• How the Non-Aligned Movement fits in with China’s global geopolitical ambitions
• Hong Kong-bound China Airlines plane makes U-turn, returns to Taipei airport after issuing emergency signal
• China’s three-legged race to fend off the 4 D’s of an economic apocalypse
• Chinese foreign minister’s Brazil stop yields mutual visa deal
• As North Korea stokes ‘invasion’ fears over Japan troops’ Yasukuni visit, South Korea and China stay seemingly silent
• China’s LandSpace tests prototype of Zhuque-3 reusable stainless steel rocket
• China’s admin restructure ripples out to provinces to tighten Communist Party control over data
• China teacher who forced children to take horrifying oath or ‘families will die’ suspended after apology
• 13 students reported killed in an elementary school dorm fire in China’s Henan province
• Thirteen children die in Chinese boarding school fire
• Is Marcos’ plan to amend Philippine constitution for China deal a ploy to keep his family in power?
• China convenes Huawei, Tencent, Baidu to draft metaverse standards in bid to become global technology leader
• More Chinese buyers snapping up US farmland, but how much is not clear
• Devastating fire at Chinese primary school leaves 13 dead and 1 injured in Henan province
• ‘Pregnant’ China influencer seeks husband with house, car at matchmaking event in gimmick aimed at boosting online profile
• Chinese scientists say they slowed down light to improve microchips
• [World] China: 13 dead after school dormitory fire in Henan province
• How a steep drop in South Koreans studying in China is a symptom of chill in bilateral ties
• Chinese property developers shrivel up in Australia, New Zealand but are they ‘hibernating’ for better times?
• In US-China rivalry, Beijing advisers urge ‘rational’ approach during election year, but will pragmatism win out?
• State-owned reinsurer China Re rents floor at Two IFC, upgrades offices at same price as previous lease
• What’s at stake for China as border tensions flare between Iran and Pakistan?
• US Fed fines Industrial and Commercial Bank of China for lapses in bank secrecy, sharing of data
• Senior Chinese and US finance officials agree to ‘continue to meet regularly’ amid discord
• Chinese embassy warns of plastic surgery risks in South Korea after liposuction death
• China“s Population Declines Again in 2023

How the Non-Aligned Movement fits in with China’s global geopolitical ambitions

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3249189/how-non-aligned-movement-fits-chinas-global-geopolitical-ambitions?utm_source=rss_feed

China may not be a member of the Non-Aligned Movement but its presence was unmistakable when the group met in the Ugandan capital of Kampala this week for a summit.

Apart from the 70 vehicles Beijing donated to transport attendees, China sent Politburo member and Vice-Premier Liu Guozhong at the head of a delegation to address the more than two dozen heads of state and government at the event.

Liu is also in Kampala for the Third South Summit, which from Saturday brings together G77 countries and China.

Observers said Beijing’s presence at the gatherings reflected the weight it put on the movement’s ability to support China’s global ambitions amid changing geopolitical dynamics and conflicts around the world.

The war in Gaza and the push to reform global political and economic systems dominated speeches at the NAM Summit, a forum of 120 poor or developing countries.

Echoing sentiments from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Cairo last week, the leaders called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where more than 24,000 people have been killed amid fighting in recent months.

In addition, the leaders called for an overhaul of the multilateral global governance architecture to give greater say to the Global South, including permanent seats for developing countries on the United Nations Security Council.

China sees itself as a natural partner of the movement and a member of the Global South.

The ministry said earlier this month that China would “champion an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalisation”.

Gustavo de Carvalho, a senior researcher on African governance and diplomacy at the South African Institute of International Affairs, said that for China the movement’s significance was its “ability to shape relationships and policies among other developing countries”.

China, India court Global South in competing bids to lead developing countries

De Carvalho said the similar positions by the two on the Israel-Hamas conflict could bolster China’s position in relations to the United States, emphasising perceived double standards in the Western reactions to the war in Palestine.

“Certainly, the similar perspectives of the NAM and China strengthen each other, bolstering efforts toward resolving the conflict and ensuring that the primary responsibility is to protect civilians in the process,” he said.

De Carvalho said the NAM could serve as a forum for China to coordinate its foreign policy with these nations.

“With Uganda leading both the NAM and the G77 in 2024 – a group where China is actively engaged – Beijing finds a strategic position to understand and influence the perspectives of the Global South on key international issues,” he said.

Sub-Saharan geoeconomic analyst Aly-Khan Satchu said China was operating a very sophisticated, consensus building and subtle foreign policy.

“The Israel-Hamas war is a lightning rod and has split the world,” Satchu said. “China can only kick back and watch events unfold. The US has the pistol and is emptying the chamber into its foot.

“Beijing is positioning itself as the leader of a new multipolar order.”

In Kampala at the NAM Summit, Dennis Francis, president of the United Nations General Assembly, agreed the movement had a major role to play in “in guiding our world pragmatically”.

The movement represented more than half of the global population and its “critical mass” meant it could help shift the geopolitical balance from conflict and confrontation to diplomacy, he said.

Ugandan President and NAM chairman for the next three years Yoweri Museveni also had a multipolar message, taking a swipe at Western nations by saying those countries should not impose “narrow uni-ideological orientation”.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose country has taken Israel to the International Court of Justice alleging genocide in Gaza, said the conflict showed the inadequacy of the United Nations, “in particular the UN Security Council, in maintaining international peace and security”.

What is the Global South and how is Israel-Gaza war shaping its role?

Seifudein Adem, an Ethiopian global affairs professor at Doshi­sha University in Japan, said the overlap between the non-aligned members and China on the Israel-Palestinian conflict was not surprising.

“But it will certainly sharpen the contrast between the new world order led by China, which is slowly but surely coming into being, and the Euro-American world order led by the United States,” Adem said.

“The NAM statement has a wider geopolitical significance in that sense.

“The decisions of organisations such as NAM matter to China to the extent that they can sometimes help China to assess its international diplomacy and make adjustments if necessary,” Adem said.

John Calabrese, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said Beijing would “ride this wave of pro-Palestinian sentiment, exploit and help fuel the anti-Western discourse related to the conflict”.

According to Calabrese, China played a high-profile role at the Bandung Conference of 1955, a meeting that laid the foundations for the Non-Aligned Movement.

Some researchers argued that this conference shaped Communist China’s national identity as a member of the Afro-Asian world in solidarity with states and movements seeking to liberate themselves from the shackles of colonial domination.

“China’s engagement with the NAM as well as its role in participating in and establishing a slew of multilateral organisations – largely composed of non-Western developing countries – is, in a sense, a rekindling of this effort to challenge US/Western hegemony and help shape a multipolar order,” Calabrese said.

Nevertheless, Stephen Chan, a professor of world politics and international relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said the whole “emerging powers” phenomenon meant that key members of the NAM were gaining their own leverage in global affairs.

“China needs to side with them but powers like Turkey and Indonesia have ambitions of their own,” he said.

“But, first, the test of whether any of this can be influential will be in whether the emerging powers can play a key role in persuading Israel to accept Palestine as a recognised state.”

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Hong Kong-bound China Airlines plane makes U-turn, returns to Taipei airport after issuing emergency signal

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/transport/article/3249200/hong-kong-bound-china-airlines-plane-makes-u-turn-returns-taipei-airport-after-issuing-emergency?utm_source=rss_feed

A Hong Kong-bound China Airlines plane was forced to make a U-turn and head back to an airport in Taipei after declaring an emergency on Saturday night, according to media reports.

Taiwanese media reported that flight CI919 left Taipei Taoyuan International Airport on Saturday evening before issuing an “emergency situation” code and safely returning to the airport.

Flight data showed the aircraft started its journey at 6.06pm and landed back at the airport at 7.35pm.

US-bound jet returns to Tokyo after ‘heavily drunk’ passenger bites crew member

The data indicated the plane made a U-turn during the flight.

About an hour into the journey and before the U-turn, the aircraft maintained an altitude of about 37,000 feet for six minutes, then sharply dropped to around 10,000 feet over a nine-minute window.

According to a flight-tracking website, the aircraft involved in the incident is an Airbus A330. China Airlines’ fleet includes 18 such planes.

The Hong Kong International Airport listed the flight as delayed on its website as of 9.20pm.

More to follow…

China’s three-legged race to fend off the 4 D’s of an economic apocalypse

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3249136/chinas-three-legged-race-fend-4-ds-economic-apocalypse?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s 5.2 per cent rise in gross domestic product (GDP) last year, despite beating its annual target and still well outpacing growth in developed Western countries, has yet to convince the market that all is well in the world’s second-largest economy, according to observers.

And the race is on as policymakers grapple with the ramifications of four distressing “D’s” – debt, deflation, de-risking and demographics – that continue to bog down the 126-trillion-yuan (US$17.67 trillion) economy at the starting blocks of 2024.

‘Growth nothing to write home about’: 7 takeaways from China’s economic data

Real estate, along with related sectors dealing in home appliances, construction and materials, used to account for about a quarter of China’s economic output. But the pillar industry fell fast in recent years, as evidenced by the debt crises at major property developers such as Evergrande and Country Garden, which owe millions to small companies and their workers.

China’s property-development investments slumped 9.6 per cent last year, with the total area under construction dropping by 1.5 per cent and total sales falling 6.5 per cent to 11.66 trillion yuan.

The added value of the real estate sector accounted for 5.8 per cent of the national GDP last year – a years-low, according to government data.

“China is seeing a dual-track recovery,” said Yu Xiangrong, Citigroup’s chief Greater China economist, at a webinar this month.

And he suggests that the contributions of three new powerhouses – technological innovation, advanced manufacturing and modernised infrastructure – could approximate that of the property sector. But for the pivot to a new growth model to take place, both the supply and demand sides would have to contend with “throes of a deep, profound change and transition”, he warns.

Beijing has maintained a policy-loosening stance, but no “bazooka-style” stimulus is expected in 2024.

Authorities have taken a variety of policy support steps since last summer, including an action plan for private and foreign investors, followed by the approval of 1 trillion yuan worth of special treasury bonds in October. These measures, however, have not yet translated into sustainable growth momentum.

Sequential economic growth slowed to 1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023 from 1.5 per cent in the third quarter, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Despite a push among local authorities to get their respective economies off to a strong economic start, many analysts expected a step-by-step easing approach because of debt and risk considerations.

“Policy is moving slowly in this direction and will continue to edge closer,” wrote Rory Green, an economist at market-research firm TS Lombard. “There will be no bazooka, but a steady drip feed of increased bond issuance and PSL (pledged supplementary lending) will build through the year.”

Beijing has talked a lot about supporting private firms and welcoming foreign investors – with the latest comments coming days ago from Premier Li Qiang at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

However, the latest NBS data indicates private investment fell by 0.4 per cent last year. Meanwhile, China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) totalled 1.1 trillion yuan in 2023 – down 8 per cent, year on year – according to commerce authorities. FDI to the manufacturing sector dipped 1.8 per cent while those to the service sector slumped 13.4 per cent.

