One of the most interesting diplomatic events of the year - here's my preview of Xi Jinping's visit to France

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🤯

EU cranks up the pressure on China as Xi prepares for 3-nation visit

My report on the view from Brussels

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Scholz has declined Macron's invitation to join him for a joint summit with Chinese President Xi and the EU's von der Leyen in Paris on Monday.

Instead, Scholz will travel to Lithuania and Latvia on Monday, a spokesperson said.

More Chinese upstream battery FDI in Europe: Hunan Yuneng, one of China's biggest cathode material producer, announced its first overseas investment in Spain. This follows similar Chinese investments in Finland, Sweden, Morocco, and South Korea.

Vividly remember listening to this on the radio, one of my favourite childhood memories🔴⚪️

Chinese EV makers refusing to play ball with EU investigation

Human Rights Watch: “President Macron should make it clear to Xi Jinping that Beijing’s crimes against humanity come with consequences for China’s relations with France.'

More interesting prep for Macron's meetings with Xi

How the Chinese police infiltrate France

Ahead of Xi's trip to France, an interesting report on 'an illegal operation, led by the powerful Ministry of Public Security, with the assistance of the Chinese embassy in Paris.'

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This was something I had heard and been trying to report, but had been unable to verify.

But it seems to have been treated very sensitively by all sides - people very eager to keep it out of the news...

Noah reports that Scholz tried to get the commission to delay announcing the IPI probe and authorities to 'slow roll' the China spy arrests 'to avoid embarrassing Chinese leaders while Scholz was in Beijing'

Farewell to one of the greats

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It is now six months since award-winning #journalist Minnie Chan last filed a story for South China Morning Post. Based here in #HongKong , last seen in Beijing. Her current and former colleagues and the broader community of journalists here care only for her welfare and hope she is OK.

More potential points of friction ahead of le rendez-vous dans les Pyrénées

EU opens probe into Meta, to see if Facebook and Instagram has breached the DSA 'relating to deceptive advertising and political content'

Fully expecting defenders of the free market to rush to Meta's defence, as they did with TikTok last week.

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