The breathtaking landscapes of Altay in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, as depicted in the popular mini TV series "To the Wonder," have mesmerized audiences, drawing visitors to the city and significantly boosting tourism in Xinjiang.
Filmed in this pristine area, the drama showcased the stunning natural beauty and unique cultural charm of Altay, which sparked widespread online discussions about touring the city.
Since the release of the series on May 5, the internet searches about Altay more than doubled, with searches for Altay homestays increasing by 200 percent over the previous week. The same cabins which featured in the drama have become too popular to book. Additionally, bookings for group tours across Xinjiang have increased by 247 percent compared to the previous week, according to Beijing Youth Daily on Wednesday.
According to data from domestic travel platform Fliggy, since the screening of To The Wonder, searches about Altay tourism on the platform has surged by over 500 percent. Flight bookings to Altay have increased by over 50 percent compared to the previous week, while car rental bookings have nearly doubled.
Fei Fei, a publicity official with the Altay bureau of culture, sports, radio, television and tourism, told the Global Times that the bureau has been committed to carrying out various promotional and publicity campaigns aimed at attracting more tourists to experience the natural beauty and rich cultural heritage of Altay.
"The number of tourists to Altay has grown significantly since the airing of the TV series. Tourists from the Chinese mainland, in particular, showed great interest in the Altay scenery and folk culture," said Fei.
"We will continue to combine culture and tourism to further enhance the popularity and reputation of Altay. Various promotional activities will be carried out to attract more potential visitors," Fei noted.
Located in the northern part of Xinjiang, Altay is also one of the best destinations for tourists and photography enthusiasts to view the natural wonder of the aurora borealis.
The peak tourist season in the Altay region typically lasts from July to August. However, spurred by the impact of the TV drama, this year's peak season in the area is expected to arrive earlier. Additionally, the most popular months for visiting Altay's Kanas scenic area, which usually starts at the end of August and extends into September, is predicted to commence as early as June this year.
According to the bureau, during the May Day holidays, the city received a total of 106,900 tourists, marking a year-on-year increase of 45.04 percent. The city generated 86.16 million yuan ($11.9 million) in tourism revenue, reflecting a year-on-year growth of 43.19 percent.
Lying between the southern foot of the Altai Mountains and the northern edge of the Junggar Basin, Altay boasts abundant natural tourism resources, including grasslands, snow-capped mountains, deserts, rivers, gorges, wetlands, and more. The area has always been recognized as a paradise for photographers, skiers, birdwatchers, and independent travelers.
Douyin, one of the most popular short-video apps in China, released new regulations restricting users from disseminating political and social affairs, financial, legal, or medical content for commercial purposes.
Accounts with a substantial fan base and significant influence will no longer be permitted to own authorization with commercially promoted accounts, granting them the ability to create content covering political, social, legal and medical content.
In response, Douyin told media that to protect the rights of creators and optimize the creator experience, Douyin has adjusted the account authorization function for commercial promotion. This includes no longer supporting government media organizations or accounts that primarily focus on social, political, economic, legal, or medical content, or accounts with a large number of followers and significant influence, to establish authorization relationships with commercial promotion accounts that include content publishing capabilities.
A representative from Douyin’s customer service department told the Global Times that under the new rule, the app will no longer support or grant authorization for individual users (whose who don’t affiliate with any organization) to publish content addressing political, social affairs, legal and medical issues.
The customer service stated that the move aims to safeguard creators' rights and optimize their overall experience on the platform. The revised regulations primarily target collaborations with huge amounts of commercial promotion accounts and local push-outs.
Wang Sixin, a professor of law from the Communication University of China, told the Global Times that as a shepherd in China’s social media arena, Douyin’s move may exert significant impact on self-media accounts. Currently, there is a mixed bag of self-media creators, and the government's regulation of online platforms is closely linked to their social communication effects. "The government has always encouraged mainstream media to regulate professional information related to the industry. Unrestricted publishing of contents on social media will not only cause trouble for regulation, they also bore severe political risks,” Wang said.
Last month, the Cyberspace Administration of China announced this special campaign. The campaign is designated to crack down on influencers' boundless behavior of rubbing and creating heated spots, which mix virtuality with reality. It will rigorously rectify influencers who disregard public interest, violate morals in order to gain public attention.
It will target self-directed fabricating stories, such as unscrupulous manipulation of trending social news, international and domestic news, and indiscriminate distribution of vulgar news to fool netizens and sabotage the internet environment.
Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol said the country plans to cut shipping through Vietnamese ports by 70 percent as a result of the $1.7 billion Techo Funan Canal project connecting the Mekong River basin to the Cambodian coast, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
While the discussion surrounding whether the China-funded canal will reduce Cambodia's dependence on Vietnamese ports for shipping has attracted attention, the real significance of the project lies not only in its demonstration of the strong collaboration between China and Cambodia, but also its reflection of the broader trend of regional economic integration.
The project is of great significance to Cambodia's economic development, as it will establish a new trade route that enhances economic and trade collaboration with China. By reducing transportation times, the canal will significantly decrease logistics costs and facilitate intra-regional trade, benefiting Cambodia's foreign trade, particularly in the China-Cambodia trade relationship.
More direct access to the Chinese market will not only boost Cambodia's trade efficiency but also attract increased Chinese investment, bringing benefits for the local population.
The canal may understandably raise certain concerns in Vietnam. But it should be noted that the Techo Funan Canal project is aimed primarily at improving Cambodia's logistics efficiency. Its indirect benefits and enhanced regional cooperation could still open up new opportunities for Vietnam. Of course, the realization of these opportunities will necessitate close cooperation and coordination between Vietnam and Cambodia, as well as among the countries along the Mekong River.
Meanwhile, it is important to recognize that the Techo Funan Canal project should not be viewed solely as a bilateral issue between Cambodia and Vietnam. Taking a broader perspective, the project is just part of the development and enhancement of regional infrastructure connectivity linking China and Southeast Asia. It is also an inevitable development as China and the ASEAN Free Trade Area have reached a certain level of development, because the whole region needs better connectivity.
The success of the China-Laos Railway may be the reason that Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam are building or planning to build high-speed railways to promote regional economic integration and connectivity.
For instance, in December 2023, Vietnam and China signed dozens of cooperation agreements on building several high-speed railways linking to China, according to media reports. Existing road and air connections between China and Vietnam are also being enhanced.
Thailand is also an active regional player. The China-Thailand railway, which is an important part of the trans-Asian railway network, will be Thailand's first standard-gauge high-speed railway. The line will see trains running from Bangkok to the border town of Nong Khai, where a bridge is expected to connect it with the China-Laos Railway, making it possible to travel by train from Bangkok through Laos and then to Kunming in Southwest China's Yunnan Province.
Whether it is a rail network under construction or planning in countries like Vietnam and Thailand, or a planned canal project in Cambodia, these initiatives can become integral components of a future interconnected regional transportation network. Such infrastructure efforts may point to the future of regional economic cooperation as being highly connected, mutually beneficial and win-win for all involved.
As these projects will facilitate the flow of goods, capital, technology and people, Southeast Asian countries stand to gain significant advantages in terms of promoting regional economic integration, enhancing accessibility for their citizens and boosting the efficiency of goods movement.
Of course, challenges may arise with any large-scale infrastructure endeavor. But by working together, it is believed that these challenges can be overcome through close cooperation and consultation among governments, so as to realize the common development and prosperity of the region.
China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) on Saturday issued an interim regulation against unfair competition in the cyberspace, which provides a legal basis to protect the rights of business operators and vast Chinese consumers.
The move showed that the regulation and development of the internet and e-commerce industries are being ramped up, following a big jump in the number of market players online, analysts noted.
The regulation was issued to prevent and stop unfair competition in the internet industry, maintain market order, encourage innovation, protect the legitimate rights and interests of market operators and consumers, and promote the sound and persistent development of the digital economy, the market regulator noted.
The new regulation came amid China's ramped-up efforts to form a unified national market and continuously improving the business environment, the regulator said.
On Saturday, an executive meeting of the State Council reviewed and adopted a draft regulation to promote fair market competition in China.
Liu Dingding, an internet industry analyst, told the Global Times on Sunday that China's law-based internet governance system has been basically formed now, which will benefit online business operation and provide a positive consumption environment for the economy's recovery.
The new regulation has five chapters and 43 detailed stipulations, covering the definition of unfair competition in the internet sphere, such as fake information and false advertising, and clarifying regulatory enforcement and legal liabilities. It will take effect on September 1.
New types of unfair competition by technical means such as illegal data collection and discriminatory treatment will be also regulated. The new regulation provides a basis to address potential new unfair competition issues in the future, the market regulator said.
The new regulation also urges internet platform-based giant companies to assume more responsibility in regulating unfair competition and take concrete steps for compliance. Internet operators that violate this regulation will be severely penalized, according to the SAMR.
Wang Peng, an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday that the regulation announced by the SAMR will help improve the country's digital business governance by cracking down on all illicit behaviors and protecting intellectual property in the internet sphere, and the regulator will play an important role in securing the legal rights of both companies and consumers.
As of 2 pm on Thursday, the death toll has risen to 48 after part of an expressway collapsed in south China's Guangdong Province on early Wednesday morning, according to a press conference held in Meizhou City. DNA of another three people are yet to be identified.
Thirty injured people are receiving hospital treatment, and none of them are in life-threatening condition, according to authorities of Meizhou City.
The collapse happened around 2:10 a.m. on the Meizhou-Dabu Expressway in Meizhou. The collapsed section measures 17.9 meters long and covers an area of 184.3 square meters, officials said.
Aerial photos show one side of the expressway caved in, causing vehicles to roll down a slope.
China's May Day holidays, spanning five days from Wednesday to Sunday, are expected to witness a historic surge in travel activity. This expectation arises from the sell-out of ticket bookings across numerous tourist attractions and a surging volume of passenger trips, among other positive data points.
The ongoing boom in the tourism industry during the major holidays reflects a significant upgrade and recovery of domestic consumption, experts said. They predict that this year's May Day holidays may see the tourism industry recover to 2019 levels before the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to China Railway Group, the national railway system is expected to transport 144 million passengers, averaging 18 million passengers per day. Rail transportation services for the May Day holidays officially commenced on Monday and will continue until May 6, spanning eight days in total.
Wednesday, or May 1, is expected to see the highest number of trips, with an estimated 21 million passengers set to travel in a single day.
During a regular press conference held by the Ministry of Transport (MOT) on Monday, Guo Sheng, deputy director of the Highway Bureau of the MOT, said that preliminary forecasts indicate a significant increase in travel volume during the upcoming May Day holidays, with a high proportion of people choosing to travel by cars.
The policy of exempting tolls for small passenger vehicles on highways will continue to be implemented over the five-day holidays.
Moreover, the daily inter-regional passenger flow during the holiday period is expected to exceed 270 million passenger trips, surpassing levels seen during the same period in 2023 and 2019. The proportion of self-driving trips is expected to exceed 80 percent, Guo said.
On Monday, the rail network covering the Yangtze River Delta region, one of the most developed regions in China, facilitated more than 2.645 million passengers, an increase of nearly eight percent year-on-year. The railway company expects to see 3.18 million passenger trips on Tuesday, according to media reports.
Data from multiple online travel platforms indicate that the popularity of the holiday travel has continued from last year, potentially making this year's May Day holidays the busiest since the COVID-19 pandemic, experts predicted.
According to Tuniu, an online travel platform, group travel bookings indicate that domestic long-distance travel remains preferred by a larger number of tourists, constituting 46 percent of total trips. Fliggy, another domestic travel platform, revealed a surge in outbound travel bookings, with related service bookings experiencing robust growth of nearly 100 percent, building on last year's rapid rebound.
Tickets for many domestic major tourist attractions have already been sold out few days ahead of the holidays.
Taishan scenic area in East China's Shandong Province issued a reminder to tourists through its WeChat public account that as of Sunday, all night tickets for Taishan scenic area three days before the May Day holidays had been sold out and reservations had been suspended.
On Tuesday, the Panda valley scenic area of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding posted on its WeChat public account that tickets for the scenic area were sold out for Wednesday morning, all day on Thursday and Friday, as well as Saturday morning.
Some scenic spots have implemented measures such as controlling visitor flow and extending visiting hours to ensure a safe and enhanced experience for travelers.
For example, Huashan Scenic Spot issued a notice that during the holidays, the maximum daily number of visitors to Huashan Scenic Spot is limited to 30,000, of which group reservations cannot exceed 8,000 per day. Ticket sales will be suspended when the upper limit is reached.
China's tourism economy has maintained a rapid recovery since the beginning of this year.
On Tuesday, China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism released a statement, announcing that based on the results of a domestic tourism sampling survey, in the first quarter of 2024, the number of domestic tourist trips reached 1.419 billion, an increase of 203 million compared to the same period last year, representing a year-on-year growth of 16.7 percent. Meanwhile, domestic tourists spent a total of 1.52 trillion yuan on travel, an increase of 0.22 trillion yuan compared to the previous year, reflecting a year-on-year growth of 17.0 percent.
This year's tourism sector during the May Day holidays is still at the point where pent-up demand is on the verge of recovery after three years of the pandemic, Wu Fenglin, director of the Planning and Leisure Research Institute, China Tourism Academy, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Since last year, the surge in demand for travel has been accompanied by an upgrade in new travel products, which has jointly contributed to creating a hot tourism market, Wu said.
