682,000 mainland tourists in Hong Kong from May 1 to 3, up 23% year on year
More than 682,000 mainland Chinese visitors entered Hong Kong during the first three days of the Labour Day 'golden week' holiday, with arrivals on the second day setting a new post-Covid single-day record, the finance chief has revealed, as he pledged to strengthen infrastructure to make every part of the city a tourist destination.
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A total of 682,114 mainland visitors entered Hong Kong between May 1 and 3, marking a 22.83 per cent year-on-year increase from 2024, official statistics showed on Sunday.
Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po also pledged in his weekly blog to strengthen tourism infrastructure to make every part of the city a tourism destination, echoing remarks previously made by Beijing's point man on Hong Kong affairs.
For the first three days of the golden week holiday, Hong Kong welcomed a total of 803,612 visitors, 26.2 per cent more than during the same period last year.
Chan said the second day of the holiday alone saw 267,000 mainland arrivals, setting a new single-day record since the end of the pandemic.
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To accommodate the rise in arrivals, Chan said the government would expand the city's infrastructure and pay attention to improving visitors' travel experiences.
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Asia Times
14 hours ago
- Asia Times
Trump's China rant can't hide his trade war retreat
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The explanation from US officials has been bureaucratic: more time is needed to 'consult stakeholders' and 'ensure compliance.' But the reality is starker: Washington flinched while Beijing stood firm. (China's retaliatory tariffs on US goods dropped from 125% to 10% after the Geneva talks). The president's own trade team sees the danger. American businesses are still deeply entangled in Chinese supply chains. Retaliatory tariffs would drive up costs at a time when consumers are already weary from inflation. Global investors, spooked by any whiff of trade uncertainty, would punish US and dollar-denominated assets fast and hard. Markets are already muttering warnings. US bond yields are inching upward again, and not because of surging demand or economic heat. This is no longer theoretical. Trump's campaign promised tax cuts, big-ticket infrastructure and more military spending, all meaning selling more debt—and quickly. But foreign buyers, already skittish, won't keep showing up if Washington looks like it's charging headlong into a new trade war with the world's second-largest economy. China knows it; and Trump's team knows it, too. This is why, despite the headline and social media threats, his administration has quietly eased off. They know that Chinese EVs, batteries and solar modules aren't flooding the US directly as they're being rerouted through Mexico and Southeast Asia via subsidiaries set up to insulate parent firms from direct exposure. Slapping tariffs on imports from China doesn't catch the web of new intermediaries that have been built precisely to dodge blunt-force trade barriers. As such, almost whatever the tariff threat, the punch won't land. Yet Trump—desperate to look like he's swinging—finds himself shouting on social media instead of delivering results. Beijing, by contrast, is playing the long game. While Trump fumes, China is making strategic gains. In 2024, its trade surplus with the US surged again, reaching nearly US$280 billion. Its companies are dominating the global EV supply chain. Its solar firms are undercutting Western competitors on price. It's not just about scale, it's about speed and focus. China can deploy industrial policy in weeks; the US takes years and so far its not clear it even works. The cold truth is that the US can't tariff its way out of this. The 2018–2020 trade war proved it. Trump's previous tariffs cost US households billions. According to the New York Federal Reserve, by 2020, they were imposing an annual cost of $830 per household. Jobs didn't flood back to America from overseas, manufacturing didn't boom, prices rose and China adjusted. Now, with US bond markets tightening, fiscal space shrinking and supply chains even more complex, doubling down on tariffs would be economic self-sabotage. Trump can bark, but another tariff climbdown is already priced in the market. Even among Republican lawmakers and donors, there's rising discomfort. They signed on for deregulation, for tax cuts, for 'America First' energy. But tanking the bond market and stoking inflation with a tariff binge? Not so much. This is not what they backed, and, it can be reasonably assumed, that they're letting Trump's advisors know. Trump's 'Mr Nice Guy' line wasn't just bluster, it was projection. He's trying to paint himself as betrayed and angry to cover the fact that he's the one who backed down first. It's a classic move. Frame your weakness as someone else's fault. Lash out. Distract. But markets aren't fooled, and China certainly isn't either. Beijing sees the fissures, senses the panic behind the posts and understands that Trump doesn't have many cards left to play. His hardline tariff threats are slogans, not strategy. What's next? Expect another Trumpian climbdown, now widely derided by the 'TACO' acronym for 'Trump always chickens out.' 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Asia Times
18 hours ago
- Asia Times
Australia's trade would be fatally exposed in a US-China war
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Australia's current defense strategy cites the security of our 'sea lines of communication and maritime trade' as a priority. The aim is to prevent an adversary from cutting off critical supplies to our continent in a war. To achieve this, the government has embarked on the lengthy process of expanding the Royal Australian Navy surface and sub-surface fleet, including the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. As I explain in my forthcoming book, The Big Fix: Rebuilding Australia's National Security, the problem with the government's maritime plan is that it is built on a deeply flawed foundation and cannot deliver what it promises. Defense documents insist on a need for the Australian Defense Force to be able to project naval power far from Australia's shores in order to protect the nation's trade. The presence of these warships would ostensibly deter attacks on our vital shipping. 