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

  1. Perhaps if you continue to follow this channel, you will gradually learn more about China, including their currency. Then you will no longer have to proudly declare your ignorance.
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  2. Hey Bob, I'm in Shanghai under lock-down. Generally speaking, people set up 'shopping groups' online within the community. Food can be delivered, but due to lack of personnel, they only accept bulk deliveries. As an example, I volunteered for a shipment of fresh vegetables a few days ago. We ordered 90+ boxes of mixed vegetables. It took 2 days to get all buyers together and collect money, then 2 days before the goods were delivered. My volunteering consisted of receiving and distributing the goods together with two other residents. We all had to suit up in protective clothing and all boxes were disinfected. It took about an afternoon. There are shopping groups for all sorts of things: Toilet paper, soft drinks, meat, condiments, etc. My community is 99.7% Chinese, so we don't expect bulk buys of anything Western (butter, coffee, cream, cheese, etc).
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  3. I think in 2010-2020, there were 10 million housing starts annually. 2000-2010: 7 million housing starts annually. 1990-2000: Much fewer. Early 90s were when people first had the opportunity to actually buy their own home, but only few could afford it. In total over 30 years: Perhaps 200 million apartments/homes. That also fits with the urban population having grown from 300 mill to 900 mill.
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  4. Sounds like this recent discovery is in the northern part, but of course there is also oil in the southern part: Malaysia and Brunei get most of their oil from the South China Sea.
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  5.  @Andy-P  Yes, since the SCS is not demarcated, every claimant country will be prospecting for oil in competing zones. Vietnam cooperates with Russia on oil exploration, sometimes in Chinese-claimed areas. This has created a bit of a headache for the parties that supposedly are 'best friends'.
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  6. Earlier this year, SCMP quoted a Chinese demographer who must have had access to more detailed census data than what are made public. He said that in the three biggest and most prosperous cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, the Total Fertility Rate is only 0.7. That made me raise my eyebrows. However, the people needed to move into those cities won't have to be peasants, but could well-off people from a 3rd tier city in the interior. Those people will then be replaced by up-and-comers from a county seat who will be replaced by chance seekers from a distant township, and so on.
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  7. I think generally speaking (not just in China), a pension scheme gives people peace of mind about their old age and thus makes them feel more comfortable spending their money on consumption.
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  8. That's just speculation without evidence. Would you base any forecasts on that?
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  9. Many of those who invest are companies that already have a big footprint in China and who are planning to expand in the country. If their business is going well in China, they may want to build a new manufacturing facility, or an R&D facility. Remember, even in a troubled economy, there will still be some that make a lot of money. Back in the 2008 financial crisis, many people were struggling, but some were having great success, and just off the top of my head, Netflix and Starbuck's were both doing very well at that time, I think.
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  10. Considering the vast majority of European auto brands sold in China are also manufactured in China, and with Chinese SOEs as partners, I don't see why China would try to block that. I think Europe should, and would, welcome China auto brands to manufacture cars within the EU. It doesn't matter if the car a European buys is a BMW, a Toyota, a Kia, or a BYD, as long as it is made in Europe, helps create European jobs and contributes to EU's economy.
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  11. Re. Rahm Emanuel: 1) We know him as campaign manager during Obama's initial run for president in 2008, and as Mayor of Chicago, and in both jobs he was known to be quite, er, outspoken. So it could just be his personality coming out. 2) I am not one for conspiracy theories, but it is possible that the new Biden admin said "Let's have our own wolf warrior. Not in China, but in a nearby country that is known for having a contentious relationship with China, and then let him rip". It's better to have the US ambassador in China be the 'good cop', developing a friendly relationship, and the 'bad cop' in nearby Japan, spouting mad criticisms. It seems to work well so far, and I'm not sure China knows what to do about it.
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  12. Isn't most of the footage taken during the daytime?
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  13.  @skydragon23101979  Yes, I agree.
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  14.  @SiRasputin  Well, no one can accuse you of being weak of faith. And who knows, maybe you're right. All I'm saying is that there are no guarantees of future success.
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  15.  @SiRasputin  "underestimating anyone is perilous". I am not underestimating China. I am saying there are no guarantees all its dreams will be fulfilled. That is the case for every country, and for every individual. "you're forecasting the demise of an ancient civilisation". I challenge you to find anything I have written that even suggests such a forecast. Anything! I'll be waiting.
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  16.  @SiRasputin  "perhaps not you, but many in the West". Well, then address your complaints to them, not to me.
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  17. I asked in my community in ChangNing, but was told there are no plans to let us out for now. They're awaiting instructions from above. We're now 14 days since last case, so in theory we should open today or tomorrow. But with the new directive we may have to wait until June.
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  18. I don't think 5.2% is unrealistic. It's a bounce-back number. Bounce-back years will always have relatively high rates to even out the downturn from the prior year. Just like 2020 to 2021 (2.3% to 8.1%, giving an average of 5.1%).
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  19. beyond people is pork, delicious pork.
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  20. For decades now it has been a standing joke that civil servants do very little: A nice cup of tea, break out the newspaper, chit-chat with colleagues. When a citizen comes in for help, the facial expression is 'Oh no, not another one....' Perhaps that is not too dissimilar from what we can observe in the West.
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  21. Watch 10-20 Zeihan videos in a row and you don't have to watch him again: From then on it's all re-runs.
