An updated version was posted in New America Media.
Friday, August 31, 2012
The U.S. Must Avoid the Trap on East China Sea
An updated version was posted in New America Media.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Africa is too cozy with China to Suit the West
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
The End of the Dollar is Neigh
I have been tracking currency swaps that China has entered with other nations. The aforementioned article points out that China is not the only country making this trade provision that would by-pass the need to hold onto dollars.
No one in the mainstream media seems to be following this global trend of shying away from the dollar nor examining the consequence to the American economy when the value of the dollar plummets and inflation grabs the consumer by the throat.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Condemning Olympic Apparel Made in China: Another Tempest in a Teapot Brewed by Congress
See another version in New America Media. The LA Times carried the astonished view of the controversy from China.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Ukraine is Next on Swap Deal with China
Ukraine is also about to conclude a swap deal with Russia and restart negotiation with Belarus. Other countries have announced bilateral currency swap deals not involving China. This is clearly a global trend to minimize exposure to holding American dollars.
My last blog on this subject picks up the thread on my tracking of China's currency swaps.
Friday, June 22, 2012
China's Latest Swap Agreement is with Brazil
Since I have been keeping track, this is the first swap agreement China has entered with another member nation of BRICS, the others being Russia, India and South Africa.
Of course, while China has no formal swap agreement with Japan, their publicly announced agreement to settle their trade in their own currency and bypass converting into dollars is potentially a much bigger deal than the swap deal with Brazil just by virtue of the magnitude of their bilateral trade, well north of $300 billion annually.
Many have speculated on the significance of China's gradual introduction of the renminbi as an international currency.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Internationalization of the Renminbi
When should you begin to stuff renminbi under your mattress? Now. When will you be glad that you did? The author thinks it could come as soon as 36 months. Maybe not says China central banker, but let the market decide.
I have been monitoring this situation since I wrote about the bilateral swap agreements and plan to continue to do so. See also my April post on related matter between the renminbi and the yen. Certainly China-Japan bilateral trade represents a significant part of global trade and the significance of settlement that by-passes the dollar has been published by several sources recently.
See this twit for a recent comprehensive explanation of the benefits of swap agreements: The BRIC Currency Swap Proposal Is A Global Game Changer http://read.bi/L221R5
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
America's Drone Warfare Trivializes the Meaning of Collateral Damage
Use of drones can come back and bite our collective ass. See arguments presented on why drone warfare is illegal.
Drone warfare is unlikely to become a topic of presidential campaign and debate but thoughtful Americans, perhaps a contradiction in terms, need to think deeply about this practice before the joystick jockeys wearing uniforms begin to think of this exercise as just another video game.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Reflections from travel through Central Asia
Mountain range as seen from a Bishkek hotel |
Statue of El Khoresm in Khiva |
The next ruthless ruler to dominate central Asia was Timur, whose detractors derisively called Timur the lame, which in the West became Tamerlane. Timur was home grown from a village outside of Samarkand who rose to conquer much of this region roughly a century and a half after Genghis Khan. He made Samarkand his capitol and built a great city for posterity. He also destroyed other cities and kingdoms that rivaled his power, such as the kingdom of Khorezm based in Khiva. At its peak, Timur’s empire rival in size to that of Genghis Khan and Alexander. In 1405, nearing 70, he died on the road as he was preparing to invade China. The threat of his invasion was said to lead to Cheng Ho’s sailing the seven seas as the Ming Emperor sought alliances that might mitigate the threat of Timur.
Ivory rhyton on display at Hermitage |
The roads in 5 Stans are extremely uneven. New roads are excellent. A JV, we were told, built the toll road from the border to Khujand in Tajikistan, with a Chinese company. While driving from Bishkek to Lake Issyk-Kye, we were mostly on a road still under construction. When completed, it was going to be a major arterial highway from Kyrgyzstan to China. At a roadside restaurant, I was delighted to take over from our guide and ordered a Chinese meal from a menu with dishes written in Chinese.
