Tracking People’s Daily — July 13, 2020

Big Picture: The floods that have ravaged different parts of China finally got the front page treatment because of Xi’s remarks. Flood control work is also getting the heroic storytelling treatment, which tells you that the situation is not good. In addition, I recommend checking out Page 9. It’s a whole page dedicated to conversations about ethics of science and tech development.

Page 1: The floods that have been ravaging large parts of China finally make it to the front page of the People’s Daily. In fact, there are four pieces about the floods on the page. But that’s only because Xi Jinping has finally spoken about the situation. PD’s coverage of his remarks says that Xi described the flood situation as “grim.”

Here’s the other piece, which is basically a Xinhua story; here’s the English version: “Noting the waters in rivers such as the Yangtze River, Huaihe River, as well as lakes such as the Dongting Lake, Poyang Lake and Taihu Lake have exceeded warning levels and regions including Chongqing, Jiangxi, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang have seen severe floods recently, causing casualties and property losses, Xi said the flood prevention situation is grim.” It further says: “The PLA and armed police troops stationed in flood-hit regions should actively participate in the rescue and relief work, he said…Serious efforts must be made to assist the flood-affected poor residents so that they will not fall back into poverty because of the disasters.”

This is followed by another brief report on the front page with efforts being taken in different provinces and by different agencies to deal with the flooding. Also, there’s much more about the floods on Page 14.

And there’s also a story which draws from the new White Paper on the Development of China’s Digital Economy. This story argues that the “scale of industrial digital added value in 2019 reached 28.8 trillion yuan, a nominal increase of 16.8% year-on-year. What does “28.8 trillion yuan” reflect? — Behind this 28.8 trillion yuan is the deep integration of more traditional industries and new technologies.” Here’s another English PD report on the paper.

Page 3: A few pieces to note:

• A piece informing us about how responsible Chinese enterprises are when they are working abroad. This one focuses on Pakistan, Nigeria and Uzbekistan.
• A piece on China-Brazil trade: “the bilateral trade volume between Brazil and China in the first half of the year was $51.05 billion, an increase of 6.5% year-on-year. Brazil’s exports to China increased by 14.6% to $34.35 billion, accounting for 33.8% of Brazil’s total exports. China continues to maintain the status of Brazil’s largest export destination.”
• A piece by Liang Yu, China’s ambassador to Peru.
• A commentary essentially talking up China’s economic recovery, amid what assessments are telling us will be a terrible time for the world economy.

Page 4: Here’s what’s noteworthy:

• Tan Huizhu, deputy director of the Hong Kong Basic Law Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, tells the newspaper that the new Hong Kong national security law basically respects HK’s autonomy. We’ve heard these arguments before; of course, the law does not do that.
• A piece about flood control in Poyang county in Jiangxi; another story about rescue efforts by Hubei’s Armed Police, who were sent to Kaotian River in Laoshiwu Village, Huangmei County, Huanggang City. This is pretty dramatic reportage.

Page 5: A few pieces to note:

• A piece by Liu Jiayi, Secretary of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee. This one’s about his remarks at the video conference on the construction of a beautiful and livable village.
• A commentary on the employment situation, which it describes as “relatively grim.” But this one’s about how there are still multiple opportunities for skilled people, but that graduates need to temper expectations. “If you want to find your favorite position, you must pay attention to market changes in real time and adjust your employment expectations in a timely manner.”

Page 9: This is a really interesting page today, which draws from a July 2019 meeting in which it was proposed that China set up a national science and technology ethics committee. But it’s important to highlight this to underscore that there is a significant ethics debate that does play out in China. First, a commentary on the need to improve the ethical governance system of science and technology. This piece is by Jiang Chang, vice president of the Chinese Ethics Society. Then another by Yang Ming, professor at Nanjing Art Institute. This one talks about the need for an ethical approach to science:

“Science seeks truth, ethics seeks good. In terms of form, science and technology itself have no good or evil. However, a scientific research result or a technical method can be used to transform society and benefit mankind, or it can be reduced to a tool for evil, harm the interests of others and society, and endanger the harmonious coexistence of man and nature. Both scientific research in the laboratory and the promotion and application of technological achievements in real life are closely related to the survival and development of human beings, and they will have an impact on the relationship between people and people and nature, and therefore have moral connotations. If science and technology innovation activities are more concerned with the “what can we do” from the perspective of exploration and discovery, then the ethical governance of science and technology is aimed at focusing on the “should not do” from the ethical standards.”

And then Li Chuanbing, professor at the Marxist College of Guizhou University, writes about the ethical and moral risks in the development of artificial intelligence. There are really no answers offered here. The arguments, however, touch upon privacy and enhancing public awareness of the ethical debates around AI. Li argues that at the research level, it is important to discuss the ethical challenges and risks so that these can be factored into the design. And at application level, people must be made aware of the laws and regulations around use so that there is informed and ethical decision-making.

Page 16: The international page today focuses on the following:

• The lead story is about the UN’s Virtual Counter-Terrorism Week from July 6 to 10. The report says: “Guterres said in his opening speech that Al Qaeda, the extremist group Islamic State and white supremacists and hate groups are all taking advantage of the differences, local conflicts, governance failures and public dissatisfaction caused by the epidemic crisis. The international community should also pay attention to the ever-changing terrorist threats, such as the misuse of digital technology, cyber attacks and bioterrorism.”
• EU strengthens social media regulation — This is about the recent changes to the Audiovisual Media Services Directive.
• A piece which notes that US employment data suggests an improvement in the economy, but challenges remain owing to the spread of the pandemic.