Links for Thursday, October 8, 2020

WORTH THINKING ABOUT

Pieces of news or analysis that caught our eye:

How should we talk about carbon emissions? David Bandurski at the China Media Project notes that Chinese state media, in the wake of Xi Jinping’s pledge to reach carbon neutrality by 2060 and ensuing criticism from the U.S., has taken to citing “cumulative CO2 emissions, a measure that accounts for emissions going back to 1750 and the start of the industrial revolution.”

Of course, using that measure does in fact reveal that the U.S. has released more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than any other country, but it obscures the fact that both the U.S. and China remain far and away the heaviest polluters in the world, with China having contributed most to recent emissions. Bandurski concludes that “the insults and empty promises volleying back and forth between the leaders of the two countries at the moment are wasted words at a time when real action is more urgent than ever.”

More on China’s climate goals:

• What China’s plan for net-zero emissions by 2060 means for the climate / Guardian
  Barbara Finamore writes: “Though the country is a huge polluter, it leads the world in the clean technologies that could make this feasible.”
• China’s 2060 carbon neutral goal bill could hit over $5 trillion / Reuters

MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

• Bilibili streaming app to list
  Chinese video site Bilibili prepares Hong Kong IPO / Caixin
• Japan opens border to Chinese businesspeople
  Japan to welcome Chinese business travel from next month / Caixin
• Did Suning subsidiary bilk English soccer league?
  England’s Premier League sues China partner for $215.3 million / Caixin
• Expensive app stores in China 
  China’s app store fees make Apple’s look cheap / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
  “While app makers the world over have been deriding Apple and Google’s share as an unfair and unwarranted tax, Chinese Android stores frequently take cuts of about 50%.”
• British parliament gets tougher on Huawei
  UK parliament committee says Huawei colludes with the Chinese state / Reuters
• Censorship on a massively popular video game by Chinese developer miHoYo
  Genshin Impact players say Chinese game censors ‘Taiwan’ and ‘Hong Kong’ chat / Guardian
• Real estate company Jia Yuan strikes deal in LA City Hall corruption case
  A Chinese developer will pay $1 million in L.A. bribery case / LA Times
• Big Agriculture and artificial intelligence
  Behind China’s ‘pork miracle’: How technology is transforming rural hog farming / Guardian

SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND THE ENVIRONMENT:

• Pangolins: Continued “catastrophic levels of poaching”
  Smoke and Mirrors: China’s complicity in the global illegal pangolin trade / Environmental Investigation Agency
  “In this report, EIA exposes how a fundamentally flawed stockpile and TCM product certification system run by the Chinese Government is used by at least 56 pharmaceutical companies to produce a minimum of 64 commercially available medicines containing pangolin scales. We find that this regulatory system is convoluted and lacks transparency and traceability, making it highly susceptible to abuse by pangolin traffickers.”
• Lanzhou brucellosis bacterial leak
  Most infection victims in factory negligence case to get $1,115 or less / Caixin

POLITICS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS:

• The impact of Hong Kong’s national security law
  The siege of Hong Kong — The first hundred days of the national security law / China Heritage
  Hong Kong’s new security law is being applied sparingly, so far / The Economist (porous paywall)
  Motley Fool to close Hong Kong business due to political uncertainty / Channel NewsAsia
• EU sets up $10.5 million fund to compete with China in Western Balkans
  ‘We need to up our game’ against China in Western Balkans, says EU official / SCMP
• Beijing gives India a “One China” warning
  China tells Indian media not to call Taiwan a country, Taiwan says ‘get lost’ / Reuters
• Foreign NGO law and decreased funding drive civil society engagement outside China
  International NGOs increasingly working with Chinese partners…outside China / ChinaFile
• Uyghur activism
  #VoteNoChina: 70 Uyghur organizations call governments to vote against China’s election to UN human rights body / Uyghur Human Rights Project

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

• Unique script in Lijiang, Yunnan
  Pictographs survive in a Chinese tourist town / Economist (porous paywall)
  “But locals are reminded that being ‘civilized’ requires use of standard Chinese.”
• Sexual harassment at universities
  Henan University professor disciplined for sexual harassment / Sixth Tone
• Chinese seafarers in the southwest Atlantic
  Blue hole: The Chinese squid fishermen far from home / Chinarrative
• Social media controversies
  For love or money? Gold mining boss remarries after redistributing wealth / Caixin
  Good citizens or snitches? Should you report bad driving to the police? / Caixin