Taiwan’s cat-loving president Tsai Ing-wen to adopt three retired guide dogs
Dismisses media speculation over ‘civil war’ among her pets because of new canine arrivals
Taiwan’s new president, whose two cats grace many of her Facebook posts, said on Thursday she would adopt three retired guide dogs, but dismissed media speculation over a “civil war” among the presidential pets.
Tsai Ing-wen, who was inaugurated last week, has two cats called Xiang Xiang – “Think Think” in English – and Ah Tsai, and local media have speculated the felines will not take kindly to three new canine arrivals.
China’s analogue AI chip could work 1,000 times faster than Nvidia GPU: study
The device also uses less power than conventional computing while achieving accuracy similar to that of digital systems, researchers say
“Precision has long been the central bottleneck of analogue computing,” the researchers said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Electronics on October 13.
China agrees to crisis talks in Brussels as rare earth and Nexperia sagas boil over
EU trade chief to meet Chinese counterpart to find ‘urgent solutions’ to China’s tightening of its restrictions on rare earth exports
The EU is seeking China to relax export licensing requirements for rare earth elements and magnets, which are crucial to manufacturing hi-tech goods, from fighter jets to electric vehicles, and which were broadened earlier this month.
“At the conclusion of this discussion, I invited the Chinese authorities to come to Brussels in the coming days to find urgent solutions. Minister Wang Wentao has accepted this invitation,” Sefcovic told reporters in Strasbourg.
On Nexperia, Sefcovic said he had spoken to Dutch authorities before his video call with Wang, and was “reassured by the intention expressed by both sides to de-escalate the situation and work towards a practical agreement that will restore supply chains, provide much-needed certainty and prevent production halts around the globe”.
Court documents last week showed that The Hague had come under duress from Washington to oust the Chinese owners of Nexperia.
The Dutch economic minister Vincent Karremans spoke with Wang on Tuesday, too, with a short statement saying that they “discussed further steps toward reaching a solution that serves the interests of Nexperia, the European economy, and the Chinese economy”.
Beijing introduced export licensing requirements for rare earths, a market in which it dominates the global supply, in April.
Two weeks ago, the commerce ministry dramatically broadened the scope of the restrictions to include rare earth processing equipment and to cover goods made overseas which contained traces of Chinese-processed minerals.
Before the controls were upgraded, Sefcovic said, the EU had sent Beijing “eight lists of priority applications”, containing “around 2,000” individual applications.
“Despite the reassurances from Chinese authorities to fast track these priority applications, according to our assessment, only a little bit more than half of them have been properly addressed,” the Slovakian official said, adding that he would resend them to Wang’s office following their conversation.
Beijing’s readout, meanwhile, made clear that it sees the controls as “a normal step in improving its export control system in accordance with laws and regulations”.
Wang told Sefcovic that China remains committed to safeguarding the stability of the global supply chains and Beijing has “consistently provided facilitation in the approval process for EU companies,” according to the Chinese statement published after the call on Tuesday.
On Monday, Mofcom held a meeting with foreign business leaders to explain its recent policies, including the strict rare earth export control measures that have caused concerns among foreign companies.
Foreign companies attending the meeting praised the Chinese government’s continued commitment to opening up and pragmatic efforts to stabilise foreign investment despite increasing challenges on global trade and investment, the statement said.
In Europe, however, the controls could not be viewed more differently. They have helped sour an already ailing trading relationship and led to a clamour of officials calling for tougher action against Beijing.
“Just last week, the association of our aerospace and defence industries issued a stark warning, a new wave of Chinese export controls could disrupt production and increase costs. I take this warning very seriously,” von der Leyen said.
The work programme contains several policy proposals that would affect China, including a regulation to “address the negative trade-related effects of global overcapacity in the steel market”, an upgrade to the EU’s investment screening mechanism, and the establishment of a critical raw materials centre.
With the trade issues piling up, criticism of China is now coming from quarters that previously promoted cooperation.
“When it comes to China, let me only say one thing: China needs Europe more than Europe needs China,” said Joachim Nagel, Germany’s top central banker, at a financial event in Washington over the weekend.
“We are a strong economy. We are 450 million people … so we should play the European card in a more offensive way,” said the Bundesbank chief, according to a Reuters report.
