GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
19 JANUARY 2026. CHINA POST #608
CHINA AND THE FOREIGN MEDIA
———————————-
EXTRACTS
#1 CANADIAN PREMIER CARNEY VISITS CHINA
#2 JAPAN URGES ACTION ON CRITICAL MINERALS
#3 CHINA’S SPACE INDUSTRY
#4 CHINA’S UNIVERSITIES SURGE
——————————-
CHINA’S NEGATIVES – THEY DO EXIST.
——————————–
#1 CANADIAN PREMIER CARNEY VISITS CHINA
NIKKEI ASIA
“Across the East China Sea, the leaders of Canada and China, two countries with strained relations with the U.S., will meet this week. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to discuss security and trade at a time when both nations are grappling with the impact of U.S. tariffs and closely watching Washington’s foreign policy moves.”
Carney starts a five-day visit to China as Ottawa aims to double its non-U.S. exports and attract massive new investment, his office said. The visit, the first by a Canadian prime minister since 2017, marks a reset in bilateral ties, which soured over the detention of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Canada. It comes after key trading partner the U.S. imposed a base rate of 35% on most nonenergy imports from Canada, which responded with countermeasures.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Today we hear much less about de-risking and de-coupling from China. The papers mention it but the politicians don’t do it. China’s growth surge has forced the capitals of the world to sit up and take note – there is a new reality and countries are voting with their feet. They are queueing up to visit China – Starmer’s visit is approaching.
Canada is a good example. Trump has turned on Carney; Washington has turned on Ottawa. Canada needs to embrace China because with the overweening power of Trump on its doorstep, it needs new friends, new contacts, and new options. It is no surprise that Canada and China are moving towards a new embrace.
———————————-
#2 CRITICAL MINERALS – BESSANT ACTS
THE ECONOMIST
“Japan launched a vessel to find rare earths in a coral atoll around 2,000km off the coast from Tokyo. The month-long mission is part of Japan’s attempt to reduce its reliance on China for critical minerals, following a spat between the two countries. Mr Bessent urged G7 countries to diversify their supply of critical minerals with “urgency”.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Tim Marshall is a British commentator who wrote an article in the Sunday Times on 11 January 2026 with the following introduction
“President Trump’s shock and awe is not just about Venezuela but it also intended to weaken China’s grip on rare earth minerals and shield American industry”.
Marshall recognises that many people “think that Trump is a bad joker. They dismiss the mangled syntax that emerges from his mouth as nonsense. It may frequently be unpleasant but not all of it is idiocy. The logic of the administration’s actions is rooted in energy security, future-proofing supply chains (especially minerals) and in the strategic denial of competitors.”
The Message? Take Trump seriously – look beyond his ego and his self-centredness lest you miss the essence – the challenge he presents. He may be personally quite unattractive with distasteful morals. He may also be a figure of fun who is mocked but despite all this Trump needs to be taken seriously – he knows what he is doing. He will fail but that is for tomorrow. Today he is a fact. He is in charge.
Despise him for his treatment of women and his tax cheating and his embrace of the 6 January protestors to whom he gave a free pardon on his first day in office but he is the occupant of the Oval Office. He is the U.S. Supremo. He does not need to be liked or admired or even respected. He is what he is – an individual with power and clout and an ego that can create turbulence and chaos.
Trump is livid about the state of play re Rare Earths. He bears part responsibility because he was President for four years from 2018-2022 when the gap between China and the U.S. widened significantly. Like Presidents Bush Snr and Jnr, and Clinton, Obama + Biden – he has allowed the U.S. to find itself at China’s mercy when it comes to making Rare Earths available to U.S. industry – cars, computers, military equipment. It will be fascinating to read the Report from the U.S. that will eventually be published entitled “America’s Own Goal”.
But the U.S. will not relent or refocus. Nor will the U.S. accept China. In truth the U.S. loathes China because China is not for turning. The USSR stumbled and collapsed. 1-0 to the U.S. But China has stood firm and caused the U.S. and the world at large to accept a new Balance of Power.
There are similarities with the late 19th Century when the unification of Italy in 1861 and German in 1871 challenged the Great Powers to review the then distribution of power controlled by the U.S, the UK, France and Russia. The adjustment did not happen and World War 1 resulted.
History shows that Imperialisms do not pass from the stage with good grace. They hang on. They cling to power. They reject the new reality. Today the U.S. may be shaken by China’s surge and Rare Earths is a big Wake Up Call. But the U.S will respond. It will do a King Canute and stand at the water’s edge and instruct the tide to go out and stay out. But the tide is not controlled by human beings.
