Month: September 2019

(Xinhua)08:15, July 25, 2019

BEIJING, July 24 — More than half of global business professionals participating in a Bloomberg survey agreed with the prediction that China and India would become the worlds centers of technological innovation by 2035.

Nearly 60 percent of the respondents in developing countries and 49 percent in developed countries felt that China and India would turn into global technology hubs in the decades to come, according to the Bloomberg New Economy Forum survey of 2,000 business professionals in 20 markets.

Many transitions are taking place in the global economic landscape including the economic gravity shift from the west to the east and from the north to the south as well as an incredible technological transformation, Justin B. Smith, CEO of Bloomberg Media, told a press roundtable on Wednesday.

The survey showed that overall, emerging country business professionals had more optimism and markedly higher expectations for the role that technology would play in the decades to come than those in developed markets.

Respondents in Asia believed self-driving cars would be more common than individually owned automobiles by 2035.

Some 70 percent of Chinese respondents and 65 percent of Indian respondents agreed that self-driving cars would dominate the automobile market while 38 percent of the respondents in the Britain and 36 percent in the United States disagreed with the prediction.

Developing countries in general see technology more as an opportunity while the developed world has a greater sense of technology as a threat, said Andrew Browne, editorial director of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum.

More than 70 percent of the respondents in emerging economies believed that lifelong learning could mitigate the threat posed by artificial intelligence to the job market, which was disagreed by 19 percent of the respondents in Japan and 27 percent in the Republic of Korea.

The survey is part of this years Bloomberg New Economy Forum which will be held in Beijing on Nov. 20-22. Established in 2018, the forum aims to invite global leaders in various sectors to propose solutions to disruptions from the shift to the new economy.

Nearly 500 global influential figures including business executives, government officials and academics from over 60 countries and regions will participate in this years forum and an open call has been launched by the forum to collect innovative solutions.

(Xinhua)10:18, July 23, 2019

CHICAGO, July 22 — Research of the University of Michigan (UM) has shown that individually human develops emotional, trusting relationships with robotic technology, and the groups that work with robots develop attachments that affect team performance.

For the study, posted on UMs website on Monday, the researchers recruited 114 human participants, and assigned them to 57 teams: two people, two robots per team. They were split into four groups: some teams were identified by robot, some by team, some by both robot and team, and some by neither. The task was to move five water bottles from one point to another.

Those that were identified by robot and by team all developed emotional attachments to their robot teammates. With the emotional attachment came better performance and team viability.

One group also was asked to come up with a team name and given jerseys for themselves and their robots to see if identification with a team enhanced attachment. It was only marginally significant.

Among many questions on a multipart survey that sought to gauge attitudes and understanding about robots as well as perceptions of the experiment were: This robot is dear to me, I feel emotionally connected to this robot, This team including robots would perform well together in the future, If given a choice, I would prefer to continue working in this team, including robots.

We found that humans perform better with robotic teammates when they have strong emotional attachment to them, said Sangseok You, who began which is believed to be the first study of its kind on attachment between groups and robots as a doctoral candidate at the UM School of Information.

The researchers caution, however, that too much emotional attachment to robots or artificial humans can have drawbacks.

For example, robots are machines which record their interactions with others, said senior author Lionel Robert, an associate professor of information and a member of the Michigan Robotics Institute. Humans that believe they can trust robots in the same way that trust their human co-workers might forget about the video cameras in robots and say or engage in behaviors that might be viewed as unacceptable by the company.

The researchers say that more research with other types of robots is needed as their study involved embodied physical action robots, or those that look human.

The study has been published in the Journal of the Association for Information Systems.

(Xinhua)15:31, July 23, 2019

SAN FRANCISCO, July 22 — Agriculture technology is the biggest opportunity left in the world and China has a great potential to drive agri-tech innovation and adoption, an industry expert in California has said.

Asia has the largest population increase in the world, which drives innovation. So, I think that theres more opportunity in Asia, particularly China, in the next 10 years, said Aaron Magenheim, founder of AgTech Insight, a Salinas-based agricultural and tech consulting firm, in a recent interview.

