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Editor's Note:

"Cognitive Warfare" has become a new form of confrontation between states, and a new security threat. With new technological means, it sets agendas and spreads disinformation, so as to change people's perceptions and thus alter their self-identity. Launching cognitive warfare against China is an important means for Western anti-China forces to attack and discredit the country. Under the manipulation of the US-led West, the "China threat theory" has continued to foment.

Some politicians and media outlets have publicly smeared China's image by propagating false narratives such as the "China economy collapse theory" and "China virus threat theory," in an attempt to incite and provoke dissatisfaction with China among people in certain countries.

These means all serve the seemingly peaceful evolution strategy of the US to contain China's rise and maintain its hegemony.

The Global Times is publishing a series of articles to systematically reveal the intrigues of the US-led West's cognitive warfare targeting China, and expose its lies and vicious intentions, in an attempt to show international readers a true, multi-dimensional, and panoramic view of China.

This is the eighth installment in the series. In this story, the Global Times looks into how the Group of Seven (G7) attempts to tarnish China's image and jeopardize the peace and tranquility in the region with various cognitive warfare tricks.
The Group of Seven (G7) has been hyping the South China Sea issue synchronously under the US leadership. In the latest statement released earlier this month, the G7 once again claimed to oppose China's militarization activities in the South China Sea, and, not surprisingly, mentioned the so-called South China Sea arbitration.

These cliché accusations, as well as G7's repeated hypes of the South China Sea issue, have become "a part of the group's carefully planned cognitive warfare against China," said some Chinese observers reached by the Global Times. They pointed out that, through consistently creating strife in the South China Sea, provoking conflict between China and related countries in the region, and even inciting the latter to initiate troubles against China, the G7 attempts to harm China's sovereignty, denigrates China's international image, and jeopardize the peace and tranquility in this region.

The media disinformation campaign is far from the only means used, the Global Times found. Within the framework of the G7, governments, legal professions, media outlets, and academic institutes have largely participated in this cognitive war targeting China in terms of the South China Sea issue.

Murky blue sea interference

The G7, as one of the most powerful and influential intergovernmental political and economic groups in the West, is very good at attacking China over the South China Sea issue in the form of a joint declaration or statement by government heads or top officials among its members, to delegitimize China's rights and interests in the South China Sea at superficially "official" and "formal" occasions.

Apart from the latest statement, the G7 has released several similar joint statements detailing its "concerns" over the South China Sea issue in 2023 alone.

On November 8, 2023, G7 foreign ministers released a statement in Tokyo, stating that they "remain seriously concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas," and "strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion." Similar sentiments were also seen in another statement released after they met in New York in September.

Earlier in May, the G7 also hyped China-related issues in the G7 Hiroshima Leaders' Communiqué and other documents adopted at the G7 Hiroshima Summit, including irresponsible comments on the situation in the Taiwan Straits, and accusations regarding regions like the South China Sea.

Uniformly, these statements mentioned the South China Sea arbitration, saying the award rendered by the Arbitral Tribunal in 2016 "is legally binding upon the parties to those proceedings, and a useful basis for peacefully resolving disputes between the parties."

The fact is that the arbitration, without actual legal effect, has been widely considered a political farce under the cloak of law, said scholars of boundary and marine studies.

"The South China Sea arbitration was conducted by an arbitral tribunal without jurisdiction in violation of the procedures set out in Articles 283 and 298 of the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). There is no basis in international law, and it (the arbitration) has no legal binding force on China," said Wu Wei, an associated professor in China Institute of Boundary and Ocean Studies of Wuhan University.

Wu said that in 2023 since the US and the Philippines released the "Joint Statement of the US-Philippines 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue" in April, the US-led G7 has further meddled in the South China Sea issue.

"At the level of international law, it has violated the DOC (Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea), the UNCLOS, and the basic principles of non-intervention in domestic affairs," she told the Global Times.

Similarly, the "Limits in the Seas No.150" report that the US Department of State released in January 2022, which said it "examines the maritime claims of the People's Republic of China in the South China Sea" based on the UNCLOS, was also no more than a political tool of attack by the US against China under the guise of law, observers commented.

