• At a UN review, China basks in the flattery of friendly countries | China
• China and US ‘step in the right direction’ with top-level talks in Thailand
• As Philippines plans to upgrade South China Sea outposts, Beijing weighs options
• China father becomes lawyer to get justice for son, 11, who leapt to his death after being verbally abused by teacher
• Donald Trump is preparing for a massive new trade war with China
• Chinese villages offer cash rewards to matchmakers as anxieties grow over rural ‘bachelor crisis’
• China’s clean energy boom ‘an example to the entire world’, IEA analyst says
• Hong Kong schools hit by falling enrolments hope to woo more mainland Chinese students at second education exposition
• US visit firms speculation Liu Jianchao will be China’s next foreign minister
• Woman spends night in China hotel with man she met online, shares bed to ‘test’ his powers of restraint, claims rape
• A new diplomatic struggle is unfolding over Taiwan | China
• The Chinese scientists leaving top US universities to take up high-profile roles in China, boosting Beijing in its race for global talent
• China, Malaysia nearing new durian deal, and an extension of visa-free travel is on the table
• Did Chinese explorers from the Ming dynasty travel to the Americas decades before Columbus?
• Samsung to integrate Baidu’s AI model into new Galaxy S24 handsets, as mainland Chinese rivals push new smartphones with similar tech

At a UN review, China basks in the flattery of friendly countries | China

https://www.economist.com/china/2024/01/25/at-a-un-review-china-basks-in-the-flattery-of-friendly-countries

Once every five years or so, each UN member state has to have its human-rights record examined under a so-called Universal Procedural Review (UPR) overseen by the body’s Human Rights Council. Every country in the UN may pose questions and recommendations to the state under review. This week China had its turn. The event merely illustrated its success in creating a split between most countries in the global south, which tended to flatter China with friendly questions, and Western democracies, which castigated it.

Rights campaigners had hoped the UPR would offer scrutiny of China’s many abuses since its last review in 2018. It would be the first discussion of China’s human rights within the UN since the body published a report in 2022 alleging possible crimes against humanity in the region of Xinjiang, home to the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. China has since blocked attempts to discuss the report.

This latest review was largely farcical. More than 160 countries had asked to make speeches; thus each got just 45 seconds. China had reportedly lobbied non-Western countries beforehand to fill up the time with praise and talking points. Most of them lauded China for alleviating poverty. Most effusive were those in heavy debt or in tight geopolitical alignment, such as Iran, Laos and Russia. Few Muslim countries mentioned China’s brutal treatment of the mostly Muslim Uyghurs. Many countries echoed Chinese terms such as “people-oriented philosophy of human rights” and “whole-process democracy”. These are jargon for the idea that security, stability and rising living standards should take priority over individual freedoms.

Western countries and some democracies elsewhere spoke up against China’s abuses, with an emphasis on Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang. At least 50 states made recommendations such as ending arbitrary detention and forced disappearances. Six states said China should stop “residential surveillance at a designated location”, a form of extralegal pre-trial detention used by China’s ministry of state security. Twenty states touched on Tibet, more than double the number who raised it in 2018. Several called for China to abolish a boarding-school system that separates Tibetan children from their families to assimilate them into majority-Han Chinese culture.

Some developing countries also made criticisms, albeit couched in soft language. Thirteen states, including several Latin American democracies, urged China to allow unfettered visits by UN experts. This shows that some countries in the global south do want China to stop flouting UN rules, says Raphael Viana David of the International Service for Human Rights, a campaigning group. But the UPR has no enforcement teeth. So China still happily uses it to promote the notion of the bullying West versus the righteous rest. ■

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China and US ‘step in the right direction’ with top-level talks in Thailand

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3250024/china-and-us-step-right-direction-top-level-talks-thailand?utm_source=rss_feed

Talks in Thailand between Chinese and American officials will help further stabilise fragile ties, as the rival powers explore opportunities to cooperate on hotspot issues from North Korea to the Middle East, according to observers.

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi and US national security adviser Jake Sullivan sat down in Bangkok on Friday and Saturday for what Beijing described as “candid, substantive and fruitful strategic communication” on properly handling “important and sensitive issues” in bilateral ties.

Experts described the talks, the third between the pair in a year, as “a step in the right direction” to help maintain high-level dialogue.

But they cautioned against expectations of breakthroughs on major irritants from Taiwan to the South China Sea, and said relations were expected to remain bumpy, especially in the lead-up to the US elections.

The meeting is the most senior dialogue between the two countries since Chinese President Xi Jinping met his US counterpart Joe Biden in San Francisco in November.

It is also the latest in a flurry of high-level exchanges, including the resumption of top-level military communication last month and the US visit early this month by Liu Jianchao, head of the Communist Party’s International Liaison Department.

According to the Chinese foreign ministry, Wang urged Washington to “learn lessons” from the 45 years of bilateral ties.

“[We should] treat each other as equals instead of being condescending, seek common ground while reserving differences instead of highlighting differences, respect each other’s core interests instead of harming each other’s core interests, and work together to build a correct way of getting along with China and the United States through mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation,” he said.

US tipped to press China on Houthi Red Sea attacks in talks in Thailand

Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations scholar, said the meeting between Wang and Sullivan was part of a process to improve ties strained by an intensifying geopolitical and ideological rivalry.

Shen said the two men would have to address how to implement the consensus reached between Xi and Biden in San Francisco.

“First and foremost, [they will] need to focus on the situation in the Taiwan Strait” following the island’s presidential election earlier this month, he said.

Beijing sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be reunited, by force if necessary. The United States, like most countries, does not recognise Taiwan as an independent state but is opposed to any unilateral change to the status quo.

Wang, Xi’s top foreign policy aide, said the Taiwan issue was China’s “internal affair” and “the regional election in Taiwan cannot change the basic fact that Taiwan is a part of China”.

“The biggest risk to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is ‘Taiwan independence’, and the biggest challenge to China-US relations is also ‘Taiwan independence’,” he was quoted as saying.

He urged Washington to stick to “the one-China principle” and “put its commitment not to support Taiwan independence into action, and support China’s peaceful reunification”.

“All countries have national security concerns, but they must be legitimate and reasonable, and cannot be politicised and securitised, let alone used to contain and suppress the development of other countries,” Wang was quoted as saying.

The Chinese statement said both sides agreed that the two heads of state would maintain regular contact and Beijing and Washington would promote military and other exchanges “at all levels in all fields” and “further discuss the boundary between national security and economic activities”.

It said Wang and Sullivan also discussed the situation in the Middle East, Ukraine, the Korean peninsula and the South China Sea.

Beijing has stepped up military pressure on Taiwan after the self-ruled island elected William Lai Ching-te as its new president, paving the way for a third successive term in office for the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party.

After the announcement of the Wang-Sullivan meeting, Beijing’s People’s Liberation Army sent more than 30 warplanes and a group of navy ships towards Taiwan, according to the island’s defence ministry.

“Neither Beijing nor Washington wants the new government in Taiwan to change the status quo. The two countries will have to work together to some extent to maintain the stability across the Taiwan Strait,” Shen said.

While Beijing and Washington may not be able to bridge their differences on Taiwan, the South China Sea and hi-tech restrictions, they could “explore opportunities to cooperate and even partner” on other regional issues, Shen said.

“There are other emerging regional tensions to talk about, such as a safe shipping lane in the Red Sea, and the situation in and around the Korean peninsula,” he said.

Firms eye Plan B ahead of Lunar New Year as Red Sea crisis roils supply chains

Tensions on the peninsula flared again earlier this month after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un designated Seoul as the North’s “principal enemy”.

Beijing sent vice foreign minister Sun Weidong on Thursday to Pyongyang, where he met North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui. The two countries pledged to strengthen tactical cooperation and defend common interests, Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency reported on Saturday.

Beijing has also been engaging in cautious diplomatic activity in relation to the Red Sea, with China expressing concerns over the escalating situation.

According to The Financial Times, US officials have “repeatedly raised” the matter with their Chinese counterparts over the past three months, including during Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s meeting with Liu.

