Some members of the US House of Representatives' committee on China and the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday called for a total ban on all technology exports to Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC). This appeared to frighten Chinese investors, and as a result, shares of SMIC and Chinese artificial intelligence chip developer Cambricon Technologies plummeted on Thursday.

US lawmakers have always been the most radical anti-China force, so how can we be intimidated by a few clamors from them? While there exists the possibility that the US will further increase its ban on China's technology, it is highly unlikely that Washington will be able to destroy Huawei's Kirin 9000S processor. The possibility of the US resorting to increased suppression was surely expected by Huawei and its partners. Huawei has always kept a low profile, and the Chinese government doesn't hype up the company's technological breakthroughs. But how can a technological breakthrough that tech enthusiasts can discover via a teardown of the handset be hidden from the US tech community and intelligence system?

Since Huawei is bringing the Mate 60 Pro smartphone to the market, it should be fully confident about keeping its supply chain intact and maintaining and expanding its production capacity. Wouldn't that be a joke if the US upgraded its chokehold, leading the Mate 60 Pro supply and production chain to collapse easily? In that case, why would Huawei hurry to launch the Mate 60 series? Why wouldn't it solidify its technological breakthroughs and wait to release the smartphones at a better time to show its hands with Washington?

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei has been through various battles. Some years ago before the rainstorm of sanctions started to pour down on Huawei, he had started to prepare for a rainy day by asking HiSilicon, one of Huawei's subsidiaries, to make great efforts in looking for a back-up plan. Now the US has carried out rounds of sanctions and more severe ones may come, Ren will not pull a stunt and covet a quick cash grab by pushing his company and its partners toward a more dangerous situation.

Now, the US sanctions system has the advantage over the way Huawei and similar companies develop technological breakthroughs. The US side is not very clear if the Kirin 9000S processor is actually Huawei's own product or produced with the help of some other companies. Neither does it know what the technical route exactly is.

Besides, a few things are certain:

First, the technology of designing and producing Kirin 9000S is already mature, and the production capacity of this chip can be formed relying on the existing supply chain at home. Otherwise, Huawei would not launch the Mate 60 series because that would mean trouble.

Second, in the next competition, Huawei and other companies on the supply chain need to integrate and interact with market resources. Market resources can push Huawei to continue to progress; they have been more important than quietly obtaining some foreign technology to develop products and technologies. With the interaction with market resources, the iteration of semiconductor technology can be realized by the continuous advancement of those resources. The Kirin 9000S is now on the threshold of such progress.

Third, Huawei has found a way to break through the US sanctions, which shows a fundamental loophole in Washington's sanction system. Those brainless legislators are only fanatical, imagining out of thin air that they can kill the Kirin 9000S by tightening the sanctions. They don't understand that encrypting the sanctions system is a very complex systematic project and an almost impossible challenge.

Washington would need to completely reshape the sanctions system to do this, requiring companies in the US and allied countries to suffer much larger losses than in the past, which is equal to sanctioning these companies. Besides, the US simply is not sure that reorganizing the sanctions system will produce the results it wants, because that process is bound to be very difficult - a great deal of resentment may occur, but the outcome is still undetermined.

The fact that Huawei has launched the Mate 60 Pro shows that it has the certainty to fight the new rounds of US sanctions. The reason why the company keeps a low profile is the traditional Chinese thinking of doing more and saying less to avoid intensifying a new confrontation and giving the other side an out. And it's not a fear of being crushed in a battle.

Huawei, of course, still has a long way to go and hard battles to fight, but ambitions of seeking a blockade to hold technologies in a "small yard and high fence" and have them all to oneself have never been successful throughout history. From aviation to space to deep-sea technology, which one of them is under a country's monopolization? Semiconductors will be no exception.

The US can develop faster, but it is impossible to bind the feet of such a large country as China to stop it from moving forward. Huawei is a secular bird; it has already taken wing under the harsh sanctions of the US, and its wings will surely grow to be more and more powerful.

