Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Two basic problems of a declining population in a Country

From the NYT opinion pages comes Paul Krugman’s description of the two basic problems of a declining population in a country, Dr. Krugman ues China as an example. China’s population declined last year, for the first time since the mass deaths associated with Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward in the 1960s. Or maybe it […]

Mourning The Late Jiang Zemin?

Mourning The Late Jiang Zemin? Former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin died at age 96 on Nov. 30, curiously just as the worst outbreak of demonstrations to happen in China since 1989 happened, probably now come to an end, as China both suppresses them, arresting some people based on phones and visual surveillance, as well as […]

The Humiliation Of Hu Jintao

The Humiliation Of Hu Jintao  The recently completed onec-every-five-years Party Congress in China, which confirmed Xi Jinping for a third term as General Secretary of the party, punctuated his apparent assumption of essentially total power by humiliating his predecessor, Hu Jintao, in its final session. At the beginning, he was forced to leave the session, […]

China and the Debt Crisis

by Joseph Joyce China and the Debt Crisis Sri Lanka is not the first developing economy to default on its foreign debt, and certainly won’t be the last. The Economist has identified 53 countries as most vulnerable to a combination of “heavy debt burdens, slowing global growth and tightening financial conditions.” The response of China to what will be […]

The Trident that Killed Aphrodite: Communism, Corruption, and Conscience

Green groves feed the townspeople crafting their wares for the benefit of an enlightened populace, the amber fields of grain are milled for bread for the troops to keep our sovereign democracy intact. The greatest of civilizations are measured by the strength of their army, the complexity of the structures that they construct, yet history […]

Senate Defunding Wuhan Research Already Defunded in 2020

Be aware, this post is choppy. My first point is when was the the Wuhan project defunded. The second point asks why are four Senators then passing bills to defund a project already defunded? And finally I am giving some history such as this research not being gain-of-function. This is Republicans being bad actors and […]

China’s Outward FDI

by Joseph Joyce (Professor of Economics at Wellesley College, where he holds the M. Margaret Ball Chair of International Relations. He served as the first Faculty Director of the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs.) China’s Outward FDI Chinese firms that want to list their stock in U.S. equity markets face a series of hurdles. The Securities and Exchange […]

On The Centennial Of The Chinese Communist Party

On The Centennial Of The Chinese Communist Party, EconoSpeak, Barkley Rosser July 1, 2021 is now over in China but for a few more moments it is still the centennial of the CCP where I am.  Just a couple of observations.  This is partly driven by seeing multiple posts on Econbrowser by “ltr” praising the […]