China is set to end absolute poverty by 2020 - Paulo Roberto de Almeida, CGTN

A eliminação da pobreza na China

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

 O extraordinário feito da sociedade chinesa deve ser saudado no seu mérito próprio e nos seus resultados práticos: PELA PRIMEIRA VEZ NA HISTÓRIA DA HUMANIDADE, uma realização dessas dimensões ocorre num espaço de tempo inferior a duas gerações, num país de mais um bilhão de habitantes, com mais ou menos 800 milhões de pobres 40 anos atrás. Esse feito vai figurar para sempre nos livros de história econômica e deve ser reconhecido como uma realização de todo o povo chinês, circunstancialmente guiado por um Estado autocrático e pela ditadura de um partido único.

Mas, objetivamente, pouco do que foi feito não poderia ter sido igualmente realizado por qualquer democracia capitalista, por qualquer regime político democrático de mercado, que decidisse, democraticamente, eliminar a pobreza absoluta de seu território.

Afinal, o que, finalmente, fez o “comunismo” chinês?: forneceu, pelo Estado, educação básica à totalidade da população (uma obrigação fundamental de qualquer Estado civilizado, e a China é um, há milhares de anos), proveu infraestrutura essencial, e de qualidade, para o funcionamento de uma economia DE MERCADO, e, sobretudo, LIBEROU AS ENERGIAS DO POVO CHINÊS, para que ele mesmo criasse sua própria riqueza.

A assistência estatal para arrancar de uma miséria abjeta um pequeno grupo de aldeias isoladas em regiões recuadas é puramente acessória ao esforço principal conduzido em bases de economia DE MERCADO.

Foi isso que fez o “comunismo” chinês, algo ao alcance de qualquer país capitalista digno desse nome. Deveria também ser possível em qualquer grande democracia política, como, por exemplo, Brasil, Índia ou África do Sul.

Por que isso não ocorre nesses países?

Vou arriscar minha resposta: por corrupção, egoísmo e mediocridade de elites predatórias, mais interessadas em satisfazer suas ambições mesquinhas do que em alçar seus respectivos países à condição de nações civilizadas. Complemento: uma parte da culpa também cabe às corporações de Estado de comportamento igualmente predatório, sem qualquer ética do serviço público, como podem eventualmente exibir os atuais mandarins do Estado chinês, que são, em grande parte, funcionários do Partido Comunista da China.

Termino por uma saudação irônica: parabéns ao Partido Comunista Capitalista da China, por esse feito extraordinário na história da civilização chinesa.

Vamos ser um pouco mais claros sobre o extraordinário feito da China de eliminação da pobreza absoluta em pouco menos de duas gerações para mais ou menos 800 milhões de pobres daquele grande Estado milenar, circunstancialmente sob a ditadura de um partido formalmente comunista, um pequeno parênteses de meros 70 anos de regime ditatorial em séculos de autocracia política, o famoso “despotismo oriental” de que falavam Max Weber e Karl Wittfogel.

O itinerário da China é virtualmente impossível de ser reproduzido por outros grandes paises muito pobres, formalmente democráticos, mas com democracias políticas de baixíssima qualidade, como o Brasil e a Índia, que contam, além de tudo, com elites predatórias.

Mas alguns ensinamentos são replicáveis por quaisquer elites conscientes e bem intencionadas: educação universal de boa qualidade, infraestrutura idem, sobretudo saneamento universal efetivo, regras claras e estáveis nas políticas macroeconômicas básicas (fiscal, monetária e cambial), políticas setoriais favorecendo grande competição no plano microeconômico, boa governança (sobretudo justiça funcional garantindo direitos de propriedade), abertura econômica, liberalização comercial e atração de investimentos estrangeiros, mas sobretudo LIBERDADES ECONÔMICAS para que a própria população crie a sua riqueza.

Foi isso o que o Partido Comunista da China, guiado por mandarins esclarecidos, fez pelo povo chinês.

Não deveria ser difícil de repetir em democracias de mercado.

A menos, claro, que suas elites econômicas sejam especialmente medíocres e seus dirigentes políticos particularmente predatórios.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Brasília, 17/10/2020

China is set to end absolute poverty by 2020, what's next?

By Zhao Hong

CGTN, 19:18, 17-Oct-2020

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October 17 marks China's National Poverty Relief Day, a reminder that the country has reached the final stage of its mission to eradicate extreme poverty by the end of 2020.

With only 75 days left for the year, how far is China from achieving that goal and what's next?

