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The Guardian provides this first account of what happened in the Galwan Valley border between India and China at the Line of Actual Control. It is described as the worst fighting in 60 years. On the high steep ridge lines above the rapidly moving Galwan River a patrol of Indian soldiers encountered Chinese troops in a steep section of a high mountainous region. They believed the PLA Chinese Army had withdrawn from the ridge in line with a June 6 disengagement agreement. The Indian government says that what happened afterwards was pre-meditated ambush by the PLA forces. In the fighting that ensued the Indian commanding officer was pushed from the narrow ridge falling to the gorge below. Reinforcements from the Indian side were called from a post 2 miles away and about 600 men were fighting in near total darkness in high mountain ridge with stones iron rods for upto 6 hours. Following a decades long tradition to avoid escalation of hostilities because of nuclear weapons of both countries the two sides have not used other weapons. Most deaths on both sides were from soldiers falling or being knocked from mountain ridges. The main problem in the conflict is the Line of Actual Control exists but since China's takeover of Tibet in 1950 there is no agreement that has set the official border. The British Simla agreement in 1912 set the border with Tibet in an agreement between Tibet and the British Empire in India, when Tibet was an independent country. China claims that historically going back to Ming and Qing dynasty Tibet was part of its region. For most of its history Tibet was an autonomous region with closer contacts with India because it is close to Nepal and Nepal is very near the Indian Bihar state border.  A new rail link from Raxaul, Bihar in India to Kathmandu is only 137 kilometres, and from Kathmandu to the Tibet border is only 205 kilometres. Fast rail or road links would put Tibet within a few hours by rail or road to Tibet from India. For the entire period the US exists as a nation about 250 years and from the first landing of the colonists on American shores about 1607 Tibet was a mountainous region that was so remote that few people even knew about the country's existence. Beijing and Shanghai are four thousand kilometres away, India much closer to Tibet through Kathmandu, Nepal and India sharing a common culture, and no one thought much about the mountainous borders at 15000- 20,000 feet in the western Himalayas, till China's takeover of Tibet in 1950. India had no clear idea what this meant in 1950- no clear border except for what was agreed between the Tibetan independent government  and the British in 1912 which was set under the British Empire- resulting in a fluid border. And China had no clear idea that this would put in a place it would not want to be thousands of miles from the Yangtse valley region home to most of China's population, in a remote mountain region at heights of 15,000 -20,000 feet, with little to gain. Throughout history since 1000 and earlier Tibet remained a region that acted as a buffer between China's western provinces and India, the high mountains at 15,000- 20,000 feet making it inaccessible. Which is why the Ganges plains and the Yangtse river valley plains contact was made more through the oceans than by land, and the areas developing distinctly different language and cultures. All this changed after 1954 when the Qinghai Tibet highway was built, the closest city on the Chinese side is Xining. Xining to Tibet is a distance of about 2000 kilometres at an average height of 4500 metres or about 14,000 feet.  ...

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A shocking fact about oversupply in one crucial industry. Automakers worldwide have the industry capacity to make 94 million vehicles. According to researcher CSM Worldwide the current sales in late 2008 reflects demand for 60 million vehicles worldwide. This is about 34 million extra vehicles and represents about 100 plants. Toyota has already cut production in Japan by 27% in November, the biggest cuts seen at Toyota in 30 years. The numbers for 2009 will reflect a deepening downturn from higher unemployment and lower spending. Not all of this capacity wil be cut as automakers will look for a rebound as customers replace aging vehicles, but as sales decline in Russia, China and emerging markets and in the USA and Europe, some consolidation will take place and many plants will have to close in the US, China, Portugal, Italy and Spain.

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US to take stakes in American companies to help them achieve goals of Make in America with Intel stake the first action. The $8.9 billion Biden intended for Intel to make chips in the US will be handed over to Intel but for a stake in the company of 10%. For years Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and China have subsidized their companies in different and some hidden ways. Many times these companies have sustained losses as they built for the long term in volatile market situations. Nvidia now a trillion dollar company was at one time a company struggling to survive saved only by a Japanese corporate investor as shown in a recent WSJ report. The US has taken no such action losing its dominant position in many advanced industries including chips till the Biden and DJT administrations. Yet the media keeps voicing the old ideas of market capitalism as if there is such a thing when state capitalism operates with market capitalism in the Chinese model, and a form of semi state capitalism operates with market capitalism in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan with hidden subsidies by the state to build dominant positions in certain industrial sectors. Even US companies are willing to take such subsidies as when Elon Musk builds car plants in China with state assistance and support, which never comes up in the media even when the Chinese EV makers are learning from the Americans and Tesla is losing market share in China. Theory is for the textbooks and economists,  in business all forms of capitalism work including a mix of state and market, and America has to invent its way back to lead the way in advanced industries.  ...

