Antony Blinken, în vizită rară în China

Secretarul de stat american Antony Blinken a ajuns, duminică, la Beijing, fiind primul diplomat american de rang înalt care vizitează China în ultimii cinci ani, pe fondul unor relaţii bilaterale îngheţate şi al unor perspective slabe pentru orice progres în ceea ce priveşte lunga listă de dispute dintre cele mai mari două economii ale lumii, informează news.ro.

După ce a amânat o călătorie în februarie, Blinken este cel mai înalt oficial guvernamental american care vizitează China de la preluarea mandatului de către preşedintele Joe Biden, în ianuarie 2021.

În timpul şederii sale, se aşteaptă ca el să se întâlnească cu ministrul de externe Qin Gang, cu cel mai înalt diplomat chinez Wang Yi şi, posibil, cu preşedintele Xi Jinping, încercând să stabilească canale de comunicare durabile pentru a se asigura că rivalitatea strategică dintre cele două ţări nu degenerează în conflict.

Se aşteaptă ca vizita lui Blinken să deschidă calea pentru mai multe întâlniri bilaterale în lunile următoare, inclusiv posibilele deplasări ale secretarului Trezoreriei, Janet Yellen, şi ale secretarului Comerţului, Gina Raimondo. De asemenea, ar putea pregăti terenul pentru întâlniri între Xi şi Biden la summituri multilaterale mai târziu în cursul anului.

Biden a declarat, sâmbătă, că speră să se întâlnească cu preşedintele Xi în următoarele câteva luni.

O întâlnire din noiembrie a celor doi lideri pe insula indoneziană Bali a atenuat pentru scurt timp temerile legate de un nou Război Rece, dar, după zborul presupusului balon spion chinezesc deasupra Statelor Unite, comunicarea la nivel înalt a fost rară.

Restul lumii va urmări îndeaproape călătoria lui Blinken, deoarece orice escaladare între superputeri ar putea avea repercusiuni la nivel mondial, de la pieţele financiare la rutele şi practicile comerciale şi lanţurile de aprovizionare globale.

"Există o recunoaştere de ambele părţi a faptului că trebuie să avem canale de comunicare la nivel înalt", a declarat reporterilor un oficial de rang înalt al Departamentului de Stat în timpul unei opriri de realimentare în Tokyo, în drum spre Beijing.

"Faptul că ne aflăm într-un punct important al relaţiei în care cred că reducerea riscului de calcul greşit sau, aşa cum spun adesea prietenii noştri chinezi, oprirea spiralei descendente a relaţiei, este un lucru important", a spus oficialul.

Legăturile dintre cele două ţări s-au deteriorat pe toate planurile, ceea ce a generat îngrijorări că, într-o zi, ar putea avea loc un conflict militar din cauza insulei Taiwan, pe care China o revendică ca fiind a sa.

De asemenea, cele două ţări sunt în dezacord cu privire la chestiuni care variază de la comerţ, la eforturile SUA de a împiedica industria chineză a semiconductorilor şi la situaţia drepturilor omului la Beijing.

Un aspect deosebit de alarmant pentru vecinii Chinei a fost reticenţa acesteia de a se angaja în discuţii regulate între militari cu Washingtonul, în ciuda încercărilor repetate ale SUA.

Vorbind la o conferinţă de presă vineri, înainte de a pleca la Beijing, Blinken a declarat că deplasarea sa are trei obiective principale: stabilirea unor mecanisme de gestionare a crizelor, promovarea intereselor SUA şi ale aliaţilor şi discutarea directă a preocupărilor aferente şi explorarea domeniilor de potenţială cooperare.

"Dacă vrem să ne asigurăm, aşa cum facem, că competiţia pe care o avem cu China nu se transformă în conflict, locul de unde începi este comunicarea", a spus Blinken.

El a adăugat că va ridica, de asemenea, problema cetăţenilor americani reţinuţi în China sub acuzaţii despre care Washingtonul spune că sunt motivate politic.

Printre subiectele care probabil vor fi discutate se numără potenţiala creştere a zborurilor comerciale între cele două ţări, a declarat un oficial american, descriind-o ca o măsură care ar ajuta la promovarea legăturilor interumane, deşi oficialul nu a prezis niciun progres.

