Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
Families appeal to city authorities and toy company for help to recover fees already paid for classes
Four outlets shut their doors in aftermath of contract dispute
Families in Shanghai are appealing to authorities for help to recover money paid for lessons at closed Lego Education Learning Centres. Photo: Weibo
Hundreds of Shanghai parents are appealing to Danish toy company Lego for help after four of its authorised learning centres suddenly closed their doors, leaving families tens of thousands of yuan out of pocket.
Shanghai Jixiao Information Science and Technology, which ran three Lego Education Learning Centres in the city, said in an online statement on Monday that it was left with no choice but to close the centres after Lego Education in China ended its agreement with its Chinese partner, Beijing-based Semia.
The closure of the centres – the Ruihong, Jinqiao and Haiwaitan branches – came just weeks after the Lego centre in Nanxiang shut down.
Semia was authorised by Lego Education to operate learning branches across mainland China and authorisation third parties to do as well, according to Shanghai-based Jfdaily.com.
Rachel Wang, a mother of a six-year-old boy, said that in various online forums about 650 families had reported losing a combined 5.2 million yuan (US$742,000) in prepaid classes at the three stores. Another 130 families whose children were enrolled at the Nanxiang store were seeking 900,000 yuan in refunds, she said.
Wang said the parents had appealed to the Shanghai municipal government to pressure Lego to look at the case.
“We are planning to sue the learning centre, and in the meantime we hope Lego Group can pay attention to this case and help us. Many of the parents chose these centres as we saw on Lego’s website they were listed as among the company’s authorised stores,” she said.
“We are angry and very disappointed with Lego.
“It made a lot of money in China because we trusted it.”
Lego and Tencent will develop games and videos for kids in China
20 Sep 2019
Tao Lina said everything appeared fine when he took his five-year-old daughter to the Haiwaitan centre on Sunday.
“But the next day, we were told that the store had closed. I was so surprised,” Tao said.
“We had never heard of Semia and we were not aware of its existence. We all thought that the learning centres was franchised directly by Lego.”
He said he had paid for 144 classes at the centre and his daughter had attended about 60 of them, each costing 160 yuan. Tao said he hoped his daughter could continue attending the classes – which use Lego products to teach children about subjects such as robotics – but had not been able to contact the centre’s managers.
Shanghai Jixiao said the termination of the Semia-Lego Education agreement had scared off parents, cutting cash flow and forcing it to close the centres.
In its online statement, the company said its troubles started in September, when it received a lawyer’s letter from both Semia and Lego Education.
“It required us to promise not to use the [Lego Education] logo after December 31, 2019 and to stop teaching Lego courses after August of next year,” Shanghai Jixiao said.
On October 11, Lego Education said on WeChat that it had terminated its cooperation with Semia. Most of the 137 Lego learning centres in China would be allowed to use the Lego brand until December 31 and continue teaching Lego courses until July 31 next year.
But after the announcement, many parents sought refunds, causing a cash-flow crisis for the Shanghai company.
Shanghai Jixiao also said that the lawyer’s letter sent in September required all learning centres to sign an agreement absolving Semia of all responsibility.
If it signed the agreement, it would have three months to change the brand and products, which Shanghai Jixiao said was impossible. If it did not sign it, it would have to stop using the Lego brand at once.
Shutting the centres down was the only option after their various efforts, including joint appeals with other mainland learning stores to Lego, visiting Lego headquarters in Denmark and calling Lego’s executives, were unsuccessful, the Shanghai company said.
Chinese teens put to the information age test in global Pisa education study
5 Dec 2019
It offered two mobile phone numbers for parents to contact them but the phones were powered off on Wednesday and Thursday.
Lego did not respond to a request for comment from the South China Morning Post.
But on Wednesday, Lego said it ended the contract with Semia to improve the company’s learning centres, adding that it had no business relations with the closed stores, Thepaper.cn reported.
A manager at Semia’s franchising department identified only as Wei was quoted by Jfdaily.com as saying that the authorisation contract for the three stores owned by Shanghai Jixiao actually ended between October 2018 and February this year.
