As the price of gold soared, Julie Li thought her investment in the precious metal was the smartest decision she had ever made. Across China, many like her have poured their savings into gold, lured by companies promising hefty returns far into the future, according to a New York Times analysis. About a year ago, Ms. Li invested about $35,000 in gold bars through Yongkun Gold, a company that runs an online platform and dozens of jewelry shops in eastern China. The investments performed so well that she used a credit card to put in $20,000 more. Last month, Ms.

Just three years ago, Bowling Green, Ky., was celebrating the largest industrial investment ever made in the city, a new sprawling electric-vehicle battery factory that would create 2,000 jobs. Today, the building is there. The jobs aren’t, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The Chinese-owned company behind the factory quietly stopped working on the $2 billion plant last September, according to current and former employees. Now there is just a massive metal shell of a building with no interior equipment.

Two decades ago, China shocked the United States with its ability to make and ship things fast and inexpensively on a scale never before seen, the New York Times reported. The resulting surge of exports reshaped America’s economy and its politics. Today, a new China shock is cascading across the globe from Indonesia to Germany to Brazil. As President Trump’s tariffs start to shut China out of the U.S., its biggest market, Chinese factories are sending their toys, cars and shoes to other countries at a pace that is reshaping economies and geopolitics.

The consumer landscape in China was very different in the 1990s, when Häagen-Dazs and Starbucks ventured in with premium products that were alien to most people, Bloomberg reported. They made huge inroads nonetheless, opening outlets at breakneck pace and raking in revenue. But times are changing, and they, like many other Western brands, are reassessing their approach to the world’s second-biggest economy, including possibly selling their businesses. General Mills, which owns Häagen-Dazs, is working on a potential sale of its more than 250 stores in China. Starbucks Corp.

Hozon New Energy Automobile, the owner of the Neta electric vehicle brand, has officially entered the bankruptcy review process, according to a notice posted on China’s centralized information platform on bankruptcy cases, YiCai Global reported. The National Enterprise Bankruptcy Information Disclosure Platform updated its information about Hozon Auto on June 13, adding Zhejiang Zicheng Law Firm as the administrator, the main person in charge of the administrator, and other data.