China Ends 1-Child Birth Policy, but it May be Too Little, Too Late

 

Critics say that change may be slow because large families are too pricey October 30, 2015 For illustration purposes only. NI QIN ©iStock.com By Megha Rajagopalan and Koh Gui Qing BEIJING (Reuters) - China will ease family planning restrictions to allow all couples to have two children after decades of a strict one-child policy, the ruling Communist Party said on Thursday, a move aimed at alleviating demographic strains on the economy. The policy is a major liberalization of the country's family planning restrictions, already eased in late 2013 when Beijing said it would allow more families to have two children when the parents met certain conditions. A growing number of scholars had urged the government to reform the rules, introduced in the late 1970s to prevent population growth spiraling out of control, but now regarded as outdated and responsible for shrinking China's labor pool. For the first time in decades the working age population fell in 2012, and China, the world's most populous nation, could be the first country in the world to get old before it gets rich. By around the middle of this century, one in every three Chinese is forecast to be over 60, with a dwindling proportion of working adults to support them. The announcement was made at the close of a key Party meeting focused on financial reforms and maintaining growth between 2016 and 2020 amid concerns over the country's slowing economy. China will "fully implement a policy of allowing each couple to have two children as an active response to an ageing population", the party said in a statement carried by the official Xinhua news agency. There were no immediate details on the new policy or a timeframe for implementation. Wang Feng, a leading expert on demographic and social change in China, called the change an "historic event" that would change the world but said the challenges of China's aging society would remain. "It's an event that we have been waiting  for a generation, but it is one we have had to wait much too long for," Wang said. "It won't have any impact on the issue of the aging society, but it will change the character of many young families," Wang said. Too little, too late? Under the 2013 reform, couples in which one parent is an only child were allowed to have a second child. Critics said the relaxation of rules was too little, too late to redress substantial negative effects of the one-child policy on the economy and society. Many couples who were allowed to have another child under the 2013 rules decided not to, especially in the cities, citing the cost of bringing up children in an increasingly expensive country. State media said in January that about 30,000 families in Beijing, just 6.7% of those eligible, applied to have a second child. The Beijing government had said last year that it expected an extra 54,200 births annually as a result of the change in rules. Chinese people took to microblogging site Weibo, China's answer to Twitter, to welcome the move, but many said they probably wouldn't opt for a second child. "I can't even afford to raise one, let alone two," wrote one user. Couples who flout family planning laws in China are, at minimum, fined, some lose their jobs, and in some cases mothers are forced to abort their babies or be sterilized. William Nee, a China researcher at human rights campaign group Amnesty International, welcomed the move, but urged China to go further. "China should immediately and completely end its control over people's decisions to have children. This would not only be good for improving human rights, but would also make sense given the stark demographic challenges that lie ahead," he said.   http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-ends-1-child-birth-policy-but-it-may-be-too-little-too-late/

China's middle class overtakes US as largest in the world

 

World's second largest economy has seen its middle class grow to 109 million Luxury homes in Shanghai By Agency 7:37AM BST 14 Oct 2015 Comments China's middle class has overtaken the United States to become the largest in the world according to a comprehensive new report on the distribution of global wealth. Despite fears of a global growth slowdown in the emerging world, Asia is set to be the scene for the greatest expansion of the world's middle class, said Credit Suisse, in its annual wealth report. • How the world's up and coming rich spend their money The Swiss bank said with 109 million adults "this year, the Chinese middle class for the first time outnumbered" that in the United States at 92 million. While the number of middle class worldwide grew last year at a slower pace than the wealthy, it "will continue to expand in emerging economies overall, with a lion's share of that growth to occur in Asia," said Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam. Number of middle-class adults (million), 2015, by region and country "As a result, we will see changing consumption patterns as well as societal changes as, historically, the middle class has acted as an agent of stability and prosperity," he added. The report said size and wealth of the middle class was a key factor in economic development, and the middle class was often at the heart of political movements and new consumption trends. China now accounts for a fifth of the world population, while holding nearly 10pc of the global wealth. The report used a floor for the middle class as having wealth double the annual medium income for their country. While wealth may still be mostly concentrated in Europe and the United States, Mr Thiam said "the growth of wealth in emerging markets has been most impressive, including a fivefold rise in China since the beginning of the century." Overall, the report found that global wealth fell by nearly 5pc in the year to mid-2015 to $250 trillion due a strengthening of the US dollar in which income is compared. However if currency effects are stripped out, wealth continued to expand at the trend rate since the beginning of the century. The report also found the number of millionaires is forecast to increase 46pc to 49.3 million over the next five years, with Malaysia more than doubling the number of affluent individuals with $1 million.   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/11929794/Chinas-middle-class-overtakes-US-as-largest-in-the-world.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Smoking set to kill one in three young men in China

 

One in three of all the young men in China will eventually be killed by tobacco, unless a substantial proportion stop smoking, according to new research published in The Lancet. Two-thirds of the young men in China start to smoke, mostly before age 20, and the study, led by researchers from Oxford University, UK, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Chinese Centre for Disease Control, shows that around half of those who start smoking cigarettes as young men will eventually be killed by tobacco, unless they stop permanently. The researchers conducted two large, nationally representative studies 15 years apart, tracking the health consequences of smoking in a large group of people in China. The first study took place in the 1990s, and involved a quarter of a million men. The second study is ongoing, and involved half a million men and women. The results show that in China the annual number of tobacco deaths, mostly among men, had reached 1 million by 2010, and if current trends continue, it will be 2 million by 2030. Among Chinese women, however, smoking rates have plummeted and the risk of premature death from tobacco is low and falling. In recent decades there has been a large increase in cigarette smoking by young men, and the research shows the consequences that are now emerging. The proportion of all male deaths at ages 40-79 that are attributed to smoking has doubled, from about 10% in the early 1990s, to about 20% now. In urban areas this proportion is higher, at 25%, and is still rising. In rural areas it is currently lower, but is set to rise even more steeply than in cities, due to the high prevalence of smoking and low rate of cessation in rural China. Conversely, the women of working age in China now smoke much less than the older generation. About 10% of the women born in the 1930s smoked, but only about 1% of those born in the 1960s did so. Hence, overall female deaths caused by tobacco are decreasing, and less than 1% of deaths in women born since 1960 are due to tobacco. Other studies, however, have shown a recent increase in smoking uptake by young women that could eventually reverse this downward trend. Professor Zhengming Chen from the University of Oxford, UK, a study co-author, says: "About two-thirds of young Chinese men become cigarette smokers, and most start before they are 20. Unless they stop, about half of them will eventually be killed by their habit." However, an increasing proportion of smokers are choosing to stop, and the study results show that between 1991 and 2006, the proportion of smokers who had quit rose from 3% to 9%. For smokers who stopped before developing any serious disease, after ten years of not smoking their risk was similar to that of people who had never smoked. According to study co-author Professor Liming Li, from the Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China, "Without rapid, committed, and widespread action to reduce smoking levels China will face enormous numbers of premature deaths." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151008191048.htm

