Top Banker Held in Gambling Probe
A senior executive at one of the mainland's Big Four state-controlled banks has been detained amid a widening investigation into allegations of illegal gambling and the misappropriation of clients' money.
Caixin Media
05.31.12
Heading Deep for the First Time
On May 9, China National Offshore Oil Corp.’s (CNOOC) first deepwater drilling platform began operating in the South China Sea. The world-class vessel is stationed in the Liwan 6-1-1 field, about 320 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong, in waters...
Caixin Media
05.28.12
Rail Builders Shift Interest to Overseas Mines
After a three-year wait, China Railway Construction Corp. Ltd. (CRCC) recently won permission to launch a major copper mining project in Ecuador.
The production agreement signed April 25 by Ecuador’s government and Corriente Resources, a...
Caixin Media
05.25.12
Hard Lesson for China Concept-Stock Investors
Imagine discovering on your first day as a new CEO that your employer is merely a shell that may be destined for a shameful delisting on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
That’s what happened recently to ChinaCast Education Corp. CEO Feng Yiyi, who...
Caixin Media
05.23.12
Identity Crisis Rattles Volvo’s Chinese Owner
New models bearing the Chinese-owned Volvo badge shared a luxury spotlight at the Beijing International Auto Show in April with perennial stars Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Lexus.
But behind the diamond-studded presentation was confusion over...
Media
05.18.12
Hong Kong Movie Star Now a Motivational Speaker
Nicholas Tse—the famous young Hong Kong singer, actor, and musician—is known for portraying irresponsible young rebels. People think that's what he's like in real life. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology invited Tse to be a...
Caixin Media
05.18.12
Message in a Bottle for Spirits Maker Moutai
A glass of Feitian Moutai packs a wallop, which is one reason why the 106-proof baijiu is a hit among influential government officials.
They also like Feitian Moutai because a single bottle, thanks to special arrangements between state...
Caixin Media
05.18.12
Era Ends for China’s Legendary Stock Picker
Investors who closely followed the stock picks of one of China’s most successful brokers are wandering in the wilderness—and wondering what will happen next to their unemployed luminary Wang Yawei.
In April, and without warning, Wang...
China’s Impact on World Commodity Markets
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Shocks to aggregate activity in China have a significant and persistent short-run impact on the price of oil and some base metals. In contrast, shocks to apparent commodity-specific consumption (in part reflecting inventory demand) have no effect...
Caixin Media
04.09.12
Dalian Businessman Who Built an Empire Vanishes
(Dalian)—The sudden disappearance of a self-made billionaire in the coastal city of Dalian has unnerved not only bank executives concerned about loans they made to his companies, but also government officials who have lent generous support to the...
Books
03.06.12
Need, Speed, and Greed
World-renowned economist Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran provides a deeply insightful, brilliantly informed guide to the innovation revolution now transforming the world. With echoes of Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma, Tim Brown’s Change by Design, and Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, Vaitheeswaran’s Need, Speed, and Greed introduces readers to the go-getters, imagineers, and visionaries now reshaping the global economy.
China’s Banking System: Issues for Congress
Congressional Research Service
China’s banking system has been gradually transformed from a centralized, government-owned, and government-controlled provider of loans into an increasingly competitive market in which different types of banks, including several U.S. banks,...
Fostering Greater Chinese Investment in the United States
Council on Foreign Relations
China’s outward investment has substantial room to grow, and the United States has the potential to capture a larger share of it—an outcome that would benefit the U.S. and Chinese economies and strengthen the bilateral economic relationship....
Putting the Pedal to the Metal
Economic Policy Institute
China is currently the largest car market in the world. It is also one of the largest auto-parts producers and exporters in the world, with exports, primarily to the United States, constituting about a third of its production. The Chinese ...
Telecoms and the Huawei Conundrum
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
The Chinese company Huawei has emerged as the second-largest telecommunications equipment company in the world. It operates in 140 countries around the globe, providing equipment, software, and services to forty-five of the world’s fifty largest...
