Yingyao Wang opens the black box of the Chinese bureaucracy to reveal the agency of the men and women who designed and redesigned Chinese economic policy. (more…)
Category: China
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China: the global trading giant
An extraordinary chart from The Pioneer below compares nations whose largest trading partner was either the USA or China in the year 2000 and the year 2020. Over one short decade, it is a powerful visualisation of how the world’s economic centre shifted. (more…)
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China to debut Australia’s first flying car
Chinese smart electric vehicle (EV) company XPeng says it will debut what it says will be Australia’s first flying car at the Melbourne Electric SUV Expo in August, alongside four premium EVs it plans to bring to the country. (more…)
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China forges its own path at Third Plenum as West, thwarted by special interests, proves fundamentally incapable of reform
“In the Chinese context, there are a lot of talks about remembering your original mission. The original mission is to eliminate inequality” – Wang Dan, chief economist of Hang Seng Bank China.
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Palestinian factions agree to ‘national unity’ govt following China talks
The agreement follows a Knesset decision totally rejecting Palestinian statehood, and comes as ceasefire efforts remain stalled due to Israel’s position on continuing the war. (more…)
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Overproduction is OK as long as it’s done by anyone except China
It makes sense for Beijing to expand the services sector, but none for the US to transfer higher productivity in services to lower one in manufacturing. (more…)
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10 takeaways from the Central Committee of the CPC’s resolution on deepening reform
The Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernisation and The Explanation of the Resolution were made public on Sunday. Below are my ten quick takeaways from the highly significant resolution.
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Not what you might expect – close encounters in China
I recently visited Wu Tai Shan, a Buddhist mountain in Shanxi Province, China, with an old nun-friend and a film crew of thirty young Beijing production people. It was Dragon Boat Festival and Wu Tai’s many temples were thronged with pilgrims from all over China paying their respects to the deities. I met worshippers, discussed Buddhist psychology and ate with the lively crew. (more…)
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The Tao of Terra: the fate of East and West are intertwined as never before
In our highly interconnected world, the fates of both the East and West are intertwined as never before. In the face of existential challenges, it becomes imperative for humanity to work together for the common good. Our survival now hinges on our ability to foster mutual understanding, promote global cooperation, and embrace our shared humanity. (more…)
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Fundamental economic reform called for ahead of China’s Third Plenum
“The core factor causing current economic problems is not real estate but the contraction of government spending” according to David Daokui Li, Tsinghua University. “The entire government’s operational orientation needs to be changed by reforming the fiscal and tax systems and local officials’ assessment indicators to shift government incentives from investment and project-oriented policies to policies that provide basic social welfare and help people increase disposable income to boost consumption, transforming the government from an investment-oriented government to a social welfare service-oriented government,” Li said. (more…)
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China and the Communist Party of China
Prompted by Wanning Sun (P&I June 9, 2024), I have just read Yu Yang’s excellent work Private Revolutions. Wanning observes that according to western media the Chinese population is mostly imagined as a monolith and faceless crowd: divided into those who are victims of a repressive Chinese regime, or heroic individuals who dare to defy the system. This is a fallacy. (more…)
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Australian journalist Cheng Lei says China bashing ‘worrying’
Cheng Lei, who was imprisoned in China for three years, says Australians should not overreact over every bilateral issue with Beijing. (more…)
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Mega-thinktanks have one dangerous thing in common
With former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Varghese undertaking a review of taxpayer dollars spent on strategic policy work, Australia’s China hawks have argued a Canberra-based thinktank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), cannot be touched. (more…)
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Poverty alleviation is not forced labour
Between the months of April and August of last year, I drove my EV and trailer RV to more than 40 locations and 15,000 kilometres in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region while I documented my experience. (more…)
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Does China matter any more?
China Matters has gone, and that is a tragedy. Australia lost a valuable think tank that could provide policy advice at a critical juncture of Australia-China relations. The implementation of the government hatchet job is set out in detail in Margaret Simon’s extended article, Red Flags, in the latest Monthly, and in Hamish McDonald’s article in Inside Story on 22 April. (more…)
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Socialist America, state capitalist China
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. So is a graph or chart. (more…)
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Sleepwalking towards war: will America and China heed the warnings of twentieth-century catastrophe?
