• Domestic abuse, cultural divide in spotlight as Chinese tech worker faces US charges in wife’s killing
• Rare glimpse inside China’s halls of power as Beijing hosts major political event amid high security
• China jobs: push to raise incomes, social standing of indispensable skilled workers at ‘two sessions’ amid hi-tech drive
• How China’s electric vehicle industry charged ahead to dominate the global market
• China targets hi-tech and private sectors to drive job creation
• China’s rise as world’s green factory has put West on the back foot
• China toddler with 1 leg puts on own prosthetic leg for first time as mother cheers on, melting hearts on social media
• Chinese man accused of helping to steal diamond ring from Singapore pawn shop
• ‘Sky baby’: China social media hails pilot who made mid-air dash from cockpit to help deliver baby in plane toilet on Taipei-Bangkok flight
• Philippines strikes security deals as tensions rise with China at sea
• China’s debt-ridden Guizhou faces reckoning after years of splashing out on pricey projects
• The Philippines’ ties with Australia are ‘stronger than ever’. Is it a sign it has West’s backing in South China Sea?
• Zero-dollar tourism is scourge of China travel industry, but what is it and how can people avoid its many traps?
• China’s payment vow ‘positive step’ for visitors, foreign investment, but economy and security concerns remain
• Chinese general calls for crackdown on ‘fake combat capabilities’ in the military
• Chinese scientists produce diamond with highest electrical conductivity
• Russia, China Aim to Put a Nuclear Plant on the Moon

Domestic abuse, cultural divide in spotlight as Chinese tech worker faces US charges in wife’s killing

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3254807/domestic-abuse-cultural-divide-spotlight-chinese-tech-worker-faces-us-charges-wifes-killing?utm_source=rss_feed

After receiving a tip in mid-January, police in northern California checked on a house to find a 27-year-old Google software engineer and Chinese national with “blood on his clothing, his legs, arms, and hands” and his wife’s lifeless body nearby, according to court documents. Sitting motionless on his knees, Chen Liren had his hands in the air and was staring ahead blankly, a police report added.

California Superior Court documents identified the victim on the bedroom floor in their US$2 million home as Yu Xuanyi, also 27 and a Google software engineer. “I believe Suspect Chen murdered his wife, victim Yu, by striking her in the head repeatedly,” a Santa Clara detective wrote.

Silicon Valley is known for its corporate campuses and toy-strewn open offices. But the grisly case has highlighted another side, the stress that high-powered engineers and other immigrants face as they battle professional and cultural hurdles and pressing social expectations. Compounding the problem is a huge shortfall in US mental health and domestic abuse services catering to Asian-Americans, as immigrants grapple with language issues and different notions of privacy that often discourage them from seeking help.

“If only there wasn’t such a strong stigma, and given early intervention, a lot of these tragedies could be avoided,” said Elaine Peng, president of the Mental Health Association for Chinese Communities, based in Castro Valley, California, which is among the few groups in Silicon Valley or elsewhere catering to troubled Cantonese- and Mandarin-speakers. “It’s too bad that nobody noticed the seriousness of his problem so he could get help early on.”

Many details and the motivation behind Chen’s alleged murder of Yu remain unknown and may only emerge at trial later this year. Nor is it known if Chen will cite mental health in his defence. But experts say problems the couple appeared to face fit patterns commonly seen in their counselling work.

Chinese and other Asian engineers working in the US often have stellar academic backgrounds before landing a job at Google, Meta or other leading US firms. Chen, from Sichuan province, and Yu, from Jilin province, were top students at their high schools before attending Beijing’s Tsinghua University and the University of California, San Diego. “Their perfect education background and work experience had allowed them to live an enviable life,” said Global Times, the state mouthpiece, in a report about the murder.

After the euphoria subsides, however, many immigrants with stressful careers are confronted with the first bout of hardship they have faced. Coddled by their parents, touted as prodigies by teachers, their personalities may be brittle and ill-equipped to deal with setbacks.

“They are hit with nostalgia for their home country and suddenly face a huge gap between expectations and reality. That’s when they start having problems,” said Peng, who said a sizeable portion of her group’s clients are in the IT sector. “This generation of kids in China has grown up with extreme pressure, elites or not, in an environment of fierce competition where they can’t catch their breath. It’s very poisonous.”

Fatal shooting by Chinese doctoral student stirs Asian-American anxiety

News of the January 16 murder in Santa Clara sent shock waves through Asian and Asian-American communities worldwide. For Lily Yang – a Tsinghua graduate who also married someone she met in school, then worked for 27 years in the high-pressure tech industry – the parallels were unnerving.

“I went to their same school. They were sweethearts, came to the US a few months apart, very relatable – up until the last part,” said Yang, a native of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region who recently retired from Intel. “It was just shocking, unthinkable, how does this happen? From what I read, it was brewing for a while. But it’s just so tragic.”

At the heart of domestic violence cases is an urge to exert control over a partner, compounded by jealousy, discomfort over a partner’s success or their calls for divorce. Men, often young, with low self-esteem who endured childhood abuse, are the main, although not exclusive, perpetrators of violence, according to the US National Institute of Health.

Domestic violence is often more pronounced among immigrants who may be socially and culturally isolated, experts said, worsening the power imbalance and making it harder for the victim to leave or seek help given language barriers, ignorance or institutional racism.

“The stats show there are a larger number of immigrants being killed in the United States that has to do with the number of barriers to being able to physically separate,” said Grace Huang, policy director at the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence. “You may have very, very controlling behaviour and it doesn’t actually show up as physical violence. But when somebody’s decided ‘I’m done with this’, the ultimate act of control is to kill them. And that is actually not that uncommon.”

Some immigrants from Asia have a different take on domestic abuse, particularly cultures that embraced Confucianism, which traditionally placed wives below husbands in the hierarchy, detailed in the “Three Obediences and Four Virtues” Confucian text calling for women to obey their father, husband and son and remain “modest and moral”.

While Asia has made progress in confronting spousal violence – with passage in China of the domestic violence law of 2015, following its hosting of the 1995 UN World Conference on Women – Confucian traditions often remain strong, particularly in Japan, China, Vietnam, Mongolia and Korea.

As the news of Yu’s killing spread, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen urged the public to work with law enforcement to stop domestic violence. But spousal abuse is often treated more as a private matter than a crime in Asia, with counselling and social services frequently in short supply, particularly in rural areas, experts said.

Is under-reporting behind drop in anti-Asian hate attacks in California?

China has 0.036 clinical psychologists per 10,000 citizens, compared with 1.8 in the United Kingdom and six in the United States, according to a study by the National Institutes of Health, which found that 93.6 per cent of Chinese patients and caregivers misunderstand mental illnesses, preventing them from receiving appropriate care.

“In China, if someone reported you for domestic violence, often all you have to do is say this is a ‘family matter’. So then the husband or whoever is doing the violence says, ‘I’ll try harder’ -- that will be it,” said Peng. “Little do they know, there is often zero tolerance in US domestic violence cases.”

While underscoring that violence is never justified, those trying to tease out the factors behind Yu’s murder point to some of the pressures facing immigrant tech workers beholden to companies for H-1B skilled worker visas.

Job insecurity has become the norm, with some 230,000 tech lay-offs since January 2023, and there is growing fear that generative artificial intelligence will replace humans as the industry is increasingly blamed for polarising society.

The 2023 Mental Health in Tech Report by healthcare provider APN found that 77 per cent of tech workers blamed lay-offs for greater mental stress, while management firm AppDynamics’s research cited 57 per cent of tech workers feeling burned out.

Although Google, Amazon and other tech giants offer counselling and mental health programmes, employees, particularly those foreign-born, are often hesitant to use them. Over 30 per cent of stressed tech workers avoid seeking treatment, afraid colleagues or family will judge them or they will lose their jobs, according to research firm Censuswide.

Asian-Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group in the US, led by Chinese, accounting for some 24 million people, or nearly 8 per cent of the US population. But they are also grappling with a lot, particularly males who may face great cultural pressure to excel, hide their feelings and avoid “looking weak”, experts said.

Given family dynamics, these attitudes often spill over into the next, American-born, generation, said Christina Wong, a public relations consultant and founder of Fruit + Flower Company, born in southern California to a first-generation Cantonese father who was physically and verbally abusive.

