中國最高情報機構負責人警告人工智能威脅黨的統治（2/2）

Recently The New York Times reported the following:

China’s Top Spy Chief Warns A.I. Is a Threat to Party Rule (2/2)

Even as Beijing urges the United States not to hype the dangers of A.I., its own spy chief is framing the technology as a threat to the Communist Party’s security.

The NYT - By Lily Kuo (Lily Kuo is a China correspondent for The Times, based in Taipei.)

Sept. 14, 2026

(continue)

Attacks on China’s critical infrastructure. Mr. Chen, the spy chief, wrote that the technical and financial barriers to launching cyberattacks had been drastically lowered because of A.I. This, he said, posed “serious risks” to China’s information infrastructure. Last week, a small team of researchers in California demonstrated that risk when they disclosed a hacking tool that could take control of millions of users’ accounts on WeChat, China’s most widely used messaging app.

Leaks of sensitive information. Chinese users using foreign models could cause large-scale data leaks, the article noted. Anthropic, the company behind Claude and other A.I. models, said last week that the Chinese start-up Moonshot AI had routed queries by its users to Claude. Those queries included sensitive data, including video surveillance linked to the Chinese military, as well as proprietary information from high-profile Chinese technology companies.

More intense military competition. The U.S. military’s use of A.I. in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran was an example of how warfare has been “fundamentally transformed,” Mr. Chen wrote. He says that whoever can harness the power of tools such as algorithms to achieve more precise sensing and targeting, “will gain the initiative on the battlefield.”

The warning adds to a growing drumbeat of concern from Chinese officials about the risks of A.I. Under Mr. Xi, China has deemed A.I. a strategic technology that is critical to the country’s development and ability to compete with the United States. At the same time, officials have begun to issue warnings and new guidelines for regulating the industry.

Previous warnings from Chinese regulators have tended to focus on specific issues, such as when the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in July that it had detected a security risk in some versions of Anthropic’s coding tool, Claude Code. Regulators have also repeatedly warned domestic users about the risks of A.I. assistants like OpenClaw.

“This is now a much more broad-based sort of warning, not about a specific threat from this one model or this one vulnerability, but a broader paradigm shift in how A.I. will create new risk for China,” said Mr. Chan of Brookings.

“It’s about taking these new powerful tools seriously and realizing there are a lot of vulnerabilities and China needs to move faster, and also use A.I. to patch those vulnerabilities, and defend against these new powerful cyber-actors,” he said.

Even as China’s security chief was articulating the country’s concerns about A.I., its Foreign Ministry was accusing U.S. companies of hyping the dangers of the technology.

That was in response to calls by some Western A.I. executives like Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, for Washington to clamp down on Chinese companies.

In an open letter over the weekend, Mr. Amodei said that democracies must keep their lead over China. He backed restrictions on selling powerful A.I. chips to the country, among other measures to slow China’s progress enough to widen America’s lead.

Asked if China’s A.I. industry posed a threat to the United States, Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said on Monday that such “threat narratives” and “malicious competition” would only make it harder for countries to work together on the regulation of A.I.

In an editorial on Sunday, the Communist Party-run tabloid, the Global Times, said that China played a central role as one of the world’s main suppliers of A.I. tools. It described Mr. Amodei’s call for the United States to contain China’s development as an “unrealistic delusion.”

Translation

中國最高情報機構負責人警告人工智能威脅黨的統治（2/2）

儘管北京敦促美國不要誇大人工智能的危險性，但中國最高情報機構負責人卻將這項技術視為共產黨安全的威脅

（繼續）

攻擊中國關鍵基礎設施。中國最高情報機構負責人Chen先生撰文指出，由於人工智能的出現，發動網絡攻擊的技術和經濟門檻已大幅降低。他表示，這給中國的資訊基礎設施帶來了「嚴重風險」。上週，加州一個小型研究團隊披露了一種駭客工具，該工具可以控制中國最廣泛使用的即時通訊應用微信上數百萬用戶的帳戶，證明了這種風險。

敏感資訊外洩。文章指出，中國用戶使用外國人工智能模型可能導致大規模資料外洩。開發了Claude 和其他人工智能模型的 Anthropic 公司上週表示，中國新創公司 Moonshot AI 將其用戶的查詢轉給 Claude。這些查詢包含敏感數據，例如與中國軍方相關的視訊監控數據，以及來自知名中國科技公司的專有資訊。

軍事競爭日趨激烈。Chen先生寫道，美國軍方在美以伊戰爭中使用人工智能，就是一個戰爭形式「發生根本性轉變」的例證。他表示，誰能駕馭演算法等工具的力量，實施更精準的感知和目標定位，「誰就能在戰場上掌握主動權」。

這項警告加劇了中國官員對人工智能風險日益增長的擔憂。在習近平主席的領導下，中國已將人工智能視為一項戰略技術，認為其對國家發展和與美國競爭至關重要。同時，官方已開始發佈警告和新的行業監管指南。

先前，中國監管機構的警告往往側重於具體問題，例如，工業和資訊化部在7月表示，已在Anthropic公司的編碼工具 Claude Code 的某些版本中檢測到安全風險。監管機構也曾多次警告國內用戶注意 OpenClaw 等人工智能助理的風險。

Brookings 學會的 Chan:「現在的警告範圍更廣，不再是針對某個特定模型或某個漏洞的具體威脅，而是針對人工智能將為中國帶來新風險的更廣泛的範式轉變」。

Chan 說:「關鍵在於認真對待這些強大的新工具，意識到其中存在許多漏洞，中國需要加快步伐，並利用人工智能來修補這些漏洞，抵禦這些強大的網絡攻擊者」。

就在中國國家安全局局長闡述中國對人工智能的擔憂之際，中國外交部卻指責美國公司誇大這項技術的危險性。

這是對一些西方人工智能高管，例如 Anthropic 執行長 Dario Amodei，呼籲華盛頓限制中國公司的回應。

Amodei 在週末發表的一封公開信中表示，民主國家必須保持對中國的領先地位。他支持限制向中國出售高性能人工智能晶片，並支持採取其他措施來減緩中國的發展速度，從而擴大美國的領先優勢。

當被問及中國的人工智能產業是否對美國構成威脅時，中國外交部發言人 Guo Jiakun 週一表示，這種「威脅論調」和「惡意競爭」只會讓各國在人工智能監管方面更難合作。

週日，中共官方小報《環球時報》發表社論稱，中國是世界人工智能工具的主要供應國之一，發揮核心作用。社論稱，Amodei 呼籲美國遏制中國發展的言論是「不切實際的幻想」。

              So, China’s top spy chief has warned that artificial intelligence could pose a direct threat to the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power. The unusually blunt assessment is in contrast to the warnings dominating the A.I. debate in the United States, which have focused on the possibility that A.I. could slip out of human control or pose a threat to humanity itself. Apparently, Beijing is going into these talks viewing A.I. safety not as a shared humanitarian mission, but through an adversarial lens. It is making clear that, as far as China is concerned, data sovereignty and political security will never be traded away for international safety accords.

