09/08/2019
- Chinese and US researchers take inspiration from the hardy insect to design a robot that moves fast and is hard to squash
A prototype soft robot, which is about the size of a postage stamp, was developed by a group of researchers from China and the US. Its design was inspired by the capabilities of the hardy cockroach. Photo: Handout
Cockroaches are near-indestructible little creatures. These hardy insects have existed since at least 320 million years ago, outliving dinosaurs. A cockroach can also carry loads of up to 900 times its body weight, shrink to a quarter of its height to fit into small crevices and live for a week without its head.
Inspired by the qualities of this humble bug, a group of researchers from China and the United States have created a prototype of a fast-moving and near-indestructible miniature robot, which could potentially replace sniffer dogs in detecting people trapped in a rubble after a major earthquake or similar disastrous event.
Researchers from China’s Tsinghua University and the University of California, Berkeley, published their study on so-called soft robots in the academic journal Science Robotics last week.
“Although the cockroach is an annoying pest, it has certain interesting features, including the ability to move fast in a narrow space and being hard to squash,” said Zhang Min, an assistant professor at Tsinghua University’s Graduate School in Shenzhen and one of the study’s authors, in an email interview. “These features inspired us to develop a fast-moving and robust soft robot.”
Their work on soft robots was conducted under the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute partnership, an initiative to collaborate with global researchers on fields such as environmental science and new energy technology.
Scientists have long taken inspiration from insects, including cockroaches, for engineering robots. Researchers from UC Berkeley previously developed a palm-sized, roach-like robot – about 20 times the size of the bug – for rescue use in 2017.
By comparison, the new prototype achieved breakthroughs in terms of size and more importantly, the speed and robustness.
The latest robot, which is about the size of a postage stamp and weighs less than one-tenth of a gram, is composed of a flexible piezoelectric thin film and a polymer skeleton with two legs.
This screenshot from a video provides a closer look at the prototype soft robot developed by a group of researchers from China and the US. Its features were inspired by the sturdy qualities of the humble cockroach. Photo: YouTube
Despite its petite frame, this prototype showed the fastest speed among insect-scale robots in a similar weight range, as well as “ultra-robustness”, according to Lin Liwei, a professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley who directed the research, in a separate email interview.
It can move as fast as a cockroach with speeds of up to 20 body lengths per second. It also continued to move after it was stepped on by an adult human weighting 60 kilograms, which is about 1 million times heavier than the robot, according to the study.
In 2017, researchers of the PolyPEDAL Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, designed a compressible robot, CRAM, that was about 20 times the size of a real cockroach. Photo: Handout
Those features sets up the robot for potential application in disaster relief, a field in which its size, agility and resilience would be invaluable to help detect survivors trapped beneath the rubble in catastrophes, such as major earthquakes.
Earthquakes have caused much devastation in China, a seismically active country with the world’s biggest population. For example, about 87,000 people died and more than 370,000 were injured when a magnitude-8 earthquake struck Wenchuan, a county in southwestern China’s Sichuan province, in 2008.
“The key innovation is the soft materials and structures used in the robot,” Lin said. “If the robot is too soft, it won’t be able to move fast. If the robot is too stiff, it can’t withstand the force of human weight.” The study detailed how the right combination of soft materials and structure enabled the robot to operate efficiently.
While the robot is currently attached to thin cables for power, the researchers are working to integrate a battery and control circuit to get rid of the existing wire in its design, helping expand its use in other applications.
“We want to make the robot carry small sensors, like a gas sensor, to provide it with more functions,” said Zhong Junwen, a researcher at UC Berkeley and one of the authors of the study, in a separate email interview. “With such a sensor, the robot can detect harmful gas leakage.”
Source: SCMP
Posted in battery, catastrophes, Chinese and US researchers, cockroach, cockroach robot, control circuit, design, Dinosaurs, disasters, earthquakes, energy technology, Environmental science, gas leakage, gas sensor, hard to squash, hardy insect, mechanical engineering, moves fast, piezoelectric thin film, polymer skeleton, PolyPEDAL Lab, postage stamp, power, Robot, Robotics, rubble, search and rescue, Shenzhen, sichuan province, small sensors, strike, thin cables, Tsinghua University, Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, UC Berkeley, Uncategorized, University of California, Berkeley, Wenchuan |
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06/08/2019
- Security forces shown tackling ‘demonstrators’ wearing black shirts
- ‘Anti-mob’ tactics prepare forces for the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic
Shenzhen police broadcast live footage of a security exercise involving 12,000 officers rehearsing anti-riot drills. Photo: Weibo
More than 12,000 police officers assembled in Shenzhen in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong on Tuesday for a drill that included anti-riot measures similar to those seen on the streets of Hong Kong.
The drill was part of security preparations for the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, Shenzhen police said on the force’s Weibo newsfeed.
“A drill will be held to increase troop morale, practise and prepare for the security of celebrations, [and] maintain national political security and social stability,” police said.
China mobilises 190,000 police officers to prepare for 70th anniversary celebrations
In live videos of the police drills shown on the Yizhibo network, officers in body armour, helmets and shields confronted groups of people in black shirts and red or yellow construction safety helmets – similar to those worn by Hong Kong protesters – who were holding flags, banners, batons and wooden boards.
“The practice is complete with mature anti-mob tactics. The police forces can present an anti-mob formation, which is flexible, suitable for different situations, with accurate aim and effective control,” a narrator said during the live broadcast.
As the drill escalated and more “rioters” were deployed, police fired tear gas and smoke covered the training ground.
A few minutes later, the rioters fired home-made gas bombs then set bogies alight and drove them at the police lines. The officers changed formations and pressed the rioters, making arrests. Police handlers and their dogs were also on the scene.
A blazing bogie is driven towards police lines during Shenzhen police’s anti-riot exercise. Photo: Weibo
Other drills included anti-smuggling and search-and-rescue exercises involving personnel from the People’s Liberation Army.
