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’.
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Inmates who have undergone compulsory re-education programme to be moved to other parts of China under job placement scheme delayed by Covid-19 outbreak
Critics have said the camps are a move to eradicate cultural and religious identity but Beijing has defended them as way of boosting job opportunities and combating Islamic radicalisation
Illustration by Perry Tse
The Chinese government has resumed a job placement scheme for tens of thousands of Uygur Muslims who have completed compulsory programmes at the “re-education” camps in the far-western region of Xinjiang, sources said.
The plan, which includes a quota for the numbers provinces must take, was finalised last year but disrupted by the outbreak of Covid-19.
The delay threatens to undermine the Chinese government’s efforts to justify its use of internment camps in Xinjiang.
Critics have said these camps were part of the measures designed to eradicate the ethnic and cultural identity of Uygurs and other Muslim minorities and that participants had no choice but to undertake the re-education programme.
Beijing has repeatedly dismissed these criticisms and said the camps are to give Uygurs the training they need to find better jobs and stay away from the influence of radical fundamentalism.
First Xinjiang, now Tibet passes rules to promote ‘ethnic unity’
17 Feb 2020
Now with the disease under control, the Chinese government has resumed the job placement deal for other provinces to absorb Xinjiang labourers, sources said.
Despite the devastating impact of the disease on its economy and job markets, the Chinese authorities are determined to go ahead with the plan, which they believe would
“Excellent graduates were to be taken on as labourers by various inland governments, in particular, 19 provinces and municipalities,” said the source. It is unclear what constitutes “excellent graduates”.
Some sources earlier said that the programme may be scaled back in light of the new economic reality and uncertainties.
But a Beijing-based source said the overall targets would remain unchanged.
“The unemployment problem in Xinjiang must be resolved at all costs, despite the outbreak,” the source said.
The South China Morning Post has learned that at least 19 provinces and cities have been given quotas to hire Muslim minorities, mostly Uygurs, who have “graduated” from re-education camps.
As early as February, when the daily number of infections started to come down outside Hubei province, China already begun to send Uygur workers to their new jobs.
A photo taken in February showed thousands of young Uygurs, all wearing face masks and with huge red silk flowers pinned to their chests, being dispatched to work in factories outside their hometowns.
By the end of February, Xinjiang alone has created jobs for more than 60,000 Uygur graduates from the camps. A few thousand were also sent to work in other provinces.
Many have been employed in factories making toys and clothes.
Xinjiang’s new rules against domestic violence expand China’s ‘extremism’ front to the home
7 Apr 2020
Sources told the Post that the southern city of Shenzhen – China’s hi-tech manufacturing centre – was given a target last year to eventually resettle 50,000 Uygurs. The city is allowed to do this in several batches, with 15,000 to 20,000 planned for the first stage.
In Fujian province, a government source also said they had been told to hire “tens of thousands of Xinjiang workers”.
“I heard the first batch of several thousands would arrive soon. We have already received official directives asking us to handle their settlement with care,” said the source.
He said the preparation work includes providing halal food to the workers as well as putting in place stronger security measures to “minimise the risks of mass incidents”. It is not known whether they will be given access to prayer rooms.
There are no official statistics of how many Uygurs will be resettled to other provinces and the matter is rarely reported by the mainland media.
But in March, Anhui Daily, the province’s official newspaper, reported that it had received 1,560 “organised labourers from Xinjiang”.
The Uygur workers on average could earn between 1,200 yuan (US$170) to 4,000 yuan (US$565) a month, with accommodation and meals provided by the local authorities, according to Chinese media reports.
However, they are not allowed to leave their dormitories without permission.
The UN has estimated that up to a million Muslims were being held in the camps. Photo: AP
Xinjiang’s per capita disposable income in 2018 was 1,791 yuan a month, according to state news agency Xinhua. But the salary level outside the region’s biggest cities such as Urumqi may be much lower.
The official unemployment rate for the region is between 3 and 4 per cent, but the statistics do not include those living in remote rural areas.
Mindful of the potential risks of the resettlement, Beijing has taken painstaking efforts to carefully manage everything – from recruitment to setting contract terms to managing the workers’ day-to-day lives.
Local officials will go to each Uygur workers’ home to personally take them to prearranged flights and trains. On arrival, they will be immediately picked up and sent to their assigned factories.
