22/05/2020
- The tech investment push is part of a fiscal package waiting to be signed off by the National People’s Congress, which convenes this week
- This initiative will reduce China’s dependence on foreign technology, echoing objectives set forth previously in the ‘Made in China 2025’ programme
A conductor rehearses the military band on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People in March of last year. China’s legislature is expected to sign off on a massive tech-led stimulus plan. Photo: AP
Beijing is accelerating its bid for global leadership in key technologies, planning to pump more than a trillion dollars into the economy through the roll-out of everything from next-generation wireless networks to artificial intelligence (AI).
In the master plan backed by President Xi Jinping himself, China will invest an estimated 10 trillion yuan (US$1.4 trillion) over six years to 2025, calling on urban governments and private hi-tech giants like Huawei Technologies to help lay 5G wireless networks, install cameras and sensors, and develop AI software that will underpin
to automated factories and mass surveillance.
The new infrastructure initiative is expected to drive mainly local giants, from
and Huawei to SenseTime Group at the expense of US companies.
As tech nationalism mounts, the investment drive will reduce China’s dependence on foreign technology, echoing objectives set forth previously in the “Made in China 2025”
programme. Such initiatives have already drawn fierce criticism from the Trump administration, resulting in moves to block the rise of Chinese tech companies such as Huawei.
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“Nothing like this has happened before, this is China’s gambit to win the global tech race,” said Digital China Holdings chief operating officer Maria Kwok, as she sat in a Hong Kong office surrounded by facial recognition cameras and sensors. “Starting this year, we are really beginning to see the money flow through.”
The tech investment push is part of a fiscal package waiting to be signed off by China’s legislature, the
National People’s Congress, which convenes this week. The government is expected to announce infrastructure funding of as much as US$563 billion this year, against the backdrop of the country’s worst economic performance since the Mao era.
The nation’s biggest purveyors of cloud computing and data analysis Alibaba, the parent company of the
South China Morning Post, and
Tencent Holding will be linchpins of the upcoming endeavour. China has already entrusted Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment supplier, to help galvanise 5G. Tech leaders including Pony Ma Huateng and
Jack Ma are espousing the programme.
Maria Kwok’s company is a government-backed information technology systems integration provider, among many that are jumping at the chance. In the southern city of Guangzhou, Digital China is bringing half a million units of project housing online, including a complex three quarters the size of Central Park in New York City. To find a home, a user just has to log on to an app, scan their face and verify their identity. Leases can be signed digitally via smartphone and the renting authority is automatically flagged if a tenant’s payment is late.
China is no stranger to far-reaching plans with massive price tags that appear to achieve little. There is no guarantee this programme will deliver the economic rejuvenation its proponents promise. Unlike previous efforts to resuscitate the economy with “dumb” bridges and highways, this newly laid digital infrastructure will help national champions develop cutting-edge technologies.
“China’s new stimulus plan will likely lead to a consolidation of
industrial internet
providers, and could lead to the emergence of some larger companies able to compete with global leaders, such as GE and Siemens,” said Nannan Kou, head of research at BloombergNEF, in a report. “One bet is on industrial
internet-of-things (IoT) platforms, as China aims to cultivate three world leading companies in this area by 2025.”
China is not alone in pumping money into the technology sector as a way to get out of the post-coronavirus economic slump. Earlier this month, South Korea said AI and wireless communications would be at the core of it its “New Deal” to create jobs and boost growth.
Nothing like this has happened before, this is China’s gambit to win the global tech raceMaria Kwok, COO at Digital China Holdings
The 10 trillion yuan that China is estimated to spend from now until 2025 encompasses areas typically considered leading edge, such as AI and IoT, as well as items such as ultra-high voltage lines and high-speed rail, according to the government-backed China Centre for Information Industry Development. More than 20 of mainland China’s 31 provinces and regions have announced projects totaling over 1 trillion yuan with active participation from private capital, a state-backed newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Separate estimates by Morgan Stanley put new infrastructure at around US$180 billion each year for the next 11 years – or US$1.98 trillion in total. Those calculations also include power and rail lines. That annual figure would be almost double the past three-year average, the investment bank said in a March report that listed key stock beneficiaries including companies such as China Tower Corp, Alibaba, GDS Holdings, Quanta Computer and Advantech Co.
