Reports

04.09.15

Power Play: China’s Ultra High Voltage Technology and Global Standards

Paulson Institute
As a matter of government policy and corporate strategy, China has been intensifying its effort to set indigenous standards for homegrown ultra-high voltage (UHV) transmission technology. The country also aims to contribute to UHV standards...

Born Red

New Yorker
How Xi Jinping, an unremarkable provincial administrator, became China’s most authoritarian leader since Mao.

The Chinese Billionaire Zhang Lei Spins Research Into Investment Gold

Alexandra Stevenson
New York Times
Starting 10 years ago with $20 million from Yale’s endowment, Zhang was an early backer of Tencent and JD.com.

Features

04.02.15

Frank Talk About Hong Kong’s Future from Margaret Ng

Margaret Ng, Ira Belkin & more
Following is the transcript of a recent ChinaFile Breakfast with Margaret Ng, the former Hong Kong legislator in discussion with Ira Belkin of New York University Law School and Orville Schell, ChinaFile Publisher and Arthur Ross Director of the...

Media

04.02.15

‘Obama Is Sitting Alone at a Bar Drinking a Consolation Beer’

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian
Danish and Chinese netizens have just shared in a collective guffaw at America’s expense. The online lampoonery came after Denmark announced on March 28 its intent to join the Asian Investment Infrastructure Bank (AIIB), a China-led initiative...

Taiwan’s Rash Decision to Join AIIB

Ricky Yeh
Diplomat
Taiwan’s legislative branch was never able to approve the application or review the evaluation reports and proposals.

Petrobras Deepens China Tie With $3.5 Billion Loan Deal

Juan Pablo Spinetto
Bloomberg
The world’s most indebted oil producer bolsters ties to China as corruption scandal shuts it out of international bond markets.

Reports

04.01.15

Can Fracking Green China’s Growth?

Ilmi Granoff, Sam Pickard, Julian Doczi, Roger Calow, Zhenbo Hou, & Vanessa D’Alançon
Overseas Development Institute
This paper analyses the best available technical, scientific, and engineering literature on the risks and opportunities posed by shale gas, and also what policy environment could maximise the opportunity and minimise the risk. It also analyses China...

Reports

04.01.15

U.S.-China 21: The Future of U.S.-China Relations Under Xi Jinping

Kevin Rudd
Harvard University
We are, therefore, seeing the emergence of an asymmetric world in which the fulcrums of economic and military power are no longer co-located, but, in fact, are beginning to diverge significantly. Political power, through the agency of foreign policy...

Reports

03.31.15

Navigating Choppy Waters

Matthew P. Goodman, David A. Parker
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
China faces increasing economic headwinds that call into question not only its near-term growth outlook but the longer-term sustainability of its economic success. At a time of leadership transition in Beijing, global markets and policymakers alike...

How China Plans to Shape New Asian Order

Charles Hutzler
Wall Street Journal
At the center of these efforts is the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and plans for pan-Asian infrastructure .

Caixin Media

03.30.15

Plan for Next Five Years Must Free Up Disposable Income

The government's 12th Five-Year Plan concludes this year, and work on drafting the 13th will begin soon.Which way will China turn? In its work report to legislators at the National People's Congress meeting in March, the government pledged...

Full Text of Chinese President’s Speech at Boao Forum for Asia

Xinhua
Xi's speech, entitled, "Towards a Community of Common Destiny and A New Future for Asia"

China’s Zhou Says PBOC Has Room to Act on Growth Slowdown

Malcolm Scott
Bloomberg
The central bank chief's remarks follow China's weakest expansion since 1990.

Chinese Firms in Europe: Gone Shopping

James Miles
Economist
Gone shopping More European businesses are coming under Chinese ownership.

Lee Kuan Yew, the Man Who Remade Asia

Orville Schell
Wall Street Journal
He preached ‘Asian values’ and turned a tiny, poor city-state into an astonishing economic success. Is Lee’s ‘Singapore model’ the future of Asia?

