Liu Mingkang targets toxic assets

The relative strength of China’s economy has given it added clout when it comes to prescribing solutions to the global economic crisis. The chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, Liu Mingkang, continued the Chinese official lecturing tour by saying that the US and other developed nations haven’t done all they could to stop protectionism. He also criticized the West’s (ahem, America’s) inaction when it comes to toxic assets in the banking system. Liu called for a “radical carving off of assets in one go” in order to help right the global ship, while also maintaining that China’s banking system is “sound and solid.” Toxicity of a different type was on the mind of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which halted construction of two hydropower dams in the upper Yangtze River region. The state-owned power firms Huadian Power and Huaneng Power had apparently started construction in January without receiving the proper environmental approvals from the ministry. And the trade relationship between China and India (which faced some bad blood earlier over a now-rescinded ban on Chinese toys) is under pressure yet again. An Indian industry body representing SMEs has called for New Delhi to accelerate anti-dumping investigations of imported Chinese goods.