Mostly in Zhejiang province Chinese authorities have been trying to bring the 60 million Christians under state control, and took down between 1,200 and 1,700 crosses from churches, sometimes causing violent clashes. Journalist Ian Johnson investigated for the New York Times the current state of the government action.Read More →

Author Zhang Lijia enthusiastically reviews on her weblog Eight Juxtapositions: China Through Imperfect Analogies: Penguin Specials by Jeff Wasserstrom. “In the final chapter entitled The People’s Pope and Big Daddy Xi, he compared the Chinese Communist Party with the Catholic Church and the president Xi with the Pope.”Read More →

Journalist Ian Johnson interviews economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® on – among other subjects – China´s financial reforms and what has been derailing them in the New York Times. “The desire to control things has won out over the desire to reform and liberalize.”Read More →

A dramatic reduction of global steel demand has sent the steel producers into disarray. China, good for half of the production, has upset the rest of the world by financing its export. A better policy would be keeping steel in store, until demand picks up again, writes financial analyst Sara Hsu in the Diplomat.Read More →

China is ahead of a range of challenging decisions, writes economist Arthur Kroeber in BloombergView. There is a real danger China will enter economic stagnation just like Japan did in the past, and Kroeber is not sure China´s leadership can avoid the same mistakes Japan made.Read More →

China has three scenario´s to choose from by the end of next year, when the new Party Congress convenes, tells author Arthur Kroeber,China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, at the European Council of Foreign Relations. Or Russia-style nationalism, Japan-style slowdown 2.0 or a Singapore on steroids.Read More →

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has China high on his agenda, and not for the good. All wrong, writes financial analyst Sara Hsu in the Diplomat. The US needs to keep a positive relationship with China, she argues.Read More →

Is Xi Jinping striving for a more efficient economy or does he want to solidify party control, wonders economist Arthur Kroeber in the Australian Financial Review. “There is growing concern that Xi has tipped the scales in favour of political control, at the expense of economic growth,”Read More →