China’s property crash sends billionaires heading to exits ByVenus Feng November 4, 2022 https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...onaires-heading-to-exits-20221101-p5buie.html For two years, bad news has kept piling on for Chinese property developers. The nation’s worsening credit crisis has led to defaults, failure to deliver homes on time and an unrelenting market selloff. Now a new phenomenon is happening: Builders’ founders are leaving. Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, who now live in New York, resigned in September as chairman and CEO, respectively, of their real estate empire, Soho China.CREDIT:GETTY Longfor Group’s Wu Yajun resigned on Friday as executive director and chair, shortly after Soho China Ltd.’s Pan Shiyiquit in September. While Wu cited health reasons, the timing has startled analysts. “It’s very likely that we will see more mainland property founders leaving important roles in their firms,” said Kakei Lam, fund investment officer at Metaverse Securities in Hong Kong. “The golden age of Chinese property is gone, and they probably don’t see too much they can do to help.” The surprise move sent Longfor’s stock and bonds tumbling on Monday, even as Wu’s family spent HK$28.6 million ($5.7 million) snapping up shares to shore up market confidence and the company partially repaid a syndicated loan early. The resignation is only adding to concerns that the developer -- which has the highest credit rating among private peers in China – won’t be able to rely on its relatively strong position to stave off the ongoing national crisis. While the trend is only starting in the property sector, China’s tech industry has seen several high-profile founders resign following a crackdown that began with Ant Group Co.‘s torpedoed initial public offering, costing the firms billions of dollars in market value. Entrepreneurs are quitting because they’re worried about Xi Jinping’s drive to regulate wealth accumulation, said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis SA. In the case of Soho China, the stock has tumbled to a record low since Pan left the company to focus on philanthropic pursuits. Once China’s richest woman, Wu has lost two-thirds of her wealth this year and may soon drop out of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which tracks the world’s 500 richest people. As of Monday’s close, she was worth about $US4.6 billion ($7.2 billion). While Wu’s resignation sent shock waves through the market, the 58-year-old said she’d been preparing her succession for three years, inspired by He Xiangjian, the billionaire founder of appliance maker Midea Group Co. who handed the reins to a group of professional managers a decade ago. In a call over the weekend, Wu told investors she’s been suffering from diabetes and thyroid disease for years and initially planned to announce her departure after Longfor’s most recent earnings report in August, state media reported. She decided to postpone after the company bought some plots of land in September. China’s property downturn has battered its economy.CREDIT:BLOOMBERG Chen Xuping, Longfor’s chief executive officer since March, succeeded Wu as chair and two other new directors were appointed to the board on Friday. Wu vowed to remain as a strategic development consultant to help with the business model and look for growth opportunities, the state media report said. “The selloff reflects the market doubts on the ability of the successor and whether the firm can maintain its development plans in the future,” Metaverse Securities’ Lam said. Known as one of the top self-made female entrepreneurs in China, Wu lost her title as the country’s richest woman after divorcing Cai Kui in 2012 and transferring to him more than one-third of the Longfor shares they held together. The following year, she set up her own family office, Wu Capital, to diversify her investments into private equity and technology. In 2018, Wu conveyed all her Longfor stake to a discretionary trust established by her daughter, Cai Xinyi, citing “family wealth and succession planning.” She put her in charge of the family office two years later, though Wu still holds the Longfor voting rights from the trust. Wu’s rise is an example of China’s massive wealth creation over the past decades. Born into a humble family in the southwestern city of Chongqing, she studied thermal power torpedo equipment design at the Northwestern Polytechnical University of Xi’an and was assigned to a state-owned factory after graduating in 1984. Inspired by the economic growth unleashed by the country’s opening up, she quit her stable job to become a real estate reporter. “The golden age of Chinese property is gone, and they probably don’t see too much they can do to help.” Kakei Lam, fund investment officer at Metaverse Securities in Hong Kong Wu decided to start her own property firm after she bought her first apartment in her hometown, an experience that left her disappointed after its delivery was delayed and she discovered when she moved in that the elevator service was spotty. She founded Longfor’s predecessor in 1993 to cater to demand for new, better quality homes. The firm sold its first residential project four years later, and the business soon expanded to other major Chinese cities. Longfor started trading publicly in Hong Kong in 2009 and has been considered a healthy developer as it meets the “three red lines” – the debt restrictions China imposed as part of its crackdown on leverage. The firm remains one of the rare builders in the nation that managed to post net income growth in the first half of this year and hand out cash dividends. But China’s dimming economic outlook amid its punishing Covid policies and limited financing channels are hampering confidence in Longfor’s growth. And Wu’s stepping down isn’t helping. “We are concerned the resignation may have an impact on confidence among Longfor’s stakeholders, e.g. suppliers, homebuyers and financial institutions,” UBS Group AG analysts including John Lam wrote in a note Monday. That could bring pressure on the company’s liquidity, they added. Bloomberg
