Last week, the Commercial Aviation Corp. of China (Comac) announced that the C919, China’s first homemade large passenger jet, had chalked up its 730th preorder. Those numbers won’t necessarily make the Boeing or Airbus SE quake; Boeing estimates Chinese airlines alone will require 5,420 new single-aisle planes by 2036. Ultimately, though, they could herald the end of global aviation’s great duopoly.Most of the C919’s orders come from state-owned Chinese companies, some of whom probably wouldn’t

If you want a perfect metaphor for our national moment, it’s Steelers offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva coming out onto the field for the national anthem while the rest of his team stayed in the locker room.Asked about it after the game, coach Mike Tomlin simply referred to an earlier statement on the reasoning for keeping the team in the locker room while the Star Spangled Banner played: he wanted the team to be unified in whatever it chose to do. “People shouldn’t have to choose,“ Tomlin s

As people in other wealthy countries fretted in the 1990s and 2000s over what falling birthrates would mean for economic growth and retirement-program finances, the US seemed to have far less to worry about. Fertility here remained at or near the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman over her lifetime, and the country’s long-honed ability to attract immigrants and quickly integrate them into the workforce provided a further economic boost.Times have changed. Immigration has been a contentious

While much of the world’s attention is fixated on North Korea and its nuclear ambitions, something with the potential to be equally globe-rattling is taking place, generally unnoticed, in South Korea. There, new President Moon Jae-in is charting an entirely contrary course in economic policy than much of the rest of the developed world. If successful, the experiment could alter how governments tackle the most challenging problems of our day. Moon is embarking on a highly liberal economic program

In times of market uncertainty, some investors will flock to “safeguarded” currencies such as the Swiss franc or Japanese yen. Others may choose diversifiers like gold, farmland or other hard assets. And then there are those who flock to alternative investments like bitcoin or fine wine. Yet one investment that has historically been considered a safe bet, low-risk option for investors when frothy markets appear ripe for a correction, or when market bubbles look to burst, is the utility sector. B

“We have taken every step man can devise,” said President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, “to insure that neither a madman nor a malfunction could trigger nuclear war.” Apparently lots of people are starting to doubt that this is true. The latest entrant is an op-ed article this week in the New York Times. The authors, Jeffrey Bader and Jonathan D. Pollack, call for legislation requiring that “a small group of officials” give unanimous consent before the president can use nuclear weapons, at least if th

It has been 10 years since the last financial crisis, and some have already started to predict that the next one is near. But when it comes, it will likely have its roots in Silicon Valley, not Wall Street.The world of finance looks very different today than it did 10 years ago. In 2007, our biggest concern was “too big to fail.” Wall Street banks had grown to such staggering sizes, and had become so central to the health of the financial system, that no rational government could let them fail.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is fixated on obtaining a serious nuclear arsenal, and continues to thumb his nose at the US and other world powers. The latest round of United Nations Security Council sanctions approved on Sept. 11 are not going to change that. But one aspect of them -- new measures to interdict ships breaking trade embargoes against Pyongyang -- could be baby steps toward much stronger sanctions enforcement.The new resolution gives the US and other countries the power to inspec

If you only read the headlines -- or, say, my columns -- you might be pessimistic about China’s economy. Recent news has been dominated by a crackdown on capital outflows, worries about rapid debt growth, and efforts to rein in a risky overseas investment binge.Yet ordinary Chinese are highly optimistic: The China Consumer Confidence Index hit 114.6 in July, a level not seen since 1996. This is a logical reaction to some significant improvements in China’s economic outlook. And for the governmen

President Donald Trump bluntly threatened North Korea with annihilation if it menaces the US or its allies and delivered a provocative argument to leaders of the world that they should embrace nationalism even when confronting collective threats.In his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump at times cast aside conventions of political and diplomatic dialogue in favor of the aggressive dialect of social media. He vowed to crush “the loser terrorists” in the Mideast and pinned

