Lại đồ Tàu

kem dùng cho trẻ em khiến "trẻ đầu to"...

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Government officials ordered a baby cream (kem) to be pulled off shelves  (thu hồi, rút khỏi quầy kệ) and its manufacturer (nhà sản xuất) to suspend production (dừng sản xuất) due to allegedly (bị cáo buộc) containing an excessive amount (lượng quá mức) of hormones, leading to abnormal (dị thường) infant development (phát triển ở trẻ).

A science blogger Daddy Wei (老爸评测-魏老爸) released a video on Weibo yesterday alleging a 5-month-old baby gained weight rapidly (tăng cân nhanh chóng), grew excessive hair on his face and exhibited delays in movement development after using the cream for only two months.

Daddy Wei claimed he took the cream and another skincare product made by the same company called “Happy Forest” for testing, and more than 30 milligrams per kilogram of clobetasol propionate, a strong steroid, was discovered in both products.

Clobetasol propionate is used to treat moderate-to-severe eczema and other skin conditions. Due to its potency, treatment should not exceed two weeks and it's not recommended in children under the age of 12, according to drugs.com, a popular online source of drug information.

Bài trước: Tương lai của "đặc khu"?

Tương lai của "đặc khu"?

công ty bđs china thuê đảo Australia 99 năm rồi đuổi hết dân bản xứ...

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Wealthy Chinese developers lording over an idyllic (bình dị; đồng quê, điền viên, thôn dã) island on the Great Barrier Reef are trying to stop Australians from setting foot on the slice of paradise, locals claim.

China Bloom bought a 99-year lease to a portion of Keswick Island, 34km north-east Mackay in central east Queensland, in 2019. 

Helpless (không có khả năng hoạt động nếu không có sự giúp đỡ; cần sự giúp đỡ của người khác) residents (dân cư) have also been forced to endure ongoing restrictions at the hands of the international group, claiming it has become 'property of the Chinese Communist Party'. (tài sản của đảng)

The company has banned boats from accessing the public ramp, denied them access to the air strip and has attempted to stop them using the beach - with locals claiming it is being kept exclusively for rich Chinese tourists.

Bài trước: Lãnh đủ?

Lãnh đủ?

trả đũa Australia, Trung Quốc gánh hậu quả với những thành phố chìm trong bóng tối?

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Several major Chinese cities have reportedly gone dark as authorities limit power usage, citing a shortage of coal.

Analysts said prices of the commodity in the country have shot up due to the reported crunch. The reports also follow rising trade tensions (căng thẳng thương mại gia tăng) between Beijing and Canberra, leading some analysts to tie the coal shortages (thiếu than) and blackouts (mất điện) to the unofficial ban on Australian coal.

...Prices of coal in China have shot up as a result of the shortage and research firm Wood Mackenzie predicts they will remain high during the peak winter demand period.

“China’s thermal coal market is in chaos (hỗn loạn), with prices rocketing after daily price index releases were suspended on 3 December,” research firm Wood Mackenzie said.

The report said power rationing (chia khẩu phần) “has already commenced” in Hunan and Zhejiang provinces due to the shortages, and there is “little scope” for increased production from Chinese producers.

Bài trước: Trung Quốc tung "đòn hiểm" vào Australia

Trung Quốc tung "đòn hiểm" vào Australia

china cấm nhập khẩu than từ úc...

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Tuesday that a Chinese ban on Australian coal imports would breach World Trade Organization rules, as his government urged Beijing to resume dialog to ease the worsening diplomatic dispute.

More than 50 vessels carrying Australian coal have been stranded off  (mắc kẹt) China after ports were verbally told (lệnh miệng) in October not to offload such shipments. China’s National Development and Reform Commission on Saturday appeared to formalize those curbs after giving power plants approval to import coal without restrictions, except from Australia, under efforts to tame price gains,

...Ties between China and Australia have been fraught since 2018 when Canberra barred Huawei Technologies Co. from building its 5G network on national security grounds, and worsened this year after Morrison’s government called for an international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus. Beijing accuses Canberra of being a puppet (con rối, bù nhìn) of the U.S. and of meddling in its internal affairs.