“My mum stands up for herself more now, but she still doesn’t leave,” Wong said. Traditionally, “male babies are revered and treated as very, very precious objects, spoiled. My father was the same, basically spoiled man-children is what happens and they don’t think there’s anything wrong with them.”

Asian-Americans confront mental health crisis amid rise in attacks

Wong said she has spent decades grappling with hurt, anger and family secrecy, a key epiphany coming after a close friend committed suicide, prompting her to seek alternative therapies.

“That immigrant experience is so complex,” she said, citing the competition in Asia that has emerged from historical poverty. “Even the definition of success in Asian cultures and within families is very challenging and it pushes us to a state of mental stress, but you can’t show it.”

Neighbours described Chen and Yu as a pleasant couple that gave them cookies when they moved into their Valley Way neighbourhood, a short distance from Google, in April 2023. Early on January 16, a friend went to check on them, concerned that neither was answering their phone, and saw Chen “motionless on his knees” and called the police, according to police reports.

Chen faces life imprisonment without parole if convicted. Prosecutors also alleged that Chen targeted a vulnerable victim and used “great violence” with a “high degree of cruelty, viciousness or callousness”. His next hearing is scheduled for mid-April.

Chen appeared at a hearing last month wearing a white helmet suggesting, said Peng, that he may be suicidal. He has not entered a plea and his lawyer declined to say whether he underwent a psychiatric exam.

Peng became aware of the enormous need for Chinese-language counselling after her husband committed suicide and her daughter became depressed, prompting her to start the association in 2012.

Initially most of their “warm line” callers were Cantonese speakers. As the group gained more recognition and won public service awards after 2016, more Mandarin-speaking clients called in line with migration patterns, along with second-generation Chinese who prefer English.

The association’s biggest problem remains a lack of resources and volunteers. Language skills without sensitivity or counselling expertise are problematic. “They may say ‘You want to commit suicide?’ at which point the client hangs up,” said Peng.

Domestic abuse, stressed tech workers, cultural alienation and denial are all in the mix, along with many first-generation “tiger” parents wondering why their stressed offspring talk to imaginary friends or refuse to eat.

“Often when our counsellors suggest to parents that their adult children are struggling with mental health issues, the parent would says ‘No, no, I just want a quick solution’,” said Peng. “There’s a real lack of understanding, and worrying too much about how people see them.”

Asian parents’ idea of success just adds to mental health stresses

Yang, the Intel alumnus, initially approached the non-profit National Alliance on Mental Illness after her daughters struggled with stress in college, only to discover the meetings she attended included no Asians.

“Wow, what happened?” she recalls thinking. “Am I the only unlucky one, others don’t get sick?” Eventually she met Peng and later took advantage of an Intel programme offering financial incentives to retirees who assist non-profit groups.

After the pandemic, Yang brought her management expertise to the warm line, helping recruit more counsellors, building a training and monitoring structure and phone network for remote counsellors. The group has been slow to publicise the service, wary of being overwhelmed, but has received calls from across the US and even China.

“Elaine is very good, but she’s just one person,” said Yang.

Since the Yu killing, they have received more calls, and a silver lining may be growing awareness about domestic violence, stress and counselling. “Such a tragic event can hopefully open people’s eyes,” she said.

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Rare glimpse inside China’s halls of power as Beijing hosts major political event amid high security

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/09/china-two-sessions-forum-transparency-beijing-protests

Across Beijing, security guards stand shivering. Residents of the heavily monitored capital city are used to encountering security guards, members of an urban management force called chengguan, and police officers every few blocks. But this week, as China hosts its biggest political meetings of the year, even more muscle has turned up in Beijing.

Since Monday, Beijing has been hosting the Two Sessions, concurrent meetings of China’s top political consultative body and its rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC). The meetings, which are expected to finish on Monday, are China’s most high-profile annual political event, in which thousands of delegates gather inside the Great Hall of the People, an enormous Communist-era building that looms over the western edge of Tiananmen Square.

Extra uniformed officers have been deployed inside metro stations, on the streets leading up to Tiananmen Square and on bridges – where the icy winds feel especially sharp. On the footbridges that cross Beijing’s roaring highways, many are standing guard, armed with fire extinguishers for use on troublemakers, and vacuum flasks for themselves.

The guards are there both to maintain order in the capital and as a show of strength. Although the decisions made at the NPC are pre-determined by the ruling Chinese Communist party (CCP), the Two Sessions is the forum at which China’s government gives the outside world a limited glimpse into its halls of power. It is also where president Xi Jinping’s number two, premier Li Qiang, outlines plans for the year and announces key targets, such as GDP growth, which this year was set for an ambitious 5%.

With so many supposed decision-makers in one place, the Two Sessions is also traditionally the time when the disenfranchised come to Beijing to submit petitions to central government about their grievances, from the behaviour of local officials to forced evictions to domestic disputes. The centuries-old petitioning system operates all year round but is especially busy during the Two Sessions, when petitioners believe their complaints have a better chance of being heard (in reality, many petitioners are intercepted, often violently, on their way to the capital).

And whenever the world’s eyes are on Beijing, somebody might stage a protest. On 13 October 2022, days before the 20th National Congress of the CCP – a five-yearly party confab that outshines even the Two Sessions – a man called Peng Lifa unfurled two white banners from the parapet of Sitong Bridge in Beijing’s Haidian district, lighting a smokey fire for extra effect. The banners bore provocative statements in red paint, including, “We want to eat, not do coronavirus tests”, “We want freedom, not lockdowns”, and “Be citizens, not enslaved people.” Most controversially, they called for the removal of Xi, calling him a “national traitor”. Peng has since vanished into police custody.

There will be no such stunts this year. At Sitong Bridge, four guards are on standby with not much to do. Two are in padded camouflage coats; the others look less well insulated. With security also stationed at other bridges, the only sign that something significant happened at the bridge is the absence of the road sign that used to display its name.

Elsewhere in the city, extra Hikvision surveillance cameras have been erected on temporary tripods, and in at least one metro station uniformed officers do spot checks of identification cards, scanning them against an online database that flags troublemakers.

Some of this infrastructure is a hangover from the zero-Covid era, three years in which the trend towards the expansion of state surveillance was massively accelerated, much of it remaining even after Covid restrictions were abandoned in late 2022. “Compared with its pre-Covid self, the current Chinese party-state apparatus tracks and regulates individual movement and behaviour with vastly greater, likely unprecedented, precision,” note Yutian An and Taisu Zhang, researchers at Harvard and Yale universities respectively, in an academic paper.

Inside the Two Sessions, the mood is livelier. NPC delegates swarm in and out of the Great Hallof the People; some stop to talk to journalists. “This is a major event in the political life of our country,” says one delegate, Liu Daijun, on his way into the opening session.

In reality, the NPC has never voted down an item on the agenda. This year is the first time since the pandemic that the Two Sessions has been open to the media, with state media claiming more than 3,000 local and international journalists are registered, but the narrative is under as tight control as the city. At press conferences, the vast majority of questions are little more than a prompt for officials to read out prepared statements.

At foreign minister Wang Yi’s press conference, a journalist from China Arab TV asked him to elaborate on the “most fascinating and notable” stories about China. Elsewhere, a journalist from Pakistan told Chinese state media how “happy” and “friendly” people in Xinjiang are, thanks to the economic development of that region; a narrative favoured by Beijing but rejected by international human rights organisation.

But on Beijing’s streets, many people are as disillusioned as those in countries where people do have a vote. “I haven’t paid much attention to it,” says a woman outside a shopping mall, who declined to give her name.

Additional research by Chi Hui Lin

China jobs: push to raise incomes, social standing of indispensable skilled workers at ‘two sessions’ amid hi-tech drive

https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3254675/china-jobs-push-raise-incomes-social-standing-indispensable-skilled-workers-two-sessions-amid-hi?utm_source=rss_feed

Faced with a pressing shortage of highly-skilled talent, China needs to bolster the income level and social standing of its skilled workers, delegates at the ongoing “two sessions” have proposed, amid efforts to move up the industrial value chain.

“High-skilled workers … play an indispensable role in driving the country’s technological innovation and realising the transformation of scientific and technological achievements,” said National People’s Congress (NPC) deputy Chen Dawei, according to the state-owned The Paper on Thursday.

