Current Events

[Randy W]

from the SCMP

China’s richest man, Nongfu Spring billionaire Zhong Shanshan – who is the bottled water and pharmaceuticals entrepreneur that’s wealthier than Jack Ma?

• He also owns Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise, and is now worth US$68.5 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index
• Zhong was briefly Asia’s richest person, ranked above Mukesh Ambani, after Nongfu’s IPO in late 2020

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Zhong Shanshan, chairman of Nongfu Spring and owner of Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise, currently holds the title of China’s richest man. The 66-year-old holds a fortune worth US$68.5 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, and was briefly even Asia’s richest person – dethroning India’s Mukesh Ambani earlier this year.
While many would expect China’s richest man to come from the IT industry, Zhong has made his fortune from bottled water and pharmacy companies. One thing he shares with many of the world’s billionaires is that his journey to the top was not always smooth sailing – Zhong had to draw on his tenacity and perseverance to achieve all he has to date. 
So how did he do it?

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/photos/a.1604152706570250/2897735377211970

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Some vendors are selling statues of Donald Trump as Buddha on e-commerce platform Taobao, with the mantra "make your company great again." Global Times reported that a seller said the idea was inspired by Trump's campaign slogan and his claims that he knew things better than anyone.

from the Global Times

Buddha statue of Trump trending on Taobao

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The statue, with Trump's contemplative face lowered, and both hands resting in its lap, is labeled by the seller on Taobao as "Trump, who knows Buddhism better than anyone." The item is priced ranging from 999 yuan ($153) to 3,999 yuan, depending on its size. 

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/1570821646570023/posts/2899199037065604/?substory_index=0

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#Quote: China and Russia signed an agreement to jointly construct a lunar space station on the surface of the moon, in orbit, or both, said China’s National Space Administration in a statement Tuesday.

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone

 

China Finds a Culprit for Runaway House Prices: Divorcing Couples
As Chinese cities try to cool red-hot property markets, many are targeting an unusual driver of demand: a surge in divorces.

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Now, cities are taking action to suppress fake divorces, as they try to cool down the real estate market. Local governments in the cities of Nanjing and Shenzhen took the lead, implementing new property purchase restrictions targeting recently divorced couples during the second half of 2020. Then, on Jan. 21, the Shanghai authorities followed suit, issuing a series of measures to stabilize the housing market that came into effect the next day.
As well as making it harder to avoid paying value-added tax on home sales, the new rules stated that anyone trying to buy an apartment within three years of getting divorced must first have the deal approved by the authorities, who would assess their previous property ownership history before making a decision.
Wu’s investment plans had effectively been outlawed overnight.

Xu Qingran is one of the lucky ones. The 39-year-old divorced her husband last September and managed to secure her family’s third property ownership certificate in mid-January — just a week before the new rules were announced. She remarried her husband the next day.
“I can’t express how thrilled I was,” says Xu, who requested use of a pseudonym for privacy reasons. “If it weren’t for my husband’s decisiveness, we might have missed our chance.”

Now, divorcees like Wu face a choice. Under the new rules, the couple will eventually qualify to purchase a new apartment, but only if they stay divorced for another two years and nine months.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/2900172800301561/

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“In 1952, Shanghai’s commercial air travel consisted of just 611 passengers,” Luo Keping, a former official with the state-owned Shanghai Airport Authority, told Sixth Tone. “But now, Hongqiao Airport transports tens of millions of people each year.”

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[eseum]

From the SCMP: https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3125294/china-urges-australia-close-offshore-detention-centres

China urges Australia to close offshore detention centres

• In a statement to the UN Human Rights Council, Beijing said it was ‘deeply concerned’ by conditions at ‘third country’ sites holding refugees and asylum seekers
• China itself has long faced accusations that it operates detention centres, with experts estimating it has detained more than a million people in Xinjiang

[Randy W]

from the WSJ

Chinese Factories Burn in Myanmar’s Deadliest Weekend of Protests Since Coup

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Dozens were killed and several Chinese factories set ablaze in Myanmar on Sunday during the deadliest weekend since the country’s military seized power in a coup last month.

At least 38 were killed on Sunday as security forces opened fire on protesters in several cities, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a nonprofit monitoring arrests and casualties. An estimated 13 others have been killed since Friday.

The biggest flashpoint was in Hlaing Tharyar, a poor, industrial suburb of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. At least 22 people were killed there, as several garment factories financed by Chinese owners were vandalized and set on fire. It couldn’t immediately be determined who started the fires.  

China’s embassy in Myanmar said on Sunday that many Chinese employees were trapped inside and injured as the factories burned. It called on protesters to express their concerns lawfully and urged authorities to punish those responsible.

 

 

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone

Data Security Takes Center Stage at Consumer Rights Gala
American home manufacturing company Kohler stood out among the mostly domestic brands called out during CCTV’s annual “315 Evening Gala” event.