We the Chinese people should become more confident. Let's support Huawei and all the Chinese high-tech companies that the US has suppressed together. It is delusional for the US to think that it can deprive the Chinese people of the right to realize and enjoy scientific and technological progress.

At the recent G20 summit, the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC) backed by the US, Europe and India under the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment was announced. This corridor aims to connect Europe, the Middle East and India with rail and shipping routes.

With Biden calling it a "really big deal" and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan describing the project as "transformative," the project has already been described as one that counters China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which has been signed up to by the majority of the world.

However, the working group tasked with drawing up a fuller plan, over the next sixty days, will have to confront some harsh economic realities relating to funding, material capabilities and the ideological outlook of the main countries involved.

When it comes to funding, let's not forget that the Build Back Better Plan undertaken by the G7 in 2021 to counter the BRI was consigned to the dustbin of history the same year it was announced.

The $1.7 trillion package (less than two years of US defense spending) was considered too costly.

Railway linking India, the Middle East and Europe would be the center piece of the IMEC. When it comes to infrastructure, the US and India do not set good examples for others to follow, yet they expect to compete with China which has first-rate infrastructure. Rather than build something abroad, based on hegemonic competition against China, it would be better for the US and India to demonstrate they can solve the basic democratic infrastructural needs of their citizens first.

Even if internal infrastructural issues and financing can somehow be overcome, the ideological attitude of maintaining economic hegemony that the West holds toward the Global South acts as a barrier to the IMEC. Only with gunship diplomacy could the US force states to buy exclusively from expensive Western companies. Even then, many components will be sourced from China.

At any rate, we are in a multi-polar world now. The Saudi-Iran rapprochement, the enlargement of BRICS, and the good relations in the region toward Russia and China show that the Middle East refuses to take sides and will trade with all. Another Iraqi-style invasion in the region to maintain US-led economic predominance would be foolhardy, as such, the West must be competitive in the market.

Currently, Saudi Arabia is choosing China when it comes to rail construction - though this too is an international effort that pulls in Western companies. The China Railway 18th Bureau Group has already completed the 450km-long Mecca-Medina High-speed Railway and is working on the Medina Tunnel Project along with the Saudi Rua Al Madinah Holding Company, Canada's WSP and US-based Parsons. The linking of Saudi's eastern and western seaboard, while led by China, is also a joint international project. This further highlights the lunacy and impracticality of fencing off the world economy.

One of the major forces driving US hegemonic attempts is its capitalist system which seeks immediate profits. This motivation has led to the decay of US infrastructure and a lack of long-term railway investment; a similar "democratic" system sees India's infrastructure in shambles too. Furthermore, much of the Global South remains in tatters after being harvested by the US military-industrial complex, which seeks quick profits from war and sees development as a threat to its economic hegemony.

In contrast, The BRI is premised on long-term social economic planning. Some projects will not be profitable for decades - many will provide immense social-economic benefits but no profit extraction for private capital. China's socialist system subordinates capital for the democratic good of society and it's because of this that it has the world's largest high-speed rail network, which it can then sell abroad at competitive prices.

In an attempt to conceal China's governing advantages and foresight, the corporate press labels Chinese-involved projects that don't reap immediate profits as "white elephants." Indeed, the debt trap narrative has been constructed to conceal the BRI's long-term planning and misdirect attention from private capital lending, which is far more severe than Chinese loans and the source of much suffering in the Global South.

Certainly, should the IMEC get off the ground without Chinese involvement and sell expensive Western infrastructure, then it will be interesting to observe the Western ideological apparatus scramble to justify how their venture is superior to the BRI, the initiative that the majority of the world has already voluntarily signed up to. There is still an open invitation for Europe, the US and India to join!

The author is an independent international relations analyst who focuses on China's socialist development and global inequality.

Since President Yoon Suk-yeol took office, it seems that the dangerous side of South Korea's politics has become prominent. This is reflected not only in foreign affairs, such as the increasingly hostile and confrontational approach toward China, but also in domestic affairs, where partisan conflict has become intensified and polarized, potentially creating more obstacles for Yoon's governance.

