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.
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BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s Inceptio Technology, a startup developing self-driving trucks, has raised $100 million in its latest funding round from logistics firm GLP, its key strategic investor G7 and other investors, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The proceeds from its series A funding round will be used to further develop its technologies and to start commercial trials, said the sources, who declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to media.
The company, which aims to operate a freight network with autonomous driving trucks in China from 2022, has partnerships with Dongfeng Automobile Co Ltd (600006.SS), Sinotruk Hong Kong Ltd (3808.HK) and Foton (600166.SS).
The two-year-old firm is developing autonomous driving software and an in-car computing system while the truckmakers are responsible for the vehicles’ platforms.
Inceptio declined to comment. G7 and Singapore-based GLP did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Inceptio focuses on level 3 and 4 technologies. A level 3 vehicle will enable drivers to turn their attention away from driving but they still need to take over if the car encounters a problem, while with level 4 technologies, there is no human intervention in most circumstances.
The trucking industry is expected to an earlier adopter of autonomous driving technology compared to passenger vehicle makers as driving on highways is more predictable than on busy city streets.
German automaker Daimler (DAIGn.DE) and U.S. postal giant United Parcel Service Inc (UPS.N) have invested in self-driving trucks.
China’s economy shrank for the first time in decades in the first quarter of the year, as the virus forced factories and businesses to close.
The world’s second biggest economy contracted 6.8% according to official data released on Friday.
The financial toll the coronavirus is having on the Chinese economy will be a huge concern to other countries.
China is an economic powerhouse as a major consumer and producer of goods and services.
This is the first time China has seen its economy shrink in the first three months of the year since it started recording quarterly figures in 1992.
“The GDP contraction in January-March will translate into permanent income losses, reflected in bankruptcies across small companies and job losses,” said Yue Su at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Last year, China saw healthy economic growth of 6.4% in the first quarter, a period when it was locked in a trade war with the US.
In the last two decades, China has seen average economic growth of around 9% a year, although experts have regularly questioned the accuracy of its economic data.
Its economy had ground to a halt during the first three months of the year as it introduced large-scale shutdowns and quarantines to prevent the virus spread in late January.
As a result, economists had expected bleak figures, but the official data comes in slightly worse than expected.
Among other key figures released in Friday’s report:
Factory output was down 1.1% for March as China slowly starts manufacturing again.
Retail sales plummeted 15.8% last month as many of shoppers stayed at home.
Unemployment hit 5.9% in March, slightly better than February’s all-time high of 6.2%.
Analysis: A 6% expansion wiped out
Robin Brant, BBC News, Shanghai
The huge decline shows the profound impact that the virus outbreak, and the government’s draconian reaction to it, had on the world’s second largest economy. It wipes out the 6% expansion in China’s economy recorded in the last set of figures at the end of last year.
Beijing has signalled a significant economic stimulus is on the way as it tries to stabilise its economy and recover. Earlier this week the official mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, the People’s Daily, reported it would “expand domestic demand”.
But the slowdown in the rest of the global economy presents a significant problem as exports still play a major role in China’s economy. If it comes this will not be a quick recovery.
On Thursday the International Monetary Fund forecast China’s economy would avoid a recession but grow by just 1.2% this year. Job figures released recently showed the official government unemployment figure had risen sharply, with the number working in companies linked to export trade falling the most.
China has unveiled a range of financial support measures to cushion the impact of the slowdown, but not on the same scale as other major economies.
“We don’t expect large stimulus, given that that remains unpopular in Beijing. Instead, we think policymakers will accept low growth this year, given the prospects for a better 2021,” said Louis Kuijs, an analyst with Oxford Economics.
Since March, China has slowly started letting factories resume production and letting businesses reopen, but this is a gradual process to return to pre-lockdown levels.
Media caption Why does China’s economy matter to you?
China relies heavily on its factories and manufacturing plants for economic growth, and has been dubbed “the world’s factory”.
Stock markets in the region showed mixed reaction to the Chinese economic data, with China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite index up 0.9%.
