FirstFT: European leaders press Xi on trade in Paris visit

Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the Global Economy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

Good morning. We start with Xi Jinping’s visit to Paris yesterday, the first stop on a six-day European tour, amid escalating trade tensions between Beijing and the EU.

Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen warned China’s leader that the EU needed to protect itself from cheap Chinese imports in order to rebalance trade ties. The warning comes as the bloc conducts a series of anti-subsidy investigations into Chinese companies.

But French president Macron hailed some advances in commercial discussions with China, including Xi’s “open attitude” over France’s cognac industry that won a temporary reprieve from the threat of Chinese tariffs.

Xi also joined calls for a worldwide truce during the Olympic Games in Paris this summer and urged Russia and Ukraine to engage in dialogue, though he underscored that Beijing had nothing to do with the war.

Xi ended the evening with dinner under the chandeliers of the Élysée Palace, joined by Macron and business leaders, from LVMH’s Bernard Arnault to the head of carmaker Stellantis, Carlos Tavares.

We have more details on Xi’s visit to Paris — plus a look ahead to his visit to the Pyrenees today for more personal one-on-one talks with Macron

• Opinion: Xi’s Europe trip itinerary seems a little eccentric, with visits to France, Serbia and Hungary. But each of the three countries is seen as a potential lever to prise open the cracks in the west, writes Gideon Rachman.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: S&P Global publishes its services purchasing managers’ index for Japan. Taiwan and the Philippines report their consumer price indices for April.

• Australia: The Reserve Bank of Australia announces its monetary policy decision.

• India: The country votes in the third phase of its staggered seven-stage general election.

• Results: Nintendo, Saudi Aramco, UBS, BP, Lyft and Reddit are among those reporting earnings.

• Apple: The company hosts a product launch event called Let Loose with the usual secrecy around the device being unveiled, though many expect a new iPad tablet.

Five more top stories

1. Exclusive: Singapore is studying proposals to shake up its struggling stock market as the gap between the financial hub’s performance and other regional exchanges widens. One person involved in the creation of the proposals said they had “not seen an all-government and industry approach like this since Singapore first decided it wanted to foster a tech and venture capital industry in the late 2000s”. Read the full story.

2. Hamas has said it has broadly accepted a proposal to free dozens of Israeli hostages and secure a temporary ceasefire in the seven-month war with Israel in Gaza. Israel responded yesterday by saying the proposal fell “far from Israel’s necessary requirements” and vowed to press ahead with its military offensive in Rafah, the southern Gazan city where more than 1mn people have sought sanctuary.

3. Vladimir Putin has ordered Russia’s military to rehearse the use of so-called tactical nuclear weapons in combat, casting the drills as a response to “threats” from French President Emmanuel Macron. The French president last week reaffirmed that he was leaving open the possibility of sending western troops to Ukraine, as he warned of the threat Russia’s invasion poses to Europe.

4. The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s Manhattan “hush money” trial threatened to jail the former president if he continued to harass witnesses and jurors. Justice Juan Merchan issued the final warning as he found Trump in criminal contempt for a 10th time, over comments made online and to the media. The presumptive Republican nominee has already been fined $10,000 — $1,000 per violation.

5. Global trade growth is set to more than double this year as inflation eases and a booming US economy helps to drive activity. The OECD, IMF and World Trade Organization are all predicting a sharp rebound in global flows of products this year after a slowdown in 2023 driven by higher prices, surging interest rates and sluggish demand.

News in-depth

The appeal of so-called second-hand homes appears to be rising in China amid a property crisis that has left tens of thousands of housing developments yet to be completed. New data showed that second-hand home sales surpassed those of new homes by floor space last year for the first time since private property markets emerged in the 1990s — a potentially seismic shift for the crisis-hit real estate sector.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Chinese currency: A policy-induced or accidental depreciation of the renminbi would have far-reaching economic and political consequences, writes George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford university’s China Centre and at Soas.

• Long Covid: The impact of the condition on health systems and the workforce is still proving difficult to measure four years after the pandemic first emerged.

• ‘Breakdown nations’: Former “model” economies such as Germany and Thailand offer lessons for today’s economic stars about the challenge of sustaining growth, writes Ruchir Sharma.

Chart of the day

The bill for meeting climate goals set out by the 2015 Paris agreement will be immense. Climate finance globally will need to increase to about $9tn a year globally by 2030, up from just under $1.3tn in 2021-22, according to a report last year from the Climate Policy Initiative.

Take a break from the news

. . . and visit Tokyo’s teamLab Planets exhibition, the most mind-bending, sense-scrambling arts happening in the world. FT Globetrotter’s Niki Blasina wandered through the museum’s “body-immersive” displays — including a mirrored garden with thousands of moving, real flowers.

Additional contributions from Tee Zhuo and Gordon Smith