China to Build Beijing-Moscow High Speed Rail
A post a couple months back mentioned China is in discussions with Russia to build a high-speed rail (HSR) line connecting Beijing to Moscow. Now, it seems official for which the feasibility study will go ahead soon.
Last week, the China-Thailand HSR line (that will ultimately be extended to Singapore) commenced and the Chinese feasibility study for the New Delhi-Chennai run will start this year. China’s building a line connecting Serbia and Hungary and a major railroad along the Nigerian coast. Chinese companies are also re-bidding for the first HSR line in the Americas, in Mexico. Indeed, China’s HSR plans for the world are forging ahead at blistering speed, leaving its Japanese and European competitors far behind.
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China is planning to build a 7000 km-long high-speed railway line, costing $250 billion, between Moscow and Beijing through Central Asia to provide a fast transport link between the neighbouring countries.
The railway line will pass through China, Kazakhstan and Russia and cover more than 7,000 km, more than three times the world’s current longest high-speed line, from the Chinese capital to the southern city of Guangzhou, China News Service quoted Beijing Municipal government as saying.
The project would cost more than 1.5 trillion yuan or $242 billion.
High-speed railways passing across the Korean Peninsula in Northeast Asia and linking China with West Asia as well as South Asia, are also on the schedule, it said.
China is banking on rapid expansion of its high speed rail technology abroad including India as part of its new economic restructuring to deal with its slowing economy which slid to 7.4 per cent last year, the lowest in last 24 years.
– PTI
Chinese Company Prints Mansion and Apartment Block
Here is a glimpse of the future: Chinese construction company WinSun 3D printed a mansion at a cost of US$161,000. House printing in China began over the past couple years and is sprouting up across the country.
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The craze of 3D printing has taken off in recent years and now it has reached new heights with an entire 3D printed apartment block built in China.
The five-storey building was designed and constructed by WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co who have previously built houses with the technology.
Giant 3D printers are used to construct the walls by layering the ink mixture, leaving a distinctive tiered appearance. The ‘ink’ is a mix of cement and construction waste, including recycled industrial waste and tailings.
Photo: NetEase News
Along with the apartment building, WinSun also printed a villa for an estimated cost of US$161,000 undecorated. Both are located at the Suzhou Industrial Park and were built using a 32-metre-long, 10-metre-wide, and 6.4- metre-tall printer.
In March 2014, WinSun built 10 homes in less than 24 hours using the same printing technology for US$5,000 each. It was initially believed to be a hoax.
According to online 3D printing website 3Ders, WinSun’s villa was specifically designed for Taiwanese-owned real estate company Tomson Group who expressed interest after seeing the 10 houses built.
A clip of the mansion can be seen at: http://smh.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/china-3d-prints-mansion-and-apartment-block-20150122-12vkri.html
China’s E-Commerce Market Worth $2.09 trillion: Ministry of Commerce
Knew China’s e-commerce has grown by leaps and bounds but did not realize it is this huge already, with last November’s ‘Singles’ Day’ sales leaping 60% over 2013 to $9.3 billion. Meanwhile, in the US, on Black Friday sales topped $1.5 billion but reached $50.9 billion for the entire weekend, which is actually a 11% drop from 2013’s record $57.4 billion. All told, across the US and Europe over that weekend, sales were estimated to be in the range of $130 billion, according to Forrester Research.
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China’s e-commerce boomed in 2014 with transactions reaching around 13 trillion yuan ($2.09 trillion), the government said Wednesday, as Beijing looks online for new drivers of growth.
The commerce ministry did not define transactions, beyond saying that the term included both business-to-business and retail transactions.
Spokesman Shen Danyang said in a statement that they grew 25.0 percent year-on-year in 2014.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday that online retail sales alone were at 2.8 trillion yuan in 2014, up 49.7 percent.
China has the world’s biggest online population — 632 million last year — and online shopping has exploded in recent years as consumers turned to the Internet for cheaper products and overseas goods that are believed to be safer than domestic options, such as baby formula.
