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 Regulators Nudge Didi Toward Hong Kong Listing — The ride-hailing giant and two other New York-listed tech companies are said to be advised to sell shares in Hong Kong as cybersecurity probe nears finish.
- China Evergrande Calls Off Plans to Sell Key Unit for $2.6 Billion — Developer also says home sales fell steeply since the start of September.
- Evergrande Is Struggling to Sell Homes—and Its Assets — Evergrande’s difficulty in unloading even some of its best assets shows how long and painful a restructuring process could ultimately be.
- Chinese Developer Defaults Pile Up as Evergrande Contagion Spreads — The problem could worsen as a wave of debt from the beleaguered industry comes due in the coming months.
- Chinese Cities Move to Support Housing Market as Prices Drop — In recent weeks, more than a dozen Chinese cities, from northeastern Harbin to southwestern Kunming, have introduced measures to prop up falling prices.
- New U.S. Rule Would Limit Sales of Hacking Tools to Russia and China — Export controls would aim to keep hacking tools out of the hands of malicious state actors and criminal gangs.
- Biden Ambassador Nominees to China, Japan Stress Need for Allies — Nicholas Burns and Rahm Emanuel emphasized the U.S. commitment to the Indo-Pacific region at a Senate hearing.
- Chinese Warplanes Lead Taiwanese to Think About What to Do in an Attack — Residents of the self-ruled island are used to living in the shadow of an authoritarian regime, but rising tensions with China are stoking uncertainty for some.
- NBA’s Enes Kanter Calls for a Free Tibet, Sparks Chinese Backlash — The sports league is in hot water in China again after the Boston Celtics center called China’s leader a brutal dictator.
The Financial Times
- Evergrande shares tumble after sale of services unit collapses — Chinese developer resumes trading after 2-week suspension as debt repayment deadline looms.
- Beijing targets top financial news outlet Caixin in media crackdown — China’s most reputable business publication cut from internet regulator’s list of approved sources.
- China conducted two hypersonic weapons tests this summer — Nuclear-capable ‘glide vehicle’ raises US fears that Beijing is developing new generation of arms.
The New York Times
- As Chinese Women Seek to Crack Male Professions, Schools Stand in the Way — In China, some academic programs accept only men or cap the number of female applicants, who often must test higher than their male counterparts.
- Celtics Games Are Pulled in China After Enes Kanter’s Pro-Tibet Posts — The Boston center called China’s leader, Xi Jinping, a “brutal dictator” on social media, igniting an online backlash in the country. The N.B.A.’s online partner stopped streaming the team’s games.
- Burns Calls for a Mix of Competition and Cooperation with China — “Beijing proclaims that the East is rising, and the West is in decline,” said R. Nicholas Burns, President Biden’s nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to China. “I’m confident in our own country.”
- Evergrande Calls Off $2.9 Billion Stake Sale — The developer, once China’s most prolific, has more than $300 billion in unpaid bills and is facing a crisis that has sent a wave of panic through global markets.
Caixin
- In Depth: Hong Kong’s Strategy to Break Cayman Islands’ Stranglehold on Offshore Funds — Legislation allowing private equity and venture capital funds to move their domicile from offshore tax havens goes into effect on Nov. 1, the final step in a long-standing plan.
- Vice Premier Liu He Declares China Property Market Risks Manageable — Liu seconds central bankers’ reassurance to investors and homeowners even as housing sales and values slide amid the Evergrande debt crisis.
- Shenzhen Gives Huawei Sweet Deal on Plot of Industrial Land — Tech giant paid well below the price set by the local government for the over-500,000-square-meter parcel.
South China Morning Post
- ByteDance IPO likely delayed to late 2022 and beyond amid regulatory uncertainties in China, sources say — ByteDance, owner of the popular short video app TikTok, may see its plan to go public postponed until late 2022, after regulatory hurdles in China are resolved, according to three people briefed on the matter.
- Beike Zhaofang, China’s biggest online property agency, axes staff as housing sector heads into a bleak winter — Ke Holdings, China’s biggest online property agency, also known as Beike Zhaofang, has started laying off staff across the country as the housing sector slides into the doldrums.
- China’s Indonesian coal imports hit record amid power crisis, Southeast Asian nation now biggest supplier — Indonesia is now overwhelmingly China’s biggest overseas supplier of coal, with shipments hitting a record last month after Beijing loosened curbs on imports to tackle its power crisis.
Bloomberg
- Huarong Wins Approval to Sell Bonds, Assets to Replenish Capital — China Huarong Asset Management Co.’s shareholders approved a plan to sell assets and raise capital at its long-delayed annual general meeting, two months after the financial giant unveiled a state-led rescue package that ended speculation over its fate.
- Top ByteDance Investor Said to Weigh $500 Million Stake Sale — Susquehanna International Group, one of ByteDance Ltd.’s earliest and largest backers, is looking to sell about $500 million of its shares in the TikTok owner, seeking to diversify its portfolio during China’s tech crackdown and profit from the startup’s growth.
- Carlyle, KKR Among Firms Said to Mull $2 Billion Tricor Bid — Carlyle Group Inc., Baring Private Equity Asia and Affinity Equity Partners are among the buyout firms considering bids for Hong Kong-based business and investor services provider Tricor Group, according to people familiar with the matter.
- China Meets Only Half of U.S. Trade Deal Target as Talks Restart — China’s goods imports from the U.S. have only reached about 53% of the $200 billion worth of additional products and services it promised to buy under the trade deal signed last year, far behind its purchasing target.
Reuters
- Analysis: What lies beneath? Hidden debt fears feed China’s property woes — The figures on the books sometimes don’t tell the full story.
- Analysis: China’s silence on yuan’s swift gains keeps markets buzzing — As China’s yuan climbs rapidly to its strongest levels in six years against the currencies of the country’s trading partners, a notable absence of concern and intervention by the authorities is unnerving investors.
- Alibaba founder Ma spotted in Mallorca in rare trip abroad after China scrutiny — Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma was on the Spanish island of Mallorca where his luxury yacht is anchored, two Spanish newspapers said on Wednesday, on his first trip abroad since he fell out with China’s regulators in 2020.
Other Publications
- The Economist: Huawei should dissolve, disperse and seed China’s high-tech future — It is too prominent to be able to reinvent itself.
- The Economist: Time for orderly resolution for Evergrande is running out — If the state has a grand plan, it will need to make it known soon.
- The Economist: Zhongwang, a Chinese aluminium giant, resists American pressure — But buckle under domestic power cuts.
- Associated Press: China boots Caixin financial news from approved media list — China’s leading financial magazine has been dropped from an official list of outlets websites can republish, reducing the exposure of a rare independent voice as the authorities tightens control over the media.
- Quartz: China is both unleashing and restricting market forces to secure its energy supplies — The Chinese government has been digging deep into its arsenal of policy tools to tame the country’s energy crunch and secure supplies: deregulating the price of power, intervening directly on coal prices, and ordering coal mines to produce as much as possible. Will it be enough?
