Hi, I'm Professor Michael W. Charney with CISD here at SOAS. Welcome to the Continuing the Conversation series at SOAS. SOAS will be hosting more virtual events like this in the upcoming weeks. Today's event will be recorded and shared. Please use the following hashtags discussed or follow this event. Today's event will be a year on how COVID is changing China and how it engages the world. With SOAS Professor Steve Tsang, the Director of the China Institute.  Please submit your questions in the chat box. Some questions are in the chat box. Some questions will be submitted for Steve to discuss. We'd like to welcome now Steve to give your talk. Well, thank you very much, Mike. I have put my stock watch on, so I will keep myself to 20 minutes. The subject is how COVID is changing China and how it engages with the world. I would say that I'm really focusing on the politics of the world. I would say that I'm really focusing on the politics and the diplomacy, not so much on the society side of the changes that COVID-19 would have brought about to China. So first of all, how China is changed. I think if I may, I would just remind people that if we go back a year, back to February 2020, then China was in a very different position than it is today. Today, China looks very, very strong, handling COVID very, very well, very effectively compared to the Western democracies. But in February 2020, China was much more in a kind of near crisis point. That was the time when even the credibility of Xi Jinping was looking a bit potentially dodgy, or the first time since he became leader in 2012, or indeed in particular, since he became paramount leader at the 19-party congress in 2017. A year ago, we were hearing reports of intellectuals within the Chinese party, the establishment referring to Xi Jinping as a clang with no clothes, thinking that he was the emperor, pushing to an extreme the metaphor with the emperor's new clothes. We were hearing people talking about what the COVID-19 be the Communist Party or Xi Jinping's Chernobyl moment, that it would be the beginning of the end of the Communist Party rule in China. Now, a year on, all these are gone. Or indeed, even by the summer of 2020, the picture had changed dramatically. It changed dramatically because China was able to contain the virus within its borders, and the Western democracies by and large has not managed to do so. Now, I want to sort of underline that we are not talking about all democracies having failed to do so. They are clear examples of democracies that have handled COVID-19 very, very well. All through 2020. You have Taiwan, you have New Zealand, you have a couple of other examples that have handled it very well. But overall, the big major, what usually will be seen as the leading democracies, in particular the United States and the United Kingdom had handled it very, very poorly. And that put China in a very different light from really early summer of 2020. And this gave the Chinese government and the Chinese people tremendous amount of confidence. It's a confidence that the Communist Party under Xi Jinping would focus on the system. It was the Chinese system that enabled China to handle it so well. And of course, by referring to the Chinese system, they really are talking about the Communist Party system. That is the key issue. It was a comparison with the democracies which were fumbling. The Chinese system under the Communist Party being able to act decisively, responsibly and effectively showing therefore the system is actually superior. And the system not only was superior in containing the virus, the system was superior in being able to produce the PPEs that the rest of the world were desperate for. The China had faced a bit of a shortage of PPE to begin with, and then managed to mobilize his incredible industrial capacity to deal with that shortage. The PPEs were being used as a leverage for Chinese diplomacy to project the success of the Chinese government, and also to win friends in particular in particular in countries which simply cannot get PPEs from practically anywhere. So you may also remember when all that was going on. There were a lot of stories or enough stories going around about PPEs being provided by China, which were substandard and not safe, which of course caused a fair bit of negative feelings in Europe and in North America. But the thing about it this way, if you were living in other parts of the world, perhaps in certain other parts of Asia and in Africa, where you simply cannot get PPE or so ever. The substandard Chinese PPEs looks pretty good. And the fact that you could get them at all from the Chinese government or the Chinese side was not something that did not go down well there. So I think we, we did see a certain kind of positive sides to it. So we have in terms of Chinese foreign policy, some kind of a projection of one could now perhaps call PPE diplomacy, which would later transform and developed into a vaccine diplomacy, again, even though the Chinese vaccines have not yet been approved through the normal process of review, the fact that Chinese government is making their vaccines available to countries in Africa and other parts of the world, when they cannot get supplied from the leading Western suppliers is something which is quite positive and helpful to Chinese diplomacy and Chinese foreign policy. And this confidence that the Chinese authorities have secured as a result of their abilities to contain COVID-19 gives them huge amount of confidence in terms of how they want to project Chinese positioned globally. And this is a development which we perhaps some of us will now know it as the wolf warrior diplomacy of China. The Chinese government's assertiveness to put it politely, to put it impolitely, the Chinese government's aggressive aggressive approach to diplomacy in going out and asserting the Chinese government's narrative and positioned practically coming out and say that COVID-19. Well, it didn't start in China. It started in Italy. It started in America. It was the United States Army that introduced them to China. It came from cold, cold chain storage, food imported from the West. Not us. Don't blame us. We are the good guys. We managed to contain it. Now, that sort of very aggressive diplomacy, I think was very counterproductive in the Western democracies, whether we're talking about Europe, the UK, or the United States, or Canada, or Australia. I think by and large, people react quite negatively to it, knowing full well that even though we don't know exactly how COVID-19 started. Oh, by the way, we don't know how COVID-19 started because the Chinese government will not cooperate with any outside body government or WHO to allow a fully independent study into how the pandemic, or at least the virus started in the world. And so, yes, we do react negatively to it. We do respond very critically to the way how the Chinese government do it. And yet, they were still projecting this kind of very aggressive foreign policy.  They are trying to change the narrative. They're trying to control the narrative. And that is all being articulated by government, which is committed to promote and project soft power. The Chinese government is very, very clear they want to build up and project soft power. And they were taking an approach which is as counterproductive as it can be in the building up of soft power. So why would they do that? They would do that because Xi Jinping and the Chinese political system created the incentive for Chinese diplomats and officials to take such an approach. It is not because Chinese diplomats are unprofessional. It is not because Chinese diplomats are fools. They are not. You have been dealing with Chinese diplomats in the course of the last 20, 30 years. You will have noticed that the quality of Chinese diplomats have really clearly improved significantly in that period. They're much more professional. They really often understand what they're dealing with. But why then would they be doing something that is so counterproductive? Xi Jinping had famously asked Chinese diplomats and Chinese officials, party members, all of them, to have the courage to stand up to the foreigners. In his words, to unsheath the soul, to show the soul and not back away from anything that anyone in anywhere where taking a negative view of China must be contested. Now Xi Jinping never ever mentioned the term wolf warrior diplomacy. It's a term that we now use because of a Chinese theme called the wolf warrior, a kind of Chinese ramble theme. And it's because of that particular approach, ramble approach to diplomacy that we now call it wolf warrior diplomacy. They do it because they are not really so worried about how the whole country's response to that particular approach. They are doing it because they have an audience of one. They are there to show Xi Jinping and reassure Xi Jinping that these are all patriotic Chinese diplomats and others standing up for the important image of China and therefore it is important for them to say whatever necessary and do whatever it takes to defend the dignity of China in quotation marks or the feelings of the Chinese people again in quotation marks. And of course, the very wolf warrior approach of Chinese diplomacy change very significantly public opinions in the Western democracies towards China. And it was in the course of 2020 that we saw a significant shift in opinions, particularly in the UK or Europe. The US was in a much more difficult situation because I think American public opinion was hardening towards China. In the course of the of the Trump administration anyway, but Europe and UK were not. They had to change mainly in response to the Chinese approach to handling the publicity about the COVID-19. And then you have the other main news that were catching people's attention and focus in ways that they probably would not have without that shift in opinions to start with. And referring to the stories coming out from China of the repression of the weaker people in Xinjiang. And then talking about the introduction of the national security law in Hong Kong, which clearly and unmistakably marks the end of Hong Kong's one country to system model, which was meant to be guaranteed by the International Treaty, known as the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, an international treaty registered to the United Nations. All those have happened before COVID-19. They would have a negative effect on Chinese image and Chinese foreign policy, but probably nowhere compares to how it unfolded in 2020 when public opinion had turned against China. Now, what is the prospect? What do we see Chinese foreign policy going? Now, we see Chinese foreign