On Monday, South Korean prosecutors requested an arrest warrant for the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), Lee Jae-myung, on suspicion of various charges, including fraud and bribery. Earlier that day, Lee was hospitalized after 19 days of a hunger strike in protest against government policies.

So far, the DPK leader has been summoned for prosecution questioning five times after last year's presidential election, and he claimed all the allegations were fabricated. Seoul and the ruling conservative party's tough stance toward Lee has become increasingly obvious. In last year's election, Yoon was elected by a narrow margin of 0.73 percentage points over the DPK leader. This means that the popular mandate of Yoon's governance is not quite strong. 

South Korea's politics has become chaotic. What happened to Lee is not an isolated incident, but a reflection of the intensifying partisan conflict in South Korea and people's dissatisfaction with the Yoon administration over many issues. In particular, Seoul has demonstrated utterly unprincipled support for Tokyo regarding Japan's dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the sea, which has triggered anger among South Koreans.

In fact, politicians who engage in partisan conflict in South Korea fight more for the interests of their respective political parties and the chaebol groups behind them. Moreover, as a result of political polarization, it becomes difficult for parties in the country to find any common ground to cooperate. Under such circumstances, the Yoon administration may remain stuck in troubled waters.

A new poll released by Realmeter on Monday shows that 61.8 percent of respondents - a recent record high - viewed the governance of the Yoon administration as poor, while only 35.5 percent favored it. Meanwhile, the support rate of the PPP dropped 1.5 percentage points to 35.3 percent and the DPK's rose 1.8 percentage points to 46 percent. Clearly, the Yoon administration and the ruling party are facing a slump.

It is easy to find the reasons behind Yoon's poor governance. In addition to a series of scandals involving people close to Yoon, the South Korean president should blame himself for making mistake after mistake in specific policies since he came to power.

Economically, a series of measures taken by Yoon to boost the economy are yet to take great effect, leading South Koreans to feel more hopeless for economic recovery. The situation is even worse in terms of foreign policy. The Yoon administration completely disregarded the well-being and interests of its own people, easing its relations with Japan without any principle and even seeking to pander to Japan, and this has caused a huge backlash at home. The current approval rate of 30-something percent comes most likely from the base voters of Yoon and the PPP, and it is almost impossible to grow as Seoul and the ruling party have lost the trust of the centrists.

South Korea will expect legislative elections in April next year. All the parties and politicians are going to be competing for the approval of the voters, while highlighting the mistakes and shifting the blame on their opponents. In short, the partisan conflict in South Korea, especially the one between the PPP and the DPK, is only going to become more and more intense as the elections approach.

When US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted on Tuesday from his leadership post, he became the shortest serving speaker since 1875. A handful of far-right Republicans joined Democrats and stripped the California Republican of the speaker's gravel with a 216-to-210 vote, after McCarthy worked with Democrats to pass a short-term funding bill to avert a government shutdown.

The ouster appears sudden, but is not surprising. It is no secret that some far-right Republicans hold radical ideas and refuse to cooperate with the Democrats in any form. Moreover, McCarthy's post was fragile from the very beginning. Matt Gaetz, who was among the Republicans to force a successful vote to vacate the chair on the House floor, repeatedly voted against McCarthy's bid for speaker in January. McCarthy ultimately secured the gavel after 15 rounds of voting over four days. To win the job, McCarthy had to agree to rules that made it easier to challenge his leadership. 

Democrats also viewed him as untrustworthy. He broke a May agreement on spending with President Joe Biden. Despite the fact that McCarthy worked with the Democrats to pause the US shutdown, he did not win the support of a single Democrat in Tuesday's vote. Democrats still believe that the presence of McCarthy, who in September ordered an impeachment inquiry into Biden, would hinder the political agenda of the Biden administration. They also believe that ousting McCarthy would trigger chaos within the Republicans and stymie the Republicans' moves against the Democrats. All in all, McCarthy had already become a "lame duck" speaker.

