"China’s factory activity grew modestly among smaller manufacturers last month as export orders offset weakening domestic consumption, according to a private survey.
The Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing PMI came in at 50.4 in August, according to data released Monday, beating the median estimate of 50.0 in a Reuters poll. The latest figure also reflects a rebound from the contractionary level of 49.8 in July"
--- Yeah, well, 'rebound'. I have to repeat it again: it's still at best stagnation.
& don't be fooled by the 'private' label. Caixin is a Chinese entity & hence cannot publish anything that goes against official policy.
"The prices of many vegetables nationwide rocketed, some by up to 40 percent, reaching their highest level in five years"
--- Will help the 'recovery' a lot.
"The US and China have been playing a “cat and mouse” game that could lead to “real shortages of… semiconductor materials, and therefore it would start impacting global supply chains,” the Financial Times reported. Not everyone in Japan agrees Tokyo should align its strategy with the US, Bloomberg added: “Japan should have its own philosophy, decide what’s best for the country and stand firm,” an analyst told the outlet."
--- Funny, how some 'analysts' believe that continued dependency on China is a good idea for any country.
"Beijing says Taiwan has been part of China since “ancient times” but was taken by Japan during the “century of humiliation”, the period between 1839 and 1949 during which China was repeatedly subject to defeat and subjugation. Complete restoration of China’s losses in that time is a driving narrative of the CCP, and today is largely focused on Taiwan.
However, Lai, who was elected president in January, noted that China also lost land to Russia during that period but was not making any effort to take it back. He said this showed Beijing’s plans to annex Taiwan – which it has not ruled out using force to achieve – were not driven by territorial integrity.
“If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t it take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun? Russia is now at its weakest, right?” he said, referencing an 1858 treaty in which Russia annexed about 1m sq km of Chinese territory, including Haishengwei – today known as Vladivostok."
--- It's not about territorial integrity, it's about territorial expansion. & just because China officially at the moment does not claim the area lost to Russia, doesn't mean that won't happen in the future. For now, China needs Russia as an 'ally'. &, of course, there is the issue of Russian nuclear weapons.
By the way: what Russia annexed was mostly not Chinese but Manchu territory.
"South Africa sold China around $12.5 billion worth of goods in 2023, figures from U.N. database Comtrade show, but imported just under $25 billion worth of Chinese products.
South Africa, which co-founded the BRICS group of developing economies along with Brazil, Russia, India, and China, is also seeking Beijing's backing to help it move on from over a decade of economic stagnation by building up its infrastructure.
Signalling Beijing's willingess to help Pretoria put an end to the persistent power cuts, poor port processing and sub-par railways that have throttled economic growth, Xi proposed elevating bilateral ties to the level of a "new era of all-round strategic partnership," Chinese state media reported."
--- Ah, yes, giving a new name to the diplomatic relationship will surely help the SA economy.
"In February, Li Ying, who runs a popular Chinese-language X account, posted an “urgent notice” saying that his followers in China were being called in to “drink tea” with the police, a euphemism for interrogations. He urged people to unfollow him and take care to make sure that their X accounts didn’t reveal their personal information.
Li, who is based in Italy, runs an account called “Teacher Li is not your teacher”, which posts a stream of unfiltered news about protests and repression in China, the likes of which would never be published in China’s domestic media.
“The police began to call all users who had registered with Chinese mobile phone numbers and asked them to unfollow me,” Li said. People living overseas had their relatives in China contacted by the police"
--- One problem with Twitter is that Musk is quite friendly with the CCP. So, even if you don't publicise your personal info, it might not be safe, anyway.
"China ruft die Europäische Union (EU) im Streit um das Südchinesische Meer zur Zurückhaltung auf. „Die Europäische Union ist keine Partei in der Frage des Südchinesischen Meeres und hat kein Recht, mit dem Finger auf dieses Thema zu zeigen“"
--- Denn man darf nur eine Meinung haben, wenn diese positiv für China ist.