"The US itself has not ratified the UNCLOS," noted Wu. "Washington's interference in the South China Sea issue has hindered the normal implementation of the Convention."
Hypes from media, academy community

G7 members have continually added fuel to the fire in the South China Sea issue, with Western media outlets amplifying their incendiary talking points. This year, US media outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Time magazine have extensively reported on the maritime conflicts between China and the Philippines.

Throughout 2023, when the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) stirred up trouble in the South China Sea, it contrived the accompaniment of local and Western media entities on many occasions, with mainstream Western media outlets such as the New York Times, NBC, and AFP being invited to join Philippine journalists. The Foreign Correspondents Association, representing foreign media in the Philippines, has also been in contact with the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and Department of Defense to coordinate journalists' boarding for interviews.

Presumably dissatisfied with journalists' inability to capture good photos on board, the US military has dispatched P-8A anti-submarine patrol aircrafts to assist the PCG in their resupply operations at Ren'ai Jiao (Ren'ai Reef). These aircrafts captured high-definition videos and photos, which were used for sensationalist purposes by Western countries and Philippine media outlets.

In an effort to assist the Philippines in its dispute with China, some third-party countries are seeking advice from their own think tanks. One notable case is that of Project Myoushu at Stanford University in the US, which focuses on South China Sea security issues.

In February, Project Myoushu claimed that "China harasses PCG vessel." Subsequently, the PCG asserted that a Chinese ship had directed laser at the PCG, and the US State Department spokesperson, Ned Price, further fanned the flames by stating that the US stands with their ally in the face of alleged laser incidents.

In the context of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's clarification of the facts and emphasis on the Philippine side's baseless accusations, Raymond Powell, Project Myoushu team lead and a retired US Air Force colonel, claimed that the actions of Project Myoushu pushed the Philippine government to finally decide to expose the maritime dispute between China and the Philippines.

In addition, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is also a major project in the US that focuses on researching the South China Sea issue.

Over the years, this project has repeatedly accused China of "disrupting the status quo" and "threatening regional security" when releasing information about China's rights protection and law enforcement activities in the South China Sea.

However, it selectively ignores unilateral actions such as island construction and militarization by other claimant countries in the disputed waters.

In recent discussions between several US and the Philippine think tanks, various ideas regarding the US-Philippines cooperation in occupying Ren'ai Jiao were generated. In terms of logistical support, some have suggested that Western military forces should assist the PCG in delivering supplies to the grounded vessel, or even consider airdropping them using military aircrafts.

Currently, the Philippines is intensifying its propaganda campaign in the South China Sea in collaboration with foreign media sources and think tanks, using various tactics to overstate the severity of the conflicts between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea. Behind this is a mindset of sensationalism, deliberately portraying China as aggressively attacking and bullying a smaller country - the Philippines, Peng Nian, vice president of the Regional National Research Institute at the Hainan Normal University, told the Global Times.

"The more they exaggerate and amplify these negative incidents, the more it seems beneficial for the Philippines and the West. It not only maligns China, but also magnifies the South China Sea issue, continuously attracting international attention," Peng said. However, in reality, apart from escalating tensions in the South China Sea, these performers are only deceiving themselves with the illusion of enhanced influence, he noted.

A 'test site' to suppress China

The South China Sea is another "test site" for some Western countries, including the G7, to isolate and contain China, said observers.

By constantly hyping the South China Sea issue, they try to influence the international community and the Chinese public to force the Chinese government to change its foreign policy, Chen Xiangmiao, director of the World Navy Research Center at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, told the Global Times in a previous interview.

To safeguard China's legal interests in the South China Sea, and to contribute more to the peaceful and stable development of the region, Wu from Wuhan University suggested that China should actively take countermeasures from multiple aspects, which include hosting summits for peaceful consultations between China and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries on the South China Sea situation, further encouraging fishermen to conduct fishing operations in the region with more guaranteed protection.