Beijing’s half-formed vision is already stirring a plethora of stocks, a big reason why five of China’s 10 best-performing stocks this year are tech plays like networking gear maker Dawning Information Industry and Apple supplier GoerTek. The bare outlines of the master plan were enough to drive pundits toward everything from satellite operators to broadband providers.
China’s telecoms carriers push to complete ‘political task’ of 5G network roll-out amid coronavirus crisis
It is unlikely that US companies will benefit much from the tech-led stimulus and in some cases they stand to lose existing business. Earlier this year, when the country’s largest telecoms carrier China Mobile awarded contracts worth 37 billion yuan for 5G base stations, the lion’s share went to Huawei and other Chinese companies. Sweden’s Ericsson got only a little over 10 per cent of the business in the first four months. In one of its projects, Digital China will help the northeastern city of Changchun swap out American cloud computing staples IBM, Oracle and EMC with home-grown technology.
It is in data centres that a considerable chunk of the new infrastructure development will take place. Over 20 provinces have launched policies to support enterprises using cloud computing services, according to a March research note from UBS Group.
Tony Yu, chief executive of Chinese server maker H3C, said that his company was seeing a significant increase in demand for data centre services from some of the country’s top internet companies. “Rapid growth in up-and-coming sectors will bring a new force to China’s economy after the pandemic passes,” he told Bloomberg News.
From there, more investment should flow. Bain Capital-backed data centre operator ChinData Group estimated that for every one dollar spent on data centres another US$5 to US$10 in investment in related sectors would take place, including in networking, power grid and advanced equipment manufacturing. “A whole host of
supply chain companies will benefit,” the company said in a statement.
There is concern about whether this long-term strategy provides much in the way of stimulus now, and where the money will come from. “It’s impossible to prop up China’s economy with new infrastructure alone,” said Zhu Tian, professor of economics at China Europe International Business School in Shanghai. “If you are worried about the government’s added debt levels and their debt servicing abilities right now, of course you wouldn’t do it. But it’s a necessary thing to do at a time of crisis.”
Digital China is confident that follow-up projects from its housing initiative in Guangzhou could generate 30 million yuan in revenue for the company. It is also hoping to replicate those efforts with local governments in the northeastern province of Jilin, where it has 3.3 billion yuan worth of projects approved. These include building a so-called city brain that will for the first time connect databases including traffic, schools and civil matters such as marriage registry. “The concept of smart cities has been touted for years but now we are finally seeing the investment,” said Kwok.
Source: SCMP
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02/05/2020
- 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’
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
, a source said.
“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
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.
Shaoguan, a less developed Guangdong city
where a deadly toy factory brawl between Uygurs and Han Chinese broke out in 2009, was also asked to take on another 30,000 to 50,000 Uygur workers.
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
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.
The 2009 brawl at the factory in Shaoguan was one of the factors that triggered a deadly riot in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, that left 192 people dead and more than 1,000 wounded.
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
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”.
Source: SCMP
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08/09/2019
German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge in Wuhan, capital city of central China’s Hubei Province, Sept. 7, 2019. German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Wuhan on Saturday. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)
WUHAN, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) — Angela Merkel Saturday visited central China’s Wuhan during her 12th trip to the country as German Chancellor since 2005.
Before Wuhan, capital city of Hubei province, Merkel had visited a number of cities besides Beijing during her China trips in the past.
When talking with students of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Merkel highlighted the importance of international cooperation in the era of globalization, and called on the students to be participants.
Saying that a nation’s prosperity is part of the prosperity of the whole world, she voiced her hope that students should shoulder common responsibilities to combat global challenges.
In the speech, Merkel reviewed her past trips to China. In Shenyang, she witnessed economic upgrading. In Chengdu she learned about development of western China. In Shenzhen she saw remarkable progress brought by the reform and opening-up.
She said quite a few noted German companies including Siemens, and small and medium-sized innovation enterprises are operating business in Wuhan. Wuhan and Duisburg became the first pair of sister cities between China and Germany in 1982.
Merkel exchanged views with students on internet, artificial intelligence, intelligent manufacturing, and environmental protection.
