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☆ Baidu Developing Its Own ChatGPT, Aiming to Integrate It Into Search
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Karen Hao | Raffaele Huang | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Baidu CEO Robin Li, here in 2019, told employees in late December that the great challenge is turning the company’s ‘cool technology’ into products that everyone needs. China’s Baidu Inc. has thrust itself into a global race to commercialize the next-generation of artificial-intelligence technologies like ChatGPT that could bring major transformations to the internet. The company is developing an AI-powered chatbot similar to OpenAI ‘s popular ChatGPT and plans to integrate it into its main search engine in March, people familiar with the matter said.

☆ Baidu Is Developing Its Own ChatGPT, Aiming to Integrate It Into Search
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Karen Hao | Raffaele Huang | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Baidu CEO Robin Li, here in 2019, told employees in late December that the great challenge is turning the company’s ‘cool technology’ into products that everyone needs. China’s Baidu Inc. is developing an artificial-intelligence-powered chatbot similar to OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT and plans to integrate it into its main search engine in March, people familiar with the matter said. The search giant also plans to build an independent website for users to access the tool, some of the people said.

☆ Tourism is roaring back in China. But the $6 trillion consumer market is digging itself out of a deep slump
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

He's hopeful business improves this year – and allows Rêver to recoup the roughly 35% in revenue it lost last year. Within a retail sales slump of 0.2% to 43.97 trillion yuan ($6.28 trillion), catering sales dropped by a steeper 6.3%. He expects 7% year-on-year growth in retail sales. Hainan's recovery plansHainan, a tropical province aiming to be a duty free shopping destination, announced a goal for 10% growth in retail sales this year. That's after its retail sales fell by 9.2% last year.

☆ China Visa Offices Overwhelmed in Wake of Border Opening
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Karen Hao | Wenxin Fan | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

HONG KONG—China has opened its doors to the world after three years of zero-Covid controls—at least in theory. In practice, many travelers eager or desperate to visit the country are struggling to acquire the key that will gain them entry. Processing times for visas to enter China have multiplied as the Chinese Embassy in Washington and consulates across the U.S. struggle to keep up with a wave of applications. Many visa offices are closed entirely, leaving would-be visitors to contend unassisted with an online application system that travel agencies say is prone to crashing.

☆ Instant View: China's economy slows sharply in Q4, 2022 growth one of the worst on record
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +10 min

As a result, the Chinese economic growth rate will be below the Chinese government's target of 5% plus." This could weigh on their potential economic growth in the mid-and long-term, and we really need to be paying attention to that." MARCO SUN, CHIEF FINANCIAL MARKET ANALYST, MUFG BANK (CHINA), SHANGHAI"China's Q4 and full-year 2022 GDP growth rates came in higher than expected. Economic growth will have to depend more on productivity growth, which is driven by government policies." IRIS PANG, GREATER CHINA ECONOMIST, ING, HONG KONG"The biggest surprise is the retail sales number, which is really a big beat...

On a quarterly basis, GDP stalled, coming in at 0.0% in the fourth quarter, compared with growth of 3.9% in July-September. For 2022, GDP expanded 3.0%, badly missing the official target of "around 5.5%" and braking sharply from 8.4% growth in 2021. Other indicators for December such as retail sales and factory output, also released along with GDP data, beat expectations but were still weak. At an agenda-setting meeting in December, top leaders pledged to focus on stabilising the economy in 2023 and step up policy support to ensure key targets are hit. China is likely to aim for economic growth of at least 5% in 2023 to keep a lid on unemployment, policy sources said.

☆ WHO Recognizes China’s Accounting of 60,000 Covid Deaths
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( Karen Hao | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The WHO has been urging China to be more forthcoming about the coronavirus outbreak now sweeping the country. HONG KONG—The World Health Organization expressed appreciation for China’s sharing of Covid-19 data after Beijing reported around 60,000 Covid-related deaths over the past month, providing the first major accounting of the death toll since the country lifted pandemic restrictions. In recent weeks, the WHO had urged China to be more forthcoming about the outbreak now sweeping the country. Public-health specialists—including some at the WHO—had criticized China’s reporting for severely underrepresenting the toll of the latest outbreak.

CHONGQING, China—A month after scrapping most of its zero-Covid restrictions, China is experiencing all at once what many other nations have been navigating for three years. Infections have skyrocketed, medical facilities are stretched to their limits and the elderly and infirm are dying, although official government numbers are seen by public-health experts as vastly underestimating Covid-related deaths.

☆ China’s local governments set 2023 growth targets, offering clues on economic recovery
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Laura He | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The meetings will culminate in the national parliamentary session to be held in March, in which the premier is expected to disclose the nation’s GDP growth target. So far, a group of government economists and international analysts have said they expect Beijing to set a growth target of above 5% in 2023. On Thursday, Zhejiang province, another major economic powerhouse, announced it’s targeting an expansion of more than 5% in 2023. On Wednesday, Shanghai, the most affluent city in mainland China, announced it would aim for 5.5% growth this year. On the same day, Fujian, Sichuan and Hebei provinces all disclosed growth targets of 6% for 2023.

