• ByteDance investors could win in TikTok sale says US lawmaker amid pressure to ban app over China espionage concerns
• China is spending billions on a national computing network. Its data chief says why
• Chinese scientists propose a new theory of sex determination
• Kickboxing China PhD student at prestigious Canadian university suffers brain damage in brutal combat contest
• China ends 9-year decline in new marriages in 2023, but divorces also climb
• China’s cryptocurrency investors made gains of more than US$1 billion in 2023 despite sweeping government ban
• China blogger ashamed after flunking national English exam, shuts down language learning site, apologises to 92,000 followers
• Chinese scientists use Douyin to monitor invasive species
• Wildfire rages in southwest China as strong winds and poor visibility disrupt firefighting efforts
• Finnish developers push for Chinese-built tunnel to Estonia despite souring mood towards Beijing
• China students ‘stressed’ by surveillance cameras in university class told devices are digital media teaching aids
• Tech war: ASML’s threat to expand outside the Netherlands is watched with interest in China
• 3 children arrested in northern China over death of classmate
• A cancer-causing stomach bacteria is infecting fewer people in China – but that could change
• China’s Gotion sues Michigan’s Green Charter township to restore water to US$2.4 billion battery plant
• After the pandemic, young Chinese again want to study abroad, just not so much in the US

ByteDance investors could win in TikTok sale says US lawmaker amid pressure to ban app over China espionage concerns

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-war/article/3255721/bytedance-investors-could-win-tiktok-sale-says-republican-lawmaker?utm_source=rss_feed

Investors in TikTok’s Chinese parent company stand to benefit if it sold the app because divestment would remove a source of uncertainty, a Republican lawmaker said.

“It would be in the financial interest of ByteDance’s investors to effectuate a forced sale,” congressman Mike Gallagher, who spearheaded a House-passed bill aimed at making the company divest TikTok to allow its continued operation in the US, said on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday.

Efforts to remove Chinese corporate influence over the popular social-media platform is back on the political agenda in an election year.

At least two US senators voiced support in principle for the bill on Sunday, though it faces a slower process in the chamber after winning bipartisan backing in the House last week on concern over Chinese government influence on the American public.

Key senators have expressed constitutional reservations about banning the platform. Gallagher, who chairs a House committee looking into the US-China strategic competition, argued on Face the Nation that a forced sale “absolutely could” happen before the November elections.

“I think the user experience on the app would improve and you wouldn’t have this concern over being propagandised, the opaque algorithm influencing the information you see,” he said. “That would go away, so I imagine it would actually increase in value.”

While US President Joe Biden has said he would sign the House bill on TikTok, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Sunday “we don’t want to see it banned”.

“We do want to see ByteDance no longer in control of that application,” he said on ABC’s This Week.

Can ByteDance have its TikTok cake and eat it too?

Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, said the best solution would be for ByteDance “to allow for American ownership” of TikTok.

“If not, then we’re probably going to have to eliminate it from the platforms,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union.

Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, gave the House bill a qualified endorsement.

“I’d like to see the final language, but I’m certainly predisposed to vote for it,” he said NBC’s Meet the Press.

Former US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday he is targeting a purchase of TikTok from its parent, telling CNBC he has spoken to potential co-investors about acquiring the app.

China is spending billions on a national computing network. Its data chief says why

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3255710/china-spending-billions-national-computing-network-its-data-chief-says-why?utm_source=rss_feed

China needs a fully integrated national computing network if it is to forge ahead in the global race for high technology and retool its economy for innovation, according to the head of the country’s new data regulator.

In an article in Communist Party journal Qiushi on the weekend, National Data Administration (NDA) chief Liu Liehong said computing power had become “the main arena of scientific and technological competition” among major countries rushing to take the lead in the industries of the future.

“Computing power has become the core productive force for a country,” Liu said.

“Frontier technologies and future industries represented by new materials, biopharmaceuticals, gene technology, and deep sea, air and space exploration, have created an unprecedented demand for computing power infrastructure.

“A unified computing system would optimise resources, lower costs and help the country to achieve breakthroughs in cutting-edge tech such as quantum information.”

Beijing has put computing power front and centre in its efforts to narrow the gap with the United States in technology, particularly in artificial intelligence.

To that end, it set up the NDA in October last year as both a promoter of the digital economy and a regulator of the booming data management sector.

The authorities have also signalled that it will be more tolerant of failure in science and technology to overcome its risk-averse culture and give younger researchers more room to explore ways to realise the national goals.

China is second only to the US in aggregated computing power, and aims to scale up its capacity by half by 2025.

The incentive to do so is clear. In a report released in August last year, Tsinghua University, International Data Corporation and Chinese big data provider Inspur said that for every percentage point gain a country made in the trio’s computing power index, the country’s digital economy grew by 0.36 per cent and its gross domestic product by 0.17 per cent.

The index is compiled to track the development of overall computing power, computing efficiency, applications and infrastructure in 15 sample countries.

China’s plan is to build eight national computing power hubs and 10 national data centre clusters, a mega project called “Eastern Data and Western Computing”, which is expected to drive around 400 billion yuan in investment each year.

It is designed to unite computing centres throughout the country to create a pool of general-purpose, intelligent and supercomputing power, and will be up and running by next year.

The project was launched in 2022 and is in part intended to address regional imbalances in digital resources – between the more prosperous areas of eastern China and the energy-rich west.

Liu said the project would also narrow the economic gaps between regions and attract more professionals to inland areas.

Local governments have started pouring money into the field.

Work began in Shenzhen in January to build a computing centre estimated to cost 466 million yuan in its first phase.

