China Communications Intelligence today:

1. 'We will not flinch': Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Taiwan

2. House lawmakers push for diplomatic boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics

3. US multinational sponsors of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics grilled on Capitol Hill

4. Wall Street gets a Chinese education

5. Slow start for China's emissions trading scheme

'We will not flinch': Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin promises the US will continue to bolster Taiwan's self-defense: Speaking in Singapore at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the defense secretary chided Beijing for "aggression...coercion...genocide" but said he wants a "constructive, stable relationship with China."

The United States is trying to balance a relationship with China, where the Middle Kingdom is both a peer competitor and a potential threat.

Today, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin continues his tour of Southeast Asia with further stops in Vietnam and the Philippines.

Once again, Team Biden showing the importance of allies and the Indo-Pacific.

House lawmakers push for diplomatic boycott of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in China: The lawmakers want no US diplomats to attend the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics over alleged human rights abuses.

A proposed amendment to the annual State Department funding bill, under consideration by the House Appropriations Committee, if approved, would bar the State Department from allocating any funds to be used to transport United States officers or officials to the Winter Games.

Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) proposed the amendment with Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) co-sponsor.

The 2022 Winter Olympics will start in 191 days on February 4, 2020.i

Antipathy toward China is overwhelming on Capitol Hill and shows no signs of slowing anytime soon.

Biden's hard-line stance on China has widespread support from both sides of the aisle.

US multinational sponsors of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics grilled on Capitol Hill: Executives from Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Intel, Procter & Gamble, and Visa appeared and answered questioned by members of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China regarding their company's sponsorship of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

Members of the committee repeatedly expressed frustration at what they see as a multinational corporate willingness to turn a blind eye to what some have termed "genocide" involving Uygurs in Xinjiang.

"Every single one of you refused to say a single word by all appearances that will cost you one bit of market share inside of mainland China," said Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas.

"This is the most pathetic, disgraceful hearing in which I've participated in eight years. Obviously, every one of you … were sent here with orders not to say anything that could offend the Chinese Communist Party."

This aggressive messaging on Capitol Hill comes as human rights concerns and calls to boycott the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics grow in the United States and across Europe as well.

Regardless of an official boycott takes place, endless questions about China's worthiness to host the 2022 Winter Olympics will be present for the next six months.

Wall Street gets a Chinese education: The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal opines: "The big surprise from this week's slump in Chinese company stocks is that people are claiming to be surprised. Xi Jinping has made plain for years that he intends to bring ever greater swathes of China's private economy under the state's control. Guess what, Wall Street: He meant it."

The actionable insight here: After spending years emulating Silicon Valley, China, the world's second-biggest economy, is now officially going its own way.

"At the heart of the crackdown is an effort to strengthen ideological control," said one former government official to the Financial Times who now works for a large technology company.

The immediate triggers for Xi's ed-tech move were related to growing concerns about longstanding social pressures, such as mounting education expenses for parents and falling birth rates.

The series of crackdowns has a simple message to teach the market a lesson about who is ultimately in charge in China, the Chinese Communist Party, with a mandate to seek stability at all costs.

Also, one trillion dollars of market value is now off the books this month.

Slow start for China's emissions trading scheme: The carbon emission trading formally started on July 16, with an opening price of 48 yuan ($7.4) per tonne of CO2.

Despite only including the power sector in its initial phase this year, it is already the world's largest Emissions Trading System (ETS), overtaking the European Union's ETS and covering 12% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Feedback from climate campaigners is that the scheme isn't ambitious enough to move the dial on China's emissions goals, including its target for going net-zero in 2060.

The current scheme involves only about 2,200 coal- and gas-fired energy plants.

According to the Rhodium Group, China is currently the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for more than a quarter of the global total in 2019.

China Communications Intelligence is actionable insights + global political trends for senior corporate communications executives.