In this week’s episode of China Insider, Miles Yu reviews Taiwan’s 10-day Han Kuang military exercise, which involved civilian drills and military training to prepare for a potential invasion and to counter ongoing gray zone operations by the People’s Liberation Army. Next, Miles covers the “800 Brother” story trending across Chinese social media and internet forums as the popular worker wage movements maintain their momentum on a national scale. Lastly, Miles digs into China’s reported 5.2 percent gross domestic product growth in the second quarter of this year, and examines the historical efficacy of the economic analysis and reporting from the National Bureau of Statistics of China.
China Insider is a weekly podcast project from Hudson Institute’s China Center, hosted by China Center Director and Senior Fellow, Dr. Miles Yu, who provides weekly news that mainstream American outlets often miss, as well as in-depth commentary and analysis on the China challenge and the free world’s future.
Episode Transcript
This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.
Miles Yu:
Welcome to China Insider, a podcast from the Hudson Institute’s China Center. I am Miles Yu, Senior Fellow and Director of the China Center. Join me each week for our analysis of the major events concerning China, China threats, and their implications to the US and beyond.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
It is Tuesday, July 22nd and we have three topics this week. First, we review Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang (漢光演習) drill and the role the US plays in the defense of Taiwan. Second, we cover a recent incident involving a Sichuan factory worker who set fire to a textile factory in frustration over unpaid wages, and what this might mean for the popular labor protest movements across China. Lastly, we discuss China’s reported GDP growth rates for the past quarter and dig into where these reported figures are coming from. Miles, great to be with you again this week.
Miles Yu:
Well, glad to be with you again, Colin.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
So, let’s dive right in. Taiwan recently wrapped its annual Han Kuang drills, a comprehensive military exercise spanning civilian elements and armed forces training to prepare for the event of an invasion by the PLA. This year’s drill was the longest to date, ten days in total, including exercises to resist and counter PLA gray zone operations against Taiwan. So, Miles, beyond the duration, what is significant about this year’s military exercise in Taiwan?
Miles Yu:
Well, [the] duration itself is quite significant because Taiwan is a very advanced industrial society for a whole nation [to] mobilize to conduct this large-scale drill for 10 days. It’s pretty amazing. It shows the tolerance and resilience of the Taiwanese people. You are right. I mean, the duration is not everything, but it’s something. Far more importantly, it’s the scale and areas touched. You indicated that the Han Kuang annual drill has been going on for decades, but this is the first time you have a full integration of civilian, public, and urban sectors with the military. In the past, the drill was pretty much like a military business. It’s the professional military doing their own practices and drills, but this time it’s all-society. So, I mean, you got military civilians, jail for civil defense, medical evacuations, and subways, parks, schools, so they’re all involved. So, you’ve got somewhere around 52,000 civilian volunteers involved. Not only that, before the actual live drill (10 days) there were two weeks of tabletop simulations of cyber-attacks and misinformation campaigns. So that is very, very unprecedented, it shows once again the Taiwanese people are resolved to defend their own country against any foreign invasion.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Yeah, this whole of society approach to this year’s drills is really fascinating, and especially as this year’s drill follows the delivery of a range of new weaponry from tanks to waterborne drones and included uses of Abrams M1A2T tanks and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or “HIMARS,” recently acquired from the US. So, Miles, I’m curious, what is the extent of US involvement in these drills? Does the US ever participate in the Han Kuang?
Miles Yu:
Well, that’s a very interesting question. Normally, when the Taiwanese people and the government mobilize to do something for self-defense, people in Beijing get very nervous. There are protests [and] they would sort of paint the Taiwanese self-defense drills as provocations, which is basically, it’s very bizarre. And every time China gets mad, Washington gets nervous. So, in order to preserve the so-called most important bilateral relationships. Not this year. This year, Washington doesn’t care what China thinks, and they are totally supportive of the Taiwanese self-defense drills at such a scale. Just, mind you … just [as] the drill concluded, the US House of Representatives passed a large defense spending bill, which authorized additional $500 million for Taiwan’s defense. This is like American free money, in the same vein of the US supporting Ukrainians and Israel. So, this is very important, so that shows the Americans resolve to help Taiwan.
