A boost to the global economy or a farce?

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Finally, a quick reminder about some upcoming events:

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Have a great weekend,

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief

1. Shanghai import extravaganza: A boost to the global economy or a farce?

“A timely shot in the arm for world economy” is what Xinhua News Agency is calling the first China International Import Expo (CIIE), which concludes this weekend in Shanghai. Fulsome praise of the expo is the theme of the top story on the Chinese websites of the People’s Daily and Xinhua.

The Shanghai correspondent for the Economist, Simon Rabinovitch, was less impressed. He tweeted: “China really put the ‘show’ in its big import trade show over the past week,” and linked to this Reuters story:

China’s choreographed trade expo more ‘theater’ than deal clincher

After one signing, a foreign participant told Reuters that he had nothing to do with the company he was representing.

“Everything you saw at the signing ceremony was theater or farce. I’m essentially an actor, hired for the duration of the expo, in order to give the impression of international cooperation,” the person said, asking not to be named.

2. A conciliatory tone from the Global Times

Today, the three prominent stories on the website of the Party’s snarling-dog newspaper, the Global Times, are:

• A conciliatory opinion piece titled “This is what we want to say about the China-U.S. high-tech battle,” which defends the Made in China 2025 policy but also admits problems in the country’s economic policies, for example:

We probably need to take the U.S. complaints more seriously, listen to outside opinions and make necessary adjustments in the way of achieving scientific and technological progress. For example, the issue of subsidies for state-owned enterprises and the fair treatment of enterprises with different ownership systems, some of the common practices under the market economy system can and should be adopted more.

• General Secretary Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 today “conferred the flag to the new national fire and rescue team, ordering them to be loyal to the Party, disciplined and devoted to the people… The national fire and rescue team was formed based on the country’s fire services and armed forestry police.” That’s also the top story on the Global Times English website.

• “The China-US diplomatic and security dialogue was held in Washington today. U.S. media: Talks will not directly deal with trade issues” is the headline of the third top story (see the trade war update below for more on the dialogue).

—Jeremy Goldkorn

3. Trade war, day 127: Peter Navarro unhinged

The postponed U.S.-China Diplomatic and Security Dialogue got under way on Friday in Washington.

• Chinese Politburo member Yáng Jiéchí 杨洁篪 and defense chief Wèi Fènghé 魏凤和 sat down with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to discuss non-trade-related issues such as “how we can work together to avoid mistakes or accidents that can happen in the military arena,” according to Ambassador Terry Branstad, who also said it was a chance for a “‘frank and open’ exchange of views on issues like North Korea, human rights, and cooperation on Afghanistan and Iran, where the U.S. is pressing Beijing to cut oil imports.”

• While this meeting “signals an effort by the two sides to contain the slide in the relationship,” says the Associated Press, it’s something of a placeholder ahead of a planned meeting at the end of the month between President Donald Trump and China’s President Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 at a Group of 20 summit in Argentina.

• Not much is expected to come out of the security talks, says the South China Morning Post. As to the outlook for the Trump-Xi meeting in Buenos Aires: The SCMP says, “No quick fix to US-China trade war — even with a Trump-Xi meeting, top Beijing economic adviser says.”

Beijing made some effort to show its goodwill in opening markets this week, though maybe too little, too late.

• American Express got the green light from the Chinese central bank to establish card-clearing services in a 50-50 joint venture with a Chinese firm. The WSJ (paywall) reports that the move “comes more than a decade after Beijing promised to open the sector and more than a year after it pledged anew to do so — part of a package meant to forestall the tougher trade measures President Trump has since imposed.”

• Still, Amex’s decision to work with a local partner rather than setting up a wholly owned entity highlights the challenges faced by foreign firms trying to do business in Chinese markets, and the joint venture structure has “drawn particular ire from some Trump administration officials who see them as a tool China uses to reduce American companies’ profits and siphon off their technical know-how.”

