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Javier E

Opinion | Why China Can't Bail Out Putin's Economy - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-russia-sanctions-economy.html

china putin economy sanctions

shared by Javier E on 08 Mar 22 - No Cached
  • Can China, by offering itself as an alternative trading partner, bail out Putin’s economy?
  • No, it can’t.
  • it’s hard for Russia to pay for imports — sorry, but you can’t carry out modern international trade with briefcases full of $100 bills. In fact, even Russian trade that remains legally permitted seems to be drying up as Western companies that fear further restrictions and a political backlash engage in “self-sanctioning.”
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  • The Russian elite can live without Prada handbags, but Western pharmaceuticals are another matter. In any case, consumer goods are only about a third of Russia’s imports. The rest are capital goods, intermediate goods — that is, components used in the production of other goods — and raw materials. These are things Russia needs to keep its economy running, and their absence may cause important sectors to grind to a halt.
  • First, China, despite being an economic powerhouse, isn’t in a position to supply some things Russia needs, like spare parts for Western-made airplanes and high-end semiconductor chips.
  • Second, while China itself isn’t joining in the sanctions, it is deeply integrated into the world economy. This means that Chinese banks and other businesses, like Western corporations, may engage in self-sanctioning
  • Third, China and Russia are very far apart geographically.
  • Finally, a point I don’t think gets enough emphasis is the extreme difference in economic power between Russia and China.
  • Putin may dream of restoring Soviet-era greatness, but China’s economy, which was roughly the same size as Russia’s 30 years ago, is now 10 times as large.
  • Germany’s gross domestic product was only two and a half times Italy’s when the original Axis was formed.
  • So if you try to imagine the creation of some neofascist alliance — and again, that no longer sounds like extreme language — it would be one in which Russia would be very much the junior partner, indeed very nearly a Chinese client state.
  • that’s not what Putin, with his imperial dreams, has in mind.
criscimagnael

China Eastern Pilots Were Experienced, Adding to Mystery of Crash - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...china-eastern-crash-pilot.html

shared by criscimagnael on 25 Mar 22 - No Cached
  • The pilot of the China Eastern Airlines flight that crashed in southern China with 132 people aboard was an industry veteran with more than 6,000 hours of flying time.
  • His co-pilot was even more experienced, having flown since the early days of China’s post-Mao era, training on everything from Soviet-model biplanes to newer Boeing models.
  • How they piloted the Boeing 737 will be closely examined as investigators seek to explain what is probably China’s worst air disaster in more than a decade. Experts have said it is unlikely that anyone survived the crash.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • On Thursday, rescuers said they had found engine components, part of a wing and other “important debris” as they searched the mountainside in a rural part of the Guangxi region for a fourth day.
  • Mr. Zhang, who was born in 1963, was one of China’s most experienced pilots,
  • A day earlier, the workers had found a black box, believed to be the cockpit voice recorder, which could provide investigators with crucial details. Officials said it was damaged but that its memory unit was relatively intact. The plane’s second black box, which records flight data, has yet to be recovered.
  • At the main crash site, a state broadcaster showed the workers digging with shovels around a large piece of wreckage that the reporter described as a wing, which bore part of the China Eastern logo and was perched on a steep, barren slope fringed by dense thickets of now-flattened bamboo. Heavy rains had left the roads slick and inundated the earth with muddy pools.
  • Their past performance was “very good,” Sun Shiying, the chairman of China Eastern Airlines’ Yunnan branch, said on Wednesday. When reached by phone, an airline representative declined to answer further questions about the crew.
  • Over his career as a commercial pilot with China Yunnan, which later merged with China Eastern, Mr. Zhang flew four different models of aircraft and accumulated 31,769 hours of flight experience.
  • The airline commonly paired young pilots with older pilots, and Mr. Zhang had mentored more than 100, CAAC News said. Mr. Yang was one of them.
  • Experts said that investigating the crash, which involved a sudden dive from cruising altitude in good weather, would require a close look at both the aircraft and the pilots, including the possibility that the plane was deliberately brought down. But they stressed that the cause was far from determined.
  • “Certainly an intentional downing is always a part of any investigation, and especially with this particular flight profile,” said Hassan Shahidi, chief executive of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit organization created after World War II to promote aviation safety. But he cautioned that it was “premature to jump onto any possibilities.”
  • “If the captain were intending to commit suicide, they’d have to overcome the other flight crew members,” Mr. Marks said.
Javier E

A Revolution Is Coming for China's Families - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...lopment-welfare-state-3c1e0091

