ASIA: China’s retail sales slipped in July, dashing expectations for a modest rise as consumers in the world’s second-largest economy failed to shake off wariness about the coronavirus, while the factory sector’s recovery struggled to pick up pace. Retail sales dropped 1.1% year on year, missing predictions for a 0.1% rise and following June’s 1.8% […]

ASIA: US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday sweeping bans on US transactions with China’s ByteDance, owner of video-sharing app TikTok, and Tencent, operator of the WeChat app, starting in 45 days, in a major escalation of tensions with Beijing. Trump said this week he would support the sale of TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft […]

    ASIA: Senior US and Chinese officials will review the implementation of their Phase 1 trade deal and likely air mutual grievances in an increasingly tense relationship during an August 15 video conference, two people familiar with the plans said. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, the principal negotiators […]

ASIA: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told lawmakers on Thursday that the “tide is turning” on China, as the US has led the push to ramp up international pressure on the Communist regime on issues from property theft to international surveillance to the Chinese crackdown on freedoms in Hong Kong. China warned on Thursday […]

ASIA: China has said Hong Kong will suspend extradition treaties with Britain, Canada, and Australia after they took similar steps over the territory’s controversial new security law. The Foreign Ministry spokesman accused the countries of “gross interference in China’s internal affairs.” Earlier this month, US lawmakers approved sanctions in response to the law, targeting banks […]

ASIA: The Chinese government has said it is “strongly opposed” to the UK’s “groundless” ban of Huawei’s 5G kit. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying added Beijing would “take measures to safeguard” the “legitimate interests” of Chinese companies. The US has welcomed the move of Britain to ban Huawei 5G kit and announced new restrictions against […]

ASIA: The Academy of Military Medical Sciences, a research institute run by China’s military, received approval to conduct human clinical trials of a new COVID-19 vaccine developed using advanced genetics technology, in a notable breakthrough for China’s quickly developing pharmaceutical industry. The approval comes as other Chinese drugmakers move to expand testing of more traditional […]

QUESTION: Martin, You mentioned in a recent blog post that the ECB, unlike the FED, can go bankrupt. Can you explain further? Not sure where you get the time, energy and resources to research and write all that you do buy it is truly amazing. Regards, M ANSWER: The Federal Reserve does not need permission to […]

QUESTION: Hi Marty. You mentioned in the blog that all European sovereign debt may end up being converted into perpetual bonds. Will it be through debt mutualization or will each country have each own Consol? Could you please elaborate on how this conversion would affect pension funds, banks, social security and individual investors? Knowing that the […]

ASIA: India has conveyed to China the fact that the deadly clash in eastern Ladakh on Monday night will have “a serious impact” on relations between the two countries. Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar shared this with his counterpart in Beijing in a phone conversation today. Both sides agreed not to take “any action to escalate […]