Category Archives: China

Stellantis says it will ‘fight’ for electric car sales rather than hide behind tariffs

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The owner of Vauxhall, Jeep and Fiat says it opposes EU measures against Chinese EVs and wants to compete ‘as a global company’

The owner of the Jeep, Fiat and Vauxhall brands has said it will not take a defensive stance in the battle for electric car sales, amid signs of an escalating trade war in the market between Europe and China.

Stellantis’s chief executive, Carlos Tavares, has criticised the EU tariffs on imported Chinese cars announced on Wednesday and said the world’s fourth biggest carmaker preferred to “fight to stay competitive”.

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EU to put tariffs of up to 38% on Chinese electric vehicles as trade war looms

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Move, to be applied provisionally from July, would trigger duties of more than €2bn a year

The EU has notified Beijing that it intends to impose tariffs of up to 38% on imports of Chinese electric vehicles, triggering duties of more than €2bn (£1.7bn) a year and a likely trade war with China.

The tariffs will be applied provisionally from next month in line with World Trade Organization rules, which give China four weeks to challenge any evidence the EU provides to justify the levies on imported EVs.

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Panda diplomacy: Chinese premier Li Qiang could announce two new rare bears for Australia during state visit

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Wang Wang and Fu Ni have not conceived during more than a decade at Adelaide Zoo, sparking speculation they may be replaced

Australia’s giant pandas – having failed to breed – could be swapped for a new pair.

Chinese premier Li Qiang is expected to make an announcement about the future of the rare bears when he visits South Australia on the weekend.

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China’s glut of idle property causes headache for the government

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The industry that has traditionally powered about a quarter of GDP has been in a downward spiral that policymakers have struggled to halt

All across China, from Beijing in the north, to Shenzhen in the south, millions of newly built homes stand empty and unwanted. There were nearly 391m sq metres of unsold residential property in China as of April, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. That is the equivalent of Manchester and Birmingham combined – and then some – sitting as vacant, unwanted property.

This glut of idle property has caused a headache for the government, shaken the world’s second largest economy and raised tensions over the purpose of housebuilding in a nation where property investment had been viewed as a safe bet.

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Man arrested after four US academics stabbed in park during China visit

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Group from Cornell College and a Chinese person who tried to help have non life-threatening injuries after attack in Jilin province

Four US college instructors teaching in China have been stabbed while visiting a public park, US officials have said.

The tutors from Cornell College in Iowa were at the park in Jilin province, north-eastern China, with a faculty member from Beihua University on Monday when the attack occurred, the college president Jonathan Brand said in a statement. The private college in Iowa partners with the university near Jilin City.

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Hong Kong is ‘slowly becoming a totalitarian state​’, says UK judge

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​L​ord Sumption, who last week quit territory’s top court​, speaks out on ‘paranoid atmosphere’ under Chinese rule

A British judge has described the “paranoid atmosphere” in Hong Kong as he explained his decision to step down from the territory’s top court.

Jonathan Sumption, along with another British judge, Lawrence Collins, last week resigned from Hong Kong’s court of final appeal (CFA).

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Stop Shein listing on the FTSE, workers’ rights campaigners urge

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Groups issue call to next government amid criticism of online fashion retailer’s labour practices and accusations of copying

Workers rights campaigners have called for the UK’s next government to oppose the online fashion business Shein joining the FTSE, arguing that a London listing would be “yet another betrayal to working people everywhere and the planet”.

Alena Ivanova, campaigns lead at Labour Behind the Label, said it had heard the news of senior British politicians courting Shein’s £50bn listing “with dismay” given what she claimed was a lack of transparency about its supply chain and ethical concerns.

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EU expected to impose import tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles

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Experts believe Beijing will retaliate with measures that could hit European exports from cheese to cognac

The EU is expected to notify China that it will impose tariffs on electric vehicle imports this week, firing the starting gun on a potential summer trade war with Beijing.

A formal pre-disclosure of tariffs could happen as early as Wednesday, after a lengthy investigation into China’s state subsidies for its car manufacturing, which is predicted to conclude that massive support continues to be concentrated on the EV sector.

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Guterres warns humanity on ‘knife’s edge’ as AI raises nuclear war threat

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UN secretary general makes plea for nuclear states to agree on mutual pledge not to be first to use nuclear weapons

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has warned that the spread of artificial intelligence technology multiplies the threat of nuclear war, and that humanity is now “on a knife’s edge” as dangers to its existence coalesce.

Guterres’s warning is due to be shown on a recorded video to be played on Friday morning at the annual meeting of the US Arms Control Association (ACA) in Washington.

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Tiananmen Square anniversary: Hong Kong police detain artist who made sign in the air

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Sanmu Chen appeared to write the date of massacre in the air as anniversary becomes increasingly sensitive in Hong Kong

Hong Kong police detained an artist on Monday night after he appeared to write “8964” in the air with his hand, a reference to the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre, hours before Tuesday’s 35th anniversary.

Public acknowledgment of the events of 4 June 1989, when Chinese soldiers shut down a weeks-long peaceful protest with violence, killing anything from several hundred to several thousand people – is banned in mainland China and increasingly sensitive in Hong Kong.