China’s TikTok Admits Its Staff Can Spy on User Data in Other Countries Business Nov 3, 2022 Bryan Jung https://mb.ntd.com/chinas-tiktok-ad...y-on-user-data-in-other-countries_867174.html The Chinese media platform TikTok admitted that its staff in China has the ability to access the private accounts data in the United Kingdom and the European Union. This comes after years of criticism from around the world, particularly in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States over concerns that personal information could be passed on to the Chinese government. The app is coming under intense scrutiny by government authorities in the West, as its parent company, ByteDance, repeatedly denies that it is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). TikTok Attempts to Explain a Privacy Loophole The social media company released a press statement on Nov. 2, stating that its “privacy policy” was “based on a demonstrated need to do their job.” TikTok said in its statement that the policy applies to “the European economic area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland.” The company relies “on a global workforce to ensure that our community’s TikTok experience is consistent, enjoyable, and safe,” for better user experience, said Elaine Fox, TikTok’s head of privacy for Europe, Fox said that even though the social media app currently stores European user data in the United States and Singapore, “we allow certain employees within our corporate group located in Brazil, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States remote access to TikTok European user data.” “Our efforts are centered on limiting the number of employees with access to European user data, minimizing data flows outside of the region, and storing European user data locally,” she explained. She also claimed that the app does not collect precise location data from users in the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU). Fox said that employee access was “subject to a series of robust security controls and approval protocols, and by way of methods that are recognized under the General Data Protection Regulation.” The new EU law will affect how companies use personal information and is slated to come into effect on May 25, 2023. US Authorities Call for Another Crackdown on TikTok Earlier this week, a top official at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the U.S. government’s communications watchdog, called for TikTok to be banned in the United States. “I don’t believe there is a path forward for anything other than a ban,” Brendan Carr, a commissioner at the FCC, told Axios. He stated that there was not “a world in which you could come up with sufficient protection on the data that you could have sufficient confidence that it’s not finding its way back into the hands of the [Chinese Communist Party].” Carr reported asked Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores due to concerns about user privacy. “Commissioner Carr has no role in the confidential discussions with the U.S. government related to TikTok, and appears to be expressing views independent of his role as an FCC commissioner,” a TikTok spokesperson told Axios in response to the FCC concerns. In June this year, TikTok said it had migrated U.S. users’ information to servers run by American software giant Oracle in Austin, Texas. Last month, TikTok denied a report in Forbes that a Chinese-based team at ByteDance was using the app to track the locations of American citizens without their consent. The report said that ByteDance attempted to collect location data on an American citizen on at least two occasions. TikTok belatedly denied on Twitter that it intended to target U.S. government officials, activists, public figures, and reporters. “Forbes chose not to include the portion of our statement that disproved the feasibility of its core allegation: TikTok does not collect precise GPS location information from U.S. users, meaning TikTok could not monitor U.S. users in the way the article suggested,” ByteDance told the BBC. TikTok programmers based in China were also accused of accessing private user information in the United States, including phone numbers and birthdays, reported BuzzFeed back in June. Another Buzzfeed article from July reported that the social media company told its workers to push pro-Beijing taking points to American users on its news app. ByteDance denied both of Buzzfeed’s accusations. President Donald Trump, back in 2020, called for the app to be banned by U.S. authorities, which forced ByteDance to sell its American operations over concerns that personal data would be shared with Beijing. However, the executive order was halted by a federal judge before it was revoked by President Joe Biden in 