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 Shipyards Are Ready for a Protracted War. America’s Aren’t. — While Chinese shipyards are thriving and primed to build at wartime rates, U.S. shipbuilding is in disarray.
- U.S. Lawmakers Seek Investigation Against China’s WuXi AppTec — The company had previously been named in a bill introduced late last month that aims to bar federal contracts with some Chinese biotech entities.
- MSCI Drops 66 Companies From China Index Amid Market Slump — The changes will take the total number of index constituents to just over 700 after years of largely adding names to the index.
- Raising Trillions of Dollars Might Be the Easy Part of Altman’s Chip Plan — The scale of funding Altman is contemplating would dwarf the incentives being put forth in the U.S. and elsewhere, including in China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
The Financial Times
- Chinese-backed solar factory stirs suspicions in rural Ohio — Local opponents raise fears over Beijing’s influence as US aims to reshore supply chain.
- China’s ‘national team’ propels EM ETF flows to new record — Chinese equity funds accounted for vast majority of the new money, but foreign investors preferred ex-China vehicles.
- Latham & Watkins cuts off its Hong Kong lawyers from international databases — US law firm acts as data security laws in territory look set to be strengthened on same lines as China’s.
- EU prepares sanctions on Chinese and Indian companies over Russia links — Curbs aimed at hitting Moscow’s war machine would be first time bloc has targeted entities in two big trading partners.
The New York Times
- U.S. Gas Producers Are Racing to Sell to Asia. And Mexico Is Key. — Demand is particularly growing in China, India and fast-industrializing Southeast Asian countries.
- What to Know About Indonesia’s Election — In the contest between the United States and China for influence in Asia, Indonesia is seen by U.S. officials as a “swing state.”
Caixin
- CICC-Backed Chinese Chip Design Firm Fined Over Fraudulent IPO Application — A semiconductor company sponsored by China International Capital Corp. Ltd. (CICC), one of the country’s top investment banks, has been fined over IPO application fraud, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said in a statement Friday.
- China’s Power Reforms: Putting the ‘Market’ Back In the Electricity Market — After the power crisis of 2021, when spiking coal prices and dwindling local stocks of the combustible rocks led to power rationing, China tweaked its energy policy in an effort to inject the power market with a little more market.
South China Morning Post
- Chinese provinces report more marriages after decade-long drop, with boost from Year of the Dragon and pandemic backlog — Five provinces show increase in marriage registrations in 2023 after years of declines, which some attribute to post-pandemic wedding boom and the desire to have lucky ‘dragon babies’.
- China’s domestic travel takes off, but foreign visitors yet to make a comeback — Tourism reports show steady recovery of in-country trips after Covid-19, but international arrivals will take longer.
- CCB, BOC and China Everbright among Chinese lenders that have injected billions into ‘whitelist’ housing projects — Leading Chinese banks have injected billions of yuan into housing projects with the aim of financing the completion of pre-sold but yet-to-be-completed homes across the country.
Nikkei Asia
- Chinese migrants flock to U.S. border, driven by economic pressures — Encounters with American authorities at Mexican border jumped 10-fold in 2023.
- As China debt looms, Kenya president seeks more diverse funding — Ruto inks deal with Japan on samurai bond amid diplomatic blitz.
- China faces ‘lost decade,’ 30 years after Japan — Stock market interventions mirror Tokyo’s before bubble economy burst.
Bloomberg
- CK Hutchison Cancels Sale of €3.4 Billion Italian Network Unit — CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. canceled the sale of a majority stake in its Italian network infrastructure portfolio to private equity firm EQT AB.
- MSCI to Remove Swath of China Stocks From Indexes as Markets Sink — MSCI Inc. is cutting dozens of Chinese companies from its global benchmarks following a market rout that’s erased trillions of dollars in value from the nation’s stocks.
- China Opposes ‘Illegal Sanctions’ After Proposed EU Trade Curbs — China said it firmly opposes “illegal sanctions” in a response to the European Union’s proposal to impose trade restrictions on three Chinese firms as part of efforts to hobble Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine.
Reuters
- US lawmakers call for sanctions on China’s WuXi AppTec biotech firm — The U.S. should review Chinese biotech firm WuXi AppTec and its affiliate WuXi Biologics for sanctions, a bipartisan group of lawmakers told top Biden administration officials on Monday.
- Australia trade minister to ask China to lift barriers, query Wang sentence — Australia’s trade minister said on Tuesday he would meet his Chinese counterpart at a World Trade Organization conference in Abu Dhabi this month and push for the removal of restrictions on imported Australian wine, lobsters and meat.
- Russian telecoms lobby for access to China market — Russia on Thursday asked China to grant access to the Chinese telecom market for three Russian operators.
Other Publications
- Associated Press: Indonesia’s presidential election has high stakes for the US and China and their rivalry in the region — When Indonesians cast their votes on Wednesday for a new president in one of the world’s biggest elections, the stakes will also be high for the United States and China and their mounting rivalry in the region.
- POLITICO: Forced labor still haunts China’s Xinjiang, report finds — Findings will likely raise pressure on Brussels to restrict imports from the region.
- Center for Strategic and International Studies: Next Steps to Close the Gap with China on Licensed Spectrum for Commercial 5G — China’s lead in licensed commercial spectrum allocation is particularly acute for mid-band spectrum, which is ideal for high-capacity, wide-area 5G deployments.
- Rest of World: Parents turn to AI tablets after China’s tutor crackdown — Tech companies iFlytek, Baidu, and BBK are cashing in on parents who fear their child will fall behind their peers.
- The Guardian: David Cameron to have first meeting with Chinese foreign minister — Cameron urged to raise human rights and security concerns in first meeting with Wang Yi since Sunak made him foreign secretary.
- Washington Post: Opinion: China airbrushed away its foreign minister. Why? — Theories about Qin’s fall from power have focused on his relationship with a Chinese TV journalist named Fu Xiaotian. By David Ignatius