China urges nationals in Los Angeles to be ‘highly vigilant' amid violent ICE protests
law enforcement actions ' targeting immigration-related protests in California's largest city.
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In a safety advisory issued on Monday, the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles reminded Chinese citizens in the area 'to closely monitor official announcements and media reports, stay highly vigilant, strengthen safety precautions, avoid gathering sites, crowded areas, or locations with poor public security'.
It also advised against 'going out at night or traveling alone'.
Around 300 California National Guard troops arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday and were deployed around government buildings on the third day of a stand-off with demonstrators protesting President Trump's immigration raids targeting undocumented migrants.
The troops were part of a larger force mobilised to support federal law enforcement amid escalating clashes between protesters and immigration agents.
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According to a White House statement on Saturday, Trump signed a memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to address 'the lawlessness' in California.
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AllAfrica
2 minutes ago
- AllAfrica
China's property woes worsen while Trump tightens trade screws
TOKYO — Xi Jinping's inner circle in Beijing has had a busy couple of months popping the champagne corks. Along with China growing 5%-plus as the US economy hits a rough patch, President Xi's team just scored yet another extension on trade talks from Donald Trump. That means another 90 days of stringing along a US leader who's increasingly anxious for a deal, any deal at all, with Asia's biggest economy. Only a 'grand bargain' with Xi's Communist Party could give Trump scope to convince his supporters that the tariff-driven inflation, market chaos and extreme uncertainty his tariffs have unleashed are all worth it. Xi knows this desperation will likely enable China to give Trump World very little in the end — just like Japan. 'China believes momentum is on its side because Trump has a stronger desire to sign a deal with Beijing so that he can claim victory and secure a summit with Xi in the fall,' says analyst William Yang at the International Crisis Group. Yet domestic events are catching up with Beijing, suggesting Xi's inner circle might want to keep the champagne on ice for a while. China's 5.3% growth rate in the first half of 2025 masks signs that the nation's property crisis continues to fester below the surface. In June, prices of new homes fell 0.27% from May, the most in eight months. It suggests Beijing's stimulus efforts back in September have run out of steam. What's more, China's 100 biggest developers saw new-home sales plunge by more than 20% for two consecutive months now, according to China Real Estate Information Corp. And from an economic confidence standpoint, it's never good when China Evergrande Group returns to the news. The developer that came to symbolize China's deflation-causing real estate bust announced that its Hong Kong stock will be delisted this month. An optimistic take might be that it marks the end of an era China wants to forget. Evergrande's stumble, after all, had Lehman Brothers overtones. Along with distress among builders, the turmoil Evergrande represented had many worrying that China might be headed for a Japan-like malaise. It's hardly comforting that one of the first major economists to see the crisis coming back in 2021 is waving a warning flag about China's next several months. UBS Group's John Lam tells Bloomberg that 'the sales momentum has become tepid in recent months. If that continues, a recovery will occur later than expected.' Lam notes that home inventory turnover in tier-one cities across China had dropped to an average of 14 months. That's the same level as 2015. The headwinds from Trump's trade war are making things even tougher for China, amplifying the effects of its pre-existing conditions. These include the property crisis, high youth unemployment, local governments struggling under the weight of crushing debt burdens and demographic decline. In China, the real estate sector plays a pivotal role in shaping domestic sentiment due to significant household exposure to this asset class, notes Carlos Casanova, an economist at Union Bancaire Privée. The sharp decline in real estate activity from May to July, he notes, may have dampened consumer confidence, potentially weighing on retail sales and other sectors. In July, China's official gauge for manufacturing activity saw a worse-than-expected contraction amid slower domestic growth and increased uncertainty over US trade tensions. The Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index came in at 49.3 in July, below the 50 mark signaling expansion. Poor weather may have been a partial factor, some economists argue. But there's little doubt Beijing's 'anti-involution' efforts to battle cut-throat price competition and address overcapacity are hurting the economy. 'The manufacturing PMI featured lower output, lower inventory but higher price sub-indices, whereas the construction PMI fell notably on high temperatures and heavy rainfalls,' Goldman Sachs analysts write in a note. Chi Lo, senior market strategist at BNP Paribas Asset Management, notes that supply-side reforms alongside demand-side stimulus can pull the economy out of deflation. 'Creative destruction,' he says, 'is inherently contractionary because the old sectors decline more quickly than new ones are created and develop.' Lo argues that the 'anti-involution campaign focuses on measures and regulations to cut production capacity and curb disorderly pricing schemes. These policies could be self-defeating, hurting employment and the economy in general, and overwhelming any positive impact on pricing power and profitability.' And with China's 'economy stuck in a liquidity trap, fiscal policy must do the heavy lifting and revive public confidence and demand,' Lo says. 