真相集中营

英文媒体关于中国的报道汇总 2024-01-14

January 15, 2024   76 min   16034 words

一共有8条新闻,主要涉及中国在各地的外交、经济和其他领域的活动。 1. 中国被乌克兰邀请参与后达沃斯会议的和平进程。中国外长王毅参加了达沃斯会议前的高级别外交会议。 2. 文章指出,尽管中国面临一些经济和地缘政治问题,但中国正在通过贸易和合作消除“中国威胁论”。 3. 中美就台湾大选结果发表了不同声明。中国批评美国的声明是对“台独”势力的鼓励。 4. 中国决定在3月15日前从马尔代夫撤军,标志着中印在该地区影响力的较量。 5. 中国在南极罗斯海建立了第五个科考站,用于研究当地环境。 6. 文章提到,中国工人在16-17世纪被葡萄牙商人作为奴隶贩卖。 7. 两名斯坦福学生设计了一个家用机器人,在中国网络上引发关注。 8. 中国蚕食印度在马尔代夫的影响力,这与中国在该地区日益增长的影响力有关。 基于以上报道,我的评论是- 1. 中国在世界舞台上发挥着越来越重要的作用,特别是在促进地区和平进程方面。中国应该利用这一影响力,继续推动各方通过对话和谈判实现持久和平。 2. 一些误导性的“中国威胁论”并不反映事实。中国主要通过经济合作互利共赢,这有利于世界繁荣稳定。 3. 台湾问题事关中国主权和领土完整。中国坚决反对任何形式的“台独”企图。国际社会应当尊重一个中国原则。 4. 印度应该尊重小国利益,不能利用自身实力干预其他国家内政。中印在该地区的竞争应关注民生改善而不是地缘政治角力。 5. 中方在南极的科研活动将有助于全球更好地了解和应对气候变化,体现了中国助力人类命运共同体建设的决心。 6. 历史不能用今天的标准简单论断。我们需要审视历史,汲取教训,防止悲剧重演。 7. 科技创新应该造福人民。中国企业应抓住机器人等高新技术机遇,让更多国家受益。 8. 中国不应该介入其他国家内政。中国企业和工人在海外的合法权益也应得到保护。 总体而言,中国正在发挥越来越重要的建设性作用,这将有利于地区和世界的持久和平与共同发展。当然,中国也应当注意避免引起其他国家的误解和疑虑。

  • China needed for peace process after Davos meeting, Ukraine says
  • Beijing is debunking ‘China threat’ myth through trade and cooperation
  • [World] Taiwan election: China says US 'gravely wrong' to congratulate new leader
  • Maldives tells India to withdraw troops by March 15 as it draws closer to China
  • Why are Chinese people buying calendars from 1996 in 2024?
  • After attempts to meddle in Taiwan’s elections fail, China takes stock
  • Chinese etching tools giant AMEC sees 2023 sales rise more than 30% on strong demand from mainland semiconductor fabs
  • Taiwan condemns ‘fallacious’ Chinese comments on its election and awaits unofficial US visit
  • China price wars help spark US$157 billion rout in mainland consumer stocks, as firms including Alibaba, Yum China and BYD drag the market
  • Gasping China surgeon collapses on floor after blowing air into lungs of toddler for 30 minutes during life-saving operation
  • China builds Antarctic outpost to study pristine Ross Sea environment
  • How Ming dynasty-era farming system allowed Portuguese merchants to buy China children as slaves
  • Stanford students win hearts in China with US$32,000 household robot that can cook shrimp and wash pans
  • China’s Big Tech firms from Tencent to Alibaba cut external investments further in 2023 amid troubled economy
  • In China-ally Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif vs PTI battleground, uncertainty, apathy and strong-arm tactics collide
  • Locked up: China thief who learned tinfoil trick to pick locks in prison uses new ‘skill’ to steal US$42,000, gets 10 more years
  • China set to stay on neutral ground as a Red Sea storm brews over Ethiopia’s port deal with Somaliland
  • China’s visa-free deals with Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore could trigger Asean trade, investment boost
  • As Israel-Gaza war drags on, China could rise as a peacemaker

China needed for peace process after Davos meeting, Ukraine says

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3248411/china-needed-peace-process-after-davos-meeting-ukraine-says?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.15 03:52
Swiss Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis in Davos, Switzerland on Sunday. Photo: EPA-EFE

China needs to be involved in talks to end the war with Russia, Ukraine’s top representative said after a high-level diplomatic meeting ahead of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Sunday it was important that Russian ally China was at the table when Kyiv convenes further meetings on its peace formula.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang will lead a delegation in Davos this week. Asked if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would meet Li, Yermak told a news briefing “let’s see”, adding he had not seen the Ukrainian president’s final agenda.

Swiss President Viola Amherd, right, welcomes Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang and his delegation upon their arrival at Zurich Airport in Switzerland on Sunday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Zelensky is expected to arrive in Bern, Switzerland on Monday to meet the President of the Swiss Confederation Viola Amherd.

Swiss Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis, who attended Sunday’s discussions, told an earlier news conference: “We must do everything to end this war.”

“China plays a significant role. We must find ways to work with China on this,” Cassis said, adding that both Russia and Ukraine were not willing to make concessions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Cassis said countries that had a dialogue with Russia, such as Brazil, India and South Africa, were involved in the Davos discussions and could play an important role.

‘Hong Kong is an ideal option for foreign investment despite market pressures’

A European Union official said Ukraine’s Western partners had expressed unequivocal support for Kyiv and its peace plans, with a call on the Global South nations to make clear to Russia the importance of respecting the United Nations charter and its core principles in the interest of global security.

The role of the Global South in Ukraine’s peace formula talks has come into focus in the lead up to Davos. Many of the non-aligned countries from Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia which have largely stayed on the sidelines over Ukraine will be represented in the Swiss mountain resort.

The EU official said the Global South partners had generally expressed empathy with the fate of Ukrainians. Some highlighted the need for engaging with Russia’s concerns.

Yermak said no one had asked him about any compromise over territory during Sunday’s meeting.

China’s Li Qiang to attend World Economic Forum in Davos

“Countries from the Global South are increasingly involved in our work,” Yermak said earlier on his Telegram account.

Ukraine, with strong backing from its allies, has consistently said it will not give up until it has reclaimed every piece of territory that Russia has taken.

It is unclear, however, if countries in the Global South agree with that as a peace formula.

Nigeria’s national security adviser Nuhu Ribadu said the African oil producer stood by Zelensky’s side, saying it will deal with the consequences of rising food prices.

The logo of the World Economic Forum ahead of the annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Sunday. Photo: Reuters.

The talks were also attended by the US special representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery Penny Pritzker, as well as James O’Brien, the US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs.

As concerns grow about continuing US support for the war in Ukraine during an election year, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are both expected to address the WEF, which officially starts on Monday evening.

Zelensky’s 10-point peace plan calls for the withdrawal of Russian troops and cessation of hostilities and the restoration of Ukraine’s state borders with Russia.

Russia, which controls a little under a fifth of Ukrainian territory, has dismissed Zelensky’s “peace formula” as absurd as it aims to find peace without Moscow’s participation.

Beijing is debunking ‘China threat’ myth through trade and cooperation

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3247965/beijing-debunking-china-threat-myth-through-trade-and-cooperation?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.15 05:30
Illustration: Craig Stephens

Notwithstanding President Joe Biden’s recent Beijing-friendly overtures, the looming US presidential election is set to intensify the perception of a “China threat” as the two main political parties try to outdo each other on China-bashing.

Donald Trump’s election campaign, for example, calls for a four-year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods, as well as restrictions to stop American investments in China and Chinese purchases of US assets.

Western media and bookstores are also brimming with smearing narratives of China’s so-called plans to dominate the world, trade and intellectual property transgressions, human rights violations (including the so-called Xinjiang genocide), military expansionism, territorial ambitions, speculations about a Taiwan invasion and worse.

Against this predominantly one-sided discourse, political scientist Joseph Solis-Mullen’s recent book, The Fake China Threat and Its Very Real Danger, rebuts these allegations.

He lists a barrage of works by prominent authors warning of the “China threat” – including Michael Pillsbury’s The Hundred-Year Marathon, Graham Allison’s Destined for War and Hal Brands’ and Michael Beckley’s Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China – and boldly points out that these highly respected intellectuals are affiliated with powerful US or allied think tanks, some of which are known to be heavily funded by America’s military-industrial complex, including giant US defence industry conglomerates.

Regardless of the remarkable transformation of peoples’ lives under the Chinese Communist Party, China has neither the capability nor inclination to replicate the United States’ global military, technological, financial and media hegemony, which is supported by its Western allies and ubiquitous American culture, as Beckley himself enumerates in his other book, Unrivalled: Why America Will Remain The World’s Sole Superpower. The “China threat” narrative ignores this.

The idea of a China threat has so permeated America’s body politic that a record level of Americans (58 per cent) surveyed by the Chicago Council now views China’s development as a world power as a critical threat to the US, out of surveys dating back to 1990. The view of China has also gone down in many other nations, according to the Pew Research Centre.

Western double standards, bias and prejudice aside, China’s global slide in public opinion springs from a number of genuine and deep-seated grievances.

First, trade and investment relationships with China have become somewhat one-sided, lacking sufficient reciprocity in terms of access to China’s market. Italy’s decision to terminate its partnership with the Belt and Road Initiative is a case in point.

Second, improvements notwithstanding, the protection of foreign investors’ intellectual property, especially in hi-tech businesses, still leaves much to be desired.

Third, owing to differences in national politics, China’s perceived “wolf warrior”, tit-for-tat diplomacy has irked some governments and their electorates. Witness Australia’s anger with China’s severe trade sanctions in response to Australia’s call for an international investigation into the origins of China’s Covid-19 outbreak.

Meanwhile, China’s economy is facing severe headwinds, including a demographic cliff, housing and local government debt, youth unemployment, a global economic slowdown and obnoxious geopolitics fuelling a decoupling or “de-risking” from China.

Damaging anti-China policies hold no promise for Republican 2024 hopefuls

China is strengthening measures to address some of the genuine concerns poisoning its relationship with the West, such as better market access, a level playing field and intellectual property protection, with a view to creating, in President Xi Jinping’s words, “a market-oriented, legal and international first-class business environment”.

Foreigners are regularly welcomed in China, including international students. Alipay recently partnered with travel service providers to launch special China tour packages for international tourists. The government is promoting Xinjiang as a tourist destination. The more foreigners visit Xinjiang, the more the world will see through the West’s manufactured delusion of a “genocide”.

