Kinaforum

torsdag 18. april 2024

China’s economy expands by a surprisingly strong pace in the first quarter of 2024

China’s economy grew stronger than expected at the start of this year, mainly thanks to robust growth in high-tech manufacturing. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 5.3% in the first quarter from a year ago, according to the National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday. That beat the estimate of 4.6% growth from a Reuters poll of economists. It also marked an acceleration from the 5.2% growth in the previous three months.

“The Chinese economy got off to a good start in the first quarter … laying a good foundation for achieving the goals for the whole year,” said Sheng Laiyun, a spokesperson for the NBS, at a press conference in Beijing accompanying the data release.

Xi Jinping's conundrum fixing the Chinese economy

The slowdown in China’s economic growth is attracting global attention. The biggest reason is that the real estate industry, which has accounted for a quarter of GDP, is experiencing an unprecedented recession. Compared to 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic, 2023 witnessed a staggering decline in both new home construction and sales, with figures plummeting by 54% and 59% respectively.

Due to strong intervention by the Chinese government, there have been no acute symptoms of a bursting bubble, such as a dramatic fall in property prices or bankruptcy of property developers. However, homeowners who have experienced a decline in property value have gone into money-saving mode, and consumption remains sluggish.

Is China’s middle class slipping back into poverty?

'World’s factory' status threatened as supply chain shifts away from China

Globalisation has not receded, and the US’s implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act is attracting foreign capital to the country. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is building factories in the US, with the first one due to begin operations in 2025 and the second one possibly starting operations in 2027. Operations at TSMC’s Japan factory are expected to start this year.

At the same time, South Korea’s SK Hynix is planning to invest about US$4 billion to build an advanced packaging plant in the US, while South Korean battery maker Samsung SDI is also set to build a battery plant in the US. These examples are enough to show that globalisation, which was once led by the US, is not going in reverse.

Yet the US has continued to strengthen its chip export controls on China. On 29 March, the US’s Joe Biden administration revised rules aimed at preventing China from accessing US artificial intelligence (AI) chips and chipmaking tools. Released in October last year, the rules were meant to halt shipments to China of more advanced AI chips designed by Nvidia and others.

In Retrospect: Fifty years of China-US relations [Part 2]

In achieving stunning economic growth, there was a fundamental shift in China’s source of national confidence. In Mao Zedong’s era, the mainstream ideology among the Chinese people was to break away from the old world, build a new one without exploitation and with equality for all, unite the global proletariat and create a global revolution.

But the Cultural Revolution proved that to be a pipe dream, and plunged China into an abyss of closed doors, damage and poverty. Reform and opening up was like a sudden awakening for the Chinese, allowing them to see the vibrant and colourful world outside. Overnight, the former imperialist America came to represent Western democracy and prosperity, which the Chinese longed for, especially the younger generation — following the June Fourth Tiananmen Square incident, the main US consulate in China saw long queues for US visa applications every day.

In Retrospect: Qincheng, A Twentieth Century Bastille, by Wei Jinsheng (March 1979)

The Chinese dissident Wei Jinsheng spent years in Qincheng Prison outside Beijing.

"Qincheng is strictly isolated from the outside world. Only former prisoners, their families, and close friends know about it. The prison is administered by the Fifth Section of the Ministry of Public Security, whose members are solely responsible for it. Regular policemen do not know the nature of Qincheng. The guards are carefully selected. One criterion is age; prisoners report never seeing guards over twenty. They are replaced at regular intervals.

Prisoners are divided into four classes according to whether their food costs eight, fifteen, twenty-five, or forty yuan [per month]. Actually, corruption on the part of both personnel and the institution prevents the prisoners from receiving what they are officially allotted. For example, if the official monthly ration is 17.5 kilograms, a person who never exercises actually cannot even eat half of that. The entire amount is nonetheless purchased, even though what is left over cannot be stored. It is said that the guards feed it to the pigs, which are then sold to supplement the guards' own diet.