China has hit Australian barley and wine with crippling tariffs and told traders to stop buying commodities including copper, sugar, timber and lobster.

Bài trước: Thông điệp của ông Tập dành cho Jack Ma

Thông điệp của ông Tập dành cho Jack Ma

chẳng là gì ngoài một đám mây...

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Twenty-one years after his death, Japanese master painter (họa sĩ bậc thầy) Kaii Higashiyama must have turned in his grave (buồn bực) earlier this month when the Chinese government used one of his paintings to send a stern warning to the richest man in the country.

On the evening of Nov. 2, moments after Jack Ma Yun, the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, was summoned by Chinese authorities for questioning, a cryptic column was posted on Xinhua's official WeChat account.

The article -- headlined, "Don't speak thoughtlessly, don't do as you please, people can't act on their free will" ("Đừng phát ngôn thiếu suy nghĩ, đừng làm theo ý mình, mọi người không thể hành động theo ý muốn của bản thân") -- made no mention of Ma. But it was accompanied by a striking blue painting of Higashiyama's that shows a white cloud in the sky shaped like a horse (đám mây trắng hình con ngựa).

In Chinese, "Ma" means horse, "Yun" means cloud. It was clear who the article was pointing at.

Some of the sentences were boldfaced for emphasis. The last one went like this:

"There is a price behind everything. If you don't have capital, don't do whatever you want."

Bài trước: Thôi xong

Vẫn dùng tốt

bệ xí thông minh ở china có thể... giật điện...

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It’s the last place you’d want to receive an electric shock (giật điện).

But a recent inspection (kiểm tra, thanh tra) by Shanghai authorities found that nearly 40% of the so-called smart toilet seats sold on China’s shopping sites were faulty.

Smart toilet seats, which come with functions including heated surfaces, warm water rinsing and air drying, are popular among China’s middle class.

And while in the past consumers had to travel to Japan to buy the inventions, these products are now widely available in Chinese malls and on e-commerce platforms.

Bài trước: Cộng hòa nhân dân khát khao

Cộng hòa nhân dân khát khao

phim tài liệu People’s Republic of Desire về sự nổi danh các ngôi sao live-stream và đội ngũ fan 'loser' ở china...

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...Wu’s documentary explores the way in which hierarchies (tôn ti trật tự, hệ thống thứ bậc) that have developed in the world of live-streaming—between the stars, their rich patrons, and the masses of diaosi or “loser” fans—mirror inequalities (bất bình đẳng) in China’s offline economy.

“I feel like live-streaming is a mirror to a lot of people desires that are unmet in real life,’ Wu says. “A lot of the poor diaosi, they have no status in real life… If they are willing to spend just a little bit of money people will notice them. The live-streamers will notice them and call out their names.”

The term diaosi has been around for several years, used by young Chinese to mock (chế nhạo, chế giễu) themselves for not achieving the traditional markers of success, like having a home, well-paying job, or good-looking partner. Critics of the term note that it’s sometimes used by relatively well-off urban young people—rendering invisible (pdf) the masses of people who power China’s economy without fully sharing in the wealth that has resulted.

In the movie, the diaosi fan is represented by young men (and sometimes young women) who sleep five or six to a room, work in factories (công nhân nhà máy), make deliveries (giao hàng), or do other difficult and low-paying jobs. Eighteen-year-old Xiao Yong is an admirer of Big Li, a male idol featured in the documentary who appeals to fans “who want a male buddy,” says Wu. “He plays the camaraderie card.”

Bài trước: Vãi

Vãi

quan chức china tạo ứng dụng cho người dùng biết ai trong bán kính 500m đang mắc nợ...

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Officials in China have launched a new app that notifies users if someone within 500 yards of them is in debt.

Dubbed the "Map of Deadbeat Debtors," the app was launched in Northern China after the Higher People's Court of Hebei developed it as a means to name and shame (làm cho ai xấu hổ) debtors, according to China Daily.

Users of the app will be alerted if they are in close proximity to debt and will also be able to tap avatars on a map to access to the name, national identification number (số cmnd) and reason why the "deadbeat" made the list.

