Chinese Economy/Development thread (updated regularly)

[CardSharp]

Lol.. I wouldn't think any other major economies in Asia would want Yuan as a regional currency though..There's a lot mistrust considering the form of government and also other countries wouldn't want to give China a free hand that US enjoys now.

Any reserve currency from now on would be neutral to all countries.

I'll be more blunt and less subtle than Nomenclature and say "idiot..."

 

[Aeon]

High-speed rail on agenda | China Daily
Updated: 2010-11-22 07:12

Project part of a plan to boost Southeast Asia transport links

BEIJING - Construction of a high-speed rail link between Yunnan province and neighboring Myanmar, part of a project to upgrade transport connections with Southeast Asian nations, will start in about two months, a top rail expert said.

The line, from Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, will be 1,920 kilometers long, said Wang Mengshu, an academic of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Trains will run at about 170-200 km/h once it is completed, he added.

Wang, who is also a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, has been involved in Chinese high-speed rail projects from the outset.

Wang told China Daily that a high-speed rail connection between southwestern China and Cambodia is also under discussion. And an exploratory survey for another route that would link Yunnan and Vientiane, the capital of Laos, is under way.

The three new rail connections being developed, along with another linking China and Vietnam, will form a network that is likely to be completed within 10 years, Wang said.

"The project, which aims to boost cooperation between China and Southeast Asian nations, will greatly enhance the economic development of China's western regions," said Wang.

A national rail plan will see the network extended to 120,000 km by the end of 2020 and to 170,000 km by the end of the 2030, Wang said. Upon completion, 60 percent of the country's railways will be located in western China.

A Ministry of Railways spokesman said a detailed construction plan to link Southeast Asian countries had not yet been finalized, but confirmed that the ministry has set up working groups with these countries.

Piamsak Milintachinda, Thailand's ambassador to China, earlier told China Daily that a ministry team went to Thailand in August to gauge the investment environment for a high-speed railway as well as a rail network connecting Thailand, China and other Southeast Asian countries.

The proposed 240-km high-speed railway in Thailand, estimated to cost about $25.6 billion, would be the first such line in that country and connect Bangkok with Rayong, the industrial base in the east of the country.

Thailand has long intended to upgrade its network and learn from China's experience in "operating a high-speed rail system", the ambassador said.

Chinese experts believe that China has the technical ability to carry out the project, but other considerations may come into play.

"There is no technological barrier to building high-speed railways to Southeast Asian countries but China needs to take profitability into account," said Ji Jialun, a professor with Beijing Jiaotong University.

Domestic companies are upgrading technology to keep up with innovation and growth in the high-speed rail industry and are well positioned to benefit from increased interest in high-speed rail routes.

China's high-speed trains have clocked speeds as high as 416.6 km/hour, according to Zhao Xiaogang, chairman of the China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp, the largest listed railway equipment maker in China.

"Europe, the United States, Russia, India, Brazil and the Middle East are all mulling over plans to develop high-speed railways, indicating a boom in the industry globally," Zhao said.

 

[Brotherhood]

China to build cloud computing base in Harbin - People's Daily Online November 22, 2010

China will build a complete industrial chain of cloud computing technology and create the "China Cloud Valley" in Harbin, capital of northeastern China's Heilongjing Province over the next three years.

In the coming three years, the new industry will have a scale of 3 billion yuan, People's Daily reported on Monday. Cloud computing refers the shared use of resources from several computers facilitated by networks.

The world's largest cloud computing data centers are mostly located between 40 degrees north latitude and 50 degrees and Harbin's location is similar to that. In addition, Harbin has abundant electric power and water resources, which help to reduce the operating costs, thus Harbin has unique regional advantages in developing the cloud computing industry, said Sun Rao, vice governor of Heilongjiang Province, at the launching ceremony of the cloud computing base on Nov. 18.

The "China Cloud Valley" will include a cloud computing center base; an application, innovation and research and development base; and a business incubator base. It will mainly develop industries involved in could computing, such as the Internet of things; software and service outsourcing; film, TV and new media production; and animation production

By Liang Jun, People's Daily Online

 

[Brotherhood]

First phase of Hainan Changjiang nuclear power project started - People's Daily Online November 22, 2010

The Unit 2 of Hainan Changjiang nuclear power project officially started on Nov. 21, which marks the start of the full construction of the first phase of the Hainan nuclear power project. After two units of the first phase of Hainan nuclear power project are put into operation, they will generate 9 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity for Hainan.

The construction of the Hainan Changjiang nuclear power project was jointly invested in by the China National Nuclear Corporation and China Huaneng Group, the project site is located in the Tangxing Village of Haiwei Township, Changjiang County in Hainan Province and can accommodate four large-scale nuclear power units.

