China update: historical resolutions and future of the planet among our reporter’s picks for top headlines last week

Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden are poised for a virtual summit, their first, hot on the heels of COP26 and a notable Communist Party meeting

Meanwhile, there was news for a 33-year-old who sat China’s higher education entrance exam for the 13th time

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China and India were asked to justify pushing at the COP26 summit to change a pledge to phase out coal to instead phase it down. Photo: AFP

Published: 11:00am, 15 Nov 2021Updated: 9:44am, 16 Nov 2021

Hello and welcome to a new week after China’s Singles’ Day online shopping spree and the anniversary of the day the world marked the 1918 end of World War I.

Held on China’s unofficial anti-Valentine’s Day on November 11 – because 11/11 looks like bare branches, symbolising the unattached – sales grew less than in previous years, partly because of the slow economic recovery.

I’m Holly Chik, a reporter on the China desk of the South China Morning Post who follows science development. I’m on Twitter at @hollycwchik, and you can also catch me on the Inside China Podcast where I talk to you from our newsroom in Hong Kong.

The COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow ended on Saturday with a global deal that “kept alive” hopes of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the meeting’s president Alok Sharma said.

But he said China and India should justify why they pushed to change the wording on coal use from “phase out” to “phase down” – a change criticised by many island states that are most at risk from rising sea levels.

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