A pencil mark from the long tail. Browse the hand-chosen subjects for broader paths through the book.
Yuen Yuen Ang is one of the most thoughtful commentators on all things China, and everything she writes—including her books—is a must-read if you wish to understand the phenomenon that is China. She just made her book, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, free and openly downloadable. As I've mentioned, I have an…
keep reading — 1 min ↗Another example of why Twitter, for all its flaws, is still one of the best places to follow thoughtful discussions about important issues. They can be raucous, messy, and often contentious, but that’s also part of what makes the place interesting. This thread, and the various threads branching off from it, with Dean…
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What is this? A rambling, status-post-shaped voice note. How sure am I? Reasonably sure about the broad argument. Much less sure about how the technology, economics and geopolitics will unfold from here. Disclosure: I dictated most of this into ChatGPT and used it heavily to clean up the voice notes, organise the…
keep reading — 9 min ↗keep reading — 2 min ↗“China has gotten ‘pretty good’ at developing its economy” is something that many people are clearly loathe to admit. That is why many seem to gravitate towards flawed, simplistic macro-based explanations that primarily attribute its development to other reasons like “unfair subsidies” and “beggar thy neighbor” policies. But the most logical, evidence-based explanation here is that over the decades Chinese industrial planning…
keep reading — 5 min ↗A country that suppresses household consumption while simultaneously facing a collapse of property investment will run persistent current-account surpluses and will, other things equal, have a weak currency. A country with insufficient private savings and unsustainably large fiscal deficits will run persistent current-account deficits and will, other things equal, have a strong real exchange rate against other other…
keep reading — 14 min ↗Did China really ask Western companies to transfer technology in return for market access—and is that why China is so dominant today? Yes, the “market access for technology” pattern was real in important parts of China’s rise—especially from the 1990s through the 2010s, when foreign firms often needed joint ventures, licenses, or approvals to operate in China in sensitive sectors. U.S. government findings around the Section…
keep reading — 1 min ↗The reason could be that when you are powerful, people take note only when that power falters. The world was hardly impressed when Trump went on his tariff rampage; what struck people was when China successfully fought back. America demonstrated stunning military power in Venezuela but it was also expected; what people have noticed is Russia’s military failure in Ukraine. People also notice who envies whom. And it is no…
keep reading — 2 min ↗The grave dangers AI safety hawks worry about can’t be adequately addressed without extensiveo international cooperation—cooperation tight enough to qualify as international governance. If, for example, your nation regulates AI skillfully enough to keep a bioweapon from being built on your soil, that won’t save you from the global pandemic that originates in a laxer nation; international regulation is needed. If you’re…
keep reading — 1 min ↗Han Byung-Chul says that ritual is repetition without purpose, a way of founding community through shared uselessness. Performance seeks applause; ritual seeks duration. In the performance culture of the West, even grief must be productive, posted, monetised. In the ritual culture of the East, continuity is its own defence: the temple rebuilt, the porcelain recast, the festival repeated until memory becomes weather. Between…
keep reading — 1 min ↗Beijing also is building a national innovation system — linking academia, industry and defense — designed to bolster China’s military and technological strength. In recent years, dozens of China’s top 60 universities have established an expanding array of labs and research centers dedicated to pushing forward technologies with dual civilian and military uses, according to our research. Some of these initiatives were jointly…
A few good rabbit holes: 1\. The illusion of knowledge 2\. AI capex boom 3\. China and weaponized interdependence
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