By People's Daily Online

 

[Aeon]

China earns newfound respect with Mashair | ArabNews.com
Nov 20, 2010 00:13
Updated: Nov 20, 2010 00:46

MINA: Perhaps the most notable improvement of Saudi Arabia’s many projects to accommodate Haj pilgrims is the railway that shuttled tens of thousands of people around the holy sites.

As the modern, high-tech trains picked up and dropped off passengers, they created a newfound respect for Chinese-made products and Chinese-engineering prowess. Officials said the multibillion-riyal project that was started last year will about triple its capacity from present levels when completed in 2012. Nonetheless, the rail system has already alleviated vehicular traffic around Mina and made travel for many pilgrims a snap.

The Sino-Saudi relationship has been growing over the last decade as China has sought more fossil fuels to power its economic growth. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah helped realign the nation’s trade relationships with the implementation of a “Look East” policy, which has fostered imports of heavy machinery and construction equipment as well as consumer goods. China has also raised the quality of its exported goods to fight earlier perceptions that its exports were inferior to products manufactured elsewhere.

“We would go to shopping malls and ask for Made-in-Germany and Made-in-Japan stuff. We would look down upon Made-in-China stuff,” said Suleiman Al-Hatrash, a social-sciences teacher at an Abha college. “We started taking China seriously when we went to the Western countries and saw their shopping malls filled with Made-in-China goods.”

However, the state-of-the-art rail system is changing peoples’ perceptions about China almost as fast as it is whisking passengers around Mina.

“People couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw pilgrims being ferried between the holy sites of Mina, Muzdalifah and Arafat,” said journalist Hadi Fakihi. “Those who rode the train were gushing about its high-tech aspects. China has overnight become a nation to respect and emulate.”

“China has won hearts with this successful project,” said Rashad Husein, vice president of the South Asian Pilgrim Establishment. “It is the first time China has executed such a massive project in the Islamic world. This will not only bring China and the Muslim world closer; this will strengthen the bond between Saudi Arabia and China.”

The technology transfers are not one way. Saudi Aramco, the Kingdom’s national oil company, has lent refining expertise and resources to oil and petrochemical projects in partnership with Chinese companies. Some less tangible things are being exported back to China as well.

Of China’s population of nearly 1.4 billion, about 23 million are Muslims. About 13,000 Chinese Muslims performed Haj this year, which included imams, doctors and government officials. Most of the Chinese railway engineers were not Muslims when they arrived in the Kingdom. A special town was set up for them beyond the jurisdiction of Makkah as the holy city is off-limits to non-Muslims. During the course of the construction of the railway, many of the Chinese engineers embraced Islam.

“That led to even greater love and respect for the Chinese,” said Ali Al-Harithy, a Saudi businessman conducting commerce with China. He said he also was impressed that the new stronger ties with China don’t seem to be disruptive to the Kingdom’s longstanding associations with the United States and Europe.

“It was America that helped the Arab states discover oil, and ever since ties between Saudi Arabia and the United States have been very close,” Al-Harithy said. “For China to create space for itself in this region is phenomenal. This Makkah Metro is world-class, and every single aspect of it was carried out in Chinese factories by Chinese technicians and engineers. It is an engineering marvel. Hats off to the Chinese.”

“‘Made in China’ is no longer a taboo label,” said Sudanese journalist Hassan Ibrahim. “It has now earned a halo of respectability.”

 

[Aeon]

China's top universities group together to use same entrance exam
2010-11-22 23:12:01

BEIJING, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Seven prestigious universities in China announced Sunday that they would begin using the same independent exam -- besides the national one -- to test students hoping to gain entrance to them in 2011.

The seven are Peking University, Beihang University (Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics), Beijing Normal University, Nankai University, Fudan University, Xiamen University and Hong Kong University.

Students who want to gain entrance to any of the seven universities will only have to sit one independent exam, according to the joint announcement.

"This will help lighten the students' load, otherwise they must take several exams for different universities," said the announcement.

Passing the exam could result in more than one interview chance, giving the students more opportunities to choose their favorite universities.

China's college entrance exam system is undergoing reform as universities aim to select students based on independent criteria rather than just using the results of the national exam.

In 2003, Peking University and another 21 universities were allowed to pilot the reform by using their own criteria to independently select five percent of their students.

Now nearly 80 universities across the country have the right to select talented students based on their own exams.

Education experts regard universities selecting students according to independent examinations as conducive to better understanding where the students' talents lie.

Although this may be the case, it has also created problems as students may sit many different exams as they often apply for a number of universities.

To relieve students from such pressures, the national education outline (2010-2020) released in July this year encourages high-level universities to group together to use the same exams.

"It is an inevitable trend for universities' independent enrollment to be united," Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, a Beijing-based private non-profit organization on educational policy research.

The first alliance, which commenced earlier this year, was between Tsinghua University, University of Science and Technology of China, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Xi'an Jiaotong University and Nanjing University, in this year's independent enrollment examination.

