By Michael H. Armacost

Napoleon was uncommonly prescient more than 200 years ago when he described China as “a sleeping giant.” He added, “When it awakens, it will astonish the world.” As we all know, the Chinese, after a couple of bad centuries, are again wide awake.

China, which recently surpassed Japan as the world’s second largest economy, has increased its GDP at a rate of roughly 10 percent per year.

The tale of China’s recent “rise” is laced with dazzling statistics. In more than 30 years China has increased its GDP at a rate of roughly 10 percent per year, recently surpassing Japan as the world’s second largest economy.

As a global manufacturing hub, China is an exceptionally efficient producer of steel, ships, chemicals, and an amazing array of consumer goods. Its share of global trade has increased ten fold since 1978, and this year it supplanted Germany as the world’s largest exporter of goods.
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By John J. Brandon

Recently I attended the Shanghai Expo, which has been labeled as “the biggest expo ever.” China spared no expense spending $55 billion – more than twice the amount Beijing spent on the 2008 Olympics – to ensure that people could get to the Expo by adding metro lines, airport terminals, railway stations, and other infrastructure.

China's pavilion at the Shanghai 2010 Expo is three times taller than any other country pavilion. Photo used under a Creative Commons license.

By the time it ends in October, Chinese officials anticipate 70 million people will have passed through the Expo’s turnstiles. Even if there were no long lines, it is absolutely impossible to see everything in one day. With 192 countries represented, one could easily spend a week at the Shanghai Expo.
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“The U.S.-China relationship is fundamentally stable and will remain so for the foreseeable future,” begins David Lampton, Asia Foundation trustee and director of China Studies at The Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, in his new paper “Power Constrained: Sources of Mutual Strategic Suspicion in U.S-China Relations.” “This is so because the relationship is anchored in the two societies’ respective preoccupations with their own domestic problems, the United States’ draining commitments elsewhere, and the requirement for cooperation on transnational issues such as proliferation, global production chain security, energy, the environment, stabilizing the world economy, and many other positive-sum opportunities.”

Dr. Lampton was recently awarded the prestigious Scalapino Prize for this landmark paper in recognition of his contributions to America’s understanding of the vast changes underway in Asia from the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Asia Policy Assembly.

A full version of Dr. Lampton’s paper can be downloaded from NBR’s website.

By Jonathan Stromseth

The Chinese government recently received a massive American delegation in Beijing when it hosted the second annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) on May 24-25. Led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner, the 200-strong delegation included other cabinet secretaries, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, and experts on subjects ranging from energy to women’s issues. Although the dialogue did not achieve major diplomatic breakthroughs and unfolded amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, it did produce several memoranda of understanding on such topics as eco-partnerships and joint efforts to control infectious diseases.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (left) greets China's Vice Premier Wang Qishan (second from left) as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton greets Dai Bingguo, China's state councilor, fifth from left, prior to the opening ceremony of the S&ED in Beijing. SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images.

By the closing session, the S&ED appeared to have served the intended purpose of improving inter-agency cooperation, facilitating high-level dialogue, and laying the foundation for deeper bilateral cooperation in the future.

The warm speeches and calls for enhanced cooperation contrasted sharply with the state of bilateral relations only a few months earlier, when the Sino-U.S. relationship hit an unusually bumpy period following disagreements over climate negotiations in Copenhagen and threats from China to punish the U.S. for a $6 billion weapons deal with Taiwan.
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By Huang Zhen

Zhang Jiao earned her wealth in the agricultural wholesale fruit business, buying bananas from Hainan Island, oranges from Sichuan Province, and rice from Northeastern China, and selling it to wealthy markets such as Beijing. Despite her financial success, Zhang wanted to get back to the countryside, away from the harsh, constant urbanity of Beijing’s Wukesong area where she lived. She packed her things, and left for Yanqing, a mountainous, distant suburb of Beijing, where she spent three months hiking in the mountains. The state of the hillsides, bald from years of careless deforestation, shocked her, and spurred her to action.

In 1997, one year after her trip, Zhang closed her wholesale business and leased over 600 hectares of mostly mountainous, barren land from the Yanquing local government.

On her land, Zhang Jiao launched Nature University as a place where urbanites can experience nature, as well as learn how to protect it.

