• China and Switzerland in push for Russia to join Ukraine peace summit
• China’s ‘two sessions’ 2024: country should ditch Deng Xiaoping’s approach of ‘hiding its capacities and biding its time’, says senior diplomat
• China’s Alipay and WeChat Pay ease the way for foreign travellers to make payments in world’s largest cashless society
• China’s ‘two sessions’ 2024: Red Sea crisis ‘a big challenge’ for Beijing, says ambassador
• China’s Xi Jinping issues hi-tech military call in push for integrated armed forces
• Why women in China breastfeed less than rest of world, the Post explores Chinese culture, body autonomy on International Women’s Day
• Does China need a space data bureau to support its ever-growing satellite networks?
• Can UN’s high seas treaty save South China Sea’s ecosystem, or will it lead to more bilateral tension?
• Hong Kong customs seizes HK$211 million in smuggled goods found on river trade vessels headed for mainland China
• ‘Two sessions’ 2024: China’s revision of defence education law aimed at promoting patriotism and support for military
• China’s electric vehicle infrastructure falls short, as Lunar New Year holiday woes of EV drivers in Hainan and elsewhere showed
• Manila vows tougher action on gangs as ‘Chinese mafia’ eyes Philippine passports for crime
• Russia-Ukraine war live: Three dead in Kharkiv region after Russian shelling; Chinese delegation meets top Ukraine official
• ‘Two sessions’ 2024: China’s construction of the world’s largest particle collider may start in 2027
• Behind the doors of a Chinese hacking company, a sordid culture fueled by influence, alcohol and sex
• ‘America is rising’: Biden uses State of the Union address to push competition with China but not conflict
• Huawei’s China-made chip used US gear from Applied Materials and Lam Research, complicating self-sufficiency drive
• China’s South Asia ‘bridgehead’ needs urgent infrastructure boost to aid security, mineral exploration
• China’s GDP gap with US, Malaysians mock Starbucks franchisee, Japan’s geisha visitors ban: SCMP’s 7 highlights of the week
• Bringing them home: why China’s MH370 families are still searching for the missing a decade on
• For China to leave S Korean shipbuilding rivals in its wake, leaders told to be stern in shipbuilding efforts and seas the day
• Young polio woman in China given gift of confidence by famous photographer who heals needy with artistic portraits
• US Army intelligence analyst Korbein Schultz charged with selling military secrets to China
• US army intelligence analyst charged with selling secrets to China
• China will only benefit by welcoming women into high-level politics
• China ‘plays to unifying theme among Global South’: it’s not America
• Time to ‘cut off’ US outbound investment in China biotech firms like BGI Group and Wuxi AppTec: House panel
• Canada reaches settlement with Michael Spavor over detention in China

China and Switzerland in push for Russia to join Ukraine peace summit

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3254742/china-and-switzerland-push-russia-join-ukraine-peace-summit?utm_source=rss_feed

China and Switzerland are pushing for Russia to be invited to Swiss-held talks aimed at bringing an eventual end to the war in Ukraine.

Sources close to the discussions said the two countries shared a “pragmatic” view on how to achieve peace, and that a format without both sides risks becoming the diplomatic equivalent of a “Potemkin village”.

In January, the Swiss government agreed to host a peace summit of world leaders at the request of Ukraine, although no date has been confirmed. It was initially reported that Moscow would not be invited. The talks would build on a series of meetings among national security advisers from dozens of countries held in various locations, only one of which was attended by Beijing.

“We are open to all countries of the world that respect our sovereignty and territorial integrity. Therefore you can draw conclusions on whom we invite,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a press conference in Switzerland in January.

But in neither Bern nor Beijing is this seen as a viable way to end the war, which was sparked by a Russian invasion of Ukraine just over two years ago.

Sources from the EU and its member states described the plan as a “non-starter”. While they would ultimately be guided by Kyiv, it is viewed as extremely unlikely that either Ukraine or Russia could stomach the other side’s conditions for sitting down together.

Russia would be welcome to join such talks, “but needs to withdraw its troops from Ukraine first”, said one senior official in a Central European capital.

The Swiss summit was discussed at various meetings this week, as China’s envoy for Eurasia Li Hui toured Europe following a stop in Moscow. In both Brussels and Warsaw, he floated the possibility of Russia attending the talks – but made clear that Moscow had two preconditions.

These are that the West stop shipping arms to Ukraine, and that Zelensky cancel a decree signed in October 2022 declaring that talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin are “impossible”, after Moscow proclaimed four occupied regions of Ukraine to be part of Russia.

Multiple sources from various EU capitals said these would “never” happen while Putin remained intent on marching on Kyiv.

A French diplomat said that with the military momentum “all for Russia right now, I doubt Moscow will come or if they do they’ll be so demanding and rude that it will be over before the discussion starts”.

“And if it’s before the elections, there will be pressure from France et al to avoid giving the impression that we are conceding anything to Russia,” they said in a reference to the European Parliament elections in June.

Li told EU officials that the summit “can’t be a conference that produces a plan that is pushed down the Russians’ throat”, according to people briefed on the meetings. In Warsaw, sources panned him as a “messenger for Moscow”.

EU locks horns with China’s envoy on Ukraine, as schisms on war remain

While seen to be pro-Russian in the West, China has claimed to be a neutral party to the conflict and has consistently called for a negotiated solution.

“The earlier we start talking, the sooner peace will come,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a press conference held on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress this week, during which he said also China would “deepen” ties with Russia.

At a meeting with a Swiss delegation in Belgium, Li discussed making talks “more inclusive”, sources said.

The Swiss foreign ministry has been reaching out to the perceived leaders of the Global South with this in mind. Ukraine was the biggest topic when Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis toured Delhi and Beijing last month, with Cassis inviting Chinese President Xi Jinping to join the talks.

Beijing has voiced interest in attending, although it is unclear in what capacity, but would prefer that Russia is at the table too. Both Switzerland and China believe that the broader the talks are, in terms of attendance, the more productive they will be, with Beijing’s participation seen as crucial to attracting other capitals.

Neutral Switzerland has a long history of mediation, and is not a member of the European Union or Nato. It has, however, joined Western sanctions on Russia and criticised Putin’s invasion.

The summit is viewed as the first in a series of events to lay down the basis for peace. Tactical issues such as nuclear safety, keeping grain exports flowing, and returning abducted Ukrainian children are likely to be on the agenda.

Sweden joins Nato as Russia’s war in Ukraine prompts security rethink

But it is unclear whether Kyiv could be moved to invite Russia to the summit.

Li visited Kyiv on Thursday, meeting senior Ukrainian officials including the head of Zelensky’s office Andriy Yermak, Deputy Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

“Yermak spoke about the measures taken to implement the peace formula and preparations for the first Global Peace Summit to be held in Switzerland,” read a Kyiv readout of the meetings, adding that he “emphasised the importance of the widest possible support for the Ukrainian peace formula by all countries of the world”.

The Chinese delegation was “shown samples of the wreckage of a downed North Korean missile and other elements of the weapons that were transferred to Russia and used by it to attack Ukraine”, the account said.

“It is very important that you hear first-hand about the situation on the front line, what is happening and where we are,” Yermak said.

According to the readout, the Ukrainian side asked China for assistance in “putting an end to the forced deportation of Ukrainian children, in the exchange of prisoners, demilitarisation and de-occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, guaranteeing nuclear security and other international initiatives of our country”.

Both Kyiv and the EU have asked Beijing to engage on these matters previously, but have been left disappointed by the lack of response. China has in both public and private settings stuck closely to its own 12-point proposal for peace, released in February 2023.

The foreign ministries of Ukraine and Russia did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the Chinese mission to the EU.

China’s ‘two sessions’ 2024: country should ditch Deng Xiaoping’s approach of ‘hiding its capacities and biding its time’, says senior diplomat

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3254743/chinas-two-sessions-2024-country-should-ditch-deng-xiaopings-approach-hiding-its-capacities-and?utm_source=rss_feed

A senior Chinese diplomat has said that the country is now a major player on the world stage and can no longer follow former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s approach of “hiding its capacities and biding its time”.

Lu Shaye, the ambassador to France, said: “When we were relatively poor and backward, Western countries looked down upon us in dealing with us. Now, they basically look at us as equals, and in some cases even look up to us.

“A big country should act like a big country, it cannot hide its capacities and bide its time as it had in the past … If you have grown as big as an elephant, you can no longer hide behind trees.”

He made the comments in an interview with China Youth Daily during the annual “two sessions”, when the national legislature and top political advisory body meet.

Deng coined the phrase about China” hiding its capacities and biding its time” when he put forward the idea that the country should keep a low profile and focus on its own development in 1990 following the end of the Cold War.

Will China have to start worrying about its Wolf Warrior diplomats?

It has been a cornerstone of the country’s foreign policy since then, although it has been less pronounced since Xi Jinping came to power 10 years ago and was seen to promote a more assertive approach dubbed “Wolf Warrior diplomacy” after a series of nationalistic action films.

Lu is often seen as a leading Wolf Warrior and triggered a diplomatic crisis last year when he questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet republics, telling French television they did not have “effective status in international law”.

In the China Youth Daily interview, Lu said it was time for China to expand its international influence through greater participation in global governance.

“If you are a responsible major power that is reliable and upholds justice, they [developing countries] will be willing to develop ties with you and respect you,” he said.

Lu’s comments echo those of Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who told a press conference on Thursday that the world should choose a multipolar approach over bloc confrontation and highlighted the Chinese role in trying to unify the so-called Global South and pushing for peace in Gaza and Ukraine.

At present Beijing is trying to portray itself as a responsible world power through its active participation in global governance and champion of the developing world as its rivalry with the United States intensifies.

In a separate interview with China News Service, Lu also called on Europe to abandon the “cold war mindset” and “bloc confrontation”.

He said: “We hope to treat Europe as a partner, but Europe views China as both a partner and a competitor, and moreover Europe increasingly views China as a so-called ‘systemic rival’.

“This by and large reflects a certain sense of a cold war mentality and the mentality of bloc confrontation. [Europe] still differentiates countries based on ideology and social systems. It regards a country as an alien if its ideology and social system are different from its own.”

China urges EU cooperation over ‘bloc confrontation’ in bid to warm relations

The EU labelled China as a “partner, competitor and systemic rival” in 2019, and relations have since taken a further downward turn with Brussels currently pushing for retroactive tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports among other measures.

Brussels has also been under increasing pressure from Washington to jointly respond to an “increasingly assertive” China.

China has repeatedly urged the EU to uphold its “strategic autonomy”, an idea championed by European leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron, who has warned the bloc not to become a “vassal” of the US.

Lu said he hoped both France and Europe could maintain an “independent” policy towards China in the face of increasing US pressure.

He cited four principles – “independence, mutual understanding, foresight, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation” – put forward by Xi, saying they symbolised the “China-France spirit”.

He added: “This also applies to China-EU relations. If China and Europe can follow these four principles, I believe many problems between the two sides will be solved.”

China’s Alipay and WeChat Pay ease the way for foreign travellers to make payments in world’s largest cashless society

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3254710/chinas-alipay-and-wechat-pay-ease-way-foreign-travellers-make-payments-worlds-largest-cashless?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s two dominant mobile payment services providers, Alipay owner Ant Group and WeChat Pay operator Tencent Holdings, are enhancing operations to make it easier for foreign travellers to pay for goods and services on the mainland, the world’s largest cashless society.

Those initiatives come after the General Office of the State Council on Thursday published new guidelines towards “providing higher-quality, more effective and more convenient payment services” for foreign visitors, according to a Xinhua News Agency report.

Ant Group has raised foreign travellers’ single-transaction limit on Alipay to US$5,000 from US$1,000, the Chinese financial technology giant said in a statement. The company is an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post.

Alipay’s annual cumulative transaction limit for foreign visitors has also been increased to US$50,000, up from the previous US$10,000 limit, in line with a new People’s Bank of China policy, the group said.

Hangzhou-based Ant Group’s Alipay+ network already supports various Asian e-wallets and payment apps on the mainland, including Hong Kong’s AlipayHK, MPay from Macau, South Korea’s Kakao Pay and TrueMoney from Thailand.

Tencent on Thursday said foreign visitors on the mainland are now allowed to bind their international bank cards to WeChat Pay without “complete information”.

The Shenzhen-based internet giant said it was also developing a top-up payment plan for foreign visitors, who choose not to tie their international bank cards to WeChat Pay, to add small sums of money to the payment service.

The latest moves by Alipay and WeChat Pay show a concerted effort by Chinese Big Tech firms to support Beijing’s plan for a post-pandemic revival of the country’s tourism industry.

China’s cashless-society shift is keeping foreign tourists from opening wallets

Many foreign tourists have long found it difficult to pay for goods and services on the mainland, where contactless payment has become the norm. These travellers also face barriers to fully enjoy mobile payment services in the country, owing to Beijing’s rigid financial and data control laws.

China’s mobile payments sector covers nearly every aspect of people’s daily life, including public transport, travel, ride hailing, online and offline retail, convenience stores, food and grocery deliveries, restaurants and online video gaming.

As of June 2023, about 943 million people in mainland China used mobile payments, bolstering the country’s status as the world’s largest cashless society.