Now you mentioned US weapons. Yes. Most of the Taiwanese used, the highly sophisticated game changing weapons, used in Taiwan’s defense forces are US made. This time they deployed a lot of the American hardware in this drill, including Petri missiles, shoulder-launched Stinger missiles, as an anti-aircraft (anti-helicopter in particular), and HIMARS rocket launchers and M1 Abrams tanks, the best tanks in the world. And, most importantly, there’s these TOW2B [BGM-71 TOW] anti-tank systems. Chinese tanks are pretty well known, and I think in this, well, this TOW2B [BGM-71 TOW] anti-tank systems. It’s very new, and I think it’s very important. This is the US army weapon that stands for tube-launched, optical-tract and wire-guided, anti-tank, web systems. So, it’s very, very important. In addition to the utilization of American hardware, you also have American military involvement here, even though [it’s] at a very small scale, but meaningful. There’s an advisory core led by a US Marine Corps major general. A two-star participated in exercises in the live fire portion.
In addition to that, there is also a high-level US military advisory group led by the retired four-star general of the US Army, General Charlie Flynn. Now, General Flynn just stepped down from the position of the commanding officer of the US Army Pacific User PAC in Hawaii. He’s the guy who’s developed all kinds of very important plans, and this is his area of responsibility. So, he let a high-level retired generals and military leaders go to Taiwan to participate and observe this drill. Of course, they were going there in the name of teaching English for the Taiwanese. But nevertheless, you can see this involvement of the American military and show how much this American’s Indo-Pacific plan is in sync with Taiwan’s self-defense effort and endeavors. So, I think this is very unprecedented. I think this will only get even more integrated with the US military operation in the near future.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how that force integration develops over time, especially in the near months as well. But, like you just mentioned, this year’s exercise included the usual live fire drilling and comprehensive society wide training and emergency drills, but with the added focus on gray-zone operation countermeasures. So, it’s worth mentioning that actual intelligence and deterrence operations were necessary during the drills to counter attempts by the PLA to disrupt this year’s exercise. or at least minimal attempts made. So Miles, what is the importance of the annual exercise to Taiwan and how impactful is the Han Kuang to Taiwan’s force readiness in the event of an invasion?
Miles Yu:
Well, this is very important. Obviously, the United States has never given up its vow to help Taiwan defend itself. This is in America’s public law, and also as well as the expression of resolve to help Taiwan defend itself throughout the 1980s, 1990s, even in the 21st century. It’s all there. So, this once again sort of destroys this skepticism about Americans resolve to defend Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion. [The] US policy is very simple. The bottom line, [the] absolute red line for the United States is to oppose any force, any use of force by anybody, to change the status quo along [the] Taiwan Street. Pure and simple. An invasion of Taiwan through military means definitely would constitute a change of status quo by use of force. So, this is basically a no-brainer for me. On the other hand, though, this exercise goes beyond the traditional focus on anti-lodgment, beach defense and mining, all those sorts of things.
It also involved urban warfare. That’s why you see a lot of soldiers during the 10-day drill in the subways, in the building districts, to integrate with the civil defense system over there. So, I think this is very real, and of course Taiwan is renowned for its vast network of counter-cyber-attacks and counter-disinformation campaigns lodged by the Chinese government. So, I think this is also a mutual learning process. I think Taiwan has gotten ahead of us in terms of a counter-cyber counter-disinformation campaign[s] against China. So, we know the Chinese playbook more from the Taiwanese. I think, all in all, this whole issue is about urban warfare training, integration of the civil defense with the military systems, and integration of the US systems with Taiwanese systems, particularly in the hardware arena. We talk about HIMARS, Abrams, Patriot missiles, Stingers, and TOW2B anti-tank weapons. All those things are necessary, I think in addition to the familiar weapons platforms, platforms like Apache helicopters and big items such as naval vessels and aircraft.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
As a quick follow up to that, I’m kind of curious as well, just because of the development of Taiwan’s force structure in terms of how they’re approaching potential invasion scenarios and preparing for countermeasures. Of course, the counter to a potential PLA invasion starts from the far end of the straight obviously and even perhaps even further. And, to what extent were this year’s drills in your mind, miles at all influenced by the ongoing conflicts around the world or perhaps even the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine? I know Taiwan has very much been observing that conflict in terms of the modern development of warfare and how it’s conducted in operations, but have they been drawing a lot of those lessons from that conflict and applying them here?
