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
- Republicans Push Biden to Take Aggressive Stance Toward China — The president, who has called China ‘our most serious competitor,’ is trying to enlist allies to counter Beijing.
- Microsoft Probes Whether Leak Played Role in Suspected Chinese Hack — Investigators seek to unravel how attack spread in week before software fix.
- Chinese Factories Burn in Myanmar’s Deadliest Weekend of Protests Since Coup — Dozens killed as security forces open fire on demonstrators in several cities.
- Beijing Asks Alibaba to Shed Its Media Assets — Under Jack Ma’s rein, the company built a formidable portfolio of media assets.
- Chinese Monetary Policy Looks Looser than Advertised — While headline economic numbers are impressive yet not very meaningful, there are clues to what Beijing is doing behind the scenes.
- China Becomes First Major Economy to Start Withdrawing Pandemic Stimulus Efforts — As its economy rebounds, Beijing begins a delicate process that will influence the domestic and global recoveries.
- China’s Economic Activity Soars but Jobless Rate Hits Ceiling Set by Beijing — Retail sales lose momentum from the final months of 2020 as fresh Covid-19 restrictions weigh on consumption.
- China’s Youthful, Debt-Fueled Spending Spree Sparks a Reckoning — A new generation helped power rising consumption. Now, new financial regulations are forcing lenders to reassess their business strategies.
- Ant Group CEO Simon Hu Resigns — The move comes amid heightened scrutiny over the Chinese financial-technology company; Chairman Eric Jing will take up CEO role.
The Financial Times
- Xiaomi rallies on US trading ban reprieve — Shares rise more than 10% after court blocks investment restrictions against Chinese smartphone maker.
- Dozens killed and Chinese factories torched in Myanmar’s deadliest day — Protesters allege Beijing backed coup that overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.
- US stimulus package leaves Europe standing in the dust — This will hasten Europe’s and the UK’s relative economic decline, especially compared with China.
- UK declares China in breach of 1984 Hong Kong declaration — Raab says Beijing in ‘state of ongoing non-compliance’ with accord that guaranteed a high degree of autonomy.
- ‘Hong Kong will sit on China’s lap’: Beijing crushes city’s autonomy — Election law will ensure that only ‘patriots’ wield any power in the territory.
The New York Times
- A Sandstorm in China Revives Memories of ‘Airpocalypses’ Past — The Communist Party has made great strides in reducing China’s pollution, but a perfect storm of northern winds and an industrial rebound has created dangerously high levels of pollution countrywide.
- Mitt Romney: The Right Way to Boycott the Beijing Olympics — The United States can repudiate Chinese policy without unfairly punishing our athletes.
- Biden Goals Converge in Asia: Rebuilding Alliances and Countering China — A flurry of diplomacy, which includes talks in Tokyo and Seoul, is a prelude to the administration’s first in-person meeting with top Chinese envoys.
- White House Weighs New Cybersecurity Approach After Failure to Detect Hacks — The intelligence agencies missed massive intrusions by Russia and China, forcing the administration and Congress to look for solutions, including closer partnership with private industry.
- China Says China-Made Vaccines Will Help Get You Into China — A new rule for foreigners applying in Hong Kong for visas gives preference to those who choose shots produced in China.
Caixin
- Scandal-Plagued Kangde Xin Is About to Get Booted From the Shenzhen Bourse — After correcting inflated figures, the company reveals four straight years of losses, subjecting it to mandatory delisting.
- Megvii Says STAR Market Listing on Track as IPO Review Begins — Facial recognition specialist is taking another shot at going public in China after failing in Hong Kong a year ago in the face of a coronavirus sales slowdown and headwinds from ending up on a U.S. trade blacklist.
- Cover Story: The Clash of China’s Social Media Titans — Tencent and ByteDance fight an all-out war for internet user traffic with hundreds of lawsuits and strategic incursions into each other’s turf.
- China’s Corporate Earnings Set for Biggest Jump in a Decade — Profits at firms in the CSI 300 Index are expected to jump 28% year-on-year in the fourth quarter.
- Billionaire Zhang Jindong Remains Suning.com’s Top Shareholder — Even after surrendering a big stake to the Shenzhen government in a bailout, founder can exercise significant sway over the struggling retailer’s board.
