A relatively quiet week in China news, but we’ll start with space. Two steps forward, one step back perhaps, but China is seriously making progress. We are in a “Mars access” window right now, and China this week followed the US in landing a machine on the surface of the red planet. The landing was successful and the rover sent back images, only weeks after the American’s Perseverance rover landed. But then “technical issues” forced the postponement of the launch of the next parts of China’s permanent space station. So it’s a work in progress.
The EU-China investment agreement, negotiated over many years and agreed just before Biden took office, much to the annoyance of the Americans, was put on ice this week as the European Parliament decided to suspend discussion on the ratification of the pact until China removes sanctions on certain EU officials.
The Chinese economy is still doing well, and the big tech companies all reported strong performance in Q1. But interestingly, Zhang Yiming stepped down as the CEO of Bytedance, one of the “helicopter” companies of China tech in recent years, following in the footsteps of Jack Ma, and Pinduoduo’s Colin Huang.
And all sorts of companies including Huawei, Midea and Xiaomi are getting into the production of battery-powered cars. Goodbye gas stations, hello charging stations.
Have a good weekend.
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