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.
Image copyright EPAImage caption Ms Merkel calls for dialogue while Mr Li says China can handle its own matters
China’s Premier Li Keqiang has said Beijing supports the Hong Kong government “to end the violence and chaos”.
He is the most senior Chinese official to comment on the unrest which has rocked Hong Kong for months.
His comments came during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Beijing.
Hong Kong has seen months of often-violent protests calling for democracy and less influence from China.
The protests were sparked by changes to a law that would allow extradition to mainland China, but have since widened to include calls for an independent inquiry into police brutality and demands for greater democracy.
Image copyright EPAImage caption Hong Kong activists hope for Western support
Instead, protests continued on Friday evening, when clashes erupted between police and the demonstrators outside a subway station on the Kowloon peninsula.
Riot police fired both tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters before clearing the nearby streets as the crowd of protesters was forced to retreat.
What did the Chinese premier say?
In August, China had likened to protests to terrorism, warning activists not to “underestimate the firm resolve” of the Beijing government.
Li Keqiang, China’s second highest-ranking leader, told reporters on Friday: “The Chinese government unswervingly safeguards ‘one country, two systems’ and ‘Hong Kong people govern Hong Kong people’.”
He said China backed Hong Kong “to end the violence and chaos in accordance with the law, to return to order, which is to safeguard Hong Kong’s long-term prosperity and stability”.
WUHAN, China (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkelrenewed calls for a peaceful solution to unrest in Hong Kong on Saturday during her trip to China.
The Hong Kong protests have overshadowed a three-day visit Merkel had planned to use to press for greater access to Chinese markets for German businesses suffering a slowdown at home.
“I have advocated that conflicts be resolved without violence and that anything else would be a catastrophe from my point of view,” Merkel said.
After talks with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, Merkel said Beijing had listened to her views.
“This is important,” she added.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announced concessions this week to try to end the protests, including formally scrapping a hugely unpopular extradition bill, but many said these were too little, too late.
Joshua Wong, a leader of pro-democracy protests in 2014 that were the precursor to the current unrest, thanked Merkel for addressing the topic with Beijing but said her comments fell short.
“Germany’s business interest should not override the universal values in which we believe,” Wong said in an interview with Germany’s mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
“If the Chancellor wants to do something, she must help to urge President Xi to respond to the demand for free elections.”
Researchers bend super-thin sheet using a single electrically charged atom in breakthrough that could eventually pave the way for powerful new computer processors
Success follows decades of fruitless attempts by scientists around the world
The team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted the “world’s smallest work of origami” with a sheet of graphene. Photo: Handout
Chinese scientists have taken the ancient art of origami to the atomic level by finding a way to fold microscopically small graphene, according to a new study.
The team managed to fold a 20 nanometre wide sheet of graphene into various shapes and forms using an extremely sharp needle with a single electrically charged atom at the tip, according to a paper published in the latest edition of Science magazine.
The breakthrough could eventually enable a host of technological advances, including the development of faster and more powerful computer processors, the researchers said.
“This is the world’s smallest origami work,” said Dr Du Shixuan, the study’s lead scientist, adding that the team hoped to build on their success by making the graphene equivalent of a paper aeroplane.
Unlike previous experiments, in which the folding occurred randomly or by accident, the new technology allows scientists to control the transformation with atomic-scale accuracy, according to Du, from the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
Microscopic images of the graphene folding process. Photo: Handout
Zhang Gengmin, a professor of physics at Peking University, said the team had managed something that other scientists had spent years trying to achieve.
Zhang, who was not involved in the study, said part of the difficulty was that atomic particles were influenced by quantum mechanics, a branch of physics whose laws are counter-intuitive to our daily experience.
In practice this means that folding a graphene sheet in one direction might cause it go in another direction or simply break apart.
Could these crystals be the next leap forward in China’s laser technology?
The new technology developed by Du’s team could have some critical applications, according to Zhang, who works at the university’s nano devices laboratory.
For instance, folding a sheet of graphene – formed from a single layer of latticed carbon atoms – into a “magic angle” will make it superconductive, a unique physical state that allows electrons to pass through without any resistance.
“It is a significant piece of work,” he said.
The 20 nanometre wide sheet was folded into various shapes. Photo: Handout
The paper by Du’s team withheld some of the technical details of their experiment, which means that other scientists may not be able to replicate the process simply by reading the paper.
Du defended the secrecy as a standard practice and necessary measure to maintain China’s lead in this field.
She said that the team’s success was down to many factors – including the hardware used, the strength of the electric current and the experience of the operator – and there were also lessons to be taken from their previous failed attempts.
The researchers said they hoped the technology would be used to improve the design and manufacturing of computer processors.
Chinese, US scientists develop AI technology to help detect submarines in uncharted waters
At present, commercial processors are made using a large piece of silicon board known as a wafer.
But as the size of components such as transistors shrink, it has become increasingly difficult to improve the speed and performance of the computer due to the challenges of controlling the structure and properties of each component on a near-atomic scale
The new technology could give designers more freedom to develop a “dream chip” by building a central processing unit on an atom-by-atom basis from the bottom up.