US bill would bar goods from Xinjiang, classifying them the product of forced labour by Uygurs
12 Mar 2020
Such arrangements are not unique to Uygurs and local governments have made similar arrangements for ethnic Han workers in other parts of China.
After screening them for Covid-19, local governments have arranged for workers to be sent to their workplaces in batches. They are checked again on arrival, before being sent to work.
China is accelerating such placement deals on a massive scale to offset the impact of the economic slowdown after the outbreak.
Sources told the South China Morning Post that the job placement deal was first finalised by governments in Xinjiang and other provinces last year.
The aim is to guarantee jobs for Uygur Muslim who have “completed vocational training” at the re-education camps and meet poverty alleviation deals in the region, one of the poorest parts of China.
The training they receive in the camps includes vocational training for various job types such as factory work, mechanical maintenance and hotel room servicing. They also have to study Mandarin, Chinese law, core party values and patriotic education.
Xinjiang’s massive internment camps have drawn widespread international condemnation.
The United Nations has estimated that up to 1 million Uygur and other Muslim minority citizens are being arbitrarily detained in the camps, which Beijing insists are necessary to combat terrorism and Islamic radicalisation.
Late last year, Xinjiang’s officials announced that all the inmates of these so-called vocational training centres had “graduated” and taken up employment.
Before this labour placement scheme was introduced, it was extremely difficult for Uygurs to find jobs or live and work in inland regions.
Muslim ethnic minorities, Uygurs in particular, have been subjected to blatant discrimination in China and the situation worsened after the 2009 clashes.
Earlier this month, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute released a report saying more than 80,000 Uygurs had been moved from Xinjiang to work in factories in nine Chinese regions and provinces.
It identified a total of 27 factories that supplied 83 brands, including household names such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Siemens, Sony, Huawei, Samsung, Nike, Abercrombie and Fitch, Uniqlo, Adidas and Lacoste.
‘Psychological torture’: Uygurs abroad face mental health crisis over plight of relatives who remain in Xinjiang
11 Mar 2020
The security think tank concluded that the Chinese government had transferred Uygur workers “under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour” between 2017 and 2019, sometimes drawing labourers directly from re-education camps.
The report also said the work programme represents a “new phase in China’s social re-engineering campaign targeting minority citizens”.
Workers were typically sent to live in segregated dormitories, underwent organised Mandarin lessons and ideological training outside working hours and were subject to constant surveillance, the researcher found.
They were also forbidden from taking part in religious observances, according to the report that is based on open-source documents, satellite pictures, academic research and on-the-ground reporting.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian criticised the report saying it had “no factual basis”.
Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma has sent the first shipment of surgical masks and coronavirus test kits to the US.
The Chinese billionaire tweeted two pictures of the pallets of goods being loaded on to a plane in Shanghai.
Earlier this month he said he would give 500,000 testing kits and one million masks to America.
Mr Ma is also sending consignments of medical supplies to Europe as he called for international cooperation efforts to combat the pandemic.
In his first tweet, Asia’s richest person posted photos of a China Eastern Airlines jet being loaded with boxes of coronavirus test kits and face masks as they were shipped to the US.
It comes after the Jack Ma Foundation and the Alibaba Foundation last week announced that they had prepared 500,000 testing kits and 1 million masks to be sent to America.
They also said that they had already donated supplies to other countries including Japan, South Korea, Italy, Iran and Spain, with two million protective masks pledged for distribution across Europe.
The first consignment of 500,000 masks and other medical supplies such as test kits, which was destined for Italy, arrived in Belgium on Friday.
He joins other high-profile technology executives in pledging support for coronavirus research and disease prevention.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who is the world’s second-richest person, has announced that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would give $100m to help efforts to stop the spread of the virus.
On Friday Mr Gates announced that he was stepping down from Microsoft’s board to spend more time on philanthropic activities. He said he wanted to focus on global health and development, education and tackling climate change.
Chinese tech giants, including Tencent, ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing, and TikTok owner ByteDance, have all pledged money and resources to fight the coronavirus outbreak.
Huang Kunming, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, attends the opening ceremony of the sixth World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, east China’s Zhejiang Province, Oct. 20, 2019. Before delivering his speech, Huang read Chinese President Xi Jinping’s congratulatory letter to the conference. (Xinhua/Liu Bin)
WUZHEN, Zhejiang Province, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) — The sixth World Internet Conference opened Sunday in the river town of Wuzhen in east China’s Zhejiang Province.
