japanese restaurants have shut their doors permanently this year, with high-end omakase establishments offering top-quality sushi being hit the hardest.

The sluggish recovery in the city’s tourism industry, a weak yen and the seafood ban are some of the factors behind their closure, according to restaurateurs.

Okada lamented the seafood ban’s impact on the restaurants, some of which closed after operating for more than a decade.

“I am afraid by Lunar New Year, more Japanese restaurants will not sustain their operations or give bonuses to their staff as per tradition,” he said.

The consul general described “acute heartache” he felt for the restaurants that had “serviced Hongkongers for so many years”.

Quoting a call by G7 leaders in October for the immediate scrapping of the import bans, he urged the city to drop the measures.

Hong Kong’s Japanese seafood ban sees eateries flounder amid customer fears

“We have a lot of conversations and meetings between the two governments on various levels,” Okada said. “The Japanese government monitors the seawater and seafood, and so does the Hong Kong government, with imports from Japan. With so much data accumulated, none showed any problems.”

He added that the Japanese government would continue providing information and scientific evidence to its Hong Kong counterparts “as faithfully and transparently as possible”.

“I hope the Hong Kong government will make the right decision at the right time, so Japan and Hong Kong can move on to the next stage where we can cooperate on many, many issues,” he said.

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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China cracks down on negativity over economy in bid to boost confidence

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/29/china-cracks-down-on-negativity-over-economy-in-bid-to-boost-confidence

China is cracking down on negative commentary about the financial market and other sectors as the authorities seek to boost public confidence despite challenging economic headwinds.

This month the Weibo account Weibo Finance, which has more than 1.5 million followers, issued an instruction against posting any comments “that bad-mouth the economy”. The post appears to have since been deleted. Bloomberg reported that several other finance influencers had been told by Weibo to “avoid crossing red lines” and to post less about the economy. Weibo did not reply to a request for comment.

China’s ministry of state security published an article on 12 December saying there was a need to “sing the bright theory of China’s economy”.

In a separate WeChat post, the ministry said: “Various cliches intended to denigrate China’s economy continue to appear. Their essence is to use false narratives to construct a ‘discourse trap’ and ‘cognitive trap’ of China’s decline, in order to cast doubt on the system and path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

Alicia García-Herrero, the chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, an investment bank, said: “Economic topics used to be widely discussed but there is an increasing number of topics that are becoming problematic.”

Topics that are considered increasingly sensitive in China’s economy include record high youth unemployment figures (the government stopped publishing this data in August), deflation, the struggling property sector and capital flight.

The restrictions have been building for some time. In June, three finance commentators, one of whom had 4.7 million Weibo followers, were blocked by the platform as a punishment for “hyping up the unemployment rate, spreading negative information … [and] smearing the development of the securities market”.

Dan Wang, the chief economist at Hang Seng Bank, said “the number one sensitive issue now” was foreign investment, because of its links to cross-border capital flows.

“There is a difference between the actual capital flows and the official attitude when it comes to whether they welcome foreign investors or not. Openly, [the government] welcomes foreign investors, but the current situation is not the best for foreigners to stay. There’s a gap between what the government says and what is actually going on in the market,” Wang said.

Property is another sensitive topic. The real estate sector, which typically accounts for between a quarter and a third of GDP, has struggled to recover from a regulatory whirlwind known as the “three red lines” policy, which limited developers’ ability to take on debt, meaning that construction on hundreds of residential developments stalled.

Evergrande, once China’s biggest developer, is in the midst of a painful debt restructuring process, while Country Garden, its main rival, defaulted in October.

New home prices fell in November, and property investment in the first 11 months of the year fell by 9.4% year on year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Analysts have said there is now a growing gulf between official statistics and private market data as Beijing tries to control the spread of pessimism in the sector.

There is also pressure on economists in Hong Kong to be optimistic about the mainland economy, although analysts say this is a long-term trend and one that comes from a general atmosphere of deference to Beijing rather than specific instructions.

“This was even more obvious following the three red lines policy that instigated the popping of China’s property bubble in 2020,” said Andrew Collier, a managing director at Orient Capital Research, a financial research firm. “While there were structural reasons for the decline, the three red lines policy set it off. Economists and property analysts kept calling a floor to the decline and also insisted that Beijing would support the property market. But it didn’t.”

Wang said: “We need to conform to the official party line. We need to focus on the positive side of the economy, [but] it’s harder to find those bright spots.”

