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
- Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Site Stand News Closes After Arrests, Raid — National security police detained seven people linked to the popular news site, dealing another blow to press freedom in the city.
- Hong Kong Stocks on Track for Worst Year in a Decade — Pummeled by China’s regulatory crackdowns, the Hang Seng Index is among the world’s worst-performing major markets in 2021.
- Chinese AI Giant SenseTime’s IPO Comes at a Bad Time — SenseTime has developed strong AI technology. Next, it needs to figure out how to make money from it.
- China Lodges Complaint After Alleged Near Collision With Elon Musk’s SpaceX Satellites — Beijing said the incidents occurred in July and October, and forced astronauts to take action to avoid collision.
The Financial Times
- Hong Kong pro-democracy news site Stand News closes hours after police raid office — Arrests of senior journalists at Stand News and activists extend ‘chilling effect’ on city’s media.
- China’s Luxshare builds iPhone megaplant to challenge Foxconn — Chinese assembler makes aggressive bid to expand in Apple supply chain.
- US shows China its hand on strategic value of ‘unsinkable’ Taiwan — Washington’s clear statement of island’s regional security role part of tougher stance towards Beijing.
The New York Times
- Hong Kong Police Raid Office of Pro-Democracy News Site, Arrest 7 — Those arrested, including current and former senior staff members of Stand News, were accused of conspiring to publish seditious material. The news site announced it would shut down immediately.
Caixin
- Caixin Explains: China’s New Rules for Mobile Payments — Regulations set to take effect March 1 aim to get small businesses to stop taking customer payments through barcodes generated by personal accounts on platforms like Alipay and WeChat Pay.
- China Huarong Sells Consumer Finance Stake to Bank of Ningbo — Divestiture of 70% of Huarong Consumer Finance for $172.6 million is part of asset management giant’s restructuring after it reached the verge of collapse.
- Xi’an Authorities Struggle to Figure Out How Covid Swept Through City — Media report suggests air conditioning system at city’s airport was the culprit that allowed the virus to spread from sealed off areas, leading to the lockdown of almost 13 million residents.
South China Morning Post
- Hong Kong back on track after ‘wasted’ years, China’s Communist Party owns ‘intellectual property’ of city’s democracy as its drafter and defender: think tank leader — Recent Beijing white paper on the subject ‘full of emotions and selfless love’, director of Tsinghua University’s Centre for Hong Kong and Macau Studies says on Monday.
- Hong Kong’s Stand News shuts down after national security police arrest 7, freeze HK$61 million in assets — Current and former chief editors arrested on Wednesday as more than 200 police take part in morning raids; ex-Apple Daily editor already in custody among the seven.
- New Chinese Covid-19 vaccine targeting multiple variants is approved in UAE — A new Covid-19 vaccine from Chinese firm Sinopharm that it says protects against multiple variants has been approved for emergency use in the United Arab Emirates.
Bloomberg
- Hong Kong’s Last Major Pro-Democracy Outlet Shuts After Arrests — Hong Kong’s biggest remaining pro-democracy news outlet closed after becoming the target of a national security investigation, capping a year of historic strokes by Beijing to silence dissent in the Asian financial center.
- China Solar Industry Pushes Back Against U.S. Xinjiang Scrutiny — China’s solar industry pushed back against increasing U.S. scrutiny of human rights issues in Xinjiang, calling it slander designed to help American companies compete in the fast-growing sector.
- Chinese Professor Defies Odds on Way to $3.4 Billion Fortune — Just weeks after the U.S. placed a unit of SenseTime Group Inc. on a blacklist for alleged human rights violations, the firm is about to make founder Tang Xiao’ou one of the world’s richest people.
- Mercedes Swept Up in China Internet Furor Over Model’s Eyes — Mercedes-Benz removed a video advertisement from a Chinese social media website, state media said, after the clip got swept up in a charged national debate over depictions of Asian-looking features by foreign companies.
Reuters
- Hong Kong pro-democracy Stand News shuts down after police raid, arrests — Hong Kong pro-democracy media outlet Stand News shut down on Wednesday after police raided its office, froze its assets and arrested senior staff on suspected “seditious publication” offences, in the latest crackdown on the city’s media.
- Analysis – New Xinjiang chief expected to maintain policies, boost economic focus — China’s change of leadership in Xinjiang could indicate greater emphasis on economic development in the region, experts said, although its security crackdown targeting minority Muslims is unlikely to see a significant change in direction.
- China’s Didi plans Hong Kong ‘listing by introduction’, picks banks – sources — China’s ride-hailing giant Didi Global plans to use a mechanism that will allow it to list shares in Hong Kong without raising capital or issuing new stock as it seeks to delist from New York, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
Other Publications
- Associated Press: How democracy was dismantled in Hong Kong in 2021 — For Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, 2021 has been a year in which the city’s authorities and the central government in Beijing stamped out nearly everything it had stood for.
- Nikkei Asia: Analysis: When China’s leading paper ignores Xi, all bets are off — Commentary piece extols Deng Xiaoping and successors but not Mao Zedong.
- Protocol: A Chinese city is creating a government-sponsored ‘Tinder’ — Forget Tinder, Grindr or Hinge: A local municipal government in northern China’s Hebei province is building a database of single people in the city of Luanzhou to help them match with their perfect date.
- Stand News: “Farewell” 2021 series: “2021, Tree Hollow” Video in Chinese