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Often, cases of companies ignominiously featured in the 315 Evening Gala attract responses from Chinese law enforcement. Previous broadcasts have targeted well-known brands such as Burger King and Vanke (2020), Volkswagen (2018), and Muji and Nike (2017).

In recent years, online privacy and personal information security have emerged as hot-button issues. From 2012 to 2019, CCTV’s 315 Evening Galas exposed 14 such cases. This year, several more were added to the list.

Who stole my face?
Kohler, others called out for installing facial-recognition cameras in their stores.

Surveillance cameras are ubiquitous in Chinese cities: You’d be hard-pressed to walk around Shanghai for five minutes and not spot one. Those equipped to detect faces can identify individual citizens from among the country’s 1.4 billion people in a matter of seconds. And these days, such technology is creeping from the public to the private sector.

Monday’s gala exposed how at least 20 businesses across the country, including U.S. home manufacturing company Kohler, have been using facial-recognition cameras to collect biometric information from their customers. According to the program, Kohler had installed facial-recognition cameras in thousands of its kitchen and bathroom showrooms to record information about the people who visited — including their gender and approximate age, as well as whether they were returning customers — without their knowledge or consent. The surveillance system’s manufacturer claims that its product can be used for “precision marketing.”

Kohler apologized Tuesday after the gala, saying its stores had been ordered to either remove the surveillance equipment overnight or shut it off until it could be removed.

 

 

[Randy W]

from China Pictorial on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaPic/posts/3614966635295366/

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As of March 10, Chinese movie Hi, Mom had grossed over 5.15 billion yuan (US$785 million) at the box office, becoming one of the 100 highest-grossing films in the world. The big success of the simple nostalgic movie has been attribut#COVID19d to its localized style and plots that serve the emotional needs of the Chinese spectators who have newly reinforced #family values in the wake of the #COVID-19 outbreak.

The love within Chinese families has always been embedded so deeply that parents and children often hardly express feelings out and loud to each other. In the movie, the mom and the daughter always seek reconciliation after conflicts, which is how most Chinese parents and their children manage to get along. However, the steep development of the times has brought increasing challenges to the Chinese-style parent-child relationship. New avenues to express love may be needed.

#FamilialLove #COVID19

[Randy W]

from CGTN on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/565225540184937/posts/5992003690840401/

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Chinese top idol Wang Yibo Thursday terminated contracts with Nike

"I firmly oppose any act to smear China," he said in a statement, following the brand's remarks over forced labor in the #Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

[Randy W]

from China Pictorial on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3655365807922115&id=553929144732479

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Zhejiang Provincial Museum has mounted an online exhibition, Li Ren Xing, to examine women as they are depicted in classical Chinese paintings. It opened on March 8, International Women's Day, and runs until March 3, 2024.
The exhibition teams up some 32 museums who have shared digital images of more than 1,000 ancient paintings in their extensive collection. And the database will expand over time to include more pictures.
The exhibition title is drawn from an eponymous poem by Tang Dynasty (618-907) poet Du Fu. It offers an encyclopedic view of images of women in ancient Chinese art. And it is an investigation of the daily lives and emotions of women throughout the centuries, as well as the roles they assumed.
#Women #ChineseArt #ChineseCulture

[Randy W]

from the SCMP on Facebook - this seems to be Yunnan
https://www.facebook.com/355665009819/videos/358649325495916

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Prolonged drought dries up reservoirs, hits farmland in southern China

Southern China is suffering from a prolonged drought: rainfall has been 50-80 per cent below normal since October 2020.

 

[Randy W]

from the WSJ - this is the entire (pay-walled) Wall Street Journal article.

Violence Spurs Many Asian-Americans to Activism for First Time

High-school student Grace Xia, left, is organizing a nonprofit, while Henry Pao, Echo Lei and their son, Lukas, attended their first political rally. PHOTOS: JESSICA CHOU AND ERICA SERYHM LEE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; SHAFKAT ANOWAR/AP. ILLUSTRATION: ARIEL ZAMBELICH/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

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Silicon Valley industrial designer Ben Tang was walking in a park with his 6-year-old daughter about a year ago when a group of young men passed by and spat at them.

The incident left him feeling frustrated, he said. In the two decades since he had moved from China and later became an American citizen, he had experienced racism in the U.S. but never felt unsafe. Now he felt like he needed to be extra vigilant when he was out walking with his children.

His tipping point came in March, when a gunman killed eight people at three Atlanta-area spas, including six women of Asian descent. It spurred a realization: “If you don’t speak out, nobody will hear you,” he said.

Days later he attended his first ever political rally, in San Jose, Calif., in protest against anti-Asian violence. Thousands of other Asian-Americans came out in cities across the country that weekend, and many took to social media to voice support and raise awareness of recent anti-Asian hate crimes. For many of them, it was the first time they had been moved to publicly express the frustrations and fears that have been growing over the past year as hate crimes against Asian-Americans increased.