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US Russia relations improve in 2025. The new national security document of US put out by the DJT Administration says that Russia is not a threat.  It sticks to migration and western identities when facing civilizational erasure over next two decades as key threats to the US. It poses questions for the European Union, Germany and France, yet also offers away out of the "mess" in Ukraine with the Russians saying NATO was too close to their borders as the real issue, and the US not aligning itself with NATO reducing big power tensions including nuclear arsenal expansion. Germany rebuilding the Bundeswehr and it's military offers a rebalancing of the military situation yet is not the long term solution to the Ukraine problem, NATO limiting it's role and the US limiting it's role in NATO offers a solution that preserves the long term interests of Western Europe(Germany, France, Italy, UK, Spain) and preserves world peace and dialogue. It also promotes integration of India and Russia into the world trade and world economy as it diversifies from the dominance of China in world trade and the world economy of the last 20 years of free trade that deindustrialized US and Europe. What this national security document does not say is that China's dominance in world trade and the errors of the US, Europe, Japan, Russia, India in world trading relationships and their economic approach that made this possible is the central issue and calls for diversification of supply channels in the world economy. This shifts the direction of the world in a peaceful direction where the US, Japan and Europe, India can compete in economic growth and trade with China on equal terms. ...

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A study by the director of the obesity center and professor of global nutrition at the University of north Carolina at Chapel Hill states that based on data collected from 20,000 patients in China over the last 15 years obesity has increased 1.2% a year among men in that time. The study says that more than 25% of the adults in China are overweight or obese and that the number could double in the next 20 years. Its a result mainly of improving living standards which make vegetable oil affordable, and beef and dairy foods more available and affordable. A sedentary lifestyle for many Chinese plays a part as well.

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Most people would not guess or recognize that this place where elderly people in society were treated shabbily is a country in northern Europe, and a country where citizens pay high taxes for precisely better healthcare across different age groups. Sweden is where about half of the 6000 people dead from coronavirus were elderly people.  Over the last two decades Sweden has cut hospital capacity and discouraged elderly people from entering hospitals during the early period of the pandemic, says this report in the NYT. The for profit nursing homes in the centre of Stockholm were unable to cope. Having turned the work in these homes to low wage workers, it put these workers and the elderly at risk with lack of staff, lack of adequate PPE oreven  basic masks, says this report in NYT.  One of the lessons of this pandemic is the failure not just in turning over manufacturing of health care equipment and pharmaceuticals to China, but also turning over the basic care of elderly to for profit institutions that were totally unprepared and could not give elderly the dignity and care they deserve. Year of cuts to public services and health services now showed in a glaring way what can happen when this is done. It has lessons for countries from Europe to North America, and to Latin America, India and other Asian countries as they redesign policy and allocate resources to public services in the next 10-20 years. ...

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An August survey by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, shows 40% of the country's manufacturers saying they would shift production and R&D facilities overseas if the yen remains at 85 to the dollar. It has dropped below that. Nissan will make 71% of its cars overseas in 2010, compared to 66% in 2009. Murata Manufacturing plans to double its foreign output to 30% by March 2013. By buying Dutch printer maker Oce NV in March, Canon Inc., saw its overseas output jump to 48% for the first half of 2010. Toyota is on track to produce 57% of its output overseas in 2010 , compared to 48% in 1995. The popular Prius will now be built at a plant in Bangkok, Thailand. Sony did 20% of its television manufacturing in Japan in 2010, it is aiming to do 50% in 2011. As a result Sony showed a profit for the April-June quarter, after 6 straight years of losses. Its also important to note that when inflation is taken into account the yen has not strengthened the way it appears, which reduces domestic pressures to dampen the yen's rise. Tohru Sasaki, head of foreign-exchange research at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in Tokyo, says that in inflation-adjusted terms, the yen is 30% below the rate it reached in April 1995. U.S. consumer prices have risen by 69% since 1990, in Japan the prices rose only 8.5% during the same period. In inflation adjusted terms the April 1995 exchange rate of 80 yen to the dollar would be 56 yen to the dollar today. Japan's exporters can also benefit from the fact that a large part of Japanese trade is denominated in yen- according to Japan's Ministry of Finance 48% of exports to Asia were paid for in yen in 2009. Like China and Germany, Japan remains highly dependent on exports for growth- which provide two thirds of its growth. The yen's strength increases the outflow of production facilities. In July 2010, 10.3 millon workers were employed in manufacturing in Japan, down from 12 million in 2002. Japan's unemployment rate was 5.6% in 2009....

