Good Morning. Welcome to The Wire’s daily news roundup. Each day, our staff gathers the top China business, finance, and economics headlines from a selection of the world’s leading news organizations.
The Wall Street Journal
- SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son Quits Alibaba Board — SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said he would step down as a director of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, bringing to a close a decade and a half of board-level ties between the two Asian technology powerhouses.
- White House National-Security Adviser Warns of China’s Bid to ‘Damage Our Economies’ — White House national-security adviser Robert O’Brien added his critical voice to the Trump administration’s growing condemnation of Beijing, calling China’s Communist Party a threat to the sovereignty and the economies of the U.S. and its allies.
- U.S.-China Tensions Leave Germany Squirming in the Middle — Germany is struggling to pick sides in the escalating dispute between the U.S. and China over issues ranging from trade to human rights, amid mounting American pressure and Beijing’s authoritarian drift.
- Soybean Prices Rally as China Ramps Up Buying — China has ramped up its purchases of U.S. soybeans recently, sparking a rebound in prices and making the crop profitable again for U.S. farmers after the coronavirus pandemic had slammed demand.
The Financial Times
- Chinese developers/Evergrande: the short end — The country’s real estate market has been resilient to previous downturns
- India holds up Chinese imports after deadly border clash — Delays clearing customs infuriates companies struggling to recover from coronavirus fallout
- China expands coal plant capacity to boost post-virus economy — New projects championed by regional governments risk undermining climate targets
- Sichuan protest raises fears for China’s $3tn trust sector — ‘We are seeing the bursting of a bubble that has been under pressure for many years’
Caixin
- Gome Retail Shares Jump as Founder Gets Early Release From Prison — After 12 years, billionaire Huang Guangyu resumes the helm of China’s largest bricks-and-mortar electronics retailer facing a business landscape completely transformed by e-commerce
- China Starts Reconnecting to the World by Air as Pandemic Eases — Airlines from New Zealand, Germany, France and the U.K. join United and American in resuming international schedules, though still tightly limited
South China Morning Post
- Can China’s fledgling semiconductor industry rescue Huawei from tighter US tech sanctions? — It boasts some of the highest scores for math and science students, produces brilliant scholars in fields such as quantum computing and AI, and will soon launch a probe destined for Mars. Yet China remains well behind in semiconductors, the enabling technology behind many of these achievements.
- Tencent snaps up assets of Malaysian streaming video service iflix in expansion drive — Tencent Holdings has agreed to acquire a range of assets from Southeast Asian streaming video provider iflix, as the Chinese gaming and social media giant steps up efforts to build a service that could rival Netflix in that region.
- Coronavirus: Hong Kong International Airport’s profits survived 9/11, Sars, and the 2008 global financial crisis, but Covid-19 is different — Hong Kong International Airport’s 20-year profit streak, which survived September 11, Sars and the global financial crisis, will not escape the coronavirus pandemic unscathed, officials have said.
- World Bank official to join China’s US trade talks team — China is adding a new face to its trade negotiation team by appointing its chief representative at the World Bank to head the Ministry of Finance’s international cooperation department, three people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Bloomberg
- China Gasoline Exports Risk Derailing Motor Fuel’s Recovery — A surge in Chinese gasoline exports is threatening to derail a nascent recovery in profits for Asian refiners making the motor fuel, who have endured months of virus-driven demand destruction.
- Ads Insensitive to Black People Are Still Common in Asia — Marketing pitches that are insensitive to Black people and dark-skinned consumers are common.
- Pentagon Names 20 Chinese Firms It Says Are Military-Controlled — The Pentagon unveiled a list of companies it says are owned or controlled by China’s military, opening them to increased scrutiny in the latest spat between the world’s biggest economies.
- Huawei Loses Main Singapore 5G Networks to Ericsson, Nokia — Singapore’s biggest telecom operators chose Ericsson AB and Nokia Oyj as their main 5G network providers, leaving China’s Huawei Technologies Co. with less significant contracts in the city state.
- Services and Small Firms Lift China Outlook, Early Data Show — China’s economy continued its slow recovery from the coronavirus slump in June, with a better performance in the services sector and among smaller companies tempered by the still-grim global outlook.
- Trump’s Grid Order Baffles Utilities Over What They Can Buy — U.S. utilities are scrutinizing their suppliers of transformers and other power-grid equipment for ties to China as they await details on President Donald Trump’s order to crack down on imports from overseas adversaries.
