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.
The Wall Street Journal
- China Tech Firms Face Backlash Over Beijing’s Policies — As China’s government grows more combative abroad, overseas consumers and regulators have responded by putting pressure on Chinese firms or spurning Chinese brands altogether—particularly its technology players.
- Jack Ma’s Fintech Giant Ant to Drop ‘Financial’ From Its Name — China’s largest financial-technology company is rebranding itself to emphasize the tech rather than the finance, after earlier drawing scrutiny from regulators.
- Chinese Energy Company Defaults on Dollar Bonds — Hilong Holding, a provider of oil-field services and equipment, said it wouldn’t be able to repay holders of a maturing dollar bond—the latest offshore default by a Chinese borrower.
- China Halts Some Tyson Chicken Shipments Over Covid-19 — Chinese authorities suspended chicken imports from a Tyson Foods facility due to what Chinese officials said were Covid-19 infections among the plant’s employees.
- China Reveals Key Powers in Hong Kong National-Security Law — Beijing plans to vest itself with key powers to enforce national security in Hong Kong, proposing a law that would allow the central government to supervise the policing of subversive activities in the protest-racked city and, in some cases, intervene directly.
The Financial Times
- China’s migrant workers spurn cherished ‘hukou’ — Reluctance of millions of rural residents to apply for city permit threatens a Beijing goal
- Huawei’s courtship of Moscow leaves west in the cold — US and EU sanctions against the Chinese telecoms group have bolstered Sino-Russian co-operation
The New York Times
- Trump Says He Avoided Punishing China Over Uighur Camps to Protect Trade Talks — “Well, we were in the middle of a major trade deal,” the president said, supporting an account by his former national security adviser John R. Bolton.
Caixin
- Chong Sing Reveals Scale of Fraud at Its Chinese Online Payments Unit — Regulators have threatened to revoke UCF Pay’s license unless 1.5 billion yuan of embezzled funds is repaid, company says
- Cover Story: Cross-Border Cooperation Is Key to Fighting Securities Fraud, CSRC Chief Says — Yi Huiman tells Caixin regulatory collaboration depends on whether U.S. really wants resolution and declares that Hong Kong isn’t just China’s but is ‘the world’s Hong Kong’
- Baowu Spearheads Fund to Develop World’s Largest Untapped Iron Reserve — Consortium seeks to take over Chalco’s stake of Simandou iron mine in Guinea
- Change Grinds Through Luckin Board, but Is It Real or for Founder’s Benefit? — Company will replace half of its board, including chairman Lu Zhengyao, as insider says move could be aimed at lowering heat on Lu from company’s own internal investigation
- TCL Invests $281 Million in Japanese Peer, Eyes New Display Production Method — Chinese company says it will collaborate with JOLED on developing inkjet-printed panel technology
- Trending in China: Pinduoduo founder becomes China’s second-richest person — Huang Zheng, founder and CEO of China’s e-commerce upstart Pinduoduo, now has a net worth of $45.4 billion dollars, according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires Rankings. That means he has surpassed Alibaba founder Jack Ma to become the second-richest person in China, closely trailing behind Pony Ma, founder and CEO of Tencent.
- Baidu Sets Out Its Ambitions for AI, Cloud Computing, Amid ‘New Infrastructure’ Push — Baidu has joined the ranks of China’s big-tech names laying out blueprints for “new infrastructure” projects, a key pillar of the government’s policy to accelerate the tech-driven structural upgrade of China’s economy as part of its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
South China Morning Post
- Chinese company sued by US for selling ‘fake’ masks wasn’t certified, Beijing says — A Chinese company sued for selling nearly half a million fake and substandard N95 respirators to US buyers in April was not a certified maker of medical masks, Chinese authorities said on Monday.
- Hong Kong’s Ocean Park to unveil Chinese Estates Holdings tycoon Lau Ming-wai as new chairman — Hong Kong tycoon Lau Ming-wai will take over from Leo Kung Lin-cheng as chairman of the troubled Ocean Park from next month, sources have confirmed to the Post.
- China warned to prepare for being cut off from US dollar payment system as part of sanctions like Russia — China must prepare for the risks of being cut off from the US dollar payment system in case the United States sanctions Chinese companies and banks, just like Washington did with Russian institutions, a senior Chinese financial regulator said on Monday.
- Alibaba ratchets up cross-border e-commerce initiatives in Yiwu, home to the world’s largest wholesale market — Alibaba Group Holding is ramping up efforts to make cross-border e-commerce more accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a series of initiatives in the eastern city of Yiwu – home to the world’s largest wholesale market for daily commodities.
- Chinese telecoms giant ZTE clarifies that it only designs chips, does not make them, after share price spikes — Chinese telecommunication giant ZTE has clarified that it does not have internal chipmaking capability and instead focuses on the design of telecoms chips after its shares rallied last week on media reports that it possessed mass production capability for advanced 7-nanometre chipmaking.
- China launches new Go West development drive to counter post-coronavirus geopolitical risks — Faced with threats of economic decoupling from the US and international hostility stemming from its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, China is trying to harness its vast and energy-rich western regions.
Bloomberg
- Apple Set to Nix Thousands of Unlicensed IPhone Games in China — Apple Inc. will start removing thousands of mobile games lacking government approval from its App Store in China next month, closing a loophole that the likes of Rockstar Games have relied on for years.
- U.S. Rejects Additional Flights Sought by Chinese Airlines — U.S. officials rejected additional flights proposed by Chinese airlines but said they would reconsider if the Beijing government adjusts its policies affecting American passenger carriers.
- Liquor Maker Moutai Surpasses ICBC as Biggest China-Listed Stock — Chinese liquor giant Kweichow Moutai Co. has dethroned Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. as the mainland’s biggest stock by market value.