For those of you interested in more photos and less verbiage, I have produced a photo book on Shutterfly that you are welcome to access and view.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
America: Get Ready for Big Money in Presidential Politics
Both Obama and Romney are gearing up for serious fund raising campaigns, each fund raising event to garner a million dollars or more. When the dust finally settles and the next president is elected, the total amount spent on this political campaign will exceed $2 billion, perhaps even $3 billion depending who is doing the counting and what is being included in the tally.
So, in this exercise of sham-o-cracy, which is more important, your vote or your checkbook?
Is this the model of democracy, proudly made in America, that other nations should aspire to?
Who's kidding who?
Friday, April 6, 2012
Internationalization of the Yen and Yuan
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Internationalization of the Renminbi
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Demonizing China for Fun and Profit
Mike Daisey is the latest but not likely the last to attain fame and fortune by making up stories about China. Daisey’s case was a widely acclaimed monologue entitled “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” supposedly based a six-day visit to Shenzhen China and his encounters with various factory workers—except as we were to find out very little of it actually happened.
Daisey’s performance on stage was a hit and he became a media celebrity that talked about his China experiences. This American Life a radio program on National Public Radio dedicated an hour on Daisey and excerpts of his monologue. Up to this point, his monologue was considered to be a factual presentation of his encounters in China since he never qualified it in any way.
Unfortunately for Daisey, some of his more flamboyant assertions on his one-man show rang hollow to those that know China. This American Life then retroactively did some fact checking and found that Daisey had lied to the program. In the end, This American Life made a full retraction of the story they carried about Daisey. In the retraction, the listener could hear Daisey’s awkward and embarrassing retreat as Ira Glass disassembled Daisey’s lies step by painful step.
By the end of the hour program, Daisey apologized to Ira Glass for appearing on his program and misled the American public into thinking that he was doing journalism when he was only doing theater—a medium where mixing facts with fiction are permitted.
An important reason for Daisey’s initial success is his choice of topic. Much of American public are susceptible and open to hearing anything negative about China. I have reduced the formula of success as ABCDEF: Americans bash China by distortion, exaggeration and fabrication.
The earliest known example that came to my attention was the so-called human rights activist, Harry Wu. He made a decent living talking about China’s human rights conditions based on half-truths and lies. He has had the good fortune of never appearing on a stage visible enough that someone was inclined to give him a once over fact check.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Hey China! Stop Stealing Our Stuff
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The Myth of China Dominating the American Economy
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Debunking Cyber Warfare and Other Illicit Derring Do
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
China's Reminbi as a Global Currency
Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing tsunami from Wall Street that almost swamped the financial world in 2008, China has been busy signing bilateral currency swap agreements in order to minimize the exposure of holding too many dollars.
Such swap agreements allow the two signatory nations to do business with each other using their own currency and skip having to buy dollars and settle the trade invoices in dollars.
This article co-authored with Henry Tang posted in China-U.S. Focus apropos on leap year day can be read in its entirety here.
On going tracking of bilateral swap agreements China has entered can be found here.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Linsanity too late for Soldiers Chen and Lew
By now, everybody knows linsanity refers to Jeremy Lin, the basketball star from Harvard, undrafted by any of the NBA teams, who warmed the bench for two other professional teams before coming off the bench for the NY Knicks in an act of desperation by the coach. Lin promptly led his team to a win, the first of nine wins in the next eleven games. He became the toast of New York and an instant worldwide sensation.
The Knicks took on Dallas Mavericks, last year’s NBA champ and I saw a real deal. Lin drove through a forest of opponents for layups or passed to wide-open teammates. He sank long-range three pointers in crucial moments or he drew the defenders so that his teammates were unimpeded as they threw in three point bombs. He was fearless and physical as the game dictated.
In the post game analysis, the great Magic Johnson unequivocally declared that Lin’s star presence would be in the NBA for a long time. None of his fellow panelists disagreed.
Lin’s heroics on the court immediately drew a following from the Asian communities of the world, heretofore thought too small, too short and too frail to play this contact sport. But Lin didn’t just become a role model for Asian Americans. He has won the ultimate accolade: every kid--black, brown or white--on the neighborhood playground now aspires to be a Jeremy Lin.