When completed, the centre will be able to process 1.6 billion images and 1.9 million hours of voice translation in one hour, making it the most advanced – and most expensive – operation of its kind in the Pearl River Delta region.

China must ‘tolerate failure’ in science and tech to close gap with US

To improve the network’s efficiency, Liu warned that local governments should “avoid haphazard construction”.

Computing clusters throughout the country should be integrated to accelerate economies of scale, improve efficiency and cut costs.

And while concentrating computing power would make better use of resources, it would also raise security challenges, he said.

“There is urgency to strengthen the coordination of security systems of national hubs. We also have to prevent risks from regional network failures, power outages and extreme situations,” he said.

In addition, industry and academia should work together to advance electronics, communications and computer science, he said.

Chinese scientists propose a new theory of sex determination

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3255487/chinese-scientists-propose-new-theory-sex-determination?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese scientists are proposing a new theory that suggests the formation of male or female features is based on chromosomes in reproductive cells, rather than body cells.

The prevailing theory of sex determination is that the chromosome composition of our body cells, being either XY or XX, determines whether we develop male or female traits.

However that theory could not explain one patient’s case, leading researchers from the Reproductive and Genetic Hospital of Citic-Xiangya to rethink the hypothesis.

The 30-year-old patient had somatic chimerism, a rare condition where cells with both female XX and male XY sex chromosomes are present.

While the patient had female characteristics and organs, her tissues were a mixture of cells with XX and XY chromosomes.

This included the patient’s granulosa cells – cells in the ovaries that produce female hormones – with some ovarian follicles even comprising 100 per cent XY cells, according to a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Human Reproduction.

‘Landmark event’: Chinese scientists assemble world’s most detailed human genome

But when performing genetic testing on two dozen ova removed from the patient to undergo assisted reproduction, they found that the ova “only displayed X chromosome signals with no presence of Y,” the paper said.

This meant that all the ova were derived from the XX cell line, including those from follicles with entirely XY cells.

The researchers said this suggested “germ cells [which develop into reproductive cells] may exert a significant influence on the sexual determination of an individual” rather than being determined by the expression of the body cells it is surrounded by.

People with somatic chimerism can have a range of phenotypes, from male or female presentation to hermaphroditism, and can have chimerism across their body tissues.

In the womb, early gonadal cells can differentiate into either ovaries or testes based on different gene expression.

The present theory suggests that if both XX and XY cells are present in the gonads, the patient will develop a mix of ovaries or testes called ovotestes, according to the scientists.

While this does not explain how patients with the condition can exhibit normal gonads, previous studies in mice have suggested that it could be due to a higher proportion of one of the cell types in the gonads, the authors wrote.

Early cells that migrated into the patient’s genital ridge – the precursor to gonads – may have been of XX origin, which then drove sex determination, the authors speculated.

“Based on these observations, we propose that germ cells are critical for gonadal sex determination,” the paper said.

More data will need to be gathered to look into this theory and its potential mechanisms further, as the study is limited by the fact that there was only one patient examined.

Kickboxing China PhD student at prestigious Canadian university suffers brain damage in brutal combat contest

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3254492/kickboxing-china-phd-student-prestigious-canadian-university-suffers-brain-damage-brutal-combat?utm_source=rss_feed

A student from China pursuing a doctoral degree at a prestigious Canadian university has been left in a vegetative state after being repeatedly hit on the head during a kickboxing competition.

The tragedy unfolded on October 14 last year at the Western Canadian Martial Arts Championships held at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.

The 26-year-old student, Lei Zhenhuan, fell into a coma after taking part in the tournament in which he was up against a professional-level kickboxer mistakenly placed in the novice group.

Lei’s mother filed a lawsuit in the British Columbia Supreme Court against the organisers and other relevant parties in February.

She alleges in the lawsuit that the competition advertised for “light” and “controlled” contact and explicitly prohibited the participation of professional fighters.

She said that the opponent had professional experience, had recently competed in a kickboxing tournament in Thailand, and was “fraudulently” placed in the novice group.

He violated the rules by repeatedly kicking Lei in the head which resulted in a severe brain haemorrhage that left her son in a coma.

Even after Lei displayed “signs of injury”, he was allowed to participate in another bout which exacerbated his condition and resulted in his “profound injury and repeated vomiting”, according to his mother’s statement.

The lawsuit claims that the organisers failed to provide adequate medical care at the scene, delaying the call for medical help, meaning that it took paramedics 90 minutes to arrive at the scene.

Doctors have informed Lei’s mother that her son “is likely to never recover.”

Lei’s mother is suing the organisers of the event for their failure to adequately protect fighters like her son.

She also accuses the World Karate and Kickboxing Union Canada (WKU) of not lawfully sanctioning the event, and Simon Fraser University for allowing their facilities to be used inappropriately.

The allegations have not been proven in court, and no defence statements have yet been filed.

Lei’s mother took her son back to China to seek further medical treatment in Beijing this month.

“My son grew up in a single-parent household, he is my only child. I have devoted all my efforts to him. Raising him to this point has not been easy. Just as he was about to complete his PhD, our hopes were shattered,” she said.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Lei has been pursuing a PhD in Chemistry at The University of British Columbia since 2020, after completing his undergraduate studies in Material and Nanoscience at Beijing Jiaotong University and the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

The tragedy, reported CBC News, has sparked a widespread discussion on mainland social media, with many expressing their sympathy and support for Lei and his family.

“His mother must be heartbroken seeing her son beaten into this state,” one person said.

