Links for Tuesday, April 13, 2021

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

• Beijing lectures Alibaba’s tech peers after antitrust crackdown
  Tencent, JD and dozens of Chinese tech firms ordered to ‘learn from Alibaba’ as antitrust regulator keeps foot on crackdown pedal / SCMP (paywall)
  Chinese regulators asked 34 of the country’s biggest internet companies, including Tencent, Meituan, and ByteDance, to learn a lesson from Alibaba’s punishment on Saturday, and conduct self-inspections within the next month.
  Alibaba’s shares jumped following the record $2.8 billion fine, an indication that investors had expected even heavier punishments from Beijing.
  Shares in Tencent and Meituan have fallen following the announcement.
  Related, in Caixin: Shanghai fines English-language takeout platform for monopoly on feeding foreigners.
• China’s biggest dronemaker joins EV craze
  重磅，又一巨头入局汽车圈！ / NELinked on WeChat
  DJI, née Da Jiang Innovations, is the world’s biggest consumer drone company with 70% of global market share. A drone is a battery-powered flying camera that uses sensors and AI to navigate difficult environmental conditions such as wind and obstacle avoidance. Not that different from a smart electric vehicle.
  So DJI’s announcement (in Chinese) that it is entering China’s EV industry makes perfect sense.
  Especially if a Yicai report quoting a DJI “insider” is accurate: “DJI does not intend to manufacture complete vehicles…The focus of the business is DJI’s intelligent driving system and software and hardware solutions.”
  China drone giant shows its hand with plan to appear at Shanghai Auto Show / Caixin (paywall)
• Xinjiang tomato boycott
  Japan’s ketchup king joins Xinjiang boycott with tomato ban / Nikkei (paywall)
  “Kagome first major Japanese corporation to cut ties over Uyghur issue.”
• Bloomberg unable to verify solar factory conditions in Xinjiang
  China’s Xinjiang solar factories haunted by labor abuse claims / Bloomberg (paywall)
  “The world’s green power surge depends on polysilicon made in China’s remote Northwest. No one really knows what’s going on inside the facilities…two Bloomberg reporters went to Xinjiang in March, after weeks of unsuccessful requests for factory tours. Such visits aren’t unusual elsewhere in China. But this time a security apparatus sprang into action. Upon our landing in Urumqi, two police officers boarded the plane, one with an automatic weapon slung across his chest and a photo identifying one of the reporters in hand. After questioning on the tarmac, we left the airport. For the next three days agents followed us everywhere, obstructing all attempts to speak to locals and deleting our photos.”
  Thread by Adrian Zenz on Twitter: “New evidence provided by me to Bloomberg implicates three of the world’s largest polysilicon makers in Xinjiang’s coercive labor transfer program – including some of the most blatant evidence I have seen to date: /1”
• Autonomous vehicles
  ‘Tickets please!’ Baidu allowed to charge for robobus service in Chongqing / Caixin
  Tech giants bet on the smart-car revolution / Caixin (paywall)
• What to do with the troubled China Huarong Asset Management?
  China considers shifting Huarong stake to sovereign wealth fund / Bloomberg (paywall)
• Evergrande is another day older and deeper in debt
  Evergrande fails China’s ‘three red lines’ test as peers improve / Bloomberg (paywall)
• The man who can find the sketchy side of every fad from smart TVs and EVs to SPACs
  China fines SPAC-linked fallen tech tycoon $37m over IPO fraud / Nikkei (paywall)
  “Jiǎ Yuètíng 贾跃亭 faces penalty with Leshi even as Faraday Future looks to Nasdaq.”
• No workers’ paradise in the gig economy
  He tried to organize workers in China’s gig economy. Now he faces 5 years in jail / NPR

SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND THE ENVIRONMENT:

• Sinovac becomes first Chinese COVID-19 vaccine maker to release late-stage trial data
  First Chinese COVID-19 vaccine releases clinical trial data / Sixth Tone
  Sinovac COVID shot 50.7% effective, Brazilian paper shows / Caixin
  “The preprint paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, was released Sunday via online research platform SSRN. It said Sinovac’s inactivated virus vaccine, known as CoronaVac, is 50.7% effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19 cases. Brazilian officials previously gave the figure of 50.4%.”
  In Turkey, another country where Sinovac is testing its vaccine, results reportedly look very different, but no comparable data set has been published. “Health Minister Fahrettin Koca…said that Turkey’s own Sinovac Phase 3 clinical trial showed 83% efficacy,” per Nikkei.
  Related, in Reuters: China’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine may start late-stage trial in May: state media.
  Yesterday on The China Project: China CDC director worries about ‘not high’ vaccine efficacy, but says his remarks were taken out of context.
• Chinese vaccine hesitancy connected to TCM promotion?
  Tony Lin on Twitter: “Chinese gov has been supporting & promoting unverified Traditional Chinese medicine for yrs (w/ a huge boost during COVID), which now ironically fuels widespread anti-vax sentiment against state-sponsored vaccine rollout. Haven’t seen much coverage on this fascinating dynamic.”
• Call for ban on live wild mammals markets
  WHO urges halt to sale of live wild mammals in food markets / AFP via Channel NewsAsia
  “The call came in fresh guidance drawn up in conjunction with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)…‘Animals, particularly wild animals, are the source of more than 70 percent of all emerging infectious diseases in humans, many of which are caused by novel viruses. Wild mammals, in particular, pose a risk for the emergence of new diseases,’ the guidance said.”

