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China Daily

Morgan Stanley: Yuan not to blame for US woes

BEIJING - Morgan Stanley Asia chairman Stephen Roach said Friday it was ironic for the US to blame China's currency for high unemployment rate and trade deficit, and trade sanctions on China would have a disastrous outcome for the United States.

Kaixin – You may diss-agree with Stephen Roach, but you can’t dismiss him. He is an acknowledged economic expert on Asia in general and China in particular. He also has no axe to grind being Asia Chairman of a major American Bank; except possibly not wanting to see America shoot itself in the foot.
 
‘US politicians did not want to accept their responsibilities for the unemployment rate, which was close to 10 percent, so they preferred to blame someone else, he said.’
 
 
I have been saying this for some time. The politicians in the ‘west’, America in particular, were happy to benefit from trading with China through the 1990’s. They preened themselves and told their constituents how brilliant they were at engineering such prosperity with low inflation.
 
What utter bullshit, as the Global Financial Crisis demonstrated.
 
It was all based on importing low cost widgets from China and that gigantic ponzi scheme from Wall Street that turned American houses into tulips.
 
The pollies can’t now go to said constituents and fess up. Wall Street is keeping its head down and trying to figure out another ponzi scheme. Indeed, that is the only thing that is certain to happen. Wall Street will figure out another ponzi scheme and the great unwashed will fall for it ………. again. Isn’t that right Henry?
 
Probably something to do with carbon trading I suspect.
 
Actually, I doubt that pollies understand what has happened. So, not being prone to looking in mirrors, they look elsewhere. Everyone in America knows the Chinese are getting uppity, so who better to blame. Pollies all need a simple message to recite.
 
“The yuan is undervalued and that is the cause of all your troubles,” is a simple message. One the American pollies have grasped as firmly as they grasp their collective …..
 
It also has a simple solution; one the pollies can be seen to be doing something about. So they jump up and down and make a big noise. Noise, is often mistaken by pollies for action.
 
If it is such a problem now, then it should have been seen way back when. Why didn't the pollies do something about it then? Easy, they were too busy preening themselves in unearned glory.
 
If Stephen Roach is right, then that whisp of gun smoke won’t be coming from the pollies guns, it will be coming from that small hole in their foot.
 

China calls on Washington to cool yuan pressure

China stepped up resistance Friday to US pressure over currency, calling on Washington to cool its "politicization and emotionalization" of the issue and warning a further rise in its yuan could drive exporters out of business.

Kaixin – I don’t think American pollies care about Chinese exporters. They probably haven’t grasped that many are actually American companies. Beside, at the moment American pollies are only thinking about the health reform bills.

US 'profited' from Chinese buying

Magnified trade deficit also leaves great room for exports to China, ministry says

BEIJING - The United States has reaped "fat profits" from China's robust purchasing power and its comparatively low labor cost, even amid the financial crisis, the Ministry of Commerce said on Friday.

The US has also been taking different approaches to process and evaluate trade figures, leading to its "magnified" trade deficit with China and leaving "great room" for it to improve its exports to the developing country, especially in the high-tech sector, the ministry said.

China's elections won't be Western-style

Candidates are 'all equal,' regardless of their money

Beijing - The latest revision to the country's Electoral Law, which grants rural residents the same rights as their urban counterparts to elect deputies to people's congresses but does not expand direct elections, shows China will adhere to its own mode of development instead of adopting Western-style elections, a top legislator has said.

"Different countries have different election rules and a socialist China won't follow Western election campaigns," Li Fei, deputy director of the legislative affairs commission under the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature, told China Daily following the adoption of the latest amendment to the Electoral Law last Sunday.

A peek into Google's global farce

The Internet world is not in a peaceful mood, thanks to the drama that Google has started.

Since the beginning of the year, the Internet search company from the United States has made numerous statements that it will quit the Chinese market. On March 10, its executives again announced Google will stop censoring its search content as required by Chinese laws and regulations, even if the decision would shut down Google.cn, Google's Chinese site, and Google itself out of China. Western media also jumped in recently, as they always do, offering headlines such as "Google's negotiations with China broke down, leaving China is all but certain."

The Wall Street Journal   MarketWatch

Currency stress tests indicate Beijing 'readying' yuan move - SocGen says one-off 5%-10% appreciation coming in April or May

ViewPoints: China, the New Dominant Economy?

Managing Director of The Carlyle Group, David Rubenstein, predicts that China will surpass the U.S. as the dominant economy by the year 2035, in a ViewPoints interview with Deputy Managing Editor Alan Murray.