Economia global e China com a batuta.

 

O PESO DA CHINA NA ECONOMIA GLOBAL

China's solar industry hits downturn

 

Kieran Cooke 16th August 2015 China is by far the world's biggest producer of solar panels, writes Kieran Cooke. But the industry is suffering from over-capacity, razor thin profits and a failure to innovate. The recent turmoil in China's stock market has sent shockwaves through the country's corporate sector, including its mighty solar power industry which in recent years has grown to dominate the world market. Harnessing solar energy is considered a key way of cutting back on fossil fuel use and of meeting the challenge posed by climate change. Seven out of the world's top ten manufacturers of solar panels are China-based companies, together providing about 40% of global solar supplies. But now the industry's future expansion is under threat as companies try to cope with too much production capacity, very low profit margins and crushing amounts of debt. In 2013 Suntech, a Chinese company which was at one time the world's biggest manufacturer, went bust. International creditors are still trying to recoup millions lent to the company. Earlier this year the Hanergy Thin Film Power Group, a Chinese company which is a world leader in the manufacture of solar products, lost half its share valueamid concerns about its corporate structure and worries of over-capacity and falling profit margins in the solar market. Export boom slows Meanwhile the China-based conglomerate Yingli Green Energy Holding, another world leader in solar production, has been beset with rumours of a slowdown in demand leading to a halt in production at some of its plants. Like many other industries in China, the solar sector has grown fast: in recent years companies rushed to join in a solar export boom, bolstered by generous loans from government banks. Exports of solar products surged. But then US solar manufacturers complained of heavily subsidised China-made solar goods threatening to destroy their industry. Tariffs were imposed on a number of Chinese solar products. A slowdown in Europe's economy also hit export sales. China cut the price of its products: according to the Bloomberg New Energy Finance research group, China now sells solar panels for just over 60 US cents per watt of electricity generating capacity, down from US$4.50 per watt in 2008. While that's good news for those installing solar - and of considerable benefit in the fight against climate change - the price drop has put considerable pressure on China's solar manufacturers. It has also meant many solar companies elsewhere in the world have gone to the wall. China is subsidising the world's solar installations Varun Sivaram is a researcher at the US Council on Foreign Relations, specialising in renewable energy. He says that while China's dominance of the solar market has led to low global prices, the industry is not in a healthy state. "Solar is heading down a path of profitless prosperity", says Sivaram. In effect, he says, China is subsidising the global solar industry. Sivaram says one of the damaging side effects of China's dominance of the solar market is that production has tended to stick to old technologies and innovation in the industry has been stifled: "As panel manufacturers scrape by on razor-thin margins, kept afloat by government credit, investing in fundamentally new technologies is far from a priority." Some relief for the China industry might be provided by a government-backed campaign to boost sales in the domestic market. About a third of panels manufactured in China in 2014 were installed within the country. It's estimated that China will install 14 GWs (gigawatts) of solar panels this year, mainly involving giant solar farms in the Gobi desert and elsewhere. In central Europe an installed capacity of one GW of photovoltaics alone would be expected to produce almost 900 GWh of electricity annually, supplying around 225,000 households. In the first three months of 2015 China added the equivalent of the entire installed solar power of France to its electricity network.

Research explores future energy security of China

 

July 30, 2015 China needs to reduce its dependence on coal and improve the range of fuels it uses if it is to have long term energy security, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA). The study, published in the journal Technological Forecasting and Social Change, looks at the future of electricity supply in China and the issues it faces in reducing its carbon emissions -- nationally China's electricity sector accounts for more than half its total greenhouse gas emissions. The country's electricity sector is the largest in the world and energy security concerns mean that China meets its electricity needs with domestic resources, resulting in a system heavily reliant on coal. However, increasing demand for electricity and direct coal consumption, and gradual depletion of its own supply, have led to it becoming the world's largest coal importer. Lead researcher Dr Konstantinos Chalvatzis, of UEA's Norwich Business School and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said: "China's energy sector is under pressure to achieve a secure and affordable supply while at the same time reducing its carbon emissions. There has been this long argument about whether China can give up coal because that would harm their supply security. "We recommend that the Chinese Government continues to work towards two main objectives. First, increase the share of renewable energy sources, such as wind and hydro-power, in the fuel mix and as a result maintain high energy independence. Secondly, improve diversity in the fuel mix. If imports are necessary, prioritise non-coal fuels, such as nuclear fuels and natural gas. These two objectives will improve electricity supply security while allowing China to decarbonise its economy." While acknowledging that China appears to be leading its electricity sector away from the dominance of coal, the researchers say that at this stage this is only a gradual, incremental change that will not deliver a radically different fuel mix in less than a decade. "We argue that long-term aggressive deployment of renewable energy will unblock China's coal-biased technological dependence and increase supply security in all fronts," said Dr Chalvatzis, a Senior Lecturer in Business and Climate Change. "However, reduced supply diversity in China during the 1990s will not recover until after 2020s due to the long-term coal lock-in that can threaten to hold China's back from realising its full potential. "China's rapid growth rate presents a challenge as well as an opportunity for the country's energy future. The challenge is to secure increasing energy supplies while maintaining a decarbonisation path. In contrast, the opportunity lies in transforming the historical coal lock-in into a diversified and secure energy supply system that will fuel the Chinese economy for the years to come." China is the world's largest consumer of coal and its electricity sector is the largest single source of coal demand, consuming approximately half of the country's coal. Electricity consumption continues to grow rapidly, reaching a growth rate of 7.2% in the first three quarters of 2013, while electricity production for the same period grew at 6.8%. Dr Chalvatzis said: "Policy makers must design a path that will be influenced by the international energy prices and the role of technological 'dumping' caused by China or other countries. In this process climate policy, its effect on energy prices and their subsequent consequences for the well-being of the global economy will also need to be considered. "The success of China's decarbonisation path is keenly observed by the international community. The capacity of the Chinese Government to commit to international emission targets is linked to its capacity to achieve these targets without compromising its energy supply security and development prospects." Source:  University of East Anglia

