The Kumarajiva Expedition

The Expedition
Retracing Kumarajiva’s travels, the expedition will undertake a complete circuit of the Taklamakan desert in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China, travelling in a Landcruiser convoy over 6000 km and exploring the ancient cities, caves, crafts and flora on the Northern and Southern Silk Routes. This unique journey-- starting and finishing in Urumqi, China-- from 3 to 28 September 2010, coincides with 60 years of Sino-Indian diplomatic relations.
Background
Kumarajiva was a Buddhist scholar (344-413 A.D.) whose father was Indian and whose mother was a Chinese princess from Kucha, Xinjiang. He studied both Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism and was renowned as 'the Great Translator' for his translations inter alia of the Diamond Sutra and the Lotus Sutra from Sanskrit into Chinese. He studied in Kashmir and then travelled the entire Silk Route from India to Yarkand and thereafter to Turfan and Dunhuang. Incidentally, the Diamond Sutra is the first ever complete printed work (Dunhuang 868 A.D.), well before Gutenberg’s invention in Europe.As a Buddhist, Kumarajiva was a universalist, venerated nature and was spiritual, but also a great traveler, scholar and diplomat. He learnt Chinese during a short spell in captivity, well enough to communicate and ultimately to translate, and rose to high office as Imperial Guru.
Expedition Theme and Purpose
The Silk Route symbolized globalization and universality at its earliest, and Kumarajiva likewise the spirit of learning, enquiry, brotherhood, goodwill and peace. Today, when India and China---two ancient civilizations—are reinventing themselves as modern and developing States, Kumarajiva’s example and values are particularly important. With India and China celebrating 60 years of diplomatic relations in 2010, the expedition is thus relevant and timely.
Kumarajiva Expedition Members
The 7 persons constituting the expedition team (details below) live in different parts of the world, and are highly regarded for their contributions in their own fields of endeavour. They are well-traveled global citizens united in the pursuit of the expedition mission.

• Ravi Bhoothalingam: Psychologist, company director and former corporate CEO, with an abiding interest in China and High Asian civilizations. Knows Mandarin, and is deeply involved in Sino-Indian business and cultural initiatives.


• Sushama Bhoothalingam: Linguist and practitioner in natural childbirth and geriatric care. Her main focus on the journey will be on women’s issues.


• Jay Dehejia: Former high-powered telecommunications expert and global multinational senior executive, now active in social entrepreneurship and education.


• Vidya Dehejia: Professor at Columbia University, New York and an authority of world repute on Indian art, art history and archaeology. A complete list of her publications and academic contributions is available on google.com.


• Jenny Halsey: Having spent 25 years travelling the world as a UK Foreign Office wife, she was able to indulge her passion for garden design and botany –even in the deserts of Saudi Arabia--and looks forward to the Taklamakan.


• Surjit Mansingh: Professor at the American University, Washington D.C. (formerly of the Indian Foreign Service and Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi), she is a recognized authority on international politics and foreign relations.


• Neeta Premchand: Paper has been her passion. She spent several weeks in Japan learning to make it and has since written a book, having visited almost every place where it was made by hand, except Khotan, now on the Expedition route.

Outputs
The members on their return will make presentations and write articles in newspapers, magazines and learned journals, lecture and hold photographic and other exhibitions in prominent learned Societies and cultural organizations, and give TV and press interviews.
Every member undertakes to advance in his or her unique way, international understanding and knowledge through this special and unusual venture.
Sponsorship
The Kumarajiva Expedition welcomes sponsorship, encouragement and support from those who share its goals. Particularly welcome would be assistance which will facilitate members in the following:(i) free entry to all major cultural relic sites in Xinjiang, and viewing of original sites and artifacts (rather than replicas);(ii) free photography therein;(iii) free access to reserved areas such as the Loulan mummies;(iv) access to media and TV.

