China opens ties with Honduras, Taiwan decries monetary demands

BEIJING: China established diplomatic ties with Honduras on Sunday (Mar 26) after the Central American country ended its decades-long relationship with Taiwan, as Taiwan’s foreign minister accused Honduras of demanding exorbitant sums before being lured away by Beijing. The ending of ties with Taiwan had been long expected after the HonduranContinue Reading

US bank trouble heralds end of dollar reserve system

NEW YORK – The US banking system is broken. That doesn’t portend more high-profile failures like Credit Suisse. The central banks will keep moribund institutions on life support. But the era of dollar-based reserves and floating exchange rates that began on August 15, 1971, when the US severed the link between the dollar and gold, […]Continue Reading

Time for China to spend more and save less

The atmospherics surrounding the recent National People’s Congress all came down to one question: when exactly will China become the world’s biggest economy? Communist Party leader Xi Jinping didn’t offer a specific answer. But it’s clear that the new reform team Xi has assembled is accelerating the timeline by prioritizing consumption over investment. There’s not a […]Continue Reading

China’s social credit system bigger than Big Brother

China’s social credit system is widely viewed in the West as a digital surveillance system to categorize and guide people through reward and punishment. This perception continues despite efforts by scholars to build a morally normalized, rather than ideologically charged, framework to understand the system. The social credit system should be understood as method — […]Continue Reading