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
- Xi Jinping Revives Hopes for Pandas’ Return to the U.S. — The Chinese leader’s suggestion that China would send new pandas to the U.S. was a minor gesture in an otherwise bitter rivalry but symbolic of attempts by both governments to find areas to cooperate.
- Avoiding China Has Been a Winning Investment Strategy. But It Isn’t Easy. — Chinese stocks have diverged from the rest of the emerging markets, but the country is still weighing heavily on other economies.
- Where Have All the Foreign Buyers Gone for U.S. Treasury Debt? — Overseas private investors and central banks now own about 30% of all outstanding U.S. government debt—down from roughly 43% a decade ago.
- Alibaba Scraps Cloud Unit Spinoff, Citing U.S. Chip Curbs — Washington’s latest restrictions on the export of high-performance chips to China are beginning to bite.
- Opinion: Biden Plies Xi for a Fentanyl Deal Beijing Can’t Deliver — China can’t risk cracking down on its wildcat pharma industry as its economy wobbles. By Joseph C. Sternberg.
- Opinion: U.S. CEOs on the Chinese Menu — Business leaders give Chinese President Xi Jinping a standing ovation for showing up. By The Editorial Board.
The Financial Times
- How David Cameron tried to make his fortune with cash from China — Former prime minister, now the UK’s top diplomat, sought hundreds of millions of dollars from CIC for his UK-China fund.
- Opinion: America should aim for competitive coexistence with China — The relationship between the two superpowers is fraught but manageable if the US plays its cards right. By Joseph Nye.
- Opinion: A tentative reset between Washington and Beijing — Despite mutual mistrust, both sides have an interest in trying to calm tensions. By The Editorial Board.
The New York Times
- China Wants to Bulldoze ‘Urban Villages’ to Revive the Economy — The halting revitalization of one “urban village” in Shenzhen shows the challenges of fixing a national property crisis after years of overborrowing.
- Biden and Xi Make Nice Despite U.S.-China Tensions — Despite simmering tensions, President Biden and President Xi Jinping exchanged the kind of pleasantries that adversarial leaders deploy when they are trying to make nice.
- For Biden, a Subtle Shift in the Power Balance With China’s Xi Jinping — For the first time in years, a Chinese leader desperately needed a few things from the United States.
- Panda Diplomacy Might Not Be Dead Just Yet — President Xi Jinping of China said his country may keep sending giant pandas to the United States. The National Zoo in Washington sent three of them back to China last week.
- Day After Xi Meeting, Biden Says U.S. Has ‘Real Differences’ With China — Mr. Biden won applause when he noted that he and Mr. Xi had agreed to resume military-to-military communication to “reduce the risk of miscalculation.”
Caixin
- China to Strengthen Oversight of Data Security at Accounting Firms — Draft rules stipulate auditors may have to go through additional cybersecurity reviews for work that involves national security.
- Ex-Senior Provincial Official Stung in China’s Sweeping Corruption Probe — Former deputy head of Sichuan’s top political advisory body Yang Kening is being investigated for ‘serious violations of discipline and law’.
- Opinion: What’s Behind the IMF’s About-Face on China’s GDP Forecasts? — The move raised eyebrows as the organization had just cut its forecasts last month, when it trimmed estimates for 2023 and 2024 growth to 5% and 4.2%, respectively. By Gao Zhanjun.
South China Morning Post
- Google claims it is beating Huawei in global weather prediction with AI — Results of a study have shown GraphCast performed better than Pangu-Weather in most tests.
- China’s GPS-like BeiDou navigation system recognised as global standard for commercial aviation in ‘important milestone’ — China’s BeiDou system, which is similar to the US’ Global Positioning System (GPS), has been recognised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
- China will be at forefront of AI, Alphabet CEO Pichai says — Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said he expects China to be ‘at the forefront’ of artificial intelligence, and that it is important for the US to collaborate with the Asian nation on both regulation and innovation.