China’s internet giants must step up opening their ‘walled gardens’: state media

Under the new guidelines published by Chinese authorities, domestic establishments must also expedite the use of cash and currency exchanges. All large business districts, tourist attractions, hotels, hospitals and other key locations are required to support diversified payment options, including via bank cards and cash.

The guidelines also directed payment services to provide more convenience to senior citizen users who are not tech-savvy.

Both Alipay and WeChat Pay have already launched so-called elder mode functions for senior citizens using their apps, displaying a simplified user interface and bigger text.

China’s ‘two sessions’ 2024: Red Sea crisis ‘a big challenge’ for Beijing, says ambassador

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3254719/chinas-two-sessions-2024-red-sea-crisis-big-challenge-beijing-says-ambassador?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s diplomats in the Middle East are looking at ways to respond to the “big challenge” in the Red Sea caused by Houthi attacks on shipping, a senior diplomat has said.

The Yemeni rebel group has been attacking ships in the Red Sea since November in what they say is a campaign in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Liao Liqiang, the ambassador to Egypt, was speaking at a panel discussion on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country’s top political advisory body.

He said: “The Red Sea has emerged as a big challenge and had a real impact on us. In this regard, the diplomatic front line, especially in Egypt, which owns the Suez Canal, [we are looking at] how we can launch in-depth research to serve domestic high-quality development and put forward more pragmatic proposals for our foreign trade.”

The conflict in Gaza and the Red Sea crisis show no sign of ending, while the Arab world is closely watching China’s next move as a potential mediator in the region.

Although the Houthis have said they will not target Chinese shipping, the disruption to trade is still having an effect on the world’s biggest exporter. The internationalised nature of the industry also means attacks on shipping could still directly or indirectly harm Chinese interests.

According to a report by the Bank of China last month, China’s shipping trade to Europe and the US east coast will be affected, especially the European vehicle trade.

China’s state-owned shipping monopoly China Ocean Shipping Company also suspended shipments to Israel through the Red Sea in January.

China has extensive investments in the region, especially in Egypt, which are being threatened by the ongoing crisis in the Red Sea.

Multiple multibillion-dollar deals from Chinese logistics, transport and energy firms have flowed into Egypt, especially the Suez Canal, in recent years.

2 Filipinos, 1 Vietnamese among crew killed in Houthi missile attack in Red Sea

Major agreements signed last year include a US$6.75 billion deal between Egypt’s Suez Canal Economic Zone and state-owned China Energy Engineering Corporation to develop green ammonia and green hydrogen projects, and a US$8 billion agreement with Hong Kong-listed United Energy Group to establish a potassium chloride production site.

Beijing has so far not publicly deployed any forces to protect its shipping in the Red Sea although some of its warships were deployed to the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia last month.

The defence ministry said they were conducting “regular escort operations” that had “nothing to do with the current regional situation”.

China has also had limited public diplomatic engagement with Middle Eastern officials since the start of the Red Sea crisis, despite appeals from the United States to get more involved.

Last month, Wang Di, director general of the foreign ministry’s West Asian and North African affairs department, travelled to Saudi Arabia and Oman to meet officials from those two countries as well as Yemeni government representatives.

During Tuesday’s panel discussion, ambassador Liao, who is also a member of the CPPCC, said the US stance on the Gaza war had seen its “moral image decay”, while Arab nations had welcomed Beijing’s role in “upholding justice”.

He also pledged to work to improve connections with African and Arab countries and said he would work to promote China’s governance model to the developing world by highlighting its experiences of “getting rid of poverty” and “green development”.

China’s Xi Jinping issues hi-tech military call in push for integrated armed forces

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3254735/chinas-xi-jinping-issues-hi-tech-military-call-push-integrated-armed-forces?utm_source=rss_feed

President Xi Jinping has called on the Chinese military to step up hi-tech integration of the armed forces, a drive that observers say will be vital to joint operations.

At a meeting of military deputies to the top legislature on Thursday, Xi said the People’s Liberation Army should “comprehensively improve strategic capabilities in emerging areas”.

He said that among these key areas were deployments in space, cybersecurity defences and artificial intelligence applications.

Xi also ordered the PLA to prepare for “maritime military struggles” and protect maritime rights, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

“The preparation for the military struggle at sea, the defence of maritime rights and interests and the development of the maritime economy must be integrated,” he said.

While not referring directly to the United States, the comments suggested that Xi sees the main potential battlefield Beijing and Washington will be on the water, especially in the South China Sea.

Xi also heard briefings on raising maritime situational awareness, integrating management and use of space resources, and applications of unmanned combat forces, among others, the CCTV report said.

He was briefed by six representatives from the military, two of whom were from the PLA’s Strategic Support Force, the core of the military’s integration and modernisation plan.

The SSF, founded in 2016 in Xi’s massive overhaul of the military, has the job of integrating “strategic” functions and abilities across the PLA, including from space to psychological warfare.

Before the overhaul, each service branch – the ground force, the navy and the air force – had their own support units.

China vows to revise law to promote patriotism and public defence support

Xi also heard briefing from PLA Navy officers, including one from the Southern Theatre Command, which oversees the South China Sea.

Addressing the deputies, he said the military should “boldly innovate and explore new types of combat force models, and fully liberate and develop new quality combat powers”.

To create the “autonomous, self-reliant, open, and dynamic innovation environment” needed for the capacity building, the military must speed up the development of new combat forces, deepen the systemic reform of the national defence industry, improve the agile response and rapid transformation of advanced technology, and build an innovative supply chain that is “compatible with the development of emerging fields”, he said.

“You must take on the mission, spearhead reform and innovation, and improve our strategic capabilities in emerging fields in a comprehensive manner,” he told the deputies.

Hu Bo, director of the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative, said the comments pointed to the PLA’s plan to build joint force capacity.

“Highlighting the adoption of these emerging technologies in the military is done with joint operations in mind,” Hu said.

In recent years, Xi called for improving the overall “joint” nature of the PLA, involving better coordination of all services and multi-domains such as space, cyber, and electronic warfare, backed up by the PLA Strategic Support Force.

In a report on Friday, military mouthpiece The PLA Daily said establishing a strategic ability in emerging fields” such as space, cyberspace and artificial intelligence would have to be based on coordinated planning and “breakthroughs in key areas”.

Hu said Xi’s special mention of the “maritime military struggle” showed “the seas, including the East and South China seas, as well as the Taiwan Strait, are the major struggle directions of the PLA”.

According to the official statement from the meeting, Xi made no mention of the PLA’s ongoing anti-corruption drive. But other senior PLA officers have pledged at previous sessions of the legislature to crack down on corruption.

In October, Beijing abruptly removed Li Shangfu as defence minister without explanation after just seven months in the job. He was also removed from the Central Military Commission before the “two sessions”, the annual meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

In addition, nine generals – including top commanders from the PLA Rocket Force – were ousted from the legislature in December, with the NPC later saying they were suspected of “violations of discipline and the law” – a euphemism for corruption.

Why women in China breastfeed less than rest of world, the Post explores Chinese culture, body autonomy on International Women’s Day

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/gender-diversity/article/3253807/explainer-why-women-china-breastfeed-less-rest-world-post-explores-chinese-culture-body-autonomy?utm_source=rss_feed

The story of a mother in China, who was interrupted and criticised for breastfeeding her baby in a shopping centre, has reignited the debate about breastfeeding in public.

The Shanghai mother-of-two used the staffroom of an amusement area inside a shopping centre to breastfeed her youngest child, taking her older child and their nanny with her, on February 26.

However, a female member of staff who was worried about her property that was kept in the room, entered twice without knocking on the door.

The mother posted a video of their quarrel online, which received 5 million views on Douyin. She said she was disappointed that the member of staff did not show more understanding.

The conflict between the two women reflects the lack of social support for breastfeeding on the mainland.

On International Women’s Day, the Post takes a closer look at breastfeeding and being a mother in China.

Breastfeeding remains unpopular in China.

According to the latest data released by the China Development Research Foundation in 2019, only 29 per cent of babies under six months are breastfed on the mainland, much lower than the global average of 43 per cent.

The World Health Organization advocates for breastfeeding as healthy for women, reducing the risk of breast and ovarian cancers, heart disease and diabetes.

Also the feeding method helps delay the return of the menstrual cycle and increases birth spacing.

In 2021, China’s National Health Commission launched the Breastfeeding Promotion Action Plan (2021-2025), in which it sets out the goal of achieving a breastfeeding rate of 50 per cent and over for babies under six months by the end of 2025.

The plan also aims at 80 per cent coverage of public facilities to support breastfeeding mothers.

At present, there are still not enough public facilities in China, and the quality is below standard in some of the places that have set up baby-care rooms.

Last year, a couple in China was frustrated to find out that there were no available baby-care rooms in any of the 20 motorway service stations they went to during a 900km journey across the country.

“Only two service stations had baby-care rooms. One was not in use, the other was used as a storage room,” the father of a three-month-old child said. The mother had to breastfeed and change nappies in the car.

Other reasons that breastfeeding is less popular in China include a lack of support for mothers returning to the workplace and the over-advertisement of milk formula products.

A report jointly published by the Global Breastfeeding Collective and the World Health Organization in 2018 described women’s body autonomy as “having the right to breastfeed whenever and wherever they choose”.

Women in China frequently experience body shaming when breastfeeding in public. Many mothers share worries about embarrassing themselves and others on social media.

Some women interpret body autonomy as the freedom to give up breastfeeding if they feel unable to physically or mentally sustain it. Others see it as their right to choose not to have babies.

One mother said she felt breastfeeding had turned her into a “walking milk bottle”.

She could not endure the pain of breast engorgement and cracked nipples to satisfy her baby who needed milk every two to three hours.

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Does China need a space data bureau to support its ever-growing satellite networks?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3254601/does-china-need-space-data-bureau-support-its-ever-growing-satellite-networks?utm_source=rss_feed

A national satellite data management agency should be established to coordinate the information being gathered by the ever-growing number of Chinese satellites in orbit, according to a leader in China’s aerospace sector.

Zhao Xiaojin, Communist Party secretary of the China Academy of Space Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), said a dedicated data bureau could support the burgeoning aerospace sector in China and prevent collected information being wasted.

The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) member made the comments on the sidelines of the conference on Wednesday.

“China prioritises satellite construction over operation. We need to find a way to make the best use of our satellites,” Zhao said.

“According to Zhang Youxia, vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, China has a substantial number of satellites in orbit, incurring huge operational and depreciation costs, which amounts to tens of millions of yuan every day. Yet, the data collected by these satellites is under-utilised.”

The answer, he proposed, was the establishment of a national-level agency to oversee the coordination of all that data, as well as to improve satellite data storage, processing, distribution and application.

“As we acquire an increasing amount of data from satellites, it becomes necessary to have a specialised agency to manage it,” Zhao said.

“This would ensure that the data is effectively utilised to benefit economic development and national defence, as well as to improve people’s daily lives.”

Commercial space flight was highlighted in the annual government work report this year, aiming to draw policies, talent and funding to the sector, which is growing rapidly.

China’s achievements in the aerospace sector have taken off in recent years. According to the Blue Book of China Aerospace Science and Technology Activities released by CASC on February 26, China set a record in 2023 with 67 launch missions and the development and launch of 221 spacecraft.

Private companies have contributed to this achievement with 13 rocket launches. In April 2023, Tianlong 2, developed by the Beijing-based aerospace company Tianbing Technology, also known as Space Pioneer, became the world’s first privately developed liquid rocket to succeed on its maiden flight. Then in July, LandSpace Technology Corporation made the world’s first successful launch of a liquid oxygen-methane rocket with its Zhuque 2 mission.

Besides the growing number of rockets, the diversity and quantity of satellites have also expanded. Nearly 30 institutions developed and launched satellites in 2023, significantly improving the infrastructure in satellite communication, remote sensing and navigation.

Meanwhile, China’s ambitious launch schedule is set to continue in 2024.

“Planned missions include ocean salinity detection satellites, electromagnetic monitoring satellites and astronomical satellites, with an estimated 100 launches throughout the year,” the blue book said.

Civilian satellites not only meet the needs of various industries, they also amass a vast amount of data that can be used in further research.

While China’s commercial space flight has grown rapidly, SpaceX remains a global leader.

Billionaire Elon Musk’s aerospace company dominates the world in its ability to build low-cost, large-scale satellite internet constellations. Last year alone, it launched nearly 2,000 Starlink satellites.

SpaceX conducted 96 missions, carrying around 1,286 tonnes of payload into space last year, accounting for about 80 per cent of the global launch mass. This figure well surpassed the combined launch payload mass of all countries and regions outside of SpaceX.

Another CPPCC member, Rong Yi, who is the chief designer of new carrier rockets at the CASC, revealed on Tuesday that the corporation was developing four-metre and five-metre diameter reusable carrier rockets. These are scheduled for test flights in 2025 and 2026, respectively. The rockets could cut launch costs and help China catch up to SpaceX.

Can UN’s high seas treaty save South China Sea’s ecosystem, or will it lead to more bilateral tension?

