Latest news with #economic transition
South China Morning Post
03-08-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Jeffrey Sachs says US sabre-rattling at China can become self-fulfilling prophecy of war
Jeffrey Sachs is an economics professor and director of the Centre for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He was a special adviser to the UN Secretary General and has advised multiple governments on economic transition, debt crisis solutions and poverty alleviation policies. Part 1 of the Sachs interview, published in July last year, can be found here . This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus . For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here Advertisement The tariff truce between China and the United States is set to end in August. What do you forecast will happen after that? And what will happen to trade relations between China and the US for the rest of US President Donald Trump's second term? The United States learned that it can't impose its will on China. The rare earths threat by itself was enough to cause the US to reconsider. So, almost immediately after putting on the high tariffs, the US backed down. And both sides know that each has some chokeholds on the other. For that reason, we might expect the two sides to maintain certain limits on the trade frictions in the years ahead. There will be, therefore, some kind of agreement, but it won't stick in the details, and frictions will continue to wax and wane, with neither side definitively imposing its will on the other. The basic reason is that both sides have a mutual gain from continued trade. I'm hopeful that a measure of rationality will therefore prevail. The biggest challenge, of course, is the behaviour of the US. The US started this trade war. This is not two sides fighting each other, but rather the US fighting China. We should remember that. The US needs to show some prudence at this point. I do suspect that there is a chastened view among many senior US officials. Trump himself is unpredictable. He has a very short attention span. Agreements with Trump don't stick. So, I don't foresee a quiet period, but I do foresee some limits to the competition because each side can do damage to the other and both sides have a strong reason to achieve some cooperation. 02:09 China, US top negotiators agree on 'framework' that will need approval from Xi and Trump China, US top negotiators agree on 'framework' that will need approval from Xi and Trump Let me add one more point. From a long-term point of view, China certainly should not regard the US as a growth market for its exports. The US is going to restrict China's exports to the US one way or another. The relationship will not be harmonious. The US will not be friendly to China, or trustworthy. China should just take care that it's expanding its exports to other markets, and should not be overly focused on trying to break through to the US market, or even to Europe for that matter. The rapid growth of China's exports will be with Africa, Southeast Asia, South Asia, west Asia, Central Asia, Latin America – not with the US and western Europe. Advertisement
South China Morning Post
10-07-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Why land and property remain at the core of China's economic transition
Amid a prolonged economic transition, China's growth engine is shedding its old gears. The heyday of real estate expansion is over. Urban home prices have lost their relentless upwards march and local governments, once flush with land revenues, are confronting fiscal strain It is tempting to declare this the end of the land finance era, a long-anticipated turning point that will force Beijing to adopt a more sustainable fiscal model. Yet such a conclusion would be premature. For all the structural reform rhetoric and policy experimentation, the uncomfortable truth is this: land finance and property-driven growth remain the quiet scaffolding of China's economic system. Their dominance is diminished but their function remains indispensable. Yet none of these efforts has offered a viable replacement for the entrenched reliance on land and property to anchor local economic development. At the heart of the issue lies a structural legacy. While its share of government revenue has declined significantly in recent years, the economic reach of the land and construction ecosystem remains vast. The construction sector alone employs over 50 million people, many of them rural migrant workers with few alternatives.