With the theme of “Intelligent Interconnection for Openness and Cooperation — Building a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace,” the three-day conference will bring together more than 1,500 participants from over 80 countries and regions, including members of the Internet Hall of Fame, Nobel Prize winners and Turing Award winners.
Executives from major tech companies from home and abroad such as Microsoft, Qualcomm, Alibaba Group and Huawei will share their insight on the future development of the internet at 20 sub-forums, covering popular and cutting-edge topics such as artificial intelligence (AI), 5G and industrial digitization.
Huang Kunming, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the conference.
Fifty years after the birth of the internet, efforts should be made to seize new opportunities and address risks and challenges to build cyberspace into a shared community that benefits all humanity, Huang said.
The senior official also called for enhanced efforts to develop the digital economy, unleash the digital dividend, and protect the security and order of cyberspace.
During the conference, reports on China and world internet development will be released to forecast the future trend of internet development.
The reports will review global internet development over the past five decades and the history of Chinese internet during the last 25 years.
Around 15 top scientific and technological projects in the internet sector will also be unveiled, covering AI, 5G, big data, cloud computing, digital manufacturing, industrial internet and other internet-related fields.
The number of internet users in China hit 854 million in June 2019, with the internet availability rate reaching 61.2 percent, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.
Shanghai AI conference has attracted executives from nearly 300 companies including US firms Intel, IBM, Microsoft and Qualcomm
Ma is mainly an AI optimist, whereas Musk has sounded several warnings on the topic
Elon Musk and Jack Ma face off over AI at the 2019 Shanghai WAIC. Photo: SCMP
Billionaire techpreneurs Jack Ma and Elon Musk faced off over AI in a much-anticipated morning session at the Shanghai World Artificial Intelligence Conference on Thursday, and although sparks didn’t actually fly it was clear to the packed audience that they each have a different vision of the future.
“AI will open a new chapter so that humans will know themselves better,” said Jack Ma, Alibaba Group Holding founder. “Most of the projections about AI are wrong … people who are street-smart about AI are not scared by it.”
The conference has attracted executives from nearly 300 companies including US firms Intel, IBM, Microsoft and Qualcomm as well as scientists and scholars from across the world. Both men had to condense their visions of the future into a compact 45-minute session, which also included answering a series of pre-prepared questions from Chinese netizens.
“Due to AI, people will have more time to enjoy themselves as a human being … forget long days, we could end up with 12-hour work weeks,” said Ma. “I don’t worry too much about the impact of AI on jobs … in the future we will not need a lot of jobs.”
Musk, who has founded a string of tech ventures including SpaceX, Boring Company and Neuralink aside from his role as co-founder and CEO of Tesla, said he had heard that “AI sounds like love in Chinese” but in a more cautious tone described AI as “much more than just a smart human”.
“Humans may become too slow. A millisecond is an eternity to a computer today,” said Musk, who has championed everything from electric cars to Mars colonies. “Computers are already smarter than human beings in many aspects,” he said, adding that while humans write AI software today, in the end the machine will do this itself.
Alibaba co-founder and chairman Jack Ma speaks at the 2019 World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos. Photo: Xinhua
The comments from the two executives, who are both engaged in industries [e-commerce and autonomous driving] where AI is essential – were largely in line with what they have said before on the topic. Ma is mainly an optimist, seeing AI as an inevitable agent of change in a digital world, whereas Musk has sounded several warnings.
In 2017, Musk – along with 100 robotics and AI leaders – urged the United Nations to take action against the dangers of autonomous weapons, known as “killer robots”. He has also described AI as humanity’s “biggest existential threat”, comparing it to “summoning the demon”.
AI cannot replace me yet, says Esquire magazine editor
Earlier in the week, Ma said that amid an escalating trade and technology war between the US and China, both countries needed to make a concerted effort to work together on technology for the world to benefit from the digital era.
“In the smart era, it is almost impossible for anyone to strike out on their own,” Ma said in a speech at the Smart China Expo in Chongqing on Monday. “Only if China and the US work together on technology, can we enter the digital era together.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, 2019. Photo: AP
Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He, Beijing’s top trade negotiator said on Monday at a conference that an escalation of the trade war was not in anyone’s interests. US tariffs on some US$300 billion worth of Chinese imports – mostly consumer goods – are expected to increase from 10 to 15 per cent later this year, in retaliation to China’s decision last week to impose tariffs of between 5 to 10 per cent on US$75 billion worth of American products including soybeans, pork and crude oil.
