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
- Alibaba, Tencent E-Commerce Sites Tagged by U.S. for Counterfeit Sales — Both on the ‘notorious markets’ list of entities that allegedly sell or facilitate the sale of counterfeit goods.
- China Orders Cuts for Food-Delivery Fees, Sparking Tech Selloff — Shares of online delivery giant Meituan slide to a 19-month low.
- Starbucks Faces Online Uproar in China After Coffee Price Hike — Increase of up to 32 cents for a cup comes after the U.S. coffee giant reported slower sales in China and faced a nationalist backlash.
- Think U.S.-China Tensions are Bad for Business? Try China-India — Rising tensions between the world’s two most populous nations are showing up in surprising places—including foreign investors’ portfolios.
- How Omicron and Politics Punctured Hong Kong — With its Covid-19 strategy unraveling, the city is likely to witness significant fatalities soon.
- Chinese Developer Is In Fresh Trouble Months After Debt Swap — Yango Group didn’t pay $27 million before end of grace period.
- Olympic Committee Rebukes China Over Political Comments, in Rare Move — IOC President Thomas Bach said the group convened a meeting after a Chinese official told reporters there is only ‘one China,’ in a reference to Taiwan.
The Financial Times
- EU accuses China of ‘power grab’ over smartphone tech licensing — Legal challenge at WTO alleges patent infringements are costing European manufacturers billions of euros.
- Chinese tech group Meituan sheds $26bn after latest regulatory setback — Beijing moves to lower the commission fees platforms can take from restaurants.
- Illegal border crossings push Hong Kong Covid outbreak into China — At least four people with the virus crossed border and travelled on to other mainland cities.
- Omicron surge exposes tension at heart of Hong Kong’s virus strategy — Beijing worries a failure of territory’s zero-Covid approach will jeopardise mainland.
The New York Times
- Returning to China After Being Expelled — In March 2020, the Chinese government expelled a group of American reporters. This month, I returned to China for the first time to cover the Olympics.
- Why China Doesn’t Have an mRNA Vaccine for Covid — Beijing once said it had two mRNA shots within reach and ready for approval — one homemade and one produced by a foreign company. Today, neither is available.
- How China Uses Bots and Fake Twitter Accounts to Shape the Olympics — The country’s propagandists have used a variety of tools online to promote a vision of the Games that is free of rancor or controversy.
- China’s Fast Train, an Olympic Highlight — A journey by high-speed train offers a window on the nation’s future, as well as some of the past it would like to leave behind.
- Thomas Bach, IOC President, Rebukes a Chinese Official Over Political Comments — The rare criticism from the Olympic chief came in response to remarks about Taiwan.
Caixin
- In Depth: Chinese Companies’ Quest for Indonesian Nickel Grows Perilous — Tsingshan has spearheaded a charge into the Southeast Asian country that has raised questions about whether the firm and its peers in the EV materials industry have overcommitted.
- Chinese Court’s Crypto Loan Ruling Leaves Private Lender Out of Pocket — Agreement for loan made in $1.6 million of Ethereum tokens has no legal force, judgement says.
- China Cracks Down on Credit-Repair Agencies as Cheating Grows — Regulators target companies falsely claiming they can erase bad-debt records from individuals’ credit reports.
South China Morning Post
- China’s imposed cybersecurity review is result of US siphoning audit inspections of listed tech firms, analyst says — Beijing’s mandated cybersecurity review for overseas listings aims to address a perceived danger stemming from US access to “sensitive” data from public Chinese tech firms, according to a Chinese expert whose opinions were endorsed and published by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC).
- China’s foreign listing regulations that mandate cybersecurity reviews apply to Hong Kong, experts say — Chinese companies handling data from more than 1 million users are required to go through a cybersecurity review if they want to list overseas, and that includes Hong Kong, according to an assessment endorsed by China’s cyberspace watchdog.
- Hong Kong postpones chief executive election to May 8 amid Covid-19 surge — Carrie Lam cites use of Emergency Ordinance to trigger postponement, saying focus right now has to be on fighting pandemic.
- Hong Kong prison service stops visits, court trips for all inmates to conduct Covid-19 testing — Correctional Services Department says nobody in custody will be able to attend court hearings until end of month to undergo screenings.
Nikkei Asia
- Hong Kong delays leadership election amid worst COVID-19 outbreak — Chief Executive Carrie Lam ducks questions about seeking new term.
- U.S. adds e-commerce sites run by Alibaba, Tencent to ‘notorious’ list — Baidu Wangpan, Pinduoduo also accused of facilitating sale of counterfeit goods.
- Chinese healthcare companies hit COVID jackpot with home-test kits — Overseas sales boom as omicron rages, but pandemic’s end will clip windfall.
Bloomberg
- China Wipes $26 Billion Off Meituan’s Value With New Fee Policy — Meituan tumbled the most in nearly seven months after China issued new guidelines asking for food delivery platforms to cut fees, showing that investor angst over the nation’s tech giants remains high.
- Bigger Than Wuhan, H.K. Outbreak Defies Covid Zero Playbook — Hong Kong is now dealing with a bigger Covid crisis than the outbreak in Wuhan that heralded the start of the pandemic, throwing into doubt whether China’s Covid Zero playbook of mass testing, isolation and quarantine can stamp it out.
- Thousands Flee to Mainland China as Hong Kong Outbreak Widens — Chinese residents in Hong Kong are racing to get back to the mainland to get away from the financial hub’s worsening Covid outbreak, posing a challenge for officials fearful of contagion.
- Crisis in China’s Property Industry Deepens With No End in Sight — Almost exactly a year after China’s property-market debt squeeze sparked the first in a wave of defaults by developers, the industry is fighting for survival.
Reuters
- Hong Kong’s future unclear as leadership election, lacking front-runner, is delayed by COVID — Unlike previous times, where likely candidates have signalled their intention to run months in advance, there’s no clear favourite.
- Volkswagen in talks with Huawei on autonomous driving unit — Automakers and technology firms are investing billions of dollars in autonomous driving, aiming to take an early lead in what many consider the future of mobility.
- China NEV sales drop 18.6% in January after subsidy cut — Sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China fell 18.6% month-on-month in January after the country cut subsidies for NEVs by 30%, industry data showed on Friday.
Other Publications
- The Economist: China’s “zero-covid” policy doubles as a loyalty test — Hong Kong can open to the mainland or the world. It must choose.
- The Economist: China is trying to become a champion of biodiversity — It has a lot of ground to make up.
- The Economist: How Chinese firms have dominated African infrastructure — Western firms grumble more but compete less.
- The Washington Post: World Bank unit is financing Chinese companies that appear to employ forced laborers, report says — An arm of the taxpayer-funded World Bank has provided nearly $500 million in financing to four Chinese companies that appear to have employed forced laborers in the country’s Xinjiang region, according to a new report.
