The year of 2024 marks the beginning of the second decade of the development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global cooperation platform China proposed in 2013 to support and add vitality to economic globalization and help resolve global development challenges and improve global governance system. How will the "the global project of the century" navigate in the next 10 years? And how should it adapt to cope with the ever-changing global geopolitical landscape? The Global Times (GT) invited a number of Chinese and foreign scholars to share their perspectives. 

BRI's next 10 years development characterized by high quality, people-centered and sustainable approach

BRI's next 10 years development will be characterized by high quality, people-centered, and sustainable approach, this is to ensure that the development best serves the common interests of all countries and benefits of cooperation reach all individuals. 

The West is so jealous of the BRI and has maliciously accused China of engaging in so-called "debt trap diplomacy" to discredit the BRI. That was a complete failure propaganda.

In the next decade, just to avoid any negative view about the BRI, all the BRI investments and collaborations must be transparent and characterized by high quality, people-centered, and sustainable approach. As already people are seeing the tangible benefits, the best way to stop the negative propaganda is to further turn the people of partner countries into more ambassadors.

The BRI also will progress toward new models of growth and development in new fields such as green development, digital cooperation, technology innovation, international cooperation in healthcare. The initiative's next decade goal will be to build a global community with a shared future. This is what many developing nations like Sri Lanka are dreaming of, as some of the Western nations are trying to restrict the development as privilege for them only.

A number of countries including Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, and Ethiopia in recent days have been officially invited to join the BRICS. Over the next decade, the BRI will further synergize with BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which all represent the Global South that is emerging as a key player in international relations and is demanding a change in the current unfair and Western-centric international world order.

The further development of the BRI will extend its global influence and strengthen trade ties with a wide range of emerging market economies. It will create new economic architecture and find alternative pathways for common currency and payment systems which cannot be weaponized by the US and its Western allies.

I also suggest India join the BRI in the future. This will be a game-changer not only for India and South Asia, but also can benefit the Global South. India will also surely benefit from China's capital and technology know-how. 

The author is the director of Belt & Road Initiative Sri Lanka (BRISL)

BRI keeps shining on diverse global stage despite 'hideous media campaigns, Western-led development approach'

Propelled by in-built features of resilience and sustainability, the new year of 2024 will keep on catalyzing the BRI to spur green growth in all shades of developments.  

Overseas BRI projects will inch toward being greener, with a broader and more transformative focus on environmental sustainability. It emphasized the firm commitment of China, as a responsible international stakeholder, to encourage a low-carbon global economy. 

As a partner country of the BRI, Pakistan will continue to be a beneficiary of a greener BRI vision. With the help of more Chinese companies, it is highly likely that Pakistan's solar energy market size is expected to grow from 1.3 gigawatts to 9.77 gigawatts in coming years. Chinese companies individually and in collaboration with Pakistan's local enterprises have already launched numerous EVs projects in the country, facilitating its greener transformation. 

With regards to challenges, the hideous media campaigns to dwarf the role of BRI on global stage are a major challenge in the next decade. Meanwhile, BRI will continue to face Western-led development approach that encourages protectionism, zero-sum game, de-risking phenomenon, bloc politics and cold-war mentality. 

It is important to note that BRI is not a vehicle of China's economic growth alone, but provides a pathway to shared global prosperity.

The BRI, as an engine of international developmental growth, has immense potential to keep shining across a diverse global stage. It has many dimensions and vibrancies. Across the spectrum of its engagements, the BRI will continue fostering collaboration in an array of domains, spanning economics, culture and ecology. In the past decade, with focus on land-based roads, sea routes, airways and soft connectivity, the BRI has enhanced rules and standards as well as people-to-people connectivity in various arenas like education, culture, sports, tourism, and archeology.

As per my perspective, the BRI and other initiatives proposed by China, such as the Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative, will chart out a new course of common global development and build a global community of shared future characterized by multilateralism, co-existence, rule-based world order, mutual respect, peace and harmony.

The opinion is based on an interview with Yasir Habib Khan, president of Institute of International Relations and Media Research in Pakistan.

With strengthened BRI cooperation, Chinese yuan likely to become the third largest global currency in the next decade

There are five focal areas of BRI development looking ahead to the coming decade, including education, new digital basic infrastructure, finance, agriculture and healthcare, some of which are "small yet smart" projects that will significantly improve the livelihood of people in BRI partner countries, especially to the developing countries. The emphasis also echoes with the goal of BRI to build a global community with a shared future. 

Take finance as an example. Some BRI partner countries lack modern financial systems and financial trading markets, a key in financing and the expansion of the private sector. On the other hand, China has mature financial markets, as exemplified by the various stock exchanges in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen as well as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Under the BRI, not only will China help the developing countries to build modern financial system, but also in newly emerging fields such as fintech and green financing.  

