Director @CarnegieChina | Prev. @macropolochina @KelloggSchool @eurasiagroup @theatlantic @uschinabusiness | author & builder | eating & boxing
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Xi places an innovation-driven economy far above a consumption-driven one.
That's why "high quality" was everywhere in the new five year plan. It's no longer a buzzy neologism but akin to a Xi doctrine.
This has several macro implications:
1. The indicator that matters much more now is TFP, not GDP.
2. It's the beginning of the end of China's "deployment super cycle" that defined 5 consecutive FYPs since 2001.
3. The emphasis will be on value creation rather than volume generation by Chinese companies.
4. The pernicious pattern of involution needs to be addressed because involution comes at the expense of innovation.
My latest:
carnegieendowment.org/emissa…
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What a teriffic series from Southern Media group - the nurses and doctors on the frontlines without their face gear
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Just realized that Harvard was founded in the same year as the Qing Dynasty but has outlasted it by about a century.
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From Snowpiercer and Gangnam Style to Parasite and Squid Game, every Korean cultural product that's gotten big in US seems to revolve around the theme of inequality and fairness.
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Sound like a broken record, but America's superpower is the ease with which it creates new Americans. It's the only superpower that is basically immune to IP theft.
This is more than just H1B visas. One reason the US tech sector became so world-dominant: the post-1965 immigration system allowed talented people from across the globe to come here to work, study, start companies, raise families, build new American lives.
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80% of Chinese talent that contributed to GPT-4 got their graduate degrees in US and ended up staying
The AI race heats up and the contribution of Chinese talent to breakthrough products like OpenAI's ChatGPT cannot be ignored. Our latest piece looks into their role in generative AI and why the US needs to embrace foreign-born talent to remain competitive: macropolo.org/chinese-talent…
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Beijing reveals NSA has hacked into universities, but slips in the reason they know it was America was cuz
1) hackers always clocked out at 4pm EST
2) never worked weekends
So China is accusing the NSA of quiet quitting. Where's that 996 hacking ethos!
h/t @ZichenWanghere
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Louis C.K.: "Trump is...the worst of all of us. He is a symptom to a problem that is very real. But don’t vote for your own cancer."
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What's the best explanation you've heard for why China is leaning so hard into open source? It's now an official position from the foreign ministry apparently.
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It was about last year around my birthday that I got cancer. This year for my birthday all I wanted was to run up the Rocky stairs (after realizing the elder Rocky in "Creed" was also diagnosed with lymphoma).
Onwards with life
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Predicting China's "asymmetric response" to chip stuff isn't hard. You do chips, we do metals, and it's usually something that ends in "llium".
Here's a good cheat sheet to see what China's "metals tool box" could be
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Solar technology: US invented
Solar industry: China dominated
NdFeB magnets: US invented
Magnets industry: China dominated
Li-ion battery tech: US invented
Battery industry: China dominated
EVs: US invented
EV industry: China dominated
Nuclear power: US invented
Nuclear industry: neck and neck
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Another angle for comparison:
US economy = China + Japan + Italy but produced by just 1/5 of their combined population
China economy = Japan + Germany + UK + France but produced by 4x their combined population
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In 1996, before the safety reboot began, U.S. carriers had a fatal accident rate of roughly one crash for every two million departures.
Now, 0 fatal crash out of 8 billion passengers in last 12 years.
wsj.com/articles/the-airline…
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Terribly sad news of the unexpected passing of Joe Fewsmith, a giant in the field of Chinese politics, a terrific professor, and just a really great guy. I was privileged to have studied under him.
He got a lot of things right on Chinese politics I think, and his "Rethinking Chinese Politics" is as relevant as ever, particularly on Leninist system's evergreen "succession" problem:
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Federer hasn’t played French Open in 4 years. Comes back and is now in the semis facing down Nadal, his greatest rival and probably greatest clay player in history. Tennis world goes crazy.
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In 2020, China's population as % of world pop finally matches its GDP as portion of global GDP: both stood at 18%.
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Cheap batteries
Cheap solar
Cheap electrolyzers
Cheap EVs
Cheap AI
Cheap(er) nuclear
Everything invented by America in 20th century has been scaled and made cost effective by China in the 21st.