But this morning, director of the White House National Trade Council, Peter “Death by China” Navarro, gave a speech at the Washington, D.C., think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He ranted against China, and even against colleagues in his own government and other trade advisers, using the anti-Semitic dog whistle “globalists.” From the Financial Times (porous paywall):

The White House’s top trade adviser has accused “globalist billionaires” of trying to pressure President Donald Trump into ending his tariff brinkmanship with China, saying their “shuttle diplomacy” to Beijing meant that any truce would have a “stench around it”…

…Navarro, the most prominent China hawk in Mr Trump’s inner circle of economic advisers, called on Wall Street to “get out of the negotiations” and warned that if a deal is reached when the president meets with Xi Jinping at a G20 summit in Argentina this month, it would have “imprimatur of Goldman Sachs”… Navarro accused a “self-appointed group of Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers” that were part of a Chinese “influence operation” of putting a “full court press” on the White House ahead of the G20 meeting. “The mission of these unregistered foreign agents, that’s what they are…is to pressure this president into some kind of deal,” Mr Navarro said.

Other trade-war-related news:

• Cyber espionage
  Is China violating anti-hacking agreement with the US? / SCMP
  “A senior US intelligence official has accused China of violating an agreement with the United States aimed at stopping cyber espionage through the hacking of government and corporate data.”
  Guess who’s back, back again? China’s back, hacking your friends: Beijing targets American biz amid tech tariff tiff / The Register
  “Three years after the governments of America and China agreed not to hack corporations in each other’s countries, experts say Beijing is now back to its old ways.”

• Other U.S. fears
  Washington unnerved by China’s ‘military-civil fusion’ / FT (paywall)
  “The fear in Washington is that the close collaboration between China’s private sector and the PLA, including allegedly underhand efforts by the state to get hold of new US technologies, is helping give Beijing an advantage in this incipient arms race.”

• More on the Chinese economy
  Forget the trade war, China’s economy has other big problems / CNN
  “China’s economy is now growing at its slowest pace since the global financial crisis…. But that could change in the coming months if tariffs rise to 25% from 10% at the end of December, as the US has threatened, adding to China’s growing list of problems.”
  Fact-checking Trump’s claims about the Chinese economy / NYT (porous paywall)
  “At a news conference, the president answered a question about healing national divides by saying, falsely, that he had forced China to back down from a plan to strengthen its manufacturing industry.”
  Everything China’s doing to rescue companies, and what’s working / Bloomberg (porous paywall)

• Changing supply lines
  Trade war hastens key Apple supplier Pegatron’s shift from China / Nikkei Asian Review (paywall)
  “The intensifying trade tension accelerates our decision to do it.”
  Cargo trade routes are changing amid trade war, says SATS CEO / CNBC
  Volvo rips up production plans in effort to dodge trade war tariffs / Bloomberg (porous paywall)

• Losers in the trade war
  Asian grocers in U.S. are bearing the brunt of China trade war / Bloomberg (porous paywall)

—Sky Canaves

4. Political vetting before college entrance exam? Officials downplay controversial announcement.

Chongqing Daily has been at the center of a controversy started by a news article (in Chinese) published on November 6, which says candidates who fail a “political evaluation” (政审 zhèngshěn) will be denied access to this year’s college entrance exam, also known as the gaokao (高考 gāokǎo) in China.  

While the article is rather vague about the evaluation criteria, it asserts that people who “object to the Chinese Communist Party’s Four Basic Principles, have criminal records, or are morally corrupt” will fail the evaluation. In addition, candidates who apply for police schools, military institutions, or other colleges with special requirements need to pass further examinations.

The Four Basic Principles were first introduced by the former Chinese president Deng Xiaoping in 1979 (see this Chinese People’s Daily article) and have since then become the main criteria to decide whether a citizen’s political beliefs align with the Party line. They are:

• We must keep to the socialist road.

• We must uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat.

• We must uphold the leadership of the Communist Party.

• We must uphold Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought.

There was a massive social media backlash, especially against the term “political vetting,” which is reminiscent of similar practices carried out by the Party during the anti-Rightists movements in the 1950s and the Cultural Revolution (1966–77).

Click through to The China Project for details.

—Chauncy Jung

—–

Here are the stories that caught our eye this week:

• China yet again promised to open its economy, reduce trade barriers, and protect intellectual property, and newly promised to launch a new “technology innovation board” for equity raising in Shanghai, and specifically “bake a 40-trillion-dollar big import cake.” Journalists at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai, where Xi Jinping made the promises, noted the relative lack of important foreign leaders at the grand expo, and pointed out that the 40 trillion number, upon closer inspection, was effectively meaningless. The Expo officially attracted 400,000 buyers, but it’s not clear how much the buyers are actually buying, or whether deals would have taken place without the expo. Like the Expo, the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen saw a dismal showing from foreign tech dignitaries.

• China made an effort to reach out to the U.S. at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, where vice president and Xi Jinping sidekick Wáng Qíshān 王岐山 said his side is “ready to have discussions…for a solution on trade acceptable to both sides.” Wang chafed slightly at his introduction by Michael Bloomberg as the “most influential political figure in China.” Also at the Forum, former U.S. Treasury secretary Henry Paulson warned of a looming “economic Iron Curtain” between the U.S. and China.

• China sent further conciliatory messages to the U.S., with Xi Jinping meeting “old friend of Chinese people” Henry Kissinger and saying that “China is committed to working with the US.” Top diplomat Wáng Yì 王毅 and Politburo member Yáng Jiéchí 杨洁篪 both talked up the Trump-Xi meeting in a few weeks at the G20. Meanwhile, Chinese exports surged despite the burden of tariffs, and luxury sales in China continued to boom.

• Mass relocations in Xinjiang were reported by state media, as China faced harsh criticism over its human rights record at the UN. Xinjiang scholar Adrian Zenz published new evidence that the internment camps in Xinjiang function more like prisons than “vocational training” schools. The forced homestay program in Xinjiang was also covered in state media this week.

• Tensions with Australia were highlighted in a Global Times opinion piece, which argued that “Australia has left a bad impression on the Chinese people, probably the worst of all Western countries.”

• A great explainer on the social credit system was published by China Law Translate, run by scholar of Chinese law Jeremy Daum. He concludes that contrary to dystopian depictions in Western media, the system is “pretty mundane regulatory law with only a few new wrinkles.”

• Student activists continue to receive pressure from authorities, with one student at Renmin University saying she was under careful watch and had been warned against speaking out again. About 50 students from across China, including students from both Nanjing and Renmin universities, went to Huizhou in southern China in August to protest against the treatment of factory workers.

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

• Singles’ Day — China’s “Black Friday”
  Ten years of Singles’ Day, China’s ridiculously huge shopping festival / Quartz
  “The story of how the shopping festival, also known as Double 11 for its date, grew from obscurity and just $7 million in sales to $25 billion last year, is also the story of the extraordinary growth of the e-commerce giant co-founded by Jack Ma (马云 Mǎ Yún) in 1999 — and a symbol of China’s rising consuming power.”
  After Singles’ Day’s dazzling first decade, what’s next for global shopping fest? / TechNode

• Fracking and water contamination
  China’s fracking push leaves trail of dirty water woes / FT (paywall)
  Fracking to extract natural gas in Shaanxi and elsewhere is causing serious water pollution.

• Railroad to Malaysia
  Talks over stalled China-backed rail link still ongoing, says Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad / SCMP
  “‘We are [in talks]. It’s not an easy thing to negotiate…I can’t tell how long [it will take],’ he told the media.”

• Alibaba’s future
  How Alibaba’s new chief will navigate tougher times / The Information (paywall)
  “Jack Ma, China’s most famous billionaire, embraced the limelight with stunts like dancing in a costume to Michael Jackson before a stadium full of employees. On the other hand, Daniel Zhang (张勇 Zhāng Yǒng), the former accountant who will replace Mr. Ma next September as the executive chairman of Alibaba, is practically anonymous. ‘I enjoy walking on the street, and nobody can recognize me,’ said Mr. Zhang.”
  Alibaba’s future is cloud computing, CEO Daniel Zhang says / TechNode
  “Speaking to American business news channel CNBC in his first interview since being announced as the successor to Alibaba Chairperson Jack Ma, Zhang said that cloud is the company’s long-term strategy.”

• Auto industry woes
  China auto sales fall in October, deepening slump / AP
  “China’s auto sales sank for a fourth month in October, tumbling 13 percent from a year earlier and adding to an unexpectedly painful downturn for global automakers in their biggest market.”
  China auto sales on track for a down year / WSJ (paywall)
  “The slump in China’s automotive sector dragged on through October, with year-over-year sales down for the fourth straight month.”

• Tech optimism
  Billion-dollar tech startups hold promise for China’s economy / Nikkei Asian Review
  “China has become a land of unicorns, home to at least 70 unlisted startup companies valued at $1 billion or more.”
  Top Chinese tech investor says he’s still optimistic about growth / CNBC
  “The head of Sequoia Capital’s China affiliate said Thursday there are still big opportunities for growth in the country’s digital economy, contrary to many concerns about a slowdown.”

