Wall Street Journal (September 24)
“It is now impossible to ignore that China is attempting to redefine its relationship to America and the rules of world order. Under Mr. Xi, Beijing sees itself as a strategic rival rather than a partner. Its foreign policy is increasingly aggressive, sometimes lawless…. The U.S. needs to show that it will resist this behavior—even as it seeks to steer China’s leadership back toward global norms.”
Tags: Aggressive, Beijing, China, Foreign policy, Global norms, Lawless, Partner, Rival, U.S., Xi
Bloomberg (August 19)
“Beijing still believes money can buy the trust and soft power it craves, which explains the new $100 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank it has sponsored. But as long as analysts don’t feel the Chinese government’s pronouncements are genuinely reliable, skepticism about the yuan will only grow.”
Tags: AIIB, Beijing, Government, Money, Reliable, Skepticism, Soft power, Trust, Yuan
Wall Street Journal (August 7)
In China, the Government is estimated to have spent more than 10% of GDP ($1.3 trillion) “since the market panic started in late June,” producing only questionable results. “The failed bailout reinforces the expectation that Beijing will attempt to manage the financial markets in the future. This moral hazard means the volatility will continue, along with the costs of future bailouts. The first lesson of investing, buyer beware, has yet to be learned in China.”
Tags: Bailouts, Beijing, China, Financial markets, GDP, Government, Moral hazard, Panic, Volatility
Wall Street Journal (July 2)
Government cheerleading for stock prices leads to blame when they fall” and China’s increasingly bearish market is upsetting some investors. “As we warned in April, when the government talks up the market, it runs a risk that the public will hold the Party leadership responsible for a market correction. Beijing may feel that it has to support stock prices now to maintain social stability.”
Tags: Beijing, China, Correction, Government, Investors, Market, Risk, Social stability, Stock prices
Wall Street Journal (June 18)
“Hong Kong democrats celebrated Thursday as the city’s legislature blocked passage of the Beijing-backed election law that sparked last year’s 75-day mass protests.” In response, Beijing’s tactic will probably risk “further alienating the people of Hong Kong from the mainland. The more Beijing paints its opponents as radicals and revolutionaries, the more it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Tags: Beijing, Democrats, Election law, Hong Kong, Legislature, Mainland, Radicals, Revolutionaries
Institutional Investor (April 15)
“As a demonstration of China’s growing economic and political clout, few things rival the launch of the Asian Infrastructure Investment bank, Beijing’s challenge to the U.S.-dominated international financial order…. In the end, only Japan among major economies sided with Washington in shunning the AIIB.”
Wall Street Journal (April 13)
“We need to get used to slower Chinese growth,” writes former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. He adds that “if, as Beijing has promised, the slowdown is accompanied by deep and serious structural reform that opens up new growth opportunities, such as allowing the private sector to compete against state monopolies in service sectors like banking and telecommunications, then China will still grow robustly compared with all other major economies.”
Tags: Banking, Beijing, China, Competition, Growth, Monopolies, Paulson, Private-sector, Slowdown, Structural reform, Telecommunications
The Economist (January 10)
“North Korea’s strange juggling act is becoming ever more precarious. The hubbub over The Interview has attracted unwanted attention. “Just because Mr Kim runs a paranoid, delusional despotism, does not mean that the outside world is not out to get him.” In fact, it increasingly seems “the comforting calculation for North Korea’s regime—that, painful though its existence is to its people and the outside world, its collapse would be worse—may not hold for ever in Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and Washington.”
Tags: Beijing, Collapse, Delusional, Despotism, Kim, North Korea, Paranoid, Regime, Seoul, The Interview, Tokyo, Washington
Financial Times (November 12)
An unexpected announcement at the summit in Beijing may jump start efforts to combat climate change. “China and the US have set aside nearly 20 years of discord over how to combat climate change and laid out their respective plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions.” The breakthrough may “galvanise efforts to seal a global climate pact at the end of next year in Paris.”
Tags: Beijing, Breakthrough, China, Climate change, Greenhouse gas emissions, Paris, Summit, U.S.
Bloomberg (October 6)
“Eleven days into the Umbrella Revolution, it’s clear Beijing won’t back down. President Xi Jinping won’t accede to the movement’s universal suffrage proposal or sacrifice Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to ease tensions.” Unless the students “face reality and plot an endgame,” they risk becoming “irritants” to average Hongkongers. If, however, they can win a few concessions, the students “can demonstrate that they gave Goliath a good fight and achieved something substantial.”
Tags: Beijing, Concessions, Endgame, Hong Kong, Leung Chun-ying, Risk, Students, Tensions, Umbrella Revolution, Universal suffrage, Xi Jinping