"It's also necessary to further promote international law studies on the South China Sea issue, to gain more say for China in today's global international law community on topics regarding this region," Wu told the Global Times.

Gone are the days when a handful of Western countries could willfully meddle in other countries' internal affairs and manipulate global affairs, said the Chinese Foreign Ministry on May 20, in response to the G7 Hiroshima Leaders' Communiqué released that same day.

"The international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules that seek to divide the world based on ideologies and values. Even less will it succumb to the rules of exclusive small blocs designed to serve 'America-first' and the vested interests of the few," it noted. "G7 needs to reflect on its behavior and change course."

China urges the Czech Republic to honor its promises to strictly restrain certain individual politicians from sabotaging China-Czech relations, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said during a regular press conference on Tuesday.

Lin made the remarks in response to a question about Taiwan's so-called vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim visiting the Czech Republic and giving a speech at a think tank. Lin said explicitly that Taiwan is a province of China and does not have a vice president.

Lin said that China strongly opposes official interaction of any form between China's Taiwan region and countries that have diplomatic relations with China, and this position is consistent and clear.

In multiple official documents, including the joint statements and joint communiqué between the government of China and the Czech government, the government of the Czech Republic solemnly committed to stick to the one-China policy , respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and recognize that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory.

China urges the Czech Republic to follow its commitment, strictly restrain certain politicians, immediately stop the egregious moves that undermine the national credibility of the Czech Republic and its relations with China. "We urge the Czech Republic to take effective measures to undo the negative influence of the incident," Lin said. 

"Our message to 'Taiwan independence' separatists is that whoever engages in 'Taiwan independence' will be held accountable by history; whoever in the world creates 'one China, one Taiwan' will get burned for playing with fire and taste the bitter fruit of their own doing," Lin stressed. 

Later on the same day, Chen Binhua, spokesperson for the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, said that the so-called diplomatic breakthroughs adopted by the DPP authorities in the Taiwan region, in collusion with external forces, to achieve the goal of "Taiwan independence" have undermined the fundamental interests of the Taiwan compatriots, which cannot change the fact that Taiwan is a part of China, and are not conducive to peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits.

China has discovered a major oilfield in the central and northern parts of the Bohai Sea, with proven reserves of 104 million tons of oil, marking a monumental find in the region following a decade of search efforts, state-owned oil giant CNOOC announced on Monday.

The Qinhuangdao 27-3 oilfield, located 200 kilometers west of North China's Tianjin, is a 48.9-meter-thick oil layer in a 1,570-meter-deep well. With reserves exceeding 100 million tons of oil equivalent, testing has shown that the oilfield can produce about 110 tons of crude oil per day, showing promising exploration prospects.

With a regular extraction pace, the Qinhuangdao 27-3 oilfield could produce nearly 20 million tons of crude oil, enough to meet the daily transportation needs of a city with a population of a million people for over a decade. The refined asphalt could be used to build over 100,000 kilometers of four-lane highways, said Zhou Jiaxiong, a manager of CNOOC Tianjin branch.

The discovery of the Qinhuangdao 27-3 oilfield represents a successful practice of the company's new exploration strategy in the Bohai Sea. By changing the existing exploration approach, researchers identified the rich oilfield from a strike-slip fault zone in a complex structure area.

The Qinhuangdao 27-3 oilfield is the sixth 100 million-ton class oilfield discovered in the Bohai Sea since 2019 and the first in the central and northern parts of the sea in a decade, said Xu Changgui, deputy chief exploration engineer at CNOOC.

This discovery not only confirms the vast prospects for oil and gas exploration in the complex strike-slip fault zones of the Bohai Sea but also injects strong momentum into the development of China's offshore oilfields. It will play a significant role in securing China's energy supply and supporting the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Xu added.

The discovery of the Qinhuangdao 27-3 oilfield is part of China's ongoing progress in the oil and gas sector, with CNOOC having made significant discoveries in recent years, including the Bozhong 26-6 deep-reservoir oilfield in the Bohai Sea and the Baodao 21-1 gas field in the western South China Sea.

