China’s lithium-ion battery exports to the EU surged in the first three quarters of this year, as Chinese carmakers rush to build factories in Europe amid a tightening of import restrictions on electric vehicles (EVs). Power inverter exports to the bloc’s members also grew strongly despite EU efforts to exclude Chinese products from publicly funded energy projects. Shipments of Chinese lithium-ion batteries to the EU were worth US$31.2 billion in the first nine months of the year, up 46 per cent...

Plenary sessions of the Central Committee, the upper echelon of China’s ruling Communist Party, are major events on the country’s political calendar. This month’s edition, the fifth plenum, is attracting even more attention as the world’s second-largest economy takes on a more prominent role in global affairs. In the first part of this series, Frank Chen and Alice Li track the ways top-level policy decisions flow down to local officials – and the challenges those officials face in balancing a...