Beijing particularly dislikes Lai, who has in the past described himself as a “practical worker for Taiwan independence”. Lai has, however, repeatedly said during the election campaign he does not seek to change the status quo. Lai, who goes first to New York, published a short video on his socialContinue Reading
TIANJIN – Watching the giant cranes glide across the longshore of this ancient port, a visitor has to pinch himself to remember that this is not a gigantic toy, but one of the world’s ten largest facilities, moving more than 20 million containers a year from ships to trucks without a single human in sight.
Built in just 19 months in 2020-2021, the automated Tianjin port isn’t just a means to send Chinese exports to the world. A high-definition video on an enormous curved screen in the visitor center reminds the visitor that the most important export item is the port itself. Tianjin was built to be cloned worldwide.
Call it the Sino-forming of world trade: Supply-chain bottlenecks due to port congestion, endemic in the Global South, can be alleviated by this artificial intelligence-driven system that dispatches cranes communicating on a 5G network, and empties a large container ship in just 45 minutes. At the biggest US port at Long Beach, California, unloading the same ship takes between 24 and 48 hours.
Crane operators that used to scrunch up in a booth at the top of their equipment now control the blue behemoths with joysticks from a remote tower, with each worker monitoring several machines. An AI algorithm works out the fastest route from ship to land transport.
This is China’s “Field of Dreams.” Build it, and they will come is the essence of China’s long-term strategy. The “it” in this case includes the world’s largest 5G network, the world’s newest and most efficient infrastructure and a national commitment to apply AI to the so-called Internet of Things, including manufacturing, transportation, logistics, medicine, urban management, and finance.
“They” are China’s private entrepreneurs, who are slow to get past a series of speed bumps: the draconian 2022 Covid lockdowns, the government’s crackdown on Alibaba and other Big Tech companies, and the freeze-up in China’s property market, which is locking up a great deal of private capital.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is underway in China, although its applications are limited to a few big installations. Some of the productivity gains are remarkable. Near Shenzhen, this writer visited an automated factory where Huawei manufactures thousands of 5G base stations a day, adding to the 2.3 million that China already has installed out of 3 million worldwide.
It has several assembly lines that each require 15 workers, compared to nearly 80 workers three years ago. Most of them are there to check that the automated assembly and testing equipment is doing its job properly; only one stage of assembly required human hands.
Detailed data isn’t available, but China’s auto industry—the world’s biggest buyer of industrial robots—has achieved remarkable gains in efficiency, allowing BYD and SAIC to offer electric vehicles at a price of around US$10,000. That’s less than China’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP), and comparable to the $800 price at which Henry Ford sold his first Model T in 1908, cheap enough so that any modestly prosperous family could afford a car.
China exported more than a million vehicles in the first three months of 2023, overtaking Japan as the world’s largest auto exporter, and its offerings at the low end of the EV price spectrum will help raise its market share in Europe as well as the Global South.
China’s authorities know that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will stall unless private entrepreneurs embrace the new technologies. The National Development and Reform Commission issued a July 24 directive calling on authorities at all levels to “mobilize the enthusiasm of private investment.”
Government bodies, the directive said, should “boost private investment confidence,” “focus on key areas and support private capital participation in major projects,” and “give full play to the important role of private investment.”
The NRDC will “select a group of enterprises with large market share and strong development potential,” “in line with the requirements of major national strategies and industrial policies” and “conducive to promoting high-tech enterprises.”
But the animal spirits of private entrepreneurs are not fired up by directives from bureaucrats, who aren’t qualified to pick winners among private firms. Beijing’s belated acknowledgment that China’s economic future depends on private risk-taking isn’t enough.
Chinese firms have to believe that the government won’t repeat its 2020-2021 crackdown on Alibaba and other Big Tech companies. And Chinese households, who have about 10% of their assets in stocks and 70% in real estate, have to invest in technology instead of houses. None of that will change overnight.
