Podcasts about although china

Last time we spoke about the Battle for the Great Wall of China. In 1933, the Kwantung Army faced logistical struggles and sought political deals with Chinese warlords to seize North China. Despite capturing key areas, chaos reigned as their unauthorized operations defied Tokyo's orders. When Emperor Hirohito demanded a withdrawal, the army reluctantly complied, derailing a coup attempt. Though peace talks followed, distrust persisted, and rogue Japanese commanders plotted fresh offensives. The Tanggu truce was anything but fair to China. The Japanese followed it up with continuous negotiations aimed at slicing more and more out of China. By 1935 North China was practically annexed if but all in official terms. The Japanese seized postal rights, train rights, airline rights, set up puppets to police a new demilitarized zone and seemed never appeased fully. Yet they did not only have their eye on Northern China.    #149 Incidents in North China: Operation Chahar Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. May 1935, marked the peak of Sino-Japanese efforts at reconciliation. Yet this quickly fell apart in June as the Kwantung Army continued to encroach in North China. More specifically they began to look at Chahar province. Between January and May of 1935 some 50 instances of anti-Japanese violence had broken out in North China and behind these outbursts seemed to be Yu Xuecheng, the chairman of Hubei's provincial Government. He was not alone in his efforts as many KMT members, generals in the Central Army and Blue Shirt Society also had helping hands to play. The Japanese were particularly infuriated by incessant attacks from the bandit army led by Sun Yungqin and the assassinations of two pro-Japanese figures operating in Tientsin, Pai Yuhuan and Hu Enpu. Even with th support of the Kwantung Army, maintaining law and order in the demilitarized region established by the Tanggu Trace proved a serious undertaking. The Nanjing government tried exploit the situation, encouraging Sun Yungqin's bandits to create chaos in the demilitarized region. Sun Yungqin's bandit frequently crossed the Great Wall into Rehe in raids. Each time the Kwantung Army attempted to catch them as they fled into the demilitarized region. They particularly liked to do so in the Zunhua district where the official He Xiaoyi supplied the bandits with munitions and provisions. On May 17th, the Kwantung Army was fed up and elected to cross the Great Wall to crush Sun Yungqin once and for all. The Japanese army attache at Peiping, Major Takahasi Tan, notified the Chinese authorities of this decision, claiming the Kwantung Army had the authority to do so under certain provisions within the Tanggu agreement. Beginning on May 20th, the Sugihara Mixed Brigade began its hunt and claimed to have uncovered evidence that Yu Xuecheng had helped guide Sun Yingqin's bandits away from their force. The Japanese also argued the bandits were operating in Manchuria and were calling themselves the “Northeastern Patriotic Volunteers” led by General He Yingqing, the current chairman of the Peiping Branch Military Council.  The bandits were said to have been completely crushed within 5 days by a single brigade. The Japanese also forced the resignation of Yu Xuecheng who refused to organize an anti-chiang kai-shek movement. Shortly before the operation launched, two pro-Japanese newspaper publishers, secretly supported by the Japanese Special Service Agency were assassinated in Tientsin. On May 2nd, Hu Enpu of the Kuochuan pao “national rights” was shot in bed at the Peiyang Hotel in the Japanese concession. That same night, Pai Yuhuan of Chen Pa was murdered in his home. Consul General Kawagoe reported to Tokyo, Hu Enpu and Pai Yuhuan were performing a mission through their newspapers to arouse anti-chiang Kai-shek sentiment in North China. As stated by Kawagoe "Hu and Pai did not have a particularly close personal relationship, but they were regarded with extreme suspicion by the Chinese. Since they were assassinated on the same night, we immediately suspected there was some political intrigue behind these crimes."   Japanese police looked into the matter and discovered the criminals had used a car bearing the plate number 1063 which was owned by Shen Qucheng who was a resident of the Japanese concession. Many suspects were interrogated, and given what they were saying, the Japanese suspected the man behind the assassinations was General Yang Hu, the peace preservation commissioners of Shanghai and an alleged member of the Blue Shirt Society. The Japanese also believed Yang Hu was hiding in the French concessions in Shanghai. In protest of this, the Japanese invoked the Boxer Protocol and Tanggu Truce: “1) The Sun incident and the assassinations of the pro-Japan, proManchukuo newspaperpublishers violated the North China [T'angku] Cease-fire Agreement of May 1933. The North China Cease-fire Agreement stipulated that China would not take any action disturbing the peac e on either side of a line from Lut'ai to Paoti and T'ungchou. The above provision extends to all of China and should of course be applied to any defiant deeds of Chines e officials that threaten the peac e in the Peiping-Tientsin region. The Sun incident and the assassinations of Pai and Hu are clearly contrary to the above agreement.  2) The official note exchanged by China and Japan upon the return of Tientsin in 1902 is applicabl e to the murder of Pai Yühuan. This note stated: "In the event a Chines e national who is employed by a foreign army is accused of disobeying the law, the commander of the army that employs the said Chines e national, in order that the matter may be decided in the most suitable manner has the option of punishing him personally or voluntarily delivering him to the appropriate Chinese authorities. Your government must agree to this arrangement.” Since Pai, as already stated, was in the employ of the Japanese army, his murder is clearly a deed which violates the above note."  Thus the Japanese invoked the right that the commander of the Tientsin garrison had the authority to maintain security and try any criminals. Because the Japanese Army claimed it had authority to conduct investigations, trials and deal punishment within two miles of the Peiping-Shanhaigaun rail line it insisted to do so given the recent events. This actually distorted some of the specifics of the Tanggu Treaty, thus the Japanese were on loose grounds. On May 25th, Tokyo HQ was forewarned of the actions the Kwantung Army would undertake in North China. So Tokyo sent Colonel Sakai Takashi the Tientsin army chief of staff and attache Takahasi Tan called upon Yu Qiaqi, the secretary general of the Political affairs council and General He Yingqin. In fact Sakai backed this up with a threatening public statement: “The execution of anti-Manchukuo plots under the direction of the Chinese authorities, assistance to the "Chinese Patriotic Volunteer Forces," and various acts of terrorism directed against Japan are destructive of the cease-fire agreement. The headquarters for these crimes are in Tientsin and Peiping. Should this state of affairs continue, it will become necessary to incorporate the above two cities in the demilitarized zone. The murders of Hu and Pai are violations of the provisions of the Boxer Settlement and a challenge to Japan. If similar acts hereafter occur, Japan will, on the basis of its treaty rights, be forced to consider what action is necessary for the defense of its rights”. Additionally, Sakai demanded the withdrawal of all KMT aligned units, Blue Shirt Society members, the Political Training Corps of the Peiping Branch Military Council and the 3rd Regiment Military Police from North China. He also wanted Yu Xuecheng dismissed as chairman of Hubei. The next day in a move to intimidate Yu Xuecheng, the Tientsin Army deployed armored vehicles, artillery and machine guns directly in front of his official residence. It seemed now the Japanese sought to incorporate all of Hubei into the new demilitarized region. To make this happen, Sakai had independently put forward these demands, but they were recognized as an ultimatum from Japan, one for which for now had no deadline.  Chiang Kai-Shek, Wang Jingwei, Huang Fu and He Yingqin conferred over the situation and chose to informally talk with the Japanese while they kept the press quiet on the matter. The Chinese took their time, so to pressure them further, the Kwantung Army deployed a infantry battalion and one cavalry brigade at Shanhaiguan, while the Kawaguchi detachment concentrated around Gubeikou and two air force squadrons were brought over to Jinzhou. The Tientsin Army readied two battalions at Tientsin and Tangshan, both prepared to advance to Peiping at a moments notice. After sending numerous orders not to escalate things, Tokyo HQ sent Colonel Kita Seiichi, the chief of its China desk to demand the Kwantung Army not use anymore force. Meanwhile the Imperial Japanese Navy, under the fear of Anglo-American intervention avoided escalating the situation, but kept the 3rd fleet on full alert.  Under immense pressure the Chinese buckled. At 6pm on June 10th, He Yingqin orally advised Major Takahashi that Nanjing would issue a directive ordered the immediate withdrawal of local KMT organs from Hubei; that the 51st NRA Army would depart by rail from Hubei between June 11th and 25th; that the end and 25th NRA divisions of the Central Army would also depart Hubei and that the KMT would issue a directive prohibiting anti-japanese activities throughout China. It was an incredibly embarrassing act and became known as the He-Umezu agreement. Under its provisions the Japanese had expelled the Central Army from North China, Yu Xuecheng's forces, all anti-Japanese organizations of any sort and all anti-Japanese officials were removed. The Japanese had heavily capitalized on the assassinations in Tientsin, however other incidents enabled our good friend Doihara to cause further mayhem.  Following the Tanggu truce, Song Queyuan's 29th Army, consisting of the 37th, 38th and 132nd divisions had been deployed throughout Chahar with his headquarters based at Kalgan. His troops understandably displayed a lot of anti-japanese attitude and behaviors. Like a broken record, it was only a matter of time until an incident organically presented itself. One of the first ones broke out in Changpei. According to the Japanese, so get your grains of salt ready, a group of 8 led by staff officer Kawaguchi Kiyotake of the Tientsin garrison and Ikeda Katsumi of the consulate at Kalga and planned an excursion to Inner Mongolia late October 1934. After completing all the necessary paperwork and procedures, such as securing visas and giving advance notice to the Chinese officials in the areas they would voyage, the Japanese departed Kalgan for Tolun on October 27th. Upon entering Changpei's south gate they were suddenly stopped by troops under Song Queyuans 132nd division alongside some Peace Preservation Corps men. Their commanding officer punched Ikeda as the rest of the party were threatened with Dao swords and rifles. After 40 minutes a Chinese security officer showed up to allow them all to pass through the South Gate.  The Japanese foreign Ministry and Army were obviously outraged by this incident. The vice Consul at Kalgan, Hashimoto Masayasu complained to the chief of staff of the 132nd division and Major Takahasi at Peiping lodged an official complaint with Song Queyuan. On November 25th, Song Queyuan ordered the general commanding the 132nd division, Chao Tengyu, to apologize and dismissed the officer who punched Ikeda. Song Queyuan then guaranteed safe travel for all Japanese throughout Chahar, without any inspection of their possession and he promised to withdraw his troops west of the Great Wall. All of this because a guy was punched, you can really get the sense the Chinese were walking on eggshells. In late 1934, a large contingent of Song Queyuan's cavalry had deployed to the area around Fengning in Rehe. They were defending strategic positions and establishing large peace preservation corps. The Kwantung Army repeatedly demanded they withdraw from the area and the Chinese had made promises as to such by December 31st. Rather than comply, the Chinese launched an offensive and captured 40 Manchukuo militiamen. Song Queyuan rewarded his men with a bounty of 300 silver yuan and ordered the arms of the enemy by handed to the district government of Kuyuan.  On January 17th, the Kwantung Army moved the Nagami detachment of the IJA 8th Division from Chengde to launch a punitive expedition against Song Queyuan's forces in the Kuyuan area. On the 20th the Peiping Branch Military Council informed the Kwantung Army Song Queyuan was already withdrawing his men. Thus the Nagami detachment who had advanced as far as Tat'an turned around for the Great Wall on the 22nd, when they were suddenly attacked by Song Queyuan's troops near Hungnit'an. The Kwantung Army were outraged by what they were calling the first incident in western Rehe. The so-called incident would be resolved on February 2nd nar Ta'an when Zhang Yueting acting on behalf of the NRA 37th division and Major General Tani Hisao on behalf of the IJA 7th division agreed to the following terms: “1) In the future China will strictly prohibit actions that antagonize the Japanese army and will neither move troops into Manchukuo nor adopt a threatening attitude toward Manchukuo. The Chinese will completely suspend their current spying activities, such as scouting the movements of the Kwantung Army.  2) If China violates the above pledges in the future, the Japanese  army will act independently and firmly, but the responsibility will be borne by the Chinese . If the Chinese forces increase their military strength or contemplate strengthening their fortifications, the Japanese army will regard these moves as hostile acts.  3) China is to have the government of Kuyuan district return all arms confiscated (from the Manchukuo militia and turn them over to the Japanese army at Nanweitzu by February 7.  4) The outcome of this conference will be jointly announced on February 4. In particular, the Chinese should be careful that in making their announcement they do not distort the contents of the agreement or engage in counterpropaganda”. Can you imagine there was a second incident at Changpei? 4 members of the Japanese Special Services Agency based out of Abga, some 40 miles northwest of Tolun had come to the same southgate around 4pm on June 5th, traveling to Kalgan. There they were detained by units of the 132nd division who refused to recognize their identification papers. They were apparently held without proper bedding or food, threatened with Dao swords and bayonets. The Japanese claimed it was all done under orders from Song Queyuan's chief of staff and that their officials were interrogated by the chief of military police at Changpei. On June 11th, Lt Colonel Matsui Gennosuke, the head of the Japanese Special Service Agency at Kalgan, demanded an apology from Song Queyuan and for the men responsible to be punished and for further guarantees for safe travel. Matsui also insinuated that unless Song Queyuan severed ties to Nanjing and became Pro-Japanese he might suffer the same fate that had befallen Yu Xuecheng. Clearly the Kwantung Army was looking to remove Song Queyuan's army from Chahar province. There were two major reasons for such a thing, so they could better protect the northwestern flank of Manchukuo and to support Prince De who was attempting a campaign to make Inner Mongolia independent from China.  On June 11th the Kwantung Army directed the Mukden Special Service Agency chief of staff, our old buddy, Doihara, currently in Peiping, to confer with the army attache there and with the Tientsin garrison. They were to push for Song Queyuan's army to be withdrawn south of the Yellow River as rapidly as possible. Tokyo HQ always keeping a close eye on their troublesome Kwantung Officers dispatch this notice to Doihara "Although we desire the evacuation of Song Queyuan's army from Chahar province, we disagree that we should, at this time, demand its withdrawal south of the Yellow River. Rather, its transfer to the Peiping-Hankow Railway line would be advisable." On June 13th, the General Staff advised the Kwantung Army the same message. The General staff then ordered every detachment in North China to act discreetly "If we shun excessive publicity at this time, we should, in view of the present situation, be able to achieve practical results without publicity." Since they were already getting their way in Hubei, Tokyo HQ did not want to risk rocking the boat in Chahar concurrently.  Then came a second western Rehe incident, according to the Chengde Special Service Agency, "On June 11, when a party led by a senior official of Fengning hsien was about to enter the town of Tungchatzu [in Manchukuo, about eight kilometers north of Tushihk'ou], it was attacked by rifle fire from Sung Che-yuan's troops stationed at Tushihk'ou. The next day, June 12, a member of the border police force in Hsiaoch'ang [in Manchukuo, about fifteen kilometers north of Tushihk'ou] was also fired upon by the same troops of Sung in the vicinity of Hsiaoch'ang."  On June 17th, the Kwantung Army General Minami Jiro met with the Tientsin Army chief of staff Sakai and the Special Service Agency chief at Kalgan, Matsui for a full report on the incident. After reviewing it, Minami drafted a policy to guide the Kwantung Army:  “The withdrawal of Sung Che-yuan's army will worsen the confusion in the Peiping-Tientsin region. This incident should be handled separately from the North China problem and should be negotiated locally with Sung Che-yuan. Our demands will be limited to the following:  1) withdrawal of the troops invading Manchukuo, together with their advance unit at Tolun;  2) removal of the forces back to the Kalgan area;  3) an apology by Sung Che-yuan;  4) punishment of those directly responsible for the Changpei incident; and  5) prohibition of anti-Japanese actions in the future.” The Chinese realized they needed to reach a quick settlement with the Kwantung Army. On the 18th He Yingqin met with Consul General Suma over in Nanjing. Suma was presented with a set of harsh demands from the Kwantung Army and that same day reported to the Executive Yuan he had decided to relieve Song Queyuan of his posts as governor and commander of the 29th Army. He then appointed as acting governor and provincial commissioner of civil affairs, Qin Dechun, who would take the 132nd division implicated in the Changpei incident south. The message was relayed to the Japanese military attache in Nanjing, Lt Colonel Amamiya Tatsumi. The man who relayed the message was Vice Foreign Minister Tang Yujen who also stated this "In view of the fact that China has moved voluntarily to dismiss Sung Che-yuan, to transfer his army, and to punish those responsible, we request that we not be confronted with an ultimatum in the form of various demands from the Kwantung Army with a deadline for reply." On June 19th, Nanjing officially implemented the promises made by He Yingqin and Tang Yujen and in turn the Kwantung Army wired Doihara in Peiping to stand down and wait to see if the Chinese did what they said they would. Doihara was probably disappointed he could not perform his 100th false flag operation he must have been cooking up. For any of you who watch my Youtube content, I used clips from the Chinese WW2 Drama series “Young Marshal” that depicts Doihara hilariously. You can check it out in my long format documentary on the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, its meme gold Doihara's clips, freaking out and smashing phones and such.  At 10 pm on June 23rd, Doihara, alongside Matsui and Takahasi visited Qin Dechen at his residence to negotiate a final understanding. There Doihara demanded China implement several measures to promote better relations with Japan such as withdrawing Song Queyuan's army southwest; give an apology for the Changpei incident; punish all those responsible; dissolve all the anti-japanese organizations in the region; ban Chinese immigration into Inner Mongolia; cease any oppressive actions against Mongolians and cooperate and encourage trade between Manchukuo, Inner Mongolia, North China; and appoint more Japanese military and political advisers. Just a laundry list he had worked up. So Qin Dechen apologized for the Changpei incident, stated they were already withdrawing Song Queyuan's men and dissolving all the anti-japanese organizations. Now he was orally agreeing to all of this, but he refused to put it in writing, prior to receiving the greenlight from Nanjing. Doihara understood and gave him time to talk to his government. The next day however another incident occurred, this time near Tuxukou. There a contingent of Song Queyuan's withdrawing troops fired upon Manchukuo police forces and in response the Tolun Special Service Agency dispatched a Mongolian unit led by Li Shuxin. It was not really much of an incident, just a minor confrontation all things given, so the Kwantung Army told Doihara to deal with Qin Dechen in private about it.On June 27th, Qin Dechen sent a formal reply to Doihara's demands in what became known as the Qin-Doihara agreement. It conformed with all the demands, seeing Song Queyuan's troops depart southwest while the security of Chahar was entrusted to two peace preservation units. One unit was responsible for the Chinese population, the other over the Mongolian. On August 28th, Song Queyuan was appointed garrison commander over the Peiping-Tientsin region with his 29th division joining Chao Tengyu's 132nd division and Liu Juming's 2nd division. Thus after the He-Umezu and Qin-Doihara agreements the Japanese had now expanded their influence into both Hubei and Chahar. 1935 saw a wave of incidents break out in the demilitarized region, prompting the Japanese to go into numerous negotiations with the Chinese to clamp down on anything they didn't like. Then on October 4th, Japan unleashed a document titled  “Concerning Policy towards China”: “The goal of our foreign policy is the development of East Asia and the maintenance of the security of East Asia through the cooperative concert of Japan, Manchukuo, and China, with Japan as the nucleus; this is likewise the objective of our policy toward China. To realize this objective on the basis of the outline below, the central and regional authorities of China must, by fair and just means, adjust their relations with Japan and Manchukuo so as to bring about an environment favorable to the establishment of basic relations between Japan, Manchukuo, and China.  1) China should adopt a good neighbor policy toward Japan, thoroughly suppress anti-Japanese activities, and abandon its policy of reliance on Europe and the United States. It should put this policy into practice and as a matter of course cooperate with Imperial Japan on practical problems.  2) Although China must eventually extend formal recognition to Manchukuo, until then it must recognize de facto the independence of Manchukuo and abandon its anti-Manchukuo policy. At least in North China, which borders on Manchukuo, the Chinese should promote economic and cultural cooperation with Manchukuo.  3) In view of the Communist threat emanating from Outer Mongolia and posing a common menace to Japan, Manchukuo, and China, China should cooperate in measures aimed at eliminating this menace from the region bordering Outer Mongolia.  4) When the above points have been put into effect and we recognize the good faith of China concerning friendly cooperation with Japan and Manchukuo, we shall first conclude comprehensive agreements on friendly cooperative relations between China and Japan, and thereafter draw up the agreement needed for regulating new relations between Japan, Manchukuo, and China” To this Chiang Kai-Shek replied could not recognize Manchukuo but that his government would do whatever it could peacefully to maintain economic activity between the people north and south of the Great Wall. He also stated no other country on earth was more concerned with the Communist menace in Mongolia than China. All of the appeasement efforts had brought Wang Jingwei to his boiling point and on August 8th he departed for Shanghai as he and his entire cabinet resigned. Chiang Kai-Shek personally came over and asked Wang Jingwei to withdraw his resignation given he offered him further support, and Wang Jingwei relented. Then on the morning of November 1st, after attending a meeting, Wang Jingwei was shot by a Chinese reporter for the Chenkuang Press, a company notably associated with Chiang Kai-Shek. Rumors spread the assassination attempt was inspired by anti-japanese elements such as Generals Yang Qi and Tang Shengzhi. With Wang Jingwei in the hospital, Chiang Kai-Shek was forced to take a larger role with the North China situation. Then Wang Jingwei departed for Europe seeking better medical care and wired his resignation on November 29th. Thus Chiang Kai-Shek succeeded him as president of the Executive Yuan and the coalition between him and Wang Jingwei had officially ended. With Chiang Kai-Shek now the only funnel from which action could be directed, the Japanese sent Ambassador Ariyoshi to China to persuade Chiang Kai-Shek to grant some form of autonomy for North China. By this point autonomy for North China had become part of Japan's national policy. Chiang Kai-Shek in response to this growing threat went to Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi, to meet with Yan Xishan. There he proposed that if Yan Xishan could unite the Northern Warlords, Chiang Kai-Shek would appoint him chairman of the political affairs council, with added authority over finances and diplomacy. Chiang Kai-Shek urged him to come attend the 6th plenum of the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee scheduled for November 1st. At this time Yan Xishan's Shanxi was struggling financially so he reconciled with Chiang Kai-Shek. To this effect Chiang Kai-Shek sent his vice chief of the Army General Staff Xing Pin to tour the north trying to persuade those like Song Queyuan and Han Fuju to not support the North China autonomy movement. The Japanese interpreted these efforts to thwart the autonomy movement as the underlying cause of all the anti-japanese incidents breaking out continuously. To this the Nanjing government disclaimed no responsibility and insisted they were doing everything the Japanese asked of them.  The Japanese began a massive campaign aimed at all the important leaders in North China. One man they managed to gain influence over was Yin Jukeng who on November 25th at Tungzhou, announced the inauguration of the East Hubei Anti-Communist Autonomous Council, claiming autonomy for the entire demilitarized region. Yin Jukeng's council consisted of 9 members whereupon he was chairman and took charge of foreign relations and military affairs. As you can imagine Nanjing immediately labeled him a traitor and ordered his arrest. Chiang Kai-Shek then rapidly sent word to the Japanese an official response to their “Concerning Policy towards China” document:  “To satisfy the various demands from the Japanese side, there should first of all be established in Hopei province an autonomous political administration; ultimately, this administration should be similar to that governing the southwestern region. Whether or not this administration should be extended to other regions will be determined after the results in Hopei have been ascertained.  1) Although the campaign to wipe out the Communists is progressing, the Communist bandits have fled toward Kansu. Since this raises the danger that the Communists may spread into Inner Mongolia, the defense against the Communists in North China should be conducted jointly.  2) Certain aspects of the new monetary system are not suited to North China, and appropriate modifications will be made in this respect.  3) Efforts are to be made to harmonize economic interchange among the people on both sides of the Great Wall.  4) To meet the special needs of the region, the local administration should be given authority to enable it to exercise suitable control over financial matters in North China.  5) Pending issues are to be settled locally in a rational manner.  6) The aim will be to employ talented people to carry out the above tasks and to establish an ideal government.” Chiang Kai-Shek dispatched He Yingqin to reign in the situation at Peiping, but upon his arrival he believed the situation was beyond his control. He Yingqin reported that it was his belief the only way for Nanjing to retain some degree of authority in the region was to create a new political organ to do so. Thus on December 11th, the Nationalist government established the Hubei-Chahar Political Council chaired by Song Queyuan. Song Queyuan declared the new council would assume all responsibility for administering Hubei and Chahar and promised  "to respect the wishes of the people, endeavor in particular to relieve the economic distress of the region, and maintain the peace of East Asia on the basis of Sino-Japanese amity."  Thus within all this madness now two autonomous regimes co-existed in North China. The East Hubei Anti-Communist Autonomous Council would administer 22 prefectures while the Hubei-Chahar Political Council would administer Hubei, Chahar, Peiping and Tientsin. As you might imagine, relations between these two councils was complex and ambiguous. The 22 prefectures the former administered were under the jurisdiction of the other. One was a Japanese puppet, the other was controlled by Nanjing who refused to recognize the other. Japan immediately exploited their newfound chaotic gains in North China. In May of 1936 the 2000 troops of the Tientsin garrison army was boosted to 5600 led by General Tashiro Kan'ichiro. This was done under the guise it was to defend against communists and protect Japanese citizens. The position of the commander of the Tientsin garrison was officially promoted to encompass full responsibility for the situation in North China, exactly the same as the Kwantung Army's role over Manchukuo. Thuse both the Kwantung Army and what was henceforth called the China Garrison had clearly defined roles. One would be responsible for Manchukuo, the other over North China. Japan had neutralized Rehe, Chahar and Hubei, all of whom would fall directly under their influence. But was Japan satisfied?  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Its not always through military means that nations can encroach upon other nations. Japan was showcasing how it could bully away parts of China through threats alone it was working miracles. How long could Chiang Kai-Shek carry on like this? Would it be Japan or his own people that would hang him for losing China?

In an episode originally released by The German Marshall Fund's China Global Podcast with Bonnie Glaser, managing director of GMF's Indo-Pacific program, co-host Ray Powell was interviewed about recent developments in the Yellow Sea and China's broader gray zone tactics in the maritime realm.---This episode of the China Global podcast discusses evolving disputes between China and South Korea, specifically regarding their unresolved maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea. There is a long history of fishing disputes between the two countries in the Provisional Measures Zone (or PMZ) of the Yellow Sea, which is where their exclusive economic zones overlap. Although China and South Korea have engaged in negotiations over the years, they have yet to come to an agreement on their boundaries in the Yellow Sea.Taking advantage of the persisting disagreement on delimitation of maritime borders, China has employed gray zone tactics in the Yellow Sea to expand its territorial presence in the region. In the most recent dispute, China installed a new steel structure in the PMZ, causing a maritime standoff between Chinese and Korean coast guards.To discuss recent developments in the Yellow Sea and China's broader gray zone tactics in the maritime realm, host Bonnie Glaser is joined by Ray Powell, the Director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project at Stanford University's Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. Ray is also the co-host of the Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific podcast, and a 35-year veteran of the US Air Force.

