Young Portuguese congregate in a park in Lisbon. Photo: Erik Mandell for MercyCorps

Amid its ongoing financial crisis, Portugal’s prime minister has a surprising message for his country’s struggling residents: leave.

It’s just one example of Portugal looking to emerging markets for relief as power dynamics of international economic relationships change.

Conservative Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho suggested that moving to Portuguese-speaking countries and former colonies such as Brazil and Angola could be an alternative for young Portuguese hit hard by unemployment, according to IPS news. Coelho’s suggestion specifically focused on teachers, saying that other places could provide better job markets for educators. But the Prime Minister’s suggestion is being met with criticism, including from the governments of his imagined receiving countries for Portuguese emigrants.

Brazil and Angola both shot down this suggestion quickly, stating that they had no need for teachers from Portugal, IPS reports. Ana Maria Gomes, a leader of Portugal’s opposition Socialist Party, also criticized Coelho, saying "that is the last thing a prime minister should say... because no matter how complicated things are, we can and must pull out of this.”

Yet given recent economic trends, it makes sense that a struggling European country like Portugal might consider unorthodox solutions.

Brazil, the world’s largest Portuguese-speaking country, recently surpassed Great Britain to become the world’s sixth largest economy, reports The Guardian. Douglas McWilliams, chief executive of the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) described Brazil’s economic rise as part of a larger trend. He told The Guardian that "Brazil has beaten the European countries at soccer for a long time, but beating them at economics is a new phenomenon. Our world economic league table shows how the economic map is changing, with Asian countries and commodity-producing economies climbing up the league while we in Europe fall back."

This global shift of economic power, evident in Brazil’s rapid growth, is seen elsewhere as well. The emerging power of the so-called BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) has been widely recognized for a while now, with trade in manufactured and resource-based commodities fueling the rapid growth. And the global financial and Euro-zone crises have accelerated the divide in growth between emerging economies and traditional economic powers.

Including the BRIC countries, 19 of the 30 predicted largest economies by 2050 are currently emerging markets, according to HSBC. And Project Syndicate reports that changing patterns of innovation and research and development will further fuel this shift, pointing out that in 2000 so-called developed countries only accounted for 76 percent of global R&D, down from 95 percent in 1990.

News of the rise of emerging economies isn’t new, but these figures pose a problem for struggling countries like Portugal. And the trend of turning to emerging countries for financial assistance signals a rebalancing of power likely to last.

Coehlo’s suggestion for emigration coincides with news that the Chinese state-owned Three Gorges Corporation bought 21 percent of Portugal’s largest power producer from the debt-burdened government, reports the Christian Science Monitor. The largest-ever Chinese investment in Europe further illustrates Portugal’s precarious situation. As another Chinese state-owned enterprise, China State Grid Corporation, bids on purchasing Lisbon’s national power grid operator, Portugal shows its willingness to sell assets to emerging economies to stay afloat.

“The European economy needs blood, but not in the form of a transfusion,” said Wang Yiming, a senior Chinese economic policymaker. “We need to create new blood by promoting investment.” In other words, China doesn't want to simply loan cash to the West. But it’s willing to invest in concrete assets.

Wang’s statement demonstrates China’s view of itself as an economic savior. If troubled countries have assets to sell, emerging economies are willing and able to buy.

So China is buying shares of Portugal’s utilities, and Brazil doesn’t want its unemployed emigrants. The Portuguese example shows that emerging economies now have more choices when it comes to global economic relationships.

Five hundred years after Portuguese landed in Brazil, have the colonial winds reversed? Maybe not entirely, but emerging economies now have a comparatively better hand to play. And for countries like Portugal, the game of economic power is no longer stacked so strongly in their favor.

Erik Mandell is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. He is currently pursuing a master's degree in public administration and global leadership at Portland State. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

A foreign domestic worker looks after her elderly client. Photo: Jerry Wong (flickr)

From low-tech light bulbs in the Philippines to microfinance in Nicaragua, our team of young writers covered lots of ground this year.

Here's a rewind on the themes that struck the strongest chords with readers, and the money quote from each piece. As we head into 2012, odds are that these big ideas will keep resonating.

