Unilever taps a board member as its new C.E.O. The British consumer giant hired Hein Schumacher, who is also the head of a Dutch dairy cooperative, as its chief executive. The hiring of Schumacher, who began his career at Unilever, had the support of Nelson Peltz’s Trian, which had sought to shake up the conglomerate.
China Inc. gets a New Year’s boost
Mainland China’s stock exchanges officially entered a bull market on the first day of trading after the weeklong pause for the Lunar New Year, as investors were heartened by signs that the country’s economy was recovering after three years of Beijing’s zero-Covid social restrictions.
Chinese consumers appear to be spending again. Official data showed that spending on travel and entertainment, including bookings for theater tickets and hotels, was up compared with previous years, according to Bloomberg. Outbound air travel more than quadrupled year-on-year as well, suggesting that high-spending Chinese tourists will flock abroad once more.
All that has Western companies optimistic about an economic rebound.
Will China finally let consumers lead its economy? Over the weekend, Li Keqiang, China’s premier, said the government planned to make consumer spending the “main driving force” of China’s economy. But Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Peking University, said it was unclear if the government was prepared to limit the state’s role in the economy: “Beijing wants to boost the role of consumption without absorbing any of the costs of such a major structural adjustment, but that isn’t likely to be an option,” he tweeted.
Meanwhile, tensions with the West are still growing. Among the latest signs:
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Japan and the Netherlands agreed last week to U.S. demands to impose restrictions on exporting advanced chip-making equipment to China. Noah Barkin, an expert on Europe-China relations at the Rhodium Group consultancy, told DealBook that the move showed more international alignment with Washington’s approach to China: “This is one more economic challenge for Beijing to overcome, on top of the property crisis, high household debt levels and a shrinking population,” he added.
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A four-star U.S. Air Force general warned in an internal memo that America could be at war with China by 2025, according to NBC News. (A Pentagon representative told NBC News, “These comments are not representative of the department’s view on China.”)
Inside the purported turning of an F.B.I. agent
The arrest of Charles McGonigal, a former senior F.B.I. official, on charges of helping a Russian oligarch sent shock waves through the national-security community.
Mr. McGonigal may have been turned by the aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska — as reported by The Times and Insider — for work that violated U.S. sanctions. Prosecutors portrayed the case as the tale of a U.S. investigator being corrupted by someone he had investigated. (A representative for Mr. Deripaska denied to The Times that the billionaire had ever hired Mr. McGonigal; a lawyer for Mr. McGonigal declined to comment.)
