US President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday restricting investments in China, intended to further stymie China's advances in three cutting-edge technology areas: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies and certain artificial intelligence systems. The "decoupling" of high tech from China began under Donald Trump, and the Biden administration has continued that ambition. However, the new order doesn't target US investments already invested in China, but the new ones. The Biden administration has repeatedly claimed that the US restrictions will be narrowly targeted and will not "have a fundamental impact on affecting the investment climate for China." Biden's new executive order is still subject to consultation with the US business community and the public and is not expected to take effect until next year. The order has been brewed for a long time and has generated a lot of publicity. But almost no one believes that this executive order will deal a new practical blow to Chinese high technology, because almost everyone knows that China needs American technology more than American money. The order has gained much attention because it is seen as part of a broader trend of the US drifting away from China. The promulgation and brewing process of the executive order reflects the strong desire of American political elites to suppress China's high-tech development, as well as a fierce game between those supporting the executive order and the concerns of the technology and economic sectors about a potential backfire on the US. It is a kind of compromise. Washington obviously hopes that major allies will follow Biden's executive order. The UK's Sunak government has made cautious statements, stating that it is consulting business and the financial sector before deciding whether to follow suit. In fact, China also has the ability to influence the extent to which Biden's executive order is implemented, as well as the extent to which the US will go in terms of "decoupling" from China. We are definitely not just passive recipients of US policies. American political elites are eager to "decouple" from China as quickly and deeply as possible, but they fear two things: First, this will immediately damage the performance of relevant high-tech companies in the US, undermine their influence and further innovation. The current Biden administration, in particular, does not want to incur strong resentment from Silicon Valley and Wall Street toward the escalating "decoupling," which will ultimately lead to the loss of support for the Democratic Party. Second, they are afraid of pushing China toward more resolute independent innovation to achieve breakthroughs in key technologies such as chips. If the US "decoupling" policy gives birth to major technological achievements in China, it means that Washington will completely lose the gamble: They originally wants to stifle China's high-tech development, but ends up strangling their own companies. What China needs to do next is to fully unleash our innovation vitality, continuously reduce our dependence on high-tech products from the US, and prove that as long as we are determined to achieve independent innovation, we have the ability to accomplish things. We need to prove that being pressured by the US will only make us stronger. As long as there are several solid proofs of this trend, the US policy community will fall into unprecedented chaos, and their panic will be much more severe than when they saw the rapid expansion of the Chinese economy before Trump started the trade war. Regardless of the future of China-US relations, the current battle will be the key battle that determines the future competition between China and the US. China can only win and cannot afford to lose. High-tech products such as chips are not isolated. The innovation power of China's entire manufacturing industry and the creative vitality of the whole society are the foundation for shaping these key achievements. When pressured by the US, our society needs to generate confidence and resilience from all directions, and we need to accelerate and seize every opportunity, rather than shrink and simply defend. Otherwise, the US will gain the upper hand in momentum, and we will truly be in a passive and defensive position. We must see that the US is on the offensive, but its offensive is becoming weaker and weaker, and it is always hesitant with each step. What is presented to China are difficulties and risks, but also the dawn of victory.

In a groundbreaking discovery, researchers from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found a desert moss species, known as Syntrichia caninervis, that has the potential to survive in the extreme conditions on Mars. The Global Times learned from the institute that during the third Xinjiang scientific expedition, the research team focused on studying the desert moss and found that it not only challenges people's understanding of the tolerance of organisms in extreme environments, but also demonstrates the ability to survive and regenerate under simulated Martian conditions. Supported by the Xinjiang scientific expedition project, researchers Li Xiaoshuang, Zhang Daoyuan and Zhang Yuanming from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography and Kuang Tingyun, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, concentrated on studying the "pioneer species" Syntrichia caninervis in an extreme desert environment, according to the institute in an article it sent to the Global Times on Sunday. Through scientific experiments, the researchers systematically proved that the moss can tolerate over 98 percent cell dehydration, survive at temperatures as low as -196 C without dying, withstand over 5000Gy of gamma radiation without perishing, and quickly recover, turn green, and resume growth, showcasing extraordinary resilience. These findings push the boundaries of human knowledge on the tolerance of organisms in extreme environments. Furthermore, the research revealed that under simulated Martian conditions with multiple adversities, Syntrichia caninervis can still survive and regenerate when returned to suitable conditions. This marks the first report of higher plants surviving under simulated Martian conditions. The research team also identified unique characteristics of Syntrichia caninervis. Its overlapping leaves reduce water evaporation, while the white tips of the leaves reflect intense sunlight. Additionally, the innovative "top-down" water absorption mode of the white tips efficiently collects and transports water from the atmosphere. Moreover, the moss can enter a selective metabolic dormancy state in adverse environments and rapidly provide the energy needed for recovery when its surrounding environment improves. Based on the extreme environmental tolerance of Syntrichia caninervis, the research team plans to conduct experiments on spacecraft to monitor the survival response and adaptation capabilities of the species under microgravity and various ionizing radiation adversities. They aim to unravel the physiological and molecular basis of the moss and explore the key life tolerance regulatory mechanisms, laying the foundation for future applications of Syntrichia caninervis in outer space colonization.

