CNN reports: "China's middle class is now the biggest in the world, and growing much faster than America's, according to research by Credit Suisse. There are 109 million Chinese with wealth of between $50,000 and $500,000. Since 2000, twice as many Chinese as Americans have joined the middle class. Credit Suisse measured wealth rather than income to avoid temporary changes caused by unemployment, for example. Chinese are getting richer at an astonishing rate. Wealth per adult has quadrupled to about $22,500 since 2000. The country now accounts for a fifth of the world's population, while holding about 10% of global wealth."
Bloomberg News reports: "China's island-building in the South China Sea is driving Asian nations to seek closer cooperation with the U.S., Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said. The American defense chief made the comment Tuesday in response to a question -- which he didn't answer -- about plans being weighed by the Obama administration to sail U.S. Navy ships inside the 12 nautical miles that China claims around man-made islands it created in the sea north of Australia. 'Uncertainty in the South China Sea is having the effect of increasing our interaction with other partners in the area,' Carter said at a Boston news conference with Secretary of State John Kerry and their Australian counterparts. 'It's having the effect of increasing the desire to cooperate with the United States.' Carter cited as examples Vietnam, India, the Philippines and Japan, 'which is doing more in general in this part of the world to support the rules-based order in East Asia,' he said. Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made the same point on Sept. 21, a week after becoming leader, as he pledged to continue Australia's surveillance flights over the South China Sea."
The Washington Post reports: "In a Democratic presidential debate that focused primarily on domestic issues, China warranted just a handful of mentions - mostly from Webb, a former Virginia senator. Webb mentioned the 'pivot to Asia' in his opener and (twice!) called China America's greatest 'strategic threat.' He also blasted Beijing over the South China Sea and called out China's record on pollution, casting doubt on the efficacy of U.S.-China climate deals... The comment was picked up by Bernie Sanders, who said the United States must be 'extremely aggressive' working with China, India and Russia - a remark that led Clinton to relate just how aggressive she'd been, saying she and President Obama were 'hunting for the Chinese' at the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference."