Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia Philip Lowe’s speech last week highlighting the risks to the Chinese financial system from shadow banks – non-bank financial institutions often operating in more lightly regulated wholesale markets – has once again drawn attention to the major economic risk in China. Read Here – Lowy Institute
If nothing further is done, the U.S.-China trade deal reached this month will be remembered, to quote a phrase coined by the current president of the United States, as “the single worst trade deal” ever negotiated. Read Here – CFR
The fifth icy age has descended on China–Australia relations—cooling business, frosting diplomacy and chilling strategic perspectives. China has put Australia into diplomatic ‘deep freeze’. China speaks of ‘a growing lack of mutual trust’, accusing Australia of ‘systematic, irresponsible, negative remarks and comments regarding China’. Australia concedes ‘tensions’ while blaming ‘misunderstandings and mischaracterisations’. Read Here – The Strategist
Over the past five decades or so, Asia’s economies have relied largely on an export-oriented development model to support rapid economic transformation and growth. But with US President Donald Trump fulfilling his promise to adopt a more protectionist approach to trade — an effort that could spur retaliatory measures by other countries — that model is […]
It was a great year for copper, Ukrainian stocks, palladium. Uzbekistan’s currency, Venezuelan bonds and sugar not so much. It was a great year to hold bitcoin, but a bad time to have been invested in the Uzbek soum. Read Here – Bloomberg
Donald Trump is kicking off an Asia tour next week that includes a two-day state visit to China starting Nov. 8. At the top of the agenda for his meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping is, of course, North Korea and trade—two items that, in Trump’s mind, can be traded against each other. Read Here – […]
It’s a story about the tail that wagged the dog that didn’t bark that isn’t in Kansas anymore. The dog that didn’t bark is commodity prices, and the tail that wagged is the Chinese yuan. Read Here – Asia Times
China is a good example of how an activist monetary policy can ferment bubbles, ruin the health of a financial system, economic reforms and, eventually, economic growth. Since 2004, China has run a gigantic monetary bubble that has corrupted virtually every corner of the economy. Read Here – South China Morning Post
Here are some of China’s economic pain points: bloated state-owned companies; banks with rising bad loans and local governments drowning in debt; massive overcapacity in the property market; bad investment in the wrong places. Read Here – Bloomberg
looking beyond borders 