“What a desperate situation. An only child, a PhD candidate, and then such a tragedy happened. Who could bear it?” said another.

“It seems like the competition was just for the professional fighters to boost their records. But first, the student wasn’t informed, and second, the professional fighter did not hold back, which is very odd,” another person said.

China ends 9-year decline in new marriages in 2023, but divorces also climb

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3255696/china-ends-9-year-decline-new-marriages-2023-divorces-also-climb?utm_source=rss_feed

China ended a nine-year streak of declining marriage registrations last year, with the number of newlywed couples rising to 7.68 million, according to data released on Friday by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

This was an increase of 845,000 compared to the number of marriages registered in 2022.

He Yafu, an independent demographer, said a key reason for the rebound in marriage registrations last year was that many young people had to delay marriage because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“As the pandemic gradually ends, the wedding industry has rebounded significantly, and there was a hot wave of consumption during the 2023 Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays,” He said in a blog post on Saturday, referring to a spike in spending during the eight-day holiday break in September and October last year.

Wedding-related spending on gold jewellery remains strong, according to a white paper by China Wedding Expo about industry trends released this month. However, overall spending on wedding banquets dropped by 10 to 15 per cent year over year in 2023, it said.

Marriage rates have been on the decline in China since 2013, when the number of new marriages hit an all-time high of 13.47 million.

China’s birth rate has also plunged, raising concerns that the country’s population of 1.4 billion could be ageing faster than anticipated.

To boost birth rates and encourage marriage, authorities have offered incentives to encourage couples to have bigger families since May 2021, when China introduced its three-child policy. The country officially ended its one-child policy in January 2016.

Demographers attributed China’s decline in marriage rates to the high costs associated with having a family, the country’s gender imbalance and changing attitudes among young people towards settling down.

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

Data from China’s 2020 and 2010 censuses showed that young Chinese have been getting married later in life.

The average age at first marriage in 2010 was 25.75 years old for men and 24 years old for women. In 2020, that rose to 29.38 years old for men and 27.95 years old for women.

The official data also showed that 2.59 million couples registered for uncontested divorces in 2023, up from 2.1 million the year before.

In 2022, there were an additional 779,000 contested divorces – those which must be handled by the courts because one spouse objects – for a total of 2.879 million divorce proceedings, up from 1.4 per cent in 2021.

The ministry has yet to release the number of contested divorces adjudicated or mediated by the courts in 2023.

China’s cryptocurrency investors made gains of more than US$1 billion in 2023 despite sweeping government ban

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3255699/chinas-cryptocurrency-investors-record-gains-more-us1-billion-2023-despite-sweeping-government-ban?utm_source=rss_feed

Investors in mainland China last year achieved some of the biggest gains in the global cryptocurrency market, according to a new survey, as strong interest persists in the country amid a global rebound in the volatile virtual asset.

Chinese cryptocurrency investors made US$1.15 billion in 2023 to rank fourth behind those in the United States, the United Kingdom and Vietnam, according to an international survey published earlier this week by New York-based blockchain research firm Chainalysis.

The mainland’s ranking was up one spot from its place in the previous Chainalysis survey published in 2021, during the last cryptocurrency bull market. Chinese investors made gains totalling more than US$5 billion at the time.

Hong Kong cryptocurrency investors realised gains of US$250 million last year, according to Chainalysis. In 2021, they made US$1.3 billion.

Overall, cryptocurrency investors around the world recorded total gains of US$37.6 billion in 2023, down from the US$159.7 billion during the 2021 bull market, according to Chainalysis.

Still, last year’s gains represent a significant recovery from 2022, which saw losses reach US$127.1 billion.

In both 2021 and 2023, US cryptocurrency investors realised the biggest gains in the industry, according to Chainalysis, when they made US$47 billion and US$9 billion, respectively.

The gains pulled off last year by mainland investors showed how the nation’s community of cryptocurrency enthusiasts has continued to thrive, despite Beijing’s rigid stance against all activities related to the virtual asset.

China’s back-door cryptocurrency traders look more important than ever to Binance’s future

Cryptocurrency trading via a number of major exchanges has remained active in mainland China, as local enthusiasts employ a range of workarounds and skirt loosely implemented restrictions.

Those exchanges, including Binance, have allowed trades by mainland users, even though warnings are displayed on their sites against such activity.

The recent price surge of bitcoin has sparked increased attention from mainland internet users, turning the world’s largest and most valuable cryptocurrency into a fast-trending topic on all major Chinese social media platforms.

Bitcoin, whose value has climbed 50 per cent since the start of this year, rose to a record US$71,677 last Monday.

Chinese social media all agog as bitcoin prices continue to surge

That price rally, however, has also prompted fresh warnings from Chinese state media. A rebound in bitcoin prices cannot “hide” the underlying risks of the digital asset, state-owned newspaper Economic Daily said in article published earlier this month.

By contrast, Beijing has pledged support for Hong Kong’s goal to become a major hub for virtual assets. The city has taken steps to enable retail investors to trade virtual assets on licensed platforms.

So far, the positive trends of 2023 have carried over into 2024, with bitcoin already achieving all-time highs in the wake of spot bitcoin exchange- traded funds activity in the US and increased institutional adoption, according to Chainalysis.

“If these trends continue, we may see gains more in line with those we saw in 2021,” Chainalysis said. “As of March 13, bitcoin is up 65.4 per cent and ether is up 70.2 per cent.”

