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21/10/2015

Powering Down: Chinese Electricity Demand Stalls Amid Slowing Growth – China Real Time Report – WSJ

A slowing economy means keeping the lights on in China is getting a whole lot easier.

The China Electricity Council, a state-backed industry group, is trimming its estimate of just how much power the country needs, after weak third-quarter economic data on Monday reinforced fears about a slowdown of China’s economy. The official Xinhua News Agency on Tuesday quoted Ouyang Changyu, deputy secretary general of the China Electricity Council, as saying the group had revised down its full-year electricity-demand estimate to 1% growth this year, from 2% previously. As recently as 2011, electricity demand had grown by 12% annually.

The revised estimate reflects both a slowdown in China’s overall growth rate—which is struggling to hit the government’s target of about 7% this year—as well as important changes in the type of growth China is experiencing. The government wants to make the country less reliant on the energy-intensive sectors that propelled growth for four decades and instead shift toward cleaner and higher-paying industries and companies, ranging from financial services to web-based startups. In the first nine months of 2015, electricity demand has grown by .8%, down from 3.9% growth in the same period last year.

Electricity demand that is falling far faster than the government’s GDP data is among the reasons economists and investors are skeptical over the accuracy of official growth figures. The government said Monday GDP rose 6.9% in the first quarter. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in 2007 – back when he was a more junior official — that he relied on electricity data among other hard figures to get a truer picture of the country’s economic health.

Beyond electricity, other reasons for skepticism over the data include the decline of both imports and exports during the third quarter, weaker-than-expected industrial production and decelerating fixed-asset investment.

The ramifications of China’s slowing demand for electricity are global, and could contribute to weaker bottom lines at big companies such as coal and natural gas producers. Hong Kong-listed coal giant China Shenhua Energy Co. said its coal sales had plummeted by nearly one-fifth this year. The company is exporting far more coal this year than it’s importing — a sharp turnabout from 2014, when it imported four times as much coal as it exported.

The decline in electricity demand growth could also further weigh on natural gas—a cleaner alternative to coal in electricity production—which has suffered from stagnant demand this year.

Source: Powering Down: Chinese Electricity Demand Stalls Amid Slowing Growth – China Real Time Report – WSJ

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20/10/2015

Xi Jinping visit: UK royals and MPs to greet Chinese leader – BBC News

Members of the Royal Family and politicians are due to greet China’s President Xi Jinping as he begins his four-day state visit to the UK.

Supporters of ChinaMr Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, will take part in a procession along The Mall to Buckingham Palace, ahead of a state banquet held by the Queen later.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Britain was going into closer relations with China with its “eyes wide open”.

He denied allegations the UK was acting like “a panting puppy” towards Beijing.

Ministers expect more than £30bn of trade and investment deals to be struck during the visit, which will also include talks between Mr Xi and Prime Minister David Cameron.

On Tuesday, Mr Xi will: Receive a ceremonial welcome from the Queen and Duke Of Edinburgh Take part in a state carriage procession to Buckingham Palace Address MPs and Lords at the Palace of Westminster Meet Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall as well as the Duke of Cambridge Hold talks with Mr Cameron and Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn Attend a state banquet

Source: Xi Jinping visit: UK royals and MPs to greet Chinese leader – BBC News

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20/10/2015

Survey Shows China Passes U.S. in Stuff Built – China Real Time Report – WSJ

China is the world’s No. 2 economy by most measures, but by one it has surpassed the U.S. China has overtaken the U.S. as the world’s wealthiest nation in terms of built assets in 2014, and is likely to double that of the U.S. by 2025, according to the Arcadis Global Built Asset Wealth Index.

The study compares 32 countries in terms of their buildings and infrastructure – homes, schools, roads, airports, power plants, malls, rail tracks  and other structures. In fact, China’s stock of built assets will exceed the next four economies combined in the next 10 years, according to the index.