Before wrapping up her trip, Merkel also visited a local hospital and a factory of the German company Webasto.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in Angela Merkel, Artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence (AI), Beijing, Chengdu, Duisburg, Environmental protection, Factory, German Chancellor, German companies, German company, globalization, Hospital, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, hubei province, intelligent manufacturing, Internet, Shenyang, Siemens, Uncategorized, Webasto, Wuhan |
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04/07/2019
- China’s talent is turning away from multinationals and towards domestic tech champions in the search for a more fulfilling career
- Change in sentiment comes amid raging US-China tech war and perceptions of ‘bamboo ceiling’ in the West
An increasing number of Chinese jobseekers are looking towards domestic tech firms. Image: SCMP
Molly Liu left her hometown Beijing to pursue a master’s degree in the United States in the 1990s.
After graduation, she fought hard to win an entry-level position at a US-based consultancy and after a period was later sent back to China to help the company’s expansion.
In the land of opportunity, the ambitious US firm showered her with avenues to pursue her career and she ended up working in Hong Kong as well as being one of the first people on the ground for the consultancy in Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei and Singapore.
Times have changed, though. Recently, her only son, Ben Zhang, turned down a hard-to-get job offer from a Boeing subsidiary in the US after gaining a master’s degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Chinese students educated in the US are now looking more at jobs in China. Photo: SCMP
He decided to return to Beijing in 2018 and now works as a product manager at Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi. He is convinced that the start-up turned tech major can offer him the same sort of opportunities today that the US tech consultancy offered his mother in the 1990s.
This family story about the career choices of two different generations of US-educated Chinese students reflects a wider trend. Once upon a time, US corporations could cherry-pick top Chinese talent from American universities with the promise of large salaries, generous benefits and the chance to work at market-leading organisations.
Today, China’s cutting-edge technology companies – often referred to as China Tech Corporation (CTC) – are the most sought-after employers among many Chinese students, who want more than just a cushy life.
This marks another blow for multinational corporations (MNCs) already struggling to do business in China amid a myriad of restrictions and growing hostility towards them as the US-China trade and tech war gathers pace.
“What I look for in a job is not money. My parents are not counting on me to support them,” says 28-year-old Zhang, whose team in Xiaomi is working on a wide array of connected devices, from televisions to lamps to smart locks. “What I care about most is personal improvement and access to the best resources a company can offer.”
“In Boeing, I could probably work on a new product once every two to three years. But at Xiaomi, every three months, we can roll out a new product,” he added. “You can bring so many things into people’s everyday lives in China, like using your voice to control a TV or an air conditioner – things you can only imagine in the US.”
Zhang is not alone and many Chinese today perceive a “bamboo ceiling” in the US, where they are more often seen as engineers rather than executives.
One Chinese executive who now oversees the technology unit of a listed finance and insurance firm in China said that he used to lead a team of 20 engineers at one of the world’s most valuable tech companies in Silicon Valley.
“My job was to keep optimising the performance of a product [in Silicon Valley],” he said.
“But within three years in China, I was promoted to the chief scientist of our entire company, leading a team of 1,000,” said the man, who asked to remain anonymous as some of his family still reside in the US.
How Trump’s assault on Huawei is forcing the world to contemplate a digital iron curtain
According to an April survey by professional networking site LinkedIn, an increasing number of Chinese jobseekers share Zhang’s outlook. LinkedIn compiled a list of the top 25 most desired employers in China, and about 60 per cent were local Chinese companies, with 13 of them internet firms.
CTC bagged four of the top five spots, with e-commerce giant Alibaba, search giant operator Baidu and Bytedance – which operates short video hit TikTok – taking the lead.
Tesla ranked sixth behind its Chinese challenger Nio. Amazon, the only other foreign company in the top ten, ranked eighth.
Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.
Li Qiang, executive vice-president of Zhaopin, one of China’s largest online recruiters, described the rising status of CTC among jobseekers as “the dawning of a new era”.
“Nowadays, there is nothing a multinational can offer that a domestic firm cannot, be it a compensation package or the chance to be part of international expansion,” said Beijing-based Li.
“Jobseekers are not particularly looking for domestic firms or multinational firms. They are after good firms and most of the good firms in China these days happen to be domestic tech firms,” said Li.
Li’s comments reflect the wider opportunities within the domestic economy for Chinese jobseekers today, after the rise of many successful private-sector companies and a thriving start-up scene over the past 10 years, meaning it’s not just a one-way street to a state-owned enterprise (SOE) any longer.