In the next decade, the global geopolitical landscape will become more complex and present greater uncertainty. It is likely that the US could further abuse dollar hegemony and weaponize the dollar to impose unilateral sanctions that endangers global financial order. Against the backdrop, it is important that BRI partner countries sign more local currency swap deals with China, expand the use of Chinese currency yuan in trade, payment, and global settlement. And the joint building of a global yuan payment system could then provide a shield against arbitrary hegemony practices that could weight on a country's development prospects.  

I believe that with strengthened BRI economic cooperation, the yuan is poised to become the third largest global currency after the dollar and euro in the next decade. The Chinese yuan is currently the world's fifth most traded currency after the dollar, the euro, the UK pound and Japanese yen. Overtaking the Japanese yen could take place in the next three to five years.

The opinion is based on an interview with Liang Haiming, President of Belt and Road Research Institute of Hainan University

Through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB), Chinese mainland residents can take international flights directly from Hong Kong International Airports (HKIA) without entry permit. The new policy, set to take effect on Tuesday, will further facilitate international travel for travelers from the Chinese mainland and drive passenger growth at HKIA.

This policy aims to simplify foreign travel procedures for mainland travelers through HKIA, and take advantage of the airport's direct international flights.

The move is expected to increase mainland passenger traffic at HKIA and create demand and business opportunities for Zhuhai International Airport in South China's Guangdong Province. According to media reports, Zhuhai Airport operates flights to nearly 90 mainland destinations, while HKIA offers direct flights to nearly 200 international destinations.

Zhuhai Airport will also open a multimodal passenger terminal to provide shuttle bus service for passengers traveling to Hong Kong Airport for transit flights. Passengers will board buses at Zhuhai Airport and go directly to the Skypier Terminal of Hong Kong International Airport after completing exit procedures and collecting boarding passes at Zhuhai Highway port. 

Following the implementation of northbound travel for Hong Kong and Macao vehicles, allowing Chinese mainland travelers to travel via HKIA without entry permit will further integrate the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The action is also conducive to deepening business cooperation between airports in the area. 

The border control of HZMB has set up a designated inspection channel in Zhuhai highway port to differentiate ordinary travelers and travelers to HKIA for inspection, and to provide convenient and high-quality customs clearance services, Lin Meihong, a senior official of HZMB boarder control was quoted as saying.

This policy will further leverage the bridge's central role of connecting the Greater Bay Area and influencing the western part of Guangdong, helping to promote the formation of a world-class airport cluster in the area, Lin said. 

At this stage, Chinese mainland travelers to HKIA will need to check in and complete exit procedures at Zhuhai Highway porter, in the future, travelers traveling via HKIA are expected to be able to complete their flight procedures directly at Zhuhai Airport, according to news.cctv.com. 

HKIA is one of the busiest airports in South China. In the first 10 months of 2023, the airport's passenger traffic had reached 31.4 million, up 9.5 times compared to the same period last year, according to the Airport Authority Hong Kong. 

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is accelerating integration and facilitating convenience for  local residents. On Sunday, the Digital Bay Area Development Forum in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province announced a new application which provides integrated transportation, payment and healthcare services to residents of the Greater Bay Area, it is now online on multiple platforms such as Alipay, Wechat, AlipayHK and MPay, according to Chinanews.com.cn. 

A college research team from East China’s Jiangsu Province has recently released China’s first large language model (LLM), a type of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that uses deep learning techniques and massively big data sets to help conduct research on Chinese ancient books.  

The LLM for ancient books was designed to intelligently process ancient texts, promote innovative development in the research and preservation of Chinese ancient books, enhance the efficiency and quality of the inheritance of traditional Chinese culture, and facilitate deep integration between LLMs and the processing of ancient books.  

The LLM “Xunzi,” named after Xun Zi, one of the most famous philosophers in ancient China for his Confucian classic Xunzi, contains the vast majority of Chinese ancient books and documents including the collections of the “Complete Library in Four Sections” or “Siku Quanshu,” with a large-scale corpus of over 2 billion Chinese characters and words.  

The research on Chinese traditional classics is a painstaking and laborious work even for scholars and experts, let alone for average learners. Thus, translating ancient texts into modern Chinese is one of its most important functions, Wang Dongbo, professor from College of Information Management of Nanjing Agricultural University in Nanjing, Jiangsu, who led the research team told the Global Times. 

With the model, researchers can swiftly summarize the ancient texts and know about the themes of the ancient books. The model can also extract key information from the ancient texts, such as characters, events and places, to sort out the information with efficiency.  

Besides, the model can also automatically generate ancient poems that comply with grammar and prosody rules with the prompts the users give to it to provide inspiration for poetry lovers. It can also precisely translate ancient texts into modern Chinese to help researchers understand the original meaning and connotation of ancient texts. 

