Tencent showcased more than 30 game updates and new projects at its annual Spark conference, highlighting the potential of technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), for game development. The conference also saw Tencent highlighting the capabilities of its subsidiaries, such as TiMi Studio, NExT Studios and Tourdog Studio. After Beijing's regulatory crackdown, China's video gaming market is showing signs of emerging from a downturn, with the National Press and Publication Administration approving 86 new games in April and roughly the same number of new licences granted in each of the first three months of 2023.
Japan's GDP figures for the first quarter are set to be the highlight for Asian markets on Wednesday, with expectations of annualised growth of 0.7%, the fastest rate in three quarters, leading to Tokyo stocks opening up 0.2%. China's weaker than expected economic data for April has resulted in slumps across Chinese financial assets, with April house prices also due on Wednesday. Although offshore investors have a new scheme to link Hong Kong with the mainland in order to access interest rate derivatives to help hedge their Chinese bond exposure, concerns about debt demand have cast extra doubt over the yuan's ability to gain reserve currency status.
Chinese online brokerages Futu Holdings and UP Fintech are to remove their apps from the mainland China market over data security and capital outflow concerns from Beijing. The delisting, set for this week, led to losses in the companies' New York-listed shares. In 2021, regulators had already warned unlicensed online brokerages against serving Chinese clients via the internet. While neither start-up plans to affect existing clients in mainland China, the delisting will eliminate easy access to trading securities, particularly in global markets such as the US and Hong Kong, for China's retail investors.
Tesla will launch advertising for its electric vehicles for the first time, said CEO Elon Musk at the company’s investor day. Tesla has previously relied on word of mouth and incentivised referrals for marketing. Musk said that the Tesla ads would be aesthetically pleasing and informative. In a follow-up interview with CNBC’s David Faber, Musk also stated that Tesla’s “full self-driving” technology will allow for vehicle leasing within a robotaxi fleet in 2021. The Tesla founder also argued that remote working was “morally wrong” and that China needed to be taken at its word that it views Taiwan as integral to the country. He suggested that if China took Taiwan, it would harm all international businesses and companies that rely on the nation for manufacturing. Musk also noted that Twitter, which he acquired last year, had recently experienced a $40m loss due to ads being checked for accuracy and subsequently labelled “misleading”.
Sales of homes in China increased by 11.8% in the first four months of 2019, up 7.1% for Q1, leading ING's Iris Pang to speak of "bottom fishing activities in the home buying market." Of the housing market, National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Fu Linghui said, "demand has been released quickly," with the Yangtze River Delta area, Greater Bay Area and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region particularly active. Moody's revised its outlook for Chinese property to stable from negative thanks to better sales and funding for developers.
According to reports, multinational banks, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, are reportedly scaling back their goals and expansion plans in China due to the "deteriorating geopolitical climate" and the increasingly authoritarian direction of President Xi Jinping's government. In particular, the banks are struggling to compete against China's state-owned enterprises, which are "well-entrenched" in the market, making it difficult for global banks to compete. In the face of slowing growth for its economy, China has introduced the most sweeping changes to its financial services, including full ownership of insurers, banks, brokers, and asset managers by foreign firms.
However, the country's ongoing geopolitical nuances have caused Wall Street firms to become more cautious about the China market; publicly, everyone is saying the same thing - China is still a massive opportunity, and they have no plans of withdrawing, particularly since such considerable money has already been spent. Privately, Wall Street executives told Bloomberg that it's challenging to maintain the confidence of both sides as tensions escalate, which is expected to intensify as the US election cycle approaches.
Many Wall Street giants are considering more drastic job cuts as there is a realization that a fundamental rethink on the world’s No. 2 economy is necessary due to the weakened business climate, fewer opportunities for outsized profits and China's approach to the financial market. While planning to build onshore brokerage, Morgan Stanley is focusing its efforts on its derivatives and futures businesses.
China's property market showed signs of slowing growth, with data revealing house prices rose in April for the third consecutive month but at a slower rate. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the average price of a new home in 70 cities rose 0.3% in April, less than March figures of 0.4%.
The offshore yuan weakened to past 7 per US dollar for the first time in five months due to concerns over China's economic data indicating a slowing recovery from the pandemic. China's April industrial output and retail sales growth figures missed forecasts, suggesting momentum had been lost at the start of Q2. Barclays has cut China's GDP forecast citing "big downside surprises" in the figures. Tensions between China and the West also pose a drag on the yuan, according to Maybank.
Smaller Chinese consultancy firms are predicted to gain from the country's increasing demand for expert knowledge, particularly after the shock delivery of the Beijing crackdown on firms supplying too sensitive information for Chinese consumption. Many of these firms are now working to reduce risk. For the long-term, the sector will become more regulated, becoming more popular for investors and firms who need greater insight into China. US-based Frost and Sullivan has predicted the Chinese market for expert information will grow from $1bn in 2015 to $1.9bn by 2025.
China’s securities regulator has unveiled new rules for global depositary receipts (GDRs) that could renew listings in Europe. The China Securities Regulatory Commission now mandates the registration of companies within three days of GDR applications' submission. Further, any subscription size must be reasonable, pricing must be aligned with regulations, while lockup periods for investors must also conform with guidelines. The identity of subscribers in the GDR issue must be part of a report submitted 15 days after a sale.
The joke that cost $2 million: China imposes huge fine for comedian’s army-themed quip
CNN
23-05-17 09:00
A Chinese entertainment firm has been fined $2m due to a joke made by a comedian which loosely referenced a slogan used to describe China’s military. The incident highlights how comedians must tread a delicate line given censorship in China. Li Haoshi, known by his stage name House, was performing at the Century Theater in Beijing when he used a phrase associated with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism stated that the company was “seriously insulting” the military and “causing bad social impact”.
