Chinese Economics Thread

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Actually, if we want those villages to survive, we should very much hope they become commuter villages.

Otherwise they will die out, just as we've seen in Japan.
 

solarz

Brigadier
Actually, if we want those villages to survive, we should very much hope they become commuter villages.

Otherwise they will die out, just as we've seen in Japan.

Japanese villages are suffering from an aging problem due to Japan's high living standards. China's aging problems are due to policy, which is being reversed right now.

A much better comparison is with the US. Where the US relies on cars to get around, I see China developing comparable levels of access based on high speed rail.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Japanese villages are suffering from an aging problem due to Japan's high living standards. China's aging problems are due to policy, which is being reversed right now.

A much better comparison is with the US. Where the US relies on cars to get around, I see China developing comparable levels of access based on high speed rail.

That's not correct. China's demographics are just running about 20 years behind Japan or Italy for example. And the modest policy changes we've seen can't change effects (good and bad) over the past 30+ years.

The USA is not a good comparison as it didn't have a million villages built on subsistence agriculture.

Cars will help the villages survive as commuter dorms, but there will still be a lot that are just too isolated
 

delft

Brigadier
From Railway Gazette:
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Chinese high speed network to double in latest master plan
21 Jul 2016

CHINA: The government’s National Development & Reform Commission released the medium and long-term plan for China's railways on July 20, covering the period 2016-25 with an outlook to 2030.

By the end of 2015, China had 121 000 km of main line railways, of which 19 000 km are considered part of the high speed network of Passenger-Dedicated Lines. By 2025, NDRC expects the network to total 175 000 route-km, of which 38 000 km would be made up of PDLs.

NDRC says the rail network should be expanded to serve all cities with a population of more than 2 million, while all those above 5 million would be on the PDL network. The aim is to offer journey times of 1 h to 4 h between the principal conurbations, while trips across major urban areas should be possible in 2 h or less. NDRC also expects all principal ports and bulk commodity production areas to be served by rail.

The plan builds on the previous strategy of developing ‘four horizontal and four vertical’ axes by expanding these to eight in each direction. Most of the initial corridors are now nearing completion, and on some sections additional capacity is already required.

The eight ‘verticals’ (north - south trunk routes) are:

  • coastal PDL connecting Dalian and Dandong to Tianjin, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Shenzhen and Beihai;
  • capacity enhancements to the Beijing – Shanghai high speed corridor;
  • Beijing – Hong Kong PDL and connecting routes to serve intermediate population centres;
  • Harbin – Hong Kong PDL;
  • Hohhot – Nanning PDL via Datong, Taiyuan, Zhengzhou, Changde, Yongzhou and Guilin;
  • Beijing – Kunming PDL via Taiyuan, Xi'an and Chengdu/Chongqing;
  • Baotou/Yinchuan – Haikou via Yanan, Chongqing and Nanning;
  • Lanzhou/Xining – Guangzhou via Chengdu/Chongqing and Guiyang.
The eight east–west ‘horizontal’ axes are:

  • Suifenhe – Manzhouli via Harbin;
  • Beijing – Lanzhou via Hohhot and Yinchuan;
  • Qingdao – Yinchuan via Jinan and Taiyuan;
  • Lianyungang – Urumqi via Xuzhou, Zhengzhou and Xining;
  • Shanghai – Chengdu via Nanjing, Anqing, Wuhan, Yichang and Chongqing;
  • Shanghai – Kunming via Nanchang, Changsha and Guiyang;
  • Xiamen – Chongqing via Longyan, Changsha and Zhangjiajie;
  • Guangzhou – Kunming via Nanning.
In addition, NDRC has set out plans for construction of a network of new inter-regional corridors to cater for rising demand for short- and medium-distance trips. There is also a focus on using railway development as a tool for regeneration in the poorest regions, with around 12 new lines to be built for this purpose. Emphasising the role of intermodality in both the freight and passenger markets, it envisages a number of new passenger hubs and logistics centres.

The plan calls for expansion of the conventional network by around 20 000 km by 2025, with a focus on linking the Beijing/Tianjin region with the northeast, the Yangtse and Pearl river deltas and the northwest and southwest. Other enhancements would focus on improving links across the country over very long distances.

