Showing papers in "China Report in 2004"
TL;DR: A few years of misunderstanding between India and China apart, the quality of relations between the three states has been normal and moderately productive as mentioned in this paper. But this is not enough to improve the relations.
Abstract: concentrate only on the improvement of their diplomatic and political relations. They have to go beyond the restraining and at times debilitating framework, of state to state relations. A few years of misunderstanding between India and China apart, ,the quality of relations between the three states has been normal and moderately productive. It is obvious that this is not enough. In terms of the world map of power, or in terms of whether the relations have mattered in terms of the life and business of
9 citations
TL;DR: The number of afflillated companies of the thirty largest chaebols stands at 604 as of 1 April 2002 as discussed by the authors, which is the highest number of companies in the world.
Abstract: ate companies, controlled by an emperor-like owner chairman, whose power exceeds his legal authority over group-wide operations. The number of afflillated companies of the thirty largest chaebols stood at 604 as of 1 April 2002. Before the economic crisis in 1997, the number was much higher. Samsung is at the top of the chaebol ranking, while at present LG comes second. The Daewoo group, which once ranked second or third among the Korean chaebol, broke apart in the wake of the crisis and most of its affiliated companies have closed down in the past few years. There have been lengthy debates on the Korean chaebol. Domestic debates have been mostly focused on its negative aspects as, for instance, on the collusion between the government and the chaebol, and the imbalance in the nation’s economic structure.
8 citations
TL;DR: In fact, the very concept of homogeneity in Japan is in question today, with the emergence of various minority fora and organisations voicing their ethnic and cultural identity within Japan as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: ’supposedly’ ethnic and cultural homogeneity. However, this explanation glosses over many differences that have been present in the country since the early pre-modern period. In fact, the very concept of homogeneity in Japan is in question today, with the emergence of various minority fora and organisations voicing their ethnic and cultural identity within Japan. While this subject was considered too volatile and
8 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that from 1979 to 2002, real GDP grew at an average rate of 9.4 per cent a year, and during that period, China had made enormous investment in economic and social infrastructure development.
Abstract: China has achieved tremendous economic growth in the last twenty-five years through introducing market mechanisms and promoting trade and foreign direct investment under the Open and Reform Policy. The official statistics show that from 1979 to 2002, real GDP grew at an average rate of 9.4 per cent a year. During that period, China had made enormous investment in economic and social infrastructure development. For example, in 1978, there was no expressway in China, but in 2002, the total length of expressway in the country was the second longest in the world next to the United States. As Yasuba emphasises, China’s infrastructure development has definitely been one of the key factors in the success of its development strategy. Japan started providing ODA loans (yen loans) in the fiscal year (FY) 1979 to support China’s Open and Reform Policy through mainly financing economic and social infrastructure. By FY 2003, it amounted to JPY 3.05 trillion covering all provinces and sectors. Ex-post evaluation results of the completed yen loan projects done by Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), the Japanese governmental executing agency of yen loans, show that those projects have been in general very successful. China’s leaders also have expressed high appreciation for the role of Japanese ODA in its economic development. For example, the then Premier Zhu Rongji said
7 citations
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors gave a brief general account of trade reform, trade development and economic development in China over the past twenty-five years, and also carried out empirical studies on the correlation between foreign trade and economic growth.
Abstract: China has dramatically reformed its foreign trade regime and has kept its door wide open to the outside world over the last twenty-five years. The reform has greatly promoted the development of China’s foreign trade, which in turn has contributed to rapid economic development in the country. Many domestic and foreign scholars have probed China’s foreign trade reform and development. Many have also carried out empirical studies on the correlation between foreign trade and economic development (even though, theoretically, the causality is not so clear). This paper intends to give a brief general account of trade reform, trade development and economic development in China over the past twenty-five years.
5 citations
TL;DR: This paper showed that the relationship between strategy and growth is not simply an economic one, but also one in which geopolitics is strongly and intimately implicated, and that the success of the strategy in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea ultimately rested on the geopolitical posture of the US.
Abstract: a model for the latter. The rise of these miracle economies demonstrated the importance of the shift to the strategy of outward orientation, which in these particular cases had clearly preceded their rise to the status of great trading nations and their transformation into developed countries. Their economic success testified to the strong element of a causal relationship, and not merely a correlation, between an export-oriented strategy and economic growth. Their experience, however, also suggests that the relationship between strategy and growth is not simply an economic one. Rather, it is one in which geopolitics is strongly and intimately implicated. For, the success of the strategy in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea ultimately rested on the geopolitical posture of the US. Not only did the US press (even coerce) for the switch to the export-oriented strategy but it was also willing, for larger geopolitical reasons, to receive the increased
5 citations
TL;DR: The relationship between India, China and Pakistan has been characterised as a strategic triangle as mentioned in this paper, where each state is constantly aware that its behaviour towards any one state in the triangle has implications for the other, and there is tendency for two countries to 'gang-up' against the third.
