A recent example is China’s fast and amazing economic growth. They build one science and technology university nearly every week. Now they graduate about 4.7 million engineers a year, the most in the world.
The School of Aerospace Engineering of Tsinghua University has been developing a new type of quantum radar capable of detecting stealth fighter jets.
It costs China much less to destroy any stealth fighters built by the US and others. a team of Tsinghua University scientists in Beijing, China, has been researching a new type of quantum radar under the leadership of Prof. Zhang Chao of the university’s aerospace engineering school.
The South China Morning Post reports (link below) that the university,110 years old (https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/Schools___Departments.htm), is now looking for partners to make a prototype of the radar.
For more information about how Chinese radars can detect stealth fighers, open this video link: China’s New Radar technology mark the end of the US’ stealth dominance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_s8E7LWTjY
The Chinese state-owned company COSCO SHIPPING Holdings, ranked second in the world in terms of shipping capacity while Maersk Line of Denmark first, has seen its stock price soaring by nearly 100% YTD as it made a huge profit of CNY 37.1 billion (USD 5.7 billion) in 1H of 2021, roughly 32 times what it made in the same period last year (Y-on-Y).
Its financial results, dated July 7, 2021, were reported to the HKEX (see https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2021/0707/2021070701353.pdf), entitled ‘
POSITIVE PROFIT ALERT REGARDING 2021 INTERIM RESULTS The Board wishes to inform the Shareholders and potential investors that the Group is expected to record a net profit attributable to the Shareholders for the Reporting Period of approximately RMB 37,093 million, as compared to that of approximately RMB 1,137 million for the six months ended 30 June 2020; and the Group is expected to record a net profit (after deducting non-recurring profit and loss) attributable to the Shareholders for the Reporting Period of approximately RMB37,021 million, as compared to that of approximately RMB 882 million for the six months ended 30 June 2020.’
Picture source: company website
See its stock price chart below
Chart Source: Google, quoted on Sept 4, 2021
Yicai Global reported on September 3, 2021, that the company signed an agreement to buy 10 new container ships at a cost of USD 1.6 billion for delivery between the 4th quarters of 2024 and 2025. Last July, the company penned another agreement to buy 10 container ships at USD 1.5 billion. with other purchases, the company is waiting to add 32 new ships between 2023 and 2025.
Excerpted from the YouTube video, entitled “China’s 600 million poor people, ” hosted by China Teacher Brand, June 25, 2020
Every time that I go into the comments section and the kind of YouTubers, you hear people saying, ah, China has 600 million poor people. There are so many poor people in China. What are you talking about? China being a superpower or not? and I thought well, perhaps it is a good idea to talk a little bit about what we consider poor here here, in China.
I think that there are two kinds of the working class; first, you have those poor people in the countryside; those are farmers and most of these people, well, have something else. So that’s an important thing to consider. They have food that they can grow; they have eggs, pigs, and cows, whatever, and they also grow rice, potatoes, fruits. Yeah, so they’re not so worried about whether you’re going to eat tomorrow for breakfast; board for dinner… what you would consider work.
But see people live here; it’s not an issue if it’s not the best facilities in the world. So, Let’s talk a little bit about the farmers in the countryside, right? They have shelter. They have a place to lay their head to rest at night after a long day of work.
So having food and shelter doesn’t really ring as poor somebody who doesn’t have a way to live. Is it an ideal situation? No, do they have the latest comforts and the technology? No. Do they have access to education; it might be limited. Do they have access to health? It might be limited, but think about the poor in America. If you don’t have a job, do you have social insurance? So if you have medical insurance, such an insurance probably does. But, do you have medical insurance? Do you have food Insurance? Are you sure that you’re going to have enough money? If you need to work, two or three jobs just to put enough money on the table. Do you have enough money to pay for rent? That’s an important difference to consider.
So, let’s think about those farmers here in China who decide to come to the city and work in the city. Let’s say, they don’t have a university degree. So what job can they find? They can find work at a factory. So, … you know that one of the first things that factories do is they build the dormitory for their workers.
There are factories with thousands of workers. And that’s what they do. They build a dorm; is it a penthouse? No, it’s a room shared with four, five, six, or seven people, and well it is not the best accommodation in the world. But, they have shelter. Compare that to the homeless in Los Angeles.
For example, they wish they had a place to lay their head at night. They wish they had guaranteed food because that’s the next thing that factory workers receive. They get three meals a day. So if you are 18 years old, and you don’t want to work in the land, you don’t want to work on the farms, you can go to a factory and get employed and you get shelter and food and on top of that, you get the minimum salary.
