“Hello everyone, I’m Jia Jia. Welcome!” the fembot said to an audience of curious college students at the university’s multimedia center.

The life-like robot can move and speak in sync with her lip movement. The USTC research team that developed her even wired her to express “micro-emotions.”

Meet Jia-Jia, the robot goddess who can recognize faces and is all the while learning new… https://t.co/vSFmFsvKd1 pic.twitter.com/hYJvSLpOHE

— Raja Mitra (@montouche) April 16, 2016

The fembot resembles a woman in her 20s, and she seems to carry herself like one too.

“Don’t come too close to me when you are taking a picture. It will make my face look fat,” Jia Jia said to spectators, as they snapped photos of her and shared them for the world to see.

But, what’s stopping her from being like a real girl?

She can’t laugh or cry—yet.

“We hope to develop the robot so it has deep learning abilities,” said team director Dr. Xiaoping. “We will add facial-expression recognition and make it interact more deeply with people,” said Chen.

Chen added that he intends to eventually make Jia Jia a “robot goddess.”

You can meet Jia Jia if you’re in Shanghai for the International Technology Fair. It may be your last chance to do so for a while.

Chen said Jia Jia is “priceless” and the team has no plans for mass production—yet.

Ge Yongxi, who is well-known for defending political and social activists as well as underground church leaders, was “seized” by five plainclothes officers who barged into his Foshan home around midnight Thursday.

Ge’s family was informed of his detainment in the early hours of Friday morning.

The Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a coalition of Chinese and international human rights nonprofits, has claimed that Ge’s arrest was in connection to social media posts about “state leaders”. The CHRD also said that the policemen who captured Ge interrogated him about his possible role in spreading information online about China’s involvement in the Panama Papers.

The world was shocked by the Panama Papers – which has been dubbed the “biggest leak in history” – earlier this month in which over 11 million documents revealed that many world-leaders were linked to shady offshore accounts. Implicated in the massive leak were several close relatives of China’s Politburo Standing Committee – the ruling council of the Chinese Communist Party, including brother-in-law of President Xi Jinping.

Ge’s lawyer, Chen Jinxue, told The Guardian, “According to his [Ge’s] relatives, he posted something about the top leaders on his WeChat account.”

The CCP has been on overdrive this month to quash any social media attention or mention of the Panama Papers since the revelation. Even the Guardian’s website was partially blocked in the mainland.

President Xi’s rise to power has coincided with the most severe period of heightened political pulling of the reins on media censorship and activism since the days following the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, observers say.

According to The Guardian, Ge Yongxi is a distinguished member of a once lively community of civil rights attorneys in China. However, the group has fallen under extreme pressure when a major government offensive against their trade began last July.

“In an interview with US government-funded Voice of America last year, Ge criticised the clampdown, which activists believe is part of Xi’s attempt to silence dissent as China braces itself for a potentially damaging economic slowdown,” The Guardian reports.

“I speak with my true consciousness,” he said in the interview. “Even if that invites trouble, I have no plan of avoiding it.”

Despite the increasing danger of speaking out against the Chinese government, Ge Yongxi has made it clear that there is no stopping him from publicly calling out the CCP on its constant abuse of human rights.

Their journey to China began in Kenya, where Kenyan authorities had accused them of being involved in a complex phone and Internet scamming ring. Later, all 45 were acquitted in Kenyan courts. When they returned to a police station in Nairobi to pick up their passports, however, they were detained.

They were then thrown in jail, had opaque black hoods placed on their heads, and forced onto a China-bound plane, where Chinese officers sat on either side of each individual.

According to Kenyan Interior Ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka, the Taiwanese were deported because they were in Kenya “illegally.”

But why deport them to China and not back to Taiwan?

“We followed international law and released them back to the court in which they came from,” Njoka told CNN. “We don’t have a relationship with Taiwan as a country, but we have a relationship with China.”

Beijing accuses the 45 Taiwanese of committing crimes against victims in mainland China.

“ … These criminals carried out their illegal activities abroad, and all the victims are residents of the mainland, the mainland naturally has legal jurisdiction,” said China’sTaiwan spokesman An Fengshan.

Taiwan isn’t buying it.

“This is just an allegation made by China,” said Taiwan’s Minister of Justice. She also said China has presented “no solid evidence” that the people deported were involved in fraud.

