China’s balloon over Costa Rica and railway projects in Pakistan and Namibia

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

China apologized to Costa Rica over a balloon that flew into its airspace, in a similar but separate incident to the spy balloon that was shot down by the U.S. Air Force on Saturday. China’s embassy in San Jose also insisted that the balloon was for scientific research and weather studies — not for nefarious purposes — as Beijing tries to keep a lid on the international fallout over Chinese espionage.

China completed its section of Namibia’s railway on time despite years of setbacks from COVID restrictions and other supply chain delays. The Chinese-funded part of the upgrade, which is expected to cut transportation times in half, is part of the Southern African country’s push to export key resources like cobalt and copper from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Baidu is cloning ChatGPT: Baidu says that it will release an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT in March, and it will be called ERNIE Bot (文心一言 wénxīn yīyán). Meanwhile, China’s luxury market contracted for the first time in five years. Click here for details on these and other business stories.

Pakistan wants China to slash the cost of a $10 billion railway project by 40%, adding to the list of problems over Chinese-funded infrastructure projects in the region. Despite its massive debts, Islamabad is still taking out loans from Beijing to revamp its 1,700-kilometer (1,056-mile) arterial Main Line-1 (ML-1) railway, which was decimated by torrential floods last summer.

Cambodia’s prime minister is headed to China this week as the first foreign leader to visit in the Chinese Lunar New Year, as the two nations continue to grow “iron-clad” ties and military cooperation.