The internationalization of Chinese football youth training is very important, said Chinese Football Association (CFA) President Song Kai at a launch ceremony for the Bundesliga Dream project in Shanghai on Wednesday. "We are working on it by both introducing international youth football coaches to China, and sending young athletes and coaches to learn and train abroad, including in Germany," Song told the Global Times.
Song noted the significance of strengthening youth training and overseas cooperation for the development of Chinese football. "Germany's youth football training system is probably the most advanced in the world, and it is worth learning from it," Song said in a speech at the ceremony.
Bundesliga Dream is a cooperative project between Bundesliga International and the CFA. Set to take place between February and March in 2024, a group of talented Chinese players from the U16 national team will train at the youth academies of several Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 clubs, as well as playing against youth teams from around Germany, according to Bundesliga International.
Under the project, Chinese youth players will follow a structured training plan curated by the CFA in collaboration with the Bundesliga and participating clubs. This plan focuses on several key in-match scenarios, including the transition from defense to attack.
"We also encourage young football players from all cities, especially from our 16 key 'football cities,' to have the opportunity to get trained in countries like Germany," Song said, in response to a question raised by the Global Times at the Wednesday ceremony.
Song mentioned China's 3-0 home loss to South Korea in the 2026 FIFA World Cup Asian Zone qualifying tournament second stage on the previous evening.
"That match made me feel deeply that if Chinese football wants to improve, first, we must do a good job in cultivating the young people; and second, we must examine the development of our youth football from a global perspective," he said.
"So I'm glad to sign a long-term cooperation agreement with the Bundesliga," Song said. "Last night, German Jurgen Klinsmann led the South Korean team to a 3-0 victory over the Chinese team. I hope that one day, there will be a German head coach who leads the Chinese football team to a 4-0 victory over South Korea," he joked, drawing laughter and applause.
Peer Naubert, head of marketing at Bundesliga International, said that the Bundesliga Dream is mostly committed to working with Chinese football in supporting its youth development system and projects on a long-term basis. "We aim to create a long-term pathway for talented Chinese players … hopefully following the path of former Chinese players such as Shao Jiayi, Yang Chen, and more recently Liu Shaoziyang, who signed for Bayern Munich in 2021," Naubert said in a speech at the ceremony.
Renowned Bundesliga stars Shao and Lothar Matthäus also attended the ceremony.
"I'm happy to have this Bundesliga Dream for the Chinese young generation," Matthäus said. When the young Chinese players go to Germany, they will have the opportunities of playing against stronger players, and the competition can make them better, he added.
China's golfing prodigy Yin Ruoning has climbed to the top of the leader board as the world No.1 in ladies' professional golf on Sunday after finishing third at the LPGA Queen City Championship.
The 20-year-old became the second Chinese woman to claim the world No.1 ranking after Feng Shanshan, who held on to her top standing from November 2017 to April 2018.
"It means a lot. For me it's like a dream come true," Yin said. "I've got Goosebumps. World No.1 is the next big step on the way to living up to Shanshan's legacy."
Yin, who needed a top-four result to overtake American Lilia Vu for the LPGA top spot at the Queen City Championship, will play on the Chinese team coached by Feng at the Asian Games, which opens on September 23 in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province.
"I didn't get a lot of chance to chat with Shanshan," Yin said of her predecessor.
"But I'm looking forward to going back to China, playing at the Asian Games, spending more time with her, and learning from her."
Yin has said her greatest wish is to play for China in the Asian Games and Olympic Games.
When talking about her expectations for the upcoming Asian Games, Yin told the Global Times that she and her teammates only have one goal in the competition - to see "China's national flag raised" and hear "the national anthem played."
Speaking on Yin's achievement, Feng said she believes Yin could set more records.
"Behind [her] meteoric rise to the top is a decade of steady work," Feng wrote on Weibo after Yin's rise to world No.1. "The new generation will continue to set more and more records."
Feng retired from pro golfing in August 2022, leaving with a major, 10 LPGA Tour victories and the title of world No.1 ranking under her belt.
Yin won her first major title in June at the Women's PGA Championship, two months after collecting her first LPGA victory at the LA Open.
Yin had not yet started playing golf when Feng won the Women's PGA Championship in 2012 to become the first Chinese player to win a major.
The Hangzhou Asian Games were one of the coolest and most beautiful competitions he had ever participated in, Kuwaiti shooter Abdullah Alrashidi said.