This alliance will be enlarged in the next year's university entrance exam with the participation of another two universities, Renmin University of China and Zhejiang University.

The two alliances, respectively represented by Tsinghua and Peking universities, matched each other in education quality, according to sources with the admission office of Peking University.

Meng Qian, director of the admission official at Tsinghua University, welcomed the establishment of the new alliance, hoping that the two alliances would increase exchanges.

He said the two alliances would not worry about student resources. "To promote this kind of reform of China's enrollment system is more important than to compete for students with higher grades," he noted.

Both alliances opposed aggressive competition, saying that competition should be based on fully respecting students' interests and willingness, not on luring students by offering scholarships worth more.

Nowadays more and more excellent high-school students in China are inclined to choose overseas colleges and universities.

"Chinese universities should not compete with each other but rather compete with foreign world-class universities in student enrollment," said sources at the Peking University.

 

[Brotherhood]

China invests 30 bln USD in emission cutting in 5 years - People's Daily OnlineNovember 22, 2010

The Chinese government has allocated a total of 200 billion yuan (30.12 billion U.S. dollars) from its central budget for energy conservation and emission cutting from 2006 to 2010, said an official with China's top economic planning body Monday.

The fund was expected to generate a total non-government investment of two trillion yuan, said He Bingguang, a senior official of the Department of Resource Conservation and Environmental Protection at the National Development and Reform Commission.

From 2006 to 2010, China had made breakthroughs in the scale, technological level, and commercial modeling of the country's green industries, said He at a press conference concerning the International High-tech Exhibition of Green Industries and Green Economy, to be held in Beijing starting Wednesday.

The four-day event will be attended by 127 participants, 85 of which are foreign-funded firms.

Source:Xinhua

 

[中国万岁-ProsperThroughCo-]

Stephen King: Who needs who? America and China must avoid making past mistakes again - Stephen King, Business Comment - The Independent

Who needs who? America and China must avoid making past mistakes again

Western nations look at the recent success of the emerging world with a mixture of admiration, envy and anger

In some areas of our lives, globalisation is more or less complete. On Friday, for example, I discovered that my birthday had become a major global event. I received unsolicited e-birthday cards from hotels in Qatar and Singapore, and from the Virgin Flying Club. It was all rather anonymous and depressing. In other areas, however, globalisation is in danger of crumbling.

As Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, noted on Friday, "international policy coordination is especially difficult now because of the two-speed nature of the global recovery".

Mr Bernanke is absolutely right. Western nations look at the recent success of the emerging world with a mixture of admiration, envy and anger: admiration, because China, India and other nations have pulled millions out of poverty; envy, because while the global policy stimulus has been very effective in the emerging world, high levels of debt have made it a lot less effective in the developed world; and anger because, for many Western policymakers, Mr Bernanke included, the policies pursued by emerging nations – notably the deliberate undervaluation of exchange rates – are a major threat to sustainable global economic recovery.

To emphasise the point, Mr Bernanke invoked the spectre of the 1930s. "In the period prior to the Great Depression, the United States and France ran large current account surpluses, accompanied by large inflows of gold... Neither country allowed the higher gold reserves to feed through to their domestic money supplies and price levels, with the result that the real exchange rate in each country remained persistently undervalued... These policies created deflationary pressures in deficit countries...which helped bring on the Great Depression".

Today, the equivalents of the US and France are China, Russia and Saudi Arabia – all of which run large current account surpluses, providing the global offset to America's current account deficit.

Like the US and France in the 1920s and early-1930s, they're not terribly keen on either a rise in their exchange rates or, instead, a pick-up in domestic money-supply growth and inflation. And, as with the 1930s, the world's deficit nations are struggling with deflation. Last week, the US published its lowest core inflation rate in over 50 years.

To be fair, Mr Bernanke emphasised that he had no intention of forecasting a return to the conditions last seen in the 1930s. Instead, he wanted to argue that, until and unless the world's surplus nations allowed their currencies to rise, the global economic recovery would remain lopsided, unbalanced and very vulnerable. Eventually, he argued, the two-speed world would become a one-speed world. And he clearly believed that a one-speed world would be stuck in first gear.

It's at this point that I begin to have my doubts. For all the warnings about the inability to sustain "two-speed" growth, a "two-speed" global economy has been the reality for decades.

Since the 1950s, East Asia has sustained a per capita economic expansion faster than on any other occasion in human history. Throughout the last decade, the emerging world as a whole has grown at least three times faster than the developed world. And it is this strong, persistent and seemingly resilient expansion that makes me wonder about one of Mr Bernanke's key conclusions.

