Re: Fidel Castro horrified by China
From my standpoint the conversation concerning China gets loud because of the lack of concrete economic and political data. Then ideology parades as insight. Quite. If China's non agricultural workforce is between 350 and 400 million . . . with roughly 100 million in the NON STATE SECTOR . . . then the question becomes what is the economic meaning of state sector and non state sector in China? The self-described meaning of the state sector is here: http://www.sasac.gov.cn/eng/eng_qygg/eng_qygg_0001.htm This is its number 1 responsibility: 1) ... to guide and push the reform and restructuring of the state-owned enterprises. Supervise the maintenance and appreciation of state assets value for those state-invested enterprises, reinforce the management of the state-owned assets, promote the establishment of modern enterprise system of the SOEs and improve enterprises Corporate governance, drive the strategic adjustment of the state-owned economic structure and layout. Also, your employment numbers are fantastically off. Here's a report (2002) from China's State Council: The employees of state and collective enterprises and institutions accounted for 37.3 percent of the total urban employees in 2001, down from 99.8 percent in 1978. Meanwhile, the number of employees of private, individually owned and foreign-invested enterprises has increased drastically. In the countryside, the household is still the dominant unit of agricultural employment. However, with the implementation of the urbanization strategy and the development of non-agricultural industries, non-agricultural employment and the transfer of rural labor have increased rapidly. By the end of 2000, the number of employees of township enterprises had reached 128.195 million, of which 38.328 million were employed by township collective enterprises, 32.525 million by township private enterprises and 57.342 million by individually owned township enterprises. Since the 1990s, the labor force transferred from rural to urban areas has topped the 80-million mark. from: http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/20020429/1.I.htm Furthermore, since 2000, nearly *all* of the township and village enterprises have been formally privatized (usually sold to the managers), so the 38+ million listed above in the 'collective' economy can now be moved to the 'private' column. Add it all up: 65 million employed in the state sector, 800+ million outside of it. Also, the ratio of employees working in the state sector continues to decline, as does its share of GDP/assets, etc. And furthermore, many of the SOEs are now no longer fully 'owned' by the State. The state merely has a controlling stake of the enterprises' shares, while management has been contracted out to From the perspective of living labor, what is the difference between state and non-state management if their common goal is the ruthless expansion of value? Let's forget about the 800 million in agriculture . . . who under the best conditions of industrial socialism ... can only alienate their products on the basis of exchange . . . no matter what the form of property in land. There aren't 800 million in agriculture. There are somewhere around 800 million people registered in rural areas, but a little less than half of China's working age population is engaged in agriculture, around 450 million. Jonathan
Re: Fidel Castro horrified by China
In a message dated 8/11/2004 12:06:10 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Also, your employment numbers are fantastically off. Here's a report (2002) from China's State Council: Reply Thanks for the data. Actually . . . they are not my figures . . . and perhaps should not have been used. Here is the data and source of "my" figures from an article dated Nov. 1, 2003: Current Condition of China's Working Class by Liu Shi is a former vice-chairman of the Chairman of the ACFTU (All-China Federation of Trade Unions) "Workers now are responsible for the creation of 72.1% of China's GDP. In 1978, there were 120 million workers in China. By 2000, there were 270 million. Adding the 70 million peasants that have moved to the cities and found long-term wage work, China's working class now numbers approximately 350 million, accounting for half of China's working population. There are currently more than 100 million workers now employed in the non-state sectors. The 13th Party Congress established that workers laboring in private enterprises are wage laborers. What about the SOEs? SOEs have undergone two types of reforms: the small have been sold-off and the large have been transformed into joint-stock corporations. A portion of small and medium-sized SOEs have been sold to private owners, and transformed into private enterprises, while another portion have transferred ownership of a significant portion of enterprise shares to the management. http://www.chinastudygroup.org/index.php?type=articleid=62 Melvin P.
Re: Fidel Castro horrified by China
In a message dated 8/11/2004 12:06:10 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: From the perspective of living labor, what is the difference betweenstate and non-state management if their common goal is the ruthlessexpansion of value? Comment The property relations that determines the circuit of reproduction and give it a distinct shape. Under the best socialism . . . or rather under the socialism that has and exist . . . one sells their labor power . . . even if it is to a system that is the dictatorship of the proletariat. At best socialism is a transition in the form of property and does not equal the abolition of property. Socialism has never meant freedom to me. You are correct concerning my use of 800 million. They arerural as opposed to agricultural sector. Nevertheless my base question was what did Fidel say that qualified as being horrified by China. Melvin P.
Re: Fidel Castro horrified by China
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nevertheless my base question was what did Fidel say that qualified as being horrified by China. He probably has never criticized China's capitalist transformation publicly since China has been fairly generous with Cuba economically. The article I forwarded quotes diplomats who were in contact with Castro supposedly, but I doubt you'll find anything specific in print. The last time Castro visited China, he made a rather tactful observation about how much had changed. To really get a handle on how he might see developments in China, you have to look at what he has said about Cuba and extrapolate from that. Castro has been resistant to market reforms all along the line. If you want more information, check the Castro speech database at: http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/castro.html It is a very useful resource. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Fidel Castro horrified by China
In a message dated 8/11/2004 3:20:06 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nevertheless my base question was what did Fidel say that qualified as being horrified by China. He probably has never criticized China's capitalist transformation publicly since China has been fairly generous with Cuba economically. The article I forwarded quotes diplomats who were in contact with Castro supposedly, but I doubt you'll find anything specific in print. The last time Castro visited China, he made a rather tactful observation about how much had changed. Reply Agreed . . . and I will most certainly examine the sources indicated. I of course do not deny the existence of the bourgeois property relations in China. Nor do I beleive that one can advance to communism on the basis of the industrial system. My resistance is to an ideological curve in our history that bounces from crying crocodile tears over the alleged famine killing perhaps as many as 40 million people and all kinds of vilification of the revolution in China and the on going revolutionary process. China . . . or rather the character and substance of her economy . . . is most certainly being more and more integrated into the world economy on the basis of bourgeois reproduction or a set of needs that generates profits and the reproduction of the bourgeois property relations. What some call expanded value without qualification. Value is more than one thing . . . and embraces a social relationship. To be frank . . . telling me about the law of value or expanded value in CHina means next to nothing . . . it don't mean shit to me. You did not state this . . . but is there a possibility of us reaching communism without an expanded value that is transformed on the basis of the form of property and the technological regime? We read and can read the same material more than less. I cannot predict the path of the people of China for the next 100 years. Fuck dumb shit. What has been our path for the past 100 years . . . in terms of the liberation of an oppressed class? The class that was liberated was the sharecropper . . . he was fucking abolished or his energy as a class was no longer need as productive activity. All of us speak of value as this mystical thing. My communism is common sense. Yea . . . common sense and not theoretical excursion about alienation. Fuck that abstract shit about expanded value . . . I did that for twenty years. What did Fidel say about China is a valid question and you answered in an honorable way. I know a little bit about Cuba and its curve of history and why Fidel is out of time. Hey . . . I love Fidel . . . but there are some outstanding demographics that cannot be ignored forever. There is some real history involved. Thanks . . . Lou. Melvin P. China . . . or rather her economy . . .
Re: Fidel Castro horrified by China
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My resistance is to an ideological curve in our history that bounces from crying crocodile tears over the alleged famine killing perhaps as many as 40 million people and all kinds of vilification of the revolution in China and the on going revolutionary process. Which I haven't heard anyone do here, please correct me if I'm wrong. But speaking of revolution, here's the (very) rough draft of a piece by Li Changping, former county head in China, who came to fame in China by writing a letter to then Premier Zhu Rongji about corruption and the desperate conditions in Hubei Province. Prevent Rural Problems From Becoming Revolutionary The main manifestation of rural problems 1. In central and western China, most rural households find it difficult to even maintain simple reproduction after paying taxes and fees on their agricultural income. Furthermore, the majority of migrant workers find it difficult to reproduce their labor power on their wages. In 70% of the villages in central and western China, each family has about 8 mu of land. In average years, each mu of land produces about 1,500 jin of grain, and at .5 yuan/jin, this is about 750 yuan in gross revenue per mu. After subtracting about 200 yuan per mu in production and transaction costs, and 100 yuan in all sorts of visible and invisible taxes and fees, this leaves 450 yuan/mu in income, or about 3,600 yuan in income per family, and usually not more than 5,000 if you include income from sidelines. This figure is an approximation of farm income in currency, while only about 3,000 yuan of a family's income comes in the form of cash. Because education, medical, and the production costs of farmers are all high, it is thus difficult for farming households to break even. According to a survey undertaken by students from Nanjin University in their hometowns, 66% of central-western rural households find it difficult to maintain simple reproduction, and 64% of households are operating in debt. Migrant workers in cities currently earn about 6,000 yuan a year, but they have on average 900 yuan in medical expenses, 1,500 yuan in rent, 2,000 in food and incidental expenses, 200 yuan in clothing expenses, etc. This leaves them with about 600 yuan/year to take home. It is not possible for a young man to accumulate enough money to build a house, get married, and prepare for children and old age on 600 yuan a year. 2. Central-western China's infrastructure has been crumbling. Health, education and other public goods exist only in name. Rural markets are depressed, and financial resources have dried up. Production and life in general are difficult in rural areas, and the romantic image of farming in China is now nothing more than a historical memory. In recent years, the state has spent a great deal on managing large river systems, with impressive results. However, because the level of organization and mobilization in villages has fallen from the past, many of the infrastructure projects built under the communes are not being maintained, lowering villages' abilities to fight natural disasters. The number of school buildings has increased in the last few years, but the public education system that existed before the 80s no longer exists. Schooling is now farming households' biggest expense (36% of their income). A survey by the Ministry of Health revealed that rural households pay on average 500 yuan/year in medical expenses. Falling ill and going to the hospital have become a luxuries for farmers, and also one of their greatest fears. In the 80s, middle schools, roads, electricity, communication, pumps, etc., were all part of the state's responsibility, but now they are all the people's responsibility. How will farmers, who have a difficult time with simple reproduction, be able to shoulder what should be the state's burden to provide public goods? Farmers' disposable cash income is falling, as is their purchasing power. Rural markets are shrinking, and TVEs (town and village enterprises) are having a rough time as rural markets shrink. The four major state banks have retreated from rural areas, and the inability of farmers to secure loans has become one of the bottlenecks for rural development. The new generation of farmers no longer feel a connection with the land, signaling that the age of chaotic urban growth is set to begin. 3. Agricultural investment continues to drop, the natural environment in rural areas is getting worse, farmers produce more and earn less, and many villages are being pressured to return to self-sufficiency. The central government increased its agricultural investment, but provincial, city, county and township governments, heavily in debt (rural townships alone owe 230 billion yuan in debt) and under pressure to issue wages to their millions of bloated staff, prevented this money from reaching the countryside. Since the 1990s, hundreds of millions of hours of labor were mobilized each year to undertake infrastructure
Fidel Castro horrified by China
Castro Turns 78 Rolling Back Capitalism in Cuba Tue Aug 10, 2004 12:16 AM ET By Anthony Boadle HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Fidel Castro turns 78 on Friday striving to roll back creeping capitalism in the socialist society he built from a guerrilla revolution in 1959. The world's longest-serving Communist leader has belied forecasts of his demise since the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived the Caribbean island of billions of dollars in subsidies and plunged its 11 million people into economic hardship. Fidel, like his country, has continued to defy the odds, said Canadian historian and Cuba expert John Kirk, a professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Still remarkably lucid at 78, despite slowing down noticeably, he clearly remains determined to stay around and protect the revolutionary legacy of Cuba, Kirk said. Ten summers ago, angered by shortages and long power cuts, Cubans took to the streets, smashed shop windows and looted central Havana stores in an unprecedented outburst of unrest. Castro, dressed in his trademark green uniform, showed up in a military jeep to quell the riots with his charismatic presence. Cubans, who had been shouting against the government minutes before, began chanting Viva Fidel. Castro released simmering social pressures by letting tens of thousands of Cubans take to sea in flimsy rafts bound for the United States. Also in response to the economic crisis, from 1993 he reluctantly allowed limited private enterprise and legalized the U.S. dollar to ease economic hardship, while opening up Cuba to tourism and foreign investment. A decade later, Cuba's one-party Communist government is retrenching and reasserting state control over the economy. It has cut back permits for private traders and small businesses and has begun strengthening its hold over state corporations, especially in tourism, the island's main source of hard currency. There, military officers have moved into key posts. Foreign investment has slowed to a trickle, and discouraged investors complain they don't feel welcome anymore as officials move to reverse market-oriented reforms. HORRIFIED BY CHINA Western observers said Castro was shocked by the rapid move to capitalism and growing social differences he witnessed in China last year. There is no coincidence that a lot of this has happened since he visited China. Many people say he was horrified with what he saw, said a European ambassador. He is the sort of man who does not want to see his legacy diluted in his lifetime, the diplomat said, adding that Castro was probably unaware of the extent of social decay in Cuba. Cuba's free education, health care and social safety net are seen as a model by many poor developing countries. Its literacy and infant mortality rates are on a par with rich nations. Castro's critics say that comes at the expense of freedom. Most Cubans are forced to scrape a living together, cope with bad housing and poor public services. Furthermore, they cannot leave Cuba at will and dissent is stamped out, the critics say. Facing growing discontent over economic difficulties, Castro last year ordered the arrest of 75 dissidents who were sentenced to jail terms of up to 28 years for conspiring with Washington. Repression of a budding opposition movement and the execution by firing-squad of three men who tried to hijack a ferry to leave Cuba brought international outrage that led to a diplomatic freeze with the European Union that deepened Havana's isolation. Increased efforts by the Bush administration to oust the Cuban leader and prepare for a transition to democracy have only served to goad him to dig his heels in, said Kirk. With the economy in better shape than a decade ago, Cuba's conservatives no longer feel the need to make concessions by opening up the economy, and retrenchment will continue, he said. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Continuing China fever
Peter Olney of the Institute for Labor and Employment in CA has written on the need for organized labor in the U.S. to hone its domestic sights on what the FT reporter termed the global hub-and-spoke network (which) is designed to link hundreds of towns and cities with an overnight communications infrastructure that keeps the world's just-in-time supply chain taut. As Michael noted, state Dems saved the ILE from Gov. Arnolds budget knife. Seth Sandronsky Date:Mon, 9 Aug 2004 12:23:22 -0400 From:Marvin Gandall [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Continuing China fever Today's Financial Times offers more dramatic evidence of how China has become the new beacon for Western-based multinationals. It describes the fierce struggle for dominance being waged over control of the lucrative China-US air cargo trade by FedEx, UPS, and European carriers like DHL --somewhat reminiscent of earlier competition over the sea trade lanes. The air cargo battle is being waged at both ends - in China, for customers and distribution hubs, and in the US, for landing rights. The article is another illustration of how from iconic multinationals such as General Motors, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, to specialists such as Home Depot or Avon, almost every significant chief executive has Chinese expansion plans at the top of his or her to-do list...lately the level of interest has begun to feel more like an obsession. The looming cloud on the horizon, of course, is the potential collapse of the US dollar, on which this booming export trade depends. But the parallel rapid development of the Chinese domestic market lends support to the view that if the 19th century belonged to Britain and the 20th century to the US, the 21st may well belong to China. Marv Gandall --- Midnight in Memphis, new dawn in China By Dan Roberts Financial Times August 9 2004 High over the Pacific Ocean, flight FX 24 from Shanghai to Memphis is one of the most closely monitored aircraft entering US airspace. Every night the Federal Express cargo jet is packed with 77 tonnes of digital cameras, mobile phones and other high-value electronics that make it the company's single largest source of revenue and a significant contributor to America's ballooning trade deficit. Until recently the top priority route for FedEx was its daily flight from Tokyo, which carries express packages from all over Asia. But as with most big US companies, FedEx's attention is increasingly focused on one market: China. Corporate America's interest in the world's most populous nation is nothing new - China's dramatic economic boom has aroused growing curiosity from US boardrooms for several years. But lately the level of interest has begun to feel more like an obsession. During Wall Street's last round of quarterly earnings announcements, few large companies got very far into their conference calls with analysts before the subject of China came up. From iconic multinationals such as General Motors, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, to specialists such as Home Depot or Avon, almost every significant chief executive has Chinese expansion plans at the top of his or her to-do list. As domestic US growth shows signs of slowing and Europe's recovery remains relatively subdued, business leaders in the world's largest economy are determined not to miss China's potential contribution to the bottom line. Rising profits from China play an essential part in many analysts' financial modelling for this year and next. There are plenty of potential problems. Many smaller companies still view China predominantly as a threat. European and Japanese multinationals are queueing to claim their share of the prize. And it is not yet clear how far Beijing may be prepared to welcome foreign competition for Chinese companies in some sectors. One way to take the pulse of corporate America's love affair with all things Chinese is to watch the elaborate mating game being played out by companies such as FedEx. Express cargo aircraft are the clipper ships of the modern age, carrying 2 per cent of international trade measured by volume but 50 per cent measured by value. In the early hours of a sticky Tennessee night more than 80 of these aircraft an hour descend into FedEx's global hub at Memphis, making it the busiest cargo airport in the world. A military-style command and control centre ensures that, no matter how bad the thunderstorms get over the Midwest, the valuable flights from Asia are always the last to be diverted or cancelled. But the express logistics industry is about more than just ferrying cargo back and forth. A global hub-and-spoke network is designed to link hundreds of towns and cities with an overnight communications infrastructure that keeps the world's just-in-time supply chain taut. In developed markets such as the US, the ability to guarantee overnight shipment of parts and finished goods has allowed companies to reduce average inventory levels by a fifth over
Fidel Castro horrified by China
by Louis Proyect -clip- He is the sort of man who does not want to see his legacy diluted in his lifetime, the diplomat said, adding that Castro was probably unaware of the extent of social decay in Cuba. ^^ CB: Social decay in Cuba or China ?
Re: Fidel Castro horrified by China
My guess is that this is a reference to prostitution in Cuba. Charles Brown wrote: by Louis Proyect -clip- He is the sort of man who does not want to see his legacy diluted in his lifetime, the diplomat said, adding that Castro was probably unaware of the extent of social decay in Cuba. ^^ CB: Social decay in Cuba or China ? . -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Fidel Castro horrified by China
HORRIFIED BY CHINA Western observers said Castro was shocked by the rapid move to capitalism and growing social differences he witnessed in China last year. "There is no coincidence that a lot of this has happened since he visited China. Many people say he was horrified with what he saw," said a European ambassador. Comment Someone said that Castro said something . . . and with my dumb ass I thought this thread might be about something that FidelCastro (the paramount leader) had stated . . . instead of someone saying that Castro said something . . . about China. From my standpoint the conversation concerning China gets loud because of the lack of concrete economic and political data. Then ideology parades as insight. Last December insurance giant China Life completed the largest initial public offering in the world, raising US$3.46 billion, after raising allotments and pricing shares at the high end of estimates. In terms of the "capitalism or socialism" debate around China . . . and I am of the opinion that China has the largest socialist economy on earth in real time . . . and yes . . . the bourgeois property relations also exists in China . . . hard economic data and economic logic and insight is hard to come by. Dig China Life . . . an insurance company . . . that drew billions of dollars to it in an environment where interest payments from banks can be as small as 1/100 of 1 percent . . . annually. If China's non agricultural workforce is between 350 and 400 million . . . with roughly 100 million in the NON STATE SECTOR . . . then the question becomes what is the economic meaning of state sector and non state sector in China? Let's forget about the 800 million in agriculture . . . who under the best conditions of industrial socialism ... can only alienate their products on the basis of exchange . . . no matter what the form of property in land. What is the non state sector in respects to say China Life? Check out the following excerpt about China Life . . . and then ponder the question is China socialism or capitalism? Excerpt . . . begins here. China Life, like most companies China opens to overseas investors, is state-owned. It's been sliced and diced to create a Frankenstein offering of selected viable parts in order to pass muster with regulators and tempt investors. Bolted on to the top of this monster as its brain is the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The State Council has many constituencies to satisfy, and foreign investors will never climb very high on its list. That's because no foreign investor can threaten the Communist Party's monopoly on power the way domestic rivals or mass unrest might. Foreigners also get limited respect since investors keep falling over themselves to get a piece of the Chinese dream, as they have for the past century and a half. If the Chinese leadership had a good deal to offer, ask yourself, why would they offer it to you and the rest of the overseas investing public? That view may seem outdated, looking at the China that Deng invented and Zhu Rongji revved into the world's fastest-growing nation for a decade. But two other incidents last week, providing background music for flipping your China Life shares, indicate that the political leadership remains intimately involved with the economy in pursuit of its own interests. China's leading car maker, Shanghai Automobile Industrial Corp (SAIC), wants to buy South Korea's Ssangyong Motor, that nation's fourth-largest surviving car company with a dominant position in sport-utility vehicles. But China National Blue Star Group, a chemical company that provides some supplies to the auto industry, likes what it's seen of China's booming car market enough to make its own bid for Ssangyong. This high-stakes acquisition contest didn't play out in the offices of Ssangyong's bankers or lawyers, but in a Beijing meeting of China's National Development and Reform Commission, a body that reports directly to the State Council. As with any good political decision, both companies apparently left the meeting thinking they'd won the nod to bid for Ssangyong. In a wise saying that anyone tempted to think of China as just another economy ought to frame and hang on the wall, a Blue Star spokesman declared: "The Chinese government treats all companies equally - SAIC is state-owned and we are state-owned. This is a market economy, not a planned system." One with distinctly Chinese characteristics, though. This dispute between Chinese suitors will more likely result in heartaches for Ssangyong's sellers rather than a higher price. Whoever winds up with Ssangyong, the new Chinese State owners probably will continue to play by rules that suit themselves. (State-controlled companies, such as Singapore Telecom, buying assets overseas raise a host of competitive and even security questions to be examined in a future column. That Europe has the most experience with su
Continuing China fever
Today's Financial Times offers more dramatic evidence of how China has become the new beacon for Western-based multinationals. It describes the fierce struggle for dominance being waged over control of the lucrative China-US air cargo trade by FedEx, UPS, and European carriers like DHL --somewhat reminiscent of earlier competition over the sea trade lanes. The air cargo battle is being waged at both ends - in China, for customers and distribution hubs, and in the US, for landing rights. The article is another illustration of how from iconic multinationals such as General Motors, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, to specialists such as Home Depot or Avon, almost every significant chief executive has Chinese expansion plans at the top of his or her to-do list...lately the level of interest has begun to feel more like an obsession. The looming cloud on the horizon, of course, is the potential collapse of the US dollar, on which this booming export trade depends. But the parallel rapid development of the Chinese domestic market lends support to the view that if the 19th century belonged to Britain and the 20th century to the US, the 21st may well belong to China. Marv Gandall --- Midnight in Memphis, new dawn in China By Dan Roberts Financial Times August 9 2004 High over the Pacific Ocean, flight FX 24 from Shanghai to Memphis is one of the most closely monitored aircraft entering US airspace. Every night the Federal Express cargo jet is packed with 77 tonnes of digital cameras, mobile phones and other high-value electronics that make it the company's single largest source of revenue and a significant contributor to America's ballooning trade deficit. Until recently the top priority route for FedEx was its daily flight from Tokyo, which carries express packages from all over Asia. But as with most big US companies, FedEx's attention is increasingly focused on one market: China. Corporate America's interest in the world's most populous nation is nothing new - China's dramatic economic boom has aroused growing curiosity from US boardrooms for several years. But lately the level of interest has begun to feel more like an obsession. During Wall Street's last round of quarterly earnings announcements, few large companies got very far into their conference calls with analysts before the subject of China came up. From iconic multinationals such as General Motors, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, to specialists such as Home Depot or Avon, almost every significant chief executive has Chinese expansion plans at the top of his or her to-do list. As domestic US growth shows signs of slowing and Europe's recovery remains relatively subdued, business leaders in the world's largest economy are determined not to miss China's potential contribution to the bottom line. Rising profits from China play an essential part in many analysts' financial modelling for this year and next. There are plenty of potential problems. Many smaller companies still view China predominantly as a threat. European and Japanese multinationals are queueing to claim their share of the prize. And it is not yet clear how far Beijing may be prepared to welcome foreign competition for Chinese companies in some sectors. One way to take the pulse of corporate America's love affair with all things Chinese is to watch the elaborate mating game being played out by companies such as FedEx. Express cargo aircraft are the clipper ships of the modern age, carrying 2 per cent of international trade measured by volume but 50 per cent measured by value. In the early hours of a sticky Tennessee night more than 80 of these aircraft an hour descend into FedEx's global hub at Memphis, making it the busiest cargo airport in the world. A military-style command and control centre ensures that, no matter how bad the thunderstorms get over the Midwest, the valuable flights from Asia are always the last to be diverted or cancelled. But the express logistics industry is about more than just ferrying cargo back and forth. A global hub-and-spoke network is designed to link hundreds of towns and cities with an overnight communications infrastructure that keeps the world's just-in-time supply chain taut. In developed markets such as the US, the ability to guarantee overnight shipment of parts and finished goods has allowed companies to reduce average inventory levels by a fifth over the last decade and is thought to have played a significant role in improving productivity across the economy (see charts). It is for this reason, above all else, that FedEx and rivals such as United Parcel Service and DHL are paying so much attention to China. As it becomes the workshop of the world, teeming factories along the Pearl and Yangtze river deltas represent both the start of the world's supply chain and the source of some its biggest transport bottlenecks. Growing recognition of this fact has also helped to spark interest among Chinese government officials
