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Official data shows Chinese economy keeps a steady growth momentum in November.
Newly declassified archives add evidence to Japan's wartime crimes against China.
And Australian Prime Minister flags tougher gun laws after a Bandai beach shooting.
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Our top story.
The Chinese economy kept a steady growth momentum in November.
The value-added industrial output expanded 4.8% from a year earlier.
China's industrial output increased by 6%.
Meanwhile, the country's retail sales of consumer goods went up 4 in the first 11 months, totaling about 46 trillion yuan, or about 64 trillion US dollars.
And the key message from the Central Economic Work Conference is clear maintaining stability while pushing ahead with innovation, reform and high-quality growth.
With more, Zhao Yang spoke with Yan Liang, a professor of economics at Willamette University.
So Yan.
Looking at the latest economic figures the growth consumption, investment and trade what do they tell us about the current state of China's economy?
Well, I think the National Bureau of Statistics points out that the economy has been steady, has been stable.
So when you look at the natural output growth in the first 11 months, the growth rate was 6%.
And when you look at the consumption growth again, in the first 11 months the retail sales of consumer goods has gone up by 4.
Service consumption has gone up by 5.4%.
So all of these shows that the demand side has been resilient.
Added to that, export growth in the first 11 months has achieved 6.2% of growth and import is 0.2%.
So all of this just shows that you know, from the demand side, the economy is doing fine in terms of a steady growth, in terms of the big picture.
And we're also seeing in terms of industrial output growth, as I mentioned, 6% overall growth.
But you look at the high tech production, especially 3Ds or NEVs, and these growth rate is actually much higher.
So all this to say is that I think, given this year's growth momentum, I think the year will wrap up for about 5 overall growth rate for this year.
And the Central Economic Work Conference recently held in Beijing sets the economic priorities for the year 2026.
So what stood out to you from this year's meeting?
And how would you summarize the top priorities for the year ahead?
Well, I think that the Central Economic Work Conference has emphasized both on the supply side continue to upgrade economy to boost productivity and innovation-driven growth.
And on the demand side, I think the emphasis has been that they need to boost consumption demand, optimize investment demand and also eliminate hurdles in order to build a more national, unified market.
So that would help to boost domestic demand.
So I think all of this just shown that the policy stance has been consistent on the supply side.
China needs to continue to innovate right to promote the productivity driven growth, to foster the high quality productive forces.
And we've seen this bear fruit in China's economy when it comes to emerging sectors like AI, humanoid robotics and EVs and other green energy products.
I think all of this have helped to drive China's productivity growth and also more sort of high income job creations.
I think these continue to be important for China, not only because of the technological self-reliance, but also really, these are the key to drive productivity growth going forward.
And I think on the demand side again, it's clear that China has more room to improve consumption demand.
And I think that means policy will continue to roll out, such as the trading program that would help to continue to provide boost for consumption.
Now, I think investment is also interesting.
I think the Central Economic Work Conference specifically point out that there will be more support for infrastructure investments and also optimize investment demand.
So I mean I think that means, you know, more investment that would go not only to the high tech manufacturing but also perhaps in service industries.
That would help to meet the demand of rising service consumption.
And by providing you know these uh support for service investments and consumption.
I think that would really help not only drive the uh, you know consumption directly, but also help to provide more cushion right, more um, you know high quality service.
So then people would want to spend more on discretionary items.
So i think these are really important signals um from the central economic work conference.
And yeah, as you mentioned, the message from the Economic Work Conference is policy consistency, a more proactive fiscal policy and steady reform.
So how important is this for the confidence among businesses and investors?
I think this is very important.
And I think what that shows is that the Chinese government is determined and resolved to continue to provide support to the economy.
And I think it's important to emphasize that stability, because the general theme of the political bureau meeting and also the central economic conference is that we want to achieve progress on the basis of stability and enhance quality and efficiency of the economy.
So that means these proactive fiscal and monetary monetary, especially monetary policy would help to provide the kinds of support to stabilize the economy.
So the government is not to put a lot of fiscal stimulus or the so-called bazooka or massively loosening monetary policy to sort of quote unquote stimulate economy.
I think the key here is to read the stabilized economy, not to pursue the high growth rate but really to maintain the steady growth, yet at the same time, continue to reform, to upgrade economy to provide more consumption and investment demand driven, as well as productivity led growth.
So I think this is important the idea that the stability is for the short term and the continuous upgrading productivity-driven growth, domestic demand-led growth, that it's more of a structural, long-term development of the economy.
Well, we've seen.
The exports so far this year have remained resilient despite the rising tariffs and global protectionism.
So what are the key factors supporting China's export performance and how sustainable is this trend?
Well, I think China has been able to weather through, you know, the unilateral trade barrier imposed by the United States.
So the export growth, as you mentioned, has been very resilient this year.
