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
- Tesla Among Biggest Losers as China’s Car Sales Fall on Covid Lockdowns — Pandemic policies hit production, deliveries and consumer appetite for vehicles.
- Ukraine War Drives Interest in China-Taiwan Risk Insurance — A niche insurance product that pays out when things fall apart is garnering more attention.
- Shanghai’s Covid Lockdown Gets Tougher: ‘If One Person Tests Positive, the Whole Building Isolates’ — Residents say authorities in Shanghai, now in its sixth week under strict lockdown, have begun forcing more people into centralized quarantine facilities.
Caixin
- China Ramps Up Support for Small Businesses Hit by Covid — Local governments to provide loan discounts and subsidies for rent, utility bills and epidemic prevention costs as well as electricity and broadband discounts.
- China’s Capital Wants a Bigger Share of NEVs on Its Roads — Beijing plans for the local purchase quota for new-energy vehicles to account for a greater share of the city’s total by 2025.
- Nasdaq-Delisted Luckin Coffee Denies It’s Planning Hong Kong IPO — Scandal-dogged Chinese Starbucks challenger says it remains ‘committed to U.S. capital markets.’
South China Morning Post
- Xi Jinping tells youth league to ‘dare to struggle’ and unify around the Communist Party — President urges officials to step up education and guidance for young Chinese, saying they ‘could be confused between ideals and reality’.
- A tale of two airports: only a trickle of travellers into Hong Kong while crowds return to no-quarantine Singapore — Compulsory hotel quarantine the main disincentive, sudden airline route bans ‘a nightmare’.
Nikkei Asia
- Ukraine war turns China into net exporter of aluminum — Shortage of metal in Europe creates global arbitrage opportunity.
- TSMC plans another price hike amid inflation concerns — Chip titan warns clients of second increase since 2021, citing rising costs.
- U.S. Navy gathers best destroyers in Japan to hunt Chinese submarines — Adding helicopter hangars to ships expands area of operation across Indo-Pacific.
Bloomberg
- NetEase Sets Sights on Video Game Consoles — The closest rival to Tencent in China’s video game market fashions itself as the anti-Tencent.
- China Car Sales Plunge as Shanghai Lockdown Takes Toll — China car sales plunged the most in two years in April as Covid-19 lockdowns in the auto industry hubs of Shanghai and Jilin province smashed production and kept buyers out of showrooms.
- Goldman to Relocate Morse as Co-Head for China Business — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. appointed E.G. Morse to co-lead the China business and will relocate him to Shanghai as the U.S. bank continues to ramp up in the world’s second-largest economy.
- In China, How Useful Is Big Tech in a Covid Lockdown, Really? — Chinese consumers are falling out of love with their super apps.
Reuters
- BioNTech completes Phase II trial of COVID-19 vaccine in China — Vaccine developer BioNTech completed a Phase II clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine in China in January but has yet to release its results, a registry of such trials showed on Tuesday.
- China’s private cloud giants sail into storm — Beijing’s paranoia is darkening the outlook for China’s cloud sector. Alibaba, Tencent and others are vying to replicate Amazon’s success in the People’s Republic, where sales are booming. But the government’s approach towards all things data is casting an ominous shadow.
Other Publications
- Associated Press: 14-year sentence for engineer in China trade secrets case — A chemical engineer has been sentenced to 14 years in prison over what prosecutors say was a scheme to steal trade secrets about materials used in cans for soda and other drinks to benefit the Chinese government and a Chinese company.