"So far, the data reported ahead of the May Day holidays make me confident in the recovery of the domestic tourism market," Wu said, noting that three years following the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent industry recovery, there is a possibility that the overall performance of the tourism industry during this year's May Day holidays may mirror that of 2019, the biggest year on record.
In recent months, a number of officials in China's medical fields have been investigated or disciplined, with many of them having previously or currently held important positions.
Experts said on Sunday that the recent anti-corruption moves indicate that anti-corruption efforts are deepening and that pressure on anti-corruption efforts is still being exerted in the medical field.
According to the Guangdong Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision on Friday, Duan Yufei, former Party secretary and director of the Guangdong Provincial Health Commission is currently undergoing disciplinary review and investigation for suspicion of serious violations of discipline and law.
Observers suggested that this may indicate that the anti-corruption efforts in the medical field are increasingly targeting the entire chain, not only focusing on healthcare institution staff, but also on "the key few" closer to the upstream of the industry, including medical enterprises, regulatory departments, and medical universities.
According to incomplete statistics, since March, at least 33 "key few" figures have been investigated or disciplined, including several directors of top-tier hospitals, university management, and top officials in local medical and health systems.
Over the past week, Liu Zilin, former Party secretary and director of the Anhui Provincial Food and Drug Administration, Zhang Yongyu, Party secretary and executive vice president of the Fujian Family Planning Association, and Hu Liu, Party secretary of the People's Hospital of Xinyu, are undergoing disciplinary review and supervision investigation.
Yang Xiaoming, the former chief engineer and chief scientist at China National Biotec Group under Chinese state-owned Sinopharm, has been dismissed from his position as a National People's Congress delegate due to suspected serious violations of discipline and law.
According to Lianhe Zaobao, Yang has been linked to corruption in pharmaceuticals and issues related to vaccine research and development.
Recently, after the president of a medical university in Jiangxi Province was investigated, a hospital where he had served as dean immediately held a meeting to ask staff to voluntarily disclose any financial transactions which involved the former fallen president, according to media reports.
In recent months, Shanghai, Chongqing, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and other regions have introduced detailed implementation rules for the "Nine Codes of Conduct for Medical Institution Staff's Honest and Professional Conduct," which were jointly issued by the National Health Commission and two other ministries in 2021.
These regional rules have expanded and refined the national guidelines, showing certain local differences. Several informed sources revealed that the parts of these rules that have been particularly detailed often indicate more serious issues in the current anti-corruption campaign in the medical field.
The "bribery crime" refers to the crime committed by state personnel who use their official positions to solicit or illegally accept property from others in order to seek benefits for others.
According to the size of a bribe, sentences for bribery crimes are generally divided into three categories - the first category is less than three years, the second category is three to 10 years, and the third category is over 10 years.
Although the current medical anti-corruption campaign seems to have a strong momentum, the judgments of the parties involved did not deviate too much from the expectations of Zhou Hao, a lawyer based in Beijing specialized in criminal defense. "They are basically within the legal framework, and the penalties did not show an unusually severe trend."
The anti-corruption efforts in the medical field are not just about hospitals or doctors, Zhuang Deshui, a deputy director of the Research Center for Government Integrity-Building at Peking University, told the Global Times on Sunday.
"In the past, it was commonly understood that anti-corruption in the medical field only referred to corruption by doctors. Now, this understanding has been expanded, and corruption in the medical field involves pharmaceutical companies, medical management departments, approval departments, and so on," Zhuang noted.
Fees for events or lectures have always been a highly scrutinized area in the anti-corruption efforts in the medical field. On April 7, the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission issued the "Implementation Rules of the Nine Guidelines for the Ethical Conduct of Medical Institution Staff in Shanghai." Among them, regulations regarding lecture fees were stipulated - it is strictly prohibited to accept benefits through fabricated academic lecture reasons or fees that clearly exceed the lecture fee standards recommended by the industry association.
"Four or five years ago, fabricating lectures was quite common," Health Insight, a healthcare think tank quoted a pharmaceutical representative. Starting two or three years ago, some multinational pharmaceutical companies began to strictly control lecture fee expenditures.
Now, companies paying lecture fees require e-invoices, video recordings for online meetings, photos for offline meetings, and sharing time must exceed 20 minutes. After the meeting, a third-party team will also conduct follow-ups.
