New Chinese Ambassador ZHENG Bingkai Arrives in Barbados ABCF Week 33 Update

New Chinese Ambassador H.E. Zheng Bingkai Arrives in Barbados to Assume Office
On August 6th, H.E. Zheng Bingkai, the new Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of China to Barbados, arrived in Barbados to assume office. He was welcomed by Miss Jade Blenman, Foreign Service Officer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados, as well as representatives of diplomats from the Chinese Embassy.
The new ambassador was born in November 1973 and he has a Ph D in Economics. 

Calls to address pension inequality grow - by Zichen Wang
A retired top financial regulator has lent his support to the growing calls for the Chinese government to significantly increase pension payouts for its farmers. In a high-profile national forum, he advised that Beijing should bridge the gap between the pensions of farmers and urban retirees.

Reflections | How homosexuality was accepted in ancient China, and even celebrated | South China Morning Post
Opponents of Hong Kong’s Registration of Same-sex Partnerships Bill cite traditional values, but China has a history of being more accepting.
Hong Kong’s Registration of Same-sex Partnerships Bill, introduced to the Legislative Council in July, proposes the establishment of a legal framework to register overseas same-sex marriages and civil partnerships.
The bill grants limited rights, including next-of-kin status for medical decisions, hospital visitation and postmortem arrangements.
It explicitly excludes legal recognition of same-sex marriages or civil unions conducted within Hong Kong.

How Chinese investors quietly transformed Athens – one visa at a time | South China Morning Post
Chinese citizens hold nearly half of first-time visas linked to property purchases – and over 60 per cent of renewals.
China has changed the Greek capital in both visible and less obvious ways.
On the one hand, authentic Chinese restaurants – from spicy hotpot to Cantonese cha chaan teng – have sprung up in central Athens, where many patrons speak the northeastern Chinese dialect and work for China Ocean Shipping Company, an industry giant managing Europe’s fifth-largest port.
On the more discreet side, Chinese buyers have snapped up thousands of flats in a rush to apply for the Greek investor residency scheme, commonly known as the “golden visa”.

Xi's speech to private entrepreneurs in Feb 2025 now available
Back on Feb 17, 2025, Xi Jinping’s meeting with leading private entrepreneurs, including Jack Ma, made national and international headlines….
Half a year later, the latest Qiushi/Seek Truth, on Friday, August 15, in its 16th issue of 2025, published the “main part” of Xi’s speech…
[Here] is a full translation of the speech provided by Qiushi/Seek Truth. 

Life is a verb - by Jiang Jiang and Bowen Xiao
Readers of my newsletter will know I often feature work from the WeChat blog of the Portrait (人物) magazine. Recently, they ran a call for submissions and received over 1,600 personal stories from Chinese people across the country and around the world — with those abroad mostly being Chinese travelers. More than 100 of them mentioned “summer period,” so the editors created a special summer-themed issue. The format is simple: each entry lists the contributor’s name (often a screen name), their location at the time of writing, and their age.
From the details provided, you can tell that the youngest contributor was about 15, the oldest around 46, with most falling in the 20–40 range. The content itself was remarkably varied: a young delivery worker caught in China’s food-delivery price wars, a Chinese tourist in Japan, someone savoring the rare summer joy of biting into a perfectly crisp peach, a fresh graduate waiting for a job offer, someone reflecting on the “shape of life,” another searching for housing in a new city, one reeling from a partner’s infidelity, and someone whose day was simply marked by buying an ice cream … only to drop it on the ground.

Henry Huiyao Wang: Unlike the US, China is not trying to shut out the future
The green transition is likely to define the 21st century. Rather than resisting change, China is choosing to shape it.
In their op-ed in The New York Times, economists David Autor and Gordon Hanson – whose work first defined the “China Shock” – warn of a new wave of disruption, one they label “China Shock 2.0”, this time driven not by textiles or toys, but by electric vehicles (EVs), clean energy, artificial intelligence and biotechnology. The fear is that China is no longer merely catching up but is poised to overtake in sectors that once defined Western leadership.
Yet the term “China Shock 2.0” practically begs misinterpretation. Both authors clearly understand this: they speak against the reflexive protectionism that such a framing inspires and posit instead a forward-facing ideal of careful investment and subsidy.
It must be stressed that today’s changes are not a repeat of past disruptions. They are not about factory closures or lost jobs; they are about the construction of entirely new systems and industries. China is not here as a destabiliser, but as a builder.
Today’s shift, the China Shock 2.0, is better termed a future shock. 

How will China run cities? - by Ying Xue
Recently, a conference on work related to cities was held from July 14 to 15 by China’s central government. It is the highest level with Xi Jinping attending. …
The main outcome of the conference is “1+6” — one “optimizing”, and six “buildings.” They are:
“Focus on optimizing the modern urban system, focus on building vibrant and innovative cities, focus on building comfortable and convenient livable cities, focus on building green and low-carbon beautiful cities, focus on building safe, reliable and resilient cities, focus on building civilized cities that respect morality and promote kindness, and focus on building convenient and efficient smart cities.”

4 years after Evergrande crash, Chinese families are still stuck in ‘broken houses’ | South China Morning Post
China’s faltering property sector continues to be a drag on consumption, with much of middle class wealth stored in homes that have not regained value
Rebecca Wei’s new home still looks like a construction site. The road running up to the high-rise housing complex in the central Chinese city of Luoyang is unfinished, dissolving into gravel before reaching the front gate.
Wei’s apartment itself is little more than a shell. The floors are bare cement. There is no permanent water or electricity supply, and the building does not comply with Chinese fire safety regulations.
“The developer delivered the property without even meeting the basic inspection standards, essentially saying, ‘Take it or leave it,’” Wei told the Post.

Gansu Travelogue 3: Temples, Horses, and more Temples in Tibetan Gansu
This is Part 3 of my Gansu-Sichuan travel series, retracing my 11-day trip in September 2024 traveling overland from Lanzhou, Gansu to Chengdu, Sichuan. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here. This long one is more like a classic travel blog than my normal interview content, but I promise I’ll make up for it with some killer interview material next time!

Exclusive | For university that bridges China and West, geopolitics is ‘biggest challenge’ | South China Morning Post
Easing visa restrictions for foreign students and visitors could help to improve understanding of China, head of XJTLU says.
Geopolitics is stifling academic freedom and scientific research, but a university head in eastern China believes there is a way to ease the situation on campuses – by letting more foreign students in.
Xi Youmin, president of Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, said easing visa restrictions for foreign students and visitors could help improve understanding of China.
“The world is in a state of division defined by wars, geopolitics and the US tariff war,” Xi said in an interview.

Gen Z’s passion for live performances drives nighttime consumption in Shanghai | South China Morning Post
In its Night Economy 2.0 initiative, the city government has announced a series of events dubbed ‘Wonderful Night Shanghai’.
Young people’s passion for live performances is redefining the concept of “Night Shanghai” as they spend their nights immersed in theatres, where they socialise with friends or collect show-related items.
“I haven’t seen another city where you can walk just a few steps in the city centre and find a theatre,” said 22-year-old Shanghai resident Cindy Huang.
Spending around 300 yuan (US$41.77) per show, the university student allocates nearly 80 per cent of her living expenses to attending three to four performances a week and related activities.

This weekly newsletter is put together by DeLisle Worrell, President of the ABCF. Visit us at Association for Barbados China Friendship | (abcf-bb.com).
Thanks to everyone who sent contributions for this week’s Update. Please send items of interest to me via the contact page at ABCF-BB.com or to info@DeLisleWorrell.com