• ‘Watch yourself’: Beijing warns South Korea after remarks on South China Sea clashes
• Can China let its young tech innovators boldly go where no one has gone before?
• China’s first-of-its-kind study linking suicide rates to air quality is an ‘urgent’ call for global policies
• China’s tech-driven economic growth push needs ‘smarter investment’ to solve overcapacity, economist says
• How China’s unique value system unpins its prosperity and innovation
• Crazed China teacher who smashed girl’s head on desk, punched boy in face is suspended, police launch probe after video of attacks goes viral
• China puts trust in AI to maintain largest high-speed rail network on Earth
• Philippines is on the front line of South China Sea tensions, but ‘WWII-style war’ with China unlikely
• US ambassador to China makes 2-day visit to Hong Kong amid efforts by city’s lawmakers to fast-track Article 23 bill
• Wharf sees more struggles ahead in Hong Kong, mainland China after reporting weak property sales, profit in 2023
• China’s Olympic gymnast Li Ning mulls buying out his sportswear company as ailing Hong Kong market spurs take-private deals
• Modi’s fast-growing India ‘pulling out all the stops’ to edge out China as supply chain leader
• China protests India tunnel opening, warns it will only complicate border issue
• China, Russia and Iran hold 5-day military exercise near Gulf of Oman as Red Sea attacks continue
• China shop owner who insulted tourist for asking prices and not buying anything feels wrath of police
• South China Sea: Philippines’ says China’s maritime proposals go against national interests
• Hong Kong airport’s sea-air logistics park in mainland China handled HK$1.1 billion in cargo in first 2 months of year
• ‘Two sessions’ 2024: China ‘all about the party’s leadership’ as it gets more control over cabinet
• What does Xi’s hi-tech push mean for China?
• Hong Kong’s Baptist University exploring plans to create school combining Western and traditional Chinese medicine; campus to move to Northern Metropolis
• Animal-loving China woman sacrifices life in US with daughter to shelter 2,470 stray dogs and cats, incurs US$70,000 in debt over 15 years
• China’s Inner Mongolia seeks to avoid economic, security impact of ‘hollowing-out’ amid population pressure
• Hong Kong research centre under China Academy of Sciences launches AI tool to assist in complex brain surgery procedures
• US faces ‘increasingly fragile world order’ amid Russia and China threat
• Russia’s reliance on China, North Korea and Iran over Ukraine has ‘potential to undermine’: top US official
• US must use ‘all tools at our disposal’ to outcompete China, says State Department
• China’s rural land is vast, vacant – and not for sale. Would putting it on the market spell windfall or woe?

‘Watch yourself’: Beijing warns South Korea after remarks on South China Sea clashes

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3255135/watch-yourself-beijing-warns-south-korea-after-remarks-south-china-sea-clashes?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing on Tuesday warned Seoul to “behave cautiously and in a neutral manner” over disputes between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea.

China’s foreign ministry expressed “serious concerns” in response to comments from its South Korean counterpart about a collision between Chinese and Philippine coastguard vessels near the Second Thomas Shoal last week.

Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said South Korea was not a party in the South China Sea disputes, but in recent years had “either insinuated or explicitly blamed China” over the matter several times.

“South Korea has shifted from the cautious and neutral stance it had maintained for many years,” Wang said.

China had “always made timely representations and stated opposition” to South Korea’s criticism, he said.

“I once again urge South Korea to watch yourself, refrain from following the trend of hyping the issue, and avoid adding unnecessary burdens on China-South Korea relations.”

Is Philippines at front line of ‘WWII-style war’ with China over disputed sea?

Lim Soo-suk, a spokesman for South Korea’s foreign ministry, said last Thursday that Seoul was “deeply concerned about the dangerous situation” and “use of water cannons against the Philippine vessels in the South China Sea”.

“We support the maintenance of peace, stability and a rules-based order in the South China Sea, as well as the freedom of navigation and overflight based on the principles of international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,” Lim said.

South Korea’s embassy in Manila also voiced concerns on its social media account.

The remarks came after yet another clash between China and the Philippines last Tuesday near the Second Thomas Shoal, a recurring flashpoint between the two sides over the last year.

Manila says Beijing’s South China Sea proposals go against national interests

The Philippine coastguard accused a Chinese vessel of ramming and damaging one of its ships, and injuring four Filipino crew members with water cannons.

The Philippine ships had been sent to resupply military personnel stationed on a wrecked ship that was intentionally scuttled on the reef in 1999. Chinese ships have continuously blocked the resupply efforts, resulting in frequent confrontations.

Wang defended the Chinese intervention, saying the incident was caused by “the violation of China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests by the Philippines”.

South China Sea oil exploration ‘should not involve outside countries’: Beijing

“The Chinese side took the necessary control measures in accordance with the law and operated professionally with restraint, reasonably and legitimately. The responsibility for the incident lies entirely with the Philippine side,” he said.

The Second Thomas Shoal, known as Renai Jiao in China and Ayungin Shoal in the Philippines, is an uninhabited reef located within the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. China claims sovereignty over the reef as well as the entire Spratly Islands, through a loosely defined “nine-dash line”.

Can China let its young tech innovators boldly go where no one has gone before?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3255133/can-china-let-its-young-tech-innovators-boldly-go-where-no-one-has-gone?utm_source=rss_feed

It may not roll off the tongue but “new quality productive forces”, or xinzhishengchanli, was the buzzword at the weeklong gathering of lawmakers and political advisers that wrapped up on Monday in Beijing.

According to the cabinet’s information office, the term describes a departure from the traditional growth engines of the economy towards innovative and sustainable development.

Under this banner, the government vowed to redouble efforts to support new industries such as electric vehicles, new materials, new drugs and the digital economy, as well as foster potential in areas of the future such as quantum technology and life sciences.

However, investment alone is not enough to realise these ambitions. China will need a large pool of talented, innovative people of its own to make up for sanctions and hostility from the West, particularly the United States.

In decades past, China tried to close the technology gap by buying chips, acquiring core technologies, forming joint ventures, hiring professionals from overseas, or sending students to study abroad.

But now US sanctions and suspicions about Chinese companies operating in the West are forcing Beijing into self-reliance mode.

To be fair, China has made immense technological progress in the past decade and is a leading manufacturer of many hi-tech products such as EVs.

In just 10 years, China’s ranking among 132 economies in the Global Innovation Index rose from 35th in 2013 to 12th in 2023.

However, the country still lags behind Singapore and South Korea among Asian economies.

It is also an open secret that China is behind in basic science. The focus has shifted in the past four decades away from trying to answer fundamental scientific questions towards developing advanced technologies that can quickly bring about economic benefits.

That explains why China can make many advanced products and military hardware but struggles to manufacture the most advanced chips and engines for fighter jets.

As Marina Yue Zhang, a social scientist in innovation and entrepreneurship studies at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, told the journal Nature in December 2022, the problem for China is how to shift away from “ranking-driven, catch-up models that focus on short-term incentives” such as journal publications, to pursuing “long-term knowledge accumulation based on academic curiosity and freedom”.

That realisation seems to be sinking in.

On the sidelines of the “two sessions” on Saturday, Education Minister Huai Jinpeng said China wanted to encourage innovation in young researchere by giving them sustained support.

“[We should] allow them to make mistakes in their studies, tolerate failures so that young people dare to do things other people won’t try,” he said, adding that only by doing so could innovative and revolutionary outcomes be achieved.

But China must confront a dilemma if it is to provide the right conditions to nurture this kind of entrepreneurial spirit.

At the micro level, schools teach model answers to predictable questions and students are punished for disobedience.

China’s top science discoveries reveal research momentum, funding challenges

At the macro level, decision making and resources are becoming more centralised as the Communist Party assumes more of the decision-making functions of the government.

At the societal level, initiatives by the public such as non-governmental organisations are not welcome, and maverick and dissident views are punished.

So the big question is whether it really is possible for China to nurture innovators who are inquisitive and creative enough to think outside the box.

Also, is it enough for China to pour resources into top-down innovation when there is little innovation bubbling up from the bottom and joint ventures are no longer as easy as before?

Innovation is more than just academic papers or citations but a culture that gives the young generation the space and safety to explore unconventional ideas and bold experiments, whether it be in technology, business or even public governance.

China’s first-of-its-kind study linking suicide rates to air quality is an ‘urgent’ call for global policies

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3255106/chinas-first-its-kind-study-linking-suicide-rates-air-quality-urgent-call-global-policies?utm_source=rss_feed

The researchers behind a first-of-its-kind nationwide study that has directly linked cleaner air to lower suicide rates say they hope their analysis will inspire future environmental policymaking around the world.

“It may seem counterintuitive, but our research confirms that there is indeed a causal relationship among the two and that improved air quality has played an important role in reducing suicide rates in China,” Zhang Peng, a researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s school of management and economics, and co-lead author of the study, said on Monday.

Air pollution from fossil fuels linked to 5 million deaths a year, study finds

Zhang and his collaborators estimated that China’s battle against particulate pollution – especially the fine particulates of less than 2.5 microns known as PM2.5 – had prevented around 46,000 deaths by suicide in the country between 2013 and 2017, accounting for about 10 per cent of the observed decline in suicide rates over that period.

The study, involving mostly researchers from China, was published last month in the journal Nature Sustainability, “adds urgency to calls for pollution control policies across the globe”, the authors said.

Zhang said the impact of the environment on health and human capital was a growing area of interest in disciplines such as public health and economics.

While the focus of research has often been on physical health problems related to respiratory or cardiovascular systems such as asthma, experts have begun to realise that environmental factors can affect mental health – including suicides – as well as cognitive development.

In an interview with Phys.org, co-lead author Tamma Carleton, an assistant professor at UC Santa Barbara in the United States, said suicide rates in China had fallen much faster than in the rest of the world, while at the same time air pollution levels in China had also declined.

China launched its Action Plan on Prevention and Control of Air Pollution in 2013 to tackle what was then a serious air pollution problem.

Why indoor air pollution matters as much as the pollution outdoors

“It’s very clear that the war on pollution in the last seven to eight years has led to unprecedented declines in pollution at a speed that we really haven’t seen anywhere else,” Carleton said.

Because other social changes, such as robust economic growth and increasing urbanisation, have also played a role in reducing suicide rates over time, the team set out to determine whether China’s fight against air pollution had also helped to lower the country’s suicide rates.

The biggest challenge in the study was to quantify if – and to what extent – cleaner air led to lower suicide risks.

Zhang said that over the past two decades “advances in statistical methods in economics have made it feasible to determine whether there is a causal relationship between two related things”.

To help with their analysis, the team collected official demographic data from institutions such as the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

To identify a causal effect, the researchers tried to isolate polluted days that were not related to human activity by taking advantage of an atmospheric condition known as inversion, when a warm air mass traps pollution near the Earth’s surface.

The team then correlated nearly 140,000 observations of weekly county-level suicide reports between 2013 and 2017 to a set of around 1,400 air pollution monitors across China, comparing weeks that had inversions to those with more typical weather.

“Weekly suicide rates increased immediately when air pollution worsened in that week,” Zhang said, adding that they found that older people, especially women, were more vulnerable.

The authors suggested some possible explanations for why higher PM2.5 levels might cause more people to kill themselves, including the idea that particulate matter has direct neurological effects on brain function.

Although some previous studies had uncovered a positive association between air pollution and suicides, they had been smaller in scope, for instance in a specific city, Zhang said.

Air pollution cuts lifespans in South Asia by 5 years or more: study

By providing robust evidence from a nationwide analysis for the first time, he said, their findings could improve understanding in the public and the scientific community of the direct health effects from air pollution.

He said the research could also encourage policy decisions aimed at environmental improvement.

“Policymakers should consider how many lives can be saved when measuring the cost-benefits of air treatment in the future,” Zhang said.

If you have suicidal thoughts or know someone who is experiencing them, help is available. In Hong Kong, you can dial 18111 for the government-run Mental Health Support Hotline. You can also call for The Samaritans or for Suicide Prevention Services. In the US, call or text 988 or chat at for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. For a list of other nations’ helplines, .

In the US, call or text to 988 or chat at for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

China’s tech-driven economic growth push needs ‘smarter investment’ to solve overcapacity, economist says

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3255110/chinas-tech-driven-economic-growth-push-needs-smarter-investment-solve-overcapacity-economist-says?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing should pursue “smarter investment” and refine industrial policies to address overcapacity in traditional manufacturing and infrastructure, as China has been caught in rising trade barriers amid its shift toward tech-driven growth, according to a prominent economist.

