US Secretary of State Antony Blinken unveiled Wednesday a new program to boost production of semiconductors in some Latin American countries. "This initiative will turbocharge countries' capacity to assemble, to test and to package semiconductors, beginning with Mexico, Panama and Costa Rica," Blinken said, according to AFP.

It's not a bad thing if Latin American countries gain manufacturing investment from the US. But the program may be just "lip service" from the US. 

The Western Hemisphere Semiconductor Initiative comes as Washington tries to reignite the flame of semiconductor manufacturing in the US. The government is flexing all policy muscles to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing by suppressing its competitors. So, it is almost impossible for the US to give full support to other countries' efforts in advancing semiconductor manufacturing. 

What the US wants is perhaps to establish small cliques of allies in the Americas. Even if semiconductor industrial chains can be established in the Americas under the Western Hemisphere Semiconductor Initiative, the US-led alliance will require Latin American countries to serve US interests. Rising labor costs in the US may push some labor-intensive semiconductor manufacturing to Latin American countries with lower costs. However, those businesses have low added value.

Semiconductor manufacturing is divided into two parts - front-end and back-end. The front-end segment refers to the manufacturing of wafers, while the back-end process consists of packaging and testing. It is widely believed that the US will focus on the front-end part. 

Although the US may bring Latin American countries some small-scale investment in back-end semiconductor manufacturing, we don't think it will be very helpful in boosting the development of manufacturing in Latin American countries.

Although the US is a world leader in cutting-edge chip design, its share of global semiconductor manufacturing reportedly declined from 37 percent in 1990 to about 12 percent in 2023. Even if the US is truly willing to extend its semiconductor industrial chain to Latin American countries, the investment it can bring will be limited.

Reviving US manufacturing has been a key goal for the Biden administration, but it is not an easy task. Short-term incentives and subsidies cannot improve the long-term competitiveness of the US manufacturing industry. If the US fails to revive its chip sector, the Western Hemisphere Semiconductor Initiative will end up being just words for Latin American countries.

Because of different national conditions, the economic and manufacturing situations in Latin America are complex and uneven. Some countries are still in the initial stage of industrialization, and there will be many technical obstacles that stand in the way of producing cutting-edge semiconductors. 

Those countries in Latin America have no foundation in chip manufacturing in terms of technology, talent or the support of upstream and downstream industrial chains. The Western Hemisphere Semiconductor Initiative will be of limited help to stimulate the development of those countries' manufacturing sectors.

Some Latin American countries are accelerating their integration into the global semiconductor manufacturing chain. For example, Brazil has introduced multiple policies to support the development of the semiconductor industry.

However, those countries need to realize that they cannot rely on the US to develop their semiconductor industries, especially front-end chip manufacturing. 

Those countries must pursue a path of independent innovation and overcome challenges in developing strategic emerging industries such as semiconductor manufacturing.

China's semiconductor industry has for many years been struggling to catch up. The country has made great strides toward innovation and a technology-driven economy in recent years. 

For the semiconductor industry, China has always maintained an open and cooperative attitude. China and Latin American countries share broad potential for cooperation in such areas as semiconductor-related industries.

China's State Council, the country's cabinet, announced on Thursday further opening-up measures in six trial cities across various areas, including tourism, cultural and telecom industries.

These measures, which come after a series of opening-up policies such as visa-free entry, demonstrate China's commitment to increasing its pace of opening-up and will further boost foreign investment sentiment in the country, experts said.

The six cities are Shenyang in Northeast China's Liaoning Province, Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu Province, Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province, Wuhan in Central China's Hubei Province, Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province and Chengdu Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

These pilot cities will implement temporarily adjusted provisions in certain industries, allowing foreign investments to greater access in aged care, travel, telecom, entertainment and live performance businesses.

For example, foreign investment can establish non-profit aged care institutions in Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Chengdu.

Foreign investments are also allowed to set up travel agencies in Shenyang, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Chengdu and operate outbound travel business in areas excluding China's Taiwan island. 

Local cultural department authorities in Nanjing, Wuhan, Guangzhou and Chengdu will have the authority to approve foreign live performance groups to perform in these cities while in the past it will go through the approval from the central level.

In the telecom sector, Shenyang, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Chengdu will open up virtual private network or VPN services for foreign investment through joint ventures.

In recent years, foreign investment in China's service sector has grown rapidly. As Chinese people become wealthier, there has seen a significant increase in demand for services such as aged care, quality of life improvements, various value-added services, Zhang Yansheng, chief researcher of China Center for International Economic Exchanges, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Zhang noted that the pilot cities are well selected as they are among China's new first-tier cities, which are well-developed and possess unique strengths, making them highly appealing to foreign capital.

