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
- Foxconn Still Looking at Building U.S. Plant as It Opens Factory in China — Tech manufacturing firm also says it is bidding for Toshiba’s flash memory chip business.
- How China Beat Out the U.S. to Become the Top Player in Rare-Earths Refining — Even if the Trump administration secures more minerals from the likes of Ukraine or Greenland, the U.S. would struggle to process them.
- Trade War Explodes Across World at Pace Not Seen in Decades — Proliferating tariffs engulfing U.S., China and their partners draw parallels to 1930s protectionist spiral.
- China Releases Detained Staff of U.S. Due-Diligence Firm Mintz — Employees were held since 2023 in case that raised concerns about doing business in China.
- China’s Central Bank Tweaks Lending Tool in Sign of Policy Shift — From March, the People’s Bank of China will conduct MLF loan operations on a fixed-quantity, interest-rate bidding, and multiple-price bidding basis.
The Financial Times
- China explores services subsidy to boost weak domestic demand — Support for travel, tourism and sports comes as Beijing doubles funding for goods trade-in scheme to $41bn.
- BYD’s annual sales top $100bn for first time — Chinese electric vehicle company has benefited from rising demand for plug-in hybrids in its domestic market.
- Chinese developer Sunac unveils unprecedented 2nd restructuring — Move by mainland property giant highlights continuing debt problems in depressed sector.
- China is suffering its own ‘China shock’ — Labour-intensive manufacturing is vanishing and millions of jobs could be lost, with repercussions for stability and growth.
- U.S. farmers express dismay over proposal for levies on China-built ships — Agriculture industry could be hit hardest if fees of up to $1.5mn per vess el docking were implemented.
- China releases detained Mintz employees as Xi courts global CEOs — Visiting executives include Apple’s Tim Cook and Pfizer’s Albert Bourla as Beijing seeks investment.
- Chinese AI start-ups overhaul business models after DeepSeek’s success — The country’s top groups are re-evaluating their strategies as they race to remain competitive.
The New York Times
- China Releases Mintz Employees After 2-Year Detention — The release of the five employees, detained during a crackdown on foreign due diligence, comes as Beijing is trying to bring back overseas investment.
Caixin
- China’s Neta Auto on Brink of Collapse as $600 million Funding Round Falls Through — Neta’s failure to resume production led to unraveling of funding round.
- Taming the Wild West of China’s Supply Chain Finance — Regulators are clamping down on misconduct on the electronic IOU trading platforms that industry insiders say have become chaotic, and sometimes hurt the small suppliers they were designed to help.
South China Morning Post
- In China, BMW bemoans EU tariffs, seeks compromise with policy changes — German carmaker is at the forefront of pending tariff talks between Brussels and Beijing.
- Devil in the details of the Hutchison-BlackRock Panama ports deal — Hong Kong-based port operator has to contend with local politics and mounting pressure from US, which wants to reduce mainland Chinese influence.
- Ant Group’s use of China-made GPUs, not Nvidia, cuts AI model training costs by 20% — The fintech affiliate of Alibaba said its Ling-Plus-Base model can be ‘effectively trained on lower-performance devices.’
- Unaffected by EU’s tariffs on EVs, China’s hybrid-vehicle exports surge to bloc — With Brussels’ tariffs not a problem, China’s plug-in hybrid EVs have become the fastest-growing Chinese export item to the 27-nation bloc.
- As China and Japan set the past aside to counter Trump turbulence, how far will Tokyo go? — Both China and Japan see stable ties as a bulwark against Trump risks, but Tokyo unlikely to be drawn away from U.S. orbit, analysts say.
Nikkei Asia
- Chinese robot makers set sights on U.S. amid Trump’s onshoring push — Demand for automation fueled by increased local manufacturing and e-commerce sales.
- China’s state telcos cut back investments as they brace for 6G — Trio ramps up shareholder returns in response to government directives.
- Fears of Trump port fees on Chinese vessels rock global shipping — Executives warn Washington hearing about high costs, supply chaos, job losses.
Bloomberg
- Buy the Tariff-Dip Is Mantra for Veteran Chinese Money Managers — Fear of missing out on a China turnaround has become a counter-weight to concerns over an expanding trade war.
- China Adviser Urges Boosting Consumption to 70% of GDP by 2035 — The Chinese government has made boosting domestic demand, particularly consumption, as the top economic priority this year.
Reuters
- DeepSeek narrows China-U.S. AI gap to three months, 01.AI founder Lee Kai-fu says — Until DeepSeek’s launch, many of the country’s tech leaders said they were far behind Western counterparts.
- Trump’s port fees on Chinese ships threaten U.S. maritime industry, say executives — The idea has sent a shockwave through the domestic maritime industry because it threatens the survival of the same shipping companies and customers that would drive demand for orders from the U.S. shipyards Trump wants to rebuild.
Other Publications
- Foreign Affairs: China Has Already Remade the International System — How the World Adopted Beijing’s Economic Playbook.
- Foreign Policy: Did China Get Billionaires Right? — The party does not grant impunity to the ultra-rich.
- The Washington Post: Opinion: Trump won’t beat China with hard power alone — We are losing the soft-power battle with Beijing, which is investing heavily in its own initiatives. By Joseph Nye.
