Posts Tagged: China

Why You Should Read This Blog about Acute Kidney Injury Research

It's not an easy paper to understand--unless you're a scientist or a physician. Make that a scientist who knows about soluble epoxide hydrolase, and...

Professor Jun-Yan Liu of Tongji University, Shanghai, China, is a former postgraduate researcher and assistant project scientist in the Hammock lab.

Professor Jun-Yan Liu of Tongji University, Shanghai, China, is a former postgraduate researcher and assistant project scientist in the Hammock lab.

A Chinese slowdown is 'imminent'

UC Berkeley economics professor Barry Eichengren supplied three reasons in a Business Insider blog why he believes a slowdown in the growth of the Chinese economy is on the horizon.

For one, slowdowns are more likely in countries where the manufacturing sector’s share of employment exceeds 20 percent, since it then becomes necessary to shift workers into services, where productivity growth is slower, Eichengren said.

Further, slowdowns come earlier in economies with undervalued currencies. Currency undervaluation, he said, may boost economic growth in the early stages of development, when a country relies on shifting its labor force from agriculture to assembly-based manufacturing. However, it may work less well when growth becomes more innovation-intensive.

“Finally, maintenance of an undervalued currency may cause imbalances and excesses in export-oriented manufacturing to build up, as happened in Korea in the 1990s, and through that channel make a growth deceleration more likely," Eichengren was quoted.

Author of the Pragmatic Capitalism blog, Cullen Roche, concurred with Eichengren's assessment. The Chinese slowdown is not a matter of if, but when, the post concluded.

China offers California businesses opportunities and risks

The recent U.S. visit by China's president Hu Jintau has California experts considering opportunities for trade with the world's most populous country, according to an article in the Bakersfield Californian.

The story said China's manipulation of its currency is among the most significant barriers to trade between the two countries. China has resisted currency reform, but a CSU Bakersfield economist told reporter Courtenay Edelhart that the country will have to adapt if it wants to realize its superpower aspirations.

Edelhart spoke to UC Davis agricultural economist Colin Carter about agricultural trade with China. He said California farmers grow many of the same products as China, but Americans are stronger in food processing and technology, and have the advantage of a much more efficient industry structure.

"In China, the farmers still don't own the land they work, and the individual farms are pretty small," Carter was quoted. "To really compete on a global scale, the farms are going to have to get a lot bigger and more mechanized."

Interim director of CSU Bakersfield's Small Business Development Center. John Pryor, said local companies interested in the Chinese market should guard their competitive edge carefully.

"Any U.S. firm needs to be very cautious about their intellectual property risks. The Chinese have a long-standing reputation for stealing patented products or processes," Pryor told the reporter.

Chinese president Hu Jintau visited President Obama at the White House last week.

Read more