Podcasts about Guangzhou

Last time we spoke about the reaction after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. After four years of fighting Japan almost alone, China's Chiang Kai-shek learned of Pearl Harbor with profound relief. Japan's attack, meant to neutralize American naval power, instead galvanized the entire Western world against Tokyo. Within hours, Chiang declared war on the Axis powers, transforming China from an isolated nation to a recognized Allied member. The strategic mathematics were clear to Chiang: America's industrial might would ultimately crush Japan. China simply needed to survive long enough. The United States quickly formalized this partnership, pledging military support through Lend-Lease and elevating Chiang to leadership of Allied forces in the China theater. Yet Pearl Harbor brought catastrophe for Western civilians in China. Americans and Britons, previously protected as neutral foreigners, were suddenly rounded up and interned in camps. For many, decades of presence in China ended in hasty evacuation, leaving behind lives built over generations.   #216 The Battle of Hong Kong Part 1: The Approaching Storm Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Japan emerged as a significant threat to British interests during the 1920s following the collapse of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. This concern intensified dramatically after Japan's invasion of China, with the ensuing Sino-Japanese War escalating tensions further. British assets in the region came under direct assault, including attacks on Western military and commercial vessels such as HMS Ladybird. Yet despite these provocations, the British Government maintained an inconsistent stance toward Japan, responding with only feeble diplomatic and military countermeasures. This contradiction characterized London's approach: while diplomatic channels remained conciliatory, military planners viewed Japan with genuine apprehension. During the 1930s, Singapore and Malaya represented Britain's most valuable and prosperous holdings in the Far East and consequently received substantial garrison reinforcements. By contrast, Hong Kong was widely acknowledged to be indefensible—a conclusion reached repeatedly by successive military studies. Despite this consensus, the British Government proceeded with the Hong Kong Defence Scheme in 1936, which aimed to transform Hong Kong Island into a fortified redoubt while establishing delaying positions in Kowloon and the New Territories. The Hong Kong Garrison's mandate was straightforward: repel external attacks and prevent enemy use of the harbour and dry dock. The underlying strategy relied on a simple principle: hold Hong Kong Island as an impregnable fortress and await relief from the Royal Navy. Consequently, protecting the harbour became the paramount objective. Japanese strategists were correctly identified as Hong Kong's primary threat, with military planners anticipating attack from the sea rather than overland. To counter such an offensive, the defence scheme incorporated five successive layers of protection: naval mines fitted with indicator nets and anti-submarine booms formed the first barrier; coastal artillery provided the second; beach installations featuring pillboxes, wire entanglements and mines constituted the third; infantry strongpoints positioned on commanding heights guarded against amphibious landings; and finally, a mobile reserve force stood ready to counterattack and eliminate any successful enemy incursion. The 1936 plan also mandated extensive fortification of Kowloon's bottleneck approaches through bunkers, trenches and blocked passages, with a principal defensive line—resembling a miniature Maginot Line—constructed across the mountains immediately north of Kowloon. The garrison structure comprised three infantry battalions plus the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC), a unit approximately regiment-strength equipped with armoured cars, engineers, artillery, anti-aircraft guns and infantry. These forces organized into three brigades: mainland, island, and garrison reserve. The air component was planned to be formidable: a reconnaissance squadron, a fighter-bomber squadron, two torpedo squadrons and a flight of auxiliary spotting aircraft operated by the HKVDC. Naval forces consisted of a modest destroyer contingent, an MTB flotilla, gunboats and patrol vessels. When Japan occupied Guangzhou, Hong Kong found itself effectively encircled. In response, limited conscription was implemented, though restricted to non-Chinese males for HKVDC service. Chinese personnel were largely confined to non-combat positions such as air-raid precautions and medical duties. The expanding Japanese threat prompted a substantial expansion of the Hong Kong Garrison to four regular infantry regiments—two British units (one specializing in medium machine-gun support) and two Indian regiments. Supporting forces included two coastal artillery regiments, a field artillery regiment-plus, and an anti-aircraft regiment. The Royal Navy expanded to include the 2nd MTB flotilla (eight 60-foot, 29-knot motor torpedo boats armed with twin torpedoes and eight Lewis guns each, plus two smaller 55-foot vessels), four shallow-draught river gunboats (HMS Cicala, Tern, Moth and Robin), four aging World War I S-class destroyers (HMS Thracian, Thanet, Scout and Tenedos—the last transferred to Singapore in 1939), HMS Cornflower sloop, and various auxiliary vessels including tugs, boom defence ships and minelayers. The Fleet Air Arm deployed three Supermarine Walruses—single-engine reconnaissance amphibians—at Kai Tak Airport. The Royal Air Force remained the weakest service, equipped with only four Vickers Wildebeest torpedo-bombers and a handful of HKVDC aircraft: one Avro Tutor, two Hornet Moths and two Cadet biplanes. When World War II erupted in Europe, Britain's focus necessarily shifted to national survival, inevitably leaving distant imperial outposts like Hong Kong neglected. Rather than receive reinforcements, Hong Kong actually lost capable personnel; many veteran troops were repatriated to Europe, leaving behind a less proficient garrison. Peacetime duties had proven a poor preparation for combat—officers and men had passed their time socializing rather than maintaining combat readiness. Governor Sir Geoffrey Northcote persistently urged London to adopt a firmer stance against relentless Japanese provocations: aircraft incursions, sinking of junks and fishing vessels, and infiltration by Taiwanese fifth columnists (Japan had colonized Taiwan in 1895). Recognizing the hopelessness of his position, Northcote recommended withdrawal in October 1940, arguing that defending the colony would inevitably result in mass civilian casualties and widespread destruction—a pragmatic assessment given Hong Kong's indefensible state. London categorically rejected this proposal, reasoning that withdrawal would demoralize China, embolden Japan and undermine American confidence in British resolve. Underlying this decision was an additional consideration: the long-standing dispute over Hong Kong's sovereignty. Since Britain acquired Hong Kong in 1841, the prospect of surrendering it, even temporarily, raised fears about reclaiming it afterward. Preserving the appearance of British determination was deemed crucial to demonstrating to Chiang Kai-shek, Nationalist China's leader, that Britain intended to retain the territory. Despite these political calculations, London consistently refused fresh troop deployments. Major-General A. E. Grasett, the China theatre commander, requested reinforcements only to face rejection—London offered only Indian or other colonial forces. Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, appointed British commander in the Far East in 1941, likewise pressed for garrison strengthening, to no avail. The situation shifted dramatically after Grasett, a retired Canadian who had recently left his China post, travelled to Britain via Canada. Upon arriving in Canada, he independently approached his former classmate Major-General Crerar, Chief of the Canadian General Staff, and advocated for reinforcement. Grasett argued persuasively that deploying two or more additional battalions would enable the Hong Kong garrison to withstand an extended siege. When Grasett reached London in early September 1941, he presented this case directly to the British Chiefs of Staff, simultaneously proposing that Canada could provide the extra units. His arguments proved persuasive; the Chiefs of Staff altered course and convinced a reluctant Churchill to reconsider. In light of accelerating Japanese pressure, Britain substantially enlarged the Malaysia/Singapore garrison from nine to 32 battalions and despatched two capital ships—HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse—to the region, reasoning that this show of force would deter Japanese aggression against British Far Eastern interests, including Hong Kong. The original defence strategy envisaged holding Hong Kong Island exclusively while denying the harbour to attackers. A single battalion (the Punjabis) would execute delaying actions across the New Territories, followed by a three-battalion defensive stand on the Gin Drinkers Line. This brief mainland resistance would allow time for demolishing stores, power installations, docks and wharves, clearing food stocks and removing vital matériel before withdrawing to Hong Kong Island for a protracted resistance awaiting relief from Singapore or American forces from the Philippines. The Gin Drinkers Line—styled after the French Maginot Line in miniature—ran approximately 18 kilometres south of the Sino-Hong Kong border. Beginning near Gin Drinkers Bay west of Kowloon, it extended 17 kilometres across the Kowloon Peninsula hills toward its eastern extremity. The strategic expectation was that this line would delay the Japanese assault for three weeks or longer, permitting battalion withdrawal to Hong Kong Island for sustained resistance while mainland forces completed evacuation procedures. The 1937 war plan stipulated that four battalions would be necessary for an effective delaying action and seven for an adequate Gin Drinkers Line defence—figures which excluded the aircraft and naval support essential to success. With only a single army brigade available and virtually no air capability, planners abandoned the mainland defence concept, leaving defensive works incomplete and deteriorating under tropical conditions. Chinese personnel were conspicuously absent from initial war preparations and strategic planning, only being incorporated late in the process. The largest Chinese component was the volunteer contingent serving with the HKVDC. On the regular army side, approximately 150 Chinese recruits were enlisted in mid-1941 for the 5th Anti-Aircraft Regiment. The Hong Kong Chinese Regiment, hastily constituted on 3 November 1941, comprised officers borrowed from British and Indian units alongside 52 Chinese junior NCOs and other ranks with minimal training. A Royal Engineers troop staffed entirely by Chinese soldiers saw service, and some Chinese personnel served with the Royal Navy and Dockyard Defence Corps. Chinese participation increased substantially in auxiliary services—air-raid precautions, auxiliary police, nursing, St John Ambulance and fire brigades. This reluctance to fully integrate Chinese forces likely reflected prevailing attitudes of the era. Pre-war British propaganda had frequently mocked Japanese military capability, portraying officers and soldiers as myopic and incompetent. Japanese combat prowess was systematically underestimated; their victories in China were attributed to facing inferior opposition rather than evidence of genuine military strength. Japanese weaponry was dismissed as inferior to European standards. Consequently, British confidence remained high that the colony could hold indefinitely if adequately reinforced. In September 1941, Hong Kong received heartening news: two additional Canadian battalions would be deployed to the garrison. Brigadier John Maltby promptly revived the pre-war plan for defending the Gin Drinkers Line, developing a strategy centred on three mainland battalions (2nd Royal Scots, 5/7 Rajputs and 2/14 Punjab) supported by HKVDC elements and four artillery troop detachments, while three island battalions (1st Middlesex, Royal Rifles of Canada and Winnipeg Grenadiers) bolstered by the bulk of the HKVDC would hold Hong Kong Island. Command responsibility was divided between two brigades: the Island Brigade (Hong Kong Infantry Brigade) under Brigadier Lawson, a recently arrived Canadian, and the mainland Kowloon Infantry Brigade under Brigadier Wallis. The Canadian regiments arrived on 16 November 1941. Maltby was commissioned into the Indian Army in 1911, and  saw extensive service across multiple campaigns: World War I, the Persian Gulf (1913–14), and the North-West Frontier (1923–24). His early promise earned him selection for accelerated advancement through prestigious staff colleges at Quetta and RAF Andover. By 1937, he was again serving on the North-West Frontier, and by 1939 commanded both the 3rd Jhelum Brigade (later the Calcutta Brigade) and the 19th Infantry Brigade in Deccan. In 1940, posted to China, Maltby orchestrated the closure of the North China Command by withdrawing two infantry battalions from Shanghai. Promoted to major-general as GOC China in August 1941, he had only three months to prepare the colony's defenses, a race against time he could not win.  The Gin Drinkers Line occupied a naturally dominant position atop mountains spanning northern Kowloon's breadth, yet possessed inherent weaknesses that would prove fatal. The line lacked defensive depth and remained vulnerable to flanking manoeuvres, with two sectors representing particular danger: Customs Pass and the gap between Golden Hill and Laichikok Peninsula near Gin Drinkers Bay. Given the extended front, each battalion arranged its forces in a string of platoon positions with gaps covered by daytime fire and nighttime patrols. One company per battalion could be held in reserve within prepared positions guarding the most dangerous sectors. The reserve company of the centre battalion (2/14 Punjab) initially advanced as forward troops, screening demolition operations and delaying the enemy's initial thrust. The hasty decision to establish mainland defences meant that essential support systems—communication networks, artillery registrations, mortar calibrations—remained incomplete when combat commenced. Ammunition shortages compounded the problem. For instance, the 2/14 Punjab conducted only a single 3-inch mortar practice session before the attack; adequate ammunition arrived only in November and totalled a mere 70 rounds per battalion for both training and combat. These mortars were registered for the first time in their battle positions, with combat beginning just 12 hours later. The 2-inch mortar situation was even more desperate: troops received live ammunition only as fighting started, making their baptism of fire an actual combat situation. Transportation deficiencies—trucks and animals in short supply—forced manual ammunition transport across Hong Kong's challenging terrain, imposing severe physical demands on already stretched personnel.   On 6 November 1941, Imperial Japanese Headquarters ordered its Commander-in-Chief in China to prepare plans for capturing Hong Kong. The 23rd Army, part of the China Southern Expeditionary Army Group and commanded by Lt. Gen. Sakai Takashi with Maj. Gen. Kuribayashi Tadamichi serving as Chief of Staff, would form the invasion's backbone. All preparations were to be completed by the end of November 1941. The operation, designated 'Operation C', sought to 'seize Hong Kong within ten days'. Takahashi was the son of a factory worker, and rose through the ranks to become a veteran of China campaigns. He was tasked with capturing Hong Kong using the 38th Division normally assigned to the Southern Expeditionary Army Group. Despite setbacks and humiliation over requests for additional resources—particularly following intelligence reports of tanks (actually Bren carriers) in Hong Kong—Sakai remained determined to succeed. He served as Governor of Hong Kong from 26 December 1941 to 20 February 1942. Kuribayashi, best remembered as the Japanese commander at Iwo Jima, graduated from the Army Academy in 1914 specializing in cavalry. He served as deputy military attaché to Washington and Canada and studied at Harvard University. In December 1941, he held the position of Chief of Staff to the 23rd Army during the Hong Kong operation. Operation C followed a straightforward strategic framework. A blocking force would prevent Chinese interference from the rear, while the main invasion force would spearhead the assault. The 23rd Army, comprising four divisions plus a mixed brigade and two infantry regiments, received the assignment to attack Hong Kong. Of these four divisions, only the 38th played a substantive role in the invasion itself. The attack employed a combined-arms approach. Naval forces would establish a blockade and deliver bombardment while aircraft targeted key installations. Ground forces from the 38th Division—specifically the 228th, 229th, and 230th Regiments—would execute the land invasion using a three-pronged strategy. The right column would sweep westward in a wide arc, clearing Castle Peak Road and targeting the western flank of the Gin Drinkers Line near Laichikok Peninsula. The centre force would press directly through the line's middle, while the left column would cross Tidal Cove (Tolo Harbour) toward Kai Tak Airport and eastward toward Devil Peak, a crucial defensive position. The objective was to annihilate British forces on the mainland and compel Hong Kong's surrender through sustained bombardment. Should British forces resist, the island phase of the campaign would commence. Securing the rear against the Chinese National Army of the 7th Military District and Communist guerrillas fell to the 66th Regiment, normally part of the 51st Division but attached to the 38th for this operation. The 66th would simultaneously occupy and secure rear areas throughout the New Territories and Kowloon while the three assault regiments engaged the main defensive forces. This rearguard operation was organised into columns named after their commanding officers: Kitazawa, Kobayashi, Sato, and Araki. The Japanese selected the narrowest approach between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, targeting the eastern coast near Lyemun Passage where only 410 metres of water separated the mainland from the island. Upon landing, forces would rapidly advance inland to seize the critical junction of Wongneichong Gap, then pivot westward and southward to capture Victoria City and the remainder of Hong Kong. The naval contingent divided into two groups: the Bombardment Group and the Attack Group. Approximately 300 personnel from the Special Naval Landing Force (SNLF) were attached to the invasion force. Air support came from the First Air Brigade under Col. Habu Hideharu, which contributed 56 light bombers and fighters. Their mission was to neutralise the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, thereby securing aerial and maritime superiority for the ground campaign.   On the eve of war, the British garrison numbered 13,981 all ranks, including nursing staff and St John Ambulance personnel. Of these, 8,919 were British and Canadian, with 4,402 Indian and Chinese. The core infantry force comprised 5,422 regular soldiers, complemented by approximately 6,000 additional personnel across artillery, engineering, naval, and Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC) units. By 1941, the Royal Navy had become a shadow of its former self as the once-dominant China Squadron. Of the three World War I destroyers present on 8 December, two had been sent to Singapore—the third undergoing repairs—by 1930. This redeployment stemmed partly from the futility of defending the colony and partly from a commitment by senior US Navy officers: Britain would reinforce Singapore with Hong Kong's fleet in exchange for four American destroyers at Singapore. This American guarantee, however, never materialized. The defensive infrastructure focused primarily on countering a seaborne attack: twenty-nine coastal guns (9.2in., 6in., 4.7in., and 4in. calibres), ten 18- and 2-pounder beach defense guns, and twenty-eight field guns (60-pounder, 6in., 4.5in., and 3.7in. calibres). The Hong Kong Garrison's infantry comprised four regular army battalions—two British and two Indian—bolstered by five HKVDC infantry companies, each averaging 100 men. The 1st Middlesex Regiment, deployed in August 1937, served as a machine-gun battalion equipped with forty-eight Vickers medium machine guns. Having been abroad since 1931, the regiment had deteriorated through protracted garrison service, Hong Kong being among the softest postings available. From September 1939 onward, all regiments—including the 5/7 Rajputs (arrived June 1937) and the 2/14 Punjab—experienced systematic loss of experienced officers and NCOs to other theaters. The Royal Scots proved particularly hard hit, suffering disciplinary problems and an unusually high court-martial rate. Units like the Hong Kong and Singapore Royal Artillery suffered critical leadership gaps that went unaddressed. By December 1941, many formations fielded inexperienced replacement troops, significantly undermining combat readiness. The Punjabis exemplified these deficiencies. Stationed in Hong Kong since November 1940, they received their vehicles and mortars only in August 1941—three months before combat. Compounding this, forty percent of their strength consisted of raw recruits arrived just in October. When war erupted, artillery regiments found themselves relying on junior officers in senior roles, with British commanders unfamiliar with Urdu directing Indian troops, a handicap that severely compromised effectiveness. Deficient equipment compounded leadership shortages. Shells dating from 1918 detonated prematurely upon discharge, while ammunition shortages crippled operations. On 8 December, all field guns deployed with merely 100 rounds apiece, with 200 rounds held in reserve for the entire campaign, and coastal guns received only 25 rounds each. Insufficient cross-training meant many infantrymen failed to understand the artillery "clock face" targeting system, causing them to miss their objectives. Malaria devastated European troops, particularly the Royal Scots. Of approximately 770 personnel, at least 180 suffered recurring malarial episodes from the Shing Mun Redoubt area's notoriously endemic conditions. Staff shortages forced nearly every unit to promote junior officers to positions beyond their rank, exacerbating structural weaknesses. Although the Canadians' arrival bolstered the garrison, significant handicaps undermined their effectiveness. Both battalions carried a C-class designation—deemed unfit for foreign service—having spent years in soft garrison postings without rigorous training. The deficit was stark: each Canadian soldier received only thirty-five rifle practice rounds. The two battalions incorporated 115 men with fewer than sixteen weeks' training, while sixty-two of seventy-five recruits joining the Winnipeg Grenadiers in June came directly from a training depot lacking even basic rifles. Twelve percent of the Canadian force remained untrained. Equipment deficiencies proved even more damaging. A standard 1941 Canadian infantry battalion required 102 motor vehicles—including twenty-two Universal Carriers, thirty-seven ¾-ton trucks, thirteen 1-ton trucks, thirty-one bicycles, and twenty-two Boys anti-tank rifles. When the Canadians landed, logistical failures left them with only six Bren carriers, two water tankers, twelve ¾-ton trucks, and a single Boys anti-tank rifle. Although they carried 3in. mortars, neither ammunition nor radios accompanied them. Canada possessed only 300 3-inch mortar bombs in its entire inventory at that time, making any allocation to Hong Kong impossible. A second vessel, the SS Don Jose, was dispatched with replacement vehicles and equipment but never reached Hong Kong before 8 December. The Japanese seized it en route to Manila. Despite these shortcomings, the force departed on 27 October with 1,975 men and arrived on 16 November. Intelligence estimates regarding Japanese available forces varied widely, ranging from two to four divisions. On 6 December evening, Chinese reports confirmed the previous day's arrival of three Japanese divisions at Buji township, located eight miles from the border in what is now Shenzhen. Earlier, around 1 November, a Japanese deserter provided intelligence of significant troop concentrations north of the frontier, including large-calibre artillery indicative of at least divisional strength.   The Hong Kong invasion force comprised three service branches: the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) deployed the 38th Infantry Division, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) committed the Second China Fleet, and the Imperial Japanese Air Force (IJAF) contributed the 1st Air Group. Command of the ground assault rested with Lieutenant-General Sano Tadayoshi of the 38th Division, supported by Major-General Ito Takeo heading the infantry group, while supporting arms including artillery, engineers, armor, and transport fell under Sano's authority. The main assault force consisted of three infantry regiments from the 38th Division, each led by a colonel: the 228th under Doi Teihichi, the 229th under Tanaka Ryosaburo, and the 230th under Shoji Toshishige. The 38th Division itself was a standard 1940s B-class infantry division of approximately 20,000 troops (ranging from 18,000–21,000 depending on operational requirements), organized into three regiments with three battalions each. Reflecting the Japanese army's reliance on animal and human transport, each regiment fielded roughly 3,800 troops supported by some 700 horses. Battalion strength averaged around 1,071 personnel, with companies numbering approximately 180 men. Japanese infantry battalions of this period featured a distinctive organization: rifle platoons consisted of four sections (three equipped with rifles and light machine guns, one with light mortars and rifles), complemented by an additional heavy machine-gun company fielding twelve Type 92 weapons and a troop of light artillery—likely Type 92 70mm infantry guns. The divisional field artillery regiment operated 75mm Type 41 mountain guns organized into three 688-man battalions, each with two troops of two guns. Mountain artillery units, numbering 36 guns total, carried additional personnel (3,400) and animals (1,400) to navigate the terrain complexities of Hong Kong operations. Recognizing the need for overwhelming firepower to compel Hong Kong's surrender, the IJA augmented the invasion force with heavy artillery—15cm and 24cm howitzers commanded by Major-General Kitashima Kineo. News of the Canadian reinforcements arriving in Hong Kong forced a reassessment. Commander-in-Chief Sakai Takashi of the 23rd Army informed his superiors that the original ten-day timeline was unrealistic and requested additional troops. Although most formations were already committed to other operations, Imperial Headquarters eventually authorized two depot regiments from Japan to support the campaign. Intended for second-line duties rather than frontline combat, these units were to be returned promptly after freeing experienced personnel for Hong Kong operations. This arrangement allowed the 19th and 20th mixed brigades—approximately 6,000 men organized in five infantry battalions, a field artillery battalion, and an engineer battalion—to be released for Hong Kong. However, Sakai's request for reinforcements met with disapproval from Imperial Headquarters, and he received an unmistakable message: a swift, decisive campaign was essential. His situation worsened when Japanese agents mistakenly identified British Bren carriers as tanks, forcing Sakai to improvise armor by raiding the 1st Reserve Tank Battalion and tankette units from infantry depot divisions. In attempting to secure additional armor from the 11th Army's 9th Reconnaissance Regiment, Sakai encountered resistance. General Hata Shunroku lodged sustained complaints with senior officials, and Sakai received a sharp rebuke—further requests would not be entertained, and his replacement would follow if necessary. Stung by this loss of face, Sakai abandoned all additional requests and became even more determined to achieve success. Vice-Admiral Niimi Masaichi, commanding the 2nd China Expeditionary Fleet, oversaw the entire naval element, divided into bombardment and attack groups. His flagship, the light cruiser Isuzu, carried Captain Ura Koichi, who simultaneously commanded the bombardment group. This naval force assembled ships from various China Expeditionary Fleet units, particularly from the Canton Special Base Force, 15 Squadron, and 11 Torpedo Boat Division at Guangzhou. Reflecting Niimi's lack of confidence in the army's air support capabilities, the seaplane tender IJN Kamikawa Maru joined the operation on his insistence, providing organic naval aviation against the threat posed by British Wildebeests. Niimi also petitioned for destroyers IJN Wakaba and Yugure to counter the three British destroyers, though this request was denied. The Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF) were assigned to conduct diversionary attacks south of Hong Kong Island, intended to distract British forces from the main land invasion thrust. The IJAF's 1st Air Brigade, commanded by Colonel Habu Hideharu, centered on the 45th Air Regiment with 34 Kawasaki Ki-32 Type 98 'Mary' light bombers. This composite force drew aircraft and units from airfields across China and Manchuria—Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, and Qiqihar—all assembled at Baiyun Aerodrome in Guangzhou on 7 December 1941. Supporting the 1st Air Brigade were the 10th Independent Squadron under Captain Takatsuki Akira with 13 Nakajima Ki-27 Type 97 'Nate' fighters, 3 Mitsubishi Ki-15 Type 97 'Babs' command reconnaissance aircraft from the 18th Independent Reconnaissance Squadron, and the 44th Independent Squadron fielding 6 Tachikawa Ki-36 Type 98 'Ida' observation aircraft. Years before the invasion, the Japanese cultivated an extensive network of agents and sleeper operatives in Hong Kong, methodically gathering intelligence and mapping military installations. This sophisticated network proved remarkably effective: invasion maps carried by IJA officers were actually Hong Kong Government and British military maps, overprinted with Japanese annotations and interpretations. British officers later discovered in captivity that the Peninsula Hotel's regular barber was a Japanese Navy lieutenant-commander who had exploited the intimate setting to extract valuable information about British force dispositions. Intelligence operatives infiltrated every level of Hong Kong society—the garrison tailor and barber both served as spies. This groundwork enabled exceptional accuracy in artillery fire and bombing campaigns. The Japanese further leveraged criminal networks, recruiting gangsters throughout Hong Kong and Guangdong province with money and arms, turning them into irregular auxiliaries supporting the invasion.   On Sunday, 7 December, seven hundred members of the 2nd Royal Scots and Middlesex Regiment marched to St John's Cathedral for the morning service. As Major-General Maltby read a passage from Matthew, his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant I. MacGregor, delivered an urgent message that would change everything. Preparations for conflict had already begun. On 5 December, the HKVDC had mobilized fully, yet Hong Kong's broader population remained unmoved—the Happy Valley racetrack reported record attendance that very day. The contrast was stark: while one institution prepared for war, another celebrated as though nothing threatened. Japanese forces had been positioned advantageously since autumn 1941. The 23rd Army was already stationed west of Guangzhou, with contingents scattered across Foshan Town, Zhuhai, and other locations on the Pearl River delta. Upon orders for war on 1 December, they faced minimal distances to cover. The army regrouped at Humen, Shilong Town, and Guangzhou itself—staging areas for the invasion. The first visible signs arrived on 4–5 December when Japanese forces landed at Mirs Bay; the 228th Regiment moved into its staging area at Buji Town, now part of Shenzhen City. Maltby received these reports and immediately departed the cathedral service to issue urgent stand-to orders. Yet skepticism persisted within military circles. Some dismissed the threat, dismissing such intelligence as "astonishingly erroneous." Meanwhile, the Imperial Japanese Navy massed in the waters beyond Hong Kong's horizon. The Kowloon Infantry Brigade held a stretched defensive line: the 5/7 Rajputs anchored the centre, the 2/14 Punjab the east, and the 2nd Royal Scots the west. Forward positions extended far—C Company, 2/14 Punjab, under Major S. Burns ranged along Castle Peak Road toward Yuen Long. The brigade screen, C Company of the 2/14 Punjab, held Shueng Shui and Taipo Market with four Bren carriers and two armoured cars from the HKVDC, backed by engineers and the 22nd Fortress Company. The Hong Kong Infantry Brigade held Hong Kong Island itself. The Winnipeg Grenadiers occupied Victoria City on the north-west coast, while the Royal Rifles of Canada stretched along the north-east shores from Saukiwan to Lyemun. Brigadier Lawson commanded from his headquarters at Wongneichong Gap in the island's centre. At 0355 hours on 8 December, the code word "Blossom Blossom" was transmitted. Eleven minutes later, Lieutenant-General Sakai ordered the invasion to commence. Fifty minutes after that, at 0445 hours, Major Charles Boxer—a fluent Japanese speaker formerly of the Lincolnshire Regiment—was roused by Radio Tokyo announcing that war was imminent. Governor Young and Major-General Maltby were informed at once. By 0500 hours, the forward demolition points had been blown by Major Gray, OC of C Company 2/14 Punjab, and the HKVDC engineers under Major J. H. Bottomley. At 0645 hours, the garrison received formal notification: Britain and Japan were at war. Seventy-five minutes later, air-raid sirens wailed. Within moments, smoke billowed from Kai Tak Airport as Japanese aircraft destroyed virtually the entire air garrison. The Wildebeests, Walruses, HKVDC biplanes, and several civilian planes were engulfed in flames. Only two Ju-52s of the Eurasia Corporation and one CNAC T-32 Condor escaped destruction—dispersal bays had never been built due to lack of funds. The Japanese then turned to secondary targets, bombing Shamshuipo Camp and the neighbouring police station. The Canadians suffered few large-scale casualties in the initial strikes, though Sergeant Routledge and Signalman Fairley of the signal platoon were wounded—the first Canadian soldiers injured in World War II. Remarkably, Hong Kong Island's theatres, cinemas, and restaurants continued operating as though the island faced no peril. Japanese demolition efforts proved only minor obstacles. Bridges blown were quickly replaced. The invasion proceeded on three fronts: the 230th Regiment advanced westward along the northern route toward Yuen Long and Castle Peak, targeting the northern slope of Tai Mo Mountain. The 228th Regiment drove down the centre, following the Sheung Shui–Taipo–Kowloon road toward Grassy Hill north of the Shing Mun Redoubt. The 229th Regiment, crossing at Sha Tau Kok and by boat at Starling Inlet, proceeded via Taipo toward Tai Shui Hang and Ma On Mountain. Whenever confronted with strongly defended positions, the Japanese bypassed them entirely rather than engage. The first day brought scattered but spirited resistance. Around 1300 hours, the Punjabis inflicted the first serious check, drawing blood from advancing Japanese forces. At 1830 hours, they ambushed and decimated several Japanese platoons south of Taipo market town. The HKVDC's armoured cars and Bren carriers struck similar successes nearby. The 2 Royal Scots' reconnaissance platoon clashed with elements of the 229th Regiment around Yuen Long. Despite these minor victories, Japanese momentum continued. Armed with stolen British maps and guided by fifth columnists, they pushed forward relentlessly. By late afternoon on the 8th, the Punjabis withdrew toward Grassy Hill to avoid being outflanked. The artillerymen of the 12th Battery engaged an IJN destroyer and Japanese forces around Taipo, inflicting heavy casualties. Farther south near Shatin, on the Taipo–Kowloon highway, rapidly advancing Japanese troops surprised the defenders and severed the fuse at an HKVDC demolition point. Their triumph proved momentary; the engineers completed the backup circuit and detonated the bridge, destroying it along with the Japanese soldiers crossing it. By early morning on 9 December, orders came to withdraw all mainland units to the Gin Drinkers Line. The Punjabis, already at Shatin Wai overlooking Tide Cove, held their position under pressure and continuous shelling for the next two days. The HKVDC withdrew to Fotan, a village south of Shatin. Maltby ordered D Company, 5/7 Rajputs, under Captain H. R. Newtons to Smuggler's Ridge to close the gap between the 2 Royal Scots and 2/14 Punjab. HKVDC armoured cars and Bren carriers continued patrols along Castle Peak Road while HMS Cicala, having survived two air attacks, maintained station in Castle Peak Bay. Despite an IJN blockade, the destroyers HMS Thanet and Scout slipped anchor and escaped to Singapore around 2130 hours. The surviving CNAC and Eurasia aircraft took off with high-value evacuees: Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's widow and her two equally renowned sisters—the Soong sisters—along with Chinese Finance Minister H. H. Kung. Also departing was Lieutenant-Colonel H. Owen-Hughes of the HKVDC, who carried orders to coordinate with the Chinese Nationalist Army for a rear-guard attack on Japanese forces to relieve the pressure on Hong Kong. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. On 8 December 1941, Japan attacked Hong Kong with the 38th Division, supported by naval and air forces. Despite British defenses manned by undertrained, under-equipped troops, Japanese forces advanced rapidly across three fronts. Within hours, the RAF was destroyed, demolitions proved futile, and British units withdrew toward the Gin Drinkers Line facing overwhelming odds.