Lack of electricity is a huge barrier to overcoming poverty by
Megan Kelly, Feb. 10:

As long as those hundreds of millions remain in the dark, they will remain poor," and yet bringing electricity to areas that have none lacks global funding and attention. It's not even part of the Millennium Development Goals.

Megan made a sweeping case for attention to energy poverty, a theme we've continued to cover.

Microfinance isn't a magic bullet by Laura Mortara, Jan. 24:

And any situation involving loan and credit is dangerous, especially when people are allowed to borrow irresponsibly. The failure of microfinance in India is largely due in part to MFI's shifting their focus from non-profit to profit-making industries and the corruption that follows thereafter. In addition to this, microfinance in India expanded way too quickly without the experience or infrastructure to support it.

Laura rounded up the previous year's run of bad news about the microfinance sector with a wealth of links to the best coverage.

Used soda bottles light up the world, for free by Brynn Opsahl, Aug. 18:

A used plastic bottle filled with water and a touch of bleach is placed in a hole of a tin roof. For up to five years, 50 watts of light fill up the once-gloomy windowless shack any time the sun is out

Brynn's look at this shockingly simple, effective idea was one of several articles to land in the Christian Science Monitor as part of a partnership we forged with them this year.

Does China's rise mean U.S. decline? by Chris Sharp, Feb. 4:

According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of Americans believe China is already the world’s top economic power, compared to 27 percent who think it’s the U.S.

Chris's piece rebutted the popular cliche about China's looming global power, drawing on a post by Foreign Policy's Daniel Drezner to argue that the U.S.-China relationship is about interdependence, not domination.

The female remittance economy: A hidden global network of mothers and money by Eliza Slater, May 11:

Remittances are a significant part of an unofficial global aid network, worth $325 billion last year. That’s three times the size of official foreign development aid spending.

Eliza zoomed into the human scale of some staggering numbers, showing how shipping cash to one's relatives abroad has become, among other things, an important part of modern femininity around the world.

As we mentioned last week, Global Envision is planning some big new initiatives in 2012. Stay tuned—we're looking forward to talking with you about whatever comes next.

A flourishing economy has enabled many Chinese citizens to climb the socio-economic ranks. Photo:xiaming (flickr)

The spirit of 1989’s Tiananmen Square is alive in China, except the swarm of charged students has been replaced by a disgruntled, expanding middle class.

Inadvertently, an economic boom has resounded with cries for change.

2011 has been an exceptionally rough year for government officials trying to maintain social complacency across China’s far-reaching borders. Perhaps inspired by the Arab Spring, Chinese civilians took to the streets in February to enact their own “Jasmine Revolution” (taken from the Tunisian movement of the same name), demanding greater accountability and transparency from their current one-party system. At least 54 activists, including lawyers and intellectuals, were arrested, and, the New York Times reports, the term “jasmine” was blocked on internet search engines. In recent months, labor strikes have swept the People’s Republic, resulting in street rallies filled with middle class voices expressing their frustrations with meager wages and unhealthy work conditions.

However, the butterfly effect of protests—originating from the Arab Spring and expanding into the Occupy Wall Street movements—reaches beyond income inequality. Much of the Chinese middle class will no longer play the passive bystander to haphazard industrialization. On July 23rd, a high speed train collision, killing 40 passengers, moved government-backed news broadcasters to risk publicly questioning the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to provide the public with safe, accessible infrastructures.

In early August, more than 12,000 people converged in the city of Dalian to stop the re-opening of a paraxylene plant (a toxic chemical used to make polyester) after a storm had exposed citizens to chemicals known to cause leukemia and birth defects. The plant’s closure provided a significant win for the protesters—the government agreed to the shutdown despite a reported $1.5 billion invested in the industry.

In a land where censorship and submissiveness are ingrained in the cultural psyche, why are so many compelled to take a stand now? It’s a complex question, but part of the explanation lies in the problem itself: the rise of China’s economy.

Globalization, specifically global export trade, has upshot China into a leading economic powerhouse. Now the fulcrum of production in the globalized world, many Chinese workers are finally transitioning from poor to middle class (defined by The Brookings Institution as households that spend $10 per person daily).

By 2015, the Brookings Institution estimates that for the first time in 300 years, "the number of Asian middle class consumers will equal the number in Europe and North America. By 2021, on present trends, there could be more than 2 billion Asians in middle class households. In China alone, there could be over 670 million middle class consumers, compared with only perhaps 150 million today.”

