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Posts tagged China
US President Obama visits China (Pictures)
Nov 19th
Obama tours the Forbidden City.
Obama tours the Forbidden City.
Obama tours the Forbidden City.
Obama tours the Forbidden City.
……
Obama in Great Hall of the People.
Obama talk with the Chinese youth in Shanghai.
Obama visits Great Wall in Nov, 18.
Obama visits Great Wall in Nov, 18.
Obama and Wen Jiabao.
Obama leaves Beijing.
Air Force One.
Are Chinese exports good for U.S. economy?
Nov 18th
By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer
On 5:04 pm EST, Tuesday November 17, 2009
As President Obama completes his trip to China, it’s a natural time to ask if trade with the greatest source of U.S. imports is a good thing or bad thing for the still battered U.S. economy
Obama said he spoke to Chinese President Hu Jintao about the need for more balanced trade between the two major trading partners. He also urged China to allow the Chinese yuan to gain value against the dollar.
But he also told an audience of students in Shanghai this week that increased trade between the two nations is good for both countries, despite some friction between the two governments. And Obama said he hoped that trade will continue to grow.
"This trade could create even more jobs on both sides of the Pacific, while allowing our people to enjoy a better quality of life," Obama said.
But there are plenty of critics who believe that nothing good comes out of the U.S. trade gap with China, which so far this year has dwarfed the combined gap with the rest of the world by more than a third.
"I think the U.S.-China relationship was the worst economic policy mistake of the last generation," said Scott Paul, executive director of Alliance for American Manufacturing, a coalition of small-to-mid-size manufacturers and some unions which has been a long-time critic of U.S. trade policy.
Paul and other critics argue currency manipulation by the Chinese to undervalue their currency, government subsidies to Chinese manufacturers and low wages paid to Chinese workers have put U.S. workers at an unfair disadvantage.
The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, estimates that 2.3 million U.S. jobs were lost between 2001 and 2007 due to the Chinese trade gap.
University of Maryland professor Peter Morici has written that this trade gap "threatens to torpedo the economic recovery and keep unemployment above 10 percent for the foreseeable future."
But others argue that even if there needs to be some changes in U.S.-China trade policy, the U.S. economy benefits more than it is damaged by the relationship.
Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said that there is little evidence to support that trade gaps lead to big increases in job losses.
"If it was a cause of unemployment, why wasn’t unemployment rising from the late 90’s all the way through to today as Chinese imports rose," he said.
Jay Bryson, global economist with Wells Fargo Securities, added that even though the growing trade gap has caused some harm to the U.S. economy, there are plusses that should not be overlooked.
"It doesn’t mean that every person in the United States benefits, but from a national perspective it’s a positive," said Bryson.
Bryson and Hufbauer both said that lower priced Chinese goods reduces the cost of living for American consumers, giving them more money to spend on other goods and services.
Bryson said limiting Chinese imports through tariffs or other barriers would raise the price of those goods.
"While it would protect the jobs of some people making toys or shirts here, it would cost other jobs because we wouldn’t have the money to spend on other goods and services," Bryson said. "If I’m spending more on toys for my kids or my shirts, I have less money to go to the movies or go out to a restaurant."
Hufbauer conceded that the Chinese yuan is grossly undervalued. But he said there is reason to hope for some change on that front.
China has pegged its yuan to the dollar, rather than letting it trade freely like other currencies. So it has been declining as the dollar has lost value in recent months.
The decline in the yuan means that other countries in Asia and Europe are starting to pressure Chinese leaders to allow their currency to trade more freely. And strong economic growth in China, coupled with the declining dollar, is creating inflation risks for China.
So the Chinese may start to relent on the yuan due to their own self interest, rather than American pressure.
"Once there is some evidence the global recovery is more sustainable, the Chinese worries about inflation are likely to mean they’ll allow [the yuan] to appreciate versus the dollar," said Bryson.
US President Obama in Forbidden City
Nov 17th
US President Barack Obama (C) tours the Forbidden City in Beijing November 17, 2009.
US President Barack Obama Visits China (Photograph)
Nov 17th
Chinese President Hu Jintao and visiting US President Barack Obama met the press in Beijing Thuesday noon at the Great Hall of the People after their official talks.China and the US have reached consensus on various issues.
2012 (Columbia Pictures) (2009)
Nov 13th
Columbia Pictures
Amanda Peet encourages John Cusack to catch an outbound flight in “2012,” directed by Roland Emmerich from a screenplay he wrote with Harald Kloser.