The Wall Street Journal     China RealTime Report

Carlyle’s Rubenstein Talks Human Rights and China

David Rubenstein is bullish on China, whose economy he points out has been the world’s largest for “15 of the past 18 centuries.”

But what about the country’s questionable human-rights practices and crack down on political dissidents? Does that bother the co-founder of the Carlyle Group, which recently started a $100 million fund devoted to China?

Diplomatic Chatter: Huntsman at Tsinghua

The U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman displayed some of the unusual traits that some observers say make him an especially well-suited envoy to China.

At a speech (read it here) before several hundred students Thursday at Tsinghua University, sometimes called China’s MIT, Mr. Huntsman broke into fluent Mandarin, discussed Confucius disciples and about his adopted Chinese daughter.

Kaixin – Perhaps the US Administration is serious about its relations with China. As they say, all politics is local.

The New York Times

I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
The Myths About China's Currency

China fever is again gripping Washington as the U.S. Treasury approaches its mid-April deadline for pronouncing whether China manipulates its currency for unfair trade advantage.

Though returning to a more flexible and appreciating currency is in China’s interest, dangerous myths about China’s economy, and the benefits to the U.S. of a more expensive renminbi, are again being propagated, feeding China bashers and protectionist lobbies while endangering a crucial relationship. Some of the myths:

The Problem Is Not China

The Americans are desperate, and with good reason. They have successfully stabilized the U.S. economy after the financial crisis, but the problem is far from over. Despite a moderate recovery, the lack of job creation is serious.

Many U.S. leaders rightly see jobs as the key to their country’s recovery and avoiding a second dip. The lack of a solution is fast becoming a political one as the November elections approach. Recent calls to get tough with China are gaining momentum in various quarters.

The Australian

Rudd's approach to China and Stern Hu, a lesson in cowardice

"I have no direct knowledge of whether Stern Hu and his colleagues have broken one or more of the obscure and opaque laws which make doing business in China so difficult."

Kaixin – No you don’t have any knowledge. If the laws are such a problem then why are RIO and Chinalco forming a business relationship?

I almost did not include this article as it is a load of ill-informed nonsense. When will ‘The Australian’ get a journalist who knows something about China?

Beijing's quiet trial shows two may again be better than one

THIS quiet experiment in northern China appears to show that the government can slow down or halt population growth while allowing families more than one child.

Kaixin – A well thought out article. I do not agree with some of the language, of course, ‘infamous one-child policy’. It is only infamous in the eyes of those who oppose it, both in the ‘west’ and within China. The educated people in China we speak to, while not liking it, support it. They point out that un-checked population growth would have bought greater misery to China.

They point to India and wonder what will happen there. For the people we speak to, it is a reason not to import western democracy to China.

They will be happy if population growth can be checked without the one child policy. Indeed, my brother-in-law had the debilitating experience for a Chinese male of having his son aborted as it was an unplanned second child. He still understands and supports the need to implement such a policy.

The Age

China warns US not to politicise yuan debate

China urged the United States on Friday not to politicise a row over the value of its currency as it announced a top official would travel to Washington for talks on the issue and other trade disputes.

The Sydney Morning Herald

Chinalco, Rio strike record Africa deal

Less than a year after one of the business world's most extraordinary bust-ups in which Rio walked away from a proposed $US19.5 billion tie-up with state-owned Chinalco in favour of an iron ore joint venture with BHP Billiton, the pair have reunited in a move that will help mend strained relations between Australia and China.

China scraps Saddam debts

The decision followed a meeting between China's envoy to Baghdad and the Iraqi Finance Minister, Bayan Jabr, and would ''enhance economic co-operation between the two countries''.

Asia Times Online
Powerful interests stifle China reforms
By Willy Lam

A major theme of the just-concluded National People's Congress (NPC) was social and distributive justice, or the ways and means to help disadvantaged sectors such as peasants and migrant workers in China can get a fairer share of the fruits of the "Chinese economic miracle".

While last week's National People's Congress sought ways for peasants and migrant workers to get a fairer slice of China's economic miracle, it failed to end the residence registration system that denies access to urban social and educational amenities. Big-city cadres stymied the reform amid fears that more migrants will destabilize strained social services

How high is up?

Asian equities rose for the fourth consecutive week over the past five days as the MSCI Asia Pacific Index reached 124.78 in early afternoon Tokyo time Friday, up 1.3% since last week’s close. The ex-Japan version of the same index, not far from the recovery high of 126.77 reached just over two months ago.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index has been in a trading range between that level and 114.19 since the beginning of September, but it has been technically overbought since the end of last month with erratic volume.

