Future Predictions for China and Geopolitics

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In today's episode of China Decode, we're discussing private companies limiting the use of AI models in Hong Kong, a Lulu Lemon campaign that goes wrong And World Cup fever takes over despite the Chinese team not qualifying this year That's all coming up, but first, let's do a quick check in with how the markets are starting the week in China On Monday, markets were once again open following the Dragon Boat Festival holiday and saw a strong rebound. The Shanghai composite closed up one point seven eight percent and the Xhenzhen component finished the day up two point one three percent Its highest level in eleven years. The People's Bank of China announced it would keep its key lending rates steady Notable gains included Bank of China, up two point eight percent, Naroechnology, a semiconductor equipment company up three point three percent and electric battery maker CATL up four point four percent All right, let's get into it JP Morgan Chase has reportedly cut off its employees in Hong Kong from accessing Anthropics AI models. Citing concerns over licensing terms that restrict use in Greater China Goldman Sachs has already made a similar move in the region At the same time, Washington is escalating pressure on Dutch chip maker ASML concerns that advanced chip making lithography equipment could have reached China A reminder that the battle over AI isn't just about software but also the hardware needed to power it So James, I thought it was super interesting to have those two stories really come to the fore in pretty much the same week And it reminds me that, you know, we are living in a technological Cold War II, where there is an iron curtain increasingly developing being drawn up between mainly China and the U. S. You know, we can debate as to whether or not, you know, Anthropic has done this move to, you know, cut off access to China and now Hong Kong because it wants to be seen as anti China and pro US or if it's cowown pressure from Washington But what is clear to me is that increasingly, Hong Kong is getting looped into mainland China. This, I think may be net bad for the financial services sector in Hong Kong, which relies on being a cross border hub, not just of funds and financing as you know, butort of talent, IP And then more than that, the AML story just reminds me the stakes are not just about the models themselves. They're also about the hardware used to power them. Now, ASML is saying that they weren't all involved, but the fact that the Americans are going hard after them suggests that in this kind of tech race, not just over models, but increasingly over chips I feel as though the US is getting more and more worried, both in the private sector and public sector in terms of maybe China catching up or China really having real cards to play that we've discussed previously. But James, do you agree with that? Yes, absolutely. I mean, of the two strands that you mentioned, Alice, I would say the ASML allegation by the US government is probably the more significant. We don't know if it's true at the moment, but the fact that the U.S Department of Commerce is escalating its confrontation today, that's Monday in Europe with ASML on this topic seems to me to show that the US is at the very least veryery angry about this. These are both parts of the bigger tech war, tech rivalry between the U.S and China. But of the two, I would say, the ability of the West to make the world's most advanced semiconductors and China, which is currently unable to make those really advanced semiconductors, is the most important. It's the area where the gap between China and the US remains the biggest at the moment And if it's true, and I stress if it's true, The world's most advanced chip making machines, which are manufactured by ASML, have actually been sent to China, then this is a massive game changer. Because these ASML machines and I've actually seen them, I've been to the ASML factory in Eindhoven, I've seen the most advanced machine they make They are simply unique. No other company, no other country in the world make these so called EUV machines. And without them, you simply can't make the world's most advanced semiconductors. So if it's true, it's a massive issue. ASML has denied it. They have rejected every element of the U. S. allegation. So it's a very, very emphatic denial. They say they've never shipped EUV machine to China. and they've added that they've never shipped any component, module or equipment specifically designed to be used in an EUV machine. So that's a really strong denial. There's no wiggle room there as far as I can make out for Weasel Wds But as I mentioned, the U.S. Department of Commerce has escalated its confrontation today. They are presenting specific documentary evidence the company ship spepecialized transport equipment and other components compatible with extreme ultraviolet lithography to Chinese entities. Now the fact that the U.S Department of Commerce is escalating says quite a lot to me. This basically shows that war between the U.S and China remains very much in force. in spite of the mollifying summit that we saw between Trump and Xi Jinping in recent weeks, this tech war remains virulent Now these LLMs and particularly anthropic The issue as you mentioned, Alice, is Hong Kong. The mainland already cannot get hold of anthropics, LLMs, the large language models, these extraordinary AI programs. But now JP Morgan Chase is restricting Hong Kong from using the different LLMs that