And I think that's mostly due to two major reasons.
One is that China is able to diversify its export destinations.
So the United States used to account for about 14.6% of China's total export.
And now the share has gone down to 10%.
And China's export to the United States has actually gone down by about 18% so far this year.
But China's exports to ASEAN countries, to African countries, to South American countries, to Europe have all gone up.
So in a way, China is able to find more trading partners and diversify its trading destinations.
And so that helped China to weather through the tariff war from the United States.
And second, I think more importantly is China is able to improve its trade structure.
So China no longer rely on the very low profit margin, low value added exports like textile toys, furniture and so on.
And now the mechanical and electronic exports to the rest of the world has accounted for over 60 of China's total exports.
And so these are very high value added, they're tech intensive.
And a lot of them are also green energy, green products, green technologies.
So these products are very competitive and they're very much in high demand.
So I think by both diversifying trade partners And by upgrading China's trade structure made its products very competitive and popular, I think China was able to really weather through the kinds of external turbulences.
I would also add that when you look at the November number, imports had gone up by 1.7%.
And overall, the first 11 months, China's import has gone up by 0.2%.
So I think that really defies some of the critiques to say that China doesn't import from other countries.
The matter of fact is that China is an important import partner for the rest of the world as well.
And innovation-driven growth is once again high on the agenda.
So how is China linking innovation policy with productivity gains?
And what does this mean for traditional industries as well as the emerging sectors?
I think this is an excellent question.
When you look at China's priority when it comes to technologies, for one is China aims to continue to advance technological developments and trying to really engage in the kind of technological breakthroughs.
Right.
So, for example, in A.I., China is holding 60 percent of the A.I. patents in the world.
So China is making a lot of progress in development.
So these are really emerging and future kind of industries.
But at the same time I think China really emphasizes that technological development is not just about breakthroughs.
It's also about integration of these technologies into the broader economy.
In other words, the technological diffusion and adoption is very important.
So by integrating, for example, AI into manufacturing, by integrating humanoid robots into manufacturing and service sector, Then these technologies are able to improve the production process and enhance efficiency and promote productivity growth.
In various industries, right in manufacturing, in education, in healthcare, in tourism and many other service sectors.
So I think that is really the key right it's not just to have those isolated, you know technological sectors but really to diffuse the technology to you know, improve the wide adoption of these technologies in the traditional industries.
So that would really help to bring up the total factor productivity of the entire economy instead of having, you know, just an isolated tech sector.
That was Yan Liang, a professor of economics at Willamette University.
This is World Today.
Stay tuned.
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Now let's move to historical revelation.
China has released a new collection of archives detailing the wartime crimes of Japan's Unit 731, responsible for biological warfare during World War II.
China's Central Archive says the batch of evidence has been provided by Russia.
It includes trial records of Unit 731 members, investigation reports on the unit's crimes and internal official correspondence of Soviet authorities.
The documents span from May 1939 to December 1950.
An official from the Chinese National Archives Administration says the new evidence complements existing records proving that the Japanese wartime unit was an organized, premeditated and top-down systematic state crime.
So for more on this, let's bring in Professor Chu Qiang, fellow of the Belt and Road Research Center at the Mingzhu University of China.
Thanks for joining us, Professor.
Thank you.
Professor, the recent archives that were just released cover more than 10 years and include things like internal mammals and first-hand records.
Then, from your perspective, what's the most significant piece of evidence in these archives, and how do they really solidify what we know about the crimes of Unit 731?
Well, actually, they have so many, you know, breakthroughs on the key evidence.
I think, you know, either one of them can be really, really important.
A very solid and, you know, very serious proof of what happened in history.
Well, for the audience who doesn't know about this history, we have to let them know a little bit.
During the Second World War, when Japan invaded China to set up, you know, a biocorp, and they do all kinds of the you know biotrial experiments, like the germs, like all kinds of poisons on all the prisoners, all the captives from China, from the Korean peninsula, from Mongolia, even from Russia and America and Australia.
And then they try to find out the most killing lethal weapons and use them on the battleground.
But japanese, you know uh, the key criminals uh, they actually managed to ask it from the final trial and then, together with that, they eliminated the historic record and hide it from the whole history.
Uh, you know, in front of the face of the whole world and right now, what we're trying to dig into those historic files of the, you know, all the post-war trials, That is, we want to find out the key evidence to show that this criminal behavior, this all crime, will not be eliminated.
We will prove it to you that it exists, that this is the collective crime committed to everybody, not only to Chinese Korean Mongolian Australian American Russian, but also.
This is a crime to the whole human nature, human civilization.
