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How a Small Chinese County Became the World’s “Hair Capital”

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How a Small Chinese County Became the World’s “Hair Capital”

“Buying hair, especially long hair.” For decades, this familiar call could be heard in streets and villages across China. In Juancheng County, Heze, Shandong Province, however, the humble business of collecting hair has evolved into a major industrial cluster serving markets around the world.

Today, Juancheng is recognized as an important hub for human-hair raw materials and a major production base for hair products. Its industry covers the entire chain from raw-material collection and processing to product design, manufacturing, branding, logistics and international sales. The county has developed a particular strength in real-human-hair products, especially hair extensions, rather than synthetic wigs.

The origins of the industry date back to the 1960s and 1970s, when people in towns such as Zhengying and Fuchun began collecting and trading human hair alongside other materials such as horsehair and animal hides. As demand increased, local traders expanded their procurement networks from nearby areas to other parts of China and eventually to India and Southeast Asia.

Human hair became a valuable raw material because of its natural appearance, texture and versatility. Compared with synthetic fibers, high-quality human hair offers a more realistic look and feel, making it particularly suitable for premium wigs, extensions and customized hair products.

For many years, Juancheng mainly served as a raw-material trading center. At the beginning of the 21st century, however, rising demand for hair extensions and the upgrading of the beauty industry created an opportunity for local businesses to move further up the value chain. Enterprises began processing raw hair locally, and family workshops and small factories expanded rapidly.

This transformation greatly increased production capacity, but it also exposed structural weaknesses. Many businesses operated independently, with inconsistent product quality, limited standardization and intense price competition. Although the number of enterprises increased, the industry lacked strong coordination and brand influence.

The turning point came with the development of industrial parks and stronger government support. In 2012, Juancheng began planning and developing dedicated hair-product industrial parks. A third industrial park started construction in 2024. Concentrating enterprises in specialized industrial zones enabled businesses to share infrastructure and public services, including water, gas and environmental treatment facilities.

The county also incorporated hair products into its key industrial development programs and established mechanisms to coordinate enterprises, industry associations and government departments. These measures helped transform a fragmented network of workshops into a more organized industrial cluster.

The results have been substantial. Juancheng now has hundreds of hair-product enterprises and a large workforce engaged in the industry. In 2024, the county’s hair-product industry recorded an industrial output value of 54.6 billion yuan. From January to July 2025, output reached 41.68 billion yuan, an increase of 12.46 percent year on year.

The industry has also developed a complete production chain. Products now include hair wefts, wigs, extensions, ponytails, hairpieces and customized products, with thousands of varieties available for different markets.

Behind these products is a production system that combines traditional craftsmanship with modern manufacturing. Human hair must first be sorted according to length, color, thickness and direction before undergoing disinfection, cleaning and processing. In the production of high-end products, weaving and hair-setting processes can require highly skilled manual work.

A premium wig or hair extension may go through dozens or even hundreds of individual procedures. The direction, density and arrangement of each strand can affect the final appearance and comfort. This accumulated craftsmanship has become one of Juancheng’s most important competitive advantages.

For a long period, however, Juancheng remained heavily dependent on contract manufacturing and wholesale trade. Many enterprises had strong production capabilities but limited control over international brands, distribution channels and pricing. As a result, much of the added value was captured elsewhere in the supply chain.

In recent years, local enterprises have increasingly shifted toward independent design, branding and direct international sales. Companies are paying greater attention to consumer preferences, fashion trends and differences between overseas markets. Product development now covers not only manufacturing techniques but also styles, colors, materials and customized solutions.

Digital platforms have accelerated this transition. Juancheng businesses are increasingly using international e-commerce platforms and independent websites to reach customers directly. Social media and livestreaming have also become important tools for marketing hair products and demonstrating their appearance and application.

Cross-border e-commerce has opened another channel for small and medium-sized manufacturers. Instead of relying entirely on traditional trading companies, businesses can now respond more quickly to consumer demand, test new products and build direct relationships with overseas customers.

Logistics has also become a key part of the county’s internationalization strategy. As an inland county, Juancheng once faced relatively high transportation and international shipping costs. To address this challenge, the county has developed public bonded warehouses, cross-border e-commerce service centers and other trade-support facilities, while strengthening connections with Heze Mudan Airport and its international cargo functions.

These improvements are helping create a more efficient system for importing raw materials and exporting finished products, reducing logistics costs and improving the speed of international shipments.

The industry’s global reach continues to expand. Juancheng’s hair products are now exported to more than 80 countries and regions. In 2024, the county’s hair-product import and export volume reached approximately € 3.21 billion, accounting for around 70 percent of the county’s total foreign trade. In the first seven months of 2025, imports and exports reached about € 2.6 billion, up 48.75 percent year on year.

The county has also sought to strengthen its international visibility through trade fairs and industry events. Its first hair-products expo in 2025 brought together domestic manufacturers and international buyers, providing a platform for business cooperation and helping promote the “China Hair Capital” brand.

Juancheng’s development demonstrates how a traditional rural industry can evolve through specialization, industrial clustering, technological improvement and digital transformation. What began with people collecting hair door to door has developed into a sophisticated supply chain connecting raw-material networks, skilled manufacturing, modern logistics and global consumer markets.

The significance of Juancheng’s hair industry lies not simply in the volume of hair it processes, but in the industrial ecosystem built around it. Decades of experience in sourcing and processing human hair have created a deep pool of skills and suppliers, while industrial parks, e-commerce platforms and logistics infrastructure have provided new channels for expansion.

As global consumers increasingly seek personalized and high-quality hair products, Juancheng is moving toward higher-value segments of the market. Greater investment in product design, technology, international branding and direct-to-consumer sales will determine whether the county can further strengthen its position in the global hair-products industry.

Source: xinhua, dzplus, eastmoney, sina

An Open China, A Flourishing Sinology: Growing Through the Exchange of Civilizations

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An Open China, A Flourishing Sinology: Growing Through the Exchange of Civilizations

The formation of any culture is never an isolated process. Every civilization is rooted in its own historical soil, yet it is also shaped and enriched through encounters, exchanges, and mutual learning with other civilizations. 

The history of Sinology is a vivid example of this process. Its emergence and development reflect not only the enduring vitality of Chinese civilization, but also the long history of dialogue between China and the wider world.

Chinese civilization has a long and continuous history. Its philosophy, writing, language, institutions, literature, and arts have together formed a cultural tradition that has endured for thousands of years. Confucianism, Daoism, and the diverse schools of thought that flourished in ancient China provided a profound intellectual foundation for Chinese culture. 

They also became an important basis through which people beyond China came to understand and study the country. Without the accumulated vitality and richness of Chinese civilization, Sinology could not have emerged.

More than two thousand years ago, the Chinese began to reach beyond their immediate geographical surroundings. Zhang Qian’s missions to the Western Regions opened important channels connecting China with Central Asia, West Asia, and regions farther west. 

Silk, porcelain, tea, and other Chinese products traveled along these routes, while ideas, religions, technologies, and cultural practices from other civilizations entered China. What later came to be known as the Silk Road was therefore much more than a commercial route. It was also a bridge between civilizations.

The arrival of Buddhism in China offers a particularly important example. Originating in India, Buddhism entered China during the Han period and gradually became integrated with Chinese culture. Chinese monks traveled westward in search of Buddhist scriptures, while foreign monks came to China to translate and teach Buddhist texts. 

The journeys of Faxian and Xuanzang were not simply religious pilgrimages; they were also extraordinary intellectual journeys that expanded Chinese knowledge of Central and South Asia. Xuanzang’s travels, for example, produced valuable records of the geography, history, society, and customs of the regions he visited. Buddhism itself was transformed through its encounter with Chinese thought, eventually giving rise to distinctly Chinese traditions such as Chan Buddhism.

Christianity, particularly Nestorian Christianity, also entered China during the Tang dynasty. The Nestorian Stele erected in Chang’an in 781 provides important evidence of the religious and cultural exchanges between China and the West. These examples demonstrate that Chinese civilization was not a closed system. Throughout its history, it repeatedly encountered foreign ideas, absorbed what it found valuable, and transformed those ideas within its own cultural context.

The maritime world created another important channel of communication. Beginning in 1405, Zheng He’s voyages connected China with numerous countries and peoples across Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa. His fleets carried Chinese silk, porcelain, tea, and other goods abroad and returned with spices, medicines, animals, plants, and other products. More importantly, these voyages facilitated the exchange of institutions, knowledge, customs, art, religion, and technology.

The significance of these journeys lies not only in their scale, but also in their spirit of engagement. The voyages represented a tradition of seeking contact and friendship with other peoples. They demonstrated that maritime exploration could serve not merely commercial or military purposes, but also the cause of peaceful communication between civilizations. Together, the land and maritime Silk Roads created channels through which China and the wider world gradually came to know one another.

It was within this long history of contact that the foundations of Sinology were laid.

At first, European knowledge of China came largely through merchants, travelers, diplomats, missionaries, and explorers. Their travel accounts and reports introduced European readers to China’s geography, government, economy, products, customs, language, and social life. Marco Polo’s famous account was among the most influential of these works, while numerous other travel diaries, letters, reports, and books followed. Although such writings inevitably reflected the authors’ own cultural assumptions and sometimes contained misunderstandings or exaggerations, they nevertheless played an important role in bringing China into the intellectual horizon of Europe.