At the annual work conference last month, Xi told China’s diplomatic envoys that they should tell the China story well and build more bridges with not only governments but also ordinary people.

Additionally, Track 2 – backchannel – diplomacy through dialogue between think-tanks and influential individuals could work wonders in mitigating the anti-China hyperbole. In this, the Centre for China and Globalisation, China’s premier global think tank, is a trailblazer.

At the end of the day, what counts in international relations is where countries depend on for their economic livelihoods and development. By 2018, China has become a bigger trading partner for 128 of 190 countries than the US, according to the Lowy Institute. China is also the world’s largest manufacturer and central to the global supply and value chain.

Waging East-West trade war is blinding world to real dynamics at work

At the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing last October, attended by more than 140 countries and 30 international organisations, Xi vowed to bring about a multidimensional, high-quality, green and integrity-based Belt and Road Initiative, benefiting every participant.

China is also part of the Brics group (which also includes Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa) that over 40 countries have expressed interest in joining. Similarly, more countries are joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, founded by China and Russia, and which covers more than 40 per cent of the world’s population.

Supported by its Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilisation Initiative, China is starting to actively broker peace and development across the globe. The historic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and China’s diplomatic role in calling for a resolution of the Ukraine war and the Gaza humanitarian crisis come to mind.

China is showing the world by its actions and their outcomes that instead of being a threat, it is part of the solution towards a shared prosperity for mankind

[World] Taiwan election: China says US 'gravely wrong' to congratulate new leader

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-67974541?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA
China's President Xi Jinping (R) receives US Secretary of State Antony Blinken prior to their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on June 19, 2023.Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pictured with China's President Xi Jinping in June 2023
By Malu Cursino & Laura Bicker, China correspondent
BBC News

China has accused the US of sending "a gravely wrong signal" to those pushing for Taiwan's independence after Saturday's election result.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent Taiwanese president-elect William Lai a message of congratulations following the result.

Beijing called the message aviolation of Washington's commitment to maintain only unofficial ties with Taiwan.

Mr Lai has vowed to protect Taiwan from an increasingly aggressive China.

But Beijing sees Taiwan as its territory and fiercely challenges any government that says otherwise.

Messages of congratulations for Taiwan's new leader poured in from all over the world after the election, including from Mr Blinken - who emphasised the partnership between Taipei and Washington, which he said was rooted in democratic values.

"We look forward to working with Dr Lai and Taiwan's leaders of all parties to advance our shared interests and values," he said in a statement.

Mr Blinken also stressed that the US, one of Taiwan's biggest allies, is "committed to maintaining cross-strait peace and stability".

The top US diplomat was also quick to say that such collaboration should "further our longstanding unofficial relationship" and be "consistent with the US One China policy".

Under the policy, the US recognises and has formal ties with China rather than the island of Taiwan, which China sees as a breakaway province to be unified with the mainland one day.

Mr Blinken's remarks drew sharp criticism from Beijing, which views any statement of support for Taiwan as lending legitimacy to a candidate and political party it sees as a gang of separatists hoping to turn Taiwan into an independent sovereign nation.

In a statement, China's foreign ministry said Mr Blinken's congratulations violated the US's promise to maintain "only cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations" with Taiwan.

It stressed that the Taiwan question is "the first red line that must not be crossed in China-US relations" and said it had lodged a formal diplomatic complaint.

"China firmly opposes the US having any form of official interaction with Taiwan and interfering in Taiwan affairs in any way or under any pretext."

Beijing's statement will likely serve as a warning to Washington after it sent an unofficial delegation of former US officials to hold talks with leading political figures in Taiwan just hours after the self-ruled island elected Mr Lai.

Deployed by US President Joe Biden, who himself welcomed the election results, the delegation includes a former US national security adviser and a former deputy secretary of state.

This video can not be played

To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.

Media caption,

Watch: The BBC's Shaimaa Khalil joined DPP supporters at a rally celebrating their win

Other Western countries, including the UK, France and Germany, congratulated the new leader.

Beijing's Communist government reviles Mr Lai's pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has governed Taiwan for eight years.

That is because China sees any statement of support towards the DPP as lending legitimacy to politicians, which Beijing sees as a gang of separatists hoping to turn Taiwan into an independent sovereign nation.

Related Topics

Maldives tells India to withdraw troops by March 15 as it draws closer to China

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3248405/maldives-tells-india-withdraw-troops-march-15-it-draws-closer-china?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.15 00:05
Chinese President Xi Jinping and President of the Republic of Maldives Mohamed Muizzu after their talks in Beijing on January 10. Photo: Xinhua/Liu Bin

The Maldives has called for India to withdraw troops from its territory by March 15, an official said on Sunday, in a step that will further strain ties between the South Asian neighbours.

President Mohamed Muizzu won election last year on a pledge to end the Maldives’ “India first” policy, in a region where New Delhi and Beijing compete for influence.

A contingent of around 80 Indian soldiers are stationed on the Indian Ocean archipelago to provide support for military equipment given to the Maldives by New Delhi and assist in humanitarian activities in the region.

In talks at the foreign ministry between senior delegations from both countries, Muizzu proposed that the soldiers leave.

Is India-China rivalry over Maldives set to deepen or ‘more fiction than fact’?

“In this meeting, on behalf of President Muizzu, the Maldivian delegation proposed the removal of Indian troops by March 15,” Ahmed Nazim, Policy Director at the President’s Office told reporters.

“This date was proposed in the agenda by the government and specifically the president. These discussions are ongoing.”

In his campaign, Muizzu called New Delhi’s huge influence a threat to sovereignty and pledged to remove Indian troops.

“The most important point to note here is that Indian troops cannot stay in the Maldives. That’s the policy of this government. It is also the president’s pledge and what the people of Maldives want,” Nazim added.

India’s foreign ministry confirmed that a wide range of issues on bilateral cooperation were discussed between the two countries but the statement was quiet on the issue of the soldiers’ departure from the islands.

Indians vow to boycott Maldives after Modi called a ‘clown’ over Gaza stance

“Both sides also held discussions on finding mutually workable solutions to enable continued operation of Indian aviation platforms that provide humanitarian and medvac services to the people of Maldives,” the statement said.

China and the Maldives upgraded their relationship during Muizzu’s first state visit to Beijing last week by agreeing to a “comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership” that sets the stage for the Asian giant to up its investments in the Maldives.

The Maldives owes China US$1.37 billion, equivalent to around 20 per cent of its public debt, according to World Bank data.

After his state visit to China, Muizzu said on Saturday that his country’s small size does not give anyone the licence to bully it, in a sign of defiance towards India.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) shakes hands with then Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solihas in New Delhi on December 17, 2018. Photo: AFP

“We are a free and independent nation. So this territorial integrity is something China respects firmly,” said Muizzu, signalling the Maldives government’s effort to break from India’s influence.

Muizzu also said China sent the largest number of tourists to the Maldives before the Covid-19 pandemic and steps would be taken to double that number.

He also announced plans that, if implemented, will enable the Maldives to break from its dependence on India.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

Why are Chinese people buying calendars from 1996 in 2024?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3248389/why-are-chinese-people-buying-calendars-1996-2024?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 22:00
Some of the retro calendars for sale on Chinese platforms feature foreign icons such as Barbie while others bear traditional Chinese motifs. Photo: Weibo/ @硬核大脑

Chinese people are rushing to buy calendars from 1996, which are identical to one for 2024 because both are leap years beginning on a Monday – a coincidence that has triggered nostalgia for the 1990s.

Prices for the vintage calendars range from five yuan to more than 1,000 yuan (US$140) on Xianyu, China’s leading second-hand trading app. A single date page from a 28-year-old calendar can sell for 60 yuan.

Over the past week, searches for 1996 calendars on Xianyu rose 600 per cent and transactions were at an all-time high, according to Economic View, a media outlet owned by state-affiliated news agency China News Service.

6-year wait over, what to expect from Wong Kar-wai’s Blossoms Shanghai

“Since about New Year’s Day this year, the daily trading volume and inventory of 1996 vintage calendars have been trending higher, with the volume reaching a peak on January 9 when more than 400 people searched for the keyword ‘1996 calendar’ at the same time,” a Xianyu staff member told Economic View.

The retro calendars have become a hot item further afield, selling for as much as US$200 on eBay.

Some of the 1996 calendars are decorated with traditional Chinese motifs such as auspicious symbols and celestial beings. Others feature overseas pop culture idols, including Hong Kong celebrities and American and Japanese cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse, Ultraman and Cardcaptor – remnants of an era when Beijing largely welcomed outside influence in the economy, culture and fashion.

Other vintage calendars for sale feature modern Chinese elements, such as images of Mao Zedong, pages from state-owned newspapers and pictures of the Beijing Guoan Football Club.

While the Gregorian calendars for 1996 and 2024 are a perfect match, the traditional Chinese calendar dates in 2024 are different from those in 1996.

A wave of 1990s nostalgia has swept Chinese social media, much of it driven by the Chinese television series Blossoms Shanghai, directed by top Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai.

The drama features Shanghai in the 1990s – a time when money was pouring into the Chinese metropolis. The series portrays the lives of several people living in the economic hub as the country began to embrace capital and open up to the West.

Thousands of social media users have shared personal photos showing major Chinese cities in the 1990s, including Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing.

“I remember that Shanghai was already very prosperous in the 1990s, with the neon lights of Nanjing Road, the night city of the new Shanghai Railway Station, the seafood restaurants on Huanghe Road and the fireworks on New Year’s Eve every year,” a Xiaohongshu user wrote.

“It was a time full of neon lights. People dressed in new styles that showed their own personalities. It was a busy, prosperous, booming time,” said another.

However, some commenters from elsewhere in China noted that their 1990s experience was completely different as the local economies of their hometowns lagged behind those of the top Chinese megacities.

After attempts to meddle in Taiwan’s elections fail, China takes stock

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/14/china-taiwan-election-2024/2024-01-11T01:41:25.143Z
A mural at a park on Pingtan Island, the closest point in China to Taiwan's main island, on Sunday. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwanese voters have made it clear — for the third time in a row — that they don’t want a leader who will kowtow to China. The democratic island elected as president Saturday Lai Ching-te, the current vice president and former independence advocate whom Beijing views as a dangerous “separatist.”

Now, Beijing must craft a response.

For Beijing, Lai’s victory is a loss that deepens anxiety about its ability to bring Taiwan under its control, a long-held goal of the ruling Communist Party and a key part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s legacy. The result gives Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which Beijing refuses to engage with, an unprecedented third term.

