Freight Waves (February 26)
“Russia is not America’s largest trade partner by a long shot — representing less than 1% of the total imports — but many of our largest trading partners, like Germany and China, have strong economic ties to the country.” The conflict in Ukraine “will lead to more supply chain woes,” though there are obviously “many consequences much worse than continued supply chain disruptions and inflation.”
Tags: China, Conflict, Disruptions, Economic ties, Germany, Imports, Russia, Supply chain, Trading partners, U.S., Ukraine
Reuters (January 28)
“A growing number of Chinese construction and decoration companies are writing off assets or issuing profit warnings as debt woes at China Evergrande Group and other property developers debilitate their suppliers.” Despite government measures “to ease developers’ liquidity stress and support the cooling economy, recent data suggests the problem will get worse.”
Tags: Assets, China, Companies, Construction, Debt, Evergrande, Government, Liquidity, Profit warnings, Property developers, Suppliers, Woes
Financial Times (January 28)
“Oaktree Capital is risking a showdown with Beijing over control of one of ailing property developer Evergrande’s most-prized projects in mainland China.” Seizing “the Venice development could have a profound effect on the wider restructuring of Evergrande, the property developer that has scrambled to reassure its creditors since its finances started to unravel last year.”
Tags: Ailing, Beijing, China, Control, Creditors, Evergrande, Oaktree Capital, Property developer, Restructuring, Risking, Showdown, Venice development
Taipei Times (January 18)
In a development likely to affect mainland China’s growth potential, the birthrate “has fallen to its lowest level in six decades, barely outnumbering deaths last year despite major government efforts to increase population growth and stave off a demographic crisis.”
Tags: Birthrate, China, Deaths, Demographic crisis, Development, Efforts, Fallen, Government, Growth, Lowest, Mainland, Population, Potential
New York Times (January 16)
China’s zero-tolerance COVID policy has been “highly effective, but the extreme transmissibility of the Omicron variant poses the biggest test yet,” and threatens to disrupt supply chains. “The potential for setbacks comes just as many companies had hoped they were about to see some easing of the bottlenecks that have clogged global supply chains since the pandemic began.”
Tags: Bottlenecks, China, Clogged, Covid, Disrupt, Effective, Omicron, Supply chains, Transmissibility, Variant, Zero tolerance
Bloomberg (January 7)
“This isn’t the way Xi Jinping wanted to start 2022. In Xi’an, China is witnessing its worst Covid outbreak since the virus emerged, and the ancient city has been locked down for two weeks battling the delta variant…. Any nationwide outbreak could raise questions about Covid Zero and its number one supporter: Xi Jinping.
Tags: 2022, China, Covid Zero, Delta, Locked down, Outbreak, Variant, Virus, Xi’an
LNG Industry (January 6)
“The world’s two largest economies–the US and Mainland China–are poised to be the world’s top export and import markets for LNG in 2022.” In 2021, the US placed third, behind Australia and Qatar, but “was the largest source of LNG supply growth in 2021.” China overtook Japan in 2021, marking “the first time since the early 1970s that Japan has not been the world’s largest LNG importer.”
Tags: 1970s, 2021, 2022, Australia, China, Export, Import, Japan, LNG, Markets, Qatar, Supply growth, Top, US
Washington Post (December 27)
“Americans must rally against the real threat to our democracy: China.” During the past decades of neglect, we “largely ignored the rising challenge of China and only now are approaching an appropriate level of alarm…. There isn’t much of a choice here: Rally, or face eclipse.”
Wall Street Journal (December 6)
“Three potential crises are proceeding in tandem: a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, continuing Chinese pressure on Taiwan and the potential collapse of Iran nuclear talks.” Individually, any “of these standoffs has the potential to shake the world order and produce wider conflict. Taken together, they signal that the U.S. and its allies are at a dangerous moment.” Findings a way to successfully “show firmness on each front without provoking a crisis” will provechallenging.
Tags: Allies, China, Collapse, Conflict, Crises, Dangerous, Iran, Nuclear talks, Russian invasion, Standoffs, Taiwan, U.S., Ukraine
Sydney Morning Herald (December 6)
“The crisis at the teetering giant Chinese property developer, China Evergrande, appears to be reaching a decisive moment, with the world’s most indebted property company conceding that it may be unable to meet the demand for repayment.”
Tags: China, Crisis, Decisive moment, Evergrande, Indebted, Property developer, Repayment, Teetering, Unable
