Chinese Economy/Development thread (updated regularly)

[cloneman]

China's Innovation Wall
Beijing's Push for Homegrown Technology
China's Innovation Wall | Foreign Affairs
If you want to get to the bottom of indigenous innovation, the Chinese policy so deeply aggravating Western businesses and governments, look at the bottom of your DVD player. Most likely, the machine was made in China. For Beijing’s leaders, that is part of the problem: for every Chinese-made DVD player sold, the Chinese manufacturer must pay a large royalty fee to the European or Japanese companies that patented various components of the unit, such as its optical reader. These foreign firms reap substantial profits, but the Chinese take is extremely small -- and is shrinking further as energy, labor, and commodity prices rise. Policymakers in Beijing, looking to strengthen China’s economy, are no longer satisfied with the country’s position as the world’s manufacturer. Their solution is to break China’s dependence on foreign technology, moving from a model of “made in China” to one of “innovated in China.”

The Chinese phrase for indigenous innovation, zizhu chuangxin, was introduced in a 2006 state-issued report, “Guidelines on National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Science and Technology Development.” The paper contained a curious mix of top-down, state-directed policies alongside bottom-up efforts meant to foster technological innovation. The top-down measures echo China’s old state planning system. They include 20 state-driven megaprojects, including initiatives to develop nanotechnology, biotechnology and new drugs, high-end generic microchips, and aircraft. The bottom-up efforts seem to follow a Silicon Valley model and are centered on university-industry collaboration, small start-ups, and venture capital.

If these guidelines leave the government’s approach to technological innovation somewhat ambiguous, they are clear on ultimate objectives: China will become “an innovative nation in the next 15 years and a world power in science and technology fields by the middle of the twenty-first century.” By 2020, the report states, China should reduce its “degree of dependence on technology from other countries to 30 percent or less” (down from 50 percent today, as measured by the spending on technology imports as a share of the sum of domestic R&D funding plus technology imports). Noting that reliance on other countries--especially the United States and Japan -- is a threat to Chinese national and economic security, the paper calls for China not to purchase any “core technologies in key fields that affect the lifeblood of the national economy and national security,” such as next-generation Internet technologies; high-end, numerically controlled machine tools; and high-resolution earth observation systems.

New Chinese policies prompted by the report have raised the hackles of foreign governments and technology enterprises. In 2009, for example, China’s government, a massive consumer of high-tech products, announced that in order to be a recognized vendor in the government’s procurement catalog, a company would have to demonstrate that its products included indigenous innovation and were free of foreign intellectual property. Yet since R&D is a global, collaborative process, no individual high-tech product is completely independent of technology from outside of China. In April 2010, Beijing ordered those high-tech companies seeking to be listed on its procurement catalog to turn over the encryption codes to their smart cards, Internet routers, and other technology products.
In addition, China’s failure to protect intellectual property rights (IPR) in the Chinese market -- leading to massive theft and piracy -- is constantly in the background. As Senior Director for Greater China at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Jeremie Waterman testified before the International Trade Commission in June, a weak legal environment allows Beijing to “intervene in the market for IP [intellectual property] and help its own companies ‘re-innovate’ competing IPR as a substitute to foreign technologies.”

The U.S. government has raised the issue in public. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, and Trade Representative Ron Kirk have openly denounced indigenous innovation and put it on the agenda for discussion at the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the most important meeting between the two countries, and the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade. U.S. businesses, which typically embrace quiet diplomacy with Beijing, have also publicly voiced their concerns. In a speech in Italy in July, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt said, “I really worry about China. I am not sure that in the end they want any of us to win, or any of us to be successful.” And in a report for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, business consultant James McGregor wrote that the guidelines are a “blueprint for technology theft on a scale the world has never seen before.”

In the face of this uproar, China has made some concessions. In May, Cao Jianlin, a vice minister at the Ministry of Science and Technology, noted that the 2009 procurement policy was an early draft and that future revisions would address concerns over IPR protection. Beijing has also announced that it intends to join the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Government Procurement, a treaty that ensures nondiscriminatory access to government purchases for foreign companies, “as soon as possible.”

The problem for the United States is that these concessions are more tactical than real shifts in underlying policy. China’s leadership is broadly committed to the goals of reducing dependence on foreign technology, producing Chinese intellectual property, and creating Chinese technology champions. Even if China reverses certain policies under U.S. pressure, it will remain dedicated to those goals. U.S. policy is likely to become a game of Whac-a-Mole, beating down one Chinese initiative on indigenous innovation only to see another pop up.

That parts of China’s bureaucracy still advocate raising the country’s technological capabilities through trade-friendly policies, such as providing greater transparency and enforcing IPR-protection regulations, provide some glimmer of hope. They have not forgotten that China’s gradual opening to the world economic system brought with it billions of dollars in foreign investment, access to customers and distribution networks worldwide, and technology transfers from the West and Japan. In addition, many Chinese firms are looking to expand abroad, realizing that their global competitiveness will be severely curtailed if the Chinese market is isolated as a result of indigenous innovation initiatives. The challenge for the United States will be to identify and support these kinds of actors as they push against mercantilist policies.

Disputes over indigenous innovation may eventually cast a pall over the broader Sino-U.S. relationship. It is not hard to imagine battles over intellectual property and market share derailing collaborative efforts to address climate change, energy security, or global public health. If both sides fail to develop some common understandings of technology development and trade, the next decade is bound to be one of conflict and competition between them.

