Reform is always easier when a crisis leaves policy makers no other options. But without further change, Asia will continue to rely too much on debt instead of productivity gains for growth. In poorer nations, improvements in household welfare will lag. As in the years before 1997, economic irregularities could build up to the point where the region faces another crisis. Will the next Kim Dae-jungs be there when you need them?
The VIP list at Beijing’s glittering launch party for its massive Silk Road trade plan was worth scrutinising not for the luminaries who were on it, but those who weren’t. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who irritates Beijing by standing up to its bullying in the South China Sea, was notably missing; he didn’t get an invitation. European government heads were welcome, but mostly stayed away, as did leaders from India and Japan. The no-shows reflect a broad disquiet: To skeptics, what President Xi Jinping calls the “Project of the Century” is, at heart, an imperial venture.
Under President Trump, it is possible, for the first time in a generation, to imagine a concerted attack on the central bank. Conceivably, the United States could repeat the story of the mid-1960s and ’70s, when a 15-year period of central-bank independence was brought to an end by presidential bullying. Back then, Lyndon B. Johnson summoned the Fed chairman, William McChesney Martin Jr., to his Texas ranch and shoved him around the living room while proclaiming that low interest rates were imperative in a time of war.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered perhaps the most comprehensive roadmap of U.S. foreign policy, addressing the nation’s involvement with East Asia, Russia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere.
Donald Trump is inviting the wrong Asian dictator to meet him in Washington. Instead of focusing on Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte, he should extend an invitation to North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. His comments today that under the “right circumstances” he would be “honoured” to meet with Kim were welcome ones, but he should go even further.
Chinese enterprises are going global, venturing overseas to acquire foreign companies, know-how, and technologies. While most of these activities reflect simple business decisions, others carefully and deliberately advance China’s strategic interests, perhaps against the interests of its trading partners.
Throughout most of history China dominated Asia, up until what many Chinese refer to as the “century of humiliation”—when Japan and Western powers invaded or otherwise interfered between 1839 and 1949. Now, with China on the rise again, are Beijing’s leaders looking to establish a new hegemony by drawing on the playbook of the distant past, when China’s neighbours were forced to pay tribute?
Donald Trump is so singular a figure in background and temperament, so large a personality, and so seemingly immune to the usual pressures and incentives, that it is tempting to imagine that foreign policy under him will be simply the projection of his will. Think again.
The Germans are angry. The Chinese are downright furious. Leaders of NATO are nervous, while their counterparts at the European Union are alarmed. Just days before he is sworn into office, President-elect Donald J. Trump has again focused his penchant for unpredictable disruption on the rest of the world.
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech at the opening plenary of the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos. Here are 10 quick takeaways from the 50-minute address, which touched upon globalization, protectionism, world economy and China’s development among other subjects.