“Our Teacher” is a collection of essays written by students of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong). This series is comprised of their personal experiences with the practice and their interactions with Dafa's founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi, when the practice was first taught to the public. The writings were originally published on the Minghui website. Original Articles:1. Precious Memories of Attending Master’s Fifth Lecture Series in Guangzhou2. Recalling Master Li Giving Lectures in Sweden3. Precious Memories from Chaoyang City in Liaoning Province To provide feedback on this podcast, please email us at feedback@minghuiradio.org

This week on Sinica, I sit down with the writer Pallavi Aiyar — at her own dining table in Beijing, where in recent months I've been the lucky beneficiary of her and her husband Julio's legendary hospitality. Pallavi first arrived in Beijing in 2002 to teach at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute and went on to spend the better part of a decade as The Hindu's China correspondent — for much of that time, the only Chinese-speaking Indian foreign correspondent in the country. That period produced Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China, still one of the very few sustained attempts to look at China through Indian eyes. After 16 years away — years spent in Brussels, Jakarta, Tokyo, and Madrid — she's back in Beijing, and turning her gaze inward with her latest book, Travels in the Other Place: Pursuing the Self in Eight Acts. She writes the wonderful Substack The Global Jigsaw, which I recommend without reservation.Our conversation is built around her recent essay for Noema Magazine, “The Real Problem Underlying India-China Tensions,” which argues that the deepest problem in the relationship isn't the border or the trade imbalance but the distorting lenses through which each side reads the other: China reads India through the lens of colonial subordination, while India reads China through the lens of betrayal. We talk about the ugly etymology of an ethnic slur, the partial historical memories each country mistakes for the whole picture, her serialized interviews with the Chinese India-watcher Mao Keji, the aporia-inducing impossibility of explaining either country to outsiders — and how her answer to the question she first posed in 2008, “Would I rather be born Indian or Chinese?”, has changed, painfully, in the years since.4:35 – Beijing, 2002: an ad in That's Beijing, gandhi@hotmail.com, and becoming The Hindu's correspondent10:03 – “Beijing and I grew up together”: the aughts as a shared coming-of-age12:16 – The asymmetry of obsession: why India watches China, but not the reverse16:39 – The unacknowledged third vertex: Western discursive power in the India-China relationship18:08 – Back after 16 years: the Liangma River, blue skies, and the panopticon21:35 – Walks in the park and the “buddy system”: what access looks like now25:43 – Where did all the foreigners go?29:59 – The scene at CCG: candor, offense, and the register of truth33:10 – “Asan”: the etymology of a slur, Sikh policemen, opium fortunes, and China's colonial lens40:10 – 1962 and India's betrayal lens42:15 – Aporia: the foolhardy task of explaining India or China47:22 – Shame and indignation: explaining a place you love versus a place you merely know52:29 – The big question, 2008: born Indian or Chinese?55:44 – The 2026 answer: “It hurts”1:00:08 – Kaiser pushes back: cherry-picked comparisons, and can this essay's very existence complicate its conclusions?1:04:43 – Twin nations of the exam1:06:57 – Cognitive empathy: what it would take for ordinary Indians and Chinese to actually see each otherPaying It ForwardYaqi Li, a young Chinese international relations scholar recently returned to China after a year in Singapore — Pallavi admires the rare self-reflectiveness of his memoir-inflected IR writing on his Substack, New China Literacy, and notes that he makes an interesting case for AI-assisted writing as a way for second- and third-language English speakers to find their voice.RecommendationsPallavi: Flashlight by Susan Choi — a novel spanning Japan, the U.S., and North Korea, built around the North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens in the 1970s. Also This Is Where the Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin — the first novel from her favorite Pakistani writer, a sprawling, Chekhovian portrait of feudalism and politics in modern Pakistan.Kaiser: Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner — beautiful at the sentence level, painted on a small canvas: two couples who meet as young academics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and their friendship across the decades. Emotionally rich despite the absence of grand drama.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hank Crawford of Blue Collar Robotics and Paul Harker, retired CCO of Woolworths Group, on grocery store robotics a retailer can deploy today.There are 280,000 people walking the aisles of US grocery stores right now picking somebody else's order, and grocers cannot hire fast enough to keep up with the growth. That number comes from Hank Crawford, Co-Founder and CEO of Blue Collar Robotics, and it frames the whole conversation. Online grocery keeps growing. Labor keeps getting harder to find. And the two big swings the industry took at eGrocery fulfillment, the centralized fulfillment center and the micro fulfillment center, both left grocers with high CapEx, duplicated inventory, and people still picking most of the order. Hank is joined by Paul Harker, retired Chief Commercial Officer of Woolworths Group, Australia's largest retailer, who joined Blue Collar Robotics as a strategic advisor. Together with Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden they work through the economics of eGrocery fulfillment from the operator's side of the table: why the warehouse answer collapsed, what grocery store robotics has been getting wrong, and why a purpose-built robot with a remote operator behind it can drop into a supermarket that already exists. The mechanism is the interesting part. Blue Collar Robotics sells the picking as a service. A grocer pays a cost per pick, which moves the spend from CapEx into OpEx. The robot handles packaged center-aisle goods using vacuum suction, which is roughly 65% of a typical order, and store associates get redeployed to fresh, where care actually shows up in the customer's bag. Blue Collar reports eGrocery fulfillment cost reductions of as much as 50%. This is Season 6, Episode 10.In This Episode, You'll Learn•       Why centralized fulfillment centers failed for grocery on four separate counts: volume density, distance from the customer, fresh, and CapEx•       What Paul Harker says micro fulfillment centers still cannot solve, including duplicated inventory and picking "the uglies"•       Why over 80% of a grocer's business is still the in-store customer, and how eGrocery growth quietly degrades that experience•       The case for a human behind every robot, and why it is now standard practice for anything operating in an unstructured environment•       What robot etiquette means in a store aisle, and what China's hotel delivery robots taught Hank about how not to do it•       How the grocery store robotics buying conversation changes when the customer has no robotics team of its own•       Why grocery store robotics took this long to find product-market fit in a supermarket, and what changed•       Why the labor argument runs backwards here: there is no line of people waiting for picking jobs•       How remote operation opens picking work to people who could never physically do it, and opens a 24 hour picking clock for the store•       What Hank says is actually slowing adoption, and it is not the technologySupport our sponsorsThis Episode is Brought to You By RetailClub.Retail and brand leaders can attend RetailClub AI Festival completely budget-free, plus get $1,750 toward travel and hotel. From the founders of Shoptalk and Groceryshop, it's three days fully outdoors in Huntington Beach, September 22 to 24, with 2,000 senior leaders working through how AI is transforming retail. If you're shaping AI's future in retail, budget shouldn't be why you miss it. Register by August 28 at retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast.Subscribe & FollowHow much did you love this episode? Drop us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utubeFeatured guestsHank Crawford. https://www.linkedin.com/in/hank-crawford-a4a9755/Co-Founder & CEO of Blue Collar Robotics. https://bluecollarrobotics.aiHank Crawford is Co-Founder & CEO of Blue Collar Robotics, where he leads the company's mission to make in-store grocery picking affordable for retailers through purpose-built robots delivered as a service, pairing AI-driven autonomy with human-assisted teleoperation. A technology entrepreneur and commercial leader with more than 35 years of experience in advanced composites, global manufacturing, and robotics, Crawford has founded companies in the United States and China including PURE Material Science, a Guangzhou-based pioneer of continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites and has helped scale advanced technology businesses in senior engineering and commercial roles at Performance Materials Corporation (acquired by Toray), Daimler Trucks in both North America and China, TRB Lightweight Structures, and Avient. He holds multiple patents in composite materials and manufacturing.Paul Harker. https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-s-harker/Retired Chief Commercial Officer, Woolworths Group. Strategic Advisor. Blue Collar Robotics.Paul Harker has more than three decades of senior leadership experience across Australia's retail and FMCG sectors, including 33 years with Woolworths Group. Most recently, Paul served as Chief Commercial Officer for Woolworths Group, where he was accountable for the $51 billion Australian Food commercial portfolio. In this role, he oversaw commercial practices across more than 1,000 stores and helped lead large-scale enterprise transformation initiatives, including the modernization of digital systems and the integration of data-led analytics across complex supply chain networks. Paul's earlier executive roles at Woolworths included leadership across Replenishment, Supply Chain, and Store Operations, giving him a broad understanding of the full retail operating model – from store execution to enterprise-level commercial strategy.Chapters00:00 Teaser 00:48 Show Intro 05:34 Welcome Hank and Paul! 06:37 Why Warehouses Failed 09:02 Store Picking Tensions 10:28 Amazon Threat Reality 14:47 Robotics Hype vs Reality 16:34 Human in the Loop 18:34 Blue Collar Robotics Intro 19:46 Service Model Economics 22:35 How Store Deployment Works 25:48 Comparing Other Models 30:50 Automation and Jobs 32:35 Scaling Labor With Robots 33:43 24 Hour Store Operations 35:09 Accuracy And Quality Standards 36:48 AI Regulation And Safety 40:18 Robot Etiquette In Aisles 41:36 China Robotics Lessons 45:19 Selling To Risk Averse Grocers 49:36 Five Year Outlook And Jobs 52:19 Wrap Up And Where To Learn More 53:40 Show CloseMeet your hostsHelping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! MusicIncludes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

International Labour Organisation reported that joblessness among young people rose globally in 2025. We take a look at the issue of youth unemployment.Elsewhere, President Trump says he'll declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory, as the US threatens to subject Iran to economic isolation. We examine what further sanctions Washington might have in mind.And in Indonesia, the president has hit out at official corruption and vowed greater state intervention in the economy. We take a closer look at the country's economy and investment opportunities. PHOTO: Job seekers and recruiters for garment factories gather on a street in Haizhu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China, REUTERS/Go Nakamura

Robotaxis are accelerating along the road to commercial viability. Auto and Shared Mobility Analysts Andrew Percoco and Tim Hsiao discuss what this rapid development means for global investors.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Percoco: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Percoco, Head of North America Auto and Shared Mobility Research. Tim Hsiao: And I'm Tim Hsiao, Greater China Auto and Shared Mobility Analyst.Andrew Percoco: Today, why robotaxis may be approaching a commercial inflection point. It's Thursday, August 13th at 8am in New York.Tim Hsiao: And 8 pm in Hong Kong.Andrew Percoco: So Tim, for years, robotaxis were really confined to limited pilot rollouts across the globe. You've done a lot of work over the last few weeks. We put out a big collaborative report on the robotaxi market and how it could be a $1 trillion TAM by 2040.What makes this moment different than some of the other robotaxi hype cycles that we've seen in the past? Tim Hsiao: We observe four things have been converging. Firstly, end-to-end AI is improving much faster. Secondly, hardware and the training costs are falling. And thirdly, more well-capitalized players can fund deployment. And last but not least, regulation is becoming clearer.The leading operators are no longer just demonstrating the technology. They are running fully driverless services around the clock and generating commercial rides. So in our view, the questions has been shifting from can it work to who can expand operating areas, raise utilization and lower costs at a much faster pace.So that's a very different setup versus the 2018 and 2021 hype cycles. Andrew, U.S. autonomous miles could rise from 116 million in [20]25 to 16 billion by 2032. But still make up only about 0.5 percent of all miles driven. How can robotaxis become a meaningful business while remaining such a small part of the market?Andrew Percoco: I would say, you know, obviously the U.S. mobility and transportation market is a massive market. So even with the rapid growth that we expect in robotaxis, it's going to take a long time to make a material impact in the overall market share of mobility. But if you think about the profit pools in this business, 16 billion miles at $2 a mile can, you know, pretty quickly become a very significant TAM and market opportunity.And I think, you know, fundamentally, if you think about a robotaxi business, I would argue you're better utilizing an asset... Or if you think about the, you know, car park, the amount of vehicles that are, you know, in the fleet today or in the U.S. today, they're sitting idle 90 percent of the time, right?So you're talking about taking a smaller amount of volume and driving a higher utilization on that fleet and driving much improved economics. So yes, it's going to take time to displace the, you know, hundreds of millions of cars that you have on the road in the U.S. and displace the penetration of miles driven. But ultimately, you know, we think that the profit pool and the opportunity in robotaxis are much more attractive for the entire value chain, as it relates to robotaxis. And I'd say there's a few things that we're watching along the way to make sure that, to your point, you know, this is not another hype cycle. And that there's real commercial backbone to this business.I'd say the first is seeing the rollouts continue to improve, and the density of the rollouts improve across the select cities that we've seen in the U.S. right now. Robotaxis are only available in a handful of cities in the U.S., so we want to see that continue to expand into more cities. But also the density of the fleet increase in the cities where they're currently present.And at the same time the safety side is still something that gets a lot of questions in making sure that it is truly safer than a human driver, across technology platforms, right? There's various players in this market with different approaches to technology. So, I think seeing that the safety curve is starting to or continues to improve is going to be very important for the viability of this market going forward.Obviously U.S. is very different from China. What have you seen in China? China has shown some impressive growth and utilization in some of the operators that are on the road in China. So just curious as to your perspective in terms of what you're seeing on the ground there. Tim Hsiao: I think China shows that there's much in operations and skill challenges as technology challenges. The fleet in China is above 5,000 vehicles across I think more than 7500 square kilometers in key cities. And some operators average more than 20 orders per vehicle per day.So, total cost of ownership has fallen roughly 30 to 40 percent, while remote assistance ratios are moving from like one operator for like 20 to 40, even like 50 to 60 vehicles. And we think it will achieve like one for a 100. So that has produced real break-even happens, especially in some major cities like Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan – the tier one, tier two cities.So in our view, I think in China, wider operating domains, fleet density and utilization rate, as you just mentioned, reinforce one another. So make it some more like the real commercial case. Instead of just, like trials as we saw a couple years ago. If more value shifts towards the software, fleet operation, and the data, as well as the customer relations, how does that change the profit pool, across the auto industry, especially in the U.S.?Andrew Percoco: First off, I think the auto industry in general is becoming, you know, more software focused and aware. You know, it's being led by the robotaxi market where the autonomous driving software and technology is obviously the most important part about getting this technology to market.That is ultimately trickling down to personally owned cars where you're seeing more autonomous technology being deployed. Auto OEMs are able to charge subscription revenue for this software. So it expands, I'd say, the value proposition of buying a vehicle expands the profit pool for the OEMs.It changes in some ways the cyclicality, or can change the cyclicality of the industry if you've got more kind of recurring revenues, subscription like business model versus just a hardware focused OEM model, which has been kind of the predominant focus for the OEMs historically. I'd say the other angle, interesting angle here is, you know, as this business scales, there's gonna be a lot of vehicles on the road. There's gonna be a lot of fleets of vehicles on the road. Those need to be managed by somebody or some company, right? So if you think about, you know, the rental car industry, right? These companies have been in the business of managing fleets and renting out fleets for a very long time. They know how to do that very, very well.I think there's an interesting opportunity for that part of the value chain, to participate in aiding these robotaxi fleet operators, in scaling and bringing their business to market. Charging, maintenance, reconditioning, all the things that take a lot of time and a pretty large amount of physical infrastructure.That's an opportunity for the rental car industry to come in and leverage their existing know-how to help. And, you know, I think Tim, an important part of this commercialization process is driving down the cost structure of robotaxis. They are very sensor; heavy sensor heavy. They're very compute heavy. I think China is the clear leader on cost and supply chain. I think in China you're seeing robotaxis, you know, around $35,000 to $40,000, which is considerably lower than what we see in the U.S. today.So, how do you think that that will accelerate adoption in China, but I'd say more importantly overseas as some of these robotaxis businesses look to expand outside of China. Tim Hsiao: In our view, it could be a major accelerant because as we noticed that the depreciation is still one of the largest fixed costs for robotaxi. So, as we just mentioned, I think, $35000 to $45000 US dollars, the purpose-built robotaxi can lower the breakeven utilization threshold. And make it easier to finance fleets and open cities that could not support the $150,000 US dollar vehicle.And not only in China, because globally, I think the Chinese cost deflation can be paired with the local ride-hailing platforms in the overseas market that provide demand and regulatory access. But as we highlighted in our previous, the global reports once again, we don't think the cheap vehicle is sufficiently by their self.So in our views, on top of the competitive cost structure, registration, data localization, insurance, and local operating costs can still delay the margin curve, particularly in Europe, which we think there are still quite a lot of uncertainties. So Andrew, as we just, as we just discussed, the lower vehicle costs help, but the operating model still has to work, right? So with operating costs expected to fall and the margin potentially moving above 30 percent or even higher at scale, what are the key assumptions investors should focus on?Andrew Percoco: There's a handful of key assumptions you need to sensitize to get to that 30 percent or more margin structure in this business. I'd say the first is going to be utilization, right? You need to be running these assets at a high utilization to essentially amortize those fixed costs over a larger number of miles driven.Number two, insurance today is probably one of the largest buckets of cost when we think about this business. Insurance is, from our perspective, a big unlock for this industry as the safety, as we mentioned before, the safety data continues to improve. We think that will be a reason to, to expect that the insurance costs associated with autonomous driving technology and robotaxis will continue to decline.It's about 30 cents per mile on our estimate, so it's very significant in terms of the overall cost structure of robotaxis. Drivers or where there's the most sensitivity around the model. Obviously, there's charging costs, there's maintenance costs. Those are, I think, fairly known at this point. But the utilization and insurance, I think, are the two biggest drivers of really getting that margin profile to improve over time. Tim, I guess when you think about the next, call it 10 to 15 years, I think we will put out a trillion dollar market by 2040 from a TAM perspective.What do you think the biggest markets are that investors should be watching, in terms of getting us to that trillion dollar TAM? Obviously, U.S. and China are kinda leading now, but what are the next markets people should be watching?Tim Hsiao: In addition to the major market, as you just mentioned, the U.S. and China, in our views, I think we also need to focus on markets like Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. I think their scale is underappreciated, as we highlighted in our previous report. Because if you think about that, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia in aggregate have roughly four million taxis together ride-hailing vehicles.So even with 25 percent conversion, they imply that about one million is the L4s vehicles. The Middle East offers supportive regulators, you can tell, simpler operating environments and higher fares. And if you think about the Southeast Asia, the ASEAN, I think the market has dense demand and strong local platforms.And of course, Euro markets definitely can't be ignored because Euro will move more slowly, because we think the regulations and the data rules would initially add cost. But the truth is, if you think about the European market, I think the taxis or ride-hailing fares are among the highest globally, even compared to the U.S. and rest of the world.So in our view, the material margin could be more attractive. And this market, on top of the U.S. and China, in our view, can support several regional winners. So, not only limited to a very, you know, the single one or two markets.Andrew Percoco: Yeah, it's great Tim. It sounds like, you know, the robotaxi race, if you want to put it that way, will be won by those who can really bring together technology, and a compelling cost structure while also following the proper regulations and making sure the safety is improving at a rate that's acceptable to regulators.So, Tim, thanks for taking the time to talk today. And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen, and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