Most provinces and regions have already been declared free of absolute poverty. 

By the end of 2019, the number of poor rural residents in the country plunged from 98.99 million in 2012 to 5.51 million in 2019, showed data from China's National Bureau of Statistics.

And the number of impecunious counties in China has fallen from 832 in 2015 to 52 in 2019, according to the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

In 2020, 52 poverty-stricken counties in seven provinces and regions became key poverty-eradication battlegrounds. Some of them have met the standards for gaining the poverty-free status, while others are set to accomplish the goal in the next two to three months.

2020 is the final year of China's new round of anti-poverty drive, which started in 2012 with the aim to end domestic poverty before 2021, the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The sweeping campaign to defeat rural poverty was part of building a moderately and comprehensively prosperous society.

But 2020 has been no ordinary year for China and the world. COVID-19 epidemic coupled with floods in southern China posed daunting challenges to the national fight against penury.  

Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed at a symposium on securing a decisive victory in poverty alleviation in March that lifting all rural residents living below the current poverty line out of poverty by 2020 is a solemn promise made by the CPC Central Committee, and it must be fulfilled on time.

The present poverty eradication goals consist of not only eliminating all instances of absolute poverty on schedule, but also consolidating the achievements of poverty reduction efforts, ensuring that people who have gotten out of poverty do not fall back into it.

"Being lifted out of poverty is not an end in itself but the starting point of a new life and a new pursuit," Xi said at the poverty alleviation symposium, emphasizing the need to synchronize poverty alleviation with rural revitalization.

After China achieves building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, it must make all-out efforts to advance rural revitalization to further address issues such as the urban-rural imbalance, Xi said during an inspection tour to Sanjia Village in Tengchong CIty, southwest China's Yunnan Province in January. 

Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, highlighted that poverty alleviation should be a continuous and sustainable work, as "relative poverty" will still exist even after the country eliminates "absolute poverty" by 2020.

Graphics by Chen Yuyang

Read more about how China is leading global anti-poverty efforts 
How China is championing climate change mitigation and poverty reduction

Read more: 
Data reveals how far China's from a moderately prosperous society in all respects 

Read more: 

Latest data reveal how far away China is from the 2020 poverty elimination goal 

Graphics: Ending China's poverty by 2020 

As eleições americanas e a China - Ishaan Tharoor (WP)

 

