Opinion

If Donald Trump was aiming at China with his lofty proposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, he’s a terrible marksman. Not only will Chinese leaders likely brush off the measures. They have good reason to embrace them. China is unquestionably the big, bad wolf of the global steel industry. With roughly ten times the steelmaking capacity of the US, ...

Xi Jinping can hold off on retirement planning for a few more years, now that China’s Communist Party has announced a proposal to eliminate a 10-year, two-term limit for China’s presidency. That sets up the powerful 64-year-old Xi to remain in office well into his golden years. He shouldn’t be the only one. Set aside for a moment the question ...

The wild gyrations in capital markets in early February had a profound impact on investor sentiment. The spike in implied volatility, as measured by the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), roiled long-pacific markets, leading investors to question even now, almost a month later, whether a sustained selloff might be looming. According to signals from the options market, the answer is a ...

Facebook’s self-regulatory contortions in the wake of fake news and trolling scandals have gone on, with little visible effect, for months. Now Twitter founder and Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey has announced his company is going to try a different tack — but Dorsey’s approach is arguably even more far-fetched than his Facebook peer Mark Zuckerberg’s: It’s an attempt to ...

Anyone who tells you that dealing with climate change is simply a matter of sweeping away the obstructionism of oil companies is living in a dream world. The real obstacle is us — our vast dependence on fossil fuels and the difficulty of extricating ourselves without crippling the world economy. It’s true that the Trump administration has withdrawn from the ...

Chinese billionaires who want to buy overseas assets without irking Beijing need to keep their eyes on the road. China Energy Reserve & Chemicals Group Co., a unit of state oil behemoth China National Petroleum Corp., has bowed out of the consortium that paid a record $5.2 billion for Hong Kong skyscraper The Center, barely four months after the deal ...

With top Communist Party officials gathering in Beijing to set key government posts, the insurance regulator is looking like the weakest link. China is considering a merger of its banking and insurance watchdogs to streamline the fragmented regulatory system, as Bloomberg News reported in late January. A combination could be announced soon after the National People’s Congress, which starts next ...

It’s always dangerous to say that Donald Trump has set a new low for presidential discourse, because he sets new lows with dreary regularity. Nonetheless, his heedless declaration that “trade wars are good, and easy to win” deserves special recognition. No president should need to be told that trade wars are, in fact, bad and impossible to win. By imposing ...

The Indian economy has been short of good news recently. So the latest GDP growth figures, released on February 28, come as a bit of a relief: The economy grew at 7.2 percent in the last three months of 2017, slightly faster than expected. For the entire financial year — due to end on March 31 — the government’s statisticians ...

What can be better than two new iPhones? Three new iPhones. Apple is planning to release three new smartphone models later this year, Bloomberg News reported. The trio of devices will include a supersized version of the current iPhone X, a less expensive model that includes some of the iPhone X’s key features, and the company’s typical update to the ...