Germany must stop admiring China’s success in the EU or it will sleepwalk into the kind of deindustrialisation the US experienced 25 years ago, a leading Brussels thinktank has said. With China’s surplus with Germany having doubled between 2024 and 2025 from $12bn (£9bn) to $25bn, creating a $94bn trade imbalance, the Centre for European Reform (CER) said Europe’s largest economy risked a repeat of what happened in the US in 2001 when a sudden surge in imports permanently hollowed out towns in the American midwest. “China Shock 1.0” not…
Tag: Chinese economy
Fake lawyers, scientists, chefs and punters: meet the ‘white monkeys’ paid to make Chinese businesses look global
Piers had been in China for all of two days in 2009 when he was used as a “white monkey” for the first time. He had travelled to a village in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, to attend a friend’s wedding and had stopped in the village to try a special crab dish at a small restaurant. Weeks later, a Chinese guest who had been at the wedding told him the restaurant had had an uptick in business because the locals had heard that a laowai, a foreigner, had been seen dining…
Nissan ponders building cars for Chinese rivals at Sunderland plant
Nissan’s chief executive has confirmed he would consider building cars for other manufacturers at the UK’s largest car factory in Sunderland, amid talks with China’s Chery. Ivan Espinosa said Nissan was “looking at options” for Sunderland and its 6,000 workers as the struggling Japanese carmaker on Wednesday reported steep losses for the year to March. Nissan announced last week it was closing one of its two production lines at Sunderland, in north-east England, because of faltering demand for its vehicles. However, it has held talks to produce vehicles on behalf…
China blocks $2bn Meta takeover of AI agent developer Manus
China has blocked Meta’s $2bn (£1.5bn) acquisition of an AI startup as it cracks down on US investments in domestic tech companies. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced the acquisition of Manus, a developer of autonomous AI agents, in December. However, the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said on Monday it had cancelled the takeover. In a statement, China’s top economic planning body said that it will “prohibit the foreign investment in the acquisition of the Manus project” and “requires the parties involved…
China Evergrande’s billionaire boss pleads guilty to fraud
A former steelworker who rose to become one of China’s richest people has pleaded guilty to charges including fundraising fraud after the collapse of Evergrande, the world’s most indebted property developer. The property group’s founder, Hui Ka Yan, “pleaded guilty and expressed remorse” in trial proceedings at a court in China’s southern city of Shenzhen against him and Evergrande, the court said in a posting on its official WeChat account. He also pleaded guilty to misuse of funds and illegally taking public deposits. The company has defaulted since 2021 on…
China sets lowest GDP growth target for decades as it braces for economic slowdown
China has set its target for GDP growth to a record low of 4.5-5%, the first time since 1991 that the figure has dropped below 5%, reflecting an economic strategy that is shifting away from export-led growth to a model that leaders hope will be more resilient to external shocks. Li Qiang, China’s premier, announced the target for 2026 in the opening session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s annual parliamentary gathering, which began on Thursday. Addressing the nearly 3,000 delegates gathered in the Great Hall of the People…
China’s Two Sessions to reveal Xi’s economic and defence plans as military purge casts shadow
Thousands of delegates will arrive in Beijing this week for China’s annual Two Sessions, one of the most important events in the country’s political calendar and a rare opportunity for the global media to see Beijing’s top lawmakers up close. The Two Sessions” are concurrent gatherings of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body. Of the two gatherings, the NPC, China’s legislature, is more important. It has the power to amend the constitution, appoint people to political offices, enact laws and…
China’s population falls again as birthrate hits record low
China’s population fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2025 as the birthrate plunged to another record low, according to official data, prompting warnings from experts of further decline. The population dropped by 3.39 million to 1.405 billion, a faster fall than 2024. Births dropped to 7.92 million in 2025, down 17% from 9.54 million in 2024, while deaths rose to 11.31 million from 10.93 million in 2024, figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. The country’s birthrate fell to 5.63 for every 1,000 people. Yi Fuxian, a…
The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age
In late January 2025, 10 days after Donald Trump was sworn in for a second time as president of the United States, an economic conference in Brussels brought together several officials from the recently deposed Biden administration for a discussion about the global economy. In Washington, Trump and his wrecking crew were already busy razing every last brick of Joe Biden’s legacy, but in Brussels, the Democratic exiles put on a brave face. They summoned the comforting ghosts of white papers past, intoning old spells like “worker-centered trade policy” and…
Trump is making China – not America – great again, global survey suggests
A year after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, a global survey suggests much of the world believes his nation-first, “Make America Great Again” approach is instead helping to make China great again. The 21-country survey for the influential European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank also found that under Trump, the US is less feared by its traditional adversaries, while its allies – particularly in Europe – feel ever more distant. Most Europeans no longer see the US as a reliable ally and are increasingly supportive of rearmament,…