U.S. About-Face on AIIB Would be Welcomed

China Daily
US leaders have for years said Asia-Pacific nations do not have to choose between China and the US.

Which U.S. Companies Are Doing the Most R&D in China and India?

Vijay Govindarajan, Gunjan Bagla, and...
Harvard Business Review
Companies' quest to cut costs per engineer drives new entrants into using R&D from India and China.

South Korea Says It Will Join China-Led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank

Wall Street Journal
Seoul makes assurances about AIIB’s governance, which U.S. has been wary about.

US Risks Epic Blunder by Treating China as an Economic Enemy

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Telegraph
The United States has handled its economic diplomacy with shocking myopia.

Media

03.26.15

Brother, Can You Spare a Renminbi?

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian
Who deserves to be poor in modern China? One man in China’s southern Zhejiang province certainly seemed sympathetic: Each day, he pushed himself along the street on a homemade wooden skateboard, his apparently paralyzed legs tucked under his body,...

China Eyes Innovation in Face of Economic “New Normal”

Xinhua
The growth target for 2015 was set at "approximately 7 percent," down from 7.5 percent in 2014.

China Reiterates Openness of AIIB After Shift in US Attitude

Xinhua
The China-proposed AIIB, has an expected initial subscribed capital of $50 billion.

Conversation

03.24.15

What Went Wrong With U.S. Strategy on China’s New Bank and What Should Washington Do Now?

Patrick Chovanec, Zha Daojiong & more
Now that much of Europe has announced its intentions to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), was Washington’s initial opposition a mistake? Assuming the AIIB does get off the ground, what might it mean for future...

In Lee Kuan Yew, China Saw a Leader to Emulate

Chris Buckley
New York Times
Singapore won an outsize influence with China after they embarked on an experiment with controlled capitalism.

Singapore’s Lee Seen as an Inspiration for Modern China

Christoper Bodeen
Associated Press
Chinese leaders admired Singapore's founder Lee Kuan Yew for toughness, economic pragmatism, and insistence on respect for authority.

How ‘Old Friend’ Lee Kuan Yew Influenced China

Chun Han Wong and Josh Chin
Wall Street Journal
“Mr. Lee Kuan Yew was an old friend of the Chinese people,” Chinese President Xi Jinping wrote to Singapore President Tony Tan.

Sinica Podcast

03.23.15

In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland

Kaiser Kuo, David Moser & more from Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo and David Moser are joined by Michael Meyer, the author of The Last Days of Old Beijing and now In Manchuria, a part literary travelogue and part journalistic account of three years spent living with family in rural Jilin.{...

China on the World Stage: A Bridge Not Far Enough

Economist
China plans a new bank to help match Asia’s vast savings with its even vaster need for infrastructure.

China, Japan Start First Security Talks in Four Years

Kiyoshi Takenaka
Reuters
Step aimed at thawing ties plagued by the legacy of Japan’s wartime aggression and a territorial dispute. 

China Gloats as Europeans Rush to Join Asian Bank

Simon Denyer
Washington Post
Xinhua described the U.S. as “petulant and cynical” for declining to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Conversation

03.18.15

Dark Days for Women in China?

Rebecca E. Karl, Leta Hong Fincher & more
With China’s recent criminal detention of five feminist activists, gender inequality in China is back in the spotlight. What does a crackdown on Chinese women fighting for equal representation say about the current state of the nation’s political...

U.S. Urges Allies to Think Twice Before Joining China-led Bank

Matthias Sobolewski and Jason Lange
Reuters
The move by U.S. allies to participate in Beijing's flagship economic outreach a diplomatic blow to Washington.

Party Investigates CNPC Executive Once Seen as Company’s Next Leader

Liao Yongyuan, who oversaw gas pipeline project crossing country, becomes target of inquiry by party graft-buster.