The consultancy is currently tracking 3,000 digital agriculture companies around the world to make an impact on the worlds food supply. It has been building relationships and networks in China for five years.

Digitalizing the industry — collecting farms information and analyzing the information with machine learning technology — is the trend that were seeing and that is starting to be adopted, said Magenheim.

China has been actively pushing forward artificial intelligence (AI) in the past years. The country has set the goal of making AI a major new growth engine by 2020 and becoming a major center in AI innovation by 2030.

With the help of AI, farmers are able to be smarter and proactive about their crops by determining predictably what needs to be done without having to go out into the field, he said.

Machine learning will help us know what weve done and how to do it better and share information on whats working and whats not, he said.

For example, a farmer can take a picture of a problem of the crop and then load up the picture on a platform, which delivers a response instantly based off the vast pictures that it has analyzed, he said.

This is an example of the technologies that the United States and China can collaborate on to help improve farmers practice and meet the worlds food needs in the next decades, said Magenheim.

A challenge that most Asian countries face in adopting such technologies is the small size of farmlands.

In most Asian countries, between 40 percent and 70 percent of their population are involved in agriculture; in the U.S., less than 2 percent of our population is involved in agriculture, Magenheim said. So when you look at such a wide population and small farms, you know there are different needs.

Trading apps — both to sell farm products and to buy fertilizers and other inputs — are the biggest trend in Asia that were seeing right now, he said.

Such apps can help a small-sized farm owner sell his produce to a restaurant, to a market or to a central location rather than just the local people that come by, he said.

The awesome thing with that is if a lot of small farmers get to use the app, they will be able to understand the market prices better, he added.

Magenheim said he has had quite a number of meetings with government officials at different levels in China and that they recognized agri-tech as a big priority in order to implement better practices and build an ecosystem.

(Xinhua)16:20, July 23, 2019

BEIJING, July 23 — Want a free-range hen from a farm 3,000 meters above sea level? You can check them out on a live-stream from Lintan County, northwest Chinas Gansu Province, which once had an audience of 843,000.

The county, which is on the national list of priority poverty relief, had 320,000 likes on Toutiao, one of the most popular news feed mobile apps in China, and a boost in sales of its chicken products.

In Tongren, Guizhou Province, Wan Jianying, who was relocated from a poverty-stricken area, found with a few clicks a job near his new home within a week.

Mobile live-streaming, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI) – smart technologies are making Chinas poverty alleviation program more targeted, helping more people earn more and rise to a better life.

China aims to eradicate poverty by 2020, the target year to finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

The year of 2019 is an important year for winning the tough battle against poverty by 2020, and China has set the target to reduce the rural poor population by more than 10 million this year.

The first thing technologies like AI can do is to find the people who need help the most, Wu Xiaoru, executive president of Chinas leading AI company iFlytek, told Xinhua.

Guizhou Province launched its Poverty Alleviation Cloud in late 2015, integrating data related to poverty alleviation from 25 government departments.

From massive data, the AI algorithm achieved a more precise quantified detection of poverty-stricken households based on multiple indices, such as education levels, medical records and household work records.

Precisely targeting struggling families, AI and data analysis enable the customization of poverty alleviation, matching people with the most suitable jobs and projects, said Wu.

iFlytek is headquartered in Hefei, Anhui Province, which, aided by iFlytek, launched a targeted poverty alleviation platform.

Wu said the platform can provide registration, matches and evaluation of poverty-stricken families and poverty reduction programs in Anhui, putting funds and resources to best use.

In Gansu Province, ten counties on the national poverty list promoted their produce via live-streaming on Toutiao. Based on data analysis and AI, the content was aimed at promising customers. Sales in these counties increased eight-fold.

Technologies are empowering people working on the frontline of poverty alleviation to solve problems from a long-term prospective.

The central government, for example, has addressed illness-related poverty in recent years, but the shortage of medical staff at primary-level clinics remains a major hurdle, so AI-assisted medical diagnosis is becoming an important tool for doctors in rural China.