Automobiles is one of the most high-profile sectors to be affected by the trade war, and US President Donald Trump has highlighted the tariff gap between the US and China on imported cars in earlier comments.
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Founded in 2003, Tesla is currently building its first overseas factory in Shanghai, which is nearing completion and expected to start production by the year end with an initial annual output of 250,000 vehicles.
China is Tesla’s second largest market after the US. The California-based electric car-maker reported an over 40 per cent year-on-year surge in sales generated in the country to nearly US$1.5 billion in the first six months of the year.
Musk is expected to visit the US$5 billion production facility in Lingang, part of Shanghai’s free-trade zone, amid his China trip and launch a China unit for his infrastructure start-up Boring, as announced earlier on Twitter.
IEEE’s ban has ignited a backlash from its Chinese members, resulting in calls to boycott the organisation
Staff at Huawei Technologies have been banned by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers from taking part in the peer review of research papers, including serving as editors for journals, after the Chinese telecommunications equipment maker was added to a US trade blacklist. Photo: AP
The US government’s efforts to reduce the influence of Huawei Technologies, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment supplier, has extended beyond business to cover scientific research.
That development emerged as the New York-based Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) moved to ban Huawei employees from the peer review of research papers, including serving as editors for its journals, after the Chinese hi-tech champion was added to a US trade blacklist.
The decision by IEEE, the world’s biggest technical professional organisation, was leaked online across Chinese social media on Wednesday, igniting a backlash from some of the country’s leading scientists who described the move as “anti-science” and “violating academic freedom”.
Zhang Haixia, a professor with the Institute of Microelectronics at Peking University, announced on her WeChat account on Wednesday that she was quitting IEEE because the decision to comply with the trade blacklist went “far beyond the basic line of science and technology” and challenged her professional integrity.
US is waging a tech war against this district in Shenzhen
“As a professor, I do not accept this,” Zhang wrote online in a public letter addressed to IEEE president-elect Toshio Fukuda.
Her resignation letter was viewed more than 40,000 times since it was posted online. The most popular comments on its thread included calls for Chinese scientists to boycott IEEE.
In a statement on May 30, the IEEE said it must comply with its legal obligations under the laws of the US and other jurisdictions and that compliance with regulations “protects the IEEE, our volunteers, and our members”.
It said Huawei employees are only barred from the peer reviewing process and that they can continue to participate in individual membership, corporate membership, enjoy voting rights and take part in a variety of other activities, including the submission of technical papers for publication.
Huawei said it had no comment about the peer review ban.
The issue between Huawei and IEEE has come amid a raging tech war between the world’s two biggest economies, which recently escalated when the US government placed Huawei and its affiliates under the US Entity List on May 16. That bars the Chinese group from buying hardware, software and services from American hi-tech suppliers without US approval.
A succession of major American technology companies, from Google and Microsoft to Intel and Qualcomm, have suspended their dealings with Huawei to comply with the US trade ban.
Growing disquiet in China as US steps up war on tech champions
US President Donald Trump has also signed an executive order barring US companies from using telecoms equipment made by companies that pose a threat to national security.
The trade blacklist, which is maintained by the Bureau of Industry and Security under the US Department of Commerce, identifies organisations and individuals believed to be involved, or pose a significant risk of becoming involved, in activities contrary to America’s national security or foreign policy interests.
A non-profit organisation founded in January 1963, IEEE had more than 422,000 members in more than 160 countries as of December 31 last year. More than 50 per cent of its members, who are rooted in electrical and computer sciences, engineering and related disciplines, are from outside the US.
Technology is true target of US attack on China, says diplomat
It also publishes around 200 transactions, journals and magazines, and sponsors more than 1,900 conferences in 103 countries.
There is no official data on how many IEEE members are based in mainland China. Public information online, however, showed that at least 80 Huawei employees are members of the organisation.
China’s biggest chip maker to delist from NYSE as US targets tech
In a statement released on May 16, IEEE said that as a corporation organised in New York, it must comply with its legal obligation under US laws. It said the US government’s export restriction covers not only physical goods and software but also technical information.
In the leaked IEEE email, the organisation warned its members of “severe legal implications” if they continue to use Huawei staff as reviewers or editors for the peer review process of its journals.