In July, Huawei’s Cloud division CEO, Zhang Pingan, unveiled Pangu, an AI system for a wide range of business applications. In contrast to ChatGPT and other so-called Large Language Models, the Huawei executive told the 6th World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, “The Pangu model does not compose poetry, nor does it have time to compose poetry, because its job is to go deep into all walks of life, and help AI add value to all walks of life.”
The platform is powered by Huawei’s own Kunpeng chipset and Ascend AI processor. It’s a do-it-yourself system for training AI models on proprietary data. Huawei Cloud offers its customers “large-scale industry development kits. Through secondary training on customer-owned data, customers can have their own exclusive industry large models,” the company said.
Although “Nvidia’s V100 and A100 GPUs remain the most popular GPUs for training Chinese large-scale models,” a recent study notes, “Huawei used its own Ascend 910 processors” to train the Pangu model.
Second, China appears able to produce proprietary AI chips like Ascend, which requires 7-nanometer processors. US sanctions were supposed to prevent China from making 7nm chips for years, but Chinese chip fabricators appear to have worked around US restrictions—at a cost.
It’s hard to tell through the fog of tech war whether and to what extent US tech sanctions are holding back China’s rollout of business AI applications. Announcing Alibaba’s better-than-expected second-quarter results on August 10, the company’s Cloud division CEO mentioned that a short-term shortage of GPUs was a constraint on growth.
How rapidly Chinese businesses will adopt AI systems such as Pangu and its competitors is hard to predict. Pangu’s first commercial application to coal mining debuted in late July in a Huawei joint venture with Shandong Energy Group. Late in 2022, China’s largest appliance maker Midea opened China’s “first fully connected 5G smart factory,” according to a Huawei video.
China’s private entrepreneurs face some significant hurdles. It’s hard to quantify them, but a couple of simple parameters are helpful. The price-earnings multiple of China’s CSI 300 stock index is about 13, compared to 21 for America’s S&P 500. Equity is much cheaper in China, which means that entrepreneurs pay a lot more for capital than their American counterparts.
The riskiness of the Chinese equity index, moreover, is nearly double that of the S&P 500. The implied volatility of options on MCHI, the broad Chinese stock market ETF that tracks the MSCI China Index, is now roughly 30%, compared to just 16% for the VIX index of implied volatility for the S&P 500.
As recently as 2021, the implied volatility of the US and China indices was roughly equal. China employed AI-based systems to track and predict Covid outbreaks in 2020 and 2021, and China’s economy was the first to bounce back from the Covid recession. The more contagious strains of the virus defeated China’s systems in 2022, and the government responded with prolonged lockdowns (see “China’s avoidable Covid crisis,” Asia Times, May 13, 2022).
Another depressant is the continued upheaval in the property market, which in reality is a political standoff between the central government and local authorities who took on between RMB35 trillion and RMB70 trillion of so-called hidden debt.
The central government won’t bail out the cities without assuming control of their finances. On paper, municipalities own enterprises with RMB205 trillion in assets, and on the whole are solvent, but the political tug-of-war will keep the property market in crisis mode for some time.
If we believe analysts’ estimates for capital investment in China, private business remains cautious. Shown in the chart below are the Bloomberg consensus estimates for CapEx in several major sub-sectors of China’s CSI 300 Index. The only big increases in expected spending are in energy and utilities, both dominated by state-owned enterprises. Industrial and information technology company CapEx plans remain subdued.
The future of business AI, though, doesn’t depend entirely on large-capitalization companies. AI is a force multiplier for small and medium businesses, a Huawei executive told me during a tour of the company’s exhibition halls in Shenzhen.
Smaller shops can achieve very high efficiency in flexible manufacturing by applying AI to automated factories. Ultimately, industrial AI may incubate a new generation of manufacturing entrepreneurs, just as the internet upended retailing.