Note:

1. Brookings in its website states that “Brookings equips decisionmakers with nonpartisan research and policy strategies to create a more prosperous and secure country and world.” Furthermore, “At the core of our mission is the quality, independence, and impact of our research. We are dedicated to finding bold, pragmatic solutions for societal challenges through open-minded inquiry, diverse perspectives, and holding ourselves to the highest standards of scholastic rigor. Because of this, Brookings has been at the forefront of public policy for more than a century”. (https://www.brookings.edu/about-us/)

中國最高情報機構負責人警告人工智能威脅黨的統治（1/2）

Recently The New York Times reported the following:

China’s Top Spy Chief Warns A.I. Is a Threat to Party Rule (1/2)

Even as Beijing urges the United States not to hype the dangers of A.I., its own spy chief is framing the technology as a threat to the Communist Party’s security.

The NYT - By Lily Kuo (Lily Kuo is a China correspondent for The Times, based in Taipei.)

Sept. 14, 2026

China’s top spy chief has warned that artificial intelligence could pose a direct threat to the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power, in what is the highest-level and most detailed articulation yet of how Beijing sees the technology’s security risks.

The unusually blunt assessment by Chen Yixin, the head of China’s Ministry of State Security, is in contrast to the warnings dominating the A.I. debate in the United States, which have focused on the possibility that A.I. could slip out of human control or pose a threat to humanity itself.

In an article published on Sunday in the state-run magazine China Cyberspace, Mr. Chen called for more party control over A.I. and stricter government oversight. This, he said, was necessary to protect political stability at home; to defend against increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns from “hostile forces”; and to compete militarily with countries like the United States.

Mr. Chen referred specifically to U.S. tech companies and their A.I. models — like Claude Mythos and GPT-5.5-Cyber — as examples of new threats to cybersecurity. He also described the danger that foreign intelligence agencies might use A.I. for “large-scale espionage” and attacks on China’s critical infrastructure.

The warning from the powerful security agency makes clear that China sees foreign A.I. models as an active threat to China, according to Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University. That effectively draws a red line before talks between American and Chinese officials on A.I. safety risks, expected ahead of a meeting between President Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, on Sept. 24 in Washington.

“Beijing is going into these talks viewing A.I. safety not as a shared humanitarian mission, but through an adversarial lens,” Mr. Gao said. It is making clear to Chinese tech firms and foreign rivals that “data sovereignty and political security will never be traded away for international safety accords,” he added.

Mr. Chen’s remarks are not the first time the security agency has spoken about the dangers of A.I., but they are the most comprehensive and signal Beijing’s growing concern about the industry. The security chief outlined several ways that A.I. could pose a threat to China:

Undermining the security of the Communist Party. The government’s top priority has long been maintaining the power of the ruling party. Mr. Chen’s article warns that those with “ulterior motives” could use A.I. to generate fake videos and audio to wage a “propaganda war” against China.

“They’re worried, among other things, of say a deepfake of a Chinese official saying something that wasn’t actually said, and that spreading rapidly and destabilizing everything,” said Kyle Chan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies Chinese technology and industrial policy. “Someone thinks that Xi Jinping made some announcement which he didn’t actually. That could sow chaos.”

(to be continued)

Translation

中國最高情報機構負責人警告人工智能威脅黨的統治（1/2）

儘管北京敦促美國不要誇大人工智能的危險性，但其自身的情報機構負責人卻將這項技術視為對共產黨安全的威脅

中國最高情報機構負責人警告稱，人工智能可能對中國共產黨的統治構成直接威脅。這是迄今為止北京方面對此技術安全風險看法的最高層、最詳細的闡述。

中國國家安全部部長Chen Yixin的這番異常直白的評估，與美國人工智能辯論中佔據主導地位的警告形成鮮明對比。美國的警告主要集中在人工智能可能失控或對人類本身構成威脅的可能性。

Chen先生週日在官方雜誌《中國網絡空間》發表文章，呼籲加強黨對人工智能的控制，並加強政府監管。他表示，這對於維護國內政治穩定、抵禦「敵對勢力」日益複雜的網絡攻擊和虛假資訊宣傳，以及與美國等國進行軍事競爭至關重要。

Chen先生特別提到美國科技公司及其人工智能模型 - 例如 Claude Mythos 和 GPT-5.5-Cyber​​ - 是網路安全面臨的新威脅。他還指出，外國情報機構可能利用人工智能進行 “大規模間諜活動” ，並攻擊中國的關鍵基礎設施。

新加坡管理 大學 法學教授 Henry Gao 表示，來自這個強大的安全機構的警告清楚地表明，中國將外國人工智能模型視為對中國的直接威脅。這其實為預計中美官員在特朗普總統與中國國家主席習近平9月24日於華盛頓會晤前夕，就人工智能問題展開對話劃下了一條紅線。

Gao 先生表示: 「北京參與這些會談時，並非將人工智能安全視為一項共同的人道主義使命，而是以對抗的視角看待它」。他還補充說，中國正在向其科技公司和外國競爭對手明確表示， “數據主權和政治安全絕不會為了國際安全協議而妥協。”

Chen 先生的這番言論並非中國國家安全局首次談及人工智能的危險性，但卻是最全面的一次，也顯示北京對該產業的擔憂日益加劇。這位安全局局長列舉了人工智能可能對中國構成威脅有幾個方面：

損害共產黨的安全。長期以來，維護執政黨的權力一直是政府的首要任務。Chen先生的文章警告說，那些「別有用心」的人可能會利用人工智能生成虛假視頻和音頻，對中國發動「宣傳戰」。

布魯金斯學會研究中國科技和產業政策的研究員 Kyle Chan 說:「他們擔心的是，例如有人用深度偽造技術偽造中國官員的言論，而這些言論實際上並未說過，並且這種偽造內容迅速傳播，破壞一切穩定」; 「有人誤以為習近平發表了某些他實際上並未發表的聲明。這可能會引發混亂」。

（待續）

China's August Exports Rise 25%; Trade Surplus Continues to Expand

Recently NHK News on-line reported the following:

中国 8月の輸出額25％増加 貿易黒字は拡大傾向続く

2026年9月8日 20:36

中国

中国の8月の輸出額は、半導体の輸出が伸びたことなどから去年の同じ月と比べて25％増えました。好調な輸出にけん引され、貿易黒字は拡大傾向が続いています。

中国の税関当局が8日発表した貿易統計によりますと、8月の輸出額はドル換算で4014億ドルと、去年の同じ月と比べて25％増え、5か月連続でふた桁の伸び率を記録しました。

これは世界的なAI需要の拡大を背景に半導体を含む集積回路の輸出額が大きく伸びたほか、EV＝電気自動車などの輸出が増えたことが主な要因です。

国・地域別では、アメリカ向けの輸出が34％、ASEAN＝東南アジア諸国連合向けが30％、それぞれ大幅に増えたほか、EU＝ヨーロッパ連合向けは6％増加しました。

一方、全体の輸入額は28.2％増えて2823億ドルとなり、輸出から輸入を差し引いた貿易収支は1190億ドルの黒字でした。

中国の貿易黒字は、輸出の大幅な増加に伴って拡大傾向が続いていて、ことし1月から8月までの累計の貿易黒字は8000億ドルを超えました。

本との貿易についてはレアアース磁石などの一部の品目の輸出が減少していますが、全体では輸出が8％、輸入は20％、それぞれ増えました。

Translation

China's August Exports Rise 25%; Trade Surplus Continues to Expand

September 8, 2026, 20:36

China

China's exports in August rose by 25% year-on-year, driven by factors such as increased semiconductor shipments. Fueled by this strong export performance, the country's trade surplus continues to expand.

