Alice Han

If you think about the story of China joining the WTO onwards, it's a story of a lot of companies going out there and finding interesting innovation and technology and bringing it back home.

So I found that super interesting.

And then just, I don't even know how they did it.

I was curious, given your background in journalism, James, I was very curious to ask you, how on earth did they go about finding the parent companies, the OG parent companies of these shell companies that were domiciled in the Cayman Islands and BVI?

I have no idea.

And what was also interesting in the data set is the huge jump compared to all the other sectors.

So they look at different industries, the top 10 industries in terms of assets owned by China, from manufacturing to energy to mining, information, technology, construction.

And manufacturing saw the biggest rise from 2012 to 2014 to 2019 to 2021.

So even although we had this argument of decoupling that we started to hear in 2017-18, it's

You know, in 2019 to 2021, we saw a three times rise, effectively, in Chinese ownership of foreign manufacturing-related companies.

That, I think, is fascinating to me.

And it kind of chimes with the sequencing, if you think about it, of China really doubling down on manufacturing as a share of GDP.

As somebody who covers the economy a lot, what was interesting from the 2020 period onwards is this massive decline in the real estate sector and more lending given to the manufacturing sector and manufacturing share of GDP increasing as a result.

So I found that really interesting is that China actually benefited even more from overseas M&A in manufacturing in 2019 onwards as opposed to before that.

Okay, let's take one last quick break and stay with us.

Welcome back.

China has handed suspended death sentences to two former defense ministers as Xi Jinping's sweeping military purge continues.

Officially, it is an anti-corruption campaign.

But with nearly 100 senior officers reportedly removed or investigated in recent years, the crackdown increasingly looks tied to something bigger.

loyalty, control, and preparing China's military for the potential of a more dangerous geopolitical era ahead.