Hello everybody! I am a 21 year old student from Malaysia. I am planning to do trading and investments full time after I graduate with help from my uncle. There's a company outside of Malaysia that offers me an ROI depending on how much I invest as well as trading options for forex. Profits will be credited into my crypto wallet in the form of USDT and then sold off at my convenience into my savings account.
I just wanted to know how should I file my personal income tax, if I even should in the first place. How would I know my annual income if my profit depends on whether or not I sell off the crypto or if it depends on whether or not my trades are successful?
PS I'm just a student and I do not know much about taxes as I've never had a proper job before so any help is much appreciated. Thank you everyone!
EDIT - All transactions are done with cryptocurrency, so first time deposit for initial investment will be done by buying crypto and depositing it into the investment, then monthly profit will be done by withdrawing crypto from the investment, then sold off to buyers at my convenience.
EDIT2 - I already have an account with a small investment generating a small amount of money (below $500) monthly as pocket money for university use. Will be investing more once I graduate. Im curious as to when would I start paying taxes, considering I'm already earning a small amount of money from the investment?

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In light of the recent fall in oil prices due to the Saudi-Russian dispute and dampening demand for oil due to the lockdowns implemented globally, O&G stocks have taken a severe beating, falling approximately 50% from their highs at the beginning of the year. Not spared from this onslaught is Hibiscus Petroleum Berhad (Hibiscus), a listed oil and gas (O&G) exploration and production (E&P) company.
Why invest in O&G stocks in this particularly uncertain period? For one, valuations of these stocks have fallen to multi-year lows, bringing the potential ROI on these stocks to attractive levels. Oil prices are cyclical, and are bound to return to the mean given a sufficiently long time horizon. The trick is to find those companies who can survive through this downturn and emerge into “normal” profitability once oil prices rebound.
In this article, I will explore the upsides and downsides of investing in Hibiscus. I will do my best to cater this report to newcomers to the O&G industry – rather than address exclusively experts and veterans of the O&G sector. As an equity analyst, I aim to provide a view on the company primarily, and will generally refrain from providing macro views on oil or opinions about secular trends of the sector. I hope you enjoy reading it!
Stock code: 5199.KL
Stock name: Hibiscus Petroleum Berhad
Financial information and financial reports: https://www.malaysiastock.biz/Corporate-Infomation.aspx?securityCode=5199
Company website: https://www.hibiscuspetroleum.com/
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Company Snapshot

Hibiscus Petroleum Berhad (5199.KL) is an oil and gas (O&G) upstream exploration and production (E&P) company located in Malaysia. As an E&P company, their business can be basically described as:
· looking for oil,
· drawing it out of the ground, and
· selling it on global oil markets.
This means Hibiscus’s profits are particularly exposed to fluctuating oil prices. With oil prices falling to sub-$30 from about $60 at the beginning of the year, Hibiscus’s stock price has also fallen by about 50% YTD – from around RM 1.00 to RM 0.45 (as of 5 April 2020).
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While the company is domiciled in Malaysia, its two main oil producing fields are located in both Malaysia and the UK. The Malaysian oil field is commonly referred to as the North Sabah field, while the UK oil field is commonly referred to as the Anasuria oil field. Hibiscus has licenses to other oil fields in different parts of the world, notably the Marigold/Sunflower oil fields in the UK and the VIC cluster in Australia, but its revenues and profits mainly stem from the former two oil producing fields.
Given that it’s a small player and has only two primary producing oil fields, it’s not surprising that Hibiscus sells its oil to a concentrated pool of customers, with 2 of them representing 80% of its revenues (i.e. Petronas and BP). Fortunately, both these customers are oil supermajors, and are unlikely to default on their obligations despite low oil prices.
At RM 0.45 per share, the market capitalization is RM 714.7m and it has a trailing PE ratio of about 5x. It doesn’t carry any debt, and it hasn’t paid a dividend in its listing history. The MD, Mr. Kenneth Gerard Pereira, owns about 10% of the company’s outstanding shares.
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Reserves (Total recoverable oil) & Production (bbl/day)

To begin analyzing the company, it’s necessary to understand a little of the industry jargon. We’ll start with Reserves and Production.
In general, there are three types of categories for a company’s recoverable oil volumes – Reserves, Contingent Resources and Prospective Resources. Reserves are those oil fields which are “commercial”, which is defined as below:
^{As defined by the SPE PRMS, Reserves are “… quantities of petroleum anticipated to be commercially recoverable by application of development projects to known accumulations from a given date forward under defined conditions.” Therefore, Reserves must be discovered (by drilling}, recoverable (with current technology), remaining in the subsurface (at the effective date of the evaluation) and “commercial” based on the development project proposed.)
^{Note that Reserves are associated with development projects. To be considered as “commercial”, there must be a firm intention to proceed with the project in a reasonable time frame (typically 5 years}, and such intention must be based upon all of the following criteria:)
^{- A reasonable assessment of the future economics of the development project meeting defined investment and operating criteria; - A reasonable expectation that there will be a market for all or at least the expected sales quantities of production required to justify development; - Evidence that the necessary production and transportation facilities are available or can be made available; and - Evidence that legal, contractual, environmental and other social and economic concerns will allow for the actual implementation of the recovery project being evaluated.}
Contingent Resources and Prospective Resources are further defined as below:
^{- Contingent Resources: potentially recoverable volumes associated with a development plan that targets discovered volumes but is not (yet} commercial (as defined above); and) ^{- Prospective Resources: potentially recoverable volumes associated with a development plan that targets as yet undiscovered volumes.}
In the industry lingo, we generally refer to Reserves as ‘P’ and Contingent Resources as ‘C’. These ‘P’ and ‘C’ resources can be further categorized into 1P/2P/3P resources and 1C/2C/3C resources, each referring to a low/medium/high estimate of the company’s potential recoverable oil volumes:
^{- Low/1C/1P estimate: there should be reasonable certainty that volumes actually recovered will equal or exceed the estimate; - Best/2C/2P estimate: there should be an equal likelihood of the actual volumes of petroleum being larger or smaller than the estimate; and - High/3C/3P estimate: there is a low probability that the estimate will be exceeded.}
Hence in the E&P industry, it is easy to see why most investors and analysts refer to the 2P estimate as the best estimate for a company’s actual recoverable oil volumes. This is because 2P reserves (‘2P’ referring to ‘Proved and Probable’) are a middle estimate of the recoverable oil volumes legally recognized as “commercial”.
However, there’s nothing stopping you from including 2C resources (riskier) or utilizing 1P resources (conservative) as your estimate for total recoverable oil volumes, depending on your risk appetite. In this instance, the company has provided a snapshot of its 2P and 2C resources in its analyst presentation:
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Basically, what the company is saying here is that by 2021, it will have classified as 2P reserves at least 23.7 million bbl from its Anasuria field and 20.5 million bbl from its North Sabah field – for total 2P reserves of 44.2 million bbl (we are ignoring the Australian VIC cluster as it is only estimated to reach first oil by 2022).
Furthermore, the company is stating that they have discovered (but not yet legally classified as “commercial”) a further 71 million bbl of oil from both the Anasuria and North Sabah fields, as well as the Marigold/Sunflower fields. If we include these 2C resources, the total potential recoverable oil volumes could exceed 100 million bbl.
In this report, we shall explore all valuation scenarios giving consideration to both 2P and 2C resources.
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The company further targets a 2021 production rate of 20,000 bbl (LTM: 8,000 bbl), which includes 5,000 bbl from its Anasuria field (LTM: 2,500 bbl) and 7,000 bbl from its North Sabah field (LTM: 5,300 bbl).
This is a substantial increase in forecasted production from both existing and prospective oil fields. If it materializes, annual production rate could be as high as 7,300 mmbbl, and 2021 revenues (given FY20 USD/bbl of $60) could exceed RM 1.5 billion (FY20: RM 988 million).
However, this targeted forecast is quite a stretch from current production levels. Nevertheless, we shall consider all provided information in estimating a valuation for Hibiscus.
To understand Hibiscus’s oil production capacity and forecast its revenues and profits, we need to have a better appreciation of the performance of its two main cash-generating assets – the North Sabah field and the Anasuria field.
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North Sabah oil field
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Hibiscus owns a 50% interest in the North Sabah field together with its partner Petronas, and has production rights over the field up to year 2040. The asset contains 4 oil fields, namely the St Joseph field, South Furious field, SF 30 field and Barton field.
For the sake of brevity, we shall not delve deep into the operational aspects of the fields or the contractual nature of its production sharing contract (PSC). We’ll just focus on the factors which relate to its financial performance. These are:
· Average uptime
· Total oil sold
· Average realized oil price
· Average OPEX per bbl
With regards to average uptime, we can see that the company maintains relative high facility availability, exceeding 90% uptime in all quarters of the LTM with exception of Jul-Sep 2019. The dip in average uptime was due to production enhancement projects and maintenance activities undertaken to improve the production capacity of the St Joseph and SF30 oil fields.
Hence, we can conclude that management has a good handle on operational performance. It also implies that there is little room for further improvement in production resulting from increased uptime.
As North Sabah is under a production sharing contract (PSC), there is a distinction between gross oil production and net oil production. The former relates to total oil drawn out of the ground, whereas the latter refers to Hibiscus’s share of oil production after taxes, royalties and expenses are accounted for. In this case, we want to pay attention to net oil production, not gross.
We can arrive at Hibiscus’s total oil sold for the last twelve months (LTM) by adding up the total oil sold for each of the last 4 quarters. Summing up the figures yields total oil sold for the LTM of approximately 2,075,305 bbl.
Then, we can arrive at an average realized oil price over the LTM by averaging the average realized oil price for the last 4 quarters, giving us an average realized oil price over the LTM of USD 68.57/bbl. We can do the same for average OPEX per bbl, giving us an average OPEX per bbl over the LTM of USD 13.23/bbl.
Thus, we can sum up the above financial performance of the North Sabah field with the following figures:
· Total oil sold: 2,075,305 bbl
· Average realized oil price: USD 68.57/bbl
· Average OPEX per bbl: USD 13.23/bbl
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Anasuria oil field
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Doing the same exercise as above for the Anasuria field, we arrive at the following financial performance for the Anasuria field:
· Total oil sold: 1,073,304 bbl
· Average realized oil price: USD 63.57/bbl
· Average OPEX per bbl: USD 23.22/bbl
As gas production is relatively immaterial, and to be conservative, we shall only consider the crude oil production from the Anasuria field in forecasting revenues.
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Valuation (Method 1)

Putting the figures from both oil fields together, we get the following data:
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Given that we have determined LTM EBITDA of RM 632m, the next step would be to subtract ITDA (interest, tax, depreciation & amortization) from it to obtain estimated LTM Net Profit. Using FY2020’s ITDA of approximately RM 318m as a guideline, we arrive at an estimated LTM Net Profit of RM 314m (FY20: 230m). Given the current market capitalization of RM 714.7m, this implies a trailing LTM PE of 2.3x.
Performing a sensitivity analysis given different oil prices, we arrive at the following net profit table for the company under different oil price scenarios, assuming oil production rate and ITDA remain constant:
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From the above exercise, it becomes apparent that Hibiscus has a breakeven oil price of about USD 41.8863/bbl, and has a lot of operating leverage given the exponential rate of increase in its Net Profit with each consequent increase in oil prices.
Considering that the oil production rate (EBITDA) is likely to increase faster than ITDA’s proportion to revenues (fixed costs), at an implied PE of 4.33x, it seems likely that an investment in Hibiscus will be profitable over the next 10 years (with the assumption that oil prices will revert to the mean in the long-term).
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Valuation (Method 2)