“They were waiting for us to renew the authorisation contract with Lego, but we failed to reach an agreement with Lego. So these learning centres lost their authorisation,” she was quoted as saying.
Wei said all the authorised stores operated independently.
“Legally speaking, their problems should be solved by themselves,” she said, adding that she could not contact Shanghai Jixiao’s owner either.
There are 19 Lego Education branches across Shanghai, according to Lego Education’s WeChat account.
Market regulation authorities in Pudong and Huangpu districts had started to look at the case, Jfdaily.com reported.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), presents the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) flag and the naming certificate to the captain and political commissar of aircraft carrier Shandong, respectively, during the commissioning ceremony of China’s first domestically built aircraft carrier at a naval port in Sanya, south China’s Hainan Province, Dec. 17, 2019. Xi attended the commissioning ceremony of China’s first domestically built aircraft carrier, the Shandong, here Tuesday afternoon. The new aircraft carrier, named after Shandong Province in east China, was delivered to the PLA Navy and placed in active service Tuesday at the naval port. (Xinhua/Li Gang)
SANYA, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) — President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), attended the commissioning ceremony of China’s first domestically built aircraft carrier, the Shandong, here Tuesday afternoon.
The new aircraft carrier, named after Shandong Province in east China, was delivered to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy and placed in active service Tuesday at a naval port in Sanya, south China’s Hainan Province.
The ceremony started at around 4 p.m.
Xi presented a PLA flag and the naming certificate to the captain and political commissar of the Shandong, respectively, and posed for a group photo with them.
After the ceremony, Xi boarded the Shandong and reviewed the guards of honor. He also inspected the onboard equipment and asked about the work and life of carrier-based aircraft pilots.
On the bridge of the Shandong, Xi greeted the officers and soldiers and signed his name in the log.
Xi also met with representatives of the aircraft carrier unit and the manufacturer at the dock.
Commending China’s achievements in aircraft carrier construction, Xi encouraged them to continue their efforts to make new contributions in the service of the Party and the people.
Approved by the CMC, the Shandong was given the hull number 17.
At the time, officials said the accident was caused by “broken laws and regulations”.
In October, two people were killed in a blast in a mine in Shandong province in eastern China.
The poor safety record and high accident rate in China’s mining sector led to the government in November ordering a “crackdown” on safety issues, said the AFP news agency.
But – despite the string of deadly accidents – mine safety is generally improving.
Last year, 333 people died in Chinese mines – a decrease of 13% on the year before. Meanwhile, the “death per million tons of coal mined” fell to below 0.1 for the first time.
China mined three billion tonnes of coal over the first 10 months this year, according to official data cited by Reuters – up 4.5% from the same period in 2018.
BRUSSELS, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) — China and Europe are partners, not rivals, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a speech here on Monday evening.
“In recent years, we have heard an argument suggesting that China has become a rival of Europe in the economic field and should be subjected to all sorts of restrictions,” Wang said while speaking at an event hosted by the European Policy Center, a think tank.
“Although it is not the mainstream view, we must raise our vigilance and not allow it to go unchecked. In fact, any cool-headed person with an objective view will see that, for China and the EU, cooperation far outweighs competition, and our areas of consensus far exceed differences. We are partners, not rivals,” he said.
Over the years, Europe has benefited tremendously from cooperation with China, Wang said.
Between 2001 and 2018, EU’s exports to China grew by 14.7 percent on average each year, more than twice the EU’s average export growth, supporting about four million local jobs. Investment of Chinese companies in the EU has also been growing. As of the end of 2017, Chinese companies have set up over 2,900 ventures in EU countries through direct investment, creating 176,000 jobs for the local people, according to Wang.
Acquisition of Volvo by China’s automaker Geely injected new energy to the Volvo factory in Ghent, Belgium, retaining and creating over 6,000 jobs, said the senior Chinese official, noting that China is now the most profitable market for European companies — as many as 7 million cars, or nearly a quarter of all automobiles sold in China, are produced by European automakers.