But Du said the commercial application of the new technology could be years away.
Her team folded the graphene sheets manually, one at a time, but mass production would need the development of new manufacturing methods to do it automatically. At present “we are working on it”, Du added.
Scientists find some chemicals can kill the cotton leaf curl Multan virus and others can boost cotton plants’ immunity to it
It is feared the virus could wreak havoc in China’s Xinjiang region, which produces most of the country’s cotton
A cotton picker in Xinjiang, where cases of the virus have been reported. Photo: Xinhua
Chinese scientists have found chemicals in medicinal herbs that could tame a destructive plant virus threatening the cotton industry in its western Xinjiang region.
Some small-molecule chemicals in herbs commonly used in Chinese medicine can effectively suppress cotton leaf curl Multan virus, according to ongoing research led by Professor Ye Jian at the Institute of Microbiology in Beijing.
By targeting WRKY20, a gene in the virus’ DNA, the chemicals could disrupt the viral infection and transmission, Ye’s team found.
Some early findings from their research were published last month in the journal Science Advances.
The leaf curl virus – a species of Begomovirus, the largest genus of plant viruses – poses a significant threat to the world’s cotton plantations, causing leaf curling, stunted growth and lower yields of cotton fibre. It costs the cotton industry in the Indian subcontinent about US$1 billion a year, according to a press release about the study from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Were there to be a pandemic in China, the drop in output and measures to contain it could cost the cotton farming industry 50 billion yuan (US$7 billion), according to some researchers’ estimates, the academy added.
The first known cases of the virus in China over the past decade were limited to coastal areas in the country’s east, but several cases have now been reported in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
“We are running out of time,” Ye told the South China Morning Post.
Cotton is a pillar industry in Xinjiang, which provides more than 80 per cent of China’s total cotton production. The industry also contributes up to 50 per cent of the income of farmers involved in it, according to government statistics.
Exact figures for infections in the region are not available, but outbreaks so far remain isolated, according to Ye and other researchers with knowledge of the situation.
Double threat to China’s cotton industry: warmer weather and mirid bug
However, Professor Gao Feng, cotton researcher at the Agricultural College of Shihezi University in Xinjiang, warned that leaf curl virus could reduce cotton production in an infected field to almost zero.
“A large-scale outbreak has not occurred yet, but the threat is very serious and people are very nervous,” Gao told the Post. “We are in desperate need of a solution.”
The challenges facing China’s pork industry highlight the danger viruses can pose to the domestic market. A swine fever outbreak that has wiped out 100 million pigs caused pork prices to rise, forcing China to look to new countries to import from, such as Portugal and Argentina.
Its biggest overseas supplier of cotton is the United States, with which it is locked in a protracted trade war. In July, the government allowed some Chinese companies to buy a total of 50,000 tonnes of cotton from the US without tariffs being charged.
The central and regional governments fear that falling incomes caused by the impact of an outbreak on the cotton industry would increase the risk of ethnic conflict, social instability and anti-government thoughts.
Ye’s team adopted two approaches to fighting the virus.
How trade war with the US is changing China’s cotton industry
Some chemicals they discovered could improve cotton plants’ immunity against the infection by stimulating them to generate an antibody that killed the virus. The other chemicals they found could target the virus, directly reducing its intensity.
“They can be used as sprays,” Ye said, adding that he planned to reveal the chemical composites and related herbs in a paper to be published in a peer-reviewed journal in the coming months.
The discovery could offer an environmental benefit, too. Cotton farmers in Xinjiang use pesticides to deter the whiteflies that transmit the virus, but their overuse has affected Xinjiang’s delicate ecology, which in its desert areas is particularly vulnerable to disturbance.
In the agricultural research community, there is growing concern that some whitefly species will become resistant to pesticides. “If that happens, we will have a major problem,” Ye said.
He said the chemicals identified in the ongoing study would not harm the environment.
“These chemicals come from plants, so the negative impact to the environment would be minimal,” he said.
The study also found that it may be possible to use the cotton leaf curl Multan virus to benefit farmers. It stimulates cotton plants to generate a chemical that is harmful to other insects, such as the bollworm, that compete with whiteflies for food, meaning that it could be genetically modified into a pest control agent.
Most cotton species in commercial plantations are genetically modified to produce an insecticide to kill bollworm. Ye said a man-made virus could reduce the dependence on genetically modified plants.
Image copyright AFPImage caption Meet Hong and Kong?
Two newborn panda cubs at Berlin Zoo have been unexpectedly caught up in Hong Kong’s political unrest, after German newspapers started a campaign to name them “Hong” and “Kong”.
One of Berlin’s leading papers, Der Tagesspiegel, asked its readers to come up with name suggestions.
Top of the poll: “Hong” and “Kong”.
One reader wrote in to say they should be named “in solidarity with a city fighting for survival”.
Other suggested names included “Joshua Wong Chi-fung” and “Agnes Chow Ting” – after two prominent Hong Kong democracy activists.
