The Pinglu Canal video: From Mountains to the Sea. Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region already has a coastline. So why spend years cutting a canal through the mountains? The answer is terrain. The 134.2-km Pinglu Canal will give southwest China a new southbound water route to Beibu Gulf, with giant ship locks moving 5,000-ton-class vessels across a total drop of about 65 meters. A short canal on the map. A much bigger connection to the world. 視頻有中英文字幕: 平陸運河影片：從群山到大海。廣西壯族自治區已經有海岸線。咁點解要花幾年時間喺山入面開鑿一條運河？答案係地形。全長134.2公里嘅平陸運河將為中國西南地區提供一條新嘅南向水路通往北部灣，巨型船閘將5,000噸級船舶跨越總落差約65米。地圖上一條短運河。卻係連接世界嘅更大紐帶。
American logistic expert living in China last 13 years reporting from China video: Power projects to support data centers in US shut down after Trump’s anti-China Executive Order when 80% of power projects parts and equipments came from China.
President Trump signed a sweeping Executive Order, that bans the import or installation of bulk power equipment from China.
The EO is wreaking havoc in the power generation industries, and project developers are halting projects, pending federal clarification of the new rules.
Chinese firms have effective monopolies in most of the supply chains across power generation, and any American company faces severe risks and penalties if they source components, parts, technology, or hardware from China.
US utilities are struggling to keep up with surging demand for electricity, driven mostly by AI data centers. They have budgeted hundreds of billions of dollars to catch up.
But the new rules not only threaten new builds; companies that installed Chinese-sourced parts before the EO may be required to replace them.
On September 18, inside a high-speed rail carriage, the song “I Love You, China” rang out. Those singing were a group of teenagers from Hong Kong and Macao, dressed in uniform school clothes, with visitor badges hanging on their chests, and behind them was a blue banner reading “Salute the National Flag.” That day was the 95th anniversary of the September 18 Incident; on that journey, they set off from West Kowloon Station and headed north all the way to Beijing, keeping an appointment with the national flag.
SCMP HK: US’s China containment failed miserably and backfired. According to the latest data from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) Critical Technology Tracker, in the 74 key technology categories tracked, the United States leads in only 8 categories, while China leads in 66 categories. The gap is closing fast.
US-sanctioned Chinese companies are increasingly turning to open-source research to innovate and reverse-engineer restricted foreign technology, with a 72 per cent surge in scientific literature citations in their patent applications, according to a new study.
While the United States said it expanded its Entity List to safeguard national security and preserve its technological edge, an analysis of Chinese patent filings over the 12 years until 2022 showed that US restrictions on access to technology had driven Chinese firms to widely source publicly available scientific knowledge and conduct more of their own research.
Video: The Fed Has Lost Control! US-China Heads Toward “No Turning Back” The Fed just hiked rates again — but the real story isn’t the hike itself. It’s what comes after. 影片有中英文字幕： 聯準會已經失控！美中走向「無法回頭」 聯準會才剛又升息——但真正的重點不是升息本身，而是之後會發生什麼。
High-rate deposit hoarding, propping up the AI bull market, protecting the elite’s assets — that’s what the Fed is really doing. But there’s one thing it’s missing: this round of inflation is a supply-side problem, not a “too much money printed” problem. For the first time in 40 years, the Fed has completely run out of tools to fight inflation.
Since 2021, the Fed has thrown everything at inflation — and it still can’t get back to 2%. What does that really mean? Is US debt heading toward a “soft default”? Why is the probability of a global financial crisis climbing sharply over the next 3 years?
Even more critical: all of this is pushing the US-China rivalry into a new phase — not compromise, but a fight with no turning back.
This video breaks down the real logic behind the Fed’s rate hike, and where global assets and US-China relations may be headed next.
