Results for “China” 2941 found
China fact of the day
Share of all export-dependent jobs that are threatened by tariffs within counties won by:
Trump
8.1%
Clinton
3.2%
That is from Eduardo Porter and Karl Russell at The New York Times.
They solved for the equilibrium, China equilibrium of the day
China will be less severe with its smog curbs this winter as it grapples with slower economic growth and a trade war with the United States, according to a government plan released on Thursday.
Instead of imposing blanket bans on industrial production in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area as it did last winter, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said it would let steel plants continue production as long as their emissions met standards.
Targets for overall emissions cuts have also been revised down. In the next six months, 28 cities in northern China are required to cut levels of PM2.5 – the tiny airborne particles that are most harmful to human health – by about 3 per cent from a year ago.
That is less than the 5 per cent cut proposed in an initial plan seen by the South China Morning Post last month.
Meanwhile, the new plan stipulates that the number of days of severe air pollution should be reduced by about 3 per cent, also revised down from 5 per cent in last month’s draft.
Here is more from Orange Wang at SCMP. As I am sure you all know, air pollution (and I don’t just mean carbon emissions) is one of the great underrated problems in the world today. The trade war with China is making it worse.
Will having China as a geopolitical enemy help revitalize the United States?
“Probably not” is the conclusion of my latest Bloomberg column. Here is one excerpt:
The Soviets had a string of leaders who were well-suited to play movie villains. Stalin murdered millions and radiated evil. Khrushchev was more moderate in terms of domestic policy, but in New York he banged his shoe on the table and shouted “We will bury you!” He also moved Soviet nuclear weapons into Cuba. Brezhnev came across as a crusty, malevolent stiff.
Chinese president Xi Jinping, in contrast, looks and acts not much different than many other world leaders. The standing joke in China, though often banned on Chinese social media, is to compare him to Winnie the Pooh because of his posture, his walk and what sometimes appears to be a kind of ambling geniality. As for earlier Chinese leaders, post-Mao, most didn’t have much of a profile in the U.S. at all.
Do read the whole thing. International rivalries can indeed help make countries great, but so far the American rivalry with China is not having that effect, and probably will not anytime soon.
Note furthermore that China’s “low publicity” approach implies the biggest China hawks and warners should be those who know the country relatively well (as opposed to the usual equilibrium where the expats are more sympathetic), a regularity which I believe is born out by the facts (thanks to D. for this point).
The Flynn Effect in China??
Data are reported for intelligence of children in China assessed by the Combined Raven’s Test in 1988, 1996 and 2006. The IQ of the samples increased by 15.0 IQ points over 18-year period. The British IQ of China in 1988 and 2006 is estimated as 94.8 and 109.8, respectively.
That is from a new paper by Mingrui Wang and Richard Lynn. Via a loyal MR reader. Speculative!
Christopher Balding is leaving China
One of the best short essays you will read this year.
The resurgence of China pessimism
Agree or not, it has returned. Here is David G. Landry from Foreign Policy:
A recent Foreign Policy piece points out that individuals and firms have made up an increasingly large share of China’s total foreign asset purchases in recent years, from 12 percent in 2011 to nearly 40 percent in 2017, as the People’s Bank of China’s share of total foreign direct investment shrank. It turns out that these new investors are poor asset judges. As their share of China’s portfolio grew, its aggregate returns dwindled. In 2016, the total return on Chinese foreign investment was 0.4 percent, which is dramatically lower than the 4 percent earned by foreign reserves.
…fixed-asset investment — a core driver of Chinese growth that includes spending on new buildings, machinery and infrastructure — grew at its slowest annual pace since at least 1995 through the first five months of this year. Retail sales, an indicator of consumer demand, also increased at their slowest pace since 2003. China’s currency, meanwhile, hit a six-month low against the dollar this week, while the Shanghai Composite index, the country’s key stock market index, dropped 10 per cent in June. Last weekend, the People’s Bank of China cut the reserve requirement ratio, the amount of cash that banks must hold in reserve at the central bank, freeing up Rmb700bn ($106bn) for new lending and investment. The PBoC insists that monetary policy remains “prudent” but the cut to the RRR is the latest in a series of “ subtle easing” moves in recent months, including other forms of cash injection into the financial system.
…much of the recent slowdown is perceived to be the result of Beijing’s policies. A sharp fall in infrastructure spending by local governments led the drop in fixed-asset investment, as the central government reined in runaway borrowing by local governments.
One way or another, you will be hearing more about this.
China-U.S. fact of the day
Credit card debt in China is $2t v. $815b in the United States.
Mind….blown https://t.co/7HvCooryPX
— Blue Check Balding 大老板 (@BaldingsWorld) June 22, 2018
China Ethiopia donkey estimate of the day
There are estimated to be 44 million donkeys in the world, almost all of which are maintained for work. China has the highest population (eleven million) followed by Ethiopia (five million)…
Here is the source, via pointers from Yves-Marie Stranger and Michelle Dawson. That estimate seems to be from the 1990s, the article has much more data of donkey interest, and it is a good example of Cowen’s Second Law and indeed Cowen’s First Law: “It has been made clear that the estimates of donkey populations presented here should be treated with great caution.”
And here is a 2011 report on donkeys, horses, and mules in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has the third largest total equine population in the world.
Will Ethiopia be the next China?
