‘In the long-term, demographics is one of the most important forces that will shape the growth momentum of China for the next decades. Two demographic features that are especially worth paying attention:’

‘Gender imbalance accounts for about one-third of the increase in China’s housing prices in the last two decades or so.’

‘The part of housing prices caused by gender-ratio imbalance is not going to go away in the medium term. But the government has ways to create volatility in the housing market.’

‘The goal is to stabilize housing prices while having housing sector grow.’

'‘China has its own issues. If you look at the CPI inflation, it looks more moderate. ‘If you look at the producer price inflation, it looks more severe.’

‘He wants to see a bigger role for the state in the economy. But in the last two years, he has done some course correction. For example, after talking up the role of state-owned firms and building stronger, bigger state-owned firms, he is talking about the equal importance for the private sector.’

‘A lot of people feel like the ideal, the optimum number of children is a maximum of two children. So it's not a surprise to me that the three-child policy hasn’t had a high response in the short term. But I think in the long term it will be much better.’

‘Each policy in isolation – whether its banning online tutoring or protecting data or enforcing anti-monopoly regulations or any other - has its rationale.’

‘In the last year and a half we saw a spate of government actions all contributed to not just falling stock prices for companies in certain sectors but a deterioration in investor sentiment more broadly. These include:...’

‘Why does gender imbalance have such an outsize impact on China’s housing prices?'

‘Compare these with graph showing the impact of the same factors on rental prices...'

I asked the participants what are their top of mind concerns about China.

Understanding the drivers of China’s rise to supply chain prominence gives (me anyway) insights to help analyze the changes – or not – of ‘decoupling.’

Wang Jisi notes that the views are his own, and certainly we don’t know how closely, if at all, they reflect the thinking of anyone in the leadership. But given his straightforward and thorough analysis, free of canned arguments and slogans, I hope they do. I also hope the Biden administration pays heed.

And while the impact of Zero Covid may be relatively short-lived, the impact of Mr. Xi’s return to the socialist path will be felt for a very long time, both in China and the world. So the impact will no doubt be felt as long as Mr. Xi leads China.

‘The bad news is that very few corporations engaged in China have contingency plans or long-term strategies to hedge against the downside risks of growing geopolitical competition.’

Here are some of the insights from ‘The Only Five Paths China’s Economy Can Follow’ by Peking University’s Michael Pettis. This excellent analysis of China’s economy is worth a careful reading.

Joerg Wuttke is the president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China - the 'official voice of European business in China.'

A looming risk is Russia-like sanctions on China. The sanctions on Russia are causing plenty of disruptions. But those disruptions would be nothing compared to the catastrophe of Russia-like sanctions on China. The good news is that if China does violate the sanctions, the violations would likely be narrow and specific - even unintentional. So secondary sanctions - if they come at all - likely won't hit China’s economy and financial system deeply – or (fingers crossed) U.S.-China relations.

Today, I’m sharing with you a bit of Ms. Schaefer’s analysis of the tech ‘crackdown’ (but not of the AI and algorithm law). She explains why...

In the meantime, some contend, China has a payment system, the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System or CIPS, that could make it independent of SWIFT.

For some time now we’ve taken it for granted that Xi Jinping has so consolidated his power that his will is China policy.

It wants to support Russia, but also wants to support the international order from which benefits and doesn’t want to alienate the major economies its own economy is intertwined with.

Years ago, before the so-called ‘New Cold War,’ when asked what China issue interested me most, I said, ‘China and the liberal world order.’