Researchers at the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with research groups from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and Fudan University, have developed a fatigue-free ferroelectric material based on sliding ferroelectricity. The study is published in Science.

Ferroelectric materials have switchable spontaneous polarization that can be reversed by an external electric field, which has been widely applied to non-volatile memory, sensing, and energy conversion devices.

Due to the inherited ionic motion of ferroelectric switching, ferroelectric polarization fatigue inevitably occurs in conventional ferroelectric materials as the number of polarization reversal cycles increases. This can lead to performance degradation and device failure, thus limiting the practical applications of ferroelectric materials.

To solve this fatigue problem, the researchers developed a fatigue-free ferroelectric system based on sliding ferroelectricity. A bilayer 3R-MoS2 dual-gate device was fabricated using the chemical vapor transport method.

After 106 switching cycles with different pulse widths ranging from 1 ms to 100 ms, the ferroelectric polarization dipoles showed no loss, indicating that the device still retained its memory performance.

Compared with commercial ferroelectric devices, this device exhibits a superior total stress time of 105 s in an electric field, demonstrating its excellent endurance.

By means of a novel machine-learning potential model, theoretical calculations revealed that the fatigue-free property of sliding ferroelectricity can be attributed to its immobile charged defects.

This work provides an innovative solution to the problematic performance degradation of conventional ferroelectrics.

Source: phys.org, Author: Chinese Academy of Sciences

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It looks like something out of the dystopian show “Black Mirror,” but it’s just the latest adaptation of robotics for the modern battlefield.

During recent military drills with Cambodia, China’s military showed off a robot dog with an automatic rifle mounted on its back, essentially turning man’s best (electronic) friend into a killing machine.

“It can serve as a new member in our urban combat operations, replacing our (human) members to conduct reconnaissance and identify (the) enemy and strike the target,” a soldier identified as Chen Wei says in a video from state broadcaster CCTV.

The two-minute video made during the China-Cambodia “Golden Dragon 2024” exercise also shows the robot dog walking, hopping, lying down and moving backwards under the control of a remote operator.

In one drill, the rifle-firing robot leads an infantry unit into a simulated building.

The latter part of the video also shows an automatic rifle mounted under a six-rotor aerial drone, illustrating what the video says is China’s “variety of intelligent unmanned equipment.”

Military use of robot dogs – and of course small aerial drones – is nothing new. A CCTV video from last year also highlighted China’s rifle-armed electronic canines in a joint exercise involving the Chinese, Cambodian, Lao, Malaysian, Thai and Vietnamese militaries held in China last November.

China’s military displayed a machine gun equipped robot battle “dog” during joint drills with Cambodia CCTV

In 2020, the US Air Force demonstrated how it used robotic dogs as one link in its Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), which uses artificial intelligence and rapid data analytics to detect and counter threats to US military assets.

And since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, drones have become commonplace on the battlefield, on the land, sea and air, with cheap remotely controlled vehicles able to knock out sophisticated military machines like tanks and even warships.

The lethal abilities of drones seen on the Ukraine battlefields has shown them to be great equalizers, enabling military forces with small defense budgets to compete with substantially better armed and funded enemies.

China is one of the world’s leading drone exporters, but last year its Commerce Ministry placed export controls on drone technology, citing the need to “safeguard national security and interests.”

Nevertheless, the robotic dogs seem to be getting plenty of publicity for the People’s Liberation Army.

And the dogs have been popping up on China’s heavily regulated social media for at least a year.

According to the state-run Global Times, the presence of the robotic dogs at exercises with foreign militaries indicates an advanced stage of development.

“Usually, a new equipment will not be brought into a joint exercise with another country, so the robot dogs must have reached a certain level of technical maturity,” Global Times quoted an unnamed expert as saying.

Related video:

Source: CNN, Author: Brad Lendon and Nectar Gan

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Hungary and China signed a number of new agreements on Thursday to deepen their economic and cultural cooperation during a visit to the Central European country by Chinese President Xi Jinping, a trip meant to solidify China’s economic footprint in the region.