Toronto's real estate market has turned around after a period of near 18% shrinkage in home prices, with the housing rebound strong enough to provide sellers with the upper hand, according to a report from RBC Economics. Back-to-back months of price rises, low stocks and high demand conspire to see sellers in major Canadian markets and beyond re-enter the market. But bankrate.ca warns that "affordability" is still a thorny issue in Toronto, calling for a shift in mindsets towards smaller homes and apartments.
Asia's bullish stock traders are dwindling as China's post-Covid economic recovery has failed to rally stocks in a sustained way, reinforced by a recent miss in April economic data, from industrial production to fixed-asset investment. Concerns centre on the speed and strength of China's recovery and a looming overseas recession that will add to the pressure on external demand. The lacklustre trading pattern has led to a drop in the number of investors bullish on China's recovery, a recent survey by Bank of America revealed, adding that India has overtaken China as the favourite for investors in Asia. Per capita consumer spending during May's golden week holiday came in below pre-pandemic levels. Property investment continued to contract, and youth unemployment hit a record high of 20.4% – but that data excluded almost 12 million university graduates who will enter the job market this summer.
Shanghai-based comedy company Xiaoguo Culture Media has been fined CNY13.35m ($2.13m) and had CNY1.35m confiscated after Chinese censors accused it of harming society by breaking censorship rules. The decision followed the performance by one of its comedians, Li Haoshi, known as House, when he made a joke about the People’s Liberation Army that drew strong criticism on social media for its perceived slant on the PLA. The case has divided public opinion on what kind of humour is acceptable, as stand-up comedy grows in popularity. Xiaoguo Culture blamed its “major loopholes in management” and said it had terminated Li’s contract in response.
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer BYD has launched a new division and begun hiring between 4,000 and 5,000 software engineers specialising in autonomous driving to address the company's perceived shortcomings in related technologies. BYD has also sought to close the gap by partnering with Horizon Robotics and NVidia to develop its Dynasty and Ocean series of cars. In the first quarter of this year, the company sold 510,000 pure EVs and plug-in hybrid cars in China, nearly four times more than Tesla.
Ant Group and the municipal government of Hangzhou have entered a strategic partnership, set to speed up Hangzhou's digital transformation project and transform the city into China's premier showcase for its technology innovation, digital economy, and broad-based tech applications. Ant Group is expected to make significant investments in blockchain, AI, and database technologies in Hangzhou, according to the company's CEO and Chairman, Eric Jing Xiandong. The partnership is expected to help stabilize Ant's business and push forward the company's digital technology ambitions, despite the uncertainty surrounding Ant's finances resulting from the ongoing regulatory crackdown in Beijing.
China's Xinjiang region is drawing a surge of visitors from the rest of China, despite Western nations' focus on the oppression faced by the Uighur Muslim minority. The "Strike Hard" campaign launched in 2014 resulted in hundreds of thousands of people being sent to internment camps. However, despite the repression continuing albeit in less visible ways, the region has been attracting tourists in great numbers with 8 million visitors recorded within just five days of holidays in early May; this was up 140% from the same period last year. Jiang's predecessor, security hardliner Chen Quanguo, placed heavy restrictions on the region compared to the current party secretary, Ma Xingrui.
Jiang’s instructions to showcase Chinese culture are being implemented with moderate success; however, there are three worlds that exist in Xinjiang: a Wonderland full of orientalist kitsch that has been concocted for tourists; a dark world of continuing repression, albeit harder to see than in previous years; and an in-between world in which the Uighurs probably live. It is evident that mass tourism and mass incarceration are not mutually exclusive, as evidenced by visitors flocking to Xinjiang despite the ongoing repression. Although there has been a surge in tourism, the Uighur city of yore appears to be fading.
Research by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) in 2020 identified 380 facilities in Xinjiang that were likely to be camps, but visiting them is now difficult due to high security. Nevertheless, the camps are no longer the same; some are no longer in use for their original purpose and are now home to a technical college. The numbers of criminal prosecutions in Xinjiang have dramatically increased, and the judiciary is under the control of the Communist Party, ending in a guilty verdict around 99% of the time.
Shanghai Xiaoguo Culture Media has been fined ¥13m ($1.9m) and lost ¥1.3m ($186,000) in income from performances in the Chinese capital after a stand-up comic employed by the company ridiculed the People's Liberation Army. The Beijing regulator ordered the financial penalty after the comic, Li Haoshi, altered the approved content of a performance and made degrading comments about the military, causing a "very bad" social effect, according to a notice. The regulator also suspended performance rights and instigated an open-ended investigation. The China Association of Performing Arts called on members to boycott Li, who apologised.
Despite China’s weak electric vehicle (EV) sales this year, Li Auto has set new sales records in April, reflecting the company’s confidence in design and battery technology. The Beijing-based start-up sold 25,681 units in April, up from 23.3% the previous month, making it the closest challenger to Tesla in the world's largest EV market. Li Auto stepped up production of its high-end models amid a bruising industry price war, however, it resolutely stayed out of the price cutting frenzy amongst its rivals.
A Chinese comedy studio was fined around $2m for a joke that insulted China’s military, bringing to light the increasingly limited expression under China's leader, Xi Jinping. The Beijing Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau accused comedian, Li Haoshi, of “severely insulting” the People’s Liberation Army during two performances in Beijing on 12th June. The authority also indefinitely suspended all Beijing performances from Xiaoguo Culture Media, the company that employs Mr Li, and confiscated roughly $180,000 worth of illicit income uncovered during the investigation.