Some first-generation Asian immigrants are speaking openly with their children for the first time about racism and what it means to be a minority in the U.S., a change after years of espousing an immigrant ethos that dictates that they work hard and stay out of trouble.

Texas State Rep. Gene Wu, a first-generation Chinese immigrant, said many Asian-Americans are now questioning their long-held beliefs of how to navigate life in the U.S. For years, Asian-Americans thought that achieving financial success, coupled with staying under the radar, would shield them from racism, said Mr. Wu, a Democrat.

“Many people in the past, even my own parents, basically said, ‘Hey, as long as we’re quiet and we work hard, and we’re the good minority, then we will be protected,’” he said.

The coronavirus pandemic has started to change that, he said, as people have realized that quietly pursuing the American dream won’t necessarily ward off violence. “It’s not protection,” he said. “Your number just hasn’t come up yet.”

Anti-Asian hate crimes in 16 of the largest U.S. cities increased 149% between 2019 and 2020, according to an analysis by researchers at California State University, San Bernardino.

Last month, a 75-year-old woman in San Francisco, an immigrant from China, fought off an attacker after he punched her. Last week in New York City, a man was charged with multiple counts of assault as a hate crime for kicking a 65-year-old Filipino-American woman in the chest and stomping on her head and body after telling her she “didn’t belong here,” police say.

The gunman in the Atlanta shootings, Robert Aaron Long, has been charged with eight counts of murder. He told police he carried out the shootings because of a sex addiction, according to law-enforcement officials, who are still investigating whether the rampage constitutes a hate crime.

Regardless of whether police ultimately decide to bring hate-crime charges in the case, many Asian-Americans say that the crime has amplified their sense of vulnerability to violence.

“It could literally be me. It could be my mom,” said Echo Lei, 32, who moved to the U.S. from China for graduate school a decade ago.

After the shootings, Ms. Lei and her husband, Henry Pao, bundled their 4-year-old son into the car and attended their first-ever political rally, in New York City, to protest against anti-Asian violence.

“I actually felt empowered when I was standing there,” Mr. Pao said. “I want to do something. I want to do something for the community. I want to do something for the kids.”

Cynthia Choi, the co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, co-founded Stop AAPI Hate in March 2020 to track incidents of violence and discrimination against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders. She said her organization, one of three backing the initiative, has seen record donations and people offering to volunteer over the past year. “We’re seeing people wanting action,” she said.

Grace Xia, a high school junior in San Mateo, Calif., is in the process of incorporating a nonprofit organization called Asian Uplift, along with friends, to raise awareness of issues critical to the Asian-American community. Seeing her grandmother’s fear after attacks against elderly Asian people, Ms. Xia said, partly motivated her.

“People don’t think of Asians as being pro-social justice,” Ms. Xia said. “But I think that it is really important.”

Many Asian-Americans from an earlier generation had a different experience coming of age in the U.S. The 40-year-old Mr. Pao, who immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan as a teenager, said racism was never discussed within his family. “My parents are first-generation Asian immigrants,” said Mr. Pao, a financial software specialist in Princeton, N.J. “Their mentality was, don’t get in trouble.”

Ms. Lei’s father, a 53-year-old retiree who moved to the U.S. in 2019, said race wasn’t something the family had discussed because it hadn’t been a problem in China and his daughter hadn’t encountered much discrimination after moving to the U.S.

They are talking about it now, and Mr. Lei attended his first rally on March 27 in Princeton. “There’s no easy fix, but we have to start somewhere,” he said. “I would rather speak up now before it gets worse.”

 

 

[Randy W]

from the NPR

China Fines Alibaba $2.8 Billion For Breaking Anti-Monopoly Law

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In a statement Saturday, China's State Administration for Market Supervision described the company's behaviors as having "eliminated and restricted competition in the online retail platform service market" as well as having "infringed on the business of the merchants on the platform."

The fine is 4% of Alibaba's total 2019 sales in China — which was 456 billion yuan, or over $69 billion.

In a press release issued Saturday, Alibaba said it would accept the fine and "ensure its compliance with determination."

"The penalty issued today served to alert and catalyze companies like ours," the release said. "It reflects the regulators' thoughtful and normative expectations toward our industry's development. It is an important action to safeguard fair market competition and quality development of Internet platform economies."

The fine comes after months of complications for Alibaba.

 

 

[Randy W]

from China Pictorial on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3678333632291999&id=553929144732479

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China's tear-jerker film Hi, Mom has overtaken American fantasy Wonder Woman to become the world's top-grossing film ever from a solo female director.

The maiden directorial project of comedian and actress Jia Ling saw its cumulative box office reach 5.396 billion yuan ($822.87 million) as of early Tuesday afternoon and surpass that of the 2017 superhero film from Patty Jenkins, according to the China Movie Data Information Network.

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)