After China’s finance minister Lou Jiwei retired, many China economic policy watchers are again asking how long it will be until Zhou Xiaochuan, China’s longest-serving central bank governor, steps down and who can replace him? The answer matters for the Chinese economy and the world because Zhou and Lou are regarded as the cream of the pro-market Chinese technocrats who argued for China’s transition from a command to a market-based economy, as well as for…
Posts published in “Day: November 14, 2016”
A heated debate between two of China’s most prominent economists at the Peking University campus has attracted much media and public attention in the country. About 1 million Chinese viewers watched an online broadcast of the three-hour exchange of views between Zhang Weiying and Justin Lin Yifu on Wednesday as they debated whether China should embrace or ditch state-led industry policies – a question that encompasses the future trajectory of China’s growth and development model.…
A written guideline requiring Communist Party members to once again address each other as “comrade” is an outdated resurrection of Maoist rhetoric and unworkable in today’s world, analysts said. In the latest guideline on cadres’ political conduct issued earlier this month, the Party brought back an old political etiquette that used to be closely associated with the country’s revolutionary period, when calling each other comrades created a sense of equality and closeness similar to that…
The author is a freelance journalist living in Beijing Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s recent purchase of navy vessels from China, combined with the Filipino pivot toward China, has put holes in Washington’s net around the Middle Kingdom. The goal of the US pivot’s redeployment of 50 to 60 percent of the US Navy’s fleet by 2020 to contain China and sever what China calls the “Maritime Silk Road,” is now at risk. Malaysia’s announcement…
With the expansion of trade, commerce and commercial activities through Chabahar Port, the value of commercial and trade transportations between Afghanistan and India will be increased by 50 percent. But officials from the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) on Friday said that currently one of the biggest problems with the port is that there is no facility to deal with large container ships in the port. They have called on the Iranian government…
At least 52 insurgents were killed and 10 others wounded in an Afghan security forces operation in Shindand district of Herat province. Raz Mohammad Oryakhail, executive officer at 207 Zafar Corps, confirmed the incident and said that many vehicles belonging to the Taliban were also destroyed in Afghan air strikes. Mullah Nayeb and Mawolavi Muhab, two Taliban local commanders, were also killed in the operations. No casualties among security forces were reported in the operations.http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/28294-52-insurgents-killed-in-herat-province
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the Hizb-e-Islami party, urged United States president-elect Donald Trump to withdraw U.S forces from Afghanistan. Hekmatyar suggested in a letter to Trump he withdraw U.S forces from Afghanistan and let the Afghans to solve their problems themselves and forge their own destiny. ? However National Unity Government (NUG) leaders called for the continued presence of U.S troops in Afghanistan but according to Hekmatyar those who want the U.S forces are not…
The NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) mission in Afghanistan confirmed that 4 people were killed and 14 others were wounded in an attack on Bagram airbase, the largest US military base in Afghanistan. “An explosive device was detonated on Bagram Airfield resulting in multiple casualties. Four people have died in the attack and approximately 14 have been wounded. We will provide updates as appropriate,” the alliance said in a statement. “To the family and friends of…
MAZAR-I-SHARIF – The death toll from a powerful Taliban truck bombing at the German consulate in Afghanistan’s Mazar-i-Sharif city rose to at least six Friday, with more than 100 others wounded in a major militant assault. The Taliban said the bombing late Thursday, which tore a massive crater in the road and overturned cars, was a “revenge attack” for US air strikes this month in the volatile province of Kunduz that left 32 civilians dead.…
ISLAMABAD: Afghan Taliban negotiators have told Pakistan they are not ready to hold peace talks with President Ashraf Ghani’s government for now, sources in the insurgent group told The Express Tribune on Friday. Three senior members of the Qatar-based Taliban political office arrived in Pakistan in late October after reports suggested that a senior Taliban leader had met Afghanistan’s spy chief in the Gulf country in the presence a senior US official. “The Taliban representatives…
The author is a freelance journalist living in Beijing. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s recent purchase of navy vessels from China, combined with the Filipino pivot toward China, has put holes in Washington’s net around the Middle Kingdom. The goal of the US pivot’s redeployment of 50 to 60 percent of the US Navy’s fleet by 2020 to contain China and sever what China calls the “Maritime Silk Road,” is now at risk. Malaysia’s announcement…