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401. Narrativas del cambio: Cultura y desarrollo económico regional.

Author:
David Goodman
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
China's economic growth since the late 1970s challenges economic theory so strongly that cultural explanations are often sought. A prime difficulty in such approaches is the operationalisation of the concept of Chinese culture. Culture is more readily and usefully analysed at the local rather than the national level. Local culture has been demonstrated to be important to politics and the emergence of modern Chinese nationalism. The relationship between local culture and economic development is more complex. Local culture provides ideology and often organisation that supports entrepreneurship and the development of specifically local economic activity. Through local studies in three Chinese provinces – Shanxi, Qinghai and Hainan – it is argued that local culture is not only a significant factor of production but also helps explain the trajectory and organisation of local business.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
China and Asia

402. Afghanistan's Economy: On the Right Road, But Still a Long Way to Go

Author:
Beth Ellen Cole
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Afghanistan has now laid the foundation for a market-based economy. A new economic system, based on the state as a regulator, not a producer, of goods, with a clear separation between the public and private sectors, stands in place of the centralized economy of the past. An independent central bank, a liberalized foreign exchange system, and laws permitting foreigners to wholly own property characterize the new economic landscape. A doubling of the gross national product and per capita income, a 13 percent growth rate in 2007, and modest inflation paint a vibrant picture.
Topic:
Security, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Asia

403. Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in China, 1995-2002

Author:
Renwei Zhao and Shi Li
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper investigates some major changes in the wealth distribution in China using the data from two national household surveys conducted in 1995 and 2002. The surveys collected rich information on household wealth and its components, enabling a detailed analysis of changes in wealth distribution among Chinese households. Our analysis indicates that the wealth distribution in China as a whole became much more unequal in 2002 than it was in 1995. The housing reform, in which public apartments were sold to urban households at extremely low prices, has accelerated the accumulation of wealth among urban households on the one hand, and widened the wealth gap between urban and rural areas on the other.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

404. Regional Income Inequality in Rural China, 1985-2002: Trends, Causes and Policy Implications

Author:
Guanghua Wan
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper depicts the trend of regional inequality in rural China for the period 1985- 2002. The total inequality is decomposed into the so-called within- and between components when China is divided into three regional belts (east, central and west). A regression-based accounting framework is then used to explore root sources of the rising inequality. Policy implications are discussed.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

405. Chinese Views: Breaking the Stalemate on the Korean Peninsula

Author:
Scott Snyder and Joel Wit
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
The second North Korean nuclear crisis, which climaxed with the test of a nuclear device on October 9, 2006, has influenced the views of Chinese specialists. By revealing the status of North Korean nuclear development, Pyongyang's nuclear test was a poke in the eye of Chinese leaders, who had tried privately and publicly to dissuade North Korean leaders from conducting a test. As a result, China has taken stronger measures to get Pyongyang's attention, including a temporary crackdown on North Korea's illicit financial activities. These changes spotlight an ongoing debate within the Chinese academic community over whether North Korea (DPRK) could become a strategic liability rather than a strategic asset. This debate centers on whether it is necessary to set aside China's loyalty to the current North Korean regime in order to maintain good U.S.-China relations and achieve China's objectives of developing its economy and consolidating its regional and global economic and political influence. Or is maintaining North Korea as a strategic buffer still critical to preserving China's influence on the Korean peninsula? An increasingly vocal minority of Chinese specialists is urging starkly tougher measures in response to North Korea's “brazen” act, including reining in the Kim Jong Il regime or promoting alternative leadership in Pyongyang. Although their sympathy and ideological identification with North Korea has waned, many Chinese policy analysts clearly prefer North Korea's peaceful reform to a U.S.- endorsed path of confrontation or regime change. China's policymakers have sought to forestall North Korean nuclear weapons development, but they continue to blame U.S. inflexibility for contributing to heightened regional tensions over North Korea's nuclear program. Chinese analysts fret that economic and political instability inside North Korea could negatively affect China itself. They have shown more concern about the North Korean regime's stability in recent months than at any time since the food crisis in the late 1990s. Chinese policymakers ask how to encourage North Korea's leaders to embark on economic reform without increasing political instability. Discussions with Chinese experts reveal considerable uncertainty about the future of North Korean reform. The possibilities of military confrontation on the Korean peninsula, involving the United States and either a violent regime change or destabilization through North Korea's failure to maintain political control, are equally threatening to China's fundamental objective of promoting regional stability. These prospects have increased following North Korea's nuclear test and the strong reaction from the international community, as shown by UN Security Council Resolution 1718. China's economic rise has given it new financial tools for promoting stability of weak states on its periphery. Expanded financial capacity to provide aid or new investment in North Korea might help it achieve political and economic stabilization. The Chinese might prefer to use the resumption of benefits temporarily withheld as a way of enhancing their leverage by reminding the North of its dependence on Beijing's largesse. Managing the ongoing six-party talks will pose an increasingly difficult diplomatic challenge for China. Chinese diplomats take credit for mediation and shuttle diplomacy, but their accomplishments thus far have been modest. Talks have been fairly useful in stabilizing the situation, but they have also revealed the limits of China's diplomatic influence on both the United States and North Korea. U.S. intransigence is as much an object of frustration to the Chinese as North Korean stubbornness. Chinese analysts clearly have given thought to potential consequences of regime instability. For example, the Chinese military's contingency plans for preventing the spillover of chaos into China and for seizing loose nukes and fissile material imply that Chinese forces would move into North Korean territory. Without effective coordination, simultaneous interventions in the event of unforeseen crisis inside North Korea could lead to direct military conflict among U.S., Chinese, and South Korean military forces. Rather than accept South Korean intervention backed by the United States as a prelude to reunification, Chinese analysts repeatedly emphasize that “the will of the North Korean people must be considered” in the event of instability. If intervention were necessary, China clearly would prefer insertion of an international peacekeeping force under UN auspices. Such a force would establish a representative government, which would then decide whether to negotiate reunification with South Korea.
Topic:
International Relations and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, China, Beijing, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and Korea

