Newsweek (May 13)
“China’s decision to raise tariffs on U.S. goods made its impact felt on Wall Street as stock markets began the week on a downbeat note. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 index fell by more than 2 percent in early trading,” while the Nasdaq dropped even further. Market volatility “was directly linked to the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China…. The back-and-forth retaliation between the two superpowers wiped out the marginal gains stocks recorded at the end of last week.”
Tags: China, Dow Jones, Downbeat, Gains, Nasdaq, Retaliation, Stock market, Superpowers, Tariffs, Trade war, U.S., Volatility, Wall Street
The Economist (October 20)
“Some 4,500 satellites circle Earth, providing communications services and navigational tools, monitoring weather, observing the universe, spying and doing more besides. Getting them there was once the business of the superpowers’ armed forces and space agencies. Now it is mostly done by companies and the governments of developing countries.”
Tags: Communications, Companies, Developing countries, Earth, Governments, Navigational tools, Satellites, Space agencies, Spying, Superpowers, Weather
Bloomberg (November 6)
With the U.S. “hobbled by Trump,” China clearly has the “upper hand” in the upcoming negotiations. The stakes are potentially “huge, including the threat of nuclear conflict in North Korea,” as Trump sits down with China’s President Xi. The situation reminds many of 1961, when JFK was outmaneuvered by Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna. “Today’s two superpowers are coming from different directions. President Xi, consolidating his hold, probably is the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.” Meanwhile, the American president heads a new administration “beset by chaos.”000
Tags: 1961, Chaos, China, Hobbled, JFK, Khrushchev, Mao, Negotiations, North Korea, Nuclear conflict, Stakes, Superpowers, Threat, Trump, U.S., Vienna, Xi
The Economist (March 7)
“Twenty-five years after the Soviet collapse, the world is entering a new nuclear age. Nuclear strategy has become a cockpit of rogue regimes and regional foes jostling with the five original nuclear-weapons powers (America, Britain, France, China and Russia), whose own dealings are infected by suspicion and rivalry.” The new nuclear age is far more unstable. “During much of the cold war the two superpowers, anxious to avoid Armageddon, were willing to tolerate the status quo. Today the ground is shifting under everyone’s feet.”
Tags: Armageddon, China, Cold war, France, Nuclear age, Regional foes, Rivalry, Rogue regimes, Russia, Strategy, Superpowers, Suspicion, U.S., UK