Source of picture: Wikispaces. By John Richardson CHINA has as many as 400 “cancer villages”, with many of the cancer clusters being blamed on the chemicals industry. Much of the nation’s countryside – the source of China’s food supply – is contaminated with toxic chemicals, it is claimed. Experts estimate that there has been an 80% increase […]
Asian Chemical Connections
When Lower Growth Is Good News
Beijing Life on the left, with lower growth, or life on the right with a higher GDP number. What would you choose? Source of picture: Wikimedia By John Richardson WHEN is lower growth good news? Monday ‘s announcement that China grew by a relatively modest 7.7% in Q1 is one example. As the FT’s The […]
Managing China’s Middle Income Aspirations
Finding a way through…. Traffic in Shanghai. Picture: Rex Features By John Richardson WHEN the blog first visited China in the late 1990s, it travelled around Beijing in a fruitless and naive attempt to get people to really talk about everyday life. Last week was the complete opposite during our visit to Beijing and Shanghai. People initiated conversations […]
China’s New Expectations
By John Richardson THE difficulties of life in modern-day China was evident from several conversations the blog has held during the first two days of its visit to the country. “I had to get an apartment first, which cost a lot of money but luckily my parents were able to help me, and then I […]
Coal-To-Chemicals Funding Clampdown
By John Richardson Coal-to-chemicals is one of nine major industrial sectors that the China Banking Regulatory Commission has warned is blighted with overcapacity and other risks related to what it calls, rather disingenuously, “the economic cycle”. Thus, the commission has advised the state-owned banks to exercise greater caution in extending further funding to these sectors. […]
China NPC Meeting: Quality Over Quantity
China’s National People’s Congress Source of picture: Rex Features By John Richardson The focus of next week’s National People’s Congress (NPC) meeting in China – the country’s annual “parliamentary” meeting – is likely to be on the quality rather than the quantity of growth. This is reflected in the fact that almost half of […]
China Coal-To-Olefins Storm In A Teacup?
: Source: NRELC, China Coal Research Institute, HSBC estimates By John Richardson THERE has been a lot of interest in China’s coals-to-olefins (CTO) industry, with arguments that it is a very economically viable method of production. On paper, there is even more capacity due on-stream than in the US as it forges ahead with […]
China’s Environmental Balancing Act
A woman wearing a mask looks across the Pudong on 16 January this year Source of picure: Zuma/Rex Features By John Richardson A DISPUTE between state-owned refiners Sinopec and PetroChina and environmental regulators serves as a good example of the difficulties China faces in reforming its growth model. The debate about the environment is […]
Beijing Smog Highlights Reform Agenda
Picture: HAP/Quirky China News/Rex Features By John Richardson THE toxic smog that enveloped Beijing over the weekend is another example of why China’s new leaders simply have to change the economic growth model. At its worst point on Saturday night, the level of harmful particulates in the air reached as much as 36 times […]
China’s Intellectual Property Challenge
Wen Jiabao – stepping down Source of picture: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features In the last of our series of posts on China’s leadership handover, which begins today as the 18th Party Congress meets, we look at intellectua property rights protection. By John Richardson WHY bother innovating in China when a state-owned, or state-backed, company is able to steal […]
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