In a recent interview with Xinhua, the gold medalist in the men's skeet individual event praised the organization, beauty, and cleanliness of the entire city for the Games.
Alrashidi said he was very pleased that he had won the gold medal, which also matched the world record in the event.
He noted Asia's remarkable progress in the shooting discipline, highlighting its impressive track record of winning numerous world championships.
"Countries such as China, Kazakhstan, Qatar, and Kuwait have a rich history in this sport on both the continental and global levels," he said.
"China is one of the most important and largest countries represented in all sports," said the Kuwaiti shooter, noting that "China has made great progress and consistently won medals in the Olympics and other world competitions."
On Wednesday, Kuwait's Minister of Commerce and Industry and Minister of State for Youth Affairs, Muhammad Al-Aiban, received Kuwaiti players who had won medals in shooting and athletics competitions at the Hangzhou Asian Games.
In a statement, Al-Aiban expressed pride in the outstanding achievements of the Kuwaiti medalists at the Hangzhou Asian Games, where they won two gold, three silver, and one bronze medals.
The Inter-Civilizational Communication and Global Development Forumkicked offin Beijing on Tuesday, attractingaround 150 experts from more than 30 countries.
The three-day event, hosted by the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), takes"tradition of civilization and paths to modernization" as its theme.Politicians, entrepreneurs, think tank experts, scholars, culturalambassadorsand diplomatic envoysfrom China and abroad have gathered togetherto discuss issues concerning communication among civilizations and global development.
“The purpose of hosting this forum is to establish an international exchange platform for various parties to participate and converse with each other, contributing wisdom and strength to promote the exchange and mutual learning of civilizations among nations and to build a community with a shared future for humanity,” said Xie Chuntao,vice president of the Party School of the Central Committee of theCPC.
Dilma Rousseff, president of the New Development Bank and who gave a speech at the opening ceremony, noted that frank and respectful dialogue between different civilizations and countries will promote consensus and cooperation. She added that it is a guiding principle that the world needs to systematically follow.
“The rich diversity of human civilizations can no longer be dismissive. The different objectives and development models followed by different nations cannot be ignored. It is not possible for a multicultural world to be forced to choose a single path. Often, they are looking with a single view of democracy, which actually leads to the weakening of democracies in many countries,” she said, commenting on the significance of the forum.
Herta Daubler-Gmelin, former German justice minister, pointed out that besides cooperation in the field of economics and politics, people-to-people cooperation in fields such as academia is very crucial.
“We can do more. We can do better. This means information, as well as transparency in communication. And the recognition that every civilization contains dynamic elements. It’s not frozen. It can open itself to converse with others,” she said.
China's State Council Information Office released a white paper titledA Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actionsin September. John L. Thornton, chair emeritus of The Brookings Institution and Co-Chair of the Asia Society, quoted the white paper, pointing out that the most pressing task is to find a guiding beacon for the sustainable development of human civilization.
“There is no more important topic than the one we will be discussing this morning. I think of it as discussing the world we wish to be in, the world we wish to create for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, and all future generations,” said Thornton.
He also applauded for the Global Civilization Initiative and Global Initiative. “The aspiration China has is admirable. If it can be achieved, it will be a step forward for mankind, for the world,” Thornton told the Global Times.
Three sub-forums on civilizational communication between China and Europe, China-Central Asia modernization development and leadership building, and China-Arab civilization exchange and modernization development, as well as a round-table discussion, will be held during this forum.
Argentine President Alberto Fernandez visited the Memorial of the Communist Party of China (CPC)'s First National Congress in downtown Shanghai, on October 15, before he attended the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing.
Staffers at the memorial shared stories of how the young CPC pioneers founded the Party a century ago with Fernandez during his visit. At the hall in the memorial, Fernandez took photos of the full-body bronze statues of the 13 delegates of the CPC's first National Congress.
According to the memorial's staffers, Fernandez carefully listened to the docent's introduction and periodically asked questions. He inquired about the statue of Li Hanjun, who was one of the 13 delegates and the site's owner at that time. The site of the CPC's first National Congress was originally a traditional Shanghai-style "shikumen" apartment.
"The memorial's display and presentation are very well done," praised Fernandez.
Argentine Ambassador to China Sabino Vaca Narvaja also accompanied the Argentine President on the Sunday visit.
During the visit to the memorial, Narvaja shared that his Chinese name "Niu Wangdao" came from a renowned Chinese translator Chen Wangdao, who was the first person to translate The Communist Manifesto into Chinese in 1920. Shanghai was the first stop on Fernandez's China tour.