China blogger ashamed after flunking national English exam, shuts down language learning site, apologises to 92,000 followers

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3254488/china-blogger-ashamed-after-flunking-national-english-exam-shuts-down-language-learning-site?utm_source=rss_feed

A Chinese blogger from an English language learning site, who flunked the national exam and stopped updating English content to his account, has trended on mainland social media.

The 23-year-old, surnamed Zhou, who is in his second year of university in Beijing, created a Xiaohongshu account to propel him to learn English.

Within a year, he had accumulated 92,000 followers, Bailu Video reported.

He felt so ashamed at not passing China’s national College English Test Band 4 (CET-4), that he decided to stop uploading English content to his account.

“Notice of stopping the update. I’m sorry, but please unfollow me,” Zhou posted on March 3, adding: “The English learning blogger failed the CET-4”.

He confessed he had a poor performance record in English learning and lacked discipline, and had been worried he would fail the CET-4 exam.

In China, the CET-4 is a compulsory nationwide English proficiency test for non-English major university students in China.

The test contains writing and speaking elements with scores ranging from 425 to 710. Passing the test is a requirement for many employers.

In April last year, he came up with the idea of creating a Xiaohongshu account for English learning, which he thought would help motivate him to pass the test in December last year.

Zhou constantly uploaded texts and videos about ways of learning English and was happy when he realised they were becoming popular.

He insists that instead of aspiring to be a blogger, he was genuine in his desire to further improve his English.

The effort he put into updating the blog’s English learning content regularly, boosted his confidence when it came to his own learning and ability to pass the test.

So, he was disappointed when he saw he had only achieved 411 marks when the test results were announced on February 27.

“I’m surprised,” a clearly crushed Zhou said.

“I will no longer update any English learning content. In the next half year, I will work harder to pass it next time,” he added.

Zhou’s story divided opinion on mainland social media.

“Keep it up. He is a man of independent thinking and action,” one online observer said.

“Oh no, now I’m starting to doubt those who teach English online,” said another.

Many parents in China consider English to be an important tool in helping their children connect with the world.

This meant there was widespread concern when the government launched education reforms that included cutting back on language classes in school.

China’s authorities also imposed a crackdown on language tutors in 2021, leaving worried parents to find solutions to offset any impacts this has on their children’s education.

---

Chinese scientists use Douyin to monitor invasive species

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3255680/chinese-scientists-use-douyin-monitor-invasive-species?utm_source=rss_feed

Ecologists are using Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, to track the spread of invasive species such as the American bullfrog – with a little help from artificial intelligence.

Scientists are using the trove of text, images and videos posted to the social media platform to map, and hopefully deal with, ecological threats across China.

Dubbed “iEcology” by Professor Liu Xuan and his team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ (CAS) zoology institute, the approach integrates information taken from the internet to study ecological processes.

The scientists have analysed data from Douyin, among other sources, to uncover the extensive, yet often invisible, human-mediated introduction of invasive species.

As part of a popular practice influenced by Buddhist beliefs, some Chinese people release captured animals into the wild in a bid to bring good fortune.

Chinese-led study shows extreme weather helps invaders replace native animals

Enthusiasts often release birds, fish, turtles and frogs back into nature. However, while well-intentioned, it can lead to biological invasions, introducing non-native species into ecosystems where they have no natural predators, allowing them to proliferate rapidly and disrupt local habitats.

It is a common act that is difficult to monitor. But people often publicise these releases online, so researchers took the novel approach of collecting their data via social media, using it to identify the location and frequency of the releases.

In their research, Liu and his team focused on two particularly pervasive vertebrates – the American bullfrog and the red-eared slider turtle.

These species were chosen due to their widespread presence via the pet trade or aquaculture and distinctive physical features, making them easy to identify.

Analysis of more than 30,000 videos pinpointed releases mainly along the Yangtze River basin and the southeastern coastal regions, with 62 per cent of these events taking place in habitats suitable for the animals to establish permanent populations.

These findings by Liu’s team have highlighted the usefulness of this method in helping with the early detection of invasive species.

The new method of gathering information adds another device to ecologists’ tool box.

“By partnering with government agencies, social media analytics can facilitate early warnings and scientific management of species releases,” Liu said.

“Moreover, incorporating taxonomy and artificial intelligence into social media platforms enhances the accurate identification of released species.”

Liu’s team also hopes that identifying invasive species earlier will allow more opportunity for public education, given that most people involved in these releases do not understand the potential ecological damage of their actions.

“Early publicity and education could significantly raise public awareness about the dangers of invasive species and promote compliance with relevant laws and regulations,” Liu said.

Wildfire rages in southwest China as strong winds and poor visibility disrupt firefighting efforts

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3255678/wildfire-rages-southwest-china-strong-winds-and-poor-visibility-disrupt-firefighting-efforts?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese authorities have sent over 1,000 firefighters and seven helicopters since Friday to battle a raging forest fire in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

The fire started around 5pm on Friday near Baizi village in Yajiang county of Sichuan’s Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Garze, according to an update on the Ministry of Emergency Management’s official website.

Strong winds on Saturday afternoon caused the fire to quickly spread over multiple mountain ridges, it added.

The ministry declared a level-4 emergency response, the lowest alert for fire control in forests and grasslands, and dispatched 1,260 firefighters from national and local fire rescue squads.

Chinese state media blocked from blast site, raising press freedom debate

According to state-run broadcaster CCTV, the firefighters were withdrawn on Saturday night due to strong winds and poor visibility. They will resume their efforts after the joint command headquarters surveys the scene and issues a new firefighting plan on Sunday.

There have been no reports of casualties so far, local authorities said.

A resident of provincial capital Chengdu, located 500km (311 miles) from the site, said the wildfires turned the sky orange on Saturday.

“The sky suddenly turned frighteningly orange in Chengdu. It felt like an apocalyptic disaster movie,” said the city resident, who was only willing to be identified by his surname Wang.

“At first, I thought it was a rare sandstorm from the north before I watched TV news about the huge wildfire in Yajiang County,” Wang said on Sunday.

Official news agency Xinhua reported that a photovoltaic power station in the region had not been affected, but communication with a hydroelectric station had been interrupted.

A section of a highway that passes through the region has been temporarily closed.

From February 10 to 21, a string of 221 forest fires, including 11 large mountain fires that claimed two lives, blazed across parts of neighbouring Guizhou province.

A total of 15,000 local people joined 9,200 firefighters to combat the Guizhou fires, according to local authorities.

Guizhou police detained 10 people for illegal use of fire in mountainous areas, which sparked wildfires that killed two firefighters.

---

Finnish developers push for Chinese-built tunnel to Estonia despite souring mood towards Beijing

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3255653/finnish-developers-push-chinese-built-tunnel-estonia-despite-souring-mood-towards-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed

Finnish developers are pushing ahead with plans to bore a tunnel between capital city Helsinki and Estonia’s Tallinn, and they still want Chinese companies to build it.

The 100km (62-mile) project would link the two countries separated by the Gulf of Finland, slashing the journey time from two hours by ferry to just 20 minutes by high-speed rail.

It has been years in the works, beset by delays and controversy over the reported involvement of Chinese money and know-how. But even with the mood towards China in both Finland and Estonia souring, the company’s founders plan to stick to their guns.

Chinese and Finnish presidents discuss damage to Baltic gas pipeline

“For the actual construction, we have of course not made any final decisions, but we are looking very favourably towards Chinese construction companies,” said Kustaa Valtonen, founding partner of Finest Bay Area Development Ltd, the project sponsor.

“The Chinese are leading the game in high-speed railways by a long, long, long way at the moment,” he added.

Valtonen has been talking for “quite a long time” with China Railway Engineering Corporation, the state-owned enterprise that built the high-speed line linking Winter Olympic sites in Beijing and Zhangjiakou in north China’s Hebei province.

Trains on that line hurtle through tunnels under the Great Wall of China at speeds of up to 350km/h.

The tunnel project caused a storm a few years back, with media reports focusing on the involvement of China’s Touchstone Capital Partners, a state-linked financier that had raised alarms in Estonian intelligence services.

Valtonen estimates the total project will cost €15 billion (US$16.3 billion), with 70 per cent of that to come from debt.

He said the finances had recently been “renegotiated”, and while there still may be some Chinese debt involved, it would also include European, American and Middle Eastern money. He did not, however, want to disclose the details.

“Our funding is not Chinese, it’s international,” he told the Post, adding that “we’d rather stay out of politics”.

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

That may be wishful thinking, given the strategic importance of the project. The European Union – of which both Finland and Estonia are members – had been clamping down on Chinese investments in the bloc even before the spike in geopolitical tensions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Both Estonia and Finland share land borders with Russia and are known to be among the most hawkish EU members towards Moscow and Beijing. Following Russia’s invasion, Helsinki followed its smaller Baltic neighbour into the Nato military alliance.

“The Russian aggression towards Ukraine has heavily impacted all the neighbouring countries of Russia. The cross-border connection to the west, as well as the maritime transport on the Gulf of Bothnia, are ever more important for Finland,” said Maria Torttila, a senior expert in the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications.

Helsinki is looking at ways to boost its connectivity and secure its supply chains, Torttila said. But while it is “open for discussion” on the tunnel, the project does not currently figure in its government programme or 12-year transport plans.

“The tunnel involves a lot of safety-related issues, which will certainly be discussed together with the Estonians. Including the question of who can be involved in the project,” Torttila said.

Martin-Erich Torjus, an adviser in Estonia’s Ministry of Climate, suggested that while private capital would be vital to building big ticket infrastructure projects, it should ultimately rest with the government to roll it out.

He said that even if private sector involvement could be beneficial, as the amount of investment was huge, the states were the ones that should lead the project.

Analysts said the fraught geopolitical situation would not help the tunnel plans see the light of day.

“In the current tense security environment in northeastern Europe, it is not easy to imagine an enthusiastic reception, but this hinges partly on what the exact roles of the involved Chinese entities would be, and what their relationship to the state is,” said Mikael Mattlin, deputy director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said that as a new Nato ally, “Finland obviously must consider risks from a larger perspective, also those that concern its allies, in addition to reflecting security issues to the European economic security plan”.

She pointed to China’s relationship with Russia as a factor in souring its perception among the general public in Finland.

“Finnish media has reported quite extensively about Russia’s relationship with China, and I don’t think it is unclear to anyone who reads or follows the Finnish-speaking news how close these two are,” she said.

Valtonen, the developer, pointed to Chinese state investment in a battery factory elsewhere in Finland as evidence that the tunnel was subjected to unfair criticism.

“Why does our government trust the Chinese partner to work on a joint battery factory? Why is that different? Have you taken the metro in Stockholm, operated by MTR, the Hong Kong company … is that a risk, or should I take the taxi or the bus instead?” he said.

The company had hoped to have its first trains run this year, but it is now looking to 2030 as a more realistic target. Legal disputes continue over planning and environmental assessments, but Valtonen remains enthusiastic about the tunnel’s prospects.

“The tunnel is an important connection between Finland and Estonia, connecting two Nato countries … geopolitics, that’s something we can’t do anything about.”