“A Lai win will mean that Xi loses face,” said Chen Fang-Yu, assistant professor of political science at Soochow University in Taipei. “It means his Taiwan policy has failed. So now he must do something to show his muscle.”

Taiwan elects Lai Ching-te as president. China calls it a dangerous choice.

In the months ahead, Beijing is expected to dial up its efforts to intimidate Taiwan using familiar coercive tactics including military harassment and economic pressure.

But actual conflict or invasion is unlikely — at least for now — officials and analysts in Taiwan and the United States say. China’s immediate actions will be tempered by a desire to maintain recently stabilized relations with Washington.

A U.S. delegation including former national security adviser Stephen Hadley and former deputy secretary of state James Steinberg was set to arrive in Taipei on Sunday, according to the American Institute of Taiwan, the de facto U.S. Embassy here.

China’s initial response to Lai’s victory was predictable: Officials used the usual strongly worded statements on Sunday, and Beijing’s embassies in countries that congratulated Lai condemned them for “interfering in China’s internal affairs.” The Chinese Embassy in London wrote: “No matter how the situation in Taiwan changes, the basic fact that Taiwan is part of China will not change.”

Four military vessels had been detected near Taiwan, the island’s Defense Ministry said Sunday morning, while a high-altitude Chinese balloon floated off the northwest coast near the capital.

Lai Ching-te, left, celebrates his victory with running mate Bi-khim Hsiao in Taipei, Taiwan, Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024. Lai Ching-te emerged victorious in Taiwan’s presidential election on Saturday and his opponents conceded, a result that will chart the trajectory of the self-ruled democracy’s relations with China over the next four years. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)

For the past eight years, since the DPP took power, Beijing cut off all official ties with President Tsai Ing-wen, and it is even less likely to engage with Lai, who has previously pushed for outright independence.

Lai has moderated his position while serving as Tsai’s vice president and pledged to continue her policy of maintaining the fragile status quo and avoiding a war in the Taiwan Strait. He has said several times that he would engage with Beijing “as equals.”

But Beijing has already rejected the DPP position that Taiwan is a sovereign country under its official name, the Republic of China, and that there is no need to formalize independence and risk conflict.

Taiwanese voters, those who supported Lai and those who chose two opposition candidates, are girding themselves for a rocky four years.

“I expect the Chinese to intensify pressure on Taiwan, but I’m not afraid of them,” said Akira Chiu, 60, who works in tourism and voted for Lai. “We are ready to protect our country at any time.”

Hsieh Hsin Jung, a 26-year-old office worker in Taipei who voted for the main opposition party, the Kuomintang, which supports closer ties with China, said the DPP would bring Taiwan closer to war with China.

“I’m quite worried about Taiwan’s future because the DPP has a history of confronting China. What if China runs out of patience in the next four years and declares war? It’s not impossible,” she said.

4 ways China is trying to interfere in Taiwan’s presidential election

Analysts say Beijing is not likely to take drastic action before Lai’s inauguration on May 20, the next key marker that will determine how his election will affect the uneasy relationship between Taiwan, China and the United States.

Before then, Beijing will attempt to strike a balance between intimidating Taipei and urging Washington to rein in Lai without provoking a backlash that pushes the Taiwanese public further away.

“China will keep its military pressure high to deter Lai from ‘crossing the red line’ during the inauguration speech,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

Lai supporters rally in Taipei on Saturday after his victory. (Louise Delmotte/AP)

Few expect the level of force shown after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in 2022, when the Chinese military launched nearly a dozen missiles in four days of military exercises surrounding Taiwan. But Beijing can deploy other methods.

Since December, China sent more than 31 high-altitude balloons — similar to the one shot down over the United States last year — into Taiwan’s airspace, representing a new form of “gray zone” tactics meant to intimidate and use up Taiwan’s military resources.

Before the election, Beijing canceled preferential tariffs on 12 types of chemicals imported from Taiwan, part of a trade agreement in place for the past decade, and threatened to halt more.

“The cumulative impact of those steps is, Lai will become less, not more flexible on his cross-strait positions,” said Rick Waters, managing director of Eurasia Group’s China practice and formerly the State Department’s top China policy official.

Beijing will be able to use that pressure to exploit some of Lai’s weaknesses. On Sunday, Chinese state media emphasized how Lai won the presidency with only 40 percent of the vote and his party lost its majority in the legislature.

“The results of the two elections prove that the [DPP] does not represent the mainstream public opinion on the island,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement late Saturday.

Although Lai’s election was a setback for China, said Minxin Pei, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College, Beijing can console itself with the knowledge that the new government is weaker than the departing one. The main opposition, the Kuomintang, now has a slight lead in the legislature.

“So except for losing face, China is substantively in a slightly better position than before,” Pei said.

Still, Beijing appears reluctant to erase the gains made when Xi and President Biden met in November, which helped reopen key channels of communication, including between the two militaries.

For that reason, China will probably hold its fire, said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund.

“I think the Chinese will hold back on some of the bigger things — maybe flying a fighter jet inside Taiwan’s territorial airspace — because they need to be able to have some things to roll out later on and because they don’t want to upset the fragile stability in U.S.-China relations,” she said.

The Biden administration reiterated in the lead-up to the election that it does not support Taiwanese independence and that it does not take a position on “the ultimate resolution of cross-Strait differences, provided they are resolved peacefully.”

That’s meant to reassure Beijing, said Amanda Hsiao, senior China analyst at the Crisis Group think tank. “It’s a clear attempt on the two sides to maintain the momentum generated out of the Xi-Biden meeting.”

Even if high-level political dialogue between Beijing and the incoming Lai administration is not possible, there is room for moderating tensions. Signaling through public statements or communicating through unofficial back channels would all help, according to Hsiao.

“This window of time we’re in is really important. It really depends on what’s communicated between the three parties. It’s an opportunity to set expectations,” she said, referring to Beijing, Taipei and Washington.

In Taipei, some residents see little point in trying to reason with Beijing. “If China wants to launch a war, no matter what Taiwan does or which party is in power, it wouldn’t be able to stop them,” said Dora Chang, a 27-year-old translator who has recently signed up for a civil-defense training course. “We all know the provocative side has always been China, not Taiwan.”

Ellen Nakashima in Washington and Lyric Li, Vic Chiang and Pei-Lin Wu in Taipei contributed to this report.

Chinese etching tools giant AMEC sees 2023 sales rise more than 30% on strong demand from mainland semiconductor fabs

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3248391/chinese-etching-tools-giant-amec-sees-2023-sales-rise-more-30-strong-demand-mainland-semiconductor?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 20:13
Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment workers at the company’s main production site in Shanghai. Photo: Handout

Chinese etching tools giant Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) expects revenue last year to grow more than 30 per cent from 2022, as core technology breakthroughs enabled the firm to deploy more chip-making gear to domestic semiconductor fabrication plants.

Shanghai-based AMEC said in a regulatory filing on Sunday that its 2023 revenue is expected to reach 6.26 billion yuan (US$879 million), up 32.1 per cent from the previous year, on the back of strong domestic demand. The company said it recorded 8.36 billion yuan worth of new orders, a 32.3 per cent year-on-year increase.

Net profit last year is projected to be from 1.7 billion yuan to 1.85 billion yuan, representing year-on-year growth of between 45 per cent and 58 per cent.

AMEC’s positive earnings guidance reflects its successful strategy to expand sales on the mainland, months after founder, chairman and chief executive Gerald Yin Zhiyao said the firm had devised a detailed road map to replace foreign-produced components with domestic parts amid tightened US semiconductor sanctions.

Shanghai-headquartered Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment is China’s leading provider of process technologies, tools and expertise for manufacturers of semiconductors and light-emitting diodes. Photo: Handout

Yin had said 80 per cent of US-restricted components that AMEC used would be replaced with domestic parts by the end of last year. He expected the company to achieve a 100-per cent replacement rate in 2024.

AMEC shares in Shanghai closed down 2.07 per cent to 134.66 yuan last Friday.

With state-backed efforts to localise great swathes of China’s semiconductor supply chain, mainland semiconductor foundries have accelerated adoption of locally made equipment since October 2022, when Washington first tightened export controls to cut off the country’s access to advanced chip-making gear from the US, Japan and the Netherlands.

AMEC expects sales of its core etching tools, including so-called capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) and inductive coupled plasma (ICP), to account for 75 per cent of the firm’s total revenue last year, which would be up nearly 50 per cent to 4.7 billion yuan.

Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment’s Prismo UniMax system is used to mass-produce gallium nitride-based mini-light-emitting diodes found in products that include televisions, laptop computers, monitors, and automotive and outdoor displays. Photo: Handout

AMEC said that its CCP and ICP equipment saw increased adoption by domestic foundry clients on the strength of the firm’s breakthroughs in core technologies last year.

Etching tools are some of the most important processing equipment used by semiconductor foundries. It is an area where China has strong players such as AMEC and state-backed Naura Technology Group.

AMEC’s domestic CCP equipment market share is projected to hit 60 per cent in the near future, up from 24 per cent in October 2022. The firm’s share in ICP gear sales on the mainland is predicted to reach 75 per cent from almost zero, according to company chief executive Yin, after once-dominant US chip equipment maker Lam Research saw its mainland sales drop sharply.

Taiwan condemns ‘fallacious’ Chinese comments on its election and awaits unofficial US visit

https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-china-election-lai-4198659310a8bdfd391b82ad5f889fa8Taiwanese Vice President Lai Ching-te, also known as William Lai, center, celebrates his victory with running mate Bi-khim Hsiao, right, and supporters in Taipei, Taiwan., Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024. Ruling-party candidate Lai Ching-te has emerged victorious in Taiwan''s presidential election and his opponents have conceded. The result in Taiwan''s presidential and parliamentary election will chart the trajectory of relations with China over the next four years. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

2024-01-14T08:42:01Z

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan on Sunday condemned what it said were “fallacious comments” by China following the self-governing island’s presidential and parliamentary election the previous day.

The verbal sparring did not bode well for the future of Taiwan’s relations with China under the winner, President-elect Lai Ching-te, or for China’s relations with the United States.

The U.S. said it has asked two former officials to go to Taiwan this week for post-election meetings with political leaders, a move that will likely displease China.