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, noting that they have been averaging about ten percent growth for the last decade. I basically make a “deep roots of state capacity” argument, here is one excerpt:
Ethiopia also had a relatively mature nation-state quite early, with the Aksumite Kingdom dating from the first century A.D. Subsequent regimes, through medieval times and beyond, exercised a fair amount of power. Most important, today’s Ethiopians see their country as a direct extension of these earlier political units. Some influential Ethiopians will claim to trace their lineage all the way to King Solomon of biblical times.
In other words, the process of organized, national-level governance has been underway for a long time. It was this relative strength of Ethiopian governance that allowed the territory to fend off colonialism, a rare achievement. It is also why, when you travel around the country, a lot of the basic cuisine doesn’t change much: Dishes are seen as national and not regional…
Like many Iranians, they think of themselves as a civilization and not just a country. They very self-consciously separate themselves from the broader strands of African history and culture. And, as in China, they hold an ideological belief that their country is destined to be great again.
Do read the whole thing.
China Africa fact of the day America step up to the plate
Chinese travelers are the world’s top tourism spenders, shelling out almost $260 billion in 2017 alone. A growing part of that spend is now happening in Africa, encouraged by relaxed visa rules, increased interested in the continent’s cultural and historical sites, and a initiatives that seek to appeal to Chinese tourists.
Last week, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China launched a joint loyalty program with Kenya’s Stanbic Bank, aiming to create incentives for travel, shopping, and leisure to tourists visiting the two nations. The “I Go Kenya—I Go China” scheme follows the bank’s similar program in South Africa last year, which rewarded its cardholders by offering a range of discounts and special offers from merchants across the travel, hospitality and lifestyle sectors. The state-owned financial behemoth is doing this as part of its plan to internationalize, and push its banking card product abroad.
Meanwhile, Africa is becoming increasingly attractive destination for Chinese tourists. A recent survey by the global travel platform Travelzoo found that the continent was the top destination of choice for Chinese tourists seeking more adventurous holidays in 2018, beating Japan and Australia. Visitors were especially drawn to Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa, Namibia, Madagascar, and Tanzania.
Here is more from Abdi Latif Dahir.
Is China moving back toward Marx?
And should we celebrate along with Xi Jinping? That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, with plenty on the debates within socialist thought, here is the close:
Do I expect those future political reforms to take a Marxian path of the dictatorship of the proletariat? Probably not. But when it comes to China, Marx is the one theorist who has not yet been refuted. It’s the Western liberals and the Maoists who both have egg on their faces.
If you think of Western liberalism as the relevant alternative, you might feel discomfort at the Chinese revival of Marx. But if you think a bit longer on Maoism, its role in Chinese history and its strong nativist roots, you too might join in the Marx celebrations.
Do read the whole thing.
The monitoring culture that is China
…the workers wear caps to monitor their brainwaves, data that management then uses to adjust the pace of production and redesign workflows, according to the company.
The company said it could increase the overall efficiency of the workers by manipulating the frequency and length of break times to reduce mental stress.
Hangzhou Zhongheng Electric is just one example of the large-scale application of brain surveillance devices to monitor people’s emotions and other mental activities in the workplace, according to scientists and companies involved in the government-backed projects.
Concealed in regular safety helmets or uniform hats, these lightweight, wireless sensors constantly monitor the wearer’s brainwaves and stream the data to computers that use artificial intelligence algorithms to detect emotional spikes such as depression, anxiety or rage.
The technology is in widespread use around the world but China has applied it on an unprecedented scale in factories, public transport, state-owned companies and the military to increase the competitiveness of its manufacturing industry and to maintain social stability.
That is from STephen Chen at SCMP, via someone forgotten over at Twitter.
Those new service sector jobs, China tech edition
Ms. Shen is a “programmer motivator,” as they are known in China. Part psychologist, part cheerleader, the women are hired to chat up and calm stressed-out coders. The jobs are proliferating in a society that largely adheres to gender stereotypes and believes that male programmers are “zhai,” or nerds who have no social lives.
…He said he was open to the idea of male programmer motivators but somewhat skeptical. “A man chatting with another man, it’s like going out on a date with a guy,” Mr. Feng said. “A little awkward, isn’t it?”
Ms. Zhang, the human resources executive who was part of the panel that hired Ms. Shen, stressed that it is important for a programmer motivator to look good. She said the applicants needed to have “five facial features that must definitely be in their proper order” and speak in a gentle way.
They should also have a contagious laugh, be able to apply simple makeup and be taller than 5 feet 2 inches.
…Ms. Shen said that she does not consider her job to be sexist.
Solve for the China jaywalking equilibrium
Jaywalkers in China are to be named, shamed and slapped with an instant SMS fine.
And it’s all thanks to cutting-edge artificial intelligence.
In the southeastern city of Shenzhen, police have set up AI-powered boards by crossings.
If you jaywalk, a CCTV camera will scan your face and flash it up on the huge screens for all to see, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, there are now plans to ping offenders’ phones with quick-fire fines as soon as they violate the grim rule.
The AI company behind the billboards, Intellifusion, is in talks with mobile phone networks and local social media platforms to enforce the new system.
To be clear, I consider this report speculative. But not impossible.
Bill Bishop on the Kim visit to China
The coverage was extensive, he got a lot of face time with Xi, and the general messaging seems to be that the errant junior ally has returned to the correct path. Xi was shown speaking to him confidently and without notes, and listening but not writing anything down while Kim spoke. Kim was shown reading prepared remarks and studiously taking notes while Xi spoke.
The propaganda makes it look like a tributary bromance is budding.
You can subscribe here to Bill’s email newsletter. Here is Evan Osnos on the visit.