Here is a selection of insightful commentaries that have recently been posted on the web.
The Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, OMFIF, “China accelerates in tech race with US,” July 9, 2020.
The digital silk road has helped over 6,000 Chinese internet enterprises and 10,000 technology products move into overseas markets since 2015. It focuses on improving internet infrastructure, deepening space co-operation and developing common technology standards among participating countries. 5G telecommunication, fibre-optic infrastructure, satellite services and smart city projects in Belt and Road countries have all benefitted.
However, tensions with the US began to affect China’s technology sector in 2018.
Read this commentary on OMFIF’s website here.
Electric vehicles in China“Electrifying: How China Built an EV Industry in a Decade,” by Ilaria Mazzocco, Marco Polo, July 8, 2020.
In December 2019, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced that new energy vehicles, composed mainly of plug-in electric vehicles (EVs), would represent 25% of overall vehicle sales by 2025. This is a bold target given that less than 5% of total cars sold in 2019 were EVs. Then again, just a decade ago few expected China to develop an EV industry, let alone become the world’s largest market and manufacturer.
Read this commentary at Marco Polo here.
The Peterson Institute for International Economics, “US-China financial decoupling is not happening,” July 8, 2020.
The US-China economic confrontation of the last few years has prompted predictions that the world’s two largest economies are headed for a “decoupling.” The Trump administration’s recent threat to delist Chinese companies from US stock exchanges if they fail to comply with US accounting
regulations underscored that possibility, and Trump tweeted in mid-June that “a complete decoupling from China” was a US policy option.
But for all the fireworks over tariffs and investment restrictions, China’s integration into global financial markets continues apace. Indeed, that integration appears on most metrics to have accelerated over the past year. And US-based financial institutions are actively participating in this process, making financial decoupling between the United States and China increasingly unlikely. An examination of the data shows the danger of generalizing based on misleading anecdotal evidence.
Read this commentary on the Peterson Institute’s website here.
Project Syndicate, “China as Economic Bogeyman,” by Dani Rodrik, July 9, 2020.
... we must recognize that a mixed, state-driven economic model has always been at the root of Chinese economic success. If one-half of China’s economic miracle reflects its turn to markets after the late 1970s,
the other half is the result of active government policies that protected old economic structures – such as state enterprises – while new industries were spawned through a wide array of industrial policies.
The Chinese people were the main beneficiaries, of course, experiencing the fastest poverty reduction in history. But these gains did not come at the expense of the rest of the world. Far from it. The growth policies that today arouse other countries’ ire are the reason China has become such a large market for Western exporters and investors.
Read Rodrik’s commentary on Project Syndicate’s website here.
OMFIF, “Vexed but unruffled, China eyes long game in Europe,” July 15, 2020.
Liu Xiaoming, Chinese ambassador to the UK, a smooth and seasoned diplomat, remained almost unruffled by a pacey set of questions on the prickly issues bedevilling relations between his country and factions of the western alliance. Dishing out courtship and mild chastisement in equal measure in a video call on 15 July, Liu stepped through questions from David Marsh, OMFIF chairman, and others on Huawei, Hong Kong, Taiwan and world trading relationships with well-rehearsed aplomb.
Read the commentary at this link.
Please email me at ABCFBBassn@gmail.com if you are unable to access any of these papers.
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