John Garver also sees continuity in China’s approach to the Iranian nuclear controversy. He argues that China in the final analysis is unlikely to change course and use its influence to extract concessions demanded of Tehran by the United States. The unappealing but very real prospect in Garver’s analysis is a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Far removed from the realms of economic policy and geopolitics, change is spectacularly evident in the use of language in cyberspace. Li Hong and Shanshan Wang document how new words are flooding into the Chinese language from online shopping sites and Internet advertising. Linguistic purists may take umbrage, but creativity and innovation online are altering the spoken language in significant ways.

We encourage you to take your time absorbing these important contributions to China Currents and thinking about change and continuity in China.

The post Editor’s Note appeared first on China Research Center.

A key aspect of China’s success has been the opening of the domestic economy to international trade and investment while promoting exports. According to the World Bank’s World Development Indicators 2011, the value of China’s exports in 1978 was US$9.8 billion while imports amounted to US$10.5 billion, accounting for less than 0.6% of the world’s total. By the end of 2010, however, Chinese exports reached US$1.58 trillion, 161 times higher than in 1978, while the value of imports reached US$1.40 trillion, 133 times the 1978 figure. Today China is the world’s largest exporter (accounting for 10% of the world’s total) and second-largest importer (accounting for 9% of the world’s total). This dramatic increase in trade has helped the Chinese economy become the second largest in the world, trailing only the U.S.

But heavy reliance on exports for economic growth may not be sustainable in the long run, especially for a country as large as China. In the recent global economic crisis, numerous factories and companies in China shut down. Unemployment rose, particularly in the coastal region where most of China’s exports were manufactured. Weakness abroad dragged China’s economic growth to its lowest level in years. In November 2008, the Chinese central government launched a 4-trillion-yuan (approximately US$586 billion) stimulus plan, one goal of which was increasing domestic demand and expanding internal markets. This decision represented an important shift in China’s development strategy.

In its report, the World Bank suggests that China is near an inflection point of its economic growth and offers six recommendations to move the country forward. They are: strengthening the foundations for a market-based economy, fostering innovation, going “green,” expanding and promoting social security for all, improving the fiscal system and seeking mutually beneficial relations with the world. According to Reuters, at the launch of “China 2030” in Beijing on February 27, 2012, World Bank President Robert Zoellick was blunt, saying, “As China’s leaders know, the country’s current growth model is unsustainable.” He urged China to get ahead of events and adapt to major changes in the Chinese and world economies.

The World Bank report has been the subject of intense debate within China. As with policy changes anywhere, winners and losers will emerge if the recommendations are implemented. Therefore, further reforms will depend on their political feasibility.

China must face many tough issues immediately as well as down the road in order to foster sustainable growth. For example, urbanization has been and will continue to be a gigantic challenge. China’s urban population exceeded 50% of the country for the first time at the end of 2011, and is expected to reach 70% by 2030 (China Daily, April 4, 2012). The CIA estimates that China’s rate of urbanization between 2010 and 2015 will be 2.3% per year. And with rapid urbanization comes ever-growing construction. High-rise residential buildings are mushrooming in China’s cities. Yet urbanization requires more than housing. In an interview with Xinhua News Agency, Zheng Xinli, vice-chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchange, points out that each additional percentage-point increase in urban population means more than 10 million rural residents becoming city dwellers — and each new arrival requires at least 100,000 yuan (US$15,873) in infrastructure investment. Huge migration and rapid urbanization will undoubtedly pose great challenges, not only for infrastructure but also for the environment, social security and government budgets. Yet in his speech at the 2012 annual meeting of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) in China’s Hainan Province, Robert Zoellick said if carried out properly, urbanization could be the foundation of China’s future growth.

At the opening of the annual meeting of the 11th National People’s Congress on March 5, 2012, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced that China’s GDP growth will slow to 7.5% in 2012. This target is the lowest in more than 30 years. The aim is to allow China to adjust macroeconomic structures and promote quality growth instead of speedy growth for its own sake.

The Chinese are fully aware that they are facing major issues with energy use and pollution. World Bank data show that China’s energy use per capita (in kilograms of oil equivalent) was 618 kg in 1978 but reached 1,695 kg in 2009. According to the Worldwatch Institute’s Worldwatch Report (2011), however, China has prioritized green development in almost all leading economic sectors in the past decade, especially during the 11th five-year period of 2006-2010. With the enactment of a landmark renewable energy law in 2005, China made the development of renewable energy a national priority. By 2007, the country had the world’s largest number of hydroelectric generators and was obtaining 8% of its energy and 17% of its electricity from renewable sources. In China’s western region where wind, sunshine and other natural resources are abundant, sizable windmill farms have been built, solar hot-water heaters are the norm in households and taxi cabs run on natural gas rather than gasoline. China has made important progress in the area of renewable energy.

Another critical area of reform relates to the role of government. Government interference is highest in China’s financial sector, which has been monopolized by a few large banks with severe barriers to private capital. In addition, bank loans to local governments for development and construction pose potential threats to China’s financial stability. Although China is one of the world’s largest creditor nations, local governments have accumulated worrisome amounts of debt, and some already are having difficulty paying it back.

So far, the Chinese currency, the renminbi (RMB), still is not convertible. But it is in China’s interest to fulfill its global responsibilities and make the RMB a convertible currency as soon as it can. The People’s Bank of China (China’s central bank) recently proposed an acceleration of capital controls aimed at making the RMB a global reserve currency (People’s Daily, February 23, 2012). In a statement published on its website on April 14, 2012, the People’s Bank announced that the daily floating band for the RMB in the inter-bank foreign exchange spot market would be expanded from the previous 0.5% to 1% effective April 16. Premier Wen Jiabao, meanwhile, told reporters that the Chinese central government had unified its thinking and decided to break the monopoly of a few large banks and allow private capital to enter China’s financial sector (Southern Metropolitan Daily, April 4, 2012). He further said that financial reforms piloted in Wenzhou would be implemented across the country, some of them immediately.

Still, the World Bank’s recommendations by no means will be easily put in place or accepted without challenge. Strengthening the foundations for a market-based economy has set off particular disagreement and debate. At a press conference during the launch of “China 2030” in Beijing, an angry Chinese demonstrator, Du Jianguo, interrupted World Bank President Zoellick’s speech on privatizing state-owned enterprises (SOEs) by storming onto the podium, handing out pamphlets and yelling that the World Bank is poisoning China. Du claimed to be an “independent” scholar, i.e. not affiliated with any Chinese institution or organization. But he is not alone; many Chinese, including government officials, oppose the World Bank’s report.