And what we found during this trial and the profile we find it out that you know there are actually the very long time span of the evidence covering you know the whole 10 or 11 years from the founding into to the you know stop of whole core about you know the unit 731 and also we have a founded a lots of you know telegrams and also all kinds of investigation record from the japan side like those evil doctors Every time when they're doing any kind of the investigations or medical research, what kind of the order they get from their superiors, how they're going to execute those orders, and then the proof that they get, like you have to destroy all these files, and all that kind of the files has already been there.
So I think the evidence chain is actually very, very thorough.
And also I think of the whole evidence covering a very, very large group of criminals.
In the Tokyo trial, they basically have only 12 people from Japan to answer to their crime.
But actually through this file, this pre-investigation from the USSR, we found it out.
Actually there are more than 200 people actually used to be investigated, interrogated as well.
And also we got lots of medical evidence.
These are solid numbers, solid pictures and proofs from the germ, from the parasite.
And from the gas and the poisons and all these kind of you know very detailed academic related research from the Japan side actually showing they used to put all this kind of the poisonous, lethal you know materials, you know injection by, you know anatomy method and destroyed lots of you know war captives.
And those have been found very clearly.
So I think all these kind of what we call the, the Tough and thorough evidence are showing they have made this genocide and crimes against whole human beings.
Professor, as you mentioned, Japan's biological warfare was an organized, premeditated state crime, not just actions of a few rogue soldiers.
Why is it important for today to recognize these crimes as state crimes?
Well, actually, we found it out.
Well, a lot of people used to argue during the Tokyo trial.
They say this is just a crazy scientist.
They took advantage of the Japanese war against China invasion in China.
They just carried out to those forbidden you know experiment.
This is out of their own motive.
But actually the whole evidence are showing that those orders are not coming from those doctors, those scientists, is coming from the kanton kun.
You know hq from the northeastern china japanese, you know a military hq.
They have all these kind of budget, they have all kinds of indicators, they kpis and all the files with the signs, with the signatures are showing that coming from the military headquarter they are not coming from the scientist and also they have actually a very thorough filing system.
So from the research part, uh production part, you know war part and also uh, from the quarantine part, they're showing that that japanese are doing those research.
The purpose to build this, you know medical or the bio weapons and then to be used on the battleground and also the other evidence will help the japan to develop all kinds of the quarantine and you know antidote medicines to help the japanese soldiers to get way out of it.
So actually we also found there were actually the battle orders.
For example, we found out in one telegram paper from japan in the shandong in 1944 they actually already been very specifically written that they need to uh you know uh measure what kind of the dosage they've been using and what kind of the meteorology condition they're having with this dosage.
It shows that the germ war has already been included in the formal battle.
You know action plans.
So actually this is very very, you know, cruel.
Well, a lot of people probably are very familiar with what nazi has been doing to the uh, The Jew groups.
They're using the gas chamber.
Well, the gas chamber is basically non-human.
They are killing people within one minute.
But do you know what Japan used to do to the war captives?
You probably know that one just common knowledge that more than 60 of a human body is made of water, right.
This is a common knowledge.
But do you know where this come from?
Actually the Japanese war criminals used to burn human bodies the Chinese Japanese Chinese Koreans, American Australians, the Malaysians.
They used to dry them and measure, after the drying procedure, what the weight will be.
They measured yes, after the drying up, the human body will be reducing by sixty percent of the weight.
This is what they've been founding, and they know what kind of the germ is most lethal.
They can kill people in the most brutal kind of you know, in fact, so that they are not only killing people fast, but also they can killing people terribly horribly, so the rest of the people will be horrified and surrender soon.
So this is what they're doing.
If nazi is pure evil and i think that unit 731 is 100 or 10 000 times of it Professor today, even with all those evidence, Japan's Prime Minister, Sanae Takeuchi, not only refuses to reflect on wartime crimes, but is also pushing military expansion and stoking Taiwan contingency fears, continuing a militaristic logic.
So, looking at both history and today's world, how should we understand the impact of Japan's militarism on China and Asia?
And what's the importance of releasing these new archives in exposing Japanese right-wing historical revisionism and warning against a resurgence of militarism?
Well, the Japanese extreme right wing, what they're doing is to revise the whole history, which is because the lack of the Tokyo trial, because many of the profile, many kinds of the record failed to be shown on the Tokyo trial, so there are lots of the blank of history has been left in there.
So what the far-right japanese militarist is doing right now is they use this blank or the emptiness of the history and try to revise the whole history, are telling people this history never existed or they've been crooked and warped so that they can manage to get away out of it.
They've been doing it on everything, like on the unit 731 oh, we never, You know, doing all this kind of the bio-trial on people and also they're doing it on the Ryukyu, which is today's Okinawa.
And they're saying, Okinawa always belonged to Japan.
No, Okinawa used to be an independent country, you know, just 60 years ago.
And they still are, because Japan has been interested to you know.
Only help them to manage this place after Americans give them the rights.
So they think they belong to Japan.
No, they do not belong to Japan.
