Latest news with #Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
South China Morning Post
04-08-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
New committee, bailout talk: is China launching a fresh property rescue effort?
China's central bank confirmed on Friday that it had established a new financial stability committee to defuse the nation's mounting debt risks, as a senior government adviser suggested that Beijing needed to inject 1 trillion yuan (US$139 billion) into the property sector to stabilise developers' balance sheets. The suggestion by Yin Zhongli, a counsellor for China's State Council, comes as Beijing continues to wrestle with a four-year property crisis sparked by developer Evergrande Group's default in mid-2021. Yin, also a senior real estate finance expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, warned that developers were still weighed down by high debts despite a recent uptick in home sales in the property market. China's central bank announced in its midyear report on Friday that it had set up a new macroprudential and financial stability committee as part of an ongoing derisking effort. More robust action was needed to help developers liquidate their assets, Yin suggested. 'Given the large capital shortfall facing these companies, I suggest … setting up a dedicated state-backed agency to provide capital injections to property developers that meet certain criteria,' he wrote in the July issue of the Tsinghua Financial Review. The Ministry of Finance should fund the injections by issuing special treasury bonds, with a proposed 1 trillion yuan 'real estate stabilisation trust' set up to channel the funds to eligible developers, Yin said. The funds should be channelled to some or all of the country's 30 largest private property firms, with the government taking convertible preferred shares from the developers with a conversion period of five years or more, he added.
South China Morning Post
29-07-2025
- Science
- South China Morning Post
Does this stone reveal Qin Shi Huang's quest for immortality? A US-based physicist chips in
High on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in southwestern China and northeastern India, archaeologists recently discovered a 2,246-year-old stone inscription that might record one of the most mysterious chapters in Chinese history Advertisement The stone reads: in the 26th year of Qin Shi Huang 's reign, the emperor commanded the five Grand Master Yi to lead a group of alchemists westward to the Kunlun Mountains in search of the elixir of immortality The team travelled by carriage to the mountain, arrived at Zhaling Lake in what is now Qinghai province on the day of Jimao, or first in the third month, and would proceed another 150 li – about 75km – to reach their final destination, according to the stone found near the lake, at an altitude of 4,300 metres (14,100 feet). The text was engraved in small seal script, or xiaozhuan, the written script standardised during the Qin dynasty (221-207BC). Tong Tao, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Archaeology, reported his findings in the state-run Guangming Daily on June 8. Advertisement 'This stone carving at the source of the Yellow River is the only stone carving left by Qin Shi Huang after he unified China that still remains at its original site. It is also the most complete one and is of great significance,' he wrote
