La Banque populaire de Chine (BPC) a abaissé de 15 points de base, à 4,45%, son taux préférentiel de prêt à cinq ans, qui sert de référence au marché chinois du crédit immobilier, alors que les économistes tablaient sur une diminution de seulement cinq à dix points.

Un acte volontaire
Selon les autorités chinoises, les pilotes n'ont pas répondu aux appels répétés des contrôleurs aériens et des avions à proximité lors du décrochage. L'enquête sur le crash se penche sur les actions de l'équipage présent dans le cockpit de l'avion alors qu'aucune preuve d'un dysfonctionnement technique n'a été décelée jusqu'à présent, ont déclaré deux sources proches du dossier.

Some factories might leave China, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter much

For the first four months of the year, foreign direct investment into China rose by 26.1% year-on-year to $74.47 billion, China’s Ministry of Commerce said, with that from the U.S. up by more than 50%.

“It is very difficult to match the scale and scope of China’s supply chains outside China at the moment,” Rana said. Only supply chains for very specific products — like semiconductors or electric vehicle parts —might be moving to Vietnam, Malaysia or other countries, he added.
 
China’s supply chain dominance, built up over the years, is also supporting new business models.
 
One of the better known is Shein. Backed by funds such as Sequoia Capital China, the company has combined big data analytics and its supply chain network in China to become an international e-commerce giant in low-cost fast fashion.
 
“China’s supply chain advantage is not just based on labor cost,” James Liang, managing partner at Skyline Ventures, said in Mandarin translated by CNBC.

By the numbers, China’s exports rose by 3.9% in April from a year earlier, the slowest pace since a 0.18% increase in June 2020, according to official data accessed through Wind Information.
 
Vietnam in contrast saw exports jump by 30.4% in April from a year ago, following a nearly 19.1% year-on-year increase in March, Wind showed.

Foreign direct investment from the U.S. fell by 14%.

As a result of the latest Covid controls, nearly a quarter of 372 respondents to the EU Chamber of Commerce in China’s survey in late April said they were considering shifting current or planned investments to other markets.

Beijing’s talks with Kiribati, a Pacific island nation 3,000km from Hawaii where US Indo-Pacific Command is based, are the most advanced, the officials said.

In another sign Beijing is stepping up its push in the region, it sealed a deal with Vanuatu on Friday to upgrade an international airport in Luganville, a key US military base during the second world war.

Beijing has security deals with other countries in the region, including Fiji and Papua New Guinea. But diplomats and security officials said the pact with the Solomons is much more far-reaching and that it might have bigger ambitions regarding Kiribati.

SCOOP・US, Japan, Australia & India will launch satellite-based maritime initiate to combat #Chinese #illegalfishing when @JoeBiden, Kishida, Modi & Albanese hold #Quad summit in Tokyo. (1/2)
 
https://t.co/bq4CnUjGlG

President Joe Biden and the other Quad leaders — Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and newly elected Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese — will announce the initiative at a summit in Tokyo, according to the official, who alleged that China was responsible for 95 per cent of the illegal fishing in the Indo-Pacific.

The initiative will use satellite technology to connect existing surveillance centres in Singapore, India and the Pacific to create a tracking system for illegal fishing from the Indian Ocean and south-east Asia to the South Pacific, according to the official.

The system will allow the US and its partners to monitor illegal fishing even when fishing boats have turned off the transponders that are typically used to track maritime vessels.

“We’re going to provide a global capacity that will link the systems together to be able to track illegal shipping for the first time,” said the official.

“China has become the world’s largest perpetrator of illegal fishing,” said Charles Edel, Australia chair at CSIS, a think-tank. “They have drastically depleted global fish stocks and undermined traditional livelihoods of many countries, so any steps taken to track, identify and curb such activity would have environmental and security benefits for the region.”

“China has become the world’s largest perpetrator of illegal fishing,” said Charles Edel, Australia chair at CSIS, a think-tank. “They have drastically depleted global fish stocks and undermined traditional livelihoods of many countries, so any steps taken to track, identify and curb such activity would have environmental and security benefits for the region.”

The US sees the initiative as a part of a broader strategy to reduce the growing reliance on China by a number of small Pacific island nations.

“We’re just asking people in the region to remember that the US and our partners and allies have been the partner of choice on security and peace implementation since the end of World World Two,” said a US state department official, who added that Washington was “deepening our relationships with the region” to counter China.

Après avoir longtemps entretenu une certaine ambiguïté, le président américain Joe Biden a confirmé lundi à Tokyo que les Etats-Unis défendraient militairement Taïwan si Pékin envahissait l’île.

«Personne ne doit sous-estimer la ferme détermination, la forte volonté et la puissante capacité du peuple chinois à défendre la souveraineté nationale et l’intégrité territoriale», a répliqué Wang Wenbin, un porte-parole de la diplomatie chinoise.
 
«Nous demandons instamment aux États-Unis (...) d’éviter d’envoyer de mauvais signaux aux forces indépendantistes» de Taïwan, a-t-il déclaré lors d’une conférence de presse régulière.

Le président américain Joe Biden a prévenu lundi à Tokyo que les Etats-Unis défendraient militairement Taïwan si Pékin envahissait l’île autonome, avertissant que la Chine « flirte avec le danger ».
 
Joe Biden prêt à honorer son « engagement »
« C’est l’engagement que nous avons pris », a déclaré M. Biden quand on lui a demandé lors d’une conférence de presse si les Etats-Unis interviendraient militairement contre une tentative chinoise de s’emparer de ce territoire par la force.

« Nous étions d’accord avec la politique d’une seule Chine, nous l’avons signée (…) mais l’idée que (Taïwan) puisse être pris par la force n’est tout simplement pas appropriée », a-t-il dit.
 
Les Chinois « flirtent déjà avec le danger en ce moment en volant si près (de Taïwan) et avec toutes les manoeuvres qu’ils entreprennent », a déploré M. Biden.
 
Le président américain a fait ces déclarations lors d’une conférence de presse commune avec le Premier ministre japonais Fumio Kishida, avec lequel il s’est longuement entretenu à Tokyo.
 
M. Kishida a de son côté déclaré que le Japon et les Etats-Unis « vont surveiller les récentes activités de la marine chinoise, ainsi que les mouvements liés aux exercices conjoints de la Chine et de la Russie ».
 
« Nous nous opposons fermement aux tentatives de changer le statu quo par la force en mer de Chine orientale et en mer de Chine méridionale », a dit M. Kishida. « De plus, nous sommes convenus de nous occuper ensemble de diverses questions liées à la Chine, dont celle des droits humains », a-t-il ajouté.

Biden says US would respond ‘militarily’ if China attacked Taiwan, but White House insists there’s no policy change

The White House quickly downplayed the comments, saying they don’t reflect a change in US policy. It’s the third time in recent months – including during a CNN town hall in October – that Biden has said the US would protect Taiwan from a Chinese attack, only to have the White House walk back those remarks.