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29/05/2019

Short of war, US can’t help but lose to China’s rise in Asia, says think tank Lowy Institute

Lowy Institute’s 2019 Asia Power Index puts Washington behind both Beijing and Tokyo for diplomatic influence
Trump’s assault on trade has done little to stop Washington’s decline in regional influence, compared to Beijing, say experts

Chinese and US flags at an international school in Beijing. Photo: AFP

The

may be a dominant military force in Asia for now but short of going to war, it will be unable to stop its economic and diplomatic clout from declining relative to China’s power.

That’s the view of Australian think tank the Lowy Institute, which on Tuesday evening released its 2019 index on the distribution of power in Asia.

However, the institute also said China faced its own obstacles in the region, and that its ambitions would be constrained by a lack of trust from its neighbours.

The index scored China 75.9 out of 100, just behind the US, on 84.5. The gap was less than America’s 10 point lead last year, when the index was released for the first time.

“Current US foreign policy may be accelerating this trend,” said the institute, which contended that “under most scenarios, short of war, the United States is unlikely to halt the narrowing power differential between itself and China”.

The Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index. Click to enlarge.

Since July, US President

Donald Trump

has slapped tariffs on Chinese imports to reduce his country’s

trade deficit with China

. He most recently hiked a 10 per cent levy on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 per cent and has also threatened to impose tariffs on other trading partners such as the European Union and Japan.

Herve Lemahieu, the director of the Lowy Institute’s Asian Power and Diplomacy programme, said: “The Trump administration’s focus on trade wars and balancing trade flows one country at a time has done little to reverse the relative decline of the United States, and carries significant collateral risk for third countries, including key allies of the United States.”

The index rates a nation’s power – which it defines as the ability to direct or influence choices of both state and non-state actors – using eight criteria. These include a country’s defence networks, economic relationships, future resources and military capability.

It ranked Washington behind both Beijing and Tokyo in terms of diplomatic influence in Asia, due in part to “contradictions” between its recent economic agenda and its traditional role of offering consensus-based leadership.

The spoils of trade war: Asia’s winners and losers in US-China clash

Toshihiro Nakayama, a fellow at the Wilson Centre in Washington, said the US had become its own enemy in terms of influence.

“I don’t see the US being overwhelmed by China in terms of sheer power,” said Nakayama. “It’s whether America is willing to maintain its internationalist outlook.”

But John Lee, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said the Trump administration’s willingness to challenge the status quo on issues like trade could ultimately boost US standing in Asia.

“The current administration is disruptive but has earned respect for taking on difficult challenges which are of high regional concern but were largely ignored by the Obama administration –

North Korea’s

illegal weapons and China’s predatory economic policies to name two,” said Lee.

“One’s diplomatic standing is not just about being ‘liked’ or ‘uncontroversial’ but being seen as a constructive presence.”

CHINA’S RISE

China’s move up the index overall – from 74.5 last year to 75.9 this year – was partly due to it overtaking the US on the criteria of “economic resources”, which encompasses GDP size, international leverage and technology.

China’s economy grew by more than the size of Australia’s GDP in 2018, the report noted, arguing that its growing base of upper-middle class consumers would blunt the impact of US efforts to restrict Chinese tech firms in Western markets.

US President Donald Trump with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Photo: Reuters

“In midstream products such as smartphones and with regard to developing country markets, Chinese tech companies can still be competitive and profitable due to their economies of scale and price competitiveness,” said Jingdong Yuan, an associate professor at the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

“However, to become a true superpower in the tech sector and dominate the global market remains a steep climb for China, and the Trump administration is making it all the more difficult.”

The future competitiveness of Beijing’s military, currently a distant second to Washington’s, will depend on long-term political will, according to the report, which noted that China already spends over 50 per cent more on defence than the 10

Asean

economies,

India

and

Japan

combined.