If such evidence exists, it’s being handled in China.

The Mainland Affairs Council, the agency responsible for communicating with Beijing, has been denied access to the prisoners. Even their families are having trouble communicating with the accused.

“None of them have contacted me,” said the mother of one detainee in an interview with CNN. “I don’t know when I can see my son. I just want him to come back safe and sound as soon as possible.”

Taiwan called the move a “gross violation of human rights.”

A grainy cell phone video allegedly shot in a Kenyan cell shows some of the detainees pressing their bodies against the cell doors trying to prevent Kenyan authorities from getting in. Police then use tear gas to drive the prisoners out and onto a plane, according to Taiwanese Foreign Ministry official Antonio Chen.

The deportation continued despite Taiwan and China’s joint crime-fighting agreement signed in 2009. About 20 official agreements have been signed under the Beijing-friendly government of Ma Ying-jeou. He will step down on May 20 and usher in the government of Independence-leaning president elect Tsai Ing-wen.

This case would give Taiwan’s first female leader another immense challenge in Taiwan-China relations. How she reacts would be crucial to her public image. Ordinary Taiwanese citizens’ support for unification, the beacon of the One China Policy, is at an “all-time, single-digit low,” according to J. Michael Cole, a fellow with the University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute.

But, the issue extends beyond China and Taiwan. Activists from Hong Kong, Tibet and Uyghur can fear extradition to China based on whether their activities are “crimes” under China’s vague National Security Law.

“Coming in the wake of China’s alleged kidnapping of five Hong Kong booksellers, this outrage suggests that nobody is safe anymore and that Beijing will not hesitate to break agreements or international conventions to further its aims,” wrote Cole in an editorial for CNN.com

Pu’s lawyers say charges against their client stemmed from seven micro-blog posts Pu made which criticized government officials and ethnic policy in the volatile Xinjiang region.

Pu said he received formal confirmation that his lawyer’s license had been revoked by the Beijing City Judicial Bureau, according to the South China Morning Post. The website reported that Pu declined to comment further as he was not allowed to have interviews.

Pu is known for representing prominent Chinese activists and dissidents like Ai Weiwei. His calls for social justice and his criticism of the Chinese government earned him esteem the world over.

His conviction shocked the country’s rights lawyers, who feared that China would stop at nothing to silence and punish its critics. Several rights lawyers, activists, and journalists have been jailed under the presidency of Xi Jinping.

“Unless one day his conviction is overturned, then he’ll never be allowed to practice law again,” said fellow rights lawyer and friend Shang Baojun. “It’s really the end of his career.”

However, he added the move was expected as any lawyer convicted of a crime can no longer practice law.

Now, the ban has been lifted against golf, which is soaring in popularity following its acceptance into this summer’s Rio Olympic Games.

At the time of last year’s ban, the government linked the sport to its negative image of being a setting for shady business deals. The ban also came as President Xi Jinping was leading a ruthless anti-corruption campaign.

Even during the communist revolution, Mao Zedong denounced golf as a “sport for millionaires.” In 1949, it was outright banned in China.

Nonetheless, the sport maintained a presence in China. Golf grew in popularity during the 1980s in the wake of social and economic reforms initiated by former leader Deng Xiaoping. Later attempts to slow it down proved futile.

Following a 2004 law that banned new golf courses from being built, local authorities looked the other way as more courses began to grow along with the tourism profits they brought. By 2015, the number of Chinese golf courses had more than doubled.

Although the lift of the ban on golf may come as a breath of fresh air to some in the CCP, they are still barred from accepting golf course memberships or other golf-related perks as gifts. Those who try to navigate the ban may suffer a fate worse than that of Lin Chunsong. This vice mayor of a southern town in China got sacked after government officials found he was playing “excessive golf,” while paying “suspiciously discounted” membership fees.

However, China’s ever-climbing industrialization has been built on the backs of internal migrant workers who flock from the countryside to work assembly lines, operate construction machinery, and the like. But their absence leaves a gaping hole: when these adults move and live in the cities for these jobs, what happens to the estimated 60 million children left behind?

An estimated 60 million children. 60 million children living with the devastation of life without their families – that equates to a heartbreaking 1 in 5 Chinese children.

