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The Chinese company NetEase said on Wednesday that it had struck a deal to distribute titles from Microsoft’s Blizzard Entertainment, restoring access to popular video games like World of Warcraft for Chinese gamers. More than a year ago, NetEase and Blizzard called an end to their long-running partnership when renewal talks turned testy, with both sides accusing each other of bad-faith negotiations. An uproar ensued among Chinese gamers, upset about losing access to a slew of popular titles from Blizzard’s parent company, the U.S. game developer Activision Blizzard. NetEase said on Wednesday that it had reached the new deal with Microsoft, which acquired Activision Blizzard in a $69 billion deal in October. The two companies said they had also agreed to distribute NetEase titles on Microsoft’s Xbox game device.

Persons: NetEase, we’ve, ” William Ding Organizations: Microsoft’s Blizzard Entertainment, Activision Blizzard, Microsoft Locations: U.S

☆ Missing Chinese Banker Resigns After Investigation
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-02 | by ( Claire Fu | More About Claire Fu | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After disappearing nearly a year ago as part of an investigation by Chinese authorities, prominent investment banker Bao Fan has resigned as chairman and chief executive of China Renaissance Holdings, the company said on Friday. Mr. Bao, a deal-making banker for Chinese internet giants Alibaba and Tencent, went missing last February. China Renaissance initially said it had lost contact with Mr. Bao before later stating that he was cooperating with an investigation being carried out by the authorities in China. It fueled concerns about the lengths that Chinese authorities would go to bring power players in the domestic economy to heel, while extending its control over its financial regulatory system. In a filing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, China Renaissance said Mr. Bao was stepping down because of “health reasons and to spend more time on his family affairs.” The company did not explain the nature of the investigation Mr. Bao was under.

Persons: Bao Fan, Bao Organizations: China Renaissance Holdings, China Renaissance, Hong Kong Stock Exchange Locations: Tencent, China

In Shenzhen, a metropolis born of China’s economic prosperity, Paibang Village is a reminder of the city’s modest past and the challenges ahead for reviving the country’s property sector. Paibang is what China calls an urban village, a labyrinth of low-slung apartment buildings and mom-and-pop storefronts connected by a maze of alleyways and narrow roads. There are hundreds of them in Shenzhen, a municipality of 18 million people next to Hong Kong, and thousands of such villages across China. Now with China mired in an unyielding property crisis, policymakers want to revamp aging urban neighborhoods like Paibang to kick-start construction and spur local economies. Seven years ago, Paibang was chosen for an “urban renewal” by city officials, and in 2019 China Evergrande, one of the country’s biggest real estate firms, took control of the project.

Persons: Paibang, Evergrande Locations: Shenzhen, China, Hong Kong

As developing countries weigh the consequences of borrowing heavily from China for major infrastructure projects, anti-corruption officials in Nepal have begun an investigation into a flagship airport financed and built by Chinese state-owned companies. Nepal’s $216 million international airport in Pokhara, the country’s second-biggest city, opened in January. China agreed to provide loans to build the airport more than a decade ago. Nepal tapped China CAMC Engineering, the construction arm of a state-owned conglomerate, Sinomach, as the contractor. Nepali officials have asked Beijing to change the loans into a grant to ease the financial burden, but China has not agreed to do so.

Persons: CAMC Organizations: China CAMC Engineering, New York Times, Civil Aviation Authority Locations: China, Nepal, Pokhara, Beijing

He went on to accuse Israel of being a terror organization because its airstrikes on Gaza had caused civilian casualties. A Chinese state broadcaster recently hosted a discussion page on Weibo stating that Jews controlled a disproportionate amount of U.S. wealth. Among the comments on recent posts from the official social media account of Israel’s embassy in China were similar comparisons of Israelis to Nazis. It is hard to say whether the anti-Israeli positions in state media and antisemitism on the Chinese internet are part of a coordinated campaign. “If China felt that it was dangerous and problematic to allow antisemitic comments to flourish, the censors would stop it.

