Spring Festival consumption to boom amid historical high travel rush GraphicAnalysis: GT

While electricity trade between India and Nepal appears to give the former a commanding advantage against China in Nepal's hydropower sector, there is also growing concern as to whether India's geopolitical game of edging China out could jeopardize Nepal's power projects and energy supply ambitions.

Due to a strategic policy change that India implemented in 2018, India has outpaced China in securing hydropower contracts in Nepal, BNN Breaking reported on Monday.

Media attention to the competition for influence in Nepal's hydropower sector came a few days after Nepal and India reportedly signed a power trade agreement for Kathmandu to export 10,000 megawatts of hydroelectricity to India over the next 10 years, according to Reuters.

Since the hydropower sector in the Himalayan nation has been considered a crucial arena for geopolitical tussles between India and China, the development was touted by some Indian and Western media outlets as evidence of India's growing influence in the region.

Objectively speaking, it is a welcome development that India and Nepal are moving toward strengthening their power trade, which is in the interests of both sides, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Nepal's development should fall victim to India's geopolitical maneuvers. 

Indeed, India's power trade policy, which prohibits the purchase of electricity produced by projects invested by Chinese companies, has cast a shadow on the investment dynamics of Nepal's energy infrastructure.

In 2018, India changed its electricity buying policy to prevent the purchase of power produced via the investment of nations with which it does not have a "bilateral agreement on power sector cooperation." Although it didn't explicitly mention China, hydropower produced by Chinese-funded or Chinese-built plants is actually excluded in power trade with Nepal. As a result, Nepal has removed Chinese developers from six hydropower projects and given four hydro contracts to Indian companies, Reuters reported in May 2023, citing an industrial official in Nepal. 

Indian companies have contracts to build and operate 10 hydropower plants in Nepal, while Chinese developers have such contracts for five of them, according to media reports.

The reason why India's power purchase policy can have such great influence on Nepal is because its power supply has undergone dramatic changes over the past decade, and its generation capacity is now enough to meet domestic needs. 

This also means that Nepal needs to find overseas markets for its surplus electricity during the rainy season, with India and Bangladesh being the target markets. Because of its geographical location, even the power trade between Nepal and Bangladesh requires India's participation.

But such trade needs should not be tools used to exclude other participants for geopolitical interests. It is nothing but narrow-minded for a regional power to be obsessed about the geopolitical significance of its neighbors while neglecting their development needs. 

This approach won't gain positive regional influence for India. Specifically, given the past and current situation of Indian companies' hydropower projects in Nepal, it is questionable whether India has the ability to support Nepal's hydroelectric development, which reportedly has the potential to produce 72,000 megawatts of hydroelectricity.

By comparison, Chinese companies' contributions to Nepal's hydropower development are evident. With the participation and support of Chinese companies, Nepal has turned into a net exporter of electricity. 

China has not only invested in hydropower projects in Nepal, but it has also discussed a cross-border transmission line with Nepal, which may be a solution to Nepal's export needs.

Still, it is our sincere hope that India can have a more open-minded attitude toward Chinese investment in Nepal. If geopolitics is set aside, it will find that there is cooperation space between China and India on this issue, which is beneficial for all parties in the region. 

China has construction and technological advantages in hydropower projects, and Nepal's hydropower development, if smooth, will benefit India and Bangladesh.

In addition to hydropower projects, China and Nepal also have cooperation involving other infrastructure projects, which are also beneficial for regional development, such as the China-Nepal railway that is intended to greatly improve connectivity in South Asia. It would be a pity if India only saw these developments as part of its geopolitical competition with China.

If India is really concerned about its influence in the region, it is advised to invest more and help Nepal and other regional countries with infrastructure development, promoting regional economic prosperity.

The development of South Asia now hinges to a large extent on whether India can adopt a cooperative attitude in the face of the regional needs. This is also the common wish of many countries in the region.

China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has approved graphite export applications from multiple entities, a ministry spokesperson said on Thursday, reiterating that its export control mechanism is not a ban.

Exercising exports control measures on certain graphite products is of common international practice and the China's export control rules are aimed at fulfilling international non-proliferation obligations and safeguarding China's national security and interests, ministry spokesperson He Yadong told a press briefing on Thursday.

He made the remarks in response to reports that some Chinese graphite exporters are cleared to export their products to major South Korean battery companies.

China in October announced plans to optimize export controls on some categories of graphite, a key material in making electric vehicle battery, with new rules taking effect on December 1. The export of artificial graphite materials and related products with high purity, high strength and high density, as well as natural flake graphite and associated products, are subject to the new rules.

Due to China's critical role in the global graphite supply chain, the export control measures received immediate attention abroad.

