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 Top Diplomat Due in Moscow After Surprise U.S. Talks — Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s four-day trip comes on the back of weekend meetings with White House officials in Malta.
- China’s Moutai Wants to Satisfy All Your Cravings — Company’s new offerings targeting younger Chinese might not stick, but its core brand is so valuable that may not matter.
- An Even Bigger Housing Crisis Threatens China’s Economy — Two years after Evergrande’s fall, distressed property giant Country Garden could create bigger problems.
- To Build Ships That Break Ice, U.S. Must Relearn to Cut Steel — U.S. has only two polar icebreakers to Russia’s three dozen; China, Russia growing more active around receding ice.
- How a Squiggly Line on a Map Got ‘Barbie’ Banned in Vietnam — Prop map in blockbuster movie spurs conversation within studios about avoiding geopolitical brouhahas.
- Arm IPO Excites Wall Street, but Challenges Loom — Company seeks growth in new markets and AI amid geopolitical tensions.
- Troubled Chinese Trust Company Brings In State Help — Zhongrong Trust’s recent financial struggles rekindled debates over China’s ‘Lehman moment’.
- Is China’s Economic Predicament as Bad as Japan’s? It Could Be Worse — From demographics to decoupling, China faces challenges Japan didn’t after its 1980s bubble.
- America’s Warrior Diplomat, Rahm Emanuel, Takes On China’s Xi Personally — U.S. ambassador in Tokyo jabs at Beijing leader over economic woes and disappearance of top officials.
- Arms Megadeal Collapsed When China, Russia Links Emerged — Failed talks between RTX and a Saudi defense firm show the kingdom’s difficulties in establishing its own military industry.
- Opinion: The Taiwanese Are Worried That the U.S. Will Abandon Ukraine — Japan, Australia and South Korea also see the war with Russia as a test of American resolve. By Seth G. Jones.
The Financial Times
- China lifts temporary curbs on gold imports as renminbi recovers — Spread between Shanghai spot price and London hit record $121 per troy ounce last week.
- Nippon Paint targets China expansion despite property market slowdown — Co-president predicts company can make ‘good money’ even as developers wrestle with turmoil.
- China’s property revival plan threatened by stand-off over old neighbourhoods — Beijing turns to past playbook of redeveloping poorer areas in hopes of revitalising troubled sector.
- US and China officials meet in Malta ahead of possible Biden-Xi summit — Jake Sullivan and Wang Yi hold talks as part of effort to stabilise relations between geopolitical rivals.
- Chinese shadow bank exposed to troubled property developers — Doubts over health of Zhongrong have added to broader concerns about China’s economy.
- WHO chief pushes China for ‘full access’ to solve Covid’s origins — Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says health body is ready to send second mission as Omicron variants drive rise in cases.
- ‘A shot across the bow’: how geopolitics threatens Apple’s dependence on China — Beijing’s restrictions on government use of Apple products and Huawei’s resurgence pose problems for Tim Cook.
- Then there were two: disappearance of second Chinese minister sparks speculation — Li Shangfu has vanished less than two months after foreign minister went missing.
- China’s coming lawfare offensive — A weaponised ‘legal toolbox for foreign struggles’ is reshaping Chinese economic relations with the rest of the world.
- Uranium: glowing with the flow works for bulls — If prices rise much higher, miners should be encouraged to lift output.
- EU fines TikTok €345mn for breaching children’s data rules — Probe finds Chinese social media app infringed regulations for users aged under 17.
- Opinion: The real reasons for the west’s protectionism — The US and EU believe that it is not just their economies but their social and political stability that are at stake. By Gideon Rachman.
- Opinion: We must confront China over security — but co-operate with it too — Calls for our foreign secretary to refuse to talk to his Chinese counterparts are wrong. By Alex Younger.
The New York Times
- China Flies Record Number of Military Planes Near Taiwan — Taiwan’s defense ministry criticized the uptick in Chinese military activity, saying Beijing should “stop such destructive unilateral actions.”
- China’s Import Curbs on Cosmetics Face Pushback in Europe — Cosmetics sales in China are soaring, but a group of exporting nations led by France are pushing Beijing to lift restrictions they say are blocking them unfairly.
- In Risky Hunt for Secrets, U.S. and China Expand Global Spy Operations — The nations are taking bold steps in the espionage shadow war to try to collect intelligence on leadership thinking and military capabilities.