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3254635/can-uns-high-seas-treaty-save-south-china-seas-ecosystem-or-will-it-lead-more-bilateral-tension?utm_source=rss_feed

The United Nations High Seas Treaty, which analysts expect to be fully ratified next year, could save the South China Sea’s fragile marine ecosystem but also has the potential to trigger further confrontation within the disputed waters.

The Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction Treaty, currently awaiting ratification by 60 countries, aims to protect marine biodiversity in the “high seas”, the maritime area beyond the jurisdiction of any state. High seas are estimated to comprise nearly half (45.4 per cent) of the earth’s surface water.

The High Seas Alliance, consisting of 59 international NGOs that pushed for the treaty’s approval, described the current state of the high seas as a “lawless wilderness” due to a lack of mutually agreed rules to curb overexploitation and pollution, issues that have been compounded by the effects of climate change.

US alarm at Chinese boats’ sewage in South China Sea

In addition to regulating activities like fishing and mining to support the sustainable use of ocean resources, one of the treaty’s key provisions involves the creation of “marine protected areas” (MPAs) to “protect, preserve, restore and maintain biological diversity and ecosystems”.

The high seas pocket located in the centre of the South China Sea would be a good candidate for setting up an MPA, marine ecologist John McManus told This Week in Asia. McManus called such protected areas in and outside the high seas “peace parks”, before the High Seas Treaty was signed last year and codified the term MPA.

“Many of us [scientists and environmentalists] have long supported the idea of setting aside areas, such as the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal, as peace parks,” said Dr McManus, a professor of marine ecology in the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science at the University of Miami.

He pointed to the Turtle Islands peace park that involved Malaysia and the Philippines, where fishing would continue with limitations to prevent stock collapses. “Support for these peace parks is quite high among the scientists and most of the governments of the region. However, the Chinese government has apparently not seriously considered the approach.”

But setting up a peace park or MPA would be challenging due to competing territorial claims in both places. It might be easier to set up one in the high seas of the South China Sea, McManus said, where only commercial fishing boats fish due to its great depths of over 4,000 metres.

He described this area as a “kite-shaped portion of the central South China Sea” located more than 200 nautical miles from the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) allotted by the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (Unclos) to any of the coastal states.

McManus – who has studied reefs in the South China Sea for nearly two decades – underscored the urgency of protecting the South China Sea’s ecosystems from further degradation, given that the region supplies 12 to 20 per cent of the world’s fish landings.

“The situation has indeed worsened significantly,” he said, even worse than in 2016 when he said “what we’re looking at [in the South China Sea] is potentially one of the world’s worst fisheries collapses ever”, with hundreds of species in danger of economic extinction.

At that time, he had calculated that if fish catch was not properly managed and reefs were not protected from illegal fishing and clam-digging damage, some 38 million people depending on the South China Sea for food may go hungry.

It was crucial to protect the high seas of the South China Sea from oil spills, leakages resulting from any oil drilling as well as from deep sea fishing, he said.

He pointed out that locating an MPA in the high seas could skirt much of the problem of the many competing claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea, since “this designation would make the absolute determination of sovereignty unnecessary, as they would be jointly managed”.

McManus said only China might need persuading because “although China had played a major role in developing the EEZ law, and it has formally ratified Unclos, it considers all of that area and most of the areas of the EEZs in the South China Sea as some kind of poorly defined part of the People’s Republic of China”.

The Philippines’ retired Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio has called China’s claim, even to the high seas portion, of the disputed sea “ridiculous”.

He explained that Unclos, together with the arbitral ruling of the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), created a “high seas pocket” in the South China Sea, and that none of the maritime features occupied by China, Vietnam or the Philippines were located in the high seas.

Under Unclos, only maritime features that can independently sustain human life are legally considered “islands” and only islands can generate a 200 nautical mile EEZ. In 2016, the ITLOS ruled that China’s nine-dash line had no legal basis and that “none” of the so-called islands in the Spratlys “generate an EEZ”.

Carpio expects the treaty to go into force next year after it is ratified by nations including China, although he said Beijing would declare it does not apply to the South China Sea.

In September last year, the principal claimants in the South China Sea – China, the Philippines and Vietnam – signed the treaty. Singapore is the only other Asean state that has signed as well.

The Philippines should lobby members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) as well as the US, Australia, Japan and EU to add a note or declaration when they submit their ratification that it covers the central portion of the South China Sea, Carpio said.

If many countries did this, “China will be isolated”, he said.

Lucio Blanco Pitlo, a research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation, was unsure whether other Asean countries would be willing to do this.

These countries may be hesitant to make such an open declaration, although they are quietly for it, due to the “possible reaction of China”, he said.

‘These are red lines’: Philippines won’t let China remove disputed shoal outpost

Even if Manila does not push for the clause, Unclos – which provides the underlying legal framework for the High Seas Treaty along with the 2016 arbitral ruling – supports the idea that the South China Sea has a high seas portion and that China’s claims are “excessive”, he said.

“But the way things are going, there is a high likelihood the Philippines may insert that [clause] … and canvass the support of partners and allies.”

Tension has been rising in recent months between the two countries as their vessels have collided on several occasions and their officials have publicly traded harsh words and blame.

Before Manila signed the High Seas Treaty last year, Philippine Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla in June revealed Manila was building a case against China after it had surveyed “severe damage” to the Rozul Reef and Escoda Shoal caused by Chinese vessels.

The Philippines’ Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources last month said cyanide fishing by Chinese militia fishing vessels was found to have caused damage to the Bajo de Masinloc ring-shaped reef, prompting President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr to say the government would file charges “if we feel that there is enough ground to do so”.

The High Seas Treaty would not cover damage to these areas since they fall within the Philippines EEZ, both Carpio and Pitlo said.

Still, Pitlo expressed hope that, despite the rising animosity between the two countries, “if China would reach out to the Philippines to pursue practical cooperation, this [high seas pocket] could be where such collaboration can take place.

“China and other claimants may sign up for such cooperation, while putting caveats that such cooperation does not prejudice their maritime claims or position in the disputed sea.”

Hong Kong customs seizes HK$211 million in smuggled goods found on river trade vessels headed for mainland China

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3254712/hong-kong-customs-seizes-hk211-million-smuggled-goods-river-trade-vessels-headed-mainland-china?utm_source=rss_feed

Hong Kong customs officers have confiscated HK$211 million (US$27 million) worth of contraband products headed for mainland China after intercepting two commercial boats, known as river trade vessels, in the city’s northwestern waters on separate occasions.

Superintendent Jason Lau Yuk-lung of the customs’ syndicate crimes investigation bureau said on Friday that criminals could have evaded more than HK$100 million in tariffs if the goods had been successfully smuggled across the border.

Both cases happened last week, with one incident involving a haul of HK$200 million worth of smuggled goods after officers intercepted a Guangzhou-bound vessel off Black Point on Saturday, according to the Customs and Excise Department.

Hong Kong anti-tobacco smuggling Operation Tempest gets off to a storming start

The contraband products were found in one of the shipping containers on board the mainland-registered river trade vessel. The container was declared as carrying charging cables, computer cases and cleansing products.

Lau said the items declared were used as a cover to avoid detection and accounted for merely a small portion of the entire cargo.

The smuggled items included 28,000 central processing units, 93,000 random-access memory sticks, 6,200 computer hard disks, 4,600 tablets, more than 150,000 electronic products and accessories as well as 5,700 bottles of health supplement products.

“It is the biggest maritime smuggling case involving a river trade vessel over the past two years,” Investigator Ho Ting-chun of the bureau said.

He said the seized items were subject to mainland tariffs of between 30 and 100 per cent.

Investigations revealed an overseas middleman controlled a local shell company to arrange the cross-border shipment, he added.

For the second case, customs officers intercepted a river trade vessel destined for Macau off Tuen Mun last Thursday.

Customs officers discovered HK$11 million worth of contraband goods in one of the containers on board the vessel, including cigarettes, cigars and pharmaceutical products to treat illnesses such as cancer.

Lau believed that the consignment would have been smuggled into the mainland after reaching Macau.

Investigations were ongoing and no arrests had been made in either case, according to the department.

Hong Kong customs gets international accreditation for sniffer dog training

Superintendent Lau said officers were investigating whether the two cases were linked, as well as the origins of the seized goods and the consignors of the products.

“Criminals use river trade vessels for smuggling due to the high mobility of these boats as well as the presence of many loading and unloading points for these vessels,” he said.

Lau added customs would spare no effort to combat such illegal activities, even as smuggling tactics evolve.

In Hong Kong, importing or exporting unmanifested cargo is punishable by up to seven years in jail and a HK$2 million fine.

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‘Two sessions’ 2024: China’s revision of defence education law aimed at promoting patriotism and support for military

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3254694/two-sessions-2024-chinas-revision-defence-education-law-aimed-promoting-patriotism-and-support?utm_source=rss_feed

The decision-making body of the Chinese legislature has pledged to this year advance revision of its defence education law, which stipulates public awareness and education in support of the military.

Zhao Leji, the chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC), delivered the committee work report on Friday during the annual meeting of the congress.

He highlighted the revision of the National Defence Education Law as one of the legislative tasks of the year, with the aim of “modernising China’s system and capacity for national security”.

The law, adopted in 2001, mandates defence education in a wide range of organisations – including schools, enterprises, and publication sectors – and is aimed at “promoting patriotism” and consolidating the “defence structure”.

A minor revision was made in 2018 to change the wording of an article.

Proposals relating to the amendment have not been released. But alterations could include adding the definition of “defence education” and details absent in the current statute.

China spy agency renews foreign cyber intelligence warning after data breaches

Beijing has urged the public to support national defence in its tone-setting government work report this year, a call that did not appear in the report last year.

Premier Li Qiang on Tuesday said the government would provide support to “consolidate the unity between the military and the government, and between the military and the people”.

He also stressed the need to raise public awareness about national defence while strengthening defence capabilities and readiness.

China has pledged to transform the People’s Liberation Army into a “world class” force on par with the American military by 2049.

But growing friction with the United States and China’s neighbouring countries concerning nearby waters has prompted Beijing to speed up military development.

On national security, Zhao also signalled there will be progress for the pending amendment of the Cybersecurity Law, which governs the storage and transfer of personal information and important data by network operators.

The country’s internet watchdog proposed to expand the severity and scope of penalties for data protection violations in 2022, five years after the adoption of the law. But the proposal is yet to be deliberated and passed by the NPCSC.

The suggestions came as Beijing tightened data security measures and reformed cyberspace regulation, as it perceives higher espionage risks from the US and its allies amid heightened geopolitical tensions, as well as widespread abuse and leaks of personal data.

But the increasing bite of penalties following a series of regulatory crackdowns on Big Tech companies has raised concerns in the internet industry.

China also amended the Counterespionage Law last year, which listed cyberattacks by a “spying entity or its surrogate” as an act of espionage.

China’s electric vehicle infrastructure falls short, as Lunar New Year holiday woes of EV drivers in Hainan and elsewhere showed

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3254511/chinas-electric-vehicle-infrastructure-falls-short-lunar-new-year-holiday-woes-ev-drivers-hainan-and?utm_source=rss_feed

Hainan is the only province in China to have a date, 2030, by which the sale of new vehicles with internal combustion engines will be banned.

What China calls new energy vehicles (NEV), a term that encompasses fully electric cars and plug-in hybrids, may have accounted for more than 35 per cent of vehicle sales in 2023, but there is as yet no date for a nationwide switch to the less polluting machines.

Hainan’s leadership was probably bittersweet knowledge for the hundreds of drivers of NEVs who couldn’t leave the island at the end of the Lunar New Year holiday. The number of NEVs ferries can carry to and from the province is limited to 10 per cent of the total vehicles on board, up to a maximum of 18 per sailing, to reduce the risk of fire.

In the rush to leave, many drivers abandoned their NEVs, and carmakers including Geely, Neta and GAC offered to ship them back to owners as soon as possible, free of charge.

Despite China’s push towards electric transport, there are still worries about fire – fears that were stoked by a blaze in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, on February 23 that left 15 dead and is believed to have been started by an e-bike battery.

However, the biggest problem for NEV drivers this Lunar New Year was the lack of charging stations.

Chinese scientists produce a powerful winter-proof lithium battery

There are in China, but they are often of the wrong type and in the wrong place.

This year, Xinhua estimated that 9 billion journeys would be made over the 40-day chunyun period, which ended on March 5. Many travellers drove from cities where they work to their hometowns or holiday destinations – around 7.83 billion road trips were made – but charging infrastructure along highways is still inadequate: most service stations have just four or eight chargers.

“During this year’s Spring Festival [Lunar New Year holiday], car owners encountered difficulty in charging, with few charging stations on highways but more new energy vehicles,” says charging expert David Zhang Xiang, visiting professor at Huanghe Science and Technology College. “This is an old problem; it exists every year on the May Day, National Day and Spring Festival holidays.”

Many parts of China, particularly Hubei and Anhui provinces, experienced heavy snow just before the holidays, which added to the problem. EV batteries do not perform well in the cold, and range can be reduced by as much as a third when a car’s heater is on. The higher speeds common on highways also shorten vehicles’ range.

This meant that the average EV motorist over the Lunar New Year would have needed to stop every two to three hours to recharge. Most drivers would have spent 30 minutes at each charger, and that’s after having waited in any queues that had formed to use the machines.

