标题: How China Can Defeat America [打印本页] 作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-11 14:55 标题: How China Can Defeat America
WITH China’s growing influence over the global economy, and its increasing ability to project military power, competition between the United States and China is inevitable. Leaders of both countries assert optimistically that the competition can be managed without clashes that threaten the global order.
Most academic analysts are not so sanguine. If history is any guide, China’s rise does indeed pose a challenge to America. Rising powers seek to gain more authority in the global system, and declining powers rarely go down without a fight. And given the differences between the Chinese and American political systems, pessimists might believe that there is an even higher likelihood of war.
I am a political realist. Western analysts have labeled my political views “hawkish,” and the truth is that I have never overvalued the importance of morality in international relations. But realism does not mean that politicians should be concerned only with military and economic might. In fact, morality can play a key role in shaping international competition between political powers — and separating the winners from the losers.
I came to this conclusion from studying ancient Chinese political theorists like Guanzi, Confucius, Xunzi and Mencius. They were writing in the pre-Qin period, before China was unified as an empire more than 2,000 years ago — a world in which small countries were competing ruthlessly for territorial advantage.
It was perhaps the greatest period for Chinese thought, and several schools competed for ideological supremacy and political influence. They converged on one crucial insight: The key to international influence was political power, and the central attribute of political power was morally informed leadership. Rulers who acted in accordance with moral norms whenever possible tended to win the race for leadership over the long term.
China was unified by the ruthless king of Qin in 221 B.C., but his short-lived rule was not nearly as successful as that of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty, who drew on a mixture of legalistic realism and Confucian “soft power” to rule the country for over 50 years, from 140 B.C. until 86 B.C.
According to the ancient Chinese philosopher Xunzi, there were three types of leadership: humane authority, hegemony and tyranny. Humane authority won the hearts and minds of the people at home and abroad. Tyranny — based on military force — inevitably created enemies. Hegemonic powers lay in between: they did not cheat the people at home or cheat allies abroad. But they were frequently indifferent to moral concerns and often used violence against non-allies. The philosophers generally agreed that humane authority would win in any competition with hegemony or tyranny.
Such theories may seem far removed from our own day, but there are striking parallels. Indeed, Henry Kissinger once told me that he believed that ancient Chinese thought was more likely than any foreign ideology to become the dominant intellectual force behind Chinese foreign policy.
The fragmentation of the pre-Qin era resembles the global divisions of our times, and the prescriptions provided by political theorists from that era are directly relevant today — namely that states relying on military or economic power without concern for morally informed leadership are bound to fail.
Unfortunately, such views are not so influential in this age of economic determinism, even if governments often pay lip service to them. The Chinese government claims that the political leadership of the Communist Party is the basis of China’s economic miracle, but it often acts as though competition with the United States will be played out on the economic field alone. And in America, politicians regularly attribute progress, but never failure, to their own leadership.
Both governments must understand that political leadership, rather than throwing money at problems, will determine who wins the race for global supremacy.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-11 14:56
Many people wrongly believe that China can improve its foreign relations only by significantly increasing economic aid. But it’s hard to buy affection; such “friendship” does not stand the test of difficult times.
How, then, can China win people’s hearts across the world? According to ancient Chinese philosophers, it must start at home. Humane authority begins by creating a desirable model at home that inspires people abroad.
This means China must shift its priorities away from economic development to establishing a harmonious society free of today’s huge gaps between rich and poor. It needs to replace money worship with traditional morality and weed out political corruption in favor of social justice and fairness.
In other countries, China must display humane authority in order to compete with the United States, which remains the world’s pre-eminent hegemonic power. Military strength underpins hegemony and helps to explain why the United States has so many allies. President Obama has made strategic mistakes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, but his actions also demonstrate that Washington is capable of leading three foreign wars simultaneously. By contrast, China’s army has not been involved in any war since 1984, with Vietnam, and very few of its high-ranking officers, let alone its soldiers, have any battlefield experience.
America enjoys much better relations with the rest of the world than China in terms of both quantity and quality. America has more than 50 formal military allies, while China has none. North Korea and Pakistan are only quasi-allies of China. The former established a formal alliance with China in 1961, but there have been no joint military maneuvers and no arms sales for decades. China and Pakistan have substantial military cooperation, but they have no formal military alliance binding them together.
To shape a friendly international environment for its rise, Beijing needs to develop more high-quality diplomatic and military relationships than Washington. No leading power is able to have friendly relations with every country in the world, thus the core of competition between China and the United States will be to see who has more high-quality friends. And in order to achieve that goal, China has to provide higher-quality moral leadership than the United States.
China must also recognize that it is a rising power and assume the responsibilities that come with that status. For example, when it comes to providing protection for weaker powers, as the United States has done in Europe and the Persian Gulf, China needs to create additional regional security arrangements with surrounding countries according to the model of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization — a regional forum that includes China, Russia and several central Asian countries.
And politically, China should draw on its tradition of meritocracy. Top government officials should be chosen according to their virtue and wisdom, and not simply technical and administrative ability. China should also open up and choose officials from across the world who meet its standards, so as to improve its governance.
The Tang dynasty — which lasted from the 7th century to the 10th and was perhaps China’s most glorious period — employed a great number of foreigners as high-ranking officials. China should do the same today and compete with America to attract talented immigrants.
