Comments by "Peter Jacobsen" (@pjacobsen1000) on "China Update" channel.

  1. Well, for now we don't actually know what it is, which is what is being pointed out in the video. We can speculate, but we have to wait for the data.
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  2. One of the downward drivers of consumption is the relatively low number of 18-33 year-olds. That cohort is the lowest it has been in about 50 years. We've all been young once and we know that young people spend like there's no tomorrow. 240 million young people (aged 18-33) is still a very high number, but it is 90 million fewer than there were 10 years ago, a drop of 27%. The number of young people in that age bracket will increase a little bit over the next 15 years to 255 million, but then it will fall precipitously.
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  3. Economic change often happens slowly, which may seem boring to some. This is not least the case in China, where the govt. prioritizes stability and will do whatever it can to prevent sudden large swings. We're unlikely to see a big crash in any part of the Chinese economy/society. More likely a decades-long slowdown or stagnation, Japan-style. Nevertheless, if you prefer more sensationalist news reports, there are several other channels that provide those.
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  4. Blizzard, -53 F, cold war, all in the same video. Coincidence? Someone is getting cold feet.
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  5. Report from Shanghai: My office building has been shut down for the week and we're all working from home. My residential community, which is in a different district, will offer nucleic acid tests tomorrow (Tuesday). It's not mandatory I think, but a negative result will give me the freedom to go more places. Otherwise, the city seems normal, people on the street shopping, etc.
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  6. I'm European and I think many Euro-businesses want to continue the strong trade relationship with China. It's a money thing. But European businesses will go anywhere there's money to be made. They are neither pro- nor anti-China, they are pro-profits. If America's efforts push production of many classes of goods to other countries (Vietnam, India, etc.), European businesses will follow. There is no heart involved, only brain.
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  7. "Substantial lunch break". It's not so much lunch that takes up time, but the obligatory nap time afterwards.
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  8. Hello from Shanghai. We truly live in interesting times. Let's see how it all pans out. 5.3% for 2022 may end up being difficult, or perhaps only achievable with major government investments.
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  9. Looks like the age of cooperation is over and the age of competition will begin. You can no longer copy my homework.
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  10. What you're describing is not a good analogy, because you're describing a house that is NOT collapsing, but slowly falling into disrepair. That is by definition not a collapse.
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  11. Gao Peiyong's commentary in People's Daily about Common Prosperity seems to me to be more a critique of the 'lying flat' and 'let it rot' culture.
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  12. Thanks for this excellent episode, Tony. Even though I follow China closely, and have been for over 30 years, I rarely see other outlets discussing ideological issues as in-depth as you did here. Even Willy Wo-Lap Lam rarely goes this deep.
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  13. A burger with foie gras and extra cheese is a Luxembourger.
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  14. "Picking quarrels and provoking trouble (寻衅滋事罪)" is a standard criminal offense in China, and one of the most common with which people are charged. It has no clear definition, and you can apply it to almost anything and anyone.
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  15. Top notch edition!
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  16.  @chubbymoth5810  It could mean that, but I doubt it. He's retired and lives in another, fully paid, apartment. My first thought was that he was worried about a potential war over Taiwan.
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  17. I think he has a good understanding of what can and cannot be said.
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  18. Well, it's becoming increasingly hard to find the bright lights in China's economy. No, China is not collapsing, but also not speeding ahead. Instead it is trudging along on a rocky path. There seems to be some growth in consumer spending, especially on services like travel and restaurants, but it's certainly not booming. Most everything else appears stagnant.
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  19. Re. Weather: In shanghai the longest heatwave ever ended today. Temps down to around 30 C and we got some rain. It's really quite comfortable to walk outside. In a few months it'll be cold and miserable.
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  20. Great to hear directly from Taiwan. We shouldn't be surprised that politics is guided by domestic issues, just like everywhere else. The international media has recently pounced on the defeat of Finland's prime minister Sanna Marin, considering she was such a young, pretty woman. Turns out the Finns don't really care about that either way, but are more concerned about public spending. What a surprise!
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  21. I'm sure it's always a fine time to be a paleontologist, especially if you're in north-east China (for Cretaceous) or south-west china (for Cambrian)
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  22. 2.28 million sqm of new housing supply for August is only about 25,000 apartments. That is a very low number, about a quarter of what they used to sell 5 years ago.
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  23. This is the first I hear of foreign countries imposing import restrictions on Chinese seafood for environmental reasons. Does anyone know which country/countries this is in reference to? EU? US? Japan?
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  24.  @skydragon23101979  It's just based on young people coming up minus old people dying, adjusted for rural-urban migration.
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  25. A lot of people still feel government bonds and government-associated bonds are a very safe investment. They sincerely believe the government will hold up their end of the bargain and they don't have much better places to put their money. However, I would not be surprised if many of those bonds are also being bought by State-Owned Enterprises who get told to support the system.
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  26. Yes, I also noticed the People's Daily didn't claim that the foreign media was factually wrong. Sometimes China's media sounds most like a high school 'mean girl'.
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  27. So almost like Scientology.
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  28. For China to reach the US GDP by 2035, it would need an average annual growth of around 4.2%. This may be achievable over the next 3-5 years, but beyond that I am very skeptical. But then again, I've been wrong before. I used to think China would keep growing 7-8%/year well into the 2030s.