Wang said that despite trade friction and the world economy in downward pressure, economic and trade cooperation between China and the EU has bucked the trend and kept growing.
He pointed out that in the first 11 months of this year, trade between China and the EU, according to statistics, was estimated to grow by 7.7 percent from last year. From January to July, EU investment in China was up by 18.3 percent year on year, and sixty percent of EU companies regard China as a leading destination of investment.
China, as a major developing country with some 1.4 billion people, a 900-million-strong labor force and 120 million market entities, has solid internal growth momentum, great resilience, and enormous economic potential, said Wang, adding that China is bound to offer a new round of cooperation opportunities and share the development dividend with countries in Europe.
This is the third instalment in a four-part series examining the brewing US-China tech war over the development and deployment of artificial intelligence tech
The US is home to five of the world’s top 10 universities in the AI field, which includes computer vision and machine learning, while China has three
For those Chinese with long-term plans to stay in the US, a major obstacle lies in getting work visas, especially in the current trade war environment. Illustration: Perry Tse
After working in the United States for more than a decade, Zheng Yefeng felt he had hit a glass ceiling. He also saw that the gap in artificial intelligence between China and the US was narrowing.
Last year Zheng, who worked as a researcher at Siemens Healthcare in New Jersey, made a decision that addressed both problems. He accepted an offer to head up the medical research and development team at Tencent’s YouTu artificial intelligence lab in Shenzhen, known as China’s Silicon Valley.
“There was almost no room for promotion if I stayed in the US,” he said, expressing a common dilemma faced by experienced Chinese tech workers in America.
With the US-China trade war leading to tighter scrutiny of Chinese nationals working in the US tech industry, people like Zheng are moving back to China to work in the burgeoning AI sector, especially after Beijing designated AI a national priority. The technology’s varied applications have attracted billions of dollars of venture capital investment, created highly valued start-ups like SenseTime and ByteDance, and sparked a talent war among companies.
That has created an odd symbiotic relationship between the two countries vying for AI supremacy. The US, with its superior higher education system, is the training ground for Chinese AI scientists like Zheng, who obtained a PhD from the University of Maryland after earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees at China’s premier Tsinghua University.
“Many professors in China have great academic ability, but in terms of the number [of top professors], the US is ahead,” said Luo Guojie, who himself accepted an offer from Peking University to become an assistant professor after studying computer science in the US.
Among international students majoring in computer science and maths in US universities, Chinese nationals were the third largest group behind Indians and Nepalese in the 2018-2019 academic year, representing 19.9 per cent, according to the Institute of International Education.
[To build] the best universities is not easy. The university is a free speech space, whereas in China, this is not the case Gunther Marten, a senior official with the European Union delegation to China
The South China Morning Post spoke with several Chinese AI engineers who decided to stay and work in the US after their studies. They only agreed to give their surnames because of the sensitivity of the issues being discussed.
A 25-year-old Beijinger surnamed Lin graduated from one of China’s best engineering schools in the capital before heading to a US university for a master’s degree in computer science in 2017. Like some of his peers, he found the teaching methods in China to be outdated.
“It’s hard to imagine that a final exam of a coding course still asked you to hand write code, instead of running and testing it on a computer,” said Lin, who now works as a software engineer for Google in Silicon Valley.
“Although we still had to take writing tests [in the US], we had many practical opportunities in the lab and could do our own projects,” he added.
A Facebook software engineer surnamed Zhuang had a similar experience at his university in Shanghai.
“Many engineering students [in China] still get old-school textbooks and insufficient laboratory training,” he said. “Engineering practices for AI have been through a fast iteration over the past few decades, which means many Chinese students are not exposed to the most updated knowledge in the field, at least not in the classroom.”
Zhuang also noted out that many classes in China are taught in Chinese, meaning engineering graduates are not fluent in English, the preferred language of the global AI research community.
The US is home to five of the world’s top 10 universities in the AI field, which includes computer vision and machine learning, while China has three. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pennsylvania ranks No 1 while China’s Tsinghua University is No 2, according to CSrankings, which bases the list on papers published since 2009.