 

[cloneman]

Is China prepared for the next science and technology revolution in industry?

 

[ThatDamnGood]

f both sides fail to develop some common understandings of technology development and trade, the next decade is bound to be one of conflict and competition between them.

The US is insolvent. Next decade? I don't think it will look like anything it was in say 2005 in say 2015.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/why-did-17-million-students-go-to-college/27634

 

[cloneman]

The US is insolvent. Next decade? I don't think it will look like anything it was in say 2005 in say 2015.

Why Did 17 Million Students Go to College? - Innovations - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The artical above is to show the pepole that China will focuse more on innovation in the next decades,its not to compare China and the US.And in the next ten years,clean energy and bilogical related industries will play the central role in the next wave of industial revolution.As far as I know China have prepared the techs to uppdate its industry.

 

[ThatDamnGood]

The artical above is to show the pepole that China will focuse more on innovation in the next decades,its not to compare China and the US.And in the next ten years,clean energy and bilogical related industries will play the central role in the next wave of industial revolution.As far as I know China have prepared the techs to uppdate its industry.

"Disputes over indigenous innovation may eventually cast a pall over the broader Sino-U.S. relationship. It is not hard to imagine battles over intellectual property and market share derailing collaborative efforts to address climate change, energy security, or global public health. If both sides fail to develop some common understandings of technology development and trade, the next decade is bound to be one of conflict and competition between them. "

They are insolvent, what make the author think the pace of research in the US will continue as before?

 

[Martian2]

The Hoover Dam on the Colorado River is an American icon. It generates a massive 4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. Astonishingly, China's Three Gorges Dam produces the electricity of 21 Hoover Dams at 84.7 billion kilowatt-hours.

China's Three Gorges Dam is "the world's largest electricity-generating plant of any kind."

"One of the nation's best-known engineering marvels, the Hoover Dam"

China fills Three Gorges Dam to capacity - CNN

"China fills Three Gorges Dam to capacity
October 26, 2010|By the CNN Wire Staff

China's Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest water project, was fully filled Tuesday, state media said.

The water level hit the dam's design capacity of 175 meters (574 feet) at 9 a.m. Tuesday, said the corporation that developed the dam.

The 175-meter milestone will "enable the project to fulfill its functions of flood control, power generation, navigation and water diversion to the full," said Cao Guangjing, chairman of the China Three Gorges Corporation.

When the dam in central China reaches full generating capacity next year, it will produce 84.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, the Xinhua news agency said. That's enough to meet Beijing's needs for a year.

By comparison, the United States' Hoover Dam produces about 4 billion kilowatt-hours each year, enough to serve 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona, and California.

The 2,309-meter-wide (1.4 mile-wide) Three Gorges project, built in the upper-middle reaches of China's longest river, began storing water in 2003. Water is diverted to the parched farmlands and cities of China's north.

The Yangtze River has been responsible for some of the worst floods on record, with hundreds of thousands of people killed over the past century alone. The Three Gorges Dam relieves 15 million people and 1.5 million hectares of farmland in the Jianghan Plain from the threat of flood, the developer says.

Critics say the dam worsens pollution by trapping sewage and industrial waste. They also warn that an accident or natural disaster could create a catastrophe in the densely populated region. Smaller dams could have met China's needs, critics say.

An estimated 1.2 million people had to move to make way for the Three Gorges, which inundated 632 square kilometers (244 square miles) of land. Historians decried the loss of centuries of relics and antiquities, and the loss of a way of life for myriad rural residents in hundreds of villages, towns and cities."

[Note: My apology to "dezi." I didn't realize that you had already posted the Three Gorges Dam article. I'll be more careful next time.]

 

[Martian2]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/technolo...rss&emc=rss

"Chinese Supercomputer Wrests Title From U.S.
By ASHLEE VANCE
Published: October 28, 2010

A Chinese scientific research center has built the fastest supercomputer ever made, replacing the United States as maker of the swiftest machine, and giving China bragging rights as a technology superpower.

The Tianhe-1A computer in Tianjin, China, links thousands upon thousands of chips.

The computer, known as Tianhe-1A, has 1.4 times the horsepower of the current top computer, which is at a national laboratory in Tennessee, as measured by the standard test used to gauge how well the systems handle mathematical calculations, said Jack Dongarra, a University of Tennessee computer scientist who maintains the official supercomputer rankings.

Although the official list of the top 500 fastest machines, which comes out every six months, is not due to be completed by Mr. Dongarra until next week, he said the Chinese computer “blows away the existing No. 1 machine.” He added, “We don’t close the books until Nov. 1, but I would say it is unlikely we will see a system that is faster.”

Officials from the Chinese research center, the National University of Defense Technology, are expected to reveal the computer’s performance on Thursday at a conference in Beijing. The center says it is “under the dual supervision of the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Education.”

The race to build the fastest supercomputer has become a source of national pride as these machines are valued for their ability to solve problems critical to national interests in areas like defense, energy, finance and science. Supercomputing technology also finds its way into mainstream business; oil and gas companies use it to find reservoirs and Wall Street traders use it for superquick automated trades. Procter & Gamble even uses supercomputers to make sure that Pringles go into cans without breaking.

And typically, research centers with large supercomputers are magnets for top scientific talent, adding significance to the presence of the machines well beyond just cranking through calculations.

Over the last decade, the Chinese have steadily inched up in the rankings of supercomputers. Tianhe-1A stands as the culmination of billions of dollars in investment and scientific development, as China has gone from a computing afterthought to a world technology superpower.