Linsanity also caused me to reflect on the tragic fate of Danny Chen and Harry Lew, two American soldiers who took their own lives in Afghanistan. These were two unrelated victims of hazing by their fellow soldiers. Sadly the misery they experienced was so brutal and unrelenting that they found ending their young lives the only way out of their torment.
These incidents reflect a failure of American values and the leadership of the military: The former because America continues to regard people of Asian ancestry as not American, but as the other; the latter because the military not only failed to prevent such racism from their ranks but also failed to impose appropriate penalty on the perpetrators for the hate crimes.
Hate crimes against African Americans evoke high decibel outcries but hardly a murmur when perpetrated against Asian Americans.
It will be up to the Asian American community to make noise in order to rectify the wrong. During the first Gulf War, friendly missiles shot down two American helicopters. The pilots who pulled the trigger were exonerated but not Captain Jim Wang of the Awac flying surveillance.
The late Sam Chu Lin, a mainstream media star who became a voice of conscience, rallied the Chinese American community and with the help of the Committee of 100 made sure that Captain Wang had proper defense counsel leading to dismissal of all charges against him.
Wen Ho Lee was the designated scapegoat and sacrificial lamb in the political struggle between the Republican Congress and Democrat President Clinton. He would have rotted in jail as a spy for China had the Asian American community not come to his support. Sam played an active role in this case as well.
In this case, the American public took no pains to make the distinction as to whether Lee, who came from Taiwan, was Chinese or not. To this day, some still considers him a spy though the court found him not guilty of any espionage charges. Those that still accuse Lee of spying have also forgotten that the court did find the FBI lying in court under oath.
Maybe Jeremy Lin with his continued success will erase some of the prejudices that reside in America against Asians. Perhaps linsanity, had it occurred a couple years earlier, could have blunted some of the bias of the American soldiers and caused them to regard ethnic Asian in their ranks as less gook and more fellow soldiers.
But we can’t count on Jeremy Lin to carry entire load for racial equality on his shoulders. We, the Asian American community, must stand up and demand our rights as full fledged, tax paying, law abiding citizens to all the respect pertaining thereto just like the next person.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
The Making of Renminbi on Becoming a Global Currency
After the financial crisis of 2008, it became obvious that the dollar was on a long term path of declining value. While China has not been the only country to want to avoid holding on to too many dollars, China has been the busiest in entering currency swaps with its many trading partners. Bilateral currency swaps allow the participating nations to pay their trade invoices with their own currency and not with dollars.
Here is a compilation of swap agreements China has entered to date.
2008, December - South Korea, 180 bn yuan since extended
2009, January - Hong Kong, 200 bn yuan since doubled to 400 bn in Nov 2011
February - Malaysia, 80 bn yuan, extended 2/12 & increased to 180 bn yuan
March - Indonesia, 100 bn yuan
- Belarus, 20 bn yuan
- Argentina, 70 bn yuan
June - Brazil, no exact amount known
2010, June - Iceland, 3.5 bn yuan
July - Singapore, 150 bn yuan
2011, April - Uzbekistan, 0.7 bn yuan
- Mongolia, 5 bn yuan, doubled to 10 bn yuan in March 2012
June - Kazakstan, 70 bn yuan
December - Thailand, 70 bn yuan
Pakistan, 10 bn yuan
Japan, no exact amount known
2012, January - U.A.E., 35 bn yuan
March - Australia, 200 bn yuan
Other imminent swap deals currently under discussion include Nigeria and South Africa. The number of deals are likely to accelerate. As more countries hold and accept Reminbi, the more appealing the yuan will become as the alternative to holding too many dollars and more bilateral swap agreements will result.
Even if all the swap agreements were drawn down in full, there might be as much as two trillion yuan circulating outside of China. This might be enough liquidity for the renminbi to act as a de facto global currency but not enough to replace the dollar as the hard currency.
We can be sure, however, is that the dollar will cease to be the only global currency because no one will be satisfied with owning a currency that decrease in value with time. Japan has entered a currency swap deal not just with China but also with India, and Turkey with Malaysia. These are some examples how others are looking for ways of going around the dollar.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Keeping Manufacturing in America Won't be Easy
A lengthy analysis on why jobs are flowing to China based on the Apple iPhone experience appeared in the New York Times. One of the most important findings of the NYT piece was that America simply no longer has the skill sets to meet Apple’s demands for a high quality, technology product. America has lost the edge to make things.
