Month: January 2024

However, the declaration has largely failed to prevent a dwindling of confidence – be it among the foreign business community, private entrepreneurs or domestic consumers. Across China, a large cross-section of foreign businesses is struggling to cope amid what has been a gulf between their tepid business performances and Beijing’s rose-tinted account of the economy. ‘Recovery is still shaky’ as China looks to get economy on solid footing in 2024 Instead, challenges pertaining to national security, data flows and continued market barriers dominate hearts and minds, fuelling doubts about increasing…

US military funding for Ukraine carries a key deterrent message for China, Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg argued on Sunday at the start of a Washington visit aimed at lobbying Congress to continue funding the war against Russia. After billions in US aid have been sent to Ukraine since the invasion nearly two years ago, many Republican lawmakers have grown reluctant to keep supporting Kyiv, saying it lacks a clear end game as the fighting against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces grinds on. US President Joe Biden has asked Congress to…

Senior officials from the US and China will meet in Beijing on Tuesday to launch what is described as a high-level working group to resume formal bilateral cooperation on counternarcotics almost two years after Beijing suspended all assistance on the issue in 2022. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Joe Biden agreed during their November summit in San Francisco that the two rival global powers should work jointly to rein in a deadly opioid crisis in the US. The American delegation to the Chinese capital will be led…

“This visa-free era will bring people-to-people exchanges to a new height,” Wang said after the signing. The Thai ministry said the agreement is “among the first of many more activities to come in marking the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Thailand and China in 2025”. Wang also said China was working with Thailand to tackle transnational crimes and scam syndicates. His government is aiming to bring back tourists from China – Thailand’s largest source of tourism before the pandemic. It has set the goal of 8…

The Chinese coastguard said it had made “temporary special arrangements” to allow the Philippines to deliver supplies to troops at a grounded World War II-era vessel at a disputed reef. China’s coastguard has previously deployed vessels to block missions by the Philippines to supply troops on the transport ship, which has become a military outpost at the Second Thomas Shoal. Known as Renai Reef in China and Ayungin Shoal in the Philippines, the feature lies about 190km (118 miles) off the Philippine island of Palawan. In a statement on its…