• Post-Brexit watchdog ‘ready’ to investigate flood of cheaper Chinese electric cars
• Solomon Islands’ pro-China leader pledges to continue balancing act with Australia as he seeks re-election
• Mainland Chinese make only day trips to Hong Kong with focus on saving cash as city loses allure to southern rivals
• Why Beijing is struggling with its mission to ‘tell China’s story well’
• Angry Taiwanese travel operators warn of protest at presidential oath after U-turn on group tours to mainland China
• Chinese provinces report more marriages after decade-long drop, with boost from Year of the Dragon and pandemic backlog
• Japan to help improve maritime capabilities of 4 Asean states amid South China Sea row
• David Cameron to have first meeting with Chinese foreign minister
• Avalanches again block roads near tourism spot in China’s Xinjiang region
• China father flies little girl, 7, in two-seater plane to rural hometown for Lunar New Year to skip traffic jams
• China objects to ‘unilateral sanctions’ in Ukraine war as EU proposes new trade curbs
• Branded: China netizens liken luxury auspicious red-white Lunar New Year fashion offerings to laundry bags, beef slices, blast pricing
• Pressure mounts on Israel for Gaza ceasefire as China warns of ‘serious humanitarian disaster’
• Australian minister to press China on trade barriers, Yang Hengjun sentence
• China’s domestic travel takes off, but foreign visitors yet to make a comeback
• Snake venom smuggled from India to China: traditional medicine, rave drug or ‘absolute nonsense’?
• Could Duterte’s Mindanao bid spark tensions in Philippines that ‘suit Beijing’s agenda’ in South China Sea?
• Year of the Dragon in Kenya: Chinese get a taste of home away from home at Lunar New Year gala in Nairobi
• Chinese biotech firm Wuxi AppTec should be sanctioned as a security threat, US lawmakers tell White House officials
• Puzzled China mother complains that child’s homework includes intrusive questions about family finances
• Nigerian rail projects drive home China’s commitment to African infrastructure development
• New North Korean rocket launch system and risk of arms race poses new puzzle for China
• As Red Sea shipping attacks continue, pressure grows for China to act
• Punish China, create US jobs: trade envoy defends Joe Biden’s retention of Donald Trump-era tariffs
• China population: teachers face uncertain future with falling birth rate set to create 1.9 million surplus by 2035

Post-Brexit watchdog ‘ready’ to investigate flood of cheaper Chinese electric cars

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/13/post-brexit-investigate-chinese-electric-cars-trade-uk

The head of Britain’s post-Brexit trade watchdog has said it is ready to follow Brussels in launching an investigation into Chinese companies flooding the market for electric cars, but the government has not asked it to do so.

Oliver Griffiths, the chief executive of the UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA), which advises the government on trade defence, said it was keeping lines of communication open with ministers and had been in close contact with the car industry. “We’ll be ready to go if anyone does come to us,” he told the Guardian in an interview.

The European Commission launched an anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) late last year after warning that global markets were being “flooded” with cheap imports from the world’s second largest economy.

Britain would have been covered by the inquiry as a member state but has led an independent trade policy since leaving the EU four years ago. Under the UK’s post-Brexit system, the TRA can be called on by ministers or industry to investigate whether import controls are needed to protect Britain’s economic interests.

However, Griffiths said no request by the government or carmakers had been made since Brussels launched its investigation in October. “We haven’t had either of those two things happen on electric vehicles. But I know people are watching it really closely,” he said.

“We’ve been in close and regular contact with the industry on this one, and lots of people are looking at the import numbers. Similarly, I know government have a fairly close watching brief on this one. All eyes will be on Brussels later on this year when they could potentially bring out an interim measure on this.”

Chinese carmakers including BYD and Nio are hoping to become big players in international markets after a sharp increase in production over recent years, with help from tax breaks, loans and other subsidies from Beijing.

China overtook Japan as the world’s largest car exporter last year, while the Shenzhen-based manufacturer BYD last quarter surpassed Elon Musk’s Tesla as the biggest-selling electric carmaker. The EU estimates China’s share of EVs sold in Europe has grown to 8% and could hit 15% by 2025, while AutoTrader expects one-sixth of the UK market to be controlled by Chinese firms by the end of the decade.

Concern is growing among some senior backbench MPs over the future of the British car industry. Last year UK members of the inter-parliamentary alliance on China – co-chaired by the former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith and the Labour peer Helena Kennedy – said the UK was “sleep-walking” into a situation where carmakers could be “undercut to the point of extinction” by Chinese companies.

Sam Lowe, a trade policy expert at Flint Global and former member of the UK government’s strategic trade advisory group, said last week that he expected the EU to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs this year.

“While the UK government and industry are currently publicly reluctant to replicate the EU measures, this will probably change once China-originating cars originally destined for the EU turn up in observable quantities on British driveways,” he said.

Griffiths warned there was a danger that an investigation into Chinese EVs could trigger retaliatory measures, highlighting that Beijing had launched an investigation into the alleged dumping of French brandy.

“If we were to do something in this space, the danger is that there is then a response from the country being investigated. And I think people are very aware of that,” he said.

Labour and the Conservatives have expressed desire to grow domestic EV manufacturing capacity, with the government offering £500m in subsidies to Tata, the Indian owner of Jaguar Land Rover, to build an electric car battery plant.

However, the prospect of import protections are not universally popular in the EU, where German companies – often with tie-ups with Chinese firms or significant sales in the country – have expressed unease.

Several carmakers in Britain have links with China, including JLR, which has a joint venture in the country. China has also acted as a big investor in the UK, including through the Chinese-owned battery company Envision AESC, which runs the UK’s only “gigafactory” in Sunderland, supplying Nissan, and Geely, which owns the black-cab maker London Electric Vehicle Company.

Griffiths said the structure of the UK car industry could influence whether import restrictions would help or hinder British firms, while suggesting that cheap Chinese imports could benefit consumers and the push to net zero.

“This is essentially a consumer good that could be much cheaper, that could really accelerate the transition to net zero. So there are very important equities on both sides,” he said.

“We obviously won’t take a view on this unless and until we’re asked to start a case. But I think it’s an interesting example where you see a number of different public policy goals coming into land within one investigation.”

A government spokesperson said: “UK car manufacturers have not discussed their concerns with the TRA or requested an investigation into electric vehicle imports from China.

“We’re firmly backing our auto industry with £2bn of capital and R&D funding to 2030, Tata’s investment of over £4bn to build a new gigafactory and Nissan’s £2bn EV investment in Sunderland that will create jobs and opportunities across the country.”

Solomon Islands’ pro-China leader pledges to continue balancing act with Australia as he seeks re-election

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3251860/solomon-islands-pro-china-leader-pledges-continue-balancing-act-australia-he-seeks-re-election?utm_source=rss_feed

The Solomon Islands’ ruling party has pledged to strike a “pragmatic” balance between stronger ties with China and its relations with “traditional partners” such as Australia if it wins re-election in April.

The Pacific nation’s Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has taken a pro-Beijing stance since returning to power in 2019 and has accused “agents of Western powers” of trying to bring down his government.

Since then, he has severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan to align with Beijing, and in 2022 he signed a security pact with China that drew concerns from Western countries about Beijing’s growing military footprint in the region.

But diplomatic analysts warned that drawing too close to China could result in a domestic backlash, as well as from other countries in the Pacific and the United States.

On Tuesday, the ruling Ownership, Unity and Responsibility Party said it would seek to benefit from the opportunities offered by China’s Belt and Road Initiative but also Australian infrastructure funding.

“The party will strengthen relationships with China through a ‘look North’ foreign policy, while nurturing ties with other traditional partners such as Australia,” it said.

“[Sogavare ] emphasised that as a party, we are committed to the ‘friends to all and enemies to none’ stance.”

Cracks emerge in Pacific island unity as leaders skip meet amid US-China rivalry

In December, Sogavare had told parliament the country was at the centre of a “geopolitical war” between China and Western powers, which are vying for influence in the Pacific.

He accused the US of having a “geopolitical superiority complex” and said Chinese investments could help break his country’s reliance on foreign help, adding: “We must wake up. Those days are over.”

Sogavare who has been in and out of office on several occasions since 2000 is seeking a fifth term in office when the country heads to the polls in April.

Last year the country’s parliament passed a bill to delay the election until after it had hosted the Pacific Games, prompting criticisms from the opposition the government was “bulldozing” democracy.

“Sogavare’s policy hasn’t changed. He has wrapped his arms around [China] while maintaining links with Africa,” said Alan Tidwell, director of the Centre for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies at Georgetown University. “It’s just a recognition of the reality on the ground.”

He added that Sogavare’s strategy on China was intended to bolster his position as a leader who could deliver for his supporters.

China is the Solomon Islands’ largest trading partner and it became the second-biggest official development assistance donor in 2021, according to Australian think tank the Lowy Institute.

Corey Lee Bell, a researcher at University of Technology Sydney’s Australia-China Relations Institute, suggested that Sogavare’s China policy might have stemmed from concerns over sovereignty, particularly involving Australia, its traditional security partner.

“His approach … has focused on not letting needed economic and security assistance from more powerful nations translate into undue influence,” he said.

Solomon Islands joins China-backed AIIB days after PM snubs Biden invite

This strategy has seen Sogavare practise a sort of “dynamic equa-distancing or playing on geostrategic competition and leaning at different times, or in different ways, between Australia and China”.

He cited the Pacific Games, where both Australia and China helped with the policing “in ways that slightly resemble a bidding war”.

He said other countries had also tried to balance relations with China while cooperating with Australia, for example East Timor.

He also said Fiji had been running a similar policy to the Solomons’ “look north” approach since 2006 as it looked for partners beyond Australia and New Zealand, but said its closer relations with China had brought problems of its own.

Among the events which soured ties between Fiji and China was an incident in 2017, when Chinese detectives arrested Chinese nationals suspected of running internet scams and took them back by plane, showing little respect for the island’s procedures and laws.

“Sogavare will probably know that if he gets too close to China, the threat from domestic opponents raising similar concerns about agency will increase, as has been a pattern in the Pacific over the last few years,” Bell said.

He added: “While no one will oppose Sogavare’s efforts to pursue economic opportunities through partnerships with China, he will face not only domestic pressure to keep [him] from getting too close to Beijing on the security front, and pressures from Australia and Washington, but he will also likely face pressures from other Pacific island countries.”

He also said that other countries in the region “may be benefiting from strategic competition, but they want to keep a lid on it - they don’t want to stoke tensions so that strategic competition becomes too high-stakes” and get sucked into great power competition.

Bell said he expected Washington and Canberra – who are used to Sogavare’s “robust language” – to “sit down and chat” if he is re-elected but would set out a clear red line: that they did not want anything close to a permanent Chinese military base or presence.

“As long as that is observed by Honiara [the Solomon Islands’ capital], and I don’t see why it wouldn’t be, there will be plenty of room for a renegotiation of its relationships with Canberra and Washington,” he said.

“If we go on precedent, Sogavare will lean towards China but probably continue engaging with Australia, who on precedent, will also seek to resell or upgrade their support in response to Sogavare’s recalibration.”

Mainland Chinese make only day trips to Hong Kong with focus on saving cash as city loses allure to southern rivals

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3251871/mainland-chinese-make-day-trips-hong-kong-focus-saving-cash-city-loses-allure-southern-rivals?utm_source=rss_feed

Hong Kong has lost some of its glamour for mainland travellers amid heightened competition from other Chinese cities over prices and number of attractions, industry commentators have said, as many visitors make only day trips to the financial hub during the Lunar New Year holiday.

