Xi Gives Trump a Taiwan Test President Trump and Xi Jinping will meet in South Korea on Thursday, and most media attention is on trade. But Mr. Xi has another agenda, which is to coax Mr. Trump to weaken American support for the democracy of Taiwan. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said over the weekend that Americans shouldn’t worry that the Administration “is going to get favorable treatment on trade in exchange for walking away from Taiwan. No one is contemplating that.” Good to hear. Mr. Xi’s big ask has been that the U.S. formally oppose independence for Taiwan. The current U.S. policy is deliberate ambiguity. It acknowledges China’s position that there is one China and that Taiwan is part of it, but doesn’t endorse that policy. This isn’t a pedantic distinction. Mr. Xi, not unlike Vladimir Putin with Ukraine, aims to condition the world to his narrative that Taiwan is a rogue province—so he can subdue 23 million free people on an island the Chinese Communist Party has never r...
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Hurricane Melissa Is the Third Category 5 Storm This Year—That’s Only Happened Once Before Hurricane Melissa swirls in the Caribbean Sea, as seen by the GOES-19 weather satellite operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Colorado State University/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration As it bears down on Jamaica, Hurricane Melissa has become the third Category 5 storm of the 2025 Atlantic season—just the second season on record to ever see more than two Category 5 hurricanes. The only other Atlantic season to achieve this feat was the blockbuster one of 2005, which featured four Category 5 storms: Emily, Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Hurricanes are categorized on the Saffir-Simpson scale based on their wind speeds: a storm becomes a Category 1 when its winds reach 74 miles per hour and a Category 5 when they reach 157 mph. Category 5 storms are rare—Melissa is only the 45th Category...
Ratland China: That Sinking Feeling High-end Chinese EV maker Nio has trouble maintaining its charge 28 Oct 2025 What will be China’s answer to Tesla? In 2020, it looked like Nio. That year, shares in the luxury electric-vehicle maker rose more than 2,000 per cent, reflecting its potential as a homegrown brand that could match the engineering and design of Elon Musk’s company, attracting a rising class of local affluent consumers. Today, Nio’s ascent is proving harder to sustain, and the premium EV segment has turned out to be far narrower than investors once hoped. The prize — chiefly scale, and with it the hope of expanding profitability — has already been captured by rivals playing a very different game. Nio delivered about 222,000 vehicles last year, up 40 per cent from 2023. It still records a net loss, running into the red by the equivalent of $720mn in the second quarter of this year. Local peer BYD, China’s market leader by number of vehicles, shipped more than 3mn last ye...
China doubles down on industrial policy Beijing should focus more on domestic demand to sustain high economic growth 28 Oct 2025 Much has changed since China’s top Communist party officials gathered in 2020 to set out their economic priorities for the country’s current “five-year plan”. Donald Trump’s frenetic second US presidency has upended the global trading system. An ongoing property slump has battered consumer confidence, compounding the public’s shaken faith in Beijing’s economic management after the sudden abandonment of draconian Covid-19 restrictions. Leaders are increasingly concerned about neijuan, or “involution” — shorthand for industrial overproduction fuelling ferocious price wars across the manufacturing sector. So there are some understandable notes of caution in the conclusions of the senior cadres who gathered last week to discuss policy for the half-decade from 2026-2030. The communiqué from last week’s meeting, presided over by President Xi Jinping, highligh...
BIS flags risk of inflated private loan credit ratings LEE HARRIS AND EUAN HEALY — LONDON · 28 Oct 2025 Credit ratings on private loans held by US insurers may have been systematically inflated, the Bank for International Settlements has warned in a new paper on the growing risk of “fire sales” during periods of financial turmoil. Ratings on private credit investments have come under scrutiny following a rise in insolvencies and recent highprofile bankruptcies at car parts maker First Brands and auto lender Tricolor. The rapid collapse of the two businesses has rattled credit markets with some investors highlighting concerns over their complex funding structures. Smaller rating agencies have captured market share in the fast-growing world of private credit by providing so-called private letter ratings, which are typically only visible to an issuer and select investors. US life insurers have been among the biggest buyers of such debt. The number of insurance securities rated by Mo...
Ratland China Pushes to Silence Victims of African Mining Disaster 2 miles Source: European Space Agency (March 22, 2025 satellite image) Carl Churchill/WSJ The U.S. Embassy in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, said the size of the spill made it the sixth-worst mine-tailings dam accident ever, by volume. Toxic sludge flowed into the Kafue River, leaving dead fish along a 70-mile stretch and poisoning farm fields. Dozens of students at Copperbelt University in Kitwe were hospitalized after drinking contaminated water in February and March, according to a student group. The university closed for two weeks in February, citing the risk that contaminated water posed to students. In an internal embassy email reviewed by the Journal, U.S. Ambassador Michael Gonzales wrote: “One organization that analyzed over 170 water and soil samples from this disaster report that they have never encountered a polluter that has demonstrated such a lack of remorse or accountability as Sino Metals.” ...
Trump Accelerates Our Decline Into Moral Relativism Donald Trump in Washington, Oct. 24. Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg News Moral relativism is enticing. It enables me to establish the moral value of everything I do by reference to the behavior of others. It allows me to avoid censure by judging my intentions, choices and actions not on the basis of whether they are intrinsically right or wrong, but by the lesser standard of whether someone in a similar position might have done something similar. It is deeply corrosive of personal mores and social trust. Over time it dulls the conscience to any moral hierarchy. It is never a legal defense and shouldn’t be a moral one. Moral relativism is hardly new in public life. Self-exoneration through false moral equivalence by public figures is as old as time itself. But when it becomes the controlling ethical architecture of public behavior, we are in serious trouble. Its effect is to give leaders permission to do just about anyth...