And also Taiwan is the same story.
We never colonized Taiwan.
Taiwan has a very vague position between China and Japan.
No, Taiwan has been belonging to China like since forever.
So this kind of emptiness and blankness on this historical record help them to cover their criminal behaviors and also help them to blur into the future.
I think this won't happen because, no matter how many times they're telling the lies, that lies wouldn't come true.
But now we need all this evidence to help us to find out what really happened in history and then try to stop this kind of evil chain reaction to happen in the future.
Professor, a video that's been circulating online recently features a Chinese professor saying what we remember is not hatred, but the absence of civilization, an absence that shows us how we must safeguard peace, protect life and uphold justice, not because she is from Nanjing or China, but as she is a human being.
So, considering the inhuman nature of the Unit 731's biological warfare and the fact that some Japanese lawmakers still try to blur this history in education,
Do you think the international community has a role in making sure histories of human trauma like Unit 731 are part of global memory and education programs?
Of course, I think we had less and less war in current world.
Well, you can argue that we still have wars happening everywhere today, but you still have to understand, in current stage of the whole world, with the weapon and gunpowders in our hands, actually the war is getting less and less and also the war is getting more civilized, which means we have less of the abuse, we have less of the massacre, we have less of the body trial.
We have less of killing the captives and the rapes and all kinds of the destroying of the cities.
Why is that?
It's because we're writing down the cruelty and the wrong behavior in the war, even when two countries are hating each other, even when they're fighting for the only lasting piece of resources they want from both sides.
But still, as a human being, we are evolving.
We are improving ourselves to be more human.
Well, because we have seen the Walden in the First World War, we understand what is like a grinder going through the human bodies, killing hundreds of thousands of people within one just round of the salvo of the bombard.
And then we have the Geneva Convention.
We know it's wrong to kill the captives.
We know it's wrong to commit this kind of the human, you know this criminals, crimes against the human beings, even during the worst moment of the war, so currently, even though we still have the killings and the hurtings, which is very bad, but the war is not like before.
This is our common effort, because every country both agreed that we're human and we should not treat another human, no matter from what kind of a reason religion, hatred or just fighting for the benefit.
You should treat them like non-human, like animal, or even like a rock or a dirt.
And we need to understand the unit of 731.
Their victims is not only Chinese, where they invaded, but also include people from the Russia or USSR, from the Korea Peninsula, from Mongolia, from all the alliances, like Americans English, Australians.
So this is a collective crime committed towards all human beings.
And if we do not educate ourselves, our you know offsprings and our next generations about this kind of the extremely dark moment of human nature, I think this kind of the same mistake or crime will be committed again.
And very sadly, after the Tokyo trial, in current Japanese textbooks Only less than one third of the school you know, from the elementaries to the universities.
Only one third of the all kinds of related historic books mentioned about 731.
And the only mentioned 731 as a troop in China.
And they never say they have done this kind of a whole.
You know, human experiment, letting alone, let people know about the details about what they have done to all humankind.
On the contrary, if you take a look at you know the Germany government, German government actually make sure everybody knows what Nazi have been doing.
They actually divided Auschwitz as one of the most important park or the exhibition centers showing those darkest moments of a human being, to make sure that kind of crime will never happen on this piece of land.
And I think this is the right attitude.
But with Japan, what they're doing, I think Unit 731 might happen again.
We will see the same kind of people will be skinned poisoned burned raped, harvested with an organ and drowned or just thrown into the germs and poisons.
That will happen again once civilization has been wiped.
All kinds of the criminal will just jump out When Kublai Khan's are throwing the dead rats into the castles of the Europe to use black deaths to kill all his enemies.
And if they haven't been recorded, this kind of a crime will be repeated again in Japan with Unit 3731.
And now, if we forgot Unit 3731 and this history will not be learned, And that will happen again, probably with some other unit from Japan, maybe the unit Takaichi.
So this is the reason why this is our common obligation and imperative to remember and educate.
Indeed, it reminds us that Safeguarding human dignity and preventing the repetition of such atrocity is still a responsibility for all of us.
Thanks, Professor, for the depth of your analysis.
That was Professor Chu Qiang, fellow of the Belt and Road Research Center at Minzu University of China.
More to come.
Zelensky offers to drop NATO bid for security guarantees but rejects U.S. push to cede territory.
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Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese says his government is considering tougher gun ownership laws following the deadly mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney.
The prime minister said the federal government is prepared to take whatever action is necessary to prevent similar attacks in the future.
He pointed to the possible reforms, including limits on the number of firearms an individual can own and a comprehensive review of firearm licenses over time.
Authorities in New South Wales have confirmed that one of the two alleged shooters held a valid firearms license and illegally owned six guns.
The 50-year-old man was among the 16 people killed in the attack, and the second alleged gunman was his 24-year-old son, who had previously been investigated over suspected links to an Islamic state cell.
