BRI investment and construction activity hits record...Millions drop out of key China health insurance plan...Airbus signs fresh China deal

BRI investment and construction activity hits record

The value of Chinese companies’ new investment and construction contracts in countries that are part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s global Belt and Road Initiative has hit a record high this year, a new study has found, reports the Financial Times. The expansion in overseas markets and China’s increased engagement with countries under its flagship BRI infrastructure programme contrast starkly with the approach of the US, where President Donald Trump is imposing bruising tariffs on trading partners around the world.

Chinese construction contracts and investments in BRI members totalled $124 billion over 176 deals in the first six months of the year, greater than the total of $122 billion for the whole of 2024, according to a study by Australia’s Griffith University and the Green Finance & Development Center in Beijing.

“The surge in Chinese engagement this year is surprising, even against the backdrop of steadily growing BRI activity since Covid,” said Christoph Nedopil Wang, the study’s author. “What sets 2025 apart is the scale: multiple megadeals each exceeding $10 billion.”

Millions drop out of key China health insurance plan

China’s public health-insurance program for its vast urban and rural population shed nearly 16 million members last year, marking a sixth straight year of decline and exposing deepening fissures in the nation’s social safety net, according to official data released Monday, reports Caixin. The sharp drop in enrollment, coupled with growing demographic and financial pressures on a separate insurance fund for salaried employees, raises critical questions about the long-term sustainability of China’s health care financing. For Beijing, the health of the system is a key indicator of the state’s fiscal capacity to manage a rapidly aging society.

The country’s overall health-insurance participation rate remained stable at 95%, covering 1.33 billion people at the end of 2024, according to the National Healthcare Security Administration’s annual statistical bulletin released Monday.

However, the residents’ medical-insurance program, which covers a vast population outside the formal workforce―including non-salaried workers, the self-employed, students and rural populations, saw its enrollment fall by 15.8 million people to 947 million in 2024, continuing a multiyear decline.

Airbus signs fresh China deal

Airbus has signed a new cooperation deal with its Chinese partner that will see the company localise more production of its A321 jet in China, with the announcement coming just a week ahead of a key China-Europe leaders’ summit, reports the South China Morning Post. The European aviation giant will work with its partner AVIC Xi’an Aircraft Industry Group to start fuselage equipping—installing components onto the front and rear parts of an aircraft—for the A321 at its factory in Tianjin under the agreement.

The programme is an extension of the companies’ similar cooperation on the A320 and sends a positive signal in the run-up to next week’s summit in Beijing, where some analysts predict Airbus may sign a “mega-deal” worth tens of billions of dollars.

“It has expanded the scope of cooperation between both parties in the manufacturing of Airbus single-aisle aircraft, and is also an important measure by Airbus to continuously implement its localisation strategy,” George Xu, CEO of Airbus China, told state media outlet Xinhua News on Tuesday.

BMW signs partnership with Momenta for China self-driving

As foreign automakers struggle to keep pace in China’s fast-evolving electric vehicle (EV) and smart car market, companies such as BMW are turning to top Chinese tech firms to stay in the race, reports Caixin. BMW has signed a partnership with autonomous driving startup Momenta to co-develop advanced driver-assistance systems for its next-generation China-built models, which are due to launch in 2026.

The deal represents a significant step in BMW’s local adaptation strategy as the German carmaker fights to reclaim its footing in its largest single market. Earlier this year, BMW announced collaborations with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and Alibaba Group, integrating Huawei’s HarmonyOS ecosystem and developing an AI engine based on Alibaba’s Tongyi large language model.

China accounted for more than one in four of BMW’s global sales in the first half of 2025. However, sales in the country fell 15.5% year-on-year to 317,000 units—dragging down the brand’s global total of 1.207 million vehicles, which remained relatively flat compared with the same period in 2024.

China vows to regulate ‘irrational’ EV industry competition

China's cabinet on Wednesday pledged to regulate what it called "irrational" competition in the country's electric vehicle industry, vowing to strengthen cost investigation and price monitoring, according to state broadcaster CCTV, reports Reuters. The cabinet meeting, presided by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, was held as a two-year price war in the world's largest auto market only intensifies.

China will focus on promoting the high-quality development of the electric vehicle industry and implement comprehensive measures in both the short- and long-term to address the "phenomenon of irrational competition" in the sector, CCTV quoted the cabinet as saying, without giving further details.

The cabinet will also urge the main automakers to fulfil commitments on supplier payment terms and promised to help them boost competitiveness through technological innovation and quality improvement.

BRI records

The value of Chinese companies’ new investment and construction contracts in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries has hit a record high this year. The value of contracts in the first six months of the year reached $124 billion over 176 deals, beating the total of $122 billion in the entirety of 2024.

China and its companies are making use of the perceived current weaknesses of the US to strengthen its relationship with the global south. In this moment of relative geopolitical chaos, all relationships or seemingly fixed elements are called into question, and it is the right time to reach out. Doing so with BRI projects that help these countries in a time of global economic difficulty is always smart, but the question is how much China has to spend on the projects.

Interestingly, much of the money has gone into multiple $10 billion-plus ‘megadeals,’ which is unexpected. Over the past few years, things were moving in the opposite direction, with smaller projects taking center stage. It isn’t possible to be completely sure of the motivations, but given the geopolitical situation, greater engagement with new markets appears to be a wise move.