—————————–
#3 THE SPACE INDUSTRY – CHINA’S AMBITIONS
THE ECONOMIST
A decade ago Xi Jinping said he dreamed of making China a “space power”. Since then the country has put a rover on Mars and built one of the two operational space stations orbiting Earth. Now its private space industry aims to make an even bigger impact. China’s companies may, for the first time in their histories, successfully recover the first stage of a rocket—a vital step for slashing launch costs—opening a galaxy of opportunity. Meanwhile new private launchpads will be completed, new satellite factories will ramp up production and a new government department will funnel more China’s space firms still lag rivals abroad (see chart).
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
The Economist notes that Xi Jinping said he dreamed of making China a “space power”. Since then, the country has put a rover on Mars and built one of the two operational space stations orbiting Earth. Now its private space industry aims to make an even bigger impact. China’s companies may, for the first time in their histories, successfully recover the first stage of a rocket—a vital step for slashing launch costs—opening a galaxy of opportunity. Meanwhile new private launchpads will be completed, new satellite factories will ramp up production and a new government department will funnel more state resources into the industry.
The Economist notes that the global space economy—which grew from $300bn to about $600bn over the past decade and is projected to further triple in size by 2035—is still dominated by America, even as China makes gains in a host of other high-tech industries. Still, China’s commercial space sector shares advantages with other high-tech sectors: lots of engineers, ambitious entrepreneurs and a supportive government that deems it a strategic necessity. So it is a matter of when, not if, China will catch up.
In November 2025 the China National Space Administration set up a new department to oversee commercial space and released a two-year plan to support the sector. The plan calls for opening state facilities (like rocket-test stations) to private companies and creating a national fund to invest in commercial space. It will also allow private companies to bid for projects under China’s civil space programme.
Progress in Space has an immediate impact upon a country’s military and China’s technologies have military uses too – from providing communications to quickly replenishing damaged constellations to removing unwanted satellites. China has come of age. It has done its apprenticeship and is now ready to assume the responsibilities of a major power – on earth and in space. It is a reminder to the world to review its strategies for China.
————————
#4 CHINA UNIVERSITIES SURGE
THE NEW YOUR TIMES
“Until recently, Harvard was the most productive research university in the world, according to a global ranking that looks at academic publication. That position may be teetering, the most recent evidence of a troubling trend for American academia.
Harvard recently dropped to No. 3 on the ranking. The schools racing up the list are not Harvard’s American peers, but Chinese universities that have been steadily climbing in rankings that emphasize the volume and quality of research they produce.
The reordering comes as the Trump administration has been slashing research funding to American schools that depend heavily on the federal government to pay for scientific endeavours. President Trump’s policies did not start the American universities’ relative decline, which began years ago, but they could accelerate it.”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
This is not the China Daily or the Chinese government extolling the growing attraction of Chinese Universities – this is the New York Times and it compels attention.
“There is a big shift coming, a bit of a new world order in global dominance of higher education and research,” said Phil Baty, chief global affairs officer for Times Higher Education, a British organization unconnected to The New York Times that produces one of the better-known world rankings of universities. Educators and experts say the shift is a problem not just for American universities, but also for the nation as a whole.
“There is a risk of the trend continuing, and potential decline,” Mr. Baty said. “I use the word ‘decline’ very carefully. It’s not as if U.S. schools are getting demonstrably worse, it’s just the global competition: Other nations are making more rapid progress.”
Today, Zhejiang University is ranked first on the Leiden Rankings, issued by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Seven other Chinese schools are in the top 10.
Six prominent American schools that would have been in the top 10 in the first decade of the 2000s — the University of Michigan, the University of California, Los Angeles, Johns Hopkins, the University of Washington-Seattle, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University — are producing more research than they did two decades ago, according to the Leiden tallies But production by the Chinese schools has risen far more.
According to Mark Neijssel, Director of Services for the Centre for Science and Technology Studies, the Leiden rankings take into account papers and citations contained in the Web of Science, a database set of academic publications which is owned by Clarivate, a data and analytics company. “Thousands of academic journals are represented in the databases, many of which are highly specialized,” he said. Some experienced academics are seeing the growth in research production from China that the rankings reflect, and are warning that America is falling behind
Rafael Reif, a former president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that “the number of papers and the quality of the papers coming from China are outstanding” and are “dwarfing what we’re doing in the U.S.”
“China is really building a lot of research capacity,” Mr. Neijssel said. At the same time, he said, “Chinese researchers are putting more emphasis on publishing in English-language journals that are more widely read — and cited — around the world.”
The number of international students arriving in the U.S. in August 2025 was 19 % lower than the year before, a trend that could further hurt the prestige and rankings of American schools if the world’s best minds choose to study and work elsewhere.
“China has a boatload of money in higher education that it didn’t have 20 years ago,” said Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, a Toronto education consulting company.