POLITICS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS:

• No relaxation of U.S.-China tensions…
  China’s message to America: We’re an equal now / WSJ (paywall)
  Lingling Wei and Bob Davis write that “President Xi is confronting the Biden administration with a new world view, that Beijing’s decades of not challenging the U.S. as global leader are over.”
  The Xi administration openly challenges american global leadership and takes multiple measures to counter Washington’s containment / Jamestown
  Willy Wo-Lap Lam writes: “Given Xi’s propensity to buttress China’s power projection with military muscle, Beijing’s measures to counter American “containment” could easily threaten peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.”
  ODNI releases 2021 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community / Office of the Director of National Intelligence
  Intelligence report calls China biggest threat to U.S. / NYT (paywall)
  An annual intelligence assessment “puts China’s push for ‘global power’ first on the list of threats, followed by Russia, Iran and North Korea.”
  The report “predicts that China will press the government of Taiwan to move forward with unification, and criticize efforts by the United States to step up engagement with Taipei. But the report stopped short of predicting any kind of direct military conflict.”
• …But some U.S.-China Earth Day smiles
  Kerry heads to Shanghai for climate talks ahead of Earth Day / Reuters
  Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry travels to the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Korea / U.S. Department of State
  Calls for U.S., China to work together and ‘set example’ on climate change / SCMP (paywall)
• Taiwan tensions
  Don’t play with fire on Taiwan, China warns U.S. / Reuters
  Taiwan launches shipbuilding program amid China threats / AP
• Reporters kicked out by Beijing cover Taiwanese Indigenous identity
  Taiwan hunters contend with taboos, and trials, to uphold tradition / NYT (paywall)
  “Today, there are around 580,000 Indigenous people in Taiwan, or about 2 percent of the island’s population, which is mostly ethnic Han Chinese…In response to long-standing economic and social marginalization, an Indigenous rights movement has emerged here in recent decades. The movement has gained ground as Taiwan, a self-governed territory claimed by Beijing, increasingly seeks to carve out a distinct identity separate from mainland China.”
  Maggie Lewis on Twitter: “Add to the growing list of articles about Taiwan that would not be in NYT but for China kicking out a bunch of its reporters.”
• Choppy waters in the South China Sea
  Philippines summons Chinese ambassador over vessels in disputed waters / Reuters
  Philippines asks U.S. for vaccine help as China tensions grow / Bloomberg (porous paywall)
  “Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana asked [U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd] Austin’s assistance to expedite the delivery of the [20 million doses of] Moderna Inc. vaccines the nation had ordered, a spokesman from the Philippines’ defense department said.”
  Explained: China’s ‘maritime militia’ dominating the South China Sea / CNN
• Restrictions on protest votes, and other updates from Hong Kong
  Hong Kong to ban protest vote ‘incitement’ in legislative polls / Nikkei (paywall, or see HKFP report)
  “Urging others to cast blank ballots to be punishable with three years in jail.”
  Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong receives 4 month jail term over 2019 demo / HKFP
  ‘Be extra cautious’: Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai writes letter to staff from jail / HKFP
  EU social media campaign featuring Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing lawmaker Regina Ip ‘failed to illustrate our values’, bloc’s top diplomat says / SCMP (paywall)

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

• Feminist groups shut down on social media plaform
  FreeChineseFeminists on Twitter: “Douban, a social media site used by Chinese urban youth, closed more than 10 feminist groups and banned the keyword 6B4T, a feminist view from South Korea that advocates women not getting married and having no children. Douban calls 6B4T an ‘extreme’ and ‘radical’ ideology.”
• Bodybuilding in Beijing
  Decades strong: Chinese bodybuilders pump iron at old Beijing gym / Reuters
• Same-sex marriage
  The man on a mission to legalize same-sex marriage in China / Sixth Tone
• Child abuse
  Confronting China’s child sex abuse crisis: The story of Sisi / Sixth Tone