China has assumed the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council for November and sees promoting a cease-fire in the Israel-Palestine conflict as a "top priority," said Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the UN, as the number of dead has passed 10,000 for both sides since October 7, with 9,000 in the Gaza Strip.
"It is imperative to promote a cease-fire and halt the fighting, prevent further civilian casualties, prevent a larger-scale humanitarian disaster and prevent the conflict from spilling over," Ambassador Zhang Jun said during a news briefing on the work of China's presidency of the UN Security Council on Wednesday local time.
The latest Israel-Palestine war has quickly become the deadliest and most destructive of the five wars fought since Hamas controlled the Gaza Strip in 2007, the AP reported. Since this conflict began, nearly 9,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank, and 1,400 in Israel.
With Israel's ground operations continuing and the conflict further intensifying, the death toll will keep rising.
Chinese analysts said that due to the different stances held by the US and other members of the UN Security Council on a cease-fire, it is very difficult to see a breakthrough in adopting UN resolutions, as the US will keep using its veto power to defend Israel's "right of self-defense," which means Israeli military forces will continue their bombardments and attacks against Gaza.
Wang Jin, an associate professor at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies of Northwest University, told the Global Times on Thursday that the president of the UN Security Council has the duty to speak on behalf of the Security Council when the members reach consensus, and host formal and informal meetings of the council.
It seems symbolic but it can also play a constructive role, for instance, "agenda setting," Wang said.
China will work with other members of the Security Council to keep promoting peace and negotiation, and will make efforts to build humanitarian corridors to link Gaza and the outside world.
Meaningful efforts
Responding to a question about how hopeful he was in being able to break the present deadlock among Security Council members and adopt a text on the situation in Gaza, Zhang said: "That's a question we are all asking ourselves, and that I am asking my colleagues. It's not just our moral duty, it's our legal duty."
However, any text that is adopted must be important as well as meaningful, and it must send a strong message to the relevant parties about a cease-fire and abiding by international law, Zhang said. While this message did not pose a problem to many council members, it did to certain ones. However, faced with the calls of civilians, children and mothers in Gaza, the Chinese delegation would not give up, the ambassador said.
The Chinese delegation will continue to work toward calling for a cease-fire, ensuring the protection of civilians, and preventing a further deterioration of tensions, as well as a humanitarian catastrophe, Zhang said, and China would focus on "meaningful action" along the lines of the General Assembly resolution.
In the October 27 resolution Zhang referred to, the US, Israel and 12 other countries voted against it, while 121, including China, Russia, France and most UN members, voted in favor and 44 abstained. The text of the resolution sent a clear message on a cease-fire, protection of civilians and the provision of humanitarian assistance.
The US has used Israel's "right of self-defense" as a pretext to veto the draft resolution for a cease-fire in the UN Security Council. Ma Xiaolin, senior professor and dean of the Institute for Studies on the Mediterranean Rim at Zhejiang International Studies University, told the Global Times on Thursday that any resolution to be passed in the future should have clear restrictions to prevent Israel from abusing its "right of self-defense," when many people killed in Gaza were innocent civilians like women and children.
Analysts explained that Israel's mind-set is that seeking revenge and eliminating Hamas are much more important than preventing civilian casualties, and civilian deaths in Gaza should be blamed on Hamas and not Israel, because when Israel invokes its "right of self-defense," it's hard to avoid "collateral damage."
However, the majority of the international community thinks differently, because it has nothing to do with "self-defense" when Israeli forces avenge the deaths of 1,400 Israelis with the lives of 9,000 Palestinians, most of whom innocent civilians.
Only when the US, a permanent member in the Security Council with veto power, changes its mind and starts to act like a responsible country can the UN Security Council conclude with a binding resolution that can effectively bring about a ceasefire in Gaza, said experts.
The Security Council in November will also consider issues including Syria, Yemen and Bosnia and Herzegovina; take action on the UN Assistance Mission in the Sudan, the UN Mission in the Central African Republic, and the extension of the authorization of sanctions measures for Somalia; and hold its annual regular dialogue with the commissioner of Peacekeeping Police, according to Zhang at the news briefing.
The presidency of the Security Council rotates among the 15 member states of the council monthly. China last held the rotating presidency in August 2022.
