News Roundup
The Economist (and a segment of the British establishment) loves to opine about Singapore, and our Law Minister Shanmugam loves to clap back if his features are ruffled, and boy did they – “what price your sneer” with regards to their commentary on Singapore’s leadership transition is a pretty memorable statement.
Nearly half of China’s cities are sinking due to rapid urbanisation. Yikes. Also, Chinese people and their demand for animal parts… not tiger penises this time, but donkey hide.
It’s funny when geologists spat over what epoch we’re living in and call it an “epic row”.
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I like to say that outsiders need to trust that people in China aren’t repressed automatons and are absolutely capable of taking matters into their own hands. Have a look at this kebab vendor threatening an urban inspector with a knife, a shirtless cleaver-wielding man arguing with the police, and a grandpa hauling a Qing-style chair into the Shenzhen metro upon which he sat (how even?), and tell me if the cultural stereotype of bloody-minded rabble rousers tamed only by harsh conformist policies and norms isn’t a thing.
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Do advertising standards even apply to “influencers” and “content creators”? I don’t care that they hawk wares; everyone needs to make a living, but I would really, really want to know where those wares are coming from and if they’re paid to hawk them.
I don’t get nightmares about Jaws or Megs. I get nightmares about the deep-sea snakes, I mean Internet cables, and the potential for sabotage and general havoc. My partner kindly added to these nightmares by sharing an article about the invisible seafaring industry that keeps the Internet afloat.
Ponder
Last week featured a mixture of hand wringing, knicker twisting, and some sanity regarding EVs – Tesla, China, BYD and everything in between. The Atlantic thinks that Biden has a “Chinese-car dilemma”, and Noah Smith bleats about China defeating Tesla in a seemingly well-reasoned but actually surface-level opinion piece. Robert Wu (blocked by Smith in Taleb-esque style) rebuts that in an ongoing series about why Noah Smith is clueless about China, now including Tesla in China. Who knew such entertaining fodder could emerge from hubris. There was a time when it wasn’t the Chinese shade of yellow that US automakers were snippy about, but Japanese. Maybe the Koreans are next in line, followed by the Indians. I jest. The US needs to take a good, hard look at its domestic policies (or lack of), and acknowledge that their corpbro-financebro ravaging of the industrial base is the real problem (just look at Boeing), not other nations attempting to develop and compete.
P. S. In case you think I’m a Noah-basher, I actually appreciate his insights on topics literally closer to his home. I’ve learned a lot about US industrial policy and Latin American economics. When he knows what he’s talking about, he’s very, very good. I just wish he’d learn a lot more about China and Chinese people (diaspora too) before writing about it/them/us.