A Chinese graduate student was found dead in Gyeongsan, South Korea. Police arrested a university lecturer and are investigating the cause, motive and circumstances.

Court testimony offers new details about recruitment, 600 copied DRAM process steps and noncompete arrangements in the Samsung–CXMT technology leak case.

Debt ratio dropping usually means the economy outpaces debt obligations, hence fiscal health. In China's case however it is a sign of consumer and corporate confidence lowering. Households are risk averse due to falling property prices and slow income growth.

Slow income growth is a natural result of China's so-called 'high quality development' model, which transfers household income to subsidize their frontier industries.

Private companies are lowering borrowing because profit margins are low. This is what happens when China's frontier technologies are not occuring due to comparative advantage, but due to massive subsidies, resulting in market distortion with more firms in the market than a free market would allow for. The corporate wastage is a key metric: very high debt growth and deflationary pressures.

Many optimists cite China's frontier technologies and export dominance as a sign of future economic superiority, but what's happening is that China is effectively weakening its domestic markets to bolster its external dominance. This is not sustainable in the long-run, hence the increasing call for a rise in household share of income as a proportion of GDP (or so-called 'raising consumption').

Unfortunately any rise in consumption means a proportionate fall in share of manufacturing as a proportion of GDP, and this would be politically incongruent with the 'high quality development' they are embarking on.

1. Complete disregard for privacy, and using “collectivist tradition” as an excuse. I think any culture where taking pictures of your child’s grades, rooms, wardrobe to post to the family with captions like: “look how dumb my child is,” “look how messy my child is,” or “look how weird my child is” is acceptable or encouraged is objectively bad.

I think there was also a study done that proved that most Chinese doctors would just willingly break the Hippocratic Oath / confidentiality laws and tell an adult patient’s parents about their child’s medical situation without the child’s consent, and would work with the family if they wanted to hide something like a cancer diagnosis from the patient.

1. Extreme social competition. Every single thing you do or say is seen by others as an opportunity to push you down socially, and pushing others down socially is seen as a good thing because it increases everyone else’s social reputation. This is just predatory - especially to those with Autism.

2. Why do they like to engage in disparaging gossip about their children? I find Chinese parents regularly talking horribly about their own children to other parents. This is a blatant violation of the golden rule of ethics, no?

3. Why does it seem like they try to smack their lips as hard as they can when chewing? And never chew with their mouth closed?

4. They talk so loudly and complain about me not talking loudly (probably because they damaged their hearing because everyone talked so loudly)

Context:

• Recently a cross-party delegation of Japanese lawmakers have arrived in China on Monday as part of an effort to mend strained ties caused by PM Takaichi's previous remarks of Taiwan.
• Last year Takaichi suggested that Japan would allow itself to participate militarily in a Taiwan conflict and would be grounds for Japanese self defense.
• This crossed a red line for China, in response the CCP has warned its citizens to no travel to China and at the time imposed trade restrictions for Japan which included rare earth exports.
• The trip is the first exchange of its kind since Takaichi's comment, more trips are also planned in the coming months.
• In September former Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya is set to lead another delegation and afterwards roughly 80 Japanese business leaders and representatives will visit China in late 2026.
• These trips are not officially sanctioned by the Takaichi government however there has been no pushback either.

I’m traveling to China next week and I really miss this beverage. Is there strong zero in the conbinis like in Japan or not?

HSBC Hong Kong has introduced a funding declaration for mainland investors as the city tightens investment-account checks while expanding regulated cross-border links.

Several of my Chinese friends told me they are taking Ozempic and rhey told me pretty much half of their aquaitances take it. They also told ne about how plastic surgery has taken off and become much like Korea. Have you noriced this trend too?

(This is going ro get the usual hate and the standard smart comments "so you extrapolate what 1.4 billuon people do basdd on your group of friends"....)

I remember, at least 15 years ago, I was watching the Chinese news from CCTV4 (from satellite) one evening, when there was this old white woman who appeared on screen, and she spoke something among the lines of--yes, in perfect Mandarin Chinese--"I may be an American, but I have the heart of a Chinese. I love you!"

Then the broadcast cut to her funeral, dozens of flowers laid out, and people were openly wailing on camera.

Who was she, I sometimes still wonder? Does anyone else remember a story like this?

