CiCM 25th February 2025

NEWS IN CHINA

DeepSeek Unveils Technical Details to Refute Allegations of Misinterpretation: The Hangzhou-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup, DeepSeek has released technical details about its low-cost, high-performance models, thereby countering the allegations that it was fabricating its costs. It has also launched its Open-Source Week initiative with the release of its first code repository, “FlashMLA” and “DeepEP”. These projects are optimization tools that make large language models faster and more efficient. Through these projects, DeepSeek aims to focus on memory bandwidth, computing speed, and inter-chip communication speed, while extracting the best performance from the chips for cost-efficient model training and inference tasks. Several Open-source developers globally cheered DeepSeek’s new projects. Stephen Pimentel, chief technology officer at Dragonscale Industries, stated that by open-sourcing the technique and working on model training, DeepSeek is efficiently refuting the claims that the company might have lied about its training procedures. Due to DeepSeek’s limited budget in comparison with other bigger competitors, there have often been allegations that the company has misled the public regarding its development costs. DeepSeek has stated that its cost-efficient training is a result of innovations, a mixture-of-experts architecture, and a multi-head latent attention technique.
China Condemns Canadian Sanctions on Chinese Entities: Jin Lian, the spokesperson for the foreign ministry, expressed that China strongly condemned Canadian sanctions on Chinese entities, describing them as unreasonable and misguided. He added that China has lodged a formal objection with the Canadian side following their sanction of more than 20 Chinese entities for providing dual-use items to Russia. Jin Lian highlighted that China is committed to promoting the political settlement of the crisis and will never provide lethal weapons to parties in a conflict. Moreover, he added that the scope and regulations regarding export control of drones are the strictest globally. He noted that such unilateral sanctions are not authorized under international law and China only has normal economic and trade cooperation with Russia based on equality and mutual benefit. He also stated that China would take all necessary measures to protect the legitimate interests of its companies.
Chinese Premier Emphasizes Accelerating Innovation in Emerging Technologies for High-Quality Development: During an inspection tour of the companies under China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile, Chinese Premier, Li Qiang addressed the need to advance scientific and technological innovations in emerging areas, cultivate new quality productive forces, and promote high-quality development. He stated that efforts should be undertaken to promote independent innovation and development in key areas to achieve technological breakthroughs and infuse new momentum for industrial transformation. Li also highlighted the need to accelerate the large-scale application of 5G and advance technological research and standards development on 6G. He also emphasized that the three leading telecom operators should enhance their sense of responsibility, focus on innovation-driven development, and strive towards providing powerful support for national development and the emergence of future industries.
China Intensifies Research On Constitutional Affairs: According to senior legislators, China has intensified its research on constitutional matters, over the past year, as a part of its legislative process to protect the constitution's authority and ensure that every provision aligns with the fundamental law. Hou Xiaoguang, an official with the Legislative Affairs Commission, stated that the commission conducted research on constitutional issues as well as proposed opinions for every draft law and submitted them to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC). He added that, with the newly revised laws, this process has become a routine and institutionalized workflow to ensure that every piece of the legislation is aligned with the spirit of the Constitution. Moreover, there is also a focus on expanding constitutional education to introduce the fundamental law to a wider audience. The NPC standing committee has also encouraged improvements in certain regulations that limit employment opportunities for individuals with criminal records after it observed that such regulations contradict the Constitution. Yan Dongfeng, another member of the commission, stated that every citizen has the right and obligation to work and it is one of the fundamental rights guaranteed in the constitution.
China Affirms Commitment Towards International Cooperation to Promote Global Interests: Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, while delivering a video address at the high-level meeting of the 58th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council stated that China is willing to work with other countries to uphold a positive view of human rights and push for reforms for global human rights governance. Wang also stressed that under the pretext of human rights, China does not tolerate actions that interfere with the internal affairs of other countries and disregard national sovereignty and security. He added that double or multiple standards on human rights should be rejected. Wang added that China is also ready to cooperate with other countries to realize a modern world that is characterized by peaceful development, prosperity, and cooperation. He highlighted that China is committed to the well-being of the nations and will promote international cooperation and civilizational exchange to create a brighter future for human rights worldwide. Chen Xu, China’s permanent representative to the UN Office in Geneva, also pointed out that the international community should actively engage in the International Humanitarian Law initiative to uphold humanitarian principles and protect civilians in conflict zones.

SOCIAL MEDIA CHATTER

Launch of New Augmented Reality Glasses Causes Stir on Social Media: Augmented-reality (AR) device maker Rokid has caused a stir on social media after its founder showed its artificial intelligence (AI) enabled glasses. At a government event in Hangzhou, the start-up’s founder, Misa Zhu Mingming displayed the various functions of the glasses which could be used in real-world settings. The company also shared a video where he was able to project his speech notes on a pair of glasses, instead of reading from a prompter. Rokid’s presentation sparked lively discussions online with hashtags like #ScriptOnGlassesTurnPagesWithRings becoming one of the major trending topics on microblogging sites like Sina. The Rokid glasses are the company’s first AR glasses and are designed to recognize images, interpret words as well as navigate roads. Weighing just 49 grams, the glasses have a battery life of four hours. The glasses are also being compared with Meta’s “Orion Glasses,” which according to the company are the most advanced AR glasses. Zhu stated that big companies like Meta often do a great job in publicity but can falter in product development. On the other hand, smaller companies can make better products. He also noted that large companies like Apple and Meta attract traffic, and smaller companies like Rokid can take advantage of the attention.

INDIA WATCH

Article in Chinese Media Analyses the Factors Affecting India’s Gold Imports: An article in Chinese media analyses the two recent stark trends in the global gold market. The global gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded the largest weekly inflow in two years, however Indian gold imports plummeted by 85 percent due to rising gold prices, hitting a 20-year low. According to the World Gold Council, gold ETFs saw inflows of 52.4 metric tons of gold, worth $5 billion in the past week, marking the largest weekly inflows since 2022. However, the Indian market has been stagnant with the gold volume imports in February at only 15 metric tons, which is much lower as compared to gold imports of 103 metric tons in 2024 during the same period. The article stated the main reason for the fall in imports is due to the rising gold prices in India, which have recently surged up to 86,592 rupees per 10 grams. Many Indian consumers are simply unable to buy gold products due to the rising prices. Moreover, several banks and jewelers have also been hesitant to import new gold imports because the January inventory is yet to be sold out. The article highlights that this period is the peak wedding season in India and the demand for gold is usually high with gold jewellery products being used for decoration purposes and also to exchange gifts between relatives. However, this year with the domestic prices being too high, many consumers are simply not choosing to buy gold products.

Prepared By

Ruchir Ketkar

Ruchir Ketkar is a First year student pursuing Masters in Diplomacy, Law and Business at OP Jindal Global University. After completing graduation in Political science, he found his interest in International Relations and Global Affairs. With a keen inclination towards security and conflict studies, he has also authored several articles and research papers. He also tries to keep himself updated with the happenings around the world and tries to analyse them using his perspective and understanding.