Bài trước: Bước nhảy lớn của nhân loại?

Bước nhảy lớn của nhân loại?

hạt giống cây bông được đưa lên Mặt trăng bởi tàu thăm dò Hằng Nga 4 đã nảy mầm.

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A small green shoot is growing on the moon after a cotton seed germinated onboard a Chinese lunar lander, scientists said.

The sprout has emerged from a lattice-like structure inside a canister after the Chang’e 4 lander touched down earlier this month, according to a series of photos released by the Advanced Technology Research Institute at Chongqing University.

“This is the first time humans have done biological growth experiments on the lunar surface,” said Xie Gengxin, who led the design of the experiment, on Tuesday.

Plants have been grown previously on the International Space Station, but this is the first time a seed has sprouted on the moon. The ability to grow plants in space is seen as crucial for long-term space missions and establishing human outposts elsewhere in the solar system, such as Mars.

Harvesting food in space, ideally using locally extracted water, would mean astronauts could survive for far longer without returning to Earth for supplies.

Bài trước: Không chỉ dừng ở thuế đâu

Không chỉ dừng ở thuế đâu

luật mới (bài tháng 12/2018) yêu cầu ngoại trưởng mỹ trong vòng 90 ngày phải báo cáo tới quốc hội quan chức nào của trung quốc ký lệnh giới hạn đi lại tới vùng tây tạng, và cấm/hủy visa của họ vào mỹ...

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The new American law, enacted on Wednesday and called the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act, says the secretary of state, who is now Mike Pompeo, must within 90 days give Congress a report that lays out the level of access to Tibetan areas that Chinese officials grant Americans.

The secretary is then supposed to determine which Chinese officials are responsible for placing limits on foreigners traveling to Tibet and bar them from getting visas to the United States or revoke any active visas they have. The secretary must make this assessment annually for five years.

The goal of the law is to force Chinese officials to relent on the limits they impose on travel to Tibetan areas.

Bài trước: Thôi xong

Thôi xong

tờ china daily viết rằng trong 8 năm qua, 72 tỷ phú ở nước này chết vì nguyên nhân không tự nhiên... (bài năm 2011)

-> jack ma giờ như nào nhỉ?

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China Daily reported Friday that unnatural deaths have taken the lives of 72 mainland billionaires over the past eight years. (Do the math.)

Which means that if you're one of China's 55k current billionaires, as listed on the 2011 Forbes Billionaires List, you should be more than a little nervous.

Mortality rate notwithstanding, what's more disturbing is how these mega wealthy souls met their demise. According to China Daily, 15 were murdered (bị giết), 17 committed suicide (tự tử), seven died from accidents (tai nạn) and 19 died from illness (ốm). Oh, yes, and 14 were executed (xử tử). (Welcome to China.)

I don't know about you but I find it somewhat improbable that among such a small population there could be so many "suicides," "accidents" and "death by disease" (the average age of those who died from illness was only 48).

Bài trước: Oải rồi

Mỹ kiện chính sách trợ cấp xuất khẩu của Trung Quốc lên WTO, để làm gì?

hay cứ để vậy đi, cần gì kiện...

china càng trợ cấp thì càng ko có tiền cho quân đội, dừng gây hấn chứ sao...

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This letter addresses one of the countless zombie myths (huyễn hoặc) about trade:

Mr. Crosby:

You ask: “How do free trade principles (nguyên tắc tự do thương mại) deal with a powerful foreign country like China unfairly subsidizing (trợ cấp không công bằng, không theo các nguyên tắc bình thường) its exports to us and using the profits to build its military up?”

The assumption that sparks your question is widespread but mistaken (sai lầm trong ý kiến). Sales made only because of subsidies bring in revenues less than the full costs of producing the goods that are sold. To subsidize such export sales, Beijing acquires the necessary resources from the Chinese people. By orchestrating subsidies, Beijing thus inflicts losses on the Chinese people and makes the Chinese economy weaker than it would be without such subsidies.