policy going in a way that Xi Jinping will not stick to the old idea that Deng Xiaoping put forward and became the norm in the previous 30 years or so. When Deng Xiaoping became leader of China in 1978-79, he came up with a formula, which was that China should hide its capabilities and fight for time in order to reassure the rest of the world and get the support of the rest of the world for China to modernize and build up its capabilities. And this is just something China should continue to do for a very long time. Deng Xiaoping never laid down a time limit as to when that phrase needs to be stopped and be replaced by a new approach. But inherently in Deng Xiaoping's formula was the idea that there will be a time when China is ready, China will assert itself, that fighting for time was not meant to be indefinite. The difference here is that Xi Jinping has decided, the moment is nigh, and China now openly requests and requires the rest of the world to pay it due respect. And this therefore underlies the general direction of Chinese foreign policy moving forward. And he will continue to engage with the world. The Chinese government is not at the moment ready to have a full scale decoupling with the West, the democracies or other parts of the world. The Chinese government is still committed to engaging with the rest of the world, including the capitalist democratic states, because the Chinese government still need that economic links and technological knowledge from outside of China for China's development and development. So they will only be interested in a limited smart decoupling with us, something which Xi Jinping introduced a year, well in fact less than a year after he became leader of China. He became leader in October November 2012, and less than a year later in 2013, he issued a document called document number nine, which started by saying that China must spend Western ideas like constitutionalism, like democracy, like rule of law, like a free press, like a liberal economic order, all those were to be banned anywhere in China, you are not even allowed to talk about them on university campuses. So yes, there was something started. It was reinforced by the make in China 2025 policy again introduced 2013 to enable China to live forward in its innovative capacity so that Chinese government China as a whole will not be dependent on other countries for the most innovative advanced technologies. But make in China 2025 has not yet deliver all the goals that were being set. So China will continue to do that. But as it does so, it will be taking a much more assertive approach and will not accept being lectured by any government and any attempt to get the Chinese government to improve on his human rights situation, or his policy on Hong Kong or Xinjiang, or anything else really would be seen by the Chinese government as being hostile. And they will stand up for it. This is something which I think we can expect a post COVID China to be in how it engages in how it engages with the rest of the world.  Thank you, thank you Steve for that very interesting talk and connecting back to, as I understand you did this talk earlier, a different talk related to this topic a year ago so probably a lot of changes, but, but certainly a great deal of impact is going to resonate in the future obviously. We have a couple of questions and I have one of my own read like to begin with this Yannick has asked two questions. I'll give you both these questions because they might be interrelated. Yannick asked, can you expand on the people's Republic of China's relationship with international non government organizations, such as the World Trade Organization World Health Organization, and also about the continuity of food measures for for frozen food. Right. Very good questions. Now, the Chinese government. I think Xi Jinping has a very clear policy was the international NGOs, well the international organizations really what they're just the international NGOs, because the UN organizations are the main ones which are as stick here the WHO is a very good example of the Chinese government working very, very hard to try to make sure that institutions like it will come to the right conclusions and take the right approach as it deals with China and China's interest. It is difficult to say for sure whether the WHO has largely acted in a way which are very much in favor of China's interest. It is also pretty hard to find evidence to show that the WHO was being very robust in pushing the Chinese government to cooperate in establishing how the pandemic started, how the virus started. To ask the Chinese questions, the Chinese have not been very cooperative. They've been formally very cooperative, but they're not in realities being cooperative in terms of giving full access and monitored by the Chinese officials. The WHO teams in China was very, very closely monitored in terms of who they could talk to and what they could actually talk about. I think what we need to bear in mind is not only about institutions like the WHO, we should also think about the UN Human Rights Council. The UN Human Rights Council illustrates even more clearly the Chinese government's approach. It wasn't that long ago. If you go back say 20 years and before China was often a subject of conversation was subject of interest for the UN Commissioned on Human Rights before it was reformed to become the Human Rights Council. The Chinese human rights were problematic back then. But if you look objectively at the human rights situations in China as a whole, 20, 30 years ago with the situations today, I think it's really not that difficult to conclude that the current human rights situations, particularly taking into account what happens to the weaker people in Xinjiang is much, much worse than it was 30 years ago. When China was a main target of the UN Human Rights Enquiry. Now China is not much of a subject of conversation for the Human Rights Council. Because the Chinese government had taken full advantage of the UN changes over the human rights establishment and effectively managed to get its own people to become the first members of the Human Rights Council and then make sure that other friendly states are happily represented, stays friendly to China, happily represented on the Human Rights Council. They are so they are very effective in actively involving in those UN organizations and working there. In terms of the second question about the continuity of food security. Now food security is something which the Chinese government has always been very, very concerned about perhaps slightly less today than it was before, but still it is a major consideration for the Chinese government. Now food security is important, because if you cannot provide food security, you raise questions about the credibility and legitimacy of the regime itself. For a government that simply claims its legitimacy on the basis of its revolutionary heritage and its ability to deliver a better tomorrow, it will have to provide food security. And that partly account for why the Chinese government are encouraging, indeed supporting investments not only in China for food production, but for food production elsewhere to supply China is a big deal for them. I'm going to combine two questions that may or may not be completely related. Despite the PRC is more assertive diplomacy and successful control the virus. It is lost support among most developed countries, according to the Pew research in October 2020. How do you reconcile that. And, given that the Chinese government will act aggressively to the West preaching about human rights where the Uighurs are concerned, what strategies should the West take. Okay, very good questions. In terms of the Pew Center survey result. I think that is the basis for what I was saying earlier in the presentation that the Chinese government created a situation that it incentivize Chinese diplomats to pledge to the gallery of one back home in China to the approval of Xi Jinping. And since every one of those wolf warrior diplomats, Chinese ambassadors to different countries have not been punished by the Chinese government because the host countries to which they are accredited have turned against China. And often we are looking at not only public opinion in those country, turning unfriendly to China or critical of China or suspicious of Chinese intentions. We are seeing the political class changing. And in some cases, government policy, clearly hardening, even in the UK, we have seen that happening in China research group of the Conservative Party, didn't exist before 2020. Now does it worry the Chinese government. Well, it kind of, it does and it doesn't. It's because of Chinese diplomats who are concerned about it. They don't really, they don't, they do understand what's going on. They don't, they don't like it. But are they going to come out and oppose it. Well, they can't because if they did, they are opposing Xi Jinping, and therefore there's a bit of a problem. The question of how we should respond to China, how Western democracies should respond to China. I think we have to stand up to our own core values. And I think we have to coordinate and work together in our response to China. And I think it's also important that when we do so, we do not simply do it as a coalition of the Anglo-Saxon democracies, the so-called Five-Eyed Alliance. It's so much easier for the Chinese to say that it is the old imperialists previously led by the Brits and now led by the Americans, all working together and trying to get back at us because we are being so good. And they just can't stand losing their leading positions and they're coming up with all these hostile ideas about us and they, when there was still the Trump administration, it's very easy for the Chinese to say that, look, this is not a government with any credibility. You can't trust what they say. And it's a very easy sell for them. But if we genuinely stand up to our core values on rights and on democratic principles and we coordinate together, I think they will have to listen to us much more seriously. Would you mind elaborating on the role that COVID-19 has played specifically in the China-Hong Kong relationship? New old taking requirements have been set for Hong Kong public officials this week. How does this sit with the handover agreement signed with Britain 1984 and that came into force in 1997? And how will this affect the already existing identity crisis in Hong Kong? How do you foresee COVID's influence on Hong Kong's political future? Well, COVID-19 and Hong Kong will show that for the Chinese government anyway. The Chinese approach is more effective than the Hong Kong government's approach. Even the Hong Kong government has done rather well in continuing to COVID-19, but not quite as well as the Chinese government. And because of the challenges of the pandemic and the availability of vaccines, Hong Kong is and will be required to rely primarily on Chinese vaccine. It's a matter of nationalism. It will not do for Hong Kong to reject Chinese vaccines. Here you get to a bit of a problem locally in Hong Kong, because most people in Hong Kong would much prefer one of those certified, one of those vaccines that have been certified by credible governments through a transparent process, which happens to be democratic governments like the UK or the US or the EU. But the Hong Kong special administrative region government really doesn't have a choice. The big change in Hong Kong is not a result of COVID-19. The big change in Hong Kong was the protests of 2019, which resulted in the Chinese government under Xi Jinping taking some drastic steps in response. I'm using my words very carefully here. I'm not saying that it was the protests in Hong Kong in 2019, which caused the Chinese government to take a hotline on Hong Kong. The Chinese government under Xi Jinping started taking a hotline on Hong Kong in 2012, and it was that hotline which eventually resulted in the protests in Hong Kong in 2019. But with that protest, the Chinese government went out of its way to ignore the agreed settlement for Hong Kong and the Sino-British John Declaration and Hong Kong's basic law in introducing a national security law to Hong Kong at the end of June 2020. Now, under Hong Kong's basic law, which is Hong Kong's constitution, Hong Kong would be required to pass some kind of national security law anyway, that is under the Article 23 of Hong Kong's basic law. But that law will have to be introduced by Hong Kong's own legislature, the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. What the Chinese government did is that they have the National People's Congress Standing Committee to legislate on behalf of Hong Kong, completely bypassing the Hong Kong process, to the extent that the law was not even known to the chief executive of the contents of the law was not known to the chief executive of Hong Kong and upon year of the Chinese government until a few hours before it became effective. Nobody in Hong Kong was consulted. Nobody knew what it was. And when it was introduced, it's extremely precondition. That law effectively outlawed all the protest attempts that were made in 2019. If you now speak up in Hong Kong and say, I oppose the Communist Party, I want Hong Kong people to have a right to decide on their own future. You will have violated the national security law of Hong Kong. And that's how the whole protest movement was being effectively put to an end in Hong Kong. COVID-19 just kind of became easier for the government repressions against the democratic aspirations of people in Hong Kong, easier to be enforced. We have a couple of questions on what the successful handling of the COVID will mean for China's bilateral external relationships with other countries. After the 2008 financial crisis and the Chinese economy appeared on scratch, this encouraged other countries to pursue closer relations with PRC. And now with the better handling apparently of the pandemic and the PRC, will that improve those two related questions are should the West respect or fear China in 2021. And in 2019 that you shifted the view of Chinese being a systematic competitor. So can the decoupling of supply chains be soft and limited. Okay, I'll deal with the decoupling of the supply chain first. The decoupling of the supply chain was something which Donald Trump asked of American companies and wanted other Western companies to follow. It was mainly 2019 step it came up. And effectively, hardly anybody responded in its meaningfully significant way in practice to the core that Donald Trump made. Most American companies and other European and Western companies wanted to continue to trade with China. So the early problems of 2020 when China itself was in lockdown. And the supply chain was broken. It has far more of an effect on how some of those Western and American companies look at the security of the supply chain with China. And much more than COVID-19 make them realize that the old model of globalization and just in time supply chain was creating vulnerability to their business model that is getting them to respond more to it than the political tension between the United States and China under Trump. I don't think we can see that the decoupling continue unless companies do see problems to their security of supply operations. Sorry, Mike, what was the first question again? The first question was should the West fear or like the China in the current atmosphere after COVID? Now, should the West fear China? I think that's probably, I wouldn't put it quite in those terms. I think what we need is to understand fully what we are dealing with. In favor of is engaging with China, China is now so fully integrated globally that the idea of containing China doesn't work. It cannot actually work. And we also have to work with China's to deal with some of the biggest challenges we are facing at the moment, whether we're talking about climate change or eventually hopefully COVID-19, we can't do those without China working with us. But having said that, we have to be aware that the Chinese Communist Party system is fundamentally anti-democratic. It's not undemocratic. It is anti-democratic. The Chinese foreign policy under the Communist Party has a strong element of making the world safe for authoritarianism. Now this predates Xi Jinping. Even before Xi Jinping came into power, the Chinese government was already committed to do this. Xi Jinping was just not very assertive in pushing for it. And it's under Xi Jinping that he is pushing very strongly for that openly and clearly. Where I think we also need to bear in mind is that under Xi Jinping, things have changed significantly in China. And there's always something about China eventually wanting to claim its rightful place in the world. Now, how you define the rightful place in the world is a very delicate and tricky matter. And not all leaders of the Communist Party of China have the same view on it. Xi Jinping has the most expensive view on what the rightful place of China is. Xi Jinping is not a leader who is intended to be compared to Deng Xiaoping, the great reformer of the Communist Party. Xi Jinping compares himself in terms of history to Mao Zedong, the founder of the People's Republic of China, the man who was going to make China great. And he also compares himself to the first emperor of China, the man who fundamentally changed history in China. So we are looking at a leader, if he continues to be in power for the next 20, 30 years, and can steer China in the direction he wants it to, then it is going to be a China that eventually will expect us all to pay homage. But we're talking about at least 30 years away, the target time for Xi Jinping as he laid out in his 19-party congress speech was 2050. That's when they expect China to be rich, beautiful, powerful, and effectively second to none. Will China continue to go in the current trajectory for the next 30 years? That's a big question. So I don't think we should simply assume what Xi Jinping would like China to be like in 30 years' time is the China that we are dealing with today. There are two questions which are different, but I think the answer may run on the same court. So one question is, how would you compare the Chinese distribution of government contracts during the Russia PPVE and the apparent cronyism with how contracts are handed by the UK government through the same period? And given the poor human rights record of Britain and the USA and Western nations continued support for regimes with gross violations of human rights around the world, what more authority do these nations have to do the necessary work of standing up to China's human rights abuses? Okay. Let me do the PPVE questions first. I think the issue of cronyism is a common point in both sides. But probably we're dealing with fairly strict forward cronyism in the UK in the procurement of PPVE. Well, at least it looks that way that friends of ministers or the prime ministers gets the contracts whereas companies that have record of being able to deal with PPVEs did not get the contract. Now in the Chinese case, it is a bit more complicated because we are dealing with the distribution of PPVE globally through a kind of parallel process. We are dealing with on the one hand, PPEs that have been channeled through the Chinese authorities, where the government can control and where the issue of PPVE diplomacy came into play. And that distribution is partly to serve political purposes of the Chinese government. Even there it doesn't always work because one of the things which came out fairly early on in late spring 2020 was that the Chinese were incredibly ungrateful about PPE. Because in January, February 2020 when China was in serious trouble and huge shortage of PPE, European and other countries, democratic countries mostly were taking from their own stock of PPEs to supply China in a crisis with a hope that it will still stermed the spread of COVID-19. And when that table was turned by March, April, and all those countries were desperately short of PPEs, the Chinese would not reciprocate and provide PPE back to them for free. They would be selling them expensively. But that's one side of the story. You have in parallel the other side of the story is that a lot of Chinese business people saw an enormous opportunity in providing PPEs to Western countries desperate to procure them. And that is where you have huge amount of substandard PPEs being produced and so and distributed. Some of them were just pure opportunism. Others you might have some element of cronyism in terms of how they were able to get support of some government agencies or introductions. But a lot of them really were just sheer opportunism and irresponsible corporate behavior. As to the authority on the human rights issues with China. What we have to bear in mind is that what is happening in Xinjiang is quite extraordinary. If we use the kind of definitions the United Nations has adopted. It is not illegitimate for ones to ask whether what happens to listen to the weaker people in Xinjiang may amount to a genocide. I'm not saying that it does. I'm saying that it is not an illegitimate question to ask. And it's probably fairly legitimate to say that what happens to the weaker people in Xinjiang meets the definition of crimes against humanity. So we are talking about really serious extreme type of abuse that after the Second World War, the United Nations are committed to not allowed to happen again. The reality is that crimes against humanities have been committed since the Second World War, arguably genocide have been committed since the end of the Second World War as well. In other words, the not quickly cleaned records of some of the Western democracies be a good reason for us to not act on something which potentially a crime against humanity. What we want to be doing should be that we want to be engaging with Chinese to investigate what happens in Xinjiang to establish for sure whether it means the definition of either of those. And that's not too much to ask, is it? There are a couple of questions that deal with the Chinese reaction or what the impact will be on China's population relative to its feeling of the government. One on if they keep the borders closed, how they able to convince their citizens once a pandemic passes of the soundness of their approach. Another on the call for freedom of speech after the as a legacy of COVID whistleblower Dr. Lee Wen Liang. Would this gather momentum for a change from within with the help of social media or will the government react with more suppression of speech? Very good questions. The majority of China has a monopoly of history. With all due respect to you, Mike, as a historian, we don't have a monopoly of history, they do. They also have a monopoly of the truth. What they say must be the truth, the whole truth. And anybody who challenges that is anti-Chinese or hostile to China.   