Opinion

Russian President Vladimir Putin is wrapping up his visit to neighbouring China, aiming to win greater support from Beijing for his military operation in Ukraine and expand crucial trade to his country’s increasingly isolated economy. Russia and China’s partnership has only grown closer since the invasion of Ukraine, and Beijing has rebuffed Western claims that it is aiding Moscow’s war effort while offering a critical economic lifeline with trade hitting $240bn in 2023. Putin visited the northeastern city of Harbin on Friday, the final day of his two-day visit, to highlight the two countries’ “trade and cultural exchange”, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported. On Thursday, Putin arrived in Beijing on his first trip abroad since his March re-election, meeting President Xi Ji

President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Beijing for talks with his Chinese counterpart and “old friend” Xi Jinping as he seeks to deepen ties after launching some of Russia’s most significant incursions into Ukraine since its invasion in 2022. It is Putin’s second visit to Beijing in less than a year, and his first foreign visit since being sworn in for a new term that will keep him in power until at least 2030. The visit will also celebrate 75 years since the Soviet Union recognised the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Putin’s motorcade was met by Xi at the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square on Thursday, where a lavish welcoming ceremony included members of the People’s Liberation Army standing at attention and a multi-gun salute. Putin and Xi later

Key developments 100% tariffs imposed on Chinese EVs following climate envoy meetings  FIRST MEETING: The recently appointed Chinese and US climate envoys Liu Zhenmin and John Podesta met in Washington last week with an aim to build on the “Sunnylands statement” that had restored engagement between presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden at their summit last year, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported. At the meeting, Podesta raised issues with Liu including “Chinese overcapacity in solar and battery manufacturing, steel production and coal power”, according to Reuters, adding that “the tone of the talks continued to be cordial”. State-run newspaper China Youth Daily reported comments from Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson

China’s Xi Jinping had a good time touring Europe last week. Admittedly, talks in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, were hardly a shining success. Both Xi and his interlocutors largely stuck to their guns—whether on China’s ambivalent position on the war in Ukraine or the ongoing dispute regarding the import of electric vehicles into Europe. But then came the Serbian and Hungarian legs of Xi’s European visit. In both Belgrade and Budapest, the Chinese leader received a hero’s welcome: crowds cheering his arrival at Palata Srbije and at the Buda Castle, his op-eds gracing the pages of Belgrade’s daily Politika and the Magyar Nemzet, and talk of a “shared future.” The visits to two of China’s closest frie

Abstract This study aims to estimate the net effect of China’s entrepreneurship policy on back-home migrant workers since 2015. Using survey data from the provinces of; Zhejiang, Henan, and Guizhou with propensity score matching to control selection bias, the study indicates that the overall entrepreneurship policy has a significant positive impact on the probability of entrepreneurial entry. The poverty alleviation effect of the overall policy is greater than its industrial development effect, while the employment effect is not significant. The infrastructure policy’s effect on employment, industrial development, and poverty alleviation is greater than the other policies, and the financial policy’s effect on these three aspects is not significant. This study contributes to the existin