This episode of the China Global podcast discusses evolving disputes between China and South Korea, specifically regarding their unresolved maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea. There is a long history of fishing disputes between the two countries in the Provisional Measures Zone (or PMZ) of the Yellow Sea, which is where their exclusive economic zones overlap. Although China and South Korea have engaged in negotiations over the years, they have yet to come to an agreement on their boundaries in the Yellow Sea.Taking advantage of the persisting disagreement on delimitation of maritime borders, China has employed gray zone tactics in the Yellow Sea to expand its territorial presence in the region. In the most recent dispute, China installed a new steel structure in the PMZ, causing a maritime standoff between Chinese and Korean coast guards.To discuss recent developments in the Yellow Sea and China's broader gray zone tactics in the maritime realm, host Bonnie Glaser is joined by Ray Powell, the Director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project at Stanford University's Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. Ray is also the co-host of the Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific podcast, and a 35-year veteran of the US Air Force. Timestamps[00:00] Start[01:43] Strategic Significance of the Yellow Sea[03:12] Expanding Chinese Control in the Region[04:08] Chinese Maritime Installations [05:20] Are these installations found in other regions?[06:00] Gray Zone Tactics in the South China Sea [08:20] Maritime Militia Activity in the Yellow Sea[09:02] 2001 Korea-China Fisheries Agreement[10:34] Testing the Waters with South Korea[12:09] Navigating South Korean Policy Dilemmas[13:48] Rehabilitating China's Imagine in Korea[15:14] Environmental Issues in Disputed Waters[17:18] Countering Chinese Activities in the Yellow Sea[19:40] SeaLight Tracking and Deciphering Chinese Actions

Joe's Premium Subscription: www.standardgrain.comGrain Markets and Other Stuff Links-Apple PodcastsSpotifyTikTokYouTubeFutures and options trading involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone.Potential US-China Trade Deal

The Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry, along with the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), has been supervising nearly 18 billion ringgit of investments from Chinese companies into Malaysia. Although China has been Malaysia's largest trading partner since 2009, the cumulative amount of Chinese investments still lags behind those from the US, Japan, and even Singapore. Joining us to unpack China's capital injections into Malaysia is Dr. Cassey Lee, Senior Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak InstituteImage Credit: Shutterstock.com

Kia ora,Welcome to Friday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz.Today we lead with news mixed news but the underlying vibe is positive.First in the US, all eyes are now on tomorrow's August non-farm payrolls report. Analysts expect a rise of +160,000 jobs. But today's pre-cursor ADP Employment Report sharply undershot that level suggesting only +99,000 jobs will be added. If that is the case that would make it the smallest gain since 2021.This data has clouded financial markets today.A jump in reported layoffs in August added to the mood, but to be fair they only rose back to 'normal' levels.But there was good news about the US economy too.The level of jobless benefit claims last week fell, when a rise was anticipatedThe ISM services PMI rose more than expected, on the basis of better new order levels. That was backed up by the companion S&P/Markit services PMI.And the latest update for American productivity (for Q2) was particularly positive with a strong rise.So you would have to think there might be upside in tomorrow's US labour data. We will know soon enough.Wages in Japan rose by +3.6% year-on-year in July, slowing from a +4.5% rise in June which was the highest in 26 years, since January 1997. Markets expected a July rise of +3.1%.EU retail sales volumes rose in July, the fourth rise in the past sixth months. Better yet, they were higher than a year ago on a volume basis.German factory orders for July were another overnight surprise. They bounced back in June and July was expected to be weak. But in fact a good rise was posted again in July.And it might also surprise you to know that after being hooked on Russian energy, the Germans have made a substantial shift away, not to other fossil-fuel suppliers, but rather to renewables. More than 60% of electricity production is now by renewables. And the overall energy intensity in the German economy is declining (ie improving). Both are huge shifts for Europe's largest economy.Australia's merchandise trade surplus rose in July to its highest since February as exports grew to a 5-month high while imports fell to a 3-month low.But the iron ore price took a sharp tumble yesterday. While that isn't great news for Australia, it isn't all bad. They have advantages over their rivals in Africa and South America in both freight costs and mine productivity.Although China's media mouthpieces are talking up the prospects for recovering steel production, their trade association is warning that any short-term bump will probably be just a "flash in the pan".Bulk freight rates continue to rise however. And global container freight rates are still extremely high essentially because of the Suez Canal/Horn of Africa security issues. They did fall -8% last week, but they remain +236% higher than pre-pandemic levels. (China to Europe rates fell quite sharply, but trans-Pacific rates didn't move much.)The UST 10yr yield is now at just on 3.73% and down another -4 bps from yesterday. The price of gold will start today up +US$10 from yesterday at US$2513/oz.Oil prices are -US$1 lower at just under US$69/bbl in the US while the international Brent price is now at just on US$72.50/bbl. That has forced OPEC to delay is planned rise in production.The Kiwi dollar starts today up +30 bps from yesterday at 62.3 USc. Against the Aussie we are +10 bps firmer at 92.4 AUc. Against the euro we are also up +10 bps at 56 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at 70 and up +10 bps from yesterday.The bitcoin price starts today at US$56,336 and down -2.7% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been moderate at just on +/- 2.3%.You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.You can get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz.Kia ora. I'm David Chaston. And we will do this on Monday.

The rise of China and the security dilemma that it presents is viewed as inevitable by significant sections of the UK policy community. Central to this is China's strong economic base, which has generated the diplomatic, informational, military and economic levers necessary for it to challenge the US-led 'rules-based' order designed to perpetuate Western power post-World War Two. However, while China is a formidable adversary and should not be underestimated, we should not be blind to the weaknesses in China's economic structure and risk overestimating its strengths and constraining ourselves conceptually. In particular, we should be cautious in using gross indicators to calculate relative power and economic growth, as in isolation these approaches can be misleading. This article compares competing methods of measuring power, before examining that while China is likely to overtake the US in terms of gross real GDP, this is not an effective metric for assessing relative power when used in isolation. Despite economic headwinds, China will still overtake the US in terms of real GDP Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the market value of all "final goods and services produced in a specific period" in a country. Real GDP accounts for price inflation against the GDP of a chosen base year, therefore only rising output increases GDP, not inflation. This metric of real GDP benefits from being the most commonly used indicator of an economy's overall size, growth and general health, meaning that there is significantly more data available for comparative analysis. Although China has significant demographic, capital and productivity challenges, this is unlikely to prevent China from overtaking the US in real GDP. China has capitalised upon lower relative wage costs due to its large population, a central driver of its economic growth over the last 50 years. The 1978 economic reforms permitted private businesses while liberalising foreign trade and investment, since which China has experienced enormous economic growth, even compared to other rapidly growing "Asian Tiger" economies. From 1978 to the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis, China's real GDP grew by a factor of 17. The 2008 crisis reduced this breakneck growth, with China's annual real GDP growth between 2015 and 2018 falling below 7% for the first time since 1991. This was compounded by further shocks from the recent Covid pandemic and the CCP's "zero Covid" policy. Chinese policy post-2008 has increasingly relied upon state investment, improving technology and expanding domestic consumption of finished products. This transition from the previous export economic focus is assessed to be "hedging" against reduced exports due to increasing competition and international pressures such as tariffs. Nonetheless, China's real GDP should still increase 5.7% annually to 2025 and 4.7% annually until 2030, according to Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) forecasts. Although there are reasons to doubt these figures - including the provision of misleading data by the Chinese state, and upcoming shocks such as increased nearshoring of supply chains and property market debt bubbles - the overall trend is clear. Chinese real GDP is on course to overtake the US by 2030. How can power be measured between states? There are three main approaches to measuring power in international relations; control over actors, control over outcomes and control over resources. In the case of control over actors, power is usually defined as an actor's ability to shape world politics following its interests. However, Nye argues that it is impossible to measure this ability systematically because it would require a comprehensive understanding of each actor's influence and interest over a potentially infinite number of events. This means that the power over outcomes approach is issue-specific, with analysis not often transferable to other situations. Therefore, it is only useful for retrospective analy...

Last time we spoke about Chinese laborers during the Great War. Although China took upa stance of neutrality at the offset of WW1, there was still this enormous desire to join the Entente side. The new Republic of China wanted to get a seat at the peace table to hopefully undue some of the terrible unequal treaties. To procure that seat, China approached France, Britain, Russia and by the end of the war America to send their workers to help the war effort. On the western and eastern fronts, chinese laborers made a colossal contribution that tipped the scale of the war towards an Entente victory. On the Eastern front some Chinese fought in irregular units and under emergency circumstances even on the western front some saw combat. When the laborers came back home they brought with them new ideas that would dramatically change China. The people of China demanded change, but how would China fare by the end of the Great War?   #90 Twenty-One Demands & the Walrus Emperor   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Taking a look back at China at the outbreak of WW1. Yuan Shikai certainly had a lot on his plate. When European nations began declaring war in late July, it brought military conflict to China. Yuan Shikai and his advisors thought over all the options laid bare before them and decided to proclaim neutrality on August 6th of 1914. As we have seen the other great powers, particularly Japan did not care. Japan besieged Tsingtao, despite China tossing protests. Yuan Shikai had little choice but to permit the Japanese military actions against Qingdao. The fighting that broke out in the Kiautschou area would constitute the only acts of war on Chinese soil during the first world war. Unfortunately the Japanese were not going to settle with just defeating the Germans. Japan had already gained a enormous sphere of influence in Manchuria after her victories in the 1st Sino-Japanese war and Russo-Japanese War. When China underwent its Xinhai revolution it became fragile, quite vulnerable and thus opened a floodgate.  With WW1 raging on in Europe, the global powers were all too preoccupied to contest any actions in Asia, giving Japan an enormous opportunity. Japan sought to expand her commercial interests in Manchuria, but also elsewhere. After seizing Qingdao, Prime Minister Okuma Shigenobu and Foreign Minister Kato Takaai drafted the infamous Twenty-One Demands. From the Japanese perspective, Yuan Shikai's government looked rogue, untrustworthy, they had no idea how long the thing would stand up, it might crumble at a moments notice. Their leases in south Manchuria were going to run out soon, thus they needed to extend them. Then there was the situation of Shandong province. Its always Shandong as they say. Japan was technically occupying it, having taken it from the Germans who previously held a concession over it. Being a concession, it was known Shandong would be returned to China, but now then when was an unknown variable. Japan also had some economic trade with China that made her somewhat dependent upon her. For example Yawata, Japan's first iron and steel complex that had been financed with Chinese indemnity payments ironically, was also dependent on Chinese raw materials that had been streaming into Japan since 1901. Japan industrialists needed to firm up their commercial relations with places like the Hanyehping works in Hankou. They hoped to establish joint sino-japanese control over strategic resources. Japan also strongly sought to be the dominate power in Asia, she wanted the western powers to back off. With these things in mind, the twenty-one demands were born. And by demands they were technically more “requests”, nevertheless they amounted to substantial infractions upon Chinese sovereignty. On January 18th of 1915, Japanese ambassador Hioki Eki delivered the twenty-one demands to Yuan Shikai in a private audience. They were delivered with a warning of dire consequences if the Beiyang government were to reject them. I know it might be quite boring and rather a University professor thing to do, but I will read the demands out. Now the Twenty-One Demands were divided into 5 groups Group 1 (four demands) confirmed Japan's recent seizure of German ports and operations in Shandong Province, and expanded Japan's sphere of influence over the railways, coasts and major cities of the province. Group 2 (seven demands) pertained to Japan's South Manchuria Railway Zone, extending the leasehold over the territory for 99 years, and expanding Japan's sphere of influence in southern Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, to include rights of settlement and extraterritoriality, appointment of financial and administrative officials to the government and priority for Japanese investments in those areas. Japan demanded access to Inner Mongolia for raw materials, as a manufacturing site, and as a strategic buffer against Russian encroachment in Korea. Group 3 (two demands) gave Japan control of the Han-Ye-Ping (Hanyang, Daye, and Pingxiang) mining and metallurgical complex in central China; it was deep in debt to Japan. Group 4 (one demand) barred China from giving any further coastal or island concessions to foreign powers. Group 5 (seven demands) was the most aggressive. China was to hire Japanese advisors who could take effective control of China's finance and police. Japan would be empowered to build three major railways, and also Buddhist temples and schools. Japan would gain effective control of Fujian, across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan, which had been ceded to Japan in 1895. Now Japan knew what they were asking for, particularly in group 5 were basically like asking China to become a full colony under Japanese rule. Traditional history holds the narrative that Japan simply was taking advantage of the first world war to press China for imperial gains and Yuan Shikai accepted the demands in exchange for funding and support of his future monarchical project. Yuan Shikai ever since has been vilified as a sort of traitor who negotiated a dirty deal with the Japanese. Its a bit more complicated than that however as you can imagine. Yuan Shikai was outraged when the Japanese minister came over with the demands, it was a heavy blow against him and his new government. Accordinging to US minister Paul Reinsch “Yuan was stunned, unable to speak for a long time”. When the Chinese were trying to smooth talk Yuan and his advisors they made flowery speeches about how Japan would shoulder the modernizing of China, that the demands were in the spirit of Amity, friendship and peace. Yuan Shikai remarked to this “our country would no longer be a country and our people would be slaves.” Yuan Shikai understood full well what Japan sought, but he was powerless to stop them. What he did do to try and curb some of the damage was delay the response by replacing his foreign minister Sun Baoqi with Lu Zhengxiang, whose slow and overly polite manner, greatly frustrated and pissed off the Japanese. The classic Chinese approach to diplomacy, stall stall stall. It is said Lu often spent an hour or more in courtesies like tea-drinking before getting down to business. Over 24 meetings would be held over the demands. Now the Japanese wanted all of this to be kept secret as it would hurt both nations reputations on the world stage. Yuan Shikai did not play by their rules. Instead he leaked the demands to foreign diplomats and representatives, and in turn this got leaked to the media and caused nationwide protests. Yuan Shikai hoped the protests would push the Japanese to back off. Yuan Shikai also tried to persuade foreign intervention. First he sent his Japanese adviser Argia Nagao back to Japan to prod the Genro. Then he began speaking to the Americans who were very focused on maintaining their Open Door Policy and the British who were very suspicious of Japan's intentions. Neither nation wanted to see China simply falling into Japan's orbit. And of course Yuan Shikai tried to negotiate the demands themselves, particularly the group 5 demands which he pointed out “these items interfere with China's internal politics and infringe on our national sovereignty. It is hard to agree.” Towards the economic demands he remarked “these demands are too broad and cannot be enforced.” Regarding Japan's demands that China not lease islands or coastal regions to “Taguo /a third country”, Yuan Shikai wanted to change the words “Taguo” to “waiguo / foreign countries”. That change altered China's national interests for it meant China would not allow any country, including Japan to lease or rent Chinese islands or coastal regions.  Overall though, Yuan Shikai was very careful not to be overly aggressive for he knew full well, no one was able to help China at that moment if Japan decided to start another war. He also was playing with fire massively, for he unleashed Chinese nationalism, something that could and would get out of hand. The Chinese stalled for as long as they could, but the Japanese patience would run out on May 7th. Japanese ambassador Hioki Eki issued an ultimatum, but this time with only thirteen demands. Yuan Shikai's government had only 2 days to accept. After months of tenacious diplomacy, the final version of the demands was quite different. The 5th group had been dropped and more other items were less harsh. Yuan Shikai was powerless he was going to have to accept the demands and he knew full well this was yet another humiliation against China and her people. The supreme state council met on the 8th, where Yuan Shikai told his officials it was a shameful and heartbreaking agony to accept the demons, but they had no choice, lest war ravage them all again. He looked at his council and stated bluntly, China needed to catch up to Japan within a decade to remedy the situation. Yuan Shikai would issue secretly on May 14th, a notice to high ranking officials throughout the country, telling them to expose Japan's ambitions and China's debility. He urged them to bear in mind the extreme pain of this humiliation and advised them to work hard to create a bright future to avoid the collapse of the state and the extinction of the nation. The demands were reluctantly accepted on May 9th, and henceforth May 9th was declared “a day of national humiliation” commemorated annually.  The consequence of accepting the thirteen demands, became colloquially known as “the Shandong problem”, again its always Shandong province haha. Now at the beginning of the war China supported the Entente under certain conditions. One of those conditions was that Kiautschou Bay, the leased territory of the Shandong peninsula belonging to the Germans, would be returned to China. Something that occurred very very often during WW1, particularly on the part of Britain, was the issue of double promising. I literally made up a term I think. Britain during WW1 in an effort to secure allies or certain objectives would promise two different states or non-state actors the exact same thing after the war was done. A lot of the problems facing the middle-east today can be attributed to this. In the case of the Shandong problem, when Japan entered the war on behalf of the Entente, Britain basically promised they could keep their holdings, this of course included Shandong. We will come back to the Shandong problem as its a surprisingly long lasting one, but now I want to take quite a silly detour. Yuan Shikai is quite a character to say the least. He was viewed very differently at given times.Take for example the public perception of him after the Xinhai Revolution took place. Many honestly saw him as a sort of Napoleon Bonaparte like figure. Many also questioned what Yuan Shikai truly sought, did he believe in things like democracy? One author I have used during these recent podcasts, who in my opinion is a hilarious Yuan Shikai apologist tried to argue the case “Yuan Shikai did not understand what democracy was, thus that is why he did the things he did”. Now beginning around 1913, there were rumors Yuan Shikai simply sought to make himself an emperor over a new dynasty. This of course came at a time everyone was vying for power over the Republic, China was supposed to be a Republic after all, I think we all know however this was not ever a reality. Yuan Shikai certainly tried to make the case he was a Republican, that he believed in the republicanism espoused by just about all the leading figures. He also would make statements publicly espousing “I will never proclaim myself to be a monarch”. Yet as we have seen he certainly sent the wheels into motion to create a dictatorship. Yet for public appearances he kept the charade he was doing his absolute best as president and that he unwaveringly supported republicanism.  Thus there were two major hurdles in the way, if lets say he did want to become an emperor: 1) he kept making pledges he would not do so and 2) the republican system obviously did not allow for this, there had been a revolution to stop the monarchy after all! There was little to no options if someone wanted to make themselves emperor over China…unless they made it seem like thats what the people wanted. In 1915, Yuan Shikai quasi stomped all political rivals, I say quasi because there actually were rivals literally everywhere, but for the most part he had concentrated power into his own hands. Now, the apologist author had this to say about Yuan Shikai's sudden change of heart for the monarchy “His belief in superstition was perhaps another factor, for geomancers had told him that by establishing a monarchy he would smash his family curse, which held that men in the Yuan family would rarely live beyond their fifties. The suggestion here was that he would live long if he founded a monarchy. Also, fengshui masters had told him that his ancestral tombs had shown a blessed sign favouring imperial rule” The author then finishes by stating, its a difficult question and further inquiry should be made. That is the classic end of any scholar article, where they know full well they can't justify what they are writing haha. According to the high ranking official Zhu Qiqian who was close to Yuan Shikai “Yuan's monarchical movement started with Kaiser Wilhelm II telling the Chinese that monarchy would be more suitable for China”. British minister Jordan had a meeting with Yuan Shikai on OCtober 2nd of 1915, and on the topic of him becoming emperor, he simply stated “this is China's internal affairs which should not be interfered with by any others.” American minister Reinsch basically said the same thing when asked. News outlets began spreading rumors Yuan Shikai was going to declare himself emperor. In June of 1915, Japanese media reported as such, but Yuan Shikai responded “nothing is more foolish than a man becoming emperor. For national salvation, I have already sacrificed myself, and I would rather not sacrifice my descendants.” Well despite this, a monarchical movement began, orchestrated by many people such as Yuan Shikai's son Yuan Keding. Our friend from the last podcast, Liang Shiyi, now minister of communications, raised funds and organized popular petitions for Yuan to form a monarchy. Soon numerous petition groups “organically” with quotation marks, sprang up all over Beijing all claiming republicanism held too many weaknesses and that China was in a dire strait needing a strong monarchy. Petition groups sprang up in provinces urging the same thing. Beijing was filled with noisy parades, procession, petitioners ran around rampantly.  Then the United Association of National Petition was founded on September 19th, 1915 in Beijing to champion monarchism. Supporters gathered in Beijing, producing this “organic” impression everyone wanted the monarchy back.  Facing so many petitioners, Yuan Shikai decided to let the people determine the future of the national political system and by the people, I mean him. On October 8th, 1915 he approved the order that a “Canzhengyuan”, political participation council organize a “ Guomindaibiaodahui”, a national representative assembly. They would form a final ruling on the issue. The order required all the representatives had to be elected, each county had to choose one, and various ethnic groups, civil societies and overseas Chinese organizations also needed to select representatives. Yuan Shikai hoped such an arrangement would dispel any perceptions he was just appointing himself Emperor. Each county representative went to his provincial capital to cast a ballot. The political participation council in Beijing collected the ballots and announced the results. The representatives were selected and each received 500$ for travel expenses. Yuan Shikai dispatched Zhu Qiqian to secretly telegram all provincial officials to regulate the “election” air quotes. Yuan Shikai had all of his confidents working for this election. High ranking officials, family members, friends and so forth. On December 11, 1915 the Political Participation Council announced the results, all 1993 ballots endorsed a constitutional monarchy with Yuan Shikai as emperor. So yeah, every ballot, hrmmmm. On behalf of the representatives, the council begged Yuan Shikai to assume the throne immediately, claiming it was the will of the people. Yuan Shikai declined, arguing he had pledged to support the republic, that as the guardian of republicanism he would lose trust if he became emperor. He asked the council to find another candidate. What proceeded as you can imagine was simple theatrics. That afternoon, the council held a special meeting and decided to present a second imperial advocacy. In the advocacy were things proving Yuan Shikai was an indispensable ruler, qualified for taking the throne. His 6 great accomplishments were suppressing the Boxer Rebellion, enforcing progressive reforms, achieving a post-revolutionary conciliation, crushing the second revolution and conducting intense diplomacy with neighbors like Japan. To absolve Yuan Shikai of the guilt of violating his republican pledges the document stated “the pledge to the republic was effective only if the peoples' will supported republicanism. If the people have switched to constitutional monarchy, the previous pledge was automatically relinquished. As the presidency does not exist anymore, the former presidential pledges naturally disappear”. And thus Yuan Shikai reluctantly, under extreme pressure issued a public order declaring his acceptance on December 13th, 1915. Thus Yuan Shikai became the Hongxian Emperor and began to implement imperial orders. To woo over the national elites, he created a system of noble ranks and bestowed 130 prominent individuals titles as princes, dukes, marquis, earls, viscounts and barons. His closest friends were given special appellations and exempted from imperial duties. Xu Shichang, Li Jingxi, Zhang Jian and Zhao Erxun, his closest 4 friends became the Songshansiyou “four friends of Mount Song”. Yet just as he was getting down to the work as they say, an anti-yuan movement swept the country, go figure. High ranking Beiyang generals and politicians were amongst Yuan Shikai's, lets call them, reluctant collaborators, and some were even opponents. His monarchy turned them hostile. Many had supported him for decades and their very careers were beholden to his patronage. But the monarchy was simple incompatible with the times. Li Yuanhong, a leading figure in the Beiyang Clique who was linked to Yuan Shikai through marriage, strongly resisted the monarchy. He was the first to have the title prince bestowed upon him, but he refused and threatened to commit suicide if coerced to take it. Xu Shichang, simply resigned. Feng Guozhang, a military commander in Nanjing was very angry about the situation. Feng Guozhang came to Beijing to try and persuade Yuan Shikai to not become emperor, and Yuan Shikai promised him for months it was only rumors, he'd never do it, not Yuan come on man! Once he became emperor, Feng Guozhang felt betrayed and became quite an obstacle to Yuan Shikai. Then there was Duan Qirui another Yuan Shikai loyalist, but he concealed his anti-monarchy stance. He simply told Yuan Shikai that if he tried to become emperor, he would become a villain in chinese history. Duan Qirui was the only high ranking general not to be given a noble title rank. Instead he was given a personal chef by Yuan Shikai, and Duan Qirui made sure never to eat any food prepared by the man. All these names by the way are important figures of the Beiyang clique, cliques will become a dominating feature when we get into the warlord era. Basically the leader of the Beiyang clique, Yuan Shikai had greatly pissed off all of his followers.  Of course Dr. Sun Yat-sen responded immediately to Yuan Shikai becoming emperor, calling for another revolution. In his words “the future of our motherland has suddenly became more darkened. The republic built by our martyrs has unexpectedly turned out to be the private possession of the Yuan family. Four hundred million compatriots wept profusely ... and see the third revolution as the best remedy for national salvation.” Dr Sun Yat-Sen portrayed Yuan Shikai as a “minzei” national thief and now the Chinese people lived in bondage. He called upon the people to fight to save the republic. Soon KMT revolutionaries began to seize county seats, first in Shandong led by Ju Zheng, then they occupied parts in Guangdong and attacked the provincial capital there. However Dr Sun Yat-Sen was not the only player in town anymore. There was the new Nation Army led by Cai E in Yunnan province and Liang Qichao. Liang Qichao was one of the first big voices against Yuan Shikai's monarchial movement when they were emerging as rumors. He was also something of a sensei to Cai E, pushing him to coordinate military commanders in the southwest. Liang Qichao left northern China for Shanghai after Yuan Shikai proclaimed himself emperor and then made his way to Hong Kong, before traveling to Vietnam. From there he gradually traveled to join up with the Nation Army in March of 1916. And there he created a rival government. Then there were the liberal types, many intellectuals who had traveled abroad like Chen Duxiu. Chen Duxiu published in the New Youth an article stating “the nomenclatures of emperors and kings should have already perished after the Qing abdication edict, but unfortunately the Prepare for Peace Society led to the problem of the national political system.” Many pro-Yuan Shikai intellectuals suddenly turned against him, such as Li Dazhao. Born in Zhili, Li Dazhao had benefited from Yuan Shikai's reforms and supported him for quite some time, but the monarchism enraged him. As Li Dazhao joined the anti-Yuan movement he declared “All those who dare to rekindle the tyrannical cinders, or reignite the monarchical flames, whether the followers of the Prepare for Peace Society or the adherents of dynastic restoration, should be regarded as traitors of the state and public enemies of citizens. Their organization should be exterminated, their books burned, their backers eradicated, and their roots removed. Their sprouts should be destroyed so that they could not grow and proliferate. Then, there will be a hope of great prospect for our country”. Japan, never one to let an opportunity slip by them, began communicating with Cai E, Sun Yat-sen, Liang Qichao and Beiyang generals like Feng Guozhang and Duan Qirui. Japan began training and arming them. Soon military commanders in Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan working in league with Liang Qichao declared war against Yuan Shikai. Zhang Xun in Xuzhou of Jiangxi province refused to fly the Beiyang republic flag and made sure his men grew long queues, expressing their loyalty to the Qing dynasty. Liang Qichao dispatched Cai E to Kunming where he met with Tang Jiyao, a local military commander to begin a rebellion. On December 24th, Yuan Shikai received a telegram from Cai E urging him to return China into a Republic and he had one day to do so, or else. Yuan Shikai rejected the order and on the 25th of December, Yunnan province declared independence, uh oh. The Nation Army consisted of 3 main forces, Cai E's first army who marched upon Sichuan; Li Liejun's 2nd army who marched upon Guangxi and Hunan and Tang Jiyao's 3rd army who were held in reserve. Their goal was to occupy southern China so a Northern expedition could be launched to overthrow Yuan Shikai.  On January 1st, 1916 they issued an proclamation, claiming Yuan Shikai had performed 20 egregious crimes and must go into exile and let China be a republic again. Within days their armies marched upon Sichuan and Guizhou. By February Guizhou declared independence. Yuan Shikai immediately went to work stripping the rebels of their official titles and ordered Cao Kun to lead a military expedition against Yunnan. Under Cao Kun was Ma Jizeng who took an army through Hunan to attack Guizhou and Yunnan. A second force was led by Zhang Jingyao through Sichuan then Yunnan. A third force led by Long Jiguang went through Guangxi and then Yunnan. There were fierce battles, one particularly rough one at Xuzhou, where Cai E's armies seized the city in January, but lost it by March. The war was dubbed “the strange war,” because it really became  “a war of tongues,”. Each side kept through accusations in telegrams, newspapers and pamphlets. Now Yuan Shikai's Beiyang forces were superior in terms of numbers, weaponry and such, but the southerners were using terrain against them. All of the Beiyang forces were northern chinese, not used to southern climate and it proved difficult for them to acclimate. They were also not in the greatest state of morale, having to fight for the tin pot emperor as it were.  As a result the Beiyang forces did not seize the quick victory they thought they would. Though one major triumph was when Feng Yuxiang took Xuzhou on March 2nd, 1916 earning himself the title of baron. For those who don't know, Feng Yuxiang would famously become known as the Christian warlord. Meanwhile, Guangxi declared independence on March 15th led by Lu Rongting. Looking at a brutal stalemate of a war, Feng Guozhang began secretly telegraming Yuan Shikai to give up the monarchy, not a good sign. By early 1916, all the war fronts were seeing disasters. On March 21st, Yuan Shikai convened a special meeting with his high ranking officials. He proposed abolishing the monarchy and only one diehard loyalist general, Ni Sichong said he shouldn't, the rest all said yes. The following day Yuan announced his decision to step down from being an emperor. On March 23rd, 1916 the Hongxian dynasty ended, yes he was emperor for 83 days.  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. I bet some of you are wondering why I titled this the Walrus Emperor. I could not help myself, he honestly is such a goofy character and the propaganda outlets of his day drew him as this fat walrus, seriously give it a google “Yuan Shikai Walrus”. You wont be disappointed

