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
- China Gives Death Sentence to Canadian Charged With Making Ketamine — A Chinese court imposed the death penalty on a Canadian citizen charged with producing illicit drugs, in a case that could further strain already frayed ties between Beijing and Ottawa.
- Pandemic Lays Bare U.S. Reliance on China for Drugs — Acetaminophen, antibiotics and high blood pressure treatments are among a slew of pharmaceutical ingredients made predominantly by China. Disruptions and high demand have expanded concerns about the supply of medicines.
The Financial Times
- Foreign holdings of Chinese bonds rise in global chase for yield — Institutions pile in to escape low rates in other big economies.
- TikTok deal tests Microsoft’s decades of China experience — The US tech company hopes its connections will help it navigate storm safely.
- China crackdown on shadow banking sector prompts warning — Effort to control predatory lending could cause greater harm to SMEs, analysts say.
The New York Times
- China’s Offer to Help With Virus Testing Spooks Hong Kong — Infections have surged in the city, and its labs have been going at full speed. But wariness of the Chinese Communist Party runs deep.
Caixin
- S&P Cuts China Guangfa Bank’s Outlook From Stable to Negative — Credit ratings agency makes the adjustment citing deteriorating loan quality amid the pandemic.
- China Unveil 3-Year Property Insurance Industry Action Plan — Industry regulator aims to encourage industry to focus on parallel development of auto and nonauto policies, broadening focus from vehicle insurance alone.
- Regional Airline Snapped Up by State-Owned Firm — Deal to control budget carrier Ruili Airlines points to more consolidation in China’s coronavirus-battered aviation industry.
- CATL to Supply Batteries for Mercedes-Benz’s New Electric Vehicle — Chinese battery-maker is required to provide cells, modules and systems that are produced with net-zero carbon dioxide emissions.
- Chinese Chipmaker Stocks Surge on Supportive Policy — SMIC and Hua Hong Semiconductor may benefit most from new 10-year tax-break policy but suppliers of integrated circuit equipment, materials, packaging and testing may also profit.
- China Adds Flights From Japan and South Korea as Travel Curbs Ease — Increase to 15 round trips weekly from each country offers stranded Chinese more ways home, but ticket prices are up tenfold from before pandemic.
- Tesla Challenger Xpeng Raises $400 Million Before Planned U.S. IPO — Xpeng has launched a financing spree as the Chinese electric vehicle startup is reportedly preparing for a U.S. initial public offering (IPO).
- TikTok Sees No Slowdown in Global Popularity Despite Indian Ban and U.S. Threats — Despite losing India, a market that contributed nearly a third of its global downloads, TikTok retained its position as the world’s highest-earning non-game app in July, driven by strong demand for Douyin, the local version of the app, in its home China market.
South China Morning Post
- China’s bank regulator moves to rein in small lenders as Beijing fears financial risks — China’s regulators are reining in small banks as concerns grow over broad risks to the country’s financial system that have been exacerbated in recent months by the coronavirus pandemic.
- China’s migrant workers facing end of an era as the world’s factory winds down amid coronavirus, US-China trade war — After spending more than half her life working in factories in Guangdong, Rao Dequn’s 25 years as a migrant worker could be coming to an end within a month, with the coronavirus and US-China trade war leading to another factory closure in Dongguan’s withering export-oriented manufacturing industry.
- Hong Kong’s MTR Corp takes HK$334 million hit as rail giant posts worst performance since it went public in 2000 — Hong Kong’s rail operator saw net losses plunge to HK$334 million (US$42.8 million) in the first six months of 2020 from a profit in the same period last year – its worst performance since going public two decades ago.
- Hongkongers fear for their jobs as Covid-19 pandemic sucks the life out of the economy: Standard Chartered survey — Hong Kong’s workforce is feeling the stress brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Hong Kong tourism in distress: restaurant, retail and hotel bosses try to reinvent themselves digitally as pandemic keeps visitors away — Hong Kong Television Network’s HKTVmall is thriving and expecting an unaudited profit of at least HK$90 million (US$11.6 million) for January to June – its first time in the black, after chalking up accumulated losses of HK$1.7 billion since 2015.
- US squeeze on China’s apps, digital infrastructure could upend global internet, analysts say — The Trump administration’s “Clean Network” programme threatens to further disrupt China’s technology industry, as the campaign seeks to restrict the international expansion of Chinese apps, cloud services and undersea cable networks.
- China’s digital currency edges closer with large-scale test by four state-owned banks — China’s big four state-owned commercial banks have started large-scale internal testing of what would be the world’s first sovereign digital currency, as the launch of the digital yuan appeared to move a step closer, the 21st Century Business Herald reported on Thursday.
Bloomberg
- Li Ka-shing’s CK Group to Cap Costs as Profit Outlook Dims — The conglomerate founded by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, who profited for decades by expanding in times of crisis, is hunkering down with controls on spending as geopolitics and the pandemic batter earnings.
- Vivo, Cricket Body Dump Sponsorship Deal Amid India-China Strife — One of the world’s most-followed sports franchises, Indian Premier League cricket, is the latest casualty of the India-China border clashes. It has lost its title sponsor, Chinese phonemaker Vivo.
- Trump Tests China’s Red Line on Taiwan Using Beijing’s Playbook — It didn’t take long for Donald Trump to throw out the long-established diplomatic rulebook on Taiwan: A month before taking office in January 2017, he accepted a telephone call from President Tsai Ing-wen.
- Pompeo Urges Cutting Ties With Chinese Tech Companies, Apps — Secretary of State Michael Pompeo urged American companies to bar Chinese applications from their app stores, signaling that U.S. efforts to banish Chinese technology from U.S. computers and smartphones will extend well beyond the push to force a sale or shutdown of TikTok.
