April 24, 2008
Beijing Fixes Shanghai Flat
After months of hints and vague promises, Beijing came to the rescueof Chinese shares in a surprise announcement last night on national TV that the duty on stock trading would be reduced to just one tenth of one percent, repealing last May's increase that aimed at curbing short term speculation and reducing volatility. Volatility however is here to stay given high inflation and commodities values.
Values shot up across all boards with the Shanghai Composite gaining over 9% to close at 3,583. Many observers had claimed3,600 as a sustainable level with current earnings andperformance. As always, I'll update the markets on each episode ofThe Sinomania! Show.
Labels: bubble, chinese stocks, index, inflation, shanghai composite, shares
April 22, 2008
The Strategic Test of the An Yue Jiang
America appears to have won a round in the battle for southern Africa if, as Chinese foreign minstry spokesman Jiang Yu said today, the ship An Yue Jiang turns back without delivering its cargo --weapons for Zimbabwe's embattled ZANU regime headed by vilified strongman, Robert Mugabe.
Both Namibia and South Africa are firmly in Washington's control dating back at least to 2006 when then Deputy Commander of USEUCOM Gen. Charles "Chuck" Wald began plans for armed intervention if Zimbabwe crumbled. The situation is now more extreme as there is a disputed election and threat of a [insert color here] revolution for the USA to support or perhaps rescue.
Mugabe and the Zimbabwe African National Union regime are short of arms since their Chinese supplies can't get through. The vessel An Yue Jiang, said to be loaded with containers of bullets and grenades, is refused entry by every port in American control. Chinese influence in the region is lacking despite all the billions spent on investments and arms sales there.
What can we deduce? Even though southern Africa has less strategic value than many places the sea routes around the continent are vital to Chinese plans to import more oil not just from southern and eastern Africa but possibly South America (Venezuela, Brazil someday) as well. But the US Navy controls the area. The USS Ft. McHenry and HSV Swift were dispatched to the Gulf of Guinea in late 2007 and form part of a new "partnership" to control the region. Sea power still triumphs.
Labels: An Yue Jiang, arms, elections, freedom, great power, military, navy, oil, revolution, strategic, zimbabwe
Dollar v Yuan
An interesting discussion underway at Brad Stetsor's blog at the most excellent RGE Monitor website on the dollar's shrinking value and its ultimate impact on China centers on a hot editorial in the Shanghai Daily that says:
"The negative results of the US dollar's decline are evident: the rising prices
of all primary products, the intensified pressure on inflation globally, the confusion in the settlement of international transactions, etc. Worst of all, this is the US' disguised way of avoiding paying off its debts to foreign
countries."
The need for the dollar as the chief medium of exchange and unit of account in trade gives it an advantage that can't be matched at present. If the RMB Yuan matures, is fully convertible, and Chinese financial markets continue to advance the day may come when the Yuan may supplant the dollar. Morgan Stanley analysts still believe the most likely challenger to the dollar will be the Yuan or a currency unit centered on it.
Labels: china, currencies, dollar, foreign exhange, renminbi, yuan
April 10, 2008
Boycott Beijing 2008 Olympic Games? Chinese Stock Market Doldrums and China Wants Africa's Oil
full transcript at www.sinomania.com
Chinese shares still bearish, China turns to Africa for new oil supplies, and just who is behind the boycott Beijing Olympics campaign?
Sinomania! Volume II Webisode 55, April 8, 2008
April 09, 2008
Same Time Last Year for Chinese Stocks + Mekong Summit + China's 3G Wireless
full transcript at www.sinomania.com
Big news in Chinese telecoms with tests of China's 3G wireless standard, the continuing slide in China stocks, and report on the Greater Mekong Subregion economic summit ... Sinomania! Volume II Webisode 54, April 2, 2008April 07, 2008
Man in Black Cap Protests Olympic Flame
Playing Games with Tibet
Anti-Beijing Olympics protests currently exaggerated by giant headlines and cropped wire photos today beg the question: who is behind the Beijing Olympics boycott?
Principally, it is a project of Paris based Reporters Without Borders / Reporters Sans Frontiers or RSF. The grand sounding organization was founded by Robert Menard, the self-styled "General Secretary" of the supposedly independent non-governmental group.
RSF is anything but unbiased however and receives its funding from a variety of government sources including the US State Department and Ronald Reagan's National Endowment for Democracy, whose officers read like a who's who of neoconservatism and include nearly all of the signers of the "Project for a new American Century." RSF has long been a font of anti-China news stories of dubious credibility.
RSF was banned by the United Nations in 2003 and kept away from its sessions on "human rights" because of its political activities. An imporitant financial contributer of RSF is TECRO, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, which has its own agenda with Beijing.
Beyond RSF there are some Hollywood hypocrites such as Mia Farrow or George Clooney, a myriad of "actvist" groups affiliated with the Falun Dafa cult, and collections of coffee house revolutionaries from far right Christian Zionists to far left limousine liberals.
Amidst all this ridiculousness very little, if anything, is actually being done to the benefit of anyone in Tibet.
Labels: beijing olympics, boycott, boycott olympics, free tibet, london, olympics torch, paris, san francisco
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