china revolution demographics aging implications economic cultural political

shared by Javier E on 11 Mar 23 - No Cached
  • In January Beijing announced that the country’s total population shrank in 2022—a decade earlier than Western demographers had been forecasting as recently as 2019.
  • one rapidly approaching demographic problem has flown under Beijing’s radar: the crisis of the Chinese family, the foundation of Chinese society and civilization.
  • The Chinese family is about to undergo a radical and historically unprecedented transition. Extended kinship networks will atrophy nationwide, and the widespread experience of close blood relatives will disappear altogether for many
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • This is a delayed but inescapable consequence of China’s birth trends from the era of the notorious one-child policy (1980-2015)
  • Beijing thus far has ignored this looming crisis because planners don’t prepare for things they don’t track. Officials don’t regard data on the family as relevant to statecraft or security. So statistics tally males and females—not uncles, sisters, cousins, widows.
  • We estimate past patterns and project trends through demographic modeling—simulations replicating China’s available population numbers—while “building” family trees consistent with those figures. We can approximate nationwide changes in China’s extended family networks in the past with reasonable validity and describe what lies ahead with fair confidence.
  • we are only now living through the era of “peak kin” in China. In terms of sheer numbers, Chinese networks of blood relatives were never nearly as thick as at the start of the 21st century.
  • Because of dramatic postwar improvements in health and mortality, men and women in their 40s today have on average five times as many living cousins as in 1960.
  • China’s “kin explosion” may be an important, heretofore unobserved factor in China’s remarkable economic performance since Mao Zedong’s death in 1976.
  • China’s withering of the family is set to collide with a tsunami of new social need from the country’s huge elderly population, whose ranks will more than double between 2020 and 2050
  • China’s rising generations will likely have fewer living relatives than ever before in Chinese history.
  • A “kin famine” will thus unfold unforgivingly over the next 30 years—starting now. As it intensifies, the Chinese family—the most important institution protecting Chinese people against adversity in bad times and helping them seize opportunity in good times—will increasingly falter in both these crucial functions.
  • China is now on the cusp of a severe and unavoidable “kin crash,” driven by prolonged subreplacement fertility
  • by 2050 at least half of China’s overall pool of male military-age manpower will be made up of only children. Any encounter by China’s security forces involving significant loss of life will presage lineage extinction for many Chinese families.
  • The reliability and durability of familial bonds of duty will be an increasingly critical question—perhaps even a matter of life and death for many, including frail and impecunious elders in the Chinese hinterlands
  • growing numbers of men in decades ahead will enter old age without spouses or children—the traditional sources of support for the elderly.
  • by 2050, 18% of China’s men in their 60s will have no living descendants, twice the fraction today.
  • who will look after these unfortunates?
  • Still worse than the macroeconomic implications of old-age dependency may be the effect of China’s family crisis on the so-called micro-foundations of the national economy—the little things that make markets work.
  • Since earliest recorded history, China’s guanxi networks, a distinctive form of special relationships and professional connections, have helped get business done by reducing uncertainty and transaction costs. The proliferation of blood relatives was likely a powerful stimulant for growth during the era of China’s phenomenal upswing.
  • the kin dearth may prove an economic depressant well beyond what current “head count” projections suggest.
  • China’s coming family revolution could easily conduce to a rise in personal risk aversion. Risk aversion may in turn dampen mobility, including migration.
  • Less migration means less urbanization, which means less growth—and possibly still more pessimism and risk aversion.
  • If the waning of the family requires China to build a huge social welfare state over the coming generation, as we surmise it will, Beijing would have that much less wherewithal for influencing events abroad through economic diplomacy and defense policy.
  • By 2050 living parents and in-laws will outnumber children for middle-aged Chinese men and women. Thus exigency may overturn basic familial arrangements that have long been taken for granted. The focus of the family in China will necessarily turn from the rearing of the young to the care of the old.
  • Autocracies are typically tolerant of casualties—but maybe not in the only-child China of today and the decades ahead.
  • Failure to contemplate the implications of the coming changes in Chinese family structure could prove a costly blind spot for the Communist Party. Blind spots expose governments to the risk of strategic surprise. The consequences of social, economic and political risks tend to be greatest when states aren’t prepared for them.
Javier E

How the cult of Xi Jinping stopped China admitting zero-Covid didn't work | World | The Sunday Times - 0 views

www.thetimes.co.uk/...ero-covid-didnt-work-x2fbm7s2q

china pandemic history politics policy

shared by Javier E on 01 Jan 23 - No Cached
  • Vaccinations were simply not a priority of zero-Covid policy, whose primary aim was to contain if not eliminate the virus. The health system remains ill equipped and underfunded, with a shortage of critical care facilities. There is also a chronic shortage of fever-reducing drugs such as ibuprofen, even though China is the world’s biggest producer of them.
  • Why was China so ill prepared? The answer lies in the nature of Xi’s increasingly autocratic rule. Zero-Covid was part of the cult of Xi. It defined everything in China, and to question it was to question him — dangerous in today’s China. It is hard to say what precisely triggered his abrupt reversal at the height of winter when the dangers of rapid spread are greatest. The economy is certainly faltering badly, but the popular conclusion in China is that the protests forced Xi’s hand. That could have profound consequences, since an emboldened population will be potentially troubling for a party whose survival relies in part on fear of challenging its rule.
Javier E

Suddenly There Aren't Enough Babies. The Whole World Is Alarmed. - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...-global-decline-cause-ddaf8be2