At the press conference, Zoellick revealed that the project to study China’s economic challenges was initiated 18 months earlier with the support of Vice Premier Li Keqiang. The project was done under the authority of China’s Ministry of Finance, with the cooperation of the Development Research Center of the State Council (DRC), a top think-tank that advises China’s cabinet. According to a behind-the-scenes account that has been reported in China (http://business.sohu.com/20120229/n336252696.shtml), the Finance Ministry sent the draft report to all relevant ministries and agencies for comment. The Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health praised the document, saying that it provided productive recommendations for further reforms and development in China’s education and health care system. But the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) strongly opposed it, claiming the recommendation to privatize SOEs and reduce the profile of SOEs in the Chinese economy was unconstitutional. The commission offered to debate the question with the World Bank and the DRC. Resulting negotiations between the SASAC and and DRC produced a softened final report.

Advantages afforded to SOEs long have been a source of controversy. Critics have argued that undue government protection has given state enterprises market power and easy access to bank loans and other financial resources, shielding them from competition. Despite their shrinking share in the economy, SOEs still play an important role. According to the Second National Economic Census (2008), assets held by SOEs accounted for about 30% of the 208 trillion RMB in total assets of industrial and service-sector companies, while the number of SOEs accounted for only 3.1% of total enterprises. These numbers suggest that the average size of SOEs is much greater than that of non-SOEs.

Employment is an important social function for SOEs. State enterprises still are a vital source of jobs in China even though their share of total urban employment has been shrinking. When economic reforms were just starting in 1980, SOEs employed 76% of China’s urban workers, while urban collectively owned enterprises (UCOEs) employed the remainder. In 2000, only 35% of China’s urban workers were employed by SOEs. Their share was further reduced to 19% in 2010 when they employed more than 65 million urban workers. Despite this reduction, in some areas SOEs are China’s most important employers. For example, a total of 58,000 new urban workers were added in Qinghai Province in 2010. Almost one-fourth, or 14,900 workers, were hired by SOEs.

China is known to have abundant labor, but economic growth in the past three decades has pushed labor costs up. The “population dividend” is gradually disappearing, hurting China’s SOEs the most. Private companies in China have reacted to rising labor costs by mechanizing, innovating and moving out of the higher-cost coastal areas to the lower-cost interior. Some foreign companies have even pulled out of China entirely. Yet there is not much evidence that China’s SOEs have adopted similar strategies. SOEs still provide a significant percentage of urban Chinese workers with employment, social security and health care that underpins access to a decent life. The impact of SOEs on the Chinese economy cannot be underestimated. The debate about how to reform China’s state enterprises will surely be contentious.

The World Bank’s report stops short of being overly prescriptive, as it is a joint product between the World Bank and the DRC of the State Council. But the implication of its broad recommendations is easy to see. Although it does not say so explicitly, some recommendations clearly require political and social reforms as well. Therefore, the participation of the DRC is significant. With a semi-official stamp of approval, reformers in China can better prepare to move forward, and, as noted earlier, some changes already have started.

For obvious reasons, the Chinese government must balance what is economically superior with what is politically and socially practical. Economic growth through heavy investment and cheap labor alone is not sustainable in the long run because diminishing returns will eventually kick in. Therefore, the importance of establishing a sound economic system is self-evident. Without much-needed reforms in the six vital areas, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for China to improve its overall economic efficiency. The Chinese government and public eventually will have to make tough choices concerning the issues outlined in the World Bank’s report. The question is, after decades of reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping, how China will move forward.

The post China 2030: An Analysis of the World Bank’s Reform Strategy appeared first on China Research Center.

As the U.S. presidential election draws nearer and the People’s Republic of China also faces a year of leadership change, the issue of Chinese currency revaluation has garnered an increasing amount of attention in both countries. Already, American voters have seen Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney assert that the U.S. must take a more aggressive stance in demanding that the renminbi (RMB) appreciate against the U.S. dollar. RMB appreciation would make Chinese goods more expensive for U.S consumers and U.S. goods less expensive for Chinese consumers, thus increasing U.S. exports and Chinese imports and improving the U.S. trade deficit with China. China, however, has refused to fully satisfy U.S. demands, despite Romney’s pledge to declare China a currency manipulator on day one of his presidency should he be elected.¹ Thus, the relevance of the currency revaluation issue cannot be underestimated.

Since Secretary of the Treasury John Snow’s visit to China in 2003, the U.S. has persistently pressed Beijing to allow the RMB to appreciate, and China has, in fact, responded positively, allowing the RMB to appreciate by 40 percent over 7 years, from the time China adopted a floating exchange rate in July 2005 to February 2012.² At the same time, using the People’s Bank of China (PBC) and the official Xinhua news agency, Beijing has advanced a set of arguments against rapid RMB appreciation. Beijing apparently hopes that principled refutation of U.S. demands coupled with slow, incremental compliance will placate the U.S. Congress and Treasury Department and foster stable relations between the two countries. This two-pronged response arises from China’s important yet conflicting policy objectives. On the one hand, the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, has affirmed that a policy of incremental appreciation is needed to maintain the country’s economic stability and encourage economic growth. On the other hand, China argues that appreciating the RMB against the U.S. dollar too quickly will disrupt the developing country’s export-led economy, potentially resulting in instability in the form of unemployment, mass migration and labor strikes. The combination of incremental RMB appreciation with arguments against U.S. pressure can be explained partly by a rational government strategy for maintaining stability and partly by a perceived need to project an image of an independent China that does not capitulate to foreign demands. Ultimately, however, both U.S. pressure and China’s own goals to rebalance its export-dependent economy call for further currency appreciation, and therefore it is likely that China will continue to appreciate the RMB.

Factors Pushing China toward RMB Appreciation

The main factor pushing China toward RMB appreciation is U.S. pressure, considering that China does not wish to jeopardize the stability resulting from lucrative trade with the U.S. This point is demonstrated by the fact that China has appreciated the RMB only when the U.S. has threatened punitive measures otherwise. For instance, on July 21, 2005, the People’s Bank of China implemented a managed floating exchange rate regime, which resulted in a 2.1% appreciation of the RMB.³ In February of that year, Senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham introduced a bill demanding China “make a good faith effort to revalue its currency upward placing it at or near its fair market value” within 180 days or risk a 27.5% tariff on any article it exported to the U.S.⁴ The second time China appreciated the RMB was on May 21, 2007, when the People’s Bank widened the trading band in which the RMB could float against the U.S. dollar from 0.3% to 0.5% in daily movement.⁵ This followed renewed threats of a vote on the 27.5% tariff bill. Sen. Schumer ominously stated, “We are not satisfied with simply a 2% revaluation,” and under this persistent threat of U.S. tariffs, China again responded by allowing the RMB to appreciate. ⁶ By July 2008, the RMB had appreciated 21% against the dollar.⁷

There is evidence that China might not have appreciated the RMB of its own accord. From mid-July 2008 to mid-June 2010, the RMB exchange rate began to plateau at around 6.83 yuan to the dollar.⁸ With the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, China started to experience an economic slump caused by decreased demand for Chinese goods. It appears that the Chinese government did not want to aggravate the ailing condition of the export industry by continuing to allow the yuan to appreciate. Schumer, however, and 13 other senators introduced a bill in March 2010 requiring the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury to provide Congress with biannual reports identifying any country found to have a “fundamentally misaligned currency” and requiring the Commerce Department to impose tariffs on specified goods from those countries.⁹ China was a primary target, but Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner chose to delay the report in April 2010, leaving an enduring threat of potential tariffs against China. As a result, on June 19, 2010, the People’s Bank announced it had “decided to proceed further with reform of the RMB exchange rate regime and to enhance the RMB exchange rate flexibility.”¹⁰ The Chinese currency appreciated by roughly another 3% against the U.S. dollar from June 19 to October 15, when the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it would again delay the publication of the report on international exchange rate policies, citing China’s progress.¹¹ Slight appreciation would not satisfy the U.S. for long, however, and finally, in October 2011, the Senate passed the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act by a vote of 63-35. While it remains uncertain how the bill might fare in the House of Representatives, passage in the Senate is the closest the U.S. government has come to retaliating against China’s currency undervaluation, and it has led the Chinese government to lobby Congress against further action. As of April 16, 2012, China also has allowed as much as 1% in daily fluctuation of RMB value, up from the 0.5% limit set in May 2007.¹² Clearly, China has not ignored pressure from the U.S. Congress and Treasury Department, but instead enacted policy changes in July 2005, May 2007, June 2010 and April 2012 in response.

China’s National Strategy to Gain Time

Naturally, Chinese officials have asserted that policies appreciating the RMB were introduced because they were in China’s national interest. The People’s Bank of China has stated that its purpose was to “safeguard the overall stability of China’s foreign economic and trade environment … as well as the sustained, coordinated and healthy growth of the Chinese economy.”¹³ Appreciation of the RMB could contribute to future economic growth by making imported products cheaper for Chinese buyers, thereby stimulating domestic demand. However, as China’s economy stands today, growth is largely export-led, benefitting from an undervalued currency that makes its exports relatively cheap. The face of the Chinese economy must change before benefiting from RMB appreciation in this way, and for this reason, Chinese officials have listed “the rise in domestic consumption” as a key target of economic restructuring in their 12th Five-Year Plan.¹⁴

It follows that Chinese policymakers would want to gain time for structural change before enacting exchange rate policy changes. A wider RMB trading band allows the currency to fluctuate nearer fair market value but does not address the U.S. demand that China quickly revalue the currency upward.¹⁵ In fact, the PBC has said that hastening RMB appreciation before enacting reforms in state-owned commercial banks and liberalizing service trades could jeopardize the country’s domestic economic stability.¹⁶ Essentially, China claims while exchange rate reform is one element of the overall restructuring effort, it need not be the first.

Another argument intended to buy time for Chinese policymakers suggests that the exchange rate plays an important role in stability during times of crisis — such as the current economic downturn. Keeping the RMB undervalued was helpful in the 1990s, facilitating the accumulation of large foreign reserves that acted as insurance and allowed China to avoid seeking IMF assistance during the Asian Financial Crisis.¹⁷ More recently, Xinhua assured its readers that China is “sticking to its appreciation policy amid the unfolding global crisis … ensuring the continued growth and stability within its own economy.”¹⁸ The U.S., meanwhile, argues that stockpiling foreign reserves aggravates the trade imbalance between the two countries.

China vocally denies that its decisions have been in response to U.S. complaints. Chinese Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan maintained that in setting exchange rate policy, the PBC would mainly take into consideration the “domestic economic situation and balance of payments rather than the bilateral trade deficits or surpluses with some individual countries.”¹⁹ If there were any doubt this statement was directed at the U.S., Zhou also asserted that “the U.S. trade deficit may be attributable to structural imbalances and fiscal deficits in the United States rather than the RMB exchange rate.”²⁰ He went on: China would “push ahead with the reform of the RMB exchange rate regime on a well-planned and step-by-step basis. Relevant policy measures will only be taken at the proper time.”²¹ Given China’s history of exploitation by Western powers over the past 200 years, insisting it will not yield to foreign dictates on RMB appreciation may be a means of saving face. Interestingly, however, “the proper time” has always been directly after the application of U.S. pressure.

Factors Pushing China against RMB Appreciation

A more valuable RMB means China’s manufactured goods will be more expensive and thus less competitive in America, its top export destination. The importance of exports to China’s economic stability cannot be underestimated. The IMF reports that “fixed investment related to tradable goods plus net exports together accounted for over 60% of China’s GDP growth from 2001 to 2008 (up from 40% from 1990 to 2000), which was significantly higher than in the G-7 countries (16%), the euro area (30%) and the rest of Asia (35%).”²² For a developing country reliant on manufactured exports, RMB appreciation could be detrimental to the stability and growth of China’s economy overall.

Disruption of the Chinese economy also affects social stability, which has been shaken by export-related job issues, including numerous strikes. Chinese officials fear two probable reactions of export producers to appreciation of the RMB: shutting down factories when they can no longer compete, or holding down wages to remain competitive. Either way, unrest can result from loss of jobs as manufacturers are forced out of business, or from worker demonstrations as wages suffer.

