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.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s government has stepped up the purchase of air purifiers over the last two years, taking the number of devices in ministries to protect against deteriorating air quality to nearly 300, government data seen by Reuters showed.
Six federal ministries – including the health, foreign and home affairs – bought at least 159 air purifiers during 2018-2019 at a cost of 5 million rupees ($70,353), according to previously unpublished data obtained under a Right to Information (RTI) law.
That compares with at least 140 air purifiers bought for $55,000 during 2014-2017 for the six ministries and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office, as previously reported by Reuters. The latest data on purchases for Modi’s office was not available. (reut.rs/2ppjyBj)
The purchases come as the federal and city governments faced criticism for failing to address the problem of worsening air pollution, especially in the winter, and drew criticism from one activist.
“It’s absolutely criminal to spend taxpayers’ money in buying air purifiers for government officials,” said environmentalist Vimlendu Jha, who is a member of a government panel tasked with solving Delhi’s pollution crisis.
In November, the level of pollution in the capital forced authorities to shut schools, restrict the use of cars and declare a public health emergency.
A senior official at the environment ministry, which bears the most responsibility for tackling pollution, said there was no particular drive to buy purifiers to protect civil servants.
“The government is not spending a fortune by buying air purifiers. And it’s not that officials don’t get to inhale toxic air by confining themselves to their offices,” said the ministry official.
The six ministries and Modi’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Air purifiers can cost up to nearly $1,000 and are too expensive for most Indians.
Per capita income in New Delhi, a city of more than 20 million, is about $400 a month and thousands of homeless people endure the cold and the toxic air while sleeping on the streets.
Reuters requested for data using the RTI law from the six ministries as it had comparable numbers previously reported in 2018. These were the ministries of foreign affairs, tourism, agriculture, health, home affairs and the federal think-tank Niti Aayog.
(Graphic: Modi’s government purifer purchases 2018-2019 link: here).
Of the total of 159 devices bought by the ministries, the home affairs ministry topped the list with 103 of them in 2018 and 2019, the data showed.
“All the air purifiers have been installed in various offices/rooms of this ministry,” the ministry said in its RTI response, adding the amount spent was 3.1 million rupees ($43,619).
In October and November, when New Delhi saw some its worst air pollution last year, the foreign ministry bought 12 purifiers. Four of them – bought for the minister’s office – were priced at nearly $1,000 each.
The federal health ministry bought 23 air purifiers in the last two years, including 14 in 2019, its highest annual purchases since 2015, the data showed.
(Reuters) – India and Brazil have signed 15 accords aimed at forging closer ties between the two emerging market giants across a range of sectors, especially defence, both countries’ leaders tweeted on Saturday.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro took to social media to hail the closer cooperation and agreements struck during Bolsonaro’s official visit to India.
“Several agreements signed in infrastructure, justice, science and technology, agriculture, oil exploration, mining, health, culture and tourism,” Bolsonaro tweeted, adding: “The world’s confidence in Brazil is back!”
For his part, Modi tweeted: “India and Brazil are focussing on expanding cooperation in the defence sector,” adding that the two countries share “immense synergies” on several key issues such as the environment and fighting terrorism.
Separately, Brazil’s foreign minister Ernesto Araujo tweeted that the 15 accords signed by the two countries represent a move “against the structures of globalist thought”.
“Brazil is rising to be a great among the greats,” he tweeted.
A child makes a snowman at the Palace Museum in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 30, 2019. Beijing saw a snowfall Friday night. (Xinhua/Meng Dingbo)
BEIJING, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) — Beijing on Saturday was covered in white after experiencing the first snow this winter, which experts said was timely after a much-delayed snowfall in last year’s droughty winter.
The snow, which began Friday evening, reached the level of a blizzard in the outlying districts of Yanqing and Changping. In the city proper, the average precipitation was 3.1 millimeters, said the Beijing Meteorological Service.
“The first snowfall in Beijing this winter was most timely. Records show since 1961, Beijing’s average first winter snowfall happened exactly on Nov. 29,” said Guo Jinlan, a chief forecaster with the service.
The city’s first snow last winter did not fall until February this year.
Experts expect the snow to reduce the risks of wildfire and clean the air in Beijing, whose air pollution usually deteriorates in the winter season.
