China has developed sophisticated hedging strategies for managing the international petroleum market, maintaining a favorable energy mix, pursuing overseas equity oil production, building a state-owned tanker fleet and strategic petroleum reserve, establishing cross-border pipelines, and diversifying its energy resources and routes. Though it cannot be “secured,” China’s energy security can be “insured” by marrying government concern with commercial initiatives. This book identifies the interrelationship between security and profit that better describes China’s energy-security policy.
Prior to the initiation of economic reforms and trade liberalization 36 years ago, China maintained policies that kept the economy very poor, stagnant, centrally-controlled, vastly inefficient, and relatively isolated from the global economy. Since opening up to foreign trade and investment and implementing free market reforms in 1979, China has been among the world's fastest-growing economies, with real annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaging nearly 10% through 2016. In recent years, China has emerged as a major global economic power. It is now the world's largest economy (on a purchasing power parity basis), manufacturer, merchandise trader, and holder of foreign exchange reserves.The global economic crisis that began in 2008 greatly affected China's economy. China's exports, imports, and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows declined, GDP growth slowed, and millions of Chinese workers reportedly lost their jobs. The Chinese government responded by implementing a $586 billion economic stimulus package and loosening monetary policies to increase bank lending. Such policies enabled China to effectively weather the effects of the sharp global fall in demand for Chinese products, but may have contributed to overcapacity in several industries and increased debt by Chinese firms and local government. China's economy has slowed in recent years. Real GDP growth has slowed in each of the past six years, dropping from 10.6% in 2010 to 6.7% in 2016, and is projected to slow to 5.7% by 2022.The Chinese government has attempted to steer the economy to a "new normal" of slower, but more stable and sustainable, economic growth. Yet, concerns have deepened in recent years over the health of the Chinese economy. On August 11, 2015, the Chinese government announced that the daily reference rate of the renminbi (RMB) would become more "market-oriented." Over the next three days, the RMB depreciated against the dollar and led to charges that China's goal was to boost exports to help stimulate the economy (which some suspect is in worse shape than indicated by official Chinese economic statistics). Concerns over the state of the Chinese economy appear to have often contributed to volatility in global stock indexes in recent years.The ability of China to maintain a rapidly growing economy in the long run will likely depend largely on the ability of the Chinese government to implement comprehensive economic reforms that more quickly hasten China's transition to a free market economy; rebalance the Chinese economy by making consumer demand, rather than exporting and fixed investment, the main engine of economic growth; boost productivity and innovation; address growing income disparities; and enhance environmental protection. The Chinese government has acknowledged that its current economic growth model needs to be altered and has announced several initiatives to address various economic challenges. In November 2013, the Communist Party of China held the Third Plenum of its 18th Party Congress, which outlined a number of broad policy reforms to boost competition and economic efficiency. For example, the communique stated that the market would now play a "decisive" role in allocating resources in the economy. At the same time, however, the communique emphasized the continued important role of the state sector in China's economy. In addition, many foreign firms have complained that the business climate in China has worsened in recent years. Thus, it remains unclear how committed the Chinese government is to implementing new comprehensive economic reforms.China's economic rise has significant implications for the United States and hence is of major interest to Congress. This report provides background on China's economic rise; describes its current economic structure; identifies the challenges China faces to maintain economic growth; and discusses the challenges, opportunities, and implications of China's economic rise.
Profiting from China without getting burned is currently an obsession with the international investment community. The estimated size of the Chinese economy has just been revised upwards, making it the 4th largest in the world behind the US, Japan and Germany, and ahead of the UK but the idea that investing in China is a sure-fire, get-rich-quick investment story is dangerously misleading. * The author of the bestselling Investment Biker, Adventure Capitalist, and Hot Commodities, is providing a book that provides a window into what will soon be the most vital, most lucrative market of our time: China. * While the Chinese economy has had an annual average growth of 9.4 percent since 1978, and despite the ongoing speculation about China's future, its stock market is now emerging from a six-year low. * As the Chinese economy continues to lumber toward a free market system - and as the Chinese government inevitably unpegs its currency and opens its stock market to more foreign investment, Rogers foresees an abundance of opportunities for investors. * In this book, he shows readers not only how to take advantage of China's coming dominance - what, where, how, and when to buy - but how China will impact individual companies, markets, and economies around the world. * "Nobody with blue eyes has ever made money investing in China," the old saying goes. Jim Rogers aims to disprove this adage. Jim Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund and retired at age 37. Since then, he has served as a sometime professor of finance at Columbia University's business school, and as a media commentator. He appears twice a week on Fox Business News, and is the author of three immensely successful books.
