Tag: Foreign Investments

TikTok Bill Would Complicate ByteDance Investments if Passed

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For years, the U.S. investors who backed ByteDance, the Chinese internet company that owns TikTok, have wrestled with the complexities of owning a piece of a geopolitically fraught social media app. Now it’s gotten even more complicated. A bill to force ByteDance to sell TikTok is winding its way through the Senate after sailing through the House this month. Questions about whether TikTok’s Chinese ties make it a national security threat are mounting. And U.S. investors including General Atlantic, Susquehanna International Group and Sequoia Capital — which collectively poured billions…

China’s Plan to Spur Growth: A New Slogan With Familiar Ideas

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From the top of the government, China is heavily promoting a plan to fix the country’s stagnant economy and offset the harm from a decades-long housing bubble. The program has a fresh slogan, presented foremost by Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, as “new, quality productive forces.” But it has features that are familiar from China’s economic playbook: The idea is to spur innovation and growth through massive investments in manufacturing, particularly in high-tech and clean energy, as well as robust spending on research and development. And there have been…

Mainland Chinese Flocked to Hong Kong’s Top Talent Visa

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To some foreign expatriates, Hong Kong has lost its appeal as an international city and no longer feels like home since Beijing took a heavier hand in its governance. But for many former mainland Chinese like Angelina Wang, it has become a more attractive place to live and work. Ms. Wang, in her early 30s, was feeling stuck in her job at a state-owned finance company in Shenzhen, a mainland city just across the border, when she read about a Hong Kong visa for professional workers. She quickly applied. As…

Hong Kong Security Law Could Damage City’s Image as Financial Hub

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Paul Chan, the top finance official of Hong Kong, traveled to Paris, London, Frankfurt and Berlin last September to lure foreign investors. Last month he abolished taxes on foreigners’ purchases of Hong Kong real estate. And he is soon set to host an international art show, as well as conferences for big money funds and advisers to wealthy families. Mr. Chan’s brisk work pace represents an attempt to shore up Hong Kong’s role and image as the financial hub of Asia. But that effort is now colliding with a move…

TikTok Fight Cast Shadow Over Investments in Other Chinese Companies

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When investors talk about “zombie” companies, they’re usually referring to distressed start-ups that are hobbling along, unable to grow and unlikely to ever return the money they’ve raised. But as deal makers feverishly debated efforts this week by lawmakers to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app, they talked about a new version: China zombies. China zombies may have booming businesses, but they’re unlikely to provide investors with any immediate return because they’re stuck in geopolitical cross hairs. It’s not just the investors in ByteDance who, after…

TikTok’s Security Threats Go Beyond the Scope of House Legislation

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In a capital where Republicans and Democrats agree on virtually nothing, it was notable when the House overwhelmingly declared on Wednesday that TikTok poses such a grave risk to national security that it must be forced to sell its U.S. operations to a non-Chinese owner. But that glosses over the deeper TikTok security problem, which the legislation does not fully address. In the four years this battle has gone on, it has become clear that the security threat posed by TikTok has far less to do with who owns it…

China’s Exports Surge Are Drawing a Global Backlash

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China’s factory exports are powering ahead faster than almost anyone expected, putting jobs around the world in jeopardy and setting off a backlash that is gaining momentum. From steel and cars to consumer electronics and solar panels, Chinese factories are finding more overseas buyers for goods. The world’s appetite for its goods is welcomed by China, which is enduring a severe downturn in what had been the economy’s biggest driver of growth: building and outfitting apartments. But other countries are increasingly concerned that China’s rise is coming partly at their…

Big American Tech Profits From Chinese Ad Spending Spree

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The trade relationship between China and the United States has plenty of friction. But at least one area is booming: Chinese start-ups looking to establish a presence in the West are spending billions of dollars for advertisements on services owned by some of Silicon Valley’s biggest technology companies. Temu, the international arm of the Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, is flooding Google with ads for absurdly inexpensive goods. With an initial public offering looming, the fast-fashion merchant Shein is inundating Instagram with ads for clothes and accessories at rock-bottom prices. Developers…

Is China’s Era of High Growth Over?

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China’s real growth agenda China announced an official growth target of about 5 percent on Tuesday that’s already looking hard to pull off. The world’s second-biggest economy is facing headwinds, from a consumer slowdown to weak investor confidence and a trade war with the West. But the growth target only tells part of the story of how Beijing is rethinking economic policy. Left out of the pronouncements: a stimulus package. Investors watch the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress, the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, and a parallel meeting of China’s…

China’s New Economic Agenda, a Lot Like the Old One: Takeaways

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Beijing was abuzz with politics on Tuesday. China’s annual legislative meeting — the National People’s Congress, when Communist Party leaders promote their solutions for national ills — opened for business. The event is a chance for the leaders to signal the direction of the economy and outline how and where the government will spend money in the coming year. Yet while aiming high, they offered little. Officials signaled that they were not ready for any showstopping moves to revive an economy battered by a property crisis, the loss of consumer…