The city has issued an alert for icy roads and advised citizens to beware of health problems during the low temperature and windy weather after the snow.
Li Keqiang tells senior officials to step up efforts to channel water from Yangtze River to arid regions
Impact of pollution and rising population has prompted increased efforts to improve efficiency and supply
A cement plant on the banks of the Yangtze in Chongqing. The authorities are now trying to stop further development along the river. Photo: Reuters
China needs to divert more water to its arid northern regions and invest more in water infrastructure as shortages get worse because of pollution, overexploitation and rising population levels, Premier Li Keqiang has said.
China’s per capita water supplies are around a quarter of the global average. With demand still rising, the government has sought to make more of scarce supplies by rehabilitating contaminated sources and improving efficiency.
Water remained one of China’s major growth bottlenecks, and persistent droughts this year underlined the need to build new infrastructure, Li told a meeting of senior Communist Party officials on Monday. An account of the meeting was published by China’s official government website.
Local government bonds should be “tilted” in the direction of water infrastructure, he said, and innovative financing tools were also needed.
He also called for research into new pricing policies to encourage conservation.
Li said China’s water supply problems had been improved considerably as a result of the South-North Water Diversion Project, a plan to divert billions of cubic metres of water to the north by building channels connecting the Yangtze and Yellow rivers.
World ‘woefully unprepared’ for climate change’s effects on drinking water supplies drawn from mountains
He said opening up more channels to deliver water to regions north of the Yangtze River Delta would support economic and social development and optimise China’s national development strategy, according to a summary of the meeting on the government website.
China is in the middle of a wide-reaching programme to clean up the Yangtze River, its biggest waterway, and put an end to major development along its banks.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang inspects an empty reservoir during a visit to Jiangxi province last week. Photo: Xinhua
Local governments have been under pressure to dismantle dams, relocate factories and even ban fishing and farming in ecologically fragile regions.
But experts say the ongoing campaign to divert the course of the Yangtze to other regions is still causing long-term damage to the river’s environmental health.
Many cities that had polluted their own water sources had drawn replacement supplies from the Yangtze, exceeding the river’s environmental capacity, said Ma Jun, founder of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, which monitors water pollution.
Beijing already relied on diversion channels from the Yangtze to supply 70 per cent of its water, but had done little to improve conservation or reduce per capita consumption, which was higher than many Western countries, he said.
“[Diversion] has caused so much suffering and needs so many dams to keep up supply, and that has impacted biodiversity,” he said.
Remains of two of river’s estimated 1,012 porpoises found in less than a week
The finless porpoise found dead in the Yangtze River in Hubei on Monday was the second fatality in a week. Photo: 163.com
Two endangered finless porpoises have been found dead in the Yangtze River in the space of a week, according to mainland Chinese media reports.
One was found on Monday in Jiayu county, central Hubei province, four days after the remains of another were recovered from Dongting Lake, a tributary of the Yangtze in central Hunan province, news website Thepaper.cn reported.
The Dongting Lake carcass was tied with a rope and weighted with bricks, and authorities in Hunan said the creature became tangled in a fishing net. The Hubei death is under investigation.
The Yangtze’s finless porpoises are “extremely endangered”, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in a 2016 action plan to protect the species. Last year, vice-minister Yu Kangzhen said surveys showed there were about 1,012 of the animals in the river.
The tail of a dead finless porpoise pulled from Dongting Lake in Hunan appears to have been tied to weights. Photo: Pear Video
In 2017, China raised its protection for the mammals to its highest level because of the critical dangers they faced. Experts said that as the river’s “flagship” species, the porpoise was an indicator for the Yangtze’s ecology.
The porpoise discovered in Hubei was small and it had suffered superficial wounds, investigators were quoted as saying. They estimated that it was found soon after its death.
Xiaoxiang Morning Post quoted fisheries authorities in Yueyang, near Dongting Lake, as saying the porpoise in Hunan was found with weights around its tail.
Two porpoise carcasses found on separate Hong Kong shores
Officials said the fishermen who set the net feared they would be blamed for the creature’s death and tied bricks to its tail to sink it.
Other fishermen who witnessed the incident told the authority, leading to the discovery of the body, the report said. The investigation is ongoing and the suspects are still at large.
