MNCs creating new Co-prosperity Sphere

As workers earn more in China (Chinese labour costs escalate and the US of A tries to contain China, MNCs are creating new supply chains that by-pass China.

No single country offers China’s vast manufacturing base. Yet taken together, a patchwork of economies across Asia presents a formidable alternative. It stretches in a crescent from Hokkaido, in northern Japan, through South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangladesh, all the way to Gujarat, in north-western India. Its members have distinct strengths, from Japan’s high skills and deep pockets to India’s low wages. On paper, this is an opportunity for a useful division of labour, with some countries making sophisticated components and others assembling them into finished gadgets.

https://www.economist.com/business/2023/02/20/global-firms-are-eyeing-asian-alternatives-to-chinese-manufacturing

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Chinese labour costs escalate

making Indian and Asean costs look attractive.

China owns the sun

OK, OK, China dominates solar pv manufacturing capacity.

China controls 79% of the production of polysilicon used for solar panels, 97% of the production of solar wafers, 85% of solar cells and 75% of the manufacturing process to assemble cells in modules, according to an International Energy Agency report published in July 2022.

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/china-ban-would-slow-not-halt-western-solar-push-2023-02-03/

Indian capitalism and democracy make Chinese communism look great

OK, OK, there’s no such thing as Chinese communism. It’s socialism with Chinese characteristics.

China is hot (cont’d)

China is hot

Copper: Upper, up and away

China’s open for business again.

Rabbit depictions around East Asia

“Its red eyes, blue body, strange smile, spiked feet, and oddly humanoid hands have sparked a fierce backlash, Some have called it “pure evil”. 

Sixth Tone, a Chinese news site, has about the stamps.

Trust Xi to screw up. Other three rabbits are OK.

Spring Festival movement in China

We are in a sweet sport because of our Asean neighbours

And by 2050 Indonesia will be the world’s fourth-largest economy, projects Goldman Sachs.

S’pore and other Asian countries that are waiting to welcome Chinese tourists

For a little red speck we are punching above our weight in getting Chinese tourists. Must be the casinos (Cambodia too)

Why China’s opening up is good news for global tourism

China will not be happy

Taiwan’s Foxconn said on Dec. 8 that its Singapore unit had invested $500 million in its India affiliate.

Foxconn plans to quadruple the workforce at its iPhone factory in India over two years, Reuters reported on Nov. 11, citing two government officials with knowledge of the matter. It plans to boost the workforce at its plant in southern India to 70,000 by adding 53,000 more workers over the next two years, the report said.

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/apple-finds-happy-home-india-2022-12-20/

Will China send its navy and air force to exercise off Taiwan to express its displeasure?

Covid-19 in Shanghai

Int’l media reports that a hospital in Shanghai reportedly told staff that it expects half of the city’s 25m people to become infected with covid-19 by the end of December. 

Wonder if the head of the hospital is now in jail? Will the hospital recant?

Related post: Covid (aka Nemesis) says hello to Grandpa Xi’s Hubris

Covid (aka Nemesis) says hello to Grandpa Xi’s Hubris

After his triumph of becoming paramount leader and Helmsman II, Xi is now facing the the possibility that China’s Covid wave could kill as many as 1.5m people. Only 1m Americans died.

Residents of Shanghai, Shenzhen and other cities say that pharmacies have sold out of fever medicine and Covid tests. Social media images contrast long queues outside Covid clinics with otherwise empty streets.

China’s lack of preparation after authorities reversed strict pandemic controls is showing. Even the Brits and M’sians did better in preparing for the reversal.

Btw, in the context of China’s population, 1,5m deaths are “peanuts”.

Still this isn’t the triumph of the Chinese way v the American way that Xi crowed about when 1m Americans died.

It’s Asian, not British

Burberry is a quintessential British brand.

But it’s really Chinese who buy the brand. Burberry made £1.3bn (US$1.6bn) last year from Asia, almost half its total. But sales in China, its biggest Asian market, have been hurt by the country’s zero-covid policy. The opening up of China is good for it.

No Chinese

1.6bn, is the number of international tourist trips forecast to take place in 2023, still 200m fewer than in 2019 reports int’l media

One in ten tourists was Chinese before the pandemic. Their numbers will double in 2023, to 59m, far below the 155m recorded in 2019.

  

Apple/ Foxconn show limits to help CCP can give

Earlier this year, when Foxconn’s workers fled the world’s largest iPhone factory in the Chinese city of Zhengzhoum. local governments recruited villagers to restore Foxconn’s iPhone production after staff exodus, And they were looking for workers to fill factories ahead of peak holiday sales season (now).

But all this help wasn’t of much use

Separate unrest at the world’ subsided after the local government lifted a five-day lockdown on Tuesday. Worker protests over Covid restrictions at the Foxconn campus had resulted in violent clashes with police. FT reporters spoke to plant workers who witnessed the chaos. Foxconn is struggling to staff assembly lines at the peak of Apple’s pre-holiday high season, highlighting the vulnerabilities created by a reliance on China’s manufacturing model.

FT’s newsletter

When the Chinese people are angry, the CCP has problems.

Hear the people sing Grandpa Xi

Thousands of people in Shanghai staged a demonstration against China’s draconian anti-covid measures, Some called for the removal of President Xi Jinping. Sporadic anti-lockdown protests also broke out in Beijing. A fire that killed ten people in Urumqi, the capital of the western province of Xinjiang, has focused people’s anger. Demonstrators there blamed covid restrictions for slowing the response of emergency services. There are reports that some of the restrictions there have been lifted after people protested.

Video of Shanghai protect: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-63770974

Cheap skate rich Chinese relocated here?

We keep hearing from the constructive, nation-building media that the ultra rich Chinese are relocating here from HK.

Funny then that they are not spending their $ here.

