China’s Economic Surge Has Roots Before Deng, Book Finds

The official position of the Chinese Communist Party is that the answer is easy: Mao Zedong. But as evidence has accumulated in recent years about the extent of the killings, torture and chronic economic mismanagement through much of Mao’s rule, academic assessments outside China and sometimes even inside have been increasingly damning about Mao’s legacy.

That has produced a search for who should be given the credit for China’s re-emergence as an economic juggernaut with growing military and political heft. Jung Chang, the author of one of the most scathing biographies of Mao, as well as the best-seller “Wild Swans,” has suggested an alternative in a new book: Cixi, the empress dowager who for practical purposes was the ruler of China for most of the years from 1861 until her death in 1908.

Using extensive access to imperial court archives in Beijing that have not been available to biographers outside China, Ms. Chang presents her subject as neither the cruel despot nor the easily manipulated ruler whom the Communist Party and other critics have long portrayed. Her book, “Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China,” presents Cixi (pronounced tsuh-shee) as a powerful, strong-willed woman responsible for most of the modernizing programs undertaken during her rule, only to be thwarted on many occasions by men who were sometimes in the pay of foreign powers.

Ms. Chang gives Cixi credit for building China’s first rail artery from Beijing to Wuhan, although she initially opposed it, as well as for strenuously resisting Japan and other foreign powers, protecting freedom of the press and even seeking in her last days to give millions of Chinese men the right to vote.

Some historians have criticized the book as painting too rosy a picture of its subject.

John Delury, an assistant professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, who specializes in the Qing dynasty, said that, with most of the chapters ending with strong praise of Cixi, he was concerned about whether the archival material had been objectively assessed. “As a reader, you don’t know what to trust, because everything is the best possible” interpretation of her actions, he said. “Really what we need is a post-revisionist biography that is very scholarly and very careful.”

Speaking in Hong Kong last week, Ms. Chang defended her work as fair while acknowledging that she “did develop sympathy” for Cixi.

“I documented every single one of Cixi’s killings, some of which have not even been put out by the official propaganda,” she said. “What I did was to provide the context and why Cixi did it.”

Ms. Chang said: “It is a biographer’s job to enter the head of your subject. I mean that is my job — I felt I entered Mao’s head, and I felt I entered Cixi’s head.”

A few other authors have also begun offering somewhat favorable interpretations of Cixi, notably Sterling Seagrave in his 1992 book, “Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China.” Chinese historians, too, have offered more sympathetic interpretations of Cixi and other Qing court figures who resisted more radical calls for change in the late 19th century. But Ms. Chang said the Beijing archival material to which she unexpectedly gained access after the international success of her biography of Mao showed that Cixi had played an even more central role and been even more important to modernization than previously believed.

Although Ms. Chang’s books are banned in mainland China, Ms. Chang said the government had continued to let her travel to China each year to visit her aged mother, but with restrictions.

“I’ve made a commitment not to speak at public gatherings, not to talk to the press and not even to see my friends — I just restrict my visits to my mother and very close, old friends who have nothing to do with politics,” as well as a few Chinese scholars, she said. “I just hope that I can still go back to China and see my mother.”

Long-Term Care Litigation Sees Surge

Plaintiffs and defense lawyers told The Legal that litigation against nursing homes and other facilities that provide care to older Pennsylvanians has ticked upward in the last decade, along with increased advertising by plaintiffs firms.

Congressional Talks on Syria Thwart Early Market Surge

The stock market rose modestly on Tuesday as renewed fears about an American military attack on Syria dampened an early rally.

Stocks surged in the opening minutes of trading as investors felt that a military strike on Syria was not imminent after President Obama announced over the weekend that he would seek Congressional approval before taking action. That move is expected to delay any attack until at least next week, when Congress returns from its summer recess.

But the early rally faded after the House speaker, John A. Boehner said he would support Mr. Obama’s call for military action. Mr. Boehner said the United States needed to respond to the Syria’s suspected use of chemical weapons. Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, also voiced support.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 23.65 points, or 0.16 percent, to 14,833.96. The index had climbed as much as 123 points in early trading.

