Society

China bashing has become a bipartisan sport this election season. But if the bashers won’t heed the economic case for not knocking down America’s second largest trading partner, they ought to consider the political one: Even if they get into office by peddling false economic theories, in order to stay there they will have to produce the right results. This protectionism never has – and never will – deliver.

Every election needs a foreign villain, and with the public ODed on the A-rab threat, our political class has turned its sights further East. And, truth be told, China’s autocracy is not helping itself by choosing this moment to halt shipments of rare metals used in wind mills, solar panels and the like. Still, slashing trade with China will do as much to stimulate America’s moribund economy as a bitch in heat would to stimulate my neutered dog’s libido.

The dichotomy between the world's two greatest economies is the tension most impacting the financial markets and geopolitics today. The U.S. wants to add to already substantial amounts of indebtedness to avoid deflation and to stimulate the economy by dint of lower interest rates. China, on the other hand, wishes to dampen its economic growth and stifle growing inflation by raising its interest rates, which it just did this week. Two opposite paths to avoid crisis, and another violent battering of financial markets.

Ben Bernanke hopes quantitative easing will increase the flow of credit to the domestic economy and stimulate job creation. China's Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, is plainly worried about asset bubbles forming in real estate and other activities in China.

Two years after the tainted Chinese milk crisis, another scandal has emerged in the Chinese milk industry. But this time, it is about the manufacturing of scandal by way of dirty tricks, giving us a peek into the sometimes murky and dark arts of Chinese public relations.

Police are investigating whether the dairy industry leader, China Mengniu Dairy, was involved in spreading false rumors that certain milk products for children and infants, at the number two industry player, Yili Group, and a lesser-known competitor, Synutra International, caused premature sexual development, including the growth of breasts. The story went viral this summer in China in a particularly damaging way for Synutra, whose stock took a beating. Now the head of Mengniu’s child dairy department and staffers of a Chinese PR firm that has long worked with Mengniu have been detained in the investigation into the made-up claims.

An American was injured in an explosion near a subway station in downtown Beijing Thursday afternoon, police confirmed late Thursday.

The blast happened at 3:20 pm Thursday beside a newspaper stand near the Dongzhimen subway station in Dongcheng District, police said in a press release.

Police said a 30-year-old American studying in China, who happened to pass by, was slightly injured in the leg and had been rushed to a nearby hospital.

Police are investigating the cause of the blast.