I read recently that Covid-hit Hong Kong lost luxury shopping crown to New York. Fall in visitors coincides with 41% decline in average retail rents in Tsim Sha Tsui district

Manhattan’s Upper Fifth Avenue is now the world’s most expensive street for luxury shopping with Milan’s Via Monte Napoleone in third.

Why America remains great

China and America are in an undeclared race to be the first to send another person to the moon after the last US mission decades ago.

But even if the US loses, it has changed the context of the “moon wars” with China.

America intends to send astronauts to the Moon in the next few years, with the long-term goal of establishing a permanent base there. As part of its Artemis programme it intends to put a space station, called the Lunar Gateway, in orbit around the Moon to act as a communications hub, science laboratory and short-term living space; it is due to launch in 2024. A series of preparatory robotic missions to the Moon will blast off in 2023. 

An extract from the Economist’s The World Ahead 2023

China is not planning or building a Lunar Gateway. It only has plans for a permanent base on the moon.

India’s rising because it had incompetent govt not because of good govt

Unlike China.

If demography is destiny, India will be the Asian superpower, not China.

India is reaping the benefit of incompetent govt. It like China once upon a time tried to curb population growth.

India’s attempt to reduce fertility was less successful than China’s even though it was the first country to introduce family planning on a national scale in the 1950s.

Whatever, us Chinese are more productive:

But India’s prosperity depends on the productivity of its youthful people, which is not as high as in China. Fewer than half of adult Indians are in the workforce, compared with two-thirds in China. Chinese aged 25 and older have on average 1.5 years more schooling than Indians of the same age.

https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2022/11/14/india-will-become-the-worlds-most-populous-country-in-2023

All to play for in regional supremacy.

Ang moh tua kee even in China

The most profitable tech company operating in China is not a homegrown internet giant such as Alibaba or Tencent but California-based Apple reports the Economist.

Sells a lot there:

It also manufactures a lot there:

Asean countries are winners from Sino-US decoupling

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/11/06/who-wins-from-the-unravelling-of-sino-american-trade

And we are Asean’s financial centre and a global port to boot. Our PAP millionaire ministers are very lucky that S’poreans allow them to govern us. But are they grateful? I doubt it.

Chinese politburo has diversified talents

OCBC has an interesting angle on the politburo of 25 members.

More diversified than our cabinet of 37 millionaire ministers.

Forward this to George Yeo, Kishore and other Wumaos.

Even if China manages growth of 4% a year for the rest of this decade, it won’t overtake America soon – especially given that the yuan has been falling against the greenback. If the United States continues to grow on average 2% a year and the currency stays where it is, China’s economy will still be nearly 20% smaller in dollar terms at the end of the decade.

The country would then find it harder to build the dominant military force in Asia and fund investment overseas. It would also be a less attractive model for other countries to emulate – and there would be less pressure to accept its hegemony.

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/xi-jinping-has-silver-linings-rest-world-2022-10-17/

It needs to supercharge growth again, but Xi doesn’t seem to be the leader who will allow this. China has indicated that it may miss its annual economic growth target of 5.5%. blaming Covid-19, but not referencing Xi’s zero-Covid lockdowns.

Chinese soy sauce maker treats home market consumers as second class?

Japanese consumers are tua kee for it seems

It’s alleged that Foshan Haitian Flavouring & Food ‘s

 products sold in Japan have simpler ingredients and no preservatives. 

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/chinas-soy-sauce-star-suffers-premium-downgrade-2022-10-12/

Chinese netizens are not happy with the company which has 20% of the Chinese soya sauce market.

It mealy mouthy says

the accusations as a smear campaign. It says it complies with relevant food safety rules and stressed that food additives are common and don’t imply inferior quality.

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/chinas-soy-sauce-star-suffers-premium-downgrade-2022-10-12/

Investors are selling. It has lost about US$8 billion, or 15%, of its market value in recent days.

The new Sick Man of Asia

Just as the UK is becoming again the Sick man of the West, China is again smoking opium.

China’s growth is set to fall behind the rest of Asia for the first time since 1990, the World Bank reckons. It revised down forecasts for GDP growth to 2.8 per cent — compared with 8.1 per cent last year — as zero-Covid policies and trouble in the property market throttle the world’s second-largest economy. Expectations for the rest of East Asia and the Pacific have conversely improved with the region excluding China expected to grow 5.3 per cent, up from 2.6 per cent last year thanks to commodity price rises and a domestic consumption rebound.

China’s currency has lost further ground against the dollar, taking the fall for the year to date to 11.5 per cent. The renminbi now trades at Pmb7.1631 against the US dollar, adding to pressure on the Chinese central bank to intervene by deploying foreign exchange reserves.

FT

Meanwhile a major Indian conglomerate is returning to investing in India. For a long time it was squandering money in the West because it was an ang moh tua kee kind of Indian. To be fair it grew rich in India because of the British. It was also not really Indian. More soon.

Here we go Again! Again And Again!

Xi’s zero-covid policy is having another bad week and it’s really bad:

Much of Shenzhen, a Chinese tech metropolis, entered a weekend lockdown to allow for mass covid-19 testing, as the city battles a spike in cases. Residents of six districts were told to halt “unnecessary movement and activities”; public transport and restaurant dining were suspended. One person from each household will be permitted to leave their homes to purchase necessities. Shenzhen is the latest Chinese megacity to face severe constraints: 21m residents of Chengdu, in southwest China, entered lockdown on Thursday.

Economist’s The world in brief

And the very latest is that China extended its lockdown of parts of Chengdu and expanded mass covid-19 testing there to contain a spike in cases. 

Looks like Xi will not have a Covid free coronation in October after which he will have no limits on his term of office.

Chinese no longer tua kee

Chinese nationals were the world’s biggest luxury spenders before 2020. But their share has temporarily shrunk during the pandemic.

