Chinks being chinks

China's major shadow bank Zhongzhi declares 'severe insolvency' with a $36 billion shortfall, signaling liquidity problems in the $2.9 trillion Chinese shadow banking sector.
Known for real estate investments, Zhongzhi attributes the deficit to internal management issues facing operational risks.
The crisis further highlights instability in China's real estate market, raising concerns of possible contagion effects.

nothingburger?

Hard to say what is actually going on but FYI...

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Leading scientists urged caution over fears of another pandemic after the World Health Organization requested more information from China on a rise of respiratory illnesses. https://t.co/WzxrU4343V https://t.co/WzxrU4343V
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) November 23, 2023

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China called for vigilance as a surge of respiratory illness hit schools and hospitals and the World Health Organization, which has asked the government for disease data, said no unusual or novel pathogens had been detected https://t.co/KidZee6fwB pic.twitter.com/M1quQMVG3f
Reuters (@Reuters) November 24, 2023

Footage shows mask-wearing crowds piling into an 'overwhelmed' Beijing hospital amid fears over mystery pneumonia sweeping country - but China insists flu and usual winter bugs are to blame, NOT a new virus

Now youse can't leave: The Beijing Stock Exchange is stopping big shareholders from selling stocks in a bid to sustain a market rally, Reuters reported.

Under Chinese law, investors with a stake of 5% or more in a listed company must make a public filing before they can sell their shares. The exchange has been rejecting such filings, the outlet reported Monday, citing unnamed sources.

It's not clear how long the policy, which appears to be an attempt by the authorities to ensure a recent market rally doesn't fade, will stay in effect...

Last week police arrested a man in the southwestern province of Sichuan for spreading rumors about the stock market's struggles, the South China Morning Post reported.

Meanwhile, the government has instructed prominent economists not to discuss issues such as deflation and faltering growth, according to a Financial Times report from August, and has stopped publishing unflattering data that showed a massive surge in youth unemployment.

The Beijing Stock Exchange is the youngest of China's three major exchanges. It was launched in 2021 to cater to smaller-cap companies and lists 232 stocks with a combined valuation of about $50 billion, according to data from Reuters.

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A man in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan has been arrested for spreading rumours about the stock market amid a crackdown by law enforcement on acts that undermine the country's fragile economic recovery.

A 30-year-old man in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan and a commercial hub, was detained over suspicions he used news about China's stock market from foreign media to fabricate stories, China's top police agency, the Ministry of Public Security, said on Wednesday morning....

The authorities did not specify the content of the rumours involved or the companies that were mentioned in the false information.

The statement added that the police would continue cracking down on online rumours to "safeguard China's political security and social stability"....

Earlier this month, officials from China's top spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, pledged they would be "proactive" in protecting the country's financial stability and monitoring risks in the sector....

China has seen a growing number of cases in which law enforcement officers target people deemed to have undermined the economy with "rumours".

Securities regulators in the northwestern province of Gansu on Monday announced that an internet user had been fined 200,000 yuan (US$28,000) for making up information about futures trading.

In May, a Shanghai company was also fined for providing false information about futures trading, according to mainland media reports.

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In 2015 the Chinese government was able to halt a stock market crash by similar means, banning selling by major stockholders for six months and arresting bearish analysts for "rumor mongering" until their colleagues got the message and dedicated themselves to optimism.

In 2023 government pledges to support the market - by gunpoint when necessary - have so far prevented a complete rout, but over 75% of foreign money invested into Chinese stocks in 2023 has left as tensions rise with the US and the property bubble contagion spreads to even the state-backed banking industry. The scale of the property bubble collapse is expected to dwarf the resources of local and provincial governments neck deep in real estate bonds and may challenge the capacity of the national government when a projected $5 trillion in government backed bonds default, while a third of government income - taxes from real estate transactions, which incentivized the government to inflate the property bubble beyond insanity - dries up.