The U.S. has problems. It is falling behind China in Education. This is not just a number but a recognition that China’s leadership in scientific and technological leadership will widen significantly in the coming years. No talk about Making China Great Again. Just solid, methodical, painstaking application of a key principle of international power and influence. Science Does Matter.
Finally some hard facts;- Ten years ago, two prominent Beijing schools — Peking University and Tsinghua University — were ranked 42nd and 47th in Times Higher Education’s list. Now they are just below the top 10: Tsinghua was ranked 12th, and Peking 13th.
By comparison – Duke University was ranked 20th in 2021, and now is ranked 28th. Emory University has dropped to 102nd from 85th and Notre Dame ranked 108tt ten years ago is now No. 194. Draw your own conclusions
————————————-
CHINA’S NEGATIVES
GRAHAM PERRY
China’s critics like to claim that people, like myself, who take a positive approach to China do so by closing their eyes to the problems confronting China. The question, therefore, needs to be asked. Are we naïve? Are we merely robots regurgitating bulletins issued by the Party High Command? Are our minds open or closed? Are we one-sided or balanced? Are we too quick to embrace good news (DeepSeek for example) and to slow to address bad news (Youth Unemployment)? Are we one-sided, prejudiced, bigoted, dishonest or are we open-minded, balanced, and honest. Do we lap up the good news and avert our eyes when bad news comes onto view? Do we accept official statements uncritically? Do we turn aside from the bad news and fill the space by talking up good news. Are we being duped, kidded, misled?
Good searching questions that friends of China need to address. After all many people were misled by the accounts of Soviet progress in the 1930’s. Remember Lincoln Steffens famous comment about a 1920’s visit to the USSR “I’ve Seen The Future And It Works”. Am I, and others, as naive as Steffens
Nothing condemns a critic more comprehensively than one who sees only good. But we know life is not like that. China is feeling the stones as it negotiates its journey from one side of the river to the other. China has experienced mistakes, setbacks, failures, disappointments, flaws, prejudice, deception, deceit and more. Some of those mistakes will be caused by a zealous determination to succeed; some by making decisions which serve the interests of a few of the leaders; some by becoming corrupted by power and the individual rewards that it can bring; some by forgetting the challenge that service comes before self; some by being doctrinaire, dogmatic, dictatorial, vain, self-centred and personally ambitious.
China is fighting battles with each of these negatives and those of us who are positive about China do China and the world at large a disservice if we play down or overlook the negatives and focus only on the positives.
OK – so what are the negatives. Three examples have been addressed in recent issues of Good Morning From London – the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmin Deaths. There are others on the To Do list.
Does China have a declining population and if it does is this a problem or a solution to population issues in the future?
Are the youth of China becoming disenchanted with 9-9-6 (work hours from 09.00 am to 09.00 pm six days a week?
Does the Chinese media fail to report protests and demonstrations against government policy?
Has the bankruptcy of Evergrande and Country Garden stripped many Chinese of their savings?
Is there a problem of law and order? Is there a move to replace the Communist Party with new leaders?
Is there a significant move towards One Man One Vote and the adoption of the West’s Civic Society?
Will the Communist Party be sidelined?
And about the party – is it totalitarian because it does often refer, approvingly, to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat or is it democratic because its goal is to enable the people to lead an increasingly prosperous and fulfilled life.
Difficult questions? Awkward questions? For sure. But they have to be on the To Do list.
Human beings, instinctively, prefer good news to bad news but we are required to be honest, above board, fair minded and aware of the challenges facing China to build a society that year by year improves the lot of its people. Does China deliver?
I will begin with an important but often overlooked key introductory point. China and the U.K. have quite different political systems because they have reached the present by travelling quite different paths down the years.
Take the U.K and its starting point is the Magna Carta of 1215 when a handful of Barons curbed the highly individual and authoritarian power of the then King – King John. Hurting from the obligation to contribute to the lavish spending of King John, they forced him onto the back foot and, humiliatingly, at Runnymede in West London, forced the King to sign the Magna Carta compelling him to share power with the Feudal Few – the Nobles, the Barons and the Landowners.
England set off on a path that took in the Civil War of the mid Seventeenth Century when the power of Parliament prevailed over the power of King Charles; The Great Reform Act of 1832 that expanded the number of British citizen entitled to elect Members of Parliament to Westminster. By 1949, women had won the right to vote and the property qualification for voting was removed. The U.K. had reached the goal of universal suffrage – one man (including women) one vote.
The UK’s journey saw the adoption of the Rule of Law, the Separation of Powers (the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary) and a five year cycle of General Elections which enables citizens to vote in their local constituency for a Member of Parliament who sits and votes in the House of Commons. The Westminster system of Government prevailed.
History has led China to travel a quite different path which I will address in the next Good Morning from London #609.
China Post #609 will also include Part 30 of China and Jack Perry.
GRAHAM PERRY
19 JANUARY 2026
