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731. Chinese State, Chinese Society: Facing a New Century

Author:
Jae Ho Chung and Zhang Ye
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The Sixteenth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was convened during November 8-15, 2002. The Congress reconfirmed the Party's strong commitment to the three key tasks of achieving modernization, accomplishing national unification, and safeguarding world peace and development. The outgoing CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin, on behalf of the Fifteenth Central Committee, emphasized the need for further political changes at the grassroots and presented the target of quadrupling China's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020. Jiang also projected that China's armed forces would possess fewer but better troops “ with Chinese characteristics. ”
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China and Asia

732. Brookings Northeast Asia Survey, 2002-03

Author:
Catharin Dalpino and Richard Bush
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
This is the third edition of the Northeast Asian Survey, sponsored by the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies of the Brookings Institution. Following this review of developments in the region during 2002, the bulk of the volume is composed of essays that provide mid-term perspectives on internal dynamics in China, Hong Kong, and Japan, on the crisis on the Korean peninsula, and on relations between China and Taiwan and on China and Southeast Asia. All the authors have been affiliated with the Brookings Institution during the 2002-03 year. Most were CNAPS Visiting Fellows or Brookings Federal Executive Fellows.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China, Taiwan, Asia, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Northeast Asia

733. Whither Europe?

Author:
Barry Eichengreen
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
Abstract:
Where I live, on the West Coast of the United States, and teach, at the University of California, Europe seems far away. Geographically we are closer to Latin America and Asia. Ethnically, Californians of Hispanic and Asian-American descent are increasingly numerous. Within 20 years, residents of European origin will be a minority; already they are a minority of the undergraduates enrolling at Berkeley. Economically as well, we look to Asia. It is in California where the largest number of container ships arriving from Asia are unloaded, and it is across the Pacific, and in China in particular, that most of those containers originate.
Topic:
Economics and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, China, Europe, Asia, California, and Latin America

734. Externalities in Rural Development: Evidence for China

Author:
Martin Ravallion
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The paper tests for external effects of local economic activity on consumption and income growth at the farm household level using panel data from four provinces of post-reform rural China. The tests allow for nonstationary fixed effects in the consumption growth process. Evidence is found of geographic externalities, stemming from spillover effects of the level and composition of local economic activity and private returns to local human and physical infrastructure endowments. The results suggest an explanation for rural underdevelopment arising from underinvestment in certain externality-generating activities, of which agricultural development emerges as the most important.
Topic:
Development and Economics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

735. Trade Liberalization, Agriculture, and Poverty in Low-income Countries

Author:
Kym Anderson
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper offers an economic assessment of the opportunities and challenges provided by the WTO's Doha Development Agenda, particularly through agricultural trade liberalization, for low-income countries seeking to trade their way out of poverty. After discussing links between poverty, economic growth and trade, it reports modelling results showing that farm product markets remain the most costly of all goods market distortions in world trade. It focuses on what such reform might mean for countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in particular, both without and with their involvement in the MTN reform process. What becomes clear is that if those countries want to maximize their benefits from the Doha round, they need also to free up their own domestic product and factor markets so their farmers are better able to take advantage of new market-opening opportunities abroad. Other concerns of low-income countries about farm trade reform also are addressed: whether there would be losses associated with tariff preference erosion, whether food-importing countries would suffer from higher food prices in international markets, whether China's WTO accession will provide an example of trade reform aggravating poverty via cuts to prices received by Chinese farmers, and the impact on food security and poverty alleviation. The paper concludes with lessons of relevance for low-income countries for their own domestic and trade policies.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa and China