During its 24-hour shopping promotion Singles Day on November 11, the country’s e-commerce giant Alibaba said consumers spent a record $9.3 billion, up 60 percent on 2013.
Authorities have said they hope e-commerce will become a new “engine” for growth in the world’s second-largest economy, where growth decelerated last year to 7.4 percent — the lowest in nearly a quarter of a century.
“(Online shopping) generated a great number of jobs. It is an emerging industry and we should support its healthy development,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said last year.
Sri Lanka Will Keep on Working Closely with China: Sri Lankan Official
When the previous president was voted out of office in the recent Sri Lankan election and the new administration sworn in, some foreign media, especially Indian, went into a frenzy of reports sand commentaries that the new government would repeal all deals signed with China by the former, particularly the multi-billion dollar port project.
One Indian newspaper went so far as to say it is a big “relief” for India that the new Sri Lankan government intends to review and most likely cancel the port. The Indians are very anxious about that project because in their view, it would become China’s strategic outpost in the Indian Ocean which they perceive as their sphere of influence. But, it is a port to be built for the Sri Lankans, not intended for use by the Chinese navy. So what are the Indians so worried about?
The new Sri Lankan government has just reiterated its readiness to work with both China and India and that the projects signed with the previous government will remain out of respect and fairness. Here’s a report from IANS:
Sri Lanka’s newly elected government promised to work closely with “key players” India and China and added that the ongoing development projects with international partners would continue, a media report said Wednesday.
“The reality is that we have to work in the Asian region and India and China are two of (the) key players. So we will work very closely with these countries,” said Highways and Investment Promotion Minister Kabir Hashim, according to Xinhua report.
The Sri Lankan government clarified that it had no favouritism or disrespect for any country and would like to work hand-in-hand with all countries in a bid to promote the country’s economy.
Hashim and his deputy Eran Wickremaratne in a meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Wu Jianghao discussed the means of cooperation among the two countries.
The Sri Lankan government said that the country could reap high economic benefits by doing business with China.
Since the end of a three-decade war in 2009, China has loaned about $3 billion to Sri Lanka, mostly for massive infrastructure projects, helping to lay a foundation for the island country’s future development.
Obama Blasts China in his State of the Union Address
In his State of the Union Address delivered yesterday, US president Obama made two main references to China: the first had to do with international business and the other climate change.
He said, “…21st century businesses, including small businesses, need to sell more American products overseas. Today, our businesses export more than ever, and exporters tend to pay their workers higher wages. But as we speak, China wants to write the rules for the world’s fastest-growing region. That would put our workers and businesses at a disadvantage. Why would we let that happen? We should write those rules. We should level the playing field. That’s why I’m asking both parties to give me trade promotion authority to protect American workers, with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe that aren’t just free, but fair.
“Look, I’m the first one to admit that past trade deals haven’t always lived up to the hype, and that’s why we’ve gone after countries that break the rules at our expense. But ninety-five percent of the world’s customers live outside our borders, and we can’t close ourselves off from those opportunities. More than half of manufacturing executives have said they’re actively looking at bringing jobs back from China. Let’s give them one more reason to get it done…”
First, changing the rules of international business cannot be accomplished by any one country alone, that’s why the WTO exists to help resolve trade and investment disputes. Second, what gives the US the prerogative to set them for the rest of the world, anyway. It’s no longer the immediate post-WWII world when the US was at the height of its hegemony and could dictate its terms to others. There are many countries in Asia Pacific each with its own interests; it’s not just what benefits the US and its workers.
Third, even if US multinationals were to shift their factories from China due to rising cost concerns, it won’t be back to America. It’d be to cheaper labour cost countries such Cambodia, Vietnam and Bangladesh. But, from the extent of FDI to China last year that reached nearly US$120 billion, American and other foreign businesses aren’t going anywhere else any time soon. Mr Obama fails to realize before considering to leave China, they would look at locations in central and western China that offer cheaper wages and costs. They also have to take into consideration the lack of public and trade infrastructure and communications in cheaper wage countries compared to China.