European luxury outlets have to sell to ang mohs who spend less. No Chinese tourists. Chinese buying in China.

Some context to Temasek’s Chinese bank holdings

Backgrounder: Temasek owns 2% each of China Construction Bank and Industrial Bank of China as for 31 March this year, Temasek reports.

Headline

Chinese regulators rush to tame investor panic over mortgage boycotts

Homebuyers stop paying loans on more than 200 unfinished property projects

FT article on China

Chinese banks provide these mortgages.

Will the constructive, nation-building media ever link these facts?

How China is subverting Asean

Via TikTok

 [I]n Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, about half use the app for news. Young people, the most avid TikTokers, are more likely than others to get news from it. Mainstream media, meanwhile, use TikTok to promote their content

Economist

Fighting inflation and Covid-19 the Chinese way

Chinese are fighting inflation and Covid-19 successfully with its “dynamic zero-covid” policy. Too bad about the lockdowns, human suffering and economic slowdowns. LOL.

People power

Even the CCP has to backdown when people are angry.

Int’l media reports that, following a backlash online, local authorities in Beijing dropped plans to require proof of vaccination for entering public venue. The city’s vaccine mandate would have been the first of its kind in China. Beijing residents will only have to show proof of a negative covid-19 test obtained within 72 hours in order to enter public venues.

So unlike the PAP. LOL. Die, die must raise GST despite public anger.

Seriously, the Chinese don’t do vaccination: Why China has to continue with its zero-Covid policies, lockdowns and all

Empire strikes back?

Int’l media reports that China is rapidly censoring news of an alleged hacking of a Shanghai police database. The alleged hack can expose the personal data of more than 1bn Chinese people, in what could be one of the largest-ever leaks of private information.  The “hacker” says that the information had been retrieved from a private cloud service provided by Alibaba. Jack Ma must be shitting in his pants if true.

Already there are reports of offers to sell this data.

Maybe the Hegemon is telling China “What you can do, America can do better.”?

Why M’sia is no longer popular with ang moh investors

No not because Tun M is running the show.

No it’s because of China.

When the MSCI EM index — the benchmark for many equity funds — was launched in 1988, Malaysia was the biggest EM, with more than a third of the index. M’sian equity specialists like me were minting it. Even though I was based here, I didn’t do “S’pore”. It was boring and a waste of time. Btw, it’s still boring but S’pore stocks (and reits) now pay good dividends. Just the thing for me today.

China only joined the index in 1996, with a weight of just 0.46%.

Chinese equities now make up more than 30% of the MSCI EM, followed by Taiwan, India, South Korea and Brazil.

I told my ex-boss yesterday that he and his pals Tun and Anwar were in a sweet spot.

Chinese don’t do risk management

Never heard of diversification of risk?

Talking about Chinese parents

In a highly competitive environment where education is prized as the route to success, many parents would rather spend their money securing a bright future for one child than spread their resources across several. 

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/01/19/chinas-birth-rate-continues-to-fall

What happens if the child is not that bright or has mental issues?

Having two kids sounds a safer bet.

China is a “paper tiger”

China’s defence minister, Wei Fenghe, told America to “stop smearing and containing China”, claiming that it was up to America to improve the countries’ relationship. At the Shangri-La security meeting in Singapore, Mr Wei had previously said China would “not hesitate to start a war” if anyone tried to split Taiwan from the mainland. Lloyd Austin, his American counterpart, accused China of taking a “more coercive and aggressive approach to its territorial claims”.

Economist’s The world in brief

Taiwan is already split from China because its an island.

Seriously, it is already split from China because

In a Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation poll conducted in June 2020, 54% of respondents supported de jure independence for Taiwan, 23.4% preferred maintaining the status quo, 12.5% favored unification with China, and 10% did not hold any particular view on the matter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_independence_movement

At least Putin had the balls to start a war, unlike Grandpa Xi who is a paper tiger who Talks the Talk but doesn’t Walk the Talk.

But let’s be glad that he’s only a paper tiger.

Shanghai: Here we go again/ Three boos for the Chinese way

Defeat after victory was declared:

Parts of Shanghai were locked down yet again, as China’s biggest city continues its pyrrhic battle with covid-19. Minhang district, home to 2m people, will be the latest to be quarantined. Meanwhile, many temporary testing stations—which must be within a 15-minute walk for Shanghainese—are being made permanent. Last week China’s government declared victory against the virus in Shanghai following a costly two-month lockdown.

Economist’s The world in brief

China say’s it’s governance is more superior than that of the West. When Shanghai was last locked down, A Chinese resident in Shanghai posted

“Democracy cannot guarantee the best governance, but it can prevent the worst from happening. That is enough.”

Economist

Who is bigger tua kee? China or US?

China holds more than $3tn in foreign currency reserves, while the US holds almost none. 

FT’s Martin Wolf

By our millionaire ministers’ standards China must be more tua kee than the USA. So why is PM not licking Xi’s ass?

Because, the USA

can print them … The ability of the US and its allies to freeze a large proportion of Russia’s currency reserves shows what this power means.

FT’s Martin Wolf

Who is right about China?

Richemont’s chairman Johann Rupert on Friday us cautious

on an aggressive recovery in Richemont’s China sales, suggesting any bounce would not be “triple digit” as domestic growth will be lower and people will be fearful of losing their jobs. That’s at odds with rivals like Tiffany owner LVMH and Britain’s Burberry, which indicated they expect a strong recovery of Chinese demand after lockdowns in cities including Shanghai and Beijing are lifted.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-finance-breakingviews-idDEKCN2N60X9

Rochemont unlike its rivals, focuses on watches and jewelry. LMVH and Burberry on clothes and other fashion goods.