The Chinese Communist Party has come to rely on the middle class for support; in the past they have served as a relatively quiet buffer between a populous but powerless poor class and a power-driven rich minority. The Economist observes that China has “kept themselves to themselves as a result of the implicit social contract offered by the Communist Party: you let us rule and we will let you get rich.”

China's middle class wants to renegotiate this contract, demanding more environmental and wellness security from their political leaders. “As many previously poor people adopt middle-class lifestyles in the decades ahead,” Brookings researchers observe, “they may find themselves not only consuming more but also more forcefully advocating for less pollution and lower emissions.” In other words, more money means more demands.

If the party chooses to reinvest its money into the people’s pockets through increased incomes, subsidized health care, lowered taxes, and environmental protection, the middle class is expected to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming years. However, one only needs to look back at China’s Great Leap Forward to see that blind fixation on economic prowess can result in a neglected, damaged social sector. Looks like China will need to take a middle-road approach if it hopes to flourish.

Industrial emissions are a major source of CO2 contributing to climate change. Photo: United Nations Photo (flickr)

The ongoing global financial crisis should not impede the fight against climate change. That's the concern coming from a surprising corner of the world: China.

As the latest round of UN-sponsored climate talks continue in Durban, South Africa, Chinese officials warn that financial hardships in Europe, the United States and elsewhere are no excuse for inaction on climate change.

With the Kyoto Protocol about to die, the global financial crisis could add another dimension to the already complex relationship between rich and poor countries when it comes to climate change.

China’s top climate official said a global pact to fight climate change should be a top priority for developed countries, even as they face severe economic challenges at home. "After the financial crisis, every country has had its problems, but these problems are just temporary," Xie Zhenhua, vice-director of the National Development and Reform Commission, told reporters, according to Reuters. He expressed concern that rich countries will break their promises to help poor ones mitigate and adapt to climate change.

According to The Economist, the vast majority of ‘climate finance’ for developing countries comes from western nations. Over $75 billion a year, or more than 75 percent of climate finance to the developing world, comes from a combination of private donors and multilateral and bilateral banks funded by taxpayers in wealthy countries. These sources have been hit the hardest by the global financial crisis.

"Climate change hasn't become less important because of the international financial crisis, but it has become less prominent," Xie said.

Developing countries, meanwhile, would be hit hardest by climate-related disasters. They lack the infrastructure and financial resources to deal with problems they have had less of a hand in causing. The 2010 climate talks in Cancun included a commitment of $30 billion to poorer nations to adapt to impacts of climate change, and an increase to $100 billion a year by 2020 for this ‘green climate fund.’ Now, says China, even the initial $30 billion commitment seems unlikely to be met.

China might seem an unlikely voice of support for carbon cuts, as it has surpassed the United States as the world’s leading producer of CO2 emissions. Under the Kyoto protocol, China was deemed an emerging economy, and not bound to the stipulations placed on developed countries. Yet China has pledged to reduce its emissions intensity by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, and hopes western countries sign on for an extension of the protocol’s commitment period. Kyoto signatories Canada and Japan have already refused to extend the protocol’s requirements. The United States has also said further negotiations are off the table.

That means the Durban discussions themselves may well determine the direction of climate funding and its impacts. And without climate action, the financial crisis could soon seem like a small-scale problem.

Erik Mandell is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. He is currently pursuing a master's degree in public administration and global leadership at Portland State. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

An informal worker sells mobile phones from a street stand. Photo: MikeBlyth (Flickr)

A man selling toys on Sao Paulo’s streets, a woman grilling fish in crowded markets of Lagos and a handbag maker in Guangzhou might not seem to have much in common. But they are all part of the global informal economy, now estimated to be worth about $10 trillion a year.

Economic exchanges that are not taxed, monitored, or included in GDP measurements make up the informal sector. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, more than half the workers in the world make their living this way.

Journalist Robert Neuwirth details the lives and challenges of informal workers in his new book, Stealth of Nations. Speaking of the $10 trillion estimate, Neuwirth says "That's an astounding figure because what it means, basically, is that if the informal economy was combined in one country, it would be the second-largest economy on Earth, rivaling the United States economy."