Of course, there are a lot of assumptions behind the above method of valuation. Hence, it would be prudent to perform multiple methods of valuation and compare the figures to one another.
As opposed to the profit/loss assessment in Valuation (Method 1), another way of performing a valuation would be to estimate its balance sheet value, i.e. total revenues from 2P Reserves, and assign a reasonable margin to it.
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From the above, we understand that Hibiscus’s 2P reserves from the North Sabah and Anasuria fields alone are approximately 44.2 mmbbl (we ignore contribution from Australia’s VIC cluster as it hasn’t been developed yet).
Doing a similar sensitivity analysis of different oil prices as above, we arrive at the following estimated total revenues and accumulated net profit:
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Let’s assume that the above average of RM 9.68 billion in total realizable revenues from current 2P reserves holds true. If we assign a conservative Net Profit margin of 15% (FY20: 23%; past 5 years average: 16%), we arrive at estimated accumulated Net Profit from 2P Reserves of RM 1.452 billion. Given the current market capitalization of RM 714 million, we might be able to say that the equity is worth about twice the current share price.
However, it is understandable that some readers might feel that the figures used in the above estimate (e.g. net profit margin of 15%) were randomly plucked from the sky. So how do we reconcile them with figures from the financial statements? Fortunately, there appears to be a way to do just that.
Intangible Assets
I refer you to a figure in the financial statements which provides a shortcut to the valuation of 2P Reserves. This is the carrying value of Intangible Assets on the Balance Sheet.
As of 2QFY21, that amount was RM 1,468,860,000 (i.e. RM 1.468 billion).
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Quite coincidentally, one might observe that this figure is dangerously close to the estimated accumulated Net Profit from 2P Reserves of RM 1.452 billion we calculated earlier. But why would this amount matter at all?
To answer that, I refer you to the notes of the Annual Report FY20 (AR20). On page 148 of the AR20, we find the following two paragraphs:
^{E&E assets comprise of rights and concession and conventional studies. Following the acquisition of a concession right to explore a licensed area, the costs incurred such as geological and geophysical surveys, drilling, commercial appraisal costs and other directly attributable costs of exploration and appraisal including technical and administrative costs, are capitalised as conventional studies, presented as intangible assets.
E&E assets are assessed for impairment when facts and circumstances suggest that the carrying amount of an E&E asset may exceed its recoverable amount. The Group will allocate E&E assets to cash generating unit (“CGU”}s or groups of CGUs for the purpose of assessing such assets for impairment. Each CGU or group of units to which an E&E asset is allocated will not be larger than an operating segment as disclosed in Note 39 to the financial statements.)
Hence, we can determine that firstly, the intangible asset value represents capitalized costs of acquisition of the oil fields, including technical exploration costs and costs of acquiring the relevant licenses. Secondly, an impairment review will be carried out when “the carrying amount of an E&E asset may exceed its recoverable amount”, with E&E assets being allocated to “cash generating units” (CGU) for the purposes of assessment.
On page 169 of the AR20, we find the following:
^{Carrying amounts of the Group’s intangible assets, oil and gas assets and FPSO are reviewed for possible impairment annually including any indicators of impairment. For the purpose of assessing impairment, assets are grouped at the lowest level CGUs for which there is a separately identifiable cash flow available. These CGUs are based on operating areas, represented by the 2011 North Sabah EOR PSC (“North Sabah”}, the Anasuria Cluster, the Marigold and Sunflower fields, the VIC/P57 exploration permit (“VIC/P57”) and the VIC/L31 production license (“VIC/L31”).)
So apparently, the CGUs that have been assigned refer to the respective oil producing fields, two of which include the North Sabah field and the Anasuria field. In order to perform the impairment review, estimates of future cash flow will be made by management to assess the “recoverable amount” (as described above), subject to assumptions and an appropriate discount rate.
Hence, what we can gather up to now is that management will estimate future recoverable cash flows from a CGU (i.e. the North Sabah and Anasuria oil fields), compare that to their carrying value, and perform an impairment if their future recoverable cash flows are less than their carrying value. In other words, if estimated accumulated profits from the North Sabah and Anasuria oil fields are less than their carrying value, an impairment is required.
So where do we find the carrying values for the North Sabah and Anasuria oil fields? Further down on page 184 in the AR20, we see the following:
^{Included in rights and concession are the carrying amounts of producing field licenses in the Anasuria Cluster amounting to RM668,211,518 (2018: RM687,664,530}, producing field licenses in North Sabah amounting to RM471,031,008 (2018: RM414,333,116))
Hence, we can determine that the carrying values for the North Sabah and Anasuria oil fields are RM 471m and RM 668m respectively. But where do we find the future recoverable cash flows of the fields as estimated by management, and what are the assumptions used in that calculation?
Fortunately, we find just that on page 185:
^{17 INTANGIBLE ASSETS (CONTINUED})
^(a Anasuria Cluster)
^{The Directors have concluded that there is no impairment indicator for Anasuria Cluster during the current financial year. In the previous financial year, due to uncertainties in crude oil prices, the Group has assessed the recoverable amount of the intangible assets, oil and gas assets and FPSO relating to the Anasuria Cluster. The recoverable amount is determined using the FVLCTS model based on discounted cash flows (“DCF”} derived from the expected cash in/outflow pattern over the production lives.)
^{The key assumptions used to determine the recoverable amount for the Anasuria Cluster were as follows:
(i} Discount rate of 10%;)
⁽ⁱⁱ Future cost inflation factor of 2% per annum;)
⁽ⁱⁱⁱ Oil price forecast based on the oil price forward curve from independent parties; and,)
^(iv Oil production profile based on the assessment by independent oil and gas reserve experts.)
^{Based on the assessments performed, the Directors concluded that the recoverable amount calculated based on the valuation model is higher than the carrying amount.
(b} North Sabah)
^{The acquisition of the North Sabah assets was completed in the previous financial year. Details of the acquisition are as disclosed in Note 15 to the financial statements.
The Directors have concluded that there is no impairment indicator for North Sabah during the current financial year.}
Here, we can see that the recoverable amount of the Anasuria field was estimated based on a DCF of expected future cash flows over the production life of the asset. The key assumptions used by management all seem appropriate, including a discount rate of 10% and oil price and oil production estimates based on independent assessment. From there, management concludes that the recoverable amount of the Anasuria field is higher than its carrying amount (i.e. no impairment required). Likewise, for the North Sabah field.
How do we interpret this? Basically, what management is saying is that given a 10% discount rate and independent oil price and oil production estimates, the accumulated profits (i.e. recoverable amount) from both the North Sabah and the Anasuria fields exceed their carrying amounts of RM 471m and RM 668m respectively.
In other words, according to management’s own estimates, the carrying value of the Intangible Assets of RM 1.468 billion approximates the accumulated Net Profit recoverable from 2P reserves.
To conclude Valuation (Method 2), we arrive at the following:
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	Our estimates	Management estimates
Accumulated Net Profit from 2P Reserves	RM 1.452 billion	RM 1.468 billion

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Financials

By now, we have established the basic economics of Hibiscus’s business, including its revenues (i.e. oil production and oil price scenarios), costs (OPEX, ITDA), profitability (breakeven, future earnings potential) and balance sheet value (2P reserves, valuation). Moving on, we want to gain a deeper understanding of the 3 statements to anticipate any blind spots and risks. We’ll refer to the financial statements of both the FY20 annual report and the 2Q21 quarterly report in this analysis.
For the sake of brevity, I’ll only point out those line items which need extra attention, and skip over the rest. Feel free to go through the financial statements on your own to gain a better familiarity of the business.
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Income Statement
First, we’ll start with the Income Statement on page 135 of the AR20. Revenues are straightforward, as we’ve discussed above. Cost of Sales and Administrative Expenses fall under the jurisdiction of OPEX, which we’ve also seen earlier. Other Expenses are mostly made up of Depreciation & Amortization of RM 115m.
Finance Costs are where things start to get tricky. Why does a company which carries no debt have such huge amounts of finance costs? The reason can be found in Note 8, where it is revealed that the bulk of finance costs relate to the unwinding of discount of provision for decommissioning costs of RM 25m (Note 32).
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This actually refers to the expected future costs of restoring the Anasuria and North Sabah fields to their original condition once the oil reserves have been depleted. Accounting standards require the company to provide for these decommissioning costs as they are estimable and probable. The way the decommissioning costs are accounted for is the same as an amortized loan, where the initial carrying value is recognized as a liability and the discount rate applied is reversed each year as an expense on the Income Statement. However, these expenses are largely non-cash in nature and do not necessitate a cash outflow every year (FY20: RM 69m).
Unwinding of discount on non-current other payables of RM 12m relate to contractual payments to the North Sabah sellers. We will discuss it later.
Taxation is another tricky subject, and is even more significant than Finance Costs at RM 161m. In gist, Hibiscus is subject to the 38% PITA (Petroleum Income Tax Act) under Malaysian jurisdiction, and the 30% Petroleum tax + 10% Supplementary tax under UK jurisdiction. Of the RM 161m, RM 41m of it relates to deferred tax which originates from the difference between tax treatment and accounting treatment on capitalized assets (accelerated depreciation vs straight-line depreciation). Nonetheless, what you should take away from this is that the tax expense is a tangible expense and material to breakeven analysis.
Fortunately, tax is a variable expense, and should not materially impact the cash flow of Hibiscus in today’s low oil price environment.
Note: Cash outflows for Tax Paid in FY20 was RM 97m, substantially below the RM 161m tax expense.
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Balance Sheet
The balance sheet of Hibiscus is unexciting; I’ll just bring your attention to those line items which need additional scrutiny. I’ll use the figures in the latest 2Q21 quarterly report (2Q21) and refer to the notes in AR20 for clarity.
We’ve already discussed Intangible Assets in the section above, so I won’t dwell on it again.
Moving on, the company has Equipment of RM 582m, largely relating to O&G assets (e.g. the Anasuria FPSO vessel and CAPEX incurred on production enhancement projects). Restricted cash and bank balances represent contractual obligations for decommissioning costs of the Anasuria Cluster, and are inaccessible for use in operations.
Inventories are relatively low, despite Hibiscus being an E&P company, so forex fluctuations on carrying value of inventories are relatively immaterial. Trade receivables largely relate to entitlements from Petronas and BP (both oil supermajors), and are hence quite safe from impairment. Other receivables, deposits and prepayments are significant as they relate to security deposits placed with sellers of the oil fields acquired; these should be ignored for cash flow purposes.
^{Note: Total cash and bank balances do not include approximately RM 105 m proceeds from the North Sabah December 2019 offtake (which was received in January 2020})
Cash and bank balances of RM 90m do not include RM 105m of proceeds from offtake received in 3Q21 (Jan 2020). Hence, the actual cash and bank balances as of 2Q21 approximate RM 200m.
Liabilities are a little more interesting. First, I’ll draw your attention to the significant Deferred tax liabilities of RM 457m. These largely relate to the amortization of CAPEX (i.e. Equipment and capitalized E&E expenses), which is given an accelerated depreciation treatment for tax purposes.
The way this works is that the government gives Hibiscus a favorable tax treatment on capital expenditures incurred via an accelerated depreciation schedule, so that the taxable income is less than usual. However, this leads to the taxable depreciation being utilized quicker than accounting depreciation, hence the tax payable merely deferred to a later period – when the tax depreciation runs out but accounting depreciation remains. Given the capital intensive nature of the business, it is understandable why Deferred tax liabilities are so large.
We’ve discussed Provision for decommissioning costs under the Finance Costs section earlier. They are also quite significant at RM 266m.
Notably, the Other Payables and Accruals are a hefty RM 431m. What do they relate to? Basically, they are contractual obligations to the sellers of the oil fields which are only payable upon oil prices reaching certain thresholds. Hence, while they are current in nature, they will only become payable when oil prices recover to previous highs, and are hence not an immediate cash outflow concern given today’s low oil prices.
Cash Flow Statement
There is nothing in the cash flow statement which warrants concern.
Notably, the company generated OCF of approximately RM 500m in FY20 and RM 116m in 2Q21. It further incurred RM 330m and RM 234m of CAPEX in FY20 and 2Q21 respectively, largely owing to production enhancement projects to increase the production rate of the Anasuria and North Sabah fields, which according to management estimates are accretive to ROI.
Tax paid was RM 97m in FY20 and RM 61m in 2Q21 (tax expense: RM 161m and RM 62m respectively).
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Risks

There are a few obvious and not-so-obvious risks that one should be aware of before investing in Hibiscus. We shall not consider operational risks (e.g. uptime, OPEX) as they are outside the jurisdiction of the equity analyst. Instead, we shall focus on the financial and strategic risks largely outside the control of management. The main ones are:
· Oil prices remaining subdued for long periods of time
· Fluctuation of exchange rates
· Customer concentration risk
· 2P Reserves being less than estimated
· Significant current and non-current liabilities
· Potential issuance of equity
Oil prices remaining subdued
Of topmost concern in the minds of most analysts is whether Hibiscus has the wherewithal to sustain itself through this period of low oil prices (sub-$30). A quick and dirty estimate of annual cash outflow (i.e. burn rate) assuming a $20 oil world and historical production rates is between RM 50m-70m per year, which considering the RM 200m cash balance implies about 3-4 years of sustainability before the company runs out of cash and has to rely on external assistance for financing.
Table 1: Hibiscus EBITDA at different oil price and exchange rates
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The above table shows different EBITDA scenarios (RM ‘m) given different oil prices (left column) and USD:MYR exchange rates (top row). Currently, oil prices are $27 and USD:MYR is 1:4.36.
Given conservative assumptions of average OPEX/bbl of $20 (current: $15), we can safely say that the company will be loss-making as long as oil remains at $20 or below (red). However, we can see that once oil prices hit $25, the company can tank the lower-end estimate of the annual burn rate of RM 50m (orange), while at RM $27 it can sufficiently muddle through the higher-end estimate of the annual burn rate of RM 70m (green).
Hence, we can assume that as long as the average oil price over the next 3-4 years remains above $25, Hibiscus should come out of this fine without the need for any external financing.
Customer Concentration Risk
With regards to customer concentration risk, there is not much the analyst or investor can do except to accept the risk. Fortunately, 80% of revenues can be attributed to two oil supermajors (Petronas and BP), hence the risk of default on contractual obligations and trade receivables seems to be quite diminished.
2P Reserves being less than estimated
2P Reserves being less than estimated is another risk that one should keep in mind. Fortunately, the current market cap is merely RM 714m – at half of estimated recoverable amounts of RM 1.468 billion – so there’s a decent margin of safety. In addition, there are other mitigating factors which shall be discussed in the next section (‘Opportunities’).
Significant non-current and current liabilities
The significant non-current and current liabilities have been addressed in the previous section. It has been determined that they pose no threat to immediate cash flow due to them being long-term in nature (e.g. decommissioning costs, deferred tax, etc). Hence, for the purpose of assessing going concern, their amounts should not be a cause for concern.
Potential issuance of equity
Finally, we come to the possibility of external financing being required in this low oil price environment. While the company should last 3-4 years on existing cash reserves, there is always the risk of other black swan events materializing (e.g. coronavirus) or simply oil prices remaining muted for longer than 4 years.
Furthermore, management has hinted that they wish to acquire new oil assets at presently depressed prices to increase daily production rate to a targeted 20,000 bbl by end-2021. They have room to acquire debt, but they may also wish to issue equity for this purpose. Hence, the possibility of dilution to existing shareholders cannot be entirely ruled out.
However, given management’s historical track record of prioritizing ROI and optimal capital allocation, and in consideration of the fact that the MD owns 10% of outstanding shares, there is some assurance that any potential acquisitions will be accretive to EPS and therefore valuations.
​

