China Translated

China Translated

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Birth subsidies, Duterte in HK, Panama, Lai Ching-Te's speech
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Birth subsidies, Duterte in HK, Panama, Lai Ching-Te's speech

China Translated - Week in Review #44

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Robert Wu
Mar 14, 2025
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Birth subsidies, Duterte in HK, Panama, Lai Ching-Te's speech
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Before I start with this week’s review, I want to draw your attention to

Paid Sub
, a new newsletter I recently started to exclusively talk about my own industry in China. Over the last two weeks, I have already published two articles. One is about what my industry is all about and why this might be one of the very few remaining industries in China that’s still at ~1/100 of the West, and the second one discusses the unique challenges and opportunities of our industry in China.

Quite a few things happened this week, so I will have to postpone my “China has a low-trust society” essay a little bit more and do a typical weekly review instead.

For this weekly review, I will discuss

  1. A major city in China announced generous birth subsidies

  2. Duterte’s Hong Kong “vacation”

  3. Beijing publicized its discontent on CK’s Panama sale

  4. Lai Ching-Te’s speech

#1 A major city in China announced generous birth subsidies

Birth subsidy is a key topic this newsletter has been focused on for a while. In January, I discussed the small central city of Tianmen, whose generous birth subsidies in 2024 proved to be very effective at boosting birth rates. Last week, I lamented the lack of specific details about birth subsidies.

It seems the details are going to be announced very soon.

Today (March 13), Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia (so a pretty important city), announced a Tianmen-style child subsidy program. According to the official document, for families who legally give birth on or after March 1st of this year and have their newborn’s first household registration in the city, childcare subsidies will be provided.

The subsidy plan is as follows: A one-time subsidy of ¥10,000 for the first child. A subsidy of ¥50,000 for the second child, distributed at ¥10,000 annually until the child turns 5. A subsidy of ¥100,000 for the third child or more, distributed at ¥10,000 annually until the child turns 10.

So, theoretically, for a 3-child family, the total subsidies can be 160,000 yuan. I checked that it’s about 3 times the annual per capita disposal income in Hohhot; therefore, it's quite sizable.

This news, coupled with the news that NDRC and the Ministry of Finance would hold a press conference on specific policies boosting domestic consumption next Monday afternoon, sent China markets and especially the consumption sector soaring today.

[The rest of this post will be reserved for paying subscribers. If you are a paying subscriber of Baiguan, please also find me for complimentary access]

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