population demographic revolution decline global response

shared by Javier E on 14 May 24 - No Cached
  • The world is at a startling demographic milestone. Sometime soon, the global fertility rate will drop below the point needed to keep population constant. It may have already happened.
  • Fertility is falling almost everywhere, for women across all levels of income, education and labor-force participation.
  • Governments have rolled out programs to stop the decline—but so far they’ve barely made a dent.
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  • It’s dropping in developing countries, too. India surpassed China as the most populous country last year, yet its fertility is now below replacement.
  • “The demographic winter is coming,”
  • Smaller populations come with diminished global clout, raising questions in the U.S., China and Russia about their long-term standings as superpowers.
  • Some demographers think the world’s population could start shrinking within four decades—one of the few times it’s happened in history.
  • A year ago Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida declared that the collapse of the country’s birthrate left it “standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society.”
  • Had fertility stayed near 2.1, where it stood in 2007, the U.S. would have welcomed an estimated 10.6 million more babies since
  • In 2017, when the global fertility rate—a snapshot of how many babies a woman is expected to have over her lifetime—was 2.5, the United Nations thought it would slip to 2.4 in the late 2020s. Yet by 2021, the U.N. concluded, it was already down to 2.3—close to what demographers consider the global replacement rate of about 2.2
  • He has found that national birth registries are typically reporting births 10% to 20% below what the U.N. projected.
  • China reported 9 million births last year, 16% less than projected in the U.N.’s central scenario. In the U.S., 3.59 million babies were born last year, 4% less than the U.N. projected. In other countries, the undershoot is even larger: Egypt reported 17% fewer births last year. In 2022, Kenya reported 18% fewer.
  • In 2017 the U.N. projected world population, then 7.6 billion, would keep climbing to 11.2 billion in 2100. By 2022 it had lowered and brought forward the peak to 10.4 billion in the 2080s. That, too, is likely out of date
  • the University of Washington now thinks it will peak around 9.5 billion in 2061 then start declining. 
  • The falling birthrates come with huge implications for the way people live, how economies grow and the standings of the world’s superpowers.
  • In the U.S., a short-lived pandemic baby boomlet has reversed. The total fertility rate fell to 1.62 last year, according to provisional government figures, the lowest on record.
  • In 2017, when the fertility rate was 1.8, the Census Bureau projected it would converge over the long run to 2.0. It has since revised that down to 1.5. “It has snuck up on us,”
  • Historians refer to the decline in fertility that began in the 18th century in industrializing countries as the demographic transition. As lifespans lengthened and more children survived to adulthood, the impetus for bearing more children declined. As women became better educated and joined the workforce, they delayed marriage and childbirth, resulting in fewer children. 
  • Some demographers see this as part of a “second demographic transition,” a societywide reorientation toward individualism that puts less emphasis on marriage and parenthood, and makes fewer or no children more acceptable. 
  • In research published in 2021, the University of Maryland’s Kearney and two co-authors looked for possible explanations for the continued drop. They found that state-level differences in parental abortion notification laws, unemployment, Medicaid availability, housing costs, contraceptive usage, religiosity, child-care costs and student debt could explain almost none of the decline
  • “We suspect that this shift reflects broad societal changes that are hard to measure or quantify,” they conclude.
  • while raising children is no more expensive than before, parents’ preferences and perceived constraints have changed
  • “If people have a preference for spending time building a career, on leisure, relationships outside the home, that’s more likely to come in conflict with childbearing.” 
  • Once a low fertility cycle kicks in, it effectively resets a society’s norms and is thus hard to break, said Jackson. “The fewer children you see your colleagues and peers and neighbors having, it changes the whole social climate,”
  • Fertility is below replacement in India even though the country is still poor and many women don’t work—factors that usually sustain fertility.
  • Urbanization and the internet have given even women in traditional male-dominated villages a glimpse of societies where fewer children and a higher quality of life are the norm. “People are plugged into the global culture,
  • mothers and fathers, especially those that are highly educated, spend more time with their children than in the past. “The intensity of parenting is a constraint,”
  • Sub-Saharan Africa once appeared resistant to the global slide in fertility, but that too is changing. The share of all women of reproductive age using modern contraception grew from 17% in 2012 to 23% in 2022
  • Jose Rimon, a professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University, credits that to a push by national leaders in Africa which, he predicted, would drive fertility down faster than the U.N. projects. 
  • Mae Mariyam Thomas, 38, who lives in Mumbai and runs an audio production company, said she’s opted against having children because she never felt the tug of motherhood. She sees peers struggling to meet the right person, getting married later and, in some instances, divorcing before they have kids. At least three of her friends have frozen their eggs,
  • Danielle Vermeer grew up third in a family of four children on Chicago’s North Side, where her neighborhood was filled with Catholics of Italian, Irish and Polish descent and half her close friends had as many siblings as her or more.
  • Her Italian-American father was one of four children who produced 14 grandchildren. Now her parents have five grandchildren, including Vermeer’s two children, ages 4 and 7.
  • The 35-year-old, who is the co-founder of a fashion thrifting app, said that before setting out to have children, she consulted dozens of other couples and her Catholic church and read at least eight books on the subject, including one by Pope Paul VI. She and her husband settled on two as the right number.“The act of bringing a child into this world is an incredible responsibility,” she said.
  • Perhaps no country has been trying longer than Japan. After fertility fell to 1.5 in the early 1990s, the government rolled out a succession of plans that included parental leave and subsidized child care. Fertility kept falling.
  • In 2005, Kuniko Inoguchi was appointed the country’s first minister responsible for gender equality and birthrate. The main obstacle, she declared, was money: People couldn’t afford to get married or have children. Japan made hospital maternity care free and introduced a stipend paid upon birth of the child. 
  • Japan’s fertility rate climbed from 1.26 in 2005 to 1.45 in 2015. But then it started declining again, and in 2022 was back to 1.26.
  • This year, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida rolled out yet another program to increase births that extends monthly allowances to all children under 18 regardless of income, free college for families with three children, and fully paid parental leave.
  • noguchi, now a member of parliament’s upper house, said the constraint on would-be parents is no longer money, but time. She has pressed the government and businesses to adopt a four-day workweek
  • If you’re a government official or manager of a big corporation, you should not worry over questions of salary now, but that in 20 years time you will have no customers, no clients, no applicants to the Self-Defense Forces.”
  • Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has pushed one of Europe’s most ambitious natality agendas. Last year he expanded tax benefits for mothers so that women under the age of 30 who have a child are exempt from paying personal income tax for life. That’s on top of housing and child-care subsidies as well as generous maternity leaves. 
  • Hungary’s fertility rate, though still well below replacement, has risen since 2010. But the Vienna Institute of Demography attributed this primarily to women delaying childbirth because of a debt crisis that hit around 2010. Adjusted for that, fertility has risen only slightly, it concluded.
  • The usual prescription in advanced countries is more immigration, but that has two problems.
  • With no reversal in birthrates in sight, the attendant economic pressures are intensifying. Since the pandemic, labor shortages have become endemic throughout developed countries. That will only worsen in coming years as the postcrisis fall in birthrates yields an ever-shrinking inflow of young workers, placing more strain on healthcare and retirement systems.
  • worsening demographics could make this a second consecutive “lost decade” for global economic growth.
  • The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation found little evidence that pronatalist policies lead to sustained rebounds in fertility. A woman may get pregnant sooner to capture a baby bonus, researchers say, but likely won’t have more kids over the course of her lifetime.
  • As more countries confront stagnant population, immigration between them is a zero-sum gam
  • Historically, host countries have sought skilled migrants who enter through formal, legal channels, but recent inflows have been predominantly unskilled migrants often entering illegally and claiming asylum.
  • High levels of immigration have also historically aroused political resistance,
  • Many of the leaders keenest to raise birthrates are most resistant to immigratio
  • As birthrates fall, more regions and communities experience depopulation, with consequences ranging from closed schools to stagnant property values. Less selective colleges will soon struggle to fill classrooms because of the plunge in birthrates that began in 2007, said Fernández-Villaverde. Vance said rural hospitals can’t stay open because of the falling local population.
  • An economy with fewer children will struggle to finance pensions and healthcare for growing ranks of elderly. South Korea’s national pension fund, one of the world’s largest, is on track to be depleted by 2055
  • There’s been little public pressure to act, said Sok Chul Hong, an economist at Seoul National University. “The elderly are not very interested in pension reform, and the youth are apathetic towards politics,” he said. “It is truly an ironic situation.”
Javier E