A couple of days ago, a Quad summit meeting in Sydney scheduled for May 24 was abruptly canceled. The US president had to pull out of his long-anticipated trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea. Instead, the heads of the four Quad member states got together on the margins of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima on May 20. The main reason for the change of plans was the continuous struggle between the White House and Republicans on the Hill over the national debt ceiling. If no compromise is reached, the US federal government might fail to meet its financial commitments already in June; such a technical default would have multiple negative repercussions for the US, as well as for the global economy and finance at large. Let us hope that a compromise between the two branches of US power will be found and that the ceiling of the national debt will be raised once again. However, this rather awkward last-minute cancellation of the Quad summit reflects a fundamental US problem - a growing imbalance between the US geopolitical ambitions and the fragility of the national financial foundation to serve these ambitions. The Biden administration appears to be fully committed to bringing humankind back to the unipolar world that existed right after the end of the Cold War some 30 years ago, but the White House no longer has enough resources at its disposal to sustain such an undertaking. As they say in America: You cannot not have champagne on a beer budget. The growing gap between the ends that the US seeks in international relations and the means that it has available is particularly striking in the case of the so-called dual containment policy that Washington now pursues toward Russia and China. Even half a century ago, when the US was much stronger in relative terms than it is today, the Nixon administration realized that containing both Moscow and Beijing simultaneously was not a good idea: "Dual containment" would imply prohibitively high economic costs for the US and would result in too many unpredictable political risks. The Nixon administration decided to focus on containing the Soviet Union as the most important US strategic adversary of the time. This is why Henry Kissinger flew to Beijing in July 1971 to arrange the first US-China summit in February 1972 leading to a subsequent rapid rapprochement between the two nations. In the early days of the Biden administration, it seemed that the White House was once again trying to avoid the unattractive "dual containment" option. The White House rushed to extend the New START in January 2021 and held an early US-Russia summit meeting five months later in Geneva. At that point many analysts predicted that Biden would play Henry Kissinger in reverse - that is he would try to peace with the relatively weaker opponent (Moscow) in order to focus on containing the stronger one (Beijing). However, after the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it became clear that no accommodation with the Kremlin was on Biden's mind any longer. Still, having decided to take a hard-line stance toward Moscow and to lead a broad Western coalition in providing military and economic assistance to Kiev, Washington has not opted for a more accommodative or at least a more flexible policy toward Beijing. On the contrary, over last year one could observe a continuous hardening of the US' China policy - including granting more political and military support to the Taiwan island, encouraging US allies and partners in Asia to increase their defense spending, engaging in more navel activities in the Pacific and imposing more technology sanctions on China. In the meantime, economic and social problems within the US are mounting. The national debt ceiling is only the tip of an iceberg - the future of the American economy is now clouded by high US Federal Reserve interest rates that slow down growth, feed unemployment and might well lead to a recession. Moreover, the US society remains split along the same lines it was during the presidency of Donald Trump. The Biden administration has clearly failed to reunite America: Many of the social, political, regional, ethnic and even generational divisions have got only deeper since January 2021. It is hard to imagine how a nation divided so deeply and along so many lines could demonstrate continuity and strategic vision in its foreign policy, or to allocate financial resources needed to sustain a visionary and consistent global leadership. Of course, the "dual containment" policy is not the only illustration of the gap between the US ambitions and its resources. The same gap inevitably pops up at every major forum that the US conducts with select groups of countries from the Global South - Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America or the Middle East. The Biden administration has no shortage of arguments warning these countries about potential perils of cooperating with Moscow or Beijing, but it does not offer too many plausible alternatives that would showcase the US generosity, its strategic vision, and its true commitment to the burning needs of the US interlocutors. To cut it short, Uncle Sam brings lots of sticks to such meetings, but not enough carrots to win the audience. In sum, US foreign policy under President Joe Biden reminds people of a very advanced and highly sophisticated smartphone that has a rather weak battery, which is not really energy efficient. The proud owner of the gadget has to look perennially for a power socket in order not to have the phone running out of power at any inappropriate moment. Maybe the time has come for the smartphone owner to look for another model that would have fewer fancy apps, but a stronger and a more efficient battery, which will make the appliance more convenient and reliable.

Apple is giving the Apple Watch a major update for its 10th anniversary. The watch's display will be larger, and the entire device will be thinner and lighter. Both the Apple Watch Series 10 and the new Apple Watch Ultra 3 will be equipped with new chips, which may be paving the way for future Apple AI capabilities. According to sources, the Apple Watch health detection function has encountered some technical obstacles in the upgrade process, the blood pressure measurement function or can only realistically display fluctuations and cannot display values, and the sleep apnea detection and other functions can not appear on the new product. The shell material of Apple Watch SE series products may be replaced by hard plastic from aluminum shell. The plastic-clad Apple Watch may be sold at a lower price to compete with Samsung's cheapest Watch, the Galaxy Watch FE. In addition, Siri's new features may be delayed, and AirPods with cameras may arrive in 2026.

Byd has grown rapidly in China over the past few years, becoming the country's best-selling car brand and the world's biggest selling electric car brand. Byd opened its first electric car factory in Southeast Asia on Thursday in Thailand. Byd also took over a former Ford Motor Co. plant in Brazil and has been looking for a site for a Mexican plant. Europe's first automotive plant is under construction in Hungary. Byd's second-quarter sales jumped to a record 982,747 vehicles, up more than 40 per cent from a year earlier. Although the company's sales in Europe have been sluggish so far, it is making a big marketing push in the region to replace Volkswagen as the main automotive sponsor of the European Championship. According to a recent Fortune report, officials said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to announce the agreement for BYD to build the plant at a signing ceremony on Monday in Manisa province, where the plant will be built. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Byd representatives declined to comment. Turkish Industry and Technology Minister Mohamed Fatih Kassir said in May that he was in advanced discussions with BYD and Chery on investment in Turkey. The new plant will improve BYD's access to the European Union, as Turkey has a customs union agreement with the EU. The European Union this week announced temporary punitive tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China, with BYD imposing an additional 17.4 percent tariff on top of the existing 10 percent tariff. Other Chinese carmakers have been hit with higher tariffs. Investing in Turkey would strengthen the presence of Chinese carmakers in Europe at a time of escalating trade tensions.