Recently, I had the opportunity to explore the Liupanshan Mountain in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Shortly after departing from Yinchuan, the capital of the region, we encountered extensive stretches of solar photovoltaic panels and clusters of windmills lining both sides of the highway. 

It is worth noting that this form of power generation has emerged as a crucial economic asset for the western region.

In the past, Ningxia was known for its specialty products, such as sheepskin, wolfberries and Fat choy, but now it has become an important source of electricity for the whole country. One recently launched project is the "Ningxia Electricity to Hunan," which transmits mainly clean electricity from Ningxia to central China's Hunan Province.

The Ningxia wind and solar power transmission line spans 1634 km, from Ningxia, traversing Gansu, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Hubei, and terminating in Hunan. The project boasts a designed transmission capacity of 8 million kilowatts and a total investment of 28.1 billion yuan. 

The Western media has recently focused on rising coal-fired power projects in China. They thought this may hinder China's commitment to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

These sorts of projects in Ningxia are a clear response.

Regarding China's geography, the northwest is best suited for wind and solar projects, like the Helan Mountain region and the Tengger Desert in Ningxia. However, these areas are sparsely populated, with little industry and are far from the coastal and southeastern regions, where electricity is most needed. 

How can we ensure wind and solar power transmission remains uninterrupted?

According to a friend who works in the electricity industry, the amount of coal power generated in Ningxia has stayed the same over the past two years. However, newly constructed or renovated coal power projects are being implemented as complementary measures to ensure uninterrupted power transmission along ultra-high-voltage lines to other areas far away from Ningxia.

The project in Zhongwei city, Ningxia, which is involved in the transmission of electricity to Hunan, is to build a power photovoltaic base while at the same time bundling clean, efficient, advanced, energy-saving coal power in the neighborhood to achieve uninterrupted transmission.

A closer examination of China's grassroots efforts in transitioning to energy efficiency helps us understand why China will fulfill its promises.

Once one of the most impoverished regions in China, the Liupanshan mountainous area in Guyuan city, Ningxia, has undergone a remarkable transformation. It has emerged as a renowned scenic destination, boasting a network of bicycle paths stretching over 50 kilometers. These paths provide a convenient means for visitors to explore the picturesque landscape, meandering amidst the lush hills and serene waters.

I walked into a village snack shop and saw that the cookers had been converted into electric stoves. I asked the shopkeeper what she relied on to keep warm in winter. She mentioned that her family was preparing to use electric heaters this winter. 

The heating season in Guyuan lasts five months in winter, and while farmers used to burn wood and coal to heat their homes, they are now expanding their use of electricity, natural gas and solar energy. According to Guyuan's plan, by the end of 2024, the clean heating rate in urban areas will reach 100 percent and 60 percent in rural areas.

The shopkeeper also told me that heating with electricity or natural gas is cheaper than burning coal. According to local farmers, burning coal stoves requires at least 5 tons of coal in winter, and at an average price of 1,200 yuan per ton, it costs about 6,000 yuan; after the switch to electricity, the average monthly electricity bill is about 700 yuan. According to government regulations, households that switch from coal to electricity, coal to gas, or coal to solar energy to heat their homes receive a specific subsidy.

The changes in Guyuan are a microcosm of the world's most significant and ambitious emissions reduction program. When every village and city in China follow this plan to achieve their emissions reduction targets, China will show the world that it is not just reducing emissions but that this emerging economy is creating a new path for human development.

Next, the Chinese will prove to the world that we can not only produce the chips that the Americans are desperately trying to contain, but we can also walk a different path to sustainable development different from the 500-year expansion of the West.

of anti-China bills and established the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. Liberal and conservative think tanks have released various anti-China reports, and the media have comprehensively vilified China, which has had a great negative impact on bilateral relations.

In order to mobilize the people and society to act against China, the US government has carried out systematic anti-China propaganda. When Donald Trump was in office, he often attacked and discredited China through extreme remarks. Some senior hawkish officials and Congressmen tried their best to stage anti-China performances, and intelligence agencies and some think tank experts wantonly produced and disseminated disinformation about China. Through their "relentless efforts," China has been labeled by the US as engaging in "unfair trade practices," "stealing intellectual property rights," "genocide," "bullying neighboring countries," "authoritarian and totalitarian" and "coercing the island of Taiwan." These stigmatizing attacks on China are then spread to the whole public through American television, radio, newspapers, the internet, social media, and so on.

At the same time, the US is blocking voices from China in the country. Chinese journalists stationed in the US, the Confucius Institutes at American universities, people friendly to China, and relevant social media accounts have been labeled as "suppressing academic freedom," "infiltrating into the US" and thus been suppressed and blocked. With the tight information cocoon carefully woven by the US government, the image of China in the eyes of the American people has been severely distorted, and the negative perception of China has been continuously strengthened.

