Long Institute

Exploring the challenges & opportunities of contemporary China. Housed at @ucisocsci, supported by @UCILaw @UCIrvine_MBA. Facebook:

[Long Institute @LongInstitute]

China’s industrial overcapacity fuels both global competition and domestic strain. Our Executive Director Dr. Ann Tang @anntang2025, unpacks these dynamics in her new commentary with @IGCC_UCSD:
👉 https://t.co/4XWnO5G11p
#ChinaPolicy #GlobalEconomy #APEC #UCIrvine

[Long Institute @LongInstitute]

📣 Next week at UC Irvine Long US-China Institute
Join Dr. Lev Nachman @lnachman32 (NTU; UCI PoliSci PhD ’21) for:
Contested Taiwan: Sovereignty, Social Movements & Party Formation
🗓️ Oct 22 | 4–5:30pm | SBSG 1511
👉 RSVP: https://t.co/mNpIVvr9cA
#Taiwan #USChina #UCI

[Long Institute @LongInstitute]

🏔️ What do China’s highest mountains reveal about politics, culture & identity?
Join us for Socialism at Altitude: Chinese Mountaineering & Mountaineering in China w/ Dr. Maggie Greene (Montana State).
📅 Mon, Oct 6 | 4–5:30pm PT
📍 UCI + Zoom
🔗 Scan the QR code to register

[Long Institute @LongInstitute]

📢 Join us at UCI for:
Contested Taiwan: Sovereignty, Social Movements, and Party Formation
🗓️ Wed, Oct 22 | 4–5:30pm
📍 SBSG 1511, UC Irvine
Speaker: Dr. Lev Nachman (NTU; UCI PoliSci PhD ’21)
👉 RSVP: https://t.co/mNpIVvrH28
@UCIrvine @UCIPoliSci #Taiwan #USChina

[Long Institute @LongInstitute]

Join us at UC Irvine on Oct 9 for Tianlong Jiao: Exploring the Wonder of the Terracotta Warriors. Discover new insights from the @BowersMuseum VP & Chief Curator. Reception to follow.
🔗 Register: https://t.co/a0EMBiW27p
#LongUSChinaInstitute #UCIIlluminations

[Long Institute @LongInstitute]

We are pleased to welcome Dr. Beijie Ann Tang as the new Director of the Long U.S.–China Institute at @ucirvine.

Learn more 👉 https://t.co/X7RdMGICRd

#UCIrvine #USChinaRelations #GlobalEngagement #HigherEducation

[Long Institute @LongInstitute]

🌄 The Long U.S.–China Institute at @UCISocialSci welcomes @mcgreenesd Dr. Maggie Greene (Montana State University) for:
Socialism at Altitude: Chinese Mountaineering and Mountaineering in China
📅 Oct 6, 2025 | 4 PM PT
🔗 Register: https://t.co/i2QFCoSyzL
#USChina #History

[ChinaPower @ChinaPowerCSIS]

China has made impressive advances in quantum technologies in recent years. Explore our feature to learn more about China’s ambitions and important milestones: https://t.co/NqliB3dk56

[Kerry Brown @Bkerrychina]

On Taiwan, China just has to win the psychological war. And for that, it needs no landing barges or hi-tech ballistics. It just needs the West to carry on ripping itself apart.' Article in Time Magazine.

https://t.co/GlxsQNgttd

[China in Pictures @tongbingxue]

Love back then—engagement photo, July 18, 1969.

[Kyle Chan @kyleichan]

Chinese AI startup StepFun recently announced a new Model-Chip Ecosystem Innovation Alliance (模芯生态创新联盟) with Huawei, Biren, Enflame, Moore Threads, etc. to help develop alternatives to Nvidia.

Here’s a great profile of StepFun by @economicsnoah https://t.co/W9HoDT9SNI

[China in Pictures @tongbingxue]

China will provide each newborn with an annual subsidy of $500 until the age of three (the typical age for public kindergarten enrollment) in an effort to address its declining birth rate. According to official statistics, China's annual number of births has dropped from 19 million in 2014 to 9.5 million in 2024.
During a State Council press conference held today, additional measures were announced to support childbirth, including extended maternity leave, tax incentives, and expanded childcare services.

7 siblings from a big Chinese family, 1930s.

[Lingling Wei 魏玲灵 @Lingling_Wei]

“Rumors are an endemic feature of the Chinese system,” @JosephTorigian “And the kind of rumors people want to believe spread more easily.”

[Neil Thomas 牛犇 @neilthomas123]

A move in the right direction for China's economic policy

"China’s government spending has pivoted toward social welfare to a degree unseen for at least a generation, as it runs a record budget deficit with a focus on boosting consumption to cushion the blow from Donald Trump’s tariffs."