Anthropic makes And so this means that not only is China Putting restrictions on the US in what the US can use when it comes to LLM, but also The U.S, we know, for a long time, has been putting restrictions on China, but now Hong Kong is part of the whole picture as well. Restrictions on the use of these LLMs in Hong Kong is now very much part of the picture. And this goes against what Hong Kong was specifically arranged to be in the past Hong Kong has always been a special case. It's designated as a special economic zone with China. It's got a high degree of autonomy, etcetera, etcetera. But now the US is treating Hong Kong pretty much as just another part of China. I'm puzzled because To what extent is this decision by Anthropic and ONA prior to Anthropic's announcement to basically cordon off Hong Kong and treat it like mainland political decision or is it a competition concern. What I mean by that is are they motivated to lump Hong Kong with mainland China because they see China as a big risk, Nanthropic has been very public in saying that It is pro American AI and believes that it should be at the vanguard in the competition, national security and technology competition with China Or is it really know anthropic and open AI, very worried about distillation? Because if it's this ladder scenario Then there are so many Chinese engineers, tech companies that exist outside of mainland China. You look to Singapore, are you going to extend to that? Are you going extend to The, you know, many hundreds of thousands of Chinese enngineers and top level talents in Silicon Valley say Are you going to extend that even to your employees? Now an topic just came out and we haven't mentioned it yet, but I think this is quite significant came out and said, well, the Chinese Nationals who are working for a compty can't be working on fable and mythos. They're barred from working on that To what extent is that actually happening remains to be seen, but It seems that they're taking that drastic action too to cut off some of the talent having proximity to the cutting edge frontier models, Fable and mythos U So I'm not really sure how this plays out, but generally let's take the other side and Hong Kong's perspective. I think this is not great You know, about, I think somewhere in the line of a quarter of Hong Kong's GDPs and financial services and it employs two hundred fifty thousand people This is a significant part of the Hong Kong story. And if you basically ensure that the financial services and tech companies in Hong Kong don't have access to leading botelles but also are not interoperable or plugged in with the rest of the company outside of Hong Kong. that creates a lot of issues, I think, for the Hong Kong financial services community. So I come away from these announcements feeling that this isn't great for Hong Kong's pledge to be, you know, a fully international cross border hub and I worry a little bit about what this means. for Hong Kong in its financial cross border position, but also from an R andD standpoint, right? Because a lot of I think the optimism about Hong Kong from an RD standpoint is, look, we're going to get access to both the Chinese and the American leading models and we're going to be able to incorporate the best of each system. Well that future is no longer apparent for Hong Kong and that I think quite remarkably changes how I think about Hong Kong moving forward And to your point about ASML, I was looking at some images and videos of the huge equipment that is required. and for hyper compleplex both to move and to maintain and they require AML to be part of that process It stries to me it' very difficult for AML and the Dutch to reject the American cururbs on semiconductor equipment restrictions per the Match Act. So again, I sort of am puzzled as to what Washington is trying to achieve.re Are they politically motivated here or is there a real substance to these accusations? Because if it's politically motivated, are they trying to send a message to the Europeans to to other third party countries to say, hey Don't mess with our restrictions. This is a serious competition with China. We're watching you. On the ASML front, I really don't know. You know there seems to be a very strong disagreement between ASML and the US commerce Department. This is sort of black and white. You either are exporting highly sensitive EUV technology to China or you're not Of course, ASML has a huge presence in the China market and the China market is very important to ASML But ASML is very well aware that it is banned from exporting EU fee technology to China. There really isn't much ambiguity about that Personally, I would be surprised If ASML has done this Is it possible then that there's some kind of smmuggling gone on, again, very difficult because this is really, really high tech sensitive technology. You need a whole team of top engineers from ASML to travel with these semiconductor m tools. cant You can't sort of make it up after it's arrived in China. So I'm puzzled by this. I'm genuinely puzzled. I don't know what's happened, but I'm going to be watching it very carefully because As I said, if China has got hold of one of these EUV tools, then I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be able to make the world's most advanced semiconductors obviously after a period of time. If you were to assess based on these two developments is China better off in this AI competition or not? I think in the short term, this isn't great for a place like Hong Kong in the mainland. I think it's a bit of a wash. You know, It