COMMENT
8 | Wednesday, August 7, 2019 CHINA DAILYWhat They Say
Editorials
Currency manipulator claim another
unwarranted attack on China
The urbanization plan
issued in 2014 promoted
migrant workers being incor-
porated as urban residents in
an orderly manner and facili-
tated the equalization of
basic public services in cities.
It also encouraged rural resi-
dents to settle in small and
medium-sized cities and
strictly controlled the popula-
tions of cities with over 5 mil-
lion residents.
As China's social and eco-
nomic development steps into
a new stage, it will develop
city clusters and the medium
and small-sized cities sur-rounding big cities. Develop-
ing small and medium-sized
cities and strictly controlling
the size of large cities are no
longer the priority.
Rural residents that move
to cities are the actual benefi-
ciaries of urbanization, espe-
cially of the development of
big cities, because big cities
are capable of providing more
jobs and better public servi-
ces. As rural residents flowing
into big cities would remain
the population mobility trend
in the near future despite the
government's control policy,
developing city clusters andthe surrounding medium and
small-sized cities may be a
better policy choice as the big
cities can play the role of eco-
nomic drivers for their sur-
rounding regions.
City clusters are important
in the global competition and
for international cooperation.
Highly integrated city clusters
centered on a big city gather
more production factors and
have stronger competitive-
ness, which have a significant
influence on the regional,
national and even global
economy.
For instance, China's Yang-tze River Delta urban belt is
centered on Shanghai and the
Pearl River Delta city cluster
is centered on Shenzhen and
Guangzhou.
Since the 18th National
Congress of the Communist
Party of China held in
November 2012, China has
advanced several urban
development policies to culti-
vate city clusters and metro-
politan areas, which will help
form new advantages in
regional competition and
provide significant support to
economic transition and
upgrading.Opinion Line
Improving city clusters’ ability
to function as regional boosters
THE POLITICAL BUREAU of the Communist Party of China Central Committee has set a new orientation for China's urbani-
zation based on improving the function of city clusters. This is a significant change in China's urbanization policy. Beijing News
comments:It is admirable that the ani-
mal-rights activist has so
much love and sympathy for
mosquitoes as a species. We
hope he extends a little to his
own species, too, which is a
victim of mosquitoes.
According to statistics of US
website Science Alert, mos-
quitoes cause the deaths of
more than 750,000 humans
every year. In comparison,
sharks are responsible for six
human fatalities a year, while
wolves kill 10.
Of course, it is not mosqui-
toes that are the actual killers,
but the diseases such as the
Zika virus, yellow fever and
encephalitis B that they carry.
During construction of the
Panama Canal, so many work-ers were killed by yellow fever
that the construction work
had to be suspended for
months, until doctors killed
the majority of the mosqui-
toes.
In the past, the list of mos-
quito-carried epidemics also
included malaria, which took
millions of human lives every
year until quinine and arte-
misinin were discovered.
Some people worry that if
mosquitoes die out, the whole
ecological chain might be
affected. But that worry is far
from necessary because mos-
quitoes are far from dying
out. It is cold temperature and
lack of water ponds that
threaten their survival.
Human self-defense claps killvery few of them.
Mosquitoes have very
strong survival ability, even if
the number of individuals
becomes very small, they can
quickly breed and can easily
re-form into big groups. It is
temperature and water that
affect their survival most.Unless all the standing water
on the planet vanishes or
becomes heavily polluted, or
the Earth enters another gla-
cial age, there is little possibil-
ity of mosquitoes dying out.
If that day comes, mosqui-
toes will not be the only spe-
cies that faces extinction.
Human kind will have to wor-
ry about its own survival,
instead of caring about a spe-
cies that sucks its blood and
claims lives.
It is good to promote love
for animals and protection of
their rights, but totally unnec-
essary to deprive humans of
the right to self-defense when
being attacked by mosquitoes.
Just kill them, for your own
health and that of others.Donate blood, but not to mosquitoes
INSTEAD OF KILLING MOSQUITOES, people should let them take “blood donations” because they need to fertilize eggs
— That’s what French animal-rights activist Aymeric Caron advises people to do. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:US meddling in South China Sea
to destabilize promising progress
A
nyone seriously concerned about the contested South China Sea should note
this: China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have finished the
first reading of the Code of Conduct Single Draft Negotiating Text ahead of
schedule.
