China : Headlines
China-US rivalry in ‘high-risk period’, Chinese defence minister says
The strategic confrontation between China and the United States has entered a high-risk period, China’s top defence official said in a rare statement directly naming an adversary.
Speaking during a panel discussion on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress (NPC) on Saturday, Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said that China needed to bolster its fighting spirit, while other military leaders said the country had to catch up with Western nations in its development of core technologies.
“The United States has intensified the suppression and containment of our side since the [coronavirus] outbreak, and the Sino-US strategic confrontation has entered a period of high risk,” Wei, who is also a general in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), said.
“We must strengthen our fighting spirit, be daring to fight and be good at fighting, and use fighting to promote stability.”
Full Coverage : South China Morning Post
China stymies ‘experiments’ aimed at whipping up housing market frenzy in many cities facing budget squeeze
Homebuyers in China are facing more policy flip-flops, as Beijing frowns on attempts by local governments in at least a dozen cities to whip up a property market frenzy, bolster land sales and jump-start growth.
The measures were aimed at energising a “healthy development of the construction and real estate sectors to tackle the coronavirus pandemic” and bolster its fiscal budget. By May 23, they had been taken down from the local government website.
“Local governments continue to test the water for fast recovery of the property market under high fiscal pressure,” said Zhang Bo, chief analyst at 58 Anjuke Real Estate Research Institute, a Shanghai-based property research firm. “The central government does not want to see such short-term” spurious measures to ensure stable prices, he added.
Full Coverage : South China Morning Post
Volkswagen is in final talks to pay US$491 million for an electric carmaker in Anhui, sealing its biggest acquisition in China
Volkswagen is in final talks to seal its largest investment deals with Chinese electric vehicle (EV) firms, two sources said, as the German carmaker accelerates its push into the world’s largest market for environmentally friendlier cars.
The firm is poised to buy 50 per cent of Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Holding, the parent of EV partner JAC Motors, for at least 3.5 billion yuan (US$491 million), the people said on condition of anonymity as the matter was private.
It is also set to become the biggest shareholder of EV battery maker Guoxuan High-tech, the people said, adding both deals could be announced as early as Friday.
Volkswagen declined to comment on the deals, details of which are reported here for the first time. JAC and Guoxuan declined to comment.
Full Coverage : South China Morning Post
China : Economy
China’s industrial giants remain under pressure as profits continue to decline, but at slower pace
Profits at China’s big industrial firms continued to collapse in the first four months of the year under pressure from the economic damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak, although the decline showed signs of slowing.
Industrial firms saw profits fall by 27.4 per cent year-on-year over the first four months of 2020 to 1.26 trillion yuan (US$177 billion), data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Wednesday showed.
This was a further slight improvement from the 36.7 per cent drop over the first three months, and the record 38.3 per cent decline from a year ago in the first two months of 2020.
Overall, the tobacco and food processing sectors remained in profit for the first four months, and were joined by computer, communication and other electronic equipment manufacturing, the ferrous metal mining industry and paper making and paper products.
Full Coverage : South China Morning Post
Shanghai hopes pent-up consumer spending will boost economy, but poll shows big-ticket purchases have been put on hold amid gloomy outlook
Shen Wenbin decided on the spur of the moment to enter a lottery for a Cadillac XT5, after seeing an ad by e-commerce company Pinduoduo. The sport utility vehicle was available at a 45 per cent discount, as part of a promotion.
“It would have been a good purchase, but I was not lucky enough to win it,” the Shanghai white-collar clerk, in his early 40s, said after his name was not drawn. “To be precise, it was a great opportunity to save money.”
The SUV was sold to a lucky winner for 192,000 yuan (US$26,909), about 100,000 yuan cheaper than its average retail price, during 55 Shopping Festival, a large-scale shopping event that started this month and will run through until the end of June. It has been organised by the Shanghai government to drive discretionary spending by the residents. Mainland China’s financial and commercial capital has brought its coronavirus outbreak under control and is now looking to release pent-up demand for daily necessities as well as big-ticket items.
Shanghai’s economy was walloped by the US-China trade war, which has simmered over the past two years, even before the outbreak and the resulting lockdown measures disrupted production and business activity in February and March. Its economy shrank 6.7 per cent in the first quarter of this year, falling into negative territory for the first time in over three decades.
Full Coverage : South China Morning Post
