FRANKFURT China’s Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund has dropped its takeover bid for German chip equipment maker Aixtron after U.S. President Barack Obama blocked the deal. Fujian’s takeover vehicle Grand Chip Investment said on Thursday its offer had lapsed as it had failed to obtain U.S. regulatory approval for the purchase, which had been a condition of the deal. Investors who had already accepted its takeover offer […]
By Pak Yiu and Lisa Jucca | HONG KONG HONG KONG Cardinal Joseph Zen, the most senior Chinese Catholic cleric, says the participation of an excommunicated prelate at two bishop ordinations in China was a “slap in the face” for Pope Francis just as Rome seeks a historic deal with Beijing. Bishop Lei Shiyin, who was excommunicated by the Vatican in 2011 for accepting his appointment without […]
In a glass cube inside a MK2 cinema near France’s national library in Paris, viewers can choose between HTC Vive, Playstation VR and Oculus Rift headsets, or they can go for “full body immersive” simulators The first wave of virtual reality cinemas, heralding what their creators claim will be an entertainment revolution, rolls out across the world this month. The first screening room in France opened Wednesday […]
The UK’s National Grid has agreed to sell a 61 per cent stake in its gas distribution network to a consortium of global investors, a deal that will plug the 11m homes the network serves into investors such as China’s sovereign wealth fund and Australian investment bank Macquarie. The terms of the transaction imply an enterprise value for the division of around £13.8bn including debt. The investment […]
SYDNEY Asian shares hustled to one-month highs on Thursday after Wall Street strode to another record, while bonds rallied on wagers the European Central Bank would extend its stimulus campaign at a policy meeting later in the session. Risk appetite got an extra boost when China reported upbeat trade figures with exports and imports both beating forecasts. Resource imports were very strong, a major reason prices for […]
By Asad Hashim | ISLAMABAD ISLAMABAD Pakistan on Thursday mourned the 47 victims of its deadliest plane crash in four years, among them a famed-rockstar-turned-Muslim evangelist, two infants and three foreigners, as officials sought to pinpoint the cause of the disaster. Engine trouble was initially believed responsible, but many questions remain, stirring new worries about the safety record of money-losing state carrier Pakistani International Airlines. […]
By Dominique Patton and Steve Holland | BEIJING/NEW YORK BEIJING/NEW YORK President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as the next U.S. ambassador to China, choosing a longstanding friend of Beijing after rattling the world’s second largest economy with tough talk on trade and a telephone call with the leader of Taiwan. The appointment may help to ease trade tensions between the two countries, the […]
Submitted by Daniel Cloud “Donald Trump is either too incompetent to understand that his foolish phone call threatens our national security, or he’s doing it deliberately because he reportedly wants to build hotels in Taiwan to pad his own pockets.” – (Democratic National Committee Spokesperson) Is that true? Did “incompetent” President-Elect Donald Trump’s “foolish” telephone conversation with Taiwan’s President Cai Yingwen actually “threaten American’s […]
Wednesday 06:00 GMT Overview Bourses across Asia were higher, taking their cue from Wall Street’s return to near record highs and rally in Europe led by Italian banks. European bourses are expected to open firmer, with spreadbetters predicting the UK’s FTSE 100 will add 30 points to 6,810 and Germany’s Dax to gain 60 points to 10,835. US index futures suggest the S&P 500 will shed 1 […]
Picture it: rumours of a renminbi devaluation keep growing. Residents rush to open accounts offshore as experts warn Beijing will get off on the wrong foot with a relatively new US administration if a big depreciation happens. Official denials are made regularly — until a devaluation of about 50 per cent follows in short order. That was China in 1994. Today the idea of a similarly brutal, […]
Attorney Peter Smith, research editor for the Center, has filed all 17 lawsuits for the Center, ten of which the Center either won or settled. In response to these lawsuits, federal agencies have disclosed records involving government contracts related to Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush’s initiative to fight AIDS in foreign countries, and audits of the Medicare Advantage program. “The 17 represent just a small fraction of the thousands of […]
By Costas Pitas | LONDON LONDON When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Britain last year and went for a drink with then Prime Minister David Cameron, he walked away with a smile on his face. Now China has walked away with the pub. “The Plough at Cadsden” in the heart of the English countryside will go down as one of the more unusual UK buys for Chinese […]
