A number of foreign hacker organizations have been utilizing malicious websites and overseas IP addresses to execute cyberattacks targeting China and other nations, according to China's national cybersecurity and information security information center on Monday.
These malicious websites and IPs are linked to specific Trojan programs or their control endpoints.
The types of cyberattacks include establishing botnets, phishing, stealing trade secrets and intellectual property, and infringing on citizens' personal information, presenting a serious risk to domestic networks and internet users in China.
Some of these activities are suspected to constitute criminal offenses, the center said.
The locations of the relevant malicious websites and IPs mainly involve the US, the Netherlands, Singapore, Turkey, Mexico, Vietnam, and others, according to the center.
Of the listed malicious websites and IP addresses, two were traced to the US.
The center recommended maintaining heightened vigilance toward all documents and links received through social media platforms or email channels, with a particular focus on situations where the source is unknown or untrustworthy. Avoid trusting or opening such files without verification.
Timely updates to threat intelligence products or network security devices are essential to block access to the identified malicious websites and IP addresses, and also promptly report to relevant authorities and cooperate in conducting on-site investigations and technical tracing, the center said.
President Xi Jinping has ordered all-out rescue efforts to save lives and minimize casualties following a 6.8-magnitude earthquake that took a heavy toll after jolting a county in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region Tuesday morning.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made an important instruction, demanding utmost efforts to carry out search and rescue and provide medical treatment for the injured.
He also urged efforts to prevent secondary disasters, properly resettle affected residents, and handle the aftermath effectively.
It is essential to strengthen earthquake monitoring and early warning, promptly allocate disaster relief supplies, expedite the repair of damaged infrastructure, ensure the basic needs of residents are met, and guarantee a safe and warm winter for all, Xi said.
In a Tuesday instruction, Premier Li Qiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, urged efforts to swiftly check the disaster situation and the extent of casualties, organize all-out search and rescue operations and minimize casualties.
He said as the quake-stricken area is located in a cold plateau region, every possible means must be employed to ensure the basic livelihood of the affected people and help them stay warm during the winter.
Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, led a team to the quake site to guide the rescue and relief efforts.
The Party secretary of Rongchang district, Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Gao Hongbo, urged officials to lead, drive, and guide local consumption, hoping that every official will buy new clothes to embrace the upcoming Spring Festival and dine out with their families every weekend, The Paper reported on Wednesday.
Gao's remarks were made at the economic work conference held locally on Monday.
In the meeting, Gao said that it is necessary to stimulate consumption across various sectors and vigorously implement the "three major consumption initiatives," which refers to promoting consumption through policies, activities and new media platforms, The Paper said.
In detail, officials should focus on stabilizing bulk consumption through policy guidance, attract external consumption through cultural and sports activities, and stimulate local consumption through new media platforms, said Gao.
Gao also urged officials to actively participate in consumption by dining out and purchasing new clothes. "The average meal cost per person in the area is between 60 and 100 yuan (around $8 and $13). If 10,000 people spend that, it amounts to 1 million yuan in a week, which can support local small businesses," Gao said, according to the report.
Additionally, Gao also called on social organizations and private enterprises to provide employees with extra wages and bonuses before the Spring Festival, recognizing employees' hard work and diligence, if the employers can afford, as reported by The Paper.
China on Wednesday announced interim measures for the implementation of a flexible retirement system to enforce the previously adopted policy of incrementally raising the statutory retirement age, the Xinhua News Agency reported. The measures stipulated the procedures for applying for flexible retirement and the requirements for receiving basic pensions, among other details.
The measures were released to implement the decision on gradually raising the statutory retirement age adopted in September by Chinese lawmakers, according to a notice published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee and the Ministry of Finance.
The decision, marking the first adjustment in the arrangement since the 1950s, said that starting from January 1, 2025, the statutory retirement age for men will be gradually raised from 60 to 63 in the course of 15 years, while that for women cadres will be raised from 55 to 58, and that for women blue-collar workers will be raised from 50 to 55, according to Xinhua.
