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Javier E

The Worst Part of the Woodward Tapes Isn't COVID. - 0 views

mailchi.mp/...-the-woodward-tapes-isnt-covid

trump psychology knowledge belief china surveillance

shared by Javier E on 19 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • 1. Woodward
  • I'd like to take the other side of this Trump-Woodward story and offer two curveball views:
  • (1) I do not believe that Donald Trump "knew" how dangerous the coronavirus was. Allow me to explain.
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • This is simply how the man talks. About everything. What's more, he says everything, takes the both sides of everything:
  • Does he believe any of this, either way? Almost certainly not. The man has the brain of a goldfish: He "believes" whatever is in front of him in the moment. No matter whether or not it contradicts something he believed five minutes ago or will believe ten minutes from now.
  • All this guy does is try to create panic. That's his move
  • (2) The most alarming part of the Woodward tapes is the way Trump talks about Kim Jong Un and the moment when Trump literally takes sides with Kim Jong Un against a former American president.
  • In a way, it would be comforting to believe that our president was intelligent enough to grasp the seriousness of the coronavirus, even if his judgment in how to deal with the outbreak was malicious or poor.
  • All of the available evidence suggests the opposite:
  • Donald Trump lacks the cognitive ability to understand any concepts more complicated than self-promotion or self-preservation.
  • Put those two together—constant exaggerating self-aggrandizement and the perpetual attempt to stoke panic—and what you have is a guy was just saying stuff to Woodward.
  • After the Woodward tapes, anyone still deluding themselves about the authoritarian danger Trump poses to America is, finally, all out of excuses.
  • This, right here, is the most damning revelation from the Woodward tapes (so far):   Trump reflected on his relationships with authoritarian leaders generally, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them,” he told Woodward. “You know? Explain that to me someday, okay?” It's not hard to explain. And it's not funny.
  • You have this incredible rise in interest in technology and excitement about technology and the beat itself really took off while I was there. But then at the same time, you have this massive new centralization of government control over technology and the use of technology to control people and along with that rising nationalism.
  • Paul Mozur, who covers China and tech for the New York Times and is currently living in Taiwain, after the Chinese expelled all foreign journalists. 
  • That was more apparent, I think, over the past five years or so after Xi Jinping really consolidated power, but the amount of cameras that went up on street corners, the degree to which you used to be able to — there’s a moment maybe seven or eight years ago — where Jack Ma talked about the Tiananmen Square crackdowns on Chinese social media and now that’s just so utterly unthinkable. The degree to which the censorship has increased now to the level where if you say certain things on WeChat, it’s very possible the police will show up at your door where you actually have a truly fully formed Internet Police. . .
  • I think a lot of Chinese people feel more secure from the cameras, there’s been a lot of propaganda out there saying the cameras are here for your safety. There is this extremely positive, almost Utopian take on technology in China, and a lot of the stuff that I think, our knee-jerk response from the United States would be to be worried about, they kind of embrace as a vision of the future. .
  • The main reasons WeChat is a concern if you were the United States government is number one, it’s become a major vector of the spread of Chinese propaganda and censorship, and because it’s a social network that is anchored by a vast majority of users in China who are censored and who are receptive to all this propaganda, even if you’re overseas using WeChat and not censored in the same way, what you get is mostly content shared from people who are living in a censored environment, so it basically stays a censored environment. I call that a super filter bubble; the idea is that there are multiple filter bubbles contending in a website like Facebook, but with WeChat, because it’s so dominated by government controls, you get one really big mega pro-China filter bubble that then is spread all over the the world over the app, even if people outside of China don’t face the same censorship. So that’s one thing.
  • The second is the surveillance is immense and anybody who creates an account in China brings the surveillance with them overseas
  • And most people, frankly, using WeChat overseas probably created the accounts in China, and even when they don’t create the account in China, when national security priorities hit a certain level, I think they’re probably going to use it to monitor people anyway. I’ve run into a number of people who have had run-ins with the Chinese Internet Police either in China, but some of them outside of China, in their day-to-day life using WeChat, and then they return home and it becomes apparent that the Internet Police were watching them the whole time, and they get a visit and the police have a discussion with them about what their activities have been
  • So it’s also a major way that the Chinese government is able to spy on and monitor people overseas and then unsurprisingly, because of that, it’s used as a way for the Chinese intel services to harass people overseas. . . .
  • WeChat is particularly suited to this in part because every single person who uses WeChat within China has it linked to their real identity. And then because everybody on WeChat has linked to their real identity, you can map their relationship networks and lean on them that way.
  • It also has a bunch of tools that the Chinese police use, for instance key words, where you can set an alarm so that if you were to say “Tiananmen”, they could set an alarm so that anytime you say that they get a warning about that, and then they go look at what you’ve written. So there’s all these tools that are uniquely created for Chinese state surveillance that are within the app that they can also use, so there’s a bunch of ways that the app is just better.
  • It’s also one of the very few unblocked communication tools that goes between the two countries. So for all these reasons it’s a very, very big deal. For the Chinese government, it’s an important tool of social control, and it’s been a way that they’ve been able to take the social controls that exist within China and expand them to the diaspora community in some pretty unnerving ways.
sissij

