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China announced a series of measures to protect its economy and workers from the impact of an intensifying trade war with the United States on Monday, as officials said they remained “fully confident” of hitting the country’s annual economic growth target of about 5 per cent.

Beijing will encourage companies to maintain stable hiring, stepping up vocational training schemes, expanding employment through public works programmes and other supportive projects, and strengthening public employment services, according to Zhao.

Sheng Qiuping, deputy minister of commerce, said Beijing would increase support for companies affected by US tariffs by helping them pivot to the domestic market and providing fiscal and financial services.

The government has already allocated 160 billion yuan (US$22 billion) for trade-in programmes to encourage consumers to spend on a range of big-ticket consumer goods so far this year, with another 140 billion yuan of investment to follow, according to Zhao.

It is also working on a range of other consumption-boosting policies, including a childcare subsidy scheme, targeted re-lending tools, expanded support for the services and elderly care sectors, and moves to relax municipal restrictions on car license plates to allow more households to buy vehicles, Zhao added.

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Taiwan has launched a crackdown on holders of illegal Chinese identity documents, revoking the Taiwanese status of more than 20 people and putting tens of thousands of Chinese-born residents under scrutiny.

Under Taiwan law it is illegal for Taiwanese people to hold Chinese identity documents. In the past decade, hundreds of people have had their Taiwanese papers or passports cancelled for also holding Chinese ID, effectively revoking their citizenship.

But a renewed hunt for dual ID-holders has drawn controversy after the public expulsion of three women and threats to the permanent residencies of more than 10,000 Chinese-born people, including many who had built lives and families in Taiwan over decades.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping has agreed to finance the construction of Kenyan roads and railways including the rebuilding of a notorious accident black spot.

Xi made the pledge when he welcomed his Kenyan counterpart William Ruto to Beijing on Thursday, promising also to support “high-level connectivity, and sustainable trade”.

The funding he pledged will include work to rebuild the Nithi Bridge in central Kenya, a notorious death trap that has claimed hundreds of lives since its commissioning four decades ago. The plan involves the building of a viaduct that will remove the steep descents and sharp corners that make the bridge so dangerous.

Kenya is a key partner for China’s Belt and Road Initiative – a transcontinental infrastructure project – that has already helped build a rail link between Mombasa, Nairobi and the Central Rift Valley at a cost of around US$5 billion.

Apart from railway projects, China also agreed to allow Kenya to explore the issuing of yuan-denominated panda bonds while Xi pledged to continue talks about a free-trade agreement and to “import more fine Kenyan products and promote the balanced and sustainable development of bilateral trade”.

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The US commerce department has announced the new tariffs, targeting companies in Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, after an investigation begun a year ago when American manufacturers of solar panels accused Chinese companies of flooding the market with subsidised, cheap goods.

Products from Cambodia would face the highest tariffs, of 3,521%, because its companies did not cooperate with the US investigation, while products made in Malaysia by the Chinese manufacturer Jinko Solar face duties of just over 41%; rival Trina Solar’s products from Thailand will incur tariffs of 375%.

However, critics, including the Solar Energy Industries Association trade group, have said tariffs would harm US solar producers because they would raise prices on the imported cells that are assembled into panels at American factories.

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Nearly a year after Russian President Vladimir Putin called Afghanistan’s Taliban an “ally” in countering terrorism, Moscow lifted a two-decade-old ban on the group, aiming to bolster ties with Kabul to crush a joint enemy — the Islamic State.

The move was “no surprise,” given Putin has spoken of growing cooperation with the Taliban on terrorism, said John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Those comments were “specifically directed against ISIS,” which claimed responsibility for the bloody Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in March 2024, he said.

The decision will also “open the door for official recognition of the Taliban government,” which has remained a pariah since taking power in Afghanistan nearly four years ago, said Faizullah Jalal, an independent Afghan political analyst and human rights activist.

Normalizing relations could increase economic activity between the two countries. Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said late last year it’s looking to hammer out projects in the energy and agriculture sectors with the Taliban, according to the Tass news agency, and by the end of last year Afghanistan had become the top buyer of Russian flour.

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Ukraine said on Thursday that it had failed to reach a deal with holders of $2.6bn of its debt, in a blow to its hopes of securing a restructuring ahead of a payment deadline next month.

The country’s finance ministry said it would “consider all available options” and continue negotiations after the failure of opening talks in Washington this week with holders of its so-called GDP warrants.

Last month the IMF said that “if left untreated” the warrants “constitute an important risk” for the stability of an ongoing $15.5bn bailout and Kyiv’s restructuring of more than $20bn in bonds last year.