"The retirement policy has been in place for a long time. After about 70 years, the population, economy and social situations in China have undergone earth-shaking changes. Therefore, the previous statutory retirement age is inconsistent with the current national conditions and future economic and social development," Yuan Xin, a vice president of the China Population Association and a professor at Nankai University, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
In the next five to 10 years, China will rapidly enter a severely aging society, and the retirement reform will have positive significance for easing the burden of elderly care, improving the efficiency of human resources use and reducing the burden of the entire social and economic operation, Li Changan, a professor at the Academy of China Open Economy Studies at the University of International Business and Economics, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
The implementation of the flexible retirement system is an important part of the gradual delay of the statutory retirement age reform in China, which is conducive to adapting to the diversified needs of workers and meeting the needs of different working and living arrangements, persons in charge from the three departments said in a statement published on Wednesday.
"The interim measures clarified the flexible retirement procedures, rights and interests protection and other contents, and put forward requirements for optimizing social security handling services," read the statement.
Back in July, the resolution adopted at the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee revealed that in line with the principle of voluntary participation with appropriate flexibility, China will advance reform to gradually raise the statutory retirement age in a prudent and orderly manner.
Adhering to such a principle, employees can choose to retire early or late in a flexible way on the basis of the statutory retirement age specified in the decision, said the statement.
"A gradual extension of the statutory retirement age means that the scale of the labor force released in the short term is limited and the impact on the job market is small," Yuan said.
In terms of the influence on the labor market, Li noted that the total number of people implementing delayed retirement is relatively small compared with China's huge workforce of more than 740 million. "The difference between the jobs of the young and the old is obvious, which means the extension of the statutory retirement age will have very limited impact on young people," Li said.
"Extending the statutory retirement age is common in most countries, and many developed countries have raised it to over 65," Li said.
Yuan echoed Li by saying that extending retirement age is a common practice in the international community to deal with aging problem.
"Most developed countries are still pursuing further reforms on retirement extension. The basic principles to be followed include gradualism, combination with life span, setting transition period, flexibility and voluntariness, incentive mechanism and gender parity, which are worth learning," said Yuan.
Chinese Ambassador to South Korea Dai Bing paid a visit to South Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Chung Byung-won on Friday. The two sides had an in-depth exchange of views on China-South Korea relations and other issues of mutual concern, according to a release from the Chinese Embassy in South Korea.
They agreed on strengthening communication, enhancing understanding, and promoting cooperation to jointly advance the healthy, stable, and positive development of China-South Korea strategic cooperative partnership, according to the release.
Dai was China's former deputy permanent representative to the United Nations (UN). He arrived in Seoul on December 27, 2024 to assume his new post as Chinese ambassador to South Korea, according to the embassy.
China's National Disease Control and Prevention Administration on Friday said it is conducting a pilot program to actively monitor cases of pneumonia of unknown causes, with plans for gradual nationwide implementation following necessary refinements.
Lei Zhenglong, head of the administration's prevention department, announced at a Friday press conference, where he summarized progress in building an intelligent, multi-point trigger system for monitoring and providing early warnings of infectious diseases.
In response to newly emerging infectious diseases, a reporting directory for pathogenic microorganisms is being developed, which will clarify laboratory reporting procedures and processes for verification and handling by disease control agencies, Lei said.
This laboratory network includes not only the laboratories of disease control agencies but also those of medical and health institutions, third-party testing agencies, universities and research institutes, as well as laboratories from other relevant departments, the official said.
In addition, the disease monitoring channels have been expanded.
The administration has optimized the network reporting system for infectious diseases to monitor acute respiratory infectious diseases, including COVID-19 and influenza, at 1,041 sentinel hospitals across all cities and representative counties, according to Lei.
Additionally, some of these sentinel hospitals have been selected to monitor various common respiratory pathogens. The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention releases multi-pathogen monitoring results to the public on a weekly basis and provides health advisories.
Lei also said that through various monitoring channels, including vector-borne diseases, urban sewage, global infectious disease information, and public sentiment, China has enhanced the sensitivity and accuracy of its infectious disease monitoring systems.
Lei also said China has established regional infectious disease monitoring, early warning, and emergency command information platforms, which have been initially established in some regions such as Beijing and East China's Zhejiang Province.
To ensure effective data integration related to infectious diseases between medical institutions and disease control agencies, the national intelligent monitoring and early warning software for infectious diseases has been deployed in public medical institutions at the secondary level and above across the country. As of now, the integration deployment rate has reached 71 percent.
Additionally, new technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence have been utilized to enhance the automatic analysis and early warning capabilities of infectious disease data, according to Lei.
Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed on Friday the long-term adherence to "one country, two systems" as Macao celebrates a quarter-century of transformative success since its return to the motherland.
At a televised ceremony held in a major sports stadium in Macao, Xi swore in Sam Hou Fai, a 62-year-old former senior judge, as the sixth-term chief executive of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR). Sam's team of principal officials for the SAR government was also sworn in before Xi.
After the inauguration, Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addressed an audience of over 1,000 people in the stadium.
Xi stated that great achievements of Macao since its return have proven to the world that "one country, two systems" has prominent institutional strengths and tremendous vitality.
Macao and its neighbor Hong Kong are China's two SARs governed under the "one country, two systems" policy since China resumed the exercise of sovereignty over them following long periods of Portuguese and British rule. The policy allows them to maintain their capitalist systems and ways of life within socialist China.
Xi said "one country, two systems" is a good policy that helps maintain long-term prosperity and stability in Hong Kong and Macao, a good policy that serves the noble cause of building a stronger country and achieving national rejuvenation, and a good policy that helps realize peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation between different social systems.
The values of peace, inclusiveness, openness and sharing that are embodied in the policy are shared by China and the rest of the world, and deserve to be jointly safeguarded, he added.
Delivering a brief speech at the airport after arriving in the city Wednesday, Xi called Macao "a pearl on the palm" of the motherland.
Xi on Thursday visited the Macau University of Science and Technology. He also inspected the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, praising it for bolstering Macao's economic diversification.
In response to the US announcement of military assistance worth $571.3 million and approval of $295 million worth of arms sales to Taiwan on Friday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Sunday that China strongly deplores and firmly opposes it and lodged serious protests at once with the US.
The spokesperson said the US move violates the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués, especially the August 17 Communiqué of 1982, and China’s sovereignty and security interests. The decision is a severe breach of the US leaders’ commitment of not supporting “Taiwan independence,” and sends a gravely wrong signal to “Taiwan independence” separatist forces.
The Taiwan question is at the core of China’s core interests, and the first red line that cannot be crossed in China-US relations. To aid “Taiwan independence” by arming Taiwan is just like playing with fire and will get the US burned, and to use the Taiwan question to contain China is doomed to fail. China urges the US to immediately stop arming Taiwan and stop the dangerous moves that undermine peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits. We will take all measures necessary to firmly defend national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, the spokesperson said.
US President Joe Biden approved $571.3 million in defense assistance for the island of Taiwan, the White House confirmed on Friday. On the same day, the US also announced the potential sales of upgraded tactical data link systems and gun mounts for ships to the island, valued at around $295 million.
Chinese experts believe that the Biden administration's frequent military sales and assistance moves before a change of US government are designed to pressure the next administration to adhere more closely to his policy framework regarding Taiwan question. However, they argue that these moves will have limited impact on the island’s defense capabilities and primarily serve to enrich US arms manufacturers.
In a brief statement, the White House announced that Biden had authorized the drawdown "of up to $571.3 million in defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to support Taiwan,” according to AFP.
The statement did not provide details of the military assistance package of the $571.3 million. It was the third of its kind after the $567 million and $345 million in assistance announced on September 30 this year and on July 28, 2023.
Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert, questioned why the US didn’t reveal details of what the $571.3 million defense assistance consists of. He said it is likely the aid was given to Taiwan authority as a bait to purchase, “it’s more like I give you some sweet and you spend money.”
In September earlier this year, Taiwan authorities said they were looking into the issue of mouldy armour and expired ammunition among “unserviceable” US military equipment delivered to island of Taiwan, according to South China Morning Post.
The shipments included 120 water-damaged pallets containing more than 3,000 body armor plates and 500 tactical vests that were “soaking wet and covered in mould”, according to the US Office of Inspector General, which launched an investigation after the matter was flagged by Taiwan officials.
The US government also announced on Friday the potential sales of parts for 76 mm autocannon and upgraded Link-16 system to Taiwan, valued at around $295 million.
Both the 76 mm autocannon and upgraded Link-16 system only serve to sustain the existing combat capabilities of the island of Taiwan, offering no significant improvements, Song told the Global Times.
Link 16 is part of a military tactical data network used by NATO members. It allows planes, ships and land-based vehicles to share near-real-time tactical information by text, image or voice, media reported.