China’s evolving zero Covid policy

Being a resident in the capital has its privileges

Officials in Beijing are employing increasingly tough isolation tactics to try to stamp out a Covid-19 outbreak to avoid the no-one-leaves-home lockdown that has shut down Shanghai. 

with gradually tightening curbs in China’s capital – most recently suspending taxi services in some virus-hit districts – rumours swirled on Thursday that it was headed for lockdown, something Beijing has avoided during the entire pandemic.

…

Authorities there have already banned dine-in services at restaurants, closed some malls, entertainment and tourist venues, suspended sections of its bus and subway systems and imposed lockdowns on some residential buildings.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/shanghai-hunts-down-covid-cases-beijing-curbs-taxi-services-2022-05-12/

Is China already in a recession?

Figures released on Monday show that lockdowns to enable President Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid strategy are hurting economic activity.

Industrial production, the motor that drove China out of the initial Covid shock in early 2020, dropped 2.9% in April. The expectations were of a slight increase.

Meanwhile, retail sales, the country’s main gauge of consumer activity, fell 11.1% year on year, compared with forecasts of a 6.6% fall from a Bloomberg poll of economists.

China’s jobless rate rose to 6.1% in April, the highest level since the 6.2% peak seen in the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic in February 2020.

Here’s a chart based on pre-Monday data:

Markets were unhappy.

Why China is doubling down on its zero-covid policy?

China is struggling to end its latest outbreak of more than 500,000 cases of covid-19

In a paper published this week in Nature Medicine, Chinese scientists and their foreign colleagues model the alternatives. Dropping all lockdown restrictions would quickly lead to 1.6m deaths, and at the peak of the wave China would need 16 times more intensive-care beds than it currently has.

The world in brief (Economist)

1.6m deaths is more than the deaths in the US, the hegemon China considers is decadent but is envious of, and wants to dethrone.

But the Ang Moh advice on how to avoid these deaths means following the Western practice of vaccinating the elderly and probably even importing Western drugs.

More realistic is a combination of vaccines and treatments. That, according to the scientists, could be sufficient to prevent the crush at hospitals. Treating all symptomatic cases with the most effective antiviral drugs would make the biggest difference. But huge amounts of the drugs must be procured. Vaccinating over-60s would also make a significant, though smaller, difference. Closing schools and workplaces, and other curbs on group activity, are much less effective—they only delay the problem in the same way that the zero-covid policy does.

The world in brief (Economist)

Why our millionaire ministers deserve their salaries?

This year, NASDAQ in bear market (more than -20%) and S&P in correction (more than -15%). HK and China have been in bear markets since last year.

STI up 3% this year. And if palm oil keeps on flying, and Covid is under control in the region, expect the tourists from Indonesia and M’sia to come in.

Chinese smarter than Mamas?

Or do Indians feel entitled?

China’s independent refiners have been buying Russian oil at steep discounts as western companies and Chinese state-owned traders have shied away FT reports.

But the Indians who buy Russian oil are the state-owned entities, int’l media reports.

Maybe the Indian govt thinks that being anti-China, and being a democracy that persecutes Muslims, will give it a free pass from the West?

KFC/ Pizza Express: Conditions in China worse now than the initial outbreak in 2020

Further to Omicron is making fools of Xi and the CCP, Yum China, which owns the KFC and Pizza Express brands in China, warned the hit from the latest Covid lockdowns has been “much more severe” than the initial outbreak in 2020. It said it expected an operating loss in the second quarter as sales decline and margins are squeezed.

Starbucks and Coca-Cola also say sales are falling in China. So do ang moh sellers of luxury goods that rich Chinese like to buy.

Superiority of the Beijing model of governance: what superiority? LOL

Good use of blockchain

Almost as fast as Shanghai’s residents post videos on how things really are in the city (bad, really bad), the censors take the posts down.

But blockchain is riding to the rescue:

One tool that netizens have deployed to document their experiences is the blockchain. Because the technology uses decentralised servers, there is no one company that can be leaned on to delete content. And activity is anonymous. “Shanghai Covid Memories” is a digital archive of disturbing moments. In one video a mother pleads with health workers to be allowed to take her sick two-year-old to hospital. The files are all saved (and available for sale) as non-fungible tokens on OpenSea, an NFT marketplace. So far none has been purchased. But the gallery is there for anyone to browse.

FT Daily Briefs last week

Xi and the CCP can’t catch a break

Recently I reported the mass testing in Beijing: Omicron is making fools of Xi and the CCP. Problem is that mass testing spreads Omicron.

Experts have warned that Omicron could be spreading during mass testing drives (now very common in China) because people are forced to congregate and then wait in less than salubrious environments before being tested. Many have refused to comply with testing orders because they are afraid of getting Omicron. They are right to be afraid.

Omicron is making fools of Xi and the CCP

Superiority of the Beijing model of governance: what superiority? LOL

Omicron shows that Xi, the CCP and the Beijing model have feet of plasticine.

While the decadent ang mohs are going on hols overseas, yesterday the FT reported:

Jilin in China’s north has now been locked down for more than 50 days and carried out 40 rounds of citywide Covid-19 testing … nearby industrial city of Changchun has similarly locked down for more than four weeks 

But Jilin still reported 15 new cases on Saturday while Changchun reported 172 new cases.

Since 4 April, Shanghai’s 25 million-strong population has been shut in their homes while officials try to contain the city’s worst Covid surge to date. But the city reported 39 Covid deaths on Sunday, a record for Shanghai, in addition to more than 21,000 new infections.

And in Beijing

The Chinese capital Beijing has kicked off mass testing for millions of residents after a spike in Covid cases.

The Chaoyang district reported 26 cases over the weekend – the highest number so far in Beijing’s latest surge.

Long queues outside supermarkets and shops were seen despite government assurance of a sufficient food supply.

It comes amid fears that Beijing could face a similar situation to Shanghai, which has seen some 25 million people shut in their homes for weeks.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-61212757

More at China’s oldies are giving Xi a migraine.