Huawei is a protean enterprise that is transforming itself from a telecom equipment maker into a global business facilitator. 5G2C (5G for consumers) is a mature business with limited growth prospects, and the company envisions a future based on 5G2B (5G for business), with a full suite of AI-based solutions.
Whether China’s entrepreneurs will come to the “Field of Dreams” built on high-speed broadband and AI remains an open question, but it’s still early days. As Alibaba and Huawei executives emphasize, the new Cloud-based AI systems just came online.
The political will and profit opportunities are visible, and China may yet surprise the world as much as it did during the 1990s and 2000s.
Follow David P Goldman on Twitter at @davidpgoldman
Cambodia deal will ‘help in energy crisis’
PUBLISHED : 12 Aug 2023 at 09:15
The issue of the overlapping area claimed by both Thailand and Cambodia should be resolved as soon as possible to help combat Thailand’s growing energy crisis, according to Kurujit Nakorntap, executive director of the Petroleum Institute of Thailand (Ptit).
Mr Kurijit, who also formerly served as secretary of the Energy Ministry, made the remark during a speech at a forum titled “The Overlapping Claim Area (OCA) between Thailand and Cambodia” that was co-hosted by Chulalongkorn University’s Law Faculty and the Treaties and Legal Affairs Department of the Foreign Affairs Ministry on Thursday.
He said it is necessary to resolve the conflict as it would help save Thailand from an impending energy crisis as this contested area could become a new petroleum site in the upper part of the Gulf of Thailand. It is located near the Bongkot and Erawan gas blocks.
He said the country’s natural gas reserves have decreased, and new sources have not been found since 2005. In addition, the amount of natural gas imported from Myanmar is also decreasing.
Additionally, international oil companies (IOCs) have started to withdraw their investments from Thailand, he said. Therefore, resolving the dispute over the OCA could serve as a huge boon because that area is enriched with natural gas, Mr Kurujit said.
“As it is a no-man’s-land, we can’t determine the value and amount of the gases underneath the sea floor, but technically, the area of the Joint Development Area [JDA] below the latitude of 11 degrees north is located in the Pattani basin and is enriched with natural resources. Even if we do not know how much [gas] is there, it is a valuable investment, and there is a high probability we will make some good discoveries,” he said.
To resolve the dispute, he suggested bilateral negotiations on stating clear boundaries and an agreement on principle for a lower JDA, as well as talks over taxation, customs, jurisdiction, environmental management, and the allocation of rights/interests among existing concessionaires from both countries. He also suggested a new organisation be set up to oversee this, a joint authority funded, and legislation implemented to effectively administer petroleum exploration and production in the JDA.
“When it comes to negotiations, we’re not saying ‘we want it all’, but rather we need to compromise while considering all related factors such as politics, the economy and the history of our two countries,” Mr Kurujit added.
Furthermore, he suggested all stakeholders should learn from previous successes, such as the Thai-Malaysian agreement to conclude a cooperation project in their JDA by signing an MoU in 1979 that saw both countries agree to equally split the benefits of certain operations within their overlapping seas. They also agreed to set up the Thailand-Malaysia Joint Authority to work together.
Mr Kurujit also cited the deal between Thailand and Vietnam on the Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary in the Gulf of Thailand in 1997, which has enabled Thailand to take natural gas from the Arthit gas and condensate field.
SINGAPORE: Forty-nine men were arrested in a hotel villa on Sentosa for suspected drug offences following a Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) operation, said the agency in a news release on Saturday (Aug 12). Acting on information received, police conducted checks at the villa on Wednesday morning and found controlled drugs withinContinue Reading
PUBLISHED : 12 Aug 2023 at 08:34
The Ministry of Public Health is stepping up nationwide screening for hepatitis B and C viral infections, both major contributors to incidences of liver cancer nationally, with a target of stamping both out completely in Thailand by 2030.
There are estimated to be around 2.2 million people already infected with hepatitis B and 300,000 to 800,000 with hepatitis C in Thailand, said Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, permanent secretary for public health.
