zippy1

Whether China will take on the west first or not, I do not know. However, China has been expanding since the Zhou dynasty around 1000BCE. How could it get so big if China did not conquer its neighbors? The original China (Zhou) is just a small fraction of today's China. You can see that on the dynamic map on this page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_expansionism

the kind of culture difference can really surprise me. I asked my friend, who had been a factory manager in China for quite a few years and left recently about this story. He said likely the low level governemnt guy who leaked the inspection date would be scolded. Then he will go making arrangements with these store owners that they will take turn to open, be inspected (and be fined....)... There is not much the store owners can do....

This piece of news is kind of interesting. It is possible to read it with google translator. Basically, the government of ChaoZhou in the Guangdong provience decided to do a safety inspection on the stores. If a business fails the safety inspection, it can be fined quite severely. Apparently, quite a few stores decide to close to avoid being inspected. The unofficial story is tha the stores are closing "en masse." These store owners are creative in why they close the stores for the day. The reasons for not opening for business are like "Be afraid of Ghost", "having a fight with my spouse", "the owner is in a bad mood" in the news story. If the story is true, the finance of the local government has to be in bad shape to do this. https://www.hk01.com/即時中國/1078816/潮州-汕頭傳大量店舖關門停業避檢查-官方-只是個別商戶

Very interetsing .... https://news.mingpao.com/pns/中國/article/20241110/s00013/1731173051576/鄭州大學生掀熱潮-特種兵萬車「陷汴京」塞道路-流量接不住-「夜騎開封」先開後封

Vs. about 42 times in China?

High insider ownership。 BREAKING: Sanergy collapses 98.4% after people discover 98.4% of shares are held by insiders.

Some suspected that the Q1 2023 GDP was "quietly" revised down to make the Q1 2024 5.3% growth. Of course, that begs the question whether later on the Q1 2024 GDP number would be revised down quietly...

Here is the 2023 Q1 report from National Bureau of Statstics https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202304/t20230419_1938791.html Here is the 2024 Q1 report from National Bureau of Statstics https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202404/t20240417_1954640.html

He did say that. Although the whole Silicon Valley is in …

The sooner people get this behind us, the better. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-country-garden-faces-winding-up-petition-failure-pay-2045-mln-loan-2024-02-28/

"Hong Kong (CNN) — Chinese companies are doing something rarely seen since the 1970s: setting up their own volunteer armies. At least 16 major Chinese firms, including a privately-owned dairy giant, have established fighting forces over the past year, according to a CNN analysis of state media reports. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/21/business/china-corporate-militias-resurgence-int-hnk/index.html

I am kind of wondering, though. Designing and building analog chips with old equipment that has been depreciated years ago, can be a great business. I remembered that Linear Technology and Maxim used to have gross margin in 60%-70%. However, XFAB is a foundry and not a IDM like ADI or an analog design house, though. XFAB's gross margin is between 5.5% to ~24%. I looked at their website which lists their fabs. As far as I can tell, most were built years ago. In other words, not much depreciation from the equipment. It may be a good idea to check how many new entrants into this kind of fabrication capacities there are. If they are going to buy brand new equipment for the new fab, the depreciation of the equipment will be different than running fabs with 25-30 years old equipment. If one checks the gross margins of UMC and Vanguard Semi(5347.tw), one suspects that capacities are being added after the industry had very good margins in 2021 and 2022. The previous low margin occurred in 2018-2019. Capacities with new equipment will have quite different economics than adding capacities with equipment that has been depreciated, though. Just my 2 cents.

Actually, in Taiwan, the spectrum of the voters is not between "pro-independence" and "pro-reunion." It is more nuanced as there are many different "answers"in between these two extremes. The president-elect has stressed that he is for preserving the "status quo." (which happens to be "de factor independence.") All three candidates chose to be in the "center" of these two extremes. There is a long running survey by a leading Taiwanese University (Chen-Chi University) about this question. I posted the link below. You can see it yourself. The answers range from: 1) independence as soon as possible, (4.5%) 2) maintain status quo move toward independence, (21.4%) 3) maintain status quo indefinitely, (32.1%) 4) maintain status quo decide at a later date, (28.6%) 5) maintain status quo move toward unification, (5.8%) 6) unification as soon as possible (1.6%) 7) undecided (6%) The numbers in the bracket above were from June 2023. The candidates have positioned themselves for the election accordingly. DPP was looking for votes from categories 1) to 4). KMT and TPP were looking for votes from categories 3)-6). There are all get votes from the middle categories. As you can see, extreme positions are not popular in Taiwan. https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/PageDoc/Detail?fid=7801&id=6963

If you plot the Shanghai stock index, the ShenZhen Stock index, the HengSeng stock index against Taiwan stock index over the past 20 years, Taiwan stock index outperformed all these three. If you plot the chart for the last 8 years under current Taiwanese administration, the gap is even bigger. Taiwanese enjoy higher GDP per capita. The income distribution in Taiwan is more equal than that in China. With a Taiwanese passport, a Taiwanese can visit more countries without first applying for a visa than with a Chinese passport. Why would Taiwanese want to be a part of China? Not only Taiwanese get to complain about their government, they can throw out their government if the government does not perform. If they live under the rule of CCP, they won't have this option. Incidentally, There is very little reporting about the Taiwanese election in China this year. Probably CCP is worried about its own legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Chinese more than anything.

@Spooky I can see your point. However, your choice of using Jimmy Carter as an example is really ironic for Taiwanese. Jimmy Carter is the US president, who cut off the diplomatic relationship between US and Taiwan. Congress had to force the Taiwan Relation Act on him. If you do a poll in Taiwan about which US president treated Taiwan worst over the years, I think likely they likely would tell you that it is Jimmy Carter. But I do see your point about the conflict of interests. CCP is known for "connecting" to the power elites in the democracies to affect the policies. They do not have to limit themselves to only one party, to be frank.