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
- Shanghai to Lock Down 25 Million People, Half of the City at a Time — Decision comes day after officials denied Covid-19 lockdown plans, amid a rise in mostly asymptomatic cases.
- Chinese Tech Stocks Are Back. Their Glory Days Aren’t. — Beaten-down tech shares are basking in some unexpected warmth from Beijing, but whether their businesses will heat back up is still unclear.
- SoftBank’s Alibaba Stake in Spotlight Amid Stock-Market Turbulence — Shares in the Chinese e-commerce giant have been hit hard over the past year by Beijing’s clampdown on the sector.
- Freed Huawei Finance Chief Meng Wanzhou Returns to Company Spotlight — The daughter of Huawei’s founder takes center stage in Shenzhen for her first major appearance since release from detention in Canada.
- Second Black Box Found at China Eastern Plane Crash Site — The flight data recorder was buried almost 5 feet underground, roughly 130 feet from where plane made impact.
- Deadly Plane Crash Is Rare Challenge for China’s Air-Safety Officials — Decades spent creating one of the world’s safest aviation markets make China Eastern Airlines tragedy a test for nation’s investigators.
The Financial Times
- Spectre of ‘Indo-Pacific Nato’ accelerates China’s decoupling from the west — US-led alliance is as much a threat to Beijing as Moscow, say Xi Jinping’s diplomats.
- Shanghai split by lockdown as officials struggle to contain Covid outbreak — China’s financial centre hit by panic buying ahead of public transport shutdown and mass testing.
- HSBC removes references to Ukraine ‘war’ from analyst reports — Softening of language triggers internal debate and strong complaints from some staff.
- Shanghai to lock down financial district as it tries to rein in Covid — People in Pudong and nine other areas will have to stay at home to allow for mass testing.
- Evergrande crisis locks Chinese developers out of global debt market — Industry’s issuance of dollar bonds slows to a trickle in the first quarter of 2022.
- Chinese foreign minister makes first visit to India since deadly border clashes — Neighbouring countries have been in a diplomatic stand-off for two years.
The New York Times
- Turning Cities Into Sponges to Save Lives and Property — Officials around the world are implementing techniques to absorb or divert water and protect urban areas from the effects of climate change.
- China Plane Crash: Second ‘Black Box’ Is Found, Officials Say — The cause of the crash of China Eastern Flight 5735, which killed 132 people on Monday, remains unknown.
- China Eastern Crash Killed All 132 on Flight — Investigators were still looking for wreckage, remains and the second black box in an effort to determine what caused the crash.
Caixin
- Foreign Direct Investment in China Hit Record High in 2021 — Figure reaches $334 billion, up nearly one-third from the year before.
- Cover Story: How Nickel Turmoil Exposed the LME and China’s Tsingshan — A month ago, nickel was just another sleepy commodity trading at low volumes on the London Metal Exchange (LME) for less than $25,000 a ton.
South China Morning Post
- Coronavirus: Shanghai lockdowns spark fear, frustration among European firms about zero-Covid policy — A two-stage coronavirus lockdown in the financial hub of Shanghai is raising fears among foreign investors that China will stick to its zero-Covid strategy longer than first thought, while putting pressure on businesses and making the country one of the last in the world to emerge from the pandemic.
- Shanghai Stock Exchange pulls out all the stops to keep trading going as city government locks down Pudong area to contain Covid-19 — Shanghai’s stock exchange is going to extraordinary lengths to keep the bigger half of the world’s second-largest capital market ticking, locking technicians, compliance officers and back-office clerks in the building, as China’s premier commercial city goes into a rolling lockdown to contain a resurgent outbreak of Covid-19.
- China’s yuan under pressure amid ‘unprecedented’ capital outflows following Russian invasion of Ukraine — Global investors have withdrawn money out of China on an “unprecedented” scale since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, according to a report by the Institute of International Finance (IIF), with the yuan likely to face more pressure in coming months.
Nikkei Asia
- China opens wallet to keep trans-Eurasian express moving — Operators cover ‘war insurance’ and slash rates.
- China’s Sinopec to keep buying Russian oil and gas, exec says — President calls purchases ‘normal trading cooperation.’
- Why do Chinese investors pay more for the same shares? — Premium for mainland stocks over Hong Kong counterparts recently hit 7-year high.
Bloomberg
- China Offers Tax Relief for Workers With Children Under Age 3 — China expanded personal income deductions to include childcare expenses for children under the age of three, the government’s latest move to reduce the tax burden for households and encourage families to have more babies.
- China Coal Giant Plans a Surge in Clean Energy Spending — China Shenhua Energy Co., the country’s largest listed coal company, plans to shift nearly half its capital spending to clean energy by the end of the decade as the country seeks to peak carbon emissions.
- China Says Sanctions Causing ‘Unnecessary’ Harm to Russia Trade — China rejected speculation it might try to circumvent international sanctions against Russia, while complaining that the measures have damaged normal trade relations with its key diplomatic partner.
Reuters
- Exclusive: China’s Sinopec pauses Russia projects, Beijing wary of sanctions – sources — China’s state-run Sinopec Group has suspended talks for a major petrochemical investment and a gas marketing venture in Russia, sources told Reuters, heeding a government call for caution as sanctions mount over the invasion of Ukraine.
- China says to provide visa assistance to all foreign crash investigators — A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday that Beijing will provide visa assistance to all foreign investigators coming to China in the aftermath of the China Eastern Airlines crash last week.
- China’s DJI rejects claim that Russian military uses its drones in Ukraine — Chinese drone maker DJI has dismissed as “utterly false” accusations that the Russian military is using its drones in Ukraine after a German retailer cited such information as the reason for taking its products off the shelves.
Other Publications
- Associated Press: With eye to China investment, Taliban now preserve Buddhas — Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers are pinning their hopes on Beijing to turn that rich vein into revenue to salvage the cash-starved country amid crippling international sanctions.
- Associated Press: China’s Huawei says 2021 sales down, profit up — Huawei Technologies Ltd. reported its 2021 profit rose 75.9% while sales fell under pressure from curbs on access to most U.S. technology that crippled its smartphone business and led to an overhaul of its global operations.
- Associated Press: Report criticizes Danish authorities for giving in to China — A government-appointed commission on Monday criticized the Foreign Ministry and Denmark’s intelligence and security service for putting pressure on the Copenhagen police to violate the Danish Constitution by giving in to Chinese pressure and barring anti-China demonstrations during official visits from Beijing.
