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
- Chinese Tech Giant JD.com Founder Richard Liu to Step Back From Daily Business — E-commerce company names its first president facing tougher competition, Beijing’s regulatory crackdown.
- China’s Industrial Planning Evolves, Stirring U.S. Concerns — Beijing is catching up through technology investments in research with industrial applications, echoing American strategy.
- Chinese Ride-Hailing Giant Didi Could Get State Investment — Deal could give Chinese authorities more leverage at company.
- China’s Exports Strengthen, Despite Covid-19 Disruptions — August data show shipments of appliances, furniture and clothing grew, helping offset waning demand for pandemic-related goods.
- Chinese Firms Adopt More Rigorous Sexual-Harassment Policies After Alibaba Scandal — Tech companies, including Trip.com and iQiyi, move to confront their codes of conduct on issue.
- Directors of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily Publisher Quit, Citing National-Security Crackdown — The resigning directors of Next Digital, which recently closed the pro-democracy newspaper founded by jailed tycoon Jimmy Lai, said officials forced the company out of business.
- Opinion: BlackRock’s China Blunder — Pouring billions into the country now is a bad investment and imperils U.S. national security.
The Financial Times
- Evergrande’s troubles shake China’s property bond market — Trading suspended for second time since Friday as Moody’s downgrades indebted developer again.
- Missing Chinese entrepreneur briefly surfaces on eve of book’s publication — Duan Weihong called her ex-husband and warned him to cancel the release of his book ‘Red Roulette.’
- Evergrande: risks being made an example in property sector crackdown — The Chinese local housing developer’s troubles have come at the worst possible time.
- Chinese government funds invest in ride-hailing rival to Didi — Cao Cao Mobility raises $588m as it tries to take advantage of crackdown on larger competitor.
- China’s Sinopharm seeks to develop its own mRNA Covid vaccine — Biotech’s jab could give the technology a boost amid concerns over efficacy of conventional shots.
- The Chinese control revolution: the Maoist echoes of Xi’s power play — The Chinese leader is extending the party’s dominance over civil society. The flurry of activity has many of the hallmarks of a new political era.
- UK private schools face curbs on China links in Beijing’s education crackdown — Government is tightening foreign influence and seeking to halve number of children educated privately.
The New York Times
- China’s Xi Pressures Tycoons With ‘Common Prosperity’ Talk — As the country’s leader prepares for a likely third term, he is promising “common prosperity” to lift farmers and working families into the middle class.
- Alibaba Manager Not Charged in China’s Latest #MeToo Moment — Prosecutors declined to charge the man, who a co-worker said had assaulted her, an allegation that highlighted sexism in the Chinese tech scene.
- In Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai’s Next Digital Says It Has Been Forced to Close — Next Digital, which has published criticism of China for decades, said a crackdown had left it with no way to operate. Its main newspaper, Apple Daily, closed in June.
Caixin
- China May Expand Stock Connect Programs to Hong Kong and London — CSRC Chairman Yi Huiman lays out further steps for opening China’s capital markets to foreign investors and for collaborating with foreign regulators.
- Charts of the Day: Beijing Stock Exchange Registers Names of Board Members — Financial veteran Xu Ming named as chairman, just days after President Xi Jinping announced the new exchange.
- Cover Story: Rescuing China’s Would-Be Chipmaking Champion — Debt-laden Tsinghua Unigroup gets on the fast track for bankruptcy reorganization with $46 billion of assets and China’s most ambitious semiconductor project at stake.
South China Morning Post
- George Soros ups the ante in war of words with BlackRock over China, exposing contrast of bets on world’s second-biggest market — One of America’s earliest investors in China fired an opening salvo in a potential war of words with the biggest global asset manager this week, as two of Wall Street’s best-known investors spar over the investment potential of the world’s second-largest economy.
- China’s most popular app is developed by police and promoted by cyberspace security officer with huge social media followers — An “anti-fraud” app developed by China’s public security ministry, which is able to filter spam calls and warn users of incoming phone calls from abroad, is now the most popular mobile app in the country, thanks to a state-sponsored promotion campaign.
- Beijing’s push for closer mainland economic ties with Macau and Hong Kong: why is only one city being asked to extend ‘one country, two systems’? — Beijing’s two new master plans to forge closer mainland Chinese links with Hong Kong and Macau take very different approaches to furthering the “one country, two systems” model of governance, analysts and pro-China veterans have said.
Bloomberg
- Hong Kong Permanent Retirement Outflows Hit Seven-Year High — Outflows from Hong Kong’s mandated retirement plan from people leaving the city hit the highest in at least seven years in the three months through June amid China’s tightening grip on the city and strict quarantine measures.
- China Freezes Tutoring Firms’ Fees, Enrollment Pending Approvals — China has banned firms that teach school subjects from enrolling new students or collecting fees until they’re officially registered as non-profits by the end of 2021.
- Shanghai Suspends Key Approval on Route to Offshore Listings — Officials in China’s financial capital of Shanghai are closing a route used for decades by companies operating in the technology sector to draw foreign investment.
Reuters
- Xi muffles Chinese consumer boom — Policies targeting spending excesses are hammering listed companies from e-commerce giant Alibaba to liquor specialist Kweichow Moutai.
- German ambassador to China dies two weeks into the job — Germany’s ambassador to China, Jan Hecker, who was a former foreign policy adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel, has died suddenly, less than two weeks after taking up his post.
- BGI prenatal gene test under scrutiny for Chinese military links — Health regulators in five countries are examining a prenatal test that collects the DNA of women and fetuses for research, while some doctors that promoted it and clinics that sell it say they were unaware the company that produces it also conducts research with the Chinese military.
Other Publications
- NPR: ‘Red Roulette’ Reveals The Inside Of China’s Wealth-Making Machine — After disappearing for four years, on the eve of ‘Red Roulette’s release, Whitney Duan reappears.
- Associated Press: Group behind Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigil denies foreign ties — Police notified the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China last month that it was under investigation for working for foreign interests, an accusation the group denied.
- Nikkei Asia: Chinese companies seek to reopen path for New York IPOs — Close to $1bn worth of offerings in works despite declared ‘pause’ in US reviews.
- The Verge: Why The Global Chip Shortage Is Making It So Hard To Buy A PS5 — Harvard professor Willy Shih explains the existential problem affecting cars, phones, computers, and more.