“What is scary about this is that the U.S. dominance in high-performance computing is at risk,” said Wu-chun Feng, a supercomputing expert and professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. “One could argue that this hits the foundation of our economic future.”

Modern supercomputers are built by combining thousands of small computer servers and using software to turn them into a single entity. In that sense, any organization with enough money and expertise can buy what amount to off-the-shelf components and create a fast machine.

The Chinese system follows that model by linking thousands upon thousands of chips made by the American companies Intel and Nvidia. But the secret sauce behind the system — and the technological achievement — is the interconnect, or networking technology, developed by Chinese researchers that shuttles data back and forth across the smaller computers at breakneck rates, Mr. Dongarra said.

“That technology was built by them,” Mr. Dongarra said. “They are taking supercomputing very seriously and making a deep commitment.”

The Chinese interconnect can handle data at about twice the speed of a common interconnect called InfiniBand used in many supercomputers.

For decades, the United States has developed most of the underlying technology that goes into the massive supercomputers and has built the largest, fastest machines at research laboratories and universities. Some of the top systems simulate the effects of nuclear weapons, while others predict the weather and aid in energy research.

In 2002, the United States lost its crown as supercomputing kingpin for the first time in stunning fashion when Japan unveiled a machine with more horsepower than the top 20 American computers combined. The United States government responded in kind, forming groups to plot a comeback and pouring money into supercomputing projects. The United States regained its leadership status in 2004, and has kept it, until now.

At the computing conference on Thursday in China, the researchers will discuss how they are using the new system for scientific research in fields like astrophysics and bio-molecular modeling. Tianhe-1A, which is housed in a building at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, can perform mathematical operations about 29 million times faster than one of the earliest supercomputers, built in 1976.

For the record, it performs 2.5 times 10 to the 15th power mathematical operations per second.

Mr. Dongarra said a long-running Chinese project to build chips to rival those from Intel and others remained under way and looked promising. “It’s not quite there yet, but it will be in a year or two,” he said.

He also said that in November, when the list comes out, he expected a second Chinese computer to be in the top five, culminating years of investment.

“The Japanese came out of nowhere and really caught people off guard,” Mr. Feng said. “With China, you could see this one coming.”

Steven J. Wallach, a well-known computer designer, played down the importance of taking the top spot on the supercomputer rankings.

“It’s interesting, but it’s like getting to the four-minute mile,” Mr. Wallach said. “The world didn’t stop. This is just a snapshot in time.”

The research labs often spend weeks tuning their systems to perform well on the standard horsepower test. But just because a system can hammer through trillions of calculations per second does not mean it will do well on the specialized jobs that researchers want to use it for, Mr. Wallach added.

The United States has plans in place to make much faster machines out of proprietary components and to advance the software used by these systems so that they are easy for researchers to use. But those computers remain years away, and for now, China is king.

“They want to show they are No. 1 in the world, no matter what it is,” Mr. Wallach said. 'I don’t blame them.'”

[Note: "ao333" has posted a thread on this article. However, I wanted to highlight the paragraphs that I thought were the most important.]

 

[oct605032048]

好吧 我老土了
here‘s the data of China and world's iron and steel production, from Mr. Notheal's blog.

http://hi.baidu.com/notheal/blog/item/2dd20f245718623cc995594b.html

 

[中国万岁-ProsperThroughCo-]

I am busy with exams these days, so I am not often online. But here are some articles from FT and one from SCMP.

China has every right to cheat, but shouldn’t

By David Pilling
Published: October 27 2010 20:35 | Last updated: October 27 2010 20:35
Everybody from Lou Dobbs to Paul Krugman is beating up on China. China, we are told, is cheating. It is cheating by making it harder for western companies to invest there and for stealing their technology when they do. It is cheating by directing cheap credit to favoured industries. It is cheating by allowing companies that operate in China to pay their workers less and pollute more. Above all, it is cheating by manipulating its currency, suppressing the value of the renminbi to make its exports super-competitive.

One possible response to this line of argument is: why shouldn’t China cheat? After all, everybody else did.

Britain’s mercantilist growth model dates back to Henry VII who, during his childhood in Burgundy, noticed that the region had become wealthy by making textiles with wool imported from England. His observation, or so the story goes, was a catalyst for what became an elaborate system of protectionism. London imposed duties on wool leaving the country and granted tax relief and temporary monopolies to domestic woollen manufacturers.

In 1651, the first comprehensive Navigation Act banned foreign ships from transporting goods from outside Europe to England. Later versions required that all shipments to or from the colonies passed through British ports. Neither were those colonies exactly testimony to fair play. Britain used gunboats, opium and other trickery in its pursuit of wealth.

Both the US and then Japan followed suit. George Washington, America’s first president, favoured protectionism to help infant industries gain a foothold, declaring he would consume no ale or cheese “but such as is made in America”. From the civil war until the first world war, by which time US economic success was sealed, average tariffs never fell below 40 per cent, according to Clyde Prestowitz, a former US trade representative. Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president, said: “Thank God I am not a free trader.”

In more recent decades, Japan – and then South Korea and Taiwan – pursued variants of the same catch-up strategy. Japan had tried the more brutish British method of marauding around the region in pursuit of an emp ire. After the war, Japan, like the US before it, begged, borrowed and occasionally stole technology from abroad. It offered cheap loans to favoured industries, suppressed the value of the yen and implemented non-tariff barriers of exquisite ingenuity. Who could forget the unique qualities of Japanese snow, a happy quirk of nature that blocked the import of foreign skis?