An increasing proportion of young people no longer willing to wait tables in China as restaurant owners look to new technology for answers
Catering robots developed by Pudu Tech, the three-year-old Shenzhen start-up, have been adopted by thousands of restaurants in China, as well as some foreign countries including Singapore, Korea, and Germany. Photo: Handout
Two years ago, Bao Xiangyi quit school and worked as a waiter in a restaurant for half a year to support himself, and the 19 year-old remembers the time vividly.
“It was crazy working in some Chinese restaurants. My WeChat steps number sometimes hit 20,000 in a day [just by delivering meals in the restaurant],” said Bao.
The WeChat steps fitness tracking function gauges how many steps you literally take and 20,000 steps per day can be compared with a whole day of outdoor activity, ranking you very high in a typical friends circle.
Bao, now a university student in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, quit the waiter job and went back to school.
“I couldn’t accept that for 365 days a year every day would be the same,” said Bao.
“Those days were filled with complete darkness and I felt like my whole life would be spent as an inferior and insignificant waiter.”
Olivia Niu, a 23-year-old Hong Kong resident, quit her waiter job on the first day. “It was too busy during peak meal times. I was so hungry myself but I needed to pack meals for customers,” said Niu.
Being a waiter has never been a top career choice but it remains a big source of employment in China. Yang Chunyan, a waitress at the Lanlifang Hotel in Wenzhou in southeastern China, has two children and says she chose the job because she needs to make a living.
Catering robots developed by Pudu Tech, the three-year-old Shenzhen start-up. Photo: Handout
Today’s young generation have their sights on other areas though. Of those born after 2000, 24.5 per cent want careers related to literature and art. This is followed by education and the IT industry in second and third place, according to a recent report by Tencent QQ and China Youth Daily.
Help may now be at hand though for restaurants struggling to find qualified table staff who are able to withstand the daily stress of juggling hundreds of orders of food. The answer comes in the form of robots.
Japan’s industrial robots industry becomes latest victim of the trade war
Shenzhen Pudu Technology, a three-year-old Shenzhen start-up, is among the tech companies offering catering robots to thousands of restaurant owners who are scrambling to try to plug a labour shortfall with new tech such as machines, artificial intelligence and online ordering systems. It has deployed robots in China, Singapore, Korea and Germany.
With Pudu’s robot, kitchen staff can put meals on the robot, enter the table number, and the robot will deliver it to the consumer. While an average human waiter can deliver 200 meals per day – the robots can manage 300 to 400 orders.
“Nearly every restaurant owner [in China] says it’s hard to recruit people to [work as a waiter],” Zhang Tao, the founder and CEO of Pudu tech said in an interview this week. “China’s food market is huge and delivering meals is a process with high demand and frequency.”
Pudu’s robots can be used for ten years and cost between 40,000 yuan (US$5,650) and 50,000 yuan. That’s less than the average yearly salary of restaurant and hotel workers in China’s southern Guangdong province, which is roughly 60,000 yuan, according to a report co-authored by the South China Market of Human Resources and other organisations.
As such, it is no surprise that more restaurants want to use catering robots.
According to research firm Verified Market Research, the global robotics services market was valued at US$11.62 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach US$35.67 billion by 2026.
Can robots and virtual fruit help the elderly get well in China?
China’s labour force advantage has also shrank in recent years. The working-age population, people between 16 and 59 years’ old, has reduced by 40 million since 2012 to 897 million, accounting for 64 per cent of China’s roughly 1.4 billion people in 2018, according to the national bureau of statistics.
By comparison, those of working age accounted for 69 per cent of the total population in 2012.
Other Chinese robotic companies are also entering the market. SIASUN Robot & Automation Co, a hi-tech listed enterprise belonging to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced their catering robots to China’s restaurants in 2017. Delivery robots developed by Shanghai-based Keenon Robotics Co., founded in 2010, are serving people in China and overseas markets such as the US, Italy and Spain.
Pudu projects it will turn a profit this year and it is in talks with venture capital firms to raise a new round of funding, which will be announced as early as October, according to Zhang. Last year it raised 50 million yuan in a round led by Shenzhen-based QC capital.