One blogger reported on Weibo on February 8 that dozens of EV drivers were waiting to charge at Dasheng Services, in Hunan province, with tempers strained by some trying to jump the queue.

One of the unluckiest stories on social media was that of a woman who drove from Shenzhen to Wuhan and ended up having to spend the night in a stranger’s car while hers stood just five metres away from a charger.

Having left home on February 1 she reached Hubei province on February 3, only to be confronted by blizzards. Running out of power, she found a charger but couldn’t get close enough to use it because of a large snowdrift.

The following morning, she borrowed a shovel to dig a path to the charger before finally getting enough power to reach Wuhan.

“Car owners had to spend the night outdoors, and new energy vehicles consumed a lot of electricity when the heaters were turned on,” says Zhang.

Currently, state-owned utility State Grid operates 90 per cent of the charging infrastructure on highways, says Zhang, while operator TELD has some facilities, particularly in Jiangxi and Guizhou provinces. Many of the State Grid charging facilities were installed in 2015 and have not been upgraded to offer the higher charging speeds that newer NEVs are capable of.

Some EV companies have tried to add to the highway charging infrastructure. Nio has built 743 stations along a number of highways, but because these involve the swapping of batteries, they are suitable only for drivers of Nio cars.

Others responded to the Lunar New Year challenge by establishing temporary charging stations. Zeekr laid on charging trucks offering an hour’s free charge to drivers of its cars at highway service areas in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Chengdu during the days when travellers were most likely to be making long journeys.

Mobile chargers were also rolled out by China Southern Power Grid to service centres in Guangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan and Guangdong provinces. Each could charge two or three cars at a rate about 50 per cent faster than that of fixed high-speed chargers.

Li Auto got into the spirit of giving, with the brand offering free charges to Li car owners at 330 highway rest stops.

According to chatter on Weibo, many Nio owners tried to take advantage of the offer. Li Auto CEO Li Xiang responded by saying that all drivers were welcome, irrespective of what type of EV they drove, but the owners of brands other than Li had to pay as normal during the holiday period.

Until recently, Li Auto sold only extended-range EVs (EREV) cars, which use a petrol engine to recharge the battery when it runs low. The Lunar New Year woes are likely to increase sales of EREVs.

In a post on Popular Science China’s WeChat account, blogger Brother Neck noted that the trend is already developing, and that over the past year, EREV sales rose from 6 per cent of total monthly NEV sales to 11.2 per cent.

There may have been challenges on the road this Lunar New Year, but all drivers - in NEVs or petrol-powered vehicles - benefited from the waiving of road tolls during the holiday, which brought its own consequences.

“For me, the biggest obstacle was congestion, not charging difficulties,” says lawyer Huang Qi, who managed to drive his Model Y Tesla from Shanghai back to Zhoushan, Zhejiang province (a distance of 290km, or 180 miles), on a single charge.

Manila vows tougher action on gangs as ‘Chinese mafia’ eyes Philippine passports for crime

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3254670/manila-vows-tougher-action-gangs-chinese-mafia-eyes-philippine-passports-crime?utm_source=rss_feed

The Philippines has raised national security concerns over the existence of an alleged “Chinese mafia” accused of illegally procuring the Southeast Asian nation’s passports for mainlanders posing as local traders, pledging tougher action against such gangs.

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) said a whole-of-government response was required to tackle the threat from foreigners entering the country using valid documents obtained through illicit ways.

“We are thankful that lawmakers and law enforcement agencies are taking action against this scheme that we have previously sounded the alarm on,” BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval said.

Sandoval also said the department had discovered several cases of foreign nationals pretending to be Filipinos by using different Philippine documents.

“We see this as a national security concern that should be addressed holistically by all government agencies concerned,” she said.

Sandoval added BI was ready to share details about past cases with investigators.

Her comments came after lawmaker Robert Ace Barbers claimed “Chinese nationals were doing all sorts of schemes in our country” by faking documents to acquire legit government-issued documents.

Barbers said a “Chinese mafia” was also linked to the owner of a warehouse in Pampanga province, where officials seized crystal meth worth 3.6 billion pesos (US$64 million) during a raid last year.

He said investigations revealed “Willy Ong managed to secure a birth certificate indicating that he is a Filipino and he later got a Philippine passport and other government-issued IDs”.

“Ong, including his other Chinese business cohorts, have made a huge mockery of the country’s immigration, business and other laws by acquiring government-issued documents, illegally establishing local businesses by posing as Filipinos,” Barbers said.

A law enforcement operation to trace Ong and his associates was unsuccessful.

‘Super-rich’ Chinese gangsters in Thailand face scrutiny

Sandoval said her agency would continue its “strict immigration formalities” for both arriving and departing foreigners, as well as keep a tab on people living illegally in the country, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

Last year, a Chinese woman with fake documents was arrested by the immigration authorities at Manila airport when she tried to board a flight departing for her country.

The visitor was charged with carrying false immigration documents and unlawfully entering the Philippines after she failed to produce a visa and arrival stamp.

Russia-Ukraine war live: Three dead in Kharkiv region after Russian shelling; Chinese delegation meets top Ukraine official

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/mar/08/russia-ukraine-war-live-latest-news-updates-volodymyr-zelenskiy-vladimir-putin

‘Two sessions’ 2024: China’s construction of the world’s largest particle collider may start in 2027

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3254604/two-sessions-2024-chinas-construction-worlds-largest-particle-collider-may-start-2027?utm_source=rss_feed

Construction of the world’s largest particle collider could begin in China in three years, although it must still win government approval and secure funding, a leading scientist said.

The 36 billion yuan (US$5 billion) Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC), also known as a Higgs factory, will take about 10 years to build and become the next global centre of particle physics, according to Wang Yifang, director of the Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing.

By accelerating electrons and their antiparticles – positrons – in a 100km-long (62-mile) underground tunnel to extremely high energies and smashing them into each other, the CEPC will create millions of Higgs bosons and allow scientists to make new discoveries beyond the Standard Model – our existing best theory to describe the basic building blocks of the universe.

The ambitious project would also help China rise into a world leader and “pacemaker” in the field of high-energy physics, Wang told the Global Times during the National People’s Congress on Thursday.

He said the CEPC “technical design report” – which took more than 1,000 scientists from 24 countries five years to compile – had passed an international review and was met with “overwhelming feedback” from the physics community when it was released in December.

The report, together with numerous prototype devices built and experiments run by his team in the past decade, “proved our ability to design and build such a large scientific facility”, he said.

The CEPC concept was first proposed by Wang and his colleagues in 2012 after the Higgs boson – the “God particle” that gives almost all other particles their mass – was discovered using Europe’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

While the Higgs particle is widely believed to hold the key to the next breakthroughs in fundamental physics, there have been doubts over the high cost and technical readiness of the CEPC.

Chinese team uses Tibetan Plateau telescope to test constancy of speed of light

In 2016, Nobel Prize winner Chen Ning Yang publicly questioned the need to build a super collider, saying it was “not for today’s China” while the country had more acute needs to deal with, such as economic development and environmental protection.

The CEPC could end up “a bottomless pit” given its multibillion price tag, Yang warned, comparing it to the Superconducting Super Collider in the US which was eventually cancelled by Congress in the 1990s.

Wang admitted that “36 billion yuan is not cheap”. However, if the CEPC could support the work of thousands of scientists for decades to come, their average cost would not be that high, he told the Global Times.

Wang did not reveal when they planned to propose the CEPC to the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planner, for approval. According to the technical design report, funding scenarios are being considered, with expected contributions from the central government, local governments and international partners.

Work on the CEPC would now enter the so-called engineering design phase, Wang said. It includes the mass production and assembly of parts of the collider, as well as optimising their performance and cost-effectiveness.

His team would also finalise the site for the CEPC soon, he added. Wang said there would be a comprehensive evaluation based on the site’s geological conditions, transport and local infrastructure given that the CEPC would be hosting scientists from around the world and factors such as their children’s education would need to be considered.

Candidate sites include Qinhuangdao in Hebei province, Huzhou in Zhejiang province and Changsha in Hunan province, according to the institute’s website.

China’s Super Tau-Charm Facility particle collider to test theory of matter

Meanwhile in Europe, a similar project named the Future Circular Collider is being considered to serve as a future Higgs factory and successor of the Large Hadron Collider.

As the world’s largest atom smasher, the LHC has a circumference of 27km. The Future Circular Collider’s circumference could reach 100km, with a price tag of about €21 billion (US$23 billion).

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Behind the doors of a Chinese hacking company, a sordid culture fueled by influence, alcohol and sex

https://apnews.com/article/chinese-hacking-leak-documents-surveillance-spying-6276e8662ddf6f2c1afbae994d8b3aa2FILE - The interior of the I-Soon office, also known as Anxun in Mandarin, is seen after office hours in Chengdu in southwestern China's Sichuan Province on Feb. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Dake Kang, File)

2024-03-08T05:53:04Z

BEIJING (AP) — The hotel was spacious. It was upscale. It had a karaoke bar. The perfect venue, the CEO of the Chinese hacking company thought, to hold a Lunar New Year banquet currying favor with government officials. There was just one drawback, his top deputy said.

“Who goes there?” the deputy wrote. “The girls are so ugly.”

So goes the sordid wheeling and dealing that takes place behind the scenes in China’s hacking industry, as revealed in a highly unusual leak last month of internal documents from a private contractor linked to China’s government and police. China’s hacking industry, the documents reveal, suffers from shady business practices, disgruntlement over pay and work quality, and poor security protocols.

Private hacking contractors are companies that steal data from other countries to sell to the Chinese authorities. Over the past two decades, Chinese state security’s demand for overseas intelligence has soared, giving rise to a vast network of these private hackers-for-hire companies that have infiltrated hundreds of systems outside China.

Though the existence of these hacking contractors is an open secret in China, little was known about how they operate. But the leaked documents from a firm called I-Soon have pulled back the curtain, revealing a seedy, sprawling industry where corners are cut and rules are murky and poorly enforced in the quest to make money.

Leaked chat records show I-Soon executives wooing officials over lavish dinners and late night binge drinking. They collude with competitors to rig bidding for government contracts. They pay thousands of dollars in “introduction fees” to contacts who bring them lucrative projects. I-Soon has not commented on the documents.

Mei Danowski, a cybersecurity analyst who wrote about I-Soon on her blog, Natto Thoughts, said the documents show that China’s hackers for hire work much like any other industry in China.

“It is profit-driven,” Danowski said. “It is subject to China’s business culture — who you know, who you dine and wine with, and who you are friends with.”

HACKING THAT’S STYLED AS PATRIOTIC

China’s hacking industry rose from the country’s early hacker culture, first appearing in the 1990s as citizens bought computers and went online.

I-Soon’s founder and CEO, Wu Haibo, was among them. Wu was a member of China’s first hacktivist group, Green Army — a group known informally as the “Whampoa Academy” after a famed Chinese military school.

Wu and some other hackers distinguished themselves by declaring themselves “red hackers” — patriots who offered their services to the Chinese Communist Party, in contrast to the freewheeling, anarchist and anti-establishment ethos popular among many coders.

In 2010, Wu founded I-Soon in Shanghai. Interviews he gave to Chinese media depict a man determined to bolster his country’s hacking capacity to catch up with rivals. In one 2011 interview, Wu lamented that China still lagged far behind the United States: “There are many technology enthusiasts in China, but there are very few enlightened people.”

With the spread of the internet, China’s hacking-for-hire industry boomed, emphasizing espionage and intellectual property theft.

High-profile hacks by Chinese state agents, including one at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management where personal data on 22 million existing or prospective federal employees was stolen, got so serious that then-President Barack Obama personally complained to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. They agreed in 2015 to cut back on espionage.

For a couple of years, the intrusions subsided. But I-Soon and other private hacking outfits soon grew more active than ever, providing Chinese state security forces cover and deniability. I-Soon is “part of an ecosystem of contractors that has links to the Chinese patriotic hacking scene,” said John Hultquist, chief analyst of Google’s Mandiant cybersecurity unit.

These days, Chinese hackers are a formidable force.

In May 2023, Microsoft disclosed that a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group affiliated with China’s People’s Liberation Army called “Volt Typhoon” was targeting critical infrastructure such as telecommunications and ports in Guam, Hawaii, and elsewhere and could be laying the groundwork for disruption in the event of conflict.

Today, hackers such as those at I-Soon outnumber FBI cybersecurity staff by “at least 50 to one,” FBI director Christopher Wray said January at a conference in Munich.

DOCUMENTS REVEAL A SEEDY STATE-LED INDUSTRY

Though I-Soon boasted about its hacking prowess in slick marketing PowerPoint presentations, the real business took place at hotpot parties, late night drinking sessions and poaching wars with competitors, leaked records show. A picture emerges of a company enmeshed in a seedy, sprawling industry that relies heavily on connections to get things done.

I-Soon leadership discussed buying gifts and which officials liked red wine. They swapped tips on who was a lightweight, and who could handle their liquor.

I-Soon executives paid “introduction fees” for lucrative projects, chat records show, including tens of thousands of RMB (thousands of dollars) to a man who landed them a 285,000 RMB ($40,000) contract with police in Hebei province. To sweeten the deal, I-Soon’s chief operating officer, Chen Cheng, suggested arranging the man a drinking and karaoke session with women.