For decades, the Chinese Communist Party has had a distinct economic bargain with its people — obedience in exchange for economic prosperity. China continues to lead the world in sectors like green technology and robotics, but in recent years, economic growth has slowed. Signs of unrest and unease have appeared. So what happens when the government struggles to hold up its end of the bargain? The BBC's China correspondent Laura Bicker speaks with Asma Khalid about the Chinese citizens who feel they are being left behind. Producers: Sam Chantarasak and Cat FarnsworthExecutive producer: Martine PowersMix: Travis EvansDigital producer: Matt PintusSenior news editor: China CollinsPhoto: Employees work on a production line at a garment factory in Guangzhou, China, July 27, 2026. Credit: Go Nakamura/Reuters

This week on Sinica, I welcome back Evan Osnos of The New Yorker, whose marvelous new essay, “The Future, Made in China,” chronicles a tech-focused return trip to Beijing, where he lived from 2005 to 2013 — first for the Chicago Tribune, then as The New Yorker's China correspondent. Evan is the author of Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, which won the National Book Award, as well as Wildland: The Making of America's Fury and The Haves and Have-Yachts.His essay is far more than another breathless account of China's advances in robotics and electric vehicles. It's a meditation on what China's technological ascent means for the United States, for how both societies are organized, and for the rest of us, whose futures increasingly seem to be wagered by two small circles of powerful men in Beijing and Washington. We talk about the Xiaomi Hyperfactory, “Chinamaxxing,” the export control debate, and the deeper contest Evan identifies: not democracy versus authoritarianism, but humanism versus scientism.3:04 – Walking Beijing's streets again: quieter, richer, more surveilled11:26 – The Xiaomi Hyperfactory: choreography, awe, and what's actually real18:10 – Doomed to coexist: Evan's message for the American reader24:15 – Schrödinger's China: joke or juggernaut?27:16 – The limits of knowability in an increasingly opaque system31:56 – Threat narratives vs. “Chinamaxxing”: America's two China conversations43:20 – “Thank Trump”: America's self-inflicted wounds47:29 – Revisiting the Sullivan doctrine and export controls53:10 – Mankind 2000: humanism, scientism, and rival oligarchies1:02:48 – Convergence: arriving at dystopia from opposite directions1:07:21 – Self-strengthening redux: Levenson and America's meum-verum gap1:17:53 – The other Sputnik moment: the backlash against tech oligarchyPaying It ForwardYi-Ling Liu, author of The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet — Evan admires how her work grapples with the competition between scientism and humanism across national borders.Chang Che, who writes for The New Yorker and The Guardian — watching China's technological developments up close, “creating history in real time.”RecommendationsEvan: How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University by Theo Baker — the youngest-ever Polk Award winner on how a rising generation at Silicon Valley's feeder school perceives its opportunities and obligations. Also True Grit by Charles Portis — splendid, sentence-savoring dialogue.Kaiser: Butcher's Crossing by John Williams, author of Stoner — a Western with the same sentence-level craft; for fans of Melville and Cormac McCarthy.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Last time we spoke about the ending of the Second Battle of Changsha. In late September and early October 1941, Chinese commander Chen Cheng planned an operation to retake Yichang, a strategic Yangtze River city whose control was essential for protecting the approach to Chongqing. Japanese forces were pulling back from Changsha, weakened by supply problems and casualties, which created an opportunity for Chen to intensify his campaign. Yichang had been captured by Japan in 1940, a defeat that Chen carried as a personal and political burden. He therefore moved to encircle the Japanese 13th Division inside Yichang and drive it to collapse. Although the Chinese held a clear manpower advantage—fourteen divisions against the encircled Japanese—progress was slowed by stubborn fighting from prepared, entrenched positions. The battle inside the city produced desperate close-quarters combat and heavy casualties, showing how the fate of Yichang and the wider defense of Chongqing were tightly linked.    #214 War hits the Pacific Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   The guns fell silent on October 9, 1941, as the Ninth War Zone's forces restored their pre-battle positions, marking the end of the Second Battle of Changsha. The balance sheet was grim on both sides, but it was China that bore the heavier cost. The Ninth Military Front suffered 70,672 killed, wounded, or missing. The concurrent Yichang offensive added a further 21,368 casualties to the Sixth Military Front, a force that outnumbered its Japanese opponents ten to one yet still failed to retake the city. By the time the dust settled, the Chinese army had lost nearly 100,000 men across both theatres. The Chinese command was frank, at least in private, about what had gone wrong. The Japanese had moved with a speed that recalled Blitzkrieg, advancing 130 kilometres in eleven days and withdrawing at twelve kilometres a day, catching the defenders perpetually off-balance. The 26th, 37th, 10th, and 74th Corps had been picked apart piecemeal rather than fighting in concert, the original plan to destroy the Japanese south of the Miluo River coming to nothing. Elite formations had paid a disproportionate price: the 74th Corps suffered 14,521 casualties, the 37th Corps 14,015, and the 58th Division alone lost 6,192 of its 11,907 men, nearly its entire fighting strength.   Yet none of this was the story the public would hear. On October 10th, China's National Day, radio stations announced the "Second Great Victory in Northern Hunan", the annihilation of over 40,000 enemy troops. Newspapers rushed out special editions. Congratulatory telegrams flooded in from government ministries and civic organizations. Senior officials seized on the moment: Sun Ke, Premier of the Executive Yuan, declared that the victory "laid the foundation for the counter-offensive and the recapture of Hankou and Guangzhou," while General Bai Chongxi called it "the pivotal moment for us to turn defeat into victory." Chiang Kai-shek, reading through the pages of triumphant commentary produced overnight by his propagandists, was reportedly impressed by their industry, if not convinced by their content. He had not wanted to call it a victory at all, but the political calculus was unavoidable: after four years of war, an exhausted nation needed the psychological sustenance that only "victory" could provide.   The gap between public performance and private reality was nowhere more visible than in the arrival of a twenty-two-member international press delegation on October 13th. Journalists from Britain, the United States, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Hong Kong, and major Chinese newspapers were flown to Changsha and carefully guided through selected battlefields, where they inspected mountains of war trophies and heard testimony from soldiers and civilians. They left satisfied, presenting their war souvenirs—swords, binoculars, Japanese military flags—to their audiences back home as proof of Chinese heroism and Japanese defeat. Both China and Japan were claiming victory simultaneously. The only conclusion the foreign press could draw was that one side was lying, and it was not the side that had shown them the evidence.   Chiang Kai-shek's real verdict came at the Third Nanyue Military Conference, held from October 16 to 21. His anger was withering. He condemned his generals for their obsession with defending sprawling outer perimeter lines while leaving city centres barely fortified, a mentality so rigid, he said, that the Japanese could announce the exact time of their advance and withdrawal in advance and still execute it on schedule without interference. "Generals, what a disgrace this is!" On the failure to capture prisoners, only 263 prisoners were claimed across the entire front, of whom only 16 names were actually published, he was almost incredulous: "We can definitely defeat the enemy, capture many enemy prisoners, and seize countless enemy weapons! Even if we cannot capture ten thousand prisoners, we should at least capture a thousand! If not a thousand, then at least a hundred! But now, you don't even have ten!" The conference handed down punishments to match the rhetoric. Liao Lingqi, commander of the shattered 58th Division, was sentenced to death for desertion and shot on October 22nd. His men were so outraged that three regimental commanders resigned in protest; the division was pulled from the order of battle entirely and given three months to rebuild. Li Yutang, commander of the 10th Corps, was dismissed—though the Third Battle of Changsha would begin before his replacement could take post, and he would be reinstated to play a key role in the city's defence.   On the Japanese side, the 11th Army acknowledged 1,670 killed, 5,184 wounded, and 14 missing, far fewer than Chinese claims, though post-war regimental histories suggest the true figure was higher. Lieutenant General Anami, who had championed the operation, found himself stung by the charge that the battle had served mainly as material for Chinese propaganda. On November 23rd, he reportedly reacted with visible displeasure when someone in his headquarters said as much aloud.  Anami's annoyance was easy enough to understand, but the accusation carried a troubling degree of accuracy. The Second Battle of Changsha had yielded no decisive strategic gain and no substantial alteration in the military balance. What it did generate, rather effectively, was a story and by the autumn of 1941, stories were one of the few things China still had in plentiful supply. The most consequential struggles were taking place not along the Miluo River, but in foreign ministries and embassies, in Washington and Moscow, in the messages passing between Chongqing and London, and in the increasingly strained calculations of statesmen trying to determine, amid rapidly changing circumstances, whom to support and for how long.   For Chiang Kai-shek, the challenge was never merely military. It was structural, and had been so from the outset. He had always seen clearly, precisely because he understood China's weakness, that Japan could not be defeated by China alone. The country lacked the industrial base, the logistical reach, and after four years of relentless attrition more and more the manpower needed to force a decisive result on the battlefield. China's survival depended on making its war inseparable from the wars of other powers. Since 1937, Chiang's diplomacy had pursued that single objective: convincing enough great powers that their interests were aligned with China's, and holding that coalition together long enough for Japan to be subdued. That effort turned out to be vastly more difficult than it ought to have been.   The problem started with the international order in which the war emerged. Chiang had hoped to assemble a concert of allies willing to help defend China against Japanese aggression. He was blocked not just by the reluctance of neutral states to aid China, but by the speed with which alliances shifted in the opening years of the Second World War. He had never welcomed the prospect of a general European conflict, correctly fearing that it would push China even further to the margins of world attention. Even so, he recognized that once the lines had hardened between the imperial democracies and fascism, new alignments might become possible. From his perspective, the growing amity between Berlin and Moscow was therefore disastrous. He had been eager to draw the USSR into war against Japan. Instead, the Soviets were now effectively aligned with the Nazis, who were themselves allied with Tokyo.   The world created after Versailles had already enraged many Chinese. After all, the May Fourth demonstrations of 1919 had arisen directly from the settlement reached at the Paris Peace Conference. Yet that older order had at least possessed recognizable anchors, especially the dominance of the two great European empires and the United States. Now those empires were weakening, and no one could say with confidence what the new geopolitical order would be. For all Chiang knew, Germany might emerge as Europe's new dominant power. The early years of the European war produced a bewildering spectacle of diplomatic realignment.   The Nationalist government had previously enjoyed a short-lived flirtation with Nazi Germany. In fact, Hitler's regime continued supplying Chiang with munitions in the first months of China's war against Japan. The Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 had theoretically joined Germany, Italy, and Japan into the Axis, but mutual distrust prevented them from forming anything like a fully coherent alliance. Chiang found it useful to imply to Western powers that he might be pushed into closer alignment with Germany, a particularly disturbing possibility for the USSR, which faced enemies in both Europe and Asia. But eventually the contradictions in German policy toward East Asia became too severe. In April 1938, Germany yielded to Japanese pressure and ended its support for China.   Britain offered little meaningful help. Neville Chamberlain became prime minister in May 1937 at the head of a Conservative-led National Government, and was quickly overwhelmed by the deteriorating European situation. If Czechoslovakia was for him a "far-off country of which we know nothing," China's fate was even more distant and obscure to many,  perhaps most  policymakers in London. The Nationalists had more success in cultivating the United States. At the Nine-Power Conference in Brussels in November 1937, the Chinese delegation failed to persuade Washington to impose sanctions on Japan and confront it directly. By the middle of 1938, however, American views were beginning to shift. As Japan pushed deeper into southern China, it became increasingly obvious that the occupied territory would be closed to foreign trade. In December 1938, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau arranged a private American loan of $25 million to China, to be repaid through shipments of tung oil, a varnish product whose real importance lay not in itself, but in what the arrangement signified: a quiet American expression of faith that Chongqing would survive. Chiang also held on to the hope of an even less likely partnership. He had become fiercely anti-Communist during the 1920s, yet in the early years of the anti-Japanese war his greatest hope still rested on Soviet entry into the conflict. Soviet advisers and pilots had aided China from 1937 to 1939, but the USSR never formally declared war on Japan. Still, as Japanese aggression in northern Asia intensified, it remained possible that the Soviets would eventually be drawn in.   Then, as so often happened whenever Chiang tried to impose some control over the course of the war, events beyond China's borders altered the struggle in fundamental ways. While Western attention remained fixed on Europe's darkening horizon, a battle with major consequences for East Asia unfolded on the frontiers of Outer Mongolia, Manchukuo, and the eastern Soviet Union. Throughout much of 1938 and early 1939, one faction within the Japanese Imperial Army sought to pressure the Soviets along their eastern frontier. The USSR appeared vulnerable; Stalin's paranoid purges had executed or exiled many of the Red Army's best officers. In May 1939, fighting broke out near Nomonhan between forces from Soviet-backed Mongolia and Japanese troops from Manchukuo. Within days, both sides had reinforced heavily, until nearly 60,000 Soviet troops faced about 40,000 soldiers from the Kwantung Army. Over the next four months, until mid-September, they fought a major battle ending in a decisive Japanese defeat and establishing the reputation of General Georgi Zhukov, who would later become one of Stalin's most celebrated wartime commanders. The much-derided Soviet Army had fought with formidable effectiveness, and the result was not only a ceasefire but also a nonaggression pact between the two sides, extinguishing, in one stroke, Chiang's hopes for a Chinese-Soviet military alliance. The final blow came after developments in northern Europe. In the Winter War of 1939–1940, the Soviet invasion of Finland led Britain and France to back a motion expelling the USSR from the League of Nations. China, then a member of the League Council, declined to use its veto to block the resolution. Stalin was enraged by Chiang's failure to prevent Soviet expulsion, and mutual suspicion thereafter poisoned relations between the two leaders for the rest of the war against Japan. China would now have to continue without further major Soviet backing.   By the spring of 1940, China's position had become deeply precarious. In March, senior Japanese negotiators sought an agreement with Chiang in Chongqing, while Wang Jingwei was trying to formalize his rival Nationalist government in Nanjing. This effort, known in Chinese as the Tong Operation, and in Japanese as Operation Kiri, led to talks in Hong Kong from March 7 to 10, 1940. Militarily, the Nationalists were in grave danger: the United States remained neutral, and Europe was in chaos. Indeed, that same spring, with France seemingly near collapse, the British government also sent out discreet feelers to explore the possibility of a negotiated peace with Germany. For China, Western assistance was nowhere in sight. The Japanese judged the moment favorable for pressing Chiang toward concessions. Faced with serious danger to his regime, Chiang allowed the door to negotiation to open just slightly.   As a consequence, the Japanese delayed full recognition of Wang Jingwei's new government. Through the summer and autumn of 1940, Tokyo remained uncertain about the defector. Prominent Japanese figures such as Count Arima Yoriyasu of the Privy Council said Wang's conduct demonstrated his untrustworthiness, and Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yōsuke continued to express interest in an agreement with Chongqing. Zhou Fohai captured the defectors' frustration, men who believed they had made the highest patriotic sacrifice when he wrote: "Chongqing sees us as collaborators, we see ourselves as heroes. We think only peace can save the country — that's why we think of ourselves as heroes. If we end up classed as heroes, then China and Japan will be at peace. If we end up classed as collaborators, then China and Japan will never be at peace."That formulation conveyed something genuine about the moral dizziness of the period. Most of the defectors were not men devoid of principles; they were men whose principles had carried them to a place that history would find exceptionally hard to pardon.   The "New Fourth Army Incident" brought to a close one of the most consequential years in modern Chinese political history. The battle of ideas unfolding in 1940 was already visible to informed contemporaries. Early in 1941, US Ambassador Nelson Johnson sent Washington a detailed assessment of the Chinese political situation in reply to another report passed along by Major Evans Carlson, an American officer who had made an extensive journey through the Chinese interior. The contrast between the two documents revealed a widening split in American views of China. Carlson, together with his travelling companion, the New Zealander Rewi Alley, had become increasingly sympathetic to the Communists after visiting their territories in 1938 and admiring their discipline. Carlson described the Nationalists as moving toward "fascism," and argued that American aid should be conditioned on Chiang's government being compelled to adopt more "democratic" institutions.   Johnson strongly disagreed. It was "only normal and natural," he wrote, that the Nationalists wanted to retain power, but during the war they had established the National Political Consultative Council, in which multiple parties, including the Communists, were represented. He also noted that the CCP could publish its own newspaper in Chongqing in a way that would have been impossible before the war. One might have expected the Nationalists to use the war as a justification "to extinguish . . . all political opposition," yet instead they had chosen to "muddle along." Johnson further thought that the influence of competing cliques inside the Nationalist Party had been overstated. Chiang Kai-shek, by contrast, had "grown in stature, as he has come to be recognized as the symbol of united resistance to Japanese encroachment"; ultimately, "it is he who makes the final decisions." Johnson did agree with Carlson that Chiang's regime was hesitant to encourage a broad-based popular movement animated by anything beyond anti-Japanese feeling, though he also pointed to Nationalist cooperative programs and county-level reforms. But he rejected the idea that American support should depend on sweeping political transformation. Chiang was committed to continuing the war against Japan, and Washington should back him in that effort. In a notably farsighted passage, Johnson wrote: "It is my view that since the fall of the Manchu dynasty and the collapse of the traditional Chinese concept of government the Chinese people have been feeling their way along toward a new evolving form of government. A definitive form of government has not yet been established and may not be established for decades; it may or may not be in the form of a democracy, but it will be a type of government that will be adapted to the needs of China and its people." The tension between these two American interpretations,  Carlson's idealized belief in the Communists and Johnson's pragmatic support for Chiang was more than a minor bureaucratic dispute. It foreshadowed a debate that would dominate American foreign policy for the next decade, and would still echo when the People's Republic was proclaimed in 1949.   The disastrous experience of 1940 seemed to cast doubt on whether any future for China existed outside the Japanese Empire. As 1941 wore on, another dreadful event shook the exhausted wartime capital. On June 5, Chongqing endured roughly five hours of bombing, driving the population into air-raid shelters. In one tunnel in the Shibati district, the conditions were even worse than usual. The large shelter was supposed to have lights and electric fans, but the generators had never been connected. Inside, the air was dark, hot, and suffocating. Around ten that evening, people began emerging from the tunnel when rumors spread that the Japanese were returning with poison-gas bombs. Air-raid wardens forced people back inside, even as others were still trying to come out. Bodies toppled over one another, and panic spread as people realized they could not breathe. Over the next few hours, hundreds died underground in the darkness. The exact number was never definitively established: the official figure was 461, though a contemporary police report placed it far higher, at 1,527. What rescuers remembered most vividly were the tortured expressions of the dead, people tangled together in each other's arms as they lost consciousness, clothing ripped to shreds by desperate hands clawing at one another, and bodies so drenched in sweat that they looked as though they had been soaked in water. One survivor, Tang Zhengchang, remembered a hand reaching out from a pile of corpses and pleading, "Sir, please help me . . ." The grip on Tang's shorts was so tight that it pulled them off; he escaped the tunnel naked from the waist down. Official descriptions of the disaster were softened. Even so, the tragedy deepened the city's gloom and in a place already saturated with grief, an added layer of darkness mattered a great deal.   Yet events elsewhere would soon offer the National Government a narrow margin of hope. Late in 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election as president of the United States. "I am not going to send your boys into any foreign wars," he had proclaimed during the campaign against Wendell Willkie. But Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull both understood that Nazi domination of Europe posed a grave challenge to American influence there. And with China's "Open Door" to trade effectively shut by Japanese occupation, it was becoming increasingly clear that strict neutrality might not remain viable. In a 1941 report on China's domestic and foreign situation, Ambassador Johnson noted that during Germany's sweeping victories across Europe in mid-1940, the Chinese had become anxious about whether the Allies would remain committed to their cause. Britain's refusal to surrender, however, together with continuing Soviet goodwill, lifted public morale in China. People now looked toward the United States and Britain for support and felt that "victory" was "virtually theirs."   Then, on June 22, 1941, the world awoke to news that roughly three million German soldiers were advancing into the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of the USSR, dramatically overturned the nonaggression that had governed relations between the two major European dictatorships for the previous two years. It transformed the war in Europe entirely. Less obviously, it also transformed the war in Asia. Thanks to intelligence leaks, Chiang Kai-shek had already realized that war between Germany and the USSR was likely. After the neutrality treaty between the USSR and Japan was signed on April 13, 1941, Chiang predicted that the United States would be drawn into the Asian war, and even that Japan might eventually reverse course and strike the Soviet Union. If that happened, China would become the critical Asian ally of both Washington and Moscow. Stalin had been caught off guard by the German assault — largely because he ignored increasingly urgent warnings from senior colleagues receiving intelligence from well-placed spies in Germany and the Comintern, eager to preserve its alliances, now pressed the Chinese Communists to cooperate more closely with the Nationalists. On June 23, 1941, the CCP Central Committee responded with a declaration that it would "persevere in the Anti-Japanese United Front, persevere in Nationalist-Communist cooperation," and would align itself with the British, the Americans, and others resisting the "fascist rulers" of the Axis.   In Chongqing and Yan'an, the German attack on the Soviet Union was interpreted as a hopeful sign that Japan's fortunes might be beginning to turn. In Nanjing, the reaction was different. On June 22, Zhou Fohai recorded in his diary that, although the outcome "cannot be predicted," members of the Nanjing regime "all believe Germany will win and will take Moscow within two months." Zhou speculated that Japan could not easily reconcile its neutrality treaty with the USSR and its membership in the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was supposed to unite the Axis against Soviet expansionism. Still, because Germany had struck first, Japan was under no formal obligation to help. Zhou also continued to view events through a lens he had never abandoned: that of Chinese nationalism. "If Chongqing joins the Allies and they win," he wrote, "then this is good for China." If they lost, it would be disastrous for Chiang Kai-shek; but because Wang Jingwei had established a government in Nanjing under Japanese sponsorship, China now had "a foot in both boats." It was a ruthless calculation, but not a wholly dishonorable one. Zhou was not merely advancing Japanese interests. He was hedging, wagering on multiple futures in the name of a China he believed would endure beyond whatever constellation of powers happened to dominate at the moment. Whether posterity would judge that conduct prudent or collaborative was a question he could neither settle nor live to see resolved to his satisfaction.   The summer of 1941 marked a major geopolitical turning point in the war. Until then, the conflicts in China and Europe had remained separate, if desperate, struggles on the Eurasian continent. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union now forced Japan to decide whether it too would enter war against the USSR. Debate in Tokyo was brief. Although some officials, including Foreign Minister Matsuoka, favored striking north before moving south, both the Kwantung Army and the Navy advised against helping Germany at least until Germany had succeeded in drawing substantial Soviet forces away from Siberia and into Europe. Konoye, once again prime minister, agreed. With the northern option set aside, Japanese leaders turned toward another great power instead: the United States. Japan's failure to gain further decisive momentum in China had fueled demands for broader regional expansion, especially into Southeast Asia, with its abundant oil, rubber, and other strategic resources. From 1940 onward, measures such as the pressure to close the Burma Road made it increasingly obvious that Tokyo had adopted a more aggressive posture in Asia. Unable to subdue China, Japanese policymakers chose instead to escalate the conflict still further.   Japanese political life had become ever more dominated by the unresolved war in China. As early as 1938, military expenditures consumed about 70 percent of the national budget, and that same year a National Mobilization Bill granted the government "total war control" over the zaibatsu, Japan's major industrial conglomerates. By 1940, the New Order was making itself felt throughout everyday life, with campaigns against luxury and extravagant consumption taking on new prominence. In February 1940, a parliamentarian was expelled from the Diet simply for daring to criticize the "holy war" in China. In such an atmosphere, retreat from imperial ambitions became increasingly unthinkable. That figure, 70 percent of the national budget devoted to the military is worth dwelling on, because it reveals something essential about the trap in which Japanese strategists had placed themselves. The war in China had not been won, yet abandoning it would have meant admitting a failure so severe that it would have shaken the ideological and institutional foundations of military supremacy in Japanese politics. The only apparent ways out required pushing further in: more conquest, more extraction, more expansion. The logic was brutally clear, and profoundly destructive.   The Roosevelt administration watched these developments with growing alarm. Though still formally neutral, the United States was already using Lend-Lease to provide major assistance to Britain and the Soviet Union in their struggles against Germany. It now expanded aid to China as well. On February 10, Roosevelt's representative Lauchlin Currie visited Chongqing to inform Chiang Kai-shek that the United States would soon provide $45 million in military equipment. General John Magruder, head of the small AMMISCA mission,  the American Military Mission in China had been sent to Chongqing in September 1941, as part of quiet preparation for possible Chinese entry into an alliance against Japan. The China branch of the OSS, precursor to the CIA, was led by General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, whom Roosevelt had dispatched to China in early 1941.   The Americans repeatedly tried to discourage Japan from moving south into Southeast Asia, but relations only grew more confrontational. Japan occupied the southern part of French Indochina, and in response the United States imposed an oil embargo in July 1941. The consequences were immense. Japan imported around 80 percent of its oil from the United States. Without that supply, its navy, the essential instrument for southern expansion  had reserves for perhaps eighteen months. The real question facing Tokyo, then, was not whether it must act, but how soon. Unable any longer to resist mounting military pressure for war, Konoye resigned on October 16 and was replaced as premier by General Tōjō Hideki. Tokyo accelerated its preparations for conflict with the Western powers. Planned targets included Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, and the Philippines. I should note, if you want to learn about all of this history in more detail, you can go check out the pacific war channel on youtube. I have a chronological series that is just now talking about events like the Japanese invasion of french indochina and the road to pearl harbor.   Throughout the autumn of 1941, increasingly desperate negotiations took place between Japan and the United States. Washington insisted that Japan withdraw from China; Tokyo was equally firm that it would do no such thing. From the Japanese point of view, the demand to leave China was not a serious negotiating position but a demand for national humiliation a call to repudiate four years of war, vast casualties, and the ideological basis of Japanese militarism in a single diplomatic act. In the end, the gulf between the two positions could not be bridged.   While civilian and military leaders in Tokyo argued over the pace at which they should move toward war, few among Japan's rulers doubted that war was coming. At the imperial conference of November 5, it was formally agreed that if no satisfactory diplomatic solution had been reached by December 1, war would follow soon after. Talks in Washington between Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburō, diplomat Kurusu Saburō, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull led nowhere. On November 26, Hull delivered a note repeating the American position that Japan must withdraw from both China and Indochina. On December 1, the imperial conference resolved to go to war; the following day, the date of attack was fixed as December 8, December 7 by American time. In one sense, this was the culmination toward which the entire previous decade had been moving. The war in China had started as a localized conflict, then expanded into a continental one, and was now about to become something larger still: a truly global war, stretching from the North Atlantic to the western Pacific. China's long, lonely resistance would suddenly gain new dimensions and new allies,  though not the ones Chiang had spent four years trying to cultivate, and not under circumstances he would have chosen.   In the early morning of December 7, 1941, the US Pacific Fleet lay anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, its sailors and officers still largely asleep as dawn crept across the Pacific. The attack did not come without warning signs,  American and Japanese diplomats had been locked in increasingly desperate negotiations throughout the autumn, each side hardening its position until no room remained to maneuver. Washington had demanded that Japan withdraw from China, a condition Tokyo viewed not as a serious opening offer but as a demand for national humiliation: a call to repudiate four years of brutal war, hundreds of thousands of casualties, and the entire ideological foundation upon which Japanese militarism rested. No agreement was possible on those terms, and both sides privately knew it.   The strike force assembled in secret was formidable. Six aircraft carriers,  the Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku had sailed under strict radio silence across the North Pacific, launching their aircraft in two successive waves before the American base had any meaningful chance to respond. The first wave of approximately 183 planes swept in just before 8 a.m., targeting the rows of battleships moored along Battleship Row and the military airfields at Wheeler, Hickam, and Ford Island simultaneously, ensuring that American aircraft could not scramble in time to mount an effective defense. A second wave of roughly 170 planes followed less than an hour later, pressing the attack on damaged ships and harbor installations.   The destruction was staggering. The battleship Arizona suffered a catastrophic magazine explosion after a armor-piercing bomb penetrated her forward decks, killing nearly 1,177 of her crew in minutes, almost half of the total American dead from the entire attack. The Oklahoma capsized after being struck by multiple torpedoes. The West Virginia and California sank at their moorings. In total, seventeen vessels were damaged or destroyed, and the vast majority of military aircraft at the nearby airfields were caught on the ground and obliterated before they could take flight. Around 2,400 Americans were killed and another 1,100 wounded, making it the deadliest single attack on American soil or territory in the nation's history to that point.   Yet the attack was not a complete strategic success for Japan. The US Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers, the vessels that would ultimately decide the naval war in the Pacific happened to be at sea that morning and escaped unharmed. The harbor's fuel storage and repair facilities were also left largely intact, allowing the fleet to reconstitute faster than Japanese planners had anticipated. What Japan achieved in tactical devastation, it partly squandered in strategic miscalculation. The attack ended American neutrality instantly and irrevocably. The following day, President Roosevelt addressed Congress, calling December 7 "a date which will live in infamy," and within hours the United States declared war on Japan. For China, after more than four years of fighting alone, the blow that devastated Pearl Harbor paradoxically carried a thread of desperate hope at last, the great power Chiang Kai-shek had spent years trying to draw into the conflict had arrived, not under circumstances he would have chosen, but arrived nonetheless. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. After years of fighting, China's situation darkened in 1941 with intense bombing of Chongqing and fears of poison-gas attacks. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June shifted alliances and pressured Japan toward wider war. Japan escalated plans for Southeast Asia, suffered an oil embargo, and negotiations with the United States broke down over withdrawing from China and Indochina. Then the Pearl Harbor attack began the Pacific War.

