Good Morning. Welcome to The Wire’s daily news roundup. Each day, our staff gathers the top China business, finance, and economics headlines from a selection of the world’s leading news organizations.
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The Wall Street Journal
- China Says It Has Agreed With U.S. to Set Up Trade and Investment Bodies — Beijing confirms one expected outcome from Trump’s summit with Xi.
- Iran’s Seizure of Chinese Security Ship Shows Its Favors for Friends Have Limits — The action near the Strait of Hormuz occurred the day the Trump-Xi summit began in Beijing, with Iran on the agenda.
- Beijing’s ‘Industrial Policy of Everything’ Leaves Rest of the World in the Dust — Government support encompasses the old, the new, goods and services, micro and macro. Nothing Trump elicits in China will change this.
- Opinion: The Good-News-Is-No-News China Summit — The big test for Trump is whether he lets Xi veto arms sales to Taiwan. The Editorial Board.
- China’s Economy Unexpectedly Weakens as Iran War Fallout Mounts — Momentum slowed across the board even as Xi Jinping was projecting strength during a Beijing summit with President Trump.
The Financial Times
- China warns of ‘severe’ global conditions as economy shows weakness — April industrial output and retail sales growth slow as Iran crisis hits consumer confidence.
- EU plans to force companies to buy parts from non-Chinese suppliers — Proposed rules seek to target chemicals and industrial machinery makers.
- White House says Donald Trump and Xi Jinping agreed on ‘board of trade’ at summit — US and China signed off on measures to promote ‘stability’ in the midst of economic stand-off.
- China’s two-wheelers ride EV wave into Europe — Yadea plans factory in Hungary amid rising demand for electric scooters in Asia and South America.
- Chinese data centre spin-off plans dual IPO in Singapore and US — DayOne aims to raise $5bn using new rules intended to boost Asian listings in city-state.
- Defence groups clamour to delay US ban on Chinese rare earth magnets — Military contractors want more time to comply with prohibition years in the making and now just months away.
- China is not Japan — But its real estate market has been doing a darn good impression.
- Opinion: The battle the US is winning against China — It is a stunted financial power, leaving the US free to rule global markets. By Ruchir Sharma.
The New York Times
- China Will Host Putin, Days After Trump’s Visit — The Russian leader will go to Beijing on Tuesday for talks with President Xi Jinping. The Kremlin said he had watched President Trump’s visit closely.
- Trump’s Taiwan Gambit is Already a Gift to China — President Trump’s open willingness to hold up a $14 billion Taiwan arms package is a win for Beijing. Now China could be weighing how to keep the weapons on ice for as long as it can.
- Rubio, Once a China Hawk, Strikes Softer Tone to Align With Trump — As a senator, Marco Rubio even hinted at the need for regime change in China. Now he talks about cooperation.
- Trump Makes a High Risk Move to Win Over Xi — The president said a potential arms deal for Taiwan was a “very good negotiating chip” in talks with Beijing. His words raise questions about the reliability of U.S. support.
- Eager for Arms Deal, Taiwan Stresses Need for U.S. Support — After President Trump hinted that weapons sales to Taiwan could figure in negotiations with China, officials emphasized their island’s strategic importance.
- China Indicates Tariffs Were Discussed at Trump Summit — China’s Ministry of Commerce said Saturday that the countries had struck a preliminary agreement to reduce some tariffs, seemingly contradicting statements by President Trump.
- Trump Calls Xi a ‘Friend.’ But He Left China Without Any Breakthroughs. — The lack of concrete agreements with Beijing shows the risks of President Trump’s personality-driven foreign policy, which rests on the belief that he can defend U.S. interests through charm and force of will.
- Opinion: Here’s the Trade Deal That Trump and Xi Should Have Reached — For this to happen, however, both men would need personality transplants. By Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown.
- Opinion: Is America in Decline and China Rising? Not for Long. — The American imperium has been hard pressed on every front, and our leadership has gifted China a reputation for relative stability, notwithstanding Xi Jinping’s own aggressive and repressive moves. By Ross Douthat.
Caixin
- BYD in Talks With Stellantis, Others to Take Over Underutilized European Factories — Legacy European automakers have seen their capacity utilization steadily decline in recent years.
- Former China Securities Regulator Expelled in Graft Probe — The agency said Friday that Chu Tianhui illegally traded stocks using multiple borrowed accounts and illegally held shares in unlisted companies.
- China Industrial Output Growth Slows — China’s industrial output growth slowed in April and missed market forecasts as mining and manufacturing activity weakened despite resilient exports.
