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 Xi Arrives in Moscow as Beijing Seeks to Position Itself as a Peacemaker — But with Russia and Ukraine fighting for advantage on the battlefield, neither is interested in talks for now.
- Putin Proves an Unpredictable Partner for Xi as Nations Cement Ties — Chinese leader’s leverage over the Russian president isn’t as clear-cut as it might seem.
- At the China-Russia Border, the Xi-Putin Partnership Shows Signs of Fraying — The meeting between the two leaders this week is expected to showcase unity, but a view of cities along the border reveals divisions that challenge the relationship.
- China’s M&A Star Told His Employees to Be Bold—Then He Disappeared — Beijing’s detention of tech rainmaker Fan Bao rattles an industry that thought the crackdown was over.
- Europe Moves to Revive Mining to Cut Reliance on China — Race for metals and minerals amid growing battery demand spurs innovation and erodes European resistance to local production.
- Biden’s ‘Go It Alone’ Trade Deals Draw Warnings From Congress — Lawmakers raise constitutional concerns over trade pacts that bypass congressional involvement.
- Americans Encounter Hurdles to Studying in China Even as Covid Restrictions Ease — In the 2020-21 academic year, there were 382 American university students in China.
- Many Investors Are Skeptical of Jumping in on China’s Highly Touted Recovery — Some look for ways to bet on China’s reopening without investing directly in Chinese stocks.
- TikTok Creators Contemplate Life After Possible Ban: ‘It All Can Be Taken Away’ — The platform created business opportunities for some users. Now, they’re planning for what might come next.
- TikTok’s Chinese Parent Has Another Wildly Popular App in the U.S. — CapCut, the video-editing tool from ByteDance, helps users go viral on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
- Ford, GM Engage in China Price War as Car Sales Slump — Chinese government has ended tax cuts for car buyers and long-running EV subsidies.
- Video: Chinese Leader Xi Jinping Arrives in Russia for Talks With Putin — Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Moscow for a summit with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
The Financial Times
- Xi to test limits of friendship with Putin on Russia state visit — China’s president wants to assert peacemaking credentials and stabilise relations with Europe.
- Singapore and Hong Kong vie to be the Caymans of Asia — The two cities have set up new fund structures to lure wealth away from traditional offshore financial centres.
- Evergrande releases restructuring timeline — Chinese property developer moves closer to agreement with international investors.
- Former Taiwan president to pay historic visit to China — This month’s trip will mark first ever visit to China by a sitting or retired Taiwanese president.
- Longtime China investor Anatole to open ‘outpost’ in Singapore — Hong Kong-based asset manager had significantly cut its exposure to China.
- WHO urges China to share more data on possible Covid link to raccoon dogs — Health body says genetic sequences are not definitive and all origin theories, including lab leak, remain on table.
- Opinion: The real meaning of Xi’s visit to Putin — Talk of a peace plan for Ukraine will obscure the tightening of ties between China and Russia. By Gideon Rachman
The New York Times
- Why China and Russia Are Closer Than Ever — This week’s meeting between the leaders of China and Russia marks another key moment in the deepening relationship between the two powers.
- Some Details on the Agenda for Xi Jinping’s Visit to Russia — The Chinese leader is expected to talk to Vladimir V. Putin about Ukraine and other issues.
- China as Peacemaker in the Ukraine War? The U.S. and Europe Are Skeptical. — Chinese officials say Xi Jinping’s upcoming trip to Moscow is a peace mission. But U.S. and European officials say he aims to bolster Vladimir V. Putin.
- Falling Lithium Prices Are Making Electric Cars More Affordable — An unexpected decline in the price of an essential battery material, along with those of other commodities, is good news for buyers. But experts disagree on how long low prices will last.
- Claims of Chinese Election Meddling Put Trudeau on Defensive — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada is battling critics and leaked intelligence reports that opponents say show he ignored warnings of Chinese interference in past elections.