Chinês compra carro de luxo com quatro toneladas de moedas

 

Jornalista: Da Redação Fotos: Fotos: CCTV News

 

Além de ser o maior mercado de automóveis do mundo, a China é bastante peculiar no que diz respeito aos hábitos de seus consumidores, que não se importam nem um pouco em levar todas as suas economias até a concessionária para pagar por um carro novo.

Em abril, uma mulher foi até uma loja com 100 mil notas de baixo valor para comprar um BMW e agora a imprensa local mostra a história de um homem que resolveu fazer o pagamento de um automóvel com moedas. O cliente, de sobrenome Gan, escolheu um modelo de luxo (não revelado) de 680 mil iuans (cerca de R$ 345 mil) e decidiu pagar 660 mil iuans (R$ 334.700) em moedas.

Para carregar todo esse dinheiro (que totalizou quatro toneladas) foi necessária a ajuda de dez pessoas, que levaram uma hora para transportar o montante para dentro da loja. De acordo com Gan, ele levou apenas três meses para juntar a quantia no posto de combustíveis onde trabalha, pois os motoristas de ônibus que lá param costumam pagar os abastecimentos com moedas.

5 Things the USA Needs to Know about China's New Military Strategy

May 28, 2015

On Tuesday, the Chinese Ministry of Defense issued its first policy document in two years, a white paper titled, “Chinese Military Strategy.” The document, released amid ongoing Chinese island reclamation and increasingly hostile warnings to U.S. Navy aviation assets operating in the South China Sea, outlines how the Chinese armed forces are expected to support Beijing’s geopolitical objectives.
In the white paper, a copy of which can be read online in English or Chinese, China vows to use the armed forces to create a “favorable strategic posture with more emphasis on the employment of military forces and means,” in order to guarantee the country’s peaceful development. The document also less-than-subtly indicts the United States (and other neighbors) for taking “provocative actions” surrounding Chinese reefs and islands.
Five major elements of the strategy worthy of American attention stand out:

1. Preserving the role of the Communist Party remains the People Liberation Army’s (PLA) number one priority:
The PLA’s most important task remains maintaining the power and authority of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The white paper makes it perfectly clear that the PLA first exists to protect the CPC and the regime of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Notions of defending the Chinese homeland or the people of China take a back seat to preserving the legitimacy and efficacy of the CPC. After all, the PLA is an arm of the CPC—not the Chinese state—and thus the Chinese armed forces are tasked solely with defending the Party rather than the well-being of 1.3 billion Chinese people. Should economic, demographic, or social issues threaten CPC legitimacy, Xi has the option of utilizing PLA forces to quell political opposition and domestic unrest.

2. China is building a military to fight and win wars:
The Chinese military is focused on ensuring recent investments in the PLA translate into genuine warfighting capability. The white paper clearly states that the PLA intends to, “endeavor to seize the strategic initiative in military struggle, proactively plan for military struggle in all directions and domains, and grasp the opportunities to accelerate military building, reform and development.” The Chinese military desperately wants a military capable of going on the offensive and defeating any challengers. The white paper gives particular emphasis to Chinese naval ambitions of becoming a blue water force. A Chinese blue water navy will operate regularly beyond the “first island chain” separating the South China, East China, and Yellow Seas from the Pacific, to protect Chinese strategic interests.
For officials in Beijing, a blue water navy is a modernized force capable of defending territorial claims, conducting global operations, and perhaps most significantly,constituting a “real challenge” to the U.S. Navy. While the desire for a capable blue water navy is not surprising, it serves as a warning to other nations in the region, a warning that is unlikely to ease existing tensions with neighboring Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. A Chinese military that is built to fight and win wars is also a military that could show little reluctance in using force to assert sovereignty.

3. The PLA appears focused on perceived threats from the United States, Japan, Taiwan, South China Sea littoral states and the Koreas:
The white paper and its reworked strategic guidelines reflect a perception of “new” national security issues: the U.S. rebalance to Asia; Japanese revisions to military and security policy; external countries meddling in Chinese territorial disputes in the South China Sea and elsewhere; instability and uncertainty on the Korean Peninsula; and independence movements simmering in both Taiwan and Tibet. Beijing’s security interests now lie farther from home, and across regions requiring an active military presence. The PLA leadership is seeking to equip and train its forces to meet new perceptions of the Chinese security environment. In doing so, the latest white paper makes certain China has no qualms in upholding a military strategy of “active defense,” or what the document breaks down into a combination of strategic defense, self-defense, operational and tactical offense, and a willingness to counterattack.

