News briefing for Tuesday, September 13, 2022

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

Twitter is making a fortune from the Chinese government: The social media app might be blocked from the 1.4 billion citizens in China, but local authorities are shelling out big bucks for global advertising on the site, Reuters reports, turning the Asian giant into the platform’s “fastest-growing overseas ad market and one of its largest non-U.S. revenue sources.”

Fosun, yet another huge company with huge debts, has been trying to ease another round of concern over its financial health, after reports that Beijing municipal authorities told SOEs on Thursday to review their financial exposure to Fosun and assess their risk.

• Fosun stated that the notice is “part of its normal research,” pointing to similar practices that have previously involved other companies, and that “the group’s operations remain healthy and resilient to challenges,” per Bloomberg.

Evergrande promises buildings after mortgage boycotts: The embattled Chinese developer has pledged to restart construction on the rest of its property projects by the end of September, in a bid to assuage angry households who have refused to pay their mortgages on unfinished homes.

Xi and the Pope walk into a bar…or, at the very least, will overlap on separate visits to Kazakhstan this week. Pope Francis pleaded against the “senseless and tragic war” in Ukraine when he landed in Nur-Sultan on Tuesday, one day before Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 pays a visit before heading to Uzbekistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit starting on Thursday — his first foreign trip and his first in-person meeting since January 18, 2020, when he returned from Myanmar to a COVID-stricken China.

• China’s foreign ministry declined to say if Xi will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin or Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the regional security bloc summit, just days after Beijing voiced more support for Moscow and pulled back troops along the contested Himalayan border with India.

Rural tap water penetration rate at 84%: At a press conference earlier today, the Ministry of Water Resources announced the penetration rate of tap water in rural areas has now reached 84%, an increase of 19 percentage points from 2012. See today’s Business briefs from the Chinese media, with more links and info on:

• Volatile truck sales.
• Low domestic tourism numbers during this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.

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