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Leaders w/longest consecutive years at top, democratic or not:
Merkel: 16 yrs
Mao: 27 yrs
Deng: ~19 yrs
FDR: 12 yrs
Putin: 9 yrs
Chavez: 11 yrs
Xi: 9 yrs (so far)
Anyone else to add to the list?
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New picture on Xi's shelf upper right is of him and Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao in younger days
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Xi's 100th anniversary speech is about as close to a "national myth" as there is. The plot is basically:
5,000 yrs ago: China born!
Next 3,160 yrs: oh nothing happened
1840: China down and out!
Next 80 years: tried a bunch of things
1921: Bam, the CCP comes to rescue
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Just heard a good joke from Andrew Yang on a podcast:
Q: how far ahead is China on AI than America?
A: 12 hours
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I feel like one thing we are underestimating is just how much WeChat has shaped the information environment over the last two years for Chinese people, particularly their views of America. Not sure this is gonna be a good outcome.
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Remember the ethnic warfare 20 years ago? Now Rwanda is making smart phones entirely in country @Noahpinion
fastcompany.com/90414915/rwa…
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Based on Chinese readout, Xi views competiton as more of a relay race at the Olympics, the leader changes a lot and at the end of day, you can till get silver or bronze.
He thinks US views competiton like MMA, going for full bloodied knockout.
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BREAKING: As a matter of national security, China just banned exports of admantium, a rare metal used in creating indestructible super soldiers.
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If all true, this is kinda a big deal. You can't look at this and not think Chinese capital is gradually stitching together an entire continent. @gyude_moore
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From piece: California has 19,000 EV charging stations, or about the same # China adds in a month - yup, not so much that China is inventing the future but that it is excellent at deploying the present. That's something we've lost in US.
There are almost as many places to charge your electric vehicle in Beijing as there are in the entire United States: caixinglobal.com/2019-10-16/…
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this is of course a Chinese mother:
“So every time my mom sees me, she’s like, ‘I have an idiot for a son. Did you go to school? Did you actually go to school and get a PhD in finance? What is wrong with you?’”
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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Sitting in this Jewish deli and it's Mexicans cooking awesome matzo ball soup and making pastrami sandwich.
I can't help but think about Bourdain's imitable ode to Mexican cooks.
All the while listening to Biden's speech and I just think, America is pretty fucking awesome.
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Three weeks into Xi’s third term:
- BRI marginalized
- Wolf Warrior replaced with stabilizing China’s near periphery
- Reconsidering zero covid even if moving cautiously
- Reopening communication channels with US
Not terrible so far…
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Still boggles my mind you can see the mountains so clearly and so consistently in Beijing now. It's only been 10 years #NoFilter
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what people want in a country:
America's innovation and dynamism
China's industrial base
Canada's politeness and non-hegemonic aspirations
Scandinavia's social equality
Singapore's order and stability
South Korea's pop culture
Japan's cyberpunk urbanity
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Only drones in China are dystopian
WATCH: A drone was seen flying over a Manhattan park on Saturday, urging pedestrians to “maintain social distancing.” cbsn.ws/2yzRy5v
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So the WSJ editorial board goes there - we should keep on supporting gasoline cars just to prevent China from taking over the EV industry:
wsj.com/articles/oliver-zips…
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American and Chinese tennis players hugging at the net after a hard fought two sets - the kind of "great power" competition we can all cheer for.
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Basically all "apex industries" (aircraft, cars, chips, ships etc) are duopolies or oligopolies.
China is poised to crash the car oligopoly now, and people aren't gonna be happy about that for a while.
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Official Chinese readout of the Anchorage talks - much less bluster:
-aim for climate working group
- discussed vaccine issues for foreign diplomats
-foreign journalists and visa issues on the table
-discussed normalizing visa and travel between the two countries
- meet at G20
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Chinese economy passed 70% of US GDP in 2020. That's exactly where Japan got to in 1995 before it plunged into its "long" lost decade. This means we should anticipate many takes drawing on this parallel in coming months.
