My questions to a Chinese speaker at a recent international conference

* The Western view is that the financial crisis was caused by a combination of excessive debt, huge leverage and non-transparency. What is the Chinese view of the causes of the crisis?

* The Americans accuse the Chinese of keeping artificially low the exchange value of their currency, the Remnimbi: what is your view? If the value of the currency rises, will that harm the economy? If not, why does China not allow the value of the currency to rise?

* China has produced several economic miracles since it started liberalisation. Now it is trying to encourage its domestic consumption to grow and we know from economic history that such a process has always till now taken decades. Will China be able to produce another miracle and speed this up too?

* China is very financially NON-transparent. What group of people in China benefits by such non-transparency?

* Will the greying (ageing) of China slow down the economy?

* What about the environmental pressures on China?

* People in the West are very concerned about the suppression of human rights in China and the suppression of non-Han peoples such as the Tibetans, and therefore do not trust China's huge military expenditure specifically in view of disputed territories ranging from Japan to India. What do you feel about this matter?

Not surprisingly, none of the questions were answered with any degree of transparency or comprehensibility...except the first: clearly, at least in this Chinese speaker's view, the crisis was entirely America's fault. Sphere: Related Content

On China's currency, the Remnimbi

I see with regret that i was partly wrong in my post of March 24 this year.

My impression was that China's trade figures would unravel fast - they have not yet unravelled!

Meanwhile, I am also happy to note that I was at least partially right!: Today's news is that Premier Wen has pushed back against international criticism of China’s currency policy, saying that acceding to demands for a faster rise in the renminbi could cause social unrest in China - exactly what I had said in that post.

It seems that understanding at least some economic fundamentals does not help you to understand the time-frame in which things are going to happen! Sphere: Related Content