China Bystander

IT IS A general assumption of this Bystander that jaw-jaw is preferable to war-war. The visit of US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, his second in a year, is evidence that both sides are tryin...

https://chinabystander.wordpress.com/2024/04/27/xi-and-blinken-talk-tough/

THE US LEGISLATION requiring the sale or ban of the ByteDance-owned short-form video app TikTok in the United States is heading to President Joe Biden’s desk for signature into law. It passed t...

https://chinabystander.wordpress.com/2024/04/24/tiktoks-us-sale-or-ban-draws-nearer-and-china-retaliates/

AS A FOOTNOTE to this Bystander’s thoughts about international trust in China in the previous post, German prosecutors announced the arrest of an aide to a member of the European Parliament on ...

https://chinabystander.wordpress.com/2024/04/23/espionage-erodes-trust/

CHINA WILL NOT emerge well from the unfolding revelations that its anti-doping agency cleared 23 of the country’s top swimmers to compete in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 after failing tests for a...

https://chinabystander.wordpress.com/2024/04/23/olympic-swimmers-test-trust-in-china/

US LAWMAKERS HAVE bundled a prospective ban on TikTok, the short-form video app owned by ByteDance, into their foreign aid package for Ukraine and Israel. The bill would require Bytedance to sell...

https://chinabystander.wordpress.com/2024/04/21/us-lawmakers-fast-track-tiktok-ban-or-sale/

BEIJING IS STEADILY eroding the Taiwan Strait median line, the unofficial demarcation between the mainland and Taiwan. Its latest moves to operate new commercial aviation routes that skirt the me...

https://chinabystander.wordpress.com/2024/04/20/beijing-steps-up-the-pressure-in-the-taiwan-strait/

CHINA’S ECONOMY OUTPERFORMED naysayers’ expectations in the first quarter, but the signs are there that the economy’s brisk start to 2024 may be fading and the economy’s deeper structural...

https://chinabystander.wordpress.com/2024/04/17/chinas-first-quarter-gdp-flatters-to-deceive/

THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND’S latest update to its World Economic Outlook is generally upbeat, reflecting the likelihood of a hard landing for the global economy receding as adverse supply ...

https://chinabystander.wordpress.com/2024/02/02/upbeat-imf-raises-its-china-growth-outlook/

THIS BYSTANDER ALWAYS allows a wry smile when a Communist government takes policy steps to bolster the stock market. The People’s Bank of China says it will cut banks’ reserve requirement rat...

https://chinabystander.wordpress.com/2024/01/25/beijing-moves-to-bolster-chinese-equities/

China’s economy grew by 5.2% year-on-year in 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported. That met the annual target of ‘around 5%’. Fourth quarter GDP growth matched the full-ye...

https://chinabystander.wordpress.com/2024/01/17/china-meets-2023-growth-target-but-headwinds-persist-into-2024/