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 Set to Launch the World’s Largest Emissions-Trading Program — Carbon market will double the share of global emissions covered under such systems.
- China Locks Up Xinjiang’s Uyghur Businessmen; ‘In Their Eyes, We Are All Guilty’ — Encouraging entrepreneurs used to be a key part of economic development in Xinjiang, but priorities have shifted with Xi Jinping’s security crackdown.
- Covid-19 Vaccines Are Becoming Mandatory in Parts of China — Some areas are planning to restrict people from public venues unless they get shots, sparking criticism.
- Alibaba and Tencent Consider Opening Up Their ‘Walled Gardens’ — Mounting regulatory pressure could bring about a major shift in how China’s tech giants operate.
The Financial Times
- Global investors’ exposure to Chinese assets surges to $800bn — Investors snap up stocks and bonds at record pace despite Beijing’s geopolitical belligerence.
The New York Times
- Pakistan Bus Blast Kills at Least 9 Chinese Nationals — At least some of the passengers were engineers traveling to a Chinese-funded hydropower project in the country’s remote northwest.
- Couple in China Are Reunited With Son Abducted 24 Years Ago — Guo Gangtang’s cross-country, decades-long search for his son inspired a movie. Now, there’s an ending fit for Hollywood.
- China Plans Security Checks for Tech Companies Listing Overseas — The proposed rules would close a gap that let the ride-hailing company Didi go public on Wall Street before assuring Beijing that its data was safe.
Caixin
- China’s Total Social Financing Growth Slows as Shadow Banking Shrinks — Slower expansion in the first half also reflects a return to normal for bond issuance after a surge last year to counter the pandemic’s economic impact.
- China Will Keep Its Economic Operations Within a ‘Reasonable Range’ — The government will employ comprehensive measures to take some of the pressure off smaller companies struggling under soaring commodity prices.
- With Renewable Power Network Online, China Looks to Battery-Focused Energy Storage — China aims to install 30 gigawatts or more of battery-centric storage capacity by 2025 to service its vast network of solar and wind farms.
South China Morning Post
- Beijing pushes Chinese firms to report cybersecurity vulnerabilities early and often amid growing threats — China is redoubling efforts to protect the nation’s computer networks from hacking, spying and other cyberthreats by directing organisations to quickly report system vulnerabilities to authorities.
- Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan tells Xi Jinping: Xinjiang’s Uygurs must be treated as ‘equal citizens’ of China — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan highlighted the importance of Uygur Muslims living in freedom as “equal citizens” of China during a phone call with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Tuesday.
- Guangdong plans to build regional data centre in Shenzhen with coverage of Hong Kong and Macau — China’s southern Guangdong province has tasked its tech hub Shenzhen with building a big data centre for the Greater Bay Area, which includes Hong Kong and Macau, to help the “orderly circulation” of data in the region, according to a data plan published by the Guangdong government on Sunday.
Bloomberg
- China Traders to Scrutinize Maturing Mega Loan for Policy Clues — An upcoming maturity of policy loans in China will offer clues on how far its central bank will go in loosening policy.
- Microsoft Chatbot Spinoff Xiaoice Reaches $1 Billion Valuation — China-based AI chatbot developer Xiaoice increased its valuation to $1 billion in a funding round led by Hillhouse Capital Management, a boon for the provider of voice and text services used in digital assistants, consumer electronics and cars.
- China Crypto Miners Squeezed Further as Anhui Halts Projects — China dealt another blow to its beleaguered cryptocurrency industry, with Anhui province becoming the latest to pledge to crack down on the practice of using power-hungry machines to mint Bitcoin and other virtual currencies.
Reuters
- China’s Yunnan re-imposes power curbs on some metal producers — Southwest China’s Yunnan province has started asking some local metal producers to reduce power consumption for the second time in three months, two industry sources and consultancy Aladdiny said on Wednesday.
- Explainer – How will China’s new national carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) work? — China expects trading to commence on its long awaited national carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) this month, and sources aware of the plans expect a launch ceremony to be held on Friday.
- Biden taps ex-Pentagon official for key China tech position — President Joe Biden on Tuesday nominated Alan Estevez, a former Pentagon official, to be the U.S. Commerce Department’s undersecretary for industry and security, a key post in the U.S.-China tech battle.
- FCC votes to finalize program to replace Huawei equipment in U.S networks — The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted unanimously on Tuesday to finalize a $1.9 billion program to reimburse mostly rural U.S. carriers for removing equipment from telecommunications networks from Chinese companies deemed national security threats like Huawei and ZTE Corp.
Other Publications
- The Atlantic: One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps — The Uyghur Chronicles.
- Foreign Affairs: Hong Kong and the Limits of Decoupling — Why America Struggles to Punish China for Its Repression.
- Foreign Policy: Chinese-U.S. Split Is Forcing Singapore to Choose Sides — There is no sweet spot to keep both Beijing and Washington happy, but that hasn’t kept Singapore from trying.
- Protocol: Red Vs are after China’s queer community — WeChat’s closure of student-run LGBTQ+ accounts has triggered nationalist frenzy and an antitrust report.