Opportunities

As with the existence of risk, the presence of material opportunities also looms over the company. Some of them are discussed below:
· Increased Daily Oil Production Rate
· Inclusion of 2C Resources
· Future oil prices exceeding $50 and effects from coronavirus dissipating
Increased Daily Oil Production Rate
The first and most obvious opportunity is the potential for increased production rate. We’ve seen in the last quarter (2Q21) that the North Sabah field increased its daily production rate by approximately 20% as a result of production enhancement projects (infill drilling), lowering OPEX/bbl as a result. To vastly oversimplify, infill drilling is the process of maximizing well density by drilling in the spaces between existing wells to improve oil production.
The same improvements are being undertaken at the Anasuria field via infill drilling, subsea debottlenecking, water injection and sidetracking of existing wells. Without boring you with industry jargon, this basically means future production rate is likely to improve going forward.
By how much can the oil production rate be improved by? Management estimates in their analyst presentation that enhancements in the Anasuria field will be able to yield 5,000 bbl/day by 2021 (current: 2,500 bbl/day).
Similarly, improvements in the North Sabah field is expected to yield 7,000 bbl/day by 2021 (current: 5,300 bbl/day).
This implies a total 2021 expected daily production rate from the two fields alone of 12,000 bbl/day (current: 8,000 bbl/day). That’s a 50% increase in yields which we haven’t factored into our valuation yet.
Furthermore, we haven’t considered any production from existing 2C resources (e.g. Marigold/Sunflower) or any potential acquisitions which may occur in the future. By management estimates, this can potentially increase production by another 8,000 bbl/day, bringing total production to 20,000 bbl/day.
While this seems like a stretch of the imagination, it pays to keep them in mind when forecasting future revenues and valuations.
Just to play around with the numbers, I’ve come up with a sensitivity analysis of possible annual EBITDA at different oil prices and daily oil production rates:
Table 2: Hibiscus EBITDA at different oil price and daily oil production rates
https://preview.redd.it/jnpfhr5n9br41.png?width=814&format=png&auto=webp&s=bbe4b512bc17f576d87529651140cc74cde3d159
The left column represents different oil prices while the top row represents different daily oil production rates.
The green column represents EBITDA at current daily production rate of 8,000 bbl/day; the orange column represents EBITDA at targeted daily production rate of 12,000 bbl/day; while the purple column represents EBITDA at maximum daily production rate of 20,000 bbl/day.
Even conservatively assuming increased estimated annual ITDA of RM 500m (FY20: RM 318m), and long-term average oil prices of $50 (FY20: $60), the estimated Net Profit and P/E ratio is potentially lucrative at daily oil production rates of 12,000 bbl/day and above.
2C Resources
Since we’re on the topic of improved daily oil production rate, it bears to pay in mind the relatively enormous potential from Hibiscus’s 2C Resources. North Sabah’s 2C Resources alone exceed 30 mmbbl; while those from the yet undiagnosed Marigold/Sunflower fields also reach 30 mmbbl. Altogether, 2C Resources exceed 70 mmbbl, which dwarfs the 44 mmbbl of 2P Reserves we have considered up to this point in our valuation estimates.
To refresh your memory, 2C Resources represents oil volumes which have been discovered but are not yet classified as “commercial”. This means that there is reasonable certainty of the oil being recoverable, as opposed to simply being in the very early stages of exploration. So, to be conservative, we will imagine that only 50% of 2C Resources are eligible for reclassification to 2P reserves, i.e. 35 mmbbl of oil.
https://preview.redd.it/mto11iz7abr41.png?width=375&format=png&auto=webp&s=e9028ab0816b3d3e25067447f2c70acd3ebfc41a
This additional 35 mmbbl of oil represents an 80% increase to existing 2P reserves. Assuming the daily oil production rate increases similarly by 80%, we will arrive at 14,400 bbl/day of oil production. According to Table 2 above, this would yield an EBITDA of roughly RM 630m assuming $50 oil.
Comparing that estimated EBITDA to FY20’s actual EBITDA:

	FY20	FY21 (incl. 2C)	Difference
Daily oil production (bbl/day)	8,626	14,400	+66%
Average oil price (USD/bbl)	$68.57	$50	-27%
Average OPEX/bbl (USD)	$16.64	$20	+20%
EBITDA (RM ‘m)	632	630	-

Hence, even conservatively assuming lower oil prices and higher OPEX/bbl (which should decrease in the presence of higher oil volumes) than last year, we get approximately the same EBITDA as FY20.
For the sake of completeness, let’s assume that Hibiscus issues twice the no. of existing shares over the next 10 years, effectively diluting shareholders by 50%. Even without accounting for the possibility of the acquisition of new oil fields, at the current market capitalization of RM 714m, the prospective P/E would be about 10x. Not too shabby.
Future oil prices exceeding $50 and effects from coronavirus dissipating
Hibiscus shares have recently been hit by a one-two punch from oil prices cratering from $60 to $30, as a result of both the Saudi-Russian dispute and depressed demand for oil due to coronavirus. This has massively increased supply and at the same time hugely depressed demand for oil (due to the globally coordinated lockdowns being implemented).
Given a long enough timeframe, I fully expect OPEC+ to come to an agreement and the economic effects from the coronavirus to dissipate, allowing oil prices to rebound. As we equity investors are aware, oil prices are cyclical and are bound to recover over the next 10 years.
When it does, valuations of O&G stocks (including Hibiscus’s) are likely to improve as investors overshoot expectations and begin to forecast higher oil prices into perpetuity, as they always tend to do in good times. When that time arrives, Hibiscus’s valuations are likely to become overoptimistic as all O&G stocks tend to do during oil upcycles, resulting in valuations far exceeding reasonable estimates of future earnings. If you can hold the shares up until then, it’s likely you will make much more on your investment than what we’ve been estimating.

Conclusion

Wrapping up what we’ve discussed so far, we can conclude that Hibiscus’s market capitalization of RM 714m far undershoots reasonable estimates of fair value even under conservative assumptions of recoverable oil volumes and long-term average oil prices. As a value investor, I hesitate to assign a target share price, but it’s safe to say that this stock is worth at least RM 1.00 (current: RM 0.45). Risk is relatively contained and the upside far exceeds the downside. While I have no opinion on the short-term trajectory of oil prices, I can safely recommend this stock as a long-term Buy based on fundamental research.

Hello,
Just wanted to share some of my legitimate concerns around decentralised finance with the broader community. To be quite clear - I am a huge fan of Ethereum and DeFi and believe this could lead to the future of finance. However, I do worry if there is a circle jerk within the community that could lead to a lack of adoption in the coming months. I will try and keep this as short as possible. By all means, do understand I am coming from the pov of sharing constructive criticism and not dissing on the efforts of those building.
If you are solving for these problems in particular, please ping me and I'd love to talk further with you

1. On-ramps The largest problem for much of the developing world is the fact that while DAI can without doubt give dollar exposure, acquiring them is quite a difficult task. In fact if DAI demand goes up substantially in a region, it could have premiums of upto 25% which makes it a bad on-ramp tool without necessary liquidity in place. (check Wazir X p2p USDT rates in India for context). This problem is not endemic to DAI alone but is applicable to stable tokens of all kinds. With regional regulations in nations like Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Phillipines, Malaysia and India not being clear on stable tokens in particular, it becomes an uphill task for developers to build on it. More importantly, it becomes less appealing for the average individual to use. Now typically this wouldnt matter if the point of DeFi was to be a niche project aimed at a small community. However, DeFi has the power to be the first mass market blockchain tool for the world. Consider it to be the "e-mail" or "napster" moment for blockchain based applications. IF we are to scale then on-ramps and off-ramps need to be solved for. This can happen only and if the community begins engaging with regional regulators and exchanges begin providing solutions. In an ideal world, acquiring stable tokens should be as easy as venmo'ing someone $10 dollar and receiving say $9.90 (1% fee) in Incento (incento.io seems interesting, not shilling but do check them out!)
2. Incumbent Efficiency In order for a system to scale past a certain point, the value add it brings needs to be considerably higher than the incumbent. Depending on the size of the remittance market, there exists multiple payments and wire transfer corridors set up by startups today to solve for quick transfers. In fact during times when a blockchain like those of Ethereum's or Bitcoin's are clogged - transferwise can prove to be a cheaper, better alternative than tokens. This is not to diss on the fact that decentralisation and immutability has a price attached to them, but for the average user today alternatives are far better than token based products. The challenge when it comes to scaling - especially towards L2 is whether products can be incrementally better than their incumbents in exchange for some trade offs (eg: relative centralisation in lightning for minimal fees and quicker confirmation). Today's DeFi apps have to make a call between being ideological and efficient because it seems there is a price attached to ideology and retail users aren't willing to pay that price.
3. Slippage Much props to Kyber and Uniswap for solving for this on most DeFi apps but there remains challenges in how settlements for defi instruments today happen. As the scale of volume on products like DyDx and Nuo increase and the expected accuracy at which trade settlements are anticipated to be limited to, there will come a point in time where traditional market-makers will have to enter the system. At $500 million the DeFi space's largest traders constantly reel from price slippages and a lack of liquidity. How can we scale to $10 billion or $1 trillion without the kind of liquidity that could instill confidence in large whales. In order to solve this, there will come a point in time where hedge funds and dark pool service providers from traditional markets begin targetting DeFi instruments. The community will likely see this as an all out assault on the principles DeFi has been built upon but to be honest, this will be a quintessential requirement for the space to grow. We are seeing an early variant of this already with the likes of Cred raising $50 million to re-issue as debt (yes, not entirely DeFi) or with MakerDAO having VC partners that come from traditional backgrounds. Even in the case of products like Dharma and compound, the market-makers are hedge funds. We will see a convergence of traditional market products and DeFi soon. That will be an exciting phase imo.
4. Product-Market Fit Debt is one of the oldest financial innovations in the markets. Quite literally. Some of the first ever tablets recorded debt obligations and as such have been quintessential to the growth of human civilisation. MakerDAO's proposition of issuing token backed debt is by all means revolutionary but in order to see true scale, DeFi has to grow beyond the individuals that can give assets as collateral. I reckon there will be a new layer of growth for DeFi soon that will be powered with open-data and AI. One where an individual's credit worthiness could be checked with the individual's permission on basis of on-chain tx activity and self sovereign identity. I also see a market for AI based lending rate predictions and forex management by central banks. Autonomous agents can realistically analyse tx's in and out of a country, account for macro-economic indicators and optimise internal lending rates and foreign currency reserves. Ofcourse it is too early for any of this to take place but within the next decade our markets will be far more (i) closer due to globalisation and (ii) automated due to improvements in AI. DeFi is all well and good but if we are going to beat the same old drums of economic instruments that were created thousands of years back, there may be no real value proposition here. LsDAI, rDAI, CDAI, DAI... are all interesting but the average user sees no value yet. Which makes me wonder if we are sitting around patting each other's back before we see something productive (a unicorn from the DeFi ecosystem perhaps?)
5. Scale 4.5 billion. That's the number of unbanked individuals that can be catered to with an L2 payments solution powered by Ethereum. Challenges? On-ramp, storage of private keys, user education and bloody hell - marketing and user education. Emphasis on the last 2 because I feel not much focus is given on it. We can no longer build and hope the markets come. We are in an era of Zombie startups where startups with north of $100 million+ valuations in Mcap, that raised north of $10million in 2017 from ICOs are sitting on ~1000 users a month. People think the alts blood seepage is done but it is likely that that bleeding wont stop until we find users. And when we do find users, we cant expect them to be using a gazillion tokens, each with weird token economics and even more complex functioning to be using them. Standardising of token interactions through wallets and interoperability will solve for these challenges but its time we asked what are the biggest problems DeFi can solve today? Here are some hints.. NFT based Income share agreements -Non collateralised debt for gig economy corporations that are registered as DAOs -DAO treasury management -Forex off-ramps for tourists (P2P) More on these later..

Just wanted to share my $0.02.

This article is taken from the Wall Street Journal written about nine months ago and sits behind a a paywall, so I decided to copy and paste it here. This article explains Trump's policies toward global trade and what has actually happened so far. I think the article does a decent job of explaining the Trade War. While alot has happenedsince the article was written, I still think its relevant.
However, what is lacking in the article, like many articles on the trade war, is it doesn't really explain the history of US trade policy, the laws that the US administration is using to place tariffs on China and the official justification for the US President in enacting tariffs against China. In my analysis I will cover those points.