China's 'Special Place' in Modi's Heart Is Now a Thorn in His Side - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...india-china-modi.html

china india foreign policy strategic rivalry history politics policy

shared by Javier E on 13 Apr 24 - No Cached
  • S. Jaishankar, Mr. Modi’s external affairs minister, admitted recently that there were “no easy answers” to the dilemma posed by India’s aggressive neighbor. “They are changing, we are changing,” Mr. Jaishankar said. “How do we find an equilibrium?”
  • In a book published in 2020, just as he had taken over as Mr. Modi’s trusted foreign policy architect, Mr. Jaishankar wrote that the tensions between the United States and China set “the global backdrop” for India’s choices in a “world of all against all.” India’s ambitions as a major power, he wrote, would require a juggling act: “engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia.”
  • India’s rise as a large, growing economy has allowed it to hold its ground — working with any partner it can benefit from — in a polarized and uncertain world.
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  • Even as India has expanded defense ties with the United States and doubled bilateral trade over the past decade, to about $130 billion in goods alone, it has resisted American pressure to reconsider its strong relations with Russia. India has deepened connections with Europe and the Middle East, too; trade with the United Arab Emirates alone has reached $85 billion.
  • While India remains wary of becoming a pawn in the West’s fight with Beijing, and has not forgotten its frosty history with the United States, China has become an unavoidable focus after being a secondary threat for much of modern Indian history.
  • India’s socialist founding prime minister was accommodating of Communist China, but the bonhomie was shattered by a monthlong war in 1962 that left thousands dead. The relationship began to normalize in the 1980s even as incursions continued, and open channels of communication kept tensions down and elevated trade.
  • The situation changed in the years before Mr. Modi took office, she said. As its economy soared, China began flexing its muscles — investing heavily in its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, which India saw as threatening its security and spheres of influence, and moving more aggressively on its borders and in the Indian Ocean.
  • As prime minister, he did not allow the embarrassment of the Chinese incursion in 2014 to dampen his red-carpet welcome to Mr. Xi. His subtle message — a warning that “a little toothache can paralyze the entire body” — carried the hope that Mr. Xi would come around.
  • That hope ended with the deadly 2020 clash in Eastern Ladakh. Now, it is clear that New Delhi is resigned to a long-term threat from China, a shift evident in Mr. Modi’s push for road and tunnel construction in border areas to support a large troop presence.
davisem

Will China Shrink in 2018, Ten Years Ahead of Schedule? | World Affairs Journal - 0 views

www.worldaffairsjournal.org/...-2018-ten-years-ahead-schedule

shared by davisem on 08 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • The South China Morning Post recently reported that Chinese demographers expect their country’s population to peak in 2018
  • The official National Bureau of Statistics reports that China’s total fertility rate or TFR, the number of births per woman living through childbearing age, was a stunningly low 1.05 last year, well below the replacement rate of 2.1
  • reports that on Saturday China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission projected the number of Chinese births to rise 5.7% this year to 17.5 million, 0.95 million
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  • China’s annual births, the official said, could hit 20 million soon, resulting in a population of 1.45 billion in 2030
  • The new two-child policy, which among other things obliges parents to seek permission for a second child and does not allow single women to bear children
  • davisem on 08 Dec 16
     
    It s thought that China is going to hit its population peak in 2018. The births could be about 20 million soon, which would be about 1.4 billion people by 2030. How will they deal with this?
Javier E

Is China Ripe for a Revolution? - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...ina-ripe-for-a-revolution.html

China 19C revolution history US support Manchu

shared by Javier E on 13 Feb 12 - Cached
  • it is instead the Taiping Rebellion, which nearly toppled the Qing Dynasty 50 years earlier, that bears the strongest warnings for the current government. The revolt, which claimed at least 20 million lives before it was quelled, making it the bloodiest civil war in history, suggests caution for those who hope for a popular uprising — a Chinese Spring — today.
  • The Taiping Rebellion exploded out of southern China during the early 1850s in a period marked, as now, by economic dislocation, corruption and a moral vacuum. Rural poverty abounded; local officials were wildly corrupt; the Beijing government was so distant as to barely seem to exist. The uprising was set off by bloody ethnic feuds between Cantonese-speaking Chinese and the minority Hakkas over land rights.
  • Beijing has learned its lessons from the past. We see this in the swift and ruthless suppression of Falun Gong and other religious sects that resemble the Taiping before they became militarized. We can see it in the numbers of today’s “mass incidents.” One estimate, 180,000 in 2010, sounds ominous indeed, but in fact the sheer number shows that the dissent is not organized and has not (yet) coalesced into something that can threaten the state
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  • The greatest fear of the government is not that violent dissent should exist; the fear is that it should coalesce.
  • For all of the West’s contempt for China’s government in the 19th century, when the Taiping Rebellion actually drove it to the brink of destruction, it was Britain that intervened to keep it in power. Britain’s economy depended so heavily on the China market at the time (especially after the loss of the United States market to the American Civil War in 1861) that it simply could not bear the risk of what might come from a rebel victory. With American encouragement, the British supplied arms, gunships and military officers to the Manchu government and ultimately helped tip the balance of the war in its favor.
  • Given the precarious state of our economy today, and America’s nearly existential reliance on our trade with China in particular, one wonders: for all of our principled condemnation of China’s government on political and human rights grounds, if it were actually faced with a revolution from within — even one led by a coalition calling for greater democracy — how likely is it that we, too, wouldn’t, in the end, find ourselves hoping for that revolution to fail?
Javier E

Putting Chinese Students to the Test - NYTimes.com - 0 views

rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/...g-chinese-students-to-the-test

education china test

shared by Javier E on 18 Jun 12 - Cached
  • More than 9.1 million students throughout China sat for the college exam beginning Thursday morning, competing for 6.85 million places at Chinese universities, according to Ministry of Education figures reported by China Daily. The exam is known as the gao kao (高考), pronounced gow kow, and the number of high school test-takers has dropped each year since 2008, the ministry said, as the graduation-age population has decreased and more students gravitate to universities abroad.
  • the number of students wanting to study abroad has increased by more than 20 percent each year since 2008. “Students don’t believe they can have better prospects if they study in universities in China,”
  • But new research by the workplace manager Regus shows that Chinese employers are now favoring graduates with internship experience, winning personalities and foreign language skills. Just 9 percent of employers, especially at large companies, now put educational background as the top priority in hiring.
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  • ‘They think the goal is to pass the test. They’re studying for the test, not studying English.’ ”
  • found cheating on college applications to be “pervasive in China, driven by hyper-competitive parents and aggressive agents.’’
grayton downing

