US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Thursday that China is unlikely to overtake the US as the world's largest economy, and in fact faces important "downside" risks.
China must accelerate reforms to rebalance its breakneck growth both for its own good and for that of the world economy, Paulson said in an interview with Fox News.
Asked if China, given its double-digit rates of growth, could surpass the US as the world's pre-eminent economy, the Treasury secretary said past performance was no guarantee of the future.
Those who make that claim "look at the past and want to extrapolate future growth from the past and just assume that the economy will keep going up at the rate it has been growing and defy economic gravity," he said.
"They are assuming that somehow or other China will be immune from all of the economic issues and problems that confront the rest of the world," he said.
"As the economy gets bigger and bigger and as they are part way from an economy which is centrally planned to one that is market driven, it is increasingly important that they move ahead quickly with their reforms," he added.
"I think that there's more risk on the downside for China, although I am an optimist," the Treasury secretary said.
During a visit to China last month, Paulson inaugurated a high-level economic dialogue with Chinese leaders designed to thrash out the longer-term challenges posed by the country's dramatic growth.
But more immediately, Paulson is under pressure from some in Congress to get tough over Chinese trade practices.
His comments came on the day that new data showed the US trade deficit surged to a record US$69.9 billion in August owing to a surge in imports of cheap Chinese goods and expensive oil, the government said on Thursday.
MISINFORMATION: The generated content tends to adopt China’s official stance, such as ‘Taiwan is currently governed by the Chinese central government,’ the NSB said Five China-developed artificial intelligence (AI) language models exhibit cybersecurity risks and content biases, an inspection conducted by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The five AI tools are: DeepSeek, Doubao (豆包), Yiyan (文心一言), Tongyi (通義千問) and Yuanbao (騰訊元寶), the bureau said, advising people to remain vigilant to protect personal data privacy and corporate business secrets. The NSB said it, in accordance with the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法), has reviewed international cybersecurity reports and intelligence, and coordinated with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to conduct an inspection of China-made AI language
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
‘TROUBLEMAKER’: Most countries believe that it is China — rather than Taiwan — that is undermining regional peace and stability with its coercive tactics, the president said China should restrain itself and refrain from being a troublemaker that sabotages peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. Lai made the remarks after China Coast Guard vessels sailed into disputed waters off the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan — following a remark Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made regarding Taiwan. Takaichi during a parliamentary session on Nov. 7 said that a “Taiwan contingency” involving a Chinese naval blockade could qualify as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, and trigger Tokyo’s deployment of its military for defense. Asked about the escalating tensions
DISPUTE: A Chinese official prompted a formal protest from Tokyo by saying that ‘the dirty head that sticks itself out must be cut off,’ after Takaichi’s Taiwan remarks Four armed China Coast Guard vessels yesterday morning sailed through disputed waters controlled by Japan, amid a diplomatic spat following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments on Taiwan. The four ships sailed around the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) to Taiwan, and which Taiwan and China also claim — on Saturday before entering Japanese waters yesterday and left, the Japan Coast Guard said. The China Coast Guard said in a statement that it carried out a “rights enforcement patrol” through the waters and that it was a lawful operation. As of the end of last month,
RSS