Chinese agricultural products also would be less competitive globally with a higher valuation of the RMB. A stronger yuan would facilitate cheaper agricultural imports and cut into profits from agricultural exports. This could result in job and income losses for China’s large rural populations, where many are employed in labor-intensive farm jobs. Cities would then feel a further strain as even more people in agricultural areas migrate in search of comparatively fewer jobs in less-labor-intensive sectors. Again, Chinese policymakers opt not to appreciate the RMB quickly in hopes of maintaining economic growth while avoiding unrest.

China’s Media and Soft Power

Projecting independence when it comes to exchange rate policy has been a theme in the state-controlled Chinese media. The Xinhua news agency has highlighted the claim that “the yuan exchange rate did not cause the trade imbalance between China and the United States,” and that targeting the yuan is no antidote to global economic problems.²³ Saving face also is an obvious goal, as seen in Xinhua’s declarations that “the yuan’s appreciation will not compromise to foreign pressure, and China will write its own ticket on the pace of its currency’s appreciation.”²⁴ Some argue that Xinhua is a way for the Chinese government to exercise soft power by “countering the dominance of Western news outlets and conveying a Chinese perspective on events” within the country and increasingly abroad, through outlets such as CNC World, its global English-language TV channel.²⁵

China also has exercised soft power by launching an unprecedented lobbying effort through a Congressional liaison team in the Chinese embassy in Washington. This team reportedly has arranged meetings with key lawmakers’ aides and made phone calls to congressional offices in an attempt to kill the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act. Through the Foreign Agents Registration Act, it’s also known that the Embassy is drawing on the lobbying expertise of Patton Boggs, a Washington law firm, at an estimated cost of $35,000 a month.²⁶

Though the cost to China could potentially be far higher should the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act pass the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner has hinted that the chances it will ever be voted on are slim, saying that he considered it “dangerous to be moving legislation through the United States Congress forcing someone to deal with the value of their currency.”²⁷ Nevertheless, the bill’s introduction serves as a tangible demonstration of American discontent with Chinese policy. China’s response to that discontent likely depends in great part on the Chinese perception of America’s motives. Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi appears to think that the push for “considerable revaluation cannot help at all and could probably injure the interests of the two countries and the public.”²⁸ Why, then, does the Chinese government believe that the U.S. wants it so badly? China may conclude that the real objective is not to bolster the U.S. economy but to repress the Chinese economy. In an exclusive interview with Xinhua, Premier Wen Jiabao said flatly, “the purpose is to hold back China’s development.”²⁹ Xinhua added, “China would not yield to foreign pressure for the appreciation of its currency, or renminbi, in any form.”³⁰ Almost two years later, The People’s Bank of China announced that the bill passed by the U.S. Senate would not solve its problems, but “might seriously affect the progress of China’s reform of the exchange rate regime and might also result in a trade war.”³¹ Thus, future Sino-U.S. relations are likely to be significantly affected by the Chinese perception of Congressional pressure to appreciate the RMB. If pressure is perceived as an injurious attempt to hold China back, it could be grounds for China to instigate a trade war. Similarly, U.S. election rhetoric also has the potential to influence how China perceives and responds to U.S. pressure in the future. Accordingly, Mitt Romney’s threats to declare China a currency manipulator may, in China’s view, foreshadow a future trade war, prompting China to pursue a soft power strategy aimed at allowing the Chinese to appreciate the RMB at their own pace without facing punitive action from the U.S.

The post China’s Response to U.S. Pressure to Revalue the RMB appeared first on China Research Center.

I believe these hopes for China are misplaced. Although there are people in China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs who believe that such a Chinese effort resulting in an accommodation between the Iran and the U.S.-led international community would serve China’s interests, other voices take a far more jaundiced view of how China should deal with the United States. These bitter and hawkish views are strong in China’s military. It is unlikely that any Chinese leader would want to offend the hawks, because intense maneuvering for succession to paramount power on the Politburo Standing Committee is under way in the lead-up to this fall’s 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) China is unlikely to use its influence to avert a U.S.-Iran clash. If it comes to war between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, Beijing will do little materially to assist Iran. But neither will Beijing help the U.S. prevent, or extricate itself from, another Middle Eastern quagmire.

Dreams of China as a U.S. Partner

Some prominent voices in the U.S. hope China will use its substantial influence with Tehran to persuade it to come to a negotiated, compromise settlement with Washington. A recent monograph by three Fellows (all U.S. military officers) in the National Security Program of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, titled “Reaching a Negotiated Settlement on the Iranian Nuclear Program,” advocates a three-pronged push for a negotiated settlement with Iran. The second prong is an approach to Tehran through China. “After failing to act decisively to stop the bloodshed in Syria,” said the report “China now has an opportunity to demonstrate global leadership to reach an acceptable agreement and prevent a military conflict from affecting energy supplies coming from the Middle East.”¹

The authors of the Harvard monograph elaborate the multiple ways in which Chinese mediation would serve China’s own interests. War would be averted that might otherwise disrupt China’s oil imports, make those oil imports expensive and depress foreign markets for China’s exports. Chinese mediation would demonstrate that its growing influence would be used responsibly to uphold peace. China would win Washington’s gratitude for working in tandem with U.S. diplomacy rather than as a peer competitor. Beijing also would win the gratitude of Iran for helping it avert war, further demonstrating to Iran the utility of friendship with China. The Harvard paper also documents via Wikileaks memoranda that China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs served as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran in the first year of the Obama Administration, when the new team in Washington was pushing to reset U.S. ties with both Tehran and Beijing.

These arguments are all solid. Some of them are sourced to this author’s own writings. But ultimately, Beijing is not likely to use its influence to help the United States avoid or extricate itself from war or chronic militarized confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Weighted against the interests enumerated above, is the global strategic reality that China benefits from having the United States bogged down in chronic conflict with Iran in the Persian Gulf.

Another recent article by two analysts in well-connected think tanks and published in the journal Foreign Policy argues that U.S. movement toward a strike against Iran would “persuade Beijing and Tehran alike that this option [of U.S. attack] is the alternative to full compliance with international sanctions.” It says further, “Establishing a credible military threat to Iran” and a “credible U.S. threat to disarm the Iranian regime,” would compel China’s leaders to drop their support for Iran. ² Since a U.S.-Iran war would imperil China’s oil supplies from the Gulf, so the argument goes, confronting Beijing with that possibility would force Beijing to use its influence with Tehran to submit to U.S. terms. Again these estimates of China’s calculations seem misplaced. They fly in the face of China’s perception of a vast U.S. conspiracy against China and of what is required to foil U.S. hostile strategy toward China.

