Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The Silk Road, renamed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is developing infrastructure along land and sea trade routes. However, little is known about China’s initiative in the Arctic Circle, which represents a new route that Beijing is now able to develop thanks to technology together with the strategic partnership with Russia.
As online retailers in the United States prepare for Cyber Monday, i.e. the biggest online shopping day of the year, China’s largest e-commerce company just recorded the biggest day in its history.
As Statista's Felix Richter notes, on November 11, Chinese Singles’ Day, online shoppers bought merchandise worth more than $25 billion across Alibaba’s platforms (mainly Tmall and Taobao), shattering last year’s sales record in the process.
Being the first data following The National Congress, we are expecting little in the way of disappointment from China's macro data. However, the slowdown in credit supply has been well telegraphed, and sure enough the data was not pretty with FAI growth at its weakest in 17 years, Retail Sales and Industrial Production both disappoint.
Early indicators for October industrial output aren't positive - the official PMI and export growth both edged down and came in below expectations, writes Bloomberg Economics economist Qian Wan:
In his speech (see here) at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC) on Friday, Trump slammed China, the WTO and his predecessor’s Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement as issues holding back his America-first “Indo-Pacific dream”. Without referencing it specifically, Trump criticised the TPP which he said would “tie our hands, surrender our sovereignty and make meaningful enforcement (of WTO rules) practically impossible”. Trump stated that the US would conduct trade with Asian nations based on bilateral agreements.
S&P futures gave up early gains and were trading down -0.2%, as Donald Trump completes his first Asian tour and as pressure mounts on U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, sending the pound plunging. European stocks fell, tracking many Asian shares as the Nikkei plunge accelerated.