SUMMARY

When Trump entered the White House people feared he would dismantle the global system the US and its allies had built over the last 75 years, but he hasn't. He has realign into two systems. One between the US and its allies which looks similar to the one built since the 1980s with a few of quota and tariffs. As the article points out

Today, Korus and Nafta have been replaced by updated agreements(one not yet ratified) that look much like the originals. South Korea accepted quotas on steel. Mexico and Canada agreed to higher wages, North American content requirements and quotas for autos. Furthermore, the article points out Douglas Irwin, an economist and trade historian at Dartmouth College, calls these results the “status quo with Trumpian tweaks: a little more managed trade sprinkled about for favored industries. It’s not good, but it’s not the destruction of the system.” Mr. Trump’s actions so far affect only 12% of U.S. imports, according to Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. In 1984, 21% of imports were covered by similar restraints, many imposed by Mr. Reagan, such as on cars, steel, motorcycles and clothing. Protectionist instincts go so far in the US, there are strong lobby groups for both protectionist and freetrade in the US.

The second reflects a emerging rivalry between the US and China. Undo some of the integration that followed China accession to the WTO. Two questions 1) How far is the US willing to decouple with China 2) Can it persuade allies to join.

The second is going to be difficult because China's economic ties are greater than they were between the Soviets, and China isn't waging an ideological struggle. Trump lacks Reagan commitment to alliance and free trade. The status quo with China is crumbling Dan Sullivan, a Republican senator from Alaska, personifies these broader forces reshaping the U.S. approach to the world. When Mr. Xi visited the U.S. in 2015, Mr. Sullivan urged his colleagues to pay more attention to China’s rise. On the Senate floor, he quoted the political scientist Graham Allison: “War between the U.S. and China is more likely than recognized at the moment.” Last spring, Mr. Sullivan went to China and met officials including Vice President Wang Qishan. They seemed to think tensions with the U.S. will fade after Mr. Trump leaves the scene, Mr. Sullivan recalled. “I just said, ‘You are completely misreading this.’” The mistrust, he told them, is bipartisan, and will outlast Mr. Trump. both Bush II and Obama tried to change dialogue and engagement, but by the end of his term, Obama was questioning the approach. Trump has declared engagement. “We don’t like it when our allies steal our ideas either, but it’s a much less dangerous situation,” said Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute whose views align with the administration’s more hawkish officials. “We’re not worried about the war-fighting capability of Japan and Korea because they’re our friends.”

The article also points out unlike George Kennan in 1946 who made a case for containing the Soviet Union, the US hasn't explicitly made a case for containing the Soviets, Trump's administration hasn't, because as the the article explains its divided Michael Pillsbury a Hudson Institute scholar close to the Trump team, see 3 scenarios

• New Cold War with drastically reduced economic ties
• China resolve their tensions, integrate and run the world together
• Transactional US-China relationship of the sort during the 1980s

Pillsbury thinks the third is most likely to happen, even though the administration hasn't said that it has adopted that policy. The US is stepping efforts to draw in other trading partners. The US, EU and Japan have launched a WTO effort to crack down on domestic subsidies and technology transfers requirement. US and Domestic concerns with prompted some countries to restrict Huawei. The US is also seeking to walloff China from other trade deals. However, there are risk with this strategy

• Other countries like Japan and South Korea to dependent on China. Too integrated.
• Raise objections to Belt and Road. But no alternative
• The administration is not up to the task

ARTICLE

Trump Didn’t Kill the Global Trade System. He Split It in Two.

INTRODUCTION

My main criticism of this article is it tries like the vast majority of articles to fit US trade actions in the larger context of US geopolitical strategy. Even the author isn't certain "The first goes to the heart of Mr. Trump’s goal. If his aim is to hold back China’s advance, economists predict he will fail.". If you try to treat the trade "war" and US geopolitical strategy toward China as one, you will find yourself quickly frustrated and confused. If you treat them separately with their different set of stakeholders and histories, were they intersect with regards to China, but diverge. During the Cold War, trade policy toward the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc was subordinated to geopolitical concerns. For Trump, the trade issues are more important than geopolitical strategy. His protectionist trade rhetoric has been fairly consistent since 1980s. In his administration, the top cabinet members holding economic portfolios, those of Commerce, Treasury and US Trade Representative are the same people he picked when he first took office. The Director of the Economic Council has changed hands once, its role isn't as important as the National Security Advisor. While State, Defense, CIA, Homeland Security, UN Ambassador, National Security Advisor have changed hands at least once. Only the Director of National Intelligence hasn't changed.
International Trade makes up 1/4 of the US economy, and like national security its primarily the responsibility of the Federal government. States in the US don't implement their own tariffs. If you add the impact of Treasury policy and how it relates to capital flows in and out of the US, the amounts easily exceed the size of the US economy. Furthermore, because of US Dollar role as the reserve currency and US control of over global system the impact of Treasury are global. Trade policy and investment flows runs through two federal departments Commerce and Treasury and for trade also USTR. Defense spending makes up 3.3% of GDP, and if you add in related homeland security its at most 4%. Why would anyone assume that these two realms be integrated let alone trade policy subordinate to whims of a national security bureaucracy in most instances? With North Korea or Iran, trade and investment subordinate themselves to national security, because to Treasury and Commerce bureaucrats and their affiliated interest groups, Iran and the DPRK are well, economic midgets, but China is a different matter.
The analysis will be divided into four sections. The first will be to provide a brief overview of US trade policy since 1914. The second section will discuss why the US is going after China on trade issues, and why the US has resorted using a bilateral approach as opposed to going through the WTO. The third section we will talk about how relations with China is hashed out in the US.
The reason why I submitted this article, because there aren't many post trying to explain US-China Trade War from a trade perspective. Here is a post titled "What is the Reasons for America's Trade War with China, and not one person mentioned Article 301 or China's WTO Commitments. You get numerous post saying that Huawei is at heart of the trade war. Its fine, but if you don't know what was inside the USTR Investigative report that lead to the tariffs. its like skipping dinner and only having dessert When the US President, Donald J Trump, says he wants to negotiate a better trade deal with other countries, and has been going on about for the last 35 years, longer than many of you have been alive, why do people think that the key issues with China aren't primarily about trade at the moment.

OVERVIEW OF THE UNITED STATES TRADE ORIENTATION

Before 1940s, the US could be categorized as a free market protectionist economy. For many this may seem like oxymoron, how can an economy be free market and protectionist? In 1913, government spending made up about 7.5% of US GDP, in the UK it was 13%, and for Germany 18% (Public Spending in the 20th Century A Global Perspective: Ludger Schuknecht and Vito Tanzi - 2000). UK had virtual zero tariffs, while for manufactured goods in France it was 20%, 13% Germany, 9% Belgium and 4% Netherlands. For raw materials and agricultural products, it was almost zero. In contrast, for the likes of United States, Russia and Japan it was 44%, 84% and 30% respectively. Even though in 1900 United States was an economic powerhouse along with Germany, manufactured exports only made up 30% of exports, and the US government saw tariffs as exclusively a domestic policy matter and didn't see tariffs as something to be negotiated with other nations. The US didn't have the large constituency to push the government for lower tariffs abroad for their exports like in Britain in the 1830-40s (Reluctant Partners: A History of Multilateral Trade Cooperation, 1850-2000).
The Underwood Tariffs Act of 1913 which legislated the income tax, dropped the tariffs to 1850 levels levels.Until 16th amendment was ratified in 1913 making income tax legal, all US federal revenue came from excise and tariffs. In contrast before 1914, about 50% of UK revenue came from income taxes. The reason for US reluctance to introduced income tax was ideological and the United State's relative weak government compared to those in Europe. After the First World War, the US introduced the Emergency Tariff Act of 1921, than the Fordney–McCumber Tariff of 1922 followed by a Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930. Contrary to popular opinion, the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930 had a small negative impact on the economy, since imports and exports played a small part of the US economy, and the tariffs were lower than the average that existed from 1850-1914.
Immediately after the Second World War, when the US economy was the only industrialized economy left standing, the economic focus was on rehabilitation and monetary stability. There was no grandiose and ideological design. Bretton Woods system linked the US dollar to gold to create monetary stability, and to avoid competitive devaluation and tariffs that plagued the world economy after Britain took itself off the gold in 1931. The US$ was the natural choice, because in 1944 2/3 of the world's gold was in the US. One reason why the Marshall Plan was created was to alleviate the chronic deficits Europeans countries had with the US between 1945-50. It was to rebuild their economies so they could start exports good to the US. Even before it was full implemented in 1959, it was already facing problems, the trade surpluses that the US was running in the 1940s, turned to deficits as European and Japanese economies recovered. By 1959, Federal Reserves foreign liabilities had already exceeded its gold reserves. There were fears of a run on the US gold supply and arbitrage. A secondary policy of the Bretton woods system was curbs on capital outflows to reduce speculation on currency pegs, and this had a negative impact on foreign investment until it was abandoned in 1971. It wasn't until the 1980s, where foreign investment recovered to levels prior to 1914. Factoring out the big spike in global oil prices as a result of the OPEC cartel, it most likely wasn't until the mid-1990s that exports as a % of GDP had reached 1914 levels.
Until the 1980s, the US record regarding free trade and markets was mediocre. The impetus to remove trade barriers in Europe after the Second World War was driven by the Europeans themselves. The EEC already had a custom union in 1968, Canada and the US have yet to even discuss implementing one. Even with Canada it took the US over 50 years to get a Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA was inspired by the success of the EEC. NAFTA was very much an elite driven project. If the Americans put the NAFTA to a referendum like the British did with the EEC in the seventies, it most likely wouldn't pass. People often look at segregation in the US South as a political issue, but it was economic issue as well. How could the US preach free trade, when it didn't have free trade in its own country. Segregation was a internal non-tariff barrier. In the first election after the end of the Cold War in 1992, Ross Perot' based most of independent run for the Presidency on opposition to NAFTA. He won 19% of the vote. Like Ross Perot before him, Donald Trump is not the exception in how America has handled tariffs since the founding of the Republic, but more the norm.
The embrace of free trade by the business and political elite can be attributed to two events. After the end of Bretton Woods in 1971, a strong vested interest in the US in the form of multinationals and Wall Street emerged advocating for removal of tariffs and more importantly the removal of restrictions on free flow of capital, whether direct foreign investment in portfolio investment. However, the political class embrace of free trade and capital only really took off after the collapse of the Soviet Union propelled by Cold War triumphalism.
As mentioned by the article, the US is reverting back to a pre-WTO relations with China. As Robert Lighthizer said in speech in 2000

I guess my prescription, really, is to move back to more of a negotiating kind of a settlement. Return to WTO and what it really was meant to be. Something where you have somebody make a decision but have it not be binding.

The US is using financial and legal instruments developed during the Cold War like its extradition treaties (with Canada and Europe), and Section 301. Here is a very good recent article about enforcement commitment that China will make.‘Painful’ enforcement ahead for China if trade war deal is reached with US insisting on unilateral terms
NOTE: It is very difficult to talk about US-China trade war without a basic knowledge of global economic history since 1914. What a lot of people do is politicize or subordinate the economic history to the political. Some commentators think US power was just handed to them after the Second World War, when the US was the only industrialized economy left standing. The dominant position of the US was temporary and in reality its like having 10 tonnes of Gold sitting in your house, it doesn't automatically translate to influence. The US from 1945-1989 was slowly and gradually build her influence in the non-Communist world. For example, US influence in Canada in the 1960s wasn't as strong as it is now. Only 50% of Canadian exports went to the US in 1960s vs 80% at the present moment.

BASIS OF THE US TRADE DISCUSSION WITH CHINA

According to preliminary agreement between China and the US based on unnamed sources in the Wall Street Journal article US, China close in on Trade Deal. In this article it divides the deal in two sections. The first aspects have largely to do with deficits and is political.

As part of a deal, China is pledging to help level the playing field, including speeding up the timetable for removing foreign-ownership limitations on car ventures and reducing tariffs on imported vehicles to below the current auto tariff of 15%. Beijing would also step up purchases of U.S. goods—a tactic designed to appeal to President Trump, who campaigned on closing the bilateral trade deficit with China. One of the sweeteners would be an $18 billion natural-gas purchase from Cheniere Energy Inc., people familiar with the transaction said.

The second part will involve the following.

1. Commitment Regarding Industrial Policy
2. Provisions to protect IP
3. Mechanism which complaints by US companies can be addressed
4. Bilateral meetings adjudicate disputes. If talks don't produce agreement than US can raise tariffs unilaterally

This grouping of conditions is similar to the points filled under the 301 investigation which serve the basis for initiating the tariffs. I have been reading some sources that say this discussion on this second group of broader issues could only be finalized later
The official justifications for placing the tariffs on Chinese goods is found under the March 2018 investigation submitted by the office of the President to Congress titled FINDINGS OF THE INVESTIGATION INTO CHINA’S ACTS, POLICIES, AND PRACTICES RELATED TO TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, AND INNOVATION UNDER SECTION 301 OF THE TRADE ACT OF 1974. From this investigation the United States Trade Representative (USTR) place US Tariffs on Chinese goods as per Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Here is a press release by the USTR listing the reasons for placing tariffs, and the key section from the press release. Specifically, the Section 301 investigation revealed:

• China uses joint venture requirements, foreign investment restrictions, and administrative review and licensing processes to require or pressure technology transfer from U.S. companies.
• China deprives U.S. companies of the ability to set market-based terms in licensing and other technology-related negotiations.
• China directs and unfairly facilitates the systematic investment in, and acquisition of, U.S. companies and assets to generate large-scale technology transfer.
• China conducts and supports cyber intrusions into U.S. commercial computer networks to gain unauthorized access to commercially valuable business information.

In the bigger context of trade relations between US and China, China is not honoring its WTO commitments, and the USTR issued its yearly report to Congress in early February about the status of China compliance with its WTO commitments. The points that served as a basis for applying Section 301, also deviate from her commitments as Clinton's Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky paving the way for a trade war. Barshefsky argues that China's back sliding was happening as early as 2006-07, and believes the trade war could have been avoided has those commitments been enforced by previous administrations.
I will provide a brief overview of WTO membership and China's process of getting into the WTO.
WTO members can be divided into two groups, first are countries that joined in 1995-97, and were members of GATT, than there are the second group that joined after 1997. China joined in 2001. There is an argument that when China joined in 2001, she faced more stringent conditions than other developing countries that joined before, because the vast majority of developing countries were members of GATT, and were admitted to the WTO based on that previous membership in GATT. Here is Brookings Institute article published in 2001 titled "Issues in China’s WTO Accession"

This question is all the more puzzling because the scope and depth of demands placed on entrants into the formal international trading system have increased substantially since the formal conclusion of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations in 1994, which expanded the agenda considerably by covering many services, agriculture, intellectual property, and certain aspects of foreign direct investment. Since 1994, the international community has added agreements covering information technology, basic telecommunications services, and financial services. WTO membership now entails liberalization of a much broader range of domestic economic activity, including areas that traditionally have been regarded by most countries as among the most sensitive, than was required of countries entering the WTO’s predecessor organization the GATT.
The terms of China’s protocol of accession to the World Trade Organization reflect the developments just described and more. China’s market access commitments are much more far-reaching than those that governed the accession of countries only a decade ago. And, as a condition for membership, China was required to make protocol commitments that substantially exceed those made by any other member of the World Trade Organization, including those that have joined since 1995. The broader and deeper commitments China has made inevitably will entail substantial short-term economic costs.

What are the WTO commitments Barshefsky goes on about? When countries join the WTO, particularly those countries that weren't members of GATT and joined after 1997, they have to work toward fulfilling certain commitments. There are 4 key documents when countries make an accession to WTO membership, the working party report, the accession protocol paper, the goods schedule and service schedule.
In the working party report as part of the conclusion which specifies the commitment of each member country what they will do in areas that aren't compliant with WTO regulations on the date they joined. The problem there is no good enforcement mechanism for other members to force China to comply with these commitments. And WTO punishments are weak.
Here is the commitment paragraph for China
"The Working Party took note of the explanations and statements of China concerning its foreign trade regime, as reflected in this Report. The Working Party took note of the commitments given by China in relation to certain specific matters which are reproduced in paragraphs 18-19, 22-23, 35-36, 40, 42, 46-47, 49, 60, 62, 64, 68, 70, 73, 75, 78-79, 83-84, 86, 91-93, 96, 100-103, 107, 111, 115-117, 119-120, 122-123, 126-132, 136, 138, 140, 143, 145, 146, 148, 152, 154, 157, 162, 165, 167-168, 170-174, 177-178, 180, 182, 184-185, 187, 190-197, 199-200, 203-207, 210, 212-213, 215, 217, 222-223, 225, 227-228, 231-235, 238, 240-242, 252, 256, 259, 263, 265, 270, 275, 284, 286, 288, 291, 292, 296, 299, 302, 304-305, 307-310, 312-318, 320, 322, 331-334, 336, 339 and 341 of this Report and noted that these commitments are incorporated in paragraph 1.2 of the Draft Protocol. "
This is a tool by the WTO that list all the WTO commitment of each country in the working paper. In the goods and service schedule they have commitments for particular sectors. Here is the a press release by the WTO in September 2001, after successfully concluding talks for accession, and brief summary of key areas in which China hasn't fulfilled her commitments. Most of the commitments made by China were made to address its legacy as a non-market economy and involvement of state owned enterprises. In my opinion, I think the US government and investors grew increasingly frustrated with China, after 2007 not just because of China's back sliding, but relative to other countries who joined after 1997 like Vietnam, another non-market Leninist dictatorship. When comparing China's commitments to the WTO its best to compare her progress with those that joined after 1997, which were mostly ex-Soviet Republics.
NOTE: The Chinese media have for two decades compared any time the US has talked about China's currency manipulation or any other issue as a pretext for imposing tariffs on China to the Plaza Accords. I am very sure people will raise it here. My criticism of this view is fourfold. First, the US targeted not just Japan, but France, Britain and the UK as well. Secondly, the causes of the Japan lost decade were due largely to internal factors. Thirdly, Japan, UK, Britain and France in the 1980s, the Yuan isn't undervalued today. Lastly, in the USTR investigation, its China's practices that are the concern, not so much the trade deficit.

REASONS FOR TRUMPS UNILATERAL APPROACH

I feel that people shouldn't dismiss Trump's unilateral approach toward China for several reasons.

1. The multilateral approach won't work in many issues such as the trade deficit, commercial espionage and intellectual property, because US and her allies have different interest with regard to these issues. Germany and Japan and trade surpluses with China, while the US runs a deficit. In order to reach a consensus means the West has to compromise among themselves, and the end result if the type of toothless resolutions you commonly find in ASEAN regarding the SCS. Does America want to "compromise" its interest to appease a politician like Justin Trudeau? Not to mention opposition from domestic interest. TPP was opposed by both Clinton and Trump during the election.
2. You can't launch a geopolitical front against China using a newly formed trade block like the TPP. Some of the existing TPP members are in economic groups with China, like Malaysia and Australia.
3. China has joined a multitude of international bodies, and at least in trade, these bodies haven't changed its behavior.
4. Dealing with China, its a no win situation whether you use a tough multilateral / unilateral approach. If the US endorse a tough unilateral approach gives the impression that the US is acting like the British during the Opium War. If you take a concerted Western approach you are accused of acting like the 8 Powers Alliance in 1900.
5. Trump was elected to deal with China which he and his supporters believe was responsible for the loss of millions manufacturing jobs when China joined the WTO in 2001. It is estimate the US lost 6 Million jobs, about 1/4 of US manufacturing Jobs. This has been subsequently advanced by some economists. The ball got rolling when Bill Clinton decided to grant China Most Favored Nation status in 1999, just a decade after Tiananmen.
6. China hasn't dealt with issues like IP protection, market access, subsidies to state own companies and state funded industrial spying.

To his credit, Trump has said his aim was not to overthrow authoritarian governments, and that even applies to the likes of Iran. The Arab spring scared Russia and China, because the US for a brief moment placed the spread of democracy over its security interest.

UNDERSTANDING HOW THE US MAKES DECISIONS REGARDING CHINA

At this moment, China or the trade war isn't an area of great concern for the American public, among international issues it ranks lower than international terrorism, North Korea and Iran's nuclear program.

According to the survey, 39 percent of the country views China’s growing power as a “critical threat” to Americans. That ranked it only eighth among 12 potential threats listed and placed China well behind the perceived threats from international terrorism (66 percent), North Korea’s nuclear program (59 percent) and Iran’s nuclear program (52 percent). It’s also considerably lower than when the same question was asked during the 1990s, when more than half of those polled listed China as a critical threat. That broadly tracks with a recent poll from the Pew Research Center that found concern about U.S.-China economic issues had decreased since 2012.

In looking at how US conducts relations foreign policy with China, we should look at it from the three areas of most concern - economic, national security and ideology. Each sphere has their interest groups, and sometimes groups can occupy two spheres at once. Security experts are concerned with some aspects of China's economic actions like IP theft and industrial policy (China 2025), because they are related to security. In these sphere there are your hawks and dove. And each sphere is dominated by certain interest groups. That is why US policy toward China can often appear contradictory. You have Trump want to reduce the trade deficit, but security experts advocating for restrictions on dual use technology who are buttressed by people who want export restrictions on China, as a way of getting market access.
Right now the economic concerns are most dominant, and the hawks seem to dominate. The economic hawks traditionally have been domestic manufacturing companies and economic nationalist. In reality the hawks aren't dominant, but the groups like US Companies with large investment in China and Wall Street are no longer defending China, and some have turned hawkish against China. These US companies are the main conduit in which China's lobby Congress, since China only spends 50% of what Taiwan spends lobbying Congress.
THE ANGLO SAXON WORLD AND CHINA
I don't think many Chinese even those that speak English, have a good understanding Anglo-Saxon society mindset. Anglo Saxons countries, whether US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland are commerce driven society governed by sanctity of contracts. The English great philosophical contributions to Western philosophy have primarily to do with economics and politics like Adam Smith, John Locke, David Hume and Thomas Hobbes. This contrast with the French and Germans. Politics in the UK and to a lesser extent the US, is centered around economics, while in Mainland Europe its religion. When the Americans revolted against the British Empire in 1776, the initial source of the grievances were taxes.
Outside of East Asia, the rest of the World's relationship with China was largely commercial, and for United States, being an Anglosaxon country, even more so. In Southeast Asia, Chinese aren't known for high culture, but for trade and commerce. Outside Vietnam, most of Chinese loans words in Southeast Asian languages involve either food or money. The influence is akin to Yiddish in English.
Some people point to the Mao and Nixon meeting as great strategic breakthrough and symbol of what great power politics should look like. The reality is that the Mao-Nixon meeting was an anomaly in the long history of relations with China and the West. Much of China-Western relations over the last 500 years was conducted by multitudes of nameless Chinese and Western traders. The period from 1949-1979 was the only period were strategic concerns triumphed trade, because China had little to offer except instability and revolution. Even in this period, China's attempt to spread revolution in Southeast Asia was a threat to Western investments and corporate interest in the region. During the nadir of both the Qing Dynasty and Republican period, China was still engaged in its traditional commercial role. Throughout much of history of their relations with China, the goals of Britain and the United States were primarily economic,
IMAGINE JUST 10% OF CHINA BOUGHT MY PRODUCT
From the beginning, the allure of China to Western businesses and traders has been its sheer size I. One of the points that the USTR mentions is lack of market access for US companies operating in China, while Chinese companies face much less restrictions operating in the US.

• China uses joint venture requirements, foreign investment restrictions, and administrative review and licensing processes to require or pressure technology transfer from U.S. companies.
• China deprives U.S. companies of the ability to set market-based terms in licensing and other technology-related negotiations.

This is supported by remarks by Henry Paulson and Charlene Barshefsky. As Paulson remarked

Trade with China has hurt some American workers. And they have expressed their grievances at the ballot box.
So while many attribute this shift to the Trump Administration, I do not. What we are now seeing will likely endure for some time within the American policy establishment. China is viewed—by a growing consensus—not just as a strategic challenge to the United States but as a country whose rise has come at America’s expense. In this environment, it would be helpful if the US-China relationship had more advocates. That it does not reflects another failure:
In large part because China has been slow to open its economy since it joined the WTO, the American business community has turned from advocate to skeptic and even opponent of past US policies toward China. American business doesn’t want a tariff war but it does want a more aggressive approach from our government. How can it be that those who know China best, work there, do business there, make money there, and have advocated for productive relations in the past, are among those now arguing for more confrontation? The answer lies in the story of stalled competition policy, and the slow pace of opening, over nearly two decades. This has discouraged and fragmented the American business community. And it has reinforced the negative attitudinal shift among our political and expert classes. In short, even though many American businesses continue to prosper in China, a growing number of firms have given up hope that the playing field will ever be level. Some have accepted the Faustian bargain of maximizing today’s earnings per share while operating under restrictions that jeopardize their future competitiveness. But that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it. Nor does it mean they aren’t acutely aware of the risks — or thinking harder than ever before about how to diversify their risks away from, and beyond, China.

What is interesting about Paulson's speech is he spend only one sentence about displaced US workers, and a whole paragraph about US business operating in China. While Kissinger writes books about China, how much does he contribute to both Democrats and the Republicans during the election cycle? China is increasingly makING it more difficult for US companies operating and those exporting products to China.