After the discussion on lecture fees in the summer of 2023, China issued corresponding regulations. The document requires that medical personnel must obtain hospital approvals before issuing academic lectures, they must not directly accept lecture fees from pharmaceutical companies, and the organizers and invitees of academic conferences must be state organs, institutions, medical and health institutions, research institutes, universities, and social organizations. This may mean that in the future, medical personnel will have to go through academic societies and associations to give academic lectures.
Eradicating corruption in the medical field cannot be achieved overnight, and it has gradually become an industry consensus, because it needs to reshape the understanding of all practitioners in the industry chain on the distribution of benefits. The key to medical anti-corruption efforts is not only to reverse false perceptions, but also to accurately identify the corrupt elements in the medical field, experts said.
This is a positive trend, forming a comprehensive anti-corruption system that covers the entire chain, Zhuang said. "Only in this way can we address the root causes of this corrupt issue," he said.
The latest power outage at Fukushima again highlights the mismanagement of the plant operator and the irresponsible disregard of both domestic and international concerns by the Japanese government, experts said on Thursday. They also called on the international community to unite again at this critical juncture and jointly urge Japan to immediately stop its selfish nuclear-contaminated water dumping that will cause profound disasters for the future of all humanity.
According to the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), a partial power outage occurred around 10:43 am on Wednesday at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which was caused when a power cable at the Daiichi plant was damaged during excavation work. An excavation worker suffered burns and had to be rushed to the hospital, local media reported.
Japan's dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean from the crippled nuclear power plant was also halted due to the power outage, and was resumed at 5:15 pm on Wednesday, according to Kyodo News.
In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said during a regular press conference on Thursday that the dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the sea from the Fukushima nuclear power plant is a matter of great concern for the health of all mankind, the global marine environment, and international public interest.
"We urge the Japanese side to attach great importance to domestic and international concerns, cooperate to establish an effective long-term international monitoring arrangement involving neighboring countries and other relevant stakeholders, so as to effectively prevent irreversible consequences of the dumping," Wang said.
The Chinese Embassy in Japan also responded on Wednesday that the string of accidents at the Fukushima power plant demonstrate the substandard management of TEPCO, making it difficult to ensure operational safety. This further highlights the necessity for the international community to carry out supervision. "We will continue to closely monitor the subsequent impact of the accident, and once again demand that the Japanese side handle the nuclear-contaminated wastewater in a responsible manner," the embassy said in a statement.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) responded to a question sent by the Global Times on Thursday that it is permanently present at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, and was immediately informed about a temporary and partial power outage that occurred on Wednesday. "Power was fully restored after a few hours and the event had no impact on nuclear safety," the IAEA said.
Lü Chao, a research fellow at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday that the power outage causing temporary suspension of nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumping should be considered as a relatively major accident, and the Japanese government should be responsible for being honest with the public.
"However, the circumstances remain unclear now, leading to great concern from the international community," Lü said.
Chen Hong, executive director of Asia Pacific Studies Centre at East China Normal University, told the Global Times on Thursday that this accident serves as a stark reminder of the problems with the equipment at the nuclear power plant, as well as the significant deficiencies in the TEPCO's management practices.
According to media reports, representatives from Japanese civic groups on Wednesday submitted over 184,712 signatures from local citizens to the Japanese government, urging both the government and TEPCO to immediately halt the ocean dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.
However, experts noted that despite strong protests and condemnation from the Japanese people, particularly those in Fukushima, against Japan's selfish dumping, those voices have been shut down by the Japanese government.
"Japan even collaborates with some international organizations to cover up the issue of nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumping, which showed complete irresponsibility toward the global environment," Lü said.
The TEPCO started to dump the fifth batch of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean on April 19, and the dumping is expected to last until May 7 and reach nearly 7,800 tons. In Japan's fiscal 2024, which ends in March 2025, TEPCO plans to release a total of 54,600 metric tons across seven rounds, the Japan Times reported.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on April 19 that since the unilateral launch of the dumping, Japan has yet to resolve stakeholders' concerns on the safety of nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumping, the long-term reliability of the purification system and the effectiveness of monitoring arrangement. "Even so, Japan went ahead with the fifth round of discharge, essentially spreading the risk of contamination worldwide. This is rather irresponsible, and China firmly opposes it," Lin said.
Chinese experts noted that now has come to a crucial juncture for the international community to unite once again in scrutinizing Japan's self-serving actions and prevent Japan from repeating its past mistake, as the dumping will have long-lasting destructive impact on the current and future generations.