Contact and further information
Ravi Bhoothalingam (Kumarajiva Expedition leader)
TeL: +91-124-2396448, (mobile): +91-9811112666

email: sush.ravi@gmail.com

BRIC Vs Chindia VS Chimerica

Prashant Das

ICA Institute

China's Housing Bubbles

Dexin Zhou

PhD Researcher (Finance)

Emory University - Goizueta Business School , Atlanta

Contact Info: zhou.dexin [At] gmail.com

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Dwelling Narrowness, a recent Chinese TV series, has attracted considerable attention from the public. The TV series vividly depicts the hardship of a family to purchase an apartment in Jiang Zhou (a fictitious city that resembles Shanghai). Many young urban residents see the remarkable parallel between their lives and the story in the TV series. The Chinese tradition urges them to own a piece of property in order to settle down. However, the apartment prices remain unaffordable.
A Chinese who once worked in Tokyo was surprised by the apartment prices in Shanghai, where he later relocated. He says that the apartments in Shanghai are almost as expensive as the ones in Tokyo, even though the GDP of Tokyo is greater than that of Shanghai. The median salary of a college graduate in Shanghai was 2,567 RMB in 2008, roughly 380 dollars and the average deposable income is 8,113 RMB per person. The average apartment price is over 22,000 per square meters (more than $32,000) per square foot as of this December. A college graduate has to spend almost 9 months of his salary and an average Shanghai family needs a whole year’s disposable income to purchase only a square meter of an apartment.
An increasing number of analysts and policy makers are expressing concerns on a growing bubble in China’s property market. If the housing prices are indeed caused by excessive liquidity in the market, the central bank can make adjustment by tightening up the monetary policy. However, the problems may lie on the structure of the economy, which cannot be solved by simply changing monetary policies. I will introduce two newly emerging views on the causes of the high housing prices.
He Keng, the vice chairman of the Financial and Economic Affair Committee at National People’s Congress, says that the local government has the incentive to inflate the real estate prices. Specifically, this is a result of the disparity of interests between the central government and the local government. The tax revenue sharing arrangement in 1994 has introduced an asymmetry in the government power and the government revenue. The percentage of local government tax revenue declined from approximately 80% in 1993 to roughly 45% after 1994, while the proportion of local government fiscal expense increased from 68% in 1990 to 75% in 2004. This arrangement has given the central government a huge fiscal war chest and has left the local government to deal with the fiscal gap. The land-transferring fee becomes a natural source of non-tax income that mitigates the fiscal gap. In the recent three years, the land-transferring fee has become one of the major financial resources for big cities like Shanghai. Shanghai’s land-transferring fees in the first three quarters of 2009 reached 65.2 billion RMB, while the total fiscal revenue of Shanghai (January to August’ 2009) was 174.48 billion RMB. Thus, the local government has the incentive to inflate the housing prices in order to gather enough financial power. He Keng believes that there is a twin-bubble in the real estate market. The local government tries to inflate the land prices in order to increase their fiscal revenue and the individuals are speculating on the housing prices.
Larry Lang, a lecture professor at Hong Kong Chinese University, provides another structural explanation for the high real estate prices. He attributes the high housing prices to a structural imbalance in the public sector and the private sector. According to Lang, the deteriorating return on investment and the excessive productivity in the private sector (Lang cites the stunning 30% failure rate in the Guangdong Manufacturers as an evidence of the declining ROI) are inflating the housing prices. A huge amount of liquidity that should have gone to the manufacturing sector and other parts of the real economy has instead gone to the stock market and housing market and are pushing up the residential real estate prices. He says that simply tightening up the monetary policy will prick the bubble, but the whole economy will suffer from the consequences. He also thinks that the only way out is to improve the investment opportunities.
The heated residential real estate market has already brought the attention from the top policy makers. Moreover, they seem to have considered addressing some of the structural problems in their policy proposals. The standing committee of the state council recently identified that the housing prices in some areas are increasing too fast and the government will take on this issue by four means – an increase in the supply, differentiating the terms of credit to the residential purchases and the investment purchases, strengthen the housing market regulations and increase the support to provide affordable housings to the low-income families. In fact, the property tax is already under test-run and is expected to be introduced in the near future. The introduction of the tax is likely to have a cooling effect on the market. He has proposed a more radical approach that aims to stem off the ill incentive of the local government to generate revenue from the land transferring fee. He proposes to let the central government take over the land transferring fee revenue. While this solution is not difficulty in the technical sense, it will inevitably face resistance from the local government. Finally, no matter whether his proposal will be adopted, the housing market probably does not have much upside. Wang Shi, the CEO of the biggest residential developer, has prepared his firm for the burst of the housing bubbles. The speculative buyers may need to take a leap of faith to jump into this market.