From the sixteenth century onward, missionaries became particularly important intermediaries between China and Europe. They studied the Chinese language, read Chinese classics, interacted with Chinese scholars, and recorded their observations of Chinese society. At the same time, they introduced Western knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, geography, and other sciences into China. The resulting process was characterized by both “Western learning spreading eastward” and “Chinese learning spreading westward.”

Among the most important figures in this process were Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci. Rather than treating Chinese culture simply as an obstacle to missionary activity, they sought to understand it from within. They studied Confucian texts and engaged Chinese intellectuals in dialogue. Their efforts demonstrated that meaningful cultural exchange requires more than the transmission of information; it requires the willingness to understand another civilization on its own terms.

A number of major works gradually transformed European knowledge of China from scattered observations into a more systematic body of learning. Juan González de Mendoza’s History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China, published in 1588, brought together a vast amount of information concerning China’s history, geography, government, education, military affairs, customs, products, and everyday life. It was translated into several European languages and circulated widely.

Another landmark appeared in 1687 with the publication of Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, or Confucius, the Chinese Philosopher. Written in Latin, the work introduced European readers to Confucius and major Confucian classics in a systematic manner. Its influence extended far beyond the study of China. European thinkers including Leibniz, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu encountered Chinese philosophy and political thought through the growing body of literature on China. Chinese civilization thus became not only an object of curiosity but also a source of intellectual reflection for Europe.

This was a decisive stage in the emergence of Sinology as an independent field of study. In 1814, Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat began teaching Chinese and related languages and literature at the Collège de France. Chinese language, history, literature, and geography subsequently entered European academic institutions. Sinology gradually developed in France and then in many other countries, including Portugal, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Japan, and the United States. It increasingly incorporated methods from linguistics, history, anthropology, archaeology, sociology, and other disciplines.

Sinology is therefore both connected with China and distinct from traditional Chinese scholarship. Its object of study is Chinese civilization, but its development has taken place within different intellectual and cultural traditions. Chinese scholars and foreign Sinologists may examine the same historical subject while approaching it from different perspectives, using different questions and methodologies. This difference is not necessarily a weakness. On the contrary, it can provide valuable opportunities for mutual reflection.

Sinology can serve as a mirror through which the world sees China, but it can also become a mirror through which China sees itself.

The history of Sinology reminds us that the vitality of a civilization does not lie in resisting all change. It lies in its ability to communicate, absorb, transform, and renew itself. Chinese civilization has survived and developed over thousands of years partly because of its capacity to incorporate elements from other cultures. Buddhism became deeply integrated into Chinese intellectual and spiritual life; foreign artistic, religious, scientific, and technological influences enriched Chinese society; and in modern times, China has continued to learn from other civilizations.

Cultural exchange, however, is never a one-way process. It is not simply a matter of one civilization giving and another receiving. Genuine exchange is a process in which both sides are changed. Through dialogue, each civilization gains the opportunity to reconsider its own assumptions and discover new possibilities.

This lesson is particularly important in the twenty-first century. Modern transportation and communications have brought societies closer together than ever before, but geographical proximity does not automatically produce mutual understanding. Differences in history, religion, values, and social experience can still create misunderstanding and conflict. In such a world, the importance of understanding, respect, and equal dialogue has become even greater.

The significance of Sinology therefore extends beyond the academic study of Chinese language and culture. It represents a way of understanding another civilization through sustained intellectual engagement. To study a civilization seriously is not simply to judge it by one’s own standards, but to enter, as far as possible, its historical experience and cultural context.

Chinese civilization has produced many ideas that continue to possess value beyond their original historical setting: self-renewal, moral responsibility, respect for others, honesty, trust, and harmony between human beings and nature. At the same time, China has much to learn from the achievements and experiences of other civilizations. Cultural confidence should not mean cultural isolation. Genuine confidence allows a civilization to appreciate its own heritage while remaining open to the strengths of others.

Sinology was born from encounters between civilizations. It began with the movement of people, goods, religions, books, and ideas along ancient roads and across seas. It grew through travel accounts and missionary writings, matured through the translation and study of Chinese classics, and eventually became an established academic discipline. Its history is therefore not merely the history of a field of scholarship. It is also a history of humanity’s long search for understanding across cultural boundaries.

Looking ahead, the value of Sinology should not be measured only by the number of scholars, universities, or publications devoted to the study of China. Its deeper value lies in its capacity to promote dialogue. When different civilizations are willing to understand one another, recognize their differences, learn from one another, and seek common ground, cultural diversity becomes a source of strength rather than division.

Harmony does not mean the disappearance of difference. It means that differences can coexist with mutual respect. The history of Sinology demonstrates that civilizations can meet without losing their identities, and that through sustained exchange they can enrich one another.

Humanity may still be far from the ideal of a world in which different peoples live together in mutual understanding. Yet distance should not be a reason to abandon the journey. The ancient dream that people across the world might live as members of one human family remains worth pursuing.

Sinology came into being through the meeting of civilizations, and its future should continue to be shaped by that meeting. When cultures become more open, more understanding, and more willing to learn from one another, the study of China becomes more than an academic enterprise: it becomes part of the broader human effort to build bridges across differences and to create a world in which civilizations can coexist, communicate, and flourish together.

Source: qstheory, sass org cn, people, uwtsd 

The Return of Japanese Militarism: How Tokyo’s Intelligence Expansion Threatens Global Security

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The Return of Japanese Militarism: How Tokyo’s Intelligence Expansion Threatens Global Security

On May 27, Japan’s Diet formally approved the Act on the Establishment of the National Intelligence Council, marking a significant step in Tokyo’s efforts to fundamentally strengthen its capabilities for intelligence collection, analysis and interagency coordination. Driven by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and unfolding alongside an accelerating military buildup and the resurgence of a new form of militarism, Japan’s increasingly centralized intelligence architecture warrants close scrutiny.

During World War II, Japan relied on an extensive intelligence apparatus to facilitate its overseas aggression and expansion. Intelligence operations served not only military campaigns but also penetrated deeply into domestic governance, social surveillance and ideological control. 

Following Japan’s defeat, the country underwent demilitarization and democratization, and its wartime intelligence apparatus was dismantled. In the decades that followed, Japan gradually developed a system characterized by parallel intelligence institutions, interagency checks and balances, and a significant reliance on the United States.

Today, intelligence responsibilities are distributed among a number of Japanese institutions, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Justice, the Public Security Intelligence Agency and the National Police Agency. 

Since the beginning of the 21st century, however, Japan has sought to upgrade its intelligence capabilities in response to changes in the international security environment and as part of a broader transformation of its national security strategy. In 2001, the government established the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office and the Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center, while the Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets formally took effect in December 2014.

The Act on the Establishment of the National Intelligence Council represents an important turning point in this latest phase of intelligence reform. Its stated objective is to enhance coordination across government, but its institutional implications point toward a far more centralized structure in which the Prime Minister’s Office assumes greater control over the country’s intelligence resources. 

Under the legislation, a National Intelligence Council chaired by the prime minister will be established to investigate and deliberate on major intelligence activities and counterintelligence matters, effectively serving as a central command and coordination mechanism for intelligence collection and analysis.

The legislation further requires the chief cabinet secretary and the heads of relevant administrative agencies to provide the council with useful information and materials in a timely manner and, when requested by the chair, to provide explanations and other necessary assistance. In institutional terms, these provisions establish a legally backed mechanism for the upward flow of intelligence from individual agencies to the central government. The Japanese government also plans to establish a National Intelligence Agency in July, initially with a staff of approximately 700, with personnel numbers expected to expand in stages.

On the surface, these reforms can be presented as an effort to overcome bureaucratic fragmentation and make more efficient use of intelligence resources. In practice, however, they represent a fundamental restructuring of Japan’s intelligence system toward greater centralization and a significant departure from the postwar model of dispersed institutional authority. 

The command center of Japan’s intelligence operations is likely to become increasingly concentrated in the Prime Minister’s Office, creating a vertically integrated structure extending from the political leadership downward. This development raises questions about whether an important institutional safeguard established during Japan’s postwar democratization, the dispersal of intelligence authority intended to prevent the re-emergence of militarism, is gradually being weakened.

Japan will remain dependent on the United States for intelligence capabilities and information sharing in the short term. Over the longer term, however, the establishment of a National Intelligence Council and a centralized National Intelligence Agency could provide Tokyo with the institutional foundation to develop greater autonomy in intelligence planning, collection and analysis.

The connection between intelligence reform and military expansion is particularly significant. Historically, Japan’s overseas military campaigns were frequently preceded and supported by extensive intelligence-gathering and espionage activities. From the First Sino-Japanese War through the Pacific War, intelligence operations played a central role in identifying targets, gathering battlefield information and facilitating military expansion.

Against this historical backdrop, the intelligence reforms pursued by the Takaichi government deserve particular attention. On May 14, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara stated during questioning before the House of Councillors Committee on Cabinet Affairs that the newly established National Intelligence Council would cooperate with the Self-Defense Forces in intelligence collection. 

