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
- Coup Puts Myanmar at the Center of U.S.-China Clash — President Biden said he would reach out to partners in the region for help, testing his promise to marshal the world’s democracies against authoritarian states.
- Congressional Democrats’ Plan to Bail Out China — By U.S. Representative French Hill. IMF ‘special drawing rights’ with no strings are the wrong way to help developing countries.
- Groceries Help Meituan Grow Into One of China’s Biggest Tech Companies — It has quickly become the country’s third-most-valuable internet company, with a market value of more than $300 billion.
- Mining Company USA Rare Earth Exploring New York Listing This Year — Project in Texas could help counter China’s dominance of resources essential to technology.
- Biden’s China Policy to Be Steered by Team of Rivals — High-powered officials have longstanding ties to one another, but different objectives in climate, human-rights and trade policies.
The Financial Times
- Ant Group strikes deal with Chinese regulators over restructuring — Jack Ma’s payments group will put all its businesses inside financial holding company.
- Alibaba to raise up to $5bn in dollar bond — Downsized debt sale comes as regulators clamp down on Chinese ecommerce group.
- The man taking on Jack Ma cements his status as a rising star — Chinese regulator Guo Shuqing gains influence as he leads campaign against Ant group.
- Containing China is not a feasible option — Unlike with the Soviet Union, the US and its allies have to co-operate and compete with its rising power.
- Alibaba slows as regulators circle — Revenues boosted by acquisition of Sun Art supermarket chain.
- Alibaba: growing pains — Chinese ecommerce group’s days of unchecked growth are likely over.
The New York Times
- How Hong Kong’s Neighborhood Leaders Became Champions of Freedom — District councilors typically tended to mundane matters like pest control and new bus stops. Now, they’re the last line of defense in keeping the city’s pro-democracy opposition alive.
Caixin
- China’s Private Steelmakers Are Now More Profitable Than State-Run Peers — Privately owned mills outperform by reining in production and sourcing cheaper raw materials as cumbersome management and controls weigh on SOEs.
- Hobbled Huawei Makes Last Hurrah by Taking China Smartphone Crown Once More — The sinking ship known as Huawei is claiming what could be its final prize, taking the crown as China’s top smartphone brand for what could well be the last time.
- Lenovo More Than Doubles Its Tablet Computer Shipments Worldwide in Fourth Quarter of 2020 — Chinese tech giant Lenovo was the fastest-growing brand of the world’s five biggest tablet computer vendors in the fourth quarter of last year, as people relied more heavily on the mobile devices for telecommuting, online learning and digital entertainment due to the coronavirus pandemic.
South China Morning Post
- China Fortune Land’s US$813 million of missed debt payments sparks fears of further defaults under Beijing’s ‘three red lines’ for property developers — Concerns about rising defaults in China’s property sector grew as a major developer became the first casualty of strict deleveraging rules recently introduced by the government, missing debt payments.
- China’s forex reserves grew marginally in 2020, despite near-record trade surplus. Where did the money go? — Coronavirus disruptions around the world fuelled strong demand for Chinese goods last year, resulting in a massive trade surplus. Meanwhile, the nation’s rapid recovery from the pandemic and China’s buoyant stock and bond markets have sucked in large amounts of foreign investment.
- Alibaba to sell up to US$5 billion of dollar bonds as analysts say risk from antitrust investigation is limited — Alibaba Group Holdings is selling up to US$5 billion in international debt markets as analysts brush off the impact of an antitrust investigation into its mainland China e-commerce business.
Bloomberg
- Ant Is Said to Reach Agreement With Regulators on Overhaul — Ant Group Co. and Chinese regulators have agreed on a restructuring plan that will turn Jack Ma’s fintech giant into a financial holding company, making it subject to capital requirements similar to those for banks.
- Evergrande Sees Best Start to Year Since 2018 as Sales Surge — China Evergrande Group saw its sales off to the best start in three years, as the country’s monetary easing drove up real estate demand.
- China’s Crude Stockpiles at 1-Year Low Amid Global Drawdown — China’s crude stockpiles fell to the lowest level in almost a year amid a global drawdown in inventories that’s being driven by a tighter supply-demand balance and higher costs to hoard oil.
- China Stockpiles Chips, Chip-Making Machines to Resist U.S. — China is taking decisive steps to protect itself from a widening U.S. technology ban, with imports of computer chips and the machines that make them surging last year.
- Chinese Tycoon’s Daughter Buys Hong Kong Newspaper Control — Kwok Hiu-ting, the daughter of Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. chairman, has agreed to buy the controlling stake in major Hong Kong media firm Sing Tao News Corp. for about HK$370 million ($48 million).
Reuters
- Exclusive: Suspected Chinese hackers used SolarWinds bug to spy on U.S. payroll agency – sources — Suspected Chinese hackers exploited a flaw in software made by SolarWinds Corp to help break into U.S. government computers last year, five people familiar with the matter told Reuters, marking a new twist in a sprawling cybersecurity breach that U.S. lawmakers have labeled a national security emergency.
- Exclusive: China’s FAW considers acquiring BMW partner Brilliance for about $7.2 billion – sources — FAW Group is looking at acquiring Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Ltd for about $7.2 billion in a two-stage deal that would see BMW’s main Chinese partner taken private, two people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
- China’s new coal power plant capacity in 2020 more than three times rest of world’s: study — China put 38.4 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity into operation in 2020, according to new international research, more than three times the amount built elsewhere around the world and potentially undermining its short-term climate goals.
Other Publications
- CNAS: Myths and Realities of China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy — Despite its increasing prominence in U.S. policy circles, MCF has remained poorly understood and under-studied relative to its increasing importance. That discrepancy could undermine U.S. policy responses and public messaging.
- SupChina: China’s top diplomat bashes Trump policies, warns Biden to respect ‘redline’ issues — Top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi warned the Biden administration against making the “strategic misjudgment” of treating China as an adversary. The issues of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang all “constitute a redline that must not be crossed,” he added.
- Analyse Asia with Bernard Leong [Podcast]: China AI Deep Dive: Computer Vision Report 2020 with John Artman — John Artman, the technology editor of South China Morning Post (SCMP) joins us on a conversation with China AI Deep Dive: Computer Vision Report 2020 published by SCMP research.
- Defense News: Closing the gap to win the AI marathon — Imagine a footrace between two runners: Let’s call the first one “China;” and the second one “the United States.” The starting gun fires. China takes off. The United States can’t get out of the starting blocks. Now think of this race in terms of the last two decades.
