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
- Leaked Documents Detail Xi Jinping’s Extensive Role in Xinjiang Crackdown — Records of internal speeches released by U.K.-based panel show how China’s leader set the blueprint for vast campaign of forcible assimilation against Uyghurs, other groups.
- Americans Consider China Top National-Security Threat, Survey Finds — Results also show that trust in the military declined 25 percentage points from three years ago.
- Beijing Goes Full Nanny State on Internet Tech — A new set of rules on ride-sharing and online advertising shows just how intrusive Beijing is willing to be in its regulatory push.
The Financial Times
- Japan’s former PM warns China invading Taiwan would be an ‘emergency’ for Tokyo — Ex-leader Shinzo Abe hints invasion could meet the conditions for Tokyo to use military force.
- Economic woes, not China, are at the heart of Solomon Islands riots — Diplomatic switch from Taiwan to China is not the main reason behind the recent social unrest.
- China cuts finance pledge to Africa amid growing debt concerns — Beijing lowers commitment to $40bn in investment, credit lines, trade and special drawing rights over next three years.
- MI6 chief warns of security threat from China ‘miscalculation’ — Richard Moore also raises concerns about Beijing’s ‘harvesting’ of data via surveillance technologies.
- Kaisa bondholders reject company offer aimed at avoiding default — Indebted Chinese developer seeks to extend maturity of debt as payment looms next week.
The New York Times
- In China, Buying That Toy Gun Could Get You Arrested — San Cheng bought toy guns online as props for video game design. Then the police arrived, and he was jailed under China’s strict but messy gun laws.
Caixin
- Exclusive: Sanpower Wins Creditor Backing for Restructuring Plan — Huarong to inject $1.25 billion as debt-laden conglomerate sets out to sell assets and repay $10 billion over eight years.
- China’s Big Data Industry to Top $470 Billion by 2025 — MIIT’s five-year plan projects annual growth of 25% and calls big data a ‘factor of production’ and a ‘national strategic resource.’
- China’s mRNA Vaccine Developer Abogen Raises $3 Million — Fundraising led by Softbank and 5Y Capital will help accelerate clinical development of a Covid-19 inoculation.
South China Morning Post
- China extends battle lines to manage capital outflows as Beijing doubles down on ‘economic security’ — Police, prosecutors, as well as customs and financial regulators in China have joined forces to tackle all possible channels of capital outflow as Beijing scrambles to ensure the world’s second largest economy stays in the safe zone amid potential turbulence.
- Shanghai mayor pledges safe investment environment for Taiwan firms amid Beijing warnings over separatists — The annual Taipei-Shanghai Twin-City Forum kicked off with the Shanghai mayor offering assurances of a sound investment environment for Taiwanese investors amid recent warnings by Beijing authorities against businesses that backed separatist forces.
- China urges US business groups to ‘speak out’ as calls for boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics grow — China has urged American business groups to “speak up and speak out” for Beijing as the White House considers a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics and to impose additional tariffs on China.
- Hainan Airlines plans to raise US$7.9 billion via a stock sale to slash debt — Hainan Airlines Holding plans to sell new shares to raise around US$7.9 billion , the majority of which will be used to reduce financial obligations as the struggling carrier inches ahead with its restructuring plan.
Bloomberg
- Ex-Goldman Manager Raises Fund for China Property Debt — A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. special situations group head has raised an initial $245 million for a new fund that will invest in loans and bonds of China’s beleaguered property industry.
- China Plans to Ban Loophole Used by Tech Firms for Foreign IPOs — China is planning to ban companies from going public on foreign stock markets through variable interest entities, according to people familiar with the matter, closing a loophole long used by the country’s tech industry to raise capital from overseas investors, Bloomberg News reports.
- Hong Kong Pupils Taught to Love Motherland Under New Rules — Hong Kong students as young as six will be taught to love their motherland as the city overhauls its education system to create a generation of Chinese patriots.
- Biden’s Asia Czar Says Aukus Represents a Stand Against China — America’s Indo-Pacific security partnership with the U.K. and Australia is more of a stand against China’s actions than a technology sharing arrangement, Biden’s Asia czar Kurt Campbell said on Wednesday.
Reuters
- China protested Indonesian drilling, military exercises — China told Indonesia to stop drilling for oil and natural gas in maritime territory that both countries regard as their own during a months-long standoff in the South China Sea earlier this year, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
- Beijing wanted to ‘break’ Australia -U.S. Indo-Pacific adviser — China is conducting “dramatic economic warfare” against Australia and has tried to “break” the U.S. ally, contributing to increased anxiety about Beijing in the region, the White House’s Indo Pacific coordinator, Kurt Campbell, said in a speech to a Sydney think tank on Wednesday.
- Suncity closes its Macau VIP gaming rooms after CEO’s arrest – sources — Embattled gambling group Suncity Group Holdings has closed all of its VIP gaming rooms in Macau, the world’s largest gambling hub, after the company’s CEO was arrested, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters.
Other Publications
- Associated Press: China says 85% of citizens will use Mandarin by 2025 — The move appears to put threatened Chinese regional dialects such as Cantonese and Hokkien under even greater pressure, along with minority languages such as Tibetan, Mongolian and Uyghur.
- The Los Angeles Times: They helped Chinese women, workers, the forgotten and dying. Then they disappeared — Wang Jianbing visited dying construction workers. Sophia Huang Xueqin investigated China’s earliest #MeToo cases. Fang Ran wanted to empower factory workers in the south. This year, all three disappeared.