CONTINUED

-Pakistan to be out of FATF's grey list by September, promises Central Bank
Islamabad will strictly implement the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in order to get out of the money laundering grey list released by the Paris-based body, a senior official of Pakistan's Central Bank said on Wednesday. FATF had previously placed Pakistan on its watch list of countries that need to do more in relation to anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism.
"The FATF challenge has be to be addressed. Pakistan has mandated upon itself to enforce the FATF plan in letter and spirit. Whatever the requirements about the FATF plan are, they will be imposed and Pakistan will be out of grey list by September 2019. FATF is a risk but we are addressing it in the right letter and spirt," said Syed Irfan Ali, executive director for Banking Policy and Regulation Group at the State Bank of Pakistan.
-NAB finds 'proof of massive money laundering' against Sharif family
The Sharif family’s troubles seem set to worsen as reports suggest the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has found evidence of massive money laundering through which Shehbaz Sharif and his family members accumulated assets in the United Kingdom.
According to sources privy to NAB’s investigation, the illegally accumulated assets are worth Rs85 billion to Rs100 billion and were bought during Shehbaz’s tenure as Punjab chief minister.
They said the evidence found was irrefutable and showed striking similarities with the money laundering and fake accounts case against former president Asif Ali Zardari and other Pakistan Peoples Party leaders.
-US debunks Indian claims of shooting down PAF F-16
Indian claims of shooting down a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) F-16 on February 27 were debunked by US officials as all aircraft are accounted for. Pakistan invited US officials to physically count the F-16 planes after the incident. Some of the aircraft were not immediately available for inspection due to the conflict, so it took US personnel several weeks to account for all of the jets, one of the officials said.
The report stated that two US defence officials with direct knowledge of the matter said US personnel had done a count of Pakistan’s F-16s and found none missing.
-Finance minister rules out further rupee devaluation
Finance Minister Asad Umar on Friday ruled out the need for further devaluation of the Pakistani rupee as the currency stands at equilibrium. “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has made no demand for rupee devaluation,” Umar clarified categorically while addressing at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) through online video conference. “Today, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has clarified the rupee is standing at equilibrium,” he said. Dismissing reports of further devaluation, he added: “Stop circulating rumors that Asam Umar has said rupee would depreciate to 160 or 180.”
-o
For the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in Lahore, Christian children have the right to study the Bible, Hindu children have the right to study the Bhagavat Gita and Buddhist children have the right to study the Vedas. Together with the People’s Commission for Minorities Rights (PCMR), the CSJ held a conference on 29 March in which they adopted a resolution entitled ‘Right to education without discrimination’ demanding the right of minorities to teach their own religion in schools, as guaranteed by Article 22 of the Pakistani Constitution. Currently, only Islam is taught in schools.
-China’s BeiDou Navigation System Will be Able to Replace GPS in Pakistan Soon
Pakistani military reliance on the US-owned Global Positioning System (GPS) will be reduced after the use of China’s Beidou satellite navigation system which is projected to achieve global coverage by 2020. This was the crux of background discussions between former military officials and telecom experts.
Beidou is the world’s fourth space-based navigation system, following GPS by the United States, GLONASS by Russia and Galileo by the European Union. According to experts, the satellite-based system plays a vital role in the modern world, especially during wartime.
-PM Imran Khan announces unprecedented 10 years development package for tribal districts
Prime Minister Imran Khan has announced a ten-year special development package for tribal districts. Addressing a big public meeting at Jamrud, Khyber district this evening, he said one hundred billion rupees will be spent on the development of tribal areas each year. He said health, education and sports facilities in tribal areas will be enhanced.
-SBP’s Forex Reserves Cross the $10 Billion Mark
The foreign exchange reserves of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) have crossed the $10 billion mark by March-end. During the week that ended on 29 March 2019, SBP received inflows of RMB 15 billion (equivalent to US$2.2 billion) as proceeds of the loan obtained by the government of Pakistan from China. After taking into account outflows relating to external debt and other official payments, SBP reserves increased by $1.931 billion during the week.
-Benami Properties: FBR takes an unprecedented step
Federal Board of Revenue has established three Benami Zones at Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad for enforcement of Benami Transaction (Prohibition) Act, 2017. In a press release issued today (Thursday), it was said after examination of available information FBR Benami Zones Karachi and Lahore have issued show cause notices in six cases of Companies holding shares and immovable properties as Benamidar.
-Ministry of Finance proposed to amend Foreign Exchange Regulations Act in Pakistan
Ministry of Finance has proposed to amend the Foreign Exchange Regulations Act 1947 to prevent illegal foreign exchange transactions. Under the proposal, the previous act will be updated with an amendment act to empower the State Bank of Pakistan to regulate foreign exchange regime in the country more effectively.
It said proposed amendment has been approved by the Federal Cabinet and transmitted to Parliament for enactment. The measure is a part of government's efforts to enhance the transparency of financial transactions.
-KP government launches 'Pink Bus Service' exclusively for women
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government launched on Thursday ‘Pink Bus Service’ exclusively for women in Mardan. A spokesman of the project told our Peshawar correspondent that a total of seven Pink Buses will ply in Mardan. There are fifteen bus stops each facilitated with the solar panels.
-Pakistan makes a new offer to Iran, FTA in works
Pakistan has invited Iran for talks on a free trade agreement (FTA). Pakistan has proposed that talks could be held on April 23-24 in Pakistan. The report added that lack of direct banking channel between the two countries is the main hurdle in finalizing the free trade agreement.
-Govt Mulling to Withdraw 10% FED on 1,700cc Vehicles: Abdul Razaq
The government is considering to withdraw its decision of imposing 10% federal excise duty (FED) on cars with engine capacities exceeding 1,700cc. The Senate’s Standing Committee on Industries and Production, on Wednesday, was informed that the 10 percent FED imposed on locally manufactured cars and SUVs, having engine capacity exceeding 1,700cc, would be withdrawn soon.
-Govt to Crackdown Against High Medicine Prices & Launch An Online Price Portal
The federal government has ordered a crackdown against pharmaceutical companies that are illegally increasing medicine prices. Minister for National Health Services (NHS), Aamer Mehmood Kiani, ordered an operation against such firms on Wednesday.
“Though the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) deals with the matter, as a government representative, I consider myself responsible for providing relief to the masses and answerable to them. I am personally looking into the matter and would not tolerate an illegal and unauthorized increase in the prices of medicines,” the minister said.
-Pakistan’s First Environment Friendly Food Festival to Start on 5th April
To discourage single-use plastics and promote sustainable food consumption, WWF-Pakistan is organizing the country’s first environmental-friendly food festival in Karachi. The festival, ReFest, aims to reduce food waste and raise awareness about eating food in a responsible way as well as adopting sustainable practices in our daily lives such as reduced use of single-use plastics. The theme of the festival is to spread awareness about the cause and enjoy the festivals responsibly, as per WWF, festivals were one of the reasons of over-littering due to massive use of single-use plastic in food festivals. The idea is to promote a sense of responsibility among citizens about how we can enjoy and be responsible at the same time.
-Gilgit is Getting a Dedicated Tourism Police Division
Gilgit-Baltistan Inspector General of Police (IGP) Sanaullah Abbasi said that a special tourism force will be formed in the region to ensure the safety of national and foreign tourists. He also told that the GB government will deploy 700 personnel for the protection of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor route. The special tourism force called, “Tourism Police Division” will be set up on the model of Malaysia and Thailand.
-PM takes part in Hyderabad University’s Groundbreaking Ceremony.
The project is projected to complete within 3 years, with over Rs. 2 billion as the estimated cost. The land for building the university has been marked in Kohsar. A bill will be passed from the National Assembly for the construction of the university. The name of the university has been decided as “Federal Urdu University Hyderabad”.
-Facebook Launches Its Innovation Lab Platform in Pakistan
Facebook and Pakistan’s Ministry of Information Technology along with the National Technology Fund (IGNITE) launched the first Facebook Innovation Lab located in the National Incubation Centre (NIC) at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). The launch event, held on Wednesday, April 3, 2019, was attended by several thought leaders from across the world who came together and debated on issues such as women and technology; the impact that VR has on social good and impactful ways to harness technology for social good.
-UN Adopts Pakistan Sponsored Resolution Against Islamophobia
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) unanimously adopted a resolution on Tuesday strongly condemning acts of violence and terrorism against religious minorities.mThe resolution, titled ‘Combating terrorism and other acts of violence based on religion or belief’ was moved by Turkey and co-sponsored by Pakistan.
Through this, the UNGA condemned the atrocious terrorist attack targeting Muslims during Friday prayers in two mosques at Christchurch, New Zealand this month, while offering deepest condolences to the victim families.The UN assembly called for the protection and promotion of freedom of religion and belief while developing a domestic environment of religious tolerance, respect, and peace.
-Government announces changes for new budget
With the new budget coming up, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government announced on Tuesday its first tax amnesty scheme on hidden domestic and offshore assets – in an attempt to boost the sinking tax revenue.
Besides, the government announced that it would stop the unchecked outflow of dollars through foreign currency accounts, declaring its intention to amend laws to link the outflows for investment with the approval of the authorities. “An asset declaration scheme will be announced before the budget,” Finance Minister Asad Umar told journalists.
-First ever Pakistani international tourism corner opens in Europe
Pakistan has opened its first International Information Tourist Corner in Belgium to offer Europeans Pakistan’s unique culture, stunning scenic view of its northern areas and the traditional lifestyle of mountain people. Launched jointly in collaboration with the Embassy of Pakistan in Brussels and Tribes, a Dutch Company established in Brussels, the tourist corner is the first-ever initiative by the Pakistani mission in Belgium to promote tourism in Pakistan
-Asad Umar hints at withdrawing tax exemptions for elite
Finance Minister Asad Umar on Tuesday hinted at withdrawing tax exemptions being availed by the elite and also announced a drastic reduction in the number of withholding taxes from the next budget including the tax on banking transactions being paid by non-filers of tax returns.
The minister expressed these views at the launching ceremony of a book, ‘Growth and Inequality in Pakistan – Agenda for Reforms’. The book has been written by Dr Hafiz A Pasha whom Umar described as Pakistan’s number one economist. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung – a German institute – has financed the book under the theme of ‘Economy of Tomorrow’. The book discusses almost every important aspect of Pakistan’s economy and carries a detailed chapter on elite capture of the state.
-PM Imran Khan to perform ground breaking of two Naya Pakistan Housing Programme sites
Prime Minister Imran Khan is expected to perform the ground-breaking ceremony of two housing projects in Islamabad and Quetta later this month. Both projects are part of PM Khan’s ambition of Naya Pakistan Housing Program (NPHP) under which he promised to deliver 500,000 low-cost residential units to the underprivileged faction of the society.
-PM Khan announces economic corridor between KP Khyber and Afghanistan
PM Imran Khan has announced formation of economic corridor between KP Khyber and Afghanistan for improving trade and economic activities in the region. PM Khan announced that he has issued directives for the Torkham border with Afghanistan to be kept open 24/7 in order to facilitate business and trade for locals.
-First woman principal appointed at K-P police training centre
A police training centre in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (K-P) Mansehra has appointed a woman principal – a first for the province. Sonia Shamroz, an MBA in human resource management and an 18-grade officer, termed her appointment to the billet as a matter of great pride for her family and herself.
-Pakistan expected to get significant export orders at Istanbul fair
Pakistan Consul General in Istanbul Bilal Khan Pasha has said that the auto industry of Pakistan, especially the manufacturers of auto and tractor parts, tyres and tubes, has the potential to make inroads into the Turkish market.
“Turkish automakers and Pakistani engineering companies are negotiating to form joint ventures; in the next phase small and medium enterprises of the two countries will enter into partnerships,” Pasha said while talking to The Express Tribune on the sidelines of the Automechanica exhibition, which kicked off in Istanbul on Thursday. “This year, Pakistani companies manufacturing auto and tractor parts as well as tyre tubes are expected to get significant export orders at Automechanica, which will help increase non-traditional goods export from Pakistan to Turkey,” the consul general said.
-PM Imran urges lawmakers to share meal with homeless at govt shelters
Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday urged lawmakers to visit the homeless at government shelters and “share a meal with the people using them”.
The premier asserted that this practice will sensitise public representatives to issues faced by the bottom tier Pakistani society. “In the coming months I will personally monitor effectiveness of our poverty alleviation jihad,” the prime minister went on to add in a tweet.

Hey guys, I'm 16 and in high school as of today. I live in Malaysia. Got to know of Forex and interested. Could ya'll help me with these faq's Where do I start to learn about Forex? How much is the risk? Is it even profitable? How much time is required to be profitable I can give it max about 6-7 hours coz of school.
Which platform do I trade on?
Thanks a lot. Any help would be appreciated.