Aside from arresting analysts the government has clamped down on the flow of already infamously falsified official economic data and has invited foreign due diligence and independent economic data collection firms to get the fuck out or be arrested for espionage. Foreign banks and hedge funds are shaking their heads sadly and declaring China "uninvestable" and increasingly predict a Japan style "lost decade" of stagnation (which has lasted 32 years so far) as growth is crushed while they metabolize the property bubble debt.

China doesn't have time to muddle through that, the demographics bomb that will destroy their low labor costs and high productivity went off thirty years ago, their population is rapidly aging and has begun the first stage in a severe decline, perhaps dropping 50% this century.

Some predict the ground washing out from under the feet of the Chinese Communist Party, which has built it's argument for legitimacy on a foundation of 50 years of explosive economic growth, money excusing all sorts of abuse, corruption, and incompetence. Recently propaganda and Chinese school curriculums have begun replacing global trade skills with "Xi thought", a spartan, nationalist, communist authoritarian ideology demonizing the pursuit of wealth, strongly suggesting the CCP is attempting to pivot back to a Maoist cult of personality/us against the world ideology to replace the fading dream of using foreign capital to build a western liberal style middle class that can sustain internal consumption.

NBC News  



WASHINGTON Chinese President Xi Jinping bluntly told President Joe Biden during their recent summit in San Francisco that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with mainland China but that the timing has not yet been decided, according to three current and former U.S. officials.



Xi told Biden in a group meeting attended by a dozen American and Chinese officials that China's preference is to take Taiwan peacefully, not by force, the officials said.



The Chinese leader also referenced public predictions by U.S. military leaders who say that Xi plans to take Taiwan in 2025 or 2027, telling Biden that they were wrong because he has not set a time frame, according to the two current and one former official briefed on the meeting.



Chinese officials also asked in advance of the summit that Biden make a public statement after the meeting saying that the United States supports China's goal of peaceful unification with Taiwan and does not support Taiwanese independence, they said. The White House rejected the Chinese request.



A spokesperson for the National Security Council declined to comment...



During the summit in San Francisco, Xi expressed concerns about the candidates running for president of Taiwan in next month's election, according to U.S. officials. Xi also noted the influence that the U.S. has on Taiwan, they said.

A top secret Chinese spaceplane that launched into orbit last week is sending strong signals over North America.

The craft - dubbed Shenlong after a spirit dragon from Chinese mythology - has released six mysterious objects after reaching the Earth's orbit for the third time in three years.

The objects are being tracked by the US Space Force but no details have been released publicly as to what they are or what purpose they serve.

Amateur astronomer Scott Tilley has been tracking the plane and examining the signals they have been emitting.

He told DailyMail.com they appear to be sending the strongest signals while passing over North America.

It comes just 10 months after the US shot down a Chinese spy that could have collected intelligence as it passed over several military sites.



China's top-secret spaceplane deployed five unidentified objects into orbit after launching last week, which are now sending strong signals back to Earth. Pictured is a shot of the spaceplane in orbit

Tilley said he believes the signals are targeting a ground station or boat near British Columbia, Canada, where he lives.

'When the spaceplane passes over me, it only emits on a certain trajectory of pass that appears to favor a location south to southwest of me.

'I.e., on higher elevation passes over me, there are no signals, but on ocean-hugging passes to my southwest, all of my observations of the object have occurred.'

Tilley has teamed up with a group in Switzerland that specializes in optical-band space surveillance, and the collaboration has been keeping a close eye on the plane since it launched on December 15.

The US Department of Defense has designated the six objects OBJECT A through F.

Tilley and the team in Switzerland labeled the spaceplane Object A, which has 'now been identified as the test spacecraft by the US Space Force.'

Object B is 'very bright' and showed 'characteristics during several passes that we would rather associate with an upper stage,' according to S2A Systems, the team in Switzerland.

'The light curve of Object D also indicates a stabilized attitude control,' the team continued.





https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sc…ignals-North-America.html