BOCA CHICA, Texas — SpaceX’s Starship, a futuristic vehicle designed to eventually carry astronauts to the moon and beyond, was poised for a third uncrewed test launch Thursday that Elon Musk’s company hopes will carry it farther than before, even if it ends up exploding once again in flight.

The spacecraft, mounted atop its towering Super Heavy rocket booster, was due for liftoff as early as 8 a.m. EDT from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site on the Gulf of Mexico near Boca Chica, Texas.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration just granted a license for the test flight on Wednesday afternoon.

Unlike the first two test flights last year, aimed mainly at demonstrating that the spacecraft’s two stages can separate after launch, the third test flight will involve an attempt to open Starship’s payload door and reignite one of its engines in space.

Each of the previous flights were routed toward a planned crash landing near the Hawaiian islands in the Pacific, while the latest flight is targeting a splashdown zone in the Indian Ocean.

Even if it achieves more of its test objectives than before, SpaceX acknowledges a high probability that Starship’s latest flight will end up like the first two, with the vehicle blowing itself to bits before its intended trajectory is complete.

Regardless of how well it performs on Thursday, all indications are that Starship remains a considerable distance from becoming fully operational.

Musk, SpaceX’s billionaire founder and CEO, has said the rocket should fly hundreds of uncrewed missions before carrying its first humans. And several other ambitious milestones overseen by NASA are needed before the craft can execute a moon landing with American astronauts.

Still, Musk is counting on Starship to fulfill his goal of producing a large, multipurpose next-generation spacecraft capable of sending people and cargo to the moon later this decade, and ultimately flying to Mars.

Closer to home, Musk also sees Starship as eventually replacing the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as the workhorse in company’s commercial launch business that already lofts most of the world’s satellites and other payloads to low-Earth orbit.

For Thursday, SpaceX is aiming to at least exceed Starship’s performance with its Super Heavy booster during their inaugural test launch together last April, when the spacecraft exploded over the Gulf less than four minutes into a planned 90-minute flight.

That flight went awry from the start. Some of the Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines malfunctioned on ascent, and the lower-stage rocket failed to separate as designed from the upper-stage Starship, leading to termination of the flight.

The second test flight in November made it farther than the first, and managed to properly achieve stage separation, but the spacecraft exploded about eight minutes after launch.

SpaceX’s engineering culture, considered more risk-tolerant than many of the aerospace industry’s more established players, is built on a flight-testing strategy that pushes spacecraft to the point of failure, then fine-tunes improvements through frequent repetition.

NASA, SpaceX’s biggest customer, has a lot riding in the success of Starship, which the U.S. space agency is giving a central role in its Artemis program, successor to the Apollo missions that put astronauts on the moon for the first time more than 50 years ago.

While NASA Administrator chief Bill Nelson has embraced Musk’s frequent flight-testing approach, agency officials in recent months have made clear their desire to see greater progress with Starship’s development as the U.S. races with China to the lunar surface.
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The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would force short-video app TikTok, used by about 170 million Americans, to separate from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face a ban. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson says the Senate may not approve the bill.
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Tokyo — A rocket made by a Japanese company exploded just after launch on Wednesday, with public broadcaster NHK showing footage of the fiery failure.

Tokyo-based startup Space One had been aiming to become the first Japanese private firm to successfully place a satellite into orbit.

Its 18-meter solid-fuel Kairos rocket blasted off from the startup’s own launch pad in Wakayama prefecture in western Japan, carrying a small government test satellite.

But seconds after the launch, the rocket erupted into a ball of flame, with black smoke filling the launch pad area.

Burning debris was seen falling onto the surrounding mountain slopes as sprinklers began spraying water.

“The launch of the first Kairos rocket was executed, but we took a measure to abort the flight,” Space One said in a statement, adding that “details are being investigated”.

The failure marks a blow to Japan’s efforts to enter the potentially lucrative satellite-launch market.

