GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
16 FEBRUARY 2026. CHINA POST #613
CHINA AND THE FOREIGN MEDIA
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EXTRACTS
#1 PRESIDENT TRUMP TO VISIT BEIJING.
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
#2 HEALTH TOURISM COMES TO CHINA.
THE ECONOMIST
#3 STARMER’S VISIT TO CHINA.
NIKKEI ASIA
#4 SURGE IN COPYRIGHT PROTECTION IN CHINA.
THE ECONOMIST
#5 YOUNG CHINESE PREFER CIVIL SERVICE POSTS TO PhD STUDIES
THE ECONOMIST
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#1 PRESIDENT TRUMP TO VISIT BEIJING
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
China has confirmed that discussions were under way about US President Donald Trump’s planned visit in April, when sources said the two sides were expected to extend their current trade truce by up to one year.
The two reached an uneasy truce when they met in South Korea in October, agreeing to roll back tariffs and export controls after months of spiralling tensions marked by triple-digit “retaliatory” levies and Beijing’s sweeping rejection of US agricultural goods for much of 2025.
Since then, China has resumed purchases of American soybeans, a politically sensitive crop in the US.
Trump is pressing for tangible deliverables ahead of November’s midterm elections amid mounting concerns about keeping his congressional majority.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Remember the context. Seoul 2025. China calls Trump’s bluff and stands firm on Rare Earths. The Balance of Power changes. The U.S. has to take China seriously – across the globe. This is the Macro – the Overall View.
There is a Micro, too. The day-to-day continues – Trade, Fentanyl, Taiwan, Venezuela, the Arctic – and here Trump and Xi need to meet to try to reach an accord for the short-term while remaining long term adversaries. The U.S. views China as part of the long held Communist conspiracy dating back to the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848. China views the U.S. as a declining Imperialism beset with long term problems but still possessing power and influence. Both sides take the other seriously. Talking to the Enemy is more important than talking to an Ally.
China has an advantage because it has been actively handling the China-U.S. relationship since Nixon made his February 1972 visit to China. It knows its strong points. It also knows where it is vulnerable. Today, it is on the front foot with a special advantage re Rare Earths. But China knows not to over-play its hand and Trump for all his bluster is aware of his weaknesses.
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#2 HEALTH TOURISM COMES TO CHINA
THE ECONOMIST
“Foreigners visiting China often gush over the country’s high-speed rail and glittering skylines. Its creaky medical system, though, gets less praise. So Amie, a British woman, caused a stir online last month with a glowing video review of a public hospital in Beijing. With persistent stomach pain, and facing a long wait to see a doctor in Britain, she went to China, where she had once lived. Tests, diagnosis and treatment were quick and cost some 2,800 yuan ($400). Even including the air fare, that was still less than she would have had to pay at a private hospital at home, she said. After Amie’s video went viral on Chinese social media, other foreigners chimed in with their own stories of cheap and efficient care in China.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
‘Health Tourism’ has come to China. Foreign tourists are visiting China – not for holiday breaks or travel or employment – but for medical attention. Last year China’s hospitals received nearly 1.3m foreign tourists whose purpose in coming to China was to access China’s medical system. They came for treatment and the number of such visitors was up almost 74% from 2022, according to Chinese media. China’s medical-tourism market is expected to increase from around $1.2bn in 2025 to $3.4bn by 2035, according to Market Research Future, a consultancy.
In recent years China’s best hospitals have gained top-notch doctors and equipment and for some treatments – laser eye surgery for example – they are world-class. Significantly, they are also usually cheaper than Western hospitals. Many have English-speaking staff. And since 2023 China has fast expanded its visa-free entry scheme (last month it was announced that British visitors would be included). This makes it easier to drop in for a health check-up.
The Economist has noted that big cities like Shanghai and Beijing are starting to receive more patients from abroad. Growing numbers of Vietnamese are seeking treatment in hospitals in southern China. And Russians are popping over the border to hospitals in the north-east.
State media see this as an encouraging sign of the country’s growing appeal to patients overseas. “Compared with some Western countries, China’s medical system provides more efficient and affordable care,” a researcher told China Daily, a state newspaper. Such messages chime with the current propaganda campaign to paint America as a precarious place, where one bad illness can ruin someone financially.
There are some tensions in China and with an echo of UK complaints about foreign visitors coming to the UK solely to access the National Health System, an article on China’s WeChat enquired “If Foreigners will seize our medical resources?”. Such worries appear overblown—public hospitals are only allowed to use 10% of capacity for international departments. But, as The Economist observes, “it is a rare case where China’s nationalists dislike one of their country’s success stories”.
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#3 STARMER’S VISIT TO CHINA
NIKKEI ASIA
“For Chinese President Xi Jinping, however, the biggest win may be symbolic — to have yet another world leader pay him a visit, cementing his importance on the global stage at a time when his counterpart in Washington has become increasingly unpredictable and unreliable to his Western allies.