- Tencent’s 52% Stock Run-Up Gets New Life From ‘Brawl Stars’ Game — Tencent Holdings Ltd. is one of a few companies coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic in a better position than it started, having seen a surge in gaming activity as people stay home worldwide. And now the mobile video-game giant could see an extension of its rally after the release of its latest title, Brawl Stars.
- Battery Metals at Risk of Supply Snags as Demand Surges, UN Says — Supplies of lithium and other minerals used in rechargeable batteries are highly concentrated in just a few countries, leaving the raw materials vulnerable to disruption as a boom in electric cars bolsters demand, according to the United Nations.
Reuters
- Boycott of Chinese goods may not be feasible, Indian exporters say — A boycott of goods from China may not be feasible as India is dependent on such imports, although New Delhi should try to cut its dependence on them, India’s top export promotion grouping said on Thursday.
- U.S. moves to protect lobster industry, threatens tariffs on China — U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum aimed at protecting American lobster fishermen who have found export markets drying up, a White House adviser dubbed the “lobster king” said on Wednesday, adding China could face new tariffs.
- Sino-U.S. tech race turbo-charges China chip investment, triggering bubble fear — U.S. curbs on Chinese tech firms amid the intensifying Sino-U.S. battle for tech supremacy are feeding an investment boom across China’s semiconductor industry, driving prices of both publicly traded and venture-backed companies into bubble territory.
- U.S. senators question meatpackers over exports to China during pandemic — Two prominent U.S. Senate Democrats are pressing America’s top meatpackers to disclose by month’s end how much pork, beef and chicken they shipped to China during the coronavirus outbreak while warning of possible meat shortages at home.
- Column: COVID-19 will tilt aluminium axis further towards China – Andy Home — China’s giant aluminium production sector seems to have emerged unscathed from the COVID-19 crisis.
- Pompeo says China’s lending policy creates unsustainable debt burden in Africa — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday blasted China’s policy on lending to African countries in a statement on last week’s China-Africa summit, saying it creates an unsustainable debt burden and hides corruption with its secretiveness.
Xinhua
- China’s local currency bond market remains largest in East Asia: ADB — China remains the largest local currency bond market in emerging East Asia, accounting for 76.6 percent of the total bond stock at the end of the first quarter of 2020, said the latest issue of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Asia Bond Monitor released on Thursday.
Other Publications
- POLITICO: GOP senator blocked China sanctions bill he supports, at request of White House — On June 2, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) signed on as a co-sponsor of a bill to punish China for undermining Hong Kong’s independence. Two weeks later, he turned around and blocked it — at the request of the White House. As a result, the bipartisan bill, which imposes mandatory sanctions over China’s continued incursions into Hong Kong’s internal affairs, is stalled on Capitol Hill even as it has broad bipartisan support.
- Nikkei Asian Review: Japan and South Korea catching China in startup race: report — Japan and South Korea are catching up to China as a hub for startups, according to a report that highlights the battle for capital and talent in Asia’s technology sector.
- Nikkei Asian Review: Tencent ups stake in Chinese loss-making EV maker Nio — Tencent Holdings has increased its direct stake in Nio to 15.1%.
- Defense News: Senate bill would add $120M for hypersonic tracking satellites — The Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor is DoD’s answer to the growing threat posed by hypersonic weapons being developed by China and Russia. Hypersonic weapons present a significant challenge to the United States’ current missile warning architecture. Not only can these weapons maneuver around ground based sensors, they’re too dim to be picked up and tracked by space-based sensors in higher orbits.
- Axios: China, public markets and secrecy — National security concerns drove a recent bipartisan Senate vote to crack down on Chinese companies that can hide their books from U.S. regulators even though they are publicly traded on U.S. exchanges, according to interviews with six current and former US. officials. But the legislation is also about putting these companies “on the horns of a dilemma,” says a former national security official: They can stop cooperating with Chinese security services or lose access to Western capital.
- The Diplomat: China’s Great Wall of Finance Shows First Signs of a Crack – in Hong Kong — Given Beijing’s dramatic escalation in Hong Kong, one cannot help but think that U.S. revocation of the city’s privileges is merely an appetizer. Sooner or later Trump will feel urged to up the ante to match Beijing’s move. One possibility is financial sanctions. The local financial community is already bracing themselves for this possibility.