How can the US win an economic war with China? – Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

Derailing China’s economic reforms is the only way the US can stop losing its leverage as the largest economy in the world, says political economist Shirley Ze Yu in the South China Morning Post. Improved market liberalization has every time helped China to improve its economic position, and the US has no other alternative to win this fight instead of blocking market forces in China, she argues.

Shirley Ze Yu:

It is understandable that the world’s predominant economic power wants to win an economic war against China, but how? One way is for the US economy to rise faster than China’s. The other is to stifle China’s rise.

It is hard to see any major technological breakthrough on the horizon in the US that would induce a significant economic take-off. Until that happens, the second-best strategy for the US is to damage

the Chinese economy.

Some of China’s hi-tech companies are under siege. TikTok and WeChat have been put on the White House 45-day banned list on August 6. Trump administration officials have also suggested that Chinese companies listed in the US should be delisted by January 2022 if they cannot comply with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s audit requirements.

Sifting through more than 70 years of the People’s Republic of China’s history, every period in which the Chinese economy has thrived has been accompanied by deeper liberal market reforms. Every major round of liberal market reform has unleashed enormous amounts of economic vitality.

Greater market liberalisation will therefore put China on a more robust economic growth track, pushing the nation towards the commanding heights of the global economy even faster than current projections.

The US, in principle, wants to see a more liberal China. In practice, though, it will benefit from an illiberal China by winning the economic war.

Ultimately, it is better to defeat an enemy without having to fight, rather than winning every battle, according to ancient wisdom. Thus, the most expedient way of winning for the US would be to derail the liberal market reform
process in China.

More at the South China Morning Post.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form. 

Are you looking for more experts on the ongoing trade war between China and the US? Do check out this list.

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Surviving in the new cold war - Arnold Ma

  

Marketing expert Arnold Ma runs his branding agency Qumin from London in both China and the West. He explains how brands, and his company, are doing now relations between China, the US and the UK get complicated, to put it mildly. Arnold is interviewed by Shirley Ze Yu and Martina Fuchs. What Chinese brands are doing well in the West, and many other questions.

Arnold Ma and Shirley Ze Yu are both speakers at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need them on your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

At the China Speakers Bureau, we start to organize online seminars. Are you interested in our plans? Do get in touch.

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What is behind Ant's US$200 billion IPO? - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

Alibaba's Ant Group will list for a US$200 billion IPO at both the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock markets, the largest in 2020. Political analyst Shirley Ze Yu dives into the background of this financial giant.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

At the China Speakers Bureau, we start to organize online seminars. Are you interested in our plans? Do get in touch.

Are you looking for more financial experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

China companies list on US stock markets despite restrictions - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

Chinese companies keep on flocking to US stock markets despite the upcoming anti-China regulations and the hostile political climate between China and the US. Why? Because they need capital to finance their plans yesterday, not tomorrow, explains political economist Shirley Ze Yu at her vlog.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

At the China Speakers Bureau, we start to organize online seminars. Are you interested in our plans? Do get in touch.

Are looking for more experts on the trade war between China and the USA? Do check out this list.

UK's Huawei ban does not strengthen post-Brexit confidence among China investors - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

The UK's irrational turnabout by banning Huawei is not growing post-Brexit confidence among Chinese investors, says political analyst Shirley Ze Yu at her vlog. For the introduction of 5G it might put the UK even five to ten years behind compared to the rest of the world, she adds.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

At the China Speakers Bureau, we start to organize online seminars. Are you interested in our plans? Do get in touch.

Are you looking for more experts on managing your China risk at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Watch China's second-richest man, Colin Huang Zheng - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

Watch Colin Huang Zheng, China's second-richest man who founded the extremely successful Pinduoduo, says political analyst Shirley Ze Yu. The CEO of Pinduoduo retired last week at his 40th, and might be up to more she says at her China in 60".

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form. 

Are you looking for more experts on e-commerce at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

At the China Speakers Bureau, we start to organize online seminars. Are you interested in our plans? Do get in touch.

Is TikTok meeting its Waterloo moment? - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

After a ban in India, short-video giant TikTok might be on the hit list of US Secretary of State Pompeo for a ban in the US too. Is US$100 billion unicorn Bytedance, TikTok's Chinese mother company, meeting its Waterloo moment, wonders political economist Shirley Ze Yu at her China in 60"

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on the ongoing trade war between China and the US? Do check out this list.

At the China Speakers Bureau, we start to organize online seminars. Are you interested in our plans? Do get in touch.

