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 Orders BBC Off the Air in Its Territory — Hong Kong public radio network also pulls the plug in moves that follow U.K. regulator’s ban of state-run Chinese news channel.
- Biden Says China Will ‘Eat Our Lunch’ on Infrastructure — President emphasizes need for new transportation spending the day after two-hour call with Xi Jinping.
- China Is Approaching Its Own Peak Oil — Country’s energy companies are starting to see demand topping out around mid-decade.
- China Hints at a Shift on Climate — A rare public rebuke of the energy agency signals to some that environmental regulators have been empowered to counter the coal industry.
- Chinese New Year Comes In With a Whisper — ‘Emphatic uttering of auspicious sayings’ is discouraged in Singapore to fight virus. But don’t worry, there’s an app that shouts ‘let’s get rich!’.
The Financial Times
- China’s record corn purchases have traders wondering if bump can last — Prices surge to near eight-year high as demand from Beijing fuels grain market rally.
- Beijing bans BBC news channel in retaliatory move — Block on British broadcaster comes a week after UK withdrew licence for Chinese state network.
- Biden reviews US ban on WeChat — Trump effort to block Chinese messaging app has been tied up in court.
- CSOP kicks off launch of Hong Kong’s Star Market ETFs — The exchange traded funds will track Shanghai’s science and technology board.
The New York Times
- What Sun Dawu’s Prosecution Says About China — A rural businessman, Sun Dawu, angered Beijing twice. His fate the second time around could augur the future of the world’s other superpower.
- Pompeo, a chief critic of Beijing, passed out party favors made with parts from China. — The former secretary of state used taxpayer funds to buy 400 specially embossed pens — worth more than $10,000 in total — for dinner guests at the State Department, documents show.
- China Blocks BBC After CGTN Ban in U.K. — China cited complaints about BBC news reports, but the ban also came after a British regulator banned China’s main global broadcaster over license problems.
Caixin
- In Depth: China’s Unfinished Fight for Mine Safety — A Jan. 10 explosion at a gold mine in Qixia in eastern China’s Shandong province set off a desperate search and rescue mission for trapped miners. Two weeks later, 11 of them emerged from the collapsed mine, but 10 more were found dead and another person is still missing.
South China Morning Post
- US chip makers try to reverse Trump’s moves to block sales to Huawei — Semiconductor firms are seeking extra time to appeal last-minute Trump administration moves to block sales to Chinese telecoms company Huawei, hoping against the odds that the Biden administration will reverse course, five sources said.
- Is China concerned about its population? — What is China’s population? China’s overall population continued to grow in 2019, rising to 1.4 billion at the end of the year from 1.39 billion a year earlier.
- China-US relations: White House denies backtracking on Confucius Institutes — The United States has denied withdrawing a Trump administration proposal that would have required American schools and universities to disclose their partnerships with China’s Confucius Institutes.
- China food security: time to boost domestic output as focus on imports ‘fundamentally incompatible’ — As it bids to ensure the security of its food supply, China will switch to paying more attention to improving its domestic production having relied on record import levels during a coronavirus-hit 2020, a trade which is likely to stabilise or even start to drop this year.
Bloomberg
- U.K. Plans Hosting G-7 Meeting Next Week to Craft China Strategy — U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to host a virtual meeting of the Group of Seven leaders on Feb. 19 to form a united front in the fight against the coronavirus and to start crafting a joint strategy on China.
- Supermicro Hack: How China Exploited a U.S. Tech Supplier Over Years — For years, U.S. investigators found tampering in products made by Super Micro Computer Inc. The company says it was never told. Neither was the public.
- Qualcomm CEO Elect Says Huawei Ban May Help With Chip Shortages — Qualcomm Inc.’s incoming Chief Executive Officer Cristiano Amon said U.S. sanctions against China’s Huawei Technologies Co. may help alleviate a global shortfall in semiconductor supply.
Reuters
- Vodafone Germany suspends China TV from cable after licence withdrawn — Vodafone Germany said it had suspended distribution of China’s state-owned CGTN television on its cable services after authorities had withdrawn a licence for its distribution.
- Mekong River at ‘worrying’ low level amid calls for more Chinese dam data — Water levels in the Mekong River have fallen to a “worrying level” in part due to outflow restrictions from Chinese hydropower dams upstream, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) said on Friday, calling on Beijing to share all of its water data.
- Citing China threat, business groups, experts push Biden administration for digital policy — The Biden administration needs to develop an aggressive, coherent digital policy to counter China’s growing technological power, industry groups and former U.S. officials say.
- Column: China’s 2020 refined nickel imports slump to 6-year low — China has bailed out the copper and aluminium markets by importing record amounts of the rest of the world’s surplus metal.
Other Publications
- Nikkei Asian Review: Samsung races to guard its secrets as China rivals close in — Headhunting and corporate espionage threaten tech titan’s global dominance.
- Nikkei Asian Review: Semiconductor fraud in China highlights lack of accountability — Push for homegrown chipmakers leads to multimillion-dollar investment swindle.
- Economist: As in Xinjiang, China is tightening its grip in Tibet — The Communist Party wants Tibetans to pay less attention to their Buddhist religion
- Economist: Britain’s hardening stance on China — The relationship is more steely than golden.
- Economist: China leads in precision-guided central banking. Does it work? — It has helped during the pandemic but done less to cure deep economic problems.
- Jamestown Foundation: China’s Use of U.S. Satellite Communications Technology in the South China Sea — Publicly available documents suggest that at least some of China’s MLE forces are using U.S. technology to bolster their communications capabilities in the South China Sea.