Abstract: The relationship between India, China and Pakistan has been characterised as a strategic triangle.’ For a triangular relationship to qualify as being strategic, three conditions need to be satisfied: (a) that the three countries should be more or less independent actors; (b) that each state is constantly aware that its behaviour towards any one state in the triangle has implications for the other; and (c) that at any given time, there is tendency for two countries to ’gang-up’ against the third. The final condition is, that all three expect the mutually influencing relationship to endure for sometime, that is, protractedness. The relations between India, China and Pakistan are marked by all the three conditions.2 2
4 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a wide range of interpretations of the Chinese approach to reform, from unconditional acknowledgements that a certain market economy modification suited to China's specific features does exist (Gavriil Popov), to a total denial of any such specificity with China's very devotion to socialism declared purely nominal mimicry, or to attributing the positive outcome of Chinese economic reforms exclusively to the fact that China happened to be passing through a stage of industrialisation long left behind by Russia and East European countries (by Yegor Gaidar).
Abstract: The nineties witnessed a growing interest of the world community in China’s economic reform as an effective option for transforming a centrally planned economy into a market one. The relative success of these changes in China has spurred economists to try to discover the exact causes of the remarkable efficiency of the Chinese approach and decide whether there are any specific qualitative characteristics of the Chinese transition to the market, and if so, what these are. Among experts debating this issue have been such influential specialists in the theory and practice of transition to a market economy as Lawrence Klein, Nobel Prize winner in Economics, Jeffrey Sachs, one of the leading ‘shock therapists’, Leszek Balcerowicz, the father of Poland’s economic reform, B. Naughton, P. Nolan, E. Walder and T. Rawsky, leading US and British economists, as well as a number of prominent economists in China (Liu Guoguang, Fan Gang, among others). In Russia, too, there is a wide range of interpretations of the Chinese approach to reform, from unconditional acknowledgements that a certain market economy modification suited to China’s specific features does exist (Gavriil Popov), to a total denial of any such specificity with China’s very devotion to socialism declared purely nominal mimicry (by Pavel Bunich), or to attributing the positive outcome of Chinese economic reforms exclusively to the fact that China happened to be passing through a stage of industrialisation long left behind by Russia and East European countries (by Yegor Gaidar). A variety of views have emerged on the chief factor that had ensured the success of China’s economic reform—Jeffrey Sachs and Leszek Balcerowicz believe that China was blessed with more favourable starting conditions than Eastern Europe, while Barry Naughton thinks it was the state lessening its monopoly over the economy that
3 citations
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors proposed that the main preferential treatment provided in free trade zones towards improving investment environment in the country includes exemptions from customs duties on imported and exported commodities and exemptions from value-added taxes, besides relaxed customs and foreign exchange control.
Abstract: Like most free trade zones elsewhere in the world, China’s free trade zone (FTZ) is a specialised economic area for international trade and bonded operations, set up by the Chinese government. Since the establishment of the Shanghai Waigaoqiao FTZ in June 1990, there have been fifteen free trade zones in China operating in accordance with the generally accepted international mode (see Table 1 for location, date of establishment and the size of free trade zones in China). The main preferential treatment provided in free trade zones towards improving investment environment in the country includes exemptions from customs duties on imported and exported commodities and exemptions from value-added taxes, besides relaxed customs and foreign exchange control. FTZs incorporate within the area various functions and activities like that of foreign investment, international trade, bonded warehousing and processing for re-export, as also bonded commodities’ display or merchandise exhibitions. The free trade zone is the only place in China where use of foreign currencies is allowed. Companies established in the area are allowed to operate in their own currencies. High-tech companies receive even more preferential treatment in the zone. Since all administration is under the central government, this makes for a highly efficient and streamlined organisation. After thirteen years of development, all the fifteen free trade zones in China are performing well and have become the gateway of the outside world to the Chinese market. Today, over 180 countries and regions have established a presence here.
3 citations
TL;DR: In the Plan de Ayala as discussed by the authors, the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata argued for the repossession of the "fields, timber and water" that the landlords had usurped from the Mexican peasants.
