U.S.–China climate cooperation is the crucial step toward a global climate agreement. Together both nations produce 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet they remain locked in a “suicide pact” -- each demanding that the other take responsibility.
The most important new forces in global business are aggressive, wealthy, and entrepreneurial. But they aren't corporations: they're authoritarian governments.
When the U.S. launched a missile to destroy a dead satellite that would have otherwise re-entered the atmosphere and possibly threatened populated areas with a toxic load of hydrazine fuel, it resurrected fears about the so-called weaponization of space. Carnegie Associate Ashley J. Tellis comments in the Wall Street Journal on the ongoing “space weapon” debate and praises the Bush administration for rejecting a joint Russian-Chinese arms treaty aimed at banning such weapons.
When new estimates of purchasing power parity were released last December, economic understanding of the world suddenly shifted: incomes in many emerging economies are significantly lower than previously thought. Branko Milanovic explains how this revelation will greatly affect our comprehension of poverty, global inequality, and the speed of economic growth.
The biggest economic threat from China isn't its dominance of manufacturing or its artificially pegged currency. It's that the world's soon-to-be third-largest economy is being fueled by financial markets that remain essentially--and dangerously--lawless.
The spectacular run-up in equity prices in China in the past two years has created a classic asset bubble. The likelihood that the stock market will crash in the not-too-distant future has recently increased because of rising inflation at home and a global economic slow-down. The Chinese stock market has already begun to correct – the main stock indexes have fallen 15 per cent from their highs. However, with Chinese equity price levels disturbingly close to those of Japan’s Nikkei in 1989 prior to its meltdown, the Chinese market will have to fall much further to reach reasonable valuations.
Although most of the world sees U.S. behavior under President Bush as "an unmitigated disaster," China has benefited dramatically from declining U.S. influence, meaning Chinese leaders are quite satisfied with U.S.-China relations. Below the top levels of government, Chinese views of America are more ambivilent, falling into three categories: the sophisticated realists, the conservative nationalists, and the cosmopolitan elite.
China’s growth and inflation risks are not trade-related but are instead driven by domestic forces.
Carnegie's William Chandler argues that reforming China’s financial sector can curb China’s greenhouse gas emissions even as work continues on an international treaty. China’s impressive national policies to promote clean and renewable energy have been undermined by unnecessary financial hurdles and bureaucratic struggles that increase financial risks and costs for potential investors.
In recent issues of The National Interest, there have been a series of articles that take China’s rise to both regional and global pre-eminence as a given. But it is worth stepping back to take a sober look at some of the very real challenges China faces—and in particular, how China’s neighbors assess these developments. Sometimes the view from Washington and New York can be a bit overly optimistic.