Latin America

 By Patrick Jenkins in London and Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo

With a rise in US savings putting unbearable pressure on China's low consumption rate, leading to the risk of a collapse in China's ability to export its overcapacity, the question about why Chinese households save so much of their income has become more important than ever.

Everyone seems to know the answer. Chinese households save, many insist, because the Confucian culture encourages saving for the future. Saving is deeply and culturally imbedded in the Chinese psyche.

In a second inaugural address tinged with evangelical zeal, George W. Bush declared: "Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world." The peoples of the world, however, do not seem to be listening. A new world order is indeed emerging - but its architecture is being drafted in Asia and Europe, at meetings to which Americans have not been invited.