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
- How Beijing’s Debt Clampdown Shook the Foundation of a Real-Estate Colossus — China Evergrande’s looming collapse and its ripple effect on the economy will pose a test for the government’s campaign to keep housing affordable for the masses.
- Stock-Market Futures Fall on Chinese Property Fears — Concerns over indebted property developer China Evergrande spur broad retreat in riskier assets.
- TikTok Maker Caps Screen Time for Youths in China — ByteDance’s ‘youth mode’ for users under age 14 is the latest online restriction as Beijing steps up scrutiny of tech use by young people.
- Hong Kong Tycoons Won’t Escape Chinese Populism — Investors are clearly worried that Beijing’s recent ‘common prosperity’ call could soon be heard in the freewheeling financial center, too.
- China’s Bid to Join TPP Trade Group Puts Members in an Awkward Spot — The U.S. had an idea for a tariff-lowering club to limit the influence of Beijing’s model, but now it’s out and Xi Jinping wants in.
The Financial Times
- Evergrande bosses face ‘severe punishment’ after securing early redemptions — Executives exited funds as Chinese developer delayed repayments to retail investors.
- Evergrande is hostage to Beijing’s property pain threshold — China wants to signal it is serious about cooling sector but not at the cost of an economic engine.
- Evergrande: predictability of defaults reduces contagion risk — The likeliest scenario is that shareholders will be wiped out while its lenders absorb big losses.
- The challenges for China’s CPTPP membership bid — It might have a case on economic grounds to join, but Beijing’s diplomacy of late has created many political obstacles.
- China must win over Canada and Australia before trade pact talks can start — Beijing says application to join the CPTPP shows commitment to financial reform but hurdles await.
- French rage triggered by exclusion from Indo-Pacific deal — Paris says it tried to discuss strategy with US and Australia but was stonewalled.
- Hong Kong holds first ‘patriotic’ vote under electoral system overhaul — Handpicked group of pro-Beijing voters elect powerful body that will decide city’s next leader.
- ‘More of China, less of America’: how the superpower fight is squeezing the Gulf — Caught between Washington and Beijing, Middle East states are struggling to balance relations.
The New York Times
- Evergrande Gave Workers a Choice: Loan Us Cash or Lose Your Bonus — The Chinese property giant owes $300 billion and is on the hook for as many as 1.6 million apartments. It may owe tens of thousands of its employees money, too.
- The Secret Talks Behind the U.S. Deal That France Called a ‘Betrayal’ — In meeting after meeting with their French counterparts, U.S. officials gave no heads-up about their plans to upend France’s largest defense contract.
- The Sharp U.S. Pivot to Asia Is Throwing Europe Off Balance — The new U.S. alliance with Australia and Britain against China has put Europe closer to a question it has tried to avoid: Which side are you on?
- I.M.F. Chief Kristalina Georgieva Denies Claims She Inflated China Data — A World Bank investigation said Kristalina Georgieva, now the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, pressured staff to improve China’s ranking in a report when she was at the World Bank.
Caixin
- Cover Story: How Evergrande Could Turn Into ‘China’s Lehman Brothers’ — Collapse of China’s ‘too big to fail’ property development giant could involve $309 billion of debt and set off a financial tsunami affecting millions of people.
- China Moves to Lure More Red-Chip Stocks to Mainland Markets — Authorities expand pilot program aimed at overseas-traded companies to include next-generation information and green tech, among others.
- New Beijing Bourse Opens for Investor Registration — Retail participants need to have $77,458 of securities assets and two years of investing experience, in line with rules on STAR Market.
South China Morning Post
- Chinese version of TikTok limits kids under 14 to 40 minutes per day, adding to fight against internet addiction — ByteDance’s short video app Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, is limiting users under the age of 14 years old to just 40 minutes of use per day, tightening technology restrictions on China’s youth as Beijing seeks to further crack down on “internet addiction” following recent video game time limits.
- China defends sweeping tech crackdown in meeting with Wall Street chiefs — China’s top regulators defended their market-roiling crackdown on various industries in a meeting with Wall Street executives, while reassuring them the stricter rules are not aimed at stifling technology companies or the private sector.
- Hong Kong elections: just 1 opposition-leaning candidate wins seat on 1,500-strong Election Committee — Hong Kong’s sole delegate to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee said Tik’s victory showed that the election was fair to all.
Bloomberg
- Evergrande Moment of Truth Arrives With Bond Payment Deadlines — China Evergrande Group bondholders are about to find out if the property giant’s liquidity crisis is as dire as it appears.
- Market Contagion Tests Xi Resolve on Evergrande, Property Curbs — How far will President Xi Jinping go with his crackdown on China’s real estate sector?
- Chinese Property Developer Sinic Halts Trading After Sinking 87% — Sinic Holdings Group Co. has halted trading after an 87% slump in its shares Monday afternoon.
- Are Hong Kong’s Property Tycoons Next in China’s Crackdown? — The territory’s red-hot real estate market has been a driver of social unrest. It’s only a matter of time before Beijing targets the sector under its common prosperity campaign.
- Hong Kong Takes 10 Hours to Count Some 4,400 Votes — Hong Kong’s first public ballot since China overhauled the city’s electoral system to ensure “patriots” rule was dogged by complaints of a counting delay, in a vote closely watched by Beijing.
- Huawei’s Decline Shows Why China Will Struggle to Dominate — Two years ago the telecom giant was set to control global 5G, but now its goal is survival. Beijing’s belligerence is to blame.
Reuters
- French break-up a blow to Biden’s China-focused alliance rebuilding — European capitals celebrated a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June, as President Joe Biden’s top diplomat cracked jokes in French in Paris, posed for selfies with French youth and spoke at length about revitalizing the transatlantic relationship.
- UK’s COP26 chief says ball in China’s court on making it a success — The ball is in China’s court when it comes to making the United Nations COP26 climate change conference in November a success, Britain’s Alok Sharma, the summit’s president, said on Sunday.
- Quad’ countries to agree on secure microchip supply chains-media — Leaders of the United States, Japan, India and Australia will agree to take steps to build secure semiconductor supply chains when they meet in Washington next week, the Nikkei business daily said on Saturday, citing a draft of the joint statement.
Other Publications
- The Economist: The strategic reverberations of the AUKUS deal will be big and lasting — A profound geopolitical shift is happening.
- The Atlantic: The American Crackdown on China That Is Working — Washington’s push against Beijing’s human-rights abuses could have more of an impact than tariffs or trade wars.
- The Washington Post: Key security agencies split over whether to blacklist former Huawei smartphone unit — Staff members at the Pentagon and Energy Department supported placing the company on the blacklist, while their counterparts at the Commerce Department and State Department opposed it.
- VICE World News: Inside the Surreal Trial of the ‘Most Benevolent Terrorist in the World’ — Breaking silence, a Hong Kong judge calls the city’s first national security case “unfair” in an exclusive interview with VICE World News.
- Nikkei Asia: Hong Kong police seize M&Ms as national security threat — Force alleges activists ‘incited subversion’ in distributing goods to prisoners.