The NYRB China Archive
11.09.11
Making It Big in China
from New York Review of BooksJianying Zha describes China as “way too big a cow for anyone to tackle in full.” Therefore, Ms. Zha says, she omits “the rural life, the small-town stories, the migrants working in huge manufacturing plants…continued poverty in parts of interior...
Foreign Direct Investment, Corruption and Democracy
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
How do factors such as corruption perception and the level of democracy influence foreign direct investment to developing economies? The authors of this paper suggest that less corrupt countries and less democratic countries receive more foreign...
Sinica Podcast
09.16.11
North Korea: Open for Business?
from Sinica PodcastAs the guillotine of debt contagion hangs over Europe, financial pressures in Asia have led an unexpected player to make a strategic shift. After months of escalating tensions with South Korea have shuttered its opportunities for expanded trade...
Sustainability Reporting Guidelines: Mapping and Gap Analysis for Shanghai Stock Exchange
World Bank
In recent years the number of companies releasing sustainability reports has continued to increase on a global level as well as in China specifically. In China, the number of sustainability reports reached over 700 in 2010. There is a widely...
Sinica Podcast
05.20.11
Inscrutable China
from Sinica PodcastIt may be because we’ve yet to finish Henry Kissinger’s latest book on the subject, but we’ll admit to having found life in China a bit more inscrutable than normal these past few weeks, and all evidence suggests we’re not alone. Seen through the...
Sinica Podcast
05.07.11
Crazed Madmen, Foreign and Domestic
from Sinica PodcastDespite losing almost a dollar for every dollar of revenue last year, Chinese Facebook clone Renren (人人网) made a spectacular launch on Wall Street last week, raising U.S.$743.4 million in a crazed initial public offering. So it’s no surprise that...
An American Open Door?
Asia Society
Over the past decade, China’s unprecedented surge of economic dynamism and development has radically altered the global landscape and affected a host of international relationships. One of the most significant trends that will influence how the...
Sinica Podcast
04.22.11
China’s Second Internet Bubble?
from Sinica PodcastInterest in Chinese Internet companies has reached a fever pitch. Fueled by the fact that roughly fifty percent of the companies that went public on NASDAQ last year were Chinese in origin, at least seventeen more high-profile companies are...
Diagnosing Development Bottlenecks: China and India
World Bank
Although it had a a lower income level than India in 1980, China's 2006 per capita gross domestic product stood more than twice that of India's. This paper investigates the role of the business environment in explaining China's productivity...
Sinica Podcast
04.01.11
Scandal in Baidu and Chongqing
from Sinica PodcastA year after our first show memorialized Google’s retreat from the China market, our first anniversary sees Sinica host Kaiser Kuo and his employer on the defensive as Gady Epstein and Bill Bishop grill Kaiser over recent allegations of copyright...
Sinica Podcast
02.26.11
Troubles and Ambitions in China
from Sinica PodcastWatch your rice, folks. That’s our takeaway from this week’s Sinica, which ruminates on troubles old and new in the Middle Kingdom. Up for discussion in particular are Chinese activities in Rwanda, dodgy rice, ongoing worker troubles at Apple...
Sinica Podcast
11.12.10
The End of Chinese Internet Civility
from Sinica PodcastSimmering tensions between Qihoo 360 and Tencent broke into open war last week, as Tencent disabled its chat software on computers running 360 antivirus software. This move was the most aggressive yet in a serious of escalating attacks between...
A Case Study on Large-Scale Forestland Acquisition in China
Landesa
Rural development and forest restoration have been key priorities for the Chinese government over the last decade, and indeed many countries in the world. To address these priorities, the Chinese government has aggressively promoted new...
China’s Sovereign Wealth Fund: Developments and Policy Implications
Congressional Research Service
China’s ruling executive body, the State Council, established the China Investment Corporation (CIC), a sovereign wealth fund, in September 2007 to invest $200 billion of China’s then $1.4 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. As with other...
