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• Measures to boost consumer spending and foreign investment unveiled: The State Council executive meeting which was held on Monday, presided over by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, detailed measures to boost domestic consumption and passed an action plan which would stabilize foreign investment in 2025. The meeting highlighted the importance of supporting an increase in household incomes, enhance consumption capabilities and promote reasonable wage growth. Further, an emphasis was also laid on expanding consumption in the culture, snow and ice-industry, sports and tourism sectors, while strengthening support for consumer goods trade-in program. Noting that foreign enterprises play an integral role in employment generation, stabilizing export and upgrading industry, a commitment to introduce effective measures to enhance and stabilize existing foreign investment was made. The meeting also stressed the need to optimize rules and procedures for foreign mergers and acquisitions. A firmness to treat domestic and foreign enterprises equally in government and financial procurement was mentioned coupled with the commitment to remove outdated and inefficient production capacities.  

• China Unicom launches 5G-A action plan, providing a test field to explore 6G: A press conference was held in Harbin by China Unicom on the “Unicom 10 Gigabit, Enjoy the Charm of the Asian Winter Games”. As the official partner for communications and cloud service for the 9th Asian Winter Games, China Unicom took up the opportunity to present the 5G-A Action Plan, declaring that in 2025 they plan to launch 5G-A services in main urban areas of 39 key cities. They are also planning to launch the 5G-A Spark Plan, 5G-A Baichan Plan, and the Converged Innovation Terminal Ecological Alliance in order to strengthen the upstream and downstream cooperation of the industrial chain. The “5G-A Action Plan” focuses on new networks and is divided into three parts - "four-pole" networks, "four-in-one" capabilities, and "two major" areas of innovation. According to reports, firstly Unicom proposes that China adheres to network innovation and build a “quadruple-pole” network, which will introduce robust connectivity, enhance high-speed broadband and innovatively deploy new capabilities such as intersensory integration. Second, China should follow technological innovation and strengthen the “four integrations” capacities. They further stressed that Unicom would promote deep integration of communications and business needs. Cao Ming, Vice President of Huawei and President of Huawei Wireless Product Line, stressed on how the evolution of integrated 5G-A will revolutionize the development of traditional mobile business and bring huge opportunities to all industries.  

• President Xi Jinping says ice and snow economy is a new growth point for China: With the 9th Asian Winter Games currently taking shape in Harbin, the ice and snow tourism in the region has picked up significantly. Keeping with same trend, General Secretary Xi Jinping acknowledged that China should develop the ice and snow economy as it has now become a new growth point for the economy. Further he also stressed that the entire industry chain of ice and snow sports, equipment and culture coupled with tourism should be provided with a developmental boost. With this winter, various regions have continued to enhance the deep integration of ice and snow with cultural tourism, science and technology and other industries. In the same spirit, Xi Jinping in 2023, visited the Arctic Village and asked the local party committee and government to provide policy to enhance the ice and snow tourism of the northern border and uplift the scenery as well.  

• Visa waiver scheme for ASEAN announced: In the latest step to boost people -to-people exchanges with Southeast Asia, China announced a visa-free policy for tour groups from ASEAN nations who showed interest in visiting Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture, Yunnan province. Henceforth any tour groups made up of at least two ordinary passport holders, belonging to any of the 10 ASEAN member countries, are permitted to enter and leave China without a visa, via the Xishuangbanna Gasa International Airport, the Mohan Railway Port and the Mohan Highway Port, which are all located in the prefecture, states the National Immigration Administration (NIA). The tour groups belonging to these countries, entering through the three ports are allowed to stay in Xishuangbanna for up to six days, but the groups must be organized and received by travel agencies in China said the NIA. Exceptions are made to passport holders from Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, being permitted to stay in the country for up to 30 days. The policy is in place to promote tourism and attract more foreigners to travel  in China in order to inject more momentum in the travel market.  

• Annual Chinese cybersecurity report reveals over 1300 overseas APT attacks: The annual report from a Chinese cybersecurity firm revealed that more than 1,300 advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks have targeted 14 important sectors in China in 2024. The most affected sectors out of the 14 are education, scientific research, national defence, transportation and government industries. The APT organizations leading these attacks are largely 13 groups originating from Southeast Asia, South Asia, North America, stated the report sent by 360 Security Group to the Global Times. Chinese government agencies became the primary target of foreign APT organisations especially the functional units relating to diplomacy, maritime affairs, transportation management and more. The ones targeting diplomatic entities aim to collect information on China’s latest strategies and positions on key international relations issues. The cybersecurity company further cautioned that these cyberattacks not only target military intelligence, but also disrupt communications and pose a risk of infiltrating military facilities.  

‘Inhumane’ U.S. deportation of undocumented migrants' sparks outrage in India: The Chinese media have reported the mistreatment of undocumented Indian migrants being deported from the United States. A US military aircraft carrying 104 Indian nationals, who were being deported to India, landed in the northern city of Amritsar last Wednesday. Reported images of them handcuffed and their legs shackled on board during their long flight angered many Indians on social media. This outcry comes a few days ahead of Narendra Modi’s meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington. Opposition parties have voiced their extreme opposition, and staged protests to the perceived ill treatment of Indian citizens, with congress leader K.C.Venugopal staging a protest wearing handcuff in parliament last week. A few X users said “Shame on the weak Modi government… Why didn’t we send our own transport planes to fly them back?”. Another user said “from the US in the most inhumane way – handcuffed, leg-chained, treated like criminals. One toilet for a long-haul flight”. Kingshuk Nag, an Indian scholar, also opined that the deported Indians and their treatment showcased the unequal relationship between New Delhi and Washington.  Referring to Prime Minister Modi, he said “How can these Indian nationals have been brought back in such inhumane conditions? What is your stature after this?” Harsh Ramaswamy added that an incident of such a kind is being underplayed by Indian authorities to avoid jeopardising relations and the outcomes of the scheduled talks.