Category: Economics & Trade

With China among Washington’ s bigger headaches, US officials ratchet up the pressure in areas ranging from trade to the military.

Graham Earnshaw is walking from Shanghai to Tibet when he has the time, starting always from the last place he stopped. This month we find him near the town of Xuancheng, in the south of Anhui province.

Beijing is on course to minimize its meddling in the financial markets, a first sign that it’s putting some faith in investors and markets.

While we’re thinking of investing in A-shares, a key part of the future of Asia’s equity capital markets, we might look for a moment at the institutions through which we’re buying these darlings. The picture is not encouraging: China’s brokerages are sick. In spite of having a large domestic market to serve and earn fees from, China’s top 50 brokerages managed to lose a reported US$562 million in 2004.

China’s R&D is catching up to Europe’s: a sign of things to come?