Alsephina

The tweet (and sources for the graph)

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has told Chinese President Xi Jinping it is important for economic activity to be on a “a level playing field”, when the pair met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil on Tuesday.

Xi also met French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese state media announced later on Tuesday.

According to Reuters, Scholz told Xi it is important for China and Germany to talk about difficult topics such as trade and the Ukraine war.

“It is important that we ensure that a level playing field accompanies the economic activities of companies on all sides, that is central to the conditions for future work,” Scholz said.

Xi said China was ready to work with Germany to consolidate an all-round strategic partnership, according to Xinhua.

“China regards Germany as an important partner in promoting China-style modernisation and will continue to provide broad market opportunities for German companies,” Xi said, according to the state news agency. “China believes that Europe is an important pole in a multipolar world, and is committed to cooperating with Europe to jointly meet challenges.”

The Chinese president said he also hoped Germany could play an important role in China-EU negotiations regarding the bloc’s punitive tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

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Several students were injured on Tuesday (Nov 19) after a car crashed outside a primary school in central China's Hunan province, state media said.

"Many schoolchildren were injured, the specific casualties are being investigated," state broadcaster CCTV said.

Footage circulating on Chinese social media - which matched online images of the school - appeared to show the aftermath of the incident, with dozens of children running in panic away from the site of the crash.

About eight to nine people were injured and they included both students and their parents, said the eyewitness, adding that all the victims have been taken to hospital.

The crash took place outside Yong'an primary school in the central city of Changde, home to over five million people.

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BYD’s total deliveries have exceeded perennial leader Volkswagen’s volume this year through October.

BYD is set to overtake perennial market leader Volkswagen as China’s biggest carmaker in 2024 after outselling the German company’s joint venture units in the first 10 months, as the growing popularity of battery-powered cars strengthens its market dominance..

“Its performance this year will largely beat Wang’s annual forecast of 3.6 million units,” said Phate Zhang, founder of the Shanghai-based company. “It now has an overwhelming advantage over all assemblers in China.”.

BYD also outsold Tesla in the third quarter in terms of volume and revenue. It delivered 1.13 million electric cars in the three months to September 30, a 38 per cent jump from a year earlier. Tesla recorded 462,890 units in the same period. Revenue jumped 24 per cent to 201.1 billion yuan (US$28.2 billion) versus Tesla’s US$25.2 billion..

Meanwhile, the Shenzhen-based company achieved a new milestone when it churned out its 10 millionth unit after more than two decades in the business. The Denza Z9 was delivered to Feng Ji, the founder and CEO of Game Science, which produced the hit video game Black Myth: Wukong.

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Final section of the east-route natural gas pipeline between China and Russia completed seven months ahead of schedule.

Russian gas is expected to power households in Shanghai by the end of the year after Chinese workers finished building the final section of the east-route natural gas pipeline between the two countries, China’s state television said on Monday.

The 5,111km-long gas route, a signature project underscoring tightening economic ties between China and its resource-rich neighbour, would provide “stable natural gas supply” for a combined 130 million households each year, it added.

The project, touted as having the world’s largest single-pipe capacity, would “make important contributions to optimising China’s energy consumption structure, promoting green transformation, and helping to achieve the ‘dual carbon’ goals,” CCTV said.

China has set a target of reaching peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.

Chinese construction workers have accelerated the building progress of the southern section, which starts in Hebei province and ends in Shanghai, since it broke ground in 2020, and finished the whole project seven months ahead of schedule, PipeChina official Cui Zong told CCTV.

Energy trade between China and Russia has jumped in recent years as Western economies have boycotted commodities from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

Last year, pipeline gas supplies from Russia climbed by 61.7 per cent from a year earlier to US$6.4 billion, making China its second-largest importer after Turkmenistan, according to Russian state agency TASS.

The volume of Russian crude shipped to China also rose by 24 per cent in 2023 from a year earlier to 107.02 million metric tonnes – equivalent to 2.14 million barrels per day – according to China’s General Administration of Customs.

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