Media reports say an IS flag appeared in the gunman's vehicle.
So for more on this, joining us on the line is Joseph Siracusa, Professor of Global Futures at Curtin University in Australia.
Professor, we know Bungay Beach is one of the most iconic public spaces in Sydney.
As a scholar and also just as a citizen.
After the shooting, what's your immediate personal reaction and how deeply this a shaken australian society?
Well, i mean, we're all shocked.
I mean, australia is a relatively peaceful place.
Don't get me wrong.
Australia has had terrorist attacks before and mass shootings and that kind of thing, but nothing like the american version of events, etc.
So, you know, while uh, many people you know may not have been surprised that they were shocked, of course, and uh, it's the um, It's a season of religious adherence and the like, and you know people are sort of relaxing at the same time,
And so it happens at this very peaceful moment of national reflection.
So it has a double impact, as a matter of fact.
Now, we don't know very much. in the last 24 hours.
We don't have much information, but we do know if it is a terrorist attack.
It is the largest terrorist attack on Australian soil ever.
I mean a lot of Australians died in the Bali bombings and on other occasions overseas, but nothing like this as a matter of fact.
So we're all watching very carefully to see what the government's going to do.
This attack seems to have shattered many people's basic sense of public safety.
And we've heard The Prime Minister said the government is now considering tougher gun laws.
Does this incident show that there are already some overlooked loopholes in Australia's gun control system?
Well, I mean after a young man killed 35 people in 1996, Martin Bryant, The government of the day collected most of the guns.
Most of them, I say.
But you can still legally buy guns and become members of gun clubs and the like.
So getting a gun in Australia is not an easy thing.
It's not like in America where you can go to a gun show.
Or you can go to a dealer and pick up a gun in fairly short order.
I mean, getting guns here are very, very hard.
Now, it turns out that one of the shooters legally owns six guns.
He was also a recent immigrant in recent years.
So, you know, you can't really say, do we have a mass killing here or do we have a terrorist attack?
I mean, the government is right now struggling to figure out what it has on its hands.
And that's what the anxiety among Australians is, is what are they dealing with?
The prime minister has talked about possible steps like limiting how many guns one person can own and reviewing gun licenses on a regular basis.
So, from your perspective, are these steps enough to deal with the risks we are seeing today, or deeper and more structural reforms are needed?
Well, I think more reforms will be needed or maybe a change in outlook, as a matter of fact.
I mean, while it is very hard to get guns here today, you can get other kinds of weapons or you can get other things through the mail.
I mean, keep in mind, this is an island continent.
It has 37,000 kilometer coastline.
It wouldn't be too hard for bad guys or terrorists or whatever. to get guns some other way.
I mean, it's not like you can isolate this kind of thing.
But, you know, we need better intelligence.
Now, look, we're told, you know, don't beat up on the intelligence agencies for missing this.
But you know, in the many, many years I've been in Australia I've been here 53 years when I came as a young man at 29 I've followed all the major terrorist attacks everywhere and it always has the same story.
It shocks people and then they find out that this person was already on the intelligence uh watch list or had been interrogated by somebody and let go.
I mean, it's like they all have a footprint and people know who these they are, and but you can't.
You can't detain people because you think they're going to commit a crime down the road.
And, of course, after an event like this, whether it's a mass killing or a terrorist attack, Australians are demanding answers.
And Australians are like other people around the world.
They demand to know what was going on in the killer's mind.
You know, when I was a young man, Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John Kennedy.
And I've seen thousands of telegrams and documents and CIA documents declassified on Lee Harvey Oswald.
And we don't really know what was going on in his mind.
But, you know, people want some kind of closure here.
They want to know, well, did this person leave a, a manifesto behind?
Is there a political program here?
What is this about?
And so sometimes people are looking for things that just aren't there.
It could be that this guy woke up one morning and he conned his kid into shooting a bunch of people who were celebrating down by Bondi Beach, which is the most iconic beach in Australia, though there are some that are pretty close to it as a matter of fact.
So, you know, this is it.
You know, he's a major tourist attraction.
And these two people, they opened fire, and we're not really sure what it is.
Is it related to political platform?
Is it about politics?
Prime Minister Netanyahu has already gone on record saying that this only happened because of the Labor Party's endorsement of the two-state solution.
That's not true at all.
I mean, these kinds of attacks have happened in the 50 years I've been here.
You don't need a pretext to do these kinds of things.
But the problem is access to guns.
As I say, it's not like America where it's embedded in the Second Amendment.
It's hard to get a gun here.
They were all taken away after 1969.
Most of them, as a matter of fact, they returned.
But you know, people can get their hands on guns if they're very clever, industrious and they have enough money.
Professor, as you said, it seems that such things are constantly repeating themselves.