Some analysts argue that confidence will be just as important, if not more, as government stimulus in rescuing China’s economy, although the two are linked. Collier said: “Statements about a turnaround in China property won’t do the trick.”

Wang said: “People need to understand what the policies are for, but there’s a lack of discussion in the public space. The government has to be more willing to openly discuss why they do certain things or not do certain things.”

Asia EV and green sectors need to navigate around US-China rare earth row by focusing on technology

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3246398/asia-ev-and-green-sectors-need-navigate-around-us-china-rare-earth-row-focusing-technology?utm_source=rss_feed

A US-China trade fight over electric vehicle (EV) battery technology is threatening Asia’s nascent clean energy industries even as the United Nations pledges to triple renewable energy output globally by 2030 as outlined in its recent Cop28 climate conference.

China said last week it will curb the export of technologies including the processing of rare earths and magnets, which are key to the manufacture of green products such as EVs and wind turbines. Beijing’s move comes as the White House is reportedly weighing imposing higher tariffs on EVs to curb China’s dominance in the EV sector - China is the world’s largest EV manufacturer as well as the sales market for the vehicles.

The trade row between the world’s two largest economies spells bad news for Asia’s fledgling clean energy industries.

While the new rules imposed by China - the world’s most dominant rare earth supplier - will not affect shipments, the restrictions could create hurdles for other countries by adding to the costs of developing technology to grow their green industries.

Asia at risk as Cop28 deal falls ‘far short’ of acceptable fossil fuel phase-out

If the US were to impose EV-related tariff hikes against China and in turn worsen their trade row, Asian firms would be adversely affected as many of them are dependent on Chinese technology and parts for EVs, and this could also lead to a reduction in sales in the crucial American market.

Many Asian EV firms and related industries need to ramp up production and sales over the coming years for green technology to become commercially viable. Lack of access to key materials and markets could spell doom to their ambitions.

EV battery technologies are important not just to steer the world away from fossil fuel-driven cars. They also have an impact on the development of renewable industries such as solar and wind, and efficient electricity transmission.

“The pledge from 120 nations at the start of Cop28 to triple the output of global renewable energy by 2030 thrusts the humble [EV] battery and related grid infrastructure into the spotlight – ready or not,” says Chris Cote, vice-president for sector and thematic research at MSCI ESG & Climate Research. “Our research shows that for every dollar spent expanding wind and solar, 80 cents of additional investment is needed for supporting technologies.”

Cumulatively, this would mean investments of US$1 trillion for the manufacturing of batteries used in EVs and renewables like wind and solar alone by 2030, more than four times that of developing transmission and distribution infrastructure, Cote said.

While the projection seems ambitious, the bright prospects of China’s EV market appear to support the global transition towards clean energy.

Half of China’s new passenger vehicle sales will be electric by 2026, according to a Bloomberg report. Globally, this proportion will rise to 16 per cent by next year from 10 per cent in 2022, Moody’s data shows. China’s EV sales will also displace around 300,000 barrels of oil in 2024, according to ANZ’s data.

For now, Asian countries with ambitions to grow their EV and green industries will have to find ways to navigate around the supply challenges arising from the US-China row.

EV boom unlikely to ease Asia’s resource vulnerability, analysts warn

One way is for them to maintain cordial trade ties with both economic giants to minimise supply disruptions. But as the pandemic had shown, when global supply chains were upended due to China’s strict Covid-19 restrictions, Asian economies should look to build self-reliant green industries including for EVs.

For instance, Indonesia has been encouraging international companies to develop its huge nickel reserves for the manufacturing of EVs, while India has announced EV production-linked incentives.

These economies face numerous challenges in developing their EV and green industries. It will require an array of measures such as manufacturing incentives, tax rebates and supportive policies.

Developing technology in the different industries is another area. For instance, the supply of lithium-ion batteries – the mainstay for EVs – is not expected to meet surging demand in the next few years. Some EV companies are already looking beyond lithium and exploring using more abundant minerals like sodium to manufacture batteries.

Innovation is and will remain the name of the game. Those who fail to focus on technology will continue to be vulnerable to trade politics and whims of major suppliers for many years to come.

