China Redux

Last week I wrote about worrisome signs of speculation in the Chinese stocks market.  DiligenceChina has a long post with deep intelligence on why the Chinese stock market will undergo a correction shortly.  Here’s a interesting excerpt on what to expect from the Chinese goverment in the wake of a correction:

The Chinese government has no love for speculative bubbles, and they probably won’t take direct action to maintain market price levels – but can be expected to take action to protect the integrity of the trading system. In other words, listed companies will be bailed out, but individual speculators will not.

DiligenceChina also has a great list of “5 non-signs of things to come” as China reaches towards superpower status, even though I disagree with many of the points.  It looked as if China got off easy for the anti-satellite test, but it’s a little too early to tell how this is playing out behind the scenes.   And China and Japan are not going to become bosom buddies, Abe’s visit aside.  And yet, progress is being made…

The New York Yankees are sending a “delegation” to Beijing next week that might lead to the establishment of a baseball academy in China, reports the Washington Post.

The team is sending its top brass in what would appear to be an effort to woo Chinese leaders in advance of the 2008 Olympics. Yankees President Randy Levine and General Manager Brian Cashman will head up the party.

“Everybody thinks that that is a great place to grow the sport of baseball,” Levine said. “There’s a real appetite for it. The Chinese want to move forward and expand their talents in the game and really make it a well-known, very active sport.”

Major League Baseball, along with every other major sports league, would love to make its sport the next big thing among China’s 1.3 billion consumers. Just don’t expect China to become a pipeline of talent to the MLB a la the Dominican Republican or even Japan. China got wailed on in last year’s Baseball World Series, going 0-3 in losses to Japan (18-2), South Korea (10-1) and Taiwan (12-3).

On other China sports front news, Houston Rockets All-Star center Yao Ming likely will not begin on-court workouts until after the February 16-18 NBA All-Star game after fracturing his tibia in late December.  Yao, who is averaging 26 points per game in the best season of his career, still managed to lead all NBA players in all-star voting.