- Ant Group’s chairman puts his faith in global expansion and pledges to support SMEs in Singapore speech — Ant CEO says the fintech group is doubling down on global expansion and working with partners to support growth in four areas – travel, trade, technology and talent.
Nikkei Asia
- Analysis: Xi saves face by meeting Biden but accomplishes little — Back home, second-generation reds turn critical of ‘personal autocracy’.
- China-funded airport opens in Cambodia with more projects to come — Belt and Road highways, ports and railways also planned, raising local concerns.
- Big U.S. funds shed Alibaba, Apple to curb China exposure — Key U.S. funds are slashing positions with exposure to China while focusing more on American technology giants, a Nikkei analysis shows.
- With Xi in U.S., China’s influencers put lid on anti-West rhetoric — Beijing’s immediate policy goals at odds with usual nationalist propaganda.
- Opinion: Innovation justifies optimism in China’s long-term economic outlook — Transformation over past decade will support productivity-led growth. By WIlliam Bratton.
Bloomberg
- China’s Still Finding it Tough to Bring In Foreign Investment — A fall in China’s inbound foreign direct investment worsened through the first 10 months of the year, underscoring the difficulty Beijing faces in attracting foreigners even as it touts a more open environment.
- Chipmaking Gear Companies Get More Sales From China Than Ever — The leading producers of chipmaking equipment are seeing a spike in the percentage of revenue they get from China, as the country stockpiles equipment in an effort to counter US trade curbs on advanced semiconductors.
- China’s Rivalry With Musk’s SpaceX Moves to Even Lower Orbit — Barred from China, SpaceX warns of threat to US from Beijing.
- China Vows to Meet ‘Reasonable’ Funding Needs of Developers — China’s regulators told the country’s biggest banks and asset managers to meet all “reasonable” funding needs from property firms, in the government’s latest bid to arrest the protracted slump in the real estate market.
Reuters
- Maldives will have no foreign military presence – new president — Mohamed Muizzu reaffirmed his support for the departure of a small Indian force from the islands where India and China vie for influence.
- Exclusivity is the name of the game as luxury firms target China’s wealthiest for growth — The lack of a strong rebound in luxury demand following China’s post-pandemic re-opening has spooked investors, adding to jitters about the industry’s prospects.
- Exclusive: Applied Materials under US criminal probe for shipments to China’s SMIC — The largest U.S. semiconductor equipment maker is being probed by the Justice Department for sending equipment to SMIC via South Korea without export licenses, the sources said.
Other Publications
- The Atlantic: Don’t Expect U.S.-China Relations to Get Better — The summit showed that Beijing still needs Washington. That’s a problem Xi Jinping is trying to solve.
- Foreign Policy: Biden and Xi Try the Personal Touch — Does face-to-face diplomacy ever change anything?
- POLITICO: Chinese President Xi’s ‘siren call’ to US business hits great wall of skepticism — U.S. investors and businesses remain wary of the business climate in China amid an economic slowdown and crackdown on the private sector.
- The Washington Post: Tech leaders cheer China-U.S. thaw. But AI is still a sticking point. — At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, talks between Biden and Xi weren’t enough to stave off the “tech cold war”.
- AP: Japan, China agree on a constructive relationship, but reach only vague promises in seafood dispute — Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said China and Japan agreed to find a way to resolve the Fukushima water issue through consultations and negotiations in a constructive manner.
- The Economist: Xi Jinping repeats imperial China’s mistakes — Lessons of a loyalty test that stifled innovation.
- Brookings: How America lost the heart of China’s top talent — The critical question is: For those who can get into China’s top colleges, do they still prefer to study in the United States?
- PIIE: The US should consider a critical minerals trade agreement with Indonesia — Writing off Indonesia as a potential partner because of Chinese presence would be counter to Secretary Yellen’s point that forcing countries in the Indo-Pacific to choose between China or the US is counter to US interests.