        For a detailed OpEd by Kaixin (Graeme Mills)

China Daily

State firms told to exit real estate sector

BEIJING: In a move to curb soaring property price, the State-assets watchdog on Thursday told major State-owned enterprises (SOEs) whose core business is not real estate to quit the market.

Except for 16 SOEs which are purely real estate developers, 78 enterprises under the direct supervision of the State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) will speed up restructuring and pull out of the property sector.

Yuan solution 'will be found'

US envoy says 'important talks' will be held soon

Beijing: The top US envoy to China on Thursday expressed confidence that the two countries will find a solution to the yuan exchange rate.

"I think in due time, it will be resolved to the satisfaction of both parties," Ambassador Jon Huntsman told an audience of students at the prestigious Tsinghua University.

China to reopen pork market to US exports

China agreed to reopen its market to imports of US pork, ending a ban that went in place after the outbreak of the H1N1 flu last year, the US trade representative's office said.

"This agreement is a win for America's pork producers, whose safe and high-quality exports can now flow freely into China," US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement announcing the agreement. "We look forward to working cooperatively to resolve additional issues, including a resumption of trade in beef."

China is good news for Latin America

Editor’s note: China and Latin American countries, as brothers of third world in last century, will continue their friendship and cooperation to make their way to a refulgent future together.

The establishment of the Latin American and Caribbean Community (LACC) with 25 members in Mexico on Jan 23 is fresh indication that Latin America is continuing to move away from Washington, because the new organization excludes the United States. With Canada, too, excluded, the LACC is a regional body without "foreigners".

The steady erosion of US power in Latin America is in marked contrast to the increasing influence of China in the region. And China's influence is good news for the region. As former Brazilian prime minister Jos Dirceu says, China will be the determining factor for the development of Latin America

Chinese tourists to see the world in greater numbers

Nation biggest market in Asia; 100 million people forecast to travel

BEIJING: More mainland tourists are expected to spend money on overseas travel this year, said a report by a think tank to the national tourism authority.

Pressing on yuan to hurt US exonomy: US media

WASHINGTON - The efforts by U.S. legislators to pressure China to reform its currency is to make China a scapegoat of the U.S. domestic politics, and may actually hurt the U.S. economy, according to articles published by U.S. well known media in recent two days.

The Wall Street Journal said Thursday that U.S. lawmakers "want to make the yuan a scapegoat and risk a trade war with China," referring to the U.S. Senators' bill proposed Tuesday to call for China to appreciate its currency yuan.

China urges no politicalization of Rio Tinto case

BEIJING - China does not want the Rio Tinto case to be politicalized and negatively affect China-Australia relations, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Thursday.

In response to a question about the pending trial of a Rio Tinto executive in China, Qin said the Rio Tinto court case was strictly commercial.

Middle class in big cities feels least happiness

BEIJING: Middle class families in the most prosperous regions in China are finding the least happiness in life because of the high stress of daily life, a survey has found

Despite good health, better education and higher incomes, the middle class is discovering that economic pressures and little time to spend with family members are major sources of annoyance, according to a recent survey by insurance company Manulife-Sinochem.

Kaixin – Welcome to the ‘west’

Mainland, Taiwan plan frequent visits

BEIJING - The two sides of the Taiwan Straits will exchange frequent visits in the coming months, according to a mainland spokesman Wednesday.

The mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), authorized to handle cross-Straits issues, will send six to seven delegations to Taiwan this year while its Taiwan counterpart, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), will send five to six delegations to the mainland, said Yang Yi, a spokesman for the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, at a regular press conference in Beijing.

New real estate elephants

Chinese policymakers should act immediately to bridle these SOEs who are stirring up more trouble in the overheated property market.

The unchecked surge of real estate investment by large State-owned enterprises (SOEs) not only sabotages the central government's efforts to prevent housing bubbles but raises questions about the SOEs.

Chinese policymakers should act immediately to bridle these new elephants who are stirring up more trouble in the overheated property market.

In spite of all the government's tough talk against excessive home price hikes, the record land price for residential housing in Beijing was broken twice on Monday thanks to aggressive bids by State-owned enterprises.

The Wall Street Journal     China RealTime Report

Microsoft Sees a Window in Google’s China Woes

Chinese officials are masters of divide-and-rule, a tactic they’ve put to good use to enhance their bargaining position with the foreign business community.

So there was some eye-rolling among the more seasoned Western business executives in Beijing, earlier this year when Bill Gates weighed in on the Google vs. China imbroglio by criticizing Google and offering a sympathetic assessment of the Chinese position in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “Bill Gates Bats for China,” read a triumphal headline in the Global Times, a sometimes nationalistic Chinese newspaper.

The charitable explanation was that Gates was expressing a personal view.