Analysts have warned that the government must make its messages more transparent and its actions more assertive.

“The [Chinese] economy can’t afford successive years of a confidence crisis,” said Xu Tianchen, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The delay of the Third Plenum, an occasion for the Communist Party leadership to address the nation’s long-term economic issues, also raised concerns about China’s policy direction.

For economy to flourish, China must ‘spell out, ram home’ private sector’s role

Local authorities across the country are now besieged by debt – a situation that worsened amid falling tax revenue and declining land sales in the first year of China’s post-pandemic recovery.

The confirmed local debt amounted to 40.6 trillion yuan at the end of November, up 16 per cent, year on year, according to the Ministry of Finance.

Meanwhile, the total debt size of local government financing vehicles was between 55 trillion and 65 trillion yuan in the third quarter of last year, according to Mizuho Securities Asia.

Developers are now in survival mode, awaiting government funding to lift them out of the financial doldrums. Over the past two years, around 50 mainland developers have defaulted on about US$100 billion worth of offshore bonds, according to a JPMorgan report in December.

China’s consumer price index fell in December by 0.3 per cent, year on year, marking a third consecutive monthly decline. Upstream deflation pressure is more pronounced, as the producer price index fell for the 15th consecutive month in December and dropped by 2.7 per cent, year on year. Fears are intensifying that China may slip into a Japan-like spiral of stagnation.

The deflationary pressure highlights the stubborn problem of inadequate domestic demand, which has worsened amid falling export orders.

Yao Yang, director of Peking University’s National School of Development, said the deflationary pressure – despite monetary easing – means that the insufficient-demand problem remains severe, coupled with a supply-demand imbalance.

The economist has called for demand-side reforms, such as direct subsidies to consumers, to boost demand, which had “nearly zero growth in the past three years”, he said at a seminar in Guangzhou last week.

Speaking at a high-level financial conference on Tuesday, President Xi Jinping said China faces urgent tasks in its efforts to tackle various financial risks, and he ordered regulators to clarify their responsibilities and join hands in the nation’s de-risking campaign.

“Financial regulation must have teeth,” he said. “All localities must plan for the overall situation based on one region and practise risk management and stability maintenance.”

Beijing set up the Central Financial Commission in March as part of a financial overhaul to clamp down on risks.

Preventing and resolving such financial risks is an “eternal theme” for the central government, according to comments that came from the twice-a-decade central financial work conference in late October.

Restructure puts China’s US$58 trillion in financial assets firmly in party’s purview

The decline in China’s birth rate has accelerated rapidly, with its population shrinking by 2.08 million to 1.4097 billion last year, much steeper than 2022’s alarm-raising decrease of 850,000, which marked the first decline in six decades.

Births in China dropped by 5.6 per cent to an all-time low of 9 million in 2023, after having already lost the title of the world’s most populous nation to India, according to United Nations data.

Meanwhile, about 11 million Chinese people died in 2023, pushing the death rate to a five-decade high.

The birth decline worsened despite Beijing effectively scrapping all birth-control rules and doling out pro-natal support in recent years for couples to raise bigger families.

The knock-on effects of a shrinking population that is rapidly ageing means the nation’s long-touted demographic dividend has whittled away. And this is expected to have far-reaching implications for the labour supply, consumption, social security benefits and economic growth prospects for years to come.

Chinese foreign minister’s Brazil stop yields mutual visa deal

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3249192/chinese-foreign-ministers-brazil-stop-yields-mutual-visa-deal?utm_source=rss_feed

China and Brazil have agreed to streamline visa processes to revive exchanges between the two countries to pre-pandemic levels.

The agreement came as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stopped in Brasília on his first international trip of the year, signalling Brazil’s growing importance to China.

Africa is traditionally the first port of call for China’s foreign minister in the new year and this year Brazil and Jamaica were added to Wang’s itinerary.

In talks on Friday, Wang and his Brazilian counterpart Mauro Vieira pledged to “restart coordination mechanisms in all areas” while strengthening high-level exchanges, according to a Chinese statement.

“China has always given priority to its relations with Brazil in its overall diplomacy and its diplomacy with Latin America … and hope to strengthen coordination of the developmental strategies and extend cooperation in new areas,” Wang said.

The talks were the first Foreign Ministerial-Level Comprehensive Strategic Dialogue since 2019.

Wang said after the meeting that visas would also be more “convenient”.

Brazil’s foreign ministry said the agreement would allow the consular authorities of both countries to grant visas valid for up to 10 years, doubling the current maximum grant period to encourage travel, business promotion and tourism.

They also agreed to speed up the establishment of the Brazilian consulate in Chengdu.

China is Brazil’s largest trading partner, importing iron ore, soybeans, and oil from the South American country.

The two nations have been expanding and cooperation into areas such as renewable energy, 5G, and cars.

Beijing and Brasília are also part of Brics, a grouping of major emerging economies, which is expected to grow its membership from five – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – to nine this year.

“As the world has entered a new period of turbulence and transformation, China and Brazil, the two biggest developing countries and representatives of emerging market economies in the Eastern and Western hemispheres, should strengthen unity and cooperation to jointly respond to global challenges,” Wang said.

Can Rio Tinto’s Africa mine cut China’s iron ore reliance on Australia, Brazil?

Wang also met President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his adviser Celso Amorim on Friday, with collaboration on international governance on the agenda.

“Brazil and China have a high level of consensus on many important topics,” Lula was quoted as saying.

“We look forward to seeing China supporting Brazil in hosting multilateral conferences … and joining hands [with China] to improve global governance and raise the collective strength and international discourse power of developing countries.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping met Lula in Beijing in April, signing various trade deals.

The two countries have stepped up coordination since the war broke out in Ukraine about two years ago, and as the humanitarian crisis worsened in the Israel-Gaza war.

Wang and Vieira met late last year on the sidelines of a United Nations Security Council meeting on the Gaza conflict.

Niu Haibin, the director of the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said the growing collaboration between the two countries would likely centre on multilateral mechanisms like Brics and the UN as “almost all aspects in the economy and trade have been covered”.

Niu said there was still room for improvement on issues such as Brazilian protectionism and tariffs but they had not been a major hurdle.

“As the Brics countries are playing an increasingly important role on issues of globalisation, security, economic governance, and climate change, coordination between China and Brazil is very important,” he said.

The Wang-Vieira meeting “revived” a high-level coordination mechanism between the two countries, and showed the higher importance China placed on South America, he added.

As North Korea stokes ‘invasion’ fears over Japan troops’ Yasukuni visit, South Korea and China stay seemingly silent

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3249183/north-korea-stokes-invasion-fears-over-japan-troops-yasukuni-visit-south-korea-and-china-stay?utm_source=rss_feed

A visit to Tokyo’s infamous Yasukuni Shrine by senior members of the country’s Self-Defence Forces has provoked a fierce backlash from North Korea, while eliciting an unexpectedly muted response from China and South Korea, which analysts said could signal a shift in their relationships with Japan.

The shrine, seen by Beijing and Seoul as a symbol of Japan’s past military aggression, honours convicted war criminals along with the war dead.

State media KCNA on Thursday said in an editorial that around a dozen senior SDF officers had “flocked to the shrine to pay homage” to the war criminals, “pledging before the dead militarists to realise their wild ambition for reinvasion and the old dream of the ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ by dispatching SDF troops to the Korean peninsula”.

While analysts said North Korea’s hyperbole was not really a surprise, what stood out was China and South Korea’s near silence on the issue.

“North Korea can always be creative in its attacks on Japan so this comes as little surprise as they’re looking to score political points, while South Korea has toned down the rhetoric in its media regarding Japan,” said Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi, an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Tokyo.

“But I’m most surprised that China appears to have said nothing, as this is the sort of thing I would expect Beijing to pounce on.”

As North Korea labels South its ‘top enemy’, is Kim Jong-un preparing for war?

South Korea’s Yonhap News reported on Pyongyang’s reaction to the SDF officers’ visit to Yasukuni, although other media outlets appeared to have avoided the usual criticism over the trip by Japanese officials. China’s state media also apparently skipped the issue.

“It is possible that China is waiting to see how the Japanese government responds to the officers’ actions before they weigh in,” Hinata-Yamaguchi said.

Garren Mulloy, a professor of international relations at Daito Bunka University and a specialist in military issues, said he was equally mystified at Beijing and Seoul failing to take advantage of the situation.

“It is, of course, no surprise that North Korea has taken a pop and then claiming that Japan is planning to invade the peninsula is par for the course there,” he said.

“When it comes to South Korea, it is very clear that Seoul wants better relations with Japan as well as the United States and while the South’s media is free, the lack of a reaction is telling.”

Mulloy suggested that editorial writers in South Korea and China might simply not have had the time or space to address the Yasukuni story, given the numerous pressing political, security and international crises that both nations presently face, and it was possible they would return to the issue in the future.

Yet, the incident did not go unnoticed in Japan, where both the Asahi and Mainichi newspapers harshly criticised it.

The Mainichi declared in a January 13 editorial that the troops had organised a group visit to the shrine, which would violate a “request” made in 1974 for members of the SDF to “strictly refrain” from going to religious facilities in units or forcing members to take part in trips as part of efforts to separate the government from religion.

It also demanded an inquiry into the matter and whether other similar visits had happened in the past, and requested that those who took part be dealt with in a “strict manner”.

“As members belonging to an organisation which possesses military capabilities, SDF personnel need to maintain strong self-discipline,” it said. “They must firmly refrain from engaging in actions that could invite distrust from the public and Japan’s neighbours.”

What’s behind North Korea’s ‘exceptional’ earthquake condolences to Japan?

Local reports said that the officers used internal defence ministry emails to arrange the visit and some even travelled to the shrine in official government vehicles.

The Asahi slammed the trip, saying it “raises serious doubts about the organisation’s commitment to its founding principles”.

The article said the visit by Lieutenant General Hiroki Kobayashi, second-in-command of the Ground Staff Office, and around a dozen of his immediate subordinates, “breached the principle of separation of church and state enshrined in the Constitution”.

It questioned whether the SDF was “losing sight” of its origins, based on national “soul-searching over a ‘dark chapter’ in its history: its war of aggression and colonial rule”.

Yasukuni Shrine, it pointed out, was “the core of state-sponsored Shinto that became the spiritual pillar of Japan’s militarism in the lead-up to and during World War II”, adding that it also enshrined 14 Class-A war criminals.

Professor Mulloy said the media outlets that had protested the tour “are worried that these sorts of visits will become normalised” within the Japanese military.

“Perhaps a group of 12 people is not such a big issue, but it is a point of principle,” he said.

“It is perfectly acceptable for individual members of the SDF to pay their respects at Yasukuni or other religious venues, but it appears they crossed the line by organising this visit via office emails, treated it almost like a work event and used ministry cars.”

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China’s LandSpace tests prototype of Zhuque-3 reusable stainless steel rocket

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3249190/chinas-landspace-tests-prototype-zhuque-3-reusable-stainless-steel-rocket?utm_source=rss_feed

LandSpace, the Beijing-based start-up that put the world’s first methane rocket into orbit last year, has completed a “hop test” – in which a rocket shoots up, moves sideways and lands – in the latest step towards the launch of its Zhuque-3 reusable stainless steel rocket.

