Excerpt:

Q (T L Sankar): Why do utilities charge different rates to different consumers?

A (Rafiq Dossani): Firstly, the cost-to-serve for each category of consumer varies depending on several factors. There are technical reasons such as power factor, voltage of supply and so on which are set out in the Electricity Supply Act, 1948. There are also commercial reasons. In some situations, the total quantity of power available could not be sold, unless some categories of consumers we are charged a lower tariff. There are also considerations of equity or the need to meet the merit wants of the poorer population, which prompted differential pricing.

Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, has undergone rapid transformation during China's post-reform period between 1978 and 2003. One of the leading cities in southwest China, Chengdu is second only to Chongqing in population. Chengdu anchors one end of the Chongqing-Chengdu urban corridor, the fourth most populous urban cluster in China. Although the upgrading of Chongqing Municipality to the equivalent of provincial status in 1997 has increased the city's profile and potential as an administrative, land transportation, and manufacturing center, it is expected that Chengdu's regional and strategic importance as a service and high-tech center will increase in the future. With increased economic specialization among Chinese cities, it is expected that Chengdu and Chongqing cities will increasingly complement each other in terms of function, both enhancing their developmental prospects as a result. Further, the development of western China is a major objective of the Tenth Five Year Plan. The "Go West" policy was introduced in 1999.

In Chengdu, as with many other Chinese cities, a complex interplay of government and private, local, national, and increasingly transnational forces have influenced urban growth. Responding to changes in local, national, and international economic drivers, Chengdu is redefining its economic roles and functions, with direct consequences for the city's physical form. In turn, the spatial manifestation of urban development has important implications for Chengdu's economic potential, social and political stability, and environmental and ecological functioning. Extensive, as opposed to compact, urban form requires massive infrastructure investments, increases energy demand, and has broad environmental impacts, including local and regional climate change, loss of wildlife habitat and biodiversity, and increases in pressures on water resources. From the provision of clean drinking water to the construction of transportation and waste water networks, every aspect of the urbanization process has significant environmental implications.

The most important policy measures are those that improve the quality of rural Chinas human and physical resources and infrastructure that will provide the skills and abilities to rural residents that seek to integrate themselves into the nations industrializing and commercializing cities. Successful development policy, however, must also recognize that modernization is a long process that will depend on maintaining a healthy agriculture and rural economy.

While a rural development plan has many components, we restrict our attention to three broad issues: (a) the nature of Chinas new economic landscape and measures to enhance it; (b) changes that are needed to improve rural government and its partnerships with the rural population; and (c) reforms and investments that can improve Chinas resources: labor, land, capital, water, forests and the environment of the poor.

The overall goal of our paper is to explore this question of how China's policy will likely respond as the nation enters the WTO. Specifically, we will have three objectives. First, we briefly review China's existing agriculture policy and past performance of China's agriculture and how it has changed during the past 20 years of reform. Next, we examine the main features of the agreement that China must adhere to as they enter WTO. Finally, we consider a number of possible ways that policy makers may respond, primarily focusing on the national government's viewpoint.

The overall goal of this section is to understand how WTO will affect the agriculture sector in China. To accomplish this goal we have two specific objectives. First, we seek to provide measures of the distortions in China's agricultural sector at a time immediately prior to the nation's accession to WTO. Second, we seek to assess how well integrated China's markets are in order to understand which areas of the country and which segments of the farming population will likely be isolated from or affected by the changes that WTO will bring. Ultimately, with a knowledge of the size and magnitude of the impacts, researchers will be better able to being working on understanding how the policies that WTO will impose on China will change the gap between the domestic and international price and affect imports and exports, domestic production and production, income and poverty.

China and the World Trade Organization

On balance, will the nation's accession to WTO help or hurt rural residents? How will they affect rural incomes? Who in the rural economy will get hurt? Are there some in the rural economy who will be insulated from the effects of WTO?

The general goal of our essay will be to begin the discussion of these critical questions. In particular, we will attempt to meet this broad goal by pursuing three sets of objectives. First, we will examine the record of rural incomes, in general, and then focus on how employment may be affected by China's accession to WTO.

Second, we will attempt to understand how WTO will affect the agriculture sector, in particular. To do so, we will provide measures of the distortions in China's agricultural sector at a time immediately prior to the nation's accession to WTO and seek to assess how well integrated China's markets are in order to understand which areas of the country and which segments of the farming population will likely be isolated from or affected by the changes that WTO will bring. Ultimately, with a knowledge of the size and magnitude of the impacts, researchers will be better able to begin working on understanding how the policies that WTO will impose on China will change the gap between the domestic and international price and affect imports and exports, domestic production and production, prices, income and poverty.

Third, we will examine the policy options that the government has available to them in the wake of WTO.

Relations between North and South Korea have been one of the most important and vexing topics in Asia for over fifty years. The historic June 2000 summit meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and the South's Kim Dae Jung seemed to mark the first real progress in relations in many years, and set off a search for realistic ways to solidify the nascent cooperation between the two. All at once, formulating a sensible strategy for economic cooperation between North and South became an urgent policy issue rather than an abstract intellectual exercise.

In October 2000, Shorenstein APARC - together with the Center for Asia-Pacific Studies at Kyung Hee University and South Korea's Joongang Ilbo newspaper - sponsored a conference to address the economic, political, and social rapprochement between the Koreas. During the two-day event, participants from government and academia debated strategies for successful inter-Korean economic cooperation and integration in light of the evolving political situation on the peninsula. Beginning with analyses of economic conditions in both Koreas, participants considered lessons that North Korea might learn from reform now under way in China and Vietnam. The feasibility of a North Korean "soft landing" - through economic cooperation with South Korea and the international community - was also discussed in detail.

Based on these preliminary findings, the gathering formulated general directions for inter-Korean cooperation and identified priority areas in specific sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing, energy, and physical infrastructure. Future policies were suggested, for North and South Korea, for the United States, and for the international community.

From the thoughtful keynote address given by former U.S. secretary of defense William J. Perry to the provocative remarks delivered by a host of distinguished international officials and scholars, To the Brink of Peace is a frank assessment of the potential for integration on the Korean peninsula.