Bloomberg Japan’s government said on Monday that the names of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his wife and his finance minister were deleted from documents at the heart of a land scandal that erupted last year, a revelation that threatens to derail his administration and its economic strategy. Finance Minister Taro Aso apologised and said an internal investigation was ongoing as ...

China’s defenders are putting an optimistic spin on the country’s tilt towards one-man rule. Now that President Xi Jinping has set himself up to remain in power indefinitely, they suggest, he will have the runway to see through painful but necessary economic reforms that have long been resisted by various actors within China’s political system. In other words, even if ...

India’s unreformed banking system needs a massive privatization drive. The sooner this dawns on authorities, the better for taxpayers, investors and borrowers. Exhibit A is an index of share prices of state-run banks. It took one $2 billion fraud at government-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) to snuff out all the excitement over a $32 billion recapitalization of these moth-eaten institutions. ...