Trade Wars Don’t Have Winners, China Tells Trump

A rundown of the news making headlines in and around China:

Tariff war warning: Trade between China and the U.S. benefits both nations, and trade wars don’t have winners, said a spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Washington. Liu Pengyu’s comments came in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s Monday vow to put a 10% extra tariff on goods from China. In response to Trump’s claim that Beijing isn’t taking sufficient action on the export of drug fentanyl, Liu said “the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.”

Bribe sentence: Former Bank of China Ltd. Chairman Liu Liange sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for soliciting and accepting more than 121 million yuan ($16.7 million) in bribes over 13 years, a local court said Tuesday. Additionally, he was also sentenced to ten years of imprisonment and fined 150,000 yuan ($20,666) for illegally granting 3.3 billion yuan in corporate loans, which led to more than 190 million yuan in principal losses.

Zhihu earnings: Quora-like Zhihu Inc. reported a 96.8% decline in net loss in the third quarter, driven by cost-cutting measures that improved gross profit margin to 63.9%. CFO Wang Han said the Q&A platform aims for substantial loss reduction and approaching overall profitability in 2025. The company’s revenue declined 17.32% to 845 million yuan ($116 million), a steeper drop than the first two quarters. Meanwhile, its monthly active users decreased by 26.6% year-over-year to81.1 million, while subscription members grew 11.5% to 16.5 million.

Sovereign fund chief: Zhang Qingsong, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, has been appointed chairman of China Investment Corp. (CIC), the world’s second-largest sovereign wealth fund by assets, according to a CIC statement Tuesday. This comes as no surprise, as Zhang was made head of CIC’s Communist Party committee earlier this month. Established in 2007, CIC is wholly owned by China’s cabinet and manages the country’s foreign exchange reserves. At the end of 2022, CIC had $1.24 trillion in total assets.

Jobseekers’ unpaid work: Starting next October, Hong Kong will require recipients of unemployment benefits to participate in at least one hour of weekly, unpaid work to reduce reliance on subsidies and promote social reintegration. The new program will replace the employment support service, which has helped less than a fifth of participants secure jobs or return to school since its 2020 launch. Hong Kong’s unemployment rate stands at 3.1%.

Compiled by the Caixin newsroom and edited by Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com)

caixinglobal.com is the English-language online news portal of Chinese financial and business news media group Caixin. Global Neighbours is authorized to reprint this article.

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