Citing Iranian sources, Reuters reported on Friday that China had exerted pressure on Iran during meetings in Beijing and Tehran, asking Iran to help rein in attacks on ships in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthis, or risk harming business relations with Beijing.

China vows to work with North Korea on regional stability as tensions escalate

But Lu Xiang, an expert from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, argued China’s peace-brokering efforts in the Red Sea and on the Korean peninsula had nothing to do with the Biden administration’s repeated appeals to Beijing to use its influence.

“China has an interest in stability and security in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, on the Korean peninsula and in the Middle East,” he said.

According to Lu, Beijing is concerned that escalation of the Red Sea crisis will deal a devastating blow to trade between Europe and Asia.

“China will definitely help broker peace in the region given its friendly relationship with Iran. But the conflict between the United States and Iran is not caused by China,” he said.

Lu said that for Beijing, the US demand for China’s help was “duplicitous” given Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy was aimed at curbing Beijing’s involvement in the Indian Ocean.

“The main purpose of the [Wang-Sullivan] meeting is to maintain communication. Aside from that, it is hard to have high expectations for bilateral ties. And we may need to prepare for possible major changes in the US,” he said, referring to the possibility of Donald Trump returning to power for a second term in the November election.

Li Mingjiang, an associate professor at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said the meeting between Wang and Sullivan remained one of the most important mechanisms for bilateral strategic dialogue.

“Their dialogue is significant because it is focused more on some of the big, fundamental security and strategic issues that could have important bilateral and global impact,” he said.

But it would be unrealistic to expect any substantive progress out of the meeting, which was largely a platform for strategic communications and trust-building, according to Li.

The pair met twice last year – in Vienna in May and then in Malta in September.

As Philippines plans to upgrade South China Sea outposts, Beijing weighs options

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3250018/philippines-plans-upgrade-south-china-sea-outposts-beijing-weighs-options?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing likely views Manila’s plan to upgrade its South China Sea outposts as a provocation, but it appears to be taking a “wait and see” approach rather than reacting swiftly, according to analysts.

Observers said Beijing would likely succeed in disrupting Manila’s project – if it indeed goes ahead – but any US involvement in helping the Philippines would complicate China’s available options.

In the past year, tensions have brewed between China and the Philippines over the Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed reef in the South China Sea, resulting in face-offs involving lasers, water cannons and collisions near several military outposts in the strategically important waterway.

Philippine military chief Romeo Brawner last week announced a plan to upgrade all nine territorial features Manila occupies in the region – mostly islands, shoals and reefs – by installing desalination machines and communications equipment and making other improvements for troops deployed there.

The military also plans to install desalination machines on the BRP Sierra Madre, an ageing warship that was deliberately grounded on the Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 to assert Manila’s territorial claims. Brawner noted that the ship would not be fortified as part of the development plan.

China has regularly sent ships to patrol the area and has urged the Philippines to remove the rusting vessel based on what it described as a “promise” by Manila. However, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has denied the promise was ever made.

Beijing’s response to Manila’s plan has been muted so far, with the Chinese foreign ministry warning that it firmly opposed “illegal construction” on the Philippines-controlled islands and reefs.

Chinese defence ministry spokesman Senior Colonel Wu Qian issued a similar warning on Thursday, saying the Philippines should take responsibility for deteriorating ties between the countries and urging Manila to avoid the “wrong path”.

“We urge the Philippine side to respect history, recognise the reality, and do not go further down the wrong path … However, if the Philippine side insists on taking its own course, we will surely take firm countermeasures,” he added.

Zhang Mingliang, an associate professor specialising in Southeast Asian studies at Jinan University in Guangzhou, said China was taking a “wait and see approach” right now.

According to Zhang, Beijing is probably sceptical about whether the upgrades will be carried out as there have been other occasions when the Philippines announced projects that were never completed.

He added that Beijing might be observing the situation and holding back from responding until the Philippines took concrete steps to implement the upgrade.

“It is still too early to tell whether Manila’s plan will move forward … and Beijing will respond resolutely and impose a blockade on [Philippine] vessels if they proceed,” Zhang added.

Will US-Philippine military ties make Manila a Chinese target?

Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, agreed that Beijing’s response was largely as expected, but it was still too early for a fierce reaction.

“What China is trying to do is to simply maintain a certain escalation ladder. So by first sending a verbal warning, it tests the response of Manila and sees what Manila will do next, and then Beijing will calibrate the response thereafter,” Koh said.

“Obviously, Beijing will not view the upgrade plan kindly, and it will view it as Manila’s provocation.”

However, Amanda Hsiao, a senior China analyst with the International Crisis Group, said Beijing had no choice but to act strongly to deter Manila.

“A key concern for Beijing is that if it does not respond forcefully enough to Manila’s assertions of sovereignty, the Marcos administration will – from China’s point of view – take even more public and provocative actions,” Hsiao said.

Koh said Manila’s decision to make upgrades came later than might be expected, as its outposts in the South China Sea were less developed than those of other claimant states.

He said the main purpose of the Philippines’ plan was to maintain a constant presence in the South China Sea to offset its lack of capable offshore vessels. Upgrading facilities on these features could help minimise the frequency of vessel rotations and resupply missions, Koh added.

According to Brawner, the Philippines’ upgrade plan will cover Thitu Island, Nanshan Island, as well as the Second Thomas Shoal, known as Renai Jiao in China and Ayungin to the Philippines.

Thitu Island, known to Manila as Pag-asa and to China as Zhongye, lies about 500km (310 miles) west of the Philippine island of Palawan. It is the largest feature occupied by Manila in the region, with a coastguard station, an airstrip and a landing ramp, and is home to around 200 people.

Experts agreed that if the Philippines went forward with the plan, it would amount to heightened tensions between the two countries, and any possible external help for Manila could complicate Beijing’s calibrations.

“If Manila decides to proceed with the construction activities unilaterally, then there is a good chance that Beijing will blockade and might be successful in disrupting this project,” Koh said, adding that having external help would give Manila the best chances of success.

However, he noted that Beijing might play the long game by imposing a blockade around the Second Thomas Shoal and thwarting any incoming Philippine vessels carrying materials, without necessarily ramping up tensions.

“If they keep doing that, then it may reach a point where Manila will be frustrated and give up on the project,” Koh said.

China to ‘respond resolutely’ if Philippines builds structure on disputed reef

Nonetheless, the Philippines is the only country involved in the South China Sea disputes that maintains a mutual defence treaty with the United States, meaning that any armed attack on Philippine public vessels, aircraft and armed forces would oblige the US to help.

“The only question is whether the Americans will actually help. Because when the Americans keep talking about ironclad commitment to the alliance, they never say to what extent,” Koh said.

“Does it mean the US will stand by Manila’s actions all the time and for all scenarios?”

Under the Marcos administration, Manila has stepped up its defence posture against what it called China’s “aggressive activities” in the waterway and has regularly publicised Beijing’s actions.

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

Security engagement between the Philippines and like-minded countries has increased and American air and naval forces have become more visible in the area.

In November, the US and the Philippines conducted their first maritime and air patrols and held three days of military drills near Taiwan and the South China Sea, while their second joint patrol finished in early January.

Several days after the first patrol with the US in November, the Philippines also conducted a joint patrol with Australia. Japan, another of Washington’s regional allies, has also provided Manila coastal surveillance radars and patrol vessels.

Considering Washington and its allies, Beijing must walk a delicate balance, Hsiao said.

Beijing has to show force to re-establish control in its dynamic with Manila while avoiding direct confrontation with the US and preventing it from deepening its security commitments with the Philippines, she said.

Observers said that if Washington actively supported Manila’s construction activities, tensions would escalate. This would complicate China’s available options because it would then have to directly confront American vessels.

“The degree of Beijing’s strong response depends on the scenario itself. So how many options are available to Beijing?” Koh said.

He said that if Beijing only needed to deal with Manila, it would have a lot more options, “but if the US is involved, its options are more constrained”.

