Month: November 2023

Chinese factory activity contracts in sign of economy losing momentum

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Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Chinese economy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. China’s manufacturing activity contracted for the second month in November, indicating weakening momentum in the world’s second-largest economy despite increased government efforts to boost growth. The country’s official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index came in at 49.4 this month, worse than a median forecast of 49.7 in a Reuters poll and slightly below a reading of 49.5 in October. A reading below 50 marks contraction from the previous month. The decline…

US activists mark year since White Paper protests

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Uyghur, Tibetan, Chinese and Hong Konger activists gathered in frigid temperatures outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday evening to mark a year since China’s “White Paper” protests that briefly threatened to grow into a movement for a change of government. The protests began in response to a Nov. 22, 2022, fire in Urumqi, the capital of the far-west Xinjiang region, which officially killed 10 people, but residents alleged that it caused 44 deaths. Many blame the country’s harsh zero-COVID lockdown measures. Wielding blank sheets of paper, protesters across China initially…

China’s manufacturing activity remains in contraction in November, as economic gloom mounts

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China’s manufacturing activity remained in contraction for the second straight month in November, signalling a rockier path ahead for the world’s second-largest economy. The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) stood at 49.4, compared to 49.5 in October, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Thursday. The manufacturing PMI reading was lower than market expectations, with Bloomberg predicting slight growth to 49.8. It is the lowest reading since 49.3 in July. A PMI reading higher than 50 typically indicates expansion of activity, while a reading below denotes a contraction.…

Chinese Chef Stirs Furor With Egg Fried Rice Tutorial

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Wang Gang, a Chinese internet celebrity chef with millions of followers, has been attacked over the past few days by thousands of nationalist netizens over his tutorial video on how to prepare egg fried rice. The irate netizens believe the video was intended to satirize Mao Anying, the son of Mao Zedong, the former paramount Chinese leader and founder of the People’s Republic of China. According to a long-circulated rumor, Mao Anying was making egg fried rice when he was killed by an airstrike during the 1950-53 Korean War. The…

Taliban carry out hundreds of floggings as grip tightens on Afghanistan

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The Taliban have carried out hundreds of floggings over the past year as the hardline regime consolidates its control over Afghanistan. Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada declared late last year that the group, which retook power in Afghanistan in 2021 after a 20-year insurgency against the US-backed government, would impose a strict version of sharia law including corporal punishments. Since last October, the Taliban-controlled Supreme Court has announced the punishment…

Who’s who at Cop28: the leaders with the world’s future in their hands

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Cop28 officially opens on 30 November in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and the conference is scheduled to end on 14 December, although is likely to run later. World leaders will attend the world climate action summit segment on 1 and 2 December and after they depart the crunch negotiations will be done by their representatives, environment ministers or other high-ranking officials. Sultan Al Jaber, Cop28 president Sultan Al Jaber. Photograph: Kamran Jebreili/AP Sultan Al Jaber, the president-designate of Cop28, is minister for advanced technology in the government of…

Britain Says Bye-Bye to Its Only Pandas as They’ll Soon Depart for China

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Britain’s only two pandas will soon be returned to China, officials said, in a send-off that has dispirited fans of the playful, waddling bears and signals what appears to be the end, at least for now, of panda diplomacy. “Bamboo bon voyage,” the Edinburgh Zoo of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland said on its website, noting that there would be “a giant farewell” on Thursday for the bears, whose names are Yang Guang and Tian Tian. The pair of giant pandas will be prepared to return to China in…

China jobs: how much employment pressure is the world’s second-largest economy facing?

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This year, the rate had peaked at 5.6 per cent in February, but it has now fallen to its lowest level since November 2021. It had risen as high as 6.1 per cent in April 2022 after strict coronavirus lockdowns and control measures had affected many regions, including in the international hub of Shanghai. China’s jobless rate for 16 to 24 age group, meanwhile, had climbed to an all-time high of 21.3 per cent in June before the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) stopped releasing the data from July, citing…

China, US cannot afford depopulating the relationship, American ambassador Nicholas Burns says

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China and the United States must resume people-to-people exchange at all levels to prevent the delicate relationship from “getting knocked off the course again,” US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said. The envoy, who took part in the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden in San Francisco earlier this month, said both sides were able to discuss issues core to their interests, noting the importance of the two leaders’ commitment to bringing back people-level exchange. “The people-to-people exchange is the ballast to keep the…