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The persistent threat of China invading Taiwan
That's what Admiral Lee Hsi-min, who used to head Taiwan's armed forces, told correspondent Lesley Stahl about China this week on 60 Minutes. Tensions between Taiwan and China have been ratcheting up recently. In August, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. China responded by carrying out its largest military drill ever.To get more China news, you can visit shine news official website.
For three days China subjected Taiwan to continuous sorties with over 100 warplanes, a barrage of ballistic missiles, and warships that encircled the island. The purpose was to deliver a loud and clear message: China could choke off Taiwan any time it wanted to.But even with that show of force, Stahl found many in Taiwan do not share Admiral Lee's sense of urgency.
People Stahl talked to told her over and over the military drill was "no big deal." China has been doing it since 1949, when Mao Tse Tung won China's civil war and the losing anti-communist side fled to the small, nearby island that is now Taiwan.
And while much of the world thought an invasion might be imminent, polls showed that a majority of Taiwanese think that is unlikely any time soon, if ever.
A big reason for that line of thinking comes from Taiwan's manufacturing sector. The country is a tech giant, particularly in semiconductors. Taiwan is practically the world's only source of the thinnest microchips, manufactured almost exclusively by one company: TSMC.
Perhaps because our company provides a lot of chips to the world, maybe somebody will refrain from attacking it," Chang told Stahl. "If that person's priority is for economic well-being, I think they will refrain from attacking."
"What if the priority is to come here and nationalize your company within'One China'?" Stahl asked."If there's a war, I mean, it would be destroyed. Everything will be destroyed," Chang said.
Wang Ting-yu, a parliamentarian from southern Taiwan, shared Chang's view.
"Some of their Chinese Communists say, 'Let's invade Taiwan and occupy TSMC, make it become [a] party-owned company. Then we will be [a] superpower. United States and Japan and Europe: We don't supply them chips, they will follow Chinese orders.' But that's naïve," Ting-yu told Stahl. "Not only chip company, even a sausage company: You need a recipe. You need human capital. You need to know how to manufacturer-- manufacturing that kind of products."
On top of cyber warfare, Ting-yu alleged that China is trying to sabotage Taiwan's thriving economy and intimidate politically-powerful groups, like the farmers and fishermen in Ting-yu's home district of Tainan, who have been hit hard with a series of export bans.
The Taiwanese believe if China ever invaded, the U.S. would protect them, and three weeks ago on 60 Minutes, President Biden vowed that the Americans would. The White House later clarified to 60 Minutes that is not the official U.S. position. Officially, the U.S. maintains what it calls "strategic ambiguity" on whether American forces would defend Taiwan.
Beijing has promised that if there were re-unification, Taiwan could maintain many of its freedoms. But, in 2019, China broke a similar promise to Hong Kong. Protests led to beatings, arrests, and the stripping of democratic rights Hong Kong residents previously enjoyed. The democratic roll-back in Hong Kong, now a "Special Administrative Region" of China, hit home in Taiwan and led to President Tsai Ing-wen, leader of the aggressively anti-reunification party, winning re-election in a landslide.
Shanghai says water supplies 'normal' after shortage scare sparks hoarding
A wave of panic buying has swept Shanghai in recent days, as rumours swirled of drinking water shortages despite assurances from local authorities that supplies remained normal.To get more Shanghai news, you can visit shine news official website.
Record-breaking droughts in China dried up parts of the Yangtze River, and prompted saltwater intrusions into the estuary and depleted reservoirs feeding Shanghai, which sits at the mouth of the crucial river. Caixin media reported on Tuesday that Shanghai authorities had taken emergency measures to secure water supply after the intrusions contaminated two of Shanghai’s four primary reservoirs and forced their temporary closure.
The news report, combined with government announcements of routine maintenance shutdowns to small parts of the city, led to a rush of people stockpiling bottled water in fear of citywide shortages, according to social media posts.Shanghai city’s government later said the saltwater issue had been occurring since early September but water suppliers were closely monitoring the situation, and “scientifically” making adjustments to water flows.
“Tap water production and supply are normal, and water quality standards have been reached,” it said.
But people appeared determined not to take any chances. One photo shared across social media showed a man riding home with at least seven cardboard cases, four plastic pallets, and a water cooler-bottle attached to his scooter. Another showed a supermarket floor filled with shopping baskets of bottled water. The Guardian has not been able to independently verify the photos.