Pakistan is looking forward to taking the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) into the next phase with greater vigor and hopes to see fruits of the CPEC benefit not only China and Pakistan, but the whole region, said Minister of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives for Pakistan Ahsan Iqbal.
Iqbal was talking to the Global Times in an exclusive interview after a meeting of the 12th Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) of the CPEC in Beijing on Tuesday.
Iqbal, who has extensive experience and long-standing involvement in the CPEC, said he was overwhelmed at how much has been accomplished by the CPEC in just 10 years.
The beauty of the CPEC is that it is a project between two countries that enjoy a very unique relationship, Iqbal said. "Normally, countries come close when they need to, and they get farther away when they don't need each other. But in the case of China and Pakistan, it has been always spring. There has never been autumn in this relationship."
This year marks a decade of the CPEC. The landmark project was formalized on July 5, 2013.
The CPEC has done a great service to Pakistan, helping it overcome the energy crisis, develop modern infrastructure and restore the country's image as an investment destination. Prior to the CPEC the world used to look at Pakistan as a very dangerous country, the Pakistani minister said.
Pakistan would be facing an extreme energy crisis today without the projects launched under the CPEC, Iqbal emphasized.
Everyone in Pakistan has benefited from the great contribution that has been made by the CPEC, he added. If there was a lack of electricity, factories would be closed and workers would be laid off; patients in hospitals and students in educational institutions would also be stranded.
He mentioned the Thar region of Pakistan, which was once a backward area, saying the CPEC has transformed the region into a source of energy for the country. Local education, employment, hospitals and schools have also flourished.
The projects also empower local women in the region, Iqbal noted. "You will be amazed to see that local women are driving the heavy trucks, which take coal out of the mines." In total, the CPEC projects have created about 200,000 job opportunities.
Iqbal said Pakistan now has a lot more vigor to move forward on the CPEC, adding that many projects that were delayed in previous years were completed in the last year.
He said that Pakistan is looking forward to taking the CPEC into the next phase with greater vigor. "I hope that the next phase will bring many dividends for the wider region beyond Pakistan and China. We hope one day the whole of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East will benefit from the CPEC."
When talking about the mega projects within the second phase of the CPEC, Iqbal expressed his hope to see the start of major upgrades to the Main Line 1 railway between Karachi and Peshawar with China's help as soon as possible in 2023. Modernization and upgrades are urgently needed for this aging railway line, especially as it was badly damaged by the floods last year.
This $10-billion project was supposed to be done in the first phase, but it got delayed in the last four years, Iqbal said.
Iqbal refuted claims in the Western media that the CPEC has not lived up to expectations and has become a "debt trap," saying that instead it has "outperformed the expectations. The propaganda [from the West] that the CPEC is a debt trap is all false. All the negative propaganda against the CPEC has a political element. It has no reality," he told the Global Times.
Infrastructure was the priority of the first-phase of the CPEC, and the second phase will focus on industrial cooperation and business linkage through increasing investment in sectors such as energy, agriculture, information technology and mining, according to Iqbal.
Pakistan is working on nine Special Economic Zones (SEZs) which will provide more opportunities for Chinese investment. Rashakai, one of the nine SEZs, will be inaugurated later this month, and other SEZs are also in advanced stages, Iqbal revealed to the Global Times.
In the energy sector, Pakistan is actively pursuing solar energy and is hoping to invite Chinese companies to set up solar power production plants, Iqbal noted.
Chinese officials are highly concerned about the safety of Chinese citizens in Pakistan and hope that the Pakistani side will continue to take strong security measures.
On security in Pakistan, the minister said Pakistan is taking extra precautions for the security of Chinese people, and have provided four layers of security dedicated to CPEC projects including deploying a special army force with 10,000 personnel, which has been integrated with police, paramilitary forces and local security.
As the CPEC is a strategic project with big geopolitical implications, enemies are always looking for opportunities to disrupt it either through terrorist acts or creating miscommunication, the Pakistani minister emphasized.
Amid torrential rain, rivers surged, houses collapsed and communications were disrupted... Under the influence of Typhoon Doksuri, heavy rainfall has persisted in Northern China, impacting regions like Beijing, the neighboring Tianjin Municipality and Hebei Province and setting records that haven't been seen in a century. Rescuers are racing against time, fighting to establish a "lifeline" to save lives and property.
From 8 pm on July 29 to 7 am on August 2, extreme heavy rainfall has drenched China's capital city. The highest recorded rainfall was at the Wangjiayuan Reservoir in the Changping district, being a total of 744.8 millimeters over this period, the local meteorological department reported on Wednesday.
