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Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has called for conversations to replace the confrontations protesters have with police. Strangely Lam has not taken the initiative to meet with protesters or legislators on the other side to calm down the protests and create confidence in her administration. The withdrawal of the extradition bill by Carrie Lam came a bit late after 13 weeks of protests to restore confidence. There are two views on the action taken by Carrie Lam in Hong Kong. One is that Beijing is taking this step so that it can show it has taken an effort to achieve a compromise, if this does not work and a crackdown happens. The other view is that Beijing is seeking a compromise so that Hong Kong does not overshadow the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist China on October 1. China is also keen on making a serious effort to restart trade talks with the U.S. and not let relations with the U.S. deteriorate any further. A compromise in Hong Kong, or appearing to seek a compromise, prevents the Hong Kong situation from affecting the U.S. trade talks in any way.  ...

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The Indian 2024 election involved huge giveaways and caste based selection that takes India backwards, which explains some of the gains of opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, two large states. As the WSJ points out giveaways to buy votes for Rs 1 lakh for every woman in the state of Uttar Pradesh with population of 120 million women was part of the strategy used by a leading opposition party. Caste selection was carefully deployed by another large political party in Uttar Pradesh. Fears and misinformation about the BJP party changing the Indian Constitution to remove protection of lower castes enshrined in the Constitution by Ambedkar, was also a factor that swung votes to the opposition. The effects of the pandemic and the unemployment levels for a largely rural population in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra in north and west of India played a role as the BJP failed to get an outright majority following its majority wins in 2014 and 2019. The Opposition parties and the BJP main difference is that the Opposition parties have accepted the leakages of funds as part of the culture that has prevailed since 1960 which makes rapid development and modernization impossible as the pool of funds for investment in infrastructure is diminished. BJP party under Modi has fought this leakage every step of the way and by executing projects of infrastructure with on time delivery created the prospects of India modernizing and industrializing the way Japan and China have achieved. The other difference is the execution and the Master Plan Gati Shakti developed by BJP and Modi and a 20 year execution model developed in Gujarat state by Modi from 2001 to 2021. This has made India the fifth largest economy in the world with plans to make it the third largest by 2030 and do what Japan and China have achieved in Asia. It is not really about religion or so called Hindutva that is driving the hard work it is about making India a modern industrial nation with the standard of living of US, Europe, Japan and China.   ...

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U.S. efforts to protect American data on the internet and protect Americans from misinformation on the internet with data transferred to other countries. Europe and China have set the same restrictions earlier that the U.S. is now planning to set in place to protect information from their countries and users on the internet.

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Oil cuts of 2 million barrels a day or 2% of global oil production by OPEC Plus will lead to oil prices surging back up to levels seen earlier this year.  Weakening of oil demand with a slowdown in China and the EU was leading to a drop in oil prices from the highs reached this year. OPEC Plus which includes Russia is taking this step to keep oil prices high. 

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New Zealand faces the need to look for other overseas market following the changing situation for Australia that led to trade friction with China. Australia has diversified its exports to follow policies in the Indo-Pacific with the US, India and Japan as allies. Last weeks meeting of the New Zealand prime minister Ardern with president Biden led to a joint declaration by both countries on Pacific Ocean security.

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As a Sunday school teacher Jimmy Carter brought evangelical Christians in the South into the political process. And it encouraged the emergence of other southerners such as Bill Clinton of Arkansas from small towns into Democratic politics. In doing so it distanced the Democratic party from it's roots as a party of the working man, of the working class and labor, of farmers and small business owners, that it had been from 1902 with TR taking up this stance and followed by FDR, Truman, Kennedy-Johnson. Leading to the situation today after Clinton brought China into the WTO and changed world trade, exchanging places with China as a leader in manufacturing, integrating Silicon Valley into the Democratic party under Obama and distancing from working class concerns. Gerald Seib in his tribute to Cater says in WSJ that he was a good man who was president at a bad time. The problems of inflation and cost of living at 10.4% and mortgage rates at 13%, oil prices with the Iran crisis under Carter were problems that were a result of actions taken by the US in the period going back to the 1950's for Iran and embargoes on oil from lack of conservation in oil use in the US. What Carter accomplished is to open the door to new faces out of nowhere- a small town in Georgia was not a place where a presidential hopeful cold be found in previous eras. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Adams, TR, Wilson, Harding, Hoover, FDR were all from well known families in the East Coast and Northeast. Only Abraham Lincoln emerged from a small town in Illinois. It opened the door for other southerners Clinton from Arkansas and new faces Reagan and Trump.   ...

