Thursday China links:
China’s Supreme Court and procuratorate issued a joint judicial explanation on Wednesday saying that pollution in the country will be prosecuted more efficiently and, in some cases, polluters will now face the death penalty.
Xinhua reports (via the Global Times) that on Wednesday China’s J-15 fighter jets conducted their second successful take-off and landing exercises from Beijing’s aircraft carrier, Liaoning.
All the talk in China and international business circles is about the People's Bank of China’s (PBoC) continued refusal to break the liquidity squeeze that is restricting growth. Over at Bloomberg News, Ju Wang, a senior strategist at HSBC’s Hong Kong offices, explains: “The PBOC is doing the opposite of what the banks were hoping it would do. It is focusing on cleaning up the banks’ balance sheets and the financial system in spite of the liquidity squeeze.” Meanwhile, China’s cabinet released a statement calling on the financial industry to serve the larger economy.
According to Bloomberg, the State Council said the banks must “support economic transformation and upgrading in a more forceful way, serve real economic development in a better way, promote domestic demand in a more targeted way and prevent financial risks in a more concrete way.”
Josh Rogin reports that the new U.S. State Department report on human trafficking lists China in the top tier of offenders on the issue, mandating sanctions against Beijing. Foggy Bottom’s report says that the gender imbalance caused by China’s one-child policy is the reason human trafficking has become so prominent in the country.
During Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang’s visit to Beijing, China and Vietnam agreed to set up an emergency fishery hotline as part of their efforts to cool down tensions in the South China Sea.
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