When the World Hangs in the Balance, a Reliable Calendar Is Needed
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: November 13, 2009
I know what I have against Roland Emmerich — “The Patriot,” for starters — but what does he have against us? He’s bombarded Earth with alien death rays, big-footed it with a rampaging reptile and put it into deep freeze. Now in “2012,” his latest apocalyptic folly, he cracks the planet like a nut, splitting its crust, toppling its mountains and cities, and laying its every creeping thing to inevitable tedious waste.
Maybe he’s angry. (His last movie, “10,000 B.C.,” was widely panned.) To judge from the similarity with which he stages the multiple disaster sequences in “2012” — a limo, a camper, a plane, a bigger plane and some really big boats, by turns, race ahead of the impending doom — he seems exhausted. It’s no wonder. Finding newish ways to cram large-scale carnage into a PG-13 package is tricky. You need enough verisimilitude to hook the audience, but not enough to freak it out: the collapsing high-rises have to look real enough to be plausible, as do the itty-bitty computer-generated figures falling from them. Swirling dust and flying debris serve that commercial purpose, not rivers of blood and body pulp.
And so the dust swirls in “2012,” and debris and bodies fly, though at a careful distance. It all looks fairly convincing and also familiar: if you don’t repeatedly flash on Sept. 11, Mr. Emmerich will surely be disappointed. That gives the movie a cheap frisson, though the larger shivers are supplied by the onslaught of pricey special effects, which have grown predictably snazzier since his last cataclysm. Alas, the clichés of the disaster narrative remain in place. To that ruinous end, the larger catastrophe in “2012” functions as both the trigger and backdrop for a soap opera about a fractured family, standing in for the rest of humanity, which heals as the world falls apart. That’s the idea, anyway.
In truth, the central family here is as disposable as the billions of computer-generated humans that soon pile up after disaster hits. Written by Mr. Emmerich and Harald Kloser (they last collaborated on “10,000 B.C.”), “2012” takes its plot points and shifting plates from both science and fiction, and its title from doomsday prophesies, including a myth about the end of days derived from a reading of the Mayan calendar. Though not much is made of the Mayan angle, the most amusing character, a doomsday prophet and radio broadcaster played by Woody Harrelson, seems in hair, beard and interests to have been drawn along the predictive lines of the real author Daniel Pinchbeck (“2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl”).
Mr. Harrelson looks like he’s actually having the kind of good time stupid movies should provide but that this one roundly fails to deliver. Despite the frenetic action scenes, the movie sags, done in by multiple story lines that undercut one another and by the heaviness of its conceit. Humanity is dying, after all, as the television talking heads keep repeating, and while most of the dead are specks on the screen, Mr. Emmerich occasionally brings you close to the calamity. In one scene a musician (George Segal) calls his estranged son, but the phone is answered by the granddaughter he’s never seen. She’s cute, but then her house shakes and she’s gone, vaporized so that a sob can catch in Mr. Segal’s throat and ours.
There’s no time for real tears in movies of this sort, of course, though there’s plenty of space available for synergistic product placement, as evidenced by the Sony Vaio equipment that fills the government offices where the American president (Danny Glover) stoically stands by. Closer to the ground, another patriarch (John Cusack) plays his part as a divorced dad who will be enlisted for the usual heroics, while Amanda Peet rolls her eyes as his embittered ex. Depending on your tolerance for Mr. Cusack’s mugging, she has traded up or down by landing a plastic surgeon (Tom McCarthy). Completing this family portrait are two irritating children, a preadolescent boy (Liam James) and a younger girl (Morgan Lily).
Chiwetel Ejiofor, as some sort of wizard scientist, gets the chance to say “My. God.” several times in a credible American accent while the less-fortunate Oliver Platt plays a sleazy politician who’s equal parts devil and ham. Thandie Newton shows up as the president’s daughter who, because movies like these subscribe to the Noah’s ark theory of onscreen hookups (two of every kind), becomes an eventual romantic foil for Mr. Ejiofor’s character. Somewhere in the Himalayas a young Tibetan monk (Osric Chau) ponders the mysteries of life as his brother (Chin Han) heads off on a secret mission in China where salvation waits onscreen and, presumably, in that country’s contribution to the movie’s global box-office take.
“2012” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Old Testament-style destruction served with a smile.
2012
Opens on Friday nationwide.