Cameroon Highlights Pros and Cons of Chinese Infrastructure Development

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
When finished, the new deep-sea port in the southern Cameroonian city of Kribi will likely become a major gateway for all of Central Africa. This will be Cameroon’s only deep-sea port that can accommodate the larger inter-continental trading ships...

Caixin Media

03.17.15

Chinese Businesses Eye Purchasing Power of LGBT Community

Chinese businesses are starting to show interest in the purchasing power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) consumer market, often referred to as the “pink dollar,” a trend led by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group...

Defying U.S., European Allies Say They’ll Join China-Led Bank

Yann Le Guernigou and Ben Blanchard
Reuters
Germany, France and Italy have agreed to join a new China-led Asian investment bank.

Stiffer Bank-Technology Rules Loom in China

Eva Dou and Gillian Wong
Wall Street Journal
Beijing presses for secure and controllable systems; suppliers fear intrusive measures. 

Books

03.16.15

The China Boom

Ho-fung Hung
Many thought China’s rise would fundamentally remake the global order. Yet, much like other developing nations, the Chinese state now finds itself entrenched in a status quo characterized by free trade and American domination. Through a cutting-edge historical, sociological, and political analysis, Ho-fung Hung exposes the competing interests and economic realities that temper the dream of Chinese supremacy—forces that are stymieing growth throughout the global South. Hung focuses on four common misconceptions about China’s boom: that China could undermine orthodoxy by offering an alternative model of growth; that China is radically altering power relations between the East and the West; that China is capable of diminishing the global power of the United States; and that the Chinese economy would restore the world’s wealth after the 2008 financial crisis. His work reveals how much China depends on the existing order and how the interests of the Chinese elites maintain these ties. Through its perpetuation of the dollar standard and its addiction to U.S. Treasury bonds, China remains bound to the terms of its own prosperity, and its economic practices of exploiting debt bubbles are destined to fail. Dispelling many of the world’s fantasies and fears, Hung warns of a post-miracle China that will grow increasingly assertive in attitude while remaining constrained in capability. —Columbia University Press{chop}

Q. and A.: David Shambaugh on the Risks to Chinese Communist Rule

Chris Buckley
New York Times
Shambaugh’s recent essay argued that the “endgame of Chinese communist rule has now begun.”

U.S. Students Losing Interest in China as Dream Jobs Prove Elusive

Alexandra Harney
Reuters
Waning interest worries those who view having Americans who speak Chinese as a matter of national interest.

China’s Growing Middle Class Chafes Against Red Tape

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New York Times
As China’s middle class—wired, ambitious and worldly—grows, its members increasingly are intolerant.

US Anger at Britain Joining Chinese-led Investment Bank AIIB

Nicholas Watt, Paul Lewis and Tania...
Guardian
U.S. statement says of U.K. membership that it is ‘worried about a trend of constant accommodation’ of China. 

Conversation

03.11.15

Is China Really Cracking Up?

Suisheng Zhao, Arthur R. Kroeber & more
On March 7, The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by David Shambaugh arguing that “the endgame of Chinese communist rule has now begun...and it has progressed further than many think.” Shambaugh laid out a variety of signs he believes...

Environment

03.11.15

China’s Polluted Soil and Water Will Drive up World Food Prices

from chinadialogue
China’s push for more intense farming has kept its city dwellers well-fed and helped lift millions of rural workers out of poverty. But it has come at a cost. Ecosystems in what should be one of the country’s most fertile regions have already been...

Sorry, America: China Is NOT Going to Collapse

Chen Dingding
National Interest
David Shambaugh bases his conclusion on flawed interpretations of recent socioeconomic and political developments.

US Should Consider Establishing a So China Sea Intl Ops Ctr in Indonesia

Jeff W. Benson
USNI News
The PLA Navy is building more submarines and ships and intends to operate three aircraft carriers.

