Category Archives: Xi Jinping

China sets lowest GDP growth target for decades as it braces for economic slowdown

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‘High-quality growth’ target of 4.5-5% outlined at Two Sessions as Chinese premier talks of complex situations at home and abroad

China has set its target for GDP growth to a record low of 4.5-5%, the first time since 1991 that the figure has dropped below 5%, reflecting an economic strategy that is shifting away from export-led growth to a model that leaders hope will be more resilient to external shocks.

Li Qiang, China’s premier, announced the target for 2026 in the opening session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s annual parliamentary gathering, which began on Thursday.

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More generals purged as delegates gather for China’s Two Sessions event

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Spectre of military upheaval will hang over annual meetings where Beijing’s five-year plan will be launched

The standing committee of China’s top political advisory body has voted to remove three generals from its ranks as a sweeping purge of the military continues before this week’s annual Two Sessions gathering.

The advisory body will meet on Wednesday, while China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC) – which removed nine generals last week – will start its annual session on Thursday. Collectively the concurrent meetings are referred to as Two Sessions, one of the most important events in China’s political calendar when thousands of delegates arrive in Beijing.

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China’s Xi Jinping raises future of Taiwan in call with Donald Trump

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China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and Xi told Trump that its return was an ‘integral part of the post-war international order’

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has told Donald Trump that Beijing’s claims to Taiwan remain unchanged, in a phone call that came amid rising tensions over the self-governing island.

Xi told Trump on Monday that Taiwan’s return to China was an “integral part of the postwar international order” forged in the joint US-China fight against “fascism and militarism”, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

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Xi-Trump meeting: America has discovered that bullies can be bullied back

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Outcome appears closer to truce than durable peace but outline of broader diplomatic relationship is visible

When Donald Trump launched his trade war against China in April, threatening tariffs as high as 145%, the Chinese government said it would never bow to blackmail and vowed to “fight to the end”.

The question now is whether the consensus reached between Trump and Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, on Thursday means that the fight really has come to an end, and if so on whose terms.

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Trump and Xi talks could end months of global economic chaos

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High on agenda for the leaders of the US and China will be rare earths and tariffs, with a chance of a relationship reset

Ahead of Thursday’s long-awaited first meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping since the US president’s return to office, officials from both sides have been hammering out the contours of what a trade deal between Washington and Beijing might look like, an agreement that could bring an end to months of global economic chaos caused by the US-China trade war.

The two leaders have not met in person since 2019. Since then, the war in Ukraine and increasing concern in Washington about China’s technological advances, as well as longstanding issues about the imbalanced US-China trade relationship, have strained the bonds between the two superpowers.

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US and China reach ‘final deal’ on TikTok sale, treasury secretary says

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Scott Bessent said plan was part of framework for trade deal but did not share details on transferring app’s ownership

US treasury secretary Scott Bessent claimed on Sunday that the US and China have finalized the details of a deal transferring TikTok’s US version to new owners.

“We reached a final deal on TikTok,” Bessent said on Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan. Alluding to Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, Bessent continued: “We reached [a deal] in Madrid, and I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction” during a meeting scheduled for Thursday in Korea.

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Xi directs quashing of Chinese feminists even as he praises advances at women’s conference

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Chinese president is behind patriarchal turn in politics with activists silenced for ‘promoting gender antagonism’

Addressing dignitaries gathered in Beijing on Monday, Xi Jinping praised the “historic achievements” of women’s rights in China. In the past 30 years, the Chinese president said, maternal mortality rates had dropped by nearly 80%, and women were now participating in the project of national governance with “unprecedented confidence and vigour”.

Xi was speaking at the global women’s summit, an event on Monday and Tuesday to mark the 30th anniversary of the historic UN’s world conference on women, which took place in Beijing. It was there in 1995 that Hillary Clinton, the then US first lady, delivered her “women’s rights are human rights” speech, lines now often quoted by people in China advocating for women’s rights.