He added that as well as liver cancer, infectees are also associated with other severe conditions, including cirrhosis (severe scarring) of the liver.
The earlier these infections are detected, the better the outcome of treatment, he said, adding that many lives could be saved if hepatitis infections are detected in their very early stages.
In addition to screening, treatment is also available free of charge at healthcare facilities in almost all communities nationwide, said Dr Opas.
Those born before 1992 are entitled to one free screening in their lifetime, while those who are in one of five at-risk groups — those living with HIV/Aids, intravenous drug users, men who have sex with men, healthcare workers and inmates — are eligible for a free test every year, he said.
Officially launched on Friday, the free hepatitis B and C screenings began on April 1, he said.
Reconciliation by accident
The Move Forward Party (MFP) must have realised by now that emerging on top at a general election does not guarantee holding the reins of power.
The party has also witnessed its closest ally, the Pheu Thai Party, turn against it under the cloak of a “neo-conservative” foe.
The MFP, according to analysts, pulled off one of the most surprising results in politics when it took the country by storm in the May 14 polls and won 151 House seats out of 500 up for grabs.
Sooner after the unofficial results were released by the Election Commission (EC), party leader Pita Limjaroenrat bestowed upon himself the title of presumptive prime minister, much to the delight of supporters and, at the same time to the chagrin of some MFP admirers who thought it was premature to do so.
The MFP had rushed to consolidate eight parties in the so-called “pro-democracy” bloc who had stuck with it during their years in opposition against the Prayut Chan-o-cha administration.
The MFP took an unprecedented step to draft a memorandum of understanding outlining policies the eight parties would pursue in a coalition government. The MFP hoped the document, despite not being legally binding, would tie the parties together in spirit.
A source said the MFP-led alliance’s prospects did not look bright from the outset. Two almost equally large parties do not typically find the incentive to do business with each other as coalition partners since one, thinking it wields sizeable bargaining power, would tend not to yield to the other over the execution of policies.
With 151 MPs, the MFP has 10 more than the Pheu Thai Party.
Pita: Premature PM announcement
However, Pheu Thai was in a far better position to form a government, given its longstanding connections with other parties, even those in the opposing camp, such as Bhumjaithai and Palang Pracharath.
The source agreed the Pheu Thai-MFP relationship was tenuous, and it would have been sooner rather than later that they split. Their separation was also destined to be a less-than-amicable affair.
As the Pheu Thai Party edges closer to leading the next government, war with the MFP looms large on the horizon.
The source said the MFP deserves credit for having succeeded in under four months since the May 14 election, what the Prayut administration had failed to do in nine years of running the country.
The MFP’s election triumph has forced traditionalist parties such as the once-powerful Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) and its breakaway, the United Thai Nation (UTN) Party, to not only swallow defeat but also search for allies still formidable enough to fight off what they consider is an MFP threat to their political and ideological conservatism.
That is where Pheu Thai comes in, according to the source.
Since the frictions, both visible and behind closed doors, between the MFP and Pheu Thai have intensified, signs have emerged of longstanding colour-coded conflict between the red and yellow shirts easing.
The red shirts are loyal supporters of Pheu Thai while the yellow shirts align themselves with parties that uphold traditional values and are staunch defenders of the crown.
For years, the two sides had been embroiled in a bitter conflict which came to a head in May 2014 when the yellow shirts led by the People’s Democratic Reform Committee held protracted mass protests and demanded the ouster of the Pheu Thai-led government, accusing it of gross corruption chiefly over its flagship rice-pledging scheme.
Pheu Thai was eventually toppled in a coup engineered by the National Council for Peace and Order headed by Gen Prayut, who subsequently became prime minister and installed his close ally, Gen Prawit Wongsuwon, as deputy prime minister in charge of national security.
