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International Business Times
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- International Business Times
Yi Ming: The Artist Redefining Global Aesthetics with a Cross-Cultural Vision
In the world of contemporary art, few figures embody the fusion of tradition and innovation as profoundly as Yi Ming. Born on March 4, 1974, in Hubei, China, Yi Ming has risen to international acclaim as an artist, designer, and cultural visionary. His work, spanning disciplines from calligraphy to large-scale event design, bridges Eastern and Western aesthetics, blending classical philosophies with modern abstraction. Whether crafting iconic visuals for the Olympics or championing art education in rural China, Yi Ming's contributions highlight his transformative impact on the global art scene. Yi Ming's career trajectory reflects a relentless pursuit of excellence. His role as the Chief Image Designer for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics stands as a testament to his mastery of large-scale artistic direction. These global events showcased his ability to encapsulate cultural heritage while appealing to a universal audience. In the 2008 Games, his designs celebrated China's rich history, merging traditional motifs like auspicious clouds with modern design principles. Meanwhile, for the 2022 Winter Olympics, his work highlighted themes of unity and resilience, integrating icy palettes and dynamic visual storytelling. Beyond the Olympics, Yi Ming has played a pivotal role in other high-profile events, including the 2016 G20 Summit in Hangzhou and the 2018 Qingdao SCO Summit. These platforms allowed him to reinforce China's cultural identity while engaging a global audience, earning him the reputation of a modern cultural ambassador. At the heart of Yi Ming's artistry lies a profound synthesis of cultural elements. Drawing inspiration from Eastern philosophies such as "harmony between void and reality," his work evokes a sense of balance and introspection. His calligraphic pieces, often compared to those of Qing Dynasty master Yi Bingshou, exhibit a harmonious blend of strength and fluidity. At the same time, his ventures into Western abstraction reveal a deep understanding of color theory and emotional resonance. This unique fusion is evident in his collaborations with global fashion icons like Giorgio Armani, as well as his presentations at Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks. By combining Eastern techniques with Western sensibilities, Yi Ming has created a distinctive visual language that transcends cultural boundaries. His art does not merely reflect a blending of traditions; it transforms them, offering a new perspective on contemporary aesthetics. Yi Ming's impact extends far beyond galleries and international stages. As an advocate for rural education, he has dedicated substantial resources to supporting underprivileged communities in China. His efforts include donations of art supplies, educational materials, and financial aid to impoverished areas, particularly those affected by natural disasters. In Qinghai's Huangzhong region, for example, he has supported programs that bring art education to children who might otherwise lack access to such opportunities. Over the years, Yi Ming's works have gained recognition from both critics and collectors. His pieces, such as Auspicious Clouds and Enigma, have achieved remarkable success at auctions, with the former selling for 402,500 RMB and the latter for 1.288 million RMB at the Beijing Rongbao 2023 Autumn Arts Auction. These achievements underscore the commercial and cultural value of his art. His influence also extends to the academic world. Yi Ming has delivered lectures on artistic aesthetics at prestigious institutions, including the CPC Central Committee and the National Centre for the Performing Arts. Internationally, his insights have reached audiences in the United States, Japan, and Italy, reinforcing his role as a thought leader in the art world. Yi Ming's journey from a child prodigy in Hubei to an internationally celebrated artist encapsulates the transformative potential of creativity. His work, rooted in a deep respect for cultural traditions and an openness to innovation, has redefined what it means to be a global artist in the 21st century. As he continues to explore new frontiers in art and design, Yi Ming's legacy will undoubtedly inspire generations to come, reminding the world of the enduring power of beauty, harmony, and artistic vision.