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Thursday briefing: China flexes its muscle in the tussle for global dominance

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In today’s newsletter: In hosting anti-western leaders at its largest ever military parade, Beijing sent a defiant message that will be heard loud and clear across the world

Good morning. All eyes have been on China this week as the second biggest global economy flexed its muscles.

Dozens of world leaders, including from the global south, authoritarian pariah states and the EU, attended China’s largest ever military parade on Wednesday to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, which China calls the war of resistance against Japanese aggression.

UK news | Deputy PM Angela Rayner has admitted she underpaid stamp duty on her £800,000 seaside flat, after coming under intense pressure to be more transparent about her property arrangements.

Russia | Vladimir Putin has invited Kim Jong-un to visit Russia during a lengthy meeting in Beijing on the sidelines of China’s biggest military parade, as Kim promised to do “everything I can to assist” Moscow.

Police | The Metropolitan police have declined to drop their investigation into the comedy writer Graham Linehan for tweets about trans issues, and said that the law used by officers to detain him needs reviewing.

Israel | Israeli drones dropped four grenades near UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon, the agency’s force said on Wednesday, in what it described as “one of the most serious attacks” on its personnel since a November ceasefire.

Portugal | A day of national mourning has been declared in Portugal after at least 15 people were killed when Lisbon’s well-known Gloria funicular railway car derailed and crashed on Wednesday.

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Xi, Putin and Kim: behind the choreographed image that could symbolise a shift in the global balance of power

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In an unprecedented spectacle the leaders of Russia, China and North Korea led a group of more than 20 world leaders at a victory day parade in Beijing

It is an image that, had it been published just a few years ago, would have been dismissed as a piece of mischievous photo-shopping: the leaders of Russia and China, accompanied by the head of a pariah regime whose mission to arm his country with nuclear weapons had been opposed at the United Nations by his two companions.

But dramatic shifts in the geopolitical landscape – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, crucially, the re-election of Donald Trump – have combined to bring Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un together in what many observers are calling a dramatic redrawing of the global balance of power.

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Xi Jinping says world faces ‘peace or war’, as Putin and Kim join him for military parade

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Trump criticises victory day event as China caps off week of diplomatic grandstanding seen as rebuke to the west

Xi Jinping said the world was facing a choice between peace or war as he held China’s largest-ever military parade, joined by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un in a show of defiance to the west.

Putin and Kim, the authoritarian leaders of Russia and North Korea, were among dozens of world leaders who attended the parade, a massive display of military hardware and personnel, orchestrated to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, which China calls the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.

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Putin hails ties with China as Kim Jong-un arrives in Beijing on eve of parade

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Russian president says relations at ‘unprecedentedly high level’ as dozens of leaders gather for Victory Day events

Vladimir Putin has hailed Russia’s “unprecedentedly” high level of ties with China, as dozens of leaders including the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, arrived in Beijing on the eve of a massive military parade intended to showcase a Chinese-led global order.

Putin called China’s leader, Xi Jinping, a “dear friend” after the two held talks at the Great Hall of the People and then at Xi’s personal residence. “Our close communication reflects the strategic nature of Russia-China relations, which are at an unprecedentedly high level,” Putin told Xi, according to a video on the Kremlin’s Telegram channel. “We were always together then, and we remain together now.”

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Modi’s warm meeting with Xi shows impact of Trump’s ‘tariff tantrum’

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China seizes on opportunity for geopolitical realignment after India was hit with one of US’s harshest trade penalties

They stood together like old friends, heads thrown back in jovial laughter, clutching one another’s hands affectionately. Except this was no ordinary gathering of three men, but a meeting of three of the most powerful non-western leaders: Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi.

The overt displays of intimacy were widely regarded by observers as a telling message of defiance aimed at their western counterparts, in particular Donald Trump, who just a few days earlier had slapped India with 50% import tariffs, among the harshest of the US president’s trade penalties.

