China

Not only the US, but China is gearing up to welcome a new President, in its case Xi Jinping. That’s not the only similarity between the two global powers. While nothing can beat America’s critical levels of debt (watch the media leap like lemmings over the term ‘fiscal cliff‘), the Middle Kingdom isn’t doing too shabbily at clocking up credit of is own. It’s a bit of a myth that Easterners love to save, as a report today from Standard Chartered shows. The explosion of a middle class means consumers want their shiny goods, and they want them now. China’s new leader will inherit an economy that’s 30 per cent more leveraged

The Nobel committee have delivered their verdict on the literature prize: Mo Yan is new laureate. Over at the books blog, I explain why this is an important decision politically. Yan is the first Chinese citizen to win the award, a reminder that the country’s culture influence is growing together with its political and economic power. In that sense, the award has recognised that we are living in a new age. Yan’s books have been banned from time-to-time by the Chinese authorities, but he is accused by many of being too close to the party line. Several human rights activists are appalled that he has won the prize. However, others

Today’s news on the Chinese economy – that growth has slowed for the sixth quarter running – is no big surprise: the question for months now has been whether China’s landing will be hard or soft, not whether there will be a landing. Indeed, some analysts feel that the numbers suggest a recovery in the second half, and both Asian and European markets are buoyed by apparent relief the data isn’t worse.  Official Chinese statistics have to be taken with a large pinch of salt, obviously. Looking at the headline GDP numbers isn’t enough, as we pointed out recently – electricity consumption is probably a better gauge. But wait –

It’s immensely difficult to manage such a huge and complex country as China, we are constantly told by its mandarins. Indeed it is. Tens of thousands of Hong Kongers took to the streets over the weekend to protest their new leader, the Chinese Communist Party-friendly Leung Chun-ying. There have been demonstrations annually on 1 July to mark the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from Britain, but Sunday’s was the biggest in years. The numbers of protestors range from 65,000 to 400,000 depending on whether you ask the police or the demo organisers. They’re unhappy about everything from corruption to pollution to the widening income gap to a construction scandal surrounding

China’s rumour mill, hyperactive even in the calmest of times, has been in overdrive in the past two days. Monday evening and early Tuesday in Beijing, the country’s Twitter-like microblogs were abuzz with speculation there could have been a military coup, possibly linked with the recent demotion of Communist official Bo Xilai. There hasn’t been a coup, nor is there likely to be. Crazy rumours swirl in China every day (though not always of this level of seriousness). It’s said that authorities are now banning the word ‘coup’ on microblogs.   The bigger issue for China is that its policy of controlling information, while trying to catapult itself into the