Larson&Holz, an international group of companies, presented its innovative project – crypto-broker LH-Crypto, – at the Annual Business Congress in Moscow.
It seems that the event planners of the Annual Business Congress with Mikhail Hazin have tried to boil the ocean. The number of topics for discussion and their profundity were astounding. It was hard to believe that three days would be enough to speculate on: world’s major currencies prospects, US economy future, enlarging business profits in the times of crisis, sensible investment tactics, the phenomenon of cryptocurrencies which is gaining more and more popularity nowadays, etc.
However, when Mikhail Hazin and Jan Art, the famous experts, come on the stage, any trickiest challenge seems not that unsolvable at all.
One of the leading economists (macroeconomists) of Russia in his characteristic vivid manner gave a not-so-bright forecast for the American and global economy and prophesied for the forthcoming reshaping of economic models; he also stated the urging need to seek and implement new ideas.
“The global economy cannot survive on the same principles which have been raising it up for the past forty years. Giving people money and hoping for the respective increase in demand is a no go anymore. The developed countries’ population is so deep in depth that some households in the USA cannot cater their credits, not speaking about closing them. The average spending capacity of the US population is on the 1958 level.” said Mr. Hazin. This brings us to a question: what would the management system be after the fundamental changes? According to the economist, there already is an answer: cryptocurrencies. They owe their existence and popularity to the fact that for the past decades the financial system has been coming apart at the seams and the information on the real state of events is more available to people.
Vladimir Kuzovlev, Larson&Holz expert, has supported the statement that cryptocurrencies are worth paying attention to. At the very beginning of his speech he claimed that cryptocurrencies in general and bitcoin in particular have long since become real investment instruments, just as fiat currencies, oil or gold. Regarding technical analysis, a popular tool among traders, graphs of several cryptocurrencies look so appealing that it makes investors come to this market again and again.
Oleg Dmitriev, an independent specialist from Larson&Holz group, focused attention on how fast cryptocurrencies are evolving, upgrading the convenience of use and its status.
“Until recently about a half of what we were talking about could become a reason for criminal investigation, yet today operations with cryptocurrencies are absolutely normal, their invasion to the real world and their synergy with fiat currencies is ever growing” stated Mr. Dmitriev.
Currently there are 800 cryptocurrencies, their number is growing (each week there are approximately 2,5 new placements). Due to this there comes a reasonable question: how long will cryptocurrencies survive? All the participants and experts have agreed upon one opinion that there is no place for all 800 cryptocurrencies or more; so there will be some sort of fast natural selection; several dozens (maybe a hundred) of the most powerful, resilient and popular cryptocurrencies will stay and will later represent the whole market.
Naturally, the next speech was given by Alexandr Smirnoff, the Head of the Trading Operations and Audit Department of the brokerage house L&H, a top-20 trading guild leader and a famous specialist in market exchange technologies and financial consulting. Mr Smirnoff presented the revolutionary project LH Crypto. It’s not just another exchange platform that Larson&Holz is creating, it starts a fully-featured crypto-broker; it means that from now on the company’s clients will be able to have their accounts not only in USD and EUR, but in cryptocurrencies as well, and make the same operations as with fiat currencies. This step will radically change the broker’s economy, it will open new markets and new regions, where local laws had hindered Forex market development before.
LH Crypto will allow the broker to make settlements with China, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, many Arab countries; what is more, there is no need to open real representative offices in any of these countries, therefore there is no need to acquire license for operational activity, which will reduce the operational expenses from 6% to 1%. The company launches an ICO to support this project in the autumn 2017; Larson&Holz will release LHCoin tokens with guaranteed (written in the smart contract) profitability of more than 20%. Moreover, LHCoin holders will benefit from programmes which provide additional profits. CASHBACK Program is a monthly payback to token holders as a fixed proportion from the operational activity of the company. Early Bird Bonus an effective instrument to support and reward first investors by means of price growth for the following investors.
“We presume that during the PRE ICO and the ICO itself we will manage to attract around 5-10 mln USD, but we won’t be surprised if the interest is higher, for we do offer an innovative product” said Alexandr Smirnoff. PRE ICO will start on the 30th of October, ICO – a month later.

Hi, i'm searching for guides for ethereum mining/trading. i'm not a rich guy, just a simple working class trying to make a better life for my family. i 'm already 28
A little background. i work a 9-6 jobs as a customer service in Malaysia and get paid in MYR(Malaysian RInggit) FYI : 1 MYR = 0.232 USD so my monthly income is MYR 2300(you guys can do the math) i recently got married and i rent a house with my wife(no kids yet) after rent money and all the utiities, my balance would be around MYR700+
so im really interested in making money and give a better life for my wife and future kids. i need help for guidance in starting in cryptocurrency.
my questions : where should i start? how can i buy ethereum? or is it better to mine? how trading, is it the same as forex? i really dont know anything
PLEASE DO HELP. thank you kind redditors

OK Yesterday's HCFTHE was a big let down. I read on the next few chapters and I feel like there's no more point in translating anymore because the author's coherence is slipping.
This is a reboot. From here on, it's all cruise speed. No translating, it's all me!
(Translated) Chapter 1
(Translated) Chapter 2
(Translated) Chapter 3
(Translated) Chapter 4
(Translated) Chapter 5
Chapter 6: RMB internationalization, a dream? a future?
RMB internationalization. You've heard of RMB. We all have, the legend, the curses. Some foolishness about a currency that never devalues. A closed currency. Buried beneath an opaque monetary policy... a bald, aging portrait of Mao luring investors to their dreams. An illusion that you can begin again, change your fortunes. Issuing them, though, that's not the hard part. It's internationalization.
(Sorry been playing A LOT of fallout. Production is down 50% because half my office are gone and the other half...are playing with me. Seriously, fuck Chinese New year.)
Except for the face culture, RMB internationalization is pretty much a national goal of China. To have their currency achieve global status will make it a rival currency for the USDollar, much like the Euros...except it's Asian. An Asian euro is crucial for China to establish its asiaphere influence zone. Having China enter IMF's basket of currencies is just a first step.
Before we talk about "how", let's talk "why". Why is it important for RMB to go global. For this we will need a deep understanding of world economics, but to dumb it down to ELI5 levels, we'll simplify it down as following:
World domination.
Wow wow wow holy fuck upads what the fuck!? This escalated quickly!
Sorry, but this is a fact. The British Pound, once served as the world's premier reserve currency, shaped the British Empire where the sun never. In fact, UK still hold [14 overseas territories[(https://archive.org/stream/09LONDON1039/09LONDON1039_djvu.txt), and the sun never sets on all fourteen British territories at once. Glory to the queen!
OK let's double time, here's a short list of goals that RMB internationalization can help achieve:

1. Debt. Chinese companies have a lot of debt in USD. As of right now China don't want RMB to devalue because it would make debts harder to pay.
   
2. Getting rid of forex risk. Self explained.
   
3. Exports. With all China's debts in RMB there will be no consequence in devaluing the RMB. Will you pay $400 for a Huawei smartphone? No? How about $100? Cheaper price, it helps boosts sales volume. A lot.
   
4. Getting rid of language barrier. If you look up most common language on harmony it lists Chinese with the most number of speaker s in the world, followed by Spanish, then English. Guess what language is most common in the business world? English. Guess what language does world reserve currency countries speak? English.
   
5. Getting rid of autistic monkeys ESL teachers. Having RMB as a global currency will help China demand their business partners to start speaking Chinese, giving China home field advantage. The reason ESL teachers are needed is because China needs to do business in English. Seriously why the fuck do I need to learn English if I'm not gonna do business?
   
6. Better politics. With foreign languages kicked out of their curriculum, the Chinese population can spend more time learning useful things, such as how to worship the communist party Seriously, learning how to think politically is a mandatory subject in high school curriculum, as well as gaokao.
   
7. Better economics.
   

Now on the spot light. Everyone who are asking me to talk about silk road start reading here.
Right now, China is in a tough spot with their overproduction problem. Here's a flow chart, from the start to now:

1. Steel industries fighting to get into the market
   
2. Too many steel suppliers leads to overproduction
   
3. One steel suppliers try to eliminate competitions by driving prices down.
   
4. Every steel supplier does the same.
   
5. Prices eventually go so low, sales price is lower than production price.
   
6. Every steel suppliers are now religions, praying their competitions will go bankrupt first so they can one day dominate the market.
   
7. CCP cracks down on religion, prayers not answered. Steel suppliers now in the negative, have to borrow money from banks.
   
8. Banking regulations stats they can only lend money to suppliers who are in business, i.e. have production and sales. Nobody can sack their workers and nobody can let their workers sit idle because it is also against the law to have idle workers.
   
9. Death spiral: Lending leads to production, production leads to loss, loss leads to lending.
   

China is not as stupid as you think. They know how supply and demand works. They did not foresee the death spiral because there is no precedent. In normal cases supply-demand imbalance even out naturally by supply side shutting down due to lack of profit. But this is China. Steel makers are not investing their own money in the business, they are getting their source of funds from the government are. They do not care if their factories do not turn a profit. Afterall, it's not their own business.
"China is different." Damn right you are. China is the only country in the WTO whose majority of the population lacks independent thinking. The Chinese hierarchy system...it's a convenience. It tells you where to go, what to do, dulls your brain. The party wants us to make steel, I make steel, you make steel, everyone make steel! Everyone apply for a job for the steel making industry and everyone get subsidy from the government! Everyone drive down prices and everyone borrow money! Because the party says we need to make steel.
To fix this death spiral, China needs a larger demand, and if they cannot create demand among themselves, they have to create demand among foreign countries...and there is no way in hell the Americans and Europeans will accept Chinese quality steel.
So, turning their eye to Iran, Pakistan and other developing countries. Cue the one belt, one road protocol. Here's their pitch, dumbed down:
China: Do you want GDP? Do you want groooowth? Learn from us! Build bridges! We can sell you steel at half price! Not like greedy Europeans.
Really, that's it. Building infrastructure is one of the fastest way to bump your GDP, even if they end up useless later on. If China can sell their steel to those countries, they can effectively get rid of a lot of overproduction, maybe even evening out the supply-demand imbalances with the increase in demand!
Two obstacles here.
These developing countries have their own currency, and their other currency is in the form of foreign exchange, in USD. Foreign exchange risk still applies here. Secondly, because they are developing countries...often they don't have the money.
The solution: lend them money. With RMB. Through the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. This is going to kill 3 birds with one stone.

1. Provide capital...provide a means to demand for things. The steel makers can now make a sale, easing oversupply problem finally.
   
2. Weaken USD status, strengthen RMB status. Take loan out in RMB, repay with RMB...except you don't have RMB in your reserves. You take your USD from your foreign reserves, and exchange for RMB, because with closer ties with China supplying your every needs, there is no reason to be keeping those USDollars. Although AIIB says it's going to offer USD, Euro and RMB, you bet your ass that they are going to offer some very good conditions on taking loans out in RMB...the potential of further devaluation of RMB is already very attractive, I wonder what else they can add.
   
3. Debt settlement. China can now use your USD to repay your debt (fun fact: AIIB lending terms are on a 3 year basis, so they will be collecting their USD in 2019----Guess when the majority of China's foreign debts are due? 2020. Their timing is just perfect).
   
4. Positive cycle: Initial lending leads to sales of steel, sales of steel leads to infrastructure building, infrastructure building leads to more sales of other materials, which leads to more lending...the whole cycle leads to weaker USD status in these countries and strong RMB status.
   

Whew! That's a lot of research! Now that we got the AIIB out of the way, one belt is partially explained but to those who don't get it, high speed rail uses a lot of steel, and is considered infrastructure.
Now that we've got AIIB and one belt under the belt, the last that remains: one road. This is when I'm going into /conspiracy level shit talking and I'm sure I'll be generating a lot of downvotes, so I'll keep it skippy. Here's a list of problems are facing that can be solved with one road(sea silk road):

1. Over production
   
2. Economy focused along shorelines
   
3. Dependency on natural resources from hostile foreign forces.
   

Here's how one road will help them solve these problems:

1. Trade to solve overproduction, already mentioned above.
   
2. Give China an excuse to exercise more controls on the sea, such as the entire South China Sea.
   
3. This is the most important. Control of sea routes will allow China to prioritize their freight routes over other countries. While SCS is going to be free, it will be "free with Chinese characteristics". Freights from China are going to flood the SCS and take up a lot of queue space in sea routes shared with other countries, namely Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Phili, Indonesia, Taiwa, Vietnam, etc. If you have ever tried queuing with the Chinese, you know how this will end.
   
