[China Daily]
Dear readers,
We hope you’ve had a good start to 2023. We’re back with our digest and more content with analysis made by our team. Tings Chak has written an article with a comprehensive assessment of China’s three-year fight against the coronavirus and its impacts, a few days before the reopening of borders in the country (read it here).
What will be the impact of this reopening on the Chinese and world economy? Gisela Cernadas spoke about some of the possible consequences in an article published in ARGMedios (read it here, translated automatically). She also spoke about the de-dollarization of oil and gas trade between China and Arab countries on Barricada TV (watch it here in Spanish).
Marco Fernandes was again invited to join the Mundioka podcast, this time to discuss the boycott promoted by the United States against the semiconductor industry in China (listen to it here, in Portuguese).
Until next week.
– Dongsheng Editorial Collective
Geopolitics
US blocklists YMTC, a major Chinese semiconductor company that offers prices 20% below market
Having the attention of experts for the speed at which it is outperforming the competition in the semiconductor market, the banning occurred after Republican Senator Marco Rubio’s campaign with National Intelligence to denounce the company as a risk to US security, which interrupted an agreement by Apple to acquire the 3D NAND chip from YMTC
US boycott of China causes 23% drop in new US solar panel installations
The trade barrier imposed in June 2022 results from claims of alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang, a province responsible for almost half of the world’s production of polysilicon used in solar panels; the restrictions threaten to slow the transition to renewable energy that the Biden administration is trying to promote
EU initiative that pledged up to US$318 billion for infrastructure projects in Africa and Asia completes a year with scant results
Created with the explicit aim of replacing the Belt and Road Initiative, Global Gateway faces criticism and confusion regarding its funding and organization within the European Union itself; the African Union and ASEAN have expressed disagreement and disappointment over the initiative
National Politics
Peak cases of Covid-19 are expected to come to an end in big cities by Chinese New Year, while new outbreaks may emerge in rural areas
Experts say attention should be turned to rural areas with scarce medical resources, where cases could increase due to the movement of people traveling to visit their families over the Chinese New Year holiday; 97% of symptomatic patients hospitalized between September and December had mild symptoms
Economy
Average years of schooling in China increased from 6.1 in 1985 to 10.7 in 2020
A more educated working class on average could offset the risks of a dwindling workforce, research finds; China’s working-age population (aged 16 to 59) has shrunk by more than 40 million from 2010 to 2020, and currently stands at 879 million
Agriculture and Environment
China aims to build the world’s largest national park system, spanning 49 candidate areas across the country
The new plan involves more than 700 nature reserves, 10 Natural World Heritage Sites, and two Mixed Cultural and Natural Heritage Sites, containing more than 80% of China’s major protected wildlife species; the Tibetan Plateau has 13 such areas, representing 70% of the national park coverage
Science and Technology
In a major breakthrough, Huawei develops innovation for microchip manufacturing machines smaller than 10 nanometers
The company has patented a component of the EUV lithography tech, until now dominated only by Dutch company ASML and for which the US has pressured Dutch authorities not to allow its export to China; the new achievement could make Huawei circumvent the sanctions imposed by the West, initiated in 2019 by the Trump administration
China launches official platform for trading “digital collectibles”, digital copyright, and virtual property
Unlike NFTs (non-fungible tokens), China’s digital collectibles are traded in legal tender currencies such as the yuan and cannot be resold for profit or speculation; Beijing seeks to expand its digital economy by applying commercial rules to data, since it regards it as a new factor of production, on the same level as land, human labor, and capital
People’s Life and Culture
Cinema in China bounces back to surpass 30 billion yuan (US$4.4 billion) in 2022, with 85% coming from domestic films
To support the recovery of the film industry, the government implemented tax relief measures and issued 100 million yuan in movie-watching vouchers; in a survey conducted in 10 countries across different regions, more than 80% of respondents said they had watched Chinese movies or television series
The Chinese New Year (Yuandan), based on the lunar calendar, has persisted as a popular tradition, and today China celebrates two New Years
At the beginning of the 20th century, the first governments of the republic adopted the Gregorian calendar and even banned the celebration of the Lunar New Year; but with the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Yuandan was re-established and renamed “Spring Festival”
Crowds thronging the markets during the Spring Festival of 1940 (Fotoe)
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