The BBC’s John Sudworth travels to the Chinese countryside to meet with some of the ‘left-behind’. In Guizhou province, located in south-central China, he finds 14-year-old Tao Lan and her 11-year-old brother, Tao Jinkun.

The two live alone while their parents live more than 1000 miles away, only able to return once a year to visit their children. Sadly, Lan and Jinkun’s situation is not uncommon; there are thought to be over two million left-behind children living alone, without support from any relatives.

In his interview with Tao Lan, Mr. Sudworth comments, “If you’ve had a bad day at school it must be very hard not to be able to talk to your mum and dad about it.”

He recounts her reply; “I can’t tell them. Mum and Dad live a hard life, I don’t want them to worry about me,” she says with tears in her eyes.

With a growing public concern on the issue of childhood neglect in the region, China’s state-run media has been granted permission to speak to the matter – in a way that only a Communist-led country can. And so, the Chinese government recently issued a new directive that restates existing laws against child abandonment as well as reminds local authority of their obligation to protect these children.

The CCP also announced, for the appearance of taking action, that it will be conducting a nationwide census in an effort to gather a correct account of the number of left behind children.

But according to Mr. Sudworth, the truth it is that a collection of further data and the government’s “efforts” to heighten enforcement will not do much to address the root cause of the problem.

Part of the issue is the way in which migrant-worker status works. As a registered migrant-worker, a person may work in any place of their choosing, but not without a catch. The catch is that person and his or her spouse and children can only have access to their welfare benefits – including access to health care and education – in their home village.

These rigid and heavily monitored rules serve to help China manage its population flows as well as to discourage other industrial revolutions elsewhere.

There is some talk about reforming the registration process, but it will be slow and choosy, and is likely to prevent super cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and others to be within reach of many families in the rural villages of China’s countryside, the BBC writes.

The Chinese government’s admittance that the problem of left behind children is urgent, while seemingly a step in the right direction, could simply be a fabricated claim just to appease national and international concern.

Talk is not enough, China must walk-the-walk and be accountable for the devastation that these families – especially the left-behind children – endure. Childhood neglect should not be ignored.  

The BBC provides several video segments of more heart wrenching tales like that of Tao Lan and her brother. Their stories can be heard here.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35994481

However, a promising new military agreement by the United States and the Philippines could dramatically shift this status-quo.  

After a 25 year period between the two countries, the U.S. and the Philippines will solidify a new increasingly complex military relationship this week.

“The Philippines has been a strategic partner with the United States since World War II, and it is one of the oldest American allies in Asia. For decades, it hosted major American military bases at Subic Bay and Clark Air Base. But in a wave of nationalist sentiment, Philippine lawmakers ejected the American military from the country in 1991. Years of strained military relations followed, but the two countries have come together in recent years over concerns about China’s claims in the South China Sea, which encompass more than 80 percent of the 200-mile exclusive economic zone of the Philippines in waters that Filipinos call the West Philippine Sea,” the New York Times reports.

The Philippines’ current defense system, which is composed of two former U.S. Coast Guard cutters nearing 50 years old, and two fighter jets will be getting a huge upgrade with this new deal. The feeble cutters and jets the nation has now allows for China to remain controlling the territory, construct artificial islands, and chase off Filipino fishermen with ease.

The new military agreement between the U.S. and the Philippines, which the Philippine Supreme Court in January, will grant the U.S. permission to build and operate facilities at five Philippine military bases for 10 years. It will also spread more U.S. troops, planes, and ships across the island nation.

Antonio Bautista Air Base in Puerto Princesa on the western island of Palawan will be used by the Americans to “protect their interests further afield,” and the will be used by the Philippines to “monitor its economic zone in the South China Sea,” said Philippine military spokesman Col. Restituto Padilla.

“The American side has interests beyond our exclusive economic zone, including freedom of navigation throughout the South China Sea, so they will be using it to patrol beyond our areas,” he continued.

While the Antonio Bautista base is located right on the South China Sea, the other four bases included in the deal are far from it. One of these, the Lumbia Air Base on the island of Mindanao, is in an area known to be home to several groups that the U.S. classifies as terrorists. This is due to the new agreement also contributing to the joint efforts of the U.S. and the Philippines to combat terrorist activity in the southern region of the Philippines. The other bases American troops will utilize are: the Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base, located on Mactan Island, and Fort Magsaysay, a large-scale facility located just north of Manila.