Here in my city, Donguan, it is a thousand eight hundred RMB a month, which is about 300 to 350 dollars a month. The thing is that’s the money in their pockets. That’s money that if they wanted to have, and believe me, many of them. Do they save it? Yes, they save it all. That’s why this is where tradition of Chinese people plays a very important role.
Chinese people love to save money; this young guy making three hundred and fifty dollars a month knows that in 10 years, he will have saved about $40,000 perhaps $ 50,000 or $60,000. That is going to be enough money for him to go out and invest in creating his own business, starting his own thing, because after 10 years or 15 years, he has enough experience and enough connections and now he has enough money to go out there and try to build something for himself by himself.
That’s the huge, huge advantage that they have when you’re thinking about city dwellers in America, for example, when you can’t save, you have nothing to look forward, you have nothing to wish for because you know, you’re stuck. You’re not gonna get out of this situation.
Well, the situation is very different here in China: a factory worker knows that in 10 or 15 years, His situation is going to be very different. And then again, we’re talking about poor people. These people care about the latest fashion? Most of them don’t. Do these people care about the latest technology? the latest iPhone? They couldn’t afford it. They don’t adopt. It doesn’t matter to them. They are fixated on and obsessed with the future, with creating a different future for themselves: working, saving, and getting experience, so that they can Become the factor of change in their lives.
What about America? What is the trend in America? The trend is the opposite: more and more people are finding themselves having to have two or three jobs to stay afloat, to pay for rent and to pay for the food that they need to put on the table. So, that’s what I wanted to share with you guys when people come and say to me,” Oh there are so many poor people in China.”
They do not really know that they are very different kind of the poor and that’s the thing when you have no prospects in life. That’s poverty of the soul. That’s probably the worst kind of policy. So let’s not judge China and Chinese poverty or the poor in China so quickly; take a minute to analyze how they are different from the poor in the West. and see that well, it’s not that bad.
I’m sure you’ve all seen the iconic scenes of New York City traffic jams, horns blaring, two cars have collided and people screaming at each other in the street. Well, in China, cultural values make China a very different place.
Chinese culture has a huge emphasis on saving face. And any kind of public confrontation is pretty much just never done. It’s very rare to see people arguing in the streets and you will 100% never see a fist fight l…. it It’s incredibly rare for people to sue each other or even go to court in China. Both parties have to agree to be in court in order to file a lawsuit. The things have to be pretty tense before it gets to that.
Compare this with the United States, where, well, people sue each other for sneezing the wrong way crazy. There are even stories of motorcyclists in Beijing crashing into each other getting up off the ground looking at each other and then just ride in a way without a single word being said, they just don’t want the hassle of public confrontation.
Interviewer:”It’s so good to see you. Thank you for joining us. How’s your how’s your 2020 theme?”
Huang Hung: my 2020 started totally normal. in January, I went to Paris, I did my interview for the Fashion Week there, came back to Beijing January 22nd and finding things a little bit tense because there were a lot rumors having lived through SARS. I wasn’t that concerned and on the 23rd, I had a friend of mine from New York come to my house who had a flu and we had dinner together and another friend who came and who left the next day for Australia for vacation on an airplane. So we were not taking this terribly seriously until there was a lockdown and we’ve seen.
Interviewer:” That Echo around the world. I think still some people find it hard to understand the magnitude of some of the measures that China took. I mean, what else are we missing about?
Huang Hung:” China’s response in all of this, you know historically we’re just such a two very different countries in terms of culture and history. I mean, these are two completely different human experiences for its people. so, for China, when the lockdown happened, people were okay people are okay with it because they think that’s what a good parent should do you know, if a kid gets sick, you put him in the other room and you lock him up and make sure that the other kids don’t get sick and they expect that out of the government. But when it is outside of China from America, it becomes a huge issue of the right political thing to do and whether it’s infringing on personal freedom so the issues that you have to deal with in a democratic society are issues that one does not have to deal with in China. I have to say that there is a word in Chinese that doesn’t exist in any other language and the word is called “quai.” it is what you call a kid who listens to his or her parents. So I think we are very “quai” as a people. We are very why we have this. This sort of authoritarian figure that Chinese always look up to and they do expect the government to actually take the actions and they will deal with it. However much suffering there is they feel that okay, if you know big brother says that this has to be done. then, it must be done and that really defines China as a separate mentality.