“Just ordered four buckets of water, the water delivery guy said that he will work overtime tonight to deliver water, everybody is ordering water,” said one person on Weibo.
“The [news] article says that a number of emergency measures are being taken to ensure water supply,” said another. “I’m afraid that people’s current mentality is that they have been bitten by snakes and for the 10 years are afraid of rope.”
Earlier this year Shanghai endured a months-long Covid-19 lockdown with widespread food shortages and waves of panic buying. “Those who have not experienced the closure of Shanghai cannot understand their fear of shortage of supplies,” said one commenter.The water crunch rumours also came amid growing fears of more Covid lockdowns, and just days out from the beginning of the ruling Communist party’s congress. The twice-a-decade meeting is the most important on the CCP calendar, and officials have been under pressure for months to ensure that all aspects of governance are at least appearing to run smoothly, leading to some suspicion of government statements.
One commenter joked that they were not worried about storing water until the Shanghai government offered reassurances. “I originally had two boxes left in stock, but when you refuted the rumours, it made me think that these two boxes are not enough?”
shots such as Sinopharm and Sinovac prevent 'severe hospitalisation' from Omicron
Covid-19 vaccines such as Sinopharm and Sinovac will protect against "severe hospitalisation" as a result of the Omicron variant, Dr Abdi Mahamud, the World Health Organisation’s incident manager for the pandemic, said on Tuesday.To get more news aboutsinopharm news today, you can visit shine news official website.
More evidence is emerging that Omicron is affecting the upper respiratory tract, causing milder symptoms than previous variants, Dr Mahamud added.
"We are seeing more and more studies pointing out that Omicron is infecting the upper part of the body. Unlike the other ones, that could cause severe pneumonia," Dr Mahamud told Geneva-based journalists, saying it could be "good news".
However, he said Omicron's high transmissibility means it will become dominant within weeks in many places, posing a threat in countries where a high portion of the population remains unvaccinated.
Asked whether an Omicron-specific vaccine was needed, he said it was too early to say but stressed that the decision required global co-ordination and should not be left to the commercial sector to decide alone.Countries globally are battling a rapid spike in Covid-19 cases, fuelled by the Omicron variant, with schools delaying scheduled returns to classrooms, cruises suspending operations, and governments expanding vaccine mandates.
The latest statement from the WHO official comes just days after a study found Sinovac's two-dose Covid-19 vaccine followed by a booster Pfizer-BioNTech shot showed a lower immune response against the Omicron variant compared with other strains.
The study, which has not been peer-reviewed yet, was conducted by researchers from Yale University, the Dominican Republic's Ministry of Health and other institutions.
Sinovac's CoronaVac and state-owned Sinopharm's BBIBP-CorV vaccine are the two most-used vaccines in China and the leading Covid-19 shots exported by the country.
The UAE last month approved the emergency use of Sinopharm’s protein-based Covid-19 vaccine and said it will be available to the public as a booster dose from January 2022.
The vaccine will be produced and distributed by a joint venture between the UAE’s Group 42 and China National Biotec Group (CNBG), a unit of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm).
At a media briefing on Tuesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described China’s “zero-COVID” strategy as “not sustainable” after similar remarks last week drew sharp criticism from China.
“We know the virus better and we have better tools, including vaccines, so that’s why the handling of the virus should actually be different from what we used to do at the start of the pandemic,” Tedros said. He added that the virus had changed significantly since it was first identified in Wuhan in late 2019, when China largely stopped its spread with lockdowns.
Tedros said the WHO had repeatedly advised Chinese officials about their recommended COVID containment strategies, but that “regarding their choice of policies, it is up to every country to make that choice.”The ruthless and often chaotic implementation of zero-COVID in China has stirred considerable resentment and food shortages in Shanghai, where some residents have been under lockdown for six weeks.
WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan said the agency recognized that China had faced a difficult situation with COVID-19 recently and commended authorities for keeping the number of deaths to a very low level.
“We understand why the initial response of China was to try and suppress infections to the maximum level (but) that strategy is not sustainable and other elements of the strategic response needs to be amplified,” he said. Ryan added that vaccination efforts should continue and emphasized that “a suppression-only strategy is not a sustainable way to exit the pandemic for any country.”