This extreme rainfall has significantly exceeded historical records, ranking it as the highest recorded rainfall in the past 140 years.
In Beijing, multiple areas in Mentougou district in western Beijing faced dangerous situations, while communications were disrupted in 62 villages across seven townships in Fangshan district in southwestern Beijing.
The water level of the Yongding River, the main waterway in Beijing, surged, while a bridge over the Xiaoqing River located west of Lugou Bridge collapsed.
In response to the torrential rainstorms and floods that have wreaked havoc in Beijing and its surrounding regions, authorities are mobilizing an all-out effort to safeguard the people from the impact of disasters. Various rescue teams have been working tirelessly to provide assistance.
On Thursday, the Global Times reporters saw People's Armed Police soldiers assist in the relocation of disaster-affected residents in Liulihe township, Fangshan district.
Fortunately, as water levels gradually recede, rescue operations in Fangshan are nearing completion.
Simultaneously, to alleviate flood control pressure on Beijing and Tianjin, Hebei has activated seven flood water detention areas and relocated 1.2 million residents, according to a report from the Hebei Daily on Wednesday.
Zhuozhou, a city in Hebei Province that neighbors the Fangshan district of Beijing, has seen over 130,000 people affected by the disaster and is still being heavily impacted by flooding. More than 150 civilian rescue teams arrived, and more have been summoned from across the country.
On Thursday, members of the volunteer rescue team, including the Blue Sky Rescue team, helped transfer flood-affected residents and supplies in Huangjiajie village and Mengjiajie village in Matou township, Zhuozhou. Meanwhile, more rescue supplies were arriving at the scene.
Before the arrival of the flood, residents living on low ground had been notified and relocated to safe places, the Global Times learned from local residents.
On Wednesday evening, the Global Times witnessed villagers from Mentougou district departing from Yanchi township and moving downhill along the railway to safer areas.
Meanwhile, soldiers of the People's Liberation Army rescued villagers from remote mountainous villages, especially elderly people with mobility issues, using military trucks, transporting them to temporary shelters.
During the evacuation process, an interim command center was established in the Mentougou district to coordinate various rescue efforts. Simultaneously, emergency, firefighting, medical, and other rescue and support forces were deployed.
Relief points were set up to provide drinking water, food, medicine, and other supplies to ensure the safety and basic needs of the evacuees.
Akbar Fernando Ndabung, an Indonesian student in his 20s at the Udayana University and a local singer, did not expect his rap song about the Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway (HSR) to become an immediate hit on social media when it was released online in December 2022. The high tempo song is peppered with romantic lyrics interwoven into a rosy blue print of Indonesia.
When the Jakarta-Bandung HSR, with a design speed of 350 kilometers an hour, commences operation, the travel time between the capital of Jakarta and its fourth-largest city Bandung in West Java Province will be shortened from three hours to 40 minutes. Indonesia's capital of Jakarta is notorious for being among the cities with the worst traffic congestion in the world.
The positive feedback has inspired him to keep an eye on the HSR's latest development, and he plans to write more songs as the railway's public operation date draws near. "I'm breathlessly looking for any chance to be among the first group of passengers taking a ride on the HSR," Fernando noted.
Like him, there has been a palpable sense of excitement among Indonesians in recent days, as expectations are burning bright that the country will become the first in Southeast Asia to boast of a fully operational high-speed railway line.
Joining the buzz, Indonesian social media celebrities and nearby residents along the railroad, regularly record the HSR's testing at a "hotspot" mountain site near the terminal Tegalluar station and give updates on the project's latest developments.
"In addition to the operation of the first HSR, we also hope that China and Indonesia will join hands to extend the new railway to Surabaya, the country's second-largest city in East Java Province," Fernando said.
The earnest expectation displayed among the people in Indonesia, where the original proposal for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was revealed a decade ago, comes as local skepticism and concerns about BRI projects have steadily been losing ground in the face of the 10th anniversary of the initiative. At a time when multiple BRI projects are gear up and entering the sprint stage, it also sends a resounding signal that the West's intensified smear campaign against the BRI has been in vain.
Over the last 10 years, Western countries have coined numerous terms to denigrate BRI projects in Southeast Asia, from the cliché of "debt trap" rhetoric, hypes of "economic colonization," doubts on projects' environmental sustainability and construction quality, to a recently invented subject, "sunk cost fallacy trap."