The Dow was also held back by Microsoft and Verizon, which both slumped after announcing deals.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index gained 6.80 points, or 0.42 percent, to 1,639.77. The Nasdaq composite index rose 22.74 points, or 0.63 percent, to 3,612.61.

The stock market also got an early boost from a report showing that manufacturing expanded last month at the fastest pace since June 2011. The report was better than economists had expected, according to estimates compiled by FactSet.

In corporate news, CBS shares rose $2.40, or 4.7 percent, to $53.50, after the broadcaster and Time Warner Cable reached an agreement that ended a blackout of CBS and CBS-owned channels. Time Warner Cable shares rose $1.90, or 1.8 percent, $109.25.

Other corporate news was disappointing. Microsoft stock fell $1.52, or 4.6 percent, to $31.88, after the software company said it would acquire Nokia’s smartphone business and a portfolio of patents and services for about $7.2 billion.

Verizon fell $1.37, or 2.9 percent, to $46.01, after the company agreed to pay $130 billion for Vodafone’s 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless.

After a tough August, stocks may struggle to rally in September because of a string of events that could shake investors, said Randy Frederick, managing director of active trading and derivatives at the Schwab Center for Financial Research.

The S.& P. 500 logged its worst performance last month since May 2012 as investors became increasingly concerned about when the Federal Reserve would cut its economic stimulus. The Fed’s next meeting, which starts Sept. 17, is when many on Wall Street think it will begin winding down its bond-buying program.

Lawmakers in Washington may also throw investors a curve ball. To keep the government running, Congress needs to pass a short-term spending bill before the fiscal year starts Oct. 1. Then there is the government’s $16.7 trillion borrowing limit. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has warned that unless the debt ceiling is raised soon, the government would lose the ability to pay its bills by the middle of October.

September has often been a losing month for the stock market. Since 1945, the S.& P. 500 has slumped nearly six out of every 10 Septembers, with an average loss of 0.6 percent.

In government bond trading, the price of the 10-year Treasury note fell 20/32, to 96 28/32, while its yield rose to 2.86 percent, from 2.79 percent late Friday.

Major Surge Is Unlikely for Prices of U.S. Gas

But energy experts say that a major jump is unlikely for the 29.2 million Americans whom AAA expects to travel 50 miles or more on the road this weekend — up from 28 million last year — despite the summer of unrest across the Middle East and North Africa.

In fact, Americans will pay considerably less for gasoline than they did last Labor Day weekend, when refinery shutdowns and Hurricane Isaac, which hit the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, heightened fears of gasoline shortages.

“Gasoline prices are going to be surprisingly temperate,” said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at GasBuddy.com. “In California drivers will be spending 30 to 40 cents less than last Labor Day weekend for a gallon of regular and much of the rest of the country will be between 5 and 15 cents lower than last year.”

According to the AAA daily fuel gauge report, the national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline on Friday was just over $3.58, still only 5 cents higher than a week ago and 4 cents cheaper than a month ago. Gasoline prices are just beginning to catch up with the rise in global crude oil prices, which had climbed roughly $6 a barrel in just a few days as the United States and allies prepared to attack Syria in retaliation for what they suspect was a government chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians.

Oil prices retreated by about $2 a barrel on Thursday and slumped a bit more on Friday. Experts said prices could easily jump back up after an expected attack on Syria.

Oil experts say gasoline prices could rise as much as 10 cents a gallon over the next week or two, as higher oil prices gradually push up wholesale and retail prices. But few expect a big, lasting jump unless there is a major expansion of conflict across the Middle East that seriously threatens oil production and shipments.

The Energy Information Administration projects that the national average price for a regular gallon of gasoline will be $3.59 during the third quarter and $3.52 for the entire year, 11 cents below the average 2012 price. It expects an even lower 2014 annual price of $3.37 a gallon.

“Gas prices are probably going to be spiking over the next few days,” said Michael Green, a spokesman for AAA. But he added: “It’s not horrendous. We’re looking at the lowest Labor Day gas prices since 2010.”

