News Briefing for Monday, August 8, 2022

Here’s what else you need to know about China today:

Japan accused China of firing ballistic missiles into its exclusive economic zone close to Taiwan, which has heightened tensions between the neighbors.

• Nonetheless, Tokyo remains open to dialogue with China, according to Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, commenting last week after China canceled his scheduled meeting with his Chinese counterpart due to Beijing’s “displeasure with a G7 statement urging Beijing to resolve the tension over Taiwan peacefully.”

COVID lockdowns have turned beach vacations into a nightmare, after China’s resort town of Sanya on Hainan Island hastily imposed pandemic restrictions, leaving over 80,000 tourists stranded at local hotels during the island’s peak season.

• Tibet has logged its first COVID cases in over 900 days, with city officials imposing some restrictions in the populous cities of Lhasa and Shigatse.
• On the other hand, Hong Kong slashed hotel quarantine periods to three days from seven starting from August 12, with four days of medical surveillance at home and some restrictions placed on residents’ movements.
• China has also eased up on suspension periods for inbound flights with COVID cases, after the nation’s civil aviation regulator halved the suspension time for planes carrying COVID cases to one week from two if 4% of passengers test positive, and two weeks if 8% of passengers test positive.

Chinese cross-border clothing ecommerce app Shein surpassed Amazon in app downloads on U.S. mobile platforms for the first time in the second quarter of 2022, with 6.8 million downloads during the period, according to Sensor Tower.

China’s exports reached 2.25 trillion yuan ($332.68 billion), an increase of 23.9% year-on-year, while two-way trade with the rest of the world hit a 2022 high in July of 3.81 trillion yuan ($563.33 billion), an increase of 16.6% year-on-year.

• Textile and apparel exports amounted to $33.22 billion, an increase of 17.5% year-on-year.
• Inside the country, there were a total of 214.03 billion payment transactions worth 2,487.45 trillion yuan ($367.78 trillion), an increase of 12.35% year-on-year.

Click through to our website for more newly released stats and links to data sources.

China is cracking down on corruption in the chip industry with “a barrage of investigations against semiconductor executives in recent weeks,” according to Nikkei.

• Last week on The China Project: Mayhem in China’s semiconductor industry as ‘chips madmen’ are arrested.

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