China needs technology, not street vendors, to save the economy - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

Premier Li Keqiang caused some rippled over the past few weeks by pushing street vendors as a way to save the economy and generate employment in the post-corona era. Some big cities disagreed, as they have tried to get rid of those vendors and political economist Shirley Ze Yu also disagrees with the street vendor policies, she writes in the South China Morning Post.

Shirley Ze Yu:

The “street vendor economy”, the latest economic policy from Premier Li Keqiang, has spread across China’s city streets in the past two weeks. It may seem alluring at first, but it’s far from a prescription for economic prosperity. A street vendor economy cannot save China. 

During his visit to Yantai, Shandong province, on May 31, Li said: “Street vendors and small shops are important sources of employment. This is the ordinary people’s way of living. Just like those advanced and hi-tech industries, they are vital to the economy.” 

Shanghai quickly announced a month-long festival promoting street nightlife. By June 4, at least 27 cities had enacted policies promoting street vendors. 

Street vending has long been considered at odds with metropolitan modernity in China. For the past decade, city patrols and street vendors have engaged in a cat-and-mouse game on China’s streets, occasionally ending in brutality... 

In an event too orchestrated to be accidental, a group of mayors from Hubei province held a wave of social media live streams in April. The mayors went on popular social media apps such as Douyin – China’s TikTok – to promote local produce, accompanied by their accents and on-camera unease. 

They were quickly overshadowed last month when Gree Electric Appliances chairwoman Dong Mingzhu sold 310 million yuan (US$43.7 million) of goods during a three-hour stream on Kuaishou. Viya Huang, a streamer who was virtually unknown to the world before 2017 but now enjoys a celebrity status in China on a par with Kim Kardashian in the West, sold a rocket launch service for 40 million yuan on an April stream that attracted more than 19 million viewers. 

Once China has experienced the power of a digital economy, how can it travel back in time and return to a more labour-intensive, less productive output narrative? 

SpaceX recently made history by sending astronauts to space on an American rocket again. Solemn salutes were made on Chinese social media to the spirit of innovation. While the United States celebrated the revival of its space economy, China celebrated the revival of its street economy. No country becomes a leading nation by adding flocks of vendors to its city streets. Government policy intervention can create emotional exuberance on the streets. 

China’s leaders know a street vendor economy won’t save the country this time. They are simply soothing the public while stalling to also gaze at the stars.

More in the South China Morning Post.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

At the China Speakers Bureau, we start to organize online seminars. Are you interested in our plans? Do get in touch.

Are you looking for more experts on China's digital transformation? Do check out this list.

EU has no choice but work with China - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

The European Union needs to cooperate with China, argues Harvard scholar Shirley Ze Yu at Bloomberg. While the EU is contracting because of the coronavirus pandemic, China is still showing positive predictions, although at a lower level than in the past. China is eager to expand it's Belt&Road Initiative, and Europe can make good use of it, she tells.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

At the China Speakers Bureau, we start to organize online seminars. Are you interested in our plans? Do get in touch.

Are you looking for more experts on the Belt&Road initiative? Do check out this list.

How China uses the digital yuan to go international - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

China's central government is embracing the digital currency, expands its usage domestically and might use it to internationalize its yuan, explains financial expert Shirley Ze Yu at CNA. 

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more financial experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Foreign brands in need of a post-corona strategy - Ashley Dudarenok

Ashley Dudarenok(left), Shirley Ze Yu (right), Martina Fuchs (under)

Marketing veteran Ashley Dudarenok sees great opportunities past-corona crisis as foreign brands desperately look for new China strategies. She discusses with political economist Shirley Ze Yu and Martina Fuchs, and is a bit gloomy about Hong Kong for the next six months, but optimistic about China.

Ashley Dudarenok and Shirley Ze Yu are speakers at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need one of them (or both) at your meeting, conference or online meeting? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on the opportunities after the corona crisis? Do check out this list.

China can deal with criticism better - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

China has been sending corona aid to many European countries, but got under fire because of the quality of the medical gear. Political analyst Shirley Ze Yu says China could have dealt with its critics in a better way, she says at Al Jazeera. 

Al Jazeera:

According to Shirley Ze Yu, a political economist and Asia fellow at the Ash Center in Harvard Kennedy School, China should be more receptive, and less defensive, to criticism.
She said instead of "refuting" allegations of European nations, China should "investigate domestic medical device manufacturers, and eradicate substandard or un-licenced production capacity within the country".
China has built itself into the "world's factory" over the past three decades, she added, saying it would be challenging for any other country to match its manufacturing efficiency.
"China should use the occasion to clean out any speculative business activity that not only puts human lives, but China's global manufacturing reputation at stake.
"At the end of the global pandemic, not only world leaders, but all people all around the world will form a very personal opinion about China.
"China needs to understand that leadership is ... not about just helping 'friends' and allies, but all under suffering."