76 mm autocannon is a type of shipborne gun used by the island's navy, also known as a naval gun, said Song.
One thing is clear, a large amount of money needs to be paid to American arms dealers, and the prices for these military purchases are often much higher than market rates, forcing the Taiwan authority to incur substantial expenses while primarily benefiting American arms manufacturers, Song said.
The military sales announced on Friday came less than a month after the US State Department approved the potential sale of spare parts for F-16 jets and radars to Taiwan valued at approximately $385 million, the Pentagon said on November 29.
On December 5, China took countermeasures against 13 US military firms and six senior executives in response to the US announcement of arms sales to China's Taiwan region.
The Taiwan question is China’s domestic affairs, and it is the core of China's core interests. It is the first red line in China-US relations that cannot be crossed. The Chinese people are determined to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, Zhang Xiaogang, spokesperson from China's Ministry of National Defense said on Saturday in response to Pentagon report on China's military and security developments.
The US is intensifying military ties with Taiwan, accelerating the arming of island of Taiwan through arms sales and military aid, which seriously violates the one-China principle. This will only fuel the arrogance of "Taiwan secessionism" and escalate tensions in the Taiwan Straits, potentially leading to conflict and war, Zhang said.
China urges the US to adhere to the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-US joint communiques, to recognize the extreme danger of "Taiwan independence" separatism, to understand the serious consequences of playing with fire, to stop official exchanges and military contacts with island of Taiwan, and to cease condoning and supporting "Taiwan independence" separatist forces. The US should not continue down the wrong path, Zhang noted.
The first batch of US-made M1A2T tanks sold to the Taiwan island reportedly arrived in Taipei on December 15 following the arrival of accessory equipment of the tanks in Kaohsiung before, but a military expert from Chinese mainland said the tanks, trumpeted by media on the island as "the most powerful combat vehicle on the ground," are too bulky and heavy for island combat and will only serve as easy targets for drones and attack helicopters.
In response to an inquiry regarding claim by the Taiwan island's "defense ministry" that it had received "the most powerful combat vehicle on the ground" from the US, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on December 16 that China firmly opposes military ties between the US and the Taiwan island, opposes US arms sales to the island, stressing that China's position on this remains consistent and clear.
Traditionally, US presidents approaching the end of their term would refrain from making significant diplomatic moves. Yet the Biden administration has frequently approved arms sales or assistance to Taiwan before Biden leaves office, indicating an attempt to pressure the next administration to comply with his policies regarding Taiwan question, Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Saturday.
If the next administration were to deviate from the framework set by Biden, it would require significant effort to address the challenges created under Biden’s policies, said Li.
Furthermore, Li stated that Biden administration's frequent moves are aimed at intensifying Washington's efforts to confront China using the Taiwan question. The military advantage that the mainland has over island of Taiwan is quite evident, which is why the US is now eagerly selling weapons to Taiwan region. This reflects the deep anxiety in of the Biden administration, said Li.
In response to media reports that a businessman who has settled status in the UK was banned from entering the UK last year for allegedly posing national security risk to the UK due to his relationship with China's United Front Department, a spokesperson from the Chinese Embassy in the UK said on Friday this is a typical case of the thief crying "catch thief."
Some people in the UK are so keen on making up all kinds of "spy" stories against China. "Their purpose is to smear China and sabotage normal people-to-people exchanges between China and the UK. We strongly condemn this," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson pointed out that the United Front led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) endeavors to bring together various political parties and people from all walks of life, ethnic groups and organizations to promote cooperation between the CPC and people who are not members of it.
The CPC and the Chinese government always believe that different civilizations should respect and learn from each other with an open mind, work for harmonious coexistence, win-win cooperation and peaceful development of all countries, and promote normal people-to-people exchanges and friendship with other countries. Non-interference in each other's internal affairs is an important principle upheld by Chinese diplomacy. The Chinese side is fair and square, above-board and beyond reproach, the spokesperson said.
Some on the British side repeatedly use China's United Front work as a pretext to accuse China of wrongdoing, discredit China's political system, and undermine normal exchanges and cooperation between China and the UK. Such sinister plots will never succeed, the spokesperson noted.
"We urge the relevant parties in the UK to immediately stop creating trouble, stop spreading the 'China threat' narrative, and stop undermining normal exchanges between China and the UK," the spokesperson said.