China, Myanmar revive hopes for Bay of Bengal deep water port in Kyaukphyu under Belt and Road Initiative

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3246551/china-myanmar-revive-hopes-bay-bengal-deep-water-port-kyaukphyu-under-belt-and-road-initiative?utm_source=rss_feed

China and the Myanmese military government have signed a supplementary agreement for the Kyaukphyu deep water port, as both sides seek to get the stalled Belt and Road Initiative project off the ground.

The renewed push for the project in Myanmar’s restive western Rakhine state comes amid escalating violence between ethnic rebel groups and the ruling junta, which has prompted repeated security warnings from the Chinese mission.

Chinese state-owned Citic Group will, as agreed in 2018, maintain a 70 per cent stake in the port, which is expected to give China access to the Bay of Bengal as an alternative route for oil imports.

Top Citic executives, Chinese diplomats and junta officials attended the signing of an addendum to the project concession agreement, in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw on Tuesday.

China sees Myanmar as stepping stone to Indian Ocean, energy security

The Kyaukphyu deep-sea port is a “major part” of Beijing’s belt and road strategy as well as the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, and of “great significance to practical cooperation” between the two countries, Citic Group president Xi Guohua said during the ceremony.

“Citic Group will make every effort to promote the implementation of the Kyaukphyu project,” Xi pledged, according to a readout from the Chinese embassy in Myanmar.

Details of the addendum were not made public, but it is viewed as the latest sign that the key China-backed infrastructure project, which had made little progress since the military seized power in a coup in early 2021, is now back on track.

However, it comes as resource-rich Myanmar is in the throes of some of the worst ethnic violence since the coup, with intense clashes between military and an alliance of powerful ethnic armed groups, sometimes in coordination with anti-junta groups, erupting across the country.

Citing sources close to the ethnic rebel groups, Myanmese news portal The Irrawaddy reported on Wednesday that the junta and an alliance of three ethnic armies had failed to reach a peace deal at a second round of China-brokered peace talks last week in Kunming, capital of China’s southwestern Yunnan province bordering Myanmar.

The continued clashes prompted a fresh security warning on Thursday from the Chinese embassy, urging citizens to “evacuate as soon as possible” from Laukkai, a major town in the Kokang Self-Administered Zone near Myanmar’s northern border with China.

The fighting has also raised fears about the future of Chinese-backed infrastructure projects in Myanmar.

The US$1.3 billion port project, sitting on Maday Island off the fishing village of Kyaukphyu on the Bay of Bengal, is part of the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, a scheme aiming to draw textile and oil refining industries that is at the heart of China’s relationship with Myanmar.

It is also a key section of the 1,700km China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, a planned network of railway, roads and oil and natural gas pipelines running from Kunming in China’s Yunnan province to the Indian Ocean.

During a state visit to Myanmar in early 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed the economic corridor as “priority among priorities” for the belt and road, a global infrastructure drive that has become a cornerstone of Beijing’s foreign policy.

Kyaukphyu port is expected to give Beijing strategic access to the Indian Ocean while offering China an alternative energy route to the Strait of Malacca, a narrow waterway between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea that now transports some 80 per cent of China’s oil imports from the Middle East.

Beijing-based Citic, one of China’s biggest and the oldest financial conglomerates, was chosen to take the lead in the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone and deep seaport projects in 2015.

However, little progress was made until Citic and the then Myanmese government, led by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, reached a framework agreement in 2018 to scale back the port investment from US$7.3 billion to US$1.3 billion.

A joint management committee was also set up between Citic and the Myanmar government on a 70:30 holding basis, with a 50-year lease for the Chinese company.

But regulatory issues have stalled progress on the project. This has frustrated Beijing, with Chinese officials publicly urging the Myanmar government to push forward infrastructure plans under the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor.

Rebel fire and China’s ire: inside Myanmar’s anti-junta offensive

As the domestic conflict in Myanmar continues, there are growing signs that the military government – increasingly isolated by international sanctions since its 2021 coup – is looking to bring China-backed projects back on track.

In February, Citic said it had completed a 10-month field survey for the port project. A report was released in September, paving the way for construction, with the SEZ committee starting to invite bids last month.

Earlier this month, Aung Naing Oo, the Myanmese commerce minister, announced the conclusion of negotiations with Citic Group over the deep seaport business licence agreement signed by the previous government.

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China invents powerful detonation engine, Mandarin in US schools, renewed MH370 search calls: SCMP’s 7 highlights of the week

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3246582/china-invents-powerful-detonation-engine-mandarin-us-schools-renewed-mh370-search-calls-scmps-7?utm_source=rss_feed

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider .

Beijing, a close partner of Moscow and Pyongyang, is staying quiet about the growing alignment between its two neighbours, but observers say China is cautious about joining a trilateral axis that could trigger a ‘new cold war’.

The case of slain Hong Kong socialite Abby Choi Tin-fung was back in court last week. The Post looks back on the details that have emerged so far.

Scientists at the forefront of hypersonic weapons research in China say they have an unprecedented power solution for aerospace planes. In theory, the invention could make even the longest intercontinental flights take just one or two hours while consuming less fuel compared with conventional jet engines.

From Utah to Michigan, half-day programmes in which regular classes are taught entirely in Chinese find fervent support among parents.

Relatives of Chinese passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 refreshed their call to resume the search for the aircraft after two French experts claimed renewed efforts could find the plane “within days”.

For Singaporeans who had grown accustomed to the city state’s rather sedate way of doing politics, 2023 will go down as one of the most turbulent years in decades. The Post looks back at the top Singapore stories of 2023.

A delivery driver who leapt off a high bridge to rescue a drowning woman and captivated millions in China this summer, has been invited to the woman’s wedding.

China urges ‘prudent’ yuan internationalisation as pace of adoption remains slow

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3246528/china-urges-prudent-yuan-internationalisation-pace-adoption-remains-slow?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing should promote the yuan’s use abroad next year by tapping deeper into emerging markets with loans and swap deals, but must also remain prudent and prepared to head off risks, former officials and analysts have urged.

The assessment came as financial regulators look to implement Beijing’s risk-prevention mandate and take a more pragmatic approach to expand the overseas influence of the Chinese currency.

“It’s nonsensical to push it merely for internationalisation’s sake, or for the frivolity of pursuing high rankings or bigger scale,” said Guan Tao, chief economist at BOC International, a Bank of China investment arm.

At a forum last month, he said the emphasis going forward had shifted to risk management and Beijing would not rush the process.

China, ‘pummelled’ yuan could feel ripple effects as Fed signals 2024 rate cuts

Guan, a former official with the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, added China’s financial opening must go hand in hand with the yuan’s broader use overseas and serve the real economy – those sectors that produce or trade in goods and services.

These remarks echoed statements made by the country’s leadership at October’s central financial work conference, which designated risk prevention and mitigation as an “eternal, overarching theme” for the entire financial sector.

This rhetoric marks a shift on how the pace of the yuan’s internationalisation has been addressed, from an “orderly process” laid out in the political report from the Communist Party’s 20th national congress in October 2022 to a “steady, prudent and solid” one in the readout from the financial conference.

Beijing now appears to favour an incremental approach, tapping direct yuan financing tools to encourage wider use in all manner of transactions, from trade settlements to loans.

Hu Xiaolian, former deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the country’s central bank, suggested last month that Beijing could explore a yuan swap mechanism to convert loans and debt denominated in US dollars.

“China is either the largest trading partner or among the major economic partners for 140 countries, so we should leverage this for the yuan,” she said.

At October’s Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, 700 billion yuan (US$98.6 billion) in loans were slated for distribution from two policy banks to countries taking part in the broad-based infrastructure initiative.

Most of China’s emergency loans to developing countries are denominated in the yuan, like the Export-Import Bank of China’s deal with debt-ridden Sri Lanka.

The PBOC has also accelerated currency swap deals and designation of clearing banks overseas.

This month, China and Singapore agreed on a pilot plan to enable visitors from either side to use the digital yuan, another step forward as Project mBridge, the multinational trial system for the use of digital currencies to make cross-border payments, moves closer to commercialisation.

The yuan’s overseas use has increased rapidly after its initial internationalisation in trade settlements began in 2009.

It received broader attention as de-dollarisation – reduction of dependency on the US dollar – has become an area of interest, with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva calling for an alternative currency to be used by emerging economies.

Brazil and the others in the Brics trading bloc – Russia, India, China and South Africa- have been using the yuan more frequently to conduct trade and investment.

This has been of particular benefit to Russia, as sanctions levied against it in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine make use of the US dollar or Euro all but impossible.

However, the yuan was still far behind the two currencies in all dimensions – proportional representation in payment, foreign exchange markets, commodity pricing and foreign exchange reserves.