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A senior Indian diplomat, and former ambassador to China, Gautam Bambawale, says China's action in the June 15 clash at Galwan Valley was the worst violence since 1967. He sees it as a premeditated and well thought out action. His view is that India's relations with China will deteriorate further. That this was an action by the PLA to take territory to what it sees as the LAC or border. For small tactical gains he says "China has strategically lost India." This will impact trade and other relations going forward in his view.  Nothing of this sort was expected says Bambawale. All the agreements put in place since 1993, everything for tranquillity at the border, all the mechanisms, have now collapsed. Bambawale has provided a very lucid and clear account of the relations and the border issues. He goes on to say that Chinese observers have given reasons for the Galwan clash with PLA- that India should stay away from the US and other democracies such as the European Union. Some reflection shows that the opposite has happened. And further reflection would show that the same situation was repeated in the period of transfer from British Empire to Republican India, and from Nationalist China to Communist China from the period 1947 onwards. Different perceptions and different leaderships that gave the perception of gaps between the two countries. In the 1950's after the Korean War Chinese perceptions about India could have led to the incursions that brought China to the borders of India in 1950, similar perceptions of gaps in development and capabilities could have led to the conflict in 1962. From 1993 peace prevailed with India after China entered the World Trade Organization under president Clinton in 2001 following a 10 year effort. Because the focus in China was on development after a series of crises, internal sense of a widening technological gap with the US and Europe, disagreements with the Soviet Union, and the experiments with market economy, internal struggles for democracy. With that period coming to a close as the new trading relationship has led to working class losses in factory jobs in the US, China is faced with protecting its economy as it and the US look at changing supply channels and how it affects both countries. It is a critical time for China as it faces governments in US, France, UK and Canada determined to protect their own interests in manufacturing jobs, renewing supply channels, and in technological advancement. The response is similar to that in 1962 when seen from the Communist party perspective as a gap has opened up with India following China's progress in the 30 year trading relationship with the US and Europe. That gap and the difficult situation China faces today with the US and EU in trade and technology has brought forward the Galwan clash and future clashes in Ladakh and at the border.  As Mr. Jaishnkar, India's Minister of External Affairs as well as former ambassador to China,  has pointed out this is a very different aspirational India that China faces. The same kind of grassroots development that happened in China and rapid pooling of capital, human resources and technology inputs for development is taking place in India, and will continue for the next two decades, quickly bridging any gaps in modernization between the two countries. The difference between a youthful population in India and aging population in China and Japan, is likely to add another dimension. China's Buddhist culture that came from India is not likely to go away, more likely is that China will see a revival of Buddhist ideas of wellness and living more as culture than religion. The experience with British colonialism that prevailed both in India and China, and which from its base in India caused so much grief to China during the Opium wars will recede from memory. Extending borders from historical memory of Japanese incursions into border areas in Manchuria could have led leaders after 1950 in China to extend borders to remote areas in the Arunachal region of India and communist theory books may have created the perception of defensive moves. In the context of an aspirational India similar to China, and no real intention on the part of India to extend itself in any way to China's provinces in Sichuan, this extending of borders as a defensive move will be seen as stemming from memories of Japanese incursions in the 1930's, but simply costly and not relevant in any way to China's own aspirational development and progress. ...

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Any Asian conflict involving China would in a few months destroy Apple's value, CEO's would change quickly, and Apple policies change to shift entire production to India and the US in a rapid shift. Tim Cook would be seen as having gambled against America's interests, unresponsive and failing after repeated warnings.  Apple's goal of sourcing from India by 2027 a mere 26% of its iphones, means that a decade after USTR Lighthizer and DJT started the task of reshoring manufacturing to US and allies in 2016, the No. 1 outshoring company would still be making 75% of its dollar value iphones in China. A degree of overconcentration that would make no sense considering that Apple's 75% of manufacturing would be entirely at risk in 2027 after repeated warnings and inaction. The only option for Tim Cook in 2025 is to come up with new goals of shifting a minimum of 50-60% of its dollar value product manufacturing for iphones to India by 2027. . Tim Cook as Apple CEO has done little to prevent the overconcentration of manufacturing in China since 2016. About 10 years after DJT was elected to bring manufacturing back to India or close allies the simple idea of diversification was not implemented. Why? Having set up this system starting in 1998, a system that did not exist before that tiem when Steve Jobs hired Tim Cook with a winning formula to Make in China, a country just emerging from its Communist phase of failed state economy. By 2008 in 10 years the infrastructure was built in a backward largely agricultural economy that was rapidly modernizing under a market economy with state run capitalism under the Communist Party experiment. The Bush Obama 16 years were ones with America not responding to the challenge posed by this new system which could create huge surges in production capacity with focus on key technologies and flood markets. The next decade after 1998-2008 was one of rapid growth of this experiment which combined with design and engineering in the US generated few jobs in manufacturng in the US, but huge profits with huge margins fro a low cost base with a high image and technology innovation product. Lighthizer, Navarro, Jamieson had already sounded the alarm for American manufacturing and loss of jobs in 2016.  America's deindustrialization was becoming a bigger challenge by 2020 so that president Biden continued the policy of reindustrializing. In 2025 China 2025 Plan that was a warning in 2016 is already a reality with China flooding the world in solar panels, and ready to flood the markets overseas with electric cars. Apple may only get a reprieve, this exemption is not the same as the last one. National security is an issue, key technologies need to be protected. There is only one more opportunity to rebuild American manufacturing and keep promises.     ...