According to trade statistics released by Chinese customs authorities on the 8th, the value of exports in August reached $401.4 billion (in US dollar terms)—a 25% increase compared to the same month last year—marking the fifth consecutive month of double-digit growth.

Key factors behind this rise include a significant increase in exports of integrated circuits (including semiconductors), driven by expanding global demand for AI as well as increased exports of electric vehicles (EVs).

By country and region, exports to the United States surged by 34% and those to ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) by 30%, while exports to the EU (European Union) rose by 6%.

Meanwhile, total imports increased by 28.2% to $282.3 billion, resulting in a trade surplus of $119 billion, calculated by subtracting imports from exports.

China's trade surplus continues to widen alongside the substantial growth in exports; the cumulative trade surplus for the period from January to August of this year has exceeded $800 billion.

On the other hand, regarding trade with Japan, while exports of certain items—such as rare-earth magnets—declined, overall exports to Japan rose by 8% and imports from Japan increased by 20%.

So, China's exports in August rose by 25% year-on-year, driven by factors such as increased semiconductor shipments. Because of this strong export performance, the country's trade surplus continued to expand. On the other hand, overall exports to Japan rose by 8% and imports from Japan increased by 20%.

中國希望本土科技龍頭企業在國內融資（1/2）

Recently The New York Times reported the following:

China Wants Its Tech Champions to Raise Money at Home (1/2)

Blockbuster market debuts by two technology companies show how Beijing is turning to local investors to finance its A.I. ambitions and reduce reliance on Wall Street.

The NYT - By Steve Lohr and Xinyun Wu - Steve Lohr reported from Seoul and Xinyun Wu from Taipei, Taiwan. Meaghan Tobin contributed reporting from New York.

Published Aug. 18, 2026

Updated Aug. 19, 2026, 4:02 p.m. ET

Two explosive stock market debuts in Shanghai in recent weeks have underscored a pair of China’s intertwined ambitions: harnessing investor enthusiasm for homegrown companies riding the artificial intelligence boom and reducing dependence on American technology and finance.

The companies — CXMT, China’s leading memory chip maker, and Unitree Robotics, a Chinese maker of humanoid robots — both chose Shanghai to list their shares. Their offerings were encouraged by government policies aimed at steering promising tech companies toward domestic financial markets rather than relying on state subsidies or foreign capital.

They were departures from years past, when the path for successful Chinese tech start-ups so often ran through Silicon Valley and Wall Street.

“The flow of global tech capital was essentially a one-way street looking westward,” the Chinese Communist Party-controlled Global Times said in an editorial last week, citing the CXMT and Unitree initial public offerings in Shanghai as signals of a change. “Today, however, the world is shifting its gaze from West to East.”

Under Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, Beijing has pursued self-reliance across industries, including critical materials, food and many others, seeking to reduce the leverage that countries can wield over it. Nowhere is that national strategy more evident than in technology, where developing A.I. and advanced semiconductors requires staggering amounts of capital.

Increasingly, the government wants that capital to come from China. The extraordinary reception for CXMT and Unitree suggests that Chinese investors are willing to provide it.

First came CXMT, short for ChangXin Memory Technologies. Late last month, its shares soared 470 percent on the first day of trading and have climbed further since, giving the chipmaker a market value of around $545 billion and pushing it past Tencent as China’s most valuable publicly traded company.

CXMT has benefited from A.I. technology’s insatiable demand for high-speed memory chips, which are essential for storing and moving vast quantities of data. Its main domestic rival, Yangtze Memory Technologies Company, is also preparing to go public.

Then came Unitree. Its shares began trading on Wednesday in Shanghai, and surged 460 percent on its debut. At one point, the stock was up 629 percent before pulling back.

Unitree occupies a more speculative frontier of the A.I. boom. There are still doubts about how quickly a large commercial market will develop for machines that look and move like humans. But videos showcasing the feats of Unitree’s humanoid robots have attracted millions of views online: performing kung fu routines, scaling walls, doing backflips, running races and boxing. In China, the company has become a symbol of the country’s high-tech ambitions.

The blockbuster offerings point to China’s push for technological and financial self-reliance in tandem.

The Global Times, which often espouses nationalist views, argued that stronger domestic capital markets could provide Chinese technology companies with an alternative to American financing. “As technological autonomy becomes a reality,” it stated, “the domestic capital market gains a basis for reasonably valuing these companies, no longer needing to rely on ‘validation’ from overseas exchanges.”

China experts say the growing emphasis on local capital markets is an evolution in the country’s industrial policy. Beijing is seeking to rely less heavily on state subsidies, which have often proved costly and inefficient, instead leaning more on investors to decide which companies deserve capital.

Subsidies can work well in established industries, where the product is understood and the technological path relatively clear. For cutting-edge technologies, they can be less effective.

“They work badly at the frontier, where nobody knows which approach wins and they tend to prop up firms that should fail,” said Gerard DiPippo, a director at the Eurasia Group, a research group in Washington.

Domestic capital markets and investors, Mr. DiPippo said, will increasingly be relied on as “a better way to discipline growing tech firms.”

The government’s role is becoming more like a referee and champion of Chinese capital markets. But it still gets involved directly on occasion, acting like a venture capitalist.

(to be continued)

Translation

中國希望本土科技龍頭企業在國內融資（1/2）

兩家科技公司在股市的驚人亮相表明，北京正轉向本土投資者，為其人工智能雄心壯志提供資金，並減少對華爾街的依賴。

近幾週，上海兩家公司在股市的爆炸性上市凸顯了中國兩項相互交織的雄心：一方面，利用投資者對本土人工智能公司蓬勃發展的熱情；另一方面，減少對美國技術和金融的依賴。

這兩家公司 - 分別是中國領先的記憶體晶片製造商長信儲存 (CXMT) 和中國人形機器人製造商宇樹科技（Unitree Robotics）- 都選擇在上海上市。政府政策鼓勵它們的上市旨在使科技公司向國內金融市場融資，而不是依賴國家補貼或外資。

這與過去幾年截然不同，過去中國科技新創企業的成功之路往往要經過矽谷和華爾街。

中共控制的《環球時報》上週在一篇社論中指出:「全球科技資本的流動基本上是一條單行道，流向西方」; 「然而，今天世界正將目光從西方轉向東方」。並現以上海CXMT和Unitree的首次公開募股為例，認為這是轉變的信號。

在中國最高領導人習近平的領導下，北京在包括關鍵材料、食品等在內的各行業推行自力更生，力求減少其他國家對中國的影響力。這項國家策略在科技領域體現得尤為明顯，人工智能和先進半導體的研發需要龐大資金。

政府越來越希望這些資金來自中國。長信儲存 (CXMT) 和宇樹科技 (Unitree) 的上市反應異常熱烈，顯示中國投資者願意為其提供資金支持。

首先是長信儲存，全名為長信儲存技術有限公司。上月底，該公司股票在上市首日飆升 470%，此後股價持續攀升，使其市值達到約 5,450 億美元，超越騰訊，成為中國市值最高的上市公司。

