Negative views of China rise over foreign policy, poll finds

PERCEPTIONS of China

abroad are souring largely because of its foreign policy decisions, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center, which also found a lack of confidence in President Xi Jinping. Majorities in 15 of the 24 nations surveyed held an unfavorable opinion of China, with negative ratings at record highs in 10 of them.

Japan and Australia had the highest number of people expressing discontent, at 87 percent. Beijing has been criticizing Tokyo over its plans for discharging wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, while China and Australia are just getting over a spat that ranged from the origins of Covid-19 to trade.

Pew said about three-quarters of all respondents to the survey conducted from February to May “think China does not take into account the interests of other countries in its foreign policy,” while more than half “say China interferes in the affairs of other nations a great deal or fair amount.”

Some four-fifths of US respondents held a negative view of China. Washington and Beijing have been at odds over a range of issues, especially Taiwan and technology. The Biden administration has rallied allies to impose controls on exports of high-end chip equipment to China, largely to curb its military ambitions.

Last month, China said it would place restrictions on exporting two metals that are crucial to parts of the semiconductor, telecoms and alternative energy industries. The move appeared aimed at giving Beijing leverage as it pushes

See “China,” A11

Editor: Angel R. Calso •

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia—

relations with China. Officials in Rome have been privately reassuring the US that Italy will exit the investment pact with China, which made the country an outlier in the Group of Seven nations, of which Italy will take the presidency next year.

Bloomberg reported earlier this week about Meloni’s plan to not go public on her decision to pull out during the short trip to

Washington. Meloni said Thursday she is planning to visit China among her next trips.

Italy signed up to Belt and Road in 2019 under Chinafriendly premier Giuseppe Conte. The pact, due to renew automatically at the end of the year if no action is taken, has posed persistent questions about where Rome’s loyalty lies.

For months, Meloni has been trying to work out how to wriggle out of the commitment without provoking retaliation from Beijing.

An invitation to the White House is a routine courtesy for Italian prime ministers, and Biden already hosted Meloni’s predecessor Mario Draghi. But for Meloni the visit was an opportunity for assertiveness, especially on China and on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, two areas on which Italy has sometimes been seen as soft. While Meloni has never wavered on her support for Ukraine, her coalition partners—the anti-immigrant League and the centerright Forza Italia—have in the past cultivated friendly ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier, Biden said he and Meloni also planned to discuss “legitimate migration challenges” stemming from Africa, as well as space cooperation. Both Biden and Meloni have struggled to reconcile their migration policies with campaign rhetoric, though they have come at the issue from opposite sides of the political spectrum.

While the US president indicated he would lift immigration restrictions enacted under his predecessor ex-President Donald Trump upon entering office, he’s been criticized for imposing new rules that make it tougher for undocumented migrants to claim asylum. Meloni was elected on a hardline immigration platform but since has softened her stance. Bloomberg News

Vladimir Putin told leaders and officials from most African countries Thursday that Russia is making every effort to avert a global food crisis despite concerns that its withdrawal from a deal allowing grain shipments from Ukraine will cause price spikes.

The Russian leader spoke at the opening session of a two-day RussiaAfrica summit attended by a sharply lower number of African heads of state and government compared with a previous summit in 2019. While discussing the halted Black Sea grain deal, he promised large no-cost shipments of grain to six African countries.

“Our country will continue supporting needy states and regions, in particular, with its humanitarian deliveries. We seek to actively participate in building a fairer system of distribution of resources. We are taking maximum efforts to avert a global food crisis,” Putin said.

“I have already said that our country can replace Ukrainian grain, both on a commercial basis and as grant aid to the neediest African countries, more so since we expect another record harvest this year,” he said.

Russia intends to ship up to 50,000 tons of grain aid to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Eritrea and Central African Republic in the next three to four months, Putin said.

Without directly referring to Putin’s promise, UN SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres took a swipe Thursday at donations of grain to developing nations, saying they cannot compensate for the impact of Moscow’s cutoff of grain exports from Ukraine, which along with Russia is a major supplier to the world market.

The UN chief said the United Nations is in contact with Turkey,

Ukraine, Russia and other countries to try to reestablish the deal that saw Ukraine export over 32,000 tons of grain, allowing global food prices to drop significantly.

Guterres told reporters at UN headquarters in New York that taking millions of tons of Ukrainian grain out of the global market will lead to higher prices. The higher costs “will be paid by everybody, everywhere, and namely by developing countries and by the vulnerable people in middle income and even developed countries,” he said.

“So, it’s not with a handful of donations to some countries that we correct this dramatic impact that affects everybody, everywhere,” Guterres added.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric noted that Guterres pointed at Russia’s “systematic bombardment” of Ukrainian ports and grain facilities, which he called “a serious escalation.” Dujarric said the bombing will have a serious impact on any resumption of Ukrainian grain exports.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also said Russia’s promise to donate grain to African nations did not compensate for pulling out of the deal on Ukrainian grain.

“A handful of donations to some countries cannot replace the millions and millions of tons of grain exports that help stabilize food prices around the world,” JeanPierre said.

US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel noted the US pays for about half of the budget for the World Food Program compared to Russia’s contribution of less than 1 percent. “So it’s pretty clear to us who is actively committed to addressing the dire concerns of food security,” Patel said. Both Russia and Ukraine are major grain suppliers. AP debris in the aftermath of a fire which authorities say started at an e-bike shop and spread to upper-floor apartments, Tuesday June 20, 2023, in New York. Federal officials are looking into cracking down on defective lithium-ion batteries that power hoverboards, scooters and motorized bicycles because of a rash of deadly fires caused by exploding batteries. The effort comes as New York City implements new laws meant to reduce the number of fires, injuries and deaths in a city where e-bikes have become ubiquitous. AP

NEW YORK—The explosion early on a June morning ignited a blaze that engulfed a New York City shop filled with motorized bicycles and their volatile lithium-ion batteries. Billowing smoke quickly killed four people asleep in apartments above the burning store.