Chinese Realpolitik

A recent essay by Wang Jisi lays out the zero-sum worldview increasingly dominating elite Chinese thinking about the United States.³ Wang is dean of Beijing University’s School of International Studies, advisor to the Chinese Communist Party and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and guest professor at the PLA’s National Defense University. The monograph came out under the imprimatur of the Brookings Institute.

Wang Jisi paints a gloomy but dominant Chinese perspective. “It is strongly believed in China,” he writes, “that the ultimate goal of the Untied States in world affairs is to maintain its hegemony and dominance and, as a result, Washington will attempt to prevent the emerging powers, in particular China, from achieving their goal and enhancing their stature.” The perception that the United States “is China’s greatest national security threat,” Wang writes, is “especially widely shared in China’s defense and security establishments and in the Communist Party’s ideological organizations.” Washington is using “sinister designs” involving human rights issues to “sabotage the Communist leadership and turn China into [a] vassal state.” Washington has also “strengthened security ties with a number of China’s neighbors” including two states [India and Vietnam] “that once fought border wars with and still have territorial disputes with China.” A desire to encircle China has inspired the “pivot of U.S. strategic forces to Asia” under President Barack Obama.

U.S. policy toward Iran and the Persian Gulf is seen as a piece of the U.S. drive for global hegemony, Wang continues. U.S. Middle Eastern policy, including the war in Iraq, is seen in China as “driven by desire to control global oil supplies.” Of course, if Washington does that, it will be better able to prevent China’s emergence. U.S. policy toward Iran is seen in China as “driven more by an American desire to change the political structure of Iran and the geopolitical picture of the Middle East than by its declared goal of keeping the Iranians from obtaining nuclear weapons.” Non-proliferation concerns, such as human rights or climate change considerations, are mere ploys serving to prop up U.S. domination. Following the 9/11 attacks, Wang reports, “China foresaw a twenty-year-long strategic opportunity in foreign affairs, during which it could focus on domestic tasks centered on economic growth.” Now, however, with the Obama Administration’s withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, “there has arisen a stronger Chinese suspicion that the Untied States will move its strategic spearhead away from the Greater Middle East and redirect it at China as its greatest security threat.”

From the perspective of this jaundiced view of U.S. policy, why would China help the United States achieve the negotiated, but internationally supervised, abstention from research and development of nuclear weapons? Such aid would constitute a step toward Iranian subordination to American domination in the Gulf. Why would China help the United States avoid another costly war in the Persian Gulf and facilitate Washington’s “pivot to Asia,” targeting China? Even more, an Iran-U.S. war might tie the United States down in West Asia for a number of years, draining U.S. treasure and national will, while giving China several more years to expand its economy. Another American war or confrontation in the Persian Gulf certainly would cause serious economic problems for China. But it would significantly strengthen China’s national security against the United States. Would economic interests trump global strategic calculations? And what Chinese leader would want to position himself as helping the American hegemonists strengthen their anti-China containment schemes?

The near-consensus view of China’s top foreign policy analysts is that the United States has seized the opportunity of the “extremely unbalanced international situation” created by the collapse of the Soviet Union to launch an aggressive drive to bring the oil of the Middle East under full U.S. control. In China’s view, this is the objective behind sanctions, military deployments to the Gulf, threats of attack, actual wars and regime change in Afghanistan, Iraq, and perhaps next, Iran. Washington wants to control the oil of the Persian Gulf, the Chinese narrative continues, in order to be able to turn the spigot on or off to the consumers of that oil — India, Japan, Europe and, of course, China. Iran, a proud, ambitious, and powerful country, is now in Washington’s crosshairs. It seems to be Iran’s turn for U.S-style subordination via regime change — again, in China’s view.

Early in the post-Soviet period, Beijing decided it would not oppose or challenge the United States in the Middle East. Precisely because that region was the focus of Washington’s drive for global domination, opposition or challenge by China would be extremely dangerous. It could have undermined the Sino-American comity upon which China’s extremely successful post-1978 development drive was predicated.

But fortunately for Beijing, Chinese analysts concluded that China did not need to oppose or challenge the United States in the Middle East. The United States drive for hegemony in the Gulf and in the world would be defeated by the resistance of the peoples of various countries, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, and now, perhaps, Iran.

During the 2003-2010 U.S. war in Iraq, the universal refrain in China’s media was that the United States was rapidly exhausting itself in the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan. If the United States, in its reckless arrogance, wants to undertake yet another adventure — so be it. Let it go ahead, although again this sort of judgment cannot be rendered in public. In the event of a U.S.-Iran war, China would not, of course, endanger its vital economic relationship with the United States, but it would stand ideologically foursquare behind Tehran, would garner political capital across the non-Western world by touting its opposition to U.S. warmongering, and would find ways to assist Tehran’s cause, even while continuing friendly cooperative ties with the United States in areas of common interest and agreement.

In the event of a U.S.-Iranian war, China’s propaganda apparatus would stand with Iran. American warmongering would be juxtaposed against China’s peaceful diplomacy and peaceful rise. China’s diplomacy would be neutral but China would find ways to assist Tehran and confound Washington, though both would be done ambiguously. China’s “normal economic relations” with Iran would continue, and Beijing would resist U.S. efforts to narrow those economic ties. China would probably not supply arms to Iran; that work already has been done. But Chinese military observers would probably watch closely how well China-supplied weapons worked in the field against U.S. forces.

To imagine that China would help the U.S. avert another Middle East quagmire is a serious misreading of China’s views and policies. It is an egregious example of script-writing in which one predicts how others will act on the basis of one’s own perceptions and objectives. In the hardheaded realist atmosphere of foreign policy decision-making circles in Beijing, a U.S.-Iranian war would not be antithetical to Chinese interests — although this could never be said openly. Chinese analysts currently view Washington as attempting to extricate itself from Iraq and Afghanistan in order to shift forces and focus to East Asia, to better contain China. If Washington undertakes a new and probably bigger Middle Eastern war, China’s global strategic situation would not be diminished. And who knows, perhaps the Americans will finally exhaust themselves and become much more willing to accommodate China’s rise.