Cu toate acestea, oficialii americani au minimizat, în cadrul unei teleconferinţe de informare care a anticipat călătoria de la începutul săptămânii, orice aşteptări privind un progres semnificativ.

În timp ce obiectivul principal al lui Blinken vor fi discuţiile "sincere, directe şi constructive", au declarat oficialii, nu sunt probabile progrese în ceea ce priveşte problemele majore, inclusiv fluxul de precursori de fentanil şi americanii deţinuţi în China.

Căutarea cooperării Chinei în ceea ce priveşte oprirea fluxului de precursori de fentanil a fost un punct cheie pe ordinea de zi, a declarat oficialul american. Partea chineză a fost reticentă în a coopera în această problemă, au declarat oficialii americani.

Opinia Cititorului ( 11 )

1. fără titlu
(mesaj trimis de anonim în data de 18.06.2023, 10:25)
Antony Blinken, vizită în China,
la marea dictatura comunista si prietenii lui Putin,
cum vine asta ?!
1. 1.1. fără titlu (răspuns la opinia nr. 1)
  (mesaj trimis de anonim în data de 18.06.2023, 21:27)
  Are novoie de bani
2. fără titlu
(mesaj trimis de anonim în data de 18.06.2023, 11:05)
Interesant cum americanii se duc in vizită la chinezi și nu invers.
1. 2.1.  fără titlu (răspuns la opinia nr. 2)
  (mesaj trimis de anonim în data de 18.06.2023, 11:42)
  E demonstratie de "caracter"
  2.2.  Mare caracter (răspuns la opinia nr. 2.1)
  (mesaj trimis de Lucian în data de 18.06.2023, 13:38)
  Eu zic ca banii nu miroase, pune tu ghilimelele, ca în cazul Ucrainei...
  2.3.  fără titlu (răspuns la opinia nr. 2)
  (mesaj trimis de anonim în data de 18.06.2023, 13:58)
  Ce o fi asa interesant, nu inteleg.
  Care este "semnificatia" ?
  2.4.  fără titlu (răspuns la opinia nr. 2.3)
  (mesaj trimis de anonim în data de 18.06.2023, 14:31)
  Daca nu intelegi,las-o balta,nu e de tine politica
  2.5.  fără titlu (răspuns la opinia nr. 2.4)
  (mesaj trimis de anonim în data de 18.06.2023, 22:23)
  Ma asteptam sa-mi explice un "specialist" ca tine.
  Cand s-a dus ministru chinez al Apararii in Rusia tot asa ai interpretat?
  Dar ia-o pe asta
  Blinken l-a invitat pe Qin într-o vizită la Washington „pentru a continua discuţiile şi au convenit să programeze o vizită reciprocă într-un moment convenabil ambelor părţi.
  Cum interpretezi ? Este scris adanc pentru mine dar pentru un meserias ca tine este floare la ureche sa intelegi semnificatia. Ne poti explica?
3. fără titlu
(mesaj trimis de anonim în data de 18.06.2023, 16:38)
The Bank Credit Land Boom of 1835-37 preceded the banking Panic of 1837 with after-effects that lasted through 1838.
Why did this happen?
The answer is that President Andrew Jackson won office on the platform of eliminating the National Debt.
During his second term as President, he took advantage of a huge real-estate bubble that raged in the Western Territories.
The federal government owned vast tracts of Western land.
Jackson sold public lands and used the proceeds in order to pay off the National Debt.
Unfortunately, this venture resulted in a real estate bubble that led to a banking panic when the real-estate bubble burst.
Subsequently, the Cotton Boom of 1838-39 preceded the Debt Repudiation Depression that lasted until 1845.
In the Antebellum South, cotton was king.
As the railways expanded in the South, construction of new textile mills along the rail lines drove an increased demand for raw cotton.
In addition, demand for baled cotton continued to remain high in Britain due of its flourishing mill system in Greater Manchester and beyond.
However, the Panic of 1837 in America wreaked havoc on the state-based banking system that had gone on a money-creation binge.
In response, the states implored the U.S. Congress to bail them out as it had in 1789.
Congress declined.
In turn, many states repudiated their debts to the federal government: a six-year depression followed.
Of more than a dozen significant boom/bust cycles preceding the 1930s, the best known was the Bull Market Boom of 1928-29 that preceded the Crash of 1929.
This resulted in a depression that lingered until the beginning of the Second World War in Europe.
Taking office during the first recession that followed World War I, President Warren G.
Harding and Vice-President Calvin Coolidge pushed Congress for the economic plan called
“A Return to Normalcy” with a national budget program, tax reduction, emergency tariffs, farm bankruptcy relief, and immigration restrictions.
As a result, the Gross Domestic Product grew by an average of 7% per annum fr om 1924 to 1929.
High wages and surplus savings created an investment vacuum.
Wall Street responded.
The Crash of 1929 remains our best lesson of a manipulated financial bubble.
During the 1920s, the United States experienced unrivaled prosperity.
The businessman was exalted!
By March 1928, market speculation had grown into a national pastime.
During the following year and a half, market gains exceeded those of the previous five years.