Xi and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán held talks in the capital Budapest as part of the Chinese leader’s final stop on a five-day European tour that also took in Servia and France. During a press briefing following the talks, Orbán praised the “continuous, uninterrupted friendship” between the two countries since his tenure began in 2010, and promised that Hungary would continue to host further Chinese investments.

“I would like to assure the president that Hungary will continue to provide fair conditions for Chinese companies investing in our country, and that we will create the opportunity for the most modern Western and the most modern Eastern technologies to meet and build cooperation in Hungary,” Orbán said.

Beijing has invested billions in Hungary and sees the European Union member as an important foothold inside the 27-member trading bloc. In December, Hungary announced that one of the world’s largest EV manufacturers, China’s BYD, will open its first European EV production factory in the south of the country — an inroad that could upend the competitiveness of the continent’s auto industry.

Hungary is also hosting several Chinese EV battery plants and hopes to become a global hub of lithium ion battery manufacturing, and has undertaken a railway project — part of Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative — to connect the country with the Chinese-controlled port of Piraeus in Greece as an entry point for Chinese goods to Central and Eastern Europe.

On Thursday, Xi said he and Orbán agreed the Belt and Road Initiative “is highly consistent with Hungary’s strategy of opening to the east,” and that China supports Hungary in playing a greater role within the EU on promoting China-EU relations.

Hungarian and Chinese officials concluded a strategic partnership agreement and signed 18 other agreements and memoranda of understanding, but no major investments were announced at the news briefing.

However, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó later said in a video on Facebook that initial discussions had begun on China developing a freight railway bypass of Budapest and a rail link between the capital and Budapest Ferihegy airport.

Orbán, a nationalist populist leader who has pursued deeper ties with Beijeing while distancing himself from his more mainstream partners in the EU, noted during the news conference that three-quarters of investments in Hungary last year came from China, and spoke of Beijing’s role in the world’s shifting balance of power.

“Looking back at the world economy and commerce of 20 years ago, it doesn’t resemble at all what we’re living in today,” Orbán said. “Then, we lived in a single polar world, and now we live in a multi-polar world order, and one of the main columns of this new world order is China.”

He added that Hungary would seek to expand economic cooperation with China to the field of nuclear energy. Hungary is currently working with Russia on adding a new reactor to its Paks nuclear facility, which is expected to go online by the end of the decade.

Budapest residents met with road closures and increased security during Xi’s visit as groups of his supporters and critics gathered in various points of the city to demonstrate.

Hundreds of people gathered near Budapest’s Buda Castle waving Chinese and Hungarian flags, hoping to catch a glimpse of Xi’s motorcade. Many Chinese nationals in red baseball caps and claiming to be volunteers with China’s embassy were present.

A Hungarian lawmaker with the opposition Momentum party told The Associated Press that he and a colleague had been approached by a group of such men on Wednesday as they attempted to place EU flags on a bridge in Budapest.

In a video obtained by the AP, the lawmaker, Márton Tompos, said that the men, all wearing red baseball caps, confronted him to make sure that no flags or symbols referencing China-claimed Tibet or Taiwan would be hung on the route of Xi’s motorcade.

They told me that they were volunteers for the Chinese embassy here, and they said they wanted to make sure that there weren’t Tibetan or Taiwanese flags, because that wouldn’t be nice,” Tompos said. The men wouldn’t let his colleague proceed “until he showed them that it was an EU flag,” he added.

Other minor conflicts broke out during the day between Tibetan protesters and some of the red-capped Chinese nationals, who attempted to prevent activists from displaying Tibetan flags by obscuring them with their own Chinese national flags.

One activist, Tenzin Yangzom, a campaign coordinator for the International Tibet Network, criticized Hungary’s government for “allowing the Chinese police to be operating on Hungarian streets.”

