China Tells

据路透社报道，上海将在外滩竖起一头牛。此举意在模仿华尔街牛的形象，同时显现出上海欲借全球经济不景气的机会挑战纽约全球金融中心的地位。

(Source: Reuters) WALL Street may be down on its luck, but China’s growing business hub, Shanghai, plans to install its own version of the Street’s famed charging bull statue, casting in metal its hopes to eventually rival New York.

The China Daily reported on Saturday that Shanghai’s bull will sit on the city’s famous Bund riverfront, across from the Pudong financial district, weighing 6 metric tonnes, compared with Wall Street’s 3.2 tonne beast.

Xin Yaqin, an official in Shanghai’s Huangpu district, said the statue was intended to ‘bring confidence and fortune to the Chinese people in times of economic uncertainty’, the paper reported.

‘Shanghai is different from New York, so we’ll ask the artist to add Chinese characteristics to the sculpture,’ Xin said.

The city is home to China’s biggest stock market and the regional base of many multinationals.

China is passing through the year of the ox in the traditional 12-year cycle of animal symbols, and the report said the sculpture will be in place before the next lunar new year starting in February 2010.

据英国金融时报报道，中非双边经贸合作在近两年获得突破性进展。在非洲大陆的各个角落都可以见到中国公司投资劳作或者就行贸易的身影。据熟悉内情的人士透露，由于中国对非洲经贸援助的灵活务实的特点，使得很多非洲国家相比较发达国家更愿意和中国打交道。显然中国在非洲商业影响的快速增强引起了西方多国的普遍担忧和嫉妒。据悉西方诸国在即将举行的八国首脑会议上将就此专门展开讨论以调整其对非洲的外交政策。

(Source: FT) A new aphorism has emerged in Addis Ababa to describe Africa’s rapidly shifting relations with the outside world.

Washington, so it goes, is in charge of corralling the western donors. Europe provides the money. The Chinese walk off with all the business.

It may not be quite that simple. But China’s purposeful march across Africa over the past decade is challenging western assumptions about the continent in multiple ways.

When members of the Group of Eight industrialised nations meet next week in Italy there will no doubt be hand-wringing about the number of Africans falling back into poverty this year.

Aid campaigners have their new mantra well honed. Africa had no part in creating the conditions for global financial turmoil but it has suffered severe collateral damage. Rich nations have a responsibility to help. In what has become an annual ritual, traditional donors will duly reiterate pledges to increase aid.

However, the pace at which China’s economy rebounds, and to a lesser extent that of Brazil, India and Russia, will almost certainly be more significant in determining how quickly African economies re-emerge from the downturn.

Recovery in demand and prices for the raw materials Africa has in abundance will be driven in large part by these emerging Bric economies. Once prices are moving up again, investment in Africa will look more attractive.

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SHANGHAI — The People’s Daily newspaper warned China’s banks about risks of loans they are pouring into state infrastructure projects, questioning the safety of billions of dollars of debt backed by local governments country-wide.

//该文章在WSJ的主页上需要付费阅读。。。

于是小编搜了一下WSJ China的主页，找到该文的出处：《人民日报》提醒中国银行业注意爆炸式放贷》

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英国金融时报报道，中国新华社最近将开播英语类新闻节目并面向全球直播。此举令全球华人欢呼雀跃，大鼓人心。但是西媒并没有对新华社的举动给与任何正面评价。从金融时报心情复杂的描述中，可以看出西媒对于中国力量的担心，恐惧和嫉妒。毕竟，一个是现行世界上的主流媒体，一个是新加入的后来者，各种不同的意见价值观不免产生冲突碰撞。中西文化在世界文苑的交融冲突实乃本世纪最值得期待的历史事件。

Xinhua, China’s official news agency, will launch an English-language tele­vision news programme this week on screens in supermarkets and outside Chinese embassies in Europe, in a cautious first step towards spreading Beijing’s view of the world to western audiences.

The move, planned for Wednesday, comes six months after the Chinese government launched a plan to improve its global image through English-language television news channels to be built by trusted state-owned media.

“Our goal is to get China’s voice and perspective of things out there and to offer a different choice to a news audience all over the world,” said a department head at Xinhua with detailed knowledge of the TV preparations. “We have been hiring aggressively and building our TV capabilities for months. But still, it will take a long time until we can actually challenge CNN or BBC.”