On March 8, CNOOC announced China's first deep-water, deep-reservoir oilfield in the South China Sea, the Kaipingnan oilfield, which has proven reserves of 102 million tons of oil equivalent.

The US' escalating suppression of China's auto industry is a typical example of the politicization of trade and economic issues, experts said on Wednesday, warning that the US action will backfire and will hinder the development of the world's auto sector.

Republican US Senator Marco Rubio on Tuesday proposed sharply boosting tariffs on Chinese vehicle imports to stop the country "from flooding US auto markets," as part of Washington's latest effort to protect American automakers and auto workers, according to Reuters.

The report said that Rubio is also proposing legislation to extend tariffs to vehicles produced by Chinese automakers in other countries like Mexico and to limit subsidies for electric vehicles to those that meet stringent North American free trade rules.

"This is a manifestation of the US politicization of auto trading. After the 5G industry represented by Huawei, the US has made new-energy vehicles the second target to restrict China's technological development," Zhang Xiang, director of the Digital Automotive Intliu ernational Cooperation Research Center of the World Digital Economy Forum, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Zhang noted that using so-called "information security," a completely trumped-up charge, the US has enhanced its suppression of Chinese automobiles, even though this is unilateral and violates international free trade norms.

"Blocking Chinese car imports will affect the progress of the US auto industry, as the US' new-energy technology is relatively backward compared with the level in China. If the Biden administration is determined to pursue this, raising tariffs will also have a big negative impact on the world's auto industry," Zhang warned.

Rubio's proposal is just a fresh move among an array of unreasonable US measures to suppress China's car industry. As the US elections in November approach, the administration of President Joe Biden and some leaders in Congress continue to speculate about restricting imports of Chinese electric vehicles.

On February 29, the White House said that the Biden administration is taking "unprecedented action" to protect Americans from the national security risks posed by internet-connected vehicles from countries of concern, including China.

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo also peddled the "threat" theory against China's vehicles. "Cars these days are like an iPhone on wheels… You connect your phone and you might receive the text message… Imagine a world with 3 million Chinese vehicles on the roads of America, and Beijing can turn them off at the same time."

In response, Mao Ning, spokesperson from China's Foreign Ministry, said that Chinese-made cars are popular globally not due to the use of "unfair practices," but by emerging from fierce market competition with technological innovation and high quality.

"China's door has been open to global auto companies, including US auto companies that fully shared in the dividends of China's big market. By contrast, the US has engaged in trade protectionism and set up obstacles including discriminatory subsidy policies to obstruct access to the US market by Chinese-made cars. Such acts of politicizing economic and trade issues will only hinder the development of the US auto industry itself," Mao noted.

A deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC) called for efforts to tackle shortage and bottleneck in China's roll-on/roll-off (Ro-RO) cargo vessel capacity so as to improve transportation conditions of the country's surging new-energy vehicle (NEV) exports. 

Deputy Yan Keshi submitted a motion to the ongoing NPC session in Beijing, noting that the limited capacity of Ro-Ro vessels has emerged as a significant problem hindering the export of Chinese NEVs, which Yan said warrants urgent attention. 

Rising output of NEVs is an important contributor to China's economic growth. Last year, export of NEVs rose 77.6 percent from a year earlier, standing at 1.203 million units, which accounted for almost one-third of the global market share, Yan wrote in his motion.

But, China is experiencing a pronounced supply-demand imbalance in ocean transportation capacity, especially in the shipment of NEVs. The higher weight of all-electric NEVs, about 15-25 percent weightier than ordinary petrol or hybrid vehicles, has exacerbated the shortage of Ro-Ro vessels in China, Yan said.

Yan put forward measures of facilitating long-lasting cooperation among ship manufacturers, ports and other stakeholders, in order to ramp up sustainable Ro-Ro vessels manufacturing and optimizing the hardware and software support for exporting NEVs.