Putin has his war on Ukraine. Grandpa Xi has his war Omicron.

Maybe both should declare victory to save face?

Where US of A is ahead of China

And more socialist.

Further to China’s oldies are giving Xi a migraine, the US can distribute money quickly and efficiently to the masses and has done so:

In America fiscal easing took the form of “stimmy” cheques paid directly to households. China does not yet have an equivalent system for distributing government largesse. 

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/chinas-two-front-fight-to-quash-the-virus-and-revive-its-economy/21808838

But then the US of A cuts taxes while China follows the Pay And Pay’s Hard Truth to take and take.

China’s oldies are giving Xi a migraine

Maybe, he should do what Mao, his hero, liked to do?

China’s zero-covid policy has saved millions of lives.

but it will be hard to exit without a wave of cases and deaths because China’s oldies are very reluctant to get inoculated against covid-19.

(See also: Why China has to continue with its zero-Covid policies, lockdowns and all)

This has

has saddled the country with a vulnerable population that could die in large numbers if the government abandons its controversial “zero-covid” policy. But this uncompromising stance, which tries to stamp out any outbreak of the virus, obliges China to impose ruinous lockdowns on some of its most productive cities, including Shanghai, where some unlucky residents have been confined to their homes for over 30 days.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/chinas-two-front-fight-to-quash-the-virus-and-revive-its-economy/21808838

Maybe Grandpa Xi should take a leaf from his hero, Mao? Let the unvaccinated oldies die?

Mao wasn’t afraid of killing people.

Superiority of the Beijing model of governance: what superiority?

Over the past two years China has had a lower mortality rate from the virus and stronger economic growth than any other big country.  It’s “zero Covid” policy has been hailed repeatedly by the official Chinese media as proof of the superiority of the Beijing model of governance. Grandpa Xi’s mantra has been that the east is rising and the west is in decline.

But as the West is opening up, China is locking down hard, very hard.

A report by Gavekal Dragonomics, a research firm, said that all but 13 of China’s top 100 cities (by GDP) were implementing covid restrictions (see chart). Ten cities are in “severe lockdown”, meaning more than half of residents are confined to their homes. Changchun, Xuzhou and Shanghai were recently in full lockdown. But from the Shanghai chart (above) and the next two charts below, the Covid cases are “peanuts”.

Grandpa Xi’s “zero Covid” policy — hailed repeatedly by the official Chinese media as proof of the superiority of the Beijing model of governance — is now in serious trouble.

Shanghai is in a prolonged and increasingly unsustainable lockdown. Residents are getting upset and KPKBing publicly, some even rioting.

Why China has to continue with its zero-Covid policies, lockdowns and all

Half of China’s elderly population is at higher risk of severe Covid-19 because of the country’s patchy vaccination campaign. China’s homegrown Sinovac vaccine was found to be less effective at preventing death from Covid among the elderly than the BioNTech/Pfizer jab, unless they received three shots. Most Chinese have received either Sinovac or Sinopharm, which also requires a triple dose.

FT

Only about half of over-80s have been fully vaccinated. Less than a fifth have received a booster shot. Some 52m people over the age of 60 have not received two jabs.

Related posts: Mao would be proud and We getting our 4th jab soon

India, Russia’s bestie

Despite Xi saying China’s friendship with Russia has no limits, it’s the mamas who are buying Russian oil. Related post: Mamas love a cheap sale/ Xi scared of US?

Mamas love a cheap sale/ Xi scared of US?

Contrary to Cheap Russian oil for China, it’s the Indians who are buying cheap Russian oil,

not the Chinese.

Russian oil exports to India have quadrupled this month in a sign of the vast reshaping of global energy flows since the invasion of Ukraine. Russia has exported 360,000 barrels a day of oil to India in March so far, nearly four times the 2021 average. Historically, Russian crude oil has constituted below 5% of India’s total imports.

As For China, Chinese banks and companies do not want to risk losing much more valuable business elsewhere by flouting sanctions or doing unsanctioned business with the Russians that the West doesn’t like. The energy trade is not sanctioned but Western cos are avoiding it, hence the discounts in oil.

Time to remind the ang mohs about the racist ethnic Chinese story about whether to kill the Indian or the snake?

Cheap Russian oil for China

Russian oil is cheap, really cheap.

The int’l media reports that two-thirds of crude buyers appear to be avoiding buying Russian oil partly because many western banks, refineries and shipowners don’t want to finance, refine or ship Russian oil. The West has avoided sanctioning the oil and gas trade but traders are afraid that this will change.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are Russia’s “no limits” strategic partner and can avoid using the dollar to pay for the oil. They have Chinese-owned tankers and refineries to tpt and refine the crude.

Only China stands up to America

Double confirm: Xi is a Hard Truth believer

Even Grandpa Xi believes in LKY’s Hard Truth in growing the pie, not redistribute the pie.

The common prosperity we desire is not egalitarianism. To use an analogy, we will first make the pie bigger, and then divide it properly through reasonable institutional arrangements. As a rising tide lifts all boats, everyone will get a fair share from development, and development gains will benefit all our people in a more substantial and equitable way.

Grandpa Xi at Devos 2022

Taiwan: the island that matters

Or why Taiwan is important to China, USA and the rest of the world.

Note Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) plans to raise its capital expenditure by almost a third this year. Our Chartered Semiconductors (Remember it?) is now a major part of Global Foundries, owned by the A-Rabs.

Grandpa Xi joins PAP ministers in trying to be a standup comedian

I’ve written before of PAP ministers trying to tell jokes. Examples: Tharman trying to tell jokes again?, Halimah trying to tell jokes? $1m++ not enough isit? and Another minister tries telling jokes

looks like Grandapa Xi is imitating them

Speaking at a summit of the 10-country Association of South-East Asian Nations, China’s president, Xi Jinping, said his country would not “bully” its smaller neighbours and does not seek “hegemony” in the region. China’s extensive territorial claims over the South China Sea have embroiled it in confrontation with several members of ASEAN. These clashes have also provoked alarm in America and Japan.

Economist Expresso

Even that licker of Xi’s ass, the Peenoy leader, has had enough. He warned Xi that PeenoyLand has had enough of Xi’s bullying.

Investigate SPH for foreign influence?

In an article titled Chinese propagandists court South-East Asia’s Chinese diaspora, the Economist reported

In April Lianhe Zaobao, a Chinese-language Singaporean newspaper, renamed its “Greater China” section (covering China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) simply “China”, reflecting China’s claim that Taiwan is its territory. It is one of the few foreign newspapers which are allowed to circulate in China.

https://www.economist.com/asia/2021/11/20/chinese-propagandists-court-south-east-asias-chinese-diaspora

As the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act (Fica) was passed in October and aimed at countering foreign interference in domestic affairs, shouldn’t SPH be investigated to see if the Reds influenced its decision to drop “Greater China” in favour of “China”?

Pigs will fly first.

Related article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58798373

Good move by PM

PM has offered the US the Digital Economic Partnership Act it signed with New Zealand and Chile as a starting point for a regional digital trade pact like CPTPP.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (“CPTPP”) is a Free Trade Agreement (“FTA”) between 11 countries: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

The US negotiated an agreement that CPTPP is based on with 11 countries: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. But then refused to join up. So the other countries signed the CPTPP. The US now wants to negotiate bi-lateral deals with the signatories.

China wants to join the CPTPP, to troll the US. The US saw the agreement on which the CPTPP as a way of isolating China.

Temasek still loves China despite kanna burn

Temasek is temporarily halting new investment in Chinese tech companies owing to uncertainty over Beijing’s crackdown on the sector, its chief strategist told Nikkei Asia.

Sipahimalani said once it is known what is expected of the tech platforms, it will be possible to assess the impact on businesses like Didi, and thus determine the merits of investing in a particular company.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Temasek-pauses-China-tech-investments-amid-Beijing-crackdown

But

Sipahimalani said China will remain a focus for Temasek.

He cited areas like medical technology, biotech, electric vehicles and renewable energy as high growth spaces in China that the investment firm will continue to look at, in addition to keeping an eye on how the situation in the tech sector plays out.

“These internet platforms are not going way,” Sipahimalani said. “They create millions of jobs, so … I don’t think anyone is going to think that they are going to go away, but the framework under which they operate, the rules under which they operate may go through some changes.”

This is the problem

“When there is no clarity about the regulatory rule book, it is difficult to say — is this fair value or not fair value — so I think we would rather be patient and wait.”

Ah yah go buy more things in MamaLand, the place the PAP govt loves

Whatever, in allowing in travellers from India, the PAP govt is doubling down on its love of all things from India. Imagine the uproar from S’poreans if one of these travellers is infected with Covid-19 and this results in another lockdown that is not really a lockdown: PAP govt’s idea of living with Covid-19?

The variant of Covid-19 from India threatens more than lives

What’s so transitory about inflation? But it could be, really

Inflationary pressures ripple through US.

Likewise in China and Europe.

China’s factory inflation hit 26-year high as power crunch bites. Consumer prices will likely speed up in coming months as firms faced depleted inventories and are forced to pass higher costs onto customers.

Slowing economic growth and soaring factory inflation have fuelled concerns over stagflation, which could mean China has to move cautiously on loosening monetary policy.

“Rising CPI inflation and elevated PPI inflation reduces the probability of a PBoC policy rate cut,” said Ting Lu, Chief China Economist at Nomura.

Euro zone inflation rose to 4.1% for October, hitting a new 13-year high. And the new European Commission economic forecasts are set to see euro-area inflation at 2.4% this year and 2.2% in 2022, according to a draft seen by Bloomberg. The rate will then slow to 1.4% in 2023, the document showed.

But here’s a chart that could show that US inflation is transitory.

The FT’s Robert Armstrong says that this chart shows that the July and August reports made us think inflation was cooling. It isn’t but inflation is not getting worse, at least for now.

As goes the US of A, so goes the rest of the world, much to Grandpa Xi’s annoyance.

What we and the US have in common

The willingness to spend and spend on the armed forces. In 2019, the military expenditure of Singapore was estimated to be around 3.2% of GDP. In 2020, the military expenditure of the United States was estimated at 3.7 % of its GDP.

I am firmly persuaded that among nations, weakness will never be a foundation for security.

Viscount Palmerston, British PM in the 19th century

One of my favourite novelists George MacDonald Fraser described Palmerston as viewing the world like a sheriff in a cowboy town viewing his town.

China has kept its official defense spending at around 1.3% of its GDP in recent years, which is far below the average global level of 2.6%. But analysts believe that like many other Chinese figures is BS. The real number is a lot higher.

Example

In 2019, Peter Robertson, a professor from the University of Western Australia, argued that using conventional currency conversion as opposed to more accurate “purchasing power parity” (PPP) exchange rates dramatically understated China’s military capabilities and that China’s real military spending was equivalent to US spending of $455 billion, calculated from a PPP perspective.^[20]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_China#Unofficial_estimates

Interesting chart on three commodities

Goldman Sachs is talking about a new commodities supercycle.

But looking at this chart, we may be looking at a copper supercycle. Remember the green economy need a lot of of dirty copper.

But given China’s property slowdown (meltdown?), I doubt iron ore is in a supercycle.

I’m an agnostic about a food supercycle.

Asia loves coal

Only Indonesia sells more coal than Australia globally. Coal remains OZ’ s second-biggest export after iron ore.

China and India are the world’s biggest users of coal.