Mr Prestowitz, in The Betrayal of American Prosperity, argues that Britain’s naive faith in free markets allowed a mercantilist America to overtake it. Likewise, he criticises the US for permitting first Japan – and now China – to do the same. But the argument can just as easily be turned on its head. What was good enough for those countries ought, surely, to be good enough for China.

Japan did eventually run into the sort of trade controversy now being felt by China. In 1985, rich nations forced it to revalue the yen. But by then, Japan was already wealthy. That points to the first of two reasons China is finding it harder to game the system – its sheer size. China’s ability to play the role of underdog is rapidly wearing thin. Even though it remains a moderately poor country – on a par with Angola in nominal per capita terms – China’s size makes it impossible to hide. In development terms, it has been found out 20 years earlier than Japan.

China’s second problem is that the international rules-based system upheld by the World Trade Organisation is more developed than when other countries were catching up. China could never get away with the 40 per cent tariff maintained by America. That leaves Beijing with fewer tools to engineer its take-off. Among those it has are capital controls and currency manipulation. Post-WTO, an undervalued currency is a tariff barrier by other means.

If history is on China’s side, the future is not. The world simply cannot absorb enough exports to enable China to game the free trade system indefinitely. This is a physical – rather than a moral – constraint on its growth strategy.

Therein, paradoxically, lies a route out of the impasse. Beijing itself may be nudging towards the conclusion that it is no longer in its own interest to manipulate the system – at least not to the same extent. Note Beijing’s surprising receptiveness to Washington’s idea of imposing numerical targets on trade surpluses.

To continue along the current path risks bringing down the free trade system that has served China so well. It could force a US with high unemployment into protectionism. Fortunately for China, it has 1.3bn customers ready – if not yet sufficiently able – to take up the slack. A steady revaluation of the renminbi would make them gradually richer. Beijing may think – with some justification – that it has every right to continue cheating. But it may still decide that, for its own good, it should stop.

India and China meet to resolve differences

By James Lamont in New Delhi and Geoff Dyer in Beijing
Published: October 29 2010 16:13 | Last updated: October 29 2010 16:13
Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, has raised "difficult questions" over border disputes and trade imbalances with his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the Association of East Asian Nations summit in Hanoi.

In a sign of greater stridency towards neighbouring China, Mr Singh aired his concerns with Wen Jiabao over a hefty trade surplus in China's favour and the sovereignty of India’s Himalayan region.

He appealed to the Chinese leader for both sides to show more sensitivity to each other’s “core issues” while inviting him to Delhi at a time of feverish misgivings among senior politicians and India's security community about China's role in south Asia .

“The prime minister raised the issue of all [our] difficult questions and [stressed the importance of] showing sensitivity to each other,” said Shivshankar Menon, India’s national security advisor and a close aide of Mr Singh's.

He said that Mr Wen was “very conscious of the trade imbalance and of the need to do something” and had outlined steps that Beijing was taking to redress the balance.

After a 45-minute meeting on Friday, Mr Wen confirmed that he would visit the Indian capital for the first time in five years before the end of year. He joins a string of world leaders including Barack Obama, the US president, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and Dmitri Medvedev, Russia's president, beating a path to one of the world's fastest growing large economies in the next two months.

The Chinese premier emphasised his desire to avoid conflict with the world's largest democracy, saying there was “enough space in the world” for both rising powers of India and China to realise their development aspirations.

Before Mr Wen’s arrival in Delhi, Indian and Chinese officials will hold the 14th round of deadlocked talks to resolve a simmering dispute on borders in Arunachal Pradesh, India’s northeastern state, and Kashmir.

The relationship across the Himalayas is guarded in spite of a flourishing $60bn bilateral trade .

New Delhi is troubled by what it describes as China’s greater assertiveness in the region. One irritant is a policy of issuing visas to residents of India's northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, not in their passports, but on separate pieces of paper. New Delhi views this as tacitly questioning the disputed territory of Kashmir’s status within India. Others are China's growing maritime might and the use of Chinese labour for infrastructure projects in India.

China, meanwhile, is highly sensitive about India's harbouring of the Tibetan community in exile, and its leader, the Dalai Lama.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, struck a similarly robust yet conciliatory note with China’s leadership on Thursday.

“There are some in both countries who believe that China’s interests and ours are fundamentally at odds…But that is not our view,” she said on a stop-over in Hawaii at the start of a two-week trip to Asia.

Earlier this week, senior US government officials had said India, the world’s largest democracy, needed to have a greater role in Asia. They viewed Mr Singh’s visit to Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam this week as a step towards a more dynamic engagement with the region.

Mrs Clinton added: “There are many in China who still believe that the US is bent on containing China and I would simply point out that since the beginning of our diplomatic relations, China has experienced breathtaking growth and development,”

The US and China have been involved in a number of sharp exchanges in recent months, including over the territorial disputes over two island groups in the South China Sea which are claimed by China and several other nations.

More recently, the US has put heavy pressure on China to accelerate the appreciation of the Chinese currency.

This book review is probably irrelevant for this thread, but it was linked together with the above China-India article, so I thought why not.