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The US is on track to bring back 350,000 jobs in 2022 that were taken overseas during the two decades of hyper growth in China, according to the Reshoring Initiative. A false idea was created mostly by economists and business that shifted jobs to China during two Democratic and one Republican administration, the Clinton, Obama and the Bush administrations, that this would benefit the American workers and families through lower prices at the retail level. It ignored the severe damage this would do to jobs, incomes and whole communities when factories on which they depended for a living were shipped overseas. It damaged labor in ways that destroyed much of the American working class and the families built during the years of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. Business failed during this period to meet the challenge of higher American wages and productivity issues by using innovation and other steps to keep manufacturing at home.  This led to the hyper growth that did not benefit China, because a moderate pace of growth would have helped China control the rampant contamination of its air, water and soil. It also was leading China to a dead end reached during the 2016 election campaign with the election of president Trump with deep discontent from workers in midwestern states. The pandemic simply underscored the need for supply chains that were close to home and reliable in crises. By 2020 president  Biden was committing to a restructuring of the supply chains and pushing forward with it with legislation in the $369 billion Climate bill, and SCIENCE and Chips Act, to make solar panels, semiconductors and other products in the US. Reports from China showed that growth was slight or flat during 2022 and youth unemployment at 20%. The policy was to shift people back from the cities to the rural areas and support the informal economy, a sense of nationalist sentiment, and preparing for a future where the supply chain for the US and the European Union had moved away from China. In the long run the policies now look as ones that benefitted neither the US, the European Union, India or China.  ...

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European stock markets outperformed the DJIA and the S&P 500 in the U.S. in 2015. Stoxx Europe 600 went up by 7.3%, France's CAC 40 up 9.5%, Germany's DAX up 6.9% excluding dividends. In the early part of the year the DAX went up 20% before being affected by the worries over China and the VW emissions scandal. Italy's FTSE MIB up 13%. Britain's FTSE down 4.45% in 2015 being affected by declines in commodity producers. Experts still see 2016 as a good year for European stock markets, as conditions remain much the same as in 2015 with support from the European Central Bank and eurozone economic recovery in southern Europe.

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Xiaomi is China's leading brand. It is very different from other companies in China and America. It is tightly controlled by its founder Lei Jun who has built a loyal following for the brand  through fan clubs and creating an enthusiastic following. Because the firm is run by founder Lei Jun it can make quick decisions to enter a market. Lei Jun was a computer science student in Wuhan in 1987 as China opened up to the world.  By 2017- in three years from being zero in the Indian market place in 2014- Xiaomi had become the largest smartphone company in India. The company was launched in 2010. Profit margins are thin about 1% in a very competitive pricing market.  Metrics are based on revenue per user of $9 per user from an installed base of 190 million smartphone users, spending 54 minutes a day using Xiaomi's app, game and other services, or 20% of the phone use time. Revenue per user comes from advertising, and from commissions on the apps and games it sells to its user base. In 2015 Xiaomi had a loss, in 2016 sales dropped, in 2017 new products led to a resurgence in the market with sales increasing 68%. As Xiaomi goes into its IPO, experts say much of the $10 billion from the IPO could go into reinvestment as Xiaomi reinvents itself and moves into other internet business. ...

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Gregory Zuckerman report in the WSJ on Jan 15, 2008 commented on the bets against housing that netted $3 billion to $5 billion for a financial firm that bet against subprime mortgages at the right time. It also commented on Alan Greenspan who joined the firm as an adviser after engineering a period of low interest rates that created conditions in the housing market for such speculative boom bust behaviour. The 2009 financial crisis marked a period of 10-15 years when the US lost its competitive advantage against China as a result of such speculation and poor leadership at the central bank. And leadership from the Reagan presidency in 1980 through 2009 that defunded infrastructure, manufacturing and public goods services in favor of deregulation and financial firms.