“Currently, the long-standing issues of low income and benefits for high-skilled talent have undermined the societal recognition of skill-based positions to some extent, thus impeding the cultivation of skilled workers.”

As civil service positions become increasingly appealing to highly educated jobseekers, and new industries such as food delivery and ride-hailing attract young people with lower educational qualifications, many are disinclined to pursue careers in manual labour, Chen added.

“This has led to a high degree of job-hopping among skilled workers and a breakdown in the transmission of skills,” Chen said, who is a production manager for a chemical company in Anhui province.

“Data indicates a consistent decrease in the percentage of workers within China’s employed population, causing even greater concern about the proportion of high-skilled talent.”

China is suffering from an acute shortage of skilled technicians, with this group accounting for 26 per cent of the total workforce, according to official statistics.

It is challenging the aspiration of the world’s second-largest economy to develop a quality workforce and strengthen its hi-tech manufacturing sector.

Nearly 30 million manufacturing roles are expected to go unfilled by 2025, representing almost half of all jobs in the sector, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

Chen urged improving the social and political standing of skilled workers by integrating the group into the expert teams of Communist Party committees within companies, as well as the operational and managerial decision-making processes.

China should also implement fixed subsidies for technicians based on their job titles and skills to encourage the development of highly-skilled talents among workers, while also issuing incentives such as annual salaries and stock options akin to senior management standards.

He further called for efforts to address challenges faced by skilled workers, such as housing, their hukou household registration document that controls access to public services based on the birthplace of the holder and children’s education.

NPC deputy Jia Liang, who is also a skilled technician, said the criteria for selecting recipients of honorary titles such as “model workers” and “national craftsment” should favour highly-skilled personnel.

Teachers at vocational schools should also be considered for such honours, which aim to encourage more highly-skilled talent from enterprises to join China’s vocational education, he added.

President Xi Jinping stressed the need for developing vocational education and improving treatment for skilled workers during a meeting with NPC delegates from Jiangsu province on Tuesday.

“The craftsmen are the cornerstone and backbone of our Chinese nation,” he said. “It’s necessary to train up batches of craftsmen on the frontline.”

How China’s electric vehicle industry charged ahead to dominate the global market

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3254708/how-chinas-electric-vehicle-industry-charged-ahead-dominate-global-market?utm_source=rss_feed

China is now the world’s largest automotive and electric vehicle (EV) market. Sales of electric cars made in the country also account for about 60 per cent of the global total.

Behind the industry boom is the Chinese government’s long-term commitment to industrial self-reliance and sustainability.

But with policies favouring EV carmakers about to expire, fierce competition has put pressure on their profitability. Chinese carmakers seeking overseas opportunities face rapidly changing markets, increasing costs and geopolitical tensions.

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China targets hi-tech and private sectors to drive job creation

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3254806/china-targets-hi-tech-and-private-sectors-drive-job-creation?utm_source=rss_feed

China is planning a multipronged approach to tackle unemployment and move up the industrial value chain, including more support for private firms and training more people for the fast-emerging hi-tech sector.

On the sidelines of the “two sessions” in Beijing on Saturday, Human Resources and Social Security Minister Wang Xiaoping said Beijing aimed to train more people in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data to meet the demand from the hi-tech industries of the future.

“China’s overall employment pressure is yet to ease, with its structural issues still needing to be solved,” Wang said on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

“However, it is worth noting that there is robust demand for talent in AI and big data,” she said, adding that there was also growing demand from its service sector including elderly care and tourism.

The minister also pledged to increase support such as secured loans and tax breaks for private companies and businesses looking to recruit.

Wang’s assessment comes as the country grapples with a sluggish job market, especially for young people.

The youth unemployment rate reached a record high of 21.3 per cent in June before the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) stopped releasing the figures, without explanation.

The rate meant that at least one in every five people aged 16 to 24 was jobless at the time.

The NBS resumed publishing the data in January, but this time it excluded tertiary students, bringing the rate for December down to 14.9 per cent.

Citing the Ministry of Education, Wang said 11.79 million students were expected to graduate from the country’s universities and colleges this year.

To help people find jobs, authorities held 32,000 job fairs, subsidised vocational training for more than 18 million people, and issued over 300 billion yuan (US$41.7 billion) to support employment and entrepreneurship last year.

Emptying villages or job-scarce cities: rural Chinese have tough row to hoe

She said another national priority was to expand the pool of highly skilled blue-collar workers to meet the growing demand from factories, advanced manufacturers and service sectors.

Skilled technicians account for about 26 per cent of the workforce and demand for these workers is growing, according to the human resources ministry.

By 2025, China is expected to have 30 million vacancies in manufacturing, or roughly half of all jobs in the sector.

Those unfilled jobs are hampering China’s ability to meet its aspiration to move up the global value chain.

Hi-tech manufacturing requires a skilled labour force, a bottleneck that is worsening as the United States squeezes China’s access to advanced technology.

According to Wang, China will train more people in digital technology, smart manufacturing, big data, blockchain, integrated circuits and future industries.

Those goals were echoed by Education Minister Huai Jinpeng, who also vowed to improve AI education in schools and equip more teachers with digital knowledge.

“We will also give sustained and robust support for young researchers at the beginning of their academic journeys, allowing them to make mistakes, thereby enabling them to delve deeply into emerging fields and ultimately generate significant, original, and disruptive outcomes,” Huai said.

He said the ministry would encourage universities to train more students in basic research and engineering technology, sectors critical to China’s economy.

China has set a target of creating more than 12 million new urban jobs while maintaining its survey-based urban unemployment rate at around 5.5 per cent this year.

China’s rise as world’s green factory has put West on the back foot

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/asia/article/3254577/chinas-rise-worlds-green-factory-has-put-west-back-foot?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s reputation as the “factory of the world” is taking on new and unwelcome implications for embattled Western and Japanese competitors who see their positions being eroded in areas extending from car production to green products.

Recent decisions taken by the National People’s Congress endorsing earlier ones by the Politburo and emphasising the development of “new productive forces” in China can only exacerbate these fears and phobias.

They imply that China’s economic presence will become even more powerful in Global South countries, where it has made great strides in overturning the dominance of Western nations in everything from infrastructure to pharmaceuticals.

The West finds itself in a game of whack-a-mole as it seeks to thwart the development of key Chinese industries with tariffs, other economic sanctions and even national security barriers as China switches deftly to new product and export areas.

This antipathy has a history of incredulity and indignation on the part of Western powers that China could have made the great leap forward it has since abandoning the excesses of Maoism. China is promising another great leap now.

I must admit that when I was asked to speak at a Shanghai conference on economic development several decades go, I suggested that China should focus on exports of simple consumer goods to mass markets in the developing world. Such patronising attitudes were common even at that time.

The sectors being emphasised now by the Chinese leadership include electric vehicles (EVs), batteries and solar panels – dubbed the “new three” areas.

The global market for such products is vast as developing and advanced economies alike strive to meet climate and other green targets. As such, the products are likely to be welcomed by consumers at the relative low prices China can offer.

They also provide China with a way to diversify its economy away from an overdependence on sectors such as property development, as Hung Tran, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, suggested in a recent paper.

Products from these new productive forces account for some 11 per cent of China’s gross domestic product and are capable of a significant expansion, according to Tran, formerly a senior economist at the Institute of International Finance.

The Energy Intelligence Group estimates that the new sectors will account for 18 per cent of China’s GDP by 2027 while the property sector shrinks to a smaller but more sustainable 15 per cent, from a peak of 25 per cent.

The problem for the increasing number of countries, led by the United States, that see China as a competitive, across-the-board threat in manufacturing is that China’s newly endorsed plans imply that it will have a much greater production capacity than needed to satisfy its domestic market.

This is likely to lead to a surge in low-priced Chinese exports to Europe, the US and the rest of the world. For example, China makes most of the world’s solar panel components but consumes barely a third of them, according to Tran. The rest has to be exported.

China’s EV lead is unassailable – the Global North simply can’t compete

China’s EV exports have meanwhile increased by 1,500 per cent over the past three years, helping China replace Japan as the world’s largest car exporter, observes Tran.

Alarmed at the prospect of their markets being swamped by Chinese green energy products enjoying state support and their domestic manufacturers being squeezed, the European Union has begun anti-dumping investigations into Chinese EV imports with a possibility of imposing countervailing duties.

