• Variety of problems will result in ‘vexing year for China’, says think tank report
• European Union forum on Indo-Pacific will lack US and China, which were not invited
• Red Sea attacks: no official mention after US-China talks but progress ‘likely’ to have been made, observers say
• China stakes global dominance in race to build intelligent ports
• Why China needs to mind the earnings gap
• Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus returns to Germany after sister firm Oppo strikes global 5G patent cross-licensing pact with Nokia
• Tired of hostile Washington, China courts Indiana and Minnesota
• Family of groom in China shuns tradition, displays ‘zero bride price’ sign on big day, says ‘love not measured by money’
• In German trade, US may surpass China in 2024 amid geopolitical tensions and weak investments
• AI, cross-border e-commerce are bright spots for Chinese internet firms in 2024, UBS says
• Can China’s Chimera crack invisibility with its hybrid approach to camouflage?
• South China Sea: Vietnam, Philippines to boost coastguard cooperation under new deals
• Chinese vice-premier urges support for listed firms to help stabilise battered stock market
• Biden vs. Trump on electric vehicles and China’s threat
• China sees two ‘bowls of poison’ in Biden and Trump and ponders who is the lesser of two evils
• China to expel prominent rocket scientist from top body as corruption probe keeps sights on defence-aerospace sector
• Overzealous China school principal makes dash to home of sick pupil, orders mother to send child to class or risk his future
• Chinese fintech giant Ant Group expands overseas payment service Alipay+ to serve visa-free, Lunar New Year travellers
• Australia steps up aid for East Timor amid China’s growing influence in the Pacific
• Blockbuster China TV series Blossoms Shanghai reignites passion for mainland dialects while being likened to Harry Potter
• China boasts bubbling crude discovery – oil that is, 107 million tonnes – in Henan province, adding fuel to energy-security drive
• Why Javier Milei’s fiery Davos speech calling on the West to reject socialism has received unexpected attention in China
• Why is China mixing its economic messages when business confidence is so low?

Variety of problems will result in ‘vexing year for China’, says think tank report

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3250357/variety-problems-will-result-vexing-year-china-says-think-tank-report?utm_source=rss_feed

China faces a host of economic, demographic and geopolitical challenges that will test its people and governance structure in 2024, but is also likely to take a greater leadership role in setting climate targets and expanding its investment and outreach to the Global South, according to a report released on Tuesday by the New York-based Asia Society.

“This is go be a vexing year for China,” said Bates Gill, executive director of the Centre for China Analysis, which produced “China 2024, What to Watch”. “We’ll see a much sharper focus by Beijing to invest in climate resilience and adaptation measures in 2024.”

This is important for Beijing’s national interest, Gill added. “But this is probably also a pathway by which China can help burnish its international reputation, particularly with regard to the developing world.”

The news this week that property giant Evergrande will be liquidated underscored the continued difficulties that China’s economy is likely to face this year in a nation where real estate still accounts for 23 per cent of GDP. While Beijing achieved its 5 per cent GDP target last year, and is likely to set a similar target this year, achieving that will be arduous, the report said.

A key challenge for the government will be to restore trust and confidence, said Jing Qian, the centre’s managing director, no small feat in the face of a declining population, battered social safety net and shifting government policies that have unnerved some investors.

“A broader financial crisis or economic recession is unlikely, but China’s economy is likely to continue to at best muddle through in 2024 rather than demonstrate a significant recovery,” the report said, adding that the outcome will affect not only the future of China but of the entire global economy and geopolitical balance of power.

China is likely to remain relatively accommodating toward the outside world this year after its earlier, confrontational Wolf Warrior diplomatic approach, according to the report.

Early indications are that it is biding its time before reacting to the presidential election in Taiwan on January 13, which saw Lai Ching-te elected from the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, and awaiting the outcome of the US presidential election in November as it calibrates future policy, the 28-page report said.

China’s debt-ridden provinces set conservative 2024 GDP growth targets

“Beijing is likely to continue its freeze on political ties with Taiwan and escalate its military pressure on the island, while using most of 2024 to make what preparations it can to mitigate against and, if possible, capitalize on a possibly chaotic shift in US political leadership,” it said.

China likely understands that it will be a source of political fodder during the campaign and the object of more stringent policies moving forward, whether US President Joe Biden or former president Donald Trump is elected.

For the past year, it has weathered a string of proposed anti-China bills, local restrictions on Chinese investment and the unwelcome attention of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Beijing’s bolstered diplomatic ties with Moscow, China has seen its relations with Europe strained amid its continuing difficulties with the United States. That is likely to see China redouble its pivot to the Global South, analysts said, in a bid to secure raw materials, develop new markets and bolster diplomatic, security and economic influence on the world stage, with a particular eye to the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

This will likely see Beijing heavily promote at the UN and beyond its Global Developing, Global Security and Global Civilisation initiatives, three frameworks aimed primarily at building ties with developing countries.

Analysts also expect China to support a significant expansion of the Brics grouping, an organisation made up Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

The centre also forecasts a continued policy tussle between national security and economic growth within President Xi Jinping’s government, more public discontent as the economy falters and greater governance problems as debt-saddled local governments try and meet the welfare needs of an ageing population without access to property sales.

“The year 2023 was in many ways a difficult one for China,” the report said. “Looking ahead to 2024, are matters likely to improve? In short: not by much.”

European Union forum on Indo-Pacific will lack US and China, which were not invited

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3250359/european-union-forum-indo-pacific-will-lack-us-and-china-which-were-not-invited?utm_source=rss_feed

The European Union will host its third Indo-Pacific forum in Brussels this week, but the world’s top superpowers are not invited.

Neither China nor the United States have been asked to a gathering of what is expected to be more than 70 foreign ministers on Friday, despite their outsize role in the region’s economic and security landscape, according to several sources familiar with the event.

Beijing’s absence is no surprise, but the omission of the US has raised some eyebrows.

Although it was not represented at the inaugural summit in Paris in 2022, Washington sent a high-level delegation to the second edition of the forum in Stockholm last year, led by Derek Chollet, counsellor of the US Department of State.

The EU did not immediately respond to a request seeking an explanation for the snub.

Britain has also been left off the invitation list. Last year, the former EU member sent a junior minister of state to Stockholm, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon.

Brussels is keeping the guest list under tight wraps for now. A senior EU official said it would only release a record of attendees, rather than invitees.

One European diplomat suggested the bloc did not want to appear “anti-China” as it looked to build bridges with nations spanning the Pacific Islands, East Africa and Asia.

EU fails to secure Southeast Asian backing over Ukraine war

However the EU official confirmed that China had not been invited for the third straight year, saying that Beijing “has not pursued engagement with partners in line with our concept of the Indo-Pacific”.

“You haven’t heard China talk about the Indo-Pacific as a concept they would like to engage with,” the official said. “There are lots of formats in which we engage with China fully and completely.”

The forum faces stiff competition for the limelight in the Belgian capital this week.

As the Russian war in Ukraine blazes towards its second anniversary, EU leaders will try to convince Hungary on Thursday to lift its veto and unlock more EU funding for Kyiv. The bloc’s foreign ministers will also meet on Saturday for their twice-yearly informal meeting known as the Gymnich.

Between those two events, a trio of Indo-Pacific events are on tap. On Thursday, the European Parliament is to host the ministers of Pacific island nations. On Friday morning, the Indo-Pacific Forum will be held, while later in the day foreign ministers from the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will have dinner.

That will be the highest-profile EU-Asean meeting since a leaders forum in December 2022. A draft of the joint statement to be released after the summit recycles much of the language on controversial issues from that event.

The draft, marked as agreed to by both sides, said “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering”, but stopped short of naming Moscow. It adds that there were “other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions”.

Nor does the draft name Taiwan. It urges parties in the South China Sea to “exercise self-restraint in the conduct of all activities” and “encourages all countries to avoid any unilateral actions that endanger peace, security, and stability in the region”.

Joint text on thorny issues such as Gaza, Myanmar and North Korea had yet to be agreed on by Tuesday afternoon. Asean negotiators proposed calling for a “durable ceasefire” in the Middle East, but it was unclear whether the language would make the cut.

Despite the perceived snub of Washington, senior EU and US officials met on Tuesday in the US capital for a slimmed-down edition of their Trade and Technology Council.

EU joins US in ‘depriving China of the most advanced chips’, official says

In a speech to US businesses ahead of the council meeting, EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis warned that weakening the global trading architecture would only benefit America’s rivals.

“A fragmented trading system based on power relations will harm everybody and benefit no one – with the exception perhaps of China,” he said.

“If Western countries, including the US, want to maintain a rules-based world order and balance China’s influence in particular, there is no alternative to strengthening transatlantic leadership in these fora.”

Red Sea attacks: no official mention after US-China talks but progress ‘likely’ to have been made, observers say

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3250328/red-sea-attacks-no-official-mention-after-us-china-talks-progress-likely-have-been-made-observers?utm_source=rss_feed

When Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan opened two days of talks in Bangkok on Friday, it was expected that Beijing would be urged to use its influence over Iran to rein in the Houthi militia in the Red Sea.

The Yemen-based rebel group backed by Iran has launched drone and missile attacks on cargo ships in the key maritime corridor since November, in what it says is a response to Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

The Wang-Sullivan meetings came amid a spike in the conflict, as the US and its allies launched fresh attacks on Houthi targets in Yemen, and the rebel group stepped up its attacks.

But official statements from either side made no mention of the issue.

US strikes militia sites in Iraq, Houthi anti-ship missiles in Yemen

The White House statement said only that the two leaders held “candid, substantive and constructive discussions on global and regional issues”, including “Russia’s war against Ukraine [and] the Middle East”.

The meeting was “part of the effort to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage competition in the relationship as directed by the leaders,” the statement said, in a reference to a long-planned presidential summit in November that kicked off a reset process after prolonged bilateral acrimony.

The Chinese foreign ministry also called the talks “productive”, saying both sides discussed global issues including the Middle East, again without providing details.

Nonetheless, observers said some progress was likely to have been made, though Washington could still be doubtful of Beijing’s willingness to be caught up in conflict in a region where some of its key interests lie.

Zhiqun Zhu, a professor of international relations at Bucknell University in the US, said the Red Sea attacks were likely to have been discussed.

“Essentially, the Chinese side believes this is not an issue created by Iran, so putting pressure on Iran would not solve the fundamental problem here,” Zhu said.

While the US relisted the Houthis as a terrorist group earlier this month, China has yet to formally condemn them.

Analysts have attributed Beijing’s reticence to a reluctance to get involved in a deepening Middle East conflict, especially since Chinese ships had not been targeted. Wang, however, has previously warned against adding “fuel to the fire”, in a veiled reference to attacks on Houthi targets by a US-led coalition.

David Arase, resident professor of international politics with the Hopkins-Nanjing Centre for Chinese and American Studies, said the issue was “too important to avoid” but “too sensitive to mention given the stakeholders involved”.