Failing to do so would risk China being trapped into years of stagnation, as seen in Japan and Europe over the past decades, according to Peking University economics professor Cao Heping.

He highlighted that overproduction of consumer and industrial goods, as well as overinvestment, are hurting China’s economic health and Beijing needs to find pragmatic patterns to spearhead its technology push, especially new materials and emerging industries, to remain competitive internationally.

“The biggest problems currently on the surface appear to be with the property market, unemployment, trade or economic growth. But from an economic perspective, it is actually about three different types of overcapacity,” Cao told state-backed news portal China.org.cn last week.

“There needs to be smarter investment in areas where we are seeing overcapacity,” Cao said, adding that the support should be led by publicly-funded institutions.

“When we are at a period of rapid economic structure reform, an efficient government should help adjust opportunity costs and sunk costs for there to be an efficient market,” he added, referring to sunk costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered.

China’s economic slowdown is also being dragged further down by sluggish domestic consumption, low confidence from foreign investors and pressure from trade sanctions led by the United States.

‘New productive forces’: empty rhetoric, or engine for China’s future growth?

Beijing has repeatedly called for new economic engines – which have been termed “new quality productive forces” by Chinese officials- to focus on industries that can yield home-grown innovation and hi-tech development to move the world’s second-largest economy up the global value chain.

In December, top Chinese leaders called “overcapacity in some industries” a major challenge for 2024 at the annual central economic work conference.

And Premier Li Qiang repeated the narrative that China’s development model would curb industrial overcapacity and be transformed to one that leads to “high-quality” production during his government work report to the annual “two sessions” last week.

But industries hailed by Beijing as new growth engines, including electric vehicles (EVs) and related industries such as battery production, have continued to spark questions of overcapacity at home and abroad.

Beijing said in January that it would take “forceful measures to prevent superfluous projects” in the EV industry amid a brutal price war between domestic players.

China has, according to estimates by consultancy Automobility, an excess capacity of between 5 million and 10 million vehicles per year.

The EV industry has also increasingly raised concerns and faced pressure from global competitors, with the European Commission having launched an investigation into low-cost Chinese imports last year.

China must therefore find new growth points from further developing related industries that would stimulate the development of new technology and industries, including further developing chips as well as technology related to car engines.

China rails against EU’s train subsidy probe – will relations stay on track?

“Developing new materials, new energy and new systems would be the way to fix the overcapacity and bring us to a pragmatic path that would see economic growth,” Cao said.

“Firstly, materials are the foundation to produce everything. Secondly, developing energy is so that the materials can be used. Thirdly, we need to be able to put together new systems and new end-products from production of compartments and small parts.

“[Overcapacity] has made China unable to further compete with other industrialised countries through traditional large-scale manufacturing industries, because China’s industrial output value has long surpassed even the top 10 countries added all together.”

Cao warned that if China was unable to “bring the economic structure out from the original path”, and allow science and technology to be the leading driver, it risked being faced with years of stagnation.

How China’s unique value system unpins its prosperity and innovation

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/asia/article/3255060/how-chinas-unique-value-system-unpins-its-prosperity-and-innovation?utm_source=rss_feed

As China grapples with enormous challenges – including an imploding property sector, unfavourable demographics and slowing growth – doubts about the future of the world’s largest growth engine are intensifying. Add to that China’s geopolitical rise, together with deepening tensions with the United States, and the need to understand China’s political economy is becoming more urgent than ever.

A recent book by MIT’s Yasheng Huang – The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline – can help. Huang unpacks the “East” heuristic from the historical record to arrive at a clear conclusion: China must make radical changes if it is going to realise its full development potential. Huang argues that the seeds of China’s decline were planted with the implementation of the stifling civil service exam system.

Before the keju system was introduced, China was producing some of history’s most transformative inventions such as gunpowder, the compass and paper. Huang’s empirical research suggests Chinese creativity peaked between 220 and 581, during the rather chaotic Han-Sui interregnum. “The first wave of technological stagnation in China,” Huang observes, “coincides with the end of China’s political fragmentation.”

The book does seem to overstate some aspects of the historical record to offer a “cleaner” narrative than might be warranted. A data set of prime ministerial resignations forms the basis of Huang’s conclusion that, with the introduction of keju, checks and balances between emperors and their bureaucrats disappeared in favour of a “symbiotic relationship”.

The result is an almost linear narrative of decline. But that is difficult to square with the Qing dynasty’s “industrious revolution”, during which China’s population more than doubled and its share of global gross domestic product reached one-third.

Huang can also be extremely perceptive such as when he challenges David Landes’ judgment that the state kills technological progress. Huang argues that “China’s early lead in technology was derived critically – and possibly exclusively – from the role of the state.” Quoting the Nobel laureate economist Douglass North, he writes: “If you want to realise the potential of modern technology, you cannot do it with the state, but you cannot do without [the state], either.”

But what kind of state? In Huang’s view, autocracy “has deep roots in China because of its near-immaculate design, absence of civil society, and deep-seated values and norms”. But China’s tendency toward “unitary rule”, he writes, is fundamentally cultural, with the “causal direction” of autocracy running “from culture to politics, not the other way around”.

Similarly, many modern Chinese scholars blame China’s waning fortunes in the 19th and 20th centuries on conservative Confucian ideology, which lacked any spirit of discovery or impetus for risk-taking. Huang suggests that in times when Buddhists and Daoists represented a larger share of prominent historical figures, relative to Confucians, novel ideas were more likely to flourish.

But there are reasons to believe China’s state structures and policy preferences are not just cultural in origin, but also – or perhaps rather – the result of deliberate institutional arrangements. In any case, a narrow focus on China’s top-down structures can obscure the bottom-up nature of many aspects of Chinese political and economic life.

Huang notes that China’s political economy is also characterised by autonomy. China has benefited from state management in the form of deliberate, top-down policies but private initiatives that are bottom-up and chaotic have also proved vital to its development. Understanding the balance between control and autonomy is essential to any assessment of the challenges China faces.

The Rise and Fall of the EAST also considers why China has so far managed to avoid what he calls “Tullock’s curse” – the instability or conflict caused by the bad and misaligned incentives that define autocratic successions. But it might have benefited from a deeper analysis of another phenomenon explored by the economist Gordon Tullock: rent-seeking.

Any country’s economic – and human – development trajectory is determined largely by whether elites use their power to create or extract value. One might dismiss the “robber barons” as amoral but the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Carnegies and others played a pivotal role in making the US the world’s most prosperous country. Likewise, tech monopolies created by Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg continue to exemplify American innovation.

Unfortunately, Huang’s account lacks a nuanced assessment of the relationship between rent-seeking and value creation. He might have noted that China’s “elite quality” is much higher than that of other countries with the same per capita GDP. Instead, it is comparable to European Union countries with triple China’s per capita GDP.

Sustainable value creation underpinned China’s double-digit growth rates for decades. Nonetheless, as Huang makes clear, the development strategy that propelled China’s rise over the past few decades has largely reached its limits. China must harness its innovative potential and high-quality elites to spur its “animal spirits” and strengthen its institutions, all while pursuing greater liberalisation.

Whatever comes next will be based on China’s unique traditional value system, which, as Huang emphasises, has underpinned prosperity and innovation in the past. And it will reflect the grit – not rigidity – that lies at the core of China’s political economy.

Crazed China teacher who smashed girl’s head on desk, punched boy in face is suspended, police launch probe after video of attacks goes viral

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3254168/crazed-china-teacher-who-smashed-girls-head-desk-punched-boy-face-suspended-police-launch-probe?utm_source=rss_feed

The worrying list of incidents in which educators in China physically assault students just got longer after a primary school teacher carried out a violent and prolonged assault on two of her pupils.

The unnamed former Primary Six maths teacher at Jinquan Primary School in Hunan province, central China, was filmed by another teacher as she carried out the outrageous attacks.

She was caught on camera banging a girl’s head on a desk and then punching a boy’s face in a teacher’s office on February 28.

The teacher has since been suspended and police are investigating, Great Wall New Media reported.

In a viral video, she is seen yelling at and assaulting the girl.

She begins by pinching her face, pulling her hair back and banging her head on the desk. When the boy approaches the teacher, she grabs his face and hurls a textbook at him.

“You do the maths, you do the maths,” the teacher screeches, and punches the girl.

The girl is silent and keeps her head down as the teacher continuously bangs it on the desk. When the girl stands up, the teacher shoves her away using considerable force.

“You tell me. Are you blind? I will beat you to death,” the hysterical teacher shouts at her.

The girl remains silent, so the teacher persists in asking her for the answer to an arithmetic question: “What exactly is it?” she screams.

As the shocking violence continues, the teacher is filmed scratching the girl’s face so hard she almost falls over.

The teacher then shifts her attention to the boy who passes his homework to her. Meanwhile, the girl is looking at her book, when suddenly, the teacher slaps her head with it. The girl is visibly shaken.

After glancing at his homework, the teacher turns to lecture the boy, punches his face, and throws the girl’s homework at him. Silently, the girl turns to pick it up.

The shocking video has been widely circulated online, resulting in a probe by the Education Bureau, and the suspension of the teacher.

At the time of writing, the video had attracted 200,000 comments on Douyin, with many people online expressing outrage.

“Oh my god, it’s too horrible,” said one.

“Why isn’t anyone in the office trying to stop the cruel teacher?” asked another.

Incidents of teachers physically assaulting students are on the rise in China.

In late 2023, a primary school teacher was suspended because she told girls who had been caught eating in class to slap themselves. She also ordered the boys in the class to smack the girls if they did not hit themselves hard enough.

Last July, it was discovered a private school teacher had been abusing students for years, and forcing them to slap, spit on and humiliate each other.

Also in that month, footage from a surveillance camera that showed another teacher at a school in northern China punishing students with physical violence went viral on mainland social media.

China puts trust in AI to maintain largest high-speed rail network on Earth

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3255039/china-puts-trust-ai-maintain-largest-high-speed-rail-network-earth?utm_source=rss_feed

China is using artificial intelligence in the operation of its 45,000km (28,000-mile) high-speed rail network, with the technology achieving several milestones, according to engineers involved in the project.

An AI system in Beijing is processing vast amounts of real-time data from across the country and can alert maintenance teams of abnormal situations within 40 minutes, with an accuracy as high as 95 per cent, they said in a peer-reviewed paper.

“This helps on-site teams conduct reinspections and repairs as quickly as possible,” wrote Niu Daoan, a senior engineer at the China State Railway Group’s infrastructure inspection centre, in the paper published by the academic journal China Railway.

In the past year, none of China’s operational high-speed railway lines received a single warning that required speed reduction due to major track irregularity issues, while the number of minor track faults decreased by 80 per cent compared to the previous year.

According to the paper, the amplitude of rail movement caused by strong winds also decreased – even on massive valley-spanning bridges – with the application of AI technology.

Machine intelligence can predict and issue warnings before problems arise, enabling precise and timely maintenance that keeps the infrastructure of high-speed rail lines in better condition than when it was first built, according to the researchers.

Niu and his team said the significant amount of data generated by the sensors embedded in high-speed rail infrastructure was “forcing China to adopt new technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence”.

The adoption of these technologies allowed for “more precise and timely assessments and scientific evaluations of infrastructure service status”, they said.

According to the paper, after years of effort Chinese railway scientists and engineers have “solved challenges” in comprehensive risk perception, equipment evaluation, and precise trend predictions in engineering, power supply and telecommunications.

The result was “scientific support for achieving proactive safety prevention and precise infrastructure maintenance for high-speed railways”, the engineers said.

Before construction began on China’s first high-speed rail line 15 years ago, critics argued that maintenance would become an unbearable burden as wires and rails inevitably aged.

By the end of last year, the network surpassed the length of the equator, posing an engineering and technological challenge to maintain its safe operation.

Across the Pacific, the ageing US railway network is facing the same issue, with lack of maintenance leading to frequent safety incidents. In the past 50 years, the average number of derailments has exceeded 2,800 per year, peaking at nearly 10,000 in 1978.

China’s high-speed rail is the fastest in the world, operating at 350km/h (217mph), with plans for an increase next year to 400km/hr (249mph). The network is expected to continue its rapid expansion until it connects all cities with populations over 500,000.