Air Pollution Shrouds Eastern China - NYTimes.com - 0 views

sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/...ollution-shrouds-eastern-china

air pollution china crisis

shared by grayton downing on 06 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Eastern China is suffering from some of the most severe air pollution in recent memory, forcing schools to cancel classes in the city of Nanjing and shrouding Shanghai’s famous skyline in an acrid haze.
  • Shanghai has reported air quality at levels deemed “heavily polluted” for much of the week. On Monday, the city’s air quality index was over 301 — the threshold for “severely polluted,” the most dangerous level according to China’s national standards — for more than 10 hours, the official Shanghai Daily newspaper reported.
  • By early evening Thursday, the pollution level in Shanghai was hovering at 340. At least 16 other cities in four provinces in eastern China were also reporting pollution levels over 300. In Zaozhuang, a city of nearly four million in Shandong Province, the pollution index hit 500, the maximum reading on the Chinese scale.
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  • Factors such as central heating systems dependent on coal mean that northern China experiences frequent bouts of toxic air, the latest episode of serious pollution in eastern China is a reminder that the rest of the country is not immune to the dangers.
  • Environmental officials blamed the poor conditions on the lack of strong winds to flush out bad air and the growing number of vehicles pumping out pollutants, according to the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post. The newspaper said more favorable weather conditions that could help reduce pollution are expected to begin Sunday.
grayton downing

BBC News - Japan will stand up to China, says PM Shinzo Abe - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...business-24684683

japan china politics crisis

shared by grayton downing on 26 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Mr Abe told the Wall Street Journal there were "concerns that China was trying to change the status quo by force, rather than by the rule of law".
  • Another contentious issue between the two countries is the dispute over a group of islands.
  • using air force planes to shoot down unmanned Chinese aircraft in Japanese airspace.
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  • Relations between China and Japan have been strained over recent years.
  • China has warned against Japanese nationalism in a region where Japan's colonial expansionism is still bitterly remembered.
  • "There are concerns that China is attempting to change the status quo by force, rather than by rule of law. But if China opts to take that path, then it won't be able to emerge peacefully," Mr Abe says.
  • On Saturday, China's defence ministry responded saying: "If Japan does resort to enforcement measures like shooting down aircraft, that is a serious provocation to us, an act of war.
Javier E

China Is Said to Use Powerful New Weapon to Censor Internet - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...weapon-to-censor-internet.html

china internet cybersecurity surveillance weapon

shared by Javier E on 11 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • The Great Cannon, the researchers said in a report published on Friday, allows China to intercept foreign web traffic as it flows to Chinese websites, inject malicious code and repurpose the traffic as Beijing sees fit.
  • With a few tweaks, the Great Cannon could be used to spy on anyone who happens to fetch content hosted on a Chinese computer, even by visiting a non-Chinese website that contains Chinese advertising content.
  • “The operational deployment of the Great Cannon represents a significant escalation in state-level information control,” the researchers said in their report. It is, they said, “the normalization of widespread and public use of an attack tool to enforce censorship.”
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • The device has the ability not only to snoop on Internet traffic but also to alter the traffic and direct it — on a giant scale — to any website, in what is called a “man in the middle attack.”
  • The American system, according to the documents, which were published by The Intercept, can deploy a system of programs that can intercept web traffic on a mass scale and redirect it to a site of their choosing. The N.S.A. and its partners appear to use the programs for targeted surveillance, whereas China appears to use the Great Cannon for an aggressive form of censorship.
  • The similarities of the programs may put American officials on awkward footing, the researchers argue in their report. “This precedent will make it difficult for Western governments to credibly complain about others utilizing similar techniques,” they write.
  • the Chinese program illustrates how far officials in Beijing are willing to go to censor Internet content they deem hostile. “This is just one part of President Xi Jinping’s push to gain tighter control over the Internet and remove any challenges to the party,
  • Beijing continues to increase its censorship efforts under its State Internet Information Office, an office created under Mr. Xi to gain tighter control over the Internet within the country and to clamp down on online activism. In a series of recent statements, Lu Wei, China’s Internet czar, has called on the international community to respect China’s Internet policies.
  • “The position of the Chinese government is that efforts to serve what it views as hostile content inside China’s borders is a hostile and provocative act that is a threat to its regime stability and ultimately its national security.”
  • by sweeping up Baidu’s would-be visitors in its attacks, researchers and foreign policy experts say, Beijing could harm the company’s reputation and market share overseas.
  • “Because both the Great Cannon and Great Firewall are operating on the same physical link, we believe they are both being run under the same authority,
  • researchers’ fear is that the state could use its new weapon to attack Internet users, particularly dissidents, without their knowledge. If they make a single request to a server inside China or even visit a non-Chinese website that contains an ad from a Chinese server, the Great Cannon could infect their web communications and those of everyone they communicate with and spy on them.
  • Ultimately, researchers say, the only way for Internet users and companies to protect themselves will be to encrypt their Internet traffic so that it cannot be intercepted and diverted as it travels to its intended target.“Put bluntly,” the researchers said, “unprotected traffic is not just an opportunity for espionage but a potential attack vector.”
Alex Trudel

China says it warned and tracked U.S. warship in South China Sea - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics US crisis culture policy economic Obama warship south sea china

shared by Alex Trudel on 27 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • "illegally entered into the waters of China's Spratly Islands."
  • threatened China's sovereignty and security interest,
  • Chinese sovereign territory if the U.S. recognized the man-made islands as being Chinese territory, the official added.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • In little more than 18 months, China has reclaimed more than 2,000 acres at three main locations in the Spratly Islands
  • I advise the U.S. not to create such a self-fulfilling prophecy."
  • China from engaging in reasonable, legitimate and legal activities in its own territories
  • coming within 12 miles of the coastline during President Barack Obama's visit to the state, U.S. officials told CNN at the time.
  • "U.S. Freedom of Navigation operations are global in scope and executed against a wide range of excessive maritime claims,
  • The rest of the region, wary of China's intentions in the disputed waters, is likely to welcome the U.S. move.
  • Poling said under maritime law, artificial islands were not usually afforded the 12-mile territorial zone,
Javier E