Unscrupulous manipulation had slithered into the market.
Brokers banded together in trading pools to manipulate specific stocks.
Over a period of months, the pool managers quietly accumulated shares of the target stock.
Next, the pools enlisted the help of the stock’s specialist, the person who worked on the floor of the exchange and kept a private book of buy/sell orders.
Using insider information, the pool members traded with one another, allowing their trades to be recorded on the public stock-ticker.
Repeating this action again and again produced the illusion of a “Hot Stock.”
The members continued to trade the same shares back and forth.
By increasing volume and price throughout successive trades, the pools created the impression of speculative activity.
As the pools heated up, they enlisted the support of loyal tip-sheet writers to fan the flames.
These tip-sheet writers were the 1920s equivalent of CNN Money and the Bloomberg Channel.
Attracted by ticker activity and managed news, millions of non-savvy investors thronged to purchase shares.
As the market price reached its apex, the pools sold their inventory of shares to a wa iting and willing public, a soon to be wiser public.
Pool members reaped enormous profits while the public found itself holding stocks that suddenly deflated.
The Chief Financial Officers (the CFOs) and other insiders were selling stock in their own companies—selling it “short.”
This means that they were selling shares of their own stock that they had borrowed, expecting to buy them back later at a lower price.
In March 1929, Herbert Hoover took office as President.
By the Labor Day weekend, the financial goose was cooked.
The market peaked on September 3rd and subsequently declined sharply on September 9th.
The market faltered for the next month and a half, much like the bobbing stern of the HMS Titanic before it went under, so that by October 21st gradual price declines wiped out the equity of many investors.
In turn, this led to margin calls in which brokers demanded that investors contribute more equity to cover the fall as they went “below water” on their stocks.
Most customers either sold low or lost their investment as they failed to meet margin call.
These events led to further market-price declines.
Finally, on “Black Thursday” (October 24th), prices plummeted as thirteen million shares were traded.
During the following weekend, attempts were made to stabilize the markets by both the government and bankers.
However, on “Black Tuesday” (October 29th), more than sixteen million shares were traded as the stock market began its long-term descent.
At the end of the year, President Hoover tried to fight the ensuing Depression by instituting Public Work projects, the Smoot-Halley tariff, and increased corporate taxes.
In 1930, there was a short-lived economic recovery, but afterwards, the market and economy ratcheted downward through six additional episodes of bleak, brief hope before bottoming out in July 1932.
After a slight recovery during the election season of 1932, the economy backslid during the winter of 1933 as banks failed and closed.
That year, the Great Depression reached its depth.
The Tulip Craze reflects simple idiocy coupled with the stupidity of crowd mentality.
Though most of us identify tulips with Holland, hey were not indigenous to that country.
Originally, tulips came to Holland fr om Turkey in 1593, imported as a luxury good.
However, given their new environment, many bulbs succumbed to a disease a color-breaking virus that is transferred by feeding insects.
It causes the petal pigmentation to break into flame-like multi-colored stripes.
The Dutch prized these patterns.
Since tulip bulbs are perennials, the bulbs preserved their uniqueness and perceived value due to a scarcity of the patterns that were the most prized.
As with any rare product of fixed supply, increased demand caused a rise in the market price.
Bulb merchants stockpiled the most popular patterns and held them back fr om the market artificially.
In effect, the phenomenon of “Tulip Mania” resulted fr om hoarding, which led to an escalation in prices.
To invest in bulbs, Dutch citizens liquidated good stores of value.
Purchasing frenzy caused bulb prices to reach astronomical levels.
As market demand outran investment capital, speculators developed a method of call options.
These required only a down-payment of the purchase price.
In January 1637, margin-buying spurred bulb prices to rise twenty-fold.
However, the bubble finally burst: During the following month, prices plummeted twenty-fold.
As the market tumbled, the market equity positions of investors evaporated.
Panic ensued.
Investment funds fell into bankruptcy as they failed to honor their call options.
Faced with a collapsing financial market, the Dutch government intervened and attempted to settle contracts at 10% of their purchase price.
