News briefing for Monday, September 12, 2022

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

China will amend its constitution at its big Party congress next month, state-run news agency Xinhua announced on Friday, without specifying what the changes would be. The nation’s ruling Politburo will put forth a draft amendment to be discussed at the 20th National Party Congress, slated to begin on October 9, in which Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 will likely be confirmed as China’s leader for an unprecedented third term.

Lithuania will open its first-ever Taiwan representative office this week, in another sign of deteriorating ties with China since the Baltic State allowed Taipei to open a similar, semi-official office in Vilnius last year.

London’s Imperial College will shut two China-sponsored defense research centers by the end of the year, the Guardian reports, after applications sent to the United Kingdom’s Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU), which oversees the sharing of sensitive research with international partners, were rejected.

• The two centers were funded by Avic and Biam, both of which are Chinese state-owned aerospace and defense entities with close ties to the Chinese military.

The EU is set on purging supply chains of forced labor, as support within the bloc grows to adopt a similar U.S.-style ban that names Xinjiang as a center of abuse and will likely strain trade relations with China.

No human rights cooperation: China’s ambassador to the UN said Beijing “can’t cooperate” with the UN on human rights after the release of a report that alleged it “may be committing crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang. Meanwhile, Western diplomats are weighing further moves against China as the UN’s Human Rights Council opens today.

Five speech therapists were each sentenced to 19 months in prison by a Hong Kong court on Saturday for publishing “seditious” illustrated children’s books, three days after being found guilty under the colonial-era law.

Chinese leader Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 congratulated King Charles III on his ascension to the British throne and urged better ties, after Queen Elizabeth II died last Thursday, bringing an end to the longest reign of a British monarch in history. Two wreaths were placed at the British Embassy in Beijing in her honor — one in the name of Xi and the other from the Chinese government.

• Meanwhile, in the former British colony of Hong Kong, mourners dressed in black paid their tributes with handwritten notes and bouquets of flowers outside the British consulate in the city.

Are China lockdowns pushing Google to shift production lines to India? The American tech behemoth is looking to move the production of some of its most important consumer electronics outside China, the Information reports, as the nation’s COVID-zero policy continues to disrupt key manufacturing sites and supply chains and as tensions rise with the United States.

• Google has “solicited bids from manufacturers in India to make between 500,000 and 1 million of the company’s Pixel smartphones,” or roughly 10% to 20% of the estimated annual production for the device, which has in recent years been produced entirely in China.

Transpacific cargo prices are down: On September 9, the freight rate for exports from Shanghai Port to ports on the U.S. West Coast was $3,484 per Forty-foot-Equivalent-Unit (FEU) container, which is the lowest level since August 2020. For links and details, see today’s Business Briefs from the Chinese media, which also has info on these stories:

• There were over $3 billion in vehicle purchase tax reductions from June to August.
• August was a good month for investment in consumer industries.

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