4. The Chinese military knows it has some big organizational hurdles to overcome:  
The white paper examines necessary measures to overhaul the daily operations and internal structure of the PLA. These include: giving continued priority to ideological and political work, modernizing logistics infrastructure, establishing a military law system, and integrating military and civilian support efforts. Specifically at the domestic level, the white paper stresses the need to improve national defense education, boost public awareness of the Chinese military, and rethink processes for bringing on PLA enlistees. These initiatives all appear to be aimed at tackling existing weaknesses in organizational and human capital to yield a stronger military force.

5. The good news: China is interested in military-to-military contacts and relationships and the white paper is a sign of increased transparency:

The white paper states that, “China’s armed forces will continue to develop military-to-military relations that are non-aligned, non-confrontational and not directed against any third party.” More specifically, the white paper expresses Chinese armed forces’ interest in fostering a new model of military relationship with U.S. armed forces that would include defense dialogues, exchanges and other measures aimed at strengthening mutual trust, preventing, unintended escalation, and mitigating crises. Military-to-military contact and engagement with China are beneficial to the United States because such initiatives can help avoid miscalculation and improve the U.S. ability to understand Chinese intent. Engagement also establishes a foundation for future negotiation and de-escalation if crises develop. The other “good news” in the white paper is its transparency. The white paper is a clear statement of Beijing’s military intent; after reviewing the white paper, the international community is left with a better understanding of Chinese plans for their military.
A clear-eyed reading of China’s new white paper should temper naïveté in thinking Beijing seeks to become a peaceful, responsible stakeholder in the global order. Aside from an interest in deepening existing mil-mil relationships, the new strategic guidelines leave little room to doubt Chinese ambitions of transforming into a modern, maritime power capable of challenging the United States in the Asia-Pacific theater and elsewhere in the world. The white paper signals that the Chinese military intends to project power beyond its immediate periphery, into the open ocean, in pursuit of a “national rejuvenation” aimed at countering what Chinese leaders see as U.S.-led efforts to check China’s rise. The document marks a notable transition from a Chinese focus on economic development—and a hands-off approach to global affairs—to a reorientation that not only accounts for the global scope of Chinese interests, but also suggests a national tenacity to defend Chinese interests through the use of force.
China’s white paper sends some disturbing messages that China is committed to “achieving slow motion regional hegemony.” It appears that China has both a vision and a plan to extend the PLA’s global reach—now it is up to the United States and its allies and friends in the Pacific to engage with China while working to devise an adequate response.
This piece first appeared in CFR’s blog Defense in Depth here.

source of this post - www.nationalinterest.org

World's longest glass bridge set to open in China next year

 

An artist's concept of people walking across the glass bridge high above the Zhangjiajie canyon in China (Credit: Haim Dotan Ltd) Image Gallery (5 images) In a bid to attract more tourists to the region, Hunan Province in China has commissioned the architectural firm of Haim Dotan to produce a completely transparent glass bridge spanning 370 m (1,214 ft) across the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon. Dizzyingly high at about 400 m (1,312 ft) above the canyon floor, the span is claimed to be capable of holding up to 800 people at a time. China seems to be enamored with terrifyingly high, world-beating glass structures. Gizmag recently detailed the world's longest glass-bottomed cantilever skywalk in Longgang National Geological Park, Chongqing, for example, which extends 26.64 m (87.4 ft) over a straight drop of 718 m (2,356 ft), making it some 5 m (16 ft) longer than the Grand Canyon Skywalk in Arizona. The Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon glass bridge continues this trend of oneupmanship. Funded as part the Tourism investment cooperation meeting at the Central China Expo in 2012, and slated for opening some time next year, the glass bridge is touted as a "Wonder of the World" by Hunan Province. Set to be constructed between the summits either side of the canyon, the deceptively fragile-looking structure will also have an added thrill for those that find the idea of walking across a sheer drop on a see-through bridge too tame: A bungee jump. To be located in the middle of the structure, the bungee jump is also said to be another world-first for Hunan province as the highest bungee on the planet, at around 60 m (197 ft) or so higher than the current highest commercial bungee of 233 m (764 ft) on the Macau Tower. Sources: Haim Dotan, China Glass Network

These 14 Photos Capture How Polluted China Has Become, And It’s Terrifying…

 

Apr 4, 2015

Amanda Froelich, True Activist

From the trash-strewn Great Wall of China to oil-filled lakes, this land and its people are suffering from the effects of unsustainable industrialized living.

In case you haven’t heard, China has declared war on pollution, as rates of environmental toxicity are beyond tolerable and are negatively affecting its population. As reported by NationalInterest, the first thing you notice when arriving in China is a cloud of smog that hugs its industrialized cities.

And that toxicity is the #1 source of social unrest for Chinese citizens. In fact, it’s so bad, individuals are forced to wear masks on their daily commute to work as pollution in cities like Beijing is 40 times higher than International Safety Standard.

But if statistics don’t speak loudly enough, the following photos certainly do. China may be the world’s leading supplier of goods, but the repercussions from its unsustainable industrial habits (which fuel the lives of many who are reading this piece) are having a devastating toll on the environment and health of its people.

 

Scroll through and see just how toxic some of China’s landscapes and cities have become.

#1 Fake Hong Kong Skyline For Tourists

#2 Woman Walks Through Smog in Beijing, Where Small-Particle Pollution Is 40 Times Over International Safety Standard

#3 Photo Capturing Beijing Surrounded By Smog

#4 Pollution From A Factory In Yutian, 100km East of Beijing

#5 Woman Collects Plastic Bottles Near A River Polluted By Reddish Dye

#6 A Man Walks By A Pipe Releasing Waste Water Into Yangtze River

#7 The Great Wall Of China – There Are No Words…

#8 A Child Jumping Over Trash At A Village in Jiaxing

#9 A Woman Stands On A Bridge Over A Polluted River In Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province

#10 Fishermen Collecting Fish In A Polluted Canal, Beijing

#11 Over 300 Pigs Fished Out Of Huangpu River

#12 Residents Look Over A Heavily Polluted River, Zhugao, Sichuan Province

#13 Morning Smog In Beijing

#14 And Finally, The ‘Great’ Wall Of China & Its Pollution

 