But Niu’s team identified a looming problem for the rail network, in the combination of rising incomes, a declining birth rate and the overall ageing of the population – the number of maintenance workers will gradually decrease compared to present levels.

China’s middle-income population passes 500 million mark: state-run newspaper

The engineers said the emergence of AI as an opportunity for high-speed rail health management was recognised more than a decade ago, in countries like Germany and Switzerland.

Both European countries proposed plans to improve rail maintenance using machine intelligence, but their railway networks were small in comparison to that in China, the team pointed out.

To meet the need for extensive real-world data to train the AI system, Chinese railway scientists and engineers collected and organised nearly 200 terabytes of raw data for AI – more than 10 times the entire data volume of the US Library of Congress.

The data comes from various sources and formats, including dynamic waveform values captured by wheel sensors, records of train body movements, rail vibrations, and meteorological records.

According to the paper, fluctuations in power grid current amplitudes – and even electromagnetic spectrum monitoring records – have been used to train the system.

AI’s advantage lies in its ability to analyse diverse data, identify potential problem-related clues and uncover previously unknown connections within seemingly chaotic data sets. This enables more precise fault identification and prediction.

Niu’s team said the technology had improved the efficiency of new data analysis by 85 per cent. Previously, the maintenance management headquarters in Beijing was able to issue nationwide warnings once a week. Regular reports are now issued daily.

According to the paper, the China State Railway Group implemented a data management protocol in 2022, imposing numerous restrictions on data storage, usage, and other privileges to make sure the system remains under control.

The AI algorithms underwent rigorous human review to ensure their safety before being included in the toolbox, the engineers said.

While the AI technology gap between China and the US appears to be widening, some observers suggest it is actually narrowing and that there may be Chinese breakthroughs in certain critical areas using smaller, specialised models.

US government sanctions are preventing China from accessing the most advanced AI chips, slowing its development of large models – like OpenAI’s Sora and its realistic simulations of the physical world.

But self-driving cars equipped with high-performance lidar sensors are becoming increasingly affordable and popular in China, where AI has also taken the lead in weather forecasting systems.

Automated port terminals have significantly improved logistics efficiency and intelligent ultra-high-voltage power grids are sending wind and solar energy from the Gobi Desert to distant regions across the country.

A scientist working in AI applied research in Beijing, who asked not to be named, said the emergence of large models like ChatGPT and Sora was “a pleasant surprise”.

“If the US can translate this technology into tangible productivity, it has the potential to maintain its leadership position in the world. Otherwise the leadership will be an illusion.”

Philippines is on the front line of South China Sea tensions, but ‘WWII-style war’ with China unlikely

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3255068/philippines-front-line-south-china-sea-tensions-wwii-style-war-china-unlikely?utm_source=rss_feed

Philippine leader Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s recent comments in Australia on his country being at the “front line” of regional tensions have cast the spotlight on one of Manila’s darkest moments in history 82 years ago.

In Canberra for the Asean-Australia summit last week, Marcos Jnr told the Australian parliament: “As in 1942, the Philippines now finds itself on the front line against actions that undermine regional peace, erode regional stability and threaten regional success.”

He was referring to the time in World War II when Filipinos and Americans stood against the onslaught of Japan, which subsequently conquered the Philippines and then brutally ruled and exploited the archipelago for three years. More than a million Filipinos died, and the country was devastated.

Today, against the backdrop of Filipino reservists being deployed in northern Philippine islands less than 200km from Taiwan, and the United States military’s involvement in developing a port in that region, the Philippine leader’s remarks are seen to carry an eerie historical context.

Will stronger Philippine-Australia ties lead to Western support in South China Sea?

Manila is currently mired in a maritime dispute with Beijing that has slowly been escalating in intensity, with China’s forces becoming increasingly forceful in asserting its claims. Chinese ships have all but blockaded a Philippine detachment in an outpost in the Second Thomas Shoal, most recently firing jets of water that smashed the windscreen of a Filipino civilian resupply vessel.

To help deal with the dispute, the Philippines has drawn closer to a host of countries, signing agreements with countries including Britain, Canada, India and Japan. But most of the support comes from the US, a treaty ally.

Since Marcos Jnr took office in 2022, tens of thousands of Filipino and American troops have conducted numerous drills, training exercises and joint patrols. The US has also supplied hardware and funding for developing bases in the Philippines that American forces can temporarily stay in.

On March 9, the Philippine navy announced that more than 100 reservists would be deployed to Batanes, a group of 10 islands that make up the northernmost province of the country, about 190km south of Taiwan. Two days later, Batanes Governor Marilou Cayco, herself a reservist, was quoted in a report as saying the US army would visit her province in April to discuss building a port on the main island.

According to a survey conducted by Octa Research last December and released on March 10, more than three-quarters of the 1,400 Filipinos polled said they were ready to fight for their country “if there is a conflict between the Philippines and a foreign enemy”. The highest percentage of those willing – 87 per cent – was from the age group 45-54.

All this activity resembles the bustle before the outbreak of the second world war in the Pacific in 1941. At that time, the Philippines was an American colony scheduled to be “granted” independence. An increasingly belligerent Japan sought to chase out the colonial Western powers, dominate the region and create a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”.

According to Ricardo Jose, a professor at the history department of the University of the Philippines and a specialist in the Pacific War, back then “the Philippines didn’t have a choice in the matter”.

The Philippines’ location in Southeast Asia, along with the fact that it had big US naval and airbases, made it a frontline country and a definite target.

“By 1941, it was inevitable the Philippines would be invaded,” Jose said.

The professor said the Philippine Commonwealth tried to stave off hostilities. Its president then, Manuel Quezon, “tried diplomacy at the beginning of the Commonwealth government in 1935, also in 1937 and 1938 – he visited Japan in both years and tried to carry out secret talks to ensure the security of the Philippines”.

“But by 1940-41, with the outbreak of war in Europe and the intensification of the Sino-Japanese war, the diplomatic options closed and Quezon turned to the US for assistance,” Jose said.

Anticipating an invasion, the Americans in 1941 augmented the forces in the colony with men, aircraft, tanks and equipment, and Filipinos were called up for training. But the build-up and reinforcements were too little, too late – when the Japanese struck the US Pearl Harbour in Hawaii on December 7 to initiate hostilities in a surprise attack, the defenders weren’t ready. After holding out for four months in Bataan, the American forces surrendered and the Philippines became a Japanese colony.

In an interview with the Nikkei Asia newspaper last year, Marcos Jnr used the same term he mentioned in Canberra to point out how proximity would draw his nation to any conflict involving Taiwan, whose independence from mainland China the US seeks to maintain.

“We feel that we’re very much on the front line,” the president said.

Beijing regards the island as a breakaway province to be brought under mainland control – by force, if necessary. Many countries, including the US, do not officially recognise Taiwan as an independent state but oppose the use of force to change the status quo.

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

For Jose, “I think Marcos meant we were at the forefront of international tensions, in the front lines not of a war but heightened tensions.”

In the second world war, the Philippines became a frontline state not once but twice: the country had the unique distinction of being invaded two times, first by the Japanese in 1941 and then by the returning Americans in 1944.

According to Jose, “the official government estimate of lives lost was 1.1 million-plus. Out of a population of 17-18 million”.

“The Philippines was severely devastated in 1945. Manila’s business and political centre was destroyed and key cities like Cebu, Baguio and Zamboanga were also badly hit. Farm animals were lost, agricultural fields lay fallow,” Jose said. “Not to mention what little industrial machinery we had.”

But specialists said that despite the current references to World War II and the front line, and the defence build-up, it was highly doubtful there was going to be a war.

Justin Baquisal, a strategic intelligence analyst and a graduate student in the political science department of UP, said there was “no dispute on the Philippines being at the front line of maritime disputes, be it tensions in the South China Sea or Taiwan Strait, the Philippines is inextricably linked by virtue of its geography and proximity”.

He noted though that “the analogy with Japan in World War II is not correct”.

“Japan was a rising imperial power at the time, and it not only invaded the Philippines as a US colony, but also many countries in mainland Southeast Asia, like Singapore and Malaysia,” Baquisal said. “Southeast Asian states, some more than others, are frontline states because we are right at China’s doorstep.”

Risk of South China Sea conflict ‘much higher now’: Philippines’ Marcos Jnr

Professor Jose told This Week in Asia, “I don’t think the same thing can happen now, at least in the sense that the Philippines would be invaded and occupied, or fought over.

“The danger of tensions escalating in the West Philippine Sea is very real, but that would not lead to a World War II-style war. Given the advanced state of military technology today, a full-scale invasion of the Philippines would be counterproductive,” he added. “The potential conflict will remain in the maritime borders.”

Don McLain Gill, lecturer at the department of international studies of De La Salle University, predicted the tensions between the Philippines and China were not likely to drop.

“Manila’s desire to more actively safeguard its sovereignty and sovereign rights based on international law, through the deepening and broadening of security ties with traditional and non-traditional partners, creates problems for China’s desire to cement its sphere of influence and its narrowly driven ambitions in the South China Sea,” he said.

But he added, “To say this can lead to a direct shooting war seems unlikely, given that China is also aware of its military limitations and the risks that can be incurred from a direct war.”

According to Gill, China’s intent was “to alter the status quo further in its favour without the overt use of military force”.

“However, such a future is not guaranteed, given the possibility of miscalculation,” he said.

US ambassador to China makes 2-day visit to Hong Kong amid efforts by city’s lawmakers to fast-track Article 23 bill

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3255112/us-ambassador-china-makes-2-day-visit-hong-kong-amid-efforts-citys-lawmakers-fast-track-article-23?utm_source=rss_feed

The American ambassador to China has undertaken a two-day visit to Hong Kong at a time when the local legislature is holding a marathon review process of the city’s domestic national security law.

Nicholas Burns was seen visiting the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Central on Tuesday morning in the company of Gregory May, the US consul general for Hong Kong and Macau.

Burns did not take any questions on whether his trip was related to the Article 23 legislation that will introduce five new types of national security offences in Hong Kong.

Sources told the Post that the top envoy was there to meet the board members of the press club for an off-the-record, closed-door session. The club has held similar exchanges with local and foreign politicians and newsmakers in such settings in the past.

Burns also visited the University of Chicago’s Hong Kong campus on Mount Davis a day earlier and met some students there, another source said.

A spokeswoman for the US consulate only confirmed Burns’ two-day visit, without sharing any further details about the envoy’s itinerary.

“US Consul General Gregory May is hosting US Ambassador to the PRC Nicholas Burns for meetings in Hong Kong [on Monday and Tuesday],” she said.

“These meetings mark the resumption of routine and long-standing internal policy and management coordination discussions.”

The ambassador’s trip takes place as the Legislative Council works to expedite the roll out of the proposed law, which is required by Article 23 of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution. The bill was gazetted last Friday.

The coming legislation, a domestic counterpart of the Beijing-decreed national security law, targets five new types of offences: treason, insurrection, theft of state secrets and espionage, sabotage endangering national security, and external interference.

Legco’s bills committee has vetted at least 120 out of 181 – almost half – of the bill’s clauses since Friday.

Hong Kong’s Article 23 law: ‘6-month wait for absconder status may be scrapped’

Last month, Washington expressed concerns that the “broad and vague” definitions in the coming law could be used to stamp out dissent and its proposed long-arm jurisdiction might be exercised to “intimidate and restrict” Americans.

The strong stance, issued after the city wrapped up its one-month consultation on the bill, drew a fiery rebuttal from Beijing, which slammed the US for its “political manipulation and hypocritical double standards”.

Wharf sees more struggles ahead in Hong Kong, mainland China after reporting weak property sales, profit in 2023

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3255087/wharf-sees-more-struggles-ahead-hong-kong-mainland-china-property-markets-after-reporting-weak-sales?utm_source=rss_feed

Wharf (Holdings) said the slump in Hong Kong and mainland China’s property markets is likely to take more time for it to overcome, after the developer suffered another year of slower sales and earnings in 2023, while letting its land bank deplete to conserve cash.

Total property sales fell by 44 per cent last year, while underlying net profit before provisions slipped by 9 per cent, the developer said in a stock exchange filing in Hong Kong on Tuesday. It sold two ultra-luxury houses in Hong Kong to shore up its income, and has not replenished its land bank on the mainland since 2019 amid a poor market outlook.

“China faces considerable domestic challenges, from a sluggish property market to weak consumer sentiment,” the developer said. “Overall, with numerous external and domestic uncertainties compounding volatility, business outlook remains clouded, and these challenging conditions may take an extended period to fully resolve.”