Gen Prayut became a patriarchic figure and a prime ministerial candidate of the UTN, whereas Gen Prawit has served as the PPRP leader.
But the two parties’ recent election defeat — where they hugely underperformed with the PPRP garnering 41 MPs and the UTN 36 — has left the conservative establishment with no one among them to defend its cause and stand up to the MFP.
The two parties have no choice but to turn to Pheu Thai and lend their full support for it to become the next ruling party. Pheu Thai has also struck a chord with the PPRP and the UTN by keeping clear of amending Section 112 of the Criminal Code or the lese majeste law, something the MFP has vehemently refused to do.
The source said that Pheu Thai, if it heads the new government, will need all the support it can muster to counter and even emasculate the MFP, which looks increasingly likely to end up an opposition party. By gaining support from traditionalist parties, Pheu Thai may find itself inching ever closer towards becoming the guardian of conservative values.
With the Move Forward Party (MFP) now dumped and no “uncle” parties included yet in a political alliance being formed by Pheu Thai, the next prime ministerial vote will see if the MFP and senators are true to their word, according to observers.
Srettha: Pheu Thai’s likely PM nominee
After tearing up an agreement it signed with the MFP and six small parties to give itself a chance of forming a coalition government and return to power, Pheu Thai has forged a new alliance with Bhumjaithai, the third-largest party, following the general election in May.
Pheu Thai and Bhumjaithai, with a combined 212 House seats, have lured six small parties — Prachachat, Chartpattanakla, Seri Ruam Thai, Plung Sungkom Mai, Thongthee Thai and Pheu Thai Ruam Palang — into a new coalition bid with 28 seats.
The alliance is growing further with the inclusion of the Chartthaipattana Party.
However, it is still short of a majority in the 500-seat House of Representatives by a dozen seats.
Pheu Thai has a few choices — turn to its arch-rival, the Democrat Party, the United Thai Nation (UTN) Party or the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP), according to observers.
The UTN and the PPRP are referred to as “uncle” parties because of their association with Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, the former UTN chief strategist, and Gen Prawit Wongsuwon, the PPRP leader.
Because Pheu Thai made a campaign promise not to work with parties that are a legacy of the coup-makers that toppled the government it led back in 2014, the Democrat Party is deemed a safer choice, according to observers.
Several Democrat MPs have reportedly agreed to support Pheu Thai’s prime ministerial candidate. Democrat support will be enough for Pheu Thai to eliminate the need to approach the UTN or PPRP to join the coalition.
“We don’t really have a choice but to join hands with the Democrat Party. The party is rocked with internal strife, but its ‘true’ leader has given us a list of 21 MPs who will vote for our party’s [prime ministerial] candidate,” said a highly-placed Pheu Thai source.
Pheu Thai is poised to nominate property tycoon Srettha Thavisin in the next prime ministerial selection round in parliament, which is yet to be scheduled.
In the lead-up to the crucial vote, the Pheu Thai-led alliance may lure more small parties into its bloc and bring the total number of House seats over the majority threshold to 269. If this is the case, its coalition will be made up of all parties except the MFP, UTN, PPRP and four Democrats who do not see eye to eye with the rest of the MPs in their party.
According to the Pheu Thai source, the party has taken this path, hoping that the MFP and the military-appointed Senate will keep their promise in the prime minister vote.
The Senate has reportedly agreed to back the Pheu Thai candidate if the MFP, which faces strong resistance due to its policy to amend the lese majeste law, is dropped from the coalition, while the MFP has promised to support the party as long as no “uncle” parties are in the equation.
“We’re trying to meet the Senate’s conditions so that they will vote for us now that the MFP is out of the coalition line-up.
“We hope that they will honour their word,” said the source.
According to the source, Pheu Thai will avoid, at all costs, inviting the UTN or the PRRP to join its coalition.
“It would be our last option. We’ll opt for it if it’s totally necessary,” said the source.