And talks on a second draft are due to begin in October.
Which means countries with conflicting claims in the South China Sea are finally edging
toward agreeing an arrangement for shelving the disputes and preventing conflicts.
While China and ASEAN nations have engaged in very constructive COC consultations
aimed at institutionalizing peace in the South China Sea, and have made remarkable
progress toward that goal, what is a source of hope to stakeholders in the region appears
very different to some outsiders.
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper, for one, alleges China is “destabilizing” the region.
The new US defense chief made the remarks in Australia on his first overseas trip in his
current capacity, lambasting “a disturbing pattern of aggressive behavior; destabilizing
behavior from China”. Which echoes US State Secretary Mike Pompeo’s allegation of Chi-
na’s “decades of bad behavior”.
Side by side with Pompeo’s proclaimed attempt to foster a closer regional alliance
against alleged Chinese “bad behavior”, Esper announced his eagerness to deploy interme-
diate-range conventional missiles in the Pacific region “within months”.
US vigilance against China did not begin from the current administration, and it has
never lacked an excuse for corresponding military deployment.
It does not matter to the US that the deployment of new strategic weapons in the region
will disrupt the longstanding security equilibrium throughout the Asia-Pacific, or Indo-Pa-
cific, as the US insists on calling it, potentially setting off a new arms race, and threatening
peace and stability.
Washington’s current logic seems to be whatever it does is legitimate, whatever Beijing
does is not.
So, in spite all of the efforts Beijing has made to de-escalate tensions in the areas sur-
rounding the South China Sea, Washington accuses it of “destabilizing” the region. China’s
installation of proper defensive facilities on its own features in the South China Sea are
thus decried as “weaponizing the global commons”, though it has nothing to do with “the
global commons”.
Esper’s allegations may not be worth serious scrutiny because they are legally porous,
and against reality. But they represent a worrisome trend in present-day China-US rela-
tions — especially because tensions are rippling rapidly beyond the two countries’ ongoing
trade confrontation.
Unless they can be managed in a timely and cool-headed manner, such tensions have the
potential to take the overall bilateral relationship hostage.Today, the US administra-
tion does not hide its obses-
sion with the privileges
enjoyed by the US, and it is
even willing to destroy inter-
national rules and systems to
maintain them.
With the trade frictions it
has unilaterally provoked and
escalated with other coun-
tries, its exit from one interna-
tional organization and
agreement after another, and
its resorting to protectionism
and unilateralism, the US
administration is constantly
overdrawing the US’ interna-
tional credit, vandalizing the
rules-based international
order and hindering world
economic cooperation.
The trade tensions and
long-term policy uncertain-
ties caused by the US have
become the primary factors
affecting market confidence
and weakening the vitality ofthe global economy.
The US society has also
voiced ever-growing opposi-
tions to the administration’s
policies. There are extensive
worries that if the 10 percent
tariffs are imposed they will
deal a direct blow to US con-
sumers, who will become
chess pieces in the US-waged
trade war with China.
It is the responsibility of a
major country to inject cer-
tainty into international rela-
tions and the global economy,
create more conditions and
opportunities for the common
development of all countries.
However, the current US
administration has just done
the opposite. In a recent World
Economic Outlook, the Inter-
national Monetary Fund has
lowered its expectations for
world economic growth for the
third time this year, and has
forecast global trade will grow2.5 percent this year, down
from its April forecast.
What the US has done have
become the primary factors
affecting market confidence
and undermining global eco-
nomic vitality. The IMF had
previously estimated that con-tinued trade wars and protec-
tionist measures could cause
world economic growth to
lose 0.5 percentage points in
2020.