They do know that they are being fed a very limited diet of information. They do know that the stories they hear is distorted, but they don't have access. Mostly they do not have access. There are few people who manage to gain access, but by and large they don't have access to free information to be able to make the judgment as to what the real situation was. And so it's very difficult for them to challenge the narrative of the government, even if they say the comments narrative is problematic. We think that in the case of Dr. Li Wenliang, it was so blatant, so obvious, how can it actually be true? Let's just not forget that 30 years or so ago, there was a massive massacre in Beijing around Tiananmen Square. Which we all, or at least people of our generation might remember that from the footage we saw on live TV news. How can anybody forget? If you talk to people who were born and raised in China in the last 30, 35 years, they will tell you it never happened. They really do not know it ever happened. It's all made up by some anti-Chinese elements because that is what they have been educated from the cradle. So most people buy into that. So I will not underestimate the capacity of the Chinese government to do that, particularly with the enhanced capacity of digital control that they now have. So I think they can control the narrative pretty well unless we get into a situation where COVID-19 returns to China and somehow we managed to contain COVID-19 because we are more effective in distributing the vaccines. But again, at the moment the Chinese government power ties providing vaccines to other countries in order to protect Chinese soft power. But if there is a need for them to redirect Chinese vaccines to Chinese citizens in order to protect the legitimacy of the Communist Party, they will do it just like that. There will be a movement that they will import. It doesn't matter whether it's Oxford, AstraZeneca or Moderna or Pfizer. They will buy up every single vaccine available and make them available to the Chinese citizens in order to make sure the Communist Party will not face that kind of a crisis of legitimacy. Would you like to take one more question? Sure. Okay. How is this going to impact the relationship between the PRC and Taiwan? Now that's a really big question and I think a very serious question. And I am a pessimist on that question. Xi Jinping, if he will be able to continue to stay in power for the next 20 or 25 years, Xi Jinping will do whatever it takes to take Taiwan. Speaking of Taiwan is part of the China dream of national rejuvenation. Put forward by Xi Jinping just after he became leader in 2012. It is also necessary for the Chinese Communist Party to secure his so-called the second centenary goal. The second centenary goal is the goal for making China practically the greatest power on earth by the centenary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. That was 2049 and that cannot be achieved until Taiwan is part of China by the will and the maneuver of the Communist Party. Whether that cannot be achieved will depend a lot to how the US government will respond. If the Americans end with Taiwan, then we are looking at potentially a conflict that puts China against the United States. I hope that they never come. Well, thank you very much. Would you like to do your roundup and we're at the end of our time? I don't think there's really a huge amount for me to add to the very, very good questions that were being put. All I want to say is that I think China is a very important player in the world is going to be an even more important player moving forward. I think it's important that we continue to engage with China, but we must do so with full knowledge of what we are engaging with. What we would like to see may not be what we are going to get, and if we are not prepared to deal with what we are going to get, we put ourselves in a very difficult situation. It also therefore means that for universities like SOWAS and other universities, we really need to be committing much more to promote the study of China. And I would simply say that if anybody has the capacity to help with that, please and talk to us. Those words, thank you very much. Professor Steve Stong on COVID one year on with China. Thank you for all for attending and I'm sorry we had many more questions than we had time. So we weren't able to answer everything. Please follow the series in the future using hashtag SOAS, hashtag SOAS alumni. This recording will be posted on the SOAS website and social media pages. So I'd like to thank you again, Professor, and thank you everybody for attending and good night. Thank you, Mike. Thank you.


My name is Emma. I'm from China. I started tourism management and the marketing dual-double major at University of Newcastle two years ago. I'm now working in Shanghai at an agency called the Silk Initiative. In University of Newcastle, I have definitely a divide over my ability of decision-making, team work and as well as proper and surfing. I think those skills are very important for me to use in the business world. My experience with the walking learning program has really helped me to improve my marketing knowledge and experience. When I was participating and engaging in the program, I was able to work in a local marketing agency as an intern. So this program actually helped us to connect with the local walk opportunities. And then by working in the real environments in Australia, I learned and I connected with the local professionals which helped to build my career in the future. After I graduated from University of Newcastle, I decided to expand my knowledge of marketing and advertisement. So I decided to move to London and engage in a master program. And I was focused on marketing communication and the advertisement. I am now working in a data-driven strategy consulting agency called Silk Initiative. We're based in Shanghai. I'm working in a team to help our clients identify and build, grow their food and beverage brands in China and help them to connect with the Chinese consumers. Ayama is our project executive. Her task is to help to manage the different progress of our own projects. Our clients are more like international clients. We need to deal with their global office and also like their China team. So we need the person like Ayama who can bridge like the western and east well. So her international background is very valuable for us. For the future, I want to be the bridge between business all over the world and the Chinese market. I want to be the connection who can help both sides to get their best interests.


One more interview, so it's like speed dating, it's really quick, you have a quick time with the players and it's cool because we get 45 players that we get to do this with and the total time is 20 minutes but like you said that includes the time from them walking from here to the other sweet location so you have to get it done pretty quick so we get them right to their chair. Over here you'll have myself, Arthur Smith, whichever the coordinator whether it's Ryan Nielsen or Dave Burgone will be in this seat and Marquise Williams sits in the seat back there along with Kyle Smith and the player their prospect sits right there so we watch tape with them and you see the film is right here and Arthur Smith will go through the tape talk to them about their team and about some different things that they're doing and the players we might get on the board with them and let them talk through some different things and the shot clock's right here so we know when that gets to four minutes three minutes we got to get them out and kind of get them to their next spot. I've been running back and forth and grabbing the guys and doing that and you get a lot of information with that like it for instance when someone comes in this room they walk in excuse me and they have everybody sitting down and you got the head coach and the GM and the coordinator and you got all these guys and when you sit in that seat you know you're on the hot seat but when you're walking to the next room with with with one of our scouts or one of our scouting assistants or Shelley our scouting coordinator when they're grabbing you bringing you back and forth they don't think they're on the hot seat and so but you're always gathering information and those are important times too because there's particular people that when we talk to Shelley or one of the guys or someone that's been dealing with these players constantly and they say and great young man very polite very helpful very or you know what this guy wouldn't real talk it ever this guy wasn't which so you get a lot of information because I've been in I've been driving players around place to place and dealing with players on that level and it was kind of funny the information you pick up when you're in that role because they don't see you as someone that's with the organization so that's we talk about everything matters and every touch point matters and we're information gatherers and we're always gathering information so at each one of those spots you can get a lot of good information.


