Innovation

China’s ride-hailing market has seen exponential growth this year, which some attribute to the recovery of economic activity. However, others believe that the increase in ride-hailing drivers reflects increased unemployment. Lianhe Zaobao journalist Daryl Lim looks into the potential oversaturation and different factors impacting the market.

Somewhat paradoxically, the trade decoupling of China and the US has forced Chinese manufacturers to independently develop their core technology, which is a boon to their long-term development and competitiveness. But it may be some time to go before China catches up with the West.

Since the release of ChatGPT late last year, Chinese tech companies have been rushing to release their own chatbots. But given the Chinese government’s tight grip on information and speech, how will chatbots developed by Chinese tech companies fare on the world stage?

While advanced AI tools like ChatGPT are viewed as a potential threat to jobs, all is not lost as workers can adapt by learning to work with such technology to achieve better outcomes.

The Chinese government has set targets for hydrogen-powered vehicles and diverse uses of hydrogen until 2035 as part of its push to get industries to shift to clean energy. However, given the processes and costs involved, it remains to be seen whether the initiative will gather enough momentum.

Researcher Wei Da observes that amid increasing US-China tensions and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, US strategists are rethinking the way they see China and Russia. This revised worldview keenly shapes their calculations of various flashpoints, not least the Ukraine war and the Taiwan issue.

The Chinese film industry has released several blockbusters over the Chinese New Year period, and crowds have also returned to cinemas. However, the off-screen drama seems to be more interesting than the movies themselves, with claims of various forms of dishonest or misleading figures for ticket sales, complete with lawsuits and competition for audiences.

Lance Gore explains why navigating China’s “new era” requires out-of-the-box thinking on managing the knowledge economy, such as redefining employment and value beyond the capitalist labour market, and managing the uneven distribution of creativity and innovation. Moreover, the country needs to be wary of a reversion to large-scale centralisation of power and rule by the voice of one.

Technology expert Yin Ruizhi believes that the advent of AI-enabled ChatGPT might be a solution to the ageing populations in Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and China, as humans are freed from jobs that ChatGPT can handle.