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Reason #346 why American food has gotten so much better. These sauce sections are common in most supermarkets today
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Reporting on China tariff retaliation all don't mention this
2025年4月10日12时01分之前，货物已从启运地启运，并于2025年4月10日12时01分至2025年5月13日24时进口的，不加征此次加征的关税。
Sounds like they are basically giving a month to negotiate and assess
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New paper finds almost 100% pass through of tariffs to US importer, much less effect on China faculty.chicagobooth.edu/bre… @scottlincicome @Noahpinion
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Money shot of the whole Party Congress speech was Xi and Hu Jintao having a friendly exchange and chuckle after Xi sat down. It's not the first time.
Furthering reinforcing what I've thought for a while: Xi and Hu are actually much closer than people think.
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Always mind boggling to think that for China to reach today’s US per capita GDP (~$60,000), it would have to be an $80 trillion+ economy, or roughly the size of the entire global economy today.
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The leading faces of Chinese AI - so-called six little dragons
AI competition isn't really "China" vs "America" but Hangzhou vs Palo Alto
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Three months into a global pandemic:
1) global supply chains didn't really fall apart
2) Internet around the world didn't crash as everyone went online
3) Food shortage scares didn't really materialize
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It's been more than 15 years since Lenovo acquired IBM's ThinkPad. They still remain excellent Microsoft laptops. Any national security risk yet?
It's been 11 years since Geely acquired Volvo. They still seem to be selling well. Any national security risk yet?
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Not good... "In 2021, at least 1,400 US-based ethnic Chinese scientists reportedly switched their affiliation from American to Chinese institutions."
scmp.com/news/china/science/…
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IF the goal is to seriously compete with China on a 21st century production base, then some form of industrial policy with American characteristics will be necessary.
The strategy should focus on acceleration and agglomeration because we're playing catch up. Scale will naturally follow.
@wstv_lizzi and I sketch out some broad contours of what that might look like and what lessons we might embrace @ForeignAffairs
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Wow, Canadian Bianca Andreescu defeats Serena for her first grand slam. She's a child of Romanian immigrants. In fact, all of Cananda's top tennis players right now are children of immigrants.
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Album name suggestions please to go with the album cover
Mao Zedong (center-left) and Zhou Enlai (far left) in Yanan, 1935
Amazing color work by “Olga”
flickr.com/photos/22155693@N…
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Relevant, everyone has a favorite WTF stat from China. One of mine is that Beijing's neighboring province Hebei at one point produced more steel than all of Europe. It no longer does, and here's the result
Still boggles my mind you can see the mountains so clearly and so consistently in Beijing now. It's only been 10 years #NoFilter
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State sector = shock absorber. Always has been and always will be. And will never disappear.
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The Chinese high speed rail network has a net benefit of $380 billion adn ROI of 6.5%, even accounting for debt macropolo.org/digital-projec… @MacroPoloChina
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg wants to make the United States the “global leader” in high‐speed rail. That’s like wanting to be the world leader in electric typewriters, rotary telephones, or steam locomotives. j.mp/3abImEX #CatoTransit
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How many more stories like this before narrative shifts that China advantage ain't about labor $$ anymore. It's about the manu/supply chain ecosystem it has built over 40 yrs. It's like WeChat or ios, everything you need contained in that ecosystem. Switching costs are high.
China used to be the country of lead toys and toxic dog food -- but a decade on, it is actually one of the safer places to manufacture goods. Now as companies look to relocate their supply chains because of the trade war, the same risks are resurfacing.
nytimes.com/2019/08/15/us/po…
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Well, United gonna wake up to a huge China hangover tomorrow - video gone viral in China, key market for airline
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Or put another way: Americans tend to look at America's staunch Asian allies favorably
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2021 is almost over, time for Useless China Predictions 2022:
1/ In 2022, Evergrande will be renamed EverMeh after restructuring.
2/ In 2022, Beijing will pivot from assertive actions to just passive aggressive actions.
3/ In 2022, Gordon Chang will predict China's collapse.
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Sunday thoughts - trying to see how to distill China since Deng into four decadal periods, with each’s essence captured by an “ism”. Here’s what I got
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Wow, these vintage photos of America before 1970 puts China's airpocalypse in context. US was an environmental wasteland for a long time. We are just living through China's industrialization in real time in the social media age:
businessinsider.com/what-us-…
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China has two spots in the top 25 institutions for top-tier AI research, almost all are US institutions--still by far the best places to work for the best talent around the world:
@MacroPoloChina @Noahpinion @erikbryn @tylercowen
macropolo.org/digital-projec…
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New favorite Sichuan joint in Chicago. That mapo tofu may be one of the best I've had anywhere in America.