• Empty real estate
  A fifth of China’s housing is empty. That’s 50 million homes / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
  “Xi Jinping’s mantra that homes should be for living in is falling on deaf ears, with tens of millions of apartments and houses standing empty across the country.”

• Computer games
  China’s esports craze reaches new heights with the victory of “Invictus Gaming” / What’s on Weibo
  “Over the past week, hotlists of Baidu and Weibo were dominated by the news of China’s IG team winning the League of Legends World Championship for the first time in world history.”

• Maternity leave in Hong Kong
  HSBC increases annual and maternity leave for half its Hong Kong workforce / SCMP

• Markets
  In China, response to pledged share meltdown stirs concern / Reuters
  “Southwest [Securities] and its peers are caught in the slow-motion collapse in China of pledged share financing, in which companies’ major shareholders provide shares as collateral for loans.”
  Hong Kong, mainland China stocks tumble after Fed meeting prompts capital outflow worries / SCMP

• Inflation
  China inflation tame, frees central bank to further ease trade war impact on economy / SCMP
  “Price increases of goods sold by China’s factories slowed for the fourth straight month in October as the world’s second largest economy faces lower demand for industrial materials amid cooling manufacturing activity exacerbated by a trade war with the US.”
  China consumer inflation ticked higher in October / Marketwatch
  “China’s consumer inflation remained at the second-highest level so far this year, buoyed by an acceleration in non-food prices, official data showed Friday.”

POLITICS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS:

• Israel — too close to China for America’s comfort?
  ‘Trump will be furious’: Tension between U.S. and Israel over China infrastructure projects / Haaretz (porous paywall)
  “Tightening Israel-China ties have not yet reached Trump’s desk, but one U.S. official warns he will not take to it kindly.”
  Why are Chinese investments in Israeli hi-tech making Washington nervous? / Jerusalem Post
  “China’s stake in Israeli hi-tech has become so significant that it now runs the risk of impacting the longstanding special relationship between Jerusalem and Washington.”

• Danger in the South China Sea
  ‘A game of chicken’: U.S. and China are risking a clash at sea / NYT (porous paywall)
  “‘A game of chicken is being played around Asia’s flash points,’ said Brendan Taylor, an expert on the South China Sea at the Australian National University. ‘It is only a matter of time before a clash occurs,’ Mr. Taylor said, adding that he sees significant potential for such an event to escalate into a larger crisis.”

• Arms trade
  Air show deals highlight Russia’s prospects for arms sales to China in spite of US sanctions / SCMP
  “Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state arms seller, said it signed three more weapons contracts with China during the Zhuhai Airshow, which is being held in south China’s Guangdong Province until Sunday.”
  With Russian support, China broadcasts export ambitions at air show / Reuters
  China’s drone makers zero in on armed forces / FT (paywall)
  “More than 350 Chinese private firms now make unmanned aerial, surface or ground vehicles…many of the drone makers exhibiting in Zhuhai said they had been in business for just a year or two. The rapid expansion of the sector is no ordinary tech bubble. Many of the recent entrants into the industry are taking aim at the military market lured by Beijing’s policy to win more private companies as defense suppliers.”
  How dominant is China in the global arms trade? / ChinaPower Project
  An interactive presentation of data.

• Debt and influence in the Pacific
  Marshall Islands president accuses China of backing opponents, fuelling political crisis to secure remote atoll / SCMP
  “Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine said accusations that she is destroying the country’s financial reputation by adopting a cryptocurrency are ‘baseless’ and her opponents are being unduly influenced by pressure from China.”
  Australia details investment in Pacific as China clout grows / AP
  “A U.S. diplomat revealed in September that the United States, Japan and Australia were cooperating on a domestic internet cable proposal for Australia’s nearest neighbor, Papua New Guinea, as an alternative to an offer by Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant that the United States regards as a cybersecurity threat.”
  Australia’s plan to challenge China in the South Pacific / CNN
  China in the Pacific: is China engaged in ‘debt-trap diplomacy’? / Devpolicy Blog
  “What can we conclude? Our analysis of debt in the Pacific strongly suggests that the “debt-trap diplomacy” argument is without foundation. Debt is a problem in the region, and one that appears to be increasing in importance. But for most countries it is not debt to China that is of concern.”
  Chinese president to visit Philippines, talk infrastructure / Voice of America
  “The Chinese president will visit for the first time since the election of his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte, who surprised the West and much of his population after taking office in 2016 by improving ties with China.”