The Government Work Report released on Tuesday highlighted China's automobile industry, showcasing the remarkable performance of Chinese NEV manufacturing and marketing in 2023. Domestic auto brands have now exceeded joint ventures in passenger car sales, solidifying the NEV sector as a cornerstone of China's growing manufacturing strength. Amid this backdrop, how to shore up ocean shipping capacity of Chinese-made NEVs has drawn rising attention.

In a related development, Da Fei Monaco, a new generation of dual-fuel-powered Ro-Ro vessel, successfully completed its first voyage from Yantai Port, East China's Shandong Province, carrying 4,631 vehicles bound for the US, on March 5. 

In January, BYD's "Explorer NO 1" and SAIC Motor Cor's inaugural transoceanic Ro-Ro vessels also embarked on their maiden voyage from Chinese ports.

Chery Automobile Group, in collaboration with its shipyard in Wuhu, East China's Anhui Province, has established a NEV transport vessel manufacturing base in Weihai city, Shandong Province. Three large vessels with a capacity of 7,000 cars each have been ordered, according to the Securities Daily.

Back in 2004, archaeologists excavated two pits in northern China that looked a lot like homebrewing operations. Constructed between 3400 and 2900 B.C. by the Yangshao culture, each pit contained the remnants of a stove and assorted funnels, pots and amphorae.

Now, Jiajing Wang of Stanford University and colleagues report that the pottery shards contain residue and other evidence of starches, chemicals and plant minerals from specific fermented grains. The ancient beer recipe included broomcorn millet, barley, Job’s tears and tubers — that probably gave the beer a sweet flavor, the team writes May 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The findings predate the earliest evidence of barley in China by around 1,000 years. Beer may have been consumed at social gatherings, and brewing, not agriculture, spurred the introduction of barley to China, the researchers argue.

Climate commotion
In “Changing Climate: 10 years after An Inconvenient Truth” (SN: 4/16/16, p. 22), Thomas Sumner reported on the progress scientists have made revising forecasts of the far-reaching effects of climate change — from extreme temperatures and sea level rise to severe drought and human conflict — in the decade since the Oscar-winning film’s release.

Reader response to the article was overwhelming, with hundreds of online comments. Some people enjoyed the in-depth look at climate change science, while others expressed skepticism about humans’ contribution to climate change and a general distrust of climate scientists.

“One of my goals for this article was to highlight that climate change research has itself changed over the last decade,” Sumner says. Scientists are still working to understand how the consequences of atmospheric warming will play out in the coming centuries. But one big message from the last decade of research is that the fundamentals have held up: Natural variability exists, says Sumner, but human activities are largely responsible for the current warming trend.
“The question now is what impact will human contributions have down the line and what should we do to prevent and mitigate those effects,” he says.
Plastic feast
Sarah Schwartz wrote about the discovery of a microbe, Ideonella sakaiensis, that chows down on a hard-to-degrade polymer in “This microbe makes a meal of plastic” (SN: 4/16/16, p. 5).
Online commenters were amazed by this new plastic-gobbling organism. “This is great news,” Dan said. “Our world would be doomed if there wasn’t a microbe able to do this.” Chuckawobbly wondered how long it takes I. sakaiensis to digest the plastic. And Jean Harlow was concerned about the potential by-products of worldwide plastic digestion. “The waste product would be a significant amount … of what?” she asked.

Researchers observed that I. sakaiensis almost completely degraded a thin film of polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, after six weeks in a laboratory. But when extracted from the bacterium, the proteins used to break down plastic begin working in about 18 hours.

I. sakaiensisappears to break PET into smaller molecules, like amino acids and carbon dioxide, says coauthor Kenji Miyamoto of Keio University in Yokohama, Japan. But it would probably be hard for the microbe to break down plastic in the outdoors because of its specific growth requirements, he says. Miyamoto envisions that it could be possible to use the specialized proteins in a closed environment to break PET down into molecules such as terephthalic acid— one of the plastic’s main building blocks, which seems benign in the environment.

Prairie dog predators
Herbivorous prairie dog mothers routinely kill baby ground squirrels that encroach on their territories, researchers found. Competition for resources may be a contributing factor to the killings, Susan Milius reported in “Killer prairie dogs make good moms” (SN: 4/16/16, p. 14).

