GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
27 FEBRUARY 2026. CHINA POST #614
CHINA AND THE FOREIGN MEDIA
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EXTRACTS
#1 UK TRADE TILT TO CHINA
THE SUNDAY TIMES
#2 U.S. PIVOT TO ASIA FAILS
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
#3 CHINA ON THE LUNAR HOLIDAY MOVE
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
#4 CHINA CONSTRUCTS FOREIGN RAILWAYS
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
#5 CHINA’S ECHOES OF DUNKERQUE 1940
NIKKEI ASIA
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#1 BIG UK TRADE TILT FROM U.S. TO CHINA
THE SUNDAY TIMES
“Brompton Bicycle has shut stores and cut investment in the U.S. while mounting a Chinese expansion, blaming uncertainty caused by President Trump’s policies.
The British folding bike manufacturer closed its shops in New York and Washington last year when their leases came up for renewal. Meanwhile, it opened a store in Shenzhen, China, in the summer, and doubled the size of its Shanghai store with a major renovation.
Will Butler-Adams, managing director, said; “We have changed our strategy in America because…we decided that the leadership was so unpredictable anything could happen..
“Whether tariffs are on or off, I wouldn’t trust them. I’m not going to sign a five year lease in this environment…it’s very difficult for business. These are our own stores and they only sell Brompton. So if a tariff goes up to 25% and we’re then uncompetitive, the whole proposition is at risk”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that many of Trump’s tariffs were illegal. Butler-Adams said “The U.S. is the biggest economy in the world, so we’re not going to stop investing. But how we invest has changed.”
Brompton is the UK’s largest bicycle manufacturer, producing tens of thousands of cycles each year at a factory in West London. Brampton has done business in China for seventeen years. “It’s our largest market and China is the second largest economy in the world. There is no question, if the political environment warms, that there are likely to be more people in China who see British brands as being friendly and positive.”
Two factors are now at work in the geo-political thinking of international commerce. First, ‘Trump is Trouble’ and, Second, ‘China is The Alternative”.
President Trump worries Big Business with his aggression towards the U.S. Supreme Court for failing by a 6-3 majority to side with Trump on Tariffs. Foreign capitalists pride stability and continuity, and shy away from the cavalier and intemperate personality of Donald Trump. And China comes into view as a safe and increasingly reliable long term commercial option.
It is not enough for UK Business to turn away from Washington. They also have to turn towards China. And increasingly British Business sees in China the stability and continuity that any major long-term investor seeks. The Chinese are practical, pragmatic, commercially astute and with growing confidence in their own long-term economic prospects.
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#2 U.S. PIVOT TO ASIA FAILS
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
“The pivot to Asia has failed. A decade and a half ago, in 2011, President Barack Obama committed to rebalancing U.S. strategy and resources to focus on the Asia-Pacific. “Let there be no doubt,” he pledged on a visit to Australia, “The United States of America is all in.” Although the phrasing changed and policymakers and politicians argued about the tactical details, Obama’s successors affirmed the logic behind the pivot, which soon became the core bipartisan assumption of American strategy. In speech after speech, U.S. officials emphasized that the only way to prevent China from dominating Asia was for the United States and its allies and partners to make a major investment in the region’s political, economic, and military stability.
Yet nearly 15 years later, U.S. leaders have still not matched their words with action. American promises to foster greater prosperity and better governance now elicit eye rolls throughout Asia. Few today are asking when the pivot will come. Instead, the question in regional capitals is how far the United States will pull back?”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
The pivot to Asia was based on the assumption that U.S. power was capable of fostering strong regional economies, governments, and militaries that could prevent China from overturning the regional order. Today, however, Washington is not seriously contesting Beijing’s economic and political influence across much of the region, particularly on the Asian mainland.
The U.S. – its politicians, academics, businessmen and women – have undergone a rapid and far-reaching change. Today it is the Monroe Doctrine – and not the Post 1945 World View – that permeates the thrust of U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. “is cutting its coat according to its cloth”. In a short period of time the U.S. has been forced to re-focus its priorities. Today it is the Western Hemisphere, and not the Far East, that is at the heart of the U.S. calculations and thinking.
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CHINESE LUNAR YEAR ON THE MOVE
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
“On a recent morning Li, a migrant worker in her thirties, joined the crowds in Beijing West railway station. Behind a fortress of luggage, she waited for the bullet train to Sichuan province in China’s interior. Not long ago the journey took 20 hours but now a high-speed train would whisk her more than 1,500km in just eight. “I’ll be home by tonight,” said Li, who asked to be identified only by her surname, and whose pale, wrinkled hands bore the signs of her job as a dishwasher. “I’ll get off at Wanzhou North [in Chongqing] and take a bus back to my village.”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
The FT reports that China’s railways have in recent days been ferrying about 20mn passengers a day, with half a billion train trips expected over the 40-day lunar new year period. It is part of what demographers refer to as the world’s largest annual human migration, when workers in China’s coastal cities return to their families to celebrate the most important holiday of the year.
