THE AUTO INDUSTRY'S NOT DEAD YET. IT'S JUST HEADED EAST, TO CHINA

Marcus Gee

The Globe and Mail, April 29, 2009

Rather than cry into its maotai, China is using the economic crisis to steal a march on the industrialized West, catching up to and even jumping ahead of its rivals. Nowhere is that more evident than in the auto sector. While Western auto makers flirt with bankruptcy, Chinese companies are ringing up big sales and churning out dozens of new models, from tiny electrics to hulking limousines.

"Somebody forgot to tell China's car makers about the global economic crisis," writes Jack Perkowski, an American businessman who built an auto-parts company in China. "Nearly all are targeting big sales increases in 2009."

Mr. Perkowski runs down their gung-ho plans on his blog, Managing the Dragon: Chery, the country's biggest auto maker, is introducing 15 models on three new platforms. Another industry leader, Geely, plans to get into SUVs, MPVs and mid- to high-end passenger cars. BYD, the booming technology company, plans to increase production to 400,000 vehicles this year. Chang'an is raising production 30 per cent to half a million units.

In North America and Europe, auto sales have crashed. In China, they reached a monthly record of 1.11 million vehicles in March, up 5 per cent from last year. It was the third consecutive month that sales in China actually exceeded those in the home of mass-produced automobiles, the United States.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers predicts sales will rise 9 per cent in 2009, reaching 10.2 million units. At that rate, China could overtake the United States as the world's largest auto market. It is also expected to pass Japan to become the biggest vehicle producer this year.

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ASIA’S VOICE

Fidel Ramos

Beijing Review, April 28, 2009

It is an accepted fact that the emerging Asian economies are reeling from the swirling global financial storm, although their woes remain relatively shallow. From a long-term perspective, the stagnation in the Western world raises questions about Asia's future. So what are the biggest challenges facing Asia in response to the crisis? How can the region seek a return to fast-track growth? Fidel Valdez Ramos, Chairman of Board of Directors of the Boao Forum for Asia and former President of Philippines, discussed these issues during the forum's annual conference on April 17-19 in Hainan Province. Edited excerpts follow:

The financial chaos is exacting a heavy toll on emerging Asian economies via weakening exports, but its actual impact depends largely on how the world can effectively respond to the crisis. Generally, emerging Asia is showing the symptoms of Western ailment in the following three ways:

First, the stock market bust in the United States, the UK and Japan has triggered a domino effect, sending the stock markets of some emerging countries into an abyss.

Second, the financial chill has found its way to the real sectors, such as exports, investments, jobs and people's income. The most vulnerable are countries that rely on exports for growth, such as China. The poor countries will also suffer as developed countries pare down their assistance budgets.

Third, the developing world now accounts for a large population of migrants around the world. If they lose jobs and come back home, the social instability and poverty in their home countries will intensify.

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MAIN POINTS FROM ADB CLIMATE CHANGE STUDY FOR SE ASIA

Reuters, April 27, 2009

Climate change threatens Southeast Asia's huge coastal cities and could slash crop output and access to clean water, triggering conflicts unless the region adapts and cuts its carbon emissions, an ADB report concludes.

Following are some of the main points of an Asian Development Bank report funded by the British-government that examines the threat from climate change in Southeast Asia and what the region can do about it.

The 250-page report, "The Economics of Climate Change in Southeast Asia: A Regional Review," focuses on the impact on the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, and is billed as the largest regional report of its type.

THE REGION
Southeast Asia comprises nearly 600 million people and the region was responsible for 12 percent of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions in 2000.

Major sources were the land-use change and forestry at 75 percent, energy at 15 percent and agriculture at 8 percent.

The region has more than 170,000 kilometers (105,000 miles) of coastline and tens of millions live in rapidly growing coastal cities vulnerable to rising seas.

About 80 per cent of the population live within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of the coast, leading to an over-concentration of economic activity and livelihoods in coastal mega cities.

THE THREAT
Climate change is already affecting Southeast Asia, with higher temperatures, decreasing rainfall, rising sea levels, greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather events leading to massive flooding, landslides and drought.

Climate change is also exacerbating the problem of water stress, affecting agricultural production, triggering forest fires, damaging coastal marine resources, and increasing outbreaks of infectious diseases.

(...) [artículo aquí] [ADB report here]

OBAMA Y AFGANISTÁN
La tan elogiada nueva política del presidente estadounidense para el país asiático adolece de carencias. No es nada seguro, para empezar, que el mejor instrumento sea el aumento de tropas extranjeras

Francesc Vendrell

El País, 26 de abril de 2009

A primera vista, muchas cosas encomiables se aprecian en la perspectiva adoptada por la Administración de Barack Obama respecto a Afganistán. En realidad, muchos de sus nuevos elementos coinciden con los que mi organismo defendió cuando yo era Representante Especial de la Unión Europea para ese país.