Led by Wang, the research team has been working in the area of digitization of ancient books and documents for a decade. Supported by the presence of the university’s strong computing power and based on the application scenarios provided by Zhonghua Book Company, the research team accomplished China’s first open-source LLM for ancient texts in AI.  

The LLM has been published on websites such as github.com and modelscope.cn as open-source software, allowing users to download and use it for free. 

“We trained Xunzi using big data built on ancient books which can be obtained for free on the internet just like the way OpenAI trained ChatGPT. Although we spent great effort, labor force and money into it, we still share it for free with the aim to encourage more people to study and pay attention to traditional Chinese culture,” Wang said. 

What does it feel like to dive 100 meters deep under the surface of the ocean with one breath? "The hydrostatic pressure will be 11 times than that a person feels on the ground," Xu Tongtong, Chinese freediver and the country's record breaker, told the Global Times in a recent interview.

A person now titled with two record-breaking champions, the 35-year-old Xu is now the first woman of China reaching 100 meters under the sea level in history, after she claimed a gold in Constant weight (CWT) freediving discipline in Asian Freediving Cup in the Philippines in June.

The win of her first 100-meter try gave her courage. 

During July, in another competition she participated in AIDA Panglao Depth Championship in Bohol Island, the Philippines, Xu finished her another 100-meter challenge in the Constant weight bi-fins (CWTB) depth discipline, ranking second place in the world.

"If we compare the 100 meters to the height of a building, it means we are about to jump from the 30th floor to the ground and then climb back to the roof top, with one breath," Xu added. "I feel so happy when I touched and grabbed the tab underwater. 

This was a goal I set for myself three years ago, and I feel nice that the world can see the efforts we made as Chinese freediving athletes," she told the Global Times in an interview on the phone at her home in the Philippines.

The two records Xu set pushed China to reach the next level: Since then the depth record of Chinese women in freediving has entered the 100-meter level.

'First try'

Xu now lives in Boho Island, an area covering an area of 3,269 kilometers and known as top island in the Philippines.

The Boho Island has been boasting its hospitality of the freediving lovers. And it is also among the most popular freediving destinations in the country where international competitions are often held here.

But for Xu, the place means much more than a freediving heaven, as both of the two competitions she participated in with record breaking also took place here in Boho Island.

June's competition is her first ever try in challenging 100 meters freediving. "I made it," recalled Xu. "That was an unprecedented experience for me as I remembered my smile as I swam up out of the surface." 

Before heading to the competition, she undergone a three-month systematic training where her coach developed a training program cut out for her. 

"There were different proportions I needed to devote to in including the physical training and muscle training."

Based on her training plan, the last training Xu had the free diving reached 98 meters under the water. "By two meters deeper during each try, I would reach 100 meters by the time of my competition day."

"This needs a stable state of mind. If you're nervous you fail, but if you're not you win," Xu added.

Explaining the trick of the sport, Xu said that it is the opposite of the others as one needs to calm her/him down to be "as stable as possible in order to slow down the heart rate, which is essential to reduce the oxygen consumption."

A yearn for ocean

Born in Anhui, a landlocked province in East China, the 35-year-old free diver has a nickname Mutou, translated as wood often known by her friends. She also named her social media atlas after Mutou.

She believed in the flexibility of the wood as "a piece of wood can be carved into anything you want. And I wish I can have the quality just as the wood."

Xu started her swimming training as early as 8. Being a professional swimmer, Xu has participated in a string of competitions nationwide, where she won second place as her best result. 

Xu's free diving enlightenment came from a video she accidentally came across on social media. As early as 2012, when she saw the famous French freediving champion Guillaume Néry "flying" in the ocean.

"Normally we swim horizontally, but I never try swimming vertically. And I decided to have a try."

From 2012 to 2017, Xu has traveled to islands across the world for freediving, where she would immerse in the enjoyment the ocean brought her.

"If we carry gas cylinders, the bubbles that pop out will keep those sea creatures from approaching us. We are just 'guests' in the ocean, and in the ocean, we are so small," said Xu.

In the years of her career in ocean, she also received help from Israeli freediving legend Aharon Solomons, who she met in China when the later traveled there for freediving classes.

According to Solomons, freediving is a kind of sport that requires intelligence, commitments and common sense, where he believed that Xu has all of them. 

Among many sports, freediving can be dangerous, but "she has been outstanding," Solomons told the Global Times in an interview.

"I also feel honored that he coached me during my entering stage of the sport, and I've never experienced from a single injury," Xu recalled her experience when learning from Solomons.

Now in Israel, Solomons is still preparing for more competitions as he told the Global Times.

Italian Ambassador to China Massimo Ambrosetti recently visited South China's Guangdong Province and met with Chen Jianwen, a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Guangdong Provincial Committee and director of the Publicity Department of the Guangdong Provincial Committee.

