Translation Tag: exports
Days after Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement, Guan Tao, the global chief economist at BOCI China, assesses the impacts of the intensifying U.S.-China trade war. He compares this round of tariffs with the earlier tariffs imposed during Trump’s first term, concluding that their impacts on China this year may be similar to those of 2019. However, Guan views the external environment as increasingly suppressive and unpredictable, arguing that it will force China to “focus on doing its own things well” and spur domestic reforms spanning its development pattern, trade model, and macroeconomic policy priorities. Guan expects U.S.-China economic and trade relations to worsen but is confident these domestic adjustments will enable China to weather the “tariff storm.”
Three Chinese state-affiliated researchers Jiang Zhao, Dong Chao, and Fu Jiang assess the impact of Trump 2.0 on the global economy and U.S.-China trade relations. They foresee Trump’s policies as harmful to multilateral economic cooperation, but they believe the impact on China will be limited. They also propose a slate of countermeasures for Beijing, which include further diversifying export markets and trade cooperation with emerging economies, optimizing China’s ability to attract foreign investment, accelerating RMB internationalization, and “telling China’s economic development story well” to influence global public opinion.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, a top economist at the Bank of China Securities unpacks the potential trade impacts of a second Trump administration on China. He argues that Trump 2.0 may not be universally unfavorable from Beijing’s perspective, given he is entering his second term more focused on domestic issues and China currently maintains a lower trade deficit with the United States than other countries. Though he suggests Trump 2.0 could be less volatile than Trump 1.0, Guan cautions that Beijing still needs to prepare for U.S.-China trade relations to worsen and views domestic reforms and economic performance improvements as key to strengthening China’s position.
Three Chinese economists from JD.com lay out potential impacts of tariffs that U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to impose on China, arguing that U.S. domestic concerns will most likely reduce the duration and magnitude of such measures, thereby minimizing their impacts on the Chinese economy. They argue that regardless of the scale of Trump’s trade actions, Beijing should seek to bolster its national strength through proactive international trade integration with other countries.
Guo Kai, the executive president of CF40, a think tank focusing on finance and economic issues, argues that the problem of overcapacity is being used in the U.S. to drive election politics, rather than being viewed purely as an economic concern. Domestically, he attributes overcapacity as a negative externality to China’s rapid manufacturing growth, and makes several policy recommendations to address the issue.
In this lengthy article, a BRI researcher at China Development Institute, a Shenzhen-based think tank, outlines perceived challenges to the Belt and Road Initiative around its 10th anniversary. These include geopolitical risks from competition with the United States, political and financial instability within partner countries, weak economic growth, and ill-defined goals and poor marketing. The author recommends Beijing improve risk monitoring and project oversight to manage financial and economic risks, and improve the BRI’s reputation across the globe by deepening diplomatic cooperation with a wide array of countries.
This is a transcript of a July 2023 speech delivered by Shi Yinhong, an international relations scholar at Renmin University, and an interview conducted by Xue Li, a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and Politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Shi argues that due to rising suspicion of China in developing countries and economic resource constraints at home, Beijing must become much more targeted and responsive to the needs of developing countries in initiating and facilitating projects along the BRI. Shi also encourages Beijing and Chinese experts to be careful when making public assessments of the geo-strategic significance of the BRI so as not to raise concerns in potential partner countries.
Yao Yang, a leading economist at Peking University, argues pessimistic assessments of China’s growth trajectory underestimate strengths of the Chinese economy. These strengths, in Yao’s view, include China’s technological prowess, especially in clean energy products of the future such as EVs and solar panels, and its scale and cost advantages in manufacturing. Yao argues that Western efforts to “derisk” may impinge on China’s technological development temporarily, but will come at higher costs for the United States and its partners, given the funds required to reshore manufacturing and the projected revenue losses of selling key technology products to China.
Experts from China Agricultural University argue the war in Ukraine will have long-term impacts on food supply chains and the global economy, causing many states to improve agricultural self-sufficiency, hoard supplies, and restrict exports. In this environment, the scholars suggest Beijing reduce its vulnerability to Western sanctions and enhance its influence over international food supply chains by encouraging Chinese agricultural conglomerates to develop a larger international presence and by better regulating and supporting agricultural production and innovation at home.
The CCP Politburo holds “collective study sessions” on a semi-regular basis, in which an outside academic or government expert leads a discussion on a selected topic. Such sessions are important signals as to what issues the senior leadership finds important. The eighth collective study session of the 20th Central Committee Politburo was held on September 27, 2023 and was presided over by Xi Jinping. At this session, Xi delivered a speech to Party cadres where he emphasized the need for China to participate in WTO reform, enhance its attractiveness to foreign investment, and improve its position in global value chains.