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’s Xi Speeds Up Inward Economic Shift — With the world in recession and U.S.-China tensions deepening, President Xi Jinping is laying out a major initiative to accelerate China’s shift toward more reliance on its domestic economy.
- How to Beat China and Help the World’s Poor — A plan to unleash the power of ownership by formalizing capital in the informal economy.
The Financial Times
- Beijing on flood alert as rains hamper China’s economic recovery — Deluges drive up food prices and worsen impact of coronavirus-induced slowdown.
- Polysilicon price soars after blasts at key Chinese plant — 56% rise is a blow for governments keen to promote adoption of renewable energy.
- China treads cautiously in the face of US sanctions — Beijing’s top diplomats signal willingness to talk in an attempt to minimise antagonism with Washington.
- China squeezes diversification out of MSCI’s EM equities nest — Three countries in Asia now account for almost two-thirds of MSCI benchmark.
- Chile picks Japan’s trans-Pacific cable route in snub to China — Decision a blow to Huawei and Chinese telecom sector.
- Wall Street bank fees from China listings jump despite political tension — Growth reflects surge in activity even as ties between Washington and Beijing fray.
- Chinese US listings: cease and delist — Ejecting companies from exchanges for not meeting accounting standards is a mistake.
The New York Times
- Luxury Homes Tie Chinese Communist Elite to Hong Kong’s Fate — Three top leaders of China’s Communist Party have relatives who own assets in Hong Kong, including more than $51 million in luxury real estate, a New York Times investigation shows.
Caixin
- Credit Growth Slows in July as Authorities Dial Back Stimulus — Monetary policy stance shifts out of crisis mode and into a more targeted approach with China’s recovery from pandemic picking up steam.
- Livi Bank Joins Race for Virtual Bank Customers in Hong Kong — While 3 rivals lure clients with high deposit rates, JD.com-backed new entrant plugs its electronic payment feature and ‘shake shake’ cash rewards for using it.
- China May Drop Credit Rating Requirement for Exchange-Traded Bonds — Following rash of defaults, securities commission seeks opinions on plan to reduce borrowers’ reliance on ratings that are often inflated and subject to conflicts of interest.
- China’s Power Grid Gets Out of Real Estate — State Grid, the operator of the country’s largest electricity transmission network, passes on its Luneng Group to state-owned peer.
- Tesla Sets Up Its First Overseas Insurance Brokerage in China — Tesla plans to set insurance rates based on driver profiles built with data from its cars.
- Xiaomi Faces ‘Complex’ Global Environment Heading Into Its Second Decade — CEO and co-founder Lei Jun makes the assessment as Chinese tech products face growing pushback in markets from the U.S. to India.
- Alibaba’s Zhang Yong Tops 2020 Forbes China Best CEOs List — Zhang Yong, chairman and chief executive officer of Alibaba, has topped the 2020 ranking of China’s best 50 CEOs published by Forbes China.
- Shanghai-listed Foxconn Internet’s Cloud Service Sales Up 4% in First Half of 2020 — Foxconn Industrial Internet Co. Ltd. recorded sales of 79.5 billion yuan ($11.5 billion) in the first half of the year for its cloud-related business, up 4% from the same period in 2019, benefiting from soaring demand for cloud services as people shift online for work during the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Apple Edges Huawei Out of No. 1 in Quarterly Tablet Shipments — Apple took the domestic crown from Huawei for most tablet computer shipments in the second quarter of 2020, while its Chinese rival enjoyed the highest growth, as people sheltered from the coronavirus and relied more heavily on the devices.
South China Morning Post
- Apple’s climate promise depends on Taiwanese partners TSMC, Foxconn going green — Apple has gone carbon neutral. But to say the same for its flagship iPhone, it is going to need help from Taiwan.
- Gig economy gets a boost in China but experts question whether it can be a sustainable fix for unemployment — The year 2020 will go down in history as one of the most disruptive in the modern era – with people’s everyday working lives changed forever by the impact of Covid-19.
