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
- China’s Push to Purge Organized Crime Casts Shadow Over Private Businesses — Some entrepreneurs and lawyers say Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s campaign has gone too far and is denting business confidence.
- Biden’s China Policy Borrows From Trump and Adds Allies to Raise Pressure — The emerging U.S. approach to China will get a test during the first high-level face-to-face exchange in months.
- Hong Kong Police Arrest Five Over Children’s Books Depicting Protesters as Sheep — National-security police accuse union members of plotting to poison young minds as clampdown on dissent intensifies.
The Financial Times
- China Telecom cleared for $8.4bn Shanghai share sale — State-run group forced off New York Stock Exchange by Trump order as Beijing reins in overseas IPOs.
- China urged to stop forcibly returning North Korean defectors — Human rights activists warn that escapers could be tortured by Kim Jong Un’s regime.
- Thermal coal prices soar as demand for electricity rebounds — Popularity of fossil fuel as a stopgap to generate power reveals difficulties of clean energy transition.
- EDF says it would shut Taishan reactor if it were in France — French nuclear operator says fuel-rod issues at China plant would lead it to close for maintenance.
- Bets on electric vehicles light up lithium miners and battery makers — Interest in EVs has driven what some see as a ‘transformational bull market’ for speciality metals.
The New York Times
- Climate Crisis Turns World’s Subways Into Flood Zones — Swift, deadly flooding in China this week inundated a network that wasn’t even a decade old, highlighting the risks faced by cities globally.
- Men Who Beat Hong Kong Protesters in Mob Attack Are Sentenced to Prison — In his ruling, a judge in Hong Kong said that the seven defendants had “viciously” attacked innocent people in a train station in July 2019.
Caixin
- IQiyi Wins Streaming Deal With English Premier League — Chinese platform cuts four-year accord adding to its array of sports streaming that includes LaLiga, World Cup, Australian Open and PGA Championship.
- Faraday Future Shares Slump on Nasdaq Debut — Deal proceeds even as Zhuhai government drops out of $1 billion SPAC plan to fund Jia Yueting’s long-struggling electric-car startup.
South China Morning Post
- Top Chinese officials likely to be absent from Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony — Beijing has apparently not sent any senior Chinese officials to attend what is expected to be a subdued opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics on Friday night.
- US adds oil and gas targets to its claims of cyberattacks by China — State-sponsored Chinese cyber actors were behind attacks targeting dozens of US oil and natural gas pipeline companies a decade ago, according to an investigative report released by President Joe Biden’s administration.
- Joe Biden’s digital trade deal could see US rejoin Asia-Pacific pact ditched by Donald Trump — Plans by the United States for a digital trade agreement covering Indo-Pacific economies may be a step toward Washington rejoining a regional trade deal that president Donald Trump exited in 2017, Australian trade minister Dan Tehan said.
Bloomberg
- China Said to Mull Turning Tutoring Firms Into Non-Profits — China is considering asking companies that offer tutoring on the school curriculum to go non-profit, according to people familiar with the matter, as part of a sweeping set of constraints that could decimate the country’s $100 billion education tech industry. Shares sank.
- China’s Xi Affirms Control Over Tibet With First Official Visit — Xi Jinping has made his first visit to Tibet as Chinese president, affirming Beijing’s control over a region where its military build-up and ethnic-assimilation polices have drawn international criticism.
- Hong Kong Leader Jokes About Need for Law to Muzzle Media Leaks — Hong Kong’s leader criticized media who published her comments in a private meeting and joked that a law might be needed to curb such reporting — comments that are likely to fan concerns about the city’s press freedom.
- China Evergrande’s Endgame Choices: Partnerships, IPOs or a Fire Sale — The conglomerate is running out of time and its founder must come up with new sources of funding or risk losing large parts of his empire.
Reuters
- Analysis – China crackdown could knock crude oil import growth to 20-year low — Beijing’s crackdown on the misuse of import quotas combined with the impact of high crude prices could see China’s growth in oil imports sink to the lowest in two decades in 2021, despite an expected rise in refining rates in the second half.
- Chinese prosecutor charged in alleged plot to intimidate citizens to return to China — The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday accused a prosecutor employed by the Chinese government of traveling to the United States to direct a harassment campaign aimed at bullying Chinese residents to return home to face criminal charges.
- China says U.S. slandering its efforts to pursue suspects overseas — China said on Friday the United State was slandering its efforts to pursue criminal suspects overseas, after a Chinese prosecutor was charged in an alleged plot to intimidate citizens to return to China.
- U.S. moves to drop visa fraud charges against Chinese researcher — The U.S. Justice Department moved on Thursday to drop all charges against a Chinese researcher arrested last year over visa fraud in its “China Initiative” that aims to prevent the transfer of U.S. technology.
Other Publications
- The Economist: Attitudes towards experimenting on monkeys are diverging — Many countries are growing warier, even as China races ahead.
- The Economist: Academics in Hong Kong suffer curbs on their freedoms — A climate of fear has enveloped the city’s campuses.
- The New Yorker: Reconsidering the History of the Chinese Communist Party — On the centenary of the C.C.P., a scholar examines the roots of Xi Jinping’s authoritarianism.
- Foreign Affairs: Can America Trust China to Fight Climate Change? — The Debate Over Competition and Cooperation
- Foreign Policy: Time to End the U.S. Justice Department’s China Initiative — A misguided effort at countering espionage needs a serious rethink.