Directed by Roland Emmerich; written by Mr. Emmerich and Harald Kloser; director of photography, Dean Semler; edited by David Brenner and Peter S. Elliot; music by Mr. Kloser and Thomas Wander; visual-effects supervisors, Volker Engel and Marc Weigert; production designer, Barry Chusid; produced by Mr. Kloser, Mark Gordon and Larry Franco; released by Columbia Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 38 minutes.
WITH: John Cusack (Jackson Curtis), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Adrian Helmsley), Amanda Peet (Kate Curtis), Oliver Platt (Carl Anheuser), Thandie Newton (Laura Wilson), Danny Glover (President Thomas Wilson), Woody Harrelson (Charlie Frost), George Segal (Tony Delgatto), Tom McCarthy (Gordon Silberman), Liam James (Noah Curtis), Morgan Lily (Lilly Curtis), Chin Han (Tenzin) and Osric Chau (Nima).
Chinese premier pledges funds, aid to Africa
Nov 8th
Chinese premier pledged $10 billion in loans, debt forgiveness to African nations
AP – Chinese Primer Wen Jiabao, left, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak chair the opening of the 4th Ministerial Conference …
By Tarek El-Tablawy, AP Business Writer
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt (AP) — China’s premier on Sunday pledged $10 billion in low interest loans to African nations over the next three years and said Beijing would cancel the government debts of some of the poorest of those countries.
The announcement by Wen Jiabao looked to deflect criticism that China’s investments in the continent were motivated purely by greed. China is one of the largest investors in Africa, along with the United States and Europe.
At a two-day China-Africa summit, Wen Jiabao also said China would build 100 new clean energy projects for Africa over the same period as part of an effort to help the continent deal with climate change issues.
"We will help Africa build up financing capacity," Wen said at the start of the two-day Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit. "We will provide $10 billion in concessional loans to African countries."
Concessional loans are ones that offer generous terms — better than market rates — to poorer countries.
China’s inroads into Africa have come at a price for Beijing. The country has been accused by some in the West of ignoring Africa’s needs and the dismal rights records of some of its countries while looking only to sate its hunger for the fuel it needs to drive its bustling economy.
China has, for example, been a key force in developing Sudan’s vital oil sector even as the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum is accused of atrocities in the Darfur region. More recently, a $7 billion mining deal was signed between a little known Chinese company and Guinea’s government — an agreement that came weeks after soldiers there opened fire on demonstrators and raped women in the streets.
But Wen said while many in the world have only now begun to take note of China’s role in Africa, it was a relationship that dates back five decades and included helping the countries throw off the yoke of colonialism.
"The Chinese people cherish sincere friendship toward the African people, and China’s support to Africa’s development is concrete and real," Wen said at a forum that attracted leaders such as Sudan’s Omar el-Bashir and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe — heads of state out-of-favor with the West.
"Whatever change that may take place in the world, our friendship with African people will not change," Wen said. "Our commitment to deepening mutually beneficial cooperation … will not change, and our policy of supporting Africa’s economic and social development will not change."
Wen said that as part of its support for Africa and growing trade ties with China, Beijing would take eight new measures over the next three years, including helping Africa build up its financing capacity.
Along with the loans — double the amount pledged two years earlier at a similar summit in Beijing — Wen also said that for the most heavily indebted and least developed African nations, China would cancel their debts associated with interest free government loans set to mature at the end of this year.
The caveat was that the debt forgiveness was restricted to those nations that have diplomatic relations with China — a condition likely to rankle critics who argue that China has made its support conditional on countries backing it fully, including by renouncing ties with Taiwan. The overwhelming majority of African nations have diplomatic ties with China.
Wen said that China would also build energy projects that cover solar power, biogas and small hydro plants. Other initiatives under the plan include boosting training of African professional, new schools, and phasing in zero tariff treatment for 95 percent of the products from the least developed countries that have relations with Beijing.
The steps are the latest in a growing trade relationship between China and Africa — a push that has seen trade grow tenfold in the past eight years to reach almost $107 billion by the end of 2008.
The latest pledge for loans builds on $5 billion that China had pledged to the continent during the 2006 Sina-African summit. That gathering in Beijing was widely seen as a catalyst fueling growth in Africa, a continent ravaged by some of the world’s highest poverty rates, a battle against the AIDS epidemic and chronic internal conflicts.
China in a Bubble?
Nov 2nd
by Vega.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about various Chinese asset markets being bubbles. Let’s take a look.