Recorded: Early May 2026In this episode, Ryan and Zongjun (Sam) record live from Canton Fair in Guangzhou to map the Chinese matcha scene in 2026. They cover what changed in two years: "average quality" material that now rivals "average quality" Japanese tencha at 50 to 150 US dollars a kilo, the 8+ provinces producing tencha, Chinese cultivars like Longjing 43, Echa 10, and Fuding Da Bai, GuiCha confirming 4,000 tons of annual output nearly equal to all of Japan, and Ito En quietly sourcing Chinese tencha. Plus ball milling versus imported ishi usu, pesticide residue and EU export compliance, and why seven competing grading systems prove ceremonial grade means nothing.

With the 2026 summer travel season now at its peak, China's tourism market continues to sizzle, with record-breaking passenger flows and shifting preferences reshaping the holiday landscape, according to travel agencies.各大旅行社表示，2026年暑期旅游正值旺季峰值，国内文旅市场热度持续高涨，出行人次创下新高，游客偏好不断转变，重塑了假日出行格局。Travel booking platforms are reporting strong growth. Tuniu, an online travel agency, said bookings for summer tourism products had risen 17 percent year-on-year as of late July, with domestic travel bookings up more than 20 percent. On online travel platform Qunar, summer car rental bookings have increased by nearly 60 percent year-on-year.旅游预订平台订单量大幅攀升。在线旅游服务商途牛数据显示，截至7月下旬，暑期旅游产品预订量同比上涨17%，其中国内游预订涨幅超20%；去哪儿平台暑期租车订单同比增长近60%。To further stimulate summer consumption, more than 450 million yuan ($66 million) in travel vouchers will be distributed nationwide this summer, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.文化和旅游部称，今年夏季全国将发放总额超4.5亿元（折合6600万美元）文旅消费券，进一步拉动暑期消费。More than 30,000 culture and tourism consumption events will also be held across the country. Local authorities will expand the supply of high-quality tourism and cultural offerings, including summer retreats, coastal vacations, nighttime tourism, cruises and yachting, family trips, study tours, culinary experiences and museum visits, the ministry said.全国各地还将举办三万余场文旅消费活动。文旅部介绍，各地持续丰富优质文旅产品供给，涵盖避暑休闲、滨海度假、夜间文旅、邮轮游艇、亲子家庭游、研学旅行、美食体验、博物馆游览等多种业态。Family travel remains the dominant force in the summer tourism market. Parents and kids account for over 60 percent of summer travelers on Tuniu and 45 percent on Qunar. According to Qunar, the top family travel destinations this summer are Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu in Sichuan province, Kunming in Yunnan province and Guangzhou in Guangdong province.亲子家庭游依旧是暑期旅游市场主力军。途牛平台暑期亲子游客占比超60%，去哪儿平台该比例达45%。去哪儿数据显示，今夏热门亲子目的地依次为上海、北京、四川成都、云南昆明以及广东广州。Family travel itself is also evolving. Gone are the days when parents planned trips entirely around their children's needs. This summer, as more people born after 1995 become parents, an "everyone has a good time" approach to family vacations is becoming increasingly popular, according to Qunar.亲子游模式也在不断迭代。过去父母一切围绕孩子需求规划行程的时代已然过去。去哪儿平台表示，随着大批95后步入父母行列，兼顾全家游玩体验、人人都能收获快乐的度假理念愈发流行。Hotels are adapting to the trend by offering childcare services and children's clubs. On Qunar, searches for hotels with childcare services and children's programs rose 40 percent month-on-month. The five most popular search criteria for family-friendly hotels are swimming pools, children's clubs, washing machines, refrigerators and child safety facilities.各大酒店顺应趋势，纷纷推出托管服务、儿童乐园。去哪儿平台上，带有育儿服务、儿童游乐项目的酒店搜索量环比上涨40%；亲子酒店五大热门筛选条件为：泳池、儿童俱乐部、洗衣机、冰箱、儿童安全设施。Yan Yun, a resident of Wuhan, Hubei province, in her 30s, is traveling with her 5-year-old daughter and her brother's family — five people in all — on a nine-day road trip from Shenyang and Dalian in Liaoning province to Yantai, Shandong province, from July 25 to Aug 2.湖北武汉30多岁市民严芸，带着5岁女儿以及哥哥一家，共计五人，开启了9天自驾之旅：7月25日至8月2日，从辽宁沈阳、大连一路前往山东烟台。Still on the road and renting a car for the entire trip, Yan said the journey has been highly enjoyable.全程租车自驾、旅途仍在继续的严芸坦言，这次出行体验十分美好。She said traveling with children slows the pace and requires more negotiation, making the itinerary less predictable.她说道，带孩子出游行程节奏会放缓，凡事需要互相商量，旅途计划不会一成不变。Despite the slower pace, she described the journey as a unique and rewarding experience for the whole family.虽说行程节奏舒缓，但她认为这场旅行给全家人带来了独一无二、充实美好的收获。The growing demand for richer travel experiences has become another defining feature of this summer's tourism market. Tuniu said users are increasingly seeking in-depth and experiential travel, driven by sustained demand for emotional value and experience-based consumption.游客对沉浸式深度体验的需求攀升，是今夏文旅市场另一大鲜明特点。途牛表示，受情感价值需求与体验式消费热潮带动，游客愈发偏爱深度体验游。Li Pengbo, Communist Party of China secretary of the School of Tourism Sciences at Beijing International Studies University and a professor at the school, said the shift reflects a fundamental change in consumer values.北京第二外国语学院旅游科学学院党委书记、教授李朋波表示，这种出游偏好转变，本质上是大众消费观念的更迭。"In the era of 'check-in tourism', when travel opportunities were relatively scarce, simply having been somewhere was valuable. Photos served as proof, and social media posts announced the experience.“打卡旅游盛行的年代，出游机会有限，只要抵达过某地就极具意义；拍照留存当作凭证，再发到社交平台分享，便是旅行的全部意义。”"Today, as travel becomes more routine, the marginal value of simply having been somewhere has plummeted. How did you travel? What did you feel? Do you have a story to tell? These have become the new value anchors," Li said.李教授讲道：“如今旅行早已常态化，单纯到此一游的边际价值大幅下降。人们更在意出行方式、内心感受、旅途故事，这些才是当下旅行新的价值核心。”That helps explain the rapid rise of experiences such as city walks, intangible cultural heritage workshops and local food tours, which offer stories to tell rather than simply places to show, he said.这也就能解释为何城市漫步、非遗手作体验、本地美食探访等项目迅速走红：这类旅行重在收获可讲述的旅途故事，而非单纯打卡景点。Summer also remains the peak season for both outbound and inbound travel. According to Qunar, the most popular outbound destinations include Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Indonesia and the United States. Thailand tops the list, with skill-learning trips — in which travelers learn activities such as cooking, yoga and Muay Thai — driving a 3.3-fold increase in hotel bookings in Chiang Mai.暑期同样是出入境旅游旺季。去哪儿数据显示，热门出境目的地有泰国、韩国、马来西亚、新加坡、中国香港、印度尼西亚、美国。泰国稳居榜首，厨艺、瑜伽、泰拳等技能研学旅行热度高涨，直接带动清迈酒店预订量暴涨3.3倍。Inbound tourism is also booming, with Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu among the most popular destinations.入境游市场同样蓬勃发展，上海、北京、广州、成都最受外籍游客青睐。By source market, the leading countries for inbound travelers this summer are Thailand, Canada, the US, the United Kingdom and Russia. Greek visitors to China increased 9.5 times year-on-year, the fastest growth among all source markets. Visitor numbers from Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Sweden, Finland and Mexico also more than doubled, according to Qunar.从客源国来看，今夏来华游客主要来自泰国、加拿大、美国、英国、俄罗斯。其中希腊来华游客同比暴涨9.5倍，涨幅位居所有客源市场首位；斯里兰卡、蒙古、瑞典、芬兰、墨西哥来华人数也均实现翻倍增长。surge /sɜːdʒ/激增，热潮sizzle /ˈsɪzl/热度高涨，火爆experiential /ɪkˌspɪəriˈenʃl/体验式的plummet /ˈplʌmɪt/暴跌，大幅下降intangible /ɪnˈtændʒəbl/无形的outbound /ˈaʊtbaʊnd/出境的；外出的

Ze Long was born and raised in Germany to Cantonese parents from Guangzhou, and grew up speaking both languages at home before he could speak either one fluently outside it. Now living in Almaty, Kazakhstan, he joins me to talk about Cantonese food and culture — not the version most of us know from Chinese restaurants abroad, but the real regional differences, the history behind it, and what it means to carry a cuisine across three countries and counting.We get into the actual differences between Hong Kong and Guangdong (colonial history included), why congee became a survival food during hard times in China and what it's become since, the family soup tradition he avoided for years, and the fusion cooking his parents built at home using local German ingredients with Cantonese seasoning. We also talk about living in Beijing versus the south, and the very real north-south stereotypes that hold up more than you'd expect.If you can, watch this one instead of just listening — there are maps and photos throughout that add a lot of context.The Food I Take With Me: https://substack.com/@wherewefindhome/note/p-196644782?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=7usnd0Hong Kong with Tess Cheng: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2j1eFF29Uua84rom1kQF3c?si=ee65895878094f5fHang out with me: Food: @tastytrailstravelpod Life in Korea: @wherewefindhome Identity & Belonging: SubstackSources: Map: "Guangdong in China (+all claims hatched).svg" by TUBS, used under CC BY-SA 3.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guangdong_in_China_(%2Ball_claims_hatched).svg/ License Link: creativecommons.orgMap: "Guangdong2.png" by User: (WT-shared) Cacahuate at wts wikivoyage, PhiLiP (svg base), Shaundd (2019 modifications), used under CC BY-SA 2.0. License Link: creativecommons.org. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guangdong2.png

Typhoon Noul slammed into the coastal city of Huizhou in Guangdong province in the early hours of Sunday morning, bringing violent winds and torrential rain that flooded streets, toppled trees and billboards, disrupted transportation and forced the evacuation of more than 801,000 residents.上周日凌晨，台风红霞正面登陆广东省沿海城市惠州，狂风暴雨造成城区街道积水、树木与广告牌倒伏、交通全面受阻，当地紧急转移安置群众超 80.1 万人中央气象台。Noul, the 12th typhoon of the year, is the first typhoon to make landfall in Guangdong this year. So far, it is also the strongest typhoon to hit China this year and the most powerful to strike areas east of the Pearl River Estuary in the past decade.台风红霞是 2026 年第 12 号台风，也是今年首个登陆广东的台风。该台风为今年登陆我国强度最高的台风，同时是近十年来侵袭珠江口以东区域最强台风。The typhoon battered the cities of Huizhou, Shanwei and Shenzhen in eastern Guangdong with strong gales and heavy downpours, damaging infrastructure and causing widespread economic losses.台风裹挟狂风暴雨持续肆虐粤东惠州、汕尾、深圳三市，大量基础设施受损，区域经济损失严重。Fifteen of the hardest-hit cities suspended classes, construction, production, transportation and business operations to mitigate the risk of accidents and casualties. Authorities also ordered all offshore workers to return to shore and required fishing vessels to seek shelter as of Saturday.为降低人员伤亡与安全事故风险，15 个受灾严重城市实行停课、停工、停产、停运、停业。相关部门已于周六下达指令，要求全部海上作业人员上岸避险、渔船回港避风。More than 801,000 residents living in low-lying areas were evacuated ahead of the typhoon's landfall. Emergency response measures were activated in 135 districts and counties across the province's 19 prefecture-level cities.台风登陆前，低洼地带超 80.1 万名群众完成转移避险。全省 19 个地级市共计 135 个区县全部启动应急响应。At 5:13 am on Sunday, emergency workers waded through floodwaters in Huizhou's Ruhu township to remove fallen trees and other debris, clearing the way for an ambulance transporting a pregnant woman to a hospital for delivery, according to local authorities.当地应急管理部门通报，周日凌晨 5 时 13 分，惠州汝湖镇应急救援人员蹚过积水路段，清理倒伏树木、杂物，为运送待产孕妇的救护车打通救援通道。At a village in Shanwei, rescuers and firefighters evacuated 27 elderly residents and children after floodwaters inundated the community early on Sunday.周日清晨，汕尾一处村落被洪水淹没，救援队员与消防人员紧急转移村内 27 名老人与孩童。Xie Yutong, an office worker in Huizhou's Huicheng district, said she had never experienced such intense rainfall.惠州市惠城区上班族谢雨桐表示，自己从未遭遇过如此猛烈的暴雨。"Rainwater rushed into my home through the balcony," said Xie, adding that residents had been advised to avoid non-essential travel.“雨水顺着阳台灌进家中。” 谢雨桐介绍，此前有关部门已提醒居民非必要不外出。Deng Li, a volunteer, described stepping forward to assist residents during critical moments as his bounden duty.志愿者邓力表示，危难时刻挺身而出、帮扶受灾群众，是自己义不容辞的责任。The typhoon also severely disrupted transportation. China Railway Guangzhou Group adjusted or suspended all high-speed and conventional rail services beginning on Saturday, while widespread flight delays and cancellations were reported at airports in Guangzhou and Shenzhen over the weekend.台风造成交通运行严重受阻。自周六起，中国铁路广州局调整、停运全部高铁及普速列车；周末期间，广州白云机场、深圳宝安机场大量航班延误、取消。As of 10 am on Sunday, China Southern, China Eastern, Hainan Airlines and Shenzhen Airlines had canceled a total of 377 arriving and departing flights.截至周日上午 10 时，南方航空、东方航空、海南航空、深圳航空累计取消进出港航班 377 班。Ye Menglong, a meteorological analyst with Weather China, said unusually high sea surface temperatures in the South China Sea fueled Noul's rapid intensification before landfall, allowing it to strike Guangdong at severe typhoon strength. However, he warned that landfall does not mean the danger has passed.中国天气网气象分析师叶梦龙分析，南海海域海面温度异常偏高，促使台风红霞登陆前快速增强，以强台风级别登陆广东。他同时警示，台风登陆并不代表风险解除。"Combined with monsoon moisture transport, coastal areas in eastern Guangdong will continue to be battered by torrential rain, with parts of Heyuan, Meizhou, Chaozhou, Jieyang, Shanwei and Huizhou expected to experience extreme rainfall in the coming days," Ye said.叶梦龙表示：“叠加季风水汽输送，粤东沿海地区仍将持续遭遇暴雨侵袭，未来数日，河源、梅州、潮州、揭阳、汕尾、惠州多地将出现特大暴雨。”Guangdong authorities have urged cities and relevant departments to make every effort to combat the disaster, placing the protection of lives and property as the top priority.广东省相关部门要求各地市、各职能部门全力开展防汛救灾工作，将保障人民群众生命财产安全放在首位。They called for continuous inspections to identify safety risks and timely and decisive evacuations.各地需持续开展安全隐患排查，一旦发现险情，及时果断组织群众转移避险。According to the provincial department of water resources, 261 reservoirs across the province had discharged a combined 697 million cubic meters of water on Saturday to increase flood-control storage capacity.广东省水利厅数据显示，周六全省 261 座水库合计泄洪 6.97 亿立方米，腾出库容提升防洪调蓄能力。Meanwhile, the National Development and Reform Commission allocated 100 million yuan ($14.7 million) in emergency funding to support Guangdong's post-typhoon recovery.国家发展和改革委员会紧急下达 1 亿元人民币（折合 1470 万美元）救灾专项资金，专项用于广东省台风过后灾后恢复重建工作。Noul is expected to move northwest at 10 to 15 kilometers per hour, pass through central Guangdong, enter southern Hunan province in the early hours of Monday and gradually weaken.预计台风红霞将以每小时 10 至 15 公里的速度向西北方向移动，途经广东中部，于周一凌晨进入湖南南部，随后强度逐步减弱。torrential /təˈrenʃl/adj. 暴雨倾泻的，猛烈的evacuation /ɪˌvækjuˈeɪʃn/n. 人员疏散，转移安置infrastructure /ˈɪnfrəstrʌktʃə(r)/n. 基础设施reconstruction /ˌriːkənˈstrʌkʃn/n. 灾后重建，恢复

This week on Sinica, a rare treat: an in-person recording from Beijing with two dear friends who happen to be two of the very best in the business on technology and China — Samm Sacks and Paul Triolo, fresh off the exhibition floor of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. We dig into Xi Jinping's first in-person WAIC appearance and his most extensive statement on AI to date, the launch of the World AI Cooperation Organization, Moonshot's release of Kimi K3, the Trump administration's reported push to shut Chinese open-weight models out of the U.S. market, the coming age of agents, the untranslatable problem of ānquán, and what to expect from the first U.S.-China AI dialogue in September.8:51 – The view from the floor: heat, humidity, robot boxing grandmas, WeChat-gated free water, and the "AI+" vibe — why WAIC 2026 felt less like an AI conference than a sector-by-sector snapshot of China's entire economy being supercharged with AI, with attendance swelling to some 200,000 tickets16:32 – Why Xi showed up: what the leader's first in-person WAIC appearance and his most extensive AI statement to date signal, and why domestic drivers matter as much as geopolitics18:01 – Chapter and verse: which phrases from the speech will be put to work in the system — "secure and orderly development" and the governance of agents, and Xi's strikingly extensive language on AI safety after China was frozen out of the Paris process22:26 – The ānquán problem: one word meaning both "safety" and "security," the three buckets of AI risk, and how China's safety community has moved from bias and deepfakes toward CBRN and loss-of-control concerns — Black Mirror versus Star Trek28:14 – Shanghai's baby: how WAIC's ownership structure differs from the CAC-run World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Chen Jining's very visible host duties, and whether the center of gravity in AI policy is shifting to the Yangtze River Delta30:05 – WAICO: what the new World AI Cooperation Organization with its 29 founding members is actually for, Xi's concrete deliverables for the Global South — 5,000 AI training slots, regional cooperation centers, the MAZU early-warning system — and healthy skepticism about follow-through34:39 – Kimi K3: what's technically significant in Moonshot's big new model, why it's the fourth arguably frontier-class Chinese release in a single month, the two-way traffic in distillation accusations, and what it all says about the state of the frontier gap four years into export controls40:33 – Washington reacts: the reported menu of options for shutting Chinese open-weight models out of the U.S. — entity listings, a draft executive order, supply-chain security authorities — and why none of the tools actually fit the problem49:36 – Strange bedfellows: David Sacks versus the "closed lab duopoly," the FUD strategy, why some 80% of Andreessen Horowitz portfolio companies reportedly run on Chinese open models, and how gating U.S. frontier models while Chinese weights flow freely supercharges the AI sovereignty argument worldwide54:55 – The model is infrastructure, the agent is the product: the ByteDance–ZTE agentic phone, the CAC's new initiative on agent trust and interoperability, and why agents fused into operating systems upend both super-app walled gardens and China's data protection regime1:02:27 – An exegesis of kěkòng: the many meanings of "controllable," the long history of ānquán kěkòng in Chinese tech policy, and the unanswered question of who — CAC, NDRC, or somebody new — actually owns AI safety in either system1:08:54 – The road to September: what to expect from the first U.S.-China AI dialogue, why Mythos tops the Chinese grievance list, the securitization feedback loop that starves trust-and-safety advocates of resources on both sides, and why recursive self-improvement makes this feel like a last, best chancePaying It ForwardPaul nominates Tony Peng, whose Substack RecodeChinaAI offers sharp, well-written analysis of the application side of China's AI industry — part of an impressive new generation of independent China tech writers. Samm gives a shout-out to Professor Zhu Yue of Tongji University Law School, published in Science and doing pioneering work at the intersection of disability law and AI law.RecommendationsSamm: The Land and Its People by David Sedaris — laugh-out-loud funny, especially the "Enough is Enough" chapter; Transcription by Ben Lerner, a perfect small novel about fathers, sons, memory, and technology as enabler or disabler of connection; and Didion and Babitz, on Joan Didion and Eve Babitz and the 1970s California rock scene.Paul: The Party's Interests Come First by Joseph Torigian — dense but beautifully written, and essential for understanding the current Chinese leadership.Kaiser: A fiction-only summer! Stoner by John Williams, a small life told most grandly in some of the most beautiful sentence-level writing anywhere; Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, an epistolary novel dense with distilled wisdom from a dying Iowa minister; and Wang Xiaobo's The Golden Age (黄金时代) in Yan Yan's excellent new translation — bawdy, hilarious, and super Beijing-y despite its Cultural Revolution setting.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