Ambassador Ambrosetti recalled Italy's long history of cooperative relations with Guangdong. This relationship is rooted in history and has matured over the centuries through the efforts of important historical figures such as Matteo Ricci, he said. 

During the meeting, Ambrosetti and Chen discussed deepening trade and cultural exchanges, and strengthening of people-to-people contacts between the two countries. Meanwhile, Ambassador Ambrosetti also met with Sun zhiyang, acting mayor of the Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong . The ambassador recalled the excellent cooperation that has always existed between Italy and Guangzhou, which builds on the friendship that the capital of Guangdong Province has with the Italian cities of Bari, Genoa, Milan, Padua, and Turin.

The ambassador also visited Shenzhen and experienced the rapid development of the city compared to his first visit in 1992. Shenzhen Vice Mayor Wang Shourui introduced its economic and social development situation to the ambassador, while Ambrosetti pointed out that Italy has unrivaled advantages in the fields of industry and fashion, and that there is huge cooperation between Italy and Shenzhen in these fields. 

"Italy is the world's fashion capital and has had a positive impact on the design sector in Shenzhen, where the creativity of Italian designers is particularly appreciated. This year, the relation links between Shenzhen and Italy have also been gradually strengthened due to increased direct flights," he alleged. 

The ambassador also awarded the Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy to Sun Qijie, who is responsible for the Sea World Culture and Arts Center. This is a great honor in Italy, and was awarded to Sun to recognize his contribution to the dissemination of Italian culture in South China.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that the relocation of Gaza residents from the north to the south as ordered by the Israeli military is extremely dangerous.

After days of airstrikes, the Israeli military has ordered the Palestinians in Gaza City and its surroundings to move to the south of the territory, said Guterres. "Moving more than 1 million people across a densely populated warzone to a place with no food, water, or accommodation, when the entire territory is under siege, is extremely dangerous - and in some cases, simply not possible."

Hospitals in the south of Gaza are already at capacity and will not be able to accept thousands of new patients from the north. The health system is on the brink of collapse. Morgues are overflowing; 11 healthcare staff have been killed while on duty; and there have been 34 attacks on health facilities in the past few days, he said before walking into a Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The entire territory of Gaza faces a water crisis as infrastructure has been damaged and there is no electricity to power pumps and desalination plants, he added.

Guterres said the situation in Gaza has reached a dangerous new low.

The horrific terror attacks by Hamas on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people and injured thousands more on Saturday were followed by intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza that has already killed 1,800 people and injured thousands more, he noted.

Guterres called for immediate humanitarian access throughout Gaza so that fuel, food and water can be provided to people in need. He called for respect for international humanitarian law and human rights law, and for the protection of civilians. He also called for the immediate release of hostages in Gaza.

"It is imperative that all parties - and those with influence over them - do everything possible to achieve these steps," said Guterres.

The UN chief also warned against hate speech stoked by the conflict - across the Middle East and around the world.

"Dehumanizing language that incites violence is never accepted. I call on all leaders to speak out against Antisemitism, anti-Muslim bigotry and hate speech of all kinds. This is a time for the international community to come together around protecting civilians and finding a lasting solution to this unending cycle of death and destruction," he said.

The Embassy of Belgium invited Belgians and friends of Belgium in China to the ambassador's residence to celebrate the country's National Day on July 21, which also marked the 10th anniversary of HM King Philippe's accession to the throne.
Departing ambassador Jan Hoogmartens gave a speech that concluded his China chapter for himself and four other Belgian diplomats.

The speech was followed by an artistic showcase by Jehanne de Biolley, a Belgian designer that works in fashion, interior design, fragrance and other artistic mediums, and whose ability to weave her Belgian origins into Chinese culture has been recognized by HM King Philippe. For her achievements, she was granted the title of Knight in the Order of Leopold. 

Guests enjoyed classic Belgian delicacies such as fries, a selection of exquisite beers and the delicious waffles as well.

Editor's Note:

Despite worldwide oppositions and criticism, the Japanese government went ahead with its nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumping plan on August 24, opening a Pandora's Box of unfathomable consequences. Rather than responding to global concerns, the Japanese government attempts to obfuscate public spotlight by transforming itself into a victim. 

Japan had reportedly dumped more than 4,000 tons of nuclear-contaminated wastewater as of Tuesday. It detected radioactive tritium in seawater off the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant for the first time on August 31, the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said the following day.

The Japanese government's reckless wastewater dumping, which may last as long as 30 years, is likely to bring far-reaching consequences to the global marine ecosystem and cause unpredictable damage. Worse still, in order to whitewash its evil deeds, the Kishida administration and TEPCO have resorted to deception and smear campaigns to mislead the public.

Why is the nuclear-contaminated wastewater being dumped by Japan actually not in accordance with discharge standards as the country claims? What tricks have been used by the country to attempt to cover up the truth and gain the international community's support? The Global Times recently talked to some experts in marine ecology and nuclear radiation and insiders who are familiar with Japan's dumping plan, so as to expose the lies of the Japanese government and the reason why Japan is so keen to act as a "victim."

Nuclear wastewater VS radioactive wastewater 

One of TEPCO and the Japanese government's main efforts to whitewash its nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumping plan is to confuse the concept with normal nuclear wastewater by insisting that the water are and plan to continue dumping into the ocean has been treated. 

But the two concepts are entirely different.

Nuclear wastewater is generated during the normal operation of nuclear reactors and the application of radioisotopes in nuclear power plants, such as reactor coolants. Such wastewater does not directly come in contact with nuclear fuel and reactants, and is released safely. 

However, radioactive wastewater or nuclear-contaminated wastewater is generated after coolant directly comes in contact with radioactive materials when released after a nuclear reactor shield is broken accidentally. Such wastewater is highly radioactive and contains dozens of radioactive materials that are seriously harmful to human being and the environment. Some radioactive materials in this water have very long half-lives. Iodine-129, for instance, has a half-life of 15.7 million years and Carbon-14's half-life is 5,730 years. 

Moreover, at a normal power plant, nuclear materials are enclosed within the reactor. But when the reactor is destroyed, the nuclear materials might continue to leak out and dissolve in the water, making the water contaminated and leading to long-term damage. 

Taking these facts into account, the wastewater dumped from the Fukushima nuclear power plant is typical nuclear-contaminated wastewater. Confusing such water with normal nuclear wastewater reflects a guilty conscience and the knowledge that dumping the water into the ocean is wrong, experts pointed out. 

They asked that if Japan equates the nuclear wastewater produced by a normal reactor to nuclear-contaminated wastewater, and really believes that the water it is dumping is clean and safe, why doesn't the country reuse it as industrial water?

Meet discharge standards?

Japan reportedly uses a very simple and self-deceptive way to make the wastewater it plans to continue dumping superficially "safe": It diluted the nuclear-contaminated wastewater at a ratio of 1:100 with seawater before release.

That doesn't change the total amount of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater Japan plans to dump, nor does it reduce any possible damage to the marine environment. The trick, as the Associated Press reported on August 22, does bring the current released water below international safety limits, "but its radioactivity won't be zero."

Through the years, Japan has babbled on and on about its self-made nuclear-contaminated wastewater treating system, bragging that its facilities are able to meet release standard compliance. The Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), one of the key facilities TEPCO designed to deal with the wastewater to be discharged, started trial operations as early as March 2013.

Since then, Japan began to refer to the nuclear-contaminated wastewater treated at the ALPS as "treated water," to create an illusion that the water to be dumped is safe after "treatment."

This deceptive term doesn't change the fact that the ALPS-treated water is far from meeting international release standards, as data provided by TEPCO showed that as of September 30, 2021, some 70 percent of the then 1.243 million cubic meters of ALPS-treated nuclear-contaminated wastewater still failed to meet the criteria, 18 percent of which even exceeded the standard 10 to 20,000 times over.

Additionally, the ALPS facility has experienced frequent malfunctions. In August 2021, for instance, TEPCO found that there were at least 10 breakages on the filters used to absorb nuclides. A month later, TEPCO announced that five more filters in the ALPS were found to have been damaged, and radioactive contamination had been detected near some of the filters.

The lack of supervision in Japan's water treatment has also causes widespread concern. During a recent foreign media tour to the discharge site, when a French journalist suggested that a third party such as an environmental group or expert should participate in the measurement or monitoring of radiation in order to increase credibility, TEPCO's Kenichi Takahara, who was responsible for the on-site coverage, "immediately reacted negatively," Yonhap News Agency reported on September 3.

TEPCO and the Japanese government should guarantee comprehensive, timely, and complete publishing of data regarding the process of the dumping and accept supervision by the international community, Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, told the Global Times at the weekend.

IAEA, authoritatively backed?

Japan claims the water release has been backed by the IAEA and authoritative scientists. To get IAEA to endorse its dumping plan, the Japanese government provided the IAEA with at least 1 million euros as a sort of political donation, two South Korean media sources said in June.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry later issued a denial. Nonetheless, in an article published on July 8, Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun quoted "a ministry official" as saying that the whole Japanese government "invested a lot of money in the IAEA and sent a lot of personnel there, to ensure its (Japan's) presence" in the IAEA's decision making.

It's worth noting that, no matter how much money Japan has offered to the IAEA, the latter has never openly vouched for Japan's wastewater discharge plan as being rational or reliable.