A fishing authority spokesman told the newspaper that the porpoise’s death showed the difficulty of balancing conservation with the livelihoods of fishermen.
“It’s difficult to figure out a good model to protect the porpoises without affecting fishermen’s business,” he said.
In mainland China, finless porpoises are referred to as “giant pandas in water” because of their endangered status. Their numbers fell from 2,700 in 1991 to 1,800 in 2006, and there were 1,045 finless porpoises in 2012, according to agriculture ministry data.
Image copyright TWITTER/@ARVINDKEJRIWALImage caption Delhi Chief MinisterArvind Kejriwal has been handing out masks to school students
Five million masks are being distributed at schools in India’s capital, Delhi, after pollution made the air so toxic officials were forced to declare a public health emergency.
A Supreme Court mandated panel imposed several restrictions in the city and two neighbouring states, as air quality deteriorated to “severe” levels.
All construction has been halted for a week and fireworks have been banned.
The city’s schools have also been closed until at least next Tuesday.
Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said Delhi had been turned into a “gas chamber”.
The masks are being handed out to students and their parents, and Mr Kejriwal has asked people to use them as much as possible.
The levels of tiny particulate matter (known as PM2.5) that enter deep into the lungs are 533 micrograms per cubic metre in the city. The WHO recommends that the PM2.5 levels should not be more than 25 micrograms per cubic metre on average in 24 hours.
As thick white smog blanketed the city, residents started tweeting pictures of their surroundings. Many are furious that the situation remains the same year after year.
The hashtags #DelhiAirQuality and #FightAgainstDelhiPollition are trending on Twitter.
One of the main reasons for air quality in the city worsening every year in November and December is that farmers in the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana burn crop stubble to clear their fields. It’s made worse by the fireworks during the Hindu festival of Diwali.
There are other reasons too, including construction dust, factory and vehicular emissions, but farm fires remain the biggest culprit.
Media caption A hair-raising drive through the Delhi smog
More than two million farmers burn 23 million tonnes of crop residue on some 80,000 sq km of farmland in northern India every winter.
The stubble smoke is a lethal cocktail of particulate matter, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide.
Using satellite data, Harvard University researchers estimated that nearly half of Delhi’s air pollution between 2012 and 2016 was due to stubble burning.
The burning is so widespread that it even shows up in satellite photos from Nasa.
What are PM 2.5 particles?
Particulate matter, or PM, 2.5 is a type of pollution involving fine particles less than 2.5 microns (0.0025mm) in diameter
A second type, PM 10, is of coarser particles with a diameter of up to 10 microns
Some occur naturally – e.g. from dust storms and forest fires, others from human industrial processes
They often consist of fragments that are small enough to reach the lungs or, in the smallest cases, to cross into the bloodstream as well
BEIJING, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) — While turning 70 often signals the beginning of a person’s twilight years, for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) it marks a golden age full of hope and vigor.
The PRC celebrated its 70th birthday on Oct. 1. China’s transformation from an agricultural society isolated from the West into the world’s second-largest economy open wide is nothing short of a miracle.
More importantly, it has charted a new path for developing countries to modernize.
Seven decades ago, the war-ravaged country started from scratch. Observers are astonished at China’s large-scale modernization, its reduction of the number of people living in poverty and the sheer volume of its consumer market. Their heads have been turned not only because of the speed of the transition but also by the unique path taken to realize this great transformation.
Reflecting on its past and present, and through experimentation, China has identified and will continue down the right path — socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Reform is the engine of China’s miracle. There is no ready-made solution for the development issues facing China. From creating special economic zones to building free trade pilot zones, from carrying out family-based production contracts to revitalizing state-owned enterprises, China has been one of the most successful countries in piloting reforms over the past decades. Now the reform is more in-depth and more comprehensive in economic, political, cultural, social and ecological sectors.
The Chinese government stresses being effective and responsive to the public interest. Development outlines are far-sighted. For example, the five-year plans are made to deal with comprehensive aspects that concern human development: food, transportation, communication, environment, health and education. These plans are a priority for the government.
Of course these achievements could never have been realized without the leadership of the CPC.
From the people and for the people, the CPC has always upheld its principle of striving for the happiness of the people and the rejuvenation of the nation.