Finally, NDRC has reiterated the government’s commitment to enhancing international rail links through its ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative. This confirms Chinese investment on various corridors through Central Asia and on enhancing rail links to Vietnam and other southeast Asian countries. Also envisaged is a rail tunnel linking the Chinese mainland to Taiwan.
China has more than half of the high speed railway lines of the World and it is going to double it in the next ten or so years.
 

Equation

Lieutenant General
[QUOTE
Apple’s China Problem Is That Local Phones are Good -- and Cheap
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July 24, 2016 — 3:00 PM CDT


For Beijing resident Nie Miao, spending 5,000 yuan ($749) on a new iPhone 6S from Apple Inc. “just isn’t an option.”

That’s because the lion’s share of his 7,000 yuan monthly pay goes toward the mortgage on the downtown apartment he bought last year. And he’s perfectly happy with the 2,000 yuan handset he got from Huawei Technologies Co.

The 29-year-old embodies the challenges in China for Apple, which has lost ground to local competitors. It’s been almost two years since the Cupertino, California-based company revamped the iPhone for the sixth generation. In the meantime, rivals like Huawei and Xiaomi Corp. have developed their own cheaper products with similar specifications, while the relative success of the iPhone 6 has made it harder for Apple to sustain its growth rates.


After forecasting a second consecutive quarterly sales tumble in April, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook will reveal the extent of the decline when he reports earnings July 26. China generates about a quarter of Apple’s revenue, and deterioration there accounted for much of the sales drop.

Huawei supplied one in four new phones in the three months through May, leapfrogging Apple to become the biggest phonemaker by market share in urban China, according to a Kantar Group study published this month. Guangdong Oppo Electronics Co.’s share meanwhile jumped fourfold to 8 percent of the total.

“It’s a function of cheaper phones becoming good enough,” said Abhey Lamba, a San Francisco-based analyst at Mizuho Securities who recommends buying Apple shares. “Apple has done well at the upper end, but there’s not much more growth at the upper end of the market.”

488x-1.png

The cheaper iPhone SE, which Apple started selling in March, was partially aimed at securing new customers in emerging markets such as China. So far, it has failed to meet those expectations, even as sales have exceeded forecasts in developed economies, Lamba said.


Apple may boost its China sales when the new iPhone arrives later this year, aided by the growing popularity of the App Store and customers’ tendency to upgrade their handsets every two years. That’s one reason why Huawei and Oppo introduced their flagship phones earlier this year -- to get a head start on Apple.

After last year’s surge in Chinese phone sales, Apple has reaped the benefit in its App Store, with China overtaking Japan to become the second-biggest source of spending in the shop for mobile games, services, music and more, according to researcher AppAnnie. Once customers have paid to download programs from the marketplace, they are more likely to continue to buy Apple hardware to preserve those purchases. The iPhone 6S, released in September, came too soon after the original iPhone 6 model in 2014 to encourage upgrades.

“In China it’s about a two-year upgrade cycle,” said Lauren Guenveur, an analyst at Kantar. “They will probably upgrade with the new iPhone 7 where they didn’t with the 6S and 6S Plus.”

Cost, however, is a mounting issue. While a 16 gigabyte iPhone 6S starts at 5,288 yuan, Huawei’s top-of-the-range P9 costs 3,688 yuan, and includes 64 GB of storage, a fingerprint scanner and front and rear cameras.

“It is a fairly premium phone compared to the other models but it is a relatively lower price compared to the iPhone,” said Guenveur. “There is also a sense of pride of being a Chinese phone user and owning a Chinese phone.”

488x-1.png

‘Really Good’
The smartphone market has fundamentally changed since the iPhone was first introduced in 2007. Back then, Apple marketed the device as a lifestyle accessory, but as smartphones have become ubiquitous, consumers’ focus has increasingly shifted to the features on offer.

“If you look at Huawei phones, or Xiaomi phones, it’s like ‘Wow they’re really good’,” said John Butler, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. “They’ve got great battery life, the screens are really sharp, the features are great.”