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China starts to buy U.S. agricultural products as a way to reduce trade tensions and get back to the bargaining table with the Trump administration. Mr. Trump in turn stated he would postpone till Oct. 15 a tariff increase on $250 billion in imports effective Oct. 1. 

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China and Huawei lack the manufacturing capabilities needed to make some of the component parts that go into 5G systems. The U.S. Commerce Department in May restricted chip makers globally who use U.S. technology from supplying semiconductors to Huawei. This means Taiwan's Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company which uses U.S. technology in manufacturing 5G component parts cannot supply Huawei.

This gives the U.S. and Japan, South Korea to catch up with initiatives of their own to match China's state subsidies model that finances its semiconductor companies and 5G companies. 

U.S. Undersecretary of State Keith Krach says "We've utilized the strengths of semiconductor equipment companies and electronic design software companies to eliminate Huawei's access to the necessary sophisticated chips to build 5G systems and their most sophisticated smartphones." Huawei he says is a security threat to the U.S.

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The global minimum corporate tax will enable US, France, Germany, India and other countries to invest more in healthcare, education, infrastructure, in the years to come. Countries that helped tax avoidance shown in this graph in Live Mint are Netherlands, Cayman Islands, Britain, Ireland, Hong Kong, China. The biggest contributor to tax losses for advanced countries US, Europe and India is the Netherlands with $27 billion in tax that is diverted away, as shown in Live Mint.

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The largest holder of America's debt is not China. It is Japan with holdings by banks, insurers and pension funds of $1.1 trillion of US debt. This is important with the growing borrowing of the US government to fund infrastructure and clean energy, services. This investment is growing after slowing during the pandemic. Much of it is done not for earnings gains but with hedging in financial markets to reduce exchange rate risk.

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Experts say China's official GDP figures are unreliable and cannot be verified. Transparency is sorely lacking. The methodology, inflation assumptions and other basis for the calculations are not presented, so that many of the numbers cannot be reproduced. The official figure for 1st quarter GDP growth is 7%, from China's Bureau of National Statistics. GDP growth estimates developed by Capital Economics show 4.9% growth, by Citi 4.6%, by the China Center of the Conference Board 4%. Since 2012 the Capital Economics estimates are just above 5%, and the Conference Board estimates about 4%, showing that the growth rate has slowed markedly since 2012. As Communist party chief of Liaoning province, the current prime minister showed serious doubts about the GDP numbers and preferred to rely on figures for rail cargo, electricity consumption, bank loans.

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In all the coverage on the Indian election the impossible having been accomplished that of going beyond the 244 million voters in the US, beyond the 373 million voters in the European Union. The eligible voters in India 2024 are 640 million and all the counting done on one day was accomplished by the Electoral Commission and tackled under leadership of the team by Rajiv Kumar, a civil servant who earlier served as the Finance Secretary of India. The results show that the elections were free and fair as the results speak for themselves that the opposition parties did better than they expected. What was not told in media coverage in the US and EU/UK was that the Opposition and the current government are at odds on one fundamental issue that a continental country suffering from centuries of colonialism can only create a modern nation with the infrastructure enjoyed by the US, EU, China, if it creates a large enough pool of investment in the trillions of dollars, has a master plan of proven execution, with no leakages from this pool of investment. Leakages from the pool of investment only stopped after 2014, and actions of direct deposits to 400 million bank accounts or rural households was essential. For modernization to succeed another condition that had to be fulfilled was to create even through a pandemic a core of about 500 million of 1.4 billion people of the middle and lower classes who would approach the conditions o the US, EU, China consumer base for industry. This the Modi government has done with all its projects and hard work by adding the 250 million people to the consumer base pulled out of poverty. The task ahead is doing what the US, EU, China as continental nations have done to modernize and industrialize 2024-2035 to build the third largest economy ahead of the EU by 2035 and every state and city in India aspires to this transformation, from the south and northeast to the north and the west.   ...

