Commodities and energy for @Reuters in Beijing. đ§ [email protected]. â„ïž Commodities, history, politics, China. Opinions my own
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Lewis Jackson retweeted
The CCP Central Committee's Fifth Plenum just revealed even more purges than we predicted
We expected attendance of ~161 members and ~130 alternates, or 77.4% of the original 205 + 171
Actual attendance was 162 members and 117 alternates, or 74.2%
A new post-Mao low
1/
The only downside to this is that it takes time away from Caro finishing the last book! Otherwise v keen to listen
Lewis Jackson retweeted
This is the best piece of journalism published this year. Make sure you read it.
Itâs a masterful piece of writing.
wsj.com/tech/apple-iphone-meâŠ
Made in China once meant t-shirts and toys. Today it's cars and the means of production. There's a whole universe of obscure factory equipment vital to making stuff which now comes from China. Re-shoring production might require importing the equipment from China!
It's a similar story of Chinese export dominance in chemicals, which the EU is currently freaking out about. It's easy to see why!
Plenty more on this theme in this beautiful graphics story we've been working on for a few months. Enjoy!
reuters.com/graphics/CHINA-EâŠ
Lewis Jackson retweeted
*Mbappé apologizes!*
âDuring a recent interview, I reacted to an image featuring me. My remarks were ill-considered, and I now understand that these words hurt many people in China and in Chinese communities around the world.
I apologize to everyone hurt by my remarks. This was never my intention. I have deep respect for the Chinese people and their history, and I am truly sorry.
Kylian MbappĂ©â
Oh oh oh, Mbappé, all those goals, yet you lost so many points on Chinese social media today.
Itâs Ballon dâOr night, and French football player MbappĂ© is all the talk on Chinese social media - but not for his achievements, but for what is seen as crossing a major red line in an online interview.
When asked about his favorite meme on a French YouTube show, MbappĂ© replied that one of the memes he finds funniest is âthe one where they put my face on a Chinese dictator" (Mao Zedong).
Although the interview and the joke were lighthearted in tone, this Mao meme completely backfired on Chinese social media, where backlash erupted today after the interview recirculated online and Chinese football app Dongqiudi (æçćž) issued a statement saying his remarks had âhurt the feelings of Chinese people.â
Many of those who know what itâs all about are angry, saying heâs showing utter disrespect for Chinese history and national feelings. The comments hurt all the more because MbappĂ© has a huge commercial presence in China (sometimes you would literally see him in every other online ad), which explains much of the âyou profit from China and yet do thisâ tone thatâs widespread online.
But many people also donât understand what itâs about. Because Dongqiudi would not actually translate or explain his remarks, and even Chinese AI bots will not properly lay out what the fuss is about, many netizens without a VPN are still left in the dark about why all the talk about boycotting MbappĂ© is actually happening.
And so some netizens try to explain the controversy in various ways, without actually mentioning what was said, writing cryptic things like:
-âJust look at a renminbi banknote and youâll understand,â
or:
-âYou could think of it as a Chinese football star saying in an interview that he likes Photoshopping his own head onto President Washingtonâs head on the US dollar, and that itâs really funny.â
If this boycott grows beyond today, I wonder how many more cryptic descriptions weâll come across. Seems like MbappĂ© is caught up in a game of Taboo in China.
Lewis Jackson retweeted
China installed 61GW of wind and 111GW of solar power in Jan-Sep. Wind tracks last year's record pace, while solar is down from that but tracks 2023 which saw a respectable 200GW added. With energy demand growth slowing, clean energy has a good shot at covering all demand growth.
Lewis Jackson retweeted
In August, Donald Trump Jr went hunting in Mongolia with Umar Kremlev, the Russian businessman who paid for part of his wedding celebrations.
Kremlev has a criminal record â and close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putinâs personal security service:
ft.com/content/f41fc704-c9e6âŠ
What's ironic is that the original video is censored in China. Chinese brands are cutting ties with Mbappe over the offence his comments caused a Chinese people who aren't allowed to see the comments!!
