Links for Friday, July 10, 2020

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

• Market rally and caution
  China’s markets rally on optimism economy is shaking off COVID-19 pandemic / WSJ (paywall)
  Traders bet on rally for China’s markets / WSJ (paywall)
  China state funds start selling in warning sign for stock rally / Bloomberg (porous paywall)

Signs of Beijing’s unease over the rally’s speed emerged late Thursday, when a pair of government-owned funds announced plans to trim holdings of stocks that soared this week. On Friday the state-run China Economic Times warned about the dangers of a “crazy” bull market, while Caixin reported that regulators had asked mutual fund companies to cap the size of new products.

• TikTok distances itself from China as Amazon retracts email about a ban
  TikTok mulls changes to business to distance itself from China / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
  “Executives are discussing options such as creating a new management board for TikTok and establishing a separate headquarters for the app outside of China to distance its operations from Beijing, according to a person familiar with the discussions.”
  Amazon backtracks from demand that employees delete TikTok / NYT (porous paywall)

Amazon on Friday asked its employees to delete the Chinese-owned video app TikTok from their cellphones, putting the tech giant at the center of growing suspicion and paranoia about the app.

Almost five hours later, Amazon reversed course, saying the email to workers was sent in error.

• Geopolitical tensions are damaging Australia’s economy
  Rising tension with China rings corporate Australia’s alarm bells / FT (paywall)
  “The pandemic is to blame but fraying relations with China threaten to make the downturn considerably worse. This week, Australia warned against travel to Hong Kong and suspended its extradition treaty with the territory, sparking a swift rebuke from China.”
• New bank lending jumpstarts economy
  China bank lending hits record $1.72 trillion in first half after solid June / Reuters
  “New bank lending in China rose 22.3% in June as authorities continued to boost credit and ease policy to get the world’s second-largest economy humming again after a sharp coronavirus-induced contraction.”
• Government backing keeps EV maker Nio afloat
  For electric-vehicle maker Nio, government tie-up has its benefits / Caixin (paywall)
  “Chinese electric-car maker Nio Inc. said it had secured credit lines worth 10.4 billion yuan ($1.48 billion) from six domestic banks, just months after inking a cooperation deal with a city government, as the company hunts for funding amid concerns of tightening liquidity.”
• Tencent pours money into an online art educator
  Tencent leads $40 million investment in online art educator / Caixin
  “Chinese online drawing education startup Meishubao has secured $40 million in its series C+ funding round led by Tencent, which is also behind some of China’s better-known online educators including VIPKid and Yuanfudao.”
• Daniel Zhang addresses Alibaba investors
  Alibaba aims to facilitate $1.4 trillion in sales annually by 2024 / Caixin (paywall)
  “Alibaba aims to reach 1 billion consumers and achieve 10 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) in annual gross merchandise volume (GMV) in China by its fiscal year 2024, [Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang Zhāng Yǒng 张勇] said in the letter published on the company’s public WeChat account Friday.”
• Japan eyes reestablishing business travel in Asia
  Japan looks to reopen business travel with 10 more Asian economies, including China / Nikkei Asian Review via Caixin (paywall)
• Wall Street questions Washington’s wisdom on China
  Wall Street pushes back on U.S. threats to delist Chinese firms / Bloomberg via Caixin (paywall)

During a Thursday panel discussion hosted by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the firms’ executives questioned a bill under consideration in Washington that could lead to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Baidu Inc. and other Chinese businesses getting kicked out of American stock markets. The intent of the legislation is to force China to comply with U.S. accounting rules. But among the concerns raised was that it might just prompt companies to relocate to markets with less regulatory oversight.