Unfortunately, market prices continued to fall, dropping below the government price-floor until bulb prices settled to that of a common onion.
The Tulip Craze mimicked the behavior of other bubbles that have occurred in the present day.
First, market speculation built slowly with a gradual ascent in prices.
Second, the number of investors increased.
That fueled progressive speculation.
Third, speculators introduced margin-buying that helped the market to grow exponentially.
Fourth, as the bubble developed, the market rose rapidly to spiked prices.
Fifth, that bubble burst and market price collapsed rapidly due to a contemporaneous failure to meet margin calls.
Next, we will look at the British crisis known as the South Seas Bubble, a crisis that stands as the first major manipulation of financial markets.
Until the Crash of 1929, this bubble endured as the classic example of opportunistic self-enhancement.
The South Seas Company was formed by Parliament as a British trade concession in 1711.
This was a monopoly for areas of the Pacific that were under British rule.
The company was a startup firm with no sales and no earnings, only with great prospects.
The real prospects centered on market manipulation and insider trading.
In the early eighteenth century, Britain had entered its period of imperial prosperity.
However, stock ownership remained a matter of privilege that was limited mostly to the aristocracy.
Furthermore, women could not inherit land, although females could own stock at that time.
A pent-up demand for stock developed because of wide accessibility along with the added benefit that dividends that were paid out of profits went untaxed.
Parliament granted the enterprise a monopoly concession along with loaned capitalization of ?10 million pounds sterling.
Publicly unknown at the time, members of Parliament had bought capitalization bonds for South Seas at ?55.
Once the company went public, these investors exchanged each unit for ?100 of stock in the South Seas Company.
However, its inexperienced directors quickly entered into the slave trade, a venture at which they failed.
South Seas maintained its stock price in the market despite this misfortune as well as a war with Spain, shipments of goods that were misrouted and lost, and bonuses paid to the directors in a form that diluted the value of shares.
Nevertheless, the situation improved in 1719.
Britain signed the Peace of Utrecht, a treaty with Spain that enabled British trade with Mexico.
Given this newfound prosperity, the directors of South Seas offered to fund the entire British national debt of ?31 million.
Stock prices doubled.
Five days after the bill became law, South Seas offered a new issue of stock at ?300 per share.
The company offered a second issue at ?400.
This one rose to ?550 per share within a month.
The directors offered yet another at 10% down, with no payments for one year.
Share price continued to rise to ?1,000.
The feasibility of the scheme became secondary as the Greater-Fool Theory took over—speculators would purchase shares, prices would rise, secondary buyers would appear, and the speculators would profit in the after-market.
In the summer of 1720, the directors liquidated their own shares.
The news of their divestiture leaked out quickly.
Share price collapsed and a market panic ensued.
The British government narrowly averted the complete erosion of public credit.
In response to this threat, Parliament passed the Bubble Act that forbade issuance of stock certificates in any company.
In addition, Britain implemented other measures in order to restore confidence.
The government confiscated the estates of company directors in an attempt to remunerate South Seas Company investors.
Other propositions put forth in Parliament included placing bankers in sacks filled with snakes and throwing them into the Thames River!
In summarizing this bubble, let us analyze the events.
First, there was a pent-up demand for investment opportunities.
Second, the government sponsored a trade-concession monopoly.
Third, inexperienced management failed to create any real value for the company.
Fourth, war and the entry of new competitio exerted external pressures on the firm.
Fifth, graft occurred, which involved members of Parliament in an effort to pass legislation that was advantageous to a private company.
Sixth, dilutive stock dividends and new (dilutive) stock issues were sold on generous terms and margins while insiders manipulated trading that included the dumping of shares.
Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the United States and its major trading partners experienced a decade of severe economic downturn that led to the Second World War.
The Soaring Sixties marked a return to the former depths of market depravity.
fr om 1959 to 1962, the market saw more new issues than in any previous period.
Often, we refer to this period as the “Tronics” Boom as it was marked by electronic and silicon names.