One reason, according to a report by the Energy Department on Wednesday, is a surprise weekly jump of three million barrels in national oil inventories. The report also showed a much lower-than-expected drop in inventories of gasoline, which remained particularly well supplied on the heavily populated East Coast. Several East Coast refineries that curtailed operations last week for unplanned maintenance are expected to be back up in the next few days, which should further increase supplies.

Summer driving normally tapers off after the Labor Day weekend, and that should help keep a lid on prices. Demand for gasoline should drop by about 15 million gallons a day in September from August levels, according to government statistics.

Most important, the country is better prepared for any shocks if the instability in the Middle East and North Africa escalates much further. United States gasoline inventories are up nearly 10 percent from a year ago, while demand is up by only about 1 percent.

Mostly because of a frenzy of shale drilling and expansion of oil sands production, the United States and Canada are producing two million barrels of oil a day more than when the turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa broke out two years ago. That, along with the decline in consumption since 2007, has meant that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and other inventories now have the capacity to replace about nine months of imports, about 40 percent more than only five years ago.

New Laws and Rising Costs Create a Surge of Supersizing Hospitals

The consolidations are being driven by a confluence of powerful forces, not least of which is President Obama’s signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act. That law, many experts say, is transforming the economics of health care and pushing a growing number of hospitals into the arms of suitors.

The changes are unfolding with remarkable speed. Two big for-profit hospital chains, Community Health Systems of Tennessee and Health Management Associates of Florida, are combining in a $7.6 billion deal.

In New York City, Mount Sinai Medical Center, which is one of the country’s oldest and largest private nonprofit hospitals, is buying the parent of Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospitals. Tenet Healthcare of Dallas, which operates in 10 states, is buying Vanguard Health Systems of Nashville, a network of 28 hospitals and facilities that includes Detroit Medical Center.

In fact, Booz & Company, a consulting firm, predicts that 1,000 of the nation’s roughly 5,000 hospitals could seek out mergers in the next five to seven years.

“There’s immense logic for them to become large super-regional systems, even some national systems,” said David W. Johnson, a managing director for BMO Capital Markets, which advises nonprofit health systems. Some chains are merging to increase their size and their negotiating clout with insurers, while others are trying to reduce costs and improve care, he said.

Some economists and health insurance companies worry that the trend could raise health care costs.

“The rhetoric is all about efficiency,” said Karen Ignagni, the chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group that represents insurers. “The reality is all about higher prices.”

Whatever the outcome, hospitals are merging faster and in greater numbers than they have in years. After holding steady through much of the 2000s, the number of deals doubled to 105 in 2012 from 50 in 2009, according to Irving Levin Associates, a health care research firm. That is still less than half the annual peak during the last merger wave, in the late 1990s, but Booz and others say this is only the beginning.

Hospital executives say they have little choice but to combine given the coming changes in the industry. Many hospitals are struggling with lower payments from the federal government and declining patient admissions. They are also being confronted with fundamental changes in how they are paid under the Affordable Care Act and by private insurers.

Instead of being paid on volume, rewarded for filling beds and performing more tests and procedures, hospitals are becoming responsible for more of the total cost of a patient’s care. As a result, they have an incentive to keep patients healthy — and out of their facilities.

By combining, hospitals can reduce costs in back-office activities like billing and devote more financial resources to investing in expensive electronic medical records systems and physician practices to better follow patients outside the hospital. Under the new state exchanges created by the federal health care law, consumers will be able to tell the difference in hospital prices between markets that have consolidated and those that have not, Ms. Ignagni said.

The plans have similar designs, but a policy offered by the same insurer in, for instance, Northern California, where hospitals have merged, will be more expensive than one offered in Southern California, where the systems are smaller, she said.

Federal regulators are concerned that the growing number of mergers could lead to anticompetitive practices. The Federal Trade Commission has increased its examination of the deals and has blocked a handful of transactions.

Stocks & Bonds: Surge in Commodities Prices Helps End Slump on Wall St.

Mining companies and others dealing in commodities helped pull the stock market out of a three-day slump on Thursday.