To be sure, the service industry is still the biggest employer in China, with 359 million workers and accounting for 46.3 per cent of a working population of 776 million people in 2018, according to the national bureau of statistics.
And new technology sometimes offers up new problems – in this case, service with a smile.
“When we go out for dinner, what we want is service. It is not as simple as just delivering meals,” said Wong Kam-Fai, a professor in engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a national expert appointed by the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence. “If they [robot makers] can add an emotional side in future, it might work better.”
Technology companies also face some practical issues like unusual restaurant layouts.
“Having a [catering robot] traffic jam on the way to the kitchen is normal. Some passageways are very narrow with many zigzags,” Zhang said. “But this can be improved in future with more standardised layouts.”
Multi-floor restaurants can also be a problem.
Dai Qi, a sales manager at the Lanlifang Hotel, said it is impossible for her restaurant to adopt the robot. “Our kitchen is on the third floor, and we have boxes on the second, third, and fourth floor. So the robots can’t work [to deliver meals tdownstairs/upstairs],” Dai said.
But Bao says he has no plans to return to being a waiter, so the robots may have the edge.
“Why are human beings doing something robots can do? Let’s do something they [robots] can’t,” Bao said.
Priority carriages on underground trains have not solved the problem of sexual harassment for female passengers
A woman is surrounded by men in a priority carriage on the Shenzhen metro. Photo: Sam Tsang
The first time Wanda was groped by a man on a Beijing bus she was a college student, travelling to school in her gym uniform on a summer’s day. Ten years – and numerous examples of sexual harassment on public transport – later, she is still haunted by the memory.
Now 31, Wanda – who asked to be identified only by her first name – remembers every detail of the incident. The bus was not crowded but the man, who appeared to be in his 40s, went straight over to stand uncomfortably close to her.
Then he pressed himself tightly against her and began making a thrusting motion with his lower body. Wanda said she froze, terrified by the encounter and unsure how to act. Just then, the bus took a sharp turn, the man was thrown aside and she quickly moved away.
“Afterwards, for a period, I looked at every adult man I saw as if he was aggressive,” she said.
Since then, Wanda said she had been flashed at in public and just last year was forced to block a man with her purse when he tried to touch her leg on a train.
118 Chinese men detained for groping women on subway trains
Wanda’s experience is not unusual but attempts to address the problem of sexual harassment on public transport in China have met with mixed results, as well as claims by feminists that they are restrictive to women.
Two major cities in southern China, for example, introduced priority carriages for women on their underground trains in 2017.
and Guangzhou, both in Guangdong province, established two designated carriages – one at each end of the train – during peak times.
The carriages are decorated with pink stickers which say, in Chinese and English, “priority carriages for women” and while men are not barred from using them
they are encouraged to leave them to women passengers.
While the authorities did not specifically say they were intended to prevent sexual harassment – saying only that the scheme was meant to “give more care and respect to women” – the carriages followed a precedent set by Japan and Europe for that reason.
Shenzhen is currently considering an update to its priority carriages with an amended law designating them for people with disabilities and minors, as well as women, and only during rush hour. Other passengers who do not meet these criteria can be asked to leave by rail staff.
A priority carriage for women on the Shenzhen underground system. Photo: Phoebe Zhang
But in reality the restrictions on the priority carriages are seldom enforced and they have been used by men since their launch. Furthermore, feminists say the scheme is a form of segregation, rather than an attempt to solve the cause of the issue.
One reason the priority carriages have failed in their purpose could be the size of the crowds using public transport each day. According to government data, there are roughly 5 million passenger trips on the Shenzhen underground every day and 8 million in Guangzhou.
It is also hard for staff to enforce the regulation.
“When it first came out, subway staff vehemently advocated for women to use it, so many people did,” said Zhang Ying, a piano teacher in Guangzhou. Staff would hold loud speakers and gesture for women to get on the priority carriages. But now, everybody just treats it like an ordinary carriage, she said.
Zhang said she rarely uses the priority carriages because of the inconvenience of having to walk all the way to the end of the train.
Women call for convenience in all areas, but [the government] only wants to draw you a little corner to play in.Xiao Meili, Guangzhou-based feminist
Feminists have opposed the scheme from the start.