According to preliminary figures from the Immigration Department, about 471,490 mainland visitors came to the city over the first three days of the holiday, or about 76 per cent of the 623,521 over the same period in 2019.

Mainland Chinese tourists were long considered big spenders keen to take advantage of the city’s selection of luxury goods and duty-free shopping, but since the border fully reopened last year, they have been splashing out less on high-end goods and instead seeking out cheaper experiences.

“Hong Kong’s attractiveness has overall weakened,” said Dicky Yip Chi-wai, the president of the Hong Kong Tourism Practitioners’ Union. “It used to be a shopping paradise, but now people can buy the same things on the mainland.”

After the Covid-19 pandemic, he observed a rise in day trips where tourists would arrive in the city early in the morning and head back to the mainland that same night.

“They would come and walk around the city instead of really spending money here,” he said.

On mainland social media platforms Xiaohongshu, terms such as “Hong Kong in a Day” and “Tourist Special Forces ” have gone viral, with posts containing the former amassing more than 54 million views.

Popular posts contain detailed maps and itineraries, with users swapping suggestions on how to see the city’s key attractions in under 24 hours while spending as little as 300 yuan (US$42). Suggestions include saving on transport by taking the tram or eating at local cha chaan teng.

At around 3pm in Central on Monday, Shenzhen resident Alice Zhang Xiaoqing was reading an advertisement for an exhibition at the nearby Tai Kwun heritage and arts centre.

“It’s free!” the 22-year-old shouted, as she clutched a friend’s hand as the pair ran up the escalators. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

Zhang, a recent graduate who works in marketing, was visiting the city for the first time and had decided to simply walk around to see “scenery that was different from the mainland”, she said.

But even though she had only arrived at around 10am, she would be returning to Shenzhen just 12 hours later, she added.

“One reason is because the hotels are so expensive here,” she said. “And I don’t think there is much else to see to stay longer.”

Hong Kong clocks 540,000 tourist trips in first 3 days of Lunar New Year break

Nearby, married couple Jenny Liu, 36, and Jeffrey Zhao, 33, were busy showing their three-year-old daughter and her grandparents around the city for the first time.

The family was visiting from Huizhou in neighbouring Guangdong province and had arrived that morning via Shenzhen. But they too said they would head back to the mainland later in the evening and would only spend the day walking around rather than shopping.

“The Hong Kong dollar exchange rate is pretty expensive, so it’s not a good place to shop these days,” Liu, an engineering consultant, said. “If we want to shop, we can go to Hainan and buy things cheaper there.”

Hainan, an island province off the mainland’s southern coast dubbed “China’s Hawaii,” has managed to grab much of Hong Kong’s once-unique shopping allure.

Mainland residents are able to spend up to 100,000 yuan per year on tax-free shopping on the island, compared with just 5,000 yuan in Hong Kong per entry.

Simon Lee Siu-po, an honorary fellow at the Asia-Pacific Institute of Business at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the mainland’s poor economy had also played a role in dissuading visitors.

“[Mainland] China is still facing challenges, so tourists are spending their money wisely,” he said. “They would rather take a day trip to Hong Kong rather than stay for two or three days.”

Lee said that convenient travel options such as the West Kowloon high-speed rail terminus and MTR lines gave mainland visitors many ways to pop in and out of the city, while neighbouring Shenzhen offered a cheaper place to stay.

Hong Kong Lunar New Year bounce boosts restaurants, but 1 owner to shut outlets

A Post check of hotel prices revealed that a deluxe king room at the five-star Ritz Carlton Hong Kong in West Kowloon cost about HK$4,050 a night. Just across the border at the Ritz Carlton Shenzhen, a similar room would cost HK$1,210.

Lee added that while neighbouring Macau offered unique attractions including Portuguese cuisine, condensed historical areas and gleaming casinos, many of Hong Kong’s allures were readily available on the mainland for less.

“Hong Kong is too expensive,” he said.

Why Beijing is struggling with its mission to ‘tell China’s story well’

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3251867/why-beijing-struggling-its-mission-tell-chinas-story-well?utm_source=rss_feed

A decade ago, President Xi Jinping set out a key goal in the country’s global propaganda drive: “tell China’s story well”.

The objective was to make China’s voice heard over the Western narrative, as part of an “international discursive power” strategy.

That strategy – promoted by officials in recent years and known as guoji huayuquan in Chinese – calls for the right to speak, and the capacity to counter the Western narrative in the hope of shaping international opinion.

Officials have been told to have confidence in their own culture, history, ideology and political system so that an international audience can be told that China’s approach is better than the West’s on many issues.

This policy goal explains the increasingly assertive and sometimes confrontational rhetoric from Chinese officials and state media in recent years. Assertiveness and not backing down in the face of Western pressure is seen as the way to get “the right to speak”.

But, in public and in private, officials and state media executives have expressed frustration that the Chinese narrative is doing little to sway international public opinion.

One example was a November 2022 commentary in the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, which admitted that it was difficult for China to present its arguments via international media – and when they were aired, the impact was negligible.

Beijing has poured millions of dollars into this propaganda drive, including to set up media outlets overseas, hire former television anchors from places like CNN for its official English-language channel CGTN, and for electronic billboards in New York’s Times Square.

For Chinese officials and state media, if the campaign is not effective it is because of the bias and dominance of Western media, academics and the public.

At the same time, officials and analysts in China have taken a look at the language being used, to see if these messages can be communicated better. Officials have also sought to do this by expanding their social media presence abroad.

However, these efforts fail to address some of the fundamental flaws of China’s international propaganda push.

One of them is that, in the Chinese system, once an official line or narrative is formed it is propagated by state media – and there is no room for any dissenting voice.

It is a different story in the West, where many narratives and arguments are presented from different sources – including voices that challenge the official line – and people are free to have their own views.

In China’s political culture, even well-intentioned criticism from sympathisers can be seen as a challenge or as animosity by Beijing. So the call to “tell China’s story well” is often interpreted as “tell a story about the good side of China”.

Criticism – well-intentioned or not – is not welcome in Beijing. And even if Chinese officials or state media are telling the truth, they are often perceived by outsiders as whitewashing.

China to more tightly control ethnic minority discussion to temper ‘risks’

Another factor is how officialdom works in China, in terms of propaganda. The performance of officials is typically measured by how well they appeal to the domestic audience and if they get approval from their supervisors – not how well they manage to convince the international audience.

That means officials are likely to care more about what they say to the media outlets that the domestic audience can access, and how their words are received by their bosses.

Apart from this push to make China’s stand known on contentious international issues, Beijing is also keen to expand its soft power through culture.

That is less of a challenge, given that China’s cultural heritage has always drawn interest from people around the world.

People-to-people exchanges might also be an easier sell for Beijing, but it will have to refrain from imposing its views on visitors. Instead of telling China’s story, it might be best to let people explore and find out for themselves.

Angry Taiwanese travel operators warn of protest at presidential oath after U-turn on group tours to mainland China

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3251853/angry-taiwanese-travel-operators-warn-protest-presidential-oath-after-u-turn-group-tours-mainland?utm_source=rss_feed

A Taiwanese travel industry body has warned it might stage a protest during the island’s presidential inauguration, after operators were caught off guard by a government U-turn on resuming group tours to mainland China.

Taipei said in November it would lift a nearly four-year ban on travel agencies organising mainland-bound tour groups as of March 1, but changed tack last week to maintain the embargo.

The U-turn came days after Beijing adjusted a civilian flight path closer to the Taiwan Strait median line, a notional midway point between self-governed Taiwan and mainland China. The unilateral move was seen as a fresh bid by Beijing to squeeze the air space controlled by Taipei.

Wednesday’s suspension announcement from Taiwan’s Tourism Administration surprised travel operators, many of whom had already made arrangements for tours scheduled until July and even beyond.

Ringo Lee, chairman of the Taipei-based High Quality of Travel Association, said many travel operators in Taiwan had “waited long and hard for the [mainland] business to resume, only to see their hopes dashed again”.

He said the government should have at least consulted the local operators before announcing an important decision like this.

“This was a surprise raid … and the government could have resorted to other measures in tackling unfriendly gestures from the mainland instead of using Taiwan’s consumers and travel operators as the weapon.”

Although already finalised group departures between March 1 and May 31 can still go ahead – as the renewed ban takes effect on June 1 – the flip-flop has angered local agencies.

They also said it was unfair that individual travel to the mainland was allowed to continue regardless of the purpose.

“Operators here have sold tour packages to more than 1,000 clients in line with the government policy and planning [announced late last year],” said Benjamin Pien, general manager of Phoenix Tours in Taipei.

“But with just an administrative decree, the government now decides to retain its market restriction policy. This is something hard to believe in a democratic society.”

He said such flip-flops would only make it harder for local travel agencies to survive after severe losses suffered during the Covid years.

Eric Wu, vice-chairman of the Travel Agent Association of Taiwan, questioned the legal basis for the continuation of the ban, imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said the government must offer reasonable explanations to local operators for the flip-flop or “we will not rule out staging a mass protest during the presidential inauguration on May 20”.

William Lai Ching-te of Taiwan’s ruling independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will succeed President Tsai Ing-wen when her second and final four-year term ends on May 20.

Beijing, which sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary, suspended official cross-strait talks and exchanges after Tsai first took office in 2016 and refused to accept the one-China principle.

It has also denounced Lai’s election as “unacceptable”, after labelling the sitting vice-president in the lead-up to the January 11 vote as an “obstinate separatist” whose leadership would bring war to the island.

Most countries – including the United States, Taipei’s informal ally and top arms supplier – do not recognise Taiwan as independent but are opposed to any attempt to forcibly change the status quo.

As cross-strait relations worsened in the Tsai years, Beijing banned solo visits to Taiwan by mainland tourists in 2019 and extended the ban to group visits after the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. In response, Taiwan also barred local travel agencies from organising group tours to the mainland in 2020.

Wang Hung-wei, a lawmaker from Taiwan’s main opposition party Kuomintang, said the DPP government had presented its election promise to lift the ban as a sign of goodwill towards the mainland.

“But now it has gone back on its word, on the reasoning that the mainland has failed to reciprocate its gesture of goodwill by changing the sensitive flight path”, she said. “This is not the proper way to handle cross-strait relations as such a measure is tantamount to punishing Taiwan’s travel agencies and consumers.”

Mainland Chinese authorities announce new steps to draw Taiwanese to Fujian

Beijing has described the route change, which came three weeks after Lai’s election, as “routine operations” in the interest of flight safety and growing regional air transport needs.

Wang Kung-yi, head of the Taiwan International Strategic Study Society, a Taipei think tank, said the suspension was clearly a retaliatory move that was likely to worsen the cross-strait situation.

“This will not only sacrifice the interests of local operators and consumers but will also widen the cross-strait impasse,” he said, adding that Beijing was expected to take further punitive measures against the DPP government before Lai took office in May.

Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which handles matters related to the island, has called Taipei’s move “politically motivated”, saying it would only cause resentment among compatriots across the strait.

Chinese provinces report more marriages after decade-long drop, with boost from Year of the Dragon and pandemic backlog

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3251864/chinese-provinces-report-more-marriages-after-decade-long-drop-boost-year-dragon-and-pandemic?utm_source=rss_feed

A near-decade-long decline in marriages in China might have finally snapped last year, according to data from across the country.

Figures from civil affairs bureaus in Hunan, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Henan and Anhui provinces showed a year-on-year increase in the number of couples that said “I do” last year, Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper reported on Tuesday.

The increase could be the result of a backlog from the Covid-19 pandemic and prospective couples wanting to give birth during the auspicious Year of the Dragon, the report quoted an official as saying.