The test rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert of northern China at 4pm on Friday, reaching an altitude of 350 metres (1,148 feet) during the 60-second vertical take-off, vertical landing (VTVL), according to the company.

It touched down in a designated area some 100 metres from the launch pad, with a landing accuracy of 2.4 metres and landing speed of 0.75 metres per second, LandSpace said on its official WeChat account.

“The rocket landed smoothly and accurately, and remained in good condition. The flight was a complete success,” the company announced.

China beats SpaceX with world’s first methane-powered rocket launch

The test rocket is a prototype that incorporates the latest technology in landing gear, ground control systems and precision guidance for vertical recovery – all of which are crucial to the success of Zhuque-3’s maiden flight targeted to take place in 2025.

“It helped us obtain core flight data on key technologies involved in the development of the Zhuque-3 reusable methane-liquid oxygen rocket,” the company said.

The 18.3 metre-long, 3.4 metre-wide test rocket was not only the largest of its kind in China, but also the world’s first stainless steel VTVL rocket.

It was powered by a Tianque-12B engine, which will be used on the two-stage, medium-lift Zhuque-3.

In world first, China’s LandSpace methane rocket sends satellites into orbit

LandSpace and US rivals SpaceX and Relativity Space have all been racing to develop methane-powered rocket technology. As a rocket fuel, methane is more efficient, easier to produce and more environmentally friendly than traditional fuels such as refined kerosene.

Zhuque-3 will be 76.6 metres long and 4.5 metres wide and will combine features of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Starship rockets. Powered by nine Tianque-12B engines, it is expected to be able to carry up to 18.3 tonnes (15 tons) of payload into low Earth orbit if its first stage is recovered down range.

The company said Zhuque-3’s first stage was designed to be reused at least 20 times, which could support China’s demand for frequent launches to assemble satellite-based internet constellations and for the commercial launch of large communications satellites and other spacecraft.

Before LandSpace’s VTVL test on Friday, at least four other companies in China had conducted hop tests for reusable rockets. They include the Beijing-based iSpace and Galactic Energy, the Nantong-based Deep Blue Aerospace, and CAS Space headquartered in Guangzhou.

In November and December, iSpace conducted two hop tests as part of the development of its reusable Hyperbola-3 rocket. iSpace is eyeing a first flight of its Hyperbola-3 next year. The rocket is expected to be able to deliver 8.5 tonnes of payload to low Earth orbit in reusable mode.

In 2022, Deep Blue Aerospace carried out a 1km (0.6 miles) VTVL test for the development of its Nebula-1 reusable launcher.

LandSpace said its next goal was to conduct a 10km flight test with the VTVL rocket, but did not give a time frame.

The most famous hop tests in private space flight include SpaceX’s Grasshopper tests, carried out about a decade ago to aid the development of the Falcon 9 rocket.

China’s admin restructure ripples out to provinces to tighten Communist Party control over data

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3249184/chinas-admin-restructure-ripples-out-provinces-tighten-communist-party-control-over-data?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s provinces have started a major administrative restructure to deepen the ruling Communist Party’s control over crucial domains such as big data, finance and on-the-ground governance.

The overhaul mirrors changes at the national level completed last year.

These changes include consolidating financial regulators and setting up a science and technology commission and social work department under the party’s decision-making Central Committee.

Other changes are the creation of a national big data authority and an upgrade of the Hong Kong-Macau policy body to bring it directly under the party’s leadership.

The roll-out at the provincial level became a priority this year.

Research by the South China Morning Post indicates that all 31 provincial governments have reported back on their progress in setting up the required bodies.

While local party spokespeople did not detail their institutions’ revamp plans, establishing provincial data administrations, social work departments and financial regulation administrations are clear priorities, according to the reports.

The eastern province of Jiangsu province was the first to set up a provincial branch of the National Data Administration (NDA), after it carved out data management functions from existing agencies on January 4.

This came less than three months after Beijing unveiled the new NDA, managed under the top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, underscoring Beijing’s ambitions to outpace the United States and other Western countries in artificial intelligence and big data industries, setting norms and standards for data governance.

Commerce centre Shanghai also announced the appointment of Xu Huili, former deputy secretary general of the Shanghai government, as the head of its data bureau on Thursday, while on the same day Qinghai appointed Jin Li, who holds a doctorate in computer science and technology from Tsinghua University, to be its provincial data chief.

Progress to set up provincial branches of the party’s central Social Work Department, a new body to manage petitions and social instability, has been observed in a handful of provinces.

In the first half of January, at least four provinces indicated they had formed such bodies and put officials in charge – half a year after Beijing named party administration veteran Wu Hansheng as the boss of the central department – to better handle public grievances and strengthen the party’s grip on society and business.

In Sichuan, provincial security chief Jin Lei appeared in a meeting on January 11 as he doubled for the first time as the province’s social work chief. Beijing and Inner Mongolia highlighted their social work heads Chi Xinggang and Wu Zhiqiang on January 7 and 8.

On January 3, the website of Jiangsu’s provincial petitions authority announced the appointment of former grain reserve boss Hu Jianjun as deputy social work head and chief of its petitions bureau. It is not clear who is responsible overall for Jiangsu’s provincial social works department.

An official in neighbouring Guangdong said that besides establishing the corresponding agencies, the province’s own institutional revamp’s focus would be on further empowering government bodies at the township and subdistrict levels.

“Many townships in Guangdong need a more centralised coordination working platform for us to better coordinate resources. We want to put more focus and resources on the ground level,” said the official, who declined to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

“We are also exploring ways to channel more headcounts to the township or subdistrict level so that we can better ensure stability.

“We will also simplify the hierarchies in the city’s administration functions like chengguang and so on, so that the bosses can have more direct access to the ground situation,” he said, referring to urban management forces that clamp down on illegal vendors and enforce sanitation and parking rules, among others.

“The economy is not doing very well, we need to give people more room to make money.”

China teacher who forced children to take horrifying oath or ‘families will die’ suspended after apology

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3248030/china-teacher-who-forced-children-take-horrifying-oath-or-families-will-die-suspended-after-apology?utm_source=rss_feed

A Chinese teacher who forced his students to make an oath to study hard otherwise their “whole family would die”, has astounded mainland social media.

The teacher, surnamed Wang, from a secondary school in central China’s Henan province, demanded the students in his first-year class make the promise.

In an audio recording, posted online on January 8, Wang is heard telling the children to repeat after him: “I will do nothing but study in the classroom, otherwise my whole family will die. My dad will first die and then my mum.”

Also posted were chat records from a parent-teacher group that Wang belonged to.

A parent in the group told him that students were reluctant to repeat after him and asked: “There are so many ways to motivate a student to study, why use such a dreadful method?”

Wang reacted later by telling the students to take it in turns to go to his office and write the oath down. When four students refused, he told them to “reflect on themselves” at home.

On January 9, the school suspended the teacher and asked him to apologise to the students and their parents.

The teacher’s shocking behaviour has sparked a wave of online criticism.

“I’m glad my kid was not in his class,” said one person on Douyin.

“How teachers motivate their students is as important as achieving good grades,” said another.

While a third online observer said: “People should learn how to be a human before learning knowledge.”

It is common in China to push students particularly hard in their first year of secondary school, to give them a good start in the preparation for the college entrance exams – called gaokao – that take place at the end of the third year.

Gaokao is believed by many mainland students to be the first milestone to achieving success in life and is highly competitive.

In 2023, a record high of 12.91 million candidates sat the exam, 980,000 more than the year before.

More than 90 per cent of gaokao candidates are now admitted to universities and colleges. However, the most coveted outcome is getting a place at prestigious universities, which account for only 5 per cent in China.

13 students reported killed in an elementary school dorm fire in China’s Henan province

https://apnews.com/article/china-school-fire-13-dead-dorm-dc6c0ed3646f903214798ba6d40d3be1In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, an aerial drone shows the dormitory with charred windows after a fire at the Yingcai School in Dushu Town, Fangcheng County, Nanyang city in central China's Henan province on Jan. 20, 2024. A fire broke out in dorms at the boarding school for elementary students in central Henan province, and more than a dozen students died in the blaze, Chinese state media reported Saturday. (Wu Gang/Xinhua via AP)

2024-01-20T03:40:43Z

BANGKOK (AP) — A fire broke out in dorms at a boarding school for elementary students in central Henan province, and 13 students died in the blaze, Chinese state media reported Saturday.

All of the dead were third grade students, a teacher told Zonglan news, a state-backed media outlet from Hebei province. One person rescued from the scene was being treated in the hospital, CCTV, China’s state broadcaster said.

The fire started Friday night and was put out just before midnight at Yingcai School in rural Fangcheng district in central Henan, and the school’s owner was detained, CCTV reported.

Local authorities said they were investigating the cause of the fire.

The boarding school caters primarily to students in the elementary grades, though it has an attached kindergarten, according to the school’s WeChat page. Many of the boarding students come from rural areas, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.

The facility is in Dushu township and is one of the school’s two branches.

HUIZHONG WU China correspondent based in Taiwan twitter

Thirteen children die in Chinese boarding school fire

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/20/children-die-china-boarding-school-fire

Thirteen pupils have died after a fire broke out in dormitories at a primary school in central Henan province, Chinese state media reported.

All of the dead were third-grade students, a teacher at Yingcai school told Zonglan news, a state-backed media outlet from Hebei province. One person rescued from the scene was being treated in hospital, China’s state broadcaster, CCTV, said.

The fire in the rural Fangcheng district started on Friday night and was put out just before midnight. The boarding school’s owner was detained, CCTV said.

The school gives students, many of whom are from rural areas, a break every two weeks but this was not a break weekend, the Paper said, citing several local residents.

The school, in the town of Dushu, caters primarily to students in the elementary grades, though it has an attached kindergarten, according to the school’s WeChat page.

Fires and other deadly accidents are common in China.

In November, 26 people died and dozens were sent to hospital after a fire at a coal company office in northern China’s Shanxi province.

Last July, 11 people died after the roof of a school gym collapsed in the north-east. The month before, an explosion at a barbecue restaurant in the north-west killed 31 people.

Last April, a hospital fire in Beijing killed 29 people and forced desperate survivors to jump out of windows to escape.

Is Marcos’ plan to amend Philippine constitution for China deal a ploy to keep his family in power?

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3249147/marcos-plan-amend-philippine-constitution-china-deal-ploy-keep-his-family-power?utm_source=rss_feed

President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr and his political allies are rushing to amend the Philippine constitution in the hope that this would, among other goals, enable Manila to land a joint oil and gas deal with Beijing in contested waters.

But analysts have warned that such a move could strengthen China’s claim inside the Philippines’ 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone, which Manila considers part of the West Philippine Sea (WPS) and in turn overlaps with the so-called “nine-dash line” that China considers its maritime sovereignty.

