China
Chinese archaeologists excavate 1-million-year-old human skull
- Chinese archaeologists in China’s Hubei province announced on Wednesday that they unearthed a well-preserved human skull around 1 million years old at a dig site in Yun County.
- The latest discovery is the third human skull that archaeologists have excavated from the same site. The first two skulls, which scientists named the Yunxian Man, were discovered in 1989 and 1990 and are estimated to be between 800,000 and 1.1 million years old.
- “The No 3 skull is similar to the first two in terms of burial environment, faunal remains and technical characteristics of stone products, so the three skulls should belong to the same age,” Lu Chengqiu, head of the excavation team and a researcher with the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, told Hubei Daily.
Chinese archaeologists announced that they have discovered an almost complete human skull around 1 million years old from a dig site in China’s Hubei province.
The skull, excavated by a team of archaeologists from the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, is the most complete human skull that has been unearthed from that period in mainland Eurasia, according to South China Morning Post, citing a Wednesday report from Hubei Daily.
S. Korean gold medalist skater officially joins Chinese Olympic team after renouncing citizenship
- Short-track speed skater Lim Hyo-jun, also known by his Chinese name Lin Xiaojun, is now officially part of the Chinese national team.
- He was one of the nine men and eight women who the Chinese national team announced on Monday.
- Lim, 26, will compete under the Chinese flag in upcoming international events, such as the World Cup in Canada next month and the Four Continents Championships in Salt Lake City in November.
- Lim was involved in a controversy after being banned by the Korea Skating Union in 2019 for pulling down the pants of a younger athlete at Jincheon National Training Center in Jincheon, South Korea.
Former South Korean short-track speed skater Lim Hyo-jun has officially found a new team to compete with at the next Olympics.
In an announcement on Monday, Lim, who also goes by his Chinese name Lin Xiaojun, will officially compete for China as part of the country’s national team in the next Olympics. The news came months after the International Skating Union cleared the speed skater to compete in July.
Asia’s richest man: China will be ‘increasingly isolated’ from world; India will be poverty-free by 2050
- Gautam Adani, Asia’s richest person and the world’s second-richest billionaire, believes that China, which he said was the “foremost champion of globalization,” “will feel increasingly isolated” and find it difficult to bounce back.
- Adani, the founder and chairperson of the Adani Group, made the comment during his keynote speech at the 20th Forbes Global CEO conference in Singapore on Tuesday.
- Adani listed some factors he believed would impact China, including “Increasing nationalism, supply chain risk mitigation, and technology restrictions." The country’s Belt and Road initiative, a “demonstration of its global ambition,” might also face challenges as resistance continues.
- “While I expect all these economies will readjust over time — and bounce back — the friction of the bounce-back looks far harder this time,” he said.
Indian billionaire and Asia’s richest person Gautam Adani expressed pessimism regarding China, saying the country “will feel increasingly isolated” as he remained optimistic about India’s future economy.
In his keynote speech at the 20th Forbes Global CEO conference in Singapore on Tuesday, Adani said he believes several factors would impact China’s economy, such as “Increasing nationalism, supply chain risk mitigation, and technology restrictions.”
Married Chinese man cons 39 women out of $78,000 in romance scam using photos of attractive S. Korean men
- A married Chinese man was sentenced to 11 years and six months in prison and fined 30,000 yuan (approximately $4,166) for scamming 39 women.
- He Gansheng, a 38-year-old who lived with his wife and children in Hubei province, received his sentence in April 2021.
- The man reportedly conned the victims out of 560,000 yuan (approximately $77,772) between 2016 to 2020 by using two pictures of attractive South Korean men to pose as a professional, such as a doctor or a lawyer.
- He was eventually arrested after his last victim, a 22-year-old woman, asked her relatives for help after she gave him all her savings. The woman later reported the incident to the police in May 2020.
A Chinese man who reportedly scammed dozens of women out of tens of thousands of dollars by posing as a professional and using pictures of attractive South Korean men has been sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.
He Gansheng, a 38-year-old who lived with his wife and children in Hubei, was sentenced to 11 years and six months in prison. He was also fined 30,000 yuan (approximately $4,166) in April 2021, according to reports.
Former Chicago graduate student found guilty of spying for China
- Ji Chaoqun, 31, a Chinese national living in Chicago, was convicted of spying for the Chinese government after a two-week trial.
