China subsidies program overloaded by demand...Trump to extend TikTok sale deadline again...China C929 jet secures Western tech
China subsidies program overloaded by demand
China is testing the limits of what its consumer stimulus can accomplish by subsidizing purchases of select goods, fueling a shopping spree that boosted retail sales growth to the strongest in more than a year but threatening to overwhelm authorities even in the richest regions, reports Bloomberg. Consumer participation in the home goods trade-in program has seen provinces quickly running out of funds the national government has so far distributed to pay for the subsidies. Henan and Chongqing have been forced to suspend the granting of subsidies or receiving applications for the handouts, according to recent local government announcements and Chinese media reports, while Jiangsu and Guangdong imposed restrictions on the program such as managing its daily quota.
The disruptions are putting Beijing at a crossroads as it looks for a longer-term fix to a crisis of confidence among households.
Officials have made expanding consumption their top economic priority this year in anticipation of US tariffs, doubling the amount of ultra-long special sovereign bonds to finance subsidies for the cash-for-clunkers drive from last year to RMB 300 billion ($41.8 billion). Just over half of the total has been distributed or is in the process of being disbursed to local governments.
Trump to extend TikTok sale deadline again
US President Donald Trump will extend a June 19 deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the US assets of short video app TikTok for 90 days despite a law that mandated a sale or shutdown absent significant progress, the White House said on Tuesday, reports Reuters. Trump had already twice granted a reprieve from enforcement of a congressionally mandated ban on TikTok that was supposed to take effect in January. "President Trump will sign an additional executive order this week to keep TikTok up and running," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.
That would extend the deadline to mid-September.
"President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark," she added, saying the administration will spend the next three months making sure the sale closes so that Americans can keep using TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure. Trump said in May he would extend the June 19 deadline after the app helped him with young voters in the 2024 election.
China C929 jet secures Western tech
China’s chief civilian aircraft maker has secured deals to buy Western-made parts for its first widebody jet—expected to resemble the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 series—despite ongoing turbulence in trade and supply chains, reports the South China Morning Post. The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) reached an agreement to work with French aerospace firm Safran on the development of the widebody C929’s brake controls, ice detection system, tyre pressure indicators and on-board oxygen system, according to reports from Chinese media outlets on Monday.
Comac said on its website on Tuesday it had signed a “memorandum of understanding” with Safran during this week’s Paris Air Show. A photo from the event depicts a signing ceremony for the braking control and tyre pressure systems.
The Shanghai-based plane manufacturer separately reached a deal to acquire aircraft cabin door sensors from the US-based Crane Aerospace and Electronics, the media reports said.
China expands local government bond use to revive PPP projects
In an attempt to ease growing fiscal pressures and rescue stalled infrastructure partnerships, Chinese provinces are increasingly relying on local government special bonds to patch budget gaps and repay overdue corporate debt, including troubled public-private partnership (PPP) contracts, reports Caixin. Recent budget adjustment plans from Hunan and Yunnan provinces reveal a change in how newly issued special-purpose bonds are being deployed. Once limited to funding new infrastructure projects, these bonds are now being used to supplement local government budgets, repay overdue payments to private contractors, and even to support struggling legacy PPP projects.
According to Hunan’s Finance Department, the province was allocated a 2025 debt quota of RMB 182.3 billion ($25 billion). Of this, RMB 102.9 billion was included in its original budget, while the remaining RMB 79.4 billion was added during a recent mid-year adjustment. Notably, RMB 20 billion is earmarked specifically to settle overdue payments to companies, and RMB 27.7 billion will replenish local government fund budgets. Another RMB 12.5 billion will go toward municipal construction.
Yunnan’s revised budget follows a similar pattern. Of its RMB 117.2 billion debt quota, RMB 35.6 billion will address arrears to private companies, and RMB 36.9 billion will shore up local government fiscal strength. These new allocations mark a notable expansion in the usage of bonds—moving beyond debt swaps and infrastructure spending to cover liabilities threatening to derail basic governance.
China to nearly 2x nuclear power capacity by 2040
China will nearly double its nuclear power capacity by 2040, making it by far the world’s largest nuclear power generator, according to a new report by the China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA), reports the South China Morning Post. The country is set to build dozens of new reactors to raise its installed capacity to 200 gigawatts—more than double the US’ current capacity—by the end of the next decade, the Chinese industry body said in the paper released on Monday.
Beijing has embarked on one of the fastest buildouts of nuclear power facilities in history over recent years, as it strives to decarbonise the Chinese economy while also avoiding excessive dependence on weather-dependent green energy sources such as solar and wind.
Roughly half of the 61 nuclear reactors currently under construction worldwide are located in China, according to a Goldman Sachs report published last week.
How much?
Some Chinese provinces have been quickly running out of funds to pay for government subsidies aimed at boosting retail sales of select goods. The national government-distributed funds have apparently run dry in Henan and Chongqing, where the discounts have now been suspended, while Jiangsu and Guangdong have imposed restrictions on the program such as implementing daily quotas.
This difficulty in providing subsidies gives us a small window into the answer to the bigger question of how much money the Chinese government actually has, as well as how strained central and local government finances are. Each province has any number of draws on their budget—property bailouts, infrastructure spending, mass employment—but thanks to a lack of transparency, nobody really knows what the state of China’s systemic finances are.