Earlier, on March 23, the Takaichi government formally initiated a reorganization of the Self-Defense Forces. The Maritime Self-Defense Force established a new Intelligence Operations Group, bringing together units responsible for intelligence, cyber operations, communications and maritime surveillance, while the Ground Self-Defense Force established its own Intelligence Operations Unit.

At present, Japan’s intelligence capabilities within the Self-Defense Forces are centered on the Defense Intelligence Headquarters and specialized intelligence units belonging to the individual services. These capabilities have nevertheless been constrained by personnel shortages and institutional fragmentation. 

Greater coordination under the National Intelligence Council could enable the government to integrate resources from civilian agencies and other intelligence organizations with those of the Self-Defense Forces, potentially strengthening Japan’s military intelligence capabilities. At the same time, Tokyo is expected to place greater emphasis on mobilizing civilian resources, incorporating advanced technologies and recruiting specialized personnel to expand its capacity for intelligence collection and analysis.

International intelligence cooperation is another important dimension of Japan’s evolving defense strategy. Tokyo has signed military information protection agreements with the United States, South Korea and India, and has established similar arrangements with Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Canada, Ukraine and NATO. 

On May 12, Japan and the Philippines also announced the launch of negotiations on a related agreement. Through these arrangements, Japan has developed bilateral intelligence-sharing mechanisms with many of the principal members of the Five Eyes community and has increasingly been described by some observers as a potential “sixth eye” within the broader Western intelligence network.

The strategic implications are considerable. By integrating its domestic intelligence resources and strengthening intelligence capabilities within the Self-Defense Forces, Japan could become more deeply embedded in the U.S.-led intelligence architecture in the Asia-Pacific. 

In flashpoints such as the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, closer intelligence cooperation could allow Japan to play a more prominent role in surveillance, reconnaissance and information operations conducted in coordination with the United States. From Beijing’s perspective, such a development would reinforce the perception of Japan as an intelligence outpost supporting U.S. efforts to contain China militarily and strategically. The resulting deterioration in regional strategic trust could, in turn, increase the risks of miscalculation and military confrontation.

Even more troubling are the potential domestic consequences of a highly centralized intelligence structure. The legislation focuses heavily on building a unified institutional framework for intelligence agencies but provides comparatively limited safeguards concerning the boundaries of intelligence activities, particularly the surveillance of Japanese citizens or foreign targets. 

Nor does it establish a robust independent parliamentary or third-party oversight mechanism capable of scrutinizing intelligence operations. This creates concern that agencies entrusted with extensive intelligence powers could acquire broad authority without sufficiently clear or enforceable limits.

The potential risks are particularly acute in an era in which governments possess unprecedented access to personal information. Tax records, social-security data, immigration records, communications information and other forms of personal data have traditionally been administered by separate government agencies under different legal frameworks. 

If such information were increasingly integrated and made available for centralized intelligence purposes, the potential implications for privacy and personal-data protection would be substantial.

Takaichi has also indicated that her government intends to pursue additional legislation and institutional measures, including an anti-espionage law, an external intelligence agency and a national intelligence strategy. Taken together, these initiatives suggest that Japan is not merely making incremental adjustments to existing institutions but is moving toward the construction of a much broader intelligence and surveillance architecture.

These concerns have already been voiced within Japan. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations and other civic groups have expressed opposition to the legislation, while lawmakers have raised concerns that intelligence institutions could be politicized and used for partisan purposes. 

Both chambers of the Diet adopted supplementary resolutions calling for consideration of privacy and personal-information protection in the organization and operation of the National Intelligence Council. Yet such resolutions do not carry the same binding legal force as statutory safeguards and therefore offer limited protection against potential abuses of surveillance powers.

Japan’s history provides ample reason for such caution. During the wartime period, the Special Higher Police, commonly known as the Tokkō, developed an extensive system of domestic surveillance and repression. It targeted anti-war activists, suppressed dissent, controlled public discourse and pursued political opponents in the name of national security. Even after the war, controversies involving police wiretapping of Communist Party officials in Kanagawa Prefecture and surveillance operations by the Public Security Intelligence Agency have periodically raised concerns about the persistence of intrusive intelligence practices.

The issue, therefore, is not simply whether Japan should possess stronger intelligence capabilities. In an increasingly complex security environment, every major power faces legitimate demands to improve its ability to collect and analyze information, counter espionage and respond to emerging threats. The more fundamental question is how such capabilities are organized, who exercises ultimate authority over them, what legal limits constrain their activities, and whether independent institutions possess sufficient power to hold intelligence agencies accountable.

Japan’s current trajectory raises legitimate concerns precisely because institutional centralization appears to be advancing faster than mechanisms of independent oversight. A powerful intelligence apparatus operating under increasingly direct political control can improve the state’s capacity to respond rapidly to security threats, but it can also increase the risks of politicization, mission creep and excessive surveillance. These risks become particularly serious when intelligence institutions are being strengthened simultaneously with military expansion and closer integration into a U.S.-led regional security network.

The significance of Japan’s intelligence transformation consequently extends beyond the technical organization of its security bureaucracy. It touches on the broader question of what kind of security state Japan intends to become. The postwar constitutional order was built in part around institutional restraints designed to prevent the return of militarism and unchecked state power. If intelligence authority is increasingly concentrated at the political center without corresponding safeguards for privacy, parliamentary scrutiny and judicial or independent oversight, one of those postwar restraints could gradually be eroded.

The historical memory of Japan’s wartime intelligence apparatus should not be invoked mechanically, nor should every contemporary security reform be equated with a return to militarism. Yet history does demonstrate that intelligence institutions are never politically neutral. They can strengthen a democratic state’s capacity to protect its citizens, but they can also become instruments of political control when oversight fails.

Japan is therefore approaching a consequential crossroads. The creation of a centralized intelligence structure may enhance the country’s strategic autonomy and military effectiveness, but it also carries significant risks if institutional power expands without equally strong safeguards. As Tokyo seeks a larger role in regional security and deeper integration with its allies’ intelligence networks, the international community will have reason to watch not only how much intelligence capability Japan acquires, but also how that capability is governed.

For Japan, the central challenge is not simply to build a stronger intelligence state. It is to demonstrate that greater intelligence power can coexist with democratic accountability, protection of individual rights and meaningful institutional checks. Without those safeguards, efforts presented as modernization of the national security system could instead deepen political centralization, intensify regional confrontation and revive precisely the historical anxieties that Japan’s postwar order was designed to prevent.

Source: xinhua, china diplomacy, people, theconversation

AI for Whom? Who Benefits from Artificial Intelligence?

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AI for Whom? Who Benefits from Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial intelligence is emerging as a powerful force reshaping the global order. From the reorganization of industrial supply chains to the production of knowledge, from transformations in the nature of work to international competition, the impact of AI has already gone far beyond a mere technological revolution. It is becoming a question of the very structure of the societies of the future.

When large corporations control the most advanced AI technologies, could this give rise to a new form of colonialism toward smaller countries that lack such technological capabilities? Are the data generated by people in Africa truly equal, in the eyes of AI, to the data generated in Europe and the United States? Whose intelligence? Who, ultimately, does artificial intelligence serve? Is it creating a more inclusive and equitable future, or is it reproducing, and perhaps deepening, existing inequalities in new technological forms?

In this conversation, Professor Yin Zhiguang of Fudan University speaks with Hansong Li, Assistant Professor at American University and Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for International Affairs, about AI from the perspective of the Global South， examining the global division of labor, data power, and knowledge justice behind the technology.

Why are you interested in AI, and what are your main concerns about its impact on society and the global order?

AI is an unavoidable question of our time because it represents one of today’s most advanced productive forces. But we should neither assume that technology follows a single, linear path nor believe that AI can automatically solve all social problems. Its significance lies not only in transforming production, but also in reshaping social relations and collective consciousness.

I think we can understand AI on at least three levels. The first is the restructuring of global supply chains and the international division of labor: why do some countries and companies control large language models, computing power, and core algorithms, while others are left providing data, labor, minerals, and energy? How did this new division of labor emerge?

How does the future envisioned by large data companies like Palantir differ from our existing forms of social organization, and does it truly promote equality or instead reproduce inequality?

If AI is truly empowering us, is that empowerment universal and equal, or does it accelerate and amplify existing inequalities? This raises a deeper question: What will the AI utopia of the future actually look like?

Many visions promoted by tech leaders appear human-centered, but are in fact centered on a technological elite, surrounded by robots while ordinary people remain outside. In the Global South, this raises an especially urgent problem: as automation advances, many workers may never experience the kind of industrialization that transformed East Asia, nor gain access to the high-end technology sector. Such a future could therefore reproduce profound structural inequalities.

A second vision is human–machine integration, in which AI becomes an extension of human capabilities, a kind of “second brain” that gives us instant access to knowledge and information. But this does not automatically solve social problems. It may increase individual productivity while simultaneously creating new forms of labor, social relations, and alienation. Ultimately, how humans integrate with machines is not simply a technological question; it is a question of political economy and the kind of society we choose to build.

To what extent does AI-enhanced human–machine integration actually increase productivity across different forms of labor, and how should we understand its impact when AI becomes an extension of human capabilities rather than merely a tool?