Re: China and socialism
Chris Doss wrote: For the NYT or WP, everything bad that happens in China or Russia is the result of a nefarious plot hatched in Beijing or Moscow. For the life of me I can't understand why people who would be hypersceptical over these papers' coverage of, say, Venezuela cite them as impeachable sources on other parts of the world. Louis Proyect replied: This comes as no surprise. C'mon, cut it out. If you aren't surprised, then perhaps you should not answer at all? End the dialogue? Work to end his verbal oppression through action? Refuse to consent to his comment? Overcome? Yet you continue: You have stated publicly on LBO-Talk that censorship was not a problem in the USSR and that people could read whatever they want. You also quote liberally from the , which fails to meet Rupert Murdoch's standards by all accounts. Putinite press -- You quote from all kinds of things, yourself, Louis. As suits your needs. The news media is not monolithic. The owners are. Because you've never been published in newsmedia, you may not understand the pressure. The staff are just like other workers. So spare me your blanket generalizations. the Monthly Review article I was reviewing Another book report from Louis. (No need, here, of course, for blanket generalizations here about the class of people contributing to the Monthly Review.) Finally, it does not surprise me that you would take the side of the Chinese government against an investigative piece that ran in the NY Times. Heh. It doesn't surprise me you like the NY Times. You liberal, you. :) Ken. -- He couldn't figure out how to pour piss from a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. -- Lyndon Johnson
Re: China and socialism
I . . .uhhEye against IFlesh of my flesh and Mind of my mind.Two of a kind but one won't survive.The image is reflect in my enemy eyes and my image is reflect in his the same time. Right here is where the end gonna start at.Conflict . . . contact . . . call back.Fighter stand where the land is marked at . . .Settle the dispute about who the livest. . . Free world says who ever survive this. Only one of us can arrive foreverSo you and I can't ride together.We can't live or die together . . .All we can do is collide together.So I skillfully apply the pressure . . . won't stop til i'm forever.ONE!A door step where death never comesSpread across time . . . til my time never done.And I'm never doneWalk tall why . . . every run . . .When they moveth . . . I ever come.Bad man never fret warGeneral we have the stock the mad fire burn. I . . .uhhEye against IFlesh of my flesh and Mind of my mind.Two of a kind but one won't survive.The image is reflect in my enemy eyes and my image is reflect in his the same time. Who am IOne man squadron Man stir the fire that snatches your tomorrow.The thousand yard spear that pierces your armor . . .YOU CAN GET IT ON RIGHT NOW IF YOU WANT TO.But when you front now . . .get marched throughI warned you.You know who forever belongs to. Mos Def : Eye againt I . . . theme to Blade 2
Re: China and socialism
I would never have read this if it hadn't been referenced by Kenneth. You have stated publicly on LBO-Talk that censorship was not a problem in the USSR and that people could read whatever they want. You also quote liberally from the , which fails to meet Rupert Murdoch's standards by all accounts Virtually nothing was banned in the USSR. It was not imported or printed, but that is not the same thing. Just ask Wojtek Sokolowski. The same was true in Poland. What does it mean to quote liberally from the ,? __ Do you Yahoo!? Y! Messenger - Communicate in real time. Download now. http://messenger.yahoo.com
Re: China and socialism
Putinite press -- You quote from all kinds of things, yourself, Louis. - How does somebody who doesn't read Russian know jack shit about the Russian press, Putinite are otherwise? How lame. That's not how the Russian media work. Anyway that's my last word on the subject. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: China and socialism
All right, one final word and then I am outta here. The inanity of that statement is breathtaking. I worked for the Russia Journal for three years. (Actually I am somewhat proud of the fact that the eXile praised my editorials. That's pretty rare.) I think I know how the Russian media work. Putinoid. How lame. How New York Times. --- Chris Doss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Putinite press -- You quote from all kinds of things, yourself, Louis. - How does somebody who doesn't read Russian know jack shit about the Russian press, Putinite are otherwise? How lame. That's not how the Russian media work. Anyway that's my last word on the subject. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: China and socialism
Chris Doss wrote: Virtually nothing was banned in the USSR. The Washington Post July 20, 2002 Saturday Soviet Dissident Alexander Ginzburg Dies BYLINE: Martin Weil, Washington Post Staff Writer Alexander Ginzburg, 65, who was persecuted, imprisoned and exiled as a leader of the dissident intellectual movement that worked for human rights and individual freedom in the Soviet Union, died July 19 in Paris. Mr. Ginzburg is often credited with being a founder of the Samizdat, or self-publishing movement, by which intellectuals put forward their ideas and challenged government repression. The Associated Press attributed reports of Mr. Ginzburg's death to Russian news accounts. No cause of death was given. After being expelled from the Soviet Union, Mr. Ginzburg came first to the United States, and then made France a base for writing, lecturing and worldwide campaigning. The courage and dedication of the dissident movement -- including such figures as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nathan Shcharansky and Andrei Sakharov -- have been described as important to the ultimate downfall of Soviet communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Individual loose sheets -- often poetry, typed, handwritten and copied by duplicating machine -- began appearing in Moscow a few years after Stalin's death. Mr. Ginzburg, was credited with the creation in 1960 of what was considered the first magazine to circumvent the Soviet government's publishing monopoly. The magazine's name has been translated as Syntax, or Syntaxis, and on its pages appeared underground intellectuals, writers and poets not officially sanctioned by the government, taking sly aim, through literary techniques, at some of the abuses and hypocrisies of the Soviet regime. It lasted only a few issues, but the authorities recognized Mr. Ginzburg's work with a two-year prison sentence. In 1965, dissident writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel were arrested, and they went on trial the next year. In the White Book, Mr. Ginzburg offered an account of what the dissidents viewed as a blatantly political prosecution. This drew greater worldwide attention to Soviet repression and helped amplify the voices of the dissidents. For Mr. Ginzburg, it brought a closed trial and new five-year prison term. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: China and socialism
End of thread! Why can you just discuss things without getting nasty and bringing up material from other lists? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: China and socialism
Thanks LP for posting the review of Hart-Landsberg and Burkett's long MR piece. I just picked up a copy yesterday, and have been looking it over. I've got my own little quibbles with it (not enough emphasis on rural China, which I think is desperately important right now, they lump pre-1976 China together as 'Maoist' China, etc.), but personally I think it's a very welcome and timely piece. I hope it continues to spark debate and interest. Many of the (reposted) digs against Hart-Landsberg and Burkett seem wildly off the mark. The duo are mainly concerned about people using China as a progressive model of development. Few in the US do, but I think there is a growing sense in other parts of the world that China offers a viable alternative to neoliberalism. Particularly when China works together with Brazil and other countries in the Group of 77. Stiglitz seems to be in this category, and you'll find lots of this in UN orgs and other wonky progressive orgs. To counter this, Hart-Landsberg and Burkett try to show how bad things are in China for the working class. It's not the whole story, but it's hard to deny, and it's only going to get worse. I think we should be getting ready for this debate. When these kind of news stories - see below - appear (and we're only hearing about this one because one of the villagers was able to get to the internet), perhaps we should pause and look a bit closer at what's going on. The way that these contradictions are either displaced, resolved, or sublated will have, IMO, a wide-reaching influence on how the 21st Century plays out, just as they did last century. Jonathan - Villagers vow to fight on in face of police assault Joint owners want to overturn the sale of 150 hectares worth 40 million yuan SCMP | 3 aug Villagers in Henan province vowed to continue their fight for justice after police intervened at the weekend to quell their protest over land sales, leaving several people injured and four detained. What we ask for is simple: return our land and punish the corrupt village officials, said a villager surnamed Liu, whose mother was injured in the raid and was being treated yesterday for gunshot wounds. Mr Liu, 22, said the district government had sent about 400 officials to Shijiahe village in Zhengzhou city to try to stop the villagers from petitioning. About 600 police armed with tear gas, shotguns, dogs and electric batons raided the village last Saturday looking for the organisers of protests against land sales approved by village head Liu Guo-zhao. At least 30 people were injured and four detained in the incident, Mr Liu said. Most of the injured cannot even afford to go to hospital. Villagers strongly opposed the land deal, which involved 150 hectares of farmland worth up to 40 million yuan and owned by more than 6,000 of them, Mr Liu said. They had protested since June and sent their petitions to the city and provincial governments but had not received any response. A district government team went to the village about three weeks ago after villagers threatened to hold a protest in Beijing. The incident police raid happened on the same day the team had promised to release an investigation result, Mr Liu said. The team disappeared from the village before the police arrived. He said local government representatives had visited his mother, one of the four still in hospital. It was merely a show. They did not even bother to visit the other victims who were in other wards, he said. They tried to give my mother 1,000 yuan for medical care, but we refused to accept it because we knew their real intention was to stop us from petitioning any further. My mother said, 'We don't need your money now. Let us wait until the problem is resolved'. Mr Liu, who works in Zhengzhou, posted a report of the incident and his mobile phone number on an overseas Chinese website on Sunday. He said yesterday that internet police had phoned him and he dared not return home for fear of further police harassment. An official from the Huiji district government publicity department confirmed that a group of officials had been sent to Shijiahe village to deal with the dispute. Most of our staff from the relevant departments are in the village now, he said. They have been working on the dispute ever since it started. The incident is still under investigation ... and things are going in the right direction. The official denied a report that the village head had been placed in shuanggui, a disciplinary measure outside the regular legal system under which party members are detained and interrogated. A Zhengzhou city government spokeswoman said the fact that no local media had covered the story proved the sensitivity of the case. We cannot give any comment, not because it is a secret; we need time to clarify the facts, she said.
China Study Group
Jonathan Lassen writes: Thanks LP for posting the review of Hart-Landsberg and Burkett's long MR piece. I just picked up a copy yesterday, and have been looking it over. I've got my own little quibbles with it (not enough emphasis on rural China, which I think is desperately important right now, they lump pre-1976 China together as 'Maoist' China, etc.), but personally I think it's a very welcome and timely piece. I hope it continues to spark debate and interest. I do not like to diminish the MR. Just... put it in perspective. Who funds it? Have you met the people who do? (I have met some of them.) Likewise, with groups using .orgs. So, here, to save reader's time, is from the Web site of China Group: China Study Group is a New York based non-profit organization formed in 1995 to facilitate networking of scholars/activists, and promote dissemination of info and research works, Another New York intelligentsia leftist group. Without roots, perhaps, based on the self-description: Members of the CSG support the broad goals of the Chinese revolution that triumphed in 1949, and seek to stimulate knowledge and debate regarding its achievements and limitations, as well as to offer a critical perspective of the radical changes that have occurred in China over the past 25 years and an ongoing analysis of its role in the world today. No mention of the money, though. Are these rich people in the CSG support? My guess is -- and this is prejudicial against me, not you -- that these people are academics or dilettantes without any roots in the cultures they write about. (Only a guess.) Nonetheless, China exists without the CSG, so, please, do not interpret my skeptical view of information from the CSG as a refutation of China. I think China might possibly be there for a long time -- even without me. Ken. -- I am the passenger And I ride and I ride I ride through the city's backside I see the stars come out of the sky Yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky You know it looks so good tonight -- The Passenger Iggy Pop, 1977
Re: China Study Group
Hi Kenneth Campbell, Who funds Monthly Review? I have no idea. I do know a bit about China Study Group, since I work with them. The annual budget is about 100 dollars, which is what the website costs. All the labor is volunteer. My guess is -- and this is prejudicial against me, not you -- that these people are academics or dilettantes without any roots in the cultures they write about. (Only a guess.) Some are academics, most are not. Most of the members are from China. None are dilettantes. Cheers, Jonathan wrote: Jonathan Lassen writes: Thanks LP for posting the review of Hart-Landsberg and Burkett's long MR piece. I just picked up a copy yesterday, and have been looking it over. I've got my own little quibbles with it (not enough emphasis on rural China, which I think is desperately important right now, they lump pre-1976 China together as 'Maoist' China, etc.), but personally I think it's a very welcome and timely piece. I hope it continues to spark debate and interest. I do not like to diminish the MR. Just... put it in perspective. Who funds it? Have you met the people who do? (I have met some of them.) Likewise, with groups using .orgs. So, here, to save reader's time, is from the Web site of China Group: China Study Group is a New York based non-profit organization formed in 1995 to facilitate networking of scholars/activists, and promote dissemination of info and research works, Another New York intelligentsia leftist group. Without roots, perhaps, based on the self-description: Members of the CSG support the broad goals of the Chinese revolution that triumphed in 1949, and seek to stimulate knowledge and debate regarding its achievements and limitations, as well as to offer a critical perspective of the radical changes that have occurred in China over the past 25 years and an ongoing analysis of its role in the world today. No mention of the money, though. Are these rich people in the CSG support? My guess is -- and this is prejudicial against me, not you -- that these people are academics or dilettantes without any roots in the cultures they write about. (Only a guess.) Nonetheless, China exists without the CSG, so, please, do not interpret my skeptical view of information from the CSG as a refutation of China. I think China might possibly be there for a long time -- even without me. Ken. -- I am the passenger And I ride and I ride I ride through the city's backside I see the stars come out of the sky Yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky You know it looks so good tonight -- The Passenger Iggy Pop, 1977
Re: China Study Group
Hi Kenneth Campbell, Hi Jonathan Lassen! Who funds Monthly Review? I have no idea. I have an idea... grin. But I love the publication, nonetheless. I do know a bit about China Study Group, since I work with them. The annual budget is about 100 dollars, which is what the website costs. All the labor is volunteer. Okay... that sounds noble. Volunteer labour is in most things -- like Christian summer camps. Some are academics, most are not. Most of the members are from China. None are dilettantes. As I hope you understood, I meant no offence. China needs no help from us. Ken. -- An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning. -- Max Planck
Re: China and socialism
Jonathan Lassen wrote: When these kind of news stories - see below - appear (and we're only hearing about this one because one of the villagers was able to get to the internet), perhaps we should pause and look a bit closer at what's going on. The way that these Contradictions are either displaced, resolved, or sublated will have, IMO, a wide-reaching influence on how the 21st Century plays out, just as they did last century. Jonathan - Villagers vow to fight on in face of police assault Joint owners want to overturn the sale of 150 hectares worth 40 million yuan SCMP | 3 aug Villagers in Henan province vowed to continue their fight for justice after police intervened at the weekend to quell their protest over land sales, leaving several people injured and four detained. Is this particular story emblematic of the restoration of capitalism, though? Isn't it true that this kind of event took place in pre-reform China -- and not necessarily to benefit the working and toiling classes? We expect to see it in capitalist countries, of course. In a socialist country, however, where the working class is the dominant social strata, one might expect it not to happen. My question is, to what extent is political repression in China the result of a one-party system that had/s(?) the tendency to disallow dissenting opinions and/or the insistence on a single path to socialism (if that kind of rhetoric is allowable), or a political culture (not meant in the anthropological sense) generated by a cultural-revolution-type atmosphere rather than a restoration of capitalism? I think some parallels are easily made with the Soviet Union and the means to an end mentality of some on the left in that one-party system, considering that it doesn't exist anymore. Joel Wendland http://www.politicalaffairs.net _ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
Re: China and socialism
Joel Wendland wrote: Is this particular story emblematic of the restoration of capitalism, though? Isn't it true that this kind of event took place in pre-reform China -- and not necessarily to benefit the working and toiling classes? We expect to see it in capitalist countries, of course. The pre-reform, post-revolutionary state in China did not resort to organized violence in order secure land for industrial purposes. They had sufficient legitimacy and power so that violence was not necessary. The violence associated with land grabs is very much a recent problem, developing since the late 90s as far as I know. In a socialist country, however, where the working class is the dominant social strata, one might expect it not to happen. China's working class may be the majority in urban China, but I don't think anyone would consider them dominant. My question is, to what extent is political repression in China the result of a one-party system that had/s(?) the tendency to disallow dissenting opinions and/or the insistence on a single path to socialism (if that kind of rhetoric is allowable), or a political culture (not meant in the anthropological sense) generated by a cultural-revolution-type atmosphere rather than a restoration of capitalism? I don't think you can separate the current development/restoration of capitalism and repression in China. People living in non-capitalist social relations have to be drawn kicking and screaming into the loving embrace of the 'market.' Chinese farmers don't want to be locked cages and thrown back into the 19th century. The corrupt bureaucratic class of China's countryside is the underground pump for the sea of factories that produce an increasingly large chunk of social materiality on this planet. This can only be accomplished under the most ruthless of dictatorships, regardless of the appearence of the political system. The current 'political culture' in China has been generated by the Cultural Revolution only in a negative way. Dengism was the conscious rejection of everything Maoist, particularly the Cultural Revolution. It emerged as the victorious ideology only after Mao's death, and the failure of the Cultural Revolution. Cheers, Jonathan
Re: China Study Group
Kenneth Campbell wrote: As I hope you understood, I meant no offence. China needs no help from us. I'm not sure why China provokes such strong feelings of separateness/alienation. Let's all just stay in our hermetically sealed container-states, it's much safer. JL
Re: China and socialism
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The first rule of politics for political leaders on the side of the proletariat in the American Union is that if the New York Times or Washington Post run a story on China . . . position yourself in opposition to it and you will be on the right side of the polarity . . . 90% of the time . . . always. A 10% loss rate is acceptable for any political leader. -- For the NYT or WP, everything bad that happens in China or Russia is the result of a nefarious plot hatched in Beijing or Moscow. For the life of me I can't understand why people who would be hypersceptical over these papers' coverage of, say, Venezuela cite them as impeachable sources on other parts of the world. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: China and socialism
There are also reports of college students who jumped from high-rise dormitory buildings in protest of the governments timid "peaceful" policy over Taiwan independence. The suicide-protestors wanted the government to take Taiwan for force right now and stand up to US bullying. The report that an 18-year-old killed himself over lack of money to pay college fees proves only that 18-year-olds need better counseling. The fact of the matter is that 18-year-olds all over the world flirt with suicide for all kind of reasons, much of which tragically irrational and childish. As for whether China would be a good model for the rest of the Third World, let the people of the Third World decide for themselves. We don't need self-righteous academics in the West to pronounce what is an ideologically correct model for the Third World. The sad fact is that the Western left have done little for the Third World beyond destructive talk. Until members of the Western Left can control their own imperialists governments and improve the lot of the poor in their own societies, they had better be a bit more humble about what is correct. There is a lot about China that is not perfect and a lot of people within China are trying very hard to correct these problems. But believe me, poverty for all is a bad trade-off for ideological purity. The NY Times also printed other articles on China recently: The advent of the vacation is a relatively new phenomenon in China that coincides with the emergence of a new middle class with disposable income. Wealthy Chinese are now flocking to destinations around Southeast Asia and beyond. Others are exploring domestic sites like Qingdao, a popular getaway for people from Beijing. http://nytimes.com/2004/07/30/international/asia/30qing.html?adxnnl=1adxnnlx=1091444128-2e9057b7RGa7p+S9Pv+yyg New Boomtowns Change Path of China's Growth http://nytimes.com/2004/07/28/international/asia/28china.html South China Morning Post (HK) 7/30/04 More are becoming upwardly mobile, but birth still counts Mainlanders' chances of social advancement through merit have improved in the past two decades, but birth still matters for those aiming for political careers. A report on social mobility by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released yesterday shows it is getting easier for mainlanders to upgrade their status within one generation. Before 1980, only 32 per cent of the workforce was able to find a job better than their fathers'. More than 60 per cent had no choice but to accept their parents' station. Since then, however, 40 per cent of working people have managed to advance professionally. Mainlanders are also changing between jobs more frequently that before. Before 1980, 86 per cent of the labour force never changed jobs throughout their working life. But from 1990 to 2000, 54 per cent took their chances and ventured out to seek new jobs. "The rapid development of the economy has created more occupational professions, and many of them are of high level," the report said. "The economic reform policy provides an institutional environment where people can improve their social class on their capabilities and merit. "As a result, Chinese society is becoming more open and mobile." But the report noted it was unlikely that a Bill Clinton or John Edwards - who were born into working-class families but rose to political prominence - would appear in China. To enter the "government official" occupational category, family background remains the determining factor. For every 100 people whose fathers are cadres, seven become government officials themselves. For workers, the ratio is one in 100; for farmers, even less than one. The work mainlanders covet the most is in "government and social administration", based on decades of polling by the academy. People tend to think this public service position will bring them power, the report says: "Without any doubts, cadres are the most powerful people in the country." But for those whose aspirations lie outside the political scope, their fates seem more in their own hands. Educational credentials rank as the No1 factor for a good career, the report says. College graduates have three times more opportunities in the job market than those who only have high school diplomas, even though the latter might come from better family backgrounds. But for well-educated rural people, prospects are less rosy. The urban registration system, which works to prevent rural people from moving freely into urban areas, still limits their work prospects. Three years ago, the academy caused an uproar when it published a study on how the composition of Chinese society had changed over the decades. It was seen by analysts as an effort by the leadership to embrace the rising private sector. But the study confirmed that the
Re: China and socialism
Chris Doss wrote: For the NYT or WP, everything bad that happens in China or Russia is the result of a nefarious plot hatched in Beijing or Moscow. For the life of me I can't understand why people who would be hypersceptical over these papers' coverage of, say, Venezuela cite them as impeachable sources on other parts of the world. This comes as no surprise. You have stated publicly on LBO-Talk that censorship was not a problem in the USSR and that people could read whatever they want. You also quote liberally from the Putinite press, which fails to meet Rupert Murdoch's standards by all accounts. In fact, the Monthly Review article I was reviewing includes a bunch of tables in the appendix that confirms the NY Times report. Those tables are from reliable sources. Finally, it does not surprise me that you would take the side of the Chinese government against an investigative piece that ran in the NY Times. This appears to be part of a pattern of defending whatever Russia, India and China deem necessary in their scorched earth march to fully developed capitalist property relations. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: China and socialism
The problem, unfortunately, is there has never been anything other than a scorched earth march to fully developed capitalist property relations --anywhere, ever. Therefore, the issue becomes: is such a march historically progressive, despite the human toll? Marx, of course, answered in the affirmative in relation to pre-existing modes of development. You know all this. Marx wasn't around to witness the failed experiments to leap over the capitalist stage in both China and the USSR in the 20th century. I now think he may well have repudiated these efforts, especially on seeing the outcome, and interpreted the reversion to capitalism in each instance as consistent with his theory. He was not ammoral and would have condemned the massive social cost, but the moral dimension would have been subordinate to his analysis, and I expect also that he would have seen the Stalinist interlude as an effect rather than cause of these historical developments. Marv Gandall - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, August 02, 2004 9:17 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] China and socialism Chris Doss wrote: For the NYT or WP, everything bad that happens in China or Russia is the result of a nefarious plot hatched in Beijing or Moscow. For the life of me I can't understand why people who would be hypersceptical over these papers' coverage of, say, Venezuela cite them as impeachable sources on other parts of the world. This comes as no surprise. You have stated publicly on LBO-Talk that censorship was not a problem in the USSR and that people could read whatever they want. You also quote liberally from the Putinite press, which fails to meet Rupert Murdoch's standards by all accounts. In fact, the Monthly Review article I was reviewing includes a bunch of tables in the appendix that confirms the NY Times report. Those tables are from reliable sources. Finally, it does not surprise me that you would take the side of the Chinese government against an investigative piece that ran in the NY Times. This appears to be part of a pattern of defending whatever Russia, India and China deem necessary in their scorched earth march to fully developed capitalist property relations. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: China and socialism
Marvin Gandall wrote: The problem, unfortunately, is there has never been anything other than a scorched earth march to fully developed capitalist property relations --anywhere, ever. Therefore, the issue becomes: is such a march historically progressive, despite the human toll? Marx, of course, answered in the affirmative in relation to pre-existing modes of development. You know all this. I recommend that you read Theodor Shanin's Late Marx, which makes a convincing case that Marx rejected the notion of universal models of development. Kautsky, of course, ignored the late Marx and reimposed this schema on Marxism. Lenin returned to the late Marx when he drafted the April Theses, which rejected the notion of a capitalist stage for Russia. Marx wasn't around to witness the failed experiments to leap over the capitalist stage in both China and the USSR in the 20th century. I now think he may well have repudiated these efforts, especially on seeing the outcome, and interpreted the reversion to capitalism in each instance as consistent with his theory. He was not ammoral and would have condemned the massive social cost, but the moral dimension would have been subordinate to his analysis, and I expect also that he would have seen the Stalinist interlude as an effect rather than cause of these historical developments. I see that you omit Cuba in this 2 sentence panorama of the last 100 years. Highly revealing. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: China and socialism
South China Morning Post, Aug. 2 Police shoot villagers in land dispute, report says by: Staff Reporter Dozens of people in Shijiahe village in Zhengzhou, Henan province, were reportedly injured yesterday when police arrested troublemakers who had organised protests over land deals approved by village leaders. Chinesenewsnet.com, an overseas-based Chinese affairs website, carried a message posted by a family member saying about 600 policemen surrounded the village in the early hours yesterday to arrest villagers who were identified as troublemakers. The villagers had complained that village leaders had pocketed the proceeds from the land deals. Armed with tear gas, shotguns, dogs and electric batons, the police confronted unarmed villagers who tried to stop them from taking the troublemakers away, the message said. As a result, more than 30 people suffered gunshot wounds and six were seriously hurt. The message did not say how many villagers or troublemakers had been arrested but said the injured villagers were being treated in a hospital in Zhengzhou. The report said the villagers opposed the land sale, which involved investment of as much as 40 million yuan.