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China’s lunar probe on way back to Earth from far side of the moon

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Uncrewed Chang’e-6 lander is carrying rock and soil samples in ‘very important achievement’ after lunar liftoff

China’s uncrewed Chang’e-6 probe is on its way back to Earth carrying the first samples from the far side of the moon, in a major achievement for Beijing’s space programme.

The probe landed on the lunar surface on Sunday, within one of the oldest craters on the moon – the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin – then spent two days gathering rock and soil samples using its drill and robotic arm.

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China and Hong Kong reportedly detain dissidents before Tiananmen Square anniversary

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Events marking 35 years since troops ended peaceful protest with deadly violence are banned in China and Hong Kong

Chinese and Hong Kong authorities have arrested or put under surveillance several dissidents before the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre this week, according to human rights groups.

On 4 June it will be 35 years since Chinese soldiers shut down a weeks-long peaceful protest with violence, killing anything from several hundred to several thousand people.

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China’s Chang’e-6 probe lands on far side of the moon

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Spacecraft to collect samples from rarely explored area after landing heralded as ‘enormous technical achievement’

China has landed its uncrewed Chang’e-6 lunar probe on the far side of the moon, marking an important step in the country’s 53-day mission to retrieve rock and soil samples from the “dark” lunar hemisphere, in what would be a world first.

The landing elevates China’s space power status in a global rush to the moon, where countries including the US are hoping to exploit lunar minerals to sustain long-term astronaut missions and moon bases within the next decade.

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Zelenskiy accuses China of deterring countries from going to peace summit

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Ukrainian president says Beijing is supporting efforts by Moscow to warn leaders off attending Swiss meeting

Volodomyr Zelenskiy has accused China of discouraging other countries from attending a peace summit in Switzerland later this month that is aimed at bringing peace to war-ravaged Ukraine.

Speaking at Asia’s biggest security conference, the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore, the Ukrainian president sought to rally support among Asia-Pacific nations, urging them to attend the Swiss meeting.

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China’s defence chief repeats threat of force against Taiwanese independence

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Dong Jun rails at length about democratic island’s ‘separatists’ during Shangri-La Dialogue defence conference in Singapore

The Chinese defence minister, Dong Jun, has warned that anyone who dares pursue independence for Taiwan will be “crushed to pieces” and face “destruction”, as he accused external forces of dragging the island into “a dangerous situation”.

In a speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s biggest defence summit, Dong said Beijing was committed to “peaceful unification” with Taiwan, but that it was prepared “for all kinds of extreme situations” and that any attempts to seek independence would be futile.

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‘We refuse to disappear’: the Hong Kong 47 facing life in jail after crackdown

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Last week’s conviction of dissidents came in the biggest case since introduction of a new national security law

The verdict wasn’t surprising but outside room no 2 of the West Kowloon courthouse, people still wept. The panel of Hong Kong national security judges had set down two days for the hearing but dispensed with the core business in about 15 minutes. In the city’s largest ever national security trial – involving the prosecution of pro-democracy campaigners and activists from a group known as the “Hong Kong 47” – almost all the defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to commit subversion.

Their crime was trying to win an election, holding unofficial primaries in 2020 attended by an estimated 600,000 residents.

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Hong Kong rejects western criticism of democracy activists’ convictions

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US says 14 protesters have been jailed for ‘peacefully participating in political activities’ that should have been allowed

The Hong Kong government has rejected western criticism of the conviction of 14 pro-democracy activists for subversion, calling it “untruthful, slandering and smearing”.

The US said on Friday it was “deeply concerned” about the guilty verdicts announced in the national security law trial of the activists in Hong Kong. The state department said the 14 activists had been subjected to “politically motivated prosecution and jailed simply for peacefully participating in political activities” that should have been protected under the basic law, which was supposed to guarantee a degree of autonomy for Hong Kong when it came under Beijing’s rule in 1997.

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Meet the Chinese army’s latest weapon: the gun-toting dog

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China shows off mechanical canine with an automatic rifle on its back at joint military drills with Cambodia

The Chinese army has debuted its latest weapon: a gun-toting robotic dog.

The mechanical canine, which has an automatic rifle on its back, was front and centre of recent joint military drills with Cambodia, according to footage from the state broadcaster CCTV.

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‘Hong Kong 47’ trial: 14 activists found guilty of conspiracy to commit subversion

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Western governments condemn verdict in biggest case since introduction of national security law

Fourteen people have been found guilty of subversion by a court in Hong Kong in the biggest case against pro-democracy campaigners – against a group known as the “Hong Kong 47” – since China imposed a national security law to crush dissent.

A panel of judges handpicked by Hong Kong’s government found that the convicted people – one organiser and 13 candidates, almost all of them former politicians – had committed the national security offence of “conspiracy to subvert state power” by holding unofficial election primaries in 2020.

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China lifts most remaining trade bans on Australian beef exports

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Murray Watt says Beijing has removed sanctions for five abattoirs that lost export licences in 2020 amid diplomatic spat

China has lifted suspensions from Australian beef exporters, removing almost all of the $20bn worth of trade sanctions it imposed.

The agriculture minister, Murray Watt, said Beijing on Wednesday night lifted the bans, with immediate effect, for five different abattoirs.

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