China

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

The last section of the new US National Security Strategy (NSS) describes the envisaged application of the Trump Doctrine in a regional context all across the world, and it’s worthwhile to examine what storylines will most likely be advanced by the policy document’s intrinsic infowar component. This analysis is divided according to the geographic categories contained in the NSS and proceeds along that order, after which a brief summary will be presented in highlighting the most discernable global trends.

Pakistan is considering replacing the U.S. dollar with the Chinese yuan for bilateral trade between Pakistan and China, Pakistan's Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said according to Dawn Online and The Economic Times. Interior Minister Iqbal, who has been central to the planning and implementation of China-Pakistan economic ties, was reported discussing the proposal after unveiling a long-term economic development cooperation plan for the two countries, Reuters added.

Yesterday, we published a report about an incident involving South Korea, Japan and China that nearly escalated into a full-blown skirmish, as Japan and South Korea were forced to order intercepts of Chinese military aircraft as a squadron of fighters and bombers flew over the waters between South Korea and Japan - an area that has historically been off limits to Chinese aircraft. It wasn't until after the Chinese aircraft had dispersed that Chinese military commanders disclosed that the intrusion was part of a "military exercise."

In keeping with China’s strategy of methodically encroaching on its geopolitical rivals via air force and naval drills in the Pacific, both Japan and South Korea scrambled fighter jets earlier this week as China suddenly expanded the scope of naval drills being held in the waters off the Korean peninsula.

Last week, when looking at the latest Chinese credit data, we made two troubling observations: first, China's economic growth was slowing across a number of key data points despite massive new credit injected into the economy over the past year. Second, that the formerly massive credit impulse - which was responsible for pushing the global economy and markets out of the early 2016 rut - was no more, and that overall system credit growth slowed to 14.4% yoy from 14.9% the prior month, which was the slowest total credit growth in the past 27 months.