Chinese consumers have embraced facial identification and mobile payments to buy everything from fast food to sex toys, drawn towards the efficiency and the novelty of semi-automated stores.

The United States, European Union and Japan vowed on Tuesday to work together to fight market-distorting trade practices and policies that have fueled excess production capacity, naming several key features of China’s economic system.

In China, it’s widely believed that the most important driving force for economic growth in the first quarter of century after the Cold War has been economic globalization. The world economy has expanded more than three times, lifting many people out of poverty.

China-experts and international commentators have their eyes and ears set on an important year-end economic conference happening in Beijing over the next few weeks.

The China model could lead to more varied views on what works and doesn’t in economic development.

Recently, the Trump administration notified the World Trade Organization (WTO) that the United States opposes granting China market economy status at the WTO, an opinion also supported by the European Union. Under the World Trade Organization (WTO) terms, China should have graduated last year to market-economy status.

Recent studies have inspired headlines such as “China and U.S. ‘neck and neck’ in foreign assistance spending”. Contrasted against the Trump administration’s apparent contempt for longstanding American support for global development promotion, such headlines seem yet further evidence of China’s emergence as a leader of global economic governance and influence.

In the past decade, China has increasingly been perceived in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) as a country which could bring economic benefits to the region through developing trade relations, growing inflow of Chinese investment and recently also through infrastructure projects.

Lossmaking “zombie” companies comprise a smaller share of China’s overall corporate debt than widely assumed, according to new International Monetary Fund research highlighting the broad challenge facing policymakers as they seek to control rising debt.

Gas-supply shortages are hitting north and central China as Beijing tries to accelerate a shift away from coal rather than miss environmental targets this year.