The firm calculates the data at purchasing-power-parity rates, which adjusts the figures to account for differing costs in each country. That measure tends to boost the size of figures from developing countries. China has the largest stock of built assets at $47.6 trillion in 2014 and the U.S. came in second at $36.8 trillion, according to the study released Monday. In the last report, the U.S. was ahead at $39.7 trillion in 2012 compared to China’s $35.4 trillion. China’s rapid asset building came alongside soft investment in the U.S. to replace old machinery, equipment and buildings, the report said.

The index is billed as an alternative economic indicator to measure a country’s performance. the index quantifies the value of a country’s infrastructure as well as its public and private property.

Policymakers have been trying to direct the Chinese economy to rely more on consumer spending rather than investment. Still,  the pace of economic rebalancing has been slow, leading to softer growth despite some positive signs in China’s consumer sector.

The transition “is encountering difficulties, as the government has repeatedly used fiscal stimulus to try to meet its growth targets,” said the report. “The proportion of the economy accounted for by investment is falling only very slowly.  This keeps China’s built asset stock growing rapidly.”

China’s economy grew at 6.9% in the third quarter this year, falling below 7% for the first time since 2009. In the past two years, Beijing has been struggling to turn to more sustainable drivers of growth amid mounting concerns about manufacturing overcapacity and an oversupplied property market.

“There is also likely to be significant underutilization of assets in China given growth is so rapid and much asset creation is pre-emptive, also known as ‘build it and they will come,’” said the biennial report. Since 2000, China has invested $33 trillion in built assets, with its investment in infrastructure at 9% of GDP, dwarfing the U.S.’s current 2%said the report. In per capita terms, however, populous China appears far from being overbuilt.

China’s built asset wealth per person stood at $34,100, which ranks it No. 24 worldwide, unchanged from its previous ranking in 2012, according to the index. The latest figure is slightly less than a third of the U.S. per capita figure of $114,100. The countries at the top of this ranking are disproportionately made up of smaller nations by population or area, hence the density of built asset stock is much greater per resident, the report said.

Source: Survey Shows China Passes U.S. in Stuff Built – China Real Time Report – WSJ

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18/10/2015

China’s Xi lauds Britain for ‘visionary’ openness, prods others to emulate | Reuters

Chinese President Xi Jinping heaped praise on Britain for what he called a “visionary and strategic choice” to strengthen commercial ties with China, as he prepared for a state visit to the United Kingdom that’s expected to be richer in pomp and considerably warmer in tone than his recent trip to the United States.

The trip comes at a time of global anxiety about China’s slowing growth. Xi himself acknowledged “concerns about the Chinese economy”, but sought to allay them in a written interview with Reuters.

China itself is worried about the slowing of the broader global economy, Xi said, even while he expressed confidence that China would weather the current downturn as it reshapes its economy to be more resilient in the future.

That confidence will be on display when Xi arrives in London on Monday evening to kick off a four-day visit that is expected to cement ties between Britain and China, including through a host of business deals.

“The UK has stated that it will be the Western country that is most open to China. This is a visionary and strategic choice that fully meets Britain’s own long-term interest,” Xi said in a written response to questions from Reuters.

“China looks forward to engaging with the UK in a wider range, at a higher level and in greater depth.”

WARMER WELCOME

Xi’s visit comes amid debate in Britain and many other Western countries over what is the best way to engage with a Communist-ruled China that has grown more influential economically and diplomatically, but which maintains stances in areas from human rights to the South China Sea that are often at odds with those widely held in the West.

Such tensions were on display when Xi visited the United States last month, with friction over issues from cyber theft to China’s maritime disputes with its neighbors at the center of discussions.

Xi’s visit to Britain, during which he and his wife Peng Liyuan will stay at Buckingham Palace as guests of Queen Elizabeth II, is expected to be much warmer, with Xi saying it could be the start of a “golden time” in bilateral relations.

Britain was the first Western nation to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) earlier this year, leading to a stampede of other countries signing up and marking an embarrassment for Washington, which had been pressing its allies not to join.

At the time, Britain said joining the AIIB at the founding stage would “create an unrivalled opportunity for the UK and Asia to invest and grow together”.