'Human impulses run riot': China's shocking pace of change | News | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...chinas-shocking-pace-of-change

china history culture development

shared by Javier E on 06 Sep 18 - No Cached
  • During the Cultural Revolution, there were certainly cases of husbands and wives denouncing each other and fathers and sons falling out, but these were not typical – the vast majority of families enjoyed unprecedented solidarity.
  • After Mao’s death, the economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping brought dramatic changes to China, changes that permeated all levels of Chinese society. In a matter of 30 years, we went from one extreme to another, from an era where human nature was suppressed to an era where human impulses could run riot, from an era when politics was paramount to an era when only money counts.
  • Before, limited by social constraints, people could feel a modicum of freedom only within the family; with the loss of those constraints, that modest freedom which was once so prized now counts for little.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Extramarital affairs have become more and more widespread and are no longer a cause for shame. It is commonplace for successful men to keep a mistress, or sometimes multiple mistresses – which people often jokingly compare to a teapot needing at least four or five cups to make a full tea set.
  • In China today, Buddhist temples are crowded with worshippers, while Taoist temples are largely deserted. A few years ago, I asked a Taoist abbot: “Taoism is native to China, so why is it not as popular as Buddhism, which came here from abroad?” His answer was short: “Buddhism has money and Taoism doesn’t.”
  • In recent years, for instance, many retired military veterans have gathered together across the country in protests against the stingy benefits and pensions they receive from the state. Back in the 1980s, they argue, veterans used to be more generously rewarded, relative to the cost of living. Today, even though China is richer, they receive little
  • the fierce economic competition that now characterises life in China. In numerous industries, it has become common practice to try to secure more business by pushing down prices as low as they can possibly go
  • The result of all this ferocious competition is that the profit margin keeps getting slimmer and slimmer, and those who suffer most are ordinary workers, who often see no increase in their salary even as their work hours are extended.
  • Someone reported to me an exchange he had had with one of Shanghai’s ultra-rich, a man who had relied on bribery and other underhand methods to transform himself from a pauper into a millionaire.
  • in the space of just a few years, Alibaba’s Alipay mobile app and Tencent’s WeChat Pay app have been loaded on to practically every smartphone in the country. From big shopping malls to little corner shops – any place where a transaction can be made will have the scannable QR codes for these two payment platforms displayed in a prominent location.
  • This novelty is all the more remarkable given that just 30 years ago, when Chinese people went on business trips, they would worry so much about their money being stolen that they would hide cash in their underpants, the safest place for it.
  • Urbanisation has created a lot of problems, one of them being what happens after farmers move to cities. Local governments have expropriated large swathes of agricultural land to enable an enormous urban expansion program
  • After their land and houses in the countryside are expropriated, farmers “move upstairs” into housing blocks that the local government has provided in compensation. In wealthy counties, some farmers may be awarded up to three or four apartments, in which case they will live in one and rent out the other two or three; others may receive a large cash settlement.
  • how do they adjust to city life? Now disconnected from the form of labour to which they were accustomed, what new jobs are there for them to do? Some drive taxis and some open little shops, but others just loaf around, playing mahjong all day, and others take to gambling and lose everything they have
  • Mao’s monthly salary, for example, was just 404.8 yuan, compared to my parents’ joint income of 120 yuan. There was only a small gap between rich and poor, and social inequalities were limited.
  • Even Chinese beggars have to keep up with the times: sometimes they too have a QR code handy, and they will ask passersby to scan it and use the mobile payment platform to dispense some spare change.
  • How he wished he could be one of those workers, he said, for though their work was hard and their pay was low, they didn’t have to live in a state of such high anxiety. Faced with the prospect of losing everything they have gained, such people find themselves wishing their spectacular career hadn’t happened at all, wishing they could reclaim the past.
  • let me try to capture the changing outlook of three generations of Chinese boys as a way of mapping in simple terms China’s trajectory over the years. If you asked these boys what to look for in life, I think you would hear very different answers. A boy growing up in the Cultural Revolution might well have said: “Revolution and struggle.” A boy growing up in the early 1990s, as economic reforms entered their second decade, might well have said: “Career and love.” Today’s boy might well say: “Money and girls.”
Javier E

The great artificial intelligence duopoly - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...artificial-intelligence-2

