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 Centurium Capital Gains Control of Luckin Coffee — Investment group acquired shares that had been owned by former chairman Charles Lu and former CEO Jenny Qian.
- Scandal-Tarred Luckin Coffee Plots a Comeback — David Li, chairman of Chinese coffee chain’s new controlling shareholder Centurium Capital, says company’s 2020 fraud ‘was an enormous betrayal.’
- IMF Says China’s Economic Imbalances Have Worsened — Chinese growth in 2022 now forecast at 4.8%, down from prior outlook of 5.7%.
- China’s Property Crisis Has Investors in Green Bonds Seeing Red — Chinese real-estate firms sold close to $10 billion of green bonds in 2021.
- Apple Takes Smartphone Lead in China, Helping Drive Record Profit — Advance of iPhone in the foreign market comes after U.S. sanctions of homegrown Huawei.
- AMD’s Planned Purchase of Xilinx Clears Last Big Regulatory Hurdle — China’s market regulator conditionally approves the $35 billion deal, which would put AMD on a more even keel with rival Intel.
The Financial Times
- Oaktree takes control of sprawling Evergrande building project near Shanghai — Loan default gives US distressed debt specialist ownership of one of the developer’s most-prized assets.
- Oaktree risks showdown with Beijing over Evergrande debt — Los Angeles-based asset manager has a secured loan to one of ailing Chinese developer’s star projects.
- Great Wall Motor ploughs $1.9bn into Brazil as global expansion picks up — Latin America is crucial to Chinese carmakers’ efforts to diversify markets and access resources.
- China backs Russia’s ‘security concerns’ in crisis with west over Ukraine — Beijing’s foreign minister says easing of tension requires end of ‘cold war mentality.’
- A very different Beijing Olympics — Bubble in which Games are held is a partial metaphor for today’s China.
- What did you do in the great pandemic? Bought handbags — The irresistible rise of LVMH shows this crisis is different.
The New York Times
- For Olympic Sponsors, ‘China Is an Exception’ — Pressure is mounting on companies to condemn the country’s human rights violations, but executives say the Games should not be politicized.
- Covid Case in Beijing Olympic Bubble Is Linked to a German Team — A supervisor who tested positive is asymptomatic and is now in a quarantine hotel, the German Olympic Sports Confederation said.
Caixin
- In Depth: Why Electric Vehicles Have Trouble Retaining Their Value in China — Generous subsidies helped create the depreciation problem, and their coming end has made the problem that much worse for EV-makers.
- Guandian Defense Cleared for Move to STAR Market — Provider of drone services to police, military and oil industry will become first company traded on Beijing Stock Exchange to make the transfer.
- Sinopec Expects 2021 Net Profit More Than Doubled to Up to $11.5 Billion — As China’s economy improved, the state-owned oil giant profited from rising crude prices and growing demand for oil products.
South China Morning Post
- ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming relinquishes another corporate role to firm’s China chairman as reorganisation at tech unicorn continues — ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, China’s richest billionaire under 40, has relinquished another corporate role to Zhang Lidong, the low-profile chairman of the company’s mainland business, nearly a month after stepping down as chief executive of the world’s most valuable unicorn.
- China’s middle class is developing a taste for high-end meat, sending imports surging — China’s appetite for high-end foreign food is growing with imports of expensive pork cuts and other meats from Europe increasing last year and more multinational food companies investing in the world’s largest consumer market.
- Air New Zealand cargo flight makes emergency landing in Hong Kong but crew members stuck on board due to local Covid-19 policy — An Air New Zealand cargo plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Hong Kong after its windscreen cracked mid-flight, but the crew members were refused permission to disembark due to Covid-19 rules, the head of the airline’s pilot union said on Friday.
Bloomberg
- Wall Street’s Big Bet on Chinese Markets Is Going All Wrong — The bar for China’s financial markets to do better this year was so low, virtually everyone on Wall Street was saying the country’s stocks and bonds could only go up.
- China Unicom Joins Firms Ejected From U.S. Over Security Issues — The U.S. Federal Communications Commission ejected China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd. from the U.S. market, adding to the tally of Chinese telecommunications companies sanctioned by the agency over security concerns.
- Biden Administration Faces Growing GOP Opposition on China Bill — Biden administration officials are attempting to stem growing Republican opposition to high-priority legislation aimed at bolstering U.S. competitiveness with China and aiding domestic semiconductor production.
- Preserving Hong Kong Media and Arts Culture From Abroad — Media, arts and academia are under pressure in Hong Kong. Global universities are stepping in to help preserve the city’s heritage.
Reuters
- Exclusive: China securities regulator met foreign banks to soothe economic concerns — The China Securities and Regulatory Commission (CSRC) met this week with executives at top western banks and asset managers to reassure them about the country’s economic prospects after regulatory crackdowns in 2021, three sources said on Friday.
- China’s Walvax says has most participants for large mRNA COVID vaccine trial — China’s Walvax Biotechnology has recruited most of the 28,000 participants needed for a large clinical trial of its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine candidate, a senior company official said on Thursday.
- Exclusive: White House mulls extension of Trump-era solar tariffs, with tweaks — The White House is considering extending Trump-era tariffs on solar power imports, but with a handful of tweaks to make it easier for domestic installers to access supplies, according to two sources familiar with the administration’s thinking.
- China halts scores of IPO plans amid probe into underwriter, law firm — Chinese bourses have halted processing at least 60 initial public offering applications as regulators investigate intermediaries in the deals, including Deutsche Bank AG’s Chinese securities venture.
Other Publications
- The Economist: What China thinks of possible war in Ukraine — Shared hostility to America makes China close to Russia, but cautious.
- NPR: China’s ambassador to the U.S. warns of ‘military conflict’ over Taiwan — In his first one-on-one interview since assuming his post in Washington, D.C., last July, Qin Gang accused Taiwan of “walking down the road toward independence.”
- The Washington Post: Democrats look for bipartisan deal on China economic bill as rest of agenda founders — Democrats are turning their focus to legislation aimed at making the United States more economically competitive with China in hopes of scoring a bipartisan accomplishment as other aspects of the party’s agenda founder.
- Politico: Judge limits testimony at trial of professor accused of hiding Chinese ties — Allowing talk of China’s quest for U.S. technology could feed “Sinophobia,” the court rules.
- Foreign Policy: Chinese Corporate Transparency Is Far Better Than America’s — For now, it’s easier to get info about firms in Xinjiang than Delaware.
