Editor’s note for Friday, January 14, 2022
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn. Today: A COVID shakedown in Henan; Chinese parents find workarounds for restrictions on tutoring; China's impending Golden Tax IV system is causing anxiety in the business community; Evergrande's domestic bondholders agree to a six-month reprieve; Chinese exports continue to boom; America and China are one military accident away from disaster.
Dear reader,
Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the U.S. and weโll take the day off. We’ll be back in your inbox on Tuesday!
Chinese media today reported on a new scam: a COVID shakedown. A restaurant in Henan Province got a note (translation by Alexander Boyd):
If you donโt raise 500,000 yuan [$78,700] cash and place it at the designated location, a symptomatic COVID-19 patient or close contact could appear in your store.
The extortionist was apparently a local doctor!
Other breaking stories from China today:
A completely predictable outcome of China’s restrictions on for-profit tutoring is that wealthier and more cunning parents are finding workarounds (WSJ).
Another China Initiative case ends in failure: U.S. federal prosecutors want the Justice Department to drop criminal charges against MIT professor Chรฉn Gฤng ้ๅ, who was arrested and charged in January last year on apparently trumped-up charges of hiding his China ties and wire fraud.
โAnxiety is spreading across Chinaโs business communityโ as authorities prepare to introduce the Golden Tax IV system, which will be โcapable of hoovering up huge amounts of personal and financial data.โ
Distressed real estate firm Evergrande really is too big to fail: The developerโs domestic bondholders have agreed to a six-month reprieve. In Reutersโ words: โโโWith Evergrande debt relief deal, China signals stability trumps austerity.โ
Tariff schmariff, pandemic schmandemic: China is still the worldโs factory. As the headlines put it:
- Chinaโs export machine notches new record as pandemic grinds on / WSJ
- Chinaโs trade surplus hits annual record as exports soar 30% / FT
- Chinaโs trade surplus surges to new heights / NYT
America and China are one military accident away from disaster, says The Economist:
In an age of superpower rivalry and distrust, it is odd to talk of good fortune smiling on Americaโs relations with China. But in one important domain, the rivals have shared a long streak of astounding luck.
It is two decades since the last fatal encounter between the armed forces of America and China. Today the skies and seas around China swarm with a growing number of planes and warships from each side. In Beijing, scholars and officials talk of when, not whether another accident will occur.
โJeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief
