CHINA SUSPENDS HK-NZ FUGITIVE DEAL

China has decided to suspend the agreement on surrendering fugitive offenders and the agreement on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters between its Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and New Zealand, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin announced on Monday.

The decision came in response to New Zealand's prior and unilateral suspension of the agreement on surrendering fugitive offenders, according to Wang.

By using China's passage of the Hong Kong National Security Law as an excuse to suspend the agreement, New Zealand has politicized its legal cooperation with Hong Kong, brutally interfered in China's domestic affairs and seriously violated international law and the basic norms guiding international relations, Wang said at a daily news conference.

New Zealand's moves have also seriously undermined the foundation of its legal cooperation with Hong Kong, and they deviate from the purpose of legal cooperation, which is to uphold justice and the rule of law, Wang added.

China's announcement to suspend the agreements came about a week after it suspended similar agreements between Hong Kong and Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Wang also said on Monday that the SAR government's decision to postpone the election of the city's Legislative Council is reasonable and lawful.

Facing a serious situation of COVID-19, the postponement is just and necessary, as it helps to protect the health of Hong Kong residents and guarantee the security, justice and fairness of the council's election, Wang said.

There is no lack of precedents around the world of elections postponed due to disasters, such as epidemics, he said, adding that the SAR government's decision has followed such a convention.

"Hong Kong is China's special administrative region, and the election of its Legislative Council is a local election in China. It's purely Hong Kong's internal affair, and no foreign governments, organizations or persons have a right or reason to interfere in it," Wang said.

CRITIC CALLS US' MOVE ON TIKTOK A 'MAFIA DEAL'

TikTok's roller-coaster ride in the US continued Monday as President Donald Trump said he would approve the video-sharing app's sale to Microsoft only if the US government gets a cut, a condition that one expert called a "mafia" deal.

The increased scrutiny into TikTok culminated on Friday when Trump threatened to ban the app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, from operating in the US due to a "national security risk". The negotiation between the two companies was then halted.

But after a weekend phone call with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Trump reversed his stance and reportedly gave the two companies 45 days to close the deal. It was confirmed by Microsoft on Sunday, which said in a statement it "will move quickly to pursue discussions" with ByteDance and complete the talks "no later than" Sept 15.

The president on Monday added a condition to the potential purchase: Microsoft should buy TikTok outright, and the US Treasury Department should be paid because it is the government that will have made the deal possible.

"It's a little bit like the landlord/tenant; without a lease the tenant has nothing, so they pay what's called 'key money,' or they pay something," Trump told reporters in the Cabinet Room at the White House on Monday. "But the United States should be reimbursed or should be paid a substantial amount of money, because without the United States, they don't have anything, at least having to do with the 30 percent."

The president also gave the two companies a deadline of Sept 15 to complete the deal, or the app will be banned in the US. Investors of the privately owned ByteDance valued TikTok at $50 billion, according to a Reuters report last week.

The legal basis of Trump's requirement that some of the money from the deal go to the US Treasury was immediately questioned by experts.

"This is quite unusual; this is out of the norm," Gene Kimmelman, a former chief counsel for the US Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, told CNN. "It's actually quite hard to understand what the president is actually talking about here. It's not unheard of for transactions to have broader geopolitical implications between countries, but it's quite remarkable to think about some kind of money being on the table in connection with a transaction," said Kimmelman, a senior adviser to the policy group Public Knowledge.

Julian Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said Trump's "extortion threat" is a "mafia business model".

"Trump's full explanation of why Treasury should get a 'cut' of a Microsoft/TikTok deal is, somehow, even more grotesque and shameless than I had anticipated," said Sanchez.

"As with his tariff policy, there doesn't seem to be any consideration of whether this sets a dangerous precedent for other countries to engage in similar pretextual protectionism against us, or how whimsically compelling divestment might affect international investment," he said.

STOCKS RALLY AS PBOC POLICY GETS DEFERRAL

Chinese stocks closed higher on Monday as investor confidence brightened on the nation's deferral of the deadline to comply with revamped asset management rules, analysts said.

They called the deferral a reasonable move to deal with disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that it will help smooth the transformation of asset management services and facilitate the financing of real-economy businesses.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index jumped by 1.75 percent, closing at 3,367.97 points on Monday. The smaller Shenzhen Component Index rose by 2.4 percent to 13,964.56 points.

The rally came after the People's Bank of China, the central bank, announced late on Friday that the country will extend the transitional period for the implementation of the new asset-management rules by one year to the end of 2021.

The rules, unveiled in April 2018, require financial institutions to revamp their asset management services to comply with a series of new regulations by the end of the transitional period, which originally fell at the end of this year.

The rules aim to eradicate principal-protected wealth management products−which at times have proved risky despite their name−as well as to reduce investment in nonstandardized assets and contain financial risks.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the revamping task, which entails debt repayment, has faced mounting difficulties partly because some businesses that have struggled to survive the contagion may need to defer repayment, the PBOC said.

"Extending the transitional period as appropriate will alleviate the blow of the epidemic on the asset management sector and the pressure on financial institutions from the revamping task," said a PBOC statement, adding that the move will also facilitate financing for the real economy.

"If financial institutions drastically downscaled noncompliant wealth management products this year, financial risks could surge and hit the real-economy businesses relying on those products to obtain financing," said Dong Ximiao, chief analyst at XWBank, an online-only bank based in Sichuan province.

As the deferral eases the pressure faced by the real economy and financial institutions, it will help safeguard financial stability and spur healthy development of the capital market, said Kang Chongli, deputy dean at the research institute of Yuekai Securities in Guangdong province.

The extension will also avoid a bump in the disposal of noncompliant products from selling off a large amount of equity assets and putting pressure on the stock market, Kang said, adding that the move is "realistic" and in line with market expectations.

COOL REWARDS FOR ICE WINE PIONEERS

Summer is usually harvest season for grapes. But in northeastern China's Jilin province, vineyard owner Jin Yinhao has to wait for another five months before his can be picked.

The grapes grown on Jin's 17.3-hectare vineyard in the city of Ji'an are called beibinghong, a local variety of Amur grape that can ferment into ice wine with no need for skin maceration.

Known as liquid gold, ice wine is a type of dessert wine produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. For a wine to be designated as ice wine, the grapes must be picked at around-8 C.

"Good wine is actually planted. We have to manually weed and also control the yield to ensure the quality of every grape," said Jin, 63, adding that the grape variety could yield 22.5 metric tons a hectare but the yield was deliberately limited to 6 tons.

The beibinghong variety was developed by experts from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 2008, and Ji'an has since developed a complete ice wine industry chain that covers grape growing, processing, logistics and sales.

The city has the perfect climate for growing wine grapes as the Changbai Mountains shield the area from the chilly northern wind and the Yalu River brings in warm air.

"Because of the strict climate requirements, ice wine production bases can only be found in a few places such as Canada, Germany and Austria," said Sun Yanfeng, director of the Yalu River Valley Amur Grape Wine Research and Development Center in Ji'an.

The center is a public service institution co-founded by the local government, China Agricultural University and local companies.

Sun said Ji'an produces highquality ice wine, with its output accounting for one-sixth of the world's total.

Kong Qingsen, who operates a local winery, said that to guarantee a sweet taste, local farmers have to pick the grapes in mid-December, when the temperature is neither too high nor too low.

"The grapes will melt if it's too hot and will be frostbitten if it's too cold," Kong said, adding that the picking has to be done before the sun rises, as sunshine will also melt the frozen grapes.

Since 2016, Kong has seen all of the 50,000 to 60,000 bottles of ice wine produced by his winery every year sell out.

VILLAGERS PROVE HARSH ENVIRONMENT NO IMPEDIMENT TO TRANSFORMING LIVES

With China set to meet its goal this year of eliminating extreme poverty before next year's 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, this series looks at the efforts of different areas of the country to erase poverty and improve livelihoods.

In the year 2000, Li Tianliang, a farmer in Lengdong, a village in Qianxinan Buyei and Miao autonomous prefecture in Southwest China's Guizhou province, hired eight strong men to carry his 180-kg pig to a market at the foot of the mountain.

He was hoping the pig would fetch him at least 1,200 yuan ($171). As the pig was bruised during the tough ride, it didn't get him the expected price. Li managed to get only 400 yuan.

The inaccessibility of the village, which is located deep in the mountains, made life difficult for the villagers.

The village, with an area of about 730 hectares, is home to several ethic groups such as Han, Miao, Buyei and Yi.

The villagers made a living through farming, livestock breeding or taking up jobs outside of the village.

After graduating from high school, Zhu Changguo left Lengdong to work in factories and construction sites.

In 1995, Zhu returned to the village and took the initiative to raise funds for building the infrastructure to supply electricity to every home in the village.

In 2001, he served as the Party head of Lengdong village, encouraging villagers to build roads, cellars and reservoirs, to grow honeysuckles, a shrub with flowers that change from white to yellow and red berries, and to set up factories.

Responding to the call, the villagers worked hard, transforming the mountain slopes into paddy terraces. They also grew corn. A total of 53.3 hectares of land were brought under cultivation.

With villagers building a reservoir, 286 ponds and 386 cisterns, drinking water and managing of livestock was no longer an issue.

Guizhou is a region with a karst landscape, where the dissolving of the bedrock has created sinkholes, sinking streams, caves, springs and underground rivers. It's called a fragile zone because it is not suitable for habitation due to poor soil cover and rapid water loss.

About 73 percent of Guizhou's total area is made up of karst landscape. For this reason, it is called a "karst province".

Due to the extremely fragile environment and a large number of underground caves, it is difficult and expensive to build roads and highways in the region. Therefore, Guizhou had remained a "closed province" for a long time, and its development was affected.

WAREHOUSE COLLAPSE TRAPS 7 PEOPLE IN NE CHINA

At least seven people were trapped after a warehouse collapsed Tuesday morning in Harbin, capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, according to the local publicity department.

The collapse happened at 8:55 am Tuesday in a warehouse of a food company in the city's Daoli district.

Rescue operations and an investigation are underway.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive. - Jordan B. Peterson