Last weekend, the Philippines was reported to have successfully resupplied personnel stationed at the BRP Sierra Madre through airdrops – a method it last used in 2014.

But experts said airdrops were not very efficient as they could only deliver a limited amount of supplies and were constrained by weather and water conditions.

China father becomes lawyer to get justice for son, 11, who leapt to his death after being verbally abused by teacher

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3248742/china-father-becomes-lawyer-get-justice-son-11-who-leapt-his-death-after-being-verbally-abused?utm_source=rss_feed

A grieving father in China who gave up his job as a traffic police officer to become a lawyer so he could fight the case of his son who took his own life after being abused by a teacher has moved many people on mainland social media.

Zhang Dingjie and his wife Wang Beilei have been fighting for justice for their only son, Zhang Kuan, for the past two years.

The 11-year-old took his own life by jumping off the roof of a 24-floor storey building opposite his primary school, in eastern China’s Jiangxi province, on November 9, 2021.

The youngster had left a note which said: “My death has nothing to do with my parents, society or the country. It is only relevant to Zou, who used violent measures.”

Zou was Zhang’s teacher and was in charge of his class.

Shortly after their son’s death, the couple checked surveillance video from the school and discovered Zou repeatedly abused their son verbally in front of the class on the day he died.

Prior to the tragedy, Zou had accused Zhang of lying because he had not handed in a test paper which he had never received.

The teacher also embarrassed the youngster by asking him how poor he was because there was a ripped page in his notebook.

Zhang senior said his son became upset and began looking at the high-rise building outside the classroom window.

The tragic child’s father said Zou had suggested multiple times that her students “should just jump off the building opposite the school”, an accusation Zou has denied.

The father collected evidence and became a lawyer to launch a criminal lawsuit against the teacher .

Zou, who was removed from her teaching position two months after the boy’s death, was acquitted in the first trial in August 2023, but equipment problems meant that the hearing did not see the surveillance video evidence.

Zhang senior took the teacher back to court in November last year and is waiting for a verdict.

Since becoming a lawyer, the father has been giving legal help to other parents who lost their children in similar situations, earning praise on mainland social media.

His wife, who is a psychological counsellor, has also offered free services to nearly 100 families like hers.

“Since our son’s death, protecting all the other children like him has become our mission,” the couple said.

Donald Trump is preparing for a massive new trade war with China

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/01/27/trump-china-trade-war/2024-01-25T20:54:50.928Z

Former president Donald Trump is weighing options for a major new economic attack on China if reelected, considering plans that are widely viewed as likely to spark a global trade war.

Publicly, the GOP front-runner has endorsed downgrading China’s trade status with the United States — a move that would lead tariffs between the world’s two largest economies to skyrocket. Revoking China’s status as a “most favored nation” for trade — which is applied to almost all countries the United States trades with — could lead to federal tariffs on Chinese imports of more than 40 percent, according to one analysis. Trump has floated imposing a 10 percent tariff on nearly all $3 trillion in annual imports from all countries, including China.

Privately, Trump has discussed with advisers the possibility of imposing a flat 60 percent tariff on all Chinese imports, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to relay private conversations.

All these options would lead to enormous disruptions to the U.S. and global economies that would far surpass the impact of the trade wars of Trump’s first term, economists of both parties say. Although he often praised Xi Jinping as president and signed a 2020 trade deal with China, Trump now repeatedly bashes Beijing on the campaign trail and has promised a tougher stance than President Biden.

Trump’s determination to ratchet up trade fights with Beijing reflects the emerging economic stakes of the 2024 election, as the former president appears increasingly sure of winning the GOP nomination. Trump has floated some fanciful new ideas for his second term — like building “Freedom Cities” in different parts of the United States with flying cars — but has primarily focused on intensifying policies he pursued during his first term, such as a severe immigration crackdown, cuts to corporate taxes and disruptive new tariffs on U.S. trading partners.

“The 2018 to 2019 trade war was immensely damaging, and this would go so far beyond that it’s hard to even compare to that,” said Erica York, senior economist at the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank that opposes the tariffs. “This threatens to upend and fragment global trade to an extent we haven’t seen in centuries.”

A Trump campaign spokesman did not return requests for comment.

Biden has largely maintained the tariffs that Trump imposed on China as president in 2018 and has also imposed new restrictions on the Chinese economy, including new limits on semiconductors and other manufacturing equipment.

Trump, however, is promising to go even further. In the White House and on the campaign trail, Trump has argued that tariffs on imports bolster domestic industry while raising money for the federal government, ignoring — or dismissing — economists of both parties who say they raise costs for U.S. consumers and producers. Trump repeatedly boasts of bringing in billions of dollars to U.S. coffers through the tariffs of his first term, though he added roughly $8 trillion to the national debt during his first term through higher spending and tax cuts. He also approved roughly $30 billion in a bailout to compensate farmers who had been hurt by retaliatory tariffs imposed by China.

Despite tariffs’ destabilizing impact on the global and U.S. economies, Trump has promised to dramatically expand their use in a second term. He has floated enacting a “universal baseline tariff” on virtually all imports, or roughly $3 trillion worth of goods, which would amount to more than a ninefold increase in the amount of goods subject to tariffs compared with his first term. He has also talked about pushing legislation to have the United States automatically impose “reciprocal” tariffs matching those of all countries on U.S. exports, which would almost certainly lead to a sharp rise of trade hostilities.

But Trump’s plans for China may be the most dramatic — and disruptive. Both publicly and privately, Trump has talked about his China tariffs as a key accomplishment of his first term — despite the opposition of many Republican officeholders — and vowed to double down on that approach if elected again.

China was the third-largest U.S. trading partner as of November, behind only Mexico and Canada, accounting for 11.7 percent of total U.S. foreign trade.

“I took on Communist China like no administration in history, bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars pouring right into our Treasury when no other president had gotten even literally 10 cents out of China,” Trump said in New Hampshire before he won that state’s primary contest. “Nobody even tried. We took in hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Most economists say these costs were primarily paid by U.S. consumers and firms, not by China’s government or the Communist Party.

U.S. consumers and firms would probably bear the brunt of a renewed China trade war. In a report commissioned by the U.S.-China Business Council, Oxford Economics found in November that ending permanent normal trade relations with China would cost the U.S. economy $1.6 trillion and lead to more than 700,000 lost jobs. Several prominent congressional Republicans have also endorsed this measure, though.

The United States imported roughly $550 billion of products from China in 2022, the most recent year with data available. The current average tariff rate on those goods was about 12 percent — Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on roughly $150 billion in goods, and an additional 7.5 percent on another $100 billion, while the remaining imports from China were taxed at a roughly 2 or 3 percent rate on average, York of the Tax Foundation said.

Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank, has called Trump’s trade proposals “lunacy” and argued that this kind of crackdown on Chinese imports would hurt U.S. firms by depriving them of billions of potential customers.

“If a Trump administration were to put up much higher tariffs on imports from China, American companies would lose most of their market share in both China and many third countries,” Posen said.

Trump and his defenders often argue that the tariffs primarily serve as a strategic tool to force foreign adversaries to adjust deceptive trade practices. Policymakers of both parties now argue that China’s economic policies — including artificially devaluing its currency to support exports — have undermined U.S. manufacturing, and Trump sometimes discusses tariffs as a way to force Beijing to change course.

“He believes the tariffs he imposed in his first term raised a great deal of revenue for the American people,” said Newt Gingrich, the former GOP House speaker and an outside adviser to the former president. “I know from personal conversations with Trump that he believes deeply that having the tool of tariffs allows you to negotiate from a position of strength, because we still have the largest market in the world.”

The Tax Foundation found that the Trump tariffs — most of which were kept in place by the Biden administration — reduced long-term wages by 0.14 percent and employment by 166,000 jobs. The Coalition for a Prosperous America, a group that supports the tariffs, has found that they help drive domestic investment with minimal impact on prices.

