Links for Tuesday, May 11, 2021

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

Is Tesla in real China trouble?
Tesla puts brake on Shanghai land buy as U.S.-China tensions weigh – sources / Reuters
Tesla suffers setback in China as backlash over safety, quality of its electric cars sinks sales by 27 percent / SCMP (paywall)
See also:
Tesla’s China endgame / The Wire China (paywall)
All the electric car companies in China — a guide to the 27 top players in the Chinese EV industry / The China Project

“Smart” social media app Soul applies to go public in the U.S.
Soul is a Chinese social media platform founded in 2016 that matches users with other “Soul mates” through its AI algorithm, and makes money from selling virtual items and membership subscriptions. Tencent is a “principal shareholder.”
The Shanghai-based social media app submitted a prospectus today to the S.E.C. to apply for a listing on Nasdaq, per Sina Finance (in Chinese).

• According to the prospectus, the company earned $77 million in 2020, up 604% from the prior year. Soul’s active daily users reached 6 million in the same year.
• Although Soul has a tiny — for China — user base and an unproven business model, Tencent’s backing may turn coal into diamonds.

Alibaba to accept digital yuan
China’s digital yuan, which has already been trialed in select cities and villages, will be adding Alibaba’s services to its pilot program, per Caixin Global.

• Users of the internet giant’s mobile payment platform can now use digital yuan to pay in Alibaba’s grocery stores and in its food delivery app.
• The move gives the sovereign electronic currency access to 1 billion users, turbocharging the virtual yuan rollout.

Beijing fines edtech firms maximum penalty for false advertising
China’s antitrust watchdog slapped two online education companies — Tencent-backed Yuanfudao and Alibaba-backed Zuoyebang — with a maximum penalty of 2.5 million yuan ($389,000) yesterday.

• The firms were penalized for falsifying teacher qualifications, displaying misleading prices, and faking user reviews, the regulator said (in Chinese).
• The two apps are the latest casualties in a wider online tutoring cull: In April, local regulators fined four after-school tutoring companies, including GSX Techedu and TAL Education Group, for misleading marketing tactics.

China’s “Uber for Truck” goes public in U.S. as early as this week
Manbang, the “Uber for Trucks” startup, whose planned IPO The China Project covered in April, will go public as early as this week, according to 36Kr (in Chinese).

• The company intends to raise $1.5 billion through the IPO, which would place the company’s value at $20 billion to $30 billion.
• Manbang’s mobile application connects merchants that require shipping with independent truck drivers, and charges a fee for each transaction.
• The company is a leader in commercial freight logistics: It is backed by some big names, including SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Sequoia China, Fidelity, and Tencent.

Inflation worries and slumping share prices
China’s factory-gate prices surge, but CPI growth still modest / Reuters
Surge in China’s factory-gate prices adds to inflation worries / WSJ (paywall)
China factory gate prices climb on global commodities boom / FT (paywall)
Chinese consumers splash cash, but stocks aren’t buying it / WSJ (paywall)

New incentives from Beijing for blockchain
Beijing tries to put its imprint on blockchain / WSJ (paywall)
“With an offer of ultracheap server space, Beijing is beckoning blockchain’s global community of developers to adopt its vision for the technology.”

Xinjiang forced labor and cotton
Japan’s Muji appeals to China by advertising use of Xinjiang cotton / WSJ (paywall)
Seven Apple suppliers accused of using forced labor from Xinjiang / The Information (paywall)

More business and technology links:

• TikTok owner ByteDance pursues legal battle against Tencent after court rules it pay $1.2 million in damages / SCMP (paywall)
• China is experiencing a rural tourism boom amid the COVID-19 pandemic / CNN
• Shares of China’s Meituan sink as public scrutiny mounts / WSJ (paywall)
• Pinduoduo, Meituan warned to focus more on consumer protection / Caixin (paywall)

SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND ENVIRONMENT:

No Washington consensus on how to compete with China’s vaccine diplomacy
‘Where is the plan?’: Biden pressed on global vaccine strategy / Washington Post (paywall)
“But inside the Biden administration, there is confusion over which agency is leading the effort to craft the country’s global vaccination strategy, which has led to a fragmented rather than strategic approach. While Jeff Zients, the COVID-19 coordinator at the White House, has been the person in charge of setting and executing the domestic fight against the virus, five administration officials say there are too many players addressing the worldwide challenge, with not enough direction.”
Samantha Power wants to restore U.S. prestige by getting American-made vaccines ‘into arms’ around the world / Washington Post (paywall)
Samantha Power, the new administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, “was reluctant to call the still-raging pandemic that has killed millions worldwide an opportunity. Instead, she spoke of the ‘urgency’ of the moment and the ‘unleashing’ of a downtrodden agency whose morale has steadily deflated along with its status as a leading instrument of U.S. foreign policy.”

China-backed company wins appeal to overturn ban on donkey slaughter in Kenya
Kenya’s high court overturns ban on donkey slaughter, clearing the way for more skins to be sold to China / China-Africa Project
“The High Court responded to an appeal brought by the Star Brilliant slaughterhouse in the Rift Valley city of Naivasha, a Kenyan company backed by Chinese investors…While most Kenyans appear to primarily concerned about the prospects of ‘buying the wrong meat at the butcher,’ animal rights activists say the ruling will likely lead to poaching and over-killing of the animal in order to satisfy the demand for donkey skins in China where they’re used as an ingredient in the traditional Chinese medicine ejiao (阿膠).”

More science, health, and environment links:

• Chinese state propaganda’s vaccine messaging has become noticeably more aggressive after receiving WHO certification / China-Africa Project
  “The nationalistic tabloid outlet Global Times led the charge in a series of articles that used the validation from the WHO to hit back at China’s critics in India, the United States, and Europe.”
• Why China is running out of lab monkeys / Sixth Tone
  “Trade restrictions and an increase in biomedical research, including into COVID-19 vaccines, have driven the price of animals used in experiments to new heights.”
• Experts pan plan that sent endangered porpoises to aquariums / Sixth Tone
  “Breeding Yangtze finless porpoises in captivity is unlikely to grow their wild population of around 1,000 individuals, activists say.”

POLITICS AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS:

Hungary again vetoes unified EU criticism of China
Germany slams Hungary for blocking EU criticism of China on Hong Kong / Politico
“German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Monday lambasted Hungary for an ‘absolutely incomprehensible’ decision to block an EU statement accusing Beijing of cracking down on democracy in Hong Kong…The meeting [of EU foreign ministers] was the second in recent weeks at which foreign ministers failed to adopt conclusions on Hong Kong due to Budapest’s opposition.”

China now spends $64 million in official influence campaigns in U.S.
China increases foreign influence efforts on U.S. by 500% / Axios
“According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Chinese foreign agent spending has skyrocketed from just over $10 million in 2016 to nearly $64 million last year.”

Twitter influence operations: An “army of fake accounts” retweet Chinese diplomats
Army of fake fans boosts China’s messaging on Twitter / AP
“A seven-month investigation by the Associated Press and the Oxford Internet Institute, a department at Oxford University, found that China’s rise on Twitter has been powered by an army of fake accounts that have retweeted Chinese diplomats and state media tens of thousands of times, covertly amplifying propaganda that can reach hundreds of millions of people — often without disclosing the fact that the content is government-sponsored.”
China’s Public Diplomacy Operations: Understanding Engagement and Inauthentic Amplification of Chinese Diplomats on Facebook and Twitter / Oxford Internet Institute
“On Twitter, a considerable share of the engagement with PRC accounts on Twitter come from user accounts that the company eventually suspends for platform violations. We find more than one in ten of the retweets of PRC diplomats between June 2020 and January 2021 were from accounts that were later suspended by Twitter. Many of these accounts were active for months before being disabled.”

Censoring negative comments about the CCP’s history
China deletes 2 million online posts for ‘historical nihilism’ as Communist Party centenary nears / SCMP (paywall)

China threatens Sweden over Huawei 5G
China threatens retaliation against Ericsson if Sweden doesn’t drop Huawei 5G ban / WSJ (paywall)
“The prospect of retaliation prompted Ericsson’s Chief Executive Börje Ekholm to mount a lobbying campaign on Huawei’s behalf. He criticized Swedish politicians and solicited lawyers to help Huawei fight the Swedish ban.”
Sweden faces ‘last chance’ on Ericsson’s fate in China over 5G equipment test involvement after Huawei fallout: source / Global Times

More politics and foreign affairs links:

• Taiwan denounces China’s ‘shameless lies’ about WHO access / Reuters
• PLA releases videos showing marines in island landing drills ‘targeting Taiwan’ / SCMP (paywall)
• China issues total ban on synthetic cannabinoids / AP
• U.S. attempt to contain China by using Xinjiang issue is doomed to fail — Chinese UN mission / Xinhua
• More pro-democracy Hong Kong politicians quit district council posts / HKFP
• Chinese billionaire Sun Dawu faces decades in jail, legal team say / SCMP (paywall)
• Record numbers of Chinese granted refugee status in Japan / SCMP (paywall)
  “New high of 11 comes despite travel restrictions, as those fleeing China cite alleged intolerance of religious and political beliefs and Beijing’s actions in Xinjiang.”
• Hong Kong leader attacks foreign media over coverage of ‘so-called peaceful’ protests / HKFP
• Opinion: How China’s steady erosion of media freedom rose from Sichuan’s ruins / SCMP (paywall)
  Shi Jiangtao writes, “Journalists and activists hoped the 2008 earthquake would open a crack in censorship…Instead, it was the start of more than a decade of tight control of traditional and online outlets.”

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

Philanthropy
Pinduoduo founder donates big bucks to science, Hurun Report says / Caixin
Colin Huang (黄峥 Huáng Zhēng) “took the top spot on the Hurun Philanthropy List 2021 after pledging billions of yuan — mainly for social responsibility projects and scientific research.”
Pinduoduo’s founder Colin Huang tops China’s philanthropists, giving away US$1.85 billion of wealth after quitting his job / SCMP (paywall)

Why and how the Sanxingdui discoveries earlier this year were undercovered
It’s a golden age for Chinese archaeology — and the West is ignoring it / Washington Post (paywall)
Rowan K. Flad, a professor of archaeology at Harvard, writes, “Discoveries at Sanxingdui have totally transformed our understanding of how multiple, regionally distinct yet interrelated early cultures intertwined to produce what came to be understood as ‘Chinese’ civilization.” He offers a few theories as to why Egyptian archaeology gets so much more international attention.

More society and culture links:

• The uncertain future of China’s ancient ceramics capital / Sixth Tone
  “Historically, Jingdezhen, located along the northern border of Jiangxi Province, over 500 kilometers inland from Shanghai, was a center of Chinese ceramics production…in the aftermath of the country’s market reforms in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Jingdezhen’s leading factories split into individual studios, and the city’s output fell behind rapidly industrializing manufacturing hubs like Chaozhou, Foshan, and Dehua along the southern coast.”
• Chickens released as bait in hunt for escaped leopard in China / Guardian