Seed giant Syngenta’s IPO is Shanghai’d

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

Top story: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been charged with bribing Chinese officials to the tune of $40 million.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange canceled a meeting with Syngenta Group that was meant to go over the company’s proposed 65 billion yuan ($9.4 billion) initial public offering. The reason was given by the exchange save for a statement saying that “situations meet the criteria laid out in the cancellation regulations.” Syngenta is a seed and pesticide giant founded in Switzerland in 2000 that was acquired by ChemChina in 2017, and is a key player in China’s efforts to boost food security.

The Taiwanese president’s possible visit with U.S. Speaker Kevin McCarthy next week has prompted China to threaten retaliation. The planned visits by Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文 Cài Yīngwén) to the U.S. at the beginning and end of her trip to Central America will test already strained ties between the U.S. and China should McCarthy sit down with the island’s president.

The U.S. placed trade curbs on five Chinese companies over their alleged role in the human rights crisis in Xinjiang. Four of these companies fall under Hikvision Digital Technology, a state-owned manufacturer that builds surveillance cameras used in Xinjiang. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Máo Níng 毛宁 strongly opposed the decision during a briefing today.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed a desire to talk to Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 just days after the Chinese leader’s meetings in Moscow with Vladimir Putin. While Zelensky has extended an invitation to Xi before, this offer comes at a pivotal time.