PPT dutifully arrived well before US opening, serving notice that it would be on duty today and tomorrow and day after.
Interesting.
China calling for ‘calm’ after Friday. Trump says talks on schedule.
My guess, fwiw, is that China has a full plate at the moment: HK, banks, slowing growth, etc. Trade war is the big one, best delayed. Trump is engaging in happy talk, but it has to be obvious that negotiating with the Chinese is like dealing with a tarbaby. Unless there is an effective enforcement mechanism or a sanction, signed deals or understandings cannot be relied upon.
There is a very interesting piece on Xi in latest issue of Foreign Affairs, probably behind a pay wall. I’ll see if it can be linked.
Only a taste:
foreignaffairs.com
Xi is the antithesis of Deng Xiaoping, and not only in height. Xi is a CCP true believer, a lot more rigid than Deng. In my view, he’s walking a tightrope as a cult of personality is forming. He maneuvered the succession laws to essentially allow him to be head guy so long as he wishes to be. A misstep, and he might be in trouble. He knows this of course, so he is cleaning or has cleaned house via anti-corruption drives, increased surveillance, especially facial recognition tech, and ‘social’ credit scores, etc.
It will be very interesting to see how Xi deals with HK. |
