Mitch Presnick 柏力
@mitchpresnick
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Visiting Fellow ‘25, @FairbankCenter at Harvard. Founder, 速8酒店 @Super8 Hotels China. 🦉
Joined January 2011
Check out my recent article, “The 4 Key Strengths of China’s Economy and What They Mean for Multinational Companies,” published today in @HarvardBiz. In it, I argue that leveraging China’s strengths is a preferable alternative to decoupling.
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“China’s PPP GDP is only 25% larger than that of the US? Come on people… who are we kidding? Last year, China generated twice as much electricity as the US, produced 12.6 times as much steel and 22 times as much cement. China’s shipyards accounted for over 50% of the world’s.
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Eight years ago, German engineers laughed at Chinese automobiles.
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China invested $9 trillion since 2005 to achieve tech parity and build a brand new national infrastructure. In the same period, the U.S. spent $9 trillion on military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no peace dividend or economic flywheel effects.
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On US China and What’s Important Now. When I left the US and arrived in China in 1988, the US was rich and China extremely poor, but anyone could tell where they were going. They had that momentum along with the underlying productivity comity and unity of purpose. They were.
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Reposted from Joseph Wang, computational astrophysicist on LinkedIn:. “Yeah I expected this. So Microsoft and OpenAI are now accusing DeepSeek of stealing their data. Anyone with any tech knowledge who can read DeepSeeks paper knows that this is bogus, but Sam Altman just has.
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Not everyone likes to be told they understand China just enough to be a hazard to themselves and others. One sympathizes.
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This is why people who don’t understand China, but who assume Chinese are motivated the same way we are in the West, are a hazard to themselves and others. For China, high speed rail is about total factor productivity of the economy, not making money separately. Because the.
@mitchpresnick It's not just limited to the stockmarket. It's everything. Hhahaha Chinese HSR loses money! Uh that's not the prime benefit of it wadda ya mean? If it's not profitable it's a failure!.
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Bloomberg: Why The China Bubble Still Hasn’t Popped? . Mitch + Occam’s Razor: Because it was never a bubble.
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It’s CPC, not CCP. We should respect China’s chosen syntax, regardless of our political views—just as we wouldn’t want them referring to the GOP as the “OGP,” no matter how they feel about it. As Confucius said, “Wisdom begins by calling things by their proper names.”.
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US and China competing over who can best persuade Chinese scientists to leave the U.S. and return to China. “… departures increased by 75%, with two-thirds of the relocated scientists moving to China.”
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U.S. propaganda is even more effective than Chinese propaganda. Why? In China, everyone knows propaganda when they see it. In the U.S., propaganda is so sophisticated, people don’t realize it’s propaganda.
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@YashengHuang Control of the world’s largest landmass and 20-25% of the world’s natural resources, ringed by nuclear weapons.
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Cremieux is completely missing the point if they think this is about whether China saw 200% or 400% growth since 2002. The point is that China has captured all the momentum and taken all the air from the room; in trade, in currency diversification; in shipbuilding and ports; in.
China claimed it had almost 400% GDP growth between 2002 and 2021, but it actually had below 200% growth in that timeframe. People still take their reported figures seriously when we know they are wrong.
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Chinese know us infinitely better than we know them. 300k Chinese students in USA, motivated TOEFL champs learning about America from Americans. Meanwhile, we have China “experts” who mostly don’t speak or read Chinese, and some have never lived in China for any length of
Do we in the US know China better than China knows us? The opposite?.
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Reposted from Joseph Wang, MIT physicist, on LinkedIn:. “We are entering a world of US trade isolation and not the end of free trade. The BRICS nations are all for free trade. The US is going to massively increase tariffs for US goods, but the BRICS countries are pretty intend.
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Reposted from Joseph Wang, MIT astrophysicist on LinkedIn. “One thing that I think is *crazy* in a lot of my comments is that people are saying that BRICS is going to be a failure because most of the people involved are poor people. You forget that poor people want to be rich,.
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World Bank to China: “Please stop ignoring our advice while still succeeding.”
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In 1830, China accounted for 50% of global GDP. Ten years later, it lost a war, suffered a domestic rebellion, lost a 2nd war, then lost everything. China overplayed its hand. In 1950, US accounted for 50% of global GDP. Seventy years later, we’re losing a proxy war,
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Over the next four years, China will replace the U.S. as defender of open markets, free trade, multilateral organizations, globalization, and intl development and travel. The world order is changing, for the first time since WW2.
