I was having an interesting discussion with a friend in China over a certain recent event.
He said “Chinese thinking: Why are you meddling with my business? You are deliberately provoking conflicts. I must push you back or I will look weak!”
This comes from a Chinese saying: 各人自扫门前雪，莫管他人瓦上霜 : Everyone swept the snow in front of their own door and not to worry about others. It may sound very selfish but it is very fundamental to the Chinese society harmony – You don’t poke your nose into other people’s business and likewise.
Although the phrase comes from a comic book, it reflects deeply what it means to be an American and the sense of duty they have to the rest of the world.
Back to the certain event, most people think it is like 1989 but I think the outcome would be similar to the 228 Incident instead. God help us.
Most Americans think US engagement with China starts with President Nixon. But Sino-US history goes back as far as back as the American Revolution and before that.
In the 17th century, China was already trading with the US, then a U.K. colony. Tea, silk, and porcelains were imported from China. After independence, the US became China’s number two trading partner after British.
Through the 300 odd years of engagement, the relationship between the US and China had good times and bad times, but more often somewhere in between.
In the mid-1800, a large number of Chinese labors came to California in search of gold. By the 1860s, the Chinese were the largest aliens in West America. Expectedly, the US pass laws to ban more Chinese from coming.
Around the same time, many US Christian missionaries went to China. They were impressed by Hong Xiuquan and supported him in the Taiping Rebellion. Taiping Rebellion is one of the bloodiness rebellions in human history that leaves 40 million death, in an attempt to create a new “Heavenly Kingdom” in China. Ironically, the US State Department supported the Qing government instead and squash the rebellion.
2013 Circular No. 9 (9号文：质疑改革开放)
2013 Back to Real economy (回到实体经济：金融退场)
2014 Property market slowdown (房地产降温：地方政府没钱)
2015 Chinese stock market turbulence (股灾：一天回到解放前)
2016 Beidaihe signaled only SOE is favoured (北戴河：国进民退)
2017 Deleveraging (去杠杆：借不到钱)
2017 Arrest of high profile businessmen (抓钱袋子)
2017 19th Politburo – New Era (19大后新时代：政治博弈改金融博弈)
2018 Tax collections reformation (税务机构改革）
2018 P2P/ICO collapse (金融难民）
2018 margin call on at least 600 listed company (600家上市公司跌破平仓线)
2018 US impose tariff on China (美国增加关税)
2019 China grow rate at 6.6% in 2018 (2018中国GDP增长6.6%)
This article is written as the contribution to GIIC as their commissioner.
The world’s economy is quickly approaching a potential crisis, and the impact could be far reaching. The crisis stems from a collision of conflicting expectations involving one of the largest economies ever, and includes tangible, large-scale impacts on real communities. At this late hour, it is unclear whether the crisis can be averted and if so, what the consequences of trade-offs might be.
In July, 2001 China concluded negotiations with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and an agreement was ratified in December, 2001. Part of China’s understanding was that they would be granted Market Economy Status (MES) on the 15-year anniversary of the agreement, which will occur in December of this year. However, that understanding is not held by the other countries of the WTO and this disagreement has the potential to significantly impact economies around the world.
The accession to WTO opened up opportunities for Chinese industries, but has also brought about a number of unintended consequences. In the 90s, Europe was moving aggressively towards the use of renewal green energy, however manufacturing of solar cell in Europe was very costly because of the European environment protection regulations. The Europeans found a manufacturer in Wuxi, China who was able to provide solar cells very cheaply because of China’s less restrictive environmental protection regulations. The manufacturer became very successful and soon other companies began making solar cells. Unfortunately, the new manufacturers did not seek to enhance the original product, but chose to simply produce exact copies, which is usually the case in China. The “copycat” mindset often leads to overcapacity, and such was the case for solar cells in Wuxi. The European Union took notice of the situation and in 2011 cut back on demand, resulting in a large glut of solar cells, causing prices to plummet by nearly half. Read the rest of this entry »
By now, many people have heard of the implementation of China’s “Citizen Scores” that has been makingrounds. I become curious and did some investigation of my own.
As a boy scout as a kid, we used to play a game around campfire. The adult would form two teams and make two lines with 10 kids. He would the whisper the same exact message to first kid of the two teams, whereby they would repeat it to the next kid and so on until the last kid have to write the message down on paper. We always have a good laugh what comes out at the end compared to what went in.
“Citizen Score” is what happens when official news gets reposted, added with the journalist opinions, mixed in some new information (relevant or not), and repeated the process 10 times. To make it worst, most journalists in the process didn’t bother to, or was not able to do fact checking as the source is in Chinese. Read the rest of this entry »
Initially, I tried to stay out of this as I know all the players behind this. But given there are at least 3 people who have email me to ask me what’s going on, I think let me clear the air here.
It started with a report by Brandma on China’s “Special Operation” to regulate Domain Name Registrations which warns that “Getting the license requires understanding on how the regulatory system works and how one should respond as it evolves. It’s also like a mini ICANN application process, but this time in Mandarin.”
举例说明。92年起，我开始做互联网，也多年在亚洲与欧美国家为互联网事业走动，对于全球很多国家的互联网状况都不陌生。然而来到中国后，我第一次听到“南北互通”这个名词，在此之前，我在任何国家都未听过不同的网络需要解决互联互通的问题。我记得当时问我的下属：“不能互联互通的网还是互联网吗？” Read the rest of this entry »
So I called up my friends in Ministry of Industry and Information for lunch to find out what’s going.
Background
The document is called 电信业务分类目录 (Category of Telecommunications Services) that is now calling for public comments. This has been something MIIT have been working on for a quite some time now. Many companies, domestic and international companies, have been consulted and provided feedback before this publication. Read the rest of this entry »