With innovative relationships and global supply chains, many entrepreneurs are thriving and prefer to stay ‘off the books.’ In Lagos, Nigeria, where 80 percent of the workforce is employed informally, locals call it the ‘economy of resourcefulness’. Street vendors grill fish caught in Europe and sell mobile phones smuggled from China.

Some entrepreneurs earn enough to travel out of Nigeria to purchase products to sell back home. "When you journey to the train station [in Guangzhou, China], you feel like you're in Africa because there's so many Africans located there,” Neuwirth says. “Africans have embedded themselves in society there in very direct ways, and there's a huge [informal] back channel of trade in China and Africa.”

The global scope of the informal economy is staggering. Governments and corporations are noticing traditionally ignored channels for revenue production. A market court in Lagos allows for the settlement of disputes between informal sellers and buyers. And, writes Marc Levinson in his review of Neuwirth's book in The Wall Street Journal, "In Morocco, the consumer-goods giant Procter & Gamble has built an entire network of wholesalers and agents and subagents to sell diapers and soap through merchants in villages so remote that they have no retail stores." Such relationships could indicate a trend in bridging the divide between formal and informal economies.

As informal workers integrate their business globally, many are torn between a desire for added security of infrastructure and support, and the solutions they’ve established. Certainly not all aspire to move into the formal sector with its complications of taxation and regulation.

With such a large magnitude, it’s impossible to ignore the importance of informal exchanges to society's economic survival. Workers continue to forge paths to prosperity through entrepreneurial solutions. For many, that means operating outside the law.

Erik Mandell is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. He is currently pursuing a master's degree in public administration and global leadership at Portland State. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

Managing Director of the IMF Christine Lagarde meets China's Vice Premier Wang Qishan, Beijing, China. Photo: International Monetary Fund (flickr)

The global financial crisis has shaken up the international seating chart, and China may be vying for a better spot.

Though China was one of the International Monetary Fund’s original members, that invitation to the table didn’t mean it had a voice in the conversation. But last year, the World Bank and IMF both moved the country to third place. While the move changes the pecking order for Germany, the UK and France, traditional leaders, it matches China’s increasing position in the world economy with voting power.

Now, we wait to learn whether China will use its power to ease the Eurozone crisis. The IMF, typically the lender of last resort for sovereign states, needs more capital to provide the kind of liquidity Europe needs. China has that liquidity. In loaning to the IMF to play middleman, China can keep itself out of European politics, while keeping world economies - and important European trading partners - humming.

China’s funds would go far. Just last week, the New York Times reported, the IMF offered an additional short-term credit to “bystanders” - member nations feeling the “contagion" of regional and global default. One tool is a “precautionary and liquidity” credit line that would help countries approved by the Fund as having sound economic policies to meet short-term payments. The other new tool combines emergency disaster and post-conflict relief under a new rapid-financing instrument, which can now also be used after exogenous shocks like global financial crises.

The announcement immediately reversed earlier market slides the same day, showing the move boosted investor confidence, according to the Times. But if even a few countries take up the IMF on its offer, its account will soon run dry.

If that happens, China and its ocean of cash will be waiting. The country has shown signs that it’s at least willing to play, but it remains to be seen what rules it will follow. With Western economies looking increasingly desperate, China has the opportunity to play tough. Its decision could relieve the global economy, but it could also help put a new country at the head of the table.

PepsiCo and Cambridge University recently unveiled the i-crop, a web-based system that could reduce agricultural water waste by 50 percent. Photo:zekasaur (flickr)

This article was republished in The Christian Science Monitor.

"More Bounce to the Ounce.” In the 1950’s, it was a cola slogan; thanks to a new partnership with Cambridge University, it could become the catch phrase of PepsiCo’s i-crop, a web based program that helps farmers reduce water waste.

Here’s how it works: data systems collect information on local weather conditions, farming activity, and soil moisture from underground probes and compiles them online. With a few keystrokes, farmers can eliminate the guessing games about water consumption, resulting in more precise and environmentally-friendly farming. In October, PepsiCo publicly announced its goal of reducing carbon emissions and water usage from their largest UK farms by 50 percent in five years. So far i-crop is testing well: preliminary reports from 22 farms in the UK show farmers have achieved 90 percent efficiency in water usage.