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China bubble thought China gonna be major issue of election - it pretty much wasn't.
China bubble thinks China will be major priority in first 100 days - it most likely won't be.
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$6 billion for 1.5 miles. We are never getting high speed rail. If developing economies are subject to the resource curse, then perhaps we need to coin a new advanced economy disease of "rebuilding curse"
The feds are going to fund $3.4 billion of the 1.5 mile, 3-stop extension of the 2nd Ave. subway, which will be built partially through pre-existing tunnels, and that's only somehow 49% of the total budget for the project.
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Oh look, Apple has been shifting supplier sites out of China (left) - what I tweeted previously
But wait, look, Apple has also been relying on more Chinese suppliers over same years (right).
This highlights the "made in China" and "made by Chinese firms" paradox
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Headline: Manufacturers Move Supply Chains Out of China
Near bottom: "More than 100 companies have asked the Commerce Department to waive the latest 25% tariff on their imports because they say they can’t find suppliers outside of China."
wsj.com/articles/manufacture…
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When folks do retrospectives on China's EV industry, best give props to Wan Gang, the sci-tech minister in the mid-2000s. That dude pushed EVs like hell, and was the only non-CCP member at that level and a consummate technocrat
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Yes of course, a solar boom must be followed by a falcon boom - Keynes said so
In Japan there is now a minor boom in falconry: crows are attacking solar power plants with stones, and the only effective way to keep crows away is to deploy falcons. One trained falcon making 60 attack sorties a day can protect 100,000 solar panels from vengeful crows.
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Free market economy pushes non market economy to adopt a binding target. Target obsessed country says nah, we are not as into targets as you seem to be these days. #worldupsidedown
A last-ditch effort from the U.S. failed to get China to accept its demand for a $200B cut in the U.S. bilateral trade deficit, as Chinese officials resisted committing to any specific targets after two days of contentious negotiations: wsj.com/articles/china-rejec…
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It's kinda remarkable how many Chongqing videos are on YouTube by random travel influencers. And it's always like "the biggest city you've never heard of" or "China's cyberpunk metropolis"
Has no one heard of CQ and how is it cyberpunk?
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Psst China, cracking the code to the 2nm chip is hiding in plain sight. It was all in the design of the Forbidden City
It's kinda like when Tony Stark discovered the clue to the new element was hidden in the map of the World Fair
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Ok China, DO NOT respond. There's a book about what happens, I'm sure you read it, it was very popular in your country:
google.com/amp/s/www.science…
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9.2 million Chinese high school students took the gaokao exam, about 6,600 got accepted to Tsinghua or PKU, a combined acceptance rate of 0.03%. One of the main examples in my book of how scarcity shapes competitive behavior in China...
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Hm, so Huawei apparently outsold Samsung in smartphones, China's Mars rover on its way (yes, ours too), and Beijing just finished its Beidou satellite system. The PBOC is about to launch its digital yuan. Sputnik you say?
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"South Korean battery makers had been “badly let down” by US car manufacturers, which he said had failed to produce EVs sufficiently attractive to mass market consumers to meet their own bullish sales projections."
ft.com/content/5affede6-1f1d…
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Same message from Chinese leadership over last few years:
The center would like you to focus on X, but don't do X too fast, not everyone should rush into X, we don't want bubbles in X, we don't want redundancies in X. Now go do X well without any of that.
High quality growth!
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1 in 5 guys thinks they can take on a chimp? A bonobo, possible but unlikely. A chimp, not even close, dead in like 30 seconds.
"Compared to women, men feel most able to take on medium-sized dogs and geese" today.yougov.com/topics/life…
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Haha, WeChat has already become Facebookified. Baby boomers and Gen Xers are taking over things invented by Millennials.
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Interesting new Mckinsey consumer survey showing that Chinese EV owners' buyers remorse has gone up significantly over last year:
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Purdue Universiry professor creates the whitest paint ever, which may work better than air conditioner in cooling buildings (it reflects 98% of solar radiation)
google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoda…
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