Data from global interbank messaging service Swift showed that in November, the yuan edged past the Japanese yen to the fourth-most active currency for global payments by value, with a share of 4.61 per cent. But this was a mere fraction of the US dollar’s 47.08 per cent and the Euro’s 22.95 per cent.

In terms of reserve holdings by foreign central banks, yuan-denominated reserves accounted for 2.45 per cent of the global total by the end of June, according to the International Monetary Fund, lower than 58.9 per cent for the US dollar and 20 per cent for the Euro.

Quirky China: woman makes ‘tongue glove’ for son to drink bitter herbal soup, plastic seahorse medicinal liquor and ‘snowman army’ lines street

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3246209/quirky-china-woman-makes-tongue-glove-son-drink-bitter-herbal-soup-plastic-seahorse-medicinal-liquor?utm_source=rss_feed

A mother in Shanghai covered her son’s tongue with a piece of a plastic glove so he would not taste the unpleasant flavours of a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) herbal soup.

“Put out your tongue. Stretch forward. Don’t move,” the mother told the young boy. She then helped him insert his tongue into the makeshift “tongue glove”, according to a People’s Daily report on December 18.

When the boy and mother successfully wrapped the tongue in the plastic, the mother let him drink the medicine through a straw.

The mother’s method amused many internet users, with one person quipping: “His tongue and stomach will be arguing for a whole night on whether the medicine is bitter or not.”

However, medical experts said other parents should not follow the mother’s lead because the plastic could present a safety hazard.

“The kid would be in danger if the boy accidentally inhaled the plastic,” Xue Zheng, a doctor from Shanghai Municipal Hospital of TCM, was quoted as saying.

M

A man in Guangdong province in southeastern China tried to make a medicinal liquor by soaking seahorses in wine for two years – following a TCM folk practice – only to discover that the marine animals he bought were made of plastic.

The man, surnamed Wang, said he bought the “seahorses” from a vendor in another province for 30 yuan (US$4), according to Guangdong TV.

According to TCM books, Seahorses are believed to enhance kidney function and reduce fatigue.

The man then put the seahorses in a large vat of wine and had been drinking the concoction regularly for the past two years.

Earlier this month, after Wang finished the bottle, he noticed the seahorses appeared strange.

“The seahorses would not break when I tore them, and they shrunk when I burnt them, releasing a plastic smell,” Wang said.

The man said he felt angry that he had been cheated into drinking “plastic liquor” for a long time, although he did add that he was relieved that he did not get sick.

A massive group of gigantic snowmen, all looking identical, appeared as an art festival installation in northeastern China’s Jilin province.

A viral video clip showed hundreds of tall snowmen decorated with the same expression and scarf appearing on the city streets, earning the nickname of “snowmen army” or the “Terracotta Warriors in northeastern China”, according to the local newspaper Life Herald.

The newspaper said a local resort made the snowmen for a winter art festival.

The snowmen video caused a buzz on mainland social media, with one person saying: “What a spectacular sight!”

Another person wrote: “To be honest, I would feel a bit nervous seeing so many identical snowmen, especially at night.”

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China’s ocean drilling ship Mengxiang aims to be first to reach Earth’s mantle, opening ‘gate to hell’

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3246543/chinas-ocean-drilling-ship-mengxiang-aims-be-first-reach-earths-mantle-opening-gate-hell?utm_source=rss_feed

China has unveiled its first ocean drilling vessel, the Mengxiang, which is designed to carry out an unprecedented mission: drilling through the Earth’s crust.

If successful, this will mark humanity’s first venture into the upper mantle, providing new insights and potentially reaching new frontiers in Earth science research.

The massive ship, whose name means “dream” in Chinese, was created by the China Geological Survey along with over 150 research institutes and companies. It can carry about 33,000 tonnes of cargo and measures 179 metres (590 feet) long by 32.8 metres wide. It can travel 15,000 nautical miles (27,800km) and operate for 120 days per port call, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

The vessel’s stability and structure are designed to withstand the strongest tropical cyclones, enabling it to operate anywhere in global waters. Its drilling power is the best in its class, with the ability to reach 11,000 metres (6.8 miles) below the sea’s surface.

China’s new drillship to go to ultradeep waters in oil and gas quest

The Earth’s structure consists of the core, mantle, and crust. Human activities and scientific exploration have been limited to the crust’s surface layer. The crust has an average thickness of 15,000 metres – minuscule compared with the Earth’s radius of 6,371km.

