Links for Tuesday, February 9, 2021

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

• The $12 billion lady: Ruby Lu (卢蓉 Lú Róng)
  How one woman turned a $40 million Kuaishou bet into $12 billion / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
  A profile of one of the biggest winners from investing in Kuaishou, which raised $5.4 billion in a Hong Kong IPO last Friday. 

• WeChat’s desktop app has upgraded
  Rui Ma on Twitter: “I mean, I don’t want to make a big deal out of this or anything, but it’s like having (a lite version of) the (Chinese) AppStore on your desktop in terms of new content available, and fully synced with your phone.”

• GM company goes after Tencent with anti-monopoly complaints
  Tencent hit with fresh antimonopoly complaint, this time from GM China venture / Reuters
  Tencent is at the center of a number of Chinese antitrust lawsuits. ByteDance last week sued Tencent for monopoly actions against Douyin.  

• Tesla is compliant — Musk knows rules of game in China
  Tesla to conduct ‘complete self-inspection’ after Chinese regulators chide U.S. carmaker over Model 3 safety, quality / SCMP (porous paywall)
  In addition, state media Xinhua published (in Chinese) a comment on recent reports of Tesla’s quality issues in China, warning foreign companies that “nobody has the privilege above all others,” and Tesla has “issued back-to-back mea culpas in a matter of days in China, showing deference to government authorities in stark contrast with Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s years of combativeness in the U.S.,” notes Bloomberg (porous paywall).

• Flying cars
  Self-flying carmaker EHang selected by EU to pilot medical air mobility services / Reuters
  Volkswagen explores flying cars in China / Reuters

• Electric cars
  Chinese EV startup WM Motor scores $1.8 billion line of credit / Caixin
  Chinese EV startup Byton explores listing via SPAC deal – sources / Reuters
  Ford ends electric vehicle plans with loss-making Zotye / Caixin
  Cheaper battery clamor in China is sending one chemical soaring / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
  The chemical is lithium carbonate.

• Tech companies and cars
  Baidu to see in Chinese New Year with self-driving car launch in Guangzhou / Caixin
  Hyundai, Kia say they aren’t in car development talks with Apple / Caixin
  Great Wall invests in auto chip startup Horizon Robotics to develop smart car technologies / Reuters

• Strong demand for all kinds of cars
  China vehicle sales post strong growth, even as chip shortage weighs / Caixin (paywall, or see Reuters summary)
  “January sales in the world’s largest auto market jumped 29.5% from a year earlier, but sales shrank 11.6% from December.”

• Digital currency
  China to hand out $1.5 million in Lunar New Year digital currency test / CNBC
  China digital currency: Beijing, Suzhou confirm latest trials as e-yuan tests top 100 million yuan / SCMP

• IP rights enforcement
  New Balance wins $3.9m in damages from China logo copycats / FT (paywall) 

SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND THE ENVIRONMENT: 

• Mars missions
  Mars madness! China, UAE to reach the Red Planet this week ahead of epic NASA rover landing / Space
  Tianwen-1 closes in on Mars orbit / Caixin (paywall)
  “Spacecraft will spend three months floating around the red planet before descending in ‘seven minutes of fear.’”

• China’s carbon market does not work as you imagine it ought to
  A thread by analyst Lauri Myllyvirta on Twitter: 

It’s maddeningly hard to explain why China’s ‘carbon trading’ is not carbon trading as usually understood and does not establish a CO2 price at all. Seems other people giving interviews on this don’t even bother, either because it’s complicated or they don’t want to be killjoys…

If you’re in China, the amount of emission permits you get depends on the amount of power you generate. So, if you decide to run the plant, the government gives you the additional permits for free, based on a benchmark CO2 price…

• Damming the Yarlung Tsangpo / Brahmaputra River
  China to build the world’s biggest dam on sacred Tibetan river / Al-Jazeera

• WHO in Wuhan
  COVID virus could have been circulating elsewhere before Wuhan discovery – Chinese expert / Reuters
  WHO team: Coronavirus unlikely to have leaked from China lab / AP
  With mission to China, W.H.O. tries to rehabilitate its image / NYT (porous paywall)
  Coronavirus most likely spilled over to humans through intermediate animal, WHO says / WSJ (paywall)
  Editorial: China is sitting on the answers to the pandemic’s origins / Washington Post

POLITICS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS:

• Company owned by Chinese police processes Canadian visa applications
  Canada’s visa application centre in Beijing run by Chinese police / Globe and Mail 

• More reporting on Clubhouse conversations
  Clubhouse cracked China’s firewall. A people shined through. / NYT (porous paywall)
  Li Yuan writes on her experience visiting multiple Clubhouse conversation rooms where mainland Chinese were having unusual conversations, before the app was blocked. “The Chinese government blocked the app Monday afternoon. I knew it was coming, and yet I still didn’t expect to feel so dismayed.”
  Yesterday on The China Project: Clubhouse blocked in China after uncensored chats attract thousands — everything you need to know. 

• Increasing state media adoration of Xi Jinping
  Carl Minzner on Twitter: “Ideologically, Xi Jinping is steadily being elevated in the Party pantheon (perhaps eventually resulting in ‘Xi Jinping Thought 习近平思想’). Simultaneously, China’s state media is ramping up its veneration of his words. Serious Maoist parallels…”

• India says it is more aggressive in border standoff with China
  India has transgressed LAC more often than China: V.K. Singh / The Hindu
  Derek J. Grossman on Twitter: “Indian minister [of State for Road Transport and Highways] V.K. Singh: ‘…none of you come to know how many times we have transgressed as per our perception. Chinese media does not cover it…Let me assure you, if China has transgressed 10 times, we must have done it at least 50 times.’”
  Biden, India’s Modi discuss Myanmar, security challenges posed by China / WSJ (paywall)

• Taiwan wants a trade deal, but Biden might not bite
  Biden will ‘walk, not run’ on trade deals as Sino-U.S. tension lingers / Reuters
  “Sino-U.S. ties will stay tense as U.S. President Joe Biden is unlikely to rush into new deals with the world’s second largest economy or reduce tariffs on China, even if he is willing to re-engage with multilateral trade, economists and strategists said.”
  Taiwan looks for signs of U.S. watering down bilateral relations / FT (paywall)
  Taiwan in drive to sign trade deal with U.S. / FT (paywall)

• Detained supporter of government critics, Gěng Xiāonán 耿瀟男 sentenced to 3 years
  How Geng Xiaonan ran afoul of China’s Communist Party / NYT (porous paywall)
  Chinese businesswoman Geng Xiaonan jailed after voicing support for Beijing critic / SCMP

• South China Sea jostling
  U.S. carriers train in South China Sea in likely signal to Beijing / NPR
  Challenge to Beijing as French nuclear submarine patrols contested waterway / SCMP
  China and Vietnam must manage own maritime disputes, President Xi tells Vietnamese party chief Trong / SCMP

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

• Review of Yang Jisheng’s The World Turned Upside Down
  Truth and daring in retelling Mao’s China / FT (paywall)
  Rana Mitter reviews “Yang Jisheng’s formidable investigation of the Cultural Revolution…a work of breathtaking courage.”
• Preserving 90s-era Hong Kong calligraphy techniques
  Calligraphy maestro / Neocha