Given the PRC’s economic relations with Iran, Trump is clearly threatening “TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences” for China. But can he really follow through on this threat, or will Xi just respond with two words: “rare earths”? Treasury Secretary Bessent said this on CNBC today about possible actions against China: we are confident that everyone wants the strait reopened and for energy prices to come…
Unitree priced its IPO at RMB150.80, opened at RMB1,100, and closed at RMB845, up 460.3% from the offer price. Its market capitalization is now about RMB341.8 billion. Unitree’s valuation is difficult to defend using conventional fundamentals. It reported approximately RMB1.70 billion of 2025 revenue, RMB278 million of reported net profit and roughly RMB591 million of adjusted profit. At…
Wang Yi will visit South Korea for two days starting Wednesday. According to the Korea Herald: A Seoul Foreign Ministry official, requesting anonymity, said Tuesday that Lee’s broader vision for peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula is expected to feature naturally in Wang’s meetings in Seoul. Lee’s latest proposal is part of his administration’s efforts to improve strained inter-Korean…
Jiang Zemin Commemoration - There were few surprises at the Monday commemoration for the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jiang Zemin. All living, retired Standing Committee members except Hu Jintao, Li Ruihuan, Wu Guanzheng, and Luo Gan attended. Xi Jinping laid out five things the Party should learn from Jiang Zemin at Monday's centenary commemoration, and linked them to his agenda: We must…
Former Premier Zhu Rongji died on August 11 at the age of 98. His memorial service will be on August 18. Zhu has not been politically relevant for many years, and his death should not cause any issues for Xi and the leadership. There is a playbook for managing any outpouring of grief or reminiscences hinting at dissatisfaction with the current Era after the passing of a senior leader, and for the…
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I thought I would be on vacation already but there too many interesting things over the last few days to not do one more newsletter before heading off on my version of the “Beidaihe Break”. The Beidaihe Break has officially started, signaled by the CCTV report on Cai Qi visiting “experts vacationing in Beidaihe”:
The Politburo held its July meeting today. Some of the highlights: Fifth Plenum scheduled for October, agenda is “to study major issues concerning the unremitting advancement of full and rigorous Party self-governance”; Diagnosis of economic situation section includes “it is necessary to attach great importance to the difficulties and challenges in economic performance 要高度重视经济运行中的困难挑战”, which…
We are still waiting for the July Politburo meeting. Gita Gopinath, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas and Hélène Rey - two former IMF chief economists and the incoming chief economic advisor at the Bank for International Settlements, respectively - wrote “Don’t blame global imbalances on the undervalued yuan” for The Economist arguing that calling on the PRC to revalue the yuan to fix imbalances, as…
In this issue: Xi meets Slovak president “Excess capacity” or “Overcapacity”? CXMT IPO the day after Xinhua’s mid-year review of the Chinese economy Li Qiang commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Tangshan earthquake National Conference on Overseas Chinese Affairs Work AI and chips US to ban new PRC robots
The July Politburo meeting should happen this week, and should include as part of its agenda “analyzing and studying the current economic situation, and deploying economic work for the second half of the year 分析研究当前经济形势”. The 2025 July meeting was on Wednesday, July 30th, and also announced the date for the Fourth Plenum. And then on or around August 1 the top leaders will disappear from public…
