In the news: President Xi meets top US businesses, Chinese mobile apps get attacked and 2015 outbound investment is said to exceed US$1 trillion

President Xi meets US business leaders

Chinese President Xi Jinping, on his first state visit to the U.S., told a group of business leaders that China will push ahead with reforms as the nation looks to expand trade ties. He also met executives and officials attending an annual US-China internet summit and sealed a deal to buy 300 aircraft from Boeing. The Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China, known as Cormac, also signed a pact to build a 737 completion-and-delivery center. President Xi's pledge to sustain China's reforms process will please investors who are in it for the long haul. While his September 23 speech to corporate bigwigs in Seattle was short on detail, the tone was decidedly pro-business. Pointing out that 65,000 US businesses have invested US$76 billion in the Asian nation, he said that relations have moved beyond trade to include investment as well. Food for thought before China heads into the October 1-7 "Golden Week" holidays.

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Apple mobile apps targeted by malware

Apple suffered a setback in China recently, with more than three dozen popular applications in the App Store found to be infected with malicious software. The security breach -- which affected apps including WeChat, Didi Kuaidi and NetEase's music platform -- occurred after software companies were lured into using an unauthorized version of Apple's developer toolkit, according to Alibaba Mobile Security. The XcodeGhost, named after Apple's Xcode, can transmit data from a user's device, prompt fake alerts used to steal passwords to Apple's iCloud, and read and write information on clipboards. The sheer volume of personal information, including payment details, held by services like WeChat (600 million users -- double the population of the US) and Didi Kuaidi (150 million) makes the danger of information theft especially alarming in China. The National People's Congress in August tweaked the PRC Criminal Law, enabling Article 253 to apply criminal sanctions to anyone who, in violation of State rules, sells or provides the personal information of others if the circumstances are serious. All this comes as President Xi Jinping, facing US allegations of state-sponsored hacking, described China as a victim rather than a culprit of cybercrimes.

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Total outbound investment to exceed US$1 trillion

China's outbound direct investment is expected to exceed US$1 trillion for the first time this year. It rose to just under US$883 billion in 2014, MOFCOM's deputy China international trade representative said on Thursday. The country's slowing economy and market volatility is pushing domestic companies to diversify and acquire foreign brands and technology. Industrial deals were among the largest this year, led by ChemChina's acquisition of Italian tire maker Pirelli for US$8.88 billion. While one spin of this story is that Chinese companies are going global and adding to the nation's pride, the drawback is that rising outbound investment will add to the capital outflow pressures that China is trying to curb. The recent turmoil ignited by an equities crash and a renminbi devaluation has shaken investor confidence, and repeated intervention by the authorities has somewhat deflated China's claims that it is moving toward freer markets.

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