Zhang Tengjun, deputy director of the Department for American Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times that the ouster of McCarthy shows that against the backdrop of intensified bipartisan struggles, loyalty to the party triumphs everything, from the two parties' ability to make compromises and reach consensuses in the interests of the American public.

"It does not matter if one is the House speaker or not; what matters is which party he or she belongs to. This shows the extent to which the Democratic Party and the Republican Party divide," Zhang noted, adding that the US politics is now entering an era of "a host of demons dancing in riotous revelry."

McCarthy's ouster has been covered extensively by the US media, adding to the frenzy. But actually, it is the very representation of the US' so-called democratic politics. What normal democratic politics means is that the functioning of politics will not be affected by the removal of any single politician. But obviously, the ousting of McCarthy has plunged the House into chaos. And McCarthy's fate reflects how cooperating with the other party impacts political fortunes.

Wei Zongyou, a professor from the Center for American Studies, Fudan University, told the Global Times that from a deeper perspective, democratic politics is not all about elections, but about mutual compromise and restraint. 

"If the two parties cannot make compromises and exercise restraint, but turn different political opinions into an excuse to crusade against the other side or launch a life-and-death struggle, it may lead to a deadlock or even a civil war, and the only consequence is that the foundation of democratic politics will be destroyed," said Wei.

US democracy is facing a severe test as the 2024 presidential election looms. The Republicans have to tackle the current chaos and address this most recent leadership crisis. Without a powerful House speaker to bridge the divergences among the Republicans, it will affect the overall election strategy of the Republican Party and its advancement of its political agendas. 

The Democrats, sitting in the House chamber to watch the farce from afar, could laugh at the Republicans and accuse them of not being able to govern the country and being the reason behind ongoing political gridlock. But they also need to be aware that if the Republicans refuse to cooperate in any issue, the Biden administration's political agenda may also suffer. A chaotic situation next year does not necessarily bode well for the Democratic Party, and the outcome of the 2024 election remains uncertain and unpredictable.

Chinese officials have vowed to ramp up proportion of electric vehicles (EVs) in official car fleets, as part of the government's efforts to promote green car sales and EV sector growth. 

The National Government Offices Administration (NGOA) said in an online post last Saturday that it held a meeting on promoting EVs and management of official car fleets from September 26 to 27 in the Xiong'an New Area in North China's Hebei Province. Local officials from 31 provincial-level regions attended the meeting. 

The meeting called on all levels of departments in charge of official car fleets to fully implement various policies on promoting EVs, strengthen cooperation with industry regulators, improve supplementary systems, and increase the use of NEVs, according to the post.  

The meeting noted that official fleets are important assets crucial for ensuring efficiency of Party and government departments and public institutions. Strengthening management of official fleets and promoting government departments to use more EVs is important work to consolidate the results of institutional reform.

In 2015, China released a guideline on reforming the country's official fleet system at all central government departments. To further strengthen the management of official fleets, the NGOA released interim regulations on management of official car fleets on September 12, 2023.

The regulations placed a priority on facilitating the use of EVs as a proportion of government car fleets. Central institutions are required to make annual plans on renewal of official vehicles, including the number NEVs, and ensure the proportion of NEVs meets requirement. 

As the leading NEV producer in the world, China has issued over 70 administrative measures to encourage the nascent industry to grow during recent years, which include carrying out innovative projects and forming manufacturing centers for batteries, according to Xinhua.

According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China's new-energy vehicle production and consumption rose by 36.9 percent and 39.2 percent year-on-year, respectively, to 5.43 million and 5.37 million in the first eight months of 2023.

SA58, a new anti-COVID-19 monoclonal antibody nasal spray, has shown favorable efficacy in preventing COVID-19 infection, said two preliminary reports.

To test the efficacy and safety of the spray, which was developed by China's Sinovac Life Sciences Co, clinical studies were conducted with medical personnel working in designated COVID-19 hospitals and makeshift hospitals in the city of Hohhot in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, as well as with voluntary workers from 21 construction sites in Beijing.