2021. President Biden Faces Bipartisan Pressure to Act on Security Concerns Over the App It was reported by The New York Times in September that discussions were ongoing between ByteDance and the Biden administration to resolve concerns regarding its app. “I told everyone years ago that TikTok was a tool of communist China, and yet Biden invites TikTok ‘influencers’ to the White House,” said Sen. Marco Rubio,(R-Fla.), who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. After intense criticism, Biden ordered the Department of Commerce to review the national security threat posed by apps like TikTok from adversarial foreign nations such as China. However, massive use of TikTok by political campaigns for voter outreach during the U.S. midterm elections has put the controversy on the spot, reported The Washington Post. There now is growing bipartisan opposition to the use of the Chinese app. “This is not something you would normally hear me say, but Donald Trump was right on TikTok years ago,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told The Sidney Morning Herald last week. “If your country uses Huawei, if your kids are on TikTok … the ability for China to have undue influence is a much greater challenge and a much more immediate threat than any kind of actual, armed conflict,” he said. Republican lawmakers on the House Oversight and Energy and Commerce committees said that the “the data collected by TikTok on U.S. users, such as browsing and search history, biometrics, location data, and other metadata, would be a massive national security risk in the hands of CCP intelligence,” reported Fox News. European and British Authorities Begin to Investigate TikTok Meanwhile, the British Parliament shut down its TikTok account in August after members of Parliament raised concerns about the risk of that their personal data were being passed on to the CCP. They demanded that the app should be closed until TikTok gave “credible assurances” that the CCP would not have access to their data. TikTok is also facing a fine equivalent of $30 million in the United Kingdom for failure to protect the privacy of children using the app, reported the BBC. The Data Protection Commission, Ireland’s privacy watchdog, is also investigating TikTok over children’s privacy and whether the app was in line with EU laws regarding personal data being sent to other countries, such as China, reported the BBC. TikTok is the most popular social media app around the world, and has been downloaded almost 4 billion times. Parent company ByteDance has made more than $6.2 billion in revenue from in-app spending since it was launched in 2017, according to analytics company Sensor Tower, reported the BBC. From The Epoch Times
Biden to Tell Xi to Help on North Korea or Face More Drills Biden, Xi to meet Monday on sidelines of G-20 Summit in Bali Sullivan said North Korea threatens ‘stability’ across region Joe Biden disembarks from Air Force One upon arrival in Cambodia's Phnom Penh International Airport on Nov. 12. Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images By Justin Sink and Josh Wingrove 12 November 2022 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...orea-or-face-more-us-drills?srnd=premium-asia President Joe Biden will warn Chinese leader Xi Jinping of an expanded US military presence in the region if Beijing doesn’t help rein in North Korean military provocations, according to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One Saturday morning shortly before Biden arrived in Cambodia, Sullivan said North Korea is a threat to the US, Japan, South Korea and to “peace and stability across the entire region.” President Joe Biden will warn Chinese leader Xi Jinping of an expanded US military presence in the region if Beijing doesn’t help rein in North Korean military provocations, according to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Biden won’t make any demand of Xi but will share his perspective, Sullivan said. “If North Korea goes down this road, it will simply mean further enhanced American military and security presence in the region,” Sullivan said. “And so the PRC has an interest in playing a constructive role in restraining North Korea’s worst tendencies; whether they choose to do so or not is of course up to them.” Biden arrived in Cambodia on Saturday for a series of summits hosted by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. He plans to meet Sunday with the leaders of Japan and South Korea and ask them what they want him to tell Xi, Sullivan said, before meeting the Chinese leader on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali the following day. Biden and Xi have discussed North Korea many times, Sullivan said, but the nation’s increased military activity has raised the stakes. North Korea has launched more than 60 ballistic missiles so far in 2022, more than double the number of any year during Kim Jong Un’s decade in power. “The operational situation is more acute in the current moment because of the pace of these missile tests, and because of the looming threat of a potential nuclear test, seventh nuclear test,” he said. “But the president sees this as quite familiar ground that he will be treading with President Xi when they meet in Bali.” The Biden-Xi meeting was long in the planning, Sullivan said. It’s the first time the two will meet in person since Biden won the presidency. “The president views this as not the end of the line but rather the start of a series of engagements that will also include further leader-to-leader meetings down the road,” Sullivan said. China will play “a constructive role” for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the nation’s Premier Li Keqiang said at a meeting with South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol Saturday, Yonhap News reported. The two leaders briefly spoke to each other on the sidelines of the Asean Plus Three summit in Cambodia, Yonhap said, citing an unidentified official at Korea’s presidential office. Li’s remark came after Yoon expressed his concerns over the recent actions by North Korea, the report said. — With assistance by Jennifer Jacobs and Heejin Kim
