Secretary Geithner’s China Strategy: A Viewer’s Guide by Simon Johnson

Does the practicality of his advice rule out its potential? I hope not.

Financial Institutions, Market Cap, 1999-2009

Just look at those flags.

via The Big Picture

Michael Meyer: If Hillary Clinton were to step away from photo-ops at the Great Hall of the People and walk 200 yards south past the edge of Tiananmen Square, she would enter Dazhalan — a half-square mile of 114 hutong, or lanes. Home to 57,000 people, this 800-year-old neighborhood exemplifies the sort of urban planning that many American cities seek to recreate, featuring narrow, car-free streets enlivened by a tight-knit community. Mrs. Clinton should visit the area while it’s still there; wide roads are slated to pierce through the heart of this historical center, where a new boutique mall and a Wal-Mart already shadow its edges. Ugh. Walking through this neighborhood was one of the most interesting things I did on my 2001 trip to China. Upsetting.
Michael Meyer:
If Hillary Clinton were to step away from photo-ops at the Great Hall of the People and walk 200 yards south past the edge of Tiananmen Square, she would enter Dazhalan — a half-square mile of 114 hutong, or lanes. Home to 57,000 people, this 800-year-old neighborhood exemplifies the sort of urban planning that many American cities seek to recreate, featuring narrow, car-free streets enlivened by a tight-knit community. Mrs. Clinton should visit the area while it’s still there; wide roads are slated to pierce through the heart of this historical center, where a new boutique mall and a Wal-Mart already shadow its edges.

Ugh. Walking through this neighborhood was one of the most interesting things I did on my 2001 trip to China. Upsetting.

“China looks set to be the first major economy to recover from the current global meltdown. China is the only economy in the world to see significant growth in credit to corporate and household sectors after September 2008, when the financial crisis worsened to a near collapse.”
Lu Ting, an economist with Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, China’s Economy Shows Signs of Recovery on Stimulus
“The instability may peak when millions of migrant workers flood back from celebrating the Chinese new year to find they no longer have jobs.”
Violent unrest rocks China as crisis hits which the Economist warned was coming. This article is very disturbing. e.g., “The Communist party is so concerned to buy off trouble that in one case, confirmed by a local government official in Foshan, armed police forced a factory owner to withdraw cash from the bank to pay his workers.” And “About 1,000 teachers confronted police on the streets of Yangjiang on January 5, demanding their wages from the local authorities.”