Category: China

Xi Jinping’s Four Comprehensives

Xi Jinping’s recent announcement of the Four Comprehensives is crucial to reform in the Chinese Communist Party (CPC).

The Four Comprehensives are likely to be put forward as Xi’s contribution to the CPC theoretical canon, providing the ideological legitimacy for his reform and anti-corruption campaign. If this is the case, this new concept is an important means for analysing the future direction of Xi Jinping’s leadership and makes it clear that the current cycle of increased power centralisation and party discipline will continue.

Can China Ever Expect to Resume its Historic Growth Trajectory?

China saw a 9.8 percent growth rate on average during 1978–2010 — the best in the world. China will likely surpass the US to become the world’s largest economy in purchasing power terms in 2015, if it has not already done so.

China’s Challenge to Feed its Growing Food Demands

Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the Central Leading Group on Rural Affairs, has long admitted that many countries produce soybeans more efficiently than China. So how can agricultural policy makers reform China’s soy industry?

Soy is a core oilseed product of the Northeastern China plain and the Inner Mongolian steppe. Soybean production in China results in three staple goods: soybeans processed for human consumption in various forms; crushed soybeans, which are used to make soy oil for human cooking use; and soy meal, which is used as edible animal fodder.

Now is not the Time to Practice Corporate Tax Avoidance in China

China’s tax authority announced in February 2015 monitoring multinational firms more closely in an effort to crack down on tax avoidance. The policy is part of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project, which is a collective effort of G20 countries to curb tax avoidance by multinational firms. There is some concern about whether the policy will work in China, given current levels of corruption and ineffective regulations. In this context, China’s ongoing efforts to weed out corruption mean the policy has more chance of success.

Could a Slowing Chinese Economy Lead to Regional Divergences?

Despite China’s history of experimenting with new policies and the economic liberalisation since the late 1980s, China is still only a partially integrated economy. This has caused regional divergence and inequality. Now, as the Chinese economy begins to slow down, prospects of further regional divergence are troubling and have a greater chance of exacerbating political tensions.

Are China’s Corporate-Political Connections Undermining its Stock Market?

Political connections are invaluable to industries or individual enterprises in China. But while they may bring regulatory benefits to private-owned enterprises during the state-controlled process of going public, they may also lead to China’s stock markets performing poorly.

China’s stock markets are fundamentally different from other major stock markets around the world. Ever since their establishment in late 1990, the process of going public in China is under tight government control. China’s stock market regulations have been under a merit-review regime.

Measuring Xi Jinping’s Economic Reforms by Competition and Productivity

The usual assessment of Xi Jinping’s performance as China’s leader goes like this: since taking the reins at the end of 2012, he has over-delivered on anti-corruption and underwhelmed on economic reform.