The effectiveness of SA58 in preventing infection among Hohhot's medical staff was as high as 77.7 percent, and SA58 was able to lower the risk of COVID-19 infection by 61.83 percent among the study participants in Beijing, said the research results published on medRxiv, a preprint server for health sciences.

While the data has shown satisfactory efficacy and safety of SA58 in reducing symptomatic COVID-19 infections in healthy adults with early exposure within 72 hours, it cannot yet represent other kinds of groups including the elderly and people with underlying diseases.

SA58 has advantages over intramuscular injections, as it is less invasive and more acceptable to recipients. It is also convenient for medical personnel and other high-risk groups to use, said the research.

The recently revealed primary plan for China's crewed moon landing before 2030 where China in which attempt to use two launch vehicles and carry out two rendezvous and docking missions in lunar orbit, has drawn attention worldwide, and the China Space News, an authority news service for state-owned aerospace contractors, further explained that such plan would be highly effective in using China's most advanced space technology and more reliable and economic given it does not rely on the development of a special super heavy-lift rocket to achieve the goal of sending taikonauts to moon.

When the US and Soviet Union tried to execute a manned moon landing, the rendezvous and docking technology had yet to mature and it was also difficult to launch two or more launchers one after another within a short time period. So to develop a super heavy-lift rocket to send moon lander and crewed spacecraft all in one go was the easier and safer path to achieve the goal.

But things are different now. The current reality is that to develop a new-generation heavy-lift carrier rocket would take longer time and cost much more, let alone the difficulty. For example, the development for the US Space Launch System (SLS) took more than 10 years and counting, cost reached somewhere around $50 billion and the SLS is still using interim upper stage, the report pointed out.

Since China has mastered rather matured reliable space rendezvous and docking technology, a two-launcher path would be more reasonable and also feasible.

Zhang Hailian, deputy chief engineer with the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), disclosed earlier this month that China plans to realize a manned moon landing before 2030, and the country will attempt to build a moon-based scientific research station, in a bid to carry out long-term, systematic lunar research and verify relevant technology.

China will attempt to use two launch vehicles to send a moon surface lander and manned spacecraft into lunar orbit before they carry out rendezvous and docking with each other. Following this maneuver, the taikonauts onboard the manned spacecraft will enter the lander, Zhang said.

Taikonauts will carry out scientific exploration and sample collecting after they descend to the moon's surface using the lander. After completing all preset missions, they will engage the lander to ascend and dock with the manned spacecraft waiting in the lunar orbit, he said.

Then taikonauts will take the lunar samples and ascend from moon surface with the lander that will dock with the manned spacecraft again in lunar orbit before they return to Earth in the manned spacecraft.

A Beijing-based space watcher, who requested not to be named, told the Global Times on Tuesday that China's path of using two launchers for moon landing is no doubt most cost effective, and it fully takes advantage of China's technology strengths in terms of increasingly matured space rendezvous and docking ability which is repeatedly verified and honed in China Space Station missions over the recent years.

Leading Chinese rocket scientist Long Lehao has shown his own vision of China's moon landing in 2021, which also included two launch vehicles carrying a lunar lander and a next-generation manned spaceship for the mission, and the two parts of the spacecraft will rendezvous and dock in near-lunar orbit, before executing the landing process.

But different from Long's vision where he referred to the two launchers in question as Long March-5 DY - variant of the 57-meter-long Long March-5, China's strongest launcher in service, China is now developing the Long March-10 carrier rocket for the moon landing mission.

The new launcher will be a three-stage rocket with two boosters, weighing 2,187 tons at launch, increasing payload launching capability from Long March-5's 8.2 ton to the Lunar transfer orbit to around 27 ton, according to the China Space News, which is equivalent to the US SLS.

Considering that the development cost of the Long March 10 rocket is much lower than that of several heavy rockets in the United States, there is no doubt that China's manned lunar landing program will be more cost-effective and sustainability, the report noted.