“He likes to touch girls,” Chen wrote.

It wasn’t just officials they courted. Competitors, too, were targets of wooing over late night drinking sessions. Some were partners — subcontractors or collaborators on government projects. Others were hated rivals who constantly poached their staff. Often, they were both.

One, Chinese cybersecurity giant Qi Anxin, was especially loathed, despite being one of I-Soon’s key investors and business partners.

“Qi Anxin’s HR is a green tea bitch who seduces our young men everywhere and has no morals,” COO Chen wrote to Wu, the CEO, using a Chinese internet slur that refers to innocent-looking but ambitious young women.

I-Soon also has a complicated relationship with Chengdu 404, a competitor charged by the U.S. Department of Justice for hacking over 100 targets worldwide. They worked with 404 and drank with their executives but lagged on payments to the company and were eventually sued over a software development contract, Chinese court records show.

The source of the I-Soon documents is unclear, and executives and Chinese police are investigating. And though Beijing has repeatedly denied involvement in offensive hacking, the leak illustrates I-Soon and other hacking companies’ deep ties with the Chinese state.

For example, chat records show China’s Ministry of Public Security gave companies access to proofs of concept of so-called “zero days”, the industry term for a previously unknown software security hole. Zero days are prized because they can be exploited until detected. I-Soon company executives debated how to obtain them. They are regularly discovered at an annual Chinese state-sponsored hacking competition.

In other records, executives discussed sponsoring hacking competitions at Chinese universities to scout for new talent.

Many of I-Soon’s clients were police in cities across China, a leaked contract list showed. I-Soon scouted for databases they thought would sell well with officers, such as Vietnamese traffic data to the southeast province of Yunnan, or data on exiled Tibetans to the Tibetan regional government.

At times, I-Soon hacked on demand. One chat shows two parties discussing a potential “long-term client” interested in data from several government offices related to an unspecified “prime minister.”

A Chinese state body, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also owns a small stake in I-Soon through a Tibetan investment fund, Chinese corporate records show.

I-Soon proclaimed their patriotism to win new business. Top executives discussed participating in China’s poverty alleviation scheme — one of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s signature initiatives — to make connections. I-Soon CEO Wu suggested his COO become a member of Chengdu’s People’s Political Consultative Conference, a government advisory body comprised of scientists, entrepreneurs, and other prominent members of society. And in interviews with state media, Wu quoted Mencius, a Chinese philosopher, casting himself as a scholar concerned with China’s national interest.

But despite Wu’s professed patriotism, leaked chat records tell a more complicated story. They depict a competitive man motivated to get rich.

“You can’t be Lei Feng,” Wu wrote in private messages, referring to a long-dead Communist worker held up in propaganda for generations as a paragon of selflessness. “If you don’t make money, being famous is useless.”

LAX SECURITY, POOR PAY AMONG HACKING WORKERS

China’s booming hackers-for-hire industry has been hit by the country’s recent economic downturn, leading to thin profits, low pay and an exodus of talent, the leaked documents show.

I-Soon lost money and struggled with cash flow issues, falling behind on payments to subcontractors. In the past few years, the pandemic hit China’s economy, causing police to pull back on spending that hurt I-Soon’s bottom line. “The government has no money,” I-Soon’s COO wrote in 2020.

Staff are often poorly paid. In a salary document dated 2022, most staff on I-Soon’s safety evaluation and software development teams were paid just 5,600 yuan ($915) to 9,000 yuan ($1,267) a month, with only a handful receiving more than that. In the documents, I-Soon officials acknowledged the low pay and worried about the company’s reputation.

Low salaries and pay disparities caused employees to complain, chat records show. Leaked employee lists show most I-Soon staff held a degree from a vocational training school, not an undergraduate degree, suggesting lower levels of education and training. Sales staff reported that clients were dissatisfied with the quality of I-Soon data, making it difficult to collect payments.

I-Soon is a fraction of China’s hacking ecosystem. The country boasts world-class hackers, many employed by the Chinese military and other state institutions. But the company’s troubles reflect broader issues in China’s private hacking industry. The country’s cratering economy, Beijing’s tightening controls and the growing role of the state has led to an exodus of top hacking talent, four cybersecurity analysts and Chinese industry insiders told The Associated Press.

“China is no longer the country we used to know. A lot of highly skilled people have been leaving,” said one industry insider, declining to be named to speak on a sensitive topic. Under Xi, the person added, the growing role of the state in China’s technology industry has emphasized ideology over competence, impeded pay and made access to officials pivotal.

A major issue, people say, is that most Chinese officials lack the technical literacy to verify contractor claims. So hacking companies prioritize currying favor over delivering excellence.

In recent years, Beijing has heavily promoted China’s tech industry and the use of technology in government, part of a broader strategy to facilitate the country’s rise. But much of China’s data and cybersecurity work has been contracted out to smaller subcontractors with novice programmers, leading to poor digital practices and large leaks of data.

Despite the clandestine nature of I-Soon’s work, the company has surprisingly lax security protocols. I-Soon’s offices in Chengdu, for example, have minimal security and are open to the public, despite posters on the walls of its offices reminding employees that “to keep the country and the party’s secrets is every citizen’s required duty.” The leaked files show that top I-Soon executives communicated frequently on WeChat, which lacks end-to-end encryption.

The documents do show that staff are screened for political reliability. One metric, for example, shows that I-Soon checks whether staff have any relatives overseas, while another shows that employees are classified according to whether they are members of China’s ruling Communist Party.

Still, Danowski, the cybersecurity analyst, says many standards in China are often “just for show.” But at the end of the day, she added, it may not matter.

“It’s a little sloppy. The tools are not that impressive. But the Ministry of Public Security sees that you get the job done,” she said of I-Soon. “They will hire whoever can get the job done.”

___

Soo reported from Hong Kong. AP Technology Writer Frank Bajak contributed to this report.

DAKE KANG Kang covers Chinese politics, technology and society from Beijing for The Associated Press. He’s reported across Central, South, and East Asia, and was a Pulitzer finalist for investigative reporting in China. twitter mailto ZEN SOO Soo reports on technology and business in China and across Asia for The Associated Press. She is based in Hong Kong. twitter mailto

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‘America is rising’: Biden uses State of the Union address to push competition with China but not conflict

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3254631/america-rising-biden-uses-state-union-address-push-competition-china-not-conflict?utm_source=rss_feed

“We want competition with China, but not conflict”, declared an unusually energetic 81-year-old Joe Biden on Thursday during his last State of the Union address as US president before the country goes to the polls in November.

“We’re in a stronger position to win the competition for the 21st Century against China, or anyone else for that matter”, he said, presenting a passionate case for a second term in the White House.

Biden boasted low unemployment rates, controlled inflation and falling imports from China to contend that “America is rising”.

“For years, all I’ve heard from my Republican friends and so many others is [that] China’s on the rise and America is falling behind. They’ve got it backward,” he said.

Highlights from Biden’s 2024 State of the Union speech

Eliciting a standing ovation from his party colleagues, Biden pointed out that his administration was not only “standing up against China’s unfair economic practices”, and for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, but also revitalising partnerships and alliances in the Pacific and preventing China from using most advanced American technology.

“Frankly for all his tough talk on China, it never occurred to my predecessor to do that,” he said of former president Donald Trump, who appears most likely to get the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

The comments followed a year of attempts to reduce friction in the US-China relationship, which was riven by then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022, multiple near misses between US and Chinese vessels near the island and the US military’s take-down of a Chinese spy balloon last year.

On Thursday, Biden opened by castigating Republicans for blocking aid to Ukraine and his “predecessor” for saying Russia could attack Nato allies, and then turned at length to domestic issues: lashing out at the January 6, 2021, insurrection, curtailed access to abortion and high prescription drug prices.

He celebrated legislation that he signed into law, the Chips and Science Act that was written to reduce America’s reliance on foreign chips, which are primarily manufactured in Asia.

Biden also acknowledged that the US had lost many manufacturing jobs under Republican and Democratic administrations, an issue that Trump blamed on China during his successful bid for the White House in 2016. The former president brought differences with Beijing to the forefront of Washington’s foreign policy.

Lauding United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, who was present as Biden’s invited guest, the president referenced renewed manufacturing in the “rust belt” state of Ohio, including an EV battery manufacturer.

“Thanks to my Chips and Science Act, the United States is investing more in research and development than ever before”, Biden said, citing pandemic-era shortages of chips used to make everything from mobile phones to cars.

“My policies have attracted US$650 billion in private sector investment in clean energy, advanced manufacturing creating tens of thousands of jobs here in America,” he said.

Shannon O’Neil of the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, said that although the Biden administration had “tried to take the temperature down” on China with his “cooperate-where-we-can-and-compete-where-we-must” approach, the Beijing challenge was an opening to talk about his domestic agenda.

“The theme of this speech is ‘I need another term because I need to finish the job’, then that is [where there is] a lot of the China policy” particularly on actions such as the Chips and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, she observed in a webinar just hours before the president’s appearance at Capitol Hill.

Both of Biden’s signature legislations dole out billions of dollars in federal subsidies to create secure semiconductor and green technology supply chains in competition against China.

Tensions started to ease in November when Biden met Chinese President Xi Jinping in California ahead of the annual Apec leaders summit, a meeting meant to halt the steep decline in bilateral relations.

During that encounter, the US side emphasised the need to “responsibly manage competition” to prevent the two nations from escalating into conflict, confrontation or a new cold war. At the same time, they reaffirmed their unwavering commitment to protecting American interests, values and alliances.

The two nations agreed to establish a joint task force to curb the production and trafficking of illicit drugs, with a particular focus on fentanyl, which was responsible for an estimated two-thirds of opioid-related deaths in the US in 2023. The US Drug Enforcement Administration has identified China and Mexico as the primary sources of fentanyl trafficking within American borders.

The Xi-Biden meeting also marked the reopening of channels of communication between the two nations’ militaries, which China had halted in retaliation for Pelosi’s visit.

Washington has repeatedly emphasised the need to re-establish bilateral engagement to mitigate risks and avoid potential conflicts, and the record so far has been mixed.

Following the summit in November, China pledged to host up to 50,000 US students in the next five years to promote people-to-people diplomacy and strengthen relations between the two nations.

However, US State Department officials said earlier on Thursday that this goal was facing obstacles thrown up by Beijing.

One of the two countries’ longest cooperative frameworks – a 40-year-old scientific collaboration pact that lays out the terms for government-to-government exchange and opens the way for academic and corporate interaction – appears to be proceeding.

A spokesperson for the State Department told the Post on Thursday that the US-China Science and Technology Agreement was extended for another six months as negotiations to “amend, extend and strengthen protections” within the pact continue.

Washington has expressed concerns regarding the safety of its personnel, intellectual property, and critical data during the three rounds of discussions held so far since August last year, when the agreement was first extended for six months.

Daniel Simon of the Institute for China-America Studies, a Washington-based think tank, described the development as “a good sign” that both sides “remain fully engaged in trying to negotiate a mutually acceptable and beneficial agreement”.

Time to ‘cut off’ US outbound investment in China biotech firms: House panel

However, Washington’s efforts to improve relations continue to be hampered by structural disagreements on both sides over how to deal with global challenges.

On Thursday, Biden vowed that the US “will not walk away” and will “not bow down” against Moscow’s assault on Ukraine, warning that freedom and democracy were under assault at home and abroad in a jibe at Trump, who recently said he would let Russians do “whatever hell they want” if he returns to the White House.

Besides Chinese opposition to urging Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine, Washington has yet to secure Beijing’s support regarding the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

At a meeting in Bangkok in January, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan asked Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi for support in condemning and countering attacks by Houthi militia in Yemen on US ships travelling the Red Sea shipping lanes.

The Houthis, a predominantly Shiite paramilitary group that took control of Yemen in 2015, are supported by Iran. In response to the Israeli attacks on Gaza, they have pledged to attack all ships in the region.

Sullivan hoped that Beijing, given its friendly relations with Tehran, could intervene to prevent Iran from further financing the Houthi attacks.

China takes swipes at the US but also makes ‘direct appeal’ for cooperation

However, Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder last month said the Chinese “have neither proposed nor undertaken any operations to protect mariners or international shipping”.

Beijing has also been dissatisfied that the White House refused to review tariffs first imposed on Chinese imports during the Donald Trump administration as well as with initiatives in Washington to prevent Chinese access to US microchips.

The White House also praised a bipartisan bill introduced on Tuesday in the House by Representatives Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi, respectively the chairman and ranking member of the House select committee on China, that would classify ByteDance’s TikTok as a “foreign adversary-controlled application” and urge the parent company to divest the platform or face a ban in the US.

A National Security Council spokesperson told The Hill website on Wednesday that the bill was a “welcome step” and that the administration intended to work with Congress to strengthen it.

Additional reporting Igor Patrick

Huawei’s China-made chip used US gear from Applied Materials and Lam Research, complicating self-sufficiency drive

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3254612/huaweis-china-made-chip-used-us-gear-applied-materials-and-lam-research-complicating-self?utm_source=rss_feed

Huawei Technologies and its partner Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation relied on US technology to produce an advanced chip in China last year, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Shanghai-based SMIC used gear from California-based Applied Materials and Lam Research to manufacture an advanced 7-nanometre chip for Huawei in 2023, the people said, asking not to be named as the details are not public.

