Authorities in China escalated their campaign against cryptocurrencies, arresting more than 1,100 people suspected of using the digital assets to launder ill-gotten funds and ordering mines to shut down in one of its western provinces, the Wall Street Journal reported. In a swoop spanning 23 provinces, regions and cities, Chinese police on Wednesday rounded up more than 170 criminal groups that engaged in cryptocurrency trading in order to launder money obtained via telephone and online scams, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement.

A Chinese businessman with family links to the eldest son of jailed former security czar Zhou Yongkang has been detained by police investigating the collapse of Sichuan Trust, which was taken over by the provincial government and banking regulator last year amid concerns it couldn't repay 25.3 billion yuan ($3.9 billion) of investors' money, Nikkei Asia reported.

China's May factory gate prices rose at their fastest annual pace in over 12 years due to surging commodity prices, highlighting global inflation pressures at a time when policymakers are trying to revitalise COVID-hit growth, Reuters reported. Investors are increasingly worried pandemic-driven stimulus measures could supercharge global inflation and force central banks to tighten policy, potentially curbing the recovery. China's producer price index (PPI) increased 9.0%, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday, as prices bounced back from last year's pandemic lows.

Chinese regulators have instructed major creditors of China Evergrande Group to conduct a fresh round of stress tests on their exposure to the world’s most indebted developer, Bloomberg News reported. Authorities led by the Financial Stability and Development Committee, China’s top financial regulator, recently told lenders including Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. to assess the potential hit to their capital and liquidity should Evergrande run into trouble. It’s unclear whether the results will lead to any official action.

China Evergrande Group, the country’s most indebted developer, reversed losses in Hong Kong trading after the company clarified that operations remained normal and it was compliant in dealings with a banking unit, Bloomberg News reported. The shares rose as much as 3.7% on Monday afternoon after earlier sliding 5.3%. In a statement, Evergrande said various “rumors,” including that it was resorting to widespread price discounts, were false. Chinese developers are facing a slew of measures to curtail risks in the sector, with regulators monitoring everything from bank lending to land sales.

China’s HNA Group Co. said that nearly 67,400 creditors are seeking a total of 1.2 trillion yuan ($187 billion), according to a person who attended the conglomerate’s online meeting for creditors on Friday, Reuters reported. The company has confirmed 405.7 billion yuan in claims as valid and has rejected 353.5 billion yuan in claims, the person quoted Ren Qinghua, the head of HNA’s liquidation team, as saying. Another 156.5 billion yuan in claims are being assessed as part of a preliminary review while some claims have yet to be reviewed, added the person.

China is pushing China Huarong Asset Management Co. to sell non-core assets, two people involved in the revamp told Reuters, while considering offering an implicit guarantee of the liabilities of the debt-laden bad-debt manager. Regulators are pressing the state-controlled "bad bank", which has been trying to restructure since 2018, to sell units including a bank, a trust, an investment firm and a consumer finance firm.

Major shipping companies have warned clients of worsening congestion at Shenzen's Yantian port in southern China following the discovery of several asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 in the city, Reuters reported. Yantian International Container Terminal (YICT), one of China's busiest container ports with an annual handling volume of more than 13 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), has imposed stringent disinfection and quarantine measures since May 21 when the virus was discovered among port staff.

Troubled state finance company China Huarong Asset Management on Thursday successfully completed its biggest bond redemption since default worries erupted in April, but investors remain concerned about its long-term health and that of its peers, Nikkei Asia reported. The company, originally set up to manage soured loans extended by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, repaid a $900 million bond right on time. Huarong over the weekend also repaid a 500 million yuan ($78.3 million) domestic bond, according to Bloomberg.

China’s central bank is trying to restrain the surging exchange rate of its currency, temporarily backtracking in efforts to make the tightly controlled yuan more flexible and market-oriented, the Associated Press reported. On Monday, commercial lenders were ordered to hold more of their foreign currency as reserves in the central bank to limit sales after the yuan hit a four-year high of 6.3674 to the U.S dollar. The People’s Bank of China is trying to deter speculators after the yuan rose by about 12% against the dollar since May.