Guizhou Province announced that its last 9 impoverished counties have all been removed from the list of impoverished counties; with this, all 832 impoverished counties nationwide have been cleared.
On November 20, 2020, Guizhou Province held a meeting of leading cadres to announce the central government's decision that Shen Yiqin would serve as Secretary of the Guizhou Provincial Party Committee, and Sun Zhigang would no longer hold the post. Shen Yiqin became the only female provincial party secretary in the country at that time.
As Ant Group was preparing for its IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong, its complex multi-layered equity structure and the hidden shareholdings of red-aristocracy bloodlines, such as the families of Jiang Zemin and Jia Qinglin, were exposed, leading to the suspension of its listing plan.
On November 3, 2020, following Jack Ma's Bund speech criticizing financial regulation, the Shanghai Stock Exchange announced the suspension of Ant Group's A-share listing just two days before it was scheduled to go public. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange followed suit immediately, halting the world's largest IPO.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange suddenly announced the suspension of Ant Group's listing process on the STAR Market, even though the project had already entered its final stage.
On November 2, 2020, Jack Ma and executives of Ant Group were jointly summoned by four regulatory authorities. The following day, the Shanghai Stock Exchange announced the suspension of Ant Group's listing.
On October 24, 2020, Jack Ma criticized the “pawnshop mentality” of Chinese financial regulators and banks at the Shanghai Bund Financial Summit — the last time he appeared on China’s public stage in an offensive posture.
In retaliation for Tsai Ing-wen's hardline stance, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the “Thunderbolt 2020” special operation, claiming to have solved over a hundred Taiwan spy theft cases.
Between 2008 and 2016, 15 JPMorgan traders systematically spoofed the precious metals markets, resulting in $920 million in fines from U.S. regulators and criminal charges against three traders.
The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Ren Zhiqiang to 18 years in prison and fined him 4.2 million yuan on charges of embezzlement, bribery, misappropriation of public funds, and abuse of power by personnel of state-owned companies.
Ren Zhiqiang, who was once active in Alashan SEE and published articles criticizing the supreme leader, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in September 2020 on charges including corruption and bribery.
Ren Zhiqiang was sentenced to 18 years in prison for remarks criticizing epidemic prevention policies and other statements, sending shockwaves through China's entrepreneurial community.
Two US aircraft carriers are returning from the Middle East theater to East Asia, one of which is the USS Abraham Lincoln, and the other is the USS Tripoli. The return route passes through the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca, with plans to deploy in the South China Sea and near the First Island Chain close to Japan and South Korea, respectively. Previously, the US typically maintained a long-term deployment of one aircraft carrier in East Asia, while the Middle East remains a theater of war requiring protection in the Strait of Hormuz; therefore, the simultaneous return of two carriers is viewed as an unusual military movement.
In September 2020, Meng Wanzhou signed a deferred prosecution agreement with U.S. prosecutors and a four-page statement of facts; on December 2 of the same year, the court formally dropped the personal charges against her, and she was no longer a defendant.
On August 20, 2020, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the People's Bank of China held a symposium for key real estate enterprises, proposing the "three red lines" to restrict the growth of interest-bearing liabilities of real estate companies based on the asset-liability ratio excluding advance receipts, the net gearing ratio, and the cash-to-short-term debt ratio.
The New York Times reported that Li Qianxin, Xi Jinping's sister Qi Qiaoqiao, and Wang Yang's daughter Wang Xisha purchased luxury homes in Hong Kong for a total price exceeding 51 million HKD.
Hong Kong police conducted their first large-scale raid on the headquarters of Next Digital, paving the way for the subsequent closure of Apple Daily.
On August 6, 2020, Trump signed an executive order banning U.S. companies and individuals from engaging in WeChat-related transactions with Tencent 45 days later.
While working at CCTV, Cheng Lei was secretly taken away by Chinese state security authorities for disclosing some economic figures from the government work report to foreign media, and was detained on suspicion of illegally providing state secrets to parties outside China.
On July 28, 2020, Wang Xiangming succeeded Fu Yuning as Chairman of China Resources Group.
The British government has officially announced a total ban on Huawei 5G equipment and demanded the complete removal of existing equipment by 2027.
On June 30, 2020, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress passed the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It was gazetted and implemented in Hong Kong at 11:00 PM that night. Subsequently, many countries suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong, and the United States revoked Hong Kong's special status.
The CCP's forceful implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong marks the end of "One Country, Two Systems".
On May 28, 2020, at the closing press conference of the Two Sessions, Li Keqiang said that China's per capita annual income is 30,000 yuan, but 600 million people earn only 1,000 yuan a month.