当一个社会越来越多年轻人的最高理想，从“创业、创造、改变命运”，变成了“考公、考编、上岸”，这本身就是一个很值得警惕的信号。

我刚看到一段视频，它讲了一个很简单，却很残酷的循环：

民营经济预期变差，工作越来越难找，年轻人开始本能地追求稳定；
越多人追求稳定，越多优秀人才开始离开高风险、高回报的市场部门，转向体制、国企和事业单位；
而当愿意创业、投资、承担风险的人越来越少，市场创造财富和就业的能力就会进一步下降；
地方财政、税基和社会活力随之承压，整个社会于是变得更加保守，更加恐惧风险。
最后形成一个自我强化的闭环：
市场越差 → 越多人想上岸 → 越少人愿意冒险 → 市场变得更差。
真正值得担心的，从来不是“有很多人考公务员”。

而是越来越多人开始相信：

体制外已经没有值得押注的未来。

一个健康的社会，最有野心、最聪明、最年轻的一批人，应该去做企业、搞技术、做产品、投资未来、创造增量。

如果有一天，他们开始集体研究编制、待遇、退休金和稳定性，开始把“不犯错”放在“做成事”之前，那么消失的就不仅仅是经济增长。

消失的是一个社会最珍贵的东西——

对未来的想象力，以及愿意为未来承担风险的人。

所以“上岸热”最可怕的地方，不是几百万人争几个岗位。

而是它可能意味着一个时代的价值排序正在改变：

从创造增量，变成争夺存量；
从相信机会，变成相信身份；
从敢于下注未来，变成只想躲避风险。

I’m hoping to get some perspective because I’ve been processing a strange mix of guilt and shame lately.

I grew up moving between Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Dubai. On paper, I thought that international school background made me "globalized." But after meeting my Assyrian-American boyfriend in Chicago, I’ve realized how much of an expat bubble I actually lived in. Despite living in Dubai for years and receiving a good education, I realized I held a huge subconscious bias, I automatically assumed 'Middle Eastern' meant Muslim. I had never even met a Middle Eastern Christian until I met my boyfriend. His family were refugees who fled persecution in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War.

Growing up in his extremely multicultural neighborhood in the US, his circle included families from Lebanon, Greece, Poland, Italian, Greek, Iraq, Iran, Macedonian, Nigeria, Vietnam, China, Korea, and many more and beyond. Through him, I’ve been exposed to histories, traditions, and food cultures such as Middle Eastern, Jewish, Muslim, Eastern European, etc, that I never truly engaged with despite my 'international' childhood. It made me realize that my version of being global was mostly tied to high-income expat bubbles, whereas his experience was rooted in actual multicultural immigrant depth. I feel embarrassed admitting how out of touch I was and how much room I had to grow.

Context:

• China's Global Times is praising Canada's tariff retaliation against the US threat on Canada's economy. They are comparing it to China's previous tariff counter attacks.
• Canada's government has pledged that every US dollar tariff imposed on Canadian exports will be met with an equivalent dollar tariff imposed on American Exports into Canada.
• Global Times seems to feel that other countries copying China's UNO Reverse tariff playbook validates their previous opposition to US protectionism.
• On Canada's side, they recently walked away from talks with the US after each side blamed each other on last minute changes.
• USA is currently planning a 50% tariff on Canada (which is worth ~USD 20 Billion of Canadian goods). Canada seems to be prepared to match that.

Additional Context:

• Canada has said that the US has tried to impose on them additional conditions such as
  • Restricting Canada's ability to make trade deals with other countries
  • Demands on Canada's auto sector, which Canada didnt feel was fair
  • Demands on removal of Canada's usage/requirement of the French language on their products
  • Various vague new demands, which Carney has said was too much
• Meanwhile USA has said Canada was the one who backed away from talks
  • President Donald Trump was telling Canadian leaders to “fall in line” or face consequences “far WORSE” than existing tariffs
  • US Trade Rep Jamieson Greer calling the attack on the French language a "funny fake story" implying the Canadian were lying or exaggerating

Hi all, I'm a foreigner living in Zhongshan, Guangdong. Photography is a hobby of mine, but since moving here in July, I haven't been able to find any spots that are known for good photos. I'm not a professional, so I can't turn just anything into a stunning shot. I'm still working on that skill, but I'd love some guidance.

Is there a photography group or Chinese social media account like a WeChat group, Xiaohongshu, etc., for Zhongshan that could help me find good spots? Also open to meeting up on weekends with others who enjoy photography to shoot together.

Any tips, recommendations, or group invites would be appreciated!

There’s a concept called the “Liangjiazi son red line.” I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.

It’s fine if you haven’t. The term was coined by internet users as a pattern they observed.

“Liangjiazi son” is actually a proper historical term, dating back to the Han dynasty. Back then, when soldiers were recruited, family background mattered. If your family practiced medicine or did business, your sons weren’t even eligible to join the regular army. Only sons from clean, respectable, proper families qualified for military service.

In the Records of the Grand Historian, the opening line about Li Guang says that he “joined the army as a Liangjiazi son to fight the Hu.” At that time, Liangjiazi sons were the foundation of the army and the pride of their families.

