Weekend Buzz
Top News
Thaw in China-US trade standoff?
China said it is reviewing an overture from the US to begin trade talks, a move that heartened global investor sentiment and sent stocks markets higher in Asia, Europe and the US on Friday.
"The US has reached out to China through various channels, expressing a desire to engage in talks, which China is now evaluating," said a Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman.
However, the spokesman repeated Beijing's stance that US tariffs on China imports should be removed as a condition of talks.
"Fight, we will see it through to the end; talk, the door is always open," the spokesman said.
Victor Gao, vice president of the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing think tank, told South China Morning Post, "I think it brings everything back to square one rather than changing the Chinese position. My reading is that China is not in a hurry to talk to the United States. The ball is in the American court."
Holiday travel soars
Tourist traffic surged across major Chinese cities on the first day of the May Day holiday on Friday, with ticket bookings on the Ctrip travel platform up 20 percent from a year earlier. Popular tourist destinations in Shanghai, Suzhou, Chengdu and other cities reported heavy foot traffic. Shanghai Museum entry tickets sold out, and a gold exhibition in the city attracted long queues. Shanghai railway passengers rose 17 percent to 770,000.
Australia's ruling Labor Party wins election
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's Labor Party coasted to a second term inparliamentary elections on Saturday, defeating the opposition center-right Liberal Party coalition led by Peter Dutton, who also lost his seat, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. projected with about a third of the vote counted.
The coalition was leading in the polls earlier this year until US President Trump imposed tariffs on Australian imports, souring public opinion against conservatives. Dutton had difficulty distancing himself from positive statements he made about Trump in February.
Albanese, though refraining from imposing reciprocal tariffs, said US tariffs were not the behavior of a "friend" and Australia doesn't want US-style politics on its shores.
China is Australia's biggest trading partner, and Albanese has walked a fine line between keeping those economic ties strong while upholding the nation's longstanding role as a military and political ally of the US.
The election outcome was similar to Canada's parliamentary election last Monday, where the "Trump factor" sank the Conservative Party, which was earlier leading in the polls, and led to the opposition leader also losing his seat.
But overshadowing Trump in Australia were concerns about the cost of living and unaffordable housing.
Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who took office a year ago, is expected to lead the ruling People's Action Party to easy re-election in a parliamentary poll on Saturday, extending its unbroken record in office since 1965.
WHO funding crisis
The World Health Organization said it is facing a funding crisis that will cut services to some of the world's poorest people, amid the US withdrawal from the UN agency this year. The US previously provided about a fifth of the organization's budget. Agency Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the situation "the greatest disruption to global health financing in memory."
Top Business
Temu stops US deliveries
E-commerce Chinese online retailer Temu, popular with US consumers as a platform for lower-cost, mail-delivered daily items, said it is ceasing all parcel shipments from China to the US. The statement came after the Trump administration closed a postal loophole that allowed duty-free entry of foreign packages valued at US$800 or less. A tariff on US$100 per parcel will now be levied, doubling next month.
Temu is one of many global e-commerce companies that depend on selling mail-order goods from China and are now either ceasing or pausing business to the US, including UK-based Space NK and Canada's Understance. Singapore-based Shein warned of price increases but said the majority of its goods will remain affordable.
Blacklist blunders
Reuters news agency reported that it surveyed almost 100 Chinese mainland and Hong Kong companies added to a US trade blacklist in the last two years and found the paperwork for a quarter of them contained erroneous details, such as incorrect names and addresses, and outdated information. According to its review, the companies included a beauty salon, a door-locks firm and a massage parlor. One site visit to a company on the blacklist found the remnants of a factory demolished years earlier.
Economy
China housing prices
The average resale price of existing homes across 100 Chinese cities in April fell 7.2 percent from a year earlier, Reuters reported, citing a report by a Chinese real estate research institute. It attributed the decline to more residential properties coming onto the market. The price of new housing in the same period edged up 2.5 percent. About a quarter of China's household wealth is tied up in real estate, the news agency said.
US business fears of recession
The US Chamber of Commerce, in a letter to the Trump administration, said US tariffs on China and other countries could undermine economic growth, lead to job losses and potentially plunge the nation into recession. It urged the White House to take immediate action to save America's small businesses.
Monthly jobs data in the US has yet to reflect trade turmoil. April nonfarm employment figures released on Friday showed a gain of 177,000 jobs, beating analysts' forecasts.
Trade growth leaders
Shanghai, Beijing and the Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Fujian delivered a combined import-export value of 7.78 trillion yuan (US$1.07 trillion) in the first quarter, accounting for three-quarters of the national total, according to customs data. High-tech exports rose 4.5 percent, driven by electronics, equipment and biopharma, while imports of crude oil, ores and key industrial components remained high.
Deep Dive
Chinese vendors, US buyers face cost shock in online market for cheaper goods
As US government ends the duty-free status of directly shipped parcels valued at US$800 or less, the import tariff may exceed the price of merchandise.
Go, Shanghai! City's rapid progress in AI development gets top-level endorsement
Chinese President Xi Jinping put his personal imprimatur on city efforts to harness the creativity of young people in AI research and application.
Corporate
Alibaba launches fast-delivery service
Alibaba Group Holding initiated its nationwide fast-delivery service ahead of schedule on Friday, intensifying the company's rivalry with JD.com and Meituan, according to South China Morning Post, which is owned by the Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant. The company earlier scheduled the launch for next week across 50 major cities in China. The fast-delivery service covers food, groceries, electronics and clothing.
TikTok fine
TikTok, the popular Chinese short-video online platform owned by ByteDance, was fined 530 million euros (UIS$600 million) by the EU's privacy regulator on Friday over concerns related to protection of user information. TikTok strongly contested the ruling and said it will appeal. The company's operations in the US remain in limbo after Congress, citing national security concerns, passed a law last year requiring ByteDance to divest its control of the platform in the US or face a TikTok ban. President Donald Trump has twice postponed the deadline set for a sale of the social network, which has 170 million American users. That latest deadline is set to expire on June 19.
The "Oracle of Omaha" speaks
Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting, set for this weekend in Omaha, Nebraska, always draws interest from investors wanting to hear influential Chairman Warren Buffett's outlook on markets and the economy. This year he is expected to comment on the current global tariff war after being silent on the issue so far. The annual weekend meeting typically hosts over 40,000 people.
ExxonMobil profit decline
US-based oil and gas giant ExxonMobil beat analysts' forecasts with first-quarter results announced on Friday, but reported a 6 percent first-quarter profit decline to US$7.71 billion. Revenue was hit by a drop in crude oil prices attributed to concerns that Trump administration tariffs may negatively impact global demand.
It was a similar story at rival Chevron, where net income in the first three months fell 30 percent to US$3.5 billion, with revenue missing analysts' forecasts due to lower oil prices.
