Posts tagged ‘technology’

  |  
Tuesday, December 5, 2023

“New Development Concept” (新发展理念)

If you go by this online glossary by “The Center of Strategic Translation”,

[T]he roots of the problem set tackled by the New Development Concept stretch back to the early Reform Era,

i. e. the late 1970s. Growth had mainly been driven by “government investment in fixed capital assets and strong foreign demand for cheap Chinese goods” – and eventually, rising Chinese wages had to lead to a loss of those markets for cheap products. Also, there were limits to how much infrastructure and building was needed in China.

The “New Development Concept” is described as an answer to the problem the CPC is now facing. It is basically described as an approach to try to access new sources of growth.

Until 2018, that would be a switch from investment-driven to supply-side structural reform, i. e. gradually cutting enterprises that didn’t meet with domestic demand, and support new technological frontiers where the state hoped for new breakthroughs. “[U]nder the pressure of a grueling trade war”, as the article describes it, economic security came to flank the “new development concept”, often borrowing from the already existing Total National Security Paradigm (总体国家安全观).

This “New Development Pattern“ (新发展格局) would rely on

domestic consumers to power the Chinese economy and on a homegrown scientific-industrial complex to power China’s technological advance.

“[A] schema of self-sufficiency” is brought up in this context, but I suppose that shouldn’t be read as if the idea of self-sufficiency hadn’t been around in China before. While food security, for example, seems to have emerged rather recently as a keyword, China has never been too dependent on food imports, despite a rather small (and probably diminishing) share of arable land in its overall territory.

Certainly however, the CPC leaders have been aware of the limits of the post-Mao development model, driven by investment. As early as in 2014, Xi Jinping told Russian television that

After 30 years of reform, China has entered the deep water [or blue water], and all the pleasant reforms have been completed. The delicious meat has been eaten, and what is still on the dishes are rather tough bones. This requires our courage, and steady moves. Courage means to push reform even when it is difficult, and to prove worthy, to tackle the hard bones, and to enter dangerous shoals. Steadiness is about keeping to the accurate direction, driving steadily, and, above all, to avoid disruptive mistakes.

There are arguments that would make China’s “wolf warrior diplomacy” look logical: if China’s economy becomes less attractive for foreign investors, you may have to intimidate them, rather than to lure them. But then, China has since abandoned some of that confrontational policy, at least in its communications with Washington. Maybe the chance of “hostile forces” did come as a surprise for Beijing after all.

As for the glossary, I can’t really judge its accuracy and reliability, but it does look like a good source to me to understand CPC party documents and articles.

Posted in America, China, ideology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , ,
Wednesday, July 5, 2023

The Far East in June, 2023

Straight from Wang Yi’s Beauty Parlor

VoA, July 5, 2023

My friends from China, Japan and Korea, when we go to America, they can’t tell us apart as Chinese, Japanese or Korean. We can go to Europe and it will be the same. No matter how yellow you color your hair or how long you keep trimming your nose, you can’t become a European, you can’t become an American, you can’t become a Westerner. We must know the place where our roots are.*)”

我们中日韩的朋友们，我们到美国去，他们分不清中日韩。我们可能到欧洲去也是一样。不管你把头发染得再黄，鼻子修得再尖，也变不了欧美人，变不成西方人。我们要知道自己的根在什么地方。

Thus spoke Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, hosting a forum for Sino-Japanese-South Korean cooperation in Qingdao on Monday, July 3.

“Voice of America”, one of the stations that broke the news, refers to the quote as one “with racist undertones” (有种族主义色彩), and quotes from tweets that criticize Wang’s utterance. Most critics mentioned are Westerners, and none of them is Japanese or South Korean. That either suggests that the latter politely keep their thoughts to themselves, or that they don’t find Wang’s speech too extraordinary. In fact, “black hair” is often a topic in China (and maybe in Japan and Korea, too), and frequently, the Chinese are reminded that there was no need to envy people with yellow hair. A rather hysterical pop song to that end was “Chinese” (中国人) by Andy Lau (刘德华). There, too, the hair color was given political significance.  : “No matter where you come from and where you are going, the tears and pain is the same, yesterday’s troubles we will keep in our hearts, the same blood, the same race, there are still dreams in the future that we open up together. Undivisably we advance, with our heads raised, let the world know that we are all Chinese. (The song was conveniently published in 1997, the year of Hong Kong’s handover to China.)

All the stuff about “yellow faces”, “black eyes” (黄色的脸 黑色的眼) and “species” or “race” (一样的血 一样的种) is really old stuff. It may well be racist, but it is so old that reporting it will look like a lie to people who have gotten used to it over the past quarter of the century, or longer.