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Is India Ready for REITs?

Vivek Sah, Ph.D.
Dr. Vivek Sah is an Assistant Professor at Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate, University of San Diego. Sah’s primary research interests are in the areas of REITs, Real Estate Mutual Funds, and Behavioral Real Estate.

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The talk of launching REITs in India in a structure similar to what exists in the United States has been going on for many years. What should be realized, however, is that many aspects of real estate in India must be addressed before one could even think of introducing such a product to the investment community.

As straightforward as the question may seem, the answer is not a direct “yes” or “no.” Rather, it requires a careful consideration of the characteristics of the Indian real estate industry, what it lacks and what needs to be done to develop a mature real estate market capable of sustaining a structure such as REITs.
REITs are a unique blend of Main Street and Wall Street. They are securitized real estate vehicles, in which a group of investors pool money to buy assets, mainly income-producing real estate. REITs were created to help the retail—vs. institutional—investors participate in the broader real estate market indirectly.

Because real estate as an asset class is a capital-intensive investment, many retail investors had not been able to include it in their investment portfolios before the creation of REITs. To encourage retail investors to invest in this asset class, REITs were created in the United States as part of special legislation that allowed them to be incorporated as companies without being taxed at the corporate level, provided they followed a set of rules and regulations. One of the main regulations is the distribution of 90% of their income to their investors as dividends. This created a pass-through entity that investors benefited from as they received a consistent income flow, unlike stocks, which may or may not pay dividends.

Like stocks, however, REITs are part of the overall capital markets/Wall Street. REITs thus invest the pool of money sourced from their investors—the Wall Street part—into real estate markets, linking them with Main Street as well. It is important to emphasize the dual nature of REITs since the existence of a mature capital market is as important as the existence of a mature real estate market. The absence of one of these elements makes it impossible for a REIT market to function. The talk of launching REITs in India in a structure similar to what exists in the United States has been going on for many years. What should be realized, however, is that many aspects of real estate in India must be addressed before one could even think of introducing such a product to the investment community. The dual nature of REITs emphasizes their dependence on the real estate asset/physical space market. Without an organized real estate market, REITs can’t deploy the funds they raise. The model above shows the various components of an efficient REIT market and what India is lacking.

The model shows the absence of various aspects of real estate in India that would be required for the efficient functioning of REITs in India. The absence of even one of these elements could lead to an inefficient REIT market and trigger a collapse in the entire system. Rather than a failed attempt, it would be wise to build up each of the elements over time before initiating any discussion of REITs in India. A failed attempt would be a detriment to the globalization of REITs and discourage any foreign REIT, such as a U.S. REIT, from launching in India in the future.

A New Currency of Chindia and Latin America?

Prashant Das

India China America Institute

http://prashant-das.com

prashant.pkd@gmail.com

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Long before the economic crisis spread its terror claws over the world (which has led to a sudden surge in talks about a new currency); experts in international business had started envisioning the possibilities of a new currencies. The happening of Euro proved that such ideas are feasible. Later, some experts felt that even China and India could consider coming up with their own currency.
However, the current public sentiments do not quite support the notion. The ICA Institute recently conducted an opinion poll among its newsletter subscribers soliciting their opinion on whether China and India will create a common currency of their own. Most respondents did not see a possibility. In fact, a majority of them out rightly rejected the idea.

However, the reason we conducted the poll qualifies to be discussed in the light of a series of recent financial developments.
During latter months of 2008, talks were ripe among the BRIC nations about a new gold-backed global currency. Days before the G-20 London Summit (March 2009) Zhou Xiaochuan, the Chief of Chinese Central Bank came up with his historic proposal for a “new” world reserve currency. In June, right before the historic BRIC Summit (Moscow) Russians, the hosts followed the suite by announcing that the idea of a “supra-national currency” could be on their agenda. The Russian proposal was to create a new global currency issued by an international financial institution. A few months later, in July, the Brazilian President Lula proposed the replacement of Dollar by another currency among BRIC nations. Earlier this month (Sep 2009), UNCTAD, an UN entity became the first multinational agency to come up with the idea of replacing Dollar as the world’s reserve currency. More recently, news agencies reported that UN is backing the plan to create a new global currency.