Re: China and socialism . . . yea . . . when it all fall down
The problem, unfortunately, is there has never been anything other than a "scorched earth march to fully developed capitalist property relations" --anywhere, ever. Therefore, the issue becomes: is such a march historically progressive, despite the human toll? Marx, of course, answered in the affirmative in relation to pre-existing modes of development. You know all this. Marx wasn't around to witness the failed experiments to leap over the capitalist stage in both China and the USSR in the 20th century. Comment When it all falls down the ceiling crashes on everyone head without regard to the politics or ideology contained in each head. Without question industrial society and all its boundaries of development set the basis and stage for the communist society Marx spoke of. After many years of considering these questions . . . my own personal opinion is that the communists were more than less doomed by the constrain of the last boundary of history . . . especially so . . . in the absence of public property relations in the advanced industrial countries. Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao ZeDung, Uncle Ho and the paramount leader Fidel are not causes but effects and as such are banners or direction of a particular detachmentof communist leaders. Nor could social revolution be exported to the advance industrially developed countries. And we most certainly could not carry out insurrection in the absence of social revolution in America. To the same degree this is what the Soviets faced and also China. Yes, the Great October Revolution was socialist . . . meaning its leaders held a vision of communism but above all it was the acceleration of the industrial revolution with all its consequences for market exchange and the law of value. The goal of communism has never been public property but the abolish of property on the basis of its last historically evolved form . . . bourgeois property. One cannot have this as a practical task in a more than less agricultural society. I have arrived at the conclusion that the key to what happened in the Soviet Union and what is taking place in China resides in our own history. Not in the sense of us overthrowing the bourgeoisie but curve of development. No one beats the machine of history and overthrowing a bureaucratic order is impossible until history steps into the social arena and erode the basis upon which an "order" is established. China is more complex because it was a national democratic revolution led by communists. The National Democratic Revolution is bourgeois by definition. And the communist of China have carved themselves a noble page . . . chapter in history. The last time history placed social revolution on the agenda in the American Union was the Civil War. The Civil Rights Movement was not social revolution but a reform movement to allow the expansion of the industrial system and the mechanization of agriculture. There was no magical "workers uprising in Russian" but an economic and social collapse as the result of a catastrophic war time defeat during the passing from feudal economic and social relations to industrial relations. Today on a world scale we face the industrial bureaucracy in all its property forms and relations. The intersection is going to be complex and profound. The world has been more than less industrialized and we are at the beginning of this enormous leap to a post industrial world that may take a century of two. We have no way to chart this curve . . . yet. We cannot make anyone . . . especially our own working class do something it does not want to do or understand as rational. Nor could we even maintain our orientation during the past 30 years of assaulting the bourgeois order. Marx said that we hold the key and our actuality was the future of all the areas of the world . . . . economically drawn forward in our wake . . . industrial curve of development. I utterly reject as foolishness that we have failed in discharging our responsibility to our working class because some group was Trotskyists . . . or Stalinists or studied the Thought of Ma ZeDung or practiced Buddhism or "didn't really understand Marx." China is going to face and is facing the exact same social revolution we face in America. Their future resides with their proletariat and not her peasants. The people of China are deciding their fate . . . just as the people of America are deciding our fate. People fight for what they believe in and if no one believes in industrial socialism . . . then we need to understand its objective and subjective dimensions. We need to understand the lesson of the Soviet Union and Putin . . . or rather the counterrevolution that overthrew Reconstruction in America. If a ruling class can have the specific form of its economic base shattered and reemerge as a freaking ruling class . . . then we are in for a rough
Re: China and socialism- 50 years of the Western Left
Pieinsky wrote: Questions for Henry from an old Maoist: (1) Aren't you concerned at all about the evidence of increasing class disparities and the consequent rise of open class struggles (workers' strikes, farmers' protests, etc.) in "Red" China? What do these occurrences mean, in your opinion? Class is disparity by definition. I am vigorously against income disparity. The working class should enjoy the same income or even higher income than the bourgeoisie. Those members of the bourgeoisie who work to increase income of workers are performing a useful function. Excess profit is not only counterrevolutionary, it is even bad economics in an overcapacity economy. Strikes are not really class struggle activities, especially legal strikes in the context of a capitalist system. General strikes to shut down the economy are revolutionary, but there have not any general strikes for quite a few decades in the West. In a system such as China's, the way to protect worker and peasant interests is not through strikes but through intra party political struggles, to get the right people into the central committee and the polibureau. The private sector grows in China due to very complex political and geopolitical factors. No one can accuse China and the Communist Party of China for not giving Maoism a fair chance. But facts are that while the ideology is admirable, the results have been wanting. Wealth needs to be created before it can be shared. (2) Why does it have to be either poverty or "ideological purity"? Can't a Third World country's development take place, while at the same time preserving and extending more egalitarian social relations, as I think Mao hoped for China? The reasons are very complex. Purity of any kind, including religious purity, tends to require tradeoffs that reduce life to single dimensional results. What we need is to merge ideological aims with utilitarian implementations. Nothing the Western Left has voiced has impressed me as being useful for the situation in China. Noise of no practical value does not deserve attention. In fact, I cannot think of any achievement of significant by the Western left in the last five decades. Despite all the anti-China noise, China is still the most socialist economy in the world. Ask the Cubans who have visited China, including Castro, who has long since stopped criticizing China. Henry C.K. Liu This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm
Re: China and socialism
As for whether China would be a good model for the rest of the Third World, let the people of the Third World decide for themselves. We don't need self-righteous academics in the West to pronounce what is an ideologically correct model for the Third World. The sad fact is that the Western left have done little for the Third World beyond destructive talk. Until members of the Western Left can control their own imperialists governments and improve the lot of the poor in their own societies, they had better be a bit more humble about what is correct. Lou's reply: What arrogance. Henry Liu had no problem lecturing Marxmail about Jews supporting Adolph Hitler, but he is neither Jewish nor German. When he stops writing about things that are not exclusively Chinese, I will stop writing about things that are not exclusively Jewish. Comment When it all fall down and the truth comes out. Ones Jewishness is not an issue because in the American Union . . . Jews are not oppressed and exploited as Jews. Who cares what Jews supported Hitler as a political context? Individuals always try and save their hide and protect their families and conditions under diverse conditions. What are you talking about . . . man? That is to say Chinese and the overseas Chinese appear to have a different relationship to China than Jews to America. This means their social and economic relations in history is different from the Jews to America. There is a difference because China is a geographic bound land mass with a long unbroken continuos history . . . like 2000 years. In the sense of Jews I think we talking about very early mercantilism and coinage. trade and what would a thousand years later be expressed as a form of merchant capital. The real issue is the anti-China lobby and its demand for Regime Change or the overthrow of the government and CPC in China and this political conclusion is embedded in ones economic and political approach to China. It would be a tragedy if Henry limited his writings to China and have lengthy . . . very lengthy writing on the banking system in America and Europe is excellent material . . . even if one disagrees. I happen to think his material is brilliant. It would be a tragedy if Lou did not learn where his individuality ends and others individually begins. On the world stage the revolutionaries in different countries are not and do not take the academic left serious in America because it is the hand maiden of the imperial bourgeoisie. We the Bully Boys on the block . . . Lou . . . you are more American than Jew and you need to ask the world people about this.Lingering in the corridors of ones mind will get them in trouble. It is not the economic data on China that is in question but your politics. You have called the leaders of China some bad things based on the interior of your mind and not the history of China. You know my feeling on this matter . . . rotten chauvinism. In terms of this Jewish thing you raise . . . I am African American and I am not cosmopolitan and at this stage of history the worlds people reject cosmopolitanism as ideology for a complex of reasons. What does you being Jewish mean in America for the social struggle? I can tell you in plain terms what Henry being Chinese mean to the social struggle in America and China. Don't thug . . . outsideof your class league and narrow conceptions. Or rather understand the boundary and limits. Now if you were not anti-China and anti-Soviet and anti-Russian and had the answer for everything on earth . . . but have no credentials . . . wait a minute. Is it because Leon Trotsky was a Jew that you have affinity with him? You raised the Jewish Question. You . . . not me. I only raise the question of social revolution and African American Liberation because it is central to American history. There is no economic contradiction between African American and America as a social and political history and economic formation other than an intractable social position.Is this the case with Jews? What is this Jewish thing about? What . . . you talking about . . . man? What do you suggest for China? You're apparently the "Shell Answer Man." Henry's proposition are extremely clear covering the entire economy form sovereign credit to the relative inequality of equality . . . that is working families can receive more money than that of the bourgeoisie based on need . . . to monetary reform and why China should not devalue its money. Did you know Jefferson's attitude on the baking system and if you did why did you write a nonsensical history of the Civil War and Reconstruction and the property relations of the South? Leave China alone . . . or at any rate be careful. What . . . you have the right to say anything because you a Jew? You inserted this into the question of China for reasons known only to you. See . . . I have no tolerance for th
Re: China and socialism
Louis Proyect wrote: I recommend that you read Theodor Shanin's Late Marx, which makes a convincing case that Marx rejected the notion of universal models of development. I haven't read Shanin's book. But reinterpreting Marx has been the fashion ever since the socialist revolution he foresaw in the heavily proletarianized industrial West did not occur, but broke out instead in primarily peasant societies outside the advanced capitalist heartlands. The claim that Marx never developed a schema whereby societies necessarily progressed from feudalism to capitalism to socialism was invoked to lend his authority to the revolutions which were carried out in the name of socialism and the working class in Russia, China and other predominantly peasant societies. For Western Marxists like Louis who still see their societies as rotten ripe for socialism -- and predicate their political behaviour on that assumption -- it can be demoralizing to acknowedge that Marx may have been a good analyst of capitalism, but wrong about its staying power. I suspect Shanin's book may belong to this genre. Lenin returned to the late Marx when he drafted the April Theses, which rejected the notion of a capitalist stage for Russia. Contemporary Russia indicates Lenin was wrong to dismiss this possibility. In fact, he was more prescient about the long term movement of Russian history before the April theses. Prior to 1917, he foresaw an extended period of capitalist development in a parliamentary democracy dominated by the workers' and peasants' parties -- encapsulated in his formula of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. Kautsky, whom Lenin admired until the former became a renegade supporter of the German war effort and critic of the Bolshevik Revolution, held a similar view. In 1917, understandably excited by the prospects of a socialist revolution in Russia and the West, Lenin called for a government based on soviets of workers and peasants rather than on a multi-class parliament, and effectively embraced Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, which called on it to construct socialism. The 70 year experiment with public ownership and a planned economy followed. What would the classical Marxists say today with the power of hindsight? Even Trotsky admitted he would be forced to revise his views if WWII did not result in the long-delayed socialist revolution in the West and the overthrow of Stalinism in the USSR. Neither Marx nor Lenin nor Trotsky ever anticipated that post-capitalist societies would revert back to capitalism, the central political development of our time. I see that you omit Cuba in this...panorama of the last 100 years. Highly revealing. Revealing of what? I still regard the Cuban Revolution as one of the most heroic episodes of our lifetime and respect and admire Fidel as much as I ever did, but to suggest that the socialist characteristics of this small island are more significant to our understanding of historical trends and Marxism than the collapse of the USSR and China and the absence of socialist revolution in the West is ridiculous. Moreover, it doesn't take into account the increasing concessions which the Cubans have reluctantly had to make to markets, petty enterprise, and the dollar. I wouldn't exclude the possibility that the next generation of Cuban leaders may take the same measures with respect to the nationalized economy, the monopoly of foreign trade, the constraints on capital flows and labour mobility etc. that have been taken in the past 15 years by their former ideological allies. Such is the pressure of the ever-widening global capitalist economy. Might I suggest that instead of referring me to academic works by others and implying I am a Kautskyite enemy of Cuba, it would be better to identify the precise formulations of mine to which you object, and for what reasons. Marv Gandall
Re: China and socialism
Marvin Gandall wrote: societies. For Western Marxists like Louis who still see their societies as rotten ripe for socialism -- and predicate their political behaviour on that assumption -- it can be demoralizing to acknowedge that Marx may have been a good analyst of capitalism, but wrong about its staying power. I suspect Shanin's book may belong to this genre. The next time that somebody gets the impression that I see the USA as rotten ripe for socialism has permission to give me 50 lashes with a cat o'nine tails. Except for Jim Devine, that is. Contemporary Russia indicates Lenin was wrong to dismiss this possibility. No. Contemporary Russia demonstrates that only socialism can produce rational development. The NY Times Magazine article I cited earlier predicts that Russia will go the same way as other capitalist oil-centric countries, like Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, etc. In fact, he was more prescient about the long term movement of Russian history before the April theses. Prior to 1917, he foresaw an extended period of capitalist development in a parliamentary democracy dominated by the workers' and peasants' parties -- encapsulated in his formula of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. Kautsky, whom Lenin admired until the former became a renegade supporter of the German war effort and critic of the Bolshevik Revolution, held a similar view. Lenin drafted the April Theses because it became obvious that the progressive bourgeoisie would continue with the senseless slaughter of WWI, refuse to divide up the rural estates and grant oppressed nations their freedom. In other words, socialism was necessary to complete the bourgeois-democratic revolution. say today with the power of hindsight? Even Trotsky admitted he would be forced to revise his views if WWII did not result in the long-delayed socialist revolution in the West and the overthrow of Stalinism in the USSR. Neither Marx nor Lenin nor Trotsky ever anticipated that post-capitalist societies would revert back to capitalism, the central political development of our time. Stalinism proved more intractable than anybody imagined. This is our woesome legacy, to have a hegemonic left that pushed for class alliances with the bourgeoisie. Even though the CP has been eclipsed, this kind of stinking reformism is very much alive unfortunately. markets, petty enterprise, and the dollar. I wouldn't exclude the possibility that the next generation of Cuban leaders may take the same measures with respect to the nationalized economy, the monopoly of foreign trade, the constraints on capital flows and labour mobility etc. that have been taken in the past 15 years by their former ideological allies. Such is the pressure of the ever-widening global capitalist economy. Perhaps. But that is not the same thing as championing capitalist property relations like the Mensheviks and their latter-day followers do. Might I suggest that instead of referring me to academic works by others and implying I am a Kautskyite enemy of Cuba, it would be better to identify the precise formulations of mine to which you object, and for what reasons. I myself am opposed to capitalism as a system and capitalist parties. You are free to make your own political choices. You live in Canada, a free country. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: China and socialism
In a message dated 8/2/2004 4:55:52 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I have tried to get in touch with Michael and Sabri, but I think that the situation is so urgent that the obvious step has to be taken of terminating the thread which started with discussion of The Monthly Review article on China. It has become too personal and acrimonious. I ask those involved not to contribute any more posts on the subject, and the same applies to other list members, however good their motives or intentions. Urgently, James Daly Comment Why should I not pen/pin the chauvinist I have spent all of my life fighting under impossible conditions of social revolution and then some freaking jerk . . . that has an inclination . . . thinks their opinion about an abstraction is important and then proceed to lecture people about social revolution . . . and has not one single credential in the social struggle? I am ultra hot. I am talking basically about Lou and this garbage about being a Jew. I do not care cause you a Jew. What that supposed to me to me in America? Lou raise these issues and he can be confronted on the basis of the issues he raises. See . . . Lou raised this Jew thing about World War 2 and million Jews . . . and I said what about the 25 million in Russia and then the millions upon millions in China? Where did the Second imperial world war start? Me . . . I am African American and this just so happens to be the central question to revolution in America and the freaking world. Lou is a chauvinists and has always been one and anyone that takes me to task on this has nothing to do but produce his writing on the national question in America. Then we can talk about the working class movement . . . in which I got the fucking credentials. I ask no one for anything . . . but truth. No . . . I will not back down on this political panhandler. Like I give a fuck because some 18 year old jumped in front of a fucking train in China because he could not go to college. This is the stupidest shit I have every read in life . . . and it is written as if has meaning to our working class and intellectuals. Ask the American workers how they feel about not being able to send their kids to college. And this Jew thing you wrote on the A-List . . . are you sure you want to do this Lou? It aint like you Chinese and have China . . . right? Why do you want to go this way in the first place? What next . . . anal sex and homosexuality? This is outrageous. Melvin P. This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm
Re: China and socialism
LP writes: The next time that somebody gets the impression that I see the USA as rotten ripe for socialism has permission to give me 50 lashes with a cat o'nine tails. Except for Jim Devine, that is. You didn't like it the last time? Jim Devine
A suicide in China
NY Times, August 1, 2004 THE GREAT DIVIDE Amid China's Boom, No Helping Hand for Young Qingming By JOSEPH KAHN and JIM YARDLEY PUJIA, China His dying debt was $80. Had he been among China's urban elite, Zheng Qingming would have spent more on a trendy cellphone. But he was one of the hundreds of millions of peasants far removed from the country's new wealth. His public high school tuition alone consumed most of his family's income for a year. He wanted to attend college. But to do so meant taking the annual college entrance examination. On the humid morning of June 4, three days before the exam, Qingming's teacher repeated a common refrain: he had to pay his last $80 in fees or he would not be allowed to take the test. Qingming stood before his classmates, his shame overtaken by anger. I do not have the money, he said slowly, according to several teachers who described the events that morning. But his teacher and the system would not budge. A few hours later, Qingming, 18 years old, stepped in front of an approaching locomotive. The train, like China's roaring economy, was an express. If his gruesome death was shocking, the life of this peasant boy in the rolling hills of northern Sichuan Province is repeated a millionfold across the Chinese countryside. Peasants like Qingming were once the core constituency of the Communist Party. Now, they are being left behind in the money-centered, cutthroat society that has replaced socialist China. China has the world's fastest-growing economy but is one of its most unequal societies. The benefits of growth have been bestowed mainly on urban residents and government and party officials. In the past five years, the income divide between the urban rich and the rural poor has widened so sharply that some studies now compare China's social cleavage unfavorably with Africa's poorest nations. For the Communist leaders whose main claim to legitimacy is creating prosperity, the skewed distribution of wealth has already begun to alienate the country's 750 million peasants, historically a bellwether of stability. The countryside simmers with unrest. Farmers flock to the cities to find work. The poor demand social, economic and political benefits that the Communist Party has been reluctant to deliver. To its credit, the Chinese government invigorated the economy and lifted hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty over the past quarter century. Few would argue that Chinese lived better when officials still adhered to a rigid idea of socialist equality. But in recent years, officials have devoted the nation's wealth to building urban manufacturing and financial centers, often ignoring peasants. Farmers cannot own the land they work and are often left with nothing when the government seizes their fields for factories or malls. Many cannot afford basic services, like high school. This year, the number of destitute poor, which China classifies as those earning less than $75 a year, increased for the first time in 25 years. The government estimates that the number of people in this lowest stratum grew by 800,000, to 85 million people, even as the economy grew by a robust 9 percent. No modern country has become prosperous without allowing some people to get rich first. The problem for China is not just that the urban elite now drive BMW's, while many farmers are lucky to eat meat once a week. The problem is that the gap has widened partly because the government enforces a two-class system, denying peasants the medical, pension and welfare benefits that many urban residents have, while often even denying them the right to become urban residents. Even in a country that ruthlessly punishes dissent, some three million people took part in protests last year, police data show. Most were farmers, laid-off workers and victims of official corruption, who blocked roads, swarmed government offices, even immolated themselves in Tiananmen Square in Beijing to demand social justice. India, the world's other developing giant, has a less pronounced gap between urban and rural living standards, and an open political system. In May, India's governing party lost an election largely because the strong economic growth did not trickle down fast enough to the rural masses. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/01/international/01CHIN.html -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
China and socialism
If any confirmation of the correctness of Marty Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett's China and Socialism (a book-length article in the July-August 2004 Monthly Review) was needed, you can look at the heartrending Aug. 1, 2004 NY Times article on the suicide of Zheng Qingming. This 18 year old peasant youth threw himself into the path of an onrushing locomotive because he lacked the $80 in fees to continue with college. It is the first in a series of NY Times articles dealing with class divisions in China, a country in which 85 million people earn less than $75 per year. I strongly urge everybody to get a copy of the current MR since it is high time that the left come to terms with what is happening in China. In this post, I am recapitulating some of their main arguments for the benefit of Marxmail subscribers outside the USA who may have difficulty purchasing a copy. Not only do Marty and Paul put the nail into the coffin of Chinese socialism; they pose broader questions about how to understand problems of development. I can think of nothing since Robert Brenner's NLR article on the world financial crisis that makes as big a statement as their article and hope that it opens up some dialog on the left about the issues it poses. This post is a first step in that direction. In part one, Marty and Paul discuss China's Rise to Model Status. Obviously, one would expect people like Stephen Roach of Morgan-Stanley to hail China's unwavering commitment to reform. However, China has also ingratiated itself as a model to so-called progressives like Joseph Stiglitz who was profiled in the Nation Magazine of May 23, 2002 titled Rebel With a Cause. Referring to Stiglitz, Eyal Press tells us that: He also believes the spread of global capitalism has enormous potential to benefit the poor. As an example of a country that has successfully integrated into the global marketplace--but in a manner that defies the conventional wisdom of the Washington Consensus--Stiglitz points to China. China has adopted privatization and lowered trade barriers, he argues, but in a gradual manner that has prevented the social fabric from being torn apart in the process. Full: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020610c=4s=press I guess throwing oneself into the path of an onrushing train does not constitute a rift in the social fabric. When Stiglitz was in Beijing in July, 1998, he called China by far the most successful of the low-income countries' in moving to a market economy. With 85 million people making less than $75 per year, one would dread less successful examples. Moving along, one encounters a fondness for the Chinese development model among the market socialist academic left. In the 1993 Rethinking Marxism, Victor Lippit considers China as an exception to the capitalist triumphalism that was sweeping the world. He hoped that a mixture of state and privately owned enterprises could be a formula for success. Although somewhat noncommittal on the exact character of Chinese society, Walden Bello has been one of the most outspoken defenders of the development model which he describes as a successful revolutionary nationalist struggle that got institutionalized institutionalized into a no-nonsense state, whatever that's supposed to mean. In defending China's policies against people like Lester Brown, who invoke neo-Malthusian arguments against them, Bello writes: China is one of the world's most dynamic economies, growing between 7-10% a year over the past decade. Its ability to push a majority of the population living in abject poverty during the civil-war period in the late forties into decent living conditions in five decades is no mean achievement. That economic dynamism can't be separated from an event that most of us in the South missed out on: a social revolution in the late forties and early fifties that eliminated the worst inequalities in the distribution of land and income, and prepared the country for economic take-off when market reforms were introduced to the agricultural sector in the late 1970s. full: http://www.focusweb.org/popups/articleswindow.php?id=251 In other words, socialism in China was a kind of training wheels that helped the country prepare for the turbo-capitalism of the recent period. One wonders if Zheng Qingming felt a part of this dynamism, especially in light of a verse he composed: Do not toady to those above. Do not flatter the rich. Do not cheat the poor. Make way for a new generation. While I appreciate Marty and Paul's decision to challenge precepts about market socialism, especially in relation to China, I wonder if this trend all that powerful in the academy. As one who tries to keep track of academic fads, I don't recall that many articles in praise of the Chinese CP over the past 15 years or so in obscure journals on the left. By and large, market socialism was a kind of utopian socialism that turned Mondragon and other
Re: China and socialism
If any confirmation of the correctness of Marty Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett's "China and Socialism" (a book-length article in the July-August 2004 Monthly Review) was needed, you can look at the heartrending Aug. 1, 2004 NY Times article on the suicide of Zheng Qingming. This 18 year old peasant youth threw himself into the path of an onrushing locomotive because he lacked the $80 in fees to continue with college. It is the first in a series of NY Times articles dealing with class divisions in China, a country in which 85 million people earn less than $75 per year. Comment Interesting . . . 85 million people with $75(US) per year . . . what was it twenty years ago? Where is the relationship? What do $75 (US) buy amongst these 85 million peoples . . . peasants? The first rule of politicsfor political leaders on the side of the proletariat in the American Union is that if the New York Times or Washington Post run a story on China . . . position yourself in opposition to it and you will be on the right side of the polarity . . . 90% of the time . . . always. A 10% loss rate is acceptable for any political leader. This is not to say one rejects data from the bourgeoisie . . . but rather . . . the story of an 18 year old boy killing himself because he could not go to college is for suckers and political panhandlers. Let's political thug. Earlier in July there was a series of articles about China on the A-List and the review of the Monthly Review article. To my knowledge no one disputes capitalism in China . . . or rather . . . I do not dispute the existence and operation of the bourgeois property relations and the unrestrained law of value . . . creating the specific circuit of reproduction. By "no one" is meant those who wrote concerning China and prior to that the issue of the loss of manufacturing jobs in China was spoken of. Questions like why are the manufacturing jobs lost was asked since China is hands down the low cost producer? Why are manufacturing jobs being lost in low producer China and the reason is not capitalism. Again . . . I have written nothing to dispute the bourgeois property relations in China . . . at least in the last 15 years. There was a question of what portion of the GDP was driven by FDI and/or its economic weight as reproduction and development of the industrial and post industrial infrastructure . . . as opposed to consumer goods. This includes most certainly the military infrastructure. The military infrastructure emerged as of supreme importance to socialism as a transition in the form of property. The point is that if one is to get into the meat of the matter . . . an analysis from two different direction is necesaary. One direction is the import of the military technology and military wares on the basis of bourgeois property. The other is the system of reproduction of these wares and its subjection to the unrestricted law of value . . . or capitalism. Actually . . . military production is important to bourgeois America and it is all capitalism. Get into the issue and lets dealwith something more than ideology and what we already know about bourgeois property in China. Pardon me . . . but capitalism in China is not what produces class divisions. The bourgeois property relations exacerbates inequality based on property and ownership rights . . . as it takes root on the basis of the industrial system. I do believe that what is taking place in China can . . . in the future . . . open another level of discussion absent amongst Marxists . . . as opposed to the left which is uniformly anti-Communist . . . and have always been basically anti-Communists in America and fundamentally anti-China and anti-Soviet. The strength of the counterrevolution is not a subjective question rooted in the thinking of individuals and I do not subscribe to a "great individual theory" of history. One might as well say that Hitler was responsible for German fascism. No . . . I believe more is involved in history than simply the individuals whose personality captures the moment. In other words I am a dogmatic materialist. Rather the question that has not been explored is the law of value as it operates under the industrial system no matter what stage of transition of its property relations. Here is the economic base of the counterrevolution. This is what Cuba and North Korea faces . . . in addition to a more powerful imperial antagonists. If class divisions are not the result of capitalism (and one must separate these issues or they cannot wage the proper political struggle) but rather the mode of production as a specific combination of human labor + machinery + energy source . . . we can begin to describe more accurately the environment we operate in. This is important because people follow leaders who realize their collective vision and their vision is rooted in how the
China has 600 million telephone users
People's Daily Online Life UPDATED: 18:16, July 22, 2004 China has 600 million telephone users China had close to 600 million fixed and mobile phone users by the end of June this year. Statistics released from the Ministry of Information Industry show 30 million new telephone users signed up for services in the first six months of the year. Experts point out, however, that access to telephones remains very low in rural areas, which has encouraged the ministry to ensure most villages have telephones by 2005. It also aims to make every household in China have a phone by 2020. Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
China frees whistle-blower
The Hindu Thursday, Jul 22, 2004 China frees whistle-blower Beijing: The Chinese military surgeon who exposed the Government's cover-up of the SARS crisis was released on Tuesday after seven weeks of political re-education'', his family said. Jiang Yanyong (72), a semi-retired general in the People's Liberation Army, had been detained at a secret location where he was forced to undergo daily study sessions aimed to make him renounce a critical letter he had written about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. It was unclear whether he had signed a letter of contrition to secure his freedom. Dr. Jiang's family said he was in good health, but forbidden to talk to the media without the prior approval of his superiors at the No. 301 military hospital in Beijing. Dr. Jiang and his wife, Hua Zhongwei, were detained on June 1 while going to the U.S. embassy, where they were applying for visas to visit their California-based daughter. They were among dozens of dissenters who were removed from public view or held under house arrest in the run-up to the politically sensitive 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on June 4. Mrs. Hua and most of the others were released within two weeks, but Dr. Jiang was held for what sympathisers called `brainwashing,' which would have required authorisation by Jiang Zemin, the head of the military. - Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 Copyright © 2004, The Hindu. Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
Re: Monthly Review: China and Market Socialism
What is the best source that discusses the pre-reform political and economic developments in China. The Monthly Review special issue focuses almost entirely on post-1978. Would a comparison of directions/developments pre- and post -978 be worthwhile? Joel Wendland http://www.politicalaffairs.net Reply The archives of the A-List probably contains much material on China. Henry C.K. Lis is a first rate . . . actually excellent economist . . . in my opinion and is well within Marxism and a prolific writer on China and world economy. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/a-list Recently we discussed aspects of the Monthly Review article on China. Currently things are a bit slow with it being the vacation time of year and all. Henry is a regular contribution to Asia Times. I generally write a more intense version of material sent to Pen-L on the A-List. At any rate the archives are really worth looking at. Melvin P.