Other changes they have proposed include: extending terms of office; shifting from a presidential to a federal and parliamentary form of government; as well as lifting current restrictions on foreign ownership of land and corporations engaged in media, advertising, education, public utilities and natural resources extraction.

Marcos Jnr himself ran for the presidency under the banner of Partido Federal ng Pilipinas whose major advocacy is to establish a federal form of government. Human rights activists are particularly suspicious of his charter change because Marcos Jnr’s late dictator-father entrenched himself in power by calling for a constitutional convention then grabbing control of its process after imposing martial rule.

The resulting 1973 constitution enabled the senior Marcos to stay in power for another 13 years because he installed a weak parliament while retaining himself as president with the power to amend the charter and make laws.

Call for diplomacy with China reveals rift among Philippine business leaders

Ruling party Senator Francis Tolentino made it clear on Tuesday that he was backing the charter change “so we can explore and develop the natural resources in the West Philippine Sea”. He said the country could only do this “with the help of investments from another country whose technology and equipment we need in order to drill, extract and convert” oil and gas deposits.

The lawyer-senator also stated in the press release that a “less restrictive development of West Philippine Sea must be included [in the charter change] to help ease prices of basic commodities in the country”.

Tolentino did not detail the constitutional edit he had in mind, nor did he mention that drilling for gas and oil in the WPS – an area under Manila’s sovereign rights according to a 2016 international arbitration ruling – has stalled since 2011 due to Beijing’s opposing maritime claims.

Both countries have been trying to hammer out a deal since 2018 but on June 23, 2022, then-foreign secretary Teodoro Locsin Jnr announced that talks were “terminated completely … one step forward from where we stood on the edge of the abyss is a drop into constitutional crisis”.

He did not elaborate but his successor Enrique Manalo later hinted that China had demanded certain conditions be in line with its domestic law, though these would run afoul of the Philippine constitution.

Legal, defence and security experts interviewed by This Week in Asia, however, cautioned lawmakers over the implications of amending the charter just to accommodate China.

Retired Supreme Court associate justice Adolfo Azcuna, who was among those who drafted the 1973 and 1987 constitution, said he agreed with the move to relax the charter’s economic provisions to increase foreign ownership in corporations exploiting natural resources.

He stressed, though, that any amendment should “not change the bedrock principle …that all such resources belong to the [Philippine] state”.

“The problem with China is that its current position is that it has sovereignty over the territory involved and we must recognise it as a prerequisite to a joint venture. That would not be allowable,” Azcuna said.

He explained that the country’s previous constitutions framed in 1935 and 1973 also contained the same restriction because of “the nature of the resources as non-renewable or limited and therefore its development and utilisation should best be limited to our own nationals. This is recognised under international law” and is stated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Philippines stands out in Asean over embrace of US’ Indo-Pacific strategy

But retired supreme court associate justice Antonio Carpio said he completely opposed amending this part of the charter to allow a Chinese state-owned exploration firm to come in as a joint venture partner of the Philippine government and not just as its “service contractor”, which is the only option the current charter allows.

“I do not agree,” he said. “Joint venture partner can mean China co-owns our EEZ [exclusive economic zone]. If the amendment will result in China co-owning our oil and gas, that’s terrible.”

He added that insofar as sharing of the profits was concerned, “this can be done without amending the constitution [since] the Philippine government, which directly undertakes the oil and gas exploration, can give a 50 or even 60 per cent share in the profits in payment for the services of the service contractor”.

Carpio also voiced suspicions that “the real reason [for charter change] is to convert the present presidential system to a parliamentary system to perpetuate their control of the national government”, referring to the family of Marcos Jnr and his cousins on his mother’s side, the Romualdez clan.

University of the Philippines law professor Jay Batongbacal also saw no need to amend the same section, pointing out that a 2004 Supreme Court ruling “already allows 100 per cent foreign ownership of financial technical assistance agreements for petroleum, minerals, and mineral oils exploration and exploitation”.

Batongbacal, director of the university’s Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, noted “other foreign service contractors accept that such resources belong to the Philippines and they comply with Philippine law”.

He warned that China would “likely use [any oil deal] as an excuse for persistent presence and conduct of other activities of its own” in the contract service area.

While retired navy rear admiral Rommel Jude Ong would not comment on the legal aspects of enabling a joint venture (JV) deal with China by amending the constitution, he said: “The only scenario I am concerned with a JV, the Chinese Communist Party might use [it] as an excuse to deploy Chinese Coast Guard vessels at the Reed Bank on the premise of securing the exploration site.” Ong was referring to the tablemount that lies in the West Philippine Sea.

“Anyway we will see, if they agree to a JV that recognises our sovereign rights over Reed Bank, and that it’s part of our EEZ, maybe that would be a good starting point for de-escalation in the WPS.”

But Ong, who now serves as Professor of Praxis with the Ateneo School of Government, added: “Even if we have a JV with CCP at Reed Bank, I do not think it will dissuade them from pursuing their maritime ambition in the SCS. They will still conduct coercive activities in the WPS in pursuit of their exaggerated claim of sovereignty beyond their territory.”

‘Urgent we start now’: Philippines to explore oil-rich sea amid China tension

Max Montero, a Filipino-Australian systems consultant for a foreign military organisation who runs the popular blog MaxDefense Philippines, also said in an interview on Friday that he disagreed with any joint deal.

“China proved to have vested interest to have these locations for itself, and this could affect trust and confidence, and their sincerity to work with the Philippines ... that they might do something unacceptable,” he explained. “There will be security implications because, again related to a lack of sincerity on their part, as well as their vested interest in where these projects are located.

“China might have more reason to bring in their coast guard, militia and navy itself to deploy closer to our shores inside our EEZ.”

Defence and security analyst Jose Antonio Custodio also told This Week in Asia that the joint venture with China “legitimises and recognises their illegal claims in the WPS [and would be] rewarding them for illegal and bad behaviour and will only encourage them to be more aggressive in the future”.

However, Custodio – a fellow at the Consortium of Indo-Pacific Researchers - conceded there were “legitimate reasons” for amending other parts of the charter “in matters of improving economic performance”.

Philippines to ramp up military ties amid China’s ‘gutter-level talk’: minister

While not openly coming out in support of Senator Tolentino’s move, the Foundation for Economic Freedom said on Thursday it was backing a “review” for lifting “Filipino-only restrictions” on ownership of land and the exploitation of natural resources.

Previous attempts to change the charter have failed but this time, a petition to amend through a “People’s Initiative” could be submitted to the Commission on Elections as early as next week and a nationwide plebiscite could be held this July, according to House and Ways committee chairman Jose Salceda.

Marcos’ allies have adopted a two-step process to amend the charter. If the plebiscite on the People’s Initiative amendment succeeds, this would compel the 315-member House of Representatives and the 24-member Senate to vote “jointly” for any constitutional amendment, instead of “separately”, as the Senate has always insisted.

The Marcos-Romualdez-controlled House could then call for the convening of a Constituent Assembly – where senators are overwhelmingly outnumbered – and amend the constitution as it pleases.

The pushback against such moves is growing, however, and now includes strange bedfellows – the president’s eldest sister Senator Imee Marcos and those who had fought her late dictator-father, as well as former President Rodrigo Duterte, legal luminaries and cause-oriented groups who once thwarted Duterte’s charter change attempt.

In an apparent change of his position, Duterte voiced his opposition to the proposed charter amendments and said last week: “We have a good constitution. I find it in perfect condition. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it.”

On Friday, Vice-President Sara Duterte released a statement denouncing proponents of the People’s Initiative whom she accused of “giving out cash in exchange for signatures in [her hometown] Davao City and other parts of the country. This is a reflection of many politicians’ fondness for buying votes in every election”.

She urged fellow officials to put the people’s welfare first “instead of the entry of foreigners into the country”.

The president’s eldest sister Imee Marcos said on January 12 that in this period of rising prices of oil, rice and basic goods, “it’s not timely”.

“Maybe, someone who can’t win a presidential election wants to become a prime minister,” she said in an apparent dig at her cousin, House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

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China convenes Huawei, Tencent, Baidu to draft metaverse standards in bid to become global technology leader

https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3249180/china-convenes-huawei-tencent-baidu-draft-metaverse-standards-bid-become-global-technology-leader?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has assembled 60 experts, including some from the country’s largest technology firms, to form a new working group to establish standards for the metaverse sector.

Representatives from telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies, video gaming titans Tencent Holdings and NetEase, web search and artificial intelligence champion Baidu, financial technology firm Ant Group and computer maker Lenovo Group are among those on the list published by the MIIT on Friday.

Ant is an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the Post.

Other members include MIIT officials and researchers from Peking University, Fudan University and other renowned institutions in the country.

The MIIT in September proposed to form a working group to “guide the healthy and orderly development of the metaverse industry through standard regulation”, cautioning that the sector was facing ethical and security challenges.

The group would be tasked with “building and maintaining a system of metaverse industry standards”, “promoting the standards” and “training talent”, the regulator said in its proposal.

Besides focusing on domestic standards, the group would also “encourage local companies and institutions to deeply engage in international standard-setting activities”.

The metaverse, a loosely-defined term that refers to a virtual three-dimensional world, has become a trending topic in the past few years.

US social media giant Facebook changed its name to Meta Platforms in 2021. CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg explained during the rebranding announcement that he sought to embrace “the next chapter for the internet”.

In 2022, Meta, Microsoft and others founded the Metaverse Standards Forum, which also comprises Huawei, Tencent and some other Chinese tech giants.

Beijing is hoping to become a leader in the emerging field. Five authorities, including the MIIT, released a joint plan last year to nurture at least three metaverse companies “with global influence” by 2025.

Several local governments have made it a priority to develop the metaverse sector.

Beijing’s eastern Tongzhou district, considered a “sub-centre” of the capital city, has vowed to incorporate more than 100 metaverse-related firms by the end of the year.

Shanghai has planned to set up both government-backed and private funds dedicated to metaverse development. The first one, established in late 2022, raised an initial sum of 1 billion yuan (US$140 million).

More Chinese buyers snapping up US farmland, but how much is not clear

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3249178/more-chinese-buyers-snapping-us-farmland-how-much-not-clear?utm_source=rss_feed

America is seeing more of its most fertile land snapped up by China and other foreign buyers, yet problems with how the US tracks such data means it’s difficult to know just how much, according to a report.

Foreign ownership and investment in property such as farmland, pastures and forests jumped to about 40 million acres in 2021, up 40 per cent from 2016, according to the US Department of Agriculture data.

But an analysis conducted by the US Government Accountability Office – a non-partisan watchdog that reports to Congress – found mistakes in the data, including the largest land holding linked with China being counted twice. Other issues include the challenge of enforcing a US law that requires foreigners to self-report such purchases, the report said, citing USDA.

Outside ownership of American cropland is drawing attention from Washington as concern rises about possible threats to food supply chains and other national security risks. Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike have called for a crackdown on sales of farmland to China and other countries.

“Without improving its internal processes, USDA cannot report reliable information to Congress or the public about where and how much US agricultural land is held by foreign persons,” the report said.