In his words, "...a strong expansion in the emerging market economies will ultimately depend on a recovery in the more advanced economies..." Does this still hold true? Not obviously. Two important themes have begun to emerge in recent years. First, strong emerging-market growth is beginning to undermine growth in the developed world. China's hunger for raw materials – now increasingly being mimicked in other parts of the emerging world – has left commodity prices high despite the depths of the recession in the West. In the "bad" old days, this would have left the West facing significantly higher inflation but, today, the risk lies more with lower output. Even in the UK, where inflation is too high relative to target, there has been no wage response. Adjusted for inflation, wage growth has been pitifully weak, hindering the pace of both debt repayment and the economic recovery. The level of economic activity remains depressed by past standards.

Second, the underlying drivers of global economic growth are increasingly coming from the emerging world. It's easy enough to caricature China and other nations as being entirely dependent on exports – a view that Mr Bernanke is happy enough to support. Yet the data reveal a very different picture. Of the 3.2 per cent increase in world consumer spending recorded in 1998, all but 0.3 percentage points came from the developed world.

This year, a very different story emerges. Of the 2.4 per cent overall increase in global consumer spending, more than half comes from the emerging world.

The picture on investment is even starker. Global growth in capital spending has more than doubled since the late 1990s. At the height of the technology boom, capital spending rose at a 6 per cent annual rate, two-thirds of which came from the developed world. This year, capital spending will deliver a 10 per cent gain. Four-fifths of this rise will come from the emerging world.

We are witnessing a true revolution in global economic affairs. The engine of economic expansion is no longer to be found in the debt-ridden West. Instead, the emerging nations find themselves in the driving seat of global growth. And as their economies increase in size, so they will increasingly trade with each other. Why, for example, would a Brazilian company set its sights on selling to US consumers when Asian domestic demand is expanding so incredibly quickly?

If, though, demand in the emerging world is growing so quickly, why do these countries run current account surpluses? Why do they appear to be saving rather than spending?

The answer relates to supply and demand. Although consumption and capital spending are both rising very quickly, they are not rising quite as quickly as output.

China and other emerging nations are producing more than they are consuming and, hence, running current account surpluses. But does that mean they are dependent on US and other Western consumers?

Not necessarily. It's easier, in fact, to turn the argument on its head. Whether they like it or not, Western consumers are increasingly dependent on the low-cost production and ample credit provided by the emerging nations.

But this sense of dependency doesn't play well in the West. Whether it's Nobel peace prizes, exchange-rate policies or broader economic rebalancing, the West's voice is falling on deaf ears, partly because the leaders in the emerging world are particularly attuned to the stench of hypocrisy.

In the late-1990s, following the Thai baht crisis, the West lectured Asian and other emerging economies over their profligate ways and demanded a period of hair-shirt austerity. With the roles now reversed, the West seemsnot to have the stomach for the medicine that it once prescribed for everybody else.

Stephen King is managing director of economics at HSBC

 

[Brotherhood]

China to sell 1 million new-energy cars annually by 2015 - People's Daily OnlineNovember 23, 2010

China's setting down the gauntlet for going green on the roads. It's aiming for annual sales of 1 million units of new-energy cars, by 2015. Under the country's latest plan for the auto industry, to be rolled out at the end of 2010, new energy vehicles will be the top priority. CCTV reporter Yin Hang discovers how domestic and foreign auto-makers are rising to the challenge.

The spotlight is beaming down, on China's new-energy car sector.

The world's largest auto market is set to promote the use of 20,000 new energy vehicles for public transport, by the end of this year. And by 2015, China aims to sell over 1 million new energy vehicles a year. And the target is pitched at 100 million by 2020.

China's setting down the gauntlet for going green on the roads. It's aiming for annual sales of 1 million units of new-energy cars, by 2015.

As of October this year, the country had earmarked 970 million yuan to subsidize new energy vehicles.

Xavier Peugeot, global director of Marketing &Communications, Peugeot, said, "We also want to demonstrate that electric cars can be seen in a different way, connected to performance...and I would say high performance."

Dai Bingcheng, CEO of Zhongwen Yixing Electric Auto Co, said, "The electric bus sector has become more commercialized, and expanded faster than electric cars. And the electric bus development has attracted more focus from the government, so we believe it's a mature industry."

But consumers aren't yet convinced. Some say they still prefer traditional energy vehicles.

By 2020, China is aiming to reduce energy consumption by 50 percent, and slash fuel consumption to 5 liters, per 100 kilometers of travel. The electric bus sector has become more commercialized, and expanded faster than electric cars.

An Auto consumer said, "The current electric car market is not mature enough. I'm concerned about the costs of using it and the convenience of car maintenance. So right now I will not consider buying it."

Another auto consumer said, "I will not buy an electric car because I'm worried the battery won't last long enough."

To address these concerns, the Chinese government seems to be armed with all the answers.

Wan Gang, Minister of Science &Technology, said, "In order to improve the current electric car standard system, the Ministry of Science and Technology will work with other ministries to set up a system to cater for electric vehicles."