AI may increase efficiency without necessarily increasing social productivity as a whole, and its impact remains highly uneven across sectors. In developed economies, service-sector jobs such as legal assistants, accountants, financial analysts, and programmers are already being significantly reshaped, while the rise of AI agents and human–machine integration could make the future of human labor increasingly uncertain.

By contrast, agriculture, small-scale production, and the informal economy have a much more complicated relationship with AI. In countries like India, where a vast informal economy exists alongside a rapidly growing AI sector, it is still unclear how deeply AI is actually transforming the lives of ordinary workers. At the same time, the Global South also offers alternative possibilities, such as using AI for weather monitoring, telemedicine, and agricultural services. The question, then, is not simply whether AI increases productivity, but whose productivity it increases, and under what conditions.

Does AI create new forms of inequality, or does it primarily deepen existing disparities between agricultural and industrial countries and between the primary and tertiary sectors?

Both dynamics are happening at the same time. On the one hand, AI is creating new inequalities within its own global supply chain. Countries at the bottom often perform data labeling and content moderation, labor-intensive and psychologically damaging work involving violent, sexual, or otherwise disturbing content. They effectively become the “filters” of the AI industry, absorbing the risks and trauma while others receive the clean data. This echoes older patterns of global production, in which developing countries have long borne the environmental and human costs of global consumption.

On the other hand, AI empowers countries, regions, and social groups very unevenly, creating new forms of dependence and exclusion. Some become the “front of the train,” while others are left behind, or never get on the train at all. When the knowledge economy fails to be inclusive, those excluded may understandably ask, “What does AI have to do with me?” That sense of exclusion can fuel resentment toward technological elites and, ultimately, populist politics.

Given the deep inequalities within and beyond the AI industry, how can we rethink global AI governance to account for these differences and build a more equitable framework?

This goes beyond inequality in the AI supply chain and raises a broader question of global knowledge injustice. Inclusive AI governance must begin with inclusive data. Although AI models are trained on enormous datasets, they still capture only a small fraction of human experience. What gets included as “valid data” is itself a political and epistemic choice, largely shaped by major technology companies and engineers in the Global North.

That is why we need to bring more countries, languages, cultures, and forms of local knowledge into AI development. We can already see this in Africa, where startups in countries such as Uganda and Ethiopia are developing models based on local languages, data, and social realities rather than simply reproducing existing English-language models. This shows that AI does not have to follow a single Silicon Valley model.

Ultimately, this is a question of epistemic justice: Whose data enters the model? Whose knowledge is represented? And who remains excluded from knowledge production? If AI governance is to be genuinely inclusive, we must diversify not only the languages of AI, but also the data, knowledge, and perspectives that shape it.

The third level concerns our imaginaries of the future. Some technology elites in Silicon Valley envision futures in which a small minority controls AI, embodied robots, and other advanced technologies—or even escapes to Mars while the rest of humanity is left behind. Such visions point toward an increasingly technocratic and hierarchical future, with echoes of what has been called the Dark Enlightenment.

What are the material conditions required for AI to become truly accessible and inclusive worldwide, from affordable and open models to low-cost, reliable energy?

Beyond open source, AI needs to be meaningfully integrated into social life and economic production. We could even slow the race to push the limits of generative AI and large language models, and focus more on what they actually contribute to ordinary people and society.

A second priority is sustainable energy. AI depends heavily on electricity, so a diverse and sustainable energy system is itself a foundation for AI development. This is also why energy security and AI governance cannot be treated as separate issues.

Ultimately, however, the most important question is where society wants AI to go. Countries and regions such as Singapore, ASEAN, and the African Union are already exploring new approaches to AI governance, while the United States has traditionally relied more on market-driven innovation, intervening only after problems become serious. This reflects a broader tendency to pursue technological progress without first building the social foundations necessary to sustain it.

We need to bring human needs and lived realities back into discussions of technological development and global governance. Technology cannot be an end in itself; it must be grounded in the material and social conditions of human life. Otherwise, we risk building a technological “second floor” while forgetting that the foundations beneath it are already cracking.

How can we put human needs and lived realities back at the center of technological development and global AI governance, rather than assuming that technological progress alone will solve broader social problems?

The key is collaborative governance. For too long, global resources and decision-making power have been concentrated in the hands of a few countries and corporations, leaving many developing countries with little voice in the rules that govern them. As the old slogan goes, “no taxation without representation.” The same principle should apply to AI governance: countries should not simply be expected to accept rules they had no role in creating.

The most fundamental principle of global AI governance, therefore, should be co-creation and shared governance. We need to develop a shared wisdom around AI, build consensus through participation, and gradually establish norms that everyone has a stake in. These norms will inevitably evolve, but through continued cooperation they can develop into genuinely universal mechanisms of governance.

This also creates an opportunity for the Global South to move beyond being merely a recipient of supposedly “universal” rules. By participating in the construction of those rules, the Global South can become a co-creator of what universality itself means.

Source: guancha, live science, techradar

The South China Sea Dispute

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The South China Sea Dispute

The South China Sea is located between mainland China, Taiwan Island, the Philippine archipelago, the Malay Archipelago, and the Indochinese Peninsula. It is an important marginal sea in the western Pacific, covering an area of approximately 3.56 million square kilometers. 

Because it connects the Pacific Ocean with the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea has been an important international shipping route since ancient times and holds considerable strategic significance. At the same time, the region is rich in natural resources, including oil and natural gas. For these reasons, with the development of modern marine resource exploitation and the evolution of international law, the South China Sea has gradually become an area where the interests of neighboring countries intersect and disputes are concentrated.

The South China Sea disputes mainly refer to disagreements among countries and regions surrounding the South China Sea over issues such as sovereignty over islands and reefs, maritime delimitation, and resource development. The main parties involved include mainland China and Taiwan, as well as Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. The claims of these parties involve not only historical questions concerning territorial sovereignty but also modern international maritime law, exclusive economic zones, and continental shelf regimes. As a result, the South China Sea issue has a complicated historical, legal, and geopolitical background.

The so-called “Nine-Dash Line” is an important concept for understanding the South China Sea disputes. It is a series of intermittent line segments drawn on Chinese maps of the South China Sea, generally forming a U-shaped pattern, and is therefore sometimes referred to as the “U-shaped line.” 

Its history can be traced back to maps published by the Chinese government in the 1940s. At that time, the map contained eleven dashed segments. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the line was adjusted and eventually became what is commonly known today as the Nine-Dash Line. For a long period of time, China has based its claims to relevant islands, reefs, and maritime rights in the South China Sea on historical documents, maps, and evidence of the development and administration of the South China Sea islands.

However, following the discovery of oil and natural gas resources in the South China Sea in the 1960s and 1970s, neighboring countries gradually strengthened their own claims to sovereignty and maritime rights. In particular, after the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) established the legal regimes of the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia increasingly relied on modern maritime law to assert rights over surrounding waters and made sovereignty claims over certain islands and reefs in the South China Sea. 

As a result, the South China Sea disputes developed from relatively straightforward disagreements over the ownership of islands and reefs into a complex combination of territorial sovereignty, maritime delimitation, resource exploitation, and competing interpretations of international law.

The South China Sea islands are generally divided into four major groups: the Dongsha Islands, the Xisha Islands, the Zhongsha Islands, and the Nansha Islands. Among them, the Nansha Islands have become the most contested area because of their large number of islands and reefs, their important geographical location, and the abundance of resources in the surrounding waters. 

Different countries and areas currently exercise control over various islands and reefs and conduct resource exploration, fishing activities, and infrastructure construction in the surrounding areas. China currently controls a number of features in the South China Sea and established Sansha City to administer the relevant islands and waters. Taiwan also exercises effective control over Itu Aba, commonly known as Taiping Island. At the same time, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and other countries control various features in the Spratly Islands and have advanced their own sovereignty and maritime claims.

China’s position on sovereignty over the South China Sea has a long historical background. Chinese historical documents contain records concerning the South China Sea and its islands and reefs dating back many centuries. Since the Han Dynasty, Chinese texts have included descriptions of the geographical environment of the South China Sea. 

During the Tang and Song dynasties, terms such as “Shitang,” “Changsha,” “Qianli Shitang,” and “Wanli Changsha” appeared in historical records. During the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, Chinese geographical records concerning the South China Sea islands became increasingly detailed. Chinese fishermen from coastal areas also engaged in fishing and navigation in the region for centuries. In modern times, in response to foreign occupation of certain islands and reefs in the South China Sea, the Chinese government lodged diplomatic protests. Following the end of World War II, China resumed administration of the South China Sea islands in accordance with postwar international documents and arrangements. China therefore maintains that the South China Sea islands were not terra nullius and that it possesses historical and legal grounds for its sovereignty claims.

However, other claimant states interpret this history differently. Some countries argue that historical navigation, fishing activities, and references on maps do not necessarily constitute continuous and effective state control in the sense required by modern international law. They also emphasize the significance of long-term effective occupation and administration. In addition, these countries rely on the provisions of UNCLOS concerning territorial seas, exclusive economic zones, and continental shelves to advance their maritime claims. 

Because historical rights, territorial sovereignty over islands and reefs, and modern maritime law involve complex and sometimes overlapping legal questions, the South China Sea disputes cannot easily be resolved on the basis of a single legal framework.