• Interpol chief’s disappearance
  Interpol can’t investigate Chinese president’s disappearance, because its own rules don’t allow it, boss says / SCMP
  “The operational head of Interpol said on Thursday he is forbidden by the global police organization’s own rules from investigating what happened to the Chinese government official who served as Interpol president for almost two years before vanishing in September on a trip to his homeland.”
  Previously on The China Project Access: Chinese president of Interpol disappears.

• Xinjiang internment camps
  The Persecution of the intellectuals in the Uyghur region: Disappeared forever? / Uyghur Human Rights Project

• Censorship
  Minitrue: No follow-up on Yili’s denunciation of ex-chairman / China Digital Times
  For background, see Something sour at Yili milk on The China Project.

• Hong Kong’s diminishing freedoms
  Second Hong Kong venue refuses to host events with Chinese dissident writer Ma Jian / SCMP
  “A second art venue in Hong Kong has refused to host two talks by Chinese dissident author Mă Jiàn 马建, one day after the original venue’s top management said the events were cancelled to prevent promotion of political interests.”
  Asia Society and one of its leaders are at odds over Hong Kong / NYT (porous paywall)
  A story about a previous Asia Society controversy in Hong Kong from July 2017.
  ‘Shocked and baffled’: Hong Kong’s ban on journalist a ‘threat to free society,’ says press club as UK demands answers / Hong Kong Free Press
  “The refusal to grant Financial Times Asia news editor Victor Mallet entry into Hong Kong poses a threat to free society, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) of Hong Kong said on Friday.”
  Previously on The China Project Access: The day Hong Kong press freedom died.

• Petrochemical pollution
  Chemical leak sees 52 hospitalized in Fujian / Caixin
  “Dozens of people are being treated for suspected exposure to leaked hydrocarbons after a petrochemical spill in southern China’s Fujian Province, local authorities confirmed Thursday.”

• China in Russia
  A milestone, not a turning point: How China will develop the Russian Far East / Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
  A wonky read full of detail on Sino-Russian development projects.

• Sri Lanka
  Behind Lanka’s turmoil, an India-China struggle for investment, influence / NDTV
  “India, the traditional power in the region, is muscling into port and other projects in Sri Lanka, pushing back hard against China.”

• Merciless takedown of Beijing-friendly Australian politician
  How Bob Carr became China’s pawn / Australian Financial Review (paywall)

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

• Female empowerment in arts and media
  Meet the group amplifying China’s new voices / Foreign Policy (porous paywall)
  All about creative collective NüVoices, producers of the eponymous podcast hosted on The China Project.

• Art and antiquities
  In search of the real thing: China’s quest to buy back its lost heritage / NYT (porous paywall)
  One art dealer told the New York Times “that the supply of high-quality Chinese artworks was being progressively depleted by the ‘vacuum cleaner that is China sucking the goods out of Europe.’”

• Academic standards
  China wants universities to raise academic standards and put more pressure on students / SCMP
  “After all the intensive study to get into university — ending with the gruelling make-or-break entrance exam — for many students in China, life gets a little easier once they are at college. In fact, most Chinese university students have been able to graduate even if they did not do well thanks to a ‘clearing test’ offering a third chance to pass a subject after failing twice. But now, the Ministry of Education wants that to change.”

• Ring, ring goes the bitcoin
  Chinese school principal sacked over secret campus cryptocurrency scam / SCMP
  “A school principal has been sacked and his deputy disciplined for secretly mining digital currency on campus, racking up thousands of dollars in power bills for the school.”

• Brawling on buses
  Don’t punch the bus driver! / The China Project
  A sign recently appeared in a Wuhan bus warning passengers against fighting with bus drivers.

VIDEO ON SUPCHINA

Viral on Weibo: Chinese kung fu master smashes 100 bricks in 37 seconds!

Wang Hua, a kung fu master, has studied a variety of martial arts since he was a kid.

We also published the following videos this week:

• The new role of Chinese food in the U.S.

• China unveils world’s first AI broadcasters

• A food delivery in the sky!

FEATURED ON SUPCHINA

Singles Day preview: Join us on Saturday for a live blog extravaganza

Before the craziness begins at midnight for China’s annual 11.11 Global Shopping Day, a.k.a. Singles Day, there is the insanity of Alibaba’s Tmall Double Eleven Gala 双十一天猫晚会, a.k.a. Maowan 猫晚. This year, The China Project is hosting a live blog for those who want to gawk along at this pageant to consumerism. What is the Singles Day Shopping Festival, what is the Singles Day Gala, and why are we live-blogging it?