China students ‘stressed’ by surveillance cameras in university class told devices are digital media teaching aids

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3254479/china-students-stressed-surveillance-cameras-university-class-told-devices-are-digital-media?utm_source=rss_feed

A university in China which has installed dozens of surveillance cameras as part of its teaching process has triggered a widespread debate about privacy on mainland social media.

The Baoding University, in Hebei province, northern China, was filmed setting up the cameras – almost one per student – in a calligraphy teaching class.

Some students complained that it made them feel stressed, The Paper reported.

In a clip secretly filmed by a student, rows of cameras can be seen hanging from the ceiling, almost touching the desks. The quiet classroom is filled with students concentrating on their studies.

“It’s too stressful,” one student told The Paper.

On March 4, a member of staff at the university confirmed there is a classroom fitted with cameras, and that they are for digital media teaching.

“These are the digital teaching devices for our calligraphy classroom, ” she said. “The cameras which are suspended from the ceiling and which the touch panels on desks are one type.”

She said the cameras are inactive during other classes, and are only used during exams to prevent students from cheating.

According to a separate news report by Qingdou News, Sun Jianhua, the vice deputy of the department where the cameras are set up, said their purpose is to allow teachers to see students’ real-time writing via a screen in the digital training room.

He said it also enables students to upload their calligraphy writing homework to the cloud, which helps teachers when marking them.

The video shows two students practicing calligraphy writing in the classroom. Next to them, the digital screens record what they were writing.

The story has sparked a debate on mainland social media.

“Is it a digital prison?” one online observer asked.

“It’s a system for multimedia teaching and recording, not for monitoring,” said a student, adding that the university he studies at has the same set up.

China has no special law that regulates the use of surveillance cameras.

However, anyone who conducts “candid filming, eavesdropping and privacy invading” with installed cameras can be fined up to 500 yuan (US$70) or be given up to 10 days detention.

Monitoring the progress of studies and behaviour, both at school and home, are not uncommon in China.

Last month, a young girl in eastern China said she felt “suffocated” when her mother installed a surveillance camera in her room to make sure she was studying hard.

In January, a mother in southwestern China’s Sichuan province began live-streaming her nine-year-old son’s daily study sessions on Douyin, attracting hundreds of people to watch.

She said she was happy because it stopped her child being distracted and he finished his homework two to three times faster than before.

Tech war: ASML’s threat to expand outside the Netherlands is watched with interest in China

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-war/article/3255648/tech-war-asmls-threat-expand-outside-netherlands-watched-interest-china?utm_source=rss_feed

Plans by chip equipment giant ASML to expand outside the Netherlands are watched with great interest in China, where some social media users believe that Dutch export curbs on sophisticated semiconductor manufacturing machines are to blame for the company’s potential relocation.

ASML, which holds a monopoly in the world’s most advanced chip-making tools, is mulling an expansion outside its Dutch headquarters, with France being one option, according to recent reports by Reuters.

The company, which already faces growing US and Dutch restrictions over its sales to China-based clients, is said to be concerned about a deteriorating business environment after the far-right Party for Freedom scored a surprise election victory last November.

While China is not known to be a primary consideration in ASML’s expansion plans, pundits and social media users in the country seem to have projected their own frustrations onto the European company.

Xiang Ligang, founder of Beijing-based telecoms information portal CCTime.com, said that ASML’s considerations reflect its disappointment over deprived businesses in China.

“The Dutch government bowed to US pressure by suspending ASML’s export of deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems to China, which was not only a blow to China but also to ASML,” Xiang wrote on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo.

“ASML’s only way out is to look for a new location. If the Netherlands can’t safeguard the company’s interests, ASML has to find another country that can offer protection.”

Chinese social media are full of speculation that ASML wants to expand beyond its home country partly because it has had enough of US-led pressure to limit the company’s sales to China, the world’s largest semiconductor market and an avid consumer of ASML products.

But analysts say US rules that restrict the sales of advanced DUV machines to China would apply to ASML even if it were to relocate to other parts of Europe.

“Moving to France would not fundamentally change ASML’s situation in terms of export controls,” said Jan-Peter Kleinhans, director of technology and geopolitics at Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, a Berlin-based tech-policy think tank.

ASML has not cited China as a reason to potentially expand outside the Netherlands. The company declined to comment when reached by the Post on Friday.

A relocation by ASML to France would also be impractical because the firm lacks suppliers and a large customer base in the country, according to an ASML engineer, who asked not to be named as he was not authorised to speak with the media.

The person added that, technically speaking, it is more likely for ASML to move facilities to Germany, but the overall possibility of a relocation is low because that would involve higher costs.

ASML has three offices in Germany and one in France, according to the company’s website. Christophe Fouquet, chief business officer and a French national, will take over when CEO Peter Wennink retires in April.

The company, which has 13 offices across China, is one of the most important suppliers of lithographic tools, which are crucial for advanced chip manufacturing. Last year, tightened export controls on advanced systems cut 15 per cent of the company’s system sales in China.

Still, ASML continues to receive strong demand in China for less advanced mature-node systems. China-based customers accounted for 29 per cent of the firm’s total system sales last year, up from 14 per cent in 2022.

Strong China demand for chip tools bolsters revenue at Lam Research and ASML

Rather than China, the most likely reason behind ASML’s expansion plan is concerns over Dutch immigration policies, according to analysts.

“All the fuss about ASML’s [partial] departure from the Netherlands should be seen mainly as part of ASML’s lobbying to maintain the flow of [skilled] immigrants,” said René Raaijmakers, Dutch technology writer and author of ASML’s Architects.

