GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
05 JANUARY 2026. CHINA POST #606
CHINA AND THE FOREIGN MEDIA
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#1 TAIWAN AND CHINA AND TRUMP
#2 HISTORY THROUGH THE AGES
#3 CHINA’S ELECTRIC CARS AVOID EU TARRIFS
#4 VENEZUELA AND TRUMP’S MONROE DOCTRINE
#5 CHINA TRADE WITH BRI EXCEEDS CHINA TRADE WITH THE U.S.
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#1 CHINA AND TAIWAN AND TRUMP
GEORGE YEO IN SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
“Taiwan is separate only because the US is there. The Taiwan issue is a subset of US-China relations. Right now US President Donald Trump doesn’t want Taiwan to be an issue because he’s got a big agenda with China. That’s why he did not allow Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching to make a stopover in the US. It caused Lai to cancel his trip to Paraguay.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Did something happen in Seoul when President Trump met President Xi? Did the world’s media miss it? Trump did not raise Taiwan with Xi. It is a moment in time – A First, An Omission Of Great Significance.
Hitherto – the standard narrative is that U.S. stands four square alongside Taiwan vis-à-vis China. The U.S. will not allow China to use force to re-take Taiwan – so the argument goes. China’s position? Taiwan belongs to China – it is nothing to do with the U.S. Stay out of it.
But when he reached Seoul, Taiwan was not on the agenda. Trump did not raise it with Xi. Why? Because the pendulum has moved. Things have changed. There is a new set of priorities. It is this – the U.S. cannot boss China. A Change In The Balance of Power. Rare Earths made the difference.
And here China is strong and the U.S. is weak. China did not want to play its Rare Earth card. It preferred to wait a few more years but China had to act sooner rather than later because Trump went to war with China over tariffs. And China – unlike every other country in the world – took the fight to Trump. “You impose tariffs of 145% on China and China will stop supplying the U.S. with Rare Earths.” Trump backed off – quickly. He now knows he has to be careful with China. He needs Rare Earths more than he needs Taiwan. Hence the decision to avoid annoying China by allowing Taiwan President to stop over in the U.S. en route to Paraguay.
Things often seem clear and predictable but under the surface change is always happening. The tectonic plates are moving. The U.S. went to sleep on Rare Earths. It has cost them dear.
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#2 HISTORY THROUGH THE AGES
STEWART SWINNEY – PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS
“Across six centuries, power has claimed inevitability while resistance has redrawn the possible. As the world enters a century defined by climate, inequality and democratic strain, the forces that push back from below may once again shape the future.
History does not move in straight lines. It churns, convulses, recoils, and reimagines itself through an ongoing struggle between systems of concentrated power and the diffuse, persistent, often underestimated forces of grassroots resistance. Across the last half-millennium, from 1525 to 2025, the central story is not simply the rise of capitalism, empire, or technology but the way each dominant order has been challenged, reshaped, and sometimes overturned by those it sought to control.”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Things are always moving. Change is an ever-present – especially when stability and continuity appear to prevail. Generations are prisoners of the present and rarely are capable of standing back and identifying moments of key change as they happen. It is part of the human condition – we are happier with what we know – with what we can do – with what we can see and touch. But this is part reality and part illusion. Generally, we are slow to recognise change when it is happening – until it jumps up and smacks us in the face.
We are unsure about tomorrow so we cling to today. And there lies the problem – because around us things are always changing. Sometimes slowly – sometimes rapidly. But it is a given. It is always happening. Change is permanent. So better to have eyes wide open and see the trends and the changes and the challenges rather than be taken by surprise.
