China’s economic output as measured in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms passed Japan’s in 2001, going by International Monetary Fund data. Measured in current exchange rate terms, China’s gross domestic product has just dislodged Japan’s from the No. 2 spot that Japan has held for 42 years ― China’s 2010 GDP of $5.88 trillion, against Japan’s $5.47 trillion. As GDP in PPP terms is regarded in m

Is anyone else a bit BRIC-ed out?Hey, I completely get the importance of Brazil, Russia, India and China as emerging powers, growth engines and, perhaps, role models. Yet ever since Goldman Sachs Group Inc. squeezed the indispensable four into an acronym, we seem to have lost sight of a wider constellation of hugely promising economies.Even Jim O’Neill, coiner of Goldman’s now-ubiquitous BRICs, sa

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 17th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, held in mid-October, put forward a proposal for the 12th Five-Year Plan for national economic and social development over the next five years, once again highlighting the importance of transforming the country’s economic development mode. It also called for governments at various levels to shift their economic

While the resignation of Egypt’s authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak may have only set the course for the difficult transition to democracy for Egypt, Feb. 11 will be remembered as the day the people triumphed.The transition of the Middle Eastern heavyweight and trendsetter, an important ally of the U.S. and one of the world’s greatest military powers, will have repercussions throughout the worl

Belatedly, the National Assembly is opening an extraordinary session on Friday. With so many bills and agenda items sitting on its calendar, the legislature will have to close the session on March 2 only to open another 10-day session the next day, as agreed by rival parties.The National Assembly has remained closed since the ruling Grand National Party rammed the administration’s 2011 budget requ

North Korea is a country of so many contradictions that it defies ordinary people’s attempt to understand it. Even outside foreign policy experts closely watching North Korea often feel baffled by presumably unexplainable events happening in the communist state. In short, it is a perpetual enigma to the outside world.The latest series of events concerning North Korea is a case in point. North Kore

Low-level, preliminary military talks between North and South Korea at the Panmunjom truce village collapsed on Feb. 9 when the North Korean delegation abruptly stormed out. It had been hoped that the talks, intended as a preparatory step for high-level inter-Korea military talks, would lay a foundation for lowering the tension on the Korean Peninsula. But the collapse of the talks has underlined

President Obama’s budget for fiscal year 2012 landed with a thud Monday, laying out short- and long-term tax and spending plans that disappointed lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The proposal was a remarkably tame response to Washington’s fiscal problems, not the bold statement about belt-tightening that the White House had suggested was coming. Yet the biggest shortcoming is that it all but

“Mission Accomplished” read the hauntingly familiar phrase from Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim when the first word came that President Hosni Mubarak might step down. Ghonim delivered the words by Twitter, unlike George W. Bush, who had them printed on a banner. But in both cases, they were premature.As Richard Haas, a former top State Department official who now heads the private Council on Foreign

Hey, check out some of the nice things that people have said lately about Barack Obama:“The president, I think, is handling this (Egypt) situation well, under the most difficult kind of circumstances.”“I really have no fault with the president, Obama, the way he’s handled this process.”“I think the administration, our administration, has handled this tense situation pretty well.”“We ought to speak

Since July last year, a reform panel of the ruling Grand National Party has been working on a plan to overhaul the way the party nominates candidates for parliamentary elections. Last month, the panel disclosed a draft scheme based on a U.S.-style primary system that picks candidates through votes by party members and citizens.The open primary system, in fact, had been used by the GNP and other ma