Taiwan’s laboured energy transition is straining its industry, with sudden electricity price jumps and growing outage risks affecting companies including Asia’s biggest — the semiconductor giant TSMC.

Following a series of price increases, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company now expects to pay more for power in its home country than anywhere else. The world’s largest chipmaker operates plants in the US and Japan and is building one in Germany.

“Basically, the price has doubled in the past few years. So next year, we think that [the] electricity price for us in Taiwan will be the highest in all the regions that we operate,” Wendell Huang, chief financial officer, told investors last month.

Although the pace of Taiwan’s power price increases since 2022 is still slower than in some other energy import-dependent advanced economies such as France and South Korea, government researchers expect industrial electricity cost to exceed that in Japan and South Korea, Taiwan’s closest competitors in export markets.

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Premier Li Qiang has called for better vocational education and cultivation of craftsmanship talent, as the world’s second-largest economy is building up a skilled industrial workforce amid an intensifying tech rivalry with the United States.

China needs to cultivate more sophisticated skilled talents to help the nation achieve “high-level scientific and technological self-reliance”, Li said on Sunday during an inspection tour in Shanghai.

The call follows a plan unveiled by the central government last month to enlarge its highly skilled talent pool as China pushes for independent technological innovation while the US continues with efforts to curb the former’s hi-tech access.

Calling it an adjustment to a changing landscape, Li emphasised “the spirit of model workers, labour and craftsmanship” during his visit to a vocational school in the city, state news agency Xinhua reported.

With a goal of strengthening the nation’s technological self-reliance, he underscored the urgency of developing expertise in fields critical to emerging technology and advanced industries amid a global industrial transformation.

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https://archive.vn/MjbmV

Alibaba Group Holding is scaling down its metaverse operations, according to a source familiar with the matter, making it the latest Big Tech company to pull back resources from the once-popular sector.

Dozens of employees at Yuanjing, the metaverse unit of e-commerce giant Alibaba, have been laid off, as part of a restructuring that aims to optimise and improve efficiency in the organisation, the source said.

The lay-offs, which were first reported by Chinese media on Friday, affected Yuanjing’s operations in both Shanghai and Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province. Yuanjing, which had received “billions of yuan” in investment, previously employed a few hundred workers, according to a report by online news outlet AI Jingxuanshe.

The source, however, said the Alibaba unit will continue to exist, with a focus on metaverse applications and tools, as well as providing metaverse-based services to customers.

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https://archive.vn/H1jGO

China has extended its unilateral visa-free policy to more countries, providing visa-free treatment to travelers holding ordinary passports from nine countries, namely: Slovakia, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein and South Korea, as of November 8, 2024, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday.

https://archive.ph/RrIh1

The last four years have been hard on China’s superrich and if Xi’s team doesn’t change course many more will become extinct.

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https://archive.is/gNdbC

https://archive.is/QRneD

https://archive.ph/bKMVd

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6021242

Thoughts on this writing of Mao's?

It's about 45 minutes long or thereabouts.

"Oppose Stereotyped Party Writing"

Seems good for me as a Communications major.

I tried asking on reddit, but tbh everyone is an asshole over there and were not giving me very detailed answers

This is gonna be a fairly complex question with a fairly complex answer, I know. A few things to preface to reassure that I'm not dashing into this without thinking.

1.I am not moving tomorrow. I'm getting my degree in my home country first, and then moving. (Obviously I will ask again when the time comes, since policies and situations can change)

2.I am planning on learning and becoming proficient(if not fluent) in Chinese

3.Im planning on taking internships and will have a degree in an industrial field, so I won't be completely unqualified for potential positions.

4.I know china isn't luxury gay space communism

Anyway, what I wanted to ask is a few subquestions in relation to one big overall question.

A.What is the process from getting from my country (the usa) to China going to be like? I mean, obviously I'm flying, but I've never moved countries before so I want to know what I'll need to do beforehand, how long the process will take, and what might prevent me from going in the first place

B.Is there any specific locations in China that you would recommend? Personally I'm thinking either Shanghai or Chongqing, however I generally just don't know where I'd fit in to start. I understand if I might not be perfect for a recommendation, but if there are some ideas that I could he presented with, I would greatly appreciate it, and I can always move to a different area later

(Edit:I'm also from an area with very few natural disasters. Should I move somewhere more inland, or northern, since I don't have experience in preparation and evacuation and such)

C.What is the process and what should I expect for getting a job? I live in the US, so how do I go about getting a job offer from a Chinese company to get a work visa. What would make me more viable as a canidate (besides language skills and a degree and experience, obviously)

D.The great firewall and such. How worried should I be about what I say, both in person and on social media? Also, how much access will I have to the non-chinese world? I've been told there might be access to VPNs, but I feel like that defeats the purpose of the great firewall, no?

E.Services. How does getting access to Healthcare, legal services, etc. Go when I'm not a citizen?

F.How worried should I be about day to day life and crime? How much more/less worried should I be about getting mugged/assaulted/burglarized (obviously depending on the area.)

G.How do I deal with the inevitable culture shocks I'll have?

And finally

H.Will there be any possibility of me obtaining Chinese citizenship? If yes, how long will it take, and what will and won't be available for me for the time im not a citizen? I checked the naturalization law, and it says if I'm stateless I can apply for citizenship if I'm "settled," but I dont exactly know what that means.

I think that covers everything. I'll add as much detail about myself as I am willing to share online (which isn't a ton). Thank you in advance for any help in this matter.