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This forum is simply for all things about China. For both the USC and the Chinese spouse, this is the place to relate, learn, reminisce and share with all members our interest in that fascinating land - China.
Members of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) on Friday threw pig hearts, intestines, lungs and other innards, leaving the chamber's crimson carpet streaked with ropy strands of intestine and milky viscera as they protested the ruling party's decision to allow imports of U.S. pork that contains the additive ractopamine.
More than 100 countries ban meat with the additive, which is used by U.S. pig farmers to promote leanness but frequently poses an obstacle when it comes to exporting abroad. Washington has pressed successive Taiwanese administrations to lift the ban on meat from pigs given ractopamine-laced feed, but the issue has been highly charged in Taiwan, where politicians and industry groups have warned about adverse health affects of the additive.
Regulators may have called off Ant Group’s record IPO at the last minute, but there’s more at play here than just a simple battle between private entrepreneurs and the state.
On Nov. 3, shortly after a closed-door meeting between regulators and executives from Ant Group, the Shanghai Stock Exchange announced the company’s record-breaking initial public offering, originally scheduled for later in the week, was being put on ice indefinitely.
Ant, whose Alipay digital payments service has made it the most valuable financial technology company in the world, has long operated in the gray areas of China’s otherwise tightly controlled financial sector. This has been a source of frustration for banks who feel unable to compete with their less regulated high-tech peer, officials worried about spiraling consumer debt, and for Ant itself. One week before the IPO freeze, Ant’s controlling shareholder, outspoken Alibaba founder Jack Ma, delivered an impassioned speech at a high-profile economic forum criticizing China’s financial regulations for stifling innovation. “We shouldn’t regulate an airport as if it is a train station,” Ma said. “We shouldn’t regulate the future with yesterday’s means.”
While ‘the Great Firewall’ stops much foreign Trump vs Biden coverage reaching China, social media posts mocking the rivals are available – and popular
Wary of accusations of foreign electoral interference, official state media has made little commentary about the American candidates
Chinese pundits are divided on whether the country will benefit more from a US administration led by Trump or by former vice-president Joe Biden, the Democratic Party candidate, according to Zhan and other experts who spoke to the South China Morning Post.
A second Trump term would bring a continuation of trade disputes, technology rivalry, diplomatic acrimony and near-daily accusations against China on issues ranging from human rights to the environment and the South China Sea, but is likely to push Beijing to undergo reforms and open to the world – a result that would be welcomed by the country’s liberals.
Under Biden, the US may move closer to its allies and re-engage with international organisations that might make demands of China. But Biden would bring a level of predictability and normalcy, and smooth the negotiation and cooperation channels with China, according to experts.
Nationalist tabloid Global Times has also acted with restraint, but its outspoken editor-in-chief Hu Xijin has instead voiced his “personal views” on Twitter.
“I strongly urge American people to re-elect Trump because his team has many crazy members like [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo,” he tweeted on June 24. “They help China strengthen solidarity and cohesion in a special way. It’s crucial to China’s rise. As a [Communist Party] member, I thank them.”
With this achievement, China has reached the first milestone on the path to full-scale quantum computing – a quantum computational advantage, also known as "quantum supremacy," which indicates an overwhelming quantum computational speedup.
No traditional computer can perform the same task in a reasonable amount of time, and the speedup is unlikely to be overturned by classical algorithmic or hardware improvements, according to the team.
In the study, Gaussian boson sampling (GBS), a classical simulation algorithm, was used to provide a highly efficient way of demonstrating quantum computational speedup in solving some well-defined tasks.
The average detected photon number by the prototype is 43, while up to 76 output photon-clicks were observed.
Jiuzhang's quantum computing system can implement large-scale GBS 100 trillion times faster than the world's fastest existing supercomputer.
The team also said the new prototype processes 10 billion times faster than the 53-qubit quantum computer developed by Google.
"Quantum computational advantage is like a threshold," said Lu Chaoyang, professor of the University of Science and Technology of China. "It means that, when a new quantum computer prototype's capacity surpasses that of the strongest traditional computer in handling a particular task, it proves that it will possibly make breakthroughs in multiple other areas."
The breakthrough is the result of 20 years of effort by Pan's team, which conquered several major technological stumbling blocks, including a high-quality photon source.
"For example, it is easy for us to have one sip of water each time, but it is difficult to drink just a water molecule each time," Pan said. "A high-quality photon source needs to 'release' just one photon each time, and each photon needs to be exactly the same, which is quite a challenge."
Compared with conventional computers, Jiuzhang is currently just a "champion in one single area," but its super-computing capacity has application potential in areas such as graph theory, machine learning and quantum chemistry, according to the team.
(Cover image via University of Science and Technology of China)
China Stakes Its Claim to Quantum Supremacy Google trumpeted its quantum computer that outperformed a conventional supercomputer. A Chinese group says it's done the same, with different technology.
