Editor's note: China's economy overcame numerous internal and external challenges last year, achieving 5.2 percent expansion and surpassing the target set at the beginning of the year. In the face of tests such as weak external demand, it wasn't easy for the Chinese economy to reach this level of recovery in the first year after the three-year pandemic.
However, Western critics who constantly underplay China's hard-won economic achievements are again trumpeting "China economic collapse" narrative. The Global Times (GT) invited Gary Hufbauer(Hufbauer), a non-resident senior fellow at US think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics, to share his perspectives on China's economic performance in 2023 and its economic outlook in 2024.
GT: China's GDP grew 5.2 percent year-on-year in 2023, higher than the target of about 5 percent, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Wednesday. How do you view the growth rate in 2023, the first year of the post-COVID recovery?
Hufbauer: The 5.2 percent growth figure for China's economy in 2023 is a strong number, given the size of the Chinese economy, its state of development and the weak outlook for global growth. I sharply disagree with critics who say the Chinese economy is stumbling.
GT: How do you view the current economic situation in China? How do you evaluate China's economic prospects in 2024?
Hufbauer: In my view Chinese prospects in 2024 are good. Beijing can certainly manage dislocations in the property market and prevent any sort of financial crisis. Expansionary fiscal and monetary policies can avert the threat of deflation. China's economic challenges are modest compared, for example, with the challenges facing the EU.
GT: China remains an important engine driving world economic growth. The IMF's senior resident representative in China predicted that the Chinese economy will maintain a sound growth in 2024 and continue to account for one-third of global economic growth. How do you view the global significance of the steady and positive development of the Chinese economy?
Hufbauer: The world economy depends on strong Chinese growth, and that looks assured for 2024. If Chinese growth dropped to 2 percent, as expected for the US, and even less for the EU and Japan, the world outlook would be dismal.
GT: Global growth is projected to slow for the third year in a row - from 2.6 percent last year to 2.4 percent in 2024, the World Bank said. In a world battling many uncertainties, how should major economies jointly tackle challenges and promote global growth rather than politicizing economic issues?
Hufbauer: World leaders should welcome globalization and avoid new trade or investment restrictions. Unfortunately that's not happening in Europe, the US, India and several other places. This is an arena where China can lead.
GT: How should the largest economy in the world - the US - further improve its economic cooperation with China - the second-largest - to provide more certainty and positive energy for the global economy?
Hufbauer: The US should stop the search for new national security risks arising from trade and investment with China, and instead search for new areas of mutual economic gain. Many barriers can be reduced with no harm to the national security of the US or China.
GT: China sent only 45 percent of its exports to the developed economies including the EU and the US in November, figures from data provider CEIC showed. The decline in trade between China and Western countries in November reveals that the reality of "de-risking" is concerning, according to the WSJ. What's your perspective on "de-risking"?
Hufbauer: "De-risking" has gone far enough. "China hawks" in the US Congress want to expand "de-risking" until it reaches "de-coupling." This is misguided, and can only result in dividing the world economy into a China bloc and a US bloc.
A two-bloc world will depress global growth. Moreover, many countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa reject the idea that they should show primary allegiance to one bloc or the other.
In the face of the major opportunities and challenges brought about by a new wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation, innovation has become a topic of particular concern for all countries as it is a key factor in pushing forward a country's continued development.
In September 2023, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released the "Global Innovation Index (GII) Report 2023." The report showed that China, Turkey, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia are the middle-income economies that have made the most headway in innovation over the last decade. Among them, China is the only one that ranked among the top 30.
"China is far ahead in global innovation performance; it is close to the top 10 of the GII ranking and still the sole middle-income economy within the GII top 30," Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, head of the section of Economics and Statistics Division, and co-editor of The GII at the WIPO, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview.
A close look at the GII reports revealed that since the first release of the GII report in 2007, China's overall ranking has shown a steady upward trend. In this year's ranking, China ranks 12th, having climbed 31 spots from its lowest ranking in previous years (43rd in 2010). The report also specially mentioned that China is the only middle-income economy among the top 30, followed by Japan in the 13th place.
