Highlighted Links for Wednesday, October 5, 2022

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

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

• Gold flows from India to China and Turkey ahead of big holidays
  Banks divert gold supply from India to China, Turkey / Reuters
  “Gold-supplying banks have cut back shipments to India ahead of major festivals in favor of focusing on China, Turkey, and other markets where better premiums are offered, three bank officials and two vault operators told Reuters.”

• Chinese millionaires and billionaires lap up luxury flats in Singapore
  Rich Chinese are biggest Singapore luxury condo buyers / Bloomberg (paywall)
  “Mainland Chinese buyers have scooped up the biggest number of Singapore’s private apartments this year compared with other foreigners, underscoring the amount of wealth flowing into the city-state from the world’s second biggest economy.”

• EV battery giant CALB ranks as Hong Kong’s third-biggest listing in 2022
  Chinese EV battery maker CALB raises $1.26 billion in Hong Kong’s third-largest IPO this year as local investors shun 79 per cent of allocation / SCMP (paywall)
  “China Aviation Lithium Battery (CALB), the country’s third-largest electric vehicle (EV) battery maker, has raised HK$9.9 billion ($1.26 billion) from its initial public offering, after pricing the shares at the bottom of the marketed range.”

• Taiwanese chipmaking giant TSMC jumps after Morgan Stanley nod
  TSMC shares jump 5% after Morgan Stanley says the chipmaker is a ‘top pick’ / CNBC
  “Shares of the world’s largest chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company rose as much as 5% on Wednesday morning in Asia after Morgan Stanley recommended the stock.”

• The money problems of indebted Chinese property firms
  Key Chinese Belt and Road builder faces rising risks, debt / Nikkei Asia (paywall)
  State-run China Communications Construction Group, a critical player in Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure-building initiative, “is under mounting pressure to streamline operations as its debt load soars and economic risks threaten overseas projects.”
  Chinese property agent E-House files for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in New York / SCMP (paywall)
  “E-House (China) Enterprise Holdings filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in New York on Monday in a bid to prevent creditors from seizing its assets while it undergoes a restructuring in the Cayman Islands.”

SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND ENVIRONMENT:

• China looks for astronauts and foreign partners in space
  China begins recruitment for 4th batch of astronauts / Space
  China wants new partners for its moon missions as its relationship with Russia cools / Time

• No more flavored e-cigarettes in China
  China officially bans fruit flavorings in e-cigarettes / TechCrunch
  “China has joined a handful of countries in banning flavored vapes to combat underage use of nicotine. Starting October 1, e-cigarette companies are only allowed to sell tobacco-flavored vapes in the country.”

POLITICS AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS:

• The academic elite that backs Xi
  How academies for cadres shape China’s ruling class / Economist (paywall)
  “The 2,300 delegates who will attend the five-yearly jamboree that begins in Beijing on October 16th will have almost no chance of scuppering the decisions — already made in secret by the party’s leader, Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 — that will be unveiled at the event. To ensure they stay in line, many of them must undergo training.”

• Xi and his decade of rule in China
  Xi’s first decade made China a paradox of confidence and anxiety / Bloomberg (paywall)
  “The president’s ever-expanding authority has come at the expense of social and economic freedoms.”
  China’s Xi accelerates drive for more control / Bloomberg (paywall)
  Xi Jinping’s quest for total control of China is just getting started / Washington Post (paywall)
  “As the Chinese president prepares to complete his elevation to uncontested paramount leader, he is poised to ramp up, not tamp down, his policy ambitions.”

• Solomon Islands under pressure from the world’s two biggest superpowers
  Solomons wanted China references removed before signing U.S. deal / Bloomberg (paywall)
  “The Solomon Islands refused to sign the U.S. government’s Pacific partnership deal until ‘indirect’ references to the Chinese government were removed, with Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele saying his country did not want to ‘choose sides.’”
  Chinese propaganda claimed West behind riots in Solomons / Asia Financial
  Minister: Solomons signed U.S.-Pacific pact after indirect China references removed / Radio Free asia

• Central Asia’s neighboring strongmen keep their distance
  Why Russia and China aren’t intervening in Central Asia / Foreign Policy (paywall)
  “As tensions between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan flared, Moscow and Beijing chose to remain on the sidelines.”

• China, Uganda hit back at EU for trying to delay oil pipeline in Africa
  China and Ugandan leader decry EU’s call to halt planned African oil pipeline / SCMP (paywall)
  “China has criticized the European Union for trying to delay the development of Uganda’s oilfields and the construction of a 1,443 kilometer (897 mile) crude oil pipeline from Hoima in western Uganda to a port in Tanzania.”

• Philippine fishermen face off with Chinese ships in disputed sea
  South China Sea: Philippine fishers on frontline of China’s battle for disputed waters / AFP via SCMP (paywall)
  “Fishing ground near Scarborough Shoal, tapped by generations of Filipinos, is one of many potential flashpoints for conflict in the South China Sea”

• The glass ceiling for rural residents in China
  China’s marginalized millions / Foreign Affairs
  “China’s rural inhabitants are not living in poverty, but the CCP provides them with almost no means for social mobility — or any mobility at all, owing to the restrictive hukou residential permitting system.”

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

• COVID camping craze
  China’s zero-COVID policy fuels camping boom / Nikkei Asia (paywall)
  “China’s strict coronavirus measures are driving people away from such domestic vacation sites as tropical beaches and instead pushing them to campgrounds close to home.”

• Popular memes about China’s COVID health codes
  “Guarding the green horse” – How China’s health code system provided solutions and generated problems / What’s on Weibo
  “The Health Code system and the ‘Green Horse’ meme have become part of everyday life in a zero-COVID China.”

• Interview with NBA star Jeremy Lin
  Jeremy Lin finally loves ‘Linsanity’ just as much as you do / NYT (paywall)

  My whole life, I tried to run from being Asian, and when I was on the basketball court and the ball was tipped off, race did not matter. It was my safe space to be myself without having to be the token Asian. By the time that Linsanity came around and I got worldwide recognition, the only thing people really wanted to talk about was my ethnicity and my race and oftentimes in very demeaning and condescending and just racist ways.