Nearly 40 per cent of ASML’s 23,000 employees are from abroad, according to a report by Dutch media De Telegraaf. However, the Party for Freedom won the election partly on its anti-immigration stance.

The Dutch government is trying to convince ASML to stay by addressing its concerns, including the supply of skilled workers, according to reports by Reuters.

3 children arrested in northern China over death of classmate

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3255659/3-children-arrested-northern-china-over-death-classmate?utm_source=rss_feed

Police in northern China have arrested three boys on suspicion of killing a 13-year-old classmate in a case that has refocused attention on the plight of “left-behind children”.

The reports did not specify the ages of the children accused, saying only that they were below the age of 14.

The Beijing News reported that the victim, identified only as Wang, disappeared on Sunday afternoon and was found on Monday afternoon in an abandoned vegetable shed in a village in Handan, Hebei province, about 500km (310 miles) south of Beijing.

The report said Wang and the three suspects were “left-behind children”, referring to minors living alone or with their relatives – often in the countryside – while their parents work away from home.

Other reports alleged that the three suspects had bullied Wang.

The Hebei Public Security Department, which oversees Handan police, has also formed a task force to investigate the matter.

The age for criminal responsibility in China for serious crimes such as murder and aggravated assault is 12 but the decision to prosecute must be approved by the country’s top procuratorate.

The maximum penalty for juveniles involved in such crimes is life imprisonment.

The case has prompted calls online for the government to focus attention on the education of left-behind children and to close the gulf in education levels and economic development between rural and urban areas.

According to a report released by the National Bureau of Statistics and Unicef in May 2023, China had 66.93 million left-behind children by 2020, with 41.77 million living in rural areas.

---

A cancer-causing stomach bacteria is infecting fewer people in China – but that could change

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3255365/cancer-causing-stomach-bacteria-infecting-fewer-people-china-could-change?utm_source=rss_feed

A cancer-causing group of bacteria is much less prevalent in China’s urban population than previously thought, according to a study published in The Lancet Microbe journal this month.

The group of bacteria live in the stomach and small intestine and can cause gastric ulcers and even stomach cancer.

Researchers had thought that around half the people in China were infected with the bacteria but a study led by Gu Bing of Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, put the infection rate at just over 27 per cent.

The team based their assessment on data collected from 26 provinces from March to November last year.

In an interview with mainland news outlet Yicai on March 10, Gu said the lower prevalence could be the result of many factors, including improvements in living standards, healthier lifestyles and public health education.

Just last year, a group of scientists, mainly from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, suggested that about half of China’s population was infected with the bacteria.

That rate was the highest in the world, the researchers said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology journal.

The team looked at 224 studies from 71 countries or regions and estimated that the global prevalence of H. pylori infection had fallen from 58 per cent to 43 per cent over the past four decades.

A study published in 2022 by Chinese researchers estimated the prevalence at 44.2 per cent in mainland China.

People who are younger, or living in high-income countries or countries with better healthcare, are less likely to be infected with H. pylori.

Hong Kong study identifies certain bacteria as risk factor for stomach cancer

However, Gu and his collaborators also found that resistance to clarithromycin and levofloxacin – two commonly used antibiotics in the treatment of H. pylori – in the Chinese urban population was around 50 per cent.

Gu said the resistance rate for clarithromycin in China was in line with the Asia-Pacific region, but much higher than in Europe, while the resistance rate for levofloxacin was much higher than in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, “which is of particular concern”.

Medical experts warn that the unscientific use of antibiotics can lead to a range of side effects.

In an article published on social media last year, Yan Xuemin, a gastroenterologist at Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing, and her colleague said misuse or irregular use of antibiotics could help create drug-resistant bacteria, making it harder to eradicate H. pylori, and could disturb intestinal bacterial flora.

They suggested that to prevent H. pylori-related diseases, it was important to be mindful of personal hygiene, including frequent hand washing, the use of communal chopsticks when gathering for meals and maintaining a healthy everyday lifestyle.

China’s Gotion sues Michigan’s Green Charter township to restore water to US$2.4 billion battery plant

https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/3255677/chinas-gotion-sues-michigans-green-charter-township-restore-water-us24-billion-battery-plant?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s Gotion filed a lawsuit on Friday against Green Charter Township in Michigan, citing breach of contract over the connection of water lines to its planned US$2.36 billion battery component plant in the state.

Gotion’s plant, located in Big Rapids, about 60 miles (97km) north of Grand Rapids, was expected to create 2,350 jobs and produce up to 150,000 tons of cathode material and 50,000 tons of anode material a year.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court in Michigan, Gotion said the township reneged on its contractual obligations after initially adopting a resolution approving the company’s plans to connect Big Rapids’ water system to the project.

Gotion is seeking a preliminary injunction from the court to direct the township to connect the water lines to its plant.

“This Court should order the Township to comply with its obligations under the parties’ agreement,” Gotion said in its lawsuit.

The township did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act required that electric vehicles be assembled in North America to qualify for any tax credits. Carmakers have since been racing to source more battery and component production.

Gotion, a publicly traded company in China also known as Guoxuan High-Tech Company, is partly owned by German carmaker Volkswagen.

After the pandemic, young Chinese again want to study abroad, just not so much in the US

https://apnews.com/article/china-education-students-universities-a0193f84fd7b6879867aee147ae73a48FILE - Students line up to enter a school for the first day of China's national college entrance examinations, known as the gaokao, in Beijing, Tuesday, June 7, 2022. After the pandemic, young Chinese are again looking to study abroad. But the decades-long run that has sent an estimated 3 million Chinese students to the U.S. could be trending down. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File )

2024-03-16T14:36:56Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the Chinese city of Shanghai, two young women seeking an education abroad have both decided against going to the United States, a destination of choice for decades that may be losing its shine.

