Threads Archive: 2025
Ongoing compilation of various threads from 2025
This page will be regularly updated throughout the year.
Previous Archives:
Active/Ongoing Threads
December 2024: Hidden taxes in U.S. society that add friction costs with dubious value-add.
May 2024: Ongoing thread of outbound foreign direct investment (FDI) by Chinese companies in EVs, battery, clean energy and other advanced industries
January 2025
January 23: Update on Chinese auto exports.
January 22 (Part 1 | Part 2): OpenAI / Stargate consortium announces goal of investing $500 billion in AI datacenter. Two key points:
Financing “compute” is different from financing long-lived infrastructure assets.
With this scale of resource allocation and potential direct/indirect taxpayer-funded involvement, we need to think carefully about alignment of interests and incentives.
January 20: The way the U.S. has handled TikTok is just so all-around dumb and reflects poorly on “state capacity”.
January 20: “The success of industrial policy is largely dependent on state capacity”
January 17: Reprise on the idea of how “large countries operate on a different set of economic laws than small ones” in the context of China’s dominance of global manufacturing.
January 17: The rising global competition for Chinese FDI.
January 17: Updated 2024 Chinese export figures in four renewables categories and related commentary.
January 14: The interplay between labor, capital and consumer surplus.
January 13 (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5): TikTok refugees flood into 小红书 (“RED”, “Rednote”, “Little Red Book”)
January 13: China’s goods trade surplus in 2024 will exceed $1 trillion. What are we to make of this number?
January 13: Green hydrogen takes renewables beyond the grid.
January 12: The lack of Taiwanese voices in discussions that are about Taiwan.
January 12: Update on Chinese ICE and NEV vehicle exports.
January 11: The size and scope of foreign multinational operations in China.
January 10: Apple/Foxconn, “producer power” in the context of the U.S.-China and India-ASEAN rivalries.
January 10: How finance is ultimately tied to real world institutional capacity and sector expertise: why “American finance and money” cannot play a significant role in international metro, rail and renewables projects.
January 9: Continuously underestimating China’s technology and economic development.
January 9: The long-term strategic effects of export controls.
January 9: Vietnam is attracting the same amount of manufacturing FDI as India despite a population 14x smaller.
January 8: China’s household share of GDP has re-balanced to normal levels by global standards, but this remains unacknowledged.
January 8: China continuously exceeds outside expectations on its technology and industrial efforts, this time in biotech:
January 7: China’s net international investment position and estimating investment income on the Balance of Payments.
January 6: I agreed with much/most of this excellent interview by The Wire with Barry Naughton on “the State of the Xi Jinping Economy” (archive). This thread goes through some of the pieces where I did not just nod along.
January 5: Some more recent indicators that China’s residential property market is completing its transition into just anothe mundane, boring sector:
5th National Economic Census: Property sector transitioning from greenfield development to management (QQ: archive)
Residential electricity consumption is skyrocketing, driven in part by residents moving into modern new apartments with air conditioning (from
):
January 5: The Xiaomi SU7 is a direct competitor to Tesla’s Model Y in China.
January 4: Focusing on 26 HSR “ghost stations” instead of the 1,000+ that are being used — the “Costco” trade-off between cost efficiencies and overbuilding.
January 4: Wuhu vs. Hefei and what it says about local government competition.
January 4: China sees failed capital-intensive projects as a challenge.
January 4: China’s manufacturing has a decent chance of weathering the “age of robots” (archive).
January 2: On GM-China and technology transfers.
January 2: An ode to Taiwan alleyways.
January 1: Updated Q3 2024 China balance of payments bridge.
January 1: Key China NEV sector themes for 2025.