The US is, meanwhile, going an almost absurd step beyond and seeking to brand electric cars from China as a threat to national security. It has opened an investigation into data leak risks by Chinese vehicles using “connected” car technology. The White House has spoken of Chinese EVs as “creating new avenues for espionage and sabotage”.

All this is part of what has become an almost life-and-death struggle between the US and China that can only intensify as the US presidential election approaches. It is, however, not so much a struggle for supremacy as a Chinese attempt to ward off a hostile challenge from the US and others.

With much of Europe having taken sides with the US, the Global South is an obvious new battleground for China to focus on, whether it be Asia, Africa, Latin America or the Middle East. And the outcome of the battle is far from clear.

As Tran observes, China’s offer of moderately priced EVs and other products that enable a green revolution is likely to be a strong lure for Global South consumers and governments alike.

Rich nations won’t meet energy transition goals by shunning Chinese firms

We may expect to see Western countries retaliating with claims that such Chinese products are of inferior quality to (more expensive) Western products, in the same way China’s Belt and Road Initiative was undermined.

For now, China is on the back foot as it grapples with problems in its property sector and local government finances, in addition to a barrage of criticism from piqued Western sources that has diverted both foreign business investments and portfolio investment from its shores.

But these attacks seem to stem more from a defensive weakness than self-confidence, and the competitive weaknesses of Anglo-Saxon countries coupled with a possible stock-market-induced financial crisis could tip the balance before long. He who laughs last laughs longest.

China toddler with 1 leg puts on own prosthetic leg for first time as mother cheers on, melting hearts on social media

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3254062/china-toddler-1-leg-puts-own-prosthetic-leg-first-time-mother-cheers-melting-hearts-social-media?utm_source=rss_feed

A two-year-old child from China has melted hearts on mainland social media after she independently attached a prosthetic limb for the first time and successfully stood up.

One online user who uses the pseudonym “Iron Leg Girl Xinhe” from Jiangsu province in southeast China shared the heartwarming video, which featured the toddler navigating the process of attaching her limb and following guidance from her mother, surnamed Kong.

In the video, the mother constantly praises her daughter with encouragement like: “Which part do you wear first? Wow, baby, you’re amazing! Then what comes next? You’re so talented! Xinhe is just too incredible!”

At the start of the process, the toddler, who was not identified, initially attempts to directly apply the prosthetic’s outer shell without using the foam padding or the fitted sock for protection.

However, her mother patiently led her down the correct road.

“Can you think of what else you forgot to put on? Shouldn’t you also wear this?” asks the mother.

When the little girl figured out the prosthetic and stood up, she excitedly walked around and did a little spin on her bed.

Concluding the video, Kong says: “A mother knows that growing up will give you strength. As parents, we strive to pave your path carefully. May you live life fully, with sincerity, bravery, and confidence.”

Kong explained to BaiLu Video that her daughter was born without her right leg and some fingers due to congenital Amniotic Band Syndrome, a disorder in which bands of tissue in the mother’s uterus entangle a developing fetus, most often wrapping around an arm, leg, fingers, or toes, which restricts blood flow.

This can lead to the separation of the affected body parts from the fetus or amputation after birth. It can even cause fetal death in the uterus if blood cannot reach vital organs.

The baby’s condition was not discovered until after birth, and the child began wearing a prosthetic limb when she was 10 months old.

“She has been wearing prosthetics for over a year now and has already gone through four different sizes. We have been putting them on and taking them off for her every day,” Kong said.

“That morning, my daughter said she wanted to try putting it on herself, and she did. This was the first time she put on a prosthetic limb, although she did not put it on correctly and I eventually helped her. She spent about 16-17 minutes trying to get it right.”

The video had attracted 61,000 likes and about 8,000 comments at the time of writing, eliciting a wave of support and blessings for the little girl.

“The prosthetic limb is simply shoes for her. She is such a brave girl!” one person said.

Another said: “This little girl is awesome! Everyone feels sorry that she is missing a leg, but no one noticed that she’s also missing four fingers, meaning she’s using her palm and fist to wear the prosthetic. It’s hard even for us adults to put on socks with a fist.”

“The child has already suffered, and I hope the rest of her life goes smoothly!” added a third.

Chinese man accused of helping to steal diamond ring from Singapore pawn shop

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3254784/chinese-man-accused-helping-steal-diamond-ring-singapore-pawn-shop?utm_source=rss_feed

A man accused of helping to steal a three-carat ring worth more than S$132,000 (US$99,000) from a pawn shop in Singapore’s Lucky Plaza told a court on Friday that he is a law-abiding citizen in China who somehow fell into this situation.

Luo Yi, a 50-year-old Chinese national, is linked to two alleged accomplices, Lu Jingnan and He Yuanlin.

Luo is accused of abetting the theft of the diamond ring from a ValueMax pawn shop on July 16 last year.

According to Lu’s past court hearing, the theft took place a few days after Lu scouted the shop. Lu then returned to the location with Luo, while He stayed outside.

While Luo spoke to a male employee about gold jewellery, Lu got a female employee to retrieve diamond rings from a glass display case.

Luo allegedly positioned himself in a way that blocked the male employee from seeing Lu when Lu made a signal to him.

While the female employee was distracted, Lu placed the 3-carat diamond ring in his pocket and left the shop, before taking a taxi to Woodlands Checkpoint.

Luo and He left the mall in different directions.

Singapore arrests Chinese national after US$80,000 stolen on Hong Kong flight

Lu and He then left Singapore by bus via Woodlands Checkpoint. The pair were later arrested in Malaysia.

Luo left Singapore via Changi Airport and was at large for several months. He was later arrested and remanded from November 2023, according to court records.

On Friday, Luo was set to plead guilty. He appeared in court via video-link from his place of remand.

He had two questions for the court. He wanted to know the difference between his amended charge and the previous charge, and whether his new charge could be amended to say that he had unintentionally aided the theft.

After explaining the difference between the charges, Deputy Public Prosecutor James Chew told him that the charge could not be amended that way, as the offence of abetment by aiding requires that the abetment be intentional.

Luo then told the court via a Mandarin interpreter: “I am a law-abiding citizen in China, and I’m a legal representative of a company. The theft was already committed, but I got foolishly dragged into this matter.

“I did not abet. There was no common intention. I’m already in my 50s, I have never committed any offence. But I have unintentionally aided in the theft so I plead guilty to this.”

Singapore jails domestic helper for stealing US$43,000 of employer’s valuables

He claimed that he had never known Lu and He until he met them in a casino in Singapore.

“I didn’t have their numbers before coming to Singapore. In my last 50 years, I do not know this Lu or He person. I do not know them, I do not have their contact details, WeChat or phone number,” said Luo.

District Judge Lee Lit Cheng asked: “So you didn’t know they were planning to steal a diamond ring, and you did not intentionally help them?”

“Yes,” answered Luo. “Also, I don’t know when they came to Singapore.”

The judge then said she could not accept his guilty plea.

Upon hearing this, Luo said he wanted to plead guilty to get it over with and did not want to “fight” a case.

Singapore jails Chinese men for stealing casino chips with glue on their palms

The judge repeated her explanation to him several times about how she could not take his guilty plea as he insisted that he did not have the intention to abet the crime.

After some back-and-forth, she sent the case back for a pre-trial conference.

Lu pleaded guilty to his crime and was sentenced in November to jail for two years and eight months.

He, who was not involved in distracting anyone or stealing the ring, was given a stern warning.

This story was first published by

‘Sky baby’: China social media hails pilot who made mid-air dash from cockpit to help deliver baby in plane toilet on Taipei-Bangkok flight

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3254633/sky-baby-china-social-media-hails-pilot-who-made-mid-air-dash-cockpit-help-deliver-baby-plane-toilet?utm_source=rss_feed

A commercial pilot has been hailed as a hero – and become a darling of mainland social media – for leaving the cockpit mid-flight to help deliver a passenger’s baby.

Jakarin Sararnrakskul, from Thailand, who has 18 years flying experience, was at the controls of a VietJet plane from Taipei in Taiwan to Bangkok in Thailand on February 23.

During the journey a passenger went into labour and he safely delivered her baby, making him feel proud, Sina News reported.

It is unclear whether the mother-to-be informed the cabin crew about her condition before boarding.

As the plane cruised at thousands of feet she was found in one of the bathrooms about to give birth by members of the cabin crew, who told Jakarin immediately.