A complete visual guide to the Year of the Dragon 2024

China is facing a major demographic transition, with falling birth rates leading to a shrinking population.

The number of marriage registrations has fallen off a cliff since 2013, with the total number of unions going from more than 13 million that year to just 6.83 million in 2022.

But there were signs of a resurgence last year with the Ministry of Civil Affairs saying registrations in the first three quarters of 2023 surpassed the same period in 2022 by 245,000.

The ministry has yet to release a final tally for 2023, but data from cities around China showed a marked increase in total registrations.

In Huaibei, a city in the eastern province of Anhui, 21,179 marriages were registered last year, an annual increase of nearly 92 per cent, according to The Paper.

The city also saw an increase in the number of divorces of around 38 per cent year on year.

In Liuyang, a city in the southern Hunan province, 5,443 couples tied the knot, an increase of 458 from the year before. The number is still nowhere near the city’s peak of over 12,000 in 2014.

“The decline in the number of marriage registrations in Liuyang has been going on for many years. It stopped falling in 2023 and rebounded slightly,” Zhang Jian, director of the Liuyang Civil Affairs Bureau’s Wedding Registration Centre, told The Paper.

Zhang said the decline in marriages in Liuyang was partly due to the falling birth rate and a lack of population growth, leaving fewer people of marriageable age in the city.

Zhang said this rebound in registrations could be a result of couples finally planning weddings that were postponed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said that there could also be a superstitious element, with some people wanting get married in time to have a baby during the Year of the Dragon – the most popular of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac.

Other cities in China also saw increases in marriage registrations last year, with Suzhou in Jiangsu province seeing 10,000 more registrations, a year-on-year increase of around 21 per cent, The Paper reported.

Will China’s ‘Year of the Widow’ quell ‘dragon baby’ boom amid demographic woes?

Shanghai went from a record low marriage registrations this century of around 72,000 in 2022 to over 104,000 last year, according to the Shanghai Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau.

But some residents have appealed to authorities in Shanghai to organise events to bring people together, especially older singles who find it hard to meet others due to busy work schedules, according to another report by The Paper.

In a proposal to the Shanghai civil affairs bureau, the proponents said online dating platforms lacked transparency and authenticity.

There are events and organisations across China that focus on marriage and the wedding market, from matchmaking services to one-stop-shop wedding expos in cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu.

China’s efforts to stamp out betrothal gifts may be aiming at wrong traditions

In 2017, the Communist Party’s Central Committee and State Council issued a Youth Development Plan in which love and marriage were identified as an important area of development. The plan will be in place until 2025.

The plan stated that youth, defined as those 35 years old and younger, “need more care and help in marriage [and] love” because of a changing population structure and growing work and life pressures.

The plan aims to improve education for young people on marriage and family planning, including integrating it into university-level education and spreading “positive concepts” of marriage through mass media.

The plan also said there was a need to “support the development of healthy youth dating and exchange activities” with a particular focus on older unmarried individuals.

Policies to promote marriage appear to have worked last year in Liuyang, as Zhang told The Paper they had “stimulated people’s enthusiasm for marriages and childbirth to an extent”.

Japan to help improve maritime capabilities of 4 Asean states amid South China Sea row

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3251845/japan-help-improve-maritime-capabilities-4-asean-states-amid-south-china-sea-row?utm_source=rss_feed

Japan is drawing up a new 10-year plan to improve the maritime capabilities of four nations in Southeast Asia that are struggling to resist growing encroachment into their territorial waters by China.

Tokyo has previously delivered maritime equipment to a number of countries in the region under one-off arrangements, but the new initiative is designed to provide sustained and evolving assistance over a period of a decade, according to an official of the National Institute of Defence Studies (NIDS), a think tank affiliated with Japan’s Ministry of Defence.

The assistance is to be provided to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, all of which have territorial claims in the South China Sea that have been impacted by China occupying atolls and shoals in the region, said Masafumi Iida, a leading China analyst at NIDS.

He added that Tokyo was considering expanding the scheme to include Sri Lanka in the future, as it occupies a strategic position in the Indian Ocean.

The details of the project are being drawn up by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, which is usually tasked by the government with implementing overseas development assistance schemes to build schools, hospitals and other infrastructure in developing nations.

“Japan announced the introduction of the Official Security Assistance (OSA) at the start of fiscal 2024 in April last year, to serve as a new framework for providing security assistance to other countries that require such help,” Iida said.

OSA will run in parallel to Japanese Overseas Development Assistance to all four nations, he added.

“The major purpose of OSA is to enhance these nations’ maritime domain awareness and capabilities and help to maintain stability,” Iida told This Week in Asia.

The assistance will take the form of “bigger and faster cutters”, he suggested, as well as advanced radar to enable countries to obtain a better picture of the maritime threats that they face.

In the future, Japan is expected to provide reconnaissance drones and manned surveillance aircraft, Iida added.

“These countries lack maritime domain awareness, particularly the Philippines, and that is critical to maintaining stability in the South China Sea,” he said. “This is a substantial commitment, and the fact that this support is being provided over a prolonged, 10-year term, underlines Japan’s resolve to continue to support the nations of Southeast Asia.”

Senior officials of JICA and Japan’s embassy in Manila met representatives of the Philippine government on January 18 to discuss the most effective forms of OSA that might be provided by Tokyo amid the evolving security challenges in the region.

During a state visit in November, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida signed an agreement to provide 600 million yen (US$4 million) in grant aid for coastal surveillance radars, the Philippine Department of Defence said. Both sides also agreed to step up discussions on information-sharing, hardware and software support and technical assistance.

JICA personnel have already conducted on-site surveys for projects in the Philippines and Indonesia, with similar surveys scheduled to take place in Malaysia and Vietnam in April. The agency will submit a detailed plan of the four nations’ requirements before March next year, national broadcaster NHK reported.

“I do not expect a direct reaction from the Chinese government to this initiative, although of course some Chinese analysts and the media will criticise,” Iida said.

---

David Cameron to have first meeting with Chinese foreign minister

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/13/david-cameron-to-have-first-meeting-with-chinese-foreign-minister

David Cameron is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, this weekend for the first time since becoming British foreign secretary.

The Foreign Office has pencilled in a meeting between Cameron and Wang at the Munich security conference, according to two government sources.

It would be the first time Cameron has met a Chinese minister since his surprise appointment to Rishi Sunak’s cabinet in November last year.

Cameron has come under pressure over his links to China since becoming foreign secretary, and he faces calls to raise human rights and national security concerns at his meeting with Wang.

Luke de Pulford, the executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said: “The Foreign Office has been slow to realise that when Beijing says it wants win-win diplomacy, it means China wins twice.

“Cameron needs to show that the blinkers are off, and raise British citizen Jimmy Lai’s show trial, Beijing’s support for Putin’s war, and anti-Uyghur atrocities in Xinjiang, which flood the UK market with slavery-tainted goods.”

The trial of the British citizen and newspaper founder Jimmy Lai, who has been charged in Hong Kong with colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security, is being closely watched amid concerns about the growing influence of Beijing in the former British colony.

Cameron publicly called for an end to Lai’s “politically motivated prosecution” in a statement on 17 December, saying: “As a prominent and outspoken journalist and publisher, Jimmy Lai has been targeted in a clear attempt to stop the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of expression and association.”

Separately, Cameron has used interviews to stress the importance of engagement with China. As prime minister he heralded a “golden era” in relations with the country and hosted a state visit for President Xi Jinping in 2015.

After leaving No 10 in 2016, he was involved in setting up a $1bn UK-China investment fund, which aimed to boost UK involvement in the belt and road initiative, Beijing’s flagship foreign policy aimed at extending its trade and military influence globally.

Cameron met Xi for dinner in 2018 and discussed the $1bn fund. It was eventually wound up as relations between London and Beijing soured.

Last autumn, weeks before he was made foreign secretary, Cameron was paid to fly to Dubai and Abu Dhabi and drum up foreign investment in a controversial Chinese-funded port city in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Critics have branded the development an example of Chinese debt-trap diplomacy.

There was criticism when Cameron’s first published register of interests in the House of Lords made no mention of Port City Colombo or the $1bn UK-China fund. His office has insisted that his involvement with Port City Colombo was organised entirely via the Washington Speakers Bureau.

UK-China relations have deteriorated since 2018 after Beijing’s crackdown on democratic freedoms in Hong Kong, concerns about human rights abuses against the Uyghur community in Xinjiang and national security worries about Chinese involvement in UK critical infrastructure.

Cameron spoke to Wang on the phone on 5 December and agreed to have a “constructive relationship”. In a post on X at the time, Cameron said: “The UK will continue to engage with China where it furthers our interests.”

The Foreign Office declined to comment and said that Cameron’s bilateral meetings would be confirmed in the usual way.

Avalanches again block roads near tourism spot in China’s Xinjiang region

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3251849/avalanches-again-block-roads-near-tourism-spot-chinas-xinjiang-region?utm_source=rss_feed

Avalanches have again blocked roads leading to a remote tourism spot in China’s far west Xinjiang region, with the area on alert for more snowstorms this week.

One-way traffic has been restored on some roads but others remain closed after heavy snow that began on Sunday triggered avalanches near the Kanas scenic area in the Altay mountains, traffic police said on Monday evening.

There were 13 avalanches on highways in the area on Sunday and Monday, according to its management committee. The scenic area is in the northern prefecture of Altay, which borders Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia.

The committee said the deepest avalanche was 5 metres, while the widest spanned 1km. There had been no reports of injuries or vehicle damage.

It said updates on the weather and road conditions would be posted to the social media accounts of the committee and traffic police.

“Snow is still falling in the Kanas scenic area and the risk of avalanches along the roads is extremely high,” the committee’s statement said. “Traffic police will continue to implement traffic control on all road sections in the area.”

It warned that the extreme weather would persist in the scenic area until early next week, with another 35cm to 45cm of snow expected to fall between Wednesday and Friday, followed by strong winds.

Temperatures are expected to drop to around minus 40 degrees Celsius from Thursday to Sunday.

The National Meteorological Centre urged authorities in northern Xinjiang to put safety measures in place.

“Due to recent frequent snowfall and deep accumulation of snow, it is recommended that traffic safety management be strengthened and to guard against natural disasters such as falling ice and melting snow in mountainous areas, and avalanches,” the meteorological centre said.

Surge in winter tourism boosts tepid economy in China’s north

Last month, residents and more than 1,000 tourists were stranded in a village for 10 days after a road leading to the Kanas scenic area was hit by avalanches following days of heavy snowfall.

One tour guide in the area said it was not clear how serious the avalanches were this time.

“Vehicles in the Kanas scenic area are queuing to go down the mountain and traffic police officers are distributing free food, but [they] are not allowed to go up the mountain yet,” the guide, surnamed Zhang, told Jiemian News.

China is celebrating the Lunar New Year with a one-week holiday that began on Saturday. Many people travel during the festive period, and Xinjiang’s Altay region is among the popular destinations for winter tourism.

State broadcaster CCTV on Tuesday highlighted tourism activities – including bumper cars and ice bowling – at the country’s largest inland freshwater lake, Bosten, near Bazhou in Xinjiang. Visitors can also take in cultural performances and view ice and snow sculptures with a dragon theme to mark this year’s Chinese zodiac sign.

China father flies little girl, 7, in two-seater plane to rural hometown for Lunar New Year to skip traffic jams

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3250926/china-father-flies-little-girl-7-two-seater-plane-rural-hometown-lunar-new-year-skip-traffic-jams?utm_source=rss_feed

Mainland social media has been stunned by a man in China who flew a plane to take his seven-year-old daughter to their rural hometown for Lunar New Year to avoid the annual heavy traffic jams.