doesn't at all impede on the amount of development and CapEx that is going, although arguably a lot less compared to the US ten times less But still quite significant amount of CapEx that is going into AI development ahead, and there's ways to keep distilling even if you ban it from the mainland and Hong Kong. But on the hardware side, I worry that this might be the first innings of even more restrictions. that we we saw the Pentagon ban more Chinese companies based on their military associations with the PLA I've worriry that we're in the first innings of further crackdown on China related export restrictions as it pertains to semiconductors and chips Now that David Saxs has left the White House, he was really, I think one of the lone voices saying, hey, the export restrictions don't work. So I worry that we may be in for more sustained tech competition. I think the first story about JP Morgan Chase not allowing its employees in Hong Kong to use the anthropic models is just an example of how piecemeal, how kind of patchwork The US restrictions have been and how really largely futile they've also been. You can be a Chinese person in Singapore, you could be a Chinese person in the US or a Chinese company and you can easily get access to anthropic. If you want to train your Chinese LLM by using Claude or one of the other anthropic models You've got no restriction on you from doing that. You don't have to do it in Hong Kong U So I can't really see what Washington is aiming at. There doesn't seem to be joined up thinking on this And I'd go one step further than that and say that when it comes to AI The U. S has been ineffective, I think in trying to hold China's progress back I think we can say that, maybe China is a few months behind the US on making these LLMs But I would say for sure that the U S. has been unable to significantly hamper China's progress in making world class LLMs so far. Okay, we'll be back with more after a quick break. Stay with us Support for the show comes from LinkedIn. 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It's a little trick that helps you feel like you've got company and aren't alone And other insurers, well, they may make you feel alone But when you switch to GICo, you've got C claims repps available around the clock So whenever you need, you'll have people around to help And let's turn on the washing machine, just for good measure Isn't that soothing? It feels good to have support. It feels good to Gaica. Welcome back. Activewe brand Lulu Lemon recently held a promotional event for the brand at the Great Wall of China. It was billed as a celebration of Chinese culture, but the intent backfired badly when a Japanese style drum appeared in promotional imagery triggering a nationalist backlash on Chinese social media that topped fifty million views on a wayel. James, this is not the first instantiation of some, I would say. hackneed and ill faded here. done by a Western company in China. I I looked at some of the pictures. They're very impressive. If anyone wants to see Lulu Lemon mats on the Great Wall of China, people doing yoga. It's a very impressive image But it seemed like somebody dropped the memo internally about including a Japanese drum point in time where I think Japan, China relations As bad as we've ever seen really since twenty ten, twenty eleven, you know, when you started to have the Senkaku Islands incident and the rarer embargo, I think we're in the similar patch of really bad Japan, China relations. So the timing couldn't be worse, James, what was your reaction when you saw the imagery You know, to be honest with you, I feel a bit sorry for Lulu Lemon here because Is this actually a Japanese style drum? It does seem to be that does seem to be a question. I mean, certainly this this is a big double sided drum It was played by a top tier Chinese actor called JZui Long. but what happened was People online in China began to say, Oh, this drum looks like a Japanese wadaiko. and then this clip went viral on social media. And so that's where the allegation of this being a Japanese drum really started. Then, according to the Chinese company that had been responsible for getting this drum onto the Great Wall, they then said, oh, well, hang on This is not a Japanese drum This drum is a replica of the Jia drum from the Tang dynasty. That's a Chinese dynasty that ran from six eighteen until nine oh seven. And apparently the Jia people, apparently they're ancient ethnic minority living in the northwestern part of China and the drum, this type of drum was supposed to have been praised by the Chinese emperor of the time. So to me, there is a real question as to whether or not this is an old Chinese drum that was perhaps borrowed by the Japanese. But its antecedents were first Chinese But then the nationalists in China online have been you know,, getting very agitated about it. and that's why Lulu Lemon had to apologize as they now have done They've apologized for this marketing campaign and for using the drum I suppose the moral of this whole story is If you are a brand operating in China, be very careful because Maybe the truth of these matters is less important than what the online nationalists could construe as the truth And once you get into that situation, I've seen it so many times in China, once you have the online activists building up ahead of steam, it doesn't matter what the truth is. You just have to apologize and pull the marketing campaign. And that's what's happened in this case. Yeah, I've read a similar backstory to this and I'm glad you raised