Miles Yu:
Absolutely. That’s a very good question. I think everybody is watching very closely in the battlefields of Ukraine, because that battle actually acts as a new era of some of the new frontiers in modern warfare. First and foremost is drone warfare. Taiwan and Ukraine [are] similar, in the case that, in the sense that Ukraine has a manpower problem, a lot of able-bodied men and military aged men, they just [went] away. They didn’t fight. And also, Ukraine is a relatively smaller country compared to Russia. So, they have this manpower problem. So, what Ukraine has tried to do quite successfully, I think, very, very successfully is to use drone warfare. So, they use drone warfare to make up [for] the manpower shortage, and drone warfare can magnify the fighting capability of a single soldier. One soldier can now operate multiple drones, even hundreds of drones, and they [can do this] very effectively.
So, when you talk about the battlefield reports from Ukraine nowadays, most likely, you will see a lot of drone footage. And now this is not just anti-personnel operations, we’re talking about anti-tank, anti-aircraft. There are very traditional, conventional big maneuvers. They’re all conducted by drones. So, I think Taiwan has this unique advantage, because Taiwan is a tiny country of 23 million people, but it is highly educated. A lot of engineers, most of them US trained, and they’re very good at making drones and some other electronic equipment. So, I think they have a much better starting point than others. I think [the] Taiwanese military is realizing this, and that’s why they’re actually increasing their drone production, designing and integrating [that] into their combat system. That’s one thing. Another thing is, I think most importantly is Ukrainians were brave, and I think in the face of adversity and invasion of their home country, but a much larger country, much stronger country, Ukrainians did not really surrender, and that showed [in the] the results [by] fighting on. What was supposed to be a weekend [long] operation by the Russians, and it [has] went on for more than three years. So, that is a tremendously encouraging inspiration for the Taiwanese people. You can see, in Taiwan everywhere you go, and you see this reference inference from the Ukrainian warfare. I might also add a personal note to this.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February. I was just in Taipei, during the COVID along with the Secretary [of State] Mike Pompeo. We were there just a week after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The entire island was fired up to support Ukraine. I remember Taipei 10q showed this very colorful display of the Ukrainian colors, of the flags, and they showed all kinds of slogans in support of Ukraine. Because again, Russian invasion of Ukraine follows the exact logic of aggression of Chinese Communist party invasion of Taiwan and their claim over Ukraine. And China’s claim over Taiwan, it’s pretty much the same. That is, if a neighbor, a sovereign, independent country shares ethnic, historical, linguistic, connection with you, therefore that country should belong to you. This is what Russian’s logic for invading Ukraine [was]. China uses the exact same logic to conquer Taiwan. So, I think there’s a lot of connections and the parallels you can draw from Taiwan and Ukraine. Of course, Taiwan and Ukraine are totally different countries, and their battlefield requirements could be very different. Battlefield experience will also be very different. And an also obvious one was that Ukraine was pretty much like ground warfare. And in terms of Taiwan, it’s amphibious, it’s navy, it’s air. It’s much more complicated, and only the United States has the capability to help the Taiwanese repel invasion from a third country. So, that’s why the US-Taiwan military relationship is very crucial for Taiwan’s defense, but [it] all hinges on Taiwanese own resolve to resist, to fight for their own survival.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Moving to our next topic for today, a Chinese factory employee set fire to the Jinyu Textile Company plant in Sichuan over unpaid wages. According to reports collected by Radio Free Asia following the incident, the name “800 brother” began trending on Chinese social media and internet forums in a form of digital solidarity. So, Miles, I’m curious why the name 800 brother and why has this become such a national story since the incident?
Miles Yu:
Well, the incident took place in April, several months ago. So, (八百哥), “800 brother” refers to this young man, 27-year-old, and he was a factory worker and the employer owed him 800 yuan of back pay. 800 yuan is about $110 US dollars. And so, the employer just refused to give the money. I mean, 800 UN maybe is not a big deal according to the US standards, but for him it’s a pretty big deal. So out of desperation, he responded by sitting in the factory on fire in protest. Now, this is a simple criminal case, but it gained nationwide response and there is a tremendous outpouring of sympathy for this guy, because his plight was not personal, [it] was not individual. It’s very commonplace in China, you’ve got millions and millions of people on a daily basis demanding back pay from their employers, because you have tens of millions of people employed in major cities today.
So that’s why this 800 brother, this guy, even though he’s prosecuted by the law, became the hero of the population in China. I mean you go to the Chinese internet, you see a lot of Chinese versions of TikTok videos, and even some of the Chinese version of Twitter, and they have their own sort of protesting messages. A lot of them were supporting him, and it became an enduring national discussion as well because it won’t go away, because the root of this problem is really a progressive social injustice. So, public sympathy stems from this perceived unfairness. So, people resonated with this struggle for overdue pages. Now this is overdue wages. This is not a recent phenomenon even before the current economic woes China has suffered since COVID. I mean, I remember 10 years ago the Chinese Premier’s primary job was to make major speeches urging the employers and state-owned enterprises in particular to pay the overdue wages to the workers, because you got a lot of people swarmed to the Chinese central government’s offices to demand justice. So, this has been going on for a long, long, long time. So, when Americans shop at Walmart, Target and for cheap goods, we should always keep in mind that those cheap goods are made by Chinese sweat and unfair labors. So, that’s why it’s a very big social issue. That’s why this issue has not gone away.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Yeah, we’ve covered the worker wage movements across China on the show in recent weeks and speculated on the sustainability of these movements on a national scale. And it’s certainly reassuring that these movements have at least maintained some momentum on this ground. So, Miles as kind of a follow-up to that, what does this incident in particular say about China’s current social and economic justice infrastructure?
Miles Yu:
Well, there’s social injustice everywhere on the face of the earth, but in China it is systemic because there’s no labor rights to speak of. There’s no way you can form an independent labor union to protect the rights and the benefits of the workers. So, if you organize any kind of independent labor union, you go to jail immediately. So that’s why the government really is the problem because it does not allow any workers to form their own labor union. And that’s the most important reason. It’s unimaginable for an issue like this to happen in the United States. If you have this much of an issue, and then you have Americans like to watch Judge Judy, you watch in people’s court, you see issues like this, the minor court civil case, right? And cases could be involved through the very elaborate legal system. In China, there’s none. So, that’s why the social grievances grow and grow, grow, and now it’s mountainous, it’s very dangerous.
The party knows this, but they cannot really solve the problem. Because, once they solve the problem, that will be the rule of law. If there’s a rule of law in China, the party’s longevity and its monopoly of power will be finished. So, the party is like, the Chinese Communist Party is holding the ears of a tiger. You cannot, they know, you cannot hold for long, but then if you let it go, the tiger might come to destroy you. So that’s one reason why dealership will not really work in situations like China, unless you change the institution, unless you restore rights, basically rights and rule of law to the society. Issues like this could become a spark of the prairie fire, as the Chinese people always say.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
One can certainly hope. But turning to our final topic today, China reported 5.2% GDP growth over the last quarter down from 5.4% in Q1, but still above the expected 5.1% threshold [that] many thought would be exceeded. Analysts still warn, however, that weak domestic demand and rising global trade risks, including pressure from US tariffs will ramp up pressure on Beijing to roll out more stimulus moving forward. So, Miles, let’s start with the obvious question: is the reported 5.2% growth figure accurate?
Miles Yu:
Chinese state statistics have never been accurate. Period. The question is not whether Chinese official economic data is accurate or not. The question is, for decades, people in the West led by the World Bank, IMF and many other economists and Wall Street, Silicon Valley, all believed this nonsense, and that’s really the miracle. So let me just point out this. The reason why it is 5.2% for Q2 is because, in March the Chinese rubber stamp institution called the National People’s Congress said, according to the Chinese Communist Party’s demand, this year’s GDP growth has to be 5%. So that’s why Q1 is 5.4%. And this time, because of tariffs and trade war [that] China is involved with the United States. So it’s slightly off, it’s 5.2% in anticipation for Q3, which will be sometime in September, and that will be the time when the Trump tariffs will take effect.