20-06-2025
- Sport
Japanese Figure Skater Sakamoto to Retire after Next Season
News from Japan Sports Jun 20, 2025 19:08 (JST) Kobe, June 20 (Jiji Press)--Kaori Sakamoto, a Japanese three-time world champion figure skater, said Friday she will retire from competition after next season, which will include the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. Known for her dynamic jumps and high-quality performances, the 25-year-old bronze medalist in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics collected three straight wins at world championships from 2022 before coming second at this year's competition in March. She has won national championships five times. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] Jiji Press
Epoch Times
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
Insider: Under Secret Xi-Putin Pact, Thousands of Chinese Embedded Within North Korean Units in Ukraine
Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly reached a secret agreement where China pledged to support Russia ahead of its invasion of Ukraine, according to a prominent Chinese dissident citing insider information. As part of that covert arrangement, Beijing is said to have sent nearly 3,000 troops, embedded within North Korean units, to assist Russian forces on the ground. The dissident, Yuan Hongbing, a former law professor at Peking University now living in exile in Australia, told The Epoch Times that he received the classified information from an insider whose father is a senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official ousted during Xi's political purge. The Pentagon has According to the source, nearly 3,000 Chinese troops—primarily non-commissioned officers (NCOs)—were embedded within these North Korean units. NCOs are responsible for training soldiers and making key decisions in the field, making them the backbone of any military force. 'For the CCP, such deployment serves a critical purpose: to gain first-hand combat experience in modern warfare as preparation for a potential future conflict over Taiwan,' Yuan explained, citing information from his source. Earlier this month, following the capture of two Chinese soldiers, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Related Stories 4/8/2025 4/11/2025 Beijing swiftly denied any government involvement, insisting that those individuals were acting on their own as mercenaries. If it is proven that these Chinese nationals were state-backed, China could face accusations of violating international laws prohibiting state involvement in mercenary activities. According to the insider, the deployment of Chinese troops is part of a secret agreement between Xi and Putin, reached before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Negotiations over the agreement began as early as 2020 and concluded with a final decision to sign it in 2022. The source also claimed that when Putin attended the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022, what brought him to Beijing, more than anything else, was the signing of the agreement with Xi. On that very day—Feb. 4, 2022—China and Russia officially Under this pact, Beijing has supported Russia not only through direct military involvement but also via indirect means. One such arrangement allegedly involves North Korea sending troops to fight for Russia, with China providing equipment for 100,000 North Korean special forces. 'Moreover, for North Korea's every loss on the battlefield, China has promised to replenish the troops,' the source said. At the heart of the Putin–Xi agreement was the ambition to reshape the global order through what they call a 'once-in-a-century global shift.' According to the source, the two leaders see the current moment as a rare window of opportunity for a major transformation—one aimed at challenging the 'U.S.-dominated unipolar world.' Their strategic vision is for China and Russia to join forces in replacing the United States as the global leader and reshaping the international order. In line with this agreement, the CCP has provided Russia with comprehensive support—economic, diplomatic, and military—which, according to the insider, has been essential to Russia's ability to sustain its war in Ukraine and now poses the greatest obstacle to the U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to negotiate a ceasefire.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - China is sending soldiers to Ukraine to prepare for a Taiwan invasion
A former Western intelligence official told Reuters that approximately 200 Chinese soldiers are fighting for Russia in Ukraine. Two current U.S. officials, speaking anonymously, confirm that there are more than a hundred of them. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky put the number at 155. His forces have recently captured two of them. Reuters reports that the U.S. government believes these soldiers are mercenaries and apparently have no 'direct link' with the Chinese government. Whether this view is correct or not, Washington and other governments should impose severe costs upon China for permitting its nationals to enter the battle against Ukraine. As an initial matter, China's regime is in fact sending soldiers to that Eastern European country. Reuters reports that 'Chinese military officers have, with Beijing's approval, been touring close to Russia's frontlines to draw lessons and tactics from the war.' The former Western intelligence official told the news service that these officers 'are absolutely there under approval.' 'The Communist Party craves first-hand experience of the battlefield in Ukraine to inform its People's Liberation Army for its future wars,' Richard Fisher of the Washington, D.C. area-based International Assessment and Strategy Center told me late last week. 'For the PLA, the Ukraine battlefield offers the most livid and brutal evolution of the revolutionary and see-saw battle between unmanned weapons and electronic warfare defenses arrayed against them.' 'If the PLA can grasp and expand on the lessons of the Ukraine battlefield, it can vastly increase its chances of a rapid blitzkrieg victory in Taiwan,' says Fisher. It is also likely that the Chinese officers are doing more than observing and reporting back to China. They may also be giving advice to their Russian counterparts. China, after all, has been backing Russia's war effort from the beginning. China almost certainly greenlighted the invasion with its 5,300-word joint statement issued by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in Beijing on Feb. 4, 2022, just 20 days before the Russian attack. Putin might have invaded earlier, but he evidently acceded to Chinese wishes and waited until after the end of the Beijing Winter Olympics to hit the former Soviet republic. China has during the war supported Putin almost across the board. For instance, Beijing has purchased Russian oil sanctioned by the United Kingdom, U.S. and the European Union, opened its financial and banking systems to Russia's institutions under sanction, provided military intelligence and diplomatic and propaganda support and sold both dual-use items and, according to some sources, weapons. Given Beijing's support to both Moscow and Pyongyang, it is unlikely that North Korea could have joined the war on Russia's side without China's approval. With regard to the mercenaries, Beijing probably both knew and approved of their participation in the war. 