CX Daily: Summers on Secular Stagnation and Lessons for China
TOP STORY
Summers /
Comparing the United States and China as two people stranded in a rowboat on a turbulent sea, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said the world’s two largest economies have to find a way to cooperate to get to shore.
“It doesn’t really matter how they feel about each other and what history got them into the rowboat. If they are both going to survive, they have to find a modus vivendi for cooperation,” said Summers during a recent visit to China.
FINANCE & ECONOMY
China-U.S. /
Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for “sound, steady and sustainable” development of China-U.S. relations in a meeting with his U.S. counterpart Antony Blinken this week on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, said the Chinese foreign ministry.
In talks that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs described as “candid, substantive and constructive,” the two countries’ top diplomats discussed major regional and global issues including Taiwan, the Ukrainian crisis, as well as the situation in the Middle East and on the Korean peninsula.
Quick hits /
BUSINESS & TECH
Tourism /
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Robust travel data from this year’s Lunar New Year holiday have offered hopeful signs of a recovery in household consumption in China, but some analysts are cautioning against breaking out the champagne too early, citing a prolonged property slump and low consumer confidence among the issues dragging on the world’s second-largest economy.
Both domestic travel and spending surpassed 2019 levels during the eight-day holiday. Travelers made around 474 million trips from Feb. 10 to Feb. 17, up 19% from the same period of 2019 and a 34.3% jump from last year, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Total tourism spending reached 632.7 billion yuan ($88 billion), up 7.7% from 2019 levels and 47.3% on last year.
BYD /
BYD Co. Ltd. has unveiled a plan to further improve its brand image and expand its global influence, which could help the Chinese carmaker strengthen its position as the world’s leading electric vehicle (EV) maker and win more overseas customers.
Hong Kong and Shenzhen-listed BYD plans to “launch a number of high-end luxury models” beginning this year as it aims to carve out a bigger slice of the premium car market, the firm said in a stock exchange filing dated Sunday, without giving further details. BYD surpassed Tesla Inc. to become the largest EV-maker in vehicle sales in the fourth quarter.
Quick hit /
Long Read /
GALLERY
Northwest China has been inundated with storms since Saturday, impeding millions of people returning home after the Lunar New Year holiday. Sand and snow stranded vehicles on highways and caused flight delays as storms billowed across Xinjiang, Ningxia, Gansu and Shaanxi. Several expressways running from Gansu to Xinjiang were temporarily closed. As of Sunday, more than 40,000 travelers had been taken to temporary shelters to wait for weather conditions to improve.