Links for Thursday, April 8, 2021

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

• TikTok’s “live ecommerce” arm is ready to roll
  抖音电商布局质检物流一体化运营中心，试水集中收发货_详细解读_最新资讯_热点事件 / 36Kr
  ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, is entering ecommerce shipment trials after spending the year building up its logistics infrastructure.
  Alibaba’s Taobao Live currently controls 80% of the live ecommerce market, and made $135 billion in sales last year. Nearly 1 in 10 online purchases in China occurred on livestreams last year.
• Tencent’s biggest investor sells off large stake
  Tencent’s biggest investor to trim stake / Nikkei Asia
  South Africa’s Naspers, an internet and media company, invested around $30 million into an unknown Chinese startup called Tencent in 2001.
  Naspers still owns 31% of China’s most valuable company, but has announced it will sell up to 2% of its stake, raising $14.5 billion, per Nikkei. The company said it will use its proceeds to “invest in growth in our core business and merging sectors.”
• Dodgy home rental platform delisted from NYSE
  Crippled rental platform Danke faces delisting from NYSE / Caixin (paywall)
  China’s Danke Apartment, an online platform for long-term apartment rentals, is facing a delisting by the New York Stock Exchange after failing to report financial results on time.
  After several years of scandals, Danke’s founder and CEO, Gāo Jìng 高靖, was detained in June for “business ventures prior to the founding of Danke.”
• TuSimple, driverless truck startup, seeks $1 billion IPO in U.S.
  Driverless truck startup TuSimple seeks $1 billion in U.S. IPO / Caixin (paywall)
  Chinese-backed self-driving truck startup TuSimple is seeking an $800 million to $1 billion initial public offering on Nasdaq for a valuation of $5 billion to $7 billion, reports Caixin.
• Online grocer to IPO?
  Tencent-backed Missfresh may seek up to $1 billion U.S. IPO / TMT Post
• Huawei to make electric cars
  华为宣布将于4月17日发布纯电动轿车阿尔法S / EV1
• Trip.com plans secondary listing in Hong Kong
  Trip.com brings its shares home with $1.3 billion Hong Kong IPO / Caixin
• Beijing’s many billionaires
  Beijing now has more billionaires than any city / BBC

SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND THE ENVIRONMENT:

• COVID response in Ruili, Yunnan
  Border city party chief sacked for negligence over COVID outbreak / Caixin (paywall)
• Vaccine rollout
  China administers total of 149.07 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines as of April 7 / Reuters
  Beijing color-codes buildings to show workers’ COVID vaccination rates / Guardian
  China’s bid to ramp up vaccinations hindered by supply shortages / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
  

  The supply shortage appears to be felt unevenly across China. Beijing, the capital, does not appear to have any supply concerns and has raced ahead with over half of its population dosed. Meanwhile, financial center Shanghai — whose population is also over 20 million people — has raised Sinovac dose intervals from 14 to 21 days due to supply concerns, said one of the people. To date, Shanghai has given out only 5.5 million doses.

  In southern Guangdong Province, China’s manufacturing hub, the local government has selected five key cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan and Zhuhai to prioritize for vaccination while halting new doses in all other cities, said a person familiar with the situation there.

POLITICS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS:

• Xinjiang and Uyghurs
  China uses old tricks in new Xinjiang propaganda campaign / Australian Financial Review
  Uyghurs aren’t safe from China even outside Xinjiang / The Atlantic
  “Women—many of whom escape separately from their husbands—face particular difficulties when, as is often the case, their partners are caught fleeing. Even the most educated and highly skilled of these women, having grown up in a patriarchal society, are suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar position, becoming lonely migrants in new countries and tasked with heading households they had assumed would include husbands, fathers, uncles, and brothers.”
  Opinion: Here’s how to handle the ‘Genocide Olympics’ in Beijing / NYT (porous paywall)
  Columnist Nicholas Kristof, noting that the “repression in Xinjiang doesn’t qualify as genocide as the term is normally used, but…does meet the definition in the international convention,” suggests, “Athletes should participate and television should broadcast the competition, but government officials and companies should stay out of it.”
• American and Australian universities avoid China partnerships
  Faculty senate opposes proposed partnership with Peking University / Cornell Sun
  Monash University signs deal with Indonesian government as universities diversify from China / Guardian
• Twitter recognizes pro-democracy Asian activists
  Twitter pokes at China with emoji supporting #MilkTeaAlliance / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
  Twitter launches ‘Milk Tea Alliance’ emoji as movement grows / Reuters
  Twitter Public Policy on Twitter: “Today we are launching an emoji for the #MilkTeaAlliance, an online solidarity alliance first started in April 2020 as a Twitter meme which has grown into a global pro-democracy movement led by activists and concerned citizens in 🇭🇰🇹🇭🇹🇼🇲🇲 and around the world.”
• New media rules in Macau
  Press freedom in Macau’s gambling hub under spotlight as China ramps up scrutiny / Reuters
  “At a meeting at the Portuguese unit of Macau’s public broadcaster TDM on March 10, two senior journalists addressed about 25 staff, reading new editorial rules requiring them to promote ‘patriotism, respect and love’ for mainland China.”
• Phytium Technology and others blacklisted by U.S.
  U.S. adds Chinese supercomputing entities to economic blacklist / Reuters
  “The department is adding Tianjin Phytium Information Technology, Shanghai High-Performance Integrated Circuit Design Center, Sunway Microelectronics, the National Supercomputing Center Jinan, the National Supercomputing Center Shenzhen, the National Supercomputing Center Wuxi, and the National Supercomputing Center Zhengzhou to its blacklist.”
  No TSMC chips in China arms: MOEA / Taipei Times
  Phytium Technology was covered yesterday in the Washington Post: China builds advanced weapons systems using American chip technology.
• India-China border talks continue tomorrow
  India, China to hold 11th round of Corps Commander talks on Friday / The Hindu
  China says India’s proposal of restoring status quo of April 2020 in eastern Ladakh could be discussed / Times of India
  Looking ahead to tomorrow’s border talks, and Wuhan one year on / The India China Newsletter
• Hong Kong quickly implements ‘political changes ordered by Beijing’
  U.K. offers $59 million to help Hong Kong migrants settle down / AP
  Hong Kong gov’t moves quickly to implement political changes ordered by Beijing / HKFP
  Hong Kong gov’t is the ‘biggest victim of fake news,’ Chief Exec. Carrie Lam says / HKFP
  Hong Kong journalist Steve Vines ‘disappointed’ to be dropped as commentator from RTHK show / HKFP
• Greenland shields its rare earth mines
  Greenland says no to China-backed rare-earth mine in election / Nikkei Asia via Caixin
  China’s Greenland ambitions run into local politics, U.S. influence / WSJ (paywall)
• South China Sea
  China drills deep in disputed South China Sea / Reuters
  “China has drilled deep in the South China Sea to retrieve sediment core from the seabed, state media reported…It was unclear exactly where the drilling took place in the South China Sea.”
  Philippines warns it could seek U.S. help amid feud with China / AP

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

• The cult of an an electro-pop star
  Ryuichi Sakamoto cringe / Xiao Hai goes to RMB city / Chaoyang Trap newsletter
  “Simon Frank considers the strange, intense fandom in China around Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto. Known globally as a pioneer of electronic pop music (he was one of the members of Yellow Magic Orchestra) and his stirring soundtrack work (notably the 2015 film The Revenant), Sakamoto is an unusual object of pop-idol-esque obsession.”
• It’s going to get more difficult to prove your Chinese is good
  Chinese proficiency tests are about to get harder / That’s Mag
  “While the current HSK levels run from one to six (easiest to hardest), the new standards will include nine levels that challenge four elements of Mandarin: syllables, characters, vocabulary and grammar…Based on changes from the current HSK standards, levels one through four will be more challenging than before, while levels five and six will be slightly easier.”
• Anonymous corpses from internal migration pains
  The amateur sleuths trying to identify china’s unclaimed dead / Sixth Tone
  The 57-year-old Zhang Dayong who has ankylosing spondylitis, a debilitating spinal condition, built a website named Database of the Anonymous Dead, which contains records of over 3,300 corpses. This website helps people identify the anonymous corpses. There are many anonymous corpses partly because of the massive internal migration China has experienced during recent decades.