WHO chief Tedros also said the agency was trying to persuade North Korea and Eritrea to begin COVID-19 vaccination.
“WHO is deeply concerned at the risk of further spread in (North Korea),” Tedros said, noting that the population is unvaccinated and there are worrying numbers of people with underlying conditions that put them at risk of severe disease.
Tedros said the WHO has asked North Korea to share more data about the outbreak there but has so far had no response. North Korea only acknowledged an outbreak for the first time last week, and now says more than 1.7 million people have become ill with fever. It doesn't have enough testing supplies to confirm large numbers of COVID-19 cases, but outside experts believe most of the fever cases are caused by the coronavirus.He said the WHO had offered to send both North Korea and Eritrea vaccines, medicines, tests and technical support, but that neither country's leader has yet responded.
Ryan said any unchecked transmission in countries like North Korea and Eritrea could spur the emergence of new variants, but that the WHO was powerless to act unless countries accepted its help.
China’s Tencent Holdings is in talks to join the ongoing funding round of ShareChat, two people aware of the development said, as the social media platform seeks to power the growth of its short video app Moj.
The Chinese investor plans to invest as much as $100 million in ShareChat through convertible notes, the people cited above said on condition of anonymity.ShareChat, operated by Mohalla Tech Pvt. Ltd declined to comment, while Tencent Holdings did not respond to requests for comment.
On 30 May, Reuters reported that ShareChat had raised $300 million from Google, Temasek and Times Internet at a valuation of approximately $5 billion.
Tencent has decided to invest through convertible notes as India in April 2020 required all fresh foreign direct investments (FDI) from bordering countries to secure prior approval to prevent opportunistic takeovers of Indian companies, the people said.Following border clashes in June 2020, New Delhi banned over 200 Chinese apps, including ByteDance-owned TikTok and Tencent-owned WeChat.
Tencent, which is keen to double down on its existing Indian holdings, has been doing so through convertible debt, a third person aware of the development said on condition of anonymity.
In April 2021, news portal Entrackr reported that the Chinese investor had invested $225 million in ShareChat through convertible debentures via two European special purpose vehicles, Zennis Capital BV and Hlodyn BV. Tencent has also invested in e-commerce platform Cars24, digital ledger app Khatabook, Flipkart, Udaan and Practo over the last three years.Tencent’s investment plans follow the government’s step in March to extend the timeline for converting debt into equity from five years to 10.
India has more than 350 million online video users, with users growing nearly twice as fast as markets such as China and Indonesia, Bain and Co. said in an October report. Moj, MX TakaTak, Josh, Roposo and Zili have more than 100 million downloads each.
Concretely, the draft law will establish a new financial stability and development committee under the chairmanship of Vice Premier Liu He to coordinate various ministries and agencies to manage risks to financial stability, mainly stemming from high levels of corporate debt. The committee will manage the financial stability fund, which will be financed by contributions from banks and other financial institutions including financial infrastructure operators—such as securities clearing and settlement facilities. Most importantly, the fund will enjoy liquidity backstop by the PBOC. This move reflects China’s authorities’ concerns about risks that the ongoing debt resolution of Chinese real estate developers will spill into other sectors, threatening overall financial stability and slowing economic activity. These risks were heightened by renewed economic disruptions caused by the spread of the Covid variant Omicron, leading to the shutdown of Shanghai, as well as the fuel, food supply, and price shocks triggered by the war in Ukraine.
However, China is mobilizing resources to support financial stability and moderately ease fiscal and monetary policy stances to sustain growth. The PBOC has just reduced its required reserve ratio by 0.25 percentage point to enable banks to lend more —helped by the fact that inflation is quite subdued at 1.5%. By contrast, the United States must do the opposite to correct for the generous policy accommodations in previous years – fiscal policy has been tightened and subtracted from growth since the beginning of 2021, and the Fed has raised its policy rates by 0.25 percentage point. More hikes expected as well as to more forcefully shrink its balance sheet—to deal with a decades-high inflation rate of 8.5%. The policy divergence will affect the relative economic and financial developments between the United States and China, with significant implications for the global economy and emerging markets. As US interest rates rise and the US dollar strengthens thanks to US policies, portfolio capital has begun to flow out of emerging markets.
