Links for Wednesday, August 19, 2020

WHAT WE’RE READING:

More important China news and analysis from around the web:

COVID-19: “Officials in Beijing were kept in the dark for weeks about the potential devastation of the virus by local officials in central China, according to American officials familiar with a new internal report by U.S. intelligence agencies,” the New York Times reports.

The report concluded that officials in the city of Wuhan and in Hubei Province, where the outbreak began late last year, tried to hide information from China’s central leadership. The finding is consistent with reporting by news organizations and with assessments by China experts of the country’s opaque governance system.

• The news takes a bit of the air out of the Trump administration’s repeated public suggestion that Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 “and other top officials knew of the dangers of the new coronavirus in the early days and went to great lengths to hide them.” However, U.S. officials asserted that the new report did not “diminish China’s culpability [because] Communist Party leaders oversee an authoritarian system that inhibits local officials from freely sharing information with national-level officials [which] has had deadly consequences for the world.”

See also:

• China’s CDC, built to stop pandemics like COVID, stumbled when it mattered most / WSJ (paywall)
• Beijing updates sanitized timeline of COVID-19 response / The China Project

Another testimony about the Xinjiang reeducation camps has been published by the Diplomat. An excerpt from the story of Qelbinur Sedik, a refugee in Europe since October 2019:

On February 28, 2017, as Qelbinur recounted in her memoir, she was summoned to the town hall. She was told she would be teaching Chinese to “illiterates,” but strangely, for this mission she was made to sign a confidentiality agreement…

‪On March 20, the first floor of the camp filled with new arrivals. Whereas her first group had been religious and often elderly, the second group were intellectuals, business people, or students whose Chinese was perfect. Their crime, it seemed, was consulting Facebook, banned in China.

Her educational mission was now beginning to make no sense at all. Her task with this group was to teach them communist songs and the national anthem…

Of the 600 Uyghur residents of Qelbinur’s community, 190 disappeared in two years. Chinese migrants started to fill the empty apartments.

Back at the camp, new inmates kept arriving. After six months she estimated, there were more than 3,000 prisoners. They were crammed 50 or 60 per cell and groups of two or three, sometimes up to seven, were called out for interrogation during the day.

The torture room was in the basement.

Qelbinur says that she was “forcibly fitted with an IUD,” and that the second camp she was transferred to had “about 10,000 women with shaved heads.” For context, see two pieces on The China Project:

• ‘Demographic genocide’ in Xinjiang
• A shipment of Uyghur hair?

IN OTHER NEWS:

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

• Taiwan bans mainland TV streaming starting September 3
  Taiwan stops streaming services from Tencent Video, iQiyi / Caixin (paywall)
  Taiwan to ban Chinese streaming services Tencent and iQiyi / CNN
• Trump: “I don’t want to talk to China right now”
  Trump cancels China talks, raising questions about trade deal / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
  No new U.S.-China trade talks scheduled: White House chief of staff / Reuters
• Gradual resumption of U.S.-China flights
  China, U.S. will allow air carriers to double flights between nations / Reuters
• Apple tightens supervision of its China App Store
  Apple removes thousands of games from the Chinese App Store, alarming observers / The Verge
  Apple’s China loopholes are starting to close / The Information (paywall)
  “The technology giant operates the App Store and many other services without government licenses and local partners in China. That has left it vulnerable to regulatory risk in China as Trump attacks TikTok and WeChat in the U.S.”
• $610,000 in fake 3M masks
  Pandemic profiteer faces 15-year prison term for peddling counterfeit masks / Caixin (paywall)
• Registration-based IPO rules on ChiNext
  China’s top court issues guidelines to deal with IPO crime on ChiNext / Caixin (paywall)
• Online education fundraising
  Chinese online English education firm Palfish raises $120m in Series C round / Caixin
• JA Solar makes big overseas sales
  World’s largest solar-panel maker reports 78% profit growth in first half / Caixin (paywall)
• GM expands its EV ambition
  GM says over 40% of new China launches in next five years will be EVs / Reuters
  GM bets on electric Cadillacs and micro-vans to reverse China slide / Reuters
• Tesla-Pinduoduo dispute
  Tesla urges workers to defend company in Pinduoduo spat / TechNode
  Tesla objects to Pinduoduo offering group-buying discounts on its Model 3. For more, see Caixin (paywall).
• Shifting supply chains
  BofA: U.S., European firms face $1 trillion to relocate China supply chains / CNBC
  China’s share of global exports falls in supply chains rethink / FT (paywall)

SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND THE ENVIRONMENT:

• All reported infections have been imported for three days in a row
  China reports 17 new coronavirus cases in mainland on August 18 vs 22 a day earlier / Reuters
• COVID-19 cluster in Israel
  90 Chinese workers test positive for COVID-19 in Israel / Caixin
• Brazil investigates coronavirus-contaminated chicken claims
  Brazil sends investigators to Shenzhen over claim of coronavirus in chicken, newspaper says / Reuters
  Mystery grows over virus spread via contaminated food packaging / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
• Op-ed on coal by Kevin Rudd
  China’s thirst for coal is economically shortsighted and environmentally reckless / Washington Post (porous paywall)

POLITICS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS:

• Teaching with code names at American universities
  China’s national-security law reaches into Harvard, Princeton classrooms / WSJ (paywall)
  One Chinese politics class at Princeton “will now come with a warning that some of the material might be sensitive and of concern to China’s government, and [the professor Rory Truex] said he was introducing blind grading. Students will hand in work bearing a code rather than their name, to prevent any student from being linked to particular views or arguments.”
  Tweet by Sheena Greitens, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin: “Many Chinese students went to PRC during COVID and are taking classes online. If classes are surveilled, sensitive discussions (eg, topics in any Chinese politics class) could get them in trouble. Proud of colleagues who’re trying to maintain both academic freedom and student safety.”
• Integrating Xi Jinping Thought in sci-fi films
  China issues guidelines on how to develop local sci-fi films / Variety
• U.S. State Department pressures colleges to divest from China
  U.S. warns colleges to divest China stocks on delisting risk / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
• EcoHealth Alliance pressured to set up inspection of Wuhan Institute of Virology
  NIH presses U.S. nonprofit for information on Wuhan Virology Lab / WSJ (paywall)
• France and Germany hope for China to resume opening up
  Emmanuel Macron’s low profile on China is strategic / FT (paywall)
  The FT’s Europe editor, Ben Hall, writes that Macron, “like the German chancellor…still seems wedded to fading hopes that China will move beyond vague statements of support for international co-operation and agree to binding commitments to open up its economy.”
• Taiwan accuses China of cyberattacks
  Taiwan says China behind cyberattacks on government agencies, emails / Reuters
• Chinese fishing boats near Ecuador
  Ecuador says some Chinese vessels near Galapagos have cut communications systems / Reuters
  Chinese fishing fleet goes dark near Galapagos / Sydney Morning Herald
• Ex-Premier League footballer calls for Uyghur support
  Demba Ba calls for Uyghur solidarity protest over treatment by China / BBC
• Media coverage of the Belarus protests — “acts of creative resistance”
  Reading between the crowds / China Media Project
  David Bandurski writes that “an article posted by the WeChat public account ‘Lǎo yú chuī niú pí’ (老鱼吹牛皮)…looks more critically at official news coverage of the demonstrations in Belarus.”
• Censorship in Hong Kong
  Hong Kong teachers’ union raises concerns over censorship as publishers revise textbooks after gov’t review / HKFP
  Hong Kong censorship fears as protest slogans removed from some textbooks / Guardian
• Regional diplomacy
  Beijing sends its top diplomat to Singapore and South Korea amid U.S. tensions / SCMP
  Pakistani foreign minister expected to raise Belt and Road projects and disputed Kashmir in China meeting / SCMP
• Activists in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand
  Pro-democracy Milk Tea Alliance brews in Asia / Reuters
• Tensions with Japan
  Diaoyu Islands: Japan’s defense minister expresses ‘strong concern’ over China’s activities / SCMP
• Tensions with India
  China-India border dispute: Advanced fighter jets sent to nearby airbases / SCMP

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

• “Gastro-activism” in New York City
  In this dinner series, Chinese food is at home worldwide / NYT (porous paywall)
  A profile of Lucas Sin, the chef of Junzi Kitchen (the company’s co-founder, Zhao Yong, was interviewed by The China Project in 2018), and how he has initiated a series of collaborations with restaurants across the city representing all types of cuisines.
• Work-life balance worsens
  All work and no play – China complains of long working hours culture / Caixin
  “This year, the average Chinese employee only has 2.42 hours of time per day when they are not at work or asleep, down by 25 minutes from last year.”
• Caring for the elderly
  China’s hidden crisis: A growing elder care gap / Sixth Tone
• Suspiciously low camera angles for Sisters Who Make Waves show
  Hunan TV slammed for ‘male gaze’ camerawork / Sixth Tone