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How did it come to this the 125% US tariff on China? China thinks it is it's success. American companies have deindustrialized the US taking out it's manufacturing by shipping it overseas destroying the American middle class and working class.  An insult to the American worker whose pride and dignity and efforts rebuilt the world after the Second World War helping Europe and Japan, China, rebuild. Pouille and Thibault of Le Monde of France look at how China advanced in the years 2004 to 2024 and surged from 9% of industrial production in the world to 29% more than US, Japan, Germany and India combined.   This is also the period of three wars Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and two presidents Bush and Obama 16 years in which the US took its eyes of the ball and let this situation take hold, which would inevitably lead to a response from the US which started with US president DJT in 2016 and is now in its 10th year. Having failed to limit the China 2025 Plan so that there is no overconcentration of manufacturing in the world disproportionately affecting the rest of the world. The consequences for the rest of the world are clear to see with the 1.7 billion people in India and Indonesia who were late in industrialization by 10-15 years compared to China, the deindustrialization of Europe and the US as this enters its final stages leading to the fissures in the societies of Europe and the US, the destruction of the middle class. ...

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A number of factors hitting at the same time Chinese factories in the south, in Guangdong province and the Pearl River delta. Currency exchange rates, stricter labor laws, eliminated government tax benefits and incentives, stricter pollution laws, high oilprices, and higher wages, all have combined to make the apparel and footwear factories in the south less profitable and harder to run. In recent years about 10% of the footwear makers in the province have closed operations. Manuy are smaller operations. About 10% of the 60,000 to 70,000 HongKong owned factories in the delta region will close in 2008. Not just apparel companies making products for HP and Apple have longer term plans to shift production to othcountries. Hon Hai Precision Manufacturing Company has said it will quintuple its planned investment in Vietnam to $5 billion. Apparel makers VF corporation which owns labels like North Face and Nautica says it takes 30 days from Cambodia compared to 20-25 days from China to get product on retail shlves so the advantage of China in this respect is also diminishing...

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Mr. Rodrigo Maia, the 49 year old son of the former Mayor of Rio De Janeiro, Cesar Maia, is uniting Congressmen from all parties in Brazil's parliament to get things done and restore lost confidence, such as the recently passed pension reform. Brazil's pension system sucks up most of the money in the budget with overly generous benefits, leaving little to pay for essential public services such as sanitation and transportation. Shockingly sanitation has suffered as only 50% of the sewage is treated in Brazil.  Polls show confidence in parliament after corruption scandals and lack of work to help the people of Brazil with essential public services has fallen to an abysmal low of 7%. Only 50% of Brazil's sanitation is treated and the rest flows as untreated sewage and rubbish into the rivers. To bring some sanity to pensions the Brazilian parliament, with the organizing skills of Mr. Maia to bring parties together around the reform, has cut $240 billion over 10 years from pensions and introduced 65 years for men and 62 years for women as minimum retirement age.  Brazil has 33 parties and Mr. Maia's is with the centre right DEM party. How did this happen. This WSJ story says Rodrigo Maia, 49 years, was born in Santiago, Chile in 1970 during the days of Brazilian military dictatorship. His father was in exile in Chile. The election of a  far right figure Jair Bolsonaro who supported the military dictatorships record as president in the recent election was a warning sign for the different parties in Brazil on the centre right and the centre left that corruption scandals and a do-little spirit was wiping out their influence and destoroying their credibility with ordinary Brazilians. The pension cut reform was their response to gain some of the lost goodwill from the Brazilian people. In the past Brazil's members of the Chambers of Deputies were people of power and influence who held positions for long periods and passed on these positions to people in their families or in their close circle. The elections and democratic governments following years of dictatorship brought in a new class from centre right and centre left that mismanaged public finances and excluded new ideas. The Car Wash scandal and scandals at the state petroleum company under Da Silva's Workers Party led to loss of confidence not only in the centre left party government of Da Silva and the Workers Party, but also in a do-little parliament. The large state spending from the government was possible during the commodities boom from China with Brazilian iron ore and other products getting high prices. WIth the collapse of the commodities boom and lower prices the entire system of state spending has unraveled revealing how much generous pension system is damaging the financing of  basic public services.  Corruption is prevalent in many countries in Asia including India but nowhere has the spending on essential public services such as sanitation suffered as in Brazil. And nowhere was parliament and the government able to get away with staging Olympics, World Cup and building many stadiums, handing out generous benefits to gain public support as in Brazil when basic sanitation and health services were neglected in a shocking way. The health system was weakened to a great extent when it lacked the resources to tackle an outbreak of yellow fever in 2018 as it moved south from the Amazon region towards Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Protests against the lack of investment in public services such as transportation and bus systems resulted in the public protests in big cities that led to the rise of Jair Bolsonaro in an effort to bring new administration to tackle the problem of financing for infrastructure, public services, health and education.    ...