Kia ora,Welcome to Thursday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz.And today we lead with news China has rolled out what might be the first in a set of ¥1 tln stimulus/recovery moves.But first, American mortgage applications rose for a third consecutive week last week, up +3.7% even though there was little movement on benchmark interest rates. Perhaps this market is emerging from its slumbers.The 'flash' January PMI data for the US is also quite strong. Service sector activity expanded the most in seven months, while manufacturing firms continued to experience a moderate drop in output. New business expanded for the third consecutive month and at the sharpest pace since June, despite the second consecutive monthly decline in new export orders. This is not a description of a struggling economy - maybe not firing on all cylinders yet but certainly on the up.The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 5% for the fourth consecutive time overnight. This was as widely expected, leaving benchmark borrowing costs at a 22-year high. Like its southern neighbour, it is still selling down its bond holdings via its quantitative tightening program.Japanese exports are firing impressively. They were up +9.8% in December from the same month a year ago, more than expected. And with the sharp drop in oil prices, the cost of their imports fell equally impressively, down -6.8% on the same basis. That enabled them to log an unexpected trade surplus in December. (They can probably thank the missteps from Xi and Putin for this result.)And Japan's January PMI's were all stronger, which is no surprise.In China, their central bank announced they will reduce the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for all banks by 50 basis points to just 10% starting from February 5, releasing up to ¥1 tln to the market to try and get an economic recovery going. (They seem to have a penchant for 1 tln policy moves at present - and they are adding up.) This would be the lowest RRR level since March 2007. The PBOC had previously cut its RRR by 25 bps in both March and September last year. Additionally, starting today, they have lowered re-lending and re-discount interest rates by -25 bps, targeting the rural sector and small businesses. These announcements certainly boosted equity markets.They need a boost. German companies operating in China are less than positive even if they remain committed to staying. 83% of the 566 respondents in a survey released overnight said China “is facing a downward trajectory” economically. Nearly two-thirds said they expected a recovery to take one to three years.Although China's GDP grew by +5.2% in 2023, achieving Beijing's target of "around 5%", its nominal GDP in US dollar terms fell for the first time in 29 years as its share of the global economy shrank for the second straight year.In Europe, business activity fell at the slowest rate for six months in January, according to 'flash' PMI survey data. But downturns are persisting in both the manufacturing and service sectors as they get further falls in new orders. The overall contraction of new orders was however the smallest recorded since last June, helping stabilise employment levels and lift business optimism about the year ahead to an eight-month high.Meanwhile, the ECD has reportedly asked some banks to closely monitor activity on social media to detect a worsening in sentiment which could lead to a deposit run. While early detection might not stop a bank run like SVB or Credit Suisse, regulators and banks are eager not to be caught off guard, according to the people familiar with the regulators' thinking.In Australia, their 'flash' January PMIs were similarly underwhelming. Activity continued to decline but the pace of reduction eased alongside a slower fall in new orders. However there were improvements in business sentiment while employment levels also continued to rise. Inflation pressure fell.The UST 10yr yield starts today at 4.16% and little-changed from this time yesterday. The price of gold will start today down +US$12/oz from yesterday at just on US$2012/oz.Oil prices are up +US$1at just over US$75.50/bbl in the US while the international Brent price is still just over US$80/bbl.The Kiwi dollar starts today at 60.2 USc and -½c lower from this time yesterday (and a new two month low). Against the Aussie we are firmer at 92.8 AUc. Against the euro we are also firmer at 56.2 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today just under 70.1 and up +30 bps in a day.The bitcoin price starts today a little higher. It is now at US$40,126 and up +2.5% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest to moderate at just under +/- 2.0%.You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.You can get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz.Kia ora. I'm David Chaston. And we will do this again tomorrow.

Although China has emerged as one of the world's largest end markets for technology, its tech sector faces some significant macro hurdles. Here's what investors need to know.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Shawn Kim, Head of Morgan Stanley's Asia Technology Research Team. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll talk about the impact of macro factors on China's technology sector. It's Tuesday, January 16th at 10 a.m. in Hong Kong. Over the past year, you've heard my colleagues discuss what we call China's 3D journey. The 3Ds being debt, deflation and demographics. As we enter 2024, it looks like China is now facing greater pressure from these 3Ds, which would cap its economic growth at a slow pace for longer. Given this investor's currently debating the potential risks of a prolonged deflation environment. In fact, the situation in China, including the rapid contraction of property sales and investment, default risk and initial signs of deflation, has led to comparisons with Japan's extended period of deflation, which was driven by property downturn and the demographic challenge of an aging population. At the same time, within the past decade, China has quickly emerged as one of the most important end demand markets for the global information and communication technology industry, accounting for 12% of market share in 2023 versus just 7% back in 2006. This trend is fueled by China's economic growth driving demand for IT infrastructure and China's large population base driving demand for consumer electronics. China has also become the largest end demand market for the semiconductor industry, accounting for about 36 to 40% of global semiconductor revenues in the last decade. As it aims to achieve self-sufficiency and semiconductor localization, China has been aggressively expanding its production capacity. It currently accounts for about 25% of global capacity. Over the long term, we believe China's economic slowdown will likely lead to lower trade flows in other countries, misallocation of resources across sectors and countries, and reduced cross-border dissemination of knowledge and technology. China's semiconductor manufacturing, in particular, will continue to face significant challenges. As the world transitions to a multipolar model and supply chains get rewired, a further gradual de-risking of robotic manufacturing away from China is underway, and that includes semiconductor manufacturing. In a more extreme scenario, a complete trade decoupling would resemble the 1980s, when the competition between the US and Japan in the semiconductor industry intensified significantly. Our economics team believes that China can beat the debt deflation loop threat decisively next 2 to 3 years. It's important to note, however, that risks are skewed to the downside, with a delayed policy response potentially leading to prolonged deflation. And this could send nominal GDP growth to 2.2% in 2025 to 2027. And based on the historical relationship between nominal GDP growth and the information and communication technology total addressable market, we estimate that China's ICT market and semiconductor market could potentially decline 5 to 7% in 2024, and perhaps as much as 20% by 2030, in a bear case scenario. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcast and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Episode Notes 2023 has been a wild ride for investors in travel companies, with those stocks on the edge of a bear market. How bumpy has the year been? Senior Research Analyst Seth Borko turns to the Skift Travel 200, an index tracking the stock market performance of the global travel industry.  Borko writes that while travel has been a volatile industry this year, travel investors have made money in 2023. The Skift Travel 200 is up 6% from this point last year after being down 20% in 2022. In addition, Borko notes that stocks in cruises and tours, travel's best performing sector so far in 2023, are up 26%.  Next, Expedia Group rode a strong third quarter in its business-to-business and business-to-consumer segments to record revenue and profitability, reports Executive Editor Dennis Schaal.  The company reported an adjusted net income of $778 million, the highest for any quarter in its history. Expedia Group also generated $3.9 billion worth of revenue during the third quarter, a 9% jump from last year and a quarterly record as well. Schaal adds the company also accomplished a couple of key goals, including launching its One Key loyalty program in July. Finally, Hyatt remains optimistic that its large hotel pipeline in China will pay dividends despite the country's economic difficulties, reports Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O'Neill.  Although China is currently experiencing both a commercial property and municipal debt crisis, O'Neill reports Hyatt leaders are still confident in their strategy there. Hyatt has 40% of its hotel pipeline in China. CEO Mark Hoplamazian said during its third quarter earnings call he believes Hyatt will be able to maintain both net room and pipeline growth.  Meanwhile, Hyatt said that overall hotel demand in the third quarter was down from 2019 levels by the mid-to-high teens, but that's an improvement. At the start of the year, demand was down 60%. 

China is set to pave the way for further moves to resolve local debt problems, experts said on Wednesday, adding that more efforts should be made to alleviate debt burdens of local governments and optimize the structure of fiscal spending and debt.Their comments came after the Central Financial Work Conference, a two-day meeting that ended on Tuesday, said efforts should be made to establish a long-term mechanism to guard against and defuse local debt risks, set up a government debt management system that is compatible with China's pursuit of high-quality development, and optimize central and local government debt structures.Yang Haiping, a researcher at the Institute of Securities and Futures — part of the Central University of Finance and Economics — said the meeting assumes a higher-level perspective to coordinate development and security, which will help resolve local debt problems in the future.Looking ahead, he said the country will likely take more steps to optimize bond issuances, utilization and repayment, and ensure the sustainability of debt through measures such as determining and controlling debt limits. And it will take more measures to ensure the implementation of debt control mechanisms and debt risk prevention mechanisms through corresponding accountability mechanisms.In July, a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee urged efforts to effectively guard against and defuse local debt risks, and formulate and implement a package of debt-clearance plans.Yang said the country will gradually replace hidden liabilities of local governments with officially declared debts, and the issuance of "special refinancing bonds" will help ease debt burdens.As of the end of October, more than 20 provincial-level regions issued over 1 trillion yuan ($137 billion) worth of such bonds during the month to swap their implicit debt, according to news reports.Special refinancing bonds are government bonds whose proceeds are typically used to repay hidden government debt — usually the liabilities of local government financing vehicles, or LGFVs — that are implicitly guaranteed by local governments. By doing so, implicit debt is replaced with official government debt.Citing the steps mapped out by the Central Financial Work Conference, Luo Zhiheng, chief economist at Yuekai Securities, said optimizing the structure of central and local government debt is an important way to improve government debt structure and prevent and resolve debt risks tied to local authorities.Due to the rapid growth of local government debt in China over the past few decades, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic over the past three years, local governments currently face significant financial burdens.Although China's government leverage level is not high by international standards, the debt level of local governments significantly surpasses that of other major economies.Against such a backdrop, Luo said it is necessary to expand central government borrowing with the central government raising leverage levels, adding that China's recent decision to issue an additional 1 trillion yuan in treasury bonds during the fourth quarter will help optimize debt structures.Feng Jianlin, chief economist at Beijing FOST Economic Consulting Co, said the move suggests that the country is willing to expand central borrowing while preventing local governments from having new hidden debts.According to the plan approved by the country's top legislature last week, bond proceeds will all be allocated to local regions via the mechanism of transfer payments. And the move will expand China's fiscal deficit to around 3.8 percent for the year, up from 3 percent.Around 500 billion yuan is intended to be utilized within this year, while the remaining half-trillion yuan will be used next year.Reporter: Ouyang Shijia

Although China's economy faces challenges in terms of debt, demographics and deflation, the right policy approach could ward off a debt deflation loop.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley's Chief Asia Economist. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be discussing the journey ahead for China as it faces the triple challenge of debt, demographics and deflation. It's Thursday, August 17, at 9 a.m. in Hong Kong. Before we get into China, I want to take you back to the oft-told tale from the 1990s when Japan experienced what we now refer to as the ‘Lost Decade.' During this period, the combination of economic stagnation and price deflation transformed a bustling economy in the 1980s, into an economy that grew at a little more than 1% annually over a decade. Fast forward to today, where China is confronted with the triple challenge of debt, demographics and deflation, what we are calling the 3Ds. As a result, many investors are now concerned that China will be stuck in a debt deflation loop, just like Japan was in the 1990s. But is China better placed to manage these headwinds even though the risks of falling into debt deflation loop remain high? We think at the starting point, the answer is yes, but with a few historical lessons that I'll get into in a moment. For context, China compares better with the Japan of the 1990s in the following four aspects. First, asset prices in China have not run up as much. Second, per capita incomes are still lower in China, implying a higher potential growth runway. Third, unlike Japan, China has not experienced a big currency appreciation shock. And finally, perhaps the most crucial difference is policy setting. Back in the 90s, the Bank of Japan kept real interest rates higher than real GDP growth between 1991 and 1995. But in contrast to Japan, China's real rates are below real GDP growth currently. To explain, historically, when economies are seeking to stabilize or reduce debt, the key element is to ensure that there is adequate gap between real interest rates and real GDP growth. In Japan's case, real interest rates were maintained about real GDP growth for the first four years. A similar situation occurred in the US post the 1929 stock market crash. As real rates were kept high, it laid the ground for the beginnings of the Great Depression. From both of these examples, the historical track shows two policy missteps. First, policymakers' concern about reigniting misallocation leads them to gravitate towards a hawkish bias. Second, policymakers tend to turn hawkish too quickly at the first signs of a recovery. During the Great Depression, easing of policies had led to recovery from 1933 onwards, but a premature tightening of policies in 1936 led to the double dip in 1937/38. Contrast this with the US after 2008, when the Fed was quick to bring rates to zero and embark on successive rounds of quantitative easing while fiscal policy was deployed in tandem. Sustaining real interest rates 2 percentage points below real GDP growth is key to deleveraging. Why? Because if you think about it, deleveraging will not be possible if the interest rate on your debt is growing faster than the increase in your income. In this context, while China's real interest rates are below real GDP growth currently, we still see the risk that policymakers will not take up reflationary policies to sustain the rates minus growth gap, which keeps the risk of China falling into debt deflation loop alive. So what is the potential outcome? China's policymakers will need to act forcefully. If they don't, the economy could fall into debt deflation loop, persistent deflation would take hold, debt to GDP would keep rising, and GDP per capita in USD terms would stagnate, just as it happened in Japan in the 1990s. But, as history has shown us, that doesn't have to be the outcome. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or a colleague today.

China's growth is expected to be strong this year. However, it is being driven by services more than goods, meaning the news for other economies may not be as good as it initially appears. ----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Diego Anzoategui from the Global Economics Team. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the global impact of China's reopening. It's Monday, April 10th, at 3 p.m. in New York. At the end of 2022, China scrapped all COVID zero policies and laid out a growth focused policy agenda for 2023. By mid-January, around 80% of the population had had COVID, but infections are now much lower, mobility is improving, and China's economy seems to be taking off. We estimate China's growth will reach 5.7% in 2023, primarily driven by a rebound in private consumption. This is the first time in four years that COVID, regulatory and economic policy are all pushing in the same direction. Since the Chinese Party Congress in October 2022, the administration has swung to a pro-business stance, and we expect fiscal and monetary support to continue. Furthermore, China's big tech regulation has entered an institutionalized and stable stage, and we don't expect new, aggressive measures any longer. Although China's growth is expected to be strong in 2023, it is off a low base and it will take time for private sentiment to come back. So we expect fiscal easing to continue at least through the first half of 2023. As for monetary policy, the People's Bank of China may continue to provide targeted support towards economic recovery while private demand gets on a surer footing. As growth becomes more self-sustaining in the second half of 2023, cyclical policy could start to normalize, but not turn to outright tightening. Against this macro backdrop, we believe that services such as tourism, transportation and food services will drive the recovery. During the pandemic, mobility restrictions and social distancing policies caused a much more serious drag on services compared to good producers- and China is no exception to this pattern. But the services versus goods distinction is also key for assessing the global implications of China's reopening. Investors often ask to what extent China's reopening will translate into higher economic growth elsewhere. Historically, the China economic acceleration typically acts as a demand shock to the global economy. China's higher aggregate demand means higher exports to China from the rest of the world and greater economic activity globally. And more global growth coming from a demand push usually contributes to higher commodity prices, a weaker dollar and potential higher risk appetite leading to lower interest rates in emerging markets. This, of course, is good news, especially for EM. But the devil is in the details, and China's recovery being primarily driven by services is a key factor. One perhaps underappreciated by the market. It's important to keep in mind that services are less tradable and therefore less relevant to international trade. If China's acceleration were to be goods driven, Asia and LatAm commodity exporters would be clear beneficiaries, particularly economies like Korea, Taiwan, Argentina, Brazil and Chile. But the situation is different when services lead the way, and the relative advantage of manufacture-intensive Asian economies is less obvious in this case. Ultimately, our work suggests a more services driven rebound in China would be less relevant for the global economy. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Although China won't admit it, its huge balloon hovering over the United States, in plain view of ordinary Americans, was a huge geopolitical blunder. To boot, that we shot it down and were able to confirm it was equipped with spying equipment, which negated their claim that it was just a weather balloon, internationally undermined their credibility. But we have had our own share of blunders. First, we sent reconnaissance balloons over the Soviet Union, until they told us to stop it. Second, our "weather" plane (no doubt similar to China's "weather" balloon), was shot down over the Soviet Union. This is the infamous story of the U-2 spy plane, which became a major embarrassment for the Eisenhower administration. To get the full U-2 story and much more about aerial reconnaissance, I spoke with Dr. Tim Schultz, Associate Dean of Academics at the US Naval War College. Prior to this, Dr. Schultz served as the Dean of the United State Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. And prior to his teaching career, he was a U-2 pilot. Dr. Schultz is a retired colonel of the United States Air Force and was the Commander of the 1st Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, which is a U-2 combat squadron. He is the author of Air Power in the Age of Primacy: Air Warfare since the Cold War - a 2021 book; and also The Problem with Pilots: How Physicians, Engineers, and Airpower Enthusiasts Redefined Flight - a 2018 book. To learn more about Dr. Schultz, you can visit his academic homepage. In addition, below are links to two fascinating episodes: S3E2: U.S. Stealth Bombers & Air Superiority, Dr. Melvin Deaile S2E36: China's Leaders: Overreaction & Overreach, Dr. Susan Shirk I hope you enjoy these episodes. Adel Host of the History Behind News podcast HIGHLIGHTS: get future episode highlights in your inbox. SUPPORT: please click here and join our other supporters in the news peeler community. Thank you.

I admire and respect Ray Dalio, who suggests that China will replace the US as the next great superpower. It's dangerous to disagree with someone as smart & successful as Ray, but I'll try. Conventional wisdom is that China will blast past the USA to become the new superpower. In this video, I debunk that prediction. Although China has many good things going for it and will undoubtedly get stronger this century, it has two things that will slow its dramatic rise down: 1. China's authoritarian/totalitarian tendencies will invite a Chinese revolution against the communist party. 2. China's demographics. That's what this video is about. I examine Pew Research's 8-point report on China's demographics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErOxGV-Ekd8 Feedback Leave an anonymous voicemail on SpeakPipe.com/FTapon Or go to Wanderlearn.com, click on this episode, and write a comment. More info You can post comments, ask questions, and sign up for my newsletter at http://wanderlearn.com. If you like this podcast, subscribe and share!  On social media, my username is always FTapon. Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr My Patrons sponsored this show! Claim your monthly reward by becoming a patron at http://Patreon.com/FTapon Rewards start at just $2/month! Affiliate links Start your podcast with my company, Podbean, and get one month free! In the USA, I recommend trading crypto with Kraken.  Outside the USA, trade crypto with Binance and get 5% off your trading fees! For backpacking gear, buy from Gossamer Gear.

NASA is working to protect planet earth from an asteroid that it's hurtling towards us. What is NASA doing? It is sending a programmed robotic spacecraft to collide with an asteroid this evening. In other news, while in the background Russia-Ukraine war escalated in the past week, elsewhere in east Asia, a discomfiting situation has been brewing. Although China recently urged Russia to end the war, it had some strong words for Taiwan which it considers to be a part of its territory. You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android, iOS or any other podcast app.You can check out our website at https://ivmpodcasts.com/.Do follow IVM Podcasts on social media.We are @IVMPodcasts on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram.Follow the show across platforms:Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Prime Music.

APAC stocks were mostly positive after the relief rally on Wall St where a lower yield environment and declines in oil prices underpinned risk appetite.European equity futures are indicative of a firmer open with the Euro Stoxx 50 future +0.5% after the cash market closed up by 0.1% yesterday.DXY is back on a 109 handle, antipodeans lag, EUR/USD hovers just below parity, GBP/USD sits just above 1.15.Crude nursed some of the recent losses after falling to post-Ukraine lows but with the overnight rebound kept thin following lockdown extensions in China.Looking ahead, highlights include US IJC, ECB Announcement, Speeches from ECB's Lagarde, Fed's Powell, Evans, Kashkari & BoC's Rogers.Read the full report covering Equities, Forex, Fixed Income, Commodites and more on Newsquawk

