The World of Work for Women in China For the first time in 60 years, China’s population is shrinking. As the average age of China's working-age population continues to rise, encouraging childbearing has become the new bellwether, and this is bringing about a change for China’s working women. A number of cities have introduced complementary measures to encourage childbearing, focusing on granting of child-care subsidies and new parental leave. But are these policies making things better?To get more news about traditional chinese women, you can visit shine news official website. Traditional barriers Influenced by Chinese philosopher Confucius, a notable feature of East Asian societies has been the different status of genders. Historically, women in China were required to obey their fathers' orders when unmarried and their husbands' orders after marriage; they had no choice or say in family life and lacked the right to inherit family names and property. And they certainly weren't in control of their own work life or careers. The world of work has since opened up for women in China, but there is still some way to go. Even after industrialisation over the past four decades, traces of the gender divide remains in these Confucius-influenced cultures. Based on the Global Gender Gap Report 2022 by the World Economic Forum, China ranked No.102, compared with other prominent Asian economies, such as South Korea at No.99 and Japan in No.116. This gap is reflected in salaries in China. According to the 2022 survey on the current situation of Chinese women in the workplace published by Zhaopin, a Chinese recruitment platform, the average monthly salary of Chinese women in the workplace is 8,545 yuan. This is 12% lower than the men's average monthly salary of 9,776 yuan. They also face a glass-ceiling. Out of 100 employed women, only about 34 hold management positions compared with about 41 of men (per 100 employed). There is also a perception problem regarding women's ability. Only 5.7% of workers rated women as "strong leaders", compared with 51.5% for men. Women also face extreme pressures relating to their physical appearance. Facial anxiety was reported in more than 61.5% of women in the workplace, compared with 35.4 % of men. When asked whether appearance can affect a women’s career development, 82.2% of working women and 77.3% of working men in China agreed. Women still suffer from unfair ’higher requirements’ that don't apply to men. This focus on appearance is reflected in Chinese CVs where almost all companies require a picture of the applicant to be attached. Improvements in education However, despite this gap, rapid economic development has helped to undermine some of the patriarchal social structures in China. Historically, only Chinese men were able to take part in the imperial examinations – the elite examinations which determined access to government office. In contemporary China, this has changed dramatically, with women now receiving the same access to education as men (though parents with more than one child may still prioritize sons, especially in more rural areas). According to the 2022 data from Zhaopin, Chinese working women are more highly educated than men, with 55.9 % of women having a bachelor's degree or above, much higher than the 33.6 % for men.

Surveillance State' explores China's tech and social media control systems

During one of my last reporting trips in China, I booked my plane tickets on the drive to the airport. Instead of checking into a hotel, which in China requires turning in a passport scan that is sent straight to the local police, I decided to fly in as early as possible, finish all my reporting in the same day, and return that very night.To get more china tech news, you can visit shine news official website.

I randomly found a driver outside the airport — she even helpfully jumped into translate the beguiling local dialect for me. By nightfall, I was on a flight back to Beijing with all of my reporting safely stored on several microSD cards. Success, I thought.

The next morning, my contact called me in a panic. Several local officials had visited his home after our meeting and threatened him. I was disappointed, but also confused: How had China's security apparatus managed to track down my whereabouts so quickly?

Josh Chin's and Liza Lin's new book, Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control, attempts to answer that question. The two veteran Wall Street Journal reporters spent years covering China's political and technological rise. They draw on that experience to untangle how China built its formidable digital surveillance apparatus (plot spoiler: in conjunction with American companies) and the often-erroneous assumptions that underpin its application, with disastrous consequences.Chin and Lin describe how authorities utilize a sophisticated national database linking identification documents, facial recognition data, fingerprints, and travel history (including, most likely, mine). A second, more powerful layer of scrutiny is China's vast network of CCTV cameras, whose footage is analyzed in real time by artificial intelligence software sold by a host of Chinese companies like Huawei, Sensetime, Megvii, and China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC). Unconstrained by China's weak legal system and a nascent digital privacy code, China's tech giants and security apparatus are able to track phones, monitor online purchases, and decrypt messages.

The idea — pioneered by foundational Chinese scientific thinkers like Qian Xuesen — is that harnessing vast inputs of behavioral data can create predictive policing and safe, stable societies. With the reams of big data generated by China's more than one billion mobile internet users, that vision is now reality. The founder and chairman of e-commerce giant Alibaba, Jack Ma, is quoted in Surveillance State as saying during a 2015 talk attended by high-level security officials, "Whoever owns enough data and computing ability can predict problems, predict the future, and judge the future."

