Chinese President Xi Jinping seems interested in embracing the role of global steward — champion of the liberal political and economic order the U.S. administration seems uninterested in promoting. Now is his moment to prove he’s serious. China’s erstwhile client North Korea has become an urgent threat to stability — Xi’s stated top priority — from one end of …

  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) clinched a landslide victory in key state elections that are seen as a referendum on the performance of Modi’s three-year-old government. BJP won 311 out of 403 seats in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state. The historic verdict would boost Modi’s chances of winning another term as India’s prime minister in …

  To committed readers of the financial press, it was almost impossible to miss the proclamations that a milestone had been passed: The bull market, as of yesterday, was eight years old. For a sampling of examples see this, this, this, this, this or this. This formulation is wrong, since it misconstrues the definition of a bull market. Rather than …