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
- Rights Group Backtracks on Report of Missing Uyghur Scholar — Amnesty International retracted its assertion that Abuduwaili Abudureheman had gone missing after traveling to Hong Kong.
- How Bad Is China’s Economy? Its Stocks Are Now in a Bear Market — The stalling economic recovery is one reason enthusiasm for the market has waned.
- U.S. Manufacturers Seek China Alternatives as Tensions Rise — Makers of watercraft and ventilators reconsider Chinese supply chains, balancing risks against lower costs.
- Chinese Jet Fighter Buzzed U.S. Spy Plane, Pentagon Says — U.S. military calls incident over South China Sea an ‘unnecessarily aggressive maneuver’.
- Antony Blinken, in Europe, Sees Alignment on China — Business groups applaud U.S.-Europe dialogue, call for more progress on bilateral trade.
- China, India Kick Out Nearly All of Each Other’s Journalists as Rivalry Escalates — Rift that opened with deadly border clash deepens as neighbors deny reporter visas.
The Financial Times
- Pentagon accuses Chinese fighter jet of ‘aggressive’ action near US plane — Defence department says incident took place in South China Sea on Friday.
- Jamie Dimon warns ‘uncertainty’ caused by Beijing could hit investor confidence — JPMorgan chair in Shanghai at conference attended by several US executives.
- How Taiwan became the indispensable economy — Fearing a potential conflict in Asia, western companies are looking to move production out of Taiwan. But turning away from the self-ruled island will come at a high price for manufacturers.
- Has China become too cosy with private equity? — State-backed investors have poured money into buyout groups, enabling Beijing to deploy hundreds of billions of dollars into western companies and economies even as the political mood has shifted.
- How Singapore Airlines soared while regional rival Cathay Pacific stalled — Post-pandemic success comes as Hong Kong carrier struggles to recover.
- China investigated Covid lab leak claims, says top scientist — Health official’s admission undermines Beijing’s dismissals that virus could have emerged from Wuhan facility.
The New York Times
- Taiwan Ambassador Says Ukraine’s Success Against Russia Will Deter China — Bi-khim Hsiao, the top Taiwanese diplomat in Washington, said the support of the United States and other nations for Ukraine sends an important message to China.
- China’s Young People Can’t Find Jobs. Xi Jinping Says to ‘Eat Bitterness.’ — With youth unemployment at a record, the Communist Party is trying to reset expectations about social mobility by talking up the virtue of hardship.
- Fake Signals and American Insurance: How a Dark Fleet Moves Russian Oil — The New York Times tracked several oil tankers faking their locations while transporting Russian oil currently under Western sanctions, in an apparent effort to deceive their American insurer.
Caixin
- Morgan Stanley Gets Nod to Open China Futures Business — The unit will be the second wholly foreign-owned company operating in a market that generated a turnover of $80 trillion last year.
- Fallen Tomorrow Holding’s Trust Firm Declared Bankrupt — A court in Southwest China ruled that New China Trust’s assets weren’t able to cover all of its liabilities.
- China’s Services Sector Continues to Rebound Faster Than Industrial Sector — Profits of state-owned enterprises diverge sharply over the year’s first four months, based on data from the NBS and the Finance Ministry.
- Wanda May Offload Malls and Hotels Amid Fading HK Share Sale Prospects — Embattled Chinese real estate giant needs to increase liquidity as planned Zhuhai Wanda flotation appears uncertain.
South China Morning Post
- Chinese AI chatbot firm Xiao-I eyes global market after Nasdaq IPO on ChatGPT fever — After raising US$39 million from its Nasdaq IPO in March, Xiao-I is ready to make its way to the world stage, founder and CEO Yuan Hui says.
- How China’s jobless youth were raised to have unrealistic expectations — A generation of youth has been intensely schooled by private tutors and pumped up by parents’ expectations. The result? A mismatch between the jobs they want and the blue-collar jobs that need filling.
- China’s C919 debut could inspire aviation supply chain to take off, but self-sufficiency ‘difficult’ — China’s home-grown C919 passenger jet completed its first commercial on Sunday, but key technologies were all imported despite the involvement of 200 Chinese companies.
- China approves Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition as it still faces hurdles in the US and UK — The State Administration for Market Regulation cleared the blockbuster US$69 billion takeover bid, which has resulted in legal battles in the US and UK.
- World’s most valuable chip maker Nvidia unveils more AI products after US$184 billion rally — In a keynote speech at Computex Taiwan, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveiled a new batch of AI products and services, looking to capitalise on a frenzy that has made his company the world’s most valuable chip maker.
Nikkei Asia
- China keeps pouring money into highways, railroads and airports — 5-year plan calls for double-digit expansion of transport networks.
- China’s Wanda may offload malls, hotels as share sale prospects dim — Real estate giant must boost liquidity due to doubts over Zhuhai Wanda float.
- Foxconn’s Young Liu says AI demand to boost server business — Chairman says iPhone assembler is racing to stay ahead of Chinese rivals.
Bloomberg
- Wanda in Talks With ByteDance, Others to Sell Payments Arm — Dalian Wanda Group Co. is in talks with prospective buyers including ByteDance Ltd. for its Chinese payments unit, as the tourism-to-retail conglomerate tries to shore up its liquidity, people familiar with the matter said.
- US Sanctions Chinese Firms Over Pill-Pressing Machines — The US accused several Chinese companies of shipping machines that make counterfeit pills to the US and Mexico, and hit more than a dozen entities with sanctions as it looks to crack down on a trade officials say is contributing to the opioid crisis.
- Xiaomi Adds Indian Assembler to Revive Local Smartphone Push — Xiaomi Corp. is handing some of its smartphone assembly in India to Dixon Technologies India Ltd., deepening its relationship with the homegrown partner as the country’s government pushes electronics manufacturers to build local supply chains.
- Baidu Creates $140 Million Fund to Back ChatGPT-Like Startups — Baidu Inc. has set aside 1 billion yuan ($140 million) to fund Chinese startups that explore generative AI, joining a global investment wave keen on riding a frenzy around ChatGPT-like services.
- How China Aims to Counter US ‘Containment’ Efforts in Tech — The US is engaged in what it terms “strategic competition” with China, a full-throttled campaign to prevent the world’s No. 2 economy from gaining an edge in state-of-the-art technology that could threaten both jobs and national security.
Reuters
- Chinese battery cash will fuel Europe’s EV drive — Over-reliance on Chinese market leader CATL and its peers could be a risk. But rival European battery groups are still scarce, and global carmakers have more to gain than lose.
- Elon Musk is Beijing’s ideal foreign investor — With foreign capitalists questioning the country’s investability, the central government has cause to telegraph its gratitude. Musk has given the Chinese Communist Party everything it could have reasonably expected, and more.
- Chinese tech entrepreneurs keen to ‘de-China’ as tensions with US soar — For the ambitious Chinese tech entrepreneur, expanding into the U.S. just keeps getting harder.
Other Publications
- CSIS: Mapping the Semiconductor Supply Chain: The Critical Role of the Indo-Pacific Region — An analysis of the role that the Indo-Pacific region plays in the global semiconductor industry across the various stages of the semiconductor supply chain.
- Brookings: Words and policies: “De-risking” and China policy — Very likely, different countries will interpret and apply “de-risking” differently, creating divergence and not consensus.
- AP: China warns of artificial intelligence risks, calls for beefed-up national security measures — The meeting in Beijing discussed the need for “dedicated efforts to safeguard political security and improve the security governance of internet data and artificial intelligence.”
- Foreign Policy: China Can’t Have It Both Ways in Europe — Beijing is blowing up its relationships by backing Russia.