US judge declines to block Florida law restricting Chinese from buying property

The GAO made six recommendations, including that the USDA share more timely and complete data with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, an inter-agency panel led by the Treasury Department that reviews foreign business deals.

Another suggestion calls for USDA to ensure its reporting of agricultural foreign investments under a 1978 federal law is complete. USDA said it would need more money to create and maintain an online filing portal, according to the report.

“The GAO’s recommendations would require changes by Congress, starting with the funding needed to increase staff and modernise our processes,” Allan Rodriguez, a USDA spokesperson, said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg on Friday.

“Any system for tracking land purchases and owners would be complicated, expensive, and create a potential risk to producer privacy, the price of agricultural land, and individual American seller interests.”

Devastating fire at Chinese primary school leaves 13 dead and 1 injured in Henan province

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3249169/devastating-fire-chinese-primary-school-leaves-13-dead-and-1-injured-henan-province?utm_source=rss_feed

A devastating fire broke out at a primary school dormitory in Fangcheng county in the central province of Henan, leading to the death of 13 people, state news agency Xinhua reported on Saturday.

The fire at Yingcai School in Yingshanpu village was reported to local fire services at 11.00pm on Friday night, according to Xinhua.

In addition to the 13 fatalities, one other person sustained injuries. Teachers at the school said the victims were all third-graders, or about nine years old, according to Hebei-based media outlet Zonglan News.

“The fire response team reached the location promptly and managed to put out the fire by 11.38pm,” Xinhua reported.

The person injured in Friday’s blaze is in stable condition and undergoing treatment in hospital, Xinhua reported.

Beijing hospital fire: private facility offered long-term care for the elderly

Yingcai School is located around 20km (12.4 miles) from the county seat of Fangcheng county.

According to the Yingcai School’s WeChat account, the campus covers around 2.3 hectares (5.7 acres), with buildings and facilities covering around 17,000 square metres (182,986 sq ft). It includes both primary and preschool sections and operates under a boarding system with small class teaching.

The institution has been recognised as an “Advanced Unit of Social Forces in Running Schools” – an award for excellent private schools – for several consecutive years.

Sichuan-based Cover News reported that locals described the school as a “township private primary school” established around 10 years ago and primarily serving local pupils, most of whom board at the school.

One nearby shopkeeper told Cover News the school bus had taken most of the children home for the weekend, leaving only about a dozen on campus on Friday night. Many of those left on campus had families living far away or parents working elsewhere, so nobody could pick them up.

“They were supposed to start their winter holiday in a few days, but this tragic incident occurred,” the shopkeeper said.

Another business owner near school said he rushed to the scene during the fire.

“The flames were intense, and the fire and smoke could be seen and smelled from a distance,” he told Beijing Youth Daily. “The cries for help from the students could be heard, and fire engines and ambulances were quickly on the scene.”

Following the incident, leaders from Henan province and the nearby city of Nanyang rushed to the site and established a command centre to deal with the situation, Xinhua reported.

They launched an investigation into the cause of the fire and are managing the aftermath, and the person in charge of the school has been taken into custody, according to Xinhua.

‘Pregnant’ China influencer seeks husband with house, car at matchmaking event in gimmick aimed at boosting online profile

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3248023/pregnant-china-influencer-seeks-husband-house-car-matchmaking-event-gimmick-aimed-boosting-online?utm_source=rss_feed

An online influencer pretended to be five months pregnant then went looking for a husband at a matchmaking meet-up in a bid to attract more social media traffic.

Known as Chenxiaosi on Douyin, the 32-year-old woman from Sichuan province in southwestern China, stuffed a bump under her dress so she looked pregnant.

She then joined a local “matchmaking corner”, which is popular in China as a way of finding someone to marry.

In a video she is seen holding a piece of paper with her personal information written on it – “32 years old, single, no property or car, five months pregnant”.

It also lists details about the husband she is looking for.

“He should have a flat and car, more than 20,000 yuan (US$2,800) monthly salary, and must treat me and my child well.”

She can be seen talking to a man who is showing an interest in her.

“Although the child is not yours, I’m yours, ” she says to him. “If you love me, you won’t care about whether the child is yours.” She goes on to say that her child would take his surname.

Without hesitating, the man says that he has a 40-year-old son who might fit the bill. But when the man tells her his son’s monthly salary is between 7,000 and 8,000 yuan, she looks appalled and dismisses him with a wave of her hand.

“No way can I accept that. I won’t consider a man who earns less than 20,000 yuan, because that won’t support my child adequately,” she tells him.

The man walks away and another one approaches the woman.

“Are you willing to be the father of my child?” She asks him.

“I’m not ready yet, but we can get to know each other,” he replies.

She asks the man to touch her belly, which he does. Then he ends the conversation and leaves abruptly.

As soon as the video clip circulated online on the mainland it went viral, but people were suspicious and questioned its authenticity.

The authorities later announced on Weibo that Chenxiaosi had admitted she invented the story to attract more social media traffic, adding that she was now the subject of a formal investigation.

Her social media account appears to have closed.

The influencer’s stunt sparked widespread criticism on mainland social media.

“Oh my god, how can she cook up such a shameless lie?” One person said.

Another added: “Some people will do anything to attract internet attention.”

Stories about people being controversial in a bid to boost their online profiles often shock the mainland public.

In August last year, a 24-year-old influencer in southern China was detained for staging a “sexual harassment” incident in a restaurant, and her social media account was subsequently banned.

In another case, in May last year, a 34-year-old online influencer in eastern China died after consuming more than four bottles of baijiu, sometimes known as “Chinese vodka”, while live-streaming.

Chinese scientists say they slowed down light to improve microchips

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3249173/chinese-scientists-say-they-slowed-down-light-improve-microchips?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese scientists say they have found a new way to make light travel on a microchip that makes it over 10,000 times slower.

That could improve the performance of these microchips – known as photonic chips – and their applications in light sensing, communications and computing.

The research was carried out by a team from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. They published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Nano Letters on January 5.

China chip imports fall in 2023 on economic headwinds and localisation efforts

Photonic chips use photons instead of electrons in their circuits. When used for calculation, their accuracy is approaching that of electronic chips, but photonic chips have the advantage of using less power and they are faster.

While the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant and cannot be exceeded, it can be slowed down in other media, meaning it can be manipulated more – which is crucial in designing photonic chips.

“When light is slowed down, the energy density of the light increases,” said Dr Li Guangyuan, a researcher of optical engineering at the Shenzhen institute who led the study.

“This means that with the same device length, the effective distance for the light to interact becomes longer – essentially enhancing the performance of a photonic device.”

Li’s team designed a photonic chip in a way that slowed down the light by more than 10,000 times. They said this was done with a greatly reduced loss of energy, which was only about 20 per cent of the loss seen in previous attempts.

The current mainstream method to control light speed relies on metasurfaces – artificial materials made up of nanostructures. When light strikes these nanostructures they resonate, altering its amplitude and phase.

But the material absorption and scattering of light produced by these artificial atoms can lead to a loss of light that reduces the lifespan of photons, limiting the extent to which the speed of light can be slowed.

To get around this, Li’s team made improvements to the materials used and the structural design.

“In terms of material selection, we opted for materials with low or even no absorption loss at the wavelengths of interest,” Li said.

“For instance, metals have strong absorption in the infrared spectrum, so we used lossless silicon materials. However, silicon absorbs strongly in the visible light spectrum, so in those cases, we used transparent materials like silicon nitride or titanium dioxide.”

China’s semiconductor industry weathers tough year amid tighter US sanctions

For the structural design, the researchers improved upon a concept called surface lattice resonance, which involved a periodic surface pattern to prevent the loss of energy.

“We designed a periodic surface structure of 100-nanometre silicon nanodisks,” Li said.

“This design shifts the light’s path from inside the nanostructures to their surfaces, greatly reducing material absorption loss. Also, some photons that are lost due to scattering are recaptured by adjacent structures, rejoining the propagation process and extending the photon’s lifespan.”

Li said the technology could also reduce manufacturing costs for photonic chips and increase their applications.

“By using metasurface technology, photonic chips can be as thin as stickers or building blocks, allowing for functional stacking,” he said.

Using that technology, researchers have been able to use photonic chips for devices like sensors, lasers and LEDs in recent years.

“The performance of these photonic devices is limited by the very limited interaction length in such ultrathin photonic chips,” Li said. “By using the slow light effect, the performance can be significantly improved.”

[World] China: 13 dead after school dormitory fire in Henan province

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68038976?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

How a steep drop in South Koreans studying in China is a symptom of chill in bilateral ties

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3249089/how-steep-drop-south-koreans-studying-china-symptom-chill-bilateral-ties?utm_source=rss_feed

As South Korean student Kim Si-eun and her friends contemplate their next move after high school, China’s universities – once considered an appealing option – no longer rank high on their list of destinations.

“I think the general perception [of English-speaking countries] is better. Some may think they should go to those countries so they can have better academic careers,” said the 18-year-old Kim, who is applying to universities in South Korea and Canada having completing her third year of high school last year.

“It’s not just about studies. Everyday life in English-speaking countries also seems more convenient and better compared with that in China.”

She said the political tensions between Beijing and Seoul and some of the terrifying tales of Covid-19 restrictions in China had affected students’ decisions.

According to the latest figures from Seoul’s Ministry of Education, the number of South Korean students attending universities, graduate schools and foreign language institutes in China hit a low last year, with only 15,857 as of April, compared with a peak of 73,240 in 2017.

The steep drop was symptomatic of the chill in ties between the two Asian neighbours since South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol took office in May 2022. Under Yoon, the country has leaned closer to the US – a treaty ally – on a wide range of contentious issues such as Taiwan and the South China Sea as well as North Korea.

Chinese students beat stress by turning to Southeast Asia universities

Kang Jun-young, a professor of Chinese studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, said the drop in South Korean students was fuelled by China’s declining image in South Korea.

“Parents and students judged that studying in China may not be very useful in the future as they have come to believe that China’s image in the international community is on the decline and that the rigidity of [the country’s] socialism has become relatively clear,” Kang said.

“In addition, Korea-China relations have not reached a breakthrough, so the overall favourability has fallen significantly.”

There has been growing antipathy towards China among South Koreans since 2016, when Seoul agreed to host the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence, or THAAD – an American anti-missile system that Washington said was needed for its defence against North Korea.

But Beijing saw US military presence at its doorstep as a threat and retaliated by imposing curbs on tourism to South Korea and slapping boycotts on South Korean retailers, pop stars and television shows.

Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae-in, had tried to mend ties with Beijing, but the scars remained, as did animosity towards China.

In recent years, Chinese and South Korean youth have sparred online over topics ranging from the 2019 Hong Kong protests to cultural issues such as the origins of kimchi and the , a type of traditional Korean clothing.

‘It’s hanbok, not hanfu’: South Korea and China clash over Olympics dress

In January, Beijing suspended visas for South Koreans travelling for business, tourism, medical treatment, transit and general private affairs, in a tit-for-tat response to what it called “South Korea’s discriminatory entry restrictions” on Chinese nationals.

