Time really flies!
’s first year anniversary just felt like yesterday, but we are fast approaching its second birthday already.I am also glad to share that at this very moment, my subscriber list has just broken the 6,000 mark. For a personal newsletter that I can’t yet commit to a fixed schedule for, I consider this not bad.
But I am also keenly aware that all of this won’t happen without your continued support! My gratitude is especially extended to the 95 of you who are paying for my work, and the 170 of you who paid for Baiguan and took the trouble to ask me for the complimentary access that I promised. (If you are a paying subscriber of Baiguan but don’t have the comp access here yet, make sure to send me a private message.)
For this anniversary, I will do the same two things that I did for the last one, and probably for every anniversary in the future.
First, in a few weeks, I will update my Master Plan to incorporate the latest highlights (the linked version is not updated yet, but you can take a look if you haven’t.)
Second, as many of you know, this is a moment to ask me anything! What do you want to know more about me? What do you need me to elaborate on? What do you think I am wrong about? Just ask me anything! I will try my very best to entertain your questions, even sensitive ones. In fact, my last year’s answer post turned out to be one of my most popular posts yet. I will consolidate my answers in a future post.
How to ask me? If you read this from your email, just reply to the email with your questions. If you read from the Substack App or china-translated.com, just leave your questions in the comment section.
I am also glad that this year has witnessed me branching out into more niche newsletters. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to
Robert Wu’s Portfolio, to see how I put my beliefs into investment action
- , to follow the professional data, information, and research industry in Asia that I am part of
- , a newsletter straight from China’s most prominent economic think tank that we at Baiguan helped manage
At last, let me share again what I think is my proudest work in the last 12 months:
The series on China’s low-trust society (or is it rapidly transitioning into a high-trust society now?)
Sharing my unique experience as an early co-founder of Ginger River Review, a newsletter founded by a state media employee
Consolidating all my discussions about the US-China power struggle into my own phrase: The Great Divorce. (And of course, my own experience of writing an opinion piece in the New York Times bashing Trump at the height of the tariff war.)
Why the usual “I am against the CCP but not against Chinese people” refrain is not that meaningful
My discussion of the “Century of Humiliation” narrative
Revisiting my old argument against Noah Smith, that China is comparatively not warlike (Part 4, Part 5, Q&A)
Reviewing what really brought down Jack Ma (before his revival, of course)
What I think was the most dangerous moment in China’s recent history that few people talked about: the possibility of siding with Nazi Germany.
This one was written at Baiguan, where I shared my key reasoning for a decade-long bull market in China.
That’s it for today. let me say it once again: ASK ME ANYTHING!