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China has reported a drop in consumer prices in April, unwelcome news as the country scrambles to battle deflation wrought by sky-high tariffs levied on shipments between the world’s two largest economies. Advertisement The national consumer price index (CPI), a key gauge of inflation, edged down by 0.1 per cent year on year last month, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday. That was nearly the same as the 0.09 per cent fall predicted by economists in a Bloomberg poll. During the first three months…
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Pakistan’s military said it launched a wave of short-range missiles into India early on Saturday, as India targeted air bases deep inside Pakistan and the military conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours escalated closer to a full-scale war. Pakistan said it had launched Operation “Bunyan-un-Marsoos” — named after a Koranic word roughly meaning a “wall of lead” — as a response to missile and drone attacks by India since May…
In the first of a three-part series on financial decoupling between China and the US, experts say the economies of the world’s two biggest countries are highly intertwined and pulling apart would inflict pain equally on both sides. Advertisement What a difference five years makes. When one of China’s largest cloud services providers raised US$240 million from a stock offering last month, its underwriters had to contend with two rules that did not exist when Kingsoft Cloud Holdings listed in the US in May 2020. The first was the Outbound…
China’s nuclear power construction is booming, yet the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) harbours growing concerns about how Chinese reactors will fare in a conflict. Advertisement Last month, Beijing greenlit 10 new reactors, bringing the total number of operational and under-construction commercial reactors to 102 – more than any other country. All of these plants are along the coast, with some in geopolitically sensitive areas, such as the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea. A new PLA study warns that these reactors could become prime targets in wartime, risking catastrophic consequences…
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have delivered a joint message to Donald Trump: their vision of a multipolar global order is advancing, despite what they view as persistent American hegemony and unilateralism. Advertisement Over the past few months, speculation swirled around whether the US president might join Xi and Putin for a summit to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II – an echo of the Yalta Conference in 1945 – where world powers might engage in grand bargaining, or even…
A Republican bill to restrict property ownership in Texas by citizens of China passed the state’s House of Representatives on Friday, gaining new momentum after failing to become law two years ago. Advertisement The Texas House voted to advance the bill, which currently also targets nationals from Iran, North Korea and Russia – countries identified by US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as national security threats – after adding a provision on Thursday to give the state’s governor broad powers to include more countries. It now goes back to…
As the world waits expectantly for this weekend’s meeting between top US and Chinese officials in hopes of a breakthrough in a trade war holding the global economy hostage, expect the talks to be largely about frameworks, minutiae and setting boundaries without the definitive deal that companies and markets desperately seek, said analysts and former government officials. Advertisement The meeting, which will see Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng sit down across from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Switzerland, comes a month after US President…
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The world’s largest musical instrument maker hopes to tap into late-life enthusiasm for the saxophone in China as a demographic shift reduces demand for pianos and boosts the ranks of elderly hobbyists in the ageing country. Yamaha, for decades, had counted on soaring piano sales in China as its middle class grew, but the trend has reversed with fewer people giving birth. China’s acoustic piano market has shrunk to a quarter…
Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world US President Donald Trump has signalled his openness to cutting tariffs on China ahead of Saturday’s high-stakes talks between the world’s two largest economies, as both sides seek to de-escalate their trade war. In a post on his Truth Social network, Trump suggested the US could almost halve its tariffs on Chinese goods, which now stand at 145 per cent, while calling on Beijing to open up its…