• China starts taxing its citizens abroad
  China starts taxing its citizens for global income / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
  “China, which charges taxes of as high as 45%, revised its income tax rules January last year to help authorities start collecting money from its citizens worldwide — similar to what the U.S. does with Americans living abroad. But Beijing only disclosed detailed instructions this year on how to file such taxes, catching many expatriates flat-footed.”
• America’s airlines extend their suspension on HK flights
  United, American extend suspension of Hong Kong flights / Bloomberg via Caixin (paywall)
  “United Airlines Inc. extended its suspension of flights to and from Hong Kong, citing new coronavirus testing protocols for crew arriving in the Asian financial hub, and American Airlines Group Inc. canceled plans to resume services from Dallas/Fort Worth.”
• E-cigarette specialist lists in Hong Kong market
  Investors fire up Hong Kong IPO for e-cigarette specialist / Caixin (paywall)

SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND THE ENVIRONMENT:

• WHO sets up coronavirus origin probe
  WHO advance team on way to China to set up probe into virus origin / Reuters
  “An advance team from the World Health Organization (WHO) has left for China to organise an investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus which sparked the global pandemic, a spokeswoman said on Friday.”
• Hong Kong re-initiates some lockdown measures
  Hong Kong to suspend all schools after virus cases spike / HKFP
  “The government has ordered all schools to close from Monday, bringing forward the start of the summer holidays, Kevin Yeung said, after the city recorded an “exponential growth” of locally transmitted cases in the past few days.”
• Kazakhstan dismisses Chinese embassy’s pneumonia warning
  Kazakhstan denies Chinese reports of pneumonia deadlier than coronavirus / Reuters
  “Kazakhstan dismissed as incorrect on Friday a warning by China’s embassy for its citizens to guard against an outbreak of pneumonia in the central Asian nation that it described as being more lethal than the coronavirus.”
• Two Chinese satellites lost in failed rocket launch
  First launch of Chinese Kuaizhou-11 rocket ends in failure / SpaceNews
  “Launch of a new Chinese Kuaizhou-11 commercial solid rocket ended in failure Friday resulting in the loss of two satellites.”
• Reforming China’s pandemic response laws
  China mulls post-pandemic changes to decade-old emergency response law / Caixin (paywall)
  “China is moving to change its Emergency Response Law after experts questioned the legality of blanket lockdowns imposed earlier this year to control the spread of the coronavirus.”
• China’s cancer screening system is lacking
  China’s cancer monitoring system missing 70% of population, study says / Sixth Tone
  A new paper from a British Medical Journal “found that as of last year, China had 574 local cancer registries covering 438 million people, or around 31% of the country’s total population. The proportion was significantly lower than the 96% coverage in the U.S. and nearly 100% coverage in the U.K., Australia, and South Korea, according to the authors.”
• COVID found on food packaging
  Coronavirus found on frozen shrimp packaging but risk from food low, China says / SCMP
  “Chinese authorities found coronavirus on the packaging and in the container of imported frozen shrimps, but the food safety chief said on Friday the discovery did not mean the virus could be transmitted via food packaging.”

POLITICS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS:

