Some Monday China links:
Japan’s The Asahi Shimbun is beginning another one of its in-depth investigations of the Chinese Communist Party, this one examining Zhongnanhai, the CCP’s central headquarters in Beijing.
The first part of this series provides a rare in-depth look at the CCP’s internal decision-making towards North Korea. The report notes that until now bilateral ties have been maintained by the CCP and the Workers’ Party of Korea, as well as their militaries. According to the newspaper, a decision by the Central Leading Group for Foreign Affairs of the Communist Party led to the establishment of a strategic dialogue, signifying that the two governments will now handle bilateral relations. (Vice President Li Yuanchao traveled to North Korea this weekend in his government capacity as well.)
In summing up the implications of this, one researcher at a government think tank told Asahi, “That signifies that the China-North Korea relationship is no longer the special one of the past. North Korea will be treated just like any other foreign nation.”
China Daily has a long piece examining the challenging construction feats involved in building a 1,776-km-long high-speed railway linking the capitals of Gansu and Xinjiang provinces. The “high-speed Silk Road,” as the article calls it, is expected to be operational by the end of 2014.
Chinese officials’ mistresses are causing the Party a lot of headaches as they seek to act as “whistleblowers” when relationships turn sour, according to the Washington Post.
Xinhua reports that China’s National Audit Office (NAO) will conduct a nationwide review of government debt.
Reuters looks at how Samsung is still beating Apple in China.
Jim O’Neill, who coined the BRIC bloc, doesn’t believe that China is in for a hard landing. In the op-ed he writes “I am more confident that the decade ambition of 7.5pc [economic growth] is likely to be achieved.” He also argues, “If China grows by 7.5pt for the decade (it's currently closer to 8.5pc so far this decade), it will be an economy of around $16 trillion or more by 2020, allowing its average citizen to enjoy wealth of around $12-13,000.”
China Real Time reviews a new study that finds that the U.S. is the top real estate market for mainland Chinese purchasing property overseas and, within the U.S., New York is the top destination. The study also finds that in contrast to prior years, it’s no longer just wealthy Chinese who are looking at overseas property. Increasingly, middle class citizens are too.