Your Saturday Asia Briefing: Wine, Winning and White Sand

Adam Majendie
·4 min read

(Bloomberg) -- After another whipsaw week in the markets, it’s time to unwind and ponder some of the more serene sensations that life has to offer — the sound of waves lapping on a white sand beach, the joy of a morning run, the beauty of a French Impressionist painting, the rustle of reeds in the wind on the banks of the Nile. But first, let’s enjoy a bottle of wine.

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For decades, entrepreneurs, viticulturists and luxury brands from LVMH to Lafite have been trying to produce wine in China that people don’t laugh at. Now, Australia’s famous Penfolds label, maker of the prestigious Grange vintages, has joined the fray, unashamedly attaching its name to bottles from Ningxia, a region that has attracted aspirational winemakers such as household appliance maker Midea Group and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. Here are your tasting notes for “One by Penfolds.”

“The end goal is now in sight!” Chinese stocks went crazy this week (again) on the slightest indication that the nation might soon move away from the Covid Zero policy that has stifled economic activity and become increasingly irksome for the population, even though the government was quick to affirm that the unpopular strategy remains. Imagine what will happen if China really did fully reopen: This is a trader’s guide to zero Covid Zero. How soon that return to normal will take is hard to gauge, but a clue will come tomorrow, when the capital plans to reinstate one of the world’s biggest city marathons after a two-year hiatus. This is what the marathon with Covid characteristics looks like.

As the runners set off in Beijing, at the Egyptian beach resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, the world’s climate warriors will gather for COP27, a fitting location for a forum anxious about rising sea levels. But what if your whole country is not much higher than the beach and most of your revenue comes from people paying to lie on your sand? What do you do then? Well, you build a higher beach. That’s the idea anyway in this story about new islands in the Maldives.

Egypt itself is no stranger to global warming, with average temperatures increasing at almost twice the rate of the planet’s average. For a glimpse of the future we could face, read about Abdel Salam’s efforts to grow food on what was once one of the most fertile stretches of land in human history, where large-scale agriculture has been practiced for 10,000 years.

As scientists and politicians debate the progress in tackling climate change, Americans face a domestic distraction as they head to the polls on Tuesday for midterm elections, an event that typically causes a great deal of excitement in the nation and almost none anywhere else. But hold on. This round could be different, with the outcome deciding control of both chambers of Congress, as well as a cartload of governorships. In the balance is the Biden administration’s ability to make meaningful progress on a raft of important issues, from the environment to relations with China and global trade, and funding for the war in Ukraine. And Asian Americans could be the swing vote.

Such political machinations however pale by comparison with the events in Pakistan, which has this year seen the ouster of former Prime Minister Imran Khan from office in April, epic floods that caused more than $30 billion in economic loss, and a slump in foreign reserves and the rupee. Now, during a protest march to demand an early general election, Khan was shot in the leg, fomenting a flurry of accusations as to who was responsible. Here’s a guide to how a nation with more people than Germany, France and the UK combined got into this state and how it could affect the rest of the world.

And finally, while some unfortunate employee of Taiwan’s National Palace Museum was less than careful with a valuable Qing dynasty bowl, billionaire art collectors are poring over a Christie’s catalog to see what could be worth $326,664 per square inch? Answer: a small painting by Impressionist Georges Seurat from the estate of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, which goes under the hammer on Wednesday, along with an Aladdin’s cave of other treasures by Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt, Gauguin and others.

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