James Kynge

are wondering, you know, how do we stop know-how and technology going out of the back door of some of our biggest companies to Chinese competitors?

And I think that this is another case that really will concentrate the minds of policymakers in Washington and other people in the industry as well.

Yeah, no, I mean, we're speaking just a few hours after China announced its trade surplus for November.

And that means that in the first 11 months of this year, the Chinese trade surplus for goods already is in excess of one trillion U.S.

dollars.

And that means that for the full year, it might be about $1.2 trillion, which, according to various estimates that I've been looking at, means that this could be one of the highest trade surpluses in history, roughly equivalent to some of the huge surpluses we saw the U.S.

have.

in the last years of the Second World War.

So we're really talking about exceptionally high trade surpluses.

And one of the reasons for that, of course, is that the renminbi, the yuan, the CNY, whatever we call it, is undervalued.

That means that all of China's exports to the world are much cheaper than they should be, according to various different estimates that economists make.

And I think the reason that this is so key right now is that some people, just a few, not that many, inside China are starting to talk about a window for renminbi appreciation.

So the person that really came onto my radar was a man called Mao Yen Liang.

He is

chief strategist at the China International Capital Corporation, which is a famous investment bank in China.

Some people call it the Goldman Sachs of China.

And he said that because China's manufacturing competitiveness is so strong, a window for renminbi appreciation is opening.

And then another quite influential Chinese voice, Wei-jen Shan, who is chief executive of a private equity company called PAG.

He's based in Hong Kong.

He said, and this is even more dramatic, that a gradual appreciation of at least 50 percent