There are basic but fundamental errors at the heart of the Wolf-Pettis thesis. Most importantly, there is a misunderstanding of the meaning and definition of 'saving'. 1/

Another great thread from Glenn, who deserves more followers here IMO. He has been doing yeomen’s work dispelling this kind of nonsense in detail. carnegieendowment.org/posts/2009/1...

Since 2009, China's HSR network has served ~22 billion passengers traveling an aggregate ~7.6 trillion kilometers (~348 km/trip). This is equivalent to ~26k round trips to the sun, or ~0.80 light years.

The U.S.-China trade relationship of the first part of the 21st century was at its core predicated on 🇺🇸 retaining brand/tech/IP value and outsourcing production to 🇨🇳 mfg. partners. In return, 🇨🇳 opened up its domestic market to these high-value 🇺🇸 products.

GM originally setup its JV with SAIC-GM in 1995 with its 50% contribution to registered capital of ~$800M The equity component might even be less depending on how much the buildout of the plant was funded by local debt.

Foreign MNCs aren’t investing in China anymore. Meanwhile Chinese MNCs are driving FDI growth in ASEAN, tightly integrating SE Asia into existing supply chains centered around China. ASEAN is at the frontlines of a major shift in global mfg in the coming decades. 🧵

Billy moneyballs Gallium Guys, you’re still trying to fight this tech war and hold onto the gallium that China is no longer selling us. I told you, we can’t do it ... and we can’t do it. Now, what we might be able to do is recreate it. Re-create it in the aggregate.

I wrote this piece seven years ago about the intrinsic value of currency in the context of debates on the value of bitcoin and crypto assets at that time. www.readwriteinvest.com/p/what-is-th...

The "Chinese honeypot AI" meme reveals some disturbing misogyny/xenophobia 👇, which again just highlights the toxicity on the other platform. There is also a "main character" level of conceit evident in assumptions they are prime targets in the first place as if this were a James Bond movie.

A few years ago, I wrote about the story of Qualcomm, Huawei and the "Race to 5G" I discussed the history, technology, and geopolitics of wireless in five Acts leading up to the arrest of Meng Wanzhou in December 2018.

An eye-opening set of charts on Japanese automakers. Japan and the U.S. car markets are the last refuges for Japanese automakers. In retreat most everywhere else in the world due to being laggards on the EV transition.

NEW from us: Indonesia's president Prabowo announced last week the ambition to phase out fossil-fuel based power plants by 2040, a major step up in ambition compared with the earlier target of phasing out coal by 2056.

We’ve really lost the plot when the highlighted solution to “re-industrializing the economy for national security purposes” is framed around the goal of trying to “rebalance China”. Even if it might be better for us that China rebalances, we have little control over it doing so.

Robin Zeng on #Northvolt ❌ Design ❌ Process ❌ Equipment Source: FT

US manufacturing sector has become less productive since the 2010s in terms of value of output per hours worked www.economicstrategygroup.org/wp-content/u...

Northvolt’s bankruptcy filing highlights the difficulties private capital face in a high-risk, capital-intensive endeavor like batterymaking. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I reviewed the financials for nearly two dozen Chinese EV makers (including incumbent ICE carmakers) and discovered some surprising revelations: 1. High revenue concentration with the top 3 players (BYD, Tesla and Li Auto) accounting for more than half of NEV revenue

A couple thoughts on this story by Elsie Chen and me: -Upper-middle class urban China has become cool and fashionable! Little of that has reached foreign audiences except maybe through TikTok, because of the firewall and all those expelled journalists… apnews.com/article/chin...

Recent @economist.com article argues the middle class is stagnating in Asia, with the key chart showing a noticeable plateau/decline for China. Issue here is conflating the $3-25k HH income group with the “middle class”. China’s number is shrinking because HH incomes are now rising above $25k.

Huge if true. Indonesia is substantially powered by cheap domestic coal, and so far has been slow to transition. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Useful map of EV battery gigafactory projects in Europe, of which many are by Chinese/Korean companies

Introduce yourself with your worst feedback from school 👇 Hi I’m Glenn. According to my yearbook, my claim to fame in Middle School was being a fan of the New Jersey Nets, which was considered uncommon where I grew up. (Narrator: Glenn grew up in the middle of New Jersey)

Viewing # tags by user is a great feature. Feels like @bsky.app team is really thinking about this product by systematically fixing all the things that were broken about the old Twitter, keeping the good parts while adding well-thought-out improvements.

