U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson needs to pull a political rabbit out of his hat if he is to keep his critics in the U.S. Congress at bay over the currency issue. His current trip to China has, so far at least, produced only a rehearsal of the well worn lines from both sides about [...]
Entries from July 2007
July 30, 2007
Missing Headlines
It strikes this Bystander as odd how little international attention the torrential rain and flooding across inland China has attracted. The death toll has now passed 700, according to the People’s Daily. Some 120 million people have been affected and 450,000 homes destroyed. The Red Cross has called it the worst flooding to hit China [...]
July 29, 2007
Detroiting Shanghai
The inevitable and Beijing-driven consolidation of the auto industry has taken another step forward with news that Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. and Yuejin Group, the parent of Nanjing Automobile, have signed a letter of intent on cooperation. SAIC is the domestic market leader and has joint ventures with Germany’s Volkswagen and the U.S.’s General Motors. [...]
July 28, 2007
Buffett Trims PetroChina Stake
Warren Buffett has sold 16.9 million shares of PetroChina, China’s biggest listed energy company that has been the focus of shareholder activists who accuse it of providing financial support for the genocide in Darfur. The sale, made on July 12 according to a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange made public on Friday, netted [...]
July 27, 2007
Powering Up
Areva, the French company that is the world’s biggest builder of nuclear power stations, is close to concluding a deal for two third-generation nuclear reactors in Guangdong, according to an AFP report citing sources close to the negotiations. French press reports tag the value of the deal at $8.25 billion. The reactors would raise China [...]
July 26, 2007
Sex, Power, Money & Law
Amid a slew of reports about the anti-corruption crackdown, including the expulsion from the Party of a former Beijing district head Zhou Liangluo for corruption, are a couple about new law worth notice. First, a People’s Daily report about changes to bring China’s and international anti-corruption law more in line to make extradition proceedings easier for [...]
July 25, 2007
Smile. You Are On Camera.
A Xinhua report on Beijing’s plans to put up street signs announcing you are about to enter a security camera monitored zone contains one of those wonderful non sequiturs only found in state news agency stories.
According to the municipal public security bureau, suspicious acts or objects detected by the cameras will be automatically reported to [...]
July 24, 2007
Grain Inflation
We know of the high prices and short supply of pork and eggs. The new farm commodity to watch is grain following the storms and floods. The Agriculture Ministry has warned that it will be difficult to stabilize supplies this autumn. That could suggest that government maintained stocks are low (stock levels are a closely [...]
July 23, 2007
China’s Spreading Capital
China has made what is thought to be its biggest investment in an overseas company – China Development Bank’s $3 billion 3.1% stake in Britain’s Barclays Bank. Singapore’s state investment agency Temasek is taking a 2.1% stake in Barclays. The money from the two Asian institutions will be used in part to finance Barclays’ increased bid of $93.4 [...]
July 22, 2007
No Clean Hands
Cans of hot dog chili sauce made by a U.S. food company, Castleberry’s Food, are suspected to be contaminated with the botulism bacteria. Here’s a report. No cleans hands, so to speak, anywhere, it seems.