When it comes to dispensing food, the Qincheng guards are reported to be quite ingenious. Food is withheld as a means of punishment. One of the lightest and most common punishments is first to starve the prisoner and then give him or her a bowl of very greasy noodles as "compensation." Most, of course, become ill as a result and have to miss the next few meals as well. Each inmate occupies a separate one-by-three-meter cell containing a basin of water, a chamber pot, and a plank bunk with a thin bed cover. The black prison uniform is replaced every six months."

How Cambodia’s Chinese-backed Funan Techo Canal Risks Destabilizing the Lower Mekong Delta

In May 2023, the former prime minister of Cambodia – Hun Sen – led a cabinet meeting that gave the green light to the “Funan Techo Canal”, the first waterway system in Cambodia, which will connect Phnom Penh Autonomous Port to Kep Province of Cambodia. The canal is 180 kilometers long, stretching from Prek Takeo of the Mekong River to Prek Ta Ek and Prek Ta Hing of the Bassac River, and connects to Kep province. The project will cut through four provinces in Cambodia including Kandal, Takeo, Kampot, and Kep province of Cambodia.

The plan is to build a waterway that is 100 meters wide, with a navigation depth of 4.7 meters. The project also includes the construction of three water gate systems, eleven bridges, and 208-kilometer sidewalks, which will be constructed by China Bridge and Road Corporation (CRBC) using the Build-Operate-Transfer model.

Current Cambodian prime minister Hun Manet strongly supports the project, promising that it won’t produce harmful environmental impacts, particularly on the Mekong River – a river shared by several ASEAN countries. In December last year, Hun flew to Vietnam to assure his Vietnamese counterparts that the project would not affect the water flow in the country’s part of the Mekong River. But some say it just may, and as a result, will undermine the 1995 Mekong Agreement – an agreement signed by Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos who promised to cooperate together in managing the river.

China gives monks a list of things they can’t do after the Dalai Lama's death

In the event of the Dalai Lama’s death, Buddhist monks are banned from displaying photos of the Tibetan spiritual leader and other “illegal religious activities and rituals,” according to a training manual Chinese authorities have distributed to monasteries in Gansu province in China’s northwest, a source inside Tibet and exiled former political prisoner Golok Jigme said.

The manual, which lists 10 rules that Buddhist clergy should follow, also forbids disrupting the process of recognizing the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, said the source from inside Tibet who requested anonymity for safety reasons. Tibetans believe they should determine his successor in accordance with their Buddhist belief in reincarnation, while the Chinese government seeks to control the centuries-old selection method.

The 14th Dalai Lama, 88, fled Tibet amid a failed 1959 national uprising against China’s rule and has lived in exile in Dharamsala, India, ever since. He is the longest-serving Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader in Tibet’s history.

Canada asylum-seeker recalls 'all kinds of torture' in Chinese jail

A Chinese rights activist who recently arrived in Canada as a political asylum-seeker has said she and others who complain against the ruling Chinese Communist Party are subjected to "all kinds of torture" at the hands of the authorities.

"Only people who have committed a crime should be sent to prison," Wei Yani told RFA in an interview shortly after arriving in Vancouver. "We weren't being detained and imprisoned because we had committed any crime, but because we fought for our rights and endangered the government's vested interests," Wei said. "And once people like us are locked up, we have it worst of all, and are subjected to all kinds of torture," she said, describing fainting after being forced to stand with her hands handcuffed far above her head on one occasion. "They said they were going to leave me there for a week, but I only lasted just over an hour ... so they had to take me down again," Wei said, adding: "They have so many kinds of physical punishment."

From China's Past: Fifty years of China-US relations [Part 1]

When US President Bill Clinton went to China in 1998, he visited an internet cafe in Shanghai, where he witnessed how the new generation of Chinese youth was using emerging internet technologies to gain new knowledge, establish domestic and international connections, and perhaps even taste the pleasures of online games.

Shanghai was the most advanced city in China at the time, and yet there were only around 30 internet cafes. It was still worth a trip by the US president to see how China was slowly entering the modern world of internet technology.