Zhou Xiaolei, an associate professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said as the number of students dropped, China was losing an opportunity for more South Koreans to see the country for themselves, which was one of the best ways to reduce strained ties and change negative perceptions of China.

“It feels like bilateral relations, especially people-to-people exchanges, as well as public sentiment, have returned to a point before the establishment of diplomatic ties,” Zhou said.

“South Korean students in China have played a very significant role in people-to-people exchange between the two countries, and if this trend continues, in the long run, it won’t be helpful to improving bilateral ties, especially when there’s no breakthrough in political relations.”

The flow of students has long been a barometer of the strength of the bilateral relationship.

China and South Korea were enemies during the 1950-53 Korean war and remained adversaries throughout the Cold War era. But students started travelling between the countries soon after they normalised diplomatic relations in 1992. Just a few months after the normalisation of ties, the first cohort of three South Korean students, sponsored by Chinese government scholarships, arrived in China.

Bilateral relations warmed quickly, largely driven by the complementary economic relationship between the countries. South Korean conglomerates such as Samsung, Hyundai and LG wasted no time in establishing footholds in China, taking advantage of the low labour costs. This led to a rush of South Korean businesses into China stretching from the northern port city of Tianjin to Huizhou in the southern province of Guangdong.

Bilateral trade grew from US$5.03 billion in 1992 to US$362.3 billion in 2022, according to official Chinese data. In 2003, China surpassed the United States to become the biggest market for South Korean exports, while South Korea replaced Japan as China’s fourth-largest trading partner in 2022.

The trade and investment boom also sparked interest in China among South Korean students, and the number studying in the country more than quadrupled in 2017 from 16,372 in 2001..

During a state visit to South Korea in 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping told a group of students at the prestigious Seoul National University that robust bilateral trade and exchanges showed that the two countries had “become genuine strategic partners” and bilateral relations had entered the “best period of development” in history.

College in southern China gets ‘unanimous praise’ for expelling foreign student

Uhm Jong-sik was among the thousands of South Korean students drawn by the “China rush”, having moved to the country in 2013 at the age of 14.

“At that time, my teachers and parents believed that international trade was popular and it would be quite useful to study in China and to be able to speak the Chinese language,” he said.

Uhm, now a student at Zhejiang University in eastern China, said he was well aware of the ups and downs in bilateral relations.

“The strongest hostility I felt happened during the THAAD dispute, and taxi drivers would tell me to get out if they learned that I am South Korean,” he said. “Also, when political ties worsened, mail from South Korea to China often took longer and cost more.”

Rick Lee, who took a one-year language training course in the northwest city of Xian in 2016, said political and economic factors could affect students’ choices.

“China has become less attractive [for overseas studies] because of its economic slowdown. Actually, most South Koreans don’t understand the political system of China, so disputes between us and Chinese over political topics are inevitable,” said Lee, who now works for the overseas development department of a South Korean company.

Kang, with Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said Beijing and Seoul “must face the reality and take steps to restore trust”.

But it would not be an easy task, as China has made significant technological progress to become a competitor in global markets and was no longer just a destination for South Korean exports, according to Zhou in Beijing.

Yoon’s pro-US approach had also dimmed hopes of a quick rapprochement between Beijing and Seoul, she added.

“Hopefully the two economies can find a new balance point with new complementary cooperation in the future, and if China’s ties with the US improve, there is also hope that China’s relationship with South Korea may improve as well,” Zhou said. “But I don’t expect a major improvement in [the coming] five years.”

She said the good news was that there was still a sizeable number of Chinese students in South Korea. According to figures from the Korean Educational Development Institute, about 67,439 Chinese students were studying at South Korean higher education institutions in 2022, accounting for 40.4 per cent of all international students in the country.

Make foreign students in China pass a Mandarin test: top adviser

Lim Ji-yeon, a 21-year-old studying the Chinese language at Beijing Normal University, is trying to build goodwill between young people in the two countries by sharing her experiences online and encouraging South Koreans to visit China.

“Many of my friends in South Korea don’t have favourable impressions about China because of the political tensions and economic disputes reported by media,” said Lim, now in her third year of university.

“No matter how hard I tried to persuade them, they barely changed their minds, largely because they never experienced China.”

“Young people in South Korea love Chinese food like malatang and tanghulu,” she said, referring to a type of spicy hotpot and a traditional street food. “But they have very negative views on China, and I feel bad about it.”

Lim said she planned to bring two of her friends to Beijing next month “so that they would know that there are a lot of interesting things to do and delicious food in China”.

“Look at South Korea and Japan. We used to have very bad relations before, but recently, because many South Koreans visited Japan, bilateral relations have become much better,” she said.

Additional reporting by Fred He

Chinese property developers shrivel up in Australia, New Zealand but are they ‘hibernating’ for better times?

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3249120/chinese-property-developers-shrivel-australia-new-zealand-are-they-hibernating-better-times?utm_source=rss_feed

The Chinese developer boom that kicked off in the Australian and New Zealand housing markets a decade ago has ended.

But, unlike other foreign developers before them, their time has closed with a slow fizzle rather than a stampede exit.

Amid a property crisis in China triggered by Beijing’s policies to curb risky borrowing, softer demand for flats in the region, and challenging business conditions such as rising construction costs, many Chinese developers have scaled back operations or closed shop.

The way these developers ended their time in the Australasian markets has been largely driven by their ownership and how much their funders have been affected by China’s property crisis.

State-owned developers like Greenland Group and China Poly Group have been actively closing down their Australian operations as their parent companies claw back capital.

Subsidiaries of publicly-listed Chinese developers such as Country Garden, China Aoyuan and Chiwayland have also relinquished their interests as some of them struggle with debt repayment in the face of poor sales and weak cash flow.

There were also self-funded private developers that have evolved into local enterprises. They were not leaving but like their domestic peers, were not actively developing mainly due to challenging market conditions.

Chinese developers have been compared to the rush of Japanese investors on the Gold Coast in Australia in the 1980s, who left abruptly when the Japanese economy’s asset bubble burst.

Why Australia’s resilient housing market is in a precarious place

But unlike the Japanese, Chinese developers including those who have left are “hibernating” with the hope of building in Australia again when the market recovers, says Liu Hao, president of the Chinese Building Association of New South Wales.

The Australian real estate market remains a lure for them despite local backlash against foreign buyers and poor relations between Australia and China in recent years, Liu adds.

“When Chinese developers, particularly those with small to medium private businesses, arrive in Australia, the first order of the day is to apply for permanent residency,” Liu said.

“Many of us have come to Australia not just to make money but because we like being here. It’s a good place to raise a family,” he said. “That’s the difference.”

While there was a sense that Chinese developers had “fled”, many were still doing post-development work such as defect rectification and sales, Liu said.

Having developed their operations for a decade, they were unlikely to abandon the market just because conditions have changed, he added.

It is an old adage that Chinese developers and migrants will always be drawn to Australian real estate, says property agent Plus Agency’s Peter Li.

“The Chinese pullback is different from the Japanese retreat. Japanese developers retreated because their economy collapsed; Chinese developers have had to pull back because of capital controls in China,” said Li, who has dealt with many of these developers.

Chinese real estate development in Australasia soared around 2013 – particularly in Australia – at the height of China’s “go out policy” that led to many Chinese enterprises seeking overseas investments during a time when private cash-rich Chinese citizens were also seeking overseas property investments.

Home to many Chinese students and migrants, Australia and to a lesser extent, New Zealand, quickly became an investment and development target. This phenomenon increased the supply of much-needed housing.

State-owned developers such as Greenland and Poly are among those which have made the clearest “exits” from the Australian market as they actively sell landholdings and downsize.

There are no state-owned developers in the smaller housing market of New Zealand, according to the New Zealand Chinese Building Industry Association.

One of the earliest state-owned developers to arrive in Australia in the past decade, Greenland came with a clutch of cash before completing Sydney CBD’s tallest residential building, Greenland Centre, in 2020.

Its last project is the 900-apartment Park Sydney project in Sydney’s Erskineville with partner Golden Horse, another Chinese-backed developer. But after developing two stages of the project, Greenland and Golden Horse sold the rest of the project to a local developer in 2022, marking their retreat from Australian development. Greenland’s managing director has returned to China.

The Australian arm of state-owned Chinese conglomerate Poly entered the Australian market in 2015 launching residential and housing projects in Sydney and Melbourne and investing in high-profile CBD office buildings before scaling back in 2020.

It called time on talks to buy a 200-hectare residential development and golf course in Sydney’s southwest that year but completed projects it had commenced, including the recently finished Spring Square in Sydney’s Bankstown.

Poly’s Australian head of sales Kevin Zhou said, in relation to the office buildings it owned in Australia, the company had enough cash to “hold and operate all its commercial assets with ease” but said it was looking for the right opportunity to “create maximum commercial value”, which could mean a sell-down.

While the company’s Australian managing director has returned to China, Zhou and executive director Robin Luan remained in Australia. Zhou indicated that Poly could still look at future development if it could surmount barriers like high construction costs.

“As an Australian developer with our current portfolio, there is no exit to speak of at the strategic level. We are cautious of the recent market changes … which lead to the great challenges to the survival of a property developer,” Zhou said.

China’s home developers suffer further sales skid to end miserable 2023

Country Garden is the biggest listed Chinese developer to make a foray into the residential industry in Australia under the name of Risland, and has built flats and housing in Sydney and Melbourne since starting in 2014.

But since its parent company in Guangdong started facing mounting debts, its withdrawal from Australia has been in full swing.

This Week in Asia reported this week Risland had entered into an agreement to sell its last landholding in Australia, stages three to six of the Wiltons Green project in Sydney’s southwest. Last October, it sold a 366-hectare housing site in Melbourne’s west to Singapore’s Frasers.

Back in bloom? Malaysia seeks to revive China-backed Forest City megaproject

Another troubled developer, Hong Kong-listed China Aoyuan, also transferred its interests in all its remaining apartment projects in Australia to its local director in Australia in 2022, for a consideration of A$105 million (US$68.95 million).

Like Country Garden, the Guangzhou-based major developer also struggled with debt repayments. Last week, it gained Hong Kong court approval to restructure more than US$4 billion of offshore debt and loans.

Singapore-listed Chinese developer Chiwayland ended its development era in Australia after completing its Sydney project, the Stellar residential building in 2019. It has since closed its Australian office in Sydney, making all staff redundant except for a representative in Sydney.

China Overseas Land and Investment, a Hong Kong-listed company and part of China State Construction Engineering Corporation, completed one apartment project, Neue in Sydney’s north in 2021 but has not launched another one since.

Starryland Australia, the Australian arm of Fuxing Huiyu Real Estate whose parent company is Shenzhen-listed, is staying on and says it is set to develop its second apartment project in Sydney’s Granville.

On the private end, Shanghai United, a cluster of 10 private Chinese property firms, completed the construction of the luxury apartment project Castle Residences in the Sydney CBD in 2022 and made A$40 million on the sale of the Intercontinental Hotel in 2021.