News that China’s trade rebounded last month signaled the end of a six-month slowdown for the world’s biggest buyer of raw materials. The report drove prices up for copper and other commodities, and that helped lift Newmont Mining, Freeport-McMoRan and other stocks in the materials industry.

“The one thing that stands out today is the better news out of China,” said David Joy, the chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial. “It comes as a pleasant surprise.”

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index edged up 6.57 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,697.48.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 27.65 points, or 0.2 percent, to 15,498.32. The Nasdaq composite gained 15.12 points, or 0.4 percent, to 3,669.12.

With little other news to drive trading, the stock market had meandered lower this week. The S.& P. 500 fell three days straight and remains down 0.7 percent for the week. It is still up 19 percent this year.

Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network in Waltham, Mass., said a number of concerns weighed on the market this week. Comments from Federal Reserve officials have convinced many investors that the bank will begin pulling back its support for the economy in the coming months.

In an interview on CNBC after the market closed, Richard W. Fisher, head of the Fed’s Dallas branch, reaffirmed his view that it was time to wind down the bank’s stimulus effort.

At the same time, companies are warning of slower sales and turning in tepid second-quarter results. Mr. McMillan said it was starting to look as though corporate earnings had not kept up with the stock market’s strong pace this year.

“I think people are realizing that stock values are getting disconnected from earnings growth,” Mr. McMillan said. “For the rally to continue, people will have to pay more for earnings that aren’t growing that much.”

Investors are paying more for profits. A year ago, the price-earnings ratio for the S.& P. 500 was 13.4, according to the data provider FactSet. Now it is 15.6, which is still near the long-run average.

In other trading on Thursday, the better economic news out of China sent copper, widely used for electronics and to wire buildings, up 10 cents, or 3 percent, to $3.27 a pound. Gold rose $24.60, or 2 percent, to $1,309.90 an ounce.

In the bond market, the price of the 10-year Treasury note rose 10/32, to 93 1/32, while its yield fell to 2.59 percent, from 2.60 late Wednesday.

Consumer Price Index Rises 0.6% on Surge in Gasoline

Other data showed only mild underlying inflation pressures, potentially giving the Federal Reserve room to keep interest rates low to boost the economy.

The U.S. economy has shown signs of faster growth in recent months but Tuesday's reports highlighted some of challenges faced by the economy.

"There are still a lot of global headwinds," said Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse in New York.

The Fed said U.S. factory output rose only a modest 0.2 percent in September, which many analysts said was a sign the cooling global economy is weighing on American manufacturers.

The increase in output was not enough to make up for a sharp decline in August, and manufacturing production fell at a 0.9 percent annual rate in the third quarter.

The European debt crisis has been weighing on the global economy, denting demand for goods produced by manufacturers from China to the United States. U.S. exports fell 1 percent in August.

Also, business investment has recently cooled in the United States, putting another drag on factories. This is probably due to worries over the global economy and the possibility the U.S. government could cut spending and raise taxes next year.

"At a time when the economy needs all the help it can get, business spending is stalling," Wells Fargo said in a research note.

MILD CORE

U.S. stocks traded higher on Tuesday as strong earnings from key companies soothed fears about the global economy, while yields on Treasury debt rose.

In a separate report, the Labor Department said a surge in the cost of gasoline pushed the country's Consumer Price Index up 0.6 percent in September.

Higher costs at the pump force many American consumers to cut back on other spending, although retail sales data for September released on Monday pointed to a pick-up in consumer spending despite higher fuel costs.

The government said weekly earnings for workers were flat in September when adjusting for inflation.

Crude oil and gasoline prices rose over the summer as the United States and its allies raised pressure on Iran over its nuclear program. Prices for gasoline have comes down slightly in recent weeks, which could ease pressure on consumers this month.

The inflation report also showed that prices outside food and energy - seen as a barometer of inflation trends - rose only 0.1 percent in September for the third straight month.

"The Fed can confidently focus on propping up the economy because inflation is not a problem," said Cary Leahey, an economist at Decision Economics in New York.

The Fed said last month it would buy $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities every month until the jobs outlook improves substantially.