Apple removed the New York Times app in China. Why now? - LA Times - 0 views

www.latimes.com/...pple-china-20170105-story.html

new york times language social media bias

shared by sissij on 06 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • California’s Internet companies may have once dreamed of liberating China through technology, but these days they seem more willing than ever to play the Communist Party's game
  • "This is a restoration of the Cultural Revolution or another historical retrogression," said another.
  • The Washington Post is one of many Western newspapers that carries a regular paid supplement by China Daily, another Communist Party mouthpiece.
  • sissij on 06 Jan 17
     
    The censorship in China has long been a controversial issue that's widely discussed. I think it's very natural that those internet companies play the government the rules to enter the Chinese market because most companies are profit-driven rather than being all idealistic. However, I found the tone of this article very uncomfortable. He used the word "liberating" as if China is in bad condition or great suffer that need American freedom to save. Also, looking back to American history, American heroism plays a big part in what the American government did. They "liberated" Canada, "liberated" Vietnam, "liberated" Pakistan, and now America tries to "liberate" China. However, they never fully understand the pros and cons of censorship and how China is a totally different country to America. One's medicine can toxic for another. --Sissi (1/6/2017)
clairemann

How the U.S. Could Sleepwalk into a War with China | Time - 0 views

time.com/...sleepwalk-war-with-china

world war history thinking

shared by clairemann on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Our assessment is that both nations are rapidly ascending the slope of that metaphorical mountain, and will likely find themselves in a full-blown, Cold War-like status in the near future
  • The two nations are significantly at odds over the status of the South China Sea, which China claims as territorial waters, potentially giving them control over rich oil and gas deposits and dominance over the 40% of the world’s trade that passes through these strategic seas.
  • American companies in China who refuse to toe the line on Chinese policy issues (such as the status of Taiwan and the treatment of Uighurs); the devastating results of COVID-19 in the U.S. originating from a virus that first started to spread in Wuhan; and the freedom of Taiwan to decide whether or not to eventually unify politically with China.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • China; offensive cyber activities undertaken by both sides; widespread human rights violations against the Muslim Uighur population within China; and the status of Hong Kong, where the U.S. believes China to be in violation of the treaty which returned the former British colony to a “special status” within China.
  • If such an incident occurred, perhaps in the Taiwan Straits adding in the additional factor of extreme Chinese pride and nationalism over their view of Taiwan as a sovereign part of China, it could easily spark a far larger military exchange than the warning shots and close approaches we have seen thus far.
  • Larger strikes from either side could follow, as could a far broader cyberattack, perhaps against critical infrastructure. Carrier strike groups on both sides could deploy head-to-head. With even more significant losses, the temptation to employ a tactical nuclear weapons – perhaps at sea, thinking it could never then escalate to a strategic exchange – might rise.
  • The chances of the U.S. and China stumbling into a war are real and increasing.
aprossi

Elon Musk is trying to win China back - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

china science research Elon Musk technology

shared by aprossi on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Elon Musk is trying to win China back
  • Elon Musk's Tesla has endured a rough couple of months in China. Now he's working overtime to win Beijing back
  • The Tesla CEO lavished praise on China during an interview with state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), where he pledged that the country would become his electric carmaker's "biggest market" in the long run
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  • He also lauded China's economic and climate goals — the country is currently the world's top greenhouse emitter, but has promised to drastically reduce the emissions over the next decade or so.
  • The charm offensive may be pivotal to Tesla's future in China. While the company has enjoyed special treatment from Chinese authorities in the past few years, it has faced an onslaught of criticism in recent weeks.
  • Last month, Tesla (TSLA) was summoned by Chinese officials to face questions about the quality of its Shanghai-made cars
  • Musk addressed those spying concerns on Saturday, saying at a Chinese development conference that his company's cars would never be used for such purposes.
  • "These are very aggressive goals. And I think they are great goals. And I wish more countries actually had these goals," Musk said. "I'm very confident that future of China is gonna be great."
  • Musk is one of the most popular American business leaders in China
aprossi