The AI medical assistant, a product launched in March by iFlytek, has so far diagnosed more than 900 kinds of diseases at grassroots health centers with an accuracy rate of 97 percent. It has been applied in almost 1,200 clinics and health centers across the country.

(Xinhua)09:12, July 22, 2019

CHICAGO, July 19 (Xinhua) — A nationally representative study of gender stereotypes in the United States shows that women are no longer regarded as less competent than men on average.

The study, posted on the website of Northwestern University (NU) on Thursday, analyzed 16 nationally representative opinion polls conducted in the United States with more than 30,000 adult respondents.

These polls asked respondents to compare womens and mens competence, such as intelligent, organized, creative; communion, such as affectionate, compassionate, emotional; and agency, such as ambitious, aggressive, decisive.

Most adults now report that women and men are equal in general competence. But among those who see a difference, most see women as more competent than men.

In the most recent poll conducted in April 2018, 86 percent of the respondents said that men and women are equally intelligent. However, 9 percent said that women are more intelligent, compared to 5 percent who said that men are more intelligent.

The perceptions of women as communal and men as agentic have not eroded since the 1940s, contrary to conventional wisdom about convergence in gender roles, said Alice Eagly, lead author of the study and professor of psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at NU.

Rather, communal stereotypes have changed but increasingly towards portraying women as more compassionate, affectionate and sensitive than men. Men are still viewed as more ambitious, aggressive and decisive than women, and that agency stereotype has not substantially changed since the 1940s, Eagly said.

The researchers note that different groups of respondents — men, women, racial subgroups — generally agree about these stereotypes. For instance, respondents in recent U.S. samples ascribed competence more often to women than men, regardless of the respondents sex, race, ethnicity, college education, marital status, employment status or birth cohort.

Interpretation of these findings is that womens increasing labor force participation and education likely underlie the increase in their perceived competence, but that occupational segregation underlies the other findings.

The current stereotypes should favor womens employment, because competence is, of course, a job requirement for virtually all positions, Eagly said. Also, jobs increasingly reward social skills, making womens greater communion an additional advantage.

But the findings are not all positive for women. Most leadership roles require more agency than communion and the lesser ambition, aggressiveness and decisiveness ascribed to women than men are a disadvantage in relation to leadership, Eagly said.

The study has been published in the journal American Psychologist.

(Xinhua)11:05, July 22, 2019

SHANGHAI, July 22 (Xinhua) — Chinas sci-tech innovation board (STAR market) started trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange Monday morning, with the first batch of 25 companies debuting on the board.

Establishment of the STAR market and the pilot registration-based initial public offering (IPO) system will support Chinas innovation-driven economic development and the capital market reform, Li Chao, deputy head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said at the debut ceremony.

The STAR board is the countrys latest reform attempt to turn the A-share market into a more market-oriented and law-based one.

Unlike other domestic boards, it cuts listing application red tape, allows more market-based pricing, prioritizes information disclosure, and tightens delisting rules by piloting the registration-based IPO system, a popular practice in many developed markets.

Trading rules are also different, with no price change limits in the first five trading days. In following trading days, the board allows stocks to rise or fall by a maximum of 20 percent, higher than the 10-percent limit for most stocks on other boards.

First proposed in November 2018, the new board is designed to provide direct financing support for companies in the high-tech and strategic emerging sectors, such as new-generation information technology, advanced equipment, new materials, new energy, energy saving and environmental protection.

With much higher research and development investment than that of comparable firms listed on other domestic boards, the first batch of 25 companies on the STAR market are mainly in the new-generation information technology, advanced equipment and bio-medicine sectors.

By CurtisStone (Peoples Daily Online)13:27, July 16, 2019

Last week, the United States played the Taiwan card against China, allowing Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen to use the United States as a platform to promote 鈥淭aiwan independence鈥?and undermine China-US relations. In New York, she seized every opportunity she could to make a show of it, serving as a pawn for foreign powers to interfere in China鈥檚 internal affairs.