By Ishaan Tharoor with Ruby Mellen  Email What the U.S. election means for China (Photo by Michele Tantussi/Getty Images/Washington Post illustration) Under President Trump, a new “Cold War” is underway, at least according to hawks in Washington. Almost four years of Trump lobbing tariffs and tweeting threats at Beijing hardened geopolitical fault lines and set the stage for a great-power competition that may define the decades to come. On a host of global issues, China is the White House’s preferred villain — its trade tactics seen as unfair and duplicitous, its opaque government cast as the incubator of a hideous pandemic, its tech companies Trojan horses and its oppression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong the emblems of the 21st century’s authoritarian behemoth. In the past decade, Chinese President Xi Jinping has taken his country in a more clearly repressive direction, purging political rivals, squeezing the already narrow space for civil society and tightening Beijing’s grip over its restive periphery. At international forums, Xi presents his nation as a responsible stakeholder in the world order. But at home, an emerging vanguard of influential Chinese intellectuals now dismiss liberal ideas in favor of a clearer ideology of Chinese might. Trump and China On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly insisted that he will be the tougher of the two presidential candidates on China. He links his rival, former vice president Joe Biden, to an earlier era of Western foolhardiness, where leading U.S. politicians and their counterparts in the corporate sector eagerly sought to integrate Communist China into the world economy. In the White House’s view, that phase of globalization thinned out American manufacturing and is broadly responsible for the country’s economic woes. Trump has spent the past few years claiming to redress that imbalance. He unleashed a trade war on Beijing that saw both sides slap protectionist duties on each other’s goods. An initial deal hashed out between U.S. and Chinese negotiators in January saw some of those tariffs lifted, but has done little to calm hostilities. The substantial U.S. trade deficit with China — which Trump vowed to vastly reduce in 2016 — has hardly budged four years later. All the while, tensions are mounting on other fronts. Trump and his allies, especially Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, ramped up the sense of an ideological clash with Beijing, casting China in speeches as the great enemy of the age, a rival power bent on “Marxist hegemony.” Both Republicans and Democrats have sought to punish China for its crackdowns in Xinjiang and Hong Kong with sanctions. With a degree of success, the Trump administration has convinced a number of European nations to keep Chinese tech giant Huawei at arm’s length. In a recent statement, a U.S. intelligence official suggested that China may want Trump to lose the election because of the “unpredictable” nature of his governing style. But Trump has hardly persuaded Xi to change course. “Despite pressuring Beijing with a steady drumbeat of punishing policies that have not been seen in 40 years of formal relations under either Republican or Democratic administrations, Trump in some ways has offered Xi an opportunity on the world stage and in domestic politics,” reported my colleagues Gerry Shih and Eva Dou. “Previously under pressure at home from the slowing economy and popular disillusionmentwith the Chinese Communist Party, Xi has been able to blame Washington’s ‘suppression’ for all of China’s travails while casting himself as a defender against foreign bullying.” The Trump administration has “highlighted the problems we have with China,” Paul Haenle, the director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, told the Financial Times. “They haven’t tried to solve problems. I can’t tell what their objective is. It’s more of an attitude and less a policy. It’s more of an emotion. It’s not good for U.S. national security to have that kind of policy.” Biden and China Biden has boasted of his significant experience meeting Xi while vice president, but his aides stress that a putative Biden administration would probably take as tough — and perhaps even tougher — a line on Beijing. That’s also a reflection of a shifting bipartisan consensus in Washington. “I think there is a broad recognition in the Democratic Party that Trump was largely accurate in diagnosing China’s predatory practices,” Kurt Campbell, the top Asia official in the Obama State Department, told the Wall Street Journal. Biden has also said he would center questions of human rights and democratic values to an extent that Trump never has. And in China, numerous experts see a risk in Biden supplanting Trump. “If Biden is elected, I think this could be more dangerous for China, because he will work with allies to target China, whereas Trump is destroying U.S. alliances,” Zhou Xiaoming, a former Chinese trade negotiator, told Bloomberg News in a piece that also anonymously cited four current officials who “echoed that sentiment.” “Biden would make the hard lines more effective and more efficient,” Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, told the New York Times. “He might resort to more sophisticated and coordinated tactics against China.” The underlying assumption there is that a Biden White House would be less erratic than that of Trump and more capable of shoring up alliances with other Asian powers. But that’s not the unanimous view in the rest of Asia, where some diplomats have enjoyed the refreshing clarity of Trump’s animus toward Beijing and fear a return of the equivocating politics of the Obama era. That era looks over, though, no matter who wins. “We’re on the path to increase conflict with either Biden or Trump,” Bruno Maçães, a former Portuguese politician and the author of “Belt and Road: A Chinese World Order,” among other books, told Today’s WorldView. China’s problems are hardly restricted to whoever the occupant of the White House is. New polling by the Pew Research Center found unfavorable views of China at “historic highs” in many countries — in part due to China’s role in the coronavirus crisis, but also more broadly a reaction to Beijing’s increasingly bullying behavior in various parts of the world. “You don’t grab the reins of global power by being nice,” said Maçães. But, he added, “China has lost lots of hearts and minds over the last few years, probably more than the U.S.”

The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy - Kenneth Pomeranz

 

The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy 

Kenneth Pomeranz

(The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) Kindle Edition

The Great Divergence brings new insight to one of the classic questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe, despite surprising similarities between advanced areas of Europe and East Asia? As Ken Pomeranz shows, as recently as 1750, parallels between these two parts of the world were very high in life expectancy, consumption, product and factor markets, and the strategies of households. Perhaps most surprisingly, Pomeranz demonstrates that the Chinese and Japanese cores were no worse off ecologically than Western Europe. Core areas throughout the eighteenth-century Old World faced comparable local shortages of land-intensive products, shortages that were only partly resolved by trade.


Pomeranz argues that Europe's nineteenth-century divergence from the Old World owes much to the fortunate location of coal, which substituted for timber. This made Europe's failure to use its land intensively much less of a problem, while allowing growth in energy-intensive industries. Another crucial difference that he notes has to do with trade. Fortuitous global conjunctures made the Americas a greater source of needed primary products for Europe than any Asian periphery. This allowed Northwest Europe to grow dramatically in population, specialize further in manufactures, and remove labor from the land, using increased imports rather than maximizing yields. Together, coal and the New World allowed Europe to grow along resource-intensive, labor-saving paths.

Meanwhile, Asia hit a cul-de-sac. Although the East Asian hinterlands boomed after 1750, both in population and in manufacturing, this growth prevented these peripheral regions from exporting vital resources to the cloth-producing Yangzi Delta. As a result, growth in the core of East Asia's economy essentially stopped, and what growth did exist was forced along labor-intensive, resource-saving paths--paths Europe could have been forced down, too, had it not been for favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas.