China, he said, would not want to undermine Iran’s interests or cause Iran to “lose face”. At the same time, it did not want to portray itself as joining hands with the US to combat anti-Western forces while the Israel-Gaza conflict raged on.

“But if only to protect its own commercial interests and promote another Biden-Xi dialogue, China likely is willing to ask Iran to temper the Red Sea mayhem being caused by the Houthis.”

Reuters on Friday reported that China had pressed Iran to rein in the Houthis “or risk harming business relations with Beijing”, citing four Iranian sources and a diplomat familiar with the matter.

The US and China have sought to get ties on an even keel following the closely watched November 15 meeting in San Francisco between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Joe Biden, which was hailed as a “new starting point” by Wang.

The White House readout on the Bangkok talks said the two sides were committed to pursuing “additional high-level diplomacy … including through a call between President Biden and President Xi”.

Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said the “good news” from the Wang-Sullivan talks was the apparent “clear gesturing” from China that it needed to cooperate with the US, especially on global issues like the Red Sea attacks.

“The ideological gap between the two countries is huge and both sides are very divided but they do seek cooperation,” he said. “The US will be happy to see China do something to reduce tensions in the region.”

US seeks just-tough-enough response to deadly Middle East attack

Still, Arase said the US would be sceptical about how much China would do to pressure Iran .

“China does not want to tread on Iran’s core interests or anger ‘the street’ in the Middle East seemingly only to please the US,” he said. “Nor does China want to lose face by having its demands rejected and denounced by those whom it is courting.”

As the conflict deepened over the weekend – with three US soldiers killed in a drone attack in Jordan – Zhu expected Washington to escalate its assault on the Houthis and also further urge Beijing to help control the rebel group via Iran.

Like Arase, Zhu also said that, despite its keenness to mend ties with the US, China might not want to jeopardise its other interests in the region, including relations with Iran and the Arab states.

China stakes global dominance in race to build intelligent ports

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3250341/china-stakes-global-dominance-race-build-intelligent-ports?utm_source=rss_feed

Six years after China’s first fully automated port container terminal began operating, the country now has its own completely independent intelligent port management and control systems.

The facility opened last month in the new third phase of the Qingdao Port’s Qianwan Container Terminal. The domestically produced technology means that China – home to the most automated container terminals in the world – can now build and run its own terminal production lines without relying on Western parts or technology.

China now has 18 terminals in operation at various ports, with 27 others either under construction or being renovated, the Ministry of Transport said last month.

The country’s first fully automated container terminal began service in Qingdao in 2017. It relied on complex information systems that were “monopolised by foreign manufacturers”, Chen Qiang, the deputy manager of information technology at the port, said in a report by state-owned newspaper Guangming Daily on Monday.

Melbourne container terminal buys two cranes from Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries

Automated container terminals, which load and unload cargo between ships and transport vehicles autonomously, require complex software, Chen said.

The more than 28,000 components of the third phase of the automated terminal – both hardware and software – were produced by research teams at the port along with 20 domestic manufacturing companies, the report said.

The technology has not only boosted the efficiency of the terminals, but could also allow the country to further widen its lead in the global adoption of automation.

A software research and development team of just 30 people worked hard for “many days and nights” to create the systems, Chen said.

“The research team broke down more than 1,500 business processes bit by bit and classified more than 2,200 system functions,” to form an initial prototype, Chen added.

The research team tackled issues like outdated software and devices that needed frequent maintenance by developing control systems with “millisecond-level” speeds to increase efficiency by four times, he told Guangming Daily.

The new system in the terminal’s third phase set a new industry record just a week after it went into operation, with a single machine loading and unloading 60 standard container units per hour, according to Guangming Daily.

Developing the equipment that would run the terminal was also a big hurdle, according to Liu Fangchao, deputy manager of the engineering technology department of the port.

Huawei’s automated tech on full display at Tianjin Port in commercial pivot

Building autonomous trucks posed a particular challenge because of their heavy-duty drive axles, Liu told Guangming Daily, adding they had limited domestic research about them.

The team found a local manufacturing company that also “wanted to break the blockade of foreign key technologies”, and began working together to develop their own axles.

Liu said that developing technology domestically, independent of foreign controls, was important to overcome many issues inherent in automated ports, improve the efficiency of those ports and master their control systems.

Relying on overseas smart technology could also prove dangerous if foreign sanctions were targeted at China’s ports.

While adoption of automated port technology booms in China, countries like the United States and Canada have been slow to integrate the technology – despite growing port congestion.

China looks to AI to navigate massive overhaul of waterway transport

Only four of America’s 350 ports are automated, thanks largely to resistance from port worker unions.

The Canadian branch of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union, which also operates across the US, said in 2019 that the automation of port terminals in British Columbia would “kill thousands of jobs”.

China’s transport ministry said last month that it would continue to implement smart technology in the country’s waterways.

China has also begun sharing its domestically produced port automation technology with countries in the Belt and Road Initiative, Guangming Daily reported.

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Why China needs to mind the earnings gap

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3250334/why-china-needs-mind-earnings-gap?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s Premier Li Qiang has been trying to reassure international economic and foreign leaders about the Chinese economy’s strength, pointing to factors such as a supersize consumption market boosted by a rapidly growing middle income group.

In a recent speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Li told his audience that the number of people in this bracket is expected to double – from 400 million to 800 million – in the next decade or so.

China economy: manufacturing, consumption to drive 2024 gains, Fidelity says

China hopes that their purchasing power will become one of the main drivers of economic growth in future – but this group is currently enveloped in gloom as a result of factors such as the property market meltdown, slumping stock markets, the slow recovery in the wake of Covid-19 and – especially for younger Chinese – the struggle to find a decent job.

The property meltdown hit the middle classes especially hard as 70 per cent of urban dweller’s family wealth in 2019 was stored in properties, according to the central bank, and many families are burdened with heavy mortgage loans.

Meanwhile, wages are falling in some places. The average salaries offered to new hires in 38 of the biggest cities fell to 10,420 yuan (US$1,454) a month in the fourth quarter of last year compared with the same period 12 months earlier.

According to data from online recruitment platform Zhaopin compiled by Bloomberg this marks a drop of 1.3 per cent – the sharpest fall of its kind since 2016.

These challenges have raised concerns about whether China’s middle class will shrink, as many of those in the middle income bracket – defined as households earning between 100,000 to 500,000 yuan (US$14,000-US$70,000) a year – are vulnerable to income shocks.

Another major concern is the widening wealth gap.

According to the World Inequality Database, the share of personal wealth of the top 1 per cent in China was more than five times higher than the wealth held by the bottom 50 per cent in 2022.

The Gini co-efficient, another inequality indicator, also shows that China’s inequality has been hovering at about 0.467 in a scale of 0 to 1 in recent years, according to Chinese officials – one of the highest figures in the world.

In recent years, Beijing has tried to address the growing wealth inequality through its common prosperity drive.

However, dealing with inequality through political campaigns can easily backfire because the private sector bears much of the brunt – in the form of higher business costs or donations to government-backed charities – and that may further dampen the incentives for investment.

It also creates an uncertain business environment that may deter foreign investors.

Policy makers should also be concerned about lower income groups with many people, especially in rural areas, still facing hardship even if they are officially above the poverty line.

Former premier Li Keqiang said in 2020 that 600 million people – 42 per cent of the – had an average monthly income of only 1,000 yuan (US$138).

In 2021, China declared it has eradicated absolute poverty, and while that was undoubtedly a significant achievement, it doesn’t mean poverty does not still exist.

For one, the official benchmark is extremely low - the poverty line in China is set at 2,300 yuan per person per year, well below than the international poverty line.

In the years running up to 2021, China offered subsidies or support from local officials to the poorest households.

Economic, demographic challenges mount for China early in 2024

However, it is unclear whether this is sustainable, and there is now little incentive for local governments to acknowledge the prospect that families may fall back below the poverty line and risk being held accountable if that does happen.

Many migrant workers who contributed to China’s economic boom in the past three decades have also reached the retirement age. As they bid farewell to their jobs, they will face a host of retirement issues in a rapidly aging society. These include the lack of affordable and quality healthcare, pensions, and quality elderly care services – all of which will only make the problem of inequality worse.

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Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus returns to Germany after sister firm Oppo strikes global 5G patent cross-licensing pact with Nokia

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3250310/chinese-smartphone-maker-oneplus-returns-germany-after-sister-firm-oppo-strikes-global-5g-patent?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese Android handset maker OnePlus has returned to Germany’s smartphone market after a nearly 18-month hiatus, days after sister firm Oppo and Finnish telecommunications giant Nokia reached a global 5G patent cross-licensing deal to end a protracted legal dispute across 12 countries.

Shenzhen-based OnePlus on Monday brought back six smartphone models to the world’s fourth-largest economy, including the foldable OnePlus Open, according to the firm’s German website. OnePlus also started pre-orders for its latest OnePlus 12 and OnePlus 12R handsets.

Before this week, OnePlus only offered a limited number of accessories, such as wireless earbuds, for purchase on its German website.

The company’s German comeback comes amid signs of a recovery in the global smartphone market after a prolonged slump, with tech research firm IDC projecting 3.8 per cent growth for the industry this year.

“Despite another lacklustre year for smartphones, 5G adoption continues to be a bright spot in the overall market,” said Anthony Scarsella, research director at IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker group, in a recent report. IDC expects global 5G smartphone shipments to grow 20 per cent this year, up from 11 per cent in 2023.

Chinese smartphone vendors are also looking to grow sales beyond their home market, the industry’s largest, where handset price wars have intensified.

The return of OnePlus in Germany comes after Oppo and Nokia signed a global patent cross-licensing agreement, covering standard-essential patents in 5G and other cellular communication technologies. Oppo will pay royalties owed to Nokia for the use of its patents based on the agreed rates and settlement arrangements.

That pact enables Oppo and Nokia to resolve their pending patent litigation in all jurisdictions. The specific terms of their agreement remain confidential.

Oppo ends protracted legal battle with Nokia, agrees on 5G royalties

OnePlus had ceased smartphone sales in Germany in August 2022 after Oppo lost to Nokia in a patent infringement lawsuit in the country. That ruling by a regional court in the southwestern German city of Mannheim effectively barred Oppo from selling its smartphones and certain OnePlus devices in the country.

Founded by a group of Oppo employees including OnePlus chief executive Pete Lau in 2013, OnePlus has become popular in the West for its premium smartphones that cost less than Apple’s iPhone or comparable Android handsets from Samsung Electronics.

While OnePlus resumes smartphone sales in Germany, Oppo has yet to reopen for business in the market. Its official local website still showed “no product information available”.

OnePlus Open/Oppo Find N3: the best foldable phone available outside China

Oppo is still grappling with legal challenges in Germany, where a Munich court ruled in late December that it infringed on the patents of InterDigital, a US wireless and mobile technology company that was granted an injunction against the Chinese company.

