Washington Post (September 7)
“Mr. Xi’s two predecessors allowed China’s people more personal freedom and provided a rising living standard,” but he “is reversing that by putting more of an ideological stamp on society.” Aside from widely publicized new limits on video games and screen time, on September 2, the television regulator “banned effeminate men on the screen” out of “official concern that Chinese pop stars, imitating the sleek look of some South Korean and Japanese singers and actors, were failing to encourage China’s young men to be masculine enough.” Mr. Xi may know best “about everything, on behalf of everyone. But the more power concentrates in one man, the more brittle the system may become.”
Tags: Brittle, China, Effeminate, Freedom, Ideological, Japan, Masculine, Pop stars, Power, South Korea, Television, Video games, Xi
Institutional Investor (September 1)
“Most Chinese internet stocks will need to move their primary listings to Hong Kong or delist from the US” in light of *updated SEC rules regarding the audit of US listed China stocks” and recent actions by the Chinese government. “We don’t expect this to mean a disorderly unwind of VIE listed stocks listed in US,” but “it is unlikely stocks with data considered ‘sensitive’ can keep their primary listing in the US.”
Tags: Audit, China, Delis, Disorderly, Hong Kong, Internet stocks, Primary listings, SEC rules, U.S., Unwind, VIE
Wall Street Journal (August 31)
In a best case scenario, the withdrawal from Afghanistan “frees the U.S. from a costly distraction and enables us to focus more on China. Let Russia worry about fanatical jihadist warriors and missionaries fanning out across Central Asia…. Let China cope with the double-dealing, back-stabbing, perpetually indigent Pakistani government. Let Iran deal with newly empowered Sunni zealots, uncontrolled opium flows and a stream of refugees pressing on its frontiers.”
Tags: Afghanistan, Best case, China, Costly, Distraction, Iran, Jihadist, Opium, Pakistan, Refugees, Russia, Scenario, U.S., Warriors, Withdrawal, Zealots
New York Times (August 28)
“Under Xi Jinping, the Communist Party’s most powerful leader since Mao, China has taken a hard ideological turn against unfettered private enterprise. It has set out a series of strictures against “disorderly” corporate expansion. No longer will titans of industry be permitted to march out of step with the party’s priorities and dictates.”
Tags: China, Communist, Corporate expansion, Dictates, Disorderly, Ideological, Industry, Leader, Mao, Powerful, Private enterprise, Strictures, Unfettered, Xi
Barrons (August 27)
“It has been a rough year for investors in China, especially those who forgot that it’s still a Communist nation.” Investors are fleeing in the wake of “some surprising, and very anticapitalist, moves.” The Chinese market has fallen by “20% in the past six months, while some of its biggest names have dropped more than 40%. Has China become uninvestible? No—but it has gotten a lot more complicated.”
Tags: Anticapitalist, China, Communist, Complicated, Investors, Market, Plummeting, Stocks, Surprising, Uninvestible
New York Times (August 21)
“The speed and scope of the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan has prompted introspection in the West over what went wrong…. China, though, is looking forward. It is ready to step into the void left by the hasty U.S. retreat to seize a golden opportunity.”
Tags: Afghanistan, China, Hasty, Introspection, Opportunity, Retreat, Scope, Speed, Takeover, Taliban, U.S., Void
The Economist (August 14)
Japan’s “financial heft in South-East Asia” is vastly understated. It still ranks as the biggest “investor in the region’s infrastructure projects.” While “China’s financial reach overseas attracts enormous attention, when it comes to infrastructure in South-East Asia, Japan is still very much the leader…. In total, it has $259bn invested in unfinished projects in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam…compared with China’s $157bn.”
Tags: China, Financial heft, Indonesia, Infrastructure projects, Investor, Japan, Leader, Malaysia, Overseas, South-east Asia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam
WARC (July 23)
“China’s census, conducted once every decade, reveals the demographic trends of its vast and vibrant market, and brands that react quickly and demonstrate cultural relevance to these developments will be the most successful.”
Tags: Brands, Census, China, Cultural relevance, Demographic trends, Market, React, Successful, Vast, Vibrant
CNN (June 20)
“China has administered more than 1 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses, an astonishing milestone that comes as the country rolls out an unrivaled inoculation drive…. Those doses are almost 40% of the 2.5 billion shots administered globally” and “all the more remarkable given that China’s rollout…. only reached its first million administered doses on March 27.”
Tags: Astonishing, China, COVID-19, Doses, Inoculation drive, Milestone, Remarkable, Rollout, Shots, Unrivaled, Vaccine
WARC (May 6)
With plunging online sales, “Adidas and Nike are the latest western brands to feel the effects of China’s attacks on companies that criticize reported human rights abuses against Uyghurs in the country’s Xinjiang region.” There have also been calls for boycotts of H&M, Burberry and Uniqlo. “The reaction highlights the tension foreign brands face between speaking out, on the one hand, as their domestic customers increasingly demand, and, on the other, risking commercial damage by offending Beijing.”
Tags: Abuses, Adidas, Attacks, Boycotts, Brands, Burberry, China, Customers, H&M, Human rights, Nike, Online sales, Risk, Tension, Uniqlo, Uyghurs