• Hong Kong security law updates
  Gov’t refuses to say if protest anthem ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ is illegal, despite ban in schools / HKFP
  Hong Kong police raid office of pro-democracy camp primary election co-organisers PORI; seize PCs / HKFP
• Japan and Australia find common ground in countering China…
  Japan’s Abe in security talks with Australia as they seek to counter China / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
  “[Japanese and Chinese] leaders will deliberate on ‘ways we can work together, with other regional partners, to help ensure an open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific,’ Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a statement on Wednesday. ‘As like-minded democracies, we are natural partners with shared interests underpinned by open markets and the rule of law.’”
• …and the E.U. echoes the sentiment
  E.U. in talks over Hong Kong national security law retaliation / FT (paywall)
  “Democratic governments stepped up retaliation against China over its security crackdown in Hong Kong, as France and Germany proposed EU countermeasures for the first time and Australia suspended its extradition treaty with the territory.”
• Escalation in the South China Sea
  Beijing blasts U.S. over ‘provocative military acts’ in the South China Sea / SCMP
  Taiwan hails defensive capability after U.S. approves sale of missile upgrade / SCMP
  “The United States has approved the US$620 million sale of a missile upgrade to Taiwan at a sensitive moment when Beijing has stepped up sabre-rattling against the island through various military drills.”
• Sweden’s ex-ambassador absolved
  Swedish court finds ex-envoy to China not guilty in Gui Minhai case / Reuters
  Sweden’s ex-ambassador to China is cleared of wrongdoing / NYT (porous paywall)
  “The Swedish diplomat, Anna Lindstedt, was accused of overstepping the boundaries of her role by arranging what prosecutors said were secret back-room meetings over the fate of a Hong Kong bookseller and Swedish citizen who remains detained in China.”
• Beijing denounces Xinjiang sanctions
  China says it will hit back against new U.S. sanctions over Uyghur rights / Reuters
  “Beijing described the new U.S. sanctions as ‘deeply detrimental’ to mutual relations, already strained by differences over China’s handling of the novel coronavirus outbreak and its tightening grip on Hong Kong.”
  New videos expose China’s forced migration of Uyghurs during the pandemic / Coda Story
• Cities declare “red alert” over flooding
  China cities declare flood ‘red alerts’ as extreme weather threats surge / Reuters
• A mainland PR campaign in Taiwan
  Undeterred by coronavirus, China takes influence campaign online to win Taiwan hearts / Reuters
• Rights lawyer files to overturn his guilty verdict
  Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang petitions to overturn subversion verdict / SCMP
  “Chinese human rights lawyer Wáng Quánzhāng 王全璋 has filed a petition with the Chinese judiciary seeking to overturn his guilty verdict of subversion against the state, saying it was fabricated and based on a false accusation.”
• Foreign Ministry threatens lawsuit against scholar and think tank
  Chinese FM ‘not surprised’ if rumormongers will be sued / Global Times
  “The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday said it would not be surprised if China sues Adrian Zenz and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), that have long been publishing and disseminating disinformation about China.”

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

• Censors want to erase Guizhou bus crash
  Bus plunges into reservoir, killing 21 / BBC
  Emily Feng 冯哲芸 on Twitter: “What a tragically Chinese story: Caixin finds the driver behind the wheel of a bus in Guizhou which seemingly intentionally veered off a bridge into a reservoir had his home forcefully demolished the morning of his death. Now 21 are dead, many students.”
  David Paulk on Twitter: “China’s censors apparently decided this news was unsuitable for public consumption. Cached version of deleted article here.”
• Contemporary street art in Chengdu
  Between the sun and moon / NeoCha
  “Under the sweltering June sun, street artist Sheep Chen [Chén Yáng 陈暘] is atop a crane lift, putting the finishing touches on a five-story-tall mural. The piece — covering the side of an entire residential building — is bold and imposing, and against the weather-worn facades of the surrounding buildings, its colors seem even more vibrant.”
• New Chinese web show wins nationwide acclaim
  ‘Cute but cruel’: The crime drama hailed a Chinese TV milestone / Guardian
  “Since its release in June, Hidden Corner, which follows those three children in the aftermath of witnessing a murder, has quickly become one of the country’s most discussed and watched shows — a tense crime drama, unexpectedly poignant in its exploration of childhood, family ties and the harsh realities of life for China’s more vulnerable.”
• Making meaning from the pandemic
  Artistic distances: Giving form to grief in a pandemic / Sixth Tone
  “COVID-19 can’t reveal or crystallize some deeper meaning about the universe. But it also can’t stop us from making our own.”
• Why is China still wearing Linkin Park tees?
  Linkin Park t-shirts are all the rage in China / Wired
• Sister Gao’s Youtube recipes
  Sister Gao is YouTube’s breakout Chinese cookery star / Nikkei Asian Review
  Shen Lu, contributing writer for Nikkei Asian Review, writes of a Chinese food youtuber on Twitter: “小高姐’s Magic Ingredients is the kind of things I want to keep it to myself but also hope the entire world notices. For @NAR I wrote about the magic of the indisputable quarantine goddess of the Chinese diaspora, Sister Gao”