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Chinese villages offer cash rewards to matchmakers as anxieties grow over rural ‘bachelor crisis’

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3250010/chinese-villages-offer-cash-rewards-matchmakers-anxieties-grow-over-rural-bachelor-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed

Local governments in China are offering cash rewards and other incentives to matchmakers, an ancient profession now back in the spotlight amid anxieties over rural unmarried men.

Village governments across the country, from Guangdong province in the south to Shaanxi in the northwest, have announced rewards ranging from 600 to 1,000 yuan (US$84 to US$140) for matchmakers if they introduce women to unmarried men aged 30 and above and the pair eventually marry in the village, Chinese news site The Paper reported on Saturday.

Most of the incentive programmes will start in January or February, according to the report.

Focus on people not numbers, China told, as it faces unavoidable birth decline

From January 1, the village council of Xiangjiazhuang village in Shaanxi will give 1,000 yuan to those who introduce an unmarried man to a woman he eventually marries. The village is home to about 270 households and more than 40 unmarried men between the ages of 25 and 40, the report said.

According to China’s 2020 census, the country has 722 million men and 690 million women, with the gender imbalance most prominent among those born during the one-child policy from 1980-2015.

In 2021, the gender ratio in rural areas was about 108 men for every 100 women, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

China now has about 30 million unmarried men, and some policymakers fear the surplus of single men could affect social stability and economic development.

The problem is more pronounced in rural areas where the preference for boys over girls is more deeply ingrained and many women leave to work in the cities, said Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies Chinese demographics.

In recent years, deputies to the National People’s Congress and political advisers at various levels have proposed measures to address the difficulties rural men face in finding wives.

“Simple cash incentives can’t possibly solve the bachelor crisis in rural China,” Yi said.

“The high rate of youth unemployment nowadays also contributes to the low marriage rate. Young men cannot afford to support their families, so of course they cannot afford to get married,” he said.

“Now that China’s local governments are in a debt crisis, it is difficult for the authorities to introduce higher incentives to promote fertility, let alone marriage,” Yi added.

China reported a population drop for the second consecutive year in 2023, along with a record-low birth rate.

The population of mainland China fell by 2.08 million last year to 1.4097 billion, down from 1.4118 billion in 2022, according to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) earlier this month.

‘Obedient’: China ‘matchmaker’ sets ‘bride price’ payments of up to US$25,000

“I think even young women from rural areas are not interested in getting married despite the current marriage and childbirth [incentive] policy,” said Yang Zi, a migrant worker from central China in her late 20s who works at a hair salon in Guangzhou.

“I want to live in a rich and developed area. A rural young man can’t offer the lifestyle I want,” she said.

Gen Z women in China are significantly less willing to get married than their male peers. According to a 2021 Communist Youth League survey of 2,905 unmarried urban youths aged 18 to 26, 43.9 per cent of women said they did not want to get married or were unsure about marriage, while just 24.6 per cent of men responded the same way.

China’s Generation Z has the biggest gender ratio imbalance of any age group, with 18.27 million more men than women.

China’s clean energy boom ‘an example to the entire world’, IEA analyst says

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3249929/chinas-clean-energy-boom-example-entire-world-iea-analyst-says?utm_source=rss_feed

China has emerged as a leader in renewable energy with production capacity expanding at an unprecedented pace, which an International Energy Agency analyst says will benefit not just the nation but the planet.

What China has achieved is “an example to the entire world”, according to Heymi Bahar, a senior analyst with the IEA.

He made the remarks after the IEA released its annual renewable outlook report earlier this month.

According to the report, China’s renewable energy capacity expansion last year was driven by solar photovoltaic installations, which were equal to the total solar capacity added by the rest of the world in 2022.

Bahar said China was also the biggest producer of solar PV modules, manufacturing around 80 per cent of the modules worldwide.

That had led to a decline in solar module prices of more than an 80 per cent over the last decade, he said.

Other countries are trying to compete against China in solar manufacturing. In the last few years, the United States and European Union have sought to encourage domestic manufacturing, including by offering subsidies for green tech such as solar energy.

India is also seeking to expand domestic solar production capacity. As a result, imports of Chinese solar modules fell by 76 per cent in the first half of 2023 from a year earlier, according to a report by UK-based climate think tank Ember.

Bahar said lower prices for solar modules helped “all countries in the world to expand solar PV deployment”.

Imports could also be vital to meet the global target for renewable energy capacity.

In its report, the IEA said expansion of renewable energy capacity would have to be accelerated worldwide to meet the goal of tripling capacity by 2030 set during the Cop28 UN climate summit last month.

While countries like the United States and Brazil had record increases in their renewable energy capacity last year, China’s additions were far greater.

Bahar said China was “key” to meeting the Cop28 pledge to triple capacity globally, as it accounted for “almost 40 per cent of cumulative installed renewable capacity worldwide”.

In the report, the IEA said that from 2023 to 2028, “China will deploy almost four times more renewable capacity than the European Union and five times more than the United States”.

It said China could even reach its 2030 target of installing a total of 1,200 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity this year – “six years ahead of schedule”.

China engineers complete largest solar farm on Earth in UAE ahead of Cop28

The report also noted that China’s solar PV manufacturing capacity “now strongly exceeds both local and global demand, which has driven module prices down significantly”.

Elsewhere, manufacturing costs are significantly higher. In 2023, it cost an estimated 30 per cent more to make a polysilicon PV module in the US than it did in China, according to the report. In India, the manufacturing cost was 10 per cent higher than in China, and it was 60 per cent higher in the EU.

The IEA expected the price gap to continue widening. It estimated that from 2023 to 2028 it would cost US$12 billion to replace Chinese PV imports with domestically made modules in the United States. The figure was US$8 billion for both the EU and India.

Growth in China’s solar and wind capacity is being driven by a supportive policy environment and the economic attractiveness of renewable technology in the country, according to the report.

It said an estimated 96 per cent of new utility-scale onshore wind and solar PV last year “had lower generation costs than new coal and natural gas plants”. And around 75 per cent of new wind and solar facilities provided cheaper power than existing fossil fuel plants.

China rolled out a “green electricity certificate” scheme nationwide last year as a way to encourage the use of renewable energy and power trading from resource-rich provinces to others.

The programme aligns with “a more market-oriented approach to increase renewable energy integration”, according to Zhang Hao, an associate professor of law at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

China’s voluntary carbon market reboots in ‘milestone’ for emissions goals

He said it could help overcome provincial barriers to trading renewable energy. It might also replace mandates like provincial targets which he said were “unsustainable due to weak regulatory capacities at the central level”.

Zhang said renewable energy would continue to be a policy priority but noted that decentralisation of energy governance complicated Beijing’s control over the sector’s development.

“Addressing vulnerabilities in the supply chain and shifting the focus from capacity addition to integration are crucial needs that deserve attention in the regulatory and policy framework,” he said.

Hong Kong schools hit by falling enrolments hope to woo more mainland Chinese students at second education exposition

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3250002/hong-kong-schools-hit-falling-enrolments-hope-woo-more-mainland-chinese-students-second-education?utm_source=rss_feed

A second education-themed exposition to attract mainland Chinese students to schools in Hong Kong will be held in July, following the success of the first last month.

Stem Plus, a company which worked with four major school councils to organise the Greater Bay Hong Kong Education Expo, said it hoped to have more kindergartens, primary and secondary schools represented at the next fair.

The three-day expo in December had around 130 schools, mainly secondary schools, and drew about 36,000 visitors, mostly mainland Chinese living in Hong Kong or across the border.

Peter Lau Ching-wai, founder and chief executive officer of Stem Plus, expected more than 200 schools at the next fair, from July 5 to 7.

“Many principals are quite positive about the expo as it can really help them with enrolment,” said Lau. “One received 150 application forms during the event.”

He said many parents who attended the event last month asked about kindergartens, but there were only two preschools there.

“We are now liaising with some groups representing the preschool sector to invite kindergartens to join,” he said.

His company coordinated the December event which was organised by the Hong Kong Subsidised Secondary School Council, the Hong Kong Direct Subsidy Scheme Schools Council, the Subsidised Primary Schools Council and the Hong Kong Aided Primary School Heads Association.