Apparently not

Guangdong’s Renaissance Man

Over the past few years, one of China’s up-and-coming leaders has made a name for himself by calling for “ideological emancipation”–including through reading of the works of Thomas Friedman, the ubiquitous author of homilies to global capitalism.

The leader is Wang Yang, the party secretary of Guangdong province, who is widely expected to be tapped to join the all-powerful Standing Committee of the Communist Party’s Politburo. Seven of the current nine members are due to retire in 2012, leaving room for younger leaders like Wang, 55.

The New York Times

China Drawing High-Tech Research From U.S.

XI’AN, China — For years, many of China’s best and brightest left for the United States, where high-tech industry was more cutting-edge. But Mark R. Pinto is moving in the opposite direction.

World Bank Urges China to Bolster Rates and Let Currency Rise

HONG KONG — The World Bank recommended higher interest rates and a stronger currency for China on Wednesday, as it raised growth forecasts for the country. China’s rapid economic growth has led to expectations of rising inflation and concerns that a bubble is building in the property industry.

U.S. Ambassador Calls China’s Currency Stance ‘a Real Concern’

BEIJING — China’s reluctance to allow the value of its currency to rise “is a real concern” to both the United States and to China’s other major trading partners and could be subject to negotiations in coming weeks, the American ambassador to China said on Thursday.

At the same time, a Chinese trade official offered a first hint of flexibility on the issue, saying his organization was polling more than a thousand Chinese manufacturers on how a change in exchange rates would affect their business.

The Australian

Kevin Rudd warns China on Stern Hu trial secrecy

KEVIN Rudd has warned China that the world will be watching the Stern Hu trial.

The Prime Minister yesterday voiced his government's growing concern over an order banning Australian consular officials from attending a key part of the trial of Mr Hu and three other Rio Tinto executives over allegations of leaking commercially sensitive information on iron ore pricing.

Asia Times Online

Bo Xilai: China's brash populist
By Kent Ewing

HONG KONG - Bo Xilai has personality, charm and charisma, unlike most of his plodding, lackluster bureaucratic brethren.

The tall, telegenic Bo has won the support not only of the legions of dark-suited, dull apparatchiks who converged on Beijing for the recently concluded session of the National People's Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), but also ordinary citizens. His crusade against corruption in the sprawling southwestern municipality of Chongqing, where he is Communist Party chief, is much admired and he is a force to be reckoned with.

The son of Bo Yibo - one of the party's "eight immortals'' - Bo is an envied member of China's so-called "princeling" class,

        For a detailed OpEd by Kaixin (Graeme Mills)

China Daily

World Bank sees China GDP up 9.5% in 2010

The World Bank has raised its economic growth forecast for China from 8.7 percent to 9.5 percent, citing a boost in exports, strong growth in real estate and robust domestic spending.

Building on the momentum shown in the first months of 2010, growth is likely to remain strong in China this year, the World Bank said in a quarterly report Wednesday, adding that the fastest-growing economy should take measures to mitigate risks of a property bubble and avoid strains on local government finances.

"We project 9.5 percent GDP growth for this year," Ardo Hansson, the lead economist for China at the World Bank, said in a statement.

Yuan 'not cause of US woes': scholar

Deficit result of low savings, high consumption

BEIJING: A top government policy adviser has said the value of the Chinese currency is not the reason for the US trade deficit, and that Washington should restructure its economy if it wants to improve its trade balance.

"The yuan's value is not the cause of the US deficit, which is actually caused by its defective economic structure," Xia Bin, economist and counselor of the State Council, told China Daily on Tuesday.

With the US economy still bogged down and unemployment remaining high, US industry and legislators are pressuring the Barack Obama administration to get tough with China.

Kaixin – the comments on this article are interesting

Beijing residential land sales already 50% of 2009

With 14.35 billion yuan in revenue realized on Monday, Beijing's residential land sales has already surpassed 35 billion yuan, accounting for more than 50 percent of last year's total of 70 billion yuan, the Beijing News reported Wednesday.

China, Britain pledge to look beyond differences

BEIJING - China and the UK pledged on Tuesday to not let differences come in the way of strategic ties, after constructive talks were held in the capital between Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and his British counterpart David Miliband on issues ranging from economic cooperation to Iran's nuclear program.

The visiting British foreign secretary said he had come to China seeking partnership to combat common challenges. He said the visit had underlined the breadth and depth of the relationship.

The Wall Street Journal    ChinaRealTime Report

Changing Money Just Became Harder at China Merchants

Foreign customers of China Merchants Bank Co. have become the latest victims of China’s tightening foreign-exchange control in the name of a combat against hot money.

