Receive free Currencies updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Currencies news every morning. China’s renminbi is on track for its best monthly performance against the dollar in half a year, after policymakers deployed direct and indirect support measures to combat depreciation expectations, traders and analysts said. The renminbi rose about 1.5 per cent in July to Rmb7.1475 per dollar, putting a floor under the exchange rate after a punishing three-month sell-off in which the Chinese currency tumbled more than 5 per cent on…
Month: July 2023
Career diplomat and Russia expert Le Yucheng retires after move to state media body
Le was the most senior of four vice-ministers at the NRTA but had no media experience. He also lost his seat as an alternate member of the ruling Communist Party’s Central Committee during a reshuffle in October. Helena Legarda, a lead analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, said it was impossible to know what the rationale was behind Le’s departure from the foreign ministry. Advertisement But she said it had left the ministry without any senior officials with Russian expertise. “Having a Russia expert like Le…
The New China Playbook by Keyu Jin review – the bright side of Beijing
There is a tone to Chinese official propaganda that is worthy of Professor Pangloss and his irrefutable case that “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”. Beijing’s favoured phrases, such as “win-win cooperation” and “community of common destiny for all mankind”, are designed to evoke an image of China as the fountainhead of conflict-free benevolence. A similar if much more sophisticated feeling runs through Keyu Jin’s book. Jin teaches economics at the LSE in London. She is the Harvard-educated daughter of a former deputy minister…
Cambodian defense minister’s son visits China-funded naval base
Cambodia’s defense minister Tea Banh and his son Tea Seiha, who is soon widely believed to succeed him in the new cabinet, have visited a Chinese-funded naval base. This is the first military project that the father-and-son duo visited since the one-sided general election, in which the ruling Cambodia People’s Party won a landslide victory. In a set of photos published on his Facebook page, defense minister Tea Banh was seen surrounded by Cambodian army officers during Sunday’s Ream Naval Base visit. The project is proceeding “according to plan,” the…
Weak Chinese factory activity puts pressure on Beijing to support economy
Receive free Chinese economy updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Chinese economy news every morning. Manufacturing activity in China contracted for a fourth straight month in July while growth in services and other sectors slipped, adding to calls for Beijing to unveil concrete measures to boost the flagging recovery of the world’s second-biggest economy. China’s official manufacturing sector purchasing managers’ index for July came in at 49.3, slightly higher than analysts’ forecasts of 49.2 and above June’s reading of 49 but still in…
Pakistan’s leader vows to punish attackers after bomb attack
Receive free Pakistan updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Pakistan news every morning. Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to punish the perpetrators of a bomb attack that killed at least 40 people and injured more than 100 at a political gathering in the country’s north in one of the worst terrorist attacks in recent years. The bombing on Sunday targeted a rally of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F), a hardline Sunni Muslim party that is part of Pakistan’s ruling coalition. The rally, held to…
Luxshare’s wins with Apple make it Foxconn’s biggest challenger
Receive free Luxshare Precision updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Luxshare Precision news every morning. When Apple unveiled its Vision Pro mixed-reality headset to the world’s media in June, few were aware of the significant role played by a little-known contract manufacturer in China in creating the revolutionary device. Shenzhen-based Luxshare Precision Industry has won favour and increasing business with the iPhone maker in part by being prepared to test “crazy” ideas in its factories, according to an Apple supply chain employee. It…
‘I won’t be deterred’: Hong Kong activist Finn Lau vows to fight on despite arrest bounty
When Finn Lau woke one morning this month to dozens of messages urging him to take care, he was confused as to what had happened. But he was not distressed to learn that Hong Kong authorities had offered a HK$1m (£100,000) bounty for his arrest, along with that of seven other overseas activists, because it was not the first threat he had faced. Since helping to lead pro-democracy protests challenging Hong Kong’s authorities and a national security law that brought sweeping extraterritorial powers into force three years ago, Lau, 29,…
The economic impact of extreme heat
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‘Ticking bomb’ malware threatens to compromise US security
The Biden administration is on the hunt for malware that may compromise military and civilian power grids, communications systems and water supplies, according to a report in the New York Times. The malware, which is believed to have been inserted by Chinese hackers associated with the People’s Liberation Army, could seek to disrupt and slow down any reaction by the U.S. military should China move against Taiwan, U.S. officials told the Times. One congressional official said the malware was “a ticking time bomb” that could make it possible for China…