Patricia Kim is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She has a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for Asia Policy Studies. This essay is adapted from her forthcoming book, No Constraints: China’s Global Quest for Partners and Influence.
Huang Yiping, dean of Peking University's National School of Development and adviser to China's central bank, said the rest of the world's economies are struggling to adapt to shifts in the global economy. Huang was speaking at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Dalian.
Geoff Wade proposes creating a global database to track Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) influence operations. He argues that democratic societies need better tools to understand and monitor Beijing’s overseas influence activities. He suggests Taiwan would be an ideal location for such a project.
I will be in Dalian on June 23-25 for the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions. I will be giving a presentation on “A World Out of Balance” at 10:00 local time. In 2025, Chinese residents sold about $4.5 trillion in goods and services to people in the rest of the world, but spent just $3.4 trillion on products produced outside of China. So far in 2026, China's trade surplus is 40% larger than the 2022-2024 average for January-April. Surging Chinese exports crowd out sales by non-Chinese producers both in their home markets and in third countries.
The leaders of all 27 EU states called on the European Commission to expand the bloc's trade defence toolbox against China's overcapacity. Measures under discussion include sector-wide tariffs and other restrictions in industries such as chemicals and green technology. Europe is considering instruments that resemble Washington's Section 301 tariffs.
This year's Summer Davos is taking place from June 23 to June 25 in Dalian, China. It's the second-largest annual gathering of the World Economic Forum. It focuses more on entrepreneurs, industrial growth and emerging technologies than the January Davos. It was founded by WEF founder Klaus Schwab in 2007.
Bloomberg spiked an investigation into the hidden wealth of China’s elite in 2013. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation closed its Beijing bureau after more than 40 years in 2022. The CBC did not trim its coverage to preserve access, but it was pushed out altogether. China expelled at least 13 American journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa returned from Beijing with a multibillion-dollar funding commitment and political backing for the debut yuan-denominated sovereign bond from Indonesia. Purbaya was in Beijing to shore up confidence ahead of next month’s planned panda bond sale.
This week, the results of China’s National Higher Education Entrance Examination, or gaokao, will be released. Within days, candidates will submit their prioritised preferences for universities and majors. The number of spaces offered by faculties each year is set by the state and shaped by two concurrent processes.
On June 18-19, EU leaders gathered in Brussels to discuss the bloc’s long-term budget, regional conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and global trade frictions. China was not mentioned in the final European Council conclusions, but the leaders’ discussions on “global macroeconomic imbalances” probably referred to the bloc's fraught economic ties with Beijing. EU leaders called on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to maintain dialogue with key economic counterparts, while urging an evaluation of the EU's trade defense toolbox.