Col. Padilla told the NYTimes; “It is shortsighted for people to focus solely on the South China Sea. There is a bigger picture here. We didn’t enter into this agreement for just one reason. We are modernizing our military.”

Matt Williams, country director in the Philippines for the risk management company Pacific Strategies & Assessments, also offered insight on the topic. According to him, the Philippines still has a long way to go. He warns that the expectations regarding the new military alliance’s impact on the South China Sea multi-nation struggle should be tempered.

“Even with a blank check and substantial political will, the Philippines is decades away from having a credible defense force. China is playing a winning strategy in the South China Sea.”

The ministry tested 2,103 wells across China’s polluted plains and found that 32.9 percent of wells had water with Grade 4 quality, which means it could only serve industrial uses. An additional 47.3 percent of wells had water that was even more polluted with a Grade 5 rating.

Dabo Guan, a professor at Britain’s University of East Anglia who has been studying China’s water pollution, says water contamination is becoming a huge issue.

“From my point of view, this shows how water is the biggest environmental issue in China,” Guan said in an interview with The New York Times.

Agricultural and industrial runoff has severely affected a chunk of China’s water supply which is heavily used on farms, factories, and households. Underground wells provide a fifth of the country’s total water supply and they account for two thirds of water used domestically, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

However, the ministry tested water that’s moderately close to the surface. Many Chinese cities get their water from wells that are up to thousands of feet underground. Ma Jun, the director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, says most municipalities don’t use underground water that’s close to the surface.

“Fewer and fewer cities are using the heavily polluted shallow-depth underground water,” Ma said in an interview with the New York Times. “Most are digging deep wells for drinking. This is a very important distinction that must be made.”

However, Ma says some people in small towns and the countryside still use shallow underground water for domestic needs.

In 2011, the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced a plan to cut pollution of underground water sources by the end of the decade. That year, the ministry announced that nearly half of 2,071 tested wells had “quite poor” water quality while an additional 36 percent had “extremely low” water quality.

The ministry said the acquitted were forced onto a China-bound plane against their will. It called the move an “uncivilized act” representing a “gross violation of basic human rights.”

The 8 Taiwanese are among 23 people accused of running a telephone-fraud ring in Kenya. They were arrested late last year in and charged with illegal entry and telecommunications fraud. The group also had some Chinese nationals. All Taiwanese and some Chinese were later acquitted.

The 8 Taiwanese were detained Friday while trying to retrieve their passports.

Taiwan also accuses Chinese officials of violating a court order that would have kept the 8 acquitted in Kenya. They also say Chinese officials prevented Taiwan from reaching the acquitted. Taiwan has demanded for their release as well as the release of 15 Taiwanese still in custody.

The move comes as cross-strait relations deteriorate, according to the BBC’s Cindy Sui.

China does not recognize Taiwan’s independence and considers it a part of the mainland. Beijing has also refused to have formal discussions with Taiwan’s new, independence-leaning president Tsai Ing-wen until she recognizes Taiwan as part of China. Ma met with President Xi Jinping in November in what is seen by many analysts as a strictly-symbolic meeting.

Eight family members of current or former senior leaders in China’s ruling Communist party have been accused of having offshore companies set up by the document aggregator Mossack Fonseca. The Panama-based law firm is connected to more than 15 locations known as tax havens. Among the named is the brother-in-law of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Not surprisingly, China’s state-run media is calling accusations of Chinese leaders an invention by the West meant to divide Beijing.

“The Western media has taken control of the interpretation each time there has been such a document dump, and Washington has demonstrated particular influence in it,” read an editorial by China’s Global Times. “Information that is negative to the U.S. can always be minimized, while exposure of non-Western leaders…can get extra spin.”

Already a country with little press freedom, some analysts are worrying that China is about to make it harder for foreign journalists to operate in China.

“the Party ruling groups…will intensify repressiveness to keep the truths about system corruption revealed by the Panama Papers out of China,” says Edward Friedman, China specialist and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, in an interview with Forbes. “They also will understand the Panama Papers to be another item in a supposedly endless effort of the West to undermine Communist Party rule. Ruling groups will tell the Chinese people that the Panama Papers are a Western invention aimed at making China weak and dependent on the West.”