A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week: Bidenomics, Chinese officials want to erase many villages (12:00) and ethnic minorities in Britain (19:10).
The tech battle between the U.S. and China has battered TikTok and Huawei and startled American companies that produce and sell in China. WSJ explains how Beijing is pouring money into high-tech chips as it wants to become self-sufficient.
Video/Illustration: George Downs/The Wall Street Journal
Director: Frédéric Larrey
ZED Production
Producer: Manuel Catteau
SYNOPSIS:
At the start of spring, in the upland valleys of Central Asia, the echo of a piercing yowl can be heard. For many mammals, it’s an alarm signal: For the snow leopard, it heralds the mating season, the females calling to the males, who arrive hungry, nervous, and ready to fight.
For a mother with her two young, who are far from ready to fend for themselves, a tricky phase lies ahead. Firstly, because she must hunt tirelessly to feed her litter. But also because she has protect them from males seeking to mate with her, who would kill any offspring that is not their own. If these young cats make it through the winter, it will then be their turn to reign supreme in this frozen kingdom.
Set in the remote mountains of China and Tibet, this film follows the perilous existence of a female and her two young snow leopards, who are less than a year old, in a valley of stunning beauty with a dazzling diversity of wildlife.
Two photographer brothers came upon this lost valley in 2016 and were amazed to find it home to a dense population of snow leopards in a relatively small territory. Their discovery led to this exceptional film about an elusive big cat that is rarely caught on camera.
The Chinese fintech titan Ant Group—co-founded by Alibaba billionaire Jack Ma—is set to go public in what could be one of the largest listings ever. WSJ explains how Ant’s backbone service, Alipay, has revolutionized payments and investing in the world’s most populous country.
Photo Composite: Crystal Tai
The Economist reports: Turkey discovers large gas discovery in the Black Sea, U.S. to require Hong Kong to label exports as “made in China”, and other world news.
The Economist Magazine presents a selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, Xi Jinping is reinventing state capitalism (10:20), Belarus’s sham election (14:25), and the decline of the office romance.
Beijing, CHINA, Aug 11, 2020: Mi TV LUX Transparent Edition is the world’s first mass-produced transparent TV. With an edge-to-edge transparent self-luminous display transmitting images that seem to be suspended in the air, this TV ushers in a new way to consume visual content previously only seen in science fiction films.
Mi TV LUX Transparent Edition offers a perfect combination of cutting-edge display technology and exquisite industrial design. For Xiaomi, it is also a major exploration of future TV forms. When Mi TV LUX Transparent Edition is turned off, it looks like a mere glass display. The pictures it displays seem to be floating in the air, merging the virtual and the real to bring an unprecedented visual experience.
Unlike traditional TVs that come with a back panel, Mi TV LUX Transparent Edition creatively embeds all the processing units in its base stand, preserving the compact shape of the screen and in the meantime brings about countless technical challenges.
Led by Ma Yansong, MAD Architects releases the design of the Wormhole Library, which sits on the coast in Haikou, Hainan Province in China. The sensuously curved pavilion appears to be a “wormhole” that transcends time and space.
Facing the South China Sea, the Wormhole Library is located in Century Park along the Haikou Bay coastline. The intimately scaled structure is cast of white concrete as a unit. The curved concrete walls not only serve as organic architectural structure, but also connect the ceiling, the ground and the walls together. Holes of varying sizes allow the architecture to breathe and meanwhile let natural light flood the interior. The grey spaces of the exterior corridors provide shady spots for passers-by to stop and rest.
It serves as a multi-functional building that allows visitors to read, enjoy views of the sea, and attend open-air performances, temporarily removing themselves from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. The building is now under construction and will be completed in 2021.
It’s been about a month since the Chinese Communist Party forced a national security law on Hong Kong. This new law made it illegal for anyone anywhere in the world to promote democratic reform in the region. Recent arrests of top media and political figures have made it clear that Hong Kong’s relatively free political system is over.
Guests: Axios’ Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, and Miriam Kramer and special thanks to Dr. Sanjay Gupta and the Asian American Journalists Association.
Autonomous-vehicle road testing has skidded to a halt in the U.S. amid the Covid-19 pandemic. But China’s startups have pushed ahead by more than doubling the number of self-driving car projects, with a boost from the country’s 5G network.
Photo: Lorenz Huber for The Wall Street Journal
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