The father-of-one had never helped with a delivery before but he appeared calm, if somewhat nervous throughout the birth.

Pilot-turned-midwife Jakarin knew that flying the plane back to the airport of departure or landing at another airport would be too late for the woman.

He left his female co-pilot at the controls and rushed to the mother-to-be.

Details of the challenges he faced during the birth have not been disclosed, but Jakarin’s actions safely brought a newborn baby boy into the world.

The child was nicknamed “Sky baby” by cabin crew.

With the support of paramedics who were on standby at the Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport, both the mother and her baby boy were sent, safe and healthy, to a hospital in the Thai capital.

Jakarin shared a photo of himself holding the child on his social media account, with the caption: “I have been a pilot for 18 years. I just helped a newborn baby on the plane”.

When being asked how he felt about the unexpected experience, he said he was very proud of himself for being brave enough to help the passenger deliver the baby.

“He will be able to tell everyone for the rest of his life that he was born in the air,” he said of the baby boy.

The news report cited a study carried out in 2020 by the International Society of Travel Medicine which said that there were 74 births on commercial flights between 1929 and 2018, 71 of which survived delivery.

This means that there is one birth per 26 million passengers.

Mainland social media has been captivated by the story.

One online observer said: “Wow, how brave he is. Amazing!”

“It was very lucky this woman had such a great pilot,” said another.

While a third person said: “The pilot is a hero sent by god.”

“I hope the baby boy will grow up to be as kind and brave as his hero,” another added.

Philippines strikes security deals as tensions rise with China at sea

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/09/philippines-south-china-sea-security/2024-02-27T20:24:03.009Z

MANILA — The Philippines has been striking new defense agreements with other countries at a rapid clip, seeking to build what officials here call a “network of alliances” that could deter Chinese aggression in disputed waters.

The Philippines has signed or entered discussions over new security agreements with at least 18 countries since a Chinese coast guard vessel flashed a military-grade laser at a Philippine coast guard ship in the South China Sea last year, according to the Philippine Defense Department.

While the deepening Philippine alliance with the United States — which includes granting the U.S. military expanded access to Philippine military bases — has drawn much attention, Manila’s security campaign goes beyond Washington.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made nearly a dozen overseas visits in 2023, many to seek security assistance and military equipment. This year, his schedule includes delivering a rare address before the Australian Parliament as well as the keynote speech at Asia’s premier defense summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore.

Since 2022, the Philippines has inked new defense agreements with the European Union, India and Britain. Japan, Canada and France are looking at signing visiting-forces agreements with the Philippines, which would allow those countries to send troops to Philippine bases, according to their embassies.

Rebuffed by China, Philippines’ Marcos toughens line on contested waters

If adopted, these agreements would give the Philippines one of the most robust security networks in Asia, expanding the global stakes in the rising tensions over the South China Sea, Philippine officials say. “Given that we are the underdog, we leverage our relationships with other countries,” said Jonathan Malaya, assistant director of the country’s National Security Council. “Our network of alliances is critical.”

China claims much of the South China Sea, part of the Pacific Ocean that is bounded by China, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei. In recent years, China has stepped up its presence in these waters, building artificial islands with military infrastructure such as radar domes and runways.

Off the coast of the Philippines, Chinese ships have swarmed Philippine vessels and ignored appeals by Philippine officials to stop their aggression. Earlier this week, a Chinese coast guard ship fired water cannons at a Philippine coast guard vessel, shattering a windscreen and injuring four personnel, Philippine authorities said.

Last year, Marcos’s administration responded with what it called a policy of “assertive transparency,” broadcasting videos of aggressive Chinese actions at sea. But in recent interviews, top officials said the country needs more than a publicity campaign to defend its sovereignty.

China has previously accused the Philippines and the United States of fueling tension in the South China Sea. Asked by reporters last year about joint air and maritime patrols between the Philippine and U.S. forces that launched in November, Wu Qian, a spokesperson for China’s Defense Ministry, said Washington had “instigated and emboldened the Philippine side to infringe upon China’s sovereignty.”

More recently, Ji Lingpeng, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Manila, said that “bringing in outside forces and forming ‘small circles’ will not help resolve disputes in the South China Sea, but only complicate the regional situation [and] undermine regional peace and stability.”

How Chinese aggression is increasing the risk of war in the Taiwan Strait

Philippine officials disagree, saying their country is standing up for its sovereignty, not acting on behalf of Washington. And with a third of the world’s shipping passing through South China Sea, diplomats in Manila say many countries — not just the United States — have good reason to deter Chinese aggression.

If other nations don’t defend international law, the “right of might” wins, Luc Véron, the European Union’s ambassador to the Philippines, said in an interview. “We cannot accept that our freedom of navigation in South China Sea will be impeded … by any players,” he added. In July, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made the first state visit by an E.U. leader to Manila in nearly 60 years, vowing to increase maritime security cooperation with the Philippines. “Security in Europe and security in the Indo-Pacific is indivisible,” she said.

Japan is negotiating a reciprocal access agreement with the Philippines that would allow the militaries of both countries to conduct joint training and exercises, similar to the Visiting Forces Agreement that the Philippines has with the United States. Diplomats from Canada and France said their countries are considering similar arrangements.

Vietnam, which also borders the South China Sea, last month signed a series of new agreements with the Marcos administration, including the establishment of a hotline for maritime affairs and a memorandum of understanding on encounters with one another in the South China Sea. “Both countries very clearly recognize that the primary threat to their national sovereignty does not lie in each other, but to the north,” said Ray Powell, SeaLight director at the Stanford University Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation.

The Philippines is also building up its military arsenal with foreign help. India is scheduled to deliver the first of three batteries of supersonic cruise missiles to the Philippines this year, part of a $375 million contract. The Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and Sweden have offered to supply drones and submarines, while the United States, on top of supporting the Philippine military’s modernization efforts, has provided $120 million annually in grant funding to the country’s security forces, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

“The ultimate goal is for credible defense,” said Malaya, the security official.

Marcos is the son of a former Philippine dictator once considered a pariah in international politics. But his efforts to push back against Chinese territorial intrusions have won him new popularity among leaders wary of Beijing’s growing ambitions, said Dindo Manhit, president of the Manila-based think tank Stratbase ADR Institute. “Why will all these countries visit this small [Southeast Asian] country being led by the son of a dictator?” Manhit said. “Simply because he said he will assert our rights.”

Marcos’s courtship of security partners marks a sharp shift from his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who publicly “realigned” himself with China during his six-year term. Duterte took offense when world leaders criticized his war on drugs for violating human rights and civil liberties, and at various points threatened to abrogate the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States and to expel European diplomats.

Although Duterte’s term has ended, his daughter is Marcos’s vice president. Tension between the families has risen, and in January, the two presidents publicly traded barbs, accusing one another of being addicted to drugs. If the Duterte family returns to power, the Philippines could rescind security commitments or swing back to a more pro-China foreign policy, political analysts say.

China’s debt-ridden Guizhou faces reckoning after years of splashing out on pricey projects

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3254680/chinas-debt-ridden-guizhou-faces-reckoning-after-years-splashing-out-pricey-projects?utm_source=rss_feed

After more than a decade, a rapid and debt-inducing construction spree in one of China’s poorest regions appears to be significantly abating. But analysts suggest it will take years for Guizhou province to reduce its burden amid a series of controversies surrounding how local governments continue to handle their financial problems.

The southwestern province, known for its undulating hills and mountains, also boasts some of the world’s most spectacular bridges and roads. It is also among the most indebted regions, while its per capita income ranks among the worst when compared with other Chinese provinces.

The Guizhou government’s outstanding debt in 2023 accounted for 72 per cent of the region’s gross domestic product (GDP), above the 60 per cent standard set by the central government, according to CSCI Pengyuan, a rating agency in China.

“There were indeed some development pressures in the past, but with the help of the central government and coordination from eastern and western regions, we have resolved [debt] difficulties to a considerable extent,” said Zhao Ziyi, a Guizhou deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC) and dean at the Guizhou University of Finance and Economics, on the sidelines of this week’s annual meeting of the national legislature in Beijing.

Beyond China’s boondoggles, where will investments go when even water is a risk?

Zhao said that investment remains part of a range of tools to develop the provincial economy, but consumption has “gradually” become a driver.

