Day: May 22, 2025

China delivers strong words to EU over proposed small parcel fees

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China has urged the European Union to provide a “fair” playing field for businesses after Brussels proposed a handling fee on every small parcel that enters the bloc, most of which come from the country’s rapidly expanding e-commerce firms. Advertisement “China believes that the creation of an open and inclusive trade environment is in the common interest of all parties,” said Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning at a daily press conference on Wednesday. “We hope that the European side will abide by its commitment to openness and provide…

Award-winning Chinese radar expert Li Chunsheng dies aged 62 at conference

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The leading Chinese radar expert Li Chunsheng has died at the age of 62. Advertisement Li, a professor at the school of electronic information engineering of Beihang University in Beijing, became ill last week at a conference hosted by the China Radar Industry Association in Hefei, the capital of the central province of Anhui. An obituary published by his university on Monday said he had “devoted himself to developing China’s aerospace industry”. Li specialised in synthetic aperture radar, with a particular focus on image processing and methods to enhance the…

India and Pakistan launch rival diplomatic efforts to spin Kashmir conflict

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India and Pakistan are dispatching competing delegations around the world in an effort to bolster sympathies and press their view of this month’s conflict, the worst fighting in decades between the nuclear-armed neighbours. New Delhi this week began sending teams of officials to Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, Africa and east Asia to argue that Pakistan is a sponsor of cross-border terrorism and a danger to global stability. The latest fighting was sparked by an attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir in April that killed 26 people, and which India believes…

Asian currencies boosted by investor bets on US trade deals

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Bets that currency deals will form part of trade negotiations with the US have helped lift a string of Asian currencies against the dollar, as traders look for signs that countries will offer to scale back intervention to appease President Donald Trump. The Korean won, Japanese yen and Taiwan dollar have rallied strongly in recent weeks, making them Asia’s top-performing currencies this year, in the expectation that talks on lowering sweeping US trade tariffs will touch on how countries manage their dollar exchange rates. “It is quite likely that the…

A geopolitical conflict over minerals may finally be a real threat

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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. It is not often that habitual complacency makes you an astute judge of world events, particularly those involving geopolitical conflict. But for decades a shrug has been the best response to the perennial panics over shortages of critical raw materials for the green transition. The causes have ranged from China threatening to cut off exports of rare earths and other minerals to the soaring global prices of metals such as…