The start of trade hostilities between the US and China accentuates an important underlying theme in China’s own economy and the way it affects the world.　A big tussle is taking place within China that the leveling of tariffs by Washington and Beijing can only aggravate. That struggle is the effort by China to slow credit significantly: Enough to squeeze the shadow banking industry and rein in debt at state-run firms, but not so much that it causes a slump in overall growth.　Getting the balance

President Donald Trump thankfully appears to have backed off his threat to block all Chinese investment in critical US technologies, looking instead to the US Congress to develop a more robust investment screening system. But the risk of this technological cold war spinning out of control, to the detriment of both countries, remains. Lawmakers must strike a balance between preserving economic openness and protecting national security, which means thinking both smaller and bigger than they seem t

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has often been called the European Union’s real leader, though she’s never wanted that role and her moves in Europe have always been dictated by German domestic politics. A different chancellor seems positioned for leadership now: Austria’s Sebastian Kurz.　Few people care much about the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, which Austria assumed on July 1. It’s usually just a public relations opportunity for member states that otherwise get lit

A trade war can be fought on many fronts. As China breeds unicorns, they are being asked to stay at home rather than gallop overseas to enrich US investors.　The US pipeline of Chinese initial public offerings has been light since President Donald Trump started making noises about tariffs in early March. The only billion-dollar offering is the pending sale by e-commerce site Pinduoduo, for which an American listing makes sense because it competes directly with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and JD.com

Chinese are, in the popular imagination as well as some economic statistics, inveterate savers. According to the International Monetary Fund, the Chinese savings rate stood at an astonishing 46 percent in 2016, compared to a global average around 25 percent. Chinese planners have long sought to bring that ratio down in order to promote consumption and ease the economy’s overreliance on investment. If only Chinese would shop more, the thinking goes, China wouldn’t need to rely on smokestack facto

Global worries over trade wars, central bank rate hikes and geopolitical instability have hammered emerging-market debt in recent months. The fact is, over the past decade, many developing and low-income countries have simply borrowed too much. They borrowed from the markets, from banks and from other countries. In particular, they borrowed from China, which has averaged more than $100 billion in annual financing commitments since 2010. 　Those bills are now coming due. As one of the largest prov

The landslide victory of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico’s presidential elections comes two months after the startling return to power in Malaysia of Mahathir Mohamad and, on a smaller scale, a week after the wholly unexpected triumph in a New York Democratic primary of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old novice politician.　What’s strikingly common to the rise of Obrador, Mohamad, Ocasio-Cortez and many other disparate figures is their fervent support among young voters. Many youth tod

Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist and one of the pioneers of the World Wide Web, once declared: The spread of computers and the internet will put jobs in two categories. People who tell computers what to do, and people who are told by computers what to do. Andreessen has since repudiated this declaration, and taken a more optimistic stance. But economists, a more pessimistic bunch, are taking the possibility of this sort of bifurcated future more seriously. As machine-learning technology enjoy

While friends back home in the US set aside, for a day, their ever-expanding political differences to celebrate Independence Day, I am working in a high-rise above an Incheon business district with a birds’ eye view of Costco and Home Depot. It’s a literal and figurative opportunity to look at the American capitalistic spirit from afar, through the lens of Korean society.　America’s post-war industrial influence is evident here; the 10-lane wide highways are labeled with familiar red, white and b