He then said, “…That’s why, over the past six years, we’ve done more than ever before to combat climate change, from the way we produce energy, to the way we use it. That’s why we’ve set aside more public lands and waters than any administration in history. And that’s why I will not let this Congress endanger the health of our children by turning back the clock on our efforts. I am determined to make sure American leadership drives international action. In Beijing, we made an historic announcement – the United States will double the pace at which we cut carbon pollution, and China committed, for the first time, to limiting their emissions. And because the world’s two largest economies came together, other nations are now stepping up, and offering hope that, this year, the world will finally reach an agreement to protect the one planet we’ve got…”
Looking at the terms of the landmark agreement, the Guardian newspaper argues it is China that will be doing the heavy lifting, not the US. Here’s what the two countries committed to: the US side would reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025. The Obama Administration had previously consigned to reducing emissions by 17% by 2020. The US will also double emissions cuts of 1.2% per year from 2005-2020 to 2.3 to 2.8% from 2021 to 2025. To keep its promise, the US would submit the new reduction targets by the end of the first quarter in 2015 as its contribution to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty that will be finalized in Paris in late November.
For its part, China will target CO2 emissions to peak around 2030 or before as well as expand renewable energy sources to about 20% of total usage (from the current 9.6%) by the same year. This is in line with a 2011 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study that predicted China’s CO2 emissions would peak around 2030 due to high carbon intensities involved in a number of sectors that China continues to invest substantially in. This pledge requires China to install up to 1,000 gigawatts (GW) of new sources of nuclear, hydro, wind and solar power.
Thus, the Guardian argued it is the US that will have a relatively easy time to meet its new commitments. US CO2 emissions are already 10-15% lower than in 2005 and falling by 1.5% a year. The new cuts will only require the US to continue on the current path, albeit a little faster.
Reading his address, it’s apparent that America is still full of imperial bombast. When will the US get off its high horse and truly consult with other major powers on the international rules of the game?!
RMB 1/4 of All China’s Cross Border Payments
This is a major milestone. With the increasing role of the RMB in Chinese cross-border trade and investments, it would not be surprising if the rate of RMB cross-border settlements reaches 1/3 by the end of this year. At this pace, perhaps the vast majority of China’s payments will be made in RMB by the end of the decade.
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Nearly a quarter of all cross-border payments in China last year were settled in yuan (CNY=), the central bank said on Tuesday, underscoring the renminbi’s growing dominance as it heads into the league of major currencies.
A total of 9.95 trillion yuan (1.06 trillion pounds) worth of cross-border payments were made in yuan last year, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement on its website, as it vowed to increase international usage of the currency this year.
The total value for yuan cross-border payments in 2013 was not available.
The yuan’s rising global profile mirrors its surging trading volume worldwide.
Although still tightly controlled by China’s government, offshore trading in the yuan soared some 350 percent on Thomson Reuters trading platforms last year. Rival platform EBS said the yuan ended 2014 as one of its top five traded currencies.
To encourage investors and central banks around the world to use the yuan, China began an experiment known as the Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor scheme, or “RQFII”, that allows those who hold the yuan to re-invest it in Chinese capital markets.
And growth in the RQFII has been rapid. The size of the scheme more than trebled to 870 billion yuan at the end of last year, central bank data showed. That is up from 270 billion yuan in March 2014, according to the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party.
Ten nations outside China now buy Chinese assets via the RQFII, 14 countries have yuan clearing arrangements, and 28 other central banks have currency swap lines with China, the PBOC said.
China wants to turn the yuan into a global currency partly to reduce its reliance on the dollar, which is estimated to account for roughly a third of its $3.84 trillion foreign exchange reserves.
The weight of the dollar in Chinese reserves is especially problematic when the greenback weakens as it inflicts financial losses on China, at least on paper.
– Reuters
Bohai Strait Undersea High Speed Rail May be Built: Chinese Media
This has been brewing for some time and hopefully it gets into the 13th Five-Year Plan. Currently, it is indeed a pain to get from Dalian to Yantai, unless you fly, but that’s just as much a hassle.