Monthly Review: China and Market Socialism
What is the best source that discusses the pre-reform political and economic developments in China. The Monthly Review special issue focuses almost entirely on post-1978. Would a comparison of directions/developments pre- and post -978 be worthwhile? Joel Wendland http://www.politicalaffairs.net Also, http://classwarnotes.blogspot.com _ MSN Toolbar provides one-click access to Hotmail from any Web page FREE download! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200413ave/direct/01/
Re: China and the American consumer
In a message dated 7/4/2004 1:13:56 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The article itself, like those articles about 20 years ago, have a lot ofthe old "yellow peril" theme.The Chinese economy is about as uneven, ragged, stumbling as you can get and still be upright. Agriculture has been decimated-- and there is no contradiction between internal decimation and increased exports, in fact as the same past 20 years have shown, the two go hand in hand. Comment Your comments on China are very considerate and takes into account the configuration of the on going revolutionary process in that country. Those of us in the most imperial of all imperial countries must always be careful and if we error it is better to error on the side of caution. What is called the "Chinese Revolution" is in my opinion, actually the revolutionary process in China. I am prohibited from criticizing the "Chinese Revolution" but can comment on the revolutionary process in China. The modern revolution in China began around 1811 and has gone through extraordinary twists and turns that would baffle any economist or so-called political Marxists. What is not baffling is the current generation of China produced automobiles and vehicles poised to hit the American market with a price range between $9,000 and $15,000. (USA Today June 1, 2004 - Inexpensive Chinese Cars On Way Soon). We are talking not just about foreign investment as an abstraction but the value system and making profits the old bourgeois way or the China connection and material action in the world market. If you are behind the curve of industrial development then you must trade to realize a technological transfer and adhere to the world historic transition from agricultural relations to industrial relations of production - with the property relations within. I'll buy one of these vehicles in 36 months after I pay off the two vehicles the banks and finance companies allow me to drive. I believe you are correct to point out the enormous difference in economic development in the various regions of China. Back when I was still employed with Chrysler and later after its acquisition by Daimler Benz, it was rather simple to keep up with certain events in economic China. Chrysler was one of the first large industrial American companies to go into China building Jeep. Then . . . later . . . with Daimler at the helm I was informed through their excellent quarterly magazine - and I mean excellent, that Guzodong Province, had the largest concentration of Mercedes Benz buyers and owners on earth. Sidenote: It is not generally understood about the role Jergen Schempp played in the freeing of Nelson Mandela and why several years ago DamilerChrysler erected a new public school in the areas of Nelson's birth. Or the special relationship DaimlerChrysler has with the South African government to this very day. The quarterly journal of DaimlerChrysler is really excellent and I tossed them before moving to Texas. (There were always the stories of the smuggle of Mercedes by the PLA - Peoples Liberation Army apparatus and dragging vehicles through the water in large condom like sacks . . . and the backdoor building of Jeeps would be spoken about by the upper echelon of the corporation. Reminds me of a young American Republic stealing British technology). What is complicated about the revolution in China is not the existence of the bourgeois property relations and old fashion bourgeois profits, but the political basis of the so-called Chinese Revolution. China has the oldest existing continuous culture on earth - the third planet from the sun. Intensely proud and patriotic, they have been humiliated for at least 150 years by "foreign barbarians." The communists, to succeed had to take serious account of the national pride and striving of the people of China for independence, in a way not UN-similar to how we should understand the vision of 1776 and why it continues to inspire a vast segment of the American people. The communists in China were ideological communist or people who believed in communism because you cannot build communism on the basis of an agricultural society. Taking into account where they where in history, Chairman Mao summed up his victory in the war for national liberation by simple stating "China has stood up." Now the communist were successful for a combination of reasons and results of the Second World Imperial War . . . but their slogans was for a "New Democracy," redistribution of the land, a guarantee of food for all or food for no one - and most importantly, the rebirth of China. China began industrialization of her could - after 1949, based on the strength of the USSR and this was short lived due to what became called the Sino-Soviet split. Newly independent China could not accept what it consid
China and the American consumer
NY Times Magazine, July 4, 2004 The Chinese Century By TED C. FISHMAN (clip) The China Savings No politician declares it. There is no Association of Big Box Store Customers beating the drum. But, as nearly any shopping trip in America will teach you, China saves American consumers enormous amounts of money. The worry that Chinese producers are hurting American businesses and eliminating American jobs misrepresents the problem -- at least geographically. While the U.S. trade deficit with China is growing, most of the goods from China, between 60 and 75 percent of them, simply would have been imported in past years from other countries. Still, because the China price forces manufacturers the world over to drop their own prices, the jobs that have not moved have been shaken up all the same, in the U.S. and in other countries. In Mexico, for example, which has lost nearly half a million manufacturing jobs and 500 maquiladora manufacturers, workers earn four times what their Chinese counterparts do. So for Mexican factories to stay competitive, they must get by with fewer hands or smaller profits. Americans who would demonize China also have a local problem: the China price is a boon to American consumers. Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics, has done some rough math that shows how. ''From time immemorial,'' Hufbauer says, ''most American and Japanese businesses have been reluctant to move their manufacturing to new locales unless they can save at least 10 to 20 percent with the move.'' For the $152 billion worth of goods coming in from China last year, those savings have already been realized. The multiplier effect on the rest of the world's manufacturers, however, dwarfs the savings that come directly from China. Hufbauer figures some $500 billion in goods come from countries that are China's low-wage competitors, and another $450 billion in goods come from China's American and Japanese competitors. That means savings on nearly a trillion dollars of goods. If the savings on that non-Chinese trillion dollars' worth of trade are just 3 to 5 percent, rather than the 20 percent the Chinese can deliver, Hufbauer calculates further savings starting at $500 for the average American household. And people who spend more, get more back. Have a drawer full of $3 T-shirts, a DVD player in every room, a Christmas tree annually encircled with piles of toys? You probably have tons more stuff -- and additional savings -- thanks to the China price. This inexorable downward pressure on prices now shows up even when the prices of raw materials rise, costs that in the past were hurriedly passed on to consumers. The Chinese industrial boom has, for example, pushed up the cost of copper, aluminum, nickel, plastics and nearly every other important industrial commodity. Chinese demand has caused the price of steel to rise 20 percent this past spring. (China is now the world's top steel producer, by the way, while the U.K. has dropped out of the top 10.) Nevertheless, the price of cars, which reflect nearly the entire commodity index, has been weak. In April, cotton climbed to its highest price at this time of year in seven seasons, but the price of clothing declined. American firms can find it hard to compete. ''China hits domestic U.S. manufacturers twice,'' Oded Shenkar says. ''They drive down the price of goods, but they drive up the price of raw materials. It's a wholly different environment.'' And yet it's a good one for Americans too. The efficiencies forced on the market by Chinese factories also hold U.S. inflation in check. Lower inflation means the Federal Reserve can keep interest rates low, making money more freely available for investment in new and stronger industries. Chinese competition forces American businesses -- Signicast, for example -- to use capital as efficiently as possible. And to run their plants full tilt. And to find ways to save on labor costs. The Americans who lost manufacturing jobs over the last three years, and the millions more who are expected to see their white-collar jobs migrate overseas, may have not only China to blame, but also the very economic benefits that China has provided for them. And that's to say nothing of what happens once the Chinese countryside, thinned of its oversupply of farmers, turns into efficient farms. Already the Chinese have their eyes on cash crops. Though it has only recently begun exporting apple juice, China already produces seven times as many apples as the U.S., enough to cause a depression in the price of apple juice worldwide. Whole apples for exports are individually wrapped by hand in a foam sock. Given the country's wealth of manual labor, it can assert dominance in crops that must be tended by hand. In a stable China, where its great resource, its people, are allowed to work and spend money in a reasonably well functioning market economy, the growing place of China in a global economy cannot be legislated away
Re: China and the American consumer
A lot of this would be changed if China let the renminbi float (i.e., rise). The predictions at the end seem similar to those made about Japan awhile back (e.g., in Michael Crichton's RISING SUN) before the Japanese miracle popped. jd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list on behalf of Louis Proyect Sent: Sun 7/4/2004 7:21 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: [PEN-L] China and the American consumer NY Times Magazine, July 4, 2004 The Chinese Century By TED C. FISHMAN (clip) The China Savings No politician declares it. There is no Association of Big Box Store Customers beating the drum. But, as nearly any shopping trip in America will teach you, China saves American consumers enormous amounts of money. The worry that Chinese producers are hurting American businesses and eliminating American jobs misrepresents the problem -- at least geographically. While the U.S. trade deficit with China is growing, most of the goods from China, between 60 and 75 percent of them, simply would have been imported in past years from other countries. Still, because the China price forces manufacturers the world over to drop their own prices, the jobs that have not moved have been shaken up all the same, in the U.S. and in other countries. In Mexico, for example, which has lost nearly half a million manufacturing jobs and 500 maquiladora manufacturers, workers earn four times what their Chinese counterparts do. So for Mexican factories to stay competitive, they must get by with fewer hands or smaller profits. Americans who would demonize China also have a local problem: the China price is a boon to American consumers. Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics, has done some rough math that shows how. ''From time immemorial,'' Hufbauer says, ''most American and Japanese businesses have been reluctant to move their manufacturing to new locales unless they can save at least 10 to 20 percent with the move.'' For the $152 billion worth of goods coming in from China last year, those savings have already been realized. The multiplier effect on the rest of the world's manufacturers, however, dwarfs the savings that come directly from China. Hufbauer figures some $500 billion in goods come from countries that are China's low-wage competitors, and another $450 billion in goods come from China's American and Japanese competitors. That means savings on nearly a trillion dollars of goods. If the savings on that non-Chinese trillion dollars' worth of trade are just 3 to 5 percent, rather than the 20 percent the Chinese can deliver, Hufbauer calculates further savings starting at $500 for the average American household. And people who spend more, get more back. Have a drawer full of $3 T-shirts, a DVD player in every room, a Christmas tree annually encircled with piles of toys? You probably have tons more stuff -- and additional savings -- thanks to the China price. This inexorable downward pressure on prices now shows up even when the prices of raw materials rise, costs that in the past were hurriedly passed on to consumers. The Chinese industrial boom has, for example, pushed up the cost of copper, aluminum, nickel, plastics and nearly every other important industrial commodity. Chinese demand has caused the price of steel to rise 20 percent this past spring. (China is now the world's top steel producer, by the way, while the U.K. has dropped out of the top 10.) Nevertheless, the price of cars, which reflect nearly the entire commodity index, has been weak. In April, cotton climbed to its highest price at this time of year in seven seasons, but the price of clothing declined. American firms can find it hard to compete. ''China hits domestic U.S. manufacturers twice,'' Oded Shenkar says. ''They drive down the price of goods, but they drive up the price of raw materials. It's a wholly different environment.'' And yet it's a good one for Americans too. The efficiencies forced on the market by Chinese factories also hold U.S. inflation in check. Lower inflation means the Federal Reserve can keep interest rates low, making money more freely available for investment in new and stronger industries. Chinese competition forces American businesses -- Signicast, for example -- to use capital as efficiently as possible. And to run their plants full tilt. And to find
Re: China and the American consumer
- Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004 10:47 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] China and the American consumer A lot of this would be changed if China let the renminbi float (i.e., rise). The predictions at the end seem similar to those made about Japan awhile back (e.g., in Michael Crichton's RISING SUN) before the Japanese miracle popped. jd -- The article itself, like those articles about 20 years ago, have a lot of the old yellow peril theme. The Chinese economy is about as uneven, ragged, stumbling as you can get and still be upright. Agriculture has been decimated-- and there is no contradiction between internal decimation and increased exports, in fact as the same past 20 years have shown, the two go hand in hand. Infrastructure as a whole is unable to sustain the explosion of projects and non-performing debt levels will begin another explosive increase. Ah yes, the competition from the east-- with the supposed benefit to American consumers more than offset by the workers both in China and the US.
Burkett Hart-Landsberg: full-fledged capitalist restoration in China
Monthly Review, July-August 2004 Introduction: China and Socialism by Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett China and socialism...during the three decades following the 1949 establishment of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), it seemed as if these words would forever be joined in an inspiring unity. China had been forced to suffer the humiliation of defeat in the 184042 Opium War with Great Britain and the ever-expanding treaty port system that followed it. The Chinese people suffered under not only despotic rule by their emperor and then a series of warlords, but also under the crushing weight of imperialism, which divided the country into foreign-controlled spheres of influence. Gradually, beginning in the 1920s, the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong organized growing popular resistance to the foreign domination and exploitation of the country and the dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek. The triumph of the revolution under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party finally came in 1949, when the party proclaimed it would bring not only an end to the suffering of the people but a new democratic future based on the construction of socialism. There can be no doubt that the Chinese revolution was a world historic event and that tremendous achievements were made under the banner of socialism in the decades that followed. However, it is our opinion that this reality should not blind us to three important facts: first, at the time of Maos death in 1976, the Chinese people remained far from achieving the promises of socialism. Second, beginning in 1978 the Chinese Communist Party embarked on a market-based reform process that, while allegedly designed to reinvigorate the effort to build socialism, has actually led in the opposite direction and at great cost to the Chinese people. And finally, progressives throughout the world continue to identify with and take inspiration from developments in China, seeing the countrys rapid export-led growth as either confirmation of the virtues of market socialism or proof that, regardless of labels, active state direction of the economy can produce successful development within a capitalist world system. As much as we were also inspired by the Chinese revolution, we have for some time believed that this continuing identification by progressives with China and its socialist market economy represents not only a serious misreading of the Chinese reform experience but, even more important, a major impediment to the development of the theoretical and practical understandings required to actually advance socialism in China and elsewhere. As we will argue in this book, it is our position that Chinas market reforms have led not to socialist renewal but rather to full-fledged capitalist restoration, including growing foreign economic domination. Significantly, this outcome was driven by more than simple greed and class interest. Once the path of pro-market reforms was embarked upon, each subsequent step in the reform process was largely driven by tensions and contradictions generated by the reforms themselves. The weakening of central planning led to ever more reliance on market and profit incentives, which in turn encouraged the privileging of private enterprises over state enterprises and, increasingly, of foreign enterprises and markets over domestic ones. Although a correct understanding of the dynamics of Chinas reform process supports the Marxist position that market socialism is an unstable formation, this important insight has largely been lost because of the continuing widespread belief by many progressives that China remains in some sense a socialist country. This situation cannot help but generate confusion about the meaning of socialism while strengthening the ideological position of those who oppose it. Many other progressive scholars and activists dismiss arguments about the meaning of socialism as irrelevant to the challenges of development faced by people throughout the world. They look at Chinas record of rapid and sustained export-led growth and conclude that China is a development model, with a growth strategy that can and should be emulated by other countries. We believe, and argue in this book, that this celebration of China is a serious mistake, one that reflects a misunderstanding not only of the Chinese experience but also of the dynamics and contradictions of capitalism as an international system. In fact, an examination of the effects of Chinas economic transformation on the regions other economies makes clear that the countrys growth is intensifying competitive pressures and crisis tendencies to the detriment of workers throughout the region, including in China. Our differences with leftists and progressives might never have produced a book about China if it were not for our May 2003 trip to Cuba
China and the environment
(cited in Harry Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster's introduction to Burkett Hart-Landsberg) Harvard Asia Quarterly Interview with Elizabeth Economy Chinas Development and the Environment BY HAQ Staff Elizabeth Economy is C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director, Asia Studies, at the Council on Foreign Relations. She has written extensively on Chinese domestic and foreign policy. Her publications include: The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to Chinas Future (manuscript completed, September 2002); China Joins the World: Progress and Prospects (co-editor) (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1999); The Internationalization of Environmental Protection (co-editor) (Cambridge University Press, 1997); various articles in policy and scholarly journals such as Foreign Affairs and Survival; and op-ed pieces and book reviews in The New York Times, The Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, and The South China Morning Post. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, an A.M. from Stanford University and a B.A. from Swarthmore College. HAQ: What is the state of Chinas environment today? For example, it is estimated that China will surpass the US in annual emissions of carbon dioxide within a decade and, in a few decades, in total cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution. Could you give us a few figures and statistics illustrating the nature of the problem? Economy: While Chinas spectacular economic growth over the past two decades or so has provided a significant increase in the standard of living for hundreds of millions of Chinese, it has also produced an environmental disaster. There has been a dramatic increase in the demand for natural resources of all kinds, including water, land, and energy. Forest resources have been depleted, triggering a range of devastating secondary impacts, such as desertification, flooding, and species loss. At the same time, levels of water and air pollution have skyrocketed. Small-scale township and village enterprises, which have been the engine of Chinese growth in the countryside, are very difficult to monitor and regulate and routinely dump their untreated waste directly into streams, rivers, and coastal waters. More than 75% of the water in rivers flowing through Chinas urban areas is unsuitable for drinking or fishing. Sixty million people have difficulty getting access to water, and almost three times that number drink contaminated water daily.1 Desertification, which affects one-quarter of Chinas land, is forcing tens of thousands of people to migrate every year and now threatens to envelop Beijing.2 In terms of air pollution, in 2000, Chinas State Environmental Protection Administration tested the air quality in more than 300 Chinese cities and found that almost two-thirds failed to achieve standards set by the World Health Organization for acceptable levels of total suspended particulates, which are the primary culprit in respiratory and pulmonary disease.3 China is also exerting a significant impact on the regional and global environment. Its reliance on low quality, high sulfur coal is responsible for roughly half of all sulfur dioxide emissions, which cause acid rain, throughout East Asia4 a situation that has contributed to some tensions with Japan and South Korea. Globally, China is one of the worlds largest contributors to ozone depletion, biodiversity loss, and climate change. There is some positive movement in all these areas, but it is very slow to materialize in terms of the actual implementation of new policies. It is important to remember that integrating environmental protection with economic development is a continuous battle that every country wages. In many respects, China has just begun the process of trying to factor environmental concerns into its process of economic development. After all, this is a country that has only had an independent environmental protection agency for a little over a decade. full: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/haq/200301/0301a001.htm -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Lula's China visit
Brazilian president Lulas state visit to China at the head of a huge business delegation, beginning today, is part of a strategic effort to connect the biggest emerging markets in the eastern and western hemispheres, says an article in the Financial Times. It is a development with potentially huge geopolitical implications, writes the Times Latin American editor, Richard Lapper, based on solid economic fundamentals. Chinas insatiable economy needs Brazilian iron ore and other commodities, and Brazil is seeking Chinese capital to develop the infrastructure to bring them to market. The Asian powers rapidly developing trade ties throughout Latin America poses a significant challenge for the US right in its own backyard, says Lapper, especially at a time when American relations with Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela have deteriorated, raising the spectre of new power blocs in the region. He suggests the US and other OECD countries will need to further invest and open their markets and borders to Latin American products and labour to compete with China. FT (sub only) article available on http://www.supportingfacts.com Sorry for any cross posting. 1
boston lecture on China
Professor Zhao Zhun (tsinghua Univeristy, Beijing) will be speaking at the Cambridge Public Library tomorrow, Saturday May 22 3pm - 5pm. The forum is entitled Can Socialism and Capitalism Co-Exist in China? Enterprise Ownership Reform Since 1978 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: boston lecture on China
Professor Zhao Zhun (tsinghua Univeristy, Beijing) will be speaking at the Cambridge Public Library tomorrow, Saturday May 22 3pm - 5pm. The forum is entitled Can Socialism and Capitalism Co-Exist in China? Enterprise Ownership Reform Since 1978 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Response: I'll be giving a paper at the conference in Beijing on September 1-2 on essentially the same topic. Jim C.
Oil: Fears Grow That Supply Will Not Meet Demand in China
http://www.riskcenter.com/story.php?id=8663 May 18: Energy Risk - Oil Prices Reach Record Levels And Fears Grow That Supply Will Not Meet Demand in China --- Location: New York Author: Ellen J. Silverman Date: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 --- Yesterday, the cost of benchmark crude oil rose $0.66 to close at $40.77 a barrel, the highest price in more than two decades of trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices have risen about $8 a barrel, or 24%, on concerns that oil demand will outpace supply due to fears of attacks on the Middle East as well as the fact that oil dealers are skeptical OPEC has enough spare production capacity to bring prices down. Because of this, analysts are wary that supply will keep up with China 's explosive oil consumption. China 's demand for oil is projected to increase 21% this quarter, according to the International Energy Agency. The growth in Chinese consumption accounts for roughly half the 2 million barrels a day increase in worldwide demand expected this year. The increase in Chinese demand is being driven by the rapid introduction of automobiles and other forms of transportation. China was largely self-sufficient in oil until 1993 but now must now import about one-third of its supply to meet demand. China consumes just 30% of the petroleum used in the United States ; however, the growth in China 's consumption is roughly four times as large. According to a recent Reuters article, China is expected to use 930,000 barrels a day more than in the year-ago period, versus an increase of about 230,000 barrels a day in the United States . The lack of conservation efforts by the United States remains a prime cause of worldwide oil market pressures. Speculation is also playing a role in driving up costs. A decline in U.S. gasoline supplies has reinforced concerns that domestic refiners will not be able to meet demand during the peak summer driving season. The speculative demand adds to the real demand caused by those who consume petroleum products. Moreover, the world growth forecast in oil consumption this year represents the largest since 1988, according to the International Energy Agency.
