China, First Read

In this issue

1. The import expo opens as the surplus swells
2. Farm purchases for tariff cuts; a military channel
3. Beijing blocks SoftBank’s ABB robotics deal
4. Nexperia’s two halves go to court
5. Taiwan tightens chip exports; PLA sorties peak
6. Beijing condemns Japan’s defence plans
7. A criminal-procedure overhaul curbs police powers
8. Tencent’s Hy4 and 140tn tokens a day
9. 400km/h rail and a coal-to-gas revival
10. A Mekong “golden decade” and Mongla port

→ The calendar ahead

01 · Trade & openness

Beijing opens its import expo with a pitch for openness as its trade surplus swells

The Shanghai skyline and Huangpu River. The ninth import expo runs in the city until November 10. Photo: Denys Nevozhai / Unsplash

The ninth China International Import Expo opened in Shanghai on Thursday, with vice-premier Ding Xuexiang delivering the keynote speech, CGTN reported. The commerce ministry said 4,142 overseas exhibitors were taking part across more than 440,000 square metres. US companies occupy the largest area for the eighth year running, and a record of more than 300 Fortune Global 500 companies and industry leaders are expected.

Xinhua cast the expo as an answer to protectionism. “Openness is not a concession, but a source of shared opportunity,” its commentary said, citing customs data showing imports outgrew exports by 5.9 percentage points in the first three quarters. Reuters, in a report carried by the China-Global South Project, put it differently: China is on course for a trade surplus of more than $1.2tn as weak domestic demand holds back imports. On the same day the commerce ministry urged the EU to “carefully assess” its new €2 handling fee on low-value parcels, in force since November 1 on top of a €3 duty introduced in July, Global Times reported.

What to watch

Beijing wants the expo to blunt western complaints about its surplus, but monthly customs data, not deals signed in Shanghai, will decide that argument. Europe’s parcel charges hit Chinese cross-border e-commerce directly; expect exporters to shift towards bulk shipping and European warehousing.

Sources: CGTN · Xinhua (commentary) · Reuters via China-Global South Project · Global Times (EU fees)

02 · US-China

Beijing ties more US farm purchases to tariff cuts as the two militaries open a crisis channel

Containers stacked at the port of Hong Kong. Photo: Timelab / Unsplash

China will buy more American farm products only if a reciprocal tariff-reduction arrangement covering $30bn of trade on each side is implemented, commerce ministry spokesperson Huang Ling said on Thursday, Global Times reported. “China has always been open to increasing purchases of US agricultural products,” she said, and called on Washington to cut tariffs and non-tariff barriers and widen market access.

Defence officials from the two countries held the first meeting of a Crisis Communications and Prevention Working Group in Washington, set up under an agreement announced when the two leaders met in September. They agreed on the importance of “advancing practical communication measures” to reduce risks and discussed additional channels for crisis communication, according to a Pentagon readout reported by the South China Morning Post. Asked on Thursday about relations after Democrats won both houses of Congress, foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun repeated that the midterms were “a domestic affair”.

What to watch

Beijing is pricing its farm purchases rather than offering them as goodwill, which sets the agenda for Apec in Shenzhen on November 18–19 and the January 10 truce deadline. A working military channel lowers the risk that an incident at sea derails trade talks; boards should read it as risk management, not détente.

Sources: Global Times (MOFCOM) · SCMP · Chinese foreign ministry

03 · Industrial policy

Beijing blocks SoftBank’s $5.4bn purchase of ABB’s robotics arm, the FT reports

A circuit board. Photo: Alexandre Debiève / Unsplash

China’s National Development and Reform Commission has told SoftBank it will not approve the Japanese group’s purchase of ABB’s robotics division, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, in a report carried by Bloomberg and Startup Fortune. Beijing has not confirmed the decision. SoftBank agreed the deal in October 2025 at an enterprise value of $5.375bn; the European Commission cleared it without conditions in March and the US review has not concluded.

Asked about the report on Thursday, Guo Jiakun said only: “I would refer you to the competent Chinese authorities.” The ABB unit has more than 7,000 engineers and about 500,000 installed robots worldwide, and China is the world’s largest market for industrial robots, Startup Fortune reported. Chinese manufacturers’ share of that market rose from 47 per cent to 58 per cent in 2024, it said. According to the FT, SoftBank is trying to establish whether a revised structure could win another review.

What to watch

If confirmed, the veto shows Beijing will use merger review to keep control of strategic manufacturing capacity on its soil, even in a deal between two foreign companies. Any acquisition with a large Chinese footprint in robotics, chips or automation should treat Chinese approval as a potential deal-breaker, not a formality.

