China’s rockets to the Moon and online hackers

Here’s what else you need to know about China today:

China is planning to send two manned rockets to the Moon by 2030, Chinese state media reported today. This would fulfill earlier promises made in June by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) to put people on the Moon by 2030 as part of China’s ambitious plans to become a leading “space power” by 2045. No human has set foot on the Moon since the U.S. conducted its Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s.

Microsoft claimed that a China-based hacker group breached email accounts of about 25 organizations, “including government agencies as well as related consumer accounts of individuals likely associated with these organizations,” in a blog post published yesterday.

The group, identified as Storm-0558, “targets government agencies in Western Europe and focuses on espionage, data theft, and credential access,” the post stated. The hacking operation went undetected for about a month beginning on May 15, until customers complained to Microsoft about abnormal mail activity.

“We assess this adversary is focused on espionage, such as gaining access to email systems for intelligence collection,” Microsoft stated in another post.

U.K. ministers flagged eight China-linked investments in British companies using national security powers, invoking a law that gives the government the ability to require modifications or block investments deemed to pose a threat to the U.K.’s interests.

The eight Chinese deals are out of a total 15 transactions that were the subject of a final order, under which the government intervenes, according to figures published by the Cabinet Office yesterday under the National Security and Investment Act in the year to March 31, 2023.

Beijing is home to half of the China-developed technology that drives AI chatbots, with 40 of around 80 large language models (LLMs) that have already been launched, local authorities said. LLMs are the technology used to train AI-powered generative chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Baidu’s recently launched Ernie Bot.

Chinese state media: Party paper the People’s Daily today leads with a Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 speech to the Central Commission for Deepening Overall Reform on building a “higher-standard open economy,” and the need to find a balance between revitalizing the economy and reducing energy consumption. The speech covered a huge range of other topics, including “the reform of the salary system for university faculty members and research fellows” to “stimulate innovation.”

Xinhua News Agency’s top English-language story is about the same speech.

Xinhua’s Chinese-language story today is about some statements made last week during a trip to Jiangsu Province on the scientific and technological aspects of “Chinese-style modernization,” a concept that he has been frequently talking about in the last few months.