長信儲存受益於人工智能技術對高速儲存晶片的巨大需求，這些晶片對於儲存和傳輸大量資料至關重要。其主要國內競爭對手長江儲存技術有限公司 也正準備上市。

隨後是宇樹科技。該公司股票於週三在上海上市，首日股價飆漲 460%。股價一度上漲 629%，之後又有所回落。

宇樹科技在人工智能熱潮中佔據了更具投機性的前端地位。人們仍然懷疑外形和動作都與人類相似的機器能否迅速發展出龐大的商業市場。但展示宇樹科技人形機器人精彩表演的影片已在網絡上吸引了數百萬的點擊量：它們表演功夫、攀爬牆壁、後空翻、賽跑和拳擊。在中國，該公司已成為國家高科技野心的象徵。

這些轟動一時的產品表明，中國正致力於同時實現技術和金融的自力更生。

經常發表民族主義觀點的《環球時報》認為，更強大的國內資本市場可以為中國科技公司提供美國融資以外的另一種選擇。該報指出：“隨著技術自主成為現實，國內資本市場將擁有合理評估這些公司價值的基礎，不再需要依賴海外交易所的‘認可’。”

中國問題專家表示，對本土資本市場的日益重視是中國產業政策演變的體現。北京正尋求減少對國家補貼的依賴，因為補貼往往成本高且效率低下，現在轉而更依賴投資者來決定哪些公司值得獲得資金。

補貼在成熟產業中可能效果顯著，因為這些產業的產品已被充分理解，技術發展路徑也相對清晰。但對於開創技術而言，補貼的效果可能較差。。

華盛頓研究機構歐亞集團 的董事 Gerard DiPippo 表示:「在開創技術領域，補貼的作用很差，因為沒有人知道哪種方法最終會勝出，而且補貼往往會扶持那些本應失敗的公司」。

DiPippo先生指出，國內資本市場和投資者將日益成為「去規範發展中科技公司的更有效途徑」。

政府的角色正變得越來越像中國資本市場的裁判和領導者。但它仍然會不時直接介入，扮演創投家的角色。

 （待續）

中國如何監控外國人（2/2）

Recently The New York Times reported the following:

How China Keeps Tabs on Foreigners (2/2)

An unsecured police dashboard was a rare window into how the authorities track foreigners by collecting and aggregating vast amounts of private data.

The NYT - By Lily Kuo and Pei-Lin Wu (Lily Kuo is a China correspondent for The Times, based in Taipei. Pei-Lin Wu is a reporter and researcher covering Taiwan and China for The Times.)

Aug. 2, 2026, 12:03 a.m. ET

(continue)

Under Xi Jinping, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has overseen a drive to use big data in the name of public safety to stamp out dissent and prevent potential terrorist attacks.

Other countries employ similar kinds of surveillance systems, but in China, there is little protection against police overreach, according to Maya Wang, the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“That kind of integration of data is really quite unprecedented and illustrates China’s lack of safeguards,” Ms. Wang said.

An Unsecured Platform

When Mr. Hofer first came across the platform’s login page, a username and password had already been filled in. The fact that a system with sensitive personal information on hundreds of people was accessible to anyone who could find it on the internet suggested a major lack of privacy protections.

Greg Walton, a cybersecurity researcher who has studied similar Chinese systems, said the exposure of this one was not an anomaly. It was a consequence of China’s “surveillance sprawl,” which is fueled by an expanding ecosystem of vendors, contractors and public security agencies, he said.

Mr. Walton, a senior investigator at the SecDev Group, a Canadian research firm, said that each new platform “increases the number of places where sensitive personal data can be misconfigured, copied or left externally discoverable.”

The Times verified that data in the entries for six people besides Mr. Hofer was accurate. A Times reporter who used to be based in Beijing was in it, listed in an entry that included the name of her child. Her name was misspelled, but her passport and other information were correct.

Work on the Zhangjiakou system appeared to have started in 2021, and changes were made to it as recently as April, according to Mr. Hofer, who has documented his findings in a Substack newsletter. Several fields in the database were empty or filled with dummy text, suggesting it was still under construction.

Residents were tracked on cameras in public locations, but the platform also pulled from sources not directly connected to the police. It had a list of foreigners and Chinese citizens who had visited the city’s Thaiwoo Ski Resort, including photos of them taken there, their full names and passport numbers.

Sorting by Country and Religion

The platform labeled people from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom or the United States as being in the “Five Eyes Alliance.” That is a reference to the intelligence-sharing agreement between the five countries that Beijing frequently criticizes as promoting Cold War-style divisions.

It also highlighted residents from what it called “key countries” — a list that included Egypt, Iran, Israel, Morocco, Pakistan and Sudan.

Visitors from Hong Kong, home to widespread anti-Beijing protests in 2019, and Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that China claims as its own, had their own categories. The database also tracked international students, foreign spouses and “key persons,” a euphemism often used by the Chinese authorities to refer to activists or fugitives, or others deemed to be threats to social stability.

Many of the foreign students listed appeared to be from Pakistan and India and were studying at Hebei North University in Zhangjiakou. Profiles of the students included their religion, marital status, focus of study and times they had been captured on cameras at the school’s entrances.

The platform also claimed to be able to map a person’s relationship network. An illustration of the function showed the names of three Pakistani men in their 20s, linking them to one another after they were captured on camera together.

One set of entries that Mr. Hofer downloaded included names of residents who had been penalized under Chinese law. It showed one woman who had been fined 1,000 Chinese yuan (about $150) in 2021, for example, for not registering a change of address. Other examples included foreigners who had been cited for teaching without required licenses.

The information appeared to have been entered by an official at the Zhangjiakou police station named Zhang Jinglong, according to files downloaded by Mr. Hofer that listed him as a contributor.

An official by that name was profiled by the Zhangjiakou police in 2020. He was praised for monitoring discussions online and actively participating in them to “guide citizens to establish correct” views.

Last year, an artificial intelligence lab in the police bureau was named for him.

Translation

中國如何監控外國人（2/2）

一個未加密的警方數據看板罕見地揭示了當局如何透過收集和匯總大量私人數據來追蹤外國人

  （繼續）

在習近平的領導下，執政的中國共產黨以公共安全的名義，大力推動利用大數據來鎮壓異議和預防潛在的恐怖攻擊。

人權觀察組織亞洲區副主任 Maya Wang 表示，其他國家也採用類似的監控系統，但在中國，幾乎沒有任何措施可以防止警方濫用權力。

Wang 說： “這種數據整合方式確實史無前例，也暴露出中國缺乏保障。”

一個不安全的平台

當 Hofer 先生第一次造訪該平台的登入頁面時，使用者名稱和密碼已預先填寫好了。一個包含數百人敏感個人資訊的系統竟然可以被任何能從網絡上找到它的人登入，這表明該平台在隱私保護方面存在嚴重缺陷。

曾研究過類似中國系統的網路安全研究員 Greg Walton 表示，這次外洩並非個别案例。他說，這是中國「監控網路擴張」的後果，而這種擴張是由不斷擴大的供應商、承包商和公共安全機構組成的生態系統所推動的。

Walton 先生是加拿大研究公司 SecDev Group 的高級研究員，他表示，每個新平台的出現「都會增加敏感個人資料可能被錯誤配置、複製或被外部發現」。

《紐約時報》核實了 Hofer 先生以外的六人的資訊記錄，證實其準確性。一位曾在北京工作的《紐約時報》記者也在其中，她的資訊記錄中包含了她孩子的名字。她的名字拼錯了，但她的護照和其他資訊是正確的。