- Astra Inks Oxford Vaccine Production Deal with China’s Kangtai — AstraZeneca Plc and China’s Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products Co. entered a deal to produce the U.K. drugmaker’s promising Covid-19 vaccine, the latest in a flurry of global pacts aimed at fighting the pandemic.
- China Exempts Foreign Banks From Massive Loan Relief Push — Small businesses in China are being told by their foreign banks that loan extensions mandated by the government no longer apply to them as the nation dials back one of the relief measures unleashed after the coronavirus lockdown.
- China Again Looks to Ease U.S. Tensions, Rejects ‘New Cold War’ — China signaled it did not want relations with the U.S. to worsen and urged against the creation of a “new Cold War” as the world’s two biggest economies continue to clash on multiple fronts.
- Chinese Biotech Firm Jacobio Said to Plan Hong Kong IPO — Jacobio Pharmaceuticals Co., a Chinese biotechnology company focusing on cancer treatments, is planning a Hong Kong initial public offering as soon as this year, according to people familiar with the matter.
- Taiwan’s MediaTek Gorges off Huawei-U.S. Chip Dispute — MediaTek has been plugging away for decades as the second-string quarterback in the gadgets you love.
- U.S. Weapons Maker Seeks Ban on Chinese Competitor’s Sights — A Michigan weapons maker is seeking to halt imports of what it says are cheap Chinese knockoffs of its battery-powered pistol sights.
Reuters
- Standoff with China will be long, India warns in pulled statement — India’s defence ministry has warned, in a statement since removed from its website, that a military standoff with China that began with border fighting in June is likely to be a long one, despite multiple rounds of talks between the nuclear-armed rivals to defuse the tension.
- China threatens countermeasures as Taiwan prepares for U.S. visit — China on Thursday threatened to take countermeasures over a trip to Taiwan by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, as the Chinese-claimed island geared up for its highest-level U.S. official visit in four decades.
- China central bank says it will make policy more flexible and targeted — China’s central bank said on Thursday it would make its prudent monetary policy more flexible and targeted, and keep liquidity appropriately ample to support economic recovery.
- Tencent gets green light to publish Ring Fit Adventure in China — China gave tech giant Tencent Holdings the green light on Thursday to publish Nintendo Switch Ring Fit Adventure and shooter game Call of Duty Mobile, strengthening the country’s biggest social media and video games company.
- Foreign staff at EU firms in Shanghai still unable to return, business group says — Over half of European companies in China’s financial hub of Shanghai still have foreign staff who are unable to return after coronavirus border restrictions were imposed in March, a survey indicated on Thursday.
- China’s CITIC Group to cut expenses by $1.4 billion: document — State-owned Chinese conglomerate CITIC Group Corp [CITIC.UL] aims to cut 10 billion yuan ($1.44 billion) in administrative expenses this year to counter an economy weakened by COVID-19, according to a internal document seen by Reuters on Thursday.
- Siemens CEO says China business is doing better than last year — Siemens is seeing an improvement in its business in China but remains uncertain about the development of the United States market, Chief Executive Joe Kaeser said on Thursday.
- China’s major state banks start internal testing of digital wallet application: media — China’s major state-run commercial banks are conducting large-scale internal testing of a digital wallet application, moving a step closer to the official launch of a home-grown digital currency, the 21st Century Business Herald reported on Thursday.
- Google pulls 2,500 China-linked YouTube channels over disinformation — Google says it has deleted more than 2,500 YouTube channels tied to China as part of its effort to weed out disinformation on the videosharing platform.
- U.S. lawmaker calls on Trump administration to review stimulus loans to China-linked firms — A U.S. Republican congressman urged the Trump administration to review millions in coronavirus stimulus loans paid to U.S. companies with ties to China’s aviation and defense industries, amid deepening tensions between Beijing and Washington.
Xinhua
- Chinese yuan strengthens to strongest level in 5 months — The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, strengthened for a fourth consecutive day to 6.9438 against the U.S. dollar Thursday, the strongest in almost five months, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.
- China’s central bank continues to skip reverse repos — The People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the country’s central bank, continued to skip open market operations via reverse repos Thursday.
Other Publications
- Forbes: Forget Samsung—Huawei’s Serious New China Problem Suddenly Confirmed — Market researcher Canalys has now released its European sales analysis for that same quarter, finding that not only has Huawei shrunk again—down 17%, but, much more worryingly, domestic rival Xiaomi has grown faster, up 65%, knocking Huawei down to fourth place in a region that has been the heartland for its international expansion.
- Forbes: Hollywood Criticized For Pandering To China Out Of Fear Of Losing Lucrative Box Office Sales — Hollywood studios are self-censoring their films to appease the Chinese government, according to a new report from PEN America released Wednesday, at a time when as China’s pre-pandemic box office was set to soon overtake the U.S. box office, a trend only likely to continue.
- Forbes: Biden Says He Will End Trump’s Tariffs On Chinese-Made Goods — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said he would remove Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports from China, which are taxes on U.S. consumers and companies. The former vice president’s statement defies what had been conventional wisdom about protectionism being a winning political stand.
- Nikkei Asian Review: China and Russia ditch dollar in move toward ‘financial alliance’ — Russia and China are partnering to reduce their dependence on the dollar — a development some experts say could lead to a “financial alliance” between them.
- Nikkei Asian Review: Xi Jinping sends shock waves with his 2035 manifesto — A coded news release signals the president’s intent to be ‘leader for life’