Today marks the beginning of a new year based on the cycles of the moon. The Lunar New Year is more popularly known as Chinese New Year, although the Vietnamese, Mongolians, Koreans and Tibetans all take strong exception to the term “Chinese” for their favorite holiday.
Of course, those other countries must also reluctantly acknowledge that it was from Chinese tradition that they gained their use of the lunar calendar. In the West “Chinese New Year” is an opportunity to participate in the festivities like the dragon/lion dancing.
This holiday may also represent the love-hate relationship the rest of the world has with China. The world celebrates the Chinese New Year, but no one actually uses the lunar calendar to mark events. In the geopolitical and “geoeconomical” world, everyone wants to engage and do business with China, but it seems that no one really likes it.
We wrote this past Saturday, “As US President Barack Obama said ‘TPP allows America—and not countries like China—to write the rules of the road in the 21st century.’” That pretty well and clearly expresses the “them versus us” mentality. Yet, China just announced five new vice presidents for its $100-billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
The former chief secretary to the United Kingdom Treasury was named corporate secretary. The new chief investment officer served 30 years with the Indian Administrative Services. The chairman of the Korea Development Bank will serve as chief risk officer. The new vice president of policy and strategy is currently vice president of development finance at the World Bank.The AIIB’s new chief administration officer served in senior positions in the Indonesian government for 20 years.
It’s only business.
While the US has accused China of currency manipulation, hacking secret government computers and trying to take over Southeast Asia, China, through the privately owned Chongqing Casin Enterprise Group, is buying the Chicago Stock Exchange (CSX).
Though you may have never heard of the CSX, it was founded in 1882 and handles only about 0.5 percent of US stock trading. However, because of the way that all US stock markets are electronically interconnected, the Casin Group has intimate access to the markets. Further, US stock-market rules require that trades be routed to whichever exchange has the best price for a stock at a given moment.
Conceivably, large orders on the thinly traded CSX could move prices down in a way that would force trades from the other stock markets to the CSX. Heavy CSX selling on a particular issue like Facebook, for example, could potentially cause a price crash on all the other stock markets.
US regulators are confident that a Chinese corporation would not do something like that any more than they would produce poisonous dog food, make infant formula adulterated with melamine, or sell rotten meat to Beijing McDonald’s restaurants.
Here in the Philippines, we are skeptical about Chinese government intentions. In the US “it’s only business,” since China is buying US property, not stealing it.