A brief conversation via WhatsApp with an old friend, a fellow hotel and restaurant management alumni of the University of Hawaii. He was the development vice president in China for the French hotel group, the Accors, the largest hotel chain in the world. He was one of the dozen friends who became very successful in China. He is the younger brother of Ronny TONG Ka Wah 湯家驊
同一位老朋友透過WhatsApp簡短傾咗幾句。佢係我喺夏威夷大學酒店及餐飲管理學系嘅同學。佢曾經係法國酒店集團雅高（Accor）——全球最大酒店連鎖集團——喺中國嘅發展副總裁。佢係嗰十幾個喺中國發展得非常成功嘅朋友之一。佢係湯家驊（Ronny TONG Ka Wah）嘅細佬。
Johnson: Another ride on the 55-km HongKong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) to directly access the HKIA for a flight departure. Excellent world-class infrastructure and travel logistics convenience. 又一次使用 55 公里长的港珠澳大桥从珠海直往香港国际机场乘机。超棒的世界级基建工程和出行流程的方便。 Raymond: Last time I ride on the bridge with you was 2018. You bought full fare but discovered you qualified for senior discount, return and reissue ticket at 1/2 price HK$30. It seems like only yesterday! I missed not being in China, stuck here in the 3rd world country America! 上次同你一齊坐車過橋已經係2018年嘅事。你買咗全票，但發現自己原來合資格攞長者優惠，於是返去換票，半價HK$30。好似只係昨日嘅事咁！我好掛住唔喺中國嘅日子，被困喺呢個第三世界國家美國！
Johnson: Indeed it’s still so fresh in my mind. 的確，呢件事喺我腦海入面依然歷歷在目.
Representatives of western embassies descended on Joshua Wong’s trial, all pledging to report back to their countries of the proceedings. What hypocrisy, it was the uS which rejected Joshua’s request for political asylum too! And what’s the point of their attendance anyway, when Joshua himself admitted guilt of collusion with foreign powers? Were they just putting on an act?
This morning, a singer friend of mine in San Francisco, who is from China, sent me a video about Singtao San Francisco editor Joseph Leung’s resignation. By Johnson Choi, MBA, International Business Consultant since 1985
I graduated from the hotel and restaurant management program at the University of Hawaii. We were taught to greet every guest with the spirit of Aloha and a smile. It wasn’t just a technique; it was a philosophy. Aloha means treating people with warmth, respect, and genuine care — making a stranger feel like family.
From the 1970s through the 2000s, we actually practiced it. Visitors to Hawaii felt it the moment they stepped off the plane. But over the years, that spirit has slowly eroded — and not because of technology. Because of us.
The Tip That Rewards Bad Service
Consider how the service industry works today. Many establishments now build an automatic 20–25% service fee — effectively a tip — into the bill. Whether the server is attentive, indifferent, or outright rude, that money lands in their pocket all the same. The incentive to earn a guest’s goodwill has quietly disappeared.
When a tip is guaranteed, service becomes a transaction rather than a relationship. The smile becomes optional. And when customers sense that their satisfaction no longer matters, they stop expecting warmth — and eventually stop valuing it.
A Mellow Voice vs. an Impatient Spouse
Think about the guidance system in your car. You make a wrong turn, and a calm, gentle voice says, “Please continue for two blocks and make a right to get back on track.” No judgment. No raised voice. Just a helpful correction.
Now imagine an impatient spouse sitting beside you when you make that same wrong turn. Too often, what follows is swearing and yelling — adding stress to an already stressful moment rather than solving anything.
That contrast is the whole story. The machine is patient, polite, and effective. The human, in that moment, is none of those things. We notice the difference, even if we don’t admit it.
Why the Public May Welcome the Robots
This is why I believe the hospitality industry is ready for robotics to take over most service jobs — and why the public may embrace it more enthusiastically than we expect.
Imagine checking into a hotel or ordering a meal with:
· No waiting for someone to acknowledge you · No attitude, no sighing, no eye-rolling · No mandatory 20–25% service fee tacked onto the bill · Consistent, courteous, efficient service every single time
Strip away the service fee, and the cost of dining out or traveling drops noticeably. Add reliable, polite service on top of that, and the value proposition becomes hard to argue with. Customers may find they enjoy the experience more — not because robots are charming, but because humans stopped being charming first.
The Real Culprit
It would be easy to blame AI for taking these jobs. But technology doesn’t create demand for itself. It fills a vacuum. When an industry stops delivering genuine hospitality, when a guaranteed tip replaces earned gratitude, when attitude replaces Aloha — the door is already open.
If AI takes over most of the service industry, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We abandoned the very thing that made human service irreplaceable. The robots are not the problem. They are simply the answer to a question we stopped asking: What made us worth choosing in the first place?
In September 1940, near the market town of Fushi in Yongding, Fujian, a young woman covered in wounds was being marched toward a hillside. She had been hung up and beaten for three consecutive nights, and could barely stand on her feet, yet she still sang anti-Japanese war songs loudly along the way. 1940年9月，福建永定撫市墟場附近，一名遍體鱗傷的年輕女子被押向山坡。她已連續遭到三夜吊打，雙腳幾乎無法站穩，沿途卻仍高聲唱著抗戰歌曲。
A pit had already been dug at the execution ground. Her executioners pressed her one last time to reveal the underground organization, and were met with silence once again. Then they pushed her into the pit and buried her alive.