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#3 CHINA’S CARS COPE WITH E.U. TARIFFS
THE ECONOMIST
“When the European Union increased tariffs on Chinese battery electric vehicles (EVs) in 2024, the logic was straightforward: raise prices and imports will fall. A study published by the Kiel Institute, a think-tank, estimated that higher levies would cause Chinese car exports to plunge by 25%. After more than a year, that forecast is wrong. According to China’s customs agency, car exports to Europe rose to nearly 1.2m in the 12 months to November 2025, up by 26% from a year earlier. The data suggest that Europe’s failure to stem the rise of Chinese-made vehicles has less to do with weak tariffs than Chinese carmakers’ talent for steering around them.”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
There are reasons;-
First, the E.U. applied tariffs selectively and not across the board – and only to purely battery-powered vehicles based on each carmaker’s estimated level of government support. On top of the bloc’s existing 10% import duty, BYD (China’s biggest producer of EVs) faced an additional 17%, whereas other Chinese carmakers were subject to tariffs of 20.7%. Hybrids were spared.
Second, China changed its focus from EVs to Hybrids, which combine electric motors with petrol engines. Result? monthly Chinese EV sales to Europe have grown by 12% in the past year, but exports of Hybrids have surged by 155%.
Beatrix Keim of Germany’s Centre for Automotive Research recently told Handelsblatt, a German newspaper, that Hybrids are now the fastest-growing segment of China’s car exports, overtaking fully electric models.
This change also reflects a broader loss of momentum for EVs. But Chinese EVs are still gaining ground because of their competitive pricing. In September Xpeng started production of its G6 and G9 EV models in Graz, Austria. This month BYD began setting up a production line in Szeged, Hungary, its first factory inside the bloc. And in 2026 Chery will begin assembling EVs and hybrids at a shuttered Nissan factory in Barcelona.
The E.U will try to bring China to heel but China’s carmakers have shown themselves to be responsive and adaptable. They are alert, pragmatic and always with a long-term perspective. Watch This Space. China knows how to fight its corner.
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#4 CHINA, VENEZUELA +THE MONROE DOCTRINE
PETER FRANKOPAN
Professor of Global History at Oxford University
“China has been very active in South America since the publication of a policy paper in 2008 that noted “the abundant resources” of the region, but also observed that Latin America and the Caribbean were “at a similar stage of development” and shared similar challenges and difficulties. This underpinned a common desire for “win-win results” and for higher levels of economic co-operation that resulted in the doubling of trade in a decade and led to China becoming South America’s leading trade partner in 2015”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
First, the term always used by China to stress the core purpose of economic relations with other countries. They must produce “win-win results”. Be it Trade or Investment the principle is the same. “It has to be Good for you and it has to be Good for me.”. Equality, reciprocity and mutual benefit. Business has to work both ways.
Second, The Monroe Doctrine. What Is It and Why Is It Important? And Why is Venezuela important?Back in 1823, the then U.S. President, James Monroe, required that its rival European powers acknowledge that the Western Hemisphere was the United States’ sphere of interest. He was clear and warned the European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.
Trump is in the process of redefining the priorities of the U.S. There are signs that Trump does not consider Taiwan to be a key strategic plank of U.S. Foreign Policy and his focus is back on South America – on Venezuela in particular. And Trump started his second Presidency full of determination to re-assert U.S. ownership of the Panama Canal.
Wherever the U.S. turns, it comes face-to-face with China. And it lacks experience and depth of understanding to come to terms with China’s development and global role. Trump is not alone. Many in the West, due to a mix of arrogance and ignorance, also struggle to understand China’s path of development. Through mistakes and mis-calculation, Trump – and the Democrats too – have blundered and chosen the wrong path as they struggle to make sense of a nation of 1.4bn that continues to surprise the world by the speed and resourcefulness of its approach to world affairs. Trump, after the Rare Earths debacle in S Korea in October 2025, will tread carefully but for sure he will stumble into confrontations and nowhere more certainly than in South America where China’s surge in diplomatic and economic relations torpedoes the U.S’s Monroe Doctrine. Venezuela is only the beginning.
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#5 CHINA’S TRADE SURPLUS WITH BELT+ROAD COUNTRIES EXCEEDS CHINA’S TRADE SURPLUS WITH THE U.S.
