On the dusty shelves of a Fujian library this summer, I came across an essay written by a young Xi Jinping soon after the bloody Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. It was a hint of how the first serious crisis of his career may have informed his worldview. (1/x) Xi was 36, the party chief of Ningde, where large pro-democracy protests had erupted that spring and summer, like cities across the country. In the essay in a literary magazine, he argues for heavier censorship of the arts, drawing a direct line to political stability. (2/x)

In Xinjiang, empty reeducation centers loom eerily over the landscape, even as officials woo tourists and try to move past the crackdown. History suggests it may be a long time before Xinjiang can regain int'l trust. Our look at XJ's present and future: washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/… Sharing a few more photos from a 9-day trip to Kashgar, Hotan & surrounding areas. Here's a line for covid testing at a Kashgar hospital in late July. Security has eased from a couple years ago, but remains elevated compared to other parts of China.

Hello from Heihe on the China-Russia border. I arrived here Wednesday night and have been enjoying the sights and fresh air at the Amur River. Russia is in view, & street signs here are bilingual, but travel across the river has been largely suspended due to the pandemic. Some stores selling Russian goods for tourists are still open, but they are very empty. Many are shuttered. Difficult for many domestic tourists to travel due to pandemic restrictions.

Good morning from Nanjing. Left Shanghai last night during the window after my 14-day entry quarantine, when we were allowed to go elsewhere (to continue quarantining). Got a brief glimpse of travel conditions now in China There aren’t cabs now in Shanghai, so quarantine hotel put us on a bus & told we could go one place. I’d booked a flight, and planned to get off at the airport, but halfway there got a text that flight was cancelled. Airline said all other flights out of SH cancelled

In the hunt for the coronavirus origin, the trail ends with Patient S01, an accountant in Wuhan who shopped at a very large supermarket. We look at the search for clues from Milan to Paris, & the uncertain data - including discrepancies in the WHO report washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac… One unexpected thing we found is the virus genetic sequence listed for the first patient in the WHO report - EPI_ISL_403928 - looks to be from a different patient who fell ill twelve days later. A WHO spokesman said they are looking into the discrepancy.

NEW: In May 2019, the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s staff filed into an old-fashioned lecture hall. An official of China’s state secrets protection agency was at the podium. Here’s what we know about the lab’s work under China’s state secrets law washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac… For those following the topic more closely, sharing rough translations we made of a few of the documents mentioning confidentiality requirements: web.archive.org/web/2021032105…

Some folks asking why we're focusing on China's food supply issue. The short answer is, we aren't! Every country is grappling w/ its own variation of this. Recommend this excellent piece by my colleague @RobynDixon__ on the grain crunch in Russia & SE Asia
washingtonpost.com/world/as-borde… And food insecurity has become a major problem in America this year. Our stateside colleagues have been covering this closely. washingtonpost.com/business/2020/…

1/ A lot of people arguing there is no meat/veg shortage in China. It's not immediately obvious in a market w moving prices, because the result is not bare supermarket shelves but sharply higher prices. This is how it would manifest in the US too investopedia.com/terms/s/shorta… 2/ Sometimes when something gets more expensive, it's the natural result of changing consumer preferences. Not the case here. The only thing that has changed is supply of meat, vegetables, etc sharply down because of covid/flooding/African swine fever. So that's a shortage.

Let’s talk about what happens if China’s vaccine gamble works. The only covid vaccine trials in the Middle East are China’s, so it could end up the region’s ‘savior’. Other targets also strategic. “Yeah, it’s a problem,” NYU bioethicist Arthur Caplan says. washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac… Sinopharm is already supplying UAE healthcare workers w a trial vaccine & running Phase 3 trials w Jordan, Bahrain & Egypt. Egypt signed on 3 days after AstraZeneca’s temporary suspension of trials (Egypt’s prev plan being 100 mln vaccine doses from A-Z)

So we crunched some numbers & the Chinese cotton grower XPCC sanctioned by Treasury produces 7.6% of the world’s cotton & 1/3 of China’s. Will be v complex for US co.’s to figure out their supply chains by the Sept 30 deadline. washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac… “It’s a concern that it could even affect apparel coming from other countries, like Vietnam or Cambodia or Bangladesh,” said Nate Herman, senior VP of policy at the American Apparel and Footwear Association. “That could conceivably be made with cotton or yarn from XPCC.”