Only as, say, people in Europe and America, do not have a sense of collective responsibility. Sometimes it feels kind of a little absent from this culture at the same time. There are I think valid concerns around surveillance and kind of data privacy things like that. What is the balance here? And what is the right trade-off between surveillance and freedom. I think in the internet age it is we’re??? between China and the US. I think when you take individual freedom versus collective safety, there has to be a balance somewhere there With surveillance, you know, the head of Baidu, Robin Lee, once said the Chinese people are quite willing to give up certain individual rights in exchange for convenience.
Actually, he was completely criticized in the Chinese social media, but I think he is right. Chinese people are willing to give up certain rights. For example, we, Chinese, mostly are very proud of the payment system we have which is where you can go anywhere just with your iPhone and pay for everything and all they do is face scan. I think that probably freaks Americans out, you know China right now. We’re still under semi-lockdown Also, if you go anywhere, there’s an app where you scan and you input your mobile phone number and the app will tell the guard at the entrance of the mall. For example, where you have been for the past 14 days. Now when I told that to an American, she was horrified and she thought it was an invasion of privacy l. on the other hand, as someone who Is Chinese and have lived in China for the past 20 years, although I understand that American mentality, I still find it I’m Chinese enough to think I don’t mind this and I am better. I feel safer entering the mall because everybody has been scanned. Whereas I think individual freedom is an abstract concept.
Looks like this is actually really meaningless. So I think the West really needs to move a step towards the east and to think about the collective as a whole rather than only think about oneself as an individual. the rise of antagonistic rhetoric between the US and China is obviously troubling and the thing is that countries are interlinked whether people understand we have supply chains or not. … This is the most horrifying thing that came out of this the kind of nationalistic sentiments on both sides in this pandemic because I’m an optimist. I think we will come out of this.
Both sides will realize that this is a fight that the entire human race have to do together and not apart. despite the rhetoric, the global economy has grown to such a integration that decoupling will be extremely costly and painful for both United States and China.
Excerpted from the YouTube video with the same title, hosted by China Teacher Brand, June 25, 2020
…. Well, you might have freedom to listen to different voices. You might have freedom to listen to different media. You have the freedom to go on social media. You have the freedom to speak and say What do you want. It is argued whether that is a good thing or a bad thing talking about that. But I want to talk about one sentence that a lawyer mentioning in an interview about China where we live now. The most important freedom that I can think of is an honest one, freedom from fear. And that is one freedom that a lot of immigrants, a lot of people of color in America in particular, don’t have. That’s a freedom that you don’t have,but we do in China. We might not have a lot of freedoms. There are some freedoms that we don’t have. We don’t have freedom to get on YouTube, Facebook. We didn’t have freedom whatever you want to list. But l, as a migrant to China, I understand the idea of freedom from fear. I came to China because I was tired of living in fear; petty crime serious crime, indiscriminate crime, was a problem in my country, and I heard other YouTubers talk about that China is the safest place in the world. …. The sense of safety comes from that freedom of fear. Everybody talks about the different examples: You can walk around in the middle of the night, man a woman, and feel safe. I can leave my car unlocked and not worry. Okay, obviously things could go wrong, the right things could happen.
But it’s not like, “oh my God, what’s going to happen if I park here, in my country? For example, if you park by the roadside, you need to check all your mirrors, make sure that nobody’s following you, then you can open the doors of your car. And nobody’s around if you’re gonna get in your car; you do the same thing if you unlock the doors: if anybody us near my car. … I mean and that is no way no way to live. So, I wanted to make this video to tell you, guys, that well, you might have some freedoms out there. There is freedom.
The Freedom from Fear is the one that brought me to China, is the one that brings a lot of people, that follow a lot of Latinos like myself in China. We are treated with respect; we have certain level of freedom. But l, more importantly, I’m not afraid for my life. I’m not afraid for my property. I’m not afraid to walk out on the street. That gives a quality of life that you can imagine. You can’t compare. So, aside from opportunities, well, job money, beautiful environment, friendly people saying hello everywhere; apart from all this, we have freedom from fear….
The global shipping industry is shifting to low-sulphur fuel in response to global calls for cleaner shipping . At the start of the year, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) lowered the sulphur content limit in ships’ fuel oil from 3.5 percent to 0.5 percent. Since March 1, the carrying of fuel oil not meeting the tougher standard has also been banned, all under the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL). Ships fitted with a sulphur scrubber, or exhaust gas cleaning system, are still allowed to carry and use heavy fuel oil, since this apparatus can keep emissions to within the new limit. The changes are expected to see sulphur oxides emissions from global shipping drop by 77 percent, thereby reducing health issues including asthma, stroke, lung cancer, cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases.
China has been monitoring shipping within its waters for compliance with the new rules. The media has reported marine authorities in Qingdao penalizing a Korean vessel on January 3, and then a Panamanian one in Weifang on January 19.
