VyVan

[Cyrus Janssen @thecyrusjanssen]

China is leading the future! The healthcare system is advancing so fast because it actually prioritizes helping people instead of making money. This is the biggest difference between the US and China

[Morgan. @morganamooo]

eyes filled with tears over this

[فهد القثامي @Fahad_Algathami]

أفضل حفل أفتتاح في التاريخ

أفتتاح أولمبياد بكين عام 2008

الصين تُبهر العالم بحفل لن و لن يتكرر 🇨🇳

[Yael Bar tur @yaelbt]

It’s the most wonderful day ever on Twitter because my entire feed is full of European World Cup tourists losing their mind about how great America is 😭😭 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🦅 🎆

[Olly Tennis 🎾 🇬🇧 @Olly_Tennis_]

🇬🇧🌱 She may be out of the tournament, but Serena Williams is back on the practice courts at Queen’s

📸 Serena’s IG

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

Let me explain why I think Freddy resonates.

Lots of Europeans visit the USA as tourists. They visit New York City, or Washington DC, or Hollywood, or Las Vegas, and if they visit natural beauty too, they go to really crowded places like the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone.

So while they see our cultural and natural icons, they are mostly in blue cities and they therefore also see the decline, the homeless, the drugs, the dirt and the rude, rude Americans.

But Freddy is not doing that. Freddy is driving, and he’s doing it through the heartland, where people are kind and polite, the skies are wide open, and the bounty of Buc-ees and Bass Pro Shops are overwhelming.

Freddy is not seeing fentanyl and decline.

He is seeing the real, hopeful, patriotic, kind America that European tourists rarely traverse.

And he loves it.

That’s why Freddy is a phenomenon.

[🌳 @redseapeach]

reflecting on serena’s comeback, this video of steffi graf hitting with her forehand really shows how much excellent technique stays with you forever. she was long retired here, but her ability to hit cleanly with power was/is still so impeccable.

[꧁♛𝓑𝓵✯𝓷𝓭𝓲𝓮𝓼♛꧂ @heyitsmeCarolyn]

Is the USA the BEST country in the world!? 🇺🇸

[Cristian Crespo F. 🇨🇺 @cristiancrespoj]

A esto nos referimos, cuando decimos que a México le faltó majestuosidad en la ceremonia de inicio de un Mundial de Fútbol. No hubo arte, no hubo tecnología, no hubo personas, no hubo ganas. Esto demuestra la desidia del gobierno de Sheinbaum. Eso es, mediocre. Una ceremonia mediocre para un gobierno aún más mediocre. Ah! Y Claudia además no asistió. Todo mal.

Video: Olimpiadas Beijing 2008. Que comenzó el 08/08/2008 a las 08:08 PM. (El 8 es número de suerte en China). Cargando aún más de espiritualidad dicha ceremonia.

#Mexico

[Blake Allen @Blake_Allen13]

All of these “Europeans experiencing America for the first time” stories have a common theme: Every single one of them is a European experiencing for the first time how absurdly wealthy the United States is compared to really anywhere else in the world. It underpins them all

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is a really fascinating paper that everyone interested in China's industrial policy should read.

It destroys so many myths (see below), and is written by deeply credible people who conducted over three years of fieldwork in China and interviewed 60+ Chinese officials, entrepreneurs, and engineers. When it comes to China studies, it literally doesn't get more rigorous than this.

First myth it destroys: contrary to popular belief, Beijing's industrial policy didn't build the companies that became China's EV champions. They rose largely **despite** it, through its cracks.

For sure, Beijing did favor EVs as an industry and pushed hard for it but their big bet was SOEs (State Owned Enterprises): research grants, pilot programs, licenses, cheap credit - virtually all of it flowed to state firms.

The result? China's actual EV champions - BYD, Geely, NIO, XPeng, Li Auto, etc. - are overwhelmingly private firms that succeeded despite Beijing favoring their SOE competitors.

How so? Because, when favoring SOEs, the central government didn't just pick winning companies, it picked winning cities, each SOE being anchored in a specific city: Shanghai (SAIC), Changchun (FAW), Wuhan-Shiyan (Dongfeng), etc.

Which means that every city not on the list, that wanted a piece of the auto boom, had only one option left: team up with private entrepreneurs who were equally excluded from central government favor.

That's what truly fueled China's EV miracle: an alliance of the excluded, between local private entrepreneurs and local mayors.

This is the biggest misconception this paper destroys: the reality is that the "Chinese state capitalism" that many in the West think powered the EV boom actually tried to block many of these companies from existing. In effect, it was closer to an obstacle course that local actors (mayors and provinces) learned to game.

Geely - now the third largest automaker in China - is a fantastic example of this.

First of all, it started off illegal since, to build passenger cars, you had to have a central government license and they couldn't get one. Zhejiang Province told them to go ahead regardless because the province had hundreds of auto parts suppliers but no carmaker of its own.

