China

China announced a range of different measures on Tuesday targeting US businesses such as Google, plus more in other sectors almost immediately after new Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods took effect. Beijing hit back with 15% tariffs on US coal and natural gas, plus measures on some autos in a rapid response to the duties President Trump put on Chinese goods days earlier, ratcheting up trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies. Several US corporations such as PVH Corp, the holding company for brands like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, plus US biotechnology firm Illumina were put on Beijing’s “unreliable entity” list. It said the two companies took what it called “discriminatory measures against Chinese enterprises” and “damaged” the legitimate rights and interests...

China is not taking the Trump administration's tariffs sitting down. On Tuesday, shortly after the 10% tariffs took effect just past midnight on the U.S. East Coast, Beijing announced a raft of countermeasures. Those include 15% tariffs on American coal and liquefied natural gas and 10% tariffs on crude oil, farm equipment and certain other vehicles. The Chinese counter-tariffs are slated to take effect on Feb. 10. In a statement, the Chinese finance ministry said the U.S. tariffs "severely violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, and not only fail to address [America's] own problems but also disrupt normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States." In addition, China's market regulator announced an anti-monopoly investigation into Google. And th...

China's rapid industrial expansion is reshaping the global economic order. According to the Economic Survey 2025, UNIDO projects that China will account for 45% of all global manufacturing by 2030, surpassing the United States and its allies combined. "Just thirty years later, UNIDO projects that China will account for 45 per cent of all global manufacturing, singlehandedly matching or outmatching the US and its allies. This is a level of manufacturing dominance by a single country seen only twice before in world history—by the UK at the start of the Industrial Revolution and by the US just after World War 2. It means that in an extended war of production, there is no guarantee that the entire world united could defeat China alone." China's rise is not just about production volume—i...

HSBC Chairman Mark Tucker leaned into the microphone at a vast conference table in Beijing, telling British business leaders and senior Chinese officials that he spoke for all UK businesses present in hoping for stronger economic ties.Tucker, chairman of Europe's largest bank, was flanked by UK finance minister Rachel Reeves, who had invited him to lead a delegation aimed at enlisting Chinese support for Britain's growth agenda."It is more important than ever that we accelerate and sustain the forward momentum with a clear focus on the material and mutually beneficial agenda," he told Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and others at the opening of the UK-China Financial Services Summit, news footage of the event on Jan. 11 showed.Just a few weeks later, the lender would reveal plans to wind d...

But then Masdar, the country’s state-owned renewable energy company, decided to make a splash at a huge trade fair in Abu Dhabi. In front of the UAE president, it announced it would build a $6bn 5 gigawatt solar plant backed with more than 19GWh of battery storage — the largest such project ever attempted.  When it starts in two years’ time, its batteries will give the country a constant output of 1GW, enough to power more than 700,000 homes without having to rely on gas-fired plants when the sun is not shining. “This will transform renewable energy into baseload energy,” said Sultan Al Jaber, the chair of Masdar. “It is a first step that could become a giant leap.” As the UAE was revealing its new solar project, Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, announced a ...

China’s factory activity in January unexpectedly contracted, in part due to a slow season ahead of the Lunar New year, reversing the growth seen in the previous three months and keeping alive calls for stronger fiscal support to boost the economy. The official purchasing managers’ index for January came in at 49.1, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday showed, compared with Reuters poll estimates of 50.1. PMI had stayed above the 50 mark that separates expansion from contraction for the past three months, coming in at 50.1 in December, 50.3 in November and 50.1 in October, according to the official data. The manufacturing PMI in January tends to be softer, as migrant workers return to hometowns ahead of the Chinese New Year, which falls on Jan. 29, said Hui...