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The knowledge that the virus  caused human to human transmission and that it spreads to wide parts of the population very quickly were critical pieces of information that remained with Chinese epidemiologists, doctors and medical researchers, and were suppressed by local authorites in Wuhan.  Yet China's version of the U.S. CDC, China's Centre of Disease Control and Prevention, modeled on the U.S. control efforts worked effectively to identify the problem. Virologist Gao Fu, heads China's CDC. This report in Germany's Der Spiegel says Mr. Fu made it a habit to scan China's internet before bedtime for any signs of possible disease outbreaks. On the night of December 30 he came across rumors of an internal memo from the Wuhan Health Commission of an outbreak of a vaguely worded lung disease. When he called the Wuhan health authority he found their answers to be evasive which alarmed him. The next morning December 31 Mr. Fu sent the first of three teams to Wuhan which is how China was able to identify the problem, in the sense that Chinese authorites in Beijing were to rely on Dr Gao Fu to overcome the problem of Wuhan provincial authorites. He informed the World Health Organization Beijing office on that day. The Der Spiegel report says "shortly afterward," the Seattle Times in its report says this was about New Years Day 2020- Mr Fu made a call to Dr. Redfield, head of the U.S. Centre for Disease Control, who was on vacation. Redfield is deeply disturbed on hearing this from Fu and they have conversations over the next few days to the point that Dr. Gao Fu is in tears about what has happened. On January 1 Taiwanese public health authorites shared the information with WHO that the cornonavirus was a human to human transmission, would the Taiwanese authorites not have shared it with the U.S. the same week during calls from the U.S. CDC or other public health authorites alarmed about the situation. (The WHO was proving useless by Jan 14 when it contradicted Taiwan's more reliable assessment  on Jan 14 going by the letter from president Trump to WHO). On January 6 a few days later Dr Redfield and Dr. Azar head of Health and Human Services ask China for permission to send a team of CDC U.S. experts to China. This is cited in the U.S. letter to the World Health organization- the lack of human to human transmission information being given to the U.S. officially early by China. A risk that could have been a topic of conversation between the U.S. and China heads of CDC. That letter from president Trump also points out that the team of experts the U.S. planned to send was not accepted by China till Feb 16, one and half months after that series of conversations between Dr. Gao Fu of China CDC and Dr. Redfield of U.S. CDC in an alert message.  In effect removing one of the key defences for the U.S. and Europe in making their own defensive actions and plans, laying the basis of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic affecting millions of people. Dr Redfield is a AIDS researcher at the University of Maryland who spent most of his life trying to control spread of HIV and was appointed by president Trump to head CDC agency in 2018. He set a goal of eliminating AIDS by 2030 and is more comfortable with aids patients and research than the bureaucratic nature of agencies- CDC has about 11,000 employees. Once it was clear that a team of U.S. experts was not given permission to make its own assessment in Wuhan in the few days after January 6 offer to sent the team to China by Redfield of U.S. CDC and Dr. Azar, would it have alerted the U.S. that something was seriously heading the wrong way for a epidemic risk. That letter of president Trump cites how the head of WHO during the first SARS crisis in 2003, Dr. Harlem Brundtland acted when she faced China's lack of cooperation during that crisis by saying openly that this was a danger to world public health and millions. Could CDC in the U.S. and the other connected health authorites have taken the responsibility and filled Dr Brundtland's role in this crisis, that the WHO failed to perform?    ...

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When it comes to climate change China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world- more than North America, Europe, South America and Africa combined. It emits about one third of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. When it comes to climate change action China is meeting its 2030 targets 6 years earlier, and it is meeting all the increased use of energy through renewables. Yet there is another side and this is that China is building coal fired plants at a rapid pace to meet its energy needs. Xie Zenhua meets John Kerry at Sunnylands estate in southern California to discuss how China and the US can cooperate on climate change action. No two nations are so critical to meet the challenges posed by climate change from fires to floods and drought.