And we're live, hi. Hey. So today you're talking about the STM32 wireless solutions. So what's the latest? So, yes, Jean-Marc, so the purpose, you know we started yet two or three years ago to go wireless with the STM32. So let's say that STM32 engine is gone wireless. And the first product that we put on the market was the STM32 WB. So we came, we announced these products 1.5 years ago, the first version of the STM32 WB, which was the STM32 WB55. And since then, we have kept on adding new products to this portfolio. And this is what we keep on doing. And one of the latest announcements that we made is, of course, the WB, STM32 WB50. So does that mean it's like a full STMCU with included wireless solutions? Is that how it works? Absolutely, absolutely. Do you have to see it as, so you have to see the STM32 wireless as, okay, this is what we can see on this line. And if I go full screen, it's even better. You can see what we're doing. So we take the DNA of the STM32. And in this case, it's an STM32 L4. And we simply add a wireless pipe to this product. So like in the past, we were doing STM32 plus USB, STM32 plus UART. Here now you could imagine, and it's really to make it very simple, but it's an STM32 with 2.4 gigahertz pipe. And in this case, this pipe is a BLE 5.2 or 802.15.4. So it's a true MCU based on our DNA and all the features that you can retrieve in the STM32 portfolio. And on top, you've got the ultra low power capabilities because it's based on the STM32 L4 that you know pretty well, that is very popular on the market. So we reuse everything that we're learning on this family. We do not reinvent the wheel. And we add simply two modems on this device. So this creates, in a simple way, is the STM32 WB portfolio. So when you say two modems, it's a lot to do with the 2.4 gigahertz or like the WB is, Wifi is also in there? No, both of them operate in the 2.4 gigahertz, clear. But on this device, on the STM32 WB, we do integrate a BLE 5.2 modem so that you can entertain any BLE, let's say, connections. And next to it, a 802.15.4 modem so that you can support the BLE, for instance, open thread or any proprietary MAC protocol that you may want to develop. So this is something that everybody is asking for more and more connectivity, right? Now, all the IoT devices want to be connected. So this, like it's a big priority for ST to do some really good wireless solutions. So if you, this is a strategic axis. So if you, I don't know if you had a look at the market capital day presentation made by our executive a couple of weeks or two to not say months ago, but on STM32, you have basically three axis. So you've got wireless being one of them. You've got security and you've got embedded AI. So here on the STM32 wireless, we go for BLE, let me show you this slide. This is, sorry, this is just gathering our strategy. So the first product that we put on the market is WB, so to cover 2.4 gigahertz. Then next to it, and you had a conversation this morning with my colleague, Benjamin, we go for sub gigahertz. So namely, Laura, ZikFox, wireless and bus and any other proprietary protocols. We made the acquisition of Riot Micro in July 2020 in order to come with a cellular solution within the STM32 portfolio. At the same time, we made the acquisition of Beespool to come with a solution within the STM32 portfolio with Ultra Wideband. And we will keep on adding new or additional, we'll keep on adding connectivity ways to the portfolio. And it's quite easy to understand what will be the next one. But as you can see, what is our target? So we have many STM32 users. So they have developed their applications, they are using our ecosystem and what they want to do? Okay, their application are evolving as well. In the past, they were using a wire, now they want to go wireless and they do not want to reinvent the wheel. This is what we are bringing thanks to this STM32 wireless portfolio. You keep your ecosystem, you keep all the things that you have been doing for your application and you move from a connected application to a not connected application depending on your use cases and on your products. This is what we bring and this is definitely what we want to bring. How would you define the demand from your users in terms of cellular, getting cellular solutions? Maybe it's something that they've been asking for a while and now you're bringing more and more in that area too to get more connectivity everywhere? Yes, so basically you may want to connect on a long range. So this is what we can do with the STM32 WL but you may want to do it as well. So I mean, if you do it with WL, you're using the ISM band so you can use a Lora1 network, you can use a SIGFox network, you can use different, let's say architecture, different protocols, but you may also want to use, okay, let's rather use, let's say something which is even more established and I want to use, let's say, cellular connectivity and mainly I want to go over NBIOT or LTKM because, okay, I do trust this ecosystem and so on, this business model, this is what we'll bring with the, let's say with our cellular activity. So here in your video presentation, maybe she's going through all the different wireless solutions that you have that maybe you talk about also on your slides. Yes, so this is what Natalie is basically explaining. So we come with a wireless portfolio and even within this wireless portfolio, we come with a portfolio for every single, let's say part of this wireless portfolio. So for BLE and ZB, we want to come with a portfolio as well. This has been one of the key axes of our success so far of the STM32. So you know if you take, let's say an STM32 L4, you have it from 64K to two megabyte of flash, different packages, this is exactly, we want to reuse this, let's say, this success as well on our wireless portfolio and namely on the WB as well. So this is what we're doing here. So we come with different products. So we have the first one was the WB55 that you can see here on this slide, different variants. So one megabyte of flash, 512K byte of flash or 256K byte of flash. So typical STM32, I would say, deep-pins package, 68-pin package, 100-pin CSP if you want to get benefits from all the features of it and a very, let's say, exclusive industrial package. It's 199-pins package that allows our customers to make a two-layer PCB. So this is typical for industrial customers. So they want to get all the features but they cannot afford to get a four-six-layer PCB. So this is what we're bringing. And next to this, so different type of flash, different type of packages, but also different type of products. So WB55, WB35 that you can find here. I don't know if you can see my screen. So WB35 in 512K byte, only 96K byte of RAM and the other version here, 256, 96K byte of RAM. And last but not least, and this is what Natali presented in her video. We are coming with, let's say the little brother of the family, it's the smallest kid. This is a WB15 that covers 320K byte of flash, 48K byte of RAM. This one, it's still a dual core. So we keep our architecture. So Cortex-M4 for the application, Cortex-M0 plus driving the protocol stack. Here on this one, the WB15 is really targeting the low-end applications and BLE only. So namely, if you want to get connected to a smartphone, you do not have so much to drive on your application. You do not need a USB, fair enough. This is what you can do with the WB15. That will be available in 48-pins package and actually two types of 48-pins package because you've got a 48-pins package that is fully compatible with the rest of the portfolio and you will get an extended one where you can get a few more GPIOs. So as you see, a complete portfolio and something that is really unprecedented for STM32, we come with a module, a pre-certified module. Ah, sorry. So if you as a customer are not... No problem, yeah, it's working now, yeah. Okay, so yeah, we do come with a pre-certified module. So if you, a customer, are not so keen on tuning RF, tuning the crystal and so on, we do come with a pre-certified module. What does it mean? So within, let's say, a design. So it's a very small, let's say, PCB. You've got everything inside. You've got the crystals. You've got the WB55 in CSP100 package. So this means that you have access to all the pins and you can do it and you can develop your application in even two layers or four layers. But you do not have to deal with, let's say, the troubles of RF. Everything is integrated.  Your application is connected to BLE, or to 802.15.4 or to both because we do support on all our products. And many of the two models is a famous concurrent mode. And you talk about platform also, like you were mentioning the whole support. It's like, it's coming from the whole history of the STSupport and with the wireless to all the other MCUs. Yes, this is completely supported. So this device is part of the STM32 portfolio. So as such, it's supported by the STM32 team. Like if you take STM32 LF4, F4 G0, you've got the WB next to it or the WL. And this is supported by the same teams. Of course, this team has been increased by new talents with a very strong background in RF stuff. But we have staffed ourselves in order to support our different customers in this journey of wireless connectivity. And maybe, Roman, if you are in the discussion, you may want to say something on our support capabilities. Hi, Roman. Hello, everybody. Nice to be with you again. So of course, the products are nice. The portfolio is huge. But together with this, also the complexity and the time to market is changing. So the complexity of the application and the pressure on all the designers to finish their design as soon as possible is clearly there. So together with the product, we have to bring not only the libraries and proper documentation. We try to bring additional resources like trainings, workshops, digital materials, videos that can help our customers to guide them through the journey of evaluation down to the certification of their final product. And you also have a colleague here talking about some of those tools or? Yes, there is still and it does. Of course, I will be happy to have him spend a word on it. Maybe before giving in the space, one point on dedicated to RF. We do have dedicated RF laboratory in our ST office in Prague. And in this one, we can help customers, let's say, with the antenna selection, antenna fine tuning, even with some pre-certification tests on the products that Charmark has described. So this is a big benefit for any customer who doesn't want to invest immediately in a certification authority, but would like to have a first feedback on his design. It's very important to have a product that actually connects and you don't want to have too much interference. You want to test exactly that there's like hundreds of different antennas that you can customize, choose the cable, how long and everything, right? It's like this, yeah, it's no more simple like connecting two devices over the UART. So when it comes to analog and RF, there are a lot of tricky points and you need expensive tools very often to understand what's happening around your antenna and between the two connected devices. And this is where we come and we can help and we do have a resources experience teams that can help customers move on with their designs. And I guess it's completely different when you go cellular compared to testing the low energy Bluetooth, right? This maybe then you have to actually test outside in the cities or in the everywhere? Well, yes, each of the system, each of the protocols and of the bands has specificities, right? So we do have customer cases like on the Lora, where I remember that they asked us to go in the basement of like 20 storage building and we were in the basement, they were in the 20 floor and we were doing some tests on the benchmark level to prove that our technology is the right one for the application. But these are more like a field test with our laboratory equipment. We can really help on the laboratory level to optimize the output power and the emissions to reach the best efficiency in the field at the end. So maybe would you like to introduce Tlan? Of course. So Tlan, please jump in and tell us something about the remaining block between the micro and the support which is the ecosystem. Hi to all, so this is Tlan speaking. Thanks for being, I mean, thanks for invitation to be with you. Yes, so ecosystem, there is a lot about ecosystem in the, let's say development of any project, okay? So let's say the recent service done by, let's say independent company, okay? Shows that, let's say if the customers have to compare what is the most important for them when they decide for the new project, is it, let's say some of them are in love with vendor itself, the company, some of them, let's say they like the product itself, doesn't really matter which vendor and some of them they like ecosystem. The results show that, let's say two thirds, so 60 to 70% of the developers demand strong ecosystem to develop their application, to feel comfortable. And in this regard, ST has STM32Q ecosystem. I can in fact, maybe show, share my screen. Yeah. I have one presentation. Maybe you can. Okay, I'm sharing. Yeah, there's your screen. Okay, so this is let's say one slide giving the overall picture of our ecosystem. So the, let's say on the left side, we can have, we can talk about the software tools. So those are the tools you usually install on your computer and on the left side, sorry, on the right side you have the firmware or embedded software offer. So let's first focus on the left side. So these are the software tools. Basically, there is a, that's a normal cycle of the development. So from the microcontroller, let's say selection, finding the right product that will fit your application. Then there is a, let's say some initial configuration, project development, so kind of writing C, C++ code or let's say also some different ones. There is some debugging thing, let's say monitoring thing and let's say project closure. So there is a, we can call it around natural way of development of every project the customer, every customer has. Now at ST, we have, let's say tools that are necessary to handle everything with only ST tools. So you don't need to use any third-party tool to be successful with STM32. So there are four of them listed. We start with basically with the QMX that is a configurator tool. So graphical configurator tool also supporting, let's say many features and some of them have been introduced in 2020 such as support for dual core devices, support for devices with Cortex M33 where you have trust zone, where security is a key concern. Also because of one of the main advantages of our ecosystem is to grow it. Okay, so let our developers, our customers to contribute to our ecosystem. The QMX can, it's very famous because it generates the code from graphical configuration. In fact, it can also generate the code from user bricks. So users, customers, developers they can put inside their own piece of code and the QMX will successfully generate the project. So it will add their code into the end project before this code is further developed and somehow compiled. Then there is a second tool which we call Q by D. Okay, so this is integrated development environment that in fact also includes QMX functionality inside. So basically to develop your application the only thing you need to download from SD is the Q by D and that's enough. So you don't need to download if you decide to go with Q by D you don't need to download Q by Mx. At this point, I would like to mention also that we don't, certainly we don't limit any customer the way they wanna go. So they can take Q by D, they can take solution from our partners such as Kyle Microvision or IR Embedded Workbench or simply let's say make file and develop their own, their project in any ID even notepad++ or standard notepad that you get on the windows. So this is, I mean, the Q by D is debugger so supports writing the code, debugging and compiling. The third one, which you see on the list is the Q programmer. This is a tool that lets you to flash the microcontroller. So you have to download the flash somehow you have to configure the option bytes and this kind of thing. So somehow you have to transfer the code to the micro. This is done with the Q programmer. It also supports advanced features such as secure firmware installation. So this is a, let's say, proprietary way how our customers can benefit from SD offer to program their, let's say, intellectual property in the so-called non-secure environment. So if you have a third party company doing programming for you and you are not really sure if you can trust them to give them the plain firmware or plain binary, you can propose secure firmware installation so that you deliver encrypted binary and the Q programmer plus the bootloader running on the microcontroller will decode encrypted binary on the fly inside the microcontroller and then securely flash it. So this is also what Q programmer allows. Last but not least here, Q monitor. This is the, let's say, very last thing at during the project development stage where you have to verify if your application is behaving properly. So maybe you can have some glitches in the software which are not somehow immediately visible. Let's say maybe they occur once twice per hour or something like that or once per day and using the Q monitor which you attach to the microcontroller, you can fetch the data constantly. So you can read the RAM memory or even flash. And you can, let's say, lock the events that are maybe hazardous that are not in line with your expectation. So therefore, you can use this tool to verify long-term application stability and then you can decide if everything is okay or not. This tool is also based on web technology so we are using Node-RED behind. It's a unique feature because it allows customers to benefit from Node-RED community. It's a JavaScript behind anyway. So they can edit their own widgets. They can connect to the cloud and so on. So there are many options that our customers can do with our software tools. So the left part of the ecosystem. Just before you were saying that the QBemix is like famous because it's, you have tools that just takes graphical, basically no coding required to get some code done. Is that also part of the offering here? So this is exactly what is the point. So taking the QBemix, you can really accelerate your project development because you just opened the tool. The first thing it asks you to select the microcontroller, the one you will work with or board. We also let you to, we have the, maybe I have someone here somewhere. Okay, I don't have next to me any board. So we have the development board, such as nuclear board discovery board. And you can take this one as a start point for your project. And then you enter the QBemix window. You see the microcontroller in the middle. You see list of the peripherals on the left side. You can click, let's say, I want to configure the UART. You click on UART, let's say UART2. You configure the board rate and you simply click on generate the code. And then the code is generated and you are effectively enabling the UART in your end application. So basically taking five to 10 clicks, you've been able to have UART in your application. This is much faster versus taking the reference manual and reading every bit and byte of the registers of the microcontrollers. That's why it's very famous because really accelerates the development of your, let's say, end project. Okay, UART was maybe not the best example because it's pretty simple peripheral, but if you look at other things, much complex ones such as DMA2D, LTDC, and so on DSI peripherals, display serial interface, where the things get far more complicated, it really benefits to the end customer. So I guess this means this is a big deal over the last two, three years, maybe the developments that you've been doing in ST is providing the next level of tools for all the ecosystem.  Certainly, so in our microcontroller division, let's say the ecosystem team or the software development team and embedded, sorry, the development team, we have like 300 people doing only this. So the team is pretty big. So I'm talking here about the software and firmware. So the left and right part. And they are, let's say it's a full-time job. We can say doing just this. And the Cubemix is available since 2014. Since then it was massively improved and we are still improving it. And we will continue to work on it in the future because it's really the main target. How would you define that? Yeah, sorry, please go ahead. We should keep in mind the motto of STM32, which is STM32 releasing your creativity. So at the end, we want our customers to focus on the application. They do not have to learn how our register works and so on. This is not our target. So we provide them with everything that they need and they develop their application. It's important to make things easier every year, every embedded world, everything gets easier for the whole ecosystem. Exactly, so like Jean-Marc said, so the purpose of the Cubemix, QBID and all these, let's say, graphical configuration tools is that we let you focus on your application and you don't need to spend time so much reading the reference manuals to understand how every bit works in the STM32. This is the main target of the tools. And you also talk, sorry, interrupted, you also talking about custom implementation. When people have a new idea, they wanna do some big custom, then you also provide the full kind of like window into that world where people can really customize something specific. Yes, so what I was in fact talking about is let's say support for so-called expansion packages, okay? So this you can see on the right side on the bottom right, okay? You see STM32 cube expansions. And these are the firmware packages that are usually named X dash cube or I dash cube and then something. And let's say the starting the Cubemix version 6.0 and last week we by the way released 6.2. The Cubemix can import expansion package. Of course, if it's properly designed, okay? And then when you configure the graphical your project, you can also select the expansion package to be included in your project during the code generation, okay? And if the package is well prepared based on our let's say cube ecosystem standards, how to create your expansion package. Then the customer can also graphically configure this expansion pack. So let's say I have expansion back called printf debugging, okay? Which is working through UART. If you enable this expansion pack, the customer can decide let's say which UART of the microcontroller should I use as an output for my debugging expansion pack. So it's really everything is graphically configurable. So Roman, we can see you. Maybe you can say something about what you think is the feedback from users, from your ecosystem in what you've been able to do over the last, since we were doing booth tours three years ago, I think maybe it was four years ago. It's a lot of new stuff, a lot of new tools, right? Well, yeah, I think there is a huge evolution and a big effort behind. But why all this? It's really because of our customers. I think the beauty of all this is that we listen to customers and we digest their feedback. And I think good example is if I look back six, seven years ago, when I as a designer wanted to start with S1032, and I wanted to make a configuration of the clock tree, which sometimes could be a bit complex. I had to download a specific Excel file and start to fill in there some constants and it was generating for me some configurations and it was very heavy to start. Today, like Dylan explained, I simply opened the QBemix. There is a pre-configured setup and in a nice, let's say, Windows kind of style, I can change the configuration. I can set what input frequencies and what output frequencies I want to have and it will calculate for me automatically all the PLLs, dividers, multipliers to make my configuration correct. So there are tools which can really help the customers to minimize their time on this so they can focus with their time on their added value. So how they use the product in their application, bringing some, let's say, more energy-efficient applications or more attractive applications for final customers and the final customers is me, you, Charbox, it's Jarmar, it's Dylan because we are buying new things, new home appliances, new security systems and all this and this is where you find the S1032 today. Would you explain a little bit what's the atmosphere of the past year at ST? Like, I guess maybe some people like working from home or it's also maybe like, I guess productivity at ST is not slowed down, right? Even the embedded world is not physical. So for sure, the whole world changed drastically. It's basically one year since we started to face this a much in Europe. And I remember when we decided not to be present at Embedded World 2020 and okay, it passed. Now, for sure, we adapted as much as we could. I can also bring a few examples. Every day we are developing and delivering to our customers a series of one-day technical