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 Corporate Crackdown Is Just Getting Started. Signs Point to More Tumult Ahead. — Regulators are pushing companies to do more to serve the Communist Party’s goals, rattling markets.
- China’s Antitrust Regulator Planning to Fine Meituan About $1 Billion — The penalty for allegedly abusing its dominant market position could be announced within weeks, people familiar with the matter say.
- U.S. Offers Hong Kong Residents Temporary Safe Haven Amid China’s Political Crackdown — White House action would give qualified residents of the Chinese territory an 18-month work permit and a reprieve from deportation.
- Business Groups Call on Biden to Restart Trade Talks With China — U.S. chamber, others say tariffs on Chinese imports are a drag on U.S. economy.
- China Tech Selloff Hits Hong Kong Hard — Once market settles, financial hub is likely to win more Chinese IPOs.
- China Telecom, Exiled From U.S., Prices $7 Billion-Plus Shanghai Offering — The stock offering would be the world’s biggest new listing in more than a year.
- China’s Huawei Reports 38% Revenue Drop as U.S. Sanctions Bite — Revenue declines deepen amid U.S. restrictions on chip supply, pressure on buyers.
The Financial Times
- Huawei suffers biggest-ever decline in revenue after US blacklisting — Chinese smartphone maker’s earnings fall 29% as sanctions imposed by Washington choke off supply of parts.
- TikTok rival Kuaishou shares fall after state media demands tougher regulation — Chinese short-video app hit as widening tech crackdown targets ‘bad fan culture.’
- Retail investors on the hunt for bargains in China-focused funds — ETFs tracking Chinese stocks lure inflows even as institutional investors steer clear.
- Evergrande seeks to offload assets as investor pressure grows — Chinese developer’s cash crunch draws scrutiny to investments in electric vehicles and theme parks.
- China’s ‘Godfather of education’ faces existential test — Yu Minhong rose from poverty to lead one of the world’s biggest education groups.
- Biden offers Hong Kongers in US temporary ‘safe haven’ — Washington cites Beijing’s ‘repression’ as it defers removals of territory’s residents by 18 months.
The New York Times
- China Pledges to Donate 2 Billion Vaccine Doses — The pledge, which included a $100 million donation to Covax, intensifies competition with the U.S. over leadership in ending the pandemic.
- How Biden’s E.V. Plan Could Help Tesla and Squeeze Toyota — A push to increase sales of electric vehicles favors companies that already have all-electric cars on the market and could penalize those that don’t.
- U.S.-China Trade Talks Should Resume, U.S. Business Groups Say — A letter from influential industry organizations asked the White House to resume negotiations on tariffs and other measures that stalled during a bruising trade war.
Caixin
- Exclusive: One Court Will Handle Developer Evergrande’s Multitude of Debt Lawsuits — China’s top court has directed all the cases involving the company to be moved to Guangzhou
- Lithium Stocks Sizzle as Electric Vehicle Sales Leap 200% in 2021 — From mining to batteries to R&D, lithium-related companies boom as supply squeeze continues
- Foxconn to Boost Electric-Vehicle Ambitions With Wafer Plant Purchase — Foxconn will buy a semiconductor factory from Taiwanese memory chip supplier Macronix International for NT$2.52 billion ($91 million), upping its efforts to make auto chips as the iPhone-assembler expands further into the electric vehicle industry.
South China Morning Post
- China’s SMIC pushes ahead ‘as planned’ with new chip plants in Beijing, Shenzhen amid US trade restrictions — SMIC’s new chip fabrication plant in Shenzhen is expected to start commercial operations next year, while the Beijing facility will go online in 2024.
- Beijing’s education crackdown hits Duolingo, Memrise as language-learning apps are pulled from Chinese app stores — Overseas-based language-learning apps such as Duolingo and Memrise get pulled from some Chinese Android app stores amid the country’s edtech crackdown.
- Another ‘Made in China, sold on Amazon’ merchant loses 54 stores, with US$6 million frozen by the e-commerce giant — The parent company of Shenzhen-based Tomtop Technology said many of its Amazon shops have been down since July, possibly because of ‘inappropriate reviews.’ Amazon has removed several Chinese merchants this year over incentivised reviews, an unprecedented move that has bruised Chinese cross-border e-commerce.
- China’s education crackdown ‘only scratched the surface’ of what’s to come, former ministry spokesman says — Although Chinese regulators say they are determined to rein in the nation’s education sector, it remains to be seen how extensively local governments will implement new restrictive policies.
Bloomberg
- Hong Kong Recovery Imperiled by Elderly Saying No to Vaccine — Unlike the U.S. where anti-vaccine fringe groups have fueled resistance to Covid shots, Hong Kong is facing a different challenge. Most of the city’s elderly are reluctant to get inoculated, and some point to an unlikely source for the hesitancy: their doctors.
- Didi Said to Weigh Giving Up Data Control to Appease Beijing — Didi Global Inc. is weighing giving up control of its most valuable data as part of efforts to resolve a Chinese regulatory probe into the aftermath of its controversial U.S. initial public offering, people familiar with the matter said.
- China Telecom Seeks $7.3 Billion in World’s Top 2021 Listing — China Telecom Corp., one of the three mainland telecom carriers booted off the New York stock exchange, is planning to raise 47.1 billion yuan ($7.3 billion) from a listing in Shanghai that is set to be the world’s biggest so far this year.
- Alibaba Said to Warn of Higher Taxes as Crackdown Widens — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has warned investors that years-long government tax breaks for the internet industry will start to dwindle, adding billions of dollars in costs for China’s largest corporations as Beijing extends its campaign to rein in the sector.
Reuters
- Exclusive – Didi in talks with Westone to hand over data control after IPO dustup – sources — Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Global Inc is in talks with state-owned information security firm Westone to handle its data management and monitoring activities, sources said, as part of its efforts to placate domestic regulators.
- Chinese retailer Shein lacks disclosures, made false statements about factories — Shein, the fast-growing Chinese online retailer, has not made public disclosures about working conditions along its supply chain that are required by law in the United Kingdom, and the company until recently falsely stated on its website that conditions in the factories it uses were certified by international labor standards bodies, Reuters has found.
- Weibo pulls celeb ranking list after state media raps ‘unworthy’ stars — China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo said on Friday it would take down an online list that ranks celebrities by popularity after state media said social media platforms ought to rein in the promotion of celebrity culture to protect children.
- Chinese media’s social mania maddens markets — It’s possible to read too much into Chinese state media jeremiads. Recent articles warning of social ills caused by high liquor prices, video-game addiction and e-cigarettes, to name a few, have wiped billions off index heavyweights like Tencent. Yet government columnists are unreliable policy prophets.
Other Publications
- The Economist: China’s efforts to lift Xinjiang’s economy may smother it — Prison camps and forced labour are unlikely to produce economic dynamism.
- Associated Press: China appoints new military commander in restive Xinjiang — Lt. Gen. Wang Haijiang will oversee a massive military presence in the sprawling northwestern region that borders on several unstable Central Asian states, along with Pakistan and Afghanistan, from which U.S. troops are withdrawing.
- Nikkei Asia: China Telecom raises $8.4bn in Shanghai months after US delisting — Offering highlights Beijing’s resolve to minimize fallout from Washington crackdown.
- Foreign Affairs: Why the Quad Alarms China — Its Success Poses a Major Threat to Beijing’s Ambitions.