- China’s new economic strategy to rely on domestic market is not a closed-door policy, Beijing advisers say — China’s new economic strategy of “dual circulation” is focused on competition and opening up, and not intended to severe ties with other parts of the global economy, according to economists and government advisers.
- US smartphone shipments up 11 per cent in second quarter as Chinese makers resume production — The US smartphone market saw a strong recovery in the second quarter of 2020 with 31.9 million units shipped, an 11 per cent increase on the preceding quarter as Chinese factories resumed operations after Covid-19 lockdowns.
- Hong Kong competition watchdog calls out alliance of port operators, prompting laundry list of proposed remedies — A powerful alliance that controls much of Hong Kong’s major container port has released a list of proposed remedies aimed at addressing concerns raised last year by the city’s competition watchdog, though industry stakeholders on Wednesday said the reforms did not go far enough.
- Trump ban could cut TikTok off from US app stores and advertisers, White House document shows — President Donald Trump’s executive order banning China’s TikTok could prevent US app stores from offering the popular short-video app and make advertising on the platform illegal, according to a White House document seen by Reuters.
- Coronavirus: more than half of Hong Kong’s small and independent restaurants face closure amid social-distancing rules, survey finds — More than half of Hong Kong’s small and independent restaurants are facing closure as the third wave of Covid-19 continues to ravage the catering industry, according to a survey released on Wednesday.
- Cathay Pacific Airways warns of harsh outlook as Hong Kong’s flag carrier confirms record HK$9.9 billion loss in first half of 2020 caused by coronavirus crisis — Cathay Pacific Airways has warned worsening economic and geopolitical conditions will continue to weaken passenger demand and harm its cargo business after confirming its largest ever half-year loss of HK$9.9 billion (US$1.3 billion), caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Bloomberg
- China’s Days as World’s Factory Are Over, IPhone Maker Says — A key supplier to Apple Inc. and a dozen other tech giants plans to split its supply chain between the Chinese market and the U.S., declaring that China’s time as factory to the world is finished because of the trade war.
- Tencent Earnings: Games Business Is Its Pandemic Savior — WeChat may be big, but games are what holds the Chinese internet giant together.
- Cathay Rises Most Since 2008 as Reopening Chance Offsets Virus — Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. shares climbed the most in nearly 12 years after a Chinese state-run newspaper tweeted that Hong Kong’s airport may restart transfer flights to mainland China, a move that could inject the beleaguered carrier with some much-needed passenger traffic.
- China Banks Act to Comply With Trump Sanctions on Hong Kong — China’s largest state-run banks operating in Hong Kong are taking tentative steps to comply with U.S. sanctions imposed on officials in the city, seeking to safeguard their access to crucial dollar funding and overseas networks.
- Softbank-Backed KE Poised to Raise $2.1 Billion in U.S. IPO — KE Holdings Inc., a Chinese online property platform backed by Softbank Group Corp. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., is poised to raise $2.1 billion as it plans to price its U.S. initial public offering above an indicative range, according to people familiar with the matter.
- China’s 1,400-Day U.S. Takeover Is the Deal That Won’t Die — One of the last remaining deals of China’s now-aborted overseas acquisition spree is about to make its last attempt to limp across the finish line.
- Wealthy Hong Kong Investors Stay Put With Crisis Plans Ready — They’ve mapped out exit routes, opened offshore bank accounts and secured overseas passports.
- Hong Kong Investor, NPS Are Said to Seek Buyer for Shanghai Mall — Hong Kong real estate investor Phoenix Property Investors HK Ltd. and South Korea’s National Pension Service are considering selling a shopping mall they jointly own in Shanghai, according to people familiar with the matter.
- China’s Recovery Threatened by Surging Prices, Stagnant Wages — First the pandemic and now floods are slashing the spending power of Chinese households this year, as stagnant incomes and rising costs undermine the strength of the domestic recovery.
- Apple’s Climate Promise Depends on Taiwan Partners Going Green — Apple Inc. has gone carbon neutral. But in order to say the same for its flagship iPhone, it’s going to need help from Taiwan.
- Xiaomi Sets Goal of Becoming Manufacturing Powerhouse in China — Xiaomi Corp. celebrated its 10th anniversary with the launch of some new products and the promise from its chief executive officer that it’ll become “a major force in China’s manufacturing sector that no one can ignore” over its next decade.
Reuters
- Investors revalue Chinese tech giants after U.S. ban — Stock investor Zhu Haifeng halved his once-cherished holdings in Chinese tech giants Tencent and Alibaba after the United States announced on Friday sanctions against some Chinese firms in the latest escalation between the world’s two top economies.
- Smartphone shipments in China plunge 35% in July: government data — Smartphone shipments in China plunged 35% in July compared with a year earlier, government data released on Tuesday shows.
- China’s CATL aims to make EVs drive further with new tech — China’s CATL , a Tesla supplier, said on Wednesday it is working on a new technology that will allow battery cells to be integrated with an electric car’s chassis, shedding traditional casings that make battery systems bulky.
- China’s Tencent starts fund advisory services to tap asset management — Chinese tech giant Tencent Holding is making forays into fund advisory services, vying for a share of the potentially lucrative market with rival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd , which entered the business just months ago.
- China names Zhang Gong as head of market regulator — China has named Zhang Gong as the head of the State Administration for Market Regulation, the government said on Wednesday.
- Few U.S. firms see Trump’s Phase 1 China trade deal as worth tariff costs, survey shows — Few U.S. companies doing business in China view President Donald Trump’s Phase 1 trade deal as being worth the cost of tariffs incurred over a two-year trade war, a new survey by the U.S.-China Business Council showed on Tuesday.
- India raids Chinese entities for money laundering — Indian tax authorities raided the premises of a few Chinese entities and their associates for money laundering, according to an official statement late on Tuesday, adding to New Delhi’s growing discomfort with Beijing after a border clash in June.
Xinhua
- China’s central bank injects liquidity into market — China’s central bank Wednesday pumped cash into the banking system via reverse repos to maintain liquidity.
- China’s agricultural product wholesale prices edge up — The wholesale prices of China’s agricultural products edged up Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
- U.S. businesses not leaving China market despite strained ties: survey — U.S. businesses are not leaving the Chinese market despite “an unprecedented downturn” in U.S.-China relations during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an annual member survey released Tuesday by the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC).
- U.S. businesses not leaving Chinese market despite strained ties: survey — U.S. businesses are not leaving the Chinese market despite “an unprecedented downturn” in U.S.-China relations during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an annual member survey released Tuesday by the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC).
- Market exchange rates in China — Aug. 12 — The following are the central parity rates of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, against 24 major currencies announced on Wednesday by the China Foreign Exchange Trade System:
Other Publications
- Forbes: What Happens If Chinese Firms Are Kicked Out Of The U.S. Stock Market — At stake are hundreds of Chinese public companies with over one trillion dollars worth of shares trading in the U.S. that are threatened with “delisting” from U.S. stock markets.
- The Atlantic: I Was Sanctioned by China — I’m the president of Freedom House, a nonpartisan, independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom and democracy around the world; I’m no stranger to repressive governments. Even so, I was taken aback.
- Nikkei Asian Review: China hires over 100 TSMC engineers in push for chip leadership — Two Chinese government-backed chip projects have together hired more than 100 veteran engineers and managers from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s leading chipmaker, since last year, multiple sources have told the Nikkei Asian Review.
- Nikkei Asian Review: Myanmar to probe casinos in China-backed developer’s ‘rogue city’ — A $15 billion urban development project in Myanmar near the Thai border has been a source of controversy from the very start, underscoring the pitfalls of lax regulatory oversight in Southeast Asia’s last frontier market.
- The Diplomat: Did Nigeria Really Cede Its Sovereignty to China in a Loan Agreement? — A legal review of the public debate sparked by a Nigeria-China commercial loan agreement.
- CNBC: Wall Street is worried China will retaliate against companies like Apple and Tesla after TikTok ban — Analysts caution investors about U.S. stocks with revenue exposure to China like Apple and Tesla, among others. “We caution that the Chinese government has historically exercised wide discretion in pressuring foreign companies, particularly in periods of geopolitical tension,” AB Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi told clients.