However, because of outrage from many pro-democracy supporters, including some of its own voters who feel betrayed by the party’s decision to desert the MFP, observers say Pheu Thai has very little to celebrate even if it succeeds in forming a coalition.
According to observers, the UTN, which has 36 seats largely due to Gen Prayut’s popularity, is politically doomed if it does not become part of the incoming government now that Gen Prayut has announced he has stepped away from the party and is leaving politics.
As for the PPRP, the party may endure because its MPs are veteran politicians with solid support bases in their respective constituencies, while Gen Prawit is expected to fade away if he is not awarded a cabinet post in the new government.
PUBLISHED : 12 Aug 2023 at 07:33
The Chartthaipattana Party (CTP) voiced support for setting up a charter-drafting assembly to write a new constitution but insisted Chapters 1 and 2 must be left untouched.
CTP director Nikorn Chamnong said on Friday that he agreed with the policy of Pheu Thai Party, the core party forming a new government, to amend the current charter and said the best approach would be to create a new one with the involvement of the public.
However, he said Chapters 1 and 2 must not be revised, and a planned referendum on the charter rewrite must not leave room for any interpretation that these two chapters can be amended.
Chapter 1 contains sections defining Thailand as a single, indivisible kingdom with a democratic regime and the King as the head of state. Chapter 2 contains sections pertaining to the royal prerogatives.
Mr Nikorn’s comments came as Pheu Thai posted on Friday on its social media that a charter rewrite was top of its agenda.
The party said it would ask the cabinet at its first meeting to pass a resolution on holding a national referendum on the issue. This would be drafted by the people via a charter-drafting assembly, according to the party.
The Internet Law Reform Dialogue (iLaw) has urged the new government to disclose the questions that would be posed at the planned referendum. Ratchapol Jaemjirachaikul, an iLaw representative, said the group had concerns about these.
He said some of the questions posed during the referendum in 2016 confused people.
ILaw manager Yingcheep Atchanond asked if the charter rewrite could be pursued if Pheu Thai was planning to invite the Palang Pracharath Party and United Thai Nation Party (UTN) to join the coalition.
The museum is filled with photographs depicting the brutalities that the French and later the Americans committed in their losing campaigns against the Vietnamese. In addition to photos of rows of bodies in open pits, burning villages and instruments of torture, the harrowing displays are heavy on graphic shots of Vietnamese deformed by US chemicals like Agent Orange, with hardly any mention of the atrocities the North and South committed against each other.
11.30am: Relax in comfort
The Thao Dien area, across the river from the Binh Thanh District, is home to forests of condo and commercial high rises. Popular with expats and affluent Vietnamese, the area has all the accoutrements of the city’s upturn, from chic boutiques to gourmet eateries.
For brunch, visit Laang, a stylish, vegetarian-friendly Vietnamese restaurant that may be a welcomed alternative to the multitude of uncomfortably warm, open-air eateries. You can’t go wrong with a platter of wraps and rolls, including succulent grilled chicken and veggies wrapped in fresh leaves (239,000 dong), sweet and savoury grilled eggplant stuffed with shiitake mushrooms (109,000 dong) and the refreshing pomelo, lime and butterfly pea juice (79,000 dong).
Getty ImagesTen-year-old Miao Chunyou screamed for her mum as she disappeared into a brown torrent that had engulfed western Beijing.
The strong currents ripped Miao from her father’s grip as floods, triggered by incessant rains, chased the family of three to the roof of a neighbour’s house.
Her mother, clinging to a tree branch, watched helplessly. That was the last time she saw Miao. More than 10 days have passed but the couple has heard no news about their daughter.
“It was like a scene from a movie, with huge, furious waves,” Miao’s mother tells the BBC. She only shared her last name, Chang.
China is no stranger to floods, but July saw a ttrio of typhoons from the Pacific Ocean over three weeks, which exacerbated seasonal monsoon rains. Two of the three made landfall in the country, including super typhoon Doksuri, which churned slowly over large areas of north-west China for several days, inundating Beijing and surrounding provinces such as Hebei. That week, the Chinese capital experienced the most rainfall in 140 years.