The drill was presented as preparation for the 70th anniversary celebrations but it came amid continued violence in the streets of Hong Kong and two incidents of the Chinese national flag being thrown into Victoria Harbour.
Hong Kong has been engulfed in two months of turmoil stemming from opposition to the now-suspended extradition bill.
Police handlers and their dogs were deployed against people dressed like Hong Kong demonstrators. Photo: Weibo
“Is this hinting at Hong Kong?” a commenter on the Shenzhen police Weibo thread asked.
“We are doing drills today, and they can enter into real practice in Hong Kong in the future. We can send thousands of anti-mob squads over and strike hard at the radical traitors, those Hong Kong independence supporters,” another user said.
Since protests escalated in Hong Kong, Beijing has reiterated its “unflagging support” for embattled Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and her administration to take lawful action to restore order, and warned that the city was entering “a most dangerous phase” with violence on the streets.
Source: SCMP
Posted in 70th anniversary, anti-riot officers, banners, batons, Beijing, black shirts, body armour, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, chinese police, confronted, construction safety helmet, dogs, drill, flags, gas bombs, Guangdong, guangdong province, helmets, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Chief Executive, Mass, migrant workers, national flag, People’s Liberation Army, People’s Liberation Army (PLA), People’s Republic of China, search-and-rescue exercises, Shenzhen, Shenzhen News Radio, shields, smoke, tear gas, Uncategorized, unpaid salaries, Victoria Harbour, Weibo, wooden boards, Yizhibo network |
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22/07/2019
- Sun Ling became a cyber star in China after she responded to an online question: how can you get an overseas education if you are dirt poor?
- ‘I just put my story out there to show there is a possibility in your life even if you have a low starting point,’ the 29-year-old says
Sun Ling works as a contract software engineer at Google in New York. Photo: Sun Ling
To get where she is today, Sun Ling has beaten very long odds.
Born in a rural hamlet in central China’s Hunan province, Sun shot to Chinese social media stardom for her rags-to-relative-comfort career trajectory. Her story begins in a household of such modest means that her mother had to sell blood to make ends meet and a primary school education interrupted by the need for her hands in the family’s fields.
She has no fancy college degree, having gone to work on the assembly line at a Shenzhen factory directly from high school.
Yet today, the 29-year-old works as a contract software engineer at Google in New York, coding on workdays and playing frisbee on weekends, with an annual salary of about US$120,000.
Sun Ling with her parents, brother, niece and nephews in China. Photo: Sun Ling
Sun’s journey from factory worker to high-paid software engineer has garnered Chinese social media headlines such as “the most inspiring story of all times”, and internet users have applauded her as a “positive energy girl”.
But others have not been as flattering, with some questioning the credibility of her story and saying what she has accomplished is almost too difficult to be true amid growing concern about the lack of opportunity and social mobility in China.
“I don’t consider myself a success and I have no intention to become a role model,” Sun told the South China Morning Post on Thursday. “I just put my story out there to show there is a possibility in your life even if you have a low starting point.”
A look inside Google’s new campus outside Silicon Valley
Her story became known in China after she posted an answer on Zhihu, the Chinese version of Quora, responding a question: how can you get an overseas education if you are dirt poor?
In the answer she posted earlier last month, Sun detailed her 10-year journey in making the seemingly impossible possible.
“It is not the orthodox way of studying overseas, just for your reference,” Sun wrote in the post, which has received nearly 35,000 likes on Zhihu. The answer was picked up by other social media; one of her most popular stories, which is circulating on WeChat, has been viewed more than 100,000 times.
Sun said her story was not a textbook “American dream” or “Chinese dream comes true” experience, but rather one driven by the simple motivation to forge a better life.
I just put my story out there to show there is a possibility in your life even if you have a low starting point Sun Ling
When Sun was born in 1990, her parents were farmers in a small village about a 2½-hour drive from Hunan province’s capital city, Changsha. Growing up in a place where a middle school education was considered good enough for a girl, Sun was forced to temporarily drop out of school when she was about 13 to ease the financial burden on her parents, who favoured her brother, the only son in the family.
“I begged and begged till my father allowed me to return to school,” she said. “But to be honest, my strong desire to stay at school at the moment was mainly because farming was too hard. The work got calluses on my hands.”
Sun in her home village in Hunan province in 2013. Photo: Sun Ling
Among her 11 village friends, she was the only one who completed high school. But the education she received at the rural school failed to get her into any college in China. So, like her peers in the village, she went to Shenzhen to become a factory worker.
But the routine of shifts spent examining the quality of batteries bored her. “I have no idea what kind of life I want to live, even today. But I am very certain about the life I don’t want to live,” Sun said.
She quit the factory job after eight months and enrolled in a computer training programme to learn what she regarded as the must-have skills to leave the blue-collar life behind.
That is the thing I like about America: they value what you are able to do more than where you come fromSun Ling
To have enough money to complete the training to become an entry-level software engineer, she worked three part-time jobs, including sending out fliers and waitressing at restaurants, and lived on three credit cards.
After more than a year of training and a debt of 10,000 yuan (US$1,450), in September 2011 she was hired as a software engineer by a Shenzhen company responsible for developing an online payroll system. With her own cubicle, a monthly salary of 4,000 yuan and weekends for herself, the job met all of Sun’s expectation as a “white-collar office lady”.
But the excitement of the new life didn’t last. She started to feel small in a big city where “everyone else is so excellent, with fancy degrees”.
To overcome her educational disadvantage, she signed up for an English training programme and a long-distance programme that allowed her to earn a degree from Shenzhen University. All of this took place while she maintained her software engineering job.
To practise her English, in 2014 she picked up ultimate frisbee, a game where in Shenzhen at the time, most of the players were expats. With a different circle of friends, most of whom had overseas experience, Sun started to dream of a life outside China’s borders.
