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 Manufacturing Weakens, as Power Cuts Threaten More Damage — Contraction ends 18-month expansion that powered the country’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
- China’s Power Crisis Piles More Pressure on Inflation — Wide-scale power cuts in China are already pushing up costs for downstream industries and prices for end-users.
- U.S. and Chinese Regulators Are in a Bind Over a Three-Letter Acronym — Variable interest entities, or VIEs, that enabled many Chinese companies to raise money in the U.S. are facing increasing scrutiny.
- China’s Coal and Gas Woes Might Test Beijing’s Principles — Country could soon reach its economic pain threshold and embrace the dirty fuel again as winter looms.
The Financial Times
- China manufacturing activity contracts as power shortages bite — PMI figures indicate weakness across economy buffeted by property slowdown and pandemic.
- Hong Kong faces worst quarter for stock listings since pandemic — IPO freeze underscores city’s vulnerability to Beijing crackdown on tech sector.
- Goldman Sachs was poised to triumph in China. What happened? — Wall Street bank is close to taking control of its Chinese subsidiary but new challenges have emerged.
- Big investors plan to cut exposure to Chinese assets on regulatory worries — Pension funds and insurers among those becoming more cautious, Invesco says.
- Hong Kong’s ‘loyal critic’ faces tough test as Beijing targets media — Media mogul Yu Pun-hoi treads carefully between mollifying China and hanging on to readers.
The New York Times
- How Asia, Once a Vaccination Laggard, Is Revving Up Inoculations — Several countries are now on track to surpass the United States in fully vaccinating their populations, lifting hopes of a more permanent return to normality.
- China Will Create ‘Closed-Loop’ Bubble for Winter Olympics — Athletes and visitors will face severe restrictions on their movement, Beijing 2022 organizers said, and a level of control never before seen at the Games.
- How the Huawei Case Raised Fears of ‘Hostage Diplomacy’ by China — Critics of the Justice Department deal to free the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou say it could blunt tools like sanctions and prosecutions.
Caixin
- In Depth: Who Gets What in HNA’s Complex Bankruptcy Restructuring — Working group picks a little-known steelmaker to rescue the conglomerate’s flagship airline.
- China Proposes Three-Year Plan to Regulate Algorithms — Nine government agencies aim to set up a governance mechanism, build a monitoring system to detect security risks, and ensure the ‘fair and transparent’ use of algorithms.
- CATL Acquires Canadian Lithium Miner in $297 Million Deal — Chinese EV battery giant boosts access to high-grade lithium supplies through purchase of Canada’s Millennial Lithium Corp.; CATL outbids archrival Ganfeng Lithium.
South China Morning Post
- Evergrande appeases high-yield onshore investors with partial cash repayment as some local governments bar property-for-debt swap — China Evergrande Group has managed to appease some onshore investors by making a partial repayment on money owed to investors who bought its high-yielding investment products, after failing to redeem them amid a liquidity crunch.
- Chinese merchants sue Amazon to retrieve frozen funds amid crackdown on fake reviews — A group of Chinese merchants has filed a lawsuit against US e-commerce giant Amazon, demanding their withheld funds to be returned after the site accused them of bribing customers and shut down their accounts as part of a major crackdown against terms violations.
- Huawei hires former BBC executive as editor in chief in push to hire more foreign talent amid tensions with UK — Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co has appointed former head of BBC news programmes Gavin Allen as its “executive editor in chief”, marking the telecoms equipment maker’s latest high-profile international hire.
Bloomberg
- Tesla Loses China Fraud Case in Latest Setback in Key Market — A Chinese driver has successfully sued Tesla Inc. for fraud over his purchase of a second-hand Model S, adding to a run of setbacks for Elon Musk’s electric-car pioneer in one of its most important markets.
- EDF Says Sizewell Nuclear Plant Can Be Built Without China — EDF Energy, the U.K. unit of Electricite de France SA, says that financing for its 20 billion-pound ($26.9 billion) Sizewell C project is still possible even without financial support from state-run China General Nuclear Power Corp.
- Billionaires Get Help From China Move to Contain Evergrande — China’s purchase of a stake in a struggling regional bank from China Evergrande Group aimed at preventing contagion is also benefiting Shengjing Bank Co.’s investors, including some poker pals of Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan.
- China’s Conspicuously Rich Bureaucrats Have Their Own Crackdown Underway — For officials, to get rich is inglorious. The country’s corruption watchdog is out with severe force to find and punish violators.
Reuters
- U.S., Chinese military officials hold ‘frank, in-depth’ talks -Pentagon — U.S. and Chinese military officials held “frank, in-depth” talks this week on a range of defense issues, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, as the countries grapple over their competing interests in the Indo-Pacific region.
- Some users say WeChat blocks China Evergrande messaging groups — Some instant messaging groups used by people owed money by property giant China Evergrande Group to organize protests and discuss claims have been blocked on Tencent Holdings’ WeChat platform, group members said on Wednesday.
Other Publications
- The Los Angeles Times: A Journey Through China: Memories, Bones, and a Reinvented Past — Behind the censorship and propaganda, what was changing about the party’s hundred-year story? Which parts were being erased, which parts elevated or retold? What of the purges, power struggles and vanishings? There was no denying China’s astounding rise as a world power— but at what cost?
- Protocol: Decoding China’s latest World Internet Conference — Cybersecurity “Common Prosperity” and Internet control were high on the agenda. Partying, not so much.
- IPVM: PRC SenseTime Uses Loophole To Avoid US Sanctions — Thanks to a 2020 US update that singled out “Beijing SenseTime”, the firm says it can “continue to source” items as long as it doesn’t use its Beijing SenseTime subsidiary.
- The Economist: China’s new reality — The president will be defined by his campaign against his country’s capitalist excesses.
- The Economist: Just how Dickensian is China? — Inequality is better than it was. But it doesn’t feel that way.
