| It's been a troubling start to the new year for anyone hoping 2021 might see some detente between the U.S. and China. Hong Kong, for one, looks set to become an even more contentious issue. Police there on Wednesday undertook their furthest-reaching action yet against the city's political opposition, arresting more than 50 activists under the auspices of its national security law. Among those rounded up was an American lawyer, the first foreign national detained under the law. The dragnet prompted Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden's nominee for secretary of state, to say on Twitter that the incoming U.S. administration would "stand with the people of Hong Kong and against Beijing's crackdown on democracy."  That tweet will have certainly irked many in Beijing, which has long objected to such expressions as interference in China's internal affairs. Blinken's sentiment would also seem to make it more difficult for the two sides to open a "new window of hope," something Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in an interview published Jan. 2 that he hoped they could do. The World Health Organization's investigation into the origins of Covid-19 was another issue that appeared to boil over this week. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued a rare rebuke of China on Tuesday after Beijing failed to finalize approvals for a WHO team to travel to the country, delaying the mission even after months of back and forth. While President Donald Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the WHO, his administration has also long blamed China for the coronavirus's spread across America. That makes very real the possibility of Washington lambasting any hint of obstruction by Beijing into the probe. And then there was the threat of financial decoupling, which manifested during the week in the twists and turns of whether the New York Stock Exchange would in fact delist China's three state-owned telecom carriers. It was ultimately decided that China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom will be delisted, but not before Beijing characterized the saga as an example of how "arbitrary, reckless and unpredictable" American rules and institutions can be. It was revealed shortly thereafter that the Trump administration was also considering a ban on American investments in Alibaba and Tencent. While Chinese regulators have recently had their own issues with the country's tech giants, Beijing will nonetheless feel the need to defend these companies if they come under attack by Washington. With so many problems still on the table, and the transition of power in the U.S. under unprecedented attack, it is hard to see how relations between the world's foremost powers will avoid having a rocky year ahead. Bubble TalkChina's benchmark stock index rose to a 13-year high this week, taking it into territory that's been unkind to investors in the past. The last time the country's equity market was this buoyant was June 2015, which was followed soon after by a frenetic selloff that erased more than $5 trillion in value over the next three months. A similarly dramatic plunge ensued after the market hit an all-time high in 2007. But this time could also be different. Having largely gotten Covid-19 infections under control, China's economy is solidly in recovery, with economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecasting GDP growth of 8.2% this year. There's also a lot less leverage in the market, with margin debt accounting for about 2% of market capitalization versus a peak of 4.5% in 2015. And while valuations are elevated, they are less extreme than five years ago. Still, with the market having jumped 30% in the past six months alone, there are plenty of reasons for caution.  Death SentenceCorruption has always been a crime punishable by death in China. Such sentences, however, have become so rare that it came as a surprise this week when Lai Xiaomin, the former chairman of state-owned China Huarong Asset Management, was condemned to death for taking $277 million in bribes. In trying to explain the severity of the punishment, Beijing-based lawyer Mo Shaoping pointed to the relatively large amount of money Lai was convicted of taking and the public outrage sparked by details of the case. It's also worth noting that during Lai's time leading Huarong, which was set up by Beijing to help clean up bad debts saddling the nation's commercial banks, the company began dabbling in businesses noticeably outside its original remit. But no matter what the rationale, the message Lai's sentence sent was loud and clear: Believing that corruption won't be punished by death is a mistake. Where is Jack?Jack Ma has never been one to shy away from the limelight, at least until recently. That's why it was odd this week when China's most-famous billionaire skipped the tapping of a TV program he created to help support entrepreneurs in Africa. His absence from that program, and any other public events since Ant Group's IPO was scuttled in November, sparked a flurry of questions online. Where was Jack? A spokesperson for Alibaba explained that Ma couldn't attend the tapping of the show because of a scheduling conflict. It could well be that with his business empire currently in the crosshairs of Chinese regulators that Ma has simply decided it's better to lay low for the time being. But until he reappears in public, it will be hard to stop the speculation swirling around where he could be.  Jack Ma at the Viva Technology conference in Paris, France, on May 16, 2019. Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg What We're ReadingAnd finally, a few other things that caught our attention: | 
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