Insights

Jaime Xiao follows his argument that China’s megacities behave like venture capitalists. New fDi Intelligence data puts Arizona’s $275bn in greenfield FDI pledges since the 2022 midterms top of the US table, with roughly nine-tenths of it tracing back to one company. Washington, he argues, has been learning the trade.

Jaime Xiao on the infrastructure behind a rain alert that counts down the minutes: roughly 70,000 automatic weather stations, one of the densest Doppler radar networks anywhere, and a family in Sichuan who got six minutes’ notice to bring in a year of rice while the sun was still out.

Jaime Xiao on what a Chinese city does when land stops paying: it gives away flats, offices and patient capital to anyone with a doctorate and a start-up the city has already backed. The housing bubble did not end the municipal business model. It changed the asset class.

Jaime Xiao reads the city wall of Xi’an as an argument about how Chinese technology actually works. Below, his post on rammed earth, artillery and a system that is maintained rather than switched on.

Jaime Xiao calls the repricing of Chinese equities China Shock 2.0, and argues it is a valuation story rather than a trade story. Below, his comment and Kenan Machado’s launch of Asian Value Investor.

Anti-China Inc. is an industry rather than a conspiracy, and an industry’s budget scales with the threat it sells. Jaime Xiao’s comment below follows Brandon Zatt’s account of where the money comes from and who is paid to keep the problem alive.

Jaime Xiao on the song played for Xi Jinping at the Trump state dinner: The Moon Represents My Heart belonged to Teresa Teng, whose music was banned on the mainland while Xi was a young secretary to the defence minister. Teng claimed a Hebei Jiguan, the same province where Xi’s own career began.