Xi Jinping's recent moves to tie big internet companies to state-run telcos seem to echo the strategies of Mao Zedong. (Nikkei montage/Yusuke Hinata/AP) China up close Analysis: Xi puts economy on war footing with Taiwan in mind Lessons from Russia: Tighten grip on communications, social media and deliveries KATSUJI NAKAZAWA, Nikkei senior staff writerNovember 10, 2022 https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Pi...ts-economy-on-war-footing-with-Taiwan-in-mind Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize. News of China's big three state-owned telecommunications companies forming separate strategic alliances with three private-sector tech giants, Tencent, Alibaba and JD.com, has sent shock waves through a business community now searching for a possible meaning behind the moves. The alliances have the potential to rewrite the economic narrative of a Chinese economy that has been developing since the "reform and opening-up" policy was introduced about 40 years ago. Tencent, which operates instant-messaging app WeChat and recently became a major player in the global gaming market, has established a mixed-ownership joint venture with China Unicom. Tencent was not in a position to resist pressure from authorities to establish the venture, and the state is in the driver's seat. One old intellectual noted that it looks straight out of Mao Zedong's playbook. "It is basically what Mao did in the 1950s," the intellectual said, "having the state taking control of private companies." Mao Zedong began pursuing a wartime economy in the 1960s to prepare for a potential war with the U.S. or Soviet Union. © AP That Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, wanted a mechanism that absorbs the private sector's vigor into the public side speaks volumes of his economic strategy for the next five years. What cannot be ignored is that this economic strategy is deeply related to his views on Taiwan unification. In a report to the party's national congress on Oct. 16, the leader declared for the first time that China "will never promise to renounce the use of force" against Taiwan. "It is preparing for a split between the U.S. and China and it is preparing for Taiwan unification," said another Chinese expert. "You should recall the Mao Zedong-style wartime economy." A Mao Zedong-style wartime economic strategy points to the "Third Front Movement" that Mao began pursuing in the 1960s to prepare for a war with the U.S. or Soviet Union. In the name of creating a self-reliant economy amid international isolation, China's military industry was moved deep inside the western inland regions. A workshop at Panzhihua Iron and Steel (Group) on March 31, 2009, in the inland province of Sichuan. (File photo by Getty Images) A typical example is major state-owned steelmaker Panzhihua Iron and Steel, which was established in the remote part of Sichuan province. Mao ordered the construction of Panzhihua in May 1964, saying "this is not a steel plant issue but a strategic issue." The Third Front referred to inland provinces such as Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and Shaanxi. The coastal regions were the First Front. The Second Front was adjacent to the First. The Third went further inward. Building the Third Front Movement was economically inefficient amid China's international isolation. It was not until the 1980s that China recovered from the policy, well after U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit and the normalization of diplomatic ties with Japan, both of which in 1972. Politburo Standing Committee members Zhao Leji, left, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, President Xi Jinping, Li Xi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Qiang visit the Yan'an Revolutionary Memorial Hall in Yan'an, northwestern China's Shaanxi province, on Oct. 27. © Xinhua/AP In World War II-era Japan, too, many companies came under the umbrella of the military as part of wartime integration. The Xi administration has consistently been willing to promote mixed ownership. But "mixed ownership" does not accurately describe what is going on: Little more than dull, publicly owned companies are gobbling up vibrant private companies. In early November, around the time that news of the joint ventures emerged, an article pointing out the irrationality of Mao's policy of absorbing private companies began to circulate on the internet. It noted that the party had reneged on a promise made when the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. But as soon as Chinese netizens began hotly debating the article, it became impossible to view online. There are only 101 state-owned companies under the direct control of the central government. They form a pillar