A gang of grave robbers in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 months to 20 months after three people died of carbon monoxide poisoning, a local court ruled on August 11.

On the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in 2022, Chen and five others gathered together and brought tools such as shovels and pickaxes to illegally excavate ancient tombs on a mountainside in Aohan Banner in Chifeng in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. They stopped two days later due to rain.

Chen and others were unwilling to give up. Several days later, they gathered again adding several members to their group. However, they harbored ulterior motives and were unwilling to pay for the tools needed, which led to an internal conflict, resulting in the disbandment, according to an official from the People's Court of Aohan Banner.

More than a month later, Chen still couldn't accept what had happened and organized a group of eight people to dig up the cave at night. They bought gasoline pumping equipment to drain the accumulated water from the cave to keep digging.

However, the gasoline pumping equipment generated a large amount of carbon monoxide gas inside the cave, resulting in the poisoning and death of three people. According to the local court official, the incident of robbing grave was then exposed, and the other five people voluntarily turned themselves over to the police.

According to the local court, the defendants have violated the national cultural relics management system by secretly excavating ancient tombs with historical and scientific value. Their actions constituted the crime of grave robbery and are considered joint offenders.

The six defendants were sentenced to imprisonment ranging from 10 months to 20 months, with fines also being imposed on each member of the group.

The Aohan Banner has a rich historical and cultural heritage. According to the local court, over 4,000 ancient cultural sites and tombs from different periods have been discovered within the Aohan Banner, making it the leader in China. In recent years, the local court has been handling criminal acts related to the protection of cultural relics and cultural heritage in accordance with the law, as stated by local court officials.

Major Chinese photo agency Visual China Group (VCG) has come under fire after it sought 86,500 yuan ($11,853) from an astrophotographer for posting 173 photos that VCG claims to own the copyright to. However, all the pictures were taken by the photographer himself and never uploaded to VCG. The photo agency has now found itself caught in the middle of a huge controversy surrounding its history of copyright over-claiming.

Although VCG later stated that they obtained legal licenses for these works from other platforms, the photographer refused to accept the explanation. Stocktrek Images, to which Dai uploaded these photos, said on Wednesday that it has contacted VCG and demanded it remove the photos, Chinese media outlets reported.

As the two sides continue to tussle, the Chinese internet is once again buzzing with discussion about copyright ownership. 

Dai Jianfeng, also known as Jeff Dai, is a specialist in astronomical photography with a fanbase of over 2 million users on his personal Sina Weibo account. On Tuesday afternoon, he fired an accusation at VCG, saying it was seeking compensation from him for using his own photos, which he described as "outrageous."

"Today, I got a call from VCG saying that my public post had used 173 of their photos in a manner that breaches their copyright and that I will have to pay them over 80,000 yuan," Dai wrote on his Sina Weibo account on Tuesday afternoon.

When Dai looked into the claim, he found that all the "infringing photos" turned out to be photos he had taken himself. 

"I have never worked with VCG on these photos and never uploaded them to their gallery," Dai said, questioning why VCG would own the copyright to the photos and ask him to pay compensation.

According to screenshots Dai posted of the email he claims was sent to him by VCG, the photo agency said that Dai made unauthorized use of the images, several of which were taken in 2018. VCG offered two solutions, a partnership between the parties for 300 yuan per photo, or a settlement between the parties in which Dai would pay 500 yuan for each photo.

These photos can indeed be downloaded from the VCG gallery. Author information for some of the images was listed as Jeff Dai/Stocktrek Images/Getty Creative.

Dai then demanded VCG provide an explanation for "where it obtained the photos that were sold illegally" and "how much illegal profit it has made."

VCG responded on Tuesday night by claiming that the images were licensed by Dai to the stock photo library Stocktrek Images for sale, which in turn licensed them to Getty Images for sale. VCG is the exclusive partner of Getty Images in the Chinese mainland and therefore has the right to sell these images.

The chain of sales authorizations for the images in question is clear and complete, said VCG, promising to continue communicating with the photographer to "properly address the misunderstanding."