By 2020, China is aiming to reduce energy consumption by 50 percent, and slash fuel consumption to 5 liters, per 100 kilometers of travel. By then, it's hoped new energy vehicles will replace 20 percent of traditional cars in China, and electricity will become the main substitute for gasoline.

Source: CNTV.cn

 

[Brotherhood]

Map of high-speed rail link between Yunnan province and neighboring countries Nov 22 2010

 

[中国万岁-ProsperThroughCo-]

FT
Asia: Poised for a shift

By David Pilling
Published: November 22 2010 21:53 | Last updated: November 22 2010 21:53

Fan club: Women do their morning exercises on the Bund in Shanghai. Markets such as China are ever more profitable for consumer goods multinationals
We can detect a nascent self-possession the east has not known for many centuries. That is what is new among Asians – elusive, unannounced and unmistakable all at once.

– Patrick Smith, Somebody Else’s Century: East and West in a post-Western World

A sense of “the great shift east” could be found this month on Station Parade in the London suburb of Ruislip. At Bainbridges auction house, an anonymous bidder with a Beijing accent stumped up £53m ($85m) for a 16-inch Qing dynasty vase. The purchase, for what is believed to be the highest price paid for a Chinese work of art, forms part of a trend: huge sums of Chinese money are being marshalled to bring the country’s heritage back home.

How does one calibrate the momentous shift of economic and geopolitical clout towards the east? Symbolised by the rise of China, it is part of a broader movement of capital, innovation and economic muscle to Asia that is, in many people’s reckoning, the most important rebalancing of global wealth and power since America emerged as a new force at the end of the 19th century.

Does one find this transition in the remarkable growth rates of China, India and Indonesia; in the western levels of income in Japan, South Korea and Singapore; or in the mountains of foreign currency reserves piled up in the vaults of Asian central banks? Should one look for it, instead, in the innards of the Tianhe-1A, the world’s fastest supercomputer, built by scientists not from America or Europe but from China? Or might it lurk in the pitying remark of a senior Indian diplomat who, speaking before President Barack Obama’s visit to India this month, said New Delhi needed to spend billions on American aircraft and equipment “to help them out with all that unemployment”?

Naturally, it is to be found in all these things and a myriad of other data points, financial league tables and attitudinal changes besides. From sales of vehicles in China, which surpassed those in the US last year, to the rising global presence of companies such as Reliance of India, Samsung from South Korea and numerous Chinese resources groups, there is a palpable sense that the world’s centre of gravity is shifting eastwards.

Though these shifts have been laid bare by the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, the US investment bank, they started at least 30 years ago with the initial success of China’s economic reforms, and before that with Japan’s miraculous industrialisation. Yet even now, when western powers are staring with alarm in the mirror of their own indebtedness and military weakness, the magnitude of this move eastwards may not yet have fully hit home.

“Some of them are just thinking this is a bad fiscal and trade-balance crisis, which surely will shake itself out in five years’ time and we’ll be back to normal,” says Paul Kennedy, a Yale historian who has long forecast the rise of Asia. “I just don’t think that’s right. The dollar’s role in the world is coming to a rendering of account, there’s a shift of naval power to Asia ... and [Asian states] are pretty much convinced that the US is on the way out of Asia,” he says. “The world’s weights and balances are shifting before our eyes.”

Zbigniew Brzezinski, US national security adviser when Jimmy Carter was president, says: “We are dealing with something qualitatively different from what has gone before. It is a general awakening of the far east.”

Before examining the economic, geopolitical and even psychological changes taking place, there are important caveats. First, the rise of China and, behind it, that of India, is not preordained (see chart at bottom). Enormous economic, political and environmental pressures at the heart of both national experiments could yet halt their progress. Breathless predictions in the 1980s that Japan was destined to become the world’s largest economy are a cautionary tale against straight-line projections.

Second, it is too easy to conflate the rise of China with the rise of Asia. In one sense, the economic upsurge of first Japan, then the Asian tigers, and now China and India is part of a tilt back to a region that accounted for half of world output in the 18th century. Lord Patten, former British governor of Hong Kong, argues that we are witnessing the restoration of a more normal equilibrium.

But others counter that Asia is a region defined by the west and that, in the words of Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize-winning economist, “the way you choose to partition the world makes a difference to the perception of what’s going on”. Of economic progress in Asia, he says: “Am I excited about it, do I think it is a gigantic change? No. That fact, that India and China produced 50 per cent of global GDP in the 18th century, is a fact. But I am not sure it is so interesting. They are big countries.”

The idea of a shift also masks the tensions that are accompanying the emergence of China as a regional colossus. Many Asian countries are fearful of China’s rise even though their economies are riding on its back.

Third, these are relative shifts. Britain grew richer throughout most of the 20th century even as its place in the world shrank. The rise of Asia does not necessarily threaten the comfort or security of people in the west, though the narrative of a globalisation in which everybody wins has taken some pretty hard knocks.