TRUST ISSUE

However,

distrust of China

stands in the way of its primacy in Asia, according to the index, which noted Beijing’s unresolved territorial and historical disputes with 11 neighbouring countries and “growing degrees of opposition” to its signature

Belt and Road Initiative

Beijing is locked in disputes in the

South China Sea

with a raft of countries including Vietnam, the Philippines and Brunei, and has been forced to renegotiate infrastructure projects in

Malaysia

and Myanmar due to concerns over feasibility and cost.

If Trump kills off Huawei, do Asia’s 5G dreams die?

Xin Qiang, a professor at the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said Beijing still needed to persuade its neighbours it could be a “constructive, instead of a detrimental, force for the region”.

“There are still many challenges for [China to increase its] power and influence in the Asia-Pacific,” Xin said.

Wu Xinbo, also at Fudan University’s Centre for American Studies, said Beijing was having mixed success in terms of winning regional friends and allies.

“For China, the key challenge is how to manage the maritime disputes with its neighbours,” said Wu. “I don’t think there is growing opposition to the Belt and Road Initiative from the region, actually more and more countries are jumping aboard. It is the US that is intensifying its opposition to the project as Washington worries it may promote China’s geopolitical influence.”

Yuan said the rivalry between the

US and China

would persist and shape the global order into the distant future.

“They can still and do wish to cooperate where both find it mutually beneficial, but I think the more important task for now and for some time to come, is to manage their disputes in ways that do not escalate to a dangerous level,” Yuan said. “These differences probably cannot be resolved given their divergent interests, perspectives, etc, but they can and should be managed, simply because their issues are not confined to the bilateral [relationship] but have enormous regional and global implications.”

Elsewhere in Asia, the report spotlighted Japan, ranked third in the index, as the leader of the liberal order in Asia, and fourth-placed India as an “underachiever relative to both its size and potential”.

China’s wrong, the US can kill off Huawei. But here’s why it won’t

Lee said the index supported a growing perception that Tokyo had emerged as a “political and strategic leader among democracies in Asia” under

Shinzo Abe

“This is important because Prime Minister Abe wants Japan to emerge as a constructive strategic player in the Indo-Pacific and high diplomatic standing is important to that end,” Lee said.

Russia

, South Korea, Australia,

Singapore

, Malaysia and Thailand rounded out the top-10 most powerful countries, in that order. Among the pack, Russia, Malaysia and Thailand stood out as nations that improved their standing from the previous year.

Taiwan

, ranked 14th, was the only place to record an overall decline in score, reflecting its waning diplomatic influence

after losing three of its few remaining diplomatic allies

during the past year.

Source: SCMP

Posted in Asia, Asia Power Index, Asian Power and Diplomacy programme, Australia, Australia’s GDP, Beijing, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Centre for American Studies, China alert, Chinese tech firms, European Union, Fudan University, geopolitical influence, Huawei, Hudson Institute, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Lowy Institute, Malaysia, North Korea, President Xi Jinping, rise, Russia, Short of war, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, think tanks, Tokyo, Uncategorized, US, US President Donald Trump, Washington, Western markets, Wilson Centre in Washington | Leave a Comment »

28/05/2019

China embraced gay ‘marriage’ long before Taiwan’s law. The West perverted history

Asia has a rich but largely forgotten history of acceptance of queer relationships
It was not until the colonial era that sexual and gender diversity came to be seen as a sin

An LGBT pride parade in support of Taiwan’s same-sex marriage law. Photo: Reuters

Anyone reading the headlines about

Taiwan’s

legalisation of same-sex marriage
would get the impression this was Asia’s first taste of marriage equality. They would be quite wrong.

While Taiwan may be the first jurisdiction in Asia to legalise the modern form of same-sex marriage, such unions have been recognised across the region in various guises for centuries.

It may be true that Asia does not have a great reputation among the

LGBTQ

community, but it does have a rich history of acceptance of sexual and gender diversity – one that has largely been forgotten.

When Europeans first encountered Chinese society, they praised many aspects of it, from its efficient government to the sophisticated lifestyles of the upper-class. But they were shocked and repulsed about one aspect of Chinese society: the “abominable vice of sodomy”.

Opinion: Three lessons for Hong Kong from Taiwan’s LGBT journey

One Portuguese Dominican friar, Gaspar da Cruz, even wrote an apocalyptic tract which portrayed China as the new Sodom – beset by earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters due to their acceptance of that “filthy abomination, which is that they are so given to the accursed sin of unnatural vice”, that is, sodomy.

Southern China, in particular, was known for a widespread acceptance of homosexual relationships. Shen Defu, a Chinese writer during the Ming dynasty, wrote that it was common for men of all social classes in Fujian province to take male lovers. While men generally took on these lovers while maintaining respectable marriages to women, there were some men who took their lover-relationships to a quasi-marriage level. The older man would be considered qixiong (adoptive older brother) and the younger qidi(adoptive younger brother).

South Korean men take part in Taiwan’s annual LGBT pride parade in Taipei. Photo: AFP

Bret Hinsch, a professor of history in Taiwan, describes the ceremony based on the narration of a Chinese playwright, Li Yu (1610-1680): “Two men sacrifice a carp, a rooster, and a duck. They then exchange their exact times of birth, smear each other’s mothers with the blood of their sacrifices, and then swear eternal loyalty to one another.

The ceremony concludes with feasting on the sacrificial victims …. The younger qidi would move into the qixiong’s household. There he would be treated as a son-in-law by his husband’s parents. Throughout the marriage, many of which lasted for 20 years, the qixiong would be completely responsible for his younger husband’s upkeep.

The marriage would typically dissolve after a number of years so that the younger man could find a bride to marry to procreate and further the family lineage. The elder man was expected to pay the bride a price for the younger man.

These forms of gay “marriage” were prevalent enough in Fujian that there was even a patron deity of homosexuality, the rabbit. Many Han people from Fujian migrated to Taiwan starting in the 17th century; they now make up 80 per cent of the population.

Explained: gay rights, LGBTQ and same-sex marriage in Asia

Most literary accounts of homosexual relationships in China involve men, and there is a lively debate among scholars as to whether women enjoyed the same freedom.

Nevertheless, the most documented of female “quasi-marriages” are the “Golden Orchid Associations” in Guangdong. (Around 15 per cent of Taiwan’s population is Hakka, which historians trace specifically to Han migrants from Guangdong and surrounding areas.) The Golden Orchid Society was a movement based in Guangdong that lasted from the late Qing dynasty until the early 1900s. It provided a “sisterhood” alternative to women who did not want to get married for various reasons.

To announce her intentions, one woman would offer another gifts of peanut candy, dates and other goods. If the recipient accepted the gift, it was a signal she had accepted the proposal. They would swear an oath to one another, where sometimes one woman was designated “husband” and the other “wife”.

A couple kiss as they celebrate Taiwan’s legalisation of same-sex marriage. Photo: Reuters

Hinsch describes the ceremony in this way: “After an exchange of ritual gifts, the foundation of the Chinese marriage ceremony, a feast attended by female companions served to witness the marriage. These married lesbian couples could even adopt female children, who in turn could inherit family property from the couple’s parents.”

While these “marriages” are not equivalent to the same-sex marriages of today, they nevertheless are historical precedents for what is now happening in Taiwan.

And China is far from being the only country in Asia with a queer history – Southeast Asia’s LGBTQ history is even richer.

Why some members of Singapore’s LGBT community prefer life in the shadows

In the early modern period, marriages between two people of the same assigned sex but who identified as different genders, were fairly normal in many parts of Southeast Asia. We know this primarily from the records Europeans kept when they landed on Asian shores.

For instance, here is a letter by a Portuguese missionary, Antonio de Paiva, to his Catholic bishop in 1544 about his observations of the Bugis people in what is now

Indonesia

: “Your lordship will know that the priests of these kings are generally called bissus. They grow no hair on their beards, dress in a womanly fashion, and grow their hair long and braided; they imitate [women’s] speech because they adopt all of the female gestures and inclinations. They marry and are received, according to the custom of the land, with other common men, and they live indoors, uniting carnally in their secret places with the men whom they have for husbands …”

After this scandalised description, the author concludes with amazement that the Christian god, who had destroyed “three cities of Sodom for the same sin”, had not yet destroyed such “wanton people” who were “encircled by evil”.

Drag queens at a gay nightclub in Beijing. Despite its reputation, Asia has a long history of accepting diversity. Photo: EPA

Dating as far back as the 13th century, bissu have traditionally served as council to kings and guarded sacred manuscripts. They are considered a fifth gender within the Bugis’ gender-system: oroané (male men), makkunrai (female women), calabai (male women), calalai (female men), and bissu, who were neither male nor female (or both).

Brunei’s LGBT residents face up to new death by stoning law against gay sex

Today, their ranks have thinned – in one area, the population has dwindled to just six people – but the tradition remains, and they still perform important blessings. Contemporary bissu are typically male-bodied individuals who adopt feminine and masculine elements in their appearance. Although in the past bissu were married men, today they are required to be celibate.

In pre-Islamic Bugis culture, bissu were accorded priestly honours and tasked with mediating between the gods and people precisely because of, not in spite of, their gender. According to professor Halilintar Lathier, an Indonesian anthropologist, Bugis culture “perceived the upper world as male and this world as female, and therefore only a meta-gender would be able to become an intermediary”.

This pattern of a “gender-expansive” priest able to marry others of the same sex recurs throughout Southeast Asia.

A transgender beauty contest in Pattaya, Thailand. Despite its reputation, Asia has a long history of accepting diversity. Photo: Handout

To the west of South Sulawesi is Borneo, a large island that contains all of Brunei and parts of Indonesia and

Malaysia

. Borneo is home to many indigenous communities, including the Iban. The Iban historically respected manang bali, who were typically male-bodied shamans who adopted feminine dress and demeanour, and who took men as their husbands. Manang bali were mediators and held roles of great ritual importance; they were typically wealthy village chiefs known for their healing arts.

West of Borneo is the Malay Peninsula, where there are records from the Malay Annals and Misa Melayu dating as far back as the 15th century about priests, called sida-sida, who served in the palaces of the Malay sultans. They were responsible for safeguarding women in the palace as well as the food and clothing of royalty, and overseeing ritual protocol. The sida-sida undertook “androgynous behaviour” such as wearing women’s clothing and doing women’s tasks. A Malay anthropologist in the 1950s, Shamsul A.B., recalls seeing male-bodied sida-sida in the royal palace in his childhood, who were believed by the population to either be celibate and asexual, or attracted to men. Michael Peletz, an anthropologist and author of Gender Pluralism in Southeast Asia, notes that based on the evidence, it is “highly likely” that sida-sida involved both male- and female-bodied people who were involved in transgender practices, and who engaged in sexual relationships with people of the same and opposite sex.

How a gay student’s suicide is helping Japan’s LGBT community speak up

Northeast of Malaysia is the

Philippines

, where pre-colonial communities were religiously led by babylan: women healers and shamans who were responsible for mediating between the gods and people. Male-bodied people (asog, bayog), sometimes considered a third sex, could also hold these roles so long as they comported themselves like women. A 16th century Spanish Catholic manuscript records asog in the following manner:

“Ordinarily they dress as women, act like prudes and are so effeminate that one who does not know them would believe they are women … they marry other males and sleep with them as man and wife and have carnal knowledge.”

Dancers perform at the Shanghai PRIDE opening party. Despite its reputation, Asia has a long history of accepting diversity. Photo: AFP

The Spanish priests saw these asog as “devil-possessed”, particularly because they habitually practised “sodomy” among one another. Due to the Chinese reputation for homosexuality and various Sinophobic attitudes, some even attributed the prevalence of sodomy to the Chinese, whom they said had “infected the natives” and introduced the curse to the “Indians”, although there is no evidence of this.

COLONIAL CURVEBALL

Although these examples relate to the religious arena, anthropologists believe the respect accorded to these ritual specialists were an indicator of a wider societal acceptance of gender and sexual diversity in Southeast Asia – an acceptance that began to be eroded through the introduction of world religions (particularly Christianity), modernity, and colonialism. For example, in Malaysia, Brunei,

Singapore

, Myanmar and throughout the commonwealth, the British enforced a penal code that legislated against sodomy. More than half of the countries that currently legally prohibit sodomy do so based on laws created by the British.

On gay sex, India has assumed an ancient position. Read the kama sutra

Similarly, after the Chinese were defeated by Western and Japanese imperialists, many Chinese progressives in the early 20th century sought to modernise China, which meant adopting “modern” Western ideas of dress, relationships, science and sexuality.

Concubinage was outlawed, prostitution was frowned upon, and women’s feet were unbound. It also meant importing European scientific understandings of homosexuality as an inverted or perverted pathology. These “scientific ideas” were debunked in the 1960s in the West, but lived on in China, frozen in time, and have only recently begun to thaw with the rise of LGBTQ activists in Asia.

A recent headline on the news from Taiwan read: “First in Asia: marriage equality comes to Taiwan”, as if the recent bill was an unprecedented “first” for Asia and that marriage equality – which, presumably, the headline writer associates with the West – has finally reached Asian shores.

But when we zoom out historically, it is evident that what happened in Taiwan is not so much a novel “breakthrough” for Asia. It is more a reconnection to its queer Chinese and Asian heritage, as well as a rejection of outdated Western ideas that it once adopted.

There is still much more work to be done to advance LGBT rights in Taiwan and the rest of Asia, but perhaps looking backwards in time can help us move forward.

Source: SCMP

Posted in adoptive older brother), adoptive younger brother, anthropologist, Antonio de Paiva, Asia, “Golden Orchid Associations”, “sisterhood” alternative, babylan, Beijing, bissu, Borneo, Bret Hinsch, Brunei, Bugis people, Bugis’ gender-system, calabai (male women), calalai (female men), carnal knowledge, carp, celibate, China alert, Chinese playwright, Chinese progressives, Chinese Society, colonial era, Concubinage, Drag queen, duck, embraced, encountered, Europeans, female “quasi-marriages”, Fujian Province, gay ‘marriage’, gay nightclub, gender diversity, Gender Pluralism in Southeast Asia, Guangdong, Hakka, Han, History, homosexual relationships, Iban, imperialists, Indians, Indonesia, Japanese, jurisdiction, Li Yu (1610-1680), makkunrai (female women), Malay Annals, Malay Peninsula, Malaysia, male lovers, Michael Peletz, Ming Dynasty, Misa Melayu, Myanmar, neither male nor female (or both), oroané (male men), patron deity of homosexuality, Pattaya, perverted, Portuguese missionary, professor of history, Prostitution, qidi, qixiong, queer relationships, rabbit, rooster, sexual and gender diversity, sin, Singapore, Sinophobic attitudes, Sodom, South Korean men, South Sulawesi, southern China, Spanish priests, Taiwan, Taiwan’s law, Thailand, times of birth, transgender beauty contest, Uncategorized, West, Western | Leave a Comment »

27/04/2019

(BRF) Feature: In Schwab’s eyes, BRI growing into mature initiative

BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) — The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is growing up and gaining global traction, said Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), here on Friday.

In an interview with Xinhua on the sidelines of the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF), he said that when he attended the first BRF in 2017, the BRI “was still a child growing up and you don’t know what the end of it will be.”

“Now the BRI has become an adult, which means that it has become an important factor in the global economy. It has grown up,” he told Xinhua.

Illustrating his understanding of the BRI in a speech at the ongoing second BRF, the professor said that through the BRI and institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, China can demonstrate to the world that “the philosophy and concept of the Belt and Road is more than an important initiative.”

The WEF founder, an advocate of “Globalization 4.0,” said that if people want globalization to continue as a positive force, a higher level of globalization is needed to respond to the needs and realities of a transforming world.

The BRI, he added, can be “a building block and a role model of” an advanced pattern of global cooperation that should be more sustainable, more inclusive and more collaborative.

Over the years, Schwab has articulated on many occasions his views of the BRI. At the 2015 Summer Davos Forum in northeast China’s port city of Dalian, he said he was happy to see that China proposed the BRI.

There was a huge infrastructure demand in Asia and Europe, and it was a good thing for China to play a leading role in building infrastructure in the region, he noted.

Partly thanks to the fact that it met the development needs of many countries, the BRI continued with rapid progress, promoting common development in participating countries and bringing Asia and Europe ever closer.

On May 13, 2017, the 1,000th China-Europe freight train that year departed from China’s eastern city of Yiwu to Europe, fully loaded with commodities like smallware and clothes.

The next day, Schwab reaffirmed his full support for the BRI in an address at the first BRF. Not hiding his enthusiasm about the BRI, he said the initiative “takes a long-term and holistic view, and makes a unique contribution to international cooperation and economic development.”

He pointed out that connectivity, a primary focus of the BRI, “is the new meta-pattern of our era and a key driver of our future economy.”

Citing a Chinese saying that “if you want to get rich, build a road,” he said, “I would update this to say: ‘If you seek prosperity, build connectivity.'”

One month later, in an interview with Xinhua ahead of the 2017 Summer Davos Forum, also held in Dalian, Schwab pointed to the BRI’s paradigm-shifting significance.

“The Belt and Road Initiative has great significance because it is a new approach to reach a new and open cooperation … and everybody can participate in a win-win situation as an equal partner,” he said.

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the initiative six years ago, 126 countries and 29 international organizations have signed BRI cooperation documents with China. The initiative has become the world’s largest platform for international cooperation and the most welcomed global public good.

The BRI “is now growing up into a mature initiative that can have even more impact,” Schwab told Xinhua.

Source: Xinhua

Posted in "Globalization 4.0,", "if you want to get rich, build a road,", 'If you seek prosperity, build connectivity.', 2015 Summer Davos Forum, Asia, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China alert, China-Europe freight train, clothes, commodities, Dalian, Europe, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Klaus Schwab, smallware, Uncategorized, Yiwu | Leave a Comment »

20/01/2019

China’s tech hub Shenzhen misses growth target but leapfrogs Hong Kong into Asia’s top 5, mayor says

Gross domestic product up 7.5 per cent in 2018 to US$350 billion, mayor Chen Rugui says
But claim city’s economy now among Asia’s biggest may be premature as Hong Kong has yet to show its hand

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 20 January, 2019, 6:04pm

UPDATED : Sunday, 20 January, 2019, 6:04pm

COMMENTS: 3

Shenzhen’s gross domestic product rose by 7.5 per cent in 2018 to about US$352.7 billion. Photo: Roy Issa

Shenzhen failed to meet its economic growth target last year due to worse than expected results in key technology sectors but its mayor remains confident it did enough to overtake Hong Kong and join the ranks of the five biggest city economies in Asia for the first time in its history.

The south China boom town has been steadily making ground on Hong Kong in recent years, but its nominal gross domestic product in 2017 fell about US$3.4 billion short of a place among the giants of Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong.

In 2018, Shenzhen’s GDP increased by 7.5 per cent to about 2.4 trillion yuan (US$352.71 billion), mayor Chen Rugui said at the opening of the annual municipal people’s congress on Friday. Its growth target was 8 per cent.

“The economic size [of Shenzhen] is among Asia’s top five cities,” he said.

https://widgets.scmp.com/video/video_iframe.php?id=0t3o5c&poster=https%3A//cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/video/images/2018/10/19/shenzhenev_web_text.jpg

Despite Chen’s confidence, Hong Kong’s 2018 figures, which will not be released until next month, are expected to show GDP growth of about 3.2 per cent to HK$2.86 trillion (US$364.6 billion), which would see it edging out its mainland neighbour once again.

The gap between the two cities’ economies is now so small that fluctuations in exchange rates and methods of calculation can sway the result, although both have sought to play down the rivalry.

Early last year, Shenzhen’s statistics agency even issued a clarification of the city’s nominal GDP figure for 2017, confirming it was still smaller than Hong Kong’s.

A tale of two cities: Shenzhen vs Hong Kong

Shenzhen is known as China’s hi-tech hub and is home to many of the country’s biggest technology names, including Huawei and Tencent.

While its strategic emerging industries – which includes such fields as information technology, biotechnology and new materials – contributed 37 per cent of the 2018 GDP figure, the ratio was down from about 40 per cent in each of the previous two years. The result was also disappointing in terms of Shenzhen’s broader goals, having set itself a target to grow the sector to 42 per cent of GDP by the end of its current five-year plan period in 2020.

The combined GDP growth among strategic emerging industries slowed to 8.5 per cent in 2018, from 13.6 per cent the year before, although the city still managed to attract 3,000 new hi-tech firms, taking the total to about 14,000.

Shenzhen spent about 100 billion yuan, or 4.16 per cent of its GDP, on research and development last year – a slight increase from 4.13 per cent in 2017 – and this is targeted to rise to 4.25 per cent in 2020.

Jobs in China’s export-import industries wither in the heat of Washington’s trade war with Beijing

Its foreign trade in 2018 grew by 7 per cent year on year to about 3 trillion yuan – as output from firms with annual revenue of at least 20 million yuan gained 8.8 per cent – while retail sales increased by 2.5 per cent to 616.3 billion yuan.

As China continues to fight a trade war with the United States, Shenzhen, like most other cities and provinces in the world’s most populous nation, has cut its economic growth target for 2019, to 7 per cent. It has also lowered it new jobs target for the year to 80,000, from nearly 109,000 in 2018.

https://multimedia.scmp.com/widgets/china/tradewar-countdown/

Chen said that the economic downturn had put a huge strain on the city’s growth prospects, while a lack of available talent in the field of research and development was stifling innovation and doing nothing to ease its over-reliance on imports for many core components and equipment.

He said the city remained committed to supporting the development of the Greater Bay Area by speeding up the Qianhai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong cooperation zone – part of the Guangdong free-trade zone – and the Lau Ma Chau Loop – a new innovation and technology park. It would also support the expansion of the Qianhai Cooperation Zone, he said, but did not elaborate.

Guangzhou misses its growth target, as trade war and China’s economic slowdown begin to bite

Wang Hailong, a deputy to the Shenzhen People’s Congress and boss of a local telecommunication equipment company, said he was not surprised by the slower growth in emerging sectors.

“It’s essential to invest in innovation through research if Shenzhen wants to maintain its remarkable expansion,” he said. “But in the current climate, it’s not easy to attract top global talent.”

Guo Wanda, vice-president of the Shenzhen-based think tank China Development Institute, warned of a possible “hollowing out” of the local economy if the city government failed to support hi-tech companies during this difficult period as they may be lured away.

Source: SCMP

Posted in Asia, China alert, Hong Kong, mayor, Shenzhen, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

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Short of war, US can’t help but lose to China’s rise in Asia, says think tank Lowy Institute

China embraced gay ‘marriage’ long before Taiwan’s law. The West perverted history

(BRF) Feature: In Schwab’s eyes, BRI growing into mature initiative

China’s tech hub Shenzhen misses growth target but leapfrogs Hong Kong into Asia’s top 5, mayor says

Jobs in China’s export-import industries wither in the heat of Washington’s trade war with Beijing

Guangzhou misses its growth target, as trade war and China’s economic slowdown begin to bite

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