However, Dai again refuted VCG's claims on Wednesday, stating that Stocktrek Images had confirmed to him that VCG does not have the right to sell his work, nor does it have any copyrights to his work. Getty Images also does not have the right to re-license his work.

"There is no misunderstanding here," he said. 

"To this day, you [VCG] continue to illegally sell my work online, falsely claiming to me and others that you own the copyright to it. Please stop your infringing behavior immediately!"

According to the information disclosed by both parties so far, the copyright of the relevant pictures is owned by the photographer, Yue Shenshan, a Beijing-based lawyer, told the China News Service. 

If what Dai disclosed is true, then Getty Images has no right to sublicense the images, which means VCG does not have the right to sell the images and its actions have violated the photographer's copyright, said Yue.

After Dai exposed this incident, many netizens voiced support in his defense, noting that the over-assertion of copyrights by big platforms like VCG has been a long-standing problem.

Some netizens have pointed out that neither side has yet shown concrete evidence to show whether or not Dai ceded the copyrights to the photos when he sold his work.

However, Dai had revealed in a Sina Weibo post in 2018 that he had signed contracts with VCG. It is not clear whether the content of the signing between the two parties is related to the photos in this incident.

Whether or not the photographer's own use of his or her work is infringing depends on the specific agreement between the two parties when the photographer licensed his or her work to the photo agencies, Yue said.

VCG has stirred controversy on several occasions over past years. In 2019, it claimed copyright over the first-ever photo of a black hole as well as the Chinese flag and national emblem, prompting an online debate on Chinese copyright practices. After the exposure of the latest controversy, many companies have also revealed that their company logos have been listed as copyrighted VCG images.

VCG and its subsidiaries filed more than 2,000 lawsuits alleging copyright violations in 2017 and 2018 alone.

When Columbus discovered America, European culture hadn’t yet grasped the concept of discovery. Various languages had verbs that could be translated as discover, but only in the sense of discovering things like a worm under a rock. Scholars operated within a worldview that all knowledge had been articulated by the ancients, such as Ptolemy, the astronomer who compiled the mathematical details of the Earth-centered universe. As it happened, Ptolemy was also the greatest of ancient geographers. So when Columbus showed that Ptolemy’s grasp on geography was flawed, it opened the way for Copernicus to challenge Ptolemy on his picture of the cosmos as well. Deep thinkers who were paying attention then realized that nature possessed secrets for humankind to “discover.”
“The existence of the idea of discovery is a necessary precondition for science,” writes historian David Wootton. “The discovery of America in 1492 created a new enterprise that intellectuals could engage in: the discovery of new knowledge.”

Appreciating the concept of discovery was not enough to instigate the invention of science. The arrival of the printing press in the mid-15th century was also especially essential. It standardized and magnified the ability of scholars to disseminate knowledge, enabling the growth of communities, cooperation and competition. Late medieval artists’ development of geometrical principles underlying perspective in paintings also provided important mathematical insights. Other key concepts (like discovery) required labeling and clarifying, among them the idea of “evidence.”

And modern science’s birth required a trigger, a good candidate being the supernova observed by Tycho Brahe in 1572. Suddenly, the heavens became changeable, contradicting the Aristotelian dogma of eternal changeless perfection in the sky. Tycho’s exploding star did not cause the scientific revolution, Wootton avers, but it did announce the revolution’s beginning.

In The Invention of Science, Wootton incorporates these insights into an idiosyncratic but deeply thoughtful account of the rise of science, disagreeing frequently with mainstream science historians and philosophers. He especially scorns the relativists who contend that different scientific views are all mere social constructions such that no one is better than any other. Wootton agrees that approaches to science may be socially influenced in their construction, but nevertheless the real world constrains the success of any given approach.

Wootton’s book offers a fresh approach to the history of science with details not usually encountered in the standard accounts. It might not be the last or even best word in understanding modern science’s origins or practice, but it certainly has identified aspects that, if ignored, would leave an inadequate picture, lacking important perspective.