Although not involved in the July fair, the councils will take part in a third expo to be held in December.

The city’s schools have begun grappling with falling enrolments as a result of the shrinking number of births, which fell from 52,900 in 2019 to 43,000 in 2020, 37,000 in 2021 and a low of 32,500 in 2022.

Schools that failed to attract enough enrolments faced the danger of being merged or shut down.

Hong Kong school expo for mainland Chinese pupils draws nearly 10,000 attendees

The expo was a way to boost enrolment with the children of mainlanders who have moved to the city, or those from the Greater Bay Area, which encompasses Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in Guangdong province.

Lau said mainlanders who visited the expo last month liked having the principals present to answer their questions directly.

“The schools whose principals were present were obviously popular, as parents appreciated being shown that respect, and they could also get more useful details from the heads,” he said.

He said planning had begun with the school councils for the third expo in December, with a venue already booked.

Dion Chen, chairman of the Direct Subsidy Scheme Schools Council, said the response last month was “better than expected”, with some schools receiving numerous applications.

“Parents asked for details of applications for Primary One to Primary Six and Secondary One to Secondary Five,” he said.

There were even visitors from areas beyond the Greater Bay Area, which the Hong Kong schools were not targeting.

“Some came from Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Wuhan and some were even from the three northeast provinces, very far from Hong Kong,” he said.

Visitors flock to Hong Kong product expo as ‘food plaza’ makes welcome return

They included parents planning to move to the city under various immigration or talent schemes, and others who wanted their children who had been born in the city to attend schools there.

“Some said their priority before settling in Hong Kong was to secure a school place for their children. They had not even decided where to live, as they first wanted to see which school their children would attend,” Chen said.

Felix Yan Ho-on, chairman of the Hong Kong Early Childhood Educators Association, said the city’s subsidised preschools might not be keen to take part in the expo as they were less attractive to mainland parents.

“Mainland talent coming to Hong Kong under various schemes may be able to afford private preschools and might not choose subsidised kindergartens in public housing estates,” he said.

But some preschools near the mainland border, like those in North district, may be suitable for mainland children born in Hong Kong and living in Guangdong.

Yan said those preschools might be interested to join the expo, as their selling point was that children would have a shorter daily commute between home and kindergarten compared to those going to kindergartens in Kowloon.

The preschool sector was first to bear the brunt of the city’s falling number of babies, with enrolments sliding steadily since 2020.

Hong Kong Food Expo 2023 and other fairs attract nearly half a million visitors

The number of applications received by each subsidised kindergarten for the next school year had generally dropped by 20 to 30 per cent, he said.

The Hong Kong government issued more than 47,000 dependent visas to children of all talent recruited through seven talent schemes as of last November.

The Education Bureau said earlier it had not gathered figures of how many of these children joined the city’s public schools.

US visit firms speculation Liu Jianchao will be China’s next foreign minister

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3249873/us-visit-firms-speculation-liu-jianchao-will-be-chinas-next-foreign-minister?utm_source=rss_feed

Fraught US-China ties are showing early signs of stabilising with a flurry of high-level exchanges in recent weeks, notably veteran Chinese diplomat Liu Jianchao’s visit to America during the Taiwanese election on January 13.

Liu, who heads the International Liaison Department, the Communist Party’s diplomatic arm, was not the first minister from the department to meet senior officials in the US, but his visit was an unusually high-profile one, and a “smart move” by Beijing, observers said.

Liu’s six-day mission to Washington, New York and San Francisco not only helped to tamp down spiralling tensions over Taiwan, it also boosted the international exposure of the man widely seen as a leading contender to become China’s next foreign minister.

Liu, 59, held talks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior officials, and met a range of non-government figures, including academics, business leaders, media representatives and former officials.

Liu also met United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and attended an unofficial bilateral dialogue with US think tank the Asia Society, as part of a “Track 1.5” diplomacy effort to bring together government and non-government figures.

Communist Party diplomat, on US visit, urges ‘correct’ understanding of China

The visit made Liu – an aide to President Xi Jinping – the most senior Chinese official to visit the US since Xi’s summit with his counterpart Joe Biden in San Francisco two months ago.

According to Neil Thomas, a Chinese politics fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Centre for China Analysis, Liu’s US trip attracted “an unprecedented level of attention”.

Sourabh Gupta, a senior policy specialist with the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington, said the decision to schedule Liu’s visit in conjunction with the outcome of the Taiwanese elections was “a smart one”.

“It reinforced the perception of open channels of high-level communication, which is stabilising for the bilateral relationship, as well as a sense of restraint on Beijing’s part in response to the [Taiwan] election outcome,” Gupta said.

“After all, if it had an incendiary response up its sleeve, Beijing would not have scheduled a senior diplomatic meeting with Washington so close to the election.”

Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia programme and director of the China programme at the Washington-based Stimson Centre, met Liu during his visit to the US capital and was impressed.

“The rumour is Liu will be appointed foreign minister in the coming months. [He is] very articulate, eloquent, [speaks] great English and [has] a nice aura of confidence/ease. He knows the issues like the back of his hand,” she said.

Communist Party diplomat Liu Jianchao steps up role in China’s foreign policy drive

Liu is an unusually active liaison department head – a role traditionally responsible for inter-party diplomacy, mostly with other socialist countries, such as North Korea and Vietnam.

His busy travel schedule across Asia, Europe and Africa since his appointment in June 2022 raised many eyebrows, as has his prominent role in helping to repair China’s image abroad in its post-pandemic diplomatic drive.

Observers generally agree that Liu has played an outsize role in the country’s diplomacy, fuelling speculation that he is set to replace Wang Yi – reappointed as foreign minister in July after the mysterious removal of Qin Gang.

Wang, 70, vacated the role in late December 2022 after he was promoted to the Politburo, in the same reshuffle that elevated Qin to foreign minister. Beijing has yet to explain Qin’s removal, but many observers believed that Wang’s return would be temporary.

While Liu had “candid” and “constructive” discussions with US officials on a range of thorny bilateral issues and regional and global security challenges, cross-strait tensions appeared to be high on the agenda of his US visit.

In his talks with Blinken on the eve of Taiwan’s high-stakes election, Liu elaborated Beijing’s stance and emphasised “the need for both sides to meet each other halfway”, according to the official Chinese readout.

“Liu’s shrewd diplomacy seemed designed both to reassure Washington that Beijing would not respond aggressively to the Taiwanese elections and to maintain the Communist Party’s bottom line on its sovereignty claims over Taiwan,” Thomas said.

“Liu is a front runner to become China’s next foreign minister, and the apparent success of his visit to the US could help him clinch the position.”

Taiwan election: Beijing restrained in response to William Lai’s win

According to Sun, Liu’s trip was clearly a concerted effort by Beijing and Washington “to convey the message that the US and China are in close communication on the issue of Taiwan to avoid misunderstandings or any mishaps”.

Observers also noted that Liu was in the US when Beijing delivered its relatively muted response to the election results, despite its unease at the prospect of a third consecutive term in the presidency for the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party.

The usually soft-spoken Liu was also willing to be blunt during his visit on the subject of Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a province to be brought under mainland control, by force if necessary.

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Liu said the Taiwan question is at the “very core of the core interests” and “the red line that mustn’t be crossed”.

He added that Beijing took seriously US statements that it did not support Taiwan’s independence. “And we hope that the US side will honour this commitment,” Liu said.

The US, like most countries, does not recognise Taiwan as an independent state but is opposed to any unilateral change to the status quo.

Liu’s comments were a contrast to the moderate tone he took throughout the US trip – which his department said was partly aimed at dispelling “Western media’s bias against China” – and the rest of his speech to the think tank event.

In fluent English, Liu sought to reassure American businesses and present China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy in a benevolent light. “China will not fight a cold war or a hot war with anyone,” he pledged.

US-China relations: veteran Chinese diplomat vows to help build sustainable ties

“Overtaking the United States is not our goal,” Liu said. He added that Beijing had no plan to “change the current international order” led by Washington, or create a new one.