Two Chinese consumer brands cut ties with French soccer star Kylian Mbappé over comments deemed insulting to founding father Mao Zedong.
The controversy erupted after Mbappé was asked in a video which internet meme featuring himself had made him laugh the most. Full story: bloom.bg/4zZuWFa
đ·: Diego Souto/Getty Images
Lewis Jackson retweeted
Nuance on the China shock.
"Since 2001 Americans have left jobs more than 1.5bn times. Even if Mr Bessent is correct and China has cost America 3.7m jobs over 25 years, almost all job moves had nothing to do with it. In the 20 years before 2001 the share of American workers in manufacturing fell by 0.4 percentage points a year. In the ten years after 2001, it fell by roughly as much."
economist.com/finance-and-ecâŠ
"Bull semen is not a fine wine, it doesn't age well." For this and other revelations (semen smuggling!). Check out the latest from our C&E team in China.
China is back in the bull semen market after a near halt in its cattle genetics trade that blocked imports from top sources including the US, Europe, Canada and Australia and rattled local suppliers enough to birth a market for smuggled sperm and livestock reut.rs/4z3i681
Lewis Jackson retweeted
Literally a physical fight over which Chinese local government could claim a semiconductor joint-venture company.
A semiconductor company located in Wuhan was suddenly relocated to a city in Zhejiang that was also a joint investor. But the official relocation document seemed to have a fake corporate seal. There was some physical altercation over the real corporate seal. Police in both local governments got involved. Now the whole thing is under investigation.
The bigger takeaway is that Chinese local governments really want to get the downstream benefits of these high-tech firms and investment. They're literally willing to get into a fight and bring in the police to settle a dispute.
The Paper: thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forwaâŠ
Lewis Jackson retweeted
What a comeback.
We will need time to properly understand it. But I think this was a 20th century politician who, at the very last possible moment, figured out how to run a 21st century campaign. After his first round loss, Lula started carrying a smartphone for the first time in his life, brought in younger aides who knew how to run a real digital operation, and finally was able to create some excitement in one of the worldâs most terminally online countries. The net result was 3 million more people who turned out to vote, fewer spoiled ballots, votes from third-party candidates, and some repented bolsonaristas as well.
FlĂĄvio Bolsonaro challenged the results, but he faces an extremely difficult battle. The margin of victory, more than 4 million votes, was too large to be explained by the delay in polling stations closing or any other abnormalities. Big Brazilian power brokers, including the so-called CentrĂŁo, are dutifully accepting the result. The Bolsonaros will ask the White House for support, but itâs important that the vast majority of Latin American leaders, including those on the right like Keiko Fujimori and JosĂ© Antonio Kast, quickly recognized Lulaâs victory. They concluded this is over, and the Trump administration may do the same.
For Lula, the good news is that he won, and the bad news is that he won. He ran up a big bill to help make this happen: More than $60 billion in extra spending, welfare payments, debt forgiveness and other fiscal largesse. This in a country with real interest rates above 8% and a debt burden forecast to reach 83% of GDP this year, up a whopping 12 percentage points in Lulaâs term. Markets are hemorrhaging in the hours after his victory, and they may get worse until Lula details his plans to cut spending. Lula also faces the most conservative Congress on record, a skeptical business community, and consumers who are struggling under huge debts as well.
But look, Lula would rather deal with those problems than the alternative. He will be the man who defined an entire half-century of Brazilian history, from the metalworkersâ strike he led as a labor union leader in 1979 to the end of his fourth term in 2030. A truly epic story that is still being written, and may yet bring more surprises.
--
For more, including reactions from @DaniCamp0 and Alessandra Ribeiro:
americasquarterly.org/articlâŠ
Lewis Jackson retweeted
Nancy Pelosi, who is regularly hammered for her perceived insider trading, has made 213 total trades since 2014. Trump exceeded that number in a single day, which just happened to precede his own tariffs announcement. My latest on the mind boggling self-enrichment:
