A US bipartisan congressional delegation led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer arrived in Shanghai and began visiting China on Saturday. Schumer, when meeting with Chen Jining, secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, said the US did not seek conflict and wanted to achieve a level playing field, "as we compete economically."

Since June of this year, several senior US officials and lawmakers have visited China in succession, and the two sides have formed new working groups to solve the economic conflicts that have occurred in recent years. 

It seems that the China-US relations are progressing in rebuilding a new track in an organized manner.

On Wednesday, China's Foreign Ministry said, "We hope this visit will contribute to a more objective understanding of China in the US Congress, increase dialogue and communication between the legislatures of our two countries, and add positive factors to the growth of China-US relations." 

We do not expect this single trip to change the US legislators' view of China, which is formed based on their fundamentally different ideologies that see China as a challenger from the East.

Given the downward spiral of US-China relations in recent years, any official interaction and communication would benefit both sides' understanding of the other, and direct contact, in particular, can have an unintended impact.

When these legislators see China's political and economic realities, mainly what has changed and what has not changed in China after the three-year epidemic, they will learn what the Chinese people are thinking and doing and how they see the US. Even if it is a brief visit, it will have some impact on them when they propose policies on China in Congress.
We hope these legislators will have a comparative mindset when looking around and talking with Chinese people.

When they compare what they see and hear in China with the reality in the US political arena, especially regarding political stability, they might gain a deeper understanding of the philosophy of national governance.  

The conflicts and frictions between China and the US are closely linked to the domestic politics of both nations, which continue to shape the direction of the relationship.

Domestic politics in the US, especially the "war" on Capitol Hill, the struggle to reach the debt ceiling, the removal of the Speaker of the House and the news of former President Donald Trump's resurgence, have created confusion and eroded international trust in the stability of US politics.

The polarization of the two parties and both parties' internal politics, as well as the activism of anti-establishment and far-right forces in Congress will add to the uncertainty for the fragile reconstruction of China-US relations and the mutual trust.

Before his trip, Schumer, who leads the group of lawmakers, once again emphasized the ideological differences between the US and China. 

China has never shied away from this difference. But ideological differences do not mean the US can arrogantly lecture China.

When a mainstream perception of China as a significant challenger has been formed in the US Congress, legislators will consider the China factor when proposing bills on a range of domestic and foreign policies. 

As more US lawmakers visit China, they will gradually realize that the hegemonic anti-China atmosphere they have on Capitol Hill when discussing China policies is nothing more than a self-created illusion. They are no longer qualified to lecture China. 

They can make their demands, but at the same time they need to listen to the Chinese side. And it is dialogue on an equal footing that is conducive to the stable coexistence of the two great powers.

The US Congress can significantly influence the White House's China policy. China will naturally take note of the atmosphere of Capitol Hill regarding China. However, it will not be perturbed by them. China's role in shaping the future of US-China relations is increasingly significant.

The incident that a man drove into the lobby of the Chinese consulate in San Francisco on Monday is very disturbing. The driver was shot by local police and later died at the hospital. 

During a press conference held by the San Francisco police after the incident, it was not disclosed whether the intruder was carrying any weapons. No information regarding the identity of the driver or the motive behind this act has been provided by the police.

The Chinese Consulate-General in San Francisco is located a few blocks away from the "Six Sisters" building, a landmark in the city. The fact that the lobby of the consulate was accessible from the street allowed the driver to breach security, but fortunately, all consulate personnel are reported to be safe.

In a statement, the Chinese Consulate-General in San Francisco severely condemned this incident, demanding that the truth be quickly ascertained and dealt with seriously in accordance with the law. Currently, the focus is on identifying the driver and determining whether this was an isolated incident or if there is a broader context.

The Chinese Consulate-General in San Francisco has faced multiple incidents in the past. On New Year's Day in 2014, the main entrance of the consulate was attacked with gasoline, and in March 2008, the consulate's main gate was set on fire using flammable liquid. After each of these incidents, the US government promised to enhance security for Chinese consulates, but subsequent events suggest that these promises have not been adequately upheld. It is evident that the situation in US society is chaotic, and it places Chinese consulate staff in a perilous situation akin to "diplomats in a war zone." The failure of the local police to prevent such incidents undoubtedly becomes a stain on US diplomacy. 

Buoyed by the prospect that China's economic growth is set to rebound at a faster pace in the fourth quarter this year, the country's equities market rallied on Friday, with the benchmark Shanghai composite index gaining more than 1.55 percent. 

During the past several months, a wave of negative Western media reports targeting the Chinese economy swirled and surged, intentionally creating a false narrative in order to cast a cloud over China's investment outlook.

