Averting a global financial crisis: the US,the IMF,and the Mexican debt crisis of 1976

This article explains the politics and diplomacy of the initial use of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) adjustment program as a tactic in a strategy to avert a possible global banking crisis. Scholars typically date the strategy to the Reagan administration's response to the sovereign debt crises in Eastern Europe and Latin America in the early 1980s. This article demonstrates that the approach originated instead during the 1976 Mexican debt crisis – the first potential postwar default by a developing country that threatened international bank failures. Key US and Mexican officials recognized that an IMF program of currency devaluation and austerity would probably fail in its stated objective of reducing Mexico's balance of payments deficit. Nevertheless, US Treasury and Federal Reserve officials, fearing that a Mexican default might lead to bank failures and subsequent global financial crisis, intervened to an unprecedented degree in the negotiations between the IMF and Mexico. The United States offered direct financial support and worked through diplomatic channels to insist that Mexico accept an IMF adjustment program, as a way of bailing out US banks. Mexican president Luis Echeverría's administration consented to IMF adjustment because officials perceived it as the least politically costly option among a range of alternatives.     

近代天津华商纱厂经营衰败原因再探——以裕元公司为中心

一战期间列强忙于欧战,加之纱贵花贱,天津棉纺织业获得快速发展,1920年代初天津华商六大纱厂相继建成,然而纱业萧条却接踵而至,各纱厂虽然调整振作试图走出困境,但是却越陷越深,延至1930年代均归于失败。通过梳理裕元纱厂负债经营的过程,不难得知其得利先分,举债扩张,运营中流动资金不足,动辄则仰给于借款,为企业发展埋下病根;公积金、折旧提取不足,造成固定设备不能及时更新,产品结构老化,以至于产品积压,资金周转过慢,债息愈来愈重,企业不堪重负最终解散。这一时期天津其他华商纱厂情况大体类似。以往对于纱业经营危机的研究,多强调企业经营内外环境的恶化,尤其日方纱商的挤压是造成经营衰败的原因。实际上,天津棉纺织业自身经营的内在缺陷即资产负债率过高是导致其衰败的主要原因。     

Sovereignty,Risk and Biotechnology: Zambia's 2002 GM Controversy in Retrospect

The southern African food crisis of 2002 led to one of the most significant controversies over the use of genetically modified (GM) crops in the developing world to date. Zambia's staunch opposition to GM food aid during the crisis is still frequently used as a reference point in debates over GM seed technology in agricultural development, and the morality of advanced biotechnology. This article re‐examines the controversy and its contemporary relevance using oral history interviews with key scientists, policy makers and development practitioners engaged in debates and decision‐making processes in Zambia in 2002, alongside a review of discourses in the Zambian press. The author argues that, rather than different perceptions of health and environmental risks derived from GM crops, it was questions of sovereign regulatory control of technology in a context of diminished state capacity — and the decline in the Zambian state's capacity for agricultural science research in particular — that played a central role in shaping anti‐GM attitudes. In addition, trust in the arguments of GM advocates was diminished by communication efforts which treated Zambian scientists and policy elites as a lay rather than an expert audience.     

China's Infrastructure Investment Boom and Local Debt Crisis

A noted Hong Kong-based economist addresses the emerging financing problems prompted by debt-laden local governments in China in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. More specifically, using the most recent data available, he traces the root of China's local debt overhang to a protracted debt-financed infrastructure investment boom in which several key institutions (the cadre evaluation system, the land management regime, and the banking sector) have created an environment that draws local governments into a land-infrastructure-leverage trap. The author argues that the resulting high levels of debt may ultimately impede the country's efforts to mitigate structural imbalances in its economy. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H600, H700, P200, P300. 3 figures, 9 tables, 121 references.     

＂Bankers Are Stingy？＂ Re-Examining Stock Exchanges and Public Debt in Prewar Shanghai （1920s-1930s）

This review article surveys new studies of China＇s economy in the early twentieth century that have been published in both China and the West. It analyses the nuances that we find in these recently published studies and how those might improve our conventional understanding of the era, with particular emphasis on the link between fiscal revenue and stock-exchanges. First, a detailed introduction treats the evolution, beginning in the nineteenth century, of Shanghai＇s segmented stock exchanges in the context of wider global currents. Section two reprises the still common notion that heavy domestic borrowing by the Nationalist （Kuornintang, or GMD） government in the 1920s-1930s forestalled industrialization. Section three discusses at length the degree to which Chinese banks in that period may be seen as merely a GMD conduit of borrowing. Chinese banks were probably more conducive to Shanghai＇s industrialization than is usually acknowledged, and they also played a key role in stabilizing China＇s monetary environment well beyond their perceived focus on managing public debt. But more evidence needs to come to light, and this article sets out the areas in which future research might advance our knowledge. The conclusion will underscore how the various findings of scholars might, as a whole, remould current conceptions.     

China challenges global capitalism

This paper establishes a novel understanding of the nature and implications of China's rise. By borrowing Robert Gilpin's concept of sub-optimisation, it is argued that China is the most prominent player in a non-Western subgroup's suboptimisation strategy, which undermines the Western-dominated neoliberal capitalist system, or the Washington Consensus, and liberal democratic values, taken as gospel by Western economists, governments and industry for the past 30 years. While China and other non-Western states are a part of this system, a consequence of their actions within the system, and particularly in the international energy markets, is that they are increasing their relative gains at the expense of the larger group. China-led subgroup's suboptimisation strategy may result in direct competition between the predominant neoliberal Western paradigm, which is synonymous with globalisation, and which has entered into a structural crisis, and the emerging non-Western economic and political capitalist model.     

The Russian Steel Industry, 1990-2009

A noted specialist on Russia's industries surveys the restructuring of Russia's steel industry in response to the challenging conditions of the 1990s (collapsing domestic markets, the nonpayments crisis, and insider privatization) and its subsequent stabilization during the early years of the 21^st century due to effective implementation of a "survival model" at many plants. The author examines the major elements of that model, namely an export orientation made possible by relatively low labor and energy costs, reliable access to basic raw materials, a focus on crude (rather than specialty) steel, not inconsequential investment in process modernization, and effective control exercised by new private ownership. The paper's concluding section explores the new challenges faced by the industry due to the global financial crisis of late 2008-2009, and particularly the decline in world steel and company share prices, the extreme tightening of credit, the difficulties of servicing existing levels of debt, and provisions of a government assistance program that appear to preclude major capacity closures as a means of reducing costs. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: D290, L610, O140, P230. 3 figures, 1 table, 97 references.     

The Sino-centric Capital Export Regime: State-backed and Flexible Capital in the Philippines

There is an ongoing debate as to whether Chinese capital can be described as developmental. While some argue that Chinese capital is simply a tool of the Chinese state to exploit the global South, others claim that Chinese capital opens new development opportunities. Rather than advancing a framework based upon either an exploitative or an egalitarian mode of development, this article argues that China's current crisis of overaccumulation has led to a so-called Sino-centric capital export regime, which sends out two types of capital to the global South. First, state-backed capital imposes a development model by modifying ‘local orders’, attempting to make host states legible by creating maps of peoples and terrains that surround China. These maps aim to improve China's ability to manage inter-state disputes. Second, flexible capital is interested in extricating itself from the conditions imposed on it in China. By moving into the global South, flexible capital breaks through the barriers placed by the Chinese state. As a by-product of this quest for extrication, flexible capital can generate new venues of accumulation and novel ways of organizing production. This article demonstrates these two types of capital using examples from Rodrigo Duterte's Philippines — the Kaliwa Dam project and online gambling — drawing on original field research and a newly generated dataset.     

Coordinated Credit Spaces: The Globalization of Chinese Development Finance

This article examines the emergence of Chinese development finance on the global stage and evaluates the extent to which it differs from, complements and/or competes with the Western‐backed development finance institutions. Whereas the new, China‐backed multilaterals are closer to the Western model, especially the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, this analysis finds that China's national development finance is significantly distinct along three parameters — the scale and business model of Chinese finance relative to its Western counterparts, the composition and approach of China's lending portfolio, and the governance of China's development finance institutions. These differences can be seen as complements to the Western‐backed system, given that much of Chinese development finance has flowed into countries and sectors in which Western development finance institutions have ventured to a lesser extent. However, the globalization of Chinese development finance, patterned on the international diffusion of what is coined in this article as the ‘coordinated credit space model’, contrasts with Western development finance, governance and business models, and has triggered a competitive stance from Western actors. Either contestation or convergence are possible trajectories for the future, and the outcome will be determined by whichever can produce conditions akin to the ‘politics of productivity’.     