'It is unlikely that these soldiers would have been permitted to travel to Russia without the full consent of the Xi regime,' Charles Burton of the Sinopsis think tank told me. 'Xi runs a near-total surveillance state and pays special attention to the interactions of its nationals with close partners such as Russia,' Burton, also a former Canadian diplomat stationed in Beijing, said. 'A couple hundred military-age Chinese men leaving the country to fight in a foreign war is certainly something Beijing would know about.' There are, for instance, bound to be Ministry of State Security agents monitoring visa applications for Russia. The presence of Chinese soldiers in Ukraine is reminiscent of the 'Chinese People's Volunteers' who went to fight United Nations troops in North Korea beginning in 1950. 'China sending in an initial small cohort to join the Russians is consistent with Chinese Communist strategy to initially create plausible deniability and then a veneer of legitimacy for a gradual build-up of those at the front lines,' says Burton. 'This will almost certainly be accompanied by the gradual introduction of sophisticated Chinese offensive weaponry,' he added. Burton is also concerned that Russia, indebted to China because of the support in Ukraine, will not be able to say no when China demands that Moscow send forces to help it invade Taiwan or another neighbor. The Chinese and Russian militaries regularly hold joint drills in East Asia. Therefore, the Pentagon should assume that these two powers, along with North Korea, will fight together during the next war. So China probably sees great advantage in Chinese troops, even if just mercenaries, fighting in Ukraine. The U.S. and other countries have imposed almost no costs on China for its extensive support for the Russian war effort. We should not be surprised, therefore, that Beijing now thinks it can, with impunity, send soldiers to fight in Europe. Gordon G. Chang is the author of 'Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America' and 'The Coming Collapse of China.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
17-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
China is sending soldiers to Ukraine to prepare for a Taiwan invasion
A former Western intelligence official told Reuters that approximately 200 Chinese soldiers are fighting for Russia in Ukraine. Two current U.S. officials, speaking anonymously, confirm that there are more than a hundred of them. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky put the number at 155. His forces have recently captured two of them. Reuters reports that the U.S. government believes these soldiers are mercenaries and apparently have no 'direct link' with the Chinese government. Whether this view is correct or not, Washington and other governments should impose severe costs upon China for permitting its nationals to enter the battle against Ukraine. As an initial matter, China's regime is in fact sending soldiers to that Eastern European country. Reuters reports that 'Chinese military officers have, with Beijing's approval, been touring close to Russia's frontlines to draw lessons and tactics from the war.' The former Western intelligence official told the news service that these officers 'are absolutely there under approval.' 'The Communist Party craves first-hand experience of the battlefield in Ukraine to inform its People's Liberation Army for its future wars,' Richard Fisher of the Washington, D.C. area-based International Assessment and Strategy Center told me late last week. 'For the PLA, the Ukraine battlefield offers the most livid and brutal evolution of the revolutionary and see-saw battle between unmanned weapons and electronic warfare defenses arrayed against them.' 'If the PLA can grasp and expand on the lessons of the Ukraine battlefield, it can vastly increase its chances of a rapid blitzkrieg victory in Taiwan,' says Fisher. It is also likely that the Chinese officers are doing more than observing and reporting back to China. They may also be giving advice to their Russian counterparts. China, after all, has been backing Russia's war effort from the beginning. China almost certainly greenlighted the invasion with its 5,300-word joint statement issued by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in Beijing on Feb. 4, 2022, just 20 days before the Russian attack. Putin might have invaded earlier, but he evidently acceded to Chinese wishes and waited until after the end of the Beijing Winter Olympics to hit the former Soviet republic. China has during the war supported Putin almost across the board. For instance, Beijing has purchased Russian oil sanctioned by the United Kingdom, U.S. and the European Union, opened its financial and banking systems to Russia's institutions under sanction, provided military intelligence and diplomatic and propaganda support and sold both dual-use items and, according to some sources, weapons. Given Beijing's support to both Moscow and Pyongyang, it is unlikely that North Korea could have joined the war on Russia's side without China's approval. With regard to the mercenaries, Beijing probably both knew and approved of their participation in the war. 'It is unlikely that these soldiers would have been permitted to travel to Russia without the full consent of the Xi regime,' Charles Burton of the Sinopsis think tank told me. 'Xi runs a near-total surveillance state and pays special attention to the interactions of its nationals with close partners such as Russia,' Burton, also a former Canadian diplomat stationed in Beijing, said. 'A couple hundred military-age Chinese men leaving the country to fight in a foreign war is certainly something Beijing would know about.' There are, for instance, bound to be Ministry of State Security agents monitoring visa applications for Russia. The presence of Chinese soldiers in Ukraine is reminiscent of the 'Chinese People's Volunteers' who went to fight United Nations troops in North Korea beginning in 1950. 'China sending in an initial small cohort to join the Russians is consistent with Chinese Communist strategy to initially create plausible deniability and then a veneer of legitimacy for a gradual build-up of those at the front lines,' says Burton. 'This will almost certainly be accompanied by the gradual introduction of sophisticated Chinese offensive weaponry,' he added. Burton is also concerned that Russia, indebted to China because of the support in Ukraine, will not be able to say no when China demands that Moscow send forces to help it invade Taiwan or another neighbor. The Chinese and Russian militaries regularly hold joint drills in East Asia. Therefore, the Pentagon should assume that these two powers, along with North Korea, will fight together during the next war. So China probably sees great advantage in Chinese troops, even if just mercenaries, fighting in Ukraine. The U.S. and other countries have imposed almost no costs on China for its extensive support for the Russian war effort. We should not be surprised, therefore, that Beijing now thinks it can, with impunity, send soldiers to fight in Europe.