Although a recent assessment report presented by the IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to the Japanese government concluded that the discharge plan "is in conformity with the agreed international standards," it stressed at the beginning that it does not necessarily reflect the views of IAEA member states and is not a recommendation or an endorsement of Japan's ocean dumping plan. 

Liu Senlin, an expert with the China Institute of Atomic Energy, who participated in the IAEA's technical working group for the assessment, told the Global Times previously that the report was released hastily and lacked sufficient consultation with experts. China's permanent representative to the IAEA, Li Song, also pointed out that the conclusions of the agency's report were one-sided and lacked credibility.

Globally, organizations such as Greenpeace and the US National Association of Marine Laboratories have openly opposed Japan's wastewater dumping plan. "[The discharge] ignores human rights and international maritime law," Greenpeace criticized in a press release on August 22.

Huge 'PR budget' works?

The Japanese Foreign Ministry had increased its 2024 budget specially designed to respond to "disinformation" about the nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumping plan to approximated 70 billion yen ($478 million), the NHK reported on August 24, when Japan started the release process.

The 70-billion-yen "PR budget" is allegedly almost 20 times the budget for the nuclear-contaminated water dumping, and twice the budge for an alternative steam discharge. "It can be seen that the Japanese government is more inclined to spend money on public relations in dealing with the issue of Fukushima nuclear sewage than to adopt a safer treatment plan," said Min News on Monday.

Compared with putting forward a safer plan, Japan seems to have spent much more money and energy in justifying its unscrupulous wastewater dumping plan, hiring professional PR companies to confuse the public by frequently spreading false information including "effects of the Fukushima accident have been eliminated" and "the water to be discharged is safe," observers found.

Some of its PR methods have been laughably ridiculous. In 2021, the Japanese government contracted advertising giant Dentsu to come up with a promotional campaign for the dumping plan. Ironically, what Dentsu did to whitewash the dumping plan, was to invent a cute cartoon character for the radioactive particle tritium. 

The campaign unsurprisingly backfired, and the tritium "mascot" was scrubbed from the internet after just two days, Kyodo News reported in April 2021.

Japan's various whitewash campaigns and playacting can't change the fact that the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater and fish therein are likely to be harmful. Many people around the globe are well aware of that, as the Fukushima seafood was declined by many countries' athletes during the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. The South Korea team openly said it brought in own food instead to avoid possibly contaminated Fukushima ingredients.

Japan is a victim?

In addition to ridiculous PR stunts, the Japanese government has also been actively conducting high-level communications to attract more supporters while setting China as a common target to shift focus. 

Despite the US President Joe Biden's claim that the US-Japan-South Korea summit at the US presidential retreat Camp David held on August 18 "is not about China," afterward the leaders of the three countries explicitly picked on China under the pretext of "joint efforts to maintain peace and stability" in the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea, which once again laid bare rife anti-China hypocrisy, Chinese observers criticized.

After the meeting between South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in May, the South Korean government's position has undergone an obvious shift. 

After Japan's Minister for Foreign Affairs Yoshimasa Hayashi's visits to several Pacific island countries in March such as Tuvalu and Sao Tome and Principe, these countries' positions also became ambiguous. The main economic drivers of Pacific island countries are tourism and the fisheries. As Japan is a leader in global fisheries technology, experts deemed that Japan may have made some commitments to support the development of fisheries in these island countries in exchange for the latter's silence on the dumping plan.

The Japanese government is also concocting false propaganda to divert attention. Recently, the Japanese Embassy in China held a briefing for foreign media in Beijing, but did not invite Chinese media outlets, aiming to provide targeted publicity for foreign media and indirectly influence public opinion in China. 

Chinese observers pointed out that what the Japanese government's expectation is, as long as the Geiger counter doesn't explode within seconds after contact with the wastewater, or a Godzilla monster-like would not suddenly emerge from the sea, the dumping can be acceptable. As for questions like whether there will be man-tall crabs or Cthulhu-esque octopuses in 30 to 40 years is not part of its consideration. Moreover, the potential problems that may occur 30 years later will no longer be the current government's concern. This is the Japanese government's logic.

China, by contrast, is motivated by providing an effective public good by taking a stand against Japan's wastewater dumping. If China, through its own efforts, makes Japan change its decision, or deal with the wastewater in a safer way, that will ultimately benefit the entire Pacific Ocean and all the people involved, and that is a real public good, an expert familiar with Japan's dumping plan said.

Sadly, when China stands up such a foolhardy plan, certain countries resort to using environmental protection as a business and slogan, or a label to seek personal political influence. 

A public good can only be provided by responsible powers. Since Japan commenced dumping nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the sea, the Chinese government has not hesitated to shoulder its responsibility and clearly point out that the dumping will harm the entire ocean. 