"Farming is in the DNA of our business - we rely on fresh produce everyday," said Richard Evans, President of PepsiCo UK and Ireland, according to PR Newswire. "Finding ways to produce more food with less environmental impact is essential to our future." He added, "i-crop has the potential to revolutionize the way we farm, enabling our farmers to save costs and [reduce] water and carbon consumption, while at the same time improving their yields.”

PepsiCo’s potential to revolutionize water efficiencies in farming is sizable. Netting approximately $43.3 billion annually and employing more than a quarter million people, PepsiCo is the second largest food and beverage business in the world.

Ever enjoyed Pepsi-Cola, Mountain Dew, Lay's, Gatorade, Tropicana, 7Up, Doritos, Lipton Teas, Quaker Oats, Cheetos, Ruffles, Aquafina, Tostitos, Sierra Mist, or Fritos? If the i-crop can deliver as hoped, those products will soon be made with less water waste than most competitive grocery items (and who doesn’t want something positive to hold onto after downing a bag of Cheetos?).

Although the i-crop is only accessible to UK farmers, PepsiCo hopes to introduce its technology to farms in India, China, Mexico, and Australia by 2012. However, speculation about i-crop’s availability has raised some eyebrows and provoked the question: Will the i-crop technology, owned privately by PepsiCo, be withheld from those who most need it?

Brain Pickings editor Maria Popova argues that owning such coveted technological rights will put PepsiCo in the middle of an often tense relationship between profiteering and humanitarianism. “The technology is currently only available to PepsiCo-affiliated growers, which raises interesting questions about the relationship between corporate interests and social good in innovation, as well as bespeaking the disconnect between the value of open-source software and the fact that the best-funded research initiatives, most competent scientists and highest-grade technology tend to be subsidized by private corporations.”

If, how, and with whom PepsiCo shares i-crop technology has yet to be determined. In any case, PepsiCo has taken corporate social responsibility by the horns, hopefully luring other influential corporations to recognize that being green is achievable. "Every Generation Refreshes the World," Pespi ads claim. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that PepsiCo can do so for the next generation’s water supply.

A Victorian stained glass window depiction of the "Good Samaritan" story from the Gospel of Luke. Photo: Lawrence OP (flickr)

This article was republished by The Christian Science Monitor.

The Good Samaritan of Biblical lore was different than you and me: he was able to help without the fear of being sued.

Disturbing footage of an unattended Chinese girl being run over twice and ignored by 18 witnesses has shed unflattering light on China’s civil society. Two-year-old Xiao Yueyue (which translates as Little Joy in Chinese), daughter of two migrant worker parents, died on October 21st in a Guangdong hospital, eight days after the horrific incident.

Disapproving fingers are being pointed in various directions: from the disintegration of society’s morality to the government’s neglect of protecting civil liberties. Yue Yue’s unexpected death has revived a fierce international debate over Good Samaritan laws.

If you missed the final Seinfeld episode, Good Samaritan laws protect people who assist victims of injury or crime. “They are intended to reduce bystanders' hesitation to assist, for fear of being sued or prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death," as Wikipedia puts it.

Prior to the broadcasting of Yue Yue’s tragedy, several sensational lawsuits had embittered the public toward performing heroic deeds for strangers. Specifically, in 2007 an elderly woman sued a young man by the name of Peng Yu for escorting her to the hospital after she had fallen and broken her leg. Mr. Peng was ordered to pay the damages to the elder woman under the judge’s logic that the man wouldn’t have helped her unless he was guilty of injuring her in the first place. Some litigators suggest that lawsuits of this nature create legal disparity between the affluent and the less privileged. Perhaps had the woman not belonged to the poorer class, in need of money, no such lawsuit would have been filed.

A recent China Daily poll reveals that approximately 87 percent of Chinese citizens are unlikely to aid an elderly person who has fallen in the street because they want to avoid being blamed for the accident. “The public's lack of a sense of trust has been made obvious by recent media stories that have looked at the hesitation people feel before they come to someone else's aid," Xie Jing, a communications professor at Fudan University, told the newspaper.

While Good Samaritan Laws in the United States are not federally imposed, the largest jurisdictions in the United States—New York, California, and Texas—have statutes that shield voluntary assistants from liability in the case of an accident. Yet “Good Samaritans” in California and Vermont may be prosecuted if they don’t act in the medical interest of the victim. In 2007 a woman who pulled a friend out of a wrecked car, leaving the friend paralyzed, was liable to civil damages in California because “the perceived danger of remaining in the wrecked car was not "medical," the court ruled.”