Wharf has proposed to pay a second interim dividend of HK$0.20 per share on April 25. The stock dropped 0.2 per cent to HK$27.35 on Tuesday, while the Hang Seng Index surged 3.1 per cent to erase all of its declines this year.

The developer said recent measures to remove decade-old financing curbs could breathe new life into the housing market. However, the city’s underlying economic performance still depends heavily on China’s economy, given the deepening integration.

Wharf reported a net profit of HK$945 (US$120.8 million) for the year to December 31, compared with a HK$1.7 billion loss in 2022. The turnaround was aided by a 70 per cent drop in provisions to HK$1.6 billion. They were related to its development properties in mainland China, foreign-exchange losses due to the yuan’s weakness, and fair-value loss on its HK$42 billion investment portfolio.

Excess supply, weak prices plague China’s housing market amid limited policy aid

China’s multi-year housing market slump has produced more than US$160 billion of bond defaults from 2020 to 2023 among the nation’s junk-rated developers, according to an estimate by Goldman Sachs, denting consumer confidence. The crisis has spilled into the new year as excess supply and weak prices have plagued the industry.

In Hong Kong, high interest rates have rocked the market with property transactions plunging in 2023 to the lowest level since 1991, according to official data. The value of those transactions shrank 14 per cent to a 10-year low of HK$478 billion. The monetary authority has raised its base rate 11 times since March 2022 to a level last seen in late 2007.

Wharf (Holdings) is controlled by billionaire Peter Woo Kwong-ching. The group develops residential properties and holds investment assets including offices, malls and hotels. Its major commercial assets in China include Shanghai Wheelock Square and Niccolo Changsha, the tallest hotel in central China. The company also operates container terminals in Hong Kong.

Woo’s other listed vehicle Wharf REIC, which owns mixed-use developments Harbour City and Times Square, reported a 3 per cent drop in net profit to HK$6 billion, despite a 7 per cent increase in revenue to HK$13.3 billion.

China’s Olympic gymnast Li Ning mulls buying out his sportswear company as ailing Hong Kong market spurs take-private deals

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3255089/chinas-olympic-gymnast-li-ning-mulls-buying-out-his-sportswear-company-ailing-hong-kong-market-spurs?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese billionaire entrepreneur and Olympic champion Li Ning is considering taking his namesake sportswear company private from the Hong Kong stock exchange, four people said, adding to a string of such potential deals in a faltering market.

Li is considering leading a consortium to buy out Li Ning Co, which had a market capitalisation of HK$52.85 billion (US$6.8 billion) as of Monday, said the people, who have knowledge of the matter.

Li, 61, founded Li Ning Co a few years after retiring from a decorated gymnastics career in 1988. Along with his family, he owns more than 10 per cent of the company, its 2023 interim report showed.

A number of global and regional private equity firms, including TPG, PAG and Hillhouse Investment, have been tapped to see if they are interested in joining as an investor, two of the people said.

The discussions to take Li Ning Co private are in the early stages and details have not been finalised, said the sources, who declined to be identified as the information was confidential. Li Ning made its Hong Kong debut in 2004.

The company’s shares jumped as much as 20 per cent to HK$24.55 following the Reuters report on Tuesday, the highest since November.

Beijing-headquartered Li Ning Co said in a response to Reuters that it had “not received any information regarding this matter as of now.”

Li did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent via the company.

TPG, PAG and Hillhouse declined to comment.

Stock markets in Hong Kong and mainland China have tanked over the past year amid China’s economic slowdown, a lack of strong stimulus policies and geopolitical tensions.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slumped 14 per cent in 2023, while China’s benchmark CSI 300 index fell 11 per cent.

Li feels his company is undervalued in Hong Kong and would target a hefty premium over its current share price in a potential buyout, two of the sources said.

He did not have an imminent plan to relist his company on the mainland, one of them added.

Li Ning Co was the worst-performing blue-chip stock on the Hong Kong bourse in the past year, down nearly 70 per cent as of Monday, LSEG data showed. That compares with a 25 per cent drop in main rival Anta Sports.

Li was regarded as China’s “gymnastics prince” after winning six of the seven gold medals at the 1982 World Cup Gymnastic Competition, and carried on to win six medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Li Ning Co said in December it would buy a Hong Kong commercial and retail property from Henderson Land for HK$2.21 billion as its headquarters in the city, which sent its shares to a three-and-a-half-year low on the day of the announcement.

Li also said at the time he planned to repurchase up to HK$3 billion of shares from the open market in the next six months, his first such move in its corporate history, according to Citigroup analysts.

In the announcement, the company’s board said it believed its current share price was “below its intrinsic actual value.”

Hong Kong-listed firms have been involved in US$4 billion worth of take-private deals so far in 2024, versus US$1.2 billion for all of last year, Dealogic data showed. Buyers often cited undervalued shares as a reason for the deals.

A number of Hong Kong-listed companies including French skincare company L’Occitane and American luggage maker Samsonite have also recently engaged with advisers and investors about potential take-privates, separate sources said.

Samsonite declined to comment. L’Occitane did not respond to a request for comment.

Bankers, however, cautioned that take-private deals would remain challenging for management or private equity investors, as financing is costly in the current interest rates environment and fair valuation is hard to achieve without a stabilised market.

“There are definitely more inquiries [about take-private deals] since the end of last year,” said Samson Lo, UBS’s co-head of Asia-Pacific M&A.

“The valuation gap is narrowing but there is still a gap. Financing is still a big challenge for any sizeable deals.”

Modi’s fast-growing India ‘pulling out all the stops’ to edge out China as supply chain leader

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3255062/modis-fast-growing-india-pulling-out-all-stops-edge-out-china-supply-chain-leader?utm_source=rss_feed

Gautam Nair is preparing to ramp up production at his clothing factory in Gurugram, betting on a surge of orders from brands like Marks & Spencer and Next as India pursues more free trade pacts with the rest of the world.

Within three years, he expects Matrix Clothing’s exports to the European Union (EU) and the UK to more than double from current levels. “The industry is very excited,” Nair, who co-founded the company, said by phone.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is taking advantage of India’s growing appeal as the world’s fastest-growing major economy and an alternative to China for global supply chains to clinch a number of free trade pacts. India expects its deals with countries from the UK to Australia will help boost its manufacturing and soak up the tens of millions of young people entering the workforce in the years ahead.

The latest, and among the most ambitious, was a trade and investment pact signed with four European countries, including Switzerland and Norway, on March 10. It signalled India’s readiness to take on commitments in areas such as labour, environment and sustainability and gender – topics it had shied away from in the past. It was also the first time India secured an investment commitment – of US$100 billion over 15 years – in such a deal.

India hopes for a digital economy, but can it train 560 million young workers?

India has now signed four FTAs in quick succession since 2021 after a gap of about nine years when no agreements were signed. The latest pact with the European bloc of countries, known as the European Free Trade Association, or EFTA, was hailed by Modi and comes just weeks before elections in which he’s seeking to extend his decade in power.

Negotiations with the UK and Australia are likely to culminate after the Indian elections in April-May, while talks with Oman have already concluded and an agreement may be signed as soon as this month, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified because the negotiations are private.

The hope is that such deals will give a level playing field to India’s textiles sector, which comprise more than 14 per cent of the nation’s annual exports, employs more than 45 million people directly, and contributes more than 4 per cent to gross domestic product. Marine goods, auto and machine parts, chemicals, leather and footwear and gems and jewellery products are also poised to benefit.

In a departure from its protectionist past, India is embracing trade deals in a bid to cash in on shifting global trade alliances. Companies from Apple to Samsung Electronics have boosted manufacturing in India, taking advantage of production incentives offered by Modi’s government.

“This is India’s big historic moment, probably its biggest opportunity on the world stage since India gained its statehood in 1947,” said Alex Capri, a lecturer at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.

To seize that opportunity, the South Asian nation must plug infrastructure gaps and improve the ease of doing business by cutting down on over regulation, taxation and red tape. “Delhi is pulling out all the stops. They know they must fix this,” Capri said.

By integrating into global value chains, India can create 80 million jobs by 2030, according to a government report.

Geopolitically, New Delhi has been forging deeper ties with G7 nations. Now, it’s aiming to align economically as well to compete with countries such as Vietnam and Bangladesh that are also positioning themselves as alternative manufacturing destinations to China.

Investors pump billions into India’s green economy amid ‘favourable climate’

The services sector, which makes up more than half of the nation’s GDP, is also expected to get a fillip. The trade deals will help India secure easier access for professionals in sectors including IT, health and accounting.

For counterparts, India and its market of 1.4 billion people holds massive appeal. On the sidelines of the 13th World Trade Organization ministerial conference last month, EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis noted the “willingness to move forward when we know that traditionally India has been a relatively closed market.”

Tim Ayres, Australia’s assistant trade minister, said early results from the interim trade deal showed strong outcomes for businesses and noted the two nations are working toward phase two.

Yet for all that enthusiasm, roadblocks remain. India and the UK still haven’t resolved differences on issues including investment protection, social security agreements and market access for British apples and cheese.

At home, there are pockets of resistance too. For instance, the confederation of Indian alcoholic drink companies has expressed concern over opening up the market without getting reciprocal treatment.

Vinod Giri, director general of the association, said while most of the focus of trade talks has been duty concessions, non-tariff barriers such as maturity requirements for whiskey in the UK and Europe have made Indian beverages uncompetitive.

Giri said the UK law requires whiskey be matured for a minimum of three years, whereas in warm climates like India’s, whiskey matures 3-5 times faster than in the colder climates of the UK and EU.

“Most of our whiskey is unable to hit those markets due to these barriers, and we want them removed,” Giri said, adding that the longer maturation condition pushes up production costs by as much as 35 per cent. “As long as FTAs are fair and equitable, we have no problem.”

Move over America, China and India will have bigger economies by 2075: forecast

And many are still finding it difficult to do business in India. While there’s a rise in the number of companies mentioning India or Indian investment on earnings calls, that doesn’t always translate into commitments, said Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Singapore-based Hinrich Foundation.

“In many cases, the obstacles to investment or development on the ground in India remain significant,” she said. “These gaps are creating problems for businesses, which means that the positive story around Indian prospects might not be delivered.”

India’s government is aware of the challenge. It’s helping states simplify rules, decriminalising minor offences and repealing redundant laws. The government has also come out with a single window system to speed up the process of getting approvals and clearances needed by investors while cutting compliance burdens.

For Matrix’s Nair, he’s also tempering his optimism. Companies are wary, “because we have been waiting for a long time for the deals to happen,” he said.

China protests India tunnel opening, warns it will only complicate border issue

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3255065/china-protests-india-tunnel-opening-warns-it-will-only-complicate-border-issue?utm_source=rss_feed

Beijing has lodged a diplomatic protest with New Delhi after Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially opened a tunnel built in territories along the two countries’ disputed Himalayan border, weeks ahead of general elections in the South Asian state.

Modi paid a visit on Saturday to the contested region – known as Arunachal Pradesh to India and South Tibet, or Zangnan to China – where he inaugurated the Sela tunnel connecting Tezpur in Assam and Tawang in Arunachal.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Monday that India had “no right to arbitrarily develop the area of Zangnan in China”. The move “will only complicate” the boundary question and “disrupt the situation” in the border areas.

“The area of Zangnan is Chinese territory. The Chinese government has never recognised the so-called Arunachal Pradesh, illegally set up by India and firmly opposes it.” Wang said “solemn representations” had been made.

“China strongly deplores and firmly opposes the Indian leader’s visit to the east section of the China-India boundary,” he said, adding that the border question has “yet to be solved”.

The tunnel, built at an altitude of 13,000 feet (3,960 metres), is expected to facilitate India’s movement of troops and weaponry to forward locations along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) – the disputed 3,440km (2,100 miles) de facto border.

Modi’s announcement came weeks after the 21st round of corps commander-level talks between the two sides in late February – described by China as “positive, in-depth and constructive” and by India as “held in a friendly and cordial atmosphere”.

Both sides said at the time that they had agreed to keep communicating through the relevant military and diplomatic mechanisms, and were committed to maintaining peace on the ground in the border areas.

China and India have been locked in a military stand-off since their fatal border clash in June 2020 but the dispute dates back to 1962, when the two sides fought a war over the contested boundary.

