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
- The Hacked Bank ICBC Paid Just $1 for Its Place on Wall Street — The China megabank bought its U.S. broker-dealer 13 years ago for practically nothing. It got more than it bargained for.
- Will Livestreaming Be TikTok’s Amazon-Killer? — TikTok is moving aggressively into e-commerce—a space where its Chinese equivalent is massively successful.
- TikTok’s Owner Wanted to Create a Hit Videogame. It Failed. — ByteDance is to lay off hundreds of staff at its videogame unit, Nuverse, as it pulls back on another big bet on expansion.
- China Scrambles to Contain a Looming Shadow-Bank Meltdown — Chinese authorities are taking more forceful action to contain the growing financial troubles of one of the country’s biggest shadow lenders.
- Global Automakers Turn to China for EV Lessons — Western automakers are looking to China for clues about how to speed up manufacturing and beat back local rivals in the world’s biggest auto market.
- Opinion: The World Again Needs American Leadership — Russia, China, Iran and radical domestic ideologies pose grave threats to our way of life. By Liz Truss.
The Financial Times
- China launches probe into struggling shadow bank Zhongzhi — Financial conglomerate had disclosed $36.4bn shortfall to investors last week after missing payments.
- Cathay Pacific offers cheap flights to help Hong Kong’s ‘patriots only’ vote — Airline discounts for residents in China intended to boost turnout in election after pro-democracy candidates banned.
- How much FDI is China actually attracting? — Less. A lot less.
- How China is tearing down Islam — Thousands of mosques have been altered or destroyed as Beijing’s suppression of Islamic culture spreads.
The New York Times
- Can Taiwan Continue to Fight Off Chinese Disinformation? — Ahead of a presidential election in January, Taiwanese fact checkers and watchdogs say they are ready for Beijing. But they are still worried.
- Growing Numbers of Chinese Migrants Cross U.S. Southern Border — More than 24,000 Chinese citizens have been apprehended crossing into the United States from Mexico in the past year. That is more than in the preceding 10 years combined.
- Illness Surge in China Is Not From a Novel Pathogen, Data Suggests — The W.H.O. had requested detailed information about a reported surge in respiratory illnesses in children in China. Chinese data suggested the surge was caused by known bacteria and viruses.
- Opinion: Young Chinese Women Are Defying the Communist Party — Now many young Chinese women are delaying or shunning marriage and childbirth altogether, mirroring the journey of women in societies such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. By Leta Hong Fincher.
Caixin
- Chinese Graduate School Applicants Drop for First Time in Nine Years — Odds stacked against young job seekers: gloomy employment picture cuts value of graduate education, students say; more selective entrance standard is another turn-off.
- China to Offer Private Firms Bigger Helping Hand — Seven government agencies and one business group release 25 measures to provide greater financing to the sector.
- Zhou Xiaochuan Weighs In on the BRI Debate — China’s former central bank governor looks at the so-called “debt trap” narrative, the characteristics and economic logic of China’s global investment and financing, and issues that need to be addressed in the next phase of the BRI.
- Ford Cuts Size of U.S. EV Battery Plant Using Chinese Technology — Construction has resumed on a wholly owned factory in Michigan but at a reduced size from original plans, as growth in demand for EVs lags expectations.
- China’s Finance System Needs to Be Healthy to Serve the Real Economy — A new opportunity is emerging in the development of China’s financial industry.
South China Morning Post
- Chinese military urges ceasefire in Myanmar’s civil conflict as rebel group claims border trading point — PLA Daily says Beijing is determined to protect border security after Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army announces seizure of crossing point along China’s frontier with the Southeast Asian country.
- China’s Fujian aircraft carrier spotted in new position, bringing it a step closer to sea trial, analysts say — PLA’s most advanced carrier is shown metres from usual berthing place in satellite images, and it appears to launch object in unverified video, which military experts say could be sign that tests of warship’s systems and components will begin soon.
- Thailand wants to build a brand new shipping route. Why isn’t China buying? — Thailand’s Land Bridge project could reduce dependency on the Malacca Strait for shipping goods, but it has yet to be included in China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.