Chris Gibson-Smith, chairman of the London Stock Exchange, has no time for talk of a struggle for power. By the time China’s economy is as big as that of the US and Europe in dollar terms, he calculates, the global economy will have grown from $58,000bn today to $150,000bn. “And if you can’t find your place in a $150,000bn economy, well, shame on you.”

Fourth, and related: it would be foolish to write off the US. America still has the best technology, the biggest middle class, the largest and most sophisticated armed forces, the most creative companies and many of the best universities. Its unipolar moment may be over but it could remain the most important power for decades to come. “It’s not that China has a big hammer and hits America on the head and it disappears from the world,” says Mr Brzezinski. “Obviously, there’s going to be some reshuffling of advantages. But it depends on what we do in America.”

That said, few would deny the relative shift to Asia (and to other parts of the developing world, such as Brazil). Jonathan Garner, Asian and emerging markets strategist at Morgan Stanley, calls it the “third transition”. Next year, China is set to overtake the US as the biggest producer of manufactured goods by value – only the third change in global manufacturing leadership in 250 years. In 1990, says Mr Garner, China and other emerging markets accounted for just 14 per cent of manufacturing value added. Now, that number is 37 per cent.

This change is mirrored elsewhere. In 1973, Japan, China and India together accounted for 15 per cent of global gross domestic product in purchasing power parity terms. This year, the three countries will have reached 24 per cent, notwithstanding Japan’s relative decline. Asia as a whole accounts for around one-third.

Anthony Bolton, the legendary Fidelity stock-picker who deferred his retirement in order to invest in China, talks about a “secular shift east”. Not only are four of the world’s top 10 banks by market capitalisation now Chinese, he says, but western multinationals are increasingly tilting their strategies towards Asia.

In the five years to 2009, for example, emerging market revenues at Procter & Gamble, the US consumer goods company, rose from 23 per cent of the total to 32 per cent. In the first nine months of this year, Citigroup reported $3.5bn of profit in Asia out of roughly $9bn globally. Asian multinationals such as Lenovo, the Chinese company that bought IBM’s personal computing business, and India’s Tata Motors, which bought Jaguar and Land Rover, are just two pioneers in what is expected to be a wave of outward Asian investment.

Asia’s economic progress underpins growing geopolitical clout. “The US military is getting obsessed with China,” says Prof Kennedy, adding that the Chinese navy is doubling in size every seven years, at a time when Washington is considering cutting defence budgets. Beijing has become more assertive in pressing its claims over disputed territory, catalysing an arms build-up. India already has one aircraft carrier and is procuring two more. Vietnam, South Korea and Australia are building up their navies. Even Japan, constrained by a pacifist constitution but nervous of China’s capabilities, is bigger navally than the UK, France and Italy combined.

Beijing, for its part, has shown it can shoot down satellites and has tested long-range ballistic missiles for potential use against aircraft carriers within a 1,000-mile radius. Lord Patten says China may be overplaying its hand. “I’m not sure China is handling this all that well. ‘Hide your brightness, bide your time’ was much better advice than ‘throw your weight around’,” he says, quoting the entreaty of the late Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who put his country on the road to economic might.

Diplomacy in Asia is far from united. But over all, the region has carved out a much bigger international role. Shortly before the collapse of Lehman, many leaders of the Group of Seven industrial nations openly scoffed at the idea of enlarging their club. Now, China, India, South Korea, Indonesia and Australia have claimed a seat at global summits and few imagine they will be easily dislodged.

Since the financial crisis, Beijing has taken to lecturing the US about its loose fiscal and monetary policy and has floated the idea of an alternative to the dollar as a global reserve currency. Newly emerging Asian powers have challenged accepted (western) wisdom on everything from the make-up of the International Monetary Fund to the best way of conducting aid programmes for Africa.

Patrick Smith, an author on Asian affairs, argues that along with the region’s material progress will come something much more profound: self-confidence, and an overcoming of historical resentment born of the region’s colonial experience. A new way of looking at the world, when it fully emerges, will affect how we think of everything from the role of the individual in society to the meaning of economic progress and the history of the novel, he says.

Asia’s coming contribution to the global debate should not be confused with any glib version of “Asian values”, a supposed set of common ideas trumpeted by authoritarian governments to justify themselves, Mr Smith argues. But, he says, it would be short-sighted to imagine that the only consequence of Asia’s historic re-emergence will be a change in the “Made in” labels on the products we consume. “I don’t think that Asia’s rise or advance, its material success, means that anybody has to lose out,” he adds. “But if the 19th and 20th centuries belonged to the west, the 21st century will be somebody else’s.”

 

[Brotherhood]

Shanghai's port continues to rank first in the world - People's Daily OnlineNovember 23, 2010

The Statistical Bureau of Shanghai and Shanghai's border inspection stations jointly issued the Port of Shanghai operational data for October on Nov. 22. In October, the volume of containers, ships and passengers entering and exiting from the port all maintained a large growth over the same period from last year.