China sanctions UK lawmakers and entities in retaliation for Xinjiang measures - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

china england sanctions research knowledge

shared by aprossi on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • China sanctions UK lawmakers and entities in retaliation for Xinjiang measures
  • China has issued more retaliatory sanctions over Xinjiang, targeting individuals and entities in the United Kingdom it says "maliciously spread lies and disinformation" regarding Beijing's treatment of Uyghur Muslims.
  • China's foreign ministry said the UK had "imposed unilateral sanctions on relevant Chinese individuals and entity, citing the so-called human rights issues in Xinjiang."
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Four entities were also named by Beijing: the China Research Group, Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, Uyghur Tribunal, and Essex Court Chambers, a leading London law firm.
  • Those sanctioned include five members of Parliament -- Tom Tugendhat, Iain Duncan Smith, Neil O'Brien, Tim Loughton and Nusrat Ghani -- and two members of the House of Lords, David Alton and Helena Kennedy, as well as academic Joanne Smith Finley and barrister Geoffrey Nice.
  • While relations between Beijing and London have suffered as a result of the ongoing crackdown in Hong Kong, which the UK has suggested breaches a historic agreement with China, the new sanctions could send them to new lows.
sanderk

Why the Coronavirus Could Threaten the U.S. Economy Even More Than China's - The New Yo... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...onavirus-economy-us-china.html

economy education science research

shared by sanderk on 28 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • After a string of deaths, some heart-stopping plunges in the stock market and an emergency rate cut by the Federal Reserve, there is reason to be concerned about the ultimate economic impact of the coronavirus in the United States.
  • Advanced economies like the United States are hardly immune to these effects. To the contrary, a broad outbreak of the disease in them could be even worse for their economies than in China. That is because face-to-face service industries — the kind of businesses that go into a tailspin when fearful people withdraw from one another — tend to dominate economies in high-income countries more than they do in China.
  • If people stay home from school, stop traveling and don’t go to sporting events, the gym or the dentist, the economic consequence would be worse
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  • With shortages of everything from auto parts to generic medicines and production delays in things like iPhones and Diet Coke, a great deal of pain is coming from the closing of Chinese factories. That proliferating damage has central banks and financial analysts talking about a global recession in the coming months.
  • As a baseline, several factors work against the United States. China’s authoritarian government can quarantine entire cities or order people off the streets in a way that would be hard to imagine in America, presumably giving China an advantage in slowing the spread of the disease. In addition, a large share of American workers lack paid sick days and millions lack health care coverage, so people may be less likely to stay home or to get proper medical care. And 41 percent of China’s population lives outside urban areas, more than twice the share in the United States. Diseases generally spread faster in urban areas.
  • When people pull back from interacting with others because of their fear of disease, the things they stop doing will frequently affect much bigger industries in the United States.
  • People may stop attending American sporting events. There have even been calls for the N.C.A.A. to play its March Madness college basketball tournament without an audience. But sports is a huge business in the United States. People spend upward of 10 times as much on sporting events as they do in China.
  • Who wants to go to the dentist or the hospital during an outbreak if a visit isn’t necessary? Yet health spending is 17 percent of the U.S. economy — more than triple the proportion spent in China.
  • But over all, the United States is substantially more reliant on services than China is.
  • A major coronavirus epidemic in the United States might be like a big snowstorm that shuts down most economic activity and social interaction only until the snow is cleared away. But the coronavirus could be a “Snowmaggedon-style storm” that hits the whole country and lasts for months.
tongoscar

US-China tech war to be 'defining issue of this century', despite signing of phase one ... - 0 views

www.scmp.com/...-issue-century-despite-signing

shared by tongoscar on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Forget the phase one deal, a bitter superpower tech war will overshadow any minor progression in US-China relations emanating from this week’s trade agreement.That is the message contained in a new report to be released on Monday, the author of which says that tariffs are “a subset in a much larger, overarching, systemic rivalry between two superpowers, which is the defining issue of this century”.
  • The US has already used export controls to ban Chinese firms from accessing vital US technology and as smart devices, 5G and the internet of things become more pervasive, the definition of “dual use goods”, commercial products that can be used for military purposes, will widen.
  • Even while pursuing a trade accord on one hand, the US has been actively trying to reduce technological integration with China on the other.As US President Donald Trump and China’s Vice-Premier Liu He were signing the phase one deal in the White House, the US was lobbying Britain to ban Huawei from its “critical national infrastructure” and considering plans to invest at least US$1.25 billion “in Western-based alternatives to Chinese equipment providers Huawei and ZTE”.
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  • China is aiming to increase its reliance on domestic production for key components, including chips and controlling systems, to 75 per cent by 2025, the former minister said.
  • A ban on Huawei buying US tech combined with the overall market uncertainty from the tech war led to Broadcom revising down its 2019 revenue estimate by US$2 billion.However, given that the most advanced Chinese producers of semiconductor technology are two to three generations behind their US rivals, China would be the major short-term loser should decoupling continue, Capri said.
  • “While there are changes to some Chinese technology policies, phase two is unlikely to make much progress in addressing the two countries’ rivalry,” said Chris Rogers, Research Analyst at Panjiva, S&P Global Market Intelligence.
johnsonel7

