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We've Gone China Crazy

Saturday, May 26, 2007 | 05:30 AM

I don't know if I will have room for all these China stories (George!) in this weekend's linkfest. On the likely chance I don't, here's a broad overview of many interesating articles about the fastest rising global economic power:

CHINA

• China's unbalanced economy: In any ordinary economy, a triple-barrelled announcement of the kind issued by China's central bank on Friday evening might have made more of an impression. With an eye to today's top-level US-China meeting in Washington, the People's Bank of China tightened lending and eased controls on its currency, policy prescriptions that touch all their host's concerns about Beijing's seemingly unstoppable export-driven economy. (FT)

• China's Very Strange Decade

• The China Solar Hotbed: Chinese solar-power companies are descending on U.S. stock markets, offering investors a new way into one of the fastest-growing corners of the renewable-energy industry. But things aren't all sunny. The latest frenzy over Chinese solar stocks was in evidence last week, when Nanjing-based China Sunergy Co. made its debut on the Nasdaq Stock Market, rising 51% in its first day of trading on Thursday. Its shares were up 46 cents, or 3.19%, to $14.90 yesterday, giving the company a market value of about $570 million. (Wall Street Journal)

• Why China Relaxed Blogger Crackdown (free Wall Street Journal)

• Yuan Isn't the Cause of U.S. Trade Deficit, Wu Says: The yuan isn't the cause of the U.S. trade deficit and a ``large'' appreciation would hurt China's economy, Vice Premier Wu Yi said, signaling the nation won't cave in to demands for faster gains. (Bloomberg)

• Tainted Chinese Imports Common: Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides. These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines. (Washington Post)

• Pao Mo': That's Chinese for Bubble

• Day trading in China is out of control. “Despite an interest rate rise on Friday aimed at cooling the market, retail investors ignored the messages from Beijing and opened 287,000 trading accounts on Monday, 35,000 more than on Friday. The explosion in day-trading has created some unintended consequences in Shanghai in the form of unwashed dinner dishes, badly ironed shirts, and dusty floors. In recent weeks the city has developed a shortage of ayis, the domestic helpers who do chores in the homes of middle-class families, because some have found more gainful employment playing the market.” (FT)

• China's Thirst for Oil and Cancer treatments

• Stock-buying fever grips China: A total of 4.79 million new A-share trading accounts were opened in April, 853,500 more than the combined total for the previous two years, according to statistics from the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation. On Tuesday, the first trading session after the week-long May Day holiday, nearly 370,000 A-share accounts were added, almost half of the number for the whole year of 2005. (China Daily)

• Chinese Investors Crunching Numbers Are Glad to See 8s: Part superstition and part self-fulfilling prophecy, numerology is a basic trading strategy in China. The philosophy reflects the widespread belief in Chinese society that numbers contain clues to good fortune. It is a little noticed force adding fuel to a roaring market in the world's fourth-biggest economy. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index is up 56% this year and quadruple its level at mid-2005, a spike that is raising concerns about an investment bubble. (Wall Street Journal)