Longtime friend and advisor to ordinary investors Burton G. Malkiel, together with a carefully selected team of coauthors, now gives them an investment strategy for accessing the world's fastest-growing economy. Drawing from the author team's on-the-ground experience in China, From Wall Street to the Great Wall details how average investors can tap into the opportunities China affords. Inside, readers will find: A compact tour of five hundred years of Chinese history and culture that offers readers a footing in this unique investing environment, with special emphasis on the Mao years and the rise of the reformist government of Deng Xiaoping, A hype-free, in-depth investigation of the Chinese stock market, estimating its efficiency and highlighting the best bets among Chinese firms and industries, Substantial coverage of the multinational corporations in the United States and elsewhere that stand to benefit from China's explosive growth, Overviews of the markets for commodities, real estate, and art and collectibles, as Malkiel leaves no investment possibility unexamined, Four fully realized and detailed investment strategies for China, drawn from Malkiel's broad experience and proven investment track record. Book jacket.
The rise of China is no doubt one of the most important events in world economic history since the Industrial Revolution. Mainstream economics, especially the institutional theory of economic development based on a dichotomy of extractive vs. inclusive political institutions, is highly inadequate in explaining China's rise. This book argues that only a radical reinterpretation of the history of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the West (as incorrectly portrayed by the institutional theory) can fully explain China's growth miracle and why the determined rise of China is unstoppable despite its current 'backward' financial system and political institutions. Conversely, China's spectacular and rapid transformation from an impoverished agrarian society to a formidable industrial superpower sheds considerable light on the fundamental shortcomings of the institutional theory and mainstream 'blackboard' economic models, and provides more-accurate reevaluations of historical episodes such as Africa's enduring poverty trap despite radical political and economic reforms, Latin America's lost decades and frequent debt crises, 19th century Europe's great escape from the Malthusian trap, and the Industrial Revolution itself.
The importance of foreign investment to China goes well beyond the USD 1.6 trillion in investment received since its opening. The unique analysis in this book shows that the investments, operations, and supply chains of foreign enterprises have accounted for roughly one-third of China’s GDP in recent years, and that foreign enterprises have made numerous additional contributions to China through technological, managerial, business practice, supply chain, and other spillovers. This book shows how China’s leaders managed this process and provides lessons for policy makers interested in building their own economies and tools for companies to demonstrate their contribution to host countries.
By 2015, China may well have the world's largest economy. In The Chinese Century, Oded Shenkar shows how China is restoring its imperial glory by infusing modern technology and market economics into a non-democratic system controlled by the Communist party and bureaucracy. Shenkar shows why China's quest for global success differs radically from predecessors such as Japan, India, and Mexico... why it represents a fundamental restructuring of the global business system... and why it will transform the roles of participants in the global economy. He previews tomorrow's new competitive ground rules, terms of employment, and consumption patterns, and shows how Chinese ascendancy is redrawing political, economic, and social battle lines. Learn why the U.S. is most vulnerable to China's ascent... how China's disregard for intellectual property creates sustainable competitive advantage... how China's growth impacts global businesses and individual purchasing decisions. Above all, Shenkar shows what you must do to survive and prosper in "The Chinese Century."
How China Became Capitalist details the extraordinary, and often unanticipated, journey that China has taken over the past thirty five years in transforming itself from a closed agrarian socialist economy to an indomitable economic force in the international arena. The authors revitalise the debate around the rise of the Chinese economy through the use of primary sources, persuasively arguing that the reforms implemented by the Chinese leaders did not represent a concerted attempt to create a capitalist economy, and that it was 'marginal revolutions' that introduced the market and entrepreneurship back to China. Lessons from the West were guided by the traditional Chinese principle of 'seeking truth from facts'. By turning to capitalism, China re-embraced her own cultural roots. How China Became Capitalist challenges received wisdom about the future of the Chinese economy, warning that while China has enormous potential for further growth, the future is clouded by the government's monopoly of ideas and power. Coase and Wang argue that the development of a market for ideas which has a long and revered tradition in China would be integral in bringing about the Chinese dream of social harmony.
An ethnographic study of China’s new elites and their rarified world of debauchery and corruption: “A must have book for China studies” (Choice). This pioneering investigation reveals the private lives—and the nightlives—of the powerful entrepreneurs and managers redefining success and status in the Chinese city of Chengdu. For more than three years, anthropologist John Osburg accompanied wealthy Chinese businessmen as they courted clients, partners, and government officials. Now he invites readers along on his journey through the highly gendered world of luxury karaoke clubs, saunas, and massage parlors—places designed to cater to the desires of elite men. Within these spaces, a masculinization of business is taking place. Osburg details the complex code of behavior that governs businessmen as they go about banqueting, drinking, gambling, bribing, exchanging gifts, and obtaining sexual services. These intricate social networks play a key role in generating business, performing social status, and reconfiguring gender roles. Yet underneath the façade, many entrepreneurs feel trapped by their obligations and moral compromises in this evolving environment. Osburg examines their deep ambivalence about China’s future and their own complicity in the major issues of post-Mao Chinese society—corruption, inequality, materialism, and loss of trust.