Xinhua this month started offering Chinese-language TV news on Kaixin001, a social networking site. But editorial staff at the agency said broadcasting overseas would require a lot more preparation.

“We decided to test viewers’ reactions first by putting up some screens at Chinese embassies in Europe so people can watch it while they wait for their visas,” said one person. “Also, we will have Xinhua English-language TV in supermarkets in Brussels and other cities.” Academics with an advisory role in the plan have said the government would hand out Rmb30bn-Rmb45bn ($4.4bn-$6.6bn, €3.1bn-€4.7bn, £2.7bn-£4bn) to media groups.

The government has de nied the numbers and re fused to comment further, but many state media have focused on the project for months. China Daily, the country’s first nationwide English-language news paper, started overseas circulation this year. In April, Global Times, an affiliate of People’s Daily, the Communist party’s mouthpiece, launched an English-language edition.

Senior Xinhua journalists, advertising industry sources and media executives said the agency had been picked as the main media organisation for the TV portion of the propaganda push, and state funds for the project had started pouring in.

在全球最大美元外汇储备的支撑下，中国政府各路出击，在多种大宗商品市场掀起阵阵波澜，令外媒困惑，不安，同时存有期望和理想。

BEIJING (Reuters) – For China, the trade dispute raised this week with the West may in retrospect seem minor compared to the ructions that await Beijing as its state firms start to punch their weight on global commodity markets.

The U.S. and EU complaint to the World Trade Organization accuses China of unfairly restricting exports of several metals such as zinc, steelmaking ingredient coke and bauxite, the raw material for aluminum; at the same time India and Australia complained about Chinese firms dumping cheap aluminum goods.

Both are the result of China using tried and tested tax or tariff policies to ensure resource supplies and protect domestic industry. But as its domestic demand begins to outstrip its own resource base, those policies will become less effective.

For commodity markets, the concern is that Beijing could utilize its growing trade network and strategic stockpiles as its next best lever to protect its economy.

“I think the lesson learned over the last two years was that China was very much the price taker, in the sense it was more supply sensitive rather than price sensitive. Hence you have this massive commodity boom,” said Mark Pervan of ANZ Bank.

“I suspect it will be a different in the next 10 years with China much more heavily involved in the global market.”

“China is effectively the new boy in town, a very big boy, and realizing it can throw its weight around. But it needs a major education process and a better regulatory environment to avoid creating massive volatility.”

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A War between the old and new?

在目前全球经济低迷而中国经济一枝独秀的大背景下，中国对各种原材料持续不断的进口需求引起外媒多种猜测。一方面他们为中国持续不断的需求所震惊折服羡慕嫉妒，另一方面也深深不可理解为何中国需求还是如此强劲，特别是其出口占GDP总量的30%强。由于对中国需求的大量不理解，外媒便产生各种猜测，如北京对地方上的投机购买控制不力，中国需求随时可能在一夜之间消失由此引发全球市场动荡，等等。细读其文，可以深深感到外媒对中国这个全球贸易市场上的新玩家所持有的敬畏，不解和妒忌的矛盾心情。

As Grant’s Interest Rate Observer has been known to say, “We wrote it. Did you read it?” My slim hope is that the Chinese really and truly know what they are doing, because, in fueling investor optimism with such flair, they are playing a high stakes game. My worry is that they drop the ball, somehow, and the result shows up as a violent wake-up call for “high beta” assets…emerging market equities, energy, commodities and the like.

What happens next is far from clear. The huge [commodity] stockpiles could continue to grow at a breathtaking pace – after all, Beijing has plenty of greenbacks to work through – and the dragon’s data points could continue to impress, or at least not frighten.

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再过不到一个星期便是中国钢铁协会和三大矿业巨头谈判的最后时刻。目前看来形势不容乐观。三大巨头已经同日韩铁矿石进口商谈好价格，并且从中国目前铁矿石进口的趋势来看有增无减。外媒分析员纷纷猜测中国钢铁协会别无选择只能认宰。由此显现出崛起大国对资源需求和定价权的无奈。

SHANGHAI/SEOUL, June 24 (Reuters) – With less than a week before the deadline to agree on a price for annual iron ore contracts, it is increasingly clear that China faces two unpalatable choices — buying all its ore on the spot market, or swallowing the same deal agreed by rivals.