The man, surnamed Wang, from eastern China’s Anhui province, who trains pilots, said he had been flying his daughter home in the two-seater aircraft for years for festivals and holidays.

Wang said it took them 50 minutes to fly to his parents’ home, two hours quicker than driving, and the little girl became so used to it she would nap on the journeys.

He said all he needed to do was apply for use of the route a few hours in advance, and check he was permitted to park at the flying camp near his parents’ home.

Wang said the small airplane they used cost 1.1 million yuan (US$155,000), and could fly 1,200km on a full tank of fuel.

China’s Spring Festival travel rush, also known as Chunyun, is the world’s largest annual human migration, because it is a popular time for family reunions.

This year’s Chunyun is expected to last for 40 days from January 26 to March 5 around the Lunar New Year, which falls on February 10. It is estimated that a record 9 billion passenger journeys will take place during the period, according to China’s Ministry of Transport.

The estimated number is almost double the 4.7 billion trips made during last year’s Spring Festival, and nine times that of 2022, when the strict zero-Covid policy still had a huge impact on people’s life.

Up to 7.2 billion trips are estimated to be self-driving, with the remaining 1.8 billion made via public transport on trains, buses, planes and boats, according to the Ministry of Transport.

A person, surnamed Peng, told the mainland media outlet Jiemian News that he had been driving 1,800km to home during Spring Festivals since 2020. He used to go home by train or plane, but he had changed his habit since the pandemic.

Each year during the Spring Festival, traffic jams on expressways are recorded across the nation, and create extra stress for those commuting for work.

Many commented online about how they envied Wang and his daughter’s mode of transport, especially at the busiest time of year.

“What I consider a luxury childhood dream is someone else’s real life,” one person wrote on Douyin.

“What a brilliant way to avoid Spring Festival traffic jams,” said another.

China objects to ‘unilateral sanctions’ in Ukraine war as EU proposes new trade curbs

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3251834/china-objects-unilateral-sanctions-ukraine-war-eu-proposes-new-trade-curbs?utm_source=rss_feed

China has renewed its opposition to “unilateral sanctions” in relation to the war in Ukraine, again calling on the international community to “actively promote peace and dialogue” for a “political settlement of the crisis”.

Addressing a United Nations Security Council session on the conflict on Monday, Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations, took aim at Nato, saying that the alliance should “wake up from the myth of force and stop making threats and calling for war”.

He repeated Beijing’s long-standing position that it supported Kyiv and Moscow in “strengthening exchanges and resuming negotiations”.

The call comes as the European Union proposed blacklisting three mainland Chinese firms and one Hong Kong company for circumventing EU sanctions on Russia.

Chinese banks ‘refrained’ from dealing with Russia over sanctions fears

This week, the bloc’s 27 member states will be asked to approve the listing of three mainland Chinese entities, along with another based in Hong Kong, as part of its 13th package of sanctions on Russia, almost two years into the war, according to diplomatic sources.

Bloomberg reported that most of the two dozen companies on the proposed list are technology and electronics companies accused of “contributing to Russia’s military and technological enhancement or to the development of Russia’s defence and security sector”.

The four companies were named as mainland China-based Guangzhou Ausay Technology Co Limited, Shenzhen Biguang Trading Co Limited, Yilufa Electronics Limited, and the Hong Kong-based RG Solutions Limited in a report by Washington-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

It would mark the first time Chinese companies have been officially listed, although Brussels has considered targeting entities from the country before.

Last year, it negotiated the removal of five Chinese entities from a package of sanctions after assurances from Beijing that the practice would stop.

Companies from India, Serbia and Turkey will also be listed, according to Bloomberg.

Previously, powerful member states including France and Germany have opposed the listing of Chinese firms on the EU’s blacklist – known as Annex IV – without due consultation with Beijing.

There were fears that listing Chinese firms could result in reprisals against European businesses active in China, and further sour bilateral ties.

In talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in December, the EU’s leadership raised specific Chinese companies that the bloc claimed were circumventing sanctions by allowing Russia’s military -industrial complex to access dual-use goods made in Europe.

At these discussions, Xi said Beijing would retaliate if the EU sanctioned Chinese companies.

Should the companies be listed, EU entities would be banned from doing business with them.

Sanctions must be approved by all 27 EU member states before being adopted. The decision will go before a meeting of ambassadors on Wednesday.

Beijing has yet to comment on the proposal but just last week Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin pledged in a phone call to deepen relations between the two countries.

Sink or swim: China watches on as Russia’s economy battles Western sanctions

In May of last year, the EU proposed imposing restrictions on two mainland Chinese and five Hong Kong firms for allegedly aiding Russia’s war machine, but the measure did not receive the approval of all EU members.

Responding to that move, Beijing urged Brussels to avoid taking the “wrong path” and warned it would take firm action to safeguard its rights and interests.

“China opposes actions that use China-Russia cooperation as a pretext to impose illegal sanctions or long-arm jurisdiction against China,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in May.

Beijing also assured Brussels that it was not involved in Russia’s military actions in Ukraine.

Unlike much of the West, Beijing has not condemned Moscow since the Ukraine crisis started two years ago, and it does not officially call the conflict a “war” or an “invasion”.

But Beijing holds the position that “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries” must be respected and has frequently offered to help mediate the conflict.

In his call with Putin on Thursday, Xi spoke highly of the bilateral relations and vowed to deepen cooperation between the two countries.

The two leaders also agreed to defend their sovereignty, security, and development interests and “resolutely oppose interference in their internal affairs by external forces”.

Putin to visit China and hold ‘several meetings’ with Xi this year

China is a key player in Russia’s economy in the face of sanctions imposed by the United States and the EU. Trade value between China and Russia reached the US$200 billion target and even hit a record US$230 billion for 2023, Putin said at the annual Results of the Year news conference in December.

China has been among the top buyers of Russian coal and oil since the EU imposed sanctions in 2022, according to the Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

However, despite facing challenges, China’s relations with major EU economies such as Germany and France have shown signs of improvement.

Xi will reportedly travel to France in his first post-pandemic trip to Europe this spring, although neither side has confirmed the visit. China and France will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties this year.

Additionally, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will travel to China with a business delegation from April 15 to 16.

Late last year, China made short visits visa-free for travellers from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Beijing extended the visa-free policy to Ireland and non-EU member Switzerland during Premier Li Qiang’s trip to the two countries last month.

Branded: China netizens liken luxury auspicious red-white Lunar New Year fashion offerings to laundry bags, beef slices, blast pricing

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3250730/branded-china-netizens-liken-luxury-auspicious-red-white-lunar-new-year-fashion-offerings-laundry?utm_source=rss_feed

With Lunar New Year upon us, international brands are out to impress their substantial customer base in China as we enter the Year of the Dragon.

However, it has not been all plain sailing for some of the world’s commercial fashion giants.

Burberry

The British luxury fashion house established in 1856 is celebrating the Lunar New Year with a special campaign built around the auspicious colour red.

Burberry has infused its signature check pattern with red and white while inviting prestigious Chinese stars, such as actors Chen Kun and Tang Wei, to showcase its products.

However, mainland social media quickly likened the red and white check patterns with the similarly styled chequered laundry bags.

One item that features the pattern, is the brand’s mid-length chequered car coat, priced at 24,000 yuan (US$2,990). A laundry bag costs less than six yuan (US$0.84) on Taobao.

Taobao is the largest-ecommerce platform in China and is operated by the Alibaba Group, owner of the South China Morning Post.

Another design from the collection features a romantic red and white rose pattern, which was unfortunately linked by people to the beef slices in hotpot meals.

Bottega Veneta

The Italian high-fashion house’s Lunar New Year collection has won much applause from fashionistas.

By blending beautiful yet discreet dragon shapes into the detail of of handbags and jewellery, it was praised for paying tribute to this year’s zodiac sign in an understated manner.

However, one item from the collection, the Intreccio Nappa Dragon ornament, which costs 12,200 yuan, was met with a cooler response.

One person on Xiaohongshu, China’s equivalent of Instagram, said the emerald green toy made with surplus leather material looks like “a dragon getting an electric shock”.

Apple

Just as Apple released its highly anticipated mixed reality headset Vision Pro, another newly revealed product - a Year of the Dragon MagSafe case for the iPhone 15 series - went viral on mainland social media.

However, the product has faced an avalanche of criticism online, over its pricing.

Many people thought the price, 498 yuan (US$49.95), was unbelievable for “just a phone case” and counterfeit versions soon appeared, selling for as little as eight yuan.

Despite Apple promoting the case– which was designed by Chinese illustrator Yulong Lli – as an auspicious piece of artwork that “brings to life the Dragon’s bold personality”, some said the design did not even feature a dragon, as the creature it uses only has four claws.

Traditional belief says real dragons should have five claws, those with four claws are hornless jiaolong, or flood dragons.

Arc’teryx

The Canadian outdoor apparel brand became a rising star in the Chinese market amid the post-Covid boom in outdoor activities.

Its lunar new year jacket is said to have featured elements of dragon scales, and was soon snapped up by enthusiastic fans.

As a result of its popularity, the price of the outdoor gear jumped from the original 8,200 yuan (US$1,155) to 12,000 yuan in the second-hand market.

However, many were bewildered by its popularity, as they found it simply “too ugly”.

“Despite it being a product that appeals to the Chinese market, it seems that the designer does not know Chinese aesthetics at all,” one person said on Xiaohongshu.

Pressure mounts on Israel for Gaza ceasefire as China warns of ‘serious humanitarian disaster’

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/middle-east/article/3251828/pressure-mounts-israel-gaza-ceasefire-china-warns-serious-humanitarian-disaster?utm_source=rss_feed

Israel faced growing international pressure on Tuesday to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas, as it planned an incursion into the southern Gaza city Rafah where more than a million Palestinians are trapped.

China urged Israel to stop its military operation in Rafah “as soon as possible”, warning of a “serious humanitarian disaster” there if fighting did not stop.

“China follows closely the developments in the Rafah area, opposes and condemns actions that harm civilians and violate international law,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday

Beijing urged Israel to “to stop its military operation as soon as possible, (and) make every effort to avoid innocent civilian casualties, in order to prevent a more serious humanitarian disaster in the Rafah area”.

CIA Director William Burns was due in Cairo on Tuesday for a new round of talks on a Qatari-mediated ceasefire that would temporarily halt fighting in exchange for Hamas freeing hostages.

His planned visit comes after Washington and the United Nations warned Israel against carrying out a ground offensive into Rafah without a plan to protect civilians, who say they have nowhere left to go.

Gaza hostages reunite with families after dramatic rescue operation

“Wherever we go there’s bombing, martyrs and wounded,” said Iman Dergham, a displaced Palestinian woman.

On a visit to the White House Monday, Jordan’s King Abdullah pushed for a full ceasefire to end the four-month-old war.

“We cannot afford an Israeli attack on Rafah. It is certain to produce another humanitarian catastrophe,” said the monarch whose country hosts a large number of Palestinian refugees.

“We cannot stand by and let this continue. We need a lasting ceasefire now. This war must end.”

After rejecting Hamas’s terms for a truce last week, Israel conducted a predawn raid in Rafah on Monday that freed two hostages and killed around 100 people.

Netanyahu hailed the overnight operation freeing Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Luis Har, 70, as “perfect”, while the Palestinian foreign ministry said the deaths of dozens of Gazans amounted to a “massacre”.

The rare rescue mission under heavy air strikes came hours after Netanyahu spoke with US President Joe Biden, who reiterated his opposition to a major assault on Rafah.

But Netanyahu has defied pressure from key ally and military backer Washington, insisting that “complete victory” cannot be achieved until the elimination of the militants’ last battalions in Rafah.

