Bloomberg China’s internet firms are revving up efforts to outdo each other since Beijing began to wind back its bruising crackdown on the tech sector, spurring an abrupt surge in competition that’s threatening margins and spooking investors. A battle is brewing as companies that laid low or sought to limit expansion during the years-long crackdown now feel the shackles ...

  Bloomberg Baidu Inc announced a $5 billion share buyback after reporting better-than-expected revenue, reflecting how its cloud computing service is offsetting an advertising lull during China’s economic downturn. Its shares gained 6% in pre-market US trading. Sales held steady at 33.1 billion yuan ($4.8 billion) for the three months ended December, compared with expectations for 32.1 billion yuan. Net ...

  Bloomberg India and Singapore linked their systems that enable real-time money transfers between the two nations, as countries in the region seek to bring down barriers to the quick movement of funds. Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das initiated the first transaction with his counterpart Managing Director Ravi Menon, according to a statement by the Monetary Authority ...

Bloomberg President Vladimir Putin said he’s waiting for his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to visit Russia as he hailed deepening ties with Beijing at talks with China’s top diplomat. Cooperation between Russia and China is “very important for stabilising the international situation,” Putin told Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi at talks in Moscow, asking him to pass on greetings to ...

Bloomberg US President Joe Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin made a “big mistake” in suspending participation in the New START nuclear treaty, his first direct response to the announcement. Biden made the brief remark in Warsaw, ahead of a meeting with a group of eastern-flank Nato allies known as the Bucharest Nine. In response to a shouted question from ...

  Bloomberg Indian officials hosting Group of 20 finance chiefs this week are seeking to avoid using the word “war” in any joint statement when referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine, a person familiar with the matter said. That would mark a divergence from a consensus reached by leaders in Bali last November. The person said using words like “crisis” ...

  Bloomberg The chief of Taiwan’s military told a local magazine the island’s forces could repel an initial attack from China if they are well-prepared. “China is certainly strong enough to start a war, but it’s not so strong that it can successfully take Taiwan within one or two weeks,” Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said in an interview with CommonWealth ...

  Bloomberg Australia and the Philippines are considering joint patrols in the South China Sea, their defense ministers said, as the Southeast Asian nation reported continuing presence of suspected Chinese vessels in contested waters. Australia also wants to pursue more military exercises with the Philippines, Defense Minister Richard Marles said in a briefing after meeting with Filipino counterpart Carlito Galvez ...

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak suggested a coming deal with the European Union over post-Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland would involve legal changes to the existing treaty, something the bloc has previously opposed. In the House of Commons, Democratic Unionist Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson complained that under the existing “unacceptable” deal — known as the protocol — “EU laws ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG sees opportunity in Mexico where other investment banks don’t. The German lender is expanding its operations in Latin America’s second-largest economy, with an eye to tapping into international interest in the country’s manufacturing base, according to Christiana Riley, chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank Americas. That means focusing on providing more foreign-exchange and fixed-income derivatives to ...