China question
How is China able to export fruits and nuts? Where do the farmers find the land to grow such crops? Are they cutting back on the production of grains? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: China question
Hi Michael, Land tenure is changing. After the rural reforms in the early 80s when the communes/brigades were disbanded, rural land usufruct rights were given to households while ownership remained in the hands of the state at the local level. Rural land usufruct rights are now increasingly tradeable. The government encourages the development of integrated agricultural companies that either lease the land from villages, or establish contracts with individual farmers to produce. Many of these companies are foreign, I know of some big Hong Kong and Thai players, but I don't keep track of this stuff very much. There's a good recent article about this here: http://www.chinastudygroup.org/index.php?type=newsid=5360 Yes, grain production has been falling in China recently, although everyone claims that there is plenty of reserve grain. Usually urban sprawl and shady land deals are blamed for the reduction in grain production, not shifting production. China lost arable land equal to the area of Maryland to these processes last year according to this interesting article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6653-2004Apr12.html Cheers, Jonathan How is China able to export fruits and nuts? Where do the farmers find the land to grow such crops? Are they cutting back on the production of grains? This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
China, Japan, the Dollar
What's China's share of all government purchases of U.S. assets? * A trade deficit must be financed by net borrowing from the rest of the world. The United States was effectively spending about 5% more than it was producing last year, but cannot continue to borrow at such a high rate indefinitely. Worse yet, the trade deficit is growing each year as a share of GDP. The recent decline in the value of the dollar -- which has fallen by 11.5% since February 2002, primarily against the Euro -- indicates that foreign lenders are less willing to supply new credit. If the dollar were being supported by demand from investors who find the U.S. market attractive, then steady growth in capital inflows from private investors to finance rising deficits would likely occur. However, private inflows have fallen in the last two years. Instead, foreign governments have been intervening in foreign exchange markets by purchasing a rapidly growing volume of U.S. government assets (shown as foreign government assets in the United States in the figure below). These inflows reached $208 billion in 2003, or 38.4% of total capital inflows. Official government inflows were 50% of the total in the fourth quarter of 2003. Asian governments made 93% of all government purchases of U.S. assets in 2003. Other governments were not intervening significantly in foreign exchange markets because they expected the dollar to fall and did not want to make money-losing investments. Asian governments, especially Japan and China, are willing to absorb these risks in order to support their exports to the United States1. (Foreign Government Intervention Keeps the Value of the Dollar Artificially High, March 22, 2004, http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_03222004) * -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Russia-China: Putin's next term
The strategic relationship with China idea goes back to the 1998 Primakov Doctrine put forward during the reign of Boris the Drunk, but has really developed under Putin as part of 1) the Shanghai Six group providing collective security in Central Asia and 2) the trilateral relationship between Russia, China and India, which is in part directed against the US. Really, Putin has managed to become allies with everyone and enemies with no one largely by using one of Russia's built-in advantages (and defects): size. Russia is the one country that borders every center of world power. China needs Russia for energy and natural resources; the EU needs Russia for the same reason; the United States needs it to supply stability in Central Asia (though there's been a lot of what I consider pretty knee-jerk talk about the US thrusting Russia out of the 'stans and whatnot, in fact US and Russian activities there have been closely coordinated; the Kant base was opened not because the Kremlin is worried about US troops being Kyrgyzstan, but because it is worried that there are not enough. Actually if the US sent troops to guard the Tajik-Afghan border and relieve the Russian troops there, the Kremlin would probably applaud, not to mention the troops.). -Original Message- From: joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 20:21:49 -0800 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Russia-China: Putin's next term Say what you will, Putin is a smart guy. Joanna Eubulides wrote: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FC12Ag01.html Putin to expand strategic partnership with China By Sergei Blagov Mar 12, 2004
Re: Russia-China: Putin's next term
I read somewhere the Chinese felt betrayed when the Russians agreed to let the Japanese, late entrants, divert the proposed West Siberian oil pipeline from Daqing to Nakhodka for trans-shipment across the Sea of Japan to Japan and beyond -- presumably to the US West Coast. The Chinese evidently thought they had reached agreement in Moscow last year that the oil would be directed their way. Now they're being told, it would seem from the Asia Times article, that they'll have to make do with more limited and costly shipments by rail. How big an issue was/is this, and was there any US role as far as you know? Marv Gandall - Original Message - From: Chris Doss [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 5:02 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Russia-China: Putin's next term The strategic relationship with China idea goes back to the 1998 Primakov Doctrine put forward during the reign of Boris the Drunk, but has really developed under Putin as part of 1) the Shanghai Six group providing collective security in Central Asia and 2) the trilateral relationship between Russia, China and India, which is in part directed against the US. Really, Putin has managed to become allies with everyone and enemies with no one largely by using one of Russia's built-in advantages (and defects): size. Russia is the one country that borders every center of world power. China needs Russia for energy and natural resources; the EU needs Russia for the same reason; the United States needs it to supply stability in Central Asia (though there's been a lot of what I consider pretty knee-jerk talk about the US thrusting Russia out of the 'stans and whatnot, in fact US and Russian activities there have been closely coordinated; the Kant base was opened not because the Kremlin is worried about US troops being Kyrgyzstan, but because it is worried that there are not enough. Actually if the US sent troops to guard the Tajik-Afghan border and relieve the Russian troops there, the Kremlin would probably applaud, not to mention the troops.). -Original Message- From: joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 20:21:49 -0800 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Russia-China: Putin's next term Say what you will, Putin is a smart guy. Joanna Eubulides wrote: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FC12Ag01.html Putin to expand strategic partnership with China By Sergei Blagov Mar 12, 2004
Re: Russia-China: Putin's next term
I wrote: --- I edited several articles on this subject a while back. My memory is fuzzy, but as far as I recollect there was no US role. It was competitive lobbying by LUKoil and Yukos; Yukos was favoring developing (completely hypothetical) shipments to the US (and we all know what happened to Yukos), LUK was favoring some other development strategy. (Transport limitations of the state oil-pipe network, Transneft, also played a big role.) John Helmer wrote a lot on this; do a google and you'll find material. BTW, unlike in other big oil-producing countries, Russian oil companies are not state-owned, so the Kremlin cannot cut or increase oil production as it wishes. What it CAN do is to deny oil companies access to Transneft. Yukos spent the first half of last year aggressively lobbying to have TN privatized or be allowed to build alternative pipelines; there is some speculation that this is what finally did Khodorkovsky in.
Re: Russia-China: Putin's next term
I read somewhere the Chinese felt betrayed when the Russians agreed to let the Japanese, late entrants, divert the proposed West Siberian oil pipeline from Daqing to Nakhodka for trans-shipment across the Sea of Japan to Japan and beyond -- presumably to the US West Coast. The Chinese evidently thought they had reached agreement in Moscow last year that the oil would be directed their way. Now they're being told, it would seem from the Asia Times article, that they'll have to make do with more limited and costly shipments by rail. How big an issue was/is this, and was there any US role as far as you know? Marv Gandall --- I edited several articles on this subject a while back. My memory is fuzzy, but as far as I recollect there was no US role. It was competitive lobbying by LUKoil and Yukos; Yukos was favoring developing (completely hypothetical) shipments to the US (and we all know what happened to Yukos), LUK was favoring some other development strategy. (Transport limitations of the state oil-pipe network, Transneft, also played a big role.) John Helmer wrote a lot on this; do a google and you'll find material.
Russia-China: Putin's next term
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FC12Ag01.html Putin to expand strategic partnership with China By Sergei Blagov Mar 12, 2004 MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin, certain of re-election to a second term, evidently intends to expand Russia's strategic ties with China in military sales and economic cooperation between the two Asian giants. Still, some divisive issues remain, such as the likely awarding of a major Siberian oil pipeline to Tokyo, not Beijing. The United States is watching closely and warily as the former communist allies forge powerful new ties in Asia and view Washington as a potential menace. In Sunday's election, Putin is expected to sweep to a second four-year term and move ahead briskly with improving ties between Moscow and Beijing. Once China and Russia were closely allied, but later the Sino-Soviet split opened and the United States took advantage of the bitter division to forge new diplomatic relations with China, sidelining the Soviets. Now the situation is very different, as both Russia and China espouse capitalism and have resolved many of their differences in the face of what they perceive to be a common rival - the US. Last month, the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) said the United States might anticipate potential problems with both China and Russia, although the US currently has good relations with the two countries. The US effort to seek bases in Central Asia - strategically important to both Moscow and Beijing - is one of many causes of concern, as well as US unilateralism in its foreign policy. Testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 25, Vice Admiral Lowell E Jacoby, director of the DIA, said Beijing likely fears a long-term US presence on its borders, while Russia is improving its relations with some countries, most notably China, in pursuit of a multipolar world and to enhance its arms sales. China the top customer for Russian arms During Putin's first term, China consolidated its position as the top customer for Russia's arms industry, purchasing billions of dollars' worth of jet aircraft, missiles, submarines and other military hardware. Russia and China were both disturbed by the Iraq war - especially the US decision to attack without broad international support - and Moscow and Beijing protested what they viewed as a rejection of the rules of the international game. They still back the primacy of the United Nations Security Council in resolving international crises, and they support the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. Apart from shared concerns about US dominance in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere, the two nations have other common interests and mutually reinforcing needs. They are weary of - and alarmed by - militant Islamic groups in their border regions, and want stability in Central Asia. Russia and China have said they hope to increase bilateral trade to US$20 billion a year, from the current $12 billion. Last June, Chinese President Hu Jintao, leader of the world's most populous nation, visited Russia on his first trip abroad and signed a strategic energy pact with President Putin. Hu's speeches in Moscow emphasized the importance of a multipolar world and the need for the UN to play a central role in Iraq. China, Russia now pledge eternal friendship Last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing announced that presidents Hu and Putin would meet in Beijing in the second half of this year. Li also noted that the two nations share a 4,300-kilometer border - once the site of major troop deployments and occasional skirmishes - and pledge to be eternal friends. He also announced that chairman Wu Bangguo of China's National People's Congress as well as Premier Wen Jiabao would visit Russia this year to discuss enhancing their strategic partnership based on common political, economic and military interests. Russia's ongoing government reshuffle has sent some positive signals to China. In an apparent reiteration of their shared belief in the primacy of the UN in conflict resolution, Putin appointed UN Ambassador Sergei Lavrov to be Moscow's new foreign minister. Putin also retained Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, a close ally who also has been mentioned as a possible heir to the Kremlin leader in 2008. Ivanov has considerable China experience; last year he and his Chinese counterpart, General Cao Gangchuan, agreed to strengthen their defense cooperation. That will continue. When Putin sacked the government of Mikhail Kasyanov on February 24, the new prime minister, Mikhail Fradkov, pledged to pledged to develop the oil sector and boost Russia's crude-oil output to ports in Asia. However, some bilateral economic issues could prove divisive. Putin's cabinet reshuffle eclipsed - but not in Beijing - the announcement this month that Moscow would probably exclude China and accept a Japanese-backed plan to build a new oil pipeline to Nakhodka. A formal decision has
Re: Russia-China: Putin's next term
Say what you will, Putin is a smart guy. Joanna Eubulides wrote: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FC12Ag01.html Putin to expand strategic partnership with China By Sergei Blagov Mar 12, 2004
Hobbes and Darwin in China
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/weekinreview/29zhao.html China's Wealthy Live by a Creed: Hobbes and Darwin, Meet Marx By YILU ZHAO BEIJING The rich in China these days are moving into the villages of Napa Valley, Palm Springs, Long Beach, Upper East Side and Park Avenue, all in the suburbs of Beijing and Shanghai. When I grew up in Shanghai, places were called New China Road, Workers' New Village and People's Square. Now China's real estate tycoons have chosen American place names, and adorned what they build with Spanish arches, Greek columns and faux Roman sculptures. But the settings themselves are not bucolic. The vast majority of these new single-family homes, which cost $800,000 on average, are huddled together in walled compounds with 24-hour security guards. The few rich who dare to live on their own in the countryside almost always become targets of burglars, who, in desperate moments, are willing to kill. This is the dark side to China's new wealth: Envy, insecurity and social dislocation have come with the huge disparity between how the wealthy live and how the vast numbers of poor do. Clear signs of class division have emerged under a government that long claimed to have eliminated economic classes. China still calls itself socialist, and in an odd sense it is. While the income structure has changed, much that was intended to underpin social order has not. The criminal justice system, for example, has remained draconian. When caught, burglars invariably receive lengthy sentences. But there is no shortage of burglars, and the reason is clear: 18 percent of Chinese live on less than $1 a day, according to the United Nations. The poor are visible on the edges of any metropolis, where slums of plywood apartments sometimes abut the Western- looking mansions. The most recent measure by which social scientists judge the inequality of a country's income distribution indicates that China is more unequal, for example, than the United States, Japan, South Korea and India. In fact, inequality levels approach China's own level in the late 1940's, when the Communists, with the help of the poor, toppled the Nationalist government. In 1980, when the turn toward a market economy started, China had one of the world's most even distributions of wealth. Certainly, China before 1980 was a land of material shortage. When I was a child in the 1970's and 80's, I can recall, every family, equally poor, collected ration coupons to get flour, rice, sugar, meat, eggs, cloth, cookies and cigarettes. Without coupons, money was largely useless. Today, huge Western-style supermarkets offer French wine and New Zealand cheese. But an odd change has come about in some shoppers' minds. As members of China's business and political elite, they have come to believe that the world is a huge jungle of Darwinian competition, where connections and smarts mean everything, and quaint notions of fairness count for little. I noticed this attitude on my most recent trip to China from the United States, where I moved nine years ago. So I asked a relative who lives rather comfortably to explain. Is it fair that the household maids make 65 cents an hour while the well-connected real estate developers become millionaires or billionaires in just a few years? I asked. He was caught off guard. After a few seconds of silence, he settled on an answer he had read in a popular magazine. Look at England, look at America, he said. The Industrial Revolution was very cruel. When the English capitalists needed land, sheep ate people. (Chinese history books use the phrase sheep ate people to describe what happened in the 19th century, when tenant farmers in Britain were thrown off their land to starve so that sheep could graze and produce wool for new mills.) Since England and America went through that pain, shouldn't we try to avoid the same pain, now that we have history as our guide? I asked. If we want to proceed to a full market economy, some people have to make sacrifices, my relative said solemnly. To get to where we want to get, we must go through the 'sheep eating people' stage too. In other words, while most Chinese have privately dumped the economic prescriptions of Marx, two pillars of the way he saw the world have remained. First is the inexorable procession of history to a goal. The goal used to be the Communist utopia; now the destination is a market economy of material abundance. Second, just as before, the welfare of some people must be sacrificed so the community can march toward its destiny. Many well-to-do Chinese readily endorse those views, so long as neither they nor their relatives are placed on the altar of history. In the end, Marx is used to justify ignoring the pain of the poor. What the well-off have failed to read from history, however, is that extreme inequality tends to breed revolutions. Many of China's dynasties fell in peasant uprisings, and extreme inequality fed the Communist revolution. While
Bestseller exposes social powderkeg in rural China
Bestseller exposes social powderkeg in rural China No-holds-barred book blows the lid on shocking injustices against the country's 900 million peasants Straits Times | 21 feb by Chua Chin Hon http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,236301,00.html BEIJING - Like any hot-blooded youth, peasant Ding Zuoming thought he would prevail because he had the truth on his side. So when corrupt village officials tried to levy illegal and exorbitant taxes and fees on the residents of Luying village in eastern Anhui province, he rallied his fellow peasants and demanded an audit. He paid for that mistake with his life. The village chief ordered his arrest and the local police beat him up so badly that he died in a hospital the following day. The incident happened on Feb 21, 1993. Mr Ding was the first farmer to be beaten to death for protesting against unfair taxes and fees, though he was hardly the last one, according to a new book chronicling the 'unimaginable poverty and hardship' of farmers in Anhui. Nearly 11 years after his death, the account of his fate is sending shock waves through many Chinese cities where the book, An Investigation Of Chinese Farmers, has become an unlikely best-seller. At least 100,000 copies have been sold, and its entire content is available online. While scholarly works on rural issues have been widely available for years, none has had the mass market appeal of the book by Anhui writers Chen Guidi and his wife Wu Chuntao. Their book, at turns emotional, at turns strident, but mostly brimming with anger at the injustice inflicted against the country's 900 million peasants, touched a raw nerve among urban Chinese readers, many of whom are disengaged from the plight of the rural areas and are fed a constant diet of rosy reports from state TV. Aside from corruption and police brutality, the book, the result of an extensive three-year study, also details how already impoverished villages were dragged further into debt by officials trying to score political points with vanity projects. When inspection tours by top leaders from the central government threatened to blow the lid off their puffed-up reports, local officials orchestrated elaborate schemes to fool them. The book described one such scam in May 1998, when then premier Zhu Rongji visited Anhui's Nanling county to check on the government's grain procurement programme. He was shown fully stocked granaries that had taken officials four days and nights to fill with grain from other counties, because no one wanted to tell the tough-talking premier the truth: that the programme had failed and that many of Nanling's granaries sat empty. Observers were surprised that the book named the villages, counties and officials involved, many of whom are still in power. More disturbingly, the authors said in interviews and webchats here that they had pulled their punches, and what they witnessed was much worse in reality. The couple wrote: 'Those who have not left the big cities think the whole of China is like Beijing or Shanghai. 'We want to say that we have seen unimaginable poverty, unimaginable evil, unimaginable suffering and desperation, unimaginable resistance and silence.' The book casts a harsh and timely spotlight on the multitude of problems in China's rural heartland, which experts fear could lead to social unrest as legislators gear up for the annual legislative session next month. A key debate will be on the 150-billion-yuan (S$30.6-billion) budget to raise farmers' incomes and improve the agricultural sector. The authors and several other experts have argued for years that lowering the tax and fee burdens of peasants will not work without corresponding measures to boost their incomes, which are now at least three to four times lower than those of their urban counterparts. Central government efforts to reduce their tax burden have been hobbled by systemic corruption and non-compliance among local officials who exploit loopholes and a lack of supervision to enrich themselves. Authors Chen and Wu wrote: 'What we are facing is not just an agricultural problem... It is simply the biggest social problem facing the new Chinese leadership. 'We should not forget the farmlands just because we now have sparkling new cities. 'If the 900 million peasants in China do not become well-off, all optimistic economic forecasts are irrelevant.' (the book is at http://finance.sina.com.cn/guest147.shtml for you Chinese readers!) - This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/
Re: new frontiers of property rights theory in China
Mike Ballard wrote: Neither wage-labour nor state ownership will ever lead to anything but capitalism. This is not very dialectical. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: new frontiers of property rights theory in China
From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Is there a shadow of socialism or social democracy left in China? Ian answered: One party rule and the penal code... Of course, it depends what one means by the word socialism. When referring to a socio-economic system (mode of production), there are two main meanings here (which could be elaborated more, but I won't, given time constraints): 1) state ownership of the means of production. (This is a general meaning.) 2) state ownership of the means of production combined with popular and democratic ownership of the state by the working classes. (This is the traditional Western European meaning in the leftist movements.) The first, more general definition, includes the second as a special case. It also includes state or bureaucratic socialism. The first fits with Ian's usage above. The socialism of the People's Republic of China was based on a non-capitalist system of property, in which the means of production were owned by the state. The state was then controlled -- and effectively owned -- by the group that had a political monopoly, the Communist Party of China. The penal system (though horrible), however, is more a product of China's underdevelopment at the time than it was a matter of its state socialism: after all, most poor capitalist countries have similar systems, if not worse. The penal system also fits well with China's new capitalist face. The CPC's political monopoly (and the penal system) are the basis for many of the leftist critiques of the old socialist China both in the West and in China itself. However, if you see that system not as part of the Western European socialist tradition as much as part of a nationalist effort to promote independent economic development, it fits with economic historian Alexander Gershenkron's observation that the more backward a country is when starting its industrialization drive the more statist is likely to be (at least if the drive is to be successful). That is, from a Chinese nationalist perspective, the old Chinese socialism wasn't that bad (even though it fails the democratic and libertarian standards of the Western European socialist tradition). It should be mentioned also that the PRC's industrialization drive was (as far as I can tell, being a non-expert who can't read Chinese) more egalitarian than most poor-country efforts. This seems a result of the fact that the peasantry was so important to the process of putting the CPC into power. The urban working class resistance that Marty refers to may have also played a role. Mike Ballard wrote: Neither wage-labour nor state ownership will ever lead to anything but capitalism. I think that this is simplistic. State ownership of the means of production seems necessary to the rise of socialism and the eventual abolition of classes. But it isn't sufficient. In the USSR, there was state ownership, but the CPSU eventually decided to try to modernize, to turn many of its members into capitalists. But that isn't inevitable. Working class resistance could have prevented the re-establishment of capitalism (the conversion of bureaucratic socialism into capitalism) under Gorbachev and Yeltsin and could have pushed the system in the direction of socialism (definition #2). BTW, David Kotz has argued that Russia isn't currently capitalism. I think it's more accurate to say that it's not a capitalism that works well as a system. It's got wage labor, privatized ownership of the means of produciton, and other characteristics of capitalism, but is still quite f*cked up. Jim Devine
China: the peg
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storycid=1518ncid=1518e=11u=/afp/20040219/bs_afp/china_forex_040219085615 Economists warn dramatic change in Chinese currency could spell disaster Thu Feb 19, 3:56 AM ET BEIJING, (AFP) - A growing number of economists are warning any dramatic change in the Chinese currency could spell disaster for both China and the world. While a stronger yuan, also known as the renminbi, would do little for developed economies, China itself would suffer, and financial crisis could result in global markets, they said. In an environment of heightened speculative enthusiasm, a sudden move in the renminbi could incite intense speculation in the currency market, Andy Xie, China economist for Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, said in a research note. (This) may spark a major financial crisis in light of the massive leverage that has built up in most asset classes during the current period of a low Fed funds rate, he said. China has pegged its currency at about 8.28 against the US dollar for the past decade in a policy recently criticized by US politicians as costing American jobs. The central bank on Thursday denied financial authorities had decided for a revaluation in the near future, calling reports to that effect groundless. The central bank statement, carried in the English-language China Daily, also said the exchange rate system had served China well. It is exactly under this exchange rate system that the renminbi maintained its stability and fended off the impact from the Asian financial crisis, it said. The denials notwithstanding, Guan Tao, an official with China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said he had already detected early signs of speculative moves based on the foreign pressure on China. Repeated American criticism has only encouraged flows of money into China as investors bet Beijing would cave in and adjust the peg, Guan said in a commentary in the state-controlled China Securities Journal. China's own financial system would be far too fragile to cope with a complete de-peg, according to Paul Coughlin, managing director of Standard and Poor's Asia Pacific corporate and government ratings. If there's a free float of the currency and removal of the exchange controls... that would be very difficult for the banking system to handle, he told a briefing in Beijing this week. We think that would be very destabilizing for China's financial system. But the ripple effects of a freely floating yuan could extend far beyond the financial system, and cost jobs and incomes in the farthest corners of China, observers warned. If the earnings made from exports to American markets were to be worth less in yuan terms, exporters in China's coastal areas would try to make up for this by cutting wages. Interior provinces depend on income remittance from their migrant workers in the coastal export economy, Xie said. Depressing the coastal export economy would have a more devastating impact on the poor interior provinces. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan both have addressed the subject in what appears to be deliberately vague terms, saying the yuan level would remain basically stable. Some observers have interpreted this wording as an indication that a minor revaluation, or widening of the current trading band in which the yuan moves, is on the cards. A scenario cited by some is for China to eventually peg its currency to a basket of currencies, better reflecting the country's overall trading relationships with the inclusion of, say, the euro and the yen. While either solution would do little or nothing to shift production back to the United States from China, they are at least feasible given the current state of the Chinese economy, analysts said. A small adjustment or a repegging of the currency to a basket of currencies would not have a major impact, said S and P's Coughlin.