Persons: Hu Xijin, I’m, ”, Israel, Shen Yi, Carice Witte Organizations: Global Times, Communist Party, Weibo, Fudan University, country’s Communist Party Locations: Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, China, Beijing, Israeli

An accountant in northeast China deposited her life savings and received a letter guaranteeing her investment in a trust firm. Workers at a state-owned utility pooled money from friends and relatives believing that their investments were backed by the government. A man sank $140,000 into an account that he was told would make a 10.1 percent annual return. They have offered no timetable for when people will be paid, fueling concerns that one of China’s largest so-called shadow banks may be near collapse. Zhongzhi has not made any public statements about its finances, and it did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Persons: Zhongzhi, Zhongrong Organizations: Workers, Zhongzhi Enterprise Group Locations: China

Country Garden, China’s biggest property developer, told creditors that it had made a late interest payment, averting an immediate default on its debts and keeping the company financially viable for the time being. Last month, the company missed two interest payments totaling $22.5 million on bonds that had been sold in U.S. dollars. It had a 30-day grace period to make the payment or risk default. Country Garden told the bondholders that it had made the payment within the grace period, a person close to the company said on Tuesday. The delayed payments underscored the financial pressure facing Country Garden, which has been China’s top-selling homebuilder for the last six years.

Organizations: Garden

When Country Garden, the biggest developer in China’s increasingly troubled real estate sector, published its annual report in April, the cover design exuded hope: a phoenix spreading its wings. The company said the image showed that China’s economy was “back on track” and that this year would see “growth soaring to new heights.”That was wishful thinking. Shortly after the report’s release, China’s nascent economic recovery lost steam and an already sluggish real estate market started to collapse. For the past three years, as dozens of major property developers defaulted after years of excessive borrowing, Country Garden was an outlier. But last month, it missed two interest payments — signaling that it, too, was at risk of financial collapse, with $187 billion in debt.

Earlier this year, David Yang was brimming with confidence about the prospects for his perfume factory in eastern China. “It is disheartening,” Mr. Yang said. “The economy is really going downhill right now.”For much of the past four decades, China’s economy seemed like an unstoppable force, the engine behind the country’s rise to a global superpower. A real estate crisis borne from years of overbuilding and excessive borrowing is running alongside a larger debt crisis, while young people are struggling with record joblessness. And amid the drip feed of bad economic news, a new crisis is emerging: a crisis of confidence.

Persons: David Yang, Covid, Yang, Mr Locations: China

☆ China Suspends Report on Youth Unemployment, Which Was at a Record High
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-15 | by ( Claire Fu | More About Claire Fu | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Chinese government, facing an expected seventh consecutive monthly increase in youth unemployment, said Tuesday that it had instead suspended release of the information. The unemployment rate among 16- to 24-year-olds in urban areas hit 21.3 percent, a record, in June and has risen every month this year. It was widely forecast by economists to have climbed further last month. Fu Linghui, a spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics, said at a news briefing that the government would stop making public employment information “for youth and other age groups.” He said the surveys that government researchers use to collect the data “need to be further improved and optimized.”China’s youth unemployment rate has doubled in the last four years, a period of economic volatility induced by the “zero Covid” measures imposed by Beijing that left companies wary of hiring, interrupted education for many students, and made it hard to get the internships that had often led to job offers.

Persons: Fu Linghui, ” Organizations: National Bureau of Statistics Locations: Beijing

Government policymakers struggling to address the problem are now leaning on colleges to do more to find jobs for graduates. The job performance of school administrators was already tied to the percentage of their students who find employment after graduation. In some cases, the scrutiny is so intense that students resort to fabricating job offers to placate school officials. Over the last three decades, as China’s economy grew by leaps and bounds, more people attended college, seeing it as a pathway to promising careers. This year’s estimated graduating class of 11.6 million students is expected to be the largest ever, and future classes are expected to be even bigger.

Organizations: National Bureau of Statistics, China Macroeconomy, Renmin University of China Locations: China

☆ China Fines Ant Group $985 Million, in Sign Crackdown Is Over
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-07 | by ( Claire Fu | More About Claire Fu | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Chinese authorities announced a fine of nearly $1 billion for financial technology firm Ant Group on Friday, nearly three years after regulators halted the company’s plan for a record-breaking public offering that ushered in a period of intense government scrutiny of technology firms. The fine announced by China’s top securities regulator is seen as a sign that the authorities are wrapping up investigations into technology firms, bringing to a close a period of tough regulation for the industry. Officials said earlier this year that they would start to relax oversight of tech firms. The 2020 crackdown on Ant was followed by a record $2.8 billion antitrust fine for e-commerce giant Alibaba, Ant’s sister company, and a $1.2 billion penalty for ride sharing service Didi. Regulators fined Ant and its subsidiaries 7.1 billion renminbi ($985 million), and ordered the company to shut down its crowdfunding platform for medical costs, Xianghubao.

Persons: Ant’s, Didi, Ant, “ Organizations: Ant Group, China’s, Xianghubao, Regulators

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