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
- China’s Precarious Moment: Covid Everywhere and Few Restrictions — Parts of economy bounce back, but infections soar and medical facilities are stretched; risk of Lunar New Year holiday contagion.
- China’s Shortage of Antivirals Puts Vulnerable People at Risk — Beijing’s rapid U-turn on its zero-Covid policies created a gap in supplies of Pfizer, Merck medicines that health authorities are struggling to close.
- Boeing 737 MAX Flies Again With Chinese Airline After Nearly Four-Year Halt — Long-awaited return to skies for the jetliner is a significant step for Boeing, which counts China as a major market.
- Asia, Europe Look to Collective Action to Restrain China — Decline of U.S. military power relative to Beijing’s leads Asia-Pacific countries into broader web of cooperation.
- China’s Export Decline Deepens, Threatening Growth — Cooling global demand is complicating China’s rebound.
- China’s Housing Market Will Revive but Might Not Thrive — The nation’s housing market, a driver of global growth, will rebound this year. But its foundation is weaker than before the crisis.
- Why Are Governors Turning on TikTok? — States are banning the Chinese-owned app on government devices.
- Rare-Earth Find in Sweden Lifts Hope for Shift Toward Clean Energy — Mineral deposit could lessen Europe’s reliance on China for vital material in electric cars and wind turbines.
The Financial Times
- Chinese exports suffer sharpest fall in 3 years as Covid pain spreads — Full-year trade surplus hits record on pandemic-era boom despite steep decline for December.
- Chinese developer Kaisa hit with lawsuit over bond defaults — Property group defaulted in late 2021 as it battled to reduce vast leverage.
- China is flashing red on the skewed consensus indicator — The sum of all fears, now with double-entry bookkeeping.
- European stocks shine on lower energy prices and China boost — Region has outperformed US equities since the autumn lows as investors turn more bullish.
- China moves to take ‘golden shares’ in Alibaba and Tencent units — Beijing changes tack in its efforts to secure a firmer grip on the country’s tech giants.
- Opinion: Taiwan must not suffer the same fate as Ukraine — The parallels between Russia and China are hard to ignore — allies must act now to deter an invasion. By Anders Fogh Rasmussen
The New York Times
- She Witnessed Mao’s Worst Excesses. Now She Has a Warning for the World. — At 93, the memoirist Yuan-tsung Chen hopes that her recollections of China’s tumultuous past will help the country confront its historical wrongs — and avoid repeating them.
Caixin
- In Depth: China’s NEV Sales Took Off in 2022, but Some Firms Pulled Way Ahead — While China’s major new-energy vehicle manufacturers including the world’s top seller, BYD Co. Ltd., saw strong sales growth in 2022, tough Covid curbs that disrupted supply chains and dented consumer confidence meant that others like XPeng Inc. missed their annual targets.
- Chinese Property Firms Left in the Dark About Who Can Qualify for Credit Support — The PBOC and the CBIRC reportedly created a list of developers that made the cut, but many companies say they don’t know anything about it.
South China Morning Post
- China’s C919 jet maker says annual production will reach 150 in 5 years, as total orders top 1,200 — The country’s first domestically made passenger jet will be fast-tracked to grab market share, vows Commercial Aviation Corporation of China, but Western restrictions on access to technology loom large.
- Taiwan visa terms to change, with eye on luring foreign talent to stay competitive in Asia — Taiwan’s population fell sharply last year, owing to a historically low number of births and record-high deaths, official figures show.
- China promotes Ma Zhaoxu to top deputy for new Foreign Minister Qin Gang — Ex-UN envoy is noted for ‘rights with Chinese characteristics’ push and saying ‘there are no dissidents in China’ when activist Liu Xiaobo was jailed.
Nikkei Asia
- Thailand’s auto industry becomes a Japan-China battleground — ‘Detroit of Southeast Asia’ courts investment from both of Asia’s giants.
- Just how over is China’s tech crackdown? It depends who you ask — Optimistic investors push up share prices, but analysts say Beijing’s grip not easing.
- China slams WHO for doubting ‘transparent’ COVID data — U.N. health agency accuses Beijing of underreporting coronavirus deaths.
Bloomberg
- China State-Owned Airlines to Delist in New York, Joining Exodus — Two of China’s largest state-owned airlines said they would give up their New York stock exchange listings, joining a raft of government controlled firms that announced their departures from US bourses last year.
- Railway Talks With China Collapse as Uganda Turns to Turkey — Uganda said it terminated a deal with a Chinese contractor to build a $2.3 billion railroad after it failed to secure Beijing’s financial backing for the project.
- Wanda Billionaire’s Son Arrested After Punching Person — The only son of property billionaire Wang Jianlin — once Asia’s richest man — was detained for attacking a person in Shanghai, according to media outlet Beijing News.
- China’s Government to Take Golden Shares in Alibaba, Tencent — Chinese government entities are set to take so-called “golden shares” in units of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., suggesting Beijing is moving to ensure greater control over key players in the world’s largest internet arena.
- Bosch Doubles Down on China With $1 Billion EV Parts Plant — Robert Bosch GmbH is spending around $1 billion to make electric-vehicle components in China as the automotive supplier hopes to benefit from the country’s shift away from the combustion engine.
Reuters
- Exclusive: China to allow Didi apps back online, in latest sign of regulatory thaw — Chinese authorities are set to allow Didi Global’s ride-hailing and other apps back on domestic app stores as soon as next week, five sources told Reuters, in yet another signal that their two-year regulatory crackdown on the technology sector is ending.
- U.S. House passes bill banning exports of reserve oil to China — The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill on Thursday to ban releases of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve from being exported to China, though the measure faces an uncertain future in the Senate.
- China set for historic demographic turn, accelerated by COVID traumas — Some demographers expect China’s population in 2022 to post its first drop since the Great Famine in 1961, a profound shift with far-reaching implications for the global economy and world order.
The Economist
- The cult of Li Wenliang, the doctor who spotted covid-19 — Many Chinese turn to one of the pandemic’s earliest victims for comfort, and to vent.
- Many Chinese villagers seem ready to move on from covid-19 — Even as the virus tears through their communities.
- China is still punishing those who protested against zero-covid — The government has ditched the policy, but not its repression of dissent.
- South Korea’s travel spat with China — China uses a row over visas to probe for South Korean weaknesses.
Other Publications
- NBC News: Asian American Democrats jostle for top slot on new GOP China committee — The lawmakers want to ensure the new panel doesn’t stoke more anti-Asian rhetoric and xenophobia as it confronts threats from Beijing. They’re divided over who should lead them.
- The Washington Post: Opinion: So Republicans want to look tough on China? Here’s how they can start. — What the Republican party really needs is for its members to abandon positions that would hurt the United States’ ability to counter China’s aggression. By Jennifer Rubin
- Foreign Policy: Decoupling Wastes U.S. Leverage on China — Keeping Chinese firms dependent on Western chips is a better strategy. By Paul Scharre
- Quartz: China wants to corner another segment of the global auto industry: car shipping — Chinese state media described the specialized car transport ships as “money-printing machines at sea.”