Last time we spoke, the Qing dynasty had enjoyed the first half of the 18th century with relative ease and prosperity, however the end half and emergence of the 19th century would not be so fruitful. The White Lotus Rebellion of 1794-1804 took root during one of the most corrupt ridden times in Chinese history. One of China's most corrupt figures and one of the richest men in history, Heshen was executed by the new Jiaqing Emperor. Then the Jiaqing Emperor had to quell the White Lotus menace which cost the empire a possible 100 million taels of silver. Despite being successful, the White Lotus rebellion would spread a seed of destruction for the Qing dynasty that would grow overtime and bloom into multiple revolts and rebellions. Now we look to another aspect of China during the early 19th century, its struggle against the looming threat of western greed.    This episode is the A West meets East story   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on the history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   #11 The West meets East failure   Now while the last podcast highlighted the corruption of Heshen and his long lasting effect on the Qing dynasty during the late half of the 18th century, I intentionally avoided speaking about something. That something was the envoys sent by Britain to China to open up trade relations. The rationale was that I wanted to highlight why the White Lotus came to be and the British envoy stories would have derailed it, but in actuality, the corruption, White Lotus rebellion and British envoys all simultaneously play a very important role in the downfall of the Qing Dynasty. So let us go back in time a bit to begin what is quite honestly the emergence of one of the largest drug cartel stories of all time.    Lord George Macartney was a well seasoned diplomat with an extensive resume and a reputation for getting things done. He had that classic story of being raised in poverty, but rising to the top. He began his career as a barrister in England before entering the foreign service. He was no aristocrat, came from no significant family, thus earned his way through merit. His skills and intellect eventually landed him the appointment as an envoy to the Qing Dynasty to establish a British embassy in China. Up to this point in his life, everything he did was a success, but China would prove to be a hard nut to crack. In 1764 Macartney was knighted at the young age of 27 and sent as an envoy to russia. It was a rather scandalous rumor that he was sent as the envoy not merely for his skills and intellect, but because of his good looks as it was believed it would sway the Empress, Catherine the Great to the interests of Britain. After 3 years in Russia, Sir Macartney returned with the Empress's good affection, symbolized in a gem-studded snuff box. This bolstered Macartney into the social circles of the elites and by 1767 he was elected to Parliament and soon appointed the Chief Secretary of Ireland. After some years of service within the United Kingdom, Macartney sought out more adventure and took up a post as governor of the Caribbean Islands in the West Indies. He was soon awarded with the title of Bron and in 1780 received the appointment as governor of Madras India. He worked that office 6 years and became a viscount. Then in 1793 he sailed for one of the most illusive and exotic lands, that of China.   Viscount Macartney was given a simple orders from George III: establish a British embassy in the capital and get permission for British ships to dock at ports besides Canton. Now you might be asking, whats the problem with Canton? Nothing, except for foreign barbarians it was the only port of access for all of China at this time. For those who have never heard of this, the Canton System which began in 1757 was a trade system of the Qing dynasty. The Qianlong Emperor faced numerous problems when he inherited the empire, one being the threat of foreign trade. While trade obviously is a beneficial thing, it can sometimes cause harm, as such the Qing dynasty had some worries about trade with foreign lands. For one thing, the intrusion of missionaries had caused some pretty brutal conflicts in China. After this Emperor Qianlong ordered his court to make some changes to foreign trade to thus stop more conflicts from occurring. He bottled necked all foreign trade to go through Canton and they were to deal exclusively with a group known as the Cohong merchants. The Cohong were granted a monopoly over the foreign trade, but were also the primary representative link between the Qing government and the outside world. There were strings attached of course, the Cohong merchants were to take on full responsibility for any foreign persons connected with a foreign ship that did trade. The Cohong were of course expected to pay taxes to the Qing government for all the trade being done, but by far and large they were able to control how they would levy such taxes. A perfect recipe for corruption.    A event occured known as the Flint Affair, a situation in which a Englishman named James Flint serving the East India Company was repeatedly warned to remain in Canton, but in 1755 he went against the Qing administrative warnings and tried to establish trade in some ports in Zhejiang. He was caught and deported to Macau where he was imprisoned for a few years. The situation prompted Emperor Qianlong to enact 5 measures against the foreign barbarians who wished to trade. 1) Trade by foreign barbarians in Canton is prohibited during the winter. 2) Foreign barbarians coming to the city must reside in the foreign factories under the supervision and control of the Cohong. 3) Chinese citizens are barred from borrowing capital from foreign barbarians and from employment by them. 4) Chinese citizens must not attempt to gain information on the current market situation from foreign barbarians 5) Inbound foreign barbarian vessels must anchor in the Whampoa Roads and await inspection by the authorities   Trade with China was beginning to really boom, but it was being frustrated into the bottleneck of Canton. The British were very eager to open up more trade with China and Macartney had instructions to offer something to the Chinese to open up trade. He could offer to end the importation of opium from British held India, something that was officially illegal in the Qing dynasty, but in reality the Qing could not stop the illicit smuggling of it into China.    On the morning of september 26, 1792 the HMS Lion a 64 gun ship of the line, cast off for China. When Macarney landed on the coast of China, all of his retinue and baggage were transferred to Chinese junks by the order of Emperor Qianlong before he was allowed to travel up the Bei He River enroute for Peking. His ship had a large sign tacked to its mast by the Qing officials with large black letters reading “tribute from the red barbarians”. Remember at this time in history, China was basically the pinnacle of civilization at least from its viewpoint. China had felt superior to the rest of the world for quite some time. Gunpowder, paper currency, eyeglasses and the printing press all were developed in China long before the west had acquired such things. As such the emperor of China did not receive ambassadors per say, as exchanging emissaries would denote equal rank amongst nations, for which China had no equal. Those who did come as emissaries were treated as tribute bearers and identified as foreign barbarians. From the perspective of the Chinese, foreign barbarians did not come to negotiate or make dealings, they came as subjects to pay homage and tribute.    Macartney believed he was bringing gifts from one sovereign nation to another, but the Qing considered him to be a vassal paying tribute. The gifts he brought were the best of British technology: telescopes, brass howitzers, globes, clocks, musical instruments and an entire hot air balloon complete with a balloonist. That one always puzzled me by the way, did that mean the balloonist was just going to be some sort of lifetime servant? In all Macartney brought over 600 gifts for Emperor Qianlong and this all required an astonishing 99 wagons, 40 wheelbarrows drawn by over 200 horses and 3000 people. Macartney was instructed to display the gifts at the Emperor's summer palace before he would be given any chance at seeing Emperor Qianlong. The Qing court apparently were not that impressed with most of the gifts, though they did admire the wood pottery and were particularly interested when Macartney ignited sulfur matches. Unfortunately the hot air balloon never got a chance to take off. The viceroy of Pechili told Macartney that he would not be meeting the emperor in his palace, but in a yurt outside the Imperial hunting lodge in Rehe of the tartary lands. They would pass through the great wall and Macartney was astonished by it stating it to be “the most stupendous work of human hands, probably greater in extent than all of the other forts in the world put together. Its construction was a sign of not only a very powerful empire, but a very wise and virtuous nation”. They traveled into Manchuria until they reached the Emperor's summer quarters on september 8th. The journey had nearly taken a year since they departed England in 1792 and the success or failure of the embassy would be decided in the matter of just mere days. They stopped a mile from the imperial summer residence to make themselves presentable.    Macartney had prepared a colorful and grandiose outfit for the occasion as described by his valet “A suite of spotted mulberry velvet, with a diamond star, and his ribbon, over which he wore the full habit of the order of the Bath, with the hat and the plume of feathers, which form a part of it”. So try to imagine a man dressed up like a peacock, certainly it was going to leave an impression, which is what he wanted. The entourage formed a makeshift parade formation with as much British pomp that could be mustered. The British soldiers and cavalry led the way on foot followed by servants, musicians, scientists and other gentry. The parade arrived at 10am to their designated quarters, with no one at all to greet them. Macartney was bewildered, he had expected this famed Manchu man named Heshen to meet them. However Heshen was nowhere to be found, Macartney deduced he must be delayed for some reason and so they all simply waited. 6 hours passed by as they all stood there in formation waiting with no sign of an imperial official, thus they lost heart and went into the assigned residence to eat. In the end Macartney was forced to go find Heshen himself, quite an uncomfortable start to the venture. Over the course of several days the mountain of British gifts were exchanged. They presented things such as rugs to the Emperors representatives and in turn were given luxurious fabrics such as silk, jade, porcelain, lacquerware and large quantities of the finest tea, oh tea will play quite a role in all of this rest assured. The British tried to awe them with the products of their science, but soon were realizing something was not right.    You see this entire process was confused. For the British they were trying to impress the Chinese to gain the ability to negotiate for more advantageous policies in the future, IE: gain the approval to open a permanent embassy in the capital. But for the Chinese the situation was literally just trade, they were trading goods they assumed the British would want to take home and sell. Nations like Vietnam and Korea would regularly come to pay tribute to the emperor for his approval which legitimized their governments. They came and performed the famous “kow tow” before the Emperor. For those who don't know the “kow tow” is a ritual of 9 kneeling bows to the ground in 3 sets of 3 in the direction of the emperor. The envoys from places like Vietnam or Korea did this readily as their nations were official tributaries to China and thus the Emperor was the overarching figure for their nations as well as their own emperors. But when Macartney showed up he knew nothing of this entire process. Initially Macartney did not even realize he was supposed to prostrate himself before emperor and when this was explained to him he was unwilling to do it. Because despite the great admiration he had for the Qing Empire, he thought he was an envoy between 2 equal and sovereign nations, he assumed the King of England was on equal footing with Emperor Qianlong. Macartney had never done anything like the kow tow for his own king why should he for a foreign king?   So Macartney expected what he considered a mere ceremony to be waved off and submitted a request for that to be so, which he alleged later he received approval for. But when he arrived at Jehol, Heshen denied ever seeing this request and insisted Macartney must perform the kow two before the emperor. Qing officials at the scene assured Macartney that it was just “a mere exterior and unmeaning ceremony” urging him on. Things began to get messy, Macartney said he would kow tow readily if a Qing official would do the same before a portrait he had brought of King George III. No Qing official would do it, so Macartney tried to compromise, what if he simply bent the knee and head once before Emperor Qianlong. To Mccartneys relief the proposal was accepted. A few more days went by, then on September 14th he was informed he could meet the emperor.   Macartney got into his peacock suit and his entourage marched behind Macartney who was carried on a litter until they made it to the Emperor's ceremonial tent. Macartney entered, carrying a jeweled encrusted golden box containing a letter from King George III. In his own account, Macartney stated he knelt on one knee as agreed and presented the emperor the box and the emperor did not seem in the slightest to have made any commotion about the ritual not being performed. Macartney said “Emperor Qianlong's eyes were full and clear and his countenance was open, despite the dark and gloomy demeanor we had expected to find”. Do not forget as I mentioned in the previous episode, at this point in time the Emperor was its pretty safe to say, very senile. The letter from George III was translated into Chinese carefully by European missionaries who made sure to take out any potentially offensive references, like for example anything about chrisianity. The letter spoke about how Emperor Qianlong “should live and rule for 10s of thousands of years and the word China was elevated one line above the rest of the text whenever it appeared and the name of the emperor was elevated 3 lines above the rest. The letters translation thus had been done in such a way it really did not conform to the letter between 2 equals anymore. Meanwhile while Emperor Qianlong read this, Macartney was simply awed by the tent they were in. In his words “the tapestries, carpets and rich draperies and lanterns were disposed with such harmony, the colors so artfully varied. It was as if he was inside a painting. The commanding feature of the ceremony was the calm dignity that sober pomp of asiatic greatness, which European refinements have not yet attained”. Macartney also went on to mention that he was also not the only envoy present in the tent. There were 6 Muslim enovys from tributary states near the Caspian sea an a Hindu envoy from Burma and they had allow performed the kow tow.    Emperor Qianlong asked Heshen if any of the English could speak Chinese and the son of British diplomat George Staunton stepped forward. The 12 year old boy named George stepped towards the throne and according to his diary “I spoke some Chinese words to him and thanked him for the presents”. Emperor Qianlong was apparently charmed by this and took a purse from his own waist to give to him as a token of his esteem. That little boy became the first Englishman after James Flint to cross the wall of language between Britain and China and it would shape his life after. After the meeting, Macartney and his entourage were allowed to stay in Jehol for a few days and were fortunate enough to partake in the emperor's birthday banquet. On September 21st, disaster struck when a member of Macartney's entourage died, a gunner named Reid. It was the day before their departure date and apparently Reid had eaten 40 apples for breakfast, which I have to say is one of the most bizarre rationales for a death I've ever heard. Regardless, the Qing assumed off the bat the man died of some contagious disease and urged them all to leave with haste.    Meanwhile in Peking, the Balloonist/scientist Mr Dinwiddie had been busy prepared all the scientific instruments for demonstrations awaiting Emperor Qianlong's return from Jehol at the end of september. He had begun filling a grand hall of the imperial palace outside the city of Beijing with globes, clocks, telescopes, the air pump for the balloon and such. He had signed a contract basically stating he could never return home and would be stuck as a foreigner in a small part of Beijing. Regardless he got everything ready for the emperor's visit. When the emperor came on October the 1st he showed no particular emotion as he toured the hall according to Dinwiddie. Upon looking through a telescope for roughly 2 minutes the emperor alleged stated “it was good enough to amuse children” and simply left. Heshen and other Qing officials came to see the wonders and showed a bit more interest. Unfortunately the hot air balloon demonstration was to be the grand finale in the course of a few days but never came to fruition, because all of a sudden on October the 6th the Emperor ordered all the British to leave. Everything was hastily packed up and every man by October 7th was being pushed out as the embassy mission was sent away from Peking. Once on the road out of Peking it dawned upon them all the embassy mission was a failure. As one British servant put it “we entered Peking like paupers; we remained in it like prisoners; and we quitted it like vagrants”.    Macartney had no idea how much he had offended the emperor with his negotiations. Back on september 10th, 4 days before they met the Emperor, Qianlong was always fuming mad about the English ambassadors dragging of the feet about the kow tow. In fact at that time Emperor Qianlong simply told his officials he would keep the promise to have the meetings, but as far as he was concerned they best be gone afterwards. Qianlong prior had planned to have them stay a long time to enjoy the sights of Jehol but “given the presumption and self important display by the English ambassador, they should be sent from Jehol immediately after the banquet, given 2 days to get to Peking to pack up their belongs and go. When foreigners who come seeking audience with me are sincere and submissive then I always treat them with kindness. But if they come in arrogance they get nothing”. On October 3rd, just a few days before they were ordered out, Macartney received the official response to King George III's letter, unfortunately it was in Chinese and he was unable to translate it for some time. It stated that the request for the British ambassador to remain at the capital was not consistent with the customs of the empire and therefore could not be allowed. And here is the kicker in regards to trade and the gifts he said “I accepted the gifts not because I wanted them, but merely, as tokens of your own affectionate regard for me. In truth the greatness and splendor of the Chinese empire have spread its fame far and wide, and as foreign nations, from a thousand parts of the world, crowd hither over mountains and seas, to pay us their homage and bring us the rarest and most precious offerings, what is it that we can want here? Strange and costly objects do not interest me. We possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your countries manufactures”. Oomphf there was a second little part after that went “we have never needed trade with foreign countries to give us anything we lacked. Tea, porcelain and silk are essential needs for countries like England that do not have such things and out of grace the dynasty had long permitted foreign merchants to come to Canton to purchase these goods. To satisfy your needs and to allow you to benefit from our surplus. England is but one of many countries that comes to trade in Canton and if we were to give Britain special treatment, then we would have to give it to all the others as well”.   Macartney was furious and wrote extensively enroute back home. “Can they be ignorant, that a couple of English frigates would be an overmatch for the whole naval force of their empire, that in half a summer they could totally destroy the navigation of their coasts and reduce the inhabitants of the maritime provinces, who subsist chiefly on fish, to absolute famine? We could destroy the Tiger's mouth forts guarding the river passage to Canton with just half a dozen boardsides and annihilate the Canton trade that employs millions of Chinese”. Yet despite all his military bravado talk, if Britain were at this time to make any aggression against China it would immediately result in them shutting down their trade. If that was allowed to happen both the economies of Britain and British held India would suffer tremendous economic damage. Thus Macartney knew the best course of action was to be patient and try try and try again.   So the Macartney mission ended in embarrassment. Macartney would tell those back in Britain “The empire of China is an old crazy first-rate man of war, which a fortunate succession of able and vigilant offers has contrived to keep afloat for these hundred and fifty years past; and to overawe their neighbors, merely by her bulk and appearance. She may perhaps not sink outright, she may drift some time as a wreck, and will then be dashed in pieces on the shore; but she can never be rebuilt on the old bottom”. Very dark and ominous words indeed. Prior to Macartney's report those had this perception of China to be the model of stable and virtuous government. But Macartney ranted that “the tyranny of a handful of Tartars over more than 300 millions of Chinese. And those Chinese subjects would not suffer the odium of a foreign yoke for much longer. A revolution was coming”. Macartney would elaborate further on what he believed to be the socio-political situation in China. “I often perceived the ground to be hollow under a vast superstructure and in trees of the most stately and flourishing appearance I discovered symptoms of speedy decay. The huge population of Han Chinese were just recovering blows that had stunned them they are awaking from the political stupor they had been thrown into by the Tartar impression, and begin to feel their native energie revive. A slight collision might elicit fire from the flint, and spread the flames of revolt from one extremity of China to the other. I should not be surprised if its dislocation or dismemberment were to take place before my own dissolution”. Please take note this is all coming from a bitterly anger man who, yes traveled the country for months, but he had not seen the interior of China. He could not speak or read the language and knew nothing of the culture. And yet he was almost 100% prophetic in what would occur.    Now as I went into with the past episode, the Qianlong Emperor was very old and going senile. When Macartney met with him, Qianlong had just turned 82 and had ruled for over 58 years an incredible reign. And despite the show the emperor had put on about never needing western trade, in reality he was deeply fascinated by western inventions. He cherished his collection of 70 British clocks and wrote poems about them and about western telescopes. Likewise he kept multiple western art pieces and employed many westerners in his court. Above all else he understood the value of China's foreign trade at Canton, because a significant portion of the tariff income fed his imperial household. The canton trade was also a primary source of silver import of which China was the largest importer of silver since the 1600s. Foreigners came and were forced to trade with silver if they wanted tea or porcelain. Tea, Tea is the crucial component of this story.   In 1664 King Charles II received 2 lbs of black, strange smelling leaves from China. Less than half a century later, tea became Britain's beverage of choice with an annual consumption of 12 million pounds per year. By 1785, Britain was importing 15 million lbs of tea per year from China. The people of Britain were literally addicted China's tea, which might I add is a mild stimulant. More so the British government became economically dependent on tea and the Exchequer levied a 100 percent import tax upon it whoa. Although China purchased some British goods like clocks, it was nothing compared to the British need for tea. Between 1710 to 1759 the imbalance of trade was enormous, literally draining Britain of its silver, because that was after all the only form of payment China accepted. During this time, Britain paid 26 million in silver to China, but sold only 9 million in goods.    Now lets talk a bit more about how this trade was being down in Canton. It was the East India Company who was given a monopoly over the tea trade in China. I mentioned the Cohong or sometimes called simply Hong merchants. They were directly in charge of the Canton trade, holding a monopoly over it. All western trade had to come through them, if you were a foreign ship, your cargo had to be guaranteed by a Hong merchant before it could sail up river to port Canton. Only a Hong merchant could rent you a warehouse or arrange for you any and all purchases for tea, silk and such. Personal relationships were thus key and having a friendship with any Hong merchant was immensely valuable. Hong merchants were accountable for the conduct of all foreing personnel. If some foreigner got drunk and beat up a local, the Hong merchant was held responsible, and this did in fact happen often. The Hong merchants were a small group, typically no more than a dozen any given time. As you can imagine with such a small group controlling the full trade between China and western nations, the opportunities for both sides merchants to become abundantly rich was enormous. However there was a ton of risk for the Hong since they took all the risk. Regardless the Hong merchants were some of the richest men in China, but they also went bankrupt regularly. Why was this, well because of their access to capital it made them primary targets for other government officials to squeeze.    You see despite their monopoly on the trade, the Hong merchants were almost always in a precarious situation. Their appointment and finance was done via the Hoppo. Also the social status of merchants within traditional confucianism was very low and the Hong merchants were at the mercy of other Qing officials. This led the Hong merchants to be forced to pay numerous bribes to said officials. More often than naught to get an appointment as a Hong came with a literal downpayment for the officials who got you the job! The Hong merchants were squeezed left right and center by countless officials in a pecking system built upon corruption and greed.    The senior superintendent of foreign trade at Canton was a Imperial customs commissioner known to the westerners as the “hoppo”. The hoppo reported directly to the board of revenue in Beijing and it was the Hoppo who was responsible for ensuring a proper flow of tariff income back to Beijing. The position of Hoppo was one of the greatest opportunities to get filthy rich.   Before the White Lotus rebellion the Qing silver surplus was a whopping 70 million taels, but over the course of the war it is estimated the Qing treasury would pay something like 100 million taels in silver. Then came another disaster.    The Napoleonic wars had a tremendous impact on the world, not limited to just the war itself. As the war grinding on, Britain was pressed for funds to finance its war against France and this led them to squeeze the East India Company harder. The British government began raising its tax on the company's tea in 1795, then again in 1802 where it reached 50%, then again in 1806 to a whopping 96% and by 1819 it would be 100%. The growing British tax on the company's tea led it to become a possible 1/10th of Britain's national revenue. As you can imagine with those numbers, the importance of maintaining the trade with Canton became a matter of national interest.    While the Qing dynasty spent millions of taels mobilizing armies to quell the white lotus rebellion, the British likewise spent millions during its war against france. Britain would spend around 12 times more than its previous 22 year war with France and ran up a monstrous national debt. By the time Napoleon was defeated, Britain had doubled the size of the royal navy and it was the most powerful maritime force in the world. Britain acquired more territories to expand its enormous empire. By 1820 the British Empire would control roughly a quarter of the world's population, almost rivaling China. The emperor of China, Jiaqing was forced to slash the budgets of things such as the military after the internal rebellion was over. In expectation for an era of peace for the empire, the emperor effectively had to mortgage the future improvement of China's military to simply stabilize the country.   Now Britain's tea fix needed to be met, but its silver was depleted. The Napoleonic war and the American revolution had drained Britain of its silver reserve, how was Britain going to get the tea? The British needed to find something the Chinese were willing to pay for in silver and the British would find what that in Opium. The British were not the first importers of Opium into China. Arab merchants had been selling opium cultivated in what is modern day turkey since the middle ages. It was primarily used for medicinal purposes, such as being used as a constipation drug to stop diarrhea, quite a useful thing to have to fight off dysentery which reeks its ugly head during times of conflict. In 1659 the East India Company began to export it in limited quantities from Bengal India. The East India Company had a monopoly over the trade with India and tried to prevent the business of opium importing to China since it was illegal and could interfere with the company's legitimate trade. However to get tea required silver and when the silver began to dry up the East India Company's tolerance for the illicit business began to loosen.    In 1782 the East India Company turned its eyes away and allowed the export of 3450 chests of opium. Each chest for reference weighed around 170 lbs, about the size of a small footlocker. 2 ships carried the illegal cargo and enroute 1 of them was captured by the French with the other arrived in Macao. The Chinese merchants refused to purchase the illegal contraband until the price was dropped to 210$ per chest. To break even the British needed to sell a chest at around 500$, it was a complete disaster. The British merchants ended up dumping most of their cargo at a loss in Malaysia for a price of around 340$. There were no eager buyers for opium in China in 1782 and this showcases the lack of users or better said addicts. Nonetheless the Qing government made a decree in 1799 condemning the illicit trade “foreigners obviously derive the most solid profits and advantages, but that our countrymen should pursue this destructive and ensnaring vice is indeed odious and deplorable”. The East India Company proclaimed it was forbidding British ships to carry the illicit cargo, because remember they had to make sure the Canton market remained open to britain. Yet this did not stop the East India company from selling opium within India to independent British and Indian merchants who in turn might smuggle the drugs into China. Its not the East India company after all and the company could see no other way to acquire silver to buy the tea Britain needed.    In 1773 opium earned the company 39,000 pounds, in 1793 opium earned them 250,000 pounds. The idea was working and the trade imbalance was soon shifting. By 1806 to 1809 China would pay out 7 million in silver for opium. During the first 2 decades of the 19th century opium addiction grew in China at a slow pace. The East India Company kept the price of the illicit substance artificially high, which meant only the upper class in China could afford it. The East India Company was doing its best not to antagonize the Qing government, IE: not rubbing their nose in the illicit trade, thus it did not increase imports and lower prices. Around 5000 chests were being sold per year and this stabilized the trade imbalance between Britain and China, no longer was Britain simply losing its silver to China, nor was China being depleted dry.    Then a technological innovation in Britain completely shattered the equilibrium. The invention of the steam engine in the previous century resulted in the mechanized production of cotton. Soon England had flooded the market with mass produced textiles and the surplus of this found its way to a very eager Indian market. Those merchants paid for the product in cash, but how do you think they got the cash? Bingo opium cultivation and with it the need to sell more of it. So as a result more and more opium began to flood into China, but it still had to go through the bottleneck of Canton.    Problems began to occur which affected the Canton trade. The Napoleonic wars began to send ripples throughout the world and one place that was affected was Macao in 1808. The British in Canton heard rumors that France was sending troops to occupy Macao. The British wanted to preemptively respond and sent a naval fleet under Rear Admiral William Drury in September of 1808. Drury sent a letter informing the Portuguese governor at Macao that he intended to occupy the city to which the governor refused him and began to appeal to the Chinese governor general for protection. On september 21st Drury landing 300 marines who quickly seized the shore batteries at Macao with no resistance being made by the Portuguese. However the Chinese governor general ordered a shutdown of the British trade in Canton, uh oh. The East India company had to pull full cargo ships out immediately and abandon their factory in Canton. Drury in response brought an additional 700 marines from India to occupy Macao. The Chinese governor general warned Drury if they did not withdraw, the fleet and all British residents in Macao would be cut off from food supplies. Drury panicked, he had not intended to start a war, nor were his orders remotely authorized to do so!   When Emperor Jiaqing got news of the British invasion of Macao he was furious to say the least. Emperor Jiaqing issued an edict to the governor general in Canton “such a brutal eruption at Macao indicates an affrontery without limit. To invoke such a pretext is to freely insult the Chinese Empire. It is important in any case to raise considerable troops, attack the foreigners, and exterminate them. In this way, they will understand that the seas of China are forbidden to them!”. So the governor general ordered 8000 troops at Canton to man the coastal forts in the vicinity in preparation for war. Drury got the news of this and knew the Canton trade could be shut off for good stating “it would exclude the English forever, from the most advantageous monopoly it possesses in the Universe”. So Admiral Drury backed down, refusing to risk war with China. Drury took the marines out, but left some ships in the hope trade in Canton would soon be restored. And thus 6 days later the Qing governor general restored trade in Canton, phew crisis averted.   Another rather unusual conflict occured when a British christian missionary named Thomas Manning attempted to enter into China by land. Manning had tried asking the Hoppo for permission to visit Beijing as a scientist envoy but it was refused as the Emperor had plenty of western scientists at his disposal. The frustrated Manning then began to climb aboard East India company ships going around Vietnam, to see if he could find a way to sneak into China via Vietnam roads. This did not pan out so he struck out at another place to get into China, Tibet. Manning went to Tibet pretending to be a Buddhist lama from India and would you believe it he got an audience with the Dalai Lama on december 17 of 1811. He climbed hundreds of steps and met with the Dalai Lama whom he described “His face was, I thought, poetically and effectively beautiful. He was of a gay and cheerful disposition; his beautiful mouth perpetually unbending into a graceful smile, which illuminated his whole countenance. Sometimes, particularly when he had looked at me, his smile almost approached a gentle laugh”. After meeting the Dalai Lama, Manning hoped to be granted permission to make the 1500 mile journey to Beijing, but this would not occur. In the holy city of Lhasa he was apprehended by the local Qing officials and quasi imprisoned until Emperor Jiaqing could be informed and send orders as to what to do. Orders finally came in February of 1812 to deport Manning and raise border security in response to this incursion.    Then in 1813 problems reeked their ugly head yet again for British-Chinese relations. The Emperor had reduced the number of Hong merchants that the British were allowed to do business with. The larger issue at hand was the War of 1812 which brought with it conflict between Britain and American ships around the waters of Canton. At this time the Americans were second only to the British in the size of their commerce in Canton. The US lacked cruisers to convoy their merchant ships and thus began arming the merchants ships into privateers. The US ships also tried to simply avoid the British by not landing at the same time intervals, but all of this would not avoid conflict. In march of 1814 the British frigate Doris captured a 300 ton American privateer, the USS Hunter and took her to Macao as a prize. 2 months later the Doris hunted down the USS Russel up the Pearl River near the Whampia anchorage just a few miles shy of Whampoa city. They fired upon another while another US ships the Sphynx was boarded and captured. More raids continued from both sides and the conflict greatly angered the Chinese authorities. Eventually the Qing governor general cut off supplies and suspended trade with both nations demanding they behave themselves.    The British merchants in Canton complained they had nothing to do with the Royal Navy, but the Chinese authorities would not hear it. Some minor conflicts occured in Canton and the British felt they had been wronged. The East India Company began to demand the British government send an embassy to remedy the entire situation. So Britain answered the plea and sent another embassy mission in 1816. Lord William Pitt Amherst, Earl Amherst of Arracan was born in 1773 in Bath. His father was General William Amherst and his uncle was Field Marshall Sir Jeffrey Amherst who had a distinguished military career including being the governor general of British north America after defeating Nouvelle France in 1760. Little Williams mother died and the widowed father would take care of William and his sister for awhile until in 1781 when he also died. William would end up living with his uncle in the Amherst estate in Montreal where I happen to live near. William would eventually go to oxford and became an accomplished linguist learning several languages. Eventually he landed a job as ambassador to Sicily and by the end of the Napleonic wars he was made a Privy Councillor. He proved to be able enough and was soon sent as Ambassador with Plenipotentiary to negotiate with the Qing Dynasty in 1816.    The China Amherst encountered in 1816 was very different compared to the one Lord Macrtney had visited. The Emperor was Jiaqing, the dynasty had quelled the White Lotus Rebellion, quite a few smaller revolts and had a real problem with pirates along the coast. Emperor Jiaqing had a loose hold over the empire and was not about to let some foreign power further threaten it.    Amherst was a bit of an odd choice to lead the mission. He was considered a dull, but well mannered man who was not very talented in public speaking. Neither brilliant nor particularly handsome, just hailed from an excellent family. Amherst brought with him 2 familiar faces, the former little boy who had courageously spoken to Emperor Qianlong, George Staunton, who was now an adult. George had been working for the East India Company in Canton and had mastered the Chinese language and learnt much of its culture. The second ws Thomas Manning after his great Tibet adventure. Amherst's departure would be 6 months after the Duke of Wellington's victory at Waterloo in June of 1815. Thus Amherst would be coming to China to inform them that the nearly continuous warfare between Britain and France for the past 22 years had finally come to an end. Amherst was instructed to make it clear to the Chinese that Great Britain was now the unrivaled dominant military power in Europe. The Amherst mission also was to remedy the Canton situation, but the perspective from Britain was quite off. They thought Emperor Jiaqing knew relatively not much about the ongoings in places like Canton, and if they simply came and complained about mistreatment that he would just offhand discipline the officials in Canton and place the British in a better position.The Emperor however was hardly oblivious to the ongoings in Canton, in fact he was paying a ton of attention to it. The Emperor had ordered investigation into the Canton situation over the past few years Emperor Jiaqing was particularly taking an interest into George Staunton who he viewed as a potential trouble maker in China, because the man had vast knowledge now of the language and culture and might induce more westerners to do the same. For certain the emperor was not pleased at all to find out Thomas Manning was coming as he had deported him and it was to be presumed Manning should never step foot back in China ever again. So the entourage was already doomed to fail.   As the entourage made their way, Amherst reported that the Qing dynasty seemed to have declined significantly compared to what Macartney had reported long ago. The entourage had learnt of the White Lotus rebellion and how suppressing it nearly bankrupt the Qing government. The entourage became rather bold and instead of waiting at the island of Chusan, Amherst ships, accompanied by 2 East India Company surveying vessels divided themselves into task forces and went to work dropping the embassy team off  at the White River. Soon some of the vessels began to explore the river networks going as far north to where the Great Wall meets the coast of Manchuria, sailed around the Liaodong Peninsula and parts of the Yalu river, very bold moves. They also took notes of the villages, populations and geology of their ventures. They particularly noted down the lack of military installations.    Both the Amherst mission and the Qing court intended to use the Macartney mission as a precedent, but neither communicated how they should go about it. What really loomed over the entire affair was the issue of the Kow Tow. Now Amherst was coming into this with less radical requests than Macartney. They were not asking for a permanent ambassador at the capital, nor the opening of new ports. They just wanted some kind of provision for direct communication between the East India Company staff in Canton and a high ranking official in Beijing in order to circumvent the troubles they had been having with the Hoppo and governor general of canton. They also wanted to be allowed to do business with others aside from the Hong merchants. Officials from Beijing met with Amherst as soon as the British ships anchored at the mouth of the white river in early august. They escorted him along the way, but also asked him to Kowtow in front of a piece of yellow silk that represented the emperor. They wanted to see that the man understood how to do the kowtow. Amherst was given instructions from the British government simply to do what he thinks best in the situation of the kow towing issue, but to make sure the mission was a success. Thus the first time he was asked to do it he refused and stated that since Macartney did not kow tow why should he. The Qing officials were confused and said as far as they knew Macartney did kow tow to the emperor in 1793. Then they reminded Amherst the Emperor Jiaqing was present in 1793 and would have seen it occur, best he kow tow as well. George Staunton told Amherst they were mistaken and that he never saw Macartney kow tow. As you can imagine it was now a case of Emperor Jiaqing's word against Staunton, a man the emperor did not like. Amherst was in a bad situation, so he simply stated he would do the kow tow when the time came, but stressed he would do it on one knee and not two. He tried to compromise by offering to kiss the emperors hand which utterly disgusted the Qing officials. The highest ranking Qing official escorting the foreigners was Heshitai, brother in law to Emperor Jaiqing. He told Amherst he had to bow on both knees or he would be expelled from the capital without audience.   The entourage made it just a mile outside Beijing where crowds of spectators began assembling on the sides of the roads to see their approach. They made their way to the eastern gate at night and the massive walls astounded them. They road in springless wooden carts, a quite uncomfortable ride at that. Amherst was told his audience would take place immediately and in fact he was actually late for it. Amherst panicked he was not ready, he was fatigued and unkept, his baggage had not even arrived yet which held his coronation robes for the occasion. He did not even have the letter from the prince regent to be given to the Emperor! Heshitai told him he had to go now, but Amherst refused. Amherst demanded they be given time to clean up, gather their baggage and rest. Heshitai eventually got another Qing official to grab hold of Amherst and dragged him to see the emperor.    It is here we get many conflicting stories about what goes down. In a classical one it is said, the Qing officials grab Amherst in the middle of the night when he is disoriented and try to force him to kow tow in a private room, hoping the half asleep man would just do it. Apparently Staunton grabs Amherst by the elbow before he can do the deed and they suddenly leave the place before seeing the emperor. A lot of unanswered questions to be sure. In another story the try to get Amherst to go see the emperor, but he simply refuses and him and his entourage basically fight their way out of their lodgings and leave on the evening of November 13. Regardless what is important to know is the British entourage and Emperor Jiaqing have no idea whats going on at all, they are both at the mercy of reports from the middle men, IE:  the escort officials like Heshitai.   During the slow journey back south to Canton, one of their ships, the Alceste had bombarded a Chinese fort guarding the Tiger's Mouth river entrance to Canton! Dozens of shots were fired and it is said 47 Chinese soldiers were killed. The Alceste had returned from surveying the Pearl river when the captain Murray Maxwell requested permission to sail up to the Whampoa anchorage so it could make repairs on the ship before picking up Amherst's entourage on their way back. Maxwell alleges he was taunted by the Qing representative to the governor general who told him that Amherst had been sent away from the capital without an audience. Murray Maxwell was thus denied permission to go to the Whampoa anchorage and was forced to wait on an outlying island. After a week of waiting, Maxwell had had it and decided to force up the river without permission. As soon as the Alceste began sailing it was confronted by a Chinese fleet and soon a fire fight. The Alceste began blasting away the Chinese coastal defenses, working her way up the river channel to get to Whampoa anchorage.    Both the British entourage and Emperor Jiaqing were mystified as to what happened. The Emperor sent his personal doctor to see to Amherst whom he had assumed must be very sick for missing the meeting only to find out the man was perfectly healthy. After some investigation the Emperor realized the entire debacle was the fault of the escorting officials, above all Heshitai! It turns out the Emperor had been lied to by the escorting officials and fed false reports. The British blamed the emperor for the entire misadventure. The Emperor was livid by everything, but there was a saving grace to the embarrassment on his nation's part, the embarrassment of the Alceste ordeal. When the Alceste made it to Whampoa the governor generals welcomed the ship as if nothing had ever happened. The Emperor sent conciliatory edicts and gifts for the King of England. The Emperor also sent a letter to the king, but he had written it before his investigation of all the matters and thus wrote that he blamed Amherst for the entire ordeal.   The mission was a catastrophe. Trade would continue unaffected, but now both nations had been humiliated. Now the Chinese would look with more suspicion at the British and the British hopes for extending trade outside the canton system were dashed. As quite a fitting end to the entire ordeal, the Alceste which was carrying Amherst and his retinue back to England slammed into a rock and sank. England's response to the Amherst mission was disappointment. The entire situation aided one group of people in Britain, those who sought to abolish the East India Company's monopoly over the China trade. One major critic of the Amherst mission was Napoleon Bonaparte exiled on Saint Helena in 1817. He thought it was ridiculous that such an ordeal came about because the British fretted over kow towing. But he ended his statements with this “It would be the worst thing you have done for a number of years, to go to war with an immense empire like China, what might happen if the dragon, as it were, should be awakened? You would doubtless, at first, succeed…but you would teach them their own strength. They would be compelled to adopt measures to defend themselves against you; they would consider, and say, ‘we must try to make ourselves equal to this nation. Why should we suffer a people, so far away, to do as they please to us? We must build ships, we must put guns into them, we must render ourselves equal to them.' They would get artificers, and ship builders, from France, and America, and even from London; they would build a fleet,and, in the course of time, defeat you.”    I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  The attempts at opening up more trade with China were disastrous and embarrassing for Britain. She needed her tea fix, but her silver reserves were depleted and thus the East India Company began to deal in opium. How could this possibly all go wrong?

