Since this is another long posting, it might make sense to summarize briefly its two parts. In the first part, expanding on an OpEd piece of mine published by the Wall Street Journal on Monday, I argue that China’s “nuclear option”, which has generated a great deal of nervousness among investors and policy-making circles in [...]
Jul 4th, 2010
Just three days after returning to Beijing from New York, I had to leave again, this time to a series of conferences in Torino, Italy, so it is hard to do much writing for my blog, especially since I won’t spend my free time in the hotel when there is so damned much food out [...]
Jun 15th, 2010
I apologize for waiting two weeks since my last post, but my schedule has been crazier than usual what with the SED meeting and a number of conferences and visitors to Beijing. What’s more, next week I will go to New York and environs for a week, followed by a week in Italy. It always [...]
How much does the Greek crisis matter for China? There are, as far as I see, broadly two schools of thought. One school says that the Greek crisis is largely a problem internal to Europe, and its impact on Europe and the rest of the world is too small to matter much. In support they [...]
There seems to be a thaw in the currency war. President Obama and President Hu had a long telephone conversation today and my guess is that the Treasury will hold off on naming China a currency manipulator in two weeks. I hate to be a pessimist, but this might be very temporary. Unless the US [...]
Feb 2nd, 2010
I am traveling in DC, NY and Boston over the next few days, and between meetings and jet-lag it is hard for me to do much on my blog, but I did want to extend a short piece I wrote that was published yesterday in the South China Morning Post. This is because it is [...]
Oct 9th, 2009
The US trade deficit unexpectedly narrowed in August, according to the Commerce Department in a report released yesterday. Exports were up slightly and imports down, mostly because of a reduction in oil imports, I think, but the trade deficit was still a hefty 3.6% of GDP. So does this mean that the rebalancing is grinding [...]
In my last entry I tried to set out the necessary shifts over the next few years as the world, and especially China and the US, works out its imbalances. These shifts will take place, I am pretty sure, but they can do so under a “good” scenario and a “bad” scenario. So what does [...]
Jul 29th, 2009
I am working on a fairly long entry that I will post this weekend about why a trade rebalancing and a consumption/savings rebalancing will take place in both China and the US whether or not we want it. This week has been crazy, among other reasons because a festival in Taiwan has invited one of [...]
Jun 20th, 2009
I am, still trying to work out the implications for China of a rise in US household savings, but here is how I see it. I welcome comments that may help me refine or refute this argument. For the sake of simplicity I am going to assume that there are only two countries, the US, [...]