1) Industry and Commodities
China’s industrial sector is growing quickly, and many are arguing, unsustainably. Iron ore imports are up 65% year over year. Imports of most commodities and manufacturing of basic goods are far higher than one would expect given China’s GDP growth. This appears to be a bubble driven by stockpiling by the government as well as by speculators. Peasants have stockpiled an estimated 50,000 tons of copper in a bet on rising commodity prices. If the world economy has a robust V-shaped recovery, global demand may catch up to China’s stockpiling, but that’s a big "if". While there’s no obvious limit to how much more stockpiling the Chinese government and people can do, commodity imports and manufacturing are indeed in a bubble. It would probably take 3 years for world demand to catch up to the artificial Chinese demand for commodities.
2) Real Estate
China’s property values appear dramatically inflated. With a price to income ratio of over 12 in the major cities compared to a 5 to 1 ratio that the World Bank considers affordable, the Chinese people can’t afford the new construction. Over the past year, completed real estate is up about 25% while sales are down about 22%. That’s a huge disparity that developers are starting to remedy – new construction is down about 1% year over year. These numbers are from the official Chinese statistics, but it’s hard to know what we can trust. While China’s real estate market does appear to be in a bubble, it’s no longer a growing one as you can see from the graph of real estate prices below.
The economist Andy Xie makes the point that,
China’s urban living space is 28 square meters per person, quite high by international standards. China’s urbanization is about 50% and could rise to 75%…so China’s urban population may rise by another 300 million people. If we assume that all can afford property, Chinese cities may need an additional 8.4 billion square meters of space. China’s works-in-progress covers more than 2 billion square meters…The construction industry has production capacity of about 1.5 billion square meters per annum. Absolute oversupply – not enough people for all the buildings – could happen quite soon.
The Chinese government has started reducing the flow of easy credit which has put a lid on prices. The question is will real estate remain stable until demand can catch up, or will prices collapse violently? 
3) Credit
Loans in the first 9 months of 2009 totalled 8.7 trillion Yuan vs 3.5 trillion Yuan in 2008. M2 (measure of the broad money supply) was up 29.3% over the previous year. Despite this massive money growth, the official statistics show that China is facing deflation because of tremendous overcapacity. I’ve seen estimates suggesting that China really faces inflation of around 10%; it’s not easy weeding through the competing data.
Banks were basically ordered by the government to increase loans over the last year and there’s lots of anecdotal evidence that banks were throwing money at businesses with no investment prospects and even businesses that didn’t want the loans. The situation is widely acknowledged – chairman of China Merchants Bank, Qin Xiao, says China must urgently tighten monetary policy to avoid inflating bubbles. China has recently moved to tighten credit, but we will likely see non-performing loans rise sharply over the next few years. Below is a graph of Chinese M2 (broad money supply). 
4) Equities
Chinese equities are still 13% off their highs with GDP more than 15% higher. Simple metrics like P/E and P/B suggest that Chinese stocks aren’t cheap, but nor are they in a bubble. While many if not most Chinese companies commit accounting fraud, they are still growing quickly. No bubble here.
5) Are We The Mongolians?
The longstanding myth of the Chinese Wall was that it was built in the 3rd century BC. Most of whatever existed at that point was destroyed before the 12th century; the great wall we think of today was built by the Ming Dynasty in the 14th-17th century. The Great Wall was a great failure as the Manchu warriors entered China in 1644 and conquered Peking, establishing the Ch’ing dynasty, which reigned for three centuries. Today, China has established many economic controls to protect and preserve the pseudo-capitalist economic climate of mainland China. These new walls are likely to prove similarly ineffectual over the next few decades as western powers again impregnate China with their culture. Hopefully the modern invaders will be more beneficial to China than the Mongols were.
Conclusion:
The large current account surplus and the influx of foreign direct investment led to a bubble in real estate over the past decade. More recently, the explosion in bank lending and fiscal stimulus have produced a commodity and manufacturing bubble. However, the tremendous attention that these bubbles are receiving suggests that they are not particularly severe. In severe bubbles, the final spike occurs dramatically and with almost no one mentioning that it’s a bubble. Rather, regulators, analysts, and speculators all bend over backwards to justify the rally fundamentally. With a surfeit of bubble watchers today, we’re less likely to get the classic conclusion to bubbles – the violent bursting.
For this issue I drew upon insights from Michael Pettis, Victor Shih, and John Mauldin. Many thanks to them.
source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/170431-china-in-a-bubble
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