Facing fierce competition from other major Android handset vendors, Oppo is under pressure to clear up its patent disputes. IDC data showed that Oppo was the world’s fourth-biggest smartphone vendor in 2023, with shipments down 9.9 per cent year on year to 103 million units.

Tired of hostile Washington, China courts Indiana and Minnesota

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/30/us-china-relations-beijing-washington/2023-12-04T04:27:51.440Z

When mayors from cities including Carmel, Ind., and Oxford, Miss., went to China recently, they were feted in ways big and small. They test-drove the newest electric-vehicle models, some with seats that doubled as massage chairs. They were hosted by a deputy provincial governor and treated to aged Maotai, Mao Zedong’s favorite liquor, from one Chinese official’s private collection.

Their counterparts in China, starved of international visitors and potential investors during four years of pandemic and border controls, were “overjoyed” to receive the American mayors, said Min Fan, executive director of U.S. Heartland China Association, a U.S. nonprofit that organized the trip for six mayors to five cities in China late last year.

“Everywhere we went, whether it was Hong Kong or Wuhan, they hadn’t had a delegation like this for a long time,” she said. Even more Chinese cities wanted to host them, Fan added. “Cities were fighting to get on our itinerary, but we literally couldn’t.”

Chinese provincial and city leaders have for decades appealed to their American counterparts to try to create investment and trade opportunities. Those efforts, stalled during the coronavirus pandemic, are ramping up again — with newfound gusto.

Chinese officials are seizing on opportunities to forge ties with mayors and other local American leaders, the kinds of connections that give Beijing leverage against an increasingly hostile government in Washington.

The United States’ relationship with China is at its worst since the two countries agreed to officially recognize each other more than 45 years ago, although there have been recent efforts to stabilize relations. Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s bid for global dominance means that, more than ever, Beijing is seen by Washington as a threat to the country’s national security and economy.

With Xi’s encouragement, leaders outside the Beltway are the next target of Chinese efforts to win friends and influence in the United States. But during a sensitive election year these friendships will be hard to come by as American leaders are wary of being seen as too close to China.

“What the Chinese are doing is trying to find supporters and advocates for the U.S.-China relationship and operationalize them,” said Evan Medeiros, head of Asia studies at Georgetown University, who served as a top Asia Pacific adviser during the Obama administration. “They want to activate the sources of ballast in the relationship to stop the deterioration.”

The mood was good, but little has changed between the U.S. and China

Before the pandemic, these exchanges — business delegations, governor visits, cultural and academic exchanges — were common between the two countries. U.S. states, after the 2008 financial crisis, actively sought Chinese investment and chances to benefit from China’s economic rise. More than 100 “sister city” agreements were signed, while dozens of Chinese-government-linked Confucius Institutes set up shop in U.S. universities.

That all slowed during the Trump administration as the relationship soured, and ground to a halt during the pandemic. Incidents such as the Chinese “spy balloon,” U.S. export controls limiting China’s access to advanced chips and back-and-forth threats over Taiwan didn’t help.

This past fall, things began to shift as China hosted a series of American politicians, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and a delegation of senators. In November, Xi, on his first visit to the United States in six years, called for building “more bridges and more roads for people-to-people interactions,” and had dinner with business executives from Apple, Nike, Pfizer and Boeing.

Chinese diplomats in the United States are doing their best to engage in what Chinese and American diplomats call “subnational diplomacy” — an area of new focus for both governments.

“Our purpose is quite simple: to promote subnational cooperation. For example, business investment and people-to-people exchanges,” said Zhou Zheng, head of the subnational affairs section at the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

Zhou, who said he was “cautiously optimistic” about restarting these exchanges, said a desire for Chinese investment means that U.S. city and county governments are “quite relaxed” about interacting with Beijing compared with more frigid national-level relations.

Even in Republican stronghold states where legislators have pushed laws limiting Chinese investment, some are actively scouting for Chinese money.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) — who last year dubbed China’s ruling Communist Party an “existential threat” to America when signing into law restrictions on the use of Chinese technology on state networks — recently approved tax incentives for a $1.9 billion EV battery factory that is 10 percent owned by a Chinese firm.

“I think that we face challenges of, kind of, shooting ourselves in the foot by eliminating opportunities because we’re scared of them,” said Robyn Tannehill, mayor of Oxford — a town not far from the proposed EV plant — who joined the Heartland mayors tour.

Whiplash in China as state media does U-turn on U.S.

Invites have started coming in for more U.S. mayors — as well as business people, university staff members, artists and others — to visit China. “A lot of people are like, okay, we have the marching order now,” said Fan, whose organization has been fielding some of those requests.

But these efforts are meeting resistance in an election season when China has become a campaign issue and public mistrust of Beijing is at historical highs. In 2023 at least 81 bills were introduced in 33 states to restrict Chinese land purchases.

Former president and likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has discussed with advisers the possibility of imposing a flat 60 percent tariff on all Chinese imports and has claimed that he is being pursued in lawsuits because of his efforts to “end the sellout of our country to Communist China.” His rival, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, in turn has criticized Trump for being soft on China, calling the country “the most dangerous threat America has faced since World War II.”

And Florida governor and former presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis in November criticized Haley for welcoming a Chinese fiberglass company into South Carolina while she was governor and writing the Chinese ambassador a “love letter, saying what a great friend they were.”

“That’s the difficulty we have right now. If we approach some local governments, in particular Republican governors, they just refuse to meet with us,” said Zhou, of the Chinese Embassy. “In the past these [were] things we just did normally, that’s just what two countries did normally, but these days everything is demonized.”

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

Analysts say there is a real risk that ground-level connections could undermine national policy or be used to disrupt the democratic process.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party has long had a strategy of using “the local to surround the center,” cultivating local support for its agenda in other countries, according to Anne-Marie Brady, a professor at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury, who focuses on Chinese influence operations. And the United States is the main target.

“We have a hostile foreign state that’s deliberately trying to target your political elite to engage in political warfare,” she said, noting that lower-level American officials can go on to much more influential positions. (As governor of Arkansas, future president Bill Clinton visited China four times.)

“It’s an ongoing challenge, [and] we can expect now in the lead-up to the election that there will be more examples of foreign interference,” she said.

Another complicating factor in China’s campaign is Taiwan, the democratic island that the ruling Chinese Communist Party claims is part of its territory. Taiwan has for decades honed local ties in the United States — one of few available channels of engagement because it does not have official diplomatic relations with Washington.

In sister city agreements, China has required some U.S. cities to agree with Beijing’s one-China principle that Taiwan is part of China. But in recent years, support for Taiwan has become a badge of honor for officials keen to show their tough stance on China. Since then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited Taipei in 2022, angering Beijing, nine U.S. governors have made trips to Taiwan.

“Many governors are considering going to Taiwan, but they aren’t going to [China],” said Jessica Bissett, who manages subnational initiatives at the National Committee on United States-China Relations.

There’s been “a huge pullback” on the U.S. side, said Kyle Jaros, an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame working on a book on the topic. “China is reaching out and finding it hard to find partners.”

Still, China, with its gargantuan economy, has found some willing partners.

Mayor Kim Norton of Rochester, a town of about 120,000 in southern Minnesota, visited China for the first time on the Heartland trip. She was impressed by the abundance of high-speed trains and electric buses. Her city is on a years-long wait list for electric buses, but Washington continues to limit the import of Chinese EVs.

She has recently flagged her interest with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “Can we have a partnership with a country like China that might help us along?” she said. “I wish there was a way to bridge that and have a better partnership.”

Kuo reported from Taipei.

Family of groom in China shuns tradition, displays ‘zero bride price’ sign on big day, says ‘love not measured by money’

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/gender-diversity/article/3249443/family-groom-china-shuns-tradition-displays-zero-bride-price-sign-big-day-says-love-not-measured?utm_source=rss_feed

The family of a husband-to-be in China held up a “zero bride price” sign on their way to pick up the bride on the wedding day, prompting a discussion on social media about marriage traditions.

On January 16, the big day for a couple from northern China’s Hebei province, the groom’s family spent two hours walking from the bride’s home back to the couple’s future home in the neighbouring town.

The groom pulled the bride in a two-wheeled cart led by two of his relatives who held up signs that read “zero bride price” and “no cigarettes, no wine, no pressure”.

Traditionally, men in China pay a woman’s family a price that ranges from 10,000 yuan (US$1,400) to one million yuan.

Zero bride price is still considered unconventional, but increasingly accepted among the younger generation.

“Love is not measured by money,” the groom said, adding that their decision received support from both sets of parents.

Their wedding ceremony was held in the residential compound where their new home is located.

According to the the mainland media outlet Nanchang Evening News, the main course at their wedding feast was instant noodles, and they did not provide the cigarettes or wine that are usually expected at wedding ceremonies.

The marriage witness, surnamed Wu, said the wedding was a cultural shock for him as it was the first zero bride price nuptials he had ever overseen.

He added that the newlyweds were from poor families, but were very much in love.

The ceremony has sparked heated online debate over the long-established bride price tradition.

“A good marriage is not based on how much money you have,” one person said on Douyin.

“Bride price is an important gesture to show respect to the woman and gratitude to her parents,” said another.

A large number of online contributors shared that view, believing the bride price is compensation for a woman sacrificing her independence to devote her life to caring for her husband and children.

However, not everyone was in favour of the ancient tradition.

“A daughter getting married is not an object in exchange for money. Bride price is a tradition but not a necessity,” said one online observer.

Last year, a man from northwestern China’s Shanxi province broke up with his fiancée because he could not afford the 220,000-yuan bride price her family asked for, which is an average figure for the tradition in that province.

The man, who earned 5,000 yuan a month, said he was relieved when the wedding was cancelled. He then spent 30,000 yuan travelling around China for five months.

In German trade, US may surpass China in 2024 amid geopolitical tensions and weak investments

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3250301/german-trade-us-may-surpass-china-2024-amid-geopolitical-tensions-and-weak-investments?utm_source=rss_feed

China is in a position where the United States could overtake it as Germany’s top trading partner, owing to changing geopolitical situations and a slow recovery in the world’s second-largest economy, according to a German government report.

The report pointed out that the economies of the US and China are currently “developing in practically opposite directions” because there is “no recovery in the Middle Kingdom” but the US is “developing better than expected”.

“If these trends continue in 2024, the US will replace China at the top of the ranking of Germany’s most important foreign trade partners,” said the report released on Saturday by Germany Trade and Invest, the nation’s international economic promotion agency. “Overall, the environment for German importers and exporters will remain tense in 2024.”

The report also said that the real estate crisis, geopolitical tensions in relations with the US and the EU, and weak industrial investments have contributed to this evolving trend.

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

Based on Germany Trade and Invest calculations, German exports and imports to China totalled around €254 billion (US$275 billion) in 2023.

China “has been the most important trading partner for [Germany] since 2016”, said Christina Otte, an economic expert with Germany Trade and Invest who authored the report. However, she noted that, “in 2023, imports from China fell by around 19 per cent, and German exports to China fell by around 9 per cent”.

