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.
Paid subscribers automatically have this list emailed directly to their inboxes every day by 10 a.m. EST. Subscribe here.
The Wall Street Journal
- Chinese Tech Stocks Fall Amid Renewed Pessimism About U.S.-China Trade Deal — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s description of U.S.-China talks as “a bit stalled” could be dampening hopes.
- America Let Its Military-Industrial Might Wither. China’s Is Booming. — A visualization of how far the U.S. has fallen behind.
- U.S. to Revoke Visas of Chinese Students — State Department says it won’t schedule any new student-visa interviews as it prepares to vet social-media accounts of applicants.
- Targeting Chinese Students Threatens the Bottom Line at American Universities — Trump administration’s move to revoke visas could poke holes in university finances and U.S. talent pipeline.
The Financial Times
- US-China trade talks ‘stalled’, Bessent says — American Treasury secretary says a Xi-Trump phone call is possible ‘at some point’.
- Chinese tech groups prepare for AI future without Nvidia — Tougher US export restrictions on advanced chips give added urgency to testing of domestic alternatives.
The New York Times
- Why the U.S. Opened Its Doors to Chinese Students, and Why Trump Is Closing Them — The 1970s era of academic exchange began as a form of diplomacy. “People were curious about us, inviting us to their homes,” one former student remembers.
- Why Myanmar Rebels Retreated From Lashio — Beijing has intervened significantly in Myanmar’s civil war to protect its substantial investments in the country, handing a setback to resistance forces.
- Chinese Students Rattled by Trump Plan to ‘Aggressively’ Revoke Visas — Students said the latest move had upended their plans and intensified their fears.
- Chinese Paraglider Reaches Near-Record Heights, Over 28,000 Feet, by Accident — After video of the incident went viral, showing a face and body covered in ice, the local sporting authority said it had banned the paraglider from the sport for six months.
- Trump Makes a New Push to ‘Decouple’ U.S. From China — Trump administration officials are getting a second chance to try to sever ties with China by starting a trade war, imposing export controls and revoking student visas.
Caixin
- Court Sounds Alarm About Corruption in Big Tech — White paper warns that graft at China’s internet firms is especially damaging — due to their financial scale and social influence.
- U.S.-China Rivalry Reshapes Latin America’s Geopolitics — In recent months, the world has become more unpredictable and fragmented, with Latin American and Caribbean nations “among the regions suffering most in this situation.”
- How Lax Oversight Opened the Door to Corruption in Poverty Relief — There’s money to be made from helping China’s poor escape of poverty. That’s one lesson from a 2023 crackdown on corruption that netted at least five officials for offenses.
- Commercial Insurance’s Rise Exposes Chokepoints in China’s Medical System — In late 2024, the family of a mother undergoing treatment described how she was denied admission by public hospitals because she was using commercial medical insurance.
- Brazil Sues BYD, Contractors for Keeping Workers in ‘Slavery’-Like Conditions — Prosecutors are seeking ‘moral damages’ of $45 million and other compensation from the EV giant for human trafficking and other violations of workers’ rights.
South China Morning Post
- US retail giants pushing Chinese suppliers to shoulder up to 66% of tariff costs — American retailers – under pressure at home to ‘eat the tariffs’ – are now demanding that Chinese producers split the cost of the levies.
- Fury as Chinese bank offers to help rich clients’ kids gain top internships — The bank said it would help its clients’ children secure placements at Google and other top firms – if they made US$1.4 million deposits.
- China unveils world’s first AI nuke inspector — China creates artificial intelligence system to oversee nuclear warhead detection despite concerns it could leak tech secrets.
- China grid wears powerful ‘diamond ring’ to prevent massive blackout — Quantum-powered sentinel detects grid instability in real time to safeguard China’s power grid from devastating outages as seen in Europe.
- Opinion: Beijing’s marine science diplomacy can calm South China Sea tensions — With heavy investment in ocean technology and scientific expeditions, China is set to shape a collaborative scientific agenda in the region. By James Borton.
Nikkei Asia
- China launches mediation center with veiled jabs at Trump unilateralism — Friendly states back Hong Kong hub, while Beijing ignores South China Sea arbitration.
- Mahathir says China will be ‘No. 1 country in the world’ — Malaysia’s 99-year-old former PM predicts Trump will drop enemy-making tariffs.
- Robot maker Yaskawa targets US as rival gains in China — Focus on American market exposes Japanese company to Trump’s tariff policy.
Bloomberg
- China Hawk Blames Beijing for Trump Visa Bans, Urges Reset — One of Washington’s most vocal China critics defended the Trump administration’s plan to revoke visas for Chinese students and called for a reset in bilateral ties, citing national security concerns.
- China Preps $70 Billion in New Capital to Supercharge Investment — China plans to allocate $70 billion of capital that could be leveraged up to fast track new infrastructure projects as authorities seek to cushion the economy from US tariffs, according to people familiar with the matter.
- NetEase Shares Near Record High as China’s Gen Z Embraces Games — NetEase Inc. shares are closing in on their first new all-time high in over four years, as a wave of youthful consumerism adds to a host of positives for China’s game stocks.
- Apple’s Reliance on China Is About Far More Than Labor Costs — A new book argues that the company’s approach to outsourcing is a formidable competitive advantage that would be difficult to unravel.
- How China’s One-Child Policy Led to a Wave of Forced Adoptions — In ‘Daughters of the Bamboo Grove’, Barbara Demick tells the story of twin sisters torn apart by the nation’s experiment in population control.
Reuters
- Synopsys halts China sales due to US export restrictions, internal memo shows — Synopsys suspended its annual and quarterly forecasts after it received a letter from the Bureau of Industry and Security, informing it of new restrictions related to China.
- US ethane exports to China hit new roadblock with licence requirement — The move is the latest disruption in Chinese purchases of U.S. ethane, which hit a record of 492,000 barrels per day in 2024, or nearly half of U.S. exports.
- China’s stock market favours foxes over hedgehogs — The trick for investors is to front-run those rallies by gauging when Beijing is poised to support the market.
Other Publications
- Quartz: Nvidia’s China problem is big. Just not big enough to stop it — Export controls have substantially affected sales in China, but Nvidia’s global AI empire — and bottom line — keeps growing.
- Foreign Policy: American Far-Right Views Are Welcome in China — Racists in the United States and Chinese nationalists share common ground.
- POLITICO: Behind Trump’s long campaign to target Chinese student visas — The president’s action comes amid a fragile trade truce on the line.
- The Atlantic: Trump Is Attempting a ‘Reverse Nixon’ — Dividing America’s adversaries isn’t as easy as all that.
- The Economist: China’s carbon emissions may have peaked — If so, it is a significant, symbolic moment.
- The Economist: China’s crazy reverse-credit cards — In the People’s Republic you “pay now, buy later”.
- The Information: Jensen Huang Used to Delegate Politics—Until Trump’s Return — Nvidia’s Jensen Huang hopes Mar-a-Lago visits, new relationship with President Donald Trump can reopen a path to China.
- BBC: Students or spies? The young Chinese caught in Trump’s crosshairs — There was a time when China sent the highest number of foreign students to American campuses. But those numbers slipped as the relationship between the two countries soured.