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RMB has now quietly surpassed USD as the dominant currency used in China trade. First time since Reform and Opening Policy was instituted in 1978. With the reversal trend continuing.
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We can determine how far we have come spiritually by the degree to which we feel connection and empathy to those outside of our immediate circles.
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Anyone who knows Chinese history will tell you that China doesn’t approach great power relations or its place in the world the way the US does. Despite this, we in the West constantly assume they do.
John Mearsheimer believes that if China becomes powerful enough to be a regional hegemon and no longer has to worry about its own security, it will intervene in other countries’ affairs just like the US. Therefore, he argues that China must be prevented from becoming a great
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There is quite a contrast between U.S. perception and reality with respect to China technology.
.@Xiaomi announces new 3nm chip.
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My great uncle Mike Presnick, who originally encouraged me to go to China back in 1983, once told me;. “Whomever you meet, give them a gift; a compliment, a kind word, a smile, or your full attention. Do this everyday, wherever you can, regardless of your mood. You never know
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.".
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I’ve been hearing predictions of China’s imminent collapse since at least 1990. Intensely after 2001. China’s economy isn’t imploding or anything like that, and that sort of thinking is dangerously naive. Their economy is not reliant on foreign trade or investment anymore.
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When we zoom out and connect the dots, we see that China doesn’t necessarily need to sell many EVs or solar panel installations to the West if it can sell them to the rapidly growing middle class populations in the Global South including SE Asia and the Middle East. That’s what.
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Huawei’s new Shanghai R&D center is larger than Apple Cupertino and Microsoft Redmond’s R&D combined.
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I’m convinced that the sharp decline in the U.S. position vis China over the past decade stems largely from the fact that so many of the U.S.’s best thinkers—whether doves or hawks—remain trapped in outdated, binary ideological frameworks and emotional subjectivity. Link to my.
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As someone who speaks reads and writes Chinese and who lived in China for over 30 years, I can assure you these non-Chinese speaking “China experts” who never lived in China are almost invariably unworthy of any attention. Kissinger was the exception.
@Weltschmerzheit @LyleJMorris Yes, but the role of English and the role of Chinese in the world today are different, like it or not. Not saying that an expert on China shouldn't make an effort to learn Chinese, but this is not a good comparison.
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Reposted from Joseph Wang, computational astrophysicist on LinkedIn:. “So one thing that the US gets wrong is that there is this idea that the US and China are in this race for world domination and that the US has to beat China. The trouble with this thinking is that it means.
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Yup. For EV, I’m worried about the U.S. not China. China (BYD Nio XPeng et al) has never relied on the US market to sell their EVs. But without China EV partners, the U.S. will forever be outside the pricing window and supply chain. That’s why their reaction to the new 104%.
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I remember when China was opening a new coal-fired power plant every 1-2 days. Now, over 60% of new car sales in China are electric vehicles, many powered by solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy. What more are they supposed to do? They’ve created an entire clean energy and.
@mitchpresnick So you advocate that every human in the world gets allocated the same amount of environmental damage that America pioneered, is that right?.
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Raytheon CEO: “What the American people need to know is … we have to find a way to get along. There is a codependency. We can’t pull out of China. It’s too big, too important, and too necessary to the US economy.”.
It's very impractical to pull supply chains out of China, says Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes.
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American business wants to stay in China. Neither Japan Korea nor Taiwan want to lose China chip market. Europe doesn’t want to decouple. Taiwan is unconcerned about China military invasion. Buffett Cook Musk Dimon and Gates have all expressed caution about policy direction.
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“China celebrates its 75th birthday, while its stock market is soaring. But at what cost?” is the best Western media can offer in this new era.
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“Beijing is racing ahead in advanced technology, including in robots, satellites and AI—and in some cases is catching up with the U.S.” @WSJ . Catching up? Few western experts dispute that China now leads the U.S. in most areas of robotics and AI —especially applied technology.
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“China never bets against the United States, and never interferes in its internal affairs. China has no intention to challenge the United States or to unseat it. Instead, we will be glad to see a confident, open, ever-growing and prosperous United States. Likewise, the United.
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Yuval’s brittle and reductive first statement underscores the West’s flawed approach to Asia. Characterizing “democracies as based on trust, and dictatorships on terror” alienates nations like China, which do not view governance in such starkly binary terms. This kind of.
