| Even U.S. President Joe Biden can't get a photo op with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Xi is said to have given Biden the cold shoulder last week, when the leader of the world's biggest superpower floated the idea of an in-person meeting between the two. To be fair, Xi hasn't set foot outside of China for anyone for more than 600 days because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Germany's Angela Merkel snubbed President Donald Trump in a similar fashion last year. The White House also disputed that Xi snubbed Biden but didn't offer details. Regardless, the fact that there is no visibility as to when the leaders of the world's two biggest economies will get to shake hands or bump fists is yet another reminder that heightened tensions between the two countries will go on for a while — with markets and everyone else caught in the crossfire. Speaking of investors, it was a bad week for those betting on a Macau recovery, with the Bloomberg Intelligence index of the enclave's six casino stocks heading for a record weekly drop after China set its sights to clamp down on the world's biggest gambling hub. Sands China saw its market value tumble by more than $8 billion on Wednesday alone.  The Studio City casino resort, developed by Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd., stands in Macau. Photographer: Paul Yeung/Bloomberg The rout reflects how jittery investors are about who will be the next target of Beijing's regulatory zeal. In recent weeks, the government has been cracking down on industries from entertainment to after-school tutoring, rattling markets. The looming new rules in Macau, which are subject to public consultation, include plans for the government to appoint supervisors and for the state to increase its stake in casinos. Even for a place used to long clampdowns for money laundering and illicit currency flows, the broad scope of the latest rules signaled an unprecedented level of scrutiny on Macau. It's seemingly never a slow news day with debt-laden China Evergrande Group. This week was no exception. Dozens, if not hundreds, of people staged protests across China since last weekend to demand repayment on overdue wealth management products. Meanwhile, speculation about the likelihood of the company going bankrupt intensified to the point that Evergrande issued a denial statement about it on Monday.  A China Evergrande Group sign atop the Evergrande Center in Shanghai, China, on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg The following day, the world's most indebted property developer warned it couldn't guarantee Evergrande could meet its financial obligations but that it hired financial advisers to explore ways of easing its cash crunch. China's government hired its own legal experts to examine Evergrande's finances. Then Bloomberg broke the news on Wednesday that Chinese authorities had told major creditors that Evergrande would not pay interest due next week on bank loans. S&P Global Ratings cut the company's debt rating even deeper into junk territory, following on the heels of Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings. But Evergrande's soccer team is likely to be fine as local governments prepare to help Guangzhou Football Club insulate itself from its troubled corporate owner. With more than $300 billion in liabilities, the developer is one of the most systemically important companies in China. It owes about $147 billion in trade and other payables to suppliers and received down payments on yet-to-be-completed properties from more than 1.5 million home buyers as of December. Starting Friday next week, Chinese investors will have a new channel to purchase debt overseas, the nation's latest effort to further open its tightly controlled capital flows.
Details of the long-awaited Southbound Bond Connect program were finally disclosed by the People's Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority on Wednesday. It came a week after authorities announced last week a Wealth Management Connect program to allow investments for private wealth between Hong Kong and mega-cities in China's southern region.  Signage for the China-Hong Kong Bond Connect is seen at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in Hong Kong. Photographer: Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg Analysts said the Bond Connect program illustrates China's latest efforts to open up its financial markets and boost international use of the yuan. Apropos the yuan, it's been defying the recent rout in stocks and bearish economic data by staying strong, reaching close to a five-year high against a basket of trading partners' currencies this week.  The currency symbol for the Chinese yuan is displayed at a currency exchange store in Hong Kong, China. Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg The yuan's strength can partly be explained by lopsided trade surpluses, with China's exports to the U.S. near a monthly record in August. Also, banks in China are so awash with dollars that they are rushing to lend them out, putting more pressure on the yuan to rise. And while the Southbound Bond Connect program may eventually help weaken the Chinese currency, quotas limiting the scale of the program mean that it's unlikely to affect exchange rates much initially. Finally, a few other things that caught our attention: | 
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