China has tried over the years to come to grips with its pandemic pollution, yet in Beijing, through a combination of factors, it reached catastrophic levels in mid-January and set another record. Result of the white-hot pace of economic growth. And of coal consumption: this year, China is set to burn more coal than the rest of the world combined!
China
What the Japanese Trade Deficit Says About the Fraying Fabric In China And Europe
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on What the Japanese Trade Deficit Says About the Fraying Fabric In China And Europe
European talking heads are reassuring us on an hourly basis, lest we forget, that the worst of the debt crisis is over. The Japanese trade deficit, a measure of reality, not words, tells a different story about the crisis in Europe. And about troubles coming to a boil in China. But neither can be cured by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plan to decapitate the yen.
German Spy Agency: Geopolitical Consequences Of US Oil Boom
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on German Spy Agency: Geopolitical Consequences Of US Oil Boom
Much digital ink has been spilled about the US oil & gas boom, and whether or not it will lead to energy independence, or even turn the US into an oil exporter. Now a “confidential” report by the German version of the CIA, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, seeped to the surface. It sketched out the boom’s geopolitical consequences. Biggest loser? China.
Blowing Up: The Transfer Of French Nuclear Technology To China
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Blowing Up: The Transfer Of French Nuclear Technology To China
Technology transfers, whether on a contractual basis or through theft, have long bedeviled companies that want to benefit from China’s cheap labor and 1.3 billion consumers. Automakers, aerospace companies, technology outfits…. it’s the price they have to pay. But when it seeped out that the largely state-owned nuclear industry in France was trying to sell its secrets to China to make a deal, oh là là!
Chinese Strawberries Sicken 11,200 German Children
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Chinese Strawberries Sicken 11,200 German Children
Merkel and Clinton Go To China: One Makes Deals, The Other Gets Snubbed
by Wolf Richter • • 1 Comment
Bring home the bacon, or the speck, as it were, was the guiding principle for German Chancellor Angela Merkel when she frolicked in China last week. But her pleas to get the Chinese to buy the crappy bonds of debt-sinner countries in the Eurozone fell on deaf ears. This week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was hobnobbing with the Chinese elite. It turned into a clash fest, and instead of bringing home the bacon, she argued with the Chinese over everything and the South China Sea.
Beer, A Reflection Of The World Economy?
by Wolf Richter • • 7 Comments
As a kid in Germany, I engaged in underage beer drinking. I was too young to drive, so it didn’t bother anyone, except me the next day. It was when German beer consumption peaked at 151 liters per capita, the highest in the world. But then I went to America … and German beer consumption took a multi-decade dive. In the US and other Western countries, the beer industry is now morose as well, but it’s booming elsewhere.
The Fine Wine Bubble Blows Up
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Fine Wine Bubble Blows Up
I love wine, but I’m leaning towards Californian wines; they’re awesome and grow in my extended neighborhood. More precisely, I love drinking wine, not keeping it locked up in a refrigerated vault, and certainly not investing in it. Hence, I have little sympathy for those who were buying high-dollar French wines for the purpose of investing in them, instead of drinking them, and I certainly don’t feel sorry for them in their plight. But a plight it is.
Fishy Economic Data and the China Crash
by Wolf Richter • • 4 Comments
An unrelenting, horrid wave of scandals about toxic ingredients in foods and medicines in China shows that regulators are unwilling and incapable of controlling it. It also shows a penchant—some evil tongues say it’s cultural—for pandemic cheating in order to get ahead in some way. And Chinese economic data falls into that category.
White House Hypocrisy and Trade Sanctions Against China
by Wolf Richter • • 1 Comment
Every car sold in the US contains Chinese-made components. But suddenly, in the middle of a heated presidential campaign, the White House decided to show its dentures. “We’re certainly looking at that,” said Tim Reif, general counsel in the US Trade Representative’s office, though he insisted that the election had nothing to do with it. Yet, the culprits for the horrendous migration across the Pacific are everywhere.