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☆ US-China meeting in Bali lays groundwork for stronger economic ties
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Laura He | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

That helps explain why expectations for Monday’s meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit were set so low. But to the surprise of many, the meeting featured televised images of smiling officials, handshakes, and a commitment to reopening lines of communication on urgent global issues. Analysts said the meeting could lay the groundwork for stronger ties between the world’s top economic powerhouses. Speaking after the three-hour meeting, Biden described it as an “open and candid” discussion, saying he planned to manage the China relationship “responsibly.”“We’re going to compete vigorously, but I’m not looking for conflict,” Biden told reporters. “The meeting met or exceeded the low expectations set by the Biden administration and was a mild positive for global stability,” he said.

Nov 13 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in person on Monday for the first time since taking office, with U.S. concerns over Taiwan, Russia's war in Ukraine and North Korea's nuclear ambitions on top of his agenda. Biden and Xi, who have held five phone or video calls since Biden became president in January 2021, last met in person during the Obama administration. Xi's government has also criticized the Biden administration's posture toward Taiwan as undermining China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Biden will also discuss Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and plans to be "unapologetic" in his defence of Ukraine, U.S. officials said last week. Biden will also warn Xi that North Korea's continued pursuit of weapons development will lead to an enhanced U.S. military presence in the region, the White House said.

The White House said in a statement after the meeting that Biden raised concerns about human rights and China’s provocations around Taiwan. “President Biden and President Xi reiterated their agreement that a nuclear war should never be fought and can never be won,” a White House readout said, referring to the threat of nuclear weapons use in Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 leaders' summit in Bali, Indonesia, November 14, 2022. Planning for Monday’s meeting predated Pelosi’s trip, and discussions continued between US and Chinese officials despite Beijing’s furor. “Xi is not an enigma to President Biden,” a senior administration official told CNN.

SINGAPORE, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Oil prices picked up on Friday after a milder than expected U.S. inflation data reinforced hopes that the Federal Reserve will slow down rate hikes, boosting chances of a soft landing for the world's biggest economy. Prices were still set to show a decline for the week after COVID-19 cases in top oil importer China jumped, raising fears of weaker fuel demand. Brent crude futures rose 21 cents, or 0.2%, to $93.88 a barrel at 0500 GMT, extending a 1.1% rise in the previous session. "Since traders are hyper-sensitive to lockdowns in the world's largest oil importer, this could temporarily hold the oil market's top-side ambition in check," said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management. Reporting by Sonali Paul in Melbourne and Jeslyn Lerh in Singapore; Editing by Bradley Perrett & Simon Cameron-MooreOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Oil crawls higher on U.S. hopes, but COVID rise in China caps gains
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Brent crude futures were up 23 cents, or 0.3%, to $93.80 a barrel at 0101 GMT, extending a 1.1% rise in the previous session. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 28 cents, or 0.3%, to $86.75 a barrel, after climbing 0.8% in the previous session. So far this week, WTI has fallen more than 6%, while Brent has dropped nearly 5%. A weaker U.S. dollar boosts oil demand as it makes the commodity cheaper for buyers holding other currencies. "Since traders are hyper-sensitive to lockdowns in the world's largest oil importer, this could temporarily hold the oil market's top-side ambition in check.

☆ Take Five: A UK budget and trouble in crypto land
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

LONDON, Nov 11 (Reuters) - The long-awaited UK fiscal plan is (almost) here and after the ructions unleashed by September's mini-budget, markets are paying close attention. UK markets have recouped most of the maxi-losses from the mini-budget, but the outlook is grim. Reuters Graphics2/ CRYPTO CHAOSThe crypto world has been thrown into fresh chaos by a meltdown at FTX. Big banks too are starting to pare back staffing levels. September data showed a measure of underlying retail sales rising thanks to strong wage gains and savings, even as the broader number came in flat.