The move, following recent sweeping opening-up measures such as visa-free policies, showcased China's vigorous efforts and confidence to be an open economy, Hu Qimu, a deputy secretary-general of the Digital-Real Economies Integration Forum 50, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Hu highlighted the steadfast recovery of China's tourism sector. Both foreign visitors' arrivals and domestic travelers' journeys have placed higher demands on service capabilities, Hu said, noting that the move will stimulate the tourism boom in these pilot cities and meet the rising international travel demands.

"Expanding opening-up will not only meet China's industrial development needs but also offer vast potential to foreign investors to share the country's market dividends," Hu said.

China has rolled out multiple policies to attract foreign investment this year. 

China recorded 14.64 million inbound trips made by foreigners in the first half of this year, up 152.7 percent year-on-year, following measures introduced since January, the National Immigration Administration announced on July 5, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

In March, the government released an action plan proposing 24 measures, including measures to expand market access, foster a level playing field and facilitate the flow of innovation factors.

Foreign direct investment in the Chinese mainland, in actual use, totaled 412.5 billion yuan ($57.94 billion) in the first five months of 2024, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.

A total of 21,764 new foreign-invested firms were established across China in the reporting period, an increase of 17.4 percent, the data showed.

China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) issued notice on Thursday, saying that investigating authorities will use a sampling method in anti-dumping probe into EU pork, while providing further details on the sampling plan and the preliminary sampling results for anti-dumping case involving pork and pig by-products from Europe.

Given the large number of EU exporters and Chinese domestic producers involved, a full investigation would overburden investigating authorities and prevent the timely completion of the investigation, according to a ministry notice. Therefore, in accordance with the relevant provisions of corresponding domestic rules and regulations, the investigative authority decided on the sampling approach.

Companies are selected for sampling based on their export quantities to China during the dumping investigation period, with the top three exporters in terms of export quantity selected, the notice read.

Based on initial sampling, the investigation identified the top three EU exporters by export volume during the investigation period. These exporters are Danish Crown A/S, VION Boxtel B.V., and LITERA MEAT S.L.U., have been instructed to complete a questionnaire within a specified timeframe.

The announcement came as the European Commission (EC), the executive body of the EU, announced to impose additional tariffs of up to 38.1 percent on electric vehicles (EVs) imported from China starting in July, which prompted harsh criticism from Chinese officials as well as industry and business groups. Chinese officials have repeatedly vowed to take all necessary measures to defend the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies.

In a notice issued on June 17, MOFCOM said that the China Animal Agriculture Association on June 6, on behalf of the Chinese pork and pig by-products industry, submitted an application for an anti-dumping investigation into certain pork and pig by-products originating from the EU. After a review of the application, MOFCOM determined that it meets the requirements for launching an investigation in accordance with the relevant laws.

The probe will examine certain pork and pig by-products originating from the EU from January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023.

It will also investigate any damage done to domestic Chinese industry from between January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2023.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the investigation agency selected the top 20 enterprises in terms of pig slaughter volume in the country in 2023 as sampling enterprises.

The total slaughter volume of the 24 sampled enterprises in 2023 was approximately 44.78 million pigs, accounting for 6.16 percent of the national pig slaughter volume last year.

The probe is expected to end before June 17, 2025, but may be extended for half a year under special circumstances.

"Starting from 2023, the EU's exports of certain pork and pig by-products to China have increased significantly, making it necessary to investigate pricing factors in accordance with WTO rules," Cui Hongjian, a professor from the Academy of Regional and Global Governance under Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times in a previous interview.

Chinese analysts said that the MOFCOM probe was launched at the request of the domestic industry in line with WTO rules, in stark contrast to the actions of the European Commission’s investigation, which was launched without an application from relevant domestic industry groups in the EU, while the investigation process was unfair, non-objective and in potential violation of WTO rules.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released on Tuesday an update to its World Economic Outlook, predicting that China's economic growth rate will be 5 percent in 2024, an upward revision of 0.4 percentage points from the forecast in April.

The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) started its third plenary session in Beijing on Monday morning.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a work report on behalf of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and expounded on a draft decision of the CPC Central Committee on further comprehensively deepening reform and advancing Chinese modernization.

Despite the fallacies of the illegal South China Sea Arbitration Award released on July 12, 2016 being exposed, the Philippines continues to ignore the truth and instead celebrated the so-called "8th anniversary"of the illegal arbitration award with Western allies on Friday. Analysts called it a "political show" that is simply a way to perpetuate the "China threat" rhetoric and manipulate international perception in order to constrain China on the South China Sea issue.