The previously unreported information suggests that China still cannot entirely replace certain foreign components and equipment required for cutting-edge products like semiconductors. The country has made technological self-sufficiency a national priority and Huawei’s efforts to advance domestic chip design and manufacturing have received the backing of Beijing.

Huawei’s AI chip prowess under scrutiny after Nvidia taps it as likely rival

Representatives of SMIC, Huawei and Lam did not respond to requests for comment. Applied Materials and the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which is responsible for implementing export controls, declined to comment.

Lauded in China as a major leap in indigenous semiconductor fabrication, last year’s SMIC-made processor powered Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro and a wave of patriotic smartphone-buying in the Asian country. The chip is still generations behind the top components from global firms, but ahead of where the US hoped to stop China’s advance.

The machinery used to make it, however, still had foreign sources including technology from Dutch maker ASML Holding NV as well as the gear from Lam and Applied Materials. Bloomberg News reported in October that SMIC had used equipment from ASML for the chip breakthrough.

Leading Chinese chip equipment suppliers including Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment and Naura Technology Group have been trying to catch up with their American peers, but their offerings are still not as comprehensive or sophisticated. China’s top lithography system developer Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group still lags a few generations behind what industry leader ASML is capable of.

SMIC obtained the American machinery before the US banned such sales to China in October 2022, some of the people said. Both firms were among the American suppliers that began pulling their staff from China after those rules went into effect and prohibited US engineers from servicing some machines in the Asian country. ASML also told American employees to stop working with Chinese customers in response to the US curbs, but Dutch and Japanese engineers are still able to service many machines in China – much to the chagrin of their American rivals.

Companies are now prohibited from selling cutting-edge, US-origin technology to either SMIC or Shenzhen-based Huawei. Both tech firms have been blacklisted by the US for alleged links to the Chinese military, while Washington has been tightening China’s overall access to chipmaking equipment and advanced semiconductors.

Those trade curbs pushed Huawei and SMIC to pursue avenues for building a domestic chip supply chain, and the Mate 60 Pro marked a surprising advance in that effort.

After Huawei released the new phone, Washington launched a probe into its processor and US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo vowed the “strongest possible” actions to ensure national security. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers have called for the Biden administration to completely cut off Huawei and SMIC’s access to US technology.

Department of Commerce officials have said they haven’t seen evidence that SMIC can make the 7nm chips “at scale”, a point echoed by ASML’s Chief Executive Officer Peter Wennink.

If SMIC wants to advance its technology without ASML’s state-of-the-art extreme ultraviolet lithography systems, the Chinese chip maker will not be able to produce chips at a commercially meaningful volume due to technical challenges, Wennink told Bloomberg News in late January.

“The yield is going to kill you. You’re not going to get the number of chips that you need to have high volume chip production,” he said. ASML has not been able to sell its EUV systems to China as the Dutch government has not issued a license allowing those exports.

The US, meanwhile, is pressing allies including the Netherlands, Germany, South Korea and Japan to further tighten restrictions on China’s access to semiconductor technology. That effort is proving controversial and meeting resistance in some countries, as it imposes limits on trade at a time that Chinese businesses are investing in equipment and computational power to compete in the artificial intelligence race.

Huawei may be China’s most promising candidate to develop AI chips to compete with the US. Industry leader Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, in December called the Shenzhen firm a “formidable” rival.

China’s South Asia ‘bridgehead’ needs urgent infrastructure boost to aid security, mineral exploration

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3254550/chinas-south-asia-bridgehead-needs-urgent-infrastructure-boost-aid-security-mineral-exploration?utm_source=rss_feed

China should address an urgent need for infrastructure construction in a strategically important part of its southwestern Tibet autonomous region – seen as a “bridgehead” to South Asia – to enhance national security and mineral exploration, according to the head of one of its largest aluminium producers.

“As a base for China’s mineral resources reserve, [Ngari prefecture] is an important transport and logistics hub in the western part of the country,” said Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference delegate Duan Xiangdong during the ongoing “two sessions” in Beijing.

“There is an urgent need [for the region] to enhance its infrastructure, such as electricity and transport.”

Located in the remote and high-altitude western region near India, Ngari prefecture grapples with a challenging terrain and harsh climate, which has hindered logistics and infrastructure development, further constraining its economic progress.

While the region had made progress in mineral exploration that has contributed to China’s reserves of strategic mineral resources over the past few years, progress has been crippled by inadequate infrastructure, Duan added.

“Currently, the electrical grid capacity in the region is insufficient to meet the demands of its economic and social development, particularly given the absence of railway lines,” he said, according to the Aluminum Corporation of China official website on Tuesday.

He added that the region’s administrative centre is over 1,200km (746 miles) from the nearby railway stations.

“Relying solely on road transport results in long distances, high costs and low efficiency, thereby compromising the region’s ability to support the security and development of the country’s border area,” Duan added.

He called for “concurrently advancing” infrastructure construction and mineral resource exploration to “turn its resource advantages into economic strengths”.

Beijing has put energy self-reliance and security high on its agenda, ramping up domestic exploration and mining for critical minerals amid growing geopolitical tensions that risk its status in the global supply chain.

Duan suggested speeding up power grid construction in northwest Tibet, increasing electricity purchase from other regions and enhancing the transmission capacity of power interconnections with the neighbouring provinces of Sichuan and Qinghai.

To address the logistics challenges, Duan proposed accelerating the construction of the northern line of the Xinjiang-Tibet railway.

Tibet plans to complete building 4,000km of railway lines by 2025, according to its 14th five-year plan, with the section between the city of Xigaze – also known as Shigatse – and Lake Pelku expected to begin operation next year.

The government and relevant enterprises should also work together to improve the green, efficient and sustainable exploration and utilisation of strategic mineral resources in the prefecture, added Duan.

Beijing has increased investment in Tibet, initiating a project to establish the world’s highest computing data centre in its capital city of Lhasa, which will span over 645,000 square metres (6.9 million sq ft).

The 11.8 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion) project, which completed its first phase of construction in 2020, is expected to produce an annual revenue of 10 billion yuan, according to the state-backed Xinhua News Agency.

China’s GDP gap with US, Malaysians mock Starbucks franchisee, Japan’s geisha visitors ban: SCMP’s 7 highlights of the week

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3254595/chinas-gdp-gap-us-malaysians-mock-starbucks-franchisee-japans-geisha-visitors-ban-scmps-7-highlights?utm_source=rss_feed

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider .

A few years ago, many confidently predicted China would overtake the US in GDP terms – but a recent downturn suggests these prophecies were premature.

China’s advancements in 136 key technologies outpaced those of South Korea for the first time in 2022, according to a recent report by the latter’s Ministry of Science and ICT.

A magistrate has handed down a sentence of 160 hours of community service to a Hong Kong marketing executive who misled health officials over an infamous birthday party in 2022 that had top officials in attendance.

Malaysian social media has been awash with wry humour and defiance after consumer-goods mogul Vincent Tan appealed for an end to a costly boycott of Starbucks in the country over its alleged links to Israel.

Beijing is “actively considering” raising Hong Kong’s duty-free shopping allowance for mainland Chinese tourists, as proposed by a majority of the city’s representatives attending the country’s largest annual political gathering in the capital, the Post has learned.

The local council in Kyoto’s historic Gion will ban sightseers from the district’s narrow backstreets where the Japanese city’s iconic geisha trot daintily between client engagements after a spike in cases of the traditional entertainers being accosted by “out-of-control” tourists.

Besides being well versed in British, European and American dining, etiquette consultant Piano Mok also has a wealth of knowledge about Asian cuisines.

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Bringing them home: why China’s MH370 families are still searching for the missing a decade on

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3254323/bringing-them-home-why-chinas-mh370-families-are-still-searching-missing-decade?utm_source=rss_feed

Jiang Hui has had many brushes with death in his various expeditions to the African coast to scour for debris from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Once, when searching a beach on Réunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean, Jiang narrowly avoided treading on a venomous snake.

Another time, he was swamped and battered by huge waves as he tried to wade through chest-high water to board a boat.

But that all faded when he found a piece of honeycomb-shaped debris in Madagascar.

It was December 2016 and he was part of a trip organised by Voice 370, a support group for MH370 families. Besides three Chinese nationals, there were relatives from France and Malaysia, as well as American explorer Blaine Gibson.

After four connecting flights, a helicopter ride, a long drive along the dunes and a thorough survey of the coastline, Jiang spotted the debris on a beach littered with bottles and flip-flops.

He took the piece back to the Civil Aviation Administration of China for further analysis.

The agency has not said whether the piece belongs to the missing airliner but for Jiang it is more of a token of his resolve to keep searching.

“I hope these governments can see our determination and know that the relatives have not given up, so that they won’t either,” he said at that time.

Jiang’s mother, Jiang Cuiyun, was one of 239 people – including more than 150 Chinese nationals – on board the Boeing 777 jetliner, when it left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8, 2014. About two hours into the flight, it vanished from radar screens, leaving behind one of the greatest aviation mysteries in history.

MH370: 10 years on, Malaysia’s call for real-time plane tracking still unheeded

Since the incident, the Chinese families have continued to push for a search, haunted by the lack of answers. Their efforts have not borne fruit yet but there is some hope of a revived attempt to find out what happened.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government had learned from handling the aftermath, developing more protocols to control incidents at home as well as providing more resources to Chinese nationals abroad in similar cases.

A decade on, Jiang is visibly older but he is still calm and polite, rarely showing strong emotion.

However, last Sunday afternoon, he grew unusually excited, posting on Weibo, “Just now, the Malaysian Transport Minister agreed to revive the search!”

The minister, Anthony Loke, made the announcement at a remembrance event in Kuala Lumpur in front of relatives from several countries. He said Malaysia was ready to discuss a “no-find, no-fee” deal with deep-sea explorer Ocean Infinity to revive the search for the plane.

After years of advocacy and lawsuits, it was the result the families were hoping for.

Just days before, Jiang and about 10 Chinese relatives had paid what has become a weekly visit to the foreign ministry in Beijing to press their case.

In a meeting room, Jiang raised two requests with ministry staff: he asked for a meeting between the families and the Malaysian prime minister, and annual updates on the case from the Malaysian government.

The families have persisted in these visits to the ministry for the past decade as part of a meticulous plan to induce action. Jiang said he decided there were three ways to push the search forward: through public opinion, lawsuits and diplomatic pressure.

When the news of the disappearance first broke, though, the situation was chaotic and nobody knew which way to go, Jiang said. There were theories the plane had been hijacked, and signs the families interpreted as their loved ones were still alive – including a mysterious call from a missing father to his son’s cellphone, which ended in silence.

“There were all kinds of conmen and conspiracy theories flying around,” said Song Chunjie, whose older sister was on the plane.

Song said the families followed all trails, pursuing any glimmer of hope.

One time, he went with Jiang to the southern city of Shenzhen to see someone who claimed to have vital information – only for it to turn out to be someone who wanted to write a stage show on the plane’s disappearance.

Over the months and years, conspiracy theories became the only things left. Communication with Malaysia Airlines stopped, as did counselling for the families. And in 2016, after Malaysia declared the flight’s disappearance “an accident”, it offered a 2.5 million yuan (US$374,376) settlement for the family of each victim, on the condition that they took no further action against the airline.

The offer nearly divided the families. When a list of people who took the payouts was shared in a WeChat group with family members, many started abusing those who accepted the settlements.

Jiang has always appealed to reason in these disputes, understanding all sides, calling for the families to stand united, never directly arguing with someone who expressed a different view.

In his mind, there could be differences, he said, but their common ground was finding the plane.

But that hope started to dwindle as well.

Planes are full, airfares are high – and AirAsia’s never been more excited

In 2017, a joint search operation by Australia, China and Malaysia, covering 120,000 sq km in the Indian Ocean and costing US$130 million, was called off with no result. A second attempt by Ocean Infinity in 2018 ended with no progress after 90 days.

To keep the quest alive, Jiang and others took matters into their own hands. Over the years, he visited search teams in Australia, and went to Mauritius, Madagascar and Réunion to scour for debris and to implore governments not to give up.

At the same time, relatives started filing lawsuits.

In November last year, a Beijing court began to hear claims for compensation for about 40 families who did not take the settlement. Jiang, among them, sued Malaysia Airlines, its insurer, Boeing and the manufacturers for compensation, a formal apology, the resumption of counselling for the families, as well as the creation of a fund to finance further searches for the plane.

But there remains legal uncertainty about what enforcement power the Chinese court has over the defendants, given the companies are headquartered outside China. Similar cases brought in the United States by the victims’ families have been dismissed on the grounds that these lawsuits should be handled by the Malaysian legal system.

On the diplomatic front, the families have not received much response from the foreign ministry over the years, according to Wang Lan (not her real name), another MH370 family member.

While there has always been someone to listen to them on their weekly visits to the ministry, the requests get buried in paperwork, she says. Seldom is there a follow-up response.

There is also the danger of job losses and frequent visits from community workers to deter them from creating any “social disturbances”.

“Whenever we hold gatherings, there is twice the number of police to family members,” Wang said.