Some pundits in the US media went too far claiming that China is facing "an economic stagnation that seems irreversible" - typical Western rhetoric that tries to talk down China's growth and frighten away investors.

The Western media have tried to paint China's economy as facing the same predicament as the implosion of the US economy in late 2008 and early 2009, or suffering from the same throes of Japan's "Lost Decades" beginning 1990 when Japan's real estate and stock market bubbles suddenly melted. But as it has been proved many times before that while Western commentary predicting the collapse of Chinese economy keeps surfacing, in the end it is the Western rhetoric, not China's economy that will fail drastically.

As a matter of fact, overseas concerns are largely played up and inflated by US-led Western media outlets, such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Their allegations that China's future is now "blanketed with public anxiety and widespread pessimism" are simply untrue. It's of a media disinformation campaign built on fake journalism.

The Covid-19 pandemic has scarred the world's all major economies because of its severity. China's relatively uneven recovery is no parallel with the Lehman-style subprime fiasco caused financial crisis in the US, nor resembling the debt-driven boom and bust cycle of Japan, as some in the West have always hoped. 

Since 2017, the bulging bubbles in China's housing market have largely dissipated thanks to the policymakers' visionary and pre-emptive moves to restrict bank and social lending to developers, and at the same time the country's central bank has trimmed interest rates to channel funds to back up high-end manufacturing, high-tech innovation, infrastructure build-up and public welfare enhancement, which strengthens China's foundation for future competition among the nations. 

Chinese policymakers understand that a dormant real estate market caused by the pandemic is never a healthy phenomenon and represents a drag on the economy. On August 31, the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, and the National Administration of Financial Regulation jointly issued a series of easing measures for the property sector, which includes lowering minimum down payment ratio and mortgage rates, easing criteria for first-home buyers and interest rate cuts for existing first-home mortgage loans.

It is very wise for the central government to readjust its headline housing policies by rescinding some of the strictest measures that have inhibited property sales in major Chinese cities. Many provincial capital cities have removed policies limiting apartment purchases, which has led to a recent boom in housing sales nationwide.  

And, China's credit market is expanding again, with the latest central bank data showing the country's total social financing increasing by more than 3 trillion yuan ($413 billion) in August. The marked improvement in social liquidity was primarily driven by the government's recent growth-reinforcing policies, including an acceleration in government financing, which rose to 1.18 trillion yuan in August from 0.41 trillion yuan in July. 

In addition to improvement in credit, economic data for the last few weeks have generally shown encouraging signs too, including the consumer price index turning positive again in August. And while the manufacturing purchasing managers' index improved to 49.7 in August with key components such as production and new orders being above 50, export and import growth have also improved. 

As the government continues to pivot policy focus to supporting the private sector rejuvenation, welcoming foreign investors, and propelling the accelerated growth of domestic consumption and investment, more positive economic signs will emerge in the fourth quarter. And, government bond issuance accelerated in August too. Increased bonds sale should pave the way for the government to introduce more spending measures in the next few months to rev up economic growth. 

The policymakers have recently moved to halve equities-trading stamp duty and cut equity transaction fees, controlling the pace of initial public offerings and encouraging dividends and buybacks while controlling insider sales, in order to give a shot to the capital market. The size and breadth of the announced measures have exceeded investor expectations. Rallying equities are going to firm up Chinese households' wallet, which will translate to higher consumption. 

China's gross domestic product rose 5.5 percent in the first half year. The IMF has predicted that China's economy will expand by 5.2 percent this year, contributing one third of the global growth. It is very likely that the Western naysayers cursing China's economy will be forced to admit and walk back their overhyped rhetoric. 

By all metrics, China's economy is not facing a crisis and the ship is not sinking, as alleged by the naysayers in the US and its allied countries. Relying on China's peculiar systemic merits and the policymakers' vision and firm determination to committing to high-level opening-up and win-win partnership with all friendly countries, and enhancing the national strength through constant investment on technological advances, Chinese economy's strong resilience, unrivalled vitality and ample growth potential will only grow.

In today's interconnected world where the destinies of countries are closely linked, the coexistence and mutual exchange of different civilizations are important drivers for advancing human civilization and promoting global peace.

The Golden Panda Initiative from artists of different ethnicities and languages was also released at the forum to make the world a better place. Embrace the mission of promoting a harmonious and mutually beneficial civilization in this era; collaboratively create artistic monuments that reflect shared values; act as friendly ambassadors of cultural exchange and mutual learning; continuously unleash the youthful energy of cultural heritage and innovation.

