Will the Biden administration lift the tariffs Trump has imposed on Chinese goods? Here’s the latest response from the White House. Regardless of the outcome, Apple’s supply chain is accelerating its withdrawal from China. Former Google CEO and other tech executives are even more outspoken about the need for some degree of decoupling between the U.S. and Chinese tech industries.
Biden seeks a policy of patience with China, and the Director of National Intelligence counters.
The Chinese people are living harder and harder! As the Chinese New Year approaches, prices are skyrocketing exponentially everywhere, and many people’s wages are falling instead of rising. And the value of Education depreciates, there are 70,000 master’s degree students to send up take-away.
The Chinese Communist Party has been trying to cool down the property market, has it worked? Experts say that a real estate collapse will trigger an economic meltdown, with the real estate and banking sectors bearing the brunt.
Food prices have skyrocketed exponentially, and China has been hit by a double whammy of widespread unemployment.
On January 15, Chen Yulu, deputy governor of China’s central bank, said at a State Council press conference that price levels are likely to remain moderately high this year.
However, ordinary people, in an interview with Radio Free Asia, spouted the bitterness of skyrocketing prices.
Photo: The price of meat at a supermarket in Beijing in the beginning of this month.
Mr. Gao, a resident of Wuhan, told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday (27) that the current price hike is by no means “moderate”: “The State Council’s claim of a moderate increase is too ‘moderate’, so ‘moderate’ that ordinary people are not even aware of it. It’s so mild that the people can’t even live. Today I happen to be in the vegetable market, the price of eggs rose 20%, green peppers sold for 8 yuan (a catty) that is in the cheap vegetable market, not the general market. At the end of December, the onion sold for 10 yuan a catty”.
Beijing rights activist Ni Yulan told Radio Free Asia that her husband only goes to the vegetable market to buy cheap vegetables every day before the stores close: “My partner only goes to the market every night to buy low-priced vegetables, and also a lot of rice and noodles are going up in price. According to our kind of (poor) Family, it is difficult to afford it, because family conditions do not allow it, just wait for hunger.”
Mr. He, a resident of Chongqing, said, “Now vegetables have doubled, the price of meat has increased by 5 or 6 yuan per catty, and vegetables have doubled compared with the price in November. Now cabbage 3 yuan a catty, usually 1 yuan a catty. Cauliflower sells for 14, 15 yuan a catty.”
In Changchun, Jilin, local residents reported that cabbage has increased in price to nearly 4 yuan a catty, peppers 10 yuan a catty, eggs 6 to 8 yuan a catty.
Left: Meat price quotes from Beijing supermarkets in the first half of this month. Middle: Netizens complained about the crazy rise in egg prices. Right: Meat prices at a supermarket in Tianjin in the middle of this month.
A netizen in Tianjin said in a video about rising prices in the city: “Hello everyone, recently the prices of eggs, pork and other commodities have gone up across the board, and the people can hardly afford to eat. Take Tianjin, onions 10 yuan a catty, peppers 10 yuan a catty, garlic moss 12 yuan a catty, even potatoes cabbage are more than two yuan three yuan a catty, not to mention pork, beef and eggs, just pack a dumpling will have 30 to 50 yuan of meat filling, want to stew some meat and ribs, it will be 100 yuan to start.”
For officials to say that recent prices are “mildly rising”, some netizens said that officials find ways to coin new terms to avoid social unrest, so there will be “mildly rising” and other ludicrous language.
Ms. Wang, a resident of Dalian, said it was difficult to withstand the double blow of the Xin Guan (Chinese Communist Party virus) Epidemic, which has caused a large number of people at the bottom to lose their jobs, coupled with soaring prices: “The key is that now there is an epidemic, you can’t earn money and you are isolated at Home, you have to eat and live, and that is twice the price difference. Now is not earn money, but also spend money. So where does the money spent come from?”
Former Google CEO and other tech execs urge U.S.-China tech industry to decouple
A panel of technology experts, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, cautioned in a report that Chinese Communist Party practices such as unfair trade and espionage make U.S.-China competition “asymmetrical. The report recommended that “some degree of decoupling” between the U.S. and Chinese technology industries would be desirable.
Photo: Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt
The report was authored by a team of 15 technology executives, investors and China experts. The team, known as the China Strategy Group, was formed in July of last year.
The report warns that “U.S. technology leadership is critical to America’s security, prosperity and democratic way of Life. But that critical advantage is now at risk as China (the Chinese Communist Party) surges ahead in key areas, aiming to outpace the United States.” .
According to the report, the nature of the challenge includes the U.S. and China engaging in a form of “asymmetric competition,” meaning “China [the Communist Party] plays by a different set of rules that allow it to benefit from corporate espionage, surveillance and the blurred lines between the public and private sectors. It means that “China [the Communist Party] plays by a different set of rules that allow it to benefit from corporate espionage, surveillance, and blurred lines between the public and private sectors.
“Technology is increasingly shaping the national security landscape,” the report writes, “but our internal government structures are not optimized to meet the new challenges posed by emerging technologies.”
The report calls for a multilateral approach, calling on the U.S. government to work with like-minded nations. The report recommends the creation of a new forum called the T-12 to coordinate a response to technological competition with China. the T-12 would consist of Japan, South Korea, Canada, India, Israel, Australia, the Netherlands and Germany, among other countries.
Another multilateral approach suggested in the report is the creation of zones of confidence that would allow “global integration that promotes American values. In these zones, for example, democracies would prioritize joint research and development and remove regulatory barriers to stimulate collective innovation to create competitive products.
Biden Seeks Patience with China, Director of National Intelligence Rebuts
The White House said Monday that the Chinese Communist Party poses a clear challenge to the United States and that the Biden Administration is seeking “strategic patience” in response.
Photo: Former U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that the U.S. and China are in a fierce competition and that Beijing is clearly challenging U.S. Security, prosperity and values, which requires a new approach, and that Biden will take a “patient” approach to the matter.
“We intend to deal with this with some strategic patience,” she said. She said, adding that the White House will work with Congress on a bipartisan basis and with international allies and partners.
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, former Director of National Intelligence Ratcliffe pushed back against the Biden administration’s strategy toward China and urged Biden to take aggressive action in response to Beijing’s aggression, rather than delaying it.
Ratcliffe also stressed that there is no way out of the policy of appeasement when it comes to the Chinese Communist Party.
Ratcliffe said, “The intelligence agencies are not saying that we should have patience with China (CCP), but that we should take action against China (CCP).”
When asked whether Biden would keep the tariffs after former President Trump (Trump) imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods, Psaki said the policy would be evaluated and that no decision had been made yet.
Apple still accelerating “withdrawal of Chinese supply chain” as Biden takes office
Apple is expanding its production capacity in India and Southeast Asian countries for iPhones, iPads, Macs and other Apple products. The Nikkei Shimbun analyzed that under Biden’s tenure, Apple hopes that tensions between the U.S. and China will ease, but is still accelerating its “withdrawal from the Chinese supply chain.
According to the Nikkei Shimbun, sources said production of iPads will begin in Vietnam as early as the middle of this year, meaning Apple will make a large number of tablets outside of China for the first Time, the sources said, while Apple is also accelerating production of tablets in India and plans to begin production of the latest iPhone 12 series phones in India this season.
Apple is mobilizing its Vietnamese suppliers to expand production capacity for the latest version of its HomePod mini, which has been made in Vietnam since the device was launched last year. Apple meanwhile is raising local production in Vietnam of its audio-related products, including various AirPods series, the source said.
Another person familiar with the matter said Apple has shifted some of its Mac mini production to Malaysia, and Apple also plans to move some MacBook production to Vietnam this year.
A supply chain manager explained that Apple and many other tech companies want to manufacture outside of China, and even with a new president in the U.S., that won’t slow down the pace of shifting supply chains.
China has the most comprehensive supply chain and remains an important manufacturing center for large technology companies, but Apple’s decision to move so many of its products out of the country, a decision that suggests the technology decoupling between the 2 U.S. and China is likely to continue until 2021, and while some hope the political climate will improve when Biden takes over, Biden said he will not immediately undo the tariff policies implemented by the Trump Administration against China in 2018.
70,000 mainland masters deliver takeaways as education devalues
Starting in mid-January, due to the frequent rumors of delivery accidents on the mainland, a statistical data on the education of delivery workers is once again circulating online. In July 2020, Meituan (a mainland retail and delivery platform) released the “Employment Report of Riders in the First Half of 2020”, which points out that more than 50% of delivery workers have a monthly income of RMB 4,000 (yuan, the same below) or more, and 7.7% of riders have a monthly income of more than 10,000 More surprisingly, more than 50 percent of delivery riders earn more than RMB 4,000 per month, and 7.7 percent earn more than 10,000 per month.
What’s more surprising is that 24.7% of the riders have a university degree or above, higher than the 15% in 2018. In addition, according to the data chart published by Meituan in 2018, about 1% of Meituan’s delivery workers have a master’s degree or above, and there are 7 million delivery workers on the mainland, so it is estimated that there are about 70,000 people with a master’s degree or above according to the ratio.
In ancient times, a student who studied hard for 10 years could get a secure job, but in modern times, an average mainland university student needs to study for more than 10 years, and a master’s degree requires almost 20 years of study, but can one find a good job after studying for a master’s degree? From the data chart of delivery workers’ education released by Meituan in 2018, there are now about 70,000 delivery workers with a master’s degree or higher on the mainland.
Photo:Delivery workers delivering food in the snow.
In July 2020, Meituan (a mainland retail and delivery platform) released the “H1 2020 Rider Employment Report”, which states that more than 50% of delivery workers have a monthly income of RMB 4,000 or more.
As for why people with a master’s degree or higher should abandon their academic advantages and join the camp of delivery workers?” The answer is that they “need the most direct economic income”, according to the “class teacher and his students”, because the devaluation of their education is getting more and more serious nowadays. Therefore, when they see that the delivery industry can earn fast money, free time, and good income, they simply join the army of delivery.
The Chinese Communist Party is trying to cool down the property market, experts: real estate collapse will trigger the economic collapse
Recently, the Chinese Communist Party has strengthened the regulation of the property market, by limiting bank loans to real estate, real estate companies to set “three red lines” to curb the expansion of real estate companies, trying to cool down the Chinese property market. Wu Xiaoling, a Chinese financier and former deputy governor of the central bank, believes that a collapse of China’s real estate will directly lead to the collapse of China’s bubble economy.
These measures by the Chinese Communist Party to cool the property market appear to be having an effect, as new home prices in China’s major cities rose 3.7 percent year-on-year in December 2020, the lowest increase since the beginning of 2016, and by a minimal amount year-on-year, the Financial Times reported in Chinese on Jan. 26.
A researcher at a state-owned think tank said, “The [Communist Party] government does not want housing prices to keep rising” and that it is “politically unacceptable” for prices to keep rising.
In late December 2020, the Communist Party’s central bank issued new rules limiting bank lending to developers and capping the balance of home mortgages as a percentage of total loans. According to CCP central bank data, real estate loans accounted for 29 percent of total yuan loans at the end of the third quarter of 2020.
Data show that 200 million families in China applied for loans to buy houses, and according to the CCP central bank’s October 2020 report, China’s personal housing loan balance was 33.59 trillion yuan, which means that 200 million families in China carried 33.59 trillion yuan in loans, or an average of 168,000 yuan per family in home loans.
Another data shows that the leverage ratio of Chinese residents started to increase after 2015. 3% in 1996, 18% in 2008, more than 58% at the end of 2019 and already more than 60% in 2020.
According to international standards, once the leverage of the residents reaches 70%, there will be a financial crisis and subprime mortgage crisis. Therefore, it is extremely risky for residents to bet all their family assets on real estate.
It is worth noting that the foreclosed houses in China in 2020 have doubled compared to 2019, increasing by nearly 500,000 units, of which, most of them are abandoned by the owners who broke their mortgage payments and then the banks entrusted the courts to auction them.
Wu Xiaoling, a Chinese financier and former deputy governor of the central bank, said that the four major trading markets of “stocks, foreign exchange, bonds and houses” are the lifeblood of China’s finance, of which the weakest and most influential is real estate.
Wu Xiaoling believes that China’s high real estate prices are due to excessive currency issuance and high housing prices of 430 trillion market value, which has become the “Sword of Damocles” hanging over the Chinese economy. The real estate originally belongs to the industry and infrastructure investment, when the property is given financial attributes, housing prices have become an uncompromising financial game, once the real estate collapse, will directly lead to the collapse of China’s bubble economy.
Wu Xiaoling said that the plunge in housing prices will trigger a banking crisis, because once housing prices plunge, the house slaves may cut off their mortgage payments and return the house to the bank, jumping not only the landlord, but also the bank.
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