November Digest | Part 1 - Economics, AI and Society

1. Chinese Economy:

   1. Peng Wensheng on the new model for recycling trade surpluses through overseas expansion.

   2. Luo Zhiheng on the shift of China’s export profile amid trade tensions and global industrial upgrading.

   3. Zhang Jun on the vital importance of addressing deflation and low consumption during the next five years.

   4. Liu Yuanchun on why low service-sector consumption, rather than low consumption overall, is the salient issue in China’s domestic economy.

   5. Weng Yi on what the expanded benefit contribution for delivery drivers reveals about China’s emerging social security model.

   6. Miao Yanliang on the window of opportunity for RMB exchange rate liberalisation offered by the dollar’s downward cycle.

   7. Wang Yuzhu and Zhang Ziyi on the impracticality of safeguarding US dollar hegemony through stablecoin issuance.

   8. Li Yang on the shift from bank deposits to capital markets as the main source of capital in the Chinese economy.

2. Society & Governance:

   1. Zheng Yongnian on the need for a new urban model to improve liveability and prevent demographic decline.

   2. Sun Ge on how community experiments in rural areas offer an alternative path for China’s future development.

   3. Sun Liping on why global socio-economic trends will benefit the traditional left in the long term—despite recent right-wing populism.

   4. Yao Yang on the need for moral, as well as institutional and legal, constraints on political leadership.

   5. Lu Keling on why over-standardisation means that the elderly care sector struggles to retain workers.

3. Young People:

   1. Xu Jilin on the differences between the current Generation Z protests and political protest by previous generations.

   2. Chen Zhiwen on the salutary drop in postgraduate enrolment this year.

4. Artificial Intelligence & Chipmaking:

   1. Liu Qing on the decline of humanist values as AI simplifies its users’ experience of the world.

   2. Xiao Qian on the global emergence of two US-led and China-led AI ecosystems.

   3. Lu Wei on how institutions and narratives shape US-China AI competition across the globe.

   4. Gu Wenjun on the potentially fatal capital drought faced by Chinese semiconductor SMEs.

1. Chinese Economy

Peng Wensheng (彭文生): In the context of geopolitical developments, China’s “dual circulation” (双循环) framework is being reconfigured. The old “closed loop” in external circulation was characterised by exporting consumer goods to the US and investing the surpluses in US treasuries. A new closed loop is now emerging, composed of exporting capital goods and intermediate goods to emerging economies and BRI ...