Jin Yong, China’s late great novelist, was a world-creator who shaped Chinese imagination

Jīn Yōng 金庸, who has been called the J.R.R. Tolkien of Chinese literature, dazzled readers by creating worlds with characteristics of the American Wild West or Batman’s Gotham, with “chaotic good” characters who fought for justice in unorthodox and heroic ways. There will never be another like him.

A porcine predicament for rural North Carolina

China has taken aim at American pork with two harsh rounds of tariffs in the trade war — U.S. pig products are now hit with a 62 percent tax upon import into China. Jason MacRonald reports for The China Project: As the trade dispute drags on, and an infectious disease withers China’s domestic supply of hogs, the country is establishing new pig trading relationships with no Americans involved.

Chinese Corner: Can we get some bad stories about male drivers, too?

In this installment of Jiayun Feng’s weekly review of interesting nonfiction on the Chinese internet, she looks at China’s unchecked and dangerous love of high-rise apartments, the media-fueled hostility toward female drivers, and more.

And now, an amazing Chinese rendition of ‘Cell Block Tango’ (with translated lyrics)

This is the best thing we’ve seen on Chinese social media in a while — a song by Tú Yǒuqín 徒有琴, a student at the Central Conservatory of Music. She plays the part of six women from six different parts of China who sing, in their particular dialects, about their horrible experiences with the men in their lives. It’s all set — fittingly and so very well — to the tune of “Cell Block Tango” from the musical Chicago.

Kuora: Irony and postmodernism in China

Irony doesn’t permeate the attitudes of young Chinese to nearly the same extent that it does their counterparts in the developed anglophone West, and there’s much more direct, unfiltered earnestness to the way that your ordinary Chinese person will approach literature, televisual media, music, fashion, or sports. This is, of course, not to say that irony and some of its arguably related phenomena, like postmodernism, don’t exist in China. They do, and, in the case of irony, they have for a very long time.

Chinese university draws controversy after sending students’ grade reports to parents

A department at Shenzhen University in Guangdong Province has found itself embroiled in controversy from its decision to mail detailed transcripts directly to parents without informing the students.

SINICA PODCAST NETWORK

Introducing the Ta for Ta Podcast

In lieu of Sinica this week, we are proud to announce the newest addition to our network, Ta for Ta, hosted by Juliana Batista. Chenni Xu, a corporate communications executive and gender advocate, is the inaugural guest. She moved back to New York after spending nearly a decade abroad in Beijing.

• Subscribe to Ta for Ta on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, or Stitcher, or plug the RSS feed into your favorite podcast app.

TechBuzz China: The World’s Most Valuable Startup: Bytedance, maker of TikTok & Toutiao

In episode 28 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about the Chinese AI company that recently toppled Uber to become the highest-valued startup in the world: Bytedance. Having just closed on a $3 billion funding round led by SoftBank, the company is currently valued at $75 billion.

• Subscribe to TechBuzz China on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, or Stitcher, or plug the RSS feed into your favorite podcast app.

ChinaEconTalk: KFC, the Business of Propaganda, and the ‘Toilet Revolution’

Why is KFC so big in China? What is the “Toilet Revolution” and why does it matter? How does Chinese propaganda work? How have bicycles’ role in Chinese society evolved over time? Neil Thomas of MacroPolo takes on all this in ChinaEconTalk’s latest show.

• Subscribe to ChinaEconTalk on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, or Stitcher, or plug the RSS feed straight into your favorite podcast app.

The Caixin-Sinica Business Brief, episode 68

This week on the Caixin-Sinica Business Brief: Alibaba’s “hotel of the future,” the fall of Féng Lìzhì 冯立志, Google’s project to develop a search engine for the Chinese market, and what happened with the Brazil election and its meaning for China.

• Subscribe to the Business Brief on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, or Stitcher, or plug the RSS feed into your favorite podcast app.

PHOTO FROM MICHAEL YAMASHITA

Harvesting oysters

A woman shows off the oysters she harvested at an oyster farm in Xiamen, Fujian Province. The fresh oysters can be used to make fried oyster omelet (海蛎煎 hǎi lì jiān), a popular snack in the city that is often sold in night markets.

—Jia Guo