For a long time, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a point of not disagreeing publicly with European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. This year, however, that tradition is broken, and Merkel appears interested in making sure Draghi’s successor is more acceptable to Germany, perhaps even a German. Recently, for the second time this year, the chancellor blamed ECB for euro ...

Brexit is driving up prices and there’s an election around the corner, but Britons are still hitting the shops, to judge by a raft of reports from retailers. Marks & Spencer Group Plc said that while its same-store clothing and home-furnishing sales fell more than estimated in the three months through April 1, full-price sales were up, and there are ...

Sitting in my Hangzhou hotel room one evening last September, I caught a helpfully subtitled Chinese TV show about Song Dynasty inscriptions carved on a mountainside near Quanzhou — the city Chinese media invariably call “the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road.” With prayers for good winds and safe returns, the carvings bore witness to China’s far-flung commercial relations ...