Back then, the globally recognised Chinese tech giants of today such as Huawei, WeChat, Tencent, Alibaba and TikTok had not yet emerged, while US companies such as IBM, Microsoft and Apple had already penetrated offices globally, and Silicon Valley was attracting many ambitious young tech entrepreneurs who detested the confines of the old ways and were unafraid of failure, and who worked hard to create tech industries in manufacturing, communications and logistics.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addresses Congress amid skepticism about US role abroad

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addressed U.S. lawmakers at the Capitol on Thursday, urging them to consider the importance of global commitments at a time of tension in the Asia-Pacific and deep skepticism in Congress about U.S. involvement abroad.

Kishida is in Washington this week visiting President Joe Biden as the White House completes hosting each leader of the Quad — an informal partnership between the U.S. Japan, Australia and India that is seen as important to countering China’s growing military strength in the region. Kishida highlighted the value of the U.S. commitment to global security and offered reassurances that Japan is a strong partner.

On Capitol Hill, his audience included many Republicans who have pushed for the U.S. to take a less active role in global affairs as they follow the “America First” ethos of Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The Republican-controlled House has sat for months on a $95 billion package that would send wartime funding to Ukraine and Israel, as well as aid to allies in the Indo-Pacific like Taiwan and humanitarian help to civilians in Gaza and Ukraine.

Do China’s ‘Left-Behind’ Children Have a Delinquency Problem?

The tragic murder of a 13-year-old boy by his classmates in the northern province of Hebei earlier last month has once again raised public fears of rising delinquency among China’s 9 million “left-behind” children.

Left-behind children are minors whose parent or parents have migrated for work and left them in the care of family in their home communities. Due to a mix of underdeveloped social and economic conditions in rural areas, combined with inadequate supervision and support from adults, scholars like Rachel Murphy have found left-behind kids fare worse than those who live with both parents in a wide range of metrics, from school performance to physical development and mental health. Their vulnerable situation has drawn significant public attention and garnered extensive media coverage. The media, in particular, has portrayed their lives in intricate detail, highlighting their feelings of exclusion and isolation, and at times, their delinquent behavior, while calling attention to the need for care resources in the countryside.

Why the U.S. Is Building Out Partnerships in the Indo-Pacific—and How It Could Backfire

“Our alliances are America’s greatest asset,” President Joe Biden said in a joint press conference with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House on Wednesday, a day before hosting a historic first trilateral summit between the U.S., Japan, and the Philippines on Thursday. Indeed, the U.S. has ramped up its partnership-building, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, as it seems to seek to establish a countervailing force to China’s growing influence and assertiveness in the region.

In just the last three years, the U.S. has solidified individual ties with Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Singapore, among others, as well as fostered new collective relationships between nations such as Japan and South Korea, Australia and the U.K., and now Japan and the Philippines.

From China's Past: The historical aftermath of Japan’s colonisation of Taiwan

From 1895 to 1945, Japan exerted 50 years of colonial rule over Taiwan. After World War II, colonialism was thoroughly rejected, and colonies in the East and West either became independent or returned to their original motherland. Most former colonies settled their status 50 years ago, but while Taiwan was returned to China in 1945, both sides of the Taiwan Strait remain divided today, and there is a psychological shadow of Japan’s colonisation of Taiwan.

In 1895, China was defeated by Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War, and was forced in the Treaty of Shimonoseki to cede Taiwan. However, the Taiwanese did not accept this decision and took up arms to resist the Japanese as they arrived to take over. At the same time, it declared the Republic of Formosa — dubbed the “Yongqing” era — and sought the support of the Western powers, declaring that it would return to China following independence.

Ray Dalio: How China Will Be Challenged By a 100-Year Storm

A few years ago, President Xi Jinping started warning that a 100-year big storm is coming. As is typical of the early days of a hurricane, one can now feel it. The circumstances and the mood in China have indisputably changed to become more threatening. These changes are mostly due to big cycle forces.
The most joyous and productive environments are ones that have freedom, civility, and creativity, and ones in which people can make their dreams into great realities with prosperity that is shared by most people. This happened in China from around 1980 until around five years ago. I

t is quite typical for such booms to produce debt bubbles and big wealth gaps that lead the booms to turn into bubbles that turn into busts. That happened in China at the same time as the global great power conflict intensified, so China is now in the post-bubble and great power conflict part of the Big Cycle that is driven by the five big forces that have changed the mood and the environment.