Former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and former Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg will arrive in Taipei on Monday and have meetings on Tuesday, the American Institute in Taiwan said in a news release. The institute is the de-facto U.S. Embassy, since the United States does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

Lai’s victory means the Democratic Progressive Party will continue to hold the presidency for a third four-year term, following eight years under President Tsai Ing-wen. China portrays the party as its nemesis and a major obstacle to its goal of bringing the island of 23 million people under its control.

A statement from Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry accused China’s Foreign Ministry and its Taiwan Affairs Office of falsehoods in the respective statements they issued Saturday night after the results of the election were announced.

It took issue specifically with China’s often-repeated line that Taiwan is a domestic Chinese issue. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and says that it should not even have a foreign ministry or any official relations with foreign governments.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in its statement that “the Taiwan question is China’s internal affair. Whatever changes take place in Taiwan, the basic fact that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is part of China will not change.”

That statement “is completely inconsistent with international understanding and the current cross-strait situation. It goes against the expectation of global democratic communities and goes against the will of the people of Taiwan to uphold democratic values,” the Taiwanese statement said. “Such cliches are not worth refuting.”

Lai, who will take office in May, won a three-way race for president with 40% of the vote, less than the clear majority Tsai won in 2020. Their Democratic Progressive Party lost its majority in the legislature, finishing with one seat fewer than the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party. Neither holds a majority, giving the Taiwan People’s Party — a relatively new force that won eight of the 113 seats — a possible swing vote on legislation.

The statement from the Taiwan Affairs Office in China said that the results showed that the Democratic Progressive Party does not represent mainstream public opinion on the island.

“Our stance on resolving the Taiwan question and realizing national reunification remains consistent, and our determination is rockvsolid,” Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said in a written statement.

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry, in its response, called on China “ to respect the election results, face reality and give up its oppression against Taiwan.”

The Chinese military regularly sends fighter jets and warships into the skies and waters near Taiwan. Any conflict could draw in the United States, which is Taiwan’s main supplier of military equipment for its defense.

China price wars help spark US$157 billion rout in mainland consumer stocks, as firms including Alibaba, Yum China and BYD drag the market

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3248377/china-price-wars-help-spark-us157-billion-rout-mainland-consumer-stocks-firms-including-alibaba-yum?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 16:17
Consumer stocks have been the worst performers on the MSCI China Index since the end of September 2023. Image: Shutterstock

The seemingly relentless decline in prices of Chinese goods amid tepid consumer demand is denting expectations that corporate earnings can revive the flagging stock market.

From electric vehicles (EVs) to fast food, companies are engaging in a battle of promotions aimed at luring customers who are spooked by dim job prospects and have seen a persistent property slump hurt wealth creation. Consumer prices fell for a third-straight month in December, the longest streak since 2009, deepening concerns about companies’ profits and share prices.

“That’s all symbolic of a very weak consumption environment that includes lack of consumer confidence and weak income growth,” said Ng Xin-yao, an investment director for Asian equities at abrdn. “We are cautious on fourth-quarter earnings across most sectors, and would assume that continues in the first quarter unless the government starts doing something massive to support the economy.”

Gauges of consumer stocks have been the worst performers on the MSCI China Index since the end of September, after the real estate measure. The aggregate market value of companies included in the two consumer indexes has fallen by about US$157 billion since.

Consumer stocks have been the worst performers on the MSCI China Index since the end of September 2023. Photo: Shutterstock

The biggest drags on the MSCI benchmark in this span include e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, restaurant operator Yum China Holdings and EV maker BYD Co – which have all been offering big discounts. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

The world’s second-largest stock market has started 2024 on a dismal note, with the MSCI China gauge already down more than 4 per cent so far this year. It capped a third straight annual decline in 2023.

“The bigger picture is that the weak demand is leading to a deflationary environment, which particularly bodes ill for businesses that cannot achieve higher volumes with lower prices,” said Daisy Li, a fund manager at EFG Asset Management HK.

The EV industry has been among the worst hit by intense competition as growth slows, with Chinese makers following the lead of Tesla in lowering prices to boost sales. BYD and local peers including Xpeng and Li Auto have shed billions of dollars in market value in the past few months.

Tesla cuts prices in China to keep grip on premium EV market

“Retail prices are falling fast,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in their 2024 outlook report for the Chinese EV sector. “While local brands, in general, have fared better than luxury and foreign brands in terms of widening discounts, we expect discounts to further widen into the first quarter this year on the back of seasonality effects.”

Even China’s vaunted internet giants have been impacted, with Alibaba and JD.com seeing their stock prices tumble, as they wage a fierce battle for market share. The price war has made US-listed PDD Holdings, operator of discount sites Pinduoduo on the mainland and Temu, one of the rare bright spots in China’s e-commerce industry.

Many economy and market observers are hoping for interest-rate cuts and government spending to help prevent the nation from entering a deflationary spiral.

Fund managers have said the next catalyst they are watching is pricing and sales data around the Lunar New Year in February, which will offer more clues on consumer confidence.

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

The next few weeks may also be key for policy action, given Chinese leaders will soon gear up for the National People’s Congress. That annual legislative session, held in March, is where the government is expected to announce its official growth target for 2024.

A Morgan Stanley survey conducted late last month suggests seasonally better consumer sentiment ahead of the holidays. However, “sustainability is in doubt amid slowing economic recovery”, analysts including Lillian Lou wrote in a note.

Salary cuts and job losses have remained among the top concerns of households, they wrote, adding that the number of consumers anticipating the economy to worsen ticked up by two percentage points from November to 13 per cent.

In all, there is little hope for a quick fix. Citigroup expects consensus estimates to fall for Li Ning and Anta Sports Products around the upcoming results season, hurt by foreign competition and pushes into lower-tier cities with cheaper products.

Fast-food companies are still locked in a protracted fight for customers, with some offering full meals for around US$3. It is difficult to make money at such low prices.

“We expect industry margins to erode until the irrational price war ends,” Kevin Yin, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co., wrote in a note, while cutting estimates for Yum China. “No player is immune” to the headwinds created by the nation’s slowing demand growth, he said.



获取更多RSS:

https://feedx.run

Gasping China surgeon collapses on floor after blowing air into lungs of toddler for 30 minutes during life-saving operation

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3247370/gasping-china-surgeon-collapses-floor-after-blowing-air-lungs-toddler-30-minutes-during-life-saving?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 18:00
A surgeon in China was so committed to keeping a toddler patient alive that he blew air into the child’s lungs for 30 minutes and collapsed on the floor of the operating theatre as a result. Photo: SCMP composite/CCTV

A doctor in China passed out after blowing air into a toddler’s lungs in a bid to keep the young patient’s blood oxygen levels balanced during surgery.

Zhong Yan is a 64-year-old surgeon who works at Jiaozuo Women and Children’s Hospital in Henan, central China, according to a report by state broadcaster CCTV.

On the evening of December 24, a 17-month-old boy was rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment because he was choking on nuts.

Doctors cleared his airway and emptied his stomach, but during a check-up the next morning they discovered some nut pieces in his lungs and decided to operate to remove them.

In order to stabilise the toddler’s blood oxygen levels, the doctor blew air into child’s lungs for 30 minutes. Photo: China Youth Daily

On the operating table, Zhong noticed that the oxygen levels in the boy’s blood were too low, so the doctor removed his mask and began blowing air into the child’s lungs through a bronchoscope.

During the 30-minute-long surgery, Zhong switched between performing the operation and blowing the air.

When the procedure was almost over, the surgeon told his colleagues: “I can’t carry on.” He then fell on to the floor of the operating room.

“At that time, I felt a sensation of suppression in my chest and numbness in my limbs. I was sweating a lot and my clothes and gloves were sticking to me,” Zhong said later.

The surgeon regained consciousness after his colleagues gave him some liquid glucose and oxygen, and his first thought was to ask about his young patient.

“I am fine. Please check if the boy’s pulmonary ventilation volume is all right,” he said.

The surgery was a success after Zhong and his colleagues cleared at least 10 pieces of chopped nuts from the baby’s lungs.

The child’s grateful parents sobbed and thanked the diligent doctor and his team profusely when they heard the news.

Stories of doctors going the extra mile and using their initiative to save a patient’s life while sometimes risking their own health, regularly make headlines in China.

The surgeon’s commitment to his task caused him to faint and collapse on the floor of the operating theatre. Photo: China Youth Daily

Two years ago, a pair of surgeons rigged up makeshift surgical apparatus and performed a life-saving emergency procedure when a passenger was taken ill on a flight from Guangzhou to New York.

The elderly man had a swollen stomach and enlarged prostate, so the doctors – one from southern Guangdong province and the other from Hainan province in the same part of China – siphoned off his urine through straws.

China builds Antarctic outpost to study pristine Ross Sea environment

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3248372/china-builds-antarctic-outpost-study-pristine-ross-sea-environment?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 18:00
Major works have been completed for China’s fifth Antarctic research station. Photo: CCTV

China has finished the bulk of work on its fifth Antarctic research station to study one of the last pristine marine ecosystems on the planet.

The as yet unnamed station is the country’s first on the west coast of the Ross Sea, a deep bay in Antarctica off the Southern Ocean, and will be able to house 80 researchers in summer and 30 in winter, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

“The Ross Sea is a large bay in the South Pacific Ocean that penetrates deep into Antarctica,” station designer Zhu He told CCTV.

“It preserves one of the last intact marine ecosystems on Earth and is ideal for the study of energy and material exchange in the Earth’s systems, marine life, and global climate change.”

The Ross Sea region has the world’s largest marine protected area, covering more than a million square kilometres and home to some rare species such as “unique sponges that live for up to 500 years”, according to the New Zealand foreign ministry.

The ministry said the protected zone also covered breeding grounds and habitats for Antarctic toothfish, and “other areas of importance for ecosystem integrity”.

Long Wei, deputy director of the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration, told state-owned Science and Technology Daily that the new station would be a base for monitoring the ecology of the protected area, helping to protect the continent’s environment.

It would also provide data on critical inland areas of the Antarctic to assess the impact of climate change on its ecosystems, Long said.

Located on Inexpressible Island, the station will cover more than 5,200 square metres (56,000 sq ft) and join seven others in the area erected by six countries, including the United States, New Zealand, Italy, and Russia.

The Antarctic base will be China’s fifth on the continent. Photo: CCTV

It will be China’s third permanent research station in the Antarctic after the Changcheng and Zhongshan stations, which can operate throughout the year.

Its Kunlun and Taishan stations can only operate in summer.

The US has five research stations in Antarctica and Russia eight.

Long said China’s presence would underpin the country’s participation in international Antarctic governance.