US tech chief: China is threatening US’ lead in global AI race
With its top institutions and an open culture that encourages freedom of speech, including unfettered internet access, the US has become a magnet for the brightest AI students the world over.
In 2018, 62.8 per cent of PhD degrees and 65.4 per cent of master’s degrees in computer science, information science and computer engineering programmes in the US were granted to “non-resident aliens”, according to a survey by the Computing Research Association.
“[To build] the best universities is not easy,” Gunther Marten, a senior official with the European Union delegation to China, said on the sidelines of the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen in October. “The university is a free speech space, whereas in China, this is not the case.”
When these US-educated AI scientists finish studying, most take advantage of a rule allowing them to stay in the country for three years to gain work experience.
Of the foreign nationals taking part in last year’s Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), a major machine learning event for AI professionals, 87 per cent of those whose papers made it to the oral presentation stage went to work for American universities or research institutes after earning their PhD, according to MacroPolo, a think tank under the Paulson Institute.
“China has many great universities and companies, especially in certain subfields of AI such as computer vision, but many people remain hesitant to move to China due to the political environment, quality of life concerns and workplace issues,” said Remco Zwetsloot, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET).
China’s PhD students miserable, yet hopeful: survey
Some of the US-trained Chinese AI engineers told the Post they were scared off by China’s “996” working culture: 9am to 9pm, six days a week. Tech firms in China typically expect their employees to work long hours to prove their dedication.
Lin, the Beijinger who now works for Google, used to be an intern at one of China’s largest internet giants. “I worked from the time I woke up until going to bed,” he said, “At Google, I’ve been confused because many people here only work till 5pm but Google is still a global leader.” Lin said he would be happy to return to China if the 996 work culture eases.
Graduates throw their caps in the air as they pose for a group photo during the 2019 commencement ceremony of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Tsinghua ranks as China’s top university for AI. Photo: Xinhua
Chen, a female postgraduate student at Carnegie Mellon, who recently accepted a job offer from Google, once interned at Beijing-based AI unicorn SenseTime, where she worked from 10am to between 8pm and 10pm most days.
A SenseTime spokesperson said the company has adopted flexible working hours for its employees.
Besides a better work-life balance, Chinese graduates look for jobs in Silicon Valley because of the higher pay.
“If you include pre-tax income, many of us get offers that pay more than 1 million yuan (US$142,000) a year but in China the salaries offered to the best batch of fresh undergraduates are about 200,000 to 300,000 yuan (US$28,000 to US$43,000),” Chen said.
Still, for those Chinese with long-term plans to stay in the US, a major obstacle lies in getting work visas, especially in the current trade war environment. Most AI-related workers are on H-1B visas that allow US companies to employ non-US nationals with expertise in specialised fields such as IT, finance and engineering.
However, the number of non-immigrant H-1B visas granted has started to fall since 2016, when it peaked at 180,000, according to the US Department of State, and US tech companies have complained that a policy shift by the Trump administration has made the approval process longer and more complicated.
In 2017, President Donald Trump requested an overhaul of the H-1B visa programme, saying he did not want it to enable US tech companies to hire cheaper foreign workers at the expense of American jobs. He also wants to give priority to highly skilled people and restrict those wanting to move to the US because of family connections.
Science graduates from overseas countries can stay in the US with their student visas for up to three years while competing for the hard to get work visas, which are granted based on undisclosed mechanisms. Overseas students already working in the US can apply for so-called green cards, which offer permanent residency.
After working for a major US tech company for almost three years on a student visa, one Chinese software engineer, who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity, said she was relocated to the US firm’s Beijing office last year after failing to obtain a H-1B work visa.
“While there might be individual cases, it seems like the current tensions have not – at least as of a few months ago – led to noticeable changes in the overall number of Chinese students staying in the US after graduating,” said CSET’s Zwetsloot.
Some Chinese AI scientists use Twitter to announce their decision to stay. Chen Tianqi, who just obtained a PhD at the University of Washington in Seattle, and Jun-Yan Zhu, a CMU and UC Berkeley alumnus currently working at Adobe, each tweeted that they would join Carnegie Mellon as assistant professors next year.