The tougher limit will have a major impact. Cutting sulphur in fuel oil from 2.5 percent to 0.5 percent reduces emissions of sulphur oxides by 80 percent and of particulate matter by up to half, while a reduction to 0.1 percent reduces sulphur oxides by 95 percent or more, according to a 2017 report jointly published by the Natural Resources Defence Council (an environmental advocacy group) and the Transport Planning and Research Institute of China’s Ministry of Transport. Meanwhile, if very-high-sulphur heavy fuel oil were to be replaced with 0.5 percent alternatives, particulate emissions could drop by up to half.
According to a local official quoted in the Economic Daily in 2018, data from Baoshan Monitoring Station, near Shanghai’s Waigaoqiao port, showed a much larger drop in sulphur oxides than for the city as a whole.
Stricter policies laying a foundation
China did have policies on shipping emissions before the IMO’s restrictions came into force.
In 2016, the Ministry of Transport starting imposing emission control areas (ECAs) in the Pearl and Yangtze deltas and the Bohai Sea, with a staged reduction of fuel oil sulphur content to 0.5 percent. This started with some trial ports in 2016, was expanded to “key ports” in 2017, to “all ports” in 2018 and the “entire ECA” in 2019. In July 2018, a State Council three-year action plan for tackling air pollution said China would “by the end of 2019, expand ECAs to cover [all] key coastal ports.” Four months later the transport ministry announced an ECA expansion – to 12 nautical miles outside its territorial baseline along the entire coast. ECAs also expanded to important shipping routes on the Yangtze and Xi rivers (a major tributary of the Pearl River).
Those ECAs form the basis for implementing the sulphur restrictions. Freda Fung, consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Green Ports and Shipping project, told China Dialogue the ECAs had given regulators necessary experience: in collecting samples, using high-speed testing equipment, and remote sensing. Monitoring fuel oil quality became a focus for the marine authorities once those policies were put in place. Now, remote monitoring of emissions allows the use of non-compliant fuel oil to be identified from afar.
In November 2017, 13 ministries including the Ministry of Transport jointly issued guidance on ensuring supply of low-sulphur fuel for shipping, along with introducing joint supervision. The document encouraged Chinese refineries to produce low-sulphur fuel oil, called for a faster update to fuel oil standards, and boosted oversight of the sector.
Freda Fung explained oil firms have been planning production of low-sulphur fuel oil since last year. An IMO database of shipping fuel oil consumption shows compliant fuel oil had been available in many countries before the tougher rules were realised.
In January, OilChem China, a provider of energy industry statistics, calculated that global demand for low-sulphur fuel oil for shipping would be 135 million tonnes in 2020 – leaving a 40 percent supply gap.
Chinese refiners are boosting production. According to OilChem China, the country produced 76,000 tonnes of low-sulphur fuel oil in 2019, while testing techniques. Planned output for 2020 is 18.15 million tonnes. For comparison, the EU and the US produce a combined 20 million tonnes a year.
Cleaner fuel, or scrubbers?
The IMO allows for an alternative emissions-reduction method: continuing to use high-sulphur fuels but with a sulphur scrubber installed. However, the industry seems to prefer switching fuels. Only around 4,300 vessels – less than fivepercent of the total – worldwide have installed scrubbers according to data from Norwegian shipping registrar DNV GL.
Which is the better option? In 2019, Wu Huimin, a cruise liner captain with Royal Caribbean, said at a media event to discuss the restrictions, organised by green NGO Tianjin Binhai Environmental Protection Advisory Service Centre, that sulphur scrubbers are a more economical option: the switch to low-sulphur fuel will see a 100,000-tonne ship burn an extra $2,000 of fuel every hour; while a sulphur scrubber costs $1 million. So after 500 hours of sailing, the scrubber is the better deal.
But at the same event Peng Chuangsheng, deputy chief engineer with the China Waterborne Transport Research Institute, said price changes and the lifespan of a sulphur scrubber need to be taken into account, adding that low-sulphur oil is the “natural choice” for the shipping industry. He pointed out that sulphur scrubbers have an expected lifespan of five years, but due to a lack of testing, actual longevity is unknown. “If it doesn’t last for five years, and the price of low-sulphur fuel comes down, it might not earn back its cost.”
Freda Fung told China Dialogue that the Ministry of Transport’s implementation of the sulphur restrictions prevents ships from dumping wash water from sulphur scrubbers in an ECA. Scrubbers also take up space that could be used for cargo.