The involvement of the United States has further complicated the South China Sea issue. During the Cold War, the United States primarily regarded the South China Sea as an important maritime transportation route and did not directly intervene in the territorial sovereignty disputes over individual islands and reefs. 

From the 1990s onward, as American concerns about China’s strategic intentions increased, the United States gradually expanded its military and diplomatic activities in Southeast Asia. In the 21st century, the United States further strengthened military and security cooperation with countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia while emphasizing the importance of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. The United States also maintains a military alliance with the Philippines, further increasing its influence over South China Sea affairs. Consequently, the South China Sea disputes are no longer merely regional disagreements between China and neighboring claimant states; to some extent, they have also become part of the broader strategic competition between China and the United States.

In practice, resource development, construction on islands and reefs, and the protection of maritime rights remain major challenges in the South China Sea. Several neighboring countries have conducted oil and gas exploration and development in relevant waters for many years, while China has generally taken a more cautious approach toward resource development in disputed areas. At the same time, some countries have sought to strengthen their claims through domestic legislation, administrative measures, and international judicial or arbitral proceedings, further internationalizing the South China Sea disputes. 

In 2013, the Philippines initiated arbitration proceedings concerning the South China Sea. China maintained that it would neither accept nor participate in the arbitration, arguing that the relevant issues involved territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation and therefore fell outside the jurisdiction of the arbitration process. In 2016, the arbitral tribunal issued its award, after which the Chinese government stated that it neither accepted nor recognized the award.

The South China Sea disputes are the result of the interaction of historical issues, international law, resource interests, and major-power strategic competition. China advocates resolving relevant disputes through peaceful negotiations and direct consultations, while also proposing approaches such as “shelving disputes and pursuing joint development.” 

Looking ahead, resolving the South China Sea issue will require not only the protection of legitimate national interests but also deeper research into international maritime law, stronger capabilities in marine legislation, resource development, and ocean governance, as well as continued diplomatic and regional cooperation to reduce misunderstandings and the risk of conflict. 

The South China Sea disputes are unlikely to be completely resolved in the short term. Nevertheless, through peaceful negotiations, the development of regional rules, and practical cooperation, it may still be possible to gradually reduce tensions while safeguarding the core interests of the parties involved and creating more favorable conditions for peace, stability, and common development in the South China Sea.

Source: pmfias, bbc, cgtn, britannica, us state gov

6.6 ms Decision Time, 100% Kill Rate: Chinese Research Team Unveils New UAV Combat Algorithm

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6.6 ms Decision Time, 100% Kill Rate: Chinese Research Team Unveils New UAV Combat Algorithm

A research team led by Associate Professor Zhang Dong from the School of Astronautics at Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) in China has recently introduced a new algorithm that could fundamentally transform the way unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms search for and destroy hostile targets.

The algorithm, known as HG-STR (Heterogeneous Graph Spatio-Temporal Reasoning), enables a formation of fixed-wing UAVs to autonomously search for and eliminate hostile targets across a large battlefield, even when communication signals are jammed and the line of sight is obstructed.

According to a peer-reviewed paper published on May 19 in Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica, one of China’s leading journals in the field of aeronautics, HG-STR achieved a 96% mission success rate and a 100% target elimination rate, significantly outperforming existing benchmark algorithms in both key performance indicators. South China Morning Post also reported that this is currently the first known algorithm capable of achieving a 100% target destruction rate while operating at a speed sufficient for the tempo of modern warfare.

The report further cited an anonymous Chinese defense expert, who noted that most UAV combat missions are still remotely controlled by human operators. According to the expert, this technology points toward a future in which UAV swarms can be deployed into highly contested and communication-denied environments, where they execute a single high-level command, such as search for and eliminate all hostile targets, without requiring further human intervention.

Conventional algorithms generally treat friendly forces, enemy units, terrain, and other battlefield entities as homogeneous data, which can lead to information ambiguity. In contrast, the research team proposed a heterogeneous graph representation that assigns distinct semantic meanings to different battlefield entities. In this framework, friendly UAVs, search regions, and hostile targets are modeled as different categories of nodes.

By learning the semantic relationships among these heterogeneous entities, the algorithm can accurately identify and prioritize meaningful interactions. For example, when a UAV detects a hostile target, the information is immediately recognized as a high-priority threat. Conversely, nearby friendly UAVs are identified as opportunities for cooperative engagement.

According to Zhang Dong and his colleagues, this capability enables UAV swarms to rapidly determine when to support allied units and when to pursue and engage enemy targets.

Traditional rule-based systems, by comparison, operate according to predefined scripts and often fail when facing unpredictable adversaries. Many existing optimization algorithms also suffer from excessive computational complexity, similar to a chess engine exhaustively evaluating possible moves, making them too slow for real-time combat scenarios.

The paper reports that HG-STR performs end-to-end neural network inference with an average decision time of only 6.6 milliseconds per step, representing a substantial improvement over conventional approaches.

For comparison, another method, GA+PSO+MPC, achieves slightly higher area coverage but requires approximately 5.8 seconds for each decision. At a flight speed of 100 meters per second, such latency would result in nearly 600 meters of blind flight before a new decision is made, which could be fatal in electronically contested environments.

Real-world battlefields present numerous uncertainties. Electronic warfare may disrupt communication links, isolating UAVs from one another. Individual UAV sensors have only limited observation ranges, while search-and-destroy missions are constrained by both time and fuel consumption.

To address these challenges, the research team developed several complementary solutions. First, each UAV is equipped with a memory mechanism based on a Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU). When communication with teammates is lost, the UAV can recall the last known positions of friendly units as well as the last observed locations of hostile targets.

Second, the researchers designed a hierarchical decision-making framework. Each UAV first determines its high-level objective, deciding whether to continue searching or transition into attack mode. It then selects an appropriate target and finally determines the amount of ammunition required for the engagement.

By decomposing the complex decision-making process into a sequence of hierarchical subtasks, the UAV swarm avoids the confusion and inefficiency associated with attempting to optimize all decisions simultaneously.

Simulation experiments demonstrated that the proposed algorithm maintained a 94% mission success rate even under weakly connected communication conditions with severely limited communication ranges.

The experimental results also indicate that HG-STR possesses strong generalization capability. After being trained in relatively small-scale simulation environments, the algorithm can be directly transferred to much larger and more complex battlefield scenarios involving greater numbers of UAVs and hostile targets without requiring additional retraining.

Looking ahead, the research team plans to transition the algorithm from laboratory simulations to real-world battlefield applications. Future research will further enhance the algorithm’s robustness, improving its resilience not only to communication interruptions but also to transmission delays, packet loss, and corrupted data.

The research paper concludes that future work will focus on lightweight deployment and real-flight validation of the algorithm on computationally constrained embedded airborne platforms. It also proposes incorporating channel contention, random packet loss, and communication latency into the Markov decision process state space to further investigate the resilience of UAV swarm decision-making under non-ideal communication conditions.

Source: guancha, sina, hk01, sohu

How China Upgrades BeiDou Satellites Without Bringing Them Back to Earth

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How China Upgrades BeiDou Satellites Without Bringing Them Back to Earth

From farming and transportation to everyday convenience and intelligent operations, China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System is using precise positioning and timing to create new possibilities for modern life.

Recently, the China Satellite Navigation Office announced that the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System would undergo an in-orbit upgrade, with the operating status of some satellites to be optimized. Why does a system of such scale need to keep evolving? How can it determine a user’s position from tens of thousands of kilometers above Earth and play a precise role in almost every journey? And how has it become a cornerstone of the digital infrastructure supporting modern China?

When people get lost in an unfamiliar place today, the answer is often remarkably simple: open a navigation app. In reality, however, satellite navigation systems such as GPS and BeiDou do not provide the entire navigation service. Their fundamental task is to determine one’s position. Route planning and turn-by-turn navigation are then handled by map applications.

The story of satellite navigation began with the dawn of the Space Age. In October 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite. Scientists soon discovered that by receiving the signals transmitted by Sputnik 1, they could measure the Doppler shift of those signals and determine the satellite’s orbit. This led to a fascinating question: if the orbit of a satellite was already known, could a receiver use the same principle in reverse to calculate its own position?

That idea gave rise to the Transit navigation system, the world’s first satellite navigation system, and opened the era of satellite-based positioning. Transit, however, had only a small number of satellites and could not provide continuous, real-time positioning. It was therefore mainly suitable for relatively slow-moving platforms such as ships. In 1995, GPS became the world’s first truly global, all-weather, continuous, real-time satellite navigation system, fundamentally transforming positioning technology.

If GPS already existed, why did China invest so heavily in developing BeiDou? The answer lies in strategic independence. In sectors such as finance, communications and energy, accurate positioning and timing are essential to the security and stable operation of critical infrastructure. Relying entirely on foreign satellite navigation systems could create vulnerabilities. In this sense, having an independently controlled navigation system is much like keeping your own safety rope firmly in your own hands.

BeiDou also offers a broader range of services than GPS. In addition to global positioning, navigation and timing, the system integrates navigation with communications and provides seven major service capabilities, including satellite-based augmentation, precise point positioning, global short-message communication, regional short-message communication, ground-based augmentation and international search and rescue. GPS, by contrast, primarily provides global positioning, navigation and timing services.