Another report suggested the Fed's stimulus plan was gaining traction in the housing sector. Home-builder sentiment rose to a fresh six-year high in October, the National Association of Home Builders said.

In the 12 months to September, overall consumer prices increased 2 percent, the fastest pace since April and up from 1.7 percent in August. Core prices also rose 2 percent in the year through September, up a tenth of a point from August's reading.

While most economists don't see inflation threatening the U.S. economy, some believe the Fed would tolerate prices rising faster than the central bank's 2 percent target over the shorter term to allow stronger economic growth as the country recovers from the 2007-09 recession.

Allowing this view to blossom, the Fed said in September it would keep interest rates low for a long time even after the economy strengthens.

"Core inflation was low and unthreatening (in September), but in truth neither matters to a Fed monetary policy committed to lowering unemployment," said Joseph Trevisani, a market strategist at Worldwide Markets in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.

(Additional reporting by Alister Bull in Washington and by Ryan Vlastelica and Richard Leong in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Australians Surge in Quest to Build Quantum Computer

In an article that appeared on Thursday in the journal Nature, a team of Australian and British scientists, led from the University of New South Wales, reported that they had successfully constructed one of the basic building blocks of modern quantum computing by relying on manufacturing techniques now used by the modern semiconductor industry.

Quantum computing will potentially lead to a new generation of supercomputers that are not intended to replace today’s machines but will instead open new computing vistas, from drug and material design to code breaking, by offering speed to address a new class of problems.

“We are used to designing cars and airplanes with computers,” said Andrew Dzurak, a physicist who is director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility and lead researcher on the latest advance. “Imagine if you could start building your molecule or your material on a computer and then completely simulate its behavior.”

The basic building blocks of quantum computers are quantum bits, or “qubits.” Unlike today’s digital computers, which process information in a binary fashion based on logic states of “on” and “off,” a qubit can for brief periods represent multiple states simultaneously. Potentially, this means it is possible to tackle vast new problems by performing parallel computations using a relatively small set of qubits — perhaps as few as several hundred. The advance by Dr. Dzurak’s team involves placing a single electron — embedded in a silicon chip — in a “quantum state,” and then repeatedly measuring the state.

In February, a second group based at the University of New South Wales published an article in the journal Nature Nanotechnology reporting their advance: the construction of a single-atom transistor using a different but related design approach.

In both cases, the research teams are international. There is an increasing awareness, however, that Australian scientists have made significant advances this year toward this long-promised new type of computing.

While there is a growing consensus among scientists that working quantum computers will emerge during this decade, there is also a growing belief that they will not replace the conventional computers that are now carried in the pockets of more than half the world’s population. For one thing, most of the quantum computing approaches only worked when temperatures were cooled to near absolute zero.

Though there are only a handful of workable algorithms designed to run on quantum computers, scientists say their application may prove vastly more useful than today’s technology in simulating a wide variety of biological, chemical and physical systems. That means they could become the standard tool for a wide range of new industries, like drug and material design.

The achievements of the two teams is a payoff from an investment the Australian government began making in the 1990s.

“Both groups are highly competitive and leading in the world in what they do,” said Gerhard Klimeck, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue, who has collaborated with both groups and was a co-author of the Nature Nanotechnology paper.

Dr. Dzurak’s group’s work contrasts with a research team led by Michelle Simmons, director of the ARC Center for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at the University of New South Wales. That group has taken an approach based on placing individual atoms using a scanning tunneling microscope, allowing great precision in building devices on an atomic scale.

The team led by Dr. Dzurak uses conventional semiconductor techniques to implant a phosphorus atom just 10 to 15 nanometers below the surface of a silicon chip. That approach has the twin advantages of using industry standards and potentially extending the individual electron’s duration in a quantum state.

The United States has federally financed, corporate and university research efforts under way to design usable quantum computers. I.B.M., for example, recently expanded its research at its Almaden laboratory in California.

Andreas Heinrich, a physicist who is a quantum researcher at I.B.M., pointed out that neither Australian group had shown the ability to interconnect multiple qubits. That capability is necessary for a quantum computer.

Dr. Dzurak said he believed that capability could be achieved as soon as a year from now.