Coronavirus: China to boost mass surveillance machine, experts say - 0 views

www.cnbc.com/...lance-machine-experts-say.html

china surveillance psychology

shared by johnsonel7 on 25 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • China could use the coronavirus outbreak to boost its mass surveillance capabilities as it looks to technology to help contain the epidemic in the world’s second-largest economy.The Communist Party has built a vast surveillance state through different methods with technology at its core.As artificial intelligence and the use of data becomes more advanced, Beijing has found increasingly effective ways to track the Chinese population, including facial recognition.
  • With over 77,000 coronavirus cases confirmed in China alone, the government has mobilized its surveillance machine, a move experts said could continue even after the virus has been contained.
  • The Chinese government has also enlisted the help of tech giants like Tencent, owner of popular messaging app WeChat and Alibaba subsidiary, Ant Financial, which runs payments app Alipay. On both WeChat and Alipay, users can put in their Chinese ID numbers and where they have travelled. Users will then be assigned a QR code based on a traffic light color system which instructs them about how long they need to be in quarantine, or whether they are free to travel. A QR code is a type of barcode which is widely used on digital platforms in China.
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  • “The Party has increasingly treated ‘stability maintenance’ — a euphemism for social control — as an overarching priority, and devoted enormous resources to security agencies for monitoring dissidents, breaking up protests, censoring the internet, and developing and implementing mass surveillance systems,” she wrote in a recent paper.
  • “Once these systems are in place, those involved in its developments — particularly companies with money to be made — argue for their expansion or their wider use, a phenomenon known as ‘mission creep.’ What initially started as a system to crack down on crime — which is already a dubious and vague enough justification to encompass political crimes in China — is now used for other purposes including for fighting the coronavirus outbreak.”
tongoscar

Trump trade war, tariffs giving China political, defense opportunity - Business Insider - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/al-defense-opportunity-2019-11

shared by tongoscar on 25 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • "We're the ones that are deciding whether or not we want to make a deal," Trump said in a speech at the Economic Club of New York this month. "We're close."
  • The reality of what Beijing wants is far more complicated than an end to the recent economic hostilities. Instead, it is balancing a variety of interests, some more important than the trade war.
  • Beijing's ideal scenario includes a free hand to violate human rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong; it includes continuing to press for reunification with Taiwan; and it includes achieving the aims of China 2025, the Chinese Communist Party's plan to transition the country's economy to one based on technology.
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  • Trump's laser focus on trade has given Beijing the latitude to deal with those and other critical issues without fear interference from the White House.
  • Trump is correct to say that the Chinese economy is slowing down, but there is little evidence to support his assertion that Beijing is "dying" to make a deal anytime soon.
  • For months, Chinese economic data has been trending down, but it's only in the past few week that policymakers have slightly lowered key interest rates to keep money flowing through the economy.
  • China has also ignored US ire over its "Made in China 2025," a plan to build up China's tech sector using methods US officials have said violate the aims of the trade war — methods that allow more state control of China's economy and encourage more intellectual-property theft.
dicindioha

Chinese Scientist Blasts Trump's Climate-Change Talk - China Real Time Report - WSJ - 1 views

blogs.wsj.com/...0127cpollute

shared by dicindioha on 09 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • A global-warming skeptic, Mr. Trump has vowed to cancel the accord, which the Obama administration helped broker, in his first 100 days as president.
  • “I think he is cute, saying whatever comes to his mind. I think the U.S. is a cute country too, because a person like him became the president,” said Prof. Ding.
  • The president said in a 2012 tweet that the Chinese created “the concept of global warming.”
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  • His argument: that a per capita count of emissions would be more equitable and treat all people the same.
  • One cannot both enjoy the benefits of industrialization and completely avoid the damages of it, he said.
  • “Steel made in China is sold to the U.S. The emission is done in China but the consumption happens in the U.S. It’s unfair to attribute that emission to China,” he said.
  • Unlike in the U.S., climate-change skeptics in China are an extremely rare breed—something that Mr. Ding posited was the result of better science education.
  • urged other nations to stick to the Paris agreement, calling it a “responsibility we must assume for future generations.”
  • dicindioha on 09 Feb 17
     
