China update: our reporter’s round-up of the biggest news from the past 7 days

Reinforced airbases near Taiwan, LinkedIn to leave the country and a robust defence of China’s system by Xi Jinping

This instalment also features the latest on the Chinese astronauts and a look ahead to this week’s key economic data

Reading Time:2 minutes

All eyes will be on China’s latest economic data, released on Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics. Photo: Reuters

Published: 12:27pm, 18 Oct 2021Updated: 6:22pm, 18 Oct 2021

Happy Monday!

I’m Amber Wang, a reporter at the South China Morning Post who focuses on diplomacy and defence, with your Monday update on the biggest news items from the previous week, and what to look forward to in the week ahead.

My pick for the biggest news last week: at a party meeting on Thursday, President Xi Jinping called China’s political system a “great creation”, in what was seen as an attempt to defend the country against criticism, especially from the US, over rights and values.

US President Joe Biden has framed US-China relations as democracy versus autocracy, but in his address on Thursday Xi argued that real democracy was not about rhetoric and pledges made on the election trail but “for solving the people’s real problems”.

This week, all eyes are on economic data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) today. The country’s GDP grew by 4.9 per cent in the third quarter, just below expectations, and more analysis is sure to come on how the latest challenges facing China are likely to further affect its recovery.

In other news ….

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