Category: Media Library

FirstFT: Xi Jinping calls for China’s renminbi to become global reserve currency

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Good morning and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter: Xi’s global ambitions for the renminbi How China’s “genius plan” is paying off Singapore’s public housing model faces scrutiny Xi Jinping has called for the renminbi to become a global reserve currency, in some of his clearest comments on his ambition for China’s legal tender to play a greater role in the international monetary system. What to know: In commentary published on Saturday in Qiushi, the ruling Communist party’s ideology journal, China’s president said the country needed to build…

India raises spending and chip investment to head off Trump’s tariffs

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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. India has pledged to raise investment in manufacturing and semiconductors, boost infrastructure spending and offer incentives for data centres as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government seeks to sustain economic momentum in the face of trade tensions with the US.  “Today, we face an external environment in which trade and multilateralism are imperilled and access to resources and supply chains are disrupted,” finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told India’s parliament on Sunday…

Xi calls for China’s renminbi to attain global reserve currency status

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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. Xi Jinping has called for the renminbi to become a global reserve currency, in some of his clearest comments on his ambitions for China’s currency as Beijing seeks to play a greater role in the international monetary system. In commentary published on Saturday in Qiushi, the ruling communist party’s flagship ideology journal, China’s president said the country needed to build a “powerful currency” that could be “widely used in international…

Inside Myanmar’s five-year armed resistance – a photo essay

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In Tanintharyi, the southernmost region of Myanmar, the local resistance has managed to contain the military. After five years of guerrilla warfare, the revolutionary youth there remain determined to restore democracy through armed struggle. A long, narrow stretch of land at the southern tip of Myanmar, between the Andaman Sea to the west and Thailand to the east, Tanintharyi region is one of the areas where the resistance challenges the military’s authority. For decades, the region has been home to an armed rebellion led by the Karen ethnic minority, which…

China is leading the charge to nuclear Armageddon – and Starmer barely noticed | Simon Tisdall

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Keir Starmer’s tentative pivot to the Dragon Throne has played well in Beijing, though not in Trumpland. That’s partly because, like other needy western leaders, Britain’s prime minister did not dwell on awkward subjects such as human rights abuses, the Jimmy Lai travesty, spying and Taiwan. But in talks with President Xi Jinping, one vital issue was avoided altogether and should not have been: China’s dangerous, unexplained, secretive and rapid buildup of nuclear weapons. More than the climate crisis, global hunger, Kaiser Trump’s Prussian militarism and the ever prevalent threat…

Ford held talks with China’s Xiaomi over EV partnership

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Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world Ford has held talks with electric vehicle maker Xiaomi over a partnership that would pave the way for Chinese carmakers to gain a foothold in the US, according to four people familiar with the talks. While the discussions were preliminary, Ford has explored forming a joint venture with Xiaomi to manufacture EVs in the US, according to the people. Ford has also spoken with BYD and other Chinese…

As US influence wanes, the Chinese trade surplus strangles manufacturing across the globe

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When the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, took to the podium at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week to lament how “great economic powers” were dismantling the international order, it seemed clear that he was talking about the United States. He might have been talking about China as well. Not a week earlier, Beijing had revealed that China’s trade surplus ballooned by 20% in 2025, to $1.2tn. Despite Donald Trump’s wall of tariffs that crashed Chinese sales to the US, its overall exports expanded more than 5%. Sales…

Alarm raised over Chinese CCTV cameras guarding ‘symbol of democracy’ Magna Carta

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Security cameras guarding Magna Carta are provided by a Chinese CCTV company whose technology has allegedly aided the Uyghur “genocide” and been exploited by Russia during the invasion of Ukraine, it has emerged. In letters seen by the Guardian, campaigners called on Salisbury Cathedral, which houses one of four surviving copies of the “powerful symbol of social justice”, to rip out cameras made by Dahua Technology, based in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. They have also written to the authorities responsible for the Parthenon temple in Greece, which is monitored…

Starmer hopes his China trip will begin the thaw after recent ice age

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The last British prime minister to visit China was Theresa May in 2018. Before the visit, she and her team were advised to get dressed under the covers because of the risk of hidden cameras having been placed in their hotel rooms to record compromising material. Keir Starmer, in Beijing this week, was more sanguine about his privacy, even though the security risks have, if anything, increased since the former Tory prime minister was in town. China has been accused of spying on parliament, has sanctioned British MPs and peers,…