More at Al Jazeera.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request.

Are you looking for more political analysts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

Where does the world stand in the covid-19 corona crisis? - Shirley Ze Yu

The covid-19 crisis is not about the political system, but about the efficiency of government, argues economist Shirley Ze Yu. She puts the current crisis into perspective, the lack of international cooperation and different leaderships styles.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on the fallout of the corona crisis? Do check out this list.  At the China Speakers Bureau we are exploring different video conferencing systems, in case live meeting might be banned longer than expected. Do join our experiments here.

Xi Jinping's Eurasian ambitions - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

SE-scholar Shirley Ze Yu discusses China president Xi Jinping's Eurasian ambitions at the Belt&Road 2.0 Initiative for the Royal Society of Asian Affairs in London, including Huawei, 5G and the digital expansion of the country. She is currently writing a book on hardware giant Huawei.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on China's Belt&Road initiative? Do check out this list.

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China Speakers Bureau organizes speakers on corona crisis

Shirley Ze Yu

The coronavirus or Covid-19 had kept the world in its grip since the beginning of 2020, first as a China problem, but then fast expanding to the rest of the world.

At the China Speakers Bureau we organize China experts for a global audience, and our speakers have started to speak out on the impacts of that crisis, countries dealt with the crisis, and how China will deal with the major economic fallout of this global disruption.
Are you interesting in discussing more options of speakers to deal with the corona crisis? Do get in touch.

Among them: Shirley Ze Yu, Ian Johnson, Jim Rogers and William Bao Bean. 

You can get the full list here. Do get in touch for more information.

Shirley Ze Yu: going around in the world

Shirley Ze Yu

A clip with presentations by London-based Shirley Ze Yu, going around in the world. China has emerged as the second-largest economy in the world but has a hard time telling the world its story. Dr. Shirley Ze Yu is one of the very few exceptions in profiling herself as a solid China-voice, giving an alternative viewpoint on a mostly Western take on the developments of China and the world economy. Shirley Ze Yu is LSE scholar, fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and former Chinese national television (CCTV) news anchor Shirley Ze Yu.

Are you interested in having Shirley Ze Yu at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.  

    

China's struggle between capitalism and communism - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

China’s former leader Deng Xiaoping allowed the country to embark on a liberal economy, while repressing communist ideology. That “China Model” helped economically, but it was only useful in a temporary transition, writes political analyst Shirley Ze Yu in the Interpreter. Now president Xi Jinping swallows Deng’s bitter capitalist poison pill, she writes.

Shirley Ze Yu

China’s contemporary economic renaissance, measured across the past 40 years, is largely an orchestration of the expansion of capitalism, and the repression of communist ideology. The economic divergence brought forth by the Global Financial Crisis, between China and the West gave China the legitimacy to crown its unique “China Model”.

This China Model is a fallacy. It was liberalism that has led China to its reform success, not in spite of. China’s economic growth has been in lock step with a liberal reform agenda. The aggrandized China Model is nothing more than the twilight zone for an economy in transition. For China, it has been an exceptionally elastic and successful one. To bring China, engulfed in class-based social destruction, towards global economic convergence, late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping replaced dogmatic Maoism with pragmatic utilitarianism. In a John Stuart Mill way, it was about the greatest good for the greatest number. 

Utilitarianism is amoral. 

Deng had one objective – economic growth. When the West challenges China’s human rights records, the plausible reply has always been that China lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty. For a nation that indoctrinated utilitarianism at its core of national political governance up until the Xi Jinping era, this was indeed a stellar record. 

Deng may have spared China from Maoism. His utilitarian prescription for the cure, however, is economically prosperous, but politically poisonous. Now 40 years on, the effect of this poison is spreading, seen through Hong Kong, China’s ethnic and religious territories, foreign policy, and virtually every fiber of the Chinese economy. Utilitarianism created China’s economic euphoria, and with it the delusion that it may surpass fundamental human moral challenges, both within and beyond its borders. 

Xi has swallowed Deng’s poison pill.

More in the Interpreter.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more political analysts at the China Speakers Bureau?  Do check out this list.

At the China Speakers Bureau we have started to explore WeChat Work as a social platform, next to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Are you interesting in following us on this journey? Check out our instructions here.