Increasingly, this migration is happening faster than ever. Nearly three-quarters of passengers will travel at speeds of greater than 200kph, streaking across the country in the white and silver high-speed trains that have become a defining symbol of China’s industrial might.
In December, China reached 50,000km of high-speed rail, enough track to circle the globe, compared with 8,500km in the whole of the EU as of 2023. Just over two decades after it was launched, the network now links 97% of cities with populations of more than half a million.
Prior to 2003 there were no high-speed rail links in China.
By 2005 the first high-speed railway connected Hebei and Liaoning provinces in China’s north-east.
By 2010 Construction on the more than 2,000km Beijing-Guangzhou line progresses to connect the Chinese capital with the southern port city.
By 2015 the high-speed rail network expands rapidly, including work to connect inland western provinces via the Lanzhou-Xinjiang line
By 2020 China had more than 37,000km of high-speed rail lines
By 2026 over the past two decades China has built more than 50,000km of high-speed rail,
The expansion Is a testament to China’s model of state-led technological advances. Trains are fast, largely punctual and increasingly easy to book on mobile apps that track demand and add extra carriages during peak periods. “We used to go to the station the night before and sometimes sleep on the floor,” said Yan, a 57-year-old man who was waiting for a train to Kunming, in western Yunnan province. “Now, it’s all on a phone.”
China has benefited from a combination of relatively cheap land, enormous scale, standardised designs and a permissive regulatory environment, experts say. The country’s rail project is now overseen by China State Railway Group, a huge state-owned enterprise that operates the network and helps fund new line development. The group plans to invest Rmb520bn ($75bn) this year.
But progress has a downside too. In Beijing West station, thousands of passengers streamed by, dragging heavy suitcases and clutching boxes of gifts for relatives back home. Among them was a 27-year-old lawyer surnamed Wang, who said his trip to western China was now 12 hours shorter than on older slow trains. But he lamented that the atmosphere on the journey had also changed. “High-speed rail has made life much more convenient,” he said. “But that feeling between people is gone. In the past we would eat together, chat, play cards on the train. There is none of that now.” Progress comes with a price tag.
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#4 CHINA BUILDS OVERSEAS RAILWAYS
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
“Inspired by China-invested projects such as the 142km (88-mile) Jakarta-Bandung high-speed line in Indonesia and the partly finished 350km (217-mile) Budapest-Belgrade railway, Chinese construction and engineering firms are expected to expand their overseas footprint.
Projects abroad are now more crucial as giant domestic railway engineering firms, builders and operators are finding diminishing new ground to break in China, especially in cities.
High-speed services are already accessible in 97 per cent of Chinese cities with populations of more than 500,000, the State Council said in December, and China’s high-speed network is the world’s largest.
Analysts point to Southeast Asian countries such as Laos, Malaysia and Thailand as the most likely future destinations for Chinese-invested high-speed projects, with Central Asia not far behind as it leverages existing trade-linked infrastructure that China has already helped build there.
Chinese contractors are building a 610km (379-mile) rail project in Thailand that will connect Bangkok to Nong Khai – for people as well as cargo – at 250km/h (155mph), Xinhua has reported. Expected completion is 2030.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Gradually the message is getting through – China is increasingly building overseas – not in an imperialist land grab but something quite different. Ports, railways, roads – the very stuff of development. This is China’s DNA. Not military outposts, weapons, or soldiers on the ground but essential nation building – Infrastructure that brings about development, growth, wealth and well-being.
China is not the U.S. It does not lay down the law on human rights or insist on the installation of Chinese systems of government or demand the adoption of Marxist educational systems. Its goal is to create Win-Win outcomes. Something to which China can contribute and something which the recipient country needs. This will be China’s trade mark – more roads, more highways, more canals, more irrigation projects and the like.
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#5 CHINA’S ECHOES OF DUNKERQUE 1940
NIKKEI ASIA
“As many as 2,000 Chinese fishing boats gathered near Japan’s exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea twice in recent months, adding to the intensifying pressure on Tokyo from Beijing’s maritime and coast guard activity in the region.
The vessels were near the Japan-China median line that Tokyo uses to define the boundary of its EEZ in the East China Sea. The first incident, around Dec. 25, involved about 2,000 boats making a reverse L-shaped formation spanning 470 kilometers north to south and 230 km east to west. The second, around Jan. 11, had 1,300 boats over a line stretching 370 km north to south.
Nikkei examined the formations using automatic identification system data and satellite images. Analysis of the vessels’ AIS data shows that both formations were situated at about 125 degrees east longitude. They remained there for more than 24 hours.
The formations were much larger than a previous incident in 2016 that involved around 200 to 300 Chinese boats gathering near the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands, which China claims as the Diaoyu.
