China

Is oil being priced in yuan now?

Large volumes of internationally traded crude are now being priced, invoiced and settled only in Chinese yuan.

Iran charges ships a toll, in yuan

Iran says commercial ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz must now pay a "maritime security passage toll" of up to $2 million a transit, and only in Chinese yuan.

Lunar New Year: China keeps the yuan steady

The Lunar New Year holiday emptied mainland China's financial centres, and the People's Bank of China kept the onshore yuan on a tight leash.

Singles' Day: A truce, but will China shop?

China's annual Singles' Day shopping festival ended on an unusually subdued note, a sign of malaise in the world's second-largest consumer economy.

America and China call a truce, again

On 4 November Washington and Beijing surprised markets once again with a broad trade de-escalation, rolling back punitive tariffs and suspending retaliatory export controls.

China's rare earth counterpunch

On 9 October, ahead of a scheduled bilateral summit, Beijing imposed sweeping export restrictions, effective immediately, on specialised heavy rare earth refining equipment, sintered neodymium magnets and advanced metallurgy software.

Nvidia's China problem

Nvidia reported revenue of $46.7 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2026, another very strong result.

Nvidia pays Washington to sell to China

Washington has agreed to let Nvidia resume sales of its customised H20 artificial intelligence chips to China, on condition that the company hands 15 per cent of the revenue straight to the US Treasury.

China's rare earths are its best weapon

When trade talks reconvened in London on 9–10 June, Beijing played its strongest card.

America and China call a truce

Washington and Beijing surprised markets with a 90-day trade truce that rolls back their triple-digit tariffs to an interim level.

China holds the yuan steady

The People's Bank of China is holding the onshore yuan near 7.20 per dollar, using firm daily fixings and dollar sales by state banks to keep it from weakening.

Lunar New Year: DeepSeek and China's tech comeback

China finally promises to loosen up

After a Politburo meeting on 9 December, Beijing changed its official monetary stance from 'prudent' to 'moderately loose', the boldest shift in its policy language for a decade.

A 60% tariff is a tax on Americans

Donald Trump has formally restated his plan for a sixty per cent tariff on all imports from China, a shock without modern parallel for US trade.

Singles' Day: China fixes its local debt, not its shoppers

Beijing unveiled a RMB 10 trillion ($1.4 trillion) debt-swap programme on the eve of Singles' Day, meant to help local governments refinance hidden off-balance-sheet debt over five years.

How Chinese goods reach America through Mexico

China’s share of US merchandise imports has fallen from twenty-one per cent in 2017 to under fourteen per cent today.

China finally fires its stimulus bazooka

Beijing has given up on piecemeal stimulus. The property slump shows no sign of ending, deflation is deepening and growth targets are slipping away.

China's cheap EVs meet Europe's tariffs

The European Commission has imposed provisional countervailing duties of up to 38.1 per cent on battery electric vehicles (EVs) imported from China.

Lunar New Year: China's stock market can't escape falling prices

Chinese consumer prices fell 0.8 per cent in January from a year earlier, the steepest drop in fifteen years, and the country's stock markets enter the Year of the Dragon with little to celebrate.

Singles' Day: China's shoppers have lost their nerve

Alibaba and JD.com again declined to publish gross merchandise volume figures for Singles' Day, the second year running, and offered only vague claims that transactions had grown.

China's hidden local debt problem

China's central government has allowed provinces to issue more than RMB 1 trillion of special refinancing bonds to deal with the hidden debts of Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs), which are estimated at $9 trillion.

Country Garden and the end of China's property model

Country Garden missed $22.5 million in coupon payments on its international bonds, and the last pillar of China's private property model cracked.

China's prices are falling. Its currency could be next

Chinese consumer prices fell 0.3 per cent year-on-year in July, and the People's Bank of China now faces an awkward choice.

China's lending engine sputters

The People's Bank of China cut its one-year loan prime rate by ten basis points, to 3.55 per cent, and very little happened.

China is spending again. Its property market isn't

China's economy grew at a respectable 4.5 per cent annual pace in the first quarter, lifted by a sharp rebound in retail spending, restaurants and domestic travel after the end of zero-Covid.

Lunar New Year: China's reopening lifts the yuan

The yuan had a good Lunar New Year. Having flirted with 7.35 to the dollar in late October, the onshore and offshore rates rallied back toward 6.78, one of the fastest percentage recoveries on record.

China reopens, and the world gets a new inflation problem

Markets have decided that China's eventual exit from zero-Covid will be pure good news for global inflation.