At a life-or-death moment, the CPC shouldered the mission of saving the nation from existential peril. After 28 years of bloody struggle, it led the Chinese people to overthrow the “three mountains” placed on their heads and put an end to the semi-colonial and semi-feudal society of old China. Gone are the days where any attempt to bully China with “fists” or “intimidation” would succeed.
Despite overseas doubts, misunderstandings and predictions that its survival would be short-lived, the CPC has stunned the world with its leadership, innovative theories and ability to unite and organize the people.
It abolished the agricultural tax that had been in place for more than 2,600 years; it established a political system in which people are masters of their own affairs; it did its utmost to help people shake off poverty and keep nearly 1.4 billion people well-off.
No ruling party in the world can match the CPC’s record of adhering to the truth, versing itself in self-reform and self-purification, and turning impossibility into certainty in the face of difficulties and challenges, again and again.
The 70-year journey was never smooth. Trials and hardships abounded. The Chinese people dealt with floods and massive earthquakes and guarded against SARS and financial tsunamis. Yet these twists and turns never blocked China’s way forward but made it more sober, determined and mature.
Today, more than at any other time in history, China is closer to, more confident and more capable of achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. However, lofty goals are never easily reached.
The world has been undergoing tremendous changes unseen in a century. Resistant external forces and headwinds still remain. “Zero-sum game” and “superior civilization” mentalities, among others, are prevailing.
The CPC will continue to lead the Chinese people to fight trade bullying, blackmailing and hegemonism. Only the CPC can lead China to emerge as a stronger country.
It all started long ago, and the journey is far from over.
US billionaire says it will take time to solve problems like air pollution but China is taking action
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg says it will take time for China to resolve problems like air pollution. Photo: AFP
US billionaire Michael Bloomberg has spoken out in support of Chinese President Xi Jinping, saying Xi is “not a dictator” and the Communist Party “listens to the public” on issues like air pollution.
Bloomberg made the comments in an interview on the weekend with Margaret Hoover, host of PBS’ Firing Line public affairs show, ahead of November’s Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Beijing, an event designed to rival the World Economic Forum in Davos.
When asked whether China could be a good partner in the fight against climate change, Bloomberg said “China is doing a lot”.
“Yes, they are still building a bunch of coal-fired power plants. Yes, they are [burning coal]. But they are now moving plants away from the cities. The Communist Party wants to stay in power in China and they listen to the public,” he said.
“When the public says ‘I can’t breathe the air’, Xi Jinping is not a dictator. He has to satisfy his constituents, or he’s not going to survive … The trouble is you can’t overnight move cement plants and power plants just outside the city that are polluting the air and you have to have their product. So some of it takes time.”
China prepares for next round of nationwide inspections in ‘war on pollution’
Hoover countered, saying China was not a democracy and Xi was not answerable to voters.
“He doesn’t have a vote, he doesn’t have a democracy. He [isn’t held] accountable by voters. Is the check on him just a revolution?” she said.
“You’re not going to have a revolution. No government survives without the will of the majority of its people,” Bloomberg said. “He has to deliver services.”
Hoover then said: “I’m looking at people in Hong Kong who are protesting and wondering whether the Chinese government cares what they have to say.”
Bloomberg said that in government – “even governments that aren’t what we could call a democracy” – there were many stakeholders with vested interests and “they have an impact”.
Smog in northern China rises in first four months of 2019 as anti-pollution drive loses ‘momentum’
Bloomberg’s comments come seven years after his news service published an investigative story about the finances of the extended family of Xi, then vice-president.
The story was published at a sensitive time, with China holding a once-a-decade leadership transition that saw Xi become president.
China banned the use of Bloomberg financial data tracking terminals but the company’s relations warmed gradually after three years.
In August 2015, Bloomberg was given a high-profile reception by then vice-premier Zhang Gaoli. He also published an opinion piece in party mouthpiece People’s Daily.
Observers say domestic issues prompted Kremlin to tighten environmental protection around the lake in Siberia, but Chinese activities also played a part
Businesses catering to growing number of visitors from China may be easy scapegoats as they are ‘among the most visible because they are foreign’
A growing number of Chinese tourists are visiting Lake Baikal in Siberia. Photo: Shutterstock
Russia has tightened environmental protection around Lake Baikal amid growing concerns over degradation, with Chinese development and tourism at the heart of recent debates on the nationally treasured Siberian lake.
