My latest column @WPReview examines China's turn to export manufacturing to drive growth in the wake of the property sector downturn & post-Covid blues. This policy antagonizes trading partners by weaponizing China's scale, esp its large & still relatively cheap labor force 1/10 In media discussion of China's economic problems, the altnerative to export-driven growth is domestic consumption. But this goes against Xi's vision of Chinese society: People are workers first, consumers second, and citizens only by virtue of their work. 2/10

Here's my latest column @WPReview. I wanted to contextualize the recent debate over China's advanced manufacturing push, thinking of overcapacity or "excess" as a common feature of Chinese governance. 1/8 worldpoliticsreview.com/china-manufact… While excess capacity has an economic definition related to the lack of hard budget constraints, China's propensity for excess capacity has always been more severe compared to other state socialist regimes (that also had soft budget constraints) 2/8

In Xi’s China, ‘Common Prosperity’ Now Means Lowering Expectations
Please take a look at my first column for World Politics Review! I reassess Common Prosperity in light of XJP's recent speeches and policies. Summarized here in this long 🧵worldpoliticsreview.com/xi-china-econo… Common Prosperity was never intended to be a Robin Hood-like intervention to take from the rich to help the poor. It is much more anti-rich than pro-poor, seeking to constrain capital so as to empower the state, not to empower or enrich labor.

I urge everyone interested in the issues around scientific research and international collaboration to read this well-researched article. It crystallizes core fundamental problems that remain unresolved. Gov'ts, scientists, and 1/4 p.dw.com/p/4STAc?maca=e… the market have different blindspots, but they are all displayed here. Govts/unis encouraged scientific collaboration with China until they didn't. US' China Initiative criminalized it, but fail to deal with problems like this one in Germany. Scientists like Pan believe naive 2/4

I wrote this essay on Common Prosperity for China Leadership Monitor. Did you know that Bo Xilai launched a similar campaign in Chongqing in 2011? Probably not, because it's hard to research BXL on databases that are censored after the fact. 1/8 prcleader.org/gallagher-spri… From 2011 to 2012, over 200 headlines in Chinese newspapers included the phrase "Common Prosperity", 85% of those ran in Chongqing Daily. On January 9, 2012, even People's Daily ran a front page article on Chongqing's succeses in policies that addressed rural-urban inequality 2/8

I have some quotes in this article on the use of low level resistance and invocations of legality by Chinese protestors. Inspired by ideas like 'rightful resistance', "mobilizing without the masses,"(@dianafutweets ) and my own "informed disenchantment". nytimes.com/2022/12/05/wor… I disagree with argument that the protests haven't shifted China's policies, rather considerably, but of course they aren't the only reason for the relaxation and the policy confusion. There's clearly been unhappiness Re: #ZeroCovid for some time and gov't concern about the

Glad to contribute to this article by @ChuBailiang. In thinking about the future of this youth dissent, a 1993 article by Xueguang Zhou is still helpful. With the swift repression now happening online and in the streets, where will this go? I don't think it's going away but 1/4

https://twitter.com/jwassers/status/1598317865249161220

it will become more hidden and individualized. As Zhou explains, collective action doesn't need organization and coordination. When everyone knows the target, unorganized mass behavior can appear as if collective action is happening. This is already happening online, 2/4

Important to remember protests in China aren't new or unusual. # have gone down under XI after high tide of labor, land, environment protests of the Hu-Wen period, who didn't always repress legitimate grievances. what's different now? 1/4 ft.com/content/2265af… The CCP has tended to tolerate *large* protests re: "livelihood" issues and to repress system-changing protests of *any* size. That's why protests re: #ZeroCovidChina are dangerous. Previously livelihood protests demand that gov't *do* something: restrain capital and corruption 2

Agree with @michaelxpettis comments re this article on China's manufacturing labor shortages. For @ReutersChina it's kinda criminal to discuss these topics without mentioning the problem of 户口, China's household registration system, which plays a large role in 1/5

https://twitter.com/michaelxpettis/status/1594835900135088128

labor market segmentation, labor (im)mobility, (lack of) access to public goods, and employment (in)security. While hukou policies have been relaxed in many 2-4th tier cities, in the cities covered here, hukou policies have become only more exclusive. Younger migrant workers 2/5

The full text of #20PC report adds some important detail to my earlier thread. More signaling about institutional reforms needed for common prosperity. And, as expected, no detail about how these reforms will be achieved. Many of these reforms have been discussed for decades.1/8 Section 9 on people's welfare and livelihood is still the most important. Starts with some nice words about the party and the people 江山就是人民，人民就是江山。中国共产党领导人民打江. The next para on distribution is more fleshed out than in his speech. Mentions the need 2/8

Here's my hot take on XJP's #20PC Speech as it relates to the economy and social welfare esp. Xi's signature use of Common Prosperity, which scared the bejeezus of capitalists everywhere last year. 1/6 This speech fully displays Xi's approach, which we might call "Bootstrapped Common Prosperity." Or "Neoliberal Common Prosperity." It's about hard work and struggle. Common prosperity itself is mentioned 4 times, the first 3 in mostly vague terms, hand-waving toward utopia 2/6

Hearing similar comments from other people experiencing the lockdown. A few months ago at a meeting a China-based economist said that the reason the Chinese gov't wasn't distributing pandemic aid directly to individuals and households (esp. migrants) is that they can't easily 1/

https://twitter.com/macastel3/status/1521682857143328769

track and locate people for subsidies. I replied that if China could control Covid, it could find its population to redistribute income. Since then, the population has become only more legible to the state. So will this new power be used only to control and contain? Will it be 2/

This is a great thread about the political problems facing China’s economy. I agree re: the need to redistribute income from local governments to households rather than the typical (western) need to redistribute from rich to poor households. But, the current system in China is 1/

https://twitter.com/michaelxpettis/status/1520441615898517504

Configured less around households vs. govt redistribution and more about in-the-system distribution vs. out-of-system distribution (体制内 VS 体制外). In-the-system means people who work in the state, government, or 事业单位 system. Their households benefit overwhelmingly from 2/

Here are some hot takes on the White Paper on Democracy released by the State Council Information Office, just in time for Biden’s Summit on Democracy. I highly recommend reading it; a 🧵 not for the truth or for how “democracy works” in China, but to understand how the CCP justifies its rule, with increased confidence and indeed bravado. As with the subtle troll of a title, China: Democracy That Works, a riff on Putnam’s How Democracy Works on the US.