In the first 10 months of 2010, container throughput at Shanghai Port reached nearly 24 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units, a measure of container capacity), which is still more than that of the Port of Singapore. This means the Port of Shanghai has ranked first in the world for three successive months, maintaining its position as the largest port in the world.

In October, container throughput in the Port of Shanghai stood at more than 2.3 million TEU, up more than 8 percent compared to the same period last year. According to the statistics by the Waigaoqiao Border Inspection Station, the Waigaoqiao Port Zone completed a throughput of nearly 1.2 million standard containers, one half of the Port of Shanghai's total volume. Its throughput of goods reached 10.3 million tons, equal to that of the same month in 2009.

According to statistics, the Yangshan Port Zone completed a container throughput of 835,100 TEU in October, up by more than 25 percent compared to the same period of last year, including 337,300 standard water transport containers.

According to data issued by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), the Port of Singapore completed container throughput of more than 2.3 million TEU in total in October and nearly 23.6 million TEU in the first 10 months of the year.

By People's Daily Online

 

[Brotherhood]

China, Russia quit dollar in trade settlement - People's Daily OnlineNovember 24, 2010

Premier Wen Jiabao shakes hands with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on a visit to St. Petersburg on Tuesday.ALEXEY DRUZHININ / AFP

St. Petersburg, Russia - China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday.

Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies.

"About trade settlement, we have decided to use our own currencies," Putin said at a joint news conference with Wen in St. Petersburg.

The two countries were accustomed to using other currencies, especially the dollar, for bilateral trade. Since the financial crisis, however, high-ranking officials on both sides began to explore other possibilities.

The yuan has now started trading against the Russian rouble in the Chinese interbank market, while the renminbi will soon be allowed to trade against the rouble in Russia, Putin said.

"That has forged an important step in bilateral trade and it is a result of the consolidated financial systems of world countries," he said.

Putin made his remarks after a meeting with Wen. They also officiated at a signing ceremony for 12 documents, including energy cooperation.

The documents covered cooperation on aviation, railroad construction, customs, protecting intellectual property, culture and a joint communiqu. Details of the documents have yet to be released.

Putin said one of the pacts between the two countries is about the purchase of two nuclear reactors from Russia by China's Tianwan nuclear power plant, the most advanced nuclear power complex in China.

Putin has called for boosting sales of natural resources - Russia's main export - to China, but price has proven to be a sticking point.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who holds sway over Russia's energy sector, said following a meeting with Chinese representatives that Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to agree on the price of Russian gas supplies to China before the middle of next year.

Russia is looking for China to pay prices similar to those Russian gas giant Gazprom charges its European customers, but Beijing wants a discount. The two sides were about $100 per 1,000 cubic meters apart, according to Chinese officials last week.

Wen's trip follows Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's three-day visit to China in September, during which he and President Hu Jintao launched a cross-border pipeline linking the world's biggest energy producer with the largest energy consumer.

Wen said at the press conference that the partnership between Beijing and Moscow has "reached an unprecedented level" and pledged the two countries will "never become each other's enemy".

Over the past year, "our strategic cooperative partnership endured strenuous tests and reached an unprecedented level," Wen said, adding the two nations are now more confident and determined to defend their mutual interests.

"China will firmly follow the path of peaceful development and support the renaissance of Russia as a great power," he said.

"The modernization of China will not affect other countries' interests, while a solid and strong Sino-Russian relationship is in line with the fundamental interests of both countries."

Wen said Beijing is willing to boost cooperation with Moscow in Northeast Asia, Central Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as in major international organizations and on mechanisms in pursuit of a "fair and reasonable new order" in international politics and the economy.

Sun Zhuangzhi, a senior researcher in Central Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the new mode of trade settlement between China and Russia follows a global trend after the financial crisis exposed the faults of a dollar-dominated world financial system.

Pang Zhongying, who specializes in international politics at Renmin University of China, said the proposal is not challenging the dollar, but aimed at avoiding the risks the dollar represents.

Wen arrived in the northern Russian city on Monday evening for a regular meeting between Chinese and Russian heads of government.

He left St. Petersburg for Moscow late on Tuesday and is set to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday.

Agencies and Zhou Wa contributed to this story.

By Su Qiang and Li Xiaokun, China Daily

 

[Martian2]

Acer tablet PC launching on November 23rd with price ranging from $299 to $699. Acer tablet to be backed with an app store.

YouTube - Live from the Acer Tablet Unveiling

Acer Challenges Apple’s IPad, Unveils Three Tablet Computers - BusinessWeek

"Acer Challenges Apple’s iPad, Unveils Three Tablet Computers
November 23, 2010, 11:37 PM EST
By Hugo Miller and Katie Hoffmann

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Acer Inc., the world’s second-largest computer maker, unveiled a lineup of three tablet devices in a bid to challenge Apple Inc.’s market-leading iPad.

