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 Unveils New Rules Targeting Anticompetitive Practices by Internet Companies — Part of a recent wave of regulatory action, the draft guidelines detail prohibited behaviors such as blocking rival products and discriminatory pricing.
- China Set to Pass One of the World’s Strictest Data-Privacy Laws — New curbs come as citizens grow increasingly concerned about tech giants’ nosiness.
- Taliban Conquest of Afghanistan Scrambles the Diplomatic Map — U.S. efforts to isolate the Taliban could be undercut by new regime’s outreach to Russia, China and neighbors.
- China Evergrande Boss Steps Down as Chairman of Its Flagship Property Business — Hui Ka Yan gives up job months after the unit dropped plans for a multibillion-dollar listing on the mainland.
- Nike and Adidas Should Be Watching Their Backs in China — Chinese sportswear is emerging as a new champion for investors.
- China’s Slowdown: Looking Through Delta and the Flood — July data confirmed a sharp slowdown in China’s economy. How much of it is due to flooding in Henan and the recent Delta variant outbreak?
- Investors Sour on Chinese Insurance Giant’s Shares — Ping An’s Hong Kong-listed shares, which are part of the MSCI China index, have been on a downward slide lately.
The Financial Times
- China to tighten competition rules for internet groups — Shares of country’s big tech companies slide as crackdown on sector intensifies.
- BlackRock calls for investors to lift allocations to China’s markets — Asset manager’s research division says second-largest market is no longer an emerging nation.
- Chinese tech entrepreneurs grow wary of foreign funding — Preference rises for raising money in renminbi rather than dollars.
The New York Times
- Xu Jiayin, chairman of Chinese developer Evergrande, resigns — News of Xu Jiayin’s departure sent Evergrande’s shares tumbling and was another sign of Beijing’s efforts to rein in corporate debt.
Caixin
- HSBC Boosts Asia Expansion With Deal to Buy AXA Singapore — The $575 million purchase will create the city state’s seventh-largest life insurer and fourth-largest retail health insurer.
- Housing Price Growth Slows Across China as Curbs Kick In — July gains in new and existing home values are smaller than in June, after authorities issue hundreds of policy steps to cool the market.
- Chinese Airports Toughen Up Quarantine Rules for International Flight Staff — The new rules were imposed after clusters in several regions were linked to lax oversight at Nanjing airport.
South China Morning Post
- Didi’s business slows from break-neck pace as on-site probes by China’s cybersecurity regulators gum up operations — The Chinese government’s unprecedented probes into Didi-Chuxing, also involving public security investigators, have gummed up business operations at the platform that dominated 90 per cent of the country’s ride-hailing industry, according to several employees.
- Beijing city says it will help people who lost jobs as result of China’s crackdown on private tutors to find work — Tens of thousands of jobs are “available” in Beijing for staff leaving the private tutoring industry after an unprecedentedly strict crackdown, the city authorities said on Tuesday.
- Decoding the deliberate ambiguity of China’s expanding core interests — For years, safeguarding China’s expanding national interests – especially its core concerns – has been something of a catchphrase for Chinese leaders and diplomats. But Beijing’s decade-old definition of what constitutes its core interests and how they should be ranked hierarchically are studiously vague and seldom updated.
Bloomberg
- Delayed Wuhan Report Adds Crucial Detail to Covid Origin Puzzle — A study documenting the trade in live wild animals at Wuhan wet markets stayed unpublished for more than a year.
- Taiwan Dismisses Questions About U.S. Resolve After Afghan Exit — Taiwan’s premier defended the island’s ability to withstand a Chinese attack after the U.S.’s exit from Afghanistan raised questions about American commitment to security issues in Asia.
- AI Firm SenseTime Said to Tap HSBC For $2 Billion Hong Kong IPO — SenseTime Group Ltd., China’s largest artificial intelligence company, is working with HSBC Holdings Plc to arrange its planned Hong Kong initial public offering that could raise at least $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
Reuters
- Shanghai cracks down on ‘black mouth’ online stock manipulators — Internet and securities watchdogs in China’s financial hub Shanghai have waged a campaign against “black mouths”, commentators who try to manipulate stock prices with online posts, the cyberspace regulator said in Tuesday.
- China’s top legislature to discuss adding anti-sanctions law to Hong Kong on Friday – media — China’s top legislature will discuss on Friday the possible extension to Hong Kong of an anti-sanctions law, local media TVB News quoted National People’s Congress Standing Committee delegate Tam Yiu-chung as saying.
- China’s foreign minister slams ‘hurried’ U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday that the hasty pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan had a “serious negative impact,” but pledged to work with Washington to promote stability in the country.
Other Publications
- The Washington Post: China faces threat in volatile borderlands after Afghanistan falls to the Taliban — Some hard-liners in the vast region abutting Central Asia have expressed the wish for an independent homeland, a stance strictly forbidden by Beijing, and the region has experienced sporadic terrorist attacks.
- Quartz: Shenzhen is paying online businesses to sell somewhere besides Amazon — Shenzhen, China’s tech hub, is offering cross-border e-commerce companies 2 million yuan ($309,000) to set up their own online stores independent of Amazon.
