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 Increasingly Obscures True State of Its Economy to Outsiders — New data restrictions have made it harder to get details on what’s happening inside the country.
- Chinese AI Leader SenseTime Launches Scaled-Back IPO Amid Tech-Stock Rout — Company plans to raise far less than an earlier $2 billion target, after unit’s inclusion on a U.S. blacklist weighs on investor demand.
- U.S. Plans Diplomatic Boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics — The decision, which drew criticism from China, will keep U.S. officials from attending the Games but allow American athletes to compete.
- Elon Musk Needs China. China Needs Him. The Relationship Is Complicated. — To attract Tesla, the government rewrote its rules for foreign auto businesses, but now, the company is entering bumpier terrain.
- China Evergrande Heads Toward Default as It Misses Payment Deadline — Property developer didn’t pay $82.5 million of interest payments originally due Nov. 6 on two sets of dollar bonds, say people familiar with the matter.
- Europe Tops China in Spawning $1 Billion Tech Startups — Entrepreneurial Europeans are creating more ‘unicorns’ as Beijing’s tech crackdown chills dealmaking.
- U.S. Strikes India Deal in Bid to Loosen China’s Grip on Solar Panels — Foreign-development agency aims to bolster alternatives to China’s solar-industry supply chain.
The Financial Times
- Beijing seeks to orchestrate slow motion collapse for Evergrande — Chinese officials face challenge untangling heavily indebted group while minimising damage to rest of property sector.
- How Uruguay’s trade talks with China threaten Mercosur — A pact between Montevideo and Beijing would have broader consequences for Latin America.
- US announces diplomatic boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics — Chinese government threatens to take unspecified countermeasures against Washington.
- Evergrande bondholders yet to be paid as crucial debt deadline passes — China’s central bank loosens policy as world’s most indebted developer faces imminent default.
- Doubts over efficacy of Chinese vaccines stoke anxiety at home and abroad — Despite dispensing 2.5bn doses, recent outbreaks raise uncertainty over Sinovac and Sinopharm jabs.
The New York Times
- China Evergrande Investors Relax Despite Default Deadline — The creation of a committee with government representation reassured investors fearful about what would happen if the huge property developer collapsed.
- How Many Countries Will Follow the U.S. Boycott of Beijing’s Olympics? — Several have signaled that they will find ways to protest China’s human rights abuses, whether they declare a diplomatic boycott or not.
- Ahead of Biden’s Democracy Summit, China Says: We’re Also a Democracy — Beijing argues that its system represents a distinctive form of democracy, one that has dealt better than the West with challenges like the pandemic.
- Microsoft Seizes 42 Websites From a Chinese Hacking Group — The group was likely using the websites to install malware that helped it gather data from government agencies and other groups, the company said.
- U.S. Will Not Send Government Officials to Beijing Olympics — American athletes will still be able to compete in the Winter Games, but the diplomatic boycott is a slap at China for human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
Caixin
- Securities Regulatory Veteran Picked to Head Shenzhen Bourse — Chen Huaping served many years at the CSRC, including as chief of the bureau battling market misconduct.
- Indebted Developer Kaisa Sells HK Office for Debt Repayment — Net proceeds of $24 million will reduce amount owed to purchaser Sandong Hi-Speed Financial.
- State Firms Join New Evergrande Risk Management Committee — Body’s key job will be to assess crisis-stricken developer’s financial situation and come up with asset disposal plan, analyst says.
South China Morning Post
- Amid winter Omicron unknowns, China to lean into ‘dynamic zero-Covid strategy’ — China will stick with its “dynamic” zero-tolerance Covid-19 policy over the winter and spring amid uncertainty over the effectiveness of vaccines against the new Omicron variant, according to a senior health official.
- Why China was ready with short guest list for Beijing Winter Olympics long before US diplomatic boycott — Long before Washington announced its diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics, Beijing had already been scaling back invitations in anticipation of low attendance by world leaders.
- Beijing leaves antitrust out of 2022 economic goals, focuses on technological development — China’s top policymaking body emphasised the country’s drive for technological self-sufficiency and innovation to address economic growth in 2022, shunning mentions of antitrust and the “disorderly expansion of capital” that 12 months ago signalled a tumultuous year of crackdowns on the technology sector.
- Exclusive: Tencent’s new game development studio in Singapore to boost city state’s role as gaming hub — Tencent Holdings, the world’s largest video gaming company by revenue, will open its next game development studio in Singapore, which has emerged as a regional hub for game development after investments from industry giants including Ubisoft and Riot Games, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
Bloomberg
- Alibaba Jumps Most Since H.K. Listing as China Tech Rebounds — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. soared by the most since its 2019 listing in Hong Kong, leading a rebound among Chinese tech stocks, as bargain hunters piled in following Beijing’s move to bolster the economy.
- Kaisa Creditors Offer Forbearance to Avoid Bond Default — The Chinese developer that became the nation’s first to default on dollar bonds back in 2015 may have caught a break to avoid doing so again, at least for now.
- Bill to Punish China Over Uyghur Oppression to Get House Vote — Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House will vote this week on legislation aiming to punish China for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims, a move sure to anger the government in Beijing and add to tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
Reuters
- China property debt crisis puts founders on spot — China’s property magnates face a choice between giving up control or risking insolvency as the industry’s liquidity crisis deepens. It’s a marked contrast to previous crunches, when founder-chairs mostly came up with ways to cling to their controlling stakes.
- U.S. wants private sector to operate with full information about China’s Xinjiang — The U.S. State Department on Monday said it wants the private sector to operate with full information about what is transpiring in Xinjiang, after the U.S. said it would not send government officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing amid criticism of China’s human rights record.
- Macau casinos to stop junkets at world’s biggest gambling hub – Bernstein — Macau’s gaming regulator has ordered junket operators in the world’s largest gambling hub to stop offering credit to customers, according to brokerage firm Bernstein.
Other Publications
- Nikkei Asia: Canada’s ambassador to China to leave after helping free detainees — Barton took part in negotiations on releasing 2 Canadians from Chinese custody.
- Quartz: What a US diplomatic boycott against the Beijing Olympics will entail — The diplomatic boycott should not significantly change how the US competes in the upcoming winter games, as athletes are still allowed to participate.
- Brookings: FOCAC 2021: China’s retrenchment from Africa? It is the qualitative changes that raise bigger questions as to whether China is leaving Africa after two decades of robust and ever-growing engagement. Some of the shifts could be temporary and tactical. However, the impact of the others could be far-reaching and long-term.
- ChinaFile: Hong Kong’s National Security Law Made Amnesty International’s Departure All But Inevitable — It would have been hard to imagine just 10 years ago that these festering human rights issues would eventually imperil the stability needed to maintain an office there.
