The China Signal - June 5
U.S. announces global vaccination plans, China-bound Venezuelan oil surges, IUU fishing off Argentina, new soy research partnership in Brazil
G’day, and welcome to The China Signal! This week, the United States outlines plans to distribute 80 million vaccines across the globe, including at least 6 million specifically to Latin America and the Caribbean; Venezuelan oil bound for China surges prior to Beijing’s June 12 tax increase; a new report on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing off the coast of Argentina; LongPing announces a soy research partnership in Brazil with the Southern China Agricultural University; plus more. Read on.
Vaccine Diplomacy
United States 🇺🇸
Officials said they would share at least 80 million doses globally by month’s end — sending about three-quarters of the total through international public health organizations, while reserving the remaining quarter for direct donations to handpicked nations.
“We are sharing these doses not to secure favors or extract concessions. We are sharing these vaccines to save lives and to lead the world in bringing an end to the pandemic, with the power of our example and with our values,” President Biden said in a statement.
Under the White House approach, about 19 million of those initial 25 million doses would be shared with Covax, the World Health Organization-backed initiative to distribute vaccine doses around the globe. White House officials said they intend about 7 million doses of the Covax share to go to Asia, 6 million to Latin America and the Caribbean, and 5 million to Africa…
The initial tranche of 25 million doses will include shots already authorized for emergency use in the United States, produced by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. The donations will not include tens of millions of doses developed by AstraZeneca, which are still undergoing a U.S. safety review.
Bolivia 🇧🇴
“Bolivia negotiates the installation of 13 portable oxygen plants with China’s Sinopharm”
~Paraphrased translation~
Bolivia is negotiating with China’s Sinopharm the urgent installation of at least 13 portable oxygen production plants, to counter the acute shortage of oxygen to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the Foreign Ministry reported.
"We are negotiating with the same Chinese company that sells us vaccines, Sinopharm, to import oxygen-producing plants to Bolivia, this will allow us to acquire them as a priority," the Vice Minister of Foreign Trade, Benjamin Blanco, said at a press conference.
According to reports elsewhere, these oxygen facilities should arrive in one to two months.
Bolivia negocia con la farmacéutica china Sinopharm la instalación urgente de al menos 13 plantas portátiles de producción de oxígeno, para enfrentar la aguda escasez de ese producto vital para combatir la pandemia de COVID-19, informó la cancillería.
"Estamos negociando con la misma empresa China que nos vende vacunas, Sinopharm, para importar plantas productoras de oxígeno a Bolivia, esto nos permitirá adquirirlas con prioridad", dijo en conferencia de prensa el viceministro de Comercio Exterior, Benjamín Blanco.
The Foreign Ministry has also managed, since last week, exceptional agreements for the provision of medicinal oxygen from Argentina, Chile and Brazil, added the deputy minister.
La Cancillería ha gestionado también, desde la semana pasada, acuerdos excepcionales de provisión de oxígeno medicinal desde Argentina, Chile y Brasil, añadió el viceministro.
Oil
Venezuela 🇻🇪
China has over the past 12 months bought an estimated $3.5 billion worth of Venezuelan oil relabelled as Malaysian fuel, according to cargo tracking and industry sources, throwing Caracas a vital lifeline while it grapples with a collapsing economy amid tough U.S. sanctions.
Much of it has come in as bitumen blend, a mix of tar-like heavy crudes and refinery residue fuels that doesn't attract consumption tax like fuel oil and also isn't subject to China's quotas on oil imports.
Bitumen blend shipments to China have jumped 13-fold since May 2020 with cargo-tracking specialist Vortexa Analytics estimating that 90% of the cargoes over the past year to end-April were actually heavy oil from Venezuela. That's some 324,000 barrels per day (bpd), or nearly 61% of Venezuela's total oil exports.
…as the cut-off date for the new tax looms, imports have surged.
Vortexa Analytics estimated a record 4.3 million tonnes of Malaysian bitumen blend arrived in China in May, of which 2.7 million tonnes had been discharged by May 24.
That beats a previous record last December of 2.38 million tonnes reported by Chinese customs, and a pre-sanction high of 2.36 million tonnes for official Venezuelan crude in September 2016.
In total, Chinese customs data showed China imported 24.5 million tonnes of Malaysian crude oil plus bitumen blend over 2019 and 2020, or 220,000 bpd.
However, these volumes far exceeded Malaysia's official crude oil exports to China. Malaysia External Trade Development Corp data shows the country exported an average of just 9,000 bpd of crude to China during that two-year period.
Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing
Argentina 🇦🇷
By monitoring the ships’ tracking beacons between January 2018 and April 2021, Oceana found that more than 800 vessels apparently conducted nearly 900,000 hours of fishing within 20 nautical miles of the invisible border between Argentina’s national waters and the high seas.
“During this three-and-a-half-year period, there were over 6,000 instances in which these fishing vessels appeared to go ‘dark’ by potentially disabling their electronic tracking devices, known as Automatic Identification Systems (AIS),” says the report, published on Wednesday, titled, Now You See Me, Now You Don’t: Vanishing Vessels Along Argentina’s Waters.
In all, these vessels were “hidden” for over 600,000 hours during which Oceana suspects they crossed over into Argentina’s territorial waters for illegal fishing.
Read the full report here. In TCS March 26, I noted the U.S. Government’s interest in working with partners and allies in the region to counter IUU fishing.
Agriculture
Brazil 🇧🇷
LongPing launches Brazil soy research, partners with China's academia - May 28, 2021
The Brazilian unit of China's seed company LongPing High-Tech has made an agreement with a university in its home country to improve the quality of soy seeds, according to a statement sent to Reuters on Friday.
Brazil, the world's biggest producer and exporter of soybeans, sells the bulk of its output to China, which processes the grain to make cooking oil and livestock feed.
As a result of the partnership, LongPing High-Tech has already received soybean varieties from China and is in the process of finalizing and sending Brazilian soy genetic materials to Chinese researchers.
The company said it and the Southern China Agricultural University, which is co-sponsored by the Guangdong Province and China's Ministry of Agriculture, would jointly research potential new soy varieties at a hub in São Paulo state.
LongPing High-Tech said it is the first time it ventures into soy seed research in the Brazilian market, as until now it focused on corn.