China’s economy continued to show signs of cooling, with fixed-asset investment slowing to a nearly two-decade low for the first seven months of the year as trade tensions with the U.S. escalated. Spending on factory machinery, public-works projects and other fixed-asset investments in China’s nonrural areas grew 5.5% in the January-July period from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday. The figure matched a record low in 1999, according to Wind Information, and is down significantly from the 8.3% growth recorded for the first seven months of 2017. It was also slower than the 6% increase recorded in the January-June period and undershot economists’ expectations. Investment, a key growth engine for China, contributed more than a third of China’s economic growth rate last year. Other economic data released Tuesday also pointed to an economy facing headwinds. Retail sales in China climbed 8.8% in July from a […]