China signed an international proposal on protection of the Ross Sea area in 2015 after extensive negotiations, with the deal allowing limited commercial activities including fishing.

It went into force in December 2017 after Russia, the last holdout, signed up in 2016.

The agreement is a crucial area of environmental cooperation between China and the United States.

According to the white paper issued by the State Oceanic Administration that first unveiled the fifth research station plan in 2017, Beijing vowed to enhance “scientific investigation and research capability” in Antarctica, and elevate the region’s infrastructure.

The white paper also expressed China’s willingness to improve international polar cooperation. Norway, a leader in polar research, was named as a potential partner.

China is one of the few countries that does not have domestic legislation governing its activities in Antarctica, and some of its fishing practices in the region have raised environmental concerns.

How Ming dynasty-era farming system allowed Portuguese merchants to buy China children as slaves

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3247921/how-ming-dynasty-era-farming-system-allowed-portuguese-merchants-buy-china-children-slaves?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 14:00
A recently released academic paper lays out how the system of farming used in Ming dynasty China led to large numbers of children being sold as slaves to Portuguese merchants. Photo: SCMP composite/National Palace Museum in Taiwan

New academic research has revealed that when Portuguese merchants arrived in southern China in the 16th and 17th centuries, they bought children as slaves, exploiting an already established domestic culture of bonded labour.

According to a paper published in Cambridge University Press in late December, farmers at the time often faced such wretched conditions that many felt compelled to sell their children.

The sales were often made to Chinese landlords, but Portuguese merchants also frequently participated in the slave trade, according to research by James Fujitani, an assistant professor at the University of Nottingham Ningbo campus in the Chinese province of Zhejiang, south of Shanghai.

Fujitani says the process was driven by the emergence of commercialised agriculture, which, at the time, saw plantation owners buy up swathes of arable land.

Eventually, a sharecropping system emerged, in which landlords would rent out plots of land to peasants.

“A comparison between Russian serfs and the Chinese peasantry is valid in many ways. There is a similar dependence on the landlord and a similar inability to leave the land. China was definitely not unique in the use of agricultural bonded labour,” said Fujitani.

The new research reveals that a system of “commercialised” agriculture in 16th and 17th century China forced peasants to sell their children . Photo: National Palace Museum in Taiwan

The academic told the Post that the Chinese characters for the system roughly translate to “sharecropping” in English.

It exposed peasants to the whims of weather, exploitation by their landlords and price manipulation.

Their vulnerability created increased levels of debt during the Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644), and, through desperation, peasants often sold themselves or their children into slavery.

“There were millions of poverty-stricken parents who had to make horrible choices to survive, and millions of children who were separated from their families. Some were sold domestically and others internationally,” said Fujitani.

The sale was final and the parents ceded all legal rights to the child, including removing the youngster from the family registry.

Also, contracts were often intergenerational, meaning the child’s grandchildren would be born into slavery.

Seeking alternatives to the landlords, Chinese peasants would often flee or turn to a life of banditry.

The other option was to sell their family to merchants in Macau, which was a Portuguese-administered enclave at the tip of southern China for 400 years.

In 1999, Beijing regained sovereignty over Macau and the tiny territory became one of only two Special Administrative Regions in China, the other being Hong Kong.

In his paper, Fujitani writes: “The first point to note is that peasants had to make a very intentional choice to sell to the Portuguese. It was not a casual decision. It meant taking significant legal, financial, and even physical risks.”

During the Ming dynasty, speaking to foreigners was illegal and could be punished by death, but the Portuguese typically paid more for their slaves so temptation often won out.

Middlemen facilitated the transactions, and the Pearl River Delta in southern China – a gathering point for foreign smugglers – would have been a hot spot for child trafficking.

Many peasants would also convince themselves that their children would face a better future in a foreign land.

One important example of an enslaved Chinese child was Victoria Diaz, who was born between 1550 and 1555 and claimed the unenviable status of being the first Chinese slave in Europe.

Born in China, she was either captured or sold to merchants and spent much of her life running a household for the businessman Henrique Dias de Milão in Lisbon, Portugal.

She cooked food for the family and raised the children, according to a paper by Lúcio de Sousa, an associate professor at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

In his 2019 paper about the subject, de Sousa wrote: “Victoria Diaz could not remember the region or the city in China where she had lived because she had been so young when she left.”

While financial desperation was a core reason for parents to sell their children, China was also plagued by kidnap gangs who which sold abducted youngsters.

“The fact that this became such a problem gives many interesting hints about what life was like in country villages,” said Fujitani.

“Kids were apparently running around freely, quite far from their homes, without any adult supervision. There were probably few strangers around. Everybody in the village knew each other and assumed that it was safe.”

The academic behind the paper, which was published in December, said he hoped it would highlight the plight of the poorest in society who are often left out of the historical picture. Photo: National Palace Museum in Taiwan

The records are clear that selling children into slavery was a pernicious issue in Ming-dynasty China, but Fujitani said historians cannot pinpoint exactly how many children met this fate.

“There are many reasons why it’s impossible to know. There was an incredible amount of illegal trafficking and smuggling, and even the legal Portuguese merchants kept very bad records of what they carried in their ships,” he said.

In publishing the report, Fujitani wanted to “commemorate” the victims and remind readers that the stories of poor and vulnerable people are often lost to history.

“We only know a few of their names and very little about their lives, even though they faced some of the most desperate conditions in the human experience.

“I wanted to recover their memory, even if only a little,” he said.

Stanford students win hearts in China with US$32,000 household robot that can cook shrimp and wash pans

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3248330/stanford-students-win-hearts-china-us32000-household-robot-can-cook-shrimp-and-wash-pans?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 14:00
Mobile Aloha is a two-handed system that can be remotely controlled by a human user, or work autonomously through imitation learning. Photo: Screenshot

A US$32,000 robot developed by a team at Stanford University has caught the attention of Chinese online users, after a video showing the two-handed robot cooking a three-course meal went viral.

Mobile Aloha, built by two computer-science PhD candidates from China, is a two-handed system that can be remotely controlled by a human user, or work autonomously through imitation learning.

After going through 50 human demonstrations and being co-trained on data sets, the machine is able to cook shrimp, rinse a pan, lift a glass of wine and wipe spilled liquid beneath – with a success rate of at least 80 per cent, according to the project’s website.

It took three months to develop the robot, according to Zipeng Fu, who co-leads the project with Tony Zhao, advised by Stanford assistant professor Chelsea Finn. Fu and Zhao are also student researchers at Google DeepMind, an artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory.

Fu said they had to tackle both hardware and software challenges. To save cost, they assembled the machine on their own. The goal was to make a robot that could “complete complex home or office tasks that were not shown to be possible previously”.

The robot can walk at 1.42 metres per second, roughly equivalent to human speed, reach as high as 2 metres and extend one metre beyond its base, the team said.

When it comes to the software, the duo took a “data-driven AI approach using human demonstration data to teach the robot” instead of the traditional way of “tons of programming and manual tuning” that is not scalable, Fu said.

The robot cost US$32,000 to build, including on-board power and computing. Fu said he and Zhao, who have open-sourced the whole system, “don’t have any business plan at the moment”.

As the global population gets older, domestic robots are expected to play a critical role in the smart home ecosystem. The market is estimated to grow at an annual rate of nearly 20 per cent from US$8.6 billion this year to US$22.5 billion by 2029, according to market research firm Mordor Intelligence.

Global tech giants have been betting big on the sector. In 2021, American online retailer Amazon.com unveiled Astro, a nearly US$1,000 household robot designed for home monitoring. Japanese electronics giant Sony launched the latest generation of its Aibo robot dog in 2018, priced at around US$2,900.



获取更多RSS:

https://feedx.run

China’s Big Tech firms from Tencent to Alibaba cut external investments further in 2023 amid troubled economy

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3248311/chinas-big-tech-firms-tencent-alibaba-cut-external-investments-further-2023-amid-troubled-economy?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 11:00
The Tencent headquarters in Shenzhen. Photo: AFP

China’s internet giants from Alibaba Group Holding to Tencent Holdings slashed external investments last year amid an economic slowdown, regulatory headwinds and geopolitical tensions, according to data compiled by a Chinese consultancy.

Total investment deals made by Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu plunged by nearly 40 per cent to 102 in 2023, with Tencent – known for its expansive holdings in China’s internet sector – seeing the largest reduction in deals, data from ITJuzi showed.

The social media and video gaming titan struck 39 investment contracts with 37 companies last year, a sharp decline from the 95 and 299 deals it made in 2022 and 2021, respectively.

Web search and artificial intelligence (AI) firm Baidu participated in 24 investment deals last year, down from 52 in 2021. E-commerce giant Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, took part in 39 deals, a fall from 91 in 2021, according to ITJuzi.

The Alibaba logo is seen outside a building in Beijing. Photo: AP Photo

2021 was a watershed year for Chinese internet firms, as Beijing kicked off a campaign to rein in the “disorderly expansion of capital”. Amid a series of regulatory tightening moves, the country’s internet champions - whose market sizes were once on a par with their American counterparts - have virtually stopped expanding.

Tencent’s investments last year were mainly related to corporate services, healthcare and video games. Advanced manufacturing firms were Alibaba’s top picks, with eight related deals being struck by the Hangzhou-based company and its affiliates during the year.

Alibaba, which is grappling with anaemic consumer spending at home, made four investment deals in the e-commerce sector, three of them outside China.

AI was another investment favourite among Chinese tech giants last year, as they raced to build and promote their local rivals to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Tencent and Alibaba each backed seven and four AI start-ups developing large language models (LLMs), the technology which underpins chatbots like ChatGPT, which can understand complex questions and give humanlike responses.

Last year, Alibaba’s in-house research facility Damo Academy also launched a research laboratory to recruit more than a hundred postdoctoral candidates to work on cutting-edge areas, including AI and semiconductors.

Baidu’s headquarters in Beijing. Photo: Reuters

Other major Chinese tech companies made even fewer investments.

TikTok owner ByteDance struck five external investment deals last year, while online shopping platform operator JD.com made just two.

ByteDance’s largest deal in 2023 was a US$1.5 billion investment into Indonesia’s biggest e-commerce firm Tokopedia, which allows the Beijing-based company to restart its local online shopping business after Indonesian regulators banned TikTok Shop.

Meanwhile, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi emerged as the top investor by number of investments, with 82 deals made during the year.

The company, also based in Beijing, in December launched its first electric vehicle, the SU7, designed to compete against the likes of Tesla and Porsche in China’s hotly contested car market.

