From: Grant Callaghan (grantc4@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri 13 Dec 2002 - 03:47:01 GMT
From the South China Morning Post
Friday, December 13, 2002
Economic ministries ready for a reshuffle
REUTERS in Beijing After a generational change in the Communist Party
leadership last month, China is laying the groundwork for a sweeping
reshuffle of government ministers, including key economic posts.
The new line-up will be formally unveiled at the annual meeting of the
National People's Congress in March, but most changes have already been
decided.
"Given the generational change at the congress, we should see a lot of the
older guys moving off the state council and the new guard taking over," one
Western diplomat said.
"They are stressing continuity, but personnel changes will inevitably affect
policy in some way over the long term."
Analysts are looking especially closely at the key economic bodies, the
Ministry of Foreign Trade, Central Bank, Ministry of Finance and the two
super-ministries overseeing the economy - the State Development and Planning
Commission and State Economic and Trade Commission.
Foreign Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng, 63, is likely to be replaced by his
deputy, Lu Fuyuan, 57, ministry sources said.
A physicist by training, Mr Lu is an all-rounder who spent two years
studying in Canada in the 1980s and has been vice-minister of machinery and
vice-minister of education.
The competition for the Central Bank appears to have been narrowed down to
Zhou Xiaochuan, now head of the securities industry watchdog, and Liu
Minkang, head of the Bank of China, banking sources say.
If Mr Zhou takes over the Central Bank, Mr Liu is a leading candidate to
replace him as head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, some
securities brokers say.
Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng, 64, kept his seat on the Central Committee
and is likely to become a state councillor or a vice-chairman of the NPC.
Mr Xiang's replacement is not yet clear, but a source said it was unlikely
to be his deputy, Lou Jiwei.
Li Rongrong, head of the State Economic and Trade Commission, which oversees
state sector reform, trade and environmental protection, is due to replace
Zeng Peiyan as head of the State Development and Planning Commission.
The commission covers fiscal policy, foreign investment and social
development.
Mr Zeng, a key ally of President Jiang Zemin, is likely to become a
vice-premier.
Mr Li is expected to be replaced by commission vice-minister Xie Xuren.
Mr Xie is a former president of the Agricultural Development Bank, who in
2000 became a deputy head of the party's Central Financial Working
Committee, the top party body overseeing financial reform.
Thursday, December 12, 2002
Why you shouldn't bet against the Pearl River Delta region
MICHAEL ENRIGHT and EDITH SCOTT As interest in closer economic interaction
between Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta grows, it is becoming
fashionable to compare the Pearl River area with the Yangtze River Delta.
While the discussion has been useful, there is a tendency to make
inappropriate comparisons, to miss the important features of competition
between the two, or to fail to even specify the regions being compared in
the first place.
Many observers include Shanghai plus all of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces
in the Yangtze River Delta despite the Chinese Statistical Bureau
definition, which includes only parts of southern Jiangsu and northern
Zhejiang. They then tend to compare this overly large region with a Pearl
River Delta economic zone that excludes Hong Kong, Macau and parts of
Guangdong.
This means most comparisons fail to capture the overall impact of the two
regions. As the table shows, the greater Pearl River Delta region, including
the delta's economic zone, Hong Kong, and Macau had a gross domestic product
roughly 25 per cent higher than the Yangtze River Delta economic zone last
year.
The Pearl River Delta economic zone by itself out-exported the Yangtze River
Delta economic zone and obtained nearly as much foreign capital. When Hong
Kong is added in, the balance is shifted substantially.
However, if the greater Pearl River Delta region is treated as a single
entity, the trade and investment within the region should be eliminated.
(The export figure of the greater Pearl River Delta region in the table has
had Hong Kong imports from the mainland subtracted to avoid double counting
of Hong Kong's re-exports, but includes Hong Kong's exports to the Pearl
River Delta region. Utilised foreign capital in the greater Pearl River
Delta region includes Hong Kong investment in the Pearl River Delta economic
zone and Pearl River Delta investment in Hong Kong).