A cluster of honeysuckle, a way to wealth. Honeysuckle flowers can be used for medicine, tea, and ornamental arrangements, with good market value. The honeysuckle planting farmers' professional cooperative has been established in Zhujia Village, Chenggang Subdistrict, Laizhou, Shandong Province, which is now leading more than 6,000 villagers across over 10 villages to cultivate honeysuckle, covering a total of more than 2,200 acres of planting area. Cultivation of honeysuckle not only provides residents with employment opportunities, but also broadens the channels of prosperity for rural revitalization.
In order to improve the added value of honeysuckle and improve the planting industry chain of honeysuckle, the cooperative has built a deep processing workshop of honeysuckle, extended the rough processing of honeysuckle into an electrified processing project, and added electrified equipment of water-removing, kneading, fermentation, and raising incense and drying.
This year, the State Grid Laizhou Power Supply Company invested in a new 400 kVA transformer capacity into the cooperative to meet the electricity demand of the cooperative's production and processing. At the same time, the company organized teams to carry out regular inspection of electrical equipment, constantly improve the quality of power supply service, and help the industrialization and large-scale development of honeysuckle.

China's central bank said that it would step up policy adjustments and implement monetary policy to expand domestic demand and restore confidence at a quarterly meeting, according to a statement on its official website on Wednesday.

During the meeting, the bank emphasized the need to intensify the implementation of existing monetary policies, enhance counter-cyclical and cross-cyclical adjustments, and focus on boosting domestic demand and restoring confidence.

Regarding exchange rates, it stressed the importance of correcting deviations, stabilizing expectations, and firmly addressing unilateral and pro-cyclical behaviors to guard against the risk of exchange rate over-adjustment.

In light of the current domestic and international economic situation, the meeting noted that "the current external environment has become more complex and challenging," with inflation remaining high and developed countries expected to maintain elevated interest rates. Additionally, it acknowledged that "the domestic economy continues to recover and improve with strengthened momentum, but still faces challenges such as insufficient demand."

This statement also highlights the central bank's commitment to proactively managing monetary policy to support economic stability and address external and internal economic challenges.

The central bank also pledged to promote the healthy and stable development of the property market.

A number of support measures have already kicked in to stabilize the economic recovery of the world's second-largest economy. Profits across China's industrial enterprises above designated size in August increased by 17.2 percent year-on-year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Wednesday. Overall, profits were down 6.7 percent in July.

The rebound was in line with the momentum of China's industrial output data in August, grew 4.5 percent from a year earlier, accelerating from the 3.7 percent pace seen in July. Retail sales, a gauge of consumption, also grew at a faster 4.6 percent pace in August aided by the summer travel season, and was the quickest growth since May.

Analysts expected the recovery will further accelerated with the upcoming eight-day Golden Week holidays.

The Yuanzhuang Town of Wenshang County is located in the Yellow River alluvial plain in Jining, East China's Shandong Province, with fertile soil and excellent water quality. In recent years, the local government has relied on resource advantages to develop a local seed production industry, focusing every effort to create a "seed industry town," accelerating the process of agricultural industrialization, and building a new development system of "production, processing, marketing, and tourism" of the flower industry, which has driven local employment and increasing income. 

The Shandong Huiyuan Flower Seed Industry Breeding Base has built a high-standard multi-span greenhouse of 48,000 square meters, which can cultivate various types of flower seedlings and over 8 million finished products annually.

The State Grid Jining Power Supply Company is committed to improving the reliability of the power grid and serving the development of the agricultural industry, focusing on the local government's goal of building a "seed industry town." The breeding base of the flower seed industry has set high standards for greenhouse temperature and humidity. State Grid Jining Power Supply Company has invested in the construction of a rural electrification demonstration project for benefiting farmers and helping local communities. The greenhouse has been intelligently renovated by installing the equipment for collecting and intelligent processing of voltage, current, carbon dioxide concentration, soil temperature and humidity, EC value, air temperature and humidity, and light intensity information, to obtain electrical and environmental data inside the greenhouse. This cutting-edge equipment builds up the automatic monitoring of agricultural ecological information and automatic control of facilities, which provides scientific basis and effective means for intelligent management, and strong power guarantee for the development of the area's flower industry.

A total of 754 million domestic passenger trips were made in China in the first seven days of the 8-day National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival  holidays, a year-on-year increase of 78.9%. Holiday tourism generated 668.1 billion yuan ($92.80 billion), up 132.6% year-on-year, official data showed on Friday.

The second phase of a high-definition deep-space active observation facility, China Fuyan, which is dubbed as the world's most far-reaching radar system, kicked off in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, the Global Times learned from the project lead Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) on Tuesday. 