In that same month, Xiaomi invested in three start-ups in the vehicle and transport industry, according to ITJuzi.



获取更多RSS:

https://feedx.run

In China-ally Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif vs PTI battleground, uncertainty, apathy and strong-arm tactics collide

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3248266/china-ally-pakistans-nawaz-sharif-vs-pti-battleground-uncertainty-apathy-and-strong-arm-tactics?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 11:30
Commuters move past election campaign posters in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Tuesday, ahead of the coming general election. Photo: AFP

With less than a month to go until Pakistan’s general election on February 8, campaigning has barely begun because candidates and voters alike remain doubtful whether the poll will actually go ahead as scheduled.

Many prospective contestants from jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party have been preoccupied with winning the legal right to participate.

About a quarter of the party’s candidates initially had their nomination papers rejected by the country’s election commission on dubious grounds, reflecting the determination of Pakistan’s powerful military-led establishment to keep Khan and his cohorts out of power.

Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s former prime minister, in 2018. Photo: Reuters

Until Monday, it was also unclear whether Khan’s nemesis Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, would be permitted to contest the election either.

Sharif was sacked as prime minister in 2017 by Pakistan’s supreme court in equally controversial circumstances and banned for life from holding public office for “dishonest practices”.

Distrustful of the establishment’s intentions, the PML-N did not start to announce its official candidates until Wednesday night, two days after the supreme court had overturned Sharif’s lifetime ban.

Pakistan’s 3-time premier Nawaz Sharif back from exile, ahead of election

The Supreme Court deprived the PTI of its election symbol, a cricket bat, late on Saturday in a ruling that endorsed the election commission’s prior decision. It is widely believed the loss of the party’s emblem could confuse millions of uneducated voters.

All the uncertainty has cast a pall over the election campaign, as could be seen through the lack of political activity in towns and villages along the Karakoram Highway (KKH), the sole overland connection between Pakistan and close ally China, when it was visited by This Week In Asia last week.

In stark contrast to previous campaigns, the towns of Haripur, Havelian, Abbottabad, Mansehra, Battagram, Shangla and Kohistan were largely devoid of political billboards and posters.

For the most part, between Sunday and Thursday candidates’ constituency-based offices were manned by a skeleton staff lounging around drinking very sweet green tea, the region’s favourite beverage.

The usual convoys of poster-clad vehicles bearing candidates’ images and activities, and blaring slogans over loudspeakers, were nowhere to be seen.

The KKH winds 1,300km uphill from Hasan Abdal near Islamabad, across forested foothills flanking the mighty Indus River and through valleys sandwiched between snow-capped mountain peaks in the Karakoram and Himalaya mountain ranges – the world’s highest – to Kashgar in China’s southwestern Xinjiang region.

When Sharif previously took power twice in the 1990s and subsequently in 2013, the PML-N won most of the eight National Assembly constituencies of northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province located along the lower half of the KKH.

To succeed in his bid to become prime minister for an unprecedented fourth time on February 8, historical trends indicate Sharif and the PML-N must once again win most of the region’s seats.

Election campaign posters are seen installed on electric poles in Rawalpindi on Tuesday ahead of Pakistan’s coming general election Pakistan. Photo: AFP

The PML-N’s supporters are predominantly based in populous eastern Punjab province, which is home to about half of National Assembly constituencies. Pakistan’s three other provinces are dominated by rival national and regional political parties.

But interviews with activists, people on the street and veteran journalists in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province suggest Sharif is likely to find it difficult to wrest control of the KKH constituencies from Khan’s PTI party.

For many people living there, the harsh economic realities of day-to-day life have sapped their enthusiasm for elections.

Nazaran, a 30-year-old kebab cook at a popular street food cafe near the main bus terminal in Abbottabad – by far the biggest urban centre on the KKH – said he and his family would not vote because they felt disenfranchised by endemic corruption and the runaway rate of inflation in recent years.

With Pakistan narrowly avoiding a Sri Lanka-like default and its foreign exchange reserves barely enough to pay for two months of imports, consumer price inflation hit record levels last year and continued to hover at 30 per cent in December, according to the ministry of finance.

“People say vote for this or that candidate or that party, but I don’t see the point,” Nazaran said.

“My family used to eat out often, but we can’t afford to any more because utility and grocery bills have become so extortionate. We are fed up with having to live so tightly.”

The loss of disposable income endured by Pakistanis in recent years had “at least halved” business at the kebab shop where he works on commission, he said.

Meanwhile, the cost of running the place had tripled within a year, following the rapid withdrawal of all state subsidies for utility bills and fuel – a precondition for the International Monetary Fund’s US$3 billion emergency bailout to Islamabad last July.

“There’s no accountability, so why bother to vote?” Nazaran said.

From India to Indonesia, 2024 is Asia’s election year. But will anything change?

His point was illustrated minutes later by a group of policemen who entered the open-fronted cafeteria, looking for trouble.

The crooked officers surrounded a scruffy looking migrant labourer having dinner, unsuccessfully searched him for drugs and would not relent until they had extorted 200 rupees (71 US cents) – the cost of a 250-gram beef chappal kebab, the region’s favourite street food.

Their departure sparked an animated conversation between customers and the cafeteria’s proprietors, who had watched the episode unfold in silence without attempting to intervene.

“That’s the problem with this country,” said a customer named Niaz, who proudly proclaimed his loyalty to Imran Khan.

“Corrupt officials prey on the poor with impunity, but they’re wary of confronting people of higher social status because they’re well connected.”

A vendor sells a poster of Imran Khan, head of the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf party, in Peshawar on Wednesday as the country gears up for the February 8 general election. Photo: EPA-EFE

Sardar Naveed Alam, a former president of Abbottabad’s press club, said Sharif’s PML-N was struggling to find a viable candidate for one of the district’s two National Assembly and four of its provincial assembly seats.

The PML-N “is in an extremely bad state” in Abbottabad district, he said. “There used to be dozens of applicants for its election tickets, but nowadays there are only a couple.”

On the other hand, there is “a great deal of support” for the PTI, Alam said, adding that “if the state [military-led establishment] allows it” to freely contest the election, Khan’s party “will sweep” most of the constituencies in Abbottabad.

PML-N candidate Murtaza Javed Abbasi, a former deputy speaker of the National Assembly, is a likely exception as he held onto the Abbottabad-Havelian constituency in the 2018 election while all others around it fell to the PTI.

Supporters hold a photo of former prime minister Imran Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Tuesday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Gul Nawaz Khan, the PML-N candidate for the National Assembly in adjacent Haripur district at the foot of the KKH, also has “a good fighting chance” of winning against the PTI’s Omar Ayub, a former cabinet minister and the grandson of General Ayub Khan, who ruled Pakistan until 1969 after seizing power in a 1958 coup.

Omar Ayub is one of the few top-tier PTI politicians to have escaped the wrath of Pakistan’s powerful army since mobs of the party’s activists attacked military installations in cities across the country last May, following Imran Khan’s arrest by heavily armed troops from a court’s premises in Islamabad.

Several thousand PTI activists have since been arrested on terrorism-related charges for their roles in the riots, while more than 100 alleged ringleaders are being tried in military courts on charges of trying to stage a coup against the-then coalition government led by the PML-N, and of attempting to spark a mutiny within the armed forces.

Some prospective PTI candidates for KKH-based constituencies are on the run, trying to evade arrest, while others who attempted to launch election campaigns have had events disrupted by baton-wielding policemen because the authorities banned public assemblies on vague security grounds.

The wreckage of a bus in a ravine after a blast in Pakistan’s northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in July 2021. Nine Chinese citizens and four Pakistanis were killed in the attack. Photo: Xinhua

Unlike other areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province close to the border with Afghanistan that have endured a resurgence of attacks by Pakistani Taliban insurgents, the areas along the KKH rarely suffer from such terrorism.

The last major incident took place near Dassu in July 2021, when nine Chinese citizens and four Pakistanis working on a World Bank-funded hydropower project were killed in a vehicular suicide attack on their bus.

Since then, Pakistan’s army has deployed extra troops to protect Chinese nationals working on the Dassu project, as well as major hydropower plants at Bhasha in the Kohistan region and Balakot in Mansehra.

Balakot made headlines in February 2019 when the Indian Air Force bombed a site in the area operated by the Jaish-i-Mohammed militant group, which New Delhi held responsible for a suicide bombing that killed 40 paramilitary policemen in an area of the disputed Kashmir region.

Militant groups fighting Indian security forces in Kashmir during the 1990s built several training camps around seminaries in the Mansehra area.

They were not closed down by the Pakistani authorities until the United States brokered a ceasefire deal with India in 2003 to bring a halt to more than a decade of heavy skirmishes along the disputed border in Kashmir, known as The Line of Control.

Vendors in Peshawar sell Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) flags depicting images of the party’s leader, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, ahead of the February 8 general election. Photo: EPA-EFE

Aspiring prime minister Sharif was supposed to contest one of two National Assembly constituencies in Mansehra against former PTI cabinet minister Azam Swati, but the latter’s nomination papers have been rejected and the party is considering alternative candidates.

In theory, this should boost Sharif’s prospects of winning, which were already good because of his popularity as a former national leader.

Swati won Mansehra in Pakistan’s controversial 2018 election, which was marred by interference by the military establishment and judiciary.

The constituency was previously represented by Sharif’s son-in-law Muhammad Safdar Awan during the PML-N administration between 2013 and 2018.

Awan oversaw the transformational development of the constituency’s infrastructure, building roads that connected the remote tribal Tanawal area of Mansehra district to the KKH and the national power grid for the first time, and establishing government schools and basic healthcare clinics.

In doing so, he “ended the domination” of feudal tribal leaders called the Khans and Maliks, and established a loyal PML-N voter base, said the party’s long-serving Mansehra district president Zafar Mahmood, who is contesting its provincial assembly constituency – albeit without the party’s approval.

A worker prints election campaign posters of Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif (top, third from left) and his daughter Maryam Nawaz (top left) at a printer in Lahore on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

While still a devoted Sharif loyalist, Mahmood and other veteran PML-N politicians from Mansehra – including former Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Sardar Mehtab Abbasi and five-time member of the National Assembly Sardar Muhammad Yousuf – have been greatly angered by upstart Awan’s takeover of the party apparatus and his imposition of favourites as provincial assembly candidates.

In turn, this reflects opposition by other top-tier PML-N politicians to Sharif’s undemocratic anointment of daughter Maryam Nawaz – Awan’s wife – as his designated successor and leader of the party’s national election campaign.