Local media reported that the Philippines hosted an alleged "biggest-ever West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) conference" in Manila on July 12, which was attended by key military leaders, ambassadors and experts from the US, Australia, Canada, France, and Japan. 

The US and the EU have issued statements to express support for the illegal arbitral award, which violates China's sovereignty. 

In response to the statements, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Friday that the US selfishly refuses to accede to UNCLOS, and yet often lectures other countries on their implementation of UNCLOS. This is hypocrisy, double standard and selective application of international law. 

The US has gone back on its public commitments of not taking a position on sovereignty issues in the South China Sea. It encouraged the Philippines to launch the arbitration on the South China Sea, and blatantly released a statement to endorse the award. This is political manipulation aimed at using allies to destabilize the South China Sea and the region and advance the nefarious agenda of going after China, Lin said. 

With the concerted efforts of China and ASEAN members, the South China Sea has been generally stable. China will work with ASEAN members to keep the South China Sea peaceful and stable, and contribute to regional prosperity and development, the spokesperson said.  

Lin urged countries outside the region led by the US to earnestly respect these efforts, refrain from statements and actions that disrupt regional peace and stability, and stop being a troublemaker in the South China Sea. 

Experts are urging the Philippines to abandon the illusion of being a "winner" in the ruling and to stop relying on it to handle disputes. 

Scholars also stressed the importance of remaining vigilant against the Philippines potentially inviting additional external forces to meddle with the South China Sea issue, as this could heighten the risk of military conflicts.

Arbitration is a manipulated trap

Chinese institutes released a report on Thursday thoroughly outlining the fallacies of the South China Sea Arbitration Award and the damage it does to the international rule of law. It explains why the Philippines' claims are illegal, and why the arbitration award cannot be accepted.

The report pointed out that Nanhai Zhudao (South China Sea islands) are China's inherent territory, and that the Philippines' territorial claim over part of Nansha Qundao is groundless from the perspectives of both history and international law. 

Neither the international treaties that established the territorial boundaries of the Philippines nor the Philippine Constitution prior to 1997 included the Nansha Islands or Huangyan Island in the Philippine territory. For many years after the end of World War II, the US, an ally of the Philippines, recognized China's sovereignty over the Nansha Islands in diplomatic correspondence, applications for surveys, and notification of navigational overflight plans. Maps and books published by the US during the same period all recognized China's sovereignty over these islands in the South China Sea.

"With a well-recorded history and hard evidence, the Arbitration Award cannot give legitimacy to the Philippines' illegal claims in the South China Sea. Rather, it exposes the rogue logic of the Philippines as a thief shouting 'stop the thief'," Ding Duo, a deputy director of the Institute of Maritime Law and Policy at the China Institute for South China Sea Studies, told the Global Times. 

Backed by the Arbitration Award and a small number of non-regional countries, the Philippines calls white black and confuses right and wrong. The US has incited the Philippines and even showed it how to escalate tensions step by step with China. This is the main reason behind the growing tensions in the South China Sea, said the scholar. 

The Philippines and the US held a high-profile "commemoration" of the Arbitration Award, precisely demonstrating that the South China Sea arbitration case is a trap manipulated by the US, initiated by the Philippines, and carried out in collusion with the arbitral tribunal in the Hague, he argued.

Ding said that fallacies in the arbitration ruling regarding the interpretation of treaties, determination of facts, and acceptance of evidence have been widely questioned and criticized, and its political manipulation is truly obvious. 

Introducing external risks and chaos

As more extraterritorial countries have increased their military activities in the South China Sea and intensified unilateral actions to consolidate their vested interests, concerns are rising that the Philippines is introducing more external risks into the region.

Japan and the Philippines signed a defense agreement on Monday that allows the deployment of Japanese forces for joint drills in the Philippines, according to media reports. Furthermore, it is evident from the first ever US-Japan-Philippines trilateral summit held in Washington in April that a new military confrontation bloc is forming. 

The alliance and military cooperation between the three countries are strengthening, bringing risks into the entire South China Sea region in the Western Pacific, Wu Shicun, the chairman of the Huayang Research Center for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance, told the Global Times. 

Meanwhile, the US has continued to strengthen its military activities on China's doorstep in the South China Sea and surrounding areas. A think tank report released in March revealed that the US heightened deployment of aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and bombers, holding intensified close-in reconnaissance operations, and holding joint exercises in 2023, which posed growing risks to China-US relations.