China insists on deepening reform, expanding high-level opening-up and adhering to the path of peaceful development, as well as adhering to a common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security concept. It does not export ideology or engage in military expansion. It opposes bloc politics and camp confrontation, and has no intention to fight with the US in a "new cold war." On the one hand, although the Joe Biden administration expressed its willingness to engage in dialogue with China and emphasized that it would not engage in a "new cold war" with China, in its actions, it woos its allies and partners, resorts to "decoupling" and "de-risking," and engages in military containment and infiltration.

If the Biden administration is really unwilling to engage in a "new cold war," it should have stopped its anti-China mobilization. The US has entered a new election cycle. The US government has the responsibility to use pragmatic and rational voices to offset the impact of the anti-China rhetoric in the country. If the anti-China noises of extreme politicians are allowed to overwhelm public opinion, it will cause serious consequences that the entire world could not bear.

A recent nine-day visit to Xinjiang in September 2023 by 22 foreign journalists from 17 overseas media organizations reported favorably on the vibrant local economy and China's efforts to preserve the local traditional and diverse cultures.

Instead of ending the flood of lies in the US media about Xinjiang, a US State Department agency, the Global Engagement Center, attacked this fact-finding visit, the visiting journalists and also China. This US agency released a 58-page report warning that China's information campaign on Xinjiang "could sway public opinion and undermine US interests." The US corporate media dutifully picked up the report and spread it. 

An AP news story "The US warns of a Chinese global disinformation campaign that could undermine peace and stability" used quotes from other government-funded organizations to reinforce its lies. This included Freedom House, which is 90 percent funded by US federal grants. 

The anti-war movement in the US is aware of the media's role. At a recent rally in front of CNN News followed by a march through busy Times Square to the New York Times media conglomerate, the resounding chant was: "Corporate media, we can't take lies anymore! Stop your drumbeat for war." This reflected the growing rage at the role of the largest media conglomerates in promoting militarism and racism. 

"Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth." This comment, attributed to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, is obvious in how news coverage in the US is organized today. Sometimes this leads even well-meaning people astray. They might say that "I've heard so often that there is slave labor and genocide of the Uygur Muslim people in Xinjiang, so it must be true."

I've held a series of talks and interviews with different audiences describing the diversity of cultures, modern cities and new farming techniques in Xinjiang, which I visited this May. My comments were greeted with a mixture of interest, curiosity and a frustrated suspicion from the US media, which have continually lied in the past and demonized a targeted country to justify each war.

In discussing my visit to Xinjiang, I often begin by asking an audience not to take only my short visit as the basis for their understanding of conditions in Xinjiang. It is more important to ask why no Muslim country has ever backed up the charges of genocide in Xinjiang, charges that the US government, its politicians, as well as talking heads in the media repeat endlessly. 

A visit by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation with 57 member states and later a delegation from the Arab League praised the Chinese government's policies and the harmonious relations and respect for the religion and culture of the people that they observed.

The June visit by the delegation from the Arab League was immediately denounced by the VOA. The VOA is a US government-owned news network that produces digital, radio and TV content in 48 languages and distributes it internationally. This response exposes how threatened the US is of a different view of China reaching people around the world. 

The media industry in the US is privately owned by a handful of billionaires. These media conglomerates combine advertising, broadcasting and networking, news, print and publication, digital, recording, and motion pictures, and most have international reach.

The most dangerous aspect of this web that seeps into every area of conscious life is that the media is intermeshed with the top US military corporations.  

All of the military corporations are also privately owned capitalist corporations. Their survival is based on enormous, government subsidized military contracts. Military corporations make the highest rate of profit with the highest returns to stockholders.   

This reality means that the corporate media functions as the public relations arm of the military corporations. The media's task is to sell war, and to justify war.   

The media in turn works with the well-funded think tanks who strategize, provide reports and talking points to the media and to the politicians - Republican and Democrat alike - who vote for ever increasing military budgets.  

This message is reinforced by continual claims that the media in other countries is controlled, combined with constant reassurances that a "free press" exists in the US. 

The US media focus on Xinjiang has a dual role. It is attempting to ingrain deep hostility toward China because the US corporate rulers fear China's growing economic strength and its attractive trade and development plans.  

The US media is also attempting to deflect attention away from the massively destructive US wars against Muslim people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, by claiming concern for Muslims in Xinjiang. China is showing the reality by inviting increasing numbers of visitors to see Xinjiang for themselves.