China’s Steel Industry and Its Impact on the United States: Issues for Congress
Congressional Research Service
China’s steel industry has grown significantly since the mid-1990s. China is now the world’s largest steelmaker and steel consumer. The majority of Chinese steel has been used to meet domestic demand in China. However, as its steel production...
Sinica Podcast
06.04.10
Suicides, Strikes, and Labor Unrest in China
from Sinica PodcastA spate of suicides leaves ten dead at the Shenzhen campus of Foxconn, the giant electronics manufacturer that makes many of the world’s most popular consumer electronics. A rare strike paralyzes production at Honda Motors, shutting down all of...
Game-Changing China: Lessons from China about Disruptive Low Carbon Innovation
Nesta
Big hydro, big solar photovoltaic, and big wind—these are the usual focus of accounts of low-carbon technologies in China. But a very different type of innovation—ranging from a farm cooperative in Yunnan, to woodchip and corn pellets in rural...
What’s the Difference?—Comparing U.S. and Chinese Trade Data
Congressional Research Service
There is a large and growing difference between the official trade statistics released by the United States and the People’s Republic of China. According to the United States, the 2009 bilateral trade deficit with China was $226.8 billion....
The Rise of China’s Auto Industry and Its Impact on the U.S. Motor Vehicle Industry
Congressional Research Service
The automobile industry, a key sector in China’s industrialization and modernization efforts, has been developing rapidly since the 1990s. In recent years, China has become the world’s fastest growing automotive producer. Annual vehicle output...
East Asia’s Foreign Exchange Rate Policies
Congressional Research Service
Financial authorities in East Asia have adopted a variety of foreign exchange rate policies, ranging from Hong Kong’s currency board system which links the Hong Kong dollar to the U.S. dollar, to the “independently floating” exchange rates of...
The Impact of Introducing a Minimum Wage on Business Cycle Volatility: A Structural Analysis for Hong Kong SAR
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
We study the impact of a minimum wage on business cycle volatility, depending upon its coverage and adjustment mechanism. As with other small open economies, Hong Kong SAR is vulnerable to external shocks, with its exchange rate regime precluding...
Energy Interests and Alliances: China, America and Africa
EastWest Institute
According to conventional wisdom, the United States and China are locked in a high-stakes competition for energy resources around the world, particularly in Africa. Against the backdrop of highly volatile oil prices, mounting concerns about...
Is China a Threat to the U.S. Economy?
Congressional Research Service
The rise of China from a poor, stagnant country to a major economic power within a time span of only twenty-eight years is often described by analysts as one of the greatest economic success stories in modern times. From 1979 (when economic...
Who’s Manipulating Whom? China’s Currency and the U.S. Economy
Cato Institute
Congress and the Bush administration continue to pressure China to allow its currency to appreciate against the U.S. dollar under threat of trade sanctions. Critics contend “currency manipulation” gives Chinese producers an unfair advantage...
Ending Financial Repression in China
Cato Institute
The consequences of China’s financial repression are easy
to see. By suppressing two key macroeconomic prices—the
interest rate and the exchange rate—and by failing to privatize
financial markets and allow capital freedom, China...
The Rise of China and Its Effect on Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea: U.S. Policy Choices
Congressional Research Service
The economic rise of China and the growing network of trade and investment relations in northeast Asia are causing major changes in human, economic, political, and military interaction among countries in the region. This is affecting U.S....
U.S.-China Relations in the Wake of CNOOC
Cato Institute
CNOOC, a subsidiary of state-owned China National Offshore Oil Company, lost to Chevron in a bid to acquire Unocal. This loss did not occur because of Chevron's lower bid, but rather because of U.S. Congressional intervention that blocked the...
Beginning the Journey: China, the United States, and the WTO
Council on Foreign Relations
The main finding of this report is that both the United States and China will run risks as Beijing moves ahead with membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), but the potential payoffs for both countries are well worth it. It also points...