Recently Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s central bank, had an interview with Caixin and talked about the yuan exchange rate regime reform, macro-prudential policy framework, digital currency, and other topics. The following is an edited transcript of the interview.
“When the buying stops, the killing can too,” reads the popular slogan that WildAid uses in its anti-ivory campaign to raise awareness in China. WildAid, along with most Western environmentalists, contend that curbing demand in China for ivory is the key factor to help save the African elephant from extinction.
Trumpets sound and trombones blare as a warhead launches. Intercontinental ballistic missiles mounted on trucks parade down the center of a boulevard crowded with bystanders. “We are the glorious Rocket Force,” a mixed choir sings in a Soviet-sounding anthem.
Matt Ferchen is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, where he runs the China and the Developing World Program. His previous research and writing have focused on the political economy of the “China model” of development, as well as China’s relations with Latin America. Building on this background, his current projects examine how China is managing political risk in its ties to fragile states, and on the nexus of development and security in China’s foreign policy.
Ferchen is part of the Public Intellectual Program sponsored by the National Committee on United States-China Relations. His work has appeared in numerous publications such as Foreign Affairs, Caijing, the Diplomat, EL PAÍS, and Phoenix Weekly, as well as in academic journals such as the Review of International Political Economy and the Chinese Journal of International Politics.
The shift in how Chinese prefer to get around means salespeople in China have to market bicycles as fashion accessories, rather than as reliable modes of transportation. This is where colorful custom-made fixed gear bicycles come in. Hipsters from Brooklyn to Berlin and Portland to Tokyo have made the fixed gear bike a must-have symbol of stylish eco-consciousness.
In the just over three years since Xi Jinping assumed leadership of China, observers and scholars of the country have increasingly coalesced around the idea that Xi’s term in office has coincided with a shift in the tone, if not the practice, of Chinese politics.
The current exchange-rate anxiety is just a symptom of China’s transition from an export-led growth strategy to one propelled by domestic consumption proceeding less smoothly than hoped.
Pollution is one of the top three reasons cited by wealthy people for leaving the country for good.
China’s harsh treatment of its critics is notorious, but the recent abductions of five booksellers and a journalist have sparked international condemnation and heated protests.
Liu Xiaobo, who in 2009 was sentenced to 11 years in jail on charges of inciting state subversion.