“This is not China, is it? This is Hungary, it’s a free country, you have freedom of speech,” she said.

Related videos:

Source: apnews.com, Author:Bela Szandelszky

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When Xi Jinping arrived in Italy for a state visit in 2019, he was given a lavish wecome, with private tours of Roman landmarks and a dinner serenaded by opera singer Andrea Bocelli, topped with a crowning flourish – Italy’s decision to join Xi’s signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

Five years on, the Chinese leader returns to Europe in a very different climate. Xi landed in France Sunday, and while the pomp and ceremony may remain during his six-day European tour, views on China across the continent have shifted dramatically since his last visit.

In the past weeks alone, the European Union has launched trade probes into China’s wind turbines and procurement of medical equipment, and raided offices of Chinese security equipment maker Nuctech as part of an investigation into subsidies. Germany and the United Kingdom in recent days also arrested or charged at least six people for alleged espionage and related crimes linked to China.

And in March, Italy formally exited the Belt and Road, costing the program its only G7 member country, in a blow to China and its leader.

Behind these developments are mounting economic grievances that have the EU preparing for a potential major trade confrontation with China – as well as growing suspicions about Beijing’s global ambitions and influence driven by alarm over China’s deepening ties with Russia as it wages war against Ukraine.

“China is seen increasingly as a multi-faceted threat in many European capitals. But there are divisions within Europe over how fast and far to go in addressing concerns about China, both in the economic and security spheres,” said Noah Barkin, a Berlin-based visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Now, Xi’s trip – with stops in France, Serbia and Hungary – is an opportunity to woo his critics, but also showcase that even as views are hardening in some parts of Europe, others still welcome China with open arms.

Beijing is keen to dampen Europe’s push to address alleged trade distortions, which would come at a bad time for its flagging economy. It also wants to ensure Europe doesn’t draw any closer to the US, especially amid uncertainty over the outcome of the upcoming US election.

Major breakthroughs with China’s toughest critics will be hard to come by unless Xi is ready to make surprise concessions. And the trip could instead serve to underscore divisions – not only between Europe and China – but those within Europe that could play to China’s favor, analysts say.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Quirinale presidential palace in Rome, Italy, on March 23, 2019. Abaca Press/SIPAPRE/Sipa/AP

The Chinese leader met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen alongside French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday.

Von der Leyen has spearheaded the EU’s rallying cry to “derisk” its supply chains from China over concerns about securing its key technologies, and is driving a high-stakes anti-subsidy investigation  backed by France into the influx of Chinese electric vehicle (EV) imports to Europe.

China earlier this year opened an investigation into the price of EU-imported brandy in a move that could hit France’s cognac sector and is widely seen as retaliation for the probe.

In his meetings, Xi will likely press Beijing’s message that “derisking” from China is perilous for Europe – while pushing back on European concerns about China’s alleged overcapacity and subsidies and instead highlighting the role Chinese EVs can play in European and global efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

Xi used similar rhetoric in a meeting in Beijing with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last month, in which critics accused the German leader of being too soft on China in the latest sign of divergence on China policy between Brussels and Berlin.

But such talk, without any tangible trade or reciprocal market-access commitments, is unlikely to move the needle for Von der Leyen, who wants to find ways to address perceived trade distortions before EU parliamentary elections in June, observers say.

Macron too signaled his desire to push Xi on economic ties ahead of the visit.

“I’m calling for an ‘aggiornamento’ because China is now in excess capacity in many areas and exports massively to Europe,” the French president said, using the Italian word for update, in an interview Sunday with French outlet La Tribune Dimanche.

Xi, however, may see more opportunity to win goodwill during his one-on-one time with Macron, which is expected to include not only meetings in Paris but what Elysee sources described as more “personal” time in the Pyrenees mountains of southern France

France has built this reputation of being a fairly independent actor in the EU and willing to create some space with the US,” said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.