☆ Oil crawls higher on U.S. hopes, but Covid rise in China caps gains
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Brent crude futures were up 23 cents, or 0.3%, to $93.80 a barrel at 0101 GMT, extending a 1.1% rise in the previous session. So far this week, WTI has fallen more than 6%, while Brent has dropped nearly 5%. A weaker U.S. dollar boosts oil demand as it makes the commodity cheaper for buyers holding other currencies. "Since traders are hyper-sensitive to lockdowns in the world's largest oil importer, this could temporarily hold the oil market's top-side ambition in check. Hopes that China was going to ease its zero Covid policy pumped up the oil market last week, but comments from health officials this week made it clear they would continue to strictly curb any outbreaks.

He'll hold his first face-to-face meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the G20, where he hopes to explore Xi's "red lines", talk to allies about punishing Russia for its Ukraine invasion and discuss containing North Korea after a barrage of missile tests. On Wednesday, Biden said U.S. aid for Ukraine will continue uninterrupted and any territorial compromise between the two countries is up to Ukraine. Putin will not attend the G20 summit in person but is due join one of the meetings virtually, an Indonesian government official said. They will address North Korea's "unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs," the official said. Biden will "continue to urge the Egyptian government to release political prisoners and undertake human rights related legal reforms," said one of the officials.

The White House said Biden will hold talks on Monday with Xi, China's president, on the sidelines of a Group of 20 nations summit in Indonesia, their first face-to-face meeting since Biden became president in January 2021. China is Washington's main strategic rival and the world's second largest economy after the United States. The United States is looking to have stable relations with Beijing despite tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea, trade and a host of other issues. Washington believes China and Russia have leverage to persuade North Korea not to resume nuclear bomb testing. "This is an area where China and the United States have had a history of working together ... there is a track record of being able to work together.

☆ With Power Secure at Home, China’s Xi Jinping Looks to Project Strength Abroad
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Austin Ramzy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

HONG KONG— Xi Jinping emerged from a Communist Party congress with more power than any Chinese leader in a generation. Now, he’s turning his focus to shoring up foreign ties as he steels the country for heightened competition with the U.S. Leaders from Vietnam, Pakistan, Tanzania and Germany all traveled to Beijing last week to see Mr. Xi—resulting in more face-to-face meetings with foreign dignitaries than the Chinese leader has had in the nearly two years between the early days of the pandemic and the Beijing Winter Olympics in February.

☆ Shanghai bourse kicks off week-long conference to woo global investors
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SHANGHAI, Nov 8 (Reuters) - The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) kicks off on Wednesday a week-long global conference to promote China's capital markets, according to an official agenda, the latest in a flurry of activities by regulators to woo international investors. Participants at the annual SSE Global Investor Conference, to be held Nov. 9-16, and closed to the media, include Chinese regulators, executives from global banks and asset managers such as abrdn, Deutsche Bank and PIMCO. At the Global Financial Leaders' Investment Summit in Hong Kong last week, the country's senior financial regulators reaffirmed China's commitment to economic growth as a priority. Senior Chinese officials also sent similar messages at the China International Import Expo over the weekend. In the "fireside chat" section, senior officials from China's securities and foreign exchange regulators will talk about promoting the opening-up of China's capital market, and facilitating cross-border investment.

☆ No immediate end in sight for China’s costly zero-Covid policy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Nectar Gan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Hong Kong CNN —China has reiterated its unswerving commitment to its longstanding zero-Covid policy, despite mounting public frustration the stringent measures are costing the very lives they’re intended to protect. Tragic cases perceived to be linked to the policy have gained momentum online as people question why it should continue. In another tragedy that sparked nationwide outrage, a 3-year-old boy died of gas poisoning Wednesday at a locked down compound in the northwestern city of Lanzhou after Covid restrictions delayed rescue efforts. VCG/Visual China Group/Getty ImagesA long way homeEven in places not under extended lockdowns, the constant Covid testing edicts and stringent travel restrictions have fueled growing discontent. In a series of Weibo posts, he openly questioned the far reaching travel restrictions and criticized propaganda efforts exaggerating Covid deaths overseas.