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Apple more than doubled its Chinese revenue between 2013 and 2015 to $59 billion, expanding aggressively: it had 35 stores in the region by the end of March, up from 21 a year earlier, and aimed to add another five by the end of June. Apple has made efforts to remain on good terms with the Chinese government, including a visit by Cook in May that coincided with a $1 billion investment in the country’s biggest car-sharing service, Didi Chuxing Technology Co.


And yet sales in Greater China -- which comprises the mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong -- fell 26 percent in the fiscal second quarter, accounting in large part for Apple’s 13 percent sales tumble. Analysts expect total revenue to decline by a further 15 percent in the three months through June compared with a year earlier.

Cook attributed the fall primarily to the strength of the Hong Kong dollar, which is pegged to its American cousin and made it more expensive for tourists visiting the former British colony to shop. Excluding currency effects, sales in mainland China still fell 7 percent.

“Apple is expecting growth to come from the expansion of the middle class but these people are now choosing the local brands instead,” said Nicole Peng, a research analyst at Canalys in Shanghai. “The locals are taking a lot of share in the mid-range segment. Although they are not yet in direct competition, they have certainly taken a lot of potential Apple customers."

Apple’s rigidly self-contained iOS mobile operating system, which leaves little space for personalization when compared with Google’s Android, has made it harder to attract the sometimes capricious Chinese consumer. Take Zhang Bin, who ditched his iPhone 5S for a handset from Meizu Technology Co. Ltd in 2014 and hasn’t looked back.

“I wanted more flexibility for my phone: customized fonts and interface,” said the 32-year-old computer technician from Beijing, who likes to try out trial versions of new apps on his Android-driven handset. “Apple doesn’t offer any of that."

Apple has also faced mounting regulatory pressure in China. The company was forced to shut down its iTunes Movies and iBooks services there in April six months after they were permitted to operate. It also recently lost a patent case against a little-known Chinese rival relating to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, along with a trademark dispute over the use of the word ‘IPHONE’ on leather goods.

“It’s hard as an American company to do business in China,” said Julie Ask, a Forrester Research analyst. “It seems there’s an endless stream of ways to give their own companies an advantage.”

][/QUOTE]

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That last paragraph says it all about American company that can't compete with the local companies in China and start making excuses. So when will ZTE and Huawei get their chance in the US market and start complaining (remember they were forbidden to enter the market)?:rolleyes:
 

Equation

Lieutenant General
Even when the Chinese math system of learning do right this article just can't help to knock on the PRC government by quoting..."But like the Chinese government itself, it does not produce a citizenry of diverse, creative, and innovative talent.".:rolleyes:

Anyway I put this article in the economic section because education, math and business goes hand in hand.

[QUOTE
Top-performing Asian countries use the 'mastery approach' to teach math in schools — and now it's spreading
Abby Jackson,Business Insider21 hours ago

Topperforming_Asian_countries_use_the-07e4b5da05fbdaf827dd3b4bfa8b02c5
(Many students in Shanghai, China, are taught math using the mastery approach.Getty / Guang Niu)
The predominantly Asian approach to teaching mathematics in schools, called the "mastery approach," is spreading, largely due to the fact these countries are high-performers on international tests.

For example, half of primary schools in England are getting £41 million (roughly $54 million) over the next four years to teach the method,
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It's a vast departure for the UK, that, like the US, has embraced a different method for teaching math: the "mindset approach."

The mastery approach is used predominantly in South Asia and is particularly prevalent in Shanghai, China, and Singapore.

Under the mastery approach, students learn a specific concept before moving on to more complex ideas, in a rigidly linear progression, as
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, a senior lecturer at the University of Essex, wrote for
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When using the mastery approach in Shanghai, students aren't broken into separate groups depending on their perceived intellectual abilities. Instead, students all perform the same work at the same time before mastering and advancing to the next concept together.

By contrast, the mindset approach aims to teach students to have a more intuitive understanding of math concepts and starts with a broader concept before breaking down a math problem into the specific steps for solving.