“The logic behind the scheme is wrong to begin with,” said Xiao Meili, a Guangzhou-based feminist. “When noticing the dangers women face in public spaces, women call for convenience in all areas, but [the government] only wants to draw you a little corner to play in, signalling they still will neglect you in most places.”
Although it may appear well-intentioned, Xiao said the scheme was restricting women’s space.
“Most of the sexual harassers and rapists are men, so wouldn’t it be more effective to put these offenders in a limited space?” she asked.
In a survey of 443 people conducted by a group of feminists in Shenzhen in 2017, 42 per cent of women said they had been harassed on public transport, compared with just 6 per cent of men.
Most of the interviewees said they were dissatisfied with the police response and 65 per cent said they thought police should be most responsible for handling sexual harassment in public.
Six ways Japanese women can deter gropers on trains
Xiao and others have repeatedly written to government representatives about sexual harassment on public transport. In 2016, Xiao’s feminist group received 40,000 yuan (US$5,650) in public donations – just enough to buy an advertisement slot.
For two years, the group tried to put up anti-harassment billboards in the Guangzhou and Shenzhen underground systems, but they were repeatedly blocked by the authorities who said the advertisements would cause panic.
But in 2018 Xiao’s group spotted advertisements in the subways in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, some placed by news organisations and others by local governments. One advertisement in Chengdu, put up by rail officials, said: “There’s no groping hand here.”
Another, in Beijing, said: “Prevent sexual harassment, be vocal.”
Xiao said she was happy to see the changes, but described the current policy of updating the carriages in Shenzhen as an example of “lazy politics”.
There needed to be more than a pink bumper sticker on carriage windows, she said.
Instead, policymakers needed to think about the actual mechanisms of stopping harassment and how to handle culprits once they were caught.
“Women do not demand special care as if they are a soft and weak group,” Xiao said.
“They demand the safety they deserve and the right to travel conveniently.”
ZADSHI VILLAGE, India (Reuters) – Three years ago, brick mason Pundlik Bhandekar was always busy as farmers in his tiny hamlet in Maharashtra commissioned new houses and nearby towns were undergoing rapid urbanisation. Now, as the rural economy sinks and the pace of construction slows, Bhandekar is struggling to get work.
“I used to get a new construction project before I could even finish one. People would come to my house to check when I would be free to work for them,” said Bhandekar, as he sat with friends under the shade of a tree on a hot afternoon.
From daily wage workers such as masons, to barbers and grocery shop owners – just about everyone in Zadshi village, some 720 km (450 miles) from India’s financial hub Mumbai, says a drop in farm incomes has dented their livelihoods.
Their woes are symptomatic of a wider problem across India, where more than half of the country’s 1.3 billion people are dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, as the slowdown in the rural economy is felt in the dampening sales of consumer goods, especially the biggest such as car and motorbike sales.
The slowdown has also dented Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity in the hinterland that propelled him to power in 2014, and political strategists say it may mean he struggles to form a majority after voting in a staggered general election that began on April 11 concludes on May 19.
Zadshi has been almost entirely dependent on annual cotton and soybean crops that, according to farmers, have given lacklustre returns in the past few years due to a dip in prices, droughts and pest attacks.
And as incomes have dropped, farmers have cut back on big-ticket spending such as building new houses, digging wells or laying water pipelines, squeezing employment opportunities for people such as Bhandkekar.
“No one is interested in hiring us. We are ready to work even at 250 rupees ($3.60) per day,” said Bhandekar, who charged 300 rupees a day when work was steady, but now gets work only once or twice in a fortnight.
LOWER WAGES, LESS SPENDING
Economic data reflects the plight of farmers and daily wage workers.
Retail food inflation in the fiscal year ended on March 31 fell to 0.74 percent, even as core inflation stood at 5.2 percent, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch Research, eroding the spending power of farmers.
Inflation adjusted wage growth for workers involved in crop sowing was just 0.6 percent 2018/19 compared with 6.5 percent in 2013/14.