As a result, China’s lead over the US had dwindled to just €1 billion to €2 billion, the report explained. That marked a big drop-off from 2022, when the gap between China and the US was “huge”, at about €50 billion, as €300 billion worth of goods were traded between China and Germany.

China’s customs figures also show that Germany was China’s seventh-largest trading partner in 2023, with bilateral trade totalling US$206.7 billion, down 8.7 per cent, year on year.

A survey released last week by the German Chamber of Commerce in China showed that most German businesses still planned to stay in the Chinese market, although the country’s investment appeal was declining, relative to other markets.

In addition to “de-risking” calls, the survey showed that German companies operating in China were facing a range of challenges, including increased competition from local companies, unequal market access, economic headwinds and geopolitical risks.

Germany has always been a crucial player in trade between China and the European Union, but the innovation bar has also been raised for German firms because Chinese companies have ramped up their competitiveness in the industrial and automobile sectors.

“[China] will have overtaken Japan as the world’s largest exporter, in terms of car sales, for the first time in 2023,” Otte said in her report. “Chinese electric-car manufacturers, in particular, are preparing for major expansions and are increasingly pushing into the international market.”

Official Chinese customs data for 2023 showed that Germany accounted for nearly 15 per cent of China’s total export value of lithium batteries – an important component for electric vehicles. That put Germany second behind the top-ranked US at 20 per cent.

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AI, cross-border e-commerce are bright spots for Chinese internet firms in 2024, UBS says

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3250314/ai-cross-border-e-commerce-are-bright-spots-chinese-internet-firms-2024-ubs-says?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese internet firms can look to chase growth through international markets and artificial intelligence (AI) in 2024, according to UBS.

China’s e-commerce platforms, facing intense domestic competition with new rivals and short-video app operators, are ramping up overseas expansion, Kenneth Fong, head of China internet research at the Swiss investment bank, said in a briefing in Hong Kong on Tuesday.

Chinese technology companies have been putting an increased focus on foreign markets, as online shopping apps like Shein and Temu, both of Chinese origin, gain traction worldwide.

Temu – owned by Pinduoduo parent PDD Holdings and based in Boston – and Shein – founded in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing and headquartered in Singapore – were the two most-downloaded shopping apps on Apple’s US iOS store in the past 30 days, according to app analytics platform data.ai.

Selling competitively-priced products in the international market could give Chinese internet firms room to grow and boost their valuations, according to Fong.

The import and export value of China’s cross-border e-commerce industry reached 2.38 trillion yuan (US$333 billion) in 2023, up 15.6 per cent from the previous year, according to preliminary estimates published by the State Council Information Office earlier this month.

Alibaba.com – a cross-border wholesale platform owned by Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the Post – last month launched a “digital trade service base” in Shanghai to support local merchants selling overseas.

This month, a founding member of Douyin, the Chinese version of ByteDance-owned TikTok, started a new venture focusing on cross-border e-commerce.

AI also remains a main theme for Chinese internet companies this year, according to Fong.

Beijing on Monday approved another batch of large language models – the technology used to train AI chatbots like ChatGPT – as Big Tech firms and start-ups in the country race to bring their AI solutions to the market.

However, these companies continue to face challenges in generating income from their AI initiatives, as it is “not easy” to get Chinese consumers to pay for software, Fong said.

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

Adoption of AI solutions will also take time, as companies seek to cut costs and improve operational efficiency, he added.

“When the economy is bad, it’s difficult to ask for tens of thousands or millions of dollars from your boss to purchase an AI system,” Fong said.

Chinese technology stocks have extended their slump into 2024 amid persistent concerns over the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery and regulatory uncertainties.

Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index – which comprises some 80 constituents that include mainland tech stocks such as Alibaba, Tencent Holdings, Meituan and Xiaomi – earlier this month fell to its lowest level since November 2022.

Chinese tech stocks recouped some of their losses after Beijing last week pledged to strengthen its support for the “stable and healthy development of the capital market”.

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Can China’s Chimera crack invisibility with its hybrid approach to camouflage?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3250268/can-chinas-chimera-crack-invisibility-its-hybrid-approach-camouflage?utm_source=rss_feed

Inspired by the Chimera of Greek mythology, researchers in China have combined the traits of three cold-blooded animals – the chameleon, glass frog and bearded dragon – to propose a hybrid material that could make the invisibility cloak a reality.

The scientists, from Jilin and Tsinghua Universities, say they have designed an experimental version – based on each animal’s distinct natural survival strategy – that could be undetectable across microwave, visible light and infrared spectra.

In a study published on Tuesday by the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers said they took a bionics-based approach to the problem of existing camouflages – their lack of versatility across different terrains.

“Our work transitions camouflage technologies from the constrained scenario to ever-changing terrains and constitutes a big advance towards new-generation reconfigurable electromagnetics [that can] change circuit topologies,” they said.

The study builds on rapid recent advancements in metamaterials – synthetics with the unique ability to manipulate electromagnetic waves – that have been increasingly applied to stealth technologies.

Through precise control of their surface structures, metamaterials can reflect electromagnetic waves in specific ways, effectively rendering objects invisible to radar. But their predefined functions can provide camouflage only in certain environments.

The Chinese scientists envisaged a metamaterial that could adapt to various spectral conditions and terrains while maintaining its resistance to visible and infrared light detection, the paper said.

They called the proposed metamaterial Chimera – the mythical creature made up of three different animals – because it incorporates the chameleon’s colour changes, the glass frog’s transparency, and the bearded dragon’s ability to regulate its temperature.

Lead author Xu Zhaohua, from Jilin University, said it was “intriguing that suitable working states of the Chimera metasurface can be found to match all the five terrains over the whole frequency range of interest”.

The scientists’ first inspiration was the chameleon, the Old World lizard best known for its ability to change its skin colour and tone.

The Chimera metamaterial mimics the chameleon by adjusting its microwave reflection properties to blend with different landscapes, from water surfaces to grasslands.

How Chinese students made an ‘invisibility cloak’ that evades security cameras

The Chimera’s design was also influenced by the glass frog, found in rainforests throughout Central and South America, which hides most of its blood in the liver during sleep, making the rest of its body transparent.

The researchers embedded the Chimera’s circuitry between layers of PET plastic and quartz glass to achieve a level of optical transparency reminiscent of the glass frog’s natural invisibility.

There was still the challenge of how to hide the heat generated by the electricity driving the metamaterial’s surface circuits, which could be exposed to infrared detectors. To address this issue, the scientists turned to Australia’s bearded dragon.

These reptiles regulate their body temperature by changing the colour of their backs, from a light yellow when they need to cool down to a dark brown which can keep them warm.

Using a mechanically driven design, the researchers said they have minimised the Chimera’s thermal differences to a mere 3.1 degrees Celsius (5.6 Fahrenheit), rendering it virtually undetectable to thermal imaging in various terrains.

By mimicking the way bearded dragons respond to their natural environments, the metasurface of the Chimera can reduce to some extent the possibility of its discovery by far-field thermal/temperature detection.

According to the paper, an experimental version of the Chimera metasurface was developed in a five-step process, starting with a pattern on plastic, followed by a metal mesh formation, and concluding with manual assembly to achieve the multi-spectrum stealth capabilities.

Radar ‘closer to spotting stealth jets’ with Chinese quantum project

The researchers said the technology’s potential applications are vast, from military uses to wildlife conservation work.

In military contexts, Chimera could provide significant strategic advantages by allowing objects or personnel to blend seamlessly into diverse environments and evade detection by radars, infrared detectors, and optical devices, they said.

The technology could also help with the non-invasive observation of animals in their natural habitats. By minimising human impacts on wildlife behaviour and the environment, Chimera could contribute to conservation efforts, the researchers said.

South China Sea: Vietnam, Philippines to boost coastguard cooperation under new deals

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3250283/south-china-sea-vietnam-philippines-boost-coastguard-cooperation-under-new-deals?utm_source=rss_feed

Vietnam and the Philippines agreed on Tuesday to boost coastguard cooperation in the South China Sea, as Manila tussles with Beijing over a hotly disputed reef.

China claims almost all of the strategic waterway in full, but the Philippines, Vietnam and several other countries claim various islands, islets, reefs and shoals.

Tensions have flared recently between Manila and Beijing over a series of confrontations between vessels from both countries, in particular around the Second Thomas Shoal, which Beijing calls the Ren’ai Shoal.

On Tuesday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr signed two deals with Vietnam, agreeing to set up a communication hotline and work on a joint coastguard committee to discuss common issues.

“The MOU (memorandum of understanding) on maritime cooperation is aimed at strengthening the understanding, mutual trust, and confidence between the two parties,” Marcos’ office said in a statement.

Earlier this month, China held military drills in the South China Sea as the United States and the Philippines conducted their own joint exercises in the same waters.

How Philippines-China ideology clash could spike tensions in disputed waters

The drills followed a month of tense stand-offs between China and the Philippines in disputed reefs in the area that saw a collision between vessels from the two countries and Chinese ships blasting water cannon at Philippine boats.

During Marcos’ two-day visit, Vietnam also agreed on a five-year trade commitment to supply up to two million tonnes of white rice to the Philippines to ensure food security “amid the impact of climate change, pandemics, and other external events”, the statement added.

Rice is a basic staple in the Philippines, but the country cannot produce enough for itself and has been one of the world’s top importers of the grain.

Prices of the grain soared to decade highs last year.

Vietnamese rice accounts for 85 per cent of imported rice in the Philippines, according to official data.

Marcos also held a private meeting with Pham Nhat Vuong, CEO of Vietnamese carmaker VinFast.

The communist state’s first home-grown car manufacturer said it plans to invest in the Philippines in 2024, beginning with the establishment of a network of electric car and motorcycle dealerships.

The Philippines also hopes to participate in the electric vehicle battery supply chain, working with its “abundant reserves of cobalt, copper and nickel”, Marcos said.

Chinese vice-premier urges support for listed firms to help stabilise battered stock market

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3250297/chinese-vice-premier-urges-support-listed-firms-help-stabilise-battered-stock-market?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese vice-premier He Lifeng has called for improvements in the performance and profitability of listed firms, a signal that Beijing wants to see more support for China’s ailing stock market and a boost in confidence along with it.

He made the remarks during a nationwide teleconference attended by cadres from all regions on Monday, during which he said confidence, capital market stability and economic development must be promoted. He called the country’s listed firms a critical “microeconomic bedrock”, stressing the high-quality development of the economy.

He told cadres to “sink to the ground” and visit many types of listed firms on door-knocking and problem-solving missions and step up support for quality companies to improve their investment appeal.

With Lunar New Year boon a stopgap, China’s economy has other 2024 priorities

“Promoting the high-quality development of listed firms will incentivise the drive for scientific and technological self-reliance, accelerate the building of modernised industrial systems and solidify confidence,” He said, according to a Xinhua readout.

Beijing last week began stepping in to reboot mainland China’s sagging stock exchanges, which included 5,346 firms as at the end of 2023, according to the China Association for Public Companies.

