{"id":11881,"date":"2012-03-20T12:08:56","date_gmt":"2012-03-20T16:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/?p=11881"},"modified":"2016-08-30T10:29:47","modified_gmt":"2016-08-30T14:29:47","slug":"experts-china-5yr-plan-latin-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/2012\/03\/20\/experts-china-5yr-plan-latin-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts Discuss China\u2019s Five Year Plan and the Impact to Latin America"},"content":{"rendered":"


Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/object><\/p>\n

How Latin America will feel the effects of projected economic, social, and industrial changes in China was the topic of discussion at the monthly Pardee House Seminar at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future on February 29.<\/p>\n

Titled \u201cChina\u2019s New Five Year Plan: Implications for Latin America<\/a>,\u201d the seminar featured remarks by Margret Myers<\/a>, (Director of China and Latin American program, Inter-American Dialogue), Prof. Edward Cunningham, (Department of Geography and Environment, BU), and Pardee Faculty Fellow, Prof. Kevin Gallagher<\/a>, (International Relations, BU), who moderated the session.<\/p>\n

Margaret Myers discussed three aspects of the newest Five Year Plan \u2013 the 12th<\/sup> such plan issued by the Chinese government \u2013 that outlines directions and goals for the country through 2015.\u00a0 She spoke first of the economic transformation that the plan calls for, shifting the country\u2019s export-based economy of the past few decades to a consumption-based one.\u00a0 This effort to stimulate increased purchasing by domestic consumers is tied to related efforts to introduce or expand social welfare programs, such as unemployment benefits and an increased minimum wage, she said.<\/p>\n

Myers also spoke of the important role that natural resource constraints are having on the country and its move to impose measures to protect the environment and reduce air and water pollution.\u00a0 The third component of the plan she highlighted is the focus on industrial reforms, which promote the service sector and other strategic emerging industries in place of the emphasis of manufacturing inexpensive consumer goods for export.<\/p>\n

Myers called the plan \u201cvery complex\u201d and said whether and how local governments, businesses, and rural areas will comply with the larger vision set forth for the country remains to be seen. Despite the new 5-year plan, \u201cnobody has any idea, really, what will happen in China,\u201d in the coming years, she said.<\/p>\n

Edward Cunningham noted that natural resource constraints are highlighted as an area of concern in the plan and this marks a major shift from China\u2019s former clearly stated desire to be energy self-sufficient at all costs. He said that China is depleting its coal resources so rapidly that it went from being the largest exporter of coal to the largest importer within the past two years. He cited China\u2019s need to import energy resources and mineral commodities from Latin American countries as one major impact from China in that region.\u00a0 Another impact is China\u2019s increasing presence in the region as Chinese companies acquire Latin American firms or expand operations of existing companies.<\/p>\n

Both Cunningham and Kevin Gallagher discussed the danger of Latin American countries being subject to the \u201cresource curse,\u201d where natural resource commodities, such as minerals or energy sources, attract such high prices \u2013 in this case because of increasing demand from China \u2014 that the country\u2019s currency becomes inflated, negatively affecting other aspects of its economy.<\/p>\n

Gallagher noted that some countries in the region are working to diversify their economies to avoid such consequences. \u201cCommodity growth is something some Latin American countries are trying to move away from.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watch this video on YouTube How Latin America will feel the effects of projected economic, social, and industrial changes in China was the topic of discussion at the monthly Pardee House Seminar at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future on February 29. Titled \u201cChina\u2019s New Five Year Plan: Implications […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3069,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5355],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11881"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11881"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25105,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11881\/revisions\/25105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}