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
- Duty-Free Boom Fuels Surge in Chinese Tourism Stocks — Chinese tourism stocks are flying high, thanks to a bet by investors that travelers will stick to domestic excursions due to the pandemic and also take advantage of relaxed duty-free rules.
- Blackballing Chinese Stocks — Barring firms from U.S. exchanges could play into Beijing’s hands.
The Financial Times
- Gagging the press will suffocate Hong Kong — The crackdown on media freedom threatens all businesses in the territory.
- Why Trump’s Hong Kong sanctions are bad news for banks — Washington’s decision could have far-reaching implications beyond the targeted individuals.
The New York Times
- China Refrains From Ousting Hong Kong Lawmakers — Beijing allows four pro-democracy lawmakers to serve out their terms even after they were barred from running for re-election.
Caixin
- Disgraced Financial Bigshot Accused of Taking More Bribes Than Anyone Else in China — Lai Xiaomin, ex-chairman of China Huarong Asset Management, allegedly accepted a record-breaking $258 million in illegal payments over 10 years.
- Fanya Metal Exchange Scandal Nets Small Fry Who Raised Funds From Investors — Two employees of China Merchants Bank who sought to profit by promoting the trading platform are jailed and ordered to repay funds raised illegally.
- Haidian District Investment Platform Plans Stop-Gap Short-Term Borrowing — Government-linked unit in prestigious sector of Beijing to offer $215 million of 180-day bonds after liquidity-related plunge in traded debt forced it to slash a 5-year issue last month.
- Tencent-Backed China Literature Posts Massive Loss, Citing ‘Structural Issues’ — Online literature provider faces double threat from unhappy authors and a growing industry trend toward free-to-read products.
- GSX Techedu Continues Under Short-Selling Pressure in New York — Chinese tutoring service falls almost 10% Monday as short seller Citron Research repeats financial reporting fraud allegation amid pressure on accounting from U.S. lawmakers.
- China Mainland Leads U.S. in Fortune Global 500 Companies But Trails in Profitability — For the first time, more Chinese mainland enterprises have made it onto Fortune magazine’s list of the world’s top 500 companies than those from the U.S.
- Tencent Pushes for Merger That Would Create $10 Billion Chinese Twitch — China’s answer to Amazon’s Twitch — the wildly popular streaming site where gamers broadcast themselves — is the powerful duopoly of DouYu and Huya.
South China Morning Post
- Hong Kong third wave: restaurant industry group to roll out HK$50 million food safety scheme to ‘rescue’ sector — Leaders of Hong Kong’s catering industry are set to roll out a HK$50 million citywide certification scheme for food safety aimed at the city’s 16,000 restaurants next month, in a desperate bid to help contain the spread of Covid-19, create jobs and rescue the battered food and drink sector.
- Company owned by Hong Kong justice chief Teresa Cheng’s husband sells shares in US business after Washington-imposed sanctions — A company controlled by the husband of Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah, who was sanctioned by the US government, has sold part of its business in New York, citing US-China tensions.
- 1,200 per cent rally in Next Digital turns Apple Daily’s publisher into Hong Kong’s biggest media company, sparks calls for regulatory probe — Next Digital, whose founder was arrested yesterday in Hong Kong under the national security law, was the third-most traded stock in the city as traders answered a rallying cry on social media to snap up his shares, a move that provoked calls for the securities regulator to investigate.
- China’s state-owned giants given new order: create global industrial champions — In the midst of its escalating economic conflict with the US, China’s largest state-owned enterprises have been given a new directive: work with small and medium-sized firms to build new global champions.
Bloomberg
- U.S. to Label Hong Kong Goods as China-Made as Tensions Rise — The U.S. will order imports from Hong Kong to be labeled as ‘Made in China’ according to a government document, in the latest escalation of trade tensions between the two nations.
- Swiss Investor Takes on China in Bid to Reboot EU Solar — A Swiss company is buying up cheap solar assets in a move to reclaim a key link in Europe’s renewable energy supply chain from China.
- China’s Tongwei Raises Solar Cell Prices as Much as 11% — Tongwei Solar, a unit of Tongwei Co., raised multicrystalline solar cell prices by 11% to 0.6 yuan per watt, according to an Aug. 10 notice on its website.
- SoftBank Moves Into Asset Management After Return to Profits — Masayoshi Son is launching a new asset management venture to buy stocks in publicly traded companies, expanding SoftBank Group Corp.’s investment efforts as it rebounded from record losses to profitability.
- China Car Recovery Gathers Pace With July Sales Accelerating — A recovery in China’s car sales accelerated last month, signaling the world’s biggest auto market is emerging from a two-year slump as the economy improves and pandemic restrictions ease.
- China’s Credit Growth Slows in July as Stimulus Pared Back — China’s credit growth slowed much more than estimated in July after a strong rebound in recent months, reflecting a drop in short-term financing and a more measured pace of monetary easing as the economic recovery continues.
- Five Years After Devaluation, China Has the Yuan It Wanted — Compared with the global market turmoil China’s currency devaluation in 2015 triggered, the more gentle but steady depreciation since is spurring less concern.
- NIO Loss Narrows Thanks to Popularity of New Electric SUVs — NIO Inc.’s loss narrowed for a fourth consecutive quarter, as rising demand for electric SUVs helps the Chinese carmaker revive its fortunes.
- Tencent-Backed Waterdrop Said to Raise Funds at $2 Billion Value — Waterdrop Inc. has raised about $200 million to bankroll its expansion in healthcare crowdfunding, according to people familiar with the matter.
