Editor’s note for Friday, January 21, 2022

Dear reader,

Breaking stories from China today:

Anti-corruption investigations are coming to Big Tech: Yesterday, China’s anti-corruption watchdog promised (in English, Chinese) “stepped-up” efforts to “investigate and punish any corruption behind the runaway expansion of capital and the monopoly of platform enterprises.”

• This came shortly after state broadcaster CCTV said that Alibaba affiliate Ant Group is connected to a corruption scandal involving Zhōu Jiāngyǒng 周江勇, the former Party secretary of Alibaba’s home city of Hangzhou.
• The Financial Times, Caixin, and Reuters have more details.

France is being “flooded” with anti-COVID products from China, including masks, sanitizing gel, and home test kits, according to Radio France Internationale.

Guangdong Province says it has eliminated “hidden local government debt,” reports Caixin. The debts have not been paid, they have been shifted into the balance sheet.

It’s not all gloom and doom in real estate: “China’s largest developer by contracted sales took advantage of a pickup in investor sentiment toward the property sector to sell convertible bonds,” says the Wall Street Journal.

“Lithuania is under pressure from German companies to back down in a dispute with China to end a blockade of the Baltic state, as European trade officials struggle to defuse the row,” according to Reuters.

There is laughter in the Chinese media about the difficulties in the U.S. in rolling out 5G services near airports and the related flight cancellations: China has been installing 5G cell towers since 2019, and thanks to slight differences in frequencies used, has not had problems with airplane navigation systems.

Foreign financial advisers who work on overseas share sales of Chinese mainland companies will face “tougher compliance challenges,” paperwork, and possible penalties under new draft rules from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).

The billionaire opioid dealer Sackler family’s plan to sell the China assets of its company Mundipharma for more than $1 billion has stalled “over valuation.”

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief