Le chômage des jeunes en Chine s'est encore aggravé : il est maintenant 4 points plus élevé que celui de la France, et vient même de dépasser le taux italien. Un retournement de l'histoire assez inattendu.

Le gouvernement américain a été la cible d’une cyberattaque d’origine chinoise qui a notamment visé le département d’État, a-t-on indiqué mercredi de sources officielles.

Le piratage a visé tout particulièrement des comptes de courriers électroniques d’un certain nombre d’agences fédérales, a indiqué le géant de l’informatique Microsoft, en évoquant un acteur « basé en Chine que Microsoft appelle Storm-0558 ».

Le conseiller à la sécurité nationale du président Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, a fait part sur la chaîne de télévision ABC d’une activité de piratage qui a été « détectée assez rapidement ».
 
Fin mai, les Etats-Unis, des alliés occidentaux et Microsoft avaient déjà dénoncé un « cyber-acteur » parrainé par la Chine ayant infiltré les réseaux d’infrastructures critiques des Etats-Unis. Pékin avait alors démenti toute implication.

En 2022, la croissance démographique est inférieure à 1 %, ce qui représente cependant plus de 12 millions d'Indiens supplémentaires chaque année

Xi Jinping Chokes Off Crucial Engine of China’s Economy
Foreign direct investment in China fell to $20 billion in the first quarter from $100 billion a year earlier, hurting an already struggling economy

Foreign direct investment in China fell to $20 billion in the first quarter of this year, compared with $100 billion in last year’s first quarter, according to an analysis of government figures by analyst Mark Witzke at research firm Rhodium Group.
 
Goldman Sachs economists predict outflows from China this year will cancel out investment going into the country, a stunning change for a country that over the past four decades has consistently seen more money coming in than going out.

A trade official in Chengdu, the capital of southwestern Sichuan province, recently embarked on an investment-promotion trip to Europe. He returned empty-handed. “In my 20 years of trying to get investments from Europe, this was the first time we didn’t get to sign even one memorandum of understanding,” the official said.
A senior official in a county of southern Guangdong province, which earlier this year set a goal of attracting nearly $300 billion in investment in the next five years, told a visiting American trade group recently that the county would reward any U.S. corporate “decision maker” investing there 10% of the value of the promised deal, according to people briefed on the matter.

Recent surveys by business groups in China have shown American, German and other European companies pausing expansion or reducing investment in China.

Depuis plusieurs années, les autorités chinoises ont largement recours aux systèmes de reconnaissance faciale. Un média de la capitale est parti à la rencontre des habitants d’un complexe résidentiel qui se plaignent des complications quotidiennes qui résultent de l’installation de cet outil de contrôle.

À chaque fois qu’ils souhaitent rentrer chez eux, les habitants de Tiantongyuan, un complexe résidentiel du district de Changping, à Pékin, doivent subir un scan de leur visage par le système de reconnaissance faciale… Une première fois à l’entrée du groupement d’habitations, puis une seconde devant leur immeuble. “Ce n’est pas pratique”, protestent-ils auprès du journaliste de la radio pékinoise Beijing Xinwen Guangbo (Beijing News Radio).
 
Sur place, le journaliste de la radio a découvert les conditions d’accès réservées aux visiteurs. Un code QR a été collé à l’entrée du complexe. Après l’avoir scanné, le visiteur doit enregistrer ses nom, prénom, numéro de téléphone, numéro de carte d’identité ainsi que l’adresse exacte de la personne à qui il rend visite. “Vous devez également passer devant le système de reconnaissance faciale pour obtenir l’autorisation d’accès [temporaire, pour une journée]”, explique un agent de sécurité.

China beats rivals to successfully launch first methane-liquid rocket

A private Chinese company launched into orbit on Wednesday the world's first methane-liquid oxygen rocket, beating U.S. rivals in sending what could become the next generation of launch vehicles into space.

Wednesday's launch put China ahead of U.S. rivals, including Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, in the race to launch carrier vehicles fuelled by methane, which is deemed less polluting, safer, cheaper and a suitable propellant in a reusable rocket.

‘China has changed.’ Germany unveils strategy to cut reliance on world’s no. 2 economy

Germany announced Thursday that it would reduce its dependence on China in “critical sectors” including medicine, lithium batteries used in electric cars and elements essential to chipmaking.
 
The government published its first ever “Strategy on China,” a 40-page document that highlights the tightrope Berlin must walk in managing its dependence on the world’s second-largest economy amid growing criticism of Beijing’s human rights record and attitude towards international law.

“China has changed. As a result of this and China’s political decisions, we need to change our approach to China,” said the document, which the cabinet agreed following months of delays and debate within Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-way coalition.

“In key areas, the [European Union] must not become dependent on technologies from [non-EU] countries that do not share our fundamental values,” the paper stated.

It reaffirmed the government’s commitment to adjust lists of products subject to export controls against the backdrop of new technological developments, including in cybersecurity and surveillance technology.
 
The government will also issue provisions so that research and development projects with China “in which knowledge drain is likely” are not supported by federal funds or only under certain conditions, the document said.

“Many German companies operating in China have already taken steps to mitigate risks on their own and see the strategy as confirming their course,” Jens Hildebrandt, executive director of the North China branch of the German Chamber of Commerce, told CNN Friday.

Exclusive: China invites global investors for rare meeting as economy sputters

China's financial regulators have invited some of the world's biggest investors to a rare symposium next week, three sources said, seeking to encourage foreigners to keep investing in the world's second-largest economy despite its recent weakness and rising geopolitical tensions.

Weighed down by strict COVID measures, China's economy grew just 3% in 2022, one of its worst showings in decades.

Canada's No. 3 pension fund - Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP) said in January it was pausing future direct investments in private assets in China.

Months of disappointing economic data has MSCI's China share index down 2% on the year, against a 15% gain for world stocks, while the yuan is hovering at 8-month lows, pushing some investors to close up their China strategies.

China-focused GPs only raised $5.5 billion in U.S. dollar-denominated funding in the first half of the year, Preqin data showed, a far cry from its peak of $27.6 billion raised in the same period in 2021.

Chinese exports experienced a significant decline in June compared to a year earlier, according to official data released on Thursday, putting pressure on Beijing to introduce more stimulus measures in order to revive the struggling recovery.

China reported a 12.4% drop in exports in June compared to June 2022, while imports also fell by 6.8% during the same period, reinforcing concerns about weakening domestic demand.

Chinese Scientists Are Leaving the United States
Here’s why that spells bad news for Washington.

Facing an increasingly suspicious research climate, a growing number of Chinese scientists are leaving the United States for positions abroad, the latest indicator of how worsening U.S.-China relations are complicating academic collaboration and could hamstring Washington’s tech ambitions.

From 2010 to 2021, the number of scientists of Chinese descent who left the United States for another country has surged from 900 to 2,621, with scientists leaving at an expedited rate between 2018 and 2021, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Nearly half of this group moved to China and Hong Kong in 2010, the study said, and a growing percentage of Chinese scientists have relocated to China over the years.

But this latest outflow of Chinese scientists accelerated in 2018, the same year that then-U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled the China Initiative, a controversial program that was aimed at countering IP theft—and cast a chill over researchers of Chinese descent and collaborations with Chinese institutions. In 2020, he also issued a proclamation denying visas for graduate students and researchers affiliated with Chinese universities associated with the military.

Although the Biden administration shut down the China Initiative, experts warn that its shadow still looms over Chinese scientists. More than one-third of respondents in the PNAS survey reported feeling unwelcome in the United States, while nearly two-thirds expressed concerns about research collaboration with China.