'Monetary easing is a facilitating tool. The recent recovery of the credit impulse marks a start on the road to recovery.' But a shift toward a more vibrant domestic demand-led economic model continues to be slow-going. The need for a recalibration from over-investment to consumption was well known even before Xi rose to power in 2012 and 2013. So is the need to create broader safety nets across sectors. A robust network of safety nets is becoming more important as the property crisis drags on. Why would the average mainland household have the confidence to consume or invest after losing their shirts in the property market, and with no recovery in sight? Building a bigger network of stable and trusted safety nets would pay the biggest dividends. As Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff argues, the key is crafting a 'modern version of Social Security' that's 'fully-funded, transparent, efficient, fair, and progressive' and 'features personal accounts that are collectively invested by the government at zero cost to workers.' The goal, Kotlikoff says, is to devise a social safety net that's not 'incomprehensible, inefficient, inequitable, and, most important, insolvent.' Economists at the International Monetary Fund argue that the 'prioritization of the spending of households over investment would also deliver larger stabilization benefits. For example, means-tested transfers to households would boost aggregate demand 50% more than an equivalent amount of public investment. To ensure consistency across policies, fiscal policy should be undertaken within a medium-term fiscal framework.' Failure could mean that China won't escape the dreaded middle-income trap after all. In China's case, it could be more of an upper-middle-income funk, but still a painful one. Yet as New York University economist Nouriel Roubini points out, if a shock like Trump ratcheting up tariffs against China happened, 'China will indeed find itself in the middle-income trap.' China's problems, Roubini argues, 'are structural, rather than cyclical. Among other factors, its slowdown is due to rapid aging, a busted real-estate bubble, a massive overhang of private and public debt (now close to 300% of GDP), and a shift from market-oriented reforms back toward state capitalism.' In general, Roubini says, credit-fueled investment has grown excessive as state-owned banks lend to state-owned enterprises and local governments. At the same time, Xi's government has spent too much time over the last five years 'bashing the tech sector and other private enterprises, eroding business confidence and private investment. In this new period of deglobalization and protectionism, China appears to have hit the limits to export-led growth.' That's particularly so as Trump's tariffs continue to do economic damage everywhere and sow distrust in Beijing and beyond. Take the White House's latest chips gambit, which puts Nvidia, the globe's most valuable company, in the role of pawn as Trump and Xi jockey for advantage. Both Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give Trump's government a 15% share of revenues from semiconductor sales to China. The tax is the price for US licenses to export their technology to the second-biggest economy. Nivida seems to be taking an ends-justify-the-means approach to the tax. As analysts at Melius Research note: 'Now Nvidia can better compete with Huawei — not only in the China market, but globally, making sure more Chinese artificial intelligence developers can create applications on a US-friendly Nvidia AI stack.' Yet as Ian Bremmer, CEO of Eurasia Group, notes, Xi's government is already demanding Chinese tech firms, including Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance, justify purchases of Nvidia's H20 AI chips. China would prefer that the firms buy domestically. Now, Bremmer adds, the Chinese scrutiny is prompting some companies to scale back orders, potentially cutting Nvidia's China market share to 55% this year from 66% in 2024, amid ongoing US-China tech tensions. China, of course, is in no hurry to agree to a trade pact with Trump, particularly given the haggling going on about earlier ones. The ways in which Washington and Tokyo and Washington and Brussels are at odds about what exactly they agreed to might have Xi looking to extend talks well into 2026 – or beyond. In the meantime, though, the cracks in China's underlying economy are festering at best and deepening at worst. As these pre-existing conditions collide with more Trumpian volatility to come, Team Xi will have to act more boldly and nimbly than ever before to keep incomes from stagnating and the property market from collapsing. Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek
South China Morning Post
32 minutes ago
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong to begin Legislative Council nominations on October 24
Hong Kong will begin the nomination process for its next Legislative Council on October 24, with the current legislature standing prorogued on the same day, the government has announced. Chief Secretary for Administration Eric Chan Kwok-ki said on Wednesday that the date was set after taking the election date of December 7 into consideration. In a letter from Chan to Legco President Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen, the city's second-highest official said that the current Legislative Council would recess on October 24 'to prevent giving undue advantage to incumbent members over other candidates during the election period, or creating an impression to that effect.' He added that the arrangement, which would be gazetted on Friday, was consistent with the procedure followed by the previous Legco. The letter did not specify the duration of the nomination period. For the previous election in 2021, it lasted 14 days. The legislature is currently on its final summer recess and will hold its first chamber meeting on September 3. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu is scheduled to deliver his fourth Policy Address to the lawmakers in September.
