The “Greening” of China: Progress,Limitations, and Contradictions

China’s rapid economic growth in the last three decades has been fuelled by energy-intensive investment and manufacturing, which have become instrumental for China to become the world’s largest economy based on purchasing power parity, and for the United States and the European Union to have access to cheap consumer goods. China’s development strategy, however, has generated a serious domestic environmental crisis, which has also accelerated the global climate emergency. In addition, the 2008 economic crisis led to a collapse of China’s external demand, inducing the leadership to support domestic investment – including investment in environmental projects – as an alternative source of effective demand. By setting ambitious green targets and by adopting strategic policy initiatives, China has become the world’s largest investor in renewable energy. Yet China remains the world’s largest coal consumer and the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter. The Chinese economy nears a crossroad: will it be able to maintain its commitment to green energies or will it fall back to its historical reliance on fossil fuels to sustain growth? This article evaluates the interplay between China’s economy and environment over the course of the reform period, and investigates the set of forces that impinge upon China’s ecological future.     

The PRC,Taiwan, and the overseas Chinese

The rapid growth of China’s economy and its opening to the outside world have attracted a large volume of trade and investment from Hong Kong and Taiwan, creating an economic grouping with a total foreign trade in 1992 almost equal to that of Japan. The economic linkage of this “Greater China” with Southeast Asia’s overseas Chinese communities is steadily growing and will continue to do so for the rest of the decade, barring a sharp drop in the PRC’s growth rate, which seems unlikely.     

Dialectics of industrialization in Indonesia

This essay investigates how the degeneration of state socialist regimes and the transition to market-Leninist political economies in China and Vietnam have shaped institutional arrangements governing welfare and its stratification effects. Engaging recent theoretical literature one welfare regimes, the article explores how the evolution of specific combinations of political and economic institutions in China and Vietnam has affected the production and reproduction of welfare and stratification. The common assumption that welfare regimes reflect the structured interests of dominant political and economic actors and thus serve to reproduce that regime is found to invite an excessively static perspective. Instead this essay argues that welfare regimes and stratification in contemporary China and Vietnam require an appreciation of their properties under state-socialism and how specific paths of extrication affected their degeneration and subsequent development under a new form of political economy. The essay also probes the significance of observed differences in China and Vietnam’s political structure in light of suggestions that Vietnam’s more pluralistic political system has made its welfare regime more redistributive than China’s. An alternative perspective suggests China’s wealth obviates the significance of such differences.     

Cape Verde and the risks of tourism specialisation: the tourism option for Africa’s small states

ABSTRACT

Tourism is a viable, but risky, option for many small island countries to integrate and compete in the world economy. This article examines tourism in the small island economy of Cape Verde. It assesses the risks to its long term development posed by the industry. The country has one of the fastest growing tourism industries in the world. However, this rapid growth is a dual-edge sword. Tourism-led growth results in real economic gains. However, the type and organisation of Cape Verde’s tourism industry magnifies the country’s already high structural vulnerability. Given its current structure and pace of growth, tourism increases macroeconomic risks and vulnerability. It is reproducing the same monoculture dependency that traditionally hampered development in African economies. The policy lessons are clear. Cape Verde must foster economic diversification while simultaneously engaging in strategies to mitigate the risks that accompany its biggest and fastest growing sector and export.     

近20年来东南亚华商在中国大陆的投资

1978年中国实行改革开放政策以来,国民经济取得了较快的发展,年平均增长率超过两位数。1980年代以来,东南亚华商的经济实力有了较大的加强,中国与东南亚国家的关系也得到了改善,东南亚华商开始向中国进行投资,尤其是在广东和福建侨乡地区。东南亚华商的投资,极大地促进了侨乡社会经济的发展。东南亚华商在中国引进外资的过程中,起到了先锋和桥梁的作用,在以侨引台、以侨引外等方面起了重要的作用。     

Taiwan’s WTO accession: Meeting the requirements

In applying to join the World Trade Organization, the separate customs territory of Taiwan, Penghou, Kinmen and Matsu—Taiwan for short—is trying to go the extra mile. In the “accession” negotiations, it is making doubly sure that its foreign trade regime conforms to WTO rules, that its market-opening commitments match or exceed those made by similar economies in the Uruguay Round agreements and that its laws, regulations and practices are transparent. In shifting from bilateral trading arrangements to the multilateral system, Taiwan would dispense with preferences in favor of certain countries, which expect to be compensated if they are to support its accession. In applying as a developed economy, Taiwan has met almost all the WTO’s implicit requirements, while outstanding issues can be resolved if its trading partners have the will to do so.     