She made the trip amid trade frictions between China and the United States and just days after the US Defense Department approved a $2.2 billion arms sale to the island, which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China said violates international law and norms in international relations, the One China Principle, and the three joint communiques between China and the United States, and undermines national sovereignty and security.

Right now, Taiwan is gearing up for a leader election in January. During the island鈥檚 election season, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will go to great lengths to provoke and anger the mainland and sow fear and hatred among voters. This time, Tsai Ing-wen passed through the United States to 鈥減lay president鈥?and incite hatred against the mainland.

While in New York, Tsai Ing-wen spoke about 鈥渄emocracy, freedom, and human rights,鈥?emphasizing that 鈥淭aiwan stands on the frontlines of democracy鈥?to strike the right note with Americans. However, the facts are what they are.

As China has pointed out on many occasions, the DPP uses 鈥渇reedom, democracy, and human rights鈥?as a fig leaf to mask its intention to split China. Thus, the DPP will ostentatiously parade 鈥淭aiwan independence鈥?advocates but will make a monkey out of those who advocate national reunification.

In the closed-door talks at Columbia University, Tsai Ing-wen tried to convince her audience that Taiwan is a sovereign state and took the opportunity to attack the practice of 鈥渙ne country, two systems鈥?in Hong Kong, exposing her intention to split China.

鈥淥ne country, two systems鈥?is the best solution for Hong Kong. It has allowed the city to remain prosperous and stable and has proven to be successful in practice. 鈥淥ne country, two systems鈥?is also the best way to achieve national reunification, because it considers the reality of the situation and is conducive to long-term stability.

In her speech, Tsai Ing-wen tried to throw a monkey wrench into the reunification process by attacking the practice of 鈥渙ne country, two systems鈥?in Hong Kong. But like an ant trying to topple a giant tree, the effort is doomed to fail. China has made it very clear that reunification is inevitable, and it would be a grave mistake to underestimate the will of the Chinese government and people to defend their national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

It is common knowledge that China opposes any form of official exchanges between the United States and Taiwan. The United States risks damaging the most important bilateral relationship in the world and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait by violating the One China Principle and the three joint communiques and providing a platform for 鈥淭aiwan Independence鈥?advocates.

For some three decades now, the US side has broken its promises by violating the provisions of the three joint communiques and has shown a tendency recently to intensify such practices, revealing Washington鈥檚 desire to contain China by playing the Taiwan card against China.

It is shameful that the United States has made Taiwan a pawn in its geopolitical game and the island鈥檚 leaders are making a major miscalculation if they think 鈥淭aiwan Independence鈥?is the best way forward.

By LiuCaiyuandLengShumei (Global Times)07:55, July 18, 2019

Opening up does not mean preferential treatment: experts

Young foreigners from different countries and regions participate in an activity held in Shanghai in December, 2018 to celebrate the establishment of Shanghai International Youth Exchange Center. Photo: Yang Hui/GT

China will expand preferential immigration and entry policies to attract more foreign talent to more free trade zones across the country starting August 1.

The decision was announced at a press conference Wednesday by the Ministry of Public Securityin Beijing.

It will be implemented to create a better business environment, according to a statement the ministry sent to the Global Times.

The policies include 12 clauses which provide convenience to acquire permanent residence permits by foreign talent including those who benefit Chinas development, their spouses and children, according to the statement.

The regulation also expanded the scope of long-term visa and residence permits, for example, foreign researchers, business-people and assistant personnel can apply for two-to -five-year visas or residence permits.

Support services will be provided to foreign graduate students who start up a business in China or excellent foreign students invited by domestic companies and institutes.

The policy demonstrates Chinas determination at openness and the countrys efforts to build its image not only as the tourist destination but also the hub of creativity and high technology, Song Guoyou, director of Fudan Universitys Center for Economic Diplomacy, told the Global Times.

Wang Huiyao, founder and president of Beijing-based independent think tank the Center for China and Globalization told the Global Times on Wednesday that as a major talent exporting country, China is also making efforts to become a talent importing country as well, to meet the demand of national development and the nations effort to become a technology power.

China believes in openness of trade and investment, as well as to talent.