“The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position.” – Shanghai Communique, United States government, 1972 (more…)
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Bridges, not walls: Xi Jinping and the Australia-China relationship
The relationship between Australia and China, once characterised by regard and mutual curiosity, has recently been extremely turbulent. However, it was not always this way. (more…)
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China’s Third Plenum: domestic consumption is the key to stimulating domestic demand
The Communist Party of China (CPC) has said the upcoming Third Plenary Session of its current 20th Central Committee will focus on “deepening comprehensive reform to advance Chinese modernisation.” Officially, the reform agenda will only be unveiled at the Third Plenum. But that doesn’t mean there are zero signals in public before it happens.
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China’s Third Plenum: Beijing set to provide more welfare to its citizens
David Daokui Li says China’s decision makers have finally come around to stimulating domestic consumption rather than investment, and for that Beijing will provide more welfare. (more…)
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A Chinese mother’s journey to accept her transgender child
“I didn’t tell my husband that our child is a transgender person who likes girls, until months later. His smile froze after hearing what I said.” (more…)
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Australia must prize, not demonise China capability
China expertise – including that of our huge Chinese diaspora – has increasingly become a source of suspicion. China scholar Angela Lehmann offers three policy responses to promote Australia’s capability to engage with our biggest trading partner. (more…)
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Stabilisation, but deeper relationship stymied by Australian mass media sinophobes
Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit underscores the significance of the Australia-China relationship, especially given China’s status as Australia’s largest trading partner. A deeper relation should develop, but that will take time. Trust needs to be reestablished not only at diplomatic and business levels, but also in the Australian mass media, whose China opinion writers have almost all become Sinophobes arguing that China is trying to subvert and attack its neighbours – including Australia, writes Percy Allan in an interview with China’s Global Times. (more…)
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Espionage death sentence the latest challenge to China–Australia relations
Australian citizen Yang Hengjun’s death sentence for espionage in China has complicated the improvement of China–Australia relations. The case highlights concerns about China’s legal system, particularly regarding national security cases where the judiciary lacks transparency and independence. Despite international condemnation, China continues to issue numerous death sentences. The case also underscores the growing mistrust and espionage concerns between China and the West, which have implications for individuals and firms caught between the two sides. (more…)
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Big changes to China’s healthcare insurance system expected at 3rd Plenum
The Communist Party of China has said the upcoming Third Plenary Session of its current 20th Central Committee will focus on “deepening comprehensive reform to advance Chinese modernisation.” Based on past practice and some recent public reports, Beijing is drafting its agenda now, but details are hard to come by. (more…)
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Premier Li’s Visit to Australia: A hostage rescue mission
As hard as this might be for some Australians to accept, China isn’t a threat to the economy, it’s a lifeline, perhaps even a hostage rescue. (more…)
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Walking into war with China: an American trap hidden in plain sight
There is no question that the path to war has been set against Russia and China. Nor is there doubt that the brunt will be borne by US allies, as the US has repeatedly proclaimed its “gratitude” to allies without which its geostrategy would be impossible. The question remaining is when war will require allies to shed blood. (more…)
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Can China save the world?
As the climate crisis accelerates and intensifies, it’s easy to despair about the possibility of any country taking the lead in ‘saving the planet’. And yet Xi Jinping at least says encouraging things. Should we take China seriously? (more…)
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After a low, China-Australia ties can aim high
When I think of Australia, the first things that pop into my mind are koalas and kangaroos. Those adorable marsupials are wooing travellers worldwide every year to the beautiful land. (more…)
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Li Qiang comes to town: what to expect?
Premier Li Qiang is the second most powerful person in China, after President Xi Jinping. He is expected to visit Australia and New Zealand in the next few days. Meetings in Canberra will present an opportunity for leaders to set the seal of approval on tentative measures already under way for stabilisation of the bilateral relationship, and, hopefully, to find ways of developing that relationship further despite economic and strategic problems for both sides. (more…)