So, predictably, Chinese growth will be lower. So Q1 is 5.4%, Q2 is 5.2%, and then Q3 probably is going to be 4.5%. And then Q4, the last quarter, [the] Chinese communist party will say, “ah, thanks to the brilliant leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, we responded, we beat the Americans, our GDP come back to six-point percent, 6.1%,” and then boom, by the end of the year you say you got 5% on average. So, that’s the game they’ve played all along. This has been going on for decades. Nobody believed this kind of nonsense. Now let me just go back a little bit. In the worst years of Chinese Communist party rule, the GDP number, the economic growth has always been great. In 1958, in the middle of the world’s most disastrous economic fiasco, going forward Chinese official GDP was 11.3%.
A year later, tens of millions of people are dying. And then China’s official number is 0.4% negative. So, it’s more like no growth, while in fact it had gone back terribly. Now, during the height of the cultural revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976 when Mao died, the Chinese GDP always grew. I mean, the worst two years of 1969 and 1970. In 1969, the GDP growth, according to the Chinese official statistics was 16.9%, almost 17%, which is truly, truly incredible and unbelievable, literally. And then, 1970 is 19.4%, 20% growth. Now, I lived through those years, there’s no way the Chinese economy was that great. There was a minor famine when I remember in my childhood. And then in 1976 when Mao finally died, I mean the economy was on the verge of a collapse, right? So, the Chinese official version was that the Chinese economy has reached what they called (崩溃的边缘) on the verge of collapse, literally.
So that year when Mao died, the Chinese Communist Party’s statistics was [that] the economy was still growing. It was 1.6%. Now in the 1980s, 1990s and the first decades of the 21st century, the Chinese government had this really dogmatic adherence. That is every year the minimum growth has to be 8%, no matter what. It’s called, “保八,” 8% guarantee. That basically has been the policy, because the policy, sure enough, every year is more than 8%. And so, in 1985, for example, which [was] the peak was 13.5%, which could be right because the base was so, so bad. Now the year after the Tiananmen massacre, China faced massive international sanctions: economy, trade and investment all went down dramatically. Yet in 1990, China still reported a 3.9% GDP growth, which is obviously fake. Now, the most recent memory. You might say, “Hey, those were history, but let’s talk about the recent last several years.”
The year 2021, 4 years ago, China was almost shut down because of COVID. And that year, more than half of Chinese industry [was] totally out of operation, the Chinese Communist party still reported 8.4% GDP growth. This is in the aftermath of COVID, which is insane. Now, in 2022, this is the year when the Chinese economy had national lockdowns. There are virtually no factories in operation, no trade. The whole country was locked out of the international system. There are no economic activities whatsoever. That year, the Chinese national growth, according to the Chinese Statistics Bureau, was 3.0%. Nobody would believe that kind of nonsense. And then two years ago, 2023, the government changed its goal from the 1980s, 1980s, 1990s, 2020s, [and changed] its 8% guarantee to 5% guarantee. Now, the magic number is 5%. So, every year from now on in the foreseeable future, it will be 5%. You will hear this from the Chinese government all the time.
So that’s why in 2023, the Chinese GDP growth magically was 5.2%, and last year 2024 was 5.3%. As I said in March, at the Chinese National People’s Congress, the Chinese Communist Party decided for 2025, their growth will be 5%. That’s where all those phony numbers come in. So, as I say, this is really amazing. People will believe this kind of thing, and I think the Chinese government right now is panicking because all of the indicators, in the same day, the Chinese National Statistics Bureau announced 5.2% Q2 growth, and they also released the numbers for China’s consumer consumption, the numbers for China’s trade inbound and outbound trade, as well as a foreign investment. All of them, none of them, none of the three key indicators reach 5%. It’s lower than that. So, I don’t know how they came up with the number. So, it really is bizarre. By the way, just to add one note, true economic statistics is a state secret.