The bank, which has for years operated one of the most user-friendly online banking systems in China (and the only bank allowing online foreign-exchange transactions until February), shut down the function of exchanging foreign currencies for the Chinese yuan on Feb. 24 for any customers who didn’t open their accounts with a Chinese identification card.

Daniel H. Rosen: How Much Can China Really Diversify Its Reserves?

Daniel H. Rosen is the principal of Rhodium Group, an advisory firm focusing on China, and is also a visiting fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics and an adjunct  associate professor at Columbia University.

Could China move out of US Treasurys and into U.S. real economy assets in a big way? In early 2009, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao drew attention by announcing an intention to manage foreign-exchange reserves more actively, and seek to diversify away from U.S. government holdings. China currently holds more than one trillion of U.S. Treasurys and another $500 billion of U.S. government-backed agencies.

China Property Bubble, 1990s Style

China is widely seen as being in the throes of rampant property speculation and as having little experience in dealing with the mess left by a burst real-estate bubble. But as Dow Jones Investment Banker reports, the conventional wisdom is only half right: In the 1990s China experienced a particularly nasty real-estate rout.

Ironically, the province with the most experience of that property bust’s effects – Hainan — is again at the center of an aggressive ramp-up in real-estate prices.

The New York Times

Editorial
Will China Listen?

The drumbeat of complaints in Washington about China’s manipulation of its currency — and the deafening silence pretty much everywhere else — might lead one to think that this is just an American problem. It isn’t.

The world’s battered economy is certainly in no shape to keep absorbing China’s exports, subsidized through a cheap currency policy. The more countries that say this, the more likely Beijing will consider changing course — and the less likely this disagreement will escalate into a fight that no one can win.

Kaixin – Why didn’t the U.S and the world call a halt to this twenty years ago? Because it suited the powers that be to pretend that they were delivering low inflation and economic growth. In reality, low inflation came from low priced good from China and economic growth was in reality a ponzi scheme dreamt up by Wall St. When the music stopped and the sham was exposed by the GFC, the politicians looked for a scapegoat. They weren’t going to take the blame. Wall St was not going to fess up. So China it is.

Why not capitalise on 60 years of anti Chinese propaganda?

The Australian

China's yuan 'much undervalued': IMF chief

THE Chinese yuan is "very much undervalued," International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said overnight, adding to growing global pressure on China.

Kaixin – The IMF, that august body that didn’t have an inkling of the impending GFC. There is no point listening to what it says, look to which country has it by the balls.

Why do people keep looking to economists as some sort of oracle? They are pretty good at measuring things. They know all about the  past, but they cannot predict the future. Yet they make pronouncements all the time as though they are wise and infallible. They should stick to measuring things, preferably their members.

Business Sours on China

BEIJING—China's relationship with foreign companies is starting to sour, as tougher government policies and intensifying domestic competition combine to make one of the world's most important markets less friendly to multinationals.

Kaixin – aww, didums … do you mean that the executives of those foreign companies might have to actually work to earn their obscene salaries?

The Age

Hu trial to be secretive
JOHN GARNAUT

STERN Hu and his three Rio Tinto colleagues have been listed for a secretive trial in a Shanghai court on Monday.

Australian officials have been told they will be barred from parts of the proceedings, prompting a retort from the Australian government.

Asia Times Online
THE ROVING EYE
Brazil steps between Israel and Iran
By Pepe Escobar

Talk about a Via Dolorosa. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is the first Brazilian president to visit Israel officially. Lauded for his charisma, swing and formidable negotiating powers - United States President Barack Obama refers to him as "the man" - little did Lula know that to engage his hosts this week he would have to give the Prophet Abraham a run for his money, no less.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva this week made the first official visit by a Brazilian president to Israel. Brazil is emerging as a potential "bridge" between Iran and those countries that seek to punish Tehran over its nuclear program. Lula stepping into this arena is a further instance of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) acting as a new rival power to an increasingly disoriented US, as well as to Washington's ally, Israel.

China rejects siren song on yuan
By Francesco Sisci

BEIJING - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's press conference with foreign media at the end of the National People's Congress on Sunday delivered a slap in the face to those in the United States who are calling for the appreciation of the yuan against the dollar to help stem the ongoing global economic crisis. Wen reiterated China's position on the thorny issue: Beijing will keep the exchange rate stable.

In defense, China offers cold comfort
By Peter J Brown

For the first time in well over a decade, China has limited rising spending on defense to a less than double-digit increase. In early March, Beijing announced that the 2010 defense budget would total approximately 532 billion yuan (US$78 billion), with the 7.5% increase representing half the 14.9% rise approved in 2009.