To achieve the goal of turning China into “the world’s primary AI innovation centre” by 2030, according to a 2017 blueprint issued the State Council, the central government has stepped up efforts to attract US-educated talent.
The Thousand Talents Plan has seen more than 6,000 overseas Chinese students and academics return since its was established in 2008, but because of escalating tensions with the US, Beijing has played down the initiative.
Longer term, Beijing’s willingness to invest significant sums into the AI sector could see more Chinese return for the better employment opportunities. Between 2013 and the first quarter of 2018, China attracted 60 per cent of global investment in AI, according to a Tsinghua University report.
China’s spending on AI may be far lower than people think
Chinese authorities are investing heavily in the sector, with the city of Shanghai setting up a 10 billion yuan (US$142 million) AI fund in August and Beijing city government announcing in April it would provide a 340 million yuan (US$48 million) grant to the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence.
“More and more senior people like me have come back, and some start their own businesses,” said Zheng, the Siemens Healthcare researcher who joined Tencent. “It’s easier for Chinese to seek venture capital in China than in other countries.”
has further bolstered its defence links with the United States with plans to build an F-16 fighter jet maintenance centre, as the Taipei government continues to resist Beijing’s objective of unification.
The self-ruled island’s Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) and US defence contractor Lockheed Martin signed a strategic partnership agreement on Tuesday that aimed to promote the establishment of an F-16 fighter jet maintenance centre in Taiwan, to be completed by 2023.
It is the latest of several significant agreements with the US during Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump approved a US$2.2 billion arms sale on July 8 that included 108 American-made M1A2T Abrams tanks and 250 Stinger missiles.
He was quicker to approve F-16 sales than his predecessors, agreeing in August to sell the island 66 F-16V jets, which will mean Taiwan owns the most F-16s in the Asia-Pacific region.
Trump also approved, in September last year, a US$330 million deal to provide spare parts and other logistics for several types of the island’s military aircraft – less than a year after the US agreed to sell US$1.4 billion of missiles, torpedoes and an early warning system to Taiwan.
Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway province to be reunited with the mainland by force if necessary.
‘Fighter jets trump battle tanks’ in Taiwan’s US arms priorities
Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the planned maintenance centre underlined how Taiwan-US military ties had become stronger under the more enthusiastic US administration of Trump and the Taiwanese presidency of
“The [F-16 fighter jet maintenance] centre, by improving the availability and readiness of the F-16 fleet, allows Taiwan to sustain its combat aviation, not only for daily operation but also for training,” Koh said.
“This does represent a step up. Taiwan is no longer just an end-user operating the American hardware, but will also be empowered to service it. It is designed to help Taiwan achieve better defence self-sufficiency, one of the key pledges by the Tsai administration.”
Tang Shaocheng, a senior researcher in international relations at Taiwan’s National Cheng-chi University, said the increasingly close relations between Taipei and Washington made dealing with the island more tricky for Beijing.
Beijing ‘interferes daily’ in Taiwan’s election, says Tsai Ing-wen
“The Tsai administration cares about what the US thinks but not what Beijing thinks, paving the way for ever-closer ties,” Tang said. “That definitely leaves less room for Beijing to get Taipei into its orbit, by using various economic measures.”
Beijing has suspended exchanges with Taipei and staged a series of war games around Taiwan to intimidate the island since Tsai, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, became president in 2016 and refused to accept its one-China policy.
Beijing has also tried to isolate Taiwan internationally by poaching its diplomatic allies
since Tsai took office, has repeatedly warned Washington against seeking closer military ties with Taipei, and has protested against every arms deal the two have made.
The US acknowledges the Chinese claim that it has sovereignty over Taiwan, which split from the mainland in 1949 and is self-governing. However, the US regards the status of Taiwan as unsettled and supports the island with arms sales and other measures, such as by sending warships through the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for President of the Federated States of Micronesia David W. Panuelo before their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 13, 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)
BEIJING, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday held talks with visiting President of the Federated States of Micronesia David W. Panuelo, calling for joint efforts to advance bilateral ties and better benefit the two peoples.