    I previously bookmarked an article about Australia's role in the Paris accords, and then I did not realize the world is in jeopardy of losing the U.S.'s involvement in it. We are one of the leading producers of gas emissions in the world, so that is scary to think about. It is interesting to see that people in such power as the leader of a forefront country do not trust the science that supports global warming, and it is kind of scary. I think it was also interesting that Prof. Ding said steel made in China is sold to the US, where people use it, so it's unfair to attribute the emission to China. That is an interesting argument considering they are making it in order to sell it, but yes we are using it, so it seems both are at fault here, possibly not just to the US. This climate change argument is all over and after our discussions about trusting science it is amazing to see the different sides up for debate that should be difficult to debate unless people debating are expert scientists in global warming/climate change.
Javier E

Wikipedia China Becomes Front Line for Views on Language and Culture - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...s-on-language-and-culture.html

china wikipedia language culture

shared by Javier E on 29 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Wikipedia editors, all volunteers, present opposing views on politics, history and traditional Chinese culture — in essence, different versions of China. Compounding the issue are language differences: Mandarin is the official language in mainland China and Taiwan, while the majority in Hong Kong speak Cantonese. But mainland China uses simplified characters, while Taiwan and Hong Kong use traditional script.
  • users across the region have experienced “some form of cultural shock,” which triggers arguments. “Users from different areas have received different education, and have been influenced by different political ideologies,” Mr. Wong said. “We discovered that the things we learned as a kid were totally different from each other.”
  • Today, the site has five settings: simplified Chinese for mainland China; orthodox Chinese for Taiwan; traditional Chinese for Hong Kong; traditional Chinese for Macau; and simplified Chinese for Singapore and Malaysia.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • “This software feature could also be seen as an embodiment of Wikipedia’s neutrality principle, in that it brings together editors from different political systems and enables productive discussion and collaboration between them,”
  • most Internet forums have a parochial focus, but that Chinese Wikipedia offers rare opportunities for all Chinese-speaking people to engage in discussion. “There is some form of integration across the region,” he said. “But that does not mean that mainland China assimilates Taiwan or Hong Kong. Every area stands on the same ground.” He pointed out that the flexible language options put all countries on an equal footing. For example, this year Macau was given its own setting, despite having a population of only 500,000.
  • “There was more bickering in the early days, but the discussion matured at a quick pace after 2009,”
  • “When I first joined the Chinese Wikipedia, I was an ‘angry youth,”’ said Wilson Ye, a 17-year-old Wikipedia editor from Shanghai who started writing entries four years ago. “I was furious when I came across terms like Taiwan and the Republic of China. But after more interactions, I understand how people in Taiwan think, and I become much more tolerant.”
  • Isaac Mao, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, attributed the maturation to the fact that more users are learning what Wikipedia is all about. “It all came back to the ‘five principles’ of Wikipedia, including authenticity, accuracy, neutral point of view and the use of references,” Mr. Mao said. “If there are disagreements over management and editing, people can engage in discussion based on these principles. Such atmosphere has been built up in the Chinese Wikipedia community gradually.”
tongoscar

China's coronavirus economic cardiac arrest | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...avirus-economic-cardiac-arrest

shared by tongoscar on 22 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • In the best of times, an economic cardiac arrest in China, the world’s second-largest economy, would not be good for the global economy. But these are far from the best of times. This makes it all the more difficult to understand both the financial markets’ and world economic policymakers’ complacency about the real risk of a coronavirus-induced global economic recession in the months immediately ahead.
  • Already China’s economic problems are reverberating throughout the global economy. As underlined by Apple and Hyundai’s recent earnings warnings, global supply chains, reliant on in-time Chinese parts deliveries, are being seriously disrupted. At the same time, commodity export-dependent emerging market economies are being dealt a body blow by a Chinese induced decline in international commodity prices, while those economies reliant on Chinese tourism are being severely impacted by a generalized suspension of international flights to China.
  • The world economy is hardly in a good state to withstand a Chinese economic shock. Already before the start of the coronavirus epidemic, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom, the world’s third, fourth and sixth largest economies, respectively, were all on the cusp of economic recessions. Meanwhile, large emerging market economies like Brazil, China, India and Mexico were all experiencing marked economic slowdowns.
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  • The financial markets and global economic policymakers seem to be expecting that the coronavirus epidemic will soon be contained notwithstanding disturbing reports of its significant spread to other Asian countries like Japan, South Korea and Singapore. They also seem to be expecting that as was the case with the 2003 SARS epidemic, the Chinese economy will bounce back quickly and leave little lasting impact on the global economy.
  • In 2008, financial markets and global policymakers were caught by surprise by the way in which trouble in the U.S. subprime mortgage market triggered the worst global economic recession in the post-war period. Judging by their seeming complacency about China’s economic cardiac arrest, one has to wonder how much, if anything, they learned from their 2008-2009 near-death experience.
tongoscar

