Day: September 30, 2023

China’s factory activity expanded at a slower pace in September, a private-sector survey showed on Sunday, with sluggish external demand weighing on the outlook even as output increased. The Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 50.6 in September from 51.0 in the previous month, missing analysts’ forecasts of 51.2. The 50 index point mark separates growth from contraction. The world’s second-largest economy is showing some signs of stabilising after a flurry of modest policy measures, but the outlook is clouded by a property slump, falling exports and…

Last month Li Haitao, a former deputy governor of the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, was placed under investigation for “serious violations of [party] discipline and law”, the usual shorthand for corruption. Xi began the purge on taking power in 2012, a time when many in Beijing were worried that the party’s control over its cadres was too loose. In the early wave of the campaign – which targeted both senior figures, or “tigers”, and “flies”, meaning more junior officials – a number of figures who had been promoted under the…

Born in a rural village in central China’s Henan province, Hui Ka-yan, the founder and chairman of troubled developer China Evergrande Group, rode a wave of market reforms in China’s property market over the past three decades to become, at one point, the country’s richest man. The 64-year-old former steel mill worker amassed a vast empire that included China’s richest professional football club, a superyacht once valued at US$60 million and reportedly the most expensive home in London. However, Hui, who is known as Xu Jiayin in the mainland, has…

Liu met military junta leaders Abdourahamane Tchiani, president of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland, and Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine. Liu said China aims to “continue and develop” the cooperation with Niger and “deepen the friendship between the Chinese people and the Nigerien people”, the Nigerien Press Agency reported. 06:32 China’s Belt and Road, 10 years on China’s Belt and Road, 10 years on The shift in attitude points to China’s struggle as it tries to make inroads in Africa to expand and protect its…