Local Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts to encourage women to consider having more children, including through controversial cold-calling campaigns.

China says its economy grew a bit more in 2023 than earlier thought, according to an economic census conducted every five years.

But it has also been pursuing a more subtle campaign, one that involves bribery, blackmail and secret deals, and which uses people such as Mr Tang and other members of the Chinese diaspora to carry out surveillance,

China on Thursday revised up its 2023 gross domestic product (GDP) by 2.7% to 129.4 trillion yuan ($17.73 trillion), the head of the National Bureau of Statistics Kang Yi said at a press conference in Beijing.

Chinese battery manufacturer CATL said on Thursday it plans to seek a listing in Hong Kong, a Shenzhen Stock Exchange filing showed.

China's control is most pronounced in materials like gallium, accounting for 98 percent of global production. Gallium is vital for manufacturing high-performance microchips used in cutting-edge military technologies such as advanced radar systems and missile guidance platforms.

"Disabling or destroying TSMC is table stakes if China is taking over Taiwan," former senior Pentagon official Elbridge Colby said in February.

US crude exports to China plunged by almost half this year as shifts in the nation’s economy weighed on demand and the country buys more barrels from countries including Russia and Iran.

China’s first polysilicon futures debuted on Thursday, as a new hedging tool for a market that has been struggling with massive price volatility.

China and Japan have agreed to set up talks on often contentious security issues. The two countries are seeking to improve a relationship riven in recent years by a range of issues, from territorial disputes to the discharge of water from Japan’s tsunami-wrecked nuclear power plant.