Posts tagged ‘Li Keqiang’

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23/05/2013

* China urbanization plan hits roadblock over spending fears – sources

Reuters: “China’s plan to spend $6.5 trillion on urbanization to bolster the economy is running into snags, sources close to the government said, as top leaders fear another spending binge could push up local debt levels and inflate a property bubble.

A general view of newly built houses at Dadun village of Lingshui ethnic Li Autonomous County, Hainan province, in this January 18, 2013 file photo. REUTERS-Stringer-Files

Premier Li Keqiang has rejected an urbanization proposal drafted by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), seeking changes to put more emphasis on economic reform, according to the sources, who are familiar with the matter.

Many local authorities have already lobbied to get funding for projects, ringing alarm bells among top leaders in Beijing.

State-owned China Development Bank recently pledged to lend 150 billion yuan ($24.47 billion) to southeastern Fujian province to support its urbanization and channel 30 billion yuan into urban projects in central Anhui province, according to Chinese media.

“The urbanization plan could be delayed. Top leaders have seen potential risks if the program cannot be kept on the right path,” said an economist at a top think-tank which advises the cabinet.

“The leadership aims to jumpstart reforms, but local governments see this in a different perspective – they view this as the last opportunity to boost investment,” said the economist who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

China plans to spend some 40 trillion yuan ($6.5 trillion) to bring 400 million people to its cities over the next decade as leaders such as Li try to sustain economic growth that slowed to a 13-year low of 7.8 percent in 2012.

Li, the driving force behind urbanization, has turned more cautious following warnings from leading academics over the risks, said the think-tank sources who are involved in the policy discussions.

The NDRC is racing against the clock to amend the long-term plan in a bid to publish it by the end of June.”

via Exclusive :China urbanization plan hits roadblock over spending fears – sources | Reuters.

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19/05/2013

* China Premier Li Keqiang in India for first foreign trip

BBC: “China‘s Premier Li Keqiang is travelling to India in the first stop of his maiden foreign trip since taking office.

Chinese and Indian flags flie in New Delhi on 18 May 2013

Upon his arrival in Delhi, Premier Li will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, followed by dinner at the Indian leader’s residence.

Border tensions and trade ties are expected to be among the issues discussed by the two men.

The neighbours are the world’s two most populous countries.

Beijing hopes the visit will help build trust and a new strategic partnership to the benefit of both countries, China’s official news agency Xinhua said.

Delhi thought “very highly” of Mr Li’s decision to make India his first foreign stop and the aim of the talks was to “enhance trust”, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said.

A decades-long border dispute flared up last month after India accused Chinese troops of crossing the countries’ de facto border in the Himalayas.

The dispute over the territory in the Ladakh region has dogged the two countries since the 1950s.

Boosting trade ties is also expected to dominate the talks. China is already one of India’s top trading partners and both countries have already agreed a new $100bn (£65bn) bilateral trade target for 2015.

Premier Li will spend three days in India before travelling on to Pakistan, Switzerland and Germany.”

via BBC News – China Premier Li Keqiang in India for first foreign trip.

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15/05/2013

* Premier promises administrative streamlining to create jobs

Li Keqiang 李克强

Li Keqiang 李克强 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Xinhua: “Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has called for reducing administrative barriers for launching businesses to create more job opportunities.

On a nationwide tele-conference held on Monday about the functional transformation of the institutions under the State Council, or the cabinet, Li said China faces a tough employment situation due to the tempered economic growth in the past few months this year.

The country will expect a record 6.99 million college graduates this year, Li said, adding that it is an important task to help them get employed.

Efforts should be made to vigorously develop medium-sized, small and micro businesses by canceling unnecessary administrative approvals, as state-owned enterprises and institutions have limited capacity in providing employment opportunities.

Li said that the government should also make efforts to lower the threshold for people to seek employment or start businesses.”

via Premier promises administrative streamlining to create jobs – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2013/05/15/job-prospects-grim-for-chinas-7m-fresh-grads/

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14/05/2013

* India and China; making up, but what about trade?

FT: “Salman Khurshid, India’s foreign minister, is back from a trip to China last week, happy to see the end of a tense stand-off over a long-running border dispute. Settling that issue will re-open the way for a planned visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to India and allow the two countries to concentrate on the big topic on Khurshid’s agenda: trade.

But here, too, relations between the region’s big powers are not entirely friendly.

Back in November 2011, India and China set a target for bilateral trade of $100bn for 2015. That’s quite a leap from $2.3bn a decade ago and marks a concrete step in bringing the two nations closer together.

