This week on the Caixin-Sinica Business Brief: Major layoffs at short video company Kuaishou; India orders Chinese mobile phone giant Xiaomi to pay $90 million in import taxes; China overtakes Japan to become the world’s largest importer of LNG, or Liquified Natural Gas; and China Mobile makes its debut in a “homecoming listing” on the Shanghai Stock Exchange after being kicked off an American bourse.

In addition, we speak with Caixin Global podcast producer Nandini Venkata about the COVID-19 situation in China — in Xi’an, where some pregnant women have been turned away from hospitals for failing to produce valid COVID tests; in Hong Kong, where public anger over a birthday party attended by many officials has boiled over; and in Tianjin, where the first community transmissions of the Omicron variant were reported late last week.