Despite annual economic growth of 5.2 per cent last year, slightly better than the leadership’s target of “around 5 per cent”, China’s economy continues to be weighed down by gloomy investor sentiment, with a property sector in distress and developers and local governments mired in debt.

Chinese stocks, which have endured a long tumble into bear market territory, now reflect a sullen investment atmosphere.

China’s capital market, valued at US$13 trillion at its peak in December 2021, has withered by one third since then. Analyses by Bloomberg put the loss in combined capitalisation since this year at more than US$1 trillion.

The rout prompted Premier Li Qiang to convene a cabinet meeting last week to discuss ways to revive sentiment and entice long-term capital to put a floor on plunging shares.

Two days later, the People’s Bank of China announced that the reserve requirement ratio for commercial banks would be trimmed by 50 basis points from February 5 to inject one trillion yuan into the market.

China’s rose-tinted growth scrutinised through jaundiced eyes of wary foreigners

On Monday, He also said that improving the performance and profitability of listed firms and reviving investor appetites were key to “establishing the new before abolishing the old”, one of the overarching themes of December’s Central Economic Work Conference, which stressed balancing stability and growth, and restoring confidence.

“These new measures and new remarks by senior officials aren’t precise enough to change the performance of the stock market, at least for now,” Natixis chief economist for Asia-Pacific Alicia Garcia-Herrero said.

Markets see a silver lining for China property in Evergrande’s liquidation order

“[Top policymakers] need to do something surprising, with more concrete measures, to reassure investors. We can see scepticism now, as the rally following last week’s boosting moves is gone.”

During Monday’s conference, He also discussed developer financing, urging localities to quickly establish financing coordination mechanisms to support projects and prevent homebuyer down payments from being misappropriated.

He also stressed faster progress on affordable housing, urban redevelopment and the development of emergency facilities.

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Biden vs. Trump on electric vehicles and China’s threat

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/30/biden-versus-trump-electric-vehicles-chinas-threat/2024-01-29T20:23:22.631Z

“China is determined to dominate that market, with EV [electric vehicles] predominantly made in China and Chinese jobs. The previous administration was content to sit on the sidelines and let China take all these jobs, but I won’t let that happen. … In fact, when Donald Trump was in office, six auto factories closed around the country. Tens of thousands of auto jobs were lost nationwide during Trump’s presidency.”

— President Biden, in a speech to the United Auto Workers union, Jan. 24

“Biden has imposed the outlandish requirement that 67 percent of all new vehicles must be electric in less than 10 years. That means Michigan and places that make cars, you can forget about it. You better get your union working because you can forget about it. Those cars are all going to be made in China. … There’s no such thing as fair transition that destroys over 100,000 auto manufacturing jobs.”

— Former president Donald Trump, in a video address, Jan. 24

Get ready for the split-screen presidential election.

With Biden running for reelection and Trump seeking to get his old job back, voters will be bombarded with constant claims and counterclaims about each man’s record during his presidency.

When Biden addressed the UAW last week — and accepted its endorsement — he claimed Trump ignored China’s push into electric vehicles and lost auto industry jobs during his presidency. Trump, in turn, attacked Biden’s green energy policies designed to promote broader acceptance of electric vehicles, saying these policies will eliminate auto manufacturing jobs because China is going to dominate the market anyway. He accused the UAW — which reached contract agreements with auto manufacturers to ensure a transition to an EV world — of buying into myths about electric vehicles and urged workers to quit the union. “You should not pay your dues because they’re selling you to hell,” Trump said.

How do their records stand up?

The Facts

Contrasting auto job records

Let’s first address the question of jobs — a data point easily found via the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Notice that Biden said “tens of thousands of auto jobs were lost nationwide during Trump’s presidency.” Technically, that’s right — if you include auto retail jobs. Those jobs declined 78,000 from February 2017 to February 2021, according to the bureau. Auto and auto parts manufacturing jobs saw a slight increase — 300 jobs — in the same period.

The White House uses the period from January 2017 to January 2021 to come up with a figure of 87,000 lost auto jobs under Trump, including nearly 9,000 manufacturing jobs. A president takes the oath of office Jan. 20. But for the Current Employment Statistics survey, employers report data to the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the pay period that includes the 12th of the month — before the new president takes office. So February, not January, would actually cover the first pay period after a new president is inaugurated. The bureau says there is no right or wrong way to do this, and economists differ on the best starting point. At The Fact Checker, we start counting the presidential job record with the February data.

Note that Trump’s job statistic includes 2020 — when the world was gripped by the coronavirus pandemic. The numbers change significantly if you date Trump’s job record from February 2017 to February 2020, just before the pandemic crashed the U.S. economy. That shows a gain of 34,100 auto manufacturing jobs and 36,400 auto retail jobs — for a total of more than 70,000 jobs in three years. That is a fairer way to look at Trump’s record on the auto industry.

But in early 2020 there were certainly signs of stress in auto manufacturing. It’s largely forgotten now, but the U.S. economy was slipping just before the pandemic, despite Trump’s constant bombast that he had created the best economy ever. Nearly 26,000 auto manufacturing jobs were lost from February 2019 to February 2020, indicating that the manufacturing sector was in a recession in 2019. Biden is correct that six manufacturing plants were closed — all before the pandemic.

Biden now has been president almost as long as Trump was when the pandemic emerged. The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data is from December 2023, and Biden so far fares much better in a direct comparison of the first three years. Almost 125,000 auto manufacturing jobs have been created and 129,000 auto retail jobs, for a gain of nearly 254,000 during Biden’s presidency.

Biden vs. Trump on electric cars

Biden is correct that Trump did not encourage electric-vehicle production or seek to counter China’s big investment in the technology. Trump would sometimes joke — falsely — about how little an electric vehicle could travel on a single charge. He proposed to eliminate programs that encouraged the manufacture or purchase of an electric vehicle and proposed no legislation designed to encourage EV manufacturing in the United States.

Even now that the European Union has mandated the sale of only zero-emission new cars by 2035, Trump seems rooted in fossil-fuel technology, complaining in his video address that “we sit on liquid gold and we’re getting rid of combustion engines.” He questions whether the United States would make the batteries that power EVs, giving China the edge.

The Chinese government has given huge subsidies to the EV industry in a quest to dominate it. In the final quarter of 2023, the Chinese firm BYD — which once just made cellphone batteries — surpassed Tesla as the world’s biggest manufacturer of vehicles powered only by batteries.

Biden administration officials point to laws passed during his presidency to counter China’s rise in the EV market: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law ($7.5 billion to promote EV charging, including building a network of high-speed chargers); the Chips and Science Act (which provides $39 billion in semiconductor manufacturing incentives, including $2 billion for older chips used in automobiles and defense systems) and the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, (which provides tax credits for EVs and incentives to encourage domestic battery production).

As a result, automakers have invested billions of dollars in electric-vehicle and battery manufacturing. A report issued by the Environmental Defense Fund in August said $93 billion of announced EV investments and nearly 85,000 in announced jobs took place in the 12 months after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. In a December research report, Goldman Sachs said that as a result of that law, the United States could be self-sufficient in EV battery production — including mining, components and battery production — by 2030.

Biden in April proposed tough emission standards that could mean two out of every three new vehicles that automakers sell will be electric within a decade. The Energy Department says it will assist with the conversion to electric vehicles with $2 billion in grants and $10 billion in loans to automakers and suppliers.

Contrary to Trump’s statement that Biden has already imposed a mandate, the Environmental Protection Agency has not issued a final regulation. Auto dealers have written Biden that there is an oversupply of EVs and they won’t be able to meet the proposed requirements.

EV sales have increased for 14 straight quarters, according to Cox Automotive, which owns the auto research and valuation company Kelley Blue Book, but still account for only 7.6 percent of total sales. “The EV market in the U.S. is still growing, but not growing as fast,” Cox said, predicting the EV share may top 10 percent this year.

As for Trump’s claim that the transition to mostly EV sales will result in the loss of 100,000 jobs, a Trump spokesman did not respond to repeated queries asking for the source of this claim. We think Trump may be referring to a 2021 report by the Economic Policy Institute, which said that in the transition to EV sales, the auto industry could lose 75,000 jobs without sufficient government investment.

“In terms of setting up the U.S. auto sector to thrive in the EV transition, I’d argue that the IRA has absolutely done a lot to move us well away from the ‘base case’ scenario in 2021 that would’ve seen a large number of jobs lost,” said Josh Bivens, co-author of the report and chief economist at the institute. “The Biden administration is indeed on track to prevent those job losses.”

The Bottom Line

Biden’s record on electric vehicles holds up well in comparison to Trump’s. He can point to three major laws that have been passed that seek to encourage EV sales and promote domestic semiconductor and battery production. Auto jobs have boomed under Biden, with auto manufacturing jobs at their highest point since 2006. He’s placed a big bet that the United States will transition to mostly EV sales in the next decade, just as Europe and China have. Whether that bet pays off — and whether the auto industry can weather the transition without major dislocation — remains to be seen.

Trump, meanwhile, as president largely ignored growing consumer interest in electric vehicles. He rails that Biden’s actions to promote EV will result in major job losses — and that China will win the EV race in any case. He offers no evidence for his claims, and it’s a strangely passive response for someone who during his presidency constantly warned about the U.S. trade deficit with China.

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China sees two ‘bowls of poison’ in Biden and Trump and ponders who is the lesser of two evils

https://apnews.com/article/china-us-election-biden-trump-7308b0d650b8ea309f343dec00d0b827In this combination of photos, President Joe Biden speaks on Aug. 10, 2023, in Salt Lake City, left, and former President Donald Trump speaks on July 8, 2023, in Las Vegas. As the U.S. presidential campaign moves closer to a Donald Trump-Joe Biden rematch, China is watching uneasily.(AP Photo)

2024-01-30T05:10:54Z

BEIJING (AP) — As the U.S. presidential campaign moves closer to a Donald Trump-Joe Biden rematch, China is watching uneasily.

First, there are concerns about the campaign itself, where candidates are likely to talk tough on China. That could threaten the fragile improvements in U.S.-China relations seen in recent months.

Then there’s the outcome of the November vote. Neither candidate is particularly appealing to Beijing. While Biden has looked for areas of cooperation with China, Beijing is concerned about his efforts to unite allies in the Indo-Pacific in a coalition against China. It’s also nervous about his approach to Taiwan after he has repeatedly said he would have U.S. troops defend it in a conflict with China.

Trump, with his isolationist approach to foreign policy, might be more hesitant to defend Taiwan. But nothing can be ruled out given his unpredictability and his tough rhetoric on China, which he blames for the COVID-19 outbreak that dogged the end of his term. He also could deepen a trade war that hasn’t eased since his presidency.

“For China, no matter who won the U.S. presidential election, they would be two ‘bowls of poison’,” said Zhao Minghao, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Even with the slight improvement in relations, tensions remain high, particularly over Taiwan. The question of who is in the White House could have enormous consequences not only for U.S.-China relations but for peace in the Asia-Pacific region.