With the US elections just around the corner, some food for thought about #democracy, #dictatorship and #truth. @billmaher
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The perception in DC that Chinese EVs are “Good for the World, Bad for America” is itself an indicator of the kind of primitive thinking which got us here.
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China now settles more than half of its international trade in RMB, up from zero in 2010. At current CAGR, China will settle >80% in RMB by 2030.
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China is centralized and the United States is decentralized. Both systems have advantages, because here we are, witnessing a newly formed G2. The main difference is that China is good both at extracting the benefits of its centralized system, and incorporating the best of the.
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Reposted from Joseph Wang, MIT physicist on LinkedIn:. “Also the way that China is structured avoids a lot of the problems of the US, and one thing that I find interesting about Xi is that he has set up the Politburo like a tech startup. So you have the inner Politburo which are.
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Some perspective on the Sino-U.S. trade imbalance. Total revenues for U.S. firms in China exceed six times the value of U.S. exports to China. 其实 more than 75 American MNCs earn over $2 billion annually in China - a number roughly equal to total annual U.S. exports to China.
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Don’t look now, but China has somehow cooked themselves right into domination of global trade and manufacturing … automation … all new critical tech industries … running out of fingers to count …. But I’m sure you’re right. It’s all just a dream. Go back to sleep 😴.
@JamesLLandis @mitchpresnick Cooking the books is a Chinese secret sauce to Xi's power. You can coerce most of the people most of the time, but. you know the rest. The sheen is sure coming off now.
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The classic issue with non-China specialists opining on Chinese policies is the assumption that Chinese policymakers operate with the same motives as their Western counterparts. In reality, Chinese policymakers are less concerned about stock market fluctuations and more on.
Chinese policymakers are applying a Western-like playbook here. Lift the stock market at all costs. And hope that's enough to loosen financial conditions and rescue the Chinese economy. But there is a problem with that. 2/.
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Reposted from Joseph Wang on LinkedIn. “One thing that I hope will start to happen is that people in the US will seriously look at how the Chinese political system works. The problem with a lot of US views toward the Chinese political system is that they have the premise that.
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Reposted from Joseph Wang, computational astrophysicist on LinkedIn:. “Also one reason I find this "Little Red Book" phenomenon so interesting is that it was so *unexpected*. I didn't think that so many Americans would find a Chinese app so attractive. Neither did anyone else I.
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“On the one hand, the US has clearly the freest media in the world; the best financed newspapers, TV stations, etc. But, the insularity of the American discourse is actually frightening. This is also true of the NYT, WaPo, WSJ. There is an incestuous, self-reverential.
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On the Likelihood of Conflict between the US and China over Taiwan. It’s unlikely the US and China will ever go to war over Taiwan. I realize this is hard to believe, given the downward trajectory in relationship, and especially when listening to the daily news or China.
My debut in @spectator.
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Because I spent thirty years in China, I heuristically understand how talented and capable they are as a nation. I’m definitely less biased than those who would view China through a CPC lens. I’ve witnessed the enormous blind spots and myopia created in many otherwise talented.
@mitchpresnick @AllMigh48938863 China’s success will be limited so long as its greatest proponents, like you, put the cart before the horse.
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“China has ten ports in the top 25 in the World Bank index: No other country has more than one. The highest-ranking U.S. port, Charleston, is meanwhile ranked 53rd, while Los Angeles, the largest U.S. port … pulls in at 375 out of 405 ranked ports. More efficient Chinese ports.
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Singapore is an amazing city and it’s going to be plenty busy in future just serving as the regional finance center for SE Asia - the world’s fastest growing economic area with the worlds largest group of aspiring middle class citizens. So don’t worry about that. However,.
@mitchpresnick @BANANA_POSTING Hong Kong falls, Singapore thrives. This process that has begun is irreversible. Singapore possesses all the prerequisites to supplant Hong Kong as a global financial hub, like the similar time zone, the common law system, etc.
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The U.S. decision to seize Russia’s USD reserves, regardless of the rationale, sent an unmistakable message to the rest of the world: a country’s USD reserves are only “risk-free” as long as it remains aligned with U.S. interests. This action fundamentally undermines the concept.
@mitchpresnick Not sure I understand how the previous administration weaponized the dollar or did anything different from other administrations.
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My 17 year old research assistant has forgotten more about China than this poor fellow will ever know.