Money talks: China’s approach to international relations - Louise Hossein

Money talks: China’s approach to international relations

Louise Hossein analyses Andrew Marr's interview with Chinese Ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming.

By Louise Hossein

Cherwell, 3rd September 2020

https://cherwell.org/2020/09/03/money-talks-chinas-approach-to-international-relations/

Since Xi Jinping’s appointment as Chairman, a slow yet steady process of ‘tightening up’ has happened in China. On the global stage, this has resulted in accusations of violations of human rights, freedom and security. Recently, Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese Ambassador to the UK, appeared on The Andrew Marr Show to address several key issues that China is facing pushback for, including the new national safety law in Hong Kong, the persecution of the Uighur ethnic group, and Huawei 5G technology. The results revealed a lot about the Chinese Communist Party’s stance on international relations and how it feels it should be viewed on the global stage.  

On the 14^th June, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, and Sport Oliver Dowden announced that from the end of this year, it will be illegal for UK telecoms operators to buy 5G equipment from Chinese tech giant Huawei. Dowden also stated that all Huawei technology must be removed from use by 2027. This comes as another blow to the Chinese tech company, which has already been blacklisted by the US, with President Trump urging other countries to consider a similar ban. When asked about this, Liu Xiaoming was quick to emphasise that such bans were a mistake, going as far as to compare it to when the Qianlong Emperor told the British that China had no need for their manufacturing in the 18^th century. He seemed to warn that the UK may face a similar 150-year decline as a consequence. However, what Liu fails to see is that the actions taken by the Chinese Communist Party over the last 5 or so years have directly resulted in the discord between China and the UK. 

Since 2017, evidence has appeared to show that the Uighur people of Xinjiang, a Muslim ethnic minority living near the Western border of China, have been facing mass detainment. Following the CCP’s crackdown on “terrorism”, it has been estimated that a million or more Uighurs have been sent to “re-education camps”. The Chinese government, who initially would not even acknowledge that such camps existed, now maintain that these camps are simply what is necessary for the security and safety of the Chinese people. However, document leaks to the ICJI state that these camps aim to “resolve ideological contradictions and to guide students away from bad emotion […] so that they can understand deeply the illegal, criminal and dangerous nature of their past behaviour”. They also read that the camps are highly secure to prevent escapes. Perhaps for someone who was found guilty of plotting an attack, these kinds of measures may seem reasonable, but a leaked document known as the Karakax List shows that Uighur people have been detained for innocent actions such as visiting certain foreign countries or lacking Mandarin ability. Adding to this the Uighur testimonies which tell stories of awful, unlawful acts being forced upon them, including forced sterilisation, it seems to me quite blatant that China is in violation of international law. 

However, when Marr asked Liu about the situation, he responded first with “Have you been to Xinjiang?”, as if to say, “What do you know about it?”. When confronted with the video of a Uighur woman crying as she explains the horrific story of her forced sterilisation, Liu proceeded to talk over the top of the video, almost as if it was not playing. He maintained the standard party line that the Chinese Communist Party has brought prosperity and growth to the border region – which is true to some extent – but failed to acknowledge that there has been an influx of the Han ethnicity (the majority ethnicity in China) and the unfair favouritism that they have received. He also fails to mention that the Uighur language has been under attack for two decades with many Uighur speaking teachers being made redundant, and the anti-sanhua campaign which aims to wipe out halal, Arab-style dress and Saudi-style mosque buildings that is currently in action. The most disappointing thing about the CCP’s response to the dissatisfaction of a minority of the Uighur people is that they refuse to consider the socio-economic aspects of life within the region which may be the root of the supposed “issue” and have taken incredibly severe measures which violate even their own constitution.  

2020 has also seen the introduction of new state security legislature in Hong Kong which was forced through by Chinese mainland officials in May. The introduction of the new law brings fears that the mainland will exploit the judiciary independence of Hong Kong, affecting both residents’ and non-residents’ rights to freedom of speech and judiciary autonomy. On the 20^th July, Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, announced that the UK would suspend sales of arms equipment to the region and the extradition treaty which it originally had with Hong Kong, as well as implementing an immigration route for BNOs which will be ready by 2021.  Thus, the line was drawn. As Raab himself pointed out, economically and technologically, positive UK-China relations are important, but these violations of the freedom and independence of the Hong Kong people cannot go unnoticed. 