New protocols signed by President Vladimir Putin on September 12 clarify how authorities will monitor “compliance with the law on Lake Baikal’s conservation and environmental rehabilitation”.
They also call for improved state environmental monitoring of the lake’s unique ecosystem, aquatic animal and plant life; prevention of and response to risks; analysis of the pressure from fishing on its biological resources; as well as measures to conserve those unique aquatic resources.
Observers say domestic issues – including a backlash over the government’s hand in accelerating environmental damage – prompted the Kremlin to act, but concerns over Chinese activities in the area also played a part.
Eugene Simonov, coordinator of the Rivers Without Boundaries International Coalition, said the protocols were a bid by Moscow to show it was concerned about the lake, where mismanagement and relaxed standards had damaged water quality and the ecosystem – drawing concern from Unesco, which has designated it a World Heritage Site.
But it was also related to local concerns that an influx of Chinese money and tourists in the region was making matters worse.
“One of the leading causes of problems on Lake Baikal is the development of the lake shore for tourism these days, which, at least in the Irkutsk region, is greatly driven by Chinese business,” said Simonov, who has worked extensively on the area’s environmental issues.
He pointed to the “not legal” hotels opened by local and Chinese businesses that cater to the increasing number of tourists from China, saying they stood out as easy scapegoats.
“The real driving force is the desire of locals to privatise the lake shore, illegally, but the Chinese demand is one of the reasons they want to privatise it, while Chinese businesses are among the most visible because they are foreign,” he said.
Public opposition to a water bottling plant being built by a Chinese-owned company pushed local authorities to halt the project in March. Photo: Weibo
Some 186,000 Chinese tourists visited the region last year, up 37 per cent from 2017, according to official Irkutsk figures. But while they accounted for about two-thirds of foreign visitors to the Irkutsk region, they made up only about 10 per cent of the 1.7 million tourists who visited last year.
Concern about Chinese investment and development in the region reached a crescendo in March, when public opposition pushed local authorities to halt the construction of a water bottling plant operated by AquaSib, a Russian firm owned by a Chinese company called Lake Baikal Water Industry, based in China’s Heilongjiang province.
The Irkutsk government acted after more than a million people – more than the city’s population – signed a petition calling for the “Chinese plant” to be halted.
Adventures in the frozen wilderness: a Hong Kong man’s trek across icy Lake Baikal
“There were at least 10 problems [around Lake Baikal] that were much more important at that moment, but it was the Chinese plan that was the focus,” Simonov said, noting the nationalism surrounding the lake as a Russian point of pride.
Paul Goble, a Eurasia specialist who has been tracking the issues at Lake Baikal, said stirring up resentment over Chinese encroachment in Siberia and the country’s Far East had long been a government tactic to quell dissent and unite popular opinion.
But he said the new protocols showed Moscow realised that locals – facing the effects of a deteriorating environment including deforestation driven by China’s domestic market demand – may not be satisfied with that explanation.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev exchange documents after talks in St Petersburg on Tuesday. Photo: AFP
“People are angry not at China, as might have been the case a year ago or more, but they are angry at Moscow for not standing up to China and what it’s doing,” he said, pointing to this as the reason the Kremlin tightened environmental controls on the lake.
Concerns about the impact of Chinese activities on Russia’s environment come as the two neighbours are playing up closer diplomatic and economic ties. One of the outcomes of a
between Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Russian heads of state last week was an agreement to increase bilateral trade to more than US$200 billion over the next five years.
But how that investment could be sustainable for Russia – a key supplier of raw materials needed by China such as oil, gas and timber – remained to be seen, observers said.
Are Chinese tourists the greatest threat to Lake Baikal?
“Our great relationship is going well, but we have not seen the accompanying rise in Chinese foreign direct investment into Russia – that remains very small, despite all the talk,” said Artyom Lukin, an associate professor with the School of Regional and International Studies at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok.
“Russia is not satisfied with that, they would like to see more Chinese money, more Chinese greenfield investment coming into Russia, into more productive areas of the Russian economy, not just into the extraction sector like oil, timber or coal,” he said.