As Asia and EM equities continue to experience what may end up being the longest bear market in the history of the asset class, looking to past bear markets may give investors some insight into when to come off the sidelines.-----Transcript-----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jonathan Garner, Chief Asia and Emerging Market Equity Strategist at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be discussing whether we're nearing the end of the current bear market in Asia and emerging market equities. It's Wednesday, August the 24th, at 8 a.m. in Singapore. The ongoing bear market in Asia and EM equities is the 11th which I've covered as a strategist. And in this episode I want to talk about some lessons I've learned from those prior experiences, and indeed how close we may be to the end of this current bear market. A first key point to make is that this is already the second longest in duration of the 11 bear markets I've covered. Only that which began with the puncturing of the dot com bubble by a Fed hike cycle in February 2000 was longer. This is already a major bear market by historical standards. My first experience of bear markets was one of the most famous, that which took place from July 1997 to September 1998 and became known as the Asian Financial Crisis. That lasted for 518 days, with a peak to trough decline of 59%. And as with so many others, the trigger was a tightening of U.S. monetary policy at the end of 1996 and a stronger U.S. dollar. That bear market ended only when the U.S. Federal Reserve did three interest rate cuts in quick succession at the end of 1998 in response to the long term capital management and Russia defaults. Indeed, a change in U.S. monetary policy and/or a peak in the U.S. dollar have tended to be crucial in marking the troughs in Asia and EM equity bear markets. And that includes the two bear markets prior to the current one, which ended in March 2020 and October 2018. However, changes in Chinese monetary policy and China's growth cycles, starting with the bear market ending in October 2008, have been of increasing importance in recent cycles. Indeed, easier policy in China in late 2008 preceded a turn in U.S. monetary policy and helped Asia and EM equities lead the recovery in global markets after the global financial crisis. Although China has been easing policy for almost a year thus far, the degree of easing as measured by M2 growth or overall lending growth is smaller than in prior cycles. And at least in part, that's because China is attempting to pull off the difficult feat of restructuring its vast and highly leveraged property sector, whilst also pursuing a strategy of COVID containment involving closed loop production and episodic consumer lockdowns. Those key differences are amongst a number of factors which have led us to recommend staying on the sidelines this year, both in our overall coverage in Asia and emerging markets, but also with respect to China. We have preferred Japan, and parts of ASEAN, the Middle East and Latin America. Finally, as we look ahead I would also note that one feature of being later on in a bear market is a sudden fall in commodity prices. And certainly from mid-June there have been quite material declines in copper, iron ore and more recently, the oil price. Meanwhile, classic defensive sectors are outperforming. And that sort of late cycle behavior within the index itself raises the question of whether by year end Asia and EM equities could once again transition to offering an interesting early cycle cyclical play. That more positive scenario for next year would depend on global and U.S. headline inflation starting to fall back, whether we would see a peak in the U.S. dollar and Fed rate hike pricing.For the time being, though, as the clock ticks down to the current bear market becoming the longest in the history of the asset class, we still think patience will be rewarded a while longer. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and recommend Thoughts on the Market to a friend or colleague today.

We are living in a globalized world and China is the third largest economy in the world Although China has been a net importer of gold, the Chinese government sees value in gold as a way of diversifying an economy that is currently dominated by exports If China were to accumulate $2 trillion of gold, this would be a lot of money based on the current gold price However, if China were to start purchasing large quantities of gold, this would have a big impact on the gold market The more gold that China buys, the higher the gold price would go China would also be sending a signal to the rest of the world that gold is a valuable asset CHINA IS THE LARGEST EXPORTING COUNTRY IN THE WORLD The United States is the world's largest importing country This is because the United States has a large population that consumes a lot of goods China is the world's largest exporting country As a result, China is a net seller of goods to the rest of the world . China exports $3 trillion of goods per year to the world in 2021. China exports reflect 14 percent of the global market. United States is the top trade partner followed by Hong Kong and Japan and South Korea and Vietnam and Germany and Netherlands and India and the United Kingdom and Taiwan and Malaysia and Thailand and Mexico and Australia and Russia . China exports oil and gas, aluminum and steel, cars and trucks, pharmaceuticals, led and solar, processing equipment and fabric and bicycles and plastics and electronic components and lathes and adhesives and electrical equipment and beverages and finished goods. China has a $156 billion trade deficit with Taiwan for 2021. https://www.worldstopexports.com/chinas-top-import-partners/ China has a large population that is able to consume products that are made in the country This is why China's exports are so large China needs to export goods to its own people China has a large population that needs goods China is also a very large country with a lot of resources This is why China is the world's largest exporting country CHINA HAS A LARGE POPULATION China is the world's most populous country with a population that is approaching 1 5 billion China is a very large country with a lot of people This is why China produces a lot of goods and goods are sold to its population China is the world's largest trading nation This is because China's population is large and it needs many goods CHINA HAS A LARGE RESOURCE BASE China has a lot of resources and can produce a lot of goods This is why China is the world's largest exporter China is a country that has a lot of people, a lot of resources, and a lot of goods While China is the world's largest exporter, it is also the world's 2nd largest importer of goods in the world. Goods imported exceed $2 trillion. China imports agricultural goods, manufactured goods and chemicals and pork. China imports from Asia countries. China needs to import a lot of goods because it has a large population that consumes these goods China is a large country with a lot of people and a lot of resources https://www.statista.com/topics/1471/imports-to-china/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/david-nishimoto/message

China's private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) industry has been a story of burgeoning growth mixed with market correction. Although China's PE/VC market only started in the early 2000s, investors' appetite has made it the second largest in the world. In 2021 alone, China-focused PE/VC funds raised an aggregate of $72bn, and the country's total PE/VC AUM has reached $1.92tn by the year end. Paying attention to China's long-term and top-level policy decisions is always the key for general partners and venture capitalists to invest as well as manage their risks in China. Seizing the country's transition from export-dependent to innovation-powered, and investing advanced technologies can be rewarded. Meanwhile, ignoring signs and messages from the government might be done at investors' peril, as regulatory shake-ups last year showed. Investing in China's PE/VC market becomes more complicated due to geopolitical, regulatory and other concerns, but foreign especially Asian investors remain highly committed to China. The fundamental drivers behind the enthusiasm lie in the country's ever rising consumption power and unswerving focus on innovation.  In the fifth episode of “China Finance with a Cup of Tea,” Caixin invited Ms. Anna FANG, CEO and Founding Partner of ZhenFund, an early-stage venture capital firm, and Mr. LIAO Ming, Founding Partner of Prospect Avenue Capital (PAC), a growth capital fund, to share their insights on the private equity and venture capital industry in China and what international investors can do to navigate this market.

Although China denies it, its draconian Zero-COVID lockdown policy is pushing up the cost of Chinese manufacturing as well as global production costs and inflation. 

Chinese Historical Context: So What Changes in All These Revolutions? This episode is a Wikipedia-fueled survey of traditional Chinese structures being changed by the revolutions we're about to cover. Today we cover three main things: Chinese imperial system Confucian examination system Chinese economy Chinese imperial system Qin Shihuang, the "first emperor of China" set the precedent in traceable history for a unified China. He standardized imperial rule, Chinese writing, weights and measures, the lot. China sat at the center of an East Asian cultural system. China would occasionally conquer and absorb some neighbor, but even neighbors that maintained their independence were held in the Chinese gravitational pull. European imperial expansion and advances in European medicine allowed for long-term stationing of Europeans in Asia, and so challenged the centuries-old Chinese imperial cultural sphere in East Asia. Confucian scholarship and examination system Confucian scholarship was all about aligning oneself and one's rule with the cosmic order. A series of extremely rigorous examinations governed the rise of talented individuals to bureaucratic offices in the Chinese government. Educated individuals who did NOT pass these exams formed lower professional classes and they give us the classes from which many revolutionaries emerged. As the revolutions roll on, a dichotomy will emerge between Western learning and traditional Chinese learning. A new synthesis will emerge ... eventually. Chinese economy The Chinese economy was solidly agrarian at the time of the Opium Wars. The difference between 1500 and 1800 is not that great. The coming shock to the Chinese system is the result of the clash between two sides with very different postures in dealing with global events. China had a centralized money system, but the stress on this as a result of integration with the world economy contributes to the threat to the legitimacy of the Qing dynasty. Although China had coastal defenses, they didn't have a power projecting navy like the British or other European powers. Piracy was an ongoing concern. Pirates, bandits, and secret societies form an essential dimension of the Chinese economy ... and revolutionary movements. If You'd Like to Support the Podcast Subscribe, share, leave a rating. THIS IS FREE! Give once, give monthly at www.buymeacoffee.com/crpodcast Subscribe to the substack newsletter at https://chineserevolutions.substack.com/ Also... Please reach out at chineserevolutions@gmail.com and let me know what you think!

Kia ora,Welcome to Thursday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.I'm David Chaston and this is the International edition from Interest.co.nz.Today we lead with news the economic bite by Omicron might be much worse that feared, even as recently as yesterday.Yesterday's warning on what this weekend's US non-farm payrolls report may have been a timely one. Today, the precursor ADP employment report said US payrolls fell in their system by -300,000 in January on the Omicron impact. (A gain of +200,000 was expected.) The main cutbacks (half) were in the hospitality and leisure industries. Most other industries cut back too, although not all. But half the rest were declines in the logistics sector, vulnerable to the pandemic because they seems reluctant to accept the mask mandate. They are paying the price. The estimated +150,000 January gain in non-farm payrolls now looks far, far too optimistic.This news caused risk aversion in the bond market. But the equity markets are still more focused on very good earnings reports coming through.Going the other way, there was a surge in mortgage applications last week in the US. That is despite US mortgage interest rates rising to two year highs.Meanwhile, their total gross level of public debt hit US$30 tln as at the end of January, although $6.5 tln of that is owed to other Federal agencies, so the amount owed to the public is $23.5 tln, about 100% of current US annual GDP. Of that, less than $6 tln (a quarter) is owned to people or institutions outside the US.Canadian building permits fell in December and by more than expected. A -1.2% decline was expected by analysts, but in the end a -1.9% was reported. But at least it does come off a very strong November.Although China is on holiday, the latest IMF review of their economy notes it is unbalanced and needs for fiscal support. It especially wants to see more social services spending. Meanwhile, the Chinese property market is off to a terrible start in January. Sales from the top 100 developers fell -40% year-on-year, and are set to get worse in February.The EU's 5.0% December inflation rate was expected to ease back to 4.4% in January. But in fact it rose marginally to 5.1%, a record high and well above the ECB's target of 2%. However, their core inflation rate - without food or energy - did retreat, to 2.3% although not quite to the level expected (1.9%). So there is real pressure on the ECB to act on inflation now.India's finance minister has said the country will launch a digital version of the rupee as early as this year. They follow China which already has a trial under way. India also plans a 30% tax on income from digital assets.In Australia, the boss of the RBA was out explaining their current policy positions overnight. In informal remarks later he conceded that rate hikes there are 'plausible' this year if wages growth rises.The UST 10yr yield opens today at 1.75% and down -4 bps. The price of gold starts today at US$1809 and up another +US$6 from this time yesterday.And oil prices start today little-changed from yesterday at just on US$87/bbl in the US, while the international Brent price is now just overUS$88.50/bbl.The Kiwi dollar will open today little-changed at 66.3 USc. Against the Australian dollar we are also little-changed at our lower level at 93 AUc. Against the euro we are softer at 58.6 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 starts today at 70.8 and a small net slip.The bitcoin price is down -4.4% since this time yesterday and now at US$37,299. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been moderate at +/- 2.8%.You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.And get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz.Kia ora. I'm David Chaston and we'll do this again tomorrow.

綠色能源趨勢，加上健康意識提高，大和看好自行車大廠巨大（9921）需求前景，特別是歐洲、美國的中長期需求樂觀，給出買入評等，目標價410元。 https://youtu.be/3-Ly3-ZRfmM 大和表示，目前巨大的訂單能見度到2023年初，儘管中國方面對入門級產品的需求放緩，不過仍看好長期需求。此外，電動自行車會是驅動營收的一項重要因素，電動自行車今年上半年佔整體營收30%，毛利率26%至27%，一般自行車毛利率則為22%至23%。 定價方面，巨大今年提高了5%至10%，抵銷了今年運費、零件漲價等多出來的成本。 大和預期，巨大缺料的情況會在2022年Q2或Q3緩解，主因在於Shimano和KMC等零件供應商積極擴大產能。此外，2024年巨大越南新廠啟用，屆時最大年產量可達100外台，利於出口歐美市場 自行車大廠巨大 (9921) 今天公布9月合併營收新台幣65.2億元，較8月增加9.34%，年增1.09 %；美利達 (9914) 公布9月合併營收18.23億元，則因缺櫃等因素，月減29.14%，年減24.04%。 巨大透過新聞稿說明，以原幣計算，自有品牌在3大主要市場表現，包括捷安特歐洲、捷安特美國9月營收都較8月有兩位數成長，但捷安特中國內銷則持平。 美利達新聞稿指出，導致9月產量和營業額下降的3個因素包括國內、外料件供應不穩定，及物料盤點與連續假日影饗產出，加上受企業資源規劃（ERP）系統優化，新、舊平台轉換期間影饗，產能利用率偏低；後續將逐步回穩。 另外，美利達表示，受貨櫃短缺、船班安排不順影饗出口，滯留成車庫存近1.5萬台。 不過，兩家自行車廠今年前9月合併營收均較去年同期成長，巨大1至9月合併營收619億元，年增17.83%；美利達1至9月累計銷售總台數93萬436台，年增12.49%，累計營收227.59億元，年增12.87% https://youtu.be/3-Ly3-ZRfmM ====== With the trend of green energy and increased health awareness, Yamato is optimistic about the huge (9921) demand prospects of large bicycle manufacturers, especially the optimistic mid- and long-term demand in Europe and the United States. It gives a buy rating and a target price of 410 yuan. Yamato said that the current huge order visibility will be until early 2023. Although China's demand for entry-level products has slowed, it is still optimistic about long-term demand. In addition, electric bicycles will be an important factor driving revenue. In the first half of this year, electric bicycles accounted for 30% of overall revenue, with a gross profit margin of 26% to 27%, and a general bicycle gross profit margin of 22% to 23%. In terms of pricing, a huge increase of 5% to 10% this year has offset the additional costs of freight and parts price increases this year. Yamato expects that the huge shortage of materials will be relieved in Q2 or Q3 of 2022, mainly due to the active expansion of production capacity by parts suppliers such as Shimano and KMC. In addition, the huge new factory in Vietnam will be opened in 2024, and the maximum annual output will reach 100 units, which will be beneficial to export to the European and American markets. Bicycle manufacturer Huge (9921) announced today that its consolidated revenue for September was NT$6.52 billion, an increase of 9.34% from August and an annual increase of 1.09%; Merida (9914) announced its consolidated revenue for September of NT$1.823 billion due to lack of cabinets. And other factors, the monthly decrease is 29.14%, and the annual decrease is 24.04%. According to the press release, in terms of original currency, the performance of its own brands in the three major markets, including Giant Europe and Giant America, had double-digit growth in September compared with August, but Giant's domestic sales in China remained flat. Merida's press release pointed out that the three factors that led to the decline in production and turnover in September included unstable domestic and foreign material and parts supply, and material inventory and continuous holiday output, plus the optimization of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. During the transition period between the new and old platforms, the capacity utilization rate was low; it will gradually stabilize in the future. In addition, Merida said that due to the shortage of containers and the unsatisfactory schedule of the ship, nearly 15,000 vehicles were stranded in stock. However, the combined revenue of the two bicycle factories in the first September of this year grew compared to the same period last year. The combined revenue from January to September was 61.9 billion yuan, an annual increase of 17.83%; Merida's cumulative sales from January to September were 930,000,436 units. , An annual increase of 12.49%, accumulative revenue of 22.759 billion yuan, an annual increase of 12.87% ====== Germay Angesichts des Trends zu grüner Energie und einem gestiegenen Gesundheitsbewusstsein ist Yamato optimistisch hinsichtlich der enormen (9921) Nachfrageaussichten großer Fahrradhersteller, insbesondere der optimistischen mittel- und langfristigen Nachfrage in Europa und den Vereinigten Staaten ein Kursziel von 410 Yuan. Yamato sagte, dass die derzeitige große Auftragsvisibilität bis Anfang 2023 andauern wird. Obwohl sich Chinas Nachfrage nach Einstiegsprodukten verlangsamt hat, ist es hinsichtlich der langfristigen Nachfrage immer noch optimistisch. Darüber hinaus stellen Elektrofahrräder einen wichtigen Umsatztreiber dar. Im ersten Halbjahr dieses Jahres machten Elektrofahrräder 30% des Gesamtumsatzes aus, mit einer Bruttogewinnmarge von 26% bis 27% und einer allgemeinen Bruttogewinnmarge für Fahrräder von 22% bis 23%. In Bezug auf die Preisgestaltung hat ein enormer Anstieg von 5 bis 10 % in diesem Jahr die zusätzlichen Kosten für Fracht und Teilepreiserhöhungen in diesem Jahr ausgeglichen. Yamato erwartet, dass die enorme Materialknappheit im 2. oder 3. Quartal 2022 vor allem durch den aktiven Ausbau der Produktionskapazitäten durch Teilelieferanten wie Shimano und KMC gelindert wird. Darüber hinaus wird die riesige neue Fabrik in Vietnam im Jahr 2024 eröffnet und die maximale Jahresproduktion wird 100 Einheiten erreichen, was für den Export in den europäischen und amerikanischen Markt von Vorteil sein wird. Der Fahrradhersteller Huge (9921) gab heute bekannt, dass sein konsolidierter Umsatz für September 6,52 Mrd. NT$ betrug, was einem Anstieg von 9,34 % gegenüber August und einem jährlichen Anstieg von 1,09 % entspricht; Merida (9914) gab seinen konsolidierten Umsatz für September von 1,823 Mrd. NT$ bekannt aufgrund von Mangel an Schränken Und andere Faktoren, der monatliche Rückgang beträgt 29,14 % und der jährliche Rückgang beträgt 24,04 %. Laut Pressemitteilung wuchs die Performance der Eigenmarken in den drei großen Märkten, darunter Giant Europe und Giant America, im September im Vergleich zum August zweistellig, während der Inlandsumsatz von Giant in China unverändert blieb . In der Pressemitteilung von Merida wurde darauf hingewiesen, dass die drei Faktoren, die im September zum Rückgang von Produktion und Umsatz führten, eine instabile in- und ausländische Material- und Teileversorgung, Materialbestände und kontinuierliche Urlaubsausgaben sowie die Optimierung des ERP-Systems (Enterprise Resource Planning) sind. Während der Übergangszeit zwischen neuer und alter Plattform war die Auslastung gering, sie wird sich in Zukunft sukzessive stabilisieren. Darüber hinaus seien aufgrund der Containerknappheit und des unbefriedigenden Fahrplans des Schiffes fast 15.000 Fahrzeuge auf Lager gestrandet, teilte Merida mit. Der kombinierte Umsatz der beiden Fahrradfabriken im ersten September dieses Jahres stieg jedoch im Vergleich zum gleichen Zeitraum des Vorjahres. Der kombinierte Umsatz von Januar bis September betrug 61,9 Milliarden Yuan, ein jährlicher Anstieg von 17,83 %; der kumulierte Gesamtumsatz von Merida von Januar bis September betrug 930.000.436 Einheiten. , Ein jährliches Wachstum von 12,49 %, ein kumulierter Umsatz von 22,759 Milliarden Yuan, ein jährliches Wachstum von 12,87 % *** Discount website of VIP Members https://youtu.be/3-Ly3-ZRfmM Powered by Firstory Hosting

