The Asian financial crisis has grown and spread. But China is the one economy in the Asia-Pacific region that has remained apparently unaffected by the present financial turmoil. Will China's financial sector be the next domino to fall? These papers will address this question by examining various pros and cons together with their backgrounds.

An examination of the political and economic causes and consequences of the Asian financial crises.

The widely held view of the Asian Financial Crisis is that it had no substantial impact on China. In fact, the country was far more vulnerable than most people realized, due to the high possibility of financial contagion entering the system from Hong Kong through Guangdong province. This book analyzes the severe policy challenge that it presented for China’s leaders. The crisis in Guangdong’s financial institutions provided a forewarning of the difficulties that lay ahead as China’s integration with the global financial system deepened. The experience of Guangdong in the Asian Financial Crisis provided a profound lesson for China’s policy-makers as they planned the country’s strategy for financial reform in the following years. China was able to avoid disaster by astute and difficult policy choices, in the face of fierce pressure from outside the country, as well as from different domestic interests at many different levels. The successful resolution of the crisis provided a breathing space for the leadership. It gave it time to undertake necessary reforms in the country's financial system in the decade that followed the crisis.

The nature of the economic cycle has been a long-standing problem for economists. Key questions include: What are the causes of the economic cycle? Are the causes endogenous or exogenous? and Why is the economic cycle irregular? This book explores the theory of the economic cycle in relation to economic growth in China. The book concludes that the cause of the economic cycle is endogenous, that the periodic fluctuation of economic growth and its dynamic equilibrium are natural aspects of the growth of the economy, and it puts forward a new model of the economic cycle which confidently predicts the future trajectory of China’s economic growth.

This book analyzes the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1999. In addition to the issues of financial system restructuring, export-led recovery, crony capitalism, and competitiveness in Asian manufacturing, it examines six key Asian economies--China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. The book makes clear that there is little particularly Asian about the Asian financial crisis. The generic character of the crisis became clear during 1998, when it reached Russia, South Africa, and Brazil. The spread of the crisis reflects the rapid arrival of global capitalism in a world economy not used to the integration of the advanced and developing countries. The book makes recommendations for reform, including the formation of regional monetary bodies, the establishment of an international bankruptcy system, the democratization of international organizations, the infusion of public money to revive the financial and corporate sectors in Pacific Asia, and stronger supervision over financial institutions. The book emphasizes a mismatch in Pacific Asia between investment in physical hardware (e.g., factories and machinery) and in social software (e.g., scientific research centers and administrative and judiciary systems). In a world of growing international competitiveness, concerns over governance will weigh increasingly heavily on unreformed Asian countries. The long-term competitiveness of Asia rests on its getting its institutions right.

This volume is the outgrowth of a conference held at Peking University in May 2002, jointly sponsored by the American Committee on Asian Economic Studies, the Peking University School of Economics, and the China Reform Forum. The contributors include leading scholars from Asia as well as specialists on Asia from the US, Europe, and Australia. The book delves into issues of trade and investment, exchange rates and macroeconomic policy, and preferential trade agreements and other forms of economic cooperation. The overall message is one of regional dynamism animated by concerted efforts to build a favorable institutional environment. China is a great motivating force in this dynamism and a key player in the development of regional agreements.

This book examines China’s response to the Asian financial crisis of 1997, both in its immediate aftermath and in the years since. Based on research conducted by the China Development Research Foundation, one of China’s leading think-tanks, this book includes contributions from senior policy makers in the Chinese government.

Prepared by the East Asian Institute, NUS, which promotes research on East Asian developments particularly the political, economic and social development of contemporary China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), this series of research reports is intended for policy makers and readers who want to keep abreast of the latest developments in China. Contains two articles, 'China and the Asian Financial Crisis: An Update' and 'China's Economy in 1998'

In the last two decades of the 20th century, China stood out as the world's star performer in economic growth, thanks to the market-oriented reform that started in 1978. At the turn of the century, the Chinese economy faces a series of challenges to sustain its growth and stability. The two-decade-long rapid growth has effectively strengthened China's economic power and raised its people's standard of living. It has also transformed China from a centrally planned command economy into a ?socialist market economy?, which operates increasingly in line with capitalist norms. Major structural problems, however, remain and are growing acute. Weakness in the fiscal system breeds rent seeking at the local level and causes tension in the state budget. The flawed financial institutions and the biased ownership structure continue to distort resource allocation and cause huge efficiency losses. Inter-provincial and inter-regional disparity is reaching a level that threatens national unity and social stability. As China joins the World Trade Organization and becomes more integrated into the world economy, it urgently needs to improve the domestic business environment and to beef up indigenous industries for foreign competition.This volume is a collection of papers written by scholars at the East Asian Institute to address those problems during the period 1999?2001. The authors, with their knowledge and experience in China studies, provide in-depth observations and professional analyses of some of the most important issues for the Chinese economy at the turn of the century. Some of the observations and analyses lead to enlightening policy recommendations. The solid scholarship combined with the policy orientation of these papers will appeal greatly to researchers in academia, governments and other institutions. The policy-oriented and fact-based analyses will also be of interest to practitioners in business, including business consultants.