The government wants to assess if it can quickly launch temporary, small satellites when and if its existing spy satellites malfunction.

Kairos had been hoped to put the satellite into orbit around 51 minutes after launch.

Space One was established in 2018 by a team of major Japanese tech businesses, including Canon Electronics, IHI Aerospace, construction firm Shimizu and the government-owned Development Bank of Japan.

Last July another Japanese rocket engine exploded during a test around 50 seconds after ignition.

The solid-fuel Epsilon S was an improved version of the Epsilon rocket that had failed to launch the previous October.

Its testing site in the northern prefecture of Akita was engulfed in flames and a huge plume of grey smoke rose into the sky.

The malfunction came after Tokyo in March 2023 had seen its second attempt to launch its next-generation H3 rocket fail after liftoff.

Last month though Japan’s space agency toasted a successful blast-off for its new flagship rocket, the H3, after years of delays and two previous failed attempts.

The H3 launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan, sparking cheers and applause at JAXA control center.

It has been mooted as a rival to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and could one day deliver cargo to bases on the moon.

That followed Japan’s successful landing in January of an unmanned probe on the moon, albeit at a wonky angle, making it just the fifth country to achieve a “soft landing” on the lunar surface.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve legislation Wednesday that would force the popular TikTok video app to either separate from its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance or sell the U.S. version of the software.

The bipartisan Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act “gives TikTok six months to eliminate foreign adversary control — which would include ByteDance divesting its current ownership — to remain available in the United States,” said Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the committee.

“All TikTok would have to do is separate from CCP-controlled ByteDance. However, if TikTok chose not to rid itself of this CCP control, the application would no longer be offered in U.S. app stores. But TikTok would have no one but itself to blame,” the lawmakers said in a prepared statement.

Here’s what we know about the legislation and what happens next in the U.S. Senate.

Why is TikTok under scrutiny?

“The concern is that TikTok could transfer personal information to its parent company ByteDance, who in turn could transfer it to the Chinese government,” Caitlin Chin-Rothmann, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA.

Chin-Rothmann said concerns by some members of Congress about the Chinese Communist Party potentially controlling TikTok’s algorithm for propaganda purposes have not yet been proven.

“That’s not to say that, in the future, there’s not a risk that the Chinese government could exert pressure,” she said.

What does TikTok say about the legislation?

TikTok on Monday called the legislation a “ban” and has repeatedly denied the allegations against it. In a statement last week on X, formerly Twitter, the company said the “legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States.”

How do lawmakers view the legislation?

The bill has strong support from House Democrats and Republicans, despite congressional offices receiving floods of phone calls from Americans concerned about losing access to the social media app.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters last week, “It’s an important bipartisan measure to take on China, our largest geopolitical foe, which is actively undermining our economy and security.”

What about the Senate?

The bill could face a much harder road to passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said it will face consideration in the appropriate committees.

“I will listen to their views on the bill and determine the best path,” Schumer said in a statement.

Some Senate Democrats, including Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, have expressed doubts about the legality of singling out a social media app in legislation. He has introduced alternative legislation more broadly targeting apps that collect personal data.

But Warner told CBS News on Sunday that the TikTok app is a serious national security concern.

“If you don’t think the Chinese Communist Party can twist that algorithm to make it the news that they see reflective of their views, then I don’t think you appreciate the nature of the threat,” Warner said.

How do the leading 2024 presidential candidates feel about the bill?

The White House said it welcomes the legislation, even though the Biden campaign joined TikTok recently as an effort to reach out to younger voters.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters the bill ensures “ownership isn’t in the hands of those who may do us harm.”

Former President Donald Trump — who initially called for a ban of the app in 2020 — has now changed course, arguing that Facebook will be empowered if TikTok is no longer available.

“There’s a lot of good, and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you’re going to make Facebook bigger,” the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee told U.S. cable network CNBC in a phone interview this week.

What happens once the bill passes the House?

