Irish Examiner View: When economic chills cross continents

Technology warnings

China's economic performance is closely associated with the fortunes of its 69-year-old president,Xi Jinping.

The old economic aphorism always was that “when America sneezes, the world catches a cold”. While it remains substantially true — consider the alarm created by the Federal Reserve’s declaration that it will do “whatever it takes” to squeeze inflation out of the economy — the US is no longer the only player in town.

Alongside the comments of the Fed’s chairman Jerome Powell to central bankers and other economic bigwigs in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, we must place those of Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, the technology giant, which is headquartered on the Pearl River in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China’s Silicon Valley, opposite Hong Kong.