World

China’s state assets supervisor has warned government firms to be mindful of financial risk as smaller banks, property firms report heavy debt loads Cautionary words show concerns over financial health not limited to institutions more local in scope China’s state assets watchdog has identified four areas within enterprises run by the central government worthy of careful monitoring – trust companies, finance subsidiaries, private equity and commercial factoring – indicating a tendency towards risk control running deep throughout the country’s economy. Including state-owned industrial giants in a call for mitigation of systemic shortfalls shows the uncertainty generated by solvency concerns over local government financing vehicles, property firms and smaller banks is not strictly...

The latest Chinese economic data was underwhelming, so the government may need to stay late to work on a better solution. What does this mean? China’s economy is used to making the world jealous: the country overtook Italy, France, the UK, Germany and Japan’s economies between 2000 and 2010, and it’s held the silver spot behind the US ever since. So it’s understandable that after building up quite the reputation, the Chinese government is less than delighted about the economy’s current pause. November’s data showed that the manufacturing sector was even quieter than the month before, as tentative shoppers – conscious of the economy’s shaky ground – held back from ordering anything they didn’t actually need. And with the services sector also clocking in lower...

Had Deng Xiaoping not sought and received advice from Japan and Singapore in his creation of ‘socialism with Japanese and Singaporean characteristics’, China’s economic miracle would have been less miraculous. China’s current economic woes stem largely from Xi Jinping’s abandonment of this paradigm. When Mao Zedong died in 1976, China was the second poorest among 140 countries. Deng Xiaoping proclaimed a remedy of ‘reform and opening up’ to foreign countries, drawing from previous Asian success stories. During an October 1978 trip to Japan, Deng met with business leaders, toured a Nissan auto plant and saw China’s future. ‘We are a backward country, and we need to learn from Japan’, he told a press conference in Tokyo. His first official foreign economic advisor was Saburo Okita, on...

A gauge of non-manufacturing activity — which measures the construction and services sectors — unexpectedly eased to 50.2, barely clearing the 50 mark above which indicates expansion. An underlying measure of services activity fell to 49.3, the first contraction for that gauge this year. Activity in China’s manufacturing and services sectors shrank in November, adding to expectations for additional government support for the economic recovery as it struggles to regain steam. The official manufacturing purchasing managers index fell to 49.4, the second straight month of contraction, according to a Thursday statement from the National Bureau of Statistics. While economists expected a decline in the index, the number was lower than estimates. A gauge of non-manufacturing activity — whi...

China President Xi Jinping visited Shanghai, where he went to several venues and learned about the city's efforts to strengthen its competitiveness as an international financial centre, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday. Xi made the trip on Tuesday and Wednesday and he inspected the Shanghai Futures Exchange, an exhibition on Shanghai's sci-tech innovations and a government-subsidized rental housing community, the report said. He was seen with other government leaders, including Cai Qi, the head of the powerful Secretariat of the Communist Party of China Central Committee that oversees day-to-day affairs of the CPC. Vice Premier He Lifeng, Shanghai's Communist party secretary Chen Jining and Mayor Gong Zheng also accompanied his visit. A video posted by state television...