China's gold rush continues

In the past week, China has added five more gold medals to its tally at the Beijing Winter Olympics to set a new record for the nation. The previous best medal haul at a winter games was established in Vancouver in 2010 when China picked up five golds. 

At the time of writing, China has eight golds, and the new Olympic champions Gu Ayling and Su Yiming have dominated social media in recent days. On Friday, Gu picked up her second gold of the games in the individual freestyle halfpipe event while Su celebrated his 18th birthday.

Lantern Festival spreads romance

The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which is February 15 this year. The traditional festival signals the end of Spring Festival celebrations and brings the festive atmosphere to a final climax.

In addition to lantern shows, solving lantern riddles, eating sweet dumplings, and other folk activities, this time-honored festival was regarded as Valentine's Day in ancient China. 

Record EV sales for 2021 

The sale of electric cars on the Chinese mainland reached over 3.2 million units in 2021, nearly half of the total sales of global electric vehicles worldwide, according to global analyst Canalys.

The firm estimated in its latest report that 6.5 million electric vehicles were sold worldwide in 2021, a 109 percent increase from 2020. Despite the global market reeling under COVID-19 restrictions and chip shortages, the sale of EVs has been rising.

5G network expands to 1.4m stations

China has built the world's largest 5G high-speed mobile network with 1.43 million base stations and over 300 mobile connections, a government official confirmed.

The figure accounted for over 60 percent of the total number of base stations worldwide, meaning, on average, there is one base station per 1,000 people in China, nearly doubling from the end of 2020, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

New Zealand trade deal upgraded

On Tuesday, China signed an improved Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with New Zealand. The upgrade includes new rules making it easier to export goods to China and cutting down compliance costs by millions of dollars each year.

Last week, the upgrade was agreed in a virtual meeting between New Zealand's Minister for Trade and Export Growth, Damien O'Connor, and China's Minister of Commerce, Wang Wentao.

O'Connor says it also has ambitious environmental measures - the highest level of commitment China has agreed to in any FTA.

Regulator grants Pfizer pill conditional approval 

China's drug regulator granted conditional approval for the imports of Pfizer's Paxlovid COVID-19 pill. The drug manufacturer said the pill was found to reduce the risk of hospitalization or death by 89 percent in Phase II trials. 

The pill will be prescribed for adults experiencing mild to moderate symptoms, and who are at a higher risk of becoming more seriously ill, the National Medical Products Administration confirmed.

Delivery platforms to cut fees for restaurants

Food delivery platforms will be asked to cut restaurant service fees and give discounts to those in pandemic-hit regions as part of a package of policies China issued to support service industries. 

Shares of Meituan, China's largest food delivery platform, closed around 15 percent down after the guideline was issued by National Development Reform Commission. 

The measures also include subsidies of at least 50 percent on expenditure on pandemic prevention measures at restaurants like sterilization, China's top economic planner said in the statement. 

According to the statement, financial institutions should offer more credit to restaurants, and qualifying businesses will be encouraged to issue bonds to expand their financing channels.

TikTok's education partner denies mass redundancies

Rumors on the education arm of TikTok owner ByteDance going through a significant structural shake-up went viral. Thursday. 

Formed in October 2020, the newcomer in the educational tech sector, Dali Education, was set to enter China's booming private education business. In February this year, it announced its plan to hire some 13,000 employees, many of which were recent graduates.

The expansion has come to an abrupt halt shortly after the authorities issued guidance in late July to ban listed companies from running school curriculum tutoring services.

China releases new quantum computing software

China has released a new quantum computing programming software dubbed "isQ-Core" and deployed it to the country's superconducting quantum hardware platform.

It represents a significant step forward in the combination of home-grown quantum computing hardware and software, said its primary developer, the Institute of Software under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

According to the institute, the isQ-Core has the advantages of simplicity, ease-of-use, high efficiency, solid scalability, and high reliability.