For those Western media outlets that seem to be concerned about "China setting back efforts to cut climate-changing carbon emissions," it is strongly advised that they look at the opening ceremony of the Hangzhou Asian Games on Saturday night. Anyone who has basic knowledge of the various applications of low-carbon technologies at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province can see why there is every confidence that China will deliver on its promises of meeting carbon peak and neutrality targets.

Why? Because China's efforts to reduce carbon emissions are not simply aimed at reducing the use of fossil fuels but also include efforts to drive the development of green and low-carbon technologies through innovation. 

It's precisely because of the extreme application of low-carbon technologies that China has made the Hangzhou Asian Games a model in terms of pursuing carbon peak and neutrality goals.

For instance, the spectacular opening ceremony on Saturday night saw the use of zero-carbon methanol, which is regenerated from waste carbon and achieves zero emissions, as fuel for the main torch tower for the first time, according to Chinese media reports.

The use of low-carbon, green fuel is not only part of the drive to create the first carbon-neutral Asian Games but also shows China's determination and commitment to low-carbon and innovation-driven green development.

For some time, Western media outlets have been questioning China's decision to build more new coal-fired power plants, citing fears over whether China is setting back efforts to cut carbon emissions due to economic reasons. The main reason for their worries is the belief that decarbonization cannot coexist with economic development. Yet, accomplishing the carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals doesn't necessarily mean that China needs to disregard its national conditions and give up on economic development.

China has never slackened in its pursuit of the carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals. If anything, the Asian Games this time is a clear example of China's seriousness about green development. 

Green is the premium color of the Hangzhou Asian Games, which will become the first such games in history to realize 100 percent green electricity supply at all of the 65 venues and related facilities. Green electricity, which refers to zero or nearly zero carbon emissions in power generation, comes from the province's offshore wind and photovoltaic installations, as well as the central and western regions including Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Qinghai Province and Gansu Province.

China has the world's largest number of renewable energy construction projects, so the share of coal-fired power generation in overall energy consumption has been falling. Even when it comes to the construction of new coal-fired power plants, which has raised questions, China has been improving the low-carbon technology to reduce emissions from new coal power plants in terms of both pollutants and carbon emissions.

More importantly, China has been prioritizing the development of low-carbon technologies in terms of the utilization of renewable energy or improvement in energy efficiency, among others. This is because the development and application of innovative technologies must be essential to achieving economic development while ensuring the accomplishment of carbon emissions reduction goals. Only through the development of new technologies can the achievement of carbon emission goals be reconciled with the main objective of promoting China's economic development, not being set aside in separate approaches.

Chinese experts have criticized Germany's decision to cease granting promotional loans to China and deny China's developing country status, calling it a move that succumbs to pressure from the US' cold-war mentality toward China. They warn that Germany risks undermining its own economic interests and damaging the investment confidence of European enterprises in China.

Germany will no longer grant promotional loans to China from 2026 and no longer treat China as a developing country, the Federal Development Ministry (BMZ) confirmed on Tuesday. 

The German ministry said it has informed the Chinese Ministry of Finance in mid-September of the federal government's decision to permanently stop granting promotional loans to China, Reuters reported.

"We are no longer treating China as a developing country," German Development Minister Svenja Schulze said. "China is and remains an important partner, without whom we cannot successfully overcome global crises," she added.

The move reflects some German politicians' alignment with the US in strengthening "decoupling" from China and creating economic and trade barriers aimed at the country, Chen Jia, an independent analyst on global strategy, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Under this Cold War mentality, Germany's push to implement a decoupling policy is not beneficial to EU-China cooperation, Chen noted.

Song Wei, a professor at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said Germany's decision to cease granting promotional loans to China and deny China's developing country status was primarily influenced by US attempts to strip China of its developing country status.

For some time, the US has attempted to deprive China of its developing country status, which has been slammed by Chinese officials.

China's status as the world's largest developing country is rooted in facts and international law. It's not up to the US to decide whether China is a developing country, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a press conference in June.
China's status as a developing country is supported by concrete facts. China's per capita GDP in 2022 was $12,741, or one-fifth of that of advanced economies and only one-sixth that of the US. 

The move by Germany will create an atmosphere of uncertainty, hinder the growth of bilateral trade and investment, and dampen the investment confidence of European business in China, experts said.

China and EU just concluded productive talks during the 10th High-level Economic and Trade Dialogue, with the two sides reaching multiple consensuses, China's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Tuesday.

Both sides agreed to further promote the two-way opening of the financial industry and encourage eligible financial institutions to invest and expand their business in each other's markets. 

In the context of a global economic downturn, Germany's cancellation of promotional loans will dampen the investment confidence and expectations of European enterprises in the Chinese market, which is not conducive to the deepening economic and trade cooperation between China and Europe, Song said.

