Pakistan can benefit from China-US trade war: Chinese academic

BEIJING: The United States is currently waging a trade war against China that comes with tons of banes but it also has its boons and one such is the opening of a window of opportunity for Pakistan to scout for avenues to export those commodities that are going to succumb to the tariff tussle, a top Chinese scholar said.

“Amid trade war with US President Donald Trump, China is looking for long-term partners to meet its growing demands and this provides a good window to other countries including Pakistan to assess the Chinese market and encourage the exporters to make more goods for the 1 billion plus market,” Professor Xu Guangjian, RENMIN University of China, told a group of Pakistani journalists attending a training program at the Beijing university.

Xu Guangjian, who is the Executive Vice Dean at School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University was expressing his views on “China’s Economic Development: Trends, Challenges and Policies”.

Sharing a four-pronged strategy of economic development model, the professor said making investment on the public infrastructure construction providing basic condition for development.

“As a well-known Chinese saying goes: if you want to be rich, you must build roads at first, thus the transportation infrastructure construction is the premise condition of economic development and it also promotes regional economic coordinated development,” he said.

The professor said improving human capital and prioritizing education to prepare high-skill labour force for development is a must.

“Vocational education and on-the-job training are very important for development and increasing national fiscal dispensing on education and R&D,” he said.

Opening to the outside world: Make better use of international market; Launch of “The Belt and Road” Initiative, the establishment of AIIB, Silk Road Fund, major interconnection and economic cooperation projects; Shanghai and other 11 free trade zones are set up.

Protect the Environment: In its war against air pollution, China has achieved a drop of over 30 per cent in the average density of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in key areas in the past five years.

He said 71 per cent of coal-fired power plants now achieve ultra-low emissions. The country has improved its energy mix, cutting the share of coal consumption by 8.1 percentage points and increasing the share of clean energy consumption by 6.3 percentage points.

China has taken over 20 million vehicles with high emissions off the roads.

Stressing upon the need of information technology for sustainable growth, the economics experts said the Chinese leadership has now come to a consensus on quality growth and developing a system that is open and private sector plays a vital part in it.

Prof Xu said the “new normal” of the Chinese economy was that it will transform from a high-rate growth to a medium-high rate and high-quality growth; constant optimization and upgrading of economic structure, narrowing of the urban-rural gap, higher ratio of personal income to GDP and more people benefiting from development; transform from the production investment-driven model into an innovation-driven model.

The reform of State-Owned-Enterprises has been one of key areas in the process of reform since 1978, and great progress has been made , he further explained.

“Development of no-state-owned enterprises; before reform there were only 150,000 self-employed individuals in urban areas; today more than 50 million people are working as self-employed in rural and urban areas; more than 40 million people are working in the private firms. Foreigner-owned Enterprises and they have played roles.”

Admitting the flaws in closed-system of planned economy, the professor said the benefits of market economy are far greater and lasting.

China is now assuming the role of global leader in new world order and championing the cause of shared economy, Xu said.