Meanwhile, Guizhou has made strides in the advancement of smart agricultural models, improving its crop-growing efficiency, according to state media reports. And what’s more, Zhao said, the service sector in Guizhou has undergone “tremendous” changes over the years. Investments related to transport have resulted in more people coming to visit or live in the region, she said.

“The role of investment in the entire economy has been gradually [replaced] by others. We will work together to overcome this difficulty,” she added.

The Guizhou government announced on February 23 that it had allocated 319.74 billion yuan (US$44.5 billion) for infrastructure projects this year, down 60 per cent from 800.39 billion yuan in 2023. The average annual expenditure for large-scale projects was roughly 770 billion yuan between 2017 and 2023 for Guizhou, based on government data.

The downsizing of investments by the Guizhou government came amid Beijing’s call for more efforts to resolve local debt problems while tightening scrutiny of local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) – platforms used by local governments to borrow off-budget to fund infrastructure projects.

Guizhou is the top issuer of “special refinancing bonds”, debt with lower interest payments aimed at replacing the higher-yielding LGFV debt, GF Securities said, noting that after Beijing approved the sales of such bonds in October, Guizhou had sold 258.8 billion yuan worth of such debt by February 23.

Although fixed-asset investments in Guizhou helped the region speed up its gross domestic product (GDP) growth to a top-three level in China between 2011 and 2020, the province failed to build profitable new industries. The traditional manufacturing of baijiu, a distilled Chinese liquor, has long helped support tax-revenue growth for the local government.

Meanwhile, Guizhou’s debt pressure kept mounting, with more than 100 LGFV defaults in private transactions between 2018 and 2022, according to estimates by GF Securities, triggering serious concerns over Guizhou’s ability to repay what it had borrowed.

China’s graft busters shame city boss for wasting US$21 billion on pet projects

The cash-strapped province has also been caught up in a number of controversies stemming from its financial problems, including a 20-year loan rollover of an LGFV in 2023 that saw the banking sector take the brunt of the local government debt crisis. A former party official of Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou, admitted to spending recklessly on large-scale tourism projects while in office in a state media documentary in January, saying he believed he would not be held accountable for it.

And last month, the arrest of a businesswoman in Liupanshui city, Guizhou, made headlines after it was revealed that she had attempted to recoup millions in back payments from local authorities for construction work she had done. A subsequent public outcry undermined confidence in how officials were dealing with their debt problems.

Xia Xiaoqing, a lawyer with the Jiangxi Xunbo Law Firm, said there are always risks associated with local government contracts, even though they often come with guarantees.

Will more of China’s distressed state firms seek long-term debt restructuring?

“However, government projects are managed by specific officials,” Xia said in a commentary posted on the law firm’s social media account on WeChat on Tuesday. “Therefore, the risks of government projects are more human risks. We also hope government project management will be more standardised”, in terms of following the rule of law.

China’s finance minister, Lan Foan, pledged on Wednesday to improve the management of local government debt, and to gradually resolve the associated risks through “high-quality development”.

Some analysts do not expect Guizhou’s debt pressure to go away any time soon. This year, Guizhou will see a total of 74.23 billion yuan worth of LGFV debt maturing, or a third of its outstanding LGFV debt, and the ratio will further rise to 37.1 per cent in 2025, according to estimates by GF Securities.

“The debt formed by Guizhou’s investment-driven development model in the past 10 years will take considerable time to resolve, and the impact of the pandemic on its tourism industry will also take time to repair,” GF Securities said in a note on February 29.

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The Philippines’ ties with Australia are ‘stronger than ever’. Is it a sign it has West’s backing in South China Sea?

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3254706/philippines-ties-australia-are-stronger-ever-it-sign-it-has-wests-backing-south-china-sea?utm_source=rss_feed

In stark contrast to his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte’s no-show at the last Asean-Australia Special Summit in 2018, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s cosy ties with Canberra were on full display at this year’s meeting, in what observers have described as a signal from Manila that it has the backing of the West.

Given the Philippines’ attempts to forge stronger security and defence cooperation with other Asian allies, particularly India and Japan, a trilateral deal between the three nations might also be a distinct possibility in future, the analysts added.

In a speech on Monday in Melbourne, Marcos Jnr delicately balanced his opposition towards Chinese aggression in the South China Sea by saying that it was necessary for the Philippines to work and negotiate with Beijing, while also firmly expressing Manila’s rejection of Cold War-style geopolitics stemming from the US-China rivalry.

Just days earlier, the Philippine president had made a historic address to the Australian parliament, proclaiming his country would not cede “one square inch” of its territory and would defend its sovereignty amid Beijing’s aggression in the South China Sea.

It was in this context that Marcos Jnr explained why the strategic partnership between the Philippines and Australia had “grown more important than ever”.

“From the very beginning, we knew that our interests were intertwined,” he said, referencing previous wars Filipino and Australian forces were involved in. “We have long known that our prosperity and development are anchored in the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific.

“Today, that peace, that stability and our continued success have come under threat. Once again, we must come together as partners to face the common challenges confronting the region,” he said. “Not one single country can do this by itself, no single force can attend, counter them, by themselves.”

Filipino envoy says South China Sea is the ‘real flashpoint’ in Asia, not Taiwan

Marcos Jnr’s comments were symbolic, said Bjorn Dressel, director of the Australian National University’s ANU Philippines Institute.

“This is meant to clearly indicate to Asean member states and to the region that the Australia-Philippine strategic partnership is alive and well, and stronger than it has ever been,” he said, referring to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Dressel said Marcos Jnr’s words also sent a subtle message to China that the Philippines had military and security support from the West if it needed it.

Alongside collaboration on military patrols, he said the Philippines also valued having other countries such as Australia and the US step up to fend off unacceptable acts of aggression in the South China Sea.

“For international law to be respected, you rely on other state actors to lend you support whenever there is a violation,” Dressel said.

Beijing and Manila have for months been locked in an increasingly tense face-off in the disputed sea, with China deploying coastguard ships and other non-military vessels to try and force Philippine boats off contested areas.

In November, Australia began joint patrols with the Philippines in the disputed waterway for the first time.

Andrea Chloe Wong, a research fellow at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs in New Zealand, said Marcos Jnr had signalled that Canberra was a special partner, but was careful to state that the Philippines would not cooperate with one country at the expense of another.

South China Sea code: Philippines’ U-turn a sign tensions still hinder progress

Asia-based academic Richard Heydarian said it was clear Marcos Jnr was serious about growing a strategic relationship with Australia, especially given the lull in their ties over recent years.

However, Marcos Jnr risked overinvesting in the relationship by trying to rally for international support in the South China Sea, when others such as Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim were more reticent in calling out China, said Heydarian, who is the professorial geopolitics chairholder at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

Under Duterte’s administration, Manila pivoted to Beijing and was sceptical about greater US and Australian support, even questioning their resolve about countering China.

Duterte also criticised Australia for meddling in Filipino affairs by condemning his anti-drug campaign that led to more than 6,000 extrajudicial killings.

After talks with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Melbourne on Monday, Malaysia’s Anwar warned Australia and the US not to drag Southeast Asia into their grievances with China, as he reiterated his criticism of growing “China-phobia” in the West.

He pointed out that Malaysia remained “fiercely independent” even as the region found itself under increasing pressure to pick sides between China and the US.

“If they have problems with China, they should not impose it upon us,” Anwar said. “We do not have a problem with China.”

‘We face coercive actions’: Australia offers Asean millions for maritime security

Don McLain Gill, an international-studies lecturer at De La Salle University in the Philippines, said Manila’s “robust” foreign policy of deepening and broadening its security ties, with partners in the region and beyond, was aimed at strengthening its maritime security and defence capabilities.

“[It’s] also to ensure that the South China Sea remains open and rules-based.” Such a position would “inevitably upset China”, Gill said, and raise concerns among other Southeast Asian nations that are ambivalent about external powers’ growing military presence.

“However, it must be understood that even if Manila’s position was not as robust as it is now, China would continue to pursue its narrowly driven security interests in the region,” he said. “Thus, Manila has realised the need to become more proactive in seeking options to address this challenge.”

Jagannath Panda, head of the Stockholm Centre for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs, said that amid Manila’s naval skirmishes with Beijing in the South China Sea, its strategic ties with Canberra helped the Philippines strengthen its contacts with Australia’s other Western allies.