workshops on different subjects such as how to use S1032 MP1, how to develop the BLE application with S1032 WB, how to develop as a secure booth, secure thing where upgrade and install for your application. So all these things we were used to bring to our customers in the face-to-face workshops. So we were meeting our offices or in different hotel meeting rooms across Europe. Last year it was not possible but basically over two or three months we have adapted to remote workshops and we keep delivering them using the remote platforms, including hands-on exercises, means that we are shipping to our customers the boards that they need to use for the hands-on examples. And we don't want to stop because we know that that's important in daily life for the designers to learn and practice new things. All right, and people can watch all these videos on your YouTube channel where you are showing a lot of cool stuff. This is the wireless video, maybe, but in this many different things and people can watch your embedded world content. Correct, yes, so it's not only this embedded world but for all the workshops that they are delivering, we make sure that the content is at the end available in the digital form on our YouTube channel so people can come back to it or can find it at any point. They are not really linked to the workshop dates and just to tell you some numbers, last year the amount of view hours of those technical videos was reaching 30,000 hours, which is impressive. And it only underlined that a lot of people are relying on them to see how they can use the product or how they can develop specific application points with S1032. Without trying to announce the future of secrets or something like that, but would you like to say a little bit Tylen, Roman, Jean-Marc, about what are your users wanting for the future and maybe you have like, I'm sure you have a huge roadmap and there's just more and more stuff that can be optimized, right? So like I said, I would say security, connectivity, lower power, more performance and embedded AI. This is on one side, yes. This is on one side. So on the ecosystem side, there is always room for improvement. And in fact, what I didn't yet mention is that, so starting in last year, we made an agreement with Microsoft, okay? We did, let's say this week, already announcement on this. So because we are bringing the Azure Ertos support for, so I will go to the next slide. So we are bringing the Azure Ertos support for S1032 directly into the S1032 cube. As I mentioned before, X-Cube packages or expansion packages can be added to our CubeMix, CubeID.  So Azure Ertos coming with four important and industry leading middlewares. So we are talking about the operating system tradics, file system, FAT file system, FileX, Netflix for the TCP IP and USB X. So all this is giving you industry certifications, industry leading middleware, let's say low footprint, high performance. And on the other side, let's say goes tightly with our strategy on the security. For example, Netflix supports all the security features you would normally need in connectivity with the cloud. For example, this is just one thing. And we started with deployment to S1032 H7, our highest performance microcontroller. And during the 2021 full year, we will deliver also for other existing S1032 such package. So our customers will really benefit massively on this middleware part of our embedded firmware solution. Is it accelerating how people are adopting cloud on the MCU market over the past year? There's more and more in this kind of way. Maybe you need AI to also not send all the data up to the cloud, but only take some of it and all that stuff. Okay, so if we tackle this AI topic, I would like to say one thing. So there is a Azure AirTos and there is a Azure cloud. So the people are usually mixing these things, okay? Because the Azure is just, okay, first of all, it's a Microsoft branding for the cloud. While the Azure AirTos is the operating system or let's say set of middlewares around the operating system which has in fact nothing to do with the cloud. So the only thing they have in common is the name, okay? So if you want to use let's say Azure AirTos, it doesn't need to be for the purpose to connect to the Azure cloud. This is the first thing everyone have to keep in mind. So you can use the Azure AirTos for simple applications that are only the local one do not have any connectivity around. This is a very important thing that we have to expose to our customers. All right, but I guess it's gotta be a big deal also that Microsoft invested to help make all the, the AirTos development more optimized, better IoT. They also hope people will use more of the cloud eventually also, right? And this is, yeah. Okay, so yeah, okay. This is certainly one of the strategy of the Microsoft. So they in fact, they acquired ExpressLogic company. So the US based company who is on the market, I think since 1998, something like that, at least 20 years. So there, let's say middle of offer was always number one and they are claiming to have the seven billion devices equipped on the field with their middle of offer. So today this one is called Azure AirTos. In the past it was called ExpressLogic Software. So it's really for Microsoft, this is one strategy to somehow, let's say, make a closer, closer wait for the customer to use their cloud. All right. Thanks a lot. Oh, Roman, what do you think? Do you think there's some topics we didn't cover? We should cover on this video. Yeah, so maybe to also compliment a little bit to your question on what's coming in the future. Like Jean-Marc already said, be sure that our development teams are, let's say working hardly in several directions and the important domains are indeed RF. And I think ST have shown with a couple of acquisitions last year, the directions. So this is definitely where we are acting. And we will bring products for those, let's say in coming months. And then in terms of ecosystem, and when I was speaking about the workshops and Dylan mentioned the Azure AirTos story. So what I can disclose that this year in 2021, the major workshop campaign that we will bring to our customers, starting, let's say, end of May. So very likely still remotely, unfortunately, but let's see will be exactly about how to use Azure AirTos together with STM32 and how simple it will be thanks to its integration inside the STM32 Cube MX, allowing the customers in an easy clickable way to include those components like NetX or USBX, including some initial incisorization directly in the first phase of project generation. So they don't have to download several packages from GitHub and then start first compilation with 105 errors and spending a lot of time just bringing the things together. They will be integrated by us. So customer would be able to start using them right away. That's the key point. There's one question saying Azure AirTos thumbs up and how about Zephyr AirTos? Last year I was doing a video with Zephyr and talking about big adoption. How do you, you just wanna support everything or how do you figure out how to support, what to support? So the, okay, I can comment this. So our, let's say our primary goal, okay, primary target to support will be certainly Azure AirTos. That's why we did the agreement with the Microsoft, okay, and we will have the full, let's say all our support capabilities will be focused on this. Nevertheless, we are not, let's say, putting aside the Zephyr. Okay, so we still have at least one eye, one and a half eye on Zephyr. Okay, we even have a people in the microcontroller division that are contributing to Zephyr. So in order to have the STM32 boards supported there, like the Nuclear Discovery Board, the customers who are trying to use Zephyr, they can go to the official GitHub, Zephyr OS GitHub account. They download it, they start it with STM32. So this is certainly possible. We are not, let's say, blocking our customers against using Zephyr. Just, let's say, more resources today we are putting on Microsoft Azure AirTos. Well, what will happen in the future, I cannot say, but if there will be a strong, strong, let's say usage and demand around Zephyr, okay. We might, let's say, reconsider our strategy and focus on Zephyr much more versus what we do today. All right, thanks a lot. Jean-Marc, if there's anything you wanted to say more, let me know, or Romain. Just that, I mean, keep the faith in STM32. We keep on developing to support your applications. This is the most important thing that you can rely on us to develop your own applications. So we do not develop microcontrollers or microprocessors for our own pleasure. We do it for you, our customers. All right, so thanks a lot, thanks for your time. And thanks everybody for watching. Thank you. Thank you. Connect to us, connect to our engineers on embedded board, so you still have two days. So Thursday and Friday, they're all there. We have up to 100 engineers from STM32 U5, you know, the new adoption to our families, WBWL ecosystem, whatever question you may have today, video designs or for the future, connect to us, speak to us, our people make themselves available. So use this, we cannot meet face to face, but we are there remotely for you. And you actually need famous for giving away boards, right? At these kinds of events. And this might be happening here too, or how do you, there's a lot of boards, so many, like you have so many boards and people can just buy them for affordable prices on your website. Yeah, this is true. So like every year, remember when we met physically on embedded board, sometimes even people queuing in the lines for the board. We see, you know, the development boards like nuclear discovery kits as an important element for every engineer who wants to start playing with any component. And for sure, we want to make this easy for our customers. And not only customers, these boards are available for students, for geeks, for makers, basically anyone who would like to put his hands and play with SDM32. And this year is the same. So even though we cannot distribute the boards face to face to the people at the Nuremberg Messe, we have decided and dedicated nearly 5,000 boards that people can either register for and you will have a kind of lucky lottery at the end of the event. And the other way to get the board is to talk to me, talk to Tlan, talk to Jean-Marc, or all the 100 colleagues that are on the TOKI platform of Embedet. Let's talk to us about your project and we'll be happy to offer you one of the still available SDM32 boards. And there are some cool ones, I can tell you. People can maybe comment, right? They can comment on your YouTube videos, on this video, they can and see what, try to connect and see. Yes, please, anyone who is interested go to embedetword.de and then there is a navigation how to obtain the tickets and then on board the so-called TOKI platform of the Embedet Ward 21 digital. The platform is relatively cool, we can chat in between each other. So yeah, connect to us. And you can find STP people divided by experts on RF ecosystem, high performance, low power, mem sensors, motor control, AI, you know, automotive. So really we have people there for a lot of major market or product segments and find us there and talk to us, it will pays off for you. Cool, thanks a lot, okay, thanks. Before we close, I really have to expose one thing because around the ecosystem, we can really talk two days or more. So for those who will not join anyway, the Embedet Ward, March 16th, and this is already available on ST, so March 16th, we are preparing the webinar around how easy it is with the QMX and Azure AirTos expansion pack to start your new project or add, let's say, 3DX into the existing project of you. So we will be live demonstrating at least 40 minutes, technical demo, this solution. So March 16th at 3 p.m. Central European Time, you'll be live webinar. Registration is for free, so feel free to go to st.com and register there. And I guess your tools are free, right? Or people can just get online, is it true? Everything is free. Everything is presented free. Free and people can just play with it even without a board, right? They can start, yes, okay, so they can compile, they can generate a code to play with the GUI and then the only thing they cannot do is debug and flash to the micro because they don't have it. But if they are on the Embedet Ward and they speak with me, Roman or Jean-Marc, they can even get the board. I have much more boards than you. Cool. All right. All right. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much for this tour. Thank you.


