Maybe it was Dubai's 41?C heat. Or perhaps they were inspired by the grandiose engineering projects, such as the first underwater hotel, or the 200 artificial holiday islands shaped like a map of the world.
Whatever it was, over the past week the globe's most powerful finance ministers have shown hitherto unknown creative faculties.
Extraordinary attempts to rebalance world economics with a new version of the Plaza accord (the 1985 agreement that lowered the dollar's value) ventured into uncharted territory when the G7 backed the desirability of "more flexibility in exchange rates -- for major countries or economic areas."
It doesn't sound much, but in effect the US persuaded the finance ministers of the other six major industrialized nations to back its efforts to put the screw on China, whose policy of keeping down the value of the yuan is hurting the US economy. Beijing buys about US$10 billion a month to fix the yuan at roughly 8.28 to the dollar. A powerful lobby in the US blames cheap Chinese exports and its "manipulation" of currency markets for manufacturing woes and has put its case to US President George W. Bush.
"It's one thing for China to say no to America, but to say no to the G7 industrial countries collectively would be more difficult," says Jim O'Neill, an economist at Goldman Sachs.
It was a triumph of US financial diplomacy, according to Secretary of the Treasury John Snow, yet it may backfire spectacularly. Currency markets were turbulent last week, initially granting the G7 its wish by sending the dollar plunging to three-year lows against the yen, and pushing it well down against the euro. But stock markets in Japan, Europe and the US also fell sharply. Had Snow drop-kicked the "strong dollar policy" to the bottom of the Arabian Gulf? Did the finance ministers really agree on who they were targeting?
In fact, almost every country around the table had a different interpretation of what they were signing up to. The Americans thought the text was about China. The continental Europeans thought it was about the Americans. The British thought it wasn't really about anybody. And the Japanese assumed it was about the Europeans.
Snow said the decision was a milestone. The US manufacturing lobby was cock-a-hoop. The US could be seen to be doing something robust about the supposed causes of its jobless situation. Meanwhile, the communique gave IMF Managing Director Horst Kohler an excuse to bash the US for not adopting Europe-style "credible" fiscal rules.
The Japanese, who are the most worried about China's competitiveness, were glad to see pressure on their neighbor. But a senior Japanese official said privately that the reference to "economic areas" was about the EU, suggesting it should be constrained from any attempt to bring down a rising euro.
Japan's approach at the meeting had backfired spectacularly, at least in the short term. All the pressure was placed on the yen as it soared upwards, increasing China's competitiveness. Traders were left wondering exactly when the Bank of Japan would re-enter the market.
Back in Dubai, the currency message was backed with an imaginative "growth agenda." Snow and Gordon Brown had agreed at a breakfast in the summer that each country should outline specific steps to restore confidence in the world economy. Yet this agenda is risked by the US strategy.
"A rising yen and euro may lead to deflation in those areas and curtail growth from exactly where it is needed. And if there's less intervention, that means less demand for US treasuries and higher interest rates," says Ian Morris, chief US economist for HSBC.
China and Japan make their currency interventions by buying up US government debt, known as treasuries. This huge source of demand -- Asian countries own half of all US debt, Japan alone has US$444 billion -- puts downward pressure on interest rates. The risk is that, if the dollar falls back sharply and Asia curtails treasury purchases, the US may find it difficult to finance its debts. But Morgan Stanley's chief economist Stephen Roach says this is precisely the point.
Higher rates should suppress domestic demand growth and help build savings in the US. A weaker dollar will also help stave off deflationary risks. Meanwhile, in Europe and Japan, stronger currencies will reduce competitiveness and force policymakers to grasp the nettle of growth-boosting economic reform.
"Stronger currencies are the functional equivalent of straitjackets: forcing nations or regions to unshackle domestic demand by making internal markets more flexible, businesses more efficient; price-setting mechanisms more competitive. Without such reforms, there can be no global rebalancing," Roach says.
This may be termed the "weapon of mass devaluation" thesis. And it was a risk made worthwhile for the US by domestic political considerations.
"The political cycle means that they are going to look after their own first, but it might come back to bite them in the face," Morris says.
The G7 industrialized nations are clearly nothing of the sort any more.
They are the G7 de-industrializing nations, and the crux of the matter is how they manage the competitive threat and loss of jobs to industrializing behemoths such as China and India. Ultimately such countries need to be included.
For now it is clear that a genie is out of the bottle on currency exchanges. Traders will test the resolve of interventionists like never before.
Gambling is banned on Dubai's mainland: indeed, that was part of the motivation for the construction of artificial island resorts. But in years to come the G7 agreement in Dubai may come to be known as the most spectacular gamble of all.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US