US still out front in tech race, China experts say in response to Pentagon claim | Sout... - 0 views

www.scmp.com/...ace-china-experts-say-response

shared by tongoscar on 03 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • these technologies had not only military applications but were also critical for long-term economic prosperity, making them important to the future of US-China
  • China exhibited hypersonic missiles and drones at last month’s National Day parade, and has just launched a commercial 5G – fifth generation mobile network – service on Friday, which is the biggest in the world.
  • Despite breakthroughs in certain fields like 5G, there was more generally a clear gap between China’s digital information and electronics technologies and the world’s technological leaders, according to Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie.
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  • “Imagine what the world would look like if China was setting standards,” he said. “Over time, that means we have fewer levers to shape what the US wants to do, both from a global technology standpoint and also what are the values that are highlighted around the world as ones to be looked up to.”
  • Chinese experts have rejected the claim by a senior Pentagon official that the US is lagging behind China in some key dual-use technologies.
  • But, Brown warned, for China to set the pace for these technologies would be “game-changing”.
  • For the past 50 to 80 years, the US had led the way and set the standards in almost all important technologies and industries,
  • Huawei, China’s telecommunication giant has won contracts to construct the 5G infrastructures for many countries, despite the US campaign to ban Huawei equipment over security concerns.
tongoscar

Opinion | China Has a Big Economic Problem, and It Isn't the Trade War - The New York T... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...china-economy.html

shared by tongoscar on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Today, it is progress on the trade war with the United States, or the recoupling of China’s economy with those of other countries, that is seen as the way for it to regain momentum.But to think in these terms is to miss the main point: The trade war has merely compounded an economic slowdown in China that is substantially of the country’s own making.
  • In 2018, China’s gross domestic product grew by about 6.5 percent, the lowest rate since 1990. And part of the slowdown is a predictable result of deliberate government decisions, in particular policies that favor the state sector at the expense of the private sector
  • The most striking evidence, documented by the Peterson Institute of International Economics in October, is the drop in credit to the private sector and the rise in credit to the state sector in recent years.
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  • In the face of restrictions on liquidity, defaults and bankruptcies in the private sector have multiplied. The Chinese banking system operates on the basis of cross-guarantees, which means that a single bankruptcy can ricochet through an entire network of connections.
  • Trade tensions with the United States seem to have hurt China, and this week’s deal, however timid and tentative, is a welcome step forward. But China itself needs to get its own economy back on track — it needs to support its private sector again.
kushnerha

Will Chinese babies be like Prada bags? (Opinion) - CNN.com - 1 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

opinion cnn china education children class

shared by kushnerha on 08 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • China's decision to end its 36-year-old one-child policy imposed on 1.3 billion people was surprising but not entirely unexpected.
  • By 2025, the U.N. projects that China will be the most elderly nation on Earth, with more Chinese 60 and over than 14 and under, drastically burdening social welfare infrastructures and slashing workforce productivity.
  • Will the new two child policy really encourage Chinese parents to start having two children?
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  • After all, four decades of social pressure and sometimes coercive enforcement have deeply engrained the one-child norm into Chinese identity — and it may well take as many decades to root it out. And given the economic realities associated with raising a child in modern China, a second child could be an expensive luxury, reserved largely for the wealthy.
  • Chinese culture has long valued children above all things. Families with large broods were seen as exceptionally fortunate — because more offspring are signs of wealth, or meant more hands to work for the family.
  • having two or fewer children was a patriotic duty that ensured the nation would have enough resources for all
  • one child has become a social standard, with the consequence that for every household, a single son or daughter is now doted upon by two parents and four grandparents, showered with material possessions, pushed to excel academically and entrusted with the entirety of a family's hopes and expectations.
  • Americans spend about $13,600 per year on each child they have. That's about 27% of the median U.S. household income. Chinese spend around $3,745 per year on their kids — or about 50% of China's median household income. Almost three-quarters of that money goes toward education and enrichment; it's seen as an investment in the future
  • most of China's 140 million rising middle-class families feel they simply can't afford the financial burden of raising more than one. Which is why China's attempted doubling down on childbirth may ultimately have little near-term effect on Chinese demographics.
  • The affluent have always been able to pay the penalties for multiples. Fong points out that the three richest men in China all have more than one child. But for middle class families, simply removing penalties isn't enough. "I think many will be resistant to have second children unless the measures are accompanied by financial relief — tax breaks, scholarship guarantees, things like that.
  • Will second children simply be a luxury of the wealthy? And if so, how will that impact Chinese society?My prediction: Within a few years, no Chinese millionaire's Mercedes will be fully complete without two baby seats in back, and Bugaboo Donkey double strollers will become the new Prada bags.
tongoscar

A world trade war is brewing. The US-China deal doesn't stop it - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by tongoscar on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • The United States has signed a partial trade agreement with China. But that doesn't mean simmering conflicts and uncertainty over trade won't drag down the global economy this year.
  • President Donald Trump has heralded the "phase one" US-China trade deal as a significant breakthrough.
  • The two sides are keeping substantial tariffs in place. About two-thirds of all US imports from China — roughly $370 billion worth — will still be covered by tariffs after the deal is signed, according to a December analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
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  • China isn't the only world power tangling with the United States over trade.
  • New tariffs would escalate an already tense relationship between Washington and Brussels. The Trump administration imposed a 25% tariff on most European wine in October, in retaliation for government subsidies received by planemaker Airbus (EADSF).
  • An agreement that addresses these issues with Europe will be one of Trump's priorities for 2020, according to William Reinsch, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who served for 15 years as president of the National Foreign Trade Council.
runlai_jiang

China 'gay conversion': Accounts of shocks and pills - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-europe-41996322

shared by runlai_jiang on 16 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • Verbal abuse is the tip of the iceberg, according to the report.
  • They just told me they were supposed to be good for me and help with the progress of the 'treatment'," he explained.
  • How does family pressure lead to 'treatment'? All of those interviewed told Human Rights Watch that they were forcefully taken to "conversion" therapy. This often occurred within days of coming out to their parents, who felt "ashamed" that their children were gay.
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  • What do doctors say about diseases like Aids?Most of those forced to undergo therapy say they were subjected to verbal harassment and insults during treatment.
  • What's the situation of LGBT people in China?There is growing awareness of LGBT issues in China. Homosexuality was decriminalised in 1997 and removed from an official list of mental disorders in 2001. Big cities have lively gay scenes, and in June, Shanghai held a gay pride parade.However, advocacy groups say that millions of gay people in China have married heterosexual partners rather than come out as gay as a result of pressure from families. Last year a judge ruled that a gay couple could not register as married, the first case of its kind in China.
  • In July, a gay man in central China won an apology and compensation from a mental hospital over forced "conversion therapy".
  • Platonic love relationship: Find an "elegant and caring" member of the opposite sex. Establish a relationship as friends initially. Then hope it becomes something else.2. Repulsion therapy: Induce nausea with forced vomiting or fear of electrocution when thoughts of having a lover of the same sex emerge.3. Shock therapy: Cause major shock to your lifestyle by moving to an entirely new environment in order to sever connection with previous friends, etc.4. Sexual orientation transfer:
tongoscar

Huawei Shoots Up 66% As Apple Plummets: China Has Given Its Blacklist Verdict - 0 views

www.forbes.com/...as-given-its-blacklist-verdict

shared by tongoscar on 10 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • One of Huawei’s greatest defences in its ongoing battle against Washington and the blacklist imposed by the Trump administration has been its stronghold at home.
  • The Shenzhen tech giant knows that the impact of the blacklist is limited by unwavering support at home,
  • Android, its biggest international issue, has no impact on smartphone sales—Google’s software and services are unavailable in China.
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  • All that said, Huawei’s performance in pushing out smartphones in the third quarter was extraordinary.
  • “this is Huawei’s sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth amid a gloomy China market.” The company posted 66% annual growth, reaching a staggering 42% smartphone market share.
  • Apple has been desperate to hold onto a sensible market share in China, but this latest drop of 28% on the same quarter a year before takes it down to its lowest quarterly level for five years.
  • And given this is the world’s largest smartphone market, that dominance carries significant weight. The overall China market has shrunk slightly year-on-year, down 3%.
  • But of the 97.8 million devices that did ship in the quarter, Huawei had its brand stamped on a staggering 41.5 million of them.
  • “Huawei is in a strong position to consolidate its dominance further amid 5G network rollout.”
  • Clearly, Apple’s year-on-year quarter three drop has been a year in the making, But its challenge is that with a 5G offering a year away, it risks further China slippage as the market adopts smartphones capable of a generational shift in network speeds.
  • Most analysts still expect Huawei to start to take a hit as its newest devices reach the international markets absent core U.S. tech—read Google and full-fat Android. But no-one had expected the level of performance at home that Huawei has managed.
  • Germany’s foreign intelligence chief, has warned that Huawei should not be trusted as a core network supplier.
tongoscar