OVER the next decade, China’s new leaders will be drawn from a generation that experienced the hardships of the Cultural Revolution. They are resolute and will most likely value political principles more than material benefits. These leaders must play a larger role on the world stage and offer more security protection and economic support to less powerful countries.
This will mean competing with the United States politically, economically and technologically. Such competition may cause diplomatic tensions, but there is little danger of military clashes.
That’s because future Chinese-American competition will differ from that between the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war. Neither China nor America needs proxy wars to protect its strategic interests or to gain access to natural resources and technology.
China’s quest to enhance its world leadership status and America’s effort to maintain its present position is a zero-sum game. It is the battle for people’s hearts and minds that will determine who eventually prevails. And, as China’s ancient philosophers predicted, the country that displays more humane authority will win.
Yan Xuetong, the author of “Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power,” is a professor of political science and dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University. This essay was translated by Zhaowen Wu and David Liu from the Chinese.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-11 15:00
Inflation Cooling Off in China
HONG KONG — Inflation and industrial activity in China cooled markedly in November, according to data released Friday — an important development that raises the likelihood that the authorities in Beijing will seek to inject more momentum into an economy that has become a key engine of global growth.
Consumer price inflation, which had topped 6 percent earlier in the year, sagged to just 4.2 percent in November, the Chinese statistics office reported. The increase was less than analysts had expected and marked a significant improvement from the 5.5 percent reading recorded the previous month.
At the same time, industrial output data, also released on Friday, showed that activity in November expanded just 12.4 percent from a year earlier. That reading was weaker than the 13.2 percent annual increase recorded in October, and highlighted a development that has become apparent in recent months: economic growth, which was red hot in 2010 and early 2011, has moderated significantly this year.
The positive news is that tighter bank lending, higher interest rates, curbs on property speculation and slowing export growth have also helped to ease inflation, which soared well above Beijing’s comfort level over the summer.
Better-than-expected harvests also have helped bring down food price inflation, which is a particularly sensitive issue in a country where many millions still struggle to make ends meet.
Although it may still be too early for China to claim complete victory over inflation, the sharp drop in inflation “does free up some wiggle room for monetary easing,” Xianfang Ren and Alistair Thornton, economists at IHS Global Insight in Beijing, wrote in a note Friday.
The Chinese authorities’ focus has increasingly shifted from fighting inflation to bolstering growth, especially as Europe, a key destination for Chinese-made goods, is mired in a debt crisis that has badly undermined growth prospects there.
The central bank in South Korea on Friday underscored the effect that a slowdown in the West will have across Asia when it lowered its 2012 growth forecast for South Korea to 3.7 percent, from an earlier projection of 4.6 percent.
And in Japan, revised gross domestic product data showed that the economy grew by less than initially expected during the past quarter: 5.6 percent annual growth from a previous estimate of 6 percent, and 1.4 percent quarterly growth from the previous estimate of 1.5 percent.
The worsening environment has already prompted several rate cuts in the Asia-Pacific region as policy makers race to shore up their economies.
The first significant policy response by Beijing came last week, when the central bank loosened the reins on bank lending by lowering the so-called reserve requirement ratio. Lower reserve requirements effectively free up more lending by banks.
The inflation data on Friday suggested that there will be another cut in the reserve requirement ratio in December, economists at ANZ in Hong Kong said in a note. “We also expect two more such cuts in the first half of 2012,” they said.
The government also “has considerable scope to support domestic demand by boosting income growth and by reducing the tax burden for both companies and individuals,” Jing Ulrich, chairwoman of global markets at JPMorgan Chase, wrote in a note on Friday.
Unlike in 2008 and 2009, when the Beijing introduced a 4 trillion renminbi, or $629 billion, stimulus package, the government’s response this time is likely to be “nuanced,” Ms. Ulrich said.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-11 15:09
China Signals Reluctance to Rescue E.U.
HONG KONG — The Chinese government over the weekend sought to tamp down international expectations that Beijing might use its large financial reserves to help ease the European debt crisis.
The two government agencies that control the reserves face heavy restrictions on their use, Chinese government officials and economists said.
“The argument that China should rescue Europe does not stand, as reserves are not managed that way,” China’s vice minister for foreign affairs, Fu Ying, said in comments prominently reported by the state news media over the weekend.
Ms. Fu’s statements were significant because Chinese diplomats and political leaders had been less publicly hostile to the idea of helping Europe than Chinese economic policy makers, who had been strongly opposed.
Her comments conspicuously echoed some of the arguments made for several months by Chinese economic policy makers.
She said that the $3.2 trillion in bonds, bills and cash held by the central bank as official foreign reserves represented national savings that were not easily disbursed.
“Foreign reserves are not domestic income or money that can be disposed of by the premier or finance minister,” she added, according to Xinhua, the state-run news agency. “Foreign reserves are akin to savings, and their liquidity should be ensured.”
Lou Jiwei, chairman and chief executive of the China Investment Corporation, a $374 billion sovereign wealth fund that is managed independently of the foreign exchange reserves, has also tried to dispel speculation that it might buy a lot of European bonds.
He suggested a week ago that his fund might invest in roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects in Europe, part of a broader Chinese interest in fixed assets, rather than helping countries finance their budget deficits.
The Chinese central bank effectively borrowed the money from the Chinese public to buy the dollars, euros and other currencies in both funds. The central bank has required commercial banks to transfer one-fifth of their domestic deposits to it and has used that money to buy $1 billion or more a day of foreign currencies to slow the appreciation of the renminbi against the dollar.