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Trade in services is not enough. Services won't build ships for the US Navy. Services don't provide jobs for factory workers. Trade in services won't rebuild the US manufacturing base. It won't rebuild the middle class. Trade in services won't make pharmaceuticals Made in America that are available always, including in times of war, pandemics and disruptions. Bottom line as DJT pointed out in a Cabinet meeting on April 10 is that the US could no longer be a world power without its industrial base, it's manufacturing base. Americans companies doing the outshoring are really the targets of the Tariffs because they are at the heart of the mechanisms causing the destruction of the industrial and manufacturing base of America, vital for it's security and for it's leadership of the free world and western civilization. It started with Apple in 1998 and I witnessed this as a consultant seeing the production line at the Apple Colorado Springs plant in 1997 with rework and defective product before Steve Jobs returned to Apple. By 1998 Apple started shipping it's entire production base to China. DJT told the Cabinet meeting on April 10, 2025, all previous presidents had to tell companies firing all their workers and outshoring their machines was- "there will be a tariff of 50 or 100% on your products imported into the US."  And these companies would never have fired all their workers and sent their factories to China or some other country. Economists and experts who have turned their backs on American workers see the $1 trillion deficit countries have with China and the loss of their industrial and manufcturing base with one excuse or another. Trade in Services in which the USA has an advantage does not do much for American workers, or for the 5 million manufacturing jobs lost and tens of thousands of factories that have been outshored.  National Security and Jobs, the Middle Class, factory communities across all 51 states are all at stake. ...

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A man with a handgun and magazine of ammunition is shot by federal law enforcement officer on Jan. 24, 2026 as protestors confront federal law enforcement officers in Minneapolis. Earlier federal law enforcement in California, and in other states, Washington DC, Nashville Tennessee, have led to protests but not of the kind in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minneapolis is a state with liberal views yet it also has a strange mix as it was in Minneapolis that local police shot an unarmed black man during the Covid epidemic. This time it is not local police in that role but local police under the orders of the state and local authorites, the mayor and state governor Frey and Walz, not cooperating with the federal law enforcement of immigration law in the US that seeks to remove migrants with crime records from the US neighborhoods and streets. Walz was selected by Kamala Harris to run on the Democratic ticket for president in the US against DJT and Vance in 2025. Republicans allege serious fraud in Minnesota and misuse of state funds that have added to the dangerous mix of politics in the state, that is found nowhere else in America. From the Republican point of view unwanted migrants from certain unstable countries with criminal records were allowed to settle in the state. Democrats and Democrat media are not cooperating as the national elections in the US were lost on just this issue of migrants illegal entry numbering about 7 million over the last administration of Biden with costs to the US of over $110 billion in federal and local funds. No one knows where this will end up yet the view world wide over migration is moving to safe neighborhoods and safe streets as essential human rights, essential women's rights, essential rights of all Americans and all Europeans, that the problems of failed states cannot be solved on American or European soil. The Monroe Doctrine was put in place for just this reason as respecting Russia as a power in its area of influence in Northern Europe means no intervention by Russia or  China in the western hemisphere, so that the US never faces the situation of Guatemala and central American states, or of Venezuelan failed states in sending millions in a stream through Mexico for illegal entry on US southern border. Overall US policy, domestic and foreign has changed to ensure safety wellbeing in the US as the first and only priority for all its citizens and the sum of good citizenship the main objective for the Nation. ...

