Month: September 2023

Probe of Evergrande founder adds to pressure on Chinese developer

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Thursday’s announcement by Evergrande was as ominous as it was curt. Hui Ka Yan, the billionaire chair behind the indebted Chinese property group, was under unspecified “mandatory measures” for suspicion of “illegal crimes”. The one-page release was typically short on details from a company that has been locked in an opaque restructuring process since it defaulted on its international debts two years ago. But between the lines, it captured a wider shift in mood. This was intended to be the moment when after two years of fractious negotiations, investors were…

China explores chip innovation, tennis star’s violent outburst at the Asian Games, dispute over India’s moon landing: SCMP’s 7 highlights

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Read the full story here. 2. Did India land spacecraft near moon’s south pole? Top China scientist says not Chinese cosmochemist Ouyang Ziyuan, the “founding father” of China’s lunar exploration programme has disputed India’s claim that its spacecraft landed near the moon’s south pole in a historic mission in August. Read the full story here. 3. South Korean tennis player destroys racquet in Asian Games meltdown South Korea was caught up in another embarrassing controversy at the Asian Games on Monday with men’s tennis player Kwon Soon-woo smashing his racquet…

Sky suffers mobile outages in push to strip Huawei from UK 5G networks

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Receive free Huawei Technologies updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Huawei Technologies news every morning. The government’s drive to rip out Huawei kit from Britain’s telecoms network has led to mobile outages for customers of Sky, in the first sign of disruption long warned about by industry executives. Ministers have told mobile groups that they need to remove Huawei equipment from their “core” 5G networks by the end of this year given national security fears over use of the Chinese equipment.  This deadline…

German climate envoy given cold shoulder on trip to Beijing after ‘dictator’ remarks

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“If Putin were to win this war, what sign would that be for other dictators in the world, like Xi, like the Chinese president?,” Baerbock said in a Fox News interview on September 14, comments that sparked a furious reaction from Beijing. The German ambassador Patricia Flor was called to the foreign ministry for a dressing down, while ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning described the remarks as “extremely absurd, seriously infringing on China’s political dignity and an open political provocation”. China summons German envoy after foreign minister calls Xi Jinping a…

Japan to release second batch of wastewater from Fukushima nuclear plant next week

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Japan will begin releasing a second batch of wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant from next week, its operator has said, an exercise that angered China and others when it began in August. On 24 August, Japan began discharging into the Pacific some of the 1.34m tonnes of wastewater that has collected since a tsunami crippled the facility in 2011. “The inspections following the first release have been completed … The (second) discharge will start on 5 October,” Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said on Thursday. China banned all Japanese…

Taiwan Launches Its First Submarine for Testing in Face of China’s Threats

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taipei, taiwan —  Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen launched the self-governing island’s first domestically made submarine Thursday for testing after seven years of design and construction and increasingly aggressive moves by China. The diesel-electric vessel must pass harbor and oceanfaring tests before the military can take full possession in 2024. Tsai, who initiated the plan to build a submarine when she took office in 2016, said, “History will remember this day forever. In the past, a domestically produced submarine was considered a mission impossible [for Taiwan]. But today, a submarine designed…

US Warns of China’s Plans for Information Domination

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washington —  China is pouring billions of dollars into efforts to reshape the global information environment and, eventually, bend the will of multiple nations to Beijing’s advantage, according to a new assessment from U.S. officials. The report, released Thursday by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, accuses the Chinese government of using a combination of tactics in a bid to create a world in which Beijing, either explicitly or implicitly, controls the flow of critical information. China’s goal is to “construct an information ecosystem in which PRC propaganda and disinformation…

Can China’s high-speed railways get its economy back on track?

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Calls are rising in China for more high-speed railways to meet rising demand and boost the national economy. China is expected to add 2,500km (1,553 miles) of high-speed lines this year, which would bring the system’s total length to 44,500km. Three new lines – Fuzhou-Xiamen, Guangzhou-Shanwei, and Shanghai-Nanjing Riverside – were launched in the lead-up to the eight-day “golden week” holiday that begins on Friday. “We expect the average annual investment [from China State Railway Group] will increase 18 per cent from 2023-25, compared with last year,” Zheshang Securities said…