Premium office rents in Guangzhou dropped 10.1% in 2025, logging their sharpest annual decline since 2010, reports Caixin. This comes as cost-cutting firms vacated prime locations in favor of lower-priced alternatives.

The vacancy rate in the city climbed to 21.2% by the end of the year, up 2.4 percentage points, according to data released Tuesday by CBRE Group. Guangzhou’s slump reflects a broader retreat across China’s top-tier cities, where an influx of new supply is colliding with subdued corporate demand, says Caixin.

New supply of premium office space in Guangzhou surged 62.2% year-on-year to 551,000 square meters in 2025, while net absorption—defined as the total newly occupied space minus vacated space—slipped to 203,000 square meters. According to a separate analysis from Savills PLC, that’s 22% below the city’s five-year average.

The US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday overwhelmingly advanced a bill that would give Congress power over artificial intelligence chip exports, reports Reuters. This comes despite pushback from the White House and a social media campaign against the legislation.

Representative Brian Mast of Florida, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced the “AI Overwatch Act” in December after President Donald Trump greenlighted shipments of Nvidia’s H200 AI chips to China.

The legislation, which still needs to clear the full House and Senate, would give the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Banking Committee 30 days to review and potentially block licenses issued to export advanced AI chips to China and other adversaries.

China’s trade surplus with Africa hit a record high of $102 billion in 2025, up from $62 billion the year before. The total export revenue was $225 billion, almost double African shipments to China which generated $123 billion.

Analysts have said that the spike in Africa-trade may be in response to the pressures on China’s exports from other regions, such as the US and EU. China’s manufacturing capabilities have got to the point where its factories can produce a seemingly unlimited amount of anything. But all those products have to go somewhere, and for now, Africa and the Global South seem to be more willing to accept them. 

In these developing regions, Chinese products are less likely to be replacing ones that are made locally. Hence less immediate friction. However, such massive trade imbalances are inherently disruptive and unstable. Perhaps longer term, Chinese companies shifting production to Africa may be the best option. With the gains being made in manufacturing automation, setting up shop anywhere is now more feasible than ever.

The EU plans to phase out components and equipment from high-risk suppliers in critical sectors, reports Reuters, citing a draft proposal released by Brussels on Tuesday. The move was criticised by China’s Huawei, which is set to be among the companies affected.

According to Reuters, the measures, set out by the European Commission in revisions to the EU’s Cybersecurity Act, follow a rise in cyber and ransomware attacks and growing concerns over foreign interference, espionage and Europe’s reliance on non-EU technology suppliers.

“A legislative proposal to limit or exclude non-EU suppliers based on country of origin, rather than factual evidence and technical standards, violates the EU’s basic legal principles of fairness, non-discrimination, and proportionality, as well as its WTO (World Trade Organization) obligations,” a Huawei spokesperson said in response.

China’s smartphone market contracted in 2025, as government subsidies which were propping the sector up dissipated in the second half of the year. Global Times reported in May that the subsidies—which were rolled out in January—accounted for 50 million units sold, seeing a year-on-year increase of 25.4% for the first four months of 2025.

However, Caixin reports that through the entire year, the total number of smartphones sold was 284 million units—and said that was a contraction of 0.6% year-on-year. It appears that the momentum created by the subsidies in the early part of the year was not sustained. While such subsidies have propped up many of China’s sectors, this demonstrates that once the subsidies end, people tend to stop buying. 

Meanwhile, Reuters, citing unnamed sources, suggests that Beijing will introduce new measures focusing on the services sector this year, in order to offset this lack of consumer willingness to spend on goods. It’s not clear who exactly Reuters spoke to, nor what the measures are. The heavy use of subsidies is an indicator of the depth of the problem—the problem being willingness to consume. The lack of a social safety net, and a general pessimism are ongoing issues. We await more details on the measures Reuters talked about, which may indeed include more subsidies.