Month: September 2022

Challenges for Russia and China Test a ‘No-Limits’ Friendship

Chin@Strategy

BEIJING — The summit this week between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China is a show of force by two autocratic leaders united against what they consider American hegemony. It is also a moment of mutual weakness as Russia suffers losses in Ukraine and China endures an economic slowdown. They come to the meeting, expected to take place later this week in Uzbekistan, with their own agendas and their own challenges that will test an important relationship both have described as a friendship with “no…

China tells banks to check exposure to debt-laden Fosun conglomerate

Chin@Strategy

China’s biggest banks and state-owned companies have been told to check their financial exposure to Fosun, the sprawling conglomerate that owns assets including the Premier League football club Wolverhampton Wanderers, as the heavily debt-laden group struggles from the impact of downturn in the property sector in its home market. The financial strength of the Shanghai-based group, co-founded in 1992 by the billionaire Guo Guangchang and built into one of China’s largest non-state-owned conglomerates, has come under scrutiny after a huge sell-off in property bonds that began in June. Dollar bonds…

Chinese pork prices surge to new high prompting authorities to act

Chin@Strategy

The price of Chinese pork surged to a new high in August, prompting authorities to take the year’s first dip into national meat reserves to ensure supply for the holidays. Pork costs in China rose an average of 22.5% last month, compared with last year. It followed the highest recorded month-on-month increase of 25.6% in July, as CPI also hit a two-year high of 2.7%. August’s rise occurred despite an unexpected slowdown of CPI inflation to 2.5%. China is the world’s biggest consumer of pork, and the country’s government maintains…

Children’s Books Branded Seditious in Hong Kong

Chin@Strategy

Advertisement After letting it lie dormant for several decades, the Hong Kong government, as part of the current crackdown on the opposition, has dusted off a sedition law under the local crimes ordinance to apply in numerous prosecutions. Public advocacy that had previously passed as legal public protests and critical debate has now been branded sedition. This narrowed public sphere in Hong Kong should be of concern to anyone dealing with the formerly vibrant city. In the parade of sedition prosecutions, a recent case involving a children’s book about sheep…

India is quietly laying claim to economic superpower status

Chin@Strategy

The rise of China has been the biggest story in the global economy in recent decades. But amid concern about its stumbling property market and global fears about inflation, the emergence of its neighbour, India, as a potential new economic superpower may be going under the radar. You won’t find mention of it in Liz Truss’s blueprint for a “modern brilliant Britain”, but the UK has just been overtaken by India as the world’s fifth biggest economy. The nation of 1.4 billion people is on track to move into third…

Xinjiang lockdown: Chinese censors drown out posts about food and medicine shortages

Chin@Strategy

Chinese censors have reportedly been ordered to flood social media with innocuous posts about Xinjiang to drown out mounting complaints of food and medication shortages in a region under lockdown for more than a month. The Ili Kazakh autonomous prefecture, also known as Yili, is home to about 4.5 million people, and is believed to have been first put into lockdown in early August, without official public announcement, after an outbreak of Covid-19. In recent days social media has hosted reams of post about food shortages, delays or refusals of…

Desperation grows in hard-hit Chengdu’s indefinite Covid lockdown

Chin@Strategy

In the hours before the south-western Chinese city of Chengdu went into a Covid lockdown on 1 September, residents dashed to their local markets to scramble for whatever food they could grab hold of. Huang, a 42-year-old university lecturer, was among those who got wind of the imminent lockdown on the internet. While she was buying meat and vegetables, someone shouted: “Someone identified as a close contact is here. This place will be locked down!” She dropped the groceries, swooped up her young daughter and ran home as fast as…

Your Monday Briefing: Ukraine Gains Ground

Chin@Strategy

Nuclear: Ukraine has begun shutting down the Zaporizhzhia power plant, a safety measure as fighting continues around the facility. China: Russia said a senior Chinese official offered Beijing’s most robust endorsement yet of the invasion. China’s lockdowns hit Xinjiang Yining, a city in the Xinjiang region of western China, is under a grueling, weekslong pandemic lockdown. Residents say they face a lack of food and medicine, as well as a drastic shortage of sanitary pads for women. Many of Yining’s 600,000 residents are relying mostly on neighborhood officials to deliver…