TRACKLIST : Aukin - Space station (Daniele Griffo remix) JP Elorriaga - Batango Domo - Juliet (Erdal Mauff remix) Lerio Corrado - Cluster Alessio Frino & Rone White - Let me know Alex Gamez & Alex Sounds - Indiana Milos Pesovic - Elements Nacho Marco - When you love Malia Nima - Flavor Hollowgram - Looney tunes Ernest Oh - Ego (Spega remix) Yamil - Inside you (Luixar KL remix)

This week on Sinica, in a special episode recorded at the Davos On Air booth at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian, I sat down with Angela Huyue Zhang, professor of law at USC's Gould School of Law and author of High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy, and S. Alex Yang, professor of management science and operations at London Business School. Angela and Alex — who are also married, and who arrived at this collaboration from opposite ends of the academy — have developed what I think is one of the most useful new mental models for understanding China's political economy: the platform state. Their argument is that we should think of the Chinese state less as a central planner or owner and more as a platform company like NVIDIA or Apple, one that builds architecture, sets standards, and governs an ecosystem within which fiercely competitive private firms fight it out. Value accrues at the system level rather than as firm profit, and the payoff may decide who wins the race to put AI to work across an entire economy.5:37 – Three puzzles the framework is built to solve: profitless dominance in solar, EVs, and batteries; why the "grabbing hand" hasn't strangled Chinese innovation; and how China is attempting both zero-to-one invention and one-to-hundred scaling at once7:57 – The platform state thesis: why the Chinese government behaves like a platform company, how nurturing an ecosystem of private firms solves the information deficit that cripples command-and-control, and why over-entry, involution, and consolidation are a repeated pattern — from EVs to the 140-plus humanoid robot companies operating today16:13 – The aha moment: how a paper on the legal infrastructure of physical AI became the platform state idea over the Zhang-Yang dinner table, and whether this is a new species of political economy or the East Asian developmental state in new clothes20:44 – State conditions: why state capacity and domestic scale are the two preconditions for the model, and why an ambitious Vietnam — which has the top-down capacity — may still find the Chinese playbook impossible to replicate23:39 – Profitless dominance by design: harvesting versus extracting, the Uber analogy, overshooting as a control-theory strategy for nudging sectors, and how the anti-involution campaign and the 60-day supplier payment mandate show the state moderating the very competition it engineered30:33 – Organized chaos: from the bike-sharing graveyards of the O2O wars to today's disciplined market, the exit of more than 400 EV makers since 2018, and why the survivors of China's "Premier League" of competition are now turning profitable32:59 – The 3Gs playbook: growing markets by solving the cold-start problem, from Liuzhou's EV test drives to Beijing's green license plates, and how subsidy is only one lever among many38:36 – Governing the ecosystem like Apple runs its App Store: why Beijing regulates generative AI with a light touch but physical AI is a different species entirely, law as the sixth layer of the AI stack, why robotaxis scale faster in China than in the U.S., and the state-convened standard-setting that's driving down humanoid robot costs46:54 – Two flywheels: the familiar data-and-cost flywheel and the deeper state capacity flywheel, and how the National AI Fund's small but voting stake in DeepSeek aligns a complementor with the domestic stack — tilting the ecosystem toward Chinese chips53:28 – Guarding the moat: automotive data rules and Tesla's stalled FSD ambitions, the unwound Manus sale, China's own small yard and high fence, and the closing provocation — that America could build the smartest frontier models and still lose the diffusion race to "artificial good-enough intelligence." Plus: the case for coopetition, and what policymakers should (and shouldn't) borrow from the platform stateLinks from the episodeAngela's paper on law as the sixth layer of China's AI stack:The Sixth Layer: The Legal Infrastructure for Physical Artificial Intelligence in China (SSRN)Three Project Syndicate op-eds on the platform state idea:The Rise of the Chinese Platform State by S. Alex Yang & Angela Huyue ZhangAre Government Stakes the Key to AI Sovereignty? by Angela Huyue ZhangOvercapacity Is China's Biggest AI Advantage by Angela Huyue ZhangTwo Management Science papers on commercial platforms:Crowd-Judging on Two-Sided Platforms: An Analysis of In-Group BiasImproving Dispute Resolution in Two-Sided Platforms: The Case of Review BlackmailSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nick spricht mit unserem China-Tour-Guide und Experten Sascha Kurfess über seine Eindrücke von der dritten Future Candy China-Reise im April 2026. Von Peking über Shenzhen bis Guangzhou: humanoide Roboter, autonome Taxis, Flugtaxen und ein neuer KI-Trend, der gerade jedes Haushaltsgerät erobert. Wie schafft es China, neue Technologien so schnell in den Alltag zu bringen? Und was können wir Europäer davon lernen? Ein Podcast voller Insights, die man nur vor Ort sammeln kann. Viel Spaß beim Hören! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

China's national football team may not have qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, but the country remains a major contributor to the tournament through its manufacturing industry, which has a key role in producing a large share of the official merchandise sold to fans worldwide.中国国家男子足球队虽未晋级2026年国际足联世界杯，但依托本国制造业，中国仍是本届赛事的重要支撑方；全球球迷所购的官方周边商品，很大一部分都由中国生产。The tournament, staged across 16 host cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico, will run from June 11 to July 19. This year's World Cup is bigger than ever as it will feature 48 football teams, instead of the usual 32 teams.本届世界杯在美国、加拿大、墨西哥共计16座主办城市举办，赛事周期为6月11日至7月19日。本届世界杯规模创下历史新高，参赛球队由往届的32支扩充至48支。Much of the World Cup-themed merchandise and souvenirs bought by fans was manufactured in Yiwu International Trade City, in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, famous as the world's largest wholesale small commodity market.球迷选购的大部分世界杯主题周边与纪念商品，都产自浙江义乌国际商贸城，这里是全球规模最大的小商品批发市场。Mike Smith, 60, from East London, was in New York shopping with his wife at an official FIFA World Cup 2026 store temporarily located on the ground-floor of the plush mall The Shops at Columbus Circle in Manhattan.60岁的迈克·史密斯来自伦敦东区，他和妻子正在纽约曼哈顿哥伦布圆环高端购物中心一层的2026世界杯官方临时门店购物。Smith told China Daily: "There's a nice selection of things in here. I expect a lot of the merchandise is made in China. It is good as that means they're still a part of the tournament."史密斯接受《中国日报》采访时表示：“店里商品种类十分丰富。我猜大部分周边都是中国制造，这是件好事，说明中国始终参与着这项赛事。”"We have to get our grandson a T-shirt in a large or he won't be very happy with us. He's football-mad! We are very excited about the matches and the England boys are doing well so far. So, all-in-all it's been a nice trip."“我们得给孙子买一件大号T恤，不然他会不开心。他是个狂热球迷！我们对赛事满怀期待，目前英格兰队的发挥也很不错。总的来说，这次出行十分愉快。”"Made in China" labels could be seen on official FIFA products, ranging from scarves, key rings, T-shirts, mini footballs, jackets and more.国际足联官方商品随处可见“中国制造”标签，品类涵盖围巾、钥匙扣、T恤、迷你足球、外套等各类产品。Some items were made in the likeness of very popular World Cup players like Argentina's Lionel Messi and Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo.部分商品以梅西、C罗等世界杯人气球星为原型制作，梅西效力阿根廷队，C罗代表葡萄牙队。Local manufacturers in Yiwu told Chinese media that they began receiving orders from international buyers in early 2025 to ensure they reached overseas markets in time for the kick-off of the World Cup.义乌本地厂商向国内媒体透露，早在2025年初他们就接到海外采购商订单，保障商品能在世界杯开赛之前准时销往全球市场。However, the football souvenirs are not just being made in Yiwu.不过，足球纪念商品的产地并不只有义乌。Some are produced in Guangzhou in Guangdong province, Qingdao in Shandong province and Xiamen in Fujian province, according to local media reports.据地方媒体报道，广东广州、山东青岛、福建厦门也有工厂生产相关周边。A production plant in Guangdong manufactured the official match ball of the 2026 World Cup, called Trionda. Some match balls are fitted with Chinese smart chips.广东一家工厂打造了2026世界杯官方比赛用球“特里安达”，部分比赛用球内置中国研发的智能芯片。At one other official FIFA store in New York, a member of staff, who did not want to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media, said that the shop was extremely busy most days as many shoppers from all over the world bought multiple things.纽约另一家世界杯官方门店一名不愿透露姓名的店员（无对外媒体采访权限）称，门店平日里客流爆满，世界各地的消费者都会一次性选购多款商品。He added that the most popular items for sale were the T-shirts, baseball hats, pins and scarves with the FIFA 2026 World Cup logo on them. All "Made in China" products.他补充道，印有2026世界杯标识的T恤、棒球帽、徽章和围巾最畅销，这些商品全部为中国制造。FIFA licenses its official merchandise, including products with the tournament's logo and emblem and team crests. Any unauthorized replicas infringe trademark rights and can be seized by customs.国际足联对官方周边实行授权管理，含赛事标识、会徽、球队队徽的商品均在授权范围内；未经许可的仿制品涉嫌侵犯商标权，海关可依法予以扣押。Some of the other merchandise on display in stores were made in Vietnam or Cambodia, the labels showed.门店陈列的其余部分周边商品，标签显示产自越南或柬埔寨。Various football fans were browsing through the goods for sale at another very busy FIFA Store located in Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan on Monday.周一，曼哈顿洛克菲勒广场另一间客流火爆的世界杯官方门店内，各路球迷正在挑选在售商品。Nearby in Rockefeller Center, a line of customers eagerly waited to view exhibits inside a FIFA museum, adorned with the photos of a few iconic football players outside, including the late Pele of Brazil.不远处的洛克菲勒中心内，大批游客排队等候参观国际足联博物馆；场馆外墙陈列多位传奇球星海报，其中包含已故巴西球王贝利。China's presence at the World Cup even extends beyond the stores and onto the pitch.中国对本届世界杯的参与不止体现在周边门店，赛场之上也随处可见中国元素。Pop Mart's famous Labubu dolls made an appearance at the opening ceremony.泡泡玛特热门IP拉布布玩偶亮相世界杯开幕式。Two life-sized Labubu dolls in football jerseys were seen lifting a replica of the World Cup trophy at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City on June 11.6月11日，墨西哥城阿兹特克体育场中，两个真人大小、身着球衣的拉布布玩偶举起大力神杯复刻模型。A pair of Chinese-made football boots gained attention during the tournament.一款中国制造的足球战靴在赛事期间备受关注。Cape Verde goalkeeper Josimar Jose Evora Dias, commonly known as Vozinha, wore Senda Mendoza Elite boots manufactured by Xufeng Sports Products in Putian, Fujian province.佛得角门将若西马尔·若泽·埃沃拉·迪亚斯（昵称沃济尼亚）上脚了福建莆田旭峰体育生产的森达门多萨精英款足球鞋。His team competed with European champions Spain to get a surprise 0-0 draw in Atlanta on June 15.6月15日亚特兰大赛场，他所在的佛得角队逼平欧洲冠军西班牙队，爆出0比0的冷门。Chinese beverage makers, including Luckin Coffee and Cotti Coffee, have struck partnerships with national teams such as Spain and Argentina, according to Xinhua News Agency.新华社消息，瑞幸咖啡、库迪咖啡等中国饮品品牌已与西班牙、阿根廷等国家队达成合作。Chinese technology is also a big part of the tournament. Chinese TV maker Hisense is the official Video Assistant Referee (VAR) review TV provider used to make crucial game decisions, Yahoo reported.科技领域同样少不了中国身影。雅虎报道，中国电视厂商海信为本届赛事提供视频助理裁判（VAR）专用回放显示屏，用于裁决比赛关键判罚。Lenovo, a Chinese technology firm, is the supplier of equipment to 16 stadiums in the tournament. Both the company's servers and artificial intelligence devices will be used.中国科技企业联想为全部16座赛事场馆供应设备，赛事将投入使用联想服务器与人工智能设备。China is also taking part through a trio of its referees in the event: Fu Ming, assistant referee Zhou Fei, and Ma Ning, a VAR.三名中国裁判也参与本届世界杯执法工作，分别是主裁判傅明、助理裁判周飞、视频助理裁判马宁。Host cities Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara have 115 light-rail trains manufactured by CRRC, a Chinese rail transit equipment supplier.墨西哥城、蒙特雷、瓜达拉哈拉三座主办城市投入运营115列轻轨列车，全部由中国中车轨道交通装备企业制造。In Mexico City, 800 new-energy shuttle buses — 95 percent of them made in China — will help take fans between venues, Xinhua reported.新华社报道，墨西哥城投放800辆新能源接驳大巴，其中95%为中国制造，负责接送球迷往返各个赛场。merchandise /ˈmɜːtʃəndaɪs/周边商品，商品，货品souvenir /ˌsuːvəˈnɪə(r)/纪念品，纪念周边emblem /ˈembləm/会徽，徽章，标志infringe /ɪnˈfrɪndʒ/侵犯（权利），违反replica /ˈreplɪkə/复制品，复刻模型transit /ˈtrænzɪt/交通运输，运输系统

Driven by the optimization of the China-Russia visa-free policy and the expansion of round-trip flight capacity, the number of inbound and outbound Russian nationals at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport saw a significant surge in the first five months of this year, the latest data showed.最新数据显示，得益于中俄免签政策优化以及往返航班运力扩容，今年前五个月经广州白云国际机场出入境的俄罗斯公民数量大幅激增。According to statistics from the Guangzhou Baiyun Entry-Exit Border Inspection Station, from January to May, the airport handled over 210,000 entry and exit trips by Russian nationals, marking a 110 percent year-on-year increase, and setting a new record for the period.广州白云出入境边防检查站统计数据显示，1至5月，该口岸俄罗斯公民出入境人次超21万，同比涨幅达110%，创下历年同期新高。The unilateral visa-free policy is the primary driving force. China in May officially extended its visa-free policy for Russian citizens to Dec 31, 2027, significantly reducing the time and economic costs for Russian citizens traveling to China and stimulating enthusiasm for cross-border travel.单方面免签政策是增长的核心推动力。我国于今年5月正式将针对俄罗斯公民的单方面免签政策延长至2027年12月31日，大幅降低俄罗斯民众来华的时间与经济成本，极大激发了跨境出行热情。Data showed that in the first five months, the airport inspected over 100,000 visa-free entries by Russian nationals, accounting for 90 percent of the total Russian inbound travelers, with tourism and business stated as the main purposes of travel.数据显示，前五个月经该口岸免签入境的俄罗斯公民超10万人次，占俄罗斯入境总人数的90%，出行目的以旅游、商务为主。Russian Ambassador to China Igor Morgulov said that the Russia-China visa-free regime provides a tremendous opportunity to strengthen ties between the peoples of the two countries, and he invited Chinese people to visit Russia to enjoy its beautiful scenery.俄罗斯驻华大使伊戈尔·莫尔古洛夫表示，中俄免签制度为加深两国民间往来创造了绝佳契机，他也邀约中国民众前往俄罗斯领略当地风光。Morgulov said he believes that the visa-free policy has not only substantially increased interest in mutual visits between Russia and China, but has also already had a significant impact on tourist numbers."These measures will not only promote tourism exchanges but also foster closer communication between the peoples of our two countries," he said.莫尔古洛夫称，免签政策不仅大幅提升了两国民众互访意愿，也切实带动了游客数量增长。他表示：“这项政策既能促进旅游交流，也能进一步拉近两国民众的沟通距离。”The continued boom in Russian nationals visiting China is inseparable from the support of continuously expanding aviation capacity. Since January this year, flight routes between Guangzhou and Moscow have been consistently increased, with three additional flights per week, bringing the total to 19 weekly flights. This has greatly enhanced the convenience of cross-border travel for visitors from both countries.俄罗斯来华客流持续走高，离不开不断扩容的航空运力支撑。今年1月起，广州至莫斯科航线持续增班，每周新增3个航班，往返周航班总量达到19班，极大提升了两国旅客跨境出行的便利度。To facilitate the implementation of these convenient policies, the Guangzhou Baiyun Entry-Exit Border Inspection Station has relied on big data to forecast passenger flows and dynamically optimize channel configurations. It has explored zoned inspection for foreigners to achieve "immediate processing upon arrival and proactive peak-shifting," and utilized a new generation of inspection equipment to boost efficiency, clearing the "last mile" hurdle for policy implementation.为配套落实便利化政策，广州白云边检站依托大数据预判客流，动态调整查验通道布局；推行外国人分区查验模式，实现“到岗即办、错峰疏导”，同时启用新一代查验设备提升通关效率，打通政策落地的“最后一公里”。Timofey Bordachev, program director of the Valdai Discussion Club, a Russian think tank, said that the mutual visa exemption between Russia and China holds profound strategic significance.俄罗斯智库瓦尔代国际辩论俱乐部项目主任季莫费·博尔达切夫表示，中俄互免签证具备深远的战略意义。"The mutual visa exemption between Russia and China is not a routine border opening measure, but is built on a foundation of high-level political trust between both sides," Bordachev said.博尔达切夫指出：“中俄互免签证并非普通的边境开放举措，而是建立在双方高度政治互信基础之上的成果。”Bordachev emphasized that the visa-free policy is a long-term systematic project that will create favorable conditions for deepening Russia-China bilateral cooperation. He also noted that this will enhance the resilience of strategic coordination between the two countries and reflect their mutual confidence in a shared path of development.博尔达切夫强调，免签政策是一项长期系统性举措，将为深化中俄双边合作创造有利条件。他同时提到，该政策能够强化两国战略协作的韧性，彰显双方对共同发展道路的相互信任。surge /sɜːdʒ/激增，猛增unilateral /ˌjuːnɪˈlætərəl/单方面的regime /reɪˈʒiːm/制度，管理体系dynamically /daɪˈnæmɪkli/动态地exemption /ɪɡˈzempʃn/免除，豁免resilience /rɪˈzɪliəns/韧性，适应力

Recorded live from the Davos on Air booth at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian, this special episode of Sinica tackles the "pacing problem": the widening gap between how fast AI moves and how slowly regulation can catch up. I sit down with Xue Lan, dean of Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University and one of the architects of China's concept of "agile governance," to unpack what that term means in practice. He traces China's regulatory evolution from the 2017 AI plan through the generative AI rules and the 2021 tech crackdown, compare Chinese, American, and European approaches, and ask whether Beijing's adaptive style can travel to other political systems — including liberal democracies.00:09 – Live from Dalian: the “pacing problem” and why AI has turned it into a chasm03:18 – Introducing Xue Lan, dean of Schwarzman College and architect of “agile governance”04:34 – Why AI's pace makes it uniquely hard to regulate06:01 – Defining agile governance: mindset, partnership over adversary, and light-touch tools11:54 – From the 2017 AI plan to today: China's two-track approach to tech and governance20:07 – Balancing development and security amid the US-China AI race23:24 – Revisiting the 2021 tech crackdown: failure of the model, or agility of a different kind?26:14 – The “DeepSeek moment,” open-weight models, and regulatory uncertainty by design37:10 – EU comprehensiveness vs. US patchwork vs. China's modular, adaptive approach46:59 – Can agile governance travel to liberal democracies? Finding common ground on global AI riskSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In an era marked by rapid global economic shifts and rising uncertainties, the concept of "China Opportunity 2.0" has emerged as a symbol of new possibilities for international trade and innovation.全球经济格局快速变革、不确定性持续攀升的当下，“中国机遇 2.0” 这一概念应运而生，成为国际贸易与创新发展全新机遇的象征。While some China doomsters have expressed "anxiety" over China's advances in technology and industrial innovation, even promoting the narrative of a so-called "China Shock 2.0" that groundlessly frames China's development as a "threat" to the global economy, the reality is that "China Opportunity 2.0", as Chinese Premier Li Qiang said last week, represents comprehensive innovation-driven empowerment and high-return investment prospects. Speaking at the 17th Annual Meeting of the New Champions of the World Economic Forum in Northeast China's coastal city of Dalian, Li underscored China's potential to offer high-return investment prospects and its fostering of mutually beneficial technological collaboration worldwide.部分唱衰中国的人士对中国技术与产业创新进步心存 “焦虑”，甚至炒作所谓 “中国冲击 2.0” 论调，毫无依据地将中国发展视作全球经济 “威胁”。但事实正如国务院总理李强上周所言，“中国机遇 2.0” 代表着全方位创新赋能与高回报投资前景。李强在中国东北沿海城市大连举办的第十七届世界经济论坛新领军者年会（夏季达沃斯论坛）上发表讲话，着重指出，中国具备提供高回报投资机遇的潜力，并致力于推动全球互利共赢的技术合作。The ongoing visit to China of David Eby, premier of Canada's British Columbia province, serves as a testament to the substantive appeal of "China Opportunity 2.0". Eby has stressed that the purpose of his trip is to strengthen British Columbia's ties with China as a strategic move to diversify the province's trade relationships.加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省（卑诗省）省长尹大卫正在访华，此次行程充分印证了 “中国机遇 2.0” 实实在在的吸引力。尹大卫强调，此行旨在深化卑诗省与中国的联系，以此作为实现本省贸易多元化的战略举措。"We're seeking to reduce our reliance on the United States and obviously, Asian markets have been a major focus for us," Eby told the media last week before embarking on his first China trip on Saturday. This includes the goal of doubling trade to non-US markets within the next 10 years. "China will be part of that," he added.尹大卫上周六开启首次访华之旅前向媒体表示：“我们希望降低对美国市场的依赖，亚洲市场显然是我们的重点开拓方向。” 卑诗省计划未来十年将对非美市场贸易规模翻一番，他补充道：“中国将是这一布局的重要组成部分。”By targeting key sectors such as forestry products, energy — specifically liquefied natural gas development — and tourism, he is seeking to unlock new avenues for growth and job creation in British Columbia. This aligns with the principles of "China Opportunity 2.0", which emphasizes mutual benefits and shared development.尹大卫此行聚焦林产品、能源（重点为液化天然气开发）、旅游等核心领域，力求为卑诗省开辟全新增长路径、创造就业岗位，这与 “中国机遇 2.0” 倡导互利共赢、共同发展的内核高度契合。The visit follows Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's trip to China earlier this year, the first by a Canadian prime minister in eight years. Carney's visit laid the groundwork for the healthy development of China-Canada relations, with multiple cooperation agreements signed across trade, customs, energy, construction, culture and public security. Eby's trip builds on this momentum, signaling a proactive approach to deepening collaboration and exploring innovative opportunities. According to Canadian media, his itinerary includes Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.此次访华紧随加拿大总理马克・卡尼今年早些时候的对华之行，这是八年来加拿大总理首次访华。卡尼访华为中加关系健康发展奠定基础，双方在经贸、海关、能源、基建、文化、公安等多个领域签署多项合作协议。尹大卫此行延续双边合作向好势头，释放出加方主动深化合作、挖掘创新合作机遇的积极信号。据加拿大媒体消息，尹大卫此行将到访北京、上海、广州三座城市。The strategic sectors targeted for collaboration are indicative of a balanced approach that prioritizes mutual benefits and sustainable growth.双方敲定的重点合作领域，体现出兼顾互利共赢、可持续发展的均衡合作思路。China-Canada relations have experienced ups and downs in recent years, but there are no territorial disputes or clash of fundamental interests between the two countries, and they can become partners for achieving mutual success.近年来中加关系历经起伏，但两国不存在领土争端，核心利益也无根本冲突，完全可以成为互利共赢的合作伙伴。This year marks the 56th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Canada, as well as the 21st anniversary of the establishment of their strategic partnership. It is an important chance to reflect on the past and think about the future. Eby's visit shows that an objective and rational attitude toward China is conducive to strengthening cooperation with a positive and open spirit. Reinforcing this, Canada's Minister of International Trade Maninder Sidhu recently revealed in a media interview that he plans to meet with his Chinese counterpart this fall.今年是中加建交 56 周年，也是两国建立战略伙伴关系 21 周年，是回望过往、共谋未来的重要契机。尹大卫此次访华印证，以客观理性态度看待中国，秉持积极开放心态，才能持续深化双边合作。加拿大国际贸易部长曼宁德・西杜近日接受媒体采访时也透露，计划于今年秋季与中方贸易主管部门负责人会晤，进一步释放合作信号。Although certain Western policymakers have been drawn into the rhetorical vortex of a purported "China Shock 2.0", the evolving arc of China-Canada ties points to the emergence of a countervailing cohort of countries that chooses to assess the situation objectively and remains open to the considerable potential of "China Opportunity 2.0".尽管部分西方政策制定者深陷所谓 “中国冲击 2.0” 的舆论漩涡，但中加关系持续向好的发展轨迹表明，越来越多国家选择客观研判形势，主动拥抱 “中国机遇 2.0” 蕴藏的巨大潜力，形成与遏制论调相悖的主流声音。As Li put it in his speech at last week's Summer Davos, to overcome the global growth challenge, innovation-driven cooperation is imperative. To this end, countries should forge closer connectivity and collaboration by joining forces and pooling resources to innovate. China possesses a complete industrial system and well-integrated industry clusters, which underpin efficient, reliable production and supply chains for businesses worldwide. By rejecting the notion of a "China Shock 2.0", countries stand to capture the vast opportunities presented by China's dynamic economy and superlarge market.正如李强总理上周在夏季达沃斯论坛演讲中所言，想要破解全球经济增长难题，创新驱动的国际合作必不可少。各国应当携手聚力、整合创新资源，深化互联互通与产业协作。中国拥有完整工业体系与高度集聚的产业集群，能够为全球企业搭建高效稳定的生产供应链。摒弃 “中国冲击 2.0” 的错误论调，各国方能共享中国蓬勃发展的经济与超大规模市场带来的海量机遇。innovation /ˌɪnəˈveɪʃn/n. 创新；革新diversification /daɪˌvɜːsɪfɪˈkeɪʃn/n. 多元化；多样化imperative /ɪmˈperətɪv/adj. 必要的；势在必行的vortex /ˈvɔːteks/n. 漩涡；舆论旋涡

