A Building Falls In Shanghai

A block of apartments under construction in Shanghai just fell over, as if it had been built out of Lego bricks and toppled with the flick of a finger. There is nothing much else to say, or at least until someone finds out why, but the pictures are remarkable.

Reality Check Advisory

When the figures are released for June, power generation is expected to show its first monthly increase in eight months. A sign of recovering economic activity, or a byproduct of the hot weather that parts of the country have been experiencing? Calibrate your economic optimism meter carefully.

Zhou Bangs On About The SDR As World Currency

The People’s Bank of China has found a drum and continues to beat it. In its annual financial stability report, the central bank again calls for a super-sovereign currency to replace the dollar. The bank’s head, Zhou Xiaochuan, has been a cheerleader for this course of action, and caused a stir earlier this year when [...]

Beijing Starts To Play By WTO Rules. Good.

There was a time when Beijing quietly settled WTO trade complaints against China.  In the first five years after joining the organization in 2001, it didn’t contest a single complaint against it. No longer. It says it will contest the newly lodged complaints from the U.S. and the E.U. that it unfairly limits exports of [...]

Google and Baidu, Pornography and Protectionism

Is Beijing’s reining in of Google trade protectionism–or a shake down?
The FT reported that Google has ben ordered to stop users of its Chinese-language service accessing overseas web sites. The directive is to suspend foreign searches and a feature that automatically suggests multiple search results once typing commences in the search window, according to the [...]

Anglo American Next In Chinalco’s Sights?

The consolidation of the global natural resources industry in response to the bursting of the the commodities bubble of the early years of the decade and the subsequent global recession means one of two things: more joint ventures such as the one between BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto in iron ore or more combinations within [...]

Reports of Beijing Selling Off Its Treasuries Are Misplaced

Brad Setser’s Follow The Money blog on the Council On Foreign Relations site is always worth the read for anyone following  global capital flows, and especially his post questioning whether China sold down some of its Treasuries in April as U.S. Treasury’s monthly data on total foreign holdings of long- and short-term Treasuries suggests.
Setser says [...]

Beijing Mulls Easing FDI Rules

Worried by eight consecutive months of falling foreign direct investment, Beijing is considering relaxing the FDI rules, according to the China Times. Forty-two rules covering tax, foreign exchange, other regulatory supervision, has been submitted to the state council for approval, the paper says. Most notable among the changes would be greater access to the high-tech [...]

World Bank Raises China Growth Forecast

The World Bank has raised its forecast for China’s economic growth this year from 6.5% (its March forecast) to 7.2%. That is shy of the magical 8% Beijing is shooting for but a sign of how last year’s four trillion yuan stimulus package is boosting economic activity, at least more than the Bank had expected.
Reflecting [...]

Beijing Hints At Flexing Its New Antitrust Muscles On Behalf Of Jilted Chinalco

There was obviously some wounded pride following the collapse of Chinalco’s proposed $19.5 billion investment in Rio Tinto. But to add insult to injury, Rio is now proposing an iron-ore joint venture with BHP Billiton in Western Australia.
Such a combination would account for 80% of the exports from one of China’s main sources of supply, [...]