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Russian economy is faltering under the strain of the global financial crisis. The stock market is plunging, with the RTS Index down 19% on October 6, 2008, and the market down 60% since the high in May, 2008. Construction spending is winding down. Th economy growth rate was 8.1% in 2007 but its slipping. If oil prices hit $50 and they were already at $78 on October 10, 2008, then says Anders Aslund at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, there will be a sharp decline in the growth rate. Moscow analysts say the growth rate could drop to 4%. For Americans Russia may seem remote excpt for investors. But in a global economy there are connections to emerging markets and Russia is one big emerging market, next to China, India and Brazil. When General Motors shares dropped 31% and Ford's 22% on one day on October 9, 2008, the news that spooked the markets was ofcourse a credit watch and questions about liquidity from Standard and Poors rating agency, but alsoimportant was that the one bright spot for GM and Ford in Europe and in Russia in particular was disappearing as GM sales declined in Europe and in Russia. In the prior 12 months GM had seen sales jump by 40% in Russia giving it 10% of a car market that passed Germany recently as the largest car market in Europe. Couple of important things about Russia. Russians today are big spenders, savings are small and Russians do not trust their banks so bank deposits are very low. Household deposits are equivalent of 17% of GDP, compared with 45% in the USA. Only 4% of Russians trust commercial banks according to a poll by National Financial Research Agency in Moscow. So Russia depends on the outside world for much odf the cash flowing through its financial system. Foreigners purchased two thirds of the $170 billion in bonds isued by Russian companies and foreign banks put up half of the accumulated $900 billion in bank loans including almost all longterm debt estimates Moscow investment bank Troika Dialog. With global credit markets in a lockdown mode Russia is simply running short of cash. The government has $560 billion in foreign exchange reserves from years of high oil prices plus $160 billion in two sovereign wealth funds with most of this money in fixed income securities abroad as a rainy day cushion should oil prices tumble. On October 7 the governmet announced $36 billion in emergency loans to Russian banks following earlier pledges in September of $150 billion in loans and relief for Russian companies in danger of defaulting on international debts. One danger here is that about 55% of outstanding corporate loan are of maturity less than 1 year. One of Russia's largest developers Mirax Group is putting 50 projects on hold as bank financing for developers has almost ceased. On the other hand Russia's financial sector is relatively small and the credit crisis cannot hurt Russia as much as it will USA ad Europe. Bank loans account for 10% of corporate finance and the bond market is only a decade old, so about half of all capital investment by companies comes from retained earnings. And Russia has huge needs for investments in infrastructure after years of underinvestment, a stable political structure, an educated workforce, and an economy that is just getting started. As Secretary Paulson answered questions after the G7 meeting October 10, this was another point on the minds of the secretary and questoners, the hope that emerging markets like Russia, India, and China would continue to grow though slower than before, even as the US and Europe slipped into a long recession, and provide a little cushion to the global economy....

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The prices of soyabeans have fallen by half since July and corn prices dropped from $7.54 a bushel in July in central Iowa to $3.81 a bushel Oct 21. But fertilizer and seed costs could go up 40% for next spring's plantings. This year net US farm incomes will hit $95.7 billion up 10% from $86 billion in 2007 and nearly double the $58 billion of 2006, according to the Agriculture Department. In the boom years farmland prices shot up where prices jumped by double digits percentages for 4 years, now Purdue University economist predicts declining prices moderately for next 5 years. The farmers are being squeezed on both sides. Declining farmland prices reduces borrowing power. With the commodities boom prices of everything from fertilizer to harvesting combines went up. Prices of fertilizer are not coming down even as the price of oil has come down. So farmers are reducing the amount of plantings they will make this coming year which should lead to reduced farm production and lower agricultural exports. In the boom years swelling middle class in places like China increased demand for US agricultural products. But with the global crisis and reduced demand from other countries prices are coming down. ...

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In an effort to normalize trade relations Pakistan's government plans to move forward with a step by step approach that will end the restrictions on Indian imports by Jan 1, 2013. The first step is ending a system that allows a list of 2000 import items from India and replacing it with a list of 600 items from India that are banned, allowing the flow of all other goods. This negative list will be eliminated by the end of 2012 leaving in place restrictions on sensitive defense items and some staple goods. Ashfaque Khan, dean of Pakistan's National University of Sciences and Technology Business School advises the government on trade issues. The trade between India and Pakistan stands at $2.7 billion for the year ending March 2011. This is much smaller than the $60 billion in trade between India and China which is growing. The trade between India and Pakistan is likely to grow significantly in the next ten years as trade barriers are removed and normal trade is established.

