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Saturday, June 6, 2020
Without Apologies, China Is Now on the Move
George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis on May 25 when a police officer used brutally excessive force to arrest him.
It was the latest in a string of high-profile cases nationwide in which citizens, most of them African Americans, died from reckless police force. Once again, protests over police brutality turned violent and rioting ensued.
The U.S. also is torn apart over the national mass quarantine. Liberal blue states accused red states of recklessly endangering national health by allowing their populations to go back to work before the virus has left.
Red states countered that blue states were hypocritical in wanting federal money to subsidize their locked-down residents while expecting other states to generate needed federal revenue. They also contended that there was no longer scientific evidence to justify the lockdown.
The nationwide protests and rioting have inadvertently adjudicated the issue: States cannot jail the law-abiding barber who wears a mask at work, but allow the arsonist without one to roam the streets burning with impunity.
There is mounting evidence that an array of federal officials had plotted to disrupt Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and his presidential transition, leaving Trump supporters furious.
As the U.S. protested and bickered, China attempted to strangle what was left of Hong Kong’s enfeebled democracy. China’s theory seemed to be that if it’s going to be blamed for the spreading virus due to its deceit anyway, it might as well not let such a pandemic go to waste.
The Chinese strategy in reaction to disclosures that it hid vital data about the virus and exposed the world to contagion while it quarantined its own cities has devolved from “So what?” to the current “What exactly are you going to do about it?”
China also decided to ramp up its perennial border confrontations with India, as its forces encroached on Indian soil in the Himalayas. What better way to show the world that a defiant China is dangerous than agitate the world’s largest democracy?
Beijing has warned European nations that if their independent media continued to condemn China, there could be commercial retaliation. A few European journalists still exposed Chinese deceit, even as shaken European Union leaders backtracked and tried to contextualize Chinese misbehavior.
Japan and South Korea worried that China might move on Taiwan. They knew that if China did, only the United States—convulsed by quarantines, riots, and a contentious presidential race—could stand up to Beijing.
For years, China has bullied and waged a virtual commercial war against Asian democracies, such as Japan, South Korea, India, and Australia. It has subverted almost all international trading norms.
The Chinese government assumed that Western elites would get rich by being complicit in China’s cheating and would thus help sell out their own countries. They were mostly right on both counts.
As China westernized its economy, it conned gullible Western officials that eventually it planned to become a useful member of the family of nations.
In truth, China strategically hoarded cash from its asymmetrical trade surpluses. It planted its functionaries throughout transnational organizations and subverted them.
It beefed up its military and planted island bases in international waters. It compromised strategically important nations by investing in their infrastructure through its neocolonial and imperialist multitrillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative.
China may have been forced by the global epidemic to give up its nice-guy facade. But it has insidiously pivoted from global friend to its new role as overt global villain.
If the world had been anxious over the intentions of a suspiciously nice China, it will become downright terrified of an overtly...
May sees biggest jobs increase ever of 2.5 million as economy starts to recover from coronavirus
KEY POINTS
- Nonfarm payrolls rose by 2.5 million in May and the unemployment rate fell to 13.3%.
- Wall Street estimates had been for a decline of 8.3 million and a jobless level of 19.5%, which would have been the worst since the Great Depression era.
- Much of the gain came from those classified as temporary layoffs due to the coronavirus-related economic shutdown.
- Leisure and hospitality represented almost half the jobs gained.
U.S. economy added 2.5 million jobs in May—Four experts on what the recovery could look like
Employment stunningly rose by 2.5 million in May and the jobless rate declined to 13.3%, according to data Friday from the Labor Department that was far better than economists had been expecting and indicated that an economic turnaround could be close at hand.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting payrolls to drop by 8.33 million and the unemployment rate to rise to 19.5% from April’s 14.7%. If Wall Street expectations had been accurate, it would have been the worst figure since the Great Depression.
As it turned out, May’s numbers showed the U.S. may well be on the road to recovery after its fastest plunge in history.
“It seems the damage from the nationwide lockdown was not as severe or as lasting as we feared a month ago,” said Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman.
The stock market roared higher following the report as the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 800 points as of 11 a.m. ET. Government bond yields raced higher as well, with the benchmark 10-year Treasury most recently at 0.91%.
President Donald Trump expressed pleasure at the report, directing two tweets to CNBC.
It’s a stupendous number. It’s joyous, let’s call it like it is. The Market was right. It’s stunning! @jimcramer @CNBC
24.2K people are talking about this
The May gain was by far the biggest one-month jobs surge in U.S. history since at least 1939. The only previous month to register more than a million jobs was September 1983, at 1.1 million.
“Barring a second surge of Covid-19, the overall U.S. economy may have turned a corner, as evidenced by the surprise job gains today, even though it still remains to be seen exactly what the new normal will look like,” said Tony Bedikian, head of global markets at Citizens Bank.
The jump in employment almost perfectly mirrored the 2.7 million decrease in workers who reported being on...
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