Where do you think the biggest obstacles to stronger gun control in Australia will come from?
For example, politics, enforcement at the state or local level, or public attitudes?
Well, as long as you have a society, whatever your society is where people gather in large numbers.
I mean, there's only so much you can do to protect a crowd of people who are being entertained or celebrating the Olympics or whatever it is.
And so you know, we have to figure out some kind of balance between allowing our citizens to move freely in our societies and sort of putting restrictions on people to move at all.
I mean, this is a very difficult act.
I mean this is why terrorism has been very popular in the The last 50 years, as long as with mass killings, I'm going to think there have been four or five hundred in the United States this year alone, with four or five people involved.
So, you know, we have to find this kind of balance.
And of course, we need a little more observation at the ground level.
I mean, I do not believe that people commit mass killings, whether they're terrorists or whether they're just killing people. without leaving telltale signs behind somebody must have seen something somebody could have reported something you know i'm not talking about turning a place into a police state but i'm talking about just being observant some people may have needed help when they didn't get help a lot of this may be related to a mental mental illness or pressure like that i mean we don't know we don't know why people decide one morning to pick up a gun and start killing innocent people but i'll tell you what you never get over the shock of innocent people on your television screens or you're listening to a radio who never did anything to anybody and you know they are the victim of somebody who's done something whatever the reason is it's very hard to explain and impossible to reconcile professor you mentioned the balance between free movement and gun control but clearly britain has done a better job with gun regulation despite its high population density and just recently the united states experienced another mass shooting In the U.S., calls for gun control come up again and again, but real reform rarely follows.
So, compared with the United States and the United Kingdom, what are the key differences in how Australia approaches gun control in terms of mindset, political culture and enforcement?
Well, in America, anybody can buy a gun legally.
I mean, there are very, very few restrictions.
They can even get a high-powered gun, automatic rifle, which kills a lot of people in a hurry, as a matter of fact, whereas in australia it's always been uh, since 1996 it's been hard to get a weapon.
You have to go through various checks and it's much more monitored.
And you know they're only 27 million australians A very small percentage, want to own guns.
Farmers, of course, own guns for vermin and that kind of thing.
But it's more noticeable here if you want to acquire a weapon.
And there are more, not more checks, but you can check more about the person who wants it.
In America, you got 340 million people.
We have in America 500 million registered guns.
God knows how many are unregistered guns.
And so it's not possible to follow all these things up.
So in America we have these terrible uh mass killings, children killing.
Yesterday at brown university a fellow went onto the campus and started killing uh students in the engineering building.
This is just unbelievable.
You know president trump said something like.
You know this is a shame, that's all he could say.
But you know democrats and republicans can't do much about this because they're not going to put stricter rules on guns or who acquires them or what kind of guns are for sale.
So people say, well, you know, maybe get this particular gun off the market.
But you know, as I say, in open societies, where people can, you know, walk around and have a life wherever they are in the world, it's just pretty hard to well To stop this kind of thing.
But it's the balance.
You know, what do we do?
To keep our citizens safe at the same time while trying to keep the bad guys from getting weapons.
And of course, we have religious connotations. political connotations.
And I like to say that in all the years and years of studying Lee Harvey Oswald, we still don't know why he shot President Kennedy.
I mean, he could have all the information in the world, but you don't know what's going on in someone's head when they decide to break all the laws of God and man by opening fire on innocent people.
And of course that is the hardest thing to stomach is when we see on our TV screens and other places innocent people who've done nothing to anybody, who are murderers for reasons we do not know and may never know.
Thanks Professor, for those valuable insights and our deepest condolences to the victims and their families, and to everyone affected by this tragedy.
Our thoughts are with the Bondi community and all Australians who are still grappling with the shock and grief of this devastating event.
That was Joseph Siracusa, Professor of Global Futures, Curtin University in Australia.
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I'm Elav Elad, economics professor and member of the Data Science and AI Center at New York University, Shanghai.
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Let's move to the peace talks in Berlin between Washington and Kiev.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has offered to job Ukraine's longstanding bid to join NATO during high-level talks with US envoys in Berlin.
The move marks a major shift for Kiev, which had written NATO membership into its constitution as a cornerstone of security against Russia.
The proposal is said to be part of a compromise with Ukraine seeking Western security guarantee under NATO's Article 5.
U.S.
Special Envoy Steve Vitkov says substantial progress has been made on a revised 20-point peace plan.
Earlier an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow has yet to see the revised plan but cautioned that it would reject it if deemed unacceptable.
So to delve into this, let's bring in Kamal Amakili-Aliyev, associate professor at the School of Global Studies at University of Gothenburg.
Welcome, professor.
Thank you.
Professor.
Ukrainian President Zelensky has reportedly offered to job Ukraine's longstanding aspiration to join NATO in exchange for Western security guarantees.
