| The Biden administration approves its first arms sale to Taiwan. Investors pore over old Xi Jinping speeches in the hunt for Beijing's next target. China's clampdown sparks a school pupil exodus in Hong Kong. Here's what you need to know this Thursday. Traders have began scouring Xi Jinping's past speeches to find clues about which industries might be targeted next, after his administration smashed the country's $100 billion for-profit education sector. Reading Beijing's signals has always been a crucial component of doing business in China, but the abrupt education overhaul has prompted even seasoned investors to reassess how they interpret statements from Xi and top officials. This week Tencent shares plunged after an offshoot of the official Xinhua News Agency decried the "spiritual opium" of online gaming, sparking worries that the sector might be next on the chopping block. The Biden administration has approved its first arms sale to Taiwan, a potential $750 million deal certain to be denounced by China. It calls for selling Taiwan 40 new M109 self-propelled howitzers and almost 1,700 kits to convert projectiles into more precise GPS-guided munitions, according to a State Department notification to Congress. The move comes after Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong again warned the U.S. and China to deescalate tensions, adding that the Taiwan situation could "quite easily" become dangerous due to a miscalculation. In recent days Japanese voices have become increasingly vocal in calling for greater support for Taiwan. Here's how Taiwan became the biggest risk of sparking a China-U.S. clash. Asian stocks are set for a muted start after U.S. stocks dipped amid mixed economic data and comments from a Federal Reserve official that the central bank is on course to taper stimulus support. Futures edged lower in Japan and Australia and were flat in Hong Kong. Vice Chairman Richard Clarida said the Fed is on track for a liftoff in interest rates in 2023 and an announcement later this year on paring bond purchases. Clarida's comments helped to cement money-market bets for an initial rate hike in early 2023. Treasury yields ended little changed and the dollar rose. Chinese startups hungry for foreign capital are increasingly turning to Hong Kong as hurdles to list in the U.S. multiply. But not every firm will make the cut, and those that do might have to settle for lower valuations.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing makes far more stringent demands on companies planning a listing than its New York counterpart. Firms likely to struggle include unprofitable startups with little revenue or companies in industries including ride-hailing, which operate in a legal gray zone. Meanwhile, China's clampdown on Hong Kong has sparked the biggest drop-off in school enrollments since 2010, a total decline last year of more than 15,000 primary and secondary students. We spoke with eight Hongkongers hoping to make a new life in the U.K. as China reshapes the city they called home. Indonesia has become the second country in Asia, and 11th worldwide, to reach the grim milestone of 100,000 Covid-19 deaths. Just 8% of Indonesia's 270 million population are fully inoculated, compared with more than half in the U.S., according to Bloomberg's vaccine tracker. Meanwhile China's outbreak has sparked renewed scrutiny on frozen food imports that could be transporting the virus; a large U.K. study shows that most kids who get Covid recover within a week; and the U.S. is considering requiring vaccinations for all foreign visitors. This is what's caught our eye over the past 24 hours: Everywhere you look, there seem to be shortages and bottlenecks. Border and labor disruptions as a result of the global pandemic have contributed to shortages, along with the difficulty of predicting future demand. When the Covid-19 crisis began, many manufacturers assumed we'd see a recession and a subsequent fall in demand, so they cut back on production. The pandemic has exposed fragilities in the global supply chain, in infrastructure, the market, and society — and has focused the minds of policymakers on addressing them. In a new piece for Odd Lots, I've called this the "chokepoint economy." I think it will be one of the lasting outcomes of the crisis. The dramatic experience of 2020 has taught policymakers that the relative flow of goods and capital can matter more than the absolute levels. While some shortages (such as certain flavors of Gatorade in the U.S.) might be overlooked as minor inconveniences, others will be deemed strategically or socially important enough to merit intervention from the state.
China, of course, has practiced this type of intervention for some time, but you could argue that its recent crackdowns are an extension of the concept. While there's plenty of capital sloshing around China's financial system, Xi Jinping wants it directed to industries that will be of strategic and social value for the country. Once again the relative flows matter. Anyway, the whole piece is available here and is well worth a read (if I do say so myself). You can follow Tracy Alloway on Twitter at @tracyalloway. | 
⋮↠〖*HDvideo~〗 2020 Spycies: Dos espías rebeldes Película Completa En Línea released 2020. story: Vladimir y Hector, dos agentes secretos d...
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