Tag: Economic Conditions and Trends

Will This Be the ‘Indian Century’? Four Key Questions

Chin@Strategy

Total population 2023 1.4 billion people Total population 2023 1.4 billion people Source: U.N. World Population Prospects, estimated populations at midyear. It is a turning point the world has not seen in centuries, and is unlikely to see again for centuries more. India is on the cusp of passing China in population, according to the latest U.N. estimates. At 1.428 billion people, India has already edged past mainland China, the data show, and it will soon surpass the mainland and Hong Kong combined. With China’s population declining, the margin between…

‘Zero Covid’ Behind It, China’s Economy Starts to Recover

Chin@Strategy

Economic growth began to recover in China during the first three months of the year, after the government abruptly lifted stringent “zero Covid” measures in early December. The Chinese economy grew 4.5 percent from January through March compared with the same months last year, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday. Strong retail sales, up 10.6 percent in March from a year earlier, led the way. The stakes for the rest of the world are high. China has been the single largest engine of global growth for most of…

Pressure Mounts on China to Offer Debt Relief to Poor Countries Facing Default

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — China, under growing pressure from top international policymakers, appeared to indicate this week that it is ready to make concessions that would unlock a global effort to restructure hundreds of billions of dollars of debt owed by poor countries. China has lent more than $500 billion to developing countries through its lending program, making it one of the world’s largest creditors. Many of those countries, including several in Africa, have struggled economically in the wake of the pandemic and face the possibility of defaulting on their debt payments.…

Pressure Mounts on China to Offer Debt Relief to Poor Countries Facing Default

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — China, under growing pressure from top international policymakers, appeared to indicate this week that it is ready to make concessions that would unlock a global effort to restructure hundreds of billions of dollars of debt owed by poor countries. China has lent more than $500 billion to developing countries through its lending program, making it one of the world’s largest creditors. Many of those countries, including several in Africa, have struggled economically in the wake of the pandemic and face the possibility of defaulting on their debt payments.…

China’s Rise Relied on the West. Xi Jinping Is Turning Away.

Chin@Strategy

In late 1978, China’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping set in motion two major policy shifts that would change China and the world order in the decades to come. At a Communist Party meeting in December of that year, the leadership declared that China would turn its focus from political struggle to economic development. Within days, China and the United States announced that they would establish diplomatic relations. These two events marked the end of China as a hermit country where one billion people lived in extreme poverty and the start…

Xi and Putin Bind China and Russia’s Economies Further, Despite War in Ukraine

Chin@Strategy

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, declared an enduring economic partnership on Tuesday, promising to bring more Russian energy to China and more Chinese companies to Russia as the two leaders sought to insulate their countries from Western sanctions and other consequences of the war in Ukraine. The economic pledges, trumpeted by the leaders on the second day of Mr. Xi’s state visit to Moscow, were a sign that China would continue to do business as normal with Russia and that Moscow…

Sri Lanka, Its Economy Reeling, Is Approved for $3 Billion Rescue Loan

Chin@Strategy

The executive board of the International Monetary Fund approved a loan worth $3 billion to help Sri Lanka through the financial crisis that has had the nation in a rolling economic and political crisis for more than a year. The I.M.F. had agreed in principle to extend the funds last September — subject to Sri Lanka’s meeting a series of conditions that included tightening its finances and renegotiating the terms of repaying debt it owes to the biggest economies in Asia. Even before the announcement was made, late on Monday…

As Economy Falters, China’s New Premier Tries to Boost Business Confidence

Chin@Strategy

BEIJING — China’s new premier, the country’s No. 2 leader after Xi Jinping, sought on Monday to reinvigorate confidence in the faltering economy, promising that private-sector companies would be treated equally with state-owned ones and that the property rights and other interests of entrepreneurs would be strictly respected. Premier Li Qiang, who took office on Saturday, strongly endorsed the role of entrepreneurs after a decade in which the state and the ruling Communist Party have played a steadily growing role in China’s economy, with some pro-party commentators castigating big businesses.…

A Chinese Commonwealth? An Unpopular Idea Resurfaces in Taiwan.

Chin@Strategy

The K.M.T. has a long history of arguing for economic integration with China. The party’s roots date back to the nationalist army that lost a civil war against Chinese Communists in 1949 and escaped to Taiwan to regroup. K.M.T. officials, who initially ruled as a military dictatorship, were so committed to the dream of returning to the mainland for a rematch that, a Ming Chuan University professor told me, they routinely barred active-duty soldiers from getting married, out of fear soldiers would be diverted from their cause. The closest that…

After China’s Winter of Discontent, Xi Jinping Sets Sights on Growth and Power

Chin@Strategy

Xi Jinping is on the political march again. After a turbulent year that ended in faltering growth, widespread protests, and a surge of deaths after China abruptly abandoned Covid controls, China’s top leader is poised to secure even more power at the annual gathering of the national legislature that opened on Sunday. At the start of the National People’s Congress, the Chinese government laid out a post-Covid agenda centered on reviving the economy with a 5 percent growth target, raising spending on military, education and social needs, and augmenting Mr.…