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
- Trump Stirs China Tensions With Claims That It Meddled in U.S. Elections — Allegations about 2020 vote threaten to erode an uneasy detente between the two superpowers.
- China’s Xi Touts Open-Source AI and Takes a Swipe at U.S. Dominance — Beijing leader woos developing countries as superpowers jockey for technology lead.
- China’s Moonshot AI Releases Model to Challenge Top U.S. Systems — The company is being valued at $31.5 billion amid an ongoing funding round, people familiar said.
- Chinese Automaker XPeng Unveils L03 SUV in Munich, Steps Up Overseas Expansion — XPeng also announced a partnership with Google Maps for vehicles sold outside China.
The Financial Times
- Xi Jinping sets out China’s goal to be global AI leader — President calls for ‘positive’ use of technology as Beijing seeks to strengthen influence over standards.
- Donald Trump revives election meddling claims ahead of midterms — US president accuses China of interference in primetime speech.
The New York Times
- China’s Leader Pitches ‘Openness’ in Push to Shape A.I.’s Future — Xi Jinping said that the development of artificial intelligence systems should be a “symphony of global collaboration.”
- Trump Released Documents on China and the 2020 Election. Here’s What We Know. — President Trump started his speech on Thursday evening by outlining a series of claims about China’s attempts to acquire American voter data.
- Beijing Rejects Trump’s Claim of Meddling, but Avoids a Fight — Chinese officials called the election-meddling accusation baseless, while analysts said Beijing was trying to preserve a fragile détente.
- The Philippines Condemns Chinese State Media for Depicting It as a Monkey — It lodged a diplomatic complaint with Beijing over an A.I.-generated video centered on territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
- Chinese Human Rights Lawyer Seeking Asylum Is Arrested by ICE — Shaoping Wu was working as a contract delivery driver for Amazon when he was pulled over in Pennsylvania.
- ‘Suddenly, I Was Free’: A Chinese Pastor’s Journey From Jail to the U.S. — In his first interview since being released by China, Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri details his surprise release after a direct appeal by President Trump.
Caixin
- Ex-ICBC Wealth Chief Gets Life in Prison for $21 Million Graft — The appeals ruling cements the downfall of Gu Jiangang, a once-powerful executive who oversaw nearly 3 trillion yuan in wealth management funds at the world’s largest bank.
- U.S. Slashes Visa Time Limits for Foreign Students, Chinese Journalists — The rule targets foreign nationals holding F visas for students, J visas for exchange scholars and I visas for foreign media representatives.
South China Morning Post
- Anthropic, China and why Pax Silica architect thinks the US can keep the AI lead — Brief curbs on foreign access to Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos models designed to keep infrastructure safe, Jacob Helberg says.
- Beijing denounces US chip curbs as threat to global supply chains — Move to incorporate three China-focused export control measures into the NDAA marks a new escalation in the US technology rivalry.
- Top takeaways from Xi Jinping’s opening address at the World AI Conference in Shanghai — The speech marks the Chinese president’s first-ever keynote address at the nation’s premier artificial intelligence summit.
Nikkei Asia
- Xi dabbles in ‘AI diplomacy’ at Shanghai forum with Thai, Cambodian PMs — Domestic advances span AI smartphones, chips and supercomputing systems.
Bloomberg
- China’s Powerful New Moonshot AI Model Closes Gap With US Rivals — Moonshot released the Kimi K3, a model that performs on par with some of the top-tier platforms from OpenAI and Anthropic PBC.
- DeepSeek Champions China’s Bid to Flood the World With Cheap AI — Chinese-built open-source models, including those from DeepSeek, are gaining traction globally.
- Z.AI Set to Be First China AI Firm With $1 Billion Annual Sales — The company’s revenue so far this month would translate into annual sales of $1 billion when normalized over 12 months, according to people familiar with the matter.
Reuters
- China’s oil imports have plunged during the Iran war. How much will they recover? — For five years, China imported an average of 11.5 million barrels of oil per day. Since April, it has averaged just 8 million bpd.
- China’s Zhongji Innolight nears Hong Kong listing of up to $7 billion — The Shenzhen-listed company makes optical modules used in artificial intelligence data centres.
- China calls US visa regulations ‘discriminatory’, threatens countermeasures — China on Friday urged the United States to withdraw its new “discriminatory” visa regulations and said it reserves the right to take reciprocal countermeasures.
Other Publications
- Axios: China just erased America’s AI lead — America’s commanding lead in advanced AI is gone.
- BBC: China hits out at British Steel nationalisation — The UK took control of British Steel’s operations in Scunthorpe last year, though it was still owned by China’s Jingye Group, limiting the government’s ability to steer its future.
- The Guardian: ‘Even Politburo members can be touched’: what the latest purge says about Xi Jinping’s China — The ousting of Ma Xingrui – the third Politburo member in recent years – suggests Xi’s tolerance of dissent is diminishing, say analysts.