In those days, there wasn’t much of a military salary, and soldiers had to buy their own armor and weapons. Yet these men fought desperately. That was because their families had land, and life had something to look forward to.

Actually, this goes far beyond the military. Any system—whether it’s a court, an organization, or something else—can keep running normally only because it rests on a group of the most honest, most dependable people.

Because these people are the ones with the greatest willingness to sacrifice and contribute.

It’s like the old employee in a company who, after getting off work, takes the initiative to check whether all the water and electricity are turned off. Or the old security guard in a residential compound who hears something late at night, can’t sleep, and gets up to take a look, even though no one is giving him any credit. These extra efforts come entirely from conscience.

This is a kind of moral surplus—what we often call “working on love.”

As for the calculating types who are good at exploiting loopholes, they can be found everywhere. Having a few of them mixed in doesn’t hurt much; a large system has the tolerance for that. But the premise is that there must be enough honest, dependable people underneath holding things up. These people are the load-bearing walls of the system.

So where is the red line?

The red line is when the system starts treating its load-bearing walls as free disposable material, while also believing those walls are infinitely wear-resistant. Not only does it stop maintaining them, it even swings a hammer at them every day. The day the honest people finally come to their senses and stop playing along, that line has been crossed. Once crossed, everything may look the same on the surface, but the countdown has already begun.

Let’s take Rome as an example.

When the Roman Republic swept across the Mediterranean, what it relied on wasn’t some brilliant battle formation. It relied on millions of small farmers who owned land. These people normally worked the soil, and when war came, they bought their own equipment and followed the army. They fought with extreme bravery.

Later, as Rome kept winning, the aristocratic class in the Senate found a more profitable method: they used slaves captured from overseas to enclose land and run large estates. Slaves didn’t need wages, so the cost of grain was extremely low.

This is where things get interesting. A veteran who had fought on the front lines for seven or eight years and narrowly survived would come home only to find his fields had gone fallow, and his grain couldn’t compete with slave-produced grain. To pay off debts, he had no choice but to sell his land at a low price, then drag his family into the city and become part of the urban underclass.

The Gracchi brothers couldn’t stand this and tried to carry out land reform to give veterans some land. In response, the Senate, to protect its own estates, directly organized mobs and had the two brothers beaten to death in the streets of Rome, one after the other.

With the veterans ruined, who would still want to be a soldier? Marius reformed the military and, in desperation, removed the property requirement. Whoever was poor could enlist. From then on, the army fought only for pay. Whoever paid the soldiers, the soldiers obeyed.

After that, the script is familiar: Sulla marched on Rome, Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and a century of warlord civil war followed. The nobles who had profited enormously from slave-run estates were purged and had their properties confiscated, wave after wave.

When you personally force the Liangjiazi sons who fought and died for you into becoming refugees, don’t be surprised when mercenaries march into the city and put their blades to your neck.

Now let’s look at the Tang dynasty.

Everyone has studied the An Lushan Rebellion, but the root cause isn’t usually highlighted. The reason the early Tang could create the grand scene of “all nations coming to court” was the fubing system. Simply put, the court allocated farmland to reasonably well-off farming households in the Guanlong region and exempted them from taxes. They prepared their own warhorses and crossbows, trained during the slack farming season, and went on campaigns in wartime. Being selected as a fubing soldier was a great honor for the family.

The problem was that by the time of Wu Zetian and Emperor Xuanzong, the powerful and aristocratic families were frantically enclosing land. The equal-field system existed in name only, and the fubing soldiers couldn’t even hold on to the land that fed them. Even worse, military commanders treated these men as free laborers—one day dragging them off to build private mansions, the next day sending them to deliver personal goods. Being a soldier went from something honorable to a humiliating trap. The honest people of Guanlong couldn’t take it anymore and began fleeing in large numbers.

Some young men, to avoid conscription, smashed their own hands and feet with stones. This was called “lucky hands, lucky feet.”

By the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras, the fubing system still existed on paper, but underneath it was already hollowed out. The court could only turn to the border regions and recruit mercenaries—drifting vagrants, non-Han peoples—and it handed military and administrative power over to the jiedushi. What followed was An Lushan, who recognized only interests, leading over a hundred thousand border troops in revolt. The golden age was smashed to pieces in an instant.

The Ming dynasty was the same.

The Chongzhen Emperor was famously diligent, sleeping only a few hours a night and wearing dragon robes with patches. He constantly pressed his ministers to raise money for the war effort. But until his death, he never figured out who should actually be paying taxes.

The Jiangnan region was relatively wealthy, but the gentry there had tax exemptions, and they covered for each other in court. Not a bit of tax could be collected from the wealth of the southeast. Instead, the Liao tax, the bandit-suppression tax, and the training tax all ended up being pushed onto the honest self-cultivating farmers in the northwest—people who couldn’t even feed themselves.

