What China bears are really up against

The signing of over $60 billion worth of deals during Xi Jinping's visit to the UK, including the much-anticipated nuclear power agreement that has critics wondering how a major Western economy could entrust such sensitive strategic assets to a communist dictatorship, has left the following impression of David Cameron and George Osborne.

Actual facts and events like this are perhaps the most telling gauge of just how bad things are with China's supposedly crashing economy.

Financial Times explains why, in addition to other bubbles of late, China has probably experienced a "bear bubble" as well.

If financial services powerhouse Britain is in any way a bellwether for where America is headed (some food for thought, given how much more central financial services have become to our own economy since the crisis, as well), then Xi's UK trip gives Beijing something to aspire to in terms of just how warm and fuzzy its relations with Washington could one day be...once the ruling class here, as in London, falls all over itself to please its mandarin-apparatchik counterpart.