The two sides should maintain exchanges at all levels, expand communication and exchanges between governmental departments and legislatures, and enhance mutual political trust, Xi said.
Xi welcomed Panuelo’s visit to China as the two countries celebrate their 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties, and spoke highly of Panuelo’s commitment to developing bilateral ties and firmly upholding the one-China principle.
China sticks to the path of peaceful development, maintains that all countries, no matter big or small, are always equal, firmly opposes unilateralism and hegemony, and advocates that all countries should work jointly to build a community with a shared future for humanity, he said.
For the past 30 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, the two countries have respected, trusted and supported each other, and carried out pragmatic cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, advancing bilateral ties and bringing tangible benefits to the two peoples, Xi noted.
China respects the Micronesian side’s right to take the development path that best suits its national conditions and supports Micronesia’s efforts in maintaining national independence and boosting development, Xi said.
He called on the two sides to complement each others’ advantages and further expand cooperation in such fields as trade, investment, agriculture, fisheries, infrastructure construction and tourism under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.
He also welcomed Micronesia to export more products with competitive advantages like tuna to China, make full use of the policies and measures China has announced on cooperation with and support for island countries, and carry out more pragmatic cooperation projects benefiting people’s livelihoods.
“China is willing to offer economic and technical assistance to Micronesia within its own capacity,” he said.
The two sides should take the signing of the visa exemption deal for those holding diplomatic and service passports as well as passports for public affairs as an opportunity to enhance people-to-people exchanges, deepen traditional friendship, and achieve more practical results on local cooperation, Xi said.
He also called on the two sides to strengthen communication and continue to step up coordination on major issues including climate change and marine affairs.
Panuelo said the Micronesian side spoke highly of Xi’s proposal of building a community with a shared future for humanity, which would play an important role in promoting world peace and stability.
Micronesia, as a small country, is appreciative of the equal treatment and respect offered by China, he said, noting that China was the first country to provide support to Micronesia’s national independence and liberation movement as well as assistance to its national development.
He reiterated Micronesia’s stance on abiding by the one-China principle and maintained that Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet affairs are China’s internal affairs and brook no outside interference.
“I have had a personal experience of China’s time-honored history and remarkable development achievement during my visit,” he said, expressing his delight over China’s achievements and confidence in China’s bright future.
Hailing the two countries’ cooperation for the past 30 years, Panuelo pledged to further expand cooperation in economy and trade, infrastructure construction, agriculture, education, and jointly build the Belt and Road.
The Micronesian side spoke highly of China’s important role in global issues like tackling climate change, Panuelo said, hoping to continue strengthening coordination and cooperation with China and playing an active role in promoting ties between China and Pacific island countries.
The two heads of state witnessed the signing of several bilateral cooperation deals after their talks.
Panuelo is on a state visit to China from Dec. 11 to 18.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Violent clashes erupted in Delhi between police and hundreds of university students on Friday over the enactment of a new citizenship law that critics say undermines India’s secular foundations.
The unrest has already led Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to cancel a planned visit to India from Sunday.
The new law offers a way to Indian citizenship for six minority religious groups from neighbouring Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan including Hindus and Christians, but not Muslims.
RELATED COVERAGE
Explainer: What does India’s new citizenship law mean?
Clashes erupt in New Delhi between students, police over citizenship law
See more stories
Police fired tear gas and used baton charges to disperse scores of students demonstrating at Jamia Millia Islamia university in the heart of Delhi over the law.
Protesters attacked cars in the capital, and several people were injured and taken to hospital.
Zakir Riyaz, a PhD student in social work, said the new law made a mockery of India’s religious openness.
“It goes against the whole idea of a secular India,” he said, speaking by phone from the Holy Family Hospital in New Delhi where 15 of his fellow students were admitted after being injured in a police baton charge.
Police barricades were knocked down and streets were strewn with shoes and broken bricks. An official at the university dispensary said that more than 100 students had been brought in with injuries but all had been discharged.
Parvez Hashmi, a local politician who went to the protest site to speak to police, said about 50 students had been detained.
