An encouraging side of the Chinese economy

Comments on Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng "China’s challenges drive experiment-driven reforms", 15/07/2015

In the mist of gloom and concerns about the potentially excessive slowing of the Chinese economy, this piece presents some encouraging and more positive perspectives to be reassuring. Having said that, it is very important for the Chinese authorities to pay close attention to economic growth to ensure the world’s second largest economy not to fall off the rail.

I am particularly delighted to know “that China would produce four of the top ten global internet companies (by number of visitors) — Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, and Sohu — as well as innovative multinationals like Huawei and Xiaomi.” Of course, they reflect also the fact of China’s large population (still the world largest one) as the users (market force) to be one of the key factors.

It is also very exciting to know “It was the combination of broad-based education, openness to science and innovation, investment in advanced telecommunications infrastructure, and knowhow in manufacturing smartphones that fuelled China’s rapid advancement in the e-tail and internet industries. This openness to innovation — along with what some say is lax regulation — also allowed platforms like Alibaba to integrate payments and logistics before many Western players did.”

The Alibaba story and the smartphone producers story are excellent examples which may point to the way ahead for the Chinese economy that is likely to overcome the so called middle income trap. Innovations will play an important role in that process.

I thank the authors for their work that made me a little happier today.

Be innovative in fighting bushfires

Comments on Geoffrey Luck “Fire support from air long overdue”, 7/01/2013, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/fire-support-from-air-long-overdue/story-e6frgd0x-1226548555748

Leaving using what aircrafts aside for the moment, why don't bushfire fighters use unmanned small scale air craft system to monitor, assess and aid to direct fighting bushfires?

Nowadays, small unmanned aircrafts should be very cost effective, particularly with modern ICT technologies and GPS. They should be used, together with analysis centres using specially developed softwares. Indeed, they can be integrated with both aircrafts and ground fire fighters into a whole of bushfire control system.

Australia is the most bushfire prong country and the costs due to losses each year are very large. We should adopt innovative thinking in how to deal with it most effectively and least costly.

Such an unmanned airborne system for fighting bushfires shouldn't be too difficult or costly to develop and it is high time that we Australians to develop this.


Indeed, households may also benefit from more accurate assessments and be informed on bushfire situations surrounding them and to make the best decisions on whether to leave for lives or stay to protect properties.

Theories and practices of economics with innovation in between

Comments on Shaun Vahey "Academics v practitioners: split views within the Shadow Board", 4/12/2012, https://theconversation.edu.au/academics-v-practitioners-split-views-within-the-shadow-board-11110

The views of both practioning and academic economists are "should be", though they may have different perspectives in their thinking.


The academic economists there may have a too theoretic focused and may be a little too rigid and inflexible. In their mind, it is all theories that matter. If it is not in accordance to the theories, they cannot be. But the Fed has operated on a non conventional basis for quite sometime and that points out the potential shortcomings with the academic macroeconomists (their thinking).

Practitioning economists may be too affected by the markets.

Need more creative thinking to deal with floods in Australia

Comments on GRAHAM RICHARDSO "Water, water everywhere, none is saved", 9/03/2012, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/water-water-everywhere-none-is-saved/story-e6frgd0x-1226294045473

I agree with RICHARDSON on this important issue facing Australia and many Australians.

It is high time that we Australians should have bold, strategic and creative thinking and ideas.

Floods and bushfires are two very frequent natural disasters in Australia and they can occur almost every year and cause so much damages to properties and people's lives, as well as economic losses.

I remember last year or the year before that the Association of Insurance Australia had a competition for proposals to alleviate the impacts of natural disasters in Australia and I submitted an idea to build a system of dams and canals in eastern Australia especially Queensland and NSW to deal with floods as well as drinking water. But unfortunately that idea was not taken up.

We need to conduct costs and benefits analyses on a fairly large scale projects, because floods and bushfires can cause billions of damages and economic losses.

It is not a matter that individuals can do and must be considered by government.

RICHARDSON's suggestion is timely and we owe ourselves so much that we must be more creative and much more constructive in the face of frequent natural disasters in Australia.

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Innovation and intellectual property rights

Comments on Justin Li “China scores silver ahead of Japan in GDP Olympiad”, 5/09/2010, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2010/09/05/china-scores-silver-ahead-of-japan-in-gdp-olympiad/
Innovation is obviously important for advancing the economy to catch up with international frontiers and China needs to adopt international best practices in economic and intellectual property rights policies.

To start with, intellectual property rights, both international and domestic, have to be protected according to international practices and balanced with economies of scale to promote innovation and remove unnecessary barriers to adopt new products, methods, technologies and techniques. Without proper protection of intellectual property rights, it is difficult to have indigenous innovations.

Secondly, China should use market mechanism and price to promote efficient resource allocations and correct most market failures such as externalities, as opposed to resorting to administrative orders to do so.

Thirdly it is important to balance symbolism with real benefits in meaningful way. For example, it is reported that many local governments in China ordered some factories to stop or limit production and stopped power supply in order to achieve the symbolic indicator of emission intensity for the end of this year (2010) set earlier, apparently to show China’s resolve to achieve its announced target for 2020 to the international community.

That kind of practice probably can only be adopted by China and a handful of countries in the world now. But that is silly and harmful.

Conroy needs to learn how to live with and regulate a natural monopoly

Comments on Michael Stutchbury "Telstra break-up may stifle innovation", 19/09/2009, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26093486-5017771,00.html

Michael Stutchbury's article touches the problems with Rudd/Conroy's poor approach to NBN and Telstra.

Australia is too small to break up a telco monopoly in some field of the industry. It is not just the competition but also the costs and innovation, investment etc that a government has to consider.

It is all too easy to break a natural monopoly. But that is not necessarily the best public and economic policy.

Government has to learn to balance competition and other economics. It has to learn how to live with and regulate a natural monopoly such as Telstra.

What Conroy announced continues the Rudd government's economic incompetency.

That is unfortunate for Australia and Australians. It will not only disguise the poor economics of the government's proposed $43 billion NBN, but also make the telco industry in Australia less competitive and more costly to consumers.