Apart from constitutional concerns over preventing U.S. citizens from exercising their right to free speech, the bill could also be difficult to legally enforce and face challenges in U.S. courts.

“Chinese export control laws could potentially prevent the sale of TikTok’s algorithm,” Chin-Rothmann said. “A divestiture would be very logistically difficult, in general. TikTok is one of the largest companies in the world. So, any buyer would have to be very large, as well. They would have to have a strategic interest in purchasing TikTok, and then the merger would have to not raise antitrust concerns in the United States.”
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Scientists in Alaska are developing a cloud-based approach to storing and analyzing data about volcanoes, in hopes of increasing the speed with which they can predict eruptions. Phil Dierking has our story. (Camera and Produced by: Philip Dierking)
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Taipei — During China’s top legislative meetings this year, which wrapped up Monday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping ordered the military to develop what he called “new quality combat capabilities,” a phrase analysts say highlights a focus on the use of artificial intelligence, high-tech and intelligent warfare. It also could signal, they say, plans to build forces of unmanned ships and submarines to support military operations.

Speaking at a gathering of the People’s Liberation Army or PLA and Armed Police Force delegates to the National People’s Congress late last week about “new quality combat capabilities,” Xi called on the military to deepen its reforms and promote innovation to enhance strategic capabilities in emerging areas.

During the meeting, six representatives from the military spoke about a range of topics from defense capabilities in cyberspace and the application of AI to the development and use of unmanned combat capabilities.

Chung Chieh with the National Policy Foundation in Taipei said that based on Xi’s remarks at the meeting and comments in past speeches, his “new quality combat capability” seems to refer to intelligent combat capabilities.

“His (Xi’s) current goal is to achieve the so-called integrated development … as fast as possible,” Chieh said.

With the use of AI, for example, militaries are looking to speed up the pace of combat, shorten the time it takes for a range of tasks, such as discovering targets, carrying out strikes as well as near instant operations and even simultaneous control of many unmanned combat vehicles, he said. For major military powers, whoever can master the new combat mode first will gain the upper hand.

A report Sunday in the PLA Daily said that following the meeting, lawmakers highlighted the need to make technology a “core capability” to enhance China’s strategic power.

One lawmaker, Hao Jingwen, talked about how drone swarm technologies in air, sea and land have been developed and successively deployed in regional conflicts.

“China needs to realize the important roles, emerging areas and new quality combat capabilities could play in modern warfare, be aware of their development trends, plan battlefield applications of advanced technologies in advance, and conduct active research in fields such as big data, the Internet of Things and AI, so as to be able to win future warfare,” the PLA Daily quoted Hao as saying.

Ying-Yu Lin, an assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University, said that while “new quality combat capabilities” seek to draw on scientific and technological capabilities, it’s hard to say how they’d be used to meet Xi’s standards — or how widely used the capabilities might be in the future.

“In fact, China itself is still trying to figure out how to do it, and it cannot clearly point out what its new quality combat capabilities are. If it wants to fight technological warfare in the future, its training methods and the talents it needs will definitely be a little different from the past,” Lin told VOA.

Lin believes that since new quality combat capabilities are based on technological development, it is bound to eliminate the traditional mentality of military training and recruit high-tech professional talents. However, he said, such talents may have better options with foreign companies or private enterprises and may not want to join the PLA.

During the plenary meeting, Xi also emphasized the need to coordinate preparation for maritime military conflicts, the protection of maritime rights and interests, maritime economic development, and to enhance maritime strategic capabilities.

Analysts said Xi’s remarks revealed Beijing’s ambitions to become a sea-power country and control sea communication lines.

Chieh said taken together the remarks about “new quality combat capability” and “preparation for maritime military conflicts” are a sign that unmanned autonomous ships will be a key development project for the PLA.

“Maybe in the future, at sea, or even in distant oceans, the Chinese Communist Party will use a large number of unmanned vehicles, such as unmanned ships and even unmanned submarines, to support its maritime operations and control of sea lines of communication,” he said.  

