In The News

Wakeup Call for Europe

Philippe Legrain August 5, 2014
Europe has squandered its potential with crushing debt, declining living standards, high unemployment and little innovation. “Europe isn’t just falling further behind the United States; it also faces ever-greater competition from China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Korea and other emerging economies – not just in lower-end manufacturing but also in higher-tech sectors,” writes economist...

China Plays a Big Role as US Treasury Yields Fall

Min Zeng July 18, 2014
China has stepped up its purchases in the U.S. treasury market – that despite tensions and expectations that the country would pull back. “The Chinese government has increased its buying of U.S. Treasury this year at the fastest pace since records began more than three decades ago, data released Wednesday show,” reports Min Zeng for the Wall Street Journal. “The buying has been fueled by China...

Fresh Corporate Default Tests China’s Resolve

Lucy Hornby and Jamil Anderlini March 14, 2014
Defaults, like profits, are a part of doing business, warns China’s premier, after Haixin Steel and Chaori Solar failed to make payments on debt. “Li Keqiang told reporters that China was likely to see a series of defaults as the government accelerates financial deregulation but said his government would take steps to ensure they do not pose a threat to the wider financial system,” reports the...

Putin’s Dangerous Game

Strobe Talbott March 11, 2014
Displeased by the removal of its ally in Ukraine, and contending a need to protect ethnic Russians wherever they live, Russia has dispatched troops to the neighboring state. The next step is redrawing Ukrainian borders by annexing Crimea under the guise of a hastily arranged election limited to the peninsula. The international community is unlikely to respond with military force, but could...

Emerge, Splurge, Purge

March 7, 2014
Multinational makers of phones, cars, beverages, and household products of all types have long eyed the emerging markets – the “geography seduced everyone,” suggests the Economist. Then the US Federal Reserve announced in mid-2013 that it would reduce bond purchases. Currencies of emerging economies in India, Turkey and South Africa fell in value along with a drop in consumer demand. The...

The New Ukraine: Inside Kiev's House of Cards

Christian Neef, Wladimir Pyljow and Matthias Schepp March 6, 2014
Ukraine is ranked 144th on Transparency International’s corruption index; by comparison, neighbors Russia and Poland are ranked 127 and 38, respectively. Business owners with close ties to the former president, described as oligarchs, have fortunes worth billions even as the country owes billions in debt, much of that to Russia. Many of the wealthy have fled to Russia and tried to destroy...

Romania: Chinese Are Coming!

Raluca Besliu March 4, 2014
Communist Romania, in 1949, was one of the first countries to recognize the communist People’s Republic of China. In 2007, Romania joined the European Union and has felt like a second-class member since – a market for European goods and services, but not a full partner. Prime Minister Victor Ponta is striving to demonstrate to Europe that Romania has alternatives by selling resources to China: “...