"Some US media outlets even claimed that China would be the last to be affected from the perspective of ocean circulation. So why is China stepping up?" an anonymous expert told the Global Times. "Because what China has been doing is for the sake of being responsible to humanity and the country really cares about environmental protection."

South Korea is very keen on joining the Quad grouping, said the South Korean Envoy in India Chang Jae-bok on Wednesday, according to The Hindu. However, just recently, at the G20 summit, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol publicly expressed his hope to promote the stable and healthy development of the South Korea-China relationship. 

Currently, the South Korean government's foreign policy is heavily leaning toward the US, and the eagerness to join the Quad is an extension of this diplomatic policy. The Yoon administration's foreign policy is deeply entrenched in the mind-set of a "new cold war" and cannot extricate itself. 

The South Korean government seems to believe that the world has entered a new cold war and agrees with the US in dividing the world into "liberal" and "authoritarian" camps. In other words, South Korea may acknowledge the need to view non-Western countries as enemies, and cooperation has limitations. South Korea also understands that strengthening relations with the Western camp will lead to friction in the relations between China and South Korea and even on the Korean Peninsula, but it considers this a necessary cost.

The important thing is that South Korea believes that by doing so, it reflects its identity as a "global pivotal state" and assumes global responsibilities. Zhan Debin, director and professor of the Center for Korean Peninsula Studies at the Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, told the Global Times that South Korea, which claims to be the vanguard of safeguarding the order of freedom and democracy, has become an important ally in promoting the US Indo-Pacific strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, which can enhance South Korea's international status. However, this confidence and enthusiasm may only be wishful thinking on the part of South Korea.

Since the Yoon administration came to power, it has shown great confidence in joining the Quad. Due to the influence of the Japan-South Korea relationship at that time, Japan did not want to see South Korea's participation, let alone South Korea decreasing its influence within this small circle. Compared to Japan, India is even less willing to see the Quad become an anti-China and anti-Russia group, as this would diminish India's value. As the leader of the Quad, the US has also not provided much support to South Korea.

Despite the active pressure from the Donald Trump administration for the South Korean government to join the Quad, President Joe Biden has not made a proactive statement on this matter. The Yoon administration believed that as long as South Korea proposed it, the US would immediately agree. However, from the perspective of the US, South Korea's capabilities and contributions, especially in terms of security outside the Korean Peninsula, are limited and cannot be of much help to the US.

If South Korea joins the Quad, the US naturally needs to consider how much contribution South Korea can make within the Quad mechanism. Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, told the Global Times that in current Quad mechanism, the US is using India, Japan and Australia to contain China from the Indian Ocean, the West Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. What can South Korea do? It can at most cooperate with the US and Japan in economic and trade measures to suppress China. In other words, South Korea has not yet proved its capabilities among the Quad countries.

For South Korea, the security of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia should be the most concerning issue. Without cooperation with China, South Korea cannot maintain a stable and peaceful situation in the region. However, the inexperienced administration of Yoon clearly does not realize it. On one hand, it claims to maintain China-South Korea relations, but on the other hand, it continuously tests China's bottom line, which is detrimental to regional peace and stability and does not align with South Korea's own interests. If the Yoon administration wants to manage China-South Korea relations well, it needs to show sincerity. If the trilateral summit between China, Japan, and South Korea is only for showcasing South Korea's leadership and international status, the public's dissatisfaction with the government will only continue to rise.

China's eight-day Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays wrapped up on Friday, with the number of domestic trips and tourism revenue seeing robust growth and exceeding that of 2019, underscoring the robust recovery of the world's second-largest economy.

The bustling scenes seen across the country during the Golden Week holidays offered the latest sign of strong vitality in China's consumption, a major economic growth driver, and the vast potential of China's steady economic recovery, in stark contrast to the dire predictions made by Western media and politicians, analysts said.

While downward pressure remains, China's economy will continue to rebound in the rest of the year and could make a full recovery at the end of 2023, thanks to robust recovery in consumption and other areas and a range of policy measures taken to boost growth, analysts noted.

Bustling tourism

A total of 826 million domestic passenger trips were made in China during the eight-day Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays, a year-on-year increase of 71.3 percent and up 4.1 percent from 2019. Holiday tourism generated 753.43 billion yuan ($104.68 billion), up 129.5 percent year-on-year and 1.5 percent increase from 2019, official data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism showed on Friday.

Some 59.89 million trips were expected to be made on Friday during the return peak, a year-on-year increase of 58.4 percent, data from the Ministry of Transport showed on Friday. Among them, a total of 18.8 million passengers will travel via the railway with 12,571 trains to be operated, according to China Railway.

Domestic consumption experienced a strong pickup during the holidays, showing the best performance since 2019. For instance, the average daily consumption scale of service retail jumped by 153 percent compared with the same period of 2019, while the consumption scale for dine-in surged by 254 percent, according to data from China's e-commerce platform Meituan.

