China

China’s jobless data suggest weakening growth hasn’t dragged down employment. But a new study by the International Monetary Fund points to factors that could obscure signs of strain in the country’s job market, The Wall Street Journal reported. China’s registered jobless rate has remained stable at around 4% in recent years.

At the height of the frenzy for Chinese stocks, just about every company was a winner, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. An online gaming start-up was valued at $7 billion. Shares in a fireworks company that had moved into finance shot up 300 percent. A struggling property developer was transformed into a stock market darling, just by changing its name to suggest it was an Internet company.

The developer of the unfinished $3.5 billion Baha Mar mega resort in the Bahamas has accused China Construction America of cutting power to the work site, inflating expenses and trying to steal documents stuffed in suitcases, U.S. court filings show. China Construction America, a unit of China State Construction Engineering Corp Ltd, denied the allegations, saying in a statement on Friday the developer is trying to deflect attention from its own mismanagement of the troubled project.

The Chinese government struggled in vain Wednesday to prevent the distress in the country’s stock markets from spreading, as it openly fought market forces it has pledged to give a larger role, The Wall Street Journal reported. Early Wednesday, the Chinese authorities rushed out another raft of emergency measures to halt what is turning into a crisis of confidence in leaders’ ability to steer the economy. But before the day was over the equities selloff had spilled into offshore trading in the Chinese yuan and worsened a drop in global commodity prices.

Far more than simply a market crisis, the Chinese leadership views turmoil on the Shanghai stock exchange as a potential security threat to the regime, The Wall Street Journal reported. That helps explain the barrage of measures unleashed by financial authorities to counter a sudden market downturn that threatened to shake public confidence in the government.

The Chinese construction company building the unfinished $3.5 billion Baha Mar resort in the Bahamas on Tuesday accused the developer of mismanaging the project's design and not securing adequate financing, Reuters reported. China Construction America (CCA) has been blamed for the delays that caused the Baha Mar project to file for bankruptcy protection late last month in a Delaware court. But CCA said the developer of the project replaced the mega resort's principal architect after construction began and had more than 1,300 change orders for construction contractors.

President Xi Jinping of China has crushed opposition by silencing and often locking up anyone who dares defy the government. But that aura of invincibility has been shaken by stock market speculators, who have made a mockery of efforts to halt a steep slide in share prices, the Irish Times reported. The losses – Chinese shares have shed more than a quarter of their value in three weeks – pose an added risk, and possibly greater danger, to a global economy grappling with Greece‘s difficulties in repaying foreign loans and its possible exit from the euro.

Chinese authorities have ramped up their attempts to restore investor confidence in the country’s tumbling stock markets, setting the stage for another turbulent week of trading on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, the Financial Times reported. The China Securities Regulatory Commission said in a brief statement late on Sunday night that the central bank would “uphold market stability” by providing liquidity to China Securities Finance, a state entity that makes margin financing available to brokers.

The bankrupt $3.5 billion Baha Mar mega resort in the Bahamas secured up to $30 billion in interim financing on Wednesday, but it was unclear when construction on the stalled project would resume, Reuters reported. The resort, bankrolled and built by the Chinese and described on its website as "the world's glamourous, new playground, is eight to 12 weeks from completion once construction resumes, a lawyer for the resort told a bankruptcy judge. U.S.

China's push to extend its influence in the Western Hemisphere has hit an embarrassing setback at an unfinished, $3.5 billion resort and casino project in the Bahamas, Reuters reported. A series of construction delays, funding squabbles, lagging inspections and faulty work at the Baha Mar resort in Nassau have led to contention and finger-pointing in recent months among the local developer, a Chinese state-backed contractor and China's export finance bank.