Chinese diaspora
China’s Diaspora Policy under Xi Jinping – Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik – China estimates the number of people of Chinese origin outside the People’s Republic to be 60 million. Beijing considers them all to be nationals of China, regardless of their citizenship. Xi Jinping views overseas Chinese as playing an “irreplaceable role” in China’s rise as a world power. Beijing is working hard to harness overseas Chinese resources for its own goals in the fields of economics, science and technology, as well as diplomacy and soft power. Beijing also expects people of Chinese origin in Germany to deepen relations between China and Germany. But not only that: As “unofficial ambassadors”, they are also expected to spread China’s narratives to the German public, defend China’s “core interests”, and help with the transfer of knowledge and technology to China. – This explains foreign police stations to ‘help the Chinese diaspora and considers Singapore to be a ‘Chinese state’. To realise how ridiculous this sounds, imagine Ireland berating the United States for not towing the line because it is an Irish state. I was surprised at the relatively small size of the Chinese diaspora at only 60 million, Ireland claims 70 million people of Irish descent. And that’s even allowing for the fact that the Irish minority in mainland Britain is declining in number due to an ageing community. If you want to know more about the government of China and its efforts to influence the Chinese diaspora, I can recommend reading Hamilton & Ohlberg’s – The Hidden Hand.
China
China deploys village cadres to help Foxconn hire workers in bid to secure nation’s role in Apple’s iPhone supply chain | South China Morning Post – gives a good idea of how precarious the finances of Zhengzhou’s government is that it will go this far to support the Foxconn factory
Millions of missing women: China grapples with legacy of one-child policy as population ages | Population | The Guardian – how is this different from the tsunami of singletons in the west?
China’s offshore ‘police service stations’ spark European alarm | Financial Times
FMCG
Consumer market update Germany, 2022, Q3 – Carter Murray – German consumers less likely to buy sustainable products in the current economic downturn. This matches longitudinal research that Gallup has done for decades.
It’s hard to believe that fast food restaurants were innovative 40 years ago. McDonald’s haven’t changed their tray designs at all. The idea of it being fast and clean doesn’t feel so fast or clean now given the small of the restaurant and greasy stainless steel counter sides.
Health
The technology behind China’s COVID traffic light system app: ChinAI #203: A Critique of Health Codes as the Digital Leviathan
Klick Wire | Does it work? Oncologists main question
Ideas
The Growing Religious Fervor in the American Right – The New York Times – no it isn’t. Just in the same way that the CIA operations in Soviet-era Afghanistan begat Al Qaeda and the Taliban, so Ronald Reagan courting the Christian right begat a dangerous mix of religiosity and right wing politics. More on that here: Ronald Reagan and the 1980s: Perceptions, Policies, Legacies (Studies of the Americas) edited by Gareth Bryn Davies and Cheryl Hudson
Lies in authoritarian regimes, its stickiness as a habit once it’s been developed as a survival skill. Lying to ignore uncomfortable truths
Innovation
Exascale wafer-scale supercomputer has 13.5m cores | EETimes – the die size must be huge, I wonder what the error rate is like?
Diamond wafer startup takes on SiC | EE Times
Luxury
Luxury market forecast to grow despite global recession fears | Financial Times
Marketing
KFC blames its bot for promoting its cheese-covered chicken on Kristallnacht – The Verge – from the explanation given KFC were running some sort of rules based marketing automation that created content based on calendar events – which makes you wonder what calendar were they using that went beyond joyous public holidays?
Materials
Autonomous asset monitoring solution uses 100µAh micro-battery | EE Times
Media
SpaceX just bought a big ad campaign on Twitter for Starlink | CNBC – doesn’t look good given the ownership that Elon Musk has of SpaceX and Twitter
Magic: The Slathering | Financial Times “We are downgrading Hasbro to Underperform after conducting a deep dive on the company’s Magic: The Gathering business. Hasbro is overproducing Magic cards which has propped up recent results but is destroying the long-term value of the brand. Card prices are falling, game stores are losing money, collectors are liquidating and large retailers are cutting orders.”
Online
Fake Eli Lilly account may cost Twitter millions – The Washington Post
Security
How North Korea became a mastermind of crypto cyber crime | Financial Times
China is biggest state-based threat to UK security, says Sunak | Financial Times – it can be partly explained by Russia’s poor performance in Ukraine
Interesting interview with Justin Brock of RUSI, which provides a much more nuanced take on the air war in Ukraine.
Software
Dan O’Dowd is the rich tech CEO spending millions to stop Elon Musk – The Washington Post – O’Dowd is the founder of Green Hills Software, the embedded software company
Web of no web
78% of Chinese Consumers Own Wearables, But Gen X Has Privacy Concerns / Digital Information World
Wireless
Keysight, NOKIA Bell Labs collaborate on 5G-Advanced and 6G EETimes
Largest commercial LEO 5G satellite array unfolded EE Tiimes