Last time we spoke about the battle of Zhongtiao Mountain. On 7 May 1941, Japan launched a three-front assault on the Zhongtiao Mountains, striking multiple axes and using paratroopers to disrupt Chinese command. On the northeastern front, Wu Shimin's 98th Army scored a success at Wangcun, routing about 2,000 attackers. Elsewhere, three-pronged Japanese forces drove south toward Yuanqu with overwhelming artillery, armor, and coordinated movement. During the first night, paratroopers found the Chinese headquarters already disordered: orders were unclear and communications with most units collapsed. By 8 May, the First War Zone could no longer coordinate; armies fought alone. From mid-May into June, Japanese units swept the mountains, manning river crossings to block retreat and eliminating pockets. Surviving Chinese formations escaped or regrouped south of the Yellow River, but the three-year Zhongtiao defensive system was destroyed in about twenty days, sharply worsening Japan's strategic situation in northern China.   #208 Operation Plus: The Road to the Second Battle of Changsha Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. In the autumn of 1939, Japanese forces under General Yasuji Okamura launched a major offensive aimed at capturing Changsha — the gateway to China's interior and one of the most important cities still under Nationalist control. The First Battle of Changsha ended without a decisive Japanese victory. Chinese forces, anchored by the Ninth War Zone under General Xue Yue, managed to repel the advance, inflicting significant casualties and preserving the city. It was a notable achievement at a time when Japanese arms had swept across vast swathes of Chinese territory, and it reverberated through both the Chinese military establishment and the watching international community. Following the Japanese withdrawal, Chiang Kai-shek convened the Second Nanyue Military Conference to carry out a thorough assessment of the battle and to plan for the period of relative calm that would follow. The conference sought to answer several pressing questions: What had worked in the defense? Where had coordination broken down? How could the period of Japanese inactivity be used most productively? Chiang made it clear that this respite was not to be wasted. Commanders of all the major war zones were simultaneously expected to serve as governors of their respective provinces, ensuring unity of military and civilian command. Chiang himself set an example by personally assuming the governorship of Sichuan Province and focusing attention on that province's production and reconstruction efforts. The conference produced broad directives for the reconstruction of war-zone provinces and the intensification of military training. For Hunan, responsibility for implementing these directives fell on the shoulders of General Xue Yue, who had emerged from the First Battle of Changsha with greatly enhanced prestige and authority. The reason Changsha and Hunan more broadly attracted such persistent Japanese attention was geographical and logistical. The Yuehan Railway — running from Yueyang in northern Hunan down through Changsha and south toward Guangzhou — was one of the most important transportation arteries in China. Whoever controlled it could move troops, equipment, and supplies across vast distances with speed and reliability. Opening up the Yuehan line would, in Japanese strategic thinking, effectively connect their forces in Central China with those in South China, allowing for a gradual tightening of the strategic noose around Chiang Kai-shek's wartime capital at Chongqing in Sichuan Province. Hunan was therefore not merely a defensive problem for the Chinese; it was a strategic prize that Japan would inevitably seek to take. Xue Yue, whose headquarters were in Changsha, was well aware of this logic. With the First Battle of Changsha behind him and the province in need of recovery, Xue Yue turned his attention to governance. He was not content to wait passively for the next Japanese offensive. He believed that a province that was economically productive, administratively disciplined, and politically stable would provide a far more durable foundation for military resistance than one that was disorganized and demoralized. At the beginning of his tenure as effective governor of Hunan, Xue conducted a thorough survey of the province's situation and then articulated a philosophical framework for his administration in the form of a "three-character policy," consisting of three guiding principles: "Peace"  (an), "Convenience" (bian), and "Sufficiency" ( zu). In Xue's formulation, "Peace" meant that the population should be able to live, work, and conduct their daily affairs free from fear and disruption. "Convenience" meant that policies should benefit the people, the nation, and the war effort simultaneously — eliminating bureaucratic obstacles and inefficiencies. "Sufficiency" meant achieving adequate levels in all essential areas: enough soldiers, enough food, and enough wisdom in leadership. These seemingly simple principles were elaborated into extensive implementation guidelines. The announcement of this framework immediately sparked debate across Hunan's intellectual and administrative community. Veteran officials and scholars were divided. Some praised the policy as a clear and practical framework for wartime governance. Others dismissed it as hollow wordplay, offering nothing new or substantive. A minority was more sharply critical, warning that if such superficial philosophizing was all Xue could offer, the province would decay into warlordism. Undeterred by the criticism, Xue Yue built upon the three-character framework with a set of "Six Policies" for governing the people of Hunan: "Benefiting the People, Raising the People, Educating the People, Protecting the People, Managing the People, and Utilizing the People." Each of these six principles came with specific implementation targets and performance metrics, designed to be measurable rather than aspirational. This second round of policy announcements generated yet another wave of debate, but Xue pressed forward with implementation regardless. From the beginning of 1940, Xue vigorously pushed for the expansion of agricultural and industrial production across the province. His approach was comprehensive and at times uncompromising. He approved funds for the reconstruction of the Zhongshan Road National Goods Exhibition Hall in Changsha — which had been destroyed in the catastrophic Changsha Fire of 1938 — and by February 1940, 114 shops had reopened there. In March, he approved the "Eight Measures for the Construction of Sheds in Changsha," drafted by the Changsha Municipal Police Bureau, which relaxed housing regulations and helped address the severe shortage of accommodation for the city's residents, who had largely fled or been displaced during the fire and the Japanese offensive. One of the more creative initiatives of this period was the Ninth War Zone's order requiring all troops stationed in Hunan to cultivate a certain amount of farmland in their spare time, growing grain to supplement military rations. Local residents came to refer to the plots tended by soldiers as "soldier's fields" (bing tian). This policy served a dual purpose: it reduced the logistical burden of feeding the garrison forces from civilian stocks while keeping soldiers productively occupied during lulls in fighting. It also served to maintain a degree of goodwill between the military and the rural communities on which any prolonged resistance ultimately depended. One of the most consequential steps Xue Yue took to stabilize Hunan's governance was an aggressive campaign against corruption. On April 15, 1940, he ordered the execution of Tian Weizheng, the county magistrate of Changsha, and Wang Lun, the county magistrate of Xiangtan, both on charges of corruption and abuse of office. The proclamation accompanying the executions was blunt: "This serves as a warning against corruption and establishes the authority of the law in upholding discipline." The message was not lost on officials across the province. In the months that followed, a sweep of investigations led to the punishment of numerous corrupt officials and illegal businessmen. The effect on public confidence in the provincial government was significant. Citizens and soldiers alike perceived that there was now a leadership willing to hold its own accountable — a stark contrast to the corruption and self-dealing that had plagued Chinese provincial governance throughout the war. Xue was also attentive to the ideological dimension of the war effort. On May Fourth Youth Day — itself laden with nationalist significance, commemorating the great student movement of 1919 — Xue attended the provincial capital's sports meet and delivered a speech before thousands of young people entitled "Iron Youth, Iron Spirit, Sacred Labor, Sacred Survival." The speech was aimed at galvanizing the younger generation, connecting their personal futures to the fate of the nation and the resistance against Japan. That same month, in May 1940, the 110th executive meeting of the Hunan Provincial Government revised and approved the "Hunan Province County Heads Performance Evaluation Method," a document that formalized military service and support for the war effort as the primary criterion in the evaluation of local officials' political performance. Throughout 1940, the provincial government and the Ninth War Zone organized a series of training courses for officials, including courses specifically designed for guerrilla cadres, women cadres, and village chiefs — an indication that preparations for sustained, decentralized resistance were underway. Xue himself addressed the cadre training group with a speech on "The Conditions That a Well-Rounded Cadre Should Possess." By the end of 1940, after more than a year of sustained effort, Hunan had broadly recovered to the administrative and economic condition it had enjoyed before the Changsha Fire, when the reformist official Zhang Zhizhong had governed the province. Agriculture, industry, and commerce all showed measurable improvement over their wartime lows. The government's accounts for the year reflected growth across all sectors. This recovery was not merely statistical; it represented a genuine rebuilding of the province's capacity to sustain a prolonged defense. Soldiers were better fed and equipped, local officials were more disciplined, and the civilian population had a functioning, if still imperfect, relationship with the wartime state. Early in 1941, Xue Yue's reputation had grown to the point where local gentry and public figures jointly petitioned for a bustling street in Changsha to be named after his courtesy name — a mark of genuine popular esteem unusual for a military governor in wartime China. While Xue Yue was rebuilding Hunan, events at the geopolitical level were reshaping the strategic environment in ways that would directly precipitate the Second Battle of Changsha. On September 27, 1940, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, formally joining the Axis powers. The pact alarmed the Western democracies and accelerated their support for China. On December 2, 1940, the United States Congress passed a bill approving a one-hundred-million-dollar loan to China. On December 10, 1940, Britain followed suit, approving a ten-million-pound loan. Both measures were explicitly understood — by all parties — as responses to Japanese expansion and Japan's recognition of Wang Jingwei's collaborationist puppet government in Nanjing. For the Japanese military leadership, these loans signaled that the international community was not prepared to accept Japan's fait accompli in China, and that the war of attrition against the Nationalist government could not be allowed to continue indefinitely. The imperative to resolve the "China Incident" — as Japanese officials euphemistically called the war — before the international situation deteriorated further became more urgent than ever. On January 16, 1941, the Japanese Army adopted the "Long-Term Operational Guidance Plan for China." The document acknowledged a painful internal contradiction: Japan could only sustain a protracted war in China, yet it simultaneously demanded a swift resolution to the conflict through strong military pressure. The plan's solution to this contradiction was to intensify operations while "taking note of the international situation" — meaning that military actions should be calibrated to avoid triggering direct American or British intervention. The plan called for large-scale offensive operations in the summer and autumn of 1941. The companion document, the "Annual Plan for Showa 16 (1941)," was more specific. It required Japanese troops stationed in China to conduct a major operation in the summer and autumn of that year with the aim of dealing a heavy blow to the main force of the "Whampoa Military Academy" — the term used by Japanese planners to describe the core of Chiang Kai-shek's professional officer corps, trained at the Whampoa (Huangpu) Military Academy and regarded as the backbone of the Nationalist army. The stated goal was to destroy the Chongqing government's will to continue resistance and thereby force a resolution to the China Incident. Xue Yue himself read translated summaries of both these documents when he traveled to Chongqing to report on his work in early 1941. He returned to Hunan in a reflective, and determined, frame of mind. For much of the period between the two Battles of Changsha, the Japanese Eleventh Army — the primary force facing Xue Yue's Ninth War Zone — had been commanded by General Yasuji Okamura, a seasoned officer with whom Xue had developed a degree of familiarity through combat. By early 1941, it became known that Okamura was to be transferred to the Military Advisory Council at Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo — a prestigious but more removed role. Xue Yue reflected on this change with a mixture of relief and characteristic self-confidence, reasoning that whoever replaced Okamura would be a new adversary to be dealt with on the battlefield, and that there was no reason to lose to him regardless. Korechika Anami received his appointment as commander of the Eleventh Army on February 15, 1941. From the first day of his appointment, he carried a detailed battle map of the three provinces facing his command — Hunan, Hubei, and Jiangxi — along with comprehensive intelligence files on both sides' troop dispositions and strengths. He studied these materials constantly, on trains, in waiting rooms, wherever he had a free moment. By the time he formally took up his post on March 10, 1941, he already had a clear operational vision for the coming campaign. Before reaching the front, Anami stopped in Nanjing to meet with General Hata Shunroku, the Commander-in-Chief of the China Expeditionary Army. Hata had himself arrived in China in early 1941, having been summoned by the Emperor before his departure and entrusted with what the Emperor called the sacred mission of resolving the China Incident. The two men talked through the night, their conversation returning repeatedly to the planned summer-autumn offensive. Hata urged Anami to annihilate the main force of the Ninth War Zone in the area south of the Miluo River — to destroy, once and for all, the core of Chiang Kai-shek's best troops. "If this battle is fought well," Hata told him, "the entire war situation in China will undergo a huge change." Anami listened and agreed, though he had his own reasons to want the battle to go well. He had voluntarily relinquished the prominent position of Vice Minister of the Army at General Headquarters in Tokyo to take this field command — a significant personal sacrifice that reflected his deep desire for battlefield achievement. There was a personal dimension to Anami's motivations as well. His second son, a bright and lively boy to whom he was deeply attached, had died in combat in China. Anami carried a photograph of his son wherever he went, and had resolved to transform his grief into a consuming commitment to military excellence, whatever the human cost. At the Eleventh Army's headquarters in Yueyang, Anami found the war game board and operational plans that Okamura had left behind. He did not immediately begin issuing orders. Instead, for weeks he immersed himself in the problem, traveling between divisional headquarters and subordinate commands to gather ground-level perspectives, or sitting alone for hours before the great map, motionless and in deep concentration. His new chief of staff, Kinoshita Isamu, who had come from a divisional unit and was unfamiliar with his commander's temperament, could only keep silent company during these long sessions. When Anami eventually convened his headquarters personnel to explain his operational intentions, he made a pointed critique of the First Battle of Changsha. "The reason why the last battle in Changsha did not achieve great results," he said, "was that the troops were too dispersed and the main direction of attack was not highlighted, so they could not form a strong impact and lethality." He named the new operation "Operation Plus" — a deliberate contrast with what he saw as the subtracted, diluted efforts of the previous campaign. His concept was one of radical concentration: rather than dispersing the attack across multiple fronts in Hubei and Jiangxi while simultaneously advancing on Changsha, Anami proposed pulling the forces from southern Hubei and northern Jiangxi and massing them in front of northern Hunan. The effect on his staff officers when he demonstrated this redeployment on the map was electric; one of them involuntarily exclaimed aloud at the sudden clarity of the advantageous position that mass concentration would create. Anami's personality was, in the judgment of those who worked with him, fundamentally different from Okamura's. A commander's fighting style is shaped by his character, and Anami's character was defined by intensity, focus, and a willingness to commit fully. These traits would shape "Operation Plus" from conception to execution. On June 22, 1941, five and a half million German troops launched Operation Barbarossa — the largest military invasion in history — against the Soviet Union. The news reached the Japanese military establishment with a degree of surprise, since such a momentous operation should, under the terms of the Tripartite Pact, have been communicated in advance. Beyond the procedural slight, German strategists had placed themselves in the position of fighting a two-front war, something Japanese generals found strategically bewildering. The outbreak of the Soviet-German War forced a serious debate within the Japanese General Staff. One faction argued for a "northward advance" — seizing the opportunity to strike the Soviet Union from the east while its military was fully committed in the west. Another faction argued for a "southward advance" — moving into Southeast Asia and the Pacific to secure the oil and raw materials that Japan desperately needed. Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe adopted a wait-and-see compromise, authorizing secret preparations for war in the north known as Operation Kantokuen while continuing to monitor developments. Now it just so happens I released a Patreon/Youtube Members exclusive episode covering Operation Kantokuen the previous month. I highly recommend it, fascinating what if piece of history. For just a teaser I can briefly summarize it: Operation Kantokuen — officially designated "Kwantung Army Special Maneuvers" — was Japan's plan for a large-scale invasion of the Soviet Far East, developed in the summer of 1941 following Germany's launch of Operation Barbarossa. When news of the German invasion reached Tokyo, Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka and senior Kwantung Army officers argued Japan should abandon its neutrality pact with the USSR and strike in coordination with Germany. An Army-Navy compromise on June 24th allowed preparations to proceed so long as they did not interfere with Japan's concurrent southern ambitions. On July 5th, Matsuoka and Major General Shin'ichi Tanaka convinced War Minister Hideki Tojo to back a more ambitious scheme, and the two men then bypassed the War Ministry entirely, securing Emperor Hirohito's personal authorization. The plan was structured in two stages — a buildup and readiness phase followed by an offensive phase — during which the Kwantung Army would await an explicit order to attack. The Army General Staff calculated that any campaign had to conclude by mid-October before Siberian winter conditions made logistics impossible. Their ideal force requirement was 16 to 22 divisions supported by 800,000 tons of shipping, though this assumed the Soviets would first redeploy half their Far Eastern infantry and two-thirds of their armor westward against Germany. The planned order of battle ultimately settled on 24 divisions — 17 committed to the eastern front and 5 concentrated near Mutanchiang. The opening blow was designed to fall on the Primorye (Maritime Province) front. The 1st Area Army, commanding the 3rd and 20th Armies along with elements of the Korea Army, would cross the border south of Lake Khanka to shatter Soviet defensive lines and menace Vladivostok. Simultaneously, the 5th Army would strike south of Iman to cut the Trans-Siberian Railway and isolate the Maritime Province from northern reinforcements. In the north, the 4th Army would hold the Amur River line before pivoting to attack Blagoveshchensk, while two additional reinforced divisions would invade Northern Sakhalin in a land-and-sea pincer. A second phase envisioned capturing Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk, and Sovetskaya Gavan, with amphibious operations considered against Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Kamchatka itself. The operation was to be supported by a massive air assault — between 1,800 and 2,700 aircraft combining Army and Navy aviation — aimed at annihilating the Soviet Far East Air Force in the opening hours, after which Japanese air power would shift to tactical ground support and interdiction of Soviet supply lines. Armored assets included roughly 800–900 tanks, mostly Type 97 Chi-Has and Type 95 Ha-Gos. Kantokuen was also allocated chemical weapons stockpiled in Manchuria and biological agents produced by Unit 731, intended for deployment against Soviet rear areas and supply lines. Despite the scale of planning, the operation was already fatally compromised before it could be launched. Japan's industry and logistics could not sustain a two-front war while remaining bogged down in China. On August 1st, 1941, the United States enacted a total oil embargo that cut off 80% of Japan's fuel supply, and the Dutch East Indies followed. With oil reserves sufficient for only 12–18 months of peacetime consumption, a Siberian offensive that would consume an estimated one to two million barrels per month was no longer tenable. By August 9th, the Army General Staff conceded that seizing the oil-rich territories of Southeast Asia was the overriding strategic priority. The Kantokuen buildup was formally terminated, and Japan turned south — setting the course toward Pearl Harbor and the Pacific War. Now Kantokuen held some practical consequences for the China Expeditionary Army was disruptive. Serious consideration was given to redeploying units of the Eleventh Army away from their positions facing Hunan and northward toward Manchuria, in anticipation of a possible war with the Soviet Union. This threatened to derail Anami's planning entirely. The cloud of uncertainty hung over the Changsha operation for several weeks. Despite the disruption, Anami refused to let the operation be indefinitely deferred. On June 24, 1941 — just two days after Barbarossa began — he formally approved the operational guidance outline for the Changsha offensive and set a planned launch date of September 15. This was an act of deliberate institutional pressure: by formalizing the plan so quickly in the wake of Barbarossa, Anami made it harder for higher authorities to redirect his forces northward without explicitly cancelling a plan already in motion. The gamble worked. The northward deployment option was ultimately shelved, and the Eleventh Army remained in place to conduct its summer-autumn offensive. While Anami and his staff at Yueyang bent over their map of Hunan, so too did Xue Yue and his staff at Changsha. Two nearly identical colored military maps were laid out on large tables in two different command centers — one in Chinese, one in Japanese — showing the same terrain of Hunan, southern Hubei, and western Jiangxi. The Xiang River appeared on both as a green ribbon; Dongting Lake as a blue maple leaf. For those responsible for commanding the impending battle, the war game was the battle, played out in simulation before blood was shed. Xue Yue, his Chief of Staff Wu Yizhi, Chief of Staff Zhao Zili, and the intelligence and operations officers of the Ninth War Zone Command engaged in extensive map exercises throughout the summer of 1941. Wargaming pieces bearing unit designations moved across the terrain as staff officers reported troop strengths, timings, and geographic objectives. The summer heat was intense, and there was nowhere cool in Changsha; Xue and his staff worked in the heat, sweating heavily as they played out scenario after scenario. It was during these sessions that Xue came to believe he had grasped the essential shape of the Japanese plan. Reasoning from the known Japanese strategic posture and the pattern of the first battle, he concluded that the enemy would again advance roughly the same way. His counter-strategy was as follows: in northern Jiangxi and southern Hubei, the war zone would launch pincer attacks on Japanese forces that were not part of the main offensive, targeting the area north of Chongren and Xingan, east of Yichun, Wanzai, Tonggu, and Xiushui, to defeat them in detail. In northern Hunan — the main theater — the war zone would deliberately allow the Japanese to advance, luring their main force south of the Miluo River into the area north of Jinjing, Fulinpu, and Sanjieqiao, and then launch a devastating counterattack to encircle and annihilate them. After a successful counterattack, Xue imagined pursuing the broken Japanese forces all the way back to Yueyang, and beyond — even, in his more expansive moments, recapturing the great cities of Jiujiang and Wuhan, lost in 1938. This was the "lure and annihilate" strategy, and it was not merely a hope — it was the formal operational order issued to the forces of the Ninth War Zone. In August 1941, the Ninth Military Front officially assessed that Japan intended to capture Changsha and obtain supplies, and the lure-and-annihilate plan was formalized accordingly. What Xue Yue did not know — and could not know through his intelligence network alone — was that Anami's operational philosophy was fundamentally different from Okamura's. The critical assumption underlying the lure-and-annihilate plan was that the Japanese would attack in roughly the same dispersed, multi-front pattern as the first battle. Anami's "Operation Plus" invalidated this assumption entirely. By concentrating his forces in front of northern Hunan rather than dispersing them, Anami would strike with an impact Xue's cordon defenses were not designed to absorb. Xue was, unknowingly, planning to fight a replay of the first battle against an opponent who had studied that first battle as a case study in what not to do. Despite this fundamental intelligence gap, the Chinese were not without information. From mid-August 1941 onward, residents of mountain villages and riverside communities in northern Jiangxi and southern Hubei began reporting unusual nighttime activity. Faint sounds of motor engines and the footsteps of large columns moving on main roads were heard after dark. On moonlit nights, fleets of motorboats were seen moving without lights on the rivers, visible only as dark shadows on the water. The local population was puzzled and unsettled: what kind of unit was this, and what were they doing? The answer was that Anami's forces were conducting their pre-offensive assembly under cover of darkness and strict light discipline, moving four divisions totaling approximately 120,000 troops into position for the attack on Hunan. Military and civilian intelligence agents operating in these areas crouched in the bushes, enduring insect bites through long nights, watching and recording everything they witnessed. The information was relayed by human chain, passed from one agent to another across a network stretching back to Changsha, until it was collated and placed on Xue Yue's desk by staff officers from the Ninth War Zone Command's Intelligence Department. Xue studied the reports carefully, comparing them against his map. The evidence of a large Japanese build-up in northern Hunan was unambiguous. But Xue was suspicious of its implications. "Mobilize troops? All the troops are moved to northern Hunan. What about Tongcheng? What about Yueyang? Impossible! Feint? What does that mean? You want me to concentrate my troops in northern Hunan so you can attack from both sides?" His staff officers were similarly uncertain how to read the intelligence. The scale of the Japanese concentration defied the pattern of previous operations, and Xue's trained instincts — calibrated against years of dealing with Okamura — led him to doubt what his intelligence was plainly showing. He concluded, without firm evidence, that the concentration must be a feint or a deception. On August 26, 1941, Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo issued Mainland Order No. 538, which authorized the Commander-in-Chief of the China Expeditionary Army to "temporarily conduct operations beyond the designated operational area in Central China during the summer and autumn." This order provided the formal imperial sanction for the Changsha offensive, lifting any remaining bureaucratic constraints on Anami's operational plan. It represented the final piece of institutional authorization, completing a chain that stretched from Anami's June 24 approval of the operational outline through Hata's advocacy at the China Expeditionary Army level to the formal imprimatur of the Imperial General Headquarters. With Mainland Order No. 538 in hand, the Eleventh Army's final preparations could proceed without ambiguity. The original planned launch date of September 15 would in practice be moved forward, with combat beginning on September 7 — itself a date chosen partly to maximize the advantage of late-summer weather conditions in the Hunan river-crossing terrain. By the time Anami's forces were assembled, the operational force was formidable. Estimating that the enemy facing them comprised fifteen divisions from the Chinese 4th, 37th, 99th, 74th, and 26th Corps, Japanese planners calculated — somewhat optimistically — that two infantry battalions would suffice to handle one enemy division. To provide a margin for error and to ensure decisive striking power, the Eleventh Army committed forty-one infantry battalions distributed across four full divisions and three specialized task forces, supported by twenty-nine artillery battalions. This represented a massive concentration of firepower and manpower along a relatively narrow axis of advance, precisely as Anami had intended. The objective was clearly stated: "to deal a major blow to the Ninth Military Front in order to thwart the enemy's plan for resistance." Japanese senior leadership reiterated at every briefing that the mission was emphatically not territorial — the army was not to occupy Changsha or secure it for long-term administration, and it was not to forage for supplies. The goal was destruction of Chinese combat power. On the Chinese side, the Ninth Military Front had not been idle. Since the Battle of Shanggao in March 1941 — a significant Chinese defensive victory in Jiangxi that had inflicted heavy casualties on Japanese forces attempting to advance into the province — the Ninth Military Front had ordered its troops to cooperate with guerrilla units operating in the Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi border region, conducting harassment operations against Japanese logistics and communications. This cooperation served both to maintain offensive pressure and to train the irregular forces that would prove invaluable in a war of attrition. By August 1941, Xue Yue had assembled a force of thirty-five divisions organized into thirteen armies across three army groups, totaling 378,307 troops. The headquarters of the Ninth Military Front remained in Changsha. Xue had also assessed his forces' combat readiness with some confidence: in the summer of 1940, the Ninth War Zone had dispatched one corps from each army group and one division from each corps on summer offensive operations against Japanese positions, explicitly testing their readiness in real combat. Although no major victories had been achieved in those operations, the exercise confirmed that troop morale was high and that combat effectiveness had recovered to the level of the First Battle of Changsha. If anything, Xue thought, after another full year of training, they should be better. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Operation Plus, emphasized concentrating forces and creating a decisive breakthrough rather than dispersing attacks across multiple fronts like in earlier battles. On the Chinese side, commander Xue Yue developed a "lure and annihilate" strategy, expecting the Japanese to fight like before; however, Anami's concentrated approach undermined these assumptions, making a Chinese counteroffensive far harder to execute.