Conceptually, replacement of Dollar does not necessarily imply creation of a new currency. However, if the dominance of Dollar can be questioned, which other existing currency are we talking about? Perhaps, if the Dollar will be replaced at all; it will be by a brand new currency. But is it really going to happen? With this article, we try to answer this question. Signs of radical trade re-structuring manifest in the marriage of Chindia and Latin America. The new trade bloc that will thus form, as it seems at the first glance, may have all the capabilities, will and confidence to come up with their own currency.

To dig deeper, we interviewed with experts in International Business at J Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University-Atlanta. The panelists were Professors David Bruce and Pedro Carrillo (founders of the US-Latin America Trade Program at IIB-GSU). The discussion led to some interesting insights.

“I do not doubt that the (common) currency will happen sometime in future… but it has challenges and it will be an expensive idea”, says Pedro. He also points out at a larger emerging world: “The list of emerging economies is large; and includes more nations than just BRICS: South Korea, Vietnam, Turkey, Ireland…”

Certainly, Imagining a new world where all the new economies will collaborate may sound fascinating to the policy-makers of the emerging world. However, this calls for a comparable interest in each other from all the parties. That clearly does not seem to be the case; as Pedro points out , “Compared to India, Chinese have been smarter and more open when it comes to foreign policies and Free trade agreements with Latin American nations; more Latin American nations are signing up with China”.

David’s opinions are not much different: “The idea that China and India (and, maybe, Brazil) shall come up with their own common currency cannot be out rightly rejected. It is possible; but not in very near future”. He describes the pros and cons of a new currency that we list below:

Upsides of countries creating a common currency:

• A big surge will happen in the flow of exports and imports between those countries because they will have eliminated exchange-rate risk and will have reduced the transaction costs.


• Several issues related to international business and trade could be mitigated for some countries. For example, if China created a currency that would become a major hard currency and/or a reserve currency, then when Brazil trades with China it will only have to worry about the exchange rates risk between the new currency and its own currency rather than going from Brazilian Real to US Dollars to Chinese Renminbi. This would also reduce transaction costs (e.g., bank fees).

Downsides

• Nations who have a good deal of trade outside a common currency bloc would not be able to use exchange rates as a cushion to external shocks.


• It will also affect the internal economic system of the nations. To have a common currency, countries will not be free to print money without the agreement of the other countries in the bloc. This restricts actions to foster liquidity when needed. Fiscal policy also needs to be mutually agreed upon. In those circumstances, smaller nations would probably have less influence on common policy (money supply, interest rates, spending, deficits, and taxation) than will the larger countries in the bloc.

“Will third party nations value the new currency and will they want to keep this new currency in their foreign reserves are some pertinent questions that would come in the way of a new currency," he continues, “The benefits of a new currency will initially be related to trade between the members of that currency bloc”.

Quoting David would sum this discussion up, “the future landscape of world economy is unclear. We do know that the Euro has become important but it is a long way from replacing the Dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Thus, a new currency could offer advantages to the nations that develop it but it will be a long time before such a currency becomes central to international commerce”.

China-India Trade: Can It Overcome Its Logistical Stupidity?

Insights on how China and India could create a stronger trade bloc by solving border issues.

-Dr. Nik Dholakia
(Nik Dholakia is Professor of Marketing and International Business in the College of Business Administration at the University of Rhode Island (URI). He is a founding member and Fellow of caQtus collaborative, a global poststructural research group created and based at the University of Texas – Pan American (UTPA) Email: nik@uri.edu Website: http://www.cba.uri.edu/faculty/dholakia/)