Modi, who has overseen a decisive tilt towards Washington, is widely expected to secure his third term in the April-May polls, with more than 945 million people set to vote.

During his prime ministership, Modi has elevated military ties and accelerated partnerships with the US, Japan and Australia through the Quad – a strategic security dialogue that Beijing has slammed as an “Indo-Pacific Nato”.

Biden and Modi meet in New Delhi ahead of G20, but Xi’s shadow still looms

In July, Modi refused to support Beijing’s landmark Belt and Road Initiative at the virtual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.

A few weeks later, he and Chinese President Xi Jinping met briefly on the sidelines of the Brics summit in August for their first direct conversation in a year. In September, Xi skipped the Group of 20 summit in India.

China has been without an ambassador to India for 16 months. The post has been vacant since the most recent incumbent Sun Weidong was promoted to a foreign vice-ministership in November 2022.

China, Russia and Iran hold 5-day military exercise near Gulf of Oman as Red Sea attacks continue

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3255043/china-russia-and-iran-hold-five-day-military-exercise-near-gulf-oman-red-sea-attacks-continue?utm_source=rss_feed

China has kicked off a five-day joint military exercise with Russia and Iran in the Indian Ocean, the Chinese defence ministry said, as armed conflict in the Red Sea increases.

According to a statement by the ministry on Monday, the navies of China, Iran and Russia will hold the “Maritime Security Belt – 2024” joint exercise from March 11 to 15 in the waters near the Gulf of Oman in the Indian Ocean.

The statement said China sent the 45th escort task force – consisting of the guided-missile destroyer Urumqi, the guided-missile frigate Linyi and the comprehensive supply ship Dongpinghu – to the exercise, “aiming to jointly maintain regional maritime security”.

The 45th naval escort task force has been stationed in the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean since October. It completed escort tasks for 72 Chinese and foreign vessels in 43 batches and provided security for 14 transiting merchant ships before transferring its role to the 46th naval escort task force last week.

It is the second time China has conducted joint drills in the Indian Ocean since the outbreak of war in Gaza after Hamas militants’ surprise attack on Israel on October 7.

In the Arabian Sea in November, China conducted joint exercises with Pakistan involving PLA guided missile destroyer Zibo. The Chinese nationalist tabloid the Global Times said it was “the largest ever” exercise to be held between the two countries.

The joint exercise also comes amid increasing confrontation in the Red Sea after Iran-aligned Houthi in Yemen launched drone and missile attacks on international and commercial shipping to show its support for the Palestinians, which prompted the US-led coalition to launch counterstrikes on the militant group.

Red Sea data cables cut as Yemen’s Houthis hit ship with missile

China, which stations its warships at a naval base in Djibouti near the Red Sea, has not officially condemned the Houthis attacks but according to Reuters Beijing has reportedly urged Tehran to rein in attacks on ships in the Red Sea. China abstained from a United Nations Security Council resolution on the conflict in January.

The Russian defence ministry said its Pacific fleet, led by the Varyag guided missile cruiser and the Marshal Shaposhnikov frigate, had arrived at Iran’s Chabahar port to take part in the joint drill.

“Russian vessels will participate in the joint naval exercise Maritime Security Belt – 2024. It will also involve ships, boats and naval aviation of Iran and China. Representatives of the navies of Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Oman, India and South Africa will act as observers,” the Russian defence ministry said, according to Tass.

Along with Chinese and Russian fleets, more than 10 Iranian Navy vessels and three helicopters are reportedly taking part.

Last month, Rear Admiral Shahram Irani, Commander of the Iranian Navy, announced that Tehran would hold joint drills with Beijing and Moscow before the end of March, aimed at ensuring regional security.

Russia’s reliance on China, others has ‘potential to undermine’: top US official

The tripartite naval drill comes a year after Maritime Security Belt – 2023 featured a five-day drill between China, Russia and Iran in the Arabian Sea. China’s South Sea Fleet destroyer the Nanning, Iran’s light frigate Jamaran and the Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov took part.

The exercise involved live-fire suppression and strike precision, as well as anti-terrorism and anti-piracy training, including a simulated rescue mission to a hijacked merchant ship.

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China shop owner who insulted tourist for asking prices and not buying anything feels wrath of police

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3254166/china-shop-owner-who-insulted-tourist-asking-prices-and-not-buying-anything-feels-wrath-police?utm_source=rss_feed

A tourist in China has complained to the police after a business owner called her a “poor ghost” after she asked about prices and tried to leave without buying anything.

On February 25, in Xiamen, a city in the southeastern coastal province of Fujian, the woman traveller and her partner visited a pearl shop and asked how much an item of jewellery cost, then turned to leave.

The shop owner mocked her, saying: “Poor ghost can’t afford it, but still asked the price,” Houlang Video reported.

The woman said she heard the owner insult her, and decided to confront him.

In a trending video online, the woman is seen asking: “Did you just insult me? Do you think I am an idiot? Did you call me a ‘poor ghost’?”

“If you can’t afford it, aren’t you a ‘poor ghost’? Why did you even come in?” the owner rudely responds.

As the dispute escalated, the visitor called the police, who arrived and tried to diffuse the situation.

Police and market officials have criticised the business owner and told him how his behaviour was unacceptable. He later acknowledged his mistake and apologised.

“I’m sorry, I was actually troubled by family matters that day. I truly apologise,” he said to the visitor, who accepted his apology.

The authorities have told the owner to temporarily close the shop and reflect on his actions.

The video of the incident had attracted around 75,000 likes and more than 13,000 comments at the time of writing, with many condemning the business owner’s behaviour.

“Ah, you should have told him, ‘you’re in fact a poor ghost because you are trying to make money here’,” one person said.

“Please share the location of the shop, so we ‘poor ghosts’ can avoid it, and let the shop owner welcome only the wealthy,” said another.

“This is the attitude you get in some tourist cities. If you buy, you’re a god, if you don’t, you’re a poor ghost,” said a third.

News of tourists being insulted after refusing to buy expensive goods while travelling is not uncommon in China.

In June 2023, a tour guide in the southwestern province of Yunnan berated tourists who did not shop, saying: “Your conscience was eaten by dogs.” It resulted in her license being revoked.

Last April, an elderly man travelling with a group, also in Yunnan, was insulted for not buying anything by a tour guide who called him an “old rascal.”

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South China Sea: Philippines’ says China’s maritime proposals go against national interests

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3255034/south-china-sea-philippines-says-chinas-maritime-proposals-go-against-national-interests?utm_source=rss_feed

The Philippine foreign ministry said on Tuesday it had received several maritime-related proposals from China, but added they could not be considered because they were against the Southeast Asian country’s national interests.

The foreign ministry said among the proposals from China was one where it “insisted on actions that would be deemed as acquiescence or recognition of China’s control and administration over the [Second Thomas Shoal] and that the Philippines could not consider such a proposal “without violating the constitution or international law”.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) was responding to a Manila Times news article quoting an unnamed “ranking Chinese official” as saying that Beijing’s proposals to normalise the situation in disputed areas in the South China Sea were “met with inaction” by the Philippine government.

US part of Philippines’s ‘calculated’ plan to tap oil, gas in South China Sea

“From the outset, DFA wishes to underscore that the Philippines is approaching these confidential negotiations with utmost sincerity and good faith,” it said. “We were, therefore, surprised by China’s disclosure of sensitive details of our bilateral discussions.”

China presented 11 concept papers which proposed ways to manage the Second Thomas Shoal and fishing issues in Scarborough Shoal, the Manila Times reported, quoting the Chinese official.

The foreign ministry denied the Chinese official’s claims, saying, “in no way did the Philippine Government ignore China’s proposals.”

The shoal is home to a few Filipino troops stationed on a rusting warship, which Manila grounded there in 1999 to reinforce sovereignty claims.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, which includes the Second Thomas Shoal, and has deployed vessels to patrol the disputed atoll, which lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Hong Kong airport’s sea-air logistics park in mainland China handled HK$1.1 billion in cargo in first 2 months of year

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3255001/hong-kong-airports-sea-air-logistics-park-mainland-china-handled-hk11-billion-cargo-first-2-months?utm_source=rss_feed

The sea-air logistics park the Hong Kong International Airport operates in mainland China handled HK$1.1 billion (US$140.7 million) worth of cargo in the first two months of the year, with the addition of new infrastructure set to further increase the figure.

Cissy Chan Ching-sze, executive director of Airport Authority Hong Kong, on Monday revealed the latest progress of the airport’s logistics park in Dongguan, whose facility is scheduled to be completed in 2025.

A pier at the airport’s third runway, which would facilitate shipments with Dongguan, was also timed for completion by 2025, Chan added.

The HK$1.1 billion figure puts the authority on track to meet its goal of handling 1 million tonnes of cargo per year by 2025 and underscores its efforts to solidify the airport’s global position as the leading goods-handling hub.

Chan said the authority wanted the airport to serve as an important dual gateway in the Greater Bay Area, which is Beijing’s plan to integrate Hong Kong, Macau and nine mainland cities into an economic powerhouse.

“Currently, 75 per cent of the international air cargo in the bay area goes through the Hong Kong International Airport for onward shipment worldwide,” she said.

Chan added the Hong Kong market was highly globalised, encompassing not only the United States, Europe, but also many other places in Asia.

The airport, with 4.2 million tonnes of throughput in 2022 – the latest available figures – was ranked the world’s busiest cargo airport, surpassing Shanghai, Los Angeles and Tokyo.

In January, Hong Kong’s cargo throughput maintained its robust momentum, recording a year-on-year increase of 31.1 per cent to 377,000 tonnes, with a substantial increase of 44.5 per cent in exports. Cargo flights rose by 27.3 per cent to 6,215 from 4,883.

“Our philosophy is not to sit here and wait for the goods to come from the Greater Bay Area,” Chan said. “Instead, we take a proactive approach by going to its doorstep to provide better service.”

Hong Kong air traffic to make ‘full recovery’ next year: Paul Chan

She noted three current rental facilities in Dongguan were operating with 17 airlines receiving goods and 100 logistic agents on board the pilot scheme, estimating the sea-air intermodal connectivity could save up 30 per cent of shipping time and 50 per cent of logistics cost.

Chan pointed out that the airport’s cargo throughput would be bolstered further after a new UPS hub in Hong Kong, capable of handling 1 million tonnes of cargo annually, was expected to be in service in 2028.

She said extra capacity would stem from DHL’s revamped logistics facility. Last year, Cainiao Smart Gateway started operating as well.

Cainiao is the third-largest warehouse in the city with a gross floor area of 380,902 square metres in a 12-storey facility. It is a logistics arm of Alibaba Group, which owns the South China Morning Post.

The Airport Authority is one of three hosts of the world cargo symposium hosted by the International Air Transport Association from Tuesday to Thursday.

The largest annual air cargo event will focus on driving sustainable and inclusive growth within the industry amid booming demand from the e-commerce sector.

Hong Kong to set up logistics data platform connecting city’s transport hubs

Tim Wong Sau-lim, general manager in cargo service delivery at Cathay Pacific Airways, which is another host of the symposium, said e-commerce was driving the transformation of the air freight industry, accounting for 60 per cent of the company’s cargo’s goods.

“We will continue to strengthen our fleet,” he said. “On top of our existing 20 Boeing 747 freighters, we have already ordered six A350F cargo aircraft, which will be delivered commencing from 2027, and we have secured the right to acquire 20 more.”

But Wong stopped short of saying whether the airline’s current pilot shortage would hinder the company’s future cargo capacity.

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‘Two sessions’ 2024: China ‘all about the party’s leadership’ as it gets more control over cabinet

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3254986/china-all-about-partys-leadership-it-gets-more-control-over-cabinet?utm_source=rss_feed

The legislature on Monday passed a revised law giving the Communist Party more control over the State Council, China’s cabinet – a move experts say marks an end to any separation of power between the party and state.

On the final day of the annual legislative session in Beijing, lawmakers approved the amended Organic Law of the State Council with 2,883 votes in favour, eight against and nine abstaining.

The law now states that the cabinet must uphold the party’s leadership, “implement decisions” it makes, and closely follow the political teachings of top leaders including President Xi Jinping.

“The era of work separation between the party and the government is now over – after four decades, China is now all about the party’s leadership,” said Deng Yuwen, former deputy editor of Study Times, the Central Party School’s official newspaper.

“Xi has successfully revived Mao’s famous slogan about the party’s overall leadership,” he added.

