https://www.afr.com/world/asia/us-business-chiefs-warn-of-expat-exodus-from-china-20211102-p595c1 Edward White, Primrose Riordan and Demetri Sevastopulo Nov 2, 2021 Seoul/Hong Kong/Washington| The head of a leading American business lobby group in China has warned of an exodus of Western executives from the world’s biggest consumer market as President Xi Jinping tightens coronavirus controls. Under China’s strategy of eliminating coronavirus, Beijing has enforced more than 18 months of strict border security, including three-week quarantine stays and fewer visas for businesspeople and their families. The rules have been credited for helping to suppress coronavirus outbreaks and reducing the death toll from the pandemic. But a worsening outbreak of the delta coronavirus variant has prompted a return to local lockdowns and travel bans after spreading to two-thirds of China’s regions. With no exit strategy articulated, and just as the rest of the world reopens, US business leaders have warned Beijing that it risks accelerating the outflow of foreigners from China. Ker Gibbs and Alan Beebe, the presidents of the American chambers of commerce based in Shanghai and Beijing, respectively, are among an increasing number of businesspeople in China leaving their jobs in the coming months. February’s Winter Olympics. Many businesspeople now expect China to prioritise tight security – and subsequently sealed borders – leading up to an important party congress late next year when Mr Xi is set to take a historic third term as president. “Given the success of current containment policies and popular support for restricting international travel, it is overwhelmingly likely that China will continue its domestic zero-tolerance strategy and strict quarantine requirements for international travel for at least another year,” said Ernan Cui, a China analyst at Gavekal, a consultancy. China, using its locally produced COVID-19 vaccines, said it had fully inoculated more than 1 billion of its population of 1.4 billion. The country’s official death toll from coronavirus stands at fewer than 5000. That compares with more than 730,000 in the US and 140,000 in the UK. Still, a series of outbreaks of the highly infectious delta variant over recent weeks has complicated the outlook. Parts of several northern cities, including Beijing, are in lockdown, raising concerns among officials ahead of the Winter Games. One such instance has been blamed on a single person who returned from a domestic trip to Beijing and spread the virus at a game of mah-jong, officials said. Foreign language tests were among the events cancelled in the Chinese capital over the past week. Businesses are also struggling to retain foreign workers in Hong Kong owing to tight pandemic controls. The number of US companies that use the city as their regional headquarters dropped 10 per cent to 254 this year compared with 2020, an 18-year low. In another sign of the rising pressures faced by the international business community in China, the American Chamber of Commerce in south-west China, which is based in Chengdu, has been forced to suspend operations over recent months. Chinese officials in August cited a rule whereby each country can have only a single registered chamber to justify the closure. The US State Department described the move as “only the latest example” of how China’s “opaque, arbitrary regulatory environment is contributing to an investment climate that is increasingly hostile towards foreign businesses”. Additional reporting by Emma Zhou in Beijing Financial Times
Warned who? .....maybe Blackrock - whos thinking of China as having such marvelous investment potential.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-03/yahoo-pulls-out-of-china/100589476 Yahoo leaves China for good, citing 'challenging' environment Posted 10h ago Yahoo's exit from China comes a few weeks after LinkedIn did the same. (AP: Ng Han Guan) Yahoo said it has pulled its services from China, citing an "increasingly challenging" operating environment. Key points: The move comes a few weeks after Microsoft pulled LinkedIn from China China has replaced departing Western internet companies with its own search engines and social media platforms Yahoo had greatly scaled back its presence in China over the past few years The company is the second Western tech brand to quit the country in recent weeks. "In recognition of the increasingly challenging business and legal environment in China, Yahoo's suite of services will no longer be accessible from mainland China as of November 1," the company said in a statement. Last month, Microsoft pulled the plug on LinkedIn in China, marking the retreat of the last major US-owned social network in China. LinkedIn cited a "more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China". The departures illustrate the choices internet companies face in a huge potential market, but one where the government requires them to censor content and keywords deemed politically sensitive or inappropriate. In their place, Chinese companies have filled the void, creating an alternative internet with its own digital giants. The Baidu search engine has largely replaced Yahoo and Google in China, and WeChat and Weibo are the leading social media platforms. China's government requires internet companies to censor content deemed politically sensitive or inappropriate.(AP) Yahoo had already greatly scaled back its presence in China over the past few years. Prior to Monday, it had still operated a weather app and some pages that showed news articles in foreign languages. Yahoo entered China in 1998 and in 2012 struck a deal with Alibaba Group to sell its stake in the e-commerce giant. The deal also saw Alibaba obtain the right to operate Yahoo China under the Yahoo brand for up to four years. Yahoo China later shut its email service and web portal but the brand retained a global research and development centre in Beijing until 2015, when it was shut down. New tech laws posing difficulties Yahoo's departure comes as Beijing has imposed fresh laws and curbs on its internet companies on areas from content to customer privacy. On Monday, China's new Personal Information Protection law designed to protect online user data privacy came into effect. Chinese laws also stipulate that companies operating in the country must hand over data if requested by authorities, making it difficult for Western firms to operate in China as they may also face pressure back home over giving in to China's demands. ABC/wires