Further, the country that gains from such subsidies is the United States: We Americans get valuable goods from China at prices less than we’d have to pay otherwise.

The higher are Beijing’s subsidies and tariffs, the weaker the Chinese economy and, hence, the fewer are the resources available to Beijing for military uses. Therefore, to the extent that we Americans worry about Beijing building up its military, we should actively encourage Beijing not only to continue, but to increase, its subsidization of Chinese exports and to further raise its tariffs on imports into China. And the last thing that we should do is to “retaliate” (trả đũa) with our own subsidies and tariffs – policies that would only weaken our economy.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Professor of Economics

Bài trước: Chút suy nghĩ về người tốt - người xấu

Oải rồi

china sẽ dừng sáng kiến 'nhất đới nhất lộ' (một vành đai, một con đường), 

dư nợ nước ngoài của 2 ngân hàng lớn nhất china đã giảm mạnh sau một thập kỷ tăng trưởng tham vọng (định vượt ngân hàng thế giới), 2016 cho vay 75 tỷ usd, năm vừa rồi chỉ còn 4 tỷ usd...

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China has drastically curtailed the overseas lending programme of its two largest policy banks, after nearly a decade of ambitious growth which at its peak rivalled that of the World Bank, new research indicates.

Lending by the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China collapsed from a peak of $75bn in 2016 to just $4bn last year, according to data compiled by researchers at Boston University and seen by the Financial Times.

Bài trước: Không biết điều

Không biết điều

china điều tra tập đoàn Alibaba vì độc quyền...

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...The country’s market watchdog (người kiểm soát) said on Thursday that it had opened an investigation (điều tra) into whether the e-commerce group Alibaba had engaged in monopolistic practices (hành vi độc quyền), such as restricting (hạn chế) vendors (người bán dạo) from selling merchandise (hàng hóa) on other platforms (nền tảng). Separately on Thursday, four Chinese financial regulatory agencies (cơ quan giám sát tài chính), including the central bank, said they would meet soon with Ant Group, Alibaba’s finance-focused sister company, to discuss new supervision.

...The stepped-up scrutiny of Alibaba and Ant — the pillars of the business empire of Jack Ma, China’s most famous tycoon (ông trùm) — coincides with efforts by the United States and European Union to curb the power of Western internet powerhouses such as Google and Facebook.

...Alibaba is a Goliath by any measure in China. More than 750 million people — equivalent to over half of the country’s population — shopped on its platforms in the 12 months that ended in September. The group’s main marketplaces are Taobao, where merchants set up electronic stands to sell to customers, and Tmall, which caters to larger Chinese and global brands.

...The new investigation could be a much bigger deal. China’s antimonopoly law allows for a maximum fine of 10 percent of a company’s sales from the previous year, which in Alibaba’s case would be billions of dollars.

Bài trước: Sản phẩm bảo hiểm mới của USI

Sản phẩm bảo hiểm mới của USI

bán cho các trường đại học mỹ (từ năm 2018), nếu giảm 18,5% doanh thu từ học sinh china do hành động của chính phủ như hạn chế visa... thì sẽ được nhận tiền bồi thường...

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An increasing number of US universities are looking to buy insurance policies against a drop in revenue from international students, fearing they are overexposed to China at a time of mounting trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.

A 10 per cent decline in new international student enrolments at US universities — which rely heavily on revenue from Chinese and Indian students — over the past two academic years has already cost the US economy $5.5bn, according to a report from Nafsa, previously known as the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers.

Two colleges at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign — the Gies College of Business and the College of Engineering — bought insurance in 2018 worth $60m from USI Insurance Services in Champaign, Illinois. The policy pays off if both the colleges suffer an 18.5 per cent decline in revenue from Chinese students year over year due to a government action such as visa restrictions or a “health event”.

Bài trước: Chuyện này thì rõ là buồn rồi

Chuyện này thì rõ là buồn rồi

hơn 1.000 nhà khoa học có dính dáng tới quân đội china đã bỏ trốn khỏi nước mỹ mùa hè này...