Sun was born in a rural hamlet in central China’s Hunan province. Photo: Sun Ling
In early 2017, she discovered a master’s programme at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, which features a controversial “consciousness-based education” system that includes the practice of meditation.
Sun applied and was accepted into the university’s computer science programme.
According to her, its design fit her well as it allowed students to have internships or jobs on a work-study visa after months of attending classes on campus. The rest of the programme could be completed remotely.
After nine months studying on campus and 60 job interviews, Sun received a job offer from EPAM Systems, a vendor for Google, late last year.
Google moving some hardware production out of China
Of her work as a contract software engineer at Google’s Manhattan headquarters, Sun said she was very “lucky” since many of her colleagues had a PhD or studied at top-tier American universities.
“But none of them treat me like I don’t deserve all of this,” she said. “That is the thing I like about America: they value what you are able to do more than where you come from.”
However, her story has not been without controversy in China’s cyber world.
Supporters have sent an increasing number of messages from various online channels, thanking her for an inspiring story and seeking her advice on life decisions. Sceptics claim she just got lucky, and some have accused her of being an advertising tool for Maharishi University of Management.
Chinese family paid US$1.2 million for Yale spot. Why weren’t they charged?
“At first, I got really angry,” Sun said. “I don’t think I deserve all the criticism for simply sharing my real life experience. But then I realised that not everyone has the same attitude in life.”
“I had no resources and I had very few options,” she said. “It is natural that people think it is difficult or even impossible to do. But for me it is actually not that difficult. Just keep learning and keep trying new things step by step, day by day.”
Her journey continues. Sun has been practising English and trying to fit better into her life in the US by doing short video interviews on the streets of New York streets. She has also taken courses about artificial intelligence online.
“My next goal is to become an in-house Google software engineer,” she said. “It won’t be easy. But your life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”
Source: SCMP
Posted in American Dream, Changsha, China alert, Chinese dream comes true, comfort zone, cyber star, Fairfield, from, Google, her story, Hunan Province, Iowa, lights up, Maharishi University of Management, meditation, New York City, Quora, restaurants, rural China, shares, Shenzhen, Shenzhen factory, Silicon Valley, social media, software engineer, Sun Ling, Uncategorized, upward mobility, Zhihu |
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22/07/2019
- Some 150,000 residents of Baishizhou have to leave by the end of September to make way for malls, hotels and high-end residential projects
- They worry about finding affordable housing in the city, and their children’s education
Urban villages like Baishizhou provide affordable housing, mostly for migrant workers. Photo: Phoebe Zhang
As their eviction deadline nears, all Chen Jian can think about is the wrecking ball – and where his family is going to go. He often dreams about the negotiations – with officials, real estate developers, landlords. On other nights, he cannot sleep at all.
“I’m mostly worried about my daughter – she starts secondary school in September,” said Chen, 41, who works as a quality supervisor for a foreign trading company.
His family of four lives in a cheap one-bedroom flat in Baishizhou, one of the last standing chengzhongcun, or “urban villages”, in the flourishing commercial zones of southern Chinese city Shenzhen.
The villages provide affordable housing – costing from a few hundred to a few thousand yuan per month – to a mostly migrant worker population that provides services and labour.
But Baishizhou, in the Nanshan district, will not be standing for much longer. Many tenants in the area have received eviction notices since June, telling them to move out before the end of September to make way for a real estate project led by Shenzhen-based developer LVGEM Group.
The developer bought the land and buildings from their landlords, and it plans to knock them down and replace them with malls, hotels, high-end residential projects and skyscrapers.
Some 150,000 people are affected, mostly migrant workers, and they will have to find new homes, change jobs or even move back home at short notice.
Chen Jian lives in a one-bedroom flat in Baishizhou with his wife, daughter and son. Photo: Phoebe Zhang
For Chen and more than 2,000 other families, their children’s education is the most urgent issue. He said they could move somewhere else nearby, but the rent would be more than four times higher. A cheaper area would mean a long walk to school for his daughter from the nearest subway station.
As the breadwinner, Chen’s monthly income of 12,000 yuan (US$1,750) has to cover the whole family. His wife takes care of their three-year-old son and their daughter, 12.
“If I were here by myself, I would just pack up my bags and go,” said Chen, who moved to Shenzhen from Henan province. “But I can’t – I have children, I would do anything for my children.”
Families who’ve lived in old Chinese town for generations being kicked out to make way for tourists
Urban villages are a phenomenon that grew from China’s rapid development. In the 1980s, soon after Shenzhen became the country’s first special economic zone, the local government expropriated mostly vacant land from villagers and allowed developers to build commercial properties there.
The locals invested the large sums of money they received into new living spaces in their villages, which they rented out to the migrant workers that flowed into the city amid a manufacturing boom.
These chengzhongcun emerged as a tangle of damp alleyways, where electricity and telephone wires hang like spiderwebs. They bustle with fruit carts, soy milk shops, cobblers, karaoke parlours, short-stay love hotels and hair salons offering massage services. The “handshake buildings” where people live are packed together so tightly that residents could reach out of the window and shake their neighbour’s hand in the opposite flat.
“I call this ‘voluntary urbanisation’,” said Duan Peng, an architect based in the city. Since he moved to Shenzhen in 2001, Duan has spent many days and nights in Baishizhou. He said its development was in line with the government’s urban planning policy, since it allowed migrant workers to live in a relatively prosperous area in the city centre rather than on its periphery.
“Handshake buildings”, where residents can shake their neighbours’ hands through the windows, are a feature of China’s urban villages. Photo: Phoebe Zhang
Chen moved to Shenzhen with his wife in 2000, and both their children were born there. They moved to Baishizhou in 2008 after he was introduced to his landlord, who is from Chen’s hometown and rented him the flat for 650 yuan a month.
The rent has gone up by just 300 yuan in the 11 years they have lived there. They have watched as new developments sprang up around them – amusement parks, a golf course, malls and an area that is home to some of the country’s top tech companies including Huawei, Tencent and DJI.