“All we want from Mian Sahib [Sharif] and the party leadership is that they award tickets to candidates on merit,” said Mahmood in an interview in Tanawal on Tuesday, as his support team cajoled reluctant shopkeepers to allow them to stick campaign posters on their premises.

“If they don’t, it will undermine his own chances of winning and damage the party,” he said.

The PML-N is considered to have only a slim chance of winning in Battagram, a district that lies between Mansehra and Shangla and is renowned for the influence of religious activists.

Meanwhile, leading candidates contesting the Kohistan region – where Chinese workers were killed in July 2021 – are either feudal maliks (chiefs) or chosen by lots drawn by the area’s two tribal councils, and contest as independents who later support whichever party wins the national and provincial elections.

This augurs ill for the PML-N, whose regional strongman Amir Muqam is locked in a desperate battle with the PTI for Shangla, led by journalists’ union leader-turned-politician Shaukat Ali Yousafzai, and other parties’ candidates who have formed local tactical alliances to thwart him.

Yousafzai’s nomination papers from two of Shangla’s provincial constituencies were only accepted upon appeal, while his prior efforts to campaign there were undermined by “difficulties created for us” by the district administration, said his brother Liaquat Yousafzai, the PTI’s district president.

Pakistan’s bid for stability by banning Imran Khan ‘illusionary at best’

“We were both banned from entering the constituency for seven to eight months, various criminal cases were lodged against us by the police, our businesses were shut down, and our vehicles were confiscated from our home and still haven’t been returned,” he said.

Their relatives in the civil service have been transferred to remote places “that are difficult even for the police to reach”, he claimed, while the two brothers – like other PTI stalwarts – have allegedly been under intense pressure from the intelligence services to desert the party “or face dreadful consequences”.

Rather than put off voters, however, such strong-arm tactics – a long-standing staple of Pakistani politics – have stoked public anger against the establishment and political dynasties that Imran Khan and his PTI have sought to capitalise upon with populist calls for “freedom”, although his party’s democratic credentials are no better than those of his opponents.

A cyclist rides past a wall painted with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (Pakistan) party symbol in Karachi earlier this month. Photo: AFP

As with Awan in Mansehra, veteran PML-N politicians and their voters have been annoyed by Muqam’s decision to hand-pick provincial assembly candidates over Shangla district’s long-standing political activists, in an attempt to establish an intergenerational dynasty.

This had led a tribal council in one of the three provincial constituencies to declare a boycott of the PML-N, activists and journalists in the KKH town of Besham said.

Customers at the popular Kohistan Foods restaurant in the town doubted Muqam and the PML-N’s chances as they shared a steaming pot of tea with This Week In Asia on Wednesday evening.

Two of three friends in their early 30s – all university-educated – said they were convinced Muqam would lose. The third, however, an advertising business owner named Umar, differed.

“It will be extremely difficult” for Muqam, he said, but the politician and his “friends” in the establishment would pull out all the stops.

“Otherwise, it would be disastrous for Sharif and them both,” he said.

Locked up: China thief who learned tinfoil trick to pick locks in prison uses new ‘skill’ to steal US$42,000, gets 10 more years

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3247364/locked-china-thief-who-learned-tinfoil-trick-pick-locks-prison-uses-new-skill-steal-us42000-gets-10?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 09:00
A serial thief in China has been thrown back in jail for 10 years after he used a tinfoil trick to pick locks he learned during a previous stint inside to go on a US$42,000 robbery spree. Photo: SCMP composite/Shutterstock

A thief in China mastered the “skill” of picking locks with tinfoil during a nine-year prison sentence, then committed thefts totaling more than 300,000 yuan (US$42,000) after his release.

His robbery spree resulted in him being sentenced to a further 10 years behind bars.

His technique was finally exposed following two robberies he committed in November 2022 in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, eastern China in which nearly half a kilo of gold and more than 50,000 yuan (US$7,000) in cash were stolen.

Police investigations revealed no physical evidence of a break-in, but surveillance footage captured a man wearing a hat and mask and using his phone for lighting, as he approached a property early one morning.

A surveillance camera caught the man using his tinfoil trick to break into properties. Photo: Baidu

The man could clearly be seen carefully examining a door lock, then inserting a T-shaped key, deftly twisting it and opening the door in less than a minute.

Police arrested the thief and he was identified as being surnamed Wang, from Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, who had been sentenced to nine years for theft in 2012, during which time he learned the tinfoil lock-picking technique from fellow inmates.

Wang resumed his criminal activities soon after his release, carrying out 22 crimes across the country.

The Baoying County Prosecutor’s Office charged Wang with theft and, given his repeat offences, the court sentenced him to 10 years in prison and fined him 300,000 yuan.

His criminal exploits elicited a mixed reaction on mainland social media.

Many people expressed astonishment but also saw the funny side.

“I wonder what skills he will acquire in prison this time, ” said one person.

“Maybe in his next 10 years in prison he’ll master lock-picking using Qi Gong,” joked another.

Qi Gong is a traditional Chinese exercise for strengthening and stretching the body.

“Why not learn to make fried noodles using that tinfoil? Then he could start a food stall once he gets out,” quipped another person.

The methods thieves devise to pick locks, which have included using tinfoil, water bottles, plastic cards, toothpicks and even chewing gum, are a constant source of fascination on mainland social media.

The serial thief was caught with an array of tools he used to carry out his break-ins. Photo: Baidu

In December 2023, a thief from Sichuan entered a residential complex using a simple card to pick locks in a few seconds. He successfully broke in and stole more than 4,000 yuan.

In July 2018, two men from Jiangsu Province used a simple toothpick to unlock doors, managing to burgle at least 10 homes.

China set to stay on neutral ground as a Red Sea storm brews over Ethiopia’s port deal with Somaliland

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3248061/china-set-stay-neutral-ground-red-sea-storm-brews-over-ethiopias-port-deal-somaliland?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 10:00
Somaliland has given Ethiopia access to its ports, such as the port of Berbera (pictured) in return for recognising it as an independent state. Photo: AFP

China is unlikely to take sides in the diplomatic storm that is brewing between Ethiopia and Somalia over a controversial Red Sea port deal, according to analysts.

Landlocked Ethiopia made the deal at the start of the year with the self-declared state of Somaliland, giving the East African nation access to its ports in return for officially recognising it as an independent country.

Somaliland proclaimed its independence in 1991, but since then it has not been recognised by any other country. Somali capital Mogadishu continues to consider the region part of northern Somalia.

This deal would make Ethiopia the first nation to recognise the breakaway state.

China views Somaliland as part of Somalia’s territory and an internal matter. However, Beijing has been apprehensive of growing ties between Somaliland and Taiwan since 2020, when they set up representative offices.

“China supports the federal government of Somalia in safeguarding national unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Thursday.

“Meanwhile, we hope that regional countries will handle regional affairs well through dialogue and achieve common development by having friendly cooperation.”

But China also has close ties with Ethiopia – and analysts have said Beijing is unlikely to criticise it over the controversy.

The row began on January 1, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi announced in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa that they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) granting naval and commercial access to ports along Somaliland’s coast, on lease to Ethiopia for 50 years. In return, the deal “includes provisions which state that the Ethiopian government will recognise Somaliland”.

Mogadishu called the deal an “illegal infringement of Ethiopia into our national sovereignty and territorial integrity”. Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has since signed a law repealing the MOU.

Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on January 1, which has caused the controversy. Photo: Reuters

Ethiopia is one of Beijing’s major allies in the Horn of Africa region – an area where China has vast economic interests.

China funded and built the US$4.5 billion Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as the Addis Ababa light rail.

In neighbouring Djibouti, China opened its first overseas military base in 2017, and has invested heavily in the country’s maritime industry.

Chinese companies have fishing interests in Somalia and Beijing has also been at the forefront of fighting piracy, with two frigates and a supply ship permanently stationed there on duty in Somali waters.

Guled Ahmed, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute (MEI) who is from Mogadishu, said China was being cautious about the deal between Ethiopia and Somaliland and it was possible it would not respond to the matter at all.

“It has huge investments and stronger ties with Ethiopia than Somalia,” Ahmed said.

He noted that nobody knows if the Somaliland government will continue its diplomatic relationship with Taiwan or not, “while the Biden administration has given a cold shoulder to a Somaliland and Taiwan alliance”.

“The future of the Somaliland and Taiwan relationship is uncertain,” Ahmed said.

Ethiopia deal with breakaway region sparks row with Somalia

David Shinn, a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington and former US ambassador to Addis Ababa, agreed Beijing was unlikely to censure its African ally.

“China has close ties with Ethiopia and will be reluctant to criticise Addis Ababa over this deal with Somaliland,” he said.

China had minimal economic and political interests in Somalia, Shinn said, though it did have an embassy in Mogadishu, supported Somalia unity and wanted to prevent the resurgence of Somali piracy.

He also said it was important to watch what happened with the relationship between Taiwan and Somaliland.

“China opposed the exchange of offices between Taiwan and Somaliland and will become more critical if these ties take on greater political significance,” Shinn said.

In 2020, when Taiwan opened a representative office in Somaliland capital Hargeisa while Somaliland opened a similar office in Taipei, Beijing “condemned Taiwan for undermining Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Beijing views Taiwan as part of China which must be reunited, by force if necessary. Most countries, including the United States, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to arm Taiwan.

In Africa, only eSwatini – previously Swaziland – recognises Taipei.

Somaliland’s ports are very attractive for landlocked countries such as Ethiopia, and they are now in the middle of the diplomatic controversy. Photo: AFP

According to Seifudein Adem, an Ethiopian global affairs professor at Doshi­sha University in Japan, China will seek to avoid overtly backing either side.

However, he said China would prefer it if Somaliland joined the community of nations, it was finally recognised as a legitimate state by the international community, and it cut off its diplomatic relations with Taiwan in due course.

“Otherwise, for the time being, China will seek to avoid the matter altogether,” Adem said.

This is largely because China would not want to jeopardise its interests by taking sides. Beijing’s stakes in the Indian Ocean run deep. According to Joshua Meservey, a senior fellow at Washington’s Hudson Institute who focuses on great power competition in Africa, Beijing is keen to project power there in keeping with its image as a major global power, to pressure its perennial adversary India, and to protect the sea lines of communication which are vital maritime trading routes.

“China has strengthened ties with Somalia recently, but the latter is so dysfunctional that it limits what Beijing can accomplish there,” Meservey said.

