Four people died when a massive sinkhole swallowed them in the Chinese city of Dazhou.

The ground ripped open around 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the city in Sichuan Province, leaving a 100-square-foot chasm by the time the earth settled.

Video posted to state-run social media shows the fateful moment, in which several people can be seen casually strolling through a city plaza before the ground opens and they plummet out of view.

Two victims who had recently been married died in state hospitals after being pulled from the pit, and the bodies of two other victims, a father and his son, were taken from the sinkhole Tuesday after being buried under more than 30 feet of rubble — just beyond the reach of excavation equipment, CNN reported.

“The biggest difficulty is that the road surface is thick with a large amount of soil,” fire service official Gao Mingyue said during the search, according to the outlet.

“We had to move excavators to a lower place and we now have two large excavators digging out soils so that we can stand on a lower place and use the long arm excavator to dig deeper.”

More than 40 firefighters were involved in the search and rescue — and some were nearly gobbled up themselves when the sinkhole was disturbed during rescue attempts.

“When we arrived, the caved-in area was not big, which only covered [6½ feet] both in length and depth. But during the rescue process, it collapsed again, causing another [6½-foot] sink,” Gao said. “Firefighters at once evacuated while doing the rescue work.”

Underground infrastructure further hampered rescuers’ efforts, Gao said.

“Given what we found in the hole, cables are crossed in a mess, including two high-tension lines, weak electric wires and gas pipelines,” he said.

Officials have not said what led to the sinkhole, but they are often caused by underground erosion, CNN noted.</s>Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Authorities said Tuesday that four people have died from a 10-foot-wide sinkhole collapsing the ground beneath them in China.

The ground opened up Sunday afternoon in a district of Dazhou city, Sichuan province, of southwestern China, the South China Morning Post said.

Five people fell into the hole at around 2:30 p.m. local time, according to Yahoo7 News, as one young man was immediately grabbed up by passers-by and the four other people sank into the hole.

Rescuers located the first victim within 10 hours, but he died on the way to the hospital. The second victim was pulled out nine hours later, was also declared dead by paramedics.

CNN identified the other two victims pulled out of the rubble Tuesday as a father and his young son.

It is unclear what caused the sinkhole though they usually form when acidic rainwater dissolves soft rock beneath the soil, creating a void, CNN reported.</s>The most frequent questions that I get when I speak to non-economists concern the tariffs that the United States is levying on imports from China. Why is President Donald Trump’s administration doing this? Aren’t the tariffs a tax on the goods purchased by American consumers? Why does Trump think the US can «win» a trade war with China? How do the Chinese respond to the current tariffs and threats of more? And so on.

I usually start my answer by stressing that, like almost all economists, I oppose tariffs in general. I, too, prefer an environment in which governments do not interfere with imports and exports, and in which US firms can operate freely in foreign countries.

I acknowledge that we have an enormous trade deficit with the rest of the world (about $800 billion this year, or 4% of US GDP) and that our trade deficit with China is about half of that total (about $400 billion). But I always emphasize that our overall trade deficit reflects the fact that the US spends more than it produces, requiring us to obtain the difference through net imports.

It’s hard to know why the US is imposing tariffs, because the administration has not said clearly what it is trying to achieve in doing so. One reason for the ambiguity is that several senior officials are vying to influence America’s China trade policy: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, White House Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

The US did file a complaint with the World Trade Organization earlier this year after an extensive investigation confirmed that the Chinese violate their WTO obligations by requiring foreign firms that do business in China to have a domestic partner and to transfer technology to that firm. But the US did not wait for a WTO ruling to confirm its claim and to authorize the imposition of tariffs as a penalty for China’s rules violation. Nor has the US said that it would end the tariffs if the Chinese rescinded their illegal technology-transfer requirement.

Chinese officials say their policy is clear: American firms can have access to the Chinese market only if they contribute their technology in return. But this policy is explicitly prohibited by the WTO and is not a policy that other countries pursue. And President Xi Jinping recently confirmed China’s approach by announcing that foreign companies could enter the automobile industry without such technology sharing.

When Mnuchin went to Beijing a few months ago to negotiate with the Chinese, he brought a long list of changes in Chinese economic policy that the US would like to see, including an end not only to the technology-transfer requirement, but also to Chinese government subsidies to various industries. The Chinese negotiators rejected Mnuchin’s list, arguing that it was too long and sought to change the nature of China’s economic policy.

I think policymakers should make it clear to the Chinese that the US would end its tariffs if the Chinese stopped stealing American firms’ technology. This would include the Chinese policy of requiring US firms to transfer technology to Chinese partners as a condition of doing business in China, as well as the Chinese practice of taking technology directly from US firms through cyber espionage and other illegal methods.