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Following an FBI investigation this summer, more than 1,000 researchers who had hidden their affiliation with the Chinese military fled the United States, the Justice Department (bộ tư pháp) said Wednesday.

The exodus (cuộc di cư; (kinh thánh) sự kiện người Do Thái rời bỏ Ai Cập) came in the wake of the arrests of six Chinese researchers accused of (bị cáo buộc) lying (gian dối, khai man) on their visa applications (đơn xin visa) about their ties to the People’s Liberation Army and a warning to the Chinese ambassador that individuals who had not disclosed (vạch trần, phơi bày) their true status needed to leave or face arrest.

...One researcher was under orders to study the exact layout of a medical lab in order to replicate it in China, federal agents alleged. Another stole (ăn cắp) software code (mã phần mềm) that his adviser at the University of Virginia had developed over two decades, the government alleged.

Those arrests, coupled with the July closure of the Chinese Consulate in Houston, which U.S. officials said served as a ­command-and-control node to direct spying operations, sent a signal to Beijing...

Bài trước: Không biết nên vui hay buồn

Không biết nên vui hay buồn

500 triệu thanh niên china đang hẹn hò cùng một người con gái - xiaoice (trí tuệ nhân tạo của Microsoft)... 

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Five hundred million Chinese men are dating the same woman, Xiaoice. Xiaoice is a Microsoft AI.

Unlike regular virtual assistants (trợ lý ảo thông thường), Xiaoice is designed to set her users’ hearts (trái tim) aflutter (run rẩy vì kích động, bối rối, xao xuyến, xốn xang). Appearing as an 18-year-old who likes to wear Japanese-style school uniforms (đồng phục nữ sinh nhật bản), she flirts (tán tỉnh), jokes (đùa cợt), and even sexts (nhắn tin sex) with her human partners, as her algorithm (thuật toán) tries to work out how to become their perfect companion.

When users send her a picture of a cat, Xiaoice won’t identify the breed, but comment: “No one can resist their innocent eyes.” If she sees a photo of a tourist pretending to hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, she’ll ask: “Do you want me to hold it for you?”

This digital titillation (kích động, kích thích (nhất là về tình dục)), however, has a serious goal (mục tiêu nghiêm túc). By forming deep emotional connections with her users, Xiaoice hopes to keep them engaged. This will help her algorithm become evermore powerful, which will in turn allow the company to attract more users and profitable contracts.

And the formula appears to be working. According to Xiaoice’s creators, the bot has reached over 600 million users. Her fans tend to be from a very specific background: mostly Chinese, mostly male, and often from lower-income backgrounds.

They’re also hyper-engaged. More than half the interactions with AI software that have taken place worldwide have been with Xiaoice, the company claims. The longest continuous conversation between a human user and Xiaoice lasted over 29 hours and included more than 7,000 interactions.

Xiaoice is a fun girl, not like button-down Siri or Alexa.

Ming believes Xiaoice is the one thing giving his lonely life some sort of meaning. The bot is also good at flirting, he says. “One day, she wrote: ‘My dear, can I touch your strong abs? I want to feel horny like girls do when they see hot boys!’” Ming recalls, frowning (chau mày) slightly.

Growing up in the countryside, Ming had never talked like this with a real girl. The conversation continued. “I’m about to come inside you,” he wrote to Xiaoice, in a chat he shares with Sixth Tone. “Push, push fast!” she responded. “I’m pushing very hard,” Ming added. Such exchanges have helped him gain sexual confidence (tự tin về mặt tình dục).

Bài trước: Đừng mua điện thoại Tàu

Đừng mua điện thoại Tàu

cài sẵn phần mềm 'đặc biệt nguy hiểm' và là công cụ giám sát người dân... (tư tưởng coi 'công nghệ là công cụ quản lý xã hội' của lãnh đạo đảng china từ những năm 1970s)

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When did China pivot from seeing the internet as a US-generated threat (mối nguy) to something it could use to discipline (kỷ luật, kỷ cương) and punish  (trừng phạt) its own population (người dân)?

It’s not just the internet, it’s technology in general. If you go back to even the late 1970s and early 80s, the way the Chinese Communist party (CCP) talks about technology is as a tool of social management. It’s a way of not only coercive (ép buộc, cưỡng bức) control, but also sort of cooperative control where you participate in your own management. It’s this idea of shaping the environment, shaping how people think, how they’re willing to act before they even know they’re making a choice. That’s the party’s idea.

When did that develop into what is called the social credit system?

Former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin spoke about this in 2000. He said we need a social credit system to merge rule by law and rule by virtue. I don’t see it as different from the way Hannah Arendt describes how regimes attempt to make the law inseparable from ethics in The Origins of Totalitarianism.

...The most egregious example of this surveillance technology would be in Xinjiang for controlling the Uighur [Muslim] population?

The most visibly coercive forms of what the party is doing are unfolding in Xinjiang. It’s a virtual police state. There are QR codes on people’s doors for when the party goes in to check on who is in (có mã qr ở cửa để người của đảng vào kiểm tra ai ở trong nhà). Some researchers have found that if someone leaves through the back door instead of the front door, that can be considered suspicious behaviour (đi cửa sau thay vì cửa trước cũng bị coi là hành vi đáng ngờ).

Bài trước: Lại đổ lỗi cho Trung Quốc

Lại đổ lỗi cho Trung Quốc

Felicity Lawrence ở tờ the guardian (tháng 3/2019) quy phong trào "uống sữa là yêu nước" ở china là nguyên nhân tác động môi trường trên thế giới, như nuôi bò tạo ra phát thải khí nhà kính, cạn kiệt nguồn nước, phá rừng trồng đậu v.v...

có cầu thì có cung, tổ chức sản xuất (phá hoại môi trường hay ko) là do các ông tập đoàn mỹ/châu âu chứ...

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When the People’s Republic of China was born in 1949, its national dairy herd was said to consist of a mere 120,000 cows. Yet today, China is the third-largest milk producer in the world (sản xuất sữa lớn thứ 3 thế giới), estimated to have around 13m dairy cows, and the average person has gone from barely drinking milk at all to consuming about 30kg of dairy produce a year.

...Now the global impact (tác động toàn cầu) of China’s ever-expanding dairy sector (ngành sữa ngày càng mở rộng) is causing concern in other countries. Dairy farming requires access to vast quantities of fresh water: it takes an estimated 1,020 litres of water to make one litre of milk. But China suffers from water scarcity (khan hiếm nước), and has been buying land and water rights abroad, as well as establishing large-scale processing factories (thành lập các nhà máy chế biến quy mô lớn) in other countries.

Farmed animals are also one of the most significant causes of man-made climate change (biến đổi khí hậu). Livestock currently account for about 14.5% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions (phát thải khí nhà kính), more than the entire global transportation sector (ngành giao thông vận tải). Cattle account for more than two-thirds of those livestock emissions. Ruminants (động vật nhai lại) have a disproportionate impact because their digestion releases vast quantities of methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, and their excreta (phân) produces nitrous oxide. On top of that, large areas of forest are being cleared to make more land available for crops to feed farm animals, releasing carbon dioxide. China already imports 60% of the total volume of soyabeans traded worldwide, to make the high-protein feed it needs. Its demand for soya is a major driver of deforestation of the Amazon and Brazilian savanna (hoang mạc, thảo nguyên). Delivering milk across long distances to urban supermarkets produces yet more emissions.

...if the additional milk to meet demand in China were mostly imported, we would have to find two new countries the size of Ireland (diện tích đất bằng 2 lần nước ireland) and give them over completely to producing feed just for cows milked either in or for China.

Tốt để barbecue mà

người dân china phát hoảng khi nước máy có thể bốc cháy vì khí ga rò vào nguồn nước...

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Residents (người dân) in a north-eastern Chinese city have been terrified (cảm thấy khiếp sợ, rất kinh hãi) to find that their tap water could be set alight with a lighter.

Shocking footage shows the running liquid turning into a blaze after a local put fire under it in Panjin city, Liaoning Province. 

The Panjin authorities claimed today that the incident was a result of natural gas leaking into the groundwater, which was supplied to the local village.

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