China

Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

After several months of slowing price growth across China's bubbly housing market, if mostly in the lower-tiered cities, last month we reported that China's National Bureau of Statistics confirmed that the latest Chinese housing bubble has finally popped, after housing prices across the 70 cities tracked by the NBS were up 12.7% Y/Y, below the 12.9% annual growth rate in November. This was the first deceleration in year-over-year housing price growth after 19 months of continued acceleration.

In China's latest test of the US response to its escalating claims of islands in the South China Sea, Reuters reports that Beijing has "nearly finished building almost two dozen structures on artificial islands in the South China Sea that appear designed to house long-range surface-to-air missiles." Predictably, such a development will likely raise questions about whether and how the United States will respond, given its vows to take a tough line on China in the South China Sea. The structures appear to be 20 meters (66 feet) long and 10 meters (33 feet) high.

Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

One day after the US announced it had dispatched the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group in the contested South Chine Sea on "routine" patrols (through a post on the aircraft carrier's Facebook page), China responded and predictably, it wasn't thrilled. In a statement by the foreign ministry, Beijing said on Tuesday that it opposed action by other countries "under the pretext of freedom of navigation" that could "threaten and damage" its sovereignty, a clear reference to US patrols in territory that China considers its own.