Greaton, originally backed by a little-known Hubei developer in China, has become a household name after persevering with the completion of the landmark building The Ribbon in Sydney’s Darling Harbour despite problems with construction partners.

The most high-profile exit – and one of the earliest – by a private Chinese player in Australia was Dalian Wanda’s withdrawal from two high-profile hotel and apartment projects in Sydney’s Circular Quay and the Gold Coast in 2018 after the Chinese government pressured it to crimp its overseas investments.

The New Zealand market has comparatively fewer Chinese developers.

Shundi Customs, part of Shanghai-based Shundi Group, tops the list as one of the most active Chinese developers in New Zealand.

It is still on ground with residential projects in Auckland and Queenstown and is constructing New Zealand’s tallest residential tower Seascape, due for completion this year.

New Zealand set to maintain China ties but Aukus issue could complicate

Beijing-based developer Fu Wah group, founded by one of the richest women in China, Chan Laiwa, has so far completed the development of Auckland’s most expensive hotel, the Park Hyatt, in 2020.

While there are no state-owned Chinese developers in New Zealand, there are many local privately-funded Chinese developers who are staying on after establishing themselves as local developers, says Frank Xu, president of the New Zealand Chinese Building Association.

Most of them are holding onto their landholdings while they ride out challenging conditions, he adds.

“In the last few months, the market has been improving. At this stage, Chinese developers are still responsible for 50 per cent of Auckland’s housing development,” he said.

In US-China rivalry, Beijing advisers urge ‘rational’ approach during election year, but will pragmatism win out?

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3249130/us-china-rivalry-beijing-advisers-urge-rational-approach-during-election-year-will-pragmatism-win?utm_source=rss_feed

Policy advisers are urging Beijing to remain open-minded and focus on restoring investor confidence as China braces for more geopolitical tensions this year against the backdrop of elections in the United States and European Union.

While November’s summit between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in California helped stabilise relations between their respective countries, it is unclear whether such progress will garner Biden many “brownie points” with voters in the 2024 US presidential election, according to Zhang Wenzong, deputy director and research professor of Institute of American Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

“The uncertainty caused by the [US] election is a risk to Sino-US relations. If Republicans return to the White House in 2025, China needs to prepare in advance to deal with new challenges,” Zhang said in a blog post published on Thursday by China-US Focus, an online forum run by the Hong Kong-based China-United States Exchange Foundation.

Policy advisers from China’s Peking and Tsinghua universities have advocated for Beijing to take a “rational” approach when it comes to managing competition with the US in 2024 – a year of elections across the globe.

China ramps up national security studies amid ‘unprecedented’ external threats

Their recommendations have also come amid Beijing’s efforts to retain its market allure to global investors and restore investor confidence to counter the pressure of de-risking moves by the US-led West, and of increasing geopolitical complications.

Beijing’s tightening grip on national security, as well as inconsistencies in policies, have also sent chills down the spines of investors and businesspeople, while fuelling concerns over whether Beijing can sustain strong economic growth this year.

Yao Yang, a professor and dean at the National School of Development and director of the China Centre for Economic Research at Peking University, said China should not let competition with the US get in the way of directly engaging with Washington to discuss new rules and policy changes.

Beijing has deemed Washington’s tariffs on Chinese goods and tech restrictions as “unilateral bullying” and “unreasonable suppression”, while the US has accused China of “unfair” trade practices and “economic coercion” that have come at the expense of American jobs.

“We should look at the West as its equal,” Yao said in an interview with NetEase News last month, adding that both sides should refrain from finger-pointing and playing the blame game, and instead strive to better understand one another.

He also noted how America’s industrial base has already been hollowed out – a reference to the deterioration of the US’ manufacturing sector that has transpired over several years as producers increasingly opted for low-cost facilities overseas.

“How can it possibly compete [with China]? The United States has obviously made a strategic mistake,” Yao said.

Yao later wrote in a blog post on January 12 that China has to do more than release a few policy documents to restore investor confidence amid rising competition with the US. Such a task requires a stronger economy and the cultivation of more demand, Yao said.

“In my opinion, there is no need for us to be so nervous [about competing with the US]. China does not necessarily have to be the best in the world at everything,” Yao said in the blog post published by the Economists 50 Forum, a Beijing-based think tank.

Xi Jinping lays out plan to make China ‘financial superpower’, warns of risk

A report by Tsinghua University published earlier this month also recommended that Beijing avoid reacting to election candidates that take a “hostile” stance toward China.

Beijing also needs to demonstrate its long-term commitment to supporting the private sector with concrete “actions” to restore confidence among the nation’s businesses, the Tsinghua report said on January 8.

On Wednesday, the Mercator Institute for China Studies (Merics), a Berlin-based think tank, published the results of a survey of 650 China experts and observers. About two-thirds thought that, while 2024 holds significant uncertainties for policies on China as a result of EU and US elections, the “securitisation of everything, with the trade-off of growth and infliction of social costs” was the most likely course for the Chinese government to take in 2024.

“Pragmatism [in China] is unlikely to make a comeback, with only 22 per cent of respondents expecting such a shift,” Merics said.

State-owned reinsurer China Re rents floor at Two IFC, upgrades offices at same price as previous lease

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3249141/state-owned-reinsurer-china-re-rents-floor-two-ifc-upgrades-offices-same-price-previous-lease?utm_source=rss_feed

State-owned reinsurance company China Re Asset Management is moving to the 41st floor of Hong Kong’s Two International Finance Centre (Two IFC) in Central, where it has leased 6,740 sq ft for the same price it paid for its previous offices in Three Exchange Square.

China Re will pay HK$150 (US$19.18) per square foot a month for the Two IFC space, the same rate it paid for its offices in Three Exchange Square, Centaline Property Agency said.

“The company used to rent 5,000 sq ft on the 12th floor of Three Exchange Square, which it leased three years ago,” said Ernest Tse, the senior principal sales director in Centaline’s commercial office department. “And although they are paying the same lease rate, they will now be on a higher floor.”

The Two IFC lease “is an upgrade and an expansion” for China Re, he added.

The reinsurer will, however, shell out more for the Two IFC space, at about HK$1.011 million per month, as compared to Three Exchange Square, where it paid HK$750,000 in monthly rent.

Flight to quality and companies going back to Hong Kong’s main business zone of Central are likely to be the dominant trends in the city’s office property segment this year, Tse said, adding that high vacancy rates are driving down rents.

Hong Kong retail: Chinese hotpot chain leases space in Central at 40% discount

For instance, the Two IFC space was previously leased by Funde Asset Management (Hong Kong), according to Tse. Local media reports have indicated Funde paid HK$175 per square foot for the space, which would mean China Re’s lease is cheaper by more than 14 per cent.

“Rents have become very attractive in grade A offices, so now we see companies from Kowloon or Hong Kong Island east moving to the core Central area, and for some it is a good time to upgrade to prime buildings,” Tse said.

In November, average monthly rents for Hong Kong offices declined by 0.5 per cent to HK$52.3 per square foot per month, as vacancy rates rose to about 12.9 per cent from 12.6 per cent in October, according to the latest data from JLL.

More supply, lower home prices to set Hong Kong property trends in early 2024

Given that new office towers with prime office space – such as the 41-storey Cheung Kong Center II with 550,000 sq ft and the 36-storey The Henderson with 465,000 sq ft – are set to come on stream in Central, the decline in office rents is likely to persist this year, Tse said.

“There will be more deals like this, because as I said, rents have become more attractive now,” he said. “In November, I had a deal where a headhunting company moved from a grade B office building in Kowloon to a grade B office building in Central. The new lease gave them 1,500 sq ft of space at HK$28 per square foot.

“The company boss said it was a good chance for them to move to Central and it will help to upgrade the company’s image.”

What’s at stake for China as border tensions flare between Iran and Pakistan?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3249146/whats-stake-china-border-tensions-flare-between-iran-and-pakistan?utm_source=rss_feed

China is expected to step up its engagement to protect its interests in Iran and Pakistan after the two countries mounted tit-for-tat attacks in each other’s border areas this week, analysts say.

But the attacks – the latest episode in a turbulent area at the centre of an independence movement that also involves part of Afghanistan – are unlikely to descend into broader conflict, they say.

Two children died on Tuesday night when Iran fired on two targets in Balochistan province in Pakistan, according to Pakistani authorities.

Tehran said it was targeting Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni separatist group that operates mostly in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province bordering Pakistan, where the ethnic Baloch are people seeking independence.

Pakistan hit back on Thursday, killing nine people – including three children – in a border village in Sistan and Baluchistan province, Iran said.

Islamabad said it too was targeting rebel armed groups hiding in Iran.

The strikes triggered a series of diplomatic protests between the two sides.

China, a close partner of both countries, said it was following the situation closely and would like to play “a constructive role” in easing tensions.

The ministry urged Tehran and Islamabad to “remain calm and exercise restraint” and avoid escalation of the tension.

Abdul Basit, an associate research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said the stakes for China were high in both countries.

“Tensions between Islamabad and Tehran are detrimental to Beijing’s economic and geopolitical interests, while a stable Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan region opens several opportunities for China to expand into Central Asia and beyond,” Basit said.

“China still maintains a low-key approach in the Iran-Pakistan tensions. But through backchannel contacts, China will play a more proactive role in bringing tensions … to a close.”

As China’s “iron brother”, Islamabad has a close partnership with Beijing, with cooperation ranging from economic investment to defence.

Pakistan is the largest buyer of China’s weapons. Nearly 54 per cent of China’s major arms export between 2018 and 2022 went to the nation, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Pakistan is also home to dozens of projects related to the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a centrepiece of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The corridor is part of Beijing’s efforts to connect its far west Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea and key components are in Balochistan, one of Pakistan’s poorest provinces.

But the Balochistan Liberation Army, a separatist insurgent group based in the province, has attacked Chinese infrastructure and personnel in protest against Chinese construction in the area.

China and Iran are also forging stronger relations, with the two countries signing an agreement in 2021 reportedly covering areas from investment to defence.

Despite sanctions imposed by the US, China’s oil imports from Iran jumped 48 per cent year on year in the first half of 2023, making Iran its third-largest oil supplier.

Tehran also sees Beijing as an escape route from international isolation. Last year, China helped broker a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Tehran became a member of the Beijing-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in July.

This year, Iran will officially join Brics, an association of five major emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

China banks on stability with Afghanistan belt and road agreement: experts

Zhu Yongbiao, from the school of politics and international relations at Lanzhou University, said that maintaining border security, especially curbing the rise of separatist forces in the region, was crucial for China for economic and political reasons.

“[A stable border situation] will be beneficial for China in terms of belt and road project construction. Meanwhile, if the conflict escalates, the degradation of the security environment may affect China’s western border, which [China] does not want to happen,” he said.

Zhu said Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan often accused each other of harbouring terrorist organisations and further escalation would affect Afghanistan.