This originally appeared on trueactivist.com

China’s thriving export industry comes with a high cost

 

Fri, 04/17/2015 - 8:35am American Chemical Society China has become the world’s largest exporter, leading to the country’s rapid economic development—and notorious pollution that’s harmful to human health. For the first time, scientists have estimated this trend’s health cost. They report in Environmental Science & Technology that in 2007, export-related emissions in China led to almost 160,000 deaths. Qiang Zhang and colleagues note that Chinese exports have increased at an annual rate of about 20% over the past 10 years. This fast clip has boosted the economy but is also contributing significantly to air pollutant emissions. These emissions lead to increases in concentrations of fine particulate matter, which has been linked to cardiovascular and respiratory problems and related deaths. Some research has provided information to help estimate how much the export industry is contributing to air pollution, but so far, no work has measured the health effects. Zhang’s team decided to fill that gap. The researchers calculated that China’s export-related emissions in 2007 caused 157,000 deaths. That accounted for 12% of the overall mortality due to fine particulate matter in the country. They also noticed geographic and economic disparities. Health problems experienced by people in the central, northern and western regions of the country (where heavy, emissions-intensive industries are concentrated) were disproportionately high compared to the economic benefits. Based on their findings, the researchers recommend several policy measures, such as updating technology to reduce harmful pollutants from industry. Source: American Chemical Society

Why China's rule changes are hitting US markets

27 Mins AgoCNBC.com New rules for trading Chinese stocks spooked European and U.S. markets on Friday. (Tweet This) Chinese exchanges and regulators announced Friday that they would crack down on over-the-counter margin trading and that they would allow fund managers to lend shares for short-selling. The type of stocks that investors can short sell will also be expanded soon to 1,100, from 900 currently. All of these moves could slow Chinese equities' wild run higher in recent months. Read MorePerfect storm for market correction: Expert ChinaFotoPress | Getty Images Investors observe stock market at a stock exchange corporation on April 17, 2015 in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province of China. Although the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index rose 2.2 percent in Friday trading, Chinese after-hours stock futures fell about 5.5 percent in a response to the new regulations. Traders said U.S. and European markets were then in turn spooked by the move in those futures, and worries that the regulatory changes would be negative for the flow of recent money that has poured into Chinese exchanges. "The securities regulator is encouraging short-selling to institutional investors, and they are going to stop margin trading on OTC," Ioan Smith, managing director of KCG Europe, said. "Traders had to catch up with that news after the Bloomberg terminals came back online, and that's when we saw the falls in Europe." (Terminals were briefly down earlier Friday) Read MoreSee how US markets are trading here News of the Chinese changes followed comments from the China Securities Regulatory Commission indicating the agency expected future good fortunes for equities. Xiao Gang, who leads the CSRC, said investors should not think they are missing the boat if they had not yet invested in the Chinese stock market, which has surged around 70 percent since November. "So apparently they told us that the bull market in Chinese stocks was going to last, and then they pulled the rug? I is confused," Rhino Trading Partners' Michael Block (actually) wrote in a Friday note. He attributed a 14 point decline in S&P futures and a 4 percent decline in the iShares China Large-Cap exchange traded fund to this news. European shares also traded down in part because of the China news, Block added. "I didn't realize China would have such an effect on the U.S. and Europe," he wrote. "The [Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index] is up over 32% this year. The [S&P 500] is barely up over 2%. But c'est la vie, apparently." Although there has not been a perfect correlation between U.S. stocks and booming Chinese equities, any worries about the future of those markets would cause some doubts stateside, according to Jim Meyer, CEO of Tower Bridge Advisors. "The Chinese market has been a source of strength," he explained, so any decline could rattle equities traders. Read MoreForget China, this market is Asia's sweet spot Any global weakness from the Chinese regulatory changes should be temporary, however, said Adrian Day of Adrian Day Asset Management. Such a move was not unexpected, he said, given the fact that Chinese equities "have sort of gone crazy" with massive gains in recent months. And while the new rules may tamp down on those prices, the easily-spooked global markets should move along to the next focal point. "By next week the rest of the world will have forgotten about it," Day said. —Reuters and CNBC's Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.

China's aging population poses challenges, but policy changes can help

 

