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
- Nvidia’s New Sales Booster: The Global Push for National AI Champions — To control their artificial-intelligence destinies amid U.S. and Chinese tech dominance, countries are building their own computing infrastructure.
The Financial Times
- European companies step up efforts to decouple from China — Move comes as Brussels increases scrutiny of goods from world’s largest export economy.
- The graphite fight: US tariffs trigger race to build non-Chinese supply chain — Key material for electric vehicle batteries has been neglected by industry to date, giving China almost 100% of market.
- The Chinese quant fund-turned-AI pioneer — High-Flyer Capital Management is behind DeepSeek-V2, which ranks among China’s top large language models.
- Opinion: Hope of a commodities boom rests in inflation, not China — Tipping point for commodity investment is more likely to be perceived structural inflation, especially in the US. By Lex.
- Opinion: Charting trade chokepoints: a how-to guide — Understanding what our supply chains really look like could help make friendshoring a reality. By Rana Foroohar.
The New York Times
- U.S. Considers Expanded Nuclear Arsenal, a Reversal of Decades of Cuts — China’s expansion and Russia’s threats of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine and in space have changed a U.S. drive to reduce nuclear weapons.
- Opinion: The Pandas Are Back — The return of pandas to our zoos means more to Americans than just a burst of fleeting joy. By Vicki Constantine Croke.
Caixin
- Chinese Nationals Charged in U.S. For Laundering $73 Million in Crytpo Scam — The two defendants allegedly induce victims to transfer funds to fraudulent cryptocurrency investment platforms or bank accounts set up in the name of shell companies.
- Blue-Collar Work Surges in Popularity Among China’s Young Job Seekers — In the first quarter, the number of people under the age of 25 who applied for blue-collar jobs rose 165% compared with the same period in 2019, according to online recruitment platform Zhaopin.
- Cover Story: Turning Research Into Revenue – China’s Quest to Bring Lab Inventions to Market — China leads the world in patent filings, yet transforming the achievements of the nation’s universities and research institutions into profitable businesses remains a challenge.
- China’s CATL Refutes U.S. Lawmakers’ Allegations of Using Forced Labor — The world’s largest lithium battery manufacturer says claims are ‘groundless and completely false,’ after calls for the Department of Homeland Security to blacklist the firm as well as Gotion High-Tech.
South China Morning Post
- Can rich China regions embrace a Greater Shanghai Metropolitan Area, or is it a bridge too far? — An ambitious plan, months in the works and still being drafted, involves 14 cities around eastern China’s Yangtze River Delta, and ‘heated debate’ reflects a daunting bid for regional synergy.
- In China, regional security officials have been told to make regime stability a priority — Xi Jinping’s ‘holistic approach to national security’ and ensuring ‘political security’ the main messages at recent meetings.
- Chinese autonomous driving firm Minieye, backed by Alibaba CEO, files for Hong Kong IPO — Shenzhen-based Minieye Technology, which has yet to turn a profit, is joining mainland autonomous driving firms like iMotion and Horizon Robotics on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
- Opinion: Don’t doubt China’s resolve to tackle youth unemployment — Recent reports of Xi Jinping telling young people to ‘eat bitterness’ suggests a helpless government asking youth to simply endure. This is far from the truth. By Wei Wei.
Nikkei Asia
- U.S. cannot afford another ‘lost decade’ responding to China — The failure of successive U.S. administrations to respond adequately to the stunning growth of Chinese power stands as one of the biggest foreign policy blunders.
- Taiwan KMT bigwig Fu warns Lai not to ‘pick fight’ with China — “Lai has embraced the wrong logic by picking a fight with our bread and butter,” said the the Kuomintang’s Fu Kun-chi, referring to the importance of the Chinese market for Taiwan’s exports.
- From China to Singapore, Asia’s AI policy ‘gaps’ pose headaches for business — Varying approaches to regulating AI are a headache for tech companies in Asia, but political differences make cross-border cooperation difficult.
- Opinion: China will not give up on Myanmar’s military — While China has refrained from supporting Myanmar’s National Unity Government-led resistance, it has also tacitly allowed ethnic armed groups to occupy territory along the border between the two countries. By Yun Sun.
Bloomberg
- Chinese Premier Li Qiang to Visit New Zealand This Week — Chinese Premier Li Qiang will visit New Zealand later this week amid rising tensions between Beijing and its western trading partners.
- Philippines Rejects ‘Absurd’ Beijing Demand Over South China Sea — The Philippines said it will continue to maintain and supply its South China Sea outposts without seeking permission from any other nation, dismissing Beijing’s demand to do so as “absurd, nonsense and unacceptable.”
- Turkey to Impose Additional 40% Tariff on All China Vehicles — Turkey will raise tariffs on all vehicle purchases from China by 40%, in a bid to curb imports and narrow the current account deficit.
Reuters
- European nations compete for Chinese EV factories, jobs even as EU weighs tariffs — National governments across the bloc are dangling their own incentives to attract Chinese automakers looking to build European factories.
- China’s home de-stocking push to bring developers little cheer — Chinese banks are expected to extend cheaper loans to SOEs via the facility, backed by the central bank, to help them buy the homes from developers at “reasonable prices” to turn into affordable housing.
- Exclusive: G7 plans to warn small Chinese banks over Russia ties, sources say — Leaders gathering at the June 13-15 summit in Italy hosted by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are expected to focus heavily during their private meetings on the threat posed by burgeoning Chinese-Russian trade.
- Opinion: China’s commodity imports are soft, even those that look strong — China, the world’s largest crude importer, landed 11.06 million bpd in May, which was slightly up from April’s 10.88 million bpd, but massively down from the 12.11 million bpd in May 2023. By Clyde Russell.
Other Publications
- BBC: The hunt for the cartoon cat vexing China’s censors — A Chinese dissident – who is behind a popular X account fronted by a cartoon cat – says Beijing is trying to silence him.
- The Times: Volvo to shift EV production to Europe to escape China tariffs — The carmaker has started to divert manufacturing to Belgium ahead of an expected European Union crackdown on Beijing-subsidised imports.
- The Washington Post: Opinion: The U.S. military plans a ‘Hellscape’ to deter China from attacking Taiwan — But a top U.S. military commander for Asia says time is running out to put the plan in place. By Josh Rogin.