據 Hofer 先生稱，張家口的系統似乎始於2021年，最近一次更新是在4月。Hofer先生在Substack的通訊中記錄了他的發現。資料庫中的幾個欄位是空着或填了佔位的虛擬符號，表明該系統仍在建設中。

居民的行踪是透過公共場所的攝影機進行追踪，但該平台也從一些與警方沒有直接聯繫的來源獲取資訊。它有一份曾經到訪張家口 Thaiwoo 滑雪場的外國人和中國公民的名單，包括在那裡拍攝到他們的照片、全名和護照號碼。

按國家和宗教分類

該平台將來自澳洲、加拿大、紐西蘭、英國或美國的人標記為「五眼聯盟」成員。這指的是五國之間的情報共享協議，北京經常批評該協議助長了冷戰式的分裂。

該資料庫還重點標註了來自所謂「重點國家」的居民，其中包括埃及、伊朗、以色列、摩洛哥、巴基斯坦和蘇丹。

來自香港（2019年爆發大規模反北京抗議活動的地區）和台灣（中國聲稱擁有主權的自治民主地區）的訪客則被單獨歸類。該資料庫還追蹤了國際學生、外籍配偶和「關鍵人物」。 「關鍵人物」是中國當局常用的委婉說法，通常用來指稱活動人士、逃犯或其他被認為對社會穩定構成威脅的人員。

許多被列入資料庫的外國學生似乎來自巴基斯坦和印度，就讀於張家口河北北方學院。學生的個人資料包括他們的宗教信仰、婚姻狀況、專業方向以及他們在學校入口處被監視器拍到的次數。

該平台還聲稱能夠繪製個人關係網絡圖。該功能的一個例子顯示了三名20多歲的巴基斯坦男子的名字，並將他們聯繫起來，因為他們曾被監視器拍到在一起。

Hofer 先生下載的一組記錄中包含了一些因違反中國法律而受到處罰的居民姓名。例如，其中顯示一名女性因未登記地址變更，於2021年被罰款1000元人民幣（約150美元）。其他例子還包括一些因無證授課而被處罰的外國人。

根據 Hofer 先生下載的文件顯示，這些資訊似乎是由張家口派出所一名名叫 Zhang Jinglong 的官員輸入的，文件將他列為資訊提供者之一。

2020年，張家口警方曾對一名同名官員進行專題通報。他因監控網絡討論並積極參與其中，以「引導公民樹立正確」觀點而受到表揚。

去年，公安局的一個人工智能實驗室以他的名字命名。

              So, Marc Hofer has come across something called “Dynamic Control Platform for Overseas Personnel” on the internet in China. It tracked foreigners in the northern Chinese city of Zhangjiakou. The system’s dashboard said it had the record of more than 700 foreign residents living in the city. In total, it had entries for nearly 12,000 people, which included fugitives, people from Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as more than 300 foreign journalists. Apparently, China is monitoring the movement of foreigners in China.

Note:

1.  Substack is a website/platform where individual writers, journalists, researchers, and other people can publish articles regularly and send them to subscribers by email. (ChatGPT)

中國如何監控外國人（1/2）

Recently The New York Times reported the following:

The dashboard (Source: The NYT)

How China Keeps Tabs on Foreigners (1/2)

An unsecured police dashboard was a rare window into how the authorities track foreigners by collecting and aggregating vast amounts of private data.

 The NYT - By Lily Kuo and Pei-Lin Wu (Lily Kuo is a China correspondent for The Times, based in Taipei. Pei-Lin Wu is a reporter and researcher covering Taiwan and China for The Times.)

Aug. 2, 2026, 12:03 a.m. ET

Most days, Marc Hofer, a cybersecurity researcher and journalist based in Amsterdam, trawls the internet for clues about how China surveils its citizens, a subject that has fascinated him since he worked there as a foreign correspondent.

Mr. Hofer, 46, was doing his usual scan earlier this year when he came across something called “Dynamic Control Platform for Overseas Personnel.” It was a futuristic dashboard — like something from the movie “Minority Report” — that appeared to track foreigners in the northern Chinese city of Zhangjiakou, a popular skiing spot that co-hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The system’s dashboard said it tracked more than 700 foreign residents living in the city. In total, it had entries for nearly 12,000 people, which included fugitives, people from Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as more than 300 foreign journalists. Some of them had not been to Zhangjiakou.

Suddenly, Mr. Hofer saw his own face — in a photograph taken by Chinese immigration officials for their records. Next to it was his passport number and the cellphone number he had used in China.

He was floored. “Whoever put that stuff in there had access to real data,” he recalled. He also noticed a list of users who had recently logged into the site — it included the names of police stations in Zhangjiakou and other cities.

China monitors its 1.4 billion people on an unparalleled scale, with the help of cameras, cellphone signals and national IDs. The database Mr. Hofer found offered a rare window into how extensively the Chinese authorities also surveil foreigners, displaying entries about people categorized by nationality, with their birth date, sex, marital status, address and occupation, and sometimes their religion.

It also included instances when they were captured on camera at traffic intersections, markets, shopping malls or other locations, including a mosque.

Chinese companies hoping to sell their surveillance platforms to the police often create demo web pages that use photos and information about people taken from social media. This was different, Mr. Hofer said: “This is more than some guys playing around, or a student, or a low-level project.”

That day, in January, he began downloading as much data as possible from the site. By May, it had been taken offline.

Designed for the Police

The New York Times found links between the platform and Origin Dynamic, a Beijing company that provides robotics, surveillance services and equipment to the police, according to public tender documents.

Origin Dynamic had filed a patent application in 2023 for a similar system, which it described as an “information interface for non-Chinese citizens” and was nearly identical to the Zhangjiakou platform in its design and functions. The company is owned in part by the city government of Yancheng in Jiangsu Province.

Origin Dynamic and the Zhangjiakou Public Security Bureau did not respond to requests for comment sent by email and fax.

Mr. Hofer, who shared the data he saved with The Times, believed that the dashboard had been designed for the Zhangjiakou Public Security Bureau, the city’s police department. It included information that only the Chinese authorities would have had access to, and the user log that Mr. Hofer saw listed eight police stations in Zhangjiakou and three from other cities.

It was not clear how, or if, the police have used the database in their work. But its existence illustrates how the Chinese authorities aggregate vast amounts of data from surveillance cameras, medical records, bills, facial-recognition tools and other sources to monitor and analyze the behavior of foreign residents. It had fields for places they frequented, hospital visits and gas payments, as well as flights and trains taken, including seat numbers.

For example, it logged the movements of a woman from Mongolia as she went from a residential compound in Zhangjiakou to shopping malls, restaurants and supermarkets. In some instances, the database indicated, she had been tracked using facial recognition.

