"Greater China"

The Times Online UK reports that mega agency holding company WPP will move to double its presence in China, buying up controlling stakes in as many as five firms. WPP currently claims a 15 percent share of the Chinese ad market, half again as much as that of its closest competitor. The group's revenues in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong amount to about $250 million. WPP has managed to win favor of Chinese officials, becoming the only western firm allowed to own a real equity stake in a mainland Chinese firm. Its announcement shows sensitivity to that relationship, explicitly considering the disputed island of Taiwan to be part of China, even as it functions as a sovereign state under the nuclear umbrella of the U.S. WPP's chief also called China the "least bureaucratic place around."

Only a week ago, the E.U. made moves to remove military trade sanctions to China, ignoring pleas from the U.S. to keep them up in light of recent discoveries of Chinese nuclear bomb designs found in Pakistan, Libya, Iran and suspicions that similar designs are the basis of a new nuclear bomb officially announced two days ago by North Korea. The trade sanctions were originally imposed due to the violent repression of democracy protests a decade ago, but the U.S. has sought to keep them in place for a series of additional reasons over time.