- U.S., China Reach Preliminary Trade and Tariff Deals Following Leaders’ Summit — The commerce ministry said in a statement that the two presidents endorsed “generally balanced and positive” results negotiated by their respective teams.
- Beijing Summit Signals a Reset in U.S.-China Relations — Xi and Trump agreed to pursue what they called a relationship based on “constructive strategic stability.”
South China Morning Post
- Norway arrests Chinese national for alleged spying — Court orders suspect be remanded in custody for four weeks, in the second high-profile case this month.
- A sinking ship? Why the EU and China could be heading for a trade war — Clashes at a conference in Chinese capital reflect wider tensions that threaten to descend into an economic conflict.
- Could China limit Japanese airlines’ access to its airspace as ties sour? — Pilots say such a move would mark a major escalation of retribution for Japanese PM’s remarks on Taiwan.
- Why China rare earth breakthrough in icy northeast could cement global dominance — A new type of deposit in Heilongjiang and Jilin promises easier, cheaper mining than in southern clay-rich areas, say scientists.
- Forget cellular data: China’s telecoms giants are selling AI token plans — China Telecom and China Unicom’s Shanghai branch are among the latest telecommunications carriers to offer token-based packages to consumers.
- China will buy at least US$17 billion of US farm goods annually, White House says — The agreement was struck at the recent summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to US fact sheet.
Nikkei Asia
- China investor takes over 120-year-old German knitting machine maker — Huixing gives Mayer & Cie new lease of life as industry hemmed in by Chinese rivals.
- China chipmaker CXMT logs 1,688% profit surge amid global memory crunch — DRAM maker plans to list on STAR Market in win for Beijing’s chip localization push.
- Brief US-China calm masks simmering anger and distrust — Trump’s Beijing visit highlights both countries’ dilemma in gaining upper hand.
- China’s retail sales grow at slowest pace since COVID pandemic — As Beijing struggles to rev up demand, US touts purchase pledges from Trump-Xi summit.
Bloomberg
- Australia Orders Chinese Investors to Sell Rare Earth Stakes — Australia’s government has ordered the biggest shareholders in rare earths firm Northern Minerals Ltd. to sell their stakes.
- US to Mull Action If China Overcapacity Found, Trade Envoy Says — President Donald Trump will be presented with options for action on China if US investigations determine that industrial overcapacity is influencing Chinese exports, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said.
- Xi, Putin Hail Opening of China-Russia Expo, Stress Cooperation — The Chinese president urged the two countries to leverage geographic proximity and to complement each other economically to boost development and improve living standards.
- China Burns More Fossil Fuels for Power as Coal Production Slips — China’s thermal power generation grew for a fourth straight month in April even as coal output fell, highlighting the challenges Beijing faces in continuing to buffer its economy from the global energy crisis stemming from the war in Iran.
- Opinion: Xi Teaching Trump Thucydides? Good Luck — The Thucydides trap is an idea coined by Graham Allison, inspired by Thucydides’ line that “it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” By Andreas Kluth.
Reuters
- Earthquake hits southwest China; thousands evacuate, buildings collapse — A magnitude 5.2 earthquake in China’s southwest region of Guangxi early on Monday killed two and forced more than 7,000 in the city of Liuzhou to evacuate.
- China denounces Taiwan foreign minister’s Geneva visit amid WHO assembly — Taiwan says island’s exclusion from assembly undermines global health security.
- Investors bet on stability after Trump-Xi summit as Iran war concerns linger — Summit eases geopolitical risk but no breakthroughs on trade or Iran conflict.
- White House gets small rare earth win, but China’s export regime is here to stay — US statement drops reference to elimination of China’s export control regime.
Other Publications
- BBC: The American mayor accused of working for China — The mayor of the Californian city of Arcadia has agreed to plead guilty to charges she acted as an illegal agent for China.
- The Washington Post: Opinion: Trump’s China pragmatism is welcome — Regular readers of this column know that I have not been a fan of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy in his second term. By Fareed Zakaria.
- The Economist: AI super-apps are remaking China’s internet — Welcome to the agentic era.
- Asia Society: China’s Property Rebalancing: The Long Road to a New Development Model — China’s property downturn is now in its fifth year, impairing household, developer, and local government balance sheets.
- Foreign Policy: The Trump-Xi Summit Was Remarkably Banal — A more confident China is happy to downplay presidential visits.
- The New Yorker: The Pageantry and Flattery of Donald Trump’s Visit to China — The President’s talks with Xi Jinping, whose leadership style he seems to envy, yielded potential deals for airplanes and soybeans but no apparent agreement on Iran.