Adrianna Zhang from VOA’s Mandarin Service contributed to this story.
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Beijing, China — China has intensified efforts to block software that enables internet users to access banned websites during a top political meeting this week, a leading provider of firewall-leaping software told AFP.

Beijing operates some of the world’s most extensive censorship over the internet, with web users in mainland China unable to access everything from Google to news websites without using a virtual private network (VPN). 

And as thousands of delegates gather in Beijing this week for the annual “Two Sessions” meeting, VPN software has increasingly struggled to circumvent the censorship while outages have become much more frequent, even when compared to previous sensitive political events.

“Currently, there is increased censorship due to political meetings in China,” a representative of the Liechtenstein-based service Astrill — one of the most popular VPN services for foreigners in China — confirmed to AFP. 

“Unfortunately, not all VPN protocols are functioning at this time,” they said. “We are working intensively on bringing all services back to normal, but currently have no ETA.”

The use of a VPN without government authorization is illegal in China, as is using the software to access blocked websites.

State media workers and diplomats, however, are allowed to access prohibited websites such as X, formerly Twitter.

Security has tightened across Beijing throughout the Two Sessions, with security officers patrolling streets with sniffer dogs and elderly volunteers in red armbands monitoring pedestrians for suspicious behavior.

Chinese social media giant Weibo has also been quick to block sensitive topics.

All hashtags discussing Beijing’s decision to call off a traditional news conference by the country’s premier were quickly removed from search results. 

And another, a reference to China’s economic woes declaring “middle class children have no future” was also removed. 

China’s domestic media is state-controlled and widespread censorship of social media is often used to suppress negative stories or critical coverage.

Regulators have previously urged investors to avoid reading foreign news reports about China. 

In a speech last year, President Xi Jinping said the ruling Communist Party’s control of the internet had been “strengthened,” and that it was crucial that the state “govern cyberspace.”
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Although NASA has delayed the launch of a crewed mission to orbit the moon until 2025 at the earliest, four selected astronauts are training in preparation for the first such journey in more than 50 years. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh caught up with the crew of Artemis II during training and has more from San Diego.
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A Seattle startup’s drones are helping first responders by providing them with “eyes and ears” in hazardous environments. Natasha Mozgovaya in Seattle has the story.
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The World Bank says digital entrepreneurship is paving the way for economic empowerment across Nigeria and reducing poverty through internet access. In a January report, the Bank says internet access reduced extreme poverty by 7% in the West African country. But it noted a digital gender gap where women are less likely than men to have internet access. Gibson Emeka reports from Abuja in this report narrated by Mary Alice Salinas.
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The latest innovation in artificial intelligence is photo-realistic video created from just a few words. Deana Mitchell has the story.
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washington — Speaking Mandarin and promoting love for China, countless videos of foreign-looking women made with artificial intelligence started popping up on Chinese social media platforms around the Lunar New Year earlier this month.

The avatars in the videos are created with online images that are stolen, reproduced and repurposed so that even the women in real life recognize themselves in the videos.

Olga Loiek is one of those women. She’s a 20-year-old Ukrainian who studies cognitive science at the University of Pennsylvania. A couple of months ago, Loiek started a YouTube channel where she talks about mental health and shares her philosophies about life.

However, shortly after that, she started receiving messages from followers telling her that they had seen her on Chinese social media. There, she’s not Olga Loiek but a Russian woman who speaks Mandarin, loves China and wants to marry a Chinese man. Her name is Natasha, or Anna, or Grace, depending on the social media platform you find her on in China.

“I started translating the videos with Google Translate, and I realized that most of these accounts are talking about things like China, Russia, how good the relationship between China and Russia is,” she told VOA. “This feels very violating.”

In some videos, the avatars talk about how much they value Russia and China’s close ties. In other videos, they praise Chinese history and culture or talk about how much Russian women want to marry Chinese.