The US administration’s
indifference to fairness and
justice is the root of all these.MA XUEJING / CHINA DAILYLuo JieCHINA DAILY WORLDWIDE
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@chinadailyafrica.comUS trashes global system for its own privilege
Editor’s note: Only one day after the conclusion of the 12th round of trade talks between China and the United States, the US
threatened on Thursday that it would levy 10 percent tariffs on the remaining $300 billion worth of Chinese goods starting from
Sept 1, in total disregard of the “constructive tone” in bilateral negotiations in Shanghai. Zhong Sheng, a columnist for People’s Dai-
ly, comments:Violence is not freedom of expression,
rioting is not pursuit of democracy
R
iding on the extradition legislation controversy, insurrectionists in the Hong
Kong Special Administrative Region and their external allies are mounting an
all-out campaign to advance their political objectives.
But their illusions will be shattered sooner than they can imagine. The SAR
government under the leadership of Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor will
eventually overcome the challenges Hong Kong now faces. Her administration has the full
backing of the central government in its fight against the violence and all illegal acts that
undermine the SAR’s rule of law and challenge the “one country, two systems” principle, as
Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office spokesperson Yang Guang reaffirmed on Tuesday.
At the agency’s second news briefing on Hong Kong’s situation in two weeks, the top
national agency in charge of Hong Kong and Macao affairs once again made it crystal
clear that the central authorities will not tolerate any violation of the bottom line of one
country.
The SAR government can also count on the support of Hong Kong’s previously silent
majority, who are now increasingly vocal in opposing the wanton violation of the law and
escalating violence committed by the radical demonstrators under the pretext of a “non-
cooperation movement”. An increasing number of residents are rightly urging the city’s law
enforcement authorities to deal with the law-breakers with the full weight of the law, lest
the city be dragged into an abyss.
The unabated disruption to daily life in Hong Kong suggests the Hong Kong Police Force
needs to step up its efforts in going after the ringleaders who have been instigating impul-
sive young people to unleash violence and commit illegal acts with the intention of making
young people pawns for their own agenda. The role played by some local politicians and
demagogues also needs to be probed.
Some of them have been colluding with their foreign allies to stir up trouble. One of their
most vocal foreign supporters is US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who brazenly sough to
justify the violent and illegal acts of Hong Kong’s radical demonstrators as the pursuit of
“dreams of freedom, justice and democracy”. Pelosi has mistaken herself as a tailor who can
tailor-make “freedom” and “democracy” for different countries and regions.
For her, violent acts and law breaking are obviously within the bounds of freedom and
democracy when they are committed in Hong Kong but outside the bounds when commit-
ted in Western countries such as the United States, Britain or France, as she has never
praised such violent acts when they happened in those countries.T
he decision by the United States Department of the Treasury to label China a curren-
cy manipulator is the latest sign that Washington will resort to any possible means,
no matter how unreasonable, to force China into agreeing to its trade terms.
The announcement came after the yuan’s exchange rate weakened to more than
7 to the dollar on Monday. It is ridiculous for the US to assume that there was exchange rate
manipulation based on a change in the exchange rate of the yuan on a single day.
That decline was a natural market reaction after the latest trade talks between the two
countries failed to produce a breakthrough and the subsequent threat by the US govern-
ment that it would impose new 10 percent tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods
starting from September.
The timing of the decision just two months after the Treasury Department determined
after six months’ analysis that China was not manipulating its currency betrays the real
intention of the US government to use it as another means to pressure China.
Even in terms of the criteria unilaterally set by the US Treasury, it is technically impossi-
ble for a country that wasn’t a manipulator only two months ago to suddenly become one.
According to the US Treasury, a country is a currency manipulator if it has a large trade
surplus with the US, has a current account surplus exceeding 3 percent of its GDP and is
actively intervening in the currency market.
China does not meet all those criteria. Its current account surplus as a proportion of
GDP, for instance, has been declining continually, to 0.4 percent in 2018, thanks to its eco-
nomic rebalancing efforts in the past decade. There will predictably not be major changes
to that ratio this year.
By politicizing the issue of currency manipulation, the US government has gone so far
that it will disrupt the normal order of international monetary governance. It means Wash-
ington is willfully distorting its self-set rules to accuse other countries of something nonex-
istent and using that as an excuse to take actions against them.
Such a unilateral, protectionist act, if unchecked, will create huge uncertainties for the
world economy and global financial system, as reflected by the financial market turbulen-
ces across the world this week.