China | ted mitew's flaneur musings

Pu Songling

Aug 222010

I am reading Pu Songling‘s Strange Stories From a Chinese Studio with 19th century Chinese lithograph illustrations for each story, and they are simply exquisite pieces of wonder. A master storyteller narrating a world of ghosts, fox-spirits, Taoist wizards, Buddhist holy men, macabre murders, surreal love, wall paintings serving as gateways to alternate realities, and an everyday life thoroughly blended with magic. As Pu Songling introduces the stories:

Here in the civilized world,

Stranger events by far occur

Than in the Country of Cropped Hair;

Before our eyes

Weirder tales unfold

Than in the Nation of Flying Heads.

With every story I read I keep returning more and more to my recent trek through China. Here is an excerpt from The Taoist Priest of Mount Lao:

…hearing that there were a large number of Taoist adepts living up on Mount Lao, one day he shouldered his knapsack and set out on a trip in that direction. He climbed one of the peaks, and found himself before a monastery, tucked away in the middle of nowhere.

Emeishan Monastery

China links

Uncategorized No Responses »

Apr 152010

“What’s at Stake in Kyrgyzstan?” by Ariel Cohen, Wall Street Journal, 14 April 2010.

“Bismarck holds lessons for a rising China,” by Wen Liao, Financial Times, 14 April 2010.

The recent action in Kyrgyzstan prompted a lot of speculation on spheres of influence, hands under the table belonging to the usual suspects, the great game, etc. Tom Barnett has some very insightful comments on China’s role in this and the wider neighborhood. This relates in a way to the earlier post on complexity – the Chinese do not engage as much with the ‘center’ of adjacent systems, but instead try to interconnect economically with the local ‘peripheries’. A low-radar high-impact strategy. Key bit from Barnett for me:

“If anything, China’s rise and the growing organized resistance it generates means its diplomacy is arguably the biggest change-agent on the planet right now–even bigger than our own, because everybody is simultaneously adjusting to and preparing against China’s trajectory.”

China links

Uncategorized No Responses »

Mar 312010

Interesting perspectives on China, Pettis is a professor and Beijing University, and Roach is the Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia.

China is misread by bulls and bears alike, by Michael Pettis, FT.com

“Will China collapse? No. It may have a painful financial contraction, but this will not necessarily lead to a collapse in growth. Instead it will grind away at its overinvestment and excess capacity, which, with a reversal of the favourable demographics enjoyed since the mid-1970s, will slow growth sharply, but this will coincide with three more favourable circumstances.

First, China will continue to urbanise rapidly, which will raise household income and create new sources of growth. Second, even as the workforce declines, increased education and infrastructure spending will raise worker productivity. Third, a sharp contraction will force Beijing finally to liberalise the financial system and transfer resources from the inefficient state sector to small and medium enterprises, increasing productivity.”

Blaming China will not solve America’s problem, by Stephen Roach, FT.com

“The US would be far better served if it faced up to why it is confronted with a massive multilateral trade deficit. America’s core economic problem is saving, not China. In 2009, the broadest measure of domestic US saving – the net national saving rate – fell to a record low of -2.5 per cent of national income. That means America must import surplus saving from abroad to fund its future growth – and run current account and trade deficits to attract the foreign capital. Thus, for a savings-short economy, there is no escaping large multilateral trade imbalances.”

As usual, the devil is in the details, and the more uncomfortable the details – the bigger the devil.