Tag: Beijing (China)

China’s GDP Grew in 2023, but Economic Strains Lurk

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Car production set records in China last year. Restaurants and hotels were increasingly full. Construction of new factories surged. Yet China’s economic strengths conceal weaknesses. Deep discounts helped drive car sales, particularly for electric cars. Diners and travelers chose cheaper dishes and less expensive hotels. Many factories ran at half capacity or less because of weak demand inside China, and are working to export more to make up for it. China’s economy grew 5.2 percent last year as it rebounded from nearly three years of stringent “zero Covid” pandemic control…

Taiwan Raised an Alarm About a Chinese Satellite. Chaos Ensued.

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Taiwan’s defense ministry issued an urgent alert Tuesday about a Chinese satellite launched on a rocket flying over the island, an alarming message that interrupted the final days of campaigning before a major election and spurred accusations of a political ploy. The alert was sent to mobile phones across the island of 23 million people, where presidential and legislative assembly elections will be held Saturday. In English, the initial alert cautioned there was a missile flyover — an error quickly corrected by Taiwanese officials. “It was a satellite, not a…

China Says It Detained a Foreign Consultant for Spying for Britain

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China’s top intelligence agency said Monday that it had detained the head of an overseas consulting agency for working as a spy for the British government to collect Chinese state secrets. The Chinese Ministry of State Security said it caught a consultant with the surname Huang, who collected China-related intelligence and found personnel on behalf of MI6. The British intelligence agency recruited and trained Huang — who is from an unspecified “third country” — in the United Kingdom and other places, the ministry said in a post on its official…

Illness Surge in China Is Not From a Novel Pathogen, Data Suggests

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The World Health Organization said that China had shared data about a recent surge in respiratory illnesses in children, one day after the agency said it was seeking information about the possibility of undiagnosed pneumonia cases there. The Chinese data indicated “no detection of any unusual or novel pathogens,” according to a W.H.O. statement on Thursday. The data, which included laboratory results from infected children, indicated that the rise in cases was a result of known viruses and bacteria, such as influenza and mycoplasma pneumoniae, a bacterium that causes usually…

China Bet It All on Real Estate. Now Its Economy Is Paying the Price.

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When China’s housing boom seemed like a one-way bet, Gary Meng’s parents bought an apartment from China Evergrande, the country’s biggest developer. Soon the company called with another pitch: to manage their wealth. It was a good deal with little risk, the family thought. Evergrande had global recognition and was a politically important company at the heart of China’s growing economy. They invested all their savings. Then the unthinkable happened. In 2021, Evergrande defaulted, representing the start of a real estate meltdown that has shaken China’s economy, felled some of…

How China’s Property Crisis Is Testing Its Too-Big-to-Fail Banks

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China’s giant banking system, the world’s largest, is heavily exposed to the real estate crisis: Nearly 40 percent of all bank loans are related to property. And pressure is building on those banks as dozens of real estate developers have defaulted or missed payments on overseas bonds, led by China Evergrande, the world’s most indebted developer. The scale of China’s property problems — enormous levels of debt, an oversupply of apartments and consumers increasingly wary of buying — means the government could be forced in the coming years to spend…

China Flies Record Number of Military Planes Near Taiwan

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The News China sent a record number of military aircraft toward the self-governed island democracy of Taiwan, prompting the island’s defense ministry on Monday to warn against what it called “destructive” harassment. The previous daily record of Chinese military flights near Taiwan was 91 planes, on April 10. Taiwan said it tracked 103 People’s Liberation Army aircraft entering its air defense identification zone in the 24 hours leading up to Monday morning. None entered Taiwan’s airspace. That tally included 40 aircraft that crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait,…

China Is Full of Risk For U.S. Companies

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For decades, America’s corporate chieftains saw China as a money spinner. They gushed about its hundreds of millions of consumers, called it “one of the biggest opportunities” and made predictions that this would be “China’s century.” Now, those executives have come away from recent visits to the country with a more sober view. Western companies doing business in China are facing pressures that were unimaginable several years ago. The country’s economy is floundering and its relationship with the United States is strained. Three years of border restrictions and an effective…

Workers Plow Through Great Wall of China, Leaving a Hole

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Two workers have been detained in northern China after local authorities said they plowed through a section of the country’s Great Wall with an excavator, leaving a gaping hole. The pair, a 38-year-old man and 55-year-old-woman, caused “irreversible damage” when they used the construction equipment to widen an existing gap and create a shortcut that was large enough to drive the excavator through it, the Youyu County Public Security Bureau said in a news release last week. The security bureau said it was first notified of the hole in a…

How Xi Returned China to One-Man Rule

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Like his predecessors, Xi wields power through his control of the Communist Party, the military and the government. But Xi has expanded his power beyond previous limits. He has concentrated decision-making around himself. He has intensified the power of the party over society. His name, his image and his words fill the media. To many, this wasn’t supposed to be the path that China would take. After decades of reforms, the country showed signs of moving toward collective leadership, preventing the re-emergence of autocratic rule. Here’s how Xi dismantled those…