The central bank has also pressed commercial banks to buy central bank bills that pay very low rates of interest and has used the proceeds to buy dollars. These methods of financing foreign exchange reserves have left the central bank with significant domestic liabilities in renminbi to balance against whatever return it can earn on foreign bonds, making economic policy makers particularly wary of taking risks with foreign exchange reserves.
The possibility that China might buy large amounts of European Union bonds has been raised repeatedly in the last year and a half by various officials from Greece, Italy and the European Union. These officials have sought to reassure financial markets that there will be demand for European government bonds, as a way to encourage investors to continue buying those bonds and thereby hold down the interest rates that European governments pay on their debt.
The Chinese government has mostly discouraged this speculation. But Prime Minister Wen Jiabao raised hopes in Europe in mid-September when he said that China might be prepared to lend a hand if Europe were to label China a “market economy,” a designation that would make it difficult for European companies to file antidumping cases against low-priced Chinese exports.
Mr. Wen did not offer details on how China might help. Ms. Fu’s remarks represented some of the strongest comments by a Chinese official since then to suggest that Beijing was in no hurry to lend a hand.
In remarks at a conference held at the Foreign Ministry on Friday and then reported by the state media over the weekend, Ms. Fu did not explicitly rule out buying bonds that might be issued as part of a European bailout. She did say that China continued to consider Europe an important economic partner.
But her caution suggested that China was not eager to increase its already sizable investment in the region; the foreign reserves include an estimated $1 trillion in euro-denominated assets, and experts on the Chinese central bank believe that much of it is invested in German government bonds.
Two people close to Chinese policy makers said on Sunday that China was particularly wary of buying any bonds issued in connection with a European bailout as long as there were clear differences within the European Union on the shape of a bailout. They insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the subject publicly.
One of the two said China would lend large sums to Europe only if there were clear guarantees by the strongest European countries, particularly Germany, to take direct responsibility for the repayment of that debt.
But Germany has refused to accept that liability. If Germany did give its own repayment guarantee, there would be such heavy demand for the bonds from the Middle East and elsewhere that Chinese money might not even be needed, the person said.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-11 15:20
China’s 10-Year Ascent to Trading Powerhouse
HONG KONG — As China heads into a weekend of speeches celebrating its 10 years as an official member of the global trade community, the rest of the world may want to contemplate the exported $49 microwave oven and the imported $85,000 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Sunday is the 10th anniversary of China’s joining the World Trade Organization — a membership that helped turn China into the world’s biggest economy after the United States. Companies and consumers worldwide have benefited from China’s emergence as a top trading partner. And yet, because of special breaks and loopholes for China when it joined the W.T.O., it still shields its domestic markets from foreign competition much more than any other big nation.
Consider that $49 microwave oven and $85,000 Jeep.
Microwave oven prices have plunged in the West over the past decade, largely because China has combined inexpensive labor, excellent infrastructure and heavy factory investment to produce the ovens and a wide range of other consumer goods for export, making creature comforts more affordable to customers around the world.
Further, W.T.O. rules against protectionism have made it difficult for countries in the West to limit China’s sixfold surge in exports during those 10 years, even as the Chinese flood of products has forced factory closings and layoffs elsewhere.
But price tags on imported cars at dealerships in Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese cities signal how China has continued to protect its home market under the special terms of the W.T.O. agreement it negotiated before joining the trade group.
In the United States, prices for a Detroit-made Jeep Grand Cherokee start at $27,490. But in China, after tariffs and other protective fees, it sells for $85,000 or more. (It’s no surprise that Chrysler has sold fewer than 2,500 of them so far this year in China.)
Foreign trading partners often chafe at the way China uses the W.T.O. rules to its advantage.
The Chinese economy’s “spectacular rise would not have been possible without the open global trading system that China was able to benefit from during the past 10 years,” said Karel de Gucht, the European Union’s trade commissioner.
“At the same time,” he said, “China is having to increasingly recognize and respect not only the legal responsibilities it now faces as a member of a global rules-based body, but also the W.T.O. ‘spirit’ of promoting open markets and nondiscriminatory principles.”
Chinese officials have been effusive in the run-up to their W.T.O. anniversary. “We believe that our 10-year arrangement has been successful — the results of the past 10 years are welcome and a valuable inspiration,” Yu Jianhua, China’s assistant minister of commerce, said at a news conference last month in Beijing.
The roots of China’s economic model trace to the singular terms under which the nation joined the World Trade Organization, which now has 153 members.
Based in Geneva, the group was established in 1995 as the successor to an international framework called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade — GATT, as it was known — that had been mapped out in the early years after World War II.
After negotiating for 15 years to be admitted to GATT and then to the W.T.O., China was finally let in after agreeing to accept the W.T.O.’s broad free trade rules. But as all new members do, Beijing also had to negotiate a lengthy document, known as an accession agreement. It spelled out thousands of details tailored to the specifics of the economy of China, which then was still very much a developing country.
The agreement required China to lower its tariffs to levels below those of many other developing countries. But compared with most industrialized countries, China was allowed to impose considerably higher tariffs — tariffs China has retained even as its economy has subsequently grown to No. 2 in the world.
The clearest example of W.T.O. ascendance China-style may be in automobiles. Even though China’s auto manufacturing industry and car market are now both the world’s largest, China continues to shelter them behind the highest trade barriers of any large industrial economy.