But the balance of trade is strongly in China’s favour. Now Kurshid has put the November 2011 agreement “on pause” until the imbalance is resolved.

According to India’s department of commerce, India’s exports to China in April to December 2012 were worth $9.7bn. In the same period, China’s exports to India were worth $41.2bn – a bilateral trade deficit for India of $31.5bn, nearly a quarter of India’s entire trade deficit in the period.

Khurshid claimed not to have minced his words:

We said that let the trade imbalance be addressed upfront as an urgent priority, and then of course we can move to the next stage which is the regional trading arrangement.

What does the minister want from China? One target is better market access, especially for India’s IT and pharmaceuticals companies. Indian business leaders complain that exports to China would be much greater if China’s big state owned enterprises could be persuaded to source from foreign suppliers.

But others say a lack of competitiveness among Indian manufacturers contributes to the problem.

“China has a very competitive manufacturing sector that is able to produce at a large scale pretty efficiently and for reasonable prices,” says Louis Kuijs, chief China economist at RBS.

“Sometimes we would be inclined to think there is a lot of [Chinese] government policy behind this. People point to the subsidies that China’s government has given to industries in the past and companies having preferential access to loans. But in the bigger scheme of things, those subsidies aren’t the driving force. China is a bit ahead in industrialisation and has becomes very competitive globally.”

Kuijs doesn’t think this is about to change. Chinese manufacturers do good business in India in both consumer goods and capital goods. And he takes the view that, despite the current cyclical slowdown, both consumption and infrastructure investment will remain robust in India, so demand for Chinese products will continue to grow.

A little tinkering on a calculator provides a bit of good news for Indian trade, however. According to data from the World Trade Organization, India’s global merchandise exports grew faster than China’s between 2005 and 2012. Over the seven-year period, India’s exports grew at an average 18.3 per cent a year, against a figure of 16.3 per cent for China and 9.4 per cent for the world as a whole.

So, Indian exports are growing relatively quickly. But China’s lower growth comes from a far higher base. In 2012, China exported goods worth more than $2tn while India’s exports were worth $293bn. Even with their faster rate of growth, it will take a long time for India’s exporters to catch up on China’s lead.”

via India and China; making up, but what about trade? | beyondbrics.

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Defence, Diplomacy, Economics, Foreign invasion, GeoPolitics, History, India alert, Military, Neighbour conflict, Politics, Trade | Leave a Comment »

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11/05/2013

* India, China working on Border Cooperation Agreement: Khurshid

The Hindu: “Mr. Khurshid visited China in the backdrop of the Chinese incursion in Daulat Beg Oldi.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid speaking to the reporters after after meeting former Railways Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal at his residence in New Delhi on Saturday. Photo: PTI

Against the backdrop of China’s recent incursion in Ladakh, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Saturday said the two countries are working on a new Border Defence Cooperation Agreement.

Mr. Khurshid, just back from his visit to Beijing, said the two sides had underlined that the incidents like the recent incursion in Daulat Beg Oldi should not happen and agreed that this issue should not come in way of improving ties.

Mr. Khurshid told reporters here that special representatives of India and China will meet in a couple of months to discuss in detail the issues related to boundary. “China has proposed sometime back a proposal for Border Defence Cooperation Agreement… We have also given our suggestions,” he said.

On the recent incursion of 19 km into India’s territory by Chinese troops, he said, “we did not do any post-mortem or aportion blame.” He expressed satisfaction that the mechanisms in place worked well to resolve the stand off.

On the contentious issues which could be raised during the visit of Chinese premier Li Keqiang, Mr. Khurshid said, “there are no prickly issues, issues of major differences which can be seen as obstacles.” He said MoUs would be signed during the Chinese premier’s visit and some during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s subsequent visit to Beijing later this year.

“This is for the first time since 1954 that a two way visit by the two Prime Ministers of the two countries in the same year,” he said.”

via India, China working on Border Cooperation Agreement: Khurshid – The Hindu.

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06/05/2013

* India and China ‘pull back troops’ in disputed border area

At last, common-sense prevails.

BBC: “India and China have started pulling back troops from disputed territory near the two countries’ de facto border, India’s foreign ministry says.

Map of Kashmir

Soldiers were said to have set up camps facing each other on the ill-defined frontier in Ladakh region last month.

The two sides held a series of talks to resolve the row and on Sunday, agreed to withdraw the troops.

The two countries dispute several Himalayan border areas and fought a brief war in 1962.

Tensions flare up from time to time. They have held numerous rounds of border talks, but all have been unsuccessful so far.

A spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry, Syed Akbaruddin, told the BBC that India and China had agreed to pull their troops back to positions they held prior to the current stand-off, which began last month.

