What Xi Said is a weekly rundown of the top ten emerging issues from the past seven days shaping US-China commercial relations.

What Xi Said is for global communication strategists and C-Suite executives.

#WhatXiSaid #Caracal #Xi #Biden #SinoUS #USChina #BBC #CGTN #BeijingWinterGames #WinterOlympics #TikTok #Bytedance #Meituan #MobileRobots #AShareMarket #ChinasBeckham #LiSirong #ADODenHaag #Mars #Tianwen1 #Ox #YearoftheOx #Rat #YearoftheRat

Memo: What Xi Said | Edition 6 | February 15, 2021

1. Ring ring ring: As POTUS, Biden and Xi held their first call with US and Chinese government readouts signaling both sides would not yield on Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang. Most Chinese state media framed the call, which came before the Lunar New Year, as a success. Since Biden's inauguration, China has been eager to restart a Sino-US dialogue and has waited for the Biden call. China has floated the idea of sending Yang Jiechi, China's top diplomat, to DC to meet with Team Biden.

Biden told the White House press corps the phone call with Xi lasted two hours.

2. Fade to black: China banned BBC World News from airing in the country, according to China's National Radio and Television Administration. The BBC says China is doing a disservice to its citizens. China's move to ban the network seems to be tit-for-tat. In early February, British media regulators pulled the license of China's state-owned international news channel CGTN.

3. 2022 Beijing Winter Games will test for corporate sponsors: In less than a year, an opening ceremony in Beijing will kick off the Winter Olympics, the second time in 14 years the Olympics will be held in China. Major MNC companies are eager to get in on the action, but silence on human-rights issues risks alienating democratic governments, and speaking up will undoubtedly earn the host China's ire. What might have seemed like a marketing no-brainer may turn out to be a high-risk gamble?

4. A US plan to force the sale of TikTok's US operations has been shelved indefinitely, as Team Biden undertakes a broad review of his predecessor's efforts to hamstring Chinese tech companies. The government's formal response to TikTok's court challenge against a ban ordered by Trump is due soon.

5. China needs to hit peak oil long before it reaches net-zero: Cutting its coal consumption, responsible for most of China's emissions, will be crucial. But soon, it also needs to reduce the use of crude. While the government hasn't laid out tactics to reach the 2060 carbon-neutral target, its three oil SOEs —CNPC, Sinopec, and CNOOC.—agree that their core product's consumption has to peak as soon as 2025. The Chinese appetite for oil does less to drive global warming than coal, but it still accounts for roughly 20% of the nation's greenhouse gases.

6. Bytedance and Meituan enter the robot race: Demand for automation in China has surged on the back of the pandemic, triggered by a new focus on contactless services. MarketsandMarkets research suggests that mobile robots' sales generated $1 billion in revenue last year, up from its estimate of $800 million. Shortages of employees due to lockdowns and social distancing have also spurred manufacturers to increase their investments in automated production lines.

7. The changing face of China's retail investors: Retail investors have long bemoaned their lowly status in the A-share market. Many small share traders are pulling back from trading individual stocks and buying into professionally managed funds. According to CCTV, the state television channel, nearly half of the new fund management accounts opened last year belong to young people born after 1990.

8. China's Beckham? Li Sirong, often referred to locally as "China's David Beckham," is a social media sensation after signing a professional contract with Dutch side ADO Den Haag. Sure he has yet to kick a ball for a team second from bottom in the Eredivisie, but his Sina Weibo followers jumped to 400,000 from 4,000 in two days since the deal was signed. Social media skills are as necessary as soccer skills regardless of an athlete's home nation.

9. China's Tianwen-1 spacecraft is circling Mars. The China space agency released video footage from its spacecraft on February 12, two days after it successfully entered the planet's orbit. The Mars mission is Beijing's latest ambitious space project and is the latest step in Beijing's space program, which aims to establish a crewed space station by 2022 and eventually put an astronaut on the moon.

10. Does the Ox promise calmer times? Ox Years are typically more relaxed periods in the Chinese zodiac and certainly more subdued than their predecessor, the Year of the Rat, which is often associated with natural disasters and economic crises - 2020 nailed that one. According to the Chinese zodiac, people who put in a lot of effort this year will be rewarded with money and other riches. The year of the Ox is supposed to be lucky for those born under the Rat, Snake, Horse, Monkey, and Pig.