- The former graduate student at the Illinois Institute of Technology worked under the direction of top intelligence officers in the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security, a provincial division of China’s Ministry of State Security.
- Xu Yanjun, who was convicted in Ohio last year, tasked Ji with providing biographical information on possible recruits — such as Chinese scientists and engineers, including those with ties to U.S. defense contractors — to the Jiangsu division.
- Ji managed to gather information on eight U.S. citizens who were all born in China or Taiwan.
- Ji was found guilty of conspiracy to act as an agent of China, acting as an agent of China and making a false statement to the U.S. Army, which collectively carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
A Chinese national living in Chicago was convicted of spying for the Chinese government on Monday.
Ji Chaoqun, 31, a former graduate student at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, one count of acting as an agent of China and one count of making a material false statement to the U.S. Army. He was acquitted of two other wire fraud counts.
NASA researcher pleads guilty to hiding Chinese government ties while accepting US funding
- NASA researcher Zhengdong Cheng pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges of violating NASA regulations and falsifying official documents.
- Cheng, who also worked as a professor at Texas A&M University, was arrested in August 2020 for allegedly hiding his ties with a Chinese university and a Chinese-owned company.
- Cheng’s arrest came under the Trump-era China Initiative, which sought to counter national security threats such as hacking, trade secret theft and economic espionage associated with China.
- The program was terminated in February amid claims of stunting academic collaboration and contributing to anti-Asian hate.
A NASA researcher pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges related to hiding ties with the Chinese Communist Party while accepting federal grant money.
Zhengdong Cheng, who also worked as a professor at Texas A&M University (TAMU) from 2004 until he was fired after his arrest in August 2020, was originally charged with wire fraud, conspiracy and making false statements. As part of an agreement with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to new charges of violating NASA regulations and falsifying official documents.
China sentences ringleader of brutal attack on women at Tangshan restaurant to 24 years in prison
- Chen Jizhi, the 41-year-old perpetrator involved in the brutal assault on four women at a restaurant in Tangshan, China, has been sentenced to 24 years in prison.
- On Friday, the Guangyang District People’s Court in Langfang determined Chen to be the ringleader of a gang that has conducted criminal activities since 2012.
- He was found guilty of eight charges relating to the attack and other criminal activities and was fined 320,000 yuan (approximately $45,000).
- The court has also sentenced 27 other defendants involved in the attack with terms ranging from six months to 11 years.
The main perpetrator involved in the brutal assault on four women at a restaurant in Tangshan, China, has been sentenced to 24 years in prison.
On Friday, the Guangyang District People’s Court in Langfang, Hebei province, determined Chen Jizhi, 41, to be the ringleader of a gang that has conducted criminal activities since 2012.
Update: Alleged Nanjing Massacre photos discovered in Minnesota pawn shop debunked
- Photos in an album discovered by a Minnesota pawn shop owner previously believed to have been taken during the 1937 Nanjing Massacre have been debunked.
- Evan Kail, the owner of St. Louis Park Gold & Silver who goes by “Pawn Man” online, posted a video of the album to TikTok that went viral overnight, garnering over 30 million views and attracting international attention for what many believed was a major historical revelation.
- “Because of these trolls, particularly this one assclown, nobody will go near this thing now,” Kail claims in a video update posted to his YouTube channel. “I can’t get anybody to f*cking check it out. Every person in Minnesota I had lined up who had some kind of credential ghosted me. They want nothing to do with this because of the controversy.” They don’t want their name anywhere near it.”
- In an interview with The New Yorker, Timothy Brook, a professor specializing in Chinese history during the Japanese occupation, inspected photographs provided by Kail and determined that “as far as I can tell, none of these photographs are from Nanjing.”
- It was revealed that the photos Kail believed originated from Nanjing — previously known as Nanking — were captioned “Nanking Road” in the album, which Kail had mistaken for the city when it actually refers to a street in Shanghai.
Photos discovered by a Minnesota pawn shop owner previously believed to have been taken during the 1937 Nanjing Massacre have been debunked.
Evan Kail, the owner of St. Louis Park Gold & Silver who goes by “Pawn Man” online, posted a video to TikTok on Aug. 31 claiming to have discovered long-lost photographs taken during the massacre which lasted for six weeks and saw at least 200,000 Chinese civilians killed by the Imperial Japanese Army. Kail’s video went viral overnight, garnering over 30 million views and attracting international attention for what many believed was a major historical revelation.