China is looking to Taliban-controlled Kabul for help to contain the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which Beijing blames for violence and ethnic tensions in Xinjiang.

Iran and Pakistan are also two crucial partners for China in its counterterrorism efforts in the region. Last year, China began regular anti-terror talks with Pakistan and Iran “to tackle the cross-border movement of terrorists”, the first dialogue of its kind with Iran and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, since Iran and Pakistan are both members of the SCO, an escalation may undermine Beijing’s ambition to lead the Global South, according to Zhu.

“The SCO’s major responsibility is to maintain cooperation on security. If two of its members clash, that will seriously affect the SCO’s reliability and its capability, which is bad for Beijing,” Zhu said.

Basit said tensions between Iran and Pakistan were not expected to escalate and both countries could use diplomatic channels to resolve the situation, especially as Pakistan headed into a general election next month, and Iran faced greater security challenges over conflicts in the Middle East from Gaza to the Red Sea.

Zhu added that the border clashes between Pakistan and Iran had continued for a long time and the two countries had plenty of experience in de-escalation.

US Fed fines Industrial and Commercial Bank of China for lapses in bank secrecy, sharing of data

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3249154/us-fed-fines-industrial-and-commercial-bank-china-lapses-bank-secrecy-sharing-data?utm_source=rss_feed

The US Federal Reserve fined Industrial and Commercial Bank of China US$2.43 million for improper use of financial-supervision information.

The New York Department of Financial Services, which also oversees the bank’s branch in the state, hit the firm with an additional US$30 million penalty.

“Confidential supervisory information includes reports of bank examinations and other confidential communications by banking regulators,” the Fed said in a statement Friday. “It is illegal to disclose confidential supervisory information without prior approval of the appropriate banking regulator.”

The Fed said it found that ICBC, the world’s largest lender by assets, lacked any formal policies, procedures, training or other internal controls to instruct employees on the proper handling of confidential supervisory information, or the prevention of unauthorised dissemination and use of such data.

ICBC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The New York Department of Financial Services said in a separate statement on Friday that its fine and a consent order with ICBC follow an investigation into the company’s compliance failures, including multiple deficiencies in the New York branch’s Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money-Laundering compliance programme from 2018 through 2022.

The investigation found that a former New York branch employee backdated several compliance documents at the direction of colleague, and that ICBC failed to report the misconduct to the department in a timely manner, according to the statement. ICBC also unlawfully disclosed confidential supervisory information to an overseas regulator, the department said, without specifying the regulator.

“Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money-Laundering laws and regulations are critical national-security protections, safeguarding financial markets and consumers from bad actors,” said Department of Financial Services Superintendent Adrienne Harris said in the statement.

ICBC flies top executives to US in race to contain LockBit hack fallout

“Regulated institutions must be held accountable for failing to adhere to New York’s rigorous legal and regulatory standards.”

An order by the Fed requires ICBC to submit, within 90 days, a written plan for enhancing internal controls and compliance functions around the handling of confidential supervisory information, among other reforms.

The plan must be acceptable to the Fed and adopted within 10 days. Then, within 3O days after the end of each quarter, the bank must submit progress reports on its reforms.

The Fed’s order against comes after the bank’s US unit was hit by a cyberattack in November, rendering it unable to clear swathes of US Treasury trades after entities responsible for settling the transactions swiftly disconnected from the stricken systems.

Senior Chinese and US finance officials agree to ‘continue to meet regularly’ amid discord

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3249155/senior-chinese-and-us-finance-officials-agree-continue-meet-regularly-amid-discord?utm_source=rss_feed

Senior finance officials from the world’s two largest economies pledged to continue communication and deepen engagement after two days of meetings in Beijing concluded on Friday.

The third meeting of the Financial Working Group between China and the United States ended with “both sides agreeing to continue to meet regularly”, according to a readout from the US Treasury Department.

During a separate meeting with the American delegation on Friday, Vice-Premier He Lifeng said China was willing to work with the US to implement the important consensus reached in San Francisco, according to Xinhua, referring to the one-on-one meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum last November.

Beijing was also willing to promote the development of bilateral relations in a healthy, stable and sustainable direction, the news agency reported.

“Both sides should continue to make good use of the Financial Working Group mechanism, continue to accumulate results and consolidate the momentum of cooperation in the financial field,” He was quoted as saying.

The high-level dialogue comes at a time of serious economic headwinds for China and as the country sees a steep decline in its exports to the US.

Beijing’s challenges can be traced to a harder policy stance adopted by Washington. The Biden administration has moved to restrict US investments in China as it diversifies American supply chains away from the Asian giant.

However, the likelihood of the two sides resolving their differences appears limited, particularly because of political positioning in a US election year, according to Yun Sun of the Stimson Centre, a Washington-based think tank.

Sino-American ties competitive despite being ‘notably stabilised’: US envoy

“There is no illusion that the [Biden] administration could remove things including investment restrictions, tariffs and de-risking measures. In fact, there possibly will be more,” said Sun, observing that “the Chinese understand that”.

“There could potentially be things that Washington will need Beijing to work with it on,” she added, including the purchase of US Treasury bonds as well as stable fiscal and monetary policy, with much depending on “the overall health” of bilateral ties.

The Financial Working Group, launched in September along with an Economic Working Group, aims to serve as a channel to facilitate progress on bilateral financial policy matters. He and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen lead the two groups.

The American side in its readout also indicated that Yellen, who visited Beijing in July, “looks forward to a return visit to China at the appropriate time”.

Officials attending the first meeting of the new working group held in China discussed financial stability and capital markets issues, international financial institutions, sustainable finance, cross-border payments and data, and anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, according to statements from both sides.

The meeting included a review of technical exchanges that were held between the two sides in December and January on climate stress-testing and respective resolution-planning frameworks for global systemically important banks as designated by the Swiss-based Financial Stability Board of the Bank for International Settlements.

“The two sides had a professional, pragmatic and practical discussion on … issues of major concern to both parties,” according to a statement from the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank.

Meanwhile, “US officials also frankly raised areas of disagreement during the conversations”, according to the Treasury readout.

After years of emulating the West, China starts to turn on ‘predatory’ finance

The PBOC led the meetings in Beijing, during which Pan Gongsheng, China’s central bank governor, attended. Pan was joined by officials from China’s finance ministry, securities regulators and foreign exchange watchdog.

American members of the delegation led by the Treasury Department included representatives from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve.

Sino-American tensions have risen sharply in recent years amid ongoing trade disputes, a simmering tech war, Washington’s de-risking efforts as well as controversies over Taiwan, which Beijing sees as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary.

Most countries, including the US, 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 supplying it with weapons.

The meeting in November between Xi and Biden was their first face-to-face encounter in a year, and it delivered modest deals on military communication, drug controls and artificial intelligence, hitting a pause on the deteriorating bilateral ties.

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Chinese embassy warns of plastic surgery risks in South Korea after liposuction death

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3249158/chinese-embassy-warns-plastic-surgery-risks-south-korea-after-liposuction-death?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s embassy in Seoul has warned citizens against the dangers of having plastic surgery done in South Korea, from the risk of death to major facial changes that make it difficult to pass through immigration checks.

South Korea is one of the world’s most popular destinations for medical tourism, canvassing foreign patients in the past decade, the bulk of whom come from China and the United States, data provider Statista says.

“In recent years, many foreigners have come to South Korea for cosmetic surgery, and some people have been involved in medical disputes and surgical failures and even deaths have occurred,” the Chinese embassy said in a note to the public.

The note follows the death this month of a Chinese woman after receiving liposuction surgery three times at a plastic surgery clinic in the Gangnam area of the capital, the Yonhap news agency said on Wednesday, citing police.

Reuters could not immediately reach a representative of the Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons to seek comment outside business hours.

The embassy asked citizens to be wary of advertising and take note of the risks, while choosing intermediaries carefully and checking the legitimacy of medical institutions or surgeons, signing clear contracts and retaining full records.

Model’s liposuction death puts spotlight on risks of visiting shady salons

“If there is a major change in [your] post-operative appearance, or if you are still in the post-operative recovery stage, you should bring the surgical certificate when you leave the country,” the embassy added.

Such a precaution would help avoid complications with check-in or subsequent entry and exit procedures, it said.

South Korea had 2,718 plastic surgeons in 2022, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, a number similar to China’s estimated 3,000 surgeons, despite a population that is 28 times the size of South Korea’s.

China“s Population Declines Again in 2023

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China announced recently that the country’s mainland population fell by 2 million people in 2023.

This drop is the second yearly decrease in population, adding to concerns about the country’s future economic growth.

The National Bureau of Statistics said the total number of people in China dropped by 2.08 million, or 0.15 percent, to 1.409 billion in 2023. The numbers are estimates based on studies and do not include Hong Kong and Macao. China does a full population count, or census, every 10 years.

Increased deaths and decreased fertility

The number of deaths rose by 690,000 to 11.1 million, more than twice the increase recorded in 2022. Population experts said the aging of the population and COVID-19 outbreaks account for most of the rise.

But the data also suggested important information about the number of births, which fell by 540,000, or 5.6 percent. The drop was smaller than the decreases of the past three years.

Still, the decreasing birth rate suggests that the fertility rate is a long-term economic and societal problem for China.

The lower fertility rate, together with people living longer because of better health care, means China is slowly growing older.

Demographer Zuo Xuejin, formerly of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, estimated that the proportion of the population that is 65 or older could double to more than 30 percent by 2050.

These population changes could slow economic growth over time.

Economic issues

High childcare and education costs are pressing issues in family planning among married Chinese. Women are having fewer babies despite government incentives and the easing of its one-child policy in recent years.

Other economic issues reduced interest in baby-making. Youth unemployment hit record highs, wages for many white-collar workers fell, and a crisis in the property sector, where more than two-thirds of household wealth is stored, grew worse.

The data adds to concerns that the world's number two economy faces reduced growth due to fewer workers and buyers, as well as rising costs of care for old people and retirement payments.

The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences sees the retirement system running out of money by 2035.

Zhu Guoping, a 57-year-old farmer in northwestern Gansu province, said his yearly income of about $2,779 leaves his family with little savings.

He will receive a $22 monthly pension once he turns 60.

"The money is definitely not enough," Zhu said. "Maybe our children can provide us with some support in the future."

Other countries

Births in China have been dropping for many years as a result of the one-child policy that was in place from 1980 to 2015. In addition, the country saw fast urbanization during that time. Large populations moved from China's rural farms into cities where the costs of growing a family were higher.

Other countries in the region also face long-term population problems. Japan's birth rate was 6.3 per 1,000 people in 2022, while South Korea's rate was 4.9.

"As we have observed again and again from other low fertility countries, fertility decline is often very difficult to reverse," University of Michigan demographer Zhou Yun said.

I’m John Russell.

 

John Russell adapted this story from Reuters and AP reports.

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Words in This Story

proportion – n. an amount that is a part of a whole

urbanization – n. the process by which cities become larger as more and more people begin living and working in central areas

incentive -- n. something that encourages a person to do something

reverse – v. to undo or negate the effect of

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