The two systems also differ in their satellite constellations. The BeiDou-3 global constellation combines three types of orbit: geostationary Earth orbit, inclined geosynchronous orbit and medium Earth orbit. GPS satellites, by comparison, operate in medium Earth orbit.

BeiDou has not been without challenges. GPS has a considerable head start, a mature service record and widespread adoption around the world. BeiDou has had less time to accumulate experience, and its service capabilities still have room for improvement. GPS’s early dominance has also made it more difficult for BeiDou to expand its applications internationally. Yet as the system continues to improve, its application ecosystem is steadily growing.

China’s development of BeiDou has proceeded through three major stages. From the formal launch of the BeiDou-1 project in 1994 to the completion and commissioning of the system in 2000, China took only six years to establish a system that used just two satellites and provided positioning, timing, short-message communication and position-reporting capabilities. This made China the third country in the world to develop an independent satellite navigation system.

Although BeiDou-1 initially covered only China and required terminals to communicate with satellites in both directions to determine a position, it introduced an innovative short-message communication function. Unlike GPS, which essentially tells a user where they are, BeiDou-1 could also enable others to know where that user was. This integration of navigation and communications became one of BeiDou’s defining innovations.

In 1998, as BeiDou-1 was approaching completion, China began studying the development of BeiDou-2. At the time, the country’s economic resources and aerospace capabilities were more limited, while building a global constellation of medium Earth orbit satellites would have required overseas ground stations. China therefore adopted a phased strategy: first establish a regional system serving China and the Asia-Pacific region, and then move toward a global system when conditions were ready.

That next step arrived in 2020. On July 31, BeiDou-3 was officially commissioned as a global satellite navigation system, providing users around the world with all-weather, all-time, high-precision and highly reliable positioning, navigation and timing services.

From the two-satellite positioning of BeiDou-1, to the hybrid constellation of BeiDou-2, and finally to the inter-satellite links and other innovations of BeiDou-3, the system has followed a development path shaped by China’s own technological conditions and engineering experience.

It is important to remember that BeiDou is much more than a group of satellites orbiting Earth. The complete system consists of three interconnected segments: the space segment, the ground segment and the user segment. The ground segment, including monitoring stations, master control stations and uplink stations, calculates the parameters that satellites need to broadcast and generates commands for controlling the satellites. The satellites then transmit navigation signals, while user equipment such as smartphones and smartwatches receives those signals and calculates its own position. All three segments work together as an integrated system.

For users, one of the most important elements contained in BeiDou’s navigation signals is the navigation message. It continuously provides basic information such as the satellite’s identity, the current time, its position and the approximate positions of other satellites in the constellation. After receiving this information, a user terminal calculates its distance from the satellites using ranging codes and combines measurements from multiple satellites to determine its own position.

The quality of those signals is equally important. BeiDou uses carefully designed signal structures to provide high-quality measurements and reliable information transmission. Multiple signal channels are available, allowing users to select different signals according to their specific service requirements.

Today, BeiDou has been deployed or used in more than 130 countries, and its applications extend far beyond map navigation. Smart-city management, power-grid synchronization and precise timestamps for financial transactions all depend on accurate spatial and temporal information. BeiDou has increasingly become a form of infrastructure as fundamental as water, electricity and telecommunications. It is now widely used in consumer applications and the sharing economy, as well as in transportation, public safety, disaster prevention and relief, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries.

This expanding ecosystem is often described through two concepts: “BeiDou+” and “+BeiDou.” The first refers to extending BeiDou capabilities into new industries, while the second describes the integration of BeiDou into existing products and services.

Most modern electronic devices with positioning capabilities use chips compatible with multiple global navigation satellite systems. These receivers can process signals from BeiDou as well as GPS and other satellite navigation systems, improving positioning reliability and accuracy.

Consider a smartwatch. Once its GNSS-compatible chip determines the wearer’s location, the position can be transmitted through mobile communication networks, such as 5G, to a paired smartphone, allowing remote location tracking. Shared bicycles can use BeiDou positioning to determine their real-time location and compare it with electronic geofences defining permitted parking areas. This prevents users from locking bicycles outside designated zones and helps operators manage shared mobility more effectively.

In agriculture, autonomous machinery equipped with BeiDou-based positioning technology can achieve centimeter-level accuracy for seeding, fertilizing and harvesting, significantly improving efficiency and resource utilization. Intelligent dispatching for food delivery riders, precision delivery by drones and the safe, punctual operation of high-speed railways all benefit from the precise positioning and timing that satellite navigation provides.

One of BeiDou’s most distinctive capabilities is its short-message service. Following the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, rescue teams in disaster areas used BeiDou short-message communication to send information back to command centers even when conventional communications and electricity were unavailable. The system not only helped commanders monitor the locations and movements of rescue teams but also established a vital communication link between disaster zones and the outside world.

BeiDou short messages have also found applications in aviation. Aircraft can use BeiDou to determine their positions and transmit those positions through short messages to air traffic management authorities, enabling tracking and monitoring during flight.

So why does BeiDou need to undergo in-orbit upgrades now?

The answer is closely related to the life cycle of satellites. BeiDou satellites typically have a designed operational life of around 10 to 12 years. The satellites currently in orbit include both BeiDou-2 and BeiDou-3 spacecraft, and some of the older satellites have already exceeded their original design lifetimes. To maintain and improve the quality of navigation services, optimization and upgrading are therefore a natural part of the system’s evolution.

The process is somewhat comparable to updating the software on a smartphone. Through the ground segment, software can be uploaded to satellites already in orbit, allowing their capabilities to be upgraded without replacing the spacecraft themselves.

Yet maintaining BeiDou is about more than updating individual satellites. To ensure that positioning, navigation and timing services remain accurate and reliable, all three parts of the system—the space segment, the ground segment and the user segment, must continue to evolve through technological innovation and upgrades.

For most people, BeiDou may remain invisible. It is buried inside a smartphone, embedded in a vehicle, built into agricultural machinery or quietly working behind a financial timestamp. But that invisibility is precisely what makes modern satellite navigation so powerful. Once precise time and position become a dependable part of the infrastructure, they can support countless services without demanding our attention.

Source: kepuchina, beidou gov cn, scio gov cn, cgtn, xinhua

France’s New Restitution Law: When Will China’s Lost Treasures Come Home?

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France’s New Restitution Law: When Will China’s Lost Treasures Come Home?

In November 1861, the French Romantic writer Victor Hugo expressed his hope that one day a liberated and cleansed France would return to China the treasures that had been looted from it in his famous Letter to Captain Butler Concerning the Anglo-French Expedition to China. In the letter, Hugo bitterly denounced the Anglo-French forces as bandits who had looted the Yuanmingyuan, or the Old Summer Palace, and expressed his profound sorrow over the destruction.

More than 160 years later, Hugo’s wish has finally received an echo. On April 13, 2026, the French National Assembly unanimously passed, with 170 votes in favor, the Bill on the Restitution of Cultural Property Dispossessed through Illicit Appropriation.

For Chinese national treasures that have remained in France for generations, the prospect of returning home has finally begun to emerge, sparking widespread discussion both in China and abroad.

People hope that the bill will help deliver a long-delayed measure of justice and, at last, ease some of the pain left by one of the darkest episodes in the history of human civilization. Among the greatest concerns is the possible return of cultural treasures looted from the Yuanmingyuan.

Once praised highly by intellectuals such as Voltaire and Victor Hugo, the Yuanmingyuan was reduced to ruins during the looting and burning that accompanied the Second Opium War. Its destruction remains a painful memory for all humanity and, above all, a profound wound in the history of the Chinese nation.

In 1743, during the eighth year of the Qianlong Emperor’s reign in the Qing dynasty, the French Jesuit missionary Jean-Denis Attiret, whose Chinese name was Wang Zhicheng (王致诚), mentioned in a letter to a French friend the extraordinary beauty of the Yuanmingyuan. The garden subsequently became famous in Europe as a “Garden of Gardens,” or Yuanmingyuan, and its fame also helped make it an object of fascination and a tempting target for European colonial powers.

During the Second Opium War, at around 7 p.m. on October 6, 1860, French troops appeared at the Yuanmingyuan’s western gardens. General Charles Cousin-Montauban, commander of the French expeditionary force, established his headquarters there. The looting began almost immediately and soon became uncontrollable.

British troops arrived the following day. When they discovered that the French had already begun taking the treasures, they rushed to catch up with their French allies in the plunder.

For two days, more than 20,000 invading troops rampaged through the Yuanmingyuan, taking bronze vessels, enamelware, imperial jade objects, and countless other treasures. Among the objects looted were a gilt-bronze Buddhist stupa, the unique copy of the Forty Views of the Yuanmingyuan, a cloisonné-enamel qilin, a golden mandala set, and the armor worn by the Qianlong Emperor for the Grand Review of the Troops.

By conservative estimates, the Yuanmingyuan contained more than one million cultural objects, not to mention the countless works of art embodied in its furnishings and everyday imperial possessions.

