Day: July 20, 2023

Mystery of China’s missing foreign minister Qin Gang, Singapore’s scandals spark memes: SCMP’s 7 highlights of the week

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Read the full story here. 2. Tricked into trafficking? Hong Kong drug mules face uphill fight to prove innocence A Hong Kong customs officer displays 6.3kg of suspected cocaine found in biscuit tins in a tourist’s luggage. Photo: Harvey Kong International syndicates are using more couriers to smuggle drugs into Hong Kong, authorities say. Father John Wotherspoon, a prison chaplain and chief executive officer of Voice for Prisoners, said he had seen a wide range of tactics used to trick people into carrying drugs. “People who have been tricked into…

From Kawasaki to Phoenix: tracking a day of extreme heat around the world

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20 July 2023 10.30am: Kawasaki, Japan Shota Nagasaki, 30, a builder laying concrete I’ve been doing this work for 12 years – since I left high school – and it’s got hotter even over that time. This year is kind of crazy. I mean, there are years that are not so hot, but over time the temperatures are rising. I don’t live nearby the work site so I picked the truck from the company as usual and drove here; with the air conditioning on of course. But I don’t like…

A chatbot with socialist core values, please

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In 2017, Chinese internet giant Tencent took down its chatbot Baby Q after it referred to the government as a “corrupt regime” and claimed it had no love for the Chinese Communist Party. It said it dreamed of emigrating to the United States, in an undoubtedly terrifying display of unruly, disloyal AI behavior for the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing is trying to get it right this time, even though AI probably can’t be trusted. In fact, China’s taking such a different approach to regulating artificial intelligence than the West that…

Once China’s top securities regulator, disgraced official is now an adviser to its central bank

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He is now working for the Counsellors’ Office of the PBOC – a unit within its head office that handles currency and foreign debt data, conducts research on legal, economic and financial matters, and makes recommendations to the central bank management. It has no decision-making power. Liu was chairman of the powerful CSRC for three years before he was sidelined to the role of deputy party chief of the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives in January 2019, a move that shocked the financial sector. Advertisement Four months later,…

US, China Dig In Despite Hopes for Thaw

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The United States and China appear no closer to easing mounting tensions despite a recent flurry of diplomatic activity ahead of upcoming trips by high-profile U.S. officials to the Indo-Pacific region. Instead, officials from both countries in recent days have spoken publicly of showing strength while also lamenting the lack of progress in a variety of talks. “Deterrence today is real, and deterrence is strong,” Ely Ratner, U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told lawmakers Thursday during a hearing focused on Washington’s China policy. “The department is…

Cambodia’s Leader Returns to Facebook After 3 Weeks

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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia —  Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Facebook account was reactivated Thursday, three weeks after he announced he was forsaking the social media giant in favor of posting on Telegram, a popular messaging app that also serves as a blogging tool. Hun Sen’s return to the Facebook fold came three days before a general election in which his ruling Cambodian People’s Party is virtually guaranteed a landslide victory. Hun Sen said at the end of June that he would stop posting new material on his Facebook page but…

Hacking of Government Email Was Traditional Espionage, Official Says

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The hack of Microsoft’s cloud that resulted in the compromise of government emails was an example of a traditional espionage threat, a senior National Security Agency official said. Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, Rob Joyce, the director of cybersecurity at the N.S.A., said the United States needed to protect its networks from such espionage, but that adversaries would continue to try to secretly extract information from each other. “It is China doing espionage,” Mr. Joyce said. “It is what nation-states do. We have to defend against it, we need…

China population: ‘self-aware’ DINK couples, with no kids, could prolong demographic crisis

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Zhang, who recently graduated from a medical university in Shandong province with a doctor of pharmacy, is biding her time, waiting for a scientific research position to open up at a hospital later this year. Her husband will start work at a public institution in two weeks. For now, they enjoy staying up late, sleeping in, and not worrying about kids. On Thursday, the couple set off on a 5,499km (3,417-mile) road trip – carefully mapped out to 59 hours and three minutes – that will take them through three…

US chip curbs are scaring venture capital firms from Chinese AI start-ups, but not us, says BlueRun Ventures China

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Xia Zuoquan, a Chinese billionaire investor who made his fortune co-founding electric vehicle giant BYD, told the Post last week that he is sceptical that a ChatGPT-level product will be born in China soon. Advertisement However, Tan said BRV is committed to investing in China’s AI sector. The venture capital firm is set to allocate over 50 per cent of its new 5.5 billion yuan (US$817 million) fund, raised in May last year, to AI start-ups, he said. Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden meet on the…