Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Although China has captured the world's attention because of its impressive growth rates, its economy remains smaller than Japan's. Some analysts argue that the United States has engaged China at the expense of disengaging from Japan. Japanese Ambassador to the United States, Ichiro Fujisaki, offer a perspective on Japan's role in Asia.
By whatever means necessary, China needs to reduce its global trade surplus dramatically -- ideally to zero and below by sometime in 2010. China's exports will most probably continue to grow, even if modestly. Hence, China must put its late-phase World Trade Organisation mechanisms into high gear and open import channels wide, especially for consumer goods.
Carnegie Beijing sponsored and co-hosted a policy debate with the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the Center for Regional Security Studies to address the current internal and external challenges ASEAN countries face and the ASEAN Charter’s implications for alleviating some of these problems and improving regional relations.
On October 12 the Central Committee of the CCP approved “Decisions on Major Issues Concerning the Advancement of Rural Reform and Development”. The proposed legislation would give farmers more control to rent and sell their land. It represents a significant effort by the CCP to curb local corruption, increase food security, as well as reduce the inequality between urban and rural China.
With oil prices tumbling, some experts believe that this is the perfect time for China to reform its oil pricing mechanism, because a higher tax would currently inflict relatively little hardship on consumers. The government should use this rare opportunity to create a pricing system that better reflects the full economic and environmental costs of fuel production and consumption.
Unless Beijing can get its economy going again, the government is likely to face their first sustained wave of protests in decades. Thus far, China has kept labor protests separate from one another, preventing them from developing a common theme or a common leader. But if China's downturn turns into an outright recession, the country could face its first serious threat to the regime.
A close examination of China's economic reform policies in the 1980s and 1990s reveals differences that shed light on motivations for its $586 billion stimulus plan.
Despite the growing global skepticism of Western-style democracy, citizens across Asia decisively reject authoritarian alternatives such as strong-man rule or military rule.
China’s just-announced nearly $600 billion stimulus package is almost certainly overkill for China’s needs—China’s domestic demand expansion this year is too strong to warrant this much money spent any time soon. But the stimulus announcement is just in time to give a needed lesson to the U.S. government about what an effective stimulus package might look like.
The incoming Obama administration faces a variety of challenges and opportunities in China and Asia more broadly. Many in Asia have assessed Barack Obama's presidential victory as a mandate for a more thoughtful, engaging American foreign policy.