Editor’s note for Thursday, December 3, 2020
A note from the editor of today’s The China Project Access newsletter.
My thoughts today:
After the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act last night, President Trump is expected to sign it into law. That could end in the delisting of Alibaba and other Chinese companies from American stock exchanges, as we detail in today’s newsletter.
The resulting uncertainty “means assessing China-related risk will be a skill investors want to hone for 2021 — and beyond,” says Barron’s.
Miles Kwok, a.k.a. Guō Wénguì 郭文贵, the exiled Chinese billionaire with an unsavory past and an insalubrious association with Steve Bannon, has been sending his henchmen to harass Chinese dissidents in the U.S. while accusing them of being beholden to the Chinese Communist Party. The latest victim is lawyer Téng Biāo 滕彪, who has been tweeting about it (in Chinese).
Speaking of insalubrious, the editor of mouth-frothing nationalist tabloid Global Times Hú Xījìn 胡锡进 has denied accusations made against him by one of his deputies “that he had extramarital relationships with two female colleagues and that he was the father of two illegitimate children.” Hu says that he was the target of blackmail.
Need gifts for sinophiles? The China Project has you covered with our holiday gift list (delivery to the U.S. only for now).
Our word of the day is hatred and distorted sentiments (仇恨和不正常心理 chóuhèn hé bù zhèngcháng xīnlǐ). This is what Beijing accused the U.S. government of harboring, after the Trump administration put restrictions on American visas for Chinese Communist Party members — see our top story today.
