Briefs | Taiwan concert clash reveals divisions

Police are looking for a final suspect involved in clashes at a Chinese-organized concert in Taipei between Taiwanese pro-independence protesters and Beijing supporters that revealed divisions over China’s influence on the self-ruled island. Beijing insists that Taiwan and the Chinese mainland are part of a single Chinese nation and has vowed to take control of the island by force if necessary. It has been stepping up economic and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan’s government over President Tsai Ing-wen’s refusal to endorse Beijing’s view that both sides belong to “one China.”

Holiday travel to South Korea plunges

Ctrip.com International, China’s largest travel website, said the number of tourists using the week-long national holiday to visit South Korea plunged 70 percent this year, in the latest sign of economic fallout over their differing approaches to North Korea. South Korea didn’t make the top 20 destinations for the more than 6 million Ctrip users traveling abroad over the “golden week” holiday, after ranking No. 1 during the same period last year, the company said. Thailand rose from the No. 2 spot to become this year’s top destination for the Ctrip’s roughly 300 million users.

Analyst: Pollution curbs to slow growth, lift prices

China’s drive to cut pollution could reduce economic growth by 0.25 percentage points in the next six months while boosting factory inflation, according to Societe Generale SA. Production cuts to curb emissions and tougher nationwide environmental inspections will also support the profits of large industrial companies as producer prices rise, said Yao Wei, chief China economist at SocGen in Paris. She said the campaign will give a “notable supply shock” to the economy. “The Chinese government has turned very serious about fighting pollution,” Yao wrote in a note. It will be “more than a transitory objective for the current leadership. Modestly slower growth will be a necessary sacrifice for maintaining social stability over the medium term.”

Scientists make breakthrough in replacing WiFi with LiFi

Chinese scientists have reportedly made a breakthrough in creating full-color emissive carbon dots (F-CDs), which brings them one step closer to developing a faster wireless communication channel that could be available in just six years. Light Fidelity, known as LiFi, uses visible light from LED bulbs to transfer data much faster than radio wave-based WiFi. While most current research uses rare earth materials to provide the light for LiFi to transmit data, Xinhua reported that a team of Chinese scientists have created an alternative – F-CDs, a fluorescent carbon nanomaterial that proves to be safer and faster.