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 Hospital Wards Overflow as Omicron Defies Zero-Covid Policies — Officials take over apartments, hotels to isolate new cases as city faces its biggest outbreak yet.
- Xi Jinping Orders Hong Kong to Get a Grip on Spiraling Covid-19 Outbreak — Omicron surge swamps hospitals and testing centers, foreshadowing greater intervention from Beijing.
- U.S. Weighs China Factor in Drafting Plans to Punish Russia — Administration officials are looking at how far Beijing would go to help Moscow if Russia were to be hit with sanctions and export controls.
- China Inflation Eases as Economy Could Use a Boost — With no risks seen from rising prices, the door is open for policy easing to help growth.
- Video: China Rolls Out Digital Yuan for Foreigners at the Olympics — For the first time, international visitors can use the e-CNY.
Olympics Coverage
- China Invented Many Things. It Says Skiing Is One of Them. — Beijing is using the Olympics to further a claim skiing originated in China 10,000 years ago
The Financial Times
- Chinese state pumps money into metaverse stakes — Officials place bets on digital craze in bid to place country at heart of internet evolution.
- Xi intervention raises threat of ‘more draconian’ Hong Kong Covid measures — Chinese president says territory must make controlling Omicron outbreak its priority.
- China makes Olympian effort to cut pollution but remains short of WHO standards — Improved national monitoring system has helped Beijing to control air quality, experts say.
- China’s best performance at Winter Games helped by top foreign coaches — Host nation has hired overseas stars to train its athletes in bid to become an Olympics power.
- Norton Rose directs Hong Kong office to make China pivot — Strategy to hire more Chinese staff comes as Beijing exerts control over the city.
- China video site Bilibili to add 1,000 censors after worker dies — Content monitoring team to be increased 40% amid debate on overwork.
The New York Times
- Hong Kong Can’t Live With the Virus. It Can’t Stop It, Either. — An Omicron surge has exposed the weaknesses of a system that was once a world leader in containing the coronavirus.
- Biden Administration Says China Failed Trade Commitments on Multiple Fronts — In a new report, the administration detailed China’s violations of promises made both to the World Trade Organization and under a 2020 trade deal with the U.S.
Caixin
- In Depth: Provincial Plans Hint at Where China’s Economy Is Going in 2022 — Local growth targets and policy priorities may shed light on national plans to be announced in March.
- CATL Considers Building More Factories Outside China, Including U.S. — The EV battery powerhouse, which has been buffeted by a sell-off of its shares, says the move would localize supplies of its products.
- Rare Earth Prices Hit Record High in China — Index measuring price of nearly two dozen of the elements has doubled since this time last year.
South China Morning Post
- Xi Jinping urges China to arm itself with stronger laws and better lawyers for ‘international struggle’ — President Xi Jinping has urged China to speed up legislation related to foreign matters, with a priority on “urgent” areas including sanctions and interference.
- SMIC, Nongfu Spring and Feihe tipped to join Hang Seng Index after review as China’s clout grows in Hong Kong’s equity market — China’s biggest producers of semiconductor chips, bottled water and baby-milk formula are likely to join the Hang Seng Index in the next rebalancing exercise, strengthening the country’s linkages in the world’s fourth-biggest stock market.
- Hong Kong confirms 4,285 new cases, another 7,000 preliminary infections identified as 9 deaths mark new daily record — Even without Wednesday’s cases, the city’s surging fifth wave has already accounted for more confirmed infections than all previous waves combined.
Nikkei Asia
- Nixon in China, 50 years on — Xi-Putin friendship usurps half a century of U.S. diplomacy. By Richard McGregor
- Eyes everywhere: China’s surveillance equipment spreads worldwide — Chinese companies defy U.S. sanctions to as part of a drive to turn the country into a ‘semiconductor powerhouse.’
- Germany reaches for Japan to balance China-heavy Asia policy — But new left-leaning coalition has different worldviews from Japan’s LDP.
Bloomberg
- How Nationalism in China Has Dethroned Nike, Adidas — Data show sustained consumer pivot away from Western brands.
- Meihua Becomes China’s First U.S. IPO Since Didi Crackdown — Medical device maker Meihua International Medical Technologies Co. priced its initial public offering at the mid-point of a marketed range, the first China-based company to list in the U.S. since July after Didi Global Inc.’s IPO sparked a regulatory backlash.
- CGN Said to Weigh Sale of $2 Billion European Renewable Assets — China General Nuclear Power Corp. is considering selling its portfolio of renewable energy assets in Europe in a deal that could fetch more than $2 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said.
- China Scientists Discover Huge Lithium Deposit in Everest Region — An official science publication in China is trumpeting what its quoted geologists called a “breakthrough” discovery of lithium in the same region as Mount Everest.
Reuters
- China courts freeze $157 mln of Evergrande assets over missed construction payments — A Chinese court has ordered the freezing of 640.4 million yuan ($101 million) in assets held by a subsidiary of China Evergrande Group, according to a filing by contractor Shanghai Construction Group.
- Australian leader makes China focus of upcoming election, but risks backlash — Behind in the polls, and with an election due by May, Morrison has attacked the opposition Labor party as being “soft” on China, viewed by two-thirds of Australians as more of a security threat than an economic partner.
- Exclusive: Chinese fashion firm Shein on Singapore hiring spree as it shifts key assets there — China’s Shein is aggressively expanding its Singapore office after making a Singapore firm its de facto holding company, according to people with knowledge of the matter and a Reuters analysis of filings by the online fast-fashion retailer.
Other Publications
- The Atlantic: China Now Understands What a Nuclear Rivalry Looks Like — For its entire nuclear history, China has been content with a relatively modest arsenal. That’s now changing.
- Associated Press: This time, Tibet stands silent as Olympics return to China — Why have Tibetans seemingly acceded to Chinese rule after centuries of self-governance and decades of fervent protest and civil disobedience? The answer, based on interviews with more than a dozen Tibetans inside and outside of China, is that in many ways Beijing’s plan to tame Tibet is working.
- Foreign Policy: America Is Showering China With New Restrictions — A slew of new measures are fundamentally transforming economic relations.
- Quartz: What China means when it says it wants “high quality” GDP growth — What exactly does “high quality” growth mean, and why is China emphasizing it now?
- The Information: How Sequoia’s U.S. Investors Won Big From Segway Owner’s IPO—in Backwater China Market — There’s another option startups and their investors are now considering: going public in mainland China, once considered a backwater in the global market.