How the eviction of Beijing’s migrant workers is tearing at the fabric of the city’s economy
But away from the shiny new developments, 150,000 migrant workers from all over the country are packed into 2,500 buildings in Baishizhou, where rents and services are affordable.
The urban village is full of people like Chen. Small business owner Wang Fang came to Shenzhen from northeast China in 2003 and has lived in Baishizhou ever since. Six months ago, she signed a three-year lease on a commercial space and opened a dumpling restaurant, but she is worried about the future.
“I can’t go back home, I already have a Shenzhen hukou,” she said, referring to the household registration document that gives access to public services. “I don’t have land there any more and can’t make a living there [as a farmer].”
She has not been told she has to leave the restaurant, but Wang and her two sons have until the end of September – when the building’s water and electricity will be cut off – to vacate their flat.
“It’s only a matter of time before the business is shut down as well,” she said.
Small shops and street vendors line Baishizhou’s bustling alleyways. Photo: Phoebe Zhang
According to an online poll of 1,031 Baishizhou residents this week, about half said they may have to find another job, and more than 600 were concerned about their children’s education. The survey, conducted by Shenzhen University urban planning professor Chen Zhu, also found that 70 per cent of those polled planned to find another flat in the city, while 28 per cent would leave.
Duan said the evictions and redevelopment would inevitably affect the surrounding areas, as well as the residents.
“The prices of services in the neighbourhood will increase, because many of the workers [now providing those services] will move far away, and rents will increase as well,” he said.
But for many such redevelopments, while the government, landlords and village officials might be consulted, the tenants are left out.
“Most of these residents, their voices and their interests aren’t on the negotiating table – their losses aren’t calculated in the real estate developer’s demolition costs,” Duan said.
A receptionist at LVGEM said he was not aware of any complaints about the redevelopment, while emails to the company went unanswered.
Meanwhile the developer’s partner, Baishizhou Corporation, told Southern Metropolis Daily it would provide legal services, rentals support and school buses for tenants who will be displaced.
But it is not enough for migrant workers like Chen. Like many of those facing eviction, he fears he will have to pay more rent, and there may not be a school bus service in his area.
He mentions a slogan plastered on walls in the city, “Once you come, you’re a Shenzhener” – part of a government campaign to lure talent and investors.
Chen said he worried that Shenzhen wanted only hi-tech workers and luxury residential compounds in the city, leaving little room for low-income workers.
“Despite what the slogan says, you ask yourself, are you really a Shenzhener?” he said.
Source: SCMP
Posted in affordable housing, automotive special economic zone (SEZ, Baishizhou, breadwinner, chengzhongcun, commercial properties, dumpling restaurant, education, evictions, forced out, hotels, household registration document, hukou, landlords, malls, migrant workers, Nanshan district, negotiations, officials, real estate developers, residential projects, residents, Shenzhen, Shenzhen University, Shenzhener, skyscrapers, subway station, tourists, Uncategorized, urban villages, wrecking ball |
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08/07/2019
BEIJING, July 7 (Xinhua) — China has built six National Supercomputing Centers (NSCC) since 2009, serving as a new driver for the country’s innovation, according to the NSCC in north China’s Tianjin Municipality, which celebrated the 10th anniversary of the founding of the center on Saturday.
Since the establishment of the NSCC in Tianjin was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology in May 2009, other five supercomputing centers were founded one after another in Shenzhen, Jinan, Changsha, Guangzhou and Wuxi respectively.
As the first supercomputing center in China, the NSCC in Tianjin is not only where China’s first petaflop supercomputer the Tianhe-1 is located, but also responsible for developing China’s new generation of the exascale supercomputer the Tianhe-3.
Tianjin has established a complete autonomous information industry including high-performance chips, autonomous control system, high-performance server and database, setting up a model on the transformation of technologic innovation achievements, said Li Xiang, vice president of the National University of Defense Technology.
“The supercomputer has become a symbol of power reflecting the innovative capabilities of China. Next, we will connect these supercomputing centers and share the resources nationwide,” said Mei Jianping, deputy director-general of the Department of High and New Technology of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in Changsha, Department of High and New Technology, Guangzhou, Jinan, Ministry of Science and Technology, National Supercomputing Centers (NSCC), National University of Defense Technology, new engine for innovation, Shenzhen, Supercomputing centers, Tianhe-1, Tianhe-3, Tianjin, Uncategorized, unveils, Wuxi |
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27/06/2019
- First Qatar, and now Saudi Arabia, are competing to dominate China’s fast-growing natural gas market, already the third largest in the world, as Beijing encourages the switch from coal to cleaner, greener energy
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A PetroChina LNG tank at Rudong port in Nantong, Jiangsu province. China’s massive and rapidly growing appetite for natural gas is sparking off a scramble in the Middle East, as energy producers compete to become the biggest player in the market. Photo: Reuters
As more countries turn towards clean energy, the geoeconomic impact of natural gas as a fuel has become second only to that of oil. Over the past decade, the global demand for this carbon-free energy source has risen considerably and one major buyer is China.
The third largest global market for natural gas, China has implemented government policies to replace the use of coal as fuel and millions of households are switching over to clean energy. Consequently, China’s market for gas expanded by a record 43 billion cubic metres last year to reach 280 billion cubic metres at the end of 2018.
With the recent
, China’s gas consumption should continue to grow in the year ahead. As the demand spirals further, natural gas consumption in China is estimated to grow to around 620 billion cubic metres in 2030.
Prioritising its energy security, Beijing last year approved a 22-year gas supply deal between QatarGas and PetroChina International Co. The agreement is PetroChina’s largest LNG supply deal by volume, and will provide 3.4 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas annually.
With this deal, which QatarGas initiated with Total and ExxonMobil Corp as partners, Qatar achieved regional dominance and filled a vacuum left by major gas producer Iran, currently the target of US sanctions. Interestingly, Beijing has also unwittingly sparked off a competition between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the kingpins of the Middle Eastern energy industry.