“I’ve never heard of such a huge mobilization before,” said Kyushu University international relations professor Chisako Masuo, an expert on Chinese maritime policy. “It could be seen as putting pressure on Japan and Taiwan.”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
In 1940 the UK stood alone against Hitler’s Germany. The Nazis swept through Northern France in readiness for an invasion of the UK. The UK army was in a desperate position and a decision was made by Prime Minister Churchill to rescue the retreating British army from the beaches of Dunkerque in Northern France. Hundreds of small boats made the short journey across the English Channel and brought back thousands of UK troops who lived to fight a second battle against the Nazis in D Day June 1944. It was a People’s War that enabled 300,000 UK troops to be rescued.
Echoes of the 1940 Dunkerque Action come to mind as 2,000 Chinese fishing boats recently gathered near Japan’s exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea twice in recent months, adding to the intensifying pressure on Tokyo from Beijing’s maritime and coast guard activity in the region. The vessels were near the Japan-China median line that Tokyo uses to define the boundary of its EEZ in the East China Sea.
Tensions remain high between China and Japan. They have their origin in the 13 December 1937 Rape of Nanjing when the Japanese army captured what was then China’s capital city, Nanjing, and killed as many as 300,000 civilians and numerous unarmed Chinese soldiers over the course of two months. After the Japanese overran the city, they hunted down and killed suspected Chinese soldiers, massacred families living outside the Safety Zone, and raped tens of thousands of women. The Japanese army also looted the city and burned down many buildings. It is an event seared in the memory of the Chinese people.
The Chinese people have an active memory. They remember. They reflect and they recall. This does not mean that revenge is their primary thought. They are more circumspect and use the past to guide the present. They are cautious and suspicious of Japan but they are also pragmatic – China-Japan trade is substantial – and China does not score own-goals. But there is a ‘Big But’ and China will apply blows if Japan oversteps the mark and China’s reaction is not just the Party or the PLA or its Armed Forces. It is the Chinese people who endured the pain of the Rape of Nanjing and it is their generational descendants who will be prominent in any present day resolution of the problems of the 1937 Massacre.
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CHINA AND JACK PERRY- PART 34
HOW WOULD JACK VIEW CHINA TODAY?
In China post #615 I will return the narrative of China and Jack Perry. Jack met official representatives of China in 1951 and he saw China at close quarters until his death in 1996. When people used to say – Jack – you are an expert on China! He replied “There are no experts on China, just relative degrees of ignorance and perhaps I am a little less ignorant than most”
Jack was not suggesting that the Chinese were “inscrutable or calculating or mystical” – 19th century imperialist designations used by visitors to China who sought to impose their will on the people of China. Jack realised sooner than most that China under Mao was embarking on a new path of development. The Western eyes viewed China though the lens of the October Revolution of 1917 and the assumption that there had come into existence an international communist conspiracy to rule the world and, that the world now faced a life and death struggle between Capitalism and Communism.
This analysis obscured the significance of what was taking place in China and led the West to seriously mis-understand the challenge that China presented. In a phrase the West has never understood China. It has never viewed issues from China’s perspective and that being the case the mis-interpretations and the mis-understandings have been numerous. So be it. The mind set of China’s opponents is fixed and not flexible and we can predict with certainty that clarity will not come into focus. Where China is concerned, its critics will always have more negatives than positives and it is this fundamental failure that gives purpose and meaning to Good Morning from London.
But back to Jack and the role that accorded to him by history to bring home to the West the significance of the changes underway in the People’s Republic of China. He was dismissed by many as a “fellow traveller”, a “commie lover” and “a capitalist with communist pretensions”. And he was ready for the battle. He had resilience, courage, foresight and a powerful intellect. He could hold his own with intellectuals, historians, and political commentators. He enjoyed the challenges and rose to the many occasions – none more so than when he was invited – before Nixon went to China in 1972 – to speak at Harvard University in Boston in 1971.
Jack always felt that History was on his side and that he was never A Voice in the Wilderness. He impressed Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, UK Ambassador to China – Percy Craddock, and President Kennedy’s close adviser Theodore Sorensen. They listened when he talked – not out of good manners but because they realised two key matters;- first, that his understanding of the significance of China was fundamentally at odds with the traditional Western prejudices, and, second, his understanding of the mindset of the Chinese leadership was without parallel.
So what did Jack think of China? – in 1953 and in 1993. Was China for the long term or merely an historical aberration that would be pushed to the margins and forgotten? Did China have something to say about the human spirit or was it a fleeting phenomenon that would be quickly discarded?
The story goes on because the narrative is compelling. Jack is a factor and his foresight and grasp of the essence of China is compelling but this, in the final analysis is a story about China. Jack was an onlooker – talented, informed, open-minded and intellectually challenged – but the real focus is China and the challenge it presents as the world settles into the 21st Century. These are momentous times – not because of Trump – but because the 1.4mn people in China are blazing a new path, a new trail that will have a considerable impact on the world going forward.
So in China Post #615 I will refer to Jack Perry – the Capitalist; to Jack Perry – the Communist; and reconcile the two conflicting elements in his make-up. Who was Jack Perry?
GRAHAM PERRY
