City Beijing Financial News

Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin says his country and China will soon implement visa-free entry for each other’s citizens

By David Lawder

Auto expert Mike Caudill argues Elon Musk's design of the Tesla Cybertruck will push potential buyers away on 'Cavuto: Coast to Coast.'

BEIJING (Reuters) -China's central bank made 350 billion yuan ($49.1 billion) in loans to policy banks through its pledged supplementary lending (PSL) facility in December, data showed, fuelling expectations of increased support for the country's ailing housing sector.

BEIJING — BYD said Monday it produced more than 3 million new energy vehicles in 2023, putting the Chinese electric car giant on track to surpass Tesla's production for a second straight year.

China's first domestically built cruise ship set sail on its maiden voyage from Shanghai on Monday, a sign of the nation's growing prowess in sophisticated construction as it seeks self-sufficiency in key technologies. The Adora Magic City left port on its first commercial cruise late afternoon, en route to South Korea and Japan.

US President Joe Biden on January 1, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized that history has demonstrated the importance of maintaining mutual respect and peaceful coexistence as the correct approach for fostering positive relations between China and the United States, Bloomberg reported. This comes as both nations work towards repairing their strained diplomatic ties.

Chinese rulers have long used campaigns against corruption to sideline rivals and consolidate power. Xi Jinping is increasingly tying his authority to a new variation: a purge that never ends. With echoes of Mao Zedong’s “continuous revolution," Xi has sent fear rippling through the ranks of the Communist Party for more than a decade with the largest campaign against corruption in modern Chinese history.

In the coming year, we will see not greater multipolarity, but greater bipolarity. China has replaced Russia as America’s main competitor in a new cold war that is less about ideology and more about markets and technology. The $18 trillion Chinese economy has already overtaken that of all 27 European Union countries combined, and China is the largest trading partner to more than 120 countries.

Xi Jinping Sunday said China's "reunification" with Taiwan is inevitable--striking a stronger tone than last year--while addressing the nation in a speech marking the New Year, ahead of the general elections in the Chinese-claimed island to elect a new leader, Reuters reported. Beijing claims Taiwan to be its "sacred territory".

By Liangping Gao and Kevin Yao

BEIJING (Reuters) — President Xi Jinping said on Sunday that China will consolidate and enhance the positive trend of its economic recovery in 2024, and sustain long-term economic development with deeper reforms.

(Reuters) — China's Li Auto (NASDAQ:LI) Inc said on Sunday it expects to launch and begin deliveries of its first fully electric car in March.

China's «reunification» with Taiwan is inevitable, President Xi Jinping said in his New Year's address on Sunday, striking a stronger tone than he did last year with less than two weeks to go before the Chinese-claimed island elects a new leader. The Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary elections are happening at a time of fraught relations between Beijing and Taipei. China has been ramping up military pressure to assert its sovereignty claims over democratically governed Taiwan.

Mint examines the reasons and implications. The BRICs grouping, during its summit in South Africa in August, invited six countries including Argentina to join it as permanent members, effective 1 January, 2024. On Saturday, though, Argentina’s newly elected government announced it would not be taking up on the offer.

yuan by orchestrating buying by state banks and giving market guidance to bankers. The strategy of moral suasion marks a sharp break from Beijing's approach the last time the currency was on the ropes, in 2015. Back then, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) resorted to official intervention as the central bank burned $1 trillion in reserves to shore it up. This year, as China's economy wobbled and money left the country, the PBOC took a starkly different approach, defending the currency by signalling to markets what kind of selling it would and would not tolerate. Interviews with 28 market participants show at least two dozen cases where regulators closely and frequently steered market participants through a range of co-ordinated actions this year to resist strong downward pressure on the yuan. The PBOC and State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the currency regulator, did not respond to Reuters' faxed questions about its approach.

Xi Jinping's military modernization drive amid geopolitical tensions, analysts say. China's top lawmakers ousted nine senior military officers from the national legislative body on Friday, state media reported, a step that typically precedes further punishment for wayward cadres. Many of these were from the Rocket Force — a key arm of the PLA overseeing tactical and nuclear missiles. The purges are a setback for Xi who has pumped billions into buying and developing equipment as part of his modernising efforts to build a «world-class» military by 2050, with Beijing's outsized defence budget growing at a faster pace than the economy for some years. The recent downfall of generals and military equipment suppliers, however, has punctured some of this aura, and raised questions over whether there has been adequate oversight over these massive military investments as China vies with the United States in key areas, including Taiwan and the South China Sea. Since Xi took power in 2012, he has embarked on a wide-ranging anti-corruption crackdown among Communist Party and government officials, with the PLA being one of its main targets. The nine PLA generals removed from the legislature hailed from several military divisions; three were former commanders or vice commanders of the PLA Rocket Force; one a former Air Force chief and one a Navy commander responsible for the South China Sea. Four officers were responsible for equipment. «It is a clear sign that they are being purged,» said Andrew Scobell, Distinguished Fellow for China at the United States Institute for Peace.

CNN reported. This connection emerged as one of how the US intelligence agencies were able to track the balloon's location and gather crucial information during its transit. While the identity of the specific internet service provider remains undisclosed, CNN was informed that the balloon could communicate with Beijing as it crossed the US.

China faces a problem familiar to dictatorships throughout history: how to strike a balance between growth-boosting innovation, which thrives in a free society, and the paranoia of an authoritarian state. Its leader, Xi Jinping, wants the country to become a hyper-advanced economy. His government is aggressively promoting the commercialisation of high technologies it likes, from electric vehicles to quantum computing.

China wants to extend its lead in global shipbuilding to a new generation of vessels that burn cleaner fuels. The nation is targeting building more than half of global vessels powered by lower-carbon fuels including liquefied natural gas and green methanol by 2025, according to a joint statement released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and four other departments. The goal is in line with Beijing’s plans to future-proof its massive industrial complex by focusing on sectors that will gain prominence as the world tries to reduce emissions over the next few decades.

BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese online retailer JD (NASDAQ:JD).com said on Friday that it won a lawsuit against rival Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), which was fined 1 billion yuan ($140.68 million) for monopolistic practices.