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 Is Far Behind on U.S. Purchases Under Trade Deal — Farm sales have shown improvement, but like other categories are well below 2020 target.
- Foreign Investment Plummets During Pandemic, Except in China — In the first half of 2020, foreign investment dropped sharply in the U.S. and Europe but barely fell in China.
- Pompeo Touts U.S.-India Defense Deal, With an Eye on China — The agreement known as Beca gives India access to advanced American map and satellite imagery.
- Inside Ant, the Company Behind the World’s Biggest IPO — Chinese fintech giant is about to make history with record-breaking IPOs in Hong Kong and Shanghai.
- CFOs Brace for Trade Tensions, More Tariffs After Election — President Trump expected to rely on tariffs if re-elected while Joe Biden proposes multilateral approach to trade.
The Financial Times
- China: the trade shows must go on — Having saved face with online sessions, Beijing hopes events can resume as normal in 2021.
- US and India sign defence agreement to counter China — Deeper ties come as Himalayan stand-off between Asian neighbours enters sixth month.
- Beijing and Wall Street deepen ties despite geopolitical rivalry — China and US finance defy Donald Trump’s trade and tech war with growing investments.
The New York Times
- Ant Challenged Beijing and Prospered. Now It Toes the Line. — The tech giant, which is preparing for a mega I.P.O., has transformed personal finance in China. Regulators have taken notice.
- All About Ant Group, the Next Big Tech I.P.O. — The tech giant’s coming share sale will be among the largest ever. But the company has made most of its impact in just one country: China.
Caixin
- Exclusive: Shenzhen Bourse Plans to Merge Main Board With Upstart That Supplanted It — China’s securities regulator gets ready to streamline the Shenzhen stock exchange, sources say, whose mainboard hasn’t seen a new IPO in 20 years.
- China Sketches Out Rules for Green Finance — Multiple government bodies team up on new guidelines for foreign and domestic players.
- Thanks to China, Pakistan’s First Metro Hits the Tracks — Funded and built under the Belt and Road Initiative, subway project overcomes years of delays to start running in car-choked Lahore.
- China’s Coal Province Looks to Offload Smaller Projects — Province has designated some 40 projects from its key mining sector for inclusion in a program to introduce outside investors.
- Two Chinese Short-Video Giants Consider Hong Kong IPOs — ByteDance weighs listing for Douyin as Tencent hopes to generate $5 billion from selling shares of Kuaishou amid surging demand for both apps.
- Mobile Browser Crackdown Ensnares Big Names — Browsers operated by some of China’s biggest internet names were caught up in a crackdown by the cyberspace regulator, which requested them to be swept clean of “rumor-mongering,” “sensational headlines” and material that violates the “core values of socialism” by Nov. 9.
- Chinese Biotech Startup Genecast Bags $149 Million in Series E Funding Round — Genecast Biotechnology, a Chinese biotech startup that specializes in second-generation sequencing technology and bioinformatics, has closed its 1 billion yuan ($149 million) series E funding round led by China Structural Reform Fund, the company said in a statement on Monday.
- Founder and CEO in ‘Divorce’ With Dating App Momo — The founder of dating app Momo Inc., sometimes called the Tinder of China, is breaking up with his 10-year-old company.
- Chinese Medical Rehabilitation Robot Maker Fourier Closes $15 Million Funding Round — Chinese medical rehabilitation robot startup Fourier Intelligence has secured 100 million yuan ($15 million) in its series C funding round led by Vision Plus Capital.
- Caixin Investigation Uncovers Shady Business In Myanmar — A Caixin investigation examining court papers and public documents has uncovered the shady business history of a high-profile investment project in Myanmar was backed by a reclusive Chinese businessman who has done business under at least four names and has faced allegations of being connected to illegal gambling operations.
South China Morning Post
- Huawei employee’s ‘fighter’s pledge’ legally binding, China court rules — A court in southern China has ruled in favour of the Shenzhen-based telecommunications giant Huawei in a dispute with a former employee over unpaid overtime and leave compensation.
