ASIA: Profits at China’s industrial firms grew for the fourth straight month in August, buoyed in part by a rebound in commodities prices and equipment manufacturing, the statistics bureau said on Sunday. Industrial firm profits grew 19.1% year-on-year in August to 612.81 billion yuan ($89.8 billion), the statistics bureau said. However, industrial firms’ profits still […]

ASIA: ByteDance has applied for a tech export license in China as it races to seal a deal with Oracle Corp and Walmart Inc with hopes will end the US’ government plans to ban its TikTok video-streaming app on security grounds, Reuters reported. The Beijing-based firm submitted the application to Beijing’s municipal commerce bureau and […]

ASIA: US President Donald Trump told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that China must be held accountable for having “unleashed” COVID-19 on the world, prompting Beijing to accuse him of “lies” and abusing the U.N. platform to provoke confrontation. But China’s UN ambassador Zhang Jun rejected Trump’s accusations against China as “baseless” and […]

ASIA: China and India have agreed not to deploy more troops to the frontline, China’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. The two sides held their sixth round of commander-level talks on the border situation on Monday. The countries have agreed not to unilaterally change the situation, so as to avoid any actions that might complicate […]

ASIA: ByteDance and Oracle Corp issued conflicting statements on Monday over the terms of an agreement they reached with the White House over the weekend to allow TikTok to continue to operate in the United States. ByteDance said on Monday that it would own 80% of TikTok Global, a newly created US company that will […]

ASIA: China’s ByteDance is planning a U.S. initial public offering of TikTok Global, the new company that will operate the popular short video app, should its proposed deal be cleared by the U.S. government, Reuters reported. ByteDance is racing to clinch an agreement with the White House that will stave off a U.S. ban on […]

ASIA: China’s industrial output accelerated the most in eight months in August, while retail sales grew for the first time this year, suggesting the economic recovery is gathering pace as demand starts to improve more broadly from the coronavirus crisis. Industrial output growth quickened to 5.6% in August from a year earlier, the fastest in […]

ASIA: Byte Dance has abandoned the sale of TikTok in the United States on Sunday in pursuit of a partnership with Oracle Corp it hopes will spare it a US ban while appeasing the Chinese government. ByteDance had been in talks to divest TikTok’s US business to either Oracle or a consortium led by Microsoft […]

  ASIA: Chinese financial technology group Ant has unveiled plans for a stock market debut that may raise a record $30bn. The company, affiliated with online retail giant Alibaba, says it will sell shares in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Ant, best known in China for the mobile payments powerhouse Alipay, was launched in 2004 by […]

ASIA: The Trump administration on Monday announced it would further tighten restrictions on Huawei Technologies Co, aimed at cracking down on its access to commercially available chips. The US Commerce Department’s actions expanded limits announced in May were aimed at preventing the Chinese telecommunications giant from obtaining semiconductors without a special license — including chips […]