Students said it was meant to be a peaceful protest, with them trying to go from Jamia University to Parliament Street to show their opposition to the legislation. But police pushed them back, leading to clashes.
Critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government say it is promoting a Hindu-first agenda for India and that the citizenship law excluding Muslims showed a deep-seated bias against India’s 170 million Muslims.
Imran Chowdhury, a researcher, said “either give citizenship to refugees of all religions or none at all. The constitution is being tampered with in the name of religion.”
Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party denies any religious bias but says it is opposed to the appeasement of one community. It says the new law is meant to help minority groups facing persecution in the three nearby Muslim countries.
ABE CANCELS
The United Nations human rights office voiced concern that the new law is “fundamentally discriminatory in nature”, and called for it to be reviewed.
Two people were killed in India’s Assam state on Thursday when police opened fire on mobs torching buildings and attacking railway stations in protest at the new citizenship rules signed into law on Thursday.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cancelled a trip to Assam for a summit with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi that had been due to begin on Sunday.
Japan has stepped up infrastructure development work in Assam in recent years, which the two sides were expected to highlight during the summit. Abe had also planned to visit a memorial in the nearby state of Manipur where Japanese soldiers were killed in World War Two.
“With reference to the proposed visit of Japanese PM Abe Shinzo to India, both sides have decided to defer the visit to a mutually convenient date in the near future,” Indian foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said in a tweet.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said both countries would decide on the appropriate timing for the visit although nothing has been decided yet.
A movement against immigrants from Bangladesh has raged in Assam for decades. Protesters there say granting Indian nationality to more people will further strain the state’s resources and lead to the marginalisation of indigenous communities.
Sinkhole suddenly opened up near subway station in city of Xiamen but no one is killed or injured
Taxi driver whose vehicle was swallowed up says he and his passenger were able to pull themselves free unaided
The hole opened up at a site in Xiamen. Photo: Weibo
Two cars have been swallowed by a hole that opened up in the ground near a subway station in southeast China.
It is the latest of a string of ground collapses involving subway projects in mainland cities this year.
The 500 square metre hole opened up just before 10pm on Thursday near Lucuo station in Xiamen, a city in Fujian province.
The city’s subway operator said no one had died or been injured in the accident and the people in the two cars had been able to get out on their own.
The accident also caused water pipes to burst, flooding the station.
No injuries were reported after the incident. Photo: Weibo
The road and station were temporarily closed after the accident, but normal services resumed on Friday morning.
One of the cars swallowed was a taxi, and the driver told Beijing News he had been driving along the road when he suddenly found the vehicle falling into the hole.
The man, surnamed Chang, dragged his passenger free and they were able to climb out of the pit unaided. He said the car had not been seriously damaged.
Three people are still missing after a similar accident in the southern city of Guangzhou earlier this month that swallowed a truck and electric bike.
Five workers were also killed in the eastern port city of Qingdao in May in an accident at a subway construction site.
SHANGHAI, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) — Chinese tourists will travel to more overseas destinations during the Spring Festival holiday in 2020, said a report released by the country’s largest online travel agency Trip.com Group.
Chinese tourists have booked trips to 419 overseas cities in over 100 countries and regions during the seven-day holiday beginning Jan. 24, 2020, said Trip.com, adding that both figures are new highs for the group.
Boasting warm weather, Australia and New Zealand are among the most popular destinations for Chinese during the period. Trips to Italy, Britain, Spain, Russia, France and the United Arab Emirates are also bestsellers, according to the report.
Ninety percent of Trip.com Group’s users have chosen high-quality travel products and services. Private travel groups with tour guides and flexible schedules have also been favored by tourists.
The fact that Chinese are willing to spend more money and time on traveling shows their growing incomes and higher living standards, said Peng Liang, a researcher with the tourist data research center of Trip.com Group.
As more Chinese travel overseas for holidays, the world will also share the benefits of China’s development, said Peng.
Chinese made 6.3 million outbound trips during the Spring Festival holiday in 2019, up 12.48 percent year on year.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 