UK wants to rebuild relationship with China

THE UK WILL TODAY start to try to rebuild its relationship with China, following years of backing US-led hostility and political interference.

New British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Brazil today.

“We are both global players, global powers, both permanent members of the security council and of the G20,” Starmer told the press. “China’s economy is obviously the second biggest in the world. It’s one of our biggest trading partners and therefore I will be having serious, pragmatic discussions with the president when I meet him.”

TROUBLEMAKERS

The last meeting between the countries’ leaders was Theresa May’s visit to China in 2018.

However, later that year, Hong Kong obeyed a G-7 legal recommendation to table an extradition amendment. The US then used it as a “flashpoint” to launch a hybrid warfare disinformation operation. It funded street protests using activist groups long-financed by the National Endowment for Democracy, a regime-change unit, and other specialist interference operators.

The efforts of these US political interference units were backed by UK’s 77th Brigade psychological operations group in the creation of an entirely false narrative.

But the US-UK operation failed in its aim, which was to cause the PLA to step in.

MORE FAILURES

So the US and UK instead dubbed Beijing’s passing of a relatively mild anti-collusion “national security” law for Hong Kong in June 2020 as an outrage that would cause the populace to flee.

Again the ploy failed. The populace pointedly did not flee.

Early the following year, 2021, the UK went live with a British passport scheme, designed, as law professor Grenville Cross said, “to harm Hong Kong”.

But again it failed. Fully 97 per cent of eligible Hong Kong people ignored it, preferring to stay in the city. But this did not prevent the creative western mainstream media presenting the three per cent who did sign up for the scheme as a massive exodus “fleeing oppression”.

(Since then, a significant proportion of the three per cent have returned to Hong Kong.)

JUST POLITE

Xi Jinping will be polite at the meeting with Starmer, as is his wont. But the Chinese leader knows that he has all the cards.

First, China remains in growth mode in multiple areas, while Britain is struggling financially with huge problems, particularly in productivity, in the transition to clean energy, and in other areas.

Second, the Chinese will not forget Britain’s very active role in America’s political interference games. The west has lost any moral high ground it had with China.

And third, China sees the British as a very small nation (not even one per cent of humanity) with its once outsize influence in steady decline. The downward direction is not going to reverse.

The world is in transition, and both Starmer and Xi know it.

Yet the UK will continue to try to patch things up. UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is expected to visit China in the New Year.

[published in fridayeveryday .com]

by Nury Vittachi

Lai See(利是)

** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **

Humanized mice, mpox testing kits, and a way of finding out if you are going to have a heart attack 720 days in advance.

Those are just a few of the breakthroughs scientists showed off at BIOHK 2024, an international gathering of bio-tech experts in Hong Kong—and we'll discuss some of them shortly.

But first, the really big news came in the opening event, when speakers noted the sheer number of biotech companies in the Greater Bay Area.

China has 199 science parks, with 111 featuring biotechnology research and development. Of those, 93 are concentrated in Greater Bay Area. Thus it appears inevitable that this region will be a biotech center for the world.

"I believe that you are building here a unique confluence of biomed research and analytics that not just as the opportunity to serve China but it also has the opportunity to serve the rest of the world because these are unique components that so few parts of the world have," said Sir Jonathan Symonds, chairman of GSK, one of the world's biggest healthcare firms.

Businesses agree with him. More than 60 companies have already signed up to participate in the Hong Kong Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park.

And where will the money come from? Hong Kong is already one of the largest global biotech fundraising hubs in the world, so has plenty of skill in organizing investments.

There are large numbers of companies at this event, with a great many breakthroughs to show off, but let's look in more detail at a few.

HUMANIZED MICE

First, consider a problem. Before potentially dangerous medical products are used on you or your children, they are tested on mice. But there are a great many differences between rodents and humans.

So Chinese scientists are putting specific genes into mice to bridge that gap for specific experiments. These are known as humanized mice.

Mingceler, a firm based in Guangzhou, has developed what it calls Turbo Mice, accelerated rodents which provide genetic material for checking drugs are safe in half the normal development time.

PREDICTING YOUR FUTURE

Then there's this firm, BSP Medical, which has developed a test that can check if you are likely to have a heart attack, 720 days before it happens. Long enough, the theory goes, for you to develop healthy habits to change the future.

There were also food labels that change color when the food goes bad, artificial mussels that detect pollutants in the water, and a phone app that tells you how many calories in your lunch—and advises you on healthy restaurants near you.

These are all fun developments, but there's a serious message behind all this. The proportion of old people in the world is rising fast and there simply won't be enough money in the system to give people the care they need, unless things change rapidly.

Here's what Sir Jonathan Symonds said: "So I congratulate you, I commend you and I urge you to continue to move at pace because I think you have a significant contribution to make to the health of the world."

by Nury Vittachi