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Man Of Destiny
One obvious read-across from the US-China trade "truce" is less urgency in Beijing to implement big-
Well done Chief Inspector H.
They will be peaceful right up until torches and pitchforks time.
I very recently opened the Temu app which I have not used for a while. Every single time I get to spin the thing which “randomly” gets me a discount of some sort, I end up getting the maximum discount. Every time.
And yes, as you mentioned, ridiculously cheap chinese goods are extremely tempting. Ended up buying stuff on two separate occasions (only 2-3 days apart).
Maybe there’s the wrong cookies on my browser, but Temu ads seem real scarce in the last few weeks, after being ubiquitous. Can’t be good for the US internet business.
Just a flesh wound says Xi.
I did some reading and am now fairly convinced that Xi won’t get serious about developing a consumer consumption economy unless absolutely forced to do so.
Chinese govt for most of CCP history has believed the strength of its economy is mostly defined by how technologically advanced China is, so its role is to steer economy to invest in and master key industrial sectors and technologies. National security and food security also priorities. Consumers fecklessly consuming – whether goods, services, real estate – does not, by this thinking, make China strong.
This is not new with Xi. He’s just been more ruthless in quashing excess investment in unproductive, by his lights, sectors. Social media, for example. Property development, another example. He was willing to cripple the whole property economy, bankrupt some of China’s biggest companies, cost Chinese families a third (? read that somewhere ?) of their wealth, to bring a disfavored sector to heel.
Xi has a list of industries that he wants China to dominate. Semi, biotech, AI, defense, etc. I think he’s laser focused on that. As he looks at the chaos and collapse in the US, he must be encouraged to press even harder on the throttle.