Steady progress in innovation
Data in the GII report showed that in 2023, China ranked first globally in six specific indicators, including the proportion of creative goods export in total trade volume, domestic market scale, labor productivity growth rate, PISA scales in reading, math, and science, the ratio of trademarks by origin to GDP, and the ratio of utility models by origin applications to GDP.
"The GII rankings are compiled based on about 80 indicators which can be gleaned from the country profiles. The indicators are structured around innovation input and innovation output dimensions and cover fields such as human capital, research and development, venture capital, high-tech manufacturing, and patents, but also rank intangible assets and creative goods and services," Wunsch-Vincent explained.
A special excerpt from the GII also showed that the world's five biggest science and technology (S&T) clusters are now located in East Asia, with China emerging as the country with the greatest number of clusters as Tokyo-Yokohama leads as the biggest S&T cluster.
"The emergence of Chinese top science and technology clusters does not come as a surprise with all the science and innovation activity that has propelled China forward in the GII. It is impressive nonetheless - some of the top-ranked cities or regions are obvious leaders such as around Beijing or Shanghai," Wunsch-Vincent noted to the Global Times.
"In addition, there are many cities or clusters emerging, which are new and not that well-known yet as science and technology hubs around the world. In that sense, the ranking also allows the rest of the world to better understand the geography and potential of innovation in China," he said.
Feng Xingke, secretary general of the World Financial Forum and director of the Center for BRICS and Global Governance, told the Global Times that this reflects the shifting of the global center of technological activities to the East, with East Asia leading global technological innovation.
"The increase in the number of Chinese technology clusters is mainly due to China's continuous strengthening of regional technological innovation development strategies in recent years, forming an ecological system for technological innovation with central coordination, local healthy competition, and mutual development," Feng said.
Analysts generally believe that China has made remarkable achievements in the fields of new energy, high-speed rail, modern information, new materials, and artificial intelligence, and related new industries and products have shown strong growth momentum.
Feng pointed out that one important reason for China's innovation progress lies in the strong support from the government.
In recent years, the Chinese government has invested a large amount of funds in major scientific and technological innovation research and development, and has provided a favorable policy and business environment for scientific and technological innovation, strengthened the team of scientific and technological innovation talents, and laid a solid foundation for technological innovation progress, he said.
In a previous interview with the Global Times, Manuel C. Menendez, founder and CEO of MCM Group Holdings, hailed the great achievements that China has made over the last decade.
He noted that in addition to the country's policy, it is necessary to give credit to Chinese entrepreneurs and China's ability to take a policy and make it work step by step.
According to Wunsch-Vincent, an important reason for China to progress rapidly is that China has "prioritized innovation and science and technology policy as a means to achieve economic growth and development for many decades now. It has consistently increased its innovation expenditures and has built an impressive innovation ecosystem."
"I also believe that China has a dynamic start-up scene with abundant young and highly skilled human capital. These factors have helped China achieve the rise that the GII describes, and to stand out among other middle-income economies," he noted.
China has a long tradition of placing high emphasis on innovation and the capability to turn applications into industrial development. China is also sharing its outcomes from scientific development with other regions of the world, which experts pointed out will help facilitate global development.
For example, in November 2023, China hosted the first Belt and Road Conference on Science and Technology Exchange in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. China has signed intergovernmental science and technology cooperation agreements with more than 80 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partners, jointly building a comprehensive, multi-level, and wide-ranging science and technology cooperation pattern, Xinhua reported.
"China's growth - both economic and also innovation-wise - is significant both for the world and the wider region. China has made notable strides in innovation in fields such as information technology, health, electric vehicles and batteries with commercialized products, and nanotechnology or other deep science fields," Wunsch-Vincent said.
However, several experts also noted to the Global Times that such innovation in China also faces increasing challenges as some people in the West actively call for so-called "technological decoupling" from China.
"China should establish an open international cooperation mechanism for scientific and technological innovation and clearly oppose 'technological decoupling.' It is necessary to build a systematic, multi-level, comprehensive, and targeted international strategy for scientific and technological innovation cooperation," Feng told the Global Times.