(to be continued)

Translation

中國如何監控外國人（1/2）

一個未加密的警方數據看板罕見地揭示了當局如何透過收集和匯總大量私人數據來追蹤外國人

大多數時候，常駐阿姆斯特丹的網路安全研究員兼記者Marc Hofer都會在網絡上搜尋中國如何監控其公民的線索。自從他作為駐外記者在中國工作以來，這個話題就一直讓他著迷。

今年早些時候，46歲的Hofer先生像往常一樣進行網路搜尋時，偶然發現了一個名為「海外人員動態控制平台」的東西。那是一個充滿未來感的數據看板 - 就像電影Minority Report 裡的場景 - 似乎在追蹤居住在中國北方城市張家口的外國人。張家口是熱門滑雪勝地，也是2022年冬奧的聯合舉辦城市之一。

該系統的數據看板顯示，它追蹤了700多名居住在張家口的外國居民。總共記錄了近12,000人的信息，其中包括逃犯、香港和台灣居民，以及300多名外國記者。其中一些甚至從未到過張家口。

突然，Hofer先生看到了自己的照片 - 一張中國移民官員拍攝的存檔照片。照片旁邊是他的護照號碼和他在中國使用的手機號碼。

他震驚了。 他回憶道:「把這些資訊放進去的人肯定接觸了真實的數據」。他還注意到一個最近登入過該網站的用戶清單 - 其中包括張家口和其他城市的派出所名稱。

中國利用攝影機、手機訊號和國民身分證，以前所未有的規模監控其14億人口。Hofer先生發現的資料庫罕見地揭示了中國當局對外國人的監控範圍之廣，其中列出了按國籍分類的人員信息，包括出生日期、性別、婚姻狀況、住址、職業，有時甚至包括宗教信仰。

資料庫還記錄了他們在交通路口、市場、購物中心或其他場所（包括清真寺）被攝影機拍到的畫面。

一些希望向警方出售監控平台的中國公司通常會使用從社交媒體上獲取照片和個人資訊去製作示範網頁。Hofer先生說，這個資料庫有所不同：“這絕不是某些人玩玩而已，也不是某個學生項目或一個初級計劃。”

在一月份的某一天，他開始從該網站下載盡可能多的資料。到了五月份，網站已經下線。

專為警方設計

《紐約時報》發現，根據公開招標文件，該平台與北京一家名為Origin Dynamic的公司有關連。 Origin Dynamic是一家為警方提供機器人、監控服務和設備的公司。

Origin Dynamic曾在2023年為類似系統提交專利申請，該公司將其描述為 “面向非中國公民的資訊介面” ，其設計和功能幾乎與張家口平台完全相同。該公司部分股權由江蘇省鹽城市政府持有。

Origin Dynamic和張家口市公安局均未回覆透過電子郵件和傳真發送的置評請求。

Hofer先生與《紐約時報》分享了他保存的數據。他認為，該數據看板是為張家口市公安局（即該市的公安機關）設計的。其中包含只有中國當局才能接觸到的信息，Hofer先生看到的使用者日誌列出了張家口的八個派出所和來自其他城市的三個派出所。

目前尚不清楚警方是否以及如何在工作中使用該資料庫。但它的存在表明，中國當局如何匯集來自監視攝影機、醫療記錄、帳單、人臉識別工具和其他來源的大量數據，以監控和分析外國居民的行為。資料庫包含他們常去的地點、就醫記錄、加油記錄，以及搭乘的航班和火車資訊，包括座位號碼。

例如，它記錄了一位蒙古籍女性從張家口的一個住宅小區到購物中心、餐廳和超市的行踪。資料庫顯示，在某些情況下，她曾被使用人臉辨識技術追蹤。

（待續）

中國經濟成長創多年來新低（2/2）

Recently The New York Times reported the following:

 China’s Economy Grows at Slowest Pace in Years (2/2)

Economic growth of 4.3 percent in the second quarter, versus the same period last year, reflected a broad slump outside of the country’s export-oriented manufacturing might.

The NYT -By Alexandra Stevenson and Murphy Zhao - Reporting from Hong Kong

July 15, 2026

Updated 2:38 a.m. ET

(continue)

For China’s leadership, the question now is, what to do next? Li Qiang, China’s premier, told a group of entrepreneurs this week that officials were focusing on new drivers of consumption and ensuring job stabilization.

“It is important to take a comprehensive and objective view of the current economic situation, fully recognizing the achievements made while remaining cleareyed about the problems,” said Mr. Li, according to state media, which ran a story about the meeting on the front page of the official People’s Daily.

Some economists anticipate a discussion of fresh stimulus measures at a meeting of top policymakers later this month. On Monday, officials announced a plan to target $8.85 trillion of annual retail sales by 2030, implying a 20 percent rise from last year.

Beijing also promised to raise wages and increase household consumption as a share of the economy. It is currently around 40 percent, significantly lower than the 60 percent share of gross domestic product for most developed countries.

But analysts said these goals are not particularly ambitious. And stubbornly reluctant consumers in China show few signs of opening their wallets further.

On social media forums, shoppers share tips on how to scrimp and save, rallying around the motto to “save where you can, spend where you must.”

Users share tips about “shopping cart cooling-off periods,” or leaving nonessential items in carts for three days before deciding to buy them. (The practice is a wry nod to the officially enforced “cooling-off period” for couples seeking divorces.)

Others push to replace foreign cosmetic brands with cheaper local alternatives, and to substitute skin care products with baby lotion. “Buy what’s right, not what’s pricey,” a user on the social media network Weibo posted recently.

All the while, sales have continued to fall for products as varied as cosmetics and automobiles. For categories like cars, the recent plunge has been accentuated by the end of a policy to incentivize purchases.

Since a devastating property crash, Chinese policymakers have tried to replace the growth generated by the real estate sector with more robust consumer spending. They rolled out huge subsidies for households to trade in old cars, home appliances and phones from 2024 through last year.

While it generated some activity, the policy failed to address the plummeting value of property, where most household wealth is concentrated. Now, economists say, China is in a “payback period” following the jump in policy-induced sales.

As the economy splits between the relatively few who benefit from China’s role in the global A.I. boom and the rest, the divide is having a profound impact on the country’s social fabric.

China’s property bust has led to more than 14 million people losing construction jobs. Many of those workers bought apartments in smaller cities, far from the pockets of A.I.-generated wealth that may revive parts of the property market.

The A.I. boom “doesn’t benefit ordinary people in China because this priority, the industrial focus on high tech and semiconductors, actually causes structural unemployment and underemployment,” said Dan Wang, the China director at Eurasia Group, a consulting firm.

What’s more, Ms. Wang said, disposable income growth is now lower than economic growth. If that continues, she noted, “that means the national income is skewed in distribution toward government and companies, and not consumers.”