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Xi Jinping criticises ‘bullying behaviour’ and Putin blames west for Ukraine war at Shanghai summit

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China’s leader urges attendees to oppose ‘cold war mentality’ while Russian president claims Ukraine war was ‘provoked by the west’

Xi Jinping has criticised the “bullying behaviour” of other countries while Vladimir Putin has blamed the west for his war on Ukraine, on the second day of a major summit in China which seeks to challenge western-led multilateral blocs.

The Shanghai Cooperation Summit (SCO) began in the city of Tianjin on Sunday, with Xi welcoming dozens of leaders from Eurasian member states and other partner and observer countries, including Putin, and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.

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Putin, Modi and Erdoğan among leaders in China for talks with Xi

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Chinese president hosts bilateral meetings on sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have met on the sidelines of a showpiece summit in China that seeks to challenge US-led, western-dominated blocs and is being attended by the leaders of more than two dozen nations.

The Chinese and Russian leaders, who are closely allied under what they have termed a “limitless” partnership, discussed Putin’s recent meeting with Donald Trump, according to a Kremlin official, who gave no further details.

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Putin embarks on China visit with Ukraine war top of agenda

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Analysts say Putin and Xi will aim to align positions during Russian leader’s unusually long stay

Vladimir Putin will travel to China this weekend for what the Kremlin has called a “truly unprecedented” visit to his most important ally, which comes at a crunch moment in talks over Ukraine.

During the trip, which is expected to stretch to close to a week – unusually long for the Russian leader – he will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, hold talks with Xi Jinping, and take in Beijing’s Victory Day military parade marking 80 years since Japan’s defeat in the second world war, where Putin is due to be the star guest alongside North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and leaders of Iran and Cuba.

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Putin and Kim to join Xi at Chinese military parade in show of defiance to the west

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The Victory Day parade in Beijing on 3 September will mark the formal surrender of Japan during the second world war. No western leaders will attend

Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un are among the world leaders who will attend a military parade with President Xi Jinping in Beijing next week, in a show of collective defiance amid western pressure.

No western leaders will be among the 26 foreign heads of state and government attending the parade next week – with the exception of Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia, a member of the European Union – according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

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Trump says Xi told him China will not invade Taiwan while he is in office

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US president says Chinese counterpart told him ‘I am very patient and China is very patient’

The US president, Donald Trump, has said that his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, told him China would not invade Taiwan while Trump is in office.

Trump made the comments in an interview with Fox News on Friday, ahead of talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Albanese says Coalition failed to have call with Beijing for years as opposition criticises ‘indulgent’ China trip

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James Paterson questioned if the six-day trip had ‘tangible outcomes’ while prime minister retorted, saying opposition should sort ‘themselves out’

Anthony Albanese has sniped back at the opposition’s criticism of his “indulgent” six-day visit to China, pointing out the former Coalition government failed to hold a single phone call with the major trading partner for years.

The prime minister has spent this week touring the country with stops in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu amid a period of geopolitical instability and escalating trade hostilities between the US and its trading partners.

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Former UK civil service chief calls Xi Jinping a ‘dictator’ over Taiwan threats

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Comments from Simon Case come as UK defence review highlights Chinese military exercises around Taiwan as driver of global instability

The former head of the UK’s civil service has described the Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a “dictator” and said Donald Trump had put “helpful pressure” on Europe to increase defence spending.

Simon Case, who served as the cabinet secretary until December, when he stepped down on health grounds, said China had sent a clear message to “prepare for serious conflict” in Taiwan.

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Top Chinese general ousted from body that oversees China’s military

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Purge is latest sign President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive has reached highest echelons of armed forces

A top Chinese general has been dismissed from the body that oversees the Chinese military in the latest sign that Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive has reached the highest echelons of the armed forces.

Miao Hua, a senior admiral from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) navy, was the director of the political work department of the central military commission (CMC), making him responsible for ideology and loyalty within the armed forces. The six-person CMC is one of the most powerful institutions in China and is headed by Xi himself.

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