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China’s Baidu plans to launch ChatGPT – style bot ERNIE in March

Chinese tech company Baidu is expected to launch a ChatGPT-style bot, named ERNIE Bot, which will open for public use in March, making it the first among its Chinese counterparts in joining a global race in the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot sector after OpenAI’s ChatGPT prompted widespread attention.

Virtual figures on the platform of Baidu Intelligent Yunxiling (Photo: Courtesy of Baidu)

“ERNIE is doing a sprint before finally going online,” Baidu told the Global Times on Tuesday, noting that its ERNIE Bot may start “beta testing earlier to keep up with Google and Microsoft.”

The announcement prompted Baidu’s Hong Kong-listed shares to jump more than 15 percent on Tuesday. 

ERNIE, meaning “Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration,” is an AI-powered language model with deep semantic understanding and generation capabilities across modalities and languages, according to Baidu.

Powered by knowledge-enhanced cross-modal models, ERNIE can accurately understand the semantics and mapping relationships in language and images, integrating learning from cross-modal knowledge such as language and vision, Wang Haifeng, Baidu’s chief technology officer, said at the company’s annual flagship developer conference Baidu Create 2022 in January.

Insiders close to the matter told the Global Times that Baidu’s work on the bot may have started in September last year, when CEO Robin Li said the development of AI has shown “directional changes at both the technical level and the commercial application level.” 

In a statement sent to the Global Times on Tuesday, Baidu said that ChatGPT is a milestone and watershed in AI development, which means that AI technology has reached a critical point, and it called for an early development of the emerging technology.

The Chinese search engine giant, along with Alibaba Group and Tencent, forms China’s trinity of tech giants known as BAT. It has been investing heavily in AI for years in the fields of self-driving cars and chips designed to power AI applications.

With a full-stack layout in the four-layer AI architecture, including the underlying chips, deep-learning framework, large models, and top-layer search applications, Baidu has a grasp of all ChatGPT-related technology, indicating tech strength among rivals in the arena, Liu Dingding, a veteran industry analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Baidu’s move also represents the first presence of a Chinese tech company amid global giants’ rush into the sector. Google and Microsoft have all “fought for an early launch.”

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced in a blog post on Monday that the company will be launching a conversational AI service named Bard, which will be available for user testing before its public release in the near future. Pichai also stated that Google is planning to integrate AI features into its search engine to provide synthesized results for complex queries.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has integrated OpenAI’s image-generating software into its Bing search engine, according to Reuters.

“Baidu may primarily focus on the Chinese language, environment and market, making it different from other global giants,” Liu said.

Beyond Baidu, industry players told the Global Times a growing number of large and small companies are also developing bots, with some eyeing launches within this year. But they said that considering its combined strength, Baidu could be the most likely rival to global giants.

ChatGPT is currently not available in China, but topics related to the bot have been a buzz on social medial for months, with many centered around whether Chinese tech firms can outperform their US counterparts.

In the face of competition from foreign companies, domestic companies can explore catching up with ChatGPT in terms of algorithm experiences, analysts said.

Because of the differences between the internet environments, Chinese companies “have a market for success,” Pan Helin, joint director of the Research Center for Digital Economics and Financial Innovation affiliated with Zhejiang University’s International Business School, told the Global Times.

Analysts said that Chinese tech enterprises also have unique advantages in expanding AI application scenarios globally.

China has made significant progress in developing the AI industry. China’s Intellectual Property (IP) office received 1.59 million of the total 3.4 million patent applications filed worldwide in 2021, according to a World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) report released in November.

Patents filed in China are similar in magnitude to the combined total of the next 12 countries ranked from second to 13th, according to the WIPI, which compiled its latest data based on information provided by some 150 countries and regions. (PR)

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International

TAIWAN’S LINK TO CHINA REITERATED BY ZHU FENGLIAN

A Chinese mainland spokesperson on Tuesday slammed the Taiwan region’s leader, Lai Ching-te, for his recent “motherland fallacy,” reiterating that Taiwan is part of the sacred territory of China.

Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said that the sovereignty and territory of China have never been divided and will never be divided. 

The fact that the mainland and Taiwan both belong to one China has never changed and will never be allowed to change, she added. 

What has caused the Taiwan question? And why is Taiwan an inalienable part of China’s territory? Here are some facts you should know.

Taiwan has been part of China since ancient times

Taiwan has belonged to China since ancient times. The earliest written account of Taiwan was in the Seaboard Geographic Gazetteer, compiled more than 1,700 years ago by Shen Ying of the State of Wu during the period of the Three Kingdoms.

Starting as early as the mid-12th century, Chinese governments of different periods set up administrative bodies to exercise jurisdiction over Taiwan.

The Song Dynasty set up a garrison in Penghu, putting the territory under the jurisdiction of Jinjiang County of Fujian’s Quanzhou Prefecture. The Yuan Dynasty installed an agency of patrol and inspection in Penghu to administer the territory. During the mid- and late-16th century, the Ming Dynasty reinstated the once abolished agency and sent reinforcements to Penghu to ward off foreign invaders.

In 1662 (under Qing Emperor Kangxi), General Zheng Chenggong established Chengtian Prefecture on Taiwan. Subsequently, the Qing Dynasty government expanded the administrative structure in Taiwan. In 1727 (under Qing Emperor Yongzheng), the administration on the island was reconstituted as the Prefecture Administration of Taiwan and incorporated the new Penghu Canton. The territory then officially became known as Taiwan. In 1885 (under Qing Emperor Guangxu), the government formally made Taiwan a full province.