Zhao’s views are echoed by a number of analysts in both countries, who suggest Beijing may find Biden the lesser of two evils for his steadiness over Trump’s unpredictability but also point out that the Chinese government agonizes over Biden’s success in building partnerships to counter China.

“No matter who takes office, it will not change the overall direction of America’s strategic competition with China,” said Sun Chenghao, a fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University. “China doesn’t have any preference for who will win the presidential election because China has experience dealing with either of them for four years.”

In China’s social media, many commentators appear to be favoring Trump, whom they see not only as a businessman up for a deal but also a disruptive force that undermines American democracy and U.S. global leadership to the benefit of Beijing. Trump’s policies and remarks as president earned him the nickname of Chuan Jianguo, or “Trump, the (Chinese) nation builder,” an implication that he was helping Beijing.

Trump’s recent accusation that Taiwan took the chip-making industry from the U.S. has been seen as a sign that Trump, a businessman at heart, may not be willing to defend the self-governed island that Beijing considers to be Chinese territory.

Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Washington-based Stimson Center, cautioned against nationalistic sentiments in China that could be at odds with government officials and elites. “With Trump, there is no floor to U.S.-China relations, and Trump poses great risks and uncertainties, including the possibility of a military conflict,” Sun said, adding China in 2020 was convinced that Trump could attack Taiwan to win reelection.

“There might be some benefit associated with Trump’s potential to damage alliances and partnerships, shaking the world’s confidence in America’s leadership, but the benefit for China will not be able to offset the even more significant damage he would impose on the relationship with China,” she said.

Trump started off on the wrong foot with China when he took a congratulatory call on his 2016 election victory from the president of Taiwan, angering the government in Beijing, which opposes any official contact between Taiwan and foreign governments.

Relations appeared to get back on track in 2017, when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in April and, six months later, hosted the U.S. president in Beijing with a dinner at the Forbidden City, the former imperial palace.

But in 2018, Trump started a trade war by imposing tariffs on Chinese imports. China retaliated with tariffs on U.S. goods, and the tariffs on both sides remain to this day.

The COVID-19 outbreak in China in 2020 pushed Trump’s relationship with the country to the point of no return. As the virus spread to the United States, he tried to deflect criticism of his handling of the pandemic by blaming China, drawing strong rebukes from Beijing.

When Biden and Trump squared off in 2020, U.S. intelligence agencies reported before the election that China viewed Trump as “unpredictable” and opposed his reelection. A subsequent assessment issued months after the election said that China ultimately had not interfered on either side and “considered but did not deploy” influence operations intended to affect the outcome.

Experts say the Chinese also are unlikely to interfere with the U.S. presidential election this year, partly because they are unwilling and partly because they have yet to build up the capabilities. If Beijing is to interfere, it is more likely to try to discredit U.S. democracy, amplify partisan discord, and undermine faith in the election process, they say.

Once elected, Biden kept his predecessor’s China policy. Not only did he keep the tariffs but Biden also limited access by Chinese companies to advanced technologies, sanctioned Chinese officials over human rights violations and expanded restrictions on China-bound U.S. monies.

Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in 2022 called China the “most serious long-term challenge to the international order.”

Then in early 2023, tensions spiked again when the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon. It took months of diplomacy to set up a meeting between Biden and Xi that resulted in some modest agreements and a vow to stabilize relations.

Miles Yu, director of the China center at the Hudson Institute, said the U.S. has come to a bipartisan agreement on China, with the two parties sharing “pretty much the same China policy.” In response, China’s ruling Communist Party has a new U.S. policy, he said.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a black cat or a white cat, as long as it’s an American cat, it’s a bad cat,” Yu said, borrowing from the famous saying by China’s reformist politician Deng Xiaoping that encouraged market reforms regardless of ideology.

But several experts expressed a guarded preference for Biden because of his steadiness, which they say Beijing may appreciate in managing the already-fraught relations.

“Trump is by nature volatile and cruel and is a person hard to be familiar with,” said Shi Yinhong, international relations professor at Renmin University of China. While Beijing can expect its relationship with Washington to stay the course if Biden is reelected, it may not wish to deal with Trump’s hysteria toward China and possibly drastic changes if he returns to the White House, Shi said.

Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China, said Beijing is more worried about Trump’s hostility toward globalization than Biden’s worldwide efforts to build alliances. “We don’t expect any one of them would be better for China, but the key (for China) is to continue its opening and reforms, and high-quality development,” Wang said.

But Shi Sushi, a veteran commentator in Beijing, said it is easier for China to handle Trump, who just wants to cut a deal, than Biden, who has a values-based approach to governing.

“Biden’s toughness is something few Chinese understand,” Shi said. “He is an establishment politician. He is a defender of American values. He is engaged in ‘friends-circle diplomacy’ to form a circle of friends that integrates the power of the West to (counter) China. From this point of view, I can bluntly say that Biden is more difficult to deal with.”

___

Tang reported from Washington. Associated Press researchers Yu Bing and Chen Wanqing in Beijing, and AP writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

China to expel prominent rocket scientist from top body as corruption probe keeps sights on defence-aerospace sector

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3250256/china-expel-prominent-rocket-scientist-top-body-corruption-probe-keeps-sights-defence-aerospace?utm_source=rss_feed

A prominent Chinese rocket scientist will be expelled from China’s top advisory body after a meeting on Monday, a development that comes amid Beijing’s investigation into leaders of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force on suspicion of corruption.

Wang Xiaojun, who led the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, would be removed as a representative on the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), state broadcaster CCTV said without detailing any reason for Wang’s removal.

The decision came after Wang Huning, the CPPCC chairman and Politburo Standing Committee member, chaired a regular meeting with his deputies. The meeting did not have the power to dismiss Wang outright; the decision is likely to be made final in March, before the “two sessions” annual meetings.

China has targeted senior officials in and close to the rocket force, which oversees nuclear and missile development. Three senior Chinese aerospace-defence executives were dismissed from the CPPCC in December. Two days later, five former or serving leaders of the force were removed from the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, China’s top legislative body.

Rocket scientist Wang is known for his work on China’s space programme, including leading the development of the Long March 7 family of rockets that are used to resupply the Tiangong space station and to launch satellites.

He became a CPPCC member in March. His last known appearance was in June, when as dean he led an official through an exhibit about aerospace development at the state-run rocket academy. Only days before, he received officials from Hunan province. Wang has since been replaced by an acting dean.

China strips 3 aerospace-defence executives of political titles amid crackdown

Wang had become the dean and deputy party secretary of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology by February 2020, replacing Hao Zhaoping who became dean in 2018.

Beijing has launched a wide-ranging purge of officials involved in the missile force and space development. In China, the space programme is closely linked to the military.

The crewed programme draws astronauts from the military’s astronaut corps under the PLA Strategic Support Force. The China Manned Space Agency is under the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission (CMC), China’s top military command.

Li Shangfu, the former defence minister who was dismissed in October, headed the equipment department before he became the face of China’s military diplomacy.

The CMC issued a notice in July asking the public to report irregularities in how equipment tenders had been assessed since October 2017. The notice did not mention Li, but he started as head of the department only a month before.

Overzealous China school principal makes dash to home of sick pupil, orders mother to send child to class or risk his future

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3249310/overzealous-china-school-principal-makes-dash-home-sick-pupil-orders-mother-send-child-class-or-risk?utm_source=rss_feed

A school principal in China who dashed to a student’s home when he took the morning off school because he was ill, and demanded the mother make the boy return to class, has divided opinion on mainland social media.

A junior school principal, surnamed Li, in Hainan province, southern China, said she was concerned about the child after she learned he was not at school, so she visited his home.

When she saw the boy playing outside his house barefoot and not wearing very much, she became angry and shouted at his mother, according to news reports.

“My son does not feel well, don’t you understand? Is it wrong to take half a day off school?” The mother asks Li, according to a video posted on social media.

“Yes. In his condition, he should go to school,” Li responds.

The mother was clearly baffled by the principal’s approach because just the day before her son had fainted at school and his teacher had called her to come and pick him up.

Although the boy felt better that evening, she made the decision that he should rest the next morning.

“He still felt dizzy last night and I had already said he would be off sick,” the mother says.

“Taking sick leave requires a medical certificate. If he has any problems at school, our teachers will look after him,” Li explains, looking increasingly upset in the video.

The mother repeats that she preferred to keep her son at home to monitor his condition, and if he seemed well enough by the afternoon, she would consider sending him to school then.

But Li could not be convinced, and lectured the mother about the importance of education, sharing her personal experience as an example and then insulting the mother over the fact that she is a farmer.

“I’ve never been late for school, and I became a principal. What do you want your son to be? Do you want him to be a farmer like you?” Li asks in the video.

The principal continued with her tirade, asking the mother if she cares whether her son gets a good job. The shocked mother does not respond.

The story has sparked widespread debate on mainland social media.

“Li must be a responsible principal. Not only does she make time to visit the pupil’s home, she also tries hard to convince the mother,” one person said.

“They are so lucky to have such a responsible principal,” another said.

Others supported the mother’s decision and were not impressed with the principal’s reaction.

“The mother is right,” one online observer said.

“The principal’s attitude is very rude,” said another.

In 1986, the Chinese government introduced a nine-year-compulsory education system from primary to secondary school levels in a bid to eradicate illiteracy in the country.

In 2008, that period of education became entirely tuition-free, funded solely by the government.

By 2018, the graduation rate was 94.2 per cent, and the country had 213,800 elementary and secondary schools with 149.9 million students.

The global data and business intelligence platform Statista released a report last year, which showed that the provinces of Tibet, Qinghai, and Gansu had the most illiterate populations of people aged 15 and over. Accounting for 34.55, 9.69, and 9.05 per cent, respectively.

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Chinese fintech giant Ant Group expands overseas payment service Alipay+ to serve visa-free, Lunar New Year travellers

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3250237/chinese-fintech-giant-ant-group-expands-overseas-payment-service-alipay-serve-visa-free-lunar-new?utm_source=rss_feed

Ant Group, an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, is boosting its operations throughout Asia, as the Chinese fintech major seeks to capitalise on the country’s visa-free policy and an anticipated Lunar New Year travel boom.

Ant recently expanded the availability of Alipay+, its cross-border mobile payment service, across Asia and in parts of Europe, covering more than 100,000 stores in Thailand and Dubai, respectively, and 10,000 taxis in 12 Italian regions, the company said on Tuesday.

Alipay+ is designed to help small and medium-sized businesses accept payments from travellers using their own local electronic wallets. It now supports 16 partner e-wallets and bank apps covering more than 88 million merchants in 57 markets, the firm said.

Ant Group’s Alipay+ expands support for Asian e-wallet and payment apps in China

The service expansion comes as Beijing introduces new visa-free policies to promote tourism and business ties amid a sluggish economy. Starting last December 1 until November 30, travellers from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia are allowed to stay in China without a visa for 15 days.