The Chinese government agreed to end government cyber theft of industrial technology when then-President Barack Obama met Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 and showed the evidence of such activity by the People’s Liberation Army. But that agreement didn’t cover theft by state-owned enterprises and private firms. Negotiations should cover all forms of technology theft.

Trump and other US officials think a tariff war with China can be won because China exports about four times more to the US than the US exports to China. The US can therefore impose a much larger burden on Chinese exporters than the Chinese can impose on US exporters. The Chinese economy is also much more dependent on exports than the US economy is.

The tariffs are indeed a tax on American consumers and firms that use Chinese products in their production processes. But the increase in prices that Americans pay for Chinese imports and the resulting loss of real income are very small. Annual imports from China total about $500 billion. If the US imposes a 25% across-the-board tariff, the rise in the cost to American buyers – assuming no change in the prices charged by Chinese exporters – would be $125 billion.

With US national income exceeding $20 trillion, the increased cost would be a little more than 0.5% of total US spending. And, because Chinese exporters probably reduce the prices of some of their products, the increased cost to American buyers would be less than $125 billion. Moreover, American buyers would shift some of their purchases to products produced by US firms or to imports from other countries, further lowering the net cost.

In short, the cost of the imposed tariffs is not large relative to the gain that would be achieved if the US succeeds in persuading China to stop illegally taking US firms’ technology. The White House should make it clear that this is the goal of US policy, and that the tariffs will be removed if and when the Chinese comply with their WTO obligations.</s>Regardless of how severely Donald Trump rebuked China over manipulating the yuan rates to level out the negative consequences of the tariffs for exporters, the weakening of the Chinese currency, as well as of other developing countries, is directly linked to the US’ own actions.

The American economy is on a steady rise, along with Donald Trump recently introducing a tax reform which helped to free up additional capital. These are the conditions that could threaten with the economy overheating, and regulators naturally raise interest rates to avoid such negative effects. So as to battle the rates’ corrections, other countries have to symmetrically raise their interest rates, which is not always possible.

Meanwhile, China, for instance, remains the biggest importer of energy resources, while their prices are denominated in dollars, which, because of the weaker yuan, makes the energy resources for China more costly. Another example is India, where a vast part of the population is involved in agriculture. The strengthening of the dollar leads to a surge in diesel prices, which is something Indian farmers are already complaining about. Even Russia experienced the effect: ruble rates with regard to the dollar are too low, taking into account the current oil price tags.

The trouble is that for developing countries, the devaluation of national currencies carries as much risk as increase in interest rates, as both may halt economic growth. This is the reason why the term “de-dollarization” is increasingly gaining popularity now. Even the EU is indignant over the fact that the world’s most essential resources are nominated in dollars. President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker billed it “absurd that Europe pays for 80 per cent of its energy import bill — worth €300 billion a year — in US dollars when only roughly 2 per cent of our energy imports come from the United States.” “It is absurd that European companies buy European aircraft for dollars, not euros,” Juncker stated.

China also senses the absurdity, as the dollar penetrates even the country’s domestic economic norms, expert with the Financial Strategy Center at the Social Sciences Academy Zhang Ning told Sputnik China.

“China’s State management for currency control has found that citizens are permitted to annually buy currencies worth no more than 50,000 US dollars, and this applies to purchases of any foreign currency. So, all currency operations are automatically denominated in dollars, thereby reinforcing its status. Why not, for instance, denominate these currency limitations in yuans? Say, one would be permitted to purchase currencies not for a maximum of 50,000 US dollars, but for 350,000 yuans?”

China is certainly doing its best to ditch the dollar in international transactions. The second biggest economy notably launched its own oil futures, denominated in yuans. But it is not immediately clear whether the volume of business deals involving them will be sufficient to fully substitute for the current Brent WTI.

Russia fully backs China’s bid for de-dollarization. In 2014, the countries clinched and further prolonged an agreement on yuan-ruble currency swaps for a staggering 150 billion yuans, which is equal to 1.5 trillion rubles. By doing so, both nations obtained access to liquidity in the other country’s currency, having no need to purchase it in currency markets.

“I consider this to be a rather reasonable plan. For instance, China, which seeks to translate trade of oil and oil products into national currencies, has launched yuan oil futures. However, prices for most commodities in international trade are still denominated in dollars. This is a lengthy, transitional process that requires alternative currencies to grow and boost their value and influence in developing markets and the development of their economies. This can’t be achieved overnight,” the scholar concluded.

Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Zhang Ning and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.</s>Amid the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, it seems that Beijing may be getting the short end of the stick already.

On Sunday, the People’s Bank of China said it was cutting the reserve requirement ratio for most banks by 100 basis points, which will result in an injection of 750 billion yuan ($109.2 billion) in cash into China’s banking system. The move is intended to provide easier lending and more liquidity in China's economy as the impact of U.S. sanctions start to hit manufacturing and the overall economy.

Several analysts are claiming that the ratio move shows China is getting nervous about a protracted trade war with the U.S. However, if China is getting the jitters, the official tone coming out of Beijing is more stiff lipped defiance. The government claims in a 71-page paper that it’s not afraid of a trade war and that its economy is “heavily resilient.”

Fraser Howie, an independent analyst and China watcher told CNBC on Monday that "China is probably facing its worst period since the global financial crisis.” “All news is against it,” he said. "They certainly want to play down any talks of panic or near panic ... but they're clear it's not business as usual in China.”

Bloomberg News said in a report that the Bank of China move was understandable as a short-term response to a more challenging growth environment, but it risks being another attempt to crank up an old economic- model whose effectiveness has declined and whose unfavorable side effects could increase. The bank move also could be a preemptive step to avoid massive outflows of investor money from its financial system if the trade war continues.

On the energy front, China has already blinked, maybe even twice or thrice (if that is a word).
• First, it conceded in August by removing U.S. oil imports from a list of possible duties. Two months earlier, China - perhaps trying to either intimate U.S. oil producers (who have been largely supportive of Trump’s policies thus far) who would in turn pressure President Trump, or either by pressuring Trump directly, indicated it would levy a 25 percent duty on U.S. oil imports.
• Second, since China is the largest buyer of American crude, Beijing likely discarded one of its strongest bargaining chips in the trade war so far. Some reports claim that U.S. oil imports to China are worth $8 billion all by themselves, so erasing oil from the tariff list reduced the value of sanctioned goods by roughly one-third.
• As far as Beijing’s LNG tariff threats are concerned, the reduction from an earlier 25 percent duty to 10 percent could also be considered another blink on China's part. Beijing, though it does have a host of other gas and LNG suppliers, at the end of the day still needs American LNG as the country continues to pivot away from dirtier burning coal needed for power production in favor of cleaning burning natural gas. By 2020, per government mandate, gas is earmarked to make up at least 10 percent of China’s energy mix, with further earmarks by 2030.

Moreover, Beijing's 10 percent duty on U.S.-sourced LNG will merely see that cost passed onto China's state-run oil majors, while also increasing revenue for LNG sellers, including American LNG exporters.

Tariffs will also increase the price of LNG in Asia as producers and traders in the region will likely increase LNG on the spot market (which China needs to fill gaps in winter supply) to prices just under U.S. LNG prices with the tariff cost added in. Complicating the matter further, the 10 percent LNG retaliatory tariff comes just before winter when LNG demand is set to increase, and customers are already vulnerable to price hikes for the cleaner burning fuel.

Energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie estimates that China will need to buy about 8 million tons of LNG on the spot market, where commodities are purchased for immediate delivery or shipment in the near future CNBC, citing analysts, claims that Chinese LNG buyers will also try to swap as many LNG cargoes as possible to avoid the 10 percent tariff, but if they can’t swap cargoes they will be stuck paying the 10 percent duty.

As other LNG producers take advantage of China’s 10 percent tariff increase and hike LNG prices, the markup could add another $4 million to $5 million on LNG cargoes for Chinese buyers, Wood Mackenzie added.</s></s>A free trade agreement between China and Norway is expected 'sometime next year' as productive discussions are continuing between the two nations, Norway's top envoy in China said on Oct 9.

'The FTA with China is a priority for Norway,' Geir O. Pedersen, Norwegian ambassador to China, said at a news briefing in Beijing.

Pedersen said Norway 'has the same ambitions as before. We believe it is more important than ever to deepen and develop political dialogue, economic dialogue, exchange of tourists and investment, and have trade (with China)'.

Last month, China and Norway concluded the 12th round of FTA negotiations in Beijing. China is currently discussing signing or upgrading FTAs with 27 countries.

Starting on Oct 11, Norwegian King Harald V and Queen Sonja will make a state visit to China at the invitation of President Xi Jinping.

It will be the couple's first visit to China since China and Norway normalized their diplomatic ties in December 2016. It is also their fourth visit to the country since their first trip in 1985.

'The visit is a political and symbolic expression of the deepening relationship between China and Norway,' Pedersen said.

Besides Beijing, the couple's 10-day trip also will take them to Dunhuang, Gansu province; Shanghai; and Changshu and Suzhou in Jiangsu province.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Oct 9 that China considers the visit an important opportunity that will help China and Norway deepen mutual trust, expand cooperation and facilitate people-to-people exchanges, thus advancing their relationship.

Joining the king and queen is a Norwegian business delegation of 340 people representing 140 companies.

'It will be the largest business delegation ever from Norway to China,' said Knut Sorlie, the embassy's commercial counsellor.</s>Two people have died after a sinkhole opened up underneath them on a sidewalk in the Chinese city of Dazhou.

The People's Daily China reports four people fell into the hole, including a child, who was rescued alive.

Footage of the sinkhole swallowing pedestrians has been shared online.

WARNING: Some people may find the content disturbing:</s>China is one of Australia's major trading partners and that relationship has seen us through the GFC and other economic upheavals. But does that mean we are too dependent on China? And what could happen to us if China's economy falters?

Is the Australian economy too reliant on China? 1:18

CHINA has lost its temper with an Australian senator, accusing her of attacking it with “unwarranted invective” and “blatant slander”.

On Friday, Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells issued a grim warning in The Australian newspaper, saying China was using “debt-trap diplomacy” to build its influence among the Pacific Island nations neighbouring Australia.

She claimed China was tempting poor countries with loans they couldn’t afford to repay — a strategy far less sinister than military expansion, but no less effective.

“Today, the sovereign threat is less confrontational but the debt-trap diplomacy just as insidious,” Ms Fierravanti-Wells wrote.

“Pacific countries need to use limited government reserves to meet their loan commitments to avoid defaulting. Domestic spending and important social programs are jeopardised.

“Consequently, the internal stability of these countries may be affected and greater demand is placed on overseas development assistance from countries such as Australia.

“In short, Australian taxpayers effectively will be subsidising repayment of loans to China.”

Ms Fierravanti-Wells has previously accused China of funding “useless buildings” and “roads to nowhere” in the island nations.

China has indeed showered countries such as Vanuatu, Tonga and the Solomon Islands with loans in recent years. Between 2006 and 2016, it invested $2.3 billion in the region, according to analysis from The Lowy Institute.

But in a scathing response to Ms Fierravanti-Wells, China rejected any implication that its motives were not pure.

“The ridiculous and absurd allegation, filled with Cold War mentality, reflected the senator’s prejudice, arrogance and ignorance,” the Chinese Embassy said.

“The senator this time, in repeating the cliche of the so-called ‘debt trap’, attempted to prove her baseless accusations by quoting Tongan Prime Minister Akilisi Pohiva and citing the case of Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka.

“Prime Minister Pohiva has already clarified his earlier remarks, making it clear that ‘China has never claimed to collect the debts or take the assets from Tonga in any way, and the governments of Tonga and China have maintained contacts regarding the repayment of the concessional loans.’

“Ranil Wickremesinghe, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, has also publicly stated that ‘Sri Lanka was not falling into a debt trap caused by high-interest Chinese loans’ nor ‘ceding control of strategically vital ports to Chinese control’.”

The embassy insisted China wished to help the Pacific nations “with no political strings attached” and said any attempt to stymie its efforts would be “doomed to failure”.

“One can never win respect by smearing others. Whether China’s assistance is productive or not, and whether it is a pie or a pitfall, the people of the Island Countries have the best say,” it said.

“Over the years, China has provided assistance to relevant Island Countries within its capacity and with no political strings attached, based on fully respecting the will of the Pacific Island Countries’ governments and people and taking into full account of their development needs.

“China has also actively carried out mutually beneficial economic co-operation with these countries. All this has effectively promoted the economic and social development of Island Countries.

“Co-operation between China and the Island Countries is transparent and open. No one could deny the positive outcomes delivered by such co-operation with their assumption or imagination. Any attempt to obstruct the development of relations between China and the Island Countries is doomed to failure.”

This isn’t the first time China and Australia have sparred over the Pacific Islands issue. Earlier this year, Beijing’s state-run media went so far as to label Australia an “arrogant overlord”.

The biggest fear among China’s Australian critics is that it will use its financial leverage for nefarious means.

“Such indebtedness gives China significant leverage over Pacific Island countries and may see China place pressure on Pacific nations to convert loans into equity in infrastructure,” The Lowy Institute warned.

“It’s not win-win for China and the recipient, but simply win for China, which not only gets access to local resources and new markets, and forward presence, but can coerce the recipient state to pay a ‘tribute’ to Beijing by ceding local assets when it can’t pay back its debts.”</s>...and our world will never be the same!