It retains a prohibitive tariff of 25 percent on imported cars, for example, which helps explain why imports represent only 4 percent of the light vehicles sold in China.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-11 15:21
Japan, by comparison, no longer has any tariffs on imported cars, while South Korea has an 8 percent tariff and the European Union a 10 percent tariff. The United States, meantime, has a tariff of only 2.5 percent for imported cars, minivans and sport utility vehicles.
But the 25 percent tariff is only one reason a Grand Cherokee costs three times as much in Chongqing as in Chicago. In the name of energy conservation, China also assesses a sales tax of up to 40 percent of the vehicle’s price based on its engine size. Small, fuel-sipping Chinese cars pay the lowest rate, as little as 1 percent, while gas-guzzlers from the United States and Europe pay the highest rate.
China also collects a 17 percent value-added tax on almost everything sold in the country, whether imported or domestically produced. But like many European nations, China uses a W.T.O. provision that allows the tax to be fully refunded to China’s export producers, who often pass along the saving to foreign buyers.
What’s more, China limits foreign manufacturers to no more than 50 percent ownership of car assembly plants in China. That special rule, which China managed to negotiate for its W.T.O. accession agreement when its auto industry seemed tiny and vulnerable, has forced multinationals to set up numerous joint ventures in China and to transfer a wide range of technology to those Chinese partners.
China’s W.T.O. agreement did open many service sectors of the Chinese economy, like transportation, banking and retailing, to foreign competition.
FedEx, for example, has expanded rapidly in China and now has 9,000 employees in the country. The company also relies heavily on American-made Boeing 777-Fs, with mostly American pilots, to ferry an ever-rising tide of Chinese goods to the FedEx hub in Memphis.
And Wal-Mart has been able to open 353 retail stores in China, despite the hostility of many small, local retailers.
China’s W.T.O. agreement had some big omissions, including the thorny question of whether to let foreign companies bid on Chinese government projects — an issue that remains unresolved.
China got many of its breaks because the W.T.O. and its members, including the United States, were eager to accept it into the international trade group to encourage Beijing’s embrace of capitalism and to make it a more fully vested participant in the global community.
But trade officials say that they never expected all the terms of China’s accession agreement to last as long as they have.
Instead, China and other trading nations had expected to reduce trade barriers further in the Doha Round of global trade talks. But the talks dragged on and then effectively collapsed in 2008 — despite periodic efforts to revive it, including a meeting of ministers next week in Geneva.
While China is acutely aware of other countries’ concerns about its tariffs, it is leery of lowering them unilaterally without concessions from other countries, said He Weiwen, a council member of the China Society for W.T.O. Studies in Beijing.
For the West, the open question is whether China’s high tariffs and other market protections will be allowed to remain in place indefinitely. Just as worrisome: a few provisions in the agreement that were meant to blunt the competitive impact of Chinese exports on Western industries are starting to expire.
The most notable of these is China’s current designation under its W.T.O. agreement as a “nonmarket economy.” The label makes it fairly easy for overseas industries to accuse Chinese companies of dumping goods into their markets at prices below cost, and to seek steep tariffs on their shipments.
That is just the sort of accusation, in fact, that American solar panel manufacturers have leveled at China in a trade case pending at the Commerce Department in Washington — a case the American industry is widely expected to win.
But under the W.T.O. agreement, China will automatically be relabeled a market economy in 2016. That status will make it harder for companies in other countries to win antidumping decisions against China — and will probably clear the way for Chinese businesses to further increase their global market share.
Ideally, that could mean a lot more products like $49 microwaves on Western shelves — even if it means a Grand Cherokee from Detroit may never be affordable in China.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-11 15:23
U.S. and China Meet in Annual Military Review
BEIJING — Top American and Chinese military officials began an annual review of major issues here on Wednesday pledging to seek greater cooperation and trust in a relationship that, to many, more resembles a budding rivalry.
The Defense Consultative Talks, now in their 12th year, opened on the heels of President Obama’s pledge last month to bolster the United States’ military presence in the Pacific, a move seen by many here as aimed at countering China’s rise. And it follows a frenetic year of expansion by the Chinese military in which a new aircraft carrier and carrier jet, a new stealth fighter jet and a host of other advanced weapons were unveiled.
In remarks at China’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday, the senior Chinese officer at the talks, Gen. Ma Xiaotian, emphasized the need for both sides “to enhance communication, to expand common ground, to promote mutual understanding.”
The lead American official, Under Secretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy, expressed hope that the militaries could “agree on issues and interests that the two sides share.”
The United States and China are seeking to stabilize their usually rocky relationship at a time of domestic political uncertainty — 2012 will see a new Chinese leadership and an American presidential election — and global economic turmoil that could strain diplomatic ties between Washington and Beijing.
“I see this as a signal that bilateral relations will be conducted on less stormy waters,” Zhu Feng, the deputy director of Peking University’s Center for International and Strategic Studies, said in a telephone interview. “I don’t think either side wants to see an action-reaction cycle that turns into a new cold war.”
The government Xinhua news agency stated that the talks would touch on the United States’ recent $5.85 billion sale of weapons to Taiwan, maritime piracy and the state of regional hot spots from the Korean Peninsula to the Middle East to the South China Sea.
