Chancellor Angela Merkel pledges to do everything to prevent EC trade duties hitting Chinese solar panel companies.

Normally I do not bother writing on heavily economic events but this one in particular has stuck out to me. 

The boom of the Chinese solar panel industry is no secret. China is pumping out more solar panels than most countries, including the US, could dream of and they are doing it at that famous low Chinese price. With the green industry growing larger and larger by the year, the Chinese are simply getting in ahead of the curve and for good reason. However, Chinese solar panels going abroad have been met with barriers from many of the western nations that will most likely serve as large markets for green tech, i.e. US, EU, etc.. The EU especially has been very vocal recently and, as this article points out, has a faction led by France and Italy that wants to impose heavy trade duties on these cheap Chinese solar panels.

However their reasoning for these penalties on these solar panels, for me, are lacking. When these countries argue that, “China’s rapid rise in solar panel output to more than the world’s entire demand could not have happened without illegal state support.”, I am lead to the conclusion that these leaders have not looked at Chinese economics since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The State Owned Enterprise, or SOE, is a staple of the Chinese economic way. So for them to make an argument over “illegal state” support is futile. These SOEs are not questioned when they provide huge amounts of foreign direct investment in developing countries or when they provide many western nations with cheap goods to keep their cost of living down. However, now that the Chinese are ready to extend these cheap goods in the green industry that many EU nations seem to want to be leaders of these economic practices are “illegal”. For this reason, I am glad that countries like Germany, Britain and the Netherlands are standing in opposition to this movement at the very least until China’s Premier, Li Keqiang, can voice China’s side of the story. 

The environmentalist in me is screaming at this whole situation. For decades, the prospects of green and renewable energies have been shot down because of costs, not only for companies but for the consumers and now that China is able to provide any market on the globe with cheap solar panels we question their economic practices? As long as quality standards of these the goods are met then I see no problem with China providing the world with affordable solar panels. I feel the West is not ready for the liberalized Chinese economy they so adamantly wanted to create. 

Li Keqiang says choice of destination for his first foreign visit shows importance Beijing attaches to ties with Delhi.

It seems to be on monthly basis now that relations between nations in East Asia are built, strained, broken or renewed. Relations are extremely fluid to say the least with many of the East Asian nations and with recent territorial disputes spiking tension in the region China has been on the move militarily and especially diplomatically. Chinese leaders have a fear of the US’s new pivot towards Asia and how it will affect the area. So much so that many of the actions taken by the US have led many higher ups in the the Chinese leadership to believe that the pivot is really a move for containment. Now China is doing everything it can to not be “contained” and it is showing in its recent diplomatic ventures.

Geographically China has looked North and West for new allies. Xi Jinping’s first visit outside of the country was to Moscow to talk with Putin about everything from arms deals and economic ventures to an overall improvement of Russo-Sino relations. Then comes the new Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang’s first official trip outside of the country to India, which has been aimed at improving Indian-Chinese relations and making it clear the China is ready to shelve the territorial dispute between these two countries for the time being. 

To me it seems that the Chinese leadership has made priority one to reaffirm and further strengthen its Russian relations. However, in a close second place it has wanted to make the wild card (India), one of its numerous territorial disputes, much less wild. In an earlier post about India being a big part of the larger territorial disputes of China, it is made clear that Japan is more than eager to pull India closer to its camp. However, it seems with the high level visit from Li Keqiang that China also recognizes the importance India could play in the rise in tension in East Asia. If Chinese leaders could pull India into their camp or at the very least be assured that India will simply stay out of it, then they could put their full focus towards the territorial disputes in the East. 

For China the game of Wei qi continues and the stakes grow larger with each passing month.    

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Fantastic write up on hutongs and the rich history that surrounds them. The discussion on hutongs, for me, is a discussion on the price of modernization and urban development. While the benefits are obviously noticeable on the quarterly reports, profit margins and income averages, the cost digs into the massive history of China. Hutongs are apart of the famed 5,000 years of history that China regularly boosts. Obviously it is unrealistic to expect every hutong to be preserved for the sake of history and culture but I feel an effort should be made nonetheless.

Simplistic patriots like Mr. Pan are far and few between these days in China. The way he boiled down the succession of CPC policy since the Cultural Revolution  shows how the long winded rhetoric on ideology can be futile if the common themes are kept in place. These economic practices and ideologies are like the blink of an eye in the span history of China. As China changes on a daily basis it is good to see that there are still hutongs to remind us that somethings should be preserved and even after thousands of years hold value.

慢走 (manzou) readers.

A rare protest in Be

Creative neitizens trying to spread information and get past the heavy censorship taking place around this incident have provided an eerie parrelell for Americans. 

“Today, an incident took place in the southern Washington DC area, a woman from the state of Texas, named Liya Yuan, was pushed from a building to her death after a gang rape. Since the suspect has a powerful background, the FBI claimed that the surveillance system was not working and concluded that she committed suicide. The Texans got angry and protested. Washington DC sent armed police to maintain stability, including helicopters and traffic rerouting, and censored related posts on Facebook and Twitter.”

This put into perspective what is really happening in Beijing right now with this tragic case.

A massive police and paramilitary presence has descended upon Fengtai District around Jingwen Clothing and Apparel Shopping Mall, the scene of either a suicide or murder last Friday. On May 3, a young woman from Anhui province fell to her death from the

If these allegations are correct with the untimely death of this women, this protest is completely justified. However I feel that aiming the march towards Tiananmen will see a massive crackdown on this cry for transparency and justice from Beijing authorities. If you thought that Beijing authorities were lightening up on protests after the anti-Japanese demonstrations last fall, this is what their response really looks like when the aim of the protesters is a domestic target.

It will be interesting to see how far these Anhui native protesters are allowed to go and if their call for the truth will be given a government response. Most likely more to come.

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Whether it be an escape from the  mandatory Marxist fluff, more open avenues for research or a better chance to pursue one’s passions, this write up covers the reasons why three Chinese students chose American universities over Chinese ones. Provides for an interesting perspective on these two systems of education.