During these years, a simple name change by even a shoelace company to something like
Powertron Ultrasonics could double its share price in respect to its actual earnings within a matter of days.
During this era, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) uncovered extensive market manipulation and fraud.
The underwriting investment banks withheld shares to keep the market “thin,” thus generating rapid price increases in the after-market.
This situation evolved into financial debauchery.
To avoid ensnarement by the SEC, issuers distributed adequate prospectus with warning labels resembling the ones present on cigarette packs.
In response, the SEC took the position that, though it could warn fools, the commission could not prevent neophyte investors fr om handing over their money.
By 1962, the boom had gone bust as the merry-go-round broke down.
The SEC suspended brokerage firms that soured the sixties.
The third great merger trend struck fr om the 1950s to the early 1970s.
Many companies sought to combine horizontally with firms that were involved in the same business or vertically with suppliers or customers.
However, a new wave of conglomerate mergers occurred as firms combined with companies in completely unrelated industries that enjoyed sales curves that ran countercyclical to one another.
In compliance with anti-trust laws, most large firms are restricted fr om acquiring or merging with other companies within the same industry.
The firm seeking an acquisition could do so more easily across industries.
However, executives discovered that the acquisition process could produce growth in the Earnings per Share of a company.
They discovered too late that a bubble driven by conglomerate mergers would develop during the late 1960s.
When the acquisitions stop, someone got burned.
The Conglemerate Bubble proceeded like a chain letter.
Such tactics worked for awhile as investors in the 1960s tended to be more interested in steady rapidly rising earnings and less concerned with how the sausage was made during the bubble that reeked of the public-relation messages of promoters.
However, the beginning of the end of the Conglomerate Bubble occurred when electronics-producer/defense-c ontractor Litton Industries announced lower-than-expected quarterly earnings in January 1968.
Next, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched an investigation of conglomerate mergers in July of that year.
Market prices fell again.
During this aftermath, the SEC and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) called for clarification of reporting methods and standards for conglomerates.
This call triggered another large sell-off that resembled the collapse of the South Seas Company.
In summary, let us review the ch aracteristics of the Conglomerate Bubble.
First, there were management difficulties in attempts to juggle diverse product lines.
Secondly, the new financial math of conglomeration was far fr om transparent and led to expressions of viable concerns by regulators and other parties.
Third, acquiring companies needed to have larger earnings multiples than those firms in the shrinking supply of target companies.
Fourth, conglomeration eventually resulted in lower earnings and flat Price-to-Earnings ratios.
Fifth, in turn, lower earnings led to the shedding of unrelated, poor-performing acquisitions.
Throughout the next few decades, a series of relatively minor bubbles occurred.
However, the core of the Conglomerate and other bubbles continued to follow a slow build followed by a rapid ascent to an unsustainable peak before a sudden collapse.
In the late 1960s and beyond, we have experienced crises fueled by Concept Stocks, ones whose current valuation appears out of line with traditional valuation metrics.
Mutual funds proliferated. Furthermore, the fund holdings tended to be stocks that possessed an exciting concept and generated great near-term performance.
As many of these funds soured in the seventies, investment wisdom returned to sound principle.
Solid Blue Chip stocks came into vogue as investor expectation turned toward long-term benefits.
1.Financial markets are not voting booths but weighing instruments
2.The ways and means of valuation have not changed over time
3.Every piece of real, personal, and intellectual property is worth only the benefit that flows fr om it
4. Like any other economic crisis, this time is NOT different
What do Financial Crises mean to us?
The potential negative impact on incomes that result fr om both major and minor affects the survival of many businesses and institutions.
When we understand Financial Crises, we prepare ourselves to survive and prosper.
s c cret
1. 3.1. fără titlu (răspuns la opinia nr. 3)
  (mesaj trimis de anonim în data de 18.06.2023, 20:26)
  Pe axul timpului.
  3.2. fără titlu (răspuns la opinia nr. 3.1)
  (mesaj trimis de anonim în data de 18.06.2023, 22:25)
  Superb :-)