China overtakes Japan as third largest exporter in world

China has overtaken Japan as the world's third largest exporter, the World Trade Organisation said yesterday, after a surge in demand for its electronic goods led to a 35 per cent jump in overseas sales.

The 35 per cent jump in the value of China's exports in 2004, which were up by a fifth in volume terms, was largely propelled by a 45 per cent surge in exports of electronic goods, according to Michael Finger, WTO senior economist. By contrast, shipments of textiles and clothing, which make up a sixth of Chinese exports, rose 15-17 per cent by value last year.

In dollar terms, world trade in goods rose 21 per cent in 2004 to $8,880bn (€6,870bn, £4,683bn). This was the biggest increase in 25 years, reflecting both strong real growth and an 11 per cent rise in dollar prices owing to depreciation of the US currency.

China is now the biggest merchandise trader in Asia and the third largest in the world for both exports and imports, making it a key driver of world trade growth. Its insatiable appetite for fuel and other raw materials was one reason why high oil prices failed to depress the global economy last year, Mr Finger noted.

Demand from China also helped boost trade in other regions, especially Africa and South America, where Chinese investment in both natural resources and manufacturing has burgeoned in recent years. Africa's exports, helped by high oil prices, rose by more than 30 per cent in dollar terms last year, and exports from South and Central America showed a similar increase.

As a result, the value of exports by all developing countries rose by more than a quarter, bringing their share of world trade to 31 per cent, the highest since 1950.

China's role in underpinning world trade may become even more important this year if, as predicted, the falling dollar starts to restrain US import growth.

China's Retail Sales Rose 13.6% in First Two Months of 2005

Bubble? What bubble? The fast-rising personal income of people in China is continuing to power one of the miracle economies of the last few decades.

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China's retail sales climbed 13.6 percent in the first two months of 2005 as rising incomes spurred spending in the world's most-populous nation.

Sales rose to 1.03 trillion yuan ($124 billion), according to Beijing-based Mainland Marketing Research Co. (China), which releases monthly figures on behalf of the statistics bureau. The gain followed a 14.5 percent jump from a year earlier in December and compares with the median 13.8 percent increase forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of four economists.

Rising spending is prompting companies including McDonald's Corp. and Wumart Stores Inc. to expand in China, helping sustain economic growth amid a government clampdown on investment in industries including real estate, autos and steel. Premier Wen Jiabao said March 5 the government will lower taxes to help boost consumer spending this year.

``As long as consumer spending is growing at around this level, there is less worry about the prospect of a hard landing for the economy,'' said Qu Hongbin, senior economist at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong.

For February alone, sales rose 15.8 percent after climbing 11.5 percent in January. Economists look at combined figures for the two months to allow for distortions caused by changes in the timing of the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday, which fell in February this year and January in 2004.

China International Patents Up 38%

Although the number of international patents filed by global Chinese corporations was a small slice of the total international patents (120,000), and a smidgen of the total domestic Chinese patents (250,000 filed), the 1,800 filed was a growth of 38%, by far the largest percentage growth and a harbinger of things to come as more Chinese companies enter the export market and seek to protect their IP.

The New Face of China

A female soldier with a camera takes pictures outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, just after China passes the anti-=secession bill against Taiwan.

Dalai Lama: Tibetans benefit by remaining within China

His Holiness The Dalai Lama, perhaps the religious leader I respect most in this world, noted that the Tibetans have benefited greatly from the autonomous province's being a part of China, although he also noted there are still problems that need to be resolved.

This supports my Chinese friends' viewpoint that Tibet was a land of great poverty before the government pumped large amounts of money into developing the province.

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In a statement on the 46th anniversary of the Tibetan People's Uprising, he said "I want to reassure the Chinese authorities that as long as I am responsible for the affairs of Tibet, we remain fully committed to the Middle Way Approach of not seeking independence for Tibet and are willing to remain within the People's Republic of China.

"I am convinced that in the long run such an approach is of benefit to the Tibetan people for their material progress," he said.

Commending China for the economic progress it had made in the last two decades, he, however, added that its image was "tarnished by her human rights records, undemocratic actions, the lack of the rule of the law and unequal implementation of autonomy rights regarding minorities, including the Tibetans.

"All these are a cause for more suspicion and distrust from the outside world... In my view, it is important that as China becomes a powerful and respectable nation, she should be able to adopt a reasonable policy with confidence."

While acknowledging that there had been a great deal of economic and infrastructural progress since the formation of the Tibet Autonomous Region four decades ago - "the Golmud-Lhasa railway link being built is a case in point" - he said people of the region had been facing suspicions and growing restrictions.

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Silicon Valley Chinese Vote Shanghai as Top Job Location

This is a trend that I am personally seeing, where Chinese in the USA, dispirited by the lack of job growth in the country, are starting to invest and even move to China in order to take aprt in the exploding Chinese economy.

In this new poll of Silicon Valley Chinese American semi-conductor professionals, the overall best choice as a Job location was Shanghai.

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According to a recently released report, Shanghai, China's cosmopolitan and commercial hub, is viewed by Chinese American professionals as the city poised with the best development future. The USA, Taiwan and Beijing follow behind as choice locations. Among the decision factors to evaluate a job location, the most important is the potential for growth. The second is family and the third is quality of life.

The report further points out among all those surveyed, that half work in at least two locations. 93% work in America. Chen Jien Yun, a Taiwan University researcher and visiting scholar with the Stanford Project on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship pointed out 51% of those surveyed work in one location, 34% work in two, 10% work in three, 4% work in four locations. There was also 1% who commute between five working locations. Thus, there seems to be quite many "seagulls", who fly between Silicon Valley and the Pacific Rim.

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BBC Poll: China is better for world than USA or Russia

A VERY interesting new poll by the BBC shows that more people in the world think of China as a positive influence in the world than the US or Russia.

It again shows what some people don't seem to realize - China has a very long history of much more benign nature than Europeans or Americans. Whereas the Europeans and Americans were wiping out entire cultures in their quest for slaves or raw materials, China never engaged in such acts, even at the heights of its dominance in technology and military might.

This poll is more interesting given the fact that China is STILL a benign totalitarian state, albeit not on par with one-man dictatorial governments, while both the US and Russia are relatively more democratic.

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The survey of 22,953 people was conducted for the BBC World Service by the polling organisation GlobeScan, together with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (Pipa) at the University of Maryland. In total, 48% of people polled in 22 countries said China's role was mainly positive. Only 30% saw it as mainly negative.

China came out favourably when the results were compared with similar surveys looking at the global influence of Russia and the US.

An average of 38% of respondents saw the US as having a positive influence, with just 36% saying the same for Russia.

China's growing economic power is also seen as positive in the majority of nations polled.

Even in Mexico - whose manufacturers are often in direct competition with those in China - 54% of people polled were positive about China's economic rise.

Even in neighbouring Asian countries, which have historically been suspicious of China's dominance, opinions were relatively benign.

An exception was Japan, where only 22% of people polled said China had a mainly positive influence. Most Japanese respondents expressed no opinion, with only 25% saying China's role was negative.

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How the USA is failing - and doesn't even know it

I read this interesting compilation of stats about the USA ranked in terms of different categories, and they were really surprising to say the least.

Some samples from this website:

• The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.
  
  
  
• "The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
  
  
  
• Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)
  
  
  
• "U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.
  
  
  
• Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
  
  
  
• The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
  
  
  
• Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
  
  
  
• The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).
  
  
  
• "Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.
  
  
  
• "Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).