One explanation for not imposing more collective responsibility on individuals: separation of morals and law.

"Our common law has always refused to transmute moral duties into legal duties,” Virginia Law Professor Charles O. Gregory noted to Time Magazine in 1965, when the killing of a woman within earshot of dozens of her neighbors prompted a national debate about civic duty. Today, every state has some form of Good Samaritan law protecting people from liability for trying to save a life, according to HeartSafe America.

In Canada, too, each province has its own set of laws concerning Good Samaritan acts. Quebec’s Charter of Rights gives citizens a "duty to rescue:" individuals must assist anyone in jeopardy, unless there is reasonable evidence that it would cause danger to himself or a third party. Abstaining from helping someone is not considered a criminal offense, since it comes from the provincial level. Yet the majority of provinces have adopted a version of the Good Samaritan Law, most of which provide some form of protection for voluntary passers-by from liability for the victim’s damages, unless it can be proven that the damages were caused by the gross negligence of the person.

In France, witnesses to a person in distress can be arrested for not intervening. A Frenchman who fails to help another when he can do so without risk is liable for up to five years in prison and fined several thousands in Euros. The French logic follows that a witness is a participant in the crime if he/she does nothing to prevent it.

In spite of the outrage bubbling in China over society’s apparent moral decline, the majority of the population is reluctant to follow in France’s footsteps. According to one online poll, 77.7 percent of Chinese respondents disagree with the idea of establishing a 'duty to rescue' law. Most claim they don’t want moral acts to be legally enforced. With restrictions on individual freedom already so tightly monitored, the Chinese appear weary to have one more government mandate imposed.

It took the death of a two-year-old girl to bring greater awareness to what it means to do the right thing. Perhaps what is most disturbing about Yue Yue’s death is the realization that an underlying current of fear has become inherently attached to what should be a visceral reaction of compassion. Had the Samaritan described by Luke in the New Testament been bound by today’s laws, perhaps he would not have been so good.

Gap opens in Shanghai. Photo by kreep (flickr)

What would happen if you took off every article of clothing not made in America? asks ABC at New York’s Grand Central Station (video).
_____

Gap is betting big on China, announcing plans to triple its retail stores there by the end of 2012, reports the Associated Press. But in doing so, the chain will directly compete with its own Chinese suppliers, which for years have been sharpening their teeth making cheap knockoffs of the popular clothing.

Gap is not the only global brand to jump on what they hope will emerge as the next massive consumer class. Apple, Nike, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Walmart have all positioned themselves to profit from China's nouveau riche. Despite these expectations, the New York Times reports that China’s consumer spending has actually plummeted in the last decade as a portion of the overall economy, to about 35 percent of gross domestic product, from about 45 percent - the lowest percentage for any big economy anywhere in the world.

The remarkable growth the nation has seen has not translated into fruits for middle class families, but rather state-run banks, government-backed corporations and the affluent few with connections, says Carl E. Walter, a former JP Morgan executive who is co-author of “Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China’s Extraordinary Rise.” Worse yet, low-wage workers who make the clothing sold in stores like Gap simply can’t afford the finished goods. Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal visited a new Gap store in Shanghai recently; the most striking thing he found about the store was how empty it was. Sales of global “brands” come mainly in the form of the counterfeits and knockoffs sold at busy outdoor markets.

The New York Times suggests the “state capitalism” that’s fueled much of China’s growth must be dismantled before ordinary Chinese citizens will start feeling flush enough to buy Gap’s ‘nostalgic’ 1969 jeans - even the made-for-China version. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao asserts that the government is ready to make some of those changes. Until then, hedge your bets.

If you are interested in the health of the world economy, it helps to know a bit about its history. But conceptualizing the global economy over long periods of time can be daunting. Until now.

Check out the above video, in which Hans Rosling plots the "wealth and health of nations" over the last 200 years. Then see his interactive website, gapminder.org, which lets you dig into his data yourself.

China had the most mobile subscribers in the world in 2010 with over 850 million subscriptions. Photo: Tricia Wang 王圣捷 (flickr)

As the Chinese government attempts to keep its grip on the web, China’s middle class is pushing back.