“IEEE is registered in the US, but we should suggest experts at all levels of IEEE to move its headquarters to places such as Switzerland,” said Zhou Zhihua, a leading computer science professor at Nanjing University and an IEEE fellow, in a post on microblogging site Sina Weibo. “More importantly, let’s show more support to China-produced English-language journals.”
Deliveries will start in the next six to 10 months, carmaker says
Tesla will take on Chinese carmakers such as Geely and SAIC, and electric car start-ups including Nio and Xpeng Motors
Tesla said on Friday that its Model 3 electric car, which will be assembled in China, will be ready for deliveries in six to 10 months. Photo: AFP
Customers can pre-order the Model 3 assembled in China after Tesla announced on Friday that it would be priced 13 per cent lower than the US imports, taking the electric carmaker a step closer in tapping the world’s largest EV market.
The standard range plus Model 3 car that Tesla plans to assemble at the Gigafactory 3 in Lingang, Shanghai, will be priced at 328,000 yuan (US$47,529), 49,000 yuan cheaper than the same model currently imported from the US.
Tesla’s US-built cars are now subject to a 25 per cent import duty in China. The bestselling US electric carmaker plans to start deliveries in the next six to 10 months.
“Today we announced that Model 3 Standard Range Plus vehicles built at Gigafactory Shanghai will begin at 328,000 yuan for our customers in China,” Tesla said in a statement.
Aerial view of the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory under construction in Lingang, Shanghai, on May 10, 2019. Photo: Imaginechina
The model has a range of 460km and a top speed of 225km/h.
Industry observers said that the price of the locally made car aimed at the mass market is on the higher side, adding that a 300,000 yuan price tag could attract thousands of Chinese buyers.
“If a Chinese customer can buy a Tesla car for less than 300,000 yuan, many of them will make a decision on the spur of the moment since it is viewed as the best EV in the world,” said Tian Maowei, a sales manager at Shanghai-based Yiyou Auto Service.
Tesla rushes Model 3s to China before trade war truce expires
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order barring US companies from using telecoms equipment made by companies that pose a threat to national security, a move aimed at shutting out Huawei Technologies.
US technology companies including Google and Microsoft have severed business ties with Huawei to comply with the US trade ban.
Tesla’s Gigafactory 3 is expected to make around 3,000 Model 3 vehicles a week in the initial phase. Photo: AP
In January, Tesla started construction on a US$5 billion wholly-owned plant in Shanghai, the city’s single largest foreign direct investment just three months after it secured a land parcel to make electric cars locally.
The factory will produce Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles that are seen as affordable to drivers in China.
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Gigafactory 3 is expected to make around 3,000 Model 3 vehicles a week in the initial phase, ramping up to 500,000 per year when it becomes fully operational, Tesla said.
Tesla will take on Chinese carmakers such as Geely and SAIC and electric car start-ups including Nio and Xpeng Motors in China where sales of new-energy vehicles including battery-powered and plug-ins are expected to jump 27 per cent this year to 1.6 million units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
In March Beijing announced a cut in cash subsidies offered to NEV buyers by up to 60 per cent, believing it was time to remove the crutches and cull an industry that had spawned hundreds of small manufacturers.
It is unclear whether Tesla vehicles will receive subsidies from the Chinese government.
US tech giant Microsoft has confirmed that its search engine Bing is currently inaccessible in China.
Social media users have expressed concern that the search engine might be the latest foreign website to be blocked by censors.
Chinese authorities operate a firewall that blocks many US tech platforms, including Facebook and Twitter.
Microsoft hasn’t said if the outage may be due to censorship, or is merely a technical problem.
“We’ve confirmed that Bing is currently inaccessible in China and are engaged to determine next steps,” Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement.
A BBC correspondent in China attempted to visit the site, and was able to access it through a Chinese internet provider on a desktop, but not on a smartphone.
Many US tech companies are keen to tap into the Chinese market, but have a difficult relationship with the authorities in Beijing.
The government’s internet censorship regime, often known as the “Great Firewall”, uses a series of technical measures to block foreign platforms and controversial content.
Chinese authorities have also cracked down on Virtual Private Networks, which allow users to skirt around the firewall.
China-based messaging services and social media are restricted, with key words and expressions blocked if they express dissent or ridicule senior political leaders.
China ambitions
Bing’s rival Google shut down its search engine in China in 2010, after rows with the authorities over censorship and hacking.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 