Xi meets Putin; No announcement of NPC SC meeting; Rui Chenggang; Huawei and TSMC; Huawei's updated OS; VW exec deported
If the government is adhering to seven days advance notice for an NPC Standing Committee meeting then the October one would convene on the 30th at earliest, assuming there is a notice of the meeting on Wednesday October 23rd. So it increasingly looks like we have to wait until early November before we get a number for any additional fiscal spending, if it really has to go through the NPC Standing Committee meeting.
Summary of today’s top items:
1. Xi meets Putin - Xi met with Putin soon after arriving in Kazan for the BRICS Summit. According to Xinhua Xi said "both sides, adhering to the spirit of permanent good-neighborly friendship, comprehensive strategic cooperation, and mutually beneficial win-win cooperation, have continuously deepened and expanded comprehensive strategic cooperation and practical cooperation in various fields, injecting strong momentum into promoting the development, revitalization and modernization of both countries, and making important contributions to enhancing the well-being of Chinese and Russian peoples and maintaining international fairness and justice. Currently, the world is experiencing unprecedented changes, with complex international situations, but the deep friendship between China and Russia will not change, nor will their responsibilities as major powers to benefit the world and serve the people. Despite facing complex and severe external situations, cooperation in various fields, including trade between the two countries, is actively advancing, and major cooperation projects are operating stably". Xi reiterated that the two countries should "promote correct historical views of World War II, firmly maintain the international system with the UN at its core, and jointly maintain global strategic stability and international fairness and justice."
Cai Qi, whose absence from Xi's visits to Fujian and Anhui last week seemed anomalous, is on the trip with Xi. Perhaps he was busy digging into the Intel case, as he oversaw the 2023 Micron case? It will be bad for Intel if Cai Qi is inside.
2. CASS institute calls for 2 Trillion RMB market stabilization fund - The Institute of Finance at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released its Q3 Macroeconomic Financial Analysis Report titled “Innovation in Macroeconomic Policy”. The headline that ThePaper and others went with was “Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Financial Institute Report Suggests Issuing 2 Trillion Yuan in Special Government Bonds to Support the Establishment of a Stock Market Stabilization Fund”. The report also called for special government bonds for basic livelihood protection and anchoring monetary policy to inflation targets. CASS is an official, connected institution, and given the recent investigation of Zhu Hengpeng, deputy director of the Institute of Economics at CASS, I would be surprised if the researchers at the Institute of Finance at CASS got too far ahead of what they think are permitted policy suggestions.
3. Huawei relaunches Harmony OS as Android-free - Huawei has launched Harmony OS NEXT. Earlier versions used some code from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which the company admits now but at the time denied. Now they have a self-developed, independently controlled domestic operating system.
4. Did TSMC fab chips for Huawei in violation of US export controls? -Late last week The Information reported that the US Department of Commerce “is looking into is whether Huawei bought chips from TSMC indirectly using intermediary companies with a different name to place orders on its behalf”. Today there is a report from the Financial Times that “TSMC had recently notified the commerce department after a customer placed orders for a chip that resembled Huawei’s Ascend 910B”, a report from Reuters that TSMC had notified the Department of Commerce after learning “that one of its chips had been found in a Huawei product after tech research firm TechInsights took apart the product”, and a report from Bloomberg quoting a TSMC statement that it “has not supplied to Huawei since mid-September 2020”, and from a Huawei statement that it has not “produced any chips via TSMC after the implementation of the amendments made by the US Department of Commerce to its FDPR that target Huawei in 2020”. But did any of Huawei’s affiliated/cutout fabs or “intermediary companies with a different name” place orders?
5. VW exec parties in Thailand, gets deported from PRC after positive drug test - VW’s chief marketing officer and head of product strategy for China, Jochen Sengpiehl, had fun in Thailand and upon his return to China was drug-tested and found to have marijuana and cocaine in his system, reports the Financial Times. This news has been going around chat groups for a few days; it is known that the PRC will sometimes tests arrivals from Thailand for drugs. It does not matter if the drugs you took while outside of China are legal wherever you were; if you test positive while in the PRC you will be in trouble. Given that marijuana is now legal in much of the US, PRC immigration could really cause problems for some arrivals from flights from the US, especially from California. And if they decide to take a hair sample for testing, as Shanghai authorities have a history of doing in clubs, then any drug use from months before may come back to haunt you.
6. Rui Chenggang is on Youtube - Rui Chenggang, former CCTV anchor who was sentenced to six years in prison after being detained for corruption in 2014, has started a Youtube channel. He does not disclose his whereabouts; there had been rumors he had moved to Hong Kong and is working as an investor.