China expands maritime connectivity with new routes to Latin America, Southeast Asia

China has made steady progress in building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, with its international container liner services now covering more than 100 countries and regions.

China has opened multiple new foreign trade routes directly to Latin America and Southeast Asia this year. Recently, a new weekly service was launched from east China's Fujian Province to the east coast of South America, the first of its kind from the province.

The route directly links five major ports on Brazil's east coast and extends to ports in Argentina, Uruguay and other Belt and Road partner countries through seamless connections. It has added a new channel to maritime connectivity between China and Belt and Road partner countries, providing support for foreign trade enterprises to consolidate traditional markets and explore emerging markets such as South America.

"Since the route opened, shipping time to South America has nearly halved, and the service has become more reliable. Preliminary estimates suggest it will boost our product exports by about 20 percent," said Li Zhenbang, sales director of Xiamen Risun Group Co., Ltd.

Behind these new routes is a continuously expanding maritime connectivity network. Building on the development of Silk Road Maritime in Fujian and other regions, China is promoting integrated port, shipping and trade development to improve connectivity efficiency at ports along the route.

In the first eight months of this year, foreign trade throughput at China's 11 international hub seaports reached nearly 2.2 billion tonnes, accounting for more than 50 percent of their total throughput. International container liner routes now reach more than 100 countries and regions.

"The building of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road has given strong impetus to China's economic and trade cooperation with countries in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, bringing it to new levels. China remains ASEAN's largest trading partner and Latin America's second-largest trading partner, with the scale and quality of our economic and trade cooperation steadily improving." said Liang Linchong, director of the Department of Regional Opening-up of the National Development and Reform Commission.

China expands maritime connectivity with new routes to Latin America, Southeast Asia

Physics Nobel Laureate Konstantin Novoselov has expressed hope that international scientific collaborations will grow deeper and overcome disruptions brought on by geopolitical tensions.

In an exclusive interview with China Media Group (CMG) that aired Friday, Novoselov addressed the mounting complexities of the current global landscape, noting how these external pressures are creating major obstacles for researchers worldwide.

"We do see very unpleasant cases where the collaboration stalled because of geopolitics. And that really makes me very sad. I've been collaborating with many scientists across many countries and many continents. So I would really love to [see that continue]. And the progress of our science is always relying on this collaboration. I really hope that it can continue in the future," he said.

Novoselov discovered graphene in 2004 together with fellow University of Manchester physicist Andre Geim, using a simple mechanical exfoliation method. Their groundbreaking work earned them the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics, with Novoselov becoming one of the youngest Nobel laureates in history at the age of 36.

Since the discovery, Novoselov has remained active in international efforts to advance graphene technology, which has found applications in numerous fields from electronics to aerospace.

Nobel laureate calls for open global scientific exchange amid geopolitical tensions