- Tesla Takes Two of the Three Top Spots for China’s Best-Selling NEV Models — Tesla has once again proved its popularity in China with hot sales of the Model Y, its second Shanghai-assembled car model which started deliveries only two months ago.
South China Morning Post
- China economy advanced in January and February, but mixed data underscores uneven nature of recovery — China’s economy continued to advance, combined figures for January and February released on Monday showed, although the numbers are difficult to interpret due to the weak comparison base from a coronavirus-hit 2020.
- Hong Kong firms face question of ethics with Myanmar investments — Last June, when the Hong Kong Trade Development Council spotlighted business opportunities in Myanmar in an article on its website, there was no shortage of Hong Kong businesses on hand to express their bullish sentiment.
- World’s largest games publisher and most indebted real estate developer form venture to develop operating system for smart vehicles — China Evergrande and Tencent Holdings have agreed to set up a company to develop an operating system for smart vehicles, as competition heats up amid Beijing’s push to accelerate the roll-out of automobiles that run on non-fossil fuels and artificial intelligence.
Bloomberg
- China to Raise Retirement Age in Stages, State Researcher Says — China plans to raise the retirement ages gradually over a number of years instead of in a drastic one-time change, a government researcher said last week, without providing any detail on when the changes might start.
- Huawei Pivots to Fish Farms, Mining After U.S. Sanctions — Six months after the Trump administration dealt a crushing blow to Huawei Technologies Co.’s smartphone business, the Chinese telecommunications giant is turning to less glamorous alternatives that may eventually offset the decline of its biggest revenue contributor.
- Chinese Stocks Slump as Upbeat Data Deepens Liquidity Concerns — China’s stocks slumped, as a neutral lending stance from the central bank and data showing surging economic activity renewed concerns about tightening liquidity.
- China Slams U.K., Says It Has No Right to Supervise Hong Kong — China accused the U.K. of “groundless slanders” after the British government said Beijing’s crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong wasn’t in compliance with a treaty that paved the way for the city’s return to Chinese control.
- AMC’s Chinese Owner Gives Up Control Over Largest Cinema Chain — Dalian Wanda Group Co., the conglomerate founded by Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin, has given up its majority control over AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. after the world’s largest cinema chain reported a record loss of $4.6 billion for 2020 amid repeated warnings of insolvency.
Reuters
- China’s Geely to add $5 billion battery plant in EV push — Geely said on Monday it would build an electric vehicle battery factory with a planned annual manufacturing capacity of 42 gigawatt hours (GWh) in China’s eastern city of Ganzhou, as it expands its EV line-up in the world’s biggest car market.
- Baidu’s AI chip unit Kunlun completes new funding, at $2 billion valuation: source — Chinese search giant Baidu Inc said on Monday that its artificial intelligence chip unit Kunlun recently completed a round of fundraising, which according to one source with direct knowledge of the matter values the business at about $2 billion.
- Top Chinese steelmaking city to punish firms that stray from anti-pollution plan — Tangshan, China’s top steelmaking city, said it will punish firms that either have not taken the steps spelled out under its emergency anti-pollution plan or have illegally discharged pollutants, following weeks of smog in northern China.
- Five Chinese companies pose threat to U.S. national security: FCC — The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday designated five Chinese companies as posing a threat to national security under a 2019 law aimed at protecting U.S. communications networks.
Other Publications
- SupChina: U.S., Japan, and Australia to help India compete with China’s vaccine diplomacy — One billion doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be produced in India and distributed to Southeast Asian countries, with the help of the U.S., Japan, and Australia. The initiative, an output of the informal “Quad” alliance, is an attempt to counter Chinese vaccine diplomacy in the region.
- Nikkei Asian Review: China looms over Blinken and Austin’s Asia tour starting in Japan — US secretaries of defense and state to meet with Tokyo counterparts.
- Nikkei Asian Review: China has brought its repressive surveillance tools to Hong Kong — Move to require ID for SIM card purchases follows website shutdown and controls.
- AP News: EXPLAINER: What drives possible boycott of Beijing Olympics — Some kind of boycott is almost sure to affect next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics.