He emphasized that China's export control measures should not been seen as outright export ban and the ministry has approved a number of graphite export applications that that comply with relevant regulations.

The ministry will continue to review other license applications and make decisions in accordance with legal procedures, He said.

Experts said China's export control rules on certain graphite items are restrained and professional and are in line with international practice.

Earlier, the ministry said that China remains committed to maintaining the security and stability of the global industrial and supply chains.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) can complete image creation and document writing in seconds, bringing novelty but also causing more anxiety for creators.

The first case of copyright infringement involving AI-generated images in China has recently been finalized, with the plaintiff Li Yunkai winning the lawsuit but waiving the 500 yuan ($70) compensation from the defendant.

Li Yunkai recently told the media that the compensation is not important to him; he rather hopes that the court can provide a clear criterion on whether using AI to generate images constitutes original work and possesses original work of authorship.

In this particular case, the Beijing Internet Court recognized the picture generated via text-to-image AI image generator should be considered original “artwork” under the protection of copyright laws based on the “originality” and intellectual input of its human creator.

However, industry observers noted that the case also emphasized whether the artificial intelligence-generated content (AIGC) constitutes a work with copyright cannot be generalized but should be decided on a case-to-case basis.

Why is that? Observers argued that, to protect AIGC, it is necessary to establish whether the subject of the right is a human being rather than the machine or the AI.

Li Zonghui, the vice president of the Institute of Cyber and Artificial Intelligence Rule of Law affiliated with Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, told the Global Times that the current copyright law defines the subject of the work as the author, citizens, legal persons, and social organizations. It is evident that AI does not meet this requirement.

Back in 2018, the US Copyright Office received its first known copyright registration application for an AI-generated work. But later in 2023, the court rejected the application because AI, as a non-human, is not subject to copyright protections.

In this case, Stephen L. Thaler intended to claim authorship of a visual image titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” which was generated by his developed AI system known as the "Creativity Machine."

“Protecting content generated by non-human beings as works with copyright is fundamentally contrary to the legislative purpose of copyright law,” Li Zonghui noted. In the Beijing case, the court rule was based on the fundamental principle of protecting the rights of “human being.”

According to the court, if an AI-generated image reflects the original intellectual investment of a human being, it should be considered artwork and protected under copyright law. However, determining the extent of the original intellectual investment made by a human being in the creation process poses a challenge.

The Beijing Internet Court believes that the plaintiff Li Yunkai designed the visual elements of the character and its presentation through prompts and set parameters for the layout and composition of the image. He continued to add prompts and modify parameters after obtaining the first image, constantly adjusting and revising, and finally obtained the image. The process reflects the plaintiff's aesthetic choices and personal judgment, the court believed.

Li Zonghui pointed out that if a work is purely generated by AI without any contribution from the user, it may not be subject to copyright infringement. The key factor lies in the prompts and what kind of modify parameters given to the machine and whether they constitute originality.

Some industry observers argue that writing prompts to generate a work is a simple task, resulting in a minimal intellectual contribution to AI-generated image creation.

AI systems have the capability to replicate on a large scale, enabling the generation of a vast number of images or content within a short period. If copyright protection is granted to all of this, it will not foster innovation for society as a whole, stated You Yunting, a Shanghai-based lawyer, in an interview with The Paper.

Machines’ deep learning is essentially a statistical process that involves collecting large-scale data and performing rapid calculations and deductions. Therefore, it is not the same concept as human original expression, Andy Sun Yuanzhao, executive director at The Asia Pacific Legal Institute, wrote on Copyright Theory and Practice recently.

Apart from lawsuits relating to AI-generated images, China has also seen a first legal dispute over a virtual human.

In July 2022, a technology company in Hangzhou uploaded a video to their Douyin account featuring Ada, a virtual human created by Shanghai-based Xmov Technology but failed to acknowledge Xmov as the original creators. The Hangzhou Internet Court later sided with Xmov, ordering the infringing company to pay 120,000 yuan in compensation.

Analysts said there is a connection between virtual humans and works in copyright law and the right of portrait and personality in civil law.

If the character’s appearance is completely newly designed, then the virtual digital human may constitute an artistic work and be protected by copyright law. If the character is based on the modeling of a specific natural person, then the virtual digital human involves the use of the likeness of a real person and requires the permission of the right of personality holder, Li Zonghui told the Global Times.

One judgment of copyright infringement will certainly lead to more subsequent lawsuits. The aftereffects will be the increase cost and market entry barriers for the subsequent development of the AI industry, Sun said.

Given that these lawsuits usually last for a long time, unless the parties can reach a pre-litigation settlement, the entire AI industry is likely to be in a state of uncertainty for a considerable period of time in the future, Sun said.