Oil prices rose on Wednesday after an upbeat report from the IEA outweighed the bearish impact of a further weakening of China's yuan currency and disappointing Chinese industrial output data. The yuan hit a four-year low on Wednesday after China allowed it to slide further following a mini-devaluation on Tuesday to support the slowing Chinese economy, where industrial output grew less than expected in July. China is the world's biggest oil consumer after the United States and a weaker yuan erodes Chinese purchasing power for dollar-denominated imports like oil, potentially reducing fuel demand," Reuters reports.

The Wall Street Journal writes, "China intervened to prop up the yuan Wednesday, according to people familiar with the matter, just a day after it had let it decline sharply, underscoring the tricky balancing act now facing its central bank: how to keep the country's currency from free-falling. The intervention in Wednesday's final moments of trading came after the yuan had weakened nearly 2%-the maximum allowed in mainland China-to where $1 would buy about 6.45 yuan, its lowest level against the U.S. currency in four years. Tuesday, the People's Bank of China surprised global markets with what looked like a win-win currency depreciation for the country-appearing to cede more control of its exchange rate to market forces, which the International Monetary Fund and others have long urged it to do, while also helping Chinese exporters."

"China respects freedom of navigation in the disputed South China Sea but will not allow any foreign government to invoke that right so its military ships and planes can intrude in Beijing's territory, the Chinese ambassador said. Ambassador Zhao Jianhua said late Tuesday that Chinese forces warned a U.S. Navy P-8A not to intrude when the warplane approached a Chinese-occupied area in the South China Sea's disputed Spratly Islands in May. A CNN reporter who was on board the plane, which had taken off from the Philippines, reported the incident then. "We just gave them warnings, be careful, not to intrude," Zhao told reporters on the sidelines of a diplomatic event in Manila. Washington, however, does not recognize any territorial claim by any country in the South China Sea, a policy that collides with the position of China, which claims virtually the entire sea," The New York Times reports.