Analysts polled by Reuters had predicted new yuan loans would drop to 1.1 trillion yuan in December from 1.21 trillion yuan the previous month. New bank lending hit a record 21.31 trillion yuan in 2022, up from 19.95 trillion yuan in 2021 - the previous record. Broad M2 money supply grew by 11.8% in December from a year earlier, central bank data showed, below estimates of 12.2% forecast in the Reuters poll. Outstanding yuan loans grew by 11.1% in December from a year earlier compared with 11.0% growth in November. In December, TSF fell to 1.31 trillion yuan from 1.99 trillion yuan in November.

☆ China, a Pioneer in Regulating Algorithms, Turns Its Focus to Deepfakes
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Karen Hao | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Cyberspace Administration of China will begin enforcing new regulations on deepfakes starting this week. HONG KONG—China is implementing new rules to restrict the production of ‘deepfakes,’ media generated or edited by artificial-intelligence software that can make people appear to say and do things they never did. Beijing’s internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, will begin enforcing the regulation—on what it calls “deep synthesis” technology, including AI-powered image, audio and text-generation software—starting Tuesday, marking the world’s first comprehensive attempt by a major regulatory agency to curb one of the most explosive and controversial areas of AI advancement.

Liza LinLiza Lin covers Asia technology news for The Wall Street Journal from Singapore, focusing mostly on China, the internet, supply chains and surveillance. In 2021, Liza was part of a team at the Journal that was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting, for their coverage of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Liza, alongside other Journal reporters, won the Gerald Loeb Award for International Reporting in 2018 for a series of stories on China's surveillance state. Liza is the co-author with Journal colleague Josh Chin of the book "Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control." A Fulbright scholar, she has also worked for Bloomberg News in Singapore and China.

Persons: Liza Lin Liza Lin, Liza, Xi Jinping, Gerald Loeb, Josh Chin Organizations: Wall, New York Press Club, Society of Publishers, Social Control, Bloomberg News Locations: Asia, Singapore, China, Shanghai

☆ Vietnamese boy trapped in concrete pile on New Year’s Eve is pronounced dead
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

HANOI, Vietnam — A 10-year-old Vietnamese boy who fell into the narrow open shaft of a concrete pile at a construction site on New Year’s Eve has been confirmed dead, state media said Wednesday. Rescuers spent nearly 100 hours trying to free the boy, Ly Hao Nam, from the 115-foot-long support pillar driven into the ground, but without success, online newspaper VnExpress cited a local government official as saying. “The authorities have determined that the victim has died and are trying to recover his body for the funeral,” deputy chairman of the southern province of Dong Thap, Doan Tan Buu, was quoted as saying. Doan Tan Buu, deputy chairman of the southern Vietnamese province of Dong Thap, said Wednesday that authorities were trying to recover the boy’s body. Earlier on Wednesday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had urged rescuers and local authorities to mobilize all equipment and forces needed, the government said.

☆ Rescuers in Vietnam try to save boy trapped in concrete pile
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

HANOI, Vietnam — Rescuers in Vietnam were desperately trying to free a 10-year-old boy on Monday, two days after he fell into the narrow open shaft of a concrete pile at a construction site on New Year’s Eve. The calamity occurred at a bridge construction site in the Mekong delta province, where the boy had been searching with friends for scrap iron. “I cannot understand how he fell into the hollow concrete pile,” which has a diameter of less than 10 inches and was driven 115 feet into the ground, Le Hoang Bao, director of Dong Thap province’s Department of Transport, told Tuoi Tre News, a local newspaper. Efforts to lift the pile with cranes and excavators had so far failed and rescuers were unable to determine the boy’s position, media reported. Rescuers have pumped oxygen into the pile and have softened the soil around it but the pile has tilted slightly, complicating extraction efforts.

☆ Hong Kong stocks will be a 'better play' than ones from mainland China, economist says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailHong Kong stocks will be a 'better play' than ones from mainland China, economist saysHao Hong of Grow Investment Group says Hong Kong is "better positioned for a recovery for investors than the Chinese A-shares."

Industrial profits fell 3.6% in January-November from a year earlier to 7.7 trillion yuan ($1.11 trillion), according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday. Industrial profits could fall further in December with many cities facing a surge in COVID infections, said Hao Zhou, chief economist at GTJAI. For January-November, profits at private-sector firms shrank 7.9%, a slight improvement from the 8.1% fall in the first 10 months. China's economic growth was just 3% in the first three quarters of this year and is expected to stay around that rate for the full year, one of its worst years in almost half a century. Industrial profit data covers large firms with annual revenues above 20 million yuan from their main operations.

☆ China's economy looks different than it was going into the pandemic
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

China's exports started to fall year-on-year in October — for the first time since May 2020, according to Wind Information. Net exports had supported China's GDP growth over the last several years, contributing as much as 1.7 percentage points in 2021, the analysts said. But China's exports to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have picked up, surpassing those to the U.S. and EU on a monthly basis in November, according to customs data. They expect ASEAN's GDP growth to rebound in 2023, while the U.S. and EU spend part of next year in recession. Jin pointed out that China's car exports, especially of electric cars and related parts, helped support overall exports this year.

