Hong Kong offers rewards for information on exiled dissidents

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

Top story: Beijing will impose export restrictions on gallium and germanium, two key metals needed to manufacture semiconductors and other electronics, and which are primarily sourced from China. The move has raised concern over an intensifying global battle on the supply of key chipmaking technologies. Click here for all the details.

Hong Kong police are offering rewards for information on eight self-exiled pro-democracy activists for offenses that “seriously endanger national security,” the government announced on July 3. Rewards of up to HK$1 million ($127,600) each are being offered for information leading to their arrests.

The eight activists are:

• Former pro-democracy legislators Nathan Law (羅冠聰 Luō Guāncōng), 29, Ted Hui (許智峯 Xǔ Zhìfēng), 41, and Dennis Kwok (郭榮鏗 Guō Róngkēng), 45.
• Kevin Yam (任建峰 Rè Jjiànfēng), 46, a lawyer who helped found the now-disbanded pro-democracy civil group Progressive Lawyers Group (PLG).
• Mung Siu-tat (蒙兆達 Méng Zhàodá), 51, a unionist and former chief executive of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU).
• Activists Finn Lau (劉祖廸 Liú Zǔdí), 29, Anna Kwok (郭鳳儀 Guō Fèngyí), 26, and Elmer Yuen (袁弓夷 Yuán Gōngyí), 74.

“The fugitives should not have any delusion that they could evade their legal liabilities by absconding from Hong Kong. They ultimately have to bear responsibility and face the sanctions of the law for their serious illegal acts endangering national security,” a government spokesman said upon news of the release. The U.S., the U.K., Australia, and other countries have since condemned the move.

China resolutely opposes U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and has lodged stern representations to Washington for its potential sale of ammunition and logistics support to Taiwan in two separate deals valued at up to $440 million, China’s defense ministry said today. “The United States has ignored China’s core concerns, violently interfered in China’s internal affairs and deliberately pushed up tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” spokesperson Tán Kèfēi 谭克非 said in a statement.

BYD will invest 3 billion reais ($624 million) in Brazil to build a new industrial complex, the Chinese automaker announced on July 4, in what will be its first electric-car plant outside Asia. The company also plans to invest in Thailand and Vietnam.

The complex, composed of three factories, will be built in the Camacari industrial park in the northeastern state of Bahia, on land formerly occupied by a Ford plant that closed in 2021. It comes as BYD, which rivals Tesla as the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles (EVs), seeks to expand its global reach and boost local production amid a surge in sales worldwide.

Torrential floods have killed at least 15 people and left four others missing in China’s southwestern city of Chongqing today after two days of heavy downpours, with more rain forecasted to come. Thousands of other residents have been displaced, and footage posted online show collapsed buildings and cars submerged in the streets.

Chinese leader Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 has called to step up emergency measures, while warning that all seven of China’s major rivers were at risk of flooding. Direct economic losses in the prefecture total to about 617 million yuan ($85.73 million), Chinese state media reported.

China’s foreign minister called on Japan and South Korea to adopt “strategic autonomy” from the West and cooperate with Beijing to “revitalize Asia,” as its two neighbors mend their longstanding disputes and deepen their ties to the U.S.

“No matter how blonde you dye your hair, how sharp you shape your nose, you can never become a European or American, you can never become a Westerner,” Wáng Yì 王毅 said in a video shared by Chinese state media. “We must know where our roots lie.”

Chinese state media: The People’s Daily print edition top story is about Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 yesterday giving a speech by video call to the 23rd Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The China-led SCO’s member states are India, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, to be joined by Iran later this year.

Xinhua News Agency’s top story today (English, Chinese) is about Xi writing a letter to the international students of the International Master’s Program in Auditing at Nanjing Audit University “encouraging them to actively contribute to deepening friendship and cooperation between countries,” and praising their “understanding of China’s auditing system, socialism with Chinese characteristics and the Communist Party of China.”