From Lunar New Year’s Eve, which falls on February 9, China and Singapore will also mutually allow each other’s citizens to travel, visit families and go on business trips without a visa for 30 days. This comes after Malaysia and Thailand waived visa requirements for Chinese travellers for stays of up to 30 days.

More Chinese travellers are expected to head overseas during the coming Lunar New Year – the second since China scrapped its stringent Covid-19 restrictions in late 2022. However, the numbers are likely to remain below pre-pandemic levels as the country grapples with economic headwinds.

At home, regulatory pressure appears to be easing on Ant after it underwent a series of restructuring following the cancellation of its planned dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong in late 2020.

With founder Jack Ma’s voting rights at Alipay having shrunk from over 53 per cent to just above 6 per cent, China’s central bank confirmed last month that the Ant-operated mobile payment app no longer had a controller.

The move is seen as another step forward for Ant to resume its initial public offering, which was derailed following a controversial speech given by Ma.

In another sign of regulatory easing, central bank governor Pan Gongsheng said last week that the People’s Bank of China and the government of Zhejiang province were preparing to grant an Ant-affiliated agency a “personal credit information collection licence”, a necessary permit for Ant to grow its credit business.

Australia steps up aid for East Timor amid China’s growing influence in the Pacific

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3250174/australia-steps-aid-east-timor-amid-chinas-growing-influence-pacific?utm_source=rss_feed

The Australian government has pledged A$35 million (US$23 million) towards supporting East Timor’s policing services and another A$4 million (US$2.6 million) in aid to help Timorese workers integrate in Australia, as Canberra continued to make good on its intentions to improve regional relations amid China’s increased influence.

Underlying these gestures however are pre-existing tensions between the two countries, especially in differences over the development of the controversial but valuable Greater Sunrise gas fields located in the Timor Gap, the strip of water between the two countries.

Canberra said the funding announced on Monday would “continue the successful policing partnership” between the Australian Federal Police and the National Police of East Timor and would be deployed through the Timor-Leste Police Development Programme.

“The extension of our policing partnership underscores Australia’s ongoing support for Timor-Leste’s sovereignty and security,” said the statement issued by Pat Conroy, Australia’s minister for international development and the Pacific.

East Timor says not seeking China military ties, Australia can ‘sleep at peace’

The new funding will also support Timorese workers starting jobs in Australia under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, including helping them build financial literacy skills.

This increase in support comes after Australia and East Timor signed a major defence deal in 2022 to boost bilateral military cooperation, in what Canberra called “a significant step forward” and a “new chapter” in their relationship.

The countries have had a chequered history. Australia had supported Indonesia’s plan to invade East Timor and later spied on the country to gain an upper hand in negotiations on the Greater Sunrise gas fields so that Australia could obtain a bigger share.

In 2018, Australia and East Timor settled their differences over maritime borders that also created a special regime to offer East Timor a majority share in gas revenues, although there was no agreement about where the gas would be processed.

But East Timor’s President José Ramos-Horta warned in 2022 that his nation would seek Chinese support if Australia and Australia’s Woodside Energy – which had a share in the US$50 billion Greater Sunrise project – failed to pump the gas to East Timor rather than Darwin in Australia.

Around the same time, the Solomon Islands agreed to a pact with China that would allow Chinese police or military personnel to help with disaster relief and Chinese naval ships to dock, sparking concerns in the region.

This was followed quickly by East Timor and Australia inking their major defence deal and Woodside agreeing to channel the Greater Sunrise gas to East Timor.

The Solomon Islands incident forced the hands of Australia and other western allies, who have been accused of neglecting the region. Alongside East Timor, Canberra last year stepped up bilateral deals with other regional countries, including those in the Pacific such as Tuvalu and Papua New Guinea.

Greater Sunrise is important to East Timor as it bears much-needed economic benefits. During a visit to East Timor last year, Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong was again pressed on Canberra’s commitment towards Greater Sunrise.

Late last year, Woodside started work on the project’s concept study.

While Australia’s weak diplomatic relations with its East Timor and its Pacific neighbours were brought to the fore by Chinese presence, it also directed benefits to these countries, said Clinton Fernandes, an Australian international-relations analyst who has experience with East Timor.

Such benefits may include indirect ones, such as more attention from the west, political analysts say.

Countries like East Timor “would not necessarily fear closer integration with the Chinese economy”, Fernandes said.

East Timor has expressed its intention on upgrading its relationship with China to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

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Blockbuster China TV series Blossoms Shanghai reignites passion for mainland dialects while being likened to Harry Potter

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3248889/blockbuster-china-tv-series-blossoms-shanghai-reignites-passion-mainland-dialects-while-being?utm_source=rss_feed

The huge success of the hit television series Blossoms Shanghai has rekindled enthusiasm for the city’s dialect and sparked calls for the patois of other regions of China to be used in mainland TV dramas.

Directed by the internationally renowned Hong Kong director, Wong Kar-wai, the series tells the story of a self-made millionaire in 1990s Shanghai as China’s economy went into overdrive.

It was adapted from the award-winning novel of the same title by Shanghai author Jin Yucheng, and stars a group of nationally famous Shanghainese actors, including Hu Ge, Ma Yili, and Tiffany Tang Yan.

The scale of its popularity has led some people on mainland social media to joke that it was the Shanghai equivalent of the Harry Potter series, which had an all-British cast.

Indeed, it has led many fans to divide Shanghainese actors into two groups, those who appear in the series and those who do not.

The series was made in the Shanghainese dialect, a variety of Wu Chinese, and later dubbed into Mandarin, both have aired online.

Many, including people from other parts of China, prefer the Shanghainese version, saying that the dialect offers an “original and realistic flavour” of the city.

As the series received critical acclaim, it also sparked a Shanghainese-speaking trend, with locals proudly making social media videos using the dialect, and teaching those keen to learn it.

Some of the Shanghainese phrases that went viral include be biang, which means “have fun”, dia, a one-syllable word used when giving people the highest compliment, plus yaso, or “godfather”.

In the series, yaso refers to the business veteran behind the success of lead character Boss Bao, played by 90-year-old You Benchang.

A Chinese linguist specialising in Shanghainese studies, professor of Shanghai University, Qian Nairong, told The Beijing News that language is the most direct way to experience a city’s culture and life.

He added that he hoped Blossoms Shanghai would encourage more people to pick up the dialect and pass it on to the next generation.

China is a multilingual nation with seven dialect groups and more than 80 sub-dialects and ethnic minority languages.

Today, more than 80 per cent of the Chinese population speak Mandarin, up from 70 per cent a decade ago, and 25 of the country’s spoken languages and dialects are “critically endangered”, according to Unesco.

The Chinese government requires Mandarin education at schools nationwide and has been limiting the use of dialects on TV, insisting on the use of standard Mandarin Chinese for all nationally aired shows.

The ban caused a Shanghainese TV programme, Shanghai Dialect Talk, to be cancelled in 2014.

The nostalgia for Shanghainese evoked by Blossoms Shanghai chimes with a growing trend of sharing clips from old TV series made in various dialects on social media.

Many people are calling for the reinvigoration of the use of dialects in TV programmes.

China boasts bubbling crude discovery – oil that is, 107 million tonnes – in Henan province, adding fuel to energy-security drive

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3250189/china-boasts-bubbling-crude-discovery-oil-107-million-tonnes-henan-province-adding-fuel-energy?utm_source=rss_feed

China has discovered what could amount to 107 million tonnes of crude oil in its central region – a quantity equivalent to more than half of the nation’s production in 2023 – as authorities intensify efforts to enhance energy security and rely less on oil imports.

The presence of the abundant oilfield was verified while drilling in the Sanmenxia basin of Henan province, according to the state-run Henan Daily, which said the estimated size was announced by the China Geological Survey under the Ministry of Natural Resources.

“The field has the foundation for building a new oil-and-gas resource base,” said party mouthpiece CCTV, which described the discovery as a milestone in the 50-year oil-and-gas survey conducted in the province.

Crude oil is unrefined petroleum extracted directly from the ground, and it is widely used in industries related to garments, chemicals, medicine and aerospace.

China to lead global oil demand growth in 2024 to feed reviving economy

Although China has relatively high crude oil production from a global standpoint, demand for the natural resource is very high, as China is the world’s biggest industrial producer.

China relies on overseas imports to meet more than 70 per cent of its crude oil demand, and last year it imported 564 million tonnes, representing an annual increase of 11 per cent from 508 million tonnes in 2022, according to customs figures.

Russia has also replaced Saudi Arabia as the top oil seller to China. Customs data showed that nearly 19 per cent of the country’s total crude oil imports came from Russia last year, while more than 15 per cent came from Saudi Arabia.

The United States is also among China’s top-10 crude oil sellers, with China importing 14.28 million tonnes of crude from the US last year, accounting for 2.5 per cent of total imports.

Faced with external uncertainties, the world’s biggest crude oil buyer is intensifying its quest for domestic oil sources.

While energy security has taken centre stage in policymakers’ risk-aversion strategy, some analysts expect that China’s oil demand will ease under Beijing’s push for new-energy sources.

According to the report, the oil found in Henan is light crude with no water, which makes it relatively easy to refine.

“The discovery accounts for nearly one-third of the country’s current total oil and gas production, this is a significant amount and makes it an important discovery for China, as it is heavily dependent on overseas crude oil,” said Peng Peng, executive chairman of the Guangdong Society of Reform.

Beijing’s emphasis on cultivating the “new three” – electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar cells – to help spur economic growth will expedite the reduction in China’s demand for crude oil, aligning with the nation’s carbon-reduction goals, Peng said.

China unearths million-tonne lithium deposit, in boon to EV battery industry

“Coupled with the fact that China is also exploring new types of fossil fuels, including shale gas and combustible ice, China’s oil demand will grow to a tipping point,” Peng added.

Last year, China produced more than 390 million equivalent tonnes of oil and gas, with 208 million tonnes of crude oil, according to data released by the National Energy Administration earlier this month.

According to the most recent data from the Ministry of Natural Resources, China’s oil reserves totalled about 3.8 billion tonnes in 2022, accounting for about 1.58 per cent of global reserves, and ranking 13th in the world.

The reserves amount to only 9 per cent of those of top-holder Venezuela, and 10 per cent of those of second-ranked Saudi Arabia.

Why Javier Milei’s fiery Davos speech calling on the West to reject socialism has received unexpected attention in China

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3250172/why-javier-mileis-fiery-davos-speech-calling-west-reject-socialism-has-received-unexpected-attention?utm_source=rss_feed

Speeches by foreign state leaders are rarely hot topics of discussion in China, especially when the content has no direct link to the country. But a recent address by Javier Milei in Davos, Switzerland, has made the new Argentinian president an unlikely “opinion leader” among Chinese people.

Ever since Milei delivered his special address to the World Economic Forum two weeks ago, translated text and video clips of his speech have been circulating widely on Chinese social media platforms, sparking interest and exchanges about concepts of collectivism, capitalism and socialism.