While meeting with the units that freed the two hostages, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday said there would be “more operations” soon and pledged to see “Gaza destroyed”.

Biden says ‘key elements’ of Gaza deal on table as he meets Jordan’s king

“In my opinion, the day is not far.”

The United States has angered some Middle East allies by consistently refusing to back a full ceasefire, with Washington saying it supports Israel’s drive to eradicate Hamas and calling for shorter pauses with hostage-prisoner swaps instead.

Biden said Monday his administration was trying to broker a six-week truce and, that while key elements were in place, “gaps” remained.

Once the warring parties agree to the ceasefire, “something more enduring” could be broached, Biden said.

While weeks of talks have yet to bear fruit, a source close to the negotiations said that Burns was expected in Egypt for more high-level negotiations on Tuesday.

Burns was part of the team that thrashed out the proposed truce in Paris last month.

Israeli assault on Gaza’s Rafah a ‘terrifying’ prospect: UN

Rafah has become a last refuge for over half of Gaza’s population, who are pressed up against the Egypt border in makeshift encampments where they face outbreaks of hepatitis and diarrhoea, and a scarcity of food and water.

Netanyahu has said Israel would provide “safe passage” to civilians trying to leave, but foreign governments and aid groups – as well as Gazans – wondered where they could go.

“As it is, there is no place that is currently safe in Gaza,” said United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

When asked about an evacuation mission, he said the UN would “not be party to forced displacement of people”.

The UN’s human rights chief Volker Turk warned that “an extremely high number of civilians” would likely be killed or injured in a full Israeli incursion into Rafah, which could also spell the end of the “meagre” humanitarian aid entering Gaza.

“It’s almost famine here, we’re almost out of flour in the north region,” said a man in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia. “We can’t even find food and drinks for the children.”

Israel’s operation to free the two hostages left Rafah with bomb craters and piles of rubble.

The United States said it was deeply concerned by the reports that around 100 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed in the early Monday raid.

The State Department also called for Israel to investigate the “heartbreaking” death of six-year-old Gazan Hind Rajab.

Her body was recovered on Saturday along with two relatives and two Red Crescent workers who went to find her after her family’s car came under fire while trying to flee an Israeli advance on Gaza City.

“I will question before God on Judgment Day those who heard my daughter’s cries for help and did not save her,” Hind’s mother Wissam Hamada said.

At least 28,340 people, mostly women and children, have died in Israel’s relentless bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The war began after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on October 7 that killed about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on official figures.

Militants also seized about 250 foreign and Israeli captives from southern Israel, around 130 of whom Israel says are still held in Gaza including 29 who are presumed dead.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group warned that “time is running out for the remaining hostages”, urging the Israeli government to “exhaust every option on the table to release them”.

Australian minister to press China on trade barriers, Yang Hengjun sentence

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3251829/australian-minister-press-china-trade-barriers-yang-hengjun-sentence?utm_source=rss_feed

Australia’s trade minister on Tuesday said he would meet his Chinese counterpart at a World Trade Organization conference in Abu Dhabi later this month and push for the removal of restrictions on imported Australian wine, lobsters and meat.

Don Farrell also told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) he would talk to Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao about the suspended death sentence given to Australian writer Yang Hengjun earlier this month.

Farrell said the Australian government was “appalled” by the conviction and sentence over espionage charges but that it should not derail relations between the two countries.

Beijing has removed most of the trade barriers it imposed on Australian goods after Canberra called for an inquiry into the origins of Covid-19. Restrictions remain only on wine, lobsters and meat from a small group of abattoirs.

“The Australian government continues to press for the removal of all remaining trade impediments affecting Australian exports to China,” Farrell said in a statement.

“I look forward to continuing constructive dialogue with my Chinese counterpart, Minister Wang Wentao, at the World Trade Organization conference this month.”

The WTO meeting in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates will take place from February 26 to February 29.

Farrell told the ABC that if China did not remove its tariffs on Australian wine by March 31, when a review of them by Beijing is due to end, Canberra would renew its challenge against them at the WTO.

“We will immediately resume our World Trade Organization dispute, and we’ve made that very clear to the Chinese authorities,” he said.

On Yang, Farrell told the ABC: “The Australian government was appalled by the conviction and the penalty of Mr Yang, but we have embarked upon a project process of stabilising our relationship with the Chinese government. And we will continue that process.”

Farrell’s office did not comment further.

China’s domestic travel takes off, but foreign visitors yet to make a comeback

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3251808/chinas-domestic-travel-takes-foreign-visitors-yet-make-comeback?utm_source=rss_feed

China expects domestic travel frequency and revenues to return to pre-pandemic levels this year, but international arrivals will take longer to recover, according to a state-affiliated research institute.

A report released on February 1 by the China Tourism Academy (CTA) predicts Chinese nationals will make as many as 6 billion trips this year, about the same as 2019, though they are expected to travel shorter distances.

While domestic travel is experiencing a steady recovery since the lifting of stringent Covid-19 restrictions, only 50 per cent of the international arrivals seen in 2019 are expected to return next year, the CTA report said.

Revenue from domestic tourism is expected to bounce by 23 per cent to 6.03 trillion yuan (US$839 billion) from 2023 to 2024 – exceeding the 5.725 trillion yuan (US$796 billion) revenues achieved in 2019.

Tourism in China has been recovering since December 2022, when the country’s zero-Covid policy was dropped, with the number of in-country trips last year returning to about 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

The ongoing Lunar New Year – when millions of Chinese travel to their hometowns for family reunions – has also seen a robust rebound in domestic passenger traffic.

According to the report, in-province trips accounted for about 75 per cent of domestic travel from January to October last year, compared to about 50 per cent in the same period of 2019.

In its December 2022 report, the CTA said that more than 80 per cent of domestic trips that year were within provinces.

Tourism business confidence remains weak, despite people’s willingness to travel returning to pre-pandemic level.

An index calculated by the CTA to measure entrepreneurial attitudes shows a drastic fall from 124 in 2019 to just 68 in 2020. Despite continued growth, confidence remained well below pre-pandemic levels at 98 last year.

China has identified tourism as one of its “new consumption growth points” amid sluggish economic growth, with President Xi Jinping highlighting an expansion in domestic demand as part of policies to strengthen the economy.

China’s challenging start to 2024: 6 takeaways from the economy in January

Xi promised a boost for the domestic tourism sector during December’s central economic work conference, China’s top national policymaking meeting with a focus on the economy.

In a bid to attract international travellers and businesses, Beijing has also rolled out visa-free policies to a list of European and Asian countries, with many taking advantage of the new arrangements during the Lunar New Year.

Some 10,000 visa-free trips were made between Shanghai and Singapore in the first three days of the new policy, accounting for 90 per cent of travel between the two countries, according to Chinese online media outlet ThePaper.cn on Monday.

The number of Chinese travellers to Singapore jumped by 15 times while Singaporean visitors to Shanghai increased nine fold, compared to the same period last year, the media report said.

Visa-free China travel may offer ‘additional stimulus’ Beijing is looking for

But the inbound travel recovery has been unbalanced and slower than the domestic market, according to another CTA report released on February 1, with foreign arrivals last year reaching just 36 per cent of 2019 numbers.

Although inbound passenger traffic last year recovered by about 60 per cent from its 2019 level, it was mainly driven by entries from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwanese residents.

While the CTA expects a full recovery of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwanese resident entries, it predicts entry by foreigners to reach just half its pre-pandemic strength.

The report said there were several reasons for the decline, including closures of Chinese agents specialising in inbound travel during the pandemic and higher travelling costs.

On the other hand, outbound travel is expected to reach 130 million this year, to achieve about 77 per cent of the pre-pandemic level of 2019, according to official statistics.

Snake venom smuggled from India to China: traditional medicine, rave drug or ‘absolute nonsense’?

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3251816/snake-venom-smuggled-india-china-traditional-medicine-rave-drug-or-absolute-nonsense?utm_source=rss_feed

More than US$1 million worth of illicit snake venom was seized recently at India’s border with Bangladesh, underscoring what authorities say is a growing trend of smugglers trafficking the dangerous commodity to China for use in traditional medicines.

Venom experts, however, have raised doubts about some of the claims – especially surrounding the substance’s supposed use as a rave drug.

Indian Border Security Force (BSF) officers arrested a man in the eastern border state of West Bengal on Thursday after recovering about 2kg of snake venom, worth some 120 million Indian rupees (US$1.4 million), from his home in South Dinajpur district.

They had acted on a tip-off about a local man “hiding a jar of snake venom”, Surjeet Singh Guleria, inspector general of operations at BSF Eastern Command, told this Week in Asia, adding that the substance had been sent for forensic tests and would be produced in court as evidence.

Criminals are increasingly taking advantage of the “porous” Indo-Bangladesh border to smuggle venom in various forms – including liquid, powder and gelatin – to China, Guleria said. According to BSF figures, more than 17.7kg of snake venom worth 1.65 billion Indian rupees was recovered from the border region between 2017 and last year.

When seized, the substance in some cases has often been found in crystal jars carrying “Made in France” labels, leading BSF officials to suspect it may have originated in Europe.

India seizes 3,000kg of smuggled gold as mafias target poor to sneak in metal

In one instance from 2022, a jar was found with a tag stating “Cobra SP, Red Dragon, Made in France Code No: 6097” written on a yellow metal plate.

But while it may be easier to smuggle venom than some other goods, it is unlikely that traffickers are importing it from France, according to Nathan Dunstan, general manager at Venom Supplies in Australia, which conducts venom research and produces venom and venom antibodies.

“Cobras are found across the Indian-Bangladesh-China region and I would think it would be more likely that the venom originated in this area,” he said.

In China, snake venom is used to produce some traditional medicines, but Dunstan said domestic production would likely be sufficient to meet demand.

Kartik Sunagar, an evolutionary biologist and professor at the Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Science’s Evolutionary Venomics Lab, also expressed doubts about the amount of snake venom that had been seized, saying such “bold” claims require “scientific validation”.

Seized samples from various parts of the country sent for testing at his laboratory between 2018 and 2020 were found to not contain venom but other generic chemicals, Sunagar told This Week In Asia.

Although border police may claim to have seized several litres of snake venom at a time, he said that realistically speaking, only trace amounts of venom were likely to be present – if at all.

Sunagar, whose team has been collecting snake venom from different parts of the Indian subcontinent to be used in scientific research for seven years now, said an individual snake would only produce a few hundred milligrams of venom when ‘milked’.

Four grams of venom from four of India’s most abundant snake species – cobra, krait, Russell’s viper and the saw-scaled viper – can be bought for around 400,000 rupees from a Tamil Nadu-based cooperative of poisonous snake catchers, he said.

Mysore-based herpetologist Romulus Whitaker said venom is primarily made up of protein and starts degrading almost as soon as it is extracted from a snake, so any bottles of “liquid venom” would be totally useless by the time they were seized – if indeed they actually contained any at all.

BSF’s Guleria insisted that the venom seized by border forces came from snakes and was “not artificiality generated” or composed of other chemicals. It always undergoes forensic examination by the forestry department, he said.

The border police also claim that snake venom is being used as an aphrodisiac at rave parties within India.

Indian YouTuber Elvish Yadav was arrested last year on suspicion of selling snake venom at raves in the northern Indian city Noida.

A 2019 study titled “Snake Venom Use as a Substitute for Opioids: A Case Report and Review of Literature” published in the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine found that people have occasionally been found to use snake venom as a “substitute” for opioids or as an agent to get high.