But that really is the key point, the undertone to Liu Xiaoming’s interview seemed to be “turn a blind eye to our domestic affairs and focus on the economic benefit which we can bring to you”. Many a time I have wondered in disbelief as to why the Chinese Communist Party must take such severe actions against its own people, using methods which violate the standards and values (supposedly) upheld on a global level. Liu’s interview has prompted my conclusion that the CCP believes only economic affairs are relevant to international relations, and that their domestic affairs should simply be ignored on the global stage. The fact that China is facing such pushback is perhaps a double-standard: many countries turn a blind eye to the internal affairs of the US for example, but just because not all problems have been called out, does not mean that no issues should be called out at all. Any steps taken to hold Beijing accountable for their actions on the global stage are worthwhile and important.  

Thus, China’s international relations have reached an interesting position. Due to economic investment and relations maintained from the early Reform and Opening period, China has strong alliances with many nations, including Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Nigeria and the Philippines – all of whom signed a joint statement commending China’s “counter-terrorism” work in Xinjiang. What we can read from this is that China, who is second in line for the title of world hegemony, provides a stable power base for countries that may not be so willing to cooperate with the US propagated world system. On the other side, there is a group of predominantly European countries, as well as the US and Japan, who are willing to take a stricter policy towards China. There is inherently a discord between the two systems – those countries who ally with China may do so mainly for economic reasons and perhaps protection from the West, those who consider China critically are more confident in their place in the global system and are unlikely to back down. Only time will tell how the subsequent tension will play out. 

A diplomacia brasileira e o comércio internacional - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

A diplomacia brasileira e o comércio internacional

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

(www.pralmeida.org; http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com)

[Objetivo: Palestra online para estudantes de economia]

  

Sumário: 

1. O Brasil e o comércio exterior: características básicas em perspectiva histórica

2. As políticas comerciais brasileiras da era bilateral ao Gatt e aos blocos comerciais

3. Mercosul, Rodada Uruguai, Rodada Doha e os impasses atuais

4. O acordo Mercosul-UE e seu provável bloqueio temporário

5. Quais políticas comerciais para o Brasil e para o Mercosul? 

1. O Brasil e o comércio exterior: características básicas em perspectiva histórica

O Brasil sempre foi, continua sendo, atualmente, e provavelmente vai continuar sendo, no futuro previsível, um dos maiores países protecionistas do mundo, comprovadamente. Não só mediante tarifas altas, mas também todo um conjunto de medidas restritivas, introvertidas e dirigistas, ao longo da história. A partir dos anos 1970, depois de certa concentração em alguns poucos parceiros preferenciais, o Brasil diversificou suas exportações para um número expressivo de países, a despeito de ter uma pequena participação no comércio internacional, na faixa de 1% do comércio global. Até a era Lula, o comércio era relativamente bem equilibrado e repartido aos quintos para as grandes regiões do planeta. Neste século, a China avançou na sua participação e desde 2009 se tornou o primeiro, e de longe o principal, parceiro comercial, assim como o principal provedor de saldos comerciais, a despeito de uma assimetria profunda nos fluxos de parte e outra. 

Em 2018 e em 2019, o volume total de comércio com a China (incluindo HK e Macau) foi de 66 bilhões de dólares aproximadamente, ao passo que o comércio com os EUA foi de apenas 28 e 29 bilhões, ou seja, menos da metade, sendo que com os EUA o Brasil ostenta, desde muitos anos um déficit considerável, ao passo que com a China, o saldo favorável ao Brasil é de mais da metade do volume total. Nesses mesmos anos, o volume de comércio total com a União Europeia, foi reduzido de 42 a 35 bilhões de dólares, e o volume de comércio total com o Mercosul reduziu-se igualmente, de 20 para 14 bilhões de dólares, com saldo brasileiro, mas o grosso do volume é com a Argentina, também responsável pela queda. Canadá e México reunidos respondem por cerca de 8 bilhões de dólares de volume total de comércio, um pouco mais do montante dos países da Comunidade Andina de Nações. A Ásia no seu conjunto, excluindo o Oriente Médio, responde por cerca de 100 bilhões de dólares do comércio exterior brasileiro, que nesses dois anos referidos, ascendeu a 240 e a 225 bilhões de dólares. 