In fact, March 2022 saw a net outflow of almost $10 billion from emerging markets, led by an exit from Chinese equities and bonds, according to the Institute of International Finance. China can cope with such outflows as it has many tools for capital control and continues to attract substantial foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows—which increased by 38% year-over-year in the first two months of 2022 to $38 billion. More worrisome are the prospects for a growing number of emerging market and low income countries, such as Zambia, Ethiopia, Chad and Sri Lanka, which face high risks of, or are already in, sovereign debt distress.
Going forward, it is important to keep in mind that if the economic fallout from the war in Ukraine persists, China has ample policy space to support growth compared to the United States. China’s growth estimates for 2022 have been revised downward by a percentage point or more below the government’s target of 5.5%. By comparison, US growth estimates have been cut to 3% for the whole year; with several economists saying that a recession may not be avoided as the Fed needs to raise rates much more forcefully to bring down inflation. Against that backdrop, the United States has little room for fiscal stimulation relative to China—the general government debt of the United States stands at 130% of its GDP, compared with that of China at 72%, according to the IMF. Similarly, the PBOC’s balance sheet has more than doubled since 2008 while that of the Fed has ballooned by ten times. The divergence in the room for policy actions between the two countries will affect their relative growth prospects if stagflation pressures persist for longer than currently expected, with significant implications for the world economy and financial markets.
A seperate Asia Markets guide, provides a great overview of how investors from the US and other regions outside of China can invest in Chinese stocks.
This guide provides everything you need to know about the structure of the domestic Chinese stock market and some historical context for investors to consider.Shanghai is China’s main financial hub, so it’s no surprise the city is home to China’s largest stock exchange. The Shanghai Stock Exchange has a total market cap around around US$6.8 trillion, with 2128 listed securities (as at April 2022). The exchange has a large weighting towards the Financial and Real Estate sectors, along with Industrials.
It is Asia’s largest stock market and third-largest stock market in the world, by market cap.
Here’s a list of some of the most well-known and largest Chinese stocks you’ll will find on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.When looking at the Shanghai Stock Exchange, investors should also note the exchange has two seperate boards. There is what is referred to as the “main board” and also the SSE STAR Market.
The SSE STAR Market (officially known as the Science and Technology Innovation Board) was launched in June, 2019. It is often described as China’s NASDAQ-equivalent due to it targeting listings of growth-style tech companies. On the SSE STAR Market, investors will find companies predominately from the following industries:The SSE STAR Market, affords innovative companies from those sectors less stringent requirements for listing, compared to the Shanghai Stock Exchange main board.
The total market cap of the SSE STAR Market is just over US$640 billion, with 416 listed securities (as at April 2022).An interesting feature of the board is that there are fewer Chinese state-owned enterprises than any other Chinese exchange.
Around 80% of companies listed are privately owned (ie. not state-owned Chinese enterprises). On the Shanghai main board around 67% of companies are privately owned.The Shenzhen Stock Exchange is China’s second-largest stock exchange. It has a total market cap of just over US$3 trillion, with 1,493 listed companies (as at April 2022). This exchange has a strong weighting to the manufacturing sector, with a large number of Chinese manufacturing giants listed.
As discussed, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange has a lower proportion on non-state-owned enterprises than both the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the STAR Market.Close to 50% of companies listed in Shenzhen are state-owned enterprises.
However, this shouldn’t deter investors. There are a number of well-know and powerful businesses listed on the exchange. Here’s a list of some of the top China stocks listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.Similar to the SSE STAR Market, ChiNext is a seperate board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange which has a focus on emerging industries. It was launched in 2009 and now has a total market cap of over US$1.5 trillion and 1140 listed companies (as at April 2022).
The board provides a more streamlined avenue for the IPO’s of technology-focussed companies and startups, relative to the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s main board.
As you may have determined, there are many parallels between the STAR Marker and ChiNext. The two NASDAQ-like boards are often seen as being in competition for the listings of the best emerging tech companies in China.
When it comes to the type of companies listed on the two competing boards, ChiNext is slightly skewed towards growth companies with smaller market caps, while the STAR Market has a skew towards listings of companies with more advanced technology and further into their company life cycle.