1. Guardian: John Kerry appeals to China over North Korea nuclear talks
US secretary of state's visit to Beijing prompts call for new Chinese pressure on Pyongyang.
US secretary of state John Kerry meets the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in Beijing. Photograph: Diego Azubel/AFP/Getty Images
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2. BBC: China's consumer inflation holds steady at 2.5%
China's inflation rate remained subdued in January, despite rising food prices during the New Year celebrations. Consumer prices held steady at 2.5% from a year earlier, which was slightly higher than many economists expected. The National Bureau of Statistics said there was a 3.7% rise in food prices during the month, which included both the Western and Chinese New Years. Meanwhile, factory gate prices fell 1.6%, marking the 23rd consecutive monthly decline. "Inflation is not going to be an issue in China this year," said ING economist Tim Condon.
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3. Reuters: Persistent fall in producer prices a challenge for China
In a sign that the Chinese economy faces continued challenges, producer prices fell again in January, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday, in an uninterrupted decline that has lasted for nearly two years. Prices of raw materials and means of production dropped across the board. Chinese consumer inflation hugged a seven-month low in January and showed no signs of accelerating anytime soon, a consolation for the government, which would need to loosen policy measures if economic growth began to founder. Producer prices slid for the 23rd consecutive month, by 1.6 percent in January from the same month last year, according to the statistics bureau. Consumer prices, on the other hand, were up 2.5 percent from the previous year, slightly above market expectations. The rise matched the level in December. Economists polled by Reuters had expected consumer inflation of 2.3 percent in January and producer prices to fall 1.7 percent. China surprised markets in the last week with a strong trade performance in January as import growth reached a six-month high, drawing some skepticism about the data but still allaying fears of a deepening slowing of economic growth. “Inflation is not a concern,” said Zhu Haibin, a J.P. Morgan economist in Hong Kong. “The producer price index is probably a bigger concern for policy makers.”
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4. Bloomberg: China auto brands doomed if foreign ownership relaxed
Chinese brands will be “killed in the cradle” if the government allows foreign automakers to become more independent from their domestic partners in the world’s biggest car market, the country’s main auto group said. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers voiced its warning yesterday as it reported that Chinese brands in January extended market-share losses, falling 4.9 percentage points from a year earlier to 38.4 percent, while foreign companies such as General Motors Co. (GM) benefited from record industry sales. Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. (175) alone saw deliveries tumble 47 percent. “Relaxing the current foreign ownership restrictions will wipe out Chinese brands,” the state-based auto association said in a statement in Beijing. “Foreign companies can totally use the competitive advantage of their global supply chains to support a price strategy to kill Chinese brands in the cradle.”
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5. Reuters: U.S. decision watched in dispute over solar imports from China, Taiwan
American trade officials on Friday will take a first step on potentially extending import duties on Chinese solar energy products to also cover panels made with parts from Taiwan, in a case that could have a major impact on the fast-growing U.S.
solar market. The U.S.
International Trade Commission is scheduled to make a preliminary decision at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) on whether there is good reason to think that the imports threaten or injure the domestic solar industry. A finding that they do would put Washington on a path toward widening the reach of the steep duties it slapped on products from China in 2012, potentially escalating a tit-for-tat trade spat. In contrast, a negative finding could stop the complaint from the U.S.
arm of German solar manufacturer SolarWorld AG (SWVKk
.DE) in its tracks. SolarWorld, which makes crystalline silicon solar panels at its factory in Hillsboro, Oregon, has complained that Chinese manufacturers are sidestepping the duties by shifting production of the cells used to make their panels to Taiwan and continuing to flood the U.S.
market with cheap products.
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6. WSJ: China considers regulatory measures for online finance
China's securities regulator confirmed Friday that it is working with other agencies to study measures to oversee Internet finance businesses. The sector has some problems and risks that need to be further regulated, said Zhang Xiaojun, a spokesman for the China Securities Regulatory Commission, at a regular briefing. He didn't elaborate. The CSRC has an "overall supportive attitude" toward the sector because it helps to resolve the financing difficulties of small businesses, Mr. Zhang said. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that China's central bank is leading a government effort to stem potential risk from a new generation of popular online investment products, citing people familiar with the matter. Officials are looking to develop regulations aimed squarely at
products offered by Internet companies such as an affiliate of e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Tencent Holdings Ltd.
and Baidu Inc. The companies declined to comment. Officials stressed that they hope the Internet companies could still play a role in making China's creaky financial system more competitive, improving the flow of lending to small businesses and encouraging greater competition from stodgy state-run banks.
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7. WSJ: U.S.-South Korea communications won't use Huawei gear
South Korea has addressed
U.S. concerns about letting a Chinese telecommunications company develop the country's advanced wireless network by agreeing to route sensitive U.S.
and South Korean communications over separate networks, U.S.
officials said
.The quiet U.S.
lobbying campaign against China's Huawei Technologies Co.
in South Korea followed a successful, similar U.S.
push to dissuade another close ally—Australia—from using the company in building critical telecommunications networks. In meetings with their South Korean counterparts in recent months, senior U.S.
officials pointed to what Washington sees as a risk that Huawei's equipment could be used for spying on communications among the close partners, as well as compromise secure networks used by American military personnel and intelligence officers in South Korea, U.S.
officials said. To address these security concerns, South Korea decided to make changes to the project so that sensitive South Korean government communications won't pass through Huawei equipment, U.S.
officials briefed on the discussions said. Likewise, Huawei gear won't be used or connected to U.S.
military bases in South Korea in a move meant to protect American communications, the officials said.
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8. NYT: Xi touts Communist Party as defender of Confucius’s virtues
Xi Jinping wants you to memorize “The Analects” of Confucius. China’s Communist Party chief says that the homegrown thoughts of the ancient sage offer an antidote not just for his own country’s ills, but also for Western societies whose faith in capitalism has been battered by the economic slump. Since taking leadership of the party 15 months ago, Mr. Xi has promoted a mélange of political convictions: old-school Marxism, a sentimental repackaging of Mao Zedong, patriotic appeals to a “China Dream” and a striking reverence for ancient tradition, seen as a bedrock of benign social order and loyalty to the state. Mr. Xi’s views of Confucius, who was born more than 2,500 years ago, suggest how deeply that nostalgia reaches. In a speech published on the website of a pro-
Beijing Hong Kong newspaper, Ta Kung Pao, on Wednesday, Mr. Xi described the Communist Party as a defender of ancient virtues, epitomized by Confucius and his collected teachings, “The Analects.” Mr. Xi said the government’s successful expansion of Confucius Institutes, for teaching Chinese on campuses abroad, showed that Westerners also hunger for deeper lessons from his country’s economic growth.
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9. Xinhua: China's sovereign fund appoints new vice chairman
China's sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Group (CIC), announced on Friday that it had officially appointed Li
Keping as the fund's vice chairman and president. Born in 1956, Li replaces Gao Xiqing, who turns 61 this year. China's official retirement age is 60 for men. Li also serves as CIC's chief investment officer, a post he has filled since 2011, according to the company's official website. The economics graduate from China's prestigious Peking University was previously an official with the State Council, and deputy chairman of the National Council for Social Security Fund, China's largest such fund. Created in 2007 with a registered capital of 200 billion US dollars, CIC is tasked with making better use of China's large foreign exchange reserves.
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10. Xinhua: China ponders energy strategy
China's leading think tank has outlined a revamped energy strategy, highlighting new energy and calling for industrial transformation. In an article entitled "Foreseeing and Analyzing China's Future Energy Development" published
on the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, on Wednesday, Li Wei, head of the Development Research Center (DRC) of the State Council, said China must transform itself into a country of "security, greenery and efficiency" by 2030, or face with erratic supplies and
unsurmountable environmental challenges. Li's article is based on two years of research program led by the DRC and supported by over 70 experts from Royal Dutch Shell, Harvard University, and Tsinghua University, among others
.Growth of China's energy demand will slow remarkably thanks to the cooling of the economy, but there will be higher
dependency on foreign suppliers of oil and natural gas. By 2030, as much as 75 percent of China's oil might be imported, and the dependency on overseas natural gas will also rise rapidly, bringing grave energy security concerns, Li warned. A former senior official of the State Council, Li put energy security in a wider global context. By 2030, the world's energy supply will be much the same while demand will keep growing, partly due to industrialization of emerging economies.