Abstract: In his Plan de Ayala, the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata argued for the repossession of the ’fields, timber and water’ that the landlords had usurped from the Mexican peasants.’ He called for the restitution of the property rights of the peasants, ’despoiled by the bad faith of our oppressors’, and a redistribution of land so that the ’Mexicans lack of prosperity and well-being may improve in all and for all’. The Plun, as brief and unadorned a document as it is, represented a dramatic and powerful clarion call to revolution in the context of the turmoil afflicting Mexican society, and its articles were, as Zapata’s biographer demonstrates, scrupulously observed in the subsequent prosecution of the revolution.3 The vision portrayed in the Plun is essentially an agrarian vision; it dreams of the re-establishment of a fair and just society that respects the traditional rights, particularly rights to land, of Mexico’s peasants. What is absent is any notion of a society different from what it had been, or what it supposedly had been. Nowhere in the Plan is there a suggestion that the revolution’s objective was to fundamentally alter the traditional character of Mexican society, still less to transform it through industrialisation and modernisation; there is no suggestion
TL;DR: For instance, this paper pointed out that while there is much debate about the actual rate of growth China has witnessed ever since it opted for state controlled and selective liberalisation of certain sectors of its economy, economists have been trying to replicate the Chinese success story.
Abstract: China? rate of economic growth during the last quarter of a century, has left many countries craving for a similar experience in their economies, and these countries have been trying to replicate the Chinese ’success’ story. While there is much debate about the actual rate of growth China has witnessed ever since it opted for statecontrolled and selective liberalisation of certain sectors of its economy, economists
TL;DR: The Chinese, it seems, have been too busy to celebrate the completion of twenty-five years of their economic reforms as mentioned in this paper, and the Chinese themselves talking of the need to apply brakes and cool down the economy.
Abstract: The Chinese, it seems, have been too busy to celebrate the completion of twenty-five years of their economic reforms. With a new leadership taking over in the eventful and dramatic twenty-fifth year, a year that also brought SARS and threatened to undo everything, the country was constantly on its toes fending off international pressure to appreciate the yuan, interestingly only to end the year with a spectacular growth rate yet again, leaving the Chinese themselves talking of the need to apply brakes and cool down the economy. Typically Chinese, one might say. For this is how China’s story has unfolded in recent times, years of unbelievable action and growth, interspersed by moments of anxiety now and then threatening the reversal of reforms. The infamous Tiananmen incident occurred in 1989. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Deng Xiaoping, for whom the reforms were almost a personal project, passed away in 1997. The financial markets collapsed in Asia the same year. The global economy went downhill and caused a scare all around at the turn of the century, and China negotiated hard all this while to enter the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and finally did become its member in 2001, with lots of promises to keep and supposed dangers to ward off. Yet, the reforms in China went on, uninterrupted. And the economy only looked up. Not in their wildest dreams would the Chinese have imagined in December 1978, those sleepy times in the aftermath of Mao’s passing into history that look so distant now, when the Chinese Communist Party (Eleventh CPC Central Committee in its Third Plenary Session, to be precise) announced its ‘socialist modernisation’ project, replacing class struggle with the drive to become rich through market reforms and opening up to the outside world (incidentally, much before the World Bank and the IMF would ‘advise’ structural adjustments or sell market solutions to the developing world), that so soon would they arrive at the threshold of prosperity and be known as a model, ironically, for all that they had stood against, be it markets or global capital.
TL;DR: The research on which this paper is based was completed during a Visiting Fellowship on the Indo-China Cultural Exchange Programme at the Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) in Beijing (April-May 2002).
Abstract: The research on which this paper is based was completed during a Visiting Fellowship on the IndoChina Cultural Exchange Programme at the Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) in Beijing (April-May 2002). Grateful thanks are due to: the Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi, for jointly sponsoring the fellowship along with CASS; Professors Zhang Dunmin, Shen Lisheng, Xu Feng Xian, Cheng Qing Wang, Song Ze and Dr. Feng Lei at CASS for constructive discussions; Mr. Sun Xiaohua and Mr. Li Jianguo of Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation (hereafter MOFTEC) for providing current and useful data
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper analyzed the relationship between economic development and urbanization and explored the role of the government in the process of urbanisation in China, concluding that government policy is an endogenous variable in the course of China's urbanisation.
Abstract: Currently, the rate of urbanisation in China lags far behind the world average. Its rapid progress would undoubtedly influence the international economy. In China, urbanisation is driven both by domestic industrialisation and economic globalisation. The present paper focuses on two points. First, it analyses the relationship between economic development and urbanisation. The process of urbanisation in China has not been in line with the country’s social and economic development for a long time. Not only does the urbanisation level lag behind the pace of economic development, there also exists a great structural deviation from the city scale. It is also found that industries and cities in China have moved towards the same areas in the past ten years. Second, the paper explores the role of the government. Government policy is an endogenous variable in the course of China’s urbanisation. In the past, ‘Hukou’ (citizenship) institution and investment policies greatly influenced urbanisation in China. Things, however, have changed considerably. Many local governments have adopted and strengthened open policies, broken barriers, lessened restrictions on demographic migration, changed patterns of urban investment and provided more public products and services. The paper consists of six parts. In the second part, the author expatiates the development process of urbanisation in China, and the third part introduces the Chinese city system and analyses the development trend in the short run. Some characteristics of urbanisation in China are listed in the fourth part, following which the author discusses three main factors influencing the process of urbanisation in China. The conclusion is drawn in the last part.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a cooperation in the field of energy among Russia, China and India along several lines, sharing their experience in the regulation of the sector and the policies aimed at promoting investment, can help each one in fine tuning the policies pertaining to that sector.
