Opinion

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., already the largest Chinese company by market capitalization, is nothing if not ambitious. Its chief financial officer, Maggie Wu, recently told investors she expects revenue to increase by up to 49 percent next year, a staggering prospect. But perhaps more staggering is how Alibaba hopes to get there: In part, by tapping the US market. By …

Ever since the U.S. announced its withdrawal from the Paris agreement, China and India have been hailed for firmly recommitting to the global emissions pact. The praise is fair: It’s good that two of the world’s three biggest greenhouse-gas emitters have renewed their promise to act. But if they really hope to lead on climate, they’ll have to be more …

With Brexit negotiations, the British government has only the most tenuous grip on power. Amid paralyzing uncertainty, how can the main actors — Prime Minister Theresa May, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, and government leaders across the European Union — make their way forward? The main thing is to agree to reach a deal of some kind before the U.K. officially …

China’s regulators, it seems, are on the attack. Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, announced recently that he’d resign if he wasn’t able to discipline the banking system. Under his leadership, the CBRC is stepping up scrutiny of the role of trust companies and other financial institutions in helping China’s banks circumvent lending restrictions. The People’s Bank …

Like an Instagram filter that brightens an otherwise hazy photograph, the lens through which Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is looking at Philippine conglomerates might be a tad too radiant. The investment bank published a research report Monday calling on investors to show some love to the nation’s largest business dynasties, which it said are poised to benefit from rising consumer …

To adapt Thomas Pynchon, if the wrong question is asked, the answer doesn’t matter. Today, the world seems to be consciously framing its energy problems in a way that avoids the right questions, and thus true solutions. Human advancement is intrinsically linked to the development of motorized power driven by fossil fuels. Unfortunately, the resource itself is finite and has …

Sparkling in the sunlight that inspired 19th-century romantic painters of the Hudson River School, Sing Sing prison’s razor wire, through which inmates can see the flowing river, is almost pretty. Almost. Rain or shine, however, a fog of regret permeates any maximum-security prison. But 37 men — almost all minorities; mostly African Americans — recently received celebratory attention. It was …

Four decades ago, two University of Rochester professors came up with a definitive theory for that “awesome social invention” known as a publicly held company. The firm, they said, was but a series of contractual agreements between the owners and their agents—the managers. And there the matter rested. Until a 20-F filing at the US Securities Exchange Commission by Bangalore-based …

The headlines liken it to a “raid” or a “power grab.” But the European Union’s threat to repatriate euro clearing away from London is starting to look like a headache nobody actually wants to see happen. Which, all told, is probably a good thing. EU Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis recently unveiled the legal framework of how the bloc plans to supervise …

Usually when a president agrees to send more troops to a war zone, it’s part of a broader strategy. George W. Bush approved the surge of forces to Iraq as part of a population-centric counterinsurgency war plan. Barack Obama did the same in his first year when it came to Afghanistan, though he eventually regretted the decision, and spent most …