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
- Solar-Energy Supply Chain Depends on Region Where China Is Accused of Genocide — The industry rethinks sourcing of critical materials in effort to avoid any connection to alleged forced labor and human-rights abuses.
- China’s Covid-19 Vaccination Campaign Gets Off to Slow Start — Infections are low and people aren’t in a hurry; officials are using social pressure and incentives as encouragement.
- Alibaba Hit With Record $2.8 Billion Antitrust Fine in China — Penalty comes amid regulatory scrutiny on business empire of Alibaba founder Jack Ma.
- U.S. Faces Uphill Climb to Rival China’s Rare-Earth Magnet Industry — West lags China on both supply and processing of materials key to electric cars and wind turbines.
- Jack Ma’s Ant Group Bows to Beijing With Company Overhaul — People’s Bank of China said Ant representatives were summoned to a meeting Monday.
- Alibaba, Hit by Antitrust Fine, Vows to Help Vendors With Fee Cuts — Days after Chinese regulator imposed a record $2.8 billion penalty, the e-commerce giant says it will invest in steps to help merchants.
- How a $2.8 Billion Fine Added $40 Billion to Alibaba — Alibaba investors are relieved that the only thing they have to deal with is a huge fine. That could yet prove optimistic.
- Flattered to Be on China’s Sanctions List — By Gayle Manchin and Tony Perkins. We’ll keep exposing Beijing’s egregious religious-freedom violations in Xinjiang.
The Financial Times
- Ant ordered to restructure by Chinese regulators — Lending services could be severely weakened by separating them from Alipay payment platform.
- Alibaba: record fine means more spending on corporate good deeds — Ecommerce group will have to continue working hard to remain in Beijing’s good books.
- Alibaba shares jump after record antitrust fine — Chinese ecommerce group says penalty marks end of probes targeting its online practices.
- China backtracks on comments questioning efficacy of local vaccines — Top health official says remarks about jabs were ‘taken out of context’.
- Huawei rival Xiaomi steps up chip ambitions amid US pressure — Smartphone maker’s investments reflect China’s push to reduce foreign dependence.
- Alibaba’s rivals on alert after China’s regulators hand out record fine — Tencent Music and Meituan expect increased scrutiny after Jack Ma’s group hit with $2.8bn penalty.
- Why manufacturing matters to economic superpowers — Reshoring makes sense for some industries as competition rises between the US and China.
- Montenegro calls for EU help over $1bn Chinese highway loan — Refinancing offer would be ‘a small but easy win’ for Brussels, says finance minister.
- China considers mixing vaccines to bolster efficacy — Disease control centre makes first public admission over effectiveness of domestic jabs.
- China’s ‘wolf warriors’ refuse to back down — Beijing’s foreign policy is raising tensions and threatens a trade deal but a new approach is unlikely.
- Scoreboard: US-China tensions threaten the Olympics — This week in the business of sport: judging the true worth of the Premier League’s biggest clubs, why the pandemic drove sports groups into selling digital fan tokens, and more.
- Chinese regulators fine Alibaba record $2.8bn — Ecommerce group penalised for abusing market dominance as Beijing steps up scrutiny of tech sector.
- US to ease restrictions on meeting Taiwanese officials — Biden seeks to boost support for Taipei amid growing Chinese aggression in the region.
The New York Times
- Ant Group Announces Overhaul as China Tightens Its Grip — Beijing has accused the internet-finance titan of flouting regulations in its quest for growth.
- Alibaba Will Lower Merchant Fees After Antitrust Fine — China’s $2.8 billion antitrust penalty against Alibaba far exceeds its previous fines for anticompetitive business practices.
- Alibaba Faces $2.8 Billion Fine From Chinese Regulators — The penalty is the biggest move to date in China’s campaign to tighten supervision of its internet Goliaths.
- China’s Forced-Labor Backlash Threatens to Put N.B.A. in Unwanted Spotlight — Lucrative endorsements deals with Chinese sports brands supporting Xinjiang cotton could pull the league and its athletes back into another geopolitical firestorm.
Caixin
- Weekend Long Read: Zhou Xiaochuan on the Key Questions Facing China’s Carbon Ambitions (Part I) — Meeting the nation’s goals for reducing carbon emissions will require a solid foundation of data, measurement and analysis so that there is a clear, quantifiable target.
- China Chip Fund Cashes Out Some of Its Holdings — Company set up in 2014 to nurture homegrown semiconductor sector has begun offloading investments made by its first fund.
- Didi Reportedly Looking to List in U.S. as Soon as July — China’s Didi Chuxing has reportedly picked Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to arrange its IPO in New York, which may take place as soon as July, signaling that the U.S. capital markets remain a strong destination for Chinese companies seeking to list despite the American securities watchdog tightening auditing standards for foreign firms.
South China Morning Post
- China’s record fine on Alibaba sets an example for technology giants to toe the regulatory line — China’s record fine on one of the largest home-grown corporate champions sets an example for the country’s technology behemoths and aspiring unicorns, showing them that the antitrust regulator is increasingly competent in applying market rules to rein in Big Tech, analysts said.
- Beijing orders five Chinese cities including Guangzhou, Dongguan to rein in their runaway house prices — China’s central government has told the leaders of five cities to rein in their overheated residential property markets in a move analysts believe signals Beijing is prepared to intervene directly where required.
- Chinese steel production powers ahead despite curbs in industry’s heartland — Steel production in China has continued to charge forward despite curbs on production in Tangshan, the country’s largest producer.
- Will ByteDance, the 800-pound gorilla in China’s technology scene, become king of the jungle? — TikTok owner ByteDance, a nine-year-old company created by 38-year-old Zhang Yiming in a small, residential flat in Beijing, is making a full-frontal assault on China’s tech titans as it seeks to gain top spot in the country’s cyberspace realm.
Bloomberg
- Biden Team Eyes Potential Threat From China’s Digital Yuan — The Biden administration is stepping up scrutiny of China’s plans for a digital yuan, with some officials concerned the move could kick off a long-term bid to topple the dollar as the world’s dominant reserve currency, according to people familiar with the matter.
- Low Efficacy of Chinese Shots Sows Concern on Global Rollout — Concern is mounting that China’s Covid-19 vaccines are less effective at quelling the disease, raising questions about nations from Brazil to Hungary that are depending on the shots and the country’s own mammoth inoculation drive.
- What’s Next for China Huarong? The Best and Worst Case Scenarios — Reports of a looming restructuring at one of China’s largest bad-debt managers are prompting bondholders to ponder scenarios that not long ago would have been inconceivable.
- China’s Soccer Leagues Learn to Live With Failure — More than a third of the country’s pro teams have disbanded in the past two years. That’s a good thing.
- GOP Could Undermine Joe Biden’s China Strategy — Republican obstructionism threatens to undermine what’s shaping up to be a very effective strategy from the Biden administration.
Reuters
- Smartphone shipments in China in March increase 67.7%: CAICT — Shipments of smartphones within China increased 67.7% year-on-year to 35.5 million handsets in March, the China Academy of Information and Communications (CAICT) reported on Monday.
- EU sets provisional tariffs on Chinese aluminium products — The European Union has set provisional tariffs on aluminium flat-rolled products from China after an initial investigation found they were being sold into the bloc at artificially low prices.
- Analysis: Chinese tech start-ups pull IPO plans as Beijing tightens scrutiny — A growing number of Chinese tech start-ups are cancelling plans to list on Nasdaq-style markets at home with some eyeing Hong Kong share sales instead, as regulators tighten scrutiny of IPO applicants after the halting of Ant Group’s $37 billion float.
- CATL takes stake in China Moly cobalt mine for $137.5 million — (Reuters) -Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL) said on Sunday its subsidiary would take a stake in China Molybdenum Co’s Kisanfu copper-cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for $137.5 million.
Other Publications
- Foreign Policy: China’s Crackdown on Islam Brings Back Memories of 1975 Massacre — Islamophobia has spread far beyond the persecuted Uyghur minority.
- POLITICO: Trudeau government threatens Halifax Security Forum over proposed Taiwan award — HFX wanted to honor Taiwan’s president with the prestigious John McCain award. But Canada feared poking the Chinese bear.
- AP News: Top Chinese official admits vaccines have low effectiveness — China’s top disease control official, in a rare acknowledgement, said current vaccines offer low protection against the coronavirus and mixing them is among strategies being considered to boost their effectiveness.
- Forbes: How This Chinese Vaping Billionaire Became One Of The World’s Richest Women In Three Years — Kate Wang, 39, jumped into the ranks of the world’s richest when her vaping company RLX went public on the New York Stock Exchange in January. Now the Procter & Gamble and Uber veteran faces looming threats from Chinese regulators and skeptical investors.
- Nikkei Asian Review: China delivery price-war hits market leader SF Holding — Intense competition at home pushing courier groups to go abroad.
- The Diplomat: Zhao Kezhi’s Legacy Could Define China’s Regional Security Paradigm — The 20th Party Congress will mark the end of Zhao’s CCP career, but his internal affairs policy will continue.
- Defense News: Canada calls out China, climate change as growing concerns in Arctic — Canadian defense leaders have highlighted climate change and Chinese expansion into the Arctic as future issues the country will have to grapple with in the far north.
