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
- FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Charged With Bribing Chinese Officials — U.S. indictment alleges FTX founder directed payoff to regain access to more than $1 billion in frozen cryptocurrency.
- Jack Ma’s Life After Alibaba Takes Him to a Fish Farm, Fiji and Beyond — Outside the public eye, Chinese tech mogul studies tuna and ponders the Gobi Desert.
- U.S. Treasury to Change Proposed Corporate-Ownership Reporting Form — Move comes after criticism from supporters of forthcoming ownership database. Lawmakers hope the database will tamp down on anonymous shell companies.
- Taiwan President’s U.S. Trip Touches a Flashpoint in U.S.-China Ties — Visit by Tsai Ing-wen is likely to determine whether relations between the U.S. and China deteriorate further.
- China Threatens Retaliation if Kevin McCarthy Meets Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen — Taiwanese leader’s plans to meet the House speaker in California are a provocation that harms its sovereignty, Beijing says.
- Rapper Pras Michel Is Unlikely Defendant in Case of International Skulduggery — High-profile trial will examine the former Fugee’s ties to fugitive financier Jho Low of 1MDB notoriety.
- No ‘Social Policy’ in Chips Act Rules, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Says — Republicans say requiring grant applicants to provide child care and similar rules are aimed at advancing Biden administration’s liberal agenda.
- U.S. Pushes for Business Investment in Africa to Counter China’s Reach — Vice President Kamala Harris is the latest American official to pledge more investment in the continent.
The Financial Times
- Binance hid extensive links to China for several years — Company documents show crypto exchange relied on country long after it said it had left in 2017
- Alibaba bets on split to survive Chinese tech’s new battlefields — Separation of units marks biggest shake-up of ecommerce group since Jack Ma founded it 24 years ago
- Chinese tech shares surge as Alibaba’s break-up plan spurs investor hopes — Investor SoftBank’s stock rises 6% in Tokyo after ecommerce group announces value-unlocking move to split into six units
- Tesla’s price war in China backfires as BYD sales surge — Chinese carmakers expected to sell more passenger vehicles than foreign rivals for first time in 2023
- US charges Sam Bankman-Fried with bribing Chinese officials — Prosecutors allege FTX founder made multimillion-dollar payment to help unfreeze accounts
- China yet to decide on Ukraine peacemaker role, says Kyiv — Beijing wants a weak Russia but will prevent its collapse, foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba claims
- Inside North Korea’s oil smuggling: triads, ghost ships and underground banks — A joint investigation by the Financial Times and the Royal United Services Institute think-tank shows how business figures in east Asia linked to organised crime have helped facilitate illicit deliveries of hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil.
The New York Times
- What’s Hot on TikTok? Defending Its C.E.O. — After lawmakers grilled TikTok’s chief executive last week, the app’s users argued that the platform should not be banned in the United States over national security concerns.
- Taiwan’s President Heads to the U.S., Bracing for China’s Retaliation — President Tsai Ing-wen is expected to meet Speaker Kevin McCarthy next week, risking a show of force from Beijing, which opposes any such exchanges.
- Bankman-Fried Is Charged With Foreign Bribery — Federal prosecutors said Sam Bankman-Fried had instructed employees to pay a $40 million bribe to one or more Chinese officials to help unfreeze trading accounts maintained by FTX’s sister company.
- Rift Between Gaming Giants Shows Toll of China’s Economic Crackdown — Activision Blizzard and NetEase could not agree on a new deal to distribute video games in China, cutting millions of players from the games in January.
Caixin
- Syngenta IPO Back on Hold Over Concerns About Its $9.4 Billion Target, Sources Say — The Shanghai Stock Exchange called off a meeting to review a 65 billion yuan ($9.4 billion) initial public offering proposed by ChemChina’s Syngenta Group one day before it was scheduled.
- In Depth: New Business Comes With Old Risks for China’s Struggling Tutoring Industry — China’s after-school education industry was caught flat-footed after Beijing rolled out a policy in mid-2021 that outlawed most after-school classes for K-12 students in an effort to reduce inequality in education.
- Succession Battle Erupts After Sudden Death of Battery-Materials Maker Founder — A battle for control has erupted at battery-materials maker Ningbo Shanshan Co. Ltd. after the sudden death of its former chairman.
South China Morning Post
- China’s top chip maker SMIC posts record revenue, profits for 2022 despite US sanctions — SMIC’s revenue grew 33.6 per cent year on year to US$7.2 billion in 2022, while net profits reached US$1.8 billion, both record amounts.
- US adds Hikvision subsidiaries from Xinjiang to its trade blacklist — The US Commerce Department also confirms that the ‘policy interest of protecting human rights worldwide’ is now a criteria for its Entity List.
- The high risks of Chinese players’ high-reward stakes in African mining — Investors from China are tapping into the wealth of resources across the continent but in many regions, they are also in the path of violence.
Nikkei Asia
- Alibaba’s sweeping overhaul triggers mass layoff fears: sources — Shift from centralized structure seen as cutting influence of CEO Daniel Zhang.
- Chip equipment exports to China tumble as U.S. pushes decoupling — Impact could grow as Japan and Netherlands weigh their own restrictions.
Bloomberg
- Biden Aide Speaks With China Counterpart as Tension Spikes — Discussion takes place ahead of Taiwan leader’s stops in US.
- Syngenta Caught Out by Eleventh Hour Delay to Mammoth China IPO — Shanghai exchange cancels planned hearing, sparking confusion.
- Foreign Startups Fearful of Returning to Post-Covid Zero China — SMEs join chorus warning of unpredictable business environment.
- Influencers, Online Mobs Targeted in China Social Media Cleanup — China plans to crack down on harmful social media content, in a sign that the country’s internet firms — already roiled by previous curbs — will face continued scrutiny from the authorities.
Reuters
- China tackles chip talent shortage with new courses, higher pay — Enrolments for undergraduate and post-graduate courses have surged over the past five years thanks to new funds for top universities as well as a boom in smaller private schools focused on shorter-term instruction.
- Exiled leader tells US Congress Tibet faces ‘slow death’ under China — Some Tibetan activists lament what they see as a fading focus on alleged abuses in Tibet amid growing concerns in Washington and other Western capitals about China’s expanding military, pressure on democratic Taiwan, and crackdowns in Hong Kong and on minority groups in China’s Xinjiang region.
Other Publications
- The Washington Post: Ernie Bot, China’s answer to ChatGPT, is delayed — again — Baidu, the maker of China’s biggest search engine, has had to overcome multiple problems while building its artificial intelligence chatbot Ernie Bot.
- Foreign Affairs: Xi Jinping Says He Is Preparing China for War — The World Should Take Him Seriously. By John Pomfret and Matt Pottinger
- MIT Tech Review: Chinese creators use Midjourney’s AI to generate retro urban “photography” — A recent update enabled the program to make better hands, more realistic Asian faces, and convincing vintage photographs.
