Category Archives: Public Policy

City Journal’s Guy Sorman: China Basher

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Beijing’s 798 Arts District

While browsing through the front page of the planning website Planetizen the other day, I came across a link to a story from the autumn issue of City Journal titled ‘Asian Megacities, Free and Unfree‘. City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, is one of my favorite publications about urban issues, and usually produces well-reasoned, thought-provoking pieces. And given the topic of this piece, I was excited to read what I thought would be a compelling article about the rise of Asian cities.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Continue reading →

Post G-20 Hangover: Trade Wars, Currency Manipulation & More

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Downtown Seoul

The G-20 meeting in Seoul earlier this month left in its wake a trail of uncertainty regarding the state of the global economic system. The U.S. received its fair share of criticism over its ‘QE2’ quantitative easing measure. ‘Quantitative easing’ is  essentially akin to the Federal Reserve Bank printing more money. The goal here is to help stimulate job growth in the U.S. by weakening the dollar. Forbes columnist Shaun Rein explains why quantitative easing might actually be  a terrible mistake.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner denies the U.S. is manipulating its currency while continually berating China over the low valuation of its RMB. With QE2, the United States can no longer taker the moral high-ground because it has now entered the currency devaluation game. The intent of QE2 is to try to direct investment and job growth back to the U.S. but it will probably have the opposite effect: lowering the standard of living of American by causing inflation. Continue reading →

China, Japan, America

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Japanese Retail Chain Uniqlo at Chengdu’s Chunxi Lu Shopping Street

After spending the previous two weeks in the U.S. visiting friends and relatives, I returned to chaos in Chengdu last week. Just a few blocks from my apartment, protests were being held at the city’s main shopping street, Chunxi Lu, against Japanese-owned businesses. I had no idea this was going on until I was alerted by my friends over at Chengdu Living who were there documenting the scene with photos and video.

This anti-Japanese demonstration came about due to a recent dispute about the ownership of the Diaoyu Islands in the Pacific. The cultural rift between the two countries goes deeper than that though, with bitter feelings about Japan’s invasion of China during World War II still prevalent among those living in mainland China. Continue reading →

Thomas Friedman to America: China is Kicking Our Butt

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Tianjin. Photo by Sarmu

New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman was in Tianjin earlier this month for the 2010 Summer Davos World Economic Forum. His trip yielded a pair of opinion pieces blasting America for its lagging economic progress in comparison to rising China.

The title of Friedman’s first piece, Too Many Hamburgers?, references a skit produced for the Davos Forum where four children wearing four different flags – Chinese, American, Indian and Brazilian- are about to run a race. The child with the American flag bolts ahead only to lose ground shortly after due to a bout of cramps. The others wonder what is wrong with him until one of them says, “he ate too many hamburgers.” Continue reading →

China, America, Paul Krugman

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Every few months, Nobel Prize winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes an opinion piece lambasting China for ‘manipulating’ its currency, the renminbi (RMB). Whenever he brings this particular issue up, Krugman argues that China is undermining America’s (and other countries) manufacturing competitiveness.

I have responded to Krugman’s previous commentaries about the Chinese currency issue before (U.S. – China Trade Complications) and discussed why letting the RMB float will not bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. Krugman doesn’t seem to be getting the message based on yet another  Op-Ed he penned titled China, Japan, America. Continue reading →