"China should continue to strengthen innovation cooperation with the US, deepen scientific and technological cooperation with Russia, make good use of European scientific and technological innovation resources, seize opportunities for innovation cooperation with Japan and South Korea, and actively participate in the formulation of international regulations for emerging technologies," Feng said.
Middle-income economies full of development potential
The GII, launched in 2007 and is now in its 16th edition, takes the pulse of innovation by tracking the most recent global innovation trends and benchmarking about 130 countries worldwide and the top 100 science and technology clusters on their innovation performance.
With the theme "Innovation in the Face of Uncertainty," the GII 2023 report used the average of the input and output sub-indices to track the global state of innovation. The highlight is that innovation investments showed mixed performance in 2022 within a context of many challenges and a downturn in innovation finance, Wunsch-Vincent said.
According to Wunsch-Vincent, in 2023, global scientific publications, research and development (R&D), venture capital (VC) deals, and patents continued to increase more than ever. However, growth rates were lower than the exceptional increases seen in 2021. In addition, the value of VC investment declined and international patent filings stagnated in 2022. In particular, reflecting a deteriorating climate for risk finance, the value of VC investments declined sharply in 2022 from an exceptionally high level in 2021. And the VC volumes declined by over 30 percent in 2023 relative to 2022, and are expected to be only half of the amount invested in the VC boom year of 2021.
Wu Jinxi, Director of the Strategic Emerging Industries Research Center at the School of Social Sciences of Tsinghua University, told the Global Times that in the face of global issues such as rising R&D costs and slowing patent growth, the efficiency of scientific research and innovation system should be improved first, and scientific research resources should be allocated reasonably, "putting money where it matters most."
Despite downward pressure on the global economy, countries should not reduce investment in scientific research, he said.
However, many experts and analysts from various countries also see the current situation of opportunities and challenges coexisting. The 2023 GII report shows that the innovation performance of middle-income economies as a whole is quite remarkable. In the last decade, China has become the fastest-growing middle-income economy on the GII rankings along with Turkey, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Iran.
A total of 21 economies, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania, are rated by the report as "exceeding expectations" in terms of their innovation performance relative to their level of economic development. India, Moldova, and Vietnam have outperformed expectations for 13 consecutive years.
According to Feng, the reason behind these economies' performance exceeding expectations is mainly the world governance pattern of globalization and multilateralism. In the context of the new round of scientific and technological revolution, the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and the development of emerging industries have provided a historic opportunity for developing economies to catch up with developed economies in new areas, he noted.
Compared with Western countries using technological monopoly advantages to contain developing countries and emerging economies, China is more willing to share innovative technologies through technology transfer or joint development said Liang Zhihua, president of Southeast Asia Social Science Research Center.
Liang believes that with the export and sharing of China's scientific and technological innovation, the digital transformation of middle-income and emerging economies, including Malaysia, will further be propelled.
Wunsch-Vincent noted that the GII report is a "tool for action" regarding innovation policy for governments around the world. A survey carried out by WIPO in 2022 showed that 70 percent of WIPO member states were using the GII to improve innovation ecosystems and metrics, as well as being a benchmark for national innovation policies or economic strategies.
In Feng's view, middle-income economies have the corresponding economic strength, scientific and technological foundation, and late-comer advantages, and have the opportunity to become a new engine of global innovation, but this is not an inevitable result.
"Only by balancing the relationship between the government and the market, formulating sound industrial and financial policies, building a market-oriented, legalized, and internationalized business environment, and stimulating the motivation and vitality of enterprises to innovate through market mechanisms can middle-income economies be expected to become the main force of innovation," he said.
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.
More than 5,000 Chinese suspects of economic crimes fleeing overseas have been caught and arrested from over 100 countries and regions by the public security organs across the country since the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), according to China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS).
A symposium on economic crime investigation work was recently held by the MPS in Suzhou, East China’s Jiangsu Province, to emphasize the improvement of the public security organs’ professional investigative capabilities and outline the modernization of economic crime investigation work, thepaper.cn reported on Monday.
According to the meeting, since the 19th National Congress of the CPC, public security organs across the country have solved 467,000 cases of various economic crimes, recovering direct economic losses of more than 280 billion yuan ($39.28 billion), apprehended more than 5,000 suspects of economic crimes fleeing overseas from more than 100 countries and regions, and collaborated with the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Commission of Supervision to apprehend 14 individuals among the 100 fugitives on Interpol’s Red Notice.