Imagine this scenario. United States and its largest trading partner Canada decide that they will not permit any border crossings for trade or tourism. All trade will happen only between the East coast ports in Canada’s Maritime Provinces and U.S. ports such as Galveston, Texas and Long Beach, California – using a long and circuitous shipping route. Sounds like a ridiculous way of doing business, doesn’t it? But this is about the way China and India carry on their burgeoning trade.
China-India trade – while still small by standards of massive neighborly trade flows such as those across USA-Canada, USA-Mexico, and Germany-France – has grown exponentially in the past decade. Trade between China and India is expected to cross $60 billion by the end of 2009, from a level under $20 billion five years ago. Yet, India and China have no easy way to send merchandise to each other.
As a kid, when I did something that was straightforward and simple, but in a stupid and cumbersome way, my father would say: “You can touch your nose with your fingers in a straightforward way, but instead you are wrapping your arm behind your head to get your fingers to reach your nose.” The logistics of the trade between China and India has a character akin to this stupid way of touching one’s nose.
China of course has ocean access only on its eastern side, and the crossover from the Pacific Ocean ports of China to India’s ports on the Indian Ocean is a long haul, through the very southern Straits of Malacca. This long and circuitous route is what the Chinese and Indian vessels have to use to reach each other’s markets.
China has financed the massive modern port of Gwadar in the Baluchistan Province of Pakistan, and built a highway through the Karakoram mountains to bring Chinese goods to this strategic port at the lucrative junction of the Arabian Sea, which has the best ports of India, and the Persian Gulf – with its oil wealth as well as commercial dynamism of Dubai. The Gwadar port, however, sits mostly idle. Geopolitical conflicts have made it very difficult to send convoys of goods via unstable, terror-ridden parts of Pakistan to this port. The Baluch, who are simple and friendly tribal people and not extremists, resent the Chinese-Pakistan incursions into their lands. They see Gwadar and its feeder highway as a Punjabi imperialist move by the ruling powers in Islamabad. Baluch people are in fact very happy to maintain the traditional trade routes with India and the Middle East, via the port of Muscat in Oman, just a dhow ride away across the narrow Persian Gulf.
Indian Military analysts argue that the current mission of these ports may be commercial but such ports could easily be converted into Chinese naval bases. So, under such conditions, alternate sea-based trade routes between China and India are difficult to create.
What, then, about the massive common land border between India and China? It is true that the over-2000 miles long border runs through the difficult high-altitude terrain of the Himalayas. But that should not be a challenge given the available technology. In fact, China now boasts the world’s highest highway – to Lhasa in Tibet – a highway that is over 18,000 feet in elevation at some points. India also has built good high altitude roads, but for military purposes.
The only significant border crossing between India and China is at 14,000 feet elevation, at Nathu La. Connecting India’s Sikkim state to Tibet, this high altitude pass was closed for over three decades after the India-China border war in the early 1960s. Nathu La is now open, but there is no vehicular road. It is basically a route for mule trains, like the ancient Silk Road. The Nathu La connection between China and India is not like the smooth alpine highways of Europe, using which trucks roll from Germany all the way to the Mediterranean. The technology exists to build alpine style highways, perhaps even rail links, but the political will does not.
The basic issue is the contested border between India and China. During the British colonial times on the Indian subcontinent, the border was defined by the British as the Johnson Line Today, India claims Aksai Chin as a historic part of India’s Ladakh, and China claims India’s Arunachal Pradesh state as part of China and Tibet.
The rational solution – and it is very difficult to achieve, given the military and nationalistic stances on both sides – is for India to forgo its Aksai Chin claim and for China to accept Arunachal Pradesh, with its free and democratically elected state government, as India’s territory. This is the de facto situation, anyway, and its acceptance should solve almost all border issues between these two Asian giants. Would this happen? It is not clear it will, any time soon. There are moves towards rapprochement, and then there are acrimonious and threatening border moves. It is indeed amazing that countries with $60 billion and growing mutual trade are in a state of conflict at their borders.
Of course, a new strategic level understanding between China and India could result in cultural dividends for both sides. The whole majestic Himalayan range, stretching from Aksai Chin to Arunachal Pradesh, could become a vibrant global site for Buddhist learning and spiritual renewal and herbal healing. Environmentally safe highways, railways and tunnel systems could be created at selected border passes, with large swaths protected as nature preserves on either side of the border, and including nations of Nepal and Bhutan. The situation could be analogous to the American Rocky Mountains. Trade and travel routes, highways and railways, cross from East to West but the best wilderness stretches in the U.S. and Canadian Rockies are preserved as pristine nature parks. China and India could also select, carefully planned, low impact trade and travel routed through the pristine Himalayan ranges.
Perhaps a start toward such goals could be made by launching voluntary organizations that connect people, common citizens – especially the youth of India, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and Burma – with interests in preserving the common natural and spiritual heritage of the majestic Himalayas rather than in fighting wars or hurling angry political and diplomatic invectives.