Former leader Mao Zedong’s slogan – “Government, the military, society and schools, north, south, east and west – the party leads them all” – was written into the party’s charter after the 19th party congress in 2017.

Deng said Xi had “consolidated all the major decision-making power for the party and himself, making the State Council just an arm to execute the party’s policy decisions”.

“He put Li Qiang there [as premier] to make sure the State Council performs that exact role it has been given.”

Li, who has been premier since March last year, has been less involved in diplomacy and public engagement than his predecessors as the focus shifts more towards Xi, and loyalty to the leader.

The revision is the first change to the State Council law since it was passed in 1982. Then leader Deng Xiaoping had pushed for a “separation of party and government work” to prevent the overconcentration of power seen during the Mao era, when the Cultural Revolution was unleashed.

Under Deng’s watch, those words – “separate the party from the government” – were also included in the 13th party congress report in 1987.

Those efforts were hindered when Beijing’s pro-reform camp was purged in 1989, but party dominance only really took off when Xi became leader, according to a political scientist at Peking University.

“The party’s tighter grip mainly started after Xi took power in 2012, and especially in the watershed year of 2017,” said the political scientist, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

“Wang Qishan set the tone at that year’s ‘two sessions’, and the 19th party congress in October then introduced sweeping changes to the party and state structure allowing the party apparatus to take charge of all the key aspects of China’s politics, economy and society.”

Wang, who retired from politics last year, was at the time a member of the powerful Politburo Standing Committee and the party’s anti-corruption chief. He had openly brushed aside calls since the 1980s for Beijing to limit the party’s power and separate it from the administrative branches to improve checks and balances, saying there was “no such thing as separation between the party and the government – there is only a division of functions”.

China’s Xi calls for loyalty and honesty from younger officials amid low morale

A year later, Beijing carried out a structural overhaul that elevated several party organs and expanded the power of others to oversee key state functions that had been the responsibility of the cabinet – including diplomacy, security and law enforcement, propaganda, and religious and ethnic affairs.

The party absorbed more power from the cabinet during a smaller overhaul in March last year, when it formed powerful bodies to take command of the vast financial sector, social work, Hong Kong and Macau affairs, and technological development.

The State Council also amended its work rules to clarify that it would closely follow instructions from the party. Several provisions related to government transparency and disclosure of information were also removed. Since then the cabinet has no longer held weekly meetings, instead gathering two or three times a month.

Communist Party orders cells to study Xi Jinping Thought and learn speeches

Deng Yuwen, who is now an independent political researcher based in the United States, said Xi’s consolidation of power would make the decision-making authority clearer but the process would be even more opaque.

“Under the State Council, at least there are some public channels where you can question the ministers on policy directions,” he said, adding that decisions could also take longer now with Xi “becoming the decision-maker for almost all the important policy aspects”.

Deng also noted that the premier’s annual press conferences, usually held at the end of the legislative session, had been scrapped.

“With the premier’s pressers gone, we will not hear directly from China’s top leadership in coming years as Xi has not held any press conferences since he came to power,” he added.

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What does Xi’s hi-tech push mean for China?

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3254844/what-does-xis-hi-tech-push-mean-china?utm_source=rss_feed

The new buzzword in China’s politics is “new quality productive forces”. First used by President Xi Jinping last September, the cryptic phrase is now on every official’s lips, seemingly becoming the answer to China’s economic troubles.

Unfortunately, few outside the establishment understand what it means. Some have dismissed it as a wordplay to mask Beijing’s inadequacies to revive its growth trajectory. History will tell whether the Chinese leadership can succeed in creating these forces, but the phrase is not as empty as some believe.

In classic economics, there are four factors of production: capital, labour, land and entrepreneurship. China’s economic miracle during the past four decades could be explained in terms of the growth of these factors.

Between 1980 and 2017, China’s foreign direct investment increased by more than 90 times, making it by far the top recipient among emerging markets. Similarly, when China first started its economic reforms in 1978, its population was around 960 million. By 2017, it had reached nearly 1.4 billion, adding more than 10 million newborns each year despite restrictive birth-control policies.

This provided a huge pool of young, energetic and hardworking people to power the country’s growth. At its peak, there were nearly 300 million migrant workers – almost the size of the entire population of the United States – leaving their rural homes and going to work in Chinese factories.

Back in 1978, most Chinese people lived in villages – the urbanisation rate was only around 18 per cent. By 2017, this number stood at 58 per cent.

As for entrepreneurship, the country’s mode of business ownership has shifted from Maoist collectivism to a kaleidoscopic mix of all sorts of market entities. At the end of 2022, around 52.8 million enterprises were registered in China, compared to around 23.2 million enterprises in Europe.

At the risk of oversimplifying, this is the formula of China’s success: local governments using cheap land to attract foreign investors to set up factories and creating jobs that absorb the vast surplus labour in rural areas. Products were sold to Western markets. The trade surplus was then used to finance the country’s infrastructure projects. The China miracle is largely a story of the amazing quantitative increase in the four factors of production.

Yet, everything comes to an end. After 40 years, it is hard to see how China can continue this course. Foreign investment dipped for the first time last year. Even if this is just a blip, when many people are convinced it isn’t, it is implausible for Chinese foreign investment to grow at double digits every year.

China’s working-age population – those between 16 and 59 – is also decreasing. With low birth rates and a rapidly ageing society, the demographic dividend might disappear soon.

The same goes for land. The country’s economic growth has exacted a heavy price on its environment. While China is still pushing for urbanisation, how to safeguard its precious farmlands and natural resources has become a challenge to the nation’s food and resource security. With all four factors hitting bottlenecks, China needs to find a new formula to power its growth.

In Marxist theory, technology is the primary aspect of the productive force. It is the qualitative amplifier that will not only raise productivity but also transform the relations of production. A company of 10 people working on computers – all other factors being equal – will produce vastly different products and services from those working with pen and paper.

The “new quality” refers not only to the tools of production but also to workers’ training, a new relationship between various factors, and new services rendered to the consumers.

As the quantitative growth of production factors comes to near exhaustion, China must find the qualitative amplifier to lift its economy to the next stage. Hence Xi’s new favourite buzzword, “new quality productive forces”.

From Deng Xiaoping to Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, all of Xi’s predecessors have put science and technology at the centre of their development strategy. But the China of back then lacked the wherewithal required to transform itself from a mere follower to a pioneer.

Modern research is costly and capital intensive. While science and technology’s importance to a modern economy has always been great, its impact has reached an unparalleled extent today and the pace of technological advancement is accelerating. The advent of artificial intelligence, nuclear fusion, new biotechnology and new materials all promise to revolutionise our sociopolitical fabric. All these create new conditions and substantial challenges for today’s leadership.

‘New productive forces’: empty rhetoric, or engine for China’s future growth?

The concept is about more than the economy. Marxists view technological advancements as the driver in the evolution of modes of production, which in turn will shape and transform the economic structure of society, relationships among classes and ultimately the way we organise and govern ourselves.

To Xi, the survival of the Communist Party depends on whether it can seize the opportunities of these revolutionary changes and take measures to mitigate the negative effects. The party cannot afford to passively react to the changes but needs to take the lead and shape the development.

It is by all means a grand and ambitious goal. Understandably, it will be met with scepticism and doubt. It will also test the popular wisdom that you cannot have innovation by decree and that the very nature of disruptive innovation means a bottom-up creative process.

Yet, it could also be argued that without the government-led and financed Manhattan Project, the Apollo programme or Vannevar Bush’s tireless work that created the foundation for the age of the internet, the United States might not be the science and tech power it is today. If Xi can succeed in his endeavour, history will remember him as a truly transformative leader.

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Hong Kong’s Baptist University exploring plans to create school combining Western and traditional Chinese medicine; campus to move to Northern Metropolis

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3254980/hong-kongs-baptist-university-exploring-plans-create-school-combining-western-and-traditional?utm_source=rss_feed

Baptist University is exploring a plan to set up Hong Kong’s first school combining Western and traditional Chinese medicine in a town near the border with mainland China, after its governing body approved a proposal to relocate its campus.

In an exclusive interview with the Post, Baptist University president Alexander Wai Ping-kong revealed that the governing council had recently “agreed in principle” to press ahead with a plan to move its entire campus to a 60-hectare (148 acres) academic town to be built in the Northern Metropolis.

“Hong Kong has the best specialists of both worlds [in Chinese and Western medicine],” said Wai, who is also a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body.

“There are enough people who believe that this is the right direction to go, although it will take a long time.”

In recent months, a number of local universities have expressed interest in establishing a footprint in the Northern Metropolis, a development project that aims to create an international innovation and technology hub spanning 30,000 hectares near the border with the mainland. The site is also expected to provide housing for 2.5 million people in 500,000 flats.

Baptist University established the city’s first double-degree programme in traditional Chinese medicine and science in 1999. The institution was also appointed by the government to operate the city’s first Chinese medicine hospital.

The current campus in the prime residential area of Kowloon Tong is the smallest among the city’s public universities.

Wai, who assumed office in 2021 for a five-year term, said he envisioned that the plan to move to the border town could include building a new school of “system medicine” to integrate the strengths of Western and traditional Chinese medicine.

“There is sufficient anecdotal evidence that Chinese medicine helps patients change their lifestyle so that they don’t need to rely on drugs all the time,” said Wai, citing treatment of diabetes as an example.

“But the way it works now [is based] too much on the experience of practitioners … We could standardise it in some way – we have to put in a system and make it more evidence-based.”

The concept of system medicine, also known as integrative medicine, has been advocated by scholars for years as a way to integrate the merits of Chinese medicine with its Western counterpart.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong established the Hong Kong Integrative Medical Centre in 2014, which runs the city’s first outpatient clinic operated by a team of Chinese and Western clinical specialists.

Hong Kong PolyU plans medical school, hospital and hotel in Northern Metropolis

The head of Baptist University said one of the challenges ahead was to formulate an internationally accredited curriculum “of reasonable length” to equip students with knowledge and practical experience in both streams.

Existing undergraduate programmes for medical students in Hong Kong usually take six years to complete. The length is the same for most Chinese medicine degrees, excluding at least a year of practical and clinical internship.

“Nobody will want to spend 12 years on a degree. Even if we shorten it to say nine years, will this be accredited?” he said. “Both bodies, particularly Western medicine, are well structured and well governed.”

City leader John Lee Ka-chiu introduced the plan for the 60-hectare university town as part of the Northern Metropolis in his policy address last year.

The town is expected to be completed some time after 2030 under a plan to foster collaboration with top mainland and overseas institutions.

Polytechnic University, where Wai formerly served as vice-president, has proposed building a hospital and a medical school at the site, while City University has chosen it as the location for a new campus to accommodate postgraduate students.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology said it hoped to set up a “satellite campus” there to develop medicine for the future and innovative technology. It earlier announced its plan to establish the city’s third medical school, mostly tailored to students who want to take up a second degree.

University chief hopes to launch Hong Kong’s third medical school by 2027

The city already has medical schools at the University of Hong Kong and Chinese University, but faces a long-standing shortage of doctors. The government has raised the quota for medical students at the two universities, and is also trying to woo more doctors trained outside the city.

On the ongoing legislation of a new domestic security law, Wai said that although he was “surprised” by the fast-tracking of the bill, he recognised the need to complete the process as soon as possible amid US-China tensions in an American presidential election year.

“[Candidates] will keep pushing the ‘China button’ to keep scaring people off … This rumour mongering will kill Hong Kong,” he said.

He also dismissed concerns that the security law would undermine Hong Kong’s internationalism in higher education.

“Internationalism itself is not necessarily a good or bad thing. For a long time we have been a window to mainland China. That is actually what we should focus on,” Wai said.

“The faster we have [the bill] enacted, then faster we can go back to a normal business.”

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Animal-loving China woman sacrifices life in US with daughter to shelter 2,470 stray dogs and cats, incurs US$70,000 in debt over 15 years

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3254164/animal-loving-china-woman-sacrifices-life-us-daughter-shelter-2470-stray-dogs-and-cats-incurs?utm_source=rss_feed

The story of a 66-year-old woman in China who has run up debts of 500,000 yuan (US$70,000) to save thousands of stray dogs and cats has captivated mainland social media.

Animal-lover Dong Shuzhen, from Shandong province in eastern China, has run a shelter for about 15 years.

As a result of providing a home for animals she is constantly in debt and even gave up the chance of moving to the United States to live with her daughter, Sohu News reported.