As African countries work to rebuild their economies from the wreckage caused by the ongoing COVID pandemic, policymakers will be looking at what they can do to bolster their countries' state-owned enterprises (SOE). That may prompt them to examine China's model of SOE governance for some inspiration.Although China's SOE system is largely unique to China and would be impossible to replicate in African countries, Luke Jordan, a practitioner in resident at the MIT Governance Lab, recently suggested in a new paper published by SAIIA that are, in fact, certain attributes that African stakeholders should consider.Luke joins Eric & Cobus from Belin to discuss his paper and what specific lessons about China's SOE experience he thinks would be applicable in an African context.JOIN THE DISCUSSION:CAP on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProjectTwitter: @eolander | @stadenesque | @lukesjordanLinkedIn: Luke Jordan https://bit.ly/3mQfPvc SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHINA AFRICA PROJECTYour subscription supports independent journalism. Subscribers get the following:1. The world's only curated China-Africa News Feed with thousands of articles archive2. Exclusive analysis of the day's top stories about China in Africa and the Global South3. A copy of the popular China-Africa Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox by 6am Washington time M-FTry it free for 30-days and see if you like it. Subscriptions start at just $7 a month for students and teachers and $15 a month for everyone else. Subscribe here: www.chinaafricaproject.com/subscribeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry will be in China next week to pressure the government to renounce all future financing of coal power plants around the world. Although China generally does not respond well to foreign demands like this, Beijing may have already acceded to Kerry's request. So far this year, China hasn't financed a single overseas coal project. This is the first time that's happened in more than a decade and appears to be part of a growing trend to focus its development finance initiatives on greener, cleaner projects that are smaller and less risky financially.Christoph Nedopil, director of the Green Finance and Development Center at Fudan University, is among the world's leading experts in tracking Chinese sustainable energy finance, particularly in Belt and Road countries. He joins Eric & Cobus from Shanghai to discuss the findings from his latest BRI investment report for H1 2021.JOIN THE DISCUSSION:CAP on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProjectTwitter: @eolander | @stadenesque | @nedopilSUBSCRIBE TO THE CHINA AFRICA PROJECTYour subscription supports independent journalism. Subscribers get the following:1. The world's only curated China-Africa News Feed with thousands of articles archive2. Exclusive analysis of the day's top stories about China in Africa and the Global South3. A copy of the popular China-Africa Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox by 6am Washington time M-FTry it free for 30-days and see if you like it. Subscriptions start at just $7 a month for students and teachers and $15 a month for everyone else. Subscribe here: www.chinaafricaproject.com/subscribeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The final living member of the Khmer Rouge regime took the stand Monday in an attempt to overturn charges of genocide and war crimes he'd been previously convicted of in 2018. In what is believed to be the Khmer Rouge tribunal's final hearing, the legal team of 90-year-old Khieu Samphan, former Khmer Rouge head of state, argued in a Phnom Penh courtroom that their client did not have adequate time to prepare an initial defense, among other things. “It [the verdict] should be null and void, and so I am requesting the Supreme Court chamber to … reverse the judgment,” attorney Kong Sam On told the judges, according to the AP. Experts say the original conviction is unlikely to be overturned, though a ruling isn't expected until next year. Samphan is one of just a handful of former leaders of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, whose members are commonly known as the Khmer Rouge, that the tribunal has managed to try and convict since it started prosecuting some 15 years ago. Some have lauded the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, also known as the Khmer Rouge tribunal, but it may actually end up with a mixed legacy.Related: Cambodian refugees saved from deportation through pardons‘The tribunal was the answer' The Cambodian government established the tribunal in 1997, in conjunction with the United Nations, with the goal of putting Khmer Rouge leaders on trial for allegedly committing crimes against humanity and other heinous acts during the region's rule between 1975 and 1979.At the time, the lofty project had overwhelming support from the Cambodian people, said Youk Chhang, executive director of the Phnom Penh-based Documentation Center of Cambodia, which possesses the largest archive on the Khmer Rouge period. “I think people also wanted to give justice a chance. ... They want people to recognize the suffering that people have been through. So, the tribunal was the answer.”Youk Chhang, executive director, Documentation Center of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Cambodia“I think people also wanted to give justice a chance,” he said. “They want people to recognize the suffering that people have been through. So, the tribunal was the answer.”Chhang, 60, was a teenager living in Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge took power following the Cambodian Civil war. He said he remembers the locking down of cities and forced evictions of people into the countryside. Related: Cambodians reflect on Khmer Rouge: 'It was chaos.'His family ended up feeling the country — but not without heavy costs. Chhang lost his father, some sisters, uncles and cousins.“It's been broke, you know, it's a broken family. Not just our family, but for the entire Cambodia,” Chhang said.Some 2 million Cambodians died during the totalitarian rule of the Khmer Rouge, about 25% of the country. Many of the victims were suspected political opponents, while others perished during a failed agricultural reform that led to widespread famine. Early surveys, including this one from the University of California Berkeley School of Law, showed that the tribunal, which consisted of both Cambodian and international judges, had overwhelming support. Public participation was key to that success, Chhang said. Since the public can file complaints, seek reparations and testify during hearings, “there's a sense of ownership of history.”Yet, while the tribunal brought some closure and a lot of awareness to atrocities committed by the regime, that level of participation also spurred frustration, he said. These frustrations range from constant financial troubles to alleged meddling by the Cambodian government ruled by Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander who has openly voiced disapproval of the tribunal.These frustrations, experts say, have eroded the perception of the body over time — even though a recent survey from the Documentation Center of Cambodia shows the Cambodian people overwhelmingly still want Khmer Rouge leaders brought to justice.“It feels to be political — not a proper tribunal in a sense — but because there's too much compromise. ...But I think for the first conviction and the second conviction there was some sense of justice being done.”Virak Ou, human rights activist, Phnom Penh, Cambodia“It feels to be political — not a proper tribunal in a sense — but because there's too much compromise,” said Virak Ou, a human rights activist based in Phnom Penh, who lost his father during the Khmer Rouge. “But I think for the first conviction and the second conviction there was some sense of justice being done.”Still, it took a while to get there — highlighting another frustration with the tribunal: its glacial pace at getting anything done.Not only did it take 10 years just to set up the body itself, by the time hearings began in the late 2000s, Ou said, to the Cambodian eye, the defendants looked like regular grandparents. “So, it was very difficult to connect the level of brutality of the alleged crime to the people who are supposed to stand trial,” he said. Waning influence The tribunal's first conviction didn't come until 2010 when Keng Guek Eav, commonly known as Commander Duch, was sentenced to life in prison on a slew of charges, including crimes against humanity, murder and torture. He is most known for his role in overseeing the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21, where thousands were interrogated, tortured and eventually executed. The prison is now a museum and memorial to its victims. Longtime journalist May Titthara recalls going to Duch's village to cover reactions to the verdict. There, May said, Duch was known as a teacher and a good man. “But when they saw him in front of the TV they were so surprised. They say, ‘Oh, my friend! I cannot believe that you are the chief of police of S-21!'” Titthara said.Other defendants have been of similar ages — or even older. Some, like Duch, have died while serving out their sentences. Other Khmer Rouge senior leaders, including the infamous military commander Pol Pot, died before they could be tried. May said that while the tribunal may have once been very important to an older generation, many Cambodians now have other things on their mind — like widespread poverty and the pandemic.“Right now, Cambodian people, they care about their daily living. They think about their food, how can they survive when they're locked down. So they don't care about the hearing anymore."May Titthara, journalist, Cambodia“Right now, Cambodian people, they care about their daily living. They think about their food, how can they survive when they're locked down. So, they don't care about the hearing anymore,” May said. Virak Ou agrees with that sentiment. He said while the Cambodian people may be happy in 20-30 years that the perpetrators of the killing fields were at least put on trial, ultimately, the tribunal cannot fix many of the country's current problems. “Because of that, I don't think many of the Cambodian population, or Cambodian people, have the privilege to focus on closure and justice and a process that could be dragging on for months, if not years,” Ou said.Wider implications The tribunal's end could potentially have wider geopolitical implications — especially when it comes to China. China was a crucial backer of Khmer Rouge and was never supportive of the tribunal, said Josh Kurtlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Affairs. Each hearing served as a reminder of how Beijing supported the regime. Although China is Cambodia's largest investor today, he also noted that Beijing is acutely aware of rising anti-Chinese sentiment in the region.“So, they don't want stories widely circulating of China backing one of the — probably after the Nazis — one of the most brutal regimes in world history,” Kurtlantzick said.

Today we will be talking about debt swaps and China's role in the global financial landscape, with Rebecca Ray and Blake Alexander Simmons of BU. Although China has only recently become a major creditor, it has already built a strong record of bilateral debt relief and has even begun to advocate for linking actions to promote biodiversity and fighting climate change with international finance and debt relief.   Guests: Rebecca Ray is a Senior Academic Researcher at the Global Development Policy Center, at Boston University. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and an MA in International Development from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. Since 2013, she has focused on the nexus of international development finance, particularly China's role in reshaping the global financial landscape, and sustainable development, particularly in Latin America. She produces the annual China-Latin America Economic Bulletin series and the China's Overseas Development Finance database. She was lead editor for the books China and Sustainable Development in Latin America: the Social and Environmental Dimension and Development Banks and Sustainability in the Andean Amazon. Blake Alexander Simmons is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Global Development Policy Center. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Queensland (Australia) and his M.S. from the University of Antwerp (Belgium). His research focuses on how environmental, political, and psychosocial factors influence conservation decisions in social-ecological systems, and how we can change behaviors to achieve positive outcomes for people and nature. At the GDPC, Blake is investigating the impacts of China's Belt and Road Initiative on biodiversity and indigenous peoples.   References: Blake Alexander Simmons, Rebecca Ray, Yang H, Kevin P. Gallagher, "China can help solve the debt and environmental crises," Science (80), 21 January 2021, at https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf4049, or https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6528/468.   Time stamps for our discussion: 2:33 – How could China use debt for nature swaps and what's the model? 2:50 – China is world's largest low-income bilateral creditor. Countries are struggling to repay given Covid. 4:00 – Relieving a portion of debt in exchange for climate protection. Science paper lists which are best countries for this solution. 4:45 – Three economic trends: capital flight, currency volatility, and drop in trade. All challenge debt repayment and capital investment. If countries can't make repayments anyway, shared goals are a way to renegotiate commitments without default. 6:00 – China has been at the forefront of debt relief for poorest countries. 6:30 – How does this affect China's position as a creditor? 7:00 – China's debt portfolio highly concentrated in a few countries. China has an interest in restructuring with these countries because of the long-term diplomatic and economic relationships—Venezuela as an example. 8:15 – What's the difference of a debt-for-nature and debt-for-climate swap? 10:00 – History and examples of debt-for-nature swaps, going back to 1980s and 1990s. WWF pioneered, Ecuador was an early case. Third parties like WWF or the Nature Conservancy would pay for a portion of outstanding debts in exchange for conservation policies. 11:30 – Example of bilateral debt-for-nature swaps. Early cases of debt-for-climate. 12:50 – Example of the Seychelles and the marine protected areas. 14:00 – Nature-performance-linked-bonds. Examples of Ecuador and Argentina proposals. 17:30 – How does enforcement work? Are there standards? 19:00 – Inclusion of local communities in enforcement versus top-down goal-setting and monitoring. 23:00 – Announcements that could come from CBD COP. Discussions with CCICED. 25:30 – Expectations about green finance for nature. 28:00 – Why China still financing coal projects and whether that contradicts the idea of debt-for-climate swaps.  

Bible Study with Jairus- Romans 11 In chapter 11, Paul focuses on how salvation came to the Gentiles because of the Israelites unbelief.  He discussed how God's salvation would come to the Jews again, and all Israel will be saved when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.  A man in our study questioned Romans 11:32, “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.”  Why did consigning us to disobedience instead become God's mercy? There are many different beliefs about why the Israelites are consigned to disobedience and what God's plan is for them.  There are also many theological controversies about when the full number of Gentiles is and how the Israelites are eventually saved. One of the controversies is whether the Israelites' unbelief results from them living under a curse. Matthew 27:24-25 records that Pilate refused to be involved in Jesus' crucifixion because he did not want the man's blood on him, so he washed his hands and told the Israelites to take care of it.  But the people of Israel answered him, "His blood is on us and on our children!"  So Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified. There has been much controversy over-interpreting the sentence: “His blood is on us and our children.”   Some people believe that the tragic fate of the Jews, including the Holocaust during World War II, was brought about by this curse. In the history of Christianity, some believe that since the Jews crucified Jesus, they should be held accountable for their actions. In the second century, this trend of thought appeared among Christians.  In the 4th century, the famous "St. John Chrysostom" pushed this discourse to a peak.  He said that the Jews murdered Jesus and worshipped the devil.  You can find his book "Saint John Chrysostom: Eight Homilies Against the Jews” on the Internet, which carried out severe attacks on the Jews.  Under his exacerbation, anti-Semitism in Europe began to take root. Martin Luther, who sparked the Reformation, is also an anti-Semitist.  His later work "On the Jews and Their Lies" also expressed serious allegations against the Jews.   He encouraged believers to burn down Jewish synagogues and schools, warn people against them, refuse to let Jews own houses among Christians, take away Jewish religious writings, forbidding rabbis from preaching, and offer no protection to Jews on highways.  He also wanted to prohibit usury, remove all of the Jew's gold and silver, and set it aside for safekeeping.  It was only to be given back to those Jews who truly converted.  Young, strong Jews were to be given a flail, ax, spade, and spindle and let them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow. Generally, Christians do not pay much attention to theology, but theology's impact on us is very significant. You may unknowingly accept certain theological thinking, believe that it is the truth, and practice it in your life.  One day you may find that the erroneous theological thinking you unknowingly accepted may cause you to make some mistakes or be an accomplice of mistakes. Because of Martin Luther's anti-Semitism teachings and anti-Semitic thoughts in European history, Hitler of Germany used this kind of thinking to promote anti-Semitism.  Except for a few Christian people with great insight who were against Hitler and imprisoned or exiled in Nazi Germany, most German Christians played a tacit and conniving role in Hitler's anti-Semitism.  Therefore, in recent years, many theologians have also argued that the mass murder of Jews by the German Nazis is related to erroneous Christian theological teachings. These theologians all reflect that Luther and St. Johns Chrysostom's arguments about the Jews may be wrong. If you think that Matthew 27:24-25 is about the Jews being punished by God because they said that the blood shall be on them and on their children, it does not hold water.  There are two arguments.  The first is that the Lord Jesus prayed on the cross and said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (ESV, Luke 23:34).  This shows that the Lord Jesus has already forgiven them and asked Heavenly Father to forgive them.  The second argument is that the Bible says that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (ESV, Galatians 3:13).  If the Lord has forgiven us and redeemed us from the curse of the law, why didn't He forgive the Jews from the curse?  Aren't the Jews included in this? According to this statement, the Jews were also forgiven and redeemed from the curse.  Therefore, the Jews experiencing so much suffering and mass murder does not mean that God is cursing them.  It may be that Satan had taken advantage of the erroneous Christian teachings and hatred towards the Jews. So if God consigning the Jews to disobedience is not His curse to the Jews, then what is it?  I cited some examples, including personal examples and national examples, to illustrate this problem. First, I cited a personal experience and then my friend's experience.  I was the first Christian in our family to be saved.  I only got saved and believed in the Lord at the age of 27. I naturally sinned before I believed in the Lord.  After I was saved, I lived in two different student dormitories for six consecutive years.  Many of the people who lived with me grew up in Christian families.  I envied them.  They had known the Lord since they were children and hadn't made any major mistakes in life.  They were under God and the churches' protection.  One day we shared our salvation experiences.  I told them about my miraculous experience.  They were shocked especially knowing that I had survived miraculously with just 300 dollars when I first arrived in the United States.  They told me that they envied my experience because I had so much real and vivid experience of God.  Although they had been protected since childhood, they lacked experience. After I was saved, I asked the Lord why He didn't allow me to be born into a Christian family to know Him from a young age and avoid making so many mistakes and taking so many detours in my life.  I didn't realize until much later that God was calling me to help evangelize China.  The Holy Spirit spoke to me and told me about the great revival that would happen in China.  This became a burden that burned in my heart.  A Korean prophet told me that the Holy Spirit was leading every step of my life.  He said that God would use me to teach His truths and preach the Gospel all over China during that great revival.  In a prophetic dream, the Lord appeared to me as a big eagle with colorful wings, training a little eagle to fly.  I heard Him say, “I will train you like a big eagle trains a little eagle.”  If this is true, why did God allow me to experience all I have gone through? I asked the man who questioned Romans 11:32 at the beginning of our study whether he thought being born into a Christian family or an unbelieving family was more conducive to God's plan for my life.  We both felt that it was God's wisdom that I was born in an idol-worshipping family.  The house I grew up in was built on an abandoned Bodhisattva temple.  My family was a lowly peasant family, and I experienced suffering and sin amongst people who didn't know or believe in God. Once I was saved, I understood how terrible sin was and how stubborn idols and evil spirits are.  Perhaps God is preparing me to deal with all of these things when I preach the Gospel in the future.  By experiencing the pain of sin in the world and then being delivered from it through salvation, I realize that there is no darkness in God, and my wholehearted love for Him continues to deepen and mature.  I am also more empathetic toward those compatriots who have suffered as I have.  My friend who later lived in this dormitory and slept in the bunk above me had a very different experience. He said that he was born into a Christian family, but because he didn't have an experiential relationship with the Lord, he went abroad to do business and left the Lord for many years. Later, after retiring, he sold his business and returned to the United States to take care of his mother. He began to go to church with his mother, mainly to accompany her.  Over time as he listened to the sermons, his heart became open and alive to God.  He started serving full-time in the church, fell madly in love with the Lord, and became a good friend and an encouragement to me. Looking at the examples above, people's individual experiences reflect God's wisdom.  Whether we were first consigned to disobedience, or when we consigned ourselves to disobedience for a period of time after salvation, it is all God's wisdom.  The purpose is for us to experience some setbacks and to have a deeper understanding of God's salvation.  God's purpose is not to punish or neglect but to train and help us better experience His love and redemptive grace in a more profound way.  My personal experience has been like that.  The same is true of a country's experience.  I read a story about Hudson Taylor, which left a deep impression on me.  He went to China to preach the Gospel.  A Chinese man was saved, and he asked Hudson how long the British had known about the Gospel.  Hudson told him for hundreds of years.  The Chinese man said his father had sought after the truth all of his life, but no one had told him about Jesus or salvation.  He blamed Hudson for the fact that the British knew about the Gospel for hundreds of years, yet his father left the world not knowing the truth of the Gospel. When Paul was preaching the Gospel in Asia Minor, the Holy Spirit did not allow him to go east or north, nor did he allow him to preach in Asia Minor(Acts 16:6).  Instead, The Holy Spirit gave him a prophetic vision of Macedonia, letting him go west and evangelize Europe.  So, why did God want Paul to evangelize Europe first?  If the Holy Spirit led Paul to preach the Gospel from Asia Minor to the east at that time, wouldn't it be possible for China or Asia to be evangelized?  Why did God allow China to stay in the dark so long without preaching the Gospel to the Chinese people, like the father of the Chinese man who went to his grave without the truth? A viral video circulated on Facebook and other websites showed a group of Chinese people rushing to grab a copy of the Bible being distributed.  The people were very excited and emotional over receiving them. Some kissed the Bible while others held it close to their chests.  Many Christians were astonished by the video, saying that many Christian families in the United States have multiple Bibles in their homes that are not read or cherished like the Chinese people in the video. In fact, these Bibles are often gathering dust on the bookshelf. Many prophetic words say that God will significantly use Chinese people to preach the Gospel in the last days. This could be why God has consigned the Chinese people to disobedience for so many years.  Actually, this is the great wisdom of God.  Because the Chinese people are in the dark experiencing the pain and torture caused by Satan for so long, they will burst into great spiritual power once they know God and are freed from Satan's slavery.  As Napoleon said, the Chinese are the sleeping lions of the East.  Many people in politics often cite this, but it can also be applied to spirituality. The following statement could be prophetic: the spiritual power that the Chinese bring forth after they are released from the darkness could be phenomenal. We aren't saying this because we are Chinese; many western Christians say the same thing.  An American woman that I know said that God revealed a lot of things about China to her.  She has been praying regularly for China.  God told her that the last would be first.  Although China is late in coming to the kingdom of God, He will profoundly use China and its people to preach the Gospel through Central Asia, the Middle East, and then to Israel. When we compare evangelization in Europe and the United States, China lags behind.  China has been consigned to disobedience for a longer time, but this doesn't mean that God doesn't love the Chinese people.  He is sovereign and wise.  Every country has a specific call and development time for the kingdom of God, whether Peter called to evangelize the Jews, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, or Christians evangelizing the Roman Empire, Spain, Portugal, and later, the United Kingdom and the United States.  The timeline and calling are God's, and even if we don't see Him effectively working in a country, it doesn't mean he loves them less. In Matthew, chapter 20, Jesus told the parable of the workers in the vineyard.  They were all God's workers, some were sent into the vineyard later than others, but all were paid the same.  When I said the last would be first, I wasn't trying to exalt China. Instead, I tried to illustrate that God's grace is priceless and His riches, wisdom, and knowledge have incredible depth.  We are not competing with one another as to who is first in God's kingdom because it's not by our works or effort but by His grace alone that we enter. Similarly, because the Israelites refused to accept Jesus as their Messiah, God temporarily rejected them, but not to just curse or punish them. Instead, He hoped that they would learn to be obedient to the faith through suffering, thereby having a deeper understanding and experience with Him.  The Jews are like Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7 when he condemned the woman, a sinner, who offered the alabaster jar to the Lord.  The Lord's response to him was, “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” (ESV, Luke 7:47).  This is a very profound statement. When the Jews or we are consigned to disobedience, it is actually God's mercy that allows us to become like that woman when we know Him and are forgiven one day.  Her sins, which were many, are forgiven--for she loved much. God's plan for us in this life is to experience His love and redemption.  It will take eternity for us to praise God.  If it takes some time on this earth to learn this lesson, it is undoubtedly worth it. If we have been able to express our sincere gratitude and praise to God in all things in this life, it may indicate that we actually know God quite well and have a very subjective experience with Him. This principle applies to the Gentiles and also to the Jews. Therefore, Paul exclaimed at the end of Romans 11: 11:33 (ESV) “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 11:34 (ESV) “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 11:35 (ESV) “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” 11:36 (ESV) For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” Paul really knew God's riches, wisdom, and knowledge! He was full of praise for God's plans for the Israelites! How unsearchable are God's judgments and how inscrutable His ways! For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. We can only imagine what it will be like for the Jews once their time of discipline and consignment to disobedience is over.  They will praise and be grateful for coming into the full knowledge and truth of Jesus Christ.  We are bound by time, but God is not.  He is beyond time restraint.  We must view this from eternity's perspective.  It is not about when we get into the vineyard, but it is about the bountiful grace of God being extended to anyone who enters the vineyard.  In a sense, it does not matter that much WHEN you get into the vineyard.  People are anxious because their mindset is still on the WHEN. Sometimes, our loved ones face the same situation, especially in the United States.  Many children from Christian families have wandered far away from God, even taking drugs and committing sins.  Why does God allow these things to happen?  On the one hand, it is their own choice.  On the other hand, God consigned them to disobedience for some time to have mercy on them.  Don't give up hope.  Know the depth of the richness, wisdom, and knowledge of God!  May we praise Him; May His mercy come to them when the time is up.  Temporary rejection or discipline is not permanent rejection or punishment, but God's wisdom!  May we rest in the Lord!    

Kia ora,Welcome to Friday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect New Zealand.I'm David Chaston and this is the International edition from Interest.co.nz.Today we lead with news New Zealand seems to be making relative progress as an economy.New Zealand has risen two places in the latest ranking of economic competitiveness and now sits at the #20 spot. That is two places higher than Australia which fell four positions from the #18 spot it was at in 2020. The top four spots are all European and headed by Switzerland. Singapore is #5, the US #10. China is #16.Yesterday's Fed assessment of its policy position, and the more 'optimistic' dot-plot has powered the US dollar sharply higher overnight. But the benchmark UST 10yr yield has reverted back to its pre-meeting level.US jobless claims unexpectedly rose last week, although the actual rise was quite small (+37,200). There are now still 3.3 mln people on these benefits and until it dips below 2 mln they will not be able to claim this metric is back to pre-pandemic levels.The latest Philly Fed survey maintains it good expansionary recordings, but they are essentially unchanged from a month ago. Firms in the region grew more optimistic however. And this is despite input costs rising much faster than output prices.In China, that port congestion isn't clearing and the latest estimates are that the earliest things will clear is two months from now. The global ripple effects are mounting and it is adding new pressures on the resilience of integrated and globalised supply chains. Container shipping prices are as much as seven times higher than a year ago. The Baltic Dry Index rose +2.9% to 3,267 yesterday, its highest since June 2010. Rising costs affect not only containerised cargoes, but bulk cargoes as well.Although China is claiming success in taking the top off the commodity price surge, and some commodities like copper have fallen in price over the past week, there is still no sign that iron ore prices are retreating yet.House prices in China rose an average of +4.9% in May from one year ago, a slightly faster pace of increase (but tame by New Zealand standards). Of the 70 cities surveyed, 8 had price falls. Just three had increases exceeding +10%. As assessed by price movements, the housing market seems stable in China at this time.The central bank of Taiwan kept its policy rate unchanged at 1.125% but it did upgrade its forecasts for economic growth in the island nation to +5.1% (from 4.5%) for 2021. This is actually more cautious than their official Government forecast. And it does see rising inflation but at +1.6% that is now benchmarked as a tame level.In the UK, the pandemic is rising "exponentially" again with much of it being driven by younger people who are not yet vaccinated. And this comes at a time the UK is trying to renege on its Brexit agreement.The Australian unemployment rate has fallen -0.4% to 5.1% in May and back to the level it was at pre-pandemic. Australia's population growth sank to just +0.5% in the year to December 2020, the smallest expansion in at least 40 years, probably longer. Yesterday, a number of key Australian banks suffered website crashes following an issue with the web services company Akamai. Customers reported problems with banks including ANZ, Westpac, St George, ME bank, Macquarie Bank, Allianz, and the CBA. The UST 10yr yield starts today down -5 bps at 1.51% and giving up most of yesterday's sharp run-up. The price of gold starts today at US$1779 which is down a massive -US$60 from this time yesterday. And that makes it down -US$102 or -5.2% in a week. Silver is down even more.Oil prices are down -US$1.50 today at just under US$70.50/bbl in the US, while the international Brent price is over US$72/bbl.The Kiwi dollar opens today at 70 USc and down another -¾c since this time yesterday. That makes it a -1¼c fall in a week. Against the Australian dollar we are unchanged at 92.7 AUc. Against the euro we are also little-changed at 58.8 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 starts today at 72.5 and a new two month low.The bitcoin price is now at US$37,825 and down another -2.9% from this time yesterday. At this level however it is actually +3% higher than this time last week. Volatility in the past 24 hours has been moderate at +/- 2.8%.You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.And get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz.Kia ora. I'm David Chaston and we'll do this again on Monday

Originally published 9 June 2021 Although China does not recognise the term Indo-Pacific, it still appreciates the region's strategic value. In this episode, Veerle is joined by Dr Bates Gill, Professor of Asia-Pacific Security Studies at Macquarie University and Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI, to discuss China's interests, ambitions and strategy in the Indo-Pacific region. Despite Beijing's dismissal of the term ‘Indo-Pacific' as a US construct, China approaches the Indian and Pacific Oceans as a connected space that is critical to its national security and global presence. The question is: what role does it seek to play?

In this episode of the Stratfor Essential Geopolitics podcast from RANE, Emily Donahue speaks with Chase Blazek, Stratfor Asia Pacific Analyst at RANE. The relationship between China and Taiwan, and by extent both with the world, is in a period of rapid change. Although China's official policy is still one of peaceful reunification with Taiwan, the island's political evolution and shifting international relations are pushing Beijing down a more coercive path. How Taiwan Handles China is also changing. More From Stratfor:Follow Stratfor on Twitter. Find Stratfor on LinkedIn. Connect with Stratfor on Facebook. Sign Up for the Free Stratfor Newsletter from RANE.

After a slump in the first quarter of 2020 due to lockdown measures, the luxury market in China rebounded much faster than expected. This was mainly due to pent-up demand for shopping, but also due to an increase in local consumption. Although China will continue to be impacted by uncertainty surrounding travel flows, Euromonitor International's latest travel data suggests that tourist spending will increase by around 80 percent in 2021, having dropped by 57 percent in 2020.

Episode Topic: Disinformation, China, and Beijing's Broader Global Media InfluenceWhen people think of foreign disinformation campaigns, the textbook example that comes to mind is usually that of social media accounts run out of government-sponsored troll farms in Russia sowing fake news and division during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. When it comes to this specific tactic of disinformation, Moscow is still the undisputed global leader. Although China has begun to enter the space and conduct similar operations, both its disinformation and broader media strategy have traditionally been quite different.Featured Speakers: Sarah Cook, Research Director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Freedom HouseJames S. O'Rourke, Teaching Professor of Management, University of Notre DameRead this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: go.nd.edu/1ee13e. This podcast is a part of the Ten Years Hence ThinkND Series titled “News, Fake News, and Deep Fakes. How Do We Know What's True?”.