The annual talks sometimes set the tone for military-to-military relations in the succeeding year. In a briefing paper issued before the meeting, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies stated that one measure of success would be whether the sides agreed on a future schedule of country-to-country military exchanges.
The exchanges, including trades of visiting delegations of officers from each military, are designed to promote good will and allow future generations of military leaders to put a human face on a rival force that they may now regard only as an abstract enemy.
Arms sales to Taiwan, which China calls a breakaway province that must be reclaimed by force if needed, are perhaps the biggest obstacle to better relations between the two forces. The People’s Liberation Army suspended some exchanges in September, after the United States agreed to the arms deal with Taiwan. But the American deal — to upgrade Taiwan’s fleet of F-16s rather than sell the country 66 new-generation models of the jets — appeared calibrated to try to avert deepening strains with China.
Indeed, the P.L.A.’s reaction was tepid compared with two years ago, when another arms sale by the Obama administration plunged military ties into a yearlong deep freeze.
Mr. Obama’s new focus on the Pacific offers a broad realm for new frictions, coming as China’s military expands and revamps its navy and renews claim to territorial or economic control of much of the South China Sea.
The region has seen a series of run-ins this year between Chinese naval and other vessels and those of the Philippines and Vietnam, which also claim part or all of the sea’s hundreds of islands.
Premier Wen Jiabao last month warned unnamed “external forces” against meddling in the territorial disputes, a clear reference to the United States.
Shi Da contributed reporting.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-11 16:20
Half-Filled School Bus Crashes in China, Killing 15 Children
BEIJING — A half-filled school bus ferrying students home from a primary school in rural China rolled into an irrigation canal, killing 15 children and injuring 8 others, officials said.
The accident Monday evening in Jiangsu Province has renewed public indignation over school bus safety and, more broadly, complaints about inadequate government spending on education.
It was nearly one month ago that a coal truck in the northwestern province of Gansu slammed into an overloaded minivan that was being used as a school bus, killing 21 kindergartners and 2 adults. The loss of life, and the anger, were compounded by the fact that the nine-seat vehicle was crammed with 64 people.
At the time, many Chinese and a number of media outlets accused the government of miserly spending on school transportation while directing enormous sums toward the purchase of new cars for bureaucrats.
Overcrowding, however, apparently played no role in the latest accident. The vehicle had a capacity of 52 but had only 29 students on board, according to the state-controlled Xinhua news agency. The driver lost control of the bus after he swerved to avoid a pedicab, and it rolled, landing upside down in a canal with less than two feet of water.
“Students became trapped at the bottom of the overturned bus and drowned as water gushed into the wreck,” Zhang Bin, an official in Fengxian County told Xinhua. The news agency said the bus driver was detained for questioning.
The accident occurred one day after the State Council, China’s cabinet, issued proposed regulations on school bus safety. After the accident in Gansu last month, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao promised to address the problem of substandard school transportation. The new rules lay out the safe operation of school buses, including a mandate for local school districts to hire full-time bus maintenance crews and a requirement that buses must be replaced after eight years or about 125,000 miles. They do not indicate how new vehicles and staff will be paid for.
The accident in Jiangsu prompted anger and complaints on microblogs in China. “All the attention the first school bus crash drew cannot keep history from repeating itself,” one comment read. “All we get from the government is lip service. I’m speechless.”
On Tuesday, the state news media reported on another school bus accident, this one involving 59 students in the southern province of Guangdong. The accident, which was also on Monday, injured 37 students, according to Xinhua.
Mia Li contributed research.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-14 19:52
China: Naval Ships May Resupply in Seychelles
China is considering an offer from the Indian Ocean island nation of Seychelles to allow Chinese naval ships to visit for rest and resupply there, China’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday. The ships would be part of a multinational force conducting anti-piracy patrols off Somalia. China has taken part in the patrols since late 2008, and Chinese ships assigned to patrols in the Gulf of Aden have made similar visits to ports including those in Yemen and Oman on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. Chinese naval activity in the Indian Ocean is of interest to India, which has longstanding border disputes with China and is suspicious of China’s close ties with Pakistan.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-14 19:55
Chinese Fisherman Kills South Korean Coast Guardsman
SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean Coast Guard member was stabbed to death by a Chinese fisherman on Monday during a crackdown on illegal fishing near South Korea, the Coast Guard said.
Nine Chinese crewmen violently resisted South Korean coast guardsmen who were trying to impound their 66-ton boat about 120 miles west of Incheon, near the border with North Korea, according to a Coast Guard statement.
Another Chinese ship rammed into the boat, and amid the confusion, the Chinese rebelled, said Chi Geun-tae, a Coast Guard spokesman, citing a preliminary report from the scene.
The captain of the Chinese ship was believed to have attacked the South Korean with a piece of glass from a shattered cabin window, Mr. Chi said. A 41-year-old coast guardsman was stabbed in the side and died while a helicopter was taking him to a hospital in Incheon, a port city west of Seoul. The captain, who suffered a minor injury during the clash, was under arrest.
A second South Korean was stabbed in the abdomen, but his condition was not critical.
The Coast Guard was taking the Chinese ship and its crew to Incheon. In Seoul, the Foreign Ministry summoned the Chinese ambassador, Zhang Xinsen, to lodge a protest against illegal fishing and the fishermen’s use of violence.
During a regularly scheduled news conference Monday, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the government was looking into the incident and that it would fully cooperate with the South Korean authorities. In response to a reporter’s question about the increasing number of clashes, the spokesman, Liu Weimin, said China was working to reduce illegal fishing by instructing Chinese fishermen about the law and at times physically restricting their boats from crossing into South Korean waters.