Sources: Bloomberg (FT report) · Startup Fortune · Chinese foreign ministry

04 · Semiconductors

Nexperia’s Dutch arm seeks $2bn from Wingtech as the chipmaker splits in two

A computer processor. Photo: Brian Kostiuk / Unsplash

Nexperia’s Dutch entity has filed a $2bn damages claim in Amsterdam against its Chinese owner, Wingtech Technology, and related companies, Caixin reported, citing a Wingtech disclosure on November 3. The claim alleges that Nexperia’s Chinese units breached internal agreements and built a separate supply chain that disrupted the Dutch business and competed with it directly. Wingtech rejects the allegations.

The fight is now running through rival courts. On November 2 Wingtech received a ruling from the Dongguan Intermediate People’s Court barring the disposal of shares and assets, Caixin reported. Wingtech took full ownership of Nexperia in 2020 but lost control after Dutch government intervention in September 2025.

What to watch

Nexperia is becoming the template for how a Chinese-owned technology asset in Europe is divided: two supply chains, two jurisdictions and competing court orders. Carmakers and industrial groups that depend on its basic chips should qualify second sources and expect the Chinese and European halves to compete for their business.

Sources: Caixin

05 · Taiwan

Taiwan moves to tighten chip-equipment exports as PLA air activity hits a 2026 high

The coast of Taiwan. Photo: Sam Chang / Unsplash

Taiwan’s legislative economic affairs committee held a public hearing on Monday on amendments to the Trade Act that would tighten controls on exports of critical semiconductor materials and equipment to the mainland and double the maximum prison sentence for violations, Caixin reported. The proposal aims to align Taiwan’s rules with its trade commitments to Washington and close loopholes that let advanced chipmaking technology “circumvent export restrictions”. Experts questioned whether the penalties would deter violations and warned of the compliance burden.

Taiwan’s defence ministry counted 49 PLA aircraft sorties in the 24 hours to 6am on Tuesday, the highest single-day total this year, the South China Morning Post reported. Taipei also expressed concern about more than 100 PLA navy and Chinese coast guard vessels operating across the western Pacific, including the Liaoning carrier group, which was drilling in the Philippine Sea.

What to watch

Taipei is closing the routes by which chip tools and know-how reach the mainland, which will push Chinese fabs further towards domestic equipment. A spike in PLA activity two weeks before Apec is a reminder that cross-strait risk should not be priced off the summit calendar.

Sources: Caixin · SCMP

06 · Maritime Asia

Beijing accuses Tokyo of remilitarising as Japan weighs doubling its defence plan

Tiananmen, Beijing. Photo: Dominic Kurniawan Suryaputra / Unsplash

Japan’s push to revise its three security documents “says a lot about its agenda to speed up remilitarization”, foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Thursday. He called Tokyo’s description of China as its “greatest strategic challenge” “nothing but a pretext” for military expansion and said its conduct “seriously threaten[s] regional peace and stability”.

Reports cited by Global Times say Japan will revise its National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy and Defense Buildup Program in December, keeping China as its greatest strategic challenge. Proposals would raise defence spending over the next five years to ¥70tn–80tn ($457bn–$508bn), nearly double the current plan. The South China Morning Post put the possible increase at $500bn.

What to watch

A build-up on this scale would reshape the military balance in north-east Asia and deepen defence-industrial ties among US allies. Beijing’s response is unlikely to stay rhetorical; companies with Sino-Japanese exposure should plan for economic as well as diplomatic pressure around the December revisions.

Sources: Chinese foreign ministry · Global Times · SCMP

07 · Rule of law

China’s legislature weighs curbs on police powers in a criminal-procedure overhaul

The Great Hall of the People in Beijing, seat of the National People’s Congress. Photo: Dominic Kurniawan Suryaputra / Unsplash

Draft amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law, submitted on November 2 to the NPC Standing Committee for a first reading, would explicitly prohibit presuming guilt and restrict “residential surveillance at a designated location” to national-security and terrorism cases, Caixin reported. The draft, the law’s fourth revision since 1979, has 55 amendments including 13 new articles. Shen Chunyao, director of the NPC’s Legislative Affairs Commission, said the changes target abuses that “seriously undermine judicial fairness”, including profit-driven enforcement and criminal probes into economic disputes.

