Weekly News – April 10 – 16, 2021

 

Starting from this week, ThinkINchina team will be sharing weekly suggestions, to keep our followers updated with the latest news about China.

 

“Climate could still be an area for the powers to achieve a breakthrough.”- Lin Limin, University of International Relations in Beijing.

President Xi Jinping is likely to attend a two-day virtual Earth Day Summit on April 22-23, hosted by his US counterpart Joe Biden. Climate change seems to represent one area where the two powers can work together and find a way for cooperation, despite recent frictions.

How are the two nations engaged with Climate change?

–   The US plans to commit to cutting their emissions by 50 percent or more of their 2005 levels by 2030.

–   China pledged to bring carbon emissions to a peak before 2030 and to become carbon neutral by 2060.

Source: South China Morning Post

 

A new record fine on Alibaba could set the example on regulatory new course for tech giants in China

A record 12.8 billion yuan ($2.8B) fine has been inflicted by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) on Alibaba Group Holding, the world’s largest e-commerce company. The fine amounted to a staggering 4% of Alibaba’s 2019 revenues, but for the current Chinese antitrust legislation for such a misconduct the fine could reach up to 10% of the annual revenue.

Zhai Wei, executive director of the Competition Law Research Center at the East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai, said that this was a milestone that could “offer references in the future, as China has never had a case on how to define abuses of a dominant market position from the antitrust perspective”.

Source: The New York Times

 

Five years ago, Sun Wenlin made headlines with his same-sex wedding. Now, he’s advocating to legalize marriage for LGBT couples.

In 2015, Sun Wenlin and his partner Hu Mingliang filed a lawsuit to their local civil affairs bureau in provincial capital Changsha, Hunan, for refusing to register their marriage. The following year, this became the first same-sex marriage lawsuit case to be accepted by a Chinese court. Whilst it was a legal defeat, it otherwise defined Sun’s purpose in life: to change policies and perceptions surrounding same-sex marriage in China. 

Sixth Tone recently interviewed the activist, inquiring him about the status of advocacy work for the legal recognition of same-sex relationships in China: “Considering how quickly people’s minds have changed toward same-sex marriage in the past years, I don’t think it will take as long as 20 years” to reach equality.

Source: Sixth Tone