“If you marry Russian women, we will wash clothes, cook, and wash dishes for you every day,” an avatar said. “We will also give you foreign babies, as many as you want.”

Several dozen videos of Loiek’s avatar speaking Mandarin have been found on video sites Douyin and Bilibili. Most of these accounts would ask viewers to visit their online stores to buy what they say are authentic Russian goods.

Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, has labeled some of these videos as potentially AI-generated. But comments show that many believed they were looking at a real woman. One netizen wrote, “Russian beauty, Chinese people welcome you.”

Loiek said she would never say things like that, obviously, given that she’s from Ukraine, which has been at war with Russia since 2022.

She said, “This is probably used to make people, maybe people in China, feel that foreigners feel that their country is superior.”

On Bilibili, China’s biggest video site, some AI videos using Loiek’s face are marked with the logo of HeyGen, indicating that the video was generated on the company’s website.

In one tutorial on Bilibili, the demonstrator even shows how to make a short video on HeyGen with a clip of Loiek talking.

HeyGen is an AI company headquartered in Los Angeles that was launched in China in 2020. It specializes in realistic digital avatars, voice generation and video translating.

The technology developed by HeyGen was used in AI videos of Donald Trump and Taylor Swift speaking perfect Mandarin that went viral on Chinese social media in October 2023. According to Forbes, the company is now valued at $75 million.

HeyGen’s moderation policy states that users cannot generate avatars that “represent real individuals, including celebrities or public figures, without explicit consent.” The company’s official tutorial video on avatar making shows that users must submit a video of people giving consent to the use of their likeness. It’s unclear how some in China could circumvent the requirement to make videos of Loiek.

Loiek said that since she and her YouTube subscribers have sent complaints to Chinese social media companies, about a dozen of the accounts imitating her have been taken down.

VOA reached out to HeyGen and Douyin’s parent company, ByteDance, for comments but has not received a response.

The Chinese government rolled out provisions to regulate deepfakes and other “deep synthesis services” in early 2023. The law prohibits generating deepfakes without the consent of the people whose image or other information is used.

Loiek posted her story on YouTube, and it has been shared on Chinese social media. Netizens across platforms sympathized with her and called for tougher regulations on AI.

Chinese tech giants such as Baidu and Tencent are investing heavily in AI technology. One of the most hyped-up services powered by AI is digital humans.

Tencent and Xiaoice, a Chinese AI studio spun off from Microsoft, offer digital human services that can clone people and turn them into AI avatars for as little as $145.

AI avatars have also been found in online disinformation campaigns that spread pro-China and anti-U.S. narratives. In February 2023, research firm Graphika found a social media campaign promoting Beijing’s interests using realistic-looking computer-generated people in videos.

In September 2023, the U.S. State Department warned in a report, “Access to global data combined with the latest developments in artificial intelligence technology would enable the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to surgically target foreign audiences and thereby perhaps influence economic and security decisions in its favor.

As for Loiek, she does not plan to quit YouTube or stop posting.

“We need some sort of regulatory frameworks, so we can understand and we can prevent these things from happening,” she said.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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Artificial intelligence touches nearly every aspect of our digital lives, but there are few laws governing its use. In this episode of our web series about AI, VOA’s Tina Trinh looks at how lawmakers and tech developers are making rules for something that is changing nearly every day.
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washington — Rights advocates are urging international social media platforms to do more to prevent Chinese authorities from obtaining the personal information of users. The call comes after two popular Chinese social media influencers alleged on X and YouTube that police in China were investigating their followers and had called some in for questioning.

Social media platforms such as X and YouTube and thousands of websites — from The New York Times to the BBC and VOA — are blocked in China by the country’s Great Firewall. But increasingly, even as social controls tighten under the leadership of Xi Jinping, many in China are using virtual private networks to access X, YouTube and other sites for news, information and opinions not available in China.

