Friday, July 8, 2016

Xinhua — China to expand public-private partnerships

China's State Council, the country's cabinet, will expand its public-private partnership (PPP) model in a bid to promote mass entrepreneurship and innovation.
Promotion of PPPs is conducive to innovation-driven development, stabilizing economic growth, increasing jobs and improving people's lives, according to a statement released Friday after a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.
The PPP model facilitates cooperation between the government and businesses to use social capital for projects such as water conservation, transportation and environmental protection.
However, supporting polices are inadequate, and private sector participation is still low, the statement said.
The government should step up reforms to investment and financing mechanisms, relax market access in the public service and infrastructure construction sectors, and simplify approval procedures, the statement said.
China should also improve supporting policies on taxation preferences, land use, financing and capital exit, and set up a reasonable system for investment returns, it said.
The meeting also stressed the importance of national auditing, calling to address problems identified in an audit report released last week in order to better use public funds, according to the statement.
China.org,cn
China to expand public-private partnerships
Xinhua

14 comments:

Peter Pan said...

PPP, but with Chinese characteristics. Makes all the difference ;)

peterc said...

Sounds like the beginning of the end with Chinese characteristics. :)

Kaivey said...

Sounds like more neoliberalism. They're dealing with the Devil.

Matt Franko said...

They are all western wannabes....

Peter Pan said...

The Chinese public don't wannabe pursuing PPP, western style.

Tom Hickey said...

China is still largely a poor country even though it is progressing quickly in some areas, particularly along the seaboard. The Chinese people want to lead Chinese lives like Americans want to lead American lives. The two cultures are extremely different.

Being a poor country, China is trying to develop as quickly as possible on it own without selling out to the neocolonialists, who, they realize, don't have their interests at heart and have a long history of exploiting underdeveloped and developing countries.

It would be a mistake to think that because the Chinese now see the possibility of having nice stuff, they are becoming Westernized or want to be like Americans.

In fact, in the basic of the mind of many Chinese is the goal over having more and better stuff than the West has now. The Chinese are just as devoted to Chinese exceptionalism as the Americans are to American exceptionalism, and they regard America as the new kid on the block who get there with a lot of luck, not having been destroyed in WWII, like all the rest of the great powers.

The West is always talking about "competing." As China gets rolling, "compete" is going to take on new meaning.

Peter Pan said...

Are you saying that Chinese culture is focused on competition?

Tom Hickey said...

Are you saying that Chinese culture is focused on competition?

Not so much intra-group as inter-group.

In Chinese, the character for China means "Middle Realm," that is, the center of the world. That is how the Chinese see themselves as a nation historically, and they regard the situation for the past several centuries in which they have been peripheral as a blip on the screen that will end when China will again occupy stage center as the place where the action is.

There are Chinese all over the world. They are merchants and traders. Aa business people, they are highly competitive.

Peter Pan said...

I hadn't viewed Chinese merchants and traders as anything other than individuals trying to make a living or pursue their ambitions. You are suggesting something different... i.e. inter-group competition. This seems more applicable to international competition in sports.

When I observe Matt Franko bashing China is this an example of inter-group competitiveness?

Tom Hickey said...

Chinese people identify very strongly as Chinese.

China is a populous country and relatively poor so people have emigrated in search of opportunity. There are Chinatowns around the world and also Korea-towns. They are centers of commerce but one would not know much about it from the outside.

Hong Kong is a financial and commercial center, too, and ethnic Chinese run Singapore, too. An Indian friend who has lived there most of his life was telling me that there is a glass ceiling if one is not Chinese.

The inter-group competitiveness to look at regarding China is twofold. First, the Chinese people are proud people and unite behind China. Secondly, large Chinese firms will compete strongly with other firms for market share.The have a leg up because China is such a huge market and growing, and they are well positioned in it. US firms already know that to be significant in global markets share, it is necessary to do well in China in a very competitive environment.

Tom Hickey said...

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)

Peter Pan said...

Losing face: another term for shame. Inventing more ways for individuals to experience shame is not a sign of enlightenment.

I don't know what to make of this. For some, competitiveness is a means to an end, or how the game is played. For others, competitiveness is a personal value. But these are limited to the individual, and are driven by the need to survive in a capitalist world. A competitive culture is a collective phenomenon, is it not? This suggests it would have existed before capitalism, in the form of nationalism. I'm probably misreading what are saying, and painting the Chinese as the human version of Star Trek's Ferengi.

Tom Hickey said...

Generally speaking, in evolution there is intra-group competition for gain and leadership, as well as intra-group coordination wrt inter-group competition. This is based on kinship evolutionarily, but the evolutionary trait is there and is operative in other relationships.

Nature is based on survival and reproduction. Everything else is a footnote to that.

Humans can rise above to some degree using intelligence made possible by a more complex nervous system. But we are trapped in that game and unless we recognize it and deal with opportunity versus challenge, the law of the jungle will apply.

The game is about dominance and submission, pride and humiliation, etc. That is, winners and losers.

Win-win games are possible but they generally don't happen spontaneously. Human have to work at it. So win-win games are the exception.

Peter Pan said...

I would say that a multi-polar world requires win-win scenarios. At worst it requires isolationism in place of inter-group (inter-pole) competition.

'Cultural competitiveness' would make Chinese nationalism unique.