zippy1

I think CCP does present a great challenge. Having a realistic perspective about CCP is the first step in dealing with the challenge. Those who said China is weak is essentially saying “business as usual” and nothing needs to done. I think that would not be the right attitude. however, with that said, it does not mean that I would like live under CCP rule. this is a bit off topic now, so I will just stop here.

I don't think the Chinese will take it well, if she said that she is unconcerned....

Maybe because Shenzhen has more Tech industries? https://www.caixinglobal.com/2023-07-06/more-shenzhen-office-space-goes-begging-for-tenants-102072773.html

Latest book list of bestsellers in China (for first half of June): In the top 20 bestsellers: 1) there are 7 books written by XJP about XJP's thoughts. They are ranked at 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13. These are selected articles by the great leader. 2) there are 5 books about CCP and its 20th party congress. They are ranked at 3, 4, 11, 12, 20 3) there are 2 books for the preparaton of the political exams in graduate school entrance exam: they are ranked at 10 and 16. If the bestseller list reflects what the party and populatoin care about, the focus appears not on the economy.

Sorry about that, Spek!

Superficially, that may sound like that. However, I think Spek used to live and work in China. I think we should view this as an invitation to gain the first hand experience. I also have many friends who had lived in China before. They had moved there in the 2000s, but moved out again in the last 3-4 years. They all felt the political winds have changed dramatically.

Good question… from the link that I posted, they apparently do make the adjustments also. Anyway, for all these reasons, I was told that it is ok to compare the Chinese unemployment rates between years. However, I should avoid compare these numbers to other countries’ numbers unless I know how to “normalize” these numbers. In other words, the trend or the change are probably more meaningful than the absolute numbers.

My understanding is the unemployment rate reported by Chinese Authorities has a different criterion than those reported by say US or France. France requires a person works 20 hours a week to be counted as employed. I think US uses 15 hours a week as the criterion. China uses one hour per week, yes, 1 hour per week. For this reason, I am told that it is best to compare Chinese reported numbers across time instead of using them to compare against numbers reported by other countries. In addition, this unemployment rate is for Cities and towns only. The rural part of China is not included. There are 700 millions people, roughly half of the population, living in the rural part of China. the link to how Chinese calculates this is here: http://big5.www.gov.cn/gate/big5/www.gov.cn/zhengce/2018-04/18/content_5283601.htm cheers!

Surveys found 20.8% of potential workers in cities aged 16-24 were unemployed, up from April’s previous record of 20.4%, the government reported Thursday. https://apnews.com/article/china-economy-unemployment-3add7592860b9e4c16dac588d2d6777e

US only acknowledged that China made such a claim; US just chose to not to agree or disagree with such a claim. In other words, US does not hold a position on whether Taiwan is part of China. US also does not encourage Taiwan to seek independence. In terms of Pelosi' s visit, actually Pelosi is not even the first sitting US house speaker to visit Taiwan after US established diplomatic relationship with China in 1979. In 1997, then-House speaker Gingrich visited Taiwan. China had no reaction to Newt Gingrich's visit. China just chose to react violently this time just because it feels it is powerful enough to intimadate its neighbors. Note that China even shoot mulltiple missiles into Japan's EEZ following Pelosi's visit. I am not sure whether you realized China sent its navy ships into Japanese terretorial waters 11 times since this February. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/tokyo-protests-chinese-navy-ship-entering-japanese-waters/2917681 In addition, South Korea just summoned Chinese Ambassador and accused the Chinese ambassador interfering with South Korean domestic politics. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/9/south-korea-summons-china-envoy-over-us-ties-remarks Not counting Taiwan, the way China is handling its relationship with Japan, South Korea, Philipine and India certinaly does not give me confidence at all....

While US "acknowledhes" that China made the cliam that Taiwan is part of China, US never agreed to this claim. Pelosi is very welcome here in Taiwan. Like many fellow Taiwanese, I also welcome our friend to visit us. We can tell who is aggresive here.

China’s exports plunge by 7.5% in May, far more than expected Exports fell 7.5% in May from a year ago, far worse than the 0.4% decline predicted by a Reuters poll. Imports for May dropped by 4.5% from a year ago — less than the 8% plunge forecast by Reuters The decline was so sharp that export volumes are below their levels at the start of the year, after accounting for seasonality and changes in export prices, Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China Economics, at Capital Economics, said in a note. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/07/chinas-exports-plunge-by-7point5percent-in-may-far-more-than-expected.html

Actually, more than 50% of Taiwanese export to China is electronic component, which is then used for the assembly of phones, notebooks and other electronics system. So this seeming large percentage of export to China has more to do with the locations of the assembly lines instead of because of "China's growing wealth" since the final products are often sold to places outside of China. In fact, one can argue that "China's growing wealth" was from it being able to import these electronic components from Taiwan. This is why China has sanctioned many products from Taiwanese but has never sanctioned semiconductors from Taiwan. With the current US-China situation, many of these assembly lines are being moved to Mexico, Vietnam and India. As a result, the percentage of the export to China likely will come down in the future.

People don't want to sell China semiconductors to be put on the weapons and shoot at the same people themselves. I wonder why?

The April number that came out a few days ago is also greater than 20%, months after the reopening. not sure whether this April number can just be attributed to the COVID policy. CCP appears to be making the case for the youth to go to the "countryside." If youth unemployment is just caused by its COVID policy, I wonder why this is necessary. CCP probably is doing so knowing something that most don't know. https://www.dw.com/zh/德语媒体新时代的上山下乡运动/a-65661636

I think it is probably not hard to use google translate to read this article. I think it said the unemployment rate for age 16-24 is 20% in China. http://opinion.people.com.cn/BIG5/n1/2023/0520/c223228-32690789.html

It indeed is not clear how China will turn out if KMT won. However, there are many places in East Asia that one can benchmark. South Korea and Japan were both sort of bombed back to stone age in late 1940s-early 1950s. If we compare Japan and South Korea against China from 1949 to 1980, it is not clear that China's progress in this period was that impressive. It seems that the great progress that China made since 1980s was really made more impressive by the serious mismanagement in 1940s-1970s. If one examines the overall progress from 1949 to today as a whole, it seems much less impressive when compared against Japan and South Korea. And there is only one ruling party in China during this period. One should not only look at the period after 1980s.

I think the question is whether China is turning away from what made it successful in the past 30 years or not. Don't forget CCP created the mess that Deng inherited in the first place. CCP does have that capacity to make such a mess. Just look at its COVID policy.

For many people what is scary (or surprising) is that Chinese do not think this is scary, IMHO. Which shows a completely different "culture."

One thing that is interesting is that I cannot find an equivalent of 13F type of quarterly disclosure requirement for non-Taiwanese entities when they buy Taiwanese listed shares. It seems like the only requirement to disclose locally is in the Taiwanese companies’ annual reporting. That seems to be months away. And I think the disclosure is in “street names .”

Taiwan listed shares tend to trade at a slight discount to ADR. Typically 1-5%.. not sure that discount is enough to prompt such a hypothetical move?

The stock market appears to be doing quite poorly over the past 5 years?

Speech itself may be refreshing. We will need to see their deeds to know whether these are empty words.

There are many levels of so called "lockdown." I think if this is true, then this level of "lockdown" is more extreme than what most people anticipate. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stefficao/urumqi-xinjiang-fire-protests

No change in the “no COVID “ policy according to the government. it is in Chinese but not hard to read with google translate. http://www.nhc.gov.cn/cms-search/xxgk/getManuscriptXxgk.htm?id=39d316d555094db5b2a6a9eb97214a8b