Day: September 26, 2023

China-US relations: American businesses welcome, Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng tells Henry Paulson in Beijing

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Beijing has sent a welcoming message to US companies during a visit by American banker and former treasury secretary Henry Paulson, while urging Washington to expand “positive” policies and cut “negative” ones. Paulson, founder of the US-China policy think tank the Paulson Institute, was received on Tuesday by China’s Vice-President Han Zheng and top diplomat Wang Yi, with the Chinese side expressing hopes to “bring bilateral ties back on the track of sound and steady growth” with Washington. “We welcome more US companies to invest and do business in China…

For China, bamboo ‘is where the future lies’ in shift away from polluting plastics

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With a given name that literally means “forest”, Ye Senlin is proud to be in the business of preserving nature. Two years ago, he started a company called Senlin Biotechnology that specialises in turning the world’s fastest-growing plant into fully degradable bags, dinner boxes and straws. Technically a type of grass, bamboo is the richest natural resource in Ye’s hometown of Anji, a county about a three-hour drive from Shanghai. And the plant replenishes itself so rapidly, compared with traditional wood sources, that some say it could be a viable…

China’s economic malaise hits efforts to raise $41bn chip fund

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Receive free Semiconductors updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Semiconductors news every morning. The most ambitious funding round launched to date by China to support its semiconductor industry is struggling in the initial phases to raise its target of Rmb300bn ($41bn), with the difficult economic climate being blamed, according to three people familiar with the situation. Beijing recently approved a third round for the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, also known as the Big Fund, which has been instrumental in propelling the…

Koreas trade barbs at UN as the North threatens nuclear war

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The two Koreas traded barbs at the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, with the North threatening a potential nuclear catastrophe in the Korean Peninsula and the South asserting that its military exercises with the U.S. will continue to take place.    North Korea’s ambassador to the U.N., Kim Song, initiated the verbal attack as he declared that the Korean Peninsula is at an imminent risk of nuclear war. The ambassador vowed to further amplify his country’s self-defense capabilities in light of what he described as an escalation of reckless military adventurism…

Pacific divided on Biden’s charm offensive with calls for more ‘results on the ground’

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US president Joe Biden’s latest bid to woo Pacific nations has been broadly welcomed by the region’s leaders and analysts, while some called for more to be done to support their economies and sought “results on the ground” over pledges. Biden hosted a group of Pacific leaders at a summit in Washington this week, after a similar meeting a year earlier, in an effort widely seen as a push against China’s growing presence in the region. Kaliopate Tavola, an ex-minister in Fiji and the country’s former ambassador to Brussels, said…

An India seeking gains from US-China rivalry is no guru to the world

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India is growing in importance. But how much more important will it become? In the lead-up to the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi, major newspapers, billboards and bus stops in every Indian city proclaimed India as a “Vishwaguru”, or teacher to the world. This is baffling. What would India teach the world? It has never been shy to describe itself as the world’s largest democracy. But the Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is increasingly being criticised as authoritarian and repressive. On September 18, Canada’s Prime…

What ‘peak oil’ will mean for China

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Last month one of China’s most powerful oil executives caused a stir in markets with a stark prediction: that the country’s oil demand may peak this year. Asked how the slowdown in China’s economy might affect domestic demand, Zhou Xinhuai, chief executive of Cnooc, said he expected the second half of 2023 to be weaker than the first, indicating a slowdown in demand year-on-year and meaning that “perhaps this year China’s domestic oil demand will reach a peak”. That may overstate the case; the International Energy Agency (IEA) does not…

Chinese universities squeeze new students with tuition increases

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As financial pressures mount and more resources are needed to support the country’s eagerly sought advances in technological and scientific research, China’s public universities are planning substantial tuition raises for the fall. The rise, though small compared with similar jumps in the US and Europe, is prompting worries as Chinese households are already struggling to make ends meet with reduced incomes in a listless economy. Universities from Shanghai, Sichuan, Jilin, Shandong and other provinces announced tuition increases for new students, with spikes ranging from 10 to 54 per cent. China’s…

US Bans 3 Chinese Manufacturers Over Suspicions They Used Forced Uyghur Labor

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Three Chinese textile manufacturers have been banned from exporting their goods to the United States over suspicions they may be using forced labor in their production lines. International watchdogs have accused the Chinese government of setting up internment camps in the northwestern city of Xinjiang to extract forced labor from Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities, including Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. U.S. intelligence now believes the three Xinjiang-based companies are collaborating with the Chinese government to enslave and further persecute Muslim minorities in the region. “We do not tolerate companies that use…

Australian vineyards struggle to stay afloat amid wine glut

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Receive free Wine updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Wine news every morning. The equivalent of 859 Olympic-sized swimming pools of wine sloshing around Australia is testimony to a brutal period for the country’s wine growers. Two billion litres of Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and other varieties have accumulated since China, the world’s biggest buyer of Australian wines, imposed punitive import tariffs in 2020 as relations soured during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to one investment bank report. Now, with a different government in Canberra,…