Following the US, Japan will become a new challenge and risk factor in the South China Sea. This will lower the threshold for the Japanese Self-Defense Forces to enter the South China Sea and Philippine military bases, providing great convenience for Japan to provide weapons, equipment, and training support to the Philippines. There is now a higher possibility of a new arms race and small-scale conflicts in the region, Wu warned.

In less than two years, the current Philippine government has nearly dismantled the good practices established over recent years for managing maritime differences and properly handling the South China Sea issue between China and the Philippines. The bilateral relationship, which had gradually emerged from the shadow of the illegal South China Sea arbitration ruling, now appears to have reset and is even regressing, Wu said.

In a previous exclusive interview with the Global Times, former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte expressed regret over the current Philippine government's approach and policies on the South China Sea issue. He said he felt "very sad" about the loss of the peace during his administration, and called for both countries to resolve disputes through peaceful dialogue.

China has a growing capability, with rock solid resolve, to safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights in the South China Sea, Ding stressed. "The countermeasures against the Philippines and the costs it has borne fully demonstrate that expecting China to accept a unilateral ruling under comprehensive pressure on the South China Sea issue is a fantasy. The Philippines will end up with swallowing the bitter consequences," said Ding.

China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) released on Friday a case involving a foreign spy intelligence agency using campus loans to pressure and threaten a student borrower through high-interest loans, violent debt collection, and intimidation in order to steal national secrets from China.

According to a microfilm released by MSS, An Yong, a photography student at a prestigious university, fell into financial distress after spending a large amount of money on high-end equipment.

An then applied for a 20,000 yuan ($2,753) campus loan with a high interest rate, which he failed to repay. As graduation approached, the lender, Li Ming, demanded An to work part-time to repay the debt, but An didn't realize that Li and his accomplices are agents of a foreign spy intelligence agency.

An's father is a staff member of a key scientific research unit in China, and has access to documents and subjects involving state secrets. The agents' goal was to use the campus loan to coerce An to go to his father's unit and take photos of sensitive documents, and by threatening their future and reputation, blackmailed An and his father into cooperating with them to steal state secrets.

However, the documents that An photographed did not involve confidential substance. An's father eventually chose to call the national security hotline to report the incident.

An's father took the initiative to report the situation and cooperated with An to assist the national security authorities in thwarting the illegal plot of foreign spies to steal state secrets, avoiding irreparable and significant losses. The national security authorities seriously criticized and educated An and his father, and did not pursue criminal liability against them.

According to MSS, a person who commits the crime of espionage and surrenders or shows meritorious conduct may be mitigated, alleviated or exempted from punishment, and shall be rewarded if he or she shows significant meritorious conduct.

The State Grid Corporation of China recently completed the grid connection of GCL-Xin, Banqiao, and Datang energy storage power stations in Nanjing, located in East China's Jiangsu Province. These three new energy storage power stations on the side of the power grid can increase the short-term emergency peak capacity by 200,000 kilowatts for the Nanjing power grid, meeting the daily electricity demand of 50,000 households. This will also improve the new energy consumption capacity, save 64,000 tons of standard coal consumption, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 200,000 tons per year, learned the Global Times.

"The energy storage station will charge during the low load period, discharge to the grid during the peak period, and participate in grid interaction through grid frequency modulation and providing emergency backup power supply. This will not only promote peak load shifting and valley filling of the power grid, relieving power tension in local areas during peak periods of winter and summer electricity consumption, but also ensure the safe, stable, and green operation of the power system," said Deng Xing, the development department director of State Grid Nanjing Power Supply Company.

Banqiao Energy Storage Power Station is crucial for ensuring peak summer power supply for the Nanjing West Ring Network in 2024. It can store 200,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in a single charge, meeting the daily electricity demand of 25,000 households in the West Ring network during peak periods.

GCL Energy Storage Power Station, Banqiao Energy Storage Power Station, and Datang Energy Storage Power Station are the first power grid side energy storage power stations in Jiangning district, Yuhuatai district, and Lishui district of Nanjing, respectively. They utilize a lithium iron phosphate battery system, with one 110-kilovolt booster station and two 220-kilovolt booster stations built.

The State Grid Nanjing Power Supply Company has provided "one to one" guidance and "housekeeper" service for enterprises, conducting numerous field surveys to understand the construction progress. Additionally, they have collaborated with the Power Dispatch and Control Center of the State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co., Ltd. to study and optimize energy storage charging and discharging strategies to maximize the role of energy storage in peak load shifting and valley filling.

In the future, the State Grid Nanjing Power Supply Company plans to continue optimizing the service process of energy storage projects, improving efficiency in all aspects, creating more new demonstration projects for energy storage, and aiding in the promotion of green and low-carbon transformation and the construction of a new power system, the company said.

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.