China raises retirement age, US and EU business confidence in China hits all-time low, and Xi to visit Russia next month

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— PC

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Through the Lens

Ginkgo leaves scattered on a sidewalk in Chengdu.

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In Focus

I. “China has a tendency to overproduce and dump in strategic sectors.”

Offtakes and stockpiling can be used together to smooth this path to building domestic capacity and pushing back against dumping while having minimized inflationary impacts. By providing some degree of security for investors and lenders as domestic output is ramped via fixed prices or collars the state can reduce the risk and cost of capital of building that out in a manner that provides security and predictability outside of a political cycle. This in turn can minimize transitional costs of protection provided the domestic industry is long term viable and competitive. In the case of the solar supply chain the US could provide a guarantee on a net basis including all subsidies such that any IRA roll back would be baked into the fixed or protected price period so that capacity gets built. In the case of metals like Gallium the US could provide similar price protection to get projects up and running and then use a strategic reserve to moderate price fluctuations and inflation going forward. These sectors would become less volatile, cheaper to finance and that would result in better value for consumers just as auctions for renewable capacity drove down the cost of wind and solar power.

These measures would make China’s playbook of dumping and dominating upstream to consolidate and provide political leverage wholly ineffective at least for the United States. As seemingly uneconomic as China’s state and banking system nexus can be if they cannot ultimately dominate a sector in the long run by running spectacular losses in the short run then they are unlikely to try. This has important implications for global rebalancing: China responds to and respects little else but hard power both economically and militarily and by securing its supply chains the US will maintain the latter while also showing its steel in the former. It might even inspire similar measures from Europe which to date seems to be slow to grasp the magnitude of the dangers and challenges they face. If there is anything that could lead China to rethink its broader economic practices it is far more likely to be this than pleading requests and shuttle diplomacy.

Read: Offtakes and Stockpiles (

Syncretica

)

II. To Go or Not to Go, That Is the Question

In some ways, my current break from going to the PRC feels like the 1988-to-1996 one, but due to Hong Kong’s situation there is also an added element now: risk. Since publishing Vigil, I have written many commentaries and given many talks criticizing the crackdown. And after having had some interactions with activists who have been sentenced to prison, I have had even more interactions of late with activists who have headed into exile, in some cases ending up with bounties on their heads. The CCP cares more about those interactions, I suspect, than about what I say and write.

Would any of this have consequences? There’s no way to know. I feel, though, that there might be some danger in going to Hong Kong, probably not for me but perhaps for friends there I would want to see. And Hong Kong is the part of the PRC to which I most want to return. Feeling even a vague sense of unease about going there makes me ambivalent about traveling to any part of it.

I have the luxury of being at a career stage where I do not need to go. My current projects can be researched elsewhere. I have no family in the PRC. Many of my friends there have left. I can thus be at peace with the idea that the break from trips to the PRC that began when I was in my late 50s could easily last through my 60s and beyond.

And yet, I am glad that many friends and students have headed to the PRC or are planning to go there. I like hearing about their experiences.

Read: Tim Walz, China and Me (Inside Higher Ed)

Related: China Is Becoming Much Harder for Western Scholars to Study (WSJ)

III. Pink Feminism

Young Chinese feminists aren’t just passively studying Western feminist theories without thinking about local differences. Instead, they’re actively continuing the fight for gender equality, a goal that generations of Chinese feminists have worked towards.

The limitations are quite clear: regardless of whether participants fully embrace nationalism, they are forced to avoid overt criticism of state policies. In other words, they end up compromising the critical edge of feminism just to increase their chances of staying safe.

Read: A New Shade of Chinese Feminism (China Media Project)