The post China and a U.S.-Iran War appeared first on China Research Center.

Introduction

In recent years online shopping has grown rapidly in China. According to Sina, online commerce has become an important sector in China’s economy, accounting for 3% of total retail volume in 2010 (Sina).

Among the many factors that contributed to this success: innovative language used by online shopping websites, particularly new vocabulary and novel usage of words. This paper presents an analytical study – from marketing and linguistic perspectives – of language that has played a pivotal role in attracting customers and promoting products.

Research on the language of advertising in English that examines vocabulary used in television and commercial publishing, has effectively related the use of words with functional factors of advertising such as capturing attention, listenability, readability, memorability and selling power. Geis (1982) made an attempt to describe how language is used in American advertising, particularly in television advertising. He concluded that advertisers in general tend to prefer vague language to language with explicit empirical consequences, and they opt for subjective claims rather than objective claims. Mencher (1990) looked into the aspect of vocabulary in advertising and identified key personal and persuasive words.

There have also been many articles scrutinizing Chinese advertising language from various perspectives, such as studies on advertising discourse (Guowen Huang, 2001) and pragmatics of advertising language (Junyuan Wang, 2005). Wang (2005) studied the marketing effects of novel usage of fixed expressions, such as four-character proverbs, folk sayings and idioms. He pointed out fixed expressions are used creatively in commercials by either changing their linguistic form or meaning. He argued that this type of novel usage of common expressions is effective in advertising because it grabs people’s attention with its freshness and familiarity and leaves a deep impression.

Since the popularity of online shopping is relatively recent in China, research on advertising language used by online stores is lacking. This paper aims to fill this gap by focusing linguistically on new vocabulary and novel uses of words on online shopping websites. The authors have collected data from China’s most popular business-to-customer and customer-to-customer websites from January 2008 to March 2012. It is hoped that this study can shed light on the language features of online marketing.

Linguistic Features of New Words and Collocations

Internet advertising shares few qualities with its equivalents in newspapers, magazines and on television. It is an electronic, global and, most importantly, interactive format. Both sellers and consumers control the effectiveness of Internet advertising. Since “behavioral response and branding are two major objectives of Internet advertising,” (Li & Leckenby 2004: 25) it must meet customers’ needs for information, entertainment and value, by using a variety of elements including innovative use of language, multiple forms of media and interactivity. In China, more than “90% of netizens are below the age of 35. In other words, Chinese netizens can be roughly categorized as young people.” (Gao 2008: 362) The interactive nature of Internet advertising and its target population determine that the language used must be engaging and innovative.

In China, new online shopping websites open on a daily basis. Competition among them is becoming fiercer. To stay competitive and generate more traffic, these websites must aggressively advertise their products and special deals, particularly before important holidays such as National Day, Christmas and Chinese New Year. New words and expressions and novel usages of existing words are used to catch potential customers’ attention and provoke action.

New Words

Vocabulary is probably the most versatile component of language. New words are consistently created to meet the needs of communication. In China, according to Gao (2008: 373), some of the Chinese Internet Lexicon (CIL) usages “have already been used by the general public and beyond the modality of CMC (computer mediated communication).” Among Chinese Internet Lexicon, many of the words originated from online shopping websites.

New Words Originated from Names of Websites

Some words originating from online shopping websites are becoming new words in the Chinese language and are used in daily communication.
Take Táobăo 淘宝 (“to pan for treasure”) as an example. It is the name of the largest online shopping website in Asia with more than 370 million registered users as of the end of 2010 (China Daily). As an indisputable leader in e-commerce, the word táobăo has become a household expression, referring to a shopping strategy in which one goes through numerous stores online or off-line to find the best deals. Below are two examples:

1) 有市民向记者传授淘宝经验，虽然商家都说不能还价，但大多还是有讲价余地的。

(Citizens tell reporters about their experiences of panning for treasures. Although some businesses say that the prices are non-negotiable, in fact in most cases it is possible to negotiate the price.) (07SShz)

2) 山东商报社区淘宝节将再次来到天桥区。

(The Taobao Community Festival, hosted by Shandong Business Newspaper, will come to Tianqiao District again.) (WTOOW)

The word táobăotĭ 淘宝体 (“taobao style”) is another new word related to the online shopping website. It originated from the writing style of describing products or special deals on its website. Such descriptions usually begin with qīn 亲 (“dear”) and then adopt an informal, personalized, intimate tone. The popularity of this style of writing has caused some traditionally formal or official communications to adopt taobao style. The following examples illustrate this fact:

3) 亲们，淘宝社正式招新啦！

(Dear All, the Taobao community is recruiting!) (Nanjing College of Information Technology)

4) 南京理工大学录取通知使用淘宝体。

(Acceptance notices to incoming freshmen from Nanjing University of Sciences and Technology adopt the Taobao style.) (ifeng.com)

New Words Originated from New Marketing Strategies

In November 2010 wánpāi wăng 玩拍网 (www.wanpai.com) was launched. As its name suggests – wán 玩 (“to play”) and pāi 拍 (“to auction”) – this website is a unique platform combining social networking with online auctioning. Different from traditional auction websites on which shopping for deals is the only goal, users of this website can make and connect with friends, and play games while participating in online auctions. In addition, this website uses a variety of innovative auctioning methods, offering either zero-dollar or extremely low starting bids and allowing customers to decide how much they are willing to pay. This website quickly grew to be China’s leading auction website. As a result, more competitive bidding websites have established. The new word jìngpāi 竞拍 (“competitive bidding”) has also become widely used.

1) 百元竞拍一触即发，长城平板，笔记本抱回家.

(Competitive bidding at 100 RMB quickly became viral. People brought home flat screen desk tops and laptop computers.) (yesky.com)

2) 当晚的拍卖现场颇为热闹，许多图书出版公司的出版人赶来竞拍。

(The auction scene this evening was quite lively. Many publishers came to participate in the bidding.) (Chinanews.com)

The term miăoshā 秒杀 (“sec kill”) denotes another popular sales strategy. According to baidu.com, miăoshādiàn 秒杀店 (“sec kill store”) on www.taobao.com is the website’s most popular feature (Baidu).
The word miăoshā 秒杀 was officially included in the Ministry of Education’s 2007 new word list (Baidu). At the time, however, the word was used in the context of computer games, referring to a strategy of attacking opponents. It wasn’t until around 2010 that the word became a popular term for online shopping. It refers to a promotion in which potential buyers go to a website at the same time and hit the “order” or “buy” button in quick succession. Deep discounts are awarded first come, first served and the process takes mere seconds, hence the “sec(ond) kill” reference.
Many other related words have been invented highlighting its popularity.

3) miăopiào 秒票 (“to buy tickets using the sec kill strategy”)

4 ) miăoshāqì 秒杀器 (“sec kill device”)

New Collocations

In terms of linguistic codes, some of the new words used on online shopping websites are mixtures of either Chinese characters and English letters or words or mixtures of purely Chinese characters. This type of lexicon is not restricted to the context of online shopping. It is in fact one important feature of Chinese Internet Lexicon (CIL). (Gao, 2008)

Hold zhù hold住 (“to maintain, to hold on to”)

Hold住 was originally a Cantonese word. It became a popular online word in Mandarin Chinese in the summer of 2011 after a participant on a Taiwanese reality TV show used it repeatedly in her comedy performance (Sina). As an online shopping term, it can be used by both sellers and buyers. When used by sellers, it is either for the purpose of influencing and tempting buyers into taking action or for highlighting the advantages of the promotion. Below are some examples.

良无限,hold住全场的性比价
(We have an unlimited number of excellent products! These goods provide more bang for your buck than you will find anywhere else.) (Taobao.com)

Hold住夏季体重，中药减肥正当时
(Take charge of your weight this summer! Now is the time to lose weight with the help of Traditional Chinese medicine!) (Rayli)

JM们 (“sisters”)

“JM” represents the Pinyin initials for jiějie姐姐 (“older sister”) and mèimei妹妹 (“younger sister”). Combining the English letters JM with the character for plural form men们, the term JM们 is commonly used in online posts by and for females. The term adds a layer of intimacy and creates a sense of community. One example is listed below:

护肤精华露那些事，JM们快来看！
(Sisters, come and take a look at these skin care products!) (Onlylady)

In addition to shopping websites, consumers – particularly young female shoppers – often use the word to post product information for other female friends, as shown in the example below:

最新消息，国内唯一的OTC减肥药—奥利司他胶囊，品牌名好像叫做“雅塑”，已经在在国内上市了! 这下JM们有福啦,我们再也不用费尽周折从国外代购奥利司他了！
(This is the latest news. The only OTC weight loss drug, Orlistat Capsules, are
now available in China. This is indeed a blessing for sisters! We won’t have to go
through the trouble of buying from abroad.) (ifeng.com)

In addition to these English-Chinese hybrids, online media has also created some purely Chinese collocations. Below are a few examples.

jìnbào zhíjiàng 劲爆直降 (powerful and explosive price cut)
gěilì jùxiàn 给力巨献 (awesome and gigantic promotion)
gěilì fàngsòng 给力放送 (awesome giveaway)

Innovative and Unusual Usages of Existing Words

Idiomatic Expressions

Online shopping websites often use Chinese idiomatic expressions in unexpected, creative and sometimes proactive ways. Because idioms are highly compact and rich in meaning, using them in advertising achieves the purpose of conveying more information in limited words. Additionally, using them in creative ways adds another layer of meaning, thus attracting people’s attention.
Chīhēwánrlè吃喝玩乐 (“eat, drink and be merry”) is an idiom describing indulgence in eating, drinking and having fun. During the holiday shopping season of 2011, however, online shopping websites used this expression to promote their holiday sales. Using yìyuán miăoshā一元秒杀 (“one Yuan sec kill”) as a marketing strategy, the promotion called chīhēwánrlè吃喝玩乐 included deep discounts and coupons for beauty salons, restaurants, theaters, gyms and travel. In this holiday shopping season, chīhēwánrlè 吃喝玩乐, an idiom with negative connotations, was transformed by being given an atmosphere of merriment and celebration. To enhance the call for action, the website Taobao created a sales area titled ChīhēwánrlèGO吃喝玩乐GO. The word “go” referred to travel packages, as in going somewhere, in addition to images of energy, vigor and liveliness.

Yìwăngdăjìn一网打尽 (“to catch all in one net”) is another idiom used in shopping websites. In this proverb, wăng 网originally refers to a fishing net. However, when used by online shopping websites, it gains another layer of meaning, referring to wăngluò网络, the Internet. The proverb thus shows that this website has everything one needs. It is used either to highlight the comprehensiveness of information and goods or to lure customers into buying large quantities or varieties of goods. Below are some examples:

1) 南京新闻，本地报纸，广播，电视，新闻一网打尽。

(Get news about Nanjing from local newspapers, TV and radio on one website.) (Longhoo.net)

2) 合肥购物网，打折、服饰、家电、美容信息一网打尽。

(Hefei online shopping website where you can find everything you need, such as discount clothes, household appliances, electronics and beauty products.) (gouwu.hefei.cc)

Another sales promotion around the 2011 Chinese New Year was xīnnián dàsăochú新年大扫除 (“the New Year clean-up”). One of the great traditions of Chinese New Year is to clean house and put things in order as a way to sweep out the old to usher in the new. On shopping websites such as Taobao, this term was used as a banner for cleaning and personal hygiene products right before the Chinese New Year.

Dúyīwú’èr 独一无二 is a proverb meaning “unique.” The advertisement changes the second character yī 一 (“one”) into yī 衣 (“clothing”). Since the two characters have the same pronunciation, the proverb’s sound is unchanged, so it retains its original meaning when spoken. However, as a clothing advertisement, this change highlights the sales items in the proverb, signifying that the products and the sales are unique and hard to come by.

New Meanings of Existing Words

Some words gain new meanings on shopping websites.

Shài晒 (“to share”)

In A Modern Chinese-English Dictionary, the verb shài晒is described as “to shine upon” and “to dry in the sun, to bask.” Its meaning strictly indicates actions related to the sun. In the Internet era, the semantic scope of this verb is greatly expanded to refer to a wide range of activities online. Basking in the sun, the root meaning of shài晒, implies the absorbance of sunshine and heat, practices considered beneficial and enjoyable. Similarly, when used online, shài晒metaphorically refers to information sharing among Internet users, ranging from shài gōngzī 晒工资 (“sharing salary”), shài qínggăn 晒情感 (“sharing feelings”), shài gōngzuò 晒工作 (“sharing work experiences”), shài yù’ér jīng晒育儿经 (“sharing chid bearing experiences”) and shài gòuwù jīng 晒购物经 (“sharing shopping experiences”). The purpose of information sharing online is to focus on the interaction and community-building among Internet users.