Rich Chinese go private

Why Xi is screwing Evergrande

He is trying to reduce leverage in the Chinese real estate industry by forcing the developers to reduce leverage. The coming takeover by state related entities and tycoons doing NS (Think the Mas of Tencent and Alibaba) of Evergrande (the largest and most indebted property developer) will be a major test for the government and CCP.

He’s taking a risk because if the takeover of the company is mishandled, it will burst China’s almighty housing bubble, hitting growth in the process.

He is trying to curb speculation in housing to ensure every Chinese family can own their own home. First time purchasers have declined very rapidly while the speculators are multiplying like rabbits.

He should learn from S’pore: public housing.

Xi trumps Trump

Grandpa Xi is looking for an English-speaking ghost writer to write the “The Real Art of the Deal” which he intends to be a sequel to Trump’s “The Art of the Deal”. No need to be able to speak or write Mandarin. The ability to write entertainingly in English is all that is required.

Xi thinks that he trumps Trump in deal-making. And who can blame him?

Trump got screwed: China is not honouring its “phase one” import commitments.

Cryptocurrencies in S’pore

Two interesting charts showing our level of awareness of cryptocurrencies. Good omen for the government’s attempts via MAS to make S’pore a global centre for all things crypto currencies. In Asia, China has made all activities connected to crypto currencies illegal as it prepares to launch its very own digital currency. And Japan is cautious on the issue having approved several exchanges. They ran into problems.

our central bank with several big banks is experimenting with the code underlying Ethereum. it can be used to create smart contracts.

Btw, Ethereum’s doing well

Oz links S’pore to AUKUS and QUAD

Brunei, M’sia, and Vietnam also share the link. The dragon will be snorting fire on the four countries.

China’s debt

Makes American debt levels look respectable.

West and India BSing about vaccine supplies

The US is to donate 500 million more doses of the Pfizer vaccine to developing nations from next year. Recently President Sleepy Joe made the pledge at a virtual Covid-19 summit on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, promising an “arsenal of vaccines”.

The additional jabs will see the total US commitment on vaccine sharing exceed one billion jabs.

The Quad group of nations (US, Japan, Oz and Mamaland) agreed in March to supply a billion doses of vaccine to Asia this year, but India suspended exports during a wave of coronavirus in April. Now the Indians have said exports will resume in October.

The biggest BS artists are the woke Kanucks. The Honourable White have done relatively well.

As for China, their vaccines are rubbish.

Tai tai keeps losing money

She went into Hang Seng and Chinese techies on her gut feel

The above chart reminded me that midweek her bestie called me to update me on the clueless Tai Tai I talked about last yr (Tai tai’s luck runs out, heading for Woodbridge? and Tai tai forgot this) trading performance. Tai tai doesn’t call me. Glad as her BS (one minute tells me she collected, 50k dividend from DBS, next minute it becomes 500k) and arrogance annoys me and I always tell her off.

Her unlucky streak cont’d this yr.

A few months ago, her “bestie” said she went into HK stocks, and China tech shares on her gut feel. The Hang Seng Index lost more than 11 % since her entry point.

And here’s what happened to Chinese tech stocks

But this wasn’t her biggest cock up. I’ll leave that for another day.

Why Merkel and Macron kiss Xi’s ass

If not worse.

And why the Americans, British and Aussies kept France out of their deal.

Asian junk bonds yield 12%

Yields on US dollar-denominated bonds issued by riskier Asian borrowers rise to almost 12% as the liquidity (solvency?) crisis at Evergrande, the largest Chinese property developer with the largest debts gets from worse to dire,

Asian property cos love junk bonds

And investors love junk bonds (especially Asian junk) because

The metals China needs

Thermal and coking coal prices are also strong because of Chinese demand. In the case of coking coal (used with iron ore), it’s because it’s boycotting Oz coal But as Oz is one of iron ore’s twin hegemons (Brazil is the other), it still needs Oz’s iron ore, even if China’s demand for it has slowed down because Modhi succeeded in infecting China with the Indian variant.

S’pore second to China in semiconductor sales

Way ahead of Japan and Taiwan.

Btw, interesting global table

Luxury brands: Importance of China/ Chinese love top end Swiss watches

Further to Grandpa Xi shorted these ang moh shares?,

Chinese love luxury Swiss watches. Swatch and Richemont have many well known luxury watch brands in their stables. Swatch doesn’t only do cheap and cheerful plastic Swatch watches.

India outshines China

Further to Time for emerging markets?

Blame the Indian variant of Covid-19 that is causing havoc in China?

No blame Water Margin hero, Grandpa Xi.

Grandpa Xi is shaking down the tech billionaires and calling for “common prosperity”. As these actions are what Robin Hood or the heroes in the “Water Margin” were doing, “robbing the rich to help the poor”,

A senior CCP official said that the push for “common prosperity” did not mean China would “rob the rich to help the poor”.

Xi is no Robin Hood but pork investors are suffering

Time for emerging markets?

They’ve been the dog with fleas on it.

Doesn’t seem like it. Not only because

But also because China, makes up 37.5% of the MSCI Emerging Markets index. And we know what is happening there

Grandpa Xi is shaking down the tech billionaires and calling for “common prosperity”. As these actions are what Robin Hood or the heroes in the “Water Margin” were doing, “robbing the rich to help the poor”,

A senior CCP official said that the push for “common prosperity” did not mean China would “rob the rich to help the poor”.

Xi is no Robin Hood but pork investors are suffering

Xi is no Robin Hood but pork investors are suffering

Grandpa Xi is shaking down the tech billionaires, but he’s is no Robin Hood. A senior CCP official said that the push for “common prosperity” did not mean China would “rob the rich to help the poor”.

Whatever, it’s black humourish that investors in pork and related investments are also losing money. GIC and Temasek are big investors Chinese pork and related stocks. As they are are also big investors in the Chinese tech cos, GST will have to rise by 4% next yr to fund the Covid-19 goodies? Remember you heard this here first.