2. As políticas comerciais brasileiras da era bilateral ao Gatt e aos blocos comerciais

Descrevi todas as políticas comerciais brasileiras nestes livros: 

Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil: as relações econômicas internacionais no Império (3ª edição; Brasília: Funag, 2017; 2 volumes; 964 p.; ISBN: 978-85-7631-675-6); Relações internacionais e política externa do Brasil: a diplomacia brasileira no contexto da globalização (Rio de Janeiro: LTC, 2012, 309 p.; ISBN 978-85-216-2001-3); O Brasil e o multilateralismo econômico (Porto Alegre: Livraria do Advogado Editora, na coleção “Direito e Comércio Internacional”, 1999, 328 p.; ISBN: 85-7348-093-9).

3. Mercosul, Rodada Uruguai, Rodada Doha e os impasses atuais

Tenho diversos ensaios sobre essas questões, assim como nestes livros: 

O Mercosul no contexto regional e internacional (São Paulo: Edições Aduaneiras, 1993, 204 p.; ISBN: 85-7129-098-9); Mercosul: Fundamentos e Perspectivas (São Paulo: Editora LTr, 1998, 160 p.; ISBN: 85-7322-548-3).

Existem muitos outros textos neste link de Academia.edu: 

https://www.academia.edu/42906163/Selecao_de_trabalhos_sobre_o_Mercosul_e_a_integracao_regional_PRA_1989_2019_

e mais recentemente neste ensaio: 

“O Brasil e os projetos de integração regional: passado, presente e futuro”, nas plataformas Research Gate (link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343808733_O_Brasil_e_os_projetos_de_integracao_regional_passado_presente_e_futuro) e Academia.edu (link: https://www.academia.edu/43917653/O_Brasil_e_os_projetos_de_integracao_regional_passado_presente_e_futuro).

4. O acordo Mercosul-UE e seu provável bloqueio temporário

Uma única observação: dificilmente esse acordo vai entrar em vigor durante a presidência Bolsonaro, basicamente em função da obra destruidora no meio ambiente, ataques a líderes estrangeiros, a jornalistas, e desrespeito em matéria de liberdades democráticas e de direitos humanos.

5. Quais políticas comerciais para o Brasil e para o Mercosul? 

Desafio da China, que se tornou o primeiro parceiro comercial da Argentina, como já é de diversos outros países latino-americanos. Ou seja, a Argentina sai, pela primeira vez em mais de 30 anos, da chamada “Brasil dependência” que dominou o cenário comercial no Cone Sul desde o nascimento do Mercosul. Nas condições atuais de falta de diálogo entre as administrações do Brasil e da Argentina parecem existir poucas possibilidade de se discutir seriamente as grandes linhas das reformas no Mercosul – na sua TEC, na agenda regulatória – com o objetivo de enveredar por políticas de abertura econômica e de liberalização comercial dentro do bloco e com todos os demais parceiros. 

Política comercial americana: a exacerbação do protecionismo, do mercantilismo, das ilegalidades unilaterais americanas. Trump cometeu arbitrariedades contra o sistema multilateral de comércio, contra a própria economia americana: denúncia do TPP, abandono de um acordo transatlântico com a UE, denúncia do NAFTA e de outros acordos de livre comércio; aplicação abusiva e ilegal de salvaguardas comercial, contra a China, contra os próprios parceiros do NAFTA, e terceiros países (como o Brasil), não apenas em aço e alumínio, mas em uma série de outros produtos também, a pretexto de “segurança nacional”, o que é uma mentira. Revisão do Nafta e acordos bilaterais com o México e Canadá, e adoção de cláusulas de emprego nos EUA, o que vai redundar em custos maiores para as indústrias e os consumidores americanos.

Relação comercial com os EUA: Subserviência geral aos EUA, fez o Brasil abandonar o status de economia de país em desenvolvimento, com benefícios da cláusula de tratamento preferencial e mais favorável (SGP, etc.); ilusão do apoio americano para o ingresso na OCDE (que foi traído logo em seguida, e apenas revertido por causa das eleições argentinas, que colocaram um peronista novamente no poder); acordos em aço foram traídos, igualmente; a nota do Itamaraty e da Economia de 29/08 aceitando as novas reduções (cotas), é vergonhosa, por apoiar as medidas unilaterais dos EUA, e desejar restabelecimento da economia do aço nos EUA (nota sobre expropriação da Petrobras na Bolívia, em 2006); a postura do Brasil não poderia ser mais servil, mas é uma consequência da aceitação já feita, explicitamente, de sanções unilaterais. 

Quanto ao Mercosul, não parecem existir condições, no momento, sequer para uma retomada das consultas internas com vistas à reforma da TEC, finalização do livre comércio (açúcar e automóveis), acabamento da União Aduaneira, e sobretudo novas iniciativas de acordos comerciais. Não existe sequer perspectiva de entrada em vigor do Acordo entre o Mercosul e a União Europeia, mas isto exclusivamente em virtude das atitudes do presidente com respeito ao meio ambiente. 