The Yangtze River Delta region is generally seen as having several
advantages over the Pearl River Delta region, including size of population
and economy, geographic location, workforce capabilities, government
support, business tradition and unified development. The large population
and gross domestic product of the Yangtze River Delta region are seen to be
attractive to firms looking to sell into the China market.
The Yangtze River Delta is viewed as being in the heart of the mainland and
therefore as providing easy access to the Yangtze basin's 360 million people
and China's 1.3 billion population. The Pearl River Delta is viewed as
peripheral by comparison. Many believe that Shanghai and the Yangtze River
Delta region will reassert their historical roles as centres for business,
industry and commerce.
The Yangtze River Delta region is seen as having a commercially savvy
workforce bolstered by the presence of several of China's leading
universities. Shanghai is viewed as a ''first-tier'' location, where mobile
professionals want to live. Guangzhou and Shenzhen are viewed as ''second
tier''.
The Yangtze River Delta region has benefited from substantial backing from
the central government. Billions of dollars of investments and government
support programmes have attracted thousands of foreign firms. The prevailing
sentiment is that the Pearl River Delta region receives far less central
government support.
Travelling around the Yangtze Delta region does not require immigration or
Customs checks, as is the case for going from Hong Kong into its
neighbouring areas. A final advantage often cited for the Yangtze River
Delta region has been unified development, in comparison with the fragmented
development in the Pearl delta.
While some of these advantages hold, others suffer under closer inspection.
The gross domestic product of the Yangtze River Delta exceeds that of the
Pearl River Delta region only when Hong Kong is excluded. The lack of a
single national market and transportation difficulties limit the markets
that can be reached from the Yangtze delta. Central China is as easily
reached from the Pearl River Delta.
Guangzhou and Shenzhen might not be ''first-tier'' cities yet, but Hong Kong
undoubtedly is. Central government support might help the Yangtze Delta, but
government involvement in China has always been a double-edged sword. The
Yangtze River Delta region has had sizeable infrastructure investments, but
the Pearl River Delta region could eventually match them. As for unified
development, the locations of Shanghai's new port (on land obtained from
Zhejiang province) and the new airport (being to the east of Shanghai) can
hardly be viewed as in the interest of the rest of the Yangtze Delta region.
The Pearl River Delta region benefits from links with Hong Kong, its
international orientation, its history of reform, its flexibility and
decentralised development, its ability to attract skills and resources, and
its clusters of internationally successful industries. Hong Kong has been a
source of investment, technology, information, management and knowledge of
markets. Through its links with Hong Kong, the Pearl River Delta region has
superior access to the global economy.
As China develops, the Pearl River Delta's share of trade and investment
will go down, but the absolute magnitude should continue to grow. Anecdotal
evidence suggests that a higher proportion of foreign investments in the
Pearl River Delta region actually make more money than those elsewhere in
China.
Early opening has made the Pearl River Delta region more oriented towards
markets and private-sector development. The region has been forced to
compete in international markets without large state subsidies.
Pragmatic leadership and a willingness to grow off-plan have allowed the
region to find new niches, to adjust quickly to the market and to attract
factory workers, scientists and engineers from around China.
When combined with Hong Kong, which is still ahead of Shanghai as a
financial centre and, according to our own research, has 10 times the number
of multinational Asia or Asia-Pacific headquarters of either Shanghai or
Beijing, the Pearl delta looks well-positioned.
There are several forces that might shift the balance. These include entry
into the World Trade Organisation, greater market orientation, the emergence
of private enterprise and the development of national markets. It is
difficult to predict the relative impact of these forces. Greater openness
might benefit regions that were closed in the past and large population
centres, like the Yangtze delta.
Better access to international markets will expand opportunities in the
export-oriented industries of the Pearl River Delta. Most foreign investors
will eventually want a presence in both deltas. There will be competition
between the two regions, but dynamism in one should help rather than hinder
the other.
