Institutional Investor (September 11)
“China’s mobile economy may well power the nation’s growth for decades to come, becoming an engine that will more than make up for the slowdown of the country’s traditional growth engines, such as manufacturing and exports.” That is the main thesis of a recently published book by Winston Wenyan Ma, a managing director at China Investment Corp., the country’s sovereign wealth fund with more than $800 billion in assets.
Tags: China, China Investment Corp., Exports, Growth, Growth engines, M&A, Manufacturing, Mobile economy, Slowdown
The Atlantic (September 11)
Amid “growing concern about the real possibility of war with North Korea,” many have still not realized the danger of “an even darker specter. Could events now cascading on the Korean Peninsula drag the U.S. and China into a great-power war?”
Tags: Cascading, China, Concern, Danger, Korean Peninsula, North Korea, U.S. War
Financial Times (September 10)
“A week in China is enough to persuade anyone that the world has spun back to front. The benefits of immigration, the quest for fresh discoveries, the desire for education, the recognition of the benefits of stability, purpose and enterprise are flourishing in China at the very time that they are being maligned, belittled or ignored in the US by Donald Trump.”
Tags: Benefits, China, Desire, Discoveries, Education, Enterprise, Immigration, Stability, Trump, U.S.
Chicago Tribune (September 7)
“Homeowners located in areas that are expected to flood every 100 years are required to buy flood insurance…. But they pay rates far lower than the risks warrant. That gap deprives builders of incentives to stay out of low-lying areas that are vulnerable to flooding — or to elevate structures to keep them dry when the waters rise. It also promotes the destruction of wetlands that could reduce flooding. Oh, and it helps to tilt migration toward vulnerable coastal regions like those of Texas and Florida.”
Tags: Builders, Coastal regions, Destruction, Flood, Florida, Homeowners, Insurance, Rates, Texas, Vulnerable, Wetlands
Council on Foreign Relations (September 7)
“Congress, again, should take the lead” in Asia. “Not only has the White House paid relatively little attention to growing crises in mainland Southeast Asia but those crises are quickly spiraling out of control.” There is an opportunity “for Congress, rather than the White House, to develop a tough approach to the growing climate of repression in Cambodia” and solve other issues like the crisis affecting the persecuted Rohingya fleeing Myanmar for Bangladesh.
Tags: Asia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Congress, Crises, Lead, Myanmar, Opportunity, Repression, Rohingya, Trump, U.S.
Reuters (August 6)
“Watching the slow-motion crash of Britain’s exit negotiations with the European Union is a disconcerting experience. A state that once ran a global empire is looking second-rate.” Realism has all but been abandoned. “The government’s implausible expectations about what it may be able to achieve” reveal a “dismaying lack of historical and strategic understanding about how Britain lost its clout outside the European club more than half a century ago.”
Tags: Brexit, Clout, Crash, Disconcerting, EU, Expectations, Global empire, Implausible, Negotiations, Realism, Strategic, UK, Understanding
LA Times (September 5)
Houston is “the country’s most diverse city. But it is more than an immigrant hub; it’s America’s No. 1 magnet for refugees. And for anyone rocked by Harvey’s life-upending losses, those refugees and their experiences can be a monumental resource.” They provide both perspective and inspiration. Many immigrants “are facing the flood’s ravages alongside their neighbors right now, but they are distinct because every refugee lost everything once before. And then they rebuilt.”
Tags: Diverse, Flood, Harvey, Houston, Immigrant, Inspiration, Losses, Perspective, Ravages, Refugees, Resource
New York Times (September 4)
“What does Kim Jong-un want?” That is the question that still plagues intelligence officials. “Six years after Mr. Kim took power and began executing those who challenged his rule…there is no issue that confounds analysts more than the motives of a 33-year-old dictator whose every move seems one part canny strategy, one part self-preservation, and one part nuclear narcissism.”
Tags: Canny, Challenge, Dictator, Executions, Intelligence, Kim, Motives, Narcissism, Nuclear, Power, Self-preservation, Strategy
The Economist (September 2)
“After pausing his missile tests just long enough for America’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, to say that Mr Kim was showing ‘restraint’, and for Mr Trump himself to claim to have Mr Kim’s ‘respect’, North Korea’s dictator unleashed three short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan.” Then Mr Kim shot an intermediate-range missile over Hokkaido, leaving many on edge. Despite this menace, it remains “striking that in Japan and South Korea, many fear Mr Trump’s unpredictability even more than Mr Kim’s.”
Tags: Hokkaido, Kim, Missile tests, North Korea, Respect, Restraint, Sea of Japan, South Korea, Tillerson, Trump, U.S., Unpredictability
The Atlantic (September Issue)
Smartphones may be destroying the iGen (individuals born from 1995–2012). They’ve been “shaped by the smartphone and by the concomitant rise of social media.” Despite much worrying, “the impact of these devices has not been fully appreciated, and goes far beyond the usual concerns about curtailed attention spans. The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health.” There are some positive aspects, but by and large “the results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.”
Tags: iGen, Mental health, Smartphones, Social media, Teenagers, Unhappy