- Alibaba develops native DingTalk app for HarmonyOS, as Huawei aims to end support for Android apps — Under the collaboration, DingTalk has become one of the first intelligent business platforms to launch an app based on HarmonyOS, the Alibaba unit says.
- China’s aerospace information industry is soaring, but financing needed to reach new heights — China’s airspace information industry is expected to reach to 44.69 billion yuan (US$6.3 billion) in 2025, with over 400 companies registered by the end of last year.
Nikkei Asia
- West must not ‘demonize’ China, Confucian scholar Daniel Bell warns — Writer and professor says making Chinese leaders paranoid is dangerous.
- South Korea welcomes new rules easing chip tool shipments to China — Updates to U.S. regulations ‘very significant’ for Samsung, SK Hynix, trade minister says.
- Chinese military vendor CETC to take over smaller tech company — Beijing merges state-owned firms to withstand U.S. pressure.
- Alibaba founder Jack Ma starts ready-made food company — New Chinese business comes amid Ma’s reported interest in agriculture tech.
- Australia’s Albanese tackles China paradox with shrewd diplomacy — Premier carefully juggles trade and security to achieve long-term deterrence.
Bloomberg
- China, Japan, Korea Ministers Agree to Push for Leaders’ Summit — The foreign ministers of China, Japan and South Korea agreed to push for a leaders’ summit of their three nations in the near future, restoring a process that had been on hold since 2019 due to the pandemic and political tensions.
- What China’s Clean Energy Push Means for COP28 — Nations will be urged at COP28 to triple renewable energy capacity this decade. The world’s top polluter is already on track, propelled by President Xi Jinping’s strategy to use remote regions to host vast green projects.
- Gazprom Says Gas Exports to China Reach New High as Demand Soars — Russia’s Gazprom PJSC said its natural gas deliveries to China have hit a new historic high amid rising demand.
- Philippines, Australia Launch Joint Patrols Amid China Tensions — The Philippines and Australia kicked off their first joint maritime patrols on Saturday, days after the Southeast Asian nation concluded a similar activity with the US in the South China Sea amid heightened tensions with Beijing over the contested waters.
Reuters
- Zambia bondholder deal flop prompts calls for rethink of debt reworks — Convincing China, which emerged as a key creditor after a decade-long lending spree, to cut deals alongside other creditors has been a core challenge.
- Currency clashes sour Russia’s oil trade with Asia — As a temporary solution to the clash involving Indian deals, the cargoes were paid for in a combination of the Chinese yuan, the Hong-Kong dollar as a transition currency into the yuan and the UAE dirham.
- Exclusive: Beijing bourse tells ‘major shareholders’ to refrain from selling, sources say — The bourse, launched two years ago, was set up to help facilitate funding for innovative small companies, dubbed “little giants”, but had languished due to lack of investor interest.
- Greenpeace accuses China oil and gas firms of ‘greenwashing’ LNG purchases — Firms like PetroChina have signed long-term contracts with Shell to buy “carbon neutral” liquefied natural gas (LNG), which uses “forest offsets” to balance out carbon emissions.
Other Publications
- The Guardian: EU climate chief: China must help fund rescue of poorer nations hit by disaster — Gulf petrostates must also pay for relief, warns EU commissioner Wopke Hoekstra in the run-up to the Cop28 summit.
- The Economist: Xi Jinping’s grip on Chinese enterprise gets uncomfortably tight — Monitoring state influence has become more important than ever. It has also become more difficult than at any time in the past.
- Foreign Policy: The Masterminds — Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.
- Foreign Affairs: China’s Path to Power Runs Through the World’s Cities — To Push Back, the West Must Invest More in Urban Life.
- AP: An alliance of Myanmar ethnic groups claim capture of another big trade crossing at Chinese border — Le Kyar Win, the spokesperson of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, told The Associated Press that the Kyin-San-Kyawt border gate was seized on Saturday by the alliance forces.
- The Washington Post: Russian and Chinese executives discuss Russia-Crimea tunnel project — The negotiations underscore Russia’s determination to maintain its grip on Crimea, a peninsula that it annexed illegally in 2014, as well as Moscow’s growing dependence on China as a source of global support.
