Category: NYT

Chinese Influence Campaign Pushes Disunity Before U.S. Election, Study Says

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A Chinese influence campaign that has tried for years to boost Beijing’s interests is now using artificial intelligence and a network of social media accounts to amplify American discontent and division ahead of the U.S. presidential election, according to a new report. The campaign, known as Spamouflage, hopes to breed disenchantment among voters by maligning the United States as rife with urban decay, homelessness, fentanyl abuse, gun violence and crumbling infrastructure, according to the report, which was published on Thursday by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit research organization…

How China Broke One Man’s Dreams

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The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern,…

China’s Investors Are Losing Faith in Its Markets and Economy

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Like many Chinese people, Jacky hoped that he could make enough money investing in China’s stock markets to help pay for an apartment in a big city. But in 2015 he lost $30,000, and in 2021 he lost $80,000. After that, he shut down his trading account and started investing in Chinese funds that track stocks in the United States. It’s a perilous time for investors in China. Their main vehicle, so-called A shares of Chinese companies, fell more than 11 percent in 2023 and have continued their losses this…

Angela Chao, C.E.O. of Foremost Group, Dies in a Car Crash

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Angela Chao, the chief executive of a shipping company and part of a family prominent in American politics and business deals with China, died in a car crash on Sunday, in Texas. She was 50. Her family confirmed her death. Details about the accident were not immediately available. Ms. Chao had since 2018 been the chair and chief executive of the Chao family’s Foremost Group, which operates a global fleet of bulk carrier ships. The vessels are used to transport commodities like iron ore and soybeans. She was a sister…

Shell Sees Demand Surging for Liquefied Natural Gas

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Shell, Europe’s largest energy company, forecast on Wednesday that global demand for liquefied natural gas, which has been a lifeline for Europe after Russia cut off pipeline gas supplies, will surge by around 50 percent over the next 15 years. The main source of growth is expected to be in China, which will switch from coal to gas in industry to cut emissions, Shell said. The fuel, which is chilled to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit and transported on specialized ships, has become a significant moneymaker for Shell as part of…

Hackers for China, Russia and Others Used OpenAI Systems, Report Says

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Hackers working for nation-states have used OpenAI’s systems in the creation of their cyberattacks, according to research released Wednesday by OpenAI and Microsoft. The companies believe their research, published on their websites, documents for the first time how hackers with ties to foreign governments are using generative artificial intelligence in their attacks. But instead of using A.I. to generate exotic attacks, as some in the tech industry feared, the hackers have used it in mundane ways, like drafting emails, translating documents and debugging computer code, the companies said. “They’re just…

As China Tries to Present a Friendlier Image, a New Face Emerges

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Faced with declining foreign investment at home, China has sought to soften its image in the United States and Europe and make nice with some of its neighbors. One Communist Party official has played an unusually prominent role in the shift in tone. In New York, he told an audience of scholars and businesspeople that China did not seek to rewrite the United States-led global order. In Paris, he said that China’s modernization would benefit Europe and the world. In Beijing, he told the ambassador of India, a regional rival,…

Book Review: ‘Smoke and Ashes,’ by Amitav Ghosh

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SMOKE AND ASHES: Opium’s Hidden Histories, by Amitav Ghosh Biographies of humble things that their authors claimed had “changed the world” — chronometers, salt, potatoes and even the color mauve — were a turn-of-the-21st-century publishing phenomenon. Looking back, they seem fixated on European heroes and their achievements. As Amitav Ghosh observes at the beginning of his bracing new history of the global opium trade, it’s hard to see past a Western conception of the world that “looms so large that it obscures everything else.” “Smoke and Ashes” is the story…

Biden’s First TikTok Post Jokes About Super Bowl Conspiracy Theory

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Did President Biden cunningly rig the Super Bowl so the Kansas City Chiefs would win? “I’d get in trouble if I told you,” Mr. Biden joked in his campaign’s inaugural post on TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media platform that has 170 million U.S. users but few high-level American politicians. The video then cut to an image of the “Dark Brandon” meme — another attempt from the campaign to flip a right-wing conspiracy theory on its head. Mr. Biden’s arrival to TikTok, and the lighthearted nature of his post, pointed to…

How China Built BYD, Its Tesla Killer

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China’s BYD was a battery manufacturer trying its hand at building cars when it showed off its newest model in 2007. American executives at the Guangzhou auto show gaped at the car’s uneven purple paint job and the poor fit of its doors. “They were the laughingstock of the industry,” said Michael Dunne, a China auto industry analyst. Nobody is laughing at BYD now. The company passed Tesla in worldwide sales of fully electric cars late last year. BYD is building assembly lines in Brazil, Hungary, Thailand and Uzbekistan and…