China health chief warns against ‘skin-to-skin contact with foreigners’ amid first case of monkeypox
- Wu Zunyou, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s chief epidemiologist, announced on Weibo on Saturday that China now has one case of monkeypox after it “slipped through the net” despite tight COVID-19 restrictions.
- Wu listed five recommendations in his Weibo post, with the first one igniting controversy on the social media platform.
- “To prevent possible monkeypox infection and as part of our healthy lifestyle, it is recommended that 1) you do not have direct skin-to-skin contact with foreigners,” he wrote.
- “This is a bit like when the pandemic began, when some people overseas avoided any Chinese people they saw out of fear," one user commented, criticizing Wu’s message. “I don't believe these two things have any scientific basis, they are too broad and will exacerbate public panic."
- "When the pandemic first began, some of our foreign friends stood up and used our own platforms to tell everybody, 'Chinese people are not the virus,'" another Weibo user wrote.
A senior Chinese health official recently warned people on social media not to touch foreigners as the country reported its first case of monkeypox.
In a Weibo post on Saturday, Wu Zunyou, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s chief epidemiologist, announced that China now has one case of monkeypox that “slipped through the net” despite tight COVID-19 restrictions.
Ancient China used face-whitening cosmetics before Ancient Greece, study claims
- A team of researchers from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shaanxi Academy of Archaeology discovered ancient bronze containers containing lead white residue that the ancient Chinese used for face-whitening makeup.
- The discovery was made at a nobility cemetery located in the Liangdaicun site in the city of Hancheng in China’s Shaanxi province.
- The researchers published their study in the open-access journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications on Sept. 3.
- “The results show that these residues were the earliest synthesized lead white in the world to date, which was produced by the precipitation method in solution distinct from the corrosion method practiced in ancient Greece,” the researchers wrote.
Chinese researchers have unearthed bronze containers with lead white residue that the ancient Chinese used for face-whitening makeup around 300 years before the ancient Greeks started making their own.
The team of researchers from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) and the Shaanxi Academy of Archaeology discovered the ancient artifacts at the Liangdaicun site in the city of Hancheng in China’s Shaanxi Province.
Woman sparks outrage in China after throwing puppy out fourth-floor window during fight
- In a viral video circulating on Chinese social media, a woman pushes a Labrador retriever out of a window from her fourth-floor apartment window during an argument with her husband.
- The dog was injured after landing on a car below. It has since recovered from its injuries, according to reports.
- The car owner, identified as Yang, told the couple to take their wounded dog to the vet. He also decided to bring them adoption paperwork for the dog.
- The incident has sparked national outrage in China, with many Weibo users condemning the couple’s behavior.
- Although China has a law that protects wild animals, the country has no national law that prohibits the abuse of other animals, including pets.
A woman in Beijing threw a dog out of a fourth-floor window during an argument with her husband.
In a viral video circulating on Chinese social media, a woman is seen pushing a Labrador retriever out of a window from her fourth-floor apartment. The dog was injured after landing on a car below.
‘I am Chinese and I love my motherland forever’: Hong Kong opera star apologizes for praising Queen Elizabeth II
- Veteran opera star Law Kar-ying publicly apologized after sparking outrage among nationalists in China for praising Britain’s late Queen Elizabeth II.
- Law was heavily criticized on Weibo after posting an image on Instagram of himself at the British consulate in Hong Kong to mourn the queen’s death with the caption: “Hong Kong was a blessed land during her reign.”
- In response to the criticism, Law posted a video apology in Mandarin Chinese: “My original intention was to express condolences for a late elderly woman and I would like to appeal to everyone not to overly interpret what I said. I can’t possibly forget my origin and ancestry,” he added. “That I have been keeping a Chinese passport says it all, I am Chinese and I love my motherland forever. I am sorry.”
- Some commenters were not convinced by his apology, and even urged him to “learn from his wife” Liza Wang, a longtime Hong Kong delegate to China’s National People's Congress.
- Other commenters defended him and said he did not even need to apologize in the first place.
An opera star from Hong Kong has publicly apologized for praising Britain’s late Queen Elizabeth II after her recent death.
Law Kar-ying, a 75-year-old Cantonese opera star, was among those who mourned the queen’s death outside the city’s British consulate.