A vessel carrying Qatar LNG looking to berth in Shenzhen, China last August. Qatar’s recent deal highlighted the massive and growing Chinese appetite for natural gas. Photo: Reuters
China to become world’s top natural gas importer in 2019: report
By exporting gas, as well as oil, Qatar sail unruffled through the
imposed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt in June 2017, over allegations that Qatar supports terrorism and is friendly with Iran, which the region sees as an enemy. Qatar denies this. Meantime, Qatar plans to further increase its gas output. To attract more buyers, it is offering attractive long-term supply contracts to other countries in the region.
Inspired by the success of Qatar Gas, Saudi Arabia has stepped up its efforts to capture this new market. The Saudi state-owned oil giant Aramco plans to build an “energy bridge” between Saudi Arabia and China to better meet Beijing’s growing requirements for oil, gas, including LNG, said Aramco’s chief executive Amin Nasser at an industry event in Beijing in March.
Aramco, already a major supplier of crude oil to China, would need to invest US$150 billion over the next decade to realise its plans to convert crude oil into chemicals, and eventually become a gas producer. “We need to help our stakeholders – including here in China and the wider Asia region – realise that oil and gas will remain vital to world energy for decades to come,” said Nasser.
An Aramco employee near an oil tank in Saudi Arabia. Aramco has grand ambitions to become a major producer of natural gas. Photo: Reuters
The vision of Saudi Arabia as a major natural gas producer is in in line with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s economic plan Vision 2030. Riyadh has only Qatar to beat, with Iran on the back foot. Under sanctions pressure, Tehran, despite plans to increase gas exports, has clung on to just 1 per cent of the natural gas market, exporting 36.24 million cubic metres daily. Yet Iran was once part of the so-called regional gas troika along with Russia and Qatar, and is located at the cusp of several energy transit corridors. China, defying sanctions, continues to buy oil from Iran.
In around five years, Riyadh could become a major gas exporter. Saudi Arabia has already replaced Iran as the main energy provider in countries such as China, Pakistan and India, and has made huge investments in energy projects in these countries.
However, Qatar is also playing smart, sharply lowering its prices to clinch deals and make the right business connections. The competition for the growing natural gas market is a long game. The main possible setback for Riyadh is that its gas reserves do not match those in Qatar and Iran.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Aramco, Bahrain, Beijing, China’s growing demand, clean energy, Egypt, ExxonMobil Corp, India alert, iran, jiangsu province, LNG tank, Middle East, Nantong, Natural gas, Pakistan, PetroChina, Qatar, QatarGas, Riyadh, Rudong port, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Shenzhen, sparks contest, Total, Uncategorized, United Arab Emirates (UAE) |
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23/06/2019
BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) — Air quality improved in Chinese cities in the first five months of 2019, according to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE).
Some 337 Chinese cities enjoyed good air quality on 80.3 percent of days from January to May this year, up 0.6 percentage points from the same period last year. Nearly 120 cities met the air quality standards, including 20 cities joining this year, data of MEE showed.
The average PM2.5 density, a key indicator of air pollution remained unchanged at 44 micrograms per cubic meter over the period and the average density of PM10 and sulfur dioxide fell 2.6 percent and 13.3 percent respectively year on year.
Haikou, Lhasa and Shenzhen ranked top three on the list of 168 cities’ air quality in the first five months while cities in the provinces of Hebei, Henan and Shanxi lagged behind.
Several regions saw a decrease in PM2.5 in May 2019, with that in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and Yangtze River Delta down 16.7 percent and 8.6 percent year on year respectively.
China pledged to coordinate its efforts on environmental protection and economic development in 2019.
The country vowed to reduce imports of solid waste and push for better air quality with better regional coordination and heavy-polluter revamps, according to the ministry.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in air quality, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Chinese cities, Haikou, Hebei, Henan, improving, Lhasa, Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), see, Shanxi, Shenzhen, Uncategorized, Yangtze River Delta |
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03/06/2019
- China-Vietnam (Shenzhen-Haiphong) Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone is only Chinese state-owned industrial park in Vietnam
- Venture has attracted increasing interest since start of US-China trade war, but operators say first duty is to support Xi Jinping’s trade initiative
A total of 16 of the 21 Chinese companies that have relocated to the China-Vietnam (Shenzhen-Haiphong) Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone did so after the start of the US-China trade war. Photo: Cissy Zhou
Until the middle of 2018, business was slow for the only Chinese state-owned industrial park in Vietnam, located in the northeastern manufacturing hub of Haiphong and wholly-owned by the Shenzhen city government.
US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods enacted last year changed that, with 16 of the 21 Chinese companies that have relocated to the China-Vietnam
(Shenzhen-Haiphong) Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone – many of them electronic device manufacturers – having done so since the start of the trade war.
However, profit-making was never the top priority for the park’s operators, which took over the reins from private investors after a series anti-Chinese riots raged through southern and central Vietnam in May 2014 forced the owners to abandon the project.
Protesters set fire to other industrial parks and factories and attacked Chinese workers, killing more than 20 people and injuring more than 100.
While any commercial organisation would be thrilled at the rush of manufacturing firms into Vietnam, for the park’s operators, the first duty is to showcase the Chinese government’s top international economic cooperation project, the Belt and Road Initiative.
[They] requested that we make this industrial park a showcase for the Belt and Road Initiative, so that when our top leaders pay state visits to Vietnam, they can come to our park Chen Xu
The Shenzhen arm of the State-owned Assets Control and Supervision Commission (SASAC), which oversees all city owned companies “has requested that we make this industrial park a showcase for the Belt and Road Initiative, so that when our top leaders pay state visits to Vietnam, they can come to our park”, Chen Xu, vice general manager at the Vietnam-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Park (VCEP), told the South China Morning Post.