India v China

Review by David Pilling
Published: October 30 2010 01:19 | Last updated: October 30 2010 01:19
Superpower?: The Amazing Race Between China’s Hare and India’s Tortoise, by Raghav Bahl, Portfolio Penguin, RRP£20, 242 pages
For thousands of years, China and India had surprisingly little contact. Separated along a 3,500km border by the mighty Himalayas, they stared in opposite directions. These days they tend to be mentioned in the same breath – often to their mutual annoyance – united in the west’s perception by their blistering economic growth and massive populations.
Together they constitute well over one-third of humanity. Yet mutual ignorance, not to say mistrust, has persisted. Until 2002, there was not a single direct flight between them.

Even today, with trade skyrocketing, surprisingly few Indian businessmen and academics have been to China. For their part, Chinese technocrats are prone to scoff at any comparison, pointing to India’s shambolic infrastructure and shocking levels of poverty.

Despite this – or perhaps because of it – a mini-cottage industry has sprung up comparing the two development models. A sub-genre, in which Raghav Bahl’s book belongs, pushes the idea that, although India appears to be far behind, its democratic and legal traditions and its strong entrepreneurial foundation make its model more robust, giving it a chance of overhauling China in the long run.

Bahl’s arguments – steeped in wishful thinking, though not entirely implausible – are not new. China embraced the market in 1978, gaining a 13-year head start on India. Its investment-led growth model has paid early and spectacular dividends. It has grown at nearly 10 per cent a year for 30 years, and its economy is now four times the size of India’s.

But China is vulnerable, argues Bahl. Its lack of democracy leaves it open to social strife. If the economy comes off the rails – distinctly possible, he says, given massive overinvestment – the entire system could lurch into crisis.

On the flip side, runs the argument, India has taken much longer to get going. It could not simply bulldoze its way to modernity like the Chinese since it was constrained by the law, democracy and a market-driven requirement for a return on capital. But these apparent weaknesses could yet pay dividends.

Democratic shock absorbers have performed admirably in times of want, and will continue to do so as living standards improve. India is catching up. This year it will grow at 8.5 per cent, within tantalising reach of China’s double digits.

Furthermore, India’s more chaotic development has produced savvier entrepreneurs with more chance of creating global brands. Its economy is more balanced than China’s, with consumption playing a bigger role and exports a smaller one.

Best of all, demography will now begin to work in India’s favour. By 2020 – partly thanks to a one-child policy that Bahl says could never have been imposed in India – China will be in the throes of ageing. India’s dependency ratio is still declining and 136m people will join the workforce in the next 10 years.

Bahl tries to bring his catch-up theme to life with the fable of the plodding tortoise beating the flashy hare. But the metaphor is stretched to ridiculous extremes. Thus Indians’ proficiency in English is rendered: “A confident tortoise, humming a popular English tune rather loudly, breezed past a somewhat disarrayed hare who couldn’t figure out the lyrics of the song.”

Bahl seizes on all that is good about India and all that is bad about China. There is not much evidence of original research and every indication that he has selectively culled newspaper clippings and brokerage reports to back his premise. He is not blind to China’s strengths, nor to India’s problems of corruption, poverty and caste-bound social relations, but he tends to gloss these over.

For example, commenting on personal freedoms in India – ranked 41st against China’s ranking at 91, according to a favoured index – he concludes that India is “giving a much better deal to people”.

But that assumes people’s wants and needs can be satisfied with the occasional opportunity to vote and theoretical access to a lumbering legal system.

Indians must, it seems, sup on the country’s noble ideals. If they want to fill their stomachs, stay healthy or learn to read, they have a statistically better chance of doing so in China, for all its deep inequalities and environmental catastrophes.

For an author who accuses westerners of “just not getting India”, Bahl also too readily trades in China clichés. Equally, his enthusiasm for India sometimes leads him into breathless hyperbole: “Fancy cars, mobile phones and private airlines took to the skies,” he swoons. Indian flying cars and mobile phones must, indeed, be wondrous to behold.

As the book argues, it is possible – though by no means assured – that India will be growing faster than China within a few years. But given how far India is behind, it would take decades of vastly superior growth for it to catch up.

“There is only one risk for India, and that’s the lack of confidence that India’s own leaders have in its ability and destiny,” Bahl writes. But equally risky is Indian complacency, particularly when it still has so much to prove.

I think the author is too naive on some arguments. Downplaying Chinese entrepreneurs and saying that demographics will be a problem for China.

The Chinese government can lift its one-child policy quicker than it took to implement it. I think it is wiser to first build up the infrastructure (railway, subway, highway etc) and housing, and perhaps build more housing and infrastructure than actually needed, and then let the population rise. Think of how much more pollution/traffic problems/housing problems there would have today is China did not implement the one-child policy! Even today, these problems are evident.

Factory set to become apple of Sichuan's eye

Jane Cai in Chengdu
Oct 30, 2010

Amid the autumn chill and drizzle in Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, hundreds of workers in their early 20s listen politely while their bosses make a speech about their new factory - soon to be producing Apple iPhones and iPads.

The employees of Hongfujin Precision Electronics (Chengdu), a subsidiary of Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group, listened to the prolonged speeches patiently and applaud when needed.

Some are clearly happy that their employer has moved production from Shenzhen to Sichuan.

"Sichuan is my hometown. I'm glad the workplace is closer to home," said a woman who only identified herself as Xiaomei.

Foxconn made headlines after 13 workers committed suicide at its Shenzhen plants this year. While the company cited personal reasons behind the suicides, media reports blamed long working hours and the monotonous lifestyle of workers who live in factory dormitories.