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Brasília, 3743, 28-30 de agosto de 2020

Inside China’s drive for digital currency dominance - Robert Hackett (Fortune)

FORTUNE MAGAZINE

Inside China’s drive for digital currency dominance

BY 

ROBERT HACKETT

August 10, 2020 6:00 AM GMT-3

In the 13th century, Kublai Khan, the Mongolian emperor who founded China’s Yuan Dynasty, upended monetary convention with a magisterial edict: Accept my money, or die.

The threat of execution was not so novel back then, of course. The Khan’s true innovation lay in his refashioning of money itself. The grandson of fearsome Genghis realized he could finance his realm untethered to finite supplies of precious metals. No longer would his geopolitical reach depend on backbreakingly mined and smelted ores hauled along the Silk Road. Instead, he could tap a boundless, lightweight resource—and make money grow on trees.

Mulberry trees, to be exact. In a contemporary account, Marco Polo, the wandering merchant of Venice, marveled at “how the great Khan causeth the bark of trees, made into something like paper, to pass for money overall his country.” The banknotes were issued, he wrote, “with as much solemnity and authority as if they were of pure gold or silver.”

Medieval Europeans were dumbfounded by Polo’s report. But the emperor was ahead of his time. Fiat currencies—descendants of Kublai Khan’s chao, backed by government edict rather than hard assets—are standard everywhere today. 

Fast-forward to this century, and China once again is remaking money. Except this time, it is paper currency that’s getting tossed; China is going digital. And while things didn’t end well for the Mongols—they printed themselves into hyperinflation, and lost the throne—China’s current leaders have something far more stable and enduring in mind.

(o resto do artigo só para assinantes: https://fortune.com/2020/08/10/china-digital-currency-electronic-yuan-bitcoin-cryptocurrency/ )

Xinomics (The Economist): existe um outro tipo de capitalismo que não o ocidental?

A Economist, a revista mais liberal e inteligente do mundo, padece de um defeito de nascimento, uma espécie de pecado original: ela é excessivamente inglesa, e acredita que o seu liberalismo é insuperável. Pode até ser, mas o problema é que ela pretende também que existe só um tipo de capitalismo, o ocidental, claro. Mas isso seria achar que o Japão desenvolveu o seu capitalismo nos mesmos moldes que o capitalismo inglês, o que o alemão foi uma cópia exata do inglês, ou que o capitalismo americano adotou igualmente o mesmo formato.
Por que não admitir que o capitalismo chinês segue um outro modelo, e que isso que está descrito no artigo pode se manter?
Veremos, em mais ou menos 10 anos...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

