China's Emergence as a Superpower (2015 onwards)

[AdamG]

Taiwan was once the principal target of China’s hybrid warfare activities. Not any more, says Michael Raska. Members of the European Union have also become the focus of Beijing’s strategic influence operations, especially those countries that are part of China’s 16+1 regional cooperation formula.

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Libra...g=en&id=195268

[davidbfpo]

From an IISS Strategic Comment, it starts with:

Amid the troubles visible in China’s economy, statistical problems and anomalies are rising to the surface, bringing into doubt some bedrock economic indicators. Arguably the most important of these is China’s vaunted trade surplus. A large gap between payments recorded by China’s banks and the value of imports and exports reported by Customs has led several economists to wonder publicly how to measure China’s trade volumes. It is already well established that hundreds of billions of dollars in ‘hot money’ flows through the trade account. It is also well known that banks do not make payments in trade with reference to General Administration of Customs (GAC) documentation, so there is good reason for the numbers to differ. Balance of payments data shows that, in net terms, money is leaving China despite the reported surplus. But few have systematically questioned or examined the trade surplus.

It ends with:

Only with last summer’s stock-market debacle did scepticism about the Chinese economy and financial picture become predominant. But even that failed to prepare the world for a full reassessment of China’s economy. Large trade discrepancies are one troubling aspect of the uncertainty surrounding China. They make a currency crisis, once unthinkable, look more likely. In turn, such a crisis could reveal that much of what investors and analysts thought they knew about China’s economy – from its export power to its foreign-exchange reserves, from the health of its banks to the size of its GDP – has been substantially overstated.

Link, full text is behind a pay-wall:http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/...a-economy-99a6

[CloseDanger]

China Will Probably Implode - The National Interest

[AdamG]

China Will Probably Implode - The National Interest

Not like that hasn't happened before...

[davidbfpo]

A 16 pgs report by ECFR which:

argues that, after decades of hiding behind the rhetoric of non-interference, China has undergone a paradigm shift in its thinking. This is spurred by two motives: the wish to build its reputation as a good global citizen, and the wish to protect its interests on the continent – both investments and the lives of the over 1 million Chinese nationals based there.

Link to paper:http://www.ecfr.eu/page/-/Into_Afric...t_PDF_1135.pdf

[davidbfpo]

Raffaello Pantucci (RUSI) watches Central Asia closely and opens a series of five articles on http://www.eurasianet.org.

Opens with:

EurasiaNet is running a series this week looking at the state of relations between China and the five nations of former Soviet Central Asia. China expert Raffaello Pantucci opens the series with a survey of China’s role in the region. China’s rise in Central Asia marks one of the most consequential changes in regional geopolitics since the turn of the century.

Link:http://www.eurasianet.org/node/79306

[davidbfpo]

A British academic SME on China has this short comment; which opens with:

Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency was followed with amazement and apprehension across East Asia. China in particular was on tenterhooks – and now it needs to figure out what to do.

Link:https://theconversation.com/china-grapples-with-the-mixed-blessing-of-a-trump-victory-68625?

Can the USA co-operate with PRC once President Trump is in office? Trade is more than export/import and buying US Treasury debt.