Though Serbia’s incoming Student List government called for the resignation of several senior officials and an audit of public projects, some of them built by Chinese contractors, analysts and insiders said it was unlikely the new coalition’s victory would lead to a sea change in the business relationship between the two countries. The message at Thursday’s Student List news conference – the first since the electoral coalition defeated former president Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbian Progressive...

A mobile network outage in France this week has raised questions about the reliability of Finnish telecoms giant Nokia’s products against the backdrop of continued European Union efforts to phase out Chinese suppliers Huawei Technologies and ZTE over security concerns. The problem first hit the network of France’s biggest telecoms provider Orange at 11.37am on Monday and lasted until 8.30pm, resulting in outages of up to nine hours for some customers, Orange France CEO Jerome Henique told French...

Beijing reiterated its opposition on Thursday to potential new European Union trade safeguards targeting Chinese exports, vowing to take “all necessary measures” to defend the interests of its companies. “Artificially restricting normal trade is suspected of violating World Trade Organization rules,” said Huang Ling, spokeswoman for China’s Ministry of Commerce, at a weekly press conference. “Far from improving the competitiveness of EU industry, it will increase the burden on downstream...

A former CIA official has called for Washington to spy on foreign companies to help US firms stay ahead in the technology race, in what would represent a break from long-standing US policy amid intensifying competition with China. “The US lead in many crucial advanced technologies is being contested or even erased by China,” wrote David Cohen, who served as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, in an article published by Foreign Affairs...

China’s vice-minister of finance, Liao Min, has been appointed as the next deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), according to an announcement by the organisation on Wednesday. Liao will take over from Li Bo, a former deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, whose term expires at the end of November. It remains unclear whether Liao will leave his position in the Chinese government before taking on the role in Washington. China’s vice-minister of finance since...

A former high-ranking official with China’s securities regulator was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on Tuesday over bribery charges, as Beijing continues its sweeping anti-corruption campaign. Wang Huimin, who served as a member of the Communist Party committee of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) from 2014 to 2019, was found to have taken more than 436 million yuan (US$65 million) in bribes. “The amount involved was especially large and caused especially heavy...