Topperforming_Asian_countries_use_the-48eea245274aec5e51e91e1fcaf84bed
(Most schools in the US, and previously in the UK, use the mindset approach.REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko)
For example, "A mindset-approach teacher can introduce addition via joining two heaps of cardboard counters (or other props) together, explore properties of addition via activities, and only then break the process of adding numbers into procedural steps,"
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explained.

The mastery-approach teaching model has been steadily gaining traction in the UK. In 2015, 30 teachers from Shanghai, China, were flown to the UK by the Department for Education to teach the mastery approach to English teachers.

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that one London-based school, Fox School, had when Shanghai teacher Lilianjie Lu, brought the mastery approach into a classroom of 7- and 8-year-old students:

"Lu begins by asking the children to read out the fractions on the screen. One child gives the answer – 'a half' – then the rest of the children repeat. Another child identifies a third, everyone repeats, a quarter, and so on."

"At the end of this part of the lesson the children give themselves a clap – not a boisterous round of applause with whoops and cheers, but five precise claps in a set rhythm. Then the children read the fractions out all over again before Lu moves on to how to write fractions."

Topperforming_Asian_countries_use_the-6e1ae758a8f2da944f79dacaeabed07f
(The mastery approach tends to use repetition to teach concepts.Manchester University Maths/flickr)
The lessons taught inthe mastery approachclassroom were also much shorter than normal lessons in UK classrooms, with about 35 minutes of lesson time followed by 15 minutes of playtime, The Guardian reported.

“There’s a lot of chanting and recitation which to our English ears seems a bit formulaic,” Ben McMullen, deputy head at Fox School, told The Guardian. “But it’s a way of embedding that understanding.”

Additionally,
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found that the mastery approach improved the speed with which students learned math skills.

Aside from data, the mastery approach has also had wide buy-in from other education experts in the UK.

"Countries at the top of the table for attainment in mathematics education employ a mastery approach to teaching mathematics," Charlie Stripp, the director of the UK's National Center for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics,
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"Teachers in these countries do not differentiate their maths teaching by restricting the mathematics that ‘weaker’ children experience, whilst encouraging ‘able’ children to ‘get ahead’ through extension tasks," he continued.

Stripp is likely referring to results of the
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, or PISA. The PISA exam is a worldwide study conducted every three years by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It measures 15-year-olds in 65 countries in math, science, and reading.

The 2012 PISA results, the most recent data available (the 2015 results are due to be released in December 2016), show that Asian countries far outperformed the UK and US in mathematics.

China — broken into the distinctions of Shanghai, Taipei, and Hong Kong — and Singapore, swept the top four slots.The UK ranked 24th on the list, and the US came in at 35th.

Topperforming_Asian_countries_use_the-f0ef25beac9c61d4b037df16bb9ba5af
(OECD)

But not all education professionals are sold on the mastery approach. Ruth Merttens, professor of primary education at
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, thinks that pointing solely to the mastery approach as the reason for high achievement overlooks the idea that other factors may be at play.

"We don’t know what elements of Shanghai’s education produces good mathematics education,"
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. "One thing to note, however, is that Chinese teachers have a five-year education training, specifically targeted at teaching primary children, whereas we have systematically cut the time we give to trainee teachers," she continued.

Similarly, there are experts who say that Chinese students' successes on standardized testing shouldn't be heralded as evidence that Chinese students are more successful than students in other countries.

For example, author Yong Zhao's book, "
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" takes a
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"Chinese education produces excellent test scores, a short-term outcome that can be achieved by rote memorization and hard work," writes Zhao, who grew up in China and taught there. "But like the Chinese government itself, it does not produce a citizenry of diverse, creative, and innovative talent."

The Chinese educational system excels at transmitting a narrow amount of content and prescribed skills that its students must master, Zhao argues.

Still, with mounting pressure for the US and UK to improve their standing on international math exams, the question of whether they should grow closer to the mastery approach will likely continue.

][/QUOTE]
 

Blackstone

Brigadier
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SHANGHAI/TOKYO (Reuters) - China dodged criticism of its economic management at a G20 meeting it hosted on the weekend, even winning plaudits for yuan transparency, much to the frustration of Japanese officials who are calling for more reforms from Beijing.