British finance minister George Osborne set the tone with a preparatory visit to China last month, when he courted Chinese investment into Britain and won praise from Chinese state media for having the “etiquette” not to press human rights issues.

Still, Xi’s visit, the first state visit by a Chinese president since 2005, will not be without potentially awkward moments. Newly installed opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn intends to bring up the issue of human rights when he meets Xi, his official spokesman has said.

Source: Exclusive – China’s Xi lauds Britain for ‘visionary’ openness, prods others to emulate | Reuters

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16/10/2015

China aims for 30 million annual auto production capacity by 2020: industry association | Reuters

China will aim to have the capacity to make 30 million autos a year by 2020, according to an industry association, a figure that is lower than analysts’ estimates of its current annual production capacity.

Drivers stand next to brand new Geely Englon TX4 taxis, which were created based on the ''London cab'', during an inauguration ceremony in Shanghai, October 11, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer

The capacity target was in an advance copy of a speech that Vice-Secretary Shi Jianhua of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) is due to make on Friday, predicting what targets the Communist Party will set out for the auto industry when it meets later this month to decide the country’s economic blueprint for 2016 to 2020.

The speech does not specify whether the 30 million refers to passenger cars or the overall auto market, but consultancy IHS estimates China will produce 23.5 million passenger and light commercial vehicles this year and already has capacity to make 36 million annually.

Shi predicts that the country’s next five-year plan will aim for an annual production capacity of 2 million units for plug-in hybrids and battery-electric vehicles by 2020, and to have already produced 5 million vehicles, the speech says.

It also aims to lift the market share of Chinese brand vehicles to more than 60 percent, from roughly 41 percent of the passenger car market so far this year, to create five globally competitive automakers.

China’s government will also target to boost auto exports to 3 million compared to this year’s goal of 860,000.

Source: China aims for 30 million annual auto production capacity by 2020: industry association | Reuters

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15/10/2015

Fossils found in Chinese cave rewrite history of human migration out of Africa | South China Morning Post

A trove of 47 fossil human teeth from a cave in southern China is rewriting the history of the early migration of our species out of Africa, indicating they trekked into Asia far earlier than previously known and much earlier than into Europe.

Forty-seven human teeth found in the Fuyan Cave in Hunan Province in China. Photo: Reuters

Scientists on Wednesday announced the discovery of teeth between 80,000 and 120,000 years old that they say provide the earliest evidence of fully modern humans outside Africa.

The teeth from the Fuyan Cave site in Hunan Province‘s Daoxian County place our species in southern China 30,000 to 70,000 years earlier than in the eastern Mediterranean or Europe. The majority of the scientific community thought that Homo sapiens was not present in Asia before 50,000 years agoPAELEO-ANTHROPOLOGIST WU LIU

“Until now, the majority of the scientific community thought that Homo sapiens was not present in Asia before 50,000 years ago,” said paeleo-anthropologist Wu Liu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences‘ Institute of Vertebrate Paeleontology and Paeleo-anthropology.

Our species first appeared in East Africa about 200,000 years ago, then spread to other parts of the world, but the timing and location of these migrations has been unclear.

University College London paeleo-anthropologist María Martinón-Torres said our species made it to southern China tens of thousands of years before colonising Europe perhaps because of the entrenched presence of our hardy cousins, the Neanderthals, in Europe and the harsh, cold European climate.

Source: Fossils found in Chinese cave rewrite history of human migration out of Africa | South China Morning Post

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15/10/2015

China slaps one-year ban on imports of African ivory hunting trophies | Reuters

China slapped a one-year ban on African ivory hunting trophy imports, the state forestry authority said on Thursday ahead of a trip by President Xi Jinping to Britain, where members of the royal family have urged China to crack down on the ivory trade.

A government official picks up an ivory tusk to crush it at a confiscated ivory destruction ceremony in Beijing, China, May 29, 2015. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-HoonConservationists say China’s growing appetite for contraband ivory imports, which are turned into jewels and ornaments, has fueled a surge in poaching in Africa.

In March, Britain’s Prince William urged an end to the trade during a visit to a Chinese elephant sanctuary in the southwestern province of Yunnan.

Xi is scheduled to travel to Britain between Oct. 19-23, where he will stay at Buckingham Palace, home to the royal family.

China’s State Forestry Administration said in a statement posted on its website that it would “temporarily prohibit” trophy imports until Oct. 15, 2016 and “suspend the acceptance of relevant administrative permits”.

It did not give further details, though the official Xinhua news agency said a government review is under way on whether to extend a separate one-year ban made in February on imports of African ivory carvings.

The policy also follows a deal to enact nearly complete bans on ivory imports and exports made during Xi’s September state visit to the United States.

Within China, the trade and sale of ivory carvings are legal if the items were imported before the country joined the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1981, or come from a stock of 62 tonnes of raw-ivory bought from four African countries in 2008 as a one-time exemption.

The government releases a portion of that stockpile each year to ivory carving factories.

China crushed 6.2 metric tonnes (6.83 tons) of confiscated ivory early last year in its first such public destruction of any part of its stockpile. However, the country still ranks as the world’s biggest end-market for poached ivory, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

In June, a Tanzanian government minister described elephant poaching as a national disaster, and urged China to curb its appetite for ivory.

Source: China slaps one-year ban on imports of African ivory hunting trophies | Reuters

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15/10/2015

Nobel Prize Winner Angus Deaton on the Chinese and Indian Miracles – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Angus Deaton, the economist who won a Nobel Prize this week, has spent much of his career trying to measure poverty and progress in India and China.

He won the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences award in economics by devising systems to understand consumption and poverty using household surveys and number crunching.

“Deaton’s focus on household surveys has helped transform development economics from a theoretical field based on aggregate data to an empirical field based on detailed individual data,” the academy said.

His decadeslong deep dive into data on the poor, their spending habits and their health gave him a surprisingly upbeat assessment of human progress, largely owed to the great strides that have been made in China and India. His book, “The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality,” documented why the world is a better place to live than it used to be.

A recent World Bank report suggested that more than one billion people might have been lifted out of extreme poverty already this century. Most of that progress was in China and India.

Here are a few of the things Mr. Deaton said in his book about the massive shifts in China and India that are changing the world.

On what China and India have taught us … “China and India are the success stories; rapid growth in large countries is an engine that can make a colossal dent in world poverty.”

On infant mortality in India and China … “India’s decline in infant mortality has been remarkably steady–not at all responsive to changes in the rate of growth–and the absolute decline from 165 out of every 1,000 babies dying in the early 1950s to 53 in 2005-10, is actually larger in absolute numbers than the decline in China, from 122 to 22.”

On how Chinese and Indian bodies have evolved with the economy… “Indian children are still among the skinniest and shortest on the planet but they are taller and plumper than were their parents or grandparents … Indians too are now growing taller decade by decade, though not as quickly as happened in Europe, or indeed as is now happening in China, where people are growing at about (the now familiar figure of) a centimeter every decade. Yet the Indian escape is only half as fast–about half a centimeter a decade–and that figure is for men; Indian women are growing too, but at a much slower rate, so that it takes them sixty years to grow a centimeter.”

On a better measure showing how China and India have lifted the world … “Although China and India are only two countries, their rapid growth at the end of the century meant that around 40% of the world’s population lived in countries that were growing very rapidly … (Thus) the average country grew at 1.5% a year in the half century after 1960, but the average person lived in a country that was growing at 3%.”

On how long the miracle can continue …  “At least over the past half-century the fast-growing countries in one decade have tended not to repeat their performance in the next or subsequent decades. Japan used to be the place that had perpetually high growth, until it didn’t any more. India, now one of the most rapidly growing countries, seemed capable of only slow growth for much of its existence, not to speak of the half-century that preceded its independence, when there was no growth at all. China is the current long-run superstar, but by historical standards the longevity of its growth spurt is extremely unusual.”

On the difficulty of defining poverty …  “In India, as in any country where a substantial fraction of the population is poor, there are millions of people who are close to poverty, either just above or just below the line … We don’t really know where the line should be, yet its precise position makes a huge difference. To put it more brutally, the truth is that we have little idea what we are doing.”

Source: Nobel Prize Winner Angus Deaton on the Chinese and Indian Miracles – China Real Time Report – WSJ

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10/10/2015

Program will make cities ‘sponges’ for rainwater|Society|chinadaily.com.cn

China’s sponge city program will enable 80 percent of its urban areas to collect and recycle rainwater in the near future as the country rolls out a total investment of 86.5 billion yuan ($13.6 billion) over the next three years.

Runoff flowing into a stormwater drain

Runoff flowing into a stormwater drain (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The sponge city campaign, which aims to turn urban areas into “sponges” to absorb and recycle 70 percent of rainwater, will cover 20 percent of China’s urban areas by 2020 and 80 percent by 2030, Lu Kehua, vice-minister of housing and urban-rural development, said at a news conference on Friday.

“The campaign is to maximize our efforts to reduce the impact of urbanization on ecology and the environment,” he said.

The central government has already selected 16 cities nationwide as a testing ground involving more than 450 square kilometers.

More than 130 cities nationwide have already formulated plans to push forward the sponge city campaign, he said.

The program will see the construction of high-level urban sewer systems during renovation work, and new roads, residences, industrial parks and public green areas, that enable the infiltration of water into the ground, as well as the recycling of stormwater. However, funding issues remained one of the biggest challenges as it would require massive infrastructure investment.

Lu said the government will encourage more social capital to take part in the campaign.

“Companies will be allowed to issue their own bonds as part of the program, and the central government will also support the program with a special construction fund,” he said.

Meanwhile, companies will be allowed to use expected earnings from the program for other investment purposes, he said.

The program was launched as a growing number of cities in China fall victim to summer floods as the stormwater runoff overwhelms urban drainage systems.

In 2012, urban flooding affected 184 cities, while in 2013 the number was 234 and last year it was 125, according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

More than 300 of China’s 657 cities failed to reach national standards for flood prevention, and more than 90 percent of older urban areas don’t even meet the lowest criteria for flood prevention, Zhang Jiatuan, a spokesman for the headquarters, said at a news conference in May.

“Because our cities have been filled with impervious surfaces, the infiltration of stormwater became impossible. … Thus the program should focus primarily on the infiltration of water into the ground,” he said.

Source: Program will make cities ‘sponges’ for rainwater|Society|chinadaily.com.cn

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06/10/2015

China’s New Nobel Laureate: New Attention to an Old Science Problem – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Chinese pharmacologist Tu Youyou, who won a share of the Nobel Prize for medicine on Monday for her discovery of a game-changing malaria treatment, did her seminal work when China was in the midst of the radical movement known as the Cultural Revolution. Her pathbreaking Nobel win is renewing discussion of the way China’s scientific community does research.

The award to Ms. Tu ticks a number of firsts: She’s the first citizen of the People’s Republic to win a science Nobel, the first Chinese citizen to win a Nobel for medicine and the first female Chinese citizen to win a Nobel of any kind.

In marveling at that feat, Chinese media have dwelled on Ms. Tu’s lack of academic credentials. The 84-year-old chief professor at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine is without a PhD, without an overseas education and without the title of yuanshi (or academician) given to the country’s top scholars. For that reason, she has been referred to as China’s “three withouts” scientist. Prior to her winning the prestigious Lasker Prize for Medical Research in 2011, she was an obscure figure.

That a future Nobel laureate could be ignored for her lack of traditional accomplishments has renewed attention to an academic system already criticized by many as bureaucratic and unimaginative.

“It seems like every headline I’ve seen today says ”Three-Withouts’ Scientist Tu Youyou Wins Nobel for Medicine.’ That’s not a headline, but a question we should all ponder,” cinematographer Wang Peishan wrote in one of many similar comments on the Twitter-like Weibo social media platform.

Source: China’s New Nobel Laureate: New Attention to an Old Science Problem – China Real Time Report – WSJ

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