Hopefully "a combination of surprise and secrecy" does not also wait us for new developments in Bird Flu. Unfortunately, some very bad news is leaking out of China.

http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/english/page1.shtml
("Boxum: Abundant News" first broke the SARS story. They're now covering human-to-human H5N1 transmission in China)

Summary & Comment by a genetics / public health expert:
http://www.recombinomics.com/whats_new.html

The frightening thing is that Avian Flu is far more dangerous than SARS, so if they are experiencing an outbreak, we can all be in DEEP trouble. The other issue is that we are completely unprepared for this. All the warning signs are apparent, in open public sources, but there is very little action or even awareness of the seriousness of this situation.

Given the stakes, this should be on the radar at least as much as monetary policies!

Your report is that representatives of foreign banks were HELD HOSTAGE by the PRC? And, did any have the courage to protest, or are they all just whores?

Should we all go marching down the street with Mao's "little red book" in hand?

There is no difference between this government and Adolf Hitler's.

Trade with them......is like trading with the Third Reich.

Sometimes, the sheep lead themselves to slaughter.

Your report is that representatives of foreign banks were HELD HOSTAGE by the PRC? And, did any have the courage to protest, or are they all just whores?

Should we all go marching down the street with Mao's "little red book" in hand?

There is no difference between this government and Adolf Hitler's.

Trade with them......is like trading with the Third Reich.

Sometimes, the sheep lead themselves to slaughter.

revalue, i think. certainly for the link. 8.11 rmb/ $ is stronger than 8.28 rmb/ $. one yuan now buys (marginally) more dollars.

tho maybe the title was mean to be a libertarian commentary on locking up bankers (even temporarily) and confiscating blackberries.

"Devalued" up top ought to be "revalued" shurely?

Ok. I'll stop beating this dead-horse, but China is really acting irresponsibly.

Here's the World Health Organization loudly complaining about the PRC:
http://www.theworldforum.org/story/2005/7/25/113048/859

This kind of treatment of banks and bankers is worrisome; blocking essential global public health monitoring is a strategic threat.

If Mubarak has seen Casablanca one too many times ("round up the usual suspects"), maybe the Chinese have been watching Goldfinger.

The Chinese government may have been a little over-dramatic, but their query for secrecy doesn't seem that bizarre to me. In foreign exchange markets, huge sums of money can be made by people who have such information and this is no more bizarre than the lock down process than the Department of Labor goes through when generating employment numbers every month.

Brad and Daniel: thanks for catching the very problematic typo. It's fixed

I've recently arrived back from a stint of research in Beijing and at the US DoC. The Chinese govt. officials I talked to are all quite competent, and there is no hint of anything nefarious going on (at least within MOFCOM; the security bureaus are, of course, not quite as reformed). I'm rather amazed that so many people think China today is the same as China 1970 or China 1989.

That said, the human rights situation, especially in the West, remains atrocious, but even it is slowly improving.

Some people still want to see people in Mao suits and waving little red books. The idea of a modern China with competent bureaucrats is too disconnected from their preconceived notions of what is going on in China. Like Falun Gong. People in the west think they're the most important religious minority group when almost all Chinese think think they're crazy brainwashed cultists.

Hey, China's political philosophy is rooted in plain old mid-20th century Italian Fascism.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I would suggest that many are over estimating the influence that the technocrats had in this decision. While the move itself was about 2%, it served two Central Committee purposes. It made it a little more expensive to invest in China with dollars and it raised the costs of Chinese goods exported to the United States. I have argued on my blog that the Chinese leadership see this move as one more step in an on-going attack on the United States.

This is all about China, not the West. The leadership believes that it has dealt a blow to Western economic interests and strengthened China.

Actually, your typo raises a question: what's the opposite of devalue? To say "revalue" doesn't specify a sign; it could be a strengthening in the yuan relative to the dollar, or a weakening. I can't think of a one-word term that means "to strengthen one's currency."