Mr. Liu, however, also warned Seoul to treat the arrested men judiciously. “South Korea is obligated to fully protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese fishermen and to provide them with due humanitarian treatment,” he said.
In recent years, South Korea has complained about an increasing number of Chinese fishing boats poaching in its fishing grounds. Citing them as a leading cause of depleting fish stocks, it has stepped up patrols. Since 2006, about 2,600 Chinese fishing boats have been seized for illegal fishing near South Korea.
Violent clashes have become common as Chinese fishermen try to escape arrest and thousands of dollars in fines. The Coast Guard has reported Chinese crewmen wielding axes and steel pipes. Last month, South Korean fisheries officials released photographs of a Chinese fishing boat armed with steel fences and spears to deter South Korean officers from boarding. Chinese ships also chain each other together to resist seizure, they said.
During a clash in 2008, a South Korean coast guardsman drowned after he was hit by a Chinese fisherman. A year ago, one Chinese fisherman drowned and another disappeared when their ship sank after ramming into a South Korean patrol boat that was trying to seize it.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-14 20:02
Rumor Fever
HONG KONG — China hosts some 300 million microblog accounts (including my own), and officials say that domestic social media put out more than 200 million posts every day. In hopes of getting a handle on this potentially threatening surge of information, the government has started a campaign that aims to quash what it calls “rumors” — statements that it says threaten the public order but that it has not bothered to define. After a series of public opinion disasters this past year, the Communist Party has been pressuring social media providers to weed out allegations it finds threatening, and state media have tried to whip up fear over their malignant social effects.
The party’s fever over rumors began in August, following the July 23 high-speed rail collision in Wenzhou. The government took a public opinion beating over the crash, in large part because social media harnessed anger over the bungled rescue effort, the safety of the high-speed rail network and corruption in the Railways Ministry. Once party leaders wrested back control of the story, they pushed all relevant facts into the darkness, leaving only rumors to sate the public’s appetite for the truth. And this summer two other embarrassing public opinion defeats for China’s leadership originally took off on the Internet: the Guo Meimei affair, which exposed irregularities at the government-run Red Cross Society of China, and the massive and well-organized public demonstrations against a chemical project in Dalian.
In August, bowing to government pressure, social media companies like Sina Weibo, China’s most popular microblog platform, began sending users notices of posts that they claimed were rumors. One of the first notices to flitter across my computer screen announced that another user’s account had been suspended for a post alleging that a murder suspect in Wuhan had been released on bail thanks to his well-connected father. Sina’s rumor-busting notice told users that the police in Wuhan had “confirmed” that “the suspect was still in custody.” End of discussion. “Is this real or fake?” users posted in response. But the case was closed. And the upshot seemed to be that a rumor is what the government says it is, as a matter of political convenience.
The government’s mania has reached new rhetorical heights. At high-level meetings in October, the party decided to “strengthen the control and use of microblogs and other newly emerging media.” But even as it fears the consequences of more open speech, the government understands that actions to control it are deeply unpopular, especially on social media. And so now it is couching its antirumor policy by sugarcoating censorship as a kind of public health measure.
Stricter controls are the prescription for what China’s top Internet control official, Wang Chen, last week called a “healthy and upright online culture.” Get vaccinated, wash your hands, and don’t climb in bed with strangers. Xinhua warned us again on Nov. 28 that “like all forms of vice and iniquity, Internet rumors are extremely infectious” and are capable of “poisoning the social environment and impacting social order.” Once something has been marked as a social disease, it is simple enough to justify its elimination.
But rumors are not confirmed falsehoods; rather, they are unverified statements. The only way to prove them wrong is to create an environment in which information can be freely reported and debated. In other words, government censorship only feeds China’s rumor mill.
Hu Yong, a professor at Peking University and one of China’s leading experts on new media, argues that state controls on public opinion had “nurtured a rich soil for the transmission of rumor” while undermining the credibility of official information. Or as Cheng Yizhong, the founder of Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolitan Daily newspaper, put it in September — on his microblog account, as he could not elsewhere — censorship is a great evil. “Rumors are the penalty for lies,’’ he wrote. ” They are a rebellion of speech by the weak against power, a small ill hoping to overthrow a great evil.”
David Bandurski is a researcher at the University of Hong Kong’s China Media Project and a producer of Chinese independent films through his Hong Kong-based production company, Lantern Films.
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: December 13, 2011
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the Guo Meimei affair exposed corruption in the Red Cross Society in China. The scandal raised allegations of corruption but they have not been proven. The article also erred in saying that the scandal had not been reported in the Chinese press.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-15 18:37
Fine-Tuning the Chinese Economy
BEIJING — China has pledged to guarantee growth in the face of an “extremely grim” outlook for the global economy next year, rounding off its annual economic policy-setting conference Wednesday with a series of commitments to deliver economic stability.
Laying out a blueprint for the year ahead, Beijing promised to keep monetary policy “prudent,” fiscal policy “proactive” and consumer prices stable. The language, from the Central Economic Work conference, was broadly in line with previous commitments.
Economists said the rhetoric suggested that Beijing preferred fine-tuning current economic policies, rather than striving for monetary easing to shore up growth. Many analysts expect growth to slip below 9 percent next year for the first time in over a decade.
The pronouncements doused some investors’ hopes for promises of more explicit measures to lift the economy, pushing the Shanghai Composite index down 0.9 percent Wednesday to close at a 33-month low.
“It seems the government, at least for now, is not ready to conduct a blanket policy relaxation,” said Tang Yunfei, an economist with Founder Securities in Beijing. “But it also made clear that the policies will be flexible, which means the government will react when slowdown trends are clear.”
Indeed, China’s view on the global economic outlook showed the policy challenges that could lie ahead for an economy in which trade plays a critical role.
“Looking into next year, the trend in the global economy on the whole is grim and complicated,” Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said in a statement after the annual conference. “Uncertainties are rising around a recovery in the world economy.”
Beijing’s wish to play down those risks at home was apparent in all the economic plans outlined, which broadly endorsed a decision by China’s top leaders last week to avoid big policy changes before a critical leadership succession in 2012.
The renminbi will be kept “basically stable;” interest rate and exchange rate adjustments will continue; measures seeking to calm the property market will be maintained; exports will be held steady and imports increased to balance trade.
“Stability means to maintain basically steady macroeconomic policy, relatively fast economic growth, stable consumer prices and social stability,” one of several Xinhua statements said.
Economists say that policy fine-tuning is already under way. Data show that Chinese banks made 562 billion renminbi, or $88.2 billion, of new loans in November, a shade more than forecast, as Beijing gently eases tight credit conditions. Bank lending is a focal point in China’s monetary policy because it is controlled by the government to steer economic growth and control inflation.
Economists were sanguine in their initial readings of the summit meeting, the most important annual gathering in China’s economic calendar. They singled out the commitment to domestic economic stability as a sign of consistency in assessing the policies for 2012.
“This year, it’s a lot less drama,” Tim Condon, an economist at ING Bank in Singapore, said of the conference. “The statements are much less thematic than a year ago, when they moved from a moderately loose to a prudent stance. This is the case of an economy where policy does not need fixing, so they are just staying the course.”
The statements did not reveal a clear policy bias between growth and inflation, an ambivalence that some analysts say underscores nagging concerns that inflation in China could rebound.
While noting the global economic malaise, Beijing conceded that China is in a tight spot itself, squeezed by both inflation and a slackening pace of economic activity.
“We will fine-tune monetary policy in an appropriate and timely manner according to the economic situation, and will use various monetary tools to keep a reasonable growth in money and credit,” one statement said.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-15 18:37
A report released by Xinhua in English said that China would “guarantee steady growth of the economy,” while a report by the news agency in Chinese said Beijing aimed to “stabilize” growth. Broadly speaking, China has said it wants its economy to grow by about 7.5 percent each year.
Economic growth in China has slowed for three consecutive quarters, and many forecasts see it dipping in 2012 below 9 percent for the first time since 2001.
Inflation appears to be coming down, having fallen from a three-year high of 6.5 percent in July to 4.2 percent in November, but Beijing is wary of any policy that might fire up prices again.
Beijing promised to keep a tight policy leash on property. To ensure property prices “return to a reasonable level,” China said it would uphold measures aimed at cooling housing prices, which are still near record highs, and increase the supply of housing.
The Central Economic Work conference brings together China’s top leadership, provincial government leaders, ministers, the heads of the biggest state companies and the generals from the People’s Liberation Army.
Despite the statements issued Wednesday, many private-sector economists believe China’s decision on Dec. 5 to cut bank reserve requirements for the first time in three years was a tacit shift to a pro-growth policy stance.
A Reuters poll last week showed a consensus view that China was primed to roll back much of the monetary tightening it had used to tame inflation over the past year and cut bank reserves further.
No aggressive policies were forecast to be used to stimulate the economy unless growth in gross domestic product dropped below 8 percent.
“We should not read too much into what the government has said, but pay more attention to what it will do,” said Zhou Hao, an economist in Shanghai for Australia and New Zealand Banking Group. “Basically, Beijing is expected to lean more towards an easing stance in monetary policy by mainly using quantitative tools such as cutting reserve requirements next year.”
Duties on U.S. car imports
The Chinese Commerce Ministry said Wednesday that it would impose anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties on imports of some U.S. automobiles, Reuters reported from Beijing.
The duties, to affect the major U.S. automakers — General Motors, Chrysler and Ford Motor — as well as cars made by companies from other countries, will begin Thursday and last two years, a statement on the ministry Web site said. The import duties will range from 2 percent to 21.5 percent of the value of the cars.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-15 18:38
China Imposes New Tariffs on U.S. Vehicles
GUANGZHOU, China — The Chinese government increased trade tensions with the Obama administration Wednesday evening by unexpectedly imposing antidumping and antisubsidy tariffs on imports of sport utility vehicles and midsize and large cars from the United States.
The new tariffs, totaling up to nearly 22 percent of the import prices, will probably have a mainly symbolic function, rather than reducing the already skimpy sales of such vehicles in China. Other tariffs and taxes already in place have limited sales of American imports by helping raise their retail prices by about three times what the same cars and S.U.V.’s sell for in the United States.
Still, firing a trade volley at American exports of automobiles, one of the most politically sensitive industries in international trade, can only escalate trade hostilities between China and the United States.
China’s move drew immediate criticism from the Obama administration.
“We are very disappointed in this action by China,” said Carol Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the Office of the United States Trade Representative. “We will be discussing this latest action with both our stakeholders and Congress to determine the best course going forward.”
