Day: November 25, 2025

VW says it can halve EV development costs with ‘Made in China’ car

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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. Volkswagen has said it can produce an electric vehicle entirely made in China for half the cost of doing so elsewhere, as the German automaker fights to reclaim its share in the world’s biggest market. Europe’s largest carmaker said on Tuesday that, following a series of investments in the country, it can for the first time develop new cars outside Germany, including testing and deploying new technologies such as assisted…

How China turned a cement factory into a haven for mathematicians

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Even as the bombs fall in Ukraine, precisely following trajectories defined by equations, Ukrainian and Russian mathematicians, among others, gather in sunlit rooms beside tranquil Yanqi Lake in an industrial estate north of China’s capital. Advertisement Here, at the Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (Bimsa), they debate string theory over coffee, co-author papers on quantum fields and lose themselves in problems that stretch across centuries while some of their countries engage in conflict. In less than five years, Bimsa has proved a magnet for global talent, attracting Fields…

EU ministers court Trump on joint China policy, even as public scepticism grows

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As they look to keep the United States engaged in Ukraine and push for lower trade tariffs, EU ministers lobbied their US counterparts for joint policies on China on Monday – even as new public opinion polling shows a waning appetite for such a partnership. Advertisement The China carrot was dangled by successive ministers ahead of and after a meeting of the bloc’s trade council in Brussels, which was attended by US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. This is despite growing cynicism towards Washington in the…

Indonesia probes exports of radioactive shrimp and shoes

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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. Indonesia is investigating radioactive contamination at an industrial zone after US and Dutch authorities found unusual levels of radiation in some of the south-east Asian country’s biggest exports including Nike and Adidas shoes. Officials in Jakarta say the contamination — first detected in July — originated in a metal-processing factory at the ModernCikande Industrial Estate in western Java and all imports of scrap metal, believed to be the source of…