What Xi Said is a weekly rundown of the top ten emerging issues from the past seven days shaping US-China commercial relations.
What Xi Said is for global communication strategists and C-Suite executives.
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Memo: What Xi Said | Edition 11 | March 29, 2021
1. Who is the CCP?
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has grown steadily and now comprises around 6.5% of the Chinese population.
The Chinese Communist Party celebrates its 100th anniversary this summer.
2. Reading between the lines, the Alaska meeting did not go precisely as China had hoped: Xi Jinping wants to hold a summit with Joe Biden before the July 1 centennial of China's Communist Party, but a swift diplomatic campaign by the new American administration has pushed Beijing onto the back foot.
Looking to improve its dwindling soft power, China has decided against holding a massive military parade to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party.
3. The US and China finally get real with each other: Thomas Wright writes the exchange in Alaska may have seemed like a debacle, but it was a necessary step to a more stable relationship between the two countries.
Most of the summit feedback in Anchorage was that neither side tried too hard to reset the relationship.
4. Two Canadians went on trial for espionage in China in separate cases. Western diplomats believe their arrest two years ago was in response to Canada's detention of an executive at Huawei.
5. Has Angela Merkel's Germany given China too much leeway? DW reports a debate has intensified about Angela Merkel's efforts to tighten ties with China. The question is whether Merkel ushered in an era of intelligent engagement — or one of dangerous dependency on an authoritarian superpower.
6. China announced sanctions against several Europeans, including members of the European Parliament and academics. Its action followed co-ordinated declarations by America, Britain, Canada, and the EU of sanctions against four Chinese officials involved in the persecution of ethnic Uyghurs in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.
The sanctions stirred a livid response from the Chinese foreign ministry, which blasted reports of Xinjiang abuses as "nothing but lies and disinformation."
7. Beijing targets American business: Matt Pottinger writes the US and China's Communist Party are strategic and ideological competitors. CEOs have to decide which side they want to help win.
Pottinger served as deputy White House national security adviser, 2019-21.
Now a private citizen, Pottinger seems to have found his voice.
8. Wall Street's march into China increasingly at odds with Biden's tough stance: David Lynch at the Washington Post writes bankers see a deep-pocketed customer where others see a potential US enemy.
Hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts and capital flows could depend on how the corporate world adapts to the Biden administration’s largely confrontational approach to a rising China.
General Motors has sold more cars in China than in the United States for 11 consecutive years.
Apple’s sales in China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, rose by 57 percent last quarter, almost five times its growth back home.
9. Baidu's secondary listing of stock in Hong Kong was lame. The tech giant follows other Chinese internet companies by listing in the city, though its shares barely rose on the first day of trading and fell subsequently.
10. Has Huang learned something from Alibaba? Making headlines last week was the retirement of Colin Huang, the founder of Pinduoduo.
Coinciding with the announcement was a significant milestone: Huang had just surpassed Jack Ma in Forbes' Real Time Billionaire Index.
Ma's speech at a financial summit in Shanghai last October, when he accused the state banks of operating with a "pawnshop mentality," is said to have enraged senior government leaders, triggering the chain of events that culminated in the suspension of the IPO of Alibaba's fintech unit, Ant Group.
"Apparently Huang is trying desperately to escape from the position of being 'China's richest man'"