Last week in Brussels, EU leaders held their first sustained debate on China policy in three years, and were so wary of Beijing's reaction they wouldn't print the word “China” on the agenda. The trigger: a goods-trade deficit closing in on 360 billion euros, and, for the first time ever, all 27 member states in the red. Recorded at Summer Davos in Dalian, I sat down with economic historian Adam Tooze to ask why the panic, and why now. Polanyi, the Plaza Accord, “glut shaming,” a $1.2 trillion surplus, and what Europe and China each most need to understand about the other.04:26 – Why the alarm now? Imbalances are decades old, so what changed—and the shift from China slotting into Western supply chains to climbing the value chain07:04 – Karl Polanyi, the “double movement,” and how the European working-class question becomes the politics of right-wing populism11:21 – Autos as the core of the fight—12 million jobs—and why the Ukraine alignment gives the whole thing its moral charge for von der Leyen14:14 – “Glut shaming”: the accusation of illegitimacy baked into the Western framing, and how it lands on a Chinese ear18:16 – Wěiqu (委屈)—the swallowed sense of being wronged and why the EU should exercise a bit of cognitive empathy20:14 – Merz reaches for the 1985 Plaza Accord, and the empathy gap that lets a German politician miss what that signals in Beijing22:00 – The currency-manipulation argument, Germany's own history with the euro, and why Switzerland is the real manipulator25:49 – The $1.2 trillion surplus—”nothing we've ever seen before”—and the consumption China refuses to do26:12 – Sorting the sectors: solar, batteries, and EVs where resistance is futile, versus steel and shipbuilding as “Polanyi double-movement as cosplay”32:04 – The Draghi report and the house of mirrors: is China the cause of Europe's malaise or just the thing exposing a homegrown one?36:27 – If Tooze had von der Leyen's ear: investment-linked talks, phased protection with a clear exit, and “investment, investment, investment”41:16 – The October clock on the U.S.–China truce, and why this autumn could get very ugly43:09 – Closing advice: what Europe and Beijing each most need to understand if this ends in managed rebalancing rather than a trade warSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica I'm joined by Robert Wright, author of The Moral Animal, Nonzero, and The Evolution of God, for a conversation that runs a little outside our usual beat, though China sits closer to its center than you'd expect. The occasion is his new book The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning, which reads the AI revolution as the latest turn in a story going back billions of years. We get into the French Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin's "noosphere," Bob's argument that we evolved large language models rather than engineered them, the cognitive empathy we've both long preached, and the two-word talking point — "But China!" — that Bob thinks is most likely to lead us astray.6:56 – Teilhard de Chardin, the noosphere, and why a planetary "global brain" has become necessary14:49 – Directionality without the mysticism: complexification, teleology, and the "cell's-eye view" worry21:57 – The God Test: is moral progress really the price of governing AI, and is that hopeless on a short clock?28:33 – Why Bob says we evolved large language models rather than built them, and the sycophancy problem that follows35:19 – Open weights and open source: a real safety argument, or competitiveness in safety's clothing?40:03 – Cognitive empathy as the master key, and the same capacity as an engine of deception48:06 – Arms-race fatalism and its limits: cheetahs, gazelles, and the rival who can pick up the phone53:40 – "But China": fear of Beijing, Anthropic and Amodei, Jeff Ding, and the chip-control backfire1:10:48 – Nonzero: game theory, common threats, and the takeoff scenarios that worry Bob most1:23:22 – Attribution error and projection, Ed Fredkin's old warning, and the actual first movePaying It Forward: Garrison Lovely, author of the forthcoming Obsolete (Nation Books) and the Substack of the same name on the AI race.Recommendations:Bob: Pantheon, the animated series on uploaded minds and emergent superintelligence; and the Crowded House song "Don't Dream It's Over."Kaiser: Kyle Chan's High Capacity podcast, especially his episode with Carnegie's Matt Sheehan, "Is China Getting Worried About AI?"; and Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

 EPISODE DESCRIPTION In this episode, I sit down with Prakash Kamraj, co-founder of DeCharge Network, to explore one of the most overlooked intersections of Web3 and the physical world: EV charging infrastructure. Prakash walks me through how DeCharge is building an Airbnb-style model for EV chargers, where anyone , from a business owner to a crypto community member , can host a charging station and earn passive income from it. We dig into why the B2B market is the real engine of EV growth, how DeCharge keeps the user experience dead simple with a scan-and-pay web app, and why autonomous charging powered by crypto payment rails could be the next massive wave. We also get into the surprising EV adoption stories across India, China, Southeast Asia, Ethiopia, and beyond. Whether you're an EV owner frustrated by fragmented charging apps, a crypto builder looking for real-world use cases, or an investor trying to spot where energy infrastructure is heading, this conversation is packed with sharp thinking and hard-won lessons from the ground up. DISCLAIMERNothing mentioned in this podcast is investment advice and please do your own research. It would mean a lot if you can leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this podcast with a friend. Be a guest on the podcast or contact us - https://www.web3pod.xyz/ CONNECT DeCharge Website: https://www.decharge.ioScout App: https://scout.decharge.ioTwitter/X:https://x.com/DeChargeTelegram: https://t.me/dechargecommunityWeb3 with Sam Kamani: https://www.web3pod.xyz KEY POINTS WITH TIMESTAMPS • [00:01] Sam introduces Prakash Kamraj and DeCharge Network, framing it as an Airbnb for EV chargers• [01:09] Prakash shares his background , from medical field to engineering, health tech startups, and catching the crypto bug in 2017• [03:36] How deep involvement in the early Solana ecosystem in India shaped Prakash's builder mindset• [05:33] The core problem: not enough EV charging infrastructure globally, with one charger for every 80 vehicles on average• [06:33] Sam shares firsthand observations from Guangzhou , nearly 100% EV adoption on the streets• [09:25] The personal range anxiety story that validated the problem , getting stuck at 9% battery in Denver in winter• [10:30] Why copy-pasting the Helium model doesn't work and why a more nuanced distributed model was needed• [11:00] DeCharge's three-pillar model: community-owned slow chargers, fast charger funding pools, and a software network incentive for charge point operators• [14:15] How the business model works , revenue share with hosts, transparent dashboards, and community-funded infra• [17:01] The user experience: scan a QR code, pay as you go, no app download required• [19:31] Why DeCharge integrates with default local payment apps (UPI, Promptpay, Stripe) instead of forcing new behavior• [23:16] Why India isn't lagging , 70% of EV usage is commercial, driven by food delivery riders and ride-sharing fleets• [25:40] Southeast Asia generates 80% of DeCharge's current network revenue• [27:21] Biggest challenges: avoiding R&D rabbit holes, sticking to first principles, and iterating fast across hardware and software• [29:05] Funding journey: seed round led by Lemniscap, first Asian startup in Colosseum's hackathon ecosystem• [32:06] Contrarian view: autonomous EV charging powered by crypto payment rails is the next major wave• [33:30] Energy is the truest form of currency , especially as AI data centers drive massive power demand• [35:14] The ask: charge point operator partnerships, community members, and VC conversations welcome• [39:19] The Scout app , a community-curated tool to map charger density and identify demand hotspots at scout.decharge.io

“Our Teacher” is a collection of essays written by students of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong). This series is comprised of their personal experiences with the practice and their interactions with Dafa's founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi, when the practice was first taught to the public. The writings were originally published on the Minghui website. Original Articles:1. Remembering the Days I Attended Master’s Lecture in Guangzhou City2. Recalling Master’s Lecture at Dongying, Shandong Province3. Recalling Master’s Lectures in Guangzhou4. Revered Teacher Rotates a Giant Falun To provide feedback on this podcast, please email us at feedback@minghuiradio.org

① What does China's CPI in May reveal about consumer demand? (00:41) ② How is the Global South's push for a greater voice reshaping the world's human rights system? (14:29) ③ A flying car factory begins operation in Guangzhou. Can China become a leader in flying vehicles? (25:22) ④ Iran and the U.S. trade retaliatory attacks. Are the prospects for a ceasefire growing dim? (26:32) ⑤ Britain to ban "harmful" social media for under-16s. We explore how to create a healthy internet culture for children. (46:01)

In this episode, we kick things off on the rails, where a powerful House committee is backing strict scrutiny for the proposed Union Pacific-Southern Pacific merger. The bipartisan House Appropriations Committee added language to the fiscal 2027 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations bill during markup on June 2nd, urging the Surface Transportation Board to conduct a rigorous review of the $72 billion deal that would create the first all-freight transcontinental railroad. The committee specifically endorsed the STB's revised 2001 merger rules, which require applicants to not only preserve rail-to-rail competition but offer enhanced competitive options for railroad shippers. Meanwhile, in the cargo security sector, federal prosecutors have indicted eight individuals in what they allege was a massive carrier impersonation scheme targeting shipments moving through logistics facilities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia between October 2025 and April 2026. Prosecutors allege the group stole approximately $4.49 million worth of products, including lamb, cheese, beef, copper and cigarettes, by obtaining legitimate carrier information and using it to impersonate those carriers at pickup locations with matching carrier names, MC numbers and DOT numbers on their tractor-trailers. Finally, we explore how FedEx is teaming up with a major Chinese carrier to strengthen its air logistics footprint in Asia. FedEx Corp. and the air cargo arm of China Southern Airlines signed a memorandum of understanding in Guangzhou, agreeing to strategically collaborate on ways to improve the efficiency and service capabilities of their air logistics networks. Under the agreement, the companies will explore cooperation opportunities in several areas, including capacity sharing, routes, hub connections, network planning, fleet resources, ground operations and digitalization. Follow the FreightWaves NOW Podcast Other FreightWaves Shows Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We interview Ryan Milton, a business researcher, who recently went on an insightful two-week trip across China, visiting Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Yichang, and Guangzhou. Ryan brings fresh, firsthand perspectives on what he saw and experienced. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A smart manufacturing base for flying cars recently went into operation in Guangzhou, with an annual capacity of 100 units. The vehicles can fit two people and have a maximum range of 30 kilometers.

In Episode 397 of the Uncapped Podcast, we sit down with Steve Chu, the energetic co-founder of Baltimore's beloved Asian-Ethiopian fusion restaurant, Ekiben. The episode delves deeply into the grit, humor, and relentless tenacity required to climb from a broken-down food cart to running a highly anticipated multi-location restaurant group.Steve shares stories from his childhood working in his family's restaurants after they immigrated from Taiwan, reflecting on the cultural contrasts in customer service styles between Eastern efficiency and Western attentiveness. He outlines his entry into the culinary field, choosing to become a chef purely to maintain operational power over his business vision. Listeners learn about Ekiben's rough early years—from purchasing a $3,000 un-assembled "North Carolina" hot dog cart that actually shipped from Guangzhou, China, to enduring grueling 110-hour work weeks split between farmers markets and shifts at his father's restaurant.‍Steve details Ekiben's massive expansion hurdles, including a stressful one-year permitting delay at their new Frederick location after discovering decaying structural layers behind the drywall of a historic building. Additionally, Steve reveals the restaurant's operational philosophy: utilizing hard work as their core value, relying entirely on self-made social media to independently control their PR narrative, and why they prefer the steady growth of brick-and-mortars over unstable food trucks. ‍Subscribe to our YouTube Channel‍Follow Chris on Instagram‍Like us on Facebook! Supported by the Brewers Association of Maryland‍ ‍

The summit in Beijing produced a "constructive strategic stability" framework and a warming of tone between the two presidents. But heads of state can announce a multi-year horizon; somebody else has to operationalize it. Does the United States have the people — the linguists, the regional experts, the long-haul institution-builders — to do that work?This week, I chatted with two Texans answering that question from very different directions. David Firestein is the inaugural president and CEO of the George H.W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations in Houston. A career State Department officer who served four administrations and spent five years in Beijing, he's one of the few Americans concurrently affiliated with both a Republican and a Democratic presidential legacy institution. Eddie Conger is a retired Marine major and the founder and superintendent of International Leadership of Texas (IL Texas) — a public charter network of 26 campuses serving 26,000 K-12 students and now the largest K-12 Chinese language program in the country. In January, IL Texas became the first-ever K-12 recipient of the Bush China Foundation's George H.W. Bush Award for Educational Excellence in U.S.-China Relations, joining past honorees including Jimmy Carter and Henry Kissinger.The conversation tackles what David calls the Texas paradox: the same state that just forced its cities to dissolve their sister-city ties with China, that pioneered the closure of Confucius Institutes, and that has restricted Chinese land purchases is also where the country's deepest K-12 Mandarin pipeline is taking root — and where the most institutionally Texan China foundation has chosen to plant its flag. David and Eddie talk through engagement honestly (no straw-man Jeffersonian-democracy fantasies), the erroneous strategic assumptions undergirding U.S. China policy, what real national-language capacity would look like operationally, what they each saw in the Trump–Xi summit, and what 5,000 IL Texas graduates are already doing in the world.05:40 — Eddie's path: Marine infantryman to fifth-grade math teacher to the country's largest K-12 Mandarin program09:12 — David on when the Nixon-through-Obama engagement consensus broke (fall 2017) and how the lexicon shifted13:30 — Engagement honestly defined: what its architects actually believed vs. the Jeffersonian-democracy straw man18:30 — The Texas paradox: HB 128, sister cities, Confucius Institutes — and the country's biggest Mandarin program in the same state31:26 — Texas business, Tim Dunn, faith, and the gap between political rhetoric and where Texans actually are41:54 — The Defense Department safety/security story: when one Chinese word ate an entire bilateral agreement46:16 — David's six (or seven) erroneous strategic assumptions: China doesn't want to be us, and it has benefited more than anyone from the current order52:28 — What real national-language capacity would actually look like: NSLI, WALARA, and why the pipeline still runs through one Marine major in Texas01:06:07 — Reading the Beijing summit: the warmth, the "constructive strategic stability" framing, and whether Trump's Taiwan call could blow it all up01:17:10 — Where 5,000 IL Texas graduates are now — White House interns, service academies, doctors, entrepreneurs, and one high-schooler who pulled a stranger out of the surfPaying it ForwardEddie: Carlos Carrasco; Emily, who is heading to Taiwan this fall on a one-year high-school program; and another student bound for the University of Texas at Austin who will be sent to South Korea for a semester as a freshman — a rarity at UT. And he closes with Miles, a high-school senior and Marine scholarship recipient who, just weeks ago at a national competition in Florida, heard someone screaming for help in the ocean, called for a boogie board, and swam out to save a drowning swimmer while a crowd of adults stood on the beach. "Others before self," as Eddie puts it — the IL Texas mission statement made flesh.David:Frank Zhou, who just graduated from Harvard and chaired the Harvard College China Forum; Selina Gong, a recent graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School involved in its annual China conference; and Dean Dai, a recent graduate of Columbia's SIPA who has been deeply involved in many of the most significant student-run China conferences in the country — and who, as it turns out, was one of the organizers of the University of Chicago U.S.-China Economy and Business Summit where Kaiser spoke earlier this month.Recommendations:Eddie: John Pomfret, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present (Henry Holt, 2016)David: Stephen Roach, Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives (Yale, 2022)Kaiser: David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (Doubleday, 2023)Also mentioned: Stephen R. Platt, The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II (Knopf, 2024) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bilanz der Schweizer Nati an der Eishockey-WM 2026, wie Fast Fashion in Guangzhou produziert wird, Parlamentswahl in Äthiopien, wie Joel Basmans Theaterstück «Sonja – ein Junkieleben» entstanden ist

“Our Teacher” is a collection of essays written by students of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong). This series is comprised of their personal experiences with the practice and their interactions with Dafa's founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi, when the practice was first taught to the public. The writings were originally published on the Minghui website. Original Articles:1. The Memory Is Enshrined in My Mind2. My Experience of Seeing Master in Guangzhou in 19943. Happy Memories of Master’s Fa Lectures in Chengdu CityTo provide feedback on this podcast, please email us at feedback@minghuiradio.org

My guest this week is Helen Ye, who grew up in Guangzhou, China.In this episode, Helen shares how she learned from an early age that food is medicine and that balance is everything. As an Ayurveda practitioner and psychic, she brings a fascinating Eastern perspective to what's really driving cravings for sweets and sugar.Helen explains the difference between Eastern and Western sugar, and why some people are more prone to sugar addiction. She also goes deeper into why healing your inner child may be at the root of healing your cravings. Helen also explains how building a daily meditation practice and tuning into your body's intuition can reduce cravings in a way that no diet plan ever could.Find Helen's book here.To get personalized guidance to stop emotional eating and break free from sugar cravings, plus support and accountability... join the 90-day program, Freedom from Cravings Formula TODAY.Do the Cravings Quiz and take the first step to get rid of your cravings! Struggling with cravings? Download your 5 tips HERE to discover how you can get rid of cravings... even when you feel tired or stressed.To rate and review this podcast:scroll down in your podcast player on your phone and click on the stars. To leave a review, scroll down a little more and click on "Write a Review". Once you've finished, select “Send” or “Save” in the top-right corner. If you've never left a podcast review before, enter a nickname. Your nickname will be displayed on your review.After selecting a nickname, tap OK. Your review may not be immediately visible, but it should be posted soon. Thank you! - NettaDisclaimer: Information provided by Life After Sugar is not designed to and does not provide medical advice, professional diagnosis, opinion, treatment or services to you or to any other individual. This is general information for educational purposes only. The information provided is not a substitute for medical or professional care. Life After Sugar is not liable or responsible for any advice, information, services or product you obtain through Life After Sugar. You should always seek the advice of your physician o...

China's remarkable journey from poverty to becoming the world's second-largest economic power is marked by extraordinary urban growth and consumption capacity of its urban population. Central to this development fervor are multifunctional commercial complexes and shopping malls, now key features of modern urban districts. The concept of shopping malls, originally introduced to China by American architects in the 1980s, has since flourished on an even larger scale than their American counterparts. American-Designed Shopping Malls in China (Hong Kong University Press, 2026) by Dr. Charlie Qiuli Xue and Dr. Arwen Yingting Chen delves into the origins of shopping mall development in the United States after World War II, tracing how American architects exported this building type into China's rapidly evolving urban landscapes, particularly in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Kunming, and Guangzhou. Using primary sources, statistical analyses, and illustrated case studies, the book explores the evolution of shopping malls as a consequence of China's profound economic, social, and cultural change over the past four decades. The book also highlights the impact of American consumerism on the everyday lives of Chinese people, altering not only consumer patterns but also local architectural practices. This tale of transformation is essential reading for anyone interested in China's rapid urban development. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Die EU-Außenbeauftragte Kaja Kallas sieht Russland in der Sackgasse. Die deutsche Wirtschaftsministerin auf schwieriger Mission in Guangzhou. Und: die erste Hauptversammlung der Deutschen Bank in Präsenz seit langer Zeit. Das ist die Lage am Donnerstagmorgen. Hier die Artikel zum Nachlesen:Das ganze SPIEGEL-Gespräch mit Kallas: »Russland ist in diesem Krieg in einer Sackgasse angelangt« Mehr Hintergründe: Europa importiert erstmals mehr Autos aus China als umgekehrt Deutsche Bank meldet Rekordzahlen +++ Alle Infos zu unseren Werbepartnern finden Sie hier. Die SPIEGEL-Gruppe ist nicht für den Inhalt dieser Seite verantwortlich. +++ Mehr Hintergründe zum Thema erhalten Sie mit SPIEGEL+. Entdecken Sie die digitale Welt des SPIEGEL, unter spiegel.de/abonnieren finden Sie das passende Angebot. Alle SPIEGEL Podcasts finden Sie hier. Den SPIEGEL-WhatsApp-Kanal finden Sie hier. Hier geht es zu unserem SPIEGEL Shop. Alle Newsletter vom SPIEGEL finden Sie hier. Hier geht es zur SPIEGEL Akademie. Sie möchten den SPIEGEL mitgestalten? Registrieren Sie sich bei SPIEGEL Perspektiven. Informationen zu unserer Datenschutzerklärung.

