Xi quotes from Central Urban Work Conference; PLA Daily on Lai's speeches; RMB appreciation pressure; Forcing Cosco into ports deal; Another US executive exit-banned

China’s urbanization is transitioning from a period of rapid growth to stable development, and urban development is shifting from a phase of large-scale incremental expansion to one focused on improving the quality of existing assets…“‘Big city diseases’ have been significantly alleviated…In the past, foreign media considered it an unsolvable problem. In just ten years, Beijing has made remarkable progress in addressing ‘big city diseases,’ becoming the first mega-city in the country to achieve reduced development.” - Xi Jinping at the Central Urban Work Conference

Summary of today’s top items:

1. Central Urban Work Conference - A page one article in the July 17 People’s Daily about the work conference includes some quotes by Xi that were not in the readout. One fits with the crackdown on involution and efforts to build a unified national market:

“When launching projects, people often mention a few things: artificial intelligence, computing power, new energy vehicles—are all provinces su…