☆ French far-right party chooses 27-year-old to replace Marine Le Pen as leader
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

Bardella, 27, won an internal party vote with 85% support, marking a symbolic changing of the guard at the resurgent National Rally party. Marine Le Pen is still expected to wield significant power in the party’s leadership and run again for France’s presidency in 2027. Le Pen said Bardella’s main challenge will be pursuing the party “roadmap” of taking power in France. Bardella had been the interim president of the National Rally since Le Pen entered the presidential race last year. Le Pen lost to French President Emmanuel Macron on her third presidential bid in April but earned her highest score yet.

☆ China Investigates Central Bank Deputy Governor in First Major Probe Since Party Congress
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( Sha Hua | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

SINGAPORE—China’s top anticorruption agency is investigating a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, in a move that signals tighter scrutiny of China’s central bank after the conclusion of a Communist Party conclave last month where Xi Jinping secured a norm-breaking third term as leader. The investigation into Fan Yifei for “suspected serious violations of laws and discipline” was announced in a single-sentence statement published Saturday by the anticorruption agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Fan was taken from his workplace on Friday afternoon, according to the Securities Times, a state-owned newspaper.

☆ Possible China Covid Reopening Prompts Jittery Markets, Intense Speculation
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Liyan Qi | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The lack of clarity around whether or not China will ease its Covid-19 strategy is prompting a guessing game, with investors making bets that the country will open up soon, while others are more cautious. China has kept in place severe Covid controls as the rest of the world has opened up. Many had expected that the end of the 20th Communist Party Congress last month would mark a potential opportunity for China to start loosening restrictions.

☆ Father in China says strict Covid policies ‘indirectly killed’ his son
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

BEIJING — The father of a 3-year-old boy who died this week from carbon monoxide poisoning in northwest China said strict Covid-19 policies “indirectly killed” his son by causing delays obtaining treatment, in a case that has set off social media outrage. The boy’s death on Tuesday is the latest incident to generate blowback over China’s strict zero-Covid policy, with one critical hashtag racking up 380 million reads on Wednesday on the Twitter-like Weibo platform. “I personally think that he was indirectly killed,” the boy’s father, Tuo Shilei, told Reuters by phone from the Gansu provincial capital, Lanzhou, which has been under lockdowns for several months. At around midday on Tuesday, after his wife slipped and fell after being affected by gas fumes while cooking, Tuo noticed that his son, Wenxuan, was also unwell. One hashtag, “Three years of Covid was his entire life” became a trending topic before being scrubbed, a common occurence on China’s heavily censored internet.

The Hang Seng (.HSI) surged 5.3% and notched its biggest weekly gain in 11 years. Shares in online giants Alibaba (9988.HK) and JD.com (9618.HK) each rose more than 10% and the Hang Seng Tech index (.HSTECH) rose 7.5%. However the Hang Seng remains down 30% this year against a 24% fall in world stocks (.MIWD00000PUS). China stocks market capBUY THE RUMOURChanges to COVID policies have not been officially flagged. Yet markets have desperate reasons to rally after the Hang Seng hit a 13-year low last month in the wake of China's Communist Party Congress.

BEIJING, Nov 4 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and a delegation of business leaders landed in Beijing on Friday morning, kicking off the first visit by a leader of a G7 nation to China in three years. China's strict zero-COVID policy and growing tensions with the West have made it unfeasible for leaders of major western powers to visit China, while Chinese President Xi Jinping has only just resumed foreign trips. Amid historic inflation and looming recession in Germany, Scholz will be looking to emphasise the need for continued cooperation with China, analysts say. In the run-up to the visit, there had been criticism of the visit within the EU and the German government coalition, mainly from the Green Party and the Liberals. Scholz has changed his tune even faster, but he does not have as solid of a domestic political standing as Merkel," said Wang.

