China

Reform, global reach and financial stability statecraft Amid developing tensions, the International Monetary Fund’s 2025 Financial Sector Stability Assessment for China arrives at a pivotal juncture. More than a domestic stocktake, it reflects the structural transformation of China’s financial system, marked by increased complexity, persistent contradictions and a steadily expanding global footprint – much of which is mediated by Chinese financial institutions. This year’s assessment invites further scrutiny of the system’s evolving resilience and policy trade-offs. Having contributed to China’s inaugural Financial Sector Assessment Program in 2010, which played a key role in helping China embark on financial reforms in the following years, I recall one main thing...

The European economy grew at around 2 to 3 per cent a year throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. But growth has never fully recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. While Europe continues to rank highly on broader measures of wellbeing, its meagre growth has fallen well behind that of the US. Europe also faces considerable economic headwinds. China is ramping up exports of goods such as cars and machinery, threatening a pillar of the European economy. Europe also lags behind China and the US in technology creation and diffusion, just as a potential artificial intelligence (AI) revolution might unlock new productivity gains. European policy-makers are making trade conditional on other policy aims, like combatting climate change, trying to make supply chains in important goods less dep...

Trump’s tariffs intensify China’s deflation crisis, exposing structural flaws. Real solutions demand wage growth, affordable housing, stronger safety nets and fairer wealth distribution. This pressure may finally force the economic overhaul China needs to escape the “middle-income trap” illusion. Economist Chen Kang looks at the issue. US President Donald Trump’s so-called global “reciprocal tariffs” have severely impacted the system of global trade, disrupted global value and supply chains, and damaged the world economy. In view of this, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently lowered its forecast for global economic growth in 2025 from 3.3% to 2.8%. Trump’s tariffs hurt others without any gain for the US. Across-the-board tariff increases have created a supply shock for...

Pakistan’s military may prepare for war—but its economy is signalling collapse. A state cannot sustain conflict on the strength of power projection alone Within 24 hours of India’s action on the Indus Water Treaty after the Pahalgam massacre, Pakistan scrambled to mount a counter-narrative. On April 24, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif convened the National Security Committee, where India’s actions were called an act of war. Pakistan declared the Simla Accord void and closed its airspace to India. The rhetoric is fiery, but beneath it lie unmistakable signs of deeper panic. Diminishing Military Standing These signs were immediately apparent just days later. After PM Modi granted the Armed Forces a “free hand” to respond to the Pahalgam massa...

The Trump administration’s structural contradictions have birthed a chaos and it is only helping China’s ascent. Donald Trump’s tariffs have plunged the world economy into chaos, unleashing a trade war with China that seems to have no resolution in sight. Commentators struggle to fathom the rationale behind a move that resembles economic self-sabotage. Yet this is not the first time the United States has dismantled an economic architecture it once built – only to restructure global capitalism on new, favourable terms.  The collapse of Bretton Woods in 1971 marked the last great upheaval, when Nixon ended dollar-gold convertibility, unshackling finance capital while eroding the foundations of postwar stability. Why does America repeatedly destabilise systems it once champion...