LAST YEAR GOOGLE won international acclaim when its prototype quantum computer completed a calculation in minutes that its researchers estimated would have taken a supercomputer 10,000 years. That met the definition for quantum supremacy—the moment a quantum machine does something impractical for a conventional computer.
Thursday, China’s leading quantum research group made its own declaration of quantum supremacy, in the journal Science. A system called Jiuzhang produced results in minutes calculated to take more than 2 billion years of effort by the world’s third-most-powerful supercomputer.
The two systems work differently. Google builds quantum circuits using supercold, superconducting metal, while the team at University of Science and Technology of China, in Hefei, recorded its result by manipulating photons, particles of light.
No quantum computer is yet ready to do useful work. But the indications that two fundamentally different forms of the technology can outperform supercomputers will buoy the hopes—and investments—of the embryonic industry.
The setup of lasers and mirrors effectively “solved” a problem far too complicated for even the largest traditional computer system
Unlike a traditional computer built from silicon processors, Jiŭzhāng is an elaborate tabletop setup of lasers, mirrors, prisms and photon detectors. It is not a universal computer that could one day send e-mails or store files, but it does demonstrate the potential of quantum computing.
The USTC quantum computer takes its name, Jiŭzhāng, from Jiŭzhāng Suànshù, or “The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art,” an ancient Chinese text with an impact comparable to Euclid’s Elements.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, right front, toured a Baowu Steel Group facility in August. JU PENG/XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS
The government is installing more Communist Party officials inside private firms, starving some of credit and demanding executives tailor their businesses to achieve state goals.
In some cases, it is taking charge entirely of companies it regards as undisciplined, absorbing them into state-owned enterprises.
The push is driven by a deepening conviction within the country’s leadership that markets and private entrepreneurs, while important to China’s rise, are unpredictable and not to be fully trusted. The view that state planners are better at running a complex economy has gained currency this year, with Beijing relying heavily on state directives to engineer a V-shaped recovery from the shock of Covid-19.
Mr. Xi has made his priorities especially clear in recent months. In September, the party issued new guidelines for private companies, reminding them to serve the state and vowing to use education and other tools to “continuously enhance the political consensus of private business people under the leadership of the party.”
“For us small businesses, we have no choice but to follow the party,” says Li Jun, a 50-year-old owner of a fish-farming business in the eastern Jiangsu province. “Even so, we’re not benefiting at all from government policies.”
Mr. Li recently closed down a seafood-processing plant because it couldn’t get bank loans—a persistent problem for private firms, despite Beijing’s repeated pledges to make credit more available for them.
A Chinese university team argued that an opposing player’s hair was not “black enough,” according to the rules, and her team forfeited the match.
Female soccer players in China can be disqualified from a match if they wear jewelry or have dyed hair. Male players are generally barred from having long hair.Credit...Wang He/Getty Images
The women’s teams at Fuzhou University and Jimei University were supposed to face off at an intercollegiate tournament last week in China’s southeast. But they were barred from participating because players from both teams had dyed hair, which was against the rules.
Photos from the tournament show all the players with either black or dark-brown hair, but apparently those were the wrong shades. The Fujian Province Department of Education’s rules governing university soccer state that players will be disqualified from a match if they wear accessories or jewelry, or have “strange” hairstyles or dyed hair.
So coaches rushed to buy black hair dye to meet the requirements and assembled seven players with dark hair from each team to compete, according to state-run media.
But the Jimei University team members argued that one of their opponents still did not have “black enough” hair, and she was ordered to leave the game. One player short, the Fuzhou University team forfeited the match.
Under China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, the Communist Party’s creeping interference on the smallest details of Chinese life is being felt more and more. Censors have blurred the bejeweled earlobes of young male pop stars on television and the internet so that, in their mind, the piercings and jewelry don’t set a bad example for boys. Women in costumes at a video game convention were told to raise their necklines.
With soccer a national priority under Mr. Xi, the crackdown has spread to sports. Last year, members of the men’s national soccer team were forced to play in long sleeves in stifling heat at the Asian Cup in Abu Dhabi after the government banned the display of tattoos during matches.
Haze Fan, who works for the organisation’s Beijing bureau, was last seen being escorted from a residential block on Monday
Bloomberg says it has received confirmation she is being held and is doing everything it can to support her
Haze Fan has worked for Bloomberg since 2017. Photo: Twitter
Fan, a Chinese citizen, began working for Bloomberg in 2017 and was previously with CNBC, CBS News, Al Jazeera and Thomson Reuters. Chinese nationals can only work as news assistants for foreign news bureaus in China and are not allowed to do independent reporting.
“Chinese citizen Ms Fan has been detained by the Beijing National Security Bureau according to relevant Chinese law on suspicion of engaging in criminal activities that jeopardise national security. The case is currently under investigation. Ms Fan’s legitimate rights have been fully ensured and her family has been notified,” the Chinese authorities said.
In August of last year, Cirque de Soleil launched its first show in Asia in years in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou. After #COVID19, the company’s new show has miraculously survived as one of its only productions still operating.