Re: new frontiers of property rights theory in China
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mike Ballard wrote: Neither wage-labour nor state ownership will ever lead to anything but capitalism. I think that this is simplistic. State ownership of the means of production seems necessary to the rise of socialism and the eventual abolition of classes. If the State is a really a proletarian democracy i.e. if the working class actually controls the State and uses it to dominate the capitalists whose property has not yet been expropriated, then I'd say you were right. As for simplicity, the formula State ownership = some kind of socialism, I'd disagree and side with Engels who made the following distinctions: *** I say have to. For only when the means of production and distribution have actually outgrown the form of management by joint-stock companies, and when, therefore, the taking them over by the state has become economically inevitable, only then -- even if it is the state of today that effects this -- is there an economic advance, the attainment of another step preliminary to the taking over of all productive forces by society itself. (Here following, note that Engels is pointing to the alienation from power of the working class i.e. society--MB)But of late, since Bismarck went in for state-ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkeyism, that without more ado declares all state ownership, even of the Bismarckian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the state of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of socialism. If the Belgian state, for quite ordinary political and financial reasons, itself constructed its chief railway lines; if Bismarck, not under any economic compulsion, took over for the state the chief Prussian lines, simply to be the better able to have them in hand in case of war, to bring up the railway employees as voting cattle for the government, and especially to create for himself a new source of income independent of parliamentary votes -- this was, in no sense, a socialistic measure, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. Otherwise, the Royal Maritime Company, [116] the Royal porcelain manufacture, and even the regimental tailor of the army would also be socialistic institutions. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/notes.htm But it isn't sufficient. In the USSR, there was state ownership, but the CPSU eventually decided to try to modernize, to turn many of its members into capitalists. But that isn't inevitable. Working class resistance could have prevented the re-establishment of capitalism (the conversion of bureaucratic socialism into capitalism) under Gorbachev and Yeltsin and could have pushed the system in the direction of socialism (definition #2). In my opinion, the problem with this analysis is that it assumes that the working class was conscious enough to steer the State back onto the road to communism. I don't think it was. I wish it had been. I wish that the working class had been in control of the USSR. But long before the time Gorby came to power, the working class of the USSR had lost all but a bureaucratic job opportunity of controlling the State apparatus. Instead, the working class of the USSR increasingly took on the passive stance of consumers and had become so enamoured with the successes of capitalist West that it (well most of it anyway) welcomed the end of Communist Party dominance over the political economy. The majority thought (wrongly, of course) they'd finally get the commodity laden paradise they'd been promised for decades by embracing free-enterprise. VOA was very popular. Obviously, the CPSU had done little or nothing to encourage the working class to grasp actually existing State power during its tenure as self-appointed, vanguard bureaucracy. Instead of leading the masses via their bastardized wage-system to communism, they led them to love the idea of being dazzled with successful capitalism a la America herself. Best, Mike B) = You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. --Mark Twain http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools
new frontiers of property rights theory in China
Shareholding System Becomes 'Major Trend' of China's Economic Development Hong Kong Hsin Pao (Hong Kong Economic Journal) in Chinese 21 Nov 03 p 15 HSIN PAO (HONG KONG ECONOMIC JOURNAL) In the article, entitled: New Theoretical Breakthrough of Third Plenary Session carried in this column on 31 October, I had pointed out that the Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee had done away with the traditional view that state-owned and collective economies be taken as the main means of realizing public ownership. It called for efforts to develop a mixed ownership with the public capital as a shareholder and ensure that the joint- stock system be taken as the main means of realizing public ownership. It also permits the non-public capital to enter infrastructure, public utilities and other sectors not prohibited by laws and regulations. Theoreticians and economists in Beijing believed that this new theoretical breakthrough would greatly help the development of the private sector and other non-public sectors of the economy and the amalgamation of the public and non- public sectors of the economy. The state-owned enterprises would carry out restructuring on a large scale to become shareholding ones so as to vigorously develop the mixed ownership system, let the non-public sectors of the economy transform the public sectors of the economy, and bring about the sustainable sound development of the entire economy. Now, we will further elucidate this situation on the basis of our latest information. Theoretical Breakthrough on Ownership System Not Easy to Come By A well-informed person in Beijing said that this new theoretical breakthrough and formulation of making the joint-stock system the principal means of realizing public ownership is an inexorable development since China started to develop its reform and opening-up program and the reform of its economic system. This is also an inevitable development to undauntedly explore the various means of realizing public ownership on the basis of Deng Xiaoping's requirements. Deng Xiaoping had called for efforts to explore new means in realizing public ownership, and stressed the need to do away with conventional ideas, when he talked ab out the reform of state-owned enterprises in the early days of reform and opening-up. With the continuous deepening of China's reform, the Chinese Communists have understood more about the various effective means of realizing public ownership. The Third Plenary Session of the 14th CPC Central Committee pointed out that with the flow and reorganization of property rights, more and more economic units with mixed ownership had cropped up. They might form a new structure of property ownership. The report of the 15th CPC National Congress said that public ownership can and should take multiple forms in its realization. All governance methods and organizational forms that reflect the laws relating to socialized production may be utilized boldly. The joint stock system is a form of capital organization of modern enterprises. It can be used both under capitalism and under socialism. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 15th CPC Central Committee pointed out that large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises, especially those with good performance, may transform to joint-stock system by getting listed if suitable, and in doing so they may develop mixed ownership through cooperation and equity participation by different enterprises. The report of the 16th CPC National Congress pointed out that enterprises should develop mixed ownership, with the only exception of those in which the state holds sole proprietorship. The decision adopted by the Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee further put forward: It is necessary to keep pace with the trend of the continuous development of economic marketization, further vitalize the public sector of the economy, and vigorously develop an economic system supported by a form of mixed ownership with equity participation of the public capital, collective capital, and non-public capital. Efforts must be made to absorb investment from diversified channels and make the joint stock system the principal means of realizing public ownership. From this perspective, we belie ve that the Chinese Communists' high opinion about the joint stock system is a continuation and development of its formulations on this subject in the past. It is also an important achievement in exploring an effective means to amalgamate public ownership with the market economy. A theoretician in Beijing pointed out that the joint stock system is the product of the development of socialized production and market economy to a certain stage. It is also an effective form of capital organization and business operation used by enterprises to sharpen their market competitiveness. It will remain active in each passing day in China's economic activities and play a significant role in accelerating economic development
Re: new frontiers of property rights theory in China
Is there a shadow of socialism or social democracy left in China? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: new frontiers of property rights theory in China
- Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Is there a shadow of socialism or social democracy left in China? = One party rule and the penal code... Ian
Re: new frontiers of property rights theory in China
There really is not much more than a shadow of socialism left in China. Many intellectuals in China that are considered marxists or call themselves marxists are now basically advocating social democracy. One of the biggest problems now in China is that the party has linked socialism with what can only be understood as capitalist restoration. And if we outside of the country reinforce that by calling what exists in China as socialist, or market socialist, we will only further discredit socialism in the eyes of workers there. I should also add that while Chinese workers have certainly been demobilized and forced to accept this restoration, Chinese workers do have an important history of struggle for direct control over the conditions of production. They resisted party attempts to dominate and control the conditions of production in the early 1950s, and again in the late 1950s with strikes and direct actions on the shop floor. There was another wave of resistance in the late 1960s during the cultural revolution. I could go on, but the point is that the Chinese working class is far more than the passive mass of unorganized and disinterested individuals that is commonly portrayed in the media. The party remains nervous for good reason about potential working class action. Most recently there have been some massive protests involving tens of thousands of workers. But these have been laid off state workers who are protesting the conditions of their dismissal, not workers on strike. At the same time some of these protests have been led by independent work based organizations, which is an important development. Marty Hart-Landsberg Quoting Eubulides [EMAIL PROTECTED]: - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Is there a shadow of socialism or social democracy left in China? = One party rule and the penal code... Ian
Re: new frontiers of property rights theory in China
Neither wage-labour nor state ownership will ever lead to anything but capitalism. Regards, Mike B) = You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. --Mark Twain http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools
China bubble mitosis - was: is AG blowing a China bubble
Thanks for posting the Bloomberg artice, Ian. What a huge story it is. Beijing rolls out red carpet for the stars Capital offers incentives to lure talent to the city SCMP | 12 feb by Alice Yan and Alex Lo Eager to compete with glamorous cousin Shanghai, Beijing is rolling out the red carpet for foreign celebrities with the promise of streamlined visa access and incentives to buy big-ticket items such as property and cars. The capital has long been where the mainland's famous people make their names, but Shanghai has become the destination of choice for entertainers from Taiwan, Hong Kong and elsewhere. From next month, the capital will fast-track the granting of residential status, financial assistance - where appropriate - and tax breaks on big purchases such as homes or cars. Shanghai is the city where many stars like to live and spend their money. The policy will give Beijing more charm for stars, said Dong Meiqi, editor of the monthly magazine Star Times. The initiative targets talent from abroad, as well as from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Foreigners engaged in Beijing's cultural and sports sectors will be able to come and go as they please on five-year multiple-entry visas, said Huang Qiang, vice-director of the city's Personnel Bureau. Currently, they are required to renew their visas annually. Yang Heqing, a professor at the Capital University of Economics and Business, said: Beijing is ambitious to become one of the world's cultural hot spots. A flood of overseas visitors will come for the Olympic Games in 2008 eager to see cultural things, not skyscrapers. Andrew Lau Wai-keung, director of the blockbuster Hong Kong film trilogy Infernal Affairs, said he would love to live in Beijing - or at least own a house there. It's a great city; a national city. Hong Kong is a very small city. Beijing represents a whole culture. - This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/
is AG blowing a China bubble
Is Alan Greenspan Behind China's Bubble Too?: William Pesek Jr. Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Globalization is globalizing the Federal Reserve. It has 12 districts and acts based on U.S. events, but its influence has never been greater. It isn't far-fetched to think of Latin America as the 13th district, Southeast Asia the 14th, Russia the 15th, China the 16th, and so on. Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that some observers are blaming the Fed for problems in one of its de facto, satellite districts. China, Asia's second-largest economy, is experiencing a dangerous asset bubble, one that's making investors antsy. It seems a reach to blame Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and his colleagues here in Washington. After all, Asia isn't a huge blip on the Fed's radar screen these days. The Fed also has taken its share of flack for the U.S. bubble of the late 1990s. But the U.S. central bank's global reach is being felt in Asia. ``The Fed commitment to keeping interest rates low for a considerable period of time fueled speculation in high-risk assets,'' says Andy Xie, Hong Kong-based chief economist at Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd. ``The byproducts of this speculation,'' Xie explains, ``are the wealth effect on consumption in the U.S. and the cheap capital-fueled investment boom in China -- the twin engines or bubbles, depending on your perspective, for the global economy today.'' The cycle, Xie says, will end with either the Fed reversing its policy or with a financial accident caused by the leverage building up in high-risk assets around the world. ``History would not be kind to the Fed,'' Xie says. ``Its accommodation and even encouragement of speculative excesses would be viewed as the primary cause of the massive bubble in the global economy today, the consequences of which are yet to show.'' The Fed's culpability is debatable. What's not is that speculative capital flows into Asia reached a record high last year, surpassing the previous peak in 1996. The big recipients of capital in 1996 were Hong Kong, South Korea and Southeast Asia. This time, it's China. Just like the capital flow destinations of the 1990s, China is experiencing an investment bubble. In 2003, East Asia's foreign-exchange reserves rose $234 billion more than the region's trade surpluses. That compares with an average of $26 billion in the 1990s and $8.3 billion in the 1980s. China and Japan were the main capital recipients in Asia last year. The increase began in 2001, when the Fed cut interest rates aggressively to boost U.S. growth. Like clockwork, China's foreign-exchange reserves rose by more than its trade surplus for the first time since 1996. The inflows picked up speed and reached record levels last year. What can be done about all this? China needs to tighten capital controls to slow the inflow, Xie argues. Such a step would be anathema to free-market aficionados and to the Group of Seven nations, which last weekend renewed its call for flexible exchange rates. But the longer Beijing allows such rapid inflows of speculative capital, the more difficult it will be to avoid a financial crisis. Xie's views are contrarian, indeed, but it's hard to dismiss them. The vast majority of world leaders, economists and investors think China's currency is undervalued and that Beijing should let it rise. That was certainly the thrust of the G-7's latest communique. But ``the appreciation of China's currency, which many advocate as the main means to cool the bubble, would only encourage more speculation, as we saw in Southeast Asia,'' Xie says. ``The resulting bigger bubble would make a hard landing inevitable.'' China may be presenting economists with a rare throw-away- the-textbooks situation. Established macroeconomic models hold that more exchange-rate flexibility will squeeze some air out of China's bubble and keep the economy from overheating. Freeing the yuan may do exactly the opposite. Beijing has taken steps to cool its economy. The central bank, for example, increased reserve requirements on commercial banks to curb money-supply growth. Higher interest rates in the U.S. could help temper China's boom. Global investors are looking for hints on the subject when Greenspan testifies in Congress this week. ``The massive swings in capital flows into Asia could only be explained by the speculative drives that rise or ebb with some stimulus,'' Xie says. ``The stimulus is usually Fed policy changes.'' It's doubtful Greenspan is preoccupied with all this. But those speculating on China's rise should keep two things in mind. One, the Fed's policy decisions here in Washington may have considerable influence on China's outlook. Two, what markets think they know about China's currency policy could be 100 percent wrong. To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek Jr. in Washington, or [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the editor of this column: Bill Ahearn in New York, or [EMAIL PROTECTED] Last
Japanese Business Ties With China Explode
http://www.ctnow.com/business/nationworld/ats- ap_business15feb08,1,4715544.story?coll=sns-business-headlines AP | 8 feb by Joseph Coleman KIMITSU, Japan -- One after another, red-hot slabs of metal emerge from the blazing maws of the furnaces at Nippon Steel and are squeezed and stretched into long, thin sheets -- perfect for car bodies or cell phones. Their final destination? Increasingly, the answer is China. Nippon Steel Corp. is one of many Japanese companies profiting from what's called the China Boom. China has an exploding hunger for steel and construction materials, cell phones, plasma TVs and autos, and the Japanese are working overtime to fill it. China swallows everything, said Takashi Kanke, a Nippon Steel official who recently escorted two visitors around the sprawling works at Kimitsu, across the bay from Tokyo. The mills are churning out steel at nearly full capacity thanks to demand in China. Driven by industrial output, export demand and investment, China's economy grew a frenetic 9.1 percent in 2003, the highest rate since 1997. Japanese exporters responded, boosting shipments to China by 33.2 percent to a record $62.9 billion. Exports to China have more than doubled since 2000, though they still are only about half of exports to the United States. The emergence of the Chinese market as an engine for growth in Asia is also speeding Japan's shift of production to China. Nippon Steel agreed to a joint venture with China's top steel producer in December, Japanese brewers like Asahi are muscling into the world's biggest beer market, and electronics maker Matsushita, whose China sales have more than tripled since 1998, recently made the country the core of its global strategy. The Japanese -- along with American and European companies also making money in China -- are betting the trend will continue, boosted in part by construction and other opportunities generated by the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. Estimates say Chinese growth will slow somewhat in 2004 -- to 8 percent or more. The China boom is so strong it is playing a key role in fueling Japan's recovery, a rebound many hope will finally lift the world's second largest economy out of the humiliating slump where it has languished since the early 1990s. Jesper Koll, chief economist for Merrill Lynch Japan, said the short-lived growth surges in Japan over the past decade have often been narrow, based on automotive sales in the United States, for example. Now it's a very broad-based recovery in Japan, he said. It's all China. The rapid deepening of business ties between Asia's largest economy and its most populous nation, however profitable, does make the Japanese a little nervous. Everyone from steel executives to the Bank of Japan is warning of potentially destabilizing inflation brought on by an overheated Chinese economy. Even those at the forefront of Japan's push into its neighbor's economy say social or political turmoil could suddenly turn the Chinese boom into a bust. Some also worry that Japan is feeding the behemoth that will one day overtake it economically and politically. Already, an increasingly confident China is chipping away at Japan's influence in the rest of Asia, and Tokyo has watched uneasily as Beijing's relations have warmed with Washington. Political ties between Japan and China are troubled. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to a shrine honoring war dead -- including the architects of Tokyo's invasion of China in the 1930s -- have drawn protests from Beijing. The Chinese also suspect they are the target of closer military cooperation between Tokyo and Washington. Political relations are the biggest risk, conceded Shinji Shimahara, general secretary of the Japan-China Investment Promotion Organization. Some people have fear, some don't -- I don't know which side is right. But Shimahara and many others involved in business with China have come to the same conclusion: Japan has no choice but to sell to China. Before the China risk, there is the China opportunity, said Yuki Iriyama, general manager of Nippon Steel's overseas business division. Almost all of Japanese industry is looking at China as a prospective big market. The steel industry illustrates both the opportunities and the risks of that market. Chinese demand has helped boost Japanese production over the doldrums it hit in the mid-1990s, and was largely credited with the 2.6 percent increase in Japanese steel output in 2003. Even more important, the Chinese appetite for steel has triggered a global recovery of steel prices, allowing companies like Nippon Steel to make a bundle. For the six months ending Sept. 30, the company reported a group net profit of $348.5 million, a comeback from the $48.1 million loss suffered in the same period in 2002. Company officials say direct shipments to China account for about 20 percent of its total exports, up to about 2 million tons a year, making
Made in China -- With Neighbors' Imports
Made in China -- With Neighbors' Imports ¡ªRegion Growing Dependent on Giant Market Washington Post | 5 feb by Peter S. Goodman http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14093-2004Feb4.html TANGKAK, Malaysia -- With a decisive yank of his long-handled scythe, the worker sliced away a palm frond, then pulled magenta-ripe bunches of fruit down to the soil. The harvest of the Sagil Estates palm oil plantation began its journey to the ports of China, a route that traces a reordering of the global economy. Workers swept the chestnutlike fruit into woven baskets and dumped it into a cart pulled by a water buffalo. The cart carried the fruit to a truck that hauled it to a nearby mill, where steaming cookers extracted its juices. The resulting oil would be pumped aboard tankers and shipped to points worldwide -- more than one-fifth of it to China. There, it would grease the cooking pots of the world's most populous country, fill the fryers of instant-noodle factories and yield cosmetics and soap. As China's economy rapidly adds mass, it strengthens its pull on the rest of Asia. Rubber plantations in southern Thailand are filling demand for tires as China's auto industry accelerates by 75 percent a year. Rice farmers in northern Thailand now ship half of their premium jasmine rice exports to China and Hong Kong. Steelmakers in Japan and Korea, supplying the spines of the skyscrapers filling China's cities, now call China their largest customer. Computer chip plants in Taiwan, Korea and Malaysia press to satisfy the demand from the factories of coastal China, which now assemble vast quantities of electronics. And as China seeks to diversify its sources of energy while struggling to meet demand for power, it is tapping oil and gas fields in Indonesia and Australia. In the United States, Europe and Japan, fretful attention has been trained on the $438 billion worth of goods that China exported last year, provoking talk that its rise as a trade power is decimating manufacturing communities in the rest of the world. But here in Southeast Asia, the focus has largely shifted to the counterpart number -- the $413 billion worth of goods China imported last year, with the region's economies capturing a disproportionate share of the spoils. Last year, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines all saw exports to China swell by more than 50 percent, helping to change perceptions of China from potential threat into a land of opportunity. But the shipments also create some new concerns: Southeast Asia's dependence means that its own growth could be vulnerable if China's economy cools. And as Chinese manufacturing grows in sophistication, it likely will eat into the flow of finished products those countries send directly to the United States, Europe and Japan. For now, the biggest problem is simply keeping up with demand as China's relentless industrial expansion absorbs larger quantities of material. During the first nine months of 2003, China bought more than $15 billion worth of machinery and transportation equipment from Southeast Asia, according to Goldman Sachs, a leap of more than 70 percent from the same period a year earlier. Over the same period, China's imports of minerals, oils, chemicals, plastics and rubber from Southeast Asia jumped by half, to $6.4 billion. For 2003, China was our biggest buyer, said Yong Chin Fatt, general manager of the commodities section at IOI Group, the Malaysian conglomerate that owns Sagil Estates along with more than 60 other palm oil plantations. Malaysia's shipments of palm oil to China have nearly doubled over the past two years as has the price for its crop. IOI is now planting new acreage in anticipation of greater demand. We don't see China as a threat, Yong said. We see China as a savior. Sarasin Viraphol, executive vice president at the Charoen Pokphand Group Co. Ltd., a Thailand-based poultry conglomerate that was the first official foreign investor in the People's Republic of China, once worried that Southeast Asia could be wiped out by a flood of low-cost goods from the Middle Kingdom. Now, he sees it differently. If you make Chinese people richer, they are going to want all those things people want, he said. Can you imagine 1.3 billion people eating the way Americans eat? There might not be enough chicken in all the world. In recent months, China's leaders have signaled that they fear the economy could be overheating, tightening credit flowing to the country's fastest- growing sectors such as autos and real estate. They are cognizant that too much investment can spawn a disastrous bubble, a supply glut that eventually sends prices down. If such an unraveling were to occur in real estate, it could force China's banks, already stocked with some $500 billion in bad loans, to write off tens of billions more. Most economists now expect China to slow somewhat this year from a torrid pace that has seen growth in excess of 9 percent a year for the past two
China: Fears of social unrest as rural land grab worsens
Fears of social unrest as rural land grab worsens 40 million farmers have lost out in the name of progress SCMP | 5 feb by Nailene Chou Wiest http://www.chinastudygroup.org/index.php?type=newsid=4619 Each year two million mainland farmers lose their land and drift into the cities, only to be unable to secure a job or an education for their children. About 40 million farmers have been driven from the land nationwide and discontent over corruption and the low compensation they have been paid could seriously affect social stability unless their rights are better protected. This warning, published in the official People's Daily on Monday, was the latest call for the government to address land abuse, which is likely to be the hot issue at the annual conference of the National People's Congress next month. The problem has become acute since the campaign to develop the west accelerated the seizure of land from farmers for roads, dams, utilities and industrial parks. Half of the land appropriated by local governments had been resold to commercial developers, the report said. The farmers in those areas were paid a maximum of 18,000 yuan - enough to live for seven years in the countryside or two years in towns. Various taxes and levies are often deducted from the compensation or the payments are delayed for years, forcing thousands of landless farmers to join the swelling ranks of disgruntled people who have petitioned Beijing in the past two years. Under the constitution, all land belongs to the state or collectives. Only governments can acquire land and seizures are often carried out in the name of economic development or job creation. But in reselling the land at higher prices to developers, local governments often pocket most of the profits. The People's Daily article called for measures to increase the amount of compensation and allow farmers to share any profits from resales. It also urged local governments to take more responsibility for creating jobs and providing housing for dispossessed farmers. A resolution at the third plenum of the 16th Communist Party Congress last October stated that the wanton appropriation of farmland must be curbed to protect the rights of farmers and the security of the nation's grain production. Minister of Land and Resources Sun Wensheng announced in December that the government would put land officials below provincial level under the ministry's control, therefore depriving local governments of the right to control land use. Mr Sun said that close to half of the nation's 6,015 economic development zones had either been abolished or merged, and about 168,000 land fraud cases were investigated. At a recent meeting on fighting corruption, state investigators said that this year they would focus more on social injustices such as abuses by officials in land acquisitions. - This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/
China: Amnesty called on corporate crimes
Amnesty called on corporate crimes In a promising sign for the wider private economy, firms in Hebei province will be 'forgiven' for financial misconduct SCMP | 2 feb by Wang Xiangwei In what could turn out to be a watershed in the mainland's stop-go efforts to liberate the private economy, Hebei province is forgiving private businessmen for the economic crimes they committed as they worked to get their companies off the ground. Hebei, a mainly agricultural province, has drafted regulations stipulating it will no longer take legal proceedings against bosses of private firms for economic crimes and irregularities they committed in the initial development of their businesses, generally known as original sin. Sheng Hong, the director of the Unirule Institute of Economics in Beijing, thinks the rule is reasonable. Laws have changed from what they were two decades ago, when the reform and opening-up policy was adopted, he said. Many things which were regarded as illegal are now legal and those who were law-breakers then should not face punishment now. As other provinces are expected to follow suit, the move could mark the beginning of a new development phase for the mainland's private sector. This should also be good news for Hong Kong. More mainland private businesses would be willing to seek public share offerings and raise money in capital markets without fear that raising profiles would attract the attention of official investigators and land their bosses in trouble, or even jail. The mainland's private businesses started to emerge in the early 1980s and flourished in the 1990s, but the official view has largely remained ambivalent. While private businesses play an increasingly important role in creating jobs and driving the economy forward, they have long played second fiddle to the state sector, with little access to bank loans and policy support. As a result, on their growth paths, most private businesses have a dubious past of dodging taxes, bribery to obtain bank loans or land deals and engaging in other economic irregularities. After more than 20 years of development, private businesses have become the backbone of the economy in many provinces, particularly in coastal regions such as Zhejiang and Guangdong. However, they have also been the targets of investigations for irregularities committed a long time ago. This has prompted some private businessmen to move their hard-earned profits overseas instead of investing them in long-term developments on the mainland. According to the Hebei document - released early last month but only reported by the China Youth Daily on Saturday - the authorities would not prosecute bosses of private firms if crimes committed in the initial stages of development had outlived their validity period stipulated in the mainland's criminal code. Even during the validity period, the provincial authorities would consider lenient or suspended sentences, depending upon the nature and scale of the crimes, their consequences and the repentance of offenders. Gu Yongzhong, a legal professor at China University of Political Science and Law and a director of the China Procedural Law Research Institute, says that according to Chinese criminal law authorities cannot prosecute anyone if their crime has outlived the validity period. According to the law, the validity period for crimes carrying a maximum penalty of no more than five years' imprisonment are five years, and 15 years for crimes carrying the maximum penalty of 10 years or more But Professor Gu said things were often different in practice. There are cases when private firm bosses have been prosecuted even when the case is outside the validity period. There's no point backdating crimes to when the legal and economic environments were far from sound, Professor Gu said. Many private companies have grown large, hired many employees and contributed greatly to the country. Stiff punishments do China no good. Sun Dawu, a well-known Hebei private entrepreneur convicted of illegally taking deposits, said he found the report confusing. I read the report twice and I still don't understand what it means. What is 'original' sin? Is it applicable to my case? I don't think it means much to me now anyway because I had been convicted, he said when asked to comment on the new rules. Zhang Xingshui, a lawyer who defended Mr Sun, called the new rules a friendly gesture by the Hebei authorities although their exact application might be vague. It is a good gesture. It signals that there is a change in the attitude of Hebei officials to private enterprises and it is a positive change, he said. - This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/
U.S., China Are on Collision Course Over Oil
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-luft2feb02,1,370578.story? coll=la-news-comment-opinions LA Times | 2 feb Gal Luft Sixty-seven years ago, oil-starved Japan embarked on an aggressive expansionary policy designed to secure its growing energy needs, which eventually led the nation into a world war. Today, another Asian power thirsts for oil: China. While the U.S. is absorbed in fighting the war on terror, the seeds of what could be the next world war are quietly germinating. With 1.3 billion people and an economy growing at a phenomenal 8% to 10% a year, China, already a net oil importer, is growing increasingly dependent on imported oil. Last year, its auto sales grew 70% and its oil imports were up 30% from the previous year, making it the world's No. 2 petroleum user after the U.S. By 2030, China is expected to have more cars than the U.S. and import as much oil as the U.S. does today. Dependence on oil means dependence on the Middle East, home to 70% of the world's proven reserves. With 60% of its oil imports coming from the Middle East, China can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines of the tumultuous region. Its way of forming a footprint in the Middle East has been through providing technology and components for weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems to unsavory regimes in places such as Iran, Iraq and Syria. A report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a group created by Congress to monitor U.S.-China relations, warned in 2002 that this arms trafficking to these regimes presents an increasing threat to U.S. security interests in the Middle East. The report concludes: A key driver in China's relations with terrorist-sponsoring governments is its dependence on foreign oil to fuel its economic development. This dependency is expected to increase over the coming decade. Optimists claim that the world oil market will be able to accommodate China and that, instead of conflict, China's thirst could create mutual desire for stability in the Middle East and thus actually bring Beijing closer to the U.S. History shows the opposite: Superpowers find it difficult to coexist while competing over scarce resources. The main bone of contention probably will revolve around China's relations with Saudi Arabia, home to a quarter of the world's oil. The Chinese have already supplied the Saudis with intermediate- range ballistic missiles, and they played a major role 20 years ago in a Saudi- financed Pakistani nuclear effort that may one day leave a nuclear weapon in the hands of a Taliban-type regime in Riyadh or Islamabad. Since 9/11, a deep tension in U.S.-Saudi relations has provided the Chinese with an opportunity to win the heart of the House of Saud. The Saudis hear the voices in the U.S. denouncing Saudi Arabia as a kernel of evil and proposing that the U.S. seize and occupy the kingdom's oil fields. The Saudis especially fear that if their citizens again perpetrate a terror attack in the U.S., there would be no alternative for the U.S. but to terminate its long-standing commitment to the monarchy - and perhaps even use military force against it. The Saudis realize that to forestall such a scenario they can no longer rely solely on the U.S. to defend the regime and must diversify their security portfolio. In their search for a new patron, they might find China the most fitting and willing candidate. The risk of Beijing's emerging as a competitor for influence in the Middle East and a Saudi shift of allegiance are things Washington should consider as it defines its objectives and priorities in the 21st century. Without a comprehensive strategy designed to prevent China from becoming an oil consumer on a par with the U.S., a superpower collision is in the cards. The good news is that we are still in a position to halt China's slide into total dependency. Unlike the U.S., China's energy infrastructure is largely underdeveloped and primarily coal-based. It has not yet invested in a multibillion-dollar oil infrastructure. China is therefore in a better position than the U.S. to bypass oil in favor of next-generation fuels. The U.S. should embark on a frank dialogue with China, conveying to the Chinese the mutual benefits of circumventing oil and offering any assistance required to curb China's growing appetite for it. A shift from oil into other sources of transportation energy - such as bio-fuels or coal-based fuels, hydrogen and natural gas - could prevent future conflict and foster unprecedented Sino- American cooperation with significant economic benefits for both countries. The Chinese would probably leapfrog oil if they could. Dependency of any kind is foreign to their culture. But without substantial American technological support, China is likely to follow the path of least resistance and become a full-fledged oil economy. Failure to address the issue with the utmost care would undercut all of today's costly efforts by the U.S. to reform
