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
- Deloitte’s Chinese Affiliate to Pay $20 Million to Settle Probe Into Outsourced Work — Auditors let some companies pick accounting entries to review, violating standards, SEC says.
- China’s Challenger to Boeing and Airbus Clears Major Hurdle — The C919 jet obtained a ‘type certificate,’ a big step for Beijing’s aviation ambitions—and a reality check for how far they still have to go.
- Chinese Regulator Tells Banks to Avoid Political Talk Ahead of Party Congress — Units of Goldman and JPMorgan were among institutions recently contacted by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
- U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Chinese Firms It Accuses of Helping Iran — Firms in United Arab Emirates, India and Hong Kong also sanctioned for helping Tehran evade bans on oil, petrochemical exports.
- More Trouble for China’s Export Juggernaut — China is more dependent on exports for growth than it has been in years. But the export boom is starting to lose steam.
- As Yuan Hits New Lows, China Responds With Restraint — The country’s central bank has sought to slow, rather than halt decline of currency.
- China’s Service Sector Slows in Latest Economic Warning Sign — Slowing exports and continued Covid lockdowns have prompted many economists to slash their China growth forecasts for 2022 and 2023.
- Indonesia Approves Chinese mRNA Vaccine — Southeast Asian nation becomes world’s first to give emergency go-ahead for China-made vaccine using the advanced technology.
The Financial Times
- China stocks: valuations hit record lows — Declines have accelerated in recent months despite government and central bank efforts.
- China’s EV star and Tesla rival BYD unveils Europe expansion — Carmaker’s global push has been overshadowed by speculation over Warren Buffett’s exit.
- China loosens FX restrictions in response to Fed rate rise — Regulators seek to allow more renminbi weakness but avoid runaway depreciation.
- Hong Kong’s expat party continues — but for how long? — As pandemic restrictions are lifted, Tabby Kinder reflects on the ‘dizzying contradictions’ of her time in the city amid political upheaval and Covid.
- Deloitte China allowed clients to do own audit work, finds SEC — Regulator charges Big Four firm affiliate $20mn for falling ‘woefully short’ of standards.
- The ‘chip choke’ on China may breathe air into semiconductor industry — A fresh wave of global government investment might well stimulate broader innovation.
The New York Times
- China’s ‘Absurd’ Covid Propaganda Stirs Rebellion — The use of propaganda in the country has been on overdrive in the pandemic, with some Chinese citizens arguing the language has bordered on “nonsense.”
- China Gets Its First mRNA Covid Vaccine Approval — in Indonesia — Indonesia has cleared an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine developed by a Chinese company. But those types of shots, considered among the most effective, aren’t yet available in China.
- Why China’s Crimes in Xinjiang Cannot Go Unpunished — China is dragging the world back to a human rights dark age. It’s time to push back.
- US Penalizes Chinese Companies for Aiding Iran’s Oil Exports — The move suggests a more aggressive approach by the Biden administration after talks to revive a 2015 nuclear deal faltered.
Caixin
- In Depth: China’s State-Backed Hydrogen Vehicle Industry Struggles to Find Its Feet — Questions remain about the sustainability of subsidies, overdependence on government support, and weak private sector demand for the pricey vehicles.
- Vanke’s Property Management Unit Slides Further After Hong Kong Debut Flops — Onewo’s stock tumbled as turmoil in China’s real estate market fuels a sector-wide devaluation.
- BYD Launches Three Electric Vehicles in Europe — Chinese EV maker is set to take on European powerhouses VW, BMW and Mercedes-Benz as well as American giant Tesla.
South China Morning Post
- Don’t blame China for US opioid crisis, says ambassador Qin Gang — Diplomat says he personally intervened to try to help and Beijing has done all it can do help stop the flow of fentanyl and other drugs.
- China’s ‘erratic policy shifts’ have some companies wondering how much more they can take — From local subcontractors to multinational corporations, companies in China are struggling to make sense of a business environment that has been described as ‘challenged by frequent erratic policy shifts’.
- China’s common prosperity drive for shared wealth to get fresh push as ‘strategic goal’ during party congress — Senior Communist Party ideologist Han Baojiang says that a further emphasis is to be placed on the common prosperity initiative that calls for an even distribution of wealth during the 20th party congress next month.
Nikkei Asia
- China’s party congress gives Xi chance to tighten grip on law enforcement — Allies in line to lead key commission where influence of political foes lingers.
- U.S. warns of China threat in first Pacific islands strategy — Biden administration plans to open 3 embassies in region to bolster influence.
Bloomberg
- China Tells Banks to Provide $85 Billion in Property Funding — China’s financial regulators told the nation’s biggest state-owned banks to extend at least 600 billion yuan ($85 billion) of net financing to the embattled property sector in the final four months of this year, according to people familiar with the matter, in their latest attempt to address a deepening liquidity crisis.
- China Shares Plunge to Lowest Valuation on Record in Hong Kong — Grim milestones keep piling up for Chinese stocks listed in Hong Kong.
- Republicans Probe US Diplomats’ Covid-19 Quarantine in China — Two Republican lawmakers asked the State Department to save documents linked to what they called the detention of more than a dozen US diplomats in Chinese Covid-19 quarantine over concern that China may have pressured them to surrender intelligence.
- Covid Zero Takes ‘Extreme’ Toll in 50-Day Lhasa Lockdown — Tibet’s capital Lhasa is enduring China’s longest Covid lockdown since Shanghai’s two-month shutdown earlier this year, and the restrictions are starting to take a heavy social toll, with a report detailing a number of recent suicides.
Other Publications
- The Economist: China is trying to get people to have more babies — Its efforts are probably in vain
- The Economist: Who will be China’s next economic tsar? — As one of Xi Jinping’s most important advisers leaves the scene, we consider possible successors
- The Atlantic: The Tech Site That Took On China’s Surveillance State — How did a trade publisher in Pennsylvania become a principal source of investigative journalism on the repressive apparatus Beijing uses against the Uyghurs?
- Rest of World: Same-sex couples from China are getting married in Utah over Zoom — Utah County introduced weddings over Zoom during the pandemic, unintentionally providing a valuable service for China’s LGBTQ+ community.