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11. USA Today: New NBA Commissioner Adam Silver targets NFL, China
Adam Silver was restless, Val Ackerman was pregnant and David Stern didn't like being ignored. And that is how the NBA's fifth commissioner got his start. Silver, 51, has an understated demeanor, but he's primed to attack his new job with all the ferocity of a LeBron James dunk. Tell him that it's impossible to have the kind of impact Stern had, growing annual revenues from $156 million to $5.6 billion, and he'll respectfully disagree and offer sound arguments to the contrary. "I have a set of tools available to me that David couldn't even have imagined," Silver tells USA TODAY Sports. "The league that David Stern inherited had our Finals on tape delay, so I'm inheriting a league where
games and Finals are televised in 215 countries, 50 languages. But beyond that, I'm inheriting a social media community of over a half a billion followers on a global basis. And what's rapidly changing in the world around us right now is the explosive ramping up
of cell phone usage by consumers. "And so I guess I see someone saying, 'Where's the opportunity?' But to me, the U.S.
is less than 5% of the world's population. So when I look at markets like the billion people in Africa, the over billion people that live in India, the (1.3 billion) that live in China, just those markets alone where we're just barely scratching the surface, there is so much opportunity out there for us."
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12. BBC: Avon may spend up to $132m to settle China bribery probe
US cosmetics group Avon Products may spend up to $132m (£79m) to resolve allegations it may have bribed officials in China and other countries. The firm has been under investigation for years over possible violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. However, no deal has been reached with the US government and Avon said it had provisionally set aside the money in the event of a settlement. Shares of the loss-making firm fell by more than 3% in US trade on Thursday. The world's largest direct seller of beauty products has also been struggling with slowing growth in many of its major markets. The company reported a net loss of $69.1m in the three months to December, while revenue fell by 10% to $2.67bn. Avon chief executive officer Sheri McCoy said the company was "making headway" towards returning to profit. "Looking back at 2013, we made progress addressing tough legacy issues, identifying and beginning to resolve operational challenges, and rebuilding our management team," she said in a statement.
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13. SMH: China learns building planes isn't easy
Chinese
planemaker COMAC is learning the hard way as it tries to compete with heavyweights Airbus and Boeing in developing a narrow-body aircraft, apparently exposed to the perils of the supply chain and program management issues. Advance orders for
Commercial Aircraft Corp of China Ltd's C919 have slowed to a trickle, with the company setting a modest target of 30 orders for this year. Total orders for China's only homegrown commercial jet last year stood at 400. The C919's first flight was originally scheduled for 2014, but it has been delayed until end-2015 at the earliest as the state-owned company copes with the difficulties of embarking on an aircraft development program virtually from scratch. A senior official at engine-maker CFM, the sole supplier of engines for the C919, says most of COMAC's difficulties can simply be put down to inexperience. COMAC, founded in 2008, is tasked with assembling China's first large commercial aircraft. "I
think they need really more experienced program management and they're poking around and trying to find that experience and bring that in-house," Chaker Chahrour, executive vice-president at CFM, told reporters at the Singapore Airshow. "Building an airplane is not an easy task. It requires a lot of work with a lot of suppliers. I think they have some difficulty with some suppliers and bringing them all to the same party at the same time has been a little bit difficult, and that is why they announced a delay to the first flight."
The C919 prototype, a single-aisle jet that can seat up to 190 passengers, is China's first large homegrown passenger jet. Photo: AFP
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14. WP: How China’s appetite for raw materials is transforming the world
The rise of China was arguably the biggest economic story of the 2000s. And a huge part of that tale was China's seemingly insatiable appetite for natural resources around the world. As China industrialized at a breakneck pace, it bought up staggering quantities of everything from oil to copper to iron ore to wheat. Global commodity prices skyrocketed — with oil famously rising to a record $140 per barrel in 2008. Meanwhile, China's state-owned companies went on an investment spree in Latin America and Africa, in an attempt to secure mines, cropland, and raw materials. That search for natural resources is having a huge impact on the rest of the world. And it's the subject of By All Means Necessary, a new book by Elizabeth Economy and Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations. They take a close look at everything from how Chinese demand for resources like oil can affect global markets (it's not always a matter of prices soaring) to the behavior of China's state-owned overseas (they often do bring along looser labor and environmental regulations, though that has changed over time in surprising ways).
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15. NYT: As U.S. aims for energy independence, China heads the opposite way
President Barack Obama told Americans in his State of the Union address last month that thanks to increased natural gas production and conservation, the country was closer to energy independence than it had been ”in decades.” That’s not something you’ll be hearing from Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, anytime soon: China’s reliance on imported oil is rising fast, according to a new study by a government research institute. If nothing is done to curb consumption, by 2030 China will import about 75 percent of its oil, Li Wei, the director of the State Council’s Development Research Center, wrote in a report published on Wednesday. By then China will consume about 800 million tons of oil a year. That’s about 60 percent more than the country used last year. China is set to surpass the United States this year as the biggest oil importer and already imports more than half the oil it consumes, according to figures from the United States Energy Information Agency.
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