The draft keeps the 30-day extension of pre-arrest detention only for serious cases, requires detention centres to let lawyers meet clients within 48 hours, bars authorities from diverting seized proceeds and widens mandatory recording of interrogations. It also allows countermeasures against “improper” foreign criminal jurisdiction or discriminatory restrictions on Chinese citizens and organisations, Caixin reported.

What to watch

Curbs on profit-driven policing of business disputes address one of private entrepreneurs’ main deterrents to investment, if local enforcement follows. The countermeasures clause gives Beijing a legal basis to answer foreign prosecutions of Chinese nationals and companies, which multinationals should build into compliance and sanctions planning.

Sources: Caixin

08 · Artificial intelligence

Tencent upgrades its flagship model as China’s daily AI use reaches 140tn tokens

A data-centre server aisle. Photo: İsmail Enes Ayhan / Unsplash

Tencent’s Hunyuan team launched Hy4, its next-generation large language model, on Wednesday, adding visual understanding and computer operation as it seeks to “narrow the gap with leading artificial intelligence developers”, Caixin reported. The model was developed alongside Tencent’s WorkBuddy agent and keeps prices unchanged. Tencent’s Hong Kong shares closed 1.1 per cent higher.

A blue book released by the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen on Wednesday said China’s daily token use reached 140tn in March, Global Times reported. A separate CNNIC report counted more than 700mn generative-AI users at the end of June, and China had 47 AI computing facilities in the 10,000-card class at the end of the first quarter. Wang Xingxing, founder of Unitree Robotics, said 2027 could be a turning point for robotics.

What to watch

Chinese AI competition is moving from benchmarks to agents that do paid work, at flat or falling prices. Fast-rising token volumes against a limited stock of domestic compute make chip supply, and Beijing’s choices over who gets it, the sector’s binding constraint.

Sources: Caixin · Global Times

09 · Planning & energy

Beijing plans 10,000km of new high-speed rail as dear gas revives a stalled coal-to-gas plant

Transmission towers at sunset. Photo: Matthew Henry / Unsplash

China will “steadily advance the commercial operation” of 400km/h trains in the 15th five-year plan period (2026–30) and build about 15,000km of new railways, including about 10,000km of high-speed line, the National Development and Reform Commission said on Wednesday, Global Times reported. The network is to reach about 180,000km by 2030, including about 60,000km of high-speed rail. Railway fixed-asset investment rose 1.3 per cent to Rmb601.2bn in the first three quarters.

In Liaoning, China Datang’s Fuxin coal-to-natural-gas project, one of the country’s largest, has begun feeding gas into the national pipeline network more than a decade after construction was halted in 2014, Caixin reported. Nearly Rmb22bn had been spent on a single production line with 1.3bn cubic metres of annual capacity. Production resumed as rising imported gas prices improved the economics of turning coal into gas.

What to watch

Rail remains Beijing’s preferred way to sustain investment while property contracts, and a 400km/h standard is designed for export as well as home use. The Fuxin restart shows energy security now outranks cost and emissions in Beijing’s calculus; expect more coal-to-gas and coal-to-chemicals capacity while LNG stays expensive.

Sources: Global Times (NDRC) · Caixin (Fuxin)

10 · Global South

Wang Yi offers Mekong neighbours a ‘golden decade’ as Chinese builders break ground in Bangladesh

A container ship and cranes at a port. Photo: Albert Stoynov / Unsplash

Wang Yi told the 11th Lancang-Mekong Cooperation foreign ministers’ meeting in Beijing on Wednesday that the six members should open a new “golden decade”, proposing co-operation on AI, smart manufacturing and the digital economy, a cross-border disaster early-warning mechanism and joint action against cross-border crime, Xinhua reported. He invited more Mekong countries to join the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization and urged them to reject exclusive “small circles” and prevent any revival of militarism.

In Bangladesh, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation broke ground on Thursday on the expansion of Mongla port, a Belt and Road project with two 20,000-tonne container berths and a design capacity of 350,000 TEU a year, to be built to Chinese standards over about 42 months, Global Times reported. CCECC will also develop a China-Bangladesh economic zone beside the port.

What to watch

Beijing is bundling AI governance, security co-operation and infrastructure into a single offer to its neighbours, with WAICO as the vehicle for its AI standards. Mongla gives Chinese builders and standards a new anchor on the Bay of Bengal, which New Delhi will watch closely.

Sources: Xinhua · Global Times (Mongla)

ACME Macro Advisory

Method: stories are selected for strategic, forward-looking relevance and read first through Chinese official and financial media (Xinhua, the foreign ministry, Caixin, CGTN), then checked against international reporting. Chinese state media framing is reported as such. Figures are as published by the cited sources.