On August 4, Xinhua organized a meeting of “thinkers,” inviting a number of experts on international affairs to discuss the security situation in the Asia-Pacific region. Below are excerpts from the discussion.
US-China Relations - 92. page
Chinese Workers Take away U.S. Jobs? Maybe the Reverse
Well-known Chinese site Sina recently published an article aggregating reports from a number of media sources on China’s job market. The author started with an acknowledgment of Donald Trump’s point of view on China which used to have cheap labor and which therefore attracted a lot of labor work from the United States. However, things have been changing dramatically in today’s Chinese job market. China is moving towards making more and more value-added products and the average labor rate in China is now 29 percent higher than what it was three years ago. The Boston Consulting research firm found, when both productivity and energy costs are counted, the cost of manufacturing in China’s major export regions is almost the same as that in the U.S. The same research pointed out that 24 percent of the U.S. companies in China surveyed are actively moving back to the States or plan to do so in the next two years. Other companies that make products for major U.S. labels like Michel Kors, Rockport, Dockers, and Brooks Brothers are moving to cheaper countries like Vietnam. With the slowdown of the Chinese economy, more and more Chinese workers are losing their jobs. The British consulting company Fathom released a report estimating China’s unemployment rate to be 12.9 percent, not the official four percent. It seems the U.S. competitiveness is taking away China’s jobs.
Source: Sina, July 26, 2016
http://dailynews.sina.com/gb/news/usa/usnews/chinesedaily/20160726/07417439422.html
BBC Chinese: The U.S. Warns WTO about China’s Economic Openness
BBC Chinese recently reported that U.S. Deputy Representative to the WTO (World Trade Organization) Chris Wilson expressed his concern about China not fulfilling its economic openness commitments due to a slow-down in the Chinese domestic market. The 162 WTO member countries are currently going through a periodic review of China, which occurs every two years. Wilson reported that more and more American companies sense an unfriendly business and regulatory environment nowadays. It has been occurring in China since China’s economic growth started to slow down over a year ago. China has been bailing out its steel and aluminum industries, tightening up raw material export quotas and tariffs, manipulating export tax refunds, restricting agricultural imports despite high domestic demand, and banning foreign investments in the movie industry. China is also aiming to ensure that, for any products manufactured in China, 70 percent of parts and materials are sourced from within China.
Source: BBC Chinese, July 20, 2016
http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/business/2016/07/160720_us_wto_china_eu
Xinhua Commentary: Abusing Ourselves Is Not Being Patriotic
Recently Beijing rejected The Hague’s ruling on the South China Sea dispute between China and Philippines. Chinese, thinking the United States was behind it, soon spread anti-American fury from the Internet to real life: Boycott American Kentucky Fried Chicken and smash iPhones become a way to show patriotism.
Chinese Private Sector’s Investments in the U.S. Skyrocketed
Well-known Chinese news site Sina recently reported that new research found that Chinese companies invested around US$29 billion in the U.S. in the first half of this year. This is more than the full-year-investment record set in 2014. Companies in the Chinese private sector made over half of the investments. This round of investments has one unique characteristic; nearly all of the money ended up in acquisitions and mergers instead of new establishments. There were quite a few high profile deals in this round such as Haier acquiring GE Appliances with US$5.4 billion. Analysts expressed the belief that the attractiveness of the U.S. comes from its diversified investment opportunities as well as the stability of the U.S. Dollar. The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is expected to say no to more applications than it did previously. However, no one seems to be really worried.
Source: Sina, July 16, 2016
http://dailynews.sina.com/bg/news/int/int/chinesedaily/20160716/07337423734.html
People’s Daily Warns U.S. Not to Breach the Bottom Line in the South China Sea Issue
People’s Daily published an article to warn the United States not to go too far on the South China Sea issue. It said, “The U.S. must be clear that everything has a bottom line. Once someone goes too far, they have to pay the price.”
Huanqiu Commentary: The U.S. Pushed China and Russia to Work Together
Shortly after Putin’s visit to Beijing, Huanqiu published a commentary which addressed the joint “global strategic stability” agreements that Putin and Xi signed. It stated that the agreements demonstrated the mutual support from both countries on core issues including the South China Sea conflicts and U.S. plans to launch the Aegis Combat System in Europe and the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense in Northeast Asia. The commentary said that the agreements indicated indirectly that the U.S. is the major threat to global stability and that Beijing and Moscow are tired of the world supremacy that the U.S. is seeking. It further stated, "The U.S. has shown its wild ambition to have a global empire. It has threatened the security of the rest of the countries around the world and forced Russia and China to form a joint effort to face it. … There is more room for China and Russia to cooperate with each other. However, if the U.S. tries to pressure either of these two countries, it will force them to gain more support from each other.”
Source: Huangqiu, June 25, 2016
http://opinion.huanqiu.com/editorial/2016-06/9085603.html
CNR: The U.S. Unilaterally Terminated the High Speed Railway Project with China
China’s Central National Radio (CNR) recently reported that the U.S. company XpressWest unilaterally announced the formal termination of its joint effort with the China Railway International (CRI) to build a high speed railway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The contract was signed only nine months ago. XpressWest said that CRI was not able to deliver on its promises on time and could not obtain the required authorizations needed to build the trains. However, CRI explained in their response that XpressWest added new conditions into the signed contract and violated the contractual requirement that they not make public comments without mutual agreement. CNR found out from analysts that the primary road block was that the U.S. Federal regulations required the trains to be made in the U.S., and XpressWest could not get its train suppliers to meet the requirements on the degree of domestic manufacturing. The next step for China should be to take the legal approach since the United States claims to strictly follow the rule of law. In the meantime, China should be more careful about the impact of protectionism on the U.S. investment environment when it considers investing in the United States.
Source: Central National Radio, June 11, 2016
http://china.cnr.cn/yaowen/20160611/t20160611_522367850.shtml