Beneath the crust lies the mantle, the middle layer connecting the surface to the core.

The boundary between the mantle and crust, known as the Mohorovicic discontinuity, or Moho, remains the final barrier for humans in exploring the mantle. The Moho lies about 7,000 metres beneath the ocean floor and about 40,000 metres below dry land.

The Mengxiang is designed to penetrate the crust and reach the mantle from the sea surface, opening an unknown door for scientific research.

Since the early 1960s, American scientists have tried to pierce through the Moho to reach the mantle, but the goal has yet to be achieved. While the Moho has yet to be breached, deep ocean drilling technology has provided new insights into the Earth’s structure.

“Rock samples from ultra-deep boreholes have become crucial for understanding plate tectonics, oceanic crust evolution, ancient ocean climates and seabed resources,”said Li Chun-feng, a marine geologist at the Department of Marine Sciences at Zhejiang University in eastern China.

For example, exploration of the Mediterranean seabed has revealed extensive salt layers, indicating the sea was once a dry salt field 6 million years ago, and drilling in the Arctic Ocean has uncovered its past as a warm, freshwater lake covered in duckweed 50 million years ago, according to Li.

The mystery of what lies deep under the Earth’s surface, beyond the “gates to hell”, has long captured the public’s imagination and is reflected in science-fiction such as Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, which depicts underground worlds and exotic life forms.

Li said it was highly possible life could exist within the mantle, citing a growing number of discoveries of organisms that can withstand extreme temperatures and pressures, suggesting they could survive at mantle depths.

“The mantle is composed of peridotite, which can produce methane and hydrogen through microscopic reactions with water, providing energy for life forms. The deep underground ecosystem is a fascinating field to explore. Only by reaching the mantle can we truly understand these rock and hydrothermal conditions,” Li said.

However, some scientists were more sceptical.

“The deep biosphere in seabed rocks, Earth’s largest microbial reservoir, has only revealed dormant microbes with slow metabolism. While unknowns exist, risks are minimal, and large sci-fi creatures are unlikely,” said a marine biology expert who asked to remain anonymous.

The Mengxiang’s recent trial primarily tested its propulsion system, powered by a new-generation 30-megawatt power station, according to Xinhua. However, details about the core drilling system remain limited.

The task of reaching 11,000 metres below the water’s surface remains daunting.

“There’s a gap between theoretical design depth and practical operations, high temperature and pressure at the seabed pose difficulties for drilling beneath 7,000 metres,” said Wan Buyan, a professor at Hunan University of Science and Technology who led the development of China’s first deep-sea drill equipment and is an expert in seabed engineering.

“For resource exploration, we place drills on the seabed, assisted by a few thousand-tonne ships at a daily cost below US$30,000. Ocean drilling, operated from ships weighing tens of thousands of tonnes, could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars daily,” Wan added.

Li also stressed the challenges of reaching the mantle, emphasising the need for advanced drilling techniques and high demands on drill bits and circulation systems, which help cool down the drill. “It requires significant time and money, with potential failure risks.”

China’s Dream vessel is ready to raise ‘flammable ice’ from the ocean’s depths

Despite the significant challenges in implementation, Li has high expectations for the Mengxiang.

He said the Mengxiang’s capabilities “far exceed” those of its counterparts, the American research vessel JOIDES Resolution and Japan’s Chikyu scientific drilling ship.

“Being 20 years younger than the Chikyu, the Mengxiang boasts a more advanced drilling system,” Li said.

“Drilling through the Moho is one of the key objectives of the design,” he added. “After years of exploration, there is hope to achieve this goal, even if it requires meticulous planning and steady progress.”

Li, who took part in the International Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition, a marine research initiative started by the US and other countries, said that with the construction of the Mengxiang, China should now take a leading role in more international projects.

“The Chikyu from Japan has a significant tonnage, but its activities have been largely limited to the vicinity of Japan. It hasn’t yet reached its anticipated drilling depths in the Nankai Trough seismogenic project and has struggled to gain matching international influence,” he said.

“I hope the Mengxiang won’t follow in Japan’s footsteps. Instead, it should collaborate with global scientists to address cutting-edge scientific issues.”

This approach requires government departments and the scientific community to carry out advance strategic planning, Li said, adding that suggestions from industry and scientists could help to develop a road map to increase China’s influence in the marine sciences and leverage the potential of the Mengxiang.