In a video, a pack of dogs is seen having fun in a fenced-off yard. When Dong enters, they run to greet her.

Dong, who used to own a clothing store, began feeding stray dogs and cats long before setting up the shelter.

“I want them to eat and live better,” Dong said, adding that the cost of running the shelter can reach as much as 1,800 yuan (US$250) a day.

Over the years, she has been forced to move the shelter’s location four times. It is now located in a rural area of 10,000 square metres, which accommodates 2,400 dogs and 70 cats.

A team of 11 workers are employed to look after the animals.

“The biggest dilemmas we face are feeding the animals and paying the workers,” Dong said.

The pressure of owing 500,000 yuan did make her question whether she should continue with the shelter, especially as she longs to reunite with her daughter in the US.

“I’ve tried many times to leave for my daughter, I even got the visa,” Dong said, adding: “But if I left, how would they live?

“I will continue to adopt homeless animals for as long as conditions allow. Every dog and cat has its own story and name,” she said.

Dong’s story has melted hearts on mainland social media.

“This woman is so kind and great,” one online observer said.

“It’s really difficult to keep thousands of animals alive. I do hope she can get support,” wrote another.

Stories about people selflessly devoting their lives to saving stray dogs and cats are not uncommon in China.

At the beginning of last year, a woman in eastern China set up a canteen to feed 17 stray cats she cares for.

In December 2020, a woman in southwestern China who shares her home with more than 1,300 dogs, said she was driven to save them because she worries about what they face on the streets, from accidents to being snatched for the dog meat trade.

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China’s Inner Mongolia seeks to avoid economic, security impact of ‘hollowing-out’ amid population pressure

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3254964/chinas-inner-mongolia-seeks-avoid-economic-security-impact-hollowing-out-amid-population-pressure?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s northern Inner Mongolia autonomous region would prioritise addressing the “hollowing-out” of its border areas amid population concerns that could hinder its economic development and add to security risks.

“Inner Mongolia … has more than 4,000km (2,485 miles) of borderline, shouldering a major political responsibility in safeguarding national security and border peace,” said Wang Lixia, chairman of the autonomous region, according to the Shanghai-based The Paper on Sunday.

“This year, we should especially focus on solving the problem of ‘hollowing out’ of the border areas, adopting a comprehensive approach to attract more people to live and defend the border areas, in order to ensure national unity and border security.”

Wang’s comments at last week’s meeting of the Inner Mongolia delegation during the “two sessions” in Beijing came amid mounting concerns that an exodus of young people is impeding the economic development of the region, which borders Russia and Mongolia, and posing risks to national security.

Feng Jun, deputy director of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission at the municipal committee for Inner Mongolia’s prefecture-level city of Ulanqab, also highlighted the city’s so-called hollowed-out border villages in July.

He said residents in the border areas of the city’s administrative division of Dorbod Banner had dropped by 56 per cent from 2010 to 2022, leaving behind predominantly elderly residents aged over 60.

“Currently, over 90 per cent of the young and middle-aged residents in the border areas have migrated elsewhere for work, resulting in thousands of vacant houses and tens of thousands of acres of unused agricultural land left behind,” Feng said in a post on Ulanqab’s official social media account.

He said most of the young people who have left for study or work were disinclined to return to the border regions due to the poor infrastructure and harsh living conditions, raising concerns over the “generational gap” of people guarding the border.

The city of Hulunbuir in northeastern Inner Mongolia highlighted similar problems in August, with a report from its Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference committee chairman saying the population outflow issue in border areas “cannot be ignored”.

“With the substantial departure of young and middle-aged people, many border villages are now primarily populated by elderly residents, leading to insufficient manpower within the border defence forces and challenges in fulfilling their duties,” Wang Shuguang said.

China’s wants bridgehead to Russia, Mongolia to be exemplar region

The population loss has also “directly impacted the development of local industries,” Wang added, with the labour shortage impeding the management of agriculture and animal husbandry, while the pursuit of diversified operations also lacks young skilled workers.

In June, the party committee of Inner Mongolia said that “hollowing-out” had grown, especially in the region’s border areas, which had impacted its function in securing border security.

“As the ‘northern gate’ of the motherland and the ‘moat’ of the capital, Inner Mongolia bears a weighty responsibility to maintain national security and social stability … Border defences first and foremost require personnel,” said the article published in the Communist Party’s theoretical journal, Qiushi.

The article added that the party committee was crafting policies to boost prosperity and stability in border regions, focusing on improving industry, services and infrastructure to attract residents and strengthen border defences.

Hong Kong research centre under China Academy of Sciences launches AI tool to assist in complex brain surgery procedures

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3254994/hong-kong-research-centre-under-china-academy-sciences-launches-ai-tool-assist-complex-brain-surgery?utm_source=rss_feed

A Hong Kong-based research centre under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool to assist in complex brain surgery, even as the healthcare industry deals with an inadequate number of specialised databases for this procedure.

The Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR), the Hong Kong branch of mainland China’s national research institute, on Monday unveiled the CARES Copilot 1.0 AI model to help neurosurgeons provide “more efficient clinical diagnosis and to make better medical judgments based on sufficient references”, said Liu Hongbin, the centre’s executive director, in an interview with the South China Morning Post.

The CARES Copilot 1.0 system has already undergone internal testing across a number of hospitals in Hong Kong and the mainland. It has been deployed in doctors’ workflow to help them “prepare surgical plans and for post-surgery management”, Liu said.

During a live demonstration on Monday at the Hong Kong Science Park, Danny Chan Tat-ming, head of the neurosurgery division at the Department of Surgery in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, showed how the CARES Copilot 1.0 model is capable of generating key information from multiple academic papers, including citations, within seconds to ensure the accuracy of answers. Chan said the tool can achieve an accuracy rate of up to 95 per cent.

The latest initiative by CAIR, which is co-funded by the Hong Kong government’s InnoHK research programme, reflects the efforts of state agencies on the mainland to develop a range of AI innovation alongside private technology companies, in the country’s bid to catch up with advances made by the likes of ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

CARES Copilot 1.0, which was based on Meta Platforms’ Llama 2 large language model (LLM), was trained on various multimodality databases – including text, images, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) scans and ultrasound imaging – tailored for the medical field. LLMs are the technology used to train ChatGPT and similar generative AI services.

The impact of US tech sanctions, however, led to the CARES Copilot 1.0 being trained on a computing infrastructure powered by Huawei Technologies’ Ascend AI processors, instead of one based on Nvidia’s much sought-after graphics processing units.

CAIR’s Liu said their research team has “put extra effort into adapting Huawei’s system”. They were optimistic that training on a computing platform based on Huawei’s AI chips would “improve faster” in the long run, he said.

AI-powered brain surgery arrives in Hong Kong courtesy of state-run centre

Still, Liu said there are currently limitations across the broader healthcare industry in terms of the number of specialised databases for brain surgery procedures. He added that such databases between different hospitals are usually not linked, too.

“In the AI industry, it is common knowledge that the bigger the database sets are the more powerful a model could be trained,” he said.

To overcome that limitation, Liu pointed out that their research team has fed CARES Copilot 1.0 with thousands of medical textbooks, academic papers and international neurosurgical guidelines.

Chinese researchers aim to ‘reproduce’ OpenAI’s text-to-video model Sora

“Clinical decision-making is based on multiple information, such as CT scans, MRI, patients’ physiological testing results and more,” he said “So we want doctors to make better decisions through the combination of multiple sources of information.”

Founded in 2019, CAIR is the first CAS branch outside the mainland. It plays the role of a bridge to connect Hong Kong’s international talent and top academic research with the needs of well-established industries on the mainland, according to Liu.

Their research team is now approaching a number of medical device manufacturers to adapt CAIR’s AI innovation in their products.

US faces ‘increasingly fragile world order’ amid Russia and China threat

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/11/us-intelligence-china-russia

US intelligence agencies have said the country faces an “increasingly fragile world order,” strained by great power competition, transnational challenges and regional conflicts, in a report released as agency leaders testified in the Senate.

“An ambitious but anxious China, a confrontational Russia, some regional powers, such as Iran, and more capable non-state actors are challenging longstanding rules of the international system as well as US primacy within it,” the agencies said in their 2024 Annual Threat Assessment.

The report largely focused on threats from China and Russia, the greatest rivals to the United States, more than two years after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, as well as noting the risks of broader conflict related to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza since the 7 October attacks.

China is providing economic and security assistance to Russia as it wages war in Ukraine, by supporting Russia’s industrial base, the report said.

“Trade between China and Russia has been increasing since the start of the war in Ukraine, and [Chinese] exports of goods with potential military use rose more than threefold since 2022,” it said.

Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, urged lawmakers to approve more military assistance for Ukraine. She said it was “hard to imagine how Ukraine” could hold territory it has recaptured from Russia without more assistance from Washington.

She said it is “absolutely critical” that Congress pass a bill that would provide $60bn in new military assistance for Kyiv. Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, an ally of Donald Trump, has so far refused to call a vote on the measure, which has passed the Democratic-run Senate.

CIA director William Burns told the Senate intelligence committee that US intelligence assessed that Vladimir Putin was not serious about negotiating an end to the conflict, despite economic consequences “fast making Russia the economic vassal to China.”

Burns, like Haines, strongly urged continuing support for Ukraine both to bolster the government in Kyiv and send a message to China about aggression toward neighbors, such as Taiwan or in the South China Sea. He said new US military assistance would give Kyiv leverage in future “serious” talks with Moscow.

“It is our assessment that [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping was sobered, you know, by what happened … He didn’t expect that Ukraine would resist with the courage and tenacity the Ukrainians demonstrated,” Burns said.

Haines noted concerns that the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas could spread global insecurity. “The crisis in Gaza is a stark example of how regional developments have the potential of broader and even global implications,” Haines said.

She said attacks by Houthi militias on shipping and said the militant groups al-Qaida and IS “inspired by Hamas” have directed supporters to conduct attacks against Israeli and US interests.

After a protester interrupted the hearing with shouts about the need to protect civilians in Gaza, Burns was asked about children in the Palestinian enclave.

“The reality is that there are children who are starving. They’re malnourished as a result of the fact that humanitarian assistance can’t get to them. It’s very difficult to distribute humanitarian assistance effectively unless you have a ceasefire,” he said.

Russia’s reliance on China, North Korea and Iran over Ukraine has ‘potential to undermine’: top US official

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3255012/russias-reliance-china-north-korea-and-iran-over-ukraine-has-potential-undermine-top-us-official?utm_source=rss_feed

Russia is increasingly dependent on China, North Korea and Iran as its war against Ukraine strains resources, potentially undermining global “non-proliferation norms” and enhancing disinformation meant to interfere with coming elections in America and other countries, a top US intelligence official warned lawmakers on Monday.

“Growing cooperation and willingness to exchange aid in military, economic, political and intelligence matters [among the four countries] enhances their individual capabilities,” said Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, in testimony supporting her office’s Annual Threat Assessment, a summary of current threats to American national security.

The hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee also brought as witnesses FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director William Burns and National Security Agency Director Timothy Haugh. A closed-door hearing was scheduled to follow the unclassified public portion.

“Russia’s need for support in the context of Ukraine has forced it to grant some long-time concessions to China, North Korea and Iran, with the potential to undermine, among other things, long-held non-proliferation norms,” Haines said, without specifying what technologies she was most concerned about.

Burns stated that President Vladimir Putin was facing dire consequences, militarily and economically, even as the Russian leader appears convinced he holds the upper hand in a costly war that has just entered its third year.

Russia has seen “315,000-plus dead and wounded, four times the casualties that the Soviet Union suffered in a decade of war in Afghanistan, the destruction of something on the order of two thirds of their pre-war tank inventory, and long-term economic consequences … fast making Russia the economic vassal of China”, Burns said.

Monday’s hearing and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s most recent threat assessment underscored the extent to which Washington’s intel community sees economic and technological cooperation between the four countries that Haines identified undermining American stability.

As often happens in such settings, popular social-media platform TikTok was cited as a possible vector for societal division over its alleged subservience to China’s Communist Party, which the company, owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, has denied.

China calls for direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks, offers to ‘build bridges’

Wray answered in the affirmative when asked by Florida’s Marco Rubio, the ranking Republican on the committee, whether TikTok would need to follow any Chinese government orders from ByteDance “to put out videos that make Americans fight with each other or spread conspiracy theories and get them at each other’s throats”.

