Jan. 28 – Construction will hopefully start this year on two railways linking China’s westernmost Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with the central Asian nations of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Xinjiang government sources said.

The railway, expected to be completed within the year, will link Korgas on the China-Kazakhstan border with China’s inland railways. From the border, the US$861 million railway will extend west, joining the Sary-Ozek railway of Kazakhstan to become the second cross-border rail link between the two countries. (more…)

By Andy Scott

VIENTIANE, Laos, Jan. 23 - The Lao call them Jin, and since the late 1800s when groups of marauding Chinese on horseback called Haw Jin first arrived, they have been coming into Laos in search of fortune.

Southeast Asia has long had Chinese immigrants, and from Thailand and Singapore to Indonesia and the Philippines, many of the region’s wealthiest and most powerful families trace their ancestry back to the mainland. Former Thai Prime Minster Thaksin Shinawatra and former Philippine President Corazon Aquino are just two example of this. While nationalism has hindered many of Chinese descent in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia from taking office, they long ago became the de facto merchants and bankers of the region.

Today, a new wave of Chinese immigrants is flooding south. Far from the rich and powerful families that preceded them, these Chinese come from the country’s interior, a location that has missed much of the economic transformation of China’s eastern coast. These cooks, laborers, merchants and tourists are leaving behind their economically depressed regions, often for destinations even poorer. (more…)

By Andy Scott

VIENTIANE, Laos, Jan. 17 - Trade between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has boomed in the past 15 years, growing more than 20 percent a year and reaching US$202.5 billion in 2007. The two sides are each other’s fourth-largest trading partners. When completed, the China-ASEAN FTA will be the world’s largest, encompassing around 1.7 billion consumers and with total trade estimated at US$1.2 trillion.

Much of that trade is dependent on a modern highway system throughout the region, but so far, the dream of a connected Southeast Asia is still just that. The infrastructure has yet to catch up with hard economic reality.

To see the challenge set out, one only needs to board a bus in Kunming, bound for the border. At the first gas station south of Kunming, trucks and busses wait to fill their tanks for the journey. The road, four divided lanes of limited-access black asphalt, cuts through mountains and across valleys, at one moment soaring almost above the clouds, the next in a deep ravine. The Kunming-Jinghong Highway is as much a testament to China’s rise as the Three Gorges Damn or the city of Shenzhen. (more…)

By Joyce Roque 

Gaily bedight,
A gallant night
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of El Dorado.
-Edgar Allan Poe, El Dorado

The Land of the Khans
Jan. 8 - Through much of its history, Mongolia had been subject to the whims of its two giant neighbors. A country of vast, grassy steppes spanning 1,564,100 sq. km and wedged between Russia to its north and China to the south, Mongolia was home to Chinggis (Genghis) Khan, the great Mongol warrior who unified the country’s many tribes and conquered much of Asia in the 12th century. The Mongolian Empire reached as far west as Egypt and but following the death of Kublai Khan, it went into sharp decline and China and Russia began to reassert their influence over the land-locked country. China successfully invaded Mongolia the Ming Dynasty and following World War II, Mongolia became a vassal of “big brother” Soviet Russia as its 16th satellite republic.

Today, Mongolia’s neighbors are again playing a vital role in the present and future of the country. Russia is the country’s top importer while China dominates its export market, accounting for 71.8 percent of all exports. (more…)

By Joyce Roque 

Dec. 18 - “The main thing is to make history, not to write it.” Otto Von Bismarck

Much ado about oil
Just like the spice trade of yore where adventurers dared flinging themselves in the uncharted world for the sake of country and above all for the business of spice, it seems China is no different with the lure of spice replaced by the hunt for oil. China is the second largest importer of oil in the world with a mission to lay the groundwork for stabilizing its energy security in the future.

The world’s thirst for oil overtakes its supply despite fears of global warming. According to government specialists, oil and gas demand will remain unhindered and could climb to as much as 50 percent in the coming 25 years.

Oil industry experts also estimate that for China’s case oil demand may reach 400 million tons by 2020 with an average increase of 12 percent annually.

