See my article "An End to Currency Manipulation" in the Far Eastern Economic Review. The first paragraph:

The U.S. dollar last week appeared mercifully to end its plunge. World markets cheered, and the immediate financial crisis in the U.S. abated. But this week the dollar is retesting all-time lows versus the euro and yen, and commodity prices, capital flows, and trade remain vulnerable to its movements. Inflation in dollar-linked China is rising fast, and an over-strong yen could thwart Japan's recent recovery after its painful 1990s deflation. In the U.S., currency swings are destabilizing the economy and fueling anti-trade populism. After a decade of wild instability, it's time to rethink global currency markets and monetary policies.

Our friend John Rutledge is absolutely right: the U.S. weak-dollar policy has been bad for both America and for China, who we've cajoled into constant appreciation of the yuan. This has led to all number of distortions and crises in the U.S. -- see, subprime, inflation, oil over $100 per barrel, whacked-out credit markets, etc. -- and to hot money flows into China, where speculators ride the free-money carry trade of a currency you know will go only up.

It was a mistake for China's government to give in to American pressure and begin gradual revaluation. It was a mistake for the US government to press for the changes. Devaluing your currency in an attempt to stimulate growth is a fool's game.

This Thursday morning I'll participate in a discussion of these issues at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event on "The Declining Dollar and the Global Economy."

The Wall Street Journal reports that:

China's use of nuclear power is growing far faster than originally planned

Oh, were it so in the U.S.A.

China now estimates it will multiply its current nuke generating capacity six-fold by 2020. That means it will add around 40-50 reactors in 12 years.

The U.S. has around 17 or so reactors in various stages of planning -- mostly early planning -- but we've still not brought online a reactor for almost 30 years. And from what I hear of the new generation, we are off to a much slower start than anticipated just a few years ago. Unacceptable.

In a long and thoughtful article in the Jan/Feb 08 issue of Foreign Affairs, John Thornton, a former head of Goldman Sachs and now professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University, details the evolution of democracy in China. Along the way, Thornton describes two striking examples of the way "technologies of freedom" (in my colleague Adam Thierer's phrase) are making a big difference.

In the past several years, the Internet and cell phones have started to challenge traditional media by becoming channels for the expression of citizen outrage, at times forcing the government to take action. One celebrated instance was the "nail house" incident in the sprawling metropolis of Chongqing, in central China. For three years, a middle-class couple stubbornly refused to sell their house to property developers who, with the municipal government's permission, planned to raze the entire area and turn it into a commercial district. The neighbors had long ago moved away. The developer tried to intimidate the couple by digging a three-story canyon around their lone house, but the tactic backfired spectacularly. Photos of their home's precarious situation were posted on the Internet, sparking outrage among Chinese across the country. Within weeks, tens of thousands of messages had been posted lambasting the Chongqing government for letting such a thing happen. Reporters camped out at the site; even official newspapers took up the couple's cause. In the end, the couple settled for a new house and over $110,000 in compensation. The widely read daily Beijing News ran a commentary that would have been inconceivable in a Chinese newspaper a decade ago: "This is an inspiration for the Chinese public in the emerging age of civil rights. . . . Media coverage of this event has been rational and constructive. This is encouraging for the future of citizens defending their rights according to the law."

Last autumn Wired magazine described the Great Firewall of China and concluded that for the most part the Net is winning. James Fallows of The Atlantic now adds a helpful primer on the Chinese Internet. Fallows describes the techniques China uses to discourage -- but, as he concludes, not completely block -- foreign content. Fallows thinks the Great Firewall is full of holes and is easily punctured by anyone willing to put in a little effort. With easily obtained proxy servers, virtual private networks (VPNs), and surfing persistence, Chinese can usually access the entire global Net. All businesses with foreign dealings, Fallows writes, have global Net access. I have always found fast and wide open Net access in China, but admittedly my experiences are heavily colored by stays in modern Western-style hotels. Fallows says right now the government imposes just enough of a hassle that some significant portion of Chinese are deterred and effectively blocked from true Net freedom. Overall, Fallows concludes:

It would be wrong to portray China as a tightly buttoned mind-control state. It is too wide-open in too many ways for that. “Most people in China feel freer than any Chinese people have been in the country’s history, ever,” a Chinese software engineer who earned a doctorate in the United States told me. “There has never been a space for any kind of discussion before, and the government is clever about continuing to expand space for anything that doesn’t threaten its survival.” But it would also be wrong to ignore the cumulative effect of topics people are not allowed to discuss. “Whether or not Americans supported George W. Bush, they could not avoid learning about Abu Ghraib,” Rebecca Mac­Kinnon says. In China, “the controls mean that whole topics inconvenient for the regime simply don’t exist in public discussion.” Most Chinese people remain wholly unaware of internationally noticed issues like, for instance, the controversy over the Three Gorges Dam.

It turns out Walls and Shields -- Great, Golden, or otherwise -- are mostly impotent against a flood of ethereal bits and bytes.

Looks like an interesting new book comparing China and India:

Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India Are Reshaping Their Futures and Yours

Chinese Internet users grew an astounding 53% last year for a total of 210 million. China is now within a rounding error of the U.S., which today has more Internet users than any other nation.

The greatest growth came from users under 18 and over 30, CNNIC said. One of the most surprising statistics from the new report indicates that about 40 percent of users added over the last year, over 29 million, came from rural areas. Even in the January 2007 report, the vast majority of Chinese Netizens were based in major urban areas such as Beijing and Shanghai.

Also surprising among the new results is that China's most popular Internet application is online music, used by 86.6 percent of those surveyed, followed by instant messaging with 81 percent. E-mail placed only fifth, with 56.5 percent using it.

Chinese mobile phone users passed the U.S. several years ago and cellphones still are the prime mode of communication there.