Economists From China

"China’s economy faces major challenges... Catch-up growth is... different from innovation-based growth."

"The apparatus... effective in mobilizing... technology like electric vehicles and clean energy has... produced excess... steel and s... to flood... markets..."

"A wise state needs to know when to recede... loosen its control and let the economy ride its... ebbs and flows. It needs to guide with a lighter hand... and greater skill, especially in this... era of knowledge and information."

"Its rising middle-income group and new generation of s place... demands on civil society and standards of living... a burgeoning emphasis on improving the softer metrics... a cleaner environment... ... . Its new model... slower... saner... growth—more orderly, regulated, and monitored."

"There is a growing consciousness... what is economically efficient may not be socially desirable... economic success does not... guarantee a nation’s... ... China will strive to move beyond socialism['s] shortages and capitalism['s] inequality."

"[[Youth|[Y]oung people]] are big spenders, prodigious borrowers... the potential to unleash trillions... into the global economy... [t]hey are... more open-minded and socially conscious... However, ...less suited to Western-style democracy ...[D]eeply layered in the national psyche ...steeped in their ...culture ...traditions, and rooted in their ...communities ...ushering in an era of economic... without political liberalization..."

"But... the next generation of leaders... more educated and fluent with diverse cultures, are... equipped to bridge the gap between... worldviews. ... US education has opened their eyes to... virtues of an open... if not a wholly free society. Their desire to question... challenge... pursue the truth, and to push back against injustice will have important implications..."

"Extended skirmishes, export bans of semiconductors, and s are reinforcing China’s... course... to attain self-reliance."

"[[w:Self-sustainability|[S]elf-sufficiency]] without... global engagement is... dangerous... in a world where prosperity and technological proficiency are... network based and interdependent. When economic interlinkages snap, everyone loses, especially the vulnerable."

"[W]e can... do our best to rise above... sensationalism, stereotypes, and es. Only then can we engage with China in a measured... effective way, critique... and ask good questions. Until we do... we will... get China wrong... when... common purpose has become crucial to addressing... existential threats..."

"[Some] Latin American countries... and Asian economies... experienced rapid growth, but... [never] graduated into... high-income countries. ...[I]t could have been due to corruption, political instability, poor , or inadequate investment in ...This ...is ..."the middle-income trap." Since 1960, only 13 out of 101 middle-income economies... escape[d] it. ...China ...may follow... Japan['s]... lost decade of no growth in the 1990s. If, however, China can keep growing at 5 percent on average, and... the US continues... at... 1.5 percent... the Chinese... will overtake the US... by... 2030. China would not be as rich... for several more decades, but... more than a billion Chinese would enjoy the same living standards... However, ...China will need a new model of growth. ...5 percent ...seems overly optimistic ...275 percent ...debt to GDP ...as of 2022 points to ...painful ... ...And threats of make an export-oriented economy ...fragile."

"[T]here are still... 870 million people with a monthly income below RMB 2000 (...US$300) ...yet to join the four hundred million in the middle-income group ...by Chinese standards ...RMB 2000—5000—far below the advanced-economy average. ...[A]n enlarged middle-income group ...is the only way to truly bolster China’s consumption engine."

"There is... room for convergence. China’s productivity level is... only a fraction of the US... China’s share of labor force with a college degree is... smaller than... in South Africa and Brazil, and way below rich countries."

"Reforming the system... would allow the flow of talent across regions... improve... allocation of labor... [and] reduce regional disparities."

"China has made the... quantum leap... from US$380 to US$10,000... over... four decades. The second... is to go from US$10,000 to US$30,000... [M]uch... speed of China’s achievement can be ascribed to catching up. But unqualified success... will be... when... 1.4 billion... reach... high-income status, particularly... in a political environment... antithetical to... Western conventional wisdom. ...[H]alf of the most prosperous people in the world... living under Communist rule—not... predicted... when the Berlin Wall fell."

"[[Innovation|[I]nnovation]] has... become... one of the highest forms of... glory. And it is [China's] only... hope of becoming the foremost economic power of the twenty-first century."

"[B]ooms and busts is a natural feature of market economies. In the last 40 years China has really never had a bust. ...[B]ust cycles also oust less productive firms and provides exit mechanisms, and that creative destruction... is one of the bright spots... of the situation."

"China's suffering from a severe deficit in demand because of low wage growth, scarring effects of the pandemic and... the real estate. But... because of China's size today, growing at 3% to 4% even, is not a bad thing. If India grows 4 percentage points faster than China from now until 2030, China's still going to contribute $130 trillion dollars of additional GDP more than India... to the world."

"I totally agree with Mr. Zhu's assessment of transitioning to a productivity, innovation driven economy. That's the only way that's going to sustain growth in the long run. So that's a good thing. But... renewables or digitization in the short term... can't possibly displace real estate as a provider for growth and employment in the way that it had in the last 10 years or so. Second, services right now... only accounts for half of GDP and only 48% of employment. That number is 80% in advanced economies, so you can imagine a whole amount of room for also absorbing the youth who are underemployed, highly educated. They account for a more educated skill force than manufacturing. And you also have almost a billion people who haven't really reached middle income by international standards, living under $300 per month. ...So I could go on and on, when even Japan and Korea leveled off their growth, their productivity as a share of... the US was already 80% and China is still very low... a lot of room for convergence. ...[W]e want to separate the cyclical problems of demand from some of the longer term challenges."