While the rapid aging of China's population is thought to condemn the nation to a dismal future, past policies on education and new policies to improve health and foster internal migration could ease the challenges posed by an older citizenry, according to a new study of the impact of aging on China's future. Problems that need attention include China's growing obesity rate and high smoking rates among men and rising levels of urban pollution, challenges that could increase health costs if they trigger disease in older ages, according to the report published online by the Journal of the Economics of Ageing. In addition, China should reform migration policies to allow older Chinese residents to move about the nation more freely and retain full health benefits when they relocate. Such a change would allow older citizens to follow their children as they move about China. The three authors of the study are James P. Smith of the RAND Corporation, John Strauss of the Department of Economics at the University of Southern California, and Yaohui Zhao with the National School of Development of Peking University. "There will not be a demographic fix to healthy aging in China, even if the one-child policy is relaxed, since fertility is unlikely to change much" said Smith, Chair in Labor Market and Demographic Studies at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "Government policies need to focus on improving health behaviors, combatting pollution and allowing elderly parents to live with their adult children." Researchers say that Chinese people, reaping the health benefits of dramatically improved education levels, will live longer and healthier lives in future decades, even among those who live in remote areas of the nation. "If you look at a cross section right now, it can be very misleading for population aging in China," Smith said. "In 20 years, Chinese people who are 50 today are not going to look at all like Chinese people in their 70s right now." Better education will make a difference in the health of Chinese citizens as they get older, researchers say. For example, the survey found that today 80 percent of women and 40 percent of men over the age of 75 were illiterate. But in the age range of 45 to 54, only 20 percent of women and 5 percent of men were illiterate, and the education levels of young adults is virtually the same for both men and women today. But Chinese people also are making the same health-threatening lifestyle choices as people in the rest of the world. Smoking rates among men remain high, rates of obesity among men and women are growing, and China's urban areas have extraordinarily high levels of pollution. And as young people migrate to cities for schooling and jobs, their aging parents could be left to fend for themselves in remote areas, according to the study. The research team analyzed information from the 2011-2012 wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), which is collected by researchers headed by Zhao at Peking University and is funded in part by the U.S. National Institute of Aging. The survey is a nationally representative sample of people 45 and older in continental China. Chinese respondents from more than 10,000 households will continue to be followed every two years in face-to-face interviews. In 1950, the life expectancy in China was about 40 years, growing to about 70 today, with every indication the trend toward longer life will continue. The biggest change that will affect Chinese people as they age is a rising education level. Chinese citizens also are getting diagnosed and treated for common conditions such as hypertension and diabetes, conditions that just a few years ago they didn't even realize they had. "The silent killers are now being heard," Strauss said. The tradition of children caring for aging parents also is undergoing dramatic change, with fewer children available as caretakers. In 1950, the average Chinese woman had six children. Projections are that in China, in part due to the one-child policy, by 2050 women will have 1.9 children, or below replacement level fertility. "If you have five kids, it's a lot more certain that one of them will take care of you than if you only have one or two," Zhao said. Today, more than 90 percent of elderly people have a child living with or near them. But indications are that that is changing. While 94 percent of people over 75 live with or near a child, that is true for only 82 percent of those 55 years old. And when children leave rural areas for cities, some government policies make it difficult or impossible for parents to follow. For example, today almost all rural Chinese people have health insurance. But insurance pools are operated at the county level, and reimbursement for care decreases while co-payments increase for care received outside of one's home county. Such policies discourage older parents from following their adult children to new locations. "A larger fraction of parents will not have access to an adult child," Zhao said. "That's not a crisis of the moment, but a potential crisis of the future." Changes in China's one child policy are unlikely to affect this since China's fertility rate is very similar to other countries at the same level of development, according to researchers.

The New Chinese Factory

 

Leading manufacturers in China combine the country’s historical labor advantages with expertise in automation, design, and manufacturing.

Spray coating the surface of a printed circuit board at Flextronics’ Suhong plant in Suzhou, China.

With its medieval canals and carefully preserved downtown, the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou might have been a quiet burgh compared with neighboring Shanghai. But in 1994, the governments of Singapore and China invested in an industrial development zone there, and Suzhou grew quickly into a manufacturing boomtown.

Singapore-based Flextronics, one of the largest global contract manufacturers, built factories there, initially to make small consumer electronics. Those products were relatively ­simple to assemble in great numbers, making them well suited to China’s then plentiful and inexpensive labor force. But by 2006, labor, land costs, and competition were rising, and Flextronics’ margins were shrinking.

The company refocused its two Suzhou factories on more complex manufacturing, aiming to make higher-priced machines for the aerospace, robotics, automotive, and medical industries. To do so, Flextronics has invested in automation, increasingly precise manufacturing, and improved worker training, all while learning to manage a complicated component supply chain.

Today, these more complex goods make up 72 percent of Flextronics’ Suzhou output. Finished products include printed circuit boards, hospital ultrasound machines, and semiconductor testing equipment so complex each machine requires more than five million parts and retails for $2 to $3 million.

It’s a model the Chinese government has pushed manufacturers to adopt, focusing government investment on advanced industries and boosting R&D spending on science and technology. According to data from the U.S. National Science Foundation, between 2003 and 2012 Chinese exports of high-tech products climbed from just over $150 billion to more than $600 billion, making China the largest exporter of such products in the world. Ernst & Young forecasts that by 2022, the country will produce a third of the world’s electrical goods.

On a recent visit to one of Flextronics’ two Suzhou plants, the increasing use of automation is quickly apparent as an automated trolley delivers parts to workers up and down an assembly line, stopping if someone crosses its path. Nearby an LCD wall panel shows the progress of various items moving through quality testing. In the past, workers ticked off boxes on paper forms and entered the results into computer spreadsheets—a time-consuming process fraught with the potential for errors. Now automated data about progress down the assembly line is collected in real time.

Clients can track the data on apps designed by Flextronics. When there’s a disruption due to anything from delivery problems to labor strikes, another app, Elementum, taps into the extensive Yangtze Delta region supply chain, showing customers alternate scenarios for sourcing parts or rerouting production to any of the company’s 30 other mainland plants.

Such services are part of Flextronics’ push to show customers that after years making goods to the specifications of demanding customers like General Electric and Philips, it has more to contribute. Today Flextronics offers its own design and engineering services, consulting on both finished products and ways to improve the manufacturing process.

Flextronics has sometimes expanded its high-end work by going into business with customers. About four years ago, Steven Yang, general manager of one Suzhou factory, led a company investment in a French firm designing a small robot to be used for university research and, potentially, therapy for children with autism. Working from their prototypes, Flextronics designed a manufacturing process that has in six months delivered 1,400 of the robots, which use sonar and facial recognition technology and can be programmed to listen and to speak.

James She, an operation manager in charge of the robot line, says volume has more than doubled since the initial run in the final quarter of 2013, and he expects orders to rise, especially in Asia, where health care and elder care are fast-­growing industries. “The robot can be a member of a family in the future,” She says.

Flextronics has pursued automation wherever it has the potential to reduce labor costs and errors. For example, automated optical testing equipment, which checks that the circuitry on printed circuit boards is correct before they are installed in other machines, has cut the number of workers on the inspection line from six to two.

But as product cycles speed up, it doesn’t always make sense to make large investments in robots. Humans are still more flexible. “The time you have to spend changing the machine means it’s not always worthwhile to automate,” says Es Khor, an engineering director at the factory. “When we look for where to automate, we also look for process-specific, rather than just product-specific, tasks.”