The leaders of Canada, France and the European Union have all made a trip to China in recent months, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expected to visit later in February.
If Trump’s own visit goes ahead in April, Beijing will have had five G7 leaders visit in less than six months,”.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
The China Reality is Kicking-In. Less will be heard about the need to De-Risk and De-Couple from China. Media coverage about the alleged troubles in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, or slave labour are falling away. The mood has changed.
David Taylor , Director of Policy at UK think tank Asia House, said “Xi’s language has been warmer and more expansive, signalling interest in stabilizing the relationship.
But there is a bigger picture – Since Seoul 2025 and Trump’s clear impatience with Europe – the world balance of power is undergoing a change. Carney’s Davos Comment “If you are not at the Table, you are on the Menu” will echo down the generations.
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#4 SURGE IN COPYRIGHT PROTECTION IN CHINA
THE ECONOMIST
Foreign multinationals that set up shop in the years after China opened its economy to the world often complained of their trade secrets being stolen. General Motors, an American carmaker, discovered in 2003 that a Chinese partner was rolling out a model strikingly similar to one of its own.
In the past few years, however, lax protection of trademarks and patents has become a growing problem for the many Chinese companies that have emerged as IP powerhouses in their own right.
Chinese courts have been inundated with IP cases, which now exceed 550,000 a year, making the country the world’s most litigious when it comes to such disputes. Judges often have to work at a speedy rate of a case per day. Shanghai is typically the preferred location because its judges are well versed in related laws.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Chinese courts intervening to protect Chinese manufacturers from rival Chinese companies illegally using their trade mark. The times are changing. It is a coming of age for Chinese industry as domestic courts are busy enforcing trade mark protection against abuse by China’s own companies – Chinese v Chinese.
But it does not stop at abuse in China. Increasingly Chinese companies are accusing foreign competitors of stealing their ideas. Luckin, a coffee chain, successfully sued a business in Thailand that had opened cafés under the same name with an almost identical logo. Another example – Trina Solar, a Chinese renewable-energy company, has sued Canadian Solar, a rival based in Ontario that makes most of its solar panels in China, for IP infringements in America. As Chinese businesses expand and deepen their involvement in foreign markets we can anticipate much more copyright protection in the U.S. in Europe and generally, ■
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#5 YOUNG CHINESE PREFER CIVIL SERVICE POSTS TO PhD STUDIES
THE ECONOMIST
“Young Chinese are rethinking the options they face when they complete undergraduate studies. Between 2023 and 2026 the number of people who registered to take exams for admission to master’s courses fell by a third, from 4.7m to 3.4m. Meanwhile, between 2021 and 2026, the number who applied (and passed checks) to take the national civil-service exam more than doubled to 3.7m, a record high. Interest in the latter now exceeds the former for the first time.
An attraction of a master’s degree is that it can upgrade one’s human capital (at least, in theory), while delaying entry into the job market. But the civil service offers a far more immediate reward: stable, if staid, employment. Stella Zhou, who is 24, attended a tutoring camp for the civil-service exam. For three months she started the day at 9am and slogged through thousands of practice questions, only retiring to her dormitory after 9pm. “My bum hurt from sitting all day,” she gripes.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
A 26-year-old woman, Ms Ma, is studying for a master’s degree in law. Some 80% of her class are planning to take the civil-service exam. It is a “battle royale”, she says because success is so unlikely, many are also sitting provincial – or city-level civil-service exams as a less prestigious back-up.
The reason is clear: a bleak job market. Ms Ma, who is from the eastern province of Shandong, had never thought she would be interested in the civil service. She changed her mind after working as an intern at a small company: her colleagues were often not paid on time. When China was booming, government jobs were thought dull (“If you become a civil servant, you can see the whole of your life,” as a common saying goes). Now, as the economy falters, they are highly sought-after.
Ms Zhou, who is from the south-western region of Chongqing, received an offer of 300,000 yuan ($43,000) per year from JD.com, an e-commerce giant, to work in its procurement arm. But she turned it down to try her luck with the civil service. Young people increasingly prefer certainty to good pay.
China has its problems – some of them are Trump inspired, the Tariffs for example. But some are unrelated to the unsettling status of the world economy and are created by errors and mistakes in the handling of the domestic economy. The Government takes its share of responsibility and China’s critics will blame the authoritarian system of government.
China has choices – throw money at the problem; write off local authority indebtedness; or bail out the over-exposed property companies. The Government rejects each of the three solutions – Its priority is to avoid inflation and keep prices stable and step by step to restore growth in the economy. Once inflation takes a grip, the people lose confidence in the Party and the Government but, today, inflation remains stable at 3% and the People can live with that. China’s Government is being tested.
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