Falling orders lead to second consecutive monthly decline for HSBC purchasing managers’ index but there are tentative signs of stabilisation
Written by China News Headlines: Finance, Business & Politics - FT.com on December 30th, 2011 with comments disabled.
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New quota system announced by the commerce ministry may lead to shortages of critical ‘heavy’ elements, say analysts and executives
Written by China News Headlines: Finance, Business & Politics - FT.com on December 29th, 2011 with comments disabled.
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Beijing announces intention to achieve a manned lunar mission as part of an ambitious expansion of the country’s space exploration programme
Written by China News Headlines: Finance, Business & Politics - FT.com on December 29th, 2011 with comments disabled.
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To ensure long-term access to resources, China will have to make friends across the spectrum beyond the Gaddafis and Mugabes, write Jonas Parello-Plesner and Parag Khanna
Written by China News Headlines: Finance, Business & Politics - FT.com on December 28th, 2011 with comments disabled.
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China is in the early days of a transition, one in which economic growth will increasingly have to stem from increased demand at home, writes Richard Haass
Written by China News Headlines: Finance, Business & Politics - FT.com on December 28th, 2011 with comments disabled.
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High-speed network will be more cautiously expanded across the country, after a report into the collision in July that killed 40 people and sparked outrage
Written by China News Headlines: Finance, Business & Politics - FT.com on December 28th, 2011 with comments disabled.
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The year when the Chinese economy will truly eclipse America’s is in sight
IN THE spring of 2011 the Pew Global Attitudes Survey asked thousands of people worldwide which country they thought was the leading economic power. Half of the Chinese polled reckoned that America remains number one, twice as many as said “China”. Americans are no longer sure: 43% of US respondents answered “China”; only 38% thought America was still the top dog. The answer depends on which measure you pick. An analysis of 21 different indicators chosen by The Economist (see the full set) finds that China has already overtaken America on over half of them and will be top on virtually all of them within a decade.
Economic power is best gauged by looking at absolute size rather than per-person measures. On a few indicators, such as steel consumption, ownership of mobile phones and beer-guzzling (a crucial test of economic superiority), the milestone was reached as long as a decade ...
Written by Chinese Economy on December 28th, 2011 with comments disabled.
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THE march of sex-selective abortion in Asia seems relentless. Not every society adopts the practice, but those that do—and they include the two largest countries on earth—have seen it spread through every social group, unhampered by growing wealth. Indeed, middle-income couples seem more willing and better able to manipulate the sex of their children than are the poor. And they are more likely to want smaller families, increasing the premium on sons in countries where males are seen as more valuable.As a result, richer areas have more sex selection than poorer ones and sex selection tends to rise as countries get richer. In China the sex ratio at birth is much more distorted in rich Shanghai and Guangzhou than in poor Tibet. From 2001-11, India’s GDP more than doubled and the census of 2011 found only 914 girls aged 0-6 for every 1,000 boys, worse even than the abysmal tally in 2001, when there were 927 girls per 1,000 boys. (India counts the sex ratio differently from the rest of the world, which expresses the idea as the number of boys per 100 girls; using the international measure, India’s child sex ratio rose...
Written by The Economist: Asia on December 28th, 2011 with comments disabled.
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THE perception had grown in Kazakhstan that the country’s long-serving autocrat, 71-year-old President Nursultan Nazarbayev, was like an ageing lion, getting milder and more aloof with age. Doubts were growing about how much his close circle of loyalists was still filling him in on everything that was going on in the country, or about whether he really cared beyond an obvious and active interest in economic matters. Rumours since this summer that Mr Nazarbayev suffered from prostate cancer, for which he may have sought treatment in Germany, had led to speculation about who might succeed him. Then bloody riots on December 16th-17th in the Mangistau region of western Kazakhstan brought Mr Nazarbayev back to the fore.The rioting left 16 people dead at the hands of the security forces and over 100 injured. The details of the violence around the oil town of Zhanaozen, where over 40 buildings were torched, remain unclear, including the circumstances under which police shot at demonstrators, among them sacked workers from the oilfields. Since May oil workers in Zhanaozen had been on strike demanding better pay and working conditions. Attempts by the government in the distant capital, Astana, to address their concerns appeared to be half-hearted. Several hundred oilmen were laid off.On December 16th people had gathered in Zhanaozen’s main square in preparation for the celebrations...
Written by The Economist: Asia on December 28th, 2011 with comments disabled.
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ON DECEMBER 19th the president of Pakistan, Asif Zardari, returned to the country after a two-week absence in Dubai. Officially, Mr Zardari (pictured above, left) had been getting treatment for a mild stroke. But the belief was growing that the army was forcing him into exile.For the time being, Mr Zardari’s return appears to have scotched these rumours. Still, his troubles have not gone away. They include a scandal over a leaked memo that drew the president into an open spat with the country’s military establishment; a political opposition pressing him hard for early elections; a dire economy; and imploding relations with the United States. Perhaps the mere survival of the government, led by Mr Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), for almost four years is a feat of sorts. But the government has achieved pitifully little, while the ruling cabal has lined its pockets with gusto.With the president determined to hang on, the armed forces, which seem incapable of staying out of politics, have a problem. They want to be rid of Mr Zardari, but they do not want to stage another coup. Nor do they want to see the...
Written by The Economist: Asia on December 28th, 2011 with comments disabled.
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