From 2013 to 2022, promotional loans with a total volume of 3.451 billion euros ($3.62 billion) were agreed upon with China. No promotional loans were granted in 2023, according to the Reuters report.

Cui Hongjian, a professor with the Academy of Regional and Global Governance with Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times that these loans primarily support projects related to infrastructure, climate change, environmental protection, and sustainable development. The advantage lies in their relatively fixed and extendable repayment period, as well as the relatively favorable interest rates compared to market rates. 

Cui said that in the future, there may be a shift toward more commercial cooperation rather than policy-driven projects. Additionally, this change may not have a significant impact on large-scale projects, as the Chinese side has sufficient financial capacity for investment, Cui said.

China's major industrial firms saw their profit surge in August, reversing the downward trend and increasing by 17.2 percent from a year earlier, the latest sign of sustained recovery in the world's second-largest economy as stimulus kicks in.

The robust industry growth, which marks the first increase since the second half of 2022, may pave the way for a full rebound as a slew of economic indicators are also pointing to a positive consumption trend during the upcoming Golden Week holidays, observers said.

With consumption and manufacturing activities all in full swing, the domestic economy is expected to ride on the fast track of stabilizing growth, though challenges remain, they noted.

In the first eight months of the year, the profits of major industrial firms with annual main business revenue of at least 20 million yuan ($2.79 million) reached 4.66 trillion yuan, down 11.7 percent year-on-year, with the pace of decline narrowing by 3.8 percentage points from the first seven months, according to data released on Wednesday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Of the 41 industrial categories monitored by the bureau, 30 posted better performance in terms of profit during the January-August period, with the losses in raw material manufacturing industry narrowing significantly due to rising commodity prices and recovered demand.

As the country's pro-growth policies continued to show their impact in August, industrial production saw a steady recovery, with the improvement in industrial profit gathering momentum, said NBS statistician Yu Weining.

Profit growth for equipment manufacturing was 3.6 percent for the period, growing from the 1.7 percent registered during the first seven months and leading the overall improvement, Yu said, noting that all business entities recorded better performance.

The reversal in August, reflecting that the overall operating conditions of the industrial sector are improving, was mainly driven by the rebound in market demand, improved prices of industrial products, the effects of macro-support policies, and the low base in 2022, Zhou Maohua, an economist at Everbright Bank, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The rebound was in line with the momentum of China's official manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) for August, which came in at 49.7, up 0.4 points from the previous month.

A reading below 50 indicates a contraction, while one above 50 indicates expansion.

"The recovery of the PMI represents stable market confidence and projection, and enterprises' profit recovery is the real consequence, which shows that the general situation is improving," Cong Yi, professor at the Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

All multiple indicators are upbeat signs for the country's overall economic recovery, and also reflect that a series of supportive measures have taken effect, Cong said.

Notably, in the first eight months of 2023, profit of the electricity, heat generation and supply industry surged by 53.4 percent year-on-year, and profits for electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing increased by 33 percent year-on-year. In addition, profit of auto manufacturing increased by 2.4 percent year-on-year.

NBS data also showed that profit of enterprises in the metal, mineral processing, and energy extraction sectors suffered a decrease, while the profits of coal extraction and washing enterprises declined by 26.3 percent year-on-year, and the profit of chemical raw material and production manufacturing enterprises declined by 51.1 percent.

Structural adjustment of China's industrial enterprises growth is ongoing, and it's a vital period now for shifting the country's economic drive force from traditional industry to emerging sectors, Cong said.

Nevertheless, some domestic industrial manufacturing industries are still in the destocking stage, Zhou said, noting that problems such as insufficient market demand and high cost pressures still pose difficulties for company operations. 

"Domestic macro policy support cannot be relaxed," Zhou said.

Chinese authorities have stressed stronger and more precise measures to bolster the recovery over the past months. In a fresh move on Wednesday, China's central bank said at a quarterly meeting that it would step up policy adjustments and implement monetary policies to expand domestic demand and restore confidence.

During the meeting, the bank emphasized the need to intensify the implementation of existing monetary policies, enhance counter-cyclical and cross-cyclical adjustments, and focus on boosting domestic demand and restoring confidence.

In light of the current domestic and international economic situation, the bank noted that "the current external environment has become more complex and challenging," with inflation remaining high and developed countries expected to maintain elevated interest rates. Additionally, it acknowledged that "the domestic economy continues to recover and improve with strengthened momentum, but still faces challenges such as insufficient demand."

Globally, downward pressure on the world economy has been intensifying. 

According to a Reuters report citing an S&P Global survey, business activity in the US, the world's largest economy, showed little change in September, with the vast services sector essentially idling at the slowest pace since February, and overall new order activity slipping to the lowest level in 2023.