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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. From a certain angle, US President Donald Trump is doing in a matter of weeks what other leaders could never have dreamt of: Assembling an oil cartel with sufficient sway to rival Opec and acquiring a kill switch for the energy-importing economy of America’s prime geopolitical rival, China. Combine Trump’s supposed hegemony over the Americas since the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on 3 January with control over a post-revolution Iran, and you’re at about 42% of global oil production.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI : China has escalated its trade challenge against India at the World Trade Organization (WTO), seeking the establishment of a dispute settlement panel over New Delhi’s production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes for automobiles, batteries and electric vehicles, arguing that they discriminate against imported goods by tying incentives to domestic value addition.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. KOCHI : A quiet policy shift in Beijing is threatening to push up electric vehicle (EV) prices in India, just as the EV industry's tax edge over combustion engines begins to fade. China has decided to slash an export tax rebate on lithium-ion batteries from 9% to 6% from 1 April and phase it out in a year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. SINGAPORE—One potential beneficiary of the tug of war over the Federal Reserve’s independence: China. The criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell is being viewed globally as an effort by the Trump administration to wrest control of monetary policy from the central bank.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has directed relentless purges to assert a degree of autocratic control unseen in China in decades, with Communist Party enforcers punishing nearly a million people last year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. SINGAPORE—After a year of gung-ho news about China’s gains in artificial intelligence, some elite Chinese AI researchers are coming to a more pessimistic conclusion. The country’s chances of catching up to the U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. For all the effort Washington made to cut China’s exports to size, it has not altered the Asian manufacturing powerhouse’s basic economic orientation, as its latest trade figures show. Official data released on Wednesday reveal a record trade surplus posted by China in 2025.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. President Donald Trump’s control of Venezuela’s oil supply increases U.S. influence in the world oil market, but China is the major power that has been keeping prices steady.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The U.S. ouster of the Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro is forcing Beijing into a high-stakes recalculation of its ambitions in a region that looks like America’s backyard again, said people close to internal discussions in the Chinese leadership.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. HONG KONG—As street protests and a failing economy continue to put pressure on Iran’s government, its ally China has offered few signs of support. Rather than boost Tehran in its time of need, the partnership that had worried governments in the West and Middle East has instead shown signs of its limited scope and resilience.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. It has been 34 years plus since the Cold War triumph of ‘capitalism’ over ‘communism’—or rather, of the free-market idea over the Soviet model of a centrally run economy, to put it less crudely. And as India approaches another budget, industry may want the Centre out of the way in some sectors, but is largely looking for it to lend its fiscal heft to the big wheel of output expansion.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. “Venezuela is under my control and soon we’ll get Greenland. It’s necessary for the US." This is not a threat issued by a 16th century tyrant but a chilling statement by US President Donald Trump.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. MiniMax made a stellar stock-market debut in Hong Kong on Friday, with shares more than doubling as investors continued to pile into Chinese artificial-intelligence start-ups. The stock soared 109% to 345 Hong Kong dollars on its first day of trading, following an initial public offering in which MiniMax raised HK$4.8 billion ($619 million) at an offer price of HK$165.

This is the season when columnists turn to prophecy and then congratulate themselves a year later for getting some of it right. I’m afraid I am about to join the club. As I predicted at the end of last year, Asia in 2025 revolved around three main forces: the blossoming bromance between US President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping, rising pressure on Taiwan, and a newly emboldened Kim Jong Un drawing closer to both Moscow and Beijing.These dynamics will only get more obvious in 2026.

, meanwhile, are looking for novel ways to connect with customers in the country’s uber-competitive market. People are flocking to factory tours hosted by EV maker NIO, dairy manufacturer Mengniu, brewer Tsingtao and others.Xiaomi, a top phone maker that launched its first EV in 2024, began offering its public tours after receiving requests from customers.

Grace Zhu in Beijing contributed to this article.Write to Peter Landers at [email protected] all the Business News , Economy news , Breaking News Events andLatest News Updates on Live Mint.

Dear reader, as 2025, a year of global tumult and volatility, rolls by, Mint's reporters and columnists look around the corner on what is coming in 2026—to help you know what to expect and prepare for it. Tell us what you think at [email protected] Delhi: From the boardrooms of Mumbai to the policy corridors of Delhi, executives began huddling early this year over a little-known but indispensable component found in virtually every vehicle on the road: rare-earth magnets.When China imposed a ban on these materials in April 2025, not many were aware of the critical role these magnets played.

rare earth magnets, a key input for sectors ranging from defence and electronics to renewable energy and electric vehicles.Mint unpacks the committee's recommendations and India's ambitions for rare earth magnets.Critical mineral security assumes significance amid geopolitical uncertainties and trade wars as nations try to leverage their resources to disrupt supply chains.China’s export ban on rare earth magnets in April 2025, which disrupted manufacturing supply chains globally, resulted from an escalating trade war, with the world’s second-largest economy retaliating to steep US tariffs.Beijing used its dominance in the sector–60% of the world’s rare earth mining and 90% of the world’s processing capacity–as a tool to disrupt supply chains, pushing manufacturers across the globe into a frenzy.The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in its Sustainable Development Goals Pulse 2025 report in July this year, noted that minerals required for the energy transition – copper, zinc, germanium, tin, and nickel, among others – faced higher export restrictions compared to other traded critical minerals. “This trend reflects rising geopolitical sensitivities and growing domestic value chain ambitions in producing countries,” the report noted.The International Energy Agency narrowed and simplified this sentiment, focusing on how critical minerals are shaping the energy transition.

Russian energy, has also agreed to meet some of its demand from the US. Yet Russia remains relevant, having worked around the trading system through bilateral deals and its shadow fleet.On the other hand, Washington's attempts to derail China’s economy have largely fallen flat.

Reuters report.The massive, factory-sized system has reportedly been dubbed China’s “Manhattan Project”, a reference to the top-secret US effort during World War II to develop the atomic bomb ahead of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s.The development has profound implications for the global balance of technological and strategic power. At its core, it can dismantle the West’s near-monopoly over the production of the world’s most advanced chips—those that power AI systems, smartphones, and modern military platforms.A 2024 study by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute pointed to a “stunning shift in research leadership over the past two decades towards large economies in the Indo-Pacific, led by China’s exceptional gains.“The US led in 60 of 64 technologies in the five years from 2003 to 2007.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. WASHINGTON—President Trump signed into law new powers to screen and restrict U.S. investment in Chinese technology firms, marking the most significant effort yet to police how American capital flows into businesses that bolster Beijing’s military and surveillance state.