Cross-border data relief; New leadership at Ministry of Finance; Renewed corruption crackdown coming?; Progress on road back to Bali; Liu Zhidan

Friday is the start of the long Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day Holiday, so China will be on vacation through next week. I will not be publishing a daily newsletter next week, there will be an episode of Sharp China, and if there is something interesting going on I will send a newsletter.

I am also not going to hold the weekly discussion thread tomorrow, as many of you are on vacation, but the Sinocism Chat is always open, and you can always find me on Notes.

To those who celebrate these holidays, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival and Happy National Day!

Summary of today’s Essential Eight:

1. Xi’s speech at National Day banquet - In spite of the economic challenges he is not backing away from the 5% GDP growth target: “As we move forward, we still face many risks and challenges. We need to focus on promoting high-quality development, comprehensively, accurately, and fully implementing the new development concepts, accelerating the establishment of a new development pattern, intensifying ma…