Links for Friday, August 21, 2020

WHAT WE’RE READING:

More important China news and analysis from around the web:

“Taiwan’s military has flashy American weapons but no ammo,” says the journalist Paul Huang in Foreign Policy. Huang writes:

…in reality, not only is the Taiwanese military facing a serious shortage of soldiers and an entirely dysfunctional reserve system, as my previous reporting for Foreign Policy revealed, half of its tanks may not be able to run — and even fewer have functional weapons. These failures are costing lives even before China fires a single shot. As Taiwanese politicians showcase flashy U.S. weapons bought with taxpayers’ money, the logistics inside the military remain so abysmal that a young army officer killed himself after being pressured to buy repair parts out of his own pocket…

The dilapidated state of the military has many roots, but veteran staff officers have proposed one likely theory to explain it.

Chang Han-ching, a retired navy captain and a researcher for the Taiwan Center for International Strategic Studies, believes it was the Taiwanese military’s hasty yet critically flawed downsizing that hollowed out its logistics. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Taiwan committed itself to cutting the force size from half a million strong to fewer than 200,000…

The root cause of problems, therefore, appears to go far deeper than just broken tanks and not enough mechanics. Interviewees suggested the answer must lies somewhere between the military’s dysfunctional organizational culture, lack of civilian audit and oversight, and an ineffectual leadership (both military and political) that seems to give little thought to preparing troops for actual war.

Related, by Robert Kagan in Brookings: China’s dangerous Taiwan temptation.

“A consensus is growing that China’s Uyghurs face genocide,” writes Isabella Steger in Quartz today (paywall; also republished in Yahoo News).

A growing number of people moved to use the term genocide last year as more testimonies of forced sterilizations endured by Uyghur and Kazakh women in camps in China came to light — forced suppression of births in a specific community, under the UN’s definition, is one of the five acts that constitutes genocide.

Steger writes that some of the most significant people now adopting the term “genocide” to describe the plight of the Uyghurs are Jewish commentators and leaders, who are among the most hesitant to make comparisons to the Holocaust. However, Peter Irwin, a spokesperson for the Uyghur Human Rights Project, says, “It’s absolutely crucial that we don’t get mired in a debate about labels… The international community has an obligation to respond, irrespective of whatever label one might want to apply.”

Related, by James Millward in the Guardian: The Uyghurs’ suffering deserves targeted solutions, not anti-Chinese posturing.

IN OTHER NEWS:

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

• Crackdown on private lending
  In blow to loan sharks, China’s top court slashes legal private-lending rates / Caixin (paywall)
  China just killed its $491 billion private loan market / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
• Ant Group posts massive profit ahead of IPO
  Jack Ma’s Ant Financial posts $1.3 billion in profit / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
• Alibaba appeals to Trump
  Alibaba tells Trump we ‘support American brands’ / Bloomberg via Yahoo
• $50 billion in capital outflows over the past year?
  China users reportedly moved $50 billion of cryptocurrency out of country / CNBC
• Low oil prices lead to joint venture suspension
  Saudi Aramco suspends $10 billion China oil refinery venture / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
• Will China’s GitHub alternative succeed?
  China is building a GitHub alternative called Gitee / TechCrunch
  “Gitee claims to have hosted more than 10 million open-source repositories and provided services to over 5 million developers so far. For comparison, GitHub reported having 100 million repositories and around 31 million developers worldwide last November.”
• A rise in livestreaming-related lawsuits
  Lawyers cash in on livestreaming as complaints mount / Caixin (paywall)
• $28.8 million net loss for Ping An Good Doctor
  With pandemic raging, Ping An’s online medical platform fails to turn a profit / Caixin (paywall)
• Drug procurement
  Drugmakers slash prices to win China’s bulk-buy contracts: state media / Reuters
  Foreign drug giants undercut by up to 95% in China bidding / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
• Regional travel continues to open up
  Singapore relaxes coronavirus travel restrictions for mainland China, Taiwan and Malaysia / SCMP
• Layoffs coming at Huawei?
  Huawei employees worry about layoffs after tougher U.S. sanctions / FT (paywall)

SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND THE ENVIRONMENT:

• Another day of zero local transmissions reported
  China reports 22 new coronavirus cases on August 20; fifth day of zero local cases / Reuters
• Hong Kong COVID-19 updates
  Coronavirus: Universal testing to begin on Sept 1 as Hong Kong’s Lam rejects ‘conspiracy theories’ / HKFP
  Will China’s color-coded COVID-19 tracking system come to Hong Kong? / HKFP
• Phase 3 trial updates
  Peru, Morocco to test China Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine in Phase 3 trial / Reuters
  Related, on The China Project: When will China roll out a COVID-19 vaccine? Which countries will get it?
• Why is the Henan government hell-bent on making sewage drinkable?
  Industrial province’s clean water drive goes too far, critics say / Caixin (paywall)
• Flu season to overlap with COVID
  Rush for flu vaccine in China as doctors and a nervous population fear influenza season colliding with COVID-19 / SCMP
• Armyworms spread to the northeast
  China finds fall armyworm in northeast cornbelt / Reuters

POLITICS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS:

• Three Gorges Dam water level within 10 meters of maximum
  Water levels at China’s Three Gorges near maximum after flooding rains / Reuters
  Related, on The China Project: After weeks of flooding, China’s Leshan Giant Buddha gets its toes wet for the first time since 1949.
• The one mention of China in Joe Biden’s nomination acceptance speech
  Joe Biden vows to end America’s reliance on Chinese medical equipment / SCMP
• Agreement to share Mekong River data
  China ready to share water data with Mekong nations, Thailand says / Reuters
• South China Sea updates
  Philippines protests China’s ‘illicit’ warnings, coast guard conduct / Reuters
  Vietnam says Chinese bomber on disputed islands ‘jeopardizes peace’ / Reuters
  Image shows Chinese submarine entering mysterious cave facility at South China Sea base / The Drive
• Squabbling over Somaliland
  The Taiwan-Somaliland union sparks all-out diplomatic brawl / China-Africa Project
  Related, on China-Africa Project: Taiwan’s flag now flying again in Africa.
• Kiribati customs misunderstood
  Why did a Chinese diplomat walk all over people on a Pacific island? / NYT (porous paywall)
  Photo of Chinese ambassador to Kiribati walking across backs of locals ‘misinterpreted’ / Guardian
  China defends ambassador walking on Kiribati children’s backs / AFP via HKFP
• Questions raised about Chinese support for Saudi uranium
  Senators warn Trump Saudi-Chinese uranium plant risks spread of nuclear weapons / WSJ (paywall)
  Pompeo pressed on claims China is helping build Saudi uranium facility / Guardian
  Earlier, in the WSJ: Saudi Arabia, with China’s help, expands its nuclear program.
• Vaccination trials on Chinese mine workers alarm Papua New Guinea
  PNG demands China explain COVID-19 vaccine trial on miners / AP
• Chinese students flee Australia
  Chinese students in Australia head home as coronavirus upends study / Reuters

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

• Anti-food-waste campaign continues
  Clean your plate, waste no food – China’s anti food waste campaign is sweeping the nation / What’s on Weibo
  Related, on The China Project: China’s anti-food-waste campaign is off to an aggressively strong start.
• Guangzhou race relations — “although tensions have calmed, serious problems remain”
  Six months after the discrimination crisis in Guangzhou, a group of Chinese high school students goes to see if anything has changed / China-Africa Project
  Related, on The China Project: China-Africa relations face an ‘unprecedented rupture’ and Guangzhou introduces anti-discrimination measures after denial of mistreatment of Africans.
• Hype for an indie video game inspired by Journey to the West
  Black Myth Wu Kong could be China’s first premium game to make it big / TechNode
• Women stand-up comedians
  The ‘punchline queens’ ripping into Chinese comedy’s boys’ club / Sixth Tone
• The train photography of Qian Haifeng
  Life on the slow train: Views of a vanishing China / Sixth Tone
  Related, in The American Interest: Homage to a slow train.