China tells citizens to get out of Afghanistan

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

China’s Foreign Ministry yesterday advised its citizens in Afghanistan to leave the country “as soon as possible,” after an attack by Islamic State militants on a Chinese-owned hotel in Kabul.

China is betting on domestic demand to fuel its economic recovery from COVID zero, with plans to stimulate consumption and investment up to 2035, state media reported per Bloomberg.

China will stop releasing data on asymptomatic cases starting today, the country’s National Health Commission announced, opting instead to count only those with symptoms since the removal of mandatory testing means that the numbers no longer reflected reality.

Beijing removed its Chinese consul general in Manchester, Zhèng Xīyuán 郑曦原, and five of his staff, to avoid complying with a U.K. request that they waive their diplomatic immunity to allow British detectives to question them about the October incident where a Hong Kong pro-democracy protester was assaulted on Chinese consulate grounds in the northern city.

The U.S. plans to add Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) and over 30 other Chinese chipmaking firms to its trade blacklist, or “entity list,” as early as this week, in a move that would bar their access to American components.

• Alibaba is already struggling to buy cutting-edge chip designs, after British chip designer Arm determined that the U.S. and U.K. would not approve the sale of its latest model because it was too advanced.
• Meanwhile, Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that has increasingly found itself on the bad side of many Western governments, has again found itself to be one of the targets of potential new U.S. sanctions that, if passed, would restrict it from accessing U.S. banks.

A rare legal victory for a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, Chow Hang Tung (鄒幸彤 Zōu Zìngtóng), came in on Wednesday, after she won an appeal against her conviction and sentence for organizing a banned candlelight vigil in the city last year to commemorate victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

China invested more than a trillion yuan in water conservation projects from January to November, the equivalent of $144.75 billion, and an increase of 33% compared with the whole of 2021. See today’s Business briefs from the Chinese media, with more links and info on:

• Guangzhou car show to go ahead.
• Is the appliance king leaving his throne?
• Secondhand car market takes a dive.

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