NIKKEI ASIA
“China’s trade surplus with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative surpassed Beijing’s balance with the U.S. for the first 11 months of 2025 amid rising tensions with Washington, Nikkei has found.
An analysis of trade data released monthly by China’s General Administration of Customs shows that BRI partners accounted for 45% of Beijing’s surplus, or roughly $480 billion, during the January-November period. By comparison the U.S. share of China’s trade surplus stood at 24% for the same 11-month period, dropping by more than 10 percentage points on the year
The BRI is a collection of cross-border infrastructure projects modelled after the Silk Road of antiquity that connected East Asia with Europe. About 150 nations and regions including many in Africa and South America have signed onto the Belt and Road through investment cooperation and other initiatives.”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Nikkei Asai notes that in July, a state-owned construction machinery company in China’s Jiangsu province began shipping large hydraulic excavators to Brunei. The equipment will be used for mining and infrastructure development. Technical training and after-sales support are being provided, too.
Brunei, a country in Southeast Asia, is rich in oil, natural gas and other resources. China is deepening ties with the BRI nation, with an eye to eventually acquiring interests in the resources.
China’s intensifying trade frictions with Washington have led Beijing to boost exports elsewhere. Since February, the Trump administration and China have engaged in tit-for-tat tariffs and trade restrictions.
The American approach prompted China to cut its dependence on the market. The U.S. ratio of Beijing’s overall trade surplus topped 90% in 2018, but has spiralled downward since.
Though China and the U.S. reached a temporary truce, the bilateral tensions continue to affect Beijing’s trade with BRI countries in Asia, such as Vietnam and Cambodia.
It is believed that such trading partners are selling excess Chinese electric vehicles and steel to overseas markets at low prices. It has been alleged that China might be increasing exports to the U.S. and elsewhere via third countries.
China also has been increasing investment in BRI partners as well as trade. Those investments, including construction contracts, reached $124 billion in the first half of 2025, the highest since 2013, according to a joint study by Griffith University in Australia and Fudan University in China.
The increased investments in mineral-rich Africa are particularly notable. In contrast to the Trump administration’s dim view of support for developing countries, China is boosting spending as it looks to expand influence.
During the Central Work Economic Conference in Beijing in December 2025, an event that determines economic priorities for 2026, Communist Party leaders declared that the Belt and Road will promote “high-quality development.” The meeting indicated that China will strike trade and investment agreements with more countries and regions, with the aim of gaining support among emerging economies and taking the leading role in the international community. China is on the move. It will appear increasingly as a factor in world trade, world politics and the Balance of Power. Many people in many countries do not see it but today in 2026 we are in the midst of significant and far-reaching changes. China sees it. China knows it.
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CHINA AND JACK PERRY
PART 28 – JACK PERRY, ROBERT ROOSA + TED SORENSEN VISIT CHINA IN 1978
PART 27 CONCLUDED AS FOLLOWS;-
“Jack reflected the time in which he lived. The challenge was “the here and now” – for today and tomorrow” Battle was joined. Where the Blackshirts picked on Jews in Hackney, Dalston and Stepney they met Jewish resistance – fist was met with fist. Jews were now on the front foot and the CPGB grew in numbers and excelled in organisation. The Jews and the people of the East End traded punch for punch with the Fascists..”
Remember how the narrative comes to be focusing on Jack and the East End of London. We are discussing Jack and China and how he became the First Businessman from The West to visit China in 1953. It was his Jewish experience that led to his China experience. The story begins with his roots in Hackney, the East End of London and the arrival in the U.K. of large numbers of Ashkenazi Jews from Russia, Poland, Germany and surrounding countries of Eastern Europe.
There were two dynamics in operation at the same time. The first was persecution and, as is recalled in Fiddler On The Roof, anti-semitism was rife in Eastern Europe where Jews lived in large numbers in self-contained communities. Life was hard and many looked with anticipation Westwards towards the UK and the U.S. and here is the second dynamic – the economies of those two countries wanted immigrants. They needed immigrants – the U.S. more than the UK but both countries encouraged immigration. By coincidence, today – 1 January 2026 – is the anniversary of the opening in 1892 of Ellis Island, the US immigration inspection station off the coast of New York which became the gateway to the United States for more than 12 million people – many of them Jews from Eastern Europe.
The U.S. saw a surge in economic growth as the country emerged from the trauma of the Civil War 1861-1865. The American Civil War was primarily caused by deep, long-standing disagreements over slavery, particularly its expansion into new territories, fuelling economic, political, and moral conflicts between the industrializing North and the agrarian, slave-based South, culminating in Southern states seceding after Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860. While often framed around states’ rights, the right that the Southern states sought to protect was the right to own slaves. Black men and women were not born free.
The U.S, has wrestled with its conscience ever since 1776 when its Declaration of Independence asserted universal principles of natural rights, liberty, and self-governance, famously stating that “all men are created equal” and endowed with rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. But not if you were a Native Indian or a Black Slave or a woman.
But back to Ted Sorensen and Robert Roosa who encouraged Jack to make arrangements for the two men, their wives, Jack and his wife Doris to visit China in 1978. Difficult to appreciate today when American CEO’s are regularly visiting Beijing to meet with China’s leaders, but back in 1978 the Americans were trickling into China following Nixon’s breakthrough visit to Beijing. But ever since 1949 – and earlier during the Civil War in China between the Communists and the Kuomintang – the U.S, had backed the losing side and now the KMT led by Chiang Kaishek had fled to Taiwan – ousted, defeated and humiliated. The U.S. was now having to start from scratch and make friends with its long-standing enemy – the Communist Party of China – the party of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and now Mao Tsetung.
China was more prepared for the change than the U.S. China has always been able to reconcile today’s challenges with tomorrow’s long term goals. It has always been comfortable with the long term, believing that History was on its Side. Its time would come – as it has come in 2025 with Rare Earths and Artificial Intelligence and 200 million Chinese tourists annually flying to holiday breaks across the globe.
But in 1978 the journey had hardly started and Roosa, almost President Carter’s Secretary of the Treasury and Ted Sorensen, a close adviser to the assassinated President Kennedy, were at the start of a long path. It was time for two large countries – the U.S. and China – to get to know each other at all levels of society. After all any historian looking forward in 1978 readily appreciated that the China-U.S. relationship would become the dominant great power encounter that would shape the world in 2000 onwards.
Jack’s Party – the three men with their wives – were wined and dined. The Chinese side knew the significance of the visit. It was a sign of the times to come. The Chinese leaders needed to meet and mix with U.S, decision makers; to understand their mind set, their aspirations and their level of knowledge about China.
The U.S. was on a crash course to get to know China and its pulse, its momentum, its politics, its future role. And here the U.S. has always faced a deficit. Between 1949 and 1972 no Americans visited China. Not because China erected a bar. They didn’t. It was the U.S. that barred its citizens from visiting China. The U.S. insisted that no U.S. citizen go to China. A handful of individuals braved the consequences of being discovered to have visited China. The Chinese authorities never stamped the passports of visiting U.S. citizens who remained silent about their journeys.
Back to Roosa and Sorensen, they underwent a rapid and intense briefing. It was not a question of the Chinese side being vindictive and making their guests squirm at the warmth of the reception they received. For both sides it was the first faltering steps of “getting to know”. It was a start. And the China of 1978 was not the China of 2025. No tall buildings, few motor cars, many carts bringing produce from the countryside, no air conditioning, no emails, lengthy delays for overseas phonecalls and no U.S. Embassy – that came later. This was also the period that marked the end of the highly damaging Cultural Revolution and the introduction of Deng Hsiaoping’s significant Reform policy. Mr and Mrs Roosa and Mr and Mrs Sorensen – accompanied by Jack and Doris Perry were in the right place at the right time.
PART 29 OF CHINA AND JACK PERRY
JACK WRITES HOME ABOUT HIS VISITS TO CHINA IN THE 1950s AND ONWARDS.