It marked the slowest growth since May when Shanghai was under lockdown, partly due to disruptions in key manufacturing hubs Guangzhou and Zhengzhou. Retail sales fell 5.9% amid broad-based weakness in the services sector, also the biggest contraction since May. "The weak activity data suggest that the policy needs to be eased further to revive the growth momentum," said Hao Zhou, chief economist at GTJAI. "The increased size of the MLF rollover this morning is in line with the overall easing policy tones. That would hit businesses and consumers, while a weakening global economy hurts Chinese exports.

CONTAGION RISKTrust firms were dubbed "shadow banks" because of how they operated outside many of the rules that govern commercial banks. Zhongrong International Trust has been working with local governments, including Qingdao provincial authorities, to source early stage deals in intelligent manufacturing, an executive there said. CCB Trust, Zhongrong International Trust and Avic Trust did not respond to requests for comment. Ping An Trust, Zhongrong International Trust, Everbright Xinglong Trust and Minmetals International Trust have all bought project companies from struggling developers in the last few months, corporate records and company announcements showed. Ping An Trust, Zhongrong International Trust, Everbright Xinglong Trust and Minmetals International Trust did not respond to requests for comment.

“The world changed overnight, and that’s really amazing,” said Echo Ding, 30, a manager at a tech company in Beijing. They said it’s good, so then it’s good … that’s what I feel right now. In Beijing, authorities on Wednesday said a health code showing a negative Covid-19 test would still be required for dining in at restaurants or entering some entertainment venues – in conflict with the national guidelines. Now, with the new rules she knew she could largely go out freely, but instead she stayed at home to “wait and see.”“We are still waiting and watching. It is not the case that people all rushed out once the seal is off,” she said.

☆ How AI That Powers Chatbots and Search Queries Could Discover New Drugs
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Karen Hao | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

In their search for new disease-fighting medicines, drug makers have long employed a laborious trial-and-error process to identify the right compounds. But what if artificial intelligence could predict the makeup of a new drug molecule the way Google figures out what you’re searching for, or email programs anticipate your replies—like “Got it, thanks”? That’s the aim of a new approach that uses an AI technique known as natural language processing—the same technology that enables OpenAI’s ChatGPT to generate human-like responses—to analyze and synthesize proteins, which are the building blocks of life and of many drugs. The approach exploits the fact that biological codes have something in common with search queries and email texts: Both are represented by a series of letters.

[1/10] Chiang Chung-hao, 34, the lead singer of Taiwan's Air Force "Tiger Band" gets ready for flight check at Chihhang Air Base in Taitung, Taiwan, November 16, 2022. REUTERS/Ann WangTAITUNG, Taiwan, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Taiwan's air force may be on the front lines of defending against China's daily incursions into the skies near the democratically governed island, but for downtime and to boost morale they have a secret weapon - their own band. Started in 2018, the Taiwan air force's "Tiger Band" is made up of fighter pilots, ground crews and other personnel at the Chihhang air base in Taitung on Taiwan's mountainous and scenic east coast, singing soft rock ballads with an indigenous twist. China, which views Taiwan as its own territory, has stepped up military pressure to assert its sovereignty claims, including staging war games near the island in August. Band member Kao Tzu-yu, 32, who was inspired to become a fighter pilot after seeing Taiwan's air force's acrobatic team the Thunder Tigers perform, trains new pilots by simulating enemy tactics.

☆ Expect positive momentum to continue in China's market in the near term, economist says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailExpect positive momentum to continue in China's market in the near term, economist saysHao Hong of Grow Investment Group says there could nevertheless be confusion in the market in the longer term when Covid cases in the country rise.

☆ Chinese stocks rally on reopening hopes; Morgan Stanley upgrades to overweight
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Jihye Lee | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The Hang Seng TECH Index, which represents the 30 largest technology companies listed in Hong Kong, surged 8% in Asia's trade. Electronic vehicle-maker Xpeng gained 24%, leading gains for the broader index, Li Auto jumped 12% and Nio climbed more than 15%. The Hang Seng index rose 4% while China's CSI 300 index, which tracks the largest largest mainland-listed stocks, rose almost 2%. Hong Kong-listed casino operators also saw significant gains, with MGM China rising 19%, Wynn Macau climbing 16% and Sands China adding 13%. Morgan Stanley upgrades to overweight

Many investors say that stocks of drugmakers and medical equipment companies, however, will likely get a more lasting lift from China's bumpy journey towards an eventual economic opening. Investors have snapped up Chinese tourism (.CSI930633), leisure (.CSI930654), retailing (.CSI930674) and food and beverage stocks (.CSI930653) over the past week. "After curbs are relaxed, China could experience the impact from surging virus cases, along with rising deaths, potentially hitting the economy," the brokerage said. "I think it's reasonable to think that as infections rise, they're going to have shortages in some areas of workers," he said. Grow Investment Group chief economist Hong Hao, warning of confusion and chaotic expectations ahead, recommended internet platform companies and food delivery firms in the short term.

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