From your perspective, how significant is this shift in Kiev's strategy and what does this signal about Ukraine's priority today?
Well, this is actually a major tactical shift in Ukraine's diplomatic strategy.
That's for sure.
President Zelenskyy.
He signaled that Kyiv is prepared to basically relinquish its long standing goal of joining NATO in the immediate future.
I want to stress that only if Western partners provide legally binding security guarantees, for example like collective defense assurances.
I explain why this is significant and what it actually means.
NATO membership was Ukraine's primary diplomatic and security objective for a very long time, but this bid was even the part of Ukraine's constitutional framework.
Ukraine included the bid to join NATO into its main law, to the constitution.
So giving it up, even as a compromise, signals that Ukraine now places very urgent practical security guarantees as a priority ahead of institutional membership in NATO.
So Kyiv has explicitly framed this as a compromise, and it is in this sense significant.
And it wants it to advance the peace talks without ceding territory.
I think this is offered as a compromise on not offering the territorial concessions.
So it's actually reflective of this reordering of priorities.
Immediate and forcible protection from Western allies.
On one side, it has overtaken a long-term goal of alliance membership.
Professor, the report suggests that Ukraine is seeking assurance under NATO's Article 5.
Could you please tell us more about the Article 5?
And, in practice, how credible and enforceable would such a guarantee be, especially without formal NATO membership?
From my point of view, if Ukraine could secure Article 5 like guarantees, this would be very significant in terms of symbolism, but it would be very questionable from the point of view of enforceability.
NATO's Article 5 is very powerful because it's embedded in the formal mutual defense treaty with a lot of institutional mechanisms already in place.
They're already there integrated command, shared military doctrine, political expectations among 32 states that are currently NATO members.
But without full NATO membership.
Article 5-like guarantees, you know would rely on bilateral or even multilateral treaties, maybe US, European states Canada Japan, etc.
Somebody is going to be there on those treaties and they would promise to come to Ukraine's defense.
Now these treaties can be binding legally, but they also would lack automatic enforcement mechanisms that NATO already has.
And they do not obligate every signatory to act in unison automatically.
So that needs to be spelled out in the treaty.
So such guarantees, you know they will be politically meaningful and serve as a deterrent, that's for sure.
But their credibility would be weaker already from the start because there will be something new.
It would all depend on how explicit and binding are the treaties in the text, who signs them?
Which states right?
Will U.S. be there, for example?
And what triggers a collective response?
Exactly.
That would be very important to know.
Etc, etc.
And what kind of mechanisms are agreed.
So symbolically, yes, very significant.
Enforceability, very questionable.
So that means Article 5 actually provides a way out for US-led Western countries.
Not so much.
You see, because the mechanisms are already there, they are already trigger-prepared.
They have been building on this for years and years and years.
There are already structures in place in NATO that would react almost automatically when it comes to Article 5 breach, without a need for Article 5 to be invoked even in the NATO meeting.
So there are instances like that when, for example, aggression is very much immediate and incredibly visible, right.
So there is a huge escalation.
Somebody attacks NATO countries in a full-scale aggression, for example.
So it would be automatic response.
So it's different.
When, as in the Ukraine case, they would just start building.
Think about NATO countries just establishing the pact with absolutely no mechanism.
That would be that area of enforcement.
Yes.
Professor, U.S.
Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said substantial progress has been made on a revised 20-point peace plan.
What are the main challenges for the US in convincing Kiev, Moscow and its European allies to accept such a plan?
The revised peace framework, for example, from early 28-point plan to a more truncated 20-point version, is part of ongoing negotiations.
And I think The main challenges here, first, they come from Ukraine itself.
It wants security guarantees and their integration rights without compromising on territorial sovereignty.
That's a very clear position of Ukraine.
Ukraine rejects proposals perceived as rewarding aggression, for example, right?
For example, delimitarized zones that would mimic occupation arrangements, those kind of things.
From the Russia side.
Russia still demands conditions that the West seems very unacceptable, such as permanent NATO exclusion, concessions of the territory, at least without Ukraine's consent.
And while resisting, robust enforcement for party verification is also on Moscow's desk.
It's going to be questionable from the Western side as well.
Then there is, of course, the European factor.
The European states, they're more unified than before the process started, right?
But they still differ on how much leverage to give Moscow versus how much to underwrite security guarantees and reconstruction support for Ukraine, especially when it comes to their own domestic politics.
And it's right now very strained.
So the US must thread a needle here, right?
Offer enough to Kiev to maintain unity and legitimacy, while at the same time they need to keep the door open to Moscow without legitimizing the conquest.
Seems like an impossible game, but this is the simultaneous coordination that needs to be done by the US with Ukraine and European allies.
Thanks, Professor, for those insightful analysis.
That was Kamal Makili-Aliyev, Associate Professor at the School of Global Studies at University of Gothenburg.