Death by snakebite: new murder weapon of choice in India

Another study published in 2022 by the Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology contained references to recreational users slapping snakes on the back of the heads with a blunt object to cause them to bite an exposed finger or toe.

However, herpetologist Whitaker said it was “absolute nonsense” that snake venom was being used at rave parties, while biologist Sunagar said such recreational use was impracticable due to the obvious harm the venom can cause.

Could Duterte’s Mindanao bid spark tensions in Philippines that ‘suit Beijing’s agenda’ in South China Sea?

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3251801/could-dutertes-mindanao-bid-spark-tensions-philippines-suit-beijings-agenda-south-china-sea?utm_source=rss_feed

Rodrigo Duterte’s disclosure that he is seeking secession for the southern Philippine island of Mindanao has drawn a mixture of scepticism about the motives of the bombastic former president, and concern over the potential to divert military resources from the South China Sea.

During a January 30 livestream of his long-running talk show Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa (From the Masses, for the Masses), Duterte casually revealed he had assigned his close political associate, Congressman Pantaleon Alvarez, to “regroup” his allies and pursue a secession bid for Mindanao.

Duterte insisted his plan “will not be rebellion nor sedition” on the island, home to a quarter of the Philippine population, but would instead involve a petition of residents which would be submitted to the United Nations.

The Duterte clan draws their political power from Davao, Mindanao’s largest city.

Experts say he may find fertile ground for resentment among the island’s 27 million residents, who in 2022 voted overwhelmingly for Marcos Jnr as president because Duterte and his daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio – who ran as Marcos’ running mate – urged them to do so.

Security and defence analysts say secession is unrealistic, but warned that concrete moves by Duterte towards that goal could reignite internal “hatreds” on an island with long-running communist and Islamist insurgencies.

Crucially, it could also distract the Philippine military from its pivot to external defence and sap limited resources from the flashpoint South China Sea, where the navy faces regular confrontations with Chinese-flagged vessels in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

As the security situation on Mindanao has improved, the military has been recalling its forces from the island to meet the challenge posed by intrusions into the South China Sea.

“This is the reason why we fought and entered into negotiations with the Muslim secessionist movements. It is a serious concern for any government,” a senior military officer told This Week in Asia, requesting anonymity.

“An argument could be made that China would benefit if there is trouble there [in Mindanao] because the Philippine government would in a way be distracted.”

Duterte was the dark horse in the 2016 polls, but emerged as the winner, powered in part by the southern island’s votes and his zero-tolerance vow towards the country’s drug problems.

That he is floating Mindanao’s secession as human rights abuses during his now notorious drug war come under intense scrutiny is not surprising, critics say.

“He is very much scared of the International Criminal Court to the extent that he will separate Mindanao so the ICC will lose jurisdiction” over his deadly drug war, wrote University of the Philippines economics professor Cielo Magnoon in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on February 1.

Others caution against taking the unpredictable Duterte at his word.

“Don’t believe [Duterte] until he makes some serious moves,” Ramon Casiple, co-founder of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform. “For now, it’s just all talk.”

Yet gripes are rife among residents of Mindanao, the country’s second-largest island which produces fish, corn, beef and rice. They complain of neglect by “Imperial Manila” in terms of infrastructure and development, issues exacerbated by the two long-running insurgencies.

Congressman Rufus Rodriguez, representing Cagayan de Oro City in Mindanao, in 2022 said that Mindanao “should be entitled to at least 895 billion pesos (US$52.4 billion) in the 2023 national budget, instead of only 628 billion pesos” because it accounted for 17 per cent of the national GDP.

Writing in the Manila Times, Fermin Adriano – a former board member of the Southern Philippines Development Authority – explained why secession retains some appeal.

One glaring reason, he said, is that while the island’s residents are heavily dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, agricultural produce from Mindanao is much more expensive to ship to Manila, than it is for China, Thailand or the US to ship theirs to the Philippine capital – even though the latter countries are farther – due to the “Cabotage Law” imposed by Manila.

This law, which dates back to the 1920s and was originally imposed by the US Congress on its Philippine colony, reserved all domestic shipping routes for domestic shipping lines, in effect giving them a monopoly.

The latest 2022 amendment to the law, pushed by then president Duterte, allowed shipping lines to be 100 per cent foreign-owned, but Mindanao businessmen said their shipping costs remained high due to the steep taxes imposed on shipping.

The secession bid is being taken seriously by top government officials, including President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr; his military chief Lieutenant General Romeo Brawner Jnr; defence secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr; and retired generals Eduardo Año and Carlito Valdez Jnr.

All have warned Duterte that any such move would be dealt with the full force of the law.

“Being a former president is enough for the leadership to look into it,” another senior military official told This Week in Asia requesting anonymity. “A reminder will not hurt.”

Philippines to ‘strictly enforce’ sovereignty after Duterte’s secessionist threat

Rumours of a destabilisation plot started soon after Marcos Jnr assumed office in 2022, but Duterte was not identified as a threat actor at the time, the officer added.

Duterte has criticised Marcos Jnr’s pivot back to the US, warning last year that granting American soldiers access to Philippine facilities near Taiwan could turn the country into a “battleground”.

While there is no suggestion Duterte is working with China towards undermining the government, Jarius Bondoc, an investigative columnist for the Philippine Star newspaper, said any trouble in Mindanao favours Beijing’s ambitions in the contested waters.

“China will benefit from this kind of separatism [issue], even if this is just blah-blah from Rodrigo Duterte, who is an ally,” he told This Week in Asia.

While the former president’s move could not be taken seriously at this stage, Bondoc said his agitation for Mindanao independence has the long-term potential to kick up dangerous divisions between Muslims, Christians and indigenous people on the island, grievances which have killed thousands before.

If unrest were to flare up, an overstretched military would “be deprived of assets and manpower for West Philippine Sea defence because there’s a very small pie being divided among [them]”, he added.

“That suits Beijing’s agenda as well.”

Year of the Dragon in Kenya: Chinese get a taste of home away from home at Lunar New Year gala in Nairobi

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3251775/year-dragon-kenya-chinese-get-taste-home-away-home-lunar-new-years-gala-nairobi?utm_source=rss_feed

Nairobi mall manager Lei Zhang could not make it back home to China for his annual Lunar New Year visit this time around.

But he and thousands of Chinese like him might have been a little less homesick at the weekend, thanks to a New Year’s Day gala co-hosted by the Kenya Overseas Chinese Association and the Kenya Chinese Women Association.

More than 3,000 performers, both Kenyan and Chinese, took part in Saturday’s event to ring in the Year of the Dragon – held at the mall just outside the Kenyan capital where Zhang works.

Attendees were treated to Chinese music, dragon dance and kung fu performances, as well as plays and cultural exhibitions, including a fashion show featuring the traditional qipao.

The hundreds of visitors also had the chance to try a range of traditional Chinese food.

Zhang came to Nairobi two years ago to work at the Two Rivers Mall, a shopping complex in the city’s diplomatic blue circle built as a joint venture between Kenya’s Centum Investment Co and Chinese firm Avic.

He said sampling food from different provinces helped him to reconnect with his home country. “Beijing is known for its Peking duck. Food from Sichuan and Hunan [provinces] is more hot and spicy,” he said. The cuisines of Guangdong and Hainan had lighter flavours, Zhang added, as “they don’t like the original flavours to be overwhelmed with lots of ingredients”.

Zhou Pingjian, the Chinese ambassador to Kenya, and Zainab Hawa Bangura, director general of the United Nations Office at Nairobi, were among the high-profile guests.

Infrastructure projects such as the 590km (367-mile) Mombasa-Nairobi-Naivasha Standard Gauge Railway – for which China advanced US$5 billion under its Belt and Road Initiative – and highways and bridges have brought a growing number of Chinese to the East African country. They take part in construction work or to run businesses, especially in the retail and hospitality industries.

Kenya is also a key destination for Chinese tourists looking to sample its safari circuit, especially at the Masai Mara national reserve, home to the “Big Five” – African elephant, lion, leopard, Cape buffalo and rhinoceros.

Last week, Kenya welcomed some 200 Chinese tourists aboard the luxury cruise ship MSC Poesia. The passengers visited Kenya’s sandy beaches and wildlife sanctuaries as part of the Lunar New Year festivities, including Wasini Island and the coastal Tsavo East National Park.

“We have thousands of Chinese people here. We work far away from home and during the Chinese traditional holidays, we feel homesick,” Zhang said.

“This event makes us happy and feel at home … It is a good way to tell the Chinese story to the rest of the world.”

Lunar New Year has been made a part of the United Nations’ optional holidays calendar from this year, in response to an appeal by 12 countries including China, Vietnam, Singapore and Mauritius, the only African country where it is a holiday.

Dr Henry Rotich, chairman of the Kenya China Alumni Association, underscored the importance of the Lunar New Year in strengthening the bond of friendship between the two countries.

“Chinese are very strong in preserving their culture,” he said. “Kenyans can learn from them on how to preserve our culture and celebrate it whenever we are, in and out of the country.”

Student scholarships had also enriched the bilateral bond, according to Rotich, whose organisation represents Kenyans who studied in China. Many students had “come back with ideas and business opportunities to implement in Kenya, contributing to nation building”, he said.

Gao Wei, the chairman of the Kenya Overseas Chinese Association, said “very good” bilateral ties had drawn Chinese into the Kenyan construction and service industries. The Year of the Dragon is a lucky year that “will bring our people together and strengthen cooperation”, he said.

The Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival in China, is a cherished tradition celebrated by 20 countries involving one-fifth of the world’s population, Gao added.

Kenyan President William Ruto extended a message of goodwill to the Chinese people to mark the occasion, saying his administration would continue to support the Chinese business community to run their operations smoothly for the benefit of all.

“I also confirm to you that members of the Chinese community in Kenya receive the support they need to feel at home away from home, as they make their contribution to the transformative partnership between Kenya and China,” he said in a statement on Saturday.

Chinese biotech firm Wuxi AppTec should be sanctioned as a security threat, US lawmakers tell White House officials

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3251803/chinese-biotech-firm-wuxi-apptec-should-be-sanctioned-security-threat-us-lawmakers-tell-white-house?utm_source=rss_feed

The US should review Chinese biotech firm Wuxi AppTec and its affiliate Wuxi Biologics for sanctions, a bipartisan group of lawmakers told top Biden administration officials on Monday.

In a letter dated February 12 and seen by Reuters, the lawmakers told Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo that the global pharmaceutical giant’s links to China’s Communist Party and military threatened US national security.

The letter, signed by the Republican chair and Democratic ranking member of the House select committee on China, Representatives Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Senators Gary Peters and Bill Hagerty, is Congress’ latest effort to highlight what it says are risks posed by China’s biotech leaders.

Congress has introduced legislation that would restrict federally-funded medical providers from allowing China’s BGI Group, Wuxi AppTec and other biotech firms from getting genetic information about Americans.

Wuxi AppTec did not respond immediately to a request for comment, but has repeatedly said that it is not a national security risk to any country.

“We are concerned by a misguided US legislative initiative to target our company without a fair and transparent review of the facts,” Wuxi AppTec said previously in a statement still on its website homepage.

The four lawmakers – citing public Chinese government documents, Chinese university websites and media articles – outlined what they called Wuxi AppTec’s clear military ties, as well as support for China’s policies in Xinjiang, a region where Washington has accused Beijing of committing genocide against Muslim minorities.

They said Wuxi AppTec had received investment from numerous PLA funds, including the AVIC Military-Civil Integration Selected Hybrid Securities Investment Fund.

They also cited a resume for Wuxi Biologics CEO Chen Zhisheng, posted in 2018 to a Tsinghua University website, that listed him as a visiting professor at China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, which was added to the Commerce Department’s export control list in 2021.