The Chinese industrial enclave in Vietnam is part of a largely untold story of the trade war. The common narrative is that Chinese and international firms are fleeing China to avoid paying tariffs, setting up in low-cost hubs in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, but the picture is more nuanced than that.
In Haiphong, a part of the Chinese government is actively encouraging firms to come to Vietnam, armed with US$200 million in investment capital and with a vision of creating 30,000 jobs by the time the entire three-phase project is completed in 2022.
The then-private VCEP project was suspended after the 2014 riots, and after the local government in Vietnam said it would reclaim the land unless it resumed, the Shenzhen government “decided to fully take over the project”, according to VCEP general manager Zhang Xiaotao.
Newcomers must now buy land from the park and build their facilities themselves as the original buildings have already been rented out. Photo: Cissy Zhou
“Our evaluation then was that we could not make a profit out of this project. Then why did we still take it over? We have to serve the Belt and Road Initiative, as it is a national strategy,” Zhang added. “In fact, we surrender part of our profit [because] we sell the land [in the park] at a lower price and with better facilities than in neighbouring industrial parks. We are still in the red based upon the current land price. Our bosses understand the situation and ask us at least not to lose money.
“To make a profit is of course the priority of any company. But we are different, we are not a pure commercial project.”
Furthermore, it is a commonly held assumption that China is only open to losing low-end, labour intensive and high-polluting industry, as it looks to upgrade its manufacturing profile domestically. And while there is certainly truth to that as examples of low-value Chinese manufacturing plants litter Vietnam, VCEP is keen to avoid that persona.
Because of the need to maintain a relatively high-profile, the park does not welcome labour-intensive manufacturers such as shoes factories, because “it is bad for our image”, Chen said. Instead, it is focused on hi-tech engineering – exactly the kind of industry China is desperate to nurture on its own soil. In this sense, the Shenzhen-Haiphong facility represents something of a paradox.
With 1,500 people currently employed, it is some way from reaching its 30,000 goal, but the number of Chinese manufacturers wanting to set up factories in the park is now about eight times what it was before the trade war started last July, according to both Chen and Zhang. Newcomers must now buy land from the park and build their facilities themselves as the original buildings have already been rented out.
The relatively poor state of the surrounding infrastructure has also led VCEP to spend 30 million yuan (US$4.3 million) on a new road and bridge linking the park to the national highway in Haiphong.
“We could not wait for the Vietnamese government to build the infrastructure. They don’t have the money and their efficiency is low, so we built it ourselves,” said Li Meng, a member of VCEP’s Strategic Investment Department, who said it took less than nine months to finish the project.
The cost of the bridge was more than triple what it would have cost in China as “the efficiency is much lower here and we needed to import a lot of material from China due to lack of material in Vietnam”, Li added
“Every inch of the road and the bridge linking the national highway in Haiphong to VCEP is paved with renminbi.”
The Vietnam-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Park has a vision of creating 30,000 jobs by the time the entire three-phase project is completed in 2022. Photo: Cissy Zhou
TP-Link, the Shenzhen-based Chinese manufacturer of computer networking products, has rented a plant in the park and will start testing its equipment in July. The company, the world’s largest provider of consumer Wi-fi networking devices, has bought an additional 140,000 square metres of land in the park to expand production.
When TP-Link bought the land in late-2018, the price was between US$75 to US$80 per square metre, Chen said. Now, six months later, the price has risen to US$90 per square metre. This is indicative of the huge spike in interest in manufacturing in Vietnam caused by the trade war. Data from Vietnam’s Foreign Investment Agency shows that Vietnam attracted US$16.74 billion in foreign capital over the first five months of 2019, a year-on-year increase of 69.1 per cent. Of this, 72 per cent was invested in the processing and manufacturing sectors.
“Chinese local governments are, of course, unhappy with the increasing number of manufacturers who are relocating to Vietnam, but President Xi has clearly put forward the Belt and Road Initiative, which local governments cannot disturb. So local governments are not encouraging manufacturers to relocate, but they dare not try to stop them,” said vice-general manager Chen.
The Chinese inflow has also met with opposition in Vietnam, although far from the scale of the deadly riots of 2014.
“Some local [Vietnamese] media have been demonising China, with local prime time TV news talking about fake Chinese meat and poisoned food and hyping these cases. High-ranking Chinese officials have asked the Vietnamese government to guide public opinion in the right direction,” Chen added.
General manager Zhang added that the Vietnamese authorities have also become more sensitive to investment from China, a view reflected by Lam Thanh Ha, a senior lecturer at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam university which operates under the management of Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Overreliance on foreign cash in general and Chinese capital in particular may pose risks for Vietnam in terms of exchange rate fluctuations and external influences,” Ha warned.
“As production is generally dependent on transnational supply chains, foreign enterprises in Vietnam are often deeply engaged in both import and export processes, leaving the Vietnamese economy vulnerable to global economic conditions,” Ha added.
In a
by the Post earlier in May, Ha warned that Vietnam should avoid “becoming China’s dirty industrial backyard”, although Zhang had the opposite view.
“We are not shifting all our low-end industries to Vietnam, which would be irresponsible. China is trying to help Vietnam with sincerity, even if we don’t make a profit, we still want to proceed with the project,” he said.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Assets Control and Supervision Commission (SASAC), Beijing, Belt and Road Initiative, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China-Vietnam (Shenzhen-Haiphong) Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, China’s state-owned industrial park, Foreign Investment Agency, Haiphong, image, processing and manufacturing sectors, profits, Shenzhen, Strategic Investment Department, TP-Link, trade war, trumps, Uncategorized, VCEP, Vietnam, Vietnam-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Park (VCEP), Vietnamese government, Xi JinPing |
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29/05/2019
- China’s housing market showing signs of bubble similar to that seen in Japan in 1980s, says Asian Development Bank Institute dean and CEO Naoyuki Yoshino
- China’s loose policy following 2008 global financial crisis laid foundations for current housing bubble, with US-China trade war adding to concerns
The average price of a home in Beijing has soared from around 380 yuan (US$55) per square feet in the early 2000s to the current level of well above 5,610 yuan (US$813) per square foot, according to property data provider creprice.cn. Photo: Bloomberg
China must exercise extreme caution in handling its housing sector because it is showing signs similar to those witnessed during Japan’s bubble period of the 1980s that contributed to the collapse of Japanese asset prices and its subsequent “lost decades” of weak economic growth and deflation, a Japanese financial system expert warned.