it. But Lulu Lemon has come out And obviously apologized. you know, China is a huge and growing market for Lulu Lemon. actuallyct. I've been really surprised by how successful they've been in China Um, who would have thought that this, you know, very, um, coast athleesia brand would find inroads, but it reflects a growing fitness wellness trend in China in the middle to upper middle and upper classes that Little Lemon' really trying to tap into. It actually reminded me to some extent of some previous campaigns, which we can get into, which I thought were actually worse. or at least they were not as well they were not as in good taste is what I mean. were They were in poor taste, frankly. one of them Ily remember back in twenty eighteen the Dulttra in Gabana As I don't know if you saw the Chinese model eating a pizza with Chinese chopsticks. Netizens in China got really offended by that. I won't weigh in, but certainly people were very heated and that led to huge boycotts. And I think DNG Doto Gaban hasn't really revived itself since that twenty eighteen fiasco. And then we had a Versace cooach Givanci issue in twenty nineteen where we had t shirts that listed Hong Kong and Macau as countries separate from China. Again, this created huge virality and complaints on Weibo on Chinese social media and you know several Chinese brand ambadors canceled their contracts publicly with the brands These are just a couple, but it reflects the fact that When you're a brand, even if you're domestic, you have to deal with a very heated population of consumers and netizens with strong opinions. And New York P is completely spot on James. if they believe something to be, especially if they believe it to be anti China, or against their cultural country, they will come out in spades and complain. And because China is a huge market You know, one point four trillion people, but but a huge consumption engine A lot of these brands have to cow out ultimately because they want to protect their bottom line. You know, the regularity of these flare ups is really quite remarkable. Even in April this year, the French fashion brand L Mer apologized after its advertisement, caused lash because of an image of a long braid and a white long gown. This is supposed to or you know was seen as alluding to a period of humiliation in Chinese history in the nineteenth century. and I suppose at that time, people would have worn costume like that. There was also in twenty twenty one, there was an H and M Nike Berberry and Adidas issue. In twenty twenty two, there was a Dior issue. In twenty twenty five, there was an Arctorics issue. This is something that the foreign brands seem to get into on a very regular basis. and I just wonder whether there's a mismatch of communication between the China office and the head office. These are big mistakes. I mean, you know, China is a huge market for these luxury brands and you can poison your reputation in China with the merest of slip ups cultural slip ups or political slip ups, if you claim that You know, Taiwan is a separate country or something like that So u, I guess this is another cautionary tale and another reminder to the big Western companies that they should really look at their internal controls when it comes to China and marketing. Okay, let's take one last quick break And stay with us ver your think Panda helps you make that thing Canva is a simple online tool thing way to design with our magic AI tool things You can social media your thing, generate images or videos of your thing, make decks for presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing, Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing Support for this show comes from Fetch Pet Insurance. 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In fact, it has only been in the World Cup once in two thousand two Lal fans in China have found something else to cheer about The World Cup referee Maning Maning is huge in China right now because he's the only Chinese guy being represented in the FIFA World Cup And he's a referee He apparently has now hundreds of thousands of followers on social media platforms. He's kind of being belovedly called the cardman because he's quite strict in his delivery of the rules as a referee. It's interesting because you know clearly there is a big social media and online following and presence that's happening for the World Cup But it's shifted from, I would say previous years, right? I think so much of this is now online short form We previously speculated that China might not even have the rights to disseminate the World Cup in mainland China, but it seems that in the last innings There was finally a deal worked out by China media group, state owned media organization that inked the broadcast rights with FIFA for the World Cup and S Sul which is China's Instagram is effectively the strategic partner to China Media group. They won the distribution rights to coo stream, the World Cup games for free to all users. So a lot of effectively, you know, millions of Chinese, you know, watching this online on their phones, some on the TV. The big question is, you know, Why isn't China I think better at soccer? I have some theories, but I wanted to get your take quick take on that and whether or not, you know you think this is a growing industry because after all, Xi Jinping is a huge stand football. We know this given his his pledge to make China a real football power. And yet we have, you know, haven't really seen great football participation from the Chinese since two thousand two. So what explains all