Government surveillance is difficult to uncover and understand because it is by nature secretive. In the absence of concrete facts (and add a tense geopolitical relationship between the U.S. and China to boot), less knowledgeable reporters might insert hyperbole or speculation. Chin and Lin do none of that, preferring instead to use real-world examples to illustrate both the mundane and dystopian applications of China's surveillance might.
One of the book's strongest traits is its unflinching analysis of how such big data approaches are being utilized not just by China, but by governments all around the world, including in the United States. China, the authors make clear, is not an exception in its embrace of a policing system fortified by video surveillance and artificial intelligence. Western companies including Intel, IBM, Seagate, Cisco and Sun Technologies are among those Chin and Lin examine the commercial relationships that helped make China's surveillance state technologically and financially viable.

China has undoubtedly unlocked an impressive, if chilling, achievement: absolute social control with relatively little of the unseemly and highly visible physical oppression seen in lower-tech authoritarian countries, such as Iran or Russia.

However, such control masks a disturbing level of systemic bias and outright inaccuracy baked into China's deeply penetrating digital surveillance systems. Some of the anecdotes Chin and Lin include are laughable. In one, a noted political dissident is visited by police after, out of boredom, he purchases a slingshot online; the officers suspect he has purchased the toy to take out the numerous CCTV cameras trained on his home.

Others stories are far more troubling. Chin and Lin tell the haunting tale of a Uyghur poet and filmmaker named Tahir Hamut Izgil, who now lives in the U.S. Hamut and his family describe having their blood, iris, fingerprints, and voice recordings collected by Xinjiang police, to be input into a biometric database. At least hundreds of thousands of their fellow Uyghurs have been detained or imprisoned, often on the basis of seemingly flimsy evidence such as usage of chat apps like Whatsapp; surveys filed by cadres sent to live with and report on Uyghur families; or are determined by blanket algorithms to indicate religious extremism.

Chinese President Xi Jinping Presses for Ag Tech Progress

Earlier this week, Reuters writers Dominique Patton, Roxanne Liu and Bernard Orr reported that, “President Xi Jinping wants China to accelerate efforts to achieve self-reliance in agricultural technology, identifying seed development and core equipment among areas to focus on, state media reported.To get more china technology news, you can visit shine news official website.

“The central leadership had said in 2020 that the country’s seed industry was a weak link in the food chain and needed to make better use of science and technology to achieve a turnaround.Meanwhile, Reuters writer Ana Mano reported last week that, “China is expected to end the year with historically low soymeal carryover stocks, which should increase dependence on imported soybeans in 2023, Victor Martins, senior risk manager at HedgePoint Global Markets, said Thursday.

“Brazilian soybeans, which are processed in China to make livestock feed, are currently more attractive than U.S. soybeans for February shipments, Martins said in an interview.And as the Chinese government continues to pare back Covid restrictions, Financial Times writer Thomas Hale reported on Monday that, “China will remove quarantine requirements for inbound travellers from January 8 as the country dismantles the remnants of a zero-Covid regime that closed it off from the rest of the world for almost three years.

“The National Health Commission on Monday unveiled the move as part of a wider announcement that downgraded the country’s management of Covid-19, a virus which is currently sweeping the nation, and definitively abandoned a host of other preventive measures.”Also Monday, Wall Street Journal writer Jonathan Cheng reported that, “Visits to three major hospitals in Beijing by the Journal on Monday showed the capital’s healthcare system now swamped with an influx of patients following the government’s about-face on Covid-19 controls, which has left many citizens, especially the elderly, scrambling to find treatment.”

And Bloomberg News reported on Monday that, “Since late November, when discontent with harsh Covid Zero rules boiled over and sparked protests in cities across the country, officials have rapidly dismantled many of their harshest pandemic measures. The speed of change has left health experts puzzled and residents scrambling to adjust to a new way of life that’s seen infections explode and made the border curbs — put in place to keep the virus out of China — increasingly irrelevant.”

“China’s abrupt U-turn on Covid Zero has upended economists’ and investors’ expectations, complicating estimates for how its policies will affect economic growth,” the Bloomberg article said.

Study Shows Cannabis was Food Staple for Ancient Chinese Dynasty

Researchers studying an ancient tomb in China have found direct evidence that cannabis was a staple food crop during the Tang dynasty more than 1,000 years ago. To get more news about ancient chinese bedroom, you can visit shine news official website.

Previous research into the civilizations of ancient China has shown that cannabis was an important crop for thousands of years, with historical texts showing that the plant’s seeds were a staple food consumed in a type of porridge. And now archaeological evidence from central China is confirming the significance of cannabis during the Tang dynasty, which ruled the country from 618 to 907 A.D.In 2019, workers at an elementary school playground construction site in Taiyuan, Shanxi province discovered an ancient tomb buried underground. Escaping discovery for more than 1,320 years, the remarkably dry environment of the tomb had preserved the wall paintings and artifacts found inside.