Shài晒 is also frequently used as a verb on online shopping websites. Some websites generate shopping lists, (i.e., gòuwù shàidān购物晒单) “to promote clearance or sales items” on míngpĭn dăogòu wăng名品导购网 (mplife.com).

Bài 败 (“to buy”)

Bài 败 (“to fail”) is used in place of the verb măi买 (“to buy”), because it is similar in pronunciation to the English word “buy.” Some websites’ names use Bài败, such as bàiwùnǚ xiăo wěiwěi 败物女小炜炜 (Taobao.com), a flagship store on Taobao’s website. Below are some examples:

帅爸甜妈必败夏装情侣装纯棉挂脖连衣裙男背心-相亲相爱
(Lover’s outfit! Skirt and shirt for sweet parents! A must-buy for the summer!) (PaiPai)

内地游客香港必败化妆品推荐
(We have recommendations for cosmetics for Mainland tourists to Hong Kong.) (zhuguo.com)

Linguistic and Rhetorical Features

Word Choices

One common feature in word choices is the use of emotive and strong adjectives that can stimulate extreme emotions and desires.

Fēng 疯 (“crazy”)

One of the most common words used by online shopping websites is fēngqiăng 疯抢 (“to snatch crazily”). Examples include táobăo quánmín fēngqiăng 淘宝全民疯抢 (“everyone shop madly on Taobao”) and tuángòu fēngqiăng 团购疯抢 (“mad snatching by group-shoppers”).

Bào 爆 (“explosive”)

Bào 爆 forms the word bàokuăn 爆款 (“products that are in high demand”). Bào 爆 is also used in jīngbào jià 惊爆价, referring to extremely low prices that are surprising and newsworthy.

Rhetorical Devices

Figures of Speech

The use of figures of speech is a common and universal advertising technique. In a survey of 24,00 ads, 75% used at least one figure of speech (Leigh 1994). On Chinese shopping websites, one common type of figure of speech are those related to war and violence. These figures of speech shock people into paying attention and becoming energized, encouraging them to buy products.
In December 2011, before Christmas and the Chinese New Year, many shopping websites started sales promotions called xĭyíng shuāngjié bèizhàn niánhuò 喜迎双节，备战年货 (“Happily awaiting the double holiday and stocking up on New Year goods”). The word bèizhàn 备战 literarily means to prepare for war. In this context, it was used metaphorically to stress the intensive shopping rush to get ready for the holidays. It added a sense of urgency and intensity.

Exaggeration

The use of exaggeration is also a traditional advertising technique. It overemphasizes properties of products – be it their prices, functions or styles – to the extreme, encouraging consumers to buy them. On online shopping websites, words are often used in literary and exaggerated ways to promote sales. As shown in previous examples, adjectives such as fēng 疯and fēngkuáng 疯狂are often used in adverbial position to modify verbs, thus exaggerating the emotive aspect of the actions. Jù 巨, meaning “huge,” is used to exaggerate the scope and benefits of promotions, as in jùhuì 巨惠, jùxiàn 巨献,and jù huásuàn 巨划算.

Pun

Puns are amusing uses of words or phrases that have two meanings. Called the game of words, puns leave a deep impression on readers by their readability and humor. The nature of puns in advertising is nicely captured by Attridge. “The pun is the product of a context deliberately constructed to enforce an ambiguity, to render impossible the choice between meanings, to leave the reader or hearer endlessly oscillating in semantic space.” (Attridge 1988) Keenly aware of the limits of a computer screen display, shopping websites employ puns to maximize the information conveyed to customers.
One unique type of pun is to combine the brand name with the general meaning of the word. It conveys the product information, as well as the meaning of the word. One famous example is the advertisement for Lenovo computer:

人类失去联想，世界将会怎样?
(What the world would be like if man loses Lenovo?) (Baidu)

In this advertisement, liánxiăng 联想 is the brand name of Lenovo computer. At the same time its general meaning of associating ideas and thoughts is also employed. It makes readers think about the world without Lenovo and the world without man’s ability to think in connected ways. In addition to effectively using puns, this advertisement also resembles lines of poetry in the number of characters and rhyme structure. It is thus catchy and easy to remember. Lenovo’s ad was so popular it inspired similar ads from other companies, such as the one seen below:

人类失去苹果，世界将会怎样？
(What the world would be like if man loses Apple?) (IT Time)

Discussions and Conclusions

The rapid expansion of online shopping markets has provided vitality for China’s e-commerce and the Chinese language. Many of the new words and usages on shopping websites are vivid, dynamic and sometimes witty. They seem to appeal to e-shoppers, mostly people in their teens and early 20s.

In addition to their popularity, the new words quickly adapt to changes in e-commerce and marketing strategies. Lastly the new words also reflect changes in social and cultural spirits in China. One notices that the new expressions serve to build and maintain online communities and help establish net users’ identities. New address terms such as JM们 use kinship terms to address site visitors, thus shortening the distance between the online stores and their customers and generating the feeling of a big family.

Since online shopping websites attract millions of users, particularly young people, the impact of the new vocabulary and novel usage of words cannot be underestimated. Some of the expressions already have been used by the general public, even beyond the modality of shopping websites. As demonstrated in this paper, lively and vibrant new words – particularly when used by young people who are regarded as “in the vanguard of most [language] changes” (Wardhaugh 1998: 202) – have the potential to become integral parts of the Chinese language and contribute to linguistic changes.
The generation and development of the new Chinese marketing vocabulary also has had several negative impacts. For example, most words come from the more profitable and influential online shopping websites. Websites that are less profitable and popular tend to copy the popular words used on major websites and as a result create confusion among consumers. The quality of the products often does not match the description, generating dissatisfaction and complaints.

Despite the mixed effects on new words and novel usages on China’s online shopping websites, one cannot ignore their popularity and increasing influence on communication, particularly among the younger generation. Due to their potential impact on language change and development, they warrant more linguistic research.

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