☆ Hong Kong stocks log best week in more than a decade
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Julia Horowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index (HSI) soared more than 5% on Friday and finished the week up 8.7%, logging its biggest gain since 2011. China’s Shanghai Composite (SHCOMP) rose 5.3% this week, its best performance in more than two years. David Chao, global market strategist for Invesco Asia-Pacific, said some of this investor angst appears to have lifted. The Hang Seng shot up 5.4%, while the Shanghai Composite gained 2.4%. The Hang Seng has plummeted 31% year-to-date, compared to a 22% drop in the S&P 500.

☆ We cannot put China on a par with Russia, top EU diplomat says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Sabine Siebold | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MUENSTER, Germany, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Western countries need to reduce their dependence on China but should not put it in the same category as Russia, the European Union's top diplomat said on the second day of a meeting of the Group of Seven foreign ministers in Germany. China hawks have said the trip risks appearing as a stamp of approval for Xi and a sign Germany will continue to prioritize its economic relations with Beijing over security and strategic considerations. "It is clear that China is .. becoming much more assertive, much more on a self-reliant course," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters. "But for the time being, many member states have a strong economic relationship with China and I don't think we can put China and Russia on the same level." "Africa is suffering a lot from the war in Ukraine because Russia is blocking food, destroying agricultural transport infrastructures," said Borrell.

☆ Tiger Global Halts New Chinese Equities Investments
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Juliet Chung | Jing Yang | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Tiger Global Management, which has offices in Midtown Manhattan, had been shrinking its exposure to Chinese equities, concentrating on a smaller set of companies. Longtime China investor Tiger Global Management has hit pause on investing in Chinese equities, said people familiar with the matter, as the firm reassesses its exposure to the world’s second-largest economy after President Xi Jinping cemented his control over the country. Tiger executives, including founder Charles “ Chase” Coleman , have told others that Mr. Xi’s reelection and his stacking of the Communist Party’s leadership with loyalists at the recent party Congress could increase geopolitical tensions and means the country’s Zero-Covid policy will likely continue, the people said.

☆ Sri Lanka holds debt restructuring talks with bilateral creditors
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Uditha Jayasinghe | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

"The IMF programme and economic reform agenda will reconstitute Sri Lanka's financial buffers," Weerasinghe said in the emailed statement. "I thank the official creditors for joining this productive meeting where we were able to discuss Sri Lanka's current financial position and progress on reforms." Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time in May. Japan, India and China are Sri Lanka's largest bilateral creditors, while China's EximBank accounts for about $3.8 billion in loans extended to Colombo to fund large scale infrastructure projects. Earlier on Thursday, S&P Global Ratings lowered ratings on multiple Sri Lanka bonds to its lowest rating "D", from "CC", following missed interest payments on Sept. 14 and 28.

"We do think that they (North Korea) are making calculations about the degree of receptivity for others in the region, I think, particularly Russia and China. However in recent years the 15-member body has been split on how to deal with North Korea. He said he thought the latter crisis made North Korea "more focused on ways in which they could get support from particularly China." "China and Russia have long been on the record as opposing the DPRK nuclear program," the official said referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name. The official rejected growing calls among some North Korea experts for Washington to recognize North Korea as a nuclear power that is never going to disarm.

☆ China's daily local COVID cases hit 3,200 for Nov 2, highest since Aug. 17
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SHANGHAI, Nov 3 (Reuters) - China recorded 3,200 daily local COVID-19 cases for Nov. 2, the highest in two and a half months, of which 531 were symptomatic and 2,669 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Thursday. It was the first time local daily cases have exceeded 3,000 since Aug. 17. The capital Beijing reported 28 symptomatic and three asymptomatic local cases on Wednesday, compared with 28 symptomatic and four asymptomatic cases the previous day, local government data showed. Financial hub Shanghai reported one symptomatic and two asymptomatic cases on Wednesday, compared with one symptomatic and no asymptomatic cases a day before, the local health authority reported. Guangzhou, also in the south, reported 50 new locally transmitted symptomatic and 323 asymptomatic cases, compared with 73 symptomatic and 253 asymptomatic cases a day before, authorities in the city of nearly 19 million people said.

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