Translation

中國經濟成長創多年來新低（2/2）

第二季經濟成長4.3%，與去年同期相比，反映出除出口導向製造業之外，中國經濟普遍下滑

（繼續）

對中國領導階層而言，現在的問題是：下一步該怎麼辦？中國總理李強本週對一群企業家表示，官員正著力尋找新的消費動力，並確保就業穩定。

根據官方媒體報道，李強總理表示：「重要的是要全面客觀地看待當前的經濟形勢，充分肯定已取得的成就，同時也要清醒地認識到存在的問題。」《人民日報》頭版刊登了關於此次會議的報道。

一些經濟學家預計，本月晚些時候，高層決策者將召開會議，討論新的刺激措施。週一，官員們宣佈了一項計劃，目標是到2030年實現8.85兆美元的年度零售額，這意味著比去年增長20%。

北京方面也承諾提高工資，並提高家庭消費佔經濟總量的比重。目前，家庭消費佔國內生產毛額（GDP）的比重約為40%，遠低於大多數已開發國家60%的水準。

但分析人士表示，這些目標並不算特別雄心勃勃。而且中國那些固執地不願花錢的消費者，幾乎沒有進一步去增加支出的跡象。

在社交媒體論壇上，購物者分享著如何精打細算的技巧，他們奉行著「能省則省，當用則用」的原則。

用戶們也分享了「購物車冷靜期」的技巧，也就是把非必需品放在購物車裡三天後再決定是否要購買。 （這種做法是對官方強制執行的離婚夫婦「冷靜期」的一種諷刺。）

另一些人則試圖用更便宜的本土品牌化妝品取代外國品牌，用嬰兒潤膚露代替保養品。 一位微博用戶最近發文說:「買合用的，不買貴價的」。

同時，包括化妝品和汽車在內的各種產品的銷量持續下滑。對於汽車等類別而言，近期的暴跌因一項旨在刺激消費政策的結束而加劇。

自從房地產市場崩盤以來，中國決策者一直試圖用更強勁的消費支出來彌補房地產行業帶來的成長。他們從2024年開始，為家庭以舊換新提供巨額補貼，用於舊車、舊家電和舊手機的置換。

雖然這項政策刺激了一些消費活動，但它未能解決房地產價值暴跌的問題，而大部分家庭財富都集中在房地產領域。經濟學家表示，在政策所刺激的急增銷售後，中國目前正處於「償還期」。

隨著經濟因出現少數受益於中國在全球人工智能熱潮的人，與其餘人群之間出現分化。這種分化正在對中國的社會結構產生深遠的影響。

中國的房地產泡沫破裂導致超過1,400萬人失去了建築業的工作。許多這些工人在較細小的城市購買了公寓房，遠離一些人工智可能創造財富而重振部分房地產市場的小區。

諮詢公司歐亞集團 中國區的總監Dan Wang表示，人工智能熱潮「並沒有惠及中國的普通民眾，因為這種優先發展高科技和半導體產業的政策實際上導致了結構性失業和就業不足」。

此外，Wang女士也指出，目前可支配收入的成長低於經濟成長。她表示，如果這種情況持續下去，“這意味著國民收入的分配將向政府和企業傾斜，而不是向消費者傾斜。”

          So, China’s economy is at the slowest point in three years, reflecting a broader slump. Although China’s factories are churning out chips and electric cars to supply a global boom in artificial intelligence and energy-saving products, many Chinese people are feeling squeezed at home. The economy is splitting between the relatively few who benefit from China’s role in the global A.I. boom and the rest. Furthermore, it is noted that people’s disposable income growth is now lower than economic growth. If that continues, it would mean that the national income is skewed in distribution toward government and companies, not consumers. Apparent, the government needs to do more to deal with the economic slowdown.

中國經濟成長創多年來新低（1/2）

Recently The New York Times reported the following:

China’s Economy Grows at Slowest Pace in Years (1/2)

Economic growth of 4.3 percent in the second quarter, versus the same period last year, reflected a broad slump outside of the country’s export-oriented manufacturing might.

The NYT -By Alexandra Stevenson and Murphy Zhao - Reporting from Hong Kong

July 15, 2026

Updated 2:38 a.m. ET

China’s economy last quarter grew at the slowest rate in three years, reflecting a broader slump that the country’s leaders signaled earlier this year when they set the lowest growth target in more than three decades.

On Wednesday, that National Bureau of Statistics said that the economy expanded by 4.3 percent in the second quarter, compared to a year ago, down from a 5 percent pace in the first quarter and short of economists’ expectations.

Although China’s factories are churning out chips and electric cars to supply a global boom in artificial intelligence and energy-saving products, many Chinese people are feeling squeezed at home.

A long-running property crisis has no end in sight, with steep declines in construction dragging down economic growth. Jobs outside of factories are hard to come by and paychecks are not growing. Retail sales of consumer goods have been choppy. They fell in May, for the first time since the end of Covid-19 lockdowns in late 2022, before recovering somewhat in June.

That is in stark contrast to China’s relentless strength in manufacturing and trade, with a government report released on Tuesday showing China’s exports surging by 27 percent in June compared with a year earlier, driven by shipments of chips, batteries and cars. China’s trade surplus in June, at more than $125 billion, was second largest on record.

In other words, China’s mighty export machine is masking weaknesses elsewhere.

“You get this A.I. boom, which is a global thing, and China is part of the leading nations on the frontier,” said Yu Song, the chief China economist at UBS Securities. “Without this, China’s economy would be in a much worse state.”

When measured on a quarter-to-quarter basis, China’s economy expanded by only 0.9 percent in the second quarter. When projected out for a year, the second-quarter data implies that the economy was growing at an annual rate of 3.6 percent, sharply down from a pace of more than 6 percent in the first quarter.

The second-quarter annualized rate also missed official targets. Shortcomings in China’s economic growth drivers prompted the ruling Communist Party earlier this year to set the lowest annual growth target in decades, with a goal of between 4.5 percent and 5 percent this year.

Stepping back to consider the trends in the first half of the year, economists say that China’s manufacturing and export prowess, however robust, cannot carry growth on its own.

Industrial production rose by 5.4 percent in the first six months of the year, versus the same period last year. High-tech manufacturing rose by more than 13 percent over that period. But fixed asset investment — which includes infrastructure, property construction and manufacturing — fell by 5.7 percent. Real estate development dropped 18 percent.

The value of China’s exports surged by more than 20 percent in the first half. But consumer spending, which a Moody’s Analytics report said “remains the economy’s weakest link,” faltered. Retail sales of consumer goods increased by 1.3 percent over the first half of the year.

The effects of the war in Iran have pinched Chinese households, with rising fuel prices prompting them to drive and fly less, at a time when many were already worried about the economy and choosing to save more.

China has softened the blow of rising fuel costs by controlling the price at the pump, but the cost of filling up for drivers is still double-digit percentages higher than a year ago.

One silver lining, economists said, was that rising fuel prices started to feed through to broader inflation in the quarter, reversing a problem that China has struggled to shake: more than three years of a broad-based decline in prices. Such deflation tends to chill spending, with consumers putting off purchases in expectation that prices will be lower in the future.

China’s gross domestic product deflator, a broad measure of prices across the economy, was negative in 13 of the past 14 quarters — the most protracted slump on record. But it turned positive in the second quarter.

