China Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Once upon a time, a U.S. president asked his aides for one thing before his trip to Beijing: a chance to be seen as a regular guy.It was 2005, a relatively warm chapter in U.S.-China relations, and George W. Bush was a passionate mountain biker.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Nearly 70% of Indians lack meaningful health insurance. Our penetration rate— just 0.35% of GDP—is lower than that of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The conventional explanation is that Indians either do not understand insurance or cannot afford it.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.BENGALURU: Urban Company Ltd plans to launch an air-conditioner-cum-air purifier ahead of Diwali this year, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter, as the quick-services platform expands beyond its home and beauty services business and deepens its presence in its consumer durables vertical.Urban Company entered the consumer durables segment in October 2023 with the launch of its Native brand, starting with water purifiers. Since then, the company has added electronic door locks and is now looking to scale up with air-conditioner-cum air purifiers.“Urban Company can only make so much profit from its services business because that depends heavily on manpower and day-to-day operations.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.I can see from your coat, my friend, that you’re from the other side/ Can you tell me, please—who won the war?—Wooden Ships by Crosby, Stills, Nash and YoungIt is now relatively quiet on the West Asian front and there is little doubt that we have moved away from the brinkmanship of 7 April, a critical turning point. On that day, US President Donald Trump threatened a civilizational war against Iran, which responded by mobilizing human shields to protect critical infrastructure and suspending truce talks with the US. In that moment, the price of Brent crude oil for physical delivery briefly surged to $144 per barrel and headlines warned of ‘Armageddon.’ This marked the peak of global panic.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Meta Platforms is preparing to have to unwind its acquisition of the artificial-intelligence startup Manus after China banned the transaction on national-security grounds Monday, according to people familiar with the matter.Meta bought Manus, a China-linked, Singapore-based startup that specializes in building AI agents, in December for $2.5 billion, and quickly moved to integrate the new technology into its systems. Any attempt to undo the acquisition would mean disentangling the two.In another complication, Manus’s investors, which include California-based venture-capital firm Benchmark, have already received their returns, people with knowledge of the matter said.Meta garners significant revenues from Chinese advertisers who target consumers outside China, despite Facebook and other Meta apps being blocked in the country.Several former Manus investors in Asia, including Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund, have planned to cooperate if Meta goes ahead to unwind the deal, some of the people said.Beijing has handed the two companies a preliminary deadline of several weeks to unwind the deal and fully restore Manus’s Chinese assets to their original state, some of the people said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: India’s second-biggest overseas acquisition was stitched together over three months of near-daily negotiations between the bidder, the seller and their bankers, said a banker aware of the details behind the transaction.Mumbai-based Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd on Monday said in an exchange filing it will acquire US-headquartered Organon & Co for about $11.75 billion. This is the largest overseas deal by an Indian company since Tata Steel acquired UK-based Corus Group for $12 billion in 2007.The deal was always pitched at around $12 billion from both sides, with negotiations neither exceeding nor materially falling from that level, the person cited above said on the condition of anonymity.“The deal was out in the market sometime late 2025, and Sun was very interested because it gave them access to more than 100 countries across the world and also complemented the product suite,” said the banker.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd on Monday announced the $11.75 billion acquisition of Organon & Co., in a seemingly aggressive push into the US market that has long decided the global fortunes of Indian drugmakers. However, the biggest buyout by an Indian company in nearly 20 years also signals that the US generics market's decades-long allure is beginning to fade for Indian drugmakers, which are now eyeing newer markets such as China, South Korea, and Spain with branded generics.Announced early on Monday, the Organon acquisition ranks as the second-largest acquisition by an Indian company, behind Tata Steel's 2007 deal to buy British steel maker Corus Group for $12 billion.For years, Indian pharma rode a powerful wave in the US, as expiring patents of blockbuster small-molecule drugs opened a gold mine for low-cost generic drug makers in the world's largest drug market.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In 2025, renewables surpassed coal in the global power mix for the first time in over a century, according to a new report by energy think tank Ember. India and China played a pivotal role in this transformation, with electricity generated from fossil fuels falling in both countries.However, coal still accounts for more than 70% of India’s electricity.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.JSW MG Motor India Pvt. Ltd, the joint venture between China’s SAIC Motor Corp.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.For years, the global AI race focused on frontier models, faster chips and massive capital. The US still leads this phase, with its hyperscalers ready to roll out massive expansions of data centre capacity as soon as labour, chip and power availability catch up. China, however, is shifting its strategy.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has notified new design requirements for offshore wind turbines, blades, and tower and foundation structures, in line with International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards, according to two government officials aware of the development.The new standards aim to establish clear benchmarks for the design, testing and installation of key components of wind energy systems, particularly in offshore conditions where operational risks are higher.