Although China has successfully leveraged its strengths in COVID-19 vaccine production to replenish its reservoir of goodwill in many developing countries, elsewhere Beijing is facing growing resistance to its increasingly assertive foreign policy agenda.The U.S. is mobilizing friends and allies to build large coalitions designed to confront China. In Asia, Beijing's territorial claims in the South China Sea polarize many of its neighbors and in Africa and the Americas civil society groups are furious over the destructive impact of Chinese engagement in their regions.Luke Patey, a well-known China-Africa scholar and a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, chronicles the growing resistance to China in many parts of the world in a new book "How China Loses: The Pushback Against Chinese Global Ambitions." He joins Eric & Cobus from Copenhagen to discuss why so many people are now more frustrated with China and what he recommends Beijing can do to remedy the situation.JOIN THE DISCUSSION:CAP on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProjectTwitter: @eolander | @stadenesque | @lukepateyAmazon: purchase the Kindle edition of "How China Loses: The Pushback Against Chinese Global Ambitions"SUBSCRIBE TO THE CAP'S DAILY EMAIL NEWSLETTERYour subscription supports independent journalism. Subscribers get the following:1. A daily email newsletter of the top China-Africa news.2. Access to the China-Africa Experts Network3. Unlimited access to the CAP's exclusive analysis content on chinaafricaproject.comTry it free for 30-days and see if you like it. Subscriptions start at just $7 a month for students and teachers and $15 a month for everyone else. Subscribe here: www.chinaafricaproject.com/subscribe

At Yu Gardens, a popular Shanghai tourist spot, visitors are doing a bit of Chinese New Year shopping and taking in the sights.Even with face masks, health codes and temperature checks, the atmosphere here is festive, with red lanterns, red door posters — red everything.Huang Yun, who sells New Year’s decorations at an open-air market here, says it’s nowhere near as crowded as in years past.“In a normal year, you’d really have to push to get through the crowds. I think tourists are down by two-thirds this year.”Huang Yun, Shanghai vendor“In a normal year, you’d really have to push to get through the crowds,” she said. “I think tourists are down by two-thirds this year.”Related: Wary of coronavirus vaccines, some Chinese citizens are ‘opting out’ Although China has been successful at curbing COVID-19 — locking down cities, building quarantine centers, disinfecting streets and conducting mass testing, and has reported fewer than 5,000 deaths from the virus — few are taking chances this holiday season.Chinese New Year fell on Feb. 12 this year, and the country’s 40-day holiday travel season is considered the largest human migration in the world. But this year, travel is down by half as millions of people decided to celebrate the holiday in place. The government hasn’t actually forbidden travel this year, but they’re strongly discouraging it.Zhang Ke said he and his colleagues decided to play it safe.Usually, he would be heading home to see his family in Shanxi province at this time of year.“I wanted to go, but because of the ongoing pandemic, we’ve been told to stay in Shanghai," he said. “So, I’ll keep working; the pay is double.”Related: One year after lockdown, Wuhan volunteers say the pandemic transformed their livesTraveling home to be with family during the holiday is the one time many people here get to see their children or elderly family members. Many schools and workplaces have suggested people not travel unless necessary. Some cities even offered small financial incentives to stay put.“We decided not to go because we didn’t want to trouble our families. We’d have to do a COVID-19 test and quarantine; it just seemed too much of a bother.”Zhang Ke, Shanghai resident“We decided not to go because we didn’t want to trouble our families,” he said. “We’d have to do a COVID-19 test and quarantine; it just seemed too much of a bother.”People are still finding ways to celebrate, though — with video calls to family members, feasts with nearby friends and sending cash gifts by phone. The Chinese government hasn’t actually forbidden holiday travel this year, but they’re strongly discouraging it. So, many people are staying put and finding other ways to celebrate the Chinese New Year — like with red decorations and the like sold in Shanghai. Credit: Rebecca Kanthor/The World  Tracy Dai works at China Skinny, a Shanghai marketing research firm. She says advertisers switched up their ad campaigns, too.“A lot of brands are really taking Chinese New Year and homesickness for the marketing of their brands,” she said.Instead of showing the usual teary family reunions, the theme this year is being apart.Related: Wuhan — China’s punk capital — slowly returns to its indie music sceneDai also chose not to travel this year, although her home village is just three hours away by high-speed train. This is her first time spending the holiday without her family. She says that the risk of the virus is partly just an excuse.“I'm already in my 30s and I haven't been married yet,” she said. “Every single time when you go back my mom was fine, but like, my grandparents they were just pushing me so much.”She’s celebrating this year with friends, sharing foods from their hometowns, drinking and playing board games. Most are single like her.But she said memories from last year’s lockdown and the rise in COVID-19 cases in places like Shanghai and Hebei in the past month are also playing into people’s decision not to travel.“We were worried about, ‘Oh, if I travel back home right now, what happens if things get worse?’ I get locked down in my own hometown and I can't get back to the city to work. So, that's one of the little concerns as well.”Tracy Dai, Shanghai resident“We were worried about, ‘Oh, if I travel back home right now, what happens if things get worse?’ I get locked down in my own hometown and I can't get back to the city to work. So, that's one of the little concerns as well.”Still, some people are cautiously venturing out.Related: Revisiting Wuhan a year after the coronavirus hit the city Yashu Zhang and her mother debated canceling their plans to take a 16-hour trip to their home village in Hunan province but in the end, they decided to go.“I was a little bit concerned with how the people in my mom’s hometown would think about this.”Her relatives told her that even though both Shanghai and Hunan are considered low-risk areas, the local government was warning it might require a 14-day quarantine and COVID-19 tests every seven days. Once they arrived though, things were not as strict.“We just went to the local neighborhood residential committee. We went to register, put down our names, show our test report and that was it. No one told us, ‘Don’t walk around, don’t visit your relatives.’ There was nothing like that.”Zhang says that people’s decision to travel or not was less about the risk of COVID-19 than it was about unpredictable policies made by local governments terrified of an outbreak.“There’s nothing too specified or very clear, so everybody is trying to understand the real policy.”

Although China was the first country hit by Covid-19, it controlled the disease through swift and extremely strict action, meaning it did not need to repeat economically paralysing lockdowns as European countries have done. As a result, unlike other major economies, it has avoided an economic recession in 2020 and is in fact estimated to see growth of 2% this year. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Unlike the United States, where the market development has reached its limits, China's economy itself has at least four major market dividends:First, urbanization dividends. Although the population of China living in cities and towns has reached 60%, the actual level of urbanization is only about 50%. These two figures are far from the general urbanization rate of 75% to 90% in developed countries. It determines that China's domestic demand growth space is huge and long-term, and will continue for at least 20 years.The second is the labor productivity dividend. Although China is the world's largest manufacturing country, China's per capita GDP is just over US$10,000, labor productivity is still at a low level, and there is still huge room for improvement. Mechanization, electrification, artificial intelligence, asset securitization, etc. can greatly increase labor productivity, and there is still a lot of room for optimization and refinement of the social division of labor, which determines that development space is still large.Given China's market size and space, China can certainly catch up with the United States in terms of per capita GDP, from US$10,000 to US$66,000. You can imagine the vast opportunities.More importantly, all of this is in China's control. China has the corresponding population base, education base, science and technology base, industrial base, etc., and the improvement of labor productivity is not constrained by any country. The third is to expand consumption dividends. Why is China's expanding consumption dividend so strong? There are three reasons: one is the objective demand for urbanization in China, the second is the room for improvement in China's labor productivity, and the third is China's savings rate as high as 45%. These three points determine that China not only has the current consumption potential supported by the high savings rate, but also the potential for urbanization and labor productivity improvement. This determines that China's consumption potential is sustainable and continuously developing. Therefore, China has great potential to expand its consumption dividend, and China's future market space will be at least five times that of the United States.The fourth is the innovation and upgrade bonus. For China, technological innovation, industrial upgrading and model innovation are all dividends. In terms of scientific and technological innovation, China has already made global leading breakthroughs like 5G, and there are also a series of other breakthroughs that are relatively leading, and there is huge room for breakthroughs in some backward areas. This determines that technological innovation can bring China a huge bonus.The same is true for industrial upgrading. China's R&D upgrading will bring about industrial upgrading and technological upgrading, which will increase labor productivity. At the same time, the huge market of 1.4 billion people also determines the huge room for model innovation.The dividends of innovation and upgrading in the United States and Europe are no longer as large. They are already developed countries and belong to the post-industrial era. Therefore, the space for innovation and upgrading is not as huge as China.China Explained will show you that because of China's continued success in industrial upgrading, technological innovation and realizing its huge potential, it is an unstoppable process. The inevitable rise of China may feel intimidating and some simply reject it. Don't be. China's rise is part of the new global trend unlike what we have seen in the past one hundred years. Embrace the change and seize the opportunity.Creating original content is hard work, your support is what keeps me going. Please donate to this channel: paypal.me/ChinaExplained

This episode examines China’s role in the global climate change agenda and Xi Jinping’s commitment at the September 2020 UN General Assembly for China to become carbon-neutral by 2060. Mr. Sandalow argues that this new commitment provides an opportunity for China to present itself as a global leader on climate change policy, in contrast to the United States. Although China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, Mr. Sandalow notes that China has invested heavily in renewable energy infrastructure and technology. He views China’s strength at long-term planning as a benefit in implementing effective strategies to combat climate change. Mr. Sandalow also evaluates the progress China has made since signing the Paris Accords, how technological innovation will help China achieve its climate goals, and the potential impact of a Trump re-election or a Biden presidency on US-China cooperation to address climate change.   David Sandalow is the Inaugural Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy and Co-Director of the Energy and Environment Concentration at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He founded and directs the Center’s US-China Program and is author of the Guide to Chinese Climate Policy.

Ai Weiwei is not shy about tackling the big issues. Despite winning international acclaim for his interdisciplinary, boundary-pushing art, the Chinese-born artist is better known in some circles for his activism—though in his estimation, the two are inextricably linked. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak varying degrees of havoc around the globe, Ai has increasingly turned his attention toward how the illness is exposing the failures of governments and aggravating the geopolitical fault lines between world powers. Although China, where the outbreak began in December 2019, seems to have contained the virus sufficiently to begin easing its way back to some kind of normalcy, serious questions remain about how transparent Xi Jinping's regime has been about the disease. After being detained, beaten, and surveilled by party officials in 2011 in response to his investigative work, Ai knows better than most how the tentacles of China's authoritarian government can accost citizens willing to criticize the state. He believes that here, too, the bureaucracy's unwillingness to admit its own errors has created disastrous consequences for others—this time, the world over. But he also believes that leading Western nations, especially the United States, bear some of the blame for being too accommodating of China for too long, all in pursuit of profit. This week on the podcast, Ai Weiwei calls in from Cambridge, UK, where he is safely ensconced with his son and girlfriend, to discuss the pandemic, its effects on global politics, and how artists can contribute to a world in turmoil.

Ai Weiwei is not shy about tackling the big issues. Despite winning international acclaim for his interdisciplinary, boundary-pushing art, the Chinese-born artist is better known in some circles for his activism—though in his estimation, the two are inextricably linked. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak varying degrees of havoc around the globe, Ai has increasingly turned his attention toward how the illness is exposing the failures of governments and aggravating the geopolitical fault lines between world powers. Although China, where the outbreak began in December 2019, seems to have contained the virus sufficiently to begin easing its way back to some kind of normalcy, serious questions remain about how transparent Xi Jinping's regime has been about the disease. After being detained, beaten, and surveilled by party officials in 2011 in response to his investigative work, Ai knows better than most how the tentacles of China's authoritarian government can accost citizens willing to criticize the state. He believes that here, too, the bureaucracy's unwillingness to admit its own errors has created disastrous consequences for others—this time, the world over. But he also believes that leading Western nations, especially the United States, bear some of the blame for being too accommodating of China for too long, all in pursuit of profit. This week on the podcast, Ai Weiwei calls in from Cambridge, UK, where he is safely ensconced with his son and girlfriend, to discuss the pandemic, its effects on global politics, and how artists can contribute to a world in turmoil.

In this episode, Net Zero host Joana Freitas invites Andris Piebalgs, Professor at Florence School of Regulation and former EU Commissioner for Energy, to discuss how renewable energy is changing global geopolitics. While over the last 200 years, control of oil, natural gas and coal, as well as of bottlenecks in global sea routes (like the Strait of Hormuz) have shaped the world geopolitics, renewables are now expected to challenge this landscape. Andris Piebalgs sees an opportunity for those nations that have been investing in new technologies related to renewables, like China, to reinforce their global influence in the energy area. On the other hand, Russia and Saudi Arabia are pointed out as the countries where the energy transformation might be more difficult as “it will be very difficult domestically to change the pricing for fossil fuels”. In the specific case of Middle East countries, there are already some investments in renewables but mostly in the Emirates. In Andris Piebalgs’s perspective a change in consumers’ patterns might be a key trigger for these countries’ transformation - “If Europe will go massively for electric vehicles, then definitely, these countries also will be encouraged to make reforms”. Although China is the world’s largest producer, exporter and installer of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles, Andris Piebalgs sees no reason to believe that Europe is changing from one type of dependency to another. Europe can always develop technologies on its own, while fossil fuels are clearly geographically located. “So my point is that definitely more renewable energy means more energy security, particularly for Europe”, Andris Piebalgs said. In a world where climate change is perhaps the biggest challenge, Andris Peibalgs also believes that the energy transition “definitely brings more peace”.

Allan and Darren kick off this episode by discussing Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s recent overseas trip. The PM’s first stop was Vietnam for a bilateral visit. Although China loomed over proceedings, it was never directly called out - does this matter? And is it significant that Australia is becoming "mates" with a country with very different political values? Next was France, where President Macron had invited Morrison to be an observer at the G7 leaders’ summit. Was this a big deal, and what did we learn from the summit overall? Moving on, Australia has formally announced its participation in the US-led maritime security mission in the Persian Gulf, and Darren wants to know if this is purely about alliance management. Fourth, the two discuss the difficult situation in Kashmir, and consider Australia’s neutral response. Finally, the government sent its largest ministerial delegation to PNG for some years. Darren asks Allan about the issues in providing foreign aid as direct budgetary assistance, and the general state of the bilateral relationship. As always, we invite our listeners to email us at this address: australia.world.pod@gmail.com We welcome feedback, requests and suggestions. You can also contact Darren on twitter @limdarrenj We thank AIIA intern James Hayne for his help with research and audio editing, and XC Chong for research assistance. As always, we’re grateful to Rory Stenning for composing our theme music. Relevant links Prime Minister of Australia, “Joint Statement Between Viet Nam and Australia”, Media Release, 23 August 2019: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/joint-statement-between-viet-nam-and-australia Prime Minister of Australia, “More Action to Prevent Online Terror”, Media Release, 26 August 2019: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/more-action-prevent-online-terror Prime Minister of Australia, “Australia Joins International Maritime Security Construct in the Gulf”, Media Release, 21 August 2019: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/australia-joins-international-maritime-security-construct-gulf The Economist, “When India’s government abuses power, the media cheer”, 22 August 2019: https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/08/22/when-indias-government-abuses-power-the-media-cheer “Kashmir issue should be resolved bilaterally: Australian High Commissioner”, ANI News, 30 August 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVIJgIXTZPY The Wandering Earth (imdb page): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7605074/?ref_=nv_sr_2?ref_=nv_sr_2   Kate Knibbs, “A Pre–‘Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood’ Lesson on the Manson Family”, The Ringer (note, spoiler free): https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/7/24/20708506/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-charles-manson-family-sharon-tate

With the U.S. announcing its intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and China now embracing the concept of global climate governance, it’s easy to forget that 20 years ago, discussion of climate change in China was almost nonexistent. One person particularly well-placed to reflect on China’s transformation into a purported environmental hero is Barbara Finamore, founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s China Program and author of the book Will China Save the Planet?. Although China has certainly come a long way from the days when NRDC first started sharing its experience on energy efficiency and “negawatts” in the 1990’s, it is still a land of contradictions. We sat down with Barbara to explore China’s ongoing battle to fundamentally transform its economy in order to protect public health and reduce emissions, and the challenges it faces both domestically and globally.  You can check out Barbara’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Will-China-Planet-Barbara-Finamore/dp/1509532641

In episode 45 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about the rise of what has been touted as “the next big trend” in China tech: electronic cigarettes. Despite being criticized as a trap for entrepreneurs and investors alike, as well as concerns around ethical considerations, a large number of high-profile hardware entrepreneurs and consumer internet executives in China have jumped into the fray. Although China has yet to birth a decacorn in this sector like U.S.-based Juul, which is now valued at $38 billion, our co-hosts bet that at least one unicorn will emerge. After all, a recent research report by China’s Sinolink Securities projected the size of the domestic e-cig market to reach over $4 billion in the next four years — in many ways, we are only at day zero as measured against the market potential.   Rui and Ying-Ying begin by explaining that since smartphone purchases in China have slowed, a lot of the wealth and entrepreneurial talent that was focused on that product has shifted to four newer consumer electronics categories: smart speakers, wireless headphones, translating devices, and e-cigarettes. Our co-hosts comment that these product areas are similar to some of those that are getting major attention in Silicon Valley right now. In terms of e-cigarettes, most of the companies covered in this episode are very much like Juul in that they use a liquid cartridge to deliver nicotine. In contrast to electric smoking systems, which are a different category, e-cigs heat up — but do not burn — tobacco. While many Chinese articles reference both under the same label (电子烟), in this TechBuzz episode, Rui and Ying-Ying are only talking about the liquid cartridge device. Listen to find out: What are some of the factors that have contributed to the high, and growing, number of smokers in China? How is it that the country has one-third of the world’s smokers, but only accounts for 3 percent of the global e-cig market, despite also owning 90 percent of the world’s e-cig production? What inspired Han Li, a Chinese man and the first person to successfully commercialize the e-cigarette, to do so? What role does regulation — or the lack thereof, unlike in the 68 countries that have codified guidelines — play? Who are some of the celebrity entrepreneurs and well-regarded VC funds in China that have made a foray into the space? What role do WeChat mini programs, and other new marketing channels, have in the growth of this market? What about the impact of China’s state-owned media, CCTV, on both the telling of the story and on its outcomes? Importantly, how about ethical factors — how are these considerations affecting the moves, or non-moves, made by large internet players and top venture investors? At the end of the day, is the Chinese e-cigarette industry totally lit, or just a bunch of hot air? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Do let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, liking our Facebook page, and tweeting at us at @techbuzzchina! Thank you also to our listeners over at our partner, dealstreetasia.com. We are grateful for our awesome producers, Shaw Wan and Kaiser Kuo, and our interns, Wang Menglu and Mindy Xu. Our sponsor for this episode is the University of San Francisco. USF’s new M.S. degree in Applied Economics is a STEM-designated program that combines economics training with the practical skills in data analytics needed to understand today’s new digital economy. To learn more, visit usfca.edu/techbuzz.

Today I was joined by Seamus Grimes from Ireland where he is Emeritus Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway. With Yutao Sun (Dalian University of Technology), he just published a very interesting and timely book China and Global Value Chains: Globalization and the Information and Communications Technology Sector (Routledge, 2018). President Trump has raised the intriguing question of bringing the manufacturing of companies like Apple back from China to the U.S. This book, however, argues that in this age of the knowledge-based economy and increased globalization, that value creation and distribution based on knowledge and innovation activities are at the core of economic development. The double-edged sword of globalization has transformed China’s economic development in the past few decades. Although China has benefitted from globalization and is now the second largest economy in the world, having become a global manufacturing power and the biggest exporter of high-tech products, it continues to be highly dependent on foreign sources of capital and technology. The book explores the core of the Chinese economy from the perspective of the global value chain, combining analysis of inward investment, international trade, science and technology and innovation and economic development. Specifically, it investigates China’s evolving role with some innovative Chinese companies emerging in the global market and China’s ongoing efforts to become an innovation-driven economy. This is a very interesting book on the complexity of the global industrial systems that are behind the production of the electronic goods that we use daily. Beside China and this specific sector, it is a timely warning for those that argue in favour of raising barriers or regulating otherwise the current flow of goods and components worldwide. Andrea Bernardi is Senior Lecturer in Employment and Organization Studies at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. He holds a doctorate in Organization Theory from the University of Milan, Bicocca. He has held teaching and research positions in Italy, China and the UK. Among his research interests are the use of history in management studies, the co-operative sector, and Chinese co-operatives. His latest project is looking at health care in rural China. He is the co-convener of the EAEPE’s permanent track on Critical Management Studies.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I was joined by Seamus Grimes from Ireland where he is Emeritus Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway. With Yutao Sun (Dalian University of Technology), he just published a very interesting and timely book China and Global Value Chains: Globalization and the Information and Communications Technology Sector (Routledge, 2018). President Trump has raised the intriguing question of bringing the manufacturing of companies like Apple back from China to the U.S. This book, however, argues that in this age of the knowledge-based economy and increased globalization, that value creation and distribution based on knowledge and innovation activities are at the core of economic development. The double-edged sword of globalization has transformed China’s economic development in the past few decades. Although China has benefitted from globalization and is now the second largest economy in the world, having become a global manufacturing power and the biggest exporter of high-tech products, it continues to be highly dependent on foreign sources of capital and technology. The book explores the core of the Chinese economy from the perspective of the global value chain, combining analysis of inward investment, international trade, science and technology and innovation and economic development. Specifically, it investigates China’s evolving role with some innovative Chinese companies emerging in the global market and China’s ongoing efforts to become an innovation-driven economy. This is a very interesting book on the complexity of the global industrial systems that are behind the production of the electronic goods that we use daily. Beside China and this specific sector, it is a timely warning for those that argue in favour of raising barriers or regulating otherwise the current flow of goods and components worldwide. Andrea Bernardi is Senior Lecturer in Employment and Organization Studies at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. He holds a doctorate in Organization Theory from the University of Milan, Bicocca. He has held teaching and research positions in Italy, China and the UK. Among his research interests are the use of history in management studies, the co-operative sector, and Chinese co-operatives. His latest project is looking at health care in rural China. He is the co-convener of the EAEPE’s permanent track on Critical Management Studies.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I was joined by Seamus Grimes from Ireland where he is Emeritus Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway. With Yutao Sun (Dalian University of Technology), he just published a very interesting and timely book China and Global Value Chains: Globalization and the Information and Communications Technology Sector (Routledge, 2018). President Trump has raised the intriguing question of bringing the manufacturing of companies like Apple back from China to the U.S. This book, however, argues that in this age of the knowledge-based economy and increased globalization, that value creation and distribution based on knowledge and innovation activities are at the core of economic development. The double-edged sword of globalization has transformed China’s economic development in the past few decades. Although China has benefitted from globalization and is now the second largest economy in the world, having become a global manufacturing power and the biggest exporter of high-tech products, it continues to be highly dependent on foreign sources of capital and technology. The book explores the core of the Chinese economy from the perspective of the global value chain, combining analysis of inward investment, international trade, science and technology and innovation and economic development. Specifically, it investigates China’s evolving role with some innovative Chinese companies emerging in the global market and China’s ongoing efforts to become an innovation-driven economy. This is a very interesting book on the complexity of the global industrial systems that are behind the production of the electronic goods that we use daily. Beside China and this specific sector, it is a timely warning for those that argue in favour of raising barriers or regulating otherwise the current flow of goods and components worldwide. Andrea Bernardi is Senior Lecturer in Employment and Organization Studies at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. He holds a doctorate in Organization Theory from the University of Milan, Bicocca. He has held teaching and research positions in Italy, China and the UK. Among his research interests are the use of history in management studies, the co-operative sector, and Chinese co-operatives. His latest project is looking at health care in rural China. He is the co-convener of the EAEPE’s permanent track on Critical Management Studies.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I was joined by Seamus Grimes from Ireland where he is Emeritus Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway. With Yutao Sun (Dalian University of Technology), he just published a very interesting and timely book China and Global Value Chains: Globalization and the Information and Communications Technology Sector (Routledge, 2018). President Trump has raised the intriguing question of bringing the manufacturing of companies like Apple back from China to the U.S. This book, however, argues that in this age of the knowledge-based economy and increased globalization, that value creation and distribution based on knowledge and innovation activities are at the core of economic development. The double-edged sword of globalization has transformed China’s economic development in the past few decades. Although China has benefitted from globalization and is now the second largest economy in the world, having become a global manufacturing power and the biggest exporter of high-tech products, it continues to be highly dependent on foreign sources of capital and technology. The book explores the core of the Chinese economy from the perspective of the global value chain, combining analysis of inward investment, international trade, science and technology and innovation and economic development. Specifically, it investigates China’s evolving role with some innovative Chinese companies emerging in the global market and China’s ongoing efforts to become an innovation-driven economy. This is a very interesting book on the complexity of the global industrial systems that are behind the production of the electronic goods that we use daily. Beside China and this specific sector, it is a timely warning for those that argue in favour of raising barriers or regulating otherwise the current flow of goods and components worldwide. Andrea Bernardi is Senior Lecturer in Employment and Organization Studies at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. He holds a doctorate in Organization Theory from the University of Milan, Bicocca. He has held teaching and research positions in Italy, China and the UK. Among his research interests are the use of history in management studies, the co-operative sector, and Chinese co-operatives. His latest project is looking at health care in rural China. He is the co-convener of the EAEPE’s permanent track on Critical Management Studies.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I was joined by Seamus Grimes from Ireland where he is Emeritus Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway. With Yutao Sun (Dalian University of Technology), he just published a very interesting and timely book China and Global Value Chains: Globalization and the Information and Communications Technology Sector (Routledge, 2018). President Trump has raised the intriguing question of bringing the manufacturing of companies like Apple back from China to the U.S. This book, however, argues that in this age of the knowledge-based economy and increased globalization, that value creation and distribution based on knowledge and innovation activities are at the core of economic development. The double-edged sword of globalization has transformed China’s economic development in the past few decades. Although China has benefitted from globalization and is now the second largest economy in the world, having become a global manufacturing power and the biggest exporter of high-tech products, it continues to be highly dependent on foreign sources of capital and technology. The book explores the core of the Chinese economy from the perspective of the global value chain, combining analysis of inward investment, international trade, science and technology and innovation and economic development. Specifically, it investigates China’s evolving role with some innovative Chinese companies emerging in the global market and China’s ongoing efforts to become an innovation-driven economy. This is a very interesting book on the complexity of the global industrial systems that are behind the production of the electronic goods that we use daily. Beside China and this specific sector, it is a timely warning for those that argue in favour of raising barriers or regulating otherwise the current flow of goods and components worldwide. Andrea Bernardi is Senior Lecturer in Employment and Organization Studies at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. He holds a doctorate in Organization Theory from the University of Milan, Bicocca. He has held teaching and research positions in Italy, China and the UK. Among his research interests are the use of history in management studies, the co-operative sector, and Chinese co-operatives. His latest project is looking at health care in rural China. He is the co-convener of the EAEPE’s permanent track on Critical Management Studies.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For much of the past twenty years, China's strategy in Africa could easily be summarized in two words: invest and extract. Today, that is no longer the case as China's agenda in Africa, and throughout much of the global south, has broadened significantly in pursuit of Beijing's military, humanitarian and geopolitical interests. While investment and resource extraction still play an important role in China's African policy, these economic motivators are definitely not as important as they were even just a few years ago. Evidence of this can be found in the Sino-African trade and FDI data that reveal steady declines over the past several years. Whereas five to ten years ago, Chinese companies didn't have as many options on where they could invest, so Africa's relatively open markets were rather appealing. Now, with the development of Beijing's hugely ambitious One Belt, One Road (OBOR) global trade initiative, the government is "encouraging" (read: pressuring) Chinese companies to diversify their investments to support OBOR in other parts of the world including Central and South Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe among other regions. Although China may be losing some interest in Africa in terms of trade and economics, that does not necessarily mean that the continent's overall importance to Chinese foreign policy is diminishing. The recent state visits in Beijing of leaders from Cameroon, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, all in just the past month, suggests that Chinese president Xi Jinping places a high degree of importance on his government's relations with Africa, both at the national and regional levels. "I would say the political-military relationship is the emerging area of interest that I think we are going to see more in the future," said Joshua Eisenman, a China-Africa scholar at the University of Texas in Austin and a senior fellow for China studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C. Professor Eisenman is among a growing number of scholars who are carefully watching the evolution of China-Africa relations in the new Xi Jinping era. He joins Eric & Cobus to talk about what to expect in the coming months as both Africans and Chinese officials prepare for the upcoming Sino-Africa mega-summit, the Forum on China Africa Cooperation, that will take place in Beijing in September. Join the discussion. Are you encouraged or more concerned about the evolving Chinese strategy in Africa that is shifting away from economics to focus more on political/military issues? Let us know what you think. Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProject Twitter: @eolander | @stadenesque | @joshua_eisenman Email: eric@chinaafricaproject.com Get a curated digest of the week's top China-Africa stories delivered straight to your inbox with our weekly email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.    