However, the Global Times' recent visits to a galaxy of BRI projects in Southeast Asia nations, including those in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, found such narratives were unwarranted. They were part of a US-led geopolitical game that aims to instigate anti-China sentiments and create discourse to obstruct otherwise normal economic cooperation under the promising initiative.
While the expanding network of mutually beneficial cooperation under the BRI should have been welcomed and hailed on the global stage, certain Western countries' kneejerk hostility toward the BRI tide has unmasked their "sour grapes" mentality, industry insiders noted.
The accusations levied against the China-proposed initiative have also laid bare the deeply-rooted hegemonic and Western-centric mindset of the certain Western countries, in particular the US, that reflexively imagine that actions taken by China are replicas of its unscrupulous colonial model.
Under Washington's approach, it unilaterally imposes its own will on recipient countries and issues loans with political strings attached, with the ulterior aim of pocketing US streams of revenue at the cost of cooperative partners' interests. It is vastly different from the BRI cooperation platform, which exemplifies the adage "teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime," and genuinely leads to new growth and enhanced capacities for self-driven development in BRI countries.
Steering through the choppy water
"It is important that we maintained a strategic focus and are committed to doing the work. Step by step, the positive development of BRI projects is set to burst every lie," said Zhang Chao, executive director of the board of PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia China (KCIC), when summarizing the last eight years of hard work that have put Western naysayers to shame.
The KCIC is a consortium of Indonesian and Chinese firms responsible for developing and operating the Jakarta-Bandung HSR line. Zhang is a founding board member of the KCIC, present since the joint venture was set up in 2015.
Looking outside Zhang's office in the KCIC building in Jakarta, the HSR's inaugural station - Halim Station - is within view, with dozens of local workers on the lattice roof, working in full swing to finish the project.
Zhang saw how the Halim Station was built from scratch. And the beginning is always the most difficult.
Back in 2015 and 2016, Zhang said the implementation of the project faced tremendous hardships, in particular from the local community, which at the time, showed a certain level of distrust, partly due to Western propaganda schemes.
"We received a lot of complaints at that time. Protestors even demonstrated in front of our office building. Some locals remained skeptical of whether Chinese bidders could perform better than Japanese bidders in railway technology," Zhang recalled, adding that doubts grew further with the Western-driven "debt trap" narrative as well as other exaggerations on the project's schedule delays.
Li Zhenkui, the deputy manager of the station project department at the China Railway Fourth Bureau Group Corporation, which is the main Tegalluar station contractor, also recalled that initially, local residents didn't fully comprehend the HSR's necessity and believed it wouldn't hold much practical significance for them.
"During that time, they couldn't grasp or envision the immense economic and transportation benefits that the high-speed railway would bring," Li noted.
But as the project progressed and delivered benefits to the society, local support inevitably grew. Zhang said that in about 2019, the KCIC started receiving warm responses, with more inquiries coming about when the HSR would be completed.
Locals' attitudes saw a further positive shift as the HSR enters its intensive testing phase this year, paving the way for the full commercial operation.
"We are extremely grateful for the high-speed rail project, which has connected our small village to a larger world. It has brought us closer to the capital Jakarta and has demonstrated efficiency and diverse economic development. Indonesians warmly welcome and eagerly anticipate increased Chinese involvement in infrastructure projects," a local villager, Asip Cenghar, who operates a small shop in front of the Tegalluar station, told the Global Times.
As Asip's words shed a light on positive hopes harbored by Indonesians, the HSR has already demonstrated various dimensions of spillover effects. The Global Times learned that to date, the project has provided 51,000 jobs to the local community. The income of these employees is about 30 to 50 percent higher than the local average.
Also, many Indonesians the Global Times met during the visits said that they now deem the landmark BRI project to be a symbol of "national pride" and the long-lasting friendship between China and Indonesia.
Such changeover is also a process of weaving China-Indonesia bonds closer, noted industry insiders. Similar transformations have also been taking place in other Southeast Asian countries.
Abdul Majid Ahmad Khan, the former Malaysian ambassador to China, told the Global Times that Malaysian people have started to correct their misconceptions about China with the rapid progression of the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), a BRI project connecting four underdeveloped areas and serving as an economic corridor.
There was initial confusion and controversy among local residents due to the large areas of land earmarked for the project. But soon after, Malaysian local communities came to realize that the BRI project not only boosts domestic market and reduces costs, but also creates employment opportunities, he said.