Loaning pandas to zoos around the world is part of China’s soft diplomacy, aimed at winning hearts and minds abroad.
As the cubs will have to be returned to China in two to four years, the paper suggested that naming them after the activists might even be a sneaky way of keeping them in Germany.
The poll is in no way binding or even related to the zoo – but it was soon picked up by Germany’s leading tabloid, Bild, which issued a passionate call “to politicise” the naming of the little pandas.
“Bild is choosing to call the panda cubs Hong and Kong because it’s China’s brutal politics that lies behind these panda babies,” the paper wrote on Thursday.
“Bild is demanding of the German government that it reacts in a political way to the birth of these small bears.”
As German Chancellor Angela Merkel is currently on a visit to China, Bild said she could even relay the news to President Xi Jinping in person.
Image copyright EPAImage caption Mother panda Meng Meng has been on loan to Germany since 2017
Hong Kong activists had already called on Ms Merkel to raise their cause during her talks in Beijing.
In an earlier interview with Bild, activist Joshua Wong had suggested the zoo should name the animals “Freedom” and “Democracy”.
The German media’s foray into panda PR came as Hong Kong’s government launched a series of full-page adverts in international newspapers, designed to reassure investors that the city is still open for business.
The ads, which will run in leading papers around the world, say the government is determined to achieve a “peaceful, rational and reasonable resolution” to present political tensions.
You Quan, a member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, attends a symposium to commemorate the 74th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 3, 2019. (Xinhua/Shen Hong)
BEIJING, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) — China on Tuesday held a symposium to commemorate the 74th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.
You Quan, a member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, joined about 200 representatives from various sectors at the event in Beijing.
Participants including Party officials, military officers, war veterans and student representatives spoke highly of the great achievements made by the Chinese people in safeguarding national independence and liberty and protecting the sovereignty and sanctity of the country at the symposium.
Families of war heroes, representatives of non-Communist parties and foreigners who contributed to China’s war against Japanese aggression also attended the symposium.
Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan meets with Peruvian Vice President Mercedes Araoz in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 2, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling)
BEIJING, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) — Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan met here Monday with Peruvian Vice President Mercedes Araoz, who is in Beijing to attend relevant activities of the Beijing Horticultural Expo.
Wang spoke highly of the current bilateral relationship, saying that China is willing to further advance mutual understanding and trust and deepen cooperation to push the relationship to a higher level.
Araoz congratulated China on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and said her country is ready to deepen cooperation with China in such areas as trade and economy, investment, agriculture, poverty relief, science, technology and culture.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, meets with representatives to the 11th general congress of the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 2, 2019. Li Keqiang and Wang Huning, both members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, were present at the meeting. Vice President Wang Qishan attended the meeting and the opening of the congress. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)
BEIJING, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) — President Xi Jinping on Monday called on the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) to make new and greater contributions to the development of the Red Cross cause.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks when meeting with representatives to the 11th general congress of the RCSC at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Extending sincere greetings and warm congratulations to the representatives, Xi encouraged them to champion the spirit of humanity, compassion and dedication, and pursue reform and innovation with great endeavor.
Xi and the representatives took group pictures.
Li Keqiang and Wang Huning, both members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, were present at the meeting. Vice President Wang Qishan attended the meeting and the opening of the congress.
Addressing the opening ceremony, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan urged the RCSC to uphold the leadership of the Party, protect lives and health, carry out international assistance, and serve the country and the people.
Li Hong, a registered nurse and vice president of Fujian Provincial Hospital who won the Florence Nightingale Medal for 2019, as well as 32 groups and 10 individuals working for the RCSC were awarded for their outstanding achievements at Monday’s congress.
Li Zhanshu, chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, meets with a delegation led by U.S. Senator Steve Daines, also co-chair of the U.S. House of Senate U.S.-China Working Group, and U.S. Senator David Perdue in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 2, 2019. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao)
BEIJING, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) — Top legislator Li Zhanshu met with a delegation led by U.S. Senator Steve Daines and Senator David Perdue here on Monday.
Commending their long-term efforts to promote the development of bilateral relations and exchanges between the legislative bodies, Li, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), said this year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States.
He said history has proven that China and the United States stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation and a healthy China-U.S. relationship meets the common interests of both countries and the world.
China is committed to the road of peaceful development and upholds an opening strategy featuring mutual benefit and win-win results, said Li, adding that the NPC is ready to work with the U.S. Congress to enhance cooperation and to properly handle differences and sensitive issues through dialogue and constructive means.
Daines, also co-chair of the U.S. House of Senate U.S.-China Working Group, and Perdue said U.S.-China relations are one of the most important bilateral relations in the world and members from the working group are ready to make efforts to promote mutual understanding between the two governments and the two peoples.
Wang Chen, vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, met with Daines and Perdue earlier in the day.
Actors perform a drama during the Yanqing culture month activity held at the Beijing International Horticultural Exhibition in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 1, 2019. (Xinhua/Ren Chao)
Image copyright EPA
Image copyright EPA
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 