He was at an event in the wake of his new movie “The Revenent,” which was released in Chinese theaters last
Friday and has since raked in more than $30 million at the box office.

“As we all know, the United States and China are the two biggest contributors, and I think that China has made
radical movements forward as far as alternative energy and ways to be sustainable,” DiCaprio said at the event.
“I really think that China can be the hero of the environmental movement. They can be the hero of the climate
change movement. They have an opportunity to change the world, and I have all the confidence in the world
that that is their intention.”

This view is shared by China’s Environmental Minister Chen Jining who says the country’s green efforts will
serve as a “model” for the west.

China has been pursuing renewable resources of energy. However, it’s still the world’s biggest user of coal and
it leads the planet in green-house gas emissions.

But Leo seems to think China is ready to change its course. He won an Oscar last month for his role in “The
Revenent.” During his acceptance speech, he called on people to protect the environment from the “greedy.”
Leo is a huge star in China even though many of his films haven’t made it to Chinese cinemas. Netizens were
also skeptical that “The Revenent” would make it on the list of 35 foreign films allowed in Chinese theaters this
year. Even more surprisingly, the film made it to theaters mostly intact.

Variety reports that Chinese censors cut only two minutes of the film.

“We are concerned that China has taken a number of unilateral steps over the last several years that we think raise tensions in the region and are destabilizing,” said Daniel Kritenbrink, senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council.

Earlier this week, US Pacific Command chief Admiral Harry Harris noted China was “changing the operational landscape of the region.”

The South China Sea serves as a passageway for more than $1 trillion in ship-borne goods including a third of the world’s oil shipments each year. China claims virtually the entire region. It is also claimed in whole or in part by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

“Short of war with the United States, China will exercise de facto control of the South China Sea,” Admiral Harris said.

During a state visit in September, President Xi Jinping maintained that Beijing “does not intend to pursue militarization” in the Spratly Island chain.

Speaking at a forum at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Kritenbrink said the US wants China to extend its non-militarization pledge “across the entire South China Sea.”

China continues to expand its military footprint in the South China Sea while expanding its artificial islands there, despite warnings from the US and regional neighbors.

Earlier this year, the US Navy sent a Destroyer vessel near disputed islands to uphold international freedom-of navigation laws. China has ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The US also wants China to respect an upcoming ruling in The Philippines’ lawsuit over territory in the region. China does not recognize the Hague-based international court involved.

Kritenbrink says the “extremely important” ruling will outline how countries can peacefully solve territorial disputes.

“When that ruling comes out, it will be binding on both parties,” Kritenbrink said. “That will be an important moment that all of us in the region should focus on.”

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Tsai Ing-wen and her independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won a decisive victory on Saturday. Tsai, who supports a Taiwan more independent from China, will take succeed Ma Ying-jeou who increased Taiwan’s ties to mainland China.

5 facts about Tsai Ing-wen, the politician poised to be Taiwan’s first woman president: https://t.co/8YZizAut3l pic.twitter.com/hr2jeaG3qq

— Women in the World (@WomenintheWorld) January 16, 2016

China sees self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province in which they have been engaged with in a civil war since 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) fled the Chinese Community Party led by Mao Zedong. They made it to Taipei which became the de facto capital of the Republic of China as opposed to Beijing which became the seat of People’s Republic of China.

The change in leadership promises to usher in another era of instability across the Strait of Taiwan that separates the two regions.

While Tsai has pledged to maintain peace with China saying that she supports a “status quo,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office warned about any potential moves toward independence and vowed to defend the country’s unity.

In the communique through state media, China said Taiwan should abandon any “hallucinations” about independence and called such thoughts “poison.”

“If there is no peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s new authority will find the sufferings of the people it wishes to resolve on the economy, livelihood and its youth will be as useless as looking for fish in a tree,” they said.

“We hope Tsai can lead the DPP out of the hallucinations of Taiwan independence, and contribute to the peaceful and common development between Taiwan and the mainland,” it added.

Tsai Ing-wen’s landslide victory in Taiwan plunges relations with China into doubt https://t.co/YZWlgiin59 pic.twitter.com/hS5CjjuntU

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) January 17, 2016

China-Taiwan relations have been seen as more sanguine under President Ma, who was born in Hong Kong and who oversaw a time of greater integration with China, particularly economically. Before Ma, between 2000 and 2008, Taiwan was led by then-President Chen Shui-bien who China saw as a troublemaker who was intent on sabotaging cross-strait relations for some symbolic efforts that suggested Taiwan to be an independent country but who also largely kept the peace.

Tsai won 56 percent of the vote in a sweep of rival Eric Chu of the Ma’s China-friendly Nationalist Party. The DPP also made huge gains in the parliamentary polls gaining a majority with 68 seats in the 113-seat legislature.

Tsai, who is also Taiwan’s first woman president, now has the unenviable job of straddling the line between pushing the idea that Taiwan is separate from China while trying to keep the peace – as well as economic ties – in tact.

“I don’t envy her,” a commentator for a major Taiwanese daily publication told China Cheat Sheets. “I want to see how she can stand the pressure from China on the cross-strait issues.”.

