AIIB: A red herring for China's true ambitions on the global financial stage?

SOME 30 years ago, when press baron Rupert Murdoch was at war with British printing unions, he declared his intention to open a new London evening paper and duly set up a printing plant in the East London borough of Wapping, ostensibly for the purpose of printing the paper there.

By then, he had added The Times of London to the jewels in his crown and a former colleague of mine on that paper even put forward my name as a potential business editor of the new publication - although I had limited interest in taking up any offer from that quarter.

Nevertheless, it came as a rude shock to learn that the new evening paper had been an elaborate ruse, so that The Times could be moved to union-free printing headquarters in Wapping, leaving the enraged union members high and dry in London's Grays Inn Road.