For the government, the disappearance of the aircraft posed a challenge both in domestic stability control and in ensuring the safety and interests of Chinese nationals overseas.

Since then, China has reacted quicker to tamp down public disruption in such cases. In 2022, when China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735 crashed near Wuzhou in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, killing all 132 on board, the local government was swift to isolate the relatives, putting them in separate hotels and sending security staff to guard each individual.

Group action among the family members and communication with the media was constrained. When the media went to Wuzhou to report on the disaster, many were banned from the crash site and even a press conference.

At the same time, China has been pushing for more timely support and resources in consular protection cases overseas.

In 2023, China released the first regulation on consular protection, asking local governments to devote more resources to aiding Chinese nationals from their jurisdictions who need help overseas.

Even more could be done in terms of flight safety. A decade later, commercial aircraft still have not fully adopted real-time tracking systems due to the cost and lack of enforcement, experts told the Post earlier.

Most airlines today have installed systems that improve location tracking at 15-minute intervals, but very few have an autonomous distress tracking system that can send data at one-minute intervals when the plane’s operations are compromised, according to experts.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation initially set a January 2021 deadline for airlines to fully install this system, but it was pushed back twice by lack of readiness and the pandemic, now to January 2025.

For Wang, the goal is just to keep going.

On a cold Beijing evening, she goes out dancing in a public square not for leisure, purely for exercise, so she can live longer and wait for the truth.

How barnacles could help solve the mystery of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

She lost her husband to lung cancer in 2013. A few months later, her son, daughter-in-law and two-year-old grandson took a family trip to Thailand. On the way back, the young couple, worried that the child could not cope with a long direct flight, decided to break the journey with a connecting flight in Malaysia. They never made it home.

“I am 73 now, I don’t know whether I’ll live to see the day [the plane is found],” Wang said. “I don’t usually tell others my pain, they’ll just pity me. I just show people my actions – if there’s one breath left in my body, I will find them.”

“Finding them” is a wish Jiang shares as a son. Jiang said some might not understand why so many families insisted on continuing the search, but in his eyes it was as clear as daylight. It was a simple Chinese concept, he said, instilled in his genes: he has to bring his family home – dead or alive.

For years, Jiang has felt helpless and struggled in his campaign for a search, but now there is finally new hope on the horizon.

“Time is now the only path we have,” he said. “We’ll see who can outlast whom.”

For China to leave S Korean shipbuilding rivals in its wake, leaders told to be stern in shipbuilding efforts and seas the day

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3254543/china-leave-s-korean-shipbuilding-rivals-its-wake-leaders-told-be-stern-shipbuilding-efforts-and?utm_source=rss_feed

In the race to solidify its standing as a global leader in shipbuilding and leave South Korean rivals in its wake, China’s leadership is being apprised of the need to accelerate the nation’s indigenous development of engines and other critical components.

Although China continues to maintain an overall edge in the world’s shipbuilding market, a lack of self-sufficiency in terms of design and manufacturing is significantly curtailing its shipbuilding prowess, according to Fu Guotao, chief engineer of the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation and a delegate of the National People’s Congress (NPC).

Quoted in industry media reports this week, Fu also pointed to international tensions creating more complications and challenges in the supply chain of ship engines.

“Domestically, there is a lack of core research and development capabilities for key engine components, positioning China at the lower end of the industrial chain in the international market, leading to low competitiveness, a small market share, a lack of pricing power, and limited product development,” Fu said.

As South Korea clings to shipbuilding secrets, China must ‘turn somewhere else’

China’s roughly 3,000 NPC delegates frequently make suggestions, proposals and convey public sentiment to policymakers, and Fu contended that it is imperative for the country to establish a comprehensive research and development system for critical parts that will cultivate stronger home-grown brands.

In 2023, China solidified its position as a dominant player in the shipbuilding industry by accounting for 50.2 per cent of the world’s completed volume, 66.6 per cent of new orders, and 55 per cent of backlogged orders, pushing the nation’s market share to a historic high.

According to Clarkson Research, a provider of shipping and trade data, China overtook South Korea as the top receiver of global shipbuilding orders in 2021 in terms of annual volumes.

However, China still lags behind Korean firms in terms of advanced technologies, designs and standard-setting, according to industry insiders. In particular, South Korea still has a commanding lead in high-value-added orders, such as for liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers.

Last month, a team of researchers from the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry found that China was still unable to manufacture five key components for such vessels, which store LNG at extremely low temperatures.

To address these types of shipbuilding shortcomings, Fu stressed the urgency of setting up a special fund to cultivate domestic talent, adding that China should “draw in university students, skilled practitioners and experts from outside the industry to participate in research within this domain, and to foster a culture of excellence and the sustained refinement of technical expertise”.

Such a concerted effort would facilitate innovation and advancements in the critical sector, Fu added.

Meanwhile, major shipbuilding provinces have not been merely treading water in their industrial undertakings, opting instead to roll out initiatives and strategic plans in their governmental reports to foster innovation in maritime technologies and propel economic development via the industry.

Authorities in the northeastern province of Liaoning have vowed to develop shipbuilding and marine-engineering equipment, new marine materials, and shipping services. Shanghai also intends to develop a marine-equipment industrial cluster, while the southern manufacturing hub of Guangdong looks to cultivate billion-yuan industrial clusters for marine ships and marine-engineering equipment.

Despite US sanctions, Chinese shipyards experience record growth: report

Despite three consecutive years of dominating total orders by volume, China’s monthly figures still fluctuate to the degree that it still finds itself in a neck-and-neck race with South Korea, which received more shipbuilding orders last month.

In February, South Korean firms received new orders for 28 ships, with a total value of 1.71 million compensated gross tonnage (CGT) – an indicator of how much work is needed to build a specific type of ship – accounting for 50 per cent of all global orders, according to Clarkson Research.

In comparison, China secured orders totalling 1.41 million CGT, accounting for 41 per cent of global orders.

Not to be outdone, South Korea has also set out plans to expand its advantage in its pillar shipbuilding industry as it similarly seeks to contend with mounting challenges from China.

Seoul this week announced a five-year investment plan, valued at 9 trillion Korean won (US$6.75 billion), with three major Korean shipmakers – HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, Samsung Heavy Industries, and Hanwha Ocean – to secure a “superior gap” in the nation’s shipbuilding technologies.

Young polio woman in China given gift of confidence by famous photographer who heals needy with artistic portraits

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3253647/young-polio-woman-china-given-gift-confidence-famous-photographer-who-heals-needy-artistic-portraits?utm_source=rss_feed

A young woman in China with polio regained her confidence with the help of a photographer who specialises in helping people in need.

Tian, 22, was diagnosed when she was just nine months old and the condition caused muscle atrophy in her left leg and made her walk with a limp.

As a child, she was mocked by classmates for her gait, leading her to miss out on attending university.

Tian has never been in a romantic relationship because she “dared not to” and she is afraid of being called a “cripple”.

She never takes full-body photos and is unwilling to smile: “I don’t look good when I smile,” she said.

Living in a rural area, Tian live-streams makeup tutorials on Douyin to earn money for her treatment and relieve the financial pressure on her parents.

She requires artificial muscle implants for her legs and each piece costs 20,000 yuan (US$2,800).

However, a renowned photographer who specialises in taking portraits for disadvantaged groups contacted Tian on February 26 and said he wanted to do a photo shoot with her.

In the resulting photos, Tian smiled confidently and displayed the full length of her body.

The photographer, Liang Tian, 22, whose real name is Shi Jiadong, has 12.4 million followers on Douyin.

Among Liang’s subjects is a blind goalball player, Hu Mingyao, who lost his sight as a result of albinism. The disease left Hu with pale skin, hair, and severely impaired vision.

Goalball is a sport exclusive to athletes with visual impairments and is played by both men and women.

Hu won the men’s goalball championship at the Asian Para Games in 2023.

Hu’s Chinese name means “bright and dazzling”, and in the photos, he and his girlfriend transform into “white-haired angels” dispersing the gloom around them.

Liang also photographed a 20-year-old woman, surnamed Leung, who has a birthmark which covers almost half her face, causing her to wear masks every time she goes out.

However, instead of covering the birthmark with a thick foundation makeup, Liang transformed it into vibrant red roses.

After the photo shoot, the woman went out for dinner without wearing a mask.

The photographer once suffered from severe appearance anxiety due to a distinctive underbite, a dental condition in which the lower jaw extends outwards further than the upper jaw.

However, he found solace in photography and turned his camera to help disadvantaged people.

The young photographer has attracted a total of 280 million likes on Douyin.

“I take photos to help others restore their faith in themselves, and also to help myself,” said Liang.

He believes that there are still many vulnerable groups in China that need psychological assistance.

As of 2022, China’s disabled population stood at 85.9 million, 76.5 per cent of whom lived in rural areas.

US Army intelligence analyst Korbein Schultz charged with selling military secrets to China

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3254591/us-army-intelligence-analyst-korbein-schultz-charged-selling-military-secrets-china?utm_source=rss_feed

A US Army intelligence analyst was arrested on Thursday and charged with conspiring to sell sensitive defence information to China.

Federal prosecutors charged Korbein Schultz with conspiracy to disclose national defence information, exporting defence articles and technical data without a licence, and bribery of a public official, the US Justice Department said in a press release.

Schultz, who was arrested at Kentucky’s Fort Campbell, was paid around US$42,000 to provide an individual he believed lived in Hong Kong with information about US plans in the event Taiwan came under military attack, according to the release.

Schultz put “personal profit above the security of the American people”, Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said in the statement.

“Today’s arrest shows that such a betrayal does not pay – the Department of Justice is committed to identifying and holding accountable those who would break their oath to protect our nation’s secrets.”

According to the indictment, Schultz – who had a top-secret security clearance – allegedly conspired with an individual identified only as “Conspirator A” to disclose various documents, photographs and other national defence materials since June 2022.

The indictment claims that Schultz was recruited by the individual not only due to his security clearance but also because he was tasked with gathering sensitive US military information.

Some of the information that Schultz supposedly gave to the individual included information related to the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (Himars), hypersonic equipment, studies on future developments of US military forces and studies on military drills and operations in major countries like China.

Accused Pentagon leaker pleads guilty, faces almost 17 years jail

The indictment outlines that Schultz was initially asked to provide documents detailing lessons that could be learned from Russia’s war with Ukraine and how those lessons could be applied to the US helping Taiwan in the event of an attack.

Schultz was paid US$200 for that information, which then prompted Conspirator A, to ask for a “long-term partnership”.

Conspirator A, who was described in the indictment as a foreign national purporting to live in Hong Kong, later suggested that Schultz could earn more money if he handed over “internal only” material rather than unclassified documents.

In total, Shultz received at least 14 payments totalling US$42,000.

The case is the latest in a series of federal prosecutions of current or former military members accused of illegally disclosing sensitive government secrets.

For instance in April 2023, Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira was charged with leaking highly classified military documents about Russia’s war in Ukraine on Discord, a social media platform popular with people playing online games. He pleaded guilty on Monday in a deal with prosecutors that calls for him to serve at least 11 years in prison.

In August, two US Navy sailors were charged with providing sensitive military information to China – including details on wartime exercises, naval operations and critical technical material.

And more recently, the US Justice Department announced charges this week against a civilian Air Force employee and retired Army lieutenant colonel for allegedly sharing classified information about the war in with Ukraine on a foreign dating site.

US army intelligence analyst charged with selling secrets to China

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/07/us-army-intelligence-analyst-charged-selling-secrets-china

A US army intelligence analyst was arrested on Thursday and charged with conspiring to sell sensitive defense information to China.

Federal prosecutors charged Korbein Schultz with conspiracy to disclose national defense information, exporting defense articles and technical data without a license, and bribery of a public official, the US justice department said in a press release.

Schultz, who was arrested at Kentucky’s Fort Campbell, was paid about $42,000 to provide an individual he believed lived in Hong Kong with information about US plans in the event Taiwan came under military attack, according to the release.

Schultz put “personal profit above the security of the American people”, the assistant attorney general, Matthew G Olsen, said in the statement. “Today’s arrest shows that such a betrayal does not pay – the Department of Justice is committed to identifying and holding accountable those who would break their oath to protect our nation’s secrets.”

China will only benefit by welcoming women into high-level politics

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3254393/china-will-only-benefit-welcoming-women-high-level-politics?utm_source=rss_feed

Today, China joins the world in celebrating International Women’s Day. Mao Zedong once famously said that women hold up half the sky. According to World Bank data, China’s female labour force participation rate of more than 61 per cent is higher than many developed economies.

Chinese women work alongside men and contribute in almost every domain and at almost every level. All of China reaps the benefits of this participation and representation.

Unfortunately, one glaring exception is arguably the most important – high-level politics. Women have represented only a small percentage of the full members of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee, with no clear upward trend and only slight fluctuations in this figure.

The past two decades represented the pinnacle of female representation in the Politburo, with one woman present among 25 members and even two between 2012 and 2017. But this is no longer the case, as the current Politburo includes only 24 men.

This contrasts with the National People’s Congress, where women represent more than a quarter of members, up from 20 per cent two decades ago. But that body lacks the power and influence of the Politburo or the Central Committee. The higher you move up the political ladder in China, the fewer women there are, until they become completely absent.