that, James? I wish I knew. Xi Jinping in twenty eleven, he's famous for saying that he had three wishes He wanted China to qualify for the World Cup He wants China to host a World Cup And he wants Jana to win a World Cup U and I'm afraid China has is really falling down badly on all of those wishes at the moment. I remember when I was a university student in China, people used to play football every day, all hours of the day. Our dormitories looked onto the football pitch and it was I mean, of course they had stop off a dark But it was constant. I've never lived in a country that is as football mad as China. And I come from the UK. We're pretty football mad over here. But China is more football mad, I would like to say than the UK. People are fascinated by it. It's very regular that you'll meet somebody Oh You'll be talking to a taxi driver who will not only know all of the top teams in the UK, they'll know all the top teams in Spain, in Italy, in America. they'll know some of the top players. They're very, very well informed on China. So For China not to have qualified for the World Cup since two thousand two, obviously it's a big disappointment for Chinese people. And the other juxtaposition I think is relevant is that China is very good at sport. China won the Olympic Games in terms of the medal count in two thousand eight And I believe every year since then it's played second fiddle to the United States, which, as we all know, is excellent in athletics and other sports like that. So what explains the fact that China has been so poor when it comes to the World Cup? Well, a lot of different people have different views There is definitely corruption running through Chinese football, Chinese soccer. And so perhaps that is part of it. Perhaps there's a problem with the coaching, perhaps there's a problem with the pathways. Given that it is the case, as you said, Alice, the focus of one point four billion people in China watching this World Cup unfold has turned to Maning, the referee. He's called the card master in China because he doesn't take any disobedience on the pitch. He just doles out the cards in one game, he doled out nine cards and the Chinese you know football fans, soccer fans, they love him for that. So maybe maybe Mning he goes somewhere in this World Cup. Mbe he he gets close to refing a final. I don't know. but It's an interesting situation and even though China iss not at the World Cup It is certainly galvanized by the spectacle unfolding in the U. S. and the other countries that are hosting. Yeah. It's a fascinating your point. The football enthusiasm is there in the everyday people. you know, this is why I remember a couple years ago X Jinping had this national initiative to get all kids to play soccer And I remember seeing videos of him playing soccer. This was a big thing pre COVID to try to get everyday people, especially children healthy, playing soccer, making sure that China would have great teams to go into the World Cup. It still hasn't since since she launched that initiative. I have this pet theory that I'm borrowing from a friend of mine who's an economist in China, David Lee, who has this theory that It's all about economic studity of the day So everyday Chinese parents would rather be ROI of investing in an athlete who is doing an individual sport. golf or tennis or skiing like Ising Gu or gymnastics Be then they can control the variables. they can know from a very early age if they're genetically, you know, physically gifted for that sport And then they can cash in on the prize money, whereas it's less sure if you're going to do it for a team sport if you're even going to be able to qualify for a team. and then what the future payouts will be, it's hyper dependent on the team performance, not just the individual performance. I'm borrowing that idea because I think that my suspicion is that economics play a role in China being generally very good And you see this in Olympics at individual sports and not so much at team sports like soccer basketball. That explains to me why China's been so bad because really they haven't In so far as I understand, James correctly, they haven't won a single goal. That's right. Not since nineteen thirty eight has China scored a goal at the World Cup and it's the only qualifying country with that dubious distinction. So it is really a bit of a disaster. One of the thing that I'll mention is that it's not just that Chinese J the Instagram was streaming the performance for millions of users in China. The other thing that was worth mentioning is that the CCTV's app for streaming the World Cup was the second most downloaded app past week on China's Apple store and the official sports betting app was ranked sixth most downloaded And then Chinese tech companies like Tensent Cloud are actually responsible for two thirds of the official World Cup broadcasting in APAC behind the scenes. And we've got Chinese tech companies that are involved in the distribution and streaming of the FIFA World Cup All right, James, you know what time it is? It's prediction time. As you peer into the future this week, what do you see? Okay, Alice, I am sticking with football with soccer and I'm going to stick my neck out and say China will qualify for the next World Cup. And the reason I'm forwarding for this is that There is actually an interesting new model of football of soccer in China. And this is the Jiangsu City League. It's known as the Sou Super League. and the difference between this league and the way that the game is played in the rest of China is that this is bottom up