The Commerce Ministry of China, which has conducted a two-year trade investigation of the American imports, gave no explanation for its decision to impose the duties. Ministry officials could not be reached for elaboration Wednesday evening.
The duties would mainly affect General Motors, which exports Cadillac S.U.V.’s and cars to China; Chrysler, which exports Jeeps; the BMW Group of Germany, which exports BMW S.U.V.’s from South Carolina; and Daimler of Germany, which exports Mercedes S.U.V.’s from a factory in Alabama.
Because of the high Chinese tariffs and taxes already in place, the vehicles are sold only in the thousands or even hundreds in China, and only to the most affluent. (A Jeep Grand Cherokee that begins at $27,490 at dealerships in the United States costs $85,000 or more in China.)
The White House announced last week that it would ask the World Trade Organization next Monday to open an inquiry into Chinese restrictions on imports of American broiler chickens.
More significantly, Chinese government agencies and companies have been furious about a current American investigation into whether Chinese solar panels exported to the United States might have received illegal subsidies or been dumped in the American market at prices below the cost of manufacturing them.
American officials have previously examined the methodology of China’s two-year-old antidumping and antisubsidy investigation of American-made automobiles and have found “significant problems,” said Ms. Guthrie, the United States trade spokeswoman.
One challenge for China, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary as a member of the World Trade Organization, is whether Wednesday’s action will be allowed under W.T.O. rules.
The trade organization places many limits on a member nation’s ability to impose antidumping and antisubsidy measures, particularly on goods from countries that the W.T.O. has declared as having market economies, like the United States.
“Dumping” might be hard to demonstrate, given that the prices of the American vehicles — even before China’s tariff and tax markups — tend to be higher than in the United States.
The Chinese accusation of subsidies may be linked to previous comments by Chinese officials questioning whether the Obama administration provided too much federal assistance to G.M. and Chrysler two years ago during the global financial crisis.
China started the automotive trade case two days after President Obama imposed steep tariffs on surging imports of Chinese tires in September 2009. After an inquiry, the W.T.O. ruled this autumn that the American tariffs on tire imports had complied with international trade rules.
The new tariffs China imposed Wednesday will be antidumping duties of 8.9 percent for G.M. vehicles, 8.8 percent for Chrysler, 2.7 percent for Daimler and 2 percent for BMW.
The ministry separately imposed additional antisubsidy duties of 12.9 percent for G.M. and 6.2 percent for Chrysler.作者: 之之 时间: 2011-12-15 18:39
The ministry’s statement said that all of the new duties would be calculated on vehicle prices that include China’s existing 25 percent import tariff for all family vehicles. So buyers will effectively pay the new antidumping and antisubsidy taxes on other Chinese taxes in addition to paying the new taxes on the value of the car.
China’s import tariff is much higher than those of other big auto manufacturing nations. The United States, for example, assesses a tariff of 2.5 percent on imported cars, minivans and S.U.V.’s.
The new Chinese duties will apply to sport utility vehicles and cars with engines of 2.5 liters or greater that are imported from the United States. The duties will be in place for two years, through Dec. 14, 2013, according to the ministry’s announcement.
BMW said that it anticipated little effect from the duties, Daimler said that it was studying them, and Chrysler had no immediate comment.
General Motors said in a statement that it was “working with relevant authorities to understand the impact of the Chinese government’s decision.” G.M. added that it would “seek a solution consistent with a constructive global trade environment, which we believe is important to both China and the U.S.”
G.M. is a leading producer of automobiles in China, through a series of joint ventures with Chinese partners. The company’s statement said that imports from the United States represented “less than half of 1 percent of its domestic production in China.”
By contrast, Chrysler’s sales in China are solely imports. The company was not allocated any factories in China when Daimler dissolved its merger with Chrysler in 2007.
As a result, Chrysler’s sales in China are tiny — only 13,686 Jeeps, 10,970 Dodges and 284 Chryslers in the first 10 months of this year, according to LMC Automotive, a British consulting firm.
Bill Russo, a former Chrysler executive who oversaw the company’s operations in China until 2008 and is now an industry consultant in Beijing, said in a telephone interview Wednesday evening that while some Chinese trade actions might benefit Chinese industries, it was unlikely that the latest move was done to help Chinese automakers.
Imported S.U.V.’s and cars cost so much more than Chinese models that “people are not shopping these on price,” Mr. Russo said. “No local company makes a product even close.”
Imported models already cost much more in China compared with their home markets because of steep Chinese tariffs, value-added taxes and a system of sales taxes that range from 1 percent on fuel-sipping subcompacts to 40 percent on large sport utility vehicles and sports cars.
The Chinese Commerce Ministry’s announcement on Wednesday was the latest in a series of zigzags on trade policy this autumn, as Chinese officials have struggled over how confrontational a stance to take now that the Obama administration has begun to challenge Chinese trade policies more aggressively.
Just three days ago, President Hu Jintao gave a conciliatory speech to observe China’s W.T.O. anniversary. Mr. Hu said that China would further open up its international trade.
But last week, the Commerce Ministry strongly criticized a recent preliminary decision by the United States International Trade Commission, which concluded that imports of Chinese solar panels had hurt American solar panel manufacturers. That decision moves the United States one step closer to imposing antidumping and antisubsidy duties on Chinese solar panels early next year.