I’ve been thinking about if the TikTok controversy matters or if it’s a distraction. To my own surprise, I’m increasingly thinking it does matter a whole lot. It’s just the timing is artificial - the natural timeline would have been yrs in the future washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac… TikTok will be a powerful communication medium when political parties & businesses figure out how to best use it. That’s because previous social media platforms were based on the idea that you put info out there & ppl can look at it if they want. But -

Some takeaways from talking w global suppliers of US companies in Chapter 11. (1) Factories around the world are owed huge sums by retailers ($1mln+) & many won't see it returned as their unsecured debt is at lower priority than creditors like banks washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac… (2) This has sparked a life-and-death innovation push among suppliers in sectors that had remained unchanged for decades. This UK ride maker is racing to make self-cleaning children's rides embedded with antimicrobial compounds, and also looking to adopt contactless payments

Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei wrote this book in 1978 about his invention of a pressure generator while working in China's military. Full of equations and diagrams. He mentions it will help Chinese factories reduce reliance on US pressure generators. Pressure generators were his thing. Still working on them a few yrs later at the Jinan 00229 military research center. The invention brought him modest domestic fame, but ultimately wasn’t too successful, as he left for uncertain startup life instead of rising up official ranks

A few more thoughts on the vaccine race. It's shaping up to take on outsized symbolic significance, as the 1st test of US vs China science+manufacturing+public policy. Chips & 5G are important but technical; in contrast, anyone can understand a vaccine. (cont)

https://twitter.com/evadou/status/1268189201926938626

The symbolism means DC & Beijing are putting enormous resources into these projects. Production to begin next month in both countries w/ help of govt funds, despite vaccines not yet verified. It means moral hazard risks in play, plus political pressure to announce a success.

Worth scanning this list of covid-related hate crimes & xenophobia. A lot is targeting ethnic Asians, but other minorities too. We need more public discourse on how to get through this geopolitical rivalry without sowing so much hate on the ground. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_i… Connecticut: On 3 April 2020, a Chinese restaurant received racist phone calls blaming the COVID-19 pandemic on people of Chinese descent and threatening to shoot the owners

It’s rare that I get to write about two female Chinese officials. Here I track the trajectories of China’s foreign ministry spin chief Hua Chunying and her only female predecessor, Kung Peng, in the 30s-60s.
washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac… In the 30s, Kung Peng was the main wartime conduit for Mao’s troops to Westerners. A former secretary for Zhou Enlai, she tutored historian John K. Fairbank in Chinese & struck up friendships with US diplomats, with one even donating blood to her husband
trumanlibrary.gov/library/oral-h…

A few thoughts on decoupling. The shift away from globalization toward critical-industry autarky will result in decreased global wealth, but after it all shakes out, not necessarily decreased levels of happiness among regular people. Studies have shown that contentment comes from community & a sense of understanding the world & possessing individual agency. Beyond a critical threshold of material wealth to stave off poverty, more stuff doesn’t make people happier.

Before he became China’s point man on trade, Liu He was tasked w a massive study of the Great Depression to prepare for the next big one. The hundreds of pages of reports are an early blueprint of China’s likely policy direction this yr. Some takeaways - washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac… Liu He wrote that a global economic crisis creates an opportunity for a reshuffling of global powers: “After a big crisis, what is redistributed is not merely wealth within a country, but the relative power of all nations.”

China may be called “the world’s factory floor”, but its main economic driver is actually domestic consumption. As China faces a record GDP decline, we look at what happened when a wildly popular hot pot chain upped prices to make up for lockdown losses washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac… In the process I learned many hot pot fun facts. In the 18th century, emperor Qianlong ate more than 200 hot pots in one year, according to folklore

For those following this kind of thing, links below to China govt & corporate virus-prevention policies for businesses reopening in the wake of the outbreak. (Illustration: Foxconn employee manual showing the "standardized pose" for coughing & sneezing) washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac… China's national regulations for business reopening. Requires employers provide face masks for employees, take their temperatures daily, log employee health statuses daily. No fingerprint entry keypads or face-to-face lunches allowed gov.cn/zhengce/conten…

Some observations from Jan. trip to Xinjiang. Many convenience police stations & checkpoints in Kashgar, Hotan & surrounding areas unmanned. More young men in the streets. (cont. below) wsj.com/articles/china… w/ @PhilipWen11 @PhilipWen11 Some re-education centers were empty, including this one in Kashgar. Behind it were rusting, dismantled bunk beds, some with a red sticker reading: "“Recognize your mistakes, admit your mistakes, repent.”