Tag: United States

Red Sea Attacks Leave Shipping Companies With Difficult Choices

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The shipping companies that move goods on one of the world’s busiest trade routes for factories, stores, car dealerships and other businesses face an excruciating decision. They can send their vessels through the Red Sea if they are willing to risk attacks by the Houthi militia in Yemen and to bear the cost of sharply higher insurance premiums. Or they can sail an extra 4,000 miles around Africa, adding 10 days in each direction and burning considerably more fuel. Neither option is appealing and both raise costs — expenses that…

Tesla Recalls 1.6 Million Cars in China to Fix Self-Driving Systems

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The Chinese government announced on Friday that Tesla would recall practically all of the cars it has sold in the country to adjust their assisted-driving systems, less than a month after a similar recall in the United States. To address the problems, Tesla will transmit updated computer software to its cars in China, the State Administration for Market Regulation said. The updated software involves “adding additional automatic assisted steering control,” the regulator said. It also said that Tesla would remind customers to pay attention to their driving and follow all…

This N.Y.U. Student Owns a $6 Million Crypto Mine. His Secret Is Out.

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Jerry Yu has the trappings of what the Chinese call second-generation rich. He boasts a Connecticut prep-school education. He lives in a Manhattan condominium bought for $8 million from Jeffrey R. Immelt, the former General Electric chief executive. And he is the majority owner of a Bitcoin mine in Texas, acquired last year for more than $6 million. Mr. Yu, a 23-year-old student at New York University, has also become — quite unintentionally — a case study in how Chinese nationals can move money from China to the United States…

Income Inequality Has Been Transformed Globally

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Culturally, the age of inequality is still churning: Over just the last six months, we’ve had the song “Rich Men North of Richmond” and Shawn Fain’s leading the United Auto Workers into a triumphant labor war with Detroit’s Big Three while wearing an “Eat the Rich” T-shirt. But at the structural level, our picture of American inequality also seems to be changing. According to some measures, U.S. income inequality hasn’t meaningfully grown over the last decade, the very period in which it has become such a potent cultural and political…

The Debt Problem Is Enormous, and the System for Fixing It Is Broken

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Martin Guzman was a college freshman at La Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, in 2001 when a debt crisis prompted default, riots and a devastating depression. A dazed middle class suffered ruin, as the International Monetary Fund insisted that the government make misery-inducing budget cuts in exchange for a bailout. Watching Argentina unravel inspired Mr. Guzman to switch majors and study economics. Nearly two decades later, when the government was again bankrupt, it was Mr. Guzman as finance minister who negotiated with I.M.F. officials to restructure a $44 billion…

Pro-China YouTube Network Used A.I. to Malign U.S., Report Finds

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In a faintly stilted tone and with slightly awkward grammar, the American-accented voice on YouTube last month ridiculed Washington’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas, claiming that the United States was unable to “play its role as a mediator like China” and “now finds itself in a position of significant isolation.” The 10-minute post was one of more than 4,500 videos in an unusually large network of YouTube channels spreading pro-China and anti-U.S. narratives, according to a report this week from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a security-focused…

The Clock is Ticking on Improving China-U.S. Relations, Experts Say

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“There isn’t a clear message from the U. S., or the rest of us saying, ‘Here is an economic proposition. Here is why we think that working with us is going to be good for you in the long term. And here is what flows from that,’” she said. “Like who is a friend, right? Why are they a friend? What are the benefits of being a friend? What are the risks of not being a friend? “ The discussion also veered into larger geopolitical issues — mainly Taiwan and…

In Taiwan, I See a Geopolitical Dance Up Close

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I was born in Taiwan, grew up in the United States, worked extensively in China and now live in Taipei. This mix of experiences has given me a front-row seat to the complex, decades-long dance between these nations. Lately, the world is paying considerably more attention to my homeland, especially after the former U.S. House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, visited in August 2022. Kinmen, also known as Quemoy, is a group of islands governed by Taiwan that were the front lines of the first and second Taiwan Straits Crises decades ago.…

Could Biden’s Clean Energy Push Be a Victim of Its Success?

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Dalton, Ga., was once known as the carpet capital of the country. Economic diversification meant branching out from wall-to-wall to hardwood flooring. Now, at Qcells, a solar panel company, robots patrol acres of shop floor where delicate solar cells are packaged, laminated and boxed into sophisticated panels — almost 30,000 a day at peak production — in a highly automated production line. The company built a massive factory in Georgia — one of the most crucial states in the 2024 presidential election — and has another in the works. Both…

Can U.S.-China Student Exchanges Survive Geopolitics?

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On a cool Saturday morning, in a hotel basement in Beijing, throngs of young Chinese gathered to do what millions had done before them: dream of an American education. At a college fair organized by the United States Embassy, the students and their parents hovered over rows of booths advertising American universities. As a mascot of a bald eagle worked the crowd, they posed eagerly for photos. But beneath the festive atmosphere thrummed a note of anxiety. Did America still want Chinese students? And were Chinese students sure they wanted…