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Zero covid lockdowns have added to the sentiment seeing China as a less attractive location for foreign investment. American companies are seeing staff resign due the lockdowns and zero covid policy. About a fourth of companies in a US Chamber of Commerce survey see a 20% drop in sales in 2022. A similar situation is being seen for European companies in China. The other area of growth from property sector is not working anymore as there is a 59% drop in demand for new property units. Investors in the property sector fear  another situation like that of property developer Evergrande's collapse.  Similar to Japan by 2000 a lot of the government infrastructure for roads and rail and automobiles has already been built leaving less room for this sector to kick in. Investments are possible in AI, renewables, electric cars, and advanced technologies, with limited potential to tackle loss of jobs in other sectors such as construction and government financed infrastructure spending and in retail stores. Retail sales are hit by inflation and high gas prices. The result is that China's GDP may fall by 1% according to one estimate for this quarter from the previous year. For growth and foreign investment look to India where a surge in government financed infrastructure in construction of roads and rapid transit, fast rail, construction of housing, and rapid increase in use of mobile phones, automobiles, and appliances is taking place. A new logistics system is being built with a Master plan for the whole economy under Gati Shakti creating a whole new place for foreign investment in a country of 1.3 billion. With Indonesia and Bangladesh closely related to India this is a market of 1.8 billion people far surpassing China and built on values of democracy ingrained over 100 years since the experiments under the British of elected state assemblies. This happened under limited Hind Swaraj since 1930's when India was led by Mohandas Gandhi in these early experiments with democracy. Germany, France and the US have a lot in common with India and the ground is being prepared with improvements for extensive German, US foreign investment by the Modi administration.  ...

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China is closing energy inefficient aging factories. The Chinese government plans to close 76 factories in cement, 279 in paper, 175 in steel, and 84 in leather as part of this effort. This still leaves China with a lot of work to do to acheve the 20% reduction per unit of economic output in 2010 compared to 2005, that its current five year plan calls for. Efficiency went up by 14.4% in the first four years of the current plan, but went down by 3.6% in the first quarter causing serious concern.

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The Chinese 90 seat regional jet called the ARJ21 made by government run AVIC I Commercial Aircraft Company has about half of its equipment supplied by US companies. Its maiden flight is Septemeber 21. Canada's Bombardier is investing $100 million in the larger version of this plane citing parts sharing and cost saving potential for its own jets. The Chinese market is expected to grow at about 9% annually according to Boeing's forecast. China will spend about $600 million on the program for ARJ21 according to Chinese aviation officials. The ARJ21 also called the Flying Phoenix has 206 of the 300 orders it needs to breakeven. The plane is targeting the high altitude airports and the lightly travelled routes of western and central China. China is also looking to sell the plane in emerging markets of Malaysia, Turkey and India. According to General Electric China will need at least 500 regional jets over the next 20 years. GE which makes the engines for the ARJ21 sees the 500 jets equal to engine orders of $15 billion. Other companies that are looking for supplier orders are Parker Hannifin, Goodrich, and Mitsubishi....

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French president Macron is seen as aloof from voter concerns about the rising cost of living. Visiting a farmer in the Burgundy region Marie Le Pen said prices of food and vegetables have gone up 25% over 5 years since Macron became president.  To win over supporters from working class communities in north and northeast who have voted for Jean Luc-Melenchon, a former Socialist candidate, Macron visited Denian, a town in the north of France.  Melenchon's France Unbowed party got about 21.95 % of the vote compared to Le Pen's 23.15%. Getting working class voters to support Macron who had 27.84% of the vote is now crucial for Macron. Denian has an unemployment rate of 36%. Macron told voters the best way to tackle poverty is to bring down the unemployment rate which is now 7.4%.  Many of these communities in the north, northeast, and in the southeast have suffered from the two decade shift of manufacturing to China, creating a situation similar to that in the midwest of the US and posing a challenge for established parties. The Republicains of De Gaulle and the Socialists of Mitterand, the established parties did badly in the election, each getting less than 5%of the vote. It is this problem that Macron has to address to get the votes of working class voters in France. Challenging the notion that he has been aloof from this problem and the problem of cost of living for young and for pensioners Macron says he will listen, learn and act, and he is "not afraid to go into battle in the most difficult areas." On this first day of campaigning for the second round he spent 2 hours talking to people in Denian. Angry voters told him he did not care for pensioners. In his response Macron said he will increase the minimum pension from 10500 euros to 13200 euros a year. A pension reform plan for increasing the retirement age for pensions to 65 from 62 will now be put to a referendum so that voters could reject it if they chose to. Macron also responded to the sentiment that his administration was more concerned about the rich by proposing that firms paying dividends to shareholders will be required to give one off bonuses of 6000 euros to all employees earning less than 46,000 euros a year.  On his opponent Marie Le Pen's plan to cut VAT tax on gasoline to 5% from 20%, Macron told voters that this was counterfeit money, asking "can anyone really say there will be no VAT for gasoline imported from the rest of the world?" ...