For Helen Dong, a 22-year-old senior studying advertising, it was the cost. “It doesn’t work for me when you have to spend 2 million (yuan) ($278,000) but find no job upon returning,” she said. Dong is headed to Hong Kong this fall instead.

Costs were not a concern for Yvonne Wong, 24, now studying comparative literature and cultures in a master’s program at the University of Bristol in Britain. For her, the issue was safety.

“Families in Shanghai usually don’t want to send their daughters to a place where guns are not banned — that was the primary reason,” Wong said. “Between the U.S. and the U.K., the U.K. is safer, and that’s the biggest consideration for my parents.”

With an interest in studying abroad rebounding after the pandemic, there are signs that the decades-long run that has sent an estimated 3 million Chinese students to the U.S., including many of the country’s brightest, could be trending down, as geopolitical shifts redefine U.S.-China relations.

Cutting people-to-people exchanges could have a lasting impact on relations between the two countries.

“International education is a bridge,” said Fanta Aw, executive director of the NAFSA Association of International Educators, based in Washington. “A long-term bridge, because the students who come today are the engineers of the future. They are the politicians of the future, they are the business entrepreneurs of the future.”

“Not seeing that pipeline as strong means that we in the U.S. have to pay attention, because China-U.S. relations are very important,.”

Aw said the decrease is more notable in U.S. undergraduate programs, which she attributed to a declining population in China from low birthrates, bitter U.S.-China relations, more regional choices for Chinese families and the high costs of a U.S. education.

But graduate programs have not been spared. Zheng Yi, an associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, has seen the number of Chinese applicants to one of the school’s engineering programs shrink to single digits, compared with 20 to 30 students before the pandemic.

He said the waning interest could be partly due to China’s growing patriotism that nudges students to attend Chinese institutes instead.

Andrew Chen, chief executive officer of Pittsburgh-based WholeRen Education, which has advised Chinese students in the U.S. for the past 14 years, said the downward trend is here to stay.

“This is not a periodic wave,” he said. “This is a new era.” The Chinese government has sidelined English education, hyped gun violence in the U.S., and portrayed the U.S. as a declining power. As a result, Chen said, Chinese families are hesitant to send their children to the U.S.

Beijing has criticized the U.S. for its unfriendly policy toward some Chinese students, citing an executive order by former President Donald Trump to keep out Chinese students who have attended schools with strong links to the Chinese military.

The Chinese foreign ministry also has protested that a number of Chinese students have been unfairly interrogated and sent home upon arrival at U.S. airports in recent months. Spokeswoman Mao Ning recently describing the U.S. actions as “selective, discriminatory and politically motivated.”

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said fewer than “one tenth of 1%” of Chinese students have been detained or denied admission. Another State Department official said Chinese students selected for U.S.-funded exchange programs have been harassed by Chinese state agents. Half of the students have been forced to withdraw, and those who participated in the programs have been faced with harassment after returning to China, the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity.

The U.S.-China Education Trust acknowledged the predicament facing Chinese students. “Students from China have been criticized in the U.S. as potential spies, and in China as too influenced by the West,” the organization said in a report following a survey of Chinese students in the U.S. between 1991 and 2021.

Still, many young Chinese, especially those whose parents were foreign-educated, are eager to study abroad. The China-based education service provider New Oriental said the students hope degrees from reputable foreign universities will improve their career prospects in a tough job market at home, where the unemployment rate for those 16 to 24 stood at nearly 15% in December.

But their preferences have shifted from the U.S. to the U.K., according to EIC Education, a Chinese consultancy specializing in international education. The students like the shorter study programs and the quality and affordability of a British education, as well as the feeling of safety.

Wong, the Shanghai student now studying in the U.K., said China’s handling of the pandemic pushed more young people to go abroad. “After three years of tight controls during the pandemic, most people have realized the outside world is different, and they are more willing to leave,” she said.

The State Department issued 86,080 F-1 student visas to Chinese students in the budget year ending in September, up nearly 40% from the year earlier. Still, the number remains below the pre-pandemic level of 105,775.

Under communist leadership, China only opened its doors to the U.S. in the late 1970s when the two countries established formal ties. Beijing, desperate to revive its economy through Western technology, wanted to send 5,000 students to American universities; President Jimmy Carter replied that he would take 100,000.

The number of Chinese students in the U.S. picked up after Beijing in 1981 allowed Chinese students to “self-fund” their overseas studies, rather than relying on government money. Generous scholarships from U.S. schools allowed tens of thousands of Chinese students to study here, but it wasn’t until 2009 when the number of Chinese students exceeded 100,000, driven by growth in family wealth.

In the following decade, the number of Chinese students in the U.S. more than tripled to peak at 372,532 in the 2019-2020 academic year, just as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. The number slipped to 289,526 in 2022.

The Institute of International Education, which publishes annual reports on international students, has found that U.S. schools are prioritizing students from India over China, especially for graduate programs. However, it also found that 36% of schools reported increases in new Chinese students in fall 2023.

In its most recent report, the Council of Graduate Schools said U.S. universities have seen a surge in applications and enrollments from India and countries in sub-Saharan Africa since fall 2020, while those from Chinese nationals have declined.

“Increasing competition from Chinese institutions of higher learning and the growing geopolitical tension between China and the United States may be contributing to this trend,” the council report said.