“Given Wuxi AppTec’s clear ties to the CCP and the PLA and its likely role in enabling the genocide in Xinjiang, we urge your departments to consider the inclusion of Wuxi AppTec and its subsidiaries on your respective control lists,” they said in the letter.

Those should include sanctions under Treasury’s Non-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List, the Commerce list restricting US sales to named entities and the Pentagon’s “1260H” list, which carries implicit warnings about US cooperation with certain firms.

“Wuxi AppTec and Wuxi Biologics have obscured their ties to the CCP and PLA and, as a result, are rapidly integrating themselves into US supply chains by signing agreements with prominent US biotech entities,” the lawmakers wrote.

The two companies have counted Pfizer, AstraZeneca , GlaxoSmithKline, and US national labs as partners.

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Puzzled China mother complains that child’s homework includes intrusive questions about family finances

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3250709/puzzled-china-mother-complains-childs-homework-includes-intrusive-questions-about-family-finances?utm_source=rss_feed

The story of a mother in China who complained that her child’s homework contained questions asking about the family’s finances has trended on mainland social media.

The mother, from southern Guangdong province, said on Douyin on January 30 that her child, a primary school pupil, was asked to share details of the family’s monthly income and expenditure, the video website Jiaodian News reported.

The homework paper included columns asking students to list details such as “father’s income”, “mother’s income”, “food spending”, “other daily necessities spending”, “house loans” and “car loans”.

“I am curious, is it homework or a family background investigation?” asks the mother in an online video.

The exercise was apparently intended to help students understand the value of money and how it is earned by parents, so young students can show them gratitude.

However, the mother said she was not convinced about the validity of that claim.

“I am still very confused about the meaning of this kind of homework,” she said.

The video clip has gone viral on mainland social. It has been viewed 3 million times and attracted 60,000 comments on Douyin alone.

One online observer expressed concern and asked: “So will the school treat students differently based on their parents’ different levels of income?”

“Just tell the kid to write an astronomical figure. I don’t think teachers take the content of this homework seriously,” another person said, adding.

“If they are criticised for not filling in the true figure, the teachers should be confronted and embarrassed.”

Another person said: “Most parents dare not speak out against this kind of abnormal homework. This parent is brave.”

“We teachers do not care how much parents earn. So please do not be so vigilant,” said a fourth person who claimed to be a teacher.

School homework that parents’ find unacceptable regularly captivates mainland social media.

In 2018, a maths teacher in southern Guangdong province told his students to count out 100 million pieces of rice and asked their parents to supervise them doing so, causing disbelief among many.

In 2020, kindergarten teacher in Zhejiang province, eastern China, told pupils to observe the moon at the same time every evening for a month and draw images every day to test their powers of observation.

Almost all the parents in the class completed that task on behalf of their children because they thought the task was too arduous.

Nigerian rail projects drive home China’s commitment to African infrastructure development

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3251503/nigerian-rail-projects-drive-home-chinas-commitment-african-infrastructure-development?utm_source=rss_feed

Building railways and bridges in Africa are a key focus for Beijing, after senior diplomat for African affairs Wu Peng announced that China will support infrastructure development in Nigeria, while on a trip to the West African nation last month.

It is a sign that China is still committed to enhancing ties and financially backing growth in African nations. But observers have also said that a change in banks financing a major rail project in Nigeria points to China’s desire to commercialise its overseas lending.

Wu, the Chinese foreign ministry’s director general of African affairs, previously announced the signing of a finance agreement for the Kaduna-Kano railway, a landmark project in the Belt and Road Initiative in Nigeria.

It came after a promise in October by Chinese President Xi Jinping to finance and complete the Abuja-Kano and Port Harcourt-Maiduguri railway projects during a meeting with Nigerian Vice-President Kashim Shettima on the sidelines of the third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing.

China had agreed to provide 85 per cent financing for the construction of the two railway projects, while Nigeria was to pay the remaining 15 per cent. This money has since been earmarked by Nigeria for the project, according to Shettima’s office.

The funding was originally meant to come from state-owned policy bank China Eximbank, but it pulled the plug back in 2020, citing the Covid-19 pandemic and concerns about Nigeria’s ability to repay the loan.

But now the money is being provided by another state-owned policy bank, the China Development Bank (CDB). According to observers, this illustrates China’s wish for the commercialisation of overseas loan financing.

And it is not an insignificant sum. For example, with the 203km (126 mile) Kaduna-Kano railway section, after China Eximbank stopped its funding in 2020, Nigeria courted CDB last year.

Previous estimates had put the total cost of the Kaduna-Kano section of the line at US$1.2 billion. The Nigerian government committed US$380 million, with the revised cost to be borrowed set at US$973 million.

Documents put before Nigeria’s parliament in April 2023 showed that the Chinese lender would advance a 15-year loan at an interest rate of 2.7 per cent plus the six-month Euro Interbank Offered Rate.

China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) has been responsible for most of the project, which will connect the northern city of Kano with the capital Abuja.

The rubber-stamping of the rail project, according to observers, points to a predicted rise in Chinese lending to Africa in 2024 – a year, they noted, in which Beijing is expected to host the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

Tim Zajontz, a research fellow at the Centre for International and Comparative Politics at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, said the financing agreement shows that Nigeria’s infrastructure sector remains important for China.

Not only are Chinese contractors widely mobilised across the Nigerian market, “one must also not forget that Abuja has actively sought funding from non-Chinese sources after China Eximbank had pulled out,” he said.

“Considering the intensifying geopolitical competition over African infrastructure, President Xi’s recent commitment to continue to fund Nigeria’s ‘railway renaissance’ is not surprising,” said Zajontz, who is also a lecturer in global political economy at the University of Freiburg.

US borrows from belt and road playbook to challenge China’s influence in Africa

Although China Eximbank and CDB are both state-owned policy banks, the switchover is “an example of China Eximbank’s more restrictive lending policy and indicates a further commercialisation of Chinese overseas loan financing”, he said.

Zajontz, who is author of the book, The Political Economy of China’s Infrastructure Development in Africa: Capital, State Agency, Debt, also talked of a wider shift in China’s overseas development finance.

“Chinese funding is now more restrictive and the focus has shifted from concessional to commercial lending,” he said.

Yunnan Chen, a senior research officer at the London-based Overseas Development Institute think tank, said the CCECC is hugely dominant in Nigeria, so it makes sense that they would be the natural contractor for the project.

“CDB loans will likely be more costly and less favourable in terms,” she added.

China-Africa trade hit US$282 billion in 2023 but Africa’s trade deficit widens

Eximbank also withdrew funding for a section of a railway in Kenya. It had previously financed the US$5 billion leg from the coastal port city of Mombasa to capital Nairobi, with an extension to the central Rift Valley town of Naivasha.

But the bank declined to fund the next section to Malaba, a town on the border with Uganda due to concerns over the project’s commercial viability.

However, Kenya is in a much weaker bargaining position than Nigeria, Chen said. “Nigeria is always in a more comfortable position to borrow, at least for the time being, because it has the oil revenues, which make it creditworthy.”

Beijing boosts use of Chinese yuan in Africa as nations move away from US dollar

According to Chen, Kenya is trying to negotiate the terms of its existing Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) loans, while also trying to ask for new financing for the extension to Uganda. “It’s a difficult bargaining position to be in.”

Mark Bohlund, a senior credit research analyst at REDD Intelligence, said that Nigeria – similar to Tanzania – is one of the major African economies with a relatively low level of Chinese borrowing. “And it is in this perspective that I view this new loan,” he said.

“My assumption is that China Eximbank will be more active than CDB in Africa over the medium term but I think Nigeria might be an exception to the rule in this regard as their oil export revenue allows them, in theory, to take on more debt at commercial terms, which is the majority of CDB’s lending, than other African countries.”

New North Korean rocket launch system and risk of arms race poses new puzzle for China

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3251770/new-north-korean-rocket-launch-system-and-risk-arms-race-poses-new-puzzle-china?utm_source=rss_feed

North Korea’s development of a new rocket launcher control system could speed up the region’s arms race and prove “tricky” for China, an analyst has said.

Pyongyang said on Monday it had successfully developed controllable shells and a new ballistic control system for a multiple rocket launcher.

According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, North Korean state media said the development of the 240mm-calibre multiple rocket launcher shells and its ballistic control system would make a “qualitative change in our army’s multiple rocket launcher force”.

The North Korean Academy of Defence Science also conducted a test firing of the new controllable shells on Sunday, the report added.

Ryu Yong-wook , a China and Korea affairs specialist at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said the development would further advance Pyongyang’s missile and delivery capabilities and strengthen its offensive capacity.

‘Political time bomb’: North Korean workers reportedly riot in China over wages

“It will increase the military tensions in the Korean peninsula at a time when there is a deadlock in inter-Korean relations and will likely intensify an arms race in a region that is already fraught with multiple flashpoints,” he said.

North Korea has in recent months ramped up its missiles and weapons tests, including a test launch of a new strategic cruise missile – the Pulhwasal-3-31 – from a submarine last month.

In December, Pyongyang test-fired its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile that has the potential to reach the United States, drawing condemnation from the US, South Korea and Japan.

But more than just boosting North Korea’s military capabilities, “China is in a tricky situation”, said Ryu.

On one hand, China wants stability on the Korean peninsula, which pushes it to limit Pyongyang’s “aggressive and belligerent behaviour”.

But on the other hand, against the backdrop of a deepening US-China rivalry and greater security cooperation between the US and South Korea, the “strategic utility of North Korea increases for Beijing”.

“Hence, China might become more tolerant of the North’s wayward external behaviour,” Ryu said.

Sunday’s weapons test came weeks after officials from China and North Korea met.

During talks in Beijing, the Chinese Communist Party’s diplomatic chief Liu Jianchao told North Korean ambassador Ri Ryong-nam that China would “deepen strategic communications … [and] safeguard regional peace and stability”.

Pyongyang has accused Washington and Seoul of escalating tensions with large-scale military drills. Last month it said it had tested an underwater nuclear attack drone in response to a joint naval exercise between the United States, South Korea and Japan.

Ryu suggested that the latest development may be related to the recent warming of North Korea’s ties with Russia.

He said North Korea may have received missile-related technology from Russia in exchange for supplying weapons and ammunition. Pyongyang has previously denied US claims it has been providing artillery shells and rockets for use in the war against Ukraine.

“If so, this may be a concern to Beijing, as it suggests that Pyongyang is being more autonomous from Beijing’s influence,” Ryu said.

At last, Chinese and South Korean foreign ministers talk amid tension

He suggested that China would start offering economic incentives to entice North Korea if it thought Pyongyang was moving away from its orbit, adding that one indicator would be an increase in the number of official interactions between both sides.

“Whether North Korea will stick to its pledge to maintain regional peace is an irrelevant point, given its past record. Words are cheap for North Korea,” he said.

What was important, Ryu added, was whether North Korea was in a position to start a major military conflict, which would depend on support from China and Russia – something neither would currently see as being in their interests.

As Red Sea shipping attacks continue, pressure grows for China to act

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/asia/article/3251310/red-sea-shipping-attacks-continue-pressure-grows-china-act?utm_source=rss_feed

The disruptive consequences of the attacks on Red Sea shipping by Yemen’s Houthi rebels were underscored recently by Jan Hoffmann, the logistics chief at Unctad, the UN trade body. These incidents, he noted, were exacerbating the vulnerabilities of global trade and supply chains, adding to the challenges arising from the Ukraine conflict and from reduced shipping in the Panama Canal, where water levels have been dropping due to climate change.

