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 Tech-Investment Paradox — Some curious patterns emerge in a nation that prefers to be a manufacturing high-tech superpower.
- Prominent Harvard Professor Found Guilty of Lying About China Ties — Nanoscientist Charles Lieber convicted on six counts related to payments from China.
- Chinese Pressure Fuels an Unlikely Language Revival in Taiwan — Local tongues gain popularity as more people on the self-ruled island, where Mandarin predominates, disavow their connection with China.
The Financial Times
- China developers hit by record rating downgrades after Evergrande crisis — Weakness in property sector puts spotlight on country’s economy.
- China tech stocks stage muted rebound — Hong Kong-listed stocks rise after a sell-off prompted by regulatory action in Beijing and Washington.
- US stock exchanges seek new listings as Chinese companies retreat — NYSE and Nasdaq explore IPO pipelines in India and south-east Asia to replace lost business.
- Chinese investors pick luxury watches over houses — The wealthy are spending their extra cash on Rolexes as rare downturn grips property sector.
The New York Times
- How China’s CATL Became the Top Electric Car Battery Maker — Beijing gave CATL lavish subsidies, a captive market of buyers and soft regulatory treatment, helping it to control a crucial technology of the future.
- In a Boston Court, a Superstar of Science Falls to Earth — A jury found Harvard chemist Charles Lieber guilty of lying to the federal government about his participation in China’s Thousand Talents recruitment program.
Caixin
- In Depth: How Private Equity Tycoon Wang Chaoyong’s Dreams Collapsed — Financier with a glittering resume stumbled into a debt crisis amid tightening government oversight before his arrest on embezzlement charges.
- China’s Local Governments Roll Out Subsidies to Juice Sales in Struggling Property Sector — Northeastern province of Heilongjiang says it will “pull out all stops to restore the real estate industry” in a deleted post that signals grassroots desire for speedier action to fix the sector.
- Zijin Mining Takes 21.23% Stake in Jiayou International — Investment of $195 million will make Zijin the No. 2 shareholder of the cross-border logistics provider, expecting the deal to bolster overseas projects.
- China Three Gorges Plans to Pour $6.47 Billion Into Three New Wind Farms — Offshore generators near Yangjiang city will add 3 million kilowatts of electricity to new-energy unit’s wind-power capacity in 2024.
South China Morning Post
- China denies ‘despicable’ banknote forgery worth US$314 billion as alleged scam goes viral — China’s central bank on Wednesday denied a “despicable” rumour that a former senior official had forged 2 trillion yuan (US$314 billion) of banknotes after the allegation began trending on social media.
- China’s Xinhua jumps on NFT bandwagon with thousands of news photos to be issued as ‘digital collectibles’ — State-run Xinhua News Agency, the biggest media organisation in China, will soon issue the country’s first “news digital collectibles” backed by non-fungible tokens (NFTs), showing that domestic interest in virtual assets continues to grow in spite of earlier warnings about the risk of fraud and potential creation of a bubble that would harm consumers.
- US chip maker Intel triggers Chinese media backlash after telling suppliers to avoid Xinjiang labour — An open letter from Intel to its suppliers asking them not to use goods or labour from Xinjiang has created a public relations crisis for the US chip maker in China, reflecting the predicament facing American businesses amid escalating geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing.
- China tech crackdown: in 2021, technology giants came under intense scrutiny after sleeping watchdogs awakened — 2021 will go down as a tough year for Chinese technology firms as Beijing moved to exert control over the once-freewheeling sector. In the first of a four-part series, the South China Morning Post looks at how the sudden change in relationship between the government and Big Tech has shaped the companies, their entrepreneurs, and the regulators themselves.
Bloomberg
- China Tech Shares Pare Rally on Alibaba Cloud Report — Chinese technology shares listed in Hong Kong trimmed an earlier advance after local media reported that cooperation had been suspended between an Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. unit and a government agency.
- China Property Bets Roiled by Deleted Post on ‘All Out’ Support — For investors accustomed to carefully calibrated official messaging on the Chinese property market, the statement this week from authorities in Heilongjiang was remarkable: It called for “all out efforts” to promote the real estate industry’s growth — by far the strongest show of support for the embattled sector by a provincial-level government.
- Chinese Chip Mogul Says $9 Billion Rescue Turning Into ‘a Crime’ — Tsinghua Unigroup Co.’s chairman has vowed to “fight to the end” a secretive fund’s takeover proposal, amplifying an unusually public dispute over the troubled chipmaker’s $9 billion rescue plan.
Reuters
- Myanmar seeks closer China ties with Renminbi trade project — Myanmar will start accepting Renminbi as an official settlement currency next year for trade with China, it said on Wednesday, as it looks to restart several joint projects and forge closer economic ties with Beijing.
- Brace for a $600 billion Chinese escape from New York — The party’s over for Chinese companies in New York. They’re being squeezed by lawmakers in both Beijing and Washington over data protection, accounting oversight plus other crackdowns and political spats. New U.S. rules that would usher out lingerers won’t apply for two years, but waiting until the last minute only will make leaving harder.
Other Publications
- The New Yorker: China Cannot Silence Me — Speaking of the crimes committed against my family and other Uyghurs in Xinjiang has sparked a surprising reaction.
- Nikkei Asia: China’s Luxshare builds iPhone mega-plant to challenge Foxconn — Chinese assembler is making aggressive bid to expand in Apple supply chain.
- Forbes: Founding Family Of Footwear Giant Belle Takes A Big Step Into Hong Kong’s Startup Scene — Established in Hong Kong in 1991, Belle’s shoes grew in popularity on the back of demand from China’s surging middle class.
- The Diplomat: Tech Regulation in China Brings in Sweeping Changes — Relations between Beijing and China’s tech giants have been complex and in flux for many years. But recently the government has taken a much clearer approach.
