Alice Han

There is so much more data out there to mine and Chinese companies are just scratching the surface.

We're just seeing one instantiation of it, which is social media.

But it's only a matter of time where we see Chinese companies come in and do autonomous vehicles, humanoid robots in Western markets.

And I sense that there's going to be a bigger public debate in Western economies about how you regulate the data associated with those companies.

So I think we're just in the first innings of a global reframing of Chinese companies, you know, going global in terms of collecting data and using data.

Okay, let's take one last quick break.

Stay with us.

Welcome back.

As the U.S.

openly turns its back on globalization and leads harder into tariffs, China is pitching itself, at least rhetorically, as the grown-up defender of global multilateral trade, even as its own economy shows real signs of strain.

Joining us now to talk with us about this is Houzi Song, China economist and director of China research at 22V Research.

Houzi, thank you so much for joining us today and welcome to China Decode.

Great.

I wanted to start with something that is topical this week, which is Davos.

I think a lot of attention was paid to both the Trump and Carney speeches.

But the day before Trump came to speak at Davos, we had He Lifeng, Vice Premier He Lifeng, who is the trade and economies are talking about China's position in all of this.

He was critical of the quote unquote tariff style law of the jungle.

and seem to defend the WTO liberal trade order and multilateral institutions like the WTO and IMF.

This is coming at a time where we're seeing record Chinese trade surplus, around $1.2 trillion last year, and it seems like China will not be escaping this manufacturing-led growth.

So how did you interpret that speech and China's trade and economic policy going into 2026?