Several European companies in China have been unable to remit dividends abroad following new exchange controls, in the first confirmation that a complicated approval process for making payments out of China is having a wider impact than first indicated. The EU Chamber of Commerce in Beijing said the payment difficulties experienced by EU companies were “disruptive to business operations”. The measures, introduced on November 28, appear designed […]
If you set out to make a positive investment case for Italy 20 years ago, the best hope was to play down the myriad structural inefficiencies that blighted the corporate sector and argue that this was a good economy burdened by an unworkable state. Now, after years of no growth accompanied by stubbornly high public debt, a positive case looks even harder to make, especially after the […]
HONG KONGThe corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping is reliant on a secret system of detentions and torture beyond the reach of the formal Chinese criminal justice system, a U.S.-based human rights group said in a report on Tuesday. Human Rights Watch, which released its study in Hong Kong, called for the abolition of the system known as shuanggui, through which it alleges that confessions […]
Anyone checking the exchange rate between China’s renminbi and the US dollar would have got a shock early on Tuesday when an apparent glitch resulted in quotes shown on Google and at least two other currency exchange websites showing an 8 per cent devaluation. When markets opened, the Chinese currency instead rose against its US counterpart, after the central bank set the midpoint of the renminbi’s 4 per […]
GUATEMALA CITY Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen will visit diplomatic ally Guatemala next month, the foreign minister said on Monday, but it was unclear if she would also go to the United States after a phone call with President-elect Donald Trump raised sensitivities in Sino-U.S. relations. Tsai is due to visit Guatemala on Jan. 11-12, Foreign Minister Carlos Raul Morales told Reuters. He gave no details on what […]
The World Economic Forum is preparing to welcome Xi Jinping to its annual meeting in January, in what would be the first such appearance by a Chinese president. Mr Xi’s stop-off at the mountain resort will coincide with a state visit to Switzerland and planning is well under way, according to two people who have been involved in the arrangements. The annual meeting is a favourite watering […]
BEIJING A senior Chinese officer has met Djibouti’s military chief-of-staff in Beijing and thanked him for supporting China’s construction of a military base in the Horn of Africa country, the second such high-level meeting in a month. Djibouti’s position on the northwestern edge of the Indian Ocean has fuelled worries in India that it would become another of China’s “string of pearls” of military alliances and assets […]
By Roberta Rampton and Ben Blanchard | WASHINGTON/BEIJING WASHINGTON/BEIJING The White House said on Monday it had sought to reassure China after President-elect Donald Trump’s phone call with Taiwan’s leader last week, which the Obama administration warned could undermine progress in relations with Beijing. The statement from a spokesman for U.S. President Barack Obama highlighted concerns about the potential fallout from Trump’s unusual call with Taiwan President […]
By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS Russia and China on Monday vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have demanded a seven-day truce in Syria’s Aleppo, with Russia arguing it would allow rebels to regroup and that time was needed for talks between Washington and Moscow. It was the sixth time Russia has vetoed a Security Council resolution on Syria since the conflict started […]
BEIJING Iran’s nuclear deal with six major powers should continue regardless of changes in the internal situation of participant nations, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Iran’s visiting foreign minister during a meeting in Beijing on Monday. The future of the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear programme has been thrown into jeopardy with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump set to take office next month. During his election campaign […]
BEIJING China’s Foreign Ministry expressed displeasure on Monday after President Barack Obama blocked a Chinese investment fund from acquiring the U.S. business of German semiconductor equipment maker Aixtron (AIXGn.DE). Obama’s executive order barring China’s Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund (FGC) from completing the acquisition of a German company with American assets was one of only a few such instances in which a U.S. president has blocked a […]
Discuss the law of large numbers with statisticians and they mean using large samples to improve experiments. Analysts take the phrase to mean no company or economy can grow stratospherically forever. China watchers have another approach, forecasting eye-popping numbers for future foreign investment into Chinese financial markets. Expected long-term inflows via the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect, launched on Monday, are no exception. But in the short term, […]