(to be continued)

Translation

中國經濟成長創多年來新低（1/2）

 第二季經濟成長4.3%，與去年同期相比，反映出除出口導向製造業以外的整個經濟領域普遍下滑

中國經濟上季成長創三年新低，反映出更廣泛的經濟下滑趨勢。今年早些時候，中國領導人設定了三十多年來的最低成長目標，也預示了這一趨勢。

週三，國家統計局公佈的數據顯示，第二季中國經濟年增4.3%，低於第一季的5%，也低於經濟學家的預期。

儘管中國工廠正源源不絕地生產晶片和電動車，以滿足全球人工智能和節能產品的需求，但許多中國人卻在國內感到生活拮据。

長期存在的房地產危機仍看不到盡頭，建築業的急劇下滑拖累了經濟成長。工廠以外的工作機會難得，薪資成長也停滯不前。消費品零售額波動不定。 5月份，自2022年底新冠疫情封鎖措施解除以來，零售額首次出現下滑，6月略有回升。

這與中國製造業和貿易的強勁勢頭形成鮮明對比。週二發佈的一份政府報告顯示，受晶片、電池和汽車出貨量的推動，中國6月出口額年增27%。 6月中國貿易順差超過1,250億美元，創史上第二高。

換句話說，中國強大的出口機器遮掩了其他方面的疲軟。

瑞銀證券首席中國經濟學家Yu Song表示：“人工智能的蓬勃發展是全球性的，而中國是走在前端的領先國家之一。如果沒有人工智能，中國經濟的狀況會糟糕得多。”

按季度環比計算，中國經濟第二季僅成長0.9%。若將第二季的數據推算至一年，則經濟年化成長率為3.6%，較第一季超過6%的成長速度大幅下降。

第二季的年化成長率也低於官方目標。由於中國經濟成長動力不足，執政的中國共產黨在今年稍早設定了數十年來最低的年度成長目標，將今年的成長率目標設定在4.5%至5%之間。

回顧上半年的發展趨勢，經濟學家指出，儘管中國的製造業和出口實力強勁，但僅靠這些優勢無法支撐經濟成長。

相比去年同期，今年上半年，工業生產年增5.4%。高科技製造業年增超過13%。但固定資產投資（包括基礎建設、房地產建設和製造業）下降5.7%。房地產開發下降18%。

中國上半年出口額成長超過20%。但消費支出卻步履維艱 - 穆迪分析公司一份報告稱，消費支出「仍然是經濟最薄弱的一環」。上半年，消費品零售額成長1.3%。

伊朗戰爭的影響給中國家庭帶來了壓力，不斷上漲的燃料價格促使他們減少駕車和乘坐飛機。當前許多人已經對經濟狀況感到擔憂，並選擇增加儲蓄。

中國透過控制油價緩解了燃油成本上漲的衝擊，但目前駕駛者的入油成本仍比一年前高出兩位數百份比。

經濟學家指出，有一線希望在於燃油價格上漲在本季開始傳導至更廣泛的通膨，扭轉了中國長期以來難以擺脫的通縮局面：三年多來物價普遍下跌。這種通貨緊縮往往會抑制消費，消費者會延後購買，預期未來價格會更低。

中國的國內生產總值平減指數（衡量經濟整體物價水準的指標）在過去14季中有13季為負值，創下歷史最長的低迷期。但該指數在第二季轉正。

（待續）

中國地下教會領袖金明日獲釋

Recently BBC News on-line reported the following:

Chinese underground church figure Jin Mingri freed from prison

BBC - Harry Sekulich

5^th July 2026

Underground church leader Jin Mingri has been released from prison in China and has travelled to the US, less than two months after his incarceration was raised directly by Donald Trump.

The pastor and founder of the Zion Church had been imprisoned following overnight raids across China in October, described by Christian groups as one of the strictest crackdowns on religious activity in the country's modern history.

The Chinese government tightly controls religion and officially promotes atheism.

Jin's family thanked supporters in a statement, adding: "We truly witnessed a miracle and we are feeling so overwhelmed with joy". The Chinese foreign ministry has not officially commented on his case.

The family thanked the US president and the Trump administration "for their tremendous leadership", and said they knew "this could not have happened without the direct intervention from [Chinese President] Xi Jinping".

"We hope this is a signal of a positive turn for people of faith in China and relations between our two nations."

US-based rights group ChinaAid, which monitors relgious (sic) persecution, confirmed Jin, also known as Ezra Jin, had arrived in Los Angeles in the US following his release.

Its founder Bob Fu welcomed his release, while noting that "countless" religious practitioners, including eight belonging to the Zion Church, remained incarcerated in China.

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of Western lawmakers that includes dozens of UK MPs, said it was "overjoyed" with the news.

Trump had urged Xi to release Jin during direct talks between the two while in Beijing for a state visit in May.

"He said he's gonna strongly consider the pastor," the US president said afterward.

Trump also raised the detention of pro-democracy Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced earlier this year to 20 years in prison for colluding with foreign forces under the city's controversial national security law.

Jin started the Zion Church in 2007 with just 20 people. It grew into one of China's largest unregistered churches, with a network of some 10,000 people in 40 cities across the country.

It was officially banned by the Chinese Communist Party in 2018 after resisting government pressure to install security cameras at its property in Beijing.

Many of its branch congregations across the country have since been investigated and shut down.

Christians have long been pressured to join only state-sanctioned churches that are led by government-approved pastors and toe the party line.

Thirty church leaders were reported to have been detained in overnight raids last October.

This was followed by a similar crackdown against another church in January, in which nine people were detained.

Translation:

中國地下教會領袖金明日獲釋

中國地下教會領袖金明日在被特朗普直接提出其監禁問題不到兩個月後，已獲釋並前往美國。

 錫安教會於去年10月在中國各地遭到突然搜查後，其牧師兼創辦人被捕。基督教團體稱，這是中國近代史上對宗教活動最嚴厲的鎮壓之一。

中國政府嚴格控制宗教，官方提倡無神論。

金明日的家人在聲明中感謝支持者，並表示：「我們親眼見證了一個奇蹟，我們感到無比喜悅。」中國外交部尚未就此案發表官方評論。

金明日的家人感謝美國總統和特朗普政府“卓越的領導力”，並表示他們知道“如果沒有（中國國家主席）習近平的直接幹預，這一切不可能發生”。

“我們希望這能成為中國宗教人士以及兩國關係出現積極轉變的信號。”

總部位於美國的維權組織「對華援助協會」（ChinaAid）證實，金牧師（又名Ezra Jin）獲釋後已抵達美國洛杉磯。該組織一直關注宗教迫害問題。

其創辦人Bob Fu對金牧師的獲釋表示歡迎，同時指出，包括八名錫安教會成員在內的「無數」宗教人士仍被關押在中國。

包括有數十名英國議員的一個由西方議員團體組成的「對華跨議會聯盟」表示，他們對這一消息感到「欣喜若狂」。

今年五月，特朗普在對北京進行國事訪問期間，曾與習近平直接會談，敦促習近平釋放金牧師。

美國總統事後表示:「他說他會認真考慮這位牧師的釋放」。

特朗普也提到了香港親民主媒體大亨黎智英被拘留一事。黎智英今年稍早因違反香港備受爭議的國安法，被控勾結外國勢力，被判處20年監禁。

金於2007年創立了錫安教會，當時只有20位信徒。後來，它發展成為中國最大的未註冊教會之一，在全國40個城市擁有約1萬名信徒。

2018年，錫安教會因拒絕政府要求其在北京的建築物安裝監視器而被中國共產黨正式取締。

此後，該教會在全國各地的許多分支機構都遭到調查並關閉。

長期以來，基督徒一直被迫加入由政府認可的牧師領導、並遵循黨路線的官方認可的教會。

據報道，去年10月，30名教會領袖在夜間突撃搜查中被拘留。

隨後在1月份，另一間教會也遭到類似的鎮壓，九人被拘留。

              So, in China, an underground church leader has been released from prison and has travelled to the US, less than two months after his incarceration was raised directly by Donald Trump. I am wondering what has Trump promised to Xi for this “favor”. Recently, there are signs that the US is lifting “restriction” on some officials in Hong Kong.