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Asia Channel: Latest Posts
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Asia
US-China Relations in the Era of the Fiscal Cliff
In the coming months, all foreign policy initiatives of the new White House will be constrained by somber domestic realities. In the past – from the Carter and Reagan years to the Clinton and Bush years – the sharp rhetoric of the presidential campaigns has been replaced by more pragmatic policies after the elections. Much [...]
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Asia
Chinese Leadership Transition: From Investment-Driven Growth to Consumption
(Slightly modified from the original, published by China-US Focus, Nov 6, 2012) As the Party Congress begins, the momentum increases for structural reforms in China. On Thursday, November 8 – only a day after the U.S. presidential election – the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China will begin in Beijing. It is [...]
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Asia
When the Growth Model Changes, Abandon the Correlations
Chiwoong Lee at Goldman Sachs has a new report out (“China vs. 1970s Japan”, September 25, 2012) in which he predicts that China’s long-term growth rate will drop to 7.5-8.5%. I disagree very strongly with his forecast, of course, and expect China’s growth rate over the next decade to average less than half that number, [...]
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Ed Dolan's Econ Blog
Is China Still a ‘Currency Manipulator’?
“On day one, I will label them a currency manipulator.” So spoke Mitt Romney during Monday’s Presidential debate, threatening, as he has innumerable times, to hit China with new tariffs if it doesn’t stop using a cheap yuan to steal U.S. jobs. But does the label still fit? We all know the story by heart. [...]
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Asia
The East Grows Only Because the West Consumes…It’s a Hypothesis
An abiding belief held by many about the global economy is that the East is one gigantic Foxconn-shaped, steroid-boosted manufacturing facility, pumping out iPhones, shoes, clothing, refrigerators, air-conditioners, and defective toys that its own people could never afford. In this narrative, the only reason that measured Eastern GDP shows any kind of life is because [...]
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Asia
Megatrend: China’s GDP Will Exceed U.S. GDP in the 21st Century — Deal With It
Welcome to the Great Convergence — The Developing World is Converging to Developed Country GDP Per Capita Levels — The Alternative Would Be Worse(1) This is an election season, so all hope of intelligent policy discourse has been abandoned in favor of the partisan soundbite. One side, uniquely brilliant, will magically solve our nation’s problems [...]
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Asia
Against a Sea of Enemies: China as Currency Manipulator
One of the interesting things about the presidential debate tonight was the prominence of China. Governor Romney repeated his insistence that he would declare China a currency manipulator “on day one”. (I am surprised he didn’t mention the “yellow peril”.) If his criterion is forex intervention, he should be prepared to declare many other countries manipulators [...]
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Asia
Why Does the U.S. Government Seek a Hotter Conflict with China?
Summary: The long-simmering trade conflicts with China have taken a turn for the worse. Romney’s foreign policy team contains some extreme hawks eager for some form of war with China. DoD, desperate for threats to justify its existence, has fired a propaganda barrage at us about the cyber-threat with China. And some national security agencies, [...]
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RGE Analysts
Food Inflation in India—The Government Has to Act and Not Hope
Inflation, especially food inflation, in India remains essentially a government monopoly. Surprised? What I mean is that high food inflation is the cause of faulty government policies that has a distortionary effect on prices. Given the elevated level of food prices in urban India, the common perception is that urban inflation is higher than rural [...]
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Asia
How to Be a China Bull
I recently “debated” twice with senior Chinese officials on the future prospects for China. In both cases they made the argument that Chinese growth rates were going to rise in the next few years and that the current deep pessimism is unwarranted. I argued, of course, that growth would slow even more. Neither of the [...]