of the communist regime and include the three state-owned telecommunications giants. Jack Ma gestures at an innovation fair in Paris on May 16, 2019. This year, Ma was in Japan before the party's national congress in October. There is no news that he returned to China. © AP China Telecom will proceed with its strategic alliance with Alibaba Group, China's biggest online shopping company, in a partnership dates back to May 2017. China Mobile, the country's biggest telecommunications company, and JD.com, the country's second-biggest online shopping company, have formed a strategic alliance through subsidiaries Shanghai Mobile and JD Technology. What is surprising is the date on which news broke of the state-owned telcos' alliances with the internet titans, Nov. 2. On Nov. 2, 2020, Alibaba founder Jack Ma was suddenly summoned by Chinese authorities for questioning. The timing of the recent development does not seem to be a mere coincidence. On that night two years ago, state-run Xinhua News Agency published a column accompanied by the famous painting by Japanese artist Kaii Higashiyama of a horse-shaped white cloud in the blue sky. Jack Ma was born Ma Yun, which means "horse cloud" in Chinese. (Screenshot from Xinhua) The article's headline said, "Words can't be spoken carelessly, things can't be done by following one's heart, nor can people act according to their free will." It came after Ma criticized China's financial regulations as "outdated." The article was, in effect, a warning that Ma could easily be swept away by the wind. Shortly after the article was published, and as the cryptic message had hinted, Alibaba-affiliated financial company Ant Group was forced to delay its planned dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Strangely enough, Ma, a party member, was in Japan before the party's recent national congress. There is no news yet that he returned to China. Ma's situation is a bit similar to Hu Jintao's. Hu, 79, was forced to leave the stage during the closing ceremony of the national congress "for health reasons" on Xi's instructions. Judging from Hu's unusual behavior, he must have wanted to say something, as Ma did two years ago, although it remains unclear what Hu wanted to say. Now that video footage has surfaced showing a kerfuffle over papers Hu had in front of him, it will not be easy for Hu to attend important events from here on out. Hu Jintao, right, seems to have wanted to say something at the closing ceremony of the party congress on Oct. 22 but was instead escorted out of the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing. (Photo by Yusuke Hinata) Mao Zedong-style economic policies are not limited to public-private ventures. Stores called "supply and marketing cooperatives" have begun to spring up conspicuously across the country. Similar public-supply centers for daily necessities were integral, along with "people's communes," during the Mao era. Also noteworthy in this regard is that Liang Huiling, a senior official at the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, was unexpectedly promoted to the party's Central Committee. Supply and marketing cooperatives are public organizations funded by the state that sell products at cut-rate prices. They have become bloated due to lockdowns imposed as part of the country's strict zero-COVID policy. Supply and marketing cooperatives are centers to implement "common prosperity," Xi's signature economic policy that seeks to reduce income inequality and promote people-centered development. While older Chinese might remember or know of supply and marketing cooperatives from the Mao era, China today has become affluent, and younger generations, even in rural areas, can easily buy what they need at privately run convenience stores. The sudden revival of the cooperatives is making many Chinese uneasy. Supply and marketing cooperatives have appeared across the country, like this one in Beijing. © Kyodo How is this connected to Taiwan unification? One angle is the lessons from Russia's uphill battle in Ukraine. The course of modern warfare comes down to which side secures supremacy in telecommunication and the internet, with cyber and information warfare prevalent. In the event of a military contingency, the three state-owned companies that control China's telecommunications infrastructure become critical. But they alone are not enough to win a war. China can only go on a war footing if it also controls the private IT companies as well as major companies that supply goods. If China expands public-private ventures in sectors that become more critical in wartime, it will be able to go on a war footing at a moment's notice. If China is determined to prevent the U.S. from coming to Taiwan's aid, unprecedented tensions between the big powers might become a pretext for using force. Such a scenario could present Xi with a golden opportunity to quickly recover from his political setback at the party congress, where he failed to implement all of his coveted revisions to the party's constitution, likely due to pushback from party elders. If Xi achieves Taiwan unification it would undoubtedly put him on par with Mao, and he would no longer need to care about overtaking Deng Xiaoping. Xi might then be able to acquire the status of top Chinese leader for life at the party's next national congress, in 2027. With Xi playing a high-stakes geopolitical game, the coming years carry great potential for danger.