The value of farm produce at constant prices grew 15 percent in the past five years, compared with 23 percent in the previous five, while the manufacturing sector grew 40 percent, against 32.6 percent in the previous five years, government data shows.
“Lower rural wages will result in lesser spending, which in turn will reduce demand for goods and services that are part of the rural basket,” Rupa Rege Nitsure, group chief economist at L&T Finance Holdings in Mumbai, told Reuters.
The government needs to spend more in rural areas to generate employment and boost incomes, Nitsure said.
Modi’s Hindu nationalist government did introduce various support schemes in the past six months, such as a 6,000 rupees yearly handout to small farmers.
The main opposition Congress party has gone much further with its pledges though, saying it would introduce a basic minimum income, where the country’s poorest families would get 72,000 rupees annually, benefiting some 250 million people.
RISING UNEMPLOYMENT
In Zadshi, as the mercury touched a searing 40 degrees Celsius(104F), a group of villagers gathered under the trees lining a dusty road and began chatting about everything from crop prices to politics.
“What else we can do? Had work been available in urban areas, we could have moved there but even in the cities construction has slowed down,” said Amol Sontakke, an unskilled labourer who works in farms and on construction sites.
Job opportunities have slowed even in urban areas and India’s unemployment rate touched 7.2 percent in February, the highest since September 2016, according to data compiled by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Official data is unavailable for recent periods.
The mood in Zadshi was glum. While four dozen villagers interviewed by Reuters were hopeful that if there was a good monsoon this year it could improve farm incomes, they’ve been cutting back on spending in the meantime.
“People are thinking twice before buying new clothes during festivals,” said Avinash Gaurkar, a farmer currently doubling up as a part-time driver. “Buying big-ticket items such as motorcycles or refrigerators is out of the question.”
Two years ago Gaurkar began building a house, but had to give up midway as his five-acre farm could not generate the money needed, he said, pointing towards a half-finished structure without doors.
In 2018, just four villagers bought new motorbikes compared with as many as 10 a year about four years ago, said cotton farmer Raju Kohale, whose son is sitting at home unemployed after graduating as an engineer.
“Poor monsoon or lower prices, something or the other has been hurting us in the past few years,” Kohale said.
MODI AGAIN?
In the 2014 general election, most in Zadshi voted for Modi, but the farmers’ distress has swayed many towards the opposition Congress party. That was clear from Reuters’ interviews with 48 villagers, who cast their ballots last month.
Farmers are at the bottom of the Modi administration’s priority list, said labourer Sagar Bahalavi.
“They are building big roads to connect metros and calling it development. How is that useful for us?” he said.
Some, though, want to give Modi a second chance.
“Modi’s intentions are good, it’s the bureaucratic system that is not supporting him,” said Gulab Chalakh, who owns a 20-acre farm and is among the richest in the village. “We should give him another chance.”
Image copyright EPA
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 
Chinese self-driving truck startup Inceptio raises $100 million – sources
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s Inceptio Technology, a startup developing self-driving trucks, has raised $100 million in its latest funding round from logistics firm GLP, its key strategic investor G7 and other investors, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The proceeds from its series A funding round will be used to further develop its technologies and to start commercial trials, said the sources, who declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to media.
The company, which aims to operate a freight network with autonomous driving trucks in China from 2022, has partnerships with Dongfeng Automobile Co Ltd (600006.SS), Sinotruk Hong Kong Ltd (3808.HK) and Foton (600166.SS).
The two-year-old firm is developing autonomous driving software and an in-car computing system while the truckmakers are responsible for the vehicles’ platforms.
Inceptio declined to comment. G7 and Singapore-based GLP did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Inceptio focuses on level 3 and 4 technologies. A level 3 vehicle will enable drivers to turn their attention away from driving but they still need to take over if the car encounters a problem, while with level 4 technologies, there is no human intervention in most circumstances.
The trucking industry is expected to an earlier adopter of autonomous driving technology compared to passenger vehicle makers as driving on highways is more predictable than on busy city streets.
German automaker Daimler (DAIGn.DE) and U.S. postal giant United Parcel Service Inc (UPS.N) have invested in self-driving trucks.
Source: Reuters
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