The parallels between China’s current landscape and Japan’s three decades ago are readily apparent, stemming from a loose monetary policy that laid the foundation for the expansion of a housing bubble, said Naoyuki Yoshino, dean and CEO of the Asian Development Bank Institute.
China flooded its economy with credit in response to the 2008 global financial crisis, fuelling rapid growth in mortgages, real estate borrowings and investments over the past decade.
In the same vein, the Japanese government’s relaxed monetary policy in the 1980s triggered an economic bubble that eventually burst and sank the economy into a recession that
with the Bank of Japan continuing to still keep interest rates at or below zero per cent to this day in an attempt to spur inflation.
The Japanese government’s relaxed monetary policy in the 1980s triggered an economic bubble that eventually burst and sank the economy into a recession that lasted almost 25 years. Photo: Bloomberg
Japan’s experience could serve as a lesson on how to avoid a housing market collapse that would be especially detrimental to China’s financial sector and real economy, according to Yoshino.
“I’m very much concerned that if land prices keep on rising and if the population starts to shrink along with aggregate demand, then China will experience a similar situation to that of Japan,” Yoshino said.
There are already several strong signs of a housing bubble in China, according to Yoshino, firstly the astronomical surge in property prices in recent years.
I’m very much concerned that if land prices keep on rising and if the population starts to shrink along with aggregate demand, then China will experience a similar situation to that of Japan Naoyuki Yoshino
Home ownership is one of the few ways for Chinese families to generate wealth because of limited investment opportunities. The average price of a home in Beijing has soared from around 4,000 yuan (US$578) per square metre, or 380 yuan (US$55) per square feet, in the early 2000s to the current level of well above 60,000 yuan (US$8,677) per square metre, or 5,610 yuan (US$813) per square foot, according to property data provider creprice.cn.
The increase has also lifted the housing price to income ratio sharply from 5.6 in 1996 to 7.6 in 2013, well above the Japanese rate of 3.0 at its peak in 1988. The price to income ratio is the basic affordability measure for housing.
According to the Global Times, a reasonable home price should be three to six times the median household income. That means a family with an average income can buy a house with three to six years’ annual income. The house price to income ratio in China is above 50 in the first-tier cities and 30 to 40 in the third- and fourth-tier cities, the newspaper said in October. There are four levels of cities in China, defined by a number of factors including gross domestic product (GDP) and population, with Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen considered tier-one cities.
Another worrying sign, according to Yoshino, is that China’s financial sector has lent more heavily to the real estate sector than did Japanese banks during their bubble period.
Thirdly, the ratio of Chinese housing loans to the nation’s GDP has consistently been higher than Japan’s by about three times more.
Ever since US President Donald Trump started imposing tariffs on Chinese imports in July, worries have been mounting that China’s property bubble and its record debt level would make the economy vulnerable to the impact of rising trade tensions, leading to a sharper-than-expected economic slowdown.
Despite a government crackdown on debt and risky lending over the last several years, housing prices and bank lending to the sector have continued to rise, pushing homes beyond what the vast majority of people can afford, as well as putting many property developers deeply into debt.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a top government think tank, said in a report last week that the growth in housing prices in China’s bigger cities, caused by a relatively short supply of new homes, is likely to push up costs across the country.
“The government should closely monitor these cities to avoid overheating,” said Wang Yeqiang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who co-authored the report.
Property developers have begun a debt-fuelled land-buying spree just as urban housing demand is entering a long-running structural decline, said Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics. The potential supply of property that could be built on developers’ land reserves jumped last year to a record high, meaning the risk of a glut of new housing is real, Evans-Pritchard added, if developers were to convert all their land reserves into housing tracts.
“Since real estate drives around a fifth of GDP, a sharp downturn in this sector would be contagious, resulting in a jump in defaults across a wide swathe of the economy that could quickly erode bank capital buffers,” he warned.
China’s corporate debt stood at 155 per cent of GDP in the second quarter of 2018, much higher than other major economies, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. In comparison, Japan’s corporate debt level is 100 per cent of GDP and is 74 per cent in the US. China’s corporate debt includes issuances by its
vehicles which by extension is mostly credit with an implicit guarantee from the central government.
Since real estate drives around a fifth of GDP, a sharp downturn in this sector would be contagious, resulting in a jump in defaults across a wide swathe of the economy that could quickly erode bank capital buffersJulian Evans-Pritchard
China’s imbalance between housing supply and demand may worsen because it faces a similar economic transition that is already well underway in Japan – a
and
that led to Japan’s long-term deflation problem, said Yoshino, who is also the chief adviser to the Japan Financial Services Agency’s Financial Research Centre.
Even if rising housing demand due to urbanisation were to push China’s housing prices higher over the near term, the country faces risks from an oversupply of housing in the longer term due to its increasingly unbalanced demographic structure, he said.
The government has proposed that China’s retirement ages of 45 to 50 years for females and 55 to 60 years for males introduced in the 1980s be gradually increased to 65 years for both by 2045 due to a rapidly ageing population.
The rising population of retirees will consume fewer goods and services compared to younger families with children, and in turn, could dampen business investment given lower expected rates of return.
At the same time, more retirees means a bigger burden on the younger generation of taxpayers, which would reduce their wealth and change patterns of consumption. This is especially worrying on the back of China’s high debt level and pension funding gap, similar to the situation in Japan, Yoshino said.