“Xi may want to work on Macron to see if he can get more European distance from North America,” as well as tightening his rapport with this important EU player, Chong said.

In a statement released by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs after his arrival, Xi said the two countries had throughout their relations set “a model for the international community of peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation between countries with different social systems.”

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron visit a garden in Guangdong during Macron’s state visit to China last April. Jacques Witt/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Push for peace

The war in Ukraine – a crucial sore point in Europe-China relations – is also expected to be on the agenda in meetings early this week, where Xi may seek to bolster China’s attempts to position itself as peacemaker.

President Xi will explain to President Macron about China’s relations with Russia … (that) China can be a broker to bridge the gaps between Europe and Russia,” said Wang Yiwei, a professor of international relations at Beijing’s Renmin University, pointing to an upcoming peace summit in Switzerland as a potential venue for a diplomatic push.

But Beijing has appeared to do little to move the Kremlin toward European visions for peace in Ukraine, despite repeated efforts to push Xi to use his rapport with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin has said he plans to visit China this month, according to Russian state media.

Xi’s visit comes as the US and its European allies grow increasingly vocal about concerns China’s exports of dual-use goods to Russia are powering its war machine. Beijing defends that trade as a regular part of its bilateral relations.

Macron and Von der Leyen would likely warn Xi their relationship “risks deteriorating further” if China continues to provide those goods, according to Barkin in Berlin.

However, “there is little evidence that these messages are leading to noticeable changes in Beijing’s behavior,” he said, adding that “at some point soon” Europe could decide to move more aggressively in sanctioning Chinese firms selling such goods.

A warmer welcome

Xi’s stops in Serbia and Hungary are likely to be much less contentious – something the Chinese government likely factored in when mapping out the visit, observers say.

“In Belgrade and Budapest, Xi will not have to listen to the criticism he hears in other European capitals,” said Barkin. “Their leaders welcome Chinese investment, and they don’t have a problem with China’s deepening ties to Russia.”

Xi’s visit to Belgrade will coincide with the week of the 25th anniversary of NATO’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade that killed three. The attack, part of a wider bombing campaign by NATO in the Balkans during the spring of 1999, drove Beijing’s deep enmity for the alliance, even as the US said it was an accident.

Any commemoration of the event by Xi could underscore the deep divisions between China and NATO, which Beijing sees as an embodiment of American overreach and a source of Europe’s security challenges – a view that has driven it closer to Russia.

Xi may also look to highlight Chinese investments in both Belgrade and Budapest in a message to the rest of Europe.

Non-EU member Serbia, which Beijing earlier this week described as an “iron-clad” friend, has seen growing trade and investment ties with China under President Aleksandar Vučić.

In January, the Balkan nation announced a deal that could see more than $2 billion of Chinese investment in wind and solar power plants and a hydrogen production facility, Reuters reported at the time.

In Hungary, Xi will look to deepen his relationship with increasingly authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban – a useful ally for China in the European Union, where he has blocked or criticized EU efforts to hold China to account on human rights issues.

The central European country has also emerged as an increasingly important production hub in Europe for Chinese automotive suppliers including EV makers – a situation that analysts say could help Chinese firms maneuver around existing and potential EU tariffs.

That means Xi is likely to exit his trip on a very different note from the one he begins with.

“There, at least, the optics will be that there’s a lot of acceptance of Xi,” said Chong.

Source: CNN, Author: Simone McCarthy

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China, the world’s top carbon polluter, is at risk of falling short on its climate targets after approving dozens of new coal plants, according to research published Thursday.

In an effort to bring planet-heating pollution to a peak by 2030, China has vowed to “strictly control” new coal-fired generation capacity, and has also connected record numbers of new wind and solar plants to its grid.

