How Trump´s Taiwan call made Asia safer - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

Unlike most observers and diplomatic professionals, strategy analyst Shaun Rein sees president-elect´s Trump´s call to Taiwan as a brilliant move, with only a little downside, he writes in CNN. By getting this leverage, he proves to move smarter than president Obama, writes Rein.

Shaun Rein:

The reality is that Trump's move to speak on the phone with President Tsai is brilliant and has little downside. 

With a simple 10-minute phone call, rather than selling billions of arms to Taiwan, Trump shows American strength in the Asia-Pacific region and may well actually making the region safer. 

Unlike President Barack Obama and his Asia pivot policy, which the Chinese have generally ignored -- as evidenced by their continued reclamation of land in the South China Sea -- they are now going to pause and rethink all of their strategies to take Trump seriously. 

Nothing is more sacred to Beijing than one-party rule and sovereignty over land and ocean that China considers its own. Everything else is open to negotiation.

Trump has not said that he doesn't acknowledge the One-China policy, nor is he the actual president yet. 

By having a call now before he is sworn in, he will have additional leverage to negotiate with China on more core American interests than the matter of Taiwan - for instance, open shipping lanes in the South China Sea, reduced cybersecurity risks emanating from China, and less protectionism and unfair competition for American business interests in China.

More in CNN.
Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more strategy experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

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My problems with Obama´s Nairobi speech - Howard French

Howard French

Author Howard French, of China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa explains in Foreign Policy what President Obama did not mention in his Nairobi speech. Obama did not really get the fast development of Africa, and has ignored the continent.

Howard French:

The continent has famously seen a huge boom in the presence of Chinese people and business interests — both trade and investment — in the last decade or so. Less well-publicized, but just as real, many African countries are drawing interest from a wide variety of other foreign governments and business people, including nontraditional partners like Turkey, Vietnam, Russia, Malaysia, and Brazil. During this same period, the American presence on the continent has flagged, and numbers measuring U.S. economic engagement have stagnated. Obama himself spent less than 24 hours in sub-Saharan Africa during his first term, and put off what will likely be regarded as his most important visit to the continent until late in his second term.By contrast, China’s top leaders - either its president or prime minister — have been visiting Africa on a near-annual basis. 

The relative newcomers to the African economic scene are drawn by a sense of great opportunity. For starters, economic growth in Africa as a region is roughly on par with Asia’s, and perhaps even a tad faster. The continent’s population is booming in ways that suggest even greater strengthening of these trends ahead. Over the next few decades, for example, no other part of the world will have as many people of prime working age. 

Already, no other part of the world is urbanizing faster. Contrary to widespread perception, Africa’s recent economic growth is increasingly driven by services and, to a lesser but still important degree, by manufacturing. This translates into less dependence on the traditional pillar of natural resources, which have a poor record of driving development and generating widely shared wealth. 

By sticking so closely to an old-fashioned script, Obama squandered a unique chance to explain the changing realities of the continent to the American public. Over the short term this probably entails less American investment, which is, to be sure, a loss for Africa. It also means that fewer American business people will think of Africa as a place for trade and investment, which represents a continued loss of markets for the U.S. economy.

More in Foreign Policy.

Howard French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Are you looking for more experts on China´s outbound investments at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check this list.

China-US relationship: fast improving - Tom Doctoroff

+Tom Doctoroff 

Despite some rhetoric pointing in a different direction, Shanghai-based Asia-Pacific CEO of J.Walter Thompson Tom Doctoroff sees fast improvement in the always difficult relationship between both world powers, he tells Yahoo Finance.

Yahoo Finance:

“Obama’s trip and the agreements that he reached was an unheralded coup,” says Tom Doctoroff, the Shanghai-based Asia CEO of J. Walter Thompson. “Getting to ‘yes’ in these circumstances was a win for both sides and left me more optimistic about our ability to collaborate, and optimistic about the inherent pragmatism of the current regime.”... 

The Chinese government has singled out a number of American businesses operating in Asia. Antitrust probes have been launched against Microsoft (MSFT) and Qualcomm (QCOM). 

“The Chinese have very ambivalent feelings regarding [America],” says Doctoroff.

“But make no mistake,” he says, many Chinese citizens still want to come to America to study and work for American firms “because they offer impartial opportunity.” 

According to Doctoroff, America is viewed as an absolutist country in China. “They think that we have a monopoly on the truth and [they] disagree with that fundamentally. The Chinese are profound pragmatists and relativists. So when we start preaching about the global order we have to tone it down a little and bring it back into a pragmatic question of efficiency.” 