It was a marked contrast to a February G20 gathering of finance heads in Shanghai, when Chinese policymakers were on the defensive about the risk of another devaluation of the yuan.

While the world's second-largest economy has slowed and the yuan has fallen to 5-1/2 year lows against the dollar over the past five months, G20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs appeared more concerned about the fallout from Britain's June vote to leave Europe.

"We have been very polite with China," said a European official at the meeting in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, adding Tokyo failed to keep its concerns about China's economic performance - a major risk for Japan - on the table.

"China's growth problems and exchange rate decline have not been much of an issue here. Japan with its concerns has been left a bit alone, no one wanted to join in," the official said.

Japan has already failed this year to win support from its industrialised peers to curtail a strengthening yen, which has soared to 2-1/2 year highs against the dollar even as the economy faltered and exports fell.

"Japan remains concerned about China's economy and we will call on the U.S. and Europe not to shift attention away from China," a Japanese official said, but added that Tokyo had decided to "be quiet" on currency during the meeting.

The yuan has fallen over 5 percent against a basket of currencies tracked by Thomson Reuters since the G20 finance ministers meeting in February.

The yen, meanwhile, has become both stronger and more volatile this year, surging on safe-haven buying even as Japan adopted negative interest rates in its so-far futile effort to escape deflation.

Data on Monday showed Japan's quandary, with exports falling 7.4 percent in June from a year earlier, the ninth straight month of decline. The rising yen has weakened Japan's export engine as China increases its share of global trade.

At the G20 meeting, Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said it was closely watching the impact of a declining yuan, and that he had agreed with U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on the need for structural reform in China and transparency in the forex market.

THE RIGHT DIRECTION

In contrast to Japan, the United States, a long-time critic of China's currency policies, appeared satisfied with Beijing's recent handling of the yuan.

Lew complimented Beijing's improved transparency and said the yuan had been moving in response to market factors. U.S. officials even noted China had actually been intervening to prevent the yuan from falling too quickly.

The G20 meeting came at a sensitive time for China-U.S. relations after the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague earlier this month ruled Beijing's claims to vast swathes of the South China Sea invalid.

It also immediately followed the nomination of Donald Trump as the Republican Party candidate in the U.S. presidential election. Trump has said if elected he would have China declared a currency manipulator as one of his first acts in office.

Sources at the G20 said there was little discussion of China's new regulations on cybersecurity, seen as regulating foreign software companies out of the domestic market.

There was also little progress in opening protected parts of China's economy to foreign investment, sources said, although the final communique did express concern about protectionism.

However, the G20 did refer to worries about industrial overcapacity, particularly in the steel sector.

Many of China's trading partners accuse it of dumping excess steel in overseas markets to avoid massive layoffs in its state-dominated steel sector, in turn eroding steel employment in other countries.
 

solarz

Brigadier
Even when the Chinese math system of learning do right this article just can't help to knock on the PRC government by quoting..."But like the Chinese government itself, it does not produce a citizenry of diverse, creative, and innovative talent.".:rolleyes:

Anyway I put this article in the economic section because education, math and business goes hand in hand.

Once again, western "experts" miss the point. The reason Chinese education succeeds, and western education fails, is not the education system itself. There are pros and cons to either approach, the real determinant is the culture of education.

Chinese students get top scores because they and their parents take education seriously. In all societies, there are people who want to study and work hard, and people who just want to slack off. Chinese kids who don't study fail just as badly as western kids who don't want to study. However, Chinese kids who do study are much more likely to get the necessary support from their family, teachers, and peers than western kids who also want to study.

The key elements here are family and peers. I don't think I need to go into much detail about family support, but one oft-overlooked aspect is peers. In China, kids who get good grades are admired and popular. In the west, kids who get good grades are called names and socially outcast, while the kids who party all the time are the most popular.

Is it such a wonder then, that Chinese students perform so much better?
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
People in the US have been ingrained to believe just throwing money at a problem solves it. If parents don't value an education in the first place, their children will most likely not have an education no matter how much money they're given. They want the government to spend the money for the latest technology to be given to their children but it's worthless if they don't value an education. So it's really about how they want to see how much society values them by how much money is thrown at them.
 
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