But after a wave of electricity shortages in 2021, it also embarked on a coal power permitting boom that could slow its energy transition, according to analysis by US think tank Global Energy Monitor (GEM) and the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

In just two years, the country has approved 218 GW of new coal power, enough to supply electricity to the whole of Brazil.

China approved 114 gigawatts (GW) of coal power capacity in 2023, up 10% from a year earlier. Construction started on 70 GW of new coal plants last year, up from 54 GW a year earlier, with another 47 GW going into operation, up from 28 GW in 2022, the analysis found.

“Drastic action” is now required to meet 2025 carbon and energy intensity goals, and China could also struggle to meet a target to raise the share of non-fossil fuels in its total energy mix to 20% by 2025, the report said.

China’s total power capacity is already sufficient to meet demand, but its inefficient grid is unable to deliver electricity where it is needed, especially across provincial borders, encouraging more plant construction.

CREA has previously forecast that China’s carbon emissions will fall this year, with utilization rates at coal plants likely to drop significantly as more clean energy is connected to the grid.

“This risks significant financial problems for coal power plant operators and potential pushback against the energy transition,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, CREA’s chief analyst.

“This contradiction will have to be resolved in order for China to realize the emission reductions needed to get on track to carbon neutrality.”

Source: CNN, Author: Reuters

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An operation was underway in U.S. territorial waters in the Atlantic Ocean to recover debris from the balloon, which had been flying at about 60,000 feet and was estimated to be about the size of three school buses. The balloon was downed by Air Force fighter aircraft, according to two officials who were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

President Joe Biden had told reporters earlier Saturday that “we’re going to take care of it,” when asked about the balloon. The Federal Aviation Administration and Coast Guard worked to clear the airspace and water below the balloon as it reached the ocean.

Television footage showed a small explosion, followed by the balloon descending toward the water. U.S. military jets were seen flying in the vicinity and ships were deployed in the water to mount the recovery operation.

Officials were aiming to time the operation so they could recover as much of the debris as possible before it sinks into the ocean. The Pentagon had previously estimated that any debris field would be substantial.

The balloon was spotted Saturday morning over the Carolinas as it approached the coast. In preparation for the operation, the FAA Administration temporarily closed airspace over the Carolina coastline, including the airports in Charleston and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina. The FAA rerouted air traffic from the area and warned of delays as a result of the flight restrictions.

The Coast Guard advised mariners to immediately leave the area because of U.S. military operations “that present a significant hazard.”

Biden had been inclined to down the balloon over land when he was first briefed on it on Tuesday, but Pentagon officials advised against it, warning that the potential risk to people on the ground outweighed the assessment of potential Chinese intelligence gains.

The public disclosure of the balloon this week prompted the cancellation of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing scheduled for Sunday for talks aimed at reducing U.S.-China tensions. The Chinese government on Saturday sought to play down the cancellation.

“In actuality, the U.S. and China have never announced any visit, the U.S. making any such announcement is their own business, and we respect that,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Saturday morning.

China has continued to claim that the balloon was merely a weather research “airship” that had been blown off course. The Pentagon rejected that out of hand — as well as China’s contention that it was not being used for surveillance and had only limited navigational ability.

The balloon was spotted over Montana, which is home to one of America’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base.

The Pentagon also acknowledged reports of a second balloon flying over Latin America. “We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon,” Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a question about the second balloon.

Blinken, who had been due to depart Washington for Beijing late Friday, said he had told senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in a phone call that sending the balloon over the U.S. was “an irresponsible act and that (China’s) decision to take this action on the eve of my visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have.”

Uncensored reactions on the Chinese internet mirrored the official government stance that the U.S. was hyping the situation. Some used it as a chance to poke fun at U.S. defenses, saying it couldn’t even defend against a balloon, and nationalist influencers leapt to use the news to mock the U.S.

China has denied any claims of spying and said it is a civilian-use balloon intended for meteorology research. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized that the balloon’s journey was out of its control and urged the U.S. not to “smear” it based on the balloon.

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.  

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