- Tencent’s answer to World of Warcraft made US$50 million in China in just one week — Tencent Holdings, the world’s largest gaming company by revenue, just set a record for the biggest mobile game launch ever in China. Moonlight Blade, the tech giant’s answer to World of Warcraft, pulled in more than US$50 million on Apple’s iOS alone in its first week of release.
- China moves to legalise digital yuan and ban competitors with new draft law — China is inching closer to the launch of its own sovereign digital currency by giving it a legal foundation in an upcoming law revision, while the central bank is also addressing problems that emerged in pilot tests for the digital yuan.
- How did China’s industrial giants perform in September? — China’s industrial giants saw their monthly profits grow for a fifth consecutive month in September, while remaining negative over the first nine months of the year.
- Can China become a leading producer of Covid-19 vaccines? — Hopes are rising that Chinese Covid-19 vaccines may be among the first to receive regulatory approval, but analysts say hurdles remain before China becomes a key player in the global market, even if it produces a successful vaccine.
- Parent of BMW’s Chinese partner defaults on a bond, as declining car sales pile on to the debt woes of China’s corporate borrowers — Huachen Automotive Group Holding, the state-owned parent of BMW‘s main Chinese joint-venture partner, has defaulted on a bond payment, heightening fears about the debt-ridden carmaker’s fate.
- China’s rice prices rising ‘several times a day’, but a bountiful northern harvest may change that — China’s grain traders and processing plants are suffering from a shortage of newly harvested rice as severe weather and the coronavirus pandemic have taken a hefty toll on south-central provinces, pushing up wholesale prices – a trend that is expected to last at least through the end of the year.
Bloomberg
- China’s Inexorable Rise to Superpower Is History Repeating Itself — The country looks like a latecomer to Americans and other Westerners—but from its own perspective, this is a restoration.
- How Top Money Managers Are Trading the U.S.-China Superpower Clash — Mark Mobius, Cathie Wood and eight other leading investors share their picks and predictions.
- U.S. Backs Taiwan Missile Sale With China Tensions Soaring — The State Department signaled its approval for a potential $2.4 billion sale of anti-ship missiles to Taiwan, a move certain to anger Beijing and raise tensions further between the U.S. and China days before the American election.
- China Ramps Up Imports From U.S. as Trade Deal Target Looms — China ramped up purchases of American goods in September as its economy strengthened, though it still remains far from the full-year target set out under its Phase One trade deal with the U.S.
- Can China’s Covid Recovery Continue? — Beijing needs to keep money flowing to the small firms that are key to its ambitious five-year plan.
- China Ramps Up Imports From U.S. as Trade Deal Target Looms — China ramped up purchases of American goods in September as its economy strengthened, though it still remains far from the full-year target set out under its Phase One trade deal with the U.S.
- China Seeks Big Money’s Help Reaching Its Carbon-Neutral Goal — China is enlisting financial institutions and international investors to help fund the country’s drive toward carbon neutrality.
- Bank of China Aims to Boost Debt Team on Offshore Deal Surge — Bank of China Ltd. plans to expand its headcount in the offshore bond business by 40% as it fights with global banks for a greater slice of a market that’s seen a surge in Chinese borrowers.
- China Brokers Test Goldman With Best IPO Ranking in Decades — Chinese brokerages are having a bumper year for equity dealmaking, with Ant Group’s multi-billion-dollar initial public offering poised to boost their showing in the global ranking to the best in at least two decades.
Reuters
- Exclusive: China asks banks to suspend counter-cyclical factor in yuan fixing – sources — China’s central bank has neutralized the counter-cyclical factor in its daily yuan midpoint fixing, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, in a move to let the fixing more closely reflect actual currency market moves.
- Explainer: What to watch at the fifth plenum of China’s Communist Party — Chinese President Xi Jinping and members of the Central Committee, the biggest of the ruling Communist Party’s elite decision-making bodies, are meeting this week to formulate economic and social policy goals for the next five years.