Grandpa Xi shorted these ang moh shares?

I sure hp[e the various Chinese SWFs made China rich again by shorting these shares before Grandpa Xi cracked the whip to make sure there’s “common prosperity”.

China holds up the sky for luxury goods.

How China can save the planet and eat like ang mohs

Make its people eat like ang mohs i.e. chiat gatang

Nature, the science publication, reports that consuming more potatoes will not only bolster food security but help the environment. Growing potatoes cause a lot less emissions than planting wheat or rice.

In 2015, China implemented the “Potato as Staple Food” policy to meet its growing appetite, so the policy is already in place to eat like ang mohs.

Poor guys, Chinese tech billionaires

 FT looked at two dozen Chinese billionaires and found the crackdown has cost the tech guys US$87bn since 1 July,

China tech stocks trying to stabilise after crashing and burning

In August so far, HST is trying to stabilise around the 6.68 level. Missed a bullet on this.

Related post: Dragon’s breath singes Eagle’s feathers

Three countries using Sinovac or Sinopharm don’t trust their efficacy

[S]ome countries that relied on two Chinese vaccines have concerns about the drugs’ efficacy so want to offer an extra shot of something else. Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates will offer a shot of Pfizer to those citizens who had Sinopharm while Indonesia plans to give health-care workers who were previously given two doses of Sinovac an extra one of Moderna.

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2021/08/03/which-countries-are-considering-booster-vaccines-for-covid-19

Indian variant overruns China via Russia

So much so that Beijing shuts down transport links as the very infectious variant spreads to cities far and wide, int’l media reported.

China hunts down Indian variant as Covid outbreak spreads to 14 provinces

Authorities say infection arrived in Nanjing on Russian aircraft but went undetected for 10 days

FT headline yesterday

And

A total of 15 provinces have now confirmed cases. Cases in 12 of the provinces are connected to an outbreak that began in Nanjing in eastern Jiangsu province. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58052894

What the Indian variant is doing to us and even the PAP govt who loves all things India, is nothing compared to what it’s doing to China and the CCP.

The Indian variant is show the people of China and S’pore that the competency of the CCP and the PAP, respectively, is a lot of bull and spin.

Dragon’s breath singes Eagle’s feathers

I missed a bullet. Early this year I was thinking of buying into a HS Tech ETF. It then shot up like a rocket before I could buy. When it came back to my buying level, I decided to do nothing.

Best investment decision for in the last 12 months: https://www.theedgesingapore.com/news/global-markets/china-crackdown-makes-hang-seng-tech-index-worlds-biggest-tech-loser

PRC fifth columnists self identify themselves

But first for the plebs

A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack.

Fifth column – Wikipedia

Well the subversives (think Goh Meng Seng who helped deprive us of President Tan Cheng Bok: Desperately seeking Cheng Bock) have made it easy for the ISD to monitor and if necessary round them up because

About 72,000 individuals in Singapore have received at least one dose of the Sinovac jab, with 17,000 people having received their second one, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung in Parliament on Monday (26 July).

Constructive, nation-building media

China is one reason interest rates are so low

QE (or printing money) by Western countries is the main reason why interest rates are so low or even negative, but the savings of the PRC Chinese is another reason. This reason precedes QE. Greenspan was muttering about it in the 90s.

Chinese lose out in India

The geopolitical tensions between India and China (India thinks that it is on par with China, something China thinks is BS) means that Chinese investors face restrictions investing in India.

The Americans are reaping the rewards

China is Great Again

Tremble with fear before the Dragon Throne.

Covid-19: Proud moment for India

And all Mamas round the world.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reclassified the Delta strain of Covid-19 as a variant of concern, saying it is more transmissible and adding further pressure to maintain the country’s vaccination drive.

FT

The slit eyes may have started the Kung Flu but the Indian version is the most transmissible.

Congrats Modi. Anything China can do, Modi’s India can do better.

More on the Sinovac vaccine

Further to Share this with fans of Sinovac, a regular reader who was a medical doctor turned fat cat wrote

What’s happening in Chile now is EXACTLY what happened in Seychelles couple months ago.

This is exactly why Beijing said 2 weeks ago that China cannot follow the West to re-open because Beijing themselves are uncertain how effective their own cheena vaccines are.

People are now suspecting the wide difference of results in the various cheena vaccine trials in 3rd world countries (Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia) is due to different Covid variants, apart from maybe fishy or lousy record-keeping.

Traditional vaccines like the cheena ones, as well as Astrazeneca, have proven themselves in real life to be far less effective against newer Covid variants, in particular the Indian strain. Ongoing & future mutations will make ALL vaccines less effective, but will affect the traditional ones even more so.

At least so far, the traditional vaccines can still reduce severe infections, hospital/ICU admissions, and deaths. However Chile & Seychelles have shown that traditional vaccines are unable to significantly prevent infection by newer Covid variants, as well as transmission.

The benefit of mRNA drugs is that scientists can easily “re-program” the instruction code to combat new variants relatively quickly, often within 3 months. It will take much longer for traditional vaccines, as the scientists will need to practically start from scratch again.

The main benefit of traditional vaccines is that they may be better for people who have history of SEVERE allergic reactions. However real life experience so far also indicates the traditional Covid vaccines appear to have proclivity for adverse blood clotting events, especially in women.

*

Share this with fans of Sinovac

Plenty of KPKBing From China tua kees that PAP govt is wrongly depriving of the best vaccine for Covid-19.

Well Chile has been relying on Sinovac and 58% of the population has been vaccinated:

Chile has announced a lockdown in the capital Santiago amid rising Covid cases, despite nearly 60% of the country being fully vaccinated.

More than eight million residents living in and around the capital now must stay at home from Saturday.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57436861

Grandpa Xi trying to suck up to Sleepy Joe?