So while the French robot line may be creating the health-care assistants of the future, at the moment the robots are being assembled by 28 workers wearing navy blue uniform smocks, mostly young men from rural China. All of them have had at least three months of technical training, and the French company provides performance-based bonuses and organized leisure activities in hopes of reducing turnover and retraining costs. Flextronics has also upgraded its dormitories, built worker break rooms, organized hiking trips and choral groups for employees, and staffed counseling hotlines, all with a view to retaining increasingly expensive, and highly trained, labor.

Twenty-year-old Lan Wenzhi has been working on the robot production line for six months. His job is fastening in tiny screws that hold the battery inside a small box. He has a high school diploma, a smartphone, and a fondness for American movies. His monthly average take-home pay after taxes, including overtime, is about 3,500 yuan (about $570). Factory general manager Yang says that with rising wages in this part of China, labor has increased from about 2 percent of the factories’ costs in 2005 to about 4 percent today. But it’s still relatively small when compared with the 80 to 85 percent of the operating budget spent on materials.

For Yang and Flextronics, the goal is to take advantage of nearly two decades of manufacturing experience to make their factories centerpieces of innovation, not just cheap places to make things.

Why the West is anxious about China's economic slowdown

 

May 19, 2014

The recent World Bank report that "China will overtake the United States to become the largest economy" has triggered global concern. Some are taken aback by the fast-paced growth of the Chinese economy; others question the conclusion that China will become the largest economy.
In fact, in recent years there has been a constant chatter of voices talking down China's economy, especially during its economic slowdown this year.
"Before the first quarter of this year, when the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced its economic growth data, Goldman Sachs had predicted China's economic growth rate would be only 6 percent for the first quarter." Economist Ma Guangyuan says that the figures released by the NBS represented a strong riposte to the international investment bank, but they did not put a stop to the questioning voices.
Asking China to engage in a blind acceleration is unreasonable
At an early stage of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting held in July last year, a number of European countries expressed the hope that China would take aggressive stimulus measures to improve its growth in order to promote the economic recovery of other countries. Today, there is still a popular sentiment in the West that China should bear the primary burden of supporting international economic growth, ignoring the fact that China's intensive economic development model has run its course.
The reality is that the West has become too dependent on China's rapid growth, and that this growth is not sustainable. Structural contradictions, resource constraints, and environmental pressures, stemming from long-term government investment, are becoming more and more serious. Internal and external demand has declined, and some developed countries are now adopting protectionist measures that have led to a new decline in Chinese exports. Competitive currency devaluation in some developed countries has caused hot money flows, the continued appreciation of the RMB, and imported inflation.
"The argument that China's economic slowdown is a drag on global growth is inconsistent with the facts”, says Xu Hongcai, director of the Information Department of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges.
China's contribution to the global economic recovery and sustainable development is remarkable. China has maintained growth at more than 7 percent, it provides more than 10 million jobs a year, and it is currently the world's biggest economy in terms of foreign trade, all of which contribute to global economic growth.
China to contribute more to the world
With the deepening of China's economic reform, Western countries should gradually adapt to the "new normal" of China's economy, under which: first, China's economy will slow down from rapid growth to moderate or high growth, second, there will be a shift in China's economic growth model from intensive growth to innovative and consumer-driven growth, and third, precautions against risk should play a more important role, according to Li Huiyong, an analyst at Shenyin Wanguo Securities.
Although in the transition process, China's economic growth will experience a slowdown, the quality and efficiency of the economy will be greatly improved, with a transition from the "world factory" to the "world market" - from "Made in China" to "Created in China". China's contribution to the world economy will continue to grow.
During the transition process the technology, capital, and experience of developed countries can be introduced to the Chinese market and they can play a positive role in China, says Xu Hongcai.
In the context of economic globalization, China has always advocated the liberalization of trade and the facilitation of investment, but it has also pursued an upgrade of the industrial structure, energy saving, and improvements to the energy structure, which have positive implications for the world economy and for ecological and environmental protection.

Soot and Smog Put China's Babies at Risk

 

China’s smoke-belching coal plants and heavy traffic may be signs of a bustling economy but health experts fear the country’s dirty air is hurting its infants

Credit: Carol Schaffer via Flickr

China’s smoke-belching coal plants and heavy traffic may be signs of a bustling economy but health experts fear the country’s dirty air is hurting its babies.

Evidence is mounting that coal and car emissions in China, as well as other developing countries, are raising the risks of premature babies, low birth weights and neural tube defects.

“Their cities are in big trouble and so are their babies,” said Richard Finnell, a professor at the University of Texas, Austin, who has studied birth defects in North China.

Spurred by sweeping economic gains, a thick layer of soot often hangs over China's cities. Its fine particle pollution is “the worst in the world,” said Angel Hsu, a project manager at Yale University’s Environmental Performance Measurement program. People in China are exposed to the world's highest levels of fine particles known as PM2.5, according to Yale’s rankings. India is close behind.

Scientists say that the dangers begin in the womb.

In a study published in February, fine particles were linked to more low-weight babies in 22 developing countries, including China, India, Nigeria, Nepal and Peru. In China, preterm births also were linked to the pollutant, said the lead author, Nancy Fleischer, a University of South Carolina professor.

Low birth weights were twice as likely and preterm births were 2.5 times more likely among babies born in areas of China where particle pollution was highest, compared with areas where the pollutant complied with World Health Organization standards, according to the study. About 7 percent of China’s babies are born preterm, while 6 percent are classified as low birth weight, or less than 5.5 pounds.

Preterm babies, born before 37 weeks of gestation, are the leading cause of newborn deaths worldwide. These infants are often troubled with a lifetime of developmental and physical disabilities, said Tracey Woodruff, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies the effects of environmental contaminants on babies.

Experts say air pollutants can trigger an immune response in mothers, which produces antibodies that reduce the amount of folic acid that travels through their placentas to their fetuses. Lack of folic acid can lead to birth defects.