"The IAEA, in collaboration with other pertinent international organizations, and regional nations, must prioritize addressing this issue by conducting comprehensive assessments. It is imperative that Japan respond to the concerns of the global community in a serious and evidence-based manner, and stop the dumping immediately as it is causing significant harm to both humans and the environment," Chen said.
Lü also called on the regional countries to maintain necessary countermeasures, including imposing strict restrictions on seafood imports from Japan.
The China National GeneBank (CNGB), located in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, is capable of storing millions of biological samples and supporting data exchange and sharing with more than 500 units worldwide, local newspaper Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported on Monday.
The CNGB consists of a biorepository, a bio-informatics data center and a digitalization platform, according to the reports. Biorepository, which is an important means to protect the security of national biological and genetic resources and avoid potential biological threats, contains several temperature layers of liquid nitrogen.
The biorepository is used to store biological resources, with an integrated digitalization platform reading the genetic data of organisms with a sequencer. The bio-informatics data center then stored or analyzed and calculated the data with a supercomputer to use them for life sciences research and bio-industry development, according to the report.
The CNGB has realized the convergence of storage, reading and usage of biological resources and information, acting as a major component of the nation's scientific and technological infrastructure, and making a positive contribution to the promotion of the progress of life sciences and the development of bio-economy in China since the start of its operation.
"Preserving, protecting and utilizing genetic resources has become a solid foundation and effective guarantee for international competition and the major needs for building a Healthy China, and the development and utilization of genetic resources will occupy the high point of the future global biological industry chain," said an unnamed official in charge of the CNGB.
According to Xinhua News, the CNGB was officially opened in 2016, aiming to promote human health research and the conservation of global biodiversity. It was initiated by China's National Development and Reform Commission in 2011, and the project was established by Shenzhen-based BGI, one of the world's leading genomics organizations.
Ahead of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's reported visit to China next week, the US has ramped up efforts hyping up "concerns" that Beijing is "helping Moscow build up its defense industrial base" in a desperate attempt to find excuses for itself when future support for Ukraine is going down the drain, experts said on Thursday.
They noted that the US' attempts to sow discord are "meaningless" because China will cherish its highly complementary relationship with Russia.
Blinken will leave for China on April 23 for a four-day trip, Politico reported on Wednesday, citing a Washington-based diplomat and three US officials.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Thursday welcomed Blinken's upcoming arrival at Thursday's media briefing, but provided no further details.
Ahead of the visit, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that the US is "incredibly concerned" about the "material transfers" from China to Russia in the past months, which Russia has used to rebuild its industrial base and produce arms that are showing up on the battlefield in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Washington even warned that it is prepared to "take further steps as necessary" if Beijing helps prop up Moscow's military capability, State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Wednesday. Meanwhile, US lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill called the No Limits Act, which would impose sanctions on Chinese firms that provide material support to Russia.
"The Biden administration is facing a dilemma on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Withdrawal of support for Ukraine now means betraying its own commitments and allies, and if the next administration, possibly Trump's, withdraws, the Democratic Party will bear a bad reputation for being capable of instigating war but not being able to offer protection," Lü Xiang, a research fellow of US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday.
As a result, they are trying to muddy the waters to extricate themselves by blaming the US' failure on China's "support" for Russia, Lü said, adding that the US' tactic is to amplify the argument that products China sold for civilian use can be used for military purposes.
China's strategic partnership with Russia, featuring non-alliance, non-confrontation and not targeting any third party, is the same as that with other major countries including Germany and France, Lü added.
China is expected to clear a few things up during Blinken's visit, observers believe.
China is not a party to the conflict, said the expert, pointing out that as long as the US refrains from adding fuel to the fire, China can facilitate dialogue and reconciliation between the conflicting parties. It is hoped that the US can abandon the idea of completely defeating Russia in all aspects as Russia's existence is a fundamental aspect of the balance of power in a multipolar world. "It's probably more important for the US to never expect China to become a party to containing Russia," Lü said.
"Washington's efforts to sow discord between Beijing and Moscow will undoubtedly turn out to be futile, because the two value their relations as well as the vast cooperation potential empowered by their highly complementary economies," Lü said.
Analysts reached by the Global Times believe the purpose of Blinken's visit may also be to seek Chinese involvement in settling potential conflict overspill in the Middle East.
China's special representative on Eurasian affairs Li Hui met with Ukrainian Ambassador to China Pavlo Riabikin on Wednesday. The two sides exchanged views on the Ukraine crisis as well as bilateral relations and other issues of common concern.
