Meet up with China
1. The Wagner Group purchased two high-resolution commentary satellites from a Chinese language agency in 2022, permitting the Russian mercenaries to entry surveillance photos for its campaigns in Ukraine and Africa. (AFP)
2. In conferences with the Biden administration, American chip corporations have pushed again on additional chip restrictions, warning that they might derail plans to construct new semiconductor factories within the US. (New York Occasions $)
3. Chinese language chip producer SMIC made $1.5 billion in income from American semiconductor-design corporations in 2022—a fifth of its total gross sales—regardless of being blacklisted by the US authorities. (Wall Road Journal $)
- The US Commerce Division added 42 extra Chinese language corporations to its export blacklist on Friday, saying they aided Russia within the warfare in Ukraine. (South China Morning Publish $)
4. For Chinese language EV startup Nio, promoting one automobile means dropping $35,000. However authorities backing permits corporations like Nio to resist such losses and continue to grow. (New York Occasions $)
5. Chinese language ultra-fast-fashion firm Shein appointed a former SoftBank Group government as its vice chairman. He’s tasked with diversifying the corporate’s provide chain past China. (Wall Road Journal $)
6. A Hong Kong man was sentenced to 4 months in jail for importing “seditious” kids’s books that portrayed the town’s democracy supporters as sheep defending their village from wolves. (The Straits Occasions)
Misplaced in translation
Since China softened its zero-covid insurance policies nearly a yr in the past, many Chinese language corporations that provide PCR check merchandise have been pressured to evolve. One firm, nevertheless, has made the indecipherable resolution to enter the marketplace for precooked meals.
In accordance with the Chinese language publication Lanjing Caijing, Shenzhen Nuclear Gene Know-how, an organization with greater than 30 testing labs throughout China, was on the heart of an argument final yr after it was repeatedly fined by native governments for fabricating check outcomes and never adhering to technical requirements. Then in Could, the corporate included a subsidiary referred to as Wuhan Nuclear Agriculture Know-how, which now works on producing frozen meals based mostly on rice.
The one connection between PCR checks and precooked meals is that each have been extraordinarily fashionable companies. In recent times, the recognition of precooked meals—usually difficult, time-consuming dishes like grilled entire fish—has risen considerably in China amongst younger individuals who don’t prefer to cook dinner. The home market is round $58 billion now, and it’s predicted to develop to $148 billion by 2026. However persons are additionally questioning whether or not it’s acceptable for eating places to take a shortcut by turning to precooked meals packages as an alternative of growing their very own recipes.
Yet another factor
A brand new examine by Chinese language researchers analyzed the connection between a inventory fund’s efficiency and the fund supervisor’s “facial attractiveness.” And sure, the paper really features a few examples of actual supervisor faces that got low scores by a deep-learning mannequin for “facial magnificence prediction.” Yikes. Oh, and their conclusion? “Funds with facial[ly] unattractive managers outperform funds with enticing managers by over 2% each year.”