According to the report, China’s richest 1 percent owns about one third of the country’s wealth, while the poorest 25 percent own 1 percent of the country’s wealth.

The data is part of the university’s Institute of Social Science Survey. It was gathered by analyzing 15,000 households in 25 different provinces.

“There’s no doubt that the income gap is getting larger and larger,” said sociology professor Zhou Xiaozheng in an interview with Financial Times. “To put it simply, the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.”

The Gini Coefficient for China in 2012 was .49, according to the report.

Economists widely use the Gini Coefficient to measure inequality. According to the World Bank, a coefficient of .40 means severe income inequality.

Still, the data may be incomplete due to rampant corruption and unreported income in the country.

A Southwest University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu study put the coefficient at .61 for China in 2010.

A Hurun study released Thursday reports that the number of dollar millionaires in China rose 8 percent during the past year to 3.14 million. The same report states the country is home to 596 dollar billionaires, more than the US.

These revelations could result in wider calls for progressive taxation and social welfare spending.

In the past, the ruling Communist Party has pledged to tackle inequality.

In 2014, Xi Jinping wrote the following in the state-run People’s Daily: “We want to continuously enlarge the pie, while also making sure we divide the pie correctly. Chinese society has long held the value of ‘Don’t worry about the amount, worry that all have the same amount.’”

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Harbin, in Heilongjiang’s capital, is the home of China’s International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival.

Here, visitors and competitors are greeted to life-seize ice sculptures of international landmarks. The Athens Acropolis, the Forbidden City? They’re all here.

You can even take a ride down an ice slide representing the Songhua River.

The scenery gets even more magical when the sun goes down. That’s when beams of crimson, sapphire, lime green and more shine through translucent ice sculptures illuminating the park.

“It’s quite surreal, due to both the scale and all the lighting—like being in a fantasy movie,” says Christian Stanley of the China Travel Company, in an interview with National Geographic. “You  feel very small and can’t help wondering how they manage to build all of this so quickly. It’s also hard to believe that within a matter of weeks it is all gone—melted away.”

The adventure continues at The Siberian Tiger Park a few miles northwest of Harbin.

This 355-acre reserve is home to Siberian Tigers, black pumas, leopards and lynx.

Visitors board buses surrounded by barbed-wire mesh to get close to these great creatures..

Who is responsible for most of this waste?

If you guessed the U.S., you guessed wrong.

According to Ocean Conservancy, a U.S. non-profit, 60 percent of the plastic that’s dumped into sea comes from five Asian nations: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

In these five countries, only 40 percent of waste is properly collected. Throughout Asia, most waste piles up in communal dumps where bits of trash are pulled up by winds and cast into the ocean. Oftentimes, legitimate garbage dump sites are purposely built near rivers that flow into the ocean.

“Waste will intermittently be carried away by heavy rains or current, refreshing the capacity of the dump to receive more waste,” reads a report by Ocean Conservancy.

In some of these five countries, garbage-disposal workers have been known to cut corners and drop waste on illegal dump sites such as roadsides.

Research suggests that in the Philippines, 90 percent of illegally dumped plastic ends up in the ocean. According to Ocean Conservancy, about 1 million metric tons of illegally dumped plastic from the five Asian nations surveyed makes it out to sea.

The result?

The world’s oceans are seeing more and more gyres — masses of floating garbage that stretch for miles along the sea.

But that’s just the tip of the ice berg.

Ocean Conservancy reports these sites account for just 5 percent of the trash in the ocean. The rest is submerged underwater devastating marine life and bringing about environmental hazards.

“At this rate, we would expect nearly one ton of plastic for every three tons of fish in our oceans by 2025 — an unthinkable number with drastic economic and environmental consequences,” says Nicholas Mallos, director of Ocean Conservancy’s marine debris program.

The unlikely heroes in this situation, however small their contributions may be, are garbage pickers.

Braving disease, these people plunge into gyres to collect plastic which they then sell to recyclers for small sums.

Nicholas Mallos, director of Ocean Conservancy’s marine debris program, is calling on the source to take a stand.

Although Mallos agrees corporations aren’t “making plastic with the intent of it ending up in the ocean,” he urges them to use their “world-class logistics, financing, project management and marketing capabilities” to help solve the problem..

Japan first delivered its warning to China in November, when Chinese vessels sailed near the East China Sea islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

“If a foreign naval vessel transits our waters for (purposes) other than ‘innocent passage’, we will order a sea patrol and take the step of having the Self-Defense Force unit order withdrawal,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.

These islands are formally under Japanese control, but Beijing maintains they’re Chinese territory.

In response to Tuesday’s warning, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson echoed remarks that China will continue to defend its territorial claims and that the islands have been Chinese “since ancient times.”

However, spokesperson Hong Lei expressed Beijing did not want to exacerbate relations with Japan.

“At the same time we do not want to see a rise in tensions in the East China Sea and are willing to appropriately manage, control and resolve the issue via dialogue and consultations,” said Hong during a daily news briefing in Beijing.