When asked if she is happy with her employer, Xiaomei looked as if the question had never occurred to her.

She then diverted the question to a colleague who replied: "Hmm, Yes, I am. I can eat hometown spicy cuisine in the canteen now."

Sichuan is a key source of labour for the mainland's coastal manufacturing hubs. After spending years working in hot southern cities like Shenzhen, the move to their home province was welcomed by many colleagues, according to the two workers.

The move had also been welcomed by inland governments including Sichuan and Henan, which competed to offer the best policies. Boosting the economic growth of their provinces is crucial for officials to obtain promotion.

But with factories moving inland to take advantage of lower costs, there is concern these provinces will suffer the pollution and social dislocation problems seen in the coastal cities.

To inland provinces which have lagged behind China's economic development, the arrival of more manufacturers means increased foreign direct investment, higher foreign trade and larger gross domestic product, all key indicators in determining the performance of local officials.

Such electronics makers are not welcome in Taiwan because of their potential to pollute the environment.

The low tax Foxconn pays compared to the amount of land it occupies has made the company lose favour with the Shenzhen government. A report this month, based on interviews with more than 1,700 workers conducted by 20 universities in Hong Kong, the mainland and Taiwan, criticised its long working hours, a "militaristic" work culture and low wages.

In Henan and Sichuan, both of which have attracted Foxconn factories to their provinces recently, officials are eager to tell stories of how they provided all facilities and support at "miracle speed".

The Zhengzhou plant in Henan was built with investment of US$298 million and occupies more than 470 hectares of land. It started producing iPhones in August and is expected to hire 180,000 people. Its output is expected to at least double Henan's exports.

The Zhengzhou government fast-tracked approval for the factory in 16 days, including clearances for fiscal subsidies and preferential corporate income tax rates. The Henan provincial government also asked 25,000 students in vocational schools to take internships in the company to ensure a plentiful workforce.

Investment for the first phase of Foxconn's Chengdu plant stands at US$299 million. The total is likely to reach US$2 billion when the second and third stages of construction are complete.

It took two months from setting up the production lines to the first batch of iPad devices leaving the factory and heading for the United States.

That speed was achieved largely thanks to support from the Chengdu government, Foxconn told Sichuan media. Chengdu increased cargo flights to Hong Kong and set aside the biggest block of land in its tariff-free zone for the company to help cut costs.

"Chengdu is attracting more and more global high-end electronic information companies because it is a gateway to the western provinces and costs are lower than coastal cities," said the Chengdu High and New Technology District government in a newsletter.

The administration cited big names including Intel, Motorola, Siemens and Dell as being among investors in the city.

It said that in the first half of this year, the district made remarkable improvement in attracting investment. Contracted foreign investment was US$240 million, an increase of 356 per cent from the corresponding period a year earlier.

Tang Jiqiang, head of the district's development and planning bureau, expects positive changes will take place in Foxconn as it moves to Chengdu.

"Staff dormitories are outside the plant, and its management will change from a militaristic style to community-style," Tang said.

"Chengdu's mild climate will make it easier for people to enjoy leisure, thus striking a balance between the quick speed of work and the slow tempo of life," he said.

Whether this idyllic future plays out remains to seen.

In the eyes of some who have returned from studying overseas or from working in bigger cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, the pace of life in Chengdu, a place known for its beautiful scenery, pandas, people's love for life, hot pot dining and mahjong games has already quickened in the economic frenzy.

Zhang Yijie, 28, returned from Shanghai to seek "a more comfortable life" in her hometown in 2008.

"Chengdu is not as peaceful as before. When I meet friends, money is a dominant topic. They make comparisons about the cars they own to the brands they wear, how much they earn and how wealthy their families are," she said.

"Life is not simple now."

Very pleased to see how quickly this Foxconn factory started up in Chengdu. This is one step closer for the inland provinces to catch-up with the coastal ones. My home province of Guangdong has benefitted enormously from the last decades, I now hope inland China can benefited as well.

Probably the development of inland China will be smoother because we can learn from our mistakes, technology improvement and the fact that China is already richer today.

 

[中国万岁-ProsperThroughCo-]

China plans manned space station by 2020

By Kathrin Hille in Beijing
Published: October 31 2010 20:28 | Last updated: October 31 2010 20:28
China has hailed its latest success in space as Chang’e 2, the country’s second lunar probe, successfully sent back high-resolution pictures that are going to be used to plan the country’s first unmanned moon landing in 2013.

But the officials in charge of Beijing’s space programme have set their sights much further than that. They announced last week that by 2020, China should have its own manned space station.

If it succeeds, it will prove itself to be only the third country, following the US and Russia, capable of building a space station.

Eric Hagt, head of the China programme at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, said China’s aim was to claim “a stake as a nation with full rights to explore and exploit deep space”. He added: “The Chinese have big space ambitions for many reasons – prestige, domestic political legitimacy, and scientific and technological prowess.”

However, this is fuelling concerns in the west. “The US feels like China maybe is taking over its leading role in space,” said Mr Hagt. While analysts say China’s programme is not designed to take over what Nasa, the US space agency, does comprehensively, China has pulled ahead in certain areas, such as the development of small satellites.

China is building microsatellites that can “sneak up” to enemy satellites to spy on them or act as “bodyguards” of other Chinese ones – capabilities which have great military significance.

Another Chinese strength is the ability to get up to three different payloads on one satellite – a technology that makes launching satellites much cheaper.