A survey by Zhaopin in late 2018 found that 28 per cent of Chinese university students said MNCs were their employer of choice, down from 33.6 per cent in 2017.
Even on pay and benefits, CTC is catching up with multinationals. Zhang said Xiaomi matched the offer from the Boeing unit in the US and many leading tech firms offer benefits such as gym memberships and childcare facilities.
And the rags-to-riches stories of many leading China tech entrepreneurs, some of whom have become billionaires, continue to grab media attention and inspire the younger generation.
To be sure, Chinese students would still rather work for an MNC than an SOE – but the rise of CTC can be seen in company rankings and in the total number of CTC companies in the top employer list, according to Zhaopin.
For a growing number of Chinese students, the doors to America are closing
William Wu, China country manager of global employer brand consultancy Universum, said that the one element Chinese jobseekers pay most attention to these days is whether or not a job can be “a good reference point for a future career”. And a growing number of private Chinese companies now have global brand recognition.
A recent survey by Universum shows that Apple and Siemens were the only two Western names in the top 10 ideal employers for Chinese students in the engineering sector this year, while there were four foreign firms in the top 10 list in 2017.
Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecoms giant that has been put on a US trade blacklist after the Trump administration said it was a national security risk, ranked top in the Universum list. Xiaomi, the smartphone maker Ben Zhang works for, ranked second while Apple, one of the most valuable tech firms in the US, ranked seventh.
It seems that China’s rising clout in the world is now an attractive factor for jobseekers.
“Every engineer would like to see the technology they’ve worked on have the potential to change the world one day,” said Li Yan, head of multimedia understanding at Chinese short video major Kuaishou. “In the old times Chinese companies were at the bottom of the global value chain, now they are climbing up, providing more opportunities for talent to create world-changing products.”
At Beijing-based Kuaishou, Li’s 100-strong artificial intelligence algorithm team – many of whom joined from Microsoft Asia Research – is working to make machines understand content better than humans by studying the millions of user-generated videos on the company’s platform every day.
CTC companies do have a strong home advantage, with big Western firms having to navigate a myriad of restrictions.
For example, the “Great Firewall” lets Chinese authorities control the content and information reaching the country’s 800 million-plus internet population. Western firms also face other forms of red tape, such as having to form joint ventures with local partners.
Amazon earlier this year announced the close of its China marketplace, giving up the brutal fight with Chinese online shopping giants such as Alibaba to capture domestic e-commerce market share. Oracle China reportedly laid off 900 people in March as it winds down its research and development center in the country.
Job applicants visit a provincial job fair at Qujiang International Conference and Exhibition Center in Xian, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province in February. Photo: Xinhua
Oracle has never confirmed the number of lay-offs but said the job cuts formed part of an overall global strategy transformation.
However, there has been little sympathy for those losing their jobs in China, judging by social media posts.
Some people posted that those working for big US tech firms are not “wolf” enough compared with counterparts who work for local tech firms, referring to the long work-hours culture of the domestic tech scene.
A viral story titled “Why there should be no pity for the sacked Oracle China employees” said the company was Beijing’s biggest nursery because of the flexible “work from home” culture and generous compensation package offered to employees.
Oracle said to begin mass lay-offs in China as part of global move to cloud services
“They had every chance to join rising domestic internet firms. But they settled for high salary and low work pressure, which eventually made them frogs in boiling water. Why pity them?” said the article, adding that the earlier people give up on the “glory” of working for MNCs, the quicker they will benefit.
Not all Chinese workers would agree, and there has been a recent backlash against the “996” culture within China’s tech sector, where people routinely work from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.
With geopolitical uncertainty growing day by day, though, many Chinese are asking why leave the family behind for an uncertain fate overseas?
A survey done by consultancy BCG and The Network in 2018 showed that only one in three China residents was willing to move abroad for work, down from 61 per cent in 2014. The country is also the 20th most popular destination worldwide to relocate for a job, compared with 29th in the 2014.
“One of my graduate classmates in the US just gave up a six-digit package at Oracle and joined drone maker DJI in Shenzhen,” said Ben Zhang. “I asked what prompted his return to China. He sent me the viral article and asked, ‘who wants a life that one can see the end of from the very beginning?’”
Source: SCMP
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CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 