The large-scale Russian military exercise known as Zapad, which started in Belarus on Thursday, is already a propaganda success: It has alarmed Russia’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization neighbors and garnered so much Western media coverage that one might think it was an actual combat operation. But it has also provided an important insight into the fears of the Russian and Belarusian rulers, fears that are not necessarily groundless.To Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, the exercise is m

With China’s decision to phase out gas- and diesel-fueled vehicles, the end is nearer for the internal combustion engine. For their nation to reap the full benefits of this revolution, Chinese leaders will need to continue to be bold.Nations that account for almost 80 percent of the world auto market are now planning or considering plans to end over the next few decades the sale of cars and trucks powered by fossil fuels. Big carmakers, many of whom have responded only tepidly to previous govern

With the United Nations imposing yet another round of sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear provocations, it’s worth asking why such penalties have been failing for more than a decade. One reason is that the North Korean economy is improving more than is commonly understood -- and that will make altering its behavior through trade barriers significantly harder.The current approach to sanctions is partly based on the assumption that North Korea’s economy is a socialist nightmare, but that’s no

The first street protests against Emmanuel Macron’s proposed labor market reforms have been underwhelming. Several major unions stayed away. Estimates of the turnout varied -- from 223,000, according to fairly reliable police figures, to 500,000, according to the CGT, France’s biggest union, which called for the march. Whatever the real number, French unions are divided, and this helps Macron’s reform efforts.This is unusual. France’s unions are traditionally a united front against pro-market re

Traders are getting less excited by North Korean provocations, judging by the diminished reactions in financial markets to the dictatorship’s weapons tests.Consider the yen. A highly liquid instrument, it’s a haven in times of geopolitical or global financial stress so is perhaps the most sensitive asset to look at for immediate reaction to North Korean acts. The currency soared as much as 0.6 percent against the dollar within about a minute on Friday morning after the news Pyongyang

Apple Inc. unveiled its most important new iPhone for years to take on growing competition from Samsung Electronics Co., Google and a host of Chinese smartphone makers.Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook showed off the iPhone X with an edge-to-edge screen during an event at the company’s new $5 billion headquarters in Cupertino, California, on Tuesday. Cook pronounced the name "ten," but it’s written as "X." The device, coming a decade after the original model, is Apple’s first major redesign since

Negotiating with North Korea about the future of its nuclear program is often mentioned as an alternative to a military intervention. Neither is a viable option, says Vitaly Mansky, one of the few people who know first-hand what it’s like to negotiate with North Koreans and achieve a measure of success.In May 2013, Mansky’s documentary production company signed a deal with the Korea Film Export & Import Corporation, a North Korean government agency, to jointly make a movie called “Under the Sun.

Since Donald Trump assumed the presidency, European allies have worried he will fulfill his campaign promise and pull the US out of the Iran nuclear deal.Trump’s national security cabinet has a different idea. US officials tell me that a new strategy on the agreement is ready for the president’s approval. Instead of blowing it apart, the plan is to make it stronger.The idea can be summed up as “waive, decertify and fix.” On Sept. 14, Trump is expected to waive the crippling sanctions on Iran’s b

President Donald J. Trump’s tweet this weekend that the US might terminate all trade with countries doing business with North Korea was widely derided on the grounds of realism. Given that 90 percent of North Korea’s trade is with China, the tweet was little more than a veiled threat to terminate all US trade with Beijing, ending a bilateral trade relationship valued at $650 billion a year. It would, as many correctly pointed out, mean economic disaster for North Korea -- and also for the US.The

There are, as is often noted, no good options for dealing with North Korea. All the more reason for the US not to make the few it does have even worse.That‘s what President Donald Trump is doing by linking the security threat posed by North Korea with his trade agenda. Irked by China’s failure to help the US rein in North Korea‘s nuclear program, and having been stymied in his attempts to retaliate against Chinese steel dumping and intellectual property infringements, he’s vowing an implausible