On October 16, The Committee of 100 and George Mason University sponsored a debate between advisors to the McCain and Obama campaigns on the topic of: A Framework for U.S. Policy toward China: Positions of the Presidential Candidates  at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Moderator: Kathy Chen, Editor and Assistant Washington Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal.

 
From McCain's camp, Randy Schriver:

• Co-founder of Armitage International
• Previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs responsible for the PRC, Taiwan, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands 
• Served as Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Advisor to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
• President and CEO of Project 2049, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization promoting security and democratic institutions in the Asia-Pacific.

Key Quote: “a McCain administration would recognize the realities and complexities of the [US-China] relationship and would focus on how to best to balance the competition between the two countries with the need and opportunities to cooperate to solve common problems in security, trade, energy, and the environment.”

And from Team Obama, Dr. David Lampton:

• George and Sadie Hyman Professor of Political Science at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at the Johns Hopkins University
• Serves as the Director of China Studies at SAIS
• Former President of the National Committee of US-China Relations, NYC.
• Author of several books and articles on China, including the most recent: The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (2008).

Key Quote: “An Obama administration, while recognizing that the [US-China] relationship is not broken, would however seek to improve it in several areas. In the trade area, an Obama administration would support efforts to create more of a level playing field between the two countries and would also increase military-to-military ties.”

 Catch the video here.

 
For the second time in less than a month, China cut interest rates today, supporting efforts to strengthen domestic economic growth. The 0.27 percentage point cut brought the rate for one-year bank loans to 6.93 per cent and followed a reduction of the same size announced in mid-September.  China's consumer price inflation has fallenfrom a 12-year stint at 8.7% (February) to 4.9% (August). Its GDP is expected to fall to between 8 - 9% in 2009 after its more than five-year golden period of double-digit expansion.

Although these cuts were conducted in concert with those implemented by the US, Europe, and other members of the international community, the People's Bank of China (China's central bank) did not officially link its actions with its counterparts. Analysts showed “little doubt the timing was influenced by the international effort to counter the effects of the global financial crisis.”

Qu Hongbin, chief economist for China at HSBC hypothesized that China's reluctance to acknowledge a link between its actions and those of other central banks is a careful maneuver around directly developing policy to help Wall Street. He says, "The PBOC [is] fully aware of the global situation . . . but from the political point of view they have to be very careful."

Interestingly, despite the global economic crisis, China's finance industry has managed to shirk most of the negative impacts being felt around the globe. However, it's being reported that foreign and small Chinese banks are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain themselves in the domestic interbank market, caused by credit freezes and the subsequent overcautiousness displayed by wealthy local lenders.  "Chinese GDP is slowing but not slumping, " quoted Ben Simpfendorfer, chief China economist for RBS.