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
- The Evergrande Blueprint Worked for Other Chinese Developers, Until It Didn’t — After borrowing heavily to fund breakneck growth, they are suffering financial meltdowns as credit grows scarce and home sales decline.
- Macau Casino Stocks Slide After Arrest of Junket Boss Alvin Chau — Trading of shares in Suncity Group suspended after chairman questioned over allegations of illegal gambling operations.
- Macau Casino Stocks’ High-Rolling Days Are Over — The arrest of the city’s biggest junket operator signals a long recovery for revenue from VIP gamblers from mainland China.
- China’s State-Run Companies Limit Use of Tencent’s Messaging App — Employees were told to disband chat groups over security concerns, as Beijing’s scrutiny into Tencent grows.
- Chinese Tech Giants, Under Pressure From Regulation, Now Face Economic Drag — With consumption and digital advertising hit, some firms look for new drivers of growth.
- Disney’s Missing ‘Simpsons’ Episode in Hong Kong Raises Censorship Fears — Episode that references Tiananmen Square massacre is left out of recently launched Disney+ streaming lineup.
The Financial Times
- Disney omits Simpsons’ Tiananmen visit from Hong Kong offering — Streaming service drops episode satirising China’s censorship of 1989 massacre.
- Macau casino stocks tumble after arrest of junket executive — Detention of Suncity chair Alvin Chau for ‘damaging social order’ sends shares down sharply.
- China property bond fears remain as house prices fall — Evergrande’s missed payments have led to a reckoning across the country’s real estate industry.
- Nappy manufacturers shift focus in China from infants to elderly — Market for adults could exceed that for babies by 2025 as population ages, say analysts.
- Hong Kongers chafe under ‘inhumane’ quarantine regime — Carrie Lam says she will not risk the city’s safety but some foreigners have had enough.
- Beijing targets Taiwanese companies with operations in China — Corporate donors hit in bid to undermine support for pro-democracy government in Taipei.
- China says zero-Covid policy will protect it against Omicron variant — Beijing sees new strain vindicating its strategy as study warns against ‘disastrous’ western-style reopening.
The New York Times
- As U.S. Hunts for Chinese Spies, University Scientists Warn of Backlash — A chilling effect has taken hold on American campuses, contributing to an outflow of academic talent that may hurt the United States while benefiting Beijing.
- As China Speeds Up Nuclear Arms Race, the U.S. Wants to Talk — The Pentagon thinks Beijing may build 1,000 or more weapons by 2030. But it’s the new technologies that worry strategists.
- A ‘Simpsons’ Episode Lampooned Chinese Censorship. In Hong Kong, It Vanished. — The episode mocked both Mao Zedong and the government’s efforts to suppress memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
- Thomas Bach Is Criticized for His Handling of the Peng Shuai Case — The handling of the Peng Shuai case raised new questions about the I.O.C.’s relationship with China. One Olympic official called its actions ‘discreet.’ Critics called it collaboration.
Caixin
- China’s New Mobile Payment Rules Aim to Crack Down on Cross-Border Gambling, Central Bank Says — From March 2022 onwards, payment platforms such as Alipay and WeChat Pay will have to distinguish between ‘individual’ and ‘merchant’ barcodes for payment collection.
- Evergrande Founder Cuts Stake to Raise $344 Million — Billionaire Hui Ka Yan sells 1.2 billion Evergrande shares to help bail out the debt-laden property giant.
- Weibo Seeks $547 Million in Secondary Offering in Hong Kong — The Twitter-like service will offer 11 million shares before the listing scheduled for Dec. 8.
South China Morning Post
- China’s super app WeChat allows more direct links from competitors under pressure from Beijing — WeChat, the super app run by Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings, said on Monday it will allow more links and content from third-parties to open directly within user chats.
- How to buy and sell data? Shanghai starts new exchange for trading massive amounts of data like commodities — The Shanghai Data Exchange opened for business on Thursday, marking China’s latest attempt to build a vast market for data which can be sorted, priced and traded like regular commodities.
- ByteDance said to launch new wave of education job cuts, as employment prospects dim in China’s tech sector — Beijing-based ByteDance, which operates TikTok and its Chinese version Douyin, is expected to cut at least 1,000 jobs at its education unit, marking a sharp contrast to this time a year ago when the tech giant’s thirst for fresh talent seemed insatiable.
- Arrest warrants issued for fugitive ex-Hong Kong lawmaker Ted Hui, activist over social media calls to cast blank votes, boycott Legco election — Anti-graft agency says ex-lawmaker Ted Hui allegedly incited the public to cast blank ballots in the December 19 election and faces four charges.
Bloomberg
- Electric-Car Craze Drives China’s Companies to Go Extra Mile for Lithium — The chip shortage that’s gripped the car industry by the throat is a reminder to EV executives of what might happen if they run short of the silvery metal.
- Climate Actions in China Face Challenges From Rising Ultra-Nationalism — An increasingly vocal faction of society views some green measures as bending to demands from hostile Western powers.
- China Won’t Invite U.S. Politicians to Olympics, Report Says — China has no plan to ask any U.S. politicians to attend the Winter Olympics, according to the Communist Party-backed Global Times — a report that comes after President Joe Biden said he’s weighing a diplomatic boycott of the event.
- Didi’s Potential Delisting Is a Risk for All U.S.-Listed Chinese Companies — The potential U.S. delisting of China’s ride-hailing giant shows how Beijing’s interpretation of security casts a dark shadow on investors globally.
Reuters
- Chinese province targets journalists, foreign students with planned new surveillance system — Security officials in one of China’s largest provinces have commissioned a surveillance system they say they want to use to track journalists and international students among other “suspicious people”, documents reviewed by Reuters showed.
- China’s Xi pledges $10 billion credit line for African financial institutions — Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday said a China-Africa cross-border yuan centre would be set up to provide African financial institutions with a credit line of $10 billion.
- Macau arrests 11 people for alleged illegal gambling and money laundering — Macau police said on Sunday they had arrested 11 people in an investigation into an illegal gambling and money-laundering syndicate, a day after businessman Alvin Chau, who organises trips to Asian casinos for big spending gamblers, was questioned at a police station.
- Trial of 47 Hong Kong democracy activists charged with conspiracy to commit subversion adjourned till March — The 47, who include opposition politicians, are among more than 150 people arrested under a national security law that Beijing imposed on the former British colony last year that critics say erodes the freedoms promised when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Other Publications
- The Atlantic: Beijing Keeps Trying to Rewrite History — A monument to the Tiananmen Square massacre faces the threat of removal, part of a broader effort in Hong Kong to erase the public memory.
- Associated Press: Explainer: Is China to blame for Solomon Islands unrest? — The Solomon Islands’ decision to switch its diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing has been blamed for arson and looting in the national capital Honiara, where protesters are demanding the prime minister’s resignation.
- Politico: China blowback looms for Schumer’s Innovation and Competition Act — Beijing warns that U.S. tech and competitiveness legislation will “gravely damage America’s own interests.”
