Highlighted Links for Thursday, September 8, 2022

Below are links to other noteworthy reports published in the last 24 hours from and about China.

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

• Chinese firms make more by going public in Europe than in the U.S.
  Europe beats U.S. on Chinese listings for first time / FT (paywall)
  “Chinese companies have raised more than five times as much money through share sales in Europe than the U.S. this year, as exchanges in London and Zurich benefit from fraying geopolitical ties between the superpowers.”

• Is Tencent’s biggest shareholder shedding its stocks?
  Tencent shares worth $7.6 billion appear in Hong Kong clearing system / FT (paywall)
  “Tencent shareholders added $7.6 billion in shares to Hong Kong’s clearing and settlement system, prompting speculation that its biggest shareholder, South African group Naspers, was selling part of its 29% stake.”

• Is Zhihu spying on its users?
  Zhihu accused of using watermarks in screenshots to locate users / Sixth Tone
  “Chinese Q&A platform Zhihu has been accused of using hidden digital watermarks that allow it to locate users who take and share screenshots from the site, raising privacy concerns over the move.”

• China’s venture capital heavyweights
  Nearly a quarter of China-founded VCs make the Hurun Global VCs list / TechNode
  “Some 25 China-founded venture capital funds made it to the Hurun Global Venture Capitalists 2022 Half-Year Report released on Tuesday, which selected 121 VCs that have captured the largest number of unicorns and gazelles in their portfolios.”

SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND ENVIRONMENT:

• Extreme weather hampers earthquake relief
  Rain and floods hamper earthquake rescue mission in China / Al Jazeera
  “Dozens of people remain missing after a magnitude 6.8 earthquake hit Sichuan Province, killing at least 82 people.”
  Death toll in China’s Sichuan earthquake rises to 86 / Reuters

• China leans on coal amid drought-induced power shortage
  China to add more coal plants than thought to ease energy crunch / Bloomberg (paywall)
  “The world’s biggest energy user plans to add 270 gigawatts of thermal capacity in the five years through 2025, China Energy Engineering Corp., the country’s top energy engineering conglomerate, said in an online briefing on Thursday.”

• Donkey dicks
  Nigeria seizes donkey penises to be smuggled to Hong Kong / AP
  “Sacks of the donkey male genitals were seized at the international airport in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, Sambo Dangaladima, the Nigeria Customs Service area commander, told reporters.”

POLITICS AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS:

• China and Israel on track for free-trade agreement
  China, Israel free-trade deal, Beijing’s first in Middle East, in ‘last stages’ amid troubles with US / SCMP (paywall)
  “China and Israel aim to sign a free-trade agreement by the end of 2022, an Israeli official said on Wednesday, in a breakthrough that would give Beijing its first deal in the Middle East plus a boost after years of trade friction with Australia and the United States.”

• Chinese envoy summoned in Switzerland over rights concerns
  Switzerland summons China’s envoy over Uyghur rights concerns / Al Jazeera
  “The move follows the UN’s report on China’s ‘arbitrary and discriminatory detention’ of Uyghurs and other Muslims.”
  Swiss summon Chinese ambassador to press human rights concerns / Reuters

• China courts Indonesia on Uyghur issue
  China tries to rally support for its policies in Xinjiang in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country / China Global South Project (paywall)
  “China’s ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Dèng Xījūn 邓锡军, published a scathing op-ed in The Jakarta Post on Tuesday aimed at debunking the recently published report on Xinjiang by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).”

• Solomon Islands delays election, stokes concern over China influence
  Solomon Islands’ leader, a friend of China, gets an election delayed / NYT (paywall)
  “The prime minister claims the country can’t afford to hold national elections next year. His opponents see a power grab linked to Beijing’s influence.”
  Solomon Islands’ pro-China leader wins bid to delay elections / Washington Post (paywall)

• More Pacific palaver but it’s not entirely clear what is going on here here
  Marshall Islands: Chinese pair plotted ‘mini-state’ in Pacific nation / BBC
  “A Chinese couple plotted to set up a mini-state on the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, bribing MPs and officials along the way, U.S. prosecutors say…The Marshall Islands, a chain of islands located between Hawaii and Australia, gained independence in 1979 after being under US administration for four decades.”

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

• Humble mooncakes only in Xi’s China
  Mooncake madness: China cracks down on extravagant versions of festival staple / Guardian
  “Modest packaging, capped pricing and auditing of sellers form part of Xi Jinping’s war on societal excess and ‘rampant money worship.’”

• Heat waves are driving up the price of hairy crabs
  China’s summer heat wave is making hairy crabs costlier this fall / Sixth Tone
  “Farmers say the intense temperatures have killed crabs, cutting their supply and affecting business.”

• Can China’s oil painting replica hub win over the art world?
  The artists of Dafen can paint like Van Gogh / Economist (paywall)
  “The village of Dafen was once thought to produce the most oil paintings in the world…[But it] was always seen more as a production line than a place of culture. Today the future of Dafen may depend on whether it is able to earn the respect of China’s art world.”

• The man who rode a hydrogen balloon
  Chinese man trapped aloft in hydrogen balloon for 2 days / AP
  “Chinese state media say a man has been found safe after he spent two days aloft in a hydrogen balloon, traveling about 320 kilometers (200 miles), after it became untethered and flew away while he was using it to harvest pine nuts from a tree.”