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.
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The Wall Street Journal
- A Major Miner’s Daunting Dig Could Reshape the Iron-Ore Market — Rio Tinto’s next leader will inherit a decision that could define the miner’s next decade: whether to partner with China on a potentially lucrative but costly African project that could reshape the iron-ore market.
- U.S. Probes of Chinese Researchers Draw More Organized Opposition — The Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute some Chinese researchers in the U.S. accused of hiding their ties to the Chinese government is facing increasing pushback from some academics and Chinese-American groups.
- The Imperial Overreach of China’s Belt and Road Initiative — Xi Jinping’s signature foreign project is poorly defined, badly mismanaged and visibly failing.
The Financial Times
- Ant’s huge lending business powers $30bn IPO — Some users complain Chinese group is pushing them to take out credit they do not want.
- China’s factories pull in the profits by making Trump merchandise — Business is booming for campaign paraphernalia despite the president’s fight with Beijing.
- Foreigners rush into China’s policy bank bonds at record pace — Overseas investors bought $44bn of debt as country’s economy recovers from coronavirus.
The New York Times
- On China’s National Day, Hong Kong Police Quash Protests — One year ago, an important political anniversary in China was met with chaotic demonstrations in Hong Kong. This year, police quickly silenced expressions of dissent.
Caixin
- Jack Ma Is Stepping Down From Board of Alibaba — Billionaire entrepreneur departed last year as executive chairman of the company he founded 21 years ago; CFO Maggie Wu will fill his seat as director.
- Tesla Further Slashes Price of China-Made Model 3 — Reduction of 10% is third price cut this year as electric-car maker’s new Shanghai factory pursues strategy of competing with cheaper rivals.
South China Morning Post
- China’s currency takes on the sheen of safe haven asset against volatility, ending third quarter with its biggest gains in 12 years — The Chinese yuan is drawing attention as a haven from volatility after its best quarter in 12 years.
- Donald Trump’s four years in power have ‘totally changed manufacturing’, say US firms forced to rethink supply chains — When Donald Trump was elected US President in 2016, almost all of M Group Corporation’s high-end hotel furniture fittings were made in China.
- China probes former aide of Vice-President Wang Qishan for alleged corruption — A senior Chinese government inspector, a long-time colleague of Vice-President Wang Qishan including when the latter was President Xi Jinping’s anti-graft tsar, has been placed under a corruption probe, it was announced on Friday.
- China’s defence industry stronghold of Mianyang gets shot to reclaim former glory amid US tech war — In the early 1960s, when Chairman Mao Zedong was worried about a possible war with the Soviet Union after an ugly political falling out, he responded with an extensive industrial campaign known as the Third-Front Construction to relocate China’s key institutions, research facilities and military factories farther inland.
- Death of pro-China US journalist sparks grief and conspiracy theories on Weibo — The sudden death of an American journalist and author known for defending Beijing’s controversial policies on Hong Kong and Xinjiang has prompted an outpouring of sympathy and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories among mainland Chinese commentators online.
- What happens to discarded bikes from China’s sharing boom? Taxpayers pay to clear 25 million of them from bicycle graveyards — Three years after China’s blooming bike-sharing economy wilted, local authorities are about to send the last of 25 million abandoned bicycles to recycling plants, pruning the remaining blight on cityscapes left behind by dozens of companies that have gone bust.
- Britain found ‘critical’ weakness in Huawei equipment — British intelligence forced Huawei Technologies to fix flaws in its products that could have put the security of the country’s networks at risk, a government agency said.
Bloomberg
- An Emerging Markets Champion Shifts Focus in Sign of Times — Actis became one of the most prominent emerging-market investors with bets on everything from Egyptian snack makers to casual dining in Taiwan. Its future points down a more prosaic path.
- China Is Winning the Coronavirus-Economy Recovery Race — The economic benefits of containing Covid-19 are uneven across the globe, but one success story stands out.
- Yuan’s Best Quarter in 12 Years Boosts Status as Haven — The Chinese yuan is drawing attention as a haven from volatility after its best quarter in 12 years.
- Hong Kong Ensures ‘Stable’ Holiday With Thousands of Riot Police — Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam relied on thousands of riot police to enforce what she declared was a return to stability, sweeping up scores of would-be protesters before they could mobilize another mass demonstration on the anniversary of communist rule in China.
- China’s Great Staycation Begins in the Shadow of Covid-19 — A remarkable thing is happening across China right now. Millions of people are going on vacation.
