CHINA TRADES WEAPONS TO HOUTHIS IN EXCHANGE FOR RED SEA PASSAGE
China is providing the Houthis with weapons the Yemeni rebels are using to attack ships on the Red Sea in exchange for safe passage for Chinese vessels. During several visits to China in 2023 and 2024, Houthi leaders established a supply chain to obtain advanced Chinese components and guidance equipment to manufacture hundreds of ballistic and cruise missiles. In September, Washington provided Beijing detailed lists of the Chinese companies involved, and is now threatening to cut them off from the global financial system. (i24News, January 2, 2025)
PRC HACKERS ACCESS U.S. TREASURY WORKSTATIONS AND DOCUMENTS
Chinese hackers compromised a third-party software service provider, gained access to several U.S. Treasury Department workstations and obtained unclassified documents. In a letter to the Senate Banking Committee, assistant Treasury Secretary Aditi Hardikar called the hack a "major cybersecurity incident," but said that "there is no evidence indicating the threat actor has continued access." The department did not say how many workstations were accessed or what documents were compromised. On December 8th, BeyondTrust told Treasury that hackers had stolen a key "used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support." The hackers then used the key to override the department's security. (Associated Press, December 31, 2024)
CHINA APPROVES CONSTRUCTION OF MEGA-DAM IN TIBET
China is building the world's largest hydropower dam, known as the Medog Hydropower Station, on the lower reaches of Tibet's Yarlung Tsangpo River. Despite concerns about environmental security and water displacement raised by India, Bangladesh and Tibetan rights groups, Beijing went ahead and approved the project, which is expected to generate 300 billion kw hours of power annually – three times that produced by the Three Gorges Dam. The river originates in Tibet and flows into India and Bangladesh, where it is known as the Brahmaputra and the Jamuna rivers, respectively. China has not disclosed when construction will start or end, or the impact the new dam will have on local communities or its ecological, environmental and cultural consequences. "Any dam on a river has huge ecological consequences downstream," said Vishwanath Srikantaiah, an India-based water conservation expert. (Radio Free Asia, December 27, 2024)
CHINA ROLLS OUT NATIONWIDE PRIVATE PENSION PLAN
After two years of trials in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi'an and Chengdu, China is rolling out a nationwide private-pension system. The national plan will allow people to open tax-deferred private pension accounts and contribute up to 12,000 yuan ($1654) annually into hundreds of various savings products, mutual funds, insurance and wealth management products. As of June, more than 60 million people have opened private pension accounts across the pilot cities. Once concern are the aggressive tactics bankers are using to bring new customers into the scheme. (Barron's, December 26, 2024)
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Due to its rapidly aging population, China's public pension system is set to run dry by 2035. The number of Chinese aged 60 or above is expected to rise from 297 million to 400 million by 2035, and within a decade people 65 and over will exceed 20 percent of the population.]
BEIJING RAISES THE RETIREMENT AGE
China will gradually raise its statutory retirement ages for the first time. For men, retirement age will increase from 60 to 63, while for women it will rise from 55 to 58 for white-collar workers, and from 50 to 55 for blue-collar workers. Starting in 2030, the minimum years of basic pension contributions will gradually increase from 15 to 20. Workers who meet the minimum pension contribution years can retire up to three years early, while others may need to delay retirement until they are sufficiently vested. When retirement ages were established in the 1950s, the life expectancy in China was in the 40s, now it is 78 years. (Newsweek, January 2, 2025)
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