Xi Jinping opened the Chinese Communist Party's twice-a-decade National Congress on Sunday by pledging to never renounce using force to take control of Taiwan
Chinese President Xi Jinping has met former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou and said that outside influence cannot stop the “family” reunion between Beijing and Taipei....Beijing views the self-ruled island as a province that must be reunited with mainland China, and it has not ruled out using force to assert its claims to Taiwan.
China's "reunification" with Taiwan is inevitable, President Xi Jinping said in his New Year's address on Sunday, striking a stronger tone than he did last year
Chinese President Xi Jinping bluntly told President Joe Biden during their recent summit in San Francisco that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with mainland China but that the timing has not yet been decided
1.) recent 2024 huge scandal regarding oil container trucks swapping out cooking oil with cancerous industry oil without cleaning the tank. the trucks ended up covering up their tank with tarp so people can't see what kind of oil these trucks are carrying.
2.) videos of Chinese EVs just simultaneously combusting in the streets while driven or parked
3.) toxic chemicals found on Temu/Shien clothes, found by South Korea and US
1.) Internal consumer demand for China has collapsed, due to real estate debt overhang, local government debt overhang, increasing job loss, and incoming and increasing college graduates. It's estimated that 80% of this year's current graduates are jobless.
2.) External demand for China has been decreasing, 3.5T total export in 2022, only 3.3T in 2023. probably below 3T this year. Due to geopolitical factors such as China allying with Russia, and increasing tariffs from every other country due to overproduction/overexport from China.
3.) EV (at 36B in 2023) is only 1% of value of all Chinese export (3.7T). Not going to rescue the Chinese economy at all. On top of that, only BYD is capable/making some profit, while every other Chinese EV is going to shut down in the next 5 years.
the yen carry trade has apparent unwound around 50% https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240809244/sto.... let's see what happens when the remaining 50% is unwound in the next few months, as investors are selling risky assets in US and Europe (and even riskier assets in China, if they haven't already) and moving cash back to Japan to convert to yen. the world economy will be very volatile until the yen carry trade unwind completes.
TikTok is focusing on longer videos these days via allowing the video length to be longer, because short videos are a money sink. Meta realized this already as well, as Mark mentioned that they're losing 1B a year on short form videos.
This flurry of social media ban might signal the start of the end of Putin's regime, with sudzha's fall by Ukraine. Right now Ukraine can seize artillery storage and destroy rail lines anywhere behind the frontline with ease, and Russia seems paralyzed. If they soften any of the frontline to reinforce the interior, that frontline will collapse.