China and Taiwan, training for a war? | SCMP

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi threw his weight behind his besieged financial tsar yesterday as voices against proposed banking industry reforms grew louder and markets wrestled with policy confusion.

A day after Financial Services Minister Heizo Takenaka delayed the release of a report on cleaning up the banking system, no one was any the wiser about the fate of plans to speed up the disposal of bad loans.