Despite deleveraging rhetoric, risks lurking in China’s financial system are coming to the fore and starting to hurt a highly sensitive group: repressed savers. Eroding investor confidence and blockages in the allocation of money could become far more dangerous than previously. Beijing has few options but to backpedal on rules meant to clamp down on the unruly underbelly of its banking system. The problems range from hotspots in the nearly $3 trillion shadow lending industry to wealth man

Is the global monetary order ready for another reboot? In the 1960s, Japan and Europe exported their way to post-World War II prosperity under the fixed exchange rates of the Bretton Woods agreement. The US went off the gold standard in 1971, but the established way of doing things didn’t collapse. Thirty years later, China essayed the role of being the world economy’s periphery and selling cheap widgets to a revamped core -- the West and Japan -- with the help of an undervalued ex

The European Union has many problems, but the most fundamental may be the rift between northern and southern member states and the even deeper fault line running between west and east. That latter fissure is especially dangerous because, unlike the largely economic one between north and south, it tears at the EU’s core values, including democracy, freedom of the press and the rule of law. For the past decade, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, has been flouting these principles

Russia’s president has not had a good pandemic. But Vladimir Putin is staging a comeback, with a touch of foreign-policy grandstanding, a dash of military theater and a plebiscite on constitutional reforms that could allow him to stay in power until 2036. The vote will confirm changes already approved by parliament in March, and it didn’t have to happen now. Even so, the Kremlin pushed ahead and Putin wants citizens to come out in large numbers to back the measures. With Russia stil

Until recently, it seemed like the contentious debate over lockdowns was over. By the end of May, many states were defying the warnings of public-health experts, reopening restaurants, retail and public spaces. The huge protests against police brutality and racism reinforced the notion that keeping Americans confined to their homes was a lost cause. Now, even San Francisco, one of the first cities to issue a stay-at-home order, is proceeding with a phased reopening of businesses and public space

The European Commission’s plan for a 750 billion-euro ($842 billion) fund to deal with the economic consequences of the pandemic is a quantum leap in Europe’s crisis response. Yet, for all the good intentions, political leaders still have to agree on the details of the scheme. The European Council -- a gathering of prime ministers and presidents -- will meet Friday to discuss the plan, although most observers only expect a breakthrough to happen in July. The EU is still wrestling wi

On Tuesday morning, cars and pedestrians lined up for free COVID-19 tests in south Minneapolis, six blocks from where George Floyd was killed last month. As protests flared after his death, Minnesota’s Department of Health had set up the testing site and encouraged demonstrators to visit in hopes of stemming a potential new outbreak. Long lines at this center and three others in the Twin Cities suggest that, far from being complacent about the risks of taking to the streets in a pandemic,

As long as the pandemic rages, the world’s leaders are understandably preoccupied with the threat of disease. But there are other dangers to humanity that demand attention. One of the most frightening is nuclear war. Unfortunately, the risk of that happening keeps rising. The headline numbers are misleading. Yes, the global stockpile of nuclear warheads decreased slightly last year, according to the latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. But that’s on

What’s worse than two populous, nuclear-armed countries killing each other’s soldiers? Two populous, nuclear-armed countries letting their longer-term relationship wither. Fighting along the Chinese-Indian border on the Tibetan plateau hasn’t come out of the blue. Ties, never solid, are increasingly becoming a casualty of the way New Delhi is being drawn into the wider rivalry between Beijing and Washington. If trade and investment suffer as a result, the deteriorating relatio

Mexico, India and Pakistan are among the countries that have hit record numbers of new coronavirus cases in recent days, as drastic regulations that kept streets empty and people apart are lifted. It’s a similar story in states like Texas, Florida and California. In Beijing, a cluster of cases linked to a wholesale market caused alarm over the weekend. Should that mean a return to lockdowns? US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says no. Reality will be less categorical. Take Pakistan. Of

If Britons wanted a reason to protest against institutional racism, or police brutality, they didn’t have to look 6,400 kilometers away. There have been plenty of local examples over the years. “I can’t breathe” will have resonated with many black families here. That’s why the killing of George Floyd has been a call to action in the UK too. An estimated 137,500 people have attended more than 200 protests in recent days. One produced an iconic picture of global outr

April Ryan, a veteran White House correspondent with American Urban Radio Networks and a political analyst for CNN, reported Tuesday afternoon that President Donald Trump is planning a major address on “race relations” in the US. The speech, Ryan said, is being written by Stephen Miller, the young Trump loyalist on the White House staff who has coaxed the president into approving policies like separating migrant children from their parents and incarcerating them at the Mexican border

It’s always interesting to see who’s celebrating. In German politics, that’s currently the Left Party, a descendant of East Germany’s former dictatorship that likes to brew anti-Americanism and Russophilia into a toxic populist mix. The party’s bosses are delighted about a rumor, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, that the US may pull out some 9,500 of the 34,500 American troops stationed in Germany, and then cap their numbers at 25,000. Dietmar Bartsch, th

I returned to the office this week, joining thousands of bankers from Citigroup to Morgan Stanley that are trickling back to their desks in Hong Kong. After almost five months working from home, it’s going to take some getting used to. The easing of coronavirus lockdowns heralds the beginning of the end for the world’s greatest work-from-home experiment. Perhaps. Twitter will let employees work from home permanently even after the outbreak recedes, while others such as Google have s

Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants all 1.3 billion Indians to be “vocal for local” -- meaning, to not just use domestically made products but also to promote them. As an overseas citizen living in Hong Kong, I’m doing my bit by very vocally demanding Indian mangoes on every trip to the grocery. But half the summer is gone, and not a single slice so far. My loss is due to India’s COVID-19 lockdown, which has severely pinched logistics, a perennial challenge in the huge, i

Beijing is scrubbing up. Late last week, the central bank excluded so-called clean coal from a draft list of projects eligible for green bonds. It’s a significant move that puts the world’s No. 2 issuer on the path toward consistency with international norms, making it easier to attract the foreign capital required to finance hundreds of billions of dollars of environmental fixes. The next logical step will be to tackle what companies are allowed to do with the cash they raise. So-ca

It came as no surprise that a fourth round of trade negotiations between the UK and the EU has produced no big breakthrough. Once again, there is talk about Britain separating from the EU in December without a trade deal in place; Bank of England Gov. Andrew Bailey told banks this week to prepare for just that. Why hasn’t the coronavirus pandemic changed the Brexit narrative, forced an outbreak of reasonableness between UK and EU negotiators or at least made compromise more likely? It&rsq

What pushed former Defense Secretary James Mattis over the edge, to denounce President Donald Trump in the strongest possible terms? Only the former general knows for sure, but a clue is provided by the title of his statement: “In Union There Is Strength.” Another clue is provided by the most important words in his text: “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people -- does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divid

On Sunday, President Donald Trump tweeted that the executive branch will designate Antifa as a “terrorist organization,” apparently in an attempt to pin blame for the weekend’s violent protests on the loose collection of far-left activists. The president’s announcement was characteristically unclear. Federal law says that if the Secretary of State designates a group as a foreign terrorist organization, then materially supporting that organization becomes a very serious f

The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that’s orbiting the Earth with two US astronauts is the picture of New Space Age glamour. It’s a sleek, stylish commercially made capsule that’s destined to be featured beside Italian sports cars in future design textbooks. Just don’t tell that to Elon Musk, SpaceX’s chief executive and chief designer. “Is a Ferrari more reliable than a Toyota Corolla or a Honda Civic?” he once asked a space journalist. The answer, of cou