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  22. I agree. He is pretty strong on foreign policy. I'm not American, so US foreign policy is my main interest. Americans may have a less positive view of Biden. Seems to me most Americans have little interest in US foreign policy.
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  23. Not quite. In 30 years there will more likely be 300 million fewer than today, or around 1.1 billion.
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  24.  @fabiandonvil  "those are figures using the official data". Ok, so what are the real figures? Or the better figures? Are we just going to make them up to suit our own narrative? Is there any data for 'the real figures'?
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  25. I completely understand the need for sensationalist video titles. Here are some more suggestions: "Biden and Xi had a phone call. This is what happened next...." "Xi destroys Biden in expletive-filled tirade over the phone" "The Biden Xi phone call that could destroy the world" "America-China phone call: Who won?" "Biden and Xi had a phone call, and people on X are not having it!!" (followed by an article made up entirely of random people's tweets) "The truth about the Biden Xi phone call" "The Democrats and CCP stroking their members during steamy phone call". "The call is coming from INSIDE the building"
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  26. I agree. It seems more like a propaganda weapon than a bio weapon: "Hey, the foreigners are out to get us"! "Beware of the American body snatchers".
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  27. Reading the comments here, it seems that many commenters believe that the words 'collapse' and 'decline' mean the same thing.
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  28.  @ChiefBridgeFuser  That's true. People have no good options for investing their money at the moment, so they put it in the bank, or possibly buy state issued bonds. It's a real problem going forward. As for property ownership, you do actually own your apartment, that is your property. What you do not own is the land beneath it. That is what you lease for a limited time. I believe it used to be 30 years, but is now possibly 70 years. What you get is a 'Land Use Rights Certificate' which gives you the right to live on that land. Some of the early certificates have already run out, and so far, people have been able to renew them for a small fee for another 30-70 years. However, nobody can know for certain if these rights will be honored going into the far future. So far they have been.
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  29.  @recondax  Sure, you are free to use any number you prefer. Regarding basing population numbers on salt consumption, you would first need to know how much salt the average person eats. I don't think there's any data on that, and it might even be impossible to get such data. If we use your preferred numbers, then we have to use them in other fields, too. That means China's per capita GDP is not $13,000 but $20,000. It also means that China's Total Fertility Rate is not 1.1, but closer to 1.7, higher than even the US, and that would mean a much slower population decline than currently assumed.
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  30. The problem with both Martin Wolf's article and the response to it is that both simply rationalize the past by putting a positive spin on it. This is akin to saying that it was a positive development that you got fired from your job, because you now have more freedom, or that it was good that you were hit by a bus, because you now have three months to spend in bed, and work was getting stressful, anyway. There's a certain level of 'Ah Q-ism' in this kind of thinking: Every loss can be redefined as a win. Back when China had 9+% growth rates, nobody said that this growth was bad, or low quality growth. It was just growth, and people loved it.
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  31.  @YourHineyness  "the cumulative effect would be by now an economy worth 47 quadrillion dollars". You can make a simple calculation to figure out what the growth rate would have to have been over the last 40 years to end up with an economy of $47 quadrillion. It's not something you have wonder about, you can calculate it.
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  32. The French are world leaders in public protests. But they'll probably come around to accept the changes.
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  33.  @Llortnerof  😂
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  34. There is a big difference between cities. Hypothetical comparison with the US: 1000 new apartments in Detroit will have a very different fate than 1000 new apartments in Manhattan.
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  35.  @VastChoirs  Ok, let's see when it comes to Shanghai.
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  36.  @simonkimber1152  Wow!
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  37. It's good to be skeptical, but you can also get so skeptical that you no longer believe in anything, and that only brings you back to square one.
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  38.  @kennethli8  I've lived in China for over 20 years, speak the language, etc., etc. In the end, it isn't whether we should believe numbers uncritically, but consider what numbers we have access to. There are numbers from the government, other numbers from places like Beige Book, and then there are numbers we just pull out of our ass. That last category is the least reliable.
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  39.  @tenglim4406  Ok, but that makes the potential growth even bigger. This investment is many times larger than anything China has ever done before, including the big one after 2008, which I think was $800 billion.
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  40.  @thomasherrin6798  "don't take my word for it, I'm not an economist". Yes, that's clear from your rambling comment. In the future, try to narrow down and write in a more precise way. Deal with one issue at a time.
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  41.  @tonysu8860  These are great points. Certainly, investment in the healthcare system would be very welcome in China. There are some good hospitals here, but not enough, and trying to see a doctor is like trying to get a ticket to a Beyonce concert.
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  42.  @kennethli8  I disagree.
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  43.  @yoyolim538  I'm not sure what you mean. I'm reporting what I see in Shanghai. What is your problem with that?
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  44.  @bollyfan1330  I cannot. I have no access to numbers that you don't also have.
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  45. So far there has not been an announcement regarding resumption of tourism visas, but that could happen any day. It's still not that easy to get a visa.
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  46.  @oooTACooo  It doesn't really work that way.
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  47. Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a bacteria causing infection that is treatable with antibiotics and China produces lots of antibiotics. But the sheer amount of affected patients may cause bottlenecks. I don't think this should be considered as dangerous as Covid-19.
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  48.  @raimundomartin5459  Yes, you're spot on! I'd love to visit Latin America some day.
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  49.  @civiltrialatty  Try to get a hobby. It'll be good for you.
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  50. The current problem is that there are no buyers.
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