Sixty-two people have so far been confirmed dead in the deluge – 33 from Beijing and 29 from neighbouring Hebei province.
Miao was swallowed by water “as high as two adults, one standing on the other”, her mother says. “Villagers in their 70s or 80s said they had never seen floods this big in their lives.”
She says that it had been raining heavily until July 30, when the downpour eased. The family believed the worst had passed, but stayed home, worried that going outside could expose them to mudslides.
But the following morning “the rain came down heavily”, Ms Chang said. As water rapidly filled the house, she and her husband tried to pump it out. But within half hour, flood water and mud smashed through the front wall.
Mr Chang is a migrant worker and spends much of the year in Beijing, where he sells spices. His wife and daughter were visiting him from Henan when the rains began. The three had mostly been apart during years of zero-Covid rules, and this was had been a much-awaited reunion. They had planned to visit Tiananmen square the day they lost Miao to the flood.
Ms Chang and her husband adopted Miao as a baby. They have two older sons, 27-year-old twins, who were back home in Henan province in central China when the flood hit. Distraught at what happened to their sister, one of them is unable to even speak, Ms Chang says.
China’s flood control system allows for water to be diverted from major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin to surrounding areas. During the floods, Hebei’s Party Secretary Ni Yuefeng proudly declared that his province would act as a “moat” to protect Beijing, stirring anger among his constituents, who said the speed with which the flood waters hit caught them by surprise.
Wan, who wished to reveal only his last name, lives in Beijing but was alerted to a distress message on WeChat on 2 August. The mountain village of Tangjiazhuang in Hebei province, where his family lives, was hit by a landslide two days earlier.
It had cut off the village of 2,000 mostly elderly people. Some families had gathered there for the cool highland weather because parts of China had sweltered in heat waves before the typhoons brought deadly rains.
Mr Wan says he rushed to Tangjiazhuang with his wife to rescue their relatives. But they were stopped at a neighbouring village by neck-deep water. Undeterred, they took an alternate route that involved a an uphill three-hour hike. The terrain caused him to slip and twist his ankle.
“When we finally got there, all we saw was an ocean, with nothing left,” Mr Wan’s wife recalls.
Rescuers reached Tangjiazhuang on 3 August, three days after the landslide, and a day after the Wan couple found the village where their family had been in ruins. Local authorities counted 10 people dead and 18 others missing. Mr Wan, citing anecdotal reports, says the death toll is likely higher than official tallies.
Mr Wan says seven of his relatives are either dead or missing, including his two nephews, aged seven and four. He reads out their names: “Wan Hanying, my second uncle, Li Shulan, my second aunt, Wan Hechun, my third uncle, Jing Zhizhen, my third aunt, Wan Gongle, my sister, her children, Li Jiaqi and Li Jiaxin.”
China’s state-run media, which has released death tolls outside Beijing over several days, has focused on the rescue efforts, with headlines such as: “There is a sense of security called the People’s Liberation Army” and “Shandong rescue team work in floods, starving, with hands shaking uncontrollably from the cold”.
But that did not stop those on social media form noticing that President Xi Jinping did not visit any of the sites where disaster struck, unlike his predecessors. He did call for an “all-out” flood rescue effort, a message that was carried prominently on state media.
Instead on 31 July, as parts of north-east China were submerged, and Miao was swept away, Mr Xi attended a ceremony in Beijing to promote generals in the Central Military Commission.
Mr Xi could be asserting his status as a princeling, or someone born to a Communist Party official, says Dr Ming Xia, a professor of political science and global affairs at the City University of New York.
“He draws more legitimacy from the revolutionary tradition and does not urgently seek to derive some legitimacy from public opinion, as his predecessors Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, who were born into ordinary families, did.”