He added that China had already tried to induce Somaliland away from its ties with Taiwan, “though I think the Somalilanders understand that China will never recognise its independence because of the Taiwan issue”.

He said he believed that China would strongly support Mogadishu diplomatically in the current row.

“It’s not implausible that Beijing might also surreptitiously lend what support it can to any mischief that Mogadishu may try to stir in Somaliland in retaliation,” he said.

While there is little likelihood of Beijing recognising Somaliland, in the US there has been a growing push by some in Congress and the Senate to do so in return for access to the port at Berbera as an alternative to America’s military base in Djibouti.

The US military has a naval base in Djibouti called Camp Lemonnier, but is eyeing more port facilities to counter China’s influence in the region as well as to protect trade routes.

Shinn from George Washington University said there were several members of the US Congress, a few American think tanks and probably some officials in the Pentagon who supported the recognition of Somaliland.

“But the position of the Biden administration remains in support of the territorial integrity of Somalia,” Shinn said. “There is no indication that the Biden administration plans to change its policy.”

According to Ahmed from MEI, based on the US State Department’s daily briefings, it raised concerns about the Ethiopia-Somaliland deal and still recognised the sovereignty of Somalia and the territorial integrity based on the 1960 borders. Ahmed explained the wording was confusing as to whether the US was referring to borders post-merger or pre-merger because both happened in 1960. But, he said, the US was not against the deal and urged all stakeholders to engage in diplomatic dialogue to resolve the issue.

The deal with Somaliland comes shortly after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy said in October that the landlocked country would assert its rights, a declaration that raised concern among its neighbours. According to Abiy, the country’s lack of access to the sea had “prevented Ethiopia from holding the place it ought to have” by affecting its ability to trade.

Until 1993, Ethiopia had access to the Red Sea when it was one country with Eritrea. But since Eritrea became an independent nation, Addis Ababa now must rely heavily on Djibouti ports for its maritime trade.

China’s visa-free deals with Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore could trigger Asean trade, investment boost

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3248234/chinas-visa-free-deals-thailand-malaysia-singapore-could-trigger-asean-trade-investment-boost?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 05:00
Chinese arrivals in Thailand were estimated at 2.7 million last year, lower than the target of 5 million. Photo: EPA-EFE

Enthusiasm for more regional economic cooperation could jump, analysts said, after China’s efforts to tap the Southeast Asian market partly paid off as Thailand followed hot on the heels of Malaysia by announcing a permanent visa-free policy for Chinese visitors from March.

Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin announced the “upgrade” of the bilateral relationship at the start of January, with Thai businesses anticipating more Chinese tourists, increased exports of rice and durian and additional China-invested factories.

Analysts view the move as a catalyst for Beijing to expand its influence in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) bloc, which has grown to an export destination larger than the United States and the European Union.

“That would really trigger the demand for people to go to China and look for business opportunities,” said Kraisin Vongsurakrai, director secretary general of the Thailand-China Business Council.

Businessmen are “quite excited” by the arrangement, he added, with China set to offer Thai visitors “some sort of happiness” by offering a reciprocal arrangement.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on January 2 that the mutual visa exemption policy, once implemented, would “conform to the fundamental interests” of both parties, and also further strengthen people-to-people exchanges.

“In the past when Thai businessmen wanted to visit exhibitions and trade fairs [in China], they had to plan ahead,” Vongsurakrai added.

Malaysia scrapped entry visa requirements for Chinese citizens from December 1, allowing them to stay for up to 30 days visa-free.

China had earlier confirmed that passport holders from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia would be allowed to enter the country visa-free for up to 15 days, also starting from December 1.

Game changer or white elephant? China eyes Asean links with shipping canal

More than half of Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese have visited China in the past five years, according to Ibrahim Suffian, programme director with the Merdeka Centre polling group in Kuala Lumpur, who added lifting the visa rules would only accelerate travel.

“Cultural affinity is very strong, and business and investment ties are quite robust, very deep,” Suffian said. “But it’s a bit of a hassle to apply for a visa.”

Many Malaysians, he added, would also look forward to seeing more inbound Chinese tourists, merchants and property buyers.

Singapore and China also confirmed in December that they would put in place a mutual visa exemption agreement in early 2024.

On Thursday, China also issued a basket of new policies to further relax entry and visa procedures, including transit rules and extensions of stay for foreign nationals in a bid to draw more overseas visitors and restore people-to-people exchanges as part of its post-pandemic recovery efforts.

Michael Montesano, an associate senior fellow with the Thailand Studies Programme at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said the Thai government is “casting about for any means” for the potential to stimulate economic activities.

Thai authorities expected to receive 3.5 million Chinese arrivals in 2023, although this would fall short of its target of 5 million.

Historically, Chinese tourists accounted for a quarter of total tourism in Thailand, but the figure is expected to have dropped to between 12 and 13 per cent last year.

Kristoffer Paludan, regional director at recruitment agency Michael Page in Thailand, said the visa programme would be one of a number of measures that could help lift Thailand’s local economy and international trade.

It could, he added, create new investment opportunities related to value added manufacturing, electric vehicles, smart farming and precision agriculture.

Chinese carmakers, including BYD, Great Wall Motor and MG Motor, have already invested in Thailand by purchasing land and constructing factories.

“For decades already, the Japanese have been enjoying the automobile sector and this market in Thailand,” added Paludan.

“But in production of the electric vehicles from China, we have seen a very positive side of welcoming Chinese automobile companies.”

From 72 hours to 30 days: 5 visa-free ways to visit China by land, sea and air

Thailand, with a population of 71 million, is the second-largest Asean economy after Indonesia.

Its trade with China dropped by 5.7 per cent, year on year, to US$115 billion in the first 11 months of last year, China’s customs figures showed.

China is the largest investor in Thailand, contributing 24 per cent of its foreign direct investment in the first nine months of 2023, according to the Thailand Board of Investment.

Yawee Butrkrawee, programme coordinator at the Asia Centre’s research institute in Thailand, said that the main areas of investment for small and medium-sized enterprises from China were food and retail businesses.

Thai property has also traditionally been a favoured investment for Chinese investors.

Wang Qin, a professor at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at Xiamen University, expected further easing within the Asean bloc.

“In addition to enlarging the scope of people to travel and interact, it could accelerate the implementation of the China-Asean free-trade agreement,” he said.

China has been negotiating an update of its free-trade agreement with the Asean bloc, aiming to bring the two sides economically closer.

All 10 Asean nations are also signatories to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership along with China. The world’s largest free-trade deal, which accounts for 30 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product, took effect in January 2022.

As Israel-Gaza war drags on, China could rise as a peacemaker

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3247952/israel-gaza-war-drags-china-could-rise-peacemaker?utm_source=rss_feed
2024.01.14 05:30
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right) and United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres attend a UN Security Council meeting on the conflict between Israel and Hamas in New York on November 29, 2023. Photo: Reuters

We are living in a more dangerous world today. The end of the Russia-Ukraine war continues to be impossible to predict and, on top of that, Hamas’ attack on Israel and the subsequent fighting in Gaza has resulted in more than 23,000 deaths on both sides.

The latter conflict shows few signs of letting up any time soon, raising the spectre of a regional war in the Middle East. The conflict has not only engulfed Israel and the Gaza Strip but also spilled over to neighbouring countries such as Lebanon and Yemen.

Given Israel’s expressed commitment to continuing its fight against Hamas, the international community has increased efforts to come together and find a workable solution that will stop the fighting.

On his fifth visit to the Middle East since the outbreak of violence on October 7 last year, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken attempted to keep the fighting in Gaza from growing into a regional conflagration. France, Germany and the United Kingdom have also sought ways to create a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza.

China condemns all violence and attacks against civilians, believing that attacking civilians is wrong regardless of which side does it. Israel’s response should be more reasonable, measured and restrained.

At the Doha Forum, which took place in Qatar last month, the Centre for China and Globalisation and the Middle East Institute co-hosted a session titled “A Multilateral Dialogue on Regional Security and Diplomacy”. It brought together influential perspectives from within and outside the region which considered broad issues such as the prospects for diplomacy and conflict resolution, non-proliferation, infrastructure development and economic development.

In the short run, the first goal is a true ceasefire. A high-level meeting of the United Nations should be convened in the form of seven-party talks that include the five permanent UN Security Council members along with Palestinian and Israeli representatives. It is crucial that parties to the conflict and key powers come together and negotiate.

As the rotating chair of the UN Security Council in November last year, China made the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a top priority and the Security Council passed Resolution 2712, an initial step towards promoting a ceasefire. Shortly after the resolution passed, mediation by Qatar, Egypt and other countries resulted in an agreement that allowed for the release of some people held on both sides and a ceasefire that lasted several days.

Dialogue and negotiation are the best option to save lives and the basis for resolving conflicts. In the future, UN peacekeeping troops will be a key part of facilitating a sustainable peace in Gaza as they are a neutral party with the power to rescue and escort civilians in distress.

In the long term, seeking a two-state solution continues to be the best approach. Given the status quo as well as the region’s history of conflict since 1947, the biggest question is how to facilitate and establish a workable solution. This solution should be in the form of the establishment of a Palestinian state that allows Israel and Arab countries to live in harmony.

Reciprocity is the golden rule of international relations. China should exert its political and economic influence in the Middle East. China is the Arab world’s largest trading partner; it is Israel’s second-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching a record US$24.5 billion in 2022.

China has no history of aggression, colonisation or expansion in the Middle East and has the full trust of these countries as their largest economic partner. As a conflict mediator, China is committed to peace predicated on safeguarding the United Nations system.

China’s stance has been always clear: peace comes first. China lacks the historical baggage of other countries and has always promoted peace. As the world loses faith in the ability of other major players to come up with a solution, China can play a more constructive role in facilitating a peaceful outcome. It has immense influence in the region as a trading partner, and has always acted in goodwill and never occupied another country since 1949.

China was also an important part of the recent reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran. These two major Middle Eastern countries were aware their continued history of conflict could not continue into the rest of the 21st century.

Given their unpleasant histories with Europe and the US, it was clear neither of those powers could fill the role of a trustworthy peace broker, but the Saudis and Iranians still wished to seek an agreement and found an alternative in China. Beijing’s economic and political clout enabled it to bring both countries to the negotiating table, eventually reaching a viable agreement.

It is also clear that China can and should play a more active role in world affairs that encourages economic globalisation rather than fragmentation and conflict.

China should continue to embrace globalisation and engage with the world. No one wins in war, which is why Beijing promotes goodwill, peace and prosperity.