Will China execute the phase one trade agreement? – Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

President Xi Jinping decided to stay away from the signing ceremony, and that was an ominous sign, writes political analyst Shirley Ze Yu in the South China Morning Post. China will stick to the trade deal, as long as the country's economic stability is not under threat, she argues.

Shirley Ze Yu:

The sentiment within China towards the partial trade deal is cold. The contrast between how much the US is talking up the trade deal and how far China has moved beyond it is striking.

Last year, Trump wanted only a “good deal” or no deal at all. In October, he yielded to China’s two-track proposal to the trade negotiations, which draws a line between negotiations on trade and foreign affairs. China’s pragmatic approach saw the US’ principled insistence on addressing structural issues disintegrate.

“The highest art of war is to win without fighting,” says The Art of War. China won’t confront the US or increase hostilities. It will simply chart its course towards economic dominance.

Much more in the South China Morning Post.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more political analysts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

At the China Speakers Bureau we have started to explore WeChat Work as a social platform, next to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Are you interesting in following us on this journey? Check out our instructions here.

Beijing's worst nightmare: a collapse of the property market - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

What is Beijing's worst nightmare? The trade war? The troubles in Hong Kong? No, says political economist Shirley Ze Yu. China's real nightmare is a collapse of the property market, she writes in the South China Morning Post. "China’s property market is the grey rhino, overfed on massive liquidity steroids."

Shirley Ze Yu:

“The only force that can defeat China is from within. No exterior force can.” On October 2 this year, the Communist Party’s leading journal of political theory, Qiushi, published in full a 2018 speech by President Xi Jinping, highlighting in stark language China’s coming challenges as the People’s Republic enters its 71st year. Indeed, in 2020, China’s primary economic risk is most likely to come not from the trade war, but from its inflated property market. 

“Black swans” and “grey rhinos” dominated China’s financial lexicon this year. Few in the population know what they are but most know what they mean. They mean fear. 

China’s property market is the grey rhino, overfed on massive liquidity steroids. One injection was the massive stimulus introduced in response to the 2008 global financial crisis. Another injection was from the six consecutive interest rate cuts in the 12 months to November 2015. 

Awash in liquidity, Chinese stock markets took off too, but by late 2015, the bubble had burst and the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index tumbled about 50 per cent from its 2015 peak. Real estate, however, partied on. At the annual Caixin Summit earlier this month, China’s top economic policymaker Liu Shijin said that the targeted 6 per cent growth in gross domestic product is still “within reach” this year but for next year, worryingly, “drastic measures would be needed”.  

Experts have drawn comparisons between China’s overheated property market and Japan’s housing bubble that burst in 1991, plunging the economy into the “lost decades”. Like Japan, China has risen to become a major trading nation thriving on a massive trade surplus. Both are today among the world’s top creditor nations with a culture of high savings rates and heavy reliance on bank lending, creating a highly leveraged economic growth model. 

Former United States Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke concluded that Japan’s post-bubble deflation was due to ill-timed and ill-measured monetary-policy responses from its central bank. China, however, has attributed this to the Plaza Accord, a 1985 currency pact that set off Japan’s currency demise. 

With Japan’s fate in mind, China is expected to resist any attempt by the US to introduce a Plaza Accord 2.0 in the interim trade deal under negotiation. Any clause on exchange rate stability will therefore remain symbolic in both language and execution.

More in the South China Morning Post.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more political analysts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

How Hong Kong fell into China's economic orbit - Shirley Ze Yu

Shirley Ze Yu

Mainland China has been watching the recent events in Hong Kong with astonishment, to say the least. LSE scholar, fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and former Chinese national television (CCTV) news anchor Shirley Ze Yu explains in the South China Morning Post how the former British colony has fallen into China's economic orbit and how - in the long run - it will join the mainland.

Shirley Ze Yu:

The transitory promise to Hong Kong of “one country, two systems” is good for 50 years only, a blink of an eye in historical terms. To take a fatalistic view, all the liberal Hong Kong protesters are fighting for were handed over when Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997. 

Hong Kong is under China’s full control. It is virtually impossible to conceive of an alternative future for the city, come 2047, or even 2097, other than a collective future. In 100 years, mainland China and Hong Kong will both have fundamentally transformed themselves. Given that China has transformed at a speed and on a scale beyond the world’s imagination, there is no telling where it will be in a century’s time. 

But one thing is certain: Hong Kong’s destiny lies with China.In 100 years, mainland China and Hong Kong will both have fundamentally transformed themselves. Given that China has transformed at a speed and on a scale beyond the world’s imagination, there is no telling where it will be in a century’s time. 

Much more in the South China Morning Post.

Shirley Ze Yu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more political analysts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.