STEPHEN ROACH
MARCH 29, 2017
Another growth scare has come and gone for the Chinese economy. This, of course, is very much at odds with Western conventional wisdom, which has long expected a hard landing in China.
Once again, the Western perspective missed the Chinese context — a resilient system that places a high premium on stability.
Premier Li Keqiang said it all in his final comments at the recent China Development Forum. I have attended this gathering for 17 consecutive years and have learnt to read between the lines of premier-speak. Most of the time, senior Chinese leaders stay on message with rather boring statements about accomplishments, targets and reforms, toeing the official line of the annual “Work Report” on the economy that is delivered to the National People’s Congress two weeks earlier.
This year was different. Initially, Mr Li seemed subdued in his ponderous responses to questions from an audience of global luminaries that focused on weighty issues such as trade frictions, globalisation, digitisation and automation. But he came alive in his closing remarks — offering an unprompted declaration about the Chinese economy’s underlying strength: “There will be no hard landing,” he exclaimed.
The all-clear sign from Mr Li was in sync with official data in the first two months of 2017: Solid strength in retail sales, industrial output, electricity consumption, steel production, fixed investment and service sector activity (the latter signalled by a new monthly indicator developed by China’s National Bureau of Statistics). Meanwhile, foreign exchange reserves rebounded in February for the first time in eight months, pointing to an easing of capital outflows.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Why is everyone mean and stupid — and getting worse?
ROBERT ARMSTRONG
MARCH 28, 2017
The most pressing question of our age is not what will happen when the computers outsmart us. Nor is it the future of globalisation, or how to stop climate change.
It is much more fundamental than these: Why is everyone so mean and stupid, and why is it getting worse?
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Trump won’t allow you to use iPads or laptops on certain airlines. Here’s why.
By Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman
March 21
Britain joined the U.S. in creating new restrictions for passengers traveling on flights from airports in several Muslim-majority countries. Here's what you need to know. (Monica Akhtar, Dani Player/The Washington Post)
From Tuesday on, passengers traveling to the U.S. from 10 airports in eight Muslim-majority countries will not be allowed to have iPads, laptops or any communications device larger than a smartphone in the cabin of the plane. If you are traveling from Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or the UAE on Egypt Air, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Kuwait Airways, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines, or Turkish Airlines, and you want to use your laptop on the flight, you are probably out of luck.
March 21
Britain joined the U.S. in creating new restrictions for passengers traveling on flights from airports in several Muslim-majority countries. Here's what you need to know. (Monica Akhtar, Dani Player/The Washington Post)
From Tuesday on, passengers traveling to the U.S. from 10 airports in eight Muslim-majority countries will not be allowed to have iPads, laptops or any communications device larger than a smartphone in the cabin of the plane. If you are traveling from Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or the UAE on Egypt Air, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Kuwait Airways, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines, or Turkish Airlines, and you want to use your laptop on the flight, you are probably out of luck.
US Politics: The balance of power between POTUS, SCOTUS, and Congress
["Check and Balance" is a philosophy of US Democracy. Their inherent and historic ambivalence and distrust of government led to the separation of powers and the ability of each branch of government to check on the other so that there can never be a dictator. Hence, the President of the United States (POTUS) may make executive orders, but the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) can check that, and stay the order. Congress can make the laws, but POTUS need to assent, and SCOTUS needs to uphold or rule on cases brought before them.
All well and good and it seems to be fine. Every 4 years, POTUS faces an election, and need the mandate of the people. Every 2 years, 1/3 of the Senators and some Representatives face elections to be affirmed, re-affirmed, or rejected by the people.
But appointment to SCOTUS is for life. And in that "longevity" lies the means to influence the lives of US citizens.
Gorsuch’s big fat lie
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Opinion writer
March 22 2017
With a shrewdly calculated innocence, Judge Neil Gorsuch told a big fat lie at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday. Because it was a lie everyone expected, nobody called it that.
“There’s no such thing as a Republican judge or a Democratic judge,” Gorsuch said.
Gorsuch, the amiable veteran of many Republican campaigns, is well-placed to know how serious a fib that was. As Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) noted, President Trump’s nominee for Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court seat actually received a citation for helping win confirmation for Republican-appointed judges.
We now have an ideological judiciary. To pretend otherwise is naive and also recklessly irresponsible because it tries to wish away the real stakes in confirmation battles.
All well and good and it seems to be fine. Every 4 years, POTUS faces an election, and need the mandate of the people. Every 2 years, 1/3 of the Senators and some Representatives face elections to be affirmed, re-affirmed, or rejected by the people.
