Chapter 988 - Black Thursday!
Chapter 988 Black Thursday!
“Our company is promoting wireless charging stations in the Shanghai market to meet the needs of the people in the Yangtze River Delta city group area…
“For the international markets, the Chinese side encourages Chinese companies to abide by local laws and regulations, to be an enterprise with a sense of international responsibility, that meets the expectations of the local community.
“Our company is doing honest work, and we do not have ulterior motives.
“We will pay close attention to the progress and take necessary measures.”
The camera lights flashed at the press conference.
The spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce spoke to a crowd of domestic and foreign reporters.
Their announcement was a declaration of war, a warning for a counterattack.
In fact, the counterattack had already begun before the press conference.
First was East Asia Energy, the fusion energy giant. They cooperated with the Ministry of Environmental Protection and began to investigate their oversea orders and suspended the California nuclear core project indefinitely.
That wasn’t it.
Just like the US Department of Commerce’s antitrust investigation on Star Sky Technology, this was just the beginning.
As the largest superconducting material company in the world, Baosheng Group, who worked with Star Sky Technology on the SG-1 superconducting material, which provided the superconducting magnet for the Haizhou experimental reactor, announced a suspension of North American orders.
Baosheng Group was a partly state-owned company, thus its performance wasn’t entirely based on profits alone.
When it came to the fusion power plant in California, as well as those companies that were closely tied to the fusion power plant, this was even worse than the suspension of the nuclear core project.
There was only one reason.
They wouldn’t receive the nuclear core until next year. Even though there were some road bumps in the way, they had an entire year to repair their relationship with China.
But the SG-1 material was different.
This stuff was a key material for the construction of superconducting magnets, which was used to restrain the ferrofluid. Without the SG-1 material, they had to pause construction on the whole project.
Energy and public utility companies had spent loads of money on this fusion power plant, and for every day the project was delayed, it meant millions of dollars in losses.
Then there was aerospace.
The Chinese courts accepted a claim submitted by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, which named two US Lunar Gateway construction units of intellectual property infringement.
Logically speaking, China didn’t have the right to interfere with America’s lunar project, nor did it do so.
More than 90% of the lunar transfer orbit transportations were done by the Magpie Bridge of Star Sky Technology.
Star Sky Technology complied with the relevant departments and suspended cooperation with companies on the space launch mission.
Instantly, the Lunar Gateway project was suspended!
Unfortunately, NASA was hit the hardest by the collateral damage.
In order not to delay the construction, Director Carson had to urgently contact the Houston space launch center and take out the BFR rocket, which was originally going to be used for the follow-up project of the Ares program.
The BFR project had more than enough room to carry a batch of supplies to the lunar transfer orbit.
However, the launch costs would increase by an order of magnitude. Director Carson almost wanted to cry.
China’s countermeasures went from controllable fusion to aerospace.
Interestingly enough, almost all of the countermeasures had one thing in common, which was that they were more or less related to Star Sky Technology or Professor Lu…
Wall Street didn’t expect this sudden attack.
No one doubted that China would respond, but they didn’t expect it to come this strong and suddenly!
Two days ago, investment banks were analyzing China’s operational strategies.
They planned on reducing their positions, and if China didn’t respond, they even planned on going long on ExxonMobil or Tesla.
However, there was no doubt that right now, everyone on Wall Street was shorting the market.
NYSE was in chaos.
“Jesus! They can’t just do this!”
“Suspending orders for environmental reasons! Do these people think we’re idiots? Can’t they abide by the contract?”
“These Neanderthals! Completely ruthless!”
The aerospace sector had plummeted across the board!
The energy sector was in shambles!
The companies that had doubled in market value due to the California fusion power plant project, had tumbled overnight.
The Wall Street Journal wrote in their latest issue that China shouldn’t retaliate in unrelated areas such as aerospace and that it would only escalate the situation.
After the article came out, it was retweeted by countless Americans.
All of the major American media outlets were reporting on this matter. Even the White House was forced to send out a spokesperson, asking the Chinese side to remain calm.
However, the Chinese side obviously didn’t buy it.
The bloodbath in the financial markets was just the beginning.
On the Friday after Black Thursday, a riot was brewing on the streets of California.
When they heard that they had wasted tens of billions into the fusion power station because of some idiot in the White House, California went crazy…