Directions: Listen to the following podcasts to prepare for our trip to Beijing and Hong Kong. One of our goals is to learn as much about the Chinese economy as we can before we go. Doing so will help you think about important concepts and provide you the necessary knowledge to ask educated questions about the Chinese culture and economy while we're there.
The Story of Alibaba
A massive Chinese company, Alibaba, is about to have what could be the biggest public offering on planet earth. You can think of Alibaba like Amazon or Ebay, except you can buy way more – you can get a used 747 airplane, or an oil taknker, or 500 million tiny screws. Today on the show, the company that made it possible for anyone anywhere to build almost anything they want. What that company means for China, for the rest of us and for some chickens in California.
The Secret Document that Transformed China
In 1978, a group of farmers in a Chinese village called Xiaogang wrote a secret contract and hid it in the roof of a mud hut. They were afraid the document might get them executed. Instead, it wound up completely transforming the Chinese economy. On today’s show, we travel to Xiaogang, and hear the farmers’ story.
China's Giant Pool of Money
Today on the show, we visit a giant pool of money – worth trillions of U.S. dollars! – at the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank. To understand how the money got there, we talk to Jacky Jiang and Rosalia Yang, a pair of very friendly exporters who show us around a factory where they make fake-wood flooring. They tell us about the changes China is going through, and explain why that pool of money might soon start flowing back to the U.S.
Is China's Economy Genius, or Bound for Disaster?
When you walk around a big city in China, it feels like an entrepreneurial free-for-all – guys selling stuff on street corners, lots of little shops, everybody hustling. But when you pull back thte curtain on the country’s economy, you find the government everywhere. The government owns, among other things, the country’s biggest cell phone carrier, the three biggest airlines and the four biggest banks. Those state-owned banks in particular play a central role in the country’s economy. Chinese people have one of the highest savings rates in the world, and they don’t have many options for investing the money they save. So they put lots of their money in ordinary savings accounts at those state-owned banks. The banks, in turn, lend a lot of that money out to other government-owned companies, typically at very low interest rates. Those companies go out and build lots of new stuff. All that building contributes a huge chunk of China’s growth. But the building can’t go on forever. In fact, China may already have built too much stuff with borrowed money.
China's Growth Problem
In their latest five-year plan, China’s leaders set a remarkable goal: Slower economic growth. It’s a recognition of problems like environmental damage and rising inequality that have come with rapid growth.
Did China's Central Bank Take Your Job?
Is China manipulating its currency? What does it even mean to manipulate a currency, anyway, and how does a country do it? On today’s Planet Money, Alex Blumberg and David Kestenbaum explain with help from economics professor Paul Wachtel and entrepreneur Imran Karim.
China Gives Us a Pep Talk
NPR business correspondent Frank Langfitt headed to China a few weeks ago expecting to find a triumphant people. The Chinese economy has recovered much more quickly than many parts of the world and Langfitt says he thought people would be gloating. But that just wasn’t the case, instead Langfitt found himself being comforted by the Chinese about the strength of the United States. Many people he spoke to said their country still has a long way to go before overtaking the U.S. economy. Part of the reason, factory workers in the southern part of the country have seen layoffs that Langfitt says, just can’t be compared to Detroit. Returning to factories he had visited years ago, Langfitt found doors locked and furniture strewn about outside. Why’s that? It’s simple – Americans have stopped buying.
Economics for Medieval Chinese Peasants
We’ve been talking lately with medieval historian Philip Daileader about how very little fun it was to live in 12th century France. Now, thanks to a nudge from listener Alan Munter, we’re looking at the state of economic life in Asia. Historian Kenneth Pomeranz says pre-industrial China was no picnic, either. Life expectancy in the lower Yangtze River Valley was probably about 35 in the year zero, Pomeranz says, and it was probably about the same in 1800. At least from the 1,000 on, people began spending more time at work, but without much to show for it. Yet Pomeranz, author of the Greater Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, says it was one of the best places on the planet for poor people to live until the eve of the industrial revolution.
Can China Save America's Bacon
China’s all over the headlines these days, as its economy recovers faster than the U.S. one. World newspapers trumpet the communist nation’s rise, with stories like “Asia recovery show’s China’s ascendance” and “China to surpass U.S. ‘within a decade.’” Analyst David Gordon, head of research at Eurasia Group, says it’s true that the Chinese responded to the global recession with a fast, effective stimulus program. The rest is hype, Gordon says, since China’s economy is nowhere near big enough or dynamic enough to save the rest of the world.