At the outset, the 20-minute speech is entirely unrelated to China – Milei warned that the “Western world is in danger” because its leaders have abandoned “the values of the West”. Still, his fiery words denouncing collectivism and trumpeting “free-enterprise capitalism” have given the Chinese public a chance to talk about related topics.

The popularity of Milei’s speech, to some extent, has more to do with China’s own social and economic context than the main message he was trying to deliver.

In China, the “socialism or capitalism” debate officially ended 32 years ago, when then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping essentially declared the issue irrelevant during his famous southern tour in 1992.

Deng wanted the country to focus on development, and ever since then, the ideological debate has faded from public discourse, as the country embraced pragmatism and concentrated on growth.

Under the banner of “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics” and the can-do spirit of “crossing the river by touching the stones”, China unshackled itself from orthodox Marxism doctrines to pursue prosperity.

Blessed by favourable geopolitical and demographic conditions, China’s economic potential was unleashed, and the rest was history.

To be sure, the Chinese constitution still holds “public ownership” as the basis of China’s socialist economic system and defines “socialist public property” as inviolable, but on the ground, there have been plenty of innovations designed to get things done.

At the very least, the enshrinement of public ownership did not stop the country from privatising state enterprises, selling “land-use rights” for publicly-owned land, and allowing private entrepreneurs to join the Communist Party.

For a brief time, it was taken for granted that ideological prejudices against private businesses had become a thing of the past. Many successful capitalists became role models, exemplary citizens and public intellectuals.

Meanwhile, people became increasingly unhappy about the widening wealth gap and were getting angry about the collusion of money and power that turned state assets into personal gains. As a result, questions about capital, capitalists and capitalism started resurfacing in the past couple of years.

The pursuit of social justice has become more pronounced in the world’s second-largest economy. Words such as “capitalists” and “exploitation”, which are regarded in China as evils to be exterminated, returned to the discourse, and a number of Chinese opinion leaders have attempted to launch an online witch hunt targeting certain private entrepreneurs to uncover their “original sins”.

While the hostility against “free-enterprise capitalism” in China was relatively short-lived, the damage to investor confidence was done. Beijing has responded by assuring the country’s private entrepreneurs that they will be valued and protected, but the big question for Chinese capitalists remains.

Will they still be regarded as the “necessary evil” of the initial stage of socialism, or will Beijing one day give full endorsement to their existence and stop carving up the national economy into “public ownership” and “private ownership”?

It is amid this sense of uncertainty that Milei’s speech has struck a chord among the Chinese people. The Argentinian president probably didn’t think about China at all when he wrote his speech, but people who are sharing it in China likely know that Beijing’s perception of the topic will be critically important for the country’s future.

Why is China mixing its economic messages when business confidence is so low?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3250170/why-china-mixing-its-economic-messages-when-business-confidence-so-low?utm_source=rss_feed

The new year traditionally offers a window for an upbeat economic mood in China, falling between the Communist Party’s annual economic work conference in December – the usual arena to inject support for growth and the private sector – and the celebratory Spring Festival, typically in late January or early February.

But this new year feels a bit different.

Only 10 days after the annual central economic work conference, which this year set a modestly supportive policy tone and emphasised economic growth for 2024, Chinese regulators churned out draft rules to restrict spending that drives much of the gaming revenue for technology companies.

The move immediately raised fears of the sorts of industrial clampdowns the market has seen in other sectors, triggering a global sell-off in China’s tech stocks and wiping out billions of dollars of value.

In response, the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), the gaming regulator behind the rules, said it would improve the regulations and “seriously study” the feedback it had received.

The regulator then sacked Feng Shixin, a long-serving official and publication bureau chief at the NPPA, sources told the South China Morning Post.

Feng was expected to stay on in a different position, but that post has not yet been confirmed, another government source told the Post.

The NPPA did not respond to the Post’s request for comment, nor has it announced the personnel change.

The reversal added to public confusion about Beijing’s intention to balance economic growth, regulate the market and achieve national security in a geopolitical environment leaders have described as harsh and “unprecedented”.

Official data showed that China’s economy expanded 5.2 per cent over the previous year, hitting Beijing’s target. However, business confidence remains low. China’s stock markets were among the worst performers last year.

As a property crisis drags on and geopolitical tensions flare with the United States and other Western countries, private and foreign investment have contracted, falling to their lowest levels in more than a decade. Private investment shrank 0.4 per cent year on year, while foreign investment dropped by 8 per cent from 2022.

Adding to the pessimism is Beijing’s unclear stand on domestic policies. After years of prioritising security over development, and severe crackdowns on the property, financial, private tutoring and internet technology sectors to rein in “blind expansion” of private capital, Beijing signalled that it would fine-tune policies last year to aid the country’s faltering post-pandemic economic recovery. Various government documents were issued calling for more support for the private sector.

But according to observers, the government’s vague and mixed messages have generated widespread uncertainty about Beijing’s priorities, making it even harder to restore near-term business confidence.

Still, officials and insiders familiar with Beijing’s economic policymaking have dismissed the confusion and shrinking confidence, pointing to China’s multiple policy goals, a lack of communication between departments, and an intense geopolitical environment as reasons for the hazy perceptions. The message of support for growth, they say, has been clear all along.

“The mixed messages revolve around where the government wants to be on the continuum between economic development and growth on the one hand, and security and stability on the other,” said George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University’s China Centre.

“The government is supposed to keep a balance between the two, but in his rhetoric and actions, [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] consistently favours the latter.

“[Premier] Li Qiang and some other officials, including the NDRC [National Development and Reform Commission] on the other hand, seem to have a different slant but as everyone has to line up behind Xi, we sometimes get the impression the government itself is not aligned.”

Premier plays up China’s economic outlook, hits out at West over ‘de-risking’

While Li tried to convince world elites to trust and invest in China during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, security topics have been the focus of several annual national conferences in Beijing, with Xi urging institutions from the foreign ministry to the country’s courts, prosecutors and public security authorities to “safeguard national security”.

Meanwhile, as the agenda-setting central economic work conference fuelled hopes that Beijing would focus more of its attention on the economy, it also puzzled observers with empty and bewildering phrases such as “establishing the new before abolishing the old”, “seeking progress while maintaining stability”, and “pursuing stability through growth”, according to Magnus.

“They comprise rhetorical support for the economy – establishing the new, progress, growth – but without a coherent agenda, and a reluctance to change much – not abolishing the old, stability,” he said.

During the work conference, Xi pledged to make development a top political priority, guide public opinion, and play up China’s “bright prospects” in 2024. The Ministry of State Security then inserted itself into the discussion, promising to fight back in what it described as a narrative war over the state of the economy by framing the issue as a matter of economic security.

“The conference readout and other public rhetoric, moreover, has emphasised the need to tell good stories about the economy and economic development. This really is politics in command, with little sign that the government has grasped the need for extensive reform of the development model,” Magnus said.

“A focus on economic development would entail more ambitious measures to boost demand and reforms, but the government’s security and stability bias is the antithesis, and certainly seems to be where Xi’s intent and belief lie.”

With Lunar New Year boon a stopgap, China’s economy has other priorities in 2024

To shore up market confidence, China’s central bank last week announced a 50 basis points cut in the reserve requirement ratio from February 5 for all banks to free up 1 trillion yuan (US$139.45 billion) to the market, after it skipped a widely expected policy rate cut two weeks ago.

Policymakers have also urged banks to provide commercial property loans to eligible developers to allow them to pay off debts to ease a liquidity crunch facing troubled real estate firms.

The measures were welcomed by the market. However, they cannot fundamentally change the economic and policy outlook, which is the ultimate driver of the equity market and not forceful enough to restore business confidence, according to analysts.

Andrew Batson, an analyst with Gavekal Dragonomics, said the crossed wires resulted from the downgraded importance of China’s economic growth in recent years.

“Xi Jinping has given extremely clear and consistent instructions over many years that economic growth needs to be downgraded in importance relative to other political priorities. At the moment, growth is getting more attention for cyclical reasons, but the basic orientation has not changed,” Batson wrote in a research note this month.

“The agencies charged with delivering on political, social and security priorities have been given more power to achieve those objectives, and will be reluctant to yield it back to the economic bean counters.”

Chen Daoyin, an independent political analyst, said Beijing missed the window of opportunity to clarify its policy orientation and align all party organisations and government departments for the Third Plenum, which did not convene last year.

The top leadership has not announced a date for the party’s twice-a-decade third plenum, when China’s development strategy and priorities are set for the following five years.

It was the first time since 1984 that the party had not convened the plenary session in the year following the five-yearly party congress, usually held in October or November.

“The absence of an announcement likely suggests disunity within the party. Thus the work focus down the road will not be clear to all stakeholders,” Chen said.

“Under such circumstances, government departments will maximise their own interests, shirk their responsibilities or behave irresponsibly, which is expected to further dampen business confidence.”

Chinese officials and executives at state-owned enterprises generally do not see a problem in Beijing’s messaging.

Three sources from the central government and SOEs pointed to “moving forward amid twists and turns”, a quote by Xi from July’s Politburo meeting, as the main theme for economic recovery in 2024.

A government source who spoke on condition of anonymity said the incident over tech gaming rules was only caused by some department which has “limited understanding on macroeconomics or the potential impact of its proposed regulations”.

An SOE executive said it was partially due to Beijing’s emphasis on driving the “real economy”, which the gaming industry was not considered a part of.

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The government contact also noted that a personnel assessment system that did not directly correlate with economic performance could be a factor in the seemingly conflicted signals.

“As civil servants, we are dealing with a different assessment system for our work. Despite the fact that we are working on managing the country’s economy, its performance does not directly translate into our career advancement or promotion,” the source said.

The sources generally played down the impact of mixed signals on business confidence. Instead, they named the Taiwan issue and China’s longer-term economic problems – an ageing population and a tech sector held back by US sanctions – as the main concerns for business investors, justifying Beijing’s emphasis on security and science and technology development.

Closer to the front lines of China’s economic troubles, Fred Tang, an entrepreneur in the manufacturing sector in the eastern province of Jiangsu, said he has not been impressed by government rhetoric about boosting confidence and supporting the economy.

“I’ve received piles of government documents promising support in recent months. I lost interest quickly when I read the details,” Tang said.

For instance, he said, the proposed government funding for new investment projects came with many strings attached, meaning applicants were required to navigate assorted procedures and obtain various licences to qualify.

“The whole process will be time-consuming and troublesome. In the end, you have to deal with all kinds of government officials. They are the industry examiners, inspectors and watchdogs. They are watching you, instead of serving you,” he said.

While Premier Li called on his audience in Davos earlier this month to “zoom out and look from afar” to appreciate China’s economy as they would appreciate the beauty of the Alps, Tang felt more concerned about the short term.

“Industrial clampdowns are hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles. As long as the government wants to be the big boss of everything, few would feel assured enough to invest,” he said.

Additional reporting by Jun Mai