“Solidifying strategic contacts with Australia does help Manila to gather and share enough timely information on China’s maritime activities,” Panda said.

Noting that the Philippines was one of the few countries that shared a close equilibrium with the US-led security architecture in Southeast Asia, Panda added that after the Permanent Court of Arbitration verdict in 2016, Manila had been exploring opportunities to strengthen strategic ties with “like-minded countries”.

“Japan, Australia and India figure highly in the Philippines’ maritime security strategy,” Panda said, especially in maritime security and deterrence against Chinese maritime advance.

The 2016 verdict refers to the Hague-based court, which ruled in favour of the Philippines and determined that major elements of Beijing’s claim – including land reclamation activities in the South China Sea – were unlawful.

“A strategic complementarity has been building between India, Japan, and the Philippines for some time now,” Panda said, adding that the nations also shared a posture of “revisionism resistance” vis-à-vis China’s attempts to change the status quo.

The Philippines said in January that it hoped to sign an agreement with Japan by March allowing the deployment of military forces on each other’s soil.

During a visit to Manila in November, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tokyo would help improve the Philippines’ maritime law enforcement capability through the provision of patrol vessels and defence equipment, including a coastal radar surveillance system.

The Philippines and India are also looking to step up defence ties after Philippine foreign minister Enrique Manalo visited last year.

As well as upgrading interactions among defence officials, they plan to open a resident defence attaché office in Manila and expand joint maritime training and exercises.

“These three non-Western countries have been quite vocal against China, questioning the authoritarian revisionist practices China is pursuing in both the land corridors and maritime corridors,” Panda said.

“Though a formal strategic trilateral between India-Japan-Philippines is yet to be established, such a trilateral is very much a practical proposition.”

Stephen Nagy, a professor of politics and international studies at Tokyo’s International Christian University, said so-called minilateral security cooperation was growing among partners in the region, in case of an incident in the South China Sea or Taiwan.

“The evolution of these partnerships will be fuelled by Chinese behaviour. A more conciliatory Beijing will see less cooperation between various countries, [while] a more assertive Beijing will push these countries together,” he said.

Zero-dollar tourism is scourge of China travel industry, but what is it and how can people avoid its many traps?

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3254052/zero-dollar-tourism-scourge-china-travel-industry-what-it-and-how-can-people-avoid-its-many-traps?utm_source=rss_feed

They are known as “zero-dollar tours” and they have proliferated with the resurgence of China’s tourism industry – both domestic and international – in the post-Covid era.

These tours almost always come with a ridiculously low price tag, but should carry a “buyer beware” warning which says, “If it looks too good to be true, then it almost certainly is not”.

Here, the Post delves into this problematic form of tourism and lays out some of the red flags people should watch out for.

What is zero-dollar tourism?

China’s tourism industry has experienced a robust post-pandemic rebound with domestic tourists spending approximately 633 billion yuan (US$88 billion) over the 2024 Lunar New Year holiday period.

This marked a 50 per cent increase from 2023, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

While many travellers prefer group tours for the convenience of having all logistics managed by agencies, however, in a bid to attract customers, some travel tour businesses offer “zero-dollar tours” which claim to cover the cost of transportation, accommodation, and meals.

However, such tours often turn into a trap.

As the business model relies heavily on commissions from tourist shopping, many agencies may use coercion and enticement to ensure spending at selected stores that sell overpriced products.

If shopping quotas are not met, tour guides may refuse transportation or even insult tourists.

In February, a family was told to leave a tour bus by the guide after they refused to buy a gold bracelet costing 50,000 yuan (US$7,000) while travelling in the renowned tourism province of Yunnan in southwestern China.

In another incident in the same province in June 2023, a guide berated passengers who refused to shop.

The situation can be even worse for travellers in unfamiliar locations such as Hong Kong, Macau, and other Southeast Asian countries.

Dodgy tactics

Besides forced shopping, zero-dollar tours may use a range of methods to extract money and exploit tourists.

These include the imposition of additional fees upon arrival at destinations, or including only free, often unremarkable, tourist spots on the itinerary.

If tourists refuse to pay the extra fees, guides may retaliate by withholding transportation, accommodation or meals.

In addition, by limiting the itinerary to less notable sites that are free to enter, tourists may find themselves spending considerable time missing out on enriching and valuable experiences.

Red flags

Such tours can offer some benefits like saving money and effort.

However, the key to enjoyment is to stay alert and rational when it comes to shopping.

One elderly man, surnamed Guo, shared his experience of a budget trip to Hong Kong with the media outlet, Tide News.

“At my age, I’m not adept at planning trips. This way of travelling is very convenient for me. Even when I enter a shopping store, I simply control myself not to make any purchases,” said Guo.

“Not buying anything won’t hurt. At worst, I might face some anger from the tour guide, or I’ll just buy something minor,” he added.

A woman, surnamed Zhu, who joined on a 68-yuan (US$9) one-day tour to Yiwu, in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, said:“Being able to go for just 68 yuan is great!

“I’ve been on such tours before and am familiar with their tactics. If the items are inexpensive, buying a little is OK with me!”

China’s Tourism Law explicitly forbids travel agencies from organising trips at unreasonably low prices to entice tourists and obtain commissions through arranged shopping or additional paid activities.

Consumers are advised to select reputable travel agencies, sign formal contracts and make official complaints about underhand travel firm tactics.

China’s payment vow ‘positive step’ for visitors, foreign investment, but economy and security concerns remain

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3254683/chinas-payment-vow-positive-step-visitors-foreign-investment-economy-and-security-concerns-remain?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s vow to offer greater acceptance of cash and overseas bank cards represents a “positive step” to attract visitors and investments, but more is still needed to address economy and security concerns, analysts and business associations said.

The State Council on Thursday promised to improve policy support to optimise payment methods, which has been a hurdle for foreigners in a market dominated by domestic players.

It also pledged wider support for currency exchange services for the elderly and global travellers in a bid to create a more user-friendly payment market.

“The work to reform the hardware and software needed to support foreign bank card payments should speed up, and the possibility of developing touchless payment methods should be explored,” the State Council document said following a policy briefing on optimising payment methods last week.

“Bank card clearing institutions would be urged to be in line with international payment platforms.”

Boon for expats, visitors as China approves Mastercard’s card clearing licence

The document also vowed to impose greater punishments on shops that reject cash and also offer more foreign currency exchange and cash services to ensure “a seamless connection” between local and foreign payment markets.

Banks and payment institutions were also requested to make the process of opening an account easier.

Following the release of the State Council document, the top players in China’s digital payment market, including Alipay, WeChat Pay and UnionPay, issued statements vowing to improve services in accordance with the guidelines.

But Joe Mazur, senior analyst at Beijing-based consulting firm Trivium China, said the approach was part of efforts by Chinese policymakers to give “easy but marginal wins to foreign business in lieu of addressing their main concerns”.

“Easier payments for foreigners could help at the margins, but it doesn’t address the main concerns that foreign investors have about China, including the lacklustre economic recovery and worries about personal security,” Mazur said.

Raffa Vincenzo, vice-president of the Italy-China Association of Business, described the document as a “positive step”, but also said more work was needed.

“At the same time, we welcome further steps in addressing remaining challenges like differences in payment practices and the legal environment to build a fair and sustainable environment for all,” he said.

Beijing has vowed to remove more financial barriers for foreigners and improve access for overseas firms in its financial market against a backdrop of challenges in enticing tourists and foreign investment after it relaxed its coronavirus controls last year.

Low social status and income: why ‘people are reluctant’ to be carers in China

China has long limited the use of foreign bank cards due to Beijing’s rigid financial and data controls.

While its mobile-payment penetration rate has reached 86 per cent domestically, according to the state-backed Xinhua News Agency, non-mobile users and foreigners who were unable to use payment methods such as Alipay and WeChat Pay without a local bank account still face hurdles.

Mobile devices are used to pay for everything in China, ranging from food delivery to holidays.

And many businesses no longer keep change for cash transactions despite only slightly over 64 per cent of internet users aged over 50 in China having used mobile payment services, data firm Statista said in January last year.

The People’s Bank of China and various ministries have established working groups to make payment easier for foreigners.

The central bank said last week that foreigners would be able to spend up to US$5,000 on a single mobile payment transaction, up from the previous limit of US$1,000.

