Inside China Dispatch - Archive

Sometimes it seems like China and Japan are like two brothers switched at birth and have mistaken identities. So to better understand the difference between China and Japan, let's compare the two countries and see why China continues to offer a better investment environment than Japan. Let's use my recent visit there to take a look at each country's view on globalization.

Asian market's rebounded this week following a higher bid for Bear Stearns and a lift in home sales. But that wasn't the only reason for a pop in Asian markets. Taiwan held an important presidential election over the weekend, and the new president plans to pursue efforts to strengthen ties with mainland China.

The financial crisis in the United States came to a head this week, sending international and domestic markets reeling in early trading on Monday. The markets took a hit following the collapse of Bear Stearns and JP Morgan's buyout offer for the struggling financial company.

As you know, inflation has been increasing at this level for the past year. The Chinese central bank even agressively raised interest rates six times in 2007 in an attempt to curb inflation. But these efforts haven't made much of a difference. Let's look at what kind of an impact this will have on China, as well as what we should do going forward.

It's no surprise that everyone is wondering when the current market volatility will end. Just in January, we experienced 16 days in which the Dow jumped up or sold off more than 100 points. This is bad enough, but when you consider that there were only 21 trading days in the month, the picture gets a bit more frightening.

This summer has been a rough time for investors. After a period of extreme volatility, the market bounced back last week only to become choppy again this week. Despite all of the up-and-down action, many of our China Strategy stocks have been shooting straight up over the past two weeks.