- Putin and Kim’s Embrace May Place Xi in a Bind — Closer ties between Russia and North Korea could weaken Beijing’s leverage over both countries and set back China’s efforts to stabilize its ties with the West.
- China Has Paused Its Spy Balloon Operations, U.S. Officials Say — Officials say they have detected no launches of balloons since the United States shot down one in February, though they believe China is likely to restart the program.
Caixin
- Chinese VIE Firm One Step Closer to U.S. IPO Under New Listing Rules — Confirmed registration with China’s top securities regulator paves the way for Cheche Technology to become the first VIE to list in the U.S. since new rules took effect in March.
- Personal Freedom Vies With Deterrence in Public Security Law Revamp — On June 15, a Chinese soccer fan made headlines by running onto the pitch during a match. The fan was later placed under “administrative detention” for six days and banned from entering any stadium to watch similar games for 12 months.
- What It Took to Topple Wang Wenhai — Over a decades-long career in the judicial and graft-busting departments of his home province of Henan, complaints against Wang never stopped, according to people in the central province’s legal and political circles.
South China Morning Post
- How the rise and fall of an unlikely online influencer triggered a debate about the plight of older Chinese — Mainland media has focused on one online personality, but analysts say the case highlights a wider problem.
- China population: retirement age cannot be one-size-fits-all, Beijing adviser says as retirees to hit record — More than 28 million people will retire in China this year, and while Beijing has already said it will raise retirement ages, no timetable has been released.
- China seeks to expand police power to collect biological information of suspects in minor offences — Draft amendment would allow gathering of fingerprints, blood and urine – measures previously limited to investigations into serious crimes.
Nikkei Asia
- China’s brewers ride premium trend, topped by $190 Tsingtao bottle — Upmarket offerings thrive, while youth unemployment cuts into cheaper beers.
- China’s top developers lost close to $3bn due to weakened yuan — U.S.-dollar indebted Evergrande, Sunac and Country Garden head the list.
- Malaysia to double palm oil exports to China, dodge EU restrictions — The two Asian nations sign infrastructure investment deals worth $4.2bn.
- Afghanistan’s $6.5bn mine deals with China, others dig up questions — Taliban face feasibility and security doubts as regime aims to shore up economy.
Bloomberg
- Europe’s Battle Against Chinese Electric-Cars Evokes Fight Over Solar Panels — Cheap Chinese solar panels crushed European companies, but the lessons from that saga don’t apply to the auto industry’s China problems
- Xi’s Security Obsession Turns Ordinary Citizens Into Spy Hunters — As students flooded back into Beijing’s top universities in early September, a propaganda blitz around campuses signaled an ominous addition to their syllabus: a crash course on how to catch spies.
- Opinion: Hold the Champagne on China’s Economy — A series of reports mark a refreshing change from gloom and doom. The central bank took out some insurance, nonetheless. By Daniel Moss.
Reuters
- Upheavals in Xi’s world spread concern about China’s diplomacy — The growing unpredictability could affect the confidence other countries place in the leadership of the world’s second-biggest economy.
- EU risks depending on China for batteries after quitting Russian energy — While the EU has a strong position in the intermediate and assembly phases of making electrolysers, it relies heavily on China for fuel cells and lithium-ion batteries crucial for electric vehicles.
- Chinese state firms’ help to troubled shadow bank does little to address investor concerns — Angry retail investors in Zhongrong’s trust products last month held protests in Beijing and lodged complaint letters with regulators, pleading with the authorities to step in after the missed payments.
Other Publications
- BBC: What anger over top influencer says about China today — One of China’s most popular influencers has come under fire for dismissing a young follower’s complaint over high makeup prices as “nonsense”.
- Foreign Policy: America Prepares for a Pacific War With China It Doesn’t Want — Embedded with U.S. forces in the Pacific, I saw the dilemmas of deterrence firsthand.
- Foreign Affairs: Taiwan’s Path Between Extremes — The Kuomintang Presidential Candidate Lays Out a Plan to Avert War With China.
- POLITICO: America’s potential Achilles’ heel in a cyber battle with China: Guam — Chinese government hacks on the island could damage American military networks and undermine the U.S. response to an invasion of Taiwan.