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is dead. Mexico and Canada have folded. A new agreement, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), will replace it. While the new agreement maintains the integrity of the North American market, it dramatically changes the rules and tilts the playing field in favor of the United States. In particular, changes in provisions regarding the percentage of North American content required in vehicles imported under the agreement, a mandate for huge increases in minimum wages in Mexico and support for labor unions in Mexico mean that an already resurging American manufacturing base is set to expand even more rapidly.

All eyes now shift to the ongoing trade war between the United States and China, the world's two largest economies. Here the news is even better. We have already won.

Growth in China's manufacturing sector stalled this September, with export orders falling faster than they have in two years. The Caixin/ Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for September fell more than expected to 50.0 from 50.6 in August. The index measures the rate of expansion or contraction in an economy, and the neutral 50-mark divides expansion from contraction. What was once the world's fastest growing economy, destined to overtake the United States at any moment, is now poised, not simply to cool off, but to begin to shrink in size. New export orders from Chinese firms, the all-important indicator of what the future portends, are now shrinking across the board.

China's currency is in free fall. China's foreign exchange reserves fell more than expected in September 2018 to a 14-month low as the yuan weakened against the dollar.

China's stock market is crashing. It has lost $2 trillion in value already this year. China, which overtook Japan as the second largest stock market in the world only a few years ago, has now officially fallen behind Japan. The losses show no signs of abating.

Chinese investments in the US plummeted 92 per cent in the first nine months of 2018 from their peak two years ago. In New York, where Chinese money was once driving real estate prices through the roof, the Chinese are now selling and going home. In the second quarter of 2018 Chinese investors sold $1.29 billion worth of US commercial real estate. During the same time period, Chinese investors bought only $126.2 million of property, according to data firm Real Capital Analytics. This marked the first time that these investors were net sellers since 2008.

Meanwhile, back home, China is on pace for a record year in corporate-bond defaults. Chinese companies have reneged on about $2.5 billion of public bond payments so far this year. As the economy downshifts and the threat of US tariffs hangs over everything, Chinese companies increasingly simply cannot pay their debt.

Meanwhile a spokesman for the Chinese Supreme People's Court is warning of an impending flood of Chinese bankruptcies and telling the Chinese judiciary to prepare in advance.

Against this backdrop China-based manufacturers, many of whom were already in the process of moving out, have intensified the speed with which they are leaving.

"Companies aren't as eager to have production in China," says Nathan Resnick, CEO of startup company Sourcify. "We run production runs in India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Philippines and Mexico right now. Labor costs are actually more affordable outside of China, so for products like apparel where there is a lot of cut-and-sew labor, most companies are moving out of China anyway," he says. "I've been going back and forth to China for years, and it is getting more expensive. With all these tariffs coming, why not run some of your production runs elsewhere? Companies are saying that the scare of these tariffs has decreased the incentives to manufacture in China."

Discussing the trend, William Ma Wing-kai, managing director of Kerry Logistics Network, a Hong Kong-listed firm owned by Malaysia's billionaire Kuok family, stated,

In retrospect none of this should come as a surprise. The result of this confrontation was preordained. The United States is far and away the world's largest market for consumer goods. China, which lives or dies based on exports cannot lose access to the American market and even begin to replace those sales elsewhere. There are on the other hand an almost endless number of other locations other than China, including the United States, to which manufacturers can move their factories and shift production. China was already seeing the beginnings of this shift before the trade war began. The confrontation with the United States simply intensified the trend.

What comes next will reshape the global economy and the world's geopolitical landscape. China will ultimately cave and sign a deal. Its economy will not collapse. It will, however, never again see growth on the scale it has seen for the last thirty years. Within a year or two, in fact, we are likely to see a red-hot American economy surge past China in its rate of growth. China, which once thought fit to challenge the United States for global supremacy will remain a second-tier power.

Chinese influence around the world, heavily dependent on the availability of funds to invest, will decline precipitously. Chinese plans for massive defense spending will be still born. Outposts in the South China Sea once taken as harbingers of relentless expansion will instead stand as high-water marks for a nation facing the harsh reality of economic contraction.

The ultimate reckoning will come inside China however. Ever since China opened its economy to the world it has had an implicit bargain with its citizens. They would accept continued authoritarian rule by the Communist Party in exchange for a rising standard of living and greater economic opportunity. The Communist Party is about to be forced to admit that it can no longer keep its end of that bargain. What the people do next remains to be seen.
A sinkhole in Dazhou, China, kills four people.