“I would just add that … the different kinds of influence operations you’re describing are extraordinarily difficult to detect, which is part of what makes the national-security concerns represented by TikTok so significant,” Wray said.

TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi has denied in testimony before American lawmakers that the company has ever shared US user data with the Chinese government. It has spent US$1.5 billion in an effort to restrict access to users’ data in the US in coordination with the American government.

Differences over aid for Ukraine, which has been blocked by Republicans in the House of Representatives, connected back to China in Monday’s hearing, with Democrats and some of Monday’s witnesses warning that threats posed by Beijing would intensify if support for Ukraine stayed stalled.

US President Joe Biden has urged the House to follow the Senate’s passage last month of a US$95 billion package that includes funding for Israel’s military and Taiwan. Some US$60 billion of that amount would help Ukraine restock depleted ammunition supplies and weapons.

Republican lawmakers have made support for Taiwan and Israel a higher priority, often warning about Beijing’s military build-up in recent years.

Rubio framed the aid as a choice.

“The Chinese hope for [the US] is one of two things: A, we deplete ourselves in Ukraine and/or the Middle East, particularly Ukraine, or B, we can run and then they can go around the world and say, ‘see, America’s weak’,” he said.

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

“They have a plan for either outcome, which makes it challenging for us as we decide what to do here.”

Democratic senator Michael Bennet of Colorado pushed back on that assessment.

“You hear people in this building say that the United States of America has to give up on our support for Ukraine in actual conflict with Vladimir Putin and actual conflict with Russia because of the fear that we will not be able to afford some plausible but nevertheless theoretical conflict with China in the future,” Bennet said.

In response to Bennet’s follow-up question on whether the US was capable of handling “our commitments with respect to Ukraine and Nato and be able to deter Beijing”, Burns said: “We’re entirely capable.”

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US must use ‘all tools at our disposal’ to outcompete China, says State Department

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3255006/us-must-use-all-tools-our-disposal-outcompete-china-says-state-department?utm_source=rss_feed

The United States must employ “all the tools at our disposal” to outcompete China, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Rich Verma said on Monday as the Biden administration unveiled its budget request for the 2025 fiscal year.

The request includes US$4 billion over five years in mandatory funding for this purpose, including US$2 billion to create a new international infrastructure fund that provides a credible, reliable alternative to Chinese infrastructure funding, Verma said.

US President Joe Biden sketched his policy vision for a potential second four-year term on Monday, unveiling a US$7.3 trillion election-year budget aimed at convincing sceptical Americans that he can run the economy better than Donald Trump.

Biden wants to raise taxes by trillions on corporations and high earners, his budget wish-list showed, to help cut the deficit and pay for new programmes helping those who make less cope with high housing and childcare costs. Congress is unlikely to adopt the measures as proposed.

Biden’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year, which starts this October, includes raising the corporate income tax rate to 28 per cent from 21 per cent, forcing those with wealth of US$100 million to pay at least 25 per cent of their income in taxes, and letting the government negotiate to bring more drug costs down.

Meanwhile, the government would bring back a child tax credit for low- and middle-income earners, fund childcare programmes, funnel US$258 billion to building homes, provide 12 weeks of paid family leave for workers, and spend billions on policing.

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson quickly rejected the proposal, saying it reflected an “insatiable appetite for reckless spending” and a “disregard for fiscal responsibility”.

Netanyahu rejects Biden criticism, says majority of Israelis back him

The budget was released days after the Democratic president’s fiery State of the Union address, where he assailed the values of Trump, his expected Republican opponent in November’s election.

Biden’s campaign has struggled to shake voters’ concerns about high prices and the US economy’s direction. Forty per cent of Americans think Trump would handle the economy best, compared with 31 per cent who picked Biden and 28 per cent who either did not know or refused to answer, according to a January Reuters/Ipsos poll. Biden travels to the competitive election state of New Hampshire on Monday.

Trump, whose signature legislative accomplishment as president was a major 2017 tax cut, wants to sharply increase tariffs on imported foreign goods and cut regulations on energy producers.

On Monday, the Republican’s campaign sought to clarify his stance on the popular Social Security and Medicare entitlement programmes after the former president alluded to “cutting” them by targeting “theft and bad management”. Biden has vowed to shield the programmes from benefit cuts.

US dispatches aid ship to Gaza as Biden says Netanyahu ‘hurting’ Israel

Democrats faulted the Trump tax cuts as widening the deficit and tilted to the wealthy but did not repeal them when they controlled Congress in 2021-2023. Key provisions expire next year, setting up a major showdown over tax policy.

Biden’s proposal to bring down deficit spending by US$3 trillion over 10 years would slow but not halt the growth of the US$34.5 trillion national debt. Deficits would total US$1.8 trillion in the 2025 fiscal year, 6.1 per cent of GDP, before falling to under 4 per cent over a decade, the White House forecast.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a deficit-reduction advocacy group, called the proposal a “welcome start” but said it “doesn’t go nearly far enough”.

The White House forecast 1.7 per cent real GDP growth in 2024, and 1.8 per cent in 2025, rising to 2.2 per cent by 2030. Consumer price inflation for 2024 was forecast at 2.9 per cent and 2.3 per cent in 2025, with 4 per cent unemployment, a figure that falls to 3.8 per cent later in the decade.

The forecasts were set in November, and officials said the figures would be more optimistic if they were fixed today.

US lawmakers reach deal to avoid imminent government shutdown

White House budgets are always something of a presidential wish list, but that is even more so in the current political climate.

US agencies are operating without a full-year 2024 budget, after hardline Republicans rejected an agreed-upon spending level. The US government spends more than it takes in each year, and the majority goes to so-called mandatory programmes and military programmes, which lawmakers are unlikely to cut.

A House Republican plan unveiled last week, which the White House immediately rejected, was aimed at balancing the federal budget within a decade by sharply cutting the scope of federal government and relying on optimistic, out-of-consensus growth forecasts.

Last year’s standoff between Biden and hardline Republicans resulted in a two-year agreement to cap spending, the removal of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the credit rating agency Fitch stripping the country of its AAA rating.

China’s rural land is vast, vacant – and not for sale. Would putting it on the market spell windfall or woe?

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3254951/chinas-rural-land-vast-vacant-and-not-sale-would-putting-it-market-spell-windfall-or-woe?utm_source=rss_feed

Under an unassuming WeChat profile, “Baishun Farmer’s Property”, Zhang Ming provides updates on a large and growing market. Through this account, he shares details of new village houses in suburban Shanghai that are up for sale – a real estate listings board, unexceptional in most of the world.

Not so in China. Personal transactions of rural homes are strictly forbidden under the rules of property ownership. But at any given time, Zhang has information on over 400 houses scattered across the outskirts of the metropolis.

“Most of the owners have moved downtown and have no plans to go back, so they need to cash out,” said the property agent.

This grey market has persisted for decades, as a protracted debate has raged over whether urban residents should be allowed to buy rural property. It has remained a point of contention because of the potential consequences – a loss of agricultural resources for one of the world’s most populous countries and a burning of bridges for the roughly 300 million migrant workers who uproot their lives in the countryside to seek employment in population centres.

But researchers and former officials continue to advocate for the legalisation of such transactions, an action which would herald a new era for rural land reform for the country and have profound implications for its future.

China has gone through three rounds of land reform since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. The most recent, in 1978, allowed collectively owned land to be contracted by individual households.

Changing the rules on land in the countryside carries particular appeal at this moment due to several urgent economic issues. An ongoing property market crisis, an urban-rural divide which has blunted plans for revitalisation and a lack of suitable options to ensure sustainable growth in the world’s second-largest economy – all are problems which could be tackled, in whole or in part, via the opening of rural land ledgers.

The country recorded gross domestic product growth of 5.2 per cent last year – and has set this year’s target for “around 5 per cent” – but its post-pandemic recovery has been shaky.

“If rural land is made tradeable, I believe it can push the Chinese economy back to an annual growth rate of more than 8 per cent for over two decades,” said Meng Xiaosu, a retired official who spearheaded China’s property reform policies in the 1990s, at a forum in Jilin province last month.

Chinese villages offer cash to matchmakers amid anxieties over ‘bachelor crisis’

He said that China’s future lies in equalising land systems in rural and urban areas and making rural residents rich via their holdings.

China has two different legal regimes for urban and rural land. All land in urban areas is directly owned by the state and can be leased to businesses and individuals on a contract of 40, 50 or 70 years depending on its use allocation. These automatically renew, thereby granting functional rights similar to private property ownership.

Rural land, however, is owned by village collectives, and can only be traded among members of the same village. This effectively keeps farmers from selling and buying their land or using it as collateral for loans, limiting their opportunity to raise capital and leading many to move to the cities for work. This has created vast swathes of abandoned land and property in the countryside.

The Chinese government has vowed to reform the rural land system – an object of frequent criticism over its perceived responsibility for income and social welfare gaps between town and country – but progress has remained sluggish.

At a meeting of top officials on improving the land management system last month, President Xi Jinping pledged to allocate more land resources to areas that are more economically developed.

“As for reformative measures that are exploratory but pressing, we should study them thoroughly and promote them prudently,” he said.

Wang Huiyao, founder of the Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing-based think tank, said that this is a signal for the acceleration of rural land reform.

“Economic growth was quite fast in the past and people might have not realised its importance, but now we’re slowing down,” he said.

“How to make use of the property left behind by China’s 300 million migrant workers to stimulate the Chinese economy has become an issue,” he added, citing a figure from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Those workers seek better-paid jobs in the city most of the year, but few have access to city residents’ superior social benefits as welfare systems are tied to the hukou, the national system of household registration.

They also miss out on capital gains from the real estate market due to lack of complete home ownership.

Despite some improvement over recent decades, the annual disposable income of urban households was still 2.4 times that of rural families last year, according to data from the NBS.

Wang said allowing free trade of rural homes will bring many urban residents to the countryside, a behaviour encouraged by the government in its campaign for rural revitalisation. That initiative was introduced in Xi’s report to the Communist Party’s 19th national congress in 2017.

“This will immediately add vigour to the economy and support high-speed growth in China for another 20 years,” Wang said.

Other academicians and officials have made similar appeals in recent months. Outspoken former finance minister Lou Jiwei projected that China’s overall consumption demand could increase by nearly 30 per cent if the “rural-urban dual structure” is broken.

When China stops dividing the population based on where their hukou is registered, and migrant workers are given the right to sell their village houses, then they will “feel assured to buy property in urban areas” and unleash great purchasing potential, he said at a forum in Shenzhen in December.

But many worry such reforms will do more harm than good.

“Homesteads are the last resource for farmers. They will at least have a place to return to if one day they encounter trouble,” said Jin Chong, a village cadre in suburban Shanghai, referring to land allotted to farmers by the government to build homes.

China vows to boost crop yields, Xi calls for investment in ‘lifeblood’ land

As party secretary of Yuli village in Fengxian district – one of over 100 county-level localities designated by the central government as sites for land reform – Jin said the district is not experimenting with allowing urban dwellers to purchase rural homes.

“Reform in this regard has been laid aside. There’s no word from above and we’re not exploring this direction,” he said.

Like Fengxian, most designated counties are making mild changes such as moving villagers to towns and leasing their homesteads to businesses through the village collective for commercial development.

He Xuefeng, dean of Wuhan University’s School of Sociology, said keeping things the way they are means social stability in China’s vast rural expanse.

“The situation today, as President Xi put it, could be one of ‘terrifying waves and stormy seas’,” He said. “So where should farmers go when this occurs?”

Xi has used the phrase repeatedly as a metaphor for the complicated and dangerous environment China faces, with domestic as well as geopolitical challenges.

He Xuefeng raised Taiwan as an example. In 2000, rural land was made tradeable there, only to be followed by an unexpected frenzy of luxury villa construction in the name of agricultural development.

“How can farmers fight the force of capital? … As a disadvantaged group, they will lose their basic source of security if free trade of rural land is allowed,” he said.

A survey of over 115,000 people from across China, conducted with the aid of Wuhan University’s rural governance research centre during last month’s Lunar New Year holiday, shows how split farmers are over the issue.

Nearly 46 per cent of the surveyed said they wanted rights to farmland to be adjusted based on change in population – meaning those who have relocated to cities should give up their rights and be compensated – while the rest said they wanted things to remain unchanged.

This means “there’s no public consensus yet” and policies should be steady, the researchers concluded.