Resulta refrescante escuchar que dicha Administración declare, por ejemplo, que la legitimidad del Gobierno afgano se ve socavada por la "corrupción rampante", que hay que establecer criterios claros para garantizar que la ayuda extranjera no se despilfarra, o que el conflicto afgano no se resolverá del todo mientras los talibanes cuenten con santuarios paquistaníes en los que la insurgencia islamista no deja de extenderse.
También es positivo que Estados Unidos se recuerde a sí mismo y a la comunidad internacional que la propia seguridad nacional es la principal razón de nuestra presencia en esa región.

Sin embargo, no puede uno dejar de preguntarse sobre otros elementos que apuntan menos hacia una "nueva" política que a una continuación de la que propugnaba George W. Bush.

Pensemos por ejemplo en el discurso sobre la "derrota" de Al-Qaeda. ¿Hasta qué punto se diferencia de la victoria en la "guerra contra el terror"? ¿Qué tiene que ocurrir para que se proclame el éxito en esta empresa, cuando Al-Qaeda es más una franquicia que una organización centralizada?

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THE DEATH OF THE ASIAN DEVELOPMENT MODEL

Michael Pettis

RGE Asia EconoMonitor, April 25, 2009

One of the few areas in which the Chinese fiscal stimulus package is unquestionably having a positive effect is on growth forecasts – although mainly because forecasts seem to be coincident indicators more than leading indicators. In the past couple of week Morgan Stanley raised its 2009 forecast for Chinese GDP growth from 5.5% to 7.0%, while Goldman Sachs upgraded growth forecasts from 6.0% to 8.3%. UBS has raised its forecast from 6.5% to between 7% and 7.5%. RBS has jumped from 5% to 7% and Barclays is up from 6.7% to 7.2%. On the other hand Standard Chartered, worried about the sustainability of the “rebound,” has kept its 2009 GDP growth forecast at 6.8%, and the IMF is still at 6.5%.

At any rate I’ve never provided my own forecast of Chinese growth partly because I am not smart enough to come up with an economic forecast and partly because it always seemed to me that in the short-term Chinese growth was going to depend very heavily on not on economic conditions but rather on the hard-to-predict outcome of the fierce policy debate taking place in China. As I see it, one side of the debate – which seems to include people around the PBoC and the National Bureau of Statistics, along with many of the more prominent of the think-tank policy critics – is arguing that as difficult as it is, the crisis is a good occasion to force China to change its development model and financial system in a direction that will provide China with a healthier basis for stable, long-term growth. They are eager to see policies aimed at switching resources from production to consumption, even at the expense of a short-term increase in unemployment, and they tend to see the recent surge in credit and investment not as solutions to the crisis but rather as policies that will make things worse for China in the medium term.

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PETRAEUS CALLS ON PAKISTAN TO REDIRECT MILITARY FOCUS

Ann Scott Tyson

The Washington Post, April 25, 2009

Gen. David H. Petraeus warned yesterday that al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists in Pakistan are posing "an ever more serious threat to Pakistan's very existence," and he said that Pakistan's leaders must act to counter the challenge with a well-trained military counterinsurgency force.

Petraeus requested congressional support for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund, a new, more-flexible spending stream that would permit more rapid and targeted U.S. training and provide more equipment to Pakistani forces that combat insurgents inside the country's lawless tribal regions.

"The Pakistani military has stepped up operations in parts of the tribal areas. Everyone recognizes, however, that much further work is required, and the events of recent days underscore that point," Petraeus testified before a panel of the House Appropriations Committee. Specifically, Petraeus said, Pakistan must reconfigure its military forces to deal with counterinsurgency operations rather than to continue its conventional focus on traditional rival India.

The fund Petraeus seeks, with a budget of $400 million for the rest of fiscal 2009, would be channeled directly through U.S. Central Command, which he oversees. This arrangement would give Central Command greater control over how the money is spent, and the military could withhold equipment from Pakistani forces until they complete required training, according to an outline of the program.

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DOES PAKISTAN'S TALIBAN SURGE RAISE A NUCLEAR THREAT?

Mark Thompson

Time, April 24, 2009

When asked last year about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen didn't hesitate: "I'm very comfortable that the nuclear weapons in Pakistan are secure," he said flatly. Asked the same question earlier this month, his answer had changed. "I'm reasonably comfortable," he said, "that the nuclear weapons are secure."

As America's top military officer, Mullen has traveled regularly to Pakistan — twice in just the past two weeks — for talks with his Pakistani counterpart, General Ashfaq Kayani, and others. And like all those who have risen to four-star rank, Mullen chooses his words with extreme care. Replacing "very comfortable" with "reasonably comfortable" is a decidedly discomforting signal of Washington's concern that no matter how well-guarded the nukes may be today, the chaos now enveloping Pakistan doesn't bode well for their status tomorrow or the day after.

The prospect of turmoil in Pakistan sends shivers up the spines of those U.S. officials charged with keeping tabs on foreign nuclear weapons. Pakistan is thought to possess about 100 — the U.S. isn't sure of the total, and may not know where all of them are. Still, if Pakistan collapses, the U.S. military is primed to enter the country and secure as many of those weapons as it can, according to U.S. officials.

(...) [artículo aquí]