Lake Baikal has been seen as an area that could draw a lot of Chinese investment. Back in 2016 there were reports of a tourism development deal, worth up to US$11 billion, between Russian operator Grand Baikal and a consortium of Chinese firms, according to Russian state media reports.
But so far most development from Chinese businesses has remained at the small and medium scale.
The reasons for that, according to experts, range from the difficulty of competing with powerful local rivals and the need to tread carefully around anti-China sentiment.
However, the burden and liability of complying with environmental standards also kept operations at a smaller scale.
China and Russia: a fool’s errand for Trump to try to come between them
“It’s simpler and easier to operate smaller businesses and facilities, and it’s easier to monitor and manage them,” said Vitaly Mozharowski, a partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner in Moscow, who specialises in environmental law, noting that concerns included management of waste water and garbage.
Meanwhile, big complexes were obvious targets for scrutiny, and that would only increase with the new protocols in place, Mozharowski said. “Any large-scale initiatives would be considered from the very top of the Russian establishment,” he said.
Image copyright PEAR VIDEOImage caption Grainy footage showed something that appeared to have a tail slithering back and forth in the water
Something is lurking in the deep in China’s famous Yangtze River – and social media discussion is rife over what it might be.
On Friday, footage appeared on China’s popular Sina Weibo microblog of what appeared to be a long, black creature, manoeuvring through the waters, and it has dominated online discussion ever since.
Footage has quickly racked up millions of views, and theories are rife.
Specialists have weighed in – but some think there may be a simple, and less murky, explanation.
Excitement over footage
A video filmed off the coast of the city of Yichang in western Hubei province, close to the Three Gorges Dam, captured the unusual scene.
Locals are filmed watching the creature from the shore – and social media users have similarly been captivated over theories about what the creature might be.
Many have posted using the hashtag #ThreeGorgesMonsterPhotos, and specialists have begun to weigh in with their thoughts.
In an interview with Pear Video, Professor Wang Chunfang from the Huazhong Agricultural University dismissed the idea of it being a new species, saying it was likely a simple “water snake”.
Some users said that “external factors such as pollution” could have a role to play in a sea snake growing to an extraordinary size. But not everyone was convinced.
Separate footage has led some users to question whether the unidentified object is actually a living creature at all.
Image copyright THE PAPERImage caption Millions have watched footage of the item, but some think it might be a piece of simple rubbish
Popular news website The Paper shared separate footage of something long and black moving in the water that appeared to be less animated.
It asked if the whole thing was simply “a rumour” – and interviewed a biologist, Ding Li, who said that the object was neither a fish nor a snake, but simply “a floating object”.
A picture has since gone viral showing a long piece of black cloth washed up on some rocks, fuelling discussion this might have been the mysterious object.
Image copyright THE PAPERImage caption The appearance of some cloth washed up on some rocks has got users asking if they were mistaken
Both have led to jokes about whether the local government was trying to attract tourism to the area, given the millions of dollars involved in building and maintaining the Three Gorges Dam.
Others have made jokes about the quality of the footage, despite the rapid development in China of high quality smartphones.
Some joked that the user obviously didn’t have a Huawei phone. Another said: “Monsters always appear only when there are few pixels.”
So what does live in the Yangtze?
Image copyright AFPImage caption Giant Chinese salamanders live in the Yangtze river. They can grow to 1.8 metres in length
The Yangtze River is the longest river in Asia, and at 3,900 miles in length (6,300km), is the third longest in the world.
But pollution has severely affected the river in recent years, meaning that its ecosystem has become narrower, rather than wider.
The largest creature thought to exist in the waters at present is the Chinese giant salamander, which can reach some 1.8m in length.
This species is critically endangered, largely as a result of pollution.
Image copyright ZHANG PENG/GETTY IMAGESImage caption The Three Gorges Dam is the world’s latest hydroelectric dam
China’s other ‘Nessies’
China is no stranger to conspiracy theories about mythical creatures lurking in the deep.
Since 1987, questions have been asked about whether a “Lake Monster” exists in the Kanas Lake in north-western Xinjiang, following numerous reports of sightings.
However, specialists believe that this is a giant taimen, a species of salmon that can grow to 180cm long, the official China Daily said.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 