On April 29, 2020, Xi Jinping presided over a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee, formally announcing for the first time that decisive results had been achieved in the defense of Wuhan and the defense of Hubei, and that major strategic results had been won in the nationwide fight to prevent and control the epidemic.
In order to reveal the truth about the virus to the world, Li-Meng Yan successfully escaped Hong Kong and arrived in the United States at the end of April 2020, after which she was interviewed multiple times by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and deemed credible.
As a virologist who experienced the 2019 turmoil in Hong Kong, Dr. Yan chose to flee to the U.S. and acted as a whistleblower to expose to the world the truth that the coronavirus originated from a Wuhan laboratory.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) announced that Sun Lijun, Vice Minister of Public Security who once oversaw Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan affairs as well as cross-border law enforcement, is under disciplinary review and supervisory investigation for suspected severe violations of discipline and law.
From April to June 2020, GTV and other companies under Guo Wengui sold unregistered stocks and Gcoins to more than 5,000 investors, raising approximately $487 million; in September 2021, three companies agreed to pay $539 million to settle.
Driven by the market collapse triggered by the epidemic, the VIX hit a record single-day closing high of 82.69, the highest since its inception in 1990.
Ren Zhiqiang was taken away by special personnel from the Beijing municipal discipline inspection commission; his eldest son and long-time secretary were arrested the same day.
Ren Zhiqiang disappeared from public view after an article criticizing Xi Jinping.
Xi Jinping visits Wuhan, signaling that the pandemic has entered political narrative.
Beijing holds a teleconference on coordinating epidemic prevention and control, with Xi Jinping attending and delivering a speech.
During the Wuhan pandemic, Ren Zhiqiang wrote a long article criticizing epidemic prevention and control as well as the personality cult, which caused a huge反响 and he subsequently went missing.
On February 14, 2020, in his first public remarks after the outbreak began, Xi Jinping said that the Wuhan epidemic had exposed China's shortcomings and loopholes in biological materials and biosafety management, called for the formulation of a new biosecurity law, and urged that biosecurity be incorporated into the national security system.
The US Department of Justice filed a third superseding indictment, increasing the charges against Huawei to sixteen and applying the RICO Act, typically used to combat organized crime, against Huawei for the first time.
U.S. President Trump met with Venezuelan opposition leader Guaidó in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, stating that he would continue to support the Venezuelan people and calling for Maduro to step down.
In February 2020, in his first public remarks after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Xi Jinping said the pandemic was a severe test of the Communist Party’s governing capacity, and called for telling China’s story well to the world.
Tong Liya hosts the CCTV Spring Festival Gala main venue for the first time, partnering with Negmat Rahman, while Li Sisi withdraws from the main venue.
Under the exposure of insider information and public pressure, the Chinese government admitted human-to-human transmission and announced a surge in cases within 24 hours, followed by Wuhan's announcement of a lockdown.
Unable to tolerate the cover-up, Yan Limeng used overseas platforms such as Lude Media to disclose the truth that COVID-19 is human-to-human transmissible, has no natural intermediate host, and that the CCP is concealing the epidemic.
On January 15, 2020, US President Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He signed the China-US Phase One economic and trade agreement at the White House.
On January 8, 2020, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired ballistic missiles at Ain al-Asad and other air bases in Iraq where U.S. troops were stationed, in retaliation for the killing of Qasem Soleimani; Trump subsequently said that Iran appeared to be standing down.
On January 3, 2020, the U.S. military killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran's Quds Force, in a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport; nine people died, including Iraqi militia deputy commander al-Muhandis, who was in the same vehicle.
The video says that after Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang warned about the spread of the virus and conditions in the hospital, he was ordered to receive an admonition, write and sign a confession statement; the incident subsequently drew international attention.
Trump claimed that in 2020 Michigan police arrested a fraud ring that falsified voter registrations and received gift cards; in fact, a Muskegon city clerk rejected suspicious applications, and no charges were filed after an FBI investigation.
The video claims that during China's pandemic lockdowns, ocean freighters stopped sailing and some goods supplies were disrupted, prompting overseas businesses to turn to other countries for procurement; public reports only show an increase in ships waiting at anchor in waters around Shanghai during the 2022 lockdown, with no source found for a widespread halt of ocean freighters.
In mid‑2020, despite the easing of the pandemic and a rising stock market, the U.S. Treasury issued bonds wildly to implement massive fiscal stimulus, causing a huge inflow of market funds into Treasury bonds; viewed purely from the liquidity pipeline, the pressure index surged to 1.5, the highest in 11 years.
China implemented strict zero-COVID policies and lockdowns over the long term starting with the Wuhan lockdown on January 23, 2020, broadly restricting people's movement; after the "New Ten Measures" were issued on December 7, 2022, it effectively abandoned dynamic zero-COVID.