Day: September 22, 2023

China Evergrande scraps creditor meetings in risk to US$20 billion debt restructuring as homes sales sag, lawsuits snowball

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China Evergrande Group, struggling under US$327 billion of liabilities, has surprisingly scrapped creditor meetings scheduled for next week as home sales sagged and lawsuits snowballed, dragging bondholders back to the drawing board in the country’s biggest corporate restructuring. The developer cancelled four meetings for two classes of its creditors in Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands set for September 26, according to an exchange filing late on Friday. Two meetings on September 25 for another group of bondholders in Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands were also halted. The…

Video games become part of the furniture in Japan as suppliers read the room

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Receive free Technology sector updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Technology sector news every morning. Companies seeking their fortunes in the $188bn global games market, an industry of cutting-edge hardware, software and creativity, are betting on a low-tech way in: furniture. Efforts to become gamers’ favourite provider of sofas, chairs and interior decor now occupy a central spot at the Tokyo Game Show, traditionally the turf of Sony, Konami and Sega, but increasingly a showcase for upholsterers, soundproofers and living room co-ordinators.  The…

China puts localities’ feet to the fire to protect farmland, prevent illegal dumping

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A massive build-up of illegal waste, resting on what was once arable farmland, is being cleared by authorities in northern China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region after years of wanton dumping – the result of a state television exposé aired as Beijing stresses the need for food security. Three officials from the capital city of Yinchuan have been suspended after the Monday report by CCTV revealed a 20-hectare field covered in layers of waste up to three metres thick, the Yinchuan government said on Thursday. The muck had accumulated over the…

How Beijing is using ‘fishing militia’ to assert its claims in the South China Sea

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One was a coastguard vessel but the other eight Chinese ships were apparently fishing boats. Four of the steel-hulled civilian ships sailed with the Chinese coastguard vessel, taking turns to block the Philippine coastguard ships BRP Cabra and BRP Sindangan from getting close to the reef. Four more civilian ships were standing by as three more Chinese coastguard vessels surrounded the Philippine boats. The Chinese ships came within metres of the BRP Cabra’s hull, video footage released by the Philippine coastguard showed. The Philippines said the Chinese vessels’ “dangerous manoeuvres”…

Hun Manet tells UN Cambodia’s elections were fair

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A month after he succeeded his father as Cambodia’s prime minister in the wake of the country’s latest election without an opposition, Hun Manet falsely told the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that the July 23 ballot was “free and fair” and “credible and just.”  Hun Sen handed power to his son after claiming victory in an election in which he banned the last remaining opposition party, the Candlelight Party, and threatened prison time and disenfranchisement for any Cambodians who joined the party’s efforts to boycott the vote. His ruling…

Feminist journalist Sophia Huang stands trial for subversion

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Feminist journalist Sophia Huang and labor activist Wang Jianbing stood trial in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Friday for “incitement to subvert state power” as dozens of rights groups called for their release. Huang and Wang were detained on Sept. 19, 2021, and later charged with “incitement to subvert state power,” a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Huang had planned to leave China via Hong Kong the following day – Sept. 20, 2021 – for the United Kingdom, where she…

U.S. Issues Final Rules to Keep Chip Funds Out of China

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The Biden administration on Friday issued final rules that would prohibit chip companies vying for a new infusion of federal cash from carrying out certain business expansions, partnerships and research in China, in what it described as an effort to protect United States national security. The regulations come as the Biden administration prepares to disburse more than $52 billion in federal grants and tens of billions of dollars of tax credits to build up the U.S. chip industry. The new rules aim to prevent chip makers that benefit from U.S.…

Diplomatic missions call on Vietnam to stay inmate’s execution

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The European delegation to Vietnam and the Canadian and U.K. Embassies have urged Vietnamese authorities to halt the execution of death row inmate Le Van Manh, whose family was told this week to make preparations to receive his body after his sentence is carried out. In a joint statement, posted to the E.U. delegation’s Facebook page on Thursday, the diplomatic missions noted that Le Van Minh, 42, has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence since he was sentenced for rape and murder in 2005 and dismissed the death penalty as an acceptable…

Over 1,000 Myanmar workers entering China daily under new permit

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About 1,400 migrant workers are entering China from Myanmar every day from the northern Shan state trading hub of Muse after a seven-day permit was recently authorized by Beijing, local residents told Radio Free Asia. Most of the migrants are from villages in Sagaing, Magway, Mandalay and Shan that have been recently devastated by the civil war, and are in desperate need to earn money, aid workers said. They do menial jobs like gardening or factory work for seven days, and then return home, they said. “People are rushing for…

China’s Lending to Africa Hits a Low, Study Shows

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johannesburg —  As China marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of its global infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), new data show lending to Africa has fallen to its lowest level in almost two decades. A paper released this week by researchers at Boston University’s Global China Initiative said the pandemic, domestic economic woes, a policy shift and concerns about African debt were among the reasons lending in 2021 and 2022 dropped below $2 billion for the first time since the inception of the BRI. In 2000-22,…