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Sinopec

中石化发力，这是继中铝购并力拓失败以后中国公司在其他战场上的胜利。在全球经济低迷，大宗商品价格受挫，美元乏力，以及中国经济一支独秀的大背景下，中石化的海外购并具有战略意义。管中窥豹，从中也可以略微解毒中央政府应对过多美元外汇储备的策略。

(Source: WSJ) China again sought to satisfy its hunger for natural resources, as state-owned Sinopec Group agreed to acquire oil-exploration company Addax Petroleum Corp. for 8.27 billion Canadian dollars (US$7.19 billion), in what would mark the largest overseas takeover by a Chinese company.

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Since the 2006 launch of its Chinese-hosted search site, Google has been in pitched battle with Baidu, a domestic competitor that has 74% market share in domestic Web searches, according to Shanghai-based consulting firm iResearch. Google’s market share is around 20%. The U.S. company’s key competitive advantage rests in non-Chinese-language search results, an advantage that would be wiped out if it fully complies with the government’s demand.
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Once upon a time, when China was unambiguously a communist country, its healthcare system was a success. In the three decades following the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, the average lifespan nearly doubled and infant mortality went down five-fold. Good healthcare provisions no doubt played a major part.

Then came the market reforms of the early-1980s and the system fell apart. Provision of healthcare fell behind the need to boost GDP and eventually the central government withdrew funding, putting more pressure on local governments.

“When the system turned to a market-orientated approach, the cities on the east coast which received the most foreign direct investment were in the best position to invest that money into healthcare, while the inland provinces were not able to keep up,” said Robert Pollard, director of market research firm, Synovate Healthcare, in Beijing.

Patients were forced to pay ever-greater out-of-pocket expenses for their care. The situation nowadays is that the ill often have to foot big bills that can drive them into poverty or avoiding treatment altogether, while the healthy try to keep large chunks of their income in the bank just in case the worst does happen. This is why the government guidelines for medical reform, released last month, are so important. The plan is to upgrade the healthcare system by 2020 into something that provides affordable and effective medical treatment to both rural and urban citizens. It will affect everything from hospitals and clinics, and healthcare financing, to the drug delivery system.

“What we’re seeing with the new plan is a move back to a more socialist approach to medicine by providing for the majority,” said Pollard.

If successful, the sick will not be the only beneficiaries: the economy as a whole could undergo a fundamental change, and several business sectors—drug companies, medical equipment manufacturers and insurance companies—will all be affected.

Medical reform has been a long time coming, with plenty of stops and starts over the past decade. What makes things different this time is that the government has already announced how much it is going to spend on the initial phase, namely Rmb850 billion ($125 billion) during the next three years.

A poor system

The main problem that needs to be addressed is the inefficient manner in which healthcare is delivered. Local clinics lack credibility for even common illnesses, so even if someone has a cold they will often not seek primary care, but rather go straight to a hospital. Therefore a subset of hospitals is caring for the full spectrum of illnesses, from the mildest of ailments to the most serious conditions.

“It’s the academic hospitals with the good reputations that people go to,” said Jon Zifferblatt, managing director of General Biologic, a Shanghai-based healthcare consultancy and information provider. “They open their doors in the morning and people flood in. It’s a bit like going to see a doctor in a train station.” And for many rural citizens, going to a hospital might not be an option since it could be too far away or too expensive.

One way to tackle this inefficient aspect of the system is to reduce the level of dependence on the top-level hospitals. To do this there are plans to build or upgrade 8,700 hospitals—3,700 in urban areas and 5,000 in rural areas—and 11,000 community clinics by 2011. These new facilities will be scattered across the country and building them could provide temporary work opportunities to migrant workers who have returned home after losing their jobs in the big cities.

Off the back of the new hospitals and clinics, sales of medical equipment are expected to increase. Each clinic has a list of devices that it must stock, which will turn out to be a shopping list for many new or underequipped centres. The focus will be to buy domestically-produced equipment, thereby helping out several US-listed Chinese companies. Two such companies that are considered well placed to take advantage are Mindray Medical International and China Medical Technologies.

But the success of these new clinics will depend on more than just how well-equipped they are. The difficult part is to make sure that the clinics are staffed by qualified doctors, thereby restoring trust in the system. The government has to find ways to incentivise good doctors to work in what could sometimes be remote locations.

The other main problem with the healthcare delivery system is that it is not always working in the interest of patients. Government funding for hospitals has gradually diminished, while at the same time the state imposes price control on many services. The result is that hospitals often over-prescribe drugs, or sell expensive patented drugs with a high mark-up. The hospital benefits financially from this because not only do they prescribe the drugs, they dispense them too. Hospitals in China make around 60% of their revenues from prescribing drugs, compared to the 10% to 20% that is typical in Western countries. In the draft guidelines, released last year, there were plans to separate the prescribing and dispensing of drugs. But in the final document these were only introduced as a pilot plan, suggesting that the government has decided not to tackle the hospital inefficiencies head on, but indirectly through improvements in the financing of treatment.

Efficiency through insurance

While around one-third of the announced money has been allocated towards infrastructure and the Ministry of Health, two-thirds is going towards social security funds. More money for social security funds means both that more people will be covered by the state medical insurance and that reimbursements and subsidies given for healthcare will increase.

“The question is who should have the power to control the healthcare system? Naturally, [the social security funds] do not have the incentive to maximise hospitals’ profits,” says Jinsong Du, healthcare analyst at Credit Suisse. Du says the financing reform will bring improvements in three stages. First, higher levels of insurance coverage and reimbursements will increase the demand for healthcare services—and to meet the demand the government will be provoked to spend more on medical infrastructure.

In the medium term, the large buying power of the funds will mean that they will be able to impose greater levels of efficiency on the hospitals. A fund will only pay for drugs that it believes are necessary, which should therefore reduce the problem of over-prescription. Instead of treating pre-existing conditions with medicine, preventative medicine could become more attractive, which will benefit vaccine and diagnostic makers.

Finally, over the long term the general population will become more aware of the benefits of insurance and differing levels of healthcare services, which will in turn educate them about the benefits of private medical insurance. Once used to the idea of being insured, individuals will be more likely to take out private insurance, that will in turn help the nascent private healthcare sector, which, as of 2007, only accounted for 3% of the hospital market.

“If the majority of the country is served by a sufficient public system,” said Zifferblatt, “the private for-profit sector might find itself in a better space to grow.” If insurance catches on, the ramifications on the Chinese economy could be huge. At the moment, the country’s high savings rate is the government’s biggest obstacle to stimulating consumption—a kind of self-imposed taxation to protect against unemployment and poor health. But if the population starts paying small, but regular insurance premiums rather than keeping large chunks in the bank, China could eventually evolve into more of a consumer society.

Beijing is playing with fire by issuing a `Buy China’ edict for its stimulus package.
 
As the world’s top exporter with a $400bn current account suplus and an economy that lives off the America and European market, it will pay the highest price if it triggers a global retreat into protectionist blocs.
 
The Chinese elite no doubt feel provoked by what they call the “poison” of the US `Buy American’ clause, but the Obama White House managed to tone down the worst excesses of Capitol Hill and in any case the Chinese version is more restrictive.
 
 China needs to loosen grip on economy to sustain growth, experts argueIt bans the purchase of foreign equipment for investment projects unless a special exemption is obtained. The measures apply to European goods, even though EU states have not imposed any such “Buy Europe” clause of their own. EU producers of wind turbines have already been excluded from a $5bn wind project, whether or not they have factories in China.
 
Beijing risks making the same catastrophic error as the US Congress when it passed the US Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930. America was then the rising surplus power, like China today. It was the chief beneficiary of an open global system.
 
By imposing tariffs, Washington triggered massive retaliation. While nobody escaped the Great Depression that ensued, the effects were unequal. The US suffered a far steeper decline in output than the rest of the world. Britain muddled through relatively well in a trade bloc behind Imperial Preference.
 
China’s action is extremely disturbing. It confirms what we have long feared, that the Chinese government is sufficiently worried about rising unemployment to adopt suicidal measures. Nor does this episode instill confidence in the `China recovery story’.
 
While exports fell 26pc in April, imports were down by almost as much. There is no real rebalancing under way from external to internal demand. China is still running a massive surplus. It is flooding the world with excess goods, and exporting deflation. This is untenable. At some point, the West will react.