Over the past 12 months, China Railway has ↗️ the HSR network by 2,859 km and ridership has ↗️ by 376M trips and 130B passenger-km. The entire Shinkansen is 2,765 km and carries ~386M riders traveling ~100B px-km. So China Railway built an entire Shinkansen in the last 12 months.

As the decouplers move into the White House, it’s worth noting that many citizens in middle powers favor China as their trading partner over the US. via @ecfr.bsky.social

While the EU can act relatively cohesively as an economic bloc, this thread highlights the issues it has of acting cohesively on core defense matters.

The “China eliminated poverty” declaration in 2021 was actually based on *extreme poverty, which is at the ~$2 mark. The next level up is regular poverty which is at this $6.85 mark.

There seems to be much “de-dollarization” attention being paid to this recent $2 billion bond issuance by China’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) on the NASDAQ Saudi Arabia. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

TRADE WARS ARE GAS WARS My piece this week on an under-discussed element of the coming trade clash, particularly between the US and Europe - liquefied natural gas. www.economist.com/finance-and-...

The extra 20 characters allows people to add pleasantries like “with all due respect” or “I hear what you’re saying but”

I've been spending most of my time the last 24 hours going through other people's followers lists to see who I recognize to follow.

This @wsj.com article was a good reason to update a bunch of #HSR charts. "giant money pit"? 😒 In 2024, China's HSR ridership surpassed all-time highs and China Railway is going to generate ¥1.3 trillion of revenue and ¥400 billion of EBITDA. 🧵

China-Brazil is the fulcrum of China’s economic strategy into South America. Analogous to Indonesia to SE Asia.

Compiling a starter pack for those interested in trains, high-speed rail, metros, etc. (a transfer of old lists from Twitter/X) go.bsky.app/PnVcXEJ

Networks shouldn’t be evaluated based solely on selected low-traffic nodes. Taken in the aggregate, China’s HSR network is only behind Japan’s in terms of network utilization and has seen utilization rise even as physical length of traffic grew.

Recent @bsky.app spike feels like the New Coke debacle except where a startup came up with Coca-Cola Classic instead.

I’m utterly baffled by this.

People sometimes forget just how protectionist Japan was. Relative market scale drives protectionism in the smaller market. Japan Inc relied on its home market (4x smaller) more than the U.S. did. We are now seeing similar effect with US and EU vs. China for EVs.

Renewables adoption is also growing faster in developing nations as well.

Regional imbalances in China have been shrinking since peaking in the mid-2000s. Source: World Bank thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/26442...

China’s October youth unemployment rate was released on Monday, coming in at 17.1%, down from 17.6% in September. This 🧵 provides some additional context into the controversial figure, which was suspended in June 2023 for six months before restarting in Dec. 2023 with a modified methodology.

Mobile gambling is ravaging Brazil www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

China's current account surpluses have been overstated by hundreds of billions per year over the past two decades. This is a technical 🧵 that discusses the source of the distortion ("factoryless manufacturing"), the scope of the overstatement, and some downstream implications.

In limited early trials, I have noticed enough engagement here on Blusky to make it interesting. I will still continue to post at Twitter/X but plan to cross-post here as well. If anyone has some good suggestions on tools, please let me know. I did just sign up for Buffer.

Guys, you’re still trying to fight demographics and replace 350 million retiring workers. I told you, we can’t do it ... and we can’t do it. Now, what we might be able to do is recreate them. *Re-create it in the aggregate*

Follow Glenn. He and I may not always agree on China’s economy, but he always has something interesting and insightful to say.

Tech transfer was always about technology for profits. The EU is absolutely right to pool its leverage to extract the best deal possible, just like China did for decades. It's about being smart and acting in the best interests of your constituencies. www.ft.com/content/f4fd...

Of course that’s your contention. You’re a first-year associate on Morgan Stanley’s international desk. You just finished reading Business Insider and are convinced that the CCP has taken out a trillion dollars of debt …

2024 content compilation. This is regularly updated throughout the year. For new followers, I typically write about technology, industrial policy, business strategy, clean energy, investing, and economic development. With an occasional meme thread. www.readwriteinvest.com/p/twitter-th...