Meetings between border commanders were being held to confirm the arrangement, he added.

Indian officials had accused Chinese troops of straying 10km (six miles) into Indian territory on 15 April and putting up tents in the Depsang valley in Ladakh, in eastern Kashmir.

China had denied reports of an incursion.

The pull-out comes days ahead of Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid‘s visit to China, ahead of a scheduled visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to India.

Mr Khurshid is visiting China on 9 May, ahead of Mr Li’s visit on 20 May for his first overseas trip.”

via BBC News – India and China ‘pull back troops’ in disputed border area.

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30/04/2013

* Experts baffled by China-India border stand-off amid improving ties

SCMP: “It’s more than 5,000 metres above sea level, cold, inhospitable, uninhabited, with hardly any vegetation or wildlife in sight. Welcome to the icy desert wastelands of Daulat Beg Oldi, a forgotten pit stop on the Silk Road catapulted to overnight geopolitical fame as two nuclear neighbours vie for its possession in a dangerous game of tactical brinkmanship.

For two weeks now, Chinese and Indian soldiers have been standing eyeball to eyeball, barely 100 metres apart, at this easternmost point of the Karakoram Range on the western sector of the China-India border.

Both sides claim the land as their own in an unusually public show of mutual defiance that threatens to unhinge some of their newfound comity in an otherwise fraught relationship, and cast a shadow on Premier Li Keqiang‘s visit to India next month.

The trouble began when Indian media started reporting a “deep incursion” on April 15 in which a platoon of about 30 Chinese soldiers entered the Daulat Beg Oldi area in the Depsang Valley of eastern Ladakh in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Shrill media reports of Chinese incursions are not uncommon in India, where Sinophobia has been wired deep into the national psyche since a drubbing by China in a border war in 1962. Every time such reports appear, New Delhi’s stock response is that it’s a misunderstanding caused by “perceptual differences”. This time is no different.

A group of activists protest on Saturday against an alleged incursion two weeks ago by about 30 Chinese troops in the Daulat Beg Oldi area in eastern Ladakh of Indian-administered Kashmir. Photo: AP

India and China do not have a real border marked out on the ground as they never got around to negotiating one. What they follow is an undemarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC), but each side has its own perception of where that line actually lies. As a result, it is not uncommon for patrols to stray into each other’s territory. Years of painstaking talks have gone into creating an elaborate mechanism to prevent such transgressions from snowballing, keeping the peace for 25 years.

What is different this time is that none of the standard operating procedures that comprise this peace mechanism seem to be working. These procedures include waving banners to alert the other patrol if it is on the wrong side of the LAC, and meetings between local commanders. This time, two flag meetings have been held but the stalemate continues. New Delhi insists Chinese troops have entered 18 kilometres into Indian territory and must leave. Beijing maintains its soldiers are on the Chinese side of the LAC and won’t budge. And, in an alarming show of strength, both sides have dug in, pitching tents to strengthen their claims.

The confrontation has sent diplomats into overdrive to calm tempers before Li’s India visit as both sides have set much store by the trip. Bilateral trade, barely about US$3 billion in 2000 following decades of shutting each other out after the war, has now reached nearly US$80 billion, making China India’s largest trading partner. The aim is to reach US$100 billion by 2015, with both sides looking for greater access to each other’s markets. They are also increasingly working together in other areas, ranging from environment to energy security.

“Sino-Indian relations are developing very quickly. Li’s visit will be his first foreign trip after taking office, and is in a complete break with protocol, showing the importance China attaches to relations with India,” says Ma Jiali, an India expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing.

Li’s choice of India as his first port of call had created a burst of goodwill in India for its symbolism. Going by protocol, it was Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh‘s turn to visit Beijing this year to reciprocate for former premier Wen Jiabao‘s tour in 2011.”

via Experts baffled by China-India border stand-off amid improving ties | South China Morning Post.

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30/04/2013

* India foreign minister Salman Khurshid to visit China

BBC: “India’s Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid has said he will visit China in May amid tensions near the de facto border in the Himalayas.

Salman Khurshid

Mr Khurshid’s trip comes ahead of a scheduled visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to India.

It comes at a time when India has asked China to withdraw troops it says have moved into a territory near the border.

China denies violating Indian territory. The two sides are holding talks to resolve the row.

“I believe we have a mutual interest and we should not destroy years of contribution we have put together,” Mr Khurshid was quoted by AFP news agency as telling reporters on the sidelines of a business event.

“I think it is a good thing that we are having a dialogue.”

