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 Chip Wars Are Metastasizing — All areas of the supply chain are becoming battlegrounds. Next up: chip packaging, where China has considerable heft.
- How Electric-Vehicle Demand Is Losing Steam in the U.S., in Charts — EV sales grew nearly 50% this year but have plateaued in recent months.
- Explosion Kills 19 at Chinese Nickel Smelter in Indonesia — A string of industrial accidents is raising questions about a nickel boom as the world becomes more reliant on Indonesia for the key mineral.
- How Snatching American Citizens Turned Into a Tool of Hostile Governments — Travelers in countries representing nearly a quarter of the world’s population face a heightened risk of arrest—and of becoming pawns in a geopolitical struggle with Washington.
- How China Manages Its Currency—and Why That Matters — It isn’t just about economics. The yuan has a political and psychological importance too.
- China Imposes Sanctions on U.S. Data Firm — Beijing says measures against Kharon are a response to State Department criticism over Xinjiang.
- Steamy Romances and Vampires: The Chinese-Backed App Appealing to American Moms — ReelShort aims to succeed where Quibi failed—with cheesy plots and supernatural elements packed into one-minute episodes.
- Trump Is Primed for a Trade War in a Second Term, Calling for ‘Eye-for-Eye’ Tariffs — Presidential contender is calling for 10% tariff on all imports and higher levies on China.
The Financial Times
- China struggles to control data sales as companies shun official exchanges — Dozens of marketplaces have sprung up since a 2020 initiative but most transactions still happen on the black market.
- Chinese gaming stocks regain some ground as Beijing softens rhetoric — Regulators act to ease concerns after new industry guidelines cause big sell-off.
- Victim? Villain? Huawei finds itself trapped in US-China dispute — Judging which incompatible version of the truth is correct is impossible.
- China’s dreamers and dropouts ‘lie flat’ in Dali — Cheap, remote and beautiful city attracts thousands of young people and Gen X-ers escaping economic treadmill.
- AstraZeneca set to make one of its first acquisitions in China — Gracell Biotechnologies would operate as wholly owned subsidiary under terms of deal.
The New York Times
- Chinese Spy Agency Rising to Challenge the C.I.A. — The ambitious Ministry of State Security is deploying A.I. and other advanced technology to go toe-to-toe with the United States, even as the two nations try to pilfer each other’s trade secrets.
- Tencent and Netease Rally on Signs China May Ease Gaming Proposal — After a market rout, gaming companies like Tencent and Netease rally on signals that regulators might apply proposed curbs on users less harshly than feared.
Caixin
- China Appoints Lu Lei as Deputy Central Bank Governor — Veteran financial regulator to oversee research bureau, currency bureau, among others.
- Scandal-Plagued Amethystum Says Controlling Shareholder Detained — Former Chairman Zheng Mu charged with securities fraud in connection with 2020 IPO.
- In Depth: China’s Cloud Giants Seek Profits Abroad as Domestic Margins Dwindle — The likes of Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei have accelerated their global expansion this year, thanks largely to the buzz around AI, encroaching on the territory of U.S. leaders Microsoft and Amazon.
- Year in Review: China’s AI Race Turns to Drumming Up Adoption — After the initial rush to roll out large language models, the hunt is now on for customers that can use the technology to make money.
- New Railway Line in Southwest China Gets Underway After Quality Concerns Dismissed — Investigation finds claims of substandard support piles on the $5 billion high-speed line to be unfounded.
South China Morning Post
- China ups Asean trade, investment push with new high-speed railway link connecting to Vietnam border — China’s 47km (29.2-mile) Fangdong Railway links the cities of Fangchenggang and Dongxing, which sits across the Beilun River from the Vietnamese city of Mong Cai.
- Emergency scramble brings crippled China communications satellite under control — Engine failure sends high-orbit craft tumbling, wipes out US$36.4 million – nearly 30 per cent of China Satcom’s 2022 profits.
- Import-reliant China makes rubber extraction innovation amid rising demand from car industry — China imports more than 80 per cent of the natural rubber it needs each year, but is out to strengthen its domestic supply chains amid surging demand from its rapidly-growing automotive industry.
- Beijing launches state-backed AI platform to meet country’s rising demand for computing power — The Beijing AI Public Computing Platform aims to alleviate the shortage of computing power in the Chinese capital to help nurture local champions in their quest to develop local rivals to ChatGPT and Google Bard.
- After TikTok-owner ByteDance cuts the fat to focus on fundamentals, social commerce challenges and US election loom — ByteDance has scaled back its video game and virtual reality ambitions to focus on scaling e-commerce, which now faces challenges in Southeast Asia.
Nikkei Asia
- Chinese mark Mao’s birthday with Cultural Revolution-era chants — Veneration of late leader comes amid rising dissatisfaction among youth.
- Myanmar’s leader co-chairs China-backed Mekong summit — Min Aung Hlaing presides over conference in rare international role.
- Opinion: Private-sector vitality is needed to revive China’s economy — Xi must not prioritize party dominance over employment and innovation. By Nikkei Asia.
Bloomberg
- New World Teams With Chinese State Firm for HK Property Project — New World Development Co. is partnering with Chinese state-owned developer China Resources Land Ltd. to build a residential project in Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis, underscoring the increasingly active role that mainland firms play in the city’s property sector.
- Chinese Carmaker Overtakes Tesla as World’s Most Popular EV Maker — Elon Musk once scoffed at the notion that BYD could compete with his company. Now, the automaker run by billionaire Wang Chuanfu is poised to be the new No. 1 in electric vehicles.
- Top China Political Advisory Exiles Three Aerospace Executives — The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference voted to revoke the membership of three aerospace and defense industry executives Wednesday, according to state broadcaster China Central Television.
- Opinion: Tough Lessons From China’s Fizzled Recovery — The economy was supposed to roar back this year, but festering problems caught up with it. The bigger shift has been our own expectations of how well China can perform. By Daniel Moss.
Reuters
- Whisky and the coal mining ‘shack’: Taiwan election is not only about China — The candidates are exchanging blows over everything from property disputes to whether drinking whisky is out of touch, in a raucous and freewheeling display of the island’s democracy.
- China’s industrial profits post double-digit gains but recovery uneven — With a slew of pro-growth measures in place to buttress a patchy post-COVID recovery, Asia’s biggest economy is widely expected to achieve the government’s growth target of around 5% for this year.
- China expects searing heat, more weather extremes in 2024 — This year has seen China lurch from some of its hottest temperatures logged since 1850 to a harsh cold snap that froze many parts of the country for close to a fortnight earlier this month.
Other Publications
- Brookings: The role of the US, Europe, and Indo-Pacific partners in India’s China strategy — Given India’s capability gaps with China, New Delhi has recognized that partnerships are not just a choice, but a necessity when it comes to India’s China strategy.
- The Globe and Mail: Ottawa ready to pay financial settlements to the two Michaels over their ordeal in Chinese prison — Federal lawyers are in compensation talks with the two men and are hoping to conclude financial settlements early in the new year, the sources say.