“There are no easy barrels left,” J. Robinson West, chairman of PFC Energy told the International Herald Tribune. “The only barrels are going to be the tough barrels.” (more…)

By Chris Devonshire-Ellis 

BEIJING, Nov. 9 - The new issue of China Briefing’s sister magazine, India Briefing, is now out, and is a Delhi and Mumbai special, identifying the investment environment in those cities. But in reading it through, and regularly visiting those cities as well as Beijing (where I live) and Shanghai, other comparisons start to spring to mind as well, and particularly between those of the two countries political and financial centers.

Delhi, now directly linked to Beijing via a 6 hour route flying down to Yunnan, across Burma and Bangladesh then along the southern edge of the Himalaya, has its own development issues. Building a new airport, holding international games…sounds familiar? Delhi is home to the 2010 Commonwealth Games, second only to the Olympics in size and stature, with 56 nations participating. Yup, the good old Brits still have their shadow Empire in place – the British Commonwealth – and the quadrennial games are in Delhi. Infrastructure, roads, hotels, you name it, all being upgraded. Plus a new Delhi airport and terminal too. One thing will be better however – Beijing’s dreadful air pollution, which will hinder their Olympics badly, will not occur in Delhi. For the Indians, unlike the Chinese, were rather more forward looking and banned all petrol driven public vehicles from the city several years ago. Buses, taxis, tuk-tuks, and an increasing number of lorries and cars now run on gas, with no emissions, and the result has been spectacular. Delhi, a huge sprawling mass of a city, now has far cleaner air than Beijing. (more…)

By Andy Scott

SHANGHAI, Sept. 11 - China’s new policy restricting processing trade, which took effect nationwide August 23, will most heavily impact Guangdong province. The booming Chinese economy, which has grown at over 10 percent for the last 15 years, has been largely driven by processing trade factories located in South China and the Yangtze River Delta region, importing tax-deductible raw materials to manufacture finished products for export. Of the over 90,000 processing trade firms operating on the mainland, nearly 70,000 are located in Guangdong province according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

However, in its continued efforts to develop the central and western regions which have not profited from China’s economic surge, Beijing has stipulated that the new regulations will not affect enterprises operating in those regions.

With that in mind, we decided to take a look at central China, an area that includes the six provinces of Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi and Shanxi. It includes 30 airports, 12 inland ports, 460,000 kilometers of highway and approximately 15,000 kilometers of railway. Would it be better for processing trade manufacturers to move their operations inland, or look for other possibilities to dealing with Notice 44? (more…)

By Andy Scott 

Senior officials from several Mekong countries agreed yesterday to build a bridge across the Mekong River, linking by road, the southwest province of Yunnan, China with Bangkok, Thailand.

The bridge, which, according to the Asian Development Bank, will be financed by the governments of the People’s Republic of China and Thailand, is scheduled for completion in 2011 and will cross the Mekong River at Chiang Khong, in northern Thailand, and Houayxay, in Laos. It is the final link in a north-south road system extending through the Mekong region that has been under development for more than a decade.

“When this vital bridge is completed, it will be possible for the first time to travel by land directly from Yunnan, People’s Republic of China, through Lao PDR to Thailand, opening up tremendous potential for increased trade, tourism, and further integration of the Mekong region,” said ADB Vice President C. Lawrence Greenwood, Jr. (more…)

Several international companies have recently set up shop in Chongqing as more and more foreign investors look to China’s western second tier cities. With the rising costs of land, labor, energy and other inputs to manufacturing making the coastal regions less attractive to companies looking for places to park their factories, the inland second and third tier cities have become an attractive alternative, whether for export production or, increasingly, to sell domestic B2B or B2C consumers.

Rieter Holding AG, a Swiss based industrial automotive supplier, has set up a new facility in western China called Rieter Automotive Chongqing Sound-Proof Parts. The new manufacturing facility in Chongqing represents a further step in China for Rieter.  According to the announcement, the 9,000 square meter plant is located close to OEM facilities, including Ford, Volvo and Mazda, and will be fully operational by mid-year with an initial workforce of around 70.  The facility will produce thermal management packages and acoustic parts. (more…)