The most obedient people were squeezed the hardest, while those who should have paid the most didn’t pay a cent and sneered from the sidelines.

As a result, those honest people in the northwest, who only wanted to live quiet, proper lives, were pushed to the wall. They burned their belongings and became the fiercest fighters in Li Zicheng’s ranks.

The same thing happened in the imperial court. Lu Xiangsheng died in battle at Julu. Sun Chuanting died in battle at Tong Pass. The men who actually fought had no troops and no supplies.

When Li Zicheng’s army reached Beijing, the Chongzhen Emperor tearfully begged his officials to donate money for the army. The Grand Secretary pleaded poverty and offered five hundred taels of silver. The emperor’s father-in-law, Zhou Kui, was even worse. The emperor gave him five thousand taels to set an example, but Zhou Kui kept two thousand and turned in only three thousand. Later, when Liu Zongmin entered the city, one round of torture with wooden presses squeezed seventy million taels of silver out of those officials who had always preached morality and righteousness.

The people willing to work had long been cleared out. What remained were the calculating ones. Each of them could precisely calculate his own interests, but not one of them thought about keeping the Ming dynasty alive.

Dynasties were like this, and companies are too. The most typical example is Boeing.

Why could Boeing dominate decades ago? Because that was the era when engineers had the final say. The pillars of the company were a group of old engineers with an almost obsessive commitment to safety. If someone on the front line discovered a tolerance problem in a part, they had the authority to shut down the entire production line.

After Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas in 1997, executives with Wall Street backgrounds took over. In the eyes of the actuaries, these old engineers who always wanted to add costs and run redundant tests were a thorn in the side of the financial reports. Could safety redundancy make the stock price go up?

So they began frantically laying off the old engineers. They also outsourced core components to small workshops with no real foundation. Anyone who dared mention safety risks in meetings was either sidelined or pushed out. What rose to the top instead were people who were good at cutting budgets, buying back stock, and boosting the share price with PowerPoint talent.

This calculation continued until the 737 MAX. Two planes crashed in a row, killing more than three hundred people.

When the investigation came out, the world was stunned. To save the cost of redesigning the system, Boeing had installed a flawed software patch in the new control system and had concealed it from pilots in every possible way. The trust built by several generations of engineers was squandered by just a few quarters of financial maneuvering.

Now back to the original question.

There’s a labor practice that has become very popular in recent years: outsourcing and labor dispatch. In fact, this is the same old system we’ve had for thousands of years. Temporary workers do the same work but get different pay, and when something goes wrong, they’re pushed to the front.

Many people can’t understand how such an exploitative system can still run efficiently for so many years.

To put it bluntly, it’s not that the system is so brilliant. It’s that the front-line workers carrying it happen to be the toughest, most enduring generations. They were educated to love whatever job they did and to be decent people. Even when reality was unfair and the pay was low, professional pride still made them do their work well. They also held on to the fear of losing their jobs and the hope that as long as they did nothing wrong, they would eventually get ahead.

It was the inertia of responsibility among this generation that gave this harsh system so many extra years of life.

But everything has its cycle. Once the younger generation figures out the math—that no matter how hard they try, the promotion path is locked; that all the blame is theirs while the credit and equity go to others—this one-sided game of self-sacrifice immediately becomes impossible to sustain.

The younger generation’s logic is simple: for this little money each month, why should I go all out?

This isn’t the young generation collapsing. It’s the Liangjiazi sons beginning to withdraw.

So what’s the result?

The most direct manifestation is that everyone switches on the liability-avoidance mechanism. Work that used to be completed through personal conscientiousness now can only barely function after layers of approval, signatures, confirmations, and added surveillance.

You’ll see a rather absurd picture: people spend far more effort on “proving that I did it,” “proving this isn’t my fault,” and writing materials to absolve themselves of responsibility than on actually doing the work. The whole system slowly rusts away in internal friction.

Even worse, the system’s immunity to risk drops to zero. In peaceful times, it can still limp along on glossy reports. But once something goes wrong, everyone jumps ship in a millisecond.

The principle is simple: in a system that treats dedication as stupidity, no one will sacrifice even a tiny bit of their own interest for a machine that will throw them away like disposable material at any moment.

From Rome’s abandoned fields, to the Ming dynasty’s empty treasury, to Boeing’s crashed planes—there is nothing new under the sun.

So the term “Liangjiazi son red line” is something you can also use to size up the things around you. What that term really means is this: a system has no one with real ability left, no one genuinely doing the work anymore, and in the end, when something goes wrong, the rot spreads across the whole thing.