China-Vietnam camaraderie, and business woes

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

China and Vietnam are comrades-in-arms: “Vietnam…has made the development of friendship and cooperation with China the top priority in our foreign policy,” Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nguyễn Phú Trọng 阮富仲 told Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 during their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, state broadcaster CCTV reports per the SCMP.

• Trong is the first foreign leader to visit China since Xi secured a third term at the 20th Party Congress. He also said that Vietnam would not allow any overseas military base to be established in the country, nor would it join forces with any country against another.
• Both leaders pledged to “never let anyone interfere” with their progress, and vowed to build stable supply chains and maintain peace along their shared border.

Foxconn is quadrupling bonuses to stop workers from fleeing its factory in Zhengzhou, home to Apple’s biggest production site of iPhones, in a bid to ease fears over COVID curbs and keep operations running for the holiday season.

• The Taiwan-based company also branded a few widely circulated videos on social media, claiming workers died from the factory’s COVID outbreak, as “maliciously edited.”

Elon Musk wants the Chinese work ethic in the U.S.: “Tesla Inc. is sending engineers and production staff from its recently upgraded Shanghai factory to its plant in Fremont, California, in a bid to boost production at the U.S. facility,” according to sources cited by Bloomberg.

China’s three major airlines continue to hemorrhage money: Air China announced a net loss of 28.10 billion yuan ($3.87 billion) during the first three quarters of the year, while China Southern Airlines lost 17.58 billion yuan ($2.42 billion) and China Eastern Airlines lost 28.11 billion yuan ($3.87 billion). See today’s Business briefs from the Chinese media, with more links and info on:

• Athletic apparel IPO.
• Beijing-listed companies in the black.
• Geely’s spin-off EV brand.

Fifty countries urge China to release detained Uyghurs: The group of “mainly Western countries” yesterday called on Beijing “to fully implement all recommendations in a UN report accusing the country of possible ‘crimes against humanity’ against Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups, including taking prompt steps to release all those ‘arbitrarily deprived of their liberty’ in the far western province of Xinjiang.”

China announced its first action plan for its virtual reality industry, as part of the nation’s ambitions to become a global technological powerhouse and regulate the growth of its booming sector.

• The paper, spearheaded by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), outlined plans to ship over 25 million devices in the next four years, to increase the total value of the industry to more than 350 billion yuan ($48.56 billion), to nurture 100 core companies, and to form 10 industrial public service platforms by 2026.

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