The vice mayor of Tianjin told financial institutions on Tuesday he expected no additional state companies to default in the northern Chinese city and promised to maintain a healthy credit environment, three sources told Reuters. Since late 2020, several defaults by state firms including Yongcheng Coal & Electricity Holding Group Co., Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd and automaker Huachen Automotive Group have eroded investor confidence, pushing up corporate funding costs.

The owners of Suning.com plan to sell more shares held in the debt-ridden Chinese retail group, it was announced Wednesday, a sale that puts founder and Chairman Zhang Jindong's control over the company into question, Nikkei Asia reported. Zhang and entities under his control will sell a portion of their shares in Suning. The buyers and the percentage stake involved have not been disclosed. This move comes after Zhang and other shareholders decided in March to sell a 23% stake in Suning to a group of state-owned investors for 14.8 billion yuan ($2.28 billion at current rates).

China's central bank said on Monday it had recently summoned some banks and payment firms, including China Construction Bank and Alipay, urging them to crack down harder on cryptocurrency trading, Reuters reported. The People's Bank of China's meeting came after China's State Council, or cabinet, last month said that it would tighten restrictions on bitcoin trading and mining. Beijing has sharply ratcheted up its campaign in the last few weeks.

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday proposed further restrictions on purchases of telecommunications equipment that pose national security risks, strengthening its opposition to Chinese providers of 5G wireless and other technologies, the New York Times reported. The F.C.C. voted unanimously to explore the proposal to ban U.S. companies from all future purchases of telecommunications equipment from companies like Huawei and ZTE of China.

China’s crackdown on shadow banking is taking aim at more than $1 trillion of opaque investments sold by banks as low risk and high yield, even while funds were channeled to riskier borrowers such as developers, Bloomberg News reported. Banks and wealth mangers can no longer use money invested in so-called cash management products to buy long-term debt or bonds rated below AA+, according to long-awaited rules published on Friday.

The size and type of defaults that have occurred in China in recent times indicate that the notion of “too big to fail” may no longer apply to the nation’s borrowers, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bloomberg News reported. There has been a noticeable up-tick in defaults by Chinese state-owned enterprises since late 2019 and some of the borrowers that have failed to repay debt recently such as China Fortune Land Development Co. have had large amounts of outstanding bonds, analysts including Kenneth Ho wrote in a report dated Friday.

China is using the eastern province of Zhejiang to test a series of initiatives to promote “common prosperity” as the country grapples with gaps between urban and rural development, unequal income distribution and a lack of consistency in development, The Hill reported.

China's banking and insurance regulator issued rules on Tuesday on wealth management products for cash, tightening oversight of the $1 trillion market, Reuters reported. China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission banned such products from investing in stocks and convertible bonds and said the leverage level of each product should not exceed 120% normally, according to a statement on the regulator's website. The regulator also asked commercial banks and wealth management companies to conduct stress tests on such products to make sure they could deal with urgent redemptions.

China's new bank loans unexpectedly rose in May from the previous month but broader credit growth continued to slow, as the central bank seeks to contain rising debt in the world's second-largest economy, Reuters reported. Top Chinese leaders have repeatedly vowed to avoid any sharp policy turns, keeping borrowing costs low and telling banks to maintain support for small firms, while being more watchful about extending credit to hot areas of the economy such as property.