Tag: Xi Jinping

China Offers Condolences to Nepal While Emphasizing Disaster Began There

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China’s leader, Xi Jinping, extended his condolences to Nepal’s president on Friday over the hundreds of deaths caused by the landslide on the countries’ border and pledged China’s support in Nepal’s aid efforts. “I am confident that the people of both countries will be able to join hands to overcome the disaster and rebuild their homes,” Mr. Xi said in a message to Nepal’s president, Ram Chandra Paudel, reported by Chinese state media. The message, his first addressed to Nepal’s government since the disaster on Wednesday, noted that the countries…

China’s Information Control Could Hamper Flood Rescue Efforts in Tibet

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As journalists in Nepal gather eyewitness accounts and up-to-date information about the deadly flood that swept entire villages away on Wednesday, the scene across the border in China could not be more different. By Thursday, videos taken and posted online by locals, including a widely circulated clip of a mudslide engulfing a border crossing in Gyirong County, in China’s Tibet, were censored on Chinese social media platforms. More than 500 people were missing in Gyirong, with three confirmed deaths in the county of about 2,000 people. The authorities have provided…

The Heat on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Grows

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Andrew here. Wowsers. Wall Street is buzzing about an opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal by Stanley Druckenmiller, a billionaire investor. Druckenmiller criticized Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s bond buyback plan, calling it a mistake — and, worse, suggesting it’s a stab at manipulating the bond market. Remember that Druckenmiller more recently employed Kevin Warsh, now the Fed chairman, who has argued that the government should intervene less in markets, not more. Read more below. The risks of Bessent’s multifront war Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has spent much of August…

Zhu Rongji obituary

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Zhu Rongji, who has died aged 97, was the fifth premier of the People’s Republic of China and one of its most effective administrators and economic reformers following its foundation in 1949. In 1991, Zhu was summoned to Beijing, in the footsteps of the then president and party secretary Jiang Zemin, and in the aftermath of the 1989 uprisings in Beijing and the collapse of the Soviet Union. As vice premier in the state council, and governor of the People’s Bank of China (1993-95), Zhu was put in charge of…

President Xi nevers wastes a good crisis. As Iran, Ukraine and Palestine distract the world, he tightens his grip | Simon Tisdall

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Imagine what would happen if a British prime minister in London told the Scots they could not have their own parliament, national football team or fly the saltire. Or if the Welsh were told their language and poetry were banned and must no longer be taught in schools. The ensuing uproar would probably destroy the United Kingdom. Yet that’s exactly what Xi Jinping, China’s communist emperor, is telling the roughly 125 million members of the 55 ethnic and religious minorities who together comprise about 9% of the country’s (majority Han…

China Rewrites the ‘Soft Power’ Playbook for the A.I. Age

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In the Cold War era, “soft power” meant American movies and music that won hearts and minds abroad. Today, in the digital era, China is promoting a very different kind of soft power: its open, low-cost artificial intelligence technology. In a speech last week, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, described so-called open-source A.I. as key to China’s ambitions to shape the global development of the technology. Mr. Xi hailed open-sourcing, in which much of the software can be freely shared and modified, as a “rare and historical opportunity” to spread the…

Rubio and Chinese Diplomat Make Plans for Trump and Xi’s Washington Summit

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he spoke with China’s top diplomat on Wednesday about a state visit scheduled for September by Xi Jinping, China’s leader, to Washington, where President Trump intends to try to bolster what he sees as a personal friendship the two men are developing. The fact that the two nations’ top diplomats spent much of a meeting in Manila talking about the visit is the strongest sign yet that the summit is on schedule, despite remarks last week from Mr. Trump blaming China for trying to…

Why Silicon Valley Can’t Stop Looking Over Its Shoulder at China

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The United States, by almost any measure, dominates the world of artificial intelligence. The most powerful A.I. systems are made in America. The United States has far more A.I. data centers than any other country. And a vast majority of the computer chips used to build A.I. were developed by American companies. Perception, however, is a different matter. In recent weeks, China has appeared to erode that sizable lead. The competition came into sharper focus last week when a Chinese start-up released a system nearly as powerful as the leading…

A.I. Drones Are Coming. We Are Not Ready.

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On a clear afternoon this month, high above the Mojave Desert, an A.I.-powered drone launched a missile in a test that could reshape modern warfare. Since the dawn of the jet age, the U.S. military has used the isolation over this stretch of sand to push secret, experimental aircraft to their aerodynamic and technological limits. It’s doing the same today: fine-tuning machines capable of engaging in aerial combat with barely any human intervention. These drones’ flight is controlled not by a pilot, not by human remote control, but entirely by…

The Guardian view on perceptions of superpowers: the world isn’t Chinamaxxing, it’s America-avoidant | Editorial

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Startling new research shows that in many countries – including old US allies – the public prefers Beijing to Washington Earlier this year, a spate of western TikTok and Instagram creators announced that they were at “a very Chinese time in my life” – drinking hot water and wearing slippers around their homes. The Chinamaxxing phenomenon primarily reflected the constant need of influencers for novel content. But social media trends also reflect a growing fascination with China, as the economic historian Adam Tooze has noted. While it broods over China’s…