Coronavirus Cases Seemed to Be Leveling Off. Not Anymore. - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...coronavirus-cases-china.html

shared by tongoscar on 14 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • On Thursday, health officials in China reported more than 14,000 new cases in Hubei Province alone. A change in diagnostic criteria may be the reason.
  • The news seemed to be positive: The number of new coronavirus cases reported in China over the past week suggested that the outbreak might be slowing — that containment efforts were working.
  • The sharp rise in reported cases illustrates how hard it has been for scientists to grasp the extent and severity of the coronavirus outbreak in China, particularly inside the epicenter, where thousands of sick people remain untested for the illness.
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  • Hospitals in Wuhan, China — the largest city in Hubei Province and the center of the epidemic — have struggled to diagnose infections with scarce and complicated tests that detect the virus’s genetic signature directly. Other countries, too, have had such issues.
  • In China, health officials have been under exceptional strain. Hospitals are overwhelmed, and huge new shelters are being erected to warehouse patients. Medical resources are in short supply. It’s never been clear who is being tested.
  • The push to prioritize lung scans seems to have begun with a social media campaign by a physician in Wuhan, who last week called for using the scans to simplify the screening of patients and to accelerate their hospitalization and treatment.
  • The new coronavirus is highly transmissible and will be difficult to squelch. A single infected “super-spreader” can infect dozens of others. Outbreaks can seem to recede, only to rebound in short order, as the weather or conditions change.
  • In Hong Kong, people living 10 floors apart were infected, and an unsealed pipe was blamed. A British citizen apparently infected 10 people, including some at a ski chalet, before he even knew he was sick.
  • Unlike MERS and SARS, both diseases caused by coronaviruses, the virus spreading from China appears to be highly contagious, though it is probably less often fatal.
  • The country is so central to the world economy that it can easily “seed” epidemics everywhere, he said.
tongoscar

Coronavirus Live Updates: China Is Tracking Travelers From Hubei - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...china-coronavirus.html

shared by tongoscar on 14 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • To combat the spread of the coronavirus, Chinese officials are using a combination of technology and policing to track movements of citizens who may have visited Hubei Province.
  • Mobile phone owners in China get their service from one of three state-run telecommunications firms, which this week introduced a feature for subscribers to send text messages to a hotline that generates a list of provinces they have recently visited. That has created a new way for the authorities to see where citizens have traveled.At a high-speed rail station in the eastern city of Yiwu on Tuesday, officials in hazmat suits demanded that passengers send the text messages and then show their location information to the authorities before being permitted to leave the station. Those who had passed through Hubei were unlikely to be allowed entry.
  • Top officials in Beijing on Thursday expanded their mass roundup of sick or possibly infected people beyond Wuhan, the city at the center of the outbreak, to include other cities in Hubei Province that have been hit hard by the crisis, according to the state-run CCTV broadcaster.
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  • Chinese officials reported Friday that a surge in new infections was continuing, though not as markedly as the day before, when the number of people confirmed to have the virus in Hubei Province skyrocketed by 14,840 cases.
  • Japan has confirmed its first death from the virus.
  • For a moment on Thursday, it seemed as if there might be some good news from the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship being held in the port of Yokohama in Japan, when the authorities said they would release some passengers to shore to finish their quarantine.Instead, Japanese health officials announced the first death from the virus in the country, of a woman in her 80s. It was third death from the virus outside mainland China. The woman had no record of travel there.
  • The Centers for Disease Control said Thursday that a person under quarantine at a military base in San Antonio had tested positive for the virus, bringing the number of confirmed coronavirus patients in the United States to 15.
  • For the first time in a decade, global oil demand is expected to fall.
  • The arts world, too, is feeling the squeeze.Image
  • Movie releases have been canceled in China and symphony tours suspended. A major art fair in Hong Kong was called off. And spring art auctions half a world away in New York have been postponed because well-heeled Chinese buyers may find it difficult to travel to them.
  • The U.S. reported its 15th case after a person under quarantine tested positive.
  • The travel industry in Asia has been upended.Image
  • China ousted a provincial leader at the center of the outbreak.
  • China’s leader, Xi Jinping, on Thursday summarily fired two top Communist Party officials from Hubei Province, exacting political punishment for the regional government’s handling of the crisis.
  • A second citizen-journalist in Wuhan has disappeared.
  • A video blogger in the city of Wuhan who had been documenting conditions at overcrowded hospitals at the heart of the outbreak has disappeared, raising concerns among his supporters that he may have been detained by the authorities.The blogger, Fang Bin, is the second citizen journalist in the city to have gone missing in a week after criticizing the government’s response to the coronavirus epidemic.Mr. Fang began posting videos from hospitals in Wuhan on YouTube last month, including one that showed a pile of body bags in a minibus. In early February, Mr. Fang said he had been briefly detained and questioned. A few days later, he filmed an exchange he had with strangers who showed up at his apartment claiming to bring him food.Mr. Fang’s last video, posted on Sunday, was a message written on a piece of paper: “All citizens resist, hand power back to the people.”Last week, Chen Qiushi, a citizen-journalist and lawyer in Wuhan who recorded the plight of patients and the shortage of hospital supplies, vanished, according to his friends.
  • South Korea quarantined hundreds of soldiers who visited China.
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