This isn’t just a problem of representation but a problem of efficient use of human resources. It’s a matter of concern not just for Chinese women but for the whole country. Women gaining greater access and representation in almost every domain creates more human resources, which in turn increases competition and delivers better results for the country.

Excluding an entire category of citizens from a certain field, especially a category that accounts for half of the population, vastly reduces the pool of available talent and competition among existing candidates. High-level officials should be selected from among the best of China’s citizens, whether men or women.

But, in recent decades, women have been passed over for promotions at the highest levels of power. Consider that only a handful of China’s current provincial party secretaries and governors are women. Restricting the pool of candidates inevitably means that some politicians end up in positions of power even though they wouldn’t have been considered amid greater competition.

Worse still, after so many decades in which women’s representation at the highest levels of power in China has been restricted, a system of pernicious incentives has developed. A political career has become an illogical choice for smart, hard-working and ambitious girls in China as, unlike a boy with similar qualities, they can expect to be passed over in favour of less-competent male colleagues.

Men still being favoured over women for Chinese government jobs, study says

Pursuing a career in science, business or even looking for work overseas would be a more logical choice for such young women. Thus, not only is the pool of competent candidates for political office reduced, some of the women who do choose a career in politics might not necessarily the best as those women probably chose a career in a different field, one without such a daunting glass ceiling.

While China benefits from wide female participation in the workforce, this is no longer true in politics. This is arguably the most important domain and one where competition should be the most intense.

The Communist Party says it wants to attract the best talent among the country’s youth. To do this, it needs to show Chinese girls and women that they would be appreciated at their true value, regardless of gender, and that a career in politics could also lead them to the highest levels.

China will benefit from all of its human resources only when girls, like boys, can dream that one day they can become president. This will only be possible when they see other women – not just one woman – in the highest positions of power. Being paramount leader might not be possible for now, but at least women can hold seats in the Politburo and its Standing Committee.

It is natural that addressing this shortcoming is a gradual, long-term process, but the sooner it starts, the better. Since the Politburo has only 24 members, the Communist Party leadership could begin by promoting a female member of the Central Committee at the next plenum.

At a time when China’s population is shrinking, the country’s political and governance systems are tapping just half of the available human resources. Sending a clear signal that women are welcome at the highest levels of power would almost double that pool of talent, increasing the diversity of perspectives and improving governance.

Attracting the most talented Chinese people to politics and then promoting officials based on their abilities and competence, regardless of gender, isn’t about feminism or equal representation. It is about China’s national interest, assuring the best leadership possible for the country, improving national governance and securing the future of the nation.

As China celebrates the latest International Women’s Day, the greatest gift Beijing can provide not just to Chinese women but to all of the country would be to allow them to truly hold up half the sky and remove the glass ceiling that has prevented them from touching that sky until now.

China ‘plays to unifying theme among Global South’: it’s not America

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3254576/china-plays-unifying-theme-among-global-south-its-not-america?utm_source=rss_feed

China has again sought to portray itself as a responsible world power in its rivalry with the United States, and pledged to champion the Global South.

The latest effort came from top diplomat Wang Yi during a carefully choreographed press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress on Thursday.

He said Beijing’s diplomatic priorities this year were to “maintain stable relations with major powers, join hands with its neighbouring countries for progress, and strive for revitalisation with the Global South”.

“China will strive to provide more Chinese solutions to both regional hotspots and global issues, creating new opportunities for the world with its own development,” he said.

Wang addressed a wide range of issues, mostly concerning relations with major powers, but observers said a key message was how China sees its future role in a world increasingly dominated by its rivalry with the US.

The foreign minister said certain powers should not monopolise international affairs and countries should not be categorised according to their so-called strength. He said China was for an “equal and orderly” multipolar world and inclusive economic globalisation that benefits all.

“It is impermissible that those with the bigger fist have the final say, and it is definitely unacceptable that certain countries must be at the table while others can only be on the menu,” he said.

That appeared to be a direct response to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks last month that “if you’re not at the table in the international system, you’re going to be on the menu”.

Despite China’s economic woes, Wang also reiterated Beijing’s promise to promote “high-quality” belt and road cooperation, which he described as “an engine for the common development of all countries and an accelerator for the modernisation of the whole world”.

China poised for ‘long game’ with Manila over South China Sea disputes

Wang’s remarks echoed the line from the closed-door Central Conference on Foreign Affairs Work late last year that China faced “strategic opportunities” to raise its “international influence, appeal and power” despite “high winds and choppy waters”.

“In the face of complex turmoil in the international environment, China will persist in being a force for peace, a force for stability and a force for progress in the world,” Wang said.

George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University’s China Centre, said Wang’s remarks during the televised presser drew attention to the rising tension over global governance between China and the US.

Beijing’s narrative war with Washington also laid bare “the reach that both superpowers have, or lack, in the so-called Global South, which is not the uniform, one-size template for global developing and middle-income nations often portrayed,” he said.

“For the time being though, China is playing to the one unifying theme among Global South countries, which is that it is not America. And it’s clear that many – by no means all – countries are unhappy with or uncertain about the US in the global system, especially ahead of the November elections and in view of the churn in American politics.”

Wang Wen, executive dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, said US-led containment and interference remained the biggest challenge for the country’s rise.

“Even so, [it is clear that] China still has the confidence to overcome external challenges and contribute diplomatically to the realisation of national rejuvenation,” he said.

Describing the world as being stuck in the most chaotic stage since World War II, he said it was a fact that “China is a force for peace, stability and development in the world”.

“No one can deny that in the past 40 years, China has been the only major economy in the world that has not launched or participated in wars,” he said.

‘The next China is still China’: Wang Yi pushes back against foreign sceptics

But Pang Zhongying, an expert on international affairs from Sichuan University, said although Wang’s messaging was clearly aimed at countering the US-led West, key questions remained unanswered.

“We still don’t know how China plans to deliver those ambitious diplomatic goals given the economic turmoil at home and how it plans to cope with the possibility of [former US president] Donald Trump’s second term,” he said.

Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations scholar, said Beijing should be careful when it talks about ambitions to be a leader of the Global South as it could fuel suspicion from other emerging powers.

He also said China’s efforts to style itself as an alternative to the US would be seen by some – especially the China hawks in the West – as an attempt to challenge or displace Washington in the existing world order.

Magnus agreed, noting that despite Beijing’s talking points about a multipolar world, it may find it hard to live with other powers that do not share China’s national interests and narratives.

“An India that was more aligned with the US, for example, could not fit into China’s orbit well. Multipolarity for China is a system in which China’s governance system was central,” he said.

Time to ‘cut off’ US outbound investment in China biotech firms like BGI Group and Wuxi AppTec: House panel

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3254590/time-cut-us-outbound-investment-china-biotech-firms-bgi-group-and-wuxi-apptec-house-panel?utm_source=rss_feed

An influential panel in the US House of Representatives on Thursday urged sweeping restrictions on outbound investment in Chinese biotechnology, as it pushed for the advancement of a bill to restrict the industry’s operations in the American market.

The hearing held by the House select committee on competition with China came after a Senate committee voted 11-1 on Wednesday backing a companion bill prohibiting US federally-funded institutions from contracting with certain biotech providers in China.

That legislation names genomics service provider BGI Group and biopharmaceutical firm Wuxi AppTec as companies of concern, along with their subsidiaries and direct affiliates.

“Every bit of value flowing to Chinese biotech or genetic-science companies will be used to strengthen the [Chinese Communist Party] and the [People’s Liberation Army],” said Republican congressman Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, the select committee’s chairman.

“We must assume that we must operate accordingly and we must cut off this flow of support,” Gallagher added. “American companies need to take off the golden blindfold and recognise that there is no such thing as a truly private business in China.”

Introduced in January by Gallagher and Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, the committee’s ranking member, the bipartisan bill called the Biosecure Act claims that BGI Group and Wuxi AppTec have ties to China’s military.

Krishnamoorthi on Thursday said China could use biotech to “potentially harm Americans” and that the country was conducting experiments to “make human soldiers have biologically enhanced capabilities” and “collecting large quantities of genetic data from Americans”.

The White House last week issued an executive order meant to prevent “countries of concern” such as China and Russia from accessing high volumes of sensitive personal data about Americans and people connected to the US government.

China takes swipes at the US but also makes ‘direct appeal’ for cooperation

“We need to draw a line in the sand and ensure biotech innovation reflects our values,” Krishnamoorthi said at the hearing. “This means holding bad actors accountable and imposing outbound investment controls on [Chinese Communist Party]-affiliated biotech firms.”

Liu Pengyu, the Chinese embassy’s spokesman in Washington, blasted the allegation of genetic data theft as “groundless”, calling it “another example of the US making up excuses and using all means to suppress Chinese companies”.

“China is firmly opposed to this,” Liu said on Thursday. “The US side should respect the basic facts, abandon ideological bias, stop abusing various excuses to suppress Chinese companies unreasonably and provide fair, just and non-discriminatory treatment to Chinese companies in their operations.”

Meanwhile, witnesses at Thursday’s hearing urged the US government to bolster its strategic support for America’s biotech sector to hold its lead and outcompete China.

“What is required is a clear vision of what the nation needs to achieve via biotechnology and how the government and the private sector can work together to maintain US economic competitiveness and protect US power in this age of biology,” testified Tara O’Toole of venture-capital firm In-Q-Tel.

That said, opportunities existed for strategic Sino-American cooperation, such as building a global monitoring regime that prevents biotech from being weaponised, said Jason Kelly, CEO of synthetic biology company Ginkgo Bioworks.

Both the Senate and House bills have a long way to go before becoming law, with content subject to further change.

The clear bipartisan, bicameral support for the legislation, however, triggered sell-offs of Wuxi and BGI-related stocks in Hong Kong’s and mainland China’s capital markets.

The Senate bill that cleared a committee vote on Wednesday has been amended to exempt pre-existing contracts and agreements.

From AI to EVs, how is the China-US rivalry in key hi-tech areas playing out?

Nevertheless, the legislation mentions Wuxi and BGI, over the companies’ objections. It is not yet clear when the bill will be brought to the Senate floor for a vote.

In a Hong Kong stock-exchange filing on Thursday, Ge Li, Wuxi’s chairman, said: “The company strongly disagrees with such pre-emptive and unfair designation without due process, and we firmly believe that Wuxi AppTec has not posed, does not pose, and will not pose a security risk to the United States or any other country.”

“We also reiterate that Wuxi AppTec does not have a human-genomics business or collect human-genomic data,” Li added.

The Shanghai-headquartered company generated more than 60 per cent of its revenue from its US business in the first half of 2023, according to its interim report.

BGI said its company’s income generated from the American market accounted for a relatively small share. It explained that its US subsidiary mainly provided scientific research services and that its business operations also complied with US personal privacy and data-security regulations, according to Chinese media Cailianshe.

Canada reaches settlement with Michael Spavor over detention in China

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/07/michael-spavor-settlement-canada

Canada’s federal government has reached a million-dollar compensation settlement with Michael Spavor, a businessman who was held by China for nearly three years amid a broader diplomatic feud between the two countries.

Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who became known as “the two Michaels”, were detained by Beijing in December 2018 in apparent retaliation for the arrest in Vancouver of senior Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a US warrant. All three were later released.

In November Spavor was reported to have threatened to sue both Canada and Kovrig, alleging that he had “unwittingly” provided intelligence on North Korea to Kovrig, who then shared that information with Canada and Five Eyes allies through Canada’s global security reporting program (GSRP).

Spavor’s settlement is reported to be worth C$7m ($5.2m), including legal fees and expenses. In a statement, Spavor’s lawyer said “the matter between Mr Spavor and the Government of Canada has been resolved” but did not specify the compensation amount.

Charlotte MacLeod, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, said in a statement: “While the 1019 days in which they were arbitrarily detained by China will never be erased, the Government of Canada is committed to supporting them in their efforts to turn to a new chapter in their lives based on their individual circumstances and impacts, and in acknowledgement of their ordeal and the suffering caused by their arbitrary detention by China,”.

The two Michaels were arrested in 2018 shortly after the Huawei executive Meng was detained in Canada in connection with possible violations of trade sanctions on Iran.

Chinese officials said Spavor, who often visited North Korea and had spent time with the country’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, was supplying intelligence to Kovrig , who took leave from working as a diplomat at Canada’s embassy in Beijing from 2012 to 2014 to work at the International Crisis Group. At the time, the arrests of “the two Michaels” drew accusations of “hostage diplomacy” by Canada and its allies.

In August 2021, Spavor was sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges of spying. Kovrig’s verdict, after a secret trial in March, was never announced. The two men were freed by China in September of that year, after Meng Wanzhou reached a deal with US prosecutors and was released, capping a standoff that lasted more than 1,000 days.

The settlement follows a damning watchdog report about the controversial intelligence-sharing program run by Canada’s foreign affairs ministry, which found it puts its officers at risk and breaches global diplomatic conventions.

Canada’s national security and intelligence review agency uncovered troubling aspects of the GSRP , finding that officers lacked “adequate training” and the program did not have sufficient risk assessment and security protocols within to ensure officers – and their sources – were protected.