"Confidence has to come from somewhere... There are underlying factors that alter confidence and consumption, and... we've seen the scarring effects of the pandemic. Don't forget that Chinese households did not get the support that European and American households got during the pandemic... [M]ore importantly, could be declining, and we don't really know for sure, but it's not climbing, so without that you can't possibly get consumption to be really... enthusiastic. Of course, there's real estate and the stock market. ...Retail investors account for the majority of turnover for Chinese A shares and... that has also been performing problematically. And... youth unemployment is a challenge, but is it coming from a cyclical feature which is a demand deficit, in which case policies could potentially work, but... As we'll hear from Mr. Zhu, there are also constraints... There's a on s... the key implementers of economic drivers of growth, but now they are suffering from mountainous debt burdens. So these are some of the... short-term challenges."

"Coming back to the trade challenges... We're seeing in the data that trade is simply being re-routed... from countries like Vietnam and Mexico, but... the ultimate demand and suppliers for that is... still the U.S. and China. It's... taking a longer route... that's going to increase trade cost, and... some Chinese companies... have also set up factories in Mexico and... Vietnam to... circumvent some of these... trade barriers, but it still has to come ultimately from countries like the U.S. and China."

"In so many ways China is in transition, and... requires a bit of patience, whether it's real estate, or debt, or ..."

"At the core... the U.S. China competition is about the China... development model, Chinese aspirations and most of all, Chinese technology, or technological competition. ...[I]t's as bad as it is because of a lack of mutual trust and very different world vision, values and culture, which I think we underappreciate."

"President Xi recently said, We hope that America would be prosperous, and hope that the U.S. would wish China to be more prosperous as well. I think that does send a message, but I do think that the two countries are recalibrating the relationship, learning from what has happened. I don't... think there's a set, specific idea of how it's going to look..."

"[R]ecalibration comes from two important things... First... is that internal challenges for both countries, China for sure on the economic... political... military... A lot of the focus is now inward. Chinese don't think about Americans all day long. ...Second, there's a huge unintended consequence of these technological restrictions... We've seen it in history... that whenever there are restrictions or... walls, it accelerates technological development. So what we have seen in China recently is a national mobilization. Unlikely partners from the big techs, working together. Universities, industries, governments, all trying to tackle the hard and impossible... [T]hat's... accelerated some of the endeavors to leap frog... [W]e're going to see much more of that, because of these restrictions, not despite them."

"If citizens store their wealth by buying houses, it may cause the real estate bubble to burst or even (cause) an economic crisis."

"Provincial officials have long been suspected of overstating growth. Adding their figures together suggests that China's economy was $364 billion bigger in 2009 than the total in the national accounts. Mr Li preferred to track Liaoning's economy by looking at other indicators: the cargo volume on the province's railways, electricity consumption and loans disbursed by banks."

"Li had long been seen as the most likely candidate to succeed Hu Jintao as China's president and party general secretary. But Xi, an elder dark-horse candidate, came from behind to win the race."

"(We, the Government of China) must provide better support for fighting and controlling the (COVID-19) outbreak, while safeguarding the normal order of the economy and society."

"You (medical staffs who attend to COVID-19 patients treatment) are trying every means to save lives. When you are putting your efforts to save lives, you have to protect yourselves too."

"By being such a fearless voice fighting for human rights and fundamental freedoms in China, Ilham Tothi fully embodies the spirit of the Sakharov prize. Over the years, he advocated for the implementation of regional autonomy laws in China, encouraged greater awareness of the situation and treatment of the Uyghur community and fought against its exclusion from Chinese society. Ilham Tohti now risks spending the rest of his life in prison. The Renew Europe group sends today a strong message of support for his fight for human rights and freedoms of the Uyghur population by nominating him for the Sakharov prize."

"春风又绿江南岸，明月何时照我还？"

"It is beyond dispute that, despite all the talks about “sustainable development” or “green growth”, the world continues to head relentlessly towards global ecological catastrophes. We know this as we observe that the global ecological deficit (the gap between ecological footprint and bio-capacity) continue to widen and the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases keeps rising year after year."

"The Revolution is dead. Long Live the Revolution"

"Mao Zedong was a great leader of the Chinese Revolution and as a result enjoyed an enormous amount of prestige among he ordinary Chinese people. However, Mao, as a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist, had always worked with and relied upon other Party leaders as well had always worked with and relied upon either Party leaders as well as the grass-roots Part members and masses to accomplish political, economic and social goals. Mao never relied upon and never believed in a command hierarchy imposed form above. Within the Chinese Communist Party, Mao had never gained that kind of absolute control that Stalin had over the Soviet Communist Party (and even Stalin could not simply impose his will without the cooperation of much of the Party and state bureaucracy). ON the contrary, on many historical occasions, Mao often found himself in the minority (as Lenin did within the Part leadership. If Mai's intention had eventually become the will of the Party, that took place only after patient and sustained persuasion, difficult and sometimes intense intra-Party struggle, criticism and self-criticisms, and most importantly, after the Party leaders and members had learnt from practice themselves."

"For the capitalist world-economy, the problem of China lies with its huge size. China has a labor force that is larger than the total labor force in all of the core states, or that in the entire historical well0to-do semi-periphery. As China competes with the well-to-do semi peripheral states in a wide range of global commodity chains, the competition eventually would lead to the convergence between China and the historical well-to-do semi-peripheral sates in profit races and wage rates. This convergence may take place in an upward manner or a downward manner."

"China's dramatic rise as a global economic power is one of the most important developments at the current world-historical conjuncture. Many have wondered how the rise of China will shape the world-historical trajectory of the twenty-first century Will China become the next hegemonic power? If yes, what would the new China-centered global system look like? if not, what would be the implications for the existing world-system?"