What I find interesting however is that Wang Yi said this at all. It wasn’t part of his official speech, or it was left out when the Chinese foreign ministry published an account of it. So it was probably meant to be “family talk”. But it does reveal a deep-seated inferiority complex, and that kind of self-revelation shouldn’t happen to a top diplomat. Even if Wang was trying to arouse some kind of pan-Asian “patriotic feelings” among his audience, rather than believing his own talk, it was a gaffe, rather than good diplomatic handicraft.

–

A few million statistics in between: the Communist Party of China has accepted its 98,041,000th member just recently.

–

qin_shihuang_wig_south_china_sea

Qin Shihuang’s wig has been found on the bottom of the sea, conveniently placed next to the Philppines …

–

… Xi Jinping is a dictator, but you can’t say that …

–

… and neither China nor the Democratic Republic of the Congo are entirely happy with their mining-for-China-investment-for-the-DRC agreement, concluded in 2008.

–

Twitter is mostly about events, but events are the result of processes that may be going on for years or decades. So to finish this review, here’s some economics.

Rebalancing China’s Factors of Production, and its Markets

Pekingnology, June 28, 2023
When a country’s factor conditions become unfavorable, an increase in factor allocation efficiency could potentially offset these adverse changes,former NDRC official, writes, according to a Pekingnology translation of a classroom speech, the content of which had been posted on WeChat on June 7. The speaker was Xu Lin (徐林), a former high-ranking NDRC official. According to the WeChat blogpost, Xu is also party secretary at the China Mergers & Acquisitions Association (全联并购公会). See “2. Decline in Labor Productivity Growth” there. Deteriorating relations with the US (not least its effect on technology transfer to China) and possibly growingly difficult international market access are also cited as problems. The reader also gets an idea of political demands on the one hand, and what is economically feasible on the other.

To safeguard moderate growth, even if not at a rate as originally “planned”, Xu recommends the household registration system be abaondoned “as soon as possible”, not least to make it easier to make the factors of labor and capital come together: “Nowadays, many graduates cannot register their permanent residence even after obtaining a job, which hinders their work-life.” Continued investment in innovation and an increased standard of opening up are also recommended. And not least, Xu believes that China’s market remains big and attractive enough to counter American alliance-building with “other countries to exclude China” – that would require a continued, sufficiently large American trade deficit with those allied countries. One of the aces Xu sees in China’s hands would be its biotechnology industry.
________________

Note

*) Update: Last sentence of translation added July 6.
________________

Posted in America, China, ideology, international, Japan | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Henan’s “100-Day Action Plan” to combat Youth Unemployment

China’s Henan province has unveiled a 100-day plan to “dynamically clear” youth unemployment as concern grows over record levels of joblessness among young adults, Reuters reported on June 1, adding that there were millions more students due to graduate this year. Also according to Reuters,  youth unemployment was at a record high nationwide in April. Economists expected youth unemployment to become “increasingly common in coming years as graduates enter the job market”.

henan_graduates_employment_guidance_online
Full of joy: the Henan provincial graduates’ employment guide

According to a “Red Star” article, among the sixteen to 24 years-old, the unemployment rate nationwide was at 18.2 percent in April this year, and rose further to 18.4 percent by May. That was four times the overall unemployment rate, and a record high ever since this statistic had been introduced in 2018.

The “Red Star” reporters go further into the provincial “action plan” details. Basically, the universities are assigned with the task to “guide students” into work, mostly by counselling and by finding out about what inhibits them personally, things such as “being in a hesitant rather than a pioneering state of mind” (求稳思维) or being “slow to work” (慢就业), i. e. just not in a hurry – travelling, tutoring or staying with their parents. Studying abroad, too, is counted into “slow to work”.

The universities get the hot potato from the provincial government: they are apparently supposed to “clear” long-term unemployed graduates and graduates from families with a history of unemployment (零就业家庭 ) by August 31.

A CASS professor, Cai Fang (蔡昉), appears to be one of the ecoomists referred to by Reuters. In September 2022, “Interpreter”, a public-domain project run by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Cai wrote that

According to UN population projections, the share of the relatively young (16-24 years old) in China’s total working-age (16-64 years old) population is expected to increase from 14.8 percent in 2022 to 17.0 percent in 2035. At the ame time, the share of the older population (46-64 years old) will increase from 40.4 percent to 43.1 percent, and the share of the population between 25 and 45 years old will fall from 44.7 percent to 39.9 percent.
根据联合国人口预测，在中国全部16~64岁劳动年龄人口中，相对年轻的16~24岁人口占比，预计从2022年的14.8%提高到2035年的17.0%；与此同时，46~64岁人口占比从40.4%提高到43.1%，25~45岁人口占比从44.7%降低到39.9%