The armed Houthi rebel group, which has taken up the cause of the Palestinians, has said it is only targeting merchant ships in the Red Sea with an Israeli connection, promising safe passage for vessels from China, Russia and other nations. In a significant attack last month, however, Houthi militants fired missiles at a tanker carrying Russian oil near the coast of Yemen.

It underscored the group’s inability to precisely identify its targets, and suggests it may be a matter of time before Chinese vessels come under attack. China’s approach to the situation reveals its challenges, both economic and geopolitical.

With ships avoiding the Red Sea, the volume of trade going through the Suez Canal had fallen by 42 per cent over the past two months, said Unctad on January 26. China is primarily concerned about the increased time and costs associated with shipping through alternative routes. The freight rate for the Shanghai-Northern Europe route has surged, from US$581 per 20-foot equivalent unit (TEU) in mid-October to US$2,694 at the end of December – triple what it was at the start of December – surpassing US$3,000 in January.

Beyond shipping costs, the transport of energy commodities has been affected. Major liquefied natural gas exporter QatarEnergy had to pause its LNG shipments via the Red Sea briefly last month and ship movements in the area remain fraught and disrupted. Additionally, shipping through the alternative route of the Panama Canal has been restricted, as a severe drought lowered water levels, forcing major shipping companies to scramble for other strategies. Consumer goods may continue to encounter notable disruptions even during the slow shipping season.

Chinese ships may be navigating the Red Sea without being attacked but China still has to contend with elevated energy prices, increased shipping and insurance costs, and extended shipping times to Europe. Reductions in passages through the Suez Canal could result in more price divergences and heightened volatility in commodities, including oil.

Beyond economic costs, however, China also has to consider the Red Sea situation against its broader role in global affairs.

China has long been critical of the Houthis. In 2015, during the Yemen civil war, after Houthis captured the capital Sanaa, China supported the UN Security Council resolution demanding that “the Houthis immediately and unconditionally” withdraw. In 2022, China supported a resolution condemning the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen. Yet China has a warming relationship with Iran and in 2021, both countries agreed to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Reports suggest Chinese officials have urged their Iranian counterparts to rein in the Houthis and their Red Sea attacks.

Despite maintaining a naval base in nearby Djibouti, China has so far declined to join the US-led mission to safely escort ships in the Red Sea. There are signs, however, that Beijing is no longer entirely passive, having reportedly started to deploy naval vessels to escort Chinese cargo ships in the Red Sea.

Pressure is growing for China to pursue more decisive action. When Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met in Bangkok recently, the Houthi attacks were expected to be discussed, despite no official mention. There was hope that Beijing would present concrete proposals or strategies to contribute to the collective effort of safeguarding the Red Sea.

Analysts have pointed to the delicate situation: it is too crucial to overlook but too sensitive to explicitly mention. Taking decisive action in response presents challenges for China, particularly when it comes to pressuring Iran.

Since 2021, China has reportedly invested US$185 million in Iran while also agreeing to multibillion-dollar investment and construction contracts with Saudi Arabia – which only recently normalised relations with Iran – the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman. This has deepened frustrations in Iran with China’s reluctance to do more to alleviate its economic pressures.

Importantly, China sees the Red Sea tensions as a spillover from the Gaza conflict. Its concern is with protecting its interests against a broader regional conflict strategy. And there are concerns in the region that additional measures taken by China, such as deploying its warships, might be seen as a threat to regional security.

China and US working together can better resolve Red Sea crisis

The Red Sea region is significant to the strategic interests of both the US and China; they want to see stable trade, energy and resource flows, counterterrorism efforts and the promotion of good governance and stability. But US-China tensions in recent years have reduced the opportunities for both countries to cooperate in the Red Sea.

This crisis is an opportunity for a breakthrough. Despite US military action, commercial shipping in the Red Sea remains under pressure. China should consider contributing more proactively, drawing on its experience in escorting commercial vessels during previous escalations in piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

The potential for US-China coordination arises not out of affection but the critical importance of issues such as supply chains and energy supply to both Beijing and Washington. Negotiations would be crucial to establish frameworks and mechanisms, and to plan for how the respective US and Chinese militaries should respond when they come into contact in the local area.

Punish China, create US jobs: trade envoy defends Joe Biden’s retention of Donald Trump-era tariffs

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3251793/punish-china-create-us-jobs-trade-envoy-defends-joe-bidens-retention-donald-trump-era-tariffs?utm_source=rss_feed

Joe Biden’s top trade official on Monday defended the administration’s decision to leave in place punitive tariffs on imports from China, arguing they have complemented other efforts by the US president to boost the number of domestic manufacturing jobs.

When asked about a recent study suggesting tariffs did not yield such employment, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the extra duties on Chinese goods enacted by former president Donald Trump plus tariffs he slapped on steel and aluminium imports more broadly had helped bolster the Biden administration’s job-creation initiatives.

“We have kept a lot of the tariffs because we see strategic value in those tariffs in this exercise of building out the middle class and reinvigorating American manufacturing and the American economy” Tai said at the Council on Foreign Relations during a discussion with former USTR Michael Froman.

The tariffs have had more of an impact since the enactment of three laws championed by the Biden administration – the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips and Science Act – she added, saying “close to a million” manufacturing jobs had been created since Biden took office.

Data from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics showed that manufacturing employment increased by more than 750,000 positions since Biden became president in January 2021.

“When taken together, I would welcome anyone to do a study and look at all of these working in concert and how they have made changes to the US economy,” Tai said.

“You have to be looking at all these policy vectors as combined. Picking and choosing them really does trade policy as part of the economic policy family a significant injustice.”

The study Tai was asked about when she was challenged about the utility of the Trump-era tariffs was written by David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Anne Beck of the World Bank, Gordon Hanson of the Harvard Kennedy School and David Dorn of the University of Zurich and published last month.

The food front: US farmers see sales to China picking up and hope for more

“Buyers facing tariff-induced price increases on Chinese imports may have found alternative sources of foreign imports, rather than purchasing a larger quantity of goods from domestic tariff-protected industries that could spur domestic employment growth,” the authors found.

“Other countries substantially expanded their exports to the United States,” they said. “The same was not true for US exports, as industries facing retaliatory tariffs struggled to expand sales in other export markets

“The net effect of import tariffs, retaliatory tariffs and farm subsidies on employment in locations exposed to the trade war was at best a wash, and it may have been mildly negative,” the study said.

Why China hopes US won’t touch century-old trade rule for imports under US$800

To reach its conclusion of a possible net loss caused by Trump’s tariffs, the authors factored in subsidies worth more than US$20 billion that the Trump administration backed to offset retaliatory tariffs that China slapped on US agricultural goods.

The Chinese government targeted American soybeans – the largest US agricultural commodity export to China in terms of value – among other farm products, in the first round of tariffs after Trump imposed punitive duties on Chinese goods in July 2018, and buyers there turned increasingly to Brazilian suppliers.

A year later, in response to additional tariffs enacted by Trump on imports from China, Beijing temporarily suspended purchases of US agricultural products.

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China population: teachers face uncertain future with falling birth rate set to create 1.9 million surplus by 2035

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3251486/china-population-teachers-face-uncertain-future-falling-birth-rate-set-create-19-million-surplus?utm_source=rss_feed

Regarded as one of the “iron rice bowls” of China, teaching has remained a much sought-after option for Chinese jobseekers in an era of economic uncertainty.

But they may find less guaranteed job security once symbolised by the iron rice bowl concept in the years to come as an accelerating decline in births is leading to a surplus of teachers, with millions expected to lose their jobs in the next 10 years.

With a rapidly increasing number of retirees and a plummeting number of newborns, China is undergoing a demographic transition that has far-reaching implications, including slower economic growth and a strained social security system.

The number of newborn babies in China has gone into free fall since 2017, with births plunging by more than 500,000 last year to slightly over 9 million.

The number of children attending kindergartens also saw its first decline in nearly two decades in 2021, while primary school students fell in 2022 for the first time in a decade, according to the Ministry of Education.

“With fewer students, there will inevitably be redundancies at schools within a certain period or a certain region,” said Chu Zhaohui, a senior researcher at the China National Academy of Educational Sciences.

But the extent of the impact largely depends on what authorities do in the coming years, he said.

“According to my field research, because of their financial burdens, local governments will absolutely recruit fewer teachers this year,” Chu added.

Local authorities are under growing fiscal pressure as a crisis in the real estate industry – their most important source of income – has shown no sign of abating, and other challenges including weak domestic and external demand hold back the post-pandemic recovery of the world’s second-largest economy.

The education department in central China’s Hunan province issued a directive in November urging for a better allocation of education resources over the next five to 10 years based on birth rate, urbanisation and the number of school-aged children.

Over the past year, a series of other local governments, such as in Shandong and Sichuan, have announced plans to no longer offer major degree programmes related to education at certain universities and colleges to curb the supply of teachers.

Amid great popularity for such programmes, driven by a “teaching craze” in the past couple of years, “many local governments have taken the initiative to ‘cool down’ the fervour through the adjustment of majors, which is particularly worthy of attention,” said a report by human resources research firm MyCOS in January.

Chinese schools have, for decades, been crowded with children, with as many as 50 students in one class in some urban areas and around 30 in most rural areas.

And if classes remain at the same levels, there will be a surplus of 1.5 million primary school teachers and 370,000 middle school teachers by 2035, according to research by a team led by Qiao Jinzhong, an education professor at Beijing Normal University.

“The number of compulsory education schools across the country has been decreasing since 2003, and this trend will continue from 2020 to 2035, with the pace of decline gradually accelerating,” he told China’s Newsweek magazine in February last year.

Besides efforts to merge schools to concentrate resources, the shrinking number of schools is also being driven by downward pressure on student numbers.

Like if the US lost New Mexico: 6 takeaways from China’s 2023 population data

In 2021, the number of children at kindergarten witnessed the first fall since 2003, followed by another drop of 3.7 per cent in 2022.

In 2022, the total number of pupils at primary schools also dropped for the first time since 2013, falling by 478,800 from a year earlier to 107 million.

The trend may prompt public schools to reduce class sizes to avoid lay-offs, which would also allow teachers to increase the time they spend with each student, said Maggie Chen, who has been a teacher in Zhejiang province for nearly two decades.

“But things may be much crueler at private schools, which have greater financial pressure and already have small classes. There will be a big possibility of lay-offs,” she said.

According to Huang Bin, a professor at Nanjing University’s Institute of Education, declining demand in teaching resources is not a bad thing, especially for remote schools where teachers are often poorly trained and lack development opportunities.

“Many teachers have relatively low skill levels, especially those in rural schools,” he said. “It is of great significance to promote the upgrading of rural teachers through quantitative elimination as soon as possible.”

It is a chance for China to improve the quality of its education, which is crucial to realising Beijing’s ambition of talent dividend – a notion referring to a better-educated workforce – that is expected to provide a strong impetus for economic growth despite being smaller.

Fewer children would also mean less competition for schools, which may ease anxiety for parents and stress for students, Huang added.

Something to cry about? Kindergartens in China fall for first time in 15 years

“[In the long run,] as the number of children decreases, there might be a wave of mergers of colleges and universities, and the gaps between these institutions might narrow. This may help to relieve the widespread anxiety over the college entrance exams,” he added

Despite a sweeping crackdown on private tutoring in 2021 to ease the burdens on students and improve educational equality, a majority of parents remain stressed about their children’s education.

According to a survey by online technology news platform youth36kr in May, over 72 per cent of 535 parents polled expressed high levels of anxiety, rating it above five on a scale of 10.

This is not only putting intense pressure on children, resulting in physical and psychological problems, but also contributing to a perceived growing reluctance to raise children despite the government’s push for more births.