- Saudi Crude Exports Surge to Four-Month High in September — Saudi Arabia’s crude exports jumped by half-a-million barrels a day in September, as increased buying by India and South Korea helped to offset a dip in Chinese demand.
Reuters
- Merkel: Barriers to investing in China are still too high, need reciprocity — Any agreement between China and the European Union on investment has to involve reciprocity, with European companies enjoying the same freedoms to invest in China as China’s do in Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
- 50 U.S. senators call for talks on trade agreement with Taiwan — Fifty U.S. senators from both parties called on Thursday for President Donald Trump’s administration to begin negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with Taiwan, part of a push by lawmakers for stronger U.S. action to counteract China.
- After Pompeo criticism, Vatican asserts right to go its own way on China — The Vatican’s number two said on Thursday after talks with Mike Pompeo that the two sides’ positions on China remained far apart and firmly asserted the Holy See’s right to pursue an accord with Beijing denounced by the U.S. Secretary of State.
- China domestic travel gets holiday boost, fewer travelling this year — China estimated that 13 million railway passenger trips were made on Thursday at the start of the Golden Week holiday, the highest for a single day since the coronavirus outbreak began in February, according to state media.
Xinhua
- China’s service trade deficit narrows in Jan.-Aug. — China’s trade structure has further improved as the country’s service trade deficit continued to narrow in the first eight months of this year, data from the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) showed Thursday.
- Economic Watch: China’s PMI expansion streak hints at stronger economic recovery — The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for China’s manufacturing sector came in at 51.5 in September, up from 51 in August, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Wednesday.
- China to issue 60 bln yuan worth of e-saving bonds — China’s Ministry of Finance said it plans to issue two more batches of electronic savings bonds totaling 60 billion yuan (about 8.8 billion U.S. dollars) next week.
- China’s cultural, tourism industry embraces digitalization: report — China’s cultural and tourism industry is embracing the trend of digitalization, with sharp increases in online reservations and ticketing at tourist destinations, showed a report released on Wednesday.
- Roundup: Italy’s exports to China grow amid global downturn — Italy’s exports to China grew by 4.8 percent in August this year compared to the same month last year, even as Italian exports towards non-European Union (EU) countries overall dropped by 11.7 percent in the same period, according to the latest data issued by Italy’s National Statistics Institute (ISTAT).
- Danish food sector sees China’s rising demand for organic products as opportunity — China’s demand for organic products is also on a rise and Danish food producers have a high-level trust in doing business with Chinese counterparts, a Danish food business leader said here in a recent interview with Xinhua.
- Alibaba’s trade platforms attract over 68 mln companies worldwide — The trade platforms of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group have attracted over 68 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from more than 200 countries and regions, the company said at an event.
- Vivo announces to launch new smartphone in Kenya — Chinese smartphone maker Vivo announced on Tuesday that it will launch the new smartphone Vivo Y20 in Kenya on October 8.
- China’s lottery sales up 2 pct in August — China’s lottery sales came in at 34.78 billion yuan (about 5.1 billion U.S. dollars) in August, up 2 percent from the same period last year, data from the Ministry of Finance (MOF) showed.
Other Publications
- Business Insider: Trump and Melania ‘paid the price’: Chinese propaganda mocks president after COVID-19 diagnosis — The editor-in-chief of one of China’s state-run media outlets suggested that President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump “paid the price” by contracting the coronavirus.
- Foreign Policy: Beware the China Reset — Biden shouldn’t be tempted by business as usual with Beijing.
- Defense News: Trump executive order targets rare earths minerals and China — U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order declaring a national emergency in the mining industry, aimed at boosting domestic production of rare earth minerals critical for military technologies while reducing the country’s dependence on China.
- Brookings: Seven years into China’s Belt and Road — In seven years of implementation, the initiative has become quite controversial, especially in the West. The controversy is fueled by a lack of transparency that makes it difficult to get reliable information on the financing involved in the initiative, as well as the specific projects and their terms.
- Penn Project: The Penn Project on the Future of US-China Relations — Three new papers on “Trade and Competitiveness” address “The Resurgent Role of the State in China’s Economy: Experimentation, Domestic Politics, and U.S. Policy,” “Managing the China Trade Challenge: Confronting the Limits of the WTO,” and “China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the Problem with Geoeconomics: Toward a More Thoughtful and Competitive U.S. Response.”
