China Export Policy Chokes on Vitamin Verdict
CAIXINInternet cafés covered by the city of Wuhan’s Internet Café Association agreed to set minimum prices for online access nearly a decade ago. And more than one hundred coking coal company-members of the Coke Association of Shanxi Province each agreed in 2005 to cut production...
Can China Transform Africa?
JEREMY GOLDKORN, ISABEL HILTON, DONALD CLARKEJeremy Goldkorn:The question is all wrong. China is already transforming Africa, the question is how China is transforming Africa, not whether it can. From the “China shops”—small stores selling cheap clothing, bags, and kitchenware—that have become ubiquitous in Southern...
Is America’s Door Really Open to China’s Investment...
DANIEL H. ROSEN, ORVILLE SCHELL, JONATHAN LANDRETHDaniel Rosen:There have not been many new topics in U.S.-China economic relations over the past decade: the trade balance, offshoring of jobs, Chinese holding of U.S. government debt, whether China’s currency is undervalued and intellectual property protection problems have...
Will Investment in China Grow or Shrink?
DONALD CLARKE, JONATHAN LANDRETHDonald Clarke:I don’t have the answer as to whether investment in China will grow or shrink, but I do have a few suggestions for how to think about the question. First, we have to clarify why we want to know the answer to this question: what do we think it will tell us? This...
Cyber Attacks—What’s the Best Response?
JONATHAN LANDRETH, JAMES FALLOWS, XIAO QIANG (& authors)Jonathan Landreth:With regular ChinaFile Conversation contributor Elizabeth Economy on the road, I turned to her colleague Adam Segal, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Segal said that “the time for naming and...
Who Supplies Apple? (It’s Not Just China): An...
DAVID M. BARREDA, DAVID WERTIME, TEA LEAF NATIONLast month, Apple Inc. released its updated list of suppliers. This report says it includes “the major manufacturing locations of suppliers who provide raw materials and components or perform final assembly on Apple.” ChinaFile used this data to construct the interactive map...
Shangri-La
MICHAEL YAMASHITAThe legendary Chamagudao, the Tea Horse Road, winds through dizzying mountain passes, across famed rivers like the Mekong and the Yangtze, and past monasteries and meadows in a circuitous route from Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in western China to the Tibetan capital city of...
Mobile Phones Souring Africa’s Image of China
CAIXINEvery day, about a dozen mobile phone wholesalers field orders and manufacturer offers from offices inside a nondescript, five-story building on Luthuli Avenue in downtown Nairobi.The building doesn’t look like a hub for global commerce, nor does it have a name. But the Chinese...
The Silk Road
VALERIE HANSENThe Silk Road is as iconic in world history as the Colossus of Rhodes or the Suez Canal. But what was it, exactly? It conjures up a hazy image of a caravan of camels laden with silk on a dusty desert track, reaching from China to Rome. The reality was different—and far more...
Winner Take All
DAMBISA MOYOCommodities permeate virtually every aspect of modern daily living, but for all their importance—their breadth, their depth, their intricacies, and their central role in daily life—few people who are not economists or traders know how commodity markets work. Almost every day...
Economic Ties that Bind
CAIXINLabor leader Wayne Swan has his finger on the pulse of the Australian economy as the nation’s deputy prime minister and treasurer, which means he’s well-equipped to explain factors defining the increasingly robust relationship between China and Australia.The period since...
The End of Cheap China
SHAUN REINMany Americans know China for manufacturing cheap products, thanks largely to the country's vast supply of low-cost workers. But China is changing, and the glut of cheap labor that has made everyday low prices possible is drying up as the Chinese people seek not to make iPhones,...