Re: U.S., China Are on Collision Course Over Oil
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-luft2feb02,1,370578.story? coll=la-news-comment-opinions LA Times | 2 feb Gal Luft Sixty-seven years ago, oil-starved Japan embarked on an aggressive expansionary policy designed to secure its growing energy needs, which eventually led the nation into a world war. Today, another Asian power thirsts for oil: China. While the U.S. is absorbed in fighting the war on terror, the seeds of what could be the next world war are quietly germinating. With 1.3 billion people and an economy growing at a phenomenal 8% to 10% a year, China, already a net oil importer, is growing increasingly dependent on imported oil. Last year, its auto sales grew 70% and its oil imports were up 30% from the previous year, making it the world's No. 2 petroleum user after the U.S. By 2030, China is expected to have more cars than the U.S. and import as much oil as the U.S. does today. === Right wing Sino-phobic pessimism struggling to create a self-fulfilling prophecy: The Energy Dept. says that world growth in petroleum has averaged 1.5% a year since 1995, despite China's growth. [latest issue of Business Week] Dr. Gal Luft is founder and co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS). He is a former lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces. In his military career, Luft commanded battalions in southern Lebanon, the Golan Heights, and YESHA (Judea, Samaria and Gaza) and worked with the Palestinian Authority since its inauguration in 1994. He is an associate fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and is the author of The Palestinian Security Forces: Between Police and Army (Washington DC, 1998), as well as several articles on Israeli-Palestinian security issues published in Foreign Affairs, Commentary Magazine, Middle East Quarterly, and Middle East Review of International Affairs. Luft is a graduate of Bar Ilan University and holds a doctorate in Strategic Studies from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. http://www.acpr.org.il/people/gluft.html
Re: U.S., China Are on Collision Course Over Oil
Ian Murray wrote: Right wing Sino-phobic pessimism struggling to create a self-fulfilling prophecy: The Energy Dept. says that world growth in petroleum has averaged 1.5% a year since 1995, despite China's growth. [latest issue of Business Week] Dr. Gal Luft is founder and co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS). He is a former lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces. etc. etc. etc. Gulick writes: Having briefly looked at the piece by the esteemed Dr. Luft which Jonathan Lassen sent out over the wire, I'll say this much: Luft epitomizes the classic good cop/bad cop US foreign policy disposition toward the PRC, where the realist Kissingerians and the neo-cons are archly fused into one. Sounding the yellow peril alarm is not an end-in-itself, but both an end and a means to leverage the PRC in a geo-economic marriage of convenience with the US, to prolong the US' dying hegemony. On the one hand, the health of US finance capital hinges on the health of increasingly neo-liberal accumulation in the PRC, which in turn hinges on China overcoming its myriad raw material input bottlenecks, namely its primary energy bottleneck. On the other hand, the US at all costs must curb the development of an autonomous PRC powerhouse. So says Luft, we'll transfer renewable energy technology at a bargain basement rate, you stop cutting independent petroleum production and sourcing deals with Persian Gulf and Central Asian states. If you don't conform, we'll sound the yellow peril alarm, this time framed in politically timely terms of proliferating arms to Middle Eastern bad guys. But heightening big power (dare I say inter-imperialist when one of the principals is the PRC) rivalry over primary energy reservoirs _is_ a real deal grounded in geological facticity, not a scare story dreamed up by spooks and right-wing think-tank demagogues. The PRC really turned the corner into full-blown Rostowian take-off last year, what with 30 percent increase in oil consumption, and the private automobile fleet growing by leaps and bounds. Chinese ecological socialism sooner or barbarism later, my friends. John Gulick _ Get a FREE online virus check for your PC here, from McAfee. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
pan-ops in China
http://www.chinastudygroup.org/index.php?type=newsid=4494 (still peanuts compared to the 200,000 pan-ops working just in Securitas (which ate up Pinkerton and Burns in 1999-2000) (also - note Shenyang is the Flint Michigan of China, see: http://www.chinastudygroup.org/index.php?type=articleid=45 for more) In China, private eyes spy from legal twilight zones Knight Ridder | 23 jan by Tim Johnson SHENYANG, China - Out of China's chaotic race to capitalism, an army of private detectives has emerged to find abundant work tracing bogus goods, tailing swindlers and capturing philandering spouses on videotape. By some estimates, 700 to 1,000 small investigations companies now ply their trade, employing tens of thousands of paid informants, stalkers, disguise artists, cameramen and part-time snoops. Like much business in China, the industry exists in a legal twilight zone. Banned by the central government in 1993, private detective agencies became semi-legal again after a 2002 court ruling. Even so, there's no central registry, no federal licensing and only fuzzy legal interpretation about how gumshoes may operate. My understanding is that anything that is not specifically banned is legal, said Kang Yongchun, the deputy director of the Kedun Detective Office (www.kedun-detective.com) in Shenyang, an industrial city about 400 miles northeast of Beijing. Detective agencies in China do little advertising, preferring to maintain a low profile. But they were thrust into the spotlight after the brutal beating death of a detective Dec. 13 in Beijing. A disgruntled vendor had hired the 39-year-old detective, Huang Lirong, to snoop on the owner of an herbal medicine shop. Huang's body was dumped in front of Beijing Hospital hours after the medicine shop owner spotted him and confronted him, the China Daily newspaper reported. Looking philosophical, and exuding the confidence of a lengthy career in law enforcement, Meng Guanggang, the owner of the Kedun Detective Office, said: Private detectives are people who walk on the edge. You try to accomplish your goal by all means. If you think it's right, and within the law, then go ahead and do it. In China's rough-and-tumble environment, business owners often view signed contracts as less than ironclad agreements. Swindles are common. Debts mount. Police rarely delve into such disputes. If you've been cheated by a swindler, you can report the case to the police. But you have to produce evidence. You have to tell the police where the guy is, where the company is, Meng said. While Meng is low-key, other detectives take their cues from popular fiction and B-list movies, employing a practiced bluster to sell their skills. I'm a rare talent. They can't find a talent like me, Wei Wujun, perhaps China's most widely publicized private detective, announced to a reporter. Like many detectives, Wei, who operates from Shanghai and the southwestern city of Chengdu, spends a lot of time, video camera in hand, tailing men who cheat on their wives. We stay in the next room and record everything, Wei said as he slapped a videocassette in a VCR to show some footage. See? The lens is not directed at the bed. We just want to prove that they did that. We try to protect their dignity and privacy. Under new Chinese law, wronged wives may receive assets from their unfaithful husbands if they prove infidelity. Courts now accept videotaped evidence as such proof. Laws prohibit private investigators from carrying guns or recovering private debts, but Wei, like others, finds ways to help clients, even mounting sting operations. Wei said a software company summoned him when it discovered an employee pilfering software source code and selling it on the sly. We set up a trap. I went in with a guy who is a close friend of that staff member, and acted as a potential buyer, Wei said, asserting that he solved the case. When some 150 private detectives, lawyers and other experts gathered in late December in Hangzhou to discuss the outlook for private investigations, much of the talk centered on competitive intelligence, such as tracing counterfeit goods and identifying thefts of industrial know-how. In China, they are able to manufacture everything from pins to airplanes. They can counterfeit anything, said Ponnosamy Kalastree, the regional executive director for the Council of International Investigators, an industry group based in Seattle. So the market is booming for investigators to check into purloined manufacturing technology. They also profile potential business partners for clients, probe shipping fraud and track down vanished business partners. China is a big country. It is a heaven for people to disappear, said Kalastree, who heads a security firm in Singapore. Their technology is still not very advanced for tracing missing persons. U.S. and European security consulting companies are present in China but they largely stick to insurance fraud and safeguarding foreign products
Is China the next bubble?
(Spoke to an old friend from the Trotskyist movement last night, who had returned from a 2-week vacation trip to China. Two things stuck out. One was the hyper-development that is like nothing he has ever seen, not even in his home-town Los Angeles. There are vast commercial and residential developments all around Peking and Shanghai that dwarf anything he saw in his previous trip 15 years ago. The other thing was the persistence of socialist consciousness, even in the most unlikely places. One of his hosts was what might be described as a yuppie living in a lavish apartment with an impressive view of Peking. She was as committed to communism as anybody on this mailing list and saw China's current stage of capitalist development as a necessary first step to achieving a classless society. In other words a kind of neo-Kautskyism.) NY Times, January 18, 2004 Is China the Next Bubble? By KEITH BRADSHER DONGGUAN, China THE prospectus for China Green Holdings Ltd. looks a little like a seed catalog. Color photographs show the corn, cabbage, pickled plums and other vegetables that the company exports, mostly to Japan. There is even a helpful list of the growing times for broccoli, cauliflower and sweet peas; it is tucked between tables showing that the company earned $14.1 million on sales of $31.2 million in its last fiscal year. Though China Green's business literally involves small potatoes - cubed and shipped in plastic bags - its initial public offering in Hong Kong was anything but. Retail investors put in bids to buy more than 1,600 times as many shares as were available for sale, making it the most oversubscribed I.P.O. ever in Hong Kong. The stock jumped 58 percent last Tuesday, its first day of trading. Japan had its bubble in the late 1980's, when the Imperial Palace grounds in Tokyo became worth more than all the land in California. Thailand and Indonesia had their bubbles in the mid-1990's, when speculators and multinationals poured money into what seemed like a Southeast Asian miracle. The United States had its Internet and telecommunications bubble in the late 1990's, when stock prices looked as if they could rise indefinitely and unemployment kept hitting new lows. Each of those bubbles ended badly, with millions of families losing their savings and many losing their jobs. As 2004 begins, China's economy looks as invincible as the Japanese, Southeast Asian and American economies of those earlier times. But recent excesses - from a frenzy of factory construction to speculative inflows of cash to soaring growth in bank loans - suggest that China may be in a bubble now, especially on the investment side of the economy. Bubbles can last years before they pop, but they seldom deflate painlessly when they do. Nobody knows how harmful a sharp economic slowdown would be to China, a country undergoing huge social changes, like the migration of peasants to the cities. The Communist Party rests its legitimacy on delivering consistent annual increases in prosperity. The Chinese government is showing concern. In the last few weeks, the central bank has tried to dissuade banks from reckless lending while the government has bailed out two of the largest ones, to prepare them for possible hard times as well as planned stock sales. The State Council, China's cabinet, has warned that it will discourage further construction of new factories in industries like aluminum and steel, whose capacity has grown swiftly in the last three years. Because China is now so important to the global economy and to global political stability, the possibility of economic trouble is starting to draw serious attention among economists and China specialists. Huge billboards in Guangdong Province commemorate Deng Xiaoping's decision a quarter-century ago to allow capitalism to gain a foothold in a few cities here in southeastern China. Practically ever since, China's astounding economic growth has provoked warnings that the boom may not be sustainable. Year after year, China has proved the worriers wrong, although there have been a few missteps along the way, most notably when inflation surged temporarily and foreign exchange reserves withered in the early 1990's. But even by Chinese standards, things have been moving at a blistering pace of late. Official statistics, which the government tends to smooth so as not to indicate big booms or busts, show that the economy expanded 8.5 percent last year, despite the fact that growth came to a virtual halt during the second quarter because of an outbreak of SARS. According to independent economists, however, the Chinese economy actually expanded at an annual pace of 11 percent to 13 percent through the second half of last year. Strains are already showing. Blackouts have become a problem in a majority of China's provinces, as families with new air-conditioners and refrigerators compete with new factories for electricity. Auto sales soared 75 percent last year, as prices in a market protected
The Internet in China as a tool of the poor
NY Times, January 16, 2004 Chinese Go Online in Search of Justice Against Elite Class By JIM YARDLEY HARBIN, China, Jan. 14 On Oct. 16, the day she died, Liu Zhongxia was riding in her onion cart when it scraped a sedan. Usually her death would have gotten little attention. But in a country increasingly divided between rich and poor, a detail stood out: The sedan was a BMW. Mrs. Liu was a peasant. The driver of the BMW, Su Xiuwen, is the wife of a businessman. The initial scrape was minor, but after a confrontation, Mrs. Su drove the car into Mrs. Liu. The trial in December lasted less than two hours, with Mrs. Su receiving a suspended sentence. The death was ruled an accident. And that would have ended it, except for two things. First, the BMW case tapped into sharp class resentments emerging in this Communist country, which long espoused a classless society. And second, that anger was able to coalesce in what is becoming an increasingly influential court of appeals in China: the Internet, which boiled with online outrage. This week, in a rare step, officials here announced an investigation into possible judicial corruption in the case, state media reported. There is already speculation that Mrs. Su could face a harsher verdict, a result that would appease the online critics but could also set an uneasy precedent for reformers trying to establish a genuine rule of law in China. If the case involved a tractor, I'm sure it wouldn't have attracted any attention, said Qu Wenyong, dean of the sociology department at Heilongjiang University in Harbin. But it involved a BMW, which symbolizes wealth and power. People immediately associated it with the gap between rich and poor. That yawning gap is a fundamental contradiction of China's economic boom. Wealth is pouring in, swelling the middle class, yet hundreds of millions still live in poverty. Here in the northeast, once the country's industrial center but now mired in unemployment, it is not hard to find class bitterness rubbed raw by the case. We ordinary people have to obey the laws, said a taxi driver. Mrs. Su, he said, does not: She has the power. She has the privilege. She can drive wildly. Initially, the accident barely attracted attention outside Harbin. That day, Mrs. Liu's husband, Dai Yiquan, accidentally bumped their onion cart into the side of the BMW, pushing the car about three feet. Mr. Dai, interviewed at his small village home outside Harbin, said Mrs. Su jumped out and began hitting him. Then, after bystanders intervened, she returned to the car, apparently to back up. But she unexpectedly drove forward, crushing Mrs. Liu and injuring several others. The car crashed to a halt against a tree. My wife was dragged for six or seven meters, Mr. Dai said. He said he tried to lift her right arm but it was broken. He saw blood coming out of her mouth. People said she was already dead, he recalled. I was just dumbfounded. The question at trial was whether Mrs. Su had intentionally tried to harm Mrs. Liu or had simply mistakenly put the car into first gear instead of reverse. The trial was notable for its lack of eyewitnesses, though many saw the incident. Mrs. Su's husband admitted that he had paid more than $20,000 a huge amount of money in rural China to people who were injured, which may explain why none testified at the hearing. One of them was Mr. Dai, who said he had received almost $10,000, roughly eight years' wages. He said he did not even attend the trial. I just want peace for my family, a weary Mr. Dai said as one of his two daughters listened. I don't care about the verdict and whether it is justice or not. But China's netcitizens cared very much. Editors at Sina.com, the country's most popular Web site, said that after the verdict, more than 200,000 messages were posted to chat rooms, many suggesting corruption was to blame. A spate of stories in the media fueled their anger. Before the verdict, newspapers in Harbin covered the case lightly; afterward, reporters from outside the province swept in. Some stories speculated that Mrs. Su was connected to a politically powerful family. Others quoted Mr. Dai accusing Mrs. Su of intentionally trying to harm his wife. Guo Liang, a scholar with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who studies the role of the Internet in Chinese society, said the case was the latest example of the Net's growing influence. He said Internet protests of a beating death last year that involved police officers helped prompt a change in national detention laws. The Net also became a primary source of information during the initial SARS outbreak. Mr. Guo noted that while most Internet users are China's urban elite, he recently finished a study showing that poorer, more rural residents are increasingly online, renting time at Internet cafes for as little as 12 cents an hour. This platform has really changed the situation in China, because
China: bailout dynamics/spillovers
http://www.feer.com BANKING Wasteful Transfusion The addiction of China's big state banks to rash lending could defeat a drive to drag them out from under a mountain of bad debt before they go public. The poison still runs deep in their veins By Tom Holland and David Lague/HONG KONG Issue cover-dated January 22, 2004 IT'S BAILOUT time again for China's Big Four state-owned banks. For the third time since 1998, the government has stepped in to prop up these technically insolvent behemoths that account for more than 70% of lending and deposits in China. Beijing doled out a total of $45 billion to Bank of China and China Construction Bank in late December. Analysts say that the full bill could reach $120 billion by the time the other two banks are recapitalized as part of the same programme. That's on top of two earlier rescue efforts that cost a total of $202 billion. The $45 billion was aimed at bolstering investors' confidence in the two institutions ahead of their flotation on international stockmarkets, and was warmly welcomed, mostly by merchant banks hungry for fees from the planned listings. But the unusual way in which the money was pumped in and its unconventional source--China's foreign-exchange reserves--left some analysts believing the injection will merely feed the banks' long-standing addiction to reckless lending. For unless the Big Four can make real progress in curbing the accumulation of new bad loans, this bailout, like its predecessors, will simply amount to another exercise in flushing money down the drain. They have thrown more money at it but they haven't really dealt with the problem, says Stephen Harris, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore. At first, most foreign observers greeted the capital injection as solid evidence that Beijing is committed to restructuring its state-owned banks. Ratings agency Standard Poor's, for example, immediately revised its outlook on China Construction Bank and Bank of China to positive from stable. But a closer examination of the mechanism used, and of the few details so far released by the Chinese authorities, leaves plenty of questions unanswered. Most significantly, there is the stipulation that the money cannot be used for writing off nonperforming loans, or NPLs. The new capital is in dollars, which are fine for capitalizing Chinese banks, but not much good for writing off bad loans denominated in renminbi. There is little chance that the banks will be allowed to convert the money any time soon. Such heavy renminbi buying would place an intolerable upward pressure on China's currency, forcing the authorities to buy dollars and borrow renminbi to soak up the local currency liquidity released. That would defeat the object of using foreign exchange to recapitalize the banks. But if the banks can't convert the new cash, holding it on their capital accounts will free up existing capital for writing off bad loans. It will also give them leeway to raise more capital in the form of subordinated debt, much of which will also be committed to write-offs. The big problem for overseas observers, including potential investors, is that it remains unclear just how many NPLs the state banks are carrying on their books, or at what rate new NPLs are being created. At the end of September 2003, for instance, China Construction Bank, regarded as the healthiest of the Big Four, had an official NPL ratio of nearly 12%, down from about 15% at the end of 2002. At first that appears encouraging. But the fall in the proportion of NPLs must be seen in the light of a rapidly growing loan book, widely thought by analysts to have increased by around 20% last year. In those terms, the drop in the ratio of NPLs to loans can be almost entirely accounted for by the overall increase in lending, rather than by the aggressive write-offs CCB claims. In the past two years most Chinese banks have witnessed very strong loans growth. That makes the NPL ratio look smaller, explains George Lee, an analyst at specialist emerging-markets rating agency Capital Intelligence in Hong Kong. There are other worries. First, there is the widespread suspicion that the official NPL levels are an optimistic fantasy. Most international observers estimate the real levels for all of China's banks to be much higher, with Standard Poor's saying the true ratio is as high as 45%, or about $850 billion. We are very, very cautious and suspicious regarding Chinese banking numbers, agrees Lee. That $850 billion would dwarf the estimated $145 billion-175 billion it cost the United States to bail out defunct savings-and-loans institutions in the 1980s, and the $377 billion worth of Japanese loans officially classed as nonperforming at the end of March 2003. But it pales into insignificance besides some estimates of the true size of Japanese banks' NPLs that have ranged up to $2 trillion. Then there are questions about the quality of new loans in China. Right now
China: secrecy and information economics
http://www.feer.com CHINESE CREDIT RATINGS By Joel Baglole/HONG KONG Issue cover-dated January 08, 2004 AS INCREASING NUMBERS of Chinese companies turn to the capital market, international credit-rating agencies are charging into China hoping to capitalize on a huge new business opportunity. But they're operating in such a murky atmosphere that many investors question the value of their assessments. Demand for credit ratings--an assessment of how willing and able a company, bank or government is to repay its debts--is growing as more Chinese companies list shares and issue bonds, both at home and in international markets. The value of initial public offerings from China has risen 45.6%, and the value of bonds issued has increased 253% in the last five years, according to financial-data provider Thomson Corp. The success of agencies such as Fitch Ratings, Moody's Investors Service and Standard Poor's in China could prove a key test of the country's ability to develop world-class companies and capital markets. The ratings assigned by the agencies help investors decide if a company is a risky or safe investment. For companies, ratings can determine how costly it will be to raise funds. But while China is opening, it's a slow process. Faulty accounting, evolving regulations, poor corporate governance, government interference and a lack of transparency hamper agencies' efforts. Chinese companies must get government permission before they can approach an agency for a rating. And market research, a key factor to assessing sectors that companies operate in, remains tightly controlled by Beijing. Analysts at rating agencies say they're frustrated as China doesn't adhere to international accounting standards, companies often don't know how to collect certain data, publicly listed companies can be controlled by private parent companies that aren't required to disclose financial information and the government issues misleading economic statistics to meet state planning targets. China is one large grey area, says John Bailey, director of corporate ratings at Standard Poor's in Hong Kong. You have to go in with your eyes wide open, he adds. Yet, despite the enormous hurdles, agencies are issuing ratings in China. So far Fitch, Moody's and Standard Poor's have been focusing on China's sovereign bonds and companies listed on overseas stock exchanges, where disclosure is better than at private enterprises. Public companies such as China Mobile (Hong Kong) and Huaneng Power International as well as several state-owned banks have been given investment-grade ratings. China is a potentially lucrative market for rating agencies, with more than 8 million corporations and 130 banks. To date, the international agencies combined have rated less than 100 Chinese enterprises. If they can get their ratings well established in China, then eventually they'll have millions of companies lining up to buy ratings from them, says Pieter van der Schaft, director of economic research at Barclays Capital Asia in Hong Kong. Many analysts criticize the agencies' work in China, saying it's of little use, based as it is on limited, often inaccurate information. If you have any credibility as a rating agency, you would probably be rating everything junk in China, says Scott Kennedy, an assistant professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, who specializes in China's political economy. Kennedy adds that international rating agencies tend to give Chinese institutions overly high ratings because they weigh favourably the country's huge economic growth, low foreign debt and government support of banks and state-owned enterprises. They look at these factors and conclude that the chances of a crisis emerging are low and so give them a decent rating, he says. Fitch, Moody's and Standard Poor's tie their ratings of China's banks to the sovereign-debt ratings of the government's bonds. But executives say they have to do this, as the country's banks are technically insolvent with nonperforming loans accounting for as much as half their total loan portfolios. Institutional investors say that, given the limitations, they too are reluctant to give much weight to credit-rating agencies' work. Credit-rating agencies can keep the markets and investors abreast of ongoing structural problems in China, but in terms of data that affects markets on a daily basis, rating agencies aren't that useful, says Brad Aham, an Asian-equities portfolio manager at State Street Corp., who has $2 billion invested in emerging Asian markets. Most investors are hoping to gain from [China's] economic growth. Indeed, investors have shown themselves perfectly willing to charge into China blind, even when rating agencies refuse to rate a company or bond. In September, for example, Cosco Pacific, a Chinese container-leasing firm that's listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, issued a $300 million 10-year bond without any rating on either the company
China: property rights II
[New York Tiomes] December 23, 2003 China Moves to Protect Property, but the Fine Print Has a Caveat By JOSEPH KAHN SHENZHEN, China, Dec. 22 - China's national legislature moved to amend the Constitution on Monday to protect private property rights, the first time the Communist Party has formally protected private wealth since taking power 55 years ago. The change, expected to be enacted early next year, is a milestone in China's 25-year economic reform effort. It marks a victory for advocates of China's emerging class of entrepreneurs, who have argued for years that the Marxist Constitution discriminates against them and gives leeway to the police and the courts to seize their property according to party dictates. The amendment, subjected to a prolonged debate behind closed doors during the past six months, says that private property obtained legally shall not be violated, at least nominally putting it on the same footing as public property, which the Constitution now deems sacred and inviolable. But the wording of the amendment made public on Monday differs in crucial ways from a simpler version put forward by supporters of more fundamental changes to the Constitution. By including the phrase obtained legally, the amendment still makes the legal system, controlled by the Communist Party, the arbiter of property rights. Officials are determined to avoid the rush to privatization that occurred in Russia in the early 1990's, when entrepreneurs assumed ownership of valuable properties in sales that were later considered flawed. Corruption is rampant in China and some intellectuals and government leaders have long warned against steps that would make it easier for well-connected people to take control of public property and treat it as their own. The watered-down amendment also seems geared to give the state continued sway over wealthy businessmen who fall out of favor. Local and national authorities often confiscate land and money of people they consider threatening or disobedient, generally arguing that they lost their rights because they violated a law or regulation while accumulating their property. Sheng Hong, director of the Unirule Economic Institute in Beijing, said the amendment as unveiled by the legislature on Monday is crucial for economic development, but also shows the continued unease about the level of corruption in Chinese society. This change should give private property holders more clarity and long-term predictability, Mr. Sheng said in a telephone interview. But the phrase `obtained legally' really stands out. It is clearly meant to ensure that corrupt income does not become legal income. The amendment is the latest in a series of steps that the party has taken to end formal discrimination against private businessmen and make a claim to represent them on equal terms with peasants and workers. Last year, entrepreneurs were officially allowed to join the party for the first time, and they now constitute a tiny fraction of the party's membership roll of 66 million. The changes do not have a direct impact on China's peasant class. Farm land is still owned and controlled by the state and leased to farmers. Both the amendment to protect private property and the decision to open the party to businessmen is part of the legacy of Jiang Zemin, who retired as China's president and Communist Party chief in favor of Hu Jintao in a transition that began a year ago. Mr. Jiang remains China's military chief. Mr. Jiang sought to update the party's core ideology to reflect major changes in the economy, which now depends far more on private entrepreneurs, peasant farmers and foreign investors than state companies. Reflecting that contribution as well as his continuing influence over party affairs, the legislature on Monday also moved to enshrine Mr. Jiang's theory of the Three Represents alongside Marxism, Mao Zedong Thought and the Theories of Deng Xiaoping as the guiding ideologies of the state as written in the Constitution. The Three Represents maintains that the ruling party should represent advanced production forces, advanced cultural forces and the overwhelming majority of Chinese people. It is a recognition, although a convoluted and vaguely worded one, that China is no longer primarily an egalitarian state and that it recognizes that capitalist-style development is essential to the survival of the Communist Party. The Chinese Constitution, unlike the American, is effectively subordinate to the ruling party and is easy for leaders to amend at will. The latest changes do not include any measures clearly associated with Mr. Hu, who was once viewed as open to considering more ambitious legal reforms, like setting up a constitutional court or guaranteeing broader democratic rights. Debate on those topics in the state-controlled media was firmly shut down over the summer months, and the legislature does not appear to be considering measures that go beyond the theories and reforms
China: property rights
China Ready to Grant Property Rights By Peter S. Goodman Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, December 22, 2003; 1:07 PM SHANGHAI, Dec. 22 -- China's Communist Party leaders on Monday proposed amendments to the nation's constitution enshrining a legal right to private property while broadening the focus of the party to represent private businesses. Virtually assured of adoption in the party-controlled National People's Congress, the amendments constitute a significant advance in China's ongoing transition from communism to capitalism. They also amount to recognition that the economic future of the world's most populous country rests with private enterprise -- a radical departure from the roots of this land still known as the People's Republic of China. Not since the Communist Party swept to power in 1949 in a revolution built on antipathy toward landowners and industrialists have Chinese been legally permitted to own property. Under the leadership of the late party chairman Mao Zedong, millions suffered persecution for the taint of bad class backgrounds that linked them to land-owning pasts. But present-day China is far different. The profit motive has come to pervade near every area of life. The site in Shanghai where the party was founded is now a shopping and entertainment complex anchored by a Starbucks coffee shop. From the poor villages in which most Chinese still live to the cities now dominated by high-rises, the market determines the price of most goods and decisions about what to produce. Business is widely viewed as a favored, even noble undertaking. The amendments submitted on Monday to the Standing Committee in Beijing, a sub-unit of the legislature, had been expected since the Communist Party's Central Committee wrapped up a plenum in October with pledges to protect private property. Party leaders have advanced property rights as part of a process of privatization that has been unfolding for years, but the movement has gained considerable momentum in recent months. The government has sold off millions of state-owned companies while encouraging the development of private companies, which now provide two out of every three jobs, according to Chinese researchers. We will unswervingly encourage, support and guide the development of the non-public sector, said Premier Wen Jiabao in an interview last month with The Washington Post. He singled out private property protection as something that would give greater scope to the creativity and enterprising spirit of the Chinese population and will in the end help us achieve the goal of common prosperity. The state-owned firms that once dominated China's economy have traditionally been sustained by credit from state banks, regardless of their balance sheets. Today, many are bankrupt, and banks are burdened by $500 billion in bad loans, according to private economists. The government has cast privatization as the prescription for turning them around, creating management incentives to make them profitable. But the process has been messy and painful, eliminating jobs for tens of millions of workers at bankrupt firms at a time when the government is slashing the social benefits that were part and parcel of communism. After years of free housing, universal health care and education, most Chinese must now pay for these services. Many state-owned companies have landed in the hands of well-connected insiders at sweetheart prices. Entrepreneurs have gained control of once-collective farms, harnessing them for private benefit in real estate ventures while peasants go landless. From the beginning of economic reforms in the early 1990s through the end of the decade, nearly $4 trillion in public assets were transferred from state-owned companies to insiders in such dubious deals, estimates Yang Fan, an economist at China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. Most Chinese scholars now portray privatization and China's larger embrace of the market as irreversible trends. Yet some intellectuals have criticized the move to protect private property as precipitous: Without first forging a modern legal system that affords aggrieved laborers and farmers the right to protect their own interests, they argue, the creation of property rights simply legitimates the looting of public assets. Ordinary people in China often say that 'privatization' really means power stealing wealth, said Kuang Xinnian, a literature professor at Qinghua University in Beijing, who has emerged as one of the more vocal critics. The amendments steered clear of political reform, dashing the hopes of liberal intellectuals who earlier this year openly called for greater democracy within the Communist Party. Some penned essays advocating the open election of labor representatives and the revision of the official history of the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989, which ended in a bloody hail of bullets. The amendment on property declares that private property obtained
Taiwan-China-US; trade, etc.