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China wind and solar power capacity exceeds coal for the first time.
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… and a second one from Joseph Wang. “One good thing about Donald Trump is *whatever* he does, he has broken the back of unipolarity. With four years of Trump, no matter ***what*** he does, the world is going to change so much that whoever comes to office in 2028 cannot move.
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US infrastructure was the envy of the world for many decades. Note the boldness innovation and excellence of the Hoover Dam, Golden Gate Bridge, and US national highway system. As it’s now politically difficult to rejuvenate the US grid, the next best response for some, sadly,.
Why do so many of my fellow Americans hate infrastructure so much? Genuine question? I didn’t play that many city building games but intuitively roads are one of the first things you build? That’s one of the main things that keeps your cities poor because you can’t really
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Reposted from Joseph Wang MIT physicist, on LinkedIn. “Here is a talk by Steve Hsu who is a physicist that has been traveling in China, and he has been seeing more or less the same things I've been seeing. The description of "quiet confidence" of winning the chip war is a.
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Accurate, sadly. But one must start somewhere. On it!
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Reposted from Joseph Wang, computational astrophysicist on LinkedIn:. My note: I’m in Hong Kong now and can confirm this consensus amongst my friends here. “The consensus view in Hong Kong is that Trump is going to be better for China than Biden/Harris. Yes, Trump is going to.
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At some point, Western analysts will have no choice but to stop projecting their own perspectives onto China. China doesn’t act according to their expectations—nor does it operate, think, or prioritize the way the West does. Reposted from Jamin Hübner research professor on.
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1. US crony capitalism has underperformed Chinese command capitalism for each of the 35 years I’ve been in China. 2. I believe the prime reason is that Chinese command capitalism better balances individualism and collectivism. 3. US institutions most able to compete.
Discussing American Communism with @Timcast
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“Like birds on isolated islands, America’s carmakers are evolving to suit an oddly congenial environment — one where they can grow big and bloated in the absence of competition from hungry rivals. Gradually, they’ll lose the ability to fly.”
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Can someone clarify China’s social credit score system? Friends here tell me it’s not really a thing, but @SCMPNews seems to suggest otherwise. What am I missing?.
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Surprised this topic isn’t receiving more attention. US defense companies rely on China supply chains almost as much as other Fortune 500 companies do.
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“3/4 of the 1.2 billion people who live in liberal democracies now hold a negative view of China, but 70% of the 6.3 billion who live in the rest of the world feel positively toward China. Developing countries favor Beijing’s focus on economic development”
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Excellent point. China is now 45 years and counting (since Deng’s Reform and Opening Policy began in 1978) without recession.
@mitchpresnick There is so much remarkable about China’s rise, but one thing that stands out is the absence of boom and bust cycles, no recession for decades. Stability and resilience are part of the growth story that doesn’t get enough discussion in policy circles.
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I’m an American patriot, capitalist, and a huge fan of the USA. Why do you think I come here to dispel ignorance which is promulgated and blindly received by folks who don’t know any better, giving themselves false confidence which ultimately weakens the US position. Even if.
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China decides whether to export DJI drones to U.S., after U.S. Senate declines to sanction DJI. This pattern will repeat for rare earths and other goods.
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“(Xi) pretty much knows something we don’t know, which is they don’t really need the American economy as much as we think that they do. I think (Trump is) overestimating the hand that he has. The American economy just is not willing to withstand even a day of pain.”. - Nazak.
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First EVs, then AI, now biotech. But if you’re surprised that China is making rapid strides in yet another advanced industry, you haven’t been paying attention to what I’ve been telling you. Excerpts from @TheEconomist - full article link in comments section. Courtesy Daniel
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And another from Mr. Wang. Some very good posts lately. “There are some thing that should be obvious that people might not be aware of, and one thing that is really obvious to me is that there has been basically no inflation in China in the last several years. That's one.
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Q: “Can the U.S. build enough ships to keep up with China?”. A: China currently enjoys a 200-to-1 advantage in shipbuilding capacity.
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Americans need to understand the historical context surrounding and underlying China’s historical great power and dominance, which I often reference in my posts. At the same time, Chinese need to recognize that no American since the mid-1800s until very recently had ever.
The U.S. often frames China’s rise as a challenge to American dominance, but history shows that China has been the world leader for most of the past 2,000 years. America’s global supremacy is a recent and fragile phenomenon.
