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 Arrests American Scholar-Journalist, Adding to Friction With U.S. — Min Zin, Myanmar-born activist, is detained on suspicion of espionage.
- A Place Where Some AI Stocks Are Still Cheap: China — Technology champions offer a way to play the boom—but beware of geopolitics.
The Financial Times
- China slams Indonesia investment climate over nickel curbs — Regulatory changes could threaten $50bn of investment, embassy warns.
- China tees up digital payments system to compete with dollar — Beijing’s cross-border currency platform will be backed by central banks of Hong Kong, Thailand, UAE and Saudi Arabia.
- China summons Walmart chain Sam’s Club over food safety issues — US retailer has expanded rapidly in world’s second-largest economy.
- What the gym taught me about China’s relentless competition — In Beijing, the survival of the fittest is not left to chance.
The New York Times
- How China Can Move the Price of Oil Even by Not Buying — China is the world’s largest purchaser of oil. But three months after the war with Iran began, it cut its imports, cushioning the global market.
Caixin
- China’s Humanoid Robot Boom Sparks Fears of Bruising Price Wars — A rush of new entrants into China’s humanoid robotics industry is stirring concern among founders and investors that the sector could become overcrowded.
- China’s College Graduates Follow Industry to Smaller Cities, Report Says — Chinese college graduates are moving steadily into advanced manufacturing and modern services and away from top-tier cities.
South China Morning Post
- China’s universities cut 12,000 ‘obsolete’ degrees amid race to embrace AI era — The sweeping overhaul has affected over 30 per cent of China’s degree programmes, with arts and languages ditched in favour of tech-focused fields.
- The quiet escalation unfolding around Taiwan’s remote outposts as Beijing sends ships — Taipei says it is the first time mainland Chinese government vessels have entered waters near Taiping.
- At World Cup, Mexico leans on China tech and transport to keep the tournament kicking — Infrastructure and cloud solutions from China are bolstering the Fifa event as one of the host nations balances strategic partnerships with rising Washington pressure.
Nikkei Asia
- Taiwan launches website for Chinese nationals to report intelligence — New tactic follows the lead of agencies in US, Britain and Israel.
- Beijing ‘strongly dissatisfied’ with Pentagon move against China tech firms — Impacted companies include high-profile names such as Alibaba, Baidu and BYD.
- Zhipu soars and Minimax stumbles as China’s AI stocks diverge — State support, recurring revenue key factors as investors become more choosy.
- Opinion: India and China are redrawing the Himalayan map. Nepal must adapt — Lipulekh Pass dispute shows Kathmandu needs a strategy that goes beyond protest. By Brabim Karki.
Bloomberg
- Chinese Economy Stuck in Slow Lane as Consumption Heads for Drop — China’s consumer spending may have contracted for the first time since the pandemic, with retail sales shrinking 0.2% last month from a year earlier.
- Xiaohongshu Is Said to Ready Hong Kong IPO Filing This Month — The company, commonly referred to as China’s Instagram, has grown into a lifestyle and social-commerce powerhouse.
- Tencent-Backed Enflame Heads to IPO as China AI Chip Wave Grows — Enflame’s strong relationship with Tencent sets it apart from its peers.
Reuters
- China bonds emerge as surprise haven as Iran war reshapes portfolios — Global asset managers have been adding Chinese government bonds to their portfolios since the Iran war broke out, drawn not by yield but by their near-zero correlation with Western markets.
- ByteDance in talks with China’s Iluvatar CoreX to purchase AI chips, sources say — If a deal is agreed, Iluvatar CoreX would become ByteDance’s third major domestic supplier of graphics processing units.
- China’s pet owners splurge on preschools to pamper puppies — A new kind of preschool in China offers games, nibbles, treadmills and music for puppies.
Other Publications
- BBC: China detains two leaders of influential underground church — An influential Protestant church in China has said two of its leaders were detained after more than dozens of congregants, including children, were rounded up for interrogation.
- Foreign Affairs: The False Promise of U.S.-China Stability — Washington Will Come to Regret Its Stalemate With Beijing.
- Variety: China Eyes Dominance Over Global Cinema Tech Standards as LED Screens Gain Ground — The push is being led by tech giant Huawei through the Ultra HD Video Alliance, which is promoting its own HDR Vivid standard as an alternative to the Digital Cinema Initiatives certification framework.
- Rest of World: Can open-source beat OpenAI? — Former Hugging Face executive Tiezhen Wang explains how China’s open-source strategy is reshaping the AI race.
- The Verge: China may have accessed Mythos — The White House reportedly has suspicions that a China-linked group had access to Anthropic’s powerful AI.
- Foreign Policy: The End of Chinese Growth — Beijing’s economic ambitions have been brought back to earth.