In July, WeChat Pay and Alipay, which dominate China’s retail payment market with transactions worth 348 trillion yuan (US$48.4 trillion) in 2022, enabled overseas tourists to link their credit and debit cards issued by Visa, Mastercard and other major international operators.

China also approved the Chinese joint venture of American payment firm Mastercard to conduct yuan clearing operations and issue yuan-denominated bank cards in November, making it the second overseas bank card clearing institution approved after American Express in 2020.

Chinese general calls for crackdown on ‘fake combat capabilities’ in the military

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3254722/chinese-general-calls-crackdown-fake-combat-capabilities-military?utm_source=rss_feed

A top Chinese general has vowed to crack down on what he called “fake combat capabilities” in the military, which experts say is likely related to weapons procurement – the focus of corruption investigations.

General He Weidong, the second-ranked vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during a discussion with a People’s Liberation Army delegation on Tuesday, according to minutes from the meeting made available to media.

The discussion was part of the ongoing “two sessions” gathering of China’s legislature and top political advisory body in Beijing.

Analysts say the message from He – China’s No 3 military official – was brief and ambiguous, but could relate to the procurement of flawed equipment, and also deception among the ranks during training.

James Char, a research fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said He’s remarks could be to do with “the recent exposés on procurement violations within the PLA”.

Char said they would have implications on the quality of military hardware “and the PLA’s performance on an actual battlefield”.

Fu Qianshao, a former equipment expert with the PLA, said He appeared to be partly referring to the procurement of flawed weapons, which Fu also noted could affect the military’s combat capabilities.

“The weapons and equipment should reach the technical standards,” Fu said. “So counterfeiting will surely have an impact on how they function.”

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There has been a sweeping purge of Chinese military officials in recent months, particularly from the rocket force that oversees the country’s nuclear arsenal, and the equipment procurement units.

Li Shangfu was removed as defence minister in October with no explanation, and from the CMC ahead of the two sessions.

Nine generals, including top rocket force commanders, were ousted from the legislature in December, suspected of “violations of discipline and the law” – a euphemism for corruption.

And three senior executives from the state-owned aerospace and defence sector were removed from the top political advisory body in December, followed by a prominent rocket scientist in January.

“Fake combat capabilities” could also refer to “fake” drills that do not reach the standards required, such as “night exercises” being conducted around sunset – something military mouthpiece PLA Daily has reported on in recent years.

The PLA is meanwhile under pressure from Beijing to boost combat readiness, with President Xi Jinping calling for the military to step up “real combat” exercises and training to prepare for “stormy seas” ahead at a time when geopolitical tensions are rising and rivalry with the US is heating up.

Fu, the former PLA equipment specialist, said He’s comments also hinted at the problems with training, and that it “should be conducted according to the actual combat requirements – it must not become a show”.

During the PLA discussion in Beijing on Tuesday, there was more emphasis on loyalty to Xi – who is also chairman of the CMC – than in previous years.

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CMC vice-chairman Zhang Youxia noted that ultimate responsibility rested with the chairman and said that would be “thoroughly implemented”, underlining Xi’s tightening grip on the military.

At another meeting on Wednesday, senior generals also pledged to deepen the anti-corruption drive.

Liu Zhenli, a CMC member, called for stronger efforts to tackle graft and another member, Zhang Shengmin, said the military must “resolutely eradicate the soil and conditions that breed corruption”.

Chen Guoqiang, a member of the PLA delegation, suggested big data and other intelligence tools be used to fight corruption in the military.

Chinese scientists produce diamond with highest electrical conductivity

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3254485/chinese-scientists-produce-diamond-highest-electrical-conductivity?utm_source=rss_feed

A diamond material that can conduct electricity while maintaining its ultra-hardness has been created by scientists in China.

The team said the new material could be used in a wide range of applications such as in air and spacecraft, under extreme conditions such as high heat and strong acidity, as well as in sewage treatment.

Diamond, the hardest natural material, is a good conductor of heat but not electricity. So to create the new material, the scientists combined it with graphene. While both are forms of carbon, graphene has high electrical conductivity.

“The diamond composites, consisting of interconnected diamond nanograins and few-layer graphene units, exhibit the highest electrical conductivity ever reported and excellent hardness or toughness,” they wrote in an article published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America in February.

“Our findings pave the way for realising conductive and super hard large-sized diamond materials under mild synthetic conditions, facilitating their practical utilisation in related industrial applications,” the scientists from Zhengzhou University, Henan Academy of Sciences, Ningbo University and Jilin University said.

In the study, the team developed a method to form centimetre-sized composites of diamond and graphene.

Using nanodiamonds, they synthesised ultrafine diamond grains interconnected with graphene layers under moderate temperature and pressure conditions of 12 gigapascals between 1,300 and 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,372-2,732 degrees Fahrenheit).

Study author Yang Xigui, a professor at Zhengzhou University who specialises in diamond materials and high-pressure physics research, said the manufacturing of the new material is compatible with existing processes to produce lab-grown diamonds.

He said the composite exhibits excellent toughness, meaning it would not easily rupture. This would make it good for use in air and spacecraft engines, which tend to experience high pressure and temperatures during operation.

The conductive and durable material could also support electrocatalysis in sewage treatment, he said. Plus it could be deployed to extremely hot, highly acidic or alkaline environments while maintaining stable performance in the long term.

Chinese scientists use diamond to make high-power chips for electronic warfare

“Our demo product looks similar to a coin with a 13mm (0.5 inch) diameter and thickness measuring 1-2mm. Graphene gives it its black appearance,” Yang said. “Its size and shape could be adjusted per request to fit its application.”

Cheng Shaobo, who is also a study author and a professor at Zhengzhou University, said diamond material development is an example of the close integration of industry, academia, research and application.

Zhengzhou is in the central Chinese province of Henan, a major producer of lab-grown diamonds globally. According to state newspaper China Daily, by July last year, about 95 per cent of the world’s synthetic diamonds were made in China, with 80 per cent of them from Henan.

“We have mature collaborations with the industry and complement each other. Many technologies were developed with discussions with the industry and some eventually would be applied there.”

Russia, China Aim to Put a Nuclear Plant on the Moon

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/russia-and-china-aim-to-put-a-nuclear-plant-on-the-moon/7517668.html

Russia and China are considering putting a nuclear power station on the moon in about 10 years.

The head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, made the statement recently. He added that such a project could support the building of moon settlements one day.

Borisov said that Russia and China had been working on a moon program together. The former deputy defense minister explained that Russia was able to help with its expertise in "nuclear space energy.”

"Today we are seriously considering a project - somewhere at the turn of 2033-2035 - to deliver and install a power unit on the lunar surface together with our Chinese colleagues," Borisov said.

Solar panels would not be able to provide enough electricity to power future moon settlements, he said, while nuclear power could.

He said the possible plan should be done "without the presence of humans."

Borisov also spoke about Russian plans to build a nuclear-powered spaceship to carry cargo. He said all the technical questions concerning the project had been solved, except for finding out how to cool the nuclear reactor.

He said the ship would be a large “structure that would be able, thanks to a nuclear reactor and ... high-power turbines...to transport large cargoes from one orbit to another.” He added that such a ship could collect objects for many other projects.

Russian officials have spoken before about plans to mine minerals on the moon. But the Russian space program has suffered a series of problems in recent years.

Its first moon mission in 47 years failed last year after Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft lost control and crashed.

Russian officials have said they will launch further lunar missions and then explore the possibility of a joint Russian-China crewed mission and even a lunar base.

Last month, China said it aimed to put the first Chinese astronaut on the moon before 2030.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last month said a warning by the United States that Russia planned to put nuclear weapons in space was false. Putin said the warning was part of a plan to force Russia into arms negotiations on the West's terms.

I’m John Russell.

 

John Russell adapted this story from a Reuters report.

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Words in This Story

expertise –n. special knowledge that relates to field or an industry

deliver –v. to take something from one place to another in order to fulfill a request

install –v. to put equipment or software in a place where it is to be used

lunar – adj. of or relating to the moon

solar panel – n. a large, flat piece of equipment that uses the sun's light or heat to create electricity

cargo –n. products or objects carried by a vehicle from one place to another for a price that is often based on weight

turbine – n. an engine that has a part with blades that are caused to spin by pressure