Category Archives: China

China’s Most Famous Ghost City Busts

The Chinese government, as has been widely reported, is trying to cool growth, in large measure to take the hot air out of its shadow banking sector. But can it engineer its hoped-for soft landing?

South Africans Plan to Protest Obama’s Crimes Against Africa During Presidential Visit

An Obama tour of Africa is likely to provide a marker of he is perceived in the rest of the world, although any negative reports are unlikely to get much play in our lapdog media. But since Obama was shunned in the recent G-8 conference, it’s going to be interesting to see how his African hosts muster up the appearance of enthusiasm during his visit.

Hong Kong to US on #Snowden: A4 Paper, Please. And Do Remember to Spellcheck!

By MsExpat, a journalist and essayist who lives in New York and Hong Kong, and Fellow of The Mighty Corrente Building. Originally published at Corrente.

Anyone who has ever had any dealings with Hong Kong’s scrupulous bureaucracy can’t help but chuckle at today’s South China Morning Post article detailing the problems that Hong Kong’s government had with the United States’ request to detain Edward Snowden. Since the SCMP is behind a paywall here are the juicy parts:

Lee Adler: The Big Four Central Banks Muddy The Same Sea Of Liquidity, And Then There’s China

The world’s major central banks are now working at cross purposes, creating massive crosscurrents that are making life extremely difficult for investors. This isn’t likely to end soon. In fact, conditions should get worse.

The BIS Loses Its Mind, Advocates Kicking Citizens and the Bond Markets Even Harder

If anyone doubted that Ben Benanke’s “we’re convinced the economy is getting better, so take your lumps” press conference after the FOMC statement last week was awfully reminiscent of 1937, the newly-released Bank of International Settlements annual report is tantamount to a kick to the groin. And to change metaphors, if the Fed’s sudden hawkish posture is playing Russian roulette with the real economy, the BIS just voted loudly for putting a couple more bullets in the cylinder.

Pepe Escobar: Why American Worries about “Containing China” Are Off the Mark

Yves here. As China has become more powerful economically, and is building up its navy (a substantial navy is a precondition of being a true superpower), some pundits have taken to anticipating a world where US cedes dominance to China over a protracted and likely unstable transition period, using the decline of the British Empire and the rise of American influence as a guide.

That’s unlikely to be the right frame of reference.

Chinese Interbank Markets Having a Heart Attack, Repo and Shibor Skyrocket, Could Trigger Bigger Unraveling

The Chinese central bank is playing very high stakes poker. China’s interbank markets have been highly stressed for the last two days. An effort by the central bank to tighten in order to put a crimp on shadow banking activities looks to be spiraling out of control as one-week repo rates hit nearly 8.3% up 144 basis points in a day, and one-week Shibor has risen from its June 5 level of 4.8% to just shy of 8.1% today.

Wolf Richter: One Part Of Japan’s Abenomics Salvation Is Already A Fail

Japan’s attack in the Currency War was supposed to make it more competitive in international trade – but that, it failed to do. In fact, the opposite occurred.

Extreme Energy, Extreme Implications: Interview with Michael Klare

If oil and gas is a profoundly dynamic phenomenon, then so too must be environmental risk and conflicts over natural resources—and we are not getting the full picture from the mainstream media, according to Michael T. Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, TomDispatch blogger, and author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books, 2008). As risk multiply, conventional sources evaporate and we are left with “extreme” energy, renewables may be the only way to avoid war and disaster.

Snowden Shows South China Morning Post Details of NSA Hacking in China

If such a thing is possible, the intelligence community’s unhappiness with Edward Snowden has ratcheted up another notch. It was bad enough that he revealed yesterday that the NSA had been hacking targets in mainland China and Hong Kong.

China to Build Panama Canal Bypass Through Nicaragua

Yves here. Reader From Mexico often chides readers in comments who like try to depict Argentina and other Latin American states as failures, when the ones who have distanced themselves from American/neoliberal policies have made solid social and economic progress.

This piece highlights a tangible indicator of the wane of US influence in the Americas.

Wolf Richter: When Flight Safety Gets Outsourced To China

Aircraft maintenance was a highly paid blue-collar job that required education, training, manual skills, and brains. It was one of the perfect American middle-class jobs with generous healthcare, retirement, and vacation benefits; and free flights! They were working for icons like Delta, American Airlines, Continental, TWA, or Pan Am. Icons indeed!

The Inflation Dog Didn’t Bark, But What About the Others?

By Eric Yeldan, Professor of Economics and Dean at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences Yasar University. Cross posted from Triple Crisis

The IMF released the April edition of its World Economic Outlook (WEO). One of the key analytical chapters (Chapter 3) of the Report is titled “The Dog that Didn’t Bark: Has Inflation Been Muzzled, or Was It Just Sleeping?” Its main argument (or rather sort of a mystery that needs to be resolved, in the words of its authors) is that over the course of the previous crisis episodes we used to witness severe increases in unemployment along with a simultaneous fall in inflation. Yet, during the current great recession there has been very little movement in inflation, while unemployment rates soared almost everywhere; —hence the metaphor: inflation (the dog…) does not respond (… bark). And the alleged mystery is but why?

The WEO suggests two candidates for explaining the mystery. Perhaps instead of looking for dogs, they should stop ignoring the elephant in the room.

Vice Chairman of Chinese Accounting Association Warns Chinese Local Debt Could Create Bigger Crisis than US Housing Implosion

On the one hand, Bloomberg today tells us retail demand for stocks is as hot as ever. On the other, we have someone well-placed in China telling the world that its local debt is a train wreck waiting to happen, a classic Minksy Ponzi unit, but the timing of the unraveling is uncertain.

Gold Crash Signals End but End of What?

Whither gold?