Let's see if it is a temporary measure or a more permanent shift—next big watchpoint is the Five-Year Plan in March 2026, but Xi Jinping will give authoritative instructions at a CCP plenum later this year.

Via @business

https://t.co/wovvsY0Yvn

[Desmond Shum @DesmondShum]

From Zhu to Xi: The Long March Toward Consumption That Never Arrived

Since 1998, Chinese leaders have regularly pledged to boost domestic demand, from Zhu Rongji’s stimulus to Xi’s “dual circulation” strategy. Yet consumption has never taken priority—thwarted not by intent, but by entrenched structural, political, and ideological barriers.

Evolution of China’s “Expanding Domestic Demand” Strategy

1. 1998 – Post-Asian Financial Crisis:
China first adopted “expanding domestic demand” as a macro policy under Premier Zhu Rongji, launching bond-funded infrastructure investment. Though the goal was internal stimulation, the approach was heavily skewed toward public investment, not household consumption.

2. 2008 – Global Financial Crisis:
The Hu-Wen administration rolled out a RMB 4 trillion stimulus, again with nearly half allocated to infrastructure. Despite rhetoric about boosting consumption, funds primarily flowed to local governments and SOEs, reinforcing China’s investment-driven growth model.

3. Post-2020 – Dual Circulation:
Faced with COVID and rising U.S.–China tensions, Beijing introduced the “dual circulation” strategy, prioritizing domestic demand. A 15-year roadmap followed in 2022, but structural reforms to lift consumption remained limited and largely aspirational.

Why Expansion of Domestic Demand Keeps Falling Short

1. Structural Income Reform Threatens the State-Corporate Model
Sustained consumption growth requires raising household incomes, reducing inequality, and expanding welfare. But doing so would shift power from the state and SOEs to households—undermining China’s political-economic foundation.
•The household share of GDP remains low (~40%) due to weak labor rights, hukou restrictions, and financial repression.
•Rebalancing toward households would shrink the state’s fiscal and capital share—higher wages cut into corporate profits, and more public services reduce local revenues. China’s strong-state, weak-household model is fundamentally at odds with consumption-led growth.

2. Short-Termism Trumps Long-Term Reform

Consumption-driven growth depends on:
•Building social welfare (e.g. pensions, healthcare, education) to reduce precautionary savings
•Urbanizing with equity, not just real estate investment
•Cultivating private-sector service jobs with upward mobility

All of these require long-term policy patience and institutional trust, neither of which align with the incentives of China’s bureaucratic-political system. Local officials are evaluated based on short-term GDP growth, infrastructure buildouts, and investment attraction—not consumer well-being.

3. Ideological Bias for Production Over Consumption
China’s Marxist legacy favors production and thrift over consumption.
•From Mao to Deng, growth was framed around output, not welfare.
•Even today, “common prosperity” emphasizes top-down redistribution, not empowering consumers.
•Consumption in China is tolerated but never idealized; imports, luxury goods, and rising household debt are viewed with suspicion, while “productive” investment is consistently celebrated. Consumer-driven growth is often seen as morally indulgent and strategically weak compared to state-led industrial expansion.

In China, expanding domestic demand has always been more slogan than strategy—an aspiration caught in the crossfire of political incentives, vested interests, and ideological habit. Until Beijing is willing to sacrifice control for consumption, talk of a demand-driven economy will remain just that: talk.

[U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue @USAmbChina]

我得知，近期中国包括北京在内的各地都有人民受到强降雨影响丧失生命，深感痛心。我们向逝者的家属和亲近的人们表示悼念之意。愿各位平安！

[Rush Doshi @RushDoshi]

Several former Trump officials, current Trump allies, and Republican experts come out against the administration’s decision to provide China Nvidia’s H20:

Steve Bannon
Oren Cass
Matt Pottinger
Kyle Bass
David Feith
Liza Tobin
Michael Sobolik
Craig Singleton
Peter Mattis

[South China Morning Post @SCMPNews]

Exclusive | China, US to extend tariff pause at Sweden talks by another 90 days: sources
https://t.co/zq2lxJPTAJ

[CHUS @ChusChus1987]

The Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Kansas offers a travel grant to scholars from outside Lawrence, Kansas who wish to use the University's East Asian Studies and East Asian language collections held by KU Libraries. Apply by Sep. 19 https://t.co/HpBomP3UxS

[Jonathon P Sine @JonathonPSine]

Awesome new meta‑analysis of 67 studies on cadre promotion in China

-economic growth dominant driver of cadre promotion
-environment matters but weakly
-social stability & innovation null
-public service spending even hinders advancement