Li Ying, who is also known online as Teacher Li, is one of the social media influencers who issued the warning on Sunday. Li came to prominence as a source of news and information following a rare display of public dissent in 2022 in China, protesting the government’s draconian zero-COVID policy. His account on X has now become a hub for news and videos provided by netizens that the Chinese government considers sensitive and censors online.

In a post on Sunday, Teacher Li said, “Currently, the public security bureau is checking my 1.6 million followers and people in the comments, one by one.”

He shared screenshots of private messages he received from followers over the past few months, some of which claimed that police had interrogated individuals, even causing one person to lose their job.

VOA could not independently verify the authenticity of the claims, but court records in China and reports by rights groups have previously documented the country’s increasing use of social media platforms banned in China to detain, prosecute and sentence individuals over comments made online.

The Chinese Embassy spokesperson in Washington, Liu Pengyu, said he was not aware of the specifics regarding the social media influencers.

“As a principle, the Chinese government manages internet-related affairs according to law and regulation,” Liu said.

Influencers warn followers

News of the crackdown on followers of social influencers comes amid a flurry of reports about China’s hacking capabilities. Last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure were “at a scale greater than we’d seen before.”

A recent document dump detailed how private companies are helping China to hack foreign governments across Southeast Asia and to unmask users of foreign social media accounts.

Wang Zhi’an, a former journalist at China’s state broadcaster CCTV who has a million subscribers on X and 1.2 million followers on YouTube, says his followers have reported similar problems.

In response, both Wang and Teacher Li have urged their followers to take precautions, suggesting they unfollow their accounts, change their usernames, avoid Chinese-made phones and prepare to be questioned.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Li’s followers on X had dropped to 1.4 million. VOA reached out to Li for comment but did not receive a response as of publication.

Authorities reportedly tracking followers

Maya Wang, acting China director at Human Rights Watch, said China is putting more effort into policing platforms based outside of the country as more Chinese people move to the platforms to speak out.

She said the recent reports of authorities tracking down followers is just a part of China’s long-standing effort to restrict freedom of expression.

“I think the Chinese government is also increasingly worried about the information that is being propagated, transmitted or distributed on these foreign platforms because they have been, thanks to these individuals, very influential,” Wang said.

A recent leak of documents from I-Soon, a private contractor linked to China’s top policing agency and other parts of its government, described tools used by Chinese police to curb dissent on overseas social media, including one tool specifically created to surveil users on X.

Hackers also created tools for police to hack email inboxes and unmask anonymous users of X, the documents show. The leak revealed that officers sometimes sent requests to surveil specific individuals to I-Soon.

Wang said it is incumbent on social media companies to make sure their users stay safe.

“I would want to direct these questions to Twitter [X] to ask — are they adopting heightened measures to protect PRC [People’s Republic of China]-based users?” she said. “I think Twitter [X] needs to investigate just how exactly this kind of information is being obtained and whether or not they need to plug some loopholes.”

Yaqiu Wang, research director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at Freedom House, said that besides better protecting their users’ privacy, the companies should also put in more effort to combat China’s clampdown on freedom of speech.

“They should have steps actually helping out activists to protect their freedom of speech,” she said. “Big social media companies should widely disseminate information to their users, like a manual or instructions of how to protect their account.

“They need to be more transparent, so users and the public know whether government-sponsored hacking activities are going on,” she added.

VOA reached out to X, formerly known as Twitter, several times for comment but did not receive any response by the time of publication.

Xiao Yu contributed to this report.
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The latest innovation in artificial intelligence is photorealistic video created from just a few words. Deana Mitchell has the story in this week’s episode of LogOn.
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SHANGHAI — Two prominent Chinese bloggers in exile said that police were investigating their millions of followers on international social media platforms, in an escalation of Beijing’s attempts to clamp down on critical speech even outside of the country’s borders.

Former state broadcaster CCTV journalist Wang Zhi’an and artist-turned-dissident Li Ying, both Chinese citizens known for posting uncensored Chinese news, said in separate posts Sunday that police were interrogating people who followed them on social media, and urged followers to take precautions such as unfollowing their accounts, changing their usernames, avoiding Chinese-made phones and preparing to be questioned.