Last year, a Chinese coast guard vessel equipped with what appeared to be gun turrets made its way through waters claimed by Japan near the islands. Japan’s coast guard said the move was the first instance of an armed Chinese vessel entering the area.

On Tuesday, the state-run China Daily newspaper reported that the Chinese coast guard was getting ready to launch a large, new vessel into the disputed South China Sea, where China’s territorial claims are in conflict with other regional neighbors including Taiwan and the Philippines.

The ship would weigh 12,000 tons and be armed with a 76-mm cannon as well as anti-aircraft guns, according to the paper. Most Chinese coast guard vessels are unarmed or carry water cannons.

The new ship, as well as a sister vessel, are larger than the two Japanese coast guard vessels which are believed to be the two largest active coast guard ships in the world, according to the paper.

 .

Zhou Shifeng, founder of the Fengrui law firm in Beijing, and some of his colleagues have been secretly detained since last summer.

Zhou’s colleague Liu Xiaoyuan told the BBC that Zhou, lawyer Wang Quanzhang and intern Li Shuyun had been arrested by police under suspicion of “state subversion.”

The BBC’s Jo Floto says “conviction is all but guaranteed” if they go to trial, where they would each face 15 years to life in jail.

Zhou rose to prominence in 2008 after representing families involved in China’s tainted baby-milk scandal which affected more than 300,000 infants. Since then, Zhou’s firm has taken on several high-profile cases.

Zhou was detained last July. A week later, state media reported he had confessed to “unspecified crimes.”

In the past, some members of the firm encouraged petitioners to congregate outside courthouses as their cases were being heard.

Last year, authorities released a statement accusing a group led by the Fengrui firm of illegally hiring protestors and swaying court decisions under the guise of “defending justice and public interests.”

Authorities have blamed the group for causing more than 40 controversial incidents.

A few months ago, police cleaned out the offices at the Fengrui law firm.

The arrests of the Fengrui firm employees reflect a wider crackdown on human rights lawyers. Since last year, more than 250 lawyers and their assistants have been detained. Most have been released, but others aren’t so lucky.

Last month, the world-renowned Chinese rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang received a suspended jail sentence for “inciting ethnic hatred” and “picking quarrels” through social media posts critical of the ruling Communist Party and other subjects.

Many analysts say Xi Jinping’s rule of law campaign is partially fueling one of the biggest crackdowns on free speech in recent history.

 .

Geeling Ng., whose surname now is Ching, earned the title after starring in the music video for Bowie’s 1983 hit by the same name.

Now a successful restaurateur in Auckland, Ching cherishes her memories with the rock-star and says she’ll forever honor her title despite the controversy it came with.

“I’m immensely proud, utterly proud to be China Girl,” Ching said in an interview with NZ Herald. “I’ll go to my grave with that.”

Bowie reportedly died Monday alongside family after a long battle with cancer.

Ching says that the weekend before Bowie’s death, she sat a group of guests and one of them recognized her for her performance even after more than 30 years.

Ching says that being a part of the “China Girl” video with Bowie “changed my life forever.”

Even before starring in the video, Ching had been a fan of the man many in the rock world came to know as “Ziggy Stardust,” the bi-sexual alien rock-star who became one of Bowie’s most memorable personas.

The relationship, however, didn’t end after the director said “cut” for the last time back in 1983.

The last time Ching saw Bowie, a few years had passed. Still, Ching remembers the rocker stepping out of his own star light to greet her with an embrace.

“He took the time to be with people,” Ching recalls of Bowie.

Even though Bowie had not toured for several years, he spent some of his final days working hard in the recording studio. In fact, he released his new album “Blackstar” just days before his death.

“I’m blessed to have been part of that incredible talent, with someone who has changed the world of music … not just music, but the face of fashion, makeup, everything,” Ching said.

 .

Their next target: official Chinese websites.

Over the weekend, Anonymous’ Honk Kong segment posted a video to Facebook stating that it would attack Chinese government and police websites in honor of missing Hong Kong book publisher Lee Bo.

Many believe Lee was abducted by mainland authorities last Wednesday for his work at the Cuaseway Bay bookstore, which sold banned works critical of the ruling Communist Party.

Four of Lee’s colleagues have also gone missing.

Following the messages posted by Anonymous last weekend, a fax supposedly delivered from Lee to a Causeway Bay employee also emerged. In it, Lee explains he had spoken with his wife and is aiding mainland authorities in an investigation.

The letter reads:

“Mr. Chan,

Since I am in urgent need to handle the related issue, and as it cannot be told to the outside world, I have returned to the mainland by my own method to assist the investigation by related authorities – it may take some time.

Please continue to run the bookstore as per contract … My current situation is good, everything is normal.”

Lee’s alleged abduction raised anger among those who perceived it as an example of mainland authorities undermining the city’s “one country, two systems” rights.

Protests led by pan-democratic parties have broken out at the China Liaison Office.

In reference to the situation, student activist group Scholarism said, “‘Hong Kong is not Hong Kong anymore.”

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