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
- The Taiwanese Chip Champion Shaking Qualcomm’s Tree — MediaTek has fared well during the chip shortage and its stock has skyrocketed.
- Tech Companies Depend on China for Rare Earths. Can That Change? [Video] — Neodymium is critical to making the wheels of a Tesla spin or creating sound in Apple’s Airpods, and China dominates the mining and processing of this rare-earth mineral. So the U.S. and its allies are building their own supply chain.
The Financial Times
- Chinese banks accused of funding deforestation around world — Report undermines Beijing’s drive to be seen as global leader in climate change campaign.
The New York Times
- Grim Image of India Prompts Debate Over China’s Swaggering Propaganda — An official social media post contrasting Beijing’s successes with its neighbor’s coronavirus woes drew a backlash from some, who called it callous.
- Top Philippine Diplomat Targets China in Expletive-Laced Tirade — In demanding that Beijing remove ships from Manila’s waters, the Philippine foreign minister used language on Twitter that is more often associated with the country’s president.
Caixin
- Major Chinese State Firms Told to Keep a Closer Eye on Their Derivative Trading — SASAC says some of the country’s centrally administrated SOEs had not done thorough enough examinations before approving their subsidiaries’ trading activities.
- Hong Kong’s Secondary Offerings This Year Already Near 2020 Total — Flush with cash and hungry for Chinese assets, investors drive record share sales of $47 billion in the first four months of the year.
- JD Logistics Gets Its Hong Kong IPO Back on Schedule — E-commerce giant JD.com’s affiliate filed for a listing in February, but met with headwinds last month after a major rival reported a shock first-quarter loss.
- Which Money-Losing Electric-Car Makers Have Tied Up With Huawei? — Two Chinese automakers whose smart EV partnerships with Huawei have made them darlings of the capital markets reported steep losses in the first quarter of 2021, reflecting the sector’s longstanding financial challenges.
South China Morning Post
- China’s world-factory status gets boost as coronavirus ravages India and other developing Asian countries — A sharp uptick in coronavirus cases in India and several Asian countries is diverting business to China, ensuring that its manufacturing engine will continue being the main driver of global trade demand, analysts said, pointing to the resilience of China’s economy and capital flows.
Bloomberg
- Duterte Says China a Benefactor, Denounces ‘Rude’ Remarks — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said China remains a benefactor, as the Southeast Asian nation seeks to increase vaccine delivery from the mainland amid brewing tensions in disputed waters.
- Hong Kong’s Growth Surge Masks Uneven Recovery, Vaccine Risk — Hong Kong’s economy posted its fastest growth in more than a decade in the first quarter, though the recovery is an uneven one led mainly by exports and held back by weak consumer spending and a slow vaccine rollout.
- Hong Kong’s Incentives to Lure Private Equity Miss the Point — Rule of law, free flow of information and political stability also matter. On all these, Hong Kong has been going backward.
Reuters
- China’s 51job receives revised offer of over $5 billion — (Reuters) -51job Inc said on Tuesday it had received a revised takeover proposal valued at more than $5 billion from private equity firms DCP Services, Ocean Link Partners and the Chinese recruitment firm’s co-founder and chief, Rick Yan.
- Ping An finds suitable rebound deal — Ping An Insurance may indemnify one costly deal with a better one. Not long after losing $1.5 billion in a failed property investment, the Chinese conglomerate plans to spend up to $7.9 billion to buy control of Founder Group, Peking University’s bankrupt corporate empire. A more synergistic acquisition would be welcome.
- Philippines foreign minister issues expletive-laced tweet over China sea dispute — MANILA (Reuters) -The Philippine foreign minister on Monday demanded in an expletive-laced Twitter message that China’s vessels get out of disputed waters, the latest exchange in a war of words with Beijing over the South China Sea.
- Exclusive: Tesla, under scrutiny in China, steps up engagement with regulators – sources — Electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc, facing scrutiny in China over safety and customer service complaints, is boosting its engagement with mainland regulators and beefing up its government relations team, industry sources said.
Other Publications
- Nikkei Asian Review: Japanese companies ditch Chinese drones over security concerns — NTT and Kyushu Electric weigh homegrown alternatives to protect sensitive data.
- Nikkei Asian Review: iRobot breaks with Hong Kong partner over China production — Company cites US tariffs in shift of Roomba robot vacuum assembly to Malaysia.
- Economist: “The fragile equilibrium that has kept the peace is really breaking down” [Podcast] — China and Taiwan. A decades-old policy of “strategic ambiguity” is breaking down; we ask about the risks and the stakes of a potential Chinese bid to take Taiwan by force.
- The Atlantic: China Is a Paper Dragon — U.S. policy makers should look to the future with a little more confidence and a lot more trust in trade, markets, and the superior potential of a free people.
- Foreign Policy: China Has Lost the Philippines Despite Duterte’s Best Efforts — By Derek Grossman. Beijing’s growing aggressiveness is forcing Manila back into Washington’s camp.
- Foreign Policy: Abandoning Taiwan Makes Zero Moral or Strategic Sense — By Blake Herzinger. There’s no case for ditching a long-time democratic ally.
- Foreign Policy: The World Might Want China’s Rules — By Stephen M. Walt. Washington shouldn’t assume its values are more attractive to others than Beijing’s.
- Foreign Affairs: The Surprising Strength of Chinese-Japanese Ties — By Tobias Harris. Tokyo Will Not Break With Beijing—No Matter What Washington Wants.
- POLITICO: Biden administration considering changes to China securities ban following lawsuits — Legal fights over the ban are bubbling up this spring, but the issue stems from a decades-old fight between Congress and the executive branch over how to crack down on China.
- AP News: Top US diplomat to join China UN event on global cooperation — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will participate in a U.N. Security Council meeting Friday chaired by China’s foreign minister on strengthening global cooperation and the key role of the United Nations in harnessing international action to tackle the world’s conflicts and crises, China’s U.N. ambassador said Monday.
- The Washington Post: Why do some Muslim-majority countries support China’s crackdown on Muslims? — Western countries have condemned the repression in Xinjiang, but Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt praised China’s efforts to restore ‘safety and security’.