Remaking the architecture: the emerging powers,self‐insuring and regional insulation

This article examines the interaction between the emerging and traditional powers in global governance reform, and asks whether we are heading towards an international financial system that is more fragmented, where power is more diffused and national and regional arrangements play a more prominent role, at the expense of global multilateral institutions. It begins with a brief discussion of the global systemic and country‐specific factors that motivate Brazil, China and other emerging countries to accumulate large currency reserves. We find that national arrangements for managing financial and currency crises will continue to hold sway for emerging countries in the wake of the global crisis. However, the actual capacity of regional arrangements in managing future financial crises is uncertain, and the significance of regional alternatives in the emerging architecture should not be overstated. The real capacity of East Asian regional arrangements to manage financial crises, payments problems or currency attacks is still untested, and key thresholds in multilateralization still lie ahead. In South America, multilateral lender‐of‐last‐resort support inside the region is largely confined to the sub‐regional level and is limited by Brazil's reticence. Enduring reliance on bilateral measures for financial crisis management is noted. Where there has been progress in regional solutions, since the global crisis, has been in the role of regional development banks in providing financing for developing countries to enact counter‐cyclical policies. Such support also provides insulation for states in the region against the contagion effects of international financial crisis. We are in the midst of transitioning to a more diverse and multi‐tiered global financial and monetary system. A reformed IMF could have a role to play in addressing global imbalances and encouraging a shift from national reserves to collective insurance, however, it would be preconditioned by significant shifts in the policy, lending operations, and internal governance of the Fund, and willingness among the G20 to strike a new consensus on how to deal with imbalances, and new accommodation on acceptable reserve levels.     

Tropes of fear and the crisis of the west: Trumpism as a discourse of post-territorial coloniality*

We examine ‘Trumpism’ as a contemporary form of colonial domination, showing how this discourse represents both a crisis of coloniality and a stimulus for a movement of ‘decoloniality’. A critical discourse analysis is applied to seven speeches delivered by Donald Trump between his announcement of his presidential candidacy in June 2015 and his inauguration in January 2017. In assessing Trump's arguments, we focus mainly on those concerning national security, illegal immigration, and the threats posed by various foreign countries. Although these arguments sit within a long colonial tradition, they also indicate a crisis of modernity, as witnessed in the growing challenges to colonial masculinity, nationalism, and rationality. We conclude that Trumpism articulates a reaction to these challenges, and that Trump's rise to power is a symptom of the crisis of post-territorial coloniality in contemporary global society.     

Continuity,Discontinuity and Incoherence in the Bretton Woods Order: A Hirschmanian Reading

This article examines the effects of the Asian crisis and especially the global financial crisis on developmental finance (that is, long‐term project finance and counter‐cyclical liquidity support) and the global financial architecture. In this connection three claims are advanced. The first is positive: that the crises occasioned meaningful although ad hoc, uneven discontinuities. The conjunction of discontinuities and continuities is imparting incoherence to the developmental and global financial architecture. The second claim is normative and controversial. Contrary to the common narrative, emergent incoherence is (on balance) productive of development and stability rather than debilitating. Actors in parts of the global South and East enjoy greater opportunities for institutional experimentation today in comparison with the limited space available in the coherent neoliberal era when the Bretton Woods institutions were monolithic. All of the experiments underway are not equally likely to survive, but even failures can provide lessons and networks that contribute to future successes. Emergent redundancy and new networks of institutional cooperation increase financial resilience. The article also explores the risks of incoherence and redundancy. The third claim is that productive incoherence can be understood within a ‘Hirschmanian mindset’ — an understanding of change and development informed by Albert Hirschman's theoretical and epistemic commitments.     

Financial Inclusion or Subordination? The Monetary Politics of Debt in Cambodia

Financial inclusion is a leading driver of household debt across the global South. Although critical geographers have analysed this debt through the lens of financialisation, few have examined it in terms of monetary politics. This is a salient issue, because poorer nations often have limited control over their monetary policy due to their dependence on foreign currencies, which can adversely affect the structure of their financial markets. Building on the concept of monetary dependency from scholarship on financial subordination, I analyse the monetary politics of debt in Cambodia. Drawing on elite interviews and ethnographic research, I argue that Cambodia's extreme monetary dependence on the US dollar has shaped monetary and fiscal policies that compel poorer households to take on private debt to pay for their basic needs. This paper advances critical geographies of debt and development by studying financial subordination and its impact on financial inclusion in the global South.     

T. A. Coghlan,London Opinion and the Politics of Anglo- Australian Finance, 1905–09

This article examines the interactions between the opinions of London financiers and politics in New South Wales and the Commonwealth of Australia at the onset of the twentieth century. It focuses in particular on the appointment and early activities of Timothy Augustine Coghlan, who, with several breaks, held the post of agent-general for New South Wales between 1905 and 1926, although he is better known as a pioneering statistician and economic historian. In particular the article examines the context surrounding his appointment, his attempts to improve his state's image and his reflections on the way debt curtailed Australian independence. Through this the article contributes to the ongoing debate surrounding Cain and Hopkins' writings on structural and relational power and the ‘rules of the game’, arguing that these are useful starting points for the analysis of a pervasive politics of finance within the British World.     