“The GDP warrants were designed for a world that no longer exists,” said Ukraine’s finance ministry on Thursday. “Ukraine’s modest economic growth in 2023 was not a sign of surging prosperity but a fragile rebound from a nearly 30 per cent downturn caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion.”

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Beijing has called on the US to “completely cancel all unilateral tariff measures” if it wants trade talks, in some of China’s strongest comments yet on the impasse between the world’s two economic superpowers.

“The unilateral tariff measures were initiated by the US,” said He Yadong, a Chinese commerce ministry spokesperson. “If the US truly wants to solve the problem, it should . . . completely cancel all unilateral tariff measures against China and find a way to resolve differences through equal dialogue.”

Beijing has maintained that the US must make the first move to de-escalate the crisis, which is threatening to spark a hard decoupling between the two countries’ economies.

Chinese analysts argue that the US imposition of high tariffs make it difficult for Beijing to find a way to defuse the crisis.

China’s President Xi Jinping would find it difficult to engage personally with Trump on the trade war unless this was preceded by extensive negotiations to hammer out a deal, they say.

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China is preparing to lift sanctions on European lawmakers as it tries to revive an investment deal with the EU after losing most of its access to the US market in Donald Trump’s trade war.

A spokesperson for Roberta Metsola, president of the European parliament, confirmed the move, first reported by German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Beijing took the measures against several MEPs in 2021 after the EU placed sanctions on some Chinese entities because of alleged human rights violations against the Uyghur Muslim minority in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

The European parliament then refused to ratify an EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment that would have deepened trade ties between the two.

“The president will first inform group leaders once the Chinese authorities officially confirm that sanctions have been lifted. It has always been the European parliament’s intention to have the sanctions lifted and resume relations with China.”

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Donald Trump said during a White House news conference that high tariffs on goods from China will “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero”.

Trump’s remarks were in response to earlier comments on Tuesday by treasury secretary Scott Bessent, who said that the high tariffs were unsustainable and that he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

The US president said that the final tariff rate with China would come down “substantially” from the current 145%.

“It won’t be that high, not going to be that high,” Trump said.

China’s government was yet to respond to the news, but has consistently criticised Trump’s tariffs. On China’s social media platform, Weibo, Trump’s remarks trended under various hashtags including “Trump admitted defeat”.

Trump has shown no public indications that he plans to pullback his baseline 10% tariff, even as he has insisted he’s looking for other nations to cut their own import taxes and remove any non-tariff barriers that the administration says have hindered exports from the US.

China on Monday warned other countries against making trade deals with the United States that could negatively impact China.

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Diplomats from Iran, Russia and China are meeting in Beijing for talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme that could lead to negotiations following years of delay.

The meeting was attended by Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who “exchanged views on the Iran nuclear issue and other issues of common concern,” according to Chinese media.

Donald Trump, a year into his first term as United States president in 2018, withdrew from a landmark pact Iran reached in 2015 with the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union, in which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

Tehran continued to abide by the terms of the deal – which was considered a milestone for the administration of then-US President Barack Obama – but began slowly rolling back its commitments after Trump ended the deal.

The meeting in Beijing between the three diplomats follows a series of overtures from Trump since his return to the White House in January to resume nuclear talks with Tehran.

The US president this week sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling for new talks but also warning that the US was within its rights to take military action against the country’s nuclear programme.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian responded that he would not negotiate with the US while being “threatened”, and Iran would not bow to US “orders” to talk.

Ayatollah Khamenei maintains Tehran does not have or want nuclear weapons, but a recent report from the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was close to the requirements for a nuclear bomb.

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China said it would host nuclear talks with Iran and Russia, days after US President Donald Trump urged Tehran to negotiate a new deal over its atomic work or face military action.

“The three parties will exchange views on the Iranian nuclear issue and other issues of mutual interest,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. The meeting will take place in Beijing on Friday and be attended by deputy foreign ministers from Moscow and Tehran, it said.

The summit comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity on Iran’s expanding nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency said last month that Tehran’s uranium enrichment has surged since Trump’s election victory in November. While Iran insists its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only, the West has longstanding concerns that the country wants to develop atomic weapons.

Last week, Trump said he had written a letter to Iran’s leadership, urging it to enter talks on a new agreement. The US President walked away from an earlier deal during his first term in 2018 and little progress has been made since then to revive the accord.

Iran has signaled it’s not ready for talks with the US. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says his country won’t be bullied into negotiations and that Trump’s decision to tear-up the original 2015 accord showed he cannot be trusted or taken seriously. Still, the country’s economic strains have led some senior officials to conclude that negotiations are needed to get sanctions eased.

Friday’s gathering in Beijing comes after two rounds of preliminary nuclear talks between Iranian and European diplomats in Geneva in recent months.

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