ASIA: Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday demanded an apology from the Chinese government for tweeting a “falsified” and “repugnant” image of an Australian soldier killing a child in Afghanistan, amid escalating political tensions between Canberra and Beijing. Morrison said Australia has reached out to the Chinese government and also contacted Twitter to have the […]

QUESTION #1:  Hi – Martins blog post on the plan of canceling the currency Jan. 1st 2021 is very disturbing. Could he please clarify if that is indeed the plan and if it includes the USA. It is not entirely clear. Tks C ANSWER #1: The Democrats have been trying desperately to join the World […]

ASIA: Australia has hit out at “needlessly” worsening relations with China, with the country’s prime minister appealing for smaller nations not to be caught in the crossfire of Sino-US rivalry. Morrison insisted Australia wanted “mutually beneficial” relations with both its largest trading partner and the United States, while having the right to pursue its own […]

ASIA: Zheng Yongnian, the Dean of the Advanced Institute of Global and Contemporary China Studies, a Shenzhen-based think tank, has said that the Chinese government should utilize every opportunity to mend ties with the US, South China Morning Post has reported. Mr Zheng, who attended a symposium hosted by President Xi Jinping in August to offer […]

QUESTION: Martin, I know you have your AI in Socrates, but do you really believe that entities like DARPA with teams of people have never created a classified AI system or multiple AI systems that are suppressed from public knowledge? I think you may be overlooking governments’ ability to suppress plans as they were able […]

ASIA: President Xi Jinping would like to poise China as the new financial capital of the world as the Western economy continues to decline. President Xi said that China’s “resilience and vitality” will help maintain its “super-sized” economy. In what some saw as a swipe at US President Trump’s “America First” policy, Xi touted China’s […]

ASIA: The Chinese government issued debt at a negative interest rate for the first time on Wednesday in a bond sale that attracted significant investor interest, according to Deutsche Bank (DB), one of the banks that helped arrange the transaction. Faced with ever lower interest rates at home, European investors snapped up the bulk of […]

ASIA: China has declared Australia must take the blame for “a sharp downturn” in relations between the two countries, with a Foreign Ministry spokesman saying all responsibility is on “some people in Australia (who) tend to regard China’s development as a threat.” Relations between Australia and China have been frosty for years, but the situation […]

ASIA: A survey by IHS Markit in late October of more than 6,600 companies in 12 countries found that companies in China reported the highest recovery rate from the coronavirus pandemic, followed by those in the US. US According to the latest available data from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, multinationals’ majority-owned affiliates in […]

ASIA: US President-elect Joe Biden is expected to maintain a hard line on most matters, including export restrictions to Huawei. However, he will probably enlist more support from international allies and maintain more consistent policies than the ones Trump sometimes announced, and rescinded, via tweet, China watchers say. Some China watchers express skepticism that enlisting […]