China

Former ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton administered a heavy dose of alarmism to CPAC during his speech on Thursday morning.

Now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Bolton primarily used the platform to bash Hillary Clinton, even though there were presumably no Clinton supporters in the audience to be persuaded. He framed his argument by systematically critiquing her foreign policy, but the statements he made on the South China Sea bordered on fear mongering.

Back in October, the latest credit impulse in China just rolled over and died.

Ahead of the actual news, MNI said “one source familiar with the data said new loans by the Big Four state-owned commercial banks in October plunged to a level that hasn't been seen for many years."

Authored by Steve H. Hanke of The Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke.

Beijing can be big and bold when it meets reality. Remember when Zhu Rongji, China’s former economic tsar, gave 30 million workers pink slips, privatized hundreds of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and swept many others into the dust bin?

Two weeks ago we reported that one month after China created a record $520 billion in total credit (TSF), through February 18 Chinese banks had followed through with another CNY2 trillion according to MarketNews, meaning that in the first two months of the year China will have created a gargantuan $1 trillion in new credit between loans and unregulated shadow banking issues.

The U.S. Navy have dispatched a fleet of warships to the South China Sea in a show of its military might amid tensions with China over the disputed islands. The U.S. claim that China are attempting to militarize the region in order to guard the territory that the U.S. say China have no right to claim. Navytimes.com reports: The stand-off has been heating up on both sides. After news in February that the Chinese deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile battery to the Paracel Islands, U.S. Pacific Command head Adm.