Yearbook 2010
China toured like a growing, for some frightening, dragon on the world stage in 2010. During the summer, the country went about Japan as the world’s second largest economy. But the US remained in first place – its GDP was still three times that of China: $ 14.6 trillion, against 5.7 trillion for China and 5.4 trillion for Japan.
China, on the other hand, passed the US in energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions and is now the world’s largest in both these problem areas. But despite the country’s oil consumption increasing rapidly, the United States is still the world’s largest oil consumer.
According to COUNTRYAAH, China has a population of 1.393 billion (2018). China continues to assert its right to high emissions, citing that the newly poor empire must grow rapidly in the world. It is up to rich countries to reduce their emissions and help others with environmental assistance, Beijing believes.
The UN Environment Summit in Cancun December 6-10 meant no major change.
WikiLeak’s South Korean document showed that China now regards North Korea as a “spoiled child” and could envisage a Korean reunion under Seoul’s leadership.
With Europe, China formed ties during the fall, when both President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao traveled around the EU. Wen Jiabao said in Athens that Greece was China’s best friend in Europe and promised big investments. Hu Jintao visited France and Portugal. The EU has a large deficit in trade with China. In 2009, the EU imported € 214.7 billion from China but exported for just 81.7 billion. Like the United States, the EU was concerned by the high value of China’s currency yuan.
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During the summer, China displayed its luminosity at the acclaimed World Expo 2010 exhibition in Shanghai, with about 200 participating countries and organizations. The number of visitors exceeded 70 million. The themes in the Swedish pavilion were sustainable development and wood as material.
The Nobel Peace Prize caused dissatisfaction in Beijing when it went to human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, sentenced to eleven years in prison for overthrowing operations. Liu Xiaobo has participated in the Charter 08 for democracy. According to softwareleverage, China described the election as a “blasphemy” against the prize and threatened with “consequences” for the countries that came to the awards ceremony in Oslo. Nevertheless, all EU countries as well as the US and Japan agreed. In protest of the prize, China awarded its own peace prize in the name of Confucius.
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The outside world, especially the United States, tried to persuade China to relinquish control of the currency yuan. Experts believe it should be valued at about 30 percent. A currency war threatened in the fall. China, for its part, objected to the US central bank’s decision in November to lock out US $ 600 billion in the economy, which could keep the dollar rate down.
US President Barack Obama attended the G20 meeting in Seoul November 11-12 and the subsequent APEC meeting in Yokohama. He tried in vain to persuade colleague Hu Jintao to give way to the yuan course. He promised only to “progressively pursue a reform of the exchange rate”.
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao sharpened at ASEM, the EU-Asia Summit, in Brussels on October 6, that an upgrading would jeopardize exports, with major risks to China’s stability. “If the yuan is not stable, it will cause a disaster for China and the world,” Wen said, adding: “If we increase the yuan’s value by 20-40 percent, as some would like, many of our factories will be closed and society would chaos. ”
At the same time, China has shown a clear commitment to reducing export dependency and increasing domestic consumption to ensure continued growth and harmony. There was a concern in Beijing that the economy would overheat and a financial bubble arise similar to that in the West. Interest rate hikes sought to curb inflation, which was 5.1 percent in December. Towards the end of 2010, China’s GDP growth was close to 10 percent, compared with 9.1 percent the year before.
In August, Chinese Geely completed the acquisition of Volvo for US $ 1.8 billion (SEK 12.4 billion) and planned to build 300,000 Volvo cars per year. Geely wants to launch Volvo as a luxury car and therefore wants to extend the back seat, as rich Chinese with driver want to sit comfortably.
China went about the United States as the world’s largest car manufacturer in 2009, and this was noticed on the roads, where car queues became more common. The most extreme of the year was ten miles long and lasted for nine days between Inner Mongolia and Beijing.
The richest in China in 2010 was the soft drink magnate Zong Qinghou. He is good for 12 billion US dollars and thus cannot be ruled out to have been the buyer of the richly decorated vase from the Qing dynasty sold during the fall. An anonymous buyer in China is said to have called it in for £ 43 million (SEK 473 million).
During the summer, a series of storms drove millions of people in southern China to flee. Lerras demanded close to 2,000 deaths.
This summer’s acoustic torment number one, the vuvuzelan, was produced like so much else in “The world’s workshop”. A small family company in the Chinese coastal city of Ningbo made the plastic trumpets that put their stunning sound mat over the soccer World Cup in South Africa.
1978 Forced industrialization
At the third plenary session of the CCP Central Committee in December 1978, Deng Xiaoping was completely rehabilitated and at the same time radical changes in the economy were announced. In the countryside, the peoples’ municipalities were disbanded and the land was distributed to the families who leased it by the state. The farmers no longer had to hand over part of their production, but instead paid taxes. In return, they were allowed to sell their surplus production in the villages and towns.
China further stated that the gates would be opened to trade, investment and foreign loans. To attract foreign companies, so-called special economic zones were established near Xianggang (Hong Kong). In these zones, as in the free zones of other countries, investors should be exempt from taxes and have access to cheap labor and land.
Within the industry, a significant part of the decision-making power was transferred from the ministries to the factory directors, who were given the right to plan production, distribution and choose from which raw materials they would choose. The young workers were offered contract work, rather than previously giving them lifelong employment in a production unit. And finally, it was made legal to open smaller shops and restaurants. At the same time, the government initiated a program for the settlement of subsidies for consumer goods. In future, the price of basic goods such as food and textiles would have to be determined via the market. Economic growth had to be stimulated by stimulating consumption.
As the changes broke through, more goods came into the stores and over a number of years wages rose. The problem of unemployment and underemployment was reduced. The restrictions on travel internally in China and out of the country were gradually reduced, and the party began to tolerate greater artistic expression.
But economic changes also started to induce inflation – especially for food and textiles – and by the late 1980s wages were falling. In the countryside, the farmers living closer to the cities benefited from the change. They had an easier time supplying the large market. The farmers in the more distant regions, on the other hand, were left behind in the development. The use of pesticides and fertilizers increased, which made it possible to increase production, but later productivity began to decline. It encouraged increased use of pesticides and fertilizers, reaching alarming heights and raising prices.
The social safety net during the working class was reduced and the new forms of employment began to create uncertainty. On the one hand, the directors were allowed to hire and dismiss workers based on the production goals they had set, but the trade union movement was not given the corresponding rights to be able to act under the changed conditions. In the light of these circumstances, a debate was raised about the rhythm and scope of economic reforms and a clearer separation of party and state.
1986 Beginning political protests
In 1986, a student demonstration was held in Shanghai for press freedom and political change. Hu Yaobang, the party’s general secretary and relatively young, was forced to resign, and the hard line launched a campaign against “bourgeois liberalism” to remove what he characterized as “western” ideas – fundamentally political liberalism, albeit the campaign also mentioned consumption and corruption. Many saw the campaign as an attack on Deng’s reform-oriented economic policy. Especially since Hu Yaobang was one of his proteges.
In March 1989, the police pushed for a demonstration by Tibetans protesting the constant cultural and religious persecution and demanding more political rights. The shooting led to three days of extensive demonstrations, which ceased only when the authorities imposed a curfew, which was only raised again in April 1990. Tibetans in exile criticized the arrest of a large number of dissidents and a number of executions. Tibet had been illegally annexed by China in 1950 and turned 65 into autonomous territory.