“My visit this time is to have candid exchanges with people from across American society on how to implement the San Francisco vision [from the Xi-Biden summit],” he said.

Beijing and Washington resumed high-level exchanges after the summit, including top-level military communications which restarted last month.

Xi and Biden exchanged congratulatory messages on January 1 to mark the 45th anniversary of official diplomatic relations between the two countries. And, in addition to Liu’s visit, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao spoke by phone this month with his US counterpart Gina Raimondo.

According to Philippe Le Corre, a non-resident senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Centre for China Analysis, many China experts believe Liu’s coming appointment as foreign minister is “the reason he was allowed to go on this US tour”.

For Gupta, the increased prominence of Liu’s department could be “a double-edged sword”.

“It partially relieves Wang Yi of putting in double duty, but on the global stage China is better represented by its government than [the] party, given the latter’s reputation for opacity,” he said.

“And in the West particularly, where the Communist Party of China is not held in the highest esteem, senior party institutional heads conducting high-profile diplomacy is not necessarily the best look,” he added.

“The International Liaison Department’s outreach is best kept to fellow socialist states with Leninist systems and with parties in ‘friendly’ democracies.”

Woman spends night in China hotel with man she met online, shares bed to ‘test’ his powers of restraint, claims rape

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3248779/woman-spends-night-china-hotel-man-she-met-online-shares-bed-test-his-powers-restraint-claims-rape?utm_source=rss_feed

A woman in China has told police that she was raped by a man she had agreed to share a hotel bed with for the night.

The woman, surnamed Zhao, said she met the man on a social media platform in August last year, and that he made a good impression on her, according to mainland news reports.

Zhao, 28, who lives in Wuhan, in the central province of Hunan, said she was in low spirits at the time due to face wounds she had sustained in a recent road accident.

“I was in bad shape. I hadn’t had a boyfriend before. He seemed different to other men on dating apps because he didn’t say any erotic things to me. So I thought we would get on,” she said.

Zhao and the man met in person the same day they connected online. He suggested going to a bar but she refused so he drove her home.

Three days later they went shopping together and he bought dresses and shoes for Zhao. Then he asked her to stay with him in a hotel that evening and she agreed because she said she wanted to “test” him.

“If he did not touch me for the whole night, I would date him,” she said.

When they reached the hotel room, the man said he wanted to hug Zhao to sleep and she agreed after he gave her 2,000 yuan (US$280).

“Aren’t you afraid I will do something to you on impulse?” He asked her, and she replied: “Don’t act on impulse, you should restrain yourself”.

They slept in the same bed and the man tried several times to have sex with Zhao, but she said she repeatedly rejected his advances.

When they woke the next morning, Zhao said the man raped her and she later reported it to the police.

“I was crying and shouting, but he wouldn’t stop. I was trying to call the police, but he grabbed my mobile phone,” she said.

According to police, the man was released on bail a month later because of insufficient evidence and the case is still under investigation.

“After my family learned of my experience, they told me not to tell anyone else. They told me to resolve the issue myself. I was under huge pressure,” Zhao said, adding that she has since become depressed.

Reaction to the case on mainland social media has been mixed.

“This woman is basically a racketeer. She not only cheated the man out of a lot of money, but also wanted to send him to jail. I think it is she who should be sentenced,” said one person on Douyin.

“Men need to protect themselves. This case reminds us again that if a woman agrees to sleep in the same hotel room with you, it does not mean she agrees to have sex with you. Otherwise, you risk being accused of rape,” said another.

A new diplomatic struggle is unfolding over Taiwan | China

https://www.economist.com/china/2024/01/25/a-new-diplomatic-struggle-is-unfolding-over-taiwan

The new year has brought no respite from tensions over Taiwan. On January 13th its people elected an independence-minded candidate, William Lai Ching-te, as their next president, infuriating China. Two days later it was China’s turn, with its officials announcing that little Nauru was cutting ties with Taiwan in favour of China. On January 24th the us navy sent a warship through the Taiwan Strait, which China described as a “provocative act”. Amid this drama a new diplomatic battle is intensifying that risks setting the stage for war.

For over 70 years the government in Beijing led by the Communist Party has fought for official recognition from the world. Lately it has opened up a novel front in this campaign. The party wants not only to be the sole representative of China, it also wants countries to adopt its view that Taiwan is an alienable part of it. Victory in this struggle would give China’s leaders a big diplomatic cudgel—as well as a legal basis for invading the island.

When Nauru made the jump it became the 183rd country to recognise China. That compares with around 160 two decades ago and between 80 and 90 three decades before that (when there were fewer countries). Most big states switched a while back. Britain and many other Western countries established ties with China in the early 1970s. America, a laggard, did so in 1979. When it comes to recognition, then, China is winning and has been for a while. Only 11 countries (and the Vatican) continue to formally recognise Taiwan.

The new front is more complicated. Those 183 countries view Taiwan in very different ways. At one end of the spectrum are states that treat the island as a de facto independent country, even if they don’t recognise it. At the other end are those that endorse China’s claim. The Economist has analysed Chinese foreign-ministry statements from 2023, all in Mandarin. We assess that at least 28 countries have affirmed China’s view of things. For example in October Pakistan said it “firmly supports” China’s push for reunification (there is no mention of it being peaceful); a statement by Syria in September uses similar language. Pushing that number higher is now a preoccupation of Chinese officials. In their eyes, such support helps China make the case that unification is justified, by force if necessary.

Most Western countries sit at the pro-Taiwan end of the spectrum—and are moving further in that direction even as they formally maintain a policy of non-recognition. America has loosened restrictions on interactions between its officials and those on the island. A trip there by Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the House of Representatives, sparked a crisis in 2022. America has increased military aid to Taiwan. President Joe Biden has even said that America would defend it from invasion, though his aides often walk back such statements in order to maintain “strategic ambiguity”.

Perhaps most frustrating to Chinese officials is that America is pulling its allies along with it. The Biden administration has encouraged countries to “expand engagement with Taiwan”. A steady stream of Western parliamentary delegations has visited the island. Australia, Britain, Canada and France have sent warships through the Taiwan Strait (which China calls its territorial waters). The EU and G7 have made a point of calling for stability in the area.

The Czech Republic has been active in this regard. It has its own history of resisting an authoritarian power. Now it is embracing Taiwan. Czech parliamentary leaders have visited the island with large delegations in tow. Petr Pavel, the Czech president, spoke on the phone with his Taiwanese counterpart, Tsai Ing-wen, last year. Mr Pavel was also the first European head of state to congratulate Taiwan on its elections this month. Czech officials say that none of this implies formal recognition and that their actions are consistent with the country’s one-China policy. But in China there is a growing sense of crisis, as democratic countries hollow out the meaning of “one China”, says Fukuda Madoka of Hosei University in Japan.

China has therefore focused its efforts (and economic pressure) on the developing world. Most of the countries that have affirmed its stance on Taiwan are poor. China has woven its views into declarations with various groupings of African, Arab, Central Asian and Pacific countries. It has also promoted them in new forums, such as the “Group of Friends in Defence of the Charter of the United Nations”, which includes Iran, Russia and North Korea. At a recent group meeting, China styled itself a “defender of the international order”.

Recently China has claimed that the UN itself endorses its view of Taiwan. China points to Resolution 2758, passed in 1971, which recognised the government in Beijing as the only lawful representative of China at the UN. The measure expelled the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek, then leader of Taiwan. But it did not mention Taiwan by name. American officials argue that it leaves the island’s status up in the air. China, though, has successfully pressed countries such as Nauru to cite the resolution when talking about Taiwan. It scored another victory in January when Dennis Francis, a Trinidadian diplomat who is serving as president of the UN General Assembly, suggested that the body’s work would adhere to China’s view of things and be guided by Resolution 2758.

