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
- China’s Census Highlights Its Looming Population Problem — After weeks of delay, China issued census data showing a minuscule rise in its population in 2020.
- Surge in China’s Factory-Gate Prices Adds to Inflation Worries — Factory-gate prices rose 6.8% in April, the fastest growth since October 2017.
- Japan’s Muji Appeals to China by Advertising Use of Xinjiang Cotton — Clothing and homewares brand has publicly sided with Beijing in a way that many Western and other Japanese companies won’t.
- China’s Census Highlights Its Looming Population Problem — After weeks of delay, China issued census data showing a minuscule rise in its population in 2020.
- Beijing Tries to Put Its Imprint on Blockchain — China offers cheap server space, other enticements, in effort to spread its vision.
- Chinese Consumers Splash Cash, but Stocks Aren’t Buying It — Coaxing consumers further out of their shells will still be a tough balancing act for Beijing, as beleaguered consumer shares are signaling.
- Taiwan and the WHO — By The Editorial Board. China wants the island nation excluded despite its Covid successes.
The Financial Times
- China factory gate prices climb on global commodities boom — Producer price index rises 6.8% in April after being stuck in negative territory for much of 2020.
- China’s population grows at slowest rate in decades — Census for 10 years to 2020 shows weakest rise since modern records began.
- Commodities boom sends bulk shipping costs to decade highs — China’s ‘insatiable appetite’ for iron ore is key factor in surge in dry bulk index.
- A very different kind of supercycle — The green revolution, not China’s industrial one, will drive commodity prices.
The New York Times
- China’s ‘Long-Term Time Bomb’: Falling Births Stunt Population Growth — Only 12 million babies were born last year, the lowest number of births since 1961, providing fresh evidence of a looming demographic crisis that could complicate Beijing’s ambitions.
- Key Takeaways From China’s Census Results — The country is locked in a demographic crisis. But the figures also showed rising education and urbanization levels.
Caixin
- China’s Debt-Laden Developers Get Over Repayment Hump — Real estate companies’ net borrowing through bonds turned positive for the first time in nine months in April after amount of debt coming due begins to shrink.
- China’s Digital Yuan Gets Access to Alibaba’s 1 Billion-Person User Base — Alipay customers can use central bank’s experimental digital currency to pay for food delivery, groceries and online purchases.
- Pinduoduo, Meituan Warned to Focus More on Consumer Protection — Shanghai consumer watchdog summons the tech platforms over a plethora of problematic behaviors.
- No Signs of Spring for China Tech Stocks in May — Major Hong Kong tech index of Chinese stocks slumps more than 3% on Tuesday, and is down 10% since late April in step with a global internet slump.
South China Morning Post
- Tesla suffers setback in China as backlash over safety, quality of its electric cars sinks sales by 27 per cent — Tesla’s sales in mainland China hit a blip last month as the leader in the electric vehicle (EV) field ran foul of angry customers raising concerns about safety and quality.
- China population: strong birth rate policy intervention needed to avoid looming crisis, analysts say — Increasing the number of children a couple is allowed to have – or abandoning the limit altogether – and providing financial support to families to offset the associated costs are policy changes that should be considered to shore up China’s birth rate and avoid a population crisis in coming years, experts said.
- How China’s steady erosion of media freedom rose from Sichuan’s ruins — Thirteen years ago on Wednesday, the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan was struck by the most devastating earthquake in decades, resulting in 87,000 deaths.
- TikTok owner ByteDance pursues legal battle against Tencent after court rules it pay US$1.2 million in damages — ByteDance, owner of hit short video-sharing apps TikTok and Douyin, plans to continue a bitter court battle against rival Tencent Holdings in a dispute over what is fair use in China’s cutthroat online entertainment market.
Bloomberg
- World’s Debt Managers Return to China After U.S. Rates Stall — Chinese debt is back in favor with overseas investors.
- What Are China’s Next Steps to Control Record Commodity Prices? — The surging cost of commodities to industries and households is a threat to China’s economic growth and the purchasing power of its citizenry.
- China’s ‘Explosive’ Coal Futures Hit Record Despite Fee Hike — Thermal coal futures in China surged to a record high as a severe supply crunch overpowered the exchange’s effort to cool down the breakneck price rally.
- TSMC Is Stuck In the Middle of a Global Panic Over Chip Supply — The Taiwan-based manufacturer has mastered the market but needs to navigate a tricky geopolitical landscape.
Reuters
- Exclusive: Tesla puts brake on Shanghai land buy as U.S.-China tensions weigh – sources — U.S. electric car maker Tesla Inc has halted plans to buy land to expand its Shanghai plant and make it a global export hub, people familiar with the matter said, due to uncertainty created by U.S.-China tensions.
- Explainer-Why all the fuss over falling debris from China’s most powerful rocket? — China launched into orbit last month the first piece of a permanent space station using its most powerful rocket, but international focus has fallen instead on the re-entry of debris which critics say has been shrouded in secrecy.
- U.S. business lobby calls on China to play fair, warns of consumer boycott danger — BEIJING (Reuters) -China should implement its commitments to equal treatment for foreign business and abandon “implicit” guidance to replace foreign products with domestic alternatives, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said on Tuesday.
Other Publications
- Nikkei Asian Review: China’s population growth slows as births drop sharply — Once-a decade census puts at risk nation’s demographic dividend.
- Nikkei Asian Review: Taiwan denounces China’s ‘shameless lies’ over WHO access — Beijing ignores G7 call for Taiwan to attend May 24 World Health Assembly.
- Foreign Policy: Biden Looks for Defense Hotline With China — The United States says it’s ready to call China in a crisis. Will Beijing pick up?
- Axios: China increases spending 500% to influence America — New foreign-agent filings are finally detailing a massive Beijing propaganda operation that’s fueled a sixfold increase in disclosed Chinese foreign influence efforts in the United States in recent years.
- Defense News: China, the victim? From behind the Great Wall is a government under siege by foreign threats — Activity by U.S. military ships and surveillance planes directed toward China has increased significantly under the Biden administration, a spokesperson for the Chinese Defense Ministry said April 29.
- The Diplomat: Transatlantic Cooperation on the China Challenge — Insights from Hans Binnendijk.
- AP News: China issues total ban on synthetic cannabinoids — China on Tuesday said it will add all synthetic cannabinoids to its list of banned drugs, in what it described as a first in the world, to curb their manufacturing, trafficking and abuse.
