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
- Why China Is Doing So Little to Help a Friend Under Fire — Beijing sees risks in offering more than rhetorical support despite its longstanding friendship with the regime in Iran.
- China Building Subs That Can Strike U.S. From Closer to Home, U.S. Navy Warns — Beijing’s accelerating production of submarines is set to challenge U.S. undersea dominance.
The Financial Times
- China prepares landmark law curtailing minority language rights — Bill to ‘promote ethnic unity’ by mandating Mandarin use would hasten decline of other cultures, critics say.
- China’s high-rise hog farms go international — Livestock producers tout benefits of rearing pigs in multistorey buildings.
The New York Times
- Ford and G.M. Face a Dilemma as China Excels in Electric Vehicles — General Motors, Ford and other established automakers risk becoming relics if they don’t catch up to Chinese carmakers and technology companies in electric vehicles and self-driving cars.
- U.S. Attacks on Iran Test Fragile Truce With China — Beijing has condemned the U.S.-backed strikes on Iran, a close partner. Yet with trade talks looming, it is unlikely to risk a rupture with Washington.
Caixin
- China Tweaks Sci-Tech Bond Rules to Boost Hard Tech Funding — New guidelines link fund use to R&D spending and offer more flexibility to private firms in a bid to fix imbalances and channel more capital into genuine innovation.
- China Report Says U.S. Seized $30 Billion in Global Crypto Assets — Document claims American authorities leverage tech and legal systems to tighten control over digital finance and global settlements.
- XPeng Wins Permit for Robotaxi Tests as CEO Sees Full Autonomy Within Three Years — Chinese automaker is testing driverless cabs without high-definition maps and preparing a major AI model update this month.
South China Morning Post
- Language as a weapon? PLA academics push for training overhaul, cite Ukraine war — Digitised battlefields demand new breed of soldier, as skilled at data analysis and psy-ops as at wielding a weapon, veteran instructor says.
- As US-Iran war threatens global energy markets, will China speed up its green transition? — Beijing is still dependent on fossil fuels but Washington’s recent interventions may prompt officials to fast-track shift, analysts say.
- Opinion: Now is the time for China to show it’s serious about opening up — The ‘two sessions’ is Beijing’s chance to demonstrate reliability as nations reassess their ties with China and the US in an increasingly fragmented global order. By Wang Xiangwei.
Nikkei Asia
- What to watch as Xi Jinping maps out next 5 years — 2026 growth target in focus; observers seek clues on personnel, foreign policy.
- BYD redraws global EV map, overtaking Tesla in 20 markets — Chinese company has taken risk and acted fast in expanding beyond home market.
- Opinion: Asia’s dollar dilemma — Market shifts and digital assets test decades-old portfolio assumptions. By James David Spellman.
Bloomberg
- Xi Eyes Consumers to Lead New Era for China’s Unbalanced Economy — For decades, China’s leaders have failed to heed calls to rebalance the economy toward consumption as they pursued an investment-heavy, export-oriented growth strategy.
- US, China Trade Chiefs to Meet Mid-March Before Trump-Xi Summit — US and Chinese trade negotiators are slated to meet in mid-March, signaling a planned summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping is pushing ahead.
- Opinion: Regimes Come and Go. China’s Interests in Iran Will Endure — Beijing will manage any potential leadership change in Tehran as long as the oil keeps flowing and Washington handles Taiwan with care. By Karishma Vaswani.
Reuters
- US struggling to de-risk Congo’s ‘war zone minerals’ even after pact, sources say — Democratic Republic of Congo, which hosts the world’s largest cobalt supply and rich copper and lithium reserves, is central to the U.S. push to cut reliance on China.
Other Publications
- The Atlantic: What Trump’s America Looks Like From China — That life is better in the U.S. is no longer an article of faith.
- The Guardian: More generals purged as delegates gather for China’s Two Sessions event — Spectre of military upheaval will hang over annual meetings where Beijing’s five-year plan will be launched.
- PIIE: Drawing the right lessons for the next Trump-Xi deal — Without Trump’s trade wars since 2017, US exports to China would have been nearly 60 percent higher in 2025, or roughly $90 billion annually.