736. Emerging Third Stage Peri-Urbanization: Functional Specialization in the Hangzhou Peri-Urban Region

Author:
Douglas Webster, Jianming Cai, Binyi Luo, and Larisa Muller
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Hangzhou Municipality is the provincial capital of Zhejiang, on China's east coast. It forms part of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region. Hangzhou was “opened up” in the mid-1980s, following Deng Xiaoping's visit to the South, resulting in an almost immediate flood of foreign and domestic investment in manufacturing. This initial investment was significantly in the peri-urban areas, i.e., outside the built-up area. The authors have been following development in the Hangzhou extended urban region, with emphasis on peri-urbanization processes, since 2000. A previous APARC discussion paper describes findings of preliminary field research on the Hangzhou–Ningbo Corridor, conducted in August 2000 and March 2001. The present paper zooms in on two peri-urban clusters in the Hangzhou extended urban region, and assesses their development over time. The goal of the research is to better understand how a peri-urban region changes—particularly in terms of firm evolution, labor characteristics, and spatial dynamics—as it becomes more economically and demographically mature. This paper also examines such changes in the context of the increasing cost structures and emerging competitors, primarily from other areas in China, that the Hangzhou peri-urban region now faces.
Topic:
Demographics, Economics, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Maryland

737. Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Urban Dynamics in Chengdu, 1975–2002

Author:
Douglas Webster, Jianming Cai, Binyi Luo, Annemarie Schneider, and Karen C. Seto
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, has undergone rapid transformation during China's post-reform period between 1978 and 2003. One of the leading cities in southwest China, Chengdu is second only to Chongqing in population. Chengdu anchors one end of the Chongqing-Chengdu urban corridor, the fourth most populous urban cluster in China. Although the upgrading of Chongqing Municipality to the equivalent of provincial status in 1997 has increased the city's profile and potential as an administrative, land transportation, and manufacturing center, it is expected that Chengdu's regional and strategic importance as a service and high-tech center will increase in the future. With increased economic specialization among Chinese cities, it is expected that Chengdu and Chongqing cities will increasingly complement each other in terms of function, both enhancing their developmental prospects as a result. Further, the development of western China is a major objective of the Tenth Five Year Plan. The “Go West” policy was introduced in 1999.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
China, Asia, Chongqing, and Chengdu

738. Tax Reforms for Enhancing the Stable Development of the Chinese Financial System

Author:
Lawrence J. Lau and Guijuan Wang
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
The Chinese economy has had the highest rate of growth in the world in the past two decades. However, despite its rapid growth and the significant improvements in its financial system, serious risks and problems still exist in both the commercial banking sector and the stock market, that may potentially threaten the stable development and growth of the entire economy. In this paper, these risks and problems in the stock market and the commercial banking sector are identified. Possible solutions are then discussed. Finally, tax reforms are proposed that have the effects of (1) eliminating the double taxation on cash dividends from corporate profits; (2) encouraging the substitution of new equity for existing debt by corporations, which can lower the P/E ratios without lowering the stock prices and improve quality of commercial bank assets by reducing the probability of new nonperforming loans; and (3) attracting new and longer-term investors, both domestic and foreign, to the Chinese stock market. It is also shown that the proposed tax reforms will not result in a significant reduction in total fiscal revenue.
Topic:
Economics and Government
Political Geography:
China and Asia

739. The Politics of China's Shareholding System

Author:
Mary Comerford Cooper
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
This paper considers two questions. First, why did the Chinese government establish stock markets? Second, how have political interests shaped the key features of these markets? Based on both interviews and statistical analysis, the paper argues that China's top Party-State leaders attempted to create stock market institutions that allow the state to maintain control over listed companies, and over “the market” as a whole.
Topic:
Economics and Government
Political Geography:
China, Israel, East Asia, and Asia

740. Local Governments and the Chinese Stock Market

Author:
Mary Comerford Cooper
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
This paper examines a key aspect of the politics of stock markets in China—the distinct differences in interests between central government leaders and local governments. Central government leaders have a powerful incentive to promote macroeconomic stability and good performance of the stock market. Local leaders, for their part, are less concerned with the overall performance of the stock market than with gaining access to the stock market for companies under their own jurisdiction. The paper demonstrates that company listing brings tangible economic benefits to municipalities. Listed companies are associated with higher levels of gross domestic product (GDP), budgetary revenue, and industrial and commercial tax revenue. Therefore, it is not surprising that local officials put substantial effort into lobbying for the right to list additional companies on the national stock exchanges.
Topic:
Communism, Democratization, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
China and Asia