China, China everywhere

BOSTON — Twenty years from now, will you be reading this column in Mandarin?

It sure felt like it this week as China dominated the global news cycle on just about every front — from economics, politics, culture and the Kingdom of Dwarves (more on that later).

Let's start, as stories about China should, with the economics.

• Beijing said Thursday that its gross domestic product grew at a blistering rate of 8.9 percent in the latest quarter, suggesting that last November's $586 billion stimulus package is kicking in. That surge also puts China back on track, the government says, for hitting its annual growth target of 8 percent — the minimum rate it needs to absorb workers coming from the hinterlands and into its labor force.
• But there's more. Industrial production (up 12.4 percent) and retail sales (up 15.1 percent) were also strong in the quarter. That's good news on two fronts. First, it suggests China's export engine is firing back into high gear, something it desperately needs right now. More importantly, Beijing has been engineering a long-term structural change to its economy, from one reliant on the ups and downs of exports to a more stable consumer-driven approach to growth. A sharp jump in consumer spending is a step closer to that worthy goal.

The news must have pleased U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who this week urged Chinese to spend more to help correct imbalances in the global economy — namely the U.S. trade deficit with China and an undervalued Chinese currency, both constant sources of political friction.

But China also gave Washington headaches this week after it took steps to impose new tariffs on nylon imports from the U.S. The nylon spat follows a string of simmering trade disputes over tires, auto parts and chicken.

Beyond trade and economics, the dragon is also sharpening its claws in global politics.

• In one of the least noticed, yet scariest developments this week, China and India ratcheted up a war of words over disputed land in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as its own and over which the two countries went to war in 1962. But the two BRICs are also at odds over Beijing's cooperation with Pakistan in Kashmir, and an Indian invitation to the Dalai Lama to visit the disputed territory. While each of these issues is important and complex, the rising tension reflects something deeper. "The structural problem is leadership," Shen Kingli of China's South Asia Research Institute told the Christian Science Monitor this week. "The question is who leads in Asia?"
• Beijing, too, is playing an increasingly important leadership role over the future of Iran's nuclear ambitions. With its seat on the United Nations Security Council as leverage, Beijing has been reluctant to go along with Obama Administration hopes to impose sanctions on Iran. That's not surprising when you consider that two of the companies that could end up on the target list for sanctions — China National Offshore Oil Company and Sinopec — are Chinese.
• Beijing also seems headed for a larger role in Afghanistan. As reported this week by National Public Radio, the U.S. has been seeking help from China, the largest commercial investor in Afghanistan and a country that shares a 46-mile border with it. The U.S. would like Beijing to develop this mountainous and remote Wakhan Corridor as an alternate logistics route for troops and supplies flowing into Afghanistan. The topic is expected to come up next month, when President Obama makes his first trip to Beijing.

And let's not forget culture, where China seems to be everywhere too. 

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