406. Pension Reform in China

Author:
Felix Salditt, Peter Whiteford, and Willem Adema
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
China is currently in the process of developing the largest pension system in the world, and it is doing this at a time of unparalleled economic and demographic transition. The central government has followed a step-by-step approach to develop a system that can accommodate a rapidly aging society within a rapidly growing, but still largely underdeveloped economy. This paper analyses how far the process of creating a national old age insurance system had proceeded by the end of 2006. It provides a detailed description of this system and an assessment of to what degree it has so far achieved ?its primary goal of social security for more people?
Topic:
Economics, Reform, Welfare, and Pension
Political Geography:
China and Asia

407. Is China an economic threat to Southeast Asia?

Author:
John Ravenhill
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:
China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) caused widespread concern that it would gain market share at the expense of other economies in East Asia, especially the lower-income ASEAN economies. Economic modelling done by the World Bank and others appeared to substantiate these fears; the conclusions of these studies caused further consternation among politicians and academic commentators in Southeast Asia who believed that China's success in the 1990s in attracting foreign direct investment had come at ASEAN's expense.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and World Bank
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Southeast Asia

408. The Emergence of a New 'Socialist' Market Labour Regime in China

Author:
Gunter Schucher and Jutta Hebel
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
China's transition to a market economy has been a process of basic institutional changes and institution building. The institutional change from a socialist labour regime (SLR) as one of the backbones upholding the traditional leninist system to a new 'socialist' market labour regime (SMLR) became particularly important for the success of economic and political reforms. This analysis is based on the analytical framework of regimes and makes use of the idea of path dependence. An ensemble of institutions, mutually interconnected and influencing each other, forms the regime and shapes its trajectory. Six institutions are identified to constitute the employment regime: (1) the system of social control, (2) the production system, (3) the system of industrial relations, (4) the welfare system, (5) the family order, and (6) the educational system. The SMLR is still characterised by its socialist past and differs from other varieties of transformation labour regimes and bears little resemblance to labour regimes in Western market economies.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Markets
Political Geography:
China and Asia

409. Saving and Demographic Change: The Global Dimension

Author:
Barry Bosworth and Gabriel Chodorow-Reich
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
This paper uses a panel data set of 85 countries covering 1960-2005 to investigate the macroeconomic linkages between national rates of saving and investment and population aging. The issue takes on added significance because of the recent suggestion that the decline in global interest rates has been driven by demographic changes in the industrial economies. We do find a significant correlation between the age composition of the population and nations' rates of saving and investment, but the effects vary substantially by region. They are very strong for the non-industrial economies of Asia, but weak in the high-income countries. We also find evidence demographic effects on both the public and private components of national saving. Furthermore, we conclude that the demographic effects on saving will be less disruptive than sometimes believed because of offsetting declines in investment. However, the effects on saving are stronger than those for investment, implying that most aging economies will ultimately be pushed in the direction of current account deficits.
Topic:
International Relations, Demographics, and Economics
Political Geography:
Asia

410. Untangling China's Quest for Oil through State-backed Financial Deals

Author:
Erica Downs and Peter C. Evans
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The efforts of China's national oil companies to secure upstream oil assets abroad have attracted attention from U.S. officials and policymakers. Congress has taken notice, as indicated by the request of the Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Resources Committee Richard W. Pombo—triggered by the bid made by China National Offshore Oil Corporation Ltd. for Unocal in 2005—for a study by the Department of Energy of the economic and national security implications of China's energy demand. The report, released in February 2006, concludes that the foreign investments of China's national oil companies do not pose an economic challenge to the U.S. However, one issue the report mentions only in passing that merits further attention is how the Chinese government's financial support for some of these investments can undermine an open and competitive world oil market.
Topic:
Security, Economics, and Energy Policy
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia