Links for Wednesday, November 18, 2020

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

• Food security: State Council urges prioritization of farmland for grain production
  China tells farmers not to misuse farmland in nod to food supply concerns / Caixin (paywall)
• Australian coal hits end-of-year import limits
  Major Australian miner says China pushing back coal shipments to January / Australian Financial Review via Caixin (paywall)
  “Chinese customers have deferred two shipments from Australian coal miner New Hope from November to January, boosting claims end-of-year import limits, rather than politics, are more a factor in China’s sudden reluctance to accept Australian coal.”
• Hong Kong Stock Exchange to reduce time from pricing to trading debut
  HKEX to slash IPO settlement time to 1 day from 5 / Caixin (paywall)
• Haidilao will open more than 400 new restaurants by end of 2020
  China’s top hotpot chain Haidilao accelerates expansion even as pandemic bites / Reuters
• Meatless minced pork
  Beyond Meat launches plant-based minced pork in China / Reuters
• McCafes expansion
  McDonald’s brews up challenge to Starbucks’ China coffee dominance / Caixin (paywall)
  “Fast food giant plans to spend $380 million over next three years to place 4,000 upscale McCafes inside its China stores.”
• Yongcheng Coal
  Debt-ridden coal miner faces Nov. 24 deadline to avoid triggering more bond defaults / Caixin (paywall)
• Copyright fines can be up to 5 million yuan ($762,000) starting June 1
  Maximum penalties to skyrocket under China’s new copyright law / Caixin (paywall)
• Pinduoduo
  China’s Pinduoduo expects online grocery sales to double this year / CNBC
  Ecommerce upstart Pinduoduo plans to raise new funds through sales of convertible bonds and ADSs to boost growth / Caixin
• Electric vehicle industry development
  Inflection point: Making China’s EV industry more competitive / MacroPolo
  Sales and losses surge for Tesla rival Li Auto / Caixin (paywall)
  Chinese EV maker Nio is accelerating too fast / WSJ (paywall)
  China built the first electric car designed exclusively for ride-hailing / The Verge
• Beijing braces for more bond defaults
  China braces for multiple bond defaults at state-owned enterprises / FT (paywall)
  Another day, another Chinese corporate bond default / Caixin (paywall)
  “Shenzhen-listed Tunghsu Optoelectronic Technology. Co. Ltd., said that ‘tight liquidity’ means it couldn’t come up with the cash to make the interest payments due Tuesday on a 2.2 billion yuan medium-term note and another 800 million yuan note.”
  Central bank provides relief for markets stressed by bond defaults / Caixin (paywall)
  “PBOC pumps additional funds into the interbank market for fourth straight month to ease liquidity fears.”

SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND THE ENVIRONMENT:

• Wildlife protection
  China’s lawmakers called on to end commercial exploitation of threatened wild animal species / Environmental Investigation Agency
  “The Environmental Investigation Agency — alongside 26 other NGOs from India, Vietnam, USA, UK, Canada, South Africa and Germany — today published an open letter to lawmakers in China urging them to act to reduce demand for wild animal species threatened with extinction.”
  Opinion: China’s new wildlife law doesn’t go far enough to stop another pandemic / CNN
  By Aron White, a China specialist at the Environmental Investigation Agency.
• Was COVID-19 actually circulating in Italy in September 2019?
  Italian study suggesting COVID predates China outbreak sparks scepticism / Reuters
  “Italian researchers’ findings show 11.6% of 959 healthy volunteers enrolled in the cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 had signs of having already encountered the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, most of them well before February… Four of the cases dated back to October 2019, meaning the patients had become infected in September… Most of the scientists’ scepticism focuses on the so called specificity of the antibody tests, that, if not perfect, might reveal the presence of antibodies to other diseases.”
• Taiwan tightens COVID-19 restrictions
  Taiwan to require masks at most public venues from Dec. 1 / Focus Taiwan
  Negative COVID-19 tests compulsory for all arrivals next month / Focus Taiwan

POLITICS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS:

• U.S. and China at global summits
  China’s Xi to take spotlight at Asia-Pacific summit in Trump’s absence / Reuters
  Donald Trump to represent US at Apec virtual summit, official says / SCMP
  Xi Jinping tells BRICS leaders ‘we’re all in the same boat’ as he takes veiled swipe at US / SCMP
• Beijing-friendly Chung T’ien Television to be taken off air in Taiwan
  Pro-China TV station in Taiwan ordered off air over disinformation / Guardian
  Taiwan to shut down China-friendly tycoon’s news channel / Reuters
• India-China border tensions
  Twitter apologizes to India parliament panel for China geo-tagging error / Reuters
  “Social media giant Twitter Inc has apologised to an Indian parliamentary panel for showing a northern Himalayan region as part of China, promising to make corrections by month-end, the panel’s chief said on Wednesday.”
• Chinese debt in Africa
  Zambia’s default sparks renewed concerns over high levels of Chinese debt in some African countries / China-Africa Project
  Candid perspectives from one of China’s leading Africa scholars on Beijing’s role in the African debt crisis / China-Africa Project
  Uganda confident it will secure $2 billion China Exim Bank loan to build new standard gauge railway / China-Africa Project

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

• Desperation for Beijing license plates
  Drivers in Beijing get fake married for a licence plate (really) to beat wait of up to nine years caused by rationing / SCMP
• The return to China of cultural items smuggled out in 1995
  China retrieves 68 cultural relics from Britain / Xinhua