So on this front, too, China can claim some success. It has also convinced many countries to adopt its jargon on things like human rights and development. With Taiwan, the struggle risks going beyond language. In recent years China has increased its aggressive activity in the Taiwan Strait, flying planes close to the island. China is changing the status quo militarily and on the diplomatic stage, says Lai I-Chung of Taiwan Thinktank, a policy outfit. That bodes ill for the future. As China sees it, the more countries that adopt its view of Taiwan, the more cover it has to turn words into action. ■

Subscribers can sign up to Drum Tower, our new weekly newsletter, to understand what the world makes of China—and what China makes of the world.

The Chinese scientists leaving top US universities to take up high-profile roles in China, boosting Beijing in its race for global talent

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3249683/chinese-scientists-leaving-top-us-universities-take-high-profile-roles-china-boosting-beijing-its?utm_source=rss_feed

This article has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by .

The return to China of Tsinghua University’s “star” twin scientists at the end of their postdoctoral research in North America was celebrated on Chinese social media after it was announced on the alma mater’s website.

“Master researcher” Gao Huajian joins Tsinghua University for the next chapter of a glittering international career that has included top awards in his field.

Award-winning Chinese-born geometer Sun Song leaves California to take up a position in China.

After working in the United States for more than 30 years, biochemist Kunliang Guan is back in China with a full-time chair professor position at Westlake University in the eastern province of Zhejiang.

After more than 20 years in Britain as a prominent physicist dedicated to unveiling the secrets of superfast fluids, Zhang Yonghao joins China’s new national hypersonic laboratory in Beijing.

Sun Xin, who specialises in probability theory and mathematical physics, was a joint winner of the prestigious Rollo Davidson Prize this year.

Chen Zhoufeng, a leading expert in the study of itch mechanisms joins an institute in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, after 33 years in the United States.

Xiang-Dong Fu, who left California over suspicions about his foreign links, has joined Westlake University in southern China.

World famous structural biologist Nieng Yan – dubbed China’s “goddess scientist” – who broke many hearts when she moved to a top US university five years ago, thrills the nation by announcing she is to return home.

Marine data expert Li Zhijin, who has also worked for the US Navy and other government agencies, is now employed at a top university in Shanghai.

Top Chinese-Australian scientists Dou Shixue and Liu Huakun join the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (USST) to help find ways for China to reduce its carbon emissions, USST president says.

World-renowned Chinese mathematician Yau Shing-Tung announces his retirement from his position at Harvard University to teach full-time at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

China, Malaysia nearing new durian deal, and an extension of visa-free travel is on the table

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3249953/china-malaysia-nearing-new-durian-deal-and-extension-visa-free-travel-table?utm_source=rss_feed

China and Malaysia are close to signing an agreement to let the Southeast Asian country ship fresh durians to the lucrative Chinese market while the two sides talk of extending a visa-free travel arrangement later this year, according to an official from Kuala Lumpur.

The two governments are “just sorting out a few details” on a deal to let Malaysia ship fresh durians to China, following the leads of its exporting neighbours Thailand and Vietnam, said Muzambli Markam, the Malaysian consul general in Hong Kong. He did not rule out finalising the deal this year.

“We look forward to the approval soon,” Markam told the Post on Wednesday. “I was informed that negotiations are in the final stage, and hopefully we will hear the good news soon. You know how complex these kinds of negotiations are.”

Currently, Thai durians account for about two-thirds of the massive China market, which has captured more than 90 per cent of the global total with 1.4 million tonnes imported last year. Most of the remainder comes from Vietnam and a smattering reaches China from the Philippines.

Smell of commerce in the air as China, Malaysia accelerate durian import talks

The pricey, pungent and prickly export often called the “king of fruits” has captivated Chinese consumers and is often given a gift for major events such as weddings. China has not boosted its domestic durian crop to the scale of its Southeast Asian counterparts.

Malaysia can currently export only frozen durians to China.

“The orchard owners will like this news, because if the fruit is still on the tree and not fully ripened they can cut it down [to ship],” said Simon Chin, founder of Malaysian exporter DKing. “You just get the money fast. They are creating another option for the buyers.”

China-Malaysian relations have been strong since diplomatic ties were established 50 years ago. China has also invested in landmark infrastructure projects since 2013, and more than one-fifth of Malaysia’s 34 million people are of Chinese ancestry.

In another move toward closer ties, the Southeast Asian country expects to draw more Chinese tourists this year than in pre-pandemic 2019 after suspending visa rules. That year, 3.1 million Chinese nationals visited Malaysia.

Visa-free entries for 30 days, granted to Chinese since December, are attracting travellers for the food, relatively low prices and availability of Chinese speakers in the population, Markam said. China offered Malaysians 15-day visa-free entries at the same time.

The two-way visa-free scheme, however, will end in December this year, and the two sides have not decided whether to extend it, Markam said.

“We shall see,” he said. “Both sides are still talking. Perhaps we can extend this arrangement beyond 2024, but it’s still in the early stage.”

Excitement as China’s visa-free deals could trigger Asean trade, investment boon

The current scheme is working so far, he said.

“Having an ease of flow between people of the two countries will only serve to add to our tourism industry,” Markam said. “It’s only positive for both sides.”

The number of Malaysian tourists has increased “visibly” since December and shows signs of growing further, said Steven Zhao, CEO of the Guilin-based online travel agency China Highlights. Malaysian tourists gravitate toward historical and cultural attractions in Beijing and Xian, he said.

“In terms of their spending power, it’s not bad, and ahead of domestic travellers, but not quite as much as Europeans, Americans or Singaporeans,” Zhao added.

On the trade front, the consul general said China will increase exports of electric vehicles to Malaysia and step up investment in the production of EVs. Malaysia is seeking more “capital-intensive” investment overall from China to offset domestic labour “constraints”, Markam said.

“We are courting more investment from China to Malaysia,” he said. “We are aggressively expanding the EV infrastructure, so we hope more Chinese, or more international companies, will be interested in investing in Malaysia.”

Shenzhen-based BYD already sells cars in the Southeast Asian country, while Chinese carmaker Geely owns a 49.9 per cent share in Malaysian automotive company Proton.

China also gave “assurances” last year, after a visit by a deputy Malaysian prime minister, it would import more palm oil through 2025, Markam said.

The oil that helps produce soaps, chocolates and baked goods makes up nearly 40 per cent of Malaysia’s agricultural output.

Did Chinese explorers from the Ming dynasty travel to the Americas decades before Columbus?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3249097/did-chinese-explorers-ming-dynasty-travel-americas-decades-columbus?utm_source=rss_feed

This is the first in a two-part series on the voyages of the Chinese in the pre-Columbian era. Here, Victoria Bela examines the proposition that ancient mariners from the East had set foot upon the shores of America.

A massive Chinese fleet journeyed around the Indian Ocean during the early 15th century, undertaking seven meticulously planned voyages that took them as far as the east coast of Africa.

But what if they actually went much, much further? What if they reached the Americas decades before Christopher Columbus landed on the shores of the Bahamas in 1492?

That is the question author Sheng-Wei Wang sought to answer in her book, Chinese Global Exploration in the Pre-Columbian Era: Evidence from an Ancient World Map, published last year.

Through Wang’s retelling of the chronicle of Chinese exploration, she said she hoped to help “recover what [the Chinese] lost” in the historical record.

During the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Chinese admiral Zheng He commanded seven naval voyages around the Indian Ocean. These journeys took place between 1405 and 1433, involving tens of thousands of men and a massive number of ships known as the Treasure Fleet.

“The mustering of resources and logistical planning was truly astounding,” said J Travis Schutz, a history professor at the California State University Los Angeles, who is not affiliated with the book.

After the emperor who sponsored the first six voyages died, the new emperor decided the seventh voyage would be the last.

At the end of the voyages, many of the ships, equipment and records, such as maps, were destroyed by the Ming administration, “resulting in the later Chinese losing geographical knowledge of the world”, Wang wrote.

But during their nearly three decades of voyages, the mariners were believed to have explored much of the land bordering the Indian Ocean.

“The general consensus is his fleet reached the east coast of Africa,” Schutz said. He noted that some had claimed otherwise, but they had been “definitively refuted” by historians.

