michael pettisWednesday’s South China Morning Post reports that Cheng Siwei, vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, parliament’s top advisory body, said that Beijing…

Note: This is Brad Setser, not Michael Pettis.  Mr. Pettis will be doing most of the heavy lifting for the remainder of this week as well.  Last week was rather interesting.  Gisele Bundchen was all…

China's premier,  Wen Jiabao, has joined the chorus voicing concern about the dollar's recent weakness.   Cheng Siwei comments two weeks ago seem to reflect rather widespread worries among China's to…

On Monday, Bob Davis of the Wall Street Journal argued that the world isn’t flat, or at least it “isn’t as flat as it used to be.” National borders matter more. Barriers to the free flow of go…

The CIC claims it wants to be a commercial investor. Gao Xiqing is often quoted to the effect that the CIC "operates on commercial principles" and intends to only take passive stakes. I have always…