Officials in China seem to be taking a page out of Mario Draghi’s playbook. Before Europe was pushed to the bring of recession, the President of Europe’s central bank would downplay any weakness in the European economy. In 2018 especially, Draghi frequently referred to 2017 as if it was something special. No cause for concern, he reassured, any softening was [...]
There may yet be bitter irony in the fact that China’s nascent embrace of capitalism in the late eighties allowed it to survive the wave of failed socialist states which fell all throughout the world at the time. While the Berlin Wall came down, the Eastern bloc nearly disappeared, and even the Soviet Union dissolved, the Chinese would stand almost [...]
The latest batch of economic from China featured a little something for everyone. For those thinking about a second half rebound, retail sales gained nearly 10% in June. It was the first time near to double digits since March 2018. At the other end of the spectrum, Real GDP rose just 6.2% year-over-year in the second quarter. That’s the lowest [...]
Much of the original thesis on economic decoupling surrounded myths of what were believed invulnerable economies. Emerging markets might see some slowing during 2008, but they weren’t supposed to drop off. China was right at the top of everyone’s list, the unstoppable force then transforming the world’s political as well as economic order. In the early months of the Global [...]
The Fed has its pause. The ECB is going to conduct another T-LTRO. But of all the central bank responses to the “unexpected” global weakness of late 2018, the Chinese’s was supposed to be the leader. The most forceful pushback against a worldwide downturn was reported to have been the PBOC’s “powerful” RRR cuts. China’s central bank conducted two of [...]
It had been 55 months, nearly five years since China’s vast and troubled industrial sector had seen growth better than 8%. Not since the first sparks of the rising dollar, Euro$ #3’s worst, had Industrial Production been better than that mark. What used to be a floor had seemingly become an unbreakable ceiling over this past half a decade. According [...]
Najib Tun Razak was elected as Malaysia’s Prime Minister in early 2009. Taking office that April amid global turmoil and chaos, Najib’s first official visit was to Beijing in early June. His father, also Malaysia’s Prime Minister, had been the first among Asian nations to open formal diplomatic relations with China thirty-five years before. Celebrating the milestone might’ve been the [...]
Imagine yourself as a rural Chinese farmer. Even the term “farmer” makes it sound better than it really is. This is a life out of the 19th century, subsistence at best the daily struggle just to survive. Flourishing is a dream. Only, you can see just on the other side of the hill the bright reflective lights of one of [...]
The English language headline for China’s National Bureau of Statistics’ press release on November 2018’s Big 3 was, National Economy Maintained Stable and Sound Momentum of Development in November. For those who, as noted yesterday, are wishing China’s economy bad news so as to lead to the supposed good news of a coordinated “stimulus” response this was itself a bad [...]
There was nothing really shocking about China’s monthly economic statistics for October 2018. The Big 3, Industrial Production, Retail Sales, and Fixed Asset Investment, all continue along in the same way. The Chinese economy is not crashing, it may be slowing, but most of all there isn’t any more upside. It’s the last one that is important. As such, Communist [...]
Stay In Touch