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
- HSBC’s Profit Surges, but Bank Takes Hit From China Property — London-based bank plans further $1 billion buyback.
- Chinese Banks in Two Key Cities Cut Mortgage Rates to Boost Housing Sector — Cuts in Shanghai and Guangzhou, though modest, follow similar steps by dozens of smaller cities as home prices and sales weaken.
- Lycra, the Stretchy Fiber Maker, Targeted by Creditors of Chinese Textile Group — Four creditors of textile-and-fashion giant Shandong Ruyi seek control of company, citing 2019 loan.
- Chinese Tutoring Companies Take Big Financial Hit Amid Crackdown — New Oriental, TAL and Gaotu Techedu post heavy losses after Beijing banned for-profit tutoring for most school-age children.
- NBC Draws Lowest Olympics Ratings Ever With Beijing Games — TV viewership dropped 42% from 2018; ‘This was probably the most difficult Olympics of all time.’
- Hong Kong Sets All Schools for Covid-19 Response Centers — Chief Executive Carrie Lam brings forward summer holidays to March and gives timeline for citywide testing as Omicron cases surge.
The Financial Times
- How Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption crusade went global — As China’s leader appears set for an unprecedented third term, the hunt for fugitives beyond China’s borders has accelerated.
- Hong Kong announces mandatory Covid testing as city reels from surging cases — Measures intensified as experts warn that a third of residents will be in isolation within weeks.
- HSBC takes charge on Chinese real estate and warns of wealth slowdown — Outlook blemishes otherwise buoyant fourth-quarter earnings as profit doubles and targets boosted.
The New York Times
- In an Uneven Fight With China, a Tiny Country’s Brand Becomes Toxic — After Lithuania dared to seek closer ties with Taiwan, China cut off trade — even blocking imports of products from other countries with Lithuanian parts.
- Beijing Olympic Ratings Were the Worst of Any Winter Games — NBC Universal’s coverage had 11.4 million viewers per night on average, compared with 19.8 million for the Pyeongchang Games in 2018.
- Hong Kong Will Enforce Mass Testing as Cases Soar — Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, said that all residents would be required to take three tests over a short period of time in March.
- Hong Kong turns to traditional medicine during an Omicron surge. — Authorities in Hong Kong are taking another page out of China’s coronavirus playbook: using traditional Chinese medicine to treat Covid-19 patients, despite scant evidence to prove the strategy is effective.
Caixin
- ByteDance Looks to Exit Securities Business as Fintech Rules Tighten — The TikTok operator plans to close or sell activities and investments including its stake in an app operator that provides stock market data and news.
- Yango Group Defaults on $657 Million of Bonds — Chinese developer misses $27.3 million of interest payments on two dollar bonds as defaults continue piling up in the real estate industry.
- Cathay Pacific Competitor Approved to Fly Out of Hong Kong — Greater Bay Airlines obtains five-year license to operate flights in a city whose airline industry has been ravaged by the pandemic.
- Evergrande Chairman Maintains Commitment to Soccer Club — Hui Ka Yan vows to continue building up the money-losing team as a ‘cradle and platform’ even amid the debt-laden property developer’s liquidity crisis.
South China Morning Post
- China to delay retirement ages ‘gradually’ by 2025, after holding firm for seven decades — China has confirmed that it will gradually start pushing back its long-mandated retirement ages in the coming years, in line with Beijing’s plans to better accommodate the needs of the elderly and adjust to new realities stemming from the nation’s rapidly ageing population.
- ByteDance sells loss-making securities unit to local brokerage as world’s most valuable unicorn retreats from financial services — TikTok owner ByteDance, which is pulling back from some business sectors under scrutiny from Beijing, has sold an intelligent stock market investment product to local brokerage ChinaLin Securities.
- Mass testing for all Hong Kong residents in March, school pupils to have early summer holiday, city leader says — City will uphold its stringent social-distancing measures until April 20; flight bans on nine countries extended immediately.
Bloomberg
- China Crackdown Risk Roars Back With Probe of Jack Ma’s Empire — From Alibaba to Tencent, China’s largest companies are once again at the center of a market storm, spurred by speculation that Beijing is readying another assault on the world’s biggest internet arena.
- China Vows Local Government Aid as Tax Cuts to Exceed Last Year — China is planning more tax cuts this year than in 2021 and pledged to step up support to struggling local governments to compensate for weaker revenues, according to the nation’s finance minister.
- Beijing Said to Back Hong Kong Lockdown as Covid Crisis Worsens — Chinese officials have told Hong Kong that they think a lockdown will be needed to contain surging Covid-19 cases, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Reuters
- Fresh fears over Beijing regulatory crackdown drive China tech rout — Investor worries over the potential for a fresh wave of regulatory crackdowns by Beijing set off steep drops in Chinese tech shares on Tuesday.
- China asks state firms to check investments in Jack Ma’s Ant – sources — Chinese regulators have asked state-owned firms to kick-off a fresh round of checks to find out their investments into and other linkages with billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Group, three people with knowledge of the matter said.
Other Publications
- The Information: Meet the Investor Bailing Out China’s Chip Industry — The private equity investor Li Bin is little known outside China’s clubby finance and semiconductor circles. But Li’s biggest bet yet—a $9.5 billion bailout of Tsinghua Unigroup — will make him a central figure in China’s efforts to turnaround its struggling domestic chip industry.
- The Economist: America’s tariff wall on Chinese imports looks increasingly like Swiss cheese — As avoidance booms, so does the trade deficit.
- The Washington Post: South Koreans overwhelmingly want nuclear weapons to confront China and North Korea, poll finds — South Korea is preparing to elect a new president on March 9 in a neck-and-neck race, and the debate over nuclear armament was reignited during the fall primary among conservative candidates as a potential party platform idea.
