GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
20 DECEMBER 2025. CHINA POST #603
CHINA AND THE FOREIGN MEDIA
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#1 CHINA’S HIGH RISE FLATS + SAFETY
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
#2 WHY EUROPE INVESTMENT IN CHINA INCREASES
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
#3 UYGHURS IN SYRIA AFFECT CHINA-SYRIA LINKS
THE SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
#4 CHINA HYDRO PROJECT UNDER INVESTIGATION
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
#5 CHINA’S SURGE IN TECHNOLOGY
THE ECONOMIST
PART 26 – CHINA AND JACK PERRY. THE U.S. LINK
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EXTRACT #1
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
HIGH RISE FLATS IN CHINA
China will inspect high-rise buildings across the nation for fire safety, its government said on Saturday, in the wake of the deadly fire in a Hong Kong housing complex that has claimed at least 128 lives. The sweeping campaign will focus on high-density housing that is undergoing external wall renovations or interior modifications, as well as public buildings such as hospitals, office buildings and residential compounds, China’s Ministry of Emergency Management announced. “We must comprehensively strengthen fire safety management of high-rise buildings to effectively protect people’s lives and property,” the ministry said.
“Strict enforcement measures will be taken against serious violations and those failing to eliminate major safety hazards will be held accountable,” the ministry said.
Inspections will examine whether any flammable materials are being used for insulation or if construction materials such as bamboo scaffolding have been erected. It will also ensure that fire safety equipment and emergency evacuation routes are functional
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Is the Beijing Government courting publicity with the population at large or is it serious about its responsibilities to the people? For Cynics the answer is simple – China is merely going through the motions of appearing to be concerned with the welfare of the people. But there is a Big But Here.
China has lifted close to one billion people out of poverty. It is a significant achievement because it can only take place if the Government has enlisted the support of the people. The Government of China does listen. It knows that its unchallenged obligation is to put the People of China First. It is the well-being of the 1.4 billion people that is foremost in the work of the Party – and this is not wishful thinking. Remember the figure – in the year 2030 the number of Chinese citizens travelling overseas will exceed 200m.
In the West we are familiar with Lord Acton’s famous dictum – Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. China is challenging Acton – Head On. It is something much underestimated in the West. It explains the removal from power of leading members of the Military. It also explains why China’s audit of high-rise buildings will be thorough and far-reaching. Back-handers, graft, favouritism, bribes are #1 on Xi Jinping’s Hit List – whether they appear in the military or in the construction of new high-rise buildings
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EXTRACT #2
FINANCIAL TIMES
EUROPE INVESTMENT IN CHINA INCREASES – WHY?
“European manufacturers are increasing their investment in Chinese factories despite growing anxiety among the continent’s political leaders about industrial dependence on the world’s exporting superpower.
President Emmanuel Macron is expected to be the latest leader to warn about China’s crushing trade surpluses with Europe — which hit €305.8bn last year — during a three-day visit to Beijing this week.
However, steady investment by European manufacturers — much of it intended to produce goods for exports — is adding to China’s already powerful industrial base. European companies say China’s low costs and efficient supply chains make it increasingly difficult to compete with Chinese rivals, while Beijing’s government procurement rules also make a local presence necessary to tap the Chinese market.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
“On balance, European companies are not becoming less dependent on China. On the contrary . . . companies around the world are in general becoming more dependent on China,” said Jens Eskelund, president of the European Chamber of Commerce in China.
More than three years of producer price deflation and a 20% depreciation of its currency against the euro since mid-2022 have made China a far cheaper production base than Europe, while European energy and other costs have also soared following the Ukraine war.
“Strengthening domestic consumption and allowing a more market-driven appreciation of the renminbi would both help reduce trade imbalances and contribute to a more stable long-term economic relationship with Europe,” said Elisa Hörhager, chief representative in China of German industry group BDI, in a speech at a recent think-tank forum in Beijing.
Joerg Wuttke, a partner at consultancy DGA Group and former EU Chamber in China president, said Europe must bear some blame itself. “What Europe has to do is, first and foremost, fix themselves, deregulate, get energy prices down, get competitiveness up, raise education standards, particularly in engineering,” Wuttke said. “We can’t blame China for that.”
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EXTRACT #3
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
CHINA-SYRIA RELATIONS AND THE UYGHURS
Fan Hongda, director of the China-Middle East Centre at Shaoxing University, said the new government in Damascus faced a challenge in managing the Xinjiang-linked elements in Syria while trying to improve relations with China.
“The presence of ‘East Turkestan power’ elements inside Syria is something Beijing takes very seriously, and any mismanagement by Damascus could become a major obstacle to the development of China-Syria relations,” he said.
According to Fan, the two sides are unlikely to try to deepen their relationship for the foreseeable future as they currently lack “the incentives and external conditions” needed to do so.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Syria has denied a recent Agence France-Presse report that it intended to transfer 400 Uyghur fighters to Beijing. China has not commented on the report.
Just days after the meeting between the two foreign ministers, Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the United Nations, urged the Syrian transitional government to fulfil its obligations by combating all UN-designated terrorist groups, including the ETIM, and enforcing Security Council sanctions.
“The recent effort to restart ties has been driven far more by short-term transactional pragmatism than by any strategic convergence,” said Jesse Marks, executive director of Rihla Research and Advisory, a Washington-based consultancy focused on the Middle East.
“Clearly both sides see some value in the relationship and they have laid the baseline of political intent. But turning that into real economic or security cooperation will take sustained stability inside Syria and a much clearer risk-reward equation for Beijing.
China is well aware that ETIM remains a threat to stability in Xinjiang. The East Turkestan Independence Movement still cherishes hopes of Xinjiang Independence which was the trigger for the hostilities in the period up to 2014. China will not permit any part of Chinese to secede from China. Their policy remains inflexible and Uyghurs who cling to these hopes will be very disappointed.
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EXTRACT #4
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
HYDROELECTRIC PROJECT UNDER INVESTIGATION
A 7.5 billion yuan (US$1.06 billion) hydroelectric construction project in southeast China is under investigation for alleged corner-cutting and legal violations, prompting concerns among experts about serious safety issues and a demand for answers from state media.
The Yongan power station in Fujian province is a priority project under the national pumped-storage development goals of the five-year plan covering 2021 to 2025, aimed at safeguarding regional power stability and taking forward the green transition.
The reported malpractices have come under public scrutiny after the state-run Economic Information Daily published an investigative report on Thursday that alleged substandard material use and sloppy construction practices.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
“Substandard material use and sloppy construction practices”. It is good news – and not bad news – that China is featuring this news item in its media. It keeps everyone on their toes – alert, vigilant, and persistent. This is a must. Nothing to do with Big Brother but a salutary reminder that where construction is underway in any part of China’s economy, the Government (local, provincial or national) must be always aware that people can relax and tolerate poor practice. Humans are humans and everyone can go to sleep on the job – just once. It happens but it must never be tolerated, permitted or allowed. The Government owes it to the people to have their eyes wide open – all the time.
It is the new Social Contract. “We the People Put Our Faith in the Party and the Government. The Party and the Government Owe it to the People to Maintain the Highest Standards and Work Practices”.
The Party and Government have to get it right. It is their duty – the Highest Standards and the Best Work Practices. Nothing Sloppy – Ever.
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EXTRACT #5
CHINA’S SURGE IN TECHNOLOGY
THE ECONOMIST
“Those who worry about how to cope with China’s leadership in technology—and there are plenty of them—think hard about electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels and open-source artificial intelligence. For such people, we have some bad news. This week we report how China is rapidly pressing ahead in two other frontier technologies, autonomous vehicles and new drugs. As these industries spread around the world, they will exemplify the power of Chinese innovation.
China’s progress in each of these important areas has been staggering. A robotaxi revolution is gathering pace. which could reshape transport, logistics and everyday urban life. The country’s autonomous taxis, constructed for a third of the cost of Waymo’s in America, are racking up millions of kilometres of driving and are forging partnerships in Europe and the Middle East.
In medicine, meanwhile, China has turned itself from a copycat maker of generics into the world’s second-largest developer of new drugs, including those tackling cancer. Western rivals are licensing its firms’ wares. The day when a pharma giant emerges from China no longer seems so remote.”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
The rise of both industries, The Economist asserts, says much about how Chinese innovation works. A deep pool of talent, a broad manufacturing base and huge scale combine to propel it rapidly up the value chain. The production of robotaxis has piggybacked on mass Electric Vehicles manufacturing and Armies of Patients enlisted in clinical trials and profits from generic drug-making have speeded up pharma innovation.
A more surprising ingredient of China’s success is its nimble and permissive regulators in marked contrast to the lack of interaction in the West between Government and Entrepreneur. China’s local governments have offered firms cheap credit and other help. But it is agile rulemaking that has really turbo-charged progress. Soon after political leaders set out their ambition for China to become a “biotechnology superpower” in 2016, the country implemented a number of reforms. The drug regulator’s workforce quadrupled between 2015 and 2018, and a backlog of 20,000 new drug applications was cleared in just two years. The time taken to secure approval for human trials shrank from 501 days to 87. Last year firms in China ran a third of the world’s clinical trials. These figures really do tell a story.
And this is where the West simply does not get it. The State in the Capitalist West is meant to be dynamic and creative and the State in Marxist China is meant to be heavy-handed and bureaucratic. In truth – the opposite is true. The West is slow and lethargic and China is alert and responsive.
It is time for the West to re-write the manual of development in China; to re-visit basic dogmas and review the old-fashioned prejudices. The West won’t change – can’t change – because it remains a prisoner of its own prejudices. China won’t mind. It is not waiting for the West to wake up. It remains committed to innovation, change, creativity and dynamism – headed by a Marxist-Leninist Government and a Communist Party wedded to progress. When will the Scales Fall from The Eyes of China’s Critics?
A tip for the future – watch out for the challenge to the U.S. that will come from China’s cheap medicines and in case you are thinking ahead already, think again – Protectionism will not work.
The Economist concludes;- “Nothing says that China must own the future. But if the West wants to compete in self-driving cars and medicine, let alone EVs, solar power and other vital technologies, it must learn the right lessons from China’s rise.” The West Can’t. The West Won’t.
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CHINA AND JACK PERRY – PART 26
The U.S. always mattered in the history of London Export Corporation
Part 25 finished as follows;-
“It was not simply a matter of convincing Dr Ji in China or the banks in London but of persuading his new counterparts in Beijing who at the other end of the chattering telex were bringing the Chinese party through the to and fro of daily business exchanges culminating in a binding contract. Attention to detail was everything with each line of a letter of credit requiring detailed consideration. Further, Jack recruited traders and administrators who had to ensure that the London end of the business justified the confidence that Dr Ji had shown in making the key decision to invite Jack to set up a London trading company for the sole purpose of conducting trade between China and the UK.
Part 26 of China and Jack Perry will focus on the importance in 1952 of Jack’s connection with the U.S.”
The U.S. paid a heavy price for backing the Kuomintang (Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists) against Mao’s Communist Party in the Civil War that started in 1927 and ended when the KMT fled to Taiwan in 1949. The U.S’ “lost” China to the CPC because the KMT was corrupt, its leadership was inept, and its management of the economy upset the people because it led to hyper-inflation. But the KMT failings are only a part of the narrative. It is also the case that the CPC (Communist Party of China) won the “the minds and hearts” of the Chinese people. Initially derided for being hard line Marxists, the CPC soon came to understand the mindset of the peasants and the workers and won them over to a programme of economic reform and political revival. The outcome was less to do with the U.S. “losing” China and more to do with the Communist Party of China “winning” China. Mao Zedong’s Communists gained significant popular support, particularly in rural areas, through effective guerrilla warfare and promises of social change. The U.S. supported Chiang primarily to prevent a Communist takeover, viewing him as the sole viable alternative, but this ideological stance often blinded them to the KMT’s fundamental weaknesses and to the Communists’ growing appeal.
In 1945 the U.S. efforts to broker peace between the Nationalists and Communists failed, leading to full-scale civil war after World War II. By 1949, the Communists won, forcing Chiang and his Nationalists to retreat to Taiwan, where they established the Republic of China (ROC). The U.S. then had to contend with a Communist-led mainland China, a significant geopolitical shift that shaped early Cold War policy.
Returning to Dr Ji and Jack Perry and 1951, it was apparent that whilst relations between China and the UK would develop in the early 1950’s, relations between China and the U.S. would be put on hold until 1971 when President Nixon announced that he would visit China in February 1972 – a visit which brought to an end the pretence that Chiang Kaishek in Taiwan represented China and not Mao Tsetung in Beijing.
It was always clear to both men – Dr Ji and Jack Perry – that while the immediate focus was trade between the UK and Europe, there would come a time when trade between China and the U.S. would become the main feature. That was for the future and awaited a recognition by the U.S. that the earth was round and not flat and China was welcomed in from the cold. However in 1951 it was relevant to Dr Ji’s forward planning that Jack Perry had close links in the U.S. – both personal and political. Jack’s mother was from Lithuania and whilst she settled in the UK two of her sisters and a brother settled in the U.S – Jack’s father was born in Poland. This was not an uncommon occurrence and Jews eager to escape the pogroms of Eastern Europe and, excited by the New World that beckoned at Ellis Island, made the boat trip across the Atlantic.
Jack had family roots in St Louis, New York and also in Sheldon, Iowa U.S. which he maintained and developed during his first two visits to the U.S. which he made before the scourge of McCarthyism and the Cold War took control in the early 1950’s. Apart from meeting cousins in the three locations, Jack also – with the blessing of the British Communist Party – made contact with prominent Leftists including the entertainer, Paul Robeson, the writers – Arthur Miller and Howard Fast – and the Chair of the U.S. Communist Party – Earl Browder.
In 1949 there was no expectation of a speedy resumption of relations between the U.S. and China but, on the Chinese side and especially in the thinking of Dr Ji, there was a clear recognition that a time would come in the not-too distant feature when relations between China and the U.S. would be resumed. But Jack fell foul of Senator McCarthy and the House of Un-American Activities. Trading with China was a reason for him to be refused entry to the United States between 1952 and 1972. Everything changed in November 1971 when President Nixon informed a stunned world that he had accepted an invitation from Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou to visit China in February 1972. The night of Nixon’s announcement Jack received a phonecall from a friend and prominent Wall Street Banker, Robert Roosa, urging him to visit the U.S Embassy in London the next day. Everything had changed.
PART 27 OF CHINA AND JACK PERRY will refer to Robert Roosa, Theodore Sorensen and to Jack’s 1972 visit to the U.S. and to Harvard University.
GRAHAM PERRY