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Liverpool has lost its World Heritage Site status but this may not be a bad thing, says Christoph Brumann, research leader at the Max Planck Research Institute for Ethnological Research in Halle, Germany. Fewer tourists, he says in this report in DW.com, but now the city can do what it wants to modernize the docks area, and not have to worry about the World Heritage Committee or the British government interfering in its plans. The World Heritage Committee is now subject to diplomatic lobbying of many countries, and the label has lost some of its value as more countries push sites in their country. Liverpool was asked by the World Heritage Committee to stop construction on the waterfront that was helping to bring new life to the city and revitalize the docks area to keep its World Heritage status. In the end the committee that met in China with China as the chair and lobbying by other countries, deteriorating China-UK relations, and and the UK sending only a representative from the Culture Ministry not the Foreign Ministry, played a part in the vote at the World Heritage Committee, says this report. Since 1972 Europe has gained a larger share of the World Heritage Sites. After 2010 meeting in Brazil this has shifted to other countries. There is no clear idea of what a World Heritage site is- cultural, or natural. Cultural is at this point 80% of the sites. This DW report shows some of the contenders in 2021, and only a few of them can be considered to be worthy of visiting. The committee that decides this has removed Dresden for building a new bridge across the Elbe river site, a decision made in 2007, so that it is becoming more controversial. ...

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Sorkin looks at Mandela's shifting views on nationalization after talking to the Communist leaders of China and Vietnam at a Davos meeting in 1992. They asked him why he was talking about nationalization when they were considering privatizing state enterprises. He looks at the foreign investment attracted by South Africa and where free markets have fallen short in the income gaps between whites and black people.

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A poll conducted twice each year by the University of Hong Kong researchers since 1997 shows Hong Kongers increasingly identify with their city including Hong Kong diaspora returning to the city from overseas. The latest June poll shows this identification increasing in intensity as time passes. Compared to 1997 and 2007 more Hong Kongers identify themself with Hong Kong and much less with "citizen of the People's Republic of China." After "Hong Konger" the identification next is with "Asian," "global citizen," and "members of the Chinese race." Culture is one major aspect of this, the other is the sense of being drowned by mainland people, by the large number of people from the mainland cities buying housing in Hong Kong, driving up prices and making housing unaffordable for the local people. Other aspects of this are the mothers going to maternity wards so their children can get Hong Kong residency, and the slots in elite schools going to mainlanders. Even the tycoons and large business interests are seen as distanced from the local Hong Konger because of the increasing inequality in society, their benefitting from business ties with the mainland with willingness to give up Hong Kong's local interests. At another level one can see this local identity across other parts of mainland China also, as the educated middle class in Shanghai and Beijing see themselves as apart from the "country bumpkins" and migrants from surrounding rural areas. This is a cultural phenomenon quite different and apart from the ideological concerns of the Communist Party, cultural difference which always exist below the surface. The business elite of the Communist Party can relate more to the environs of Sydney, Australia, than to the rural areas around Shanghai, just as much as the business elites in Bombay with connections to a ruling party can relate to Sydney or Toronto. Not everything about humans fit neatly into ideas such as "China Dream," or a "India Dream." And this may be a good thing when all is said and done- only human nature seeking not to be disturbed. ...

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67,000 factories closed down in China in the first half of this year. Things got a lot worse in the importing countries of the US and western Europe after October 2008 so the closedowns will have accelerated. This will have asignificant impact on the export sector and foreign investment that has propelled the economy so far. It will also create unemployment, and if back wages are not paid local governments may have to step in or there will be unrest among the laid off workers. Much of the rural migrant workers who came to the coastal provinces might now have to go back to their villages in fact reversing some of the urbanization tht has happened.

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China has a loss in its construction industry, yet has worked hard to achieve a win in its EV industry, to bring the prices of EV's down to where it can be a people's car instead of a high end automobile. It is a win also for climate change and for getting European and US makers including Tesla to get their act together and make the cars at a price workers and ordinary people can afford. For this to happen for a level playing field the US government assistance to EV makers is essential to build America's industrial manufacturing base.