These strengths make China’s space programme cheaper and more commercially viable than that of the US – just as some American space programmes have been called into question because of a lack of funding.

“Our space products are becoming ever more popular in third-world countries,” said Jin Yongde, professor-emeritus at the School of Astronautics at Harbin Institute of Technology. “We export communications satellites to Venezuela and Pakistan already.”

But what western observers care more about is what China will use its growing space capabilities for. Chinese analysts say the country’s long-term ambition is to build a space port on the moon to facilitate missions farther out into space.

Beijing also aims to exploit lunar resources such as helium, which could help solve the planet’s energy needs for generations ahead.

But as with other countries’ space programmes, at least part of China’s efforts is aimed at military use.

“China is developing the ability to attack an adversary’s space assets, accelerating the militarisation of space,” the Pentagon said in its latest annual report on China’s military power.

Mr Jin is clearly captured by the poetic side of the Chang’e missions – named after a legendary goddess of the moon.

However, when it comes to defining the tasks, he gets very down to earth. “[Chang’e must] accurately map the orbits of all satellites and spacecraft between here and the moon, so when there is someone hostile towards China, we can destroy or damage them or interfere with their communication,” he said.

A number of countries, including Japan and India, are just seeking to reach the moon, half a century after the Soviet Union first did so during the cold war.

 

[Brotherhood]

Assets of China's overseas enterprises exceed 1 trillion USD - People's Daily Online November 01, 2010

As of the end of 2009, China's 12,000 domestic investors had set up 13,000 outbound investment enterprises in foreign countries or regions, distributed in 177 countries and regions worldwide, said Chen Jian, China's vice commerce minister in a press conference on Monday.

The assets of these outbound investment enterprises exceeded 1 trillion U.S. dollars and the net volume of outbound direct investment amounted to nearly 245.8 billion U.S. dollars, ranking the 15th in the world and third among developing economies after China's Hong Kong and Russia, China News Service reported.

The characteristics of China's outbound investment and cooperation lie in wide areas, diverse ways, increasing level and rapid growth, Chen summarized. The investment through mergers and acquisitions in 2009 accounted for 34 percent of the total and the international competitiveness of these enterprises has seen a sharp increase.

While he also stressed that although China saw a rapid development in outbound investment and cooperation in recent years, it is still in an elementary stage.

As of the end of 2009, the stock of China's outbound investment only accounted for 1.3 percent of the world's total. The scale of investment is far from that of the Western developed countries, enterprises of which take over the high-end industries, while most of Chinese-funded ones take over the middle and low industries.

Due to a lack of international experience, management talents and low market share, there is a large gap between Chinese enterprises and the multinational companies.

By Liang Jun, People's Daily Online

 

[Brotherhood]

Asia's largest supercomputer production base established in Tianjin - People's Daily Online November 01, 2010

The Specialty Association of Mathematical and Scientific Software (SAMSS), the Research and Development Center for Parallel Software, and the State Key Laboratory of Computer Science jointly published the list of the Top 10 High-Performance Computers of China on Oct. 28.

On the list, the "Tianhe-1" supercomputer in Tianjin and the product series developed and produced by the Dawning Computer Base in Tianjin ranked at the top in calculation speed and in market share, respectively. After the list was released, Tianjin immediately attracted the attention of many computer industry insiders.

On the top-10 list published by authoritative organizations, the technically upgraded "Tianhe-1" supercomputer jointly developed by the National University of Defense Technology and the Tianjin Binhai New Area, ranked at the top for its peak speed of 4.7 petaflops and sustained speed of 2.5 petaflops. Its peak and sustained speeds are both faster than the published records of the world’s supercomputers.

Currently, the "Tianhe-1" has been put into operation at the National Super Computing Center in the Tianjin Bainhai New Area.

Thirty-four high-performance computers developed and produced in the Dawning Computer Base also ranked in the top 100 of the list, indicating that the base's share in China's high-performance computer market has exceeded 30 percent. Among the 34 computers, the Nebula, China's first supercomputer capable of sustained computing of more than 1 petaflop, ranked second on the list with a sustained speed of nearly 1.3 petaflops. Furthermore, four Dawning series supercomputers ranked in the top-10 of the list.

The Dawning Computer Base started construction in Tianjin in July 2006. The industrial base covers an area of more than 4 hectares and can produce 100,000 servers a year after the first phase of the construction project was finished. At present, the second phase of the project has been partly finished. In the following two years, the base will be able to produce 500,000 PC servers and 2,000 high-performance computers a year and will become the largest production base of high-performance computers in Asia.

Because the Tianhe-1 has been put into use in Tianjin and the Dawning Computer Base will soon evolve into the largest production base of its kind in Asia, the city has decided to include the promotion of supercomputing applications in its 12th Five-Year Plan.

During the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-1015), the Tianjin Binhai New Area will provide high-performance computing support to strategic emerging industries for more technological innovations and attach equal importance to high-tech public services, the development of the information industry, and the training of information technology specialists

By People's Daily Online

 

[Super Falcon]

Chinese economy is a flying high and handsome since last ten years time and it wil not have any end till the world ends INSHAHALLAH

 

[Brotherhood]

Powered by domestic demand, economy moves to fast lane - People's Daily Online November 02, 2010

Industrial production expanded at the fastest pace in six months in October, indicating the world's second largest economy has weathered the global slowdown much better than others, powered largely by rising domestic demand and infrastructural investment.