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An ambitious high-speed railway to run beneath Bohai Sea may be taken into consideration when the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s economic planner, decides its 13th five-year plan (2016- 2020), 21st Century Business Herald reported on Tuesday.
Zhang Wufeng, head of the NDRC in Shandong province, said it has agreed to “consider” and “support” the project that would connect Lushun in Dalian city, Northeast China’s Liaoning province, with Penglai in Yantai, situated in Shandong.
It now takes over 10 hours to travel the over-1000-kilometer land route between Lushun and Penglai, which are separated by Bohai Sea and located on the Liaodong and Shandong peninsulas respectively. The proposed underwater high-speed railway would shorten the distance to over 100 kilometres while the travelling time would be reduced to 40-50 minutes, said Wang Mengshu, academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and tunnel expert. Wang added that the rail link will run at 250 kilometers per hour according to its design.
The connection will promote economic development in the region, especially in provinces with advanced steel industries like Liaoning, Hebei and Shandong, and enhance economic interaction among Shandong, Liaoning, Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, say experts
It is predicted that by 2020, the potential passenger flow volume between the two areas will reach about 300 million, with the figure for the underwater high-speed rail to hit 180 million to 240 million. It is calculated that the first phase of the project might cost 200 billion to 250 billion yuan ($32.1 billion – 40.2 billion).
– english.eastday.com
Will Abe Piss Off Japan’s Closest Neighbours Again?: Bloomberg
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has a knack for pissing off especially China and South Korea (never mind the whacko North) whether it be trying to minimize the numbers massacred during the Rape of Nanking (or his goons denying it ever happened), or insisting the euphemistic “Comfort Women” became sex slaves of their own volition, or denying atrocities committed against Allied prisoners of war, or arguing the Diaoyus have always belonged to the Japanese, or grand standing about reassessing the Murayama apology, or sending offerings to or visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, and the list goes on.
Indeed, everyone is waiting to hear what he intends to say at the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII.
My guess is he’ll utter all the politically correct language, grudgingly acknowledge and uphold former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama’s 1995 apology, and swear on Japan’s unswerving commitment to peace and democracy. He’ll go back home, lay low for a while, send expressions of respect to Yasukuni Jinja where the ashes of 14 war criminals lay, and in a couple years, amend the constitution to rid once and for all of Article 9, and when he needs to or the time is right (either due to pressure from the ultra-right or he wants to show the Chinese and Koreans that he can stand up to them) pay another visit with his cabinet colleagues to the shrine.
The Japanese right wing will NEVER truly atone for what the militarists did in WWII because they perceive themselves as victims who paid the ultimate price of enduring the atomic bomb. After all, Abe’s grandpop was intimately involved in the war-time policies. On a personal level, Abe is not going to offer any additional expression of apology that is tantamount to rejecting what his relatives did during the war.
This Bloomberg article is right that Abe has to set the right tone internationally. Otherwise, his diplomatic offense will backfire.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/japan-wants-peace-builder-keeps-012030640.html;_ylt=AwrTWVWzVL5UUXQAhBrQtDMD
40% of Britons Want to Walk the Great Wall: Survey
Did not realize Britons were so infatuated with the Great Wall.
Here’re their top ten dream destinations:
1.Walking along the Great Wall of China – 40%
2. Hiking into the Grand Canyon – 31%
3. Trekking the Inca trail – 25%
4. Walking the Nile – 21%
5. Diving with great white sharks – 17%
6. Hiking the great Himalaya trail, Nepal – 17%
7. Skydiving over the Great Barrier Reef – 16%
8. Climbing the summit of Mount Everest -15%
9. Expedition across the Antarctic – 13%
10. White water rafting down the Coruh River in Turkey -10
A new survey suggests that far from being couch potatoes as we’re often portrayed, the British are really rather an adventurous bunch. At least in theory…
Figures from the CWM FX London Boat Show reveal that 40 per cent of Brits dream of making a pilgrimage to The Great Wall of China, which stretches for an incredible 5,500 miles across north of the country, while just over a third of people claim that visiting the Grand Canyon in Arizona tops their list of dream destinations.
China is Not Colonizing Africa and There Are Many Players: Economist
This Economist piece starts out okay by debunking recent Western AND certain African portrayals of China’s decade-long engagement with Africa as somehow “neo-colonialist”, “neo-imperialist” or China’s “second continent” as Howard French, the former New York Times China correspondent, titled his new book. But, it seems to confuse Chinese state policy toward Africa such as the China-Africa forum and the many state visits bringing investment and aid with the hundreds of thousands of small-time Chinese businessmen who have been going to the continent in search of business opportunities since the early 2000s. Many intend to stay over the long haul and have made Africa their new home.
The piece is right about the many international players that are now there (in part because of China’s dual challenge of state policy and investment and small business inroads) and China’s explicit rejection of a colonial agenda. China has no troops on the ground aside from UN peacekeepers and it hasn’t any colonial-style administrations in the many countries it deals with. And it doesn’t treat the local people like children needing their governance.
Unlike hypocritical Western countries, China deals with all African countries that want to strengthen ties so China builds railroads in Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia and Kenya; searches for oil and builds refineries and pipelines in the two Sudans and Angola, and provides over $122 million dollars in medical and financial aid as well as dispatching hundreds of medical personnel to Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa. In short, neither the Chinese state nor its businessmen harbor any dreams of colonial conquest and overlordship in Africa.
However, the Chinese government and state corporations do want resources in exchange for investment and infrastructure building. They also want to help create vibrant markets in Africa. Enlightened self interest works for both sides. If their presence is no longer welcomed, and that won’t come to pass, they can easily find willing partners on other continents such as in Latin America, the Arab world, Eastern Europe, and even parts of North America, notably Mexico. The Chinese government is smart enough to develop a multi-pronged strategy that assures it does not have all its eggs in any one basket. Even if problems do come to a boil, will the West and other countries such as India pick up the slack? Don’t hold your breath.
And what about the legions of small entrepreneurs that opened businesses and factories, set up shops, tilled fields, or otherwise engaged in trade with the continent? It’s about making a living and should circumstance allow, even get rich. If the going gets too tough businesswise or there is too much political backlash, they’ll simply pack up and head for greener pastures and there are many to go to. Should that comes to pass, and it won’t, it will be a loss for Africa, indeed.
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China has become by far Africa’s biggest trading partner, exchanging about $160 billion-worth of goods a year; more than 1m Chinese, most of them labourers and traders, have moved to the continent in the past decade. The mutual adoration between governments continues, with ever more African roads and mines built by Chinese firms. But the talk of Africa becoming Chinese—or “China’s second continent”, as the title of one American book puts it—is overdone.
The African boom, which China helped to stoke in recent years, is attracting many other investors. The non-Western ones compete especially fiercely. African trade with India is projected to reach $100 billion this year. It is growing at a faster rate than Chinese trade, and is likely to overtake trade with America. Brazil and Turkey are superseding many European countries. In terms of investment in Africa, though, China lags behind Britain, America and Italy (see charts).
If Chinese businessmen seem unfazed by the contest it is in part because they themselves are looking beyond the continent. “This is a good place for business but there are many others around the world,” says He Lingguo, a sunburnt Chinese construction manager in Kenya who hopes to move to Venezuela.
A decade ago Africa seemed an uncontested space and a training ground for foreign investment as China’s economy took off. But these days China’s ambitions are bigger than winning business, or seeking access to commodities, on the world’s poorest continent. The days when Chinese leaders make long state visits to countries like Tanzania are numbered. Instead, China’s president, Xi Jinping, has promised to invest $250 billion in Latin America over the coming decade.
The growth in Chinese demand for commodities is slowing and prices of many raw materials are falling. That said, China’s hunger for agricultural goods, and perhaps for farm land, may grow as China’s population expands and the middle class becomes richer.
For the article in its entirety see: http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21639554-china-has-become-big-africa-now-backlash-one-among-many