Taiwan's president steps up tension with Beijing by calling for missile referendum Jonathan Watts in Beijing Monday December 8, 2003 The Guardian President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan announced the island's first referendum yesterday in a move likely to infuriate Beijing and suck the United States into the growing dispute with the Chinese mainland. The call for a national vote on missile deployment appeared timed to overshadow the first visit to Washington by a senior member of the new leadership in Beijing. Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, set off yesterday on a four-day American tour which is expected to be dominated by a growing Sino-US trade row and the escalating war of words over Taiwan. In recent weeks, Mr Chen has ratcheted up tension with provocative statements, a high-profile visit to the US, and tentative moves towards independence for the island, which Beijing regards as a rogue province. Yesterday, Taiwan's leader said he would call a referendum on March 20 - the same day as a presidential election that will decide whether he stays in power. Voters will be asked whether they want Beijing to remove the thousands of missiles now aimed across the Taiwan strait. Taiwan will hold its first ever anti-missile, anti-war defensive referendum, Mr Chen said at a campaign rally in the northern city of Hsinchu. We want to let the world know that Taiwanese love peace and democracy and don't want to send our children to war. China is opposed to any referendum, which it sees as setting a precedent for a national vote on independence. Analysts believe that the steps are a risky ploy by Mr Chen to win re-election. In the 2000 election campaign, Mr Chen swept into power on a wave of nationalism after goading Beijing into a threatening stance. His predecessor, Lee Teng-hui, used similar tactics to win the presidency in 1996, when the crisis reached the point where China test-fired missiles near the island and the US sent two aircraft carriers to the region. Beijing's new rulers, who came to power in a Communist party transition earlier this year, have been unable to resist sabre-rattling this time. Last month, they restated a threat to use force if necessary to halt Taiwan's march towards independence. Mr Wen will ask President George Bush to exert US influence over the island. China's state-run media said the Taiwan question would top the agenda for the US talks. Beijing wants a clear statement from the US that it opposes independence. Until now, officials from the Bush administration have said only that they do not support independence and are opposed to any unilateral change in the status quo. If the US position is to change, China may have to give ground on the trade dispute, which has been prompted by a record $120bn (£70bn) Chinese surplus with the US.
Mexico/China
Mexico Now Feels Pinch of Cheap Labor An Economy Built on Low Wages Finds Itself Undercut by Influx of Chinese Imports By Mary Jordan Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, December 3, 2003; Page A19 SANTA ANA CHIAUTEMPAN, Mexico -- The China threat, as people around this textile town call it, struck here last week, costing 80 jobs in a factory that makes blankets. Maybe next time, I'll be the one who gets fired; China is going to make Mexico go broke, said Bernarda Parada, 27, as she hemmed blankets that sell for $10, while similar ones made in China sell here for $6. Turn on any radio show, attend any business conference or talk to workers in small towns like this one and the buzzword is China, particularly how its rising fortunes are causing pain in Mexico. Since 2001, industry officials said that more than 200,000 clothing, textile and other factory jobs have disappeared in Mexico and hundreds of factories have relocated to China, where labor is typically four times cheaper. A popular reaction is to disparage goods made in China and to call for higher trade barriers to protect Mexican goods. Many are even invoking a new slang expression, to be China-ed, word play on a common vulgarism in Spanish. With Chinese-made Mexican flags and Chinese-sewn traditional Mexican serapes now filling street markets, some people say dejectedly that the only Mexican commodity left that China does not make -- at least not yet -- is tequila. The U.S. textile and clothing industries and U.S. government regulators are also upset; late last month, the United States imposed import quotas on several types of Chinese clothing and textiles. But the China challenge in Mexico is more profound because the Mexican economy depends so heavily on low-skilled, relatively cheap manufacturing. That edge is now being chiseled away by a country of 1.2 billion people half a world away. So, now, officials are scrambling to reposition the nation's workforce toward higher-skill jobs and higher-end manufacturing. Many people see China as a big threat, and obviously it is, said Alejandro Dieck Assad, an economist and top official in Mexico's Finance Ministry. But China is also simultaneously a big opportunity. He said competition from China could be just the push Mexico needs to accelerate its transition from low-skilled assembly work to more lucrative manufacturing jobs -- less sewing of garments and more fabrication of electric circuits. Dieck said Mexico could also benefit by seeking opportunities in the growing Chinese consumer market and by attracting Chinese tourists to Mexican beaches. There are more and more Chinese tourists going abroad; imagine the opportunities, Dieck said. Maybe they would like to go to Cancun, Puerto Vallarta and the pyramids of Mexico City. We have to exploit this tremendous opportunity. Mexico's president, Vicente Fox, is scheduled to host Premier Wen Jiabao of China for a visit beginning Dec. 12, after Wen visits the United States. The two leaders are expected to discuss the growing flow of cheap Chinese goods to Mexico, a staggering $6.3 billion worth last year. Mexican officials stress that Mexican imports to China increased by 62 percent to $456 million last year, fueled in part by China's growing taste for Corona beer. But that still leaves a $5.8 billion trade deficit and officials are concerned about China's expanding exports. Beyond these numbers are large quantities of Chinese goods smuggled into Mexico, officials said. Mexico imposes significant tariffs on certain Chinese imports -- some as high as 500 percent -- but those levies are often not paid. Customs officials said the typical route for Chinese contraband is for goods such as pajamas, pants, bras and tennis shoes to be smuggled into California ports by ship, then driven over the U.S.-Mexico border in trucks. Mexican officials said the goods are sometimes repackaged to make them appear to be from Pakistan or another countries whose goods are subject to lower tariffs or none at all to enter Mexico. And sometimes, officials said, a customs agent is paid to look the other way. The volume of Chinese contraband is huge; private industry estimates say 50 percent of clothes and shoes sold in Mexico are made in China. In response, Dieck said the government recently began an advertising campaign called Focus on Mexico to urge people to buy legal products and avoid contraband. Much of it is sold in street markets that also pay no sales taxes. Fox has pledged the full force of the law to punish those who smuggle Chinese goods. The Mexican attorney general recently announced seizures of hundreds of tons of Chinese garments and textiles, including 60 truckloads in a single raid. The Mexican Congress is now debating tougher penalties for those who sell Chinese contraband, with many arguing that the trade should be penalized as organized crime. It's horrible! said Carmen Temoltzin Cruz, who has been selling shawls, ponchos and other clothing
A Bush in China...
Bush's Brother Has Contract to Help Chinese Chip Maker By Warren Vieth and Lianne Hart Times Staff Writers L.A. TIMES/November 27, 2003 WASHINGTON Neil Bush, a younger brother of President Bush, has a $400,000-a-year contract to provide business advice to a Chinese computer chip manufacturer, according to court documents. At the same time the Bush administration is promising to crack down on alleged trade abuses by the Chinese, Neil Bush has agreed to strategize with China's Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., the documents show. While there is no indication he has done anything improper, Bush's arrangement could attract attention during a presidential election cycle in which Chinese business practices have become a hot-button issue. There's certainly the appearance of influence being sought, said Charles W. McMillion, a Washington business consultant who advised a congressional commission on U.S.-China policy. If nothing else, it doesn't look good. The younger Bush's relationship with Grace Semiconductor, first reported in the Houston Chronicle, is detailed in a two-page contract filed as part of divorce proceedings between Neil and Sharon Bush. The divorce was finalized in April. The China contract is not Neil Bush's first brush with controversy. In the 1980s, he was a director of Silverado Banking, Savings Loan, a Colorado thrift whose failure cost U.S. taxpayers $1 billion. He was one of 12 defendants who agreed to pay $49 million to settle a negligence lawsuit brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Neil Bush did not return phone messages seeking comment. Neither did his attorney, Grace Semiconductor or Sharon Bush. An attorney for Sharon Bush declined to comment. In Crawford, Texas, where the president is spending the holiday, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said there would be no comment on the China matter. According to the consulting contract, Neil Bush was to receive $2 million worth of Grace Semiconductor preferred stock over five years, issued in annual increments of $400,000. In return, Bush agreed to provide GSMC from time to time with business strategies and policies; latest information and trends of the related industry, and other expertized advices, the contract states. In addition, Bush was to attend meetings of Grace Semiconductor's board of directors, and the firm agreed to pay him $10,000 per meeting to cover expenses. Bush signed the contract Aug. 15, 2002. It was not clear how much compensation Bush has received so far. The contract said he would receive the first $400,000 allotment within one month of the company's 2002 board meeting, provided you have duly furnished GSMC with the information and details required for the issuance or transfer of the share certificate. Grace Semiconductor, based in Shanghai, was founded in 2000 by Winston Wong, the son of Taiwanese business magnate Wang Yung-ching, and Jiang Mianheng, the son of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Wong co-signed the contract with Bush. The company has said its goal is to become a leading manufacturer of integrated circuits and other semiconductor products. It has invested $1.6 billion to build two fabrication plants in Shanghai. Production from the first plant began in September. During a March 2003 deposition taken as part of his divorce proceedings, as reported by the Chronicle and confirmed by an attorney in the case, the president's brother acknowledged that he knew little about the industry he had just joined. You have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors, do you? asked Sharon Bush's attorney, Marshall Davis Brown. That's correct, Bush responded. But I know a lot about business, he said at another point, and I've been working in Asia quite a long time. Disclosure of Neil Bush's consulting contract comes amid an intense debate over America's growing trade deficit with China. U.S. manufacturers have shed 2.8 million jobs since mid-2000, and many firms have blamed unfair trade practices by China. The American Electronics Assn. released a report this week showing that 49 states lost high-tech workers last year. Total losses were 540,000 in 2002 and 234,000 so far this year, leaving fewer than 6 million people employed in the industry. The Bush administration has promised to crack down on any abuses its finds. It has pressured China's government to let its currency rise in relation to the dollar, which would make Chinese exports less competitive in this country. It has agreed to impose protective quotas on several categories of Chinese textile products, and to place steep tariffs on Chinese-made televisions. I'm sure China will not question our resolve, Commerce Secretary Don Evans recently told a Michigan business group. We're serious about it, and they'll know we're serious about it. Semiconductor manufacturing is one of the few industry sectors in which the United States is running a substantial trade
Re: A Bush in China...
The LA Times is a little more discreet about the sex than something I read elsewhere. Neil must be a trusting soul -- someone unknown happens to knock on the door to his hotel room and they jump in bed together. But it happened regularly, so he must have thought it happend to everybody. Gene Coyle Devine, James wrote: Bush's Brother Has Contract to Help Chinese Chip Maker By Warren Vieth and Lianne Hart Times Staff Writers L.A. TIMES/November 27, 2003 WASHINGTON Neil Bush, a younger brother of President Bush, has a $400,000-a-year contract to provide business advice to a Chinese computer chip manufacturer, according to court documents. At the same time the Bush administration is promising to crack down on alleged trade abuses by the Chinese, Neil Bush has agreed to strategize with China's Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., the documents show. While there is no indication he has done anything improper, Bush's arrangement could attract attention during a presidential election cycle in which Chinese business practices have become a hot-button issue. There's certainly the appearance of influence being sought, said Charles W. McMillion, a Washington business consultant who advised a congressional commission on U.S.-China policy. If nothing else, it doesn't look good. The younger Bush's relationship with Grace Semiconductor, first reported in the Houston Chronicle, is detailed in a two-page contract filed as part of divorce proceedings between Neil and Sharon Bush. The divorce was finalized in April. The China contract is not Neil Bush's first brush with controversy. In the 1980s, he was a director of Silverado Banking, Savings Loan, a Colorado thrift whose failure cost U.S. taxpayers $1 billion. He was one of 12 defendants who agreed to pay $49 million to settle a negligence lawsuit brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Neil Bush did not return phone messages seeking comment. Neither did his attorney, Grace Semiconductor or Sharon Bush. An attorney for Sharon Bush declined to comment. In Crawford, Texas, where the president is spending the holiday, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said there would be no comment on the China matter. According to the consulting contract, Neil Bush was to receive $2 million worth of Grace Semiconductor preferred stock over five years, issued in annual increments of $400,000. In return, Bush agreed to provide GSMC from time to time with business strategies and policies; latest information and trends of the related industry, and other expertized advices, the contract states. In addition, Bush was to attend meetings of Grace Semiconductor's board of directors, and the firm agreed to pay him $10,000 per meeting to cover expenses. Bush signed the contract Aug. 15, 2002. It was not clear how much compensation Bush has received so far. The contract said he would receive the first $400,000 allotment within one month of the company's 2002 board meeting, provided you have duly furnished GSMC with the information and details required for the issuance or transfer of the share certificate. Grace Semiconductor, based in Shanghai, was founded in 2000 by Winston Wong, the son of Taiwanese business magnate Wang Yung-ching, and Jiang Mianheng, the son of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Wong co-signed the contract with Bush. The company has said its goal is to become a leading manufacturer of integrated circuits and other semiconductor products. It has invested $1.6 billion to build two fabrication plants in Shanghai. Production from the first plant began in September. During a March 2003 deposition taken as part of his divorce proceedings, as reported by the Chronicle and confirmed by an attorney in the case, the president's brother acknowledged that he knew little about the industry he had just joined. You have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors, do you? asked Sharon Bush's attorney, Marshall Davis Brown. That's correct, Bush responded. But I know a lot about business, he said at another point, and I've been working in Asia quite a long time. Disclosure of Neil Bush's consulting contract comes amid an intense debate over America's growing trade deficit with China. U.S. manufacturers have shed 2.8 million jobs since mid-2000, and many firms have blamed unfair trade practices by China. The American Electronics Assn. released a report this week showing that 49 states lost high-tech workers last year. Total losses were 540,000 in 2002 and 234,000 so far this year, leaving fewer than 6 million people employed in the industry. The Bush administration has promised to crack down on any abuses its finds. It has pressured China's government to let its currency rise in relation to the dollar, which would make Chinese exports less competitive in this country. It has agreed to impose protective quotas on several categories of Chinese textile products, and to place steep tariffs on Chinese-made televisions. I'm sure China
China: from bras to tv's
Chinese upset as US imposes TV tariffs David Teather in New York Wednesday November 26, 2003 The Guardian Chinese trade officials said yesterday that they were gravely concerned by a US decision to slap tariffs on imported televisions. The US commerce department ruled that TVs being made by four Chinese firms were being sold in America at less than fair value and announced duties between 28%-46%. The Chinese commerce ministry reacted angrily. A statement said the decision amounted to serious discrimination and unfair treatment of the firms. The comments raised fears of further retaliatory action. A trade mission to US cotton, wheat and soya bean growers by Chinese buyers planned for next month has already been cancelled after the US last week moved to curb the import of Chinese textiles. The US government is coming under increasing pressure from domestic manufacturers and labour unions to act on China and the issue is likely to be a crucial one in next year's presidential election. US firms and labour unions argue that the American manufacturing base is being devastated by free trade agreements with China, where costs are lower and regulations less stringent. The Chinese currency is also pegged to the dollar, which economists argue keeps it artificially low. US TV makers and unions said that imports from China and Malaysia had soared from 210,000 units in 2000 to 2.6m last year. One company affected by the tariffs, Sichuan Changhong Electronic, said it was surprised by the allegation of dumping. All of Changhong's exports to the US have reasonable profit margins, it said. To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules for originality. There aren't any. [Les Paul]
China and the World Economy
Earlier I asked about the impact of China on world commodity markets. I saw this today. Also, an earlier article this week describes how excess capacity is now driving down wages in China. It also mentions workers distraught by the wages that they were offered. Bahree, Bhushan. 2003. China's Growing Economy Is Gobbling Up Oil Supplies. Wall Street Journal (14 November): p. A 10. China's fast-growing economy has reached such heft that the country has emerged as the largest force driving the world's growing demand for oil, the International Energy Agency said. Faster-than-expected economic growth in the U.S. and Europe is also resulting in more oil use. But the latest data and forecasts by the Paris-based global energy watchdog show China alone accounting for about a third of the world's increase in oil use this year and in 2004, when China is expected to displace Japan as the second-largest consumer of oil after the U.S. Wonacott, Peter. 2003. Behind China's Export Boom, Heated Battle Among Factories as Wal-Mart, Others Demand Lowest Prices, Managers Scramble to Slash Costs. Wall Street Journal (13 November): p. A 1. China, one of the world's busiest factory floors, increasingly suffers from a production glut, and the big overseas retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that soak up China's exports have been quick to capitalize. They're demanding rock-bottom prices and forcing factory bosses to cut costs any way they can in order to remain in contention for export orders. The average wholesale price for Ching Hai's fans, juicers and toasters has tumbled to $4 from $7 a decade ago, according to company executives. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
China addendum
I forgot to add another piece Kilman, Scott. 2003. U.S. Crop Prices Soar as China Fuels Demand. Wall Street Journal (13 November). -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
China: shopping spree
China sweetens belligerent US with $6bn jets and limos spree Jonathan Watts in Beijing Friday November 14, 2003 The Guardian China is attempting to shop its way back into favour with the United States with $6bn (£3.5bn) worth of contracts with American companies aimed at easing the growing trade friction between the two nations. Thousands of jet aircraft and limousines have been snapped up or authorised for import in the past two days on a state-led spending spree which comes as congressmen lobby President George Bush to slap punitive tariffs on China. Among the beneficiaries are Boeing, which announced a $1.7bn deal to supply 30 planes to five Chinese airlines, and General Electric, which clinched a contract to supply engines for a new Chinese civil aircraft which could lead to sales of $3bn over 20 years. Reflecting the growing affluence of China's middle class - and the opulent tastes of state officials - a third deal, worth $1.3bn, permitted General Motors to export 4,500 top-of-the- range cars such as Cadillacs. There were also openings for Ford and DaimlerChrysler, which announced new licences to export sport utility and luxury vehicles. This followed a relaxation of China's tax laws to make it easier for overseas firms to bring in their products. Foreign manufacturers have been pushing for greater access to the Chinese car market which is expected to overtake Germany's this year to become the third largest in the world. Whether the buying binge will be sufficient to win over public opinion in the US remains unclear. The record $100bn trade gap between the two nations could be a crucial issue in next year's US presidential election. Unions blame the weak Chinese currency for the loss of US jobs. A bill before Congress seeks a 27.5% tariff on Chinese goods. The head of the Chinese delegation to the US which sanctioned the spending hailed the trip as a breakthrough, but Zhao Guobao called on his hosts to reciprocate by easing trade restrictions on parts deemed to have a military application. He said a recent decision to block the sale of US satellite technology to China was discriminatory and unnecessary. To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules for originality. There aren't any. [Les Paul]
