In my third year at McGill University in Montreal, a much older, married classmate suggested the two of us go to China during our summer vacation. I was 19; she was probably all of 25. When we applied for visas, she, a white Australian, was turned down and I was approved. It was my first lesson in Chinese apartheid.
After a long and hot July marked by the near-absence of most of our guests, Sinica host Kaiser Kuo is pleased to be back this week leading a discussion of the recent accident on the high-speed Hangzhou-Wenzhou rail line, an accident that has shattered public confidence in the rail system and undermined one of the most public symbols of China’s economic and technical resurgence.
In May and June 2011, an International Monetary Fund staff team held discussions in Chengdu, Shanghai, and Beijing, which this report documents. The consultation examined China’s macroeconomic outlook, the potential for a property price bubble, the risks to the banking system, and the policy measures underpinning the 12th Five-Year Plan. The mission drew on the work of the IMF’s Financial Sector Assessment Program—to connect financial sector reform to macroeconomic rebalancing—and of the spillover team—to trace out the international implications of rebalancing in China.
During a Parliamentary hearing last week in London, the Murdochs, father and son, riveted television audiences with their combination of wide-eyed, hand-on-heart innocence (James), and long silences and “Yups” and “Nopes” (Rupert).
China’s 12th five-year plan (2011-2015) aims to promote inclusive, equitable growth and development by placing an increased emphasis on human development. Good health is an important component of human development, not only because it makes people’s lives better, but also because having a healthy and long life enhances their ability to learn, acquire skills, and contribute to society. Indeed, good health is a fundamental right of every human being. Good health among a population can also enhance economic performance by improving labor productivity and reducing economic losses that arise from illnesses. The findings and recommendations of this World Bank report can inform and promote a broad dialogue toward the development of a multisectoral response to effectively address the growing burden of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), including a better alignment of the health system with the population’s health needs. The report also advocates implementing “health in all” policies and actions for a multisectoral response to NCDs in China to help achieve the ultimate goal of “harmonious” development and growth.
The 112th Congress continues to debate whether and how the United States should address climate change. Most often, this debate includes concerns about the effects of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions controls if China and other major countries were not to take comparable actions. China recently surpassed the United States to become the largest emitter of human-related GHG globally, and together, the two nations emit about 40 percent of the global total. The governments of both China and the United States have indicated some closure of their gap on future actions to address climate change by agreeing on national pledges to GHG targets and mitigation actions rather than binding international obligations. China is also engaged with many other countries in bilateral programs to build its governance and technological capacities to abate its GHG emissions.
As the number of defectors from North Korea arriving in the South has surged in the past decade, there is a growing understanding of how difficult it would be to absorb a massive flow of refugees. South Korea is prosperous and generous, with a committed government and civil society, and yet refugees from the North almost all fail to integrate or thrive. Part of this is the change in the people coming; it is no longer just senior officials and fighter pilots who were useful and privileged propaganda tools. Nowadays many are women who have endured terrible deprivation in the North and abuse on their way to the South. Reconfiguring programs for defectors to take account of this change is essential if new defectors are to find a place in their new home.
In 1972, a man named Jack Chen showed up in New York. He was the younger son of Eugene Chen, who had been an associate of Sun Yat-sen’s and intermittently foreign minister for various GMD governments. Jack’s mother was Trinidadian. He grew up there and did not speak much Chinese. At some point he had gone to China and made a career at the Beijing Foreign Languages Press. Then he came to New York, for reasons I think none of us in the U.S. fully understood.
The authors examine the impact of renminbi revaluation on foreign firm valuations, considering two surprise announcements of changes in China’s exchange rate policy in 2005 and 2010 and employing data on some 6,000 firms in forty-four economies. Stock returns rise with renminbi revaluation expectations. This reaction appears to reflect a combination of improvements in general market sentiment and specific trade effects. Expected renminbi appreciation has a positive effect on firms exporting to China but a negative impact on those providing inputs for the country’s processing exports. Stock prices rise for firms competing with China in their home market but fall for firms importing Chinese products with large imported-input content. There is also some evidence that expected renminbi appreciation reduces the valuation of financially-constrained firms, presumably because appreciation implies reduced Chinese purchases of foreign securities.
This report discusses the outward effects of China’s economic policies on the rest of the world. The report does not try to capture the full extent and historical significance of China’s new influence on the world economy. Rather, it focuses on a few forward-looking issues raised by partners, brings to bear relevant analysis, and describes the reactions of the Chinese authorities.