- China Offshore Defaults Top $4 Billion as Hilong Joins List — Defaults in China’s dollar bond market are accelerating amid the economic fallout from the coronavirus.
- U.S.-Listed GDS Said to Weigh Hong Kong Secondary Share Sale — GDS Holdings Ltd., a Chinese data center company traded on the Nasdaq, is considering selling shares in Hong Kong as early as this year, following in the steps of U.S.-listed Chinese firms like NetEase Inc. and JD.com Inc., according to people with knowledge of the matter.
- China Steps Up Loan Relief, Delays Risk Exposure to Help Economy — Chinese banks have offered relief on 3.9 trillion yuan ($551 billion) of loans since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic to help struggling small businesses and bolster an economy facing its worst slump in four decades.
- China Maple Leaf to Buy Singapore School for $487 Million — China Maple Leaf Educational Systems Ltd. has agreed to acquire one of the largest international schools in Singapore in a deal valued at S$680 million ($487 million).
- Barr Says U.S. Businesses ‘Part of Problem’ in Battling China — Attorney General William Barr said some U.S. businesses are helping China in the race for economic and technological dominance by putting their own earnings above the national interest.
- China’s Food Security Faces a Coronavirus Rice Bowl Dilemma — The risk to food supply chains is reviving a push for self-sufficiency. That comes with an environmental cost.
Reuters
- China targets rise in oil, natural gas output this year — China aims to produce 1% more crude oil this year than in 2019 and to boost natural gas output by 4.3%, official targets showed on Monday, as the country seeks to safeguard energy security even after a coronavirus-driven collapse in oil prices.
- Soft underbelly in China’s steel sector boom points to bumpier economic recovery — Behind the boom in China’s steel production since March – and hopes for a quick economic recovery – is a tale of two diverging sectors: construction demand for infrastructure projects has been strong, while manufacturing has been slower to bounce back.
- China home prices to pick up, but outlook remains soft: Reuters poll — China’s home prices are expected to grow slightly faster this year than predicted a few months earlier while sales will stay soft, as Beijing refrains from strong easing to cushion the coronavirus-led slowdown in the sector, a Reuters poll showed.
- China stocks gain as investors cheer fresh market reforms — China stocks started the week on a firmer note, as investors cheered Beijing’s fresh reforms in its capital markets to help bolster the world’s second-largest economy.
- China may ease green rules for electric car production this year — China’s industry ministry said on Monday it might temporarily ease quotas designed to boost production of electric cars, in an attempt to help automakers in the world’s biggest market revive sales badly bruised by the coronavirus pandemic.
- UPDATE 1-China to be self-reliant in IMO-compliant fuel – official — Chinese refiners have the capacity to produce 18.1 million tonnes of low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) this year, which would make the country self-sufficient in the new shipping fuel, an official with state major PetroChina said on Monday.
- China’s new low-sulphur fuel oil contract jumps in debut trade — China’s new low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) futures contract jumped sharply in its debut, rising more than 13% at its opening on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange on Monday.
- China’s startup board index hits 4-1/2-year high on fresh reforms — China’s startup board index hit its highest in more than four years on Monday, as investors cheered Beijing’s fresh reforms in its capital markets to help bolster the world’s second-largest economy.
- PepsiCo China food processing factory halted after COVID-19 infection found — PepsiCo China said on Sunday that operations at one of its food processing plants in Beijing had been suspended after at least one employee tested positive for the coronavirus, in the latest outbreak of COVID-19 virus in the capital.
- Hong Kong stocks slide on uncertainties around new legislation — Hong Kong stocks ended lower on Monday as investors were wary after details of a new security law for the territory showed Beijing will have overarching powers on its enforcement.
- Taiwan minister says TSMC has offset lost Huawei orders — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has made up its order book with other customers now that it has lost China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, which is subject to U.S. sales restrictions, a government minister said on Monday.
Xinhua
- China’s central bank injects 120 bln yuan into market Monday — China’s central bank on Monday pumped cash into the banking system via reverse repos to maintain liquidity.
- Cargo throughput of Three Gorges Dam ship lock tops 1.46 bln tonnes — A total of 873,800 vessels carrying 12.23 million passengers and 1.46 billion tonnes of cargo passed through the ship lock at the Three Gorges Dam over the past 17 years, data from the China Three Gorges Corporation showed.
Other Publications
- Axios: Exclusive: Trump held off on Xinjiang sanctions for China trade deal — In an Oval Office interview on Friday afternoon, President Trump told me that he held off on imposing Treasury sanctions against Chinese officials involved with the Xinjiang mass detention camps because doing so would have interfered with his trade deal with Beijing.
- TechCrunch: China Roundup: Huawei targets cars, ByteDance enters Tencent’s backyard — Huawei might be bringing the technology behind its Kirin smartphone processor into cars. According to Chinese tech publication 36Kr, Huawei has signed a strategic deal with domestic electric car giant BYD, which would be using the Kirin chips to digitize the “cockpits” (generally refer to the drivers’ cabins) in its cars.
- ESPN: Basketball restarts in China with resumption of CBA after coronavirus shutdown — The Chinese basketball league has restarted after an almost five-month shutdown for the coronavirus pandemic, with fewer foreign players and no fans in the stands.
- CNBC: Foreign firms snap up Chinese companies despite political tensions as Beijing opens its doors — As global uncertainty escalates, more foreign businesses are buying into China, including deals in the more sensitive industries of finance and technology.
- Quartz: Some Indians are smashing Chinese smartphones in protest—others can’t stop buying them — Indians simply cannot make up their minds about whether they love China or hate it. Last week, while some Indians vandalised stores that sell Chinese products in retaliation to border tension between the two countries, several others lapped up a new model launched by a Chinese smartphone brand.