Two of the tablets will be based on Google Inc.’s Android platform and feature 7-inch and 10.1-inch screens, while the third 10.1-inch-display device will run on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows software, Taipei-based Acer said in New York yesterday.

Acer, which also makes mobile phones, aims to grab about 10 percent of the market for tablets that bridge the gap between laptops and smartphones such as Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry and Apple’s iPhone. Apple demonstrated the appeal of such devices by selling 3 million iPads in the first 80 days after the product debuted in April.

The new tablet computers may appeal to price-sensitive consumers, Angela Hsiang, an analyst with KGI Securities Co. in Taipei, said by telephone. “The debut highlights Acer’s official entry into the tablet computer market,” said Hsiang, who rates the stock “outperform.”

Acer joins a field dominated by Apple, which had a 95 percent share of the tablet market last quarter, according to Strategy Analytics. Samsung Electronics Co. recently released its Galaxy Tab and RIM plans to release its 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook next quarter.

“This is a market that’s still not fully known, not fully satisfied,” Jim Wong, Acer’s head of information-technology products, said yesterday. The company expects 40 million to 50 million tablets will be sold worldwide next year, he said.

With the 9.7-inch iPad priced between $499 and $829, consumers looking for cheaper devices may be attracted to other tablets below $400, Hsiang said. Still, it will take some time before the new products can significantly add to Acer’s revenue, she said.

Hedging Bets

“It’s a wide-open market and an opportunity for Acer to make itself better known to a North American market,” said Roger Entner, head of telecom research at Nielsen Co.

Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci may be trying to hedge his bets by releasing devices in different sizes. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said last month that devices such as the PlayBook are “dead on arrival” because they are too small to compete with the iPad, which has a 9.7-inch screen.

Acer, which trails Hewlett-Packard Co. in global computer shipments, rose 0.5 percent to NT$90.20 at 11:54 a.m. on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The stock has lost 6.1 percent this year, compared with a 1.5 percent gain by the benchmark Taiex index.

The two Android tablets will be available in April and the Microsoft device will go on sale in February. All three will offer Wi-Fi connectivity and allow users to surf the Internet using a 3G connection. Wong said the tablets would likely be in the previously stated range of $299 to $699.

Acer yesterday also released a smartphone with a 4.8-inch screen based on Android that they touted as a phone with the “soul of a tablet.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Hugo Miller in Toronto at hugomiller@bloomberg.net; Katie Hoffmann in New York at khoffmann4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net"

 

[Brotherhood]

China's research spending catching up to advanced countries - People's Daily OnlineNovember 24, 2010

Thanks to unremitting efforts during the 10th and 11th Five-Year Plans, the research and development fund nationwide has reached up to more than 580 billion yuan, accounting for 1.7 percent of the gross domestic product in 2009, according to a government report released on Nov. 22.

The report showed that in 2009, there were 46,000 institutions involving 3.2 million personnel nationwide engaged in scientific research and experimental development activities, of which 48.9 percent held a bachelor's degree or above and females accounted for 24.8 percent.

If the working hours applied to research were divided up based on a full-time schedule, it would equal 2.3 million people one year, which means China has invested the most human resources into scientific research and experimental development out of any country in the world.

According to the report, the research and development fund nationwide was 580.2 billion yuan in 2009, representing 1.7 percent of the GDP and 23 percent average annual growth since 2000. It was 6.5 times higher than in 2000, and China now ranks among the major powers in the world in terms of large research and development expenditures.

The central government attaches great importance to scientific research and experimental development and gave substantial financial support to markedly improve independent innovation strength.

In 2008, the number of scientific papers from China that were accessed by foreign primary search tools SCI, ISTP and EI rose from eighth, eighth and third place in 2000 up to second place, second place and first place of world rankings, respectively.

In 2009, there were 52,000 authorized invention patents domestically, 18.5 times higher than in 2000.

In 2009, the sales income of pioneer products in scaled industrial enterprises was around 6.6 trillion yuan, which was seven times higher than in 2000, and new product export volume was more than 1.1 trillion yuan, 6.7 times higher than in 2000.

Despite significant achievements, gaps still exist. China's overall research and development input was still not of a scale comparable to the world's leading countries, which devote about 3 percent of GDP to research compared to China’s 1.7 percent.

Expenditures on basic research and applied research were still relatively low compared with developed countries, which spent between 10 percent and 20 percent, showing China's insufficient solid foundation of technological development and original innovation capacity.

At the same time, the government needs to focus on the lack of independent research and development capabilities of domestic enterprises. In 2009, there were only 1,893 large and medium-sized industrial enterprises, which held 14,277 patent licenses, representing 4.7 percent of the total enterprises.

The report was jointly issued by six governmental branches, including the National Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance and the National Defense Science and Industry Bureau.

By Li Mu, People's Daily Online