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The deal signed last week between the centre-right CDU and centre-left SPD paves the way for vital investment in Europe’s biggest economy
Some years ago, hundreds of German finance ministry staff dressed in black and formed a giant zero to their boss, Wolfgang Schäuble, as he left office. It was a tribute to Mr Schäuble’s extreme fiscal conservatism, which had delivered Germany’s first balanced budget in the postwar period. Amid resurgent in the Angela Merkel years, the so-called black zero – symbolising a constitutional prohibition on public debt – had gradually acquired cult status.
As a new administration prepares to take power in Berlin, it seems unlikely that human euro signs will welcome the latest politician to take on Mr Schäuble’s former role. But in dramatic fashion, the spending taps are set to be turned on. Via a swiftly staged in the outgoing Bundestag, “” dogma was consigned to history by the chancellor‑elect, Friedrich Merz. The way was thus paved for groundbreaking expenditure on defence, and the overhaul of an economy being left behind in a changed, suddenly menacing world.
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Approach to expanding trade has been castigated for allowing Beijing to invest heavily in vital UK infrastructure
As even Donald Trump was forced to accept in , China is just too big to ignore. And so it is, on a much smaller scale, that yet another UK government is doing several contradictory things at once when it comes to Beijing.
This weekend brought a particularly resonant example. On the one hand, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, that British Steel’s Chinese owner, Jingye, was to blame for neglect – if not worse – over the fate of the threatened blast furnaces at Scunthorpe.

PM’s spokesperson says ships carrying materials needed by the steel plant have docked in Lincolnshire
Also on the morning media round today was shadow business minister Harriett Baldwin, who endured a torrid time on Sky News while being repeatedly pressed to acknowledge any culpability for the British Steel crisis by the previous Conservative administration that sold the company to current Chinese owners Jingye in 2019.
The MP for West Worcestershire was told the appearance was “a wonderful opportunity for you here right now, with our viewers on Sky News, to say, look, it was a mistake. We understand that, and we support the government. Do you want to do that this morning?”
Well, I think that, you know, I know that it was looked at very rigorously at the time. It was welcomed by the unions. And I think we need to recognise that 2025 is very different from 2019. And we need to focus on the future of this critical national infrastructure in this industry in our country.
I think it’s always got to be a last resort. But, you know, there was a period when the government owned it, before Jingye came in, and so I think you should never have anything off the table, but I think that does need to be a last resort.
It was a deal that was welcomed by the unions and local communities at the time. So can we put that in the past and focus on the future of this critical industry.
I think there’s a general consensus. If you hear the chancellor today talking about investment in our infrastructure, she’s always looking for partnerships with private equity capital. She’s looking for your pension and my pension to be investing in some of these infrastructure.
I think there is always going to be a role for private capital in all of these organisations. And I think it means that there’s less competition in terms of financing for the schools, for the hospitals, which do require exclusive public funding.
These situations are different, which is why this interventionist UK government has an industrial strategy that matches solutions to the problems at hand.
I would contrast the speed with which they [the SNP] can take to social media and take to the airwaves to air their grievances and the speed at which they move to secure Scottish jobs.

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Lin Jian says disagreement between Jingye and British government could deter Chinese investment in the UK

China has urged the British government not to “politicise” the , saying that doing so could deter Chinese companies from investing in the UK.
A spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said on Monday that Jingye, the Beijing-based owner of British Steel, had acted as a commercial business when it tried to shut down the plant, not as an arm of the Chinese government.

Effects could tip one into recession and undermine other’s fragile economy but prospects for rapprochement are not hopeless
Sky-high tariffs that now hang heavily over US-China trade mean, effectively, that they have declared a trade embargo on each other, normally an act of war. The economic consequences for both will hurt.
The US’s $150bn (£113bn) or so of exports to China will fall away quickly, while China’s $440bn worth of exports to the US may drop by up to 75% over the next 18 months, unless some sort of negotiation happens. No one will be spared the effects.

A generation of Asian American leaders are finding their own ways to fight for change in New Haven – whether through organization, public service or community-building. Some found their way to Yale ...

Xi Jinping expected to present China as reliable partner in contrast to US, which imposed – then suspended – tariffs over 40% on some countries
The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, warned there would be “no winners” in a trade war and that protectionism “leads nowhere”, as he began a three-nation trip to south-east Asia, starting in Vietnam on Monday.
Xi’s tour, which started in Hanoi, also includes rare visits to Malaysia and Cambodia and will seek to strengthen ties with China’s closest neighbours amid a trade war that has .

American-born Anthony Wang, who opened his first restaurant, Firstborn, inside the Mandarin Plaza in Chinatown on March 28, credits his older sister, Lulu, for his career as a chef. He ...

Many see parallels with the architect of the Cultural Revolution. Both relished disruption and have exploited the power of the mob
When rare protests flared in China in 2022, : “We want reform, not a Cultural Revolution.” It alluded to complaints that the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, was behaving in an increasingly Mao-esque manner. His extraordinary dominance over his party, political repression, tight social controls and burgeoning personality cult all lent themselves to comparison with the man who ruled China for decades.
Yet Xi is committed to order and discipline, exerting authority through the organs of the Communist party. Mao Zedong relished disruption and turned to the power of the masses. That’s why, increasingly, many in China are comparing Mao to another modern-day leader. Despite the ferocity of Donald Trump’s trade war, they are perhaps just as shocked by what he is doing to his own country. They see a proud nation felled not by an external threat, but by the unbridled ego of the man at the top – a vengeful, anarchic force who uses dramatic rhetoric to whip up the mob and destroy institutions, and unpredictability to reinforce his power. It looks awfully familiar.
Tania Branigan is foreign leader writer for the Guardian and author of
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Wera Hobhouse says her apparent presence on secret list of critics of country’s human rights record made her a target

A Liberal Democrat MP to see her young grandson has said her experience should be “a wake-up call for any parliamentarian”, given that it seems to show China holds a secret list of banned politicians.
Wera Hobhouse, who was turned back by officials on Thursday, said she was given no explanation as to why this happened, and could only assume that it was because she had spoken out about rights abuses by China.

She also mentions that well into the 2000s, the upper-middle class boasted about their success by taking photos while eating at Pizza Hut.That American dream faded away in the last decade, as many ...