In this piece, I will first describe in brief how the Big Cycle has transpired over roughly the past century, and then I will explain the current picture of what is happening today, with a focus on the challenges that China is facing. This history and these dynamics are complex and important to world history and the global order—everything I write here is how I see it based on my own experience, relationships, and research.

From overcapacity to TikTok, the issues covered during Janet Yellen's trip to China

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and her team are leaving China and returning to Washington after trying to tackle the major questions of the day between the countries. Here's a look at what she tried to accomplish, what was achieved, and where things stand for the world's two largest economies:

Yellen said she wanted to go into the U.S.-China talks to address a major Biden administration complaint that Beijing’s economic model and trade practices put American companies and workers at an unfair competitive disadvantage by producing highly subsidized solar products, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries at a loss, dominating the global market. Chinese government subsidies and other policy support have encouraged solar panel and EV makers in China to invest in factories, building far more production capacity than the domestic market can absorb. She calls this overcapacity.

Throughout the week of meetings, she talked about the risks that come from one nation maintaining nearly all production capacity in these industries, the threat it poses to other nations' industries and how a massive rapid increase in exports from one country can have big impacts on the global economy.

The Angst Behind China’s ‘Lying Flat’ Youth

In halloween in 2022, outside a party the police had just disbanded in Beijing’s warehouse district, I saw a 20-something woman in a sparkly spandex suit and bunny ears run into the road. “Freedom, not testing!” she shouted. “Reform, not revolution! Votes, not dictators! Citizens, not slaves!”

Those were familiar words at Tsinghua University, where I was studying for a master’s degree. From a bridge near campus, someone had hung a banner emblazoned with the slogans. The banner’s maker, who became known as “Bridgeman,” had disappeared a few days before Halloween. Now the girl in the spandex suit struggled with her boyfriend in the street as he tried to cover her mouth. The other young people streamed out of the warehouse party in silence. But, moments later, muted voices rose from the crowd: “I agree,” “I support you,” and even, “Xi Jinping has a small penis!”

From China's Past: Robert Hart and the Chinese Maritime Customs Service

For almost a century, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service played a central role in the relationship between China and the global economy. The Customs Service was part of the Chinese Government, but it was led by foreigners. Technically, its role was limited to ensuring the accurate assessment of Customs duties (taxes on imports and exports). However, over time, it became involved in many activities including the maintenance of harbors and lighthouses, the payment of foreign loans, the preparation of a very wide range of published reports, and the provision of technical assistance to the Chinese Government. Customs officials were often involved in diplomatic discussions and served as informal intermediaries between Chinese officials and foreign representatives.

Sir Robert Hart was perfect for the role as Inspector General when he took the job in 1863. He had been in Beijing for extended periods the preceding three years, and had developed good relationships with the officials in the Zongli Yamen. Within two years of his appointment, the Yamen ministers asked him to establish his headquarters in the capital permanently, one of the privileges that Lay demanded. Hart built an efficient organization that was respected by both Chinese and foreigners. However, he understood, first and foremost, that he was an employee of the government of China.

Tomb Readers: Epitaphs Tell the Tales of Tang Women

Tombstones from the Tang dynasty offer insights into the era’s highs and lows, and the dramatic shift in attitudes toward the characteristics and behaviors of “good women.” Epitaphs etched into ancient tombstones can sometimes tell stories overlooked by historians. This is especially true of epitaphs for women. A prime example are memorials from the Tang dynasty (618-907), a period that brought enlightenment, prosperity, and great tumult, as well as saw the rise of China’s first and only female emperor.

More people had epitaphs in this era than any other dynasty, with texts often stretching well beyond simply recording the dates of birth and death or marital status. Some carried details of extraordinary lives.

In her book, “Women’s Lives in Tang China,” historian Yao Ping writes about her research into 1,560 epitaphs for women, the vast majority of which were written for married women, with the rest largely commemorating singletons, nuns, and palace maids.