AllAfrica
3 hours ago
- AllAfrica
WWIII without bullets: everyone loses in Trump's trade war
As US President Donald Trump enters his second term, his aggressive trade policy has reignited what many are calling a global economic conflict—a de facto World War III without bullets. New tariffs rolled out in August 2025, with more in the works, are shaking global markets, straining supply chains and threatening livelihoods across continents. Unlike conventional warfare, this trade war is fought with tariffs, retaliation and uncertain trade deals. But the impact is no less severe. From factory workers in Asia to farmers in North America, millions are caught in the crossfire. Trump's latest wave of tariffs has sent shockwaves through the business world. Companies from Detroit to Dhaka are scrambling to adjust to shifting costs, delayed shipments, and volatile demand. Firms are once again hesitating to hire, expand, or invest. Some are already scaling back production. Small and medium-sized enterprises—especially in export-dependent economies—are suffering most. As one supply chain manager in Vietnam put it: ' We've spent the last two years rebuilding after Covid and inflation. Now we're tearing it all down again because of this trade war. ' Rising input costs and shrinking demand are leading many businesses to cut jobs, not create them. The economic promises behind Trump's tariffs—protecting American jobs and revitalizing domestic industries—are clashing with the reality on the ground. US farmers are facing new retaliatory tariffs from China, threatening their already-precarious position in global markets. In developing countries, layoffs are widespread, especially in garment manufacturing, electronics assembly and food processing industries that rely heavily on exports. This trade war is not just a fight between the US and China. Its ripples reach deep into the Global South, where countries that depend on trade with major economies are being dragged into the fray. In Bangladesh, Cambodia and Nigeria, factories are closing. Port activity is slowing. Currencies are destabilizing. Millions who had only recently climbed out of poverty are now seeing their futures collapse. For developing nations, trade is not a chess piece in a geopolitical contest—it's a lifeline. They are the invisible casualties of this economic conflict. Even the US's closest allies haven't been spared. Canada is once again facing U.S. tariffs, particularly on aluminum, solar panels and some agricultural products. While Canada remains a party to the USMCA, the agreement doesn't shield it from unilateral actions by the US president under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act—allowing tariffs on the basis of 'national security.' This proves that even formal trade agreements offer little real protection in a system dominated by unpredictable, politically motivated policies. Trump's ongoing trade war has undermined decades of American leadership in building a rules-based trading system. The US once led the push for open markets, global cooperation, and dispute resolution mechanisms. Now, it has become one of the leading sources of uncertainty—with tariffs as threats, not tools, and agreements treated as optional rather than binding. If the US can impose or ignore rules at will, what incentive do other countries have to stick to them? Once again, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is watching from the sidelines. With its dispute resolution body still crippled and no meaningful reform in sight, the WTO has failed to respond to this growing crisis. Without a functioning enforcement system, the rules of global trade are reduced to suggestions—and global trust is crumbling. At the core of Trump's approach is a zero-sum philosophy: that any gain by another country must be a loss for the US. But that doesn't match how the modern global economy actually works. One country's import is another's export. One company's supplier is another's customer. Disrupting trade damages everyone in the chain, especially workers at the bottom. Trade, when cooperative and fair, is a positive-sum system. But when weaponized for political points, the damage is universal. Trump's second-term tariff war is already causing widespread disruption. If left unchecked, it risks pushing the world economy toward deeper fragmentation, financial instability, and rising inequality. The promise of global trade has always been mutual growth and shared prosperity. But today, it is being twisted into a tool of confrontation. If trade becomes war, everyone loses. Businesses lose clarity. Workers lose income. Developing nations lose hope. It's not too late to turn back. But doing so will require bold leadership, trust in international institutions, and a renewed commitment to trade not as a weapon—but as a bridge.