Multiple provincial-level regions rolled out their tourism reports for the holidays on Friday and Thursday, which returned to or even exceeded the 2019 level.

Shanghai welcomed a total of 21.30 million tourists for the holidays with transactions related to tourism recording a year-on-year increase of 29.7 percent to 29.24 billion yuan, official data showed on Friday.

The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region received a total of 14.53 million domestic tourists in the first five days of the holidays, a yearly increase of 5.38 times and 1.29 times more than the same period in 2019, thepaper.cn reported on Thursday. The region generated a total of 9.93 billion yuan in tourism revenue, a year-on-year increase of 6.31 times and 1.12 times increase compared with 2019.

Chinese tourists were able to experience the holidays in diverse forms, from touring domestic and international scenic spots and enjoying leisure time in third- and fourth-tier cities to becoming involved in emerging experiences such as cultural and tourism integration projects, night markets, and musicals, according to reports from Chinese travel agencies.

Flight bookings for top domestic destinations during the holidays surged by nearly five times compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, with bookings for flights departing on September 29 - the first day of the holidays - hitting a record high on Chinese online travel agency platform Qunar, the company told the Global Times on Friday. Bookings for domestic hotels in popular destinations doubled compared with the pre-COVID period. The top destinations included Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Shanghai and other cities.

In addition to visiting well-known cities and metropolises, some Chinese travelers also opted to enjoy the nation's rich cultural heritage and breathtaking natural scenery.

A female traveler surnamed Zhao from Southwest China's Chongqing visited the Bingling Temple Grottoes in Northwest China's Gansu Province -a world cultural heritage with a history stretching back more than 1,600 years. Zhao told the Global Times on Friday that she also encountered some foreign visitors during her visit.

Meanwhile, the ongoing 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, sparked a consumption craze in sports and related fields throughout the holidays. The order volume for service consumption within the province exceeded 195 percent this year compared with 2019, while the dine-in order volume in Hangzhou increased by 443 percent and orders related to sports and fitness increased by 762 percent, per media reports.

At the same time, outbound tourism witnessed a strong rebound for the recently passed holidays. Orders for overseas travel on Chinese online tourism platform Ctrip.com increased by more than eight times year-on-year, according to a report sent to the Global Times on Friday. Meanwhile, bookings for international flights for the holidays on Fliggy reached a peak within the year.

The boom in tourism also spurred a consumption craze. In the first seven days of the holidays, sales of key monitored retail and dining enterprises increased by 9 percent year-on-year, while the major passenger flow in key commercial areas in 36 cities increased by 164 percent year-on-year, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed on Friday. The domestic box office also topped 2.5 billion yuan, a yearly increase of 70 percent.

Experts attributed the rebound in consumption to China's steady economic recovery and effective macroeconomic stimulus policies, showing the nation's strong resilience and huge potential in consumption, which will also play a vital role in bolstering economic growth in the fourth quarter.

Boosting GDP growth

China's economic performance outperformed 2019 in some aspects after nearly one year of post-epidemic growth, shown by the consumption rebound for the holidays and gradual recovery in trade along with other indicators, Cao Heping, an economist at Peking University, told the Global Times on Friday, expecting a full recovery by the end of 2023 or at the latest by February next year.

China's official manufacturing purchasing managers' index for September came in at 50.2, its first time in positive territory since April and after a consecutive increase over the last four months, the National Bureau of Statistics announced on September 30.

The consumption boom reflected the strong resilience and driving force of the spending power of Chinese residents, Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Research Institute, told the Global Times on Friday.

Cong Yi, a professor at the Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, echoed Zhang's view and added that the targeted policy measures had further noticeable effects during the Golden Week, stressing the importance of continuing to implement the policies moving froward.

Cong told the Global Times on Friday that the consumption rebound during the holidays reflected China's huge consumption potential while also serving as a significant factor to further shore up market confidence and bolster domestic demand.

This confidence will play a vital role in promoting continuous economic growth while also elevating supply, Cong noted.

Zhang expected the consumption momentum to become an indispensable engine for advancing the economy, as the fourth quarter is also a peak season for domestic consumption, with major consumption events like the Double 11 online shopping festival.

In response to the bearish outlook on the Chinese economy painted by some Western media outlets and politicians, experts said China's consumer market is showing strong recovery and growth signs despite downward pressure with its strong market potential, resilience and confidence.

Cong noted that China maintains its market confidence as the world's second-largest consumption market, especially amid the process of rapid structural upgrading. He also stressed the importance of stepping up efforts in sectors such as infrastructure investment and support for the private economy to ignite market dynamics.

China's economic development should be the least worrying one during the global economic recovery process, Cong said.