Nobody should have the right to really know them. Not only [can] Chinese cannot conduct any true economic survey. No foreign companies can do that. All due diligence companies in China trying to figure out the Chinese economic reality have been kicked out. So, this is the reality. Chinese government stopped two years ago sharing all economic data with foreign companies and international organizations. So, only the Chinese Bureau of Statistics have the authority to tell you what numbers China’s economy is really at. So, that’s one of the reasons why it is a very bizarre situation. I mean, China’s economy, some of the fundamental numbers are in question. Now, I’m not an economist, but I do have a lot of economist friends. I mean, they write books about China, Chinese economy. They do a lot of investment advice about the Chinese economy to American and major firms. I have no idea how to get the data. I look at the data, a lot of [it is] actually guesswork. I don’t blame them, but I blame this closed system that China is.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Yeah, and I think you hit on the key point there, that it pretty much is set from that national level priority within the CCP bureaucracy. And from there the policy follows suit and especially as it concerns the entity that you mentioned, the National Bureau of Statistics in China, who is responsible for providing this economic analysis domestically. So, I’m curious actually, in that regard Miles. How accurate, obviously with this question being as posed as it is, how accurate has the National Bureau of Statistics of China been in their reporting historically? Or is it pretty much going to match, like you said, these average annual growth rates to meet those party standards, to maintain domestic legitimacy?
Miles Yu:
I just mentioned earlier, I mean I think the Chinese, when I say national official statistics, it comes from Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, the NBS, the NBS compile quarterly GDP using regional reports, industrial outputs, retail sales, and investment data. They’re mostly inaccurate. And I’m not saying that this is the only way to figure out. You can see China has different government bureaucracies. For example, China’s treasury ministry, financial administration, as they say. They also publish some statistics from China. Bank of China, for example, sometimes those numbers do not really match, and you can figure out the contradictions. And then of course, once you find out the old loopholes, you don’t know which one to believe.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
To address a lot of the economic issues going on right now, Beijing has ramped up infrastructure spending and consumer subsidies alongside monetary easing. I think even back in May, China’s central bank cut interest rates and injected liquidity as part of broader efforts to basically soften the fall for the economy from added pressure from US tariffs. But, as we’ve seen, despite these efforts, most businesses and industry sectors in China are bracing for a rough second half and further decline. So Miles, to round out our discussion for today, do you think these reforms stand a chance of mitigating the pessimistic forecasts for China’s economy the rest of this year?
Miles Yu:
Well, I think that your question touched upon two fundamental questions. Let’s just think about [this] from the telescopic perspective. Number one, China is not a market economy. And in my way of thinking that China is not only a non-market economy, China is an anti-market economy, because [the] most crucial economic policies were not made by market forces, rather by the Chinese Communist Party. So, in that sense, China has this kind of blind pursuit of GDP to justify the overall awesomeness and invincibility of the party. So, you know how GDP is calculated in China. It’s not by economic efficiency, it’s not by profitability, it’s by economic activities. In other words, you just keep doing things, you keep wasting money. The government just loans a whole bunch of money to unscrupulous investors, and they will build buildings and then once the buildings are built, they destroy them and build it again.
Again, that’s why China cannot stop building, and cannot stop demolishing the buildings [that] they just built. You can see they’re called infrastructure construction. This is a systematic of communist economic activities. They just wanted to spend money, and the government has the power to print money to finance this useless, gigantic infrastructure which is now internationally known as the Belt and Road Initiative. But in China, you can see China’s infrastructure and construction is truly amazing. If you go through China, you can see the skyscrapers. You see this, the world, the most advanced high-speed trains, but most of them are not making money. Very few of the high-speed train routes are making money, most of them are empty. If you get a 10% ridership, you’re lucky. So that’s why sooner or later, this is not by then you’ve got GDP, I mean it’s very high, artificially high, and totally useless.
A lot of skyscrapers, their occupancy rate is also very low. And also, quality is in doubt because you have to constantly build, build. Som this is one of the things that, this is how the GDP is calculated. Number two, and I think in terms of the GDP in terms of a Chinese economic forecast, I think we tend to sort of look at the bright side of the Chinese economy from the Wall Street perspective, from Silicon Valley point of view, so that foreign capital can go to China. [The] Chinese government definitely is interested in attracting a lot of people going to China, but decoupling is inevitable. I think a lot of companies have seen China’s true colors and they’re gradually divesting from China, even Apple’s thinking about getting out of China. So, sooner or later China will have a completely different economic system of its own, separate from the rest of the world.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Well, it’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the year goes as far as GDP growth rates in China, but unfortunately, that’s our time for this week. Thank you to our listeners and thank you Miles as always for this week’s conversation. Always great to hear from you, and we’ll check back in next week.
Miles Yu:
All right, Colin, nice to have the conversation with you, and I’ll see you next week!