This is REL Today.
Stay with us.
Turning to our last topic today, climate change is already transforming the way the world grows and access food.
And how are heat waves, droughts and floods affecting harvests today?
And what will it take to build more resilient food systems for tomorrow?
For more on this.
My colleague Wang Guan speaks with Richard Trollerton, Director for Climate and Resilience at the World Food Programme.
Now from World Food Programme's global experience.
How is climate change affecting food security worldwide, particularly in vulnerable or conflict affected countries, where even small climate shocks can tip communities and families into crises?
That's right.
We see that every day on the ground in our work.
Extreme weather, floods, droughts and storms drive food insecurity and hunger worldwide.
They destroy crops, livestock and livelihoods.
They disrupt supply chains and markets.
And in fragile, conflict-affected states, the impact is even more severe.
These are the places where communities face high levels of poverty malnutrition, displacement and weak infrastructure, so that even a single failed harvest can drive entire populations from stressed into a full-scale food crisis.
Last year, 96 million people were pushed into food insecurity by floods, droughts and storms.
It was the hottest year on record.
And we estimate that with one degree of additional temperature rise, we could see another 275 million people pushed into crisis levels of food insecurity.
That is alarming.
Now, World Food Programme's ambitions and plans are plenty looking ahead.
What are key ambitions for strengthening the climate resilience and reducing climate-induced food insecurity?
And are there particular areas where you hope to scale innovation and deepen international partnerships?
Yeah, ultimately, the World Food Programme's vision is simple.
A world where climate extremes no longer drive hunger uh, and where communities have the tools and the systems and the resources they need to support food security.
Some of the innovations that we really are working to scale up are designed both to help communities better prepare for and respond to crises, as well as to build long-term resilience so that, when floods or storms happen, they're not driven into food insecurity.
We're implementing anticipatory action programs, where we are using early warning systems and what we call forecast-based financing to get resources and information to communities before floods and before drought hit.
Last year, for example, we reached 6 million people in 44 countries with this kind of And in Nepal and Bangladesh.
We estimated that it cost half of what it would have cost to respond after a disaster.
We're also working to use insurance instruments to make sure that money is available when disaster does strike.
And, in the last five years, have provided coverage to over 16 million people using innovative climate risk insurance tools, providing over half a billion dollars worth of coverage.
And those insurance policies, when floods or droughts have happened, have paid out 55 million dollars.
But responding to crises is not enough.
We have to build resilience so that when floods and droughts occur, they don't turn into disasters.
And they're working on ecosystems restoration, landscape rehabilitation so that when there's excess rainfall or not enough rainfall, crops can grow, livestock can graze, is critical, and so we've been working to rehabilitate land, working with food insecure communities in many parts of the world, and that shows concrete results.
So, for example, in west africa, we've worked with seven countries to rehabilitate three hundred thousand hectares of of land, uh working with three and a half thousand communities and four million people in the last two years uh where they've experienced drought.
In those communities they have not required emergency assistance because they've been able to weather the the shock.
So those kind of resilience building in interventions are are essential.
They support better nutrition, school attendance and reduce conflict.
China's climate food systems model is being observed.
China has invested heavily in climate smart agriculture, water efficient irrigation, digital monitoring systems and climate resilient crop varieties, efforts that have strengthened both productivity and food security.
Which aspects of China's experience do you believe are relevant or scalable for countries grappling with climate-driven food insecurity?
There are so many things to learn from China's experience and the remarkable progress that China has had in lifting 770 million people out of extreme poverty while sustaining a fifth of the world's population with just 9 of the world's arable land.
In fact, China is already sharing its knowledge and innovations with countries around the world, in Africa and Asia and Latin America.
So, for example, climate resilient crop varieties.
China's invested for decades in developing drought and flood tolerant rice, and wheat and maize.
These technologies have helped stabilize yield even under increasing extreme weather, and they're directly applicable to countries facing similar ecological pressure.
Digital agriculture and early warning, and China's progress on digital agriculture in areas like mobile phone-based farm management have transformed how farmers can protect their crops and manage the risks from the climate.
We worked with provincial authorities in Jilin to pilot a holistic risk management approach to combine many of these techniques, as well as insurance, to save water and fertiliser increase yields.
And those kind of examples can be shared.
In fact, over the last 10 years, the World Food Programme china center of excellence a partnership with the government of china has worked with research academies government agencies universities and the private sector to share this kind of lessons with the countries that need them the most That was Richard Cholerton, the Director for Climate and Resilience at the World Food Program.
That's all the time for this edition of World Today.
To listen to this episode again or to catch up on previous episodes, you can download our podcast by searching World Today.
And for further discussion, you can also follow us on Next at CGTN Radio.
I'm Guiana in Beijing.
Thank you so much for listening.
Bye for now.
