Yesterday’s post on the drought in the wheat lands of the northern plain prompted an e-mail (always welcome, but please also free feel to share as a comment) asking whether anything happened about Beijing’s plans to lease farmland in Africa and South America.
This was a hot topic of conversation a year back before the commodities [...]
Entries from January 2009
January 31, 2009
Chinese Farmers Seek To Till African, South American Soil
January 31, 2009
China’s Wheat Growers Face Drought
Drought is the latest potential natural disaster in the making. The main wheat growing province, Henan, is very dry, having had half its normal rainfall since last September. The provincial meteorological bureau has just issued its highest-level drought warning, Xinhua says.
The agriculture ministry said earlier this month that one third of the province’s crop was [...]
January 29, 2009
What Did Wen Say At Davos?
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s speech to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland played to a full house, as would be expected for one of the meeting’s star turns. But what did he say?
Wen made “an unusually upbeat appeal in the context of this year’s rather anxious gathering”, according to the BBC’s Bridget [...]
January 28, 2009
China’s Coal Mines Get Only Slightly Less Deadly
Ninety one thousand coal miners died last year. Shocking though that figure is it is the first time since 1995 that the official death toll has dropped below 100,000, the State Administration of Work Safety says. It is also a 15% drop in deaths over 2007, but the number of serious accidents was up by [...]
January 27, 2009
Jimmy Carter Opened Up China
Our man in New York tells us that it was Jimmy Carter, not Richard Nixon, who recognized that there was one China and that China was the PRC. He was watching a TV interview between John Stewart and the former U.S. president, who made the claim. Nixon, Carter said, only said there was one China, [...]
January 26, 2009
Happy New Year
Gung Hey Fat Choi. We could certainly do with the second half of that coming true this year.
January 25, 2009
U.S.-China Conflict No 2: Gitmo Uighurs
As well as the currency issue there is another early test for U.S.-China relations facing President Barack Obama: where to release the 17 Chinese Uighurs being held in the Guantanamo Bay prison that the new president has ordered to be closed within a year.
Beijing wants them handed over to China to be dealt with under [...]
January 24, 2009
China Tells New U.S. Administration To Step Lightly
His welcome-to-your-new-job call was cordial and formulaic enough, but in his published remarks, foreign minister Yang Jiechi was more forthright towards his new American counterpart, Hillary Clinton, telling her to be careful with sensitive issues that could strain ties between the two nations.
Yang didn’t mention the yuan issue by name (and that isn’t really [...]
January 23, 2009
Geithner Uses The M Word About China’s Currency
Change has come to America in many respects; one is a willingness to say that China is manipulating its exchange rate.
The Bush administration studiously avoided the phrase. Tim Geithner, President Barack Obama’s nomination for U.S. Treasury secretary, said at his confirmation hearings that his boss believes that China is manipulating the yuan.
This is dangerous linguistic [...]
January 22, 2009
China’s Growth Slows To 6.8% In Fourth Quarter
Not much to say about the latest GDP figures, released today, which were in line with expectations. China’s economy grew by 9% last year, but the annual figure masks a rapid slowdown in the fourth quarter to 6.8%. It is also the slowest growth rate since 2001 and the first time growth has fallen into [...]