Advanced manufacturing depends on staffing the factory floor from the production line to the line supervisors with people possessing technical skills. The training programs Obama talked about might serve as temporary Band-Aids that might keep certain production from leaving in the short term. But to maintain a world leadership position, the US will need far more technicians, engineers and scientists than the country is producing.
For many years long before the 2008 financial meltdown, the smartest and brightest of American graduates were pursuing careers on Wall Street rather than careers in science and engineering. Making financial products was easier and more lucrative than manufacturing hard goods. Value was created more rapidly and more profitably by financial manipulation than by selling hard goods.
During the height of Japan bashing in the 1980’s, the late legendary Akio Morita, CEO of Sony, said America was good at moving money from one pocket to the other but not in making anything.
For decades the majority of Americans, most of the so-called 99%, have been getting a basic education inferior to what their parents received. Although politicians readily acknowledge the importance of public education, budget allocations did not follow lip service. Classroom size got bigger and kids were taught fewer hours in a day and fewer school days in a year.
To meet the required budget cuts, schools are forced to cut out arts, music and other non-core courses and after school activities. Bare bones programs leave students uninspired as they sleep walked to graduation not much wiser than when they started. Teachers waved the students through rather than making sure that the lessons took hold.
Of course, there are pockets of exception. Perhaps 5% of the Americans can afford to subsidize their local school budget out of their pockets and help raise the quality of education for their children or send their kids to better quality private schools. But that leaves a lot of untrained minds that will not realize their full potential.
In some parts of America, pro science is regarded as anti-religion, or worse yet pro religion is ipso facto considered as antithetical to science. The local sentiment that religious concepts should be taught on same footing as science, such as creationism vs. evolutionism, would leave young minds poorly prepared for a productive adult life in a technology driven world.
Out of the forty 2012 finalists of Intel Science Talent Search, 14 have been identified as ethnic Chinese, 7 with South Asian surnames and 5 others with some other Asian surnames. For many years now, more than half of the finalists, high school students with outstanding aptitude in sciences, are first generation immigrants or sons and daughters of immigrants from Asia.
Immigrants from China, India and Russia, in particular, come from cultures with deep respect for learning and science. They have not been in America long enough for the anti-science mentality to rub off.
So long as we are not able to turn out enough science and engineering graduates of our own, then President Obama is correct when he said we need to welcome foreign students to stay after they graduate and not push them away.
But even if immigrants lead in the development of innovations, as we see in Silicon Valley, America still needs a solid pyramid base of people with skills that would turn innovations into commercial successes. President Obama spoke of keeping and building leading edge manufacturing in the US. This is not going to happen unless there is a fundamental shift in the American attitude about the importance of math and science.
__________________
An edited version appeared in New America Media and Nation of Change.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Lesson from Taiwan's Recent Election
Ma won by a 6% margin, less than the 17% landslide from his first election but nonetheless a surprisingly comfortable lead considering the widely anticipated wire photo finish with his opponent from the opposition party. There were no last minute shenanigan, such as an election eve assassination attempt, to interrupt the proceedings. Some observers have even gone to proclaim that Taiwan's orderly exercise in democracy should inspire their brethren on the mainland.
Actually, I think Taiwan could serve as a lesson for America. Essentially three out of four voters in Taiwan turned out to vote. In the US, one out of two would be doing good. Nearly 200,000 Taiwanese flew back from the mainland, where they were working to vote in the election. Uncounted thousands even flew from the San Francisco Bay Area to vote. Since Ma won by more than 800,000 votes, the oversea returnees can't be said to spell the difference.
But we can say, they went back to Taiwan to vote because they cared. We have not seen such voter concern and passion in the US for many elections. Just the opposite is happening. We are inundated with negative lies and deliberate distortions funded by the rich to the point that we no longer give a damn. For decades America has not been a democracy of the people but has become corrupted by highest bidders.