AI basic income jobs unemployment automation rivalry

shared by Javier E on 25 Sep 18 - No Cached
  • The AI revolution will have two engines — China and the United States — pushing its progress swiftly forward. It is unlike any previous technological revolution that emerged from a singular cultural setting. Having two engines will further accelerate the pace of technology.
  • WorldPost: In your book, you talk about the “data gap” between these two engines. What do you mean by that? Lee: Data is the raw material on which AI runs. It is like the role of oil in powering an industrial economy. As an AI algorithm is fed more examples of the phenomenon you want the algorithm to understand, it gains greater and greater accuracy. The more faces you show a facial recognition algorithm, the fewer mistakes it will make in recognizing your face
  • All data is not the same, however. China and the United States have different strengths when it comes to data. The gap emerges when you consider the breadth, quality and depth of the data. Breadth means the number of users, the population whose actions are captured in data. Quality means how well-structured and well-labeled the data is. Depth means how many different data points are generated about the activities of each user.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Chinese and American companies are on relatively even footing when it comes to breadth. Though American Internet companies have a smaller domestic user base than China, which has over a billion users on 4G devices, the best American companies can also draw in users from around the globe, bringing their total user base to over a billion.
  • when it comes to depth of data, China has the upper hand. Chinese Internet users channel a much larger portion of their daily activities, transactions and interactions through their smartphones. They use their smartphones for managing their daily lives, from buying groceries at the market to paying their utility bills, booking train or bus tickets and to take out loans, among other things.
  • Weaving together data from mobile payments, public services, financial management and shared mobility gives Chinese companies a deep and more multi-dimensional picture of their users. That allows their AI algorithms to precisely tailor product offerings to each individual. In the current age of AI implementation, this will likely lead to a substantial acceleration and deepening of AI’s impact across China’s economy. That is where the “data gap” appears
  • The radically different business model in China, married to Chinese user habits, creates indigenous branding and monetization strategies as well as an entirely alternative infrastructure for apps and content. It is therefore very difficult, if not impossible, for any American company to try to enter China’s market or vice versa
  • companies in both countries are pursuing their own form of international expansion. The United States uses a “full platform” approach — all Google, all Facebook. Essentially Australia, North America and Europe completely accept the American methodology. That technical empire is likely to continue.
  • The Chinese have realized that the U.S. empire is too difficult to penetrate, so they are looking elsewhere. They are trying, and generally succeeding, in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Those regions and countries have not been a focus of U.S. tech, so their products are not built with the cultures of those countries in mind. And since their demographics are closer to China’s — lower income and lots of people, including youth — the Chinese products are a better fit.
  • The jobs that AI cannot do are those of creators, or what I call “empathetic jobs” in services, which will be the largest category that can absorb those displaced from routine jobs. Many jobs will become available in this sector, from teaching to elderly care and nursing. A great effort must be made not only to increase the number of those jobs and create a career path for them but to increase their social status, which also means increasing the pay of these jobs.
  • Policy-wise, we are seeing three approaches. The Chinese have unleashed entrepreneurs with a utilitarian passion to commercialize technology. The Americans are similarly pro-entrepreneur, but the government takes a laissez-faire attitude and the entrepreneurs carry out more moonshots. And Europe is more consumer-oriented, trying to give ownership and control of data back to the individual.
  • An AI arms race would be a grave mistake. The AI boom is more akin to the spread of electricity in the early Industrial Revolution than nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Those who take the arms-race view are more interested in political posturing than the flourishing of humanity. The value of AI as an omni-use technology rests in its creative, not destructive, potential.
  • In a way, having parallel universes should diminish conflict. They can coexist while each can learn from the other. It is not a zero-sum game of winners and losers.
  • We will see a massive migration from one kind of employment to another, not unlike during the transition from agriculture to manufacturing. It will largely be the lower-wage jobs in routine work that will be eliminated, while the ultra-rich will stand to make a lot of money from AI. Social inequality will thus widen.
  • If you were to draw a map a decade from now, you would see China’s tech zone — built not on ownership but partnerships — stretching across Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Africa and to some extent South America. The U.S. zone would entail North America, Australia and Europe. Over time, the “parallel universes” already extant in the United States and China will grow to cover the whole world.
  • There are also issues related to poorer countries who have relied on either following the old China model of low-wage manufacturing jobs or of India’s call centers. AI will replace those jobs that were created by outsourcing from the West. They will be the first to go in the next 10 years. So, underdeveloped countries will also have to look to jobs for creators and in services.
  • I am opposed to the idea of universal basic income because it provides money both to those who don’t need it as well as those who do. And it doesn’t stimulate people’s desire to work. It puts them into a kind of “useless class” category with the terrible consequence of a resentful class without dignity or status.
  • To reinvigorate people’s desire to work with dignity, some subsidy can help offset the costs of critical needs that only humans can provide. That would be a much better use of the distribution of income than giving it to every person whether they need it or not. A far better idea would be for workers of the future to have an equity share in owning the robots — universal basic capital instead of universal basic income.
krystalxu

Chess in a black box: China's five most powerful people - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics US crisis policy China Communism National Congress Congress

shared by krystalxu on 10 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • The country is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, in a one-party system, making whoever occupies the highest positions in the party among the most powerful.
  • Power isn't just held by the politicians either -- influential businessmen and entrepreneurs, the pioneers of China's economic rise, are also fighting for a seat at the table.
  • the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party on October 18,
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • Tencent's app, WeChat, is currently the largest and most commonly used messaging system in the world, with almost 1 billion users.
  • "He's regarded as being a sort of low-profile, not particularly interlinked or interconnected premier. He's got probably the worst job in China.
  • it's not a sort of political power. It's administrative power," he said.
  • "Power is about initiating, setting frameworks, setting the agenda. Well you can see people doing that, but Li Keqiang is more of an administrator."
  • The company's founder, Ma Huateng, is China's third richest man, according to Forbes, just behind Jack Ma and Dalian Wanda founder Wang Jianlin.
  • Ma, who is also known by his nickname "Pony," founded Tencent, the company which owns WeChat, in 1998 with his university classmates.
  • , Premier Li is number two in China's power structure, but his influence is far from assured.
  • It is those restrictions which make working in the world of China's internet so complex and potentially dangerous.
  • China's Great Firewall is rising higher than ever
  • "One challenge for tech titans like Ma in the coming years is whether they can keep on the good side of the authorities
  • Since then, Wang has grown to be a powerful, feared figure among Chinese officials.
  • Jack Ma is without a doubt one of China's most powerful people and possibly the country's most public face internationally next to President Xi.
  • As a result of Xi and Wang's crackdown, conspicuous spending and flaunting of wealth by officials has shrunk dramatically and as a result, Wang's political capital has continued to rise.
  • Wang's rise could be complicated by his age. He'll be 69 at the upcoming 19th Party Congress, meaning by custom he should retire.
  • he's the flamboyant and personable former English teacher who likes to dance to Michael Jackson tunes.
  • "He's been an essential lieutenant for Xi ... the president would be a weakened force without him at the top table," he said, placing Wang second
  • Ma, whose Chinese name is Ma Yun, is the executive chairman and founder of Alibaba,
  • Ma's peer on the China rich list, has had to abandon a series of major international deals after coming under scrutiny from Beijing.
  • Most people can't see the day after tomorrow."
  • China's president and, more importantly, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, analysts say Xi is already the country's most powerful leader since Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping
  • Xi's power is only set to grow.
  • far more than his predecessors,
  • most recently Chen Min'er who was promoted as party secretary of Chongqing.
  • Guo Wengui, the US-based businessman and perennial thorn in the side of the Chinese Communist Party.
  • and the chess game itself goes on inside a highly impenetrable black box," he said.
Javier E