every single week we do the great search with digikey where in the world is that part that I need on the digikey lady you know we're gonna find out okay so let's go back to my computer right so we're gonna try to reduce the quiescent current of my circuit it's drawing 250 microamps in sleep mode I want to reduce that more but I'm stuck right now because my regulator the AP 2112 it's a lovely regulator but the quiescent current is 80 microamps oh it's low but it could be lower right maybe we get to like 10 or less that can make a big difference you know if I can reduce the quiescent current by a third or quarter it means it wants her that much longer in sleep mode right good good things and I'm interested in that now so let's see if we can find it a you know I'm gonna find a perfect duplicate minus that quiescent current for the same price right obviously if it existed when picked it but let's see what we can do to find something close and ideally drop and replaceable because then I don't have to respin my board design although like I'm willing to do that but it would be cool if I could just like swap in you know a different regulator and just you know maybe it's a little bit more expensive maybe the dropouts a little higher but the quiescent is much better and so it's great for low power usage so let's check it out okay it's going to digikey and I'm going to just search for you know voltage regulator to start I like to start nice and vague and this is by the way the AP 2112 and you know one thing you could do is you could go through and you could click some of these things to get a similar chip but I actually want to be a little bit more freeform in my search again there's like so many different regulators like power supply you know powers and power supplies is a huge part of engineering but we just want the linear regulators now one day in the future maybe I'll upgrade my design to use a buck converter you know there's very low quiescent buck converters but I'm gonna stick to the LDL it it's small it's effective my dropout is you know very minimal it's not like I have like 16 volts going down to three volts I'm going from like 3.7 to 3.3 so I want I want you know like at 200 milliamps or so I want to like not have a dropout of higher than 400 milliamps that millivolts if possible okay so start out with of course I only want the active and normally stopping stocking items so let's let's do that and you can cut down the quantities quite a bit I'm going to you know there's outputs you can have adjustable ones where like you have like a twisty like not twisting out but a resistor divider in this case I don't know sometimes there's like adjustable and they can also be fixed but I basically just want these I don't want programmable I don't want adjustable I want it to just like spit out 3.3 volts I'm like I'm not interested in anything else I also only want one regulator and I want I don't think I need to worry about this because the next thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna pick that voltage output so there's for adjustables you know you'll want the minimum and maximum but if you only want a fixed output you just go to the you only want the output voltage min fixed I'm gonna scroll down until I get to 3.3 a couple different options so looks like there's like a couple like there's sometimes variations and stuff but these are good apply okay it's thinking great okay next up I want current output so you know I need it to be somewhat close to what I've got now the current regulator I've got the 600 milliamp output 600 milliamp is like quite a bit you know I can live with as little as 500 but I don't want to go below 500 right so let's pick 500 and then I mean we'll go up to like seven and a half amp but I know that there's no seven and a half amp one in the package I'm gonna use but whatever just you just select it and then we'll get rid of those later okay now we're up to the important part which is the quiescent right so the one we have now is like up to 80 max I think I'm going to stay and you know because it goes high quite fast like if you're not looking at the quiescent current like believe me get regulators with you know like it says here like up to 20 milliamps quiescent and the quiescent current is the current that it draws even when no other current is being used like that's the the current of the regulator itself not the output it's like what it itself draws from the power supply so I definitely want it to be less than 80 actually kind of want to be less than like 50 I'm gonna say like 25 or less and it looks like you can go down to one micro amp and you can see like when you're picky about when you're when you're picky about the quiescent current you know it tells you how many are remaining it like drops really fast so let's let's see let's see what we got here okay so there's a couple options and normally I would you know sort by price but here's a thing so I kind of want one that is the same like size and best off you know if possible the same package so the first thing we do is there's not that many of these I'm actually gonna try to get rid of some of the ones that are like the SOT 89 which is like a larger package size I'm not gonna be able to fit that on my board and like especially not this this is like a TO 263 if it's a TO anything there's like no way I'm gonna fit that on the board so let's get rid of like the very chunky boards so all of these TO's sorry you got to go and I'm also gonna get rid of the six SOIC and I'm also gonna get rid of the SOT 89's cuz they're huge but the rest of these might fit right so let's let's apply so now I've got only about 27 okay we're doing better so of these the first thing I can do is well so the price is a little sneaky because again remember that's for the in for individual units and I want to compare this to the AP 2-on-1-2 which has a price of about like you know 10 to 7 cents it's kind of another reason I love the AP 2-on-1-2 it's so cheap does such a good job and it's so inexpensive so I want something comparable in price and you can't search by price range but that would be really cool did you get it so maybe they'll maybe they'll be inspired it'd be cool to say like for that quantity here's how much I'm willing to pay but what we'll do instead is we'll go to the view prices at and we'll just put in like five thousand because I don't really care about the price individual right if one is 60 cents and one's a dollar but when you get to the real quantity up to real quantity they're both basically six cents or seven cents it doesn't it's not gonna make a big difference okay so now we're here well here's a deal I definitely don't want to be GA I just you know I'm judgy so let's get rid of the BGAs so let's let's see all of these and then subtract the BGA just get that right out okay cool alright so now we're actually looking at you know the pricing and the pricing is actually not too bad like you know the AP 2-on-1-2 is like 10 cents so I'm gonna pay more but I'm not gonna pay like super crazy amounts right it's not like I mean it does get high it gets up to a dollar but oh and there's the Rochester which we can remove as well so let's let's not include marketplace because I don't want the Rochester which are there they sell parts that are discontinued you can still get them okay and then so here's kind of something interesting so it looks like regulators are starting to come in this package which I've never used but I'm actually I kind of think it's adorable it's got like big distances between the pads but it's physically quite small so this is interesting to me so even though I may not use it in this particular situation because I already have the board spun out like and done I don't want to change it I do find I do find this package intriguing okay so we've got a couple options here there's two sought 23 fives and some DFNs and some more sought 23 fives looks like there's a bunch of sought 23 fives and that's the package I'm replacing so let's just select that wait I also want sorry I would like to teesot yeah let's see okay so that could give me the thin ones the thick ones okay so this is it these are my options which is like really nice I've actually paired it down to like you know a screen full there's only six options and the next thing you can do is again you can't sort by price but there's a couple options here by price then you can go all the way to the right and you can look at the things that might be most important for you so for example there is ones with like eight microamps and point seven volt drop out this one might have a slightly lower dropout also 600 milliamps this one's only one microamp and has one amp output which is like really impressive so that's the but the pricing gets a little higher like we're paying 35 cents so I'm actually you know the one I actually think I like the most of this four microamps 600 milliamp output and about 0.5 volt at 600 milliamp dropout because I don't need this high voltage range but I like that it's only four microamps like I think that's gonna make a big difference in this situation so I'm gonna pick up some of these RT 90 80s and here's a tip if you're ever using these regulators so blessedly unlike many other devices including transistors pretty much every company that makes regulators in the SOP 23-5 package which is very common size they all use the same pinout so you can verify here it goes V in ground enable and then you know connect and V out and the same thing here V in ground enable no connect and V out so this can just pop right in just make sure that you have like the right you know get voltage range capacitance whatever things it needs but I can't she just try this on the board so maybe next week by time I get the chips swap it in see the quiescent current hopefully it should drop by like at least 60 microamps so that will be a very nice improvement in my design all right and that's a great search what did you do this week regulator found


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