A purchasing managers' index released by China's logistics federation rose to 54.7 percent from 53.8 percent in September, with input prices climbing the most in six months.

The HSBC Holdings Plc put China's October PMI index even at 54.8 percent, telling China's economy is powering ahead with full steam. Most analysts have estimated that the country may secure growth of 10 percent for 2010 and at least 9 percent next year.

"Economic activities remained strong, while inflation pressures continued to mount," The Bloomberg quoted Liu Li-Gang, a Hong Kong- based economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd as saying yesterday. "Inflation is far from peaking, which could invite another interest-rate hike by December."

The Shanghai Composite Index closed 2.5 percent higher Monday, after climbing 12 percent last month as the best global performer.

China's economic growth quickened pace in the third quarter from the second, the People's Bank of China said earlier in a statement.

Inflows of money from abroad are complicating management of the economy after a record expansion in credit in 2009 that added to asset-bubble risks. Inflation accelerated to 3.6 percent in September, the fastest pace in 23 months, and property prices have made record gains this year.

It is widely estimated that inflation might increase to nearly 4 percent in October. The National Bureau of Statistics is expected to release the official figures next week.

China's central bank raised interest rates by a quarter of a full percentage point on October 19, the first time in about three year. It severed the yuan's peg to the US dollar on June 19, letting the Chinese currency gain more than 2 percent since June.

By People's Daily Online

 

[Speeder 2]

Global Leader in Patent Filings ??? Soon ALSO China

06 October 2010


Having passed Germany (exports), Japan (gross domestic product) and the United States (auto sales) over the past year, China is now poised to lead the world in yet another category: patent application filings.

A new study released this week by Thomson Reuters says that by 2011 China will likely pass the United States and Japan in new patent applications.

With research and development spending rising here, and Beijing trying to encourage innovation, patent application filings in China are soaring.

In 2009, China filed about 403,000 patent applications, ranking third , behind Japan which led the world with 545,529, and the United States which had 474,267 filings, according to Thomson Reuters.

But the growth of patent filings in Japan and the United States is slowing, while Chinese patent filings are surging in categories as varied as natural products and polymers and digital computers.

Patents are considered a measure of technology prowess and innovation. While the quality and value of patents vary widely, nations that file the largest number of patents are generally home to innovative corporations and Nobel prize winners.

Experts acknowledge that it is difficult to measure the value of China’s patents (many may be for low-end, incremental technologies), but they say the quality appears to be improving and that China is on a path to becoming a more innovative country.


“It’s clear they’re moving from low technology to high-tech,” says Bob Stembridge, an intellectual property analyst at Thomson Reuters. “We’re seeing a stunning emergence of patent filings in digital computing and data communications over the past few years — close to 4,000 percent.”

The innovation push here is significant because China is best-known for low-cost manufacturing and weak protection of intellectual property rights.

But the nation’s leaders have promised to improve intellectual property rights protections and to back Chinese companies that seek to move up the value chain and produce more sophisticated and valuable products.

The emergence of more innovative companies in China could move the Chinese government to better enforce existing regulations — many of which cover global companies operating here.


One major change already under way here is a new emphasis on research and development. Analysts say innovation is often fueled by research and development spending, and here too China is making progress, aided by government subsidies and encouragement. Last year, for instance, while some of the world’s biggest technology companies slashed their R&D spending, some of China’s best known technology companies increased their R&D budgets, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization.


For instance, American technology companies like Motorola, Freescale Semiconductor and Hewlett-Packard all made sizable cuts to their R&D spending in 2009, following the outbreak of the global financial crisis. But many Chinese technology companies boosted their R&D budgets by between 25 and 45 percent, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Near the top of China’s list of patent filings and research and development spending are several of the country’s most dynamic companies, led by Chinese telecom equipment giants Huawei Technologies and ZTE.

Each company has expanded aggressively by selling equipment to telephone companies in developing countries. But they are also trying to expand into Europe and the United States.

Huawei filed more patents than any company in the world in 2008, and was a close second to Panasonic in 2009, according to this piece in the New York Times.

Below are lists of Chinese companies and institutions that filed the most patents in digital computing and in data transmission in 2009 — two of the hottest growth categories here, according to Thomson Reuters.

Top 10 Organizations in Digital Computing Patents from China:

• Rank Company : Count
  1 ZTE COMMUNICATION: 1491
  2 HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES :1119
  3 UNIV BEIJING AERONAUTICS&ASTRONAUTIC :604
  4 Zhejiang University :399
  5 Shanghai University :377
  6 YINGYEDA :304
  7 Tsinghua University :301
  8 INVENTEC CORP :222
  9 NANJING University :208
  10 H3C TECHNOLOGIES CO LTD :201
  

Top 10 Organizations in Telephone and Data Transmission Systems :

• Rank Company : Count
  1 ZTE COMMUNICATION :2718
  2 HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES: 2139
  3 DA TANG MOBILE COMMUNICATION EQUIP: 317
  4 UNIV BEIJING TECHNOLOGY: 270
  5 UNIV BEIJING POSTS & TELECOM :160
  6 Tsinghua UNIVERSITY: 143
  7 ZHONGXING COMMUNICATION CO LTD: 137
  8 SAMSUNG: 120
  9 HANGZHOU HUASAN COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY: 118
  10 UNIV NANJING POSTS&TELECOM :110
  

Global Leader in Patent Filings ??? Soon ALSO China | Economy Watch