After the looting, on October 18, 1860, the invading forces set fire to the Yuanmingyuan. In a matter of days, a magnificent complex once regarded as a wonder of the world was reduced to ruins. The troops selected the most precious objects as gifts for Queen Victoria of Britain and Emperor Napoleon III of France, while the rest were left for soldiers of the allied forces to divide among themselves.

Three years later, Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III, ordered the construction of a Chinese Museum at the Palace of Fontainebleau in France specifically to house objects brought back from China, including treasures looted from the Yuanmingyuan.

Among them was a cloisonné-enamel qilin, originally housed at the Yuanmingyuan. It was later taken to France and placed at the Palace of Fontainebleau, where it has since disappeared.

Another important object is the Forty Views of the Yuanmingyuan. Commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor and painted by court artists including Shen Yuan and Tang Dai, the work consists of forty paintings depicting the principal scenic and architectural complexes of the Yuanmingyuan at the height of its glory. The unique surviving album is of extraordinary importance to the study of Chinese garden and architectural history. Its disappearance overseas represents a profound loss to China’s cultural heritage.

For many years afterward, Chinese people did not even have adequate visual materials with which to reconstruct what the Yuanmingyuan had actually looked like. In 1928, the Commercial Press published Forty Leaves of the Yuanmingyuan, allowing Chinese readers to see photographic reproductions of the original Forty Views of the Yuanmingyuan.

In more recent years, the National Library of France made high-resolution digital files of Poems on the Forty Views of the Yuanmingyuan available to the public. In 2025, the Central Academy of Fine Arts in China completed a digital reconstruction of the forty scenic views, giving people an opportunity to glimpse the splendor of the “Garden of Gardens” as it once existed.

The destruction of the Yuanmingyuan remains heartbreaking. Yet it was only the beginning of a much broader history of the large-scale and sustained loss of Chinese cultural heritage to France and other countries overseas.

In 1900, during the Boxer Uprising and the Eight-Nation Alliance intervention in China, French troops once again looted sites including the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven, taking imperial seals, ancient bronze vessels, imperial porcelain, paintings and calligraphic works, and other treasures. Large numbers of Chinese cultural objects consequently entered French collections.

Unlike the violent plunder carried out during wartime, however, the actions of the French sinologist Paul Pelliot in 1908 were conducted under the guise of scholarly exploration. He acquired thousands of manuscripts and artworks from the Dunhuang Library Cave, often through purchases at prices that were grossly disproportionate to their historical value.

Beginning in 1906, Pelliot’s expedition spent years conducting what was presented as archaeological and scholarly exploration in Central Asia, visiting places including Kashgar, Tumshuq, Kucha, and Ürümqi, and collecting large numbers of artifacts and manuscripts dating from the Tang dynasty and earlier periods.

In February 1908, Pelliot arrived at Dunhuang and met Wang Yuanlu, the Daoist monk who had accidentally discovered the hidden library cave several years earlier. After paying Wang 500 silver taels, Pelliot gained access to the cave, a secluded chamber that had remained unknown for centuries and contained tens of thousands of precious manuscripts.

Over the following days, Pelliot carefully selected and packed large numbers of manuscripts, paintings, and documents. The materials were of extraordinary historical and linguistic value. They included texts in Khotanese, Sogdian, Old Turkic, Old Uyghur, Brahmi, Tocharian, and Tibetan, among other languages and scripts.

Pelliot ultimately took thousands of manuscripts and paintings back to France. His expedition collected more than 6,000 manuscripts and paintings from the Dunhuang caves. The surviving records of the BnF show that the Pelliot collection includes documents in numerous languages and scripts, and that the manuscripts were brought to the National Library of France in the early twentieth century.

Today, many of these treasures are held by the National Library of France (BnF) and the Guimet Museum in Paris. The BnF describes its Dunhuang collection as containing manuscripts dating from before the beginning of the eleventh century, discovered in Cave 17 of the Mogao Caves and brought to France by Pelliot’s expedition. For China, the dispersal of the Dunhuang manuscripts became a deep and lasting cultural wound.

These manuscripts and artifacts provide some of the most direct surviving evidence of the plural and interconnected character of Chinese civilization. Once dispersed across different countries and collections, however, they can no longer be understood as part of a complete historical whole. A coherent record of civilization risks being fragmented into isolated objects presented merely as “exotic treasures” or “fragments of an Eastern civilization.”

The manuscripts from the Dunhuang Library Cave are particularly important. Had they remained together, they could have helped fill numerous gaps in our understanding of Chinese and Central Asian history. Once separated, however, the loss of individual documents can leave significant gaps in historical and academic research.

Since the 1980s, Chinese scholars have devoted themselves to the systematic study of Dunhuang Studies and Turpan Studies, driven by a strong sense of academic and cultural responsibility. One of their goals has been to change the long-standing situation summed up by the phrase: “Dunhuang is in China, but Dunhuang studies are abroad.”

The ancient Tibetan manuscripts from Dunhuang are a particularly important example. They are among the oldest surviving Tibetan manuscripts known today. Their contents include Buddhist scriptures, historical works, contracts, administrative documents, and legal texts. They constitute invaluable sources for the study of the history and culture of the Tibetan Empire and provide vivid historical evidence of the interactions, exchanges, and integration among different peoples.

Since 2005, over the course of two decades, Northwest Minzu University and Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, in cooperation with the British Library and the National Library of France, have completed the cataloguing and publication of the Tibetan manuscripts from Dunhuang and the Western Regions held in British and French collections.

The resulting publications have brought these scattered treasures back to China in another sense: not physically, but through high-resolution reproductions and systematic scholarly editions, allowing Chinese researchers and the public to study manuscripts that have been separated from their homeland for more than a century.

The BnF itself now actively cooperates with Chinese institutions on Dunhuang collections and digital preservation. Its International Dunhuang Programme and France-China digital heritage projects have made many of these manuscripts and artworks accessible to researchers around the world.

The French Cultural Restitution Bill, by abolishing the rigid principle that objects belonging to France’s public collections are ordinarily inalienable, and by requiring the government to publish annually a list of cultural objects suspected of having been acquired illegally, could provide a new institutional basis for the restitution of cultural property.

If implemented effectively, such a mechanism could help advance the principle that cultural objects unlawfully removed from their countries of origin should ultimately be returned. It could also provide a model for the recovery of the millions of Chinese cultural objects that have been dispersed around the world.

The return of these treasures would not merely fill gaps in museum collections. It would help restore the continuity of historical narratives and reconnect broken lines of cultural transmission.

Source: neac gov cn, cgtn, xinhua, sohu

Printing Rice Seeds: How a Simple Sheet of Paper Is Changing Rice Farming in China

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Printing Rice Seeds: How a Simple Sheet of Paper Is Changing Rice Farming in China

A thin sheet of paper moves slowly through a machine. Moments later, rows of rice seeds appear on its surface, each one fixed at a carefully measured position. It looks like a printing process, but this is happening in a rice nursery.

Known in China as “printing sowing,” the technology is being tested and adopted in several rice-growing regions, from the vast black-soil fields of Heilongjiang in the northeast to the double-cropping rice areas of Jiangxi and the modern agricultural cooperatives of Shanghai. By precisely positioning seeds on biodegradable nursery paper, the technology is helping farmers reduce seed use, save labor and produce stronger seedlings.

It is a small change at the beginning of the production chain, but one that reflects a much larger transformation in Chinese agriculture, from farming based largely on experience to farming increasingly driven by precision equipment, data and intelligent management.

The principle behind printing sowing is relatively simple. Inside a precision machine, small dots of plant-based adhesive are placed on biodegradable nursery paper at predetermined intervals. Rice seeds are then released onto the paper. One or two seeds adhere to each glue point, while excess seeds are removed through vibration and screening. The seeds are thus arranged in neat rows and at controlled distances before the paper is rolled up for storage or transportation.

When the paper is later laid onto seedling trays or nursery beds and watered, it softens and allows the seeds to germinate. As the seedlings grow, the paper gradually decomposes.

The technology addresses a long-standing problem in conventional rice nurseries: uneven sowing. In traditional mechanized planting, some holes in a seedling tray may contain several seeds, while others contain none. Crowded seedlings compete for nutrients, light and space, often resulting in weak stems and poorly developed roots. Too few seeds, meanwhile, can reduce the number of effective seedlings.

Precision positioning changes that equation. By controlling both the number and location of seeds, farmers can create more uniform growing conditions from the very beginning.

The economic benefits are also attracting attention.

At the Qixing branch of Beidahuang Agricultural Holdings in Heilongjiang, printing sowing has become part of an increasingly automated rice nursery system. Local agricultural officials say the method can reduce seed consumption by about 20 percent compared with conventional tray-based nurseries. A single printing-sowing machine can produce enough nursery paper for roughly 55 to 60 mu of rice fields in about an hour. One mu is approximately 0.067 hectares.

In Shanghai’s Pudong New Area, a farmers’ cooperative in Shuyuan Town has also introduced the technology. According to the cooperative, precision printing sowing can save more than 30 percent of rice seed in some applications, while reducing labor requirements. The printed paper can also be mechanically laid onto seedling trays, with soil covering carried out in the same process.