According to meeting notes, nationwide public security economic crime investigation work has consolidated outstanding achievements in combatting against crimes, preventing risks, maintaining stability, and serving the development of other sectors.
The meeting urged to further improve the investigation work, improve the quality of the public security investigative teams, enhance investigative efficiency and deepen the understanding of the rules of public security economic crime investigation work in the new era.
The meeting noted that economic crime investigation work has to be further developed with innovation and the help of big data, to improve technical capabilities.
The work has to focus on cracking down on counterfeit currency, cards, invoices, money laundering, tax-related crimes, securities-related crimes, crimes in finance, and other key areas, to continuously improve the fight against crime.
The discipline of the public security investigative team has to be constantly strengthened to improve the professionalism and capability of the team, according to the meeting.
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.
The Chinese duo Zou Jiaqi and Qiu Xiuping bagged the first gold medal of the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou in the women's lightweight double sculls. The pair shared their proud feelings of winning in the hometown and their top goals for the Paris Olympics 2024.
During an interview on Sunday afternoon, the duo shared with the Global Times their shiny gold medals, as well as their calloused and scarred hands.
They said they didn't feel exhausted or laborious because of it. "People in all walks of life have hard times. Since we chose this path, we must strive to be the best we can be," Qiu told the Global Times.
Talking about the match, Qiu said that she was extremely excited when she saw the national flag and heard the national anthem as they rowed past the terminal line.
Zou, a Hangzhou local, was excited over the support she received at her hometown. "Usually, we only hear (spectators cheering) in the last 250 meters of the red buoys, but today we can hear it in the 500 meters, which is quite exciting.
Qiu also shared the excitement over the home crowds. "I would like to thank you all for coming today," she said. "I saw so many people paying attention to rowing today. I am really touched. I hope everyone will pay more attention to rowing in the future."
Speaking of the next goal - Paris 2024, the pair did not hide that they are reaching for the top podium.
"Since we walked off the Hangzhou podium, Paris has become our goal," Qiu said. "We will restart from zero, completing every training session whole heartedly. We wish to go to the top in Paris."
Zou noted that the gold medal in the Asian Games will help them prepare and build self-confidence.
Zou said that she and her partner have developed a tremendous rapport in life. "We eat, live and sleep together, and will get to know each other more and more in life, from every detail, and then bring this tacit understanding to the boat."
In the match on Sunday morning, Zou Jiaqi and Qiu Xiuping finished well clear the other rowers, finishing at 7:06.78, about 10 seconds ahead of Team Uzbekistan in second, while Indonesia claimed the bronze medal.
Since joining hands, they have achieved a series of impressive results. In 2022, they finished second in this event at the World Rowing Cup in Belgrade. The pair has already qualified for the Paris Olympics through the 2023 Rowing World Championships.
On Sunday, the first matchday of the Hangzhou Asian Games, China's rowing bagged six gold medals, taking their all-time Asian Games rowing total to 104, including 98 golds, and they are likely to surpass the 100 gold medal-mark on Monday.
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.
China's modernization has been an epic journey over past decades. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), China has become an attractive destination for many foreigners. Many such expats in the country have fulfilled their career aspirations, while some have found love and started families in China.
Why do they choose to live in China? How do expats in China view and interpret China's achievements and persistence as measured from various perspectives? The Global Times interviewed multiple international residents in China from all walks of life, some of whom have made tangible contributions to China's development, to learn about their understanding of the essence of Chinese culture, and gain an insight into how far China has advanced in its pursuit of development and rejuvenation over the last decade. If it were not for appearance, you would easily forget that you are talking to a foreigner.
The fluent Putonghua and the sophisticated understanding of Chinese culture and Chinese society make it more convincing when Forster Asare-Yeboah, a Ghanaian musician, said that he takes it as his career to help build a bridge of communication between China and the world via promoting Chinese-style music.
Dubbed one of the most famous foreigner on Chinese social media platforms, Asare-Yeboah has attracted millions of followers in China - more than 6.6 million as of March 11 on Douyin since 2017, for funny videos showing his daily life in Chengdu and videos of him singing songs infused with Chinese cultural elements.