Mr Khurshid said he would be visiting China on 9 May, ahead of Mr Li’s visit on 20 May for his first overseas trip, reports say.

India says Chinese troops erected a camp on its side of the ill-defined frontier in Ladakh region last week.

China has dismissed reports of the incursion as media speculation.

The two countries dispute several Himalayan border areas and fought a brief war in 1962. Tensions flare up from time to time.

They have held numerous rounds of border talks, but all have been unsuccessful so far.

The BBC’s Soutik Biswas in Delhi says there has not been a fatality in skirmishes along the undefined India-China boundary since 1967, but the memories of the crushing defeat inflicted by the Chinese on India in the 1962 war have not faded from the minds of some Indians.”

via BBC News – India foreign minister Salman Khurshid to visit China.

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19/04/2013

* Govt vows to further curb public spending

China Daily: “China’s central government has pledged to slash 126 million yuan ($20.38 million) from its spending on public-funded vehicles, receptions and overseas trips this year, a move that experts said lives up to the new leadership’s promise to be frugal.

Departments under the central government and organizations that receive public funds are planning to spend 7.97 billion yuan this year to buy and use cars, travel overseas and host meetings — collectively known as “the three public expenses” — the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday.

Spending on public receptions, which decreased 64 million yuan, or 4.3 percent year-on-year, will drop the most among the three.

Although laws require central government departments to release their budgets in 20 working days after authorities approve them, it is the first time that these departments included the three public expenses in the disclosure. Previously, the amount of public spending was usually withheld until July, when departments released their final figures from the previous year.

Experts said the budget cuts have echoed the pledge of the central leadership, which has made cutting red tape and reducing the number of ceremonies one of its priorities since its election.

China’s new premier, Li Keqiang, has promised that public spending in the Cabinet will only go down — one of the three commitments he made in his first news conference as premier in March.

Before that, the new leadership of the Communist Party of China called upon officials in December to adhere to the “eight disciplines”, which asks the governments to cut pomp, ceremonies, and bureaucratic visits and meetings.

Ye Qing, deputy director of the Hunan provincial Statistics Bureau, said the central government has made progress in slashing the three public expenses, although spending is still high and needs further reduction.

Specifically, the authorities have earmarked nearly 4.4 billion yuan — about 55.2 percent of the budget — for buying and maintaining vehicles, while the amount for overseas trips is 2.1 billion yuan, and about 1.4 billion yuan for public receptions.

“It is astonishing that officials spend nearly 4.4 billion yuan on using cars each year. Reform of car use is imminent,” Ye said.”

via Govt vows to further curb public spending |Politics |chinadaily.com.cn.

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22/03/2013

* As Pollution Worsens in China, Solutions Succumb to Infighting

NY Times: “China’s state leadership transition has taken place this month against an ominous backdrop. More than 16,000 dead pigs have been found floating in rivers that provide drinking water to Shanghai. A haze akin to volcanic fumes cloaked the capital, causing convulsive coughing and obscuring the portrait of Mao Zedong on the gate to the Forbidden City.

So severe are China’s environmental woes, especially the noxious air, that top government officials have been forced to openly acknowledge them. Fu Ying, the spokeswoman for the National People’s Congress, said she checked for smog every morning after opening her curtains and kept at home face masks for her daughter and herself. Li Keqiang, the new prime minister, said the air pollution had made him “quite upset” and vowed to “show even greater resolve and make more vigorous efforts” to clean it up.

What the leaders neglect to say is that infighting within the government bureaucracy is one of the biggest obstacles to enacting stronger environmental policies. Even as some officials push for tighter restrictions on pollutants, state-owned enterprises — especially China’s oil and power companies — have been putting profits ahead of health in working to outflank new rules, according to government data and interviews with people involved in policy negotiations.

For instance, even though trucks and buses crisscrossing China are far worse for the environment than any other vehicles, the oil companies have delayed for years an improvement in the diesel fuel those vehicles burn. As a result, the sulfur levels of diesel in China are at least 23 times that of the United States. As for power companies, the three biggest ones in the country are all repeat violators of government restrictions on emissions from coal-burning plants; offending power plants are found across the country, from Inner Mongolia to the southwest metropolis of Chongqing.

The state-owned enterprises are given critical roles in policy-making on environmental standards. The committees that determine fuel standards, for example, are housed in the buildings of an oil company. Whether the enterprises can be forced to follow, rather than impede, environmental restrictions will be a critical test of the commitment of Mr. Li andXi Jinping, the new party chief and president, to curbing the influence of vested interests in the economy.”

via As Pollution Worsens in China, Solutions Succumb to Infighting – NYTimes.com.

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