DISQUS

dylanjones · 1 year ago

There are lots of good proxies for PRC GDP growth that avoid the officially manipulated data that is often uncritically accepted and recycled by IMF/World Bank (who do not do their own statistics, you will recall, but rely on data supplied by member states). Energy demand is a useful proxy, and it might be good to note for readers that it has just dropped into negative territory.
Re the claims about intra-regional trade in Asia: the key question to ask, instead of uncritically accepting such statistics, is what proportion of such trade is just the shifting of inputs across Asia to be assembled for export to the US and Europe? In which case, Asia has not de-coupled at all, and is not an independent centre of growth at all. If the demand for the ultimate finished products that result from that intra-regional trade is outside the region, then it is a heroic claim to argue Asia has special status.
PPP figures should not be used in the way they are deployed above, PPP is for comparing living stadards across countries at different levels of development, not for advancing arguments about trade going forward. PPP dollars do not buy internationally traded commodities.
Re the YRD: the Yuan stopped appreciating against the dollar more than four months ago. Why is this not noted? What is the evidence to support the assertion that YRD GDP growth will average 11 percent per annum until 2020?
Re population: China could have as many hundred million rural dwellers as you like. Conveniently ignoring the hukou system that prevents them truely becoming urban dwellers makes a mockery of the argument advanced. Few Chinese cities want to welcome rural migrants as permanent citizens.
The infrastructure work highlights a weakness, not a strength. Railways and highways should have been improved years ago to cope with the economic growth the PRC has been forecasting at least since the early 1990s (i.e. quadruple GDP by 2000, and then again by 2020).

nextbigfuture · 1 year ago

You are correct that the yuan stalled in its appreciation against the US dollar 4 months ago but the yuan has appreciated a lot against the Euro during that time as the dollar strengthened. I believe the belief is that the Yangtze Delta region can maintain the 11% GDP growth that it has experienced over the last three decades. As you not China is likely not growing much now and may not for another quarter or two. China's infrastructure build is an attempt to catchup to the levels of the USA. It was noted that 18% of GDP goes to logistics in China instead of 10% in places like the USA.

the hukou system is reforming:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system#Reform

Reforming the residency system has been a very controversial topic within the PRC. Although the system in operation was widely regarded within the PRC as unfair and inhumane, there were fears that liberalisation would result in a massive influx to the cities which would stress already strained government services beyond the breaking point, and result in further economic loss to rural areas, rising social unrest and crime.

On the other hand, there has been recognition for some time that hukou is an impediment to economic development. China's accession to the World Trade Organisation has forced it to embrace this reform to liberalise the movement of labour, speeding up its economic reform

The system has undergone further relaxation since the mid 1990s. The first relaxation allowed rural residents to buy a temporary urban residency permits, meaning they could work legally; fees for these decreased gradually to a fairly affordable level. The discrimination against rural women has been alleviated from 1998, when hukou became inheritable through either the father’s or the mother’s line.

From 2001 onwards, hukou controls were weakened. In 2003, after the uproar surrounding the death of Sun Zhigang alarmed the authorities, the laws on Custody and repatriation were repealed; by 2004 the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture estimated that over 100 million people registered as "rural" were working in cities

http://www.cecc.gov/pages/virtualAcad/Residency...


http://en.chinaelections.org/newsinfo.asp?newsi...
In recent years, some cities in China have experimented with reforms to the hukou system.


October 1, 2008, Jiaxing City in east China's Zhejiang Province abolished the category of "agricultural households" and introduced a unified household registration.



On January 1, Yunnan Province announced the abolition of the distinction between agricultural and non-agricultural hukous.


Jiangxi Province also announced it was exploring the possibility of abolishing the rural-urban distinction in its registration system.

Hunan Province has also announced its intention to "promote a new type of urbanization," and free movement of the urban and rural populations.
But some experts believe the reforms carried out so far are cosmetic.
Shenzhen is a partial exception. On August 1 the city announced that temporary residents could send their children to local public schools and that 10-year permit holders would be included in the wider social security system. These changes will bring material benefits to the city's large migrant population.
Sun Mingshan said reforms will have to take regional differences into account, especially the capacity of various cities to absorb surplus population. Local governments must be left wide discretion to define migration policy.


For example, mega-cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Wuhan facing enormous demand for residence permits should be allowed to continue tight migration policies to avoid the growth of urban slums.
For small and medium-sized cities in central and western regions on the other hand, more relaxed policies would stimulate economic development

The issue has been that control of migration is needed to the level with which employment can be provided. Thus the 10-30 years shift of 300 million or so people. How fast is the US allowing people to move from Mexico to the US ?