"The HSR, along with certain BRI projects, is sort of a novel thing to people in Southeast Asia, and that's why their views were distorted by manipulative Western plots at the beginning. But, seeing is believing. The situation is quite different now. The startling decade of achievements by the BRI offers the best piece of evidence to debunk Western fear-mongering," a senior executive at a BRI project based in Malaysia, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Global Times.
"We're confident that actions which produce concrete results speak louder than words and lies," the executive noted.
Vicious mindset VS Bright reality
As the US, Japan, and other Western countries increasingly grow restless over the BRI's steady rise, Western media outlets - in collusion with politicians and non-government organizations - have been churning out a flurry of bearish reports on BRI project this year, using sensational headlines and hyping the sheer size of claimed "predatory debt" to discredit normal BRI cooperation.
Japanese media outlet Nikkei Asia published a lengthy piece claiming that the Jakarta-Bandung HSR could mire Indonesia in a "Sri Lanka-like debt trap."
In March, the Voice of America (VOA) concocted the term "Sunk Cost Fallacy Trap," alleging that continuous investment in the HSR, which adds up to the existing cost, will create a huge burden for the Indonesian government, with no way out.
Such stories are simply regurgitations of the "debt trap diplomacy" cliché, propagandist rhetoric loudly trumpeted by a number of Western political figures including former US vice president Mike Pence and former US secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spenser.
But the Global Times reporters' field investigation finds that such clamoring is nothing more than barefaced lies fabricated by the Western media and anti-China politicians. The "debt trap" cliché attack is to politicize ideologize economic issues based on the misrepresentation of the reality on the ground.
"There's a major logic flaw in the 'debt trap' theory because, for any major infrastructure project to kick off, you must borrow, regardless of whether from the US, Japan, or China… That's where the debts come from, and is essentially a normal phenomenon following economic rules. The creation of debt does not amount to a debt crisis," said Zhang.
What's at the core is how the operator calculates how to manage the debt level, and "China is obviously doing a good job" in that regard.
In the case of the Jakarta-Bandung HSR, the project's financing is in the form of commercial loans granted to the joint venture KCIC, rather than sovereign borrowing.
"It is a business-to-business model with risks borne by both the Chinese and Indonesia companies involved, which the Indonesian government is comfortable with," Zhang explained, noting that this model also embodies the BRI concepts of "extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits."
What's at the core is how the operator calculates how to manage the debt level, and "China is obviously doing a good job" in that regard.
In the case of the Jakarta-Bandung HSR, the project's financing is in the form of commercial loans granted to the joint venture KCIC, rather than sovereign borrowing.
"It is a business-to-business model with risks borne by both the Chinese and Indonesia companies involved, which the Indonesian government is comfortable with as it won't increase its foreign debt," Zhang explained, noting that this model also embodies the BRI concepts of "extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits."
Wirun Phichaiwongphakdee, director of the Thailand-China Research Center of the Belt and Road Initiative, noted that the frequently hyped profitability and sustainability issues associated with BRI projects are, in fact, "logically deceptive."
"The West has resorted to its common practice of telling fragmented BRI stories and concealing the most important parts, so as to instigate dissatisfaction among the Southeast Asian people and shape stereotypical misperceptions of the BRI in wider scope," Wirun told the Global Times.
In Thailand, hopes for the early opening of the China-Thailand HSR have been floating high, since the operation of the landmark China-Laos Railway BRI project in December 2021 that provides a complete picture of the instilled economic boost, the Global Times learned.
Since construction started, the China-Thailand HSR has often been a target of intensive Western slandering, citing the hefty construction cost that could drive up Thailand's public debt.
"It is hilarious to see how the West tallies the economic books. They only calculate the benefits based on revenue from passenger ticket prices and cargo transportation. This is biased because it should also include the comprehensive income along the economic corridor, including commercial development," Wirun said, while noting that construction of public facilities amid economic slowdown are also an economic stimulus.
With regard to sources where the debts stem from, scholars from Southeast Asian think tanks have stressed that it is neither fair nor objective to blame China, as the majority of debt by developing countries is owed to international multilateral institutions like the IMF and the World Bank, while loans from China only account for a small proportion.
"The debt issue of countries along the BRI route is a result of multi-year accumulation of unsustainable financial distress. It is not the development of the BRI that inflicted the crisis," Yu Hong, senior research fellow at the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, told the Global Times.