Sun Yat-sen - Wikipedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Sun_Yat-sen

china Repubic history

shared by Javier E on 24 Feb 18 - No Cached
  • Sun saw the danger of this and returned to China in 1917 to advocate Chinese reunification. In 1921 he started a self-proclaimed military government in Guangzhou and was elected Grand Marshal.[81]
  • By this time Sun had become convinced that the only hope for a unified China lay in a military conquest from his base in the south, followed by a period of political tutelage that would culminate in the transition to democracy. In order to hasten the conquest of China, he began a policy of active cooperation with the Communist Party of China (CPC). Sun and the Soviet Union's Adolph Joffe signed the Sun-Joffe Manifesto in January 1923.[83] Sun received help from the Comintern for his acceptance of communist members into his KMT. Revolutionary and socialist leader Vladimir Lenin praised Sun and the KMT for their ideology and principles. Lenin praised Sun and his attempts at social reformation, and also congratulated him for fighting foreign Imperialism.[84][85][86] Sun also returned the praise, calling him a "great man", and sent his congratulations on the revolution in Russia.[87] With the Soviets' help, Sun was able to develop the military power needed for the Northern Expedition against the military at the north. He established the Whampoa Military Academy near Guangzhou with Chiang Kai-shek as the commandant of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA).[88] Other Whampoa leaders include Wang Jingwei and Hu Hanmin as political instructors. This full collaboration was called the First United Front.
  • In 1924 Sun appointed his brother-in-law T. V. Soong to set up the first Chinese Central bank called the Canton Central Bank.[89] To establish national capitalism and a banking system was a major objective for the KMT.[9
knudsenlu

'This could destroy China': parliament sets Xi Jinping up to rule for life | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...xi-jinping-up-to-rule-for-life

china parliament rule policy change politics crisis

shared by knudsenlu on 12 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, has succeeded in abolishing presidential term limits, a momentous political coup that paves the way for him to stay in power for years to come.
  • “I can now announce that the proposals to amend the constitution of the People’s Republic of China has passed,” an announcer proclaimed, sparking a 20-second burst of applause.
  • Yuan Weixia, a delegate from Hubei province, said she was excited to be part of such a pivotal moment in Chinese history and had no hesitation in backing her leader.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • “This could destroy China and the Chinese people. So I cannot stay silent. I have to let them know that there are people against it, and to do so publicly,” protested Li Datong, a retired newspaper editor who became the face of liberal opposition to Xi’s power grab when he published a combative open letter attacking the move.
  • “The stakes could not be any higher; renewed hostility among political rivals and the repression of political dissent puts China at risk of repeating the tragedies of the Mao era,” Huang added.
  • “If somehow there is a weakness to be found, I think that his enemies will circle and go in for the kill. That’s the greatest danger to him at this point,” Economy said.
  • For those who opposed Xi and his crackdown on human rights and dissent it boded ill, she said. “I think it’s very bleak, the outlook politically.”
Javier E

In China and India, men outnumber women on a massive scale. The consequences are far-reaching. - Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...too-many-men

india china gender gap crisis policy birthrate

shared by Javier E on 21 Apr 18 - No Cached
  • Nothing like this has happened in human history. A combination of cultural preferences, government decree and modern medical technology in the world’s two largest countries has created a gender imbalance on a continental scale. Men outnumber women by 70 million in China and India.
  • Beyond an epidemic of loneliness, the imbalance distorts labor markets, drives up savings rates in China and drives down consumption, artificially inflates certain property values, and parallels increases in violent crime, trafficking or prostitution in a growing number of locations.
  • Those consequences are not confined to China and India, but reach deep into their Asian neighbors and distort the economies of Europe and the Americas, as wel
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • “In the future, there will be millions of men who can’t marry, and that could pose a very big risk to society,
  • Out of China’s population of 1.4 billion, there are nearly 34 million more males than females — the equivalent of almost the entire population of California, or Poland, who will never find wives and only rarely have sex.
  • India, a country that has a deeply held preference for sons and male heirs, has an excess of 37 million males
  • The imbalance creates a surplus of bachelors and exacerbates human trafficking, both for brides and, possibly, prostitution.
  • Village life and mental health. Among men, loneliness and depression are widespread. Villages are emptying out. Men are learning to cook and perform other chores long relegated to women.
  • Housing prices and savings rates. Bachelors are furiously building houses in China to attract wives, and prices are soaring. But otherwise they are not spending, and that in turn fuels China’s huge trade surplus
  • In India, there is the opposite effect: Because brides are scarce, families are under less pressure to save for expensive dowries
  • Human trafficking. Trafficking of brides is on the rise. Foreign women are being recruited and lured to China, effectively creating similar imbalances in China’s neighbors.
  • Public safety. With the increase in men has come a surge in sexual crime in India and concerns about a rise in other crimes in both countries. Harassment of schoolgirls in India has in some towns sparked an effort to push back — but at a cost of restricting them to more protected lives.
oliviaodon

U.S. and China swap hard-line lists of demands at trade talks in Beijing - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...8-b966-bfb0da2dad62_story.html

china US economics

shared by oliviaodon on 05 May 18 - No Cached
  • BEIJING — Two days of inconclusive U.S.-China talks ended here Friday amid signs that the Trump administration is demanding dramatic concessions that challenge core elements of China’s economic system and its ambitions for future development.
  • unclear where the two sides had found common ground
  • Chinese negotiators presented their own hard-line terms for a reshaped trade relationship, demanding the United States drop a complaint over China’s licensing terms for foreign patent holders and immediately designate China a market economy, which would give it easier treatment under routine U.S. trade enforcement actions.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The dueling negotiating menus represented “maximalist” positions that may make eventual agreement more difficult,
  • The United States wants China to take swift action to reduce the $375 billion deficit in goods trade by $200 billion by the end of 2020.
  • The talks ended with no details on next steps. But some analysts predicted tough bargaining in the weeks to come.
  • The Trump administration is making very strong demands upfront, which is likely to offend the Chinese
  • The meetings marked an attempt by the Trump administration to leverage changes from China without sparking a potentially disastrous trade war, after threatening to impose tariffs on up to $150 billion in Chinese imports.
  • China’s Commerce Ministry said it made “solemn representations” to the U.S. delegation over the ZTE case during the talks. 
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