Michael Enright is the Sun Hung Kai professor at the School of Business,
University of Hong Kong. Edith Scott is a consultant and lawyer. This
article is based on research sponsored by the Project 2022 Foundation on the
economic interaction of Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta region.
Friday, December 13, 2002
Observer
ANTHONY LAWRANCE The problem with elections, Josef Stalin once observed, is
that you never know who is going to win them. The Soviet dictator's one-time
student, the late Chiang Ching-kuo, must have had those words on his mind
when he launched Taiwan's drive towards democracy in 1987 by lifting martial
law. His fears would certainly have been realised had he lived to see his
party, the Kuomintang, driven from the presidential office in 2000 and lose
its legislative majority last year.
This year, those same words could be coming back to haunt Chiang's
successor: Taiwan's ''Mr Democracy'', former president Lee Teng-hui.
Sure enough, Taiwan has been given what its people expected of Mr Lee when
he took over from Chiang: free and fair elections. They just have not
produced quite the result he must have been hoping for.
What they have produced is tough to judge, as democracy is still relatively
new to Taiwan. But the results do seem to be falling short of expectations.
Although roughly 80 per cent of the country's 23 million citizens calling
themselves benshengren (provincials) are happy to be no longer ruled by the
other 20 per cent they call waishengren (mainlanders), they do not seem to
be united in their views of how exactly they should be ruled.
This has become evident from the latest round of elections held at the
weekend in the municipalities of Taipei and Kaohsiung. Despite claims that
the polls were a show of anger against the administration of President Chen
Shui-bian, what they really showed was that Taiwan's political battle lines
are becoming increasingly etched in stone.
Personalities of the mayoral races aside, look at the statistics. In Taipei,
Mr Chen's party, the Democratic Progressive Party, took 28.5 per cent of the
vote for the city council. This is nearly the same as the 29.8 per cent it
received in 1994 when Mr Chen won the race for mayor, and only slightly less
than the 30.3 per cent it took in Ma Ying-jeou's 1998 defeat of Mr Chen.
When you combine it with what its partner in the so-called ''pan-green''
alliance, Mr Lee's Taiwan Solidarity Union, pulled in, it is 32.2 per cent.
The number rises only slightly for representatives to the national
legislature from Taipei.
To save readers having to wade through any more figures, suffice to say that
in the opposite ''pan-blue'' corner, it has become even clearer that the
percentages are just being shared among different characters.
What was once a large Kuomintang block now consists of the Kuomintang, the
People's First Party and the New Party. All pursue basically the same agenda
against the Democratic Progressive Party and Taiwan Solidarity Union. You
can bet this is not how Mr Lee thought it would pan out when he introduced
direct elections at every level of government in Taiwan during his tenure as
president. And especially not when you consider his overwhelming victory in
the 1996 presidential elections.
From 1996 to 2000, it became obvious that Mr Lee's primary aim with the
establishment of elections was to empower the majority of Taiwanese to throw
off the half-century-old yoke of the Kuomintang, the party he was leading at
the time.
What happened along the way, however, was that the aspirations of the masses
matured. Once the old guard of waishengren were deposed from within the
Kuomintang, elections came to be seen as something more than a revolutionary
weapon. People naturally started to ask more critical questions of their
revolutionary heroes such as: how do we get direct links with China? And,
perhaps more importantly: why can't you all be as handsome and well-mannered
as the nice Mr Ma?
Such ingratitude must surely rile Mr Lee. He did not likely envisage
struggling so hard for the establishment of elections in Taiwan, only to see
his ideological camp end up with just one-third of the electorate's support.
None of this is a bad thing, of course. Democracy has brought stability to
Taiwan society - just not the kind of stability desired by all of its
ambitious politicians.
It would be intriguing, however, to know what the leaders in Zhongnanhai
really think of democracy in Taiwan.
A year ago, I asked Andrew Nathan, a professor of political science at
Columbia University in New York, what he thought the Communist Party could
learn from elections in Taiwan. His answer: ''That if they hold them, they
might lose them.'' Mr Lee would surely concur.
Anthony Lawrance is the Post's managing editor.
Grant
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