Opinion

Huawei’s name is often translated in English as “Chinese excellence.” The Trump administration embarked on a campaign to rebrand the tech giant, in effect, as a “Chinese threat” and check its expansion in the West. The Huawei assault may be the Trump administration’s most important long-term strategic decision, because it confronts China’s technological challenge to America head on. The goal ...

People are mad at Facebook — for being too big, too powerful, too omniscient. Last week a co-founder of the company joined the calls from politicians like Senator Elizabeth Warren for the government to break up the social media giant. Facebook has repeatedly asked for regulation, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg appealing to the government in a Washington Post op-ed this ...

Investors should get used to more big surprises from Japan. The country’s economy grew an annualised 2.1% in the first quarter, defying economists’ expectations for a contraction. The government wasn’t expecting good news: Earlier this month, it moved its provisional assessment of the economy to “worsening” from “weakening” for the first time in six years after an index of economic ...

Don’t get your hopes up that India’s infrastructure will start to look like China’s after Narendra Modi’s historic victory. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party made big promises in its election manifesto, among them 100 trillion rupees ($1.4 trillion) of investments in infrastructure by 2024 that would double the length of highways by 2022 and lead to a similar increase in the ...

Greta Thunberg probably isn’t a fan of Ryanair Holdings Plc. The 16-year-old Swedish activist took the train to the World Economic Forum in Davos in January to castigate the rich and powerful adults there for failing to tackle the unfolding climate emergency (most of them had arrived by plane). Three months later Ryanair was revealed to be one of Europe’s ...

With some corners of the market betting the Federal Reserve will cut rates three times this year, you might expect cheers from emerging markets. Not so in Indonesia. Lats week, the central bank was busy defending its currency, placing bids to prop up its government bonds to halt the rupiah’s slide. As the trade war escalates, Jakarta became the first ...

Since the financial crisis, banking scandals have been expensive; now the attention may turn increasingly personal. After more than $372 billion of fines, significant progress has been made in getting the industry to root out wrongdoing. Just recently, the European Commission fined five companies a total of 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) for colluding in the foreign-exchange market. Financial firms, ...

A month ago, I declared that President Donald Trump’s trade war against China looked like it might be winding down. I was wrong. Instead of capitulating in exchange for some agricultural purchases and other minor concessions, Trump is doubling down. He’s raising tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports from 10 percent to 25 percent, and imposing new tariffs ...

Ask any small Indian firm how long it takes to get paid by larger companies, what kind of a runaround they’re given, what devilish excuses they encounter on the way, and you’ll wonder how they remain in business. The answer is simple: They raise cash by borrowing against the value of property. Such advances are tailor-made for the entrepreneur. A ...

Every year, the Federal Reserve conducts a round of stress tests purported to ensure that the banking system can weather a financial crisis. With the latest results coming next month, people are wondering: Will the exercise become less stressful amid President Trump’s deregulatory drive? Judging from the past several years’ results, it already has. The stress tests are far from ...