City Beijing Financial News

Oil prices rose slightly early on Wednesday, with market participants expecting to see demand rising in China next year after Beijing announced a looser monetary policy to stimulate economic growth. Brent crude futures gained 10 cents, or 0.14%, to $72.29 a barrel by 0131 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 9 cents, or 0.13%, to $68.68.

Chinese military activity around the island on Wednesday, including 53 military aircraft, with Taiwan on high alert over Beijing's latest pressure campaign. China's military has yet to comment and has not confirmed it is carrying out any military exercises. China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, had been expected to launch drills to express its anger at President Lai Ching-te's tour of the Pacific that ended on Friday, which included stopovers in Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam.

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng has met with several U.S. finance executives in the last month as Beijing seeks to build relationships ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's planned tariffs on China.

Chinese official broadcaster CCTV says a former chairman of the state-owned bank China Everbright Group has been jailed 12 years for embezzlement and bribery

China’s exports slowed in November and its imports declined, falling below forecasts and underscoring potential weakness in trade at a time when its leaders are striving to boost domestic business activity

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: On 29 June 2020, two weeks after Indian and Chinese troops brutally clashed at the Galwan Valley, India’s ministry of electronics and IT said it was pulling the plug on 58 Chinese apps operational in the country. Among them was TikTok—the short-form video app was hugely popular back then, with over 200 million users in India.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In recent months, Chinese stock markets have been whipsawing between hope and uncertainty, as the market attempts to read Beijing’s tea leaves for signs of an economic lifeline. While new hopes are emerging, investors should be careful not to get carried away.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. TAIPEI—China massed dozens of navy and coast guard vessels in what appears to be the largest maritime exercises targeting Taiwan and the broader Western Pacific region since 1996, a potent warning to the incoming Trump administration of its intention to eventually take control of the island. China’s military didn’t announce the start of any drills.

Shares in Japan and South Korea gained, while futures showed the Hang Seng Index is poised to jump more than 3% at the open. Iron ore advanced thanks to Beijing’s announcement as the country dominates demand for most metals. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index, which tracks the biggest Chinese stocks in the US, surged 8.5% in its strongest gain since September.

balloons near Taiwan between Saturday and Sunday, according to Taiwan's Defence Ministry, as Beijing ramps up pressure on the island it claims as its own. China's military activities come amid speculation Beijing might organise military drills around the island in response to Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te's recent visit to Pacific allies, including US stops in Hawaii and Guam. China claims Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy of 23 million people, as its own territory, and bristles at other countries' formal exchanges with Taiwan. The United States, like most countries, doesn't recognize Taiwan as a country but is its main unofficial backer and sells it arms.

China's trade restrictions on strategic minerals are starting to hit Western companies where it hurts. Blaming Beijing's curbs on antimony exports announced in August, German chemicals and consumer goods heavyweight Henkel told customers last month it had declared force majeure and suspended deliveries of four types of adhesives and lubricants widely used by automakers, according to a Nov. 8 letter to clients reviewed by Reuters. Henkel uses the silvery metal to make its Bonderite and Teroson-branded products, core parts of the company's adhesive technologies division, which brought in 10.79 billion euros ($11.4 billion) in revenue last year.

China has banned exports of key materials used for a wide range of products, including smartphones, electric vehicles, radar systems and CT scanners, swiping back at Washington after it expanded export controls to include dozens of Chinese companies th...

Paraguay expelled the eminent Chinese diplomat Xu Wei from the country pretty recently while accusing him of interfering in its domestic affairs and urging the nation to sever its long-standing ties with Taiwan, reported CNN. According to CNN, the Paraguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared Xu Wei as persona non grata while totally revoking his visa and gave him just 24 hours to leave the country. Xu Wei was originally in Paraguay for a UNESCO meeting but eventually caused a diplomatic stir by visiting Congress where he reportedly pressured the lawmakers to choose between China and Taiwan while stating that ‘It is either China or Taiwan’. Paraguay is one of only 12 unique countries globally that actually recognizes Taiwan as a sovereign state and it still remains the sole supporter in South America, asserted CNN. The Paraguayan government has resisted all kinds of pressure from Beijing while at the same time several Latin American nations have already switched their allegiance from Taiwan to China in recent years.

U.S. lawmakers and experts warn that the U.S. severely lags behind China in shipbuilding capacity and urge action to build up the country’s ability to develop and produce weapons and other defense supplies to avoid war with China

A top White House official says at least eight U.S. telecom firms and dozens of nations have been impacted by a Chinese hacking campaign

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. China is the handmaiden to the globe’s energy transition—and will continue to be so once an anti-transition president occupies the White House again next month. As if to advertise that, Beijing announced that, in response to US export controls on advanced chips, it was banning exports to the US of several critical minerals and tightening restrictions on sales of another, graphite.

China's latest efforts to kickstart growth haven't had a broad impact yet, data and company earnings show, indicating the world's second-largest economy won't be roaring back soon.

U.S. officials are urging telecommunication companies to boost network security following a Chinese hacking operation that gave officials in Beijing access to the private texts and phone conversations of Americans

Asian markets are mostly lower after overnight political drama in South Korea added to regional uncertainties

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—When Muhammad Imtiaz received an electricity bill of over $120 last summer, he panicked. The bill, for June and July, was all he earns in a month of ferrying passengers on his motorbike in the scrappy suburbs outside Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.

Sri Lankan port’s expansion led by the Adani Group is progressing as scheduled, a top local official said, even as the fate of $553 million in American funding for the project remains uncertain following the indictment of the Indian conglomerate’s executives in the US. Construction at the Colombo West International Terminal remains ongoing, with phase one of the project still set for completion in early 2025, said Sirimevan Ranasinghe, chairman of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority, a minority shareholder in the project. “We are continuing as per our agreement,” Ranasinghe told Bloomberg News. He said the US financing had not been finalized and declined to comment further on its status, adding that it was up to the joint-venture company developing the project to secure financing.