Wednesday Briefing: U.S. businesses say China is “uninvestable”

Good morning. We’re covering a message to China from U.S. businesses and a legal victory for Imran Kahn.

Plus, how the war in Ukraine is affecting the world of tennis.

U.S. businesses say China is ‘uninvestable’

Gina Raimondo, the U.S. commerce secretary, told Chinese officials yesterday that the U.S. was not seeking to sever economic ties with China. But she raised a list of concerns that were prompting American businesses to describe China as “uninvestable” because it’s “too risky.”

American companies are worried about long-running issues like intellectual property theft, as well as newer developments like raids on businesses, a counterespionage law and exorbitant fines that come without explanations. After raising the concerns with Premier Li Qiang, China’s second-highest official, Raimondo said she “didn’t receive any commitments.”

Raimondo, who is on a four-day trip to China, also asked for Beijing’s cooperation on broader threats like climate change, the opioid fentanyl and artificial intelligence. Chinese officials in turn asked the U.S. to reduce export controls on advanced technology and retract a recent executive order that bans new investments in certain advanced technologies, Raimondo said. The commerce secretary said she had refused those requests, saying the U.S. doesn’t negotiate on matters of national security.

Still, Raimondo tried to assure the Chinese that export controls applied only to a small proportion of U.S.-China trade, and that other economic opportunities between the countries should be embraced.

Premier Li told Raimondo that economic relations between China and the U.S. were “mutually beneficial,” according to the official Xinhua news agency. But he also warned that “politicizing economic and trade issues and overstretching the concept of security” would “seriously affect bilateral relations and mutual trust.”

More China news:

• Even as the U.S. looks for ways to lessen its dependence on Chinese goods, research shows how tough it is to alter global supply chains.
• Raimondo is not planning to discuss TikTok while in China, a glaring omission that reflects the impasse that the Biden administration faces on how to deal with the app.

• Meta said it had removed a Chinese influence campaign — its “biggest single takedown” — spanning thousands of accounts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Substack and Chinese websites.

• For many ordinary Chinese, the economic slowdown has led to widespread pessimism and resignation. But state media and officials continue to declare that any challenges are blips.

• Sun Junli, a small-business owner who rose from poverty as China prospered, is now poor again. Her story shows how China, under the leadership of Xi Jinping, has killed the spirit of the entrepreneur class with more state control of the economy.

A legal victory for Imran Khan

A court in Pakistan suspended former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s three-year prison sentence in a corruption case yesterday, after an appeal by Khan’s legal team. It was the latest twist in a political showdown between Khan — a former cricket star turned populist politician who was ousted as prime minister last year — and military leaders who appear intent on sidelining him from politics.

Despite the legal victory, Khan remained in prison yesterday evening, with dozens of court cases remaining against him. He is expected to appear in court today in a case related to leaking state secrets — a charge that may pose the greatest challenge yet to his future, analysts say.

Wagner said Prigozhin was buried

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian mercenary leader who last week died in a plane crash, was buried in a private ceremony at a cemetery in St. Petersburg, his press service said yesterday. The Porokhovskoye cemetery, where he was buried, was heavily guarded yesterday by Russian police, riot police and national guardsmen, who did not allow people to enter, alluding to the lengths the state has gone to minimize public mourning for Prigozhin.

The Kremlin said it had no information about the funeral for Prigozhin, who launched a failed mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership in June, except that President Vladimir Putin would not attend.

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THE LATEST NEWS

• Attacks on the city of Kupiansk in eastern Ukraine mounted as the authorities stepped up calls for civilians to evacuate.
• The Vatican sought to calm an outcry over the pope’s comments that some critics said were too close to Russia’s justifications for invading Ukraine.

• At least 155 Arab citizens in Israel have died this year in violence largely attributed to organized crime. Some say the government has not done enough to stop the killing.
• Flights in and out of Britain will be disrupted for days, the government said, because of a technical issue with the country’s air traffic control system.
• Uganda charged a man with “aggravated homosexuality,” a crime punishable by death.

• The U.S. military will buy thousands of more drones and other devices as it prepares for possible future conflict with China.
• A Times investigation found that the U.S. is facing a crisis as groundwater is increasingly depleted.
• Rain from Hurricane Idalia began to lash Florida’s southwest coast, and a tornado warning was issued for the Naples area.

• Spain’s regional soccer chiefs asked the president of its national soccer federation to resign for kissing a female player without consent.
• A totem pole that was taken from the Nisga’a Nation in Canada and spent almost a century in a Scottish museum will be returned.
• A parasitic worm was found alive in an Australian woman’s brain during surgery.

Perhaps no sport has been affected as profoundly by the war in Ukraine as tennis. That is a function of numbers — there are many players from Ukraine and Russia — and proximity: With shared locker rooms, lounges and practice facilities, it can be hard to avoid people you would rather not see.

For Ukrainian players, as well as those from Russia and its allies, the conflict has plunged professional tennis into a cold war of its own. Now they are facing off at the U.S. Open.

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ARTS AND IDEAS

A focus on Roma survivors

Hundreds of thousands of Romani people were killed in the Holocaust, a mass murder long overlooked because little data was collected about the population before or after World War II.

But a new database of Romani testimonies of their Holocaust experiences hopes to heighten public awareness of the suffering of Europe’s largest ethnic minority. With 115 survivor accounts, the database centralizes stories that used to be difficult to locate in dispersed archives.

“Roma are so profoundly marginalized on all counts,” said the author of a book on Roma, Jews and the Holocaust. “We need these testimonies to make them visible.”

RECOMMENDATIONS

Make this perfect chilled mango lassi.

Read “Terrace Story,” a novel that explores the possibility of embellishing the banal architecture of a life.

Listen to songs featured in recent concerts by Beyonce, Taylor Swift and more.

Camp to enjoy nature, but first figure out what to bring. Here are tips.

Play the Spelling Bee. (If you’re stuck, the Bee Buddy can help.) Here’s the Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku.

That’s it for today’s briefing. See you tomorrow. — Jonathan and Lyna

P.S. Connections, a daily game where players find common threads between words, can now be found on the New York Times Games app.

You can reach Jonathan, Lyna and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

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