For large-scale farming, such savings can quickly add up. In Jiangxi Province, this technology offers another advantage: time. Rice farmers in southern China often face a particularly demanding agricultural calendar. During the summer “double-rush” season, early rice must be harvested and late rice planted within a narrow window. If seedlings remain in trays for too long, they can become overgrown and weak, reducing their ability to recover after transplanting.

In July 2025, at a rice nursery center in Wanzai County, Jiangxi, farmers were preparing seedlings for late-season rice using printing sowing. Company manager Chang Chuiming said printed nursery paper could be rolled into cylinders and stored until needed, giving farmers greater flexibility in scheduling their work.

Field trials were encouraging. Farmers who participated in a 100-mu trial reported that the seedlings were stronger and recovered after transplanting about five days earlier than conventional seedlings. 

The nursery paper itself is another part of the innovation. In different applications, bamboo fiber and other plant-based biodegradable materials are used to make the paper, while starch-based and other plant-derived adhesives hold the seeds in place. Once exposed to water and the growing environment, the paper gradually breaks down. This combination of precision sowing and biodegradable materials gives the technology an environmental dimension as well as an economic one.

At Qixing in Heilongjiang, however, printing sowing is only one element of a much broader agricultural transformation. The local intelligent nursery facilities connect soil filling, precision sowing, covering, watering and tray transportation through automated systems. Robotic arms move trays, automated forklifts transport them, and environmental control systems regulate temperature and humidity. In 2025, one intelligent nursery factory produced 260,000 trays of seedlings in 14 days, enough to serve about 8,000 mu of rice fields.

Other technologies are also entering the fields. Intelligent inspection robots equipped with cameras and artificial intelligence can monitor seedlings and identify potential diseases. Sensors collect environmental data, while automated systems help adjust growing conditions. Unmanned agricultural machinery guided by China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system is increasingly being used for field operations.

Together, these technologies are changing what farming looks like. The farmer is no longer relying solely on visual judgment to decide how much seed to use, when to irrigate or where to operate machinery. Increasingly, those decisions can be supported by sensors, algorithms and automated equipment.

Yet printing sowing is not a universal solution that can simply be copied from one region to another. China’s rice-growing areas differ widely in climate, varieties, cultivation systems and production scales. Heilongjiang’s vast mechanized farms have different priorities from Jiangxi’s double-cropping rice fields, while Shanghai’s agricultural cooperatives face different labor and cost pressures.

The technology therefore remains a work in progress, requiring further adaptation to local varieties, nursery systems, transplanting machinery and cultivation practices. Still, its significance lies in what it represents.

Source: nyncw sh gov cn, hlj gov cn, paper, china jsj, xinhua, cyol

China’s Shipbuilding Industry Leads the World with Strong Growth in Scale, Technology, and Green Transformation

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China’s Shipbuilding Industry Leads the World with Strong Growth in Scale, Technology, and Green Transformation

According to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), China’s shipbuilding industry maintained its global leadership in the first quarter of 2026, ranking first worldwide in three key indicators: completed shipbuilding output, new orders, and order backlog. 

During the first quarter of 2026, China completed 15.68 million deadweight tons (DWT) of shipbuilding, representing a year-on-year increase of 46.0%, with export vessels accounting for 96.1% of total output. 

New orders reached 59.53 million DWT, soaring by 195.2% compared with the same period last year, while the order backlog stood at 322.30 million DWT as of the end of March, up 43.6% year on year. 

China accounted for 57.3% of global completed shipbuilding output, 84.9% of new orders, and 69.8% of the global order backlog. Among the world’s 18 major ship types, China ranked first in new orders for 15 categories. 

In particular, Chinese shipbuilders secured more than 90% of the global market share for very large crude carriers (VLCCs), large car carriers, bulk carriers, and container ships with capacities exceeding 10,000 TEUs. Some major shipyards have already secured production schedules extending three years into the future, demonstrating strong long-term market confidence.

China’s sustained global competitiveness is underpinned by its comprehensive and highly integrated industrial supply chain. At a shipyard in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, a new Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) facility has entered the module installation phase, where intelligent welding robots perform high-precision steel welding on automated production lines. 

Through digital transformation and intelligent manufacturing, the company not only broke the long-standing international monopoly in FLNG construction but also achieved a record-breaking completion time of just 33 months, setting a new industry benchmark. 

From steel plates and pipes to cryogenic valves, marine engines, and advanced equipment, China has established a complete industrial ecosystem that covers research and development, raw materials, component manufacturing, ship assembly, and final delivery. This integrated supply chain enables shipbuilders to respond quickly and efficiently to global market demand while maintaining cost competitiveness.

Wan Zhe, Professor of Economics at Beijing Normal University, noted that China possesses the world’s most comprehensive shipbuilding industrial system. Major industrial clusters in the Yangtze River Delta and the Bohai Rim have created highly efficient regional supply chains, allowing manufacturers to shorten production cycles and improve delivery efficiency. Meanwhile, continuous progress in domestic production of high-end marine equipment, including marine engines, boilers, gas supply systems, specialized steel, and LNG fueling systems, has significantly enhanced the resilience and security of China’s shipbuilding supply chain while reducing dependence on imported technologies.

Digitalization and intelligent manufacturing have become another major driving force behind the industry’s competitiveness. Leading Chinese shipbuilders have widely adopted Model-Based Definition (MBD), digital twin technology, and intelligent production lines throughout the entire shipbuilding process, from design and manufacturing to operation and maintenance. 

At Jiangnan Shipyard, digital shipbuilding technologies have reduced the construction period for a 20,000-TEU container ship from approximately 28 months to just 16 months. At Dalian Shipbuilding Industry, a very large crude carrier (VLCC) can now be completed in around 180 days, while labor productivity has increased by about 20% compared with five years ago. 

In addition, intelligent vessels such as the Dongfang Zhihui optimize sailing speed automatically, reducing energy consumption by more than 10%. Digital twin technologies also enable lifecycle management of ships, transforming Chinese shipbuilders from traditional manufacturers into providers of integrated digital and low-carbon maritime solutions.

Green and low-carbon development has emerged as a new growth engine for China’s shipbuilding industry. In the first quarter of 2026, China captured 80.2% of the global market for new green ship orders, including LNG-, LPG-, methanol-, and ethane-powered dual-fuel vessels, as well as fully electric ships. 

A series of domestically developed green vessels have recently been delivered, including the “Kun” series 15,000-TEU methanol dual-fuel container ship, the “Tianshan” 174,000-cubic-meter LNG carrier, and the “Innovation 19,” China’s first river-sea bulk carrier powered entirely by methanol. The “Kun” series is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 120,000 tons annually, while the “Innovation 19” cuts carbon emissions by 90% and nearly eliminates sulfur oxide emissions. These achievements demonstrate China’s rapid transition from technological innovation to the large-scale commercial deployment of environmentally friendly vessels.

According to Professor Wan, China’s early investment in alternative-fuel technologies, including methanol, LNG, battery-electric, and ammonia-powered ships, has enabled its shipbuilders to capitalize on the accelerating global transition toward decarbonized shipping. 

As the International Maritime Organization (IMO) pursues its target of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping around 2050, and as the European Union continues to strengthen maritime carbon regulations, global demand for low-carbon vessels is expected to grow rapidly. Leveraging its technological capabilities and comprehensive industrial ecosystem, China is well positioned to become a leading supplier of next-generation green ships. 

Moreover, China is actively contributing to international maritime standards by promoting green methanol within the IMO framework and exporting integrated solutions that combine technology, infrastructure, and technical standards, further strengthening its influence in global maritime governance.

China has also continued to expand its presence in the high-end vessel market. In recent years, Chinese shipbuilders have successfully delivered some of the world’s largest and most technologically advanced vessels, including 24,000-TEU ultra-large container ships, 174,000-cubic-meter LNG carriers, the world’s largest shallow-draft LNG carrier, advanced offshore wind installation vessels, floating production storage and offloading units (FPSOs), and deep-sea aquaculture equipment. The successful delivery and commercial operation of Adora Magic City, China’s first domestically built large cruise ship, marked another milestone, demonstrating that China has established full-spectrum shipbuilding capabilities covering virtually every major category of commercial and offshore vessels.

Particularly noteworthy is China’s rapid progress in LNG carrier construction, a sector that was once dominated by South Korean shipbuilders. The number of domestic supporting enterprises involved in LNG shipbuilding has increased from just over 20 to more than 130, significantly improving localization rates, strengthening supply chain security, and enhancing China’s competitiveness in one of the world’s most technologically demanding ship segments.

China’s customer base has also become increasingly diversified. Orders from leading European shipowners, including companies from Greece and Switzerland, have continued to rise, reflecting growing international confidence in the quality, reliability, and delivery capability of Chinese shipyards. With continuous advances in innovation, intelligent manufacturing, and green technologies, Chinese shipbuilders are evolving from followers into global leaders in the maritime industry.

As the global shipbuilding market enters a new cycle of recovery and expansion, China’s advantages in industrial integration, manufacturing efficiency, technological innovation, and sustainable development are becoming increasingly evident. By fostering high-quality development through digitalization, green transformation, and advanced manufacturing, China is expected to maintain its leading position across all three major shipbuilding indicators while making an even greater contribution to the future of global shipping and the broader world economy.

Source: news cn, hk01, guancha, xinhua, china daily

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