Li Ying, known as Teacher Li, came to prominence as a source of news about the White Paper protests, a rare moment of anti-government protests in mainland China in 2022. Teacher Li’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, @whyyoutouzhele now posts news and videos submitted by users, which cover everything from local protests to viral videos of real-life incidents that are censored on the Chinese internet.

In a post Sunday evening, Teacher Li suggested people unfollow his account. “Currently, the public security bureau is checking my 1.6 million followers and people in the comments, one by one.”

Li shared screenshots of private messages he received from followers over the past few months, which claimed that police had interrogated individuals, and that one person had even lost their job.

As of Monday afternoon, Li had dropped down to 1.4 million followers on X.

International social media platforms like X and YouTube are blocked in China but can still be accessed with software that circumvents the country’s censorship systems.

Wang, who has a million subscribers on X and 1.2 million followers on YouTube, also told his fans to unsubscribe.

Li, Wang and the Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Over the past decade, Beijing has cracked down on dissent on Chinese social media, with thousands of censors employed both at private companies and with the Chinese state.

Chinese users expressing critical opinions online have reported being called, harassed or interrogated by police, with some called in for questioning and ordered to take down certain posts or delete their accounts. In some cases, users have been detained, with some spending up to two weeks in jail and a small number sentenced to years in prison.

More recently, Beijing has extended its reach to tracking non-Chinese platforms such as Facebook, Telegram and X. A recent leak of documents from I-Soon, a private contractor linked to China’s top policing agency and other parts of its government, described tools used by Chinese police to curb dissent on overseas social media, including one tool specifically created to surveil users on X.

Hackers also created tools for police to hack email inboxes and unmask anonymous users of X, the documents show. Sometimes, officers sent requests to surveil specific individuals to I-Soon, the leak revealed.

Li said he would not stop posting even if people unfollowed, but he urged his followers to take basic digital safety precautions.

“I don’t want your life to be impacted just because you wanted to understand the real news in China,” Li said, in an additional post. “You only want to understand what’s happening, but the price is quite high

 
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Tokyo — Japan’s moon lander has produced another surprise by waking up after the two-week lunar night, the country’s space agency said Monday.

The unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) touched down last month at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way.

As the sun’s angle shifted, it came back to life for two days and carried out scientific observations of a crater with a high-spec camera, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.

It went to sleep again as darkness returned and, since it was “not designed for the harsh lunar nights,” JAXA had been uncertain whether it would reawaken.

“Yesterday we sent a command, to which SLIM responded,” JAXA said on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.

“SLIM succeeded in surviving a night on the Moon’s surface while maintaining its communication function!”

It said that communications were “terminated after a short time, as it was still lunar midday and the temperature of the communication equipment was very high.”

But it added: “Preparations are being made to resume operations when instrument temperatures have sufficiently cooled.”

SLIM, dubbed the “Moon Sniper” for its precision landing technology, touched down within its target landing zone on Jan. 20.

The feat was a win for Japan’s space program after a string of recent failures, making the nation only the fifth to achieve a “soft landing” on the moon, after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.

But during its descent, the craft suffered engine problems and ended up on its side, meaning the solar panels were facing west instead of up.

The latest news comes after JAXA toasted a successful blast-off for its new flagship H3 rocket on Feb. 17, making it third time lucky after years of delays and two previous failed attempts.

Countries including Russia, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates are also trying to reach the moon.

The first American spaceship to the moon since the Apollo era, the uncrewed Odysseus lander built by a private company and funded by NASA, landed near the lunar south pole on Thursday.

But its maker said the US spacecraft is probably lying sideways following its dramatic landing, even as ground controllers work to download data and surface photos from it.

Private Japanese firm ispace also attempted to land on the moon last year but the probe suffered a “hard landing” and contact was lost.
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