Abstract: Cooperation in the field of energy among Russia, China and Indian can proceed along several lines. All three countries are in different stages of development of their energy sectors. Sharing their experience, for example, in the regulation of the sector and the policies aimed at promoting investment, can help each one in fine tuning the policies pertaining to that sector. However, an important distinction is that while Russia is a net energy exporter and has huge reserves of hydrocarbons, China and India are net energy importers. Thus, Indian and Chinese companies exploring the Russian hydrocarbon basins for their domestic requirements can be an important form of cooperation. In fact, efforts are already on in this direction, ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL), an arm of the Indian national company Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), has a stake in the Sakhalin venture in Russia operated by Exxon Mobil. OVL acquired 20 per cent participating interest in Sakhalin-I project, in the Russia Far East for 1.7 billion dollars. The field is estimated to have 2-8 billion barrels of oil reserves. OVL
TL;DR: The US, despite being the richest and militarily the most powerful state in the world and the sole super power, found itself a victim of a terrorist-inflicted catastrophe of unprecedented proportions as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Thus, 9/11 was a traumatic event, directly for the US and vicariously for others. The US, despite bcing the richest and militarily the most powerful state in the worldthe sole super power-found itself a victim of a terrorist-inflicted catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. The intelligence and physical security apparatus of the most powerful state in the world found itself momentarily overwhelmed with shock and grief by a non-state actor, whose strength lay not in its military prowess, but in its ability to operate stealthily and plan and execute the most irrational act of killing thousand of innocent civiiians, in a dramatically synchronised precision operation. This was made possible by the failure to take seriously in time the capacity for evil of
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the role of China's integration into the world economy in the country's industrial development and investigate the growing sophistication of industrial structure that increased China's industrial competitiveness from labour-intensive to technology-intensive sectors.
Abstract: Having been traditionally a highly protected country, China, after twenty-five years of exceptional growth, has become a major player in the world economy. Thanks especially to the extraordinary industrial development in the coastal areas and cities, it was able to increase its share in world merchandise exports from 0.95 per cent in 1980 to 4.12 per cent in 2002. Business environment in the country has improved enormously, new industries have been developing, and considerable progress has been made in competitiveness and participation in the global economy. China owes its fast growth to shifts of resources from low productivity agriculture to industry and to very high rates of both domestic and foreign investment. Industry (that in China conventionally includes mining and utilities besides manufacturing) is the largest sector of China’s economy, accounting for 50 per cent of the total output, 91 per cent of exports, and employing a 37.29 million labour force in 2002. China’s policy of openness—allowing imports of capital, technologies and management competence— began in the late seventies, and along with other policy reforms, triggered China’s amazing take off. The success of China’s economic growth may be seen as an outcome of two distinct strategies: integration into the world economy and industrialisation based on technological sophistication. The present paper considers the role of China’s integration into the world economy in the country’s industrial development. It begins by reviewing basic macro economic management and then describes the contribution of foreign direct investment to China’s industry during the past twenty-five years. Next, it examines external trade performance and discusses the gains from trade liberalisation and prospects for industry. Further, it investigates the growing sophistication of industrial structure that increased China’s industrial competitiveness from labour-intensive to technology-intensive sectors in the past about one decade. Finally, it gives brief conclusions.
TL;DR: In the last few years, the interaction between Russia, China and India has become a critical factor of global development and the given factor renders positive effects on the strengthening of general security and is instrumental in consolidating stability in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as in South and Central Asia and the world at large.
Abstract: In the last few years, the interaction between Russia, China and India has become a critical factor of global development. The given factor renders positive effects on the strengthening of general security and is instrumental in consolidating stability in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as in South and Central Asia and the world at large. Leaders of the three countries manifest their resolute intention to follow the coordinated
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors describe a gradual transformation in the realm of literature in terms of style, role and concerns, which has been regarded as a literary revolution by the scholars of Chinese literature and contributed to the shaping of literary theory and criticism in post-1949 China.
Abstract: saw a gradual transformation in the realm of literature in terms of style, role and concerns. Through this process of transformation, which has been regarded as a literary revolution by the scholars of Chinese literature, certain issues and concerns not only generated lively debate within literary circles, but contributed to the shaping of literary theory and criticism in post-1949 China. Portrayal of characters, or characterisation in litera-