Kinaforum: 21. sep. 2025

China Embraces Cleaner Energy, While US Is Stuck in the 20th Century

This summer, officials with the China Green Development Group showcased a sprawling solar park nearing completion in the country's Xinjiang region that covers more than 230 square miles of the Gobi Desert, an area roughly the size of Chicago. The Midong solar project is the world's largest single-solar power producer, potentially generating enough electricity for 5 million households.

In October, China's Dongfang Electric Wind Power Co. announced that the world's largest wind turbine had rolled off the production line at southern China's Fujian Fuzhou Offshore Wind Power Industrial Park.

According to Dongfang, the behemoth structure will be able to power 55,000 households at peak output and its central hub will stand 606 feet high—roughly twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty.The expansive EV factories, towering wind turbines and sprawling solar arrays are symbols of China's enormous global lead in renewable energy and clean technology, some of the fastest growing sectors of the global energy market.

China's Life Expectancy Catches Up to US

Chinese citizens are now living as long as Americans, reaching a milestone nearly two decades earlier than experts had forecast, according to official data. Life expectancy in China has risen sharply in recent decades, driven by improvements in nutrition, sanitation, access to clean water and expanded healthcare as the country's economy has grown.

By contrast, the United States now lags behind most developed countries in life expectancy, weighed down by the rise of lifestyle-related diseases and the ongoing opioid epidemic.

By the end of 2024, average life expectancy in China reached 79 years for the first time, according to health authorities who shared the figure at a September 11 press conference on achievements made during the current five-year plan, set by the Chinese Communist Party in 2021.

Subic Bay: Ex-US Navy Base Revived in China's Backyard

Philippine port once home to the United States Navy's largest overseas base is reemerging as a center of allied activity and shipbuilding. At the center of the Freeport Zone's transformation is the Agila Subic shipyard, operated by Hyundai Heavy Industries. New investment from the U.S. and South Korea revives Subic Bay's strategic importance at a time of rising regional tensions with China.

Subic Bay's reopening as a shipyard and logistics hub comes more than three decades after the U.S. military withdrew from the base. The transformation, spurred by American and South Korean investment, as well as Philippine government support, signals a shift in regional security and a potential staging ground for allied forces as tensions simmer in the South China Sea.

The Philippines is locked in a long-running territorial dispute with China over China's expanding presence inside the U.S. defense treaty ally's exclusive economic zone.

Inside China’s Surveillance and Propaganda Industries: Where Profit Meets Party

China’s surveillance and propaganda industries are often depicted as a seamless extension of state power, directed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the top down. Yet the latest leaks from two firms, Geedge Networks and GoLaxy, reveal something more complex: a commercial ecosystem in which private companies compete for contracts, leverage academic ties, and build sophisticated products to satisfy both ideological demands and market pressures.

Their stories show how repression in China is both a political imperative and a profitable business, one that increasingly crosses borders. Together, Geedge and GoLaxy illustrate how China is not only perfecting digital authoritarianism at home but also packaging it for export – posing deep challenges for democracies in the global race for AI supremacy.

Geedge Networks became visible when more than 100,000 internal files were leaked to a consortium of journalists, technologists, and human rights groups.

How Chinese rare-earth mining threatens the Mekong River

Ecologists are warning that mainland Southeast Asia faces a looming ecological disaster unless urgent steps are taken to address the rare-earth mining boom in war-torn Myanmar. According to Global Witness, a London-based watchdog, Myanmar has become the world's largest source of heavy rare-earth elements. These minerals are essential for manufacturing high-tech products like wind turbines, electric vehicles and medical devices.

Most of these mines are located in Shan state, where civil war has raged since the 2021 military coup.

Earlier this year, Thailand's Department of Pollution Control found arsenic levels nearly four times higher than World Health Organization (WHO) limits in parts of the Kok River, a Mekong tributary flowing into Thailand from Myanmar. Other toxic metals were also detected at dangerous levels.

Vegetarianism in India: Personal choice or caste politics?

India has witnessed a growing debate over what people eat over the past decade. Since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014, measures targeting meat consumption have increased in parts of the country, especially in northern India's Hindi-speaking states. Authorities in some places have occasionally issued rules discouraging or banning meat-based foods from schools, near places of worship and during religious festivals, among others.

In India-administered Kashmir's Doda district, officials recently banned meat, seafood and eggs in all educational institutions, saying that it's needed to uphold "secular principles," maintain "social harmony" and avoid "discomfort" over dietary differences. The order drew criticism and raised concerns about individual freedom, inclusivity and religious sensitivities.

In cities across India, similar food restrictions affect people's daily lives.

EU's new strategy to lure India away from Russia's orbit

The European Union (EU) proposed a new strategic agenda with India that raises bilateral relations to a higher level amid calls from the United States to hit India with massive tariffs. In July, the EU sanctioned an Indian refinery that refined Russian crude, ensuring it can't sell to Europe. Since then, US President Donald Trump imposed 50% tariffs on India, half of it as punishment for buying Russian fuel.

But as the EU and the US align their policies against Russia on secondary sanctions for its war in Ukraine, the Trump reportedly called on the bloc to impose up to 100% tariffs on India. However, the EU seems to have adopted a different approach in its new strategic agenda: lure India away from Russia's orbit of influence through a trade deal and enhanced strategic ties.

Could Chinese AI threaten Western submarines?

Psychological warfare has often involved touting technological superiority while suggesting that opponents are powerless against it. Which might be the right context in which to view a new study about an advanced artificial intelligence-driven anti-submarine warfare (ASW) system out of China that can reportedly detect 95% of even the stealthiest submarines.

Last week, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post outlined the study, published in August by the trade journal Electronics Optics & Control. It announced that the China Helicopter Research and Development Institute had created an AI system that can simultaneously evaluate measurement data from various sources. From sonar buoys and underwater microphones to water temperature and salinity, it creates a dynamic map of the underwater environment in real time.

The game-changing technology developed under chief engineer Meng Hao can also respond flexibly to countermeasures such as zigzag maneuvers and the deployment of decoys or drones. In computer simulations, the system was able to successfully locate the target in about 95% of cases, thus jeopardizing proven methods of submarine camouflage and defense.

søndag 21. september 2025