One of those people was British submarine commander Gavin Menzies, who believed that the Chinese had reached the Americas in 1421. He wrote a controversial book on the subject in 2002, titled 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, which historians have rejected as “pseudohistory”.

Pieces of historical evidence, including navigation charts published in 1628 which are thought to have belonged to Zheng He, do indeed suggest the mariners stayed within the boundary of the east coast of Africa.

However in her book, while analysing a major world map published a quarter of a century earlier than He’s charts, Wang leads the reader through a reimagined history of Chinese exploration that suggests they made it much further than the scholarly consensus.

Wang, who began her career as a scientist after graduating with a PhD in theoretical chemical physics from the University of Southern California, became interested in this topic when she began studying ancient maps.

“Even the most rigorous scholars admit the existence of a very puzzling phenomenon on the ancient Western maps: many supposedly ‘unknown’ areas were already mapped out before the Age of Discovery,” she wrote in the introduction of the book.

Wang began to wonder if someone else had beaten the Europeans to these locations – and if lost source maps could explain their origins.

But it was a Chinese-language map published by Italian priest Matteo Ricci in 1602 while he was living in China, called the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu (KWQ), that saw the pieces of the historical puzzle begin to fall into place for Wang.

“[The KWQ is] the first world map all written in Chinese,” Wang said.

When it was published, Ming dynasty scholars were surprised by its contents, and assumed it was derived from other European maps that Ricci brought with him when he arrived in China in 1582.

But after comparing the KWQ with European maps published throughout the 16th century, Wang came to the conclusion that it could not have been drawn from European source maps alone.

She concluded that the map was “of Chinese origin”, created using maps drawn by Zheng He’s mariners during their seven voyages.

Her theory was that while many of the maps were probably destroyed after the voyages ended, it is possible a few survived and Ricci got his hands on them.

She proposed that Ricci edited the Chinese source maps and brought in some Western elements from the European maps he was familiar with in order to produce the KWQ.

Throughout the book, Wang compared the KWQ to four major European maps from the 16th century. Along with her analysis, she also presented archaeological evidence discovered by people she came into contact with after she began examining the KWQ.

In the first chapter, Wang discussed Cape Breton Island in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.

She originally began studying this area when she noticed the KWQ depicted a canal on the island that split it into two – a canal that was not present on the European maps.

And indeed, a canal did exist in the village of St Peter’s on the island.

Wang came into contact with architect Paul Chiasson and surveyor T.C. Bell, who had both discovered ruins “with Chinese characteristics” in the area. These ruins could not be explained by the local indigenous people, who did not claim them as their own.

Chiasson believed that the ancient canal, which was later rebuilt by the Canadian government, had in fact been built by Chinese explorers.

Wang added that although it may have been the Ming mariners who built the canal, it was possible that Chinese explorers from an even earlier time could have built it.

Meanwhile, Bell discovered evidence of complex stonework on the island, showing cut markings that “only the Chinese had” in ancient times, Wang said.

Looking for further evidence that this had been done by Chinese explorers, Wang asked Bell to look through the photos of his discoveries for evidence of black residue on the cut rock.

In ancient times, Wang said, the Chinese would use a chemical to help crack the stones, which would leave a black residue.

Bell ended up finding an image where this residue was present.

The evidence obtained at the island and the accurate depiction of the canal on the KWQ led Wang to conclude that Chinese explorers had in fact reached the island by 1433.

In more recent times, many scholars have come to believe that the Vikings also made it across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas prior to the European explorers arriving.

Bell actually found two Viking stone grave markers on the island. “The first and only located to date in North America,” Wang wrote.

But the markers were found on the bottom of a “Chinese road”, which Wang said she believed predated the Vikings – potential evidence of Chinese exploration in the area before 1000AD. This claim is contrary to what government archaeologists in Canada who examined the markers have concluded.

Wang continued the analysis of the American continents depicted in the KWQ in the book’s final chapter. When the map was published, “a vast area of North America had not been reached yet by Europeans”, Wang wrote. Despite this, there were annotations present on the maps that suggested someone had in fact been there.

How Xi’s nod to ancient Chinese ruins reinforces Beijing’s historical narrative

The KWQ had 17 annotations on the Americas describing aspects of the land such as the natural environment, geography, living conditions, flora and fauna. Only one of these was found on the European maps Wang analysed.

The KWQ also showed the Mississippi River, which the other maps did not.

The KWQ did not depict the Great Lakes, which Wang believed the mariners reached during their last voyage in the 1430s, but she thought the KWQ’s depiction was derived from maps drawn during the sixth voyage in the 1420s.

While there is a lot of work out there that re-examines ancient history, Wang said the focus was often on quantity over quality.

When it came to maps, she said: “Most cartographers are emphasising only the geographical aspects of a map, but I think the map actually can give much more information [than] just the geography.”

The first and primary thing a map depicted was location, she said. The second is time, which can be deciphered by the existence of borders, countries and place names. The third aspect is historical events. And the fourth are the characteristics of a location depicted through annotations of the geography, animals, plants and people present. Throughout her research, Wang examined the KWQ with these four aspects in mind.

Samsung to integrate Baidu’s AI model into new Galaxy S24 handsets, as mainland Chinese rivals push new smartphones with similar tech

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3249955/samsung-integrate-baidus-ai-model-new-galaxy-s24-handsets-mainland-chinese-rivals-push-new?utm_source=rss_feed

Samsung Electronics has teamed up with Baidu to integrate the Chinese internet giant’s large language model (LLM) – the technology behind chatbots like ChatGPT – into the South Korean company’s latest flagship 5G device, marking a renewed push into the world’s largest smartphone market where domestic rivals are set to launch handsets with artificial intelligence (AI) features.

Under a strategic partnership between Samsung’s China arm and Baidu AI Cloud, the recently unveiled Galaxy S24 series will deploy the Ernie LLM to perform the handset’s new “Circle to Search” feature that enables users on the mainland to search texts, images or videos via hand gestures, with results provided by the Chinese online search and AI firm, according to an announcement on Thursday.

Ernie will also help users translate and summarise texts, as well as transcribe speech in multiple languages via the Note Assistant function, according to Baidu.

Globally, Samsung has tapped Google’s Gemini AI technology to power its new AI-enabled 5G smartphones under a multi-year partnership announced last week. In mainland China, however, both Google and OpenAI’s models are not available, which prompted the Korean electronics giant to rely on a domestic AI partner to keep its new handsets competitive on the mainland.

The stakes are high for both Samsung and Baidu as global shipments of generative AI-powered smartphones are projected to reach more than 100 million units this year and grow rapidly to 522 million in 2027, according to a recent report by Counterpoint Research.

The race to integrate generative AI features into smartphones has already intensified among the major Chinese handset vendors, who see the innovation as a potential game-changer for the global industry to overcome a lengthy slump.

Earlier this month, Honor launched Magic 6, its first 5G handset integrated with its self-developed MagicLM. That followed last month’s release of Oppo’s Find X7 series handsets built with the firm’s own AndesGPT AI feature.

Other Chinese smartphone makers have also released their own LLMs, including Huawei Technologies’ Pangu and Vivo’s BlueLM. By contrast, other smartphone vendors built AI capabilities into their operating systems, such as the latest iteration of Xiaomi’s HyperOS.

Strong local vendors, Note 7 issue behind Samsung’s smartphone decline in China

Baidu, which opened its Ernie Bot service to the general public in late August, announced in September that the latest version of its LLM, Ernie 4, can be used to build AI applications for use across a wide range of traditional industries and business scenarios to improve efficiency.

Samsung’s latest Chinese collaboration comes as AI service providers face increased regulatory curbs, as mainland authorities issue new guidelines and rules this year to ensure that AI-generated content aligns with what the government permits.

Last August, China imposed detailed regulations governing domestic generative AI services, making it one of the first countries in the world to implement rules covering that emerging technology.

The regulation targets all generative AI content services, including text, pictures, audio and video. It requires that firms offering their products to the general public must promote healthy content and “adhere to core socialist values”.

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