- How Singapore Nurtured Foreign Trio Who Became Billionaires — David Chen left his native China as a teenager to attend school in Singapore. Little did he know that his adopted city would help him reach the ranks of the ultra-rich.
- China Is Ditching Expensive Brazilian Soybeans for U.S. Supplies — China, the world’s top soybean buyer, is ditching expensive Brazilian purchases and replacing previously done deals with American supplies, according to people familiar with the transactions.
- Hong Kong’s Stocks Buckle Under Weight of Negative News Flow — Hong Kong stocks are bearing the brunt of escalating actions taken by Washington and Beijing to protect their national security.
- China’s New Satellite Network Rivals U.S. in GPS With Better Tech — The power that goes with America’s global positioning network now has a potent, maybe better, rival.
- Chinese Researcher Who Hid in U.S. Consulate Pleads Not Guilty — A Chinese researcher who spent weeks in the country’s consulate in San Francisco before she was arrested by the U.S. on visa fraud charges pleaded not guilty.
- KKR Sees Signs of Life in $850 Billion Private Credit Market — The $850 billion private credit market is slowly coming back to life following an abrupt pause due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to KKR & Co.’s co-head of private credit Daniel Pietrzak.
- Tough-to-Impress Harvard Grad Molds Fortunes of China’s Richest — In a market where billions slosh around in search of the next big thing, Tony Zhang’s decade of wagering on Chinese startups has made him cautious.
- Citi, StanChart Eye Accounts of Sanctioned Hong Kong Officials — Citigroup Inc. and Standard Chartered Plc are stepping up scrutiny of banking clients in Hong Kong, aiming to avoid violating U.S. sanctions on officials in the former British colony.
Reuters
- China July new bank loans fall to 992.7 billion yuan, below forecast — Chinese banks extended 992.7 billion yuan ($142.82 billion) in new yuan loans in July, down from June and falling short of analysts’ expectations.
- China’s Minmetals, Jinchuan eye copper concentrate blending plant in Guangxi – sources — State-run metal producers China Minmetals Corp and Jinchuan Group are planning to build a copper concentrate blending facility in southern China’s Guangxi region, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
- Hong Kong building services firm Analogue to cut stake in U.S. unit amid Sino-U.S. tension — Hong Kong building services firm Analogue Holdings Ltd said on Tuesday it will sell 2% of New York-based Transel Elevator & Electric Inc., cutting the 51% stake it agreed to buy only a few months ago to 49%, citing U.S. legal advice amid growing tensions between China and the United States.
- Chinese firms that fail U.S. accounting standards to be delisted as of 2022: Mnuchin — U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday said companies from China and other countries that do not comply with accounting standards will be delisted from U.S. stock exchanges as of the end of 2021.
- World stocks tick up as China industrial data offsets trade woes; oil rises — Stocks across the globe were little changed on Monday as upbeat industrial data out of China and hopes for more stimulus in the United States were offset by jitters over tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Xinhua
- China’s NEV sales see notable growth in July — Sales of new-energy vehicles (NEVs) in China posted robust growth in July, as the world’s largest auto market steadily expands its recovery, industry data showed.
- China sees recovering air travel demands — China’s air travel demand has recovered significantly since June with a continuous increase in the volume of flights, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
- Guangdong carbon market closes lower — Carbon emissions allowances closed at 28.02 yuan (4.03 U.S. dollars) per tonne on Tuesday, 0.43 percent down from Monday, at China Emissions Exchange (Guangzhou), the largest local carbon market in China.
- China sees double-digit growth in broad money supply — China’s central bank said Tuesday the country’s M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose 10.7 percent year on year to 212.55 trillion yuan (about 30.49 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of July.
- Chinese shares close lower Tuesday — Chinese stocks closed lower on Tuesday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 1.15 percent at 3,340.29 points.
Other Publications
- Variety: Universal Music Breaks From Exclusive China Licensing Agreement to Sign With Both Tencent and NetEase — Universal Music Group (UMG) announced Monday that it has signed multi-year direct licensing agreements in China with both Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) and its competitor NetEase Cloud Music, breaking the past precedent of signing exclusively with the former. The move signals a shake-up in the major labels’ approach to the Chinese market. Until now, UMG, Warner Music and Sony Music Entertainment had each signed a single, exclusive licensing deal in China with TME, which then sub-licensed its catalogs out to its rivals, including NetEase.
- MarketWatch: Gold ends higher as China-U.S. tensions seen escalating; Silver rallies over 6% — Gold futures on Monday settled higher, resuming a strong uptrend for the precious metal after snapping a five-session win streak on Friday, as China imposed fresh sanctions against U.S. officials in apparent retaliation for similar measures against Hong Kong and mainland officials last week.
- E&E News: Coal spree suggests China might loosen CO2 goals — China’s government is facing increasing pressure to raise what has been a ceiling on building coal-fired power plants. Much of the push comes from the China Electricity Council, which he says represents coal companies and traditional power generators.
- Barron’s: U.S., China Trade Negotiators Set to Meet Amid Diplomacy Friction. Here’s a Primer. — Many policy watchers and strategists expect some commitment to keep the deal on track. One reason: Although China’s economy is beginning to show signs of recovery, both it and the U.S., which is still struggling, are unlikely to want to face the fallout from another wave of tariffs, which this time would be aimed squarely at consumer-related goods.
- Nikkei Asian Review: China’s economic clout chills Bangladesh-India relations — Dhaka warned against becoming a theater for proxy wars between regional powers.
- The Diplomat: The Logic of a US WeChat Ban — WeChat is very unlikely to disobey orders from the Chinese government — and that leaves other countries with limited options to regulate the app.