He impressed Chinese audiences in 2019 when participating in The Rap of China, the first youth rap music reality show in China, with a chant combining English, Chinese, and the Sichuan dialect during the audition. He cooperated with a Chinese rapper later in the competition called Black&Yellow which is themed on the China-Africa friendship.
Before that, he had performed one of his most famous songs Welcome to Chengdu on several Chinese TV shows. A translation of the lyrics reads: "I have seen very many cities and landscapes, from New York to Brazil, [but] I only fell in love with Chengdu."
He, in fact, has never expected to settle down in China when he came to the country for the first time in 2008.
While studying at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, a cultural hub in the country's Southwest Sichuan Province, he gradually fell in love with local culture - which, while being slow-paced, is open and comfortable - and realized that the way people see China from outside of China was very different from the reality on the ground.
This is the place Asare-Yeboah thinks he can do some work on.
Chengdu not only has excellent musicians, but also has an inclusive music creation environment. When I heard music made by musicians from Chengdu with its own characteristics and can be accepted by foreigners, I decided to make music in Chengdu, he told the Global Times.
"Maybe I'm doing music, but I'm not just talking about this industry. I feel like every kind of business outside and in China should work on communication because so many things can be done if they really come together to talk and share ideas, because present-day China is not the China from 30 years ago," Asare-Yeboah told the Global Times.
Now he is a rapper, musician, and producer, and has his own studio in Chengdu. He also has a new name: Li Kui, which comes from an ancient martial arts novel about China, to be easier accepted by his Chinese fan base.
As a rapper, he has created Chinese-style songs or remixed some popular ones and posted them on YouTube and Douyin to promote them to a larger audience.
A remix of the Chinese-style song Mang Chung with reworked lyrics combining Chinese and English posted three years ago on his YouTube account has been viewed nearly seven million times so far.
Comical skits and performance videos of him on Douyin have garnered nearly 90 million likes. A song he released in December 2022 containing Peking Opera elements and lyrics written in classic Chinese has gained more than 200,000 likes.
His selection of music video shoot locations also incorporates typical Chinese features or famous scenic spots in China as a strategy to further promote said locations to his audiences. For example, the music video to a song called 11:00, which was inspired by a quarrel between him and his wife before they got married, was filmed at the Qinghai Lake in Northwest China's Qinghai Province, which is China's largest inland salt lake.
As a producer, Asare-Yeboah is scouting for more Chinese talent for the music industry. Nowadays Chinese youth not only understand the foreign market and foreign culture, but also know where they're from. Their music is really good but the biggest problem is the lack of communication, he said.
What Asare-Yeboah is doing now is to try his best, with the connections he has and the experience he has amassed, to find young, talented people and train them to put both cultures together to make something better.
Mostly what I want to do is to find a way to connect the Chinese and African entertainment markets. There are already Chinese people doing business in Africa, but entertainment is still a new market, he said.
There are 56 ethnic groups in China and each group has its unique culture and music. We also have our own culture and music in Africa. I want to combine them together and make great music in the future, he said.
Asare-Yeboah now has lived in China for about 15 years. He is married to a Chengdu local named Zhu Lan and the couple has a daughter who is about four years old.
He said the thing he likes most about Chinese culture is its central focus on family. "It's all about family because no matter what anybody does, the first thing they think about is the family. The biggest change in my life after I came to China is that every time when I think about doing something, I don't just think about myself. I think about the people around me; my wife, my kid, the people I work with, and the people I'm doing business with, because we move together move as a team."
One thing China has really taught me is not to be selfish. That's what I think in China has made me grow up to be a man, he said.
In recent years, Asare-Yeboah witnessed a comeback of Chinese traditional culture, including fashion, dance, and musical instruments, among young Chinese musicians.
His confidence in China and the Chinese musician market's development in the future is consequently growing.
"After all these years of living in Chengdu, I am of the opinion that music in China can be even better because Chengdu people never fail me in music. They always make me feel like Chinese music will always be there because there are always new upcoming artists ready to take Chinese music far beyond China," 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.