In Japan, benefits from government pension schemes account for an increasing share of the country’s accumulated debt as spending on social protection programmes now represents more than a third of the government’s total budget.
China’s national pension fund is forecast to peak at 6.99 trillion yuan (US$1 trillion) in 2027 before it gradually runs out by 2035, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Photo: AFP
The strain is also evident in China with the
forecast to peak at 6.99 trillion yuan (US$1 trillion) in 2027 before it gradually runs out by 2035, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, forcing the government to start to transfer assets from state-owned companies to fill the funding gap.
Against the broader economic slowdown, compounded by the trade war with the US, policymakers are also expected to carve out a highly expansionary fiscal budget for this year, with the broad deficit surging to 6.6 per cent of China’s GDP, up from 4.7 per cent last year, according to Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie Capital.
Alicia Garcia Herrero, Asia-Pacific chief economist at Natixis, noted that the US criticisms of China’s unfair trade practises and currency manipulation were reminiscent of the US-Japan disputes in the 1980s and 1990s.
Because Japan was politically and economically dependent on the US at that time, it inevitably implemented economic policies to reduce its current account surplus. Subsequently, Japan suffered from the bursting of its asset price bubble, which led to deflation and the lost decades.
However, Herrero said that the modern China is less dependent on the US and so is in a better position to resist pressure to adjust its economic policies to create demand for American products.
Wang Yang, one of the seven members of China’s elite Politburo Standing Committee, said the US-China trade war could slash one percentage point off Beijing’s economic growth this year. Last year, growth expanded at its slowest pace since 1990, while corporate bond defaults hit a record high and banks’ non-performing loan ratio hit a 10-year high.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Ageing population, Asian Development Bank Institute, ‘lost decades’, Bank of Japan, Beijing, Central government, China alert, China’s housing market, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chinese imports, demographic structure, Financial Research Centre, financial sector, Financial Services Agency, Global Times, government think tank, gross domestic product (GDP), Home, housing loans, implicit guarantee, Japanese banks, Japanese housing bubble, national pension fund, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Population, real economy, real estate sector, Shanghai, Shenzhen, showing signs, similar to, Supply and demand, tariffs, Uncategorized, urbanisation, US President Donald Trump |
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25/05/2019
SHENZHEN, May 25 (Xinhua) — A southern Chinese trade hub boasting special links with Hong Kong is hoping the enhanced efforts to build the g will revitalize its tourism industry and local economy.
Chung Ying Street, or “Sino-British Street,” straddles the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the mainland city of Shenzhen and has been a special zone where local residents from both sides are allowed to cross the border freely.
It was once a boomtown popular among mainland visitors, who entered with a special permit to snatch duty-free goods from Hong Kong, but fell into decline after travel to Hong Kong was made easier for mainlanders.
The street derived from a small village, which was divided by the “Sino-British” borderline after Hong Kong became a British colony in the 19th century.
Sha Jintao, a 73-year-old resident, remembers how the street became a boomtown as China opened up and tightened links between the mainland and Hong Kong.
“When I was a child, there were only a few farmers and fishermen living on the mainland side of the street, while the Hong Kong side bustled with shops and businesses,” Sha said.
But as Shenzhen rose as a forefront of China’s reform and opening up starting in the late 1970s, the street became the center of changes. New shops and factories propped up with the inflow of Hong Kong investments, and the fancy commodities from its Hong Kong stores wooed in large numbers of mainland tourists.
Historical records show the number of tourists flocking into the 250-meter-long street peaked at 100,000 a day in the 1980s. As many as 89 jewelry stores opened in its heyday and sold 5 tonnes of gold jewelry in half a year.
SURVIVAL CRISIS
The heyday was however short-lived. After Hong Kong returned to the motherland in 1997, the street began to lose its appeal, as shopping in Hong Kong was made much easier for mainland tourists. Its daily visitors dropped below 10,000 after 2003, when mainlanders were allowed to independently travel to Hong Kong.
Many stores closed due to a loss of customers, and some survived by selling fake jewelry, winning the street much notoriety, recalled Sha, who then headed the local neighborhood committee.
Sha said the ephemeral boom was limited to the era when most Chinese had limited access to the outside world, so as the country opened its door wider, the street’s function as a “window” faced an inevitable doom.
“Now with a smartphone, a consumer could easily buy goods from across the globe,” he said, referring to China’s cross-border e-commerce boom. “So if is just for the purpose of shopping, why take the trouble of traveling to the Chung Ying Street?”
The street is now more of a cultural site, dotted with relics and museums displaying its history, but locals are hopeful that the ongoing construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area will usher in another golden era for their neighborhood.
China has planned to turn the greater bay area, which encompasses Hong Kong, Macao and nine cities in Guangdong Province, into the world’s largest bay area in terms of GDP by 2030.
Earlier this month, the city government of Shenzhen said it will upgrade its ports with Hong Kong to boost the greater bay area development. The Shatoujiao Subdistrict, where the Chung Ying Street is located, was reserved for a new cooperation zone featuring tourism and consumption.
Optimism is running high in the community. New industries like artificial intelligence (AI), health and high-end shipping service have taken root in Yantian District, which administers Shatoujiao, and Sha is buzzing around to connect business people from Hong Kong and Shenzhen.
“Shatoujiao and its Chung Ying Street have boasted the one-of-the-kind advantage in Shenzhen-Hong Kong cooperation. We’ll work hard to turn the blueprint of the greater bay area into a reality here,” said Chen Qing, party secretary of Yantian.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in artificial intelligence (AI), Chung Ying Street, ephemeral boom, GDP, guangdong province, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, health, high-end shipping service, Historical records, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), Macao, mainland, motherland, rejuvenation, Sha, Shatoujiao, Shen-Hong Kong cooperation, Shenzhen, Sino-British Street, smartphone, Uncategorized, Yantian District |
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CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 