Quietly, and largely out of sight, China has emerged to become a major player in the foreign aid space, challenging institutions and norms long established by the West. Although China's international development budgets remain a tightly guarded state secret, new data  indicates Beijing is spending a lot more money on aid programs than almost anyone had imagined. AidData, a research lab at William & Mary in Virginia, conducted an analysis of 4,300 Chinese-funded projects in 140 countries from 2000 to 2014. During that time, AidData believes the Chinese spent somewhere around $350 billion on development programs. Unlike the United States, which spent $394 billion during that same period, the Chinese do not spend aid money in traditional development programs (i.e. cash grants to institutions). Instead, the Chinese have focused their efforts on infrastructure development, export credits and loans. The Chinese approach to international development challenges a half-century of Western dominance where aid to developing countries almost always came with conditions. Whereas U.S. and European countries require aid recipients to undertake political and economic reforms to qualify for assistance, the Chinese have a "no strings attached" policy. Furthermore, the Chinese don't seem eager to deepen their engagement in the clubby aid world of the IMF, World Bank and other international NGOs, preferring instead to deal bilaterally with governments or to create their own development bodies like the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank. On a more fundamental level, the Chinese are taking away a deeply-embedded narrative within the Western psyche that the U.S./European development model is superior in both economic and moral terms. Many of the perceptions in the West about aid have been framed as white people 'saving poor brown people' in Africa, the Americas and in Asia. Now that there is a legitimate alternative from a non-Western country that happens to be the world's second largest economy, that morality narrative will no doubt face more scrutiny in the years ahead. In this edition of the China in Africa Podcast, AidData Executive Director Brad Parks joins Eric & Cobus to discuss his team's latest findings on Chinese foreign aid and how Beijing's money is being spent in places like Africa. Join the discussion? Do you think it's healthy that there is an alternative to the Western-led aid system or is China's lack of transparency and preference in dealing with African elites more concerning? Let us know. Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProject Twitter: @eolander | @stadenesque | @aiddata  

The tightening of international sanctions against North Korea is helping to fuel the illicit ivory trade in Africa as the increasingly isolated country searches for new ways to generate revenue, according to a new report from the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. Much of that ivory, according to the report, is destined for the black market in China. Although China announced in January that it would outlaw the domestic ivory trade, consumer demand appears to remain strong as the wholesale price for raw ivory hovers around $1,100 per kilo. North Korea's role in the African ivory trade is largely confined to "buying and bagging," said Julian Rademeyer, the report's author and an acclaimed South African environmental investigative journalist. North Korean officials, he added, are often able to easily move their illegal contraband as diplomatic cargo so it usually goes unchecked by local customs authorities. Julian joins Eric & Cobus to discuss his findings on North Korea's role in the illegal ivory trade between China and Africa.  Join the discussion. How do you think African governments should respond to the news that North Korean diplomats stationed in their countries may be involved in illegal ivory smuggling? Let us know what you think. Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProject Twitter: @eolander | @stadenesque | Julian Rademeyer

The Three Hares Symbol The symbol of three hares in a circle joined together at the ears is found in many religions all over world. No one knows the exact meaning of the symbol. ⦁    There is a German riddle concerning the motif of the three hares is quite describing: ⦁     Three hares sharing three ears, yet every one of them has two. This design features three hares, which are shown chasing each other / running in a circle, and joined together at their ears. Although one might expect three hares to have a total of six ears, the ones in the motif have only three ears in total.  Due to an optical illusion, however, it looks as though each hare has a pair of ears. The Three Hares Motif is A Cross-Cultural Symbol with Numerous Interpretations. This design has been uncovered in Buddhist caves that are 2500 years old.  It is found in some Christian churches throughout Europe, in Islamic art and in Judaism. Until recently there has been little awareness of its wide distribution, and peple are uncovering new examples all the time. Striking depictions of three hares joined at the ears have been found in roof bosses of medieval parish churches in Devon, 13th century Mongol metal work from Iran and cave temples from the Chinese Sui dynasty of 589-618. All cultures have interpreted this ancient symbol according to what is appropriate with their belief. In Christianity it has become a symbol of the trinity; Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Originally it may have represented the Triple Goddess.  The hare has a long history of being connected to the moon, as has the goddess. Academics are intrigued at the motif’s apparent prominence in Christian, Islamic and Buddhist holy contexts separated by 5,000 miles and almost 1,000 years. The Three Hares is an ancient motif found in various parts of the world.   Although the Three Hares is a motif shared by a number of cultures, it is likely that its symbolism changed as it crossed the different cultural barriers. Hence, this design probably has differing meanings in the many cultures where it is found. The earliest known examples of the Three Hares motif can be found in China. It can be seen on the ceilings of some of the temples in the Mogao Caves (also known as the Mogao Grottoes or the Cave of the Thousand Buddhas). There are at least 17 temples in this complex where the Three Hares motif is depicted on the ceiling.  The earliest motifs found in this Buddhist site near Dunhuang, Gansu Province, Western China, are thought to date back to the 6th century AD, when China was under the Sui Dynasty.  In the subsequent Tang Dynasty, the icon of the Three Hares continued to be used. Dunhuang, The town, is famous for a network of caves containing thousands of documents and fabrics from the Silk Road, which were sealed in about 1000 AD. The caves and their contents – preserved astonishingly well by the dry local climate – were rediscovered by Hungarian-born, British-based explorer Marc Aurel Stein, who trekked along the Silk Road a series of times between 1900 and 1930. Although China possesses the earliest known examples of this motif, it has been speculated that the Three Hares is not a Chinese design, and may have originated further west, perhaps from Mesopotamia, Central Asia, or the Hellenistic world.  This is based on the fact that many other artistic elements in the Mogao Caves are from the West.   Nevertheless, examples of the design from these proposed areas that predate those at the Mogao Caves have yet to be discovered. Beginning in the Han dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE), Dunhuang was an important stop on the Silk Road, the ancient trade route that stretched from Chang’an (present-day Xi’an) in the east to Central Asia, India, Persia—and, eventually, the Roman Empire—in the west.   And during the period of the Sixteen Kingdoms (366-439), at Mogao, less than a day’s journey from Dunhuang, Buddhist monks began digging out hundreds of cave temples from the cliffs along the Daquan River. The caves were decorated with statues, murals and decorative images, and construction of new caves continued at Mogao for over 500 years. During the Sui and Tang dynasties (581-907), three-hares images were painted on the center of the ceilings of at least 17 caves.  Typically, the circle of hares is surrounded by eight large lotus petals and forms the focal point of a large painted canopy covering the entire ceiling. The following photos show what some of these images look like today. The beautiful image from Cave 407 is the most familiar of all the three-hares designs at Dunhuang. The hares are surrounded by two bands of lotus petals against a background of feitian (celestial maidens) flying in the same direction as the hares.  Notice the hares’ eyes, all four legs, and the white scarves trailing from around their necks. Interestingly, this is the only one of the 17 cave images in which the three hares are clearly running in a counterclockwise direction. The three-hares image of Cave 305 is badly deteriorated. But close study clearly reveals the white triangular silhouette indicating the hares’ ears as well as parts of their bodies. In Cave 420, all that remains is the triangle formed by the hares’ three ears along with parts of their heads. In Cave 406, the rough white silhouettes of the three hares are clearly seen against a tan background.  It would require close examination to determine whether these white areas are places where a darker pigment of the original hares has changed color over time or the original pigment has peeled off to expose a white undercoat. In Cave 383, the slender hares are gracefully leaping with front and hind legs fully outstretched. In Cave 397, the white silhouette of one hare and parts of the other two are still clearly visible. It appears that bits of the original pigment remain, although its tone may have changed over time. In some places all the paint has peeled off, exposing the beige clay. The images of the three hares in Cave 205 are very well preserved. Less so for the images in Caves 144 and 99. In addition to the caves shown above, the three hares motif also appears in Caves 200, 237, 358 and 468 from the Middle Tang dynasty (781-847) and Caves 127, 139, 145 and 147 from the Late Tang dynasty (848-906). (In Cave 127, the artist—either by carelessness or design—has created a unique variation of the three-hares image. Each hare’s ears are together, and the ears of all three hares form a Y-shaped pinwheel instead of the usual triangle.) Of all 17 three-hares images, the one in Cave 139 is the most detailed. This image is also the best preserved—perhaps because the cave is accessible only through a small elevated opening on the right side of the entryway to Cave 138. The three hares are tan against a light green background and are surrounded by eight lotus petals. Each hare is beautifully drawn in pen-like detail, with clearly visible features, including mouth, nose, eyes (with eyeballs!), all four legs, feet (including toes!) and tail. Even the fur on the stomach, breast, legs and head of each rabbit is shown. Four Hares at Guge There is also at least one site in present-day Tibet with puzzling images of hares sharing ears.  Images of four hares sharing four ears can be found in the ruins of the ancient kingdom of Guge, which thrived from the mid-10th century until its defeat in 1630.  On the ceiling of Guge’s White Temple are 314 painted panels, and one of these panels has two roundels, each showing four hares chasing each other in a clockwise direction…. Other Buddhist Images of Three and Four Hares Other Buddhist images of three and four hares occur in Ladakh, within the present Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.  At Alchi on the bank of the Indus River is a temple complex that was built in the late 12th to early 13th century while Alchi was within the western Tibetan cultural sphere. Within this temple complex, inside the Sumtsek, or Three-Tiered Temple, is a sculpture of Maitreya. On Maitreya’s dhoti are painted more than 60 roundels depicting scenes from the life of Buddha Sakyamuni. Each space between four such roundels is decorated with images with long-eared animals chasing each other in a clockwise direction. Some of the spaces show three animals sharing three ears, while others show four animals sharing four ears.” Dr Tom Greeves, a landscape archaeologist, has suggested the motif was brought to the West along the Silk Road. Dr Greeves, from Tavistock, Devon, said: “It is a very beautiful and stirring image which has an intrinsic power which is quite lovely. “We can deduce from the motif’s use in holy places in different religions and cultures, and the prominence it was given, that the symbol had a special significance. The Silk Road played an important role in the diffusion of the Three Hares motif. It was via this trade route that the Three Hares symbol found its way into the western part of China. Assuming that all later examples of the Three Hare motif have their origin in the ones found in China, then it is possible to say that the motif travelled along the Silk Road to distant lands as well. We don’t know for sure how the symbol travelled to the West but the most likely explanation is that they were on the valuable oriental silks brought to Western medieval churches to wrap holy relics, as altar cloths and in vestments. More than 1000 years ago, Dunhuang was a key staging point on the Silk Road, the famous network of trading routes which linked China with Central Asia and Iran, with branches into Tibet and South Asia. As well as commodities, the Silk Road saw religions and ideas spread great distances, and the researchers said this could be the key to the hare motif. Some later examples of this motif have been found in places such as Turkmenistan, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Germany, France, and England.  The objects on which the Three Hares motif have been found include glass, ceramics, coins, and textiles.  Many of these artifacts date to the time of the Pax Mongolica , i.e. the 13th century, a period when trade and the exchange of ideas between East and West flourished. The Three Hares appear on 13th century Mongol metal work, and on a copper coin, found in Iran, dated to 1281.[16][17][18] Another appears on an ancient Islamic reliquary from southern Russia. Another 13th or early 14th century Reliquary was from Iran from Mongol rule, and is preserved in the treasury of Cathedral of Trier Germany. On its base, the casket reveals Islamic iconography, and originally featured two images of the three hares. One was lost through damage.[19] In central Asian and Middle Eastern contexts the motif occurs • in glass (an Islamic medallion of ca. 1100, now in Berlin); • on ceramics (impressed pottery vessels at Merv, Turkmenistan in 12th c.; polychrome pottery from Egypt/Syria ca. 1200; a tile of ca. 1200, now in Kuwait); • woven on textile (four hares, 2nd quarter to mid-13th c., now in Cleveland); and • on a copper Mongol coin (Urmia, Iran, minted 1281-2). The other possibility is that the motif has a much older provenance, given the religious context in which the Three Hares motif turns up mostly in England, northern Germany, France …and with most of the symbols having either Anglo-Saxon, Celtic or semitic (Ashkenazi) medieval religious associations. In Britain the motif is most common in Devon where 17 parish churches contain roof bosses depicting the hares. On Dartmoor, it is known locally as “The Tinners’ Rabbits”, but there are no known associations with tin mining. Some claim that the Devon name, Tinners’ Rabbits, is related to local tin miners adopting it. The mines generated wealth in the region and funded the building and repair of many local churches, and thus the symbol may have been used as the miners signature mark.[21] The architectural ornament of the Three Hares also occurs in churches that are unrelated to the miners of South West England. Other occurrences in England include floor tiles at Chester Cathedral,[22] stained glass at Long Melford, Suffolk[A] and a ceiling in Scarborough, Yorkshire. The motif of the Three Hares is used in a number of medieval European churches, particularly in France (e.g., in the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière in Lyons)[23] and Germany. It occurs with the greatest frequency in the churches of the West Country of England. The motif appears in illuminated manuscripts,[24] architectural wood carving, stone carving, window tracery and stained glass. In South Western England there are nearly thirty recorded examples of the Three Hares appearing on ‘roof bosses’ (carved wooden knobs) on the ceilings in medieval churches in Devon, (particularly Dartmoor). There is a good example of a roof boss of the Three hares at Widecombe-in-the-Moor,[7] Dartmoor, with another in the town of Tavistock on the edge of the moor. The motif occurs with similar central placement in Synagogues.[2] Another occurrence is on the ossuary that by tradition contained the bones of St. Lazarus.[25] Where it occurs in England, the Three Hares motif usually appears in a prominent place in the church, such as the central rib of the chancel roof, or on a central rib of the nave. This suggests that the symbol held significance to the church, and casts doubt on the theory that they may have been a masons’ or carpenters’ signature marks.[1] There are two possible and perhaps concurrent reasons why the Three Hares may have found popularity as a symbol within the church. Firstly, it was widely believed that the hare was hermaphrodite and could reproduce without loss of virginity.[19] This led to an association with the Virgin Mary, with hares sometimes occurring in illuminated manuscripts and Northern European paintings of the Virgin and Christ Child. The other Christian association may have been with the Holy Trinity,[19][26] representing the “One in Three and Three in One” of which the triangle or three interlocking shapes such as rings are common symbols. In many locations the Three Hares are positioned adjacent to the Green Man, a symbol associated with the continuance of Anglo-Saxon or Celtic paganism. 16th century German scholar Rabbi Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, saw the rabbits as a symbol of the Diaspora. The replica of the Chodorow Synagogue from Poland (on display at the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv) has a ceiling with a large central painting which depicts a double headed eagle holds two brown rabbits in its claws without harming them. … There are examples elsewhere in Britain in a chapel in Cotehele, Cornwall, in medieval stained glass in the Holy Trinity church in Long Melford, Suffolk, in a plaster ceiling in Scarborough, North Yorks, and on floor tiles from Chester Cathedral and in the parish church in Long Crendon, Bucks. The hare frequently appears in the form of the symbol of the “rotating rabbits”. An ancient German riddle describes this graphic thus: Three hares sharing three ears, Yet every one of them has two.[2] This curious graphic riddle can be found in all of the famous wooden synagogues from the period of the 17th and 18th century in the Ashknaz region (in Germany) that are on museum display in Beth Hatefutsoth Museum in Tel Aviv, the Jewish Museum Berlin and The Israel Museum in Jerusalem. They also appear in the Synagogue from Horb am Neckar (donated to the Israel Museum). The three animals adorn the wooden panels of the prayer room from Unterlimpurg near Schwäbisch Hall, which may be seen in replica in the Jewish Museum Berlin. They also are seen in a main exhibit of the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv. Israeli art historian Ida Uberman wrote about this house of worship: “… Here we find depictions of three kinds of animals, all organized in circles: eagles, fishes and hares. These three represent the Kabbalistic elements of the world: earth, water and fire/heavens… The fact that they are always three is important, for that number . . . is important in the Kabbalistic context”.[2] Not only do they appear among floral and animal ornaments, but they are often in a distinguished location, directly above the Torah ark, the place where the holy scriptures repose…”  — Wikipedia: The Three Hares It seems also likely that the commonly seen medieval Christian or Jewish symbols may have been one of the fairly universally known pagan fertility symbols in the past: The Bavarian “Community of Hasloch’s arms[depicted below] is blazoned as: Azure edged Or three hares passant in triskelion of the second, each sharing each ear with one of the others, in chief a rose argent seeded of the second, in base the same, features three hares. It is said, “The stone with the image of three hares, previously adorned the old village well, now stands beside the town hall.” “Hares and rabbits have appeared as a representation or manifestation of various deities in many cultures, including: Hittavainen, Finnish god of Hares;[35] Kaltes-Ekwa, Siberian goddess of the moon; Jade Rabbit, maker of medicine on the moon for the Chinese gods, depicted often with a mortar and pestle;[13][36] Ometotchtli (Two Rabbits,) Aztec god of fertility, etc., who led 400 other Rabbit gods known as the Centzon Totochtin; Kalulu, Tumbuka mythology (Central African) Trickster god; and Nanabozho (Great Rabbit,) Ojibway deity, a shape-shifter and a cocreator of the world.[36][37] See generally, Rabbits in the arts.” — (Wikipedia) The Celts (and Anglo-Saxons, Germans, Dutch and French) all have a folklore of hares, eggs and spring ritual folklore, the Egyptians have their Hare goddess, over a whole district of province Hermopolis, and the hare was sacred and messenger to both Wenet and Thoth (deity of scribes, in kind with the Mayan hare deity who invented writing). Sacred, moon-gazing hares were sacred and associated with moon goddesses like Ostara, Ishtar, Innanna associated with renewal, rebirth and cycles of the moon … as were the Jewish kabbalistic and Persian triple hares, which had in common with the Chinese, Korean and Japanese ones that associated the hare with goddesses of immortality, who bore the task of pounding elixirs or rice-cakes. The first known literary reference is from A Survey of the Cathedral of St Davids published in 1717 by Browne Willis. It says: “In one key stone near the west end are three rabbits plac’d triangularly, with the backsides of their heads turn’d inwards, and so contriv’d that the three ears supply the place of six so that every head seems to have its full quota of ears. This is constantly shewn to strangers as a curiosity worth regarding.” The three hares are depicted in churches, chapels and cathedrals in France and Germany. The symbol has been found in Iran on a copper coin minted in 1281 and on a brass tray, both from the time of the Mongol Empire. Meanings of the Three Hares The symbol’s meaning remains obscure but the hare has long had divine and mystical associations in the East and the West.   Legends often give the animal magical qualities. It has also been associated in stories with fertility, feminity and the lunar cycle. The Three Hares symbolized different things for the different cultures who used it. In the absence of contemporary written records, however, these meanings can only be speculation. For example, in Christian Europe, one interpretation of the motif is that it symbolized the Holy Trinity, which may explain its depictions in churches.  The problem with this hypothesis is that it was made some centuries after the motif was made, and might not coincide with the original meaning as intended by its creators. Another theory is that the hare represents the Virgin Mary, as hares were once mistakenly believed to have been able to procreate without a mate, thus giving birth without losing their virginity.  In some churches, this motif is juxtaposed with an image of the Green Man, perhaps to highlight the contrast between the redemption of humanity with its sinful nature. In the East, on the other hand, the hare is said to represent peace and tranquility, and has been regarded as an auspicious animal.  This may be the reason for its use in the decoration of the Mogao Caves for example. “The earliest occurrences appear to be in cave temples in China, dated to the Sui dynasty (6th to 7th centuries).  The iconography spread along the Silk Road, and was a symbol associated with Buddhism.  The hares have been said to be “A hieroglyph of ‘to be’.” In other contexts the metaphor has been given different meaning.  For example, Guan Youhui, a retired researcher from the Dunhuang Academy, who spent 50 years studying the decorative patterns in the Mogao Caves, believes the three rabbits image-—”like many images in Chinese folk art that carry auspicious symbolism—represent peace and tranquility.” The hares have appeared in Lotus motifs. In both Eastern and Western cultures, the hare was once believed to have magical qualities, and it has been associated with mysticism and the divine. Additionally, the hare can be found in numerous stories relating to fertility, femininity, and the lunar cycle. Thus, it may be these connections that led to the hare being incorporated into the Three Hares motifs. “If we can open a window on something that in the past had relevance and meaning to people separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years, it could benefit our present day understanding of the things we share with different cultures and religions.” Yew Help http://www.ancient-origins.net/history/three-hares-motif-cross-cultural-symbol-numerous-interpretations-005640 http://www.chrischapmanphotography.co.uk/hares/ http://chinesepuzzles.org/three-hares/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/devon/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8280000/8280645.stm http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/three_hares.htm http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1466046/Caves-hold-clue-to-the-riddle-of-the-three-hares.html https://japanesemythology.wordpress.com/origin-of-the-three-hares-motif/

China's vice-minister of agriculture has announced the government is planning to implement strict labeling provisions for genetically modified products. But, it's not the only country concerned about this method of food production. Australia is well-known for its strict labeling policy on GM foods, which was implemented over a decade ago. Doris Wang looks at what effects the policy has had in Australia and what are the possible implications of the planned provisions on the future of China's GM food industry. Genetically modified or genetically engineered foods has been a hotly debated topic in many countries around the world. As the GM market continues to expand in China, the benefits and detriments of GM foods are being widely discussed in this country as well. At China People's Political Consultative Conference in March, vice-minister of agriculture Niu Dun announced that China is working on an evaluation system for genetically modified food in order to assess its impact on the environment and human health. And because of public doubts about GM safety, Niu says strict labeling policies will also be implemented. China isn't the only country who has concerns regarding genetically engineered foods. Australia has one of the strictest regulations. University of Melbourne professor Richard Roush says by requiring labels on products that use as little as one percent GM material, the Australian government may have deluded the public's opinion on GM foods. "It has definitely increased concerns among consumers that if the government was required to label this, it implies that there is something to be concerned about. It implies that there's something dangerous or there's some special reason the GM foods are labeled. And many consumers interpreted in that way. It tends to attack the credibility of GM crops." The GM foods industry is still in its early stages in China. So far, only GM cotton and papaya are allowed to be planted and commercialized. But, it is quickly gaining in popularity. Last year, China planted almost four million hectares of GM cotton and six thousand hectares of papaya. However, not everybody agrees that genetically engineered food is the future of China's agricultural industry. Philip McMaster is the founder of the World Sustainability Organization. He said GM products may even be dangerous for the country's food supply. "This is playing Russian Roulette with biology. It's not natural breeding. That artificial mixing of DNA to create a genetically modified product can't be anything but dangerous because we just simply don't know the end results." But, according to Australian Roush, GM crops have many benefits. "All the crops in widespread use today were developed to primarily control pest and weeds. So in general, the effects of these have been reducing pesticide use, increase yields and allow people to use much higher level of tillage in agriculture which has multiple benefits in reducing soil erosion carbon emissions to the atmosphere." Although China had a successful harvest last year, the country faces a decline in arable land amid urbanization, bad weather and pollution from fertilizers and pesticides. To improve agricultural products, China has increased its funding in GM technology development. However, according to McMaster, by relying more on genetic engineering, China would loose its sovereignty on food production to international corporations. "I don't think any average Chinese would want to loose control over the ability to feed themselves. We can't just go all the high-tech way with GMO and believe the future is going to be bright with technology. I think we have to come back to our relationship with the earth and farming without the chemicals and without the genetically modified things." Despite the interest in the technology, the GM production of China's stable food, rice, is still strictly prohibited. Roush says that passing the GM labeling regulation in China might have the same effect on consumers as it did in Australia. He suggests that in addition to labeling genetically-modified products, government officials should also look at other foods that he believes are truly harmful to humans. "There are artificial foods in our food supply that have been demonstrated to be unsafe for human health, yet, relatively little attention have been paid to them. It's transfats. We know that they're associated with heart disease. And in most areas, they get far less labeling attention than GM crops do which is quite striking how we've been misled about real human safety risks." As for McMaster, he believes that the labeling will allow people to make a more informed choice on what they are eating. "I think labeling is extremely important because it's about informing people that here's a selection of products, this one and this one do not have GMO, this one does, you chose." The Chinese government has yet to announce when the GM logos will be implemented. The industry is still in its infancy in China and only time will tell whether it will succeed in a nation of 1.3 billion consumers.

Japan and China's increasingly toxic relations in Asia are now spilling over to Africa where leaders from the rival countries are battling one another for influence on the continent. Although China has been much more active in Africa over the past decade, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe made it clear on his visit earlier this year that Tokyo will now be there to rival China in terms of money, ideology and development assistance. So after years of neglect by the world's major powers, Africa has now has the firm attention of the world's 2nd and 3rd largest economies. The more important question is how will African leaders respond?

Euromonitor International is pleased to introduce Sound Bite, a new monthly podcast series discussing food markets worldwide. In this episode, Lamine Lahouasnia, Head of Packaged Food Research and Ildiko Szalai, Senior Food Analyst discuss the Chinese dairy and baby food market. The Chinese market is the main focus for many international food producers as the country currently has no international penetration in many of its food markets. Although China has many regulations and restrictions about foreign players acquiring local brands, companies such as WhiteWave in the US have formed joint ventures as a way to enter the country. 

Although China has some of the world’s lowest level of foreign debt and official government debt, the Chinese government and state owned banks and enterprises actually owe an enormous amount of debt to domestic financial institutions and households. In this presentation, Victor Shih, Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, first catalogs the different segments of debt owed by the Chinese government and related entities. He then examines the claimants on this debt and then discusses some implications for future public policies in China.