A recent train crash in China resulted in more than simply technical lessons for the government. When the bullet train on its way to Fujian province slowed due to bad weather, another, traveling the same direction, crashed into it. The collision left 40 dead, 191 injured — and several dozen micro-blogging from the scene, according to the New York Times.

China had 859 million cell phone subscribers (64 percent of the population) in 2010, while the U.S had 302.9 million subscribers (96 percent of the population), according to mobithinking.com. And the number of smartphone users is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years. Smartphones are particularly popular, among China’s middle class. More importantly, they let people blog instantly from their phones — a tool that the newer Chinese generation does not hesitate to use.

This growing middle class, created by the rapid privatization of the 1990s, represents a formidable issue for government censorship. The options afforded to this newer class has resulted in a generation that is young, educated, and tech-savvy. Unlike their parents, the children of this generation are well aware of the restrictions on their freedom to roam the Web.

Even government blockades of social networks like Facebook and Twitter haven't dissuaded them. They've simply created Chinese versions of the famed social networking sites with sites like weibo.com, says the New York Times. These sites, in conjunction with smartphones, make China's middle class virtually unstoppable. For every incident or website that is blacklisted, ways around the government blockades and new websites emerge.

The train crash in Zhejiang province is a prime example of this. Immediately after the accident, passengers were pulling out their smartphones and micro-blogging from the scene. According to the Christian Science Monitor, many of their posts contradicted attempted cover-ups by the local government which blamed the accident entirely on weather conditions. Miraculously, though, China's government did not react by immediately shutting down blogging sites. In fact, local officials were forced to retract their statements, but declined to comment further on the situation. What actually transpired at the scene remains unknown, but it has provoked questions as to whether the Chinese railways are safe.

The crash, was discussed online for almost a month before the state blacked out all non-government information on the subject, according to the New York Times. This was not just a hallmark in China's censorship history. More importantly, it underlined the challenges China faces as its techie middle class continues to grow. As Chinese development, opportunity, and wealth increase, so does Internet usage. The continued growth of this group poses some intriguing challenges for Premier Hu Jintao’s successor in 2012. How will China reconcile its current censorship policies with this rapidly developing population?

The drought this year has reduced China's normal rainfall by 40 to 60 percent. Photo: otrocalpe (flickr)

Crisis is lurking on the world's most valuable commodity: water. The answer, a former U.S. official says, is raising its price.

Peter Orszag, President Barack Obama's former budget czar, tells the story in a Bloomberg View column by looking closely at China. That nation's water goes mainly to its coal and hydroelectric power plants. As China’s Ministry of Water Resources says, "In 2010, coal-fired electricity in China used more than 30 trillion gallons of water, or about 20 percent of the country’s total consumption." The problem with this is that water sources are limited. While China is using its available water for electricity, climates are changing and reducing the amount of available fresh water. The drought this year has reduced China's normal rainfall by 40 to 60 percent, and the water that's left is going to crops and people, not coal plants. This, in turn, has rattled global diesel markets as China has grasped for alternatives to coal energy by relying more on diesel powered generators. Disturbances in the water market ripple throughout the world economy.

To fix this, Orszag suggests a three-step process for China and the rest of the world to follow when thinking about the way we use our water.

First, China needs to do a better job blocking pollution and expanding awareness of the dangers of climate change. According to the World Bank, "about 90 percent of the aquifers underneath major cities in China are polluted. More than 300 million Chinese lack access to safe drinking water." The first step to using water more efficiently is making sure the water we have is water we can use.

Second, China needs to allocate its water more productively. Currently, the water in China is not evenly divided between regions. Orszag explains that 80 percent of the country's water supply is south of the Yangtze River, though only about half the population lives there. The rest live in the North China plain, which encompasses Shanghai, Beijing, and less than 15 percent of the nation’s water. With such an imbalance, the per-capita amount in the North evens out to only about one-quarter the level considered to be the minimum amount to live on. Plans are underway to balance this with a desalination plant in the Tianhin-Binhai development zone and a re-routing plan to channel more water from the South to the North, according to The Guardian.