The Economist, August 13, 2020 https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/08/13/xi-jinping-is-reinventing-state-capitalism-dont-underestimate-it?utm_campaign=the-economist-this-week&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud As America’s confrontation with China escalates, our cover story looks at the resilience of the Chinese economy under Xi Jinping. A new stage of state capitalism is under way—call it Xinomics—involving tight control over the economic cycle, a more efficient state and a blurring of the boundary between state and private firms. Xinomics has performed well, but the real test will come over time. China hopes that its techno-centric form of central planning can sustain innovation; history suggests that diffuse decision-making, open borders and free speech are the magic ingredients. One thing is clear: any idea that confrontation will be followed by capitulation is misguided. America and its allies must prepare for a far longer contest between open societies and China’s ruthless mix of autocracy, technology and dynamism. The Chinese economic model Xi Jinping is reinventing state capitalism. Don’t underestimate it China’s strongman leader has a new economic agenda America’s confrontation with China is escalating dangerously. In the past week the White House has announced what may amount to an imminent ban on TikTok and WeChat (two Chinese apps), imposed sanctions on Hong Kong’s leaders and sent a cabinet member to Taiwan. This ratcheting up of pressure partly reflects electioneering: being tough on China is a key strut of President Donald Trump’s campaign. It is partly ideological, underscoring the urgency the administration’s hawks attach to pushing back on all fronts against an increasingly assertive China. But it also reflects an assumption that has underpinned the Trump administration’s attitude to China from the beginning of the trade war: that this approach will yield results, because China’s steroidal state capitalism is weaker than it looks. The logic is alluringly simple. Yes, China has delivered growth, but only by relying on an unsustainable formula of debt, subsidies, cronyism and intellectual-property theft. Press hard enough and its economy could buckle, forcing its leaders to make concessions and, eventually, to liberalise their state-led system. As the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, puts it, “Freedom-loving nations of the world must induce China to change.” Simple, but wrong. China’s economy was less harmed by the tariff war than expected. It has been far more resilient to the covid-19 pandemic—the imf forecasts growth of 1% in 2020 compared with an 8% drop in America. Shenzhen is the world’s best-performing big stockmarket this year, not New York. And, as our briefing explains, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is reinventing state capitalism for the 2020s. Forget belching steel plants and quotas. Mr Xi’s new economic agenda is to make markets and innovation work better within tightly defined boundaries and subject to all-seeing Communist Party surveillance. It isn’t Milton Friedman, but this ruthless mix of autocracy, technology and dynamism could propel growth for years. Underestimating China’s economy is hardly a new phenomenon. Since 1995 China’s share of world gdp at market prices has risen from 2% to 16%, despite waves of Western scepticism. Silicon Valley chiefs dismissed Chinese tech firms as copycats; Wall Street short-sellers said ghost towns of empty apartments would bring a banking crash; statisticians worried that the gdp figures were fiddled and speculators warned that capital flight would cause a currency crisis. China has defied the sceptics because its state capitalism has adapted, changing shape. Twenty years ago, for example, the emphasis was on trade, but now exports account for only 17% of gdp. In the 2010s officials gave tech firms such as Alibaba and Tencent just enough space to grow into giants and, in Tencent’s case, to create a messaging app, WeChat, that is also an instrument of party control (see article). Now the next phase of Chinese state capitalism is under way—call it Xinomics. Since he took power in 2012 Mr Xi’s political goal has been to tighten the party’s grip and crush dissent at home and abroad. His economic agenda is designed to increase order and resilience against threats. For good reason. Public and private debt has soared since 2008 to almost 300% of gdp. Business is bifurcated between stodgy state firms and a Wild West private sector that is innovative but faces predatory officials and murky rules. As protectionism spreads, Chinese firms risk being locked out of markets and denied access to Western technology. Xinomics has three elements. First, tight control over the economic cycle and the debt machine. The days of supersized fiscal and lending binges are over. Banks have been forced to recognise off-balance-sheet activity and build up buffers. More lending is taking place through a cleaned-up bond market. Unlike its reaction to the financial crisis of 2008-09, the government’s response to covid-19 has been restrained, with a stimulus worth about 5% of gdp, less than half the size of America’s. The second strand is a more efficient administrative state, whose rules apply uniformly across the economy. Even as Mr Xi has used party-imposed law to sow fear in Hong Kong, he has constructed a commercial legal system in the mainland that is far more responsive to businesses. Bankruptcies and patent lawsuits, once rare, have risen fivefold since he took office in 2012. Red tape has been trimmed: it now takes nine days to set up a company. More predictable rules should allow markets to work more smoothly, boosting the economy’s productivity. The final element is to blur the boundary between state and private firms. State-run companies are being compelled to boost their financial returns and draw in private investors. Meanwhile the state is exerting strategic control over private firms, through party cells within them. A credit blacklisting system penalises firms that misbehave. Instead of indiscriminate industrial policy, such as the “Made in China 2025” campaign launched in 2015, Mr Xi is shifting to a sharp focus on supply-chain choke-points where China is either vulnerable to foreign coercion or where it can exert influence abroad. That means building up self-sufficiency in key technologies, including semiconductors and batteries. Xinomics has performed well in the short term. The build-up of debt had slowed before covid-19 struck and the twin shocks of the trade war and the pandemic have not led to a financial crisis. State-run firms’ productivity is creeping up and foreign investors are pouring cash into a new generation of Chinese tech firms. The real test, however, will come over time. China hopes that its new techno-centric form of central planning can sustain innovation, but history suggests that diffuse decision-making, open borders and free speech are the magic ingredients. One thing is clear: the hope for confrontation followed by capitulation is misguided. America and its allies must prepare for a far longer contest between open societies and China’s state capitalism. Containment won’t work: unlike the Soviet Union, China’s huge economy is sophisticated and integrated with the rest of the world. Instead the West needs to build up its diplomatic capacity (see article) and create new, stable rules that allow co-operation with China in some areas, such as fighting climate change and pandemics, and commerce to continue alongside stronger protections for human rights and national security. The strength of China’s $14trn state-capitalist economy cannot be wished away. Time to shed that illusion. ■ This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Xi’s new economy"