Consumption as "strategic move", Vanke, PDD, censorship on extreme views, US-China detente
China Translated - Briefing #67
Welcome to Briefing #67 of the China Translated newsletter, where China starts to make some sense to you.
Starting this week, I will try to make the “Briefing” section more like the early days of this newsletter, where I write weekly reviews of events I think will matter beyond news cycles.
1. PDD’s scuffle and the media blackout A scuffle involving PDD senior employees and market-regulation officials briefly surfaced last week—and then almost completely vanished. Bloomberg ran two stories, but they failed to propagate on China’s social media at all, which was quite unusual. Caixin also published, then pulled its piece within hours.
What stands out is not the incident itself, but the level of media control it revealed. This was not routine censorship, nor a broad political taboo, but a highly targeted blackout centered on a single private company. PDD appears to possess an unusually strong ability here.
I published a piece yesterday in my personal investment newsletter about my view of PDD right now, where I also described this incident and its implications in more detail. My investment newsletter is now a paid one, but if you are already a paying subscriber of Baiguan, you can enjoy a 56% discount. You can find that coupon in the Baiguan Member Exclusive Package.
The rest of this briefing is also paywalled. But again, for Baiguan subscribers, you can claim your complimentary access, also at the Baiguan Member Exclusive Package.