- China Wine Tariff Pushes Australia’s Grape Growers Into Crisis — Two years later, they’re suffering from a glut of red wine and plummeting grape prices with no overseas market big enough to fill the gap.
- WHO Accuses China of Withholding Data on Covid’s Origins — Genetic research from China suggests to some experts that the coronavirus may have sprung from a seafood market in Wuhan. Now the data are missing from a scientific database.
- China’s Xi to Visit Putin Under Shadow of War-Crimes Warrant — Global divisions over Russia’s actions in Ukraine widened as China said Xi Jinping would go to Russia to help make peace, in a move widely seen as a stark sign of support for President Vladimir V. Putin.
- Justice Dept. Investigating TikTok’s Owner Over Possible Spying on Journalists — The inquiry appears to be tied to an admission by the app’s owner, ByteDance, that employees had inappropriately obtained Americans’ data. The company said it had fired the workers involved.
Caixin
- China’s Bond-Feed Turmoil Triggered by Data Monopoly, Compliance Concerns, Sources Say — China’s $21 trillion bond market started to find its feet again Friday after descending into chaos earlier in the week, with some companies who supply price data for traders resuming their feeds after a meeting between regulators and market participants.
- Beijing Welcomes Ex-Taiwan Leader’s Visit to the Mainland — Beijing said Monday that it welcomes former Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou’s visit to the Chinese mainland next week, and offered to provide assistance for the trip.
South China Morning Post
- Former head of Google China joins ChatGPT frenzy by starting own venture — Lee Kai-fu, a prominent Chinese venture capitalist and former president of Google China, is the latest high-profile tech executive to jump on the ChatGPT bandwagon.
- Chinese tourists unwilling to pay extra for sustainable travel options even as concern about climate change on the rise, McKinsey and Trip.com report says — Chinese travellers are increasingly concerned about climate change but are still not ready to pay extra for sustainable travel, according to a recent report by McKinsey and Trip.
- 21,000 Hongkongers granted Canadian work permits under easier migration pathway but hundreds find permanent residency a step too far — Graduates from 2016 and 2017 say by the time they fulfil work requirement, they cannot apply for PR.
Bloomberg
- China Investigates Ex-Unigroup Chief in Latest Chip Graft Probe — China’s top anti-graft watchdog has begun an investigation of former Tsinghua Unigroup Chairman Zhao Weiguo, who becomes the latest high-profile figure ensnared in an industry-wide corruption dragnet.
- Some China Vendors are Getting Full Access to Brokers’ Bond Data — Several Chinese data vendors are showing or will soon start to show bond quotes from all six of the country’s fixed-income brokers, wider distribution than before a sudden suspension of data feeds last week rocked the nation’s $21 trillion debt market.
- Taiwan Chip Exports to China Sputter on Tensions, Falling Demand — Taiwan’s exports of integrated circuit chips to China and Hong Kong fell for a fourth month in February as Washington-Beijing tensions simmer and demand for electronics continues to drop off.
Reuters
- U.S. leans on Honduras to rethink China switch, hopes for reprieve — Officials and former officials from the U.S. and several Central American countries said Castro’s provisional announcement contrasted with how countries in Latin America have tended to make public shifts in alliance from China to Taiwan.
- Former US Marine may have been ‘lured’ from China before arrest, lawyer says — Daniel Duggan, 54, is facing extradition to the United States on charges of breaking U.S. law by training Chinese military pilots to land on aircraft carriers.
- China still seeking answers a year after plane crash — The Boeing Co 737-800 crashed into a mountainous region in the southern province of Guangxi on March 21 2022, in China’s deadliest aviation disaster in 28 years.
- Baidu’s Ernie writes poems but says it has insufficient information on Xi, tests show — Reuters on Monday posed several questions to Ernie on Xi, including whether he was a good leader, his contributions to China, and a request for a poem and portrait of him.
Other Publications
- The Economist: Fear of China is pushing India and Japan into each other’s arms — Asia’s biggest and richest democracies are close. They could be much closer
