Description | Kowloon, Hong Kong: military encampments on land and fleets in the bay during the Second China War: panoramic view: section one. Photograph by Felice Beato, ca. 1860.Iconographic Collections
Keywords: Felice Beato
Credit line | | This file comes from Wellcome Images, a website operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation based in the United Kingdom. Refer to Wellcome blog post (archive).
This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing.
References | Library reference: Iconographic Collection 569636iPhoto number: L0067729Full Bibliographic Record: http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1569636
Source/Photographer | https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/80/92/1ae5622265f94df0f32c5aa6f67f.jpgGallery: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/L0067729.htmlWellcome Collection gallery (2018-03-30): https://wellcomecollection.org/works/yryv6pp4 CC-BY-4.0
http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact
http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules
Twitter: @BatchelorShow
Emphasis on peaceful protests in Hong Kong. @ChristianWhiton @GordonGChang @TheDailyBeast
China’s Xi looks increasingly dazed and confused – Could Hong Kong win this showdown?
By Christian Whiton
Published August 14, 2019
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When Xi Jinping effectively crowned himself emperor at the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress in 2017, consolidating his power by ending a practice of term limits, China was supposed to be ready for its next stage of his meteoric rise.
In a triumphal speech, Xi heralded a “new era” of Chinese power and predicted the nation would become a “mighty force” under his control. But as the summer of 2019 drags on, Xi and the government he leads look increasingly weak and lost.
China’s economy is in the doldrums, put there in part by President Trump’s decision to change U.S. tactics dramatically in long-running trade disputes. Last month, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics reported the slowest economic growth since 1992. China’s manufacturing index has indicated contraction for all but two months so far this year.
In July, imports fell 5.6% compared to a year before, partly due to less demand for inputs to manufacturing that increasingly is moving out of China. (In the first quarter of this year, foreign investors pumped $10.8 billion into neighboring Vietnam, an increase of 86.2 percent.) China has also nationalized three banks since May with more bailouts expected as its overextended financial system faces extreme risk.
A fair assessment of the U.S.-China trade war shows Washington winning the dispute, although not everyone agrees. In his weekly New York Times column titled “China Tries to Teach Trump Economics,” progressive economist Paul Krugman argued that the president, “…vastly overrates his ability to inflict damage on China while underrating the damage China can do in return.”