4. Fuck yeah.
   

News roundup for the previous week.
In International news

1. Chinese in Australia have setup their own safety networks due to lack of police response
   
2. China Is Our Last Diplomatic Hope for North Korea
   
3. Mass deportation of Chinese from #Fiji in latest offshore crackdown by Beijing: Fijian and Chinese law enforcement agencies arrest 77 in joint operation similar to others carried out in Indonesia and Cambodia
   
4. Launch of China- #Malaysia rail link signals stronger ties: China is funding the 620km-long rail link stretching from Tumpat town, near Malaysia's border with Thailand, to Kuantan Port, before cutting through the mountainous central region to Port Klang, Malaysia's busiest port
   
5. #Canadians Have Worse Impression Of U.S. Government Than China: Abacus Poll 49% said they had a "very negative" impression of the U.S. 22% for China. Co-author said it was "remarkable" Canadians having more favourable views of China and Russia than of the "passionate defender of individual freedoms"
   
6. China hands Trump a win on North Korea crisis
   
7. Taiwan calls time on Mongolia and Tibet affairs commission
   
8. South Korean's Leader Bluntly Warns U.S. Against Striking North (Apparently not important enough to make it on Google News Headlines)
   
9. Fighting for Chinatown
   
10. China won’t allow regime change in N. Korea – fmr US diplomat
    
11. Ukraine seeks greater presence in China's agro products market
    
12. China tells ‘imperfect’ US to mind its own business over religious freedom criticism
    
13. Asian Americans Are Targeted For Hate Crimes More Than We Think
    
14. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (#SCO) completed a joint anti-terrorist drill in Russia's Yaroslavl region located northeast of Moscow, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said
    
15. Man Gets Sentenced To Life For Killing USC Student From China
    
16. Beijing signs deals with Nepal
    
17. Chinese universities rise in world university academic rankings
    
18. China's New Base in Djibouti to Aid Economic Expansion in #Africa. Currently, China mainly imports minerals and oil from Africa, but its long-term plan is to build factories on the continent and move some of its manufacturing there to take advantage of the cheaper labor and geographic position
    
19. Hard-pedaling Soft Power, China Helps Launch $13B Belt and Road Rail Project in #Malaysia: "The ECRL is indeed yet another 'game changer' and a 'mindset changer' for Malaysia as it will significantly cut travel time to and from the east coast of the peninsula," Malaysian Prime Minister said
    
20. 'Economic war with China is everything' Steve Bannon got removed (lol)
    
21. Chinese Yang Jiayu wins women's 20km race walk at London World Championships
    
22. Asian woman says she quit Google due to racial discrimination
    
23. Chinese-Americans concerned about new Texas immigration law
    
24. Chinese and #African media houses vow to deepen cooperation in information sharing, best practice and training to improve the dissemination of information
    
25. #Pakistan, China sign documents to enhance cooperation in the fields of education and infrastructure development
    
26. Former Shanghai teacher now a tribal chief in Nigeria
    
27. ‘Duterte wants joint exploration with China’ Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said
    

In Domestic news

1. Two arrested in 22-year murder case, one suspect award-winning writer, member of Chinese Writers Association [Chinese]
   
2. HK Democracy activist Howard Lam, (aka Staples-Tortured Chub), arrested for misleading police over kidnap claim
   
3. Sinopec goes big on geothermal
   
4. China Launches ‘Special Crackdown’ on Pyramid Schemes
   
5. Police may look into mental health of Hong Kong democracy activist Howard Lam after kidnap claim suspecting mental issues and the stapling was an act of self-harm
   
6. 1,290 meters! The main construction of the world's longest 3-tower cable-stayed railway bridge has completed in China
   
7. Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong jailed over Occupy protests
   
8. China is investigating its major social media sites, including Baidu, WeChat and Weibo, for potentially breaching cybersecurity laws
   
9. China’s Major Social Platforms to Cooperate With Authorities in #Cybersecurity: Tieba communication platform, the WeChat messenger and Weibo made separate statements earlier in the day declaring their readiness to actively cooperate with the CAC
   
10. China Launches World's Largest Floating #Solar Power Plant: over 160,000 solar panels spreading over 86 hectares of water surface, can provide energy for some 15,000 houses annually
    

In SciTech news

1. #Nanochemistry meets macrostructures: Chinese scientists report the synthesis of a macroscopic aerogel from carbonitride nanomaterials which is an excellent catalyst for the water-splitting reaction under visible-light irradiation
   
2. Light, strong alloy may alter design of aircraft: The nano ceramic aluminum alloy was developed at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The new material has already been used in the Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 space labs, quantum satellites and meteorological satellites
   
3. Converting greenhouse gas to value-added syngas takes a big step forward
   
4. China to build first #Mars simulation base: Situated at the Qaidam basin in western Qinghai, Haixi was chosen for its Mars-like landform, landscape and climate
   
5. Seeking Greater Global Power, China Looks to Robots and Microchips
   
6. Earliest-Known Winged #Mammal Relatives Discovered In China: When you think about the Jurassic Period, you probably think of massive dinosaurs. But now scientists say there were also gliders, akin to today's flying squirrels . Maiopatagium furculiferum and Vilevolodon diplomylos
   
7. Chinese satellite sends 'hack-proof' message: The #Micius satellite beamed messages to two mountain-top receiving stations 645 km (400 miles) and 1,200 km away. Complicated optics on the Chinese satellite protect messages with entangled photons
   
8. New Privacy Mode Added to DJI Drones, US Army Released Memo to Grant Exception to DJI Ban Pending this New Privacy Mode
   
9. Scientists have cloned genetically modified piglets that may prove a safe source of organs for transplants into humans. The piglets, born in a lab in Yunnan, do not carry the active infectious viral gene which has impeded the process of pig-to-human transplantation for more than a decade
   
10. China to establish intercontinental ‘hack-proof’ #quantum links with Australia, Europe: Further experiments this year will evolve ground stations in Germany and Italy, Pan added, bringing the project closer to the planned Asian-European secure communication network
    
11. Woman Becomes First Person to Be Cryopreserved in China
    
12. Novel Thruster Design Could Enable Deeper Travel Into Space
    
13. China launches brain-imaging factory
    
14. Chinese scientists reveal how itch turns into scratch. In a study published in the U.S. journal Science, researchers reported the discovery of a central neural circuit that moves itch signal from the spinal cord to a part of the brainstem called the parabrachial nucleus (PBN).
    
15. China pips US to start world’s first meltdown-proof nuclear reactor
    
16. China has unveiled the world's first 'unhackable computer network'
    
17. 1,069 dancing robots break Guinness World Record in China (VIDEO)
    
18. Despite strains, China and the US are top partners in science
    
19. Woman saved by pioneering 3D printed spine in China: had to have six consecutive cervical vertebrae replaced because they had been affected by the rare cancer
    
20. Chinese Internet majors compete to dominate #ASEAN tech ecosystem: Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and JD.com – collectively termed BATJ – are leading a wave of investment into Southeast Asia’s venture ecosystem and technology sector
    
21. Who Are China's Biggest Fabless Chipmakers?
    

In Economic news

1. Spotlight: Bashing China cannot solve U.S. economic problems, experts say
   
2. China July FX reserves unexpectedly hit 9-month high on boost from weak dollar: China's forex reserves, the world's largest, rose $24 billion in July to $3.081 trillion
   
3. China's Economic Outlook in Six Charts
   
4. Fiat Chrysler could be bought by a Chinese automaker If a deal comes to fruition, it would be a big boon for Chinese car companies looking to improve
   
5. Industrial “edge cities” have helped China grow
   
6. Deng Xiaoping - the world's greatest economist
   
7. US formally launches probe of China trade ties
   
8. China emerging as Germany's main economic rival
   
9. New investment rules to curb China's foreign acquisition binge
   
10. How China’s can-do generation will power economic growth
    
11. Young Taiwanese choose China jobs over politics
    

In Military news

1. What is China’s PLA doing in #Laos? Beijing's 'Train of Peace' mission to provide medical care to Lao armed forces was nominally a goodwill mission but underscored the country's strategic importance to China's plans for Southeast Asia
   
2. Russia, China challenging US military dominance: Mattis
   
3. China's making major progress with its aircraft carrier tech (Type 002 to have flat top with catapult, Type 003 to be nuclear powered supercarriers)
   
4. Think Tank Says Beijing Continuing #SouthChinaSea Construction. Photos of Tree Island demonstrate sizeable expansion of the island’s above-water mass between August 5, 2015, and August 5, 2017. The size of the island increased by roughly 24 acres between during the time period, AMTI said
   
5. #Taiwan says Chinese aircraft fly around island in weekend of drills
   
6. #Space Standoff: Uncertainty in Militarized Space. If Russian policy towards the American space program is described as unfriendly, then U.S. policy towards China can be described as nothing short of hostile
   
7. Construction of China's 2nd #AircraftCarrier for PLAN Progressing Faster than Expected: propulsion system tests are currently underway. The first and third boilers are already on, and the steam turbines will soon follow. Dockside testing could start within the next month
   
8. China has announced plans to bolster its maritime #nuclear capabilities with the creation of a major new joint venture project, could provide the catalyst for the development of floating reactors. The new company will also seek to promote the development of nuclear-powered vessels
   
9. The #Pentagon’s top general Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he discussed with his Chinese counterparts ways to coordinate with China’s military to avoid dangerous miscalculations should war break out with North Korea
   

Other Notables

1. Adopted to the US, an American teen’s journey in search of her roots
   
2. The busiest employee in a warehouse? Meet China-made warehouse robot!
   
3. New research blamed increased competition with China for soaring death rates among white, middle aged Americans (lol)?
   
4. On the other side of the table: Nepalese commenters on youtube - to Nepal, India is the big bully, loves China, calls for China's protection
   
5. Why Nirvana in Fire is the Best Cdrama
   
6. July 2017 Study Refutes Earlier Theories of "Increased US White Male Despair / Deaths Due to Loss of Jobs to China" ("Opioids and obesity, not 'despair deaths,' raising mortality rates for white Americans)
   
7. China starts work on world's second-largest hydropower station
   
8. Vincent Chin was a Chinese American Man beaten to death in 1982 with a baseball bat by two laid off auto-workers who blamed him for losing their jobs because Japanese cars started becoming popular. The men received initial sentences of 3 years probation and no jail time.
   
9. Chinese Guy & American Girlfriend React to Racist Fox News Chinatown Segment
   
10. Preserving Nanjing's architectural treasures
    
11. The King's Woman 秦时丽人明月心 Airs this week
    
12. Hollywood chases after Wu Jing as Wolf Warriors 2, a film with $30M budget crosses $700M mark and still rising.
    
13. #Taichi is big in China and its influence is spreading globally: China's mega-rich and powerful believe the merits of the gentle exercise boosts not only personal well-being but company profits and transforms corporate cultures
    
14. Why My School Teaches Students to Survive on Next to Nothing
    
15. Eddie Huang Serves A White Supremacist & Trump Supporter The Facts While They Eat Chinese Food
    
16. #Banda Islands: How Chinese traders – and war over an aphrodisiac – led to a multicultural Indonesia. The world’s major powers considered the Banda Islands the key spoil of a spice war hundreds of years ago and it is this bloody past that made the country what it is today
    
17. How the ‘Safest Place on Earth’ Can Be More Welcoming to Others
    
18. Modern Chinese Architecture: Landscape Design of Suzhou Vanke Great Lake Park
    
19. No.66 Lanman Hutong Renovation
    
20. RAW: China holds massive day-night live-fire artillery drill
    
21. When Hong Kong workmen dug up 2,000-year-old tomb and were all set to demolish it until public’s enthusiasm saved the day
    
22. Long awaited Tribes & Empires: Storm of Prophecy confirmed to air on September 25, 2017.
    
23. Heads up, our brothers in arms RT channel has amazing series of documentaries on Chinese culture and the new silk road, very beautifully shot.
    
24. Any recent documentaries about modern china history that aren't from the western perspective with English subs or audio?
    
25. Forgotten ally? China's unsung role in World War II
    
26. 81-Year-Old Chinese Husband Serenades Wife In a Coma For Their 54th Anniversary
    
27. How Chop Suey Saved San Francisco's Chinatown [Chinese Food: An All-American Cuisine, Pt. 1]
    
28. The Untold Story Of America's Southern Chinese [Chinese Food: An All-American Cuisine, Pt. 2]
    
29. 5000 thousands years of beauty.
    
30. #WolfWarrior2 Crosses $600M In China; No. 6 All-Time Gross In A Single Market
    
31. Throwback to when movies used to start with this...
    
32. Alright, I know some of us support Trump, but this better not be you (3rd generation Chinese American Neo-Nazi supporter)
    
33. Why the Western definition of human rights is an absurd fraud
    
34. #WWE Network to Launch in China: Vince McMahon's pro wrestling organization signed a deal with PPTV to offer a subscription video-on-demand service including all live pay-per-view events
    
35. Documentary explores the history of astronomy in China
    
36. 'Economic war with China is everything': Trump’s chief strategist in candid interview
    
37. The Chinese massacre of 1871 in Los Angeles, California. An estimated 17 to 20 Chinese immigrants were tortured and then hanged by the mob, making the event the largest mass lynching in American history.
    
38. Chinese Social Political Stability Rests in "Dual Faceted Identity System" (A Model Societal System Analysis based on Recent Rise of White Nationalism in US)
    
39. Lu Xiaojun (77) - 170kg/175kg/177kg Snatch Slow Motion
    
40. The Surprisingly Important Role China Played in WWI
    
41. Chinese Farmer Builds Epic Multi-Story Platform For 'Pig Diving'
    
42. Ai Weiwei takes a small break from mocking Chinese government to criticise western society - "Human Flow" documentary film about refugees
    
43. Review: Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics
    
44. Hollywood hero with Chinese characteristics
    
45. BBC calls what Chinese are doing 'exploitation' while the exact same thing done in the west is ignored.
    
46. Ancient poetry content in Chinese text books to sharply increase
    
47. The Love Affair of Mussolini’s Daughter Edda & Zhang Xueliang, Heroic China Warlord
    
48. 57-year-old man grabs gold medals in body building competition
    
49. Cambridge University Press pulls articles in China at Beijing’s request
    
50. China's Wolf Warriors 2 joins top 100 grossing films worldwide: non-Hollywood film to break into the top 100 all-time grossing movies worldwide. Knocked 1994's "Forrest Gump" from the No 100 spot
    
51. 《追捕》 Manhunt (directed by John Woo) International Trailer
    
52. Why Nirvana in Fire is the Best Chinese Drama - Part 2/2
    
53. Trying to learn more about traditional chinese culture, what can you guys tell me about the color Qing?
    
54. Robot introduced to hospital to autofill prescriptions in E. China
    
55. Something worth a grin
    
56. Story of China’s ancient military might found carved in cliff