(See figure 1 there.)
While

China no longer faces total employment pressure. However, China will also be in the most dramatic period of development in terms of the progress and application of technology, and of structural change in industry.
[…..] 总体而言中国不再面临就业总量的压力。然而，中国也将处于科技进步与运用，以及产业结构变化最急剧的发展时期。

Cai points to the experience of other countries in the past:

International experience shows that when there is a shock to economic growth, if the policy response
is not timely and appropriate, the shock will leave a “scar” that affects subsequent development, producing a so-called “hysteresis effect” that makes the post-recovery norm in economic growth less favorable than before. Similarly, if the response to cyclical unemployment is not timely, comprehensive, and appropriate, or if it relies only on macroeconomic stimulus without simultaneously addressing the structural and frictional contradictions*) in the labor market, it may leave a “scar” on the employment issue, such that the post-recovery labor market operates with a higher natural rate of unemployment. Although the fundamentals of China’s economy have not changed due to the temporary macroeconomic downturn, the labor market landscape may indeed change as the population enters an era of negative growth
and economic growth faces new challenges.
国际经验表明，在经济增长遭遇周期性冲击的情况下，如果政策应对不及时、不恰当，便会留下影响后续发展的“伤痕”（Scar），产生所谓的“磁滞效应”（Hysteresis），使复苏之后的经济增长处于一个较前更为不利的常态下。与此类似，如果应对周期性失业的举措不及时、不全面和不对症，或者仅仅依靠宏观经济刺激作用，而不能同时解决劳动力市场的结构性和摩擦性矛盾，那么可能在就业问题上会留下“伤痕”，使经济复苏后的劳动力市场在更高的自然失业率下运行。虽然中国经济的基本面未因暂时的宏观经济下行而改变，但是随着人口进入负增长时代，经济增长面临崭新挑战，劳动力市场格局确有可能发生变化。

The whole paper by Cai is available at “Interpret” in both English and Chinese. You can even compare the texts, paragraph-on-paragraph.

What are the goals of Henan’s provnincial government? One objective goal may be to keep the impact from “structural and frictional contradictions” as small as possible. Another goal probably is to satisfy the CPC’s central committee in Beijing, or to have plans to show when having to justify themselves for slow progress in bringing youth unemployment down. Henan is one of the provinces geographically closest to Beijing, and people have probably lost count of the number of visits Xi Jinping and other leading cadres have paid there.

There’s no reason for doom-and-gloom forecasts about China’s economy. There is, however, reason to believe that many young Chinese people will suffer the downsides of the “era-of-high-quality development” that has been heralded by Xi Jinping since October 2017.

That said, no matter if “Chinese-style modernization” or “four modernizations” or what have you, international experience suggests that every developed economy and society has to go through these kinds of unemployment issues.

Then what is “Chinese-style modernization” about? What makes it different from modernization elsewhere Maybe Reuters June-1 article provides an answer:

Heavy-handed tactics to stamp out COVID saw students confined to campuses for long stretches, adding to frustration that led to rare student protests against COVID policies in late 2022.
Industries popular among new graduates in China, such as tech, education, real estate and finance, have all faced regulatory crackdowns in recent years.

________________

Notes

*)    According to Cai Fang’s paper, the definition would be this:
structural unemployment
+ frictional unemployment
= natural unemployment
结构性失业、摩擦性失业（两者合并为自然失业）.
Structural unemployment (摩擦性失业) is “a form of involuntary unemployment caused by a mismatch between the skills that workers in the economy can offer, and the skills” (Wikipedia).
Frictional unemployment is “a form of unemployment reflecting the gap between someone voluntarily leaving a job and finding another. As such, it is sometimes called search unemployment, though it also includes gaps in employment when transferring from one job to another” (Wikipedia).

________________

Related

全职儿女, BBC, June 20, 2023
________________

Posted in China, language | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Tuesday, May 9, 2023

On the Whim of an Idiot

huawei_20181229
Huawei advertising, 2018 (“2019 becomes big thanks to 6.21 inches display”)

Once in a while, I have to update myself, technically, to stay informed about current affairs. In the beginning of my share in the digital age, I had a website, but noticed that only few people would care to write an e-mail to discuss anything. So I switched to blogging, fifteen years ago. Then there were opportunities to take part in discussions and getting answers to questions – for a while. Then the English-language, China-related “blogosphere died down, and everyone moved on to Twitter and other “social media”. I followed the stream in 2020.

