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Media Report
February 21 , 2018
  • CNN：A massive US farming industry fears China trade trouble
    CNN reports: "One of America's biggest farming industries fears it could find itself in China's cross hairs if President Trump keeps ramping up trade tensions between the world's two largest economies. China is the world's biggest buyer of US soybeans. It imported $14 billion worth of them in 2016, according to the US Department of Agriculture. "If there were increased trade tensions, soybeans could likely be a potential target in any Chinese retaliation," said Paul Burke, the North Asia regional director for the US Soybean Export Council. That's a big worry for an industry that supports tens of thousands of jobs in the US, many of them in states that voted for Trump in the 2016 election. Trump has already irritated Beijing by slapping tariffs on solar panels last month. He now has until April to decide whether to accept Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross's recommendation to take measures to restrict steel and aluminum imports. The Chinese Commerce Ministry said that if Trump's final decision on the metals "affects China's interests, we will take necessary measures to defend our rights.""
  • Business Insider：North Korea falls into $1.7 billion trade deficit with China
    Business Insider reports: "New economic data shows North Korea buying more and selling less to its biggest trade partner, China — and it likely indicates that a US-led wave of sanctions are starting to bite. North Korea spent $3.3 billion on Chinese imports in 2017, an uptick from last year, but only exported $1.6 billion in goods over the last twelve months, according to an NK News review of data from China's General Administration of Customs. North Korea's 2017 exports represent a dive from 2013, when it shipped out almost $3 billion in goods to China. The dip follows a year where the US led an international push to put "maximum pressure" on North Korea by cracking down on its trade. Besides commerce with China, the US has also persuaded a raft of African countries to cut ties with Pyongyang. UN restrictions on the buying of coal, iron, gold, silver, titanium, vanadium, nickel, copper, zinc, and rare earth minerals from North Korea appear to account for much of the drop in trade. But as NK News points out, North Korea has always spent more than it appears to make from trade with China, which suggests that some alternative source of funding also exists. Countries that operate consistently at trade deficits, like the US, usually have foreign investment or foreign ownership of debt. The UN prohibits both activities in regard to North Korea. The gap in cash in and outflows suggest both that North Korea is evading sanctions and finding ways to make money that defy international law, or that China isn't accurately reporting the numbers."
  • The New York Times：China Dropped Its One-Child Policy. So Why Aren't Chinese Women Having More Babies?
    The New York Times reports: "In late 2015, when China eased its decades-long policy limiting most couples to having only one child, some heralded the change as a move toward greater reproductive freedom. But the government was only embarking on another grand experiment in population engineering: This time it was urging women — though only the right sort — to reproduce for China. The authorities in Beijing seemed terrified that plummeting birthrates, an aging population and a shrinking labor force might undermine the results of years of double-digit growth rates, and threaten the political legitimacy of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (C.C.P.). So they began allowing most married couples to have two children. They hoped that the new policy would bring three million additional births a year through 2020 and add more than 30 million workers to the labor force by 2050. But there has been no baby boom. Figures released last month show that the country's birthrate fell by 3.5 percent in 2017 compared with the previous year... According to official statistics, the number of children born to parents who already had one child did rise in 2017, but the number of first-child births dropped. Why? Because a critical mass of women appears to be in no rush to have babies, particularly urban, educated women — just the category that the C.C.P. is counting on to produce and raise a new generation of skilled, knowledge-based workers."
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