Dog meat reportedly banned at infamous festival

Dear reader,

Today, The China Project is hosting its first conference. Our whole editorial team is at the event in New York, tweeting and Facebook live-ing, so we’re sending a short newsletter today. We will be back tomorrow with our regular coverage.

Thanks as always for reading!

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief

Sinica Podcast: Joseph Nye, Jr.: Chinese power in the age of Donald Trump

The man who coined the term soft power discusses what it means for China today and in the future.

This issue of the The China Project newsletter was produced by Sky Canaves, Lucas Niewenhuis, Jia Guo, and Jiayun Feng. More China stories worth your time are curated below, with the most important ones at the top of each section.

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

WeChat expands search feature into a ‘walled garden’

A new search engine from WeChat could change China’s internet / Quartz

• Opinion: Can China afford its Belt and Road? / Bloomberg
• Why did a Chinese peroxide company pay $1 billion for a talking cat? / Bloomberg
• Big data, Chinese surveillance, and Donald Trump could keep China’s biggest payments company from entering the U.S. / Quartz
• Home prices rise in fewer cities as more curbs imposed / Bloomberg
• Chinese insurer warns of defaults as ban on new products bites / Financial Times (paywall)
• Western banks eclipsed by China’s along the new Silk Road / Reuters
• Ivanka Trump criticized over Chinese factories allegedly paying $1 an hour / Bloomberg

POLITICS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS:

Philippines says China stopped reclaiming contested land, receives $500 million for bridges

Hague ruling ‘put a stop’ to China’s island-building in disputed waters / SCMP

• New Chinese attack helicopter makes maiden flight / Reuters
• Lawyers in Chinese megacity the new front in Communist Party’s push for greater control / SCMP
• Chinese police release video of rights activist to refute torture claim / Reuters
• Murder case highlights property money trail from China to U.S. / Financial Times (paywall)
• The trial of the Gang of Four — As history and current events / LARB Blog

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

No more dog meat at infamous Yulin festival?

Dog meat sales reportedly banned at infamous festival / National Geographic

• China’s demographic time bomb continues to tick / Bloomberg
• Pandemic alert: how lessons from China can help us rethink urgent health threats / The Conversation
• Tutoring services provider punished for rule violations / Caixin
• Expats in China earn second-highest pay packages in Asia Pacific / Shanghaiist