I find Twitter rather scary. My use of it serves its purpose, to stay informed about what keeps people busy, but it isn’t really about what they think, but about what they feel. The world according to Twitter is a jitterbug, and a pretty aggressive one at times. For a few months now, it has also had ownership issues (or Musk issues) which have led to a rather unpredictable future of that platform.

Once I had seen a pretty informative microblog from China hacked and all requests to Twitter to restore it ignored, I understood that the numbers of followers you have don’t matter – or shouldn’t, if you look at it reasonably -, because you can see it reduced to zero on the whim of just one idiot.

As far as I’m concerned, blogging on WordPress remains worthwile. Maybe it wouldn’t if I was looking for traffic, trying to make money on advertising, etc. But when you blog, you think. You study. You read. By reading, you “listen” carefully, often to people and messages you disagree with, but whose information is still useful.

You don’t get that on Twitter. It may give you the impression that it is a nice distraction from the daily grind – you can even abscond to your account there for a minute (or more) at your workplace. But you might as well have a few chocolate bars instead, also within a minute.

It would be about as healthy as tweeting.

________________

Related

The state of Taiwan, Sept 8, 2022
Radio or the Internet, both or neither, June 9, 2020
My first ten days on Twitter, Jan 30, 2020
________________

Posted in America, Germany, international, media | 12 Comments »

Tags: , , , , , ,
Thursday, December 29, 2022

Chip War: Better Behavior, Enthusiastic Reactions

–
“Under pressure from business, senators have rowed back on plans for an immediate moratorium on Chinese components as the chip war continues”, “Tech Monitor”, apparently a portal from the UK, wrote on December 7. Business, or the US Chamber of Commerce more specifically, may actually brought forward some technial arguments that were hard to deny, given an existing supply chain of “older, less-powerful chips used in a wide range of electronics”.

But what Alan Estevez, US commerce under-secretary for industry and security, reportedly had to say to add to the business side of the discussion, doesn’t look encouraging:

“We are seeing better behaviour. Mofcom has been more forthcoming.”

Estevez reportedly also said that “it’s not the first time we’ve seen such a change in attitude, so it depends on how long that is sustained”.
That’s easy to predict: as long as China remains dependent on cooperation with the West – and it would be surprising if Estevez wasn’t aware of that. And after that, the “wolf warrior diplomats” – or worse – will be back.

Meantime, the Netherlands and Japan appear to be coming around to America’s chip policies on China. While there have apparently been accusations against Washington of “strong-arm” policies and disregard for (Japanese) sovereignty. Resistence would probably have been futile, because U.S. technology is virtually everywhere across semiconductor supply chains, the United States has the power to authorize or block sales extraterritorially, a signed article published by “The Diplomat” said on Tuesday.

Meantime, China has sent technology scouts to Europe again, after a long Covid-caused ice age. But while travel restrictions are receding, the emissaries have encountered a colder atmosphere than what they had been used to, writes “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”‘s (NZZ)  tech correspondent. China is in dire need of a technological push, writes the correspondent, during the first nine month of 2022, GDP grew by only three per cent (according to official statistics) – “one of the lowest growth rates since Mao’s death in 1976”.

Success is imperative for China’s agents:  resolute prevention of a large-scale return of poverty (坚决防止出现规模性返贫) had to be carried out, a joint economic conference convened by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the State Council, and led by Personality-in-Chief Xi Jinping, stated in its communiqué on December 17.

France and Germany appear to be important destinations for China’s technological sourcing – there may be no great chip industries there, but the business environment may be somewhat more welcoming than the Netherlands or Japan.

That said, one of the traveling tech scouts told NZZ that European interlocutors were “under pressure” when “cooperating with China”. Trying to explain his difficulties to his domestic audience on “WeChat”, he reportedly pointed to the many American military barracks in Germany.

"Enthusiastic reactions", CCTV, Dec 17, 2022

“Enthusiastic reactions”, CCTV, Dec 17, 2022

Meantime, people from all walks of life and nationalities are celebrating the economic work conference:

The Central Work Conference’s spirit has aroused enthusiastic reactions, and everyone says that we must unite our thought for common purpose, aggregate consensus, work industriously to get things done, put the party’s decisions and arrangements into place by taking practical aciton, make efforts to complete the objectives of economic and social development, and create a good starting point for the comprehensive construction of a socialist modern country.
中央经济工作会议精神在全国各地引起热烈反响，大家表示，要统一思想、凝聚共识、真抓实干，以实际行动把党中央决策部署落实到位，努力完成经济社会发展目标任务，为全面建设社会主义现代化国家开好局起好步。

–

Posted in America, China, France, Germany, international, Japan, military | 1 Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
  |