But appointment to SCOTUS is for life. And in that "longevity" lies the means to influence the lives of US citizens.
Gorsuch’s big fat lie
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Opinion writer
March 22 2017
With a shrewdly calculated innocence, Judge Neil Gorsuch told a big fat lie at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday. Because it was a lie everyone expected, nobody called it that.
“There’s no such thing as a Republican judge or a Democratic judge,” Gorsuch said.
Gorsuch, the amiable veteran of many Republican campaigns, is well-placed to know how serious a fib that was. As Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) noted, President Trump’s nominee for Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court seat actually received a citation for helping win confirmation for Republican-appointed judges.
We now have an ideological judiciary. To pretend otherwise is naive and also recklessly irresponsible because it tries to wish away the real stakes in confirmation battles.
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Creating an ecosystem to win a non-conventional war
SHASHI JAYAKUMAR
AND
HO SHU HUANG
MARCH 22, 2017
The concept of battle is changing. The recent announcements by Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen during the Committee of Supply debates represent important acknowledgements that the Ministry of Defence’s (Mindef) thinking on cyber issues and information warfare, as well as the Singapore Armed Forces’ (SAF) doctrine, are moving in step with global developments.
AND
HO SHU HUANG
MARCH 22, 2017
The concept of battle is changing. The recent announcements by Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen during the Committee of Supply debates represent important acknowledgements that the Ministry of Defence’s (Mindef) thinking on cyber issues and information warfare, as well as the Singapore Armed Forces’ (SAF) doctrine, are moving in step with global developments.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
World War II started in 1937 in Asia, not 1939 in Europe, says Oxford historian
Professor Rana Mitter tells Conversation With why the war began with Japan’s conflict with China, not when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the date most history books use.
By Lin Xueling
16 Mar 2017
OXFORD - Many history texts use 1939 as the date marking the start of the Second World War. More America-centric accounts use 1941, the year Japan attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
However, using recently-released documentation, Oxford University professor of history Rana Mitter argues that the real start of the global conflict was 1937 - when Japan attacked China in what has been called the Marco Polo Bridge incident, outside of Beijing.
Prof Mitter’s book, The Forgotten Ally, points out that the terrible eight-year-long conflict took a massive toll on China, with more than 14 million Chinese dead.
By comparison, military and civilian casualties for the US and United Kingdom combined totaled around 900,000.
By Lin Xueling
16 Mar 2017
OXFORD - Many history texts use 1939 as the date marking the start of the Second World War. More America-centric accounts use 1941, the year Japan attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
However, using recently-released documentation, Oxford University professor of history Rana Mitter argues that the real start of the global conflict was 1937 - when Japan attacked China in what has been called the Marco Polo Bridge incident, outside of Beijing.
Prof Mitter’s book, The Forgotten Ally, points out that the terrible eight-year-long conflict took a massive toll on China, with more than 14 million Chinese dead.
By comparison, military and civilian casualties for the US and United Kingdom combined totaled around 900,000.
Monday, March 13, 2017
Kim Jong-nam killing spawns intriguing conspiracy theories
MARCH 2, 2017
BEIJING — The sensational assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s estranged half-brother in a Kuala Lumpur airport two weeks ago is incomprehensible to most people.
To begin to understand this apparent act of fratricide, one needs to recognise that North Korea is essentially a medieval absolute monarchy ruled by an insecure and tyrannical 33-year-old.
For all its modern twists — the use of VX nerve agent, the suspected assassins’ professed belief they were part of a reality TV show, the “LOL” (“laugh out loud”) acronym across a T-shirt worn by one of the accused women — this was murder in the mode of a Plantagenet or Ottoman Sultan.
The “young marshal”, as Kim Jong-un insists on being called, was fearful that his 46-year-old half-brother Jong-nam had a better claim to the throne and that he might one day usurp him with the help of China or the West.
BEIJING — The sensational assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s estranged half-brother in a Kuala Lumpur airport two weeks ago is incomprehensible to most people.
To begin to understand this apparent act of fratricide, one needs to recognise that North Korea is essentially a medieval absolute monarchy ruled by an insecure and tyrannical 33-year-old.
For all its modern twists — the use of VX nerve agent, the suspected assassins’ professed belief they were part of a reality TV show, the “LOL” (“laugh out loud”) acronym across a T-shirt worn by one of the accused women — this was murder in the mode of a Plantagenet or Ottoman Sultan.
The “young marshal”, as Kim Jong-un insists on being called, was fearful that his 46-year-old half-brother Jong-nam had a better claim to the throne and that he might one day usurp him with the help of China or the West.
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