“Considerable uncertainty remains with respect to the fourth quarter, with both upside and downside risks relating principally to the government’s approach to managing the Evergrande stresses, the strictness of environmental target enforcement and the degree of policy easing,” Goldman said. BBC
American officials told Chinese officials repeatedly that exit bans of U.S. citizens were a major concern. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken pressed senior Chinese officials about exit bans during talks in Anchorage in March, and raised cases of Americans trapped in exit bans during a phone call with China’s top foreign policy official, Yang Jiechi, in June. When the deputy secretary of state, Wendy R. Sherman, visited China for talks in July, she “raised the cases of American and Canadian citizens” detained in China or held under exit bans,…
Advertisement Two Canadians detained in late 2018 who were allowed to return to Canada in a prisoner swap were released on bail for health reasons, China’s Foreign Ministry said Monday. A ministry spokesperson made the comment as Beijing sought to downplay the connection between their release and the return to China of a long-detained executive of Huawei Technologies. Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were detained in December 2018, days after Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada at the request of U.S. authorities. Many countries labeled…
DONGGUAN, China — Power cuts and even blackouts have slowed or closed factories across China in recent days, adding a new threat to the country’s slowing economy and potentially further snarling global supply chains ahead of the busy Christmas shopping season in the West. The outages have rippled across most of eastern China, where the bulk of the population lives and works. Some building managers have turned off elevators. Some municipal pumping stations have shut down, prompting one town to urge residents to store extra water for the next several…
Angela Merkel’s party comes up short in Germany. In yesterday’s election, the center-left Social Democratic Party led by Olaf Scholz won 1.6 percentage points more of the vote than Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party. But with only around 26 percent of the vote, the Social Democrats will have to form a coalition to govern, which could get messy. The Transition to Electric Cars Britain struggles with fuel shortages and other supply disruptions. Panic buying led to long lines at gas stations over the weekend, with many saying that they are now…
On social media on Monday, after some state-backed news outlets highlighted the line about abortion in the guidelines, some users wondered whether more restrictions were on the way. “Contraception can fail, so not finding a partner is the safest bet,” said one popular comment on the Weibo social media platform. In general, many women are deeply suspicious of how the government will try to boost the country’s anemic birthrates, said Lu Pin, a Chinese feminist activist. Earlier this year, the government imposed a cooling-off period for couples seeking divorce, which…
CANBERRA, Australia — Four years after declaring that it would “stand up” to China, Australia is wrestling with the economic and political consequences of a sharp turn in policy and tone that has helped send relations with Beijing into their deepest chill in decades. Allies have applauded Australia for showing how the world’s smaller powers can redefine ties with China — a trailblazing push that deepened this month with Australia’s decision to acquire American nuclear-powered submarines. But to increasingly vocal critics, Australia also offers warnings about the risks of losing…
Advertisement Eric Chu handily won the KMT 2021 party chair election, which took place on September 25. Chu won with 85,164 votes, or 45.78 percent of the total number of votes. Chu’s nearest competitor, Chang Ya-chung, won 60,632 votes, which is 32.59 percent. By contrast, current chair Johnny Chiang gained 35,090 votes, or 8.86 percent of the vote, while former Changhua county magistrate Cho Po-yuan came in last with 5,133 votes, or 2.76 percent of the total. Turnout was high, with 187,999 of 370,711 eligible voters participating, or 50.71 percent…
The low-hanging fruit of the pandemic economic recovery has been eaten. As a result, the expansion is entering a new phase — with new risks. For months, the world economy has expanded at a torrid pace, as industries that were shut down in the pandemic reopened. While that process is hardly complete — numerous industries are still functioning below their prepandemic levels — further healing appears likely to be more gradual, and in some ways more difficult. Reopening restaurants and performance arenas is one thing. Fixing extraordinary backups in shipping…