Chinese fighter jets flew near island, Taiwan says Ten of the aircraft on Saturday flew across the median line in the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from the mainland, the Taiwanese defense ministry said. Nov. 13, 2022 / Source: Associated Press By Associated Press https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/...fighter-jets-median-line-xi-jinping-rcna56942 China’s military flew 36 fighter jets and bombers near Taiwan, the Taiwanese defense ministry announced, part of a long-running campaign of intimidation against the self-ruled island democracy that Beijing claims as part of its territory. Ten of the aircraft on Saturday flew across the median line in the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from the mainland, the ministry said. It said they included six Shenyang J-11 and four J-16 aircraft. Taiwan and China split in 1949 following a civil war that ended with the Communist Party in control of the mainland. The island never has been part of the People’s Republic of China, but Beijing says it is obliged to unite with the mainland, by force if necessary. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government stepped up efforts this year to intimidate Taiwan. It has sent fighter planes and bombers to fly near the island and fired missiles into the sea. On Saturday, Taiwan’s military also spotted four Chengdu J-10 fighters, a Y-8 antisubmarine warfare plane and three H-6 bombers southwest of the island, the Ministry of Defense said on its website. It said three Chinese drones also were detected.
COVID zero: Violent protests break out at Apple’s main iPhone plant in China November 24, 2022 https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/c...in-iphone-plant-in-china-20221124-p5c0ue.html Hundreds of workers at Apple’s main iPhone-making plant in China clashed with security personnel, as tensions boiled over after almost a month under tough restrictions intended to quash a COVID outbreak. Workers at the Foxconn Technology Group plant streamed out of dormitories in the early hours of Wednesday, jostling and pushing past the white-clad guards they vastly outnumbered, according to videos sent by a witness to portions of the protest. Scenes of violence outside the Foxconn factory Zhengzhou.Credit:AP Several white-suited people pummeled a person lying on the ground with sticks in another clip. Onlookers yelled “fight, fight!” as throngs of people forced their way past barricades. At one point, several surrounded an occupied police car and began rocking the vehicle while screaming incoherently. The protest started overnight over unpaid wages and fears of spreading infection, according to the witness, asking to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions. Several workers were injured and anti-riot police arrived on the scene Wednesday to restore order, the person added. In one video, irate workers surrounded a silent, downcast manager in a conference room to voice grievances and question their COVID test results. It wasn’t clear when the meeting took place. Security personnel attack a man during protest at a Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou.Credit:AP “I’m really scared about this place, we all could be COVID positive now,” a male worker said. “You are sending us to death,” another person said. The Zhengzhou campus was operating normally as of Wednesday evening, a Foxconn spokesperson said. The violence had erupted after a portion of recently arrived employees raised complaints about “work subsidies” – bonuses or payments on top of usual wages, Foxconn said in a statement. But the company stressed that it handles all such compensation in strict accordance with its contractual obligations. “With regards to the violence, we are continuing to communicate with workers and the government, to avoid a recurrence,” the company said without elaborating. The rare instances of violence at the plant in the central city of Zhengzhou reflects a build-up of tensions since the lockdown began in October. Many among the vast workforce of more than 200,000 at “iPhone City” have been plunged into isolation, forced to subsist on spartan meals and scrounge for medication. Many eventually fled the plant on foot last month. Foxconn and the local government appeared to have gotten the situation under control in recent weeks, promising unusually high wages to attract new staff and promising better working conditions. Wednesday morning’s protests suggest that is no longer the case. It underscores how Xi Jinping’s COVID Zero policy, which relies on swift lockdowns to stamp out the disease wherever it pops up, is increasingly weighing on the economy and throwing swathes of the global supply chain into disarray. Beijing recently issued new directives ordering officials to minimise disruption and use more targeted COVID controls, but surging outbreaks in major cities have forced local authorities to reach for strict curbs again. “It’s really a mess,” said Barry Naughton, a professor at the University of California San Diego who specialises in Chinese economics. “They’ve created a situation where the local decision makers are under intolerable pressure.” Violence has erupted sporadically across China over COVID restrictions. In May, hundreds