The world economic pattern in the 1990s and Asia-Pacific economic cooperation

The world economic pattern of the 1990s will have many characteristics. For example: 1) the world economy will tend to move further toward multipolarization and several fairly large regional economic blocs will be formed with these polars as their center; 2) the United States, Japan, and Europe will play a dominant role in the new world economic pattern; and 3) the Asia-Pacific economies will be the most vigorous part of the world economy. Since the 1980s, with the development of the internationalization of the world economy and regional integration, Asia-Pacific economic cooperation has entered into a new period. However, it is very difficult to form a close entity of economic cooperation (such as the EC) including the whole Asia-Pacific region. Perhaps it is more practical to found a subregional economic cooperative body, such as a “Northeast Asian economic sphere,” in the near future. This article was originally prepared for a roundtable conference on “Economic Issues in the Northwest Pacific: Perspectives in a Dramatically Changing World,” held December 14–16, 1990, in Oiso, Japan. The cosponsors of the conference were Taisho Research Institute, the Japan Economic Foundation, and The American Council on Asian and Pacific Affairs.     

孟加拉国参与“一带一路”倡议:利益与问题

2007年全球金融危机爆发之后,中国和世界经济增长放缓。为此,中国提出了对外开放的宏大战略。这一战略的核心是丝绸之路经济带和21世纪海上丝绸之路,即后来的"一带一路"倡议。"一带一路"倡议是真正意义上的全球合作,其影响远远超出了中国的范围。孟加拉国是孟中印缅经济走廊的一部分,孟中印缅经济走廊被列入"一带一路"倡议下的六大经济走廊之一。从孟加拉国的角度分析参与"一带一路"倡议的利益所在,并讨论孟加拉国在孟中印缅经济走廊中的作用,对研究"一带一路"倡议如何影响孟加拉国具有重要意义。另外,也需要从孟加拉国的角度审视"一带一路"倡议中提出的"五通",重点分析"一带一路"倡议可能面临的挑战,从孟加拉国的角度提出中国回应挑战的建议,为推动未来的相关研究提出若干建议。     

Taiwan’s Economic Diplomacy in Vietnam from the 1990s to the Early Twenty-First Century

In Vietnam, Taiwanese (In this article, 'Taiwanese' refer to all the citizens in Taiwan, although Taiwanese may not be a perfect usage for all the inhabitants in Taiwan. For example, some 400,000 natives of JinMen County live and work in Taiwan Province who might not identify with Taiwan Province. Also, many Vietnamese women in the ROC marry 'Taiwanese.' Perhaps it will take a few decades, if not longer, for all the inhabitants in Taiwan to identify with "Taiwanese.") businesses have led the Taipei government in the movement to ??Go South.?? They have served as pioneers, surrogates and middlemen for Taiwan??s economic diplomacy in Vietnam. Vietnam's 'Doi Moi' (Open Door) policy, inaugurated in December 1986, encouraged greater openness to economic investment from abroad. Compared with China, Vietnam enjoys the privilege of better access to the European market. Vietnam has become the only country in Southeast Asia that can parallel China in terms of trade and investment at the turn of the century.     

Korea and Taiwan: The Crisis of Investment-Led Growth and the End of the Developmental State

A defining feature of the Northeast Asian developmental state was a focus on maximising investment and suppressing growth in consumption. While consistently high rates of investment were an integral part of the growth model, as the South Korean and Taiwanese economies matured, the viability of this model was undermined by the inability of these economies to generate sufficient opportunities for profitable investment. At the same time, the legacies of systems of labour control associated with the developmental state have impeded the development of stable wage-led growth regimes in both political economies. Instead, they have become reliant on an unstable combination of current account surpluses and consumer borrowing to sustain growth. The legacies of the developmental state continue to define many aspects of the political-economic landscape in Korea and Taiwan. However, changes in the growth regimes, the reorientation of the financial sectors from corporate to household lending, and the downgrading of industrial policy mean that it is no longer useful to define Korea or Taiwan as developmental states. Instead, contemporary Korea and Taiwan can be best understood as post-developmental states.     

特朗普政府的极限“台湾牌”:表现、意图与影响

特朗普政府上台以来,打破中美多年来的外交惯例,频频出台公然背离一个中国政策的法案,有悖一个中国政策的动作不断,将"台湾牌"打至极限。特朗普政府"以台遏华"的战略企图十分明显,借此争取在与中国的博弈中占据主导地位,为中国稳步推进国家发展制造麻烦。此举会形成强大的反噬力,不仅无法干扰中国实现国家统一和民族复兴的既定目标,相反只会加剧台海紧张局势,并可能导致两岸冲突,使台湾面临巨大的经济损失和两岸局势失控的双重风险。美国也将陷入进退两难的尴尬处境,既有悖于其国家利益和全球战略,不符合打"台湾牌"初衷,也可能助力其他次级大国趁机崛起,对美国的霸主地位形成挑战,使美国谋求自身利益最大化意图更加难以实现。     

Taiwan’s 1991 second national assembly election

The author assesses Taiwan’s fifth competitive national election and its first ever nonsupplementary election. The electorate picked a “new” National Assembly, absent those elected on the mainland before 1949 or later appointed to fill vacancies. The election was a major victory for the ruling Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT) affording it perhaps its first real mandate — a product of the KMT’s good reputation for engineering economic development and in recent years political development as well (since it was largely responsible for getting the “elder parliamentarians” to retire). In addition, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party made a mistake by putting Taiwan independence into the platform. Two other parties contested the election but failed to win a significant number of votes. The new National Assembly will amend the nation’s Constitution which will make some important changes in Taiwan’s polity.     

Trade and investment in Southeast Asian development

Expansion of foreign trade and investment has been a vital factor underlaying the high economic growth of the Southeast Asian economies over the last ten years. As East and Southeast Asian economies continue to deregulate and prosper, trade and investment flows are becoming increasingly interconnected within the region. The character of this regional economic integration, however, has shifted recently. The role of the Japanese has declined while that of China and the overseas Chinese has boomed. Whereas China has absorbed huge amounts of foreign investment, investment to the Southeast Asian economies appears to be weakening significantly. This weakening of investment is occurring just as many Southeast Asian countries struggle to uppgrade the technical levels of their production of goods and services to accommodate the rising wages and income levels that are fundamental to sustained and broad-based increases in standards of living throughout the region.     

中国和平崛起与新时期对外关系--访哈佛大学中国基金会主席柯伟林教授?

美国著名的中国历史学家柯伟林教授对当前中国经济发展、中国梦、中国的地缘政治及新时期对外关系提出了一些很重要的见解。柯伟林认为，中国经济一直是在全球化和国际化的背景下向前发展，中国的地理位置可以让它经济上和平崛起，未来中国经济能够引领全球经济发展。实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦必须立足于20世纪中国发展的基础之上。就地缘政治而言，当前中国正处于现代史上最有利的战略地位，中美关系是世界上最重要的双边关系，双方在一些重要领域要坚持合作。     

The Atlantic economy after German unification: Cooperation or the rise of ‘Fortress Europe’

With the end of the cold war and the weakening of the security bond between Europe and the United States, economic relations assume increasing importance. As Europe's dominant economic power, Germany has a central role in the management of the trans‐Atlantic economy. This analysis of economic relations between Germany and the United States shows that whilst investment flows between the two economies suggest common interests and mutual dependence, the structure of German and American trade reveals a strong potential for conflict. Moreover, the experience of the 1980s suggests that economic ties between Germany and the United States are not sufficiently intense to guarantee unconditional cooperation in the management of the Atlantic economy. Divergence in macroeconomic policy has inevitably led to tensions over trade, exchange rates and interest rates. Unless this tendency is checked, the result will be the emergence of ‘Fortress Europe’ with a heightened potential for conflict with the United States.     

Tourism Development Across the Taiwan Strait

This article examines the tourism development between Taiwan and China over the last three decades under different political situation. First, Taiwan??s democratization in the 1980s made the control over outbound travel to China no longer necessary. Meanwhile, the Taiwanese visitors were welcomed at the time when China??s foreign currency was in deficiency. Second, the opening up of mainland Chinese visitors to Taiwan since 2008 marked another breakthrough in the Cross-Strait tourism development. However, as the opening up of Chinese tourists to Taiwan is based on the same ??political consensus?? between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and KMT in Taiwan, any dissimilar political agreements in the future may lead China to constrain the number Chinese tourists to the island. Third, the rapidly growing number of Chinese tourists brought much business benefit to the various tourism sectors in Taiwan. Nonetheless, the contribution to Taiwan??s economy is in doubt due to the insignificant tourism sector in Taiwan??s overall economy. From the current perspective, the tourism development across the Strait is more politically symbolic than substantive.     

习近平关于经济全球化的理论阐述与重大部署

当今世界正处于百年未有之大变局,经济全球化面临来自保护主义、单边主义的挑战。习近平对此进行了深入的理论分析,指出经济全球化尽管具有双刃剑效应,但仍符合世界大势和历史规律。解决经济全球化存在的深层次问题,必须在开放、包容、普惠、平衡、共赢五大价值理念的指导下,对世界经济发展进行适度引导,使各国家、各阶层的人群都能分享经济增长带来的收益。中国为构建开放型经贸格局从四个方面进行了重大部署,这些部署将成为新一轮全球化的引擎,也为构建新型国际关系和人类命运共同体勾勒出明确路径。     

21世纪中国地方政府在中韩关系中的作用

随着中国改革开放的深入和中韩关系的发展,中国地方政府开始在中韩关系中发挥日益重大的作用。本文以山东省、上海市、广东省、湖北省为案例,分析了21世纪中国地方政府在中韩关系中的作用。这种作用体现为以下三个方面：中国地方政府与韩国的经贸关系为中韩关系发展注入了强大的经济动力;中国地方政府与韩国的外事活动为中韩关系发展奠定了坚实的政治基础;中国地方政府与韩国的文化交流为中韩关系发展营造了友好的民意支撑。展望未来的中韩关系,本文得出的相关政策启示在于：对于中国地方政府而言,要为韩国企业入驻创造良好的投资环境;对于中国中央政府而言。需要给予地方政府在发展中韩关系中适当的授权和分权;对于韩国政府而言,需要积极应对中国经济发展方式的重大转变;2012年韩国丽水世博会将是进一步密切中国地方政府与韩国关系的重要契机。     

The environmental dilemma in Taiwan

While econoists and academics across the globe have praised the many advances in Taiwan’s miracle economic development since the 1950s, the costs of such rapid economic growth are quickly becoming evident in the deterioration of the environment of the island. The immense beauty of Taiwan’s landscape has been seriously harmed in many areas as a result of the rapid economic growth of the nation. Air and water pollution, soil contamination, and nuclear radiation leaks, as well as deforestation had become serious problems by the 1980s. This study gives a brief overview of the state of Taiwan’s environment today, assesses government activities to clean up the environment in Taiwan, examines the role foreign nations and citizens’ groups play in Taiwan’s environmental efforts, and gives some views about the future of the environmental movement in Taiwan.     

China's fascination with the development of Singapore

Singapore has achieved rapid economic growth and has also managed to maintain a stable social order, characteristics that make it attractive to China as a model for future development, according to Professor John Wong, Research Director of the East Asian Institute (EAI), National University of Singapore. The Singapore government has played a vital role in fostering economic development, and while it has eschewed mandatory economic planning in favor of support for free enterprise and open competition, it has nevertheless been very active in providing macro economic guidance for the economy, and in managing a number of economic and business activities. The success of the government's participation in economic development has been made possible by a strong political leadership dedicated to the pursuit of economic growth, an efficient and incorruptible public administration, and an effective legal system. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Symposium on the Government's Role in the Market Economy, held at the China Institute for Reform and Development (CIRD), Haikou, Hainan, China, in January 1997.