The researchers determined that the discovery was the tomb of Guo Xing, a cavalry officer who had fought with Tang emperor Li Shimin, or Taixzong, in a series of fierce battles on the Korean peninsula. Among the artifacts discovered in the tomb was a jar containing staple foods, which included cannabis seeds and the remnants of their husks, according to a report by the South China Morning Post.

“The cannabis was stored in a pot on the coffin bed amid other staple grains such as millet. Obviously, the descendants of Guo Xing buried cannabis as an important food crop,” said Jin Guiyun, a professor with the school of history and culture at Shandong University and a co-author of the study published last month by the peer-reviewed journal Agricultural Archaeology.

The cannabis seeds were significantly larger than those of today’s varietals, suggesting that a cultivar of cannabis had been bred specifically for grain. They were so well preserved that some still showed their original color. The researchers noted that the seeds still had their husks, which can contain the psychoactive cannabinoid THC. According to the Compendium of Materia Medica, a book written by herbalist Li Shizhen about 500 years ago, eating too many cannabis seeds that still had their husks could “make a person run about like mad.”
“Cannabis seeds with husks are not only related to the high lignin content of the husk and its hard texture, which can reduce the chance of mold and prolong the storage time, it may also stimulate the nerves and cause hallucinations due to the consumption of husk for religious and medical purposes,” researchers with the Taiyuan Municipal Institute of Archaeology wrote in a report on the study.

Cannabis was an important crop during the Tang dynasty, providing food, fiber and medicine for the ancient civilization. But the Taiyuan region was wetter and warmer at that time, making rice the most common grain in the area.

However, the artifacts placed in the tomb by the family of Guo Xing did not include rice as would be expected. Instead, the researchers found cannabis seeds, perhaps reflecting the personal food preference of the ancient warrior, who lived to the age of 90.

In ancient Chinese texts, cannabis was known as one of the five staple food crops known as wu gu. Archaeologists have discovered cannabis in tombs found across the country, some as old as 6,600 years old. Previously, researchers have theorized that the presence of cannabis in tombs indicated the use of the plant for spiritual and funerary purposes. But the evidence discovered in Guo Xing’s tomb illustrates the importance of cannabis as a staple food crop as well.

Chinese women face a complex homecoming after studying in Australia

When Li Fang* returned to China after studying at university in both Australia and New Zealand, she didn't think she'd changed all that much.To get more news about traditional chinese women, you can visit shine news official website.

But her family and friends soon noticed."People around me thought I was different," she says."I asked them, 'What's the difference?' They said, 'Sometimes your opinions and your speaking style are very direct.'"

In hindsight, she agrees. "I think my personality changed a lot after going abroad. I like freedom, I like independence," she says.It was not only those close to her who noticed. After Li got home, she undertook an internship with the Chinese government.

"No-one [in my office] had an international background … The Chinese style in government is: Everyone is quiet and no-one should speak [up] about anything. Everyone just follows," she says.

"When you come back to China and you're not used to this, people around you think you're strange."Li is not alone. Many Chinese international students — particularly women — find themselves changed after studying in Australia.

And many of these young women are determined to chart a new course for themselves back in their home country.Fran Martin, associate professor at the University of Melbourne, recently completed a five-year study where she followed a group of 56 Chinese women who studied at university in Australia, including Li.

"Women students make up a majority of the students who come to us from China," Dr Martin tells ABC RN's Counterpoint.

"Many of them find a very meaningful experience, in terms of their personal, subjective sense of themselves and for their plans in their life as women.

"[They may] pivot or reorient as a result of being away from social and familial surveillance at home and living somewhat independently here in Australian cities."Dr Martin says many participants spoke about "getting a kind of tolerance or understanding of non-standard ways of living".

"Whether or not you do these yourselves [or see others do it], from dyeing your hair blue, to cohabiting with partners before marriage, to not having a standard 'wife and family' life plan."

But she says these new ideas and values often collide with a more conservative reality back in China. They experience this when returning to the family home, or through broader state and cultural pressures, or both.The general Chinese public culture and the parent culture has encouraged them strongly towards professional careers and a high level of education … But then there is renewed and intense pressure on women in their mid 20s to reorient suddenly towards marriage, children and family care."

She says these women come back with valuable degrees, "but then they're thrown back into that sort of neo-traditional sense of what a woman's role and identity should be as she moves through that part of her life".

"They may find that they're quite competitive for some professional jobs. At the same time, at least some members of their family and extended family will say, 'When are you getting married?' or 'When are we getting grandchildren?'"