As the floods receded, people have begun piecing their lives back together, shovelling mud out of their homes, and washing clothes and appliances that have turned brown. But scientists say climate change will spawn stronger, more frequent typhoons like Doksuri.
For Mr Wan, it is all too much. “The mountain still has fissures and future dangers are certain,” he says. “We definitely won’t live there anymore.”
Cabinet posts for PPRP, UTN support
The Pheu Thai Party has now sealed a deal with the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) and United Thai Nation (UTN) Party in which the two parties have agreed to vote for Pheu Thai’s prime ministerial candidate in exchange for slices of the cabinet quota cake, according to a source.
An official announcement will follow, but with the two parties agreeing to join the coalition, the Pheu Thai-led coalition now boasts 315 MPs, said the source.
Pheu Thai has 141 MPs while Bhumjaithai has 71 MPs, the PPRP 40, the UTN 36, Chartthaipattana 10, Prachachat nine, Pheu Thai Ruam Palang 2, Chartpattanakla 2, with Seri Ruam Thai Party, Plung Sungkom Mai, Thongthee Thai and the New Democracy Party all having one MP apiece.
Pheu Thai has agreed that one cabinet position will be allotted for nine MPs each has, said the same source.
The deal would see Pheu Thai’s Srettha Thavisin appointed prime minister, while party leader, Cholnan Srikaew, would serve as both deputy prime minister and education minister, said the source.
Pheu Thai deputy leader Phumtham Wechayachai would become the interior minister, and party secretary-general Prasert Chantararuangthong would get the transport ministry role, said the source.
Pheu Thai list-MP for Chiang Mai Julapun Amornvivat would take the energy portfolio while Panpree Phathithanukorn and Puangpet Chunlaiad, both key party figures, would become the foreign minister and a PM’s Office minister, respectively, said the source.
Somsak Thepsutin, a Pheu Thai list-MP, will likely become the new agriculture and cooperatives minister, while list-MP Suriya Jungrungreangkit is negotiating for a transport ministry position, said the source.
As for the positions of finance and defence minister, Pheu Thai is approaching two outsiders who are highly qualified to hold these posts, said the source.
The Bhumjaithai Party would be awarded four cabinet positions in the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Tourism and Sports, said the source.
In the cabinet quota for the PPRP, Pol Gen Patcharawat Wongsuwon, the party’s chief adviser, would become a deputy prime minister and the natural resources and environment minister, said the source.
PPRP secretary-general Capt Thamanat Prompow is said to have a good chance to become the agriculture and cooperatives minister, while PPRP MP for Kamphaeng Phet Pai Leeke may get the nod as deputy interior minister.
The UTN is interested in the energy ministry and also the digital economy and society ministry, said the source.
Prachachat has nominated Pol Lt Col Tawee Sodsong, a list-MP, as the new justice minister, while the Chartthaipattana leader, Varawut Silpa-archa, will likely become the new tourism and sports minister, said the source.
Despite insisting Pheu Thai had yet to reach any formal agreement with the PPRP and the UTN, Mr Phumtham has admitted that Pheu Thai is left with no other choice but to include them for the sake of stability.
In its campaign, Pheu Thai said it would not work with either because it was UTN prime ministerial candidate Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha who staged the 2014 coup, while PPRP leader Gen Prawit Wongsuwon has close ties with the coup-makers.
“I expect the government to take office no later than October,” he said.
Meanwhile, Move Forward Party (MFP) secretary-general Chaithawat Tulathon said the party’s MPs would discuss whether to vote for Pheu Thai’s PM candidate on Tuesday.
He said MFP MPs would vote in accordance with the party’s stance instead of exercising their own judgement, and when asked about the suggestion that the MFP should vote for Pheu Thai so the Senate’s votes were not needed, shot back with the question. “Why didn’t Bhumjaithai vote for the MFP-led bloc to switch off the Senate?”
