EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic will meet China’s international trade envoy, Li Chenggang, in Paris on Thursday, reports the South China Morning Post. This comes as the sides look to defuse tensions that have pushed them to the brink of a trade war.

The officials will meet on the sidelines of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ministerial meeting, setting the stage for a month of intensified engagement ahead of Commerce Minister Wang Wentao’s visit to Brussels on June 28 and 29, according to people familiar with the plan.

EU sources to the Post the sides sought to establish a new platform for discussing trade and investment issues, even as Brussels prepared to take a more hardline stance towards Chinese economic practices.

EU investigates JD.com’s $2.6 BN bid for Germany’s Ceconomy

The European Commission is launching an in-depth investigation into Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com’s €2.2 billion ($2.6 billion) bid to acquire German electronics retailer Ceconomy, reports the South China Morning Post. This comes amid mounting tensions between Brussels and Beijing.

A preliminary investigation showed that the Chinese firm could have received foreign subsidies that distorted the EU internal market, including “financing, tax incentives and grants” from China, the European Commission said in a statement.

“In particular, the commission preliminarily identified concerns that the potential foreign subsidies have enabled JD.com to offer conditions that potentially distorted the negotiation process related to the acquisition of Ceconomy,” the statement said.

Leading Chinese autonomous driving startups are expanding their robotaxi fleets despite a temporary regulatory tightening sparked by a mass vehicle failure in March, reports Caixin.

Pony.ai reported a fleet of more than 1,700 vehicles as of May 24, up by roughly 250 cars from two months earlier. The company also upgraded its 2026 fleet target from 3,000 to 3,500 vehicles. Similarly, WeRide expanded its domestic fleet to about 1,000 cars by the end of April, an increase of roughly 200 vehicles since late March. Baidu did not disclose Apollo Go’s exact fleet size, but reported completing 3.2 million orders in the first quarter, a 120% year-on-year surge, with peak weekly orders surpassing 350,000 in March.

The regulatory shift stems from a March 31 incidentin the central city of Wuhan, where nearly 100 robotaxis operated by Baidu subsidiary Apollo Go suddenly stalled in a coordinated system failure. In mid-April, three central government ministries ordered industry-wide rectifications to improve safety oversight.

China’s economy grew 5% year-on-year in the first quarter, reports the South China Morning Post citing data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The figure beat market expectations despite the global impact of the US-Israel war in Iran.

The closely watched GDP growth figure, released by the NBS on Thursday, beat the 4.86% forecast by economists polled by financial data provider Wind. It also marked an acceleration from the 4.5% recorded in the last three months of 2025, which was China’s weakest quarterly growth figure in three years.

“GDP came in stronger than expected, marking a very solid start to the year, and Beijing is unlikely to take immediate policy action,” said Ding Shuang, chief economist for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered.

Consumption slowed in China at the end of the first quarter, reports Caixin. This comes as weaker income growth and a declining propensity to spend pointed to fragile domestic demand.

Retail sales of consumer goods rose 1.7% year-on-year in March, missing the 2.2% average forecast in a Caixin survey and slowing from the first two months of the year, official data showed Thursday. 

For the first quarter, retail sales of consumer goods grew 2.4%, decelerating from 4.6% a year earlier. Services consumption, measured by a separate retail sales indicator, continued to outperform, rising 5.5%.