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What a difference 3 years can make for foreign brands in China.
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I’m not forced to say nice things about China or anyone. Being financially - and corporately - independent offers that advantage. It’s been many years since I stepped down as CEO of Super 8 China, the national hotel chain I founded. I’ve been highly critical of China at.
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@pstAsiatech @ElbridgeColby What it does display is a lack of irony, self awareness and any belief in the independent judgment of the audience. That, plus a distinct feeling of regret that, while they spent their capital on GDP flywheel infrastructure, we spent ours on dead money bases. It’s ‘rich’ for
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The U.S. could better compete with China if our ‘China experts’ were able to give the benefit of doubt to China given its economic accomplishments over the past 40 years. Although their model is radically different, it remains highly productive macro.
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@MatthewKroenig Really? Wish we could be as big a basket case then. And, unlike the US GDP growth model, theirs is balanced, not just finance sector.
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Runaway hyper-capitalism, a fantasy world where banking and finance have somehow eclipsed manufacturing and technology in importance. And let’s not forget, China has no shortage of capital.
O’Leary: I would like to go to defcon one with China— tariffs 400%. Bring the supreme leader to Washington or crush his economy until he has riots in the streets
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@BethanyAllenEbr The advantages and disadvantages of the U.S. and Chinese systems are on display for all to see. Welcome to the 21st century. In the past, the U.S. did not need to go through gyrations to prove out the viability of its system or the lack thereof in another’s. If that’s no.
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Reposted from James Goh, single family office investor, on LinkedIn:. “Is China still investible? . To answer this question, over the past few months, I've hosted Chinese businesses in Singapore, travelled to China, spoke to numerous global and Chinese investors, and read up on
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It’s not an “Either-Or”. China is an amazing country and culture. Ancient, wise, collectivist, history-minded, hardworking, productive, efficient at scale and full of traditional values like education family and hard work. For these reasons, the Chinese people have done.
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‘As far as the Chinese are concerned, their primary interest is China, always China. That’s number one. Their secondary interest is philosophy.’. - U.S. President Richard Nixon.
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Many don’t realize that modern US prosperity in the 1950s and 60s was fueled by massive national transportation infrastructure and middle class housing booms, as with China today. Like China’s, ours was fueled by national and local govt debt, and we built more than our share.
@HaraldinChina @mitchpresnick @mortymer001 We all know building infrastructures in China is for meeting GDP growth targets as given by Beijing. It is not for development though it may use that pretext. If it’s for purely development then Guizhou will have no trouble repaying its $3.6 trillion debt.
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“If a China and America war went nuclear, who would win?” is possibly the silliest question @TheEconomist has ever asked. Answer: we probably don’t survive if we believe that a valid question.
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Automation and AI will likely resolve much of the economic impact of China’s low birth rate. China watchers often suffer from outdated or subjective thinking when analyzing China’s future prospects. Hence the poor track record of their predictions.
First and foremost, our factory is highly automated. The steel-aluminum alloy armored cage for Xiaomi SU7 is assembled by 269 connecting robots, achieving 100% automated processes.
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Reprinting below message (with permission) from a “constructive but not pro-China” close American friend who has lived in Hong Kong since 1995, about his recent trip to Shenzhen during Golden Week. “I just got back from a gig we're doing at Mission Hills. I had not been across.
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The US has never been outplayed by China because its policies were too hawkish or dovish. We’ve watched the US outplayed for over three decades now — too soft and wide eyed before, too brittle and ham handed now. In both cases, while holding the stronger hand. No, playing ‘too.
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China now exports more to the Global South than the Developed World. Data Credit @davidpgoldman
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TBT that time a US senator said something helpful about American competitiveness in the Global South.
US Senator JD Vance: If you're in Ghana, what do you want? A lecture from a white woman in America or do you want the Chinese to help you build hospitals, roads & bridges? The Chinese have a foreign policy for building roads, bridges & feeding the poor. 👀 the end #Africa #China
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5G completely automates buildings, logistics, communications, and most transportation. No humans involved, except for maintenance.
Qingdao Port, one of the ghost ports running 24 hours in China. It requires almost no staff.😃😃😃
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China has moved from the reform era to a post reform era. US China relations have moved from the engagement era to the post engagement era. China has moved from an important country to a peer superpower. As the US processes these new realities, it’s forced to confront the.
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