Chinese business magnate Jack Ma says he’s ready for China to make semiconductors at home. It’s a longstanding goal for the Chinese government. And thanks to a recent crackdown on certain technology exports by the US, it’s now a critical one. The question is whether China can finally conquer this challenge after decades of failures.　Semiconductors are the building blocks of electronics, found in everything from flip phones to the servers that make up a supercomputer. Although China long ago mast

May 1, 2018

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and a team of White House heavyweights are expected to visit Beijing, possibly as early as this week, for talks aimed at defusing a tense, US-China trade standoff. The delegation comes amid optimism in Washington that its get-tough strategy is working after Beijing announced a slate of reforms to open up sectors including automobiles, finance and aerospace.　But as is often the case in China, how things appear on the surface is not actually how they are. That’s es

May 1, 2018

In the 21st century, a country’s gifted children are arguably a more valuable natural resource than, say, oil or gas. A new study shows that France is largely wasting this precious resource.The study is by Laurence Vaivre-Douret, a professor of neuropsychology at the University of Paris; it was presented at a recent conference organized by the Ministry of Education and has not yet been published. It found that 39 percent of French gifted children are medically depressed, versus 2 percent for the

May 1, 2018

It is astonishing how often Donald Trump does an about-face on major policy issues. Even more surprising is that none of his ardent supporters seems to mind his absurd U-turns.　Midwestern corn and soybean farmers are not only staring glumly at their soaked, cold fields, meaning they haven’t been able to start planting on time, but they are facing the possibility that China will retaliate against Trump’s plan for higher tariffs on imported steel and aluminum by buying soybeans and corn from South

April 30, 2018

Today, I will violate one of my favorite principles, and hereby make this prediction: No Brexit! In other words, the UK will not exit the European Union. By 2023, we will look back at the entire ridiculous affair as if it were a rediscovered lost episode of “Fawlty Towers.”　Soon after the referendum in which Brits unwisely voted to leave the EU, I suggested there was a 33 percent chance that Brexit wouldn’t occur. Now, I raise that to 75 percent, and with each passing day of incompetence shown b

April 30, 2018

Two months after the Italian general election on March 4, amid continuing uncertainty about what kind of government will emerge, a strange complacency seems to have set in. Yet it would be foolish to believe that a country where anti-system parties won 55 percent of the popular vote will continue to behave as if nothing had happened. The populist Five Star Movement, which won by a landslide in Southern Italy, has promised to increase spending on public investment and social transfers, while reve

April 30, 2018

The four-story building at 55 Savushkina St. that housed the infamous Russian internet “troll factory” that meddled in America’s 2016 election now appears empty. 　The main trolling operation has moved to an impersonal seven-story glass office building in the distant Lakhta business district. I couldn’t enter the building due to tight security. The city’s leading business daily Delovoy Peterburg reported late last year that the operation’s workspace has tripled.　Yet, little known to Americans, th

April 29, 2018

Give President Emmanuel Macron of France an A for effort -- he is pulling out all the stops in his effort to manage the mercurial Donald Trump. Last week, Macron visited Washington for what was surely the handsiest summit in the history of French-American diplomatic relations, as part of his continuing bid to influence a volatile US president by hugging him as tightly as possible.　Macron’s is a strategy that a number of US allies have been pursuing, and so far it has borne some fruit. But now it

April 29, 2018

On April 17, Bloomberg reported that China had overtaken the United States as Vietnam’s largest export market. According to figures cited by the news organization and tallied by the International Monetary Fund, Vietnam’s exports to China totaled $50.6 billion in 2017, compared to $46.5 billion in exports to the US.If these numbers are accurate, they would represent a significant shift in the triangular relationship between Vietnam, China and the US. As Bloomberg succinctly put it, the data under

April 29, 2018

President Donald Trump’s handling of the trade relationship with China poses a threat both to the US and to the world economy -- but even his harshest critics agree with him on one thing. China’s bid to dominate the high-tech industries of the future often bends or breaks the rules of liberal international commerce, and needs to be checked.What’s important, and what this administration finds so difficult, is to be smart about it.　Through its “Made in China 2025” blueprint and assorted plans and

April 27, 2018

Saturday’s announcement by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that his country will stop testing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles is a sign that Kim is ready to do a deal with Donald Trump -- and that he understands how a deal with Trump can be made. It’s a delicate dance that Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Iran are no doubt watching closely. If Kim can swing this, the devil himself presumably could.　Even before the US enters an agreement with North Korea

April 26, 2018

The case for high-skilled immigration to the US isn’t hard to make. All those Ph.D.s in science and technology help build the nation’s advanced infrastructure while adding to the store of human capital and generating national wealth.　As a 2016 Congressional Research Service report stated, “This workforce is seen by many as a catalyst of US global economic competitiveness and is likewise considered a key element of the legislative options aimed at stimulating economic growth.”　 The low-skilled im

April 26, 2018