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 Economy Shows Fresh Signs of Weakness in Factories, Consumer Spending — The latest data from business surveys will heap further pressure on policy makers to revive country’s crumbling growth.
- China’s Slowing Economy Spells Trouble for Dry-Bulk Shipping — The world’s biggest commodity importer is slowing down, sending rates lower.
- Raimondo’s China Tour Offers Glimmer of Hope to Battered U.S. Businesses — ‘It feels like the machine has started again,’ says president of American Chamber of Commerce in China.
- Major Chinese Cities Ease Mortgage Rules in Bid to Reverse Property Slump — The moves come after the central government last week widened the definition of first-home home buyers as part of its efforts to revive the ailing property sector.
- Chinese Steel Platform ZG Group to Go Public in Hong Kong’s First SPAC Merger — The company facilitates online transactions that include steel trading, warehousing, logistics and processing.
The Financial Times
- China’s Baidu and ByteDance launch AI chatbots to public — Beijing grants regulatory approval to artificial intelligence products by several tech groups.
- Foreign investors sell China shares at record pace in August — Outflows of $12bn come as Beijing’s support measures fail to offset fears over economic slowdown and property crisis.
- Xi to skip G20 summit in India, western officials say — Chinese president’s absence viewed as setback for divided forum and for host Narendra Modi.
- Chinese airlines extend losses despite end of pandemic curbs — China Eastern continues three-year lossmaking streak as international travel remains subdued.
- China’s manufacturing activity shrinks in August — Data adds pressure on policymakers to take action to restore growth in world’s second-biggest economy.
- Country Garden posts $7bn loss as China’s property crisis deepens — Real estate developer battles to survive as situation show signs of spilling over into investment industry.
- Hillhouse targets new renminbi fund as dollar interest in China dries up — Chinese venture capital group seeks to raise more than $1.4bn and focus on healthcare sector.
- Cleverly seeks to repair British relations with China — UK foreign secretary stresses need for improved dialogue while highlighting differences.
The New York Times
- The U.S. and China Are Talking Again. Where It Will Lead Is Unclear. — Gina Raimondo, the U.S. commerce secretary, and her Chinese counterparts agreed to continue economic talks, but such dialogues have a disheartening record.
- China’s Misinformation Fuels Anger Over Fukushima Water Release — By exaggerating the risks from Japan’s discharge of treated wastewater, Beijing hopes to cast Japan and its allies as conspirators in malfeasance, analysts say.
- Mounting Losses Shake China’s Biggest Homebuilder — Country Garden, already on the brink of default with nearly $190 billion in debt, reported billions in losses for the first half of the year.
- Typhoon Saola Threatens China With Category 4 Winds — The tropical cyclone was passing near Taiwan on Wednesday and edging closer to Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.

Caixin
- Chinese Megacities Ease Mortgage Rules for First-Home Buyers — Two of China’s most expensive megacities eased definitions of first-home buyers to enable more people to take advantage of lower mortgage rates and down payments.
- Caixin Explains: Why China’s Efforts to Juice Stocks Typically Don’t Last — China’s new measures to energize its stock market likely won’t have long-lasting effects without additional policy help, as they are mostly designed to lift sentiment, analysts and market participants said.
- China Fixes Bug in Data Rules That Froze Up $21 Trillion Bond Market — China cleared the way for money brokers to resume charging customers for data services after regulators abruptly slammed the door on the business in March, rattling the nation’s $21 trillion bond market.
- Huawei Quietly Debuts Flagship Smartphone in Effort to Ride Sales Wave — Huawei launched a new flagship smartphone on Tuesday, said to be powered by a self-developed chip that can rival the speed of 5G handsets, as the tech giant tries to shrug off the impact of U.S. sanctions.
South China Morning Post
- German far right shows an unlikely affinity for Communist China — China has embraced the relationship with the Alternative for Germany party, which sent a high-ranking delegation to Beijing and Shanghai in June.
- Spying in China: Chongqing megacity ready with expanded anti-espionage law in local government ‘first’ — Local version of China’s newly expanded national anti-espionage law due to take effect on Friday goes further than national law, including strict oversight of all overseas exchange and anti-spying training for civil servants and students.
- China aviation: China Southern, Air China and China Eastern trim losses on domestic travel rebound — China’s top three state-owned airlines reported significantly narrower losses for the first half of 2023 as Beijing’s lifting of Covid-19 restrictions late last year unleashed pent-up demand for domestic travel.
Nikkei Asia
- China’s top banks report rising bad loans as property woes spread — Nonperforming loans jumped 7.6% in first half at four big state-owned lenders.
- China’s Great Wall Motor takes a bigger slice of Russian market — Sales of Chinese SUV maker soar as Western and Japanese peers exit.
- China economy slump pounds South Korean chip exports — Decline of key export comes as Seoul pledges to trim fiscal outlay.
Bloomberg
- India-China Tensions Threaten to Leave Modi Empty-Handed at G-20 — Tensions between China and India threaten to prevent Group of 20 leaders from issuing a joint communique for the first time since the forum was created in 1999, according to people familiar with the situation.
- Some Country Garden Bondholders Seek Default on Yuan Note — A group of Country Garden Holdings Co. creditors is seeking to declare a default on a yuan bond, adding a fresh complication for the distressed Chinese developer whose liquidity crisis has shaken the nation’s financial markets.
- China’s Slowdown Is Being Ignored by Global Macro Managers — Global financial markets are showing few signs of fretting over all the negative headlines from China, however discouraging they may seem.
Reuters
- Exclusive: China’s Xi likely to skip G20 summit in India — Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to skip a summit of G20 leaders in India next week, sources familiar with the matter in India and China told Reuters.
- How Evergrande’s downfall signaled China’s property crisis — Evergrande’s story also reveals the inner workings of a Chinese property giant, from the heady days of rocketing real-estate prices to the precipitous decline of the company when incensed retail investors stormed its offices.
- China’s Chongqing to remove marriage requirement for maternity benefits — Chongqing, a sprawling municipality in southwest China, announced this week that insured residents no longer need to provide marriage certificates to get maternity benefits, the most recent move to encourage women to have children.
Other Publications
- Washington Post: Opinion: The Chinese economy is doing better than you might think — As it has for many years, China remains a most important engine of global growth. By Xie Feng
- Center for Strategic and International Studies: Experts React: China’s Economic Slowdown: Causes and Implications — Sentiment on China’s economy has grown increasingly negative in the past few weeks, with public discourse variously emphasizing “structural” issues such as debt, demographics, and China’s deteriorating relationship with the West.
- MIT Technology Review: Chinese ChatGPT alternatives just got approved for the general public — Baidu launched Ernie Bot back in March, but access to it and its competitors was strictly limited. Now AI-powered chatbots will be widely available to Chinese users for the first time.
- Foreign Policy: China Is Closing in on Itself — The absence of foreigners in the country is a symptom of China’s restrictive, security-driven view of the world.