- China says will take necessary measures on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan — China’s foreign ministry said the country will take necessary measures to uphold its sovereignty and security interests, after the United States approved a further $2.4 billion in potential arms sales to Taiwan.
- China’s economic growth seen hitting 44-year low in 2020, bounce 8.4% in 2021: Reuters poll — China’s economy is expected to grow at its weakest pace in over four decades even as it steadily recovers from a coronavirus-induced dive earlier this year, but overall output could rebound sharply in 2021, a Reuters poll showed.
- Xi’s carbon neutrality vow to reshape China’s five-year plan — Chinese leaders will discuss ambitious new measures to tackle climate change on Monday at a government plenum to finalise a new five-year national development plan, after Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to make the country “carbon neutral” by 2060.
- China’s NEV sales to account for 20% of new car sales by 2025, 50% by 2035 — Sales of new energy vehicles (NEV) in China, the world’s biggest auto market, will jump to 20% of overall new car sales by 2025 from just 5% now, and to 50% by 2035, the China Society of Automotive Engineers (China-SAE) said on Tuesday.
- China launches crackdown on mobile web browsers, decries ‘chaos’ of information — China’s top cyber authority said on Monday it would carry out a “rectification” of Chinese mobile internet browsers to address what it called social concerns over the “chaos” of information being published online.
- China’s industrial profit growth slows as factory-gate deflation weighs — Profits at China’s industrial firms rose for a fifth straight month in September, but at a slower pace as factory-gate deflation and rising raw materials costs undercut a recovery in the manufacturing sector.
Xinhua
- China gold output, consumption drop in first nine months — China produced 262.93 tonnes of gold in the first nine months of this year, a decrease of 12.42 tonnes or 4.51 percent compared to the same period of last year, industry data showed Tuesday.
- Disposable income of China’s rural residents up 1.6 pct in first three quarters — The per capita disposable income of China’s rural residents rose 1.6 percent year-on-year in the first three quarters, an official said on Tuesday.
- UN trade body says global FDI halved in H1, flows to China “relatively resilient” — The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on Tuesday said global foreign direct investment (FDI) dropped by nearly half in the first six months of the year, with the biggest declines in Europe and the United States, warning of a highly uncertain outlook depending on the duration of the pandemic and the effectiveness of policy interventions.
- Economic Watch: China’s industrial profits restore as economy perks up — Profits of China’s major industrial firms maintained an upward momentum in September as production demands have gradually warmed up amid solid efforts to contain COVID-19 and bolster economic development, official data showed Tuesday.
- China’s Hainan posts surging duty-free sales — Sales of offshore duty-free shops in China’s island province of Hainan reached 10.85 billion yuan (about 1.63 billion U.S. dollars) from July 1 to Oct. 19, an increase of 218.2 percent year on year, customs data showed.
- Pork supply in China likely to rise during upcoming holidays — The supply of pork in China is expected to increase 30 percent year on year in the upcoming New Year and Spring Festival holidays as production recovers and imports rise, the agriculture ministry said.
- Chinese courier giant’s net profit up strongly — China’s express delivery giant S.F. Holding Co., Ltd. reported strong earnings growth in the third quarter of 2020 over solid business growth.
- Chinese AI firm iFLYTEK’s profit spikes in first three quarters — Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm iFLYTEK Co. Ltd. posted a sharp rise in net profit in the first three quarters of this year amid a boost in development of the AI industry.
- Global auditing firm KPMG opens new office in east China city — International auditing firm KPMG has established an office in the city of Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui Province.
- Chinese shares close higher Tuesday — Chinese stocks closed higher on Tuesday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index up 0.1 percent at 3,254.32 points.
Other Publications
- AP: China retaliates against news media in battle with the U.S.: China has ordered six U.S.-based news media to file detailed information about their operations in China the latest volley in a monthslong battle with the Trump administration.
- Washington Post: Republicans could suffer from Chinese company’s failure to buy Montana beef — Deal touted during Trump’s 2017 Beijing visit may affect tight U.S. Senate race.