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  29. Unlikely. People buy property where they can afford it and where it makes most economic sense, i.e. the potential for value growth. Last year's drought was bad for agriculture, but city people weren't really affected, at least not long term.
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  30. "tax cuts for the richest Danes". Rather, it's a tax cut for the working class and the lower and upper middle class, and a tax increase for the richest 0.3% of income earners. The biggest winners are the upper middle class making US$ 107,000 (DKK 750,000) who will get 1.6% more in take home pay.
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  31. China Tianrui Group was a bit of a special case: 70% of shares owned by one family (the original owners), murky lending and investment deals, lots of bad signs. And in the grand scheme, it's a relatively small company in the cement sector. They were the penny stocks of cement.
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  32. There are still around 17 million people turning 28 every year. Many of those are newly married and will need a home. So there will still be some apartment sales going forward, just not as many as before. I would estimate 4 million new apartments per year are needed in the 2020s and 30s, compared to 10 million sold every year in the 2010s. By around 2045, there will be more urban homes going on the second hand market than young people coming of age to pick them up. By then, around 80% of China's urban housing stock will be less than 60 years old (rural housing is not counted as part of the real estate market in China).
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  33. The mercantilist trade and economic policy China seems to operate under is not unique in the world. For smaller economies like S. Korea, it can make sense without drawing the ire of trade partners, but for a huge economy like China, this kind of policy can only last for so long. Eventually, all the world's customers buy Chinese goods and then there are no more people to sell to. Or to put it differently, every Korean person has about 160 potential customers around the world, but every Chinese person only has 6. Something's gotta give.
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  34. In my understanding, China's nuclear power stations are quite modern, but not the future types people talk about so much online, like sodium or mini-plants. Some of their technology was acquired from France's Areva, others from Westinghouse. Wikipedia has a good introduction to China's nuclear industry: 'Nuclear power in China'.
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  35. I'm in Puxi, too. A kind of apathetic acceptance seems to have set in, but I'm entertaining thoughts of all Shanghai residents suddenly deciding enough is enough and all just leave their compounds simultaneously.
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  36. I live here and I like the drone footage backdrop. I recognize most of it, but some I don't. I see enough of "dirty shops w old apartments" on a daily basis.
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  37. According to Reuters, China expects to see a 2.5% negative growth in steel prod. this year, so from 1.018 billion tons last year to around 0.993 billion tons this year.
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  38. Latest news re. Global Times, from SCMP: Hu Xijin will retire immediately as editor-in-chief, but will continue to write the occasional opinion piece. Global Times is largely his creation, so this is a big deal. No indication he has been forced to retire, though. I think he's 64.
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  39. Panda: Although it is fun to see how the panda meticulously peels off the bark of each bamboo stalk, there is still something very odd about an animal that has chosen to always eat only one kind of plant, and a hard, fibrous one at that. Why not try a cucumber or an apple every now and then.
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  40. China, of course, has a lot of military hardware, but they probably couldn't supply Russia with the thing Russia needs most: Artillery shells. Back in the 90s, China decided to switch from the old Soviet/Russia caliber of 152 mm to the NATO caliber 155 mm.
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  41. And those employees who already own an iPhone may very well demand that their employer pay for a different brand. The Chinese are pretty good at arguing their own case, especially when it comes to money.
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  42. Re. Fewer marriages: We shouldn't forget that one of the reasons for fewer marriages is that there are simply fewer women in the prime wedding age, 23-29. There are only a total of 64 million in that group, or ave. of 8 mill/year. Just 5 years ago, there were an average of 10-11 mill/year.
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  43. Re. FDI, it should not be surprising that there continues to be some healthy FDI into China as some of it will just be existing companies 're-tooling'. Eg. VW and GM in Shanghai are both getting heavily into electric vehicles and they need to re-tool some assembly lines and perhaps even build new factories for electric motors, etc. That is all just part of keeping up with consumer demand. You buy a new machine for the factory floor? That is also FDI.
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  44. I agree, and I think the media and politicians make way too much of this, regardless of which party is in power. It wouldn't matter if Yellen had literally kow-towed. In the end, it's the policy actions of the US that matter, not whether something 'looks bad'.
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  45. A-shares in the Chinese context is a type of share only tradable by Chinese citizens and only traded on the mainland exchanges. B-shares are open to both foreign and domestic investors. A-shares tend to be mostly large state owned corporations. There are also H-shares. Those are Chinese mainland corporations traded on the Hong Kong exchange. Those are open to everyone.
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  46.  @sayamalu2495  "Puxi starts from 1st April." Really? All of it? God, I don't want to go through another lock-down.
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  47. The channel has made clear many times that these sensationalist titles are necessary to drive growth of the channel. You should ignore the titles and just watch the channel for the content. And the channel never actually says it is 'the end'.
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  48. Peter Hessler is one of the best chroniclers of contemporary China at a human scale, rather than at a state-level scale. I strongly recommend his books on China to everyone: 'River Town', 'Oracle Bones', 'Country Driving', all great, great books! His wife's book 'Factory Girls' is also excellent.
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  49. Hu XiJin: "It is overly idealistic to expect adequate preparation". That's an astonishing statement to make! It could either mean "Hey, you're stupid to think anyone could handle this situation", or it could mean "Don't expect professionalism from the CCP".
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  50. Greetings from Shanghai. Still healthy, but expecting to get infected any day now.
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