As it heads into a major leadership transition, China is attempting a strange breed of corporate reform. Rather than privatizing state-owned enterprises outright, the government is testing whether selling minority stakes to private investors may improve their performance. Meanwhile, state companies are busy revising their governing laws to give the Communist Party more control over management. The goals of these clauses include ensuring that apparatchiks hold greater sway over key corporate deci

Oct. 12, 2017

President Donald Trump has challenged Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to a duel, suggesting that he and his beleaguered adviser match scores from their respective IQ tests to see who’s smarter.To be fair to the president, Tillerson has reportedly called Trump a “moron.” Even away from Trumplandia, that’s a fighting word.“I think it’s fake news, but if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests,” Trump said of Tillerson in an interview that Forbes published Tuesday. “And I can tell you

Oct. 12, 2017

For all the mystery surrounding who will rise and fall at next week’s big leadership conclave in China, only one question really matters to investors: Will President Xi Jinping, having sidelined any obvious opposition, attack head-on the enormous imbalances and risks building inside the Chinese economy?Optimists argue that he will. The Economist Intelligence Unit recently wrote, “Xi will find his ability to implement policy substantially reinforced by newly strengthened majorities. After the Par

Oct. 11, 2017

The more Americans hear about growing security threats worldwide, the more grateful they must feel to have a world-class military. But few know the disturbing truth: Our military, quite frankly, is in a death spiral.It’s too small for its workload, underfunded to repair and replace equipment that is rapidly wearing out, and ill-served by obsolescent infrastructure at its ports, bases, and airfields. And it’s increasingly unprepared for the rigors of a major conventional conflict, the likes of wh

Oct. 11, 2017

Nobody would ever accuse the International Monetary Fund of getting carried away.Just when we are getting used to the notion of a synchronized global expansion, the lender feels it has to pad its upgraded forecasts with some dampeners. It’s almost as though there is too much good news. That’s a pity.Muffling the good news under warnings and to-do lists risks contributing to the false notion that the modern economy is somehow broken. Growth is on a firmer and broader footing now than at any point

Oct. 11, 2017

For 30 years China has recycled more cardboard boxes, plastic bottles and old computers than any other nation. By doing so, it’s saved millions of tons of resources and indirectly funded thousands of recycling programs and companies globally. But now it wants to stop. In July, China notified the World Trade Organization that it will soon prohibit the import of many types of recyclables. As a result, recycling programs and companies around the world are scrambling to find new destinations for the

Oct. 10, 2017

When Tom Price was pushed out of his cabinet job last month for sticking taxpayers with $1 million worth of private jet travel, the White House explained that his behavior was unacceptable in an administration devoted to draining the Washington swamp.I wonder where the former health and human services secretary got the notion that it was OK to mix public service and personal privilege. The values of a presidential administration flow from the top. President Donald Trump has been signaling loudly

Oct. 10, 2017

The humanitarian crisis afflicting Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya has damaged the country’s political stability and shattered its image as a country moving toward democracy. Moreover, it has tarnished the reputation of the government’s de facto leader, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi; called into question the crisis-management credentials of ASEAN and the United Nations; and made a mockery of international institutions for conflict prevention.And yet, for all the woe, a resolution rem

Oct. 10, 2017

Consider what is, for the moment, an entirely hypothetical question: What might Secretary of Defense James Mattis do if he received an order from President Trump to launch a nuclear attack on North Korea in retaliation, say, for a hydrogen-bomb test that had gone awry?Certainly, Mattis could try to talk the president out of the attack, if he thought the action was unwise. He could request delays to prepare for contingencies or gather intelligence. He could even, perhaps, argue that the action ra

Oct. 9, 2017

Back in the 1980s or 1990s, few would have predicted that Japan would become the standard-bearer of free trade. This is, after all, the country that once tried to ban foreign-made skis by claiming that Japanese snow was different from snow in other countries.How times have changed. As the US sinks into protectionism, the Land of the Rising Sun is one of the few countries still pushing for trade agreements. Japan recently made a free trade deal with the European Union and is trying to keep the Tr

Oct. 9, 2017

After Las Vegas, it’s nice to see that some Republicans are willing to consider banning bump stocks, the devices Stephen Paddock apparently used to make a dozen semiautomatic assault weapons mimic the firing rate of a fully automatic machine gun. Several top Republican senators and House members who -- it goes without saying -- are normally opposed to anything resembling gun control have said they are open to the possibility. Even the National Rifle Association says it supports additional restri

Oct. 9, 2017