G-7 agreed on a new infrastructure plan to counter China's Belt and Road Initiative.

The US Senate passed a bill to address the China tech threat. Meanwhile, China passed a law to counter foreign sanctions that could put family members of overseas businesspeople at risk.

China will take the collection of land sales income out of the hands of local governments and into the coffers of the central government in what is in effect a centralisation of power.

A new study by Chinese recruitment site Zhaopin found that 43% of graduating students said state-owned enterprises were their top choice for a job compared to just 19% for the private sector.

China’s offshore wind power operator Three Gorges Renewables rose +44% following its mainland IPO as investors clamour for cleantech stocks.

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-In will likely pardon Samsung’s third-generation JY Lee from his 2.5-year prison sentence.

SoftBank is considering investing US$700 million in India’s Flipkart in what seems to be a pre-IPO round.

On 9 June, a PLA Weibo account depicted military rockets being fired beside the words “prepare for war”.

Asian stock ideas

• Asian Century Stocks on Singaporean bakery company QAF (SGX:QAF — US$423 million) ($)

A special interview with Investment Talk Substack

Long-form writing

• Asian Century Stocks on the major macroeconomic themes for 2022 ($)

• A text version of the interview Stan Druckenmiller did with Toggle recently

• An excellent map of the overseas investments of Chinese tech giants

• The Economist: The Chinese state is pumping money into “private equity” ($)

• Michael Dunne providing an update on China’s EV industry YTD

• Octahedron Capital on a few things they learned about the tech industry in 1Q21

• The Diff Substack on China’s recent history and development

• Nikkei: Huawei has launched its own operating system, HarmonyOS ($)

• Erin Cook summarising how ASEAN is faring in dealing with the virus

• SCMP: Are formal interactions with China helping legitimise Myanmar junta rule?

• Not Asia Pacific-related but here is a fascinating look into the Iraq stock market

Podcasts and videos

• Jens Nordvig: “The Death of Fixed Income” (53 mins)

• China Tech Investor on Baidu, Tencent and JD earnings (1:17 hours)

• Lowy Institute conversation with Indian economist Raghuram Rajan (49 mins)

• Wall Street Journal: The unintended consequences of China’s one-child policy (17 mins)

• Asianometry: Asus explained: A rare Taiwanese global brand (12 mins)

Chart of the week – Korea’s margin debt has quadrupled in just 14 months

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