The second phase of the project, codenamed China Fuyan [faceted eye], will involve building 25 radars with a 30-meter aperture, so as to realize the detection and imaging of asteroids over 10 million kilometers away, which will provide strong support for China's near-Earth asteroid impact defense and planetary science research.

Construction of phase II, which will cover an area of over 300 mu (20 hectares), is expected to be completed by 2025. It will be a new research and development phase for the project, Long Teng, president of BIT and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said in a statement sent to the Global Times. 

China Fuyan will consist of distributed radars with more than 20 antennas, and each antenna will have a diameter of 25 to 30 meters. It is expected to become the world's most far-reaching radar system capable of carrying out high-definition observation of asteroids within 150 million kilometers. 

Long said that because the system has multiple antennas, like the faceted eyes of an insect, it was given the vivid name of China Fuyan.

Through high-resolution observation of asteroids, spacecraft, the moon, Earth-like planets and Jupiter Galileo satellites and other deep-space targets, China Fuyan will meet the need for the defense of near-Earth asteroids and situational awareness of space. It will provide key support for the study of habitability of the Earth, planet formation and other frontier scientific research.

The project has three stages of construction. The first stage was completed in December 2022 in Chongqing, consisting of four radars with a 16-meter aperture. It successfully captured the country's first ground-based three-dimensional radar image of lunar craters. 

After the completion of the second phase, the third phase of the project will expand the number of radar units to over 100, the Global Times learned. 

Unlike the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope nicknamed Tianyan, which is designed to collect passive observations of radio signals from space, Fuyan will be actively shooting radio signals to celestial bodies in order to obtain new observations, experts noted.

This will be very helpful for China's lunar exploration, as it is capable of monitoring Chinese spacecraft' journey to the moon, they said.

After 276 days in orbit, China's reusable experimental spacecraft landed at its planned site at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China's Gansu Province on Monday, and Chinese space watchers said it was a milestone in China's efforts to develop a fully reusable space transportation system.

The success is an important breakthrough in China's research on reusable spacecraft technologies, which will provide more convenient and affordable round trips for the peaceful use of space, the Xinhua News Agency said on Monday.

China launched a reusable experimental spacecraft using its Long March-2F carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on August 5, 2022, to test reusable technologies and in-orbit service technologies to support the peaceful use of space, Xinhua previously reported. 

China tested the reusable experimental spacecraft in September 2020, and the spacecraft returned to the planned landing site after two days in orbit. The spacecraft was also launched with a Long March-2F carrier rocket.

Chinese authorities have disclosed few details about the craft's technology. So far, no images of the spacecraft or footage of its launch or landing have been disclosed.

Many space lovers compared it to the US Air Force's X-37B, an autonomous Boeing space plane that can remain in orbit for long periods before returning to Earth on its own, saying that the technology used in the experiment is "too advanced to show" on social media. 

The reusable spacecraft's technology has evidently matured, considering how much longer it can stay in orbit, Chinese space watchers noted on Sunday. 

Song Zhongping, a space expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Monday that the reusability of such spacecraft would drastically reduce costs. More importantly, the longer orbiting time means that the spacecraft can perform more complicated missions such as changing trajectory in near-Earth orbit and sending various payloads into orbit. 

Judging from the rocket used in the launch, the Long March-2F carrier rocket - which is one of China's most advanced and reliable rockets for manned space flights - the reusable spacecraft may be used in future manned missions, said another space observer, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Given the payload launching capability of the Long March-2F, the spacecraft could weigh around 8 tons, which is very similar to the launch mass for the X-37B at around 5 tons, so that speculation about their similarity is not groundless, the observer said.

The latest test of the reusable spacecraft was the longest, most complicated, and most challenging so far. The record of 276 days in orbit even beat the first mission of the US' X-37B in 2010, which remained in orbit for 224 days, Huang Zhicheng, a space industry expert, told the Global Times on Monday. 

At the China Space Conference opening event to mark the April 24 Space of China this year in Hefei, East China's Anhui Province, Wang Wei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the research and development department of the state-owned aerospace giant China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, listed the 10 major scientific and technology problems for the 2023 space development.

Among them is the health monitoring of the power system for the reusable vehicle and an assessment of its service life.

Huang said that one of the many advantages of the reusable spacecraft is that it can land horizontally, which is more comfortable and safer for the crew. Once it's mature, such technology could be applied to suborbital or space tourism, and even super fast point-to-point transportation for people or cargo on Earth.

The US often hypes and smears China's technology breakthroughs as militarization because it sees all breakthroughs by non-Western countries as a threat. This is meant to maintain a technology monopoly, which is unfair to other countries and serves US hegemony, Chinese experts said.