As the ubiquity of e-bikes has grown, so has the frequency of fires and deaths blamed on the batteries that power them, prompting a campaign to establish regulations on how the batteries are manufactured, sold, reconditioned, charged and stored.

Consumer advocates and fire departments, particularly in New York City, are urging the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to establish mandatory safety standards and confiscate noncompliant imports when they arrive at the border or shipping ports, so that unsafe e-bikes and poorly manufactured batteries don’t reach streets and endanger homes.

During a forum focused on ebikes and lithium-ion batteries held Thursday in Bethesda, Maryland, the commission’s chair, Alexander D. Hoehn-Saric, said it was an “urgent moment” that requires attention.

“Voluntary standards are not enough,” he said, siding with fire officials and other safety advocates who expressed broad support for mandatory standards for batteries and electrical systems in micromobility devices that include battery-powered scooters, bicycles and hoverboards.

These aren’t typical fires, said New York City Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh. The batteries don’t smolder; they explode. “The number of fire incidents has rapidly increased. Other cities across the country have begun seeing these issues as well, and municipalities that are not yet experiencing this phenomenon may be facing similar incidents in the future,” Kavanagh told the commission.

“We have reached a point of crisis in New York City, with ion batteries now a top cause of fatal fires in New York.”

With some 65,000 e-bikes zipping through its streets—more than any other place in the US— New York City is the epicenter of battery-related fires. There have been 100 such blazes so far this year, resulting in 13 deaths, already more than double the six fatalities last year.

Nationally, there were more than 200 battery-related fires reported to the commission—an obvious undercount—from 39 states over the past two years, including 19 deaths blamed on micromobility devices.

Hoehn-Saric called on Congress to strengthen the commission’s authority so it can “move rapidly toward establishing mandatory standards” that could reduce destructive and deadly fires caused by malfunctioning lithium-ion batteries.

The task is being spearheaded by Democratic members in New York’s congressional delegation, including US Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, as well as US Rep. Ritchie Torres. Because mandatory standards don’t exist, Schumer said, poorly made batteries have flooded the US, increasing the risk of fires.

In many cases, authorities have been challenged to track the source of batteries manufactured overseas, many of them bought online or from aftermarket dealers. AP

CHINA’S economic recovery continued to lose momentum in July, high frequency indicators show, with consumers pulling back on spending and the property market showing no signs of a rebound.

H ousing sales in the country’s biggest cities continued to fall, car sales contracted and business sentiment, especially among smaller firms, weakened, the data showed.

T hat sets the stage for possibly more gloomy economic news when China releases official July data from next week, starting with the purchasing managers index on Monday. The consensus among economists is that economic growth will now come in closer to the government’s target of around 5 percent this year, with much depending on the recovery in consumption and the property market.

Beijing has signaled more support for the struggling housing sector, but has stopped short of promising stronger monetary and fiscal stimulus. Without that aid, the economy will probably just “muddle through” the rest of the year, Citigroup Inc. and other banks have said.

Here’s a look at some of the recent highfrequency indicators for July:

Business confidence

SMALL and medium-sized companies were the least upbeat about their prospects in six months in July, according to a survey by Standard Chartered Plc.

The bank’s China Small Medium Enterprises Confidence Index eased to 50.7 this month—falling closer to the 50 level that separates expansion from contraction—as new export orders dropped and hiring slowed.

High-Tech Manufacturing ACTIVITY in emerging industries such as green technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, and new energy vehicles shrank this month for the first time since December, according to a poll by China Logistics Information Index (Beijing) Co. and a research institute linked to the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Busi nesses are being forced to cut output prices despite facing higher input costs, which underscores insufficient demand in many sectors, according to the survey. That will “erode corporate profits, making it more difficult for firms to reinvest,” Chen Zhi of the research institute said in a statement accompanying the release of the survey results.

T he EPMI is a leading indicator for the official manufacturing PMI, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Car sales

PASSENGER vehicle sales declined 4.8 percent in July from a year earlier, and 8.6 percent compared with June, according to preliminary estimates by China’s Passenger Car Association. Sales of new energy cars, which the government has been pushing hard this year as a consumption pillar, surged 27.5 percent on year but fell 6.8 percent from the previous month, the figures show.

Housing market

THE weekly average of new housing sales by floor space in China’s tier-one cities is on pace to hit its six-month low, according to Bloomberg calculations based on figures in the first 21 days of July provided by China Real Estate Information Corp. Trading in the four metropolitans of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen is a barometer of the country’s overall property market.

Infrastructure spending

LOCAL governments have slowed the pace of bond sales used to finance infrastructure projects in July. That suggests infrastructure growth is unlikely to accelerate in the near term.

The issuance of local government special bonds so far this month has been a third less than what was sold in June, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. There’s usually a lag of about a month between the debt sale and the actual investment made, Cinda Securities Co. has previously estimated.

Despite the figures, commodity prices have rallied on the back of Beijing’s promises to provide more support to the real estate sector. Glass futures traded in Zhengzhou is in line to book its fifth straight week of gains while copper has risen more than 5 percent from a June low on the London Metal Exchange. Iron ores are trading near a nearly four-month high. Bloomberg News