Low-sulphur fuel – expensive, for now
Although low-sulphur fuel has become the shipping industry’s main choice, it remains pricey – $200-250 more expensive per tonne than 3.5 percent sulphur fuel.
Nature Fields, an NGO working on port air pollution, said in an article on its WeChat account that research shows this increases the cost of each trip through an ECA by 100,000 euros (about 770,000 yuan). According to Nature Fields, this may make shipping firms more inclined to pay fines than use the pricier fuel.
Commenting on this at the media event, Peng Chuangsheng said low-sulphur fuel will become cheaper as it is more widely used, while high-sulphur fuel will get more expensive as production and demand drops, shrinking the gap between the two. Freda Fung told China Dialogue that the shipping industry has always had a surcharge system, whereby shipping firms pass on increased fuel costs to cargo owners. The major firms raised those surcharges in anticipation of the new restrictions and are not themselves bearing all the extra cost, making the switch easier.
Recent sharp drops in crude oil future prices have also affected low-sulphur fuel prices. According to the JOC Group, a shipping information and services provider, the cost of very low-sulphur fuel in Singapore has collapsed by 70 percent since early January, from $740 a tonne on January 8 to $218 on April 21. Rotterdam has seen a similar fall: 67 percent since early January.
Pollution from ships creates lines of clouds that can stretch hundreds of miles (Image: NASA Earth Observatory)
Freda Fung also said price isn’t the only factor shipping firms consider when deciding to comply with an ECA. Breaches would mean reputational damage, fines and other economic losses. In China, ships found breaching ECA rules will be singled out by regulators for particular scrutiny and are more likely to be boarded for checks. This means more time at anchor and so delays to schedules and damaged reputations. Overseas, vessels may end up on blacklists, perhaps even publicly, again damaging reputations. Fung stressed: “Strict enforcement, oversight and transparency are crucial to encouraging the use of compliant fuel oil.”
Monitoring still weak, fines should be higher
If the restrictions are to be effective, strict enforcement by the marine authorities is needed.
Currently, officials in large ports around the world are boarding ships to check emissions. Data collected by the Tianjin Binhai Environmental Protection Advisory Service Centre shows that in 2018 over 20,000 routine checks were made at Tianjin’s port – but in 80 percent of those checks no vessels were boarded. The huge number of vessels and complex itineraries is a major challenge for marine law enforcement officials.
Freda Fung agreed. She said that monitoring and oversight capacity in the three areas where ECA trials were run in 2016 – the Yangtze and Pearl deltas and the Bohai Sea – is in place, but in smaller port areas more staff are needed.
Responding to this, Li Mingjun, senior engineer with the environmental resources bureau of the Ministry of Transport’s Planning Research Institute, said at the media event that a big data analysis of records could find the companies and vessels with a history of breaches, and identify the routes and refuelling points more likely to see illegal behavior. This would allow the authorities to make early decisions about which vessels should be checked.
Technology has a greater deterrent effect
Ma Dong, project manager with the policy and research standards office at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment’s Vehicular Emissions Control Centre, added that technology will be needed in the future – throwing staff at the problem is not enough. He pointed out that Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has a team researching automated monitoring, while remote sensing is being researched in Shanghai. “Technology has a greater deterrent effect,” he said, “and we should tell the industry that we can monitor them, and make sure they don’t take chances.”
Ma also hopes to see joint enforcement across regions. Even within China, integration across regions would help sharing of information and methods. Internationally, more exchange and cooperation across the Belt and Road Initiative countries would help China share enforcement data, such as breaches, with international regulators, thereby reducing enforcement costs.
Another issue is that low fines may be reducing the impact of law enforcement. Currently, fines in China are imposed according to Article 106 of the Air Pollution Law – which only allows for relatively small fines, of between 10,000 ($1,400) and 100,000 ($14,000) yuan.
In practice, fines have stayed at the lower end of that range. A study by Clean Air Asia and Nature Fields found that fines issued in China were far below the maximum allowed. Of 261 fines issued in 2016-2017, the average fine for using non-compliant fuel was only 15,000 yuan. Cheng HuiHui, senior researcher with Clean Air Asia pointed out there is no link between the size of the fine and the quality of the fuel: In Shenzhen, two vessels were given fines of 10,000 yuan – despite the fact that one was using fuel with 37 times the permitted quantities of sulphur, and the other only 2.4 times. This reduces the deterrent effect of the restrictions. They therefore called for the upper limit on fines to be removed.
Gao Baiyu is a researcher on China Dialogue’s Beijing editorial team. She has a master’s degree in computational journalism from Syracuse University.
This article appears courtesy of China Dialogue Ocean and may be found in its original form here.