Statistics showed that multilateral institutions and commercial creditors account for over 80 percent of BRI countries' debts, the biggest source of their debt burden.
In the case of Sri Lanka, which in Western narrative is portrayed as a "victim of the BRI debt trap," loans from China accounted for only about 10 percent of Sri Lanka's total foreign debt in 2021, roughly the same as Japan, and much less than market borrowings and multilateral development banks, relevant data showed.
If there's anyone to be blamed for debt defaults in Southeast Asian countries, it should be the US whose irresponsible monetary policy drives to strengthen the dollar, which then squeezes the liquidity of developing countries, fuels inflation and increases their debt repayment costs, observers pointed out.
'Sour grapes' mentality
During in-depth talks with locals in Southeast Asian countries including in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, the Global Times noticed the extensive endorsement on Chinese railway technologies. Various qualities such as construction efficiency, advancement of technologies, the application of Chinese standards and how to apply the experience learned have all been applauded by residents in BRI countries.
Chinese engineers recalled that the competition for infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia can be quite intense in the bidding process, but China has exceeded Japanese and European companies aided by its overwhelming industrial strength.
In the case of the Jakarta-Bandung HSR, a consortium of Chinese companies won the contract over their Japanese counterparts back in 2015, Zhang noted.
"To the envy of Western countries, China has undertaken numerous BRI infrastructure construction projects across Southeast Asia. So their vilification against BRI projects could be out of a 'sour grapes' mentality," the anonymous executive said.
Chinese project managers also stressed that Chinese investments come with great sincerity, without any terms attached and are there for the long term, which is the nature of BRI cooperation.
China's long-term pledge was on vivid display when the Global Times visited the construction site of the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) in the Kemasul Forest Reserve. The railway passes through this forest reserve, which serves as a habitat for various wild animals, including Asian elephants, wild boars, black panthers, and bears.
At the site, numerous culverts of different sizes have been designed to accommodate the wildlife. Some of these culverts are approximately 6 meters wide and 5 meters high, allowing for adult elephants and other forms of wildlife to pass underneath the railway during the construction phase.
Gao Xiaoyue, the environmental manager of the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) ECRL Section 6, told the Global Times that once the railway is completed, they will restore the land and animal habitats to the best of their ability, in accordance with the requirements of the local authorities.
Observers said that the Western accusations against BRI projects are fraught with hypocrisy mindsets. For example, US investment depletes local resources for the sake of reaping short-term gains and demands strong obedience to the political terms attached, which would leave recipients firmly under Washington's thumb.
The US is interpreting the China-proposed public good from its own past coercive exercises, Chinese analysts said. By contrast, BRI investment truly generates new growth engines, and supports the self-sustainable development needs of countries along the BRI route.
MarzukiAlie, former speaker of the People's Representative Council of Indonesia, told the Global Times that the Jakarta-Bandung HSR project has exhibited a number of observable aspects, including "technology transfer that contributes to the overall growth of Indonesia's transportation and technology … and a positive impact on the growth of tourism and the regional economy."
"China and Southeast Asia are both developing countries, which means they understand each other better and can easily accommodate each other's complementary economic development demands," Wirun explained.
The denigration of China's strengthened BRI cooperation with Southeast Asian countries is based on Western-centric thinking meant to maintain the unipolar hegemonic order under US domination. But the vibrant BRI feats achieved won't be derailed by vicious Western attacks, as the world is growing tired of US coercion and increasingly desires a different, multipolar order, analysts said.
"We know what is best for us… And I would suggest that some countries not interfere and create chatter about China-ASEAN cooperation [under the BRI]," Wirun noted.
From October 26 to 28, the British Council participated in the 24th China Annual Conference for International Education and Expo (CACIE 2023) as a CACIE Honorary Partner, and hosted two sub-forums on higher education: "From Study to Work: Global Talent Mobility and Development" and "English Teaching and Assessment to Enhance International Understanding Education in Secondary Schools."
The former focused on the current trends and challenges of talent cultivation and mobility in the context of international education, while the latter addressed the hot topic of international understanding education in the K12 sector.
"Through the two forums, we shared our insights on the mobility and development of Chinese students abroad, and introduced our comprehensive assessment solutions and ecosystem value chain from study to work, represented by the British Council's IELTS test. We were also honored to invite our partners, top universities and enterprises from home and abroad, to share their best practices and explore how to better support the lifelong growth and development of international education in China," said You Zhuoran, director of examinations at the British Council China.