“These norms would ensure structural safety, improve quality control and enhance the reliability of wind installations,” said one of the two officials.“By aligning with IEC-based standards, the move ensures global compatibility and is expected to facilitate greater participation from international players, while supporting technology transfer and investment in the sector,” the official added.This comes as India pushes to scale up its offshore wind sector, which has an estimated potential of 70 gigawatts (GW), enough to power nearly 70 million households. The country aims to auction about 37GW of offshore capacity by 2029-30.Offshore wind projects cost around ₹15- ₹20 crore per megawatt (MW), significantly higher than ₹7- ₹8 crore per MW for onshore projects, due to the need for seabed infrastructure and transmission systems.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.With its $11.75 billion acquisition of Organon, a Merck spinoff, Sun Pharmaceutical has officially embarked on one of the most ambitious overseas expansions ever by an Indian pharmaceutical company. Markets cheered the announcement on 27 April, sending the stock soaring almost 7%.This reflects optimism around scale expansion and strategic repositioning.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Xi Jinping had just finished a lunch of herbed-ricotta ravioli at a secluded estate outside San Francisco in 2023 when his security agents sprang into action.Their mission: ensuring no trace of the Chinese leader’s DNA fell into foreign hands. The agents—measuring about 6-foot-3, dressed in identical dark suits—were observed grabbing Xi’s utensils and plate and spraying them with an unidentified liquid.Welcome to the unseen theater of great-power diplomacy, where a meeting of the two most powerful leaders on earth can hinge on the slightest missed protocol, an unexpected miscue or even a bit of saliva left on a fork.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Geography may place India and New Zealand at distant points on the world map, but that distance has never defined their relationship. They have common democratic values, strong people-to-people ties and a deep cultural affinity, which includes their shared love for cricket. Much like their encounters on the pitch, India-New Zealand trade has traditionally resembled a Test match: steady and patient but often lacking in tempo, and has only picked up pace in recent years.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Wu Jingliang, a human resources manager in Beijing, got a raise at the beginning of the year, and the first financial move her family made was to increase their monthly savings rate.“I don’t dare spend, because I have a child. The child will need schooling later, and then there’s marriage or buying a home—we definitely need to save up a sum of money for him,” she told Barron’s in a phone interview.Conversations with other Chinese consumers revealed similar caution, all relating to feelings of financial insecurity.Beijing keeps rolling out consumption stimulus, and Chinese consumers keep responding with less enthusiasm than policymakers hoped.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.KUANTAN, Malaysia—The Pentagon’s push to get its hands on the rarest of the rare-earth elements leads all the way to this small port city in Malaysia.Here, Lynas Rare Earths, an Australian company, has begun pumping out heavy rare earths, the elusive kind that China dominates.“No one had made a separated heavy rare earth outside of China in 20 years,” said Amanda Lacaze, Lynas’s chief executive. The company’s chief operating officer, Pol Le Roux, said it had actually been 30 years.When China cut off exports of heavy rare-earth elements during trade tensions last year, automobile factories in the U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Defence profligacy is a prerogative of rich, powerful nations. In 1983, the US embarked on its Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed Star Wars after a science-fiction film. Its bizarre cost-benefit equation led to it being binned within a decade.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India is moving fast on clean energy. Solar capacity is rising, electric vehicle (EV) sales are climbing and green hydrogen is now part of official strategy. But beneath this momentum sits a less visible constraint in the form of the materials required to build this future.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s power sector is entering a high-growth phase, driven by rising electricity demand and an accelerating shift toward renewable energy.Air-conditioning adoption, electric mobility, data centres, infrastructure build-out, and urbanization are all pushing consumption higher. As the country balances energy security with sustainability, power companies are evolving their business models to keep pace.In this article, we examine why the sector could be turning attractive for investors.India’s peak power demand has been hitting fresh highs each year and, by government projections, is set to climb steadily over the next decade.The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects India to lead global energy demand growth through 2035.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The Trump administration announced criminal charges, sanctions and multimillion-dollar rewards aimed at combating online scams coming out of Southeast Asia and targeting Americans.The measures—some of which were directed at a Cambodian senator featured in a recent Wall Street Journal investigation into cyber-scam operations in the country—are the latest attempt by the U.S. to stem the fast-growing illicit industry.Americans alone lost $10 billion to online fraud originating from Southeast Asian nations in 2024, according to U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.With everyone’s attention fixed on powerful chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude, it’s been easy to overlook the growth of another field of artificial intelligence: world models. These systems can grasp three-dimensional space and physics, providing the foundation for everything from robots to smart glasses to self-driving cars—and a capability that today's chatbots lack.