Third, China and other nations need to raise their water prices. At a first glance, this seems impractical. Reactions from comments on Orszag’s article were primarily negative. They argued that water is not a commodity, but a natural right for each person, and therefore shouldn’t be marked with a price. Orszag, anticipating this, suggests giving everyone a set amount of free, fresh water for basic necessities. Any water desired beyond that point would come with a tariff. This way, people will use water carefully, avoiding waste.

Orszag finds that this three-step strategy can be applied to almost any nation. The strategy could be used in the U.S. where water is heavily subsidized and in Europe where water pricing systems vary between countries that lack water and those that have an abundance.

"Just as we need to price carbon in order to avoid a climate crisis, we need to price water to avoid a water crisis," Orszag writes.

Washington, D.C.’s bike sharing program has 1,100 bikes. London’s system has 6,000. And Paris has more than 20,000.

But on the other side of the globe, Hangzhou, China has them beat with more than 60,000, according to a recent report by National Geographic.

To see how it all works, check out this short from Streetfilms:

Bike shares -- where a user can pick up a bicycle at one service point, ride it, and then drop it off at another and walk away -- are growing in popularity. China, along with many other developing nations, has a long-held cultural tie to bicycling. Demand for automobiles skyrocketed in recent decades, but in a city of 6.7 million like Hangzhou, it would be impossible to build enough roads to support this, not to mention environmental concerns.

Bike shares are cheap (nearly free for many in Hangzhou), highly accessible, and part of a sustainable urban growth model. Hangzhou hopes to expand its system to 120,000 bikes by 2020 and other cities are taking notice of its success. Companies in Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City are making a go of it and hope to remove the training wheels soon.

African leaders discuss the state of the African economy at the 2010 IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings. Photo: International Monetary Fund (flickr)

The Economist

The Economist

Since 2001, the budding economies of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have dominated global financial headlines. But looking back, it turns out some of the so-called “African lion” economies (Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad, Mozambique and Rwanda) were just as fierce.

Six of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world hail from the “forgotten continent” of Africa — putting up annual average GDP growth rates of around 8 percent or more from 2001-2010. The monumental rates have even earned these sprinters a spot next to “Asia's tigers” of the 1980 and 1990s — Making Africa one of the fastest growing regions in the world, according to The Economist.

Over the past decade, sub-Saharan Africa’s real GDP growth rate jumped to an annual average of 5.7%, up from only 2.4% over the previous two decades. That beat Latin America’s 3.3%, but not emerging Asia’s 7.9%. Asia’s stunning performance largely reflects the vast weight of China and India; most economies saw much slower growth, such as 4% in South Korea and Taiwan. The simple unweighted average of countries’ growth rates was virtually identical in Africa and Asia.

That said, in the next five years Africa is set to take the top spot from Asia as the fastest-growing region in the world, writes The Economist. "Standard Chartered forecasts that Africa’s economy will grow at an average annual rate of 7 percent over the next 20 years, slightly faster than China’s."

Ironically, much of Africa's growth can be attributed to China's investment and demand for raw materials in the region. And more recently, another of the BRICS, Brazil, has been competing for assets in Africa, writes Fast Company.

The Economist also notes growing success in Africa's manufacturing sector, which Standard Chartered predicts will become "significant."

Even with challenges such as political instability, corruption and weak rule of law, the African lions have been able to compete with the economic prowess of the Asian tigers.

But before Africa's growling economies can dream of surpassing Asia's roaring ones, those structural problems will have to be fixed.

"Without reforms," The Economist says, "Africa will not be able to sustain faster growth."

Shenzhen's bustling downtown has developed largely thanks to the economic stability provided by the New Balance shoe factory, which employs many local women. Photo: Cheech Exetar (flickr)

A "Made In China" tag is often associated with poorly paid women laboring over cheap goods for Western buyers. But a Fast Company article illustrates a more complicated reality.

According to Fast Company, the New Balance shoe company is what makes life in Shenzhen, China possible. Without it, the economy is built on unreliable incomes from jobs like building infrastructure and driving. But while the men work these seasonal jobs, the women in Shenzhen are consistently employed with steady wages.

New Balance, according to Fast Company employs "virtually every... woman of full-time-employment age." Without the factory, Shenzhen would be subjected to fluctuating and often impoverished migrant populations.

Some Western corporations in China undoubtedly do harm. But some, like the New Balance factory, create the opportunity for stability in otherwise severe economic conditions.