https://www.scmp.com/rss/323975/feed Yuen Yuen Ang, Professor of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, is the author of "How China Escaped the Poverty Trap" and "China’s Gilded Age". en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Western observers often view China as either a rising superpower on the cusp of global dominance or a country on the brink of collapse. These contradictory takes amplify only one side of China’s economic trajectory: a tech boom alongside a growth slump. This paradox can be attributed largely to the directives issued by President Xi Jinping to millions of Communist Party apparatchiks tasked with realising his ambitious vision. Contrary to the perception of China as a command economy where... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3277258/china-rising-or-slowing-down-answer-its-complicated?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3277258/china-rising-or-slowing-down-answer-its-complicated?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 05 Sep 2024 21:30:08 +0000 When US President Joe Biden took office in 2021, his first message to the rest of the world was: “America is back.” Having assumed his third term as general secretary of the Communist Party in October, President Xi Jinping appears to be issuing a similar proclamation. In the past two months, China’s leadership has announced or signalled a series of major policy reversals, abruptly ending nearly three years of severe “zero-Covid” restrictions, easing the crackdown on tech companies and the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3207212/china-back-will-require-more-just-reversal-recent-policies?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3207212/china-back-will-require-more-just-reversal-recent-policies?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 18 Jan 2023 08:45:12 +0000 Within the span of a generation, a new super-rich class emerges from a society in which millions of rural migrants toil in factories for a pittance. Bribery becomes the most common mode of influence in politics. Opportunists speculate recklessly in land and real estate. All of this is happening in the world’s most promising emerging market and rising global power. This is not a description of contemporary China, but rather of the United States during the “Gilded Age” of the late 19th century.... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3149662/can-xi-jinpings-fight-against-corruption-inequality-and-mounting?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3149662/can-xi-jinpings-fight-against-corruption-inequality-and-mounting?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 Sep 2021 05:30:15 +0000 When a country is poor, everything is tough, but at least the goal is crystal clear: raise gross domestic product (GDP). But when a country becomes richer, it turns out that problems do not end – they only become harder to pin down, juggle and solve. This is the struggle facing the Communist Party leadership under Xi Jinping today, even as it proudly declares that it has eliminated absolute poverty. At the “two sessions”, China’s annual legislative meetings, Beijing set a GDP growth target of 6... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3128516/chinas-economic-headache-setting-targets-quality-development?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3128516/chinas-economic-headache-setting-targets-quality-development?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 08 Apr 2021 01:15:18 +0000 US President-elect Joe Biden’s impending inauguration has raised hopes that his administration will “make America lead again”. If the United States is to transform its rivalry with China into constructive competition, this is the right approach. But whether Biden can restore and sustain America’s global leadership depends on how effectively he mends domestic fractures and addresses deep-seated misgivings about globalisation held by segments of the US electorate. Biden has repeatedly pledged to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3117575/america-lead-again-biden-must-heal-domestic-fractures-and-address?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3117575/america-lead-again-biden-must-heal-domestic-fractures-and-address?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 14 Jan 2021 17:30:11 +0000 Unlike the old superpower contest between the United States and the Soviet Union, the incipient cold war between China and the US does not reflect a fundamental conflict of unalterably opposed ideologies. Instead, today’s Sino-American rivalry is popularly portrayed as an epic battle between autocracy and democracy. Moreover, the facts seem to suggest that autocracy has won while democracy has fallen flat on its face. Whereas the US under President Donald Trump has fumbled disastrously during... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3107545/why-chinese-autocracy-vs-american-democracy-false-comparison?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3107545/why-chinese-autocracy-vs-american-democracy-false-comparison?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 29 Oct 2020 05:30:08 +0000 What should we expect to see at the second Belt and Road Forum this week? This time, I believe, the Chinese leadership will shift its focus from simply expanding the quantity and scale of the “Belt and Road Initiative” to improving its quality. Put differently, the task at hand is to transform the initiative from a grand but inchoate vision into an actual investment plan. The belt and road plan was initially conceived as an ambitious, transcontinental effort to expand trade routes between China... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3007244/whats-next-belt-and-road-plan-china-must-start-thinking?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3007244/whats-next-belt-and-road-plan-china-must-start-thinking?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 Apr 2019 06:00:11 +0000 What strange times we live in. Four decades ago, America was the beacon of economic and political freedom, whereas China was an autarkic planned economy, completely closed to the world. Today, the tables are turned. US President Donald Trump champions protectionism, threatening to rip up trade deals and penalise companies that move factories abroad. President Trump could trip up, but not for the reasons liberals think Meanwhile, recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Chinese President Xi... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2067512/how-chinas-development-story-can-be-alternative-western?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2067512/how-chinas-development-story-can-be-alternative-western?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 03 Feb 2017 06:51:51 +0000