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Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute points to trade barriers reducing competition and free trade that should raise an outcry when free trade and competition advocates focus alone on the Trump steel tariffs. He points to estimates that show $90 billion in additional costs to Americans from the barriers that prevent Americans from paying world market prices for surgeries and medical treatment, prices similar to what is paid in advanced countries like Germany, Britain and France. A bigger barrier in pharmaceuticals prices being sheltered from market competition worldwide costs a huge $370 billion in additional costs to Americans. These two costs in healthcare would help Americans by a magnitude compared to tax cuts that do not work for average Americans with the business tax cut going more into share buybacks than into increasing wages or capital investment in 2018.  Bernstein points to Neil Irwin's column in the NYT that flags statements such as Senator Mike Lee, Republican, that the steel tariffs are a huge job killing tax hike, as being misleading. Bernstein says two actions were never taken that would have used benefits of free trade to help affected communities that lost jobs in industries such as steel and textiles, other industries affected by foreign competition.  He lists these steps as sectoral employment training, apprenticeships ,and job creation efforts in the worst affected areas. Basically no one really knows what is good trade policy, the textbook concepts and theories are out of date when countries can subsidize particular industries such as steel and dump products into the American market. At a press conference on CSPAN with the Swedish prime minister Mr. Trump stated that China was exporting more than what is officially shown as there are transshipments from other countries, some of them with no steel mills.  As Mr. Trump stated at that press conference he was elected partly because of the worst affected communities- in places such as Michigan and other states in the midwestern U.S.- that suffered from unfair trade. Bernstein admonishes the economists and politicians, media, for the headlines that are misleading in showing that bad trade policy is being pursued and trade wars are being started. This deserves attention because the Trump administration and advisors such as Lighthizer who served in the Reagan administration seek fair trade, and the Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross successfully pushed for NAFTA trade deal renegotiation not the outright rejection of NAFTA that was mentioned in the election campaign. Ironically no one is helped by this trade rhetoric and misleading headlines. In fact the strengthening of the U.S. currency as the huge trade surplus of China goes into U.S. assets, and with the election of Mr. Trump, gives foreign competitors a continued advantage. And in fact Japan, South Korea, China, had a mild response to the tariffs as reported, because these countries are aware of global overcapacity created especially by China which produces 50% of the world's steel, and as China shifts to higher technologically value added products closing many older steel mills. ...

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Brazil president Lula at COP30 Belem, Brazil- mixing oil drilling plans with plans for climate change for Amazon forests. This is not a contradiction in today's world as many nations including China, India are depending on coal and moving forward with solar and wind energy, and the US is also drilling for oil and it's private sector continues moving forward on renewable energy. In 2025 cost of living action for working class families means getting cheaper sources of energy, and at the same time climate change requires new invention and scientific advances in developing solar, wind, nuclear and other renewable energy. US Biden administration accepted this combination approach and it is also practiced under the current US Republican administration with different degrees of emphasis to meet current and future challenges in the best way possible.

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What happens as the population of elderly people rises and there are many older homes vacant as the population ages. This report in the BBC looks at the "ghost homes" in Japan that no one wants particularly in parts of the country and towns where many elderly people reside. These are also older homes that were build from wood in the old Japanese style making them more prone to collapse in earthquakes and fires. They are given almost for free with subsidies by town governments with few takers. A separate article this week shows China's median age rising. For the first time we see two large Asian societies, Japan and China experiencing or beginning to experience this problem.

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Strict enforcement actions taken by the US to enforce sweeping restrictions on the export of technology and industrial goods to Russia ,and any foreign countries who seek to help circumvent the action taken to undemine the Russian defense and technology industries. Airlines in Russia, Aeroflot, Azur Air, and UTair are denied access to US made parts or to receive services anywhere in the world including refueling. The actions would apply to China and other countries if they circumvent controls. The controls are enforced through coordination with US allies and partners that monitor for compliance.

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The U.S. trade deficit widened sharply in March from February 2015, increasing by 43.1%, after the ending of a labor dispute at West coast ports. The deficit widened to $51.37 billion. This is more than expected from a strong dollar. This could make 1st quarter GDP figures show a contraction for the U.S. economy. Products imported from China were up 32%, compared with March 2014. Exports were up only 0.9%. Experts estimate GDP contraction of 0.4%- 0.5% for the 1st quarter 2015. In 2014 a similiar situation happened but growth was up for the rest of the year and experts see this happening again in 2015.

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The issues raised by the storage of residue from Canadian oil sands production processed into coke at midwestern oil refineries. The Marathon refinery in Detroit processes this residue for export companies such as Oxbow owned by the Koch Brothers, which then export this to China, India, Mexico and other S. American countries. A huge open pile of this dirty coke is seen along the Detroit river in May 2013. Residents in Detroit and Windsor ask if Detroit is considered a dumping ground?