The U.S. and China are strategic competitors, says Doctoroff, there is hostility but also agreement—and as of late, more agreement than ever.

More in Yahoo Finance.

Tom Doctoroff is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Tom Doctoroff? Do check this regularly updated list.    

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The different perceptions of the Obama´s - Mark Obama Ndesandjo

Mark Obama Ndesandjo

Shenzhen-based Mark Obama Ndesandjo, half-brother of US president Barack Obama, discusses in his book An Obama's Journey: My Odyssey of Self-Discovery across Three Cultures their different perspectives of the Obama´s, his family and the relation with this half-brother. "Follow your own path is most important," he tells in BroadSide.

Mark Obama Ndesandjo is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

  

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Obama-Xi meeting: missing the Chinese dream - Michael Justin Lee

Michael Justin Lee

Very few concrete steps have emerged from the Barack Obama-Xi Jinping meeting in California, but the economy was very absent from their empty agenda, notes finance lecturer Michael Justin Lee in the ChinaUSFocus. He hoped Xi would have used the opportunity to discuss his "Chinese dream", and pleads for more income disparity.

Michael Justin Lee:

I, for one, would have been very interested to know how President Xi intends to pursue his vision. After all, as they say, God or the Devil (I’ve heard it both ways) is in the details. I obviously don’t know how President Obama might have addressed the subject but if President Xi were to ask me, and I’d be quite happy to take his call if he did, I would advise him to tread quite gingerly. 

Much was made about the release of China’s latest Gini coefficient earlier this year. The Gini coefficient, named after Italian mathematician Corrado Gini, measures the dispersion of a mass of income data from absolute sameness. Therefore, the higher the Gini, the greater that a country’s income varies from absolute equality. The Gini coefficient is not among the better known economic statistics, and its value for China had not been calculated for several years. And when a Gini statistic is ever released, it is inevitably accompanied by some requisite puns about a Gini out of the bottle or some other such thigh-slapper. (Google it up.) 

Anyway, the number released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics was not terribly different from the one most recently calculated for the United States. However, a mass of comments followed about how troubling this is. And from the perspective of the Communist ideal, I suppose it would be troubling. But China has been easing down the yellow brick capitalist road for a good few decades now. Let’s not kid ourselves about Communism. It’s not coming back in any functional form. Therefore, we must actually consider that Gini number from a more realistic perspective, the capitalist one, including the American example. 

Again, if President Xi were to ask me, I would ask him in return why he feels the Chinese and American levels of income inequality are necessarily bad? I emphasize “necessarily.” Although capitalism does not endorse income inequality per se, it is the sine qua non of capitalism that some people, by choice, luck or talent, will legally obtain more. Doesn’t capitalism permit and even promote the taking of entrepreneurial risks? Don’t some people have more appetite for risk taking than others? And doesn’t risk generally correlate with expected return? (Yes, yes and yes, if you’re having trouble.)

More in ChinaUsFocus.

Michael Justin Lee is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.  


China Weekly Hangout
A discussion on the way the EU and the US are dealing (of fail to deal) with China, in the +China Weekly Hangout on June 6, with negotiation expert +Andrew Hupert from New York, Swiss lawyer +Nathan KAISER from Taipei and political analyst +Steve Barru from Denver, Colorado. Moderated by +Fons Tuinstra of the China Speakers Bureau.

The upcoming cyber war is the subject of the +China Weekly Hangout on Thursday 27 June. The revelations by Edward Snowden showed that the US is preparing a military shake-out, as both China, Russia and other countries are building up their cyber war capacities too. Joining us are former security consultant +Mathew Hoover and media en communication lecturer +Paul Fox  of the Hong Kong University. Moderation by +Fons Tuinstra  president of the China Speakers Bureau.

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Open office meeting - China Weekly Hangout

Barack Obama in a hangout

A set of holidays in Asia and Europe have disrupted our regular +China Weekly Hangout this week and next week.
As an alternative we will host next week, Thursday May 9, an open office session of our hangout, where you are welcome to discuss current affairs in China and offer suggestions for upcoming hangouts.

The event will be held at Thursday May 9, 10pm Beijing Time, 4pm CEST (Europe) and 10pm EST.
You can already register at our event page here. Moderation by +Fons Tuinstra, president of the +China Speakers Bureau.
Until the start of the event you can also leave here or at the event page questions, remarks or additions.
During the event, we will monitor Google+ and Twitter (add hash tag #CWHCWH) for your contributions. You will be able to watch the meeting at YouTube, this page and our event page, also the recordings will be available after the event.
We also encourage you to sign up for our +China Weekly Hangout page if you have not yet done so, so you will get regular updates on our events. You can have a full overview of our previous hangouts here.


One suggestion for a future event came already from +Simon Young, residing in New Zealand, who pleaded for a change of the timing of our hangout, so participants from New Zealand and Australia, could join. We have initially planned an Aussie/New Zealand session on May 16 or 23, which will be held six hours earlier from our normal broadcasting times. So, at 4pm Beijing Time, 10am CEST (Europe) and 8pm Wellington time. (Otherwise we intend to stick mostly to our regular hours, unless Japan California report for business).
wo subjects for this Australia/New Zealand session have been suggested by Simon:  1. the Chinese influence on the dairy industry, and 2. the development of Chinese tourism in New Zealand and Australia. Depending on the participants, we will discuss both subjects, or limit ourselves to one.
Do you have hands-on experience in one of those industries and do you want to join our discussion? Do drop me a note for a possible dry test of a hangout and fine-tuning of the event.

Update: Yet another subject reached our digital radar screen. How much can you earn on a management function in China? +Richard Brubaker suggests here that at CEIBS foreign graduates still earn 30/40% than their Chinese counter parts. On Thursday, I will put the subject on the agenda, but only to narrow the subject down a bit, discuss possible experts to join and set a date.

Which reminds me, we should also plan another China Weekly Hangout on Africa, after our first well-visited session on about the advances different Chinese media groups make in Africa with veteran journalists +Eric Olander of the China Africa Project, and +Lara Farrar, previously working for both the China Daily and CNN in March.
Do join us next Thursday for our open office session.

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Hope for a more constructive second Obama term - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

Relations between China and the US have not been as constructive as many hoped after Barack Obama's election as US president four years ago. Business analyst Shaun Rein tells in CNN he hopes the second term will be better. 

CNN:

"I think people here now hope Obama can become more constructive in his relationship with China," said Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai. "There's a feeling he's been pandering to the electorate talking about China as a currency manipulator and the harsh trade rhetoric. 

"The (Chinese) senior leaders we've spoken to are pretty disappointed by Obama in general. There was a lot of happiness with Obama when he was elected, but people now feel he hasn't focused on China in the right way," said Rein, as Obama has vowed to beef up the U.S. military presence in Asia and waded into territorial disputes in the East and South China Sea. 

Regardless the leader, China needs the U.S. economy to prosper in order to keep export flowing and U.S. investment in China high -- which are important ingredients Beijing needs as it attempts to boost Chinese wages and beef domestic spending, he said. \ 

"There's a fear here he really doesn't know how to push the economy forward," Rein said.

More in CNN

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

On Thursday November 8 the China Weekly Hangout (10pm Beijing Time, 3pm CET, 10am EST) will focus on the future of nuclear power in China, what are the risks after Fukushima, and might a successful NIMBY protest be possible? Here you can register at our events page. Or see the announcement here.

On November 1 the China Weekly Hangout, also focused on the China-US relations with Greg Anderson and Janet Carmosky.

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Why Obama triggers a trade war with China - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein 

President Barack Obama is heading for a trade war with China, to divert from his domestic problems. Does the tune sound familiar? Business analyst Shaun Rein dives in his column at CNBC into the Chinese sentiments who blame Obama to develop a contingency policy against China.

Shaun Rein:

A rising chorus in China also thinks America is determined to keep China down, so they are pushing the government to respond forcefully. Obama runs the risk of precipitating a trade war or worse as a response. 

A politically influential person from Beijing told me, "Obama's actions demonstrate he is trying to divert attention away from his inability to jumpstart job growth." He continued to say, “Aside from pandering for votes, Obama is trying to contain China’s rise. We need to stand up to America. Military action is the last resort but we need to show we are strong and won’t be pushed around anymore.” 

The state-owned China Daily ran a similar line underscoring China’s unease with American intentions. Tao Wenzhao, a professor of China-U.S. relations at Beijing's Tsinghua University, wrote of Obama's recent moves, "Such a move by Washington is to contain a fast-growing China and to maintain its ebbing dominance in the region."  ... 

A trade war or worse won’t benefit China or the U.S. In order for America to get out of a recession and ensure global stability, economic not military engagement with China is the answer. Cooler heads need to prevail on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

More in CNBC.

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.


More links on Shaun Rein and China's economy at Storify

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