Foreign talent will also assist globalizing Chinese companies and the development of high-tech companies, according to Wang.

The preferential immigration policies were already applied since 2015 in 16 provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai and South Chinas Guangdong Province, Chen Bin, head of the Foreigners Administration Department of the State Immigration Administration, said at the press conference.

According to Chen, local immigration authorities across China have issued 133,000 visas and residence permits to foreign entrepreneurs, investors and professional technical personnel and other talents.

Immigration service centers can be established in places where foreigners concentrate to provide consultancy in policies, travel, legal assistance and language, the statement read.

The opening came amid media reports about a foreigner violently treating a police officer and foreigners in China detained for taking drugs.

Chinese experts warned that the government should impose strict regulations on the entry of foreigners, such as illegal English teachers and those who have criminal records back home.

A visa regulation for foreigners who intend to work in China took effect on January 1, 2018.

Foreign employees are divided into three categories: A, B and C based on salary, educational background, Chinese language proficiency, age and location.

By CurtisStone (Peoples Daily Online)16:23, July 17, 2019

Recently, US President Donald Trump tweeted that China’s second quarter growth “is the slowest it has been in more than 27 years” and suggested that China is desperate to make a deal because “thousands of companies are leaving” the country. The comment creates the false impression that China needs a trade deal to save its economy when the truth of the matter is that both sides hope to reach a deal on trade.

Trump’s tweet came after the National Bureau of Statistics released data on China’s economic performance for the first six months of the year. Geng Shuang, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, responded to the comment at a regular press conference on Tuesday, noting that despite slower global economic growth and growing uncertainties and instability, China’s GDP still grew 6.3% in the first half the year.

“I think this is still a good performance, especially compared to other major economies. Better than most,” the spokesperson said.

China could have spurred faster economic growth with massive stimulus policies, but the country is focused on high-quality economic growth and restructuring and is just trying to maintain stable economic growth, which it did. The comment shows that Trump does not understand the realities of the larger situation.

Economic growth in the world’s second largest economy is slowing down, but China is in the midst of transitioning to high-quality development and the growth rate of 6.3% is what most analysts had expected. Despite this, China is still powerhouse for global development, which benefits the world economy and the US economy, too.

Only a jealous and bitter person would celebrate economic slowdown in other countries. President Trump’s remarks create the false impression that the US side holds all the aces and that China is basically on its knees begging for a trade deal. This is like pulling the wool over the American people’s eyes, who largely oppose the trade war and the additional tariffs on Chinese goods.

The reality is that both sides hope for a deal, but China will not be bullied by Trump into an unfair deal. If a trade deal is going to be reached, then the United States will need to work with China and meet China halfway. Dialogue and mutual respect are key. If the United States works with China through dialogue and with respect, then a mutually beneficial trade deal can be reached, and this is in the common interest of the both peoples as well as the world.

(Xinhua)16:23, July 17, 2019

HANGZHOU, July 17 — Chinese payment and service platform Alipay started operating its facial recognition payment systems with beauty filters at Xinhua Bookstores, the largest bookstore in China, the company announced Tuesday.

The first batch of Dragonfly devices, Alipays new facial recognition point-of-sale (POS) systems, have been installed at more than 40 Xinhua Bookstores in east Chinas Zhejiang Province, which will be gradually equipped across its over 14,000 outlets in the country.

Alipay added beauty filters to its pay-with-face systems amid female consumers complaints that facial recognition machines capture unflattering images.

According to some interesting data, we found that women were less likely to use face-scanning payment at first, said Xuan Yuan, a staff member with Alipay, So we thought maybe we can learn from other beauty apps and make women fall in love with facial recognition.

After adding the feature, Alipay has attracted more female consumers to pay with its facial recognition system, according to Xuan.

Pan Helin, a postdoctoral researcher at the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, said that while facial recognition payment brings convenience to peoples lives, it also improves payment security as the facial data cannot be modified like passwords.

Data from Alipay shows that among the users who utilize face-scanning payment in China, those born in the 1980s, the 1990s and the 2000s account for more than 80 percent.