Her name was Chen Kangrong. She was only 25 years old when she sacrificed her life.
In 1915, Chen Kangrong was born into an overseas Chinese family in Burma, with ancestral roots in Yongding, Fujian. Her father, Chen Ximei, had followed Sun Yat-sen in revolution in his early years, and this family environment led her to pay attention to China’s situation from childhood.
In 1930, at the age of 15, Chen Kangrong returned to China with her father. She first attended middle school at the Jimei School in Xiamen, and later was admitted to Xiamen University. Influenced by progressive teachers and friends, she began participating in student and social movements, and soon drew the attention of the authorities.
In 1934, in order to temporarily avoid investigation, she returned to Burma and taught at a Chinese girls’ school in Rangoon, while also taking part in overseas Chinese anti-Japanese salvation activities. Her father hoped she would stay in Burma and live a relatively stable life, but she soon returned to China again and went back to Xiamen University.
After the full-scale War of Resistance broke out in 1937, Chen Kangrong joined the Chinese Communist Party and devoted herself to anti-Japanese propaganda work in Xiamen. She joined the Women’s Comfort Association and cultural circles’ anti-enemy support groups, led young people into the streets to give speeches and teach anti-Japanese songs, and also taught literacy and the principles of national salvation at women’s night schools.
In 1938, when the Second Detachment of the New Fourth Army went north to fight the Japanese, the underground organization in western Fujian needed more people to go into the countryside. Chen Kangrong used the alias “Chen Rong” and returned to Qiling in Yongding, where she served as a teacher at a local elementary school.
The classroom was her public identity and also her cover for carrying out anti-Japanese work. She used wall newspapers, assemblies, and speeches to promote the War of Resistance, organized salvation drama troupes to perform plays such as Put Down Your Whip and Catch the Traitor, and mobilized the public to donate money in support of the front lines.
A young woman born overseas, who could originally have stayed in Rangoon to teach, instead chose to return to her hometown as war approached. It was not that she did not know the danger; she simply set aside a stable life again and again.
In 1940, the situation in western Fujian deteriorated sharply, and local security forces began hunting down underground workers. The organization sensed something was wrong and told Chen Kangrong to go up into the mountains to hide, but danger came faster than expected.
On the night of the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, she was at home packing her belongings when security forces suddenly surrounded the house. Chen Kangrong immediately swallowed two slips of paper with intelligence on them, and also took down the clothing hung by the window that served as a contact signal, warning comrades that something had gone wrong here.
Only after doing all this did she step out of the room. By then the front door was already blocked, and she was arrested on the spot, then taken to the military station in Fushi town.
Her interrogators demanded she give up the names of other Communist Party members, but she refused to speak. After inducements failed, someone pretended to be an old classmate to persuade her to surrender, even offering marriage and wealth as conditions, but she still refused resolutely.
Finally, the enemy brought her a “confession letter” and gave her three days to write it, threatening to skin her alive if she refused. Three days later, they retrieved the paper from her cell. On it there was no confession and no one’s name, only a four-line poem:
“Youth is beyond compare in value; why speak of reunion? To uphold justice, why fear being skinned alive?”
Enraged, the guards dragged her out of the cell and hung her up and beat her for three consecutive nights. Chen Kangrong fainted many times, but still did not reveal information about the underground organization, nor did she write a single plea for mercy on the confession letter.
In mid-September, she was taken to the hillside opposite the market. Relevant local records say that as she walked toward the execution ground she sang all the way, and even near the pit she still shouted slogans against the Japanese and against traitors, before being buried alive.
In 1944, when the CPC Yongding County Committee formed a guerrilla armed force, it named the unit the “Kangrong Detachment.” This name remained in the mountainous region of western Fujian thereafter, and ensured that the young teacher who had once stood in a classroom teaching children to read did not disappear on a desolate mountain in 1940.
The heaviest part of Chen Kangrong’s story is not how horrifying the torture is described as being, but that the enemy never obtained from her mouth the names they wanted. With her silence she protected comrades still active in the mountains, and kept herself forever at the age of 25.
She once had the chance to stay in Burma, far from pursuit and the chaos of war; yet she returned to China three times, giving her teaching rod, her podium, and her youth to that storm-tossed era.
In the end, she would not even leave behind a confession letter.
What she left behind was only a four-line poem, and a name that betrayed no one — Chen Kangrong.