“We’ve looked at placentas from babies that had bad outcomes and compared them to babies with good outcomes and the placentas from babies with bad outcomes have far more antibodies,” Finnell said.
Birth defects have increased about 70 percent in China over the past two decades, now reaching about 900,000 per year, according to the country’s Ministry of Health. There likely are many factors involved. But regional differences suggest pollutants may be contributing: Birth defect rates more than doubled in urban areas compared with 22 percent in rural areas.

China’s Shanxi Province “mines a lot of coal, smelts a lot of steel and has the highest rate of neural tube defects on the planet,” Finnell said.

Neural tube defects, which are serious brain and spinal cord disorders such as spina bifida, spiked to about 13 per 1,000 births in the province a decade ago. That is 13 times higher than the rate in the United States.
Mothers’ obesity and diabetes are known triggers for neural tube defects, Finnell said, but “coal pollution might play a role, too."

The same year of the spike – 2003 – Shanxi produced 300 million tons of coal and had the highest polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emissions in China, largely due to coal burning. PAHs are formed by the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels.

In a study of 130 women in rural Shanxi, those with elevated PAH levels in their placenta were more than four times as likely to have babies with neural tube defects, according to a 2011 study led by Peking University researchers that Finnell was involved in. A smaller study reported that the risk was eight-fold.

Staying indoors won’t necessarily protect the unborn: Indoor air pollution is often even worse. An estimated 3 million people in developing countries cook indoors and heat their home with charcoal, kerosene, biomass, coal or other dirty fuels. Women and children are most exposed.

When pregnant women are exposed to a suite of chemicals, it’s hard to figure out which one may be causing their babies’ problems, said Amy Padula, a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University who has studied birth defects and air pollution.

“We do know one of the more critical periods for birth defects is early on in pregnancies, during rapid fetal development,” Padula said. “It’s hard to tease out which one is to blame when we know to a certain extent they’re all bad.”

In Shanghai, preterm births have been linked to several pollutants: larger particulates known as PM10, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and ozone.

Because PM2.5 is a mix of many different contaminants, Woodruff said it is unclear which ones might be linked to lower birth weights. “Researchers have looked at different components, we’ve looked at different geographies, and no one’s found the smoking gun,” she said. “We just don’t know.”

Woodruff said PM2.5’s ingredients could adhere to the placenta and alter the development of the placenta bed, which would prevent the fetus from getting sufficient oxygen and nutrients. Pollutants also can alter hormones and disrupt the blood flow across the placenta, Fleischer said.

China’s air pollutants mostly come from vehicles, biomass burning and coal, Hsu said. “Eighty five percent of their electricity is coal-fired,” she added.

Recently, after citizen protests, a government report declared a “war on pollution,” pledging to shut down 50,000 small coal-fired furnaces and remove 6 million old vehicles from the road.

There is some evidence that these efforts are working. Eight toxic metals from coal plants, including mercury, have been declining since 2006. Also, after a coal-fired plant closed in southwest China’s Tongliang County a decade ago, children had fewer signs of exposure and DNA damage, and performed better on developmental tests.

Hsu said public access to air quality information remains a problem.

“Most of the air pollution monitoring is Western Europe and America,” Hsu said. “We need better ground level data, because that’s where the people are breathing in the pollution.”
This article originally ran at Environmental Health News, a news source published by Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit media company.

 

Selling Teslas in China Won’t Do Much for the Environment

 

Because China relies so heavily on coal for power, electric vehicles aren’t necessarily an improvement over gasoline-powered cars.

• By Mike Orcutt on April 17, 2014

Why It Matters

China, a fast-growing car market, is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide and struggles with urban air pollution.

China-bound: A Tesla Model S sedan.

Sales of electric vehicles in China, the world’s largest auto market, have been minuscule despite government incentives meant to put five million of the cars on the nation’s roads by 2020. Tesla Motors hopes to begin changing that as it makes its first deliveries of Model S sedans to customers in China this month.

But while having more EVs might help China reach its transportation goals, it probably won’t improve the environment, given the country’s reliance on coal for more than 70 percent of its electricity. Making matters worse, coal in China is often dirtier than it is elsewhere, and many power plants don’t employ modern emission-control technologies.

Recent research led by Christopher Cherry, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Tennessee, has shown that in much of the country, an electric vehicle the size of a Nissan Leaf accounts for roughly the same amount of carbon dioxide per mile driven as a comparable gasoline-powered car. On top of that, EVs in China account for a larger amount of dangerous particulate emissions than conventional cars.

As in the U.S., electricity production in China is cleaner in some places than in others. Whereas northern China relies almost completely on coal plants, a quarter to a third of the power delivered to central and southern regions comes from hydroelectric dams.

Below we compare recent estimates of the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with the production and use of an electric vehicle whose battery and weight are similar to those of the Nissan Leaf. The blue line refers to a similar estimate of the emissions from the average gasoline-powered car in China. For further comparison, we’ve added estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy of emissions by the Leaf in representative U.S. cities. Note that the estimates for the U.S. cities does not account for emissions associated with vehicle production.

Electric vehicles could help clear the air in Chinese cities, many of which have dangerous levels of pollution. Much of that is caused by fine particulate matter emitted from the tailpipes of gas-powered cars. EVs don’t have tailpipes, so replacing gasoline cars with EVs could reduce that pollution.

But this progress would come at a significant environmental cost: higher emissions of particulate matter in rural areas, where most power plants are located. Because burning coal produces far more particulates than burning gasoline, Cherry and his colleagues have found that on average, an EV in China is associated with about 19 times the emissions of fine particulate matter as a comparable gasoline car.

China’s government is aiming to gradually clean up its electric grid by increasing its nuclear capacity in the coming years (see “Nuclear Options”) and aggressively deploying renewables. But recent projections suggest that by 2020, coal’s share will still be as high as 60 percent. The bottom line is that China’s grid, and the EVs that run off it, will be fairly dirty for a long time.

 

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