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In fact, the biggest vessel (by length) that the government could take into service is the Spirit of Tasmania IV ferry. If all goes according to schedule, at some point in the 2040s, Australia will have at most 26 surface warships and perhaps eight nuclear-powered submarines, the navy hopes to acquire through the AUKUS deal. Australia is expected to acquire three Virginia-class submarines from the US under the AUKUS deal. Photo: Colin Murty / AAP via The Conversation Due to training and maintenance requirements, the total number of vessels available at any one time would be more on the order of ten. In other words, the government's future maritime plan, costing hundreds of billions of dollars, may result in just ten available ships at any given time to protect the nation's trade over thousands of kilometers. Fortunately, Australia has other options for safeguarding its trade that don't necessitate the building of warships. Our first investment in security should be diplomatic. The government should prioritise its investment in diplomacy across the region to promote security, including trade security. Regional countries are best placed to secure the waterways around Australia, particularly from the most likely future threat: Houthi-like militants. The Australian government should also modernize its shipping regulations and include in the budget provisions for war-risk insurance. Such insurance could compensate owners for the potential loss of ships and cargoes as an inducement for them to sail to and from Australia during war. The government must also encourage greater investment in our national resilience. Currently, the biggest risk during a conflict is an interruption to the nation's liquid fuel supply. We must greatly expand our onshore reserves of fossil fuels in the short term, while initiating a nation-building project to electrify the economy in the long term. Electrification would eliminate a considerable vulnerability to national security. Additionally, the government should identify and subsidize vital industries, such as fertilizers and certain medicines, which are essential to the continued functioning of our society in the event of a war. This would reduce our reliance on imports of critical materials. Lastly, Australian industries, with the government's assistance, should further diversify their trading partners to reduce over-dependence on one or two main destinations. Trade is undoubtedly important to Australia and the government is correct to protect it. But it is also true that not all security problems are best answered by the military. This is particularly important since the size of our planned fleet is obviously insufficient for the enormous task it will face. Either Australia invests in impossibly large numbers of warships or it takes a different path. The art of war requires a balance between the desired ends and the means to achieve them. This simple statement underpins the formation of all good strategy, which a state ignores at its peril. Unfortunately, in the case of the nation's maritime plan, the ends and means are seriously out of whack. Instead of setting itself up for failure, the government needs to put aside its ineffectual maritime plan and choose the means that do align with the ends. Only then will it be possible to protect Australia's trade. Albert Palazzo is adjunct professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at UNSW Canberra, UNSW Sydney This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
HKFP
18 hours ago
- HKFP
China ‘firmly rejects' US accusation of violating tariff deal
China said Monday it 'firmly rejects' US claims that it had violated a sweeping tariffs deal, as tensions between the two economic superpowers showed signs of ratcheting back up. Beijing and Washington last month agreed to slash staggeringly high tariffs on each other for 90 days after talks between top officials in Geneva. But top Washington officials last week accused China of violating the deal, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick saying Beijing was 'slow-rolling' the agreement in comments to 'Fox News Sunday'. China hit back Monday, saying Washington 'has made bogus charges and unreasonably accused China of violating the consensus, which is seriously contrary to the facts'. 'China firmly rejects these unreasonable accusations,' its commerce ministry said in a statement. US President Donald Trump said last week that China had 'totally violated' the deal, without providing details. Beijing's commerce ministry said it 'has been firm in safeguarding its rights and interests, and sincere in implementing the consensus'. It fired back that Washington 'has successively introduced a number of discriminatory restrictive measures against China' since the Geneva talks. The ministry cited export controls on artificial intelligence chips, curbs on the sale of chip design software and the revocation of Chinese student visas in the United States. 'We urge the US to meet China halfway, immediately correct its wrongful actions, and jointly uphold the consensus from the Geneva trade talks,' the ministry said. If not, 'China will continue to resolutely take strong measures to uphold its legitimate rights and interests,' it added. Trump-Xi talks? US officials have said they are frustrated by what they see as Chinese foot-dragging on approving export licences for rare earths and other elements needed to make cars and chips. But Washington's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent looked to ease the pressure on Sunday, saying the two sides could arrange a call between their respective heads of state to resolve their differences. 'I'm confident… this will be ironed out' in a call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Bessent said on CBS's 'Face the Nation'. He added, however, that China was 'withholding some of the products that they agreed to release', including rare earths. On when a Trump-Xi call could take place, Bessent said: 'I believe we will see something very soon.' China has been less forthcoming, and the commerce ministry's statement on Monday did not mention any planned conversations between the two leaders. The Geneva deal was 'an important consensus reached by the two sides on the principle of mutual respect and equality, and its results were hard-won', the ministry said. It warned Washington against 'going its own way and continuing to harm China's interests'. Global stocks finished mixed on Friday after Trump made his social media post accusing Beijing. The Hong Kong stock exchange was down around 2 percent shortly after opening on Monday.
