About China Blog
Jonathan is a co-founder of Trusted Sources. He has a wealth of experience as a writer and commentator on Chinese political, economic and social affairs. He was formerly editor of The South China Morning Post, The Observer and Reuters World Service as well as a senior correspondent for The Economist.
22 Feb 2012
There is nothing new to warnings about China’s shortage of water. With 20 per cent of the world’s population and 7 per cent of renewable water resources, there has long been a mismatch between supply and demand, exacerbated by the imbalance between the wet south and the dry north, by the demands of industry and urbanization and by low pricing which encourages wasteful use. Still, when a government official warns of “an extremely serious situation in many areas” one has to take notice.
The annual water shortage is put at more than 50 million cubic metres and Hu Jintao warned last...
Read the full text of "Water and Growth: China’s illiquid assets"
20 Feb 2012
While politics on the Mainland have been complicated by the Chongqing saga, Beijing has another tricky problem to handle in Hong Kong. The former colony is moving towards the selection of a new Chief Executive next month to replace the incumbent, Donald Tsang, who served as Financial Secretary under the British but has recently been working to strengthen links with the Mainland. China’s preferred candidate is Henry Tang Ying-yen), who formerly held the second-ranking civil service post and is from a wealthy business family – his father, a textile tycoon from Shanghai, developed close...
Read the full text of "Hong Kong poses a problem for Beijing"
16 Feb 2012
Anybody who hoped that the economic figures from China for January would provide a clear roadmap for 2012, or settle the ‘hard’ versus ‘soft’ landing debate, has been disappointed. In part this is because of the distorting effect of the Chinese New Year, which fell unusually early at the end of last month. Comparisons with 2011 will be difficult for February too, as the holiday was in that month last year. But other factors are at work that only underline the uncertainties underlying the outlook for the world’s second-largest economy in this year of transition.
The January data...
Read the full text of "China’s economic direction: feeling the stones"
13 Feb 2012
As Xi Jinping, China’s heir presumptive, sets out to visit the United States this week, the major domestic political saga has attracted an audience of millions – showing the ability of the social media to evade controls that would have kept the whole affair under wraps in the past. By today, the Sina weibo site had registered more than 2 million posts on what happened in Chongqing earlier this month after Wang Lijun, the former police chief of the mega-metropolis, drove to the US consulate in the capital of nearby Sichuan province before being flown to Beijing in the company of a...
Read the full text of "Chongqing bombshell: the plot thickens"
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