Can the planet's environment survive turbocharged economic growth from China?
Last week, the might of the world's most populous nation came into sharp focus. China officially overtook the US as the world's biggest consumer of agricultural and industrial goods.
PHOTO: AFP
Meanwhile, its economy -- on a steep upward curve for 20 years -- surged by 9.5 per cent last year. With compelling evidence that climate change is accelerating, there is growing concern that fast- emerging nations will place an unsustainable burden on the earth's already fragile resources.
Most analysts tend to start from the standpoint that it is unfair to blame China for climate change because the vast majority of emissions have been caused by consumers and businesses in the developed world. And in recent months, the Chinese government has taken environmental concerns more seriously, says Bryan Cress, the Confederation of British Industry's (CBI's) head of east Asia.
Cress visited the country recently with his leader Digby Jones and Trade and British Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt, and is optimistic that Beijing now realizes that increasing evidence of river pollution and environmental degradation cannot be ignored. This comes after environmentalists reacted with horror to China's importation of vast supplies of timber: in Indonesia, forests the size of Switzerland are now cleared every year.
Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth, says the environment cannot tolerate the demands placed on it by industrialized countries, never mind the accelerating growth of emerging nations like China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
Western countries' addiction to economic growth has to be recast, he says -- if not, the consequences will be "utterly disastrous."
China is now forging significant alliances with Russia, Venezuela, Sudan and Middle Eastern countries to secure oil and gas supplies. Juniper warns that, quite apart from climate change, with fossil fuel demand set to vastly outstrip supply, the only way the world can avoid war is to find greener alternatives to oil and gas quickly.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy