A small Chinese carmaker with ambitious plans: WITH a model line-up that includes the Wingle, Sailor and Socool, and a corporate action plan to “attack the consciousness like a wolf while sensing danger like a rabbit”, it is easy to poke fun at Great Wall Motor, based in Hebei Province, south of Beijing. The carmaker’s output of 108,000 vehicles in 2007 is puny by global standards—about half what Toyota builds in a week. Yet there is nothing modest about Great Wall’s ambition. [Economist]

China to modernise nuclear weapons capability: One of the world’s leading arms control experts has said that the Chinese have realised that their nuclear weaponry has fallen behind those of other major powers and might not survive a first strike. [Telegraph]

India’s Bharti Airtel may buy South Africa’s MTN: According to the Financial Times, Bharti has indicated it would be willing to pay about $19 billion for 51% of the company. That would make it the heftiest overseas acquisition ever made by an Indian firm, more than Tata Steel paid for Corus, a British steelmaker, and seven times the amount India invested in the whole of Africa over the ten years to 2004. [Economist]

Tiger economies are snapping at US heels: China and India are moving toward becoming the biggest economies in the world: with 2.4bn people, or 40 per cent of the world’s population and annual GDP growth rates of between 8 per cent and 10 per cent, experts say that they could one day overtake the US. Professor Pieter Bottelier, of the Centre for Strategic International Studies, says: ‘If these two countries continue to grow at the current rate, they will overtake America, although that probably won’t happen for a number of decades.’ [Guardian]

Chinese Power Firms Eye Kangaroo Country Juice: Intensifying China’s interest in commodities and energy assets in the land Down Under, the country’s largest energy companies may, according to a report, participate in the multibillion-dollar bidding process for a clutch of public utility assets in the state of New South Wales. [Forbes]

May 9th, 2008 at 9:47 am

This article is filed under Asia Rising, Blog.

The New China: Shenzhen, once a sleepy fishing village, is now a teeming city of skyscrapers and factories, artists and laborers. But will this microcosm of modern China be the model of metropolitan life, or a lesson in getting too big too fast? [Good]

China’s next-generation nationalists: As human rights protesters dogged the Beijing Olympics’ torch relay around the world, as supporters of Tibet condemned the violent crackdown in Lhasa, and as Darfur activists demanded change in China’s Sudan policy, Chinese young people worked themselves into a different form of righteous anger. In online forums and chat rooms, they blasted Beijing’s leaders for not being tougher in Tibet. They agitated for boycotts against Western businesses based in nations that object to Beijing’s policies, and they directed venomous fury against anyone critical of China. [LA Times]

China and Japan - A blossoming relationship?: FIRST came the “ice-breaking”, then the “ice-melting”. Now, comes the “cherry-blossom viewing”, admittedly late in the season. A succession of reciprocal visits by the two countries’ leaders have taken Sino-Japanese relations out of the cooler over the past 20 months. [Economist]

May 6th, 2008 at 9:40 am

This article is filed under Asia Rising, Blog.

Who Will Tell the People?: How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including Americans. [NYT]

Chinese firms bargain hunting in U.S.: Liu Keli couldn’t tell you much about South Carolina, not even where it is in the United States. It’s as obscure to him as his home region, Shanxi province, is to most Americans. But Liu is investing $10 million in the Palmetto State, building a printing-plate factory that will open this fall and hire 120 workers. His main aim is to tap the large American market, but when his finance staff penciled out the costs, he was stunned to learn how they compared with those in China. Liu spent about $500,000 for seven acres in Spartanburg — less than one-fourth what it would cost to buy the same amount of land in Dongguan, a city in southeast China where he runs three plants. U.S. electricity rates are about 75% lower, and in South Carolina, Liu doesn’t have to put up with frequent blackouts. [LA Times]

May 5th, 2008 at 10:37 am

This article is filed under Asia Rising, Blog.

Welcome to the O.C.: China’s rising elite is importing a new American lifestyle, complete with fake lakes, stucco ranch houses, and Hummers in the driveway. But as these gated communities grow, is China doomed to repeat all of America’s mistakes? [Good]

How China Leads the World in Web Censorship: Just in the time for the Olympics, the Chinese government has proved itself to be a pioneer as well as a top exporter in cutting-edge online censorship methods. And Western firms still give Beijing their active support. “Golden Shield” is the term Chinese officials use for what may be the most sophisticated censorship system in the world. Critics like to refer to it as the Great Firewall of China (GFC). [Spiegel]

An aberrant abacus: AS CHINA’S importance in the global economy increases, investors are paying more attention to its economic numbers. Yet the country’s official statistics are notoriously ropy. Some commentators accuse China’s government of overstating GDP growth for political reasons, others complain that the official inflation rate is fraudulently low. So which data can you trust? [Economist]

Crazy English, The national scramble to learn a new language before the Olympics: Accompanied by his photographer and his personal assistant, Li Yang stepped into a Beijing classroom and shouted, “Hello, everyone!” The students applauded. Li, the founder, head teacher, and editor-in-chief of Li Yang Crazy English, wore a dove-gray turtleneck and a black car coat. His hair was set off by a faint silver streak. It was January, and Day Five of China’s first official English-language intensive-training camp for volunteers to the 2008 Summer Olympics, and Li was making the rounds. [New Yorker]

Angry China: CHINA is in a frightening mood. The sight of thousands of Chinese people waving xenophobic fists suggests that a country on its way to becoming a superpower may turn out to be a more dangerous force than optimists had hoped. But it isn’t just foreigners who should be worried by these scenes: the Chinese government, which has encouraged this outburst of nationalism, should also be afraid. [Economist]

May 2nd, 2008 at 9:25 am

This article is filed under Asia Rising, Blog.

Chinese build secret nuclear submarine base: China has secretly built a major underground nuclear submarine base that could threaten Asian countries and challenge American power in the region, it can be disclosed. [Telegraph]

China and India’s Economic Rise: It is well known that the world’s economic fault lines are rapidly shifting eastward. Strong economies are emerging throughout the world, yet it has been the Asian giants, China and India, that have occupied our attention by taking global markets by storm and creating an excitement about new economic possibilities. Not only has their rapid growth created possibilities for global markets, it has created possibilities for the tangible development of these regions, which to this point in modern history have been among the world’s poorest. [Diplomatic Courier]

May 1st, 2008 at 10:03 am

This article is filed under Asia Rising, Blog.

The Indians are coming: India nevertheless accepts that it cannot compete directly with China’s substantial financial clout, and is instead aiming for a more nuanced partnership, based on “south-south” reciprocity, as opposed to a colonial-style “north-south” relationship, which is seen as more typical of China and the West. [Economist]

The citadels of the global economy are yielding to China’s battering ram: In June Justin Lin Yifu, a Beijing professor, will take up the post of chief economist at the World Bank. Nothing could be a clearer sign of the times. This is the number two job in one of the two major international economic institutions, the other being the International Monetary Fund. [Guardian]

April 29th, 2008 at 9:49 am

This article is filed under Anthropology, Asia Rising, Blog.