Caixin Media

03.10.15

China’s Factories Are Building a Robot Nation

Every day, two quality-control supervisors monitor four robots tirelessly assembling remote-control devices for home appliances at a Midea Group factory in Foshan, in the southern province of Guangdong.The robots recently replaced 14 workers on the...

China’s BIG Gamble in the TINY Comoros Islands

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
Comoros is a tiny archipelago nation off the east coast of Africa in the Indian ocean where a major Chinese experiment is underway. Chinese scientists and pharmaceutical have undertaken a radical experiment to test an unlicensed anti-malarial herbal...

China NPC 2015: The Reports

Wall Street Journal
Downloadable versions of the reports on the Work of the Government (Premier Li Keqiang); the Plan for National Economic and Social Development (NDRC); the Budget Report (Ministry of Finance).

China Lowers 2015 Economic Growth Target to Around 7 Percent

Xinhua
The growth target is lower than the 7.4-percent economic growth in 2014, its weakest annual expansion since 1990.

How China Fuels Myanmar’s Wars

Matthew F. Smith
New York Times
No one should be investing in large-scale development projects in Myanmar’s war zones until durable peace agreements are established.

Environment

03.04.15

Clearing Skies

Adam Minter from Sierra Club
After dark is when the pollution arrives on the outskirts of Shanghai. On a bright night, when moonlight refracts through the smog, you can see black clouds of soot pouring out of small workshop smokestacks silhouetted against the sky. In case you...

Earthbound China

03.02.15

Village Acupuncture

Andrew Stokols
On a bamboo-covered mountaintop the mud-walled houses of Diaotan village are just barely visible through the thick fog that often shrouds this remote hamlet in China’s Zhejiang province. Worn but sturdy earthen walls still enclose the largest...

Conversation

02.27.15

Are China and Russia Forging a New Ideological Bloc?

Jacqueline N. Deal, Wu Jianmin & more
With evidence of ties strengthening between Beijing and Moscow—over energy contracts, the handling of the Ukraine, and their diplomats' stance toward outside interference in internal affairs, especially if it's perceived as coming from...

39 Hours Inside The Biggest Human Migration On Earth

Matthew Sheehan
Huffington Post
China's Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's rolled into one, the holiday unfolds on an entirely different scale. 

Excerpts

02.25.15

The Sun Kings

Mark L. Clifford
In 1992, Shi Zhengrong completed his doctorate and found himself an expert in a field that wasn’t quite ready for him. He’d studied physics at Australia’s University of New South Wales, focusing on crystalline technology, the basic scientific...

Books

02.25.15

The Greening of Asia

Mark L. Clifford
One of Asia's best-respected writers on business and economy, Hong Kong-based author Mark L. Clifford provides a behind-the-scenes look at what companies in China, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, and Thailand are doing to build businesses that will lessen the environmental impact of Asia's extraordinary economic growth. Dirty air, foul water, and hellishly overcrowded cities are threatening to choke the region's impressive prosperity. Recognizing a business opportunity in solving social problems, Asian businesses have developed innovative responses to the region's environmental crises.{node, 13216}From solar and wind power technologies to green buildings, electric cars, water services, and sustainable tropical forestry, Asian corporations are upending old business models in their home countries and throughout the world. Companies have the money, the technology, and the people to act—yet, as Clifford emphasizes, support from the government (in the form of more effective, market-friendly policies) and the engagement of civil society are crucial for a region-wide shift to greener business practices. Clifford paints detailed profiles of what some of these companies are doing and includes a unique appendix that encapsulates the environmental business practices of more than fifty companies mentioned in the book.  —Columbia Business School Publishing  {chop}

Reports

02.25.15

Double Impact

Valerie J. Karplus
Paulson Institute
This paper makes the case for establishing a national CO2 price in China as soon as possible. End-of-pipe pollution control technologies—a core component of China’s Air Pollution Action Plan (APAP)—can address local air pollution but not CO2...