Day: October 12, 2023

Also on Thursday, special envoy for Middle East affairs Zhai Jun called for a ceasefire, in China’s first public contact with Israel since the attack by Hamas. 03:43 Protesters on both sides of Israel-Hamas conflict flood streets around the world Protesters on both sides of Israel-Hamas conflict flood streets around the world In a phone call with a senior Israeli diplomat, Zhai said the two sides should restart peace talks on the basis of the two-state solution framework. He delivered a similar message one day earlier to the Palestinian Authority…

China’s exports fell for a fifth consecutive month in September, but again at a smaller pace, another indicator that the economy has started to stabilise. Exports fell by 6.2 per cent last month, year on year, to US$299.1 billion, the General Administration of Customs said on Friday. The drop was smaller than the 8.8 per cent fall in August, while also beating the estimate by Chinese data provider Wind for a fall of 7.6 per cent last month. Imports, meanwhile, fell for the seventh consecutive month after declining by 6.2…

In an opinion piece for the Post, Josep Borrell said European voters will “demand more protectionist measures” if China does not help narrow its trade surplus with the EU. “On the economic front, our relationship is currently far from satisfactory. We are a major export market for China, but this relationship has for many years been an imbalanced one, and that imbalance continues to worsen,” Borrell wrote. Josep Borrell said European investors were “turning away” from the Chinese market. Photo: Reuters He blamed the gap, which reached €396 billion (US$420.1…

China’s consumer prices remained flat in September, despite signs of an economic rebound, with deepening chronic deflationary pressure and stubbornly weak domestic demand still looming large. The consumer price index (CPI) remained flat from a year earlier last month, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday, compared to a 0.1 per cent increase in August. Chinese data provider Wind had predicted a CPI increase of 0.2 per cent in September. CPI in the first nine months of the year rose by 0.4 per cent, year on year, far below…

I have come to China to have frank exchanges about obstacles that exist in our EU-China relations, and to talk about how to manage this relationship more effectively. Indeed, we need to work with China, just as China needs to work with us, as the world has become ever more interdependent. We are not afraid of a multipolar world. A multipolar world reflects the fact that wealth has spread to an increasing number of nations, and we welcome this. Yet for it to function peacefully, this multipolarity requires regulation. However,…