Without much prior knowledge of ecology and reforestation, Zhang encountered difficulties and failures when she first began her reforestation project. Many of the trees she planted, not native to the area, couldn’t survive the harsh conditions and died as saplings.
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By John J. Brandon

For the past 23 years, May 31 has held significance that few are even aware of – World No Tobacco Day. Started in 1987 by the World Health Organization (WHO), World No Tobacco Day has for almost a quarter century encouraged 24 hours of abstinence from all forms of tobacco around the globe, in an attempt to shine a light on the negative health effects of tobacco use.  But smoking is on the rise in Asia – sharply – so clearly not everyone is heeding the message.

Of the world’s 1.3 billion tobacco smokers, 700 million live in Asia. China, India, and Indonesia are the world’s largest consumers of tobacco. China’s 350 million smokers puff on 2 trillion cigarettes a year. Cigarette smoking in Indonesia has increased by 26 percent over the past 15 years. Increased smoking is having considerable public health consequences across the region. As life spans increase across Asia, diseases caused by smoking – cardiovascular disease, lung disease, and various forms of cancer – are overtaking infections as a leading cause of premature death. Of the 5.5 million people who die from smoking-related illnesses each year, half are in Asia. China and Indonesia alone account for 1.7 million smoking deaths. By 2050, researchers estimate that smoking deaths in Asia will be four times what they are today.
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By V. Bruce J. Tolentino

As tantalizing hints of recovery from the global financial crisis pop up in international economic statistics, a curious dichotomy of narratives about the status of various Asian economies has emerged in the international media:

China Dominant

First, there is the big story, related with relish and surprise, of unexpected and robust economic recovery in most countries across Asia, with a dominant, triumphant China leading the way. Meanwhile, more-developed Asian economies – such as Japan, which is commonly portrayed as somewhat stuck in a low-growth, lack-luster rut – are seen as mere supporting players.
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By V. Bruce J. Tolentino

On Earth Day 2010, Asia has much to be thankful for. While the recent global financial crisis hit Asia hard, most of Asia’s governments acted swiftly and decisively and succeeded, against prevailing expectations, to limit the impact of the financial debacle. They had learned the hard way from the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Intertwined with the global financial crisis was the food price crisis of 2007-2009: long-term global trends in population growth, rising incomes, competing non-food use of crops, falling investments in agricultural productivity, and lower food stocks were jarred by sudden supply shocks in key producing countries. The panicky procurement and knee-jerk trade bans hurriedly implemented by several governments, particularly India and the Philippines, sparked a food price spiral – that spiraled out of control.
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By Fu Xin and Han Mei

When Kang Chunmin heard that a law protecting the historic city wall built during the Ming Dynasty in the ancient capital of Xi’an, his hometown, passed in November 2009, he was pleased. He was further pleased to see that his comments on the draft law had actually made it into the final legislation. Kang was one of more than 180 Xi’an residents who provided comments during the drafting phase of the Xi’an Regulations on the Protection of City Wall before it passed. During a meeting with the Xi’an Legislative Affairs Office representatives, law professors and city residents, including Kang, recommended that the regulation forbid any carving or painting on the wall, and any events or performances on or around it that could potentially cause damage.

After seeing the final version of the law, Kang said, “The government has heard the views of ordinary citizens. … Public participation in this drafting process not only helped educate the public on the value of protecting our city wall, but also helped build trust between us and the government and generated enthusiasm from the general public to participate in more government decision-making in the future.”

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By Gretchen Kunze

The Mekong River, the longest in Southeast Asia, is at its lowest reported water level in 20 years. The river runs through six countries – China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam – but the highest percentage (35 percent) of the river’s overall water flow runs through Laos. The dramatic effects of the low water level here are palpable. In past weeks, downtown Vientiane businesses and homes have experienced reduced water pressure and even the stoppage of water supply during business hours. Boats in Luang Prabang and northern Laos that daily ferry tourists and cargo along the river and make up a significant part of the economy are currently beached for the first time in memory because it is too dangerous or just impossible to navigate the now-shallow waters. The hospitals in Vientiane are without water supply at peak hours and are busy brainstorming stop-gap solutions such as building larger holding tanks or drilling more artesian wells. The maternity and surgery wards are the biggest users of water, so they are the most affected. Recognizing the severity of the issue, the Prime Minister urged ministries and government offices last week to actively address the impact of this water shortage crisis.

As the country that holds the largest percentage of the Mekong River, Laos' industries, such as fishing, have been dramatically affected by current low water levels.

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