Global Liquidity,the Private Sector and Debt Sustainability in Sub‐Saharan Africa

This article analyses the effect of changes in international financial markets on the debt dynamics in sub‐Saharan Africa in recent years. A key development is the rise of the private sector as both a lender and a borrower in African debt markets, a process that is associated with the growing integration of the region into global financial markets. The article argues that the Debt Sustainability Framework of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank has taken some steps to account for this growth of private sector, cross‐border debt, but such steps still fall short of what is needed. A full appreciation of the importance of private debt implies, first, that debt sustainability in sub‐Saharan Africa be understood in the context of countries’ integration in global financial markets and the global liquidity cycles that characterize those markets and, second, that the interplay between private and public debt be monitored in order to provide a fuller picture of the impact of private sector debt on fiscal sustainability.     

Iran's global reach: The Islamic Republic of Iran's policy,involvement, and activity in Africa

The aim of this study is to analyze the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI)'s policy toward and involvement in the African continent as a case study of the IRI's global policy and reach. The aspiration of the IRI's leadership for international standing and support coupled with a desire to export its revolutionary model and extend its influence beyond its borders have shaped its activity on many continents, including Africa. Africa's strategic location, past colonial experience, political position, rich resources, large Muslim population, and economic attractiveness have all contributed to shaping the IRI's activity within it. This study analyzes IRI's foreign policy in general and its implementation in Africa in particular, identifying the different historical phases of its activity in Africa, distinguishing between the various African regions, the main Iranian organizations involved therein, the means of and channels for Iranian involvement in Africa, and the reasons for IRI's gains and losses on that continent. The study shows how the Islamic regime has managed, during its 40 years of rule, through pragmatism and resilience, to gain influence and support, has endeavored to balance its losses, and has adapted to new circumstances in the African continent.     

The International Monetary Fund and its New Economics

This article focuses on a key element of the IMF's agenda for change: the repackaging of its economics of crisis around inflation targeting. It examines how this new policy regime redefines the political economy of the IMF's policy advice, and contextualizes it by focusing on Eastern Europe, the region worst affected by the global financial crisis which began in 2007. The article compares the conditionalities designed under the new and old policy regimes and argues that the mainstreaming of inflation targeting reproduces the IMF's function within a neoliberal political economy. It shows how, depending on the role of the IMF in the policy process, the models that inform policy are employed differently. During ‘normal’ times, models engender a contractionary bias that favours speculative capital. When acting as ‘lender of last resort’, the IMF retains the traditional emphasis on fiscal contractions, paying only lip service to its new economics of crisis while further ignoring crucial questions of macroeconomic policy coordination or the destabilizing potential of short‐term capital inflows.     

The African Union and the International Criminal Court: counteracting the crisis

In October 2016, South Africa became the first nation to withdraw from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), after Burundi began taking steps to leave it. Kenya is likely to follow, and other states, like Uganda, could take the same cue. The ICC is facing the most serious diplomatic crisis of its history, with the African Union (AU) denouncing double standards, neo‐colonialism and ‘white justice’, and regularly threatening to withdraw from the Rome Statute en masse. This article adopts both an interdisciplinary and a pragmatic policy‐oriented approach, with the aim of producing concrete recommendations to counteract the crisis. It firstly outlines the context of this crisis which, although not new, is becoming increasingly serious. It then responds to the AU's objections to the ICC. The court's ‘Afro‐centrism’ is explained by objective facts (the occurrence of mass crimes taking place on the African continent, the large number of African parties to the Rome Statute, the principle of complementarity) as well as by subjective decisions (a convergence of interest between the African leaders who brought the cases to the court themselves to weaken their opponents, and the prosecutor who needed quickly to find cases). Afro‐centrism should also be nuanced, as the ICC has already shown an interest in cases outside Africa and the extent to which it is a problem is a matter of perspective. The article also responds to the ‘peace vs justice’ objection, and emphasises that African states were instrumental in creating and sustaining the ICC. It finally formulates recommendations to ease relations between the ICC and AU, such as to investigate more outside Africa, reinforce African national jurisdictions, create intermediary institutional structures, promote regional‐level action, and rely more on ICC‐friendly African states and African civil society.     

左宗棠外债观探析

左宗棠是中国早期大举外债之第一人.在西征借款的过程中,他逐步形成了较为独特的外债观.左宗棠的外债观有三个基本内涵:举债应急以巩固塞防,以外债弥补传统政体的缺陷,初具国债观念的雏形.