Interview starts at 31:25   Interstellar Contact, Taoism, and the Future of Humanity with Monk Yun-Roe Explore the intriguing intersection of Taoist philosophy, extraterrestrial life, and personal transformational experiences with Monk Yun-Roe. Discover how ancient wisdom aligns with modern UFO phenomena and the potential future of human evolution. Introduction: In this episode, Monk Yun-Roe shares his journey from a Hollywood screenwriter to a Taoist monk, his visionary experiences involving alien contact, and insights on humanity's evolution and cosmic interconnectedness. Why understanding ancient philosophies and embracing the unknown can shape our future. The Author: Yun Rou has been called the "Zen Gabriel Garcia-Marquez" for his works of magical realism.  Born Arthur Rosenfeld in New York City, he received his academic background at Yale University, Cornell University, and the University of California and was officially ordained a Taoist monk in Guangzhou, PRC.  His award-winning non-fiction works on Taoism bridge science, spirituality, and philosophy, while his novels have been optioned for film in both Hollywood and Asia.  Yun Rou lives in the American Southwest with his wife.  He is an international teacher of Tai Chi and Daoism and travels frequently in the Far East. https://a.co/d/0fDNXvXl monkyunrou.com  Main Topics: The connection between Taoism and interstellar contact Personal visionary experiences involving ET and cosmic consciousness The concept of ontological shock and its global relevance Humanity's potential for evolution and the possibility of collective non-corporeal existence The role of conflict, interconnectedness, and consciousness in our evolution Updates on Monk Yun-Roe's 1990s book and its prophetic parallels with current events The importance of integrated holistic practices like Tai Chi for health and longevity The ongoing dialogue about alien interference, government secrecy, and future contact Key Insights: Ancient Taoist principles may offer a framework for understanding contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Monk Yun-Roe experienced a profound visionary coma, where he was shown humanity's future in a vessel teeming with life, suggesting our evolution may lead to non-physical existence. The concept of ontological shock is a shared experience across cultures and might be a universal trigger for cosmic awakening. Tai Chi and Chinese medicine exemplify how spiraling energy flow can enhance health and align us with universal rhythms, possibly echoing cosmic principles. Our current era mirrors a cyclical pattern of crises, requiring global evolution amidst universal risks. The mysterious re-emergence of Monk Yun-Roe's early work hints at messages or messages embedded in the universe's unfolding narrative.   Become a Lord or Lady with 1k donations over time. And a Noble with any donation. Leave Serfdom behind and help Grimerica stick to 0 ads and sponsors and fully listener supported. Thanks for listening!! Help support the show, because we can't do it without ya. https://www.simulationmaps.com/#products Suite of Interactive Maps! DisasterMap, VolcanoSim, AsteroidSim, ShipwreckMap, UFOMap etc https://www.amazon.com/Unlearned-School-Failed-What-About/dp/1998704904/ref=sr_1_3?sr=8-3   Support the show directly: https://open.spotify.com/show/2punSyd9Cw76ZtvHxMKenI?si=ImKxfMHgQZ-oshl499O4dQ&nd=1&dlsi=4c25fa9c78674de3 Watch or Listen on Spotify https://grimericacbd.com/ CBD / THC Gummies and Tinctures http://www.grimerica.ca/support https://www.patreon.com/grimerica http://www.grimericaoutlawed.ca/support   Our audio book website: www.adultbrain.ca Check out our next trip/conference/meetup - Contact at the Cabin www.contactatthecabin.com www.grimerica.ca/shrooms and Micro Dosing Darren's book www.acanadianshame.ca Join the chat / hangout with a bunch of fellow Grimericans Https://t.me.grimerica grimerica.ca/chats   Discord Chats https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/grimerica-outlawed Sign up for our newsletter https://grimerica.substack.com/ SPAM Graham = and send him your synchronicities, feedback, strange experiences and psychedelic trip reports!! graham@grimerica.com Purchase swag, with partial proceeds donated to the show: www.grimerica.ca/swag Send us a postcard or letter http://www.grimerica.ca/contact/ Episode ART - Napolean Duheme's site http://www.lostbreadcomic.com/ MUSIC https://brokeforfree.bandcamp.com/ - Something Galactic Felix's Site sirfelix.bandcamp.com - Should I                   Timestamps: 00:00 – Introduction to Monk Yun-Roe and his work 02:00 – Taoism's perspective on creation without a divine creator 04:00 – The idea of ontological shock in Western and Eastern contexts 06:00 – Humanity's interconnectedness observed by astronauts and UFO witnesses 08:00 – Monk Yun-Roe's background in UFO research, writing, and visionary experiences 12:00 – The concept of UFOs as beings waiting for human evolution 16:00 – The tragic loss and rediscovery of his manuscript 20:00 – Near-death experience, vision of galactic preservation, and non-physical existence 30:00 – The philosophical implications of conflict and peaceful energy flow in alien perspectives 40:00 – Monk Yun-Roe's visions of future human evolution and cosmic destiny 50:00 – Reflection on cosmic interconnectedness and universal consciousness 58:00 – Practical insights into Tai Chi as a tool for health and spiritual alignment 64:00 – Closing thoughts, upcoming books, and the importance of sharing knowledge                                                                      

Eric Olander on how the Global South is reading the Beijing summitsThis week I'm joined again by Eric Olander, founder of the China Global South Project, which runs the most indispensable English-language operation going for understanding China's engagement with Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.I came in with a plan: map, region by region, how the capitals of the Global South were reading the back-to-back Trump and Putin visits to Beijing — relief at a steadier U.S.-China modus vivendi, or foreboding at a G2 condominium squeezing shut their room to maneuver. Eric dismantled the premise within ten minutes. The honest answer, he warned me, is that most of the Global South simply isn't watching the way we are — and the disappointment turned out to be the most interesting thing in the room. What looked like the absence of a story was the story. I'd built my questions around one assumption about what mattered; Eric had built his answers around another, and I cop to being schooled.Once you set the summit framing aside, what Eric's contributors are actually seeing comes into focus: Japan racing to recenter an Asia-Pacific security architecture, a region quietly de-risking from an unreliable United States, fresh cracks in the BRICS, Justin Yifu Lin's “three moves” for Chinese manufacturing, Latin America's “find out” phase, and a Gulf where the Chinese setback so many in Washington insist must exist simply isn't there. We get into all of it — and close on the summit as a remarkable piece of theater, the first since 1945 at which no one quite knew who the most powerful person in the room was.04:27 — The dominant mood: pro forma coverage, exhaustion, and bigger problems at home08:15 — Breaking news: the paused $14B Taiwan arms package and the canceled Colby trip11:15 — The dog that caught the truck: China and the costs of a receding U.S. umbrella13:00 — "Constructive strategic stability" — new equilibrium or just choreography?28:23 — The snub: Beijing sends only an ambassador to the BRICS meeting in New Delhi37:56 — Africa: tariff-free access, the trade imbalance, and Kenya's "collapsed" exports44:34 — Justin Yifu Lin's "three moves": move up-market, localize, move south51:00 — Latin America's "find out" phase in Panama, and very low China literacy57:35 — The Gulf after the war on Iran: who really won?Paying it Forward:Boston University's Global Development Policy (GDP) Research CenterRecommendationsEric: A “rabbit hole” of books on Xi Jinping, currently Party of One by Chun Han Wong (after Kevin Rudd's On Xi Jinping).Kaiser: Angine de Poitrine, a “microtonal math rock” duo from Quebec — think Frank Zappa meets King Crimson — possibly the thing to breathe new life into progressive rock.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello voices from the bench community, John Wilson here and I wanted to share some news about the evolution of the Programill lineup. Most importantly, Ivoclar's new PrograMill 7. What stands out right away is the reduced air consumption this mill requires, but what you'll notice first is that impressive new touchscreen. For us, the biggest advantage has been increased spindle power. My laboratory's known for these larger cases with complex geometries, and I can tell you that extra power really makes a difference. Next time you see your Ivoclar representative, be sure to ask about the PrograMill 7 and tell them John Wilson sent you. Thank you. At exocad Insights in beautiful Mallorca, we finally caught up with Felix from Imagine USA—and the timing couldn't have been better. As an exocad dealer on the front lines of digital dentistry, Felix shared his excitement about the strong turnout, the familiar faces, and most importantly, the innovation coming from exocad. What stood out most? The new exocad Hub and its cloud-based capabilities, along with powerful AI-driven tools inside DentalDB designed for efficient batch processing. For Felix and the Imagine team, it's not just about seeing what's new—it's about putting it to the test. By running new features through their own production facility first, they ensure real-world performance before bringing solutions to their customers. Beyond the technology, Felix emphasized the value of being there in person—connecting face-to-face with partners, having meaningful conversations, and stepping back to see where the industry is headed. And of course, doing it all in Mallorca doesn't hurt either. "LIVE" again at the 2026 DLAT meeting, two very different conversations came together around one common theme: the future of dental technology is still being shaped by passionate people willing to learn, teach, and adapt. First, the podcast catches up with returning guest Tiffany Prater from Destination Orthodontic Lab, who shares how her lab journey has evolved from running a large commercial space with employees to building a smaller, more personal business focused on private practices and hands-on craftsmanship. Alongside her is Sydney Ribera, a young technician discovering orthodontics through mentorship, creativity, and a fascination with bending wire and pouring colorful acrylic retainers. The conversation dives into the realities of learning ortho in today's digital world, the importance of organizations like the Orthodontic Resource Group, and why mentorship still matters more than ever in a profession where most of the training happens shoulder-to-shoulder. Then the crew sits down with Marlin Gohn from Argen to talk about everything from next-generation zirconia to massive dental labs in China and the surprisingly common mistakes labs make when choosing disc sizes for milling. Marlin breaks down Argen's new gradient translucency zirconia, explains why nesting strategy matters more than most labs realize, and shares real-world troubleshooting tips that can save labs time, money, and remakes. The conversation also wanders through SLM frameworks, milled gold crowns, PFMs, translating lectures in China, and why some old-school techniques still outperform the newest trends. Special Guests: Marlin Gohn CDT, Sydney Ribera, and Tiffany Prater CDT.

“Our Teacher” is a collection of essays written by students of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong). This series is comprised of their personal experiences with the practice and their interactions with Dafa's founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi, when the practice was first taught to the public. The writings were originally published on the Minghui website. Original Articles:1. Memories of Attending Master’s Fourth Lecture Series in Guangzhou2. Recollections from the Time that Master Lectured in Lingyuan, Liaoning Province3. Recalling Teacher’s Visit to Linqing City, Shandong Province To provide feedback on this podcast, please email us at feedback@minghuiradio.org

This week on Autonomy Signals, Grayson Brulte and Rob Grant discuss the BUILD America 250 Act, XPeng's mass-produced pure vision robotaxi, and the ESA-China SMILE mission reaching orbit.House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves and Ranking Member Rick Larsen released the text of the BUILD America 250 Act, a bipartisan five-year surface transportation reauthorization bill that includes the first-ever federal framework for autonomous trucks.The bill, if passed and signed into law in its current form, would provide regulatory preemption for autonomous trucking in the United States and authorize nearly $30 million annually through 2031 for workforce development grants.Over in China, XPeng's first mass-produced robotaxi rolled off its production line in Guangzhou. The robotaxi is built on the company's GX platform and features a pure vision system powered by their in-house Turing AI chips.Then there is the SMILE mission, a landmark collaboration between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences that launched on May 19 from Kourou, French Guiana, aboard a Vega-C rocket. SMILE carries the world's first space-borne soft X-ray imager and an ultraviolet aurora imager designed to observe and predict the space weather events that disrupt the global navigation satellite systems that autonomous vehicles, drones, and maritime vessels rely on for centimeter-level positioning.Episode Chapters00:00 AUTNMY AI1:32 Signal 1: BUILD America 250 Act37:39 Signal 2: XPENG Pure Vision Robotaxi58:51 Signal 3: ESA/China SMILE Mission Reaches OrbitAutonomy Signals is presented by KPMG.--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy is the leading applied intelligence platform covering the convergence of automation, autonomy, and the Autonomy Economy.™.Through our podcasts, newsletter, and proprietary market intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth.Join institutional investors and industry leaders who read This Week in The Autonomy Economy every Sunday. Each edition delivers exclusive insight and commentary on the autonomy economy, helping you stay ahead of what's next.Subscribe today: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, I speak with Andrew Seth Meyer, professor of history at CUNY Brooklyn College and the author of a remarkable new book from Oxford University Press, To Rule All Under Heaven: A History of Classical China from Confucius to the First Emperor. Sixteen years in the making, it's the first proper one-volume narrative history of the Warring States in English aimed at a general reader — a gap in the field that Andy has now decisively filled. We talk about why this period — the roughly 260 years between Confucius's death and Qin's unification in 221 BCE — really is the deepest layer of Chinese political history that still genuinely matters, and we try together to find the line between responsible historical reasoning about modern China and the kind of lazy essentialism that reaches for Han Feizi every time Xi Jinping makes a speech. Along the way we get into the displacement of the hereditary aristocracy by the shi, the Lüshi Chunqiu as a piece of political genius, why the standard caricature of “Legalist” Qin is wrong, and what it means that the Chinese state is still, in some real sense, running on operating software written in the 4th century BCE.8:14 – The 16-year gestation, why no general-reader Warring States book existed in English, and what made Andy think he could be the one to write it11:06 – The romanization headaches: Wei vs. Wey, King Zhao of Qin vs. King Zhao of Yan, and the special agonies of writing about early China for an English audience14:31 – Why he organized the book by state rather than strictly chronologically — and what that structure lets him do18:14 – The relevance question: how to take the deep continuity of Chinese political life seriously without falling into the orientalist “eternal China” trap25:52 – Why the Warring States is properly called a revolution: the destruction of Zhou-era hereditary aristocracy and the rise of the shi33:15 – Fukuyama's claim that Qin built the world's first genuinely modern state — is “modern” the right word?36:30 – Qin's 38 commanderies, why the radical version lasted only 15 years, and the Han retreat: aristocracy or regional autonomy?39:46 – Reading the Hundred Schools as embedded political actors rather than tidy textbook categories — and the Jixia Academy as ancient Brookings44:06 – The Lüshi Chunqiu as a brilliant piece of political propaganda, and what its tripartite cosmological structure was actually arguing52:31 – Why the cartoon-legalist version of the Qin is wrong: the 70 erudites, the Taishan stelae, and what the book-burning episode really was57:05 – The axial age question: pattern-matching or something real?1:00:40 – What the Warring States actually has to teach us about China in 2026: zhong guo as aspiration, not description1:05:08 – How the Warring States is taught in China and Taiwan today, and what archaeology is doing to the field1:08:36 – Constant self-reinvention as the real Chinese legacy, and why no plausible future China fully repudiates the CCPPaying it forward:Avital Rom (postdoc at Cambridge, early Chinese cultural history, editor of a forthcoming volume on disability and impairment in early China)Liang Cai (Notre Dame, new book on Han-era jurisprudence and legal traditions)Recommendations:Andy: Hadestown on Broadway — and Anaïs Mitchell's original concept albumKaiser: To Say Nothing of the Dog: or, How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last by Connie Willis (audiobook especially recommended)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week I'm sharing the fourth and final installment from the day-long conference convened by the Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs (ACF) at Johns Hopkins SAIS on April 3rd in Washington — “The China Debate We're Not Having: Politics, Technology, and the Road Ahead.” The first three episodes featured Jessica Chen Weiss's opening remarks and the panels on what China wants, what the United States wants, and tech rivalry and competing visions of the future. This final installment is a fireside conversation between Henry Farrell and Alondra Nelson, followed by Jessica's closing remarks.Once again, my deep thanks to Jessica Chen Weiss, ACF's inaugural faculty director, for organizing this terrific conference and for so generously letting me share this audio with Sinica listeners.Henry Farrell, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute Professor of International Affairs at SAIS, sits down with Alondra Nelson — Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study and former Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy — for what turns out to be the day's most generative reframing of the AI race. Henry begins by asking how it is that ideas once confined to 1980s science fiction — the singularity, AGI, brains-in-vats — have come to anchor mainstream American AI policy discourse. Alondra traces the genealogy back to the “Californian ideology” and the long history of outré thinking in Silicon Valley, but her real point is that something has shifted: U.S. negative sentiment around AI has been climbing and plateauing high since 2022, even as adoption has spread — the opposite of the usual technology-acceptance curve, and the opposite of what's happening in China, Nigeria, or Brazil.From there the conversation opens up into what I found to be its richest vein: the contrast between a Cartesian, disembodied American conception of AI — “we're working on the brains,” as Sam Altman put it when OpenAI shut down its robotics team in 2022 — and a more embodied approach that integrates the cognitive and the physical, which is part of what's powered China's advances in advanced manufacturing and robotics. Alondra is sharp on the costs of the brain-in-a-vat framing: it treats AI as a state of exception in which existing laws and institutions somehow don't apply, and it lets us float aspirational claims (”AI will cure cancer”) that elide all the clunky institutional stewardship actually required to get from aspiration to outcome.She also offers an incisive reading of the Trump administration's AI policy — which, she argues, is misleadingly described as “deregulatory.” Between export controls, the golden share in Intel, immigration restrictions on STEM talent, and the administration's tight stewardship of who wins and who loses in the AI ecosystem, this is industrial policy by another name — and a narrowing of democratic input over decisions of enormous infrastructural consequence.The conversation closes with Henry asking what a small-d democratic successor administration ought to do, and Alondra's answer is bracingly practical: get rid of the state of exception, take the material supply chain of AI seriously (data centers, electricity, critical minerals, communities), let state-level policy generate evidence about what works, and aim for high-watermark aspirations — North Stars, in the spirit of the AI Bill of Rights — rather than pretending the technology itself will deliver our values.Jessica then offers her closing remarks, thanking the panelists, previewing the ACF Insights Series, and putting out the call for new junior fellows at the Institute.Participants:Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study; former Director, White House Office of Science and Technology PolicyHenry Farrell, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute Professor of International Affairs, Johns Hopkins SAISClosing remarks: Jessica Chen Weiss, David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies and Inaugural Faculty Director, ACFSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, I chat with Ali Wyne, Senior Research and Advocacy Adviser for U.S.-China at the International Crisis Group, just hours after President Trump's plane left Chinese airspace at the end of a three-day state visit to Beijing. We dig into the new framework Xi Jinping put on the table — what Beijing is calling 中美建设性战略稳定关系, a "constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability" — and ask whether it's a genuine doctrine of mutual restraint or a rhetorical tripwire that future American moves can be characterized as having violated. Ali and I work through Foreign Minister Wang Yi's morning-after media briefing, including his striking claim that the U.S. side now "does not accept" Taiwan independence — a notable shift from the standard American formulation. We talk about what Trump actually said on Taiwan in his Air Force One press gaggle, the gap between Trump's account of Xi's private remarks on Iran and what Beijing is willing to say publicly, and whether AI can serve as a durable basis for cooperation coming out of the summit. We also turn to the American domestic side: the bind Democrats find themselves in trying to critique Trump's China engagement without out-hawking him, the generational data showing a striking gap in American attitudes toward China that transcends partisan division, and the question of when that shift in mass opinion actually starts to bite on policy.Full podcast page with timestamps and links forthcoming! Just wanted to get this out quickly.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

An 87 year old practitioner living in New Zealand recollects the time she attended Master Li's lectures in Guangzhou in 1994, and her cultivation journey over the past 22 years; including enduring several falls that helped her enlighten to her responsibilities as a Dafa practitioner. This and other experience-sharing on the Minghui website.Original Articles:1. A Former Military Doctor's Path of Cultivation2. My Family Members have Successively Attained Dafa3. My Sister-in-Law Started Cultivating in Falun Dafa To provide feedback on this podcast, please email us at feedback@minghuiradio.org

This week on Sinica, in a special episode recorded as a live joint webcast with NYRB/Poets and Equator Magazine, I sit down with Eleanor Goodman — poet, scholar, research associate at Harvard's Fairbank Center, and one of the most accomplished translators working between Chinese and English — to talk about the extraordinary Sichuan-born poet Zheng Xiaoqiong (郑小琼).Born in 1980 in a mountain village, trained as a nurse, Zheng joined the great tide of internal migration in her early 20s, ending up on the assembly line of a hardware factory in Dongguan in the Pearl River Delta. She picked up a pen after a workplace injury — part of her finger taken off by a lathe — and what came out across poems, essays, and reportage has made her one of the most singular voices in contemporary Chinese literature. Her trajectory from the assembly line to the editorial desk of an official literary magazine is, as far as I know, essentially without parallel.Eleanor has been translating Zheng since around 2013, and the partnership they've built has given Anglophone readers access to a body of work that defies easy categorization — at once intimate and historical, ethnographic and lyric, tender and unsparing. We talk about how they met, about Zheng's resistance to the "migrant worker poet" label, about the bodily feminism that runs through her verse, about her unmoralizing portraits of sex workers, about lost youth and the way the body keeps the ledger of factory time. Eleanor reads Zheng's poem "Woman Worker: Youth Pinned to a Workstation" (女工: 被固定在卡桌上的青春) in both Chinese and her English translation — and it is, every time, devastating.Huge thanks to Abigail Dunn at NYRB Poets and Ratik Asokan at Equator for organizing this conversation and for inviting me to host it, to Eleanor for her generosity and her brilliance, and most of all to Zheng Xiaoqiong, whose voice — even when she cannot be with us in person — comes through with absolute clarity.Eleanor's translation of Zheng Xiaoqiong's In the Roar of the Machine is available from NYRB Poets. The Equator selections, drawn from Zheng's long-form prose, are available at Equator Magazine.05:07 — How Eleanor and Zheng met in 2013, and why a book had to happen08:14 — Navigating the awkward proposition of China for the Western left10:50 — Zheng's trajectory: from a Sichuan village to the assembly line to the editor's desk16:29 — Resisting the "migrant worker poet" (打工诗人) label20:47 — Conventions of the genre: exhaustion, iron, lost identity, the screw in the machine24:58 — Who gets translated into English, and why28:34 — The translator's ethics: how do you render a factory poem honestly?32:42 — Eleanor reads "Woman Worker, Youth Pinned to a Workstation" (女工被固定在卡桌上的青春) in Chinese and English37:14 — Zheng's bodily feminism: irregular periods, a different way of caring40:37 — Lost youth and the passage of time44:36 — Sex work and women's labor: portraits without moralizing49:59 — Whose work actually counts in Chinese urban discourse?52:45 — Why Zheng Xiaoqiong wasn't able to join us, and how censorship really works54:44 — Rose Courtyard and what's next: classical allusions, ancestral homes, embroidering grandmothers57:39 — Audience Q&A: American worker poets, the WeChat communities of migrant writers, and Zheng's standing in Chinese lettersSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week I'm sharing the third installment from the day-long conference convened by the Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs (ACF) at Johns Hopkins SAIS on April 3rd in Washington — "The China Debate We're Not Having: Politics, Technology, and the Road Ahead." The first two episodes featured Jessica Chen Weiss's opening remarks and the panels on what China wants and what the United States wants. This week's panel — "Tech, Rivalry, and Competing Visions of the Future" — turns to the domain that, more than any other, has come to define how Washington thinks about the U.S.-China relationship: technology, and especially AI. Once again, my deep thanks to Jessica Chen Weiss, ACF's inaugural faculty director, for organizing this terrific conference and for so generously letting me share this audio with Sinica listeners. Moderator Kat Duffy of the Council on Foreign Relations opens by interrogating the very framing of the panel: is "rivalry" actually the right word for what's going on between the U.S. and China in tech? The panelists give a range of answers — from "yes, because both sides believe it is" to Samm Sacks's pithy rejoinder that "rivalry serves specific actors and specific interests." From there the conversation ranges across the FCC's recent move to bar most foreign-made routers, the pitfalls of framing AI competition as a sprint to AGI rather than what Jeff Ding calls a "diffusion marathon," the many internal Chinas that get flattened in DC discourse, the cybersecurity reciprocity problem (Volt Typhoon, Salt Typhoon, and what President Trump tellingly admitted about all of it), and what it would actually mean for the U.S. to compete by being its best self — what one panelist memorably calls "Americamaxxing." There's a lot of substance packed into this hour, and a lot of generative pushback against received DC wisdom. The audience Q&A at the end takes up the role of race and xenophobia in the discourse — a topic that, as one questioner pointedly notes, had been conspicuously absent from the day's earlier discussions. Panelists:— Samm Sacks, Senior Fellow, New America and Yale Law School— Jeff Ding, Assistant Professor of Political Science, George Washington University— Mieke Eoyang, Visiting Professor, Carnegie Mellon University; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy— Selina Xu, Lead for China and AI Policy, Office of Eric Schmidt Moderator: Kat Duffy, Senior Fellow for Digital and Cyberspace Policy, Council on Foreign RelationsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrapped up his fourth visit to China in as many years last week, and this one may be the most consequential yet. It comes at a moment when Spain has emerged, almost improbably, as the most outspoken voice in Europe challenging the direction of American foreign policy — closing its airspace to U.S. military aircraft involved in the war in Iran, denying Washington the use of the Rota and Morón bases, recognizing Palestine, and getting expelled from the U.S.-led Gaza Coordination Center for its "anti-Israel obsession." Against that backdrop, Sánchez delivered a remarkable speech at Tsinghua University — a speech I wrote about in detail on the Sinica Substack (PM Pedro Sánchez's Tsinghua Speech: A Masterclass in Diplomatic Rhetoric) — defending multilateralism, calling the EU-China trade deficit unsustainable, and naming China "a country rebuilding its greatness."To help make sense of it, I'm joined by Mario Esteban Rodríguez, full professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid, director of its Center for East Asian Studies, and senior fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute. Mario is the scholar most frequently quoted in Spanish and European media coverage of Spain-China relations, and the author most recently of China's Vertical Multilateralism and the Global South (Routledge, 2026). We discuss whether Sánchez is running an updated Merkel playbook or something qualitatively new, how much of the pivot is really about Trump, the sectoral politics of EVs and Iberian pork, the Chery plant in Barcelona, Spain's role as a gateway to Latin America, and whether Madrid is now a trailblazer for a broader European — and transatlantic — reorientation toward Beijing.06:33 — Sánchez's China strategy: pragmatism, consistency, and political capital08:35 — Domestic politics: the PSOE–PP consensus, Vox, and the regional contradiction12:40 — Merkel's playbook vs. Sánchez's: COVID, Ukraine, and the macroeconomic imbalance15:55 — The Tsinghua speech: Matteo Ricci, multipolarity, and the human rights omission28:17 — The Trump factor: Iran, Gaza, and the limits of overestimating the American effect35:48 — Trade, EV tariffs, pork, and Chinese investment in Spain (the Chery plant in Barcelona)47:04 — Agricultural constituencies and the paradox of Vox voters who benefit from China trade49:01 — Spain's influence in Brussels and the conditions for other member states to follow53:09 — Spain as gateway to Latin America, and the wider European (and Canadian) turn to BeijingPaying it Forward: The European Think-Tank Network on China (ETNC) — a network providing country-specific insights on EU member states' approaches to China, including the granular differences and nuances that non-European analysts often miss.RecommendationsMario Esteban: A trip, rather than a book — New Zealand, which he's visiting this summer with his family to mark the 25th anniversary of the release of The Fellowship of the Ring. A nod to his love of Tolkien and tabletop role-playing games (conducted, he is careful to note, in his own basement — not his parents').Kaiser Kuo: CONG — a new large-format magazine published out of Hong Kong (the title is pronounced Kong, though its ambiguous Pinyin-like spelling invites a second reading), now preparing its third issue. Beautifully produced on glossy and textured paper, with broad coverage of the art, culture, and design scene across East and Southeast Asia. Check it out online here: https://www.serakai.studio/congSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

4. Turkel details the bipartisan U.S. response to the genocide, including entity sanctions and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. He highlights his work with U.S. officials to formalize the "genocide" determination. Despite being sanctioned by China, Turkel continues advocating through the Commission on International Religious Freedom. (4)1905 GUANGZHOU