Category: lenS & thoughtS

If RMB depreciates

One thing that might happen after additional US tariff is a weaker RMB, which can make Chinese export more appealing.

This may diver export from US to other counties, which gives pressure to producers globally.

What to do if you have rmb?

– buy houses in China

especially given that rmb borrowing rate is low, and housing prices have declined for 3 years, if you have confidence in chinese macro, buying a property in good locations is not a bad choice.

– buy overseas companies that are making money overseas

then the earnings power is not priced in rmb, and the value of the company should be rather uncorrelated to rmb.

 

Xiaomi’s strength

Besides Xiaomi’s scale, supply chain capability, IoT strategy, etc., I think the most underestimated strength comes from its competitors.

For all those merchants or companies who are “bullying” consumers, they will find themselves outcompeted by Xiaomi’s products – simply better, cheaper.

Xiaomi is not copying. Xiaomi doesn’t enter a new category if it thinks the product is good enough. Xiaomi usually executes with better efficiency, offers more value, or adds some differentiation.

Another noticeable change for Xiaomi in recent years is its brand value. It used to be more associated with low to mid income consumers as its products offer value.

However, as its car business picking up, people find its brand attractiveness quickly expand into the premium segment. Those who won’t buy Xiaomi phone can buy SU7 or SU7 Ultra etc. – this greatly expanding Xiaomi’s consumer base.

It’s like Walmart + Sam’s Club in terms of capturing more consumers.

Xiaomi could be China’s Tesla.

A “crowd” that works

What’s a good “crowd”?

How do people know they can trust themselves collectively?

Democracy in the US won’t work if the mass can’t think/vote reasonably or behave as “adults”.

If we just use words like “respect” each other – well it’s a good quality but not enough.

I think of some key elements:

a) a crowd needs to be able to deduce correctly – like 1+2=3. Given “1” and “2”, they know those two add up to 3.

b) a crowd needs to be able to double check the facts – like they can verify “1” is “1”, so that misinformation won’t cause much harm.

c) a crowd needs to be able to correct itself. If somehow 1+2 = 10 is the mainstream idea, the crowd can find out they were wrong and make it 1+2=3 in a timely manner.

d) in many more cases, it’s not a deterministic problem. There is no one correct answer, but probably a rang of answers like 1.5-2.5. In this case, people who say 2 don’t need to correct people who say it’s 1.5 or 2.5. Or there is no right or wrong, but just a preference between 1-10. In that case, people needs to recognize the fact that there is a distribution, and a “10” shouldn’t kick a “1” out of the crowd, or vice versa.

 

China is back with good policies. What’s next?

China’s stock market is back. Everyone know.

China rolled out policies to help its stock market & economy. This makes sense.

What are the missing parts?

Some might say geopolitical tension is still an unsolved issue.

I won’t disagree. But I feel it’s not as extreme as before.

Some may say a deeper structural reform.

Fair; but in short term this might not change.

What I think is missing (and China can start to think in short term) is how China can better participate & even organize global affairs & how the world economy can grow better with a stronger China.

Historically, China didn’t excel on this. During times when its economy was leading the world, it didn’t take much care of the world. It could give stuff to nearby countries; it could invent and other can learn; however, it didn’t actively “organize the world”.

A strong economy that can’t lead is a loss to the world, I think.

How to lead? How to make other countries live better as China is a bigger part of global GDP? Not by giving free money but in a healthy, organic way.

That’s the question I haven’t seen much discussion.

Random thought on one-child policy

China implemented one-child policy from 1980 to 2015 (36 years).

This might be the largest social experiment that has ever been done globally.

Only-child policy is rare. Only China has done this.

The impact could be negligible for some families, as they would have had only one child anyway.

But collectively, this has significant impact – e.g. it reduced the population: two ppl turned into one people.

One consequence that many might have ignored – half of the families may “lose” their “last name”.

In China, children usually keep their father’s name. So families with only one girl as their child would “suffer” from this one-child policy.

This might be in China vs. say in the US, as Chinese last names are shared among different families but last names in the US are often unique. If there were one-child policy in the US, ultimately, half of the last names would disappear!

What a loss of culture.

Uninvestable? Part of the game

Sure people can argue they were seeing many absurd things in China over the past couple of years, but in the grand scheme of things, this may also be considered a part of the game.

Just like in some countries, there are various forms of “cost of doing business”.. including developed countries. They are different. So one often needs time to study, and may feel unacceptable.

China is the same; maybe a bit more special – unpredictability of rules is a cost of doing business. Maybe somewhere else, the cost of doing business is “written” in the rules so you know the “cost” before you play. Here, it’s like a higher level of “costs” – changing rules is part of the game & thus this “cost” is hard to calculate/predict. If you can’t calculate costs, and you don’t know the probability, you can’t calculate your return.

However, when you recognize that unpredictability is part of the “game”, then it can become “investable” from time to time.

The “best” player might be able to predict when is investable and when is not.

It’s also okay to be a bit behind. The key is to protect yourself when it’s “uninvestable”, and be reasonably participating when it’s “investable”.

Focus on those periods. You may temporarily forget other “costs”. But you can only pretend that you forget, with a reminder/timer. You have to remember this cost on a deeper level.

The safest period is right after the most dangerous period.

Normally, I prefer not to play poker with Chinese, as they often too good at playing with people.

This doesn’t mean I can’t play. It’s just too energy-consuming.

Smart cars

I have had this concerns about smart cars for quite a few years.

I could be old-school on this, but I like ICE, and I like traditional cars that are not connected / fully controlled by electronics.

The recent Lebanon pager explosions is not only for pagers.

EV batteries could have more powerful explosion.

In addition, EV can move.

More importantly, they can go autonomous.

In some sense, they could become autonomous moving “bombs”, especially if hacked by malicious actors.

Of course, a tank of oil (ICE) can do the same, with some autonomous features.

So it’s really important to build trust between countries and companies.

I don’t know if that’s happening.

A story about elevators

Something I recall vividly – during college, I live in a high-rise on campus. Before we push button on an elevator, we look at what’s already be pressed. If one floor above or one floor below has been pressed, we shall not push button. Instead, we walk the stairs.

This is such a good norm that I follow immediately. This is such a powerful norm that brings positive energy to people.

This is actually faster if you run a bit, as the stair is close to elevators.

More importantly, all passengers’ time combined will be saved.

I have never experienced this in China. For myself, I can’t find stairs actually..

I hope this is not only for elevators and we may replicate this spirit in other areas.

China reported numbers’ discrepancy seems lower

China’s reported number can be very different from reality.

What numbers can you really rely on?

I would assume the number reported today but happened a year ago is more accurate than the number reported last year.

For example, for 2024 Jan to Aug, fixed asset investment rose by 3.4% to 32.94 trillion rmb.

While you need to believe in the current number, it’s more acceptable to me to assume the number for 2023 Jan to Aug is 31.86 trillion rmb [32.94 / (1+ 3.4%)].

Then you can compare with last year’s reported number, and see the discrepancy is -3% – last year’s reported number is 3% higher than current year implied number.

If you do the same for all month since December 2021, you can see the discrepancy grew from 0% for Dec 2021 to -15% for Dec 2022 and now back to only -3% for Aug 2023.

Indeed, the discrepancy has been low for May 2023 to Aug 2023: -4%, -3%, -3%, -3%, which seems to be a good thing.