Taiwan was ceded due to Japan’s aggression

However, through a war of aggression against China in April 1895, Japan forced the defeated the Qing government to cede Taiwan and the Penghu Islands.

In July 1937, Japan launched an all-out war of aggression against China. In December 1941, the Chinese government issued a declaration of war against Japan, announcing to the world that all treaties, conventions, agreements and contracts regarding relations between China and Japan had been abrogated and that China would recover Taiwan and the Penghu Islands.

In December 1943, the Cairo Declaration was issued by the Chinese, U.S. and British governments, stipulating that Japan should return to China all the territories it had stolen from the Chinese, including northeast China, Taiwan and the Penghu Islands.

The Potsdam Proclamation, signed by China, the U.S. and Britain in 1945 (later adhered to by the Soviet Union), stipulated that “The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out.” In August 1945, Japan surrendered and promised that it would faithfully fulfill the obligations laid out in the Potsdam Proclamation.

On October 25, 1945, the Chinese government recovered Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, resuming the exercise of sovereignty over Taiwan. From that point forward, China had recovered Taiwan de jure and de facto through a host of documents with international legal effect.

Two sides of the Straits belong to one China

On October 1, 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was founded. The new government replaced the previous Kuomintang (KMT) regime, becoming the successor to the Republic of China (1912-1949) and the only legitimate government of the whole of China.

As a natural result, the government of the PRC should enjoy and exercise China’s full sovereignty, which includes its sovereignty over Taiwan, according to a white paper titled “The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era,” published by the Chinese government in 2022.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said that both the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation stated in explicit terms that all the territories Japan had stolen from the Chinese, such as Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, shall be restored to China, and this constitutes an important part of the post-war international order.

Speaking at the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly in late September, Wang told world leaders in the audience that Taiwan being “an inalienable part of China’s territory” is both “the history and the reality.”

Noting the 26th session of the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758 in 1971 with an overwhelming majority, deciding to restore all the rights of the People’s Republic of China at the UN, to recognize the representatives of the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the only legitimate representatives of China to the UN, and to expel forthwith the representatives of the Taiwan region from the UN and all the organizations related to it, Wang said “once and for all, the resolution resolved the issue of the representation of the whole of China, including Taiwan, in the UN.”

The resolution, Wang continued, made clear that there is no such thing as “two Chinas,” or “one China, one Taiwan.”

“On this matter of principle, there is no gray zone or room for ambiguity,” Wang said.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has stressed on many occasions that the one-China principle is the political foundation for cross-Straits relations.

Xi said that compatriots from both sides of the Taiwan Straits belong to the same Chinese nation during a meeting with Ma Ying-jeou, former chairman of the Chinese KMT party, in April.

“The over-5,000-year history of the Chinese nation recorded successive generations of ancestors moving and settling down in Taiwan, and people from across the Straits fighting side by side to recover the island from foreign invaders,” Xi said.

“The distance of the Straits cannot sever the bond of kinship between compatriots from across the Straits, and the difference in systems does not alter the reality that both sides of the Straits belong to one China, and external interference cannot hold back the historical trend of national reunification,” he said.

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One-China principle is consensus of international community

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Thursday that no matter what they say or do, the Lai Ching-te authorities cannot change the fact that both sides of the Taiwan Straits belong to one and the same China or stop the historical trend that China will and must achieve reunification.

Spokesperson Mao Ning made the remarks in response to the speech by the leader of the Taiwan region, Lai Ching-te, today at a daily press briefing.

Mao said Lai Ching-te’s words attempt to sever the historical connections between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits. He is again peddling various versions of the “Taiwan independence” narrative, such as “China and Taiwan are not subordinate to each other” and “Taiwan has sovereignty.”

It once again exposes that he is hellbent on advancing “Taiwan independence” and has the ill intention of heightening tensions in the Taiwan Straits for his selfish political interest, Mao said.

There is but one China in the world. Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory. The government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China, Mao said, adding that the attempt to seek independence and make provocations will lead nowhere.

Noting that the one-China principle is a basic norm in international relations and prevailing international consensus, Mao said Taiwan has never been a country and will never be a country and thus has no so-called sovereignty.

Upholding the one-China principle, opposing “Taiwan independence” and opposing “two Chinas” and “one China, one Taiwan” is our consistent position on the Taiwan region’s external exchanges and participation in international activities, she said.

“Let me stress once again that China opposes all forms of official interactions between Taiwan and countries having diplomatic relations with China and interference in China’s internal affairs in any way and under any excuse,” Mao said.

We urge the few foreign politicians who visit Taiwan to correct their wrong words and deeds, stop meddling in China’s internal affairs, and stop conniving at and supporting “Taiwan independence” and heightening tensions in the Taiwan Straits, she said.  (PR/GIS)

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International

SENIORS CELEBRATED AT THE SOUBLE NINTH FESTIVAL

China honours its elders

Across China, seniors are joyfully celebrating the Double Ninth Festival, a traditional holiday that falls on the ninth day of the ninth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. This day, officially recognized as Senior’s Day, embodies new meanings of respect, care and support for the elderly. Communities are hosting vibrant events such as long-table banquets, singing competitions and dance performances, all filled with joy and harmony. Let’s honor our elders and cherish their wisdom as we come together in celebration.

Colourful celebration

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