Day: August 14, 2025

China’s economy showed signs of strain in July, with several headline indicators losing momentum amid a weakening of domestic consumption, headwinds from the US trade war and a prolonged property downturn. Advertisement Retail sales, a major gauge of consumption, rose by 3.7 per cent year on year in July, a decrease compared with the 4.8 per cent growth rate recorded in June, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday. The figures fell short of the 4.87 per cent growth forecast from a poll of…

Shares of Guangzhou Innogen Pharmaceutical Group soared on their Hong Kong debut, buoyed by strong investor appetite for China’s pharmaceuticals sector, which has enjoyed rising valuations and solid performance. Advertisement Trading under the stock code 2591, Innogen’s shares first changed hands at HK$72 on Friday, almost four times more than the initial public offering (IPO) price of HK$18.68 despite a declining market. The city’s benchmark Hang Seng index opened almost 1 per cent lower. “We are taking a new step today at Innogen,” the company’s founder and chairman Wang Qinghua…

Advertisement The sleek, runway-independent uncrewed aircraft can be launched from the decks of ordinary warships – even in rough seas – and transition seamlessly into a fast, long-range cruise flight. The drone, representing a radical departure from conventional drone designs, was developed by a 10-year effort led by associate professors Wang Yaokun and Qiu Yuting with Beihang University, a top aviation research institute in Beijing targeted by US sanctions. Unlike the US Air Force’s XQ-58A Valkyrie, which requires long runways or aircraft carriers for take-off and landing, this new Chinese…

As widespread economic gloom in China’s megacities sees high-end restaurants close their doors one after another, Starbucks is accelerating its expansion into the country’s far-flung counties, where a growing number of residents are embracing a petit-bourgeois lifestyle. Advertisement While county shopping centres might not stock Dyson vacuum cleaners and hairdryers, they have already become part of daily life in households in urban counties thanks to China’s ubiquitous e-commerce networks. Driving Teslas and eating expensive cherries imported from South America, the expanding middle class in smaller cities and towns is fuelling…

A US federal court in Texas is dismissing a suit against a state law that would restrict property ownership and leasing by Chinese citizens, less than a month before the measure is to be implemented, according to one of the lawyers in the case. Advertisement The law, signed by Texas governor Greg Abbott in June and set to take effect on September 1, restricts real estate purchases by companies, individuals and government entities linked to countries that the federal government or Texas governor designates as a threat to the US.…

China has moved early to lock in soybean supplies from Brazil for September and October, sidelining US exporters from what is traditionally their most lucrative selling period. Advertisement The shift underscores Beijing’s growing trade reliance on South America and comes amid renewed political and commercial tensions with Washington. According to market analysis from Brazil’s Safras & Mercado, traders reported Chinese purchases of roughly 8 million tonnes of soybeans for September and 4 million tonnes for October, about half of the country’s projected demand for the two months. All volumes are…

Advertisement Footage of the incident released by the Philippines appeared to show that the Chinese coastguard ship 3104 sustained serious damage to its bow after colliding with a larger destroyer, the Guilin. “I don’t think it’s good to sit still and just get on with business as usual after the collision,” said Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “I will have to presume that the Chinese maritime forces [the People’s Liberation Army Navy…