When the Chinese government is the sole source of information, how much of it should be believed? In terms of economic performance, not that much. The Wall Street Journal’s Tom Orlik, author of a book on the subject, challenges those skeptical of Chinese numbers to make a better case. Challenge accepted. To be clear, it is not true that Chinese numbers are wrong all the time. Also, China does not always overstate its economic performance. GDP growth was slower in 2011 than Beijing claims, but it was faster in 2010. …
The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) relationship with Iran receives a good deal of attention. As the U.S. considers how to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program short of military action, the PRC is considered vital in ensuring economic sanctions are effective. But it has been difficult to win Chinese cooperation in applying sanctions. One mistake the U.S. may have made is treating China as a unified entity. It is true, of course, that the PRC has a tightly controlled political system. There is one ruling party, a powerless legislature, and …
A federal court this week barred the simultaneous application of anti-dumping and countervailing duties to imports from China, a practice begun by the Department of Commerce in 2007. Commerce has rightly classified China a “non-market economy” for purposes of applying anti-dumping duties against goods sold in the U.S. at below-market prices. At the same time, however, it has lifted that classification for purposes of applying countervailing duties against Chinese subsidies in the same sector. In a politically sensitive decision, the court ruled these two different kinds of duties could not be simultaneously …
Former Governor Jon Huntsman (R–UT) was at The Heritage Foundation this week answering policy questions. In his talk, he emphasized budget discipline, tax reform, and education. He also made a powerful argument for free trade, stressing that we have vastly underused our international options in helping address economic challenges. There are many such options. One of them is to promote free trade with our friendliest and most important partners. The U.S. currently has three contrasting approaches to trade. The first is protectionism, which advocates government interference to take choices away …
A beleaguered Indian federal government tried last week to break out of its rut and boost what is finally recognized as a struggling Indian economy. It did so with a bold and valuable decision to expand foreign participation in retail. Foreign companies will be able to wholly own single-brand stores and majority-own multi-brand stores. There are a number of qualifiers to this long-awaited liberalization, including the right for Indian states to say no, which several have already exercised loudly. These state governments are making an error, as are the national …
The political debate over China seems familiar because they’ve been on the political table for years. Is China taking American jobs? How cooperative is the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on issues like nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran? China rises; America frets, and Presidential candidates talk about roughly the same things every four years. But what if China is about to change? By the time America holds its presidential election next year, China will have begun a leadership transition of its own. The current leadership group headed by Hu …
The Legatum Institute has just released its 2011 Prosperity Index. The index has a number of strengths, topped by the versatility of its supporting Web site. But Legatum has trumpeted an inaccurate finding that China has eclipsed the U.S. on the narrow economic dimension of its measure of prosperity. This finding demonstrates the problems with comparing China to other countries, as so much Chinese data are unusable. Some of Legatum’s numbers are clearly wrong; others are probably wrong. The Legatum economic sub-index uses data from other sources on 15 economic …
The European press has a death grip on the idea that China will provide the huge sums of money necessary to make a dent in the EU financial crisis. Like most things involving the EU, the crisis has progressed at a snail’s pace. This has given the media the chance to recycle the “China is coming!” story again and again, despite the lack of evidence. In fact, the barriers to a Chinese bailout are daunting for several reasons. 1. The Scale of the Problem The EU does not need €10 …
The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow on America’s economic relations with China. This is easier said than done—there’s a lot of ground to cover. One topic gets the most attention, of course: China’s currency policy. We should all hope that the committee can move beyond currency. More than enough time has been wasted on this. There is no real relationship between the exchange rate and our unemployment rate. And there are plenty of other things to talk about. On China’s side, there are a number …
The Senate is today considering a bill to punish China for its currency policy. The bill requires the U.S. to place duties on Chinese goods if the exchange rate of the yuan against the dollar isn’t brought to a level Congress finds suitable. It is vague on that level, on timing, and on basic logic. There are serious issues in our economic relationship with the Chinese, but the Senate bill won’t address any of them. China’s currency policy doesn’t cost American jobs. In fact, 20 years of figures appear to …
