China

An angry China slammed President Trump's threat on Monday to cut off trade with countries that deal with North Korea, as "unacceptable" and "unfair." As a reminder, following Sunday's nuclear test by North Korea, Trump threatened to increase economic sanctions and halt trade with any country doing business with North Korea, a threat he has used before without following through. That list would include China, the U.S.’s biggest trading partner, which accounted for about a sixth of its overseas commerce.

Ethereum and bitcoin are crashing this morning, after China confirmed its recent threat of an ICO crackdown (reported here last Monday) when the central bank said on Monday that initial coin offerings are illegal and disrupt financial markets, according to statement on China’s central bank website. The PBOC also asked all related fundraising activity to be halted immediately, issuing the strongest regulatory challenge so far to the controversial if surging market for digital token sales.

Authored by James Rickards via Daily Reckoning blog,

Just because something is inevitable does not mean it cannot be postponed.

The popular name for this is “kicking the can down the road,” which is a perfectly good description.

I prefer more technical terms such as dynamic systems in “subcritical” and “supercritical” state space, but it amounts to the same thing.

Shortly after North Korea conducted what’s believed to be its first successful test of a hydrogen bomb (and its sixth nuclear test in total), China’s Nuclear Safety Administration said on Sunday that it would begin emergency monitoring for radiation along its northeastern border with North Korea, according to Reuters.

The emergency response was set at “level 2,” the second-highest grade on a four-tier system, according to the Times of Japan. The NSA did not indicate whether any radiation had been detected.

Following remarks from the leaders of South Korea and Japan, President Donald Trump has responded to North Korea's latest "perfect" nuclear test, emphasizing that South Korea's "talk of appeasement will not work," and that Kim Jong Un and his government "only understand one thing!" He added that the nuclear test is an embarrassment...to China.