One reader had other ideas. Audrey Boag wondered if prairie dog moms kill ground squirrels to protect their pups from predation or from diseases carried by the squirrels. “In either case, minimizing the number of ground squirrels would pay in lifetime biological fitness,” she wrote.

“We never observed a ground squirrel kill or injure an adult or juvenile prairie dog,” says study coauthor John Hoogland. “Perhaps such attacks sometimes occur underground.” Hoogland notes that the majority of ground squirrels killed by prairie dogs were juveniles, which are too small to be a threat.

One threat, however, is a species of disease-carrying flea that infests both animals. Hoogland found that prairie dog killers and their offspring had fewer fleas than nonkillers and their offspring, “but this trend was not significant,” he says.

Microscopy Masters asks one thing of citizen scientists: Find proteins in electron microscope images. The task will probably give participants new appreciation for biologists who decipher the structures of teeny, tiny molecules. It’s not easy.

The goal of the online project, created by researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., is to improve biologists’ ability to construct detailed, three-dimensional models of proteins.

Using cryo-electron microscopy — which involves freezing, then imaging a sample — the researchers have taken thousands of photos of their current target, a protein complex involved in breaking down other, unwanted proteins. Each image contains 10 to 100 copies of the complex. It takes that many images to capture a protein from every angle. Once the 2-D images are stitched together, researchers can reconstruct the protein’s globular, 3-D shape at near-atomic resolution.
Microscopy Masters enlists volunteers to do the necessary first step of combing through the photos to find the protein molecules — a time-consuming job that people do better than computers. The task may feel daunting, as each black-and-white image resembles a fuzzy TV screen. Only some of the dark smudges in any given image will be molecules of interest; others will be actual smudges or globs of proteins too jumbled to be of use. Fortunately, a practice tutorial offers a crash course in protein identification. And each image will be classified by many users, alleviating some of the pressure of worrying about marking the wrong thing.

Data from the project will help researchers improve protein-picking computer algorithms, says project member Jacob Bruggemann. That way computers can take over the painstaking work.

SAN DIEGO — On some planets that orbit whirling stars, spring and autumn might be the best time to hit the beach, whereas summer offers a midyear respite from sweltering heat. These worlds’ orbits can take them over regions of their sun that radiate wildly different amounts of heat.

“Seasons on a planet like this must be really strange,” says Jonathon Ahlers, a graduate student at the University of Idaho in Moscow, who presented his findings June 15 at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Some stars spin so fast that they bulge in the middle. That bulge pushes the equator away from the blazing core, making it much cooler than the poles. A fraction of these stars also host planets that travel on cockeyed orbits, which take these worlds alternately over the poles and equator of their sun.

Ahlers developed computer simulations to see how the differences in solar energy combined with the tilted orbits might affect a planet’s seasons. The outcome depends on how the planet’s axis is tipped relative to its orbit. For a world whose north and south poles periodically face the star’s equator, “you get a cooler summer than normal and an extremely cold winter, but spring and autumn can be hotter than summer,” says Ahlers. “You get two distinct hottest times of the year.”

How that plays out depends on how the planet is built: an atmosphere or oceans could mitigate climate extremes. Ahlers has yet to work out those details. “It’s doing a lot,” he says, “but what, I don’t really know yet.”

No, that’s not the sun. It’s Jupiter, ablaze with infrared light in new images taken in preparation for the Juno spacecraft’s July 4 arrival at the king of the planets. This image shows how heat welling up from deep within the planet gets absorbed by gas in the atmosphere, which can tell researchers how stuff moves around beneath Jupiter’s thick blanket of clouds. Juno won’t look for infrared light, but it will (among other things) measure how much microwave radiation is being blocked by water lurking within Jupiter’s atmosphere.

The map is pieced together from multiple images obtained at the Very Large Telescope in Chile over the past several months. Ground-based images such as these will help researchers understand what Juno is peering at each time it swoops in close to Jupiter’s clouds over the next 20 months.