of workers clashed with security personnel at Quanta Computer Inc.’s factory in Shanghai after they were barred for months from contact with the outside world, while protests have emerged in locked-down areas of Guangdong, the southern manufacturing hub. The Foxconn situation serves up another reminder of the dangers for Apple of relying on a vast production machine centred on China at a time of unpredictable policy and uncertain trade relations. Zhengzhou is the site of Apple’s most critical production, churning out an estimated four in five of its latest-generation handsets and the vast majority of the highest-end iPhone 14 Pro units. Apple warned this month that shipments of its newest premium iPhones will be lower than previously expected – just ahead of the peak holiday season shopping. The protests took place just hours after Henan party chief Lou Yangsheng visited the area where Foxconn plants were located and held a video chat with select employees. He asked managers to aid staff and ensure a “warm, relaxed and stable” living and working environment, according to the official Henan Daily. Lou’s visit underscored the unusual amount of effort that provincial officials had devoted recently toward the nation’s biggest private-sector employer, from reportedly helping in recruitment to exhorting retirees to work at Foxconn. Naughton, the professor, said Beijing is putting intense pressure on local officials to realise contradictory goals. “The tension is that Beijing wants both COVID Zero and full economic growth,” he said. “It’s kind of impossible.” Bloomberg
Video Shows Police Beating iPhone Factory Workers Who Protested Over Pay Dispute By Caroline Guerin 11/23/22 https://www.ibtimes.com/video-shows...orkers-who-protested-over-pay-dispute-3639661 A newly released livestream shows Chinese police beating Foxconn factory workers protesting at a manufacturing facility in Zhengzhou, China, the world's largest Apple iPhone manufacturer. Foxconn, which manufactures smartphones and other electronics, has been under strict COVID-19 lockdowns in recent weeks. To contain the latest outbreaks, factories have attempted to implement a closed-loop management plan, where workers live inside the factories and have no outside contact. Videos shared on social media appear to show workers being kicked by hazmat-suited officials during Foxconn protests in Zhengzhou, central China. Stephen McDonnel/Twitter Foxconn announced they recruited 100,000 new workers on Friday in a massive recruitment drive, as Apple faces significant supply chain constraints ahead of holiday demand. To attract more workers amid the COVID-19 lockdowns, the company said it would quadruple daily bonuses for workers at the plant. According to employee Li Sanshan, who spoke to the Associated Press, the protest at the Zhengzhou factory erupted Tuesday after employees who had traveled to Foxconn after being promised higher pay complained the company changed its salary terms. When employees arrived, Foxconn said they had to work "two additional months at lower pay to receive the 25,000 yuan they were initially promised," said Li. "Foxconn released very tempting recruiting offers, and workers from all parts of the country came, only to find they were being made fools of." The newly released video shows thousands of protestors in masks facing rows of police in white hazmat-style suits and riot gear. Police officers can be seen hitting multiple protestors with clubs. Footage shared on the live streaming site also showed workers shouting: "Defend our rights! Defend our rights!" Other workers were seen smashing surveillance cameras. One Foxconn worker yells in the background, "They changed the contract, so we could not get the subsidy they promised. They quarantine us, but don't provide food." One employee told BBC News that workers are protesting because they wanted to "get a subsidy and return home." The worker also claimed to have seen a man "severely injured" after being beaten by police.
Actually the protests at the Apple Factory are not over Covid measures but over pay. The workers are happy to work under Covid restrictions as long as the pay they were promised is provided. Foxconn offered higher pay to attract more workers to the Zhengzhou factory to assemble the iPhone 14, which sells starting at $799 in the United States. On Tuesday, a protest erupted after employees who had traveled long distances to take jobs at the factory complained that the company changed terms of their pay, according to an employee, Li Sanshan. Li said he quit a catering job when he saw an advertisement promising 25,000 yuan ($3,500) for two months of work. That would be a significant hike over average pay for this type of work in the area. After employees arrived, the company said they had to work two additional months at lower pay to receive the 25,000 yuan, according to Li. “Foxconn released very tempting recruiting offers, and workers from all parts of the country came, only to find they were being made fools of,” he said. Protesting workers beaten at Chinese iPhone factory https://apnews.com/article/technolo...id-apple-inc-de96ca707008f1ae48820ed573c56865
Un-lethal Aids, I'd guess medicals and MREs, while we sent rockets and guns. Only Ukraine is a loser either way.