As Italian instability prepares to strike at Europe's heart, a series of linked issues facing China are keeping sentiment negative and slowdown fears front-of-mind.
On August 30, President Trump reportedly told aides that he wants to follow through on a threat to impose tariffs on another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods as early as next week. According to Business Insider, "that would mean
more than half of all Chinese imports would be subject to tariffs". US stocks sold off on the news, which ratchets up the trade war tensions between Beijing and Washington further still and places one of the world's largest and most pivotal trade relationships in jeopardy.
The headline risks for China do not end there. In today's Hong Kong session, shares of Chinese tech giant Tencent plummeted by 5% after authorities announced plans to
limit the number of new online games and restrict the amount of time kids spend playing on electronic devices.
Beijing's move,
reports Bloomberg, is part of a broad effort to cub social and health ills such as device addiction and myopia among Chinese children, but the push is very unwelcome news for Tencent, which reported a rare decline in profit earlier this month.
With Europe facing its latest round of existential dread, Chinese growth curbed by tariffs on one side and reforms on the other, and Washington seemingly content to persist in its bellicose trade stance, the risks facing world markets are varied, severe, and unlikely to resolve themselves easily.
