A lot changed in China this week. Or at least things appeared to be changing. CER would like to step back and review some of the biggest headlines in order to fill the world in on what’s real, and what is simply, utterly, all-out fiction.
Gary Locke, the US ambassador to China, is definitely evacuating Beijing. When he’s not gasping to catch his breath in the capital’s smoky post-apocalyptic environs, the Chinese-American has proven to be a great bridge between the two juggernaut economies. But he’s not leaving because of the pollution that the US Embassy itself has dubbed “crazy bad.” No, Locke wants his children to go to high school in the States. He must have simply forgotten when he took the job that his kids would continue to age once in China.
Another thing that is shockingly real is the price of homes in Guangzhou. Last month, apartment prices in the southern city were 21% higher than the year before. So keep speculating; buy up as many flats as you can because we hear prices are going to continue to rising as investors pile in.
Now for the utter malarkey.
China said this week that it will open its airspace to private and general aviation. Good luck Beijing! We know that the top brass don’t get of their cloud of smoke too often. But if they did, they would realize that the military rules China’s general aviation airspace. Every 10 minutes of time in the air you pass into another commander’s fiefdom. CER imagines China’s skies as a blend of the Warring States period and Cloud City from Starwars, except it’s unlikely that a Confucius-like Lando Calrissian is floating around up there. Opening routes for small aircraft will be hard.
China to stop manipulating its currency. Fact or fiction? The media ate up a guide on reform issued by the People’s Bank of China this week. It said it would loosen its grip on the currency in an “orderly way.” China has also said it’s moving toward a “socialist utopia.” Hold your breath for yuan liberalization. CER dares you.
This was really interesting: China plans to recalculate the way it calculates GDP figures. Very good. It’s widely believed that China comes up with consumer price inflation based on a basket weighted with squirrel meat, left-handed scissors and collector’s editions of the Donna Summer’s Walk Away, Best of 1977-1980. Shedding a little light on – or even altering – the GDP calculation sounds magnificent, even unlikely.
And on the topic of GDP: OECD (the international economic institution that no one really cares about) says China will grow by 8.2% in 2014. CER on the other hand projects 400% growth in unreliable statistics next year, as well as an exponential surge in a new but increasingly popular genre of reading: Fictional news.
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