It's only a couple of years later, recognizing the fait-accompli that Geely was producing cars and was competitive, that the central government admitted them to the National Sedan Catalog - effectively legalizing them retroactively because there were facts on the ground.

Then there was the Volvo acquisition in 2010, which is fair to say - looking back - proved to be the most strategically valuable acquisition in Chinese automotive history. Despite it being presented at the time (and still described this way today) as "China buying Volvo", all 3 major state-backed banks in China (Export-Import Bank, China Development Bank, Bank of China) refused to finance the deal. The only state-bank money Geely managed to get was a $200 million loan from a provincial branch of China Construction Bank - a tiny fraction of what the deal required.

Geely actually did the deal with Goldman Sachs money via Hong Kong plus loans and equity from four local governments (Chengdu, Zhangjiakou, Daqing, Shanghai's Jiading district), each of which bought in by securing a Volvo plant or headquarters for itself.

In effect, the doors that Beijing controlled were largely closed to Geely, but it made it because the doors subnational actors controlled were opened.

Which all means this paper destroys another very common myth: the big merit of the central government in all this was to be relatively chill about it, to NOT be dictatorial.

I just imagine if that had happened in France and you had - say - the mayor of Lyon or Marseilles open, fund and promote an unlicensed carmaker against Renault: the préfet would shut it down within weeks, and the mayor would be lucky to escape prosecution.

That's the irony: on industrial policy, the supposedly "totalitarian" Chinese state proved more tolerant of local defiance than most Western liberal democracies would be. Beijing's greatest contribution to the EV miracle wasn't the plan - it was looking the other way while the plan was being violated.

To be sure, the paper doesn't hide the costs of this system: ferocious local competition also produced what's known today in China as "involution" (内卷-Neijuan, basically a hypercompetitive price war), as well as some spectacular failures. For instance one county lost 6.6 billion yuan on a carmaker that never really made cars.

But that's precisely the point: this is a high-risk, high-reward model of decentralized experimentation, the very opposite of the careful central planning Westerners imagine.

I've repeated this countless times but it bears repeating again: the single greatest misconception people have about China is - probably because we wrongly associate communism with centralized control - that it is a monolith run from Beijing. Some even say it's run by "one man."

The reality is the exact opposite: China is, in practice, one of the most decentralized countries on earth. Roughly 85% of government spending in China happens at the subnational level - against about 30% in the average OECD country (and even less in France, which is actually one of the most centrally controlled countries on earth). A Chinese mayor commands fiscal resources, land, investment funds and policy latitude that virtually no Western mayor could dream of.

Last but not least, I'd be remiss not to mention what the paper has to say on the positive legacy of Mao and its role in the rise of EVs (given I myself wrote an article titled "Mao's economic record wasn't bad, actually": https://t.co/1NZgHqBHwg).

When it comes to China myths, none is more entrenched than the idea that Mao left behind nothing but ruins.

This paper confirms a key argument of my article: Mao's deliberate dispersal of industry across China (during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution decentralizations) left dozens of cities with their own small auto works. Inefficient, yes - but these scattered factories survived into the 1990s and became the seed stock of everything that followed: the industrial base, the engineers, and the production licenses that EV startups would use to enter the market.

The paper even says it outright: the fragmentation that industrial policy "sought to eradicate" is "precisely" what "ironically enabled" the EV sector's rapid rise.

This is exactly the mechanism I described in my Mao article: structures built in the Mao era - communes becoming township governments, commune enterprises becoming TVEs, Third Front factories seeding interior industrialization - became load-bearing foundations of the reform miracle.

Fittingly, the spark for China's first municipal carmaker adventure was literally a TVE (Township and Village Enterprise), the institutional descendants of Mao's commune enterprises: Tongbao, a kit-car maker in Wuhu whose success stunned local officials into building what became Chery (one of China's biggest carmakers today). You can't tell the story of China's EV miracle without crediting the legacy of Mao.

What's the biggest lesson in all this for Western policymakers?

The obvious one is that the part of industrial policy that most people assume China does and that they sometimes want to copy - i.e. the state picking winners - is actually the part that failed.

The part that did succeed is the China nobody in the West believes exists: a radically decentralized system with a high degree of tolerance for disobedience and experimentation.

We imagine China as a country where nothing happens without Beijing's approval when the reality is closer to the opposite: China's EV miracle happened precisely because localities asked for forgiveness rather than permission.

All in all, and this is the lesson I often come back to, this is yet another illustration of the importance of understanding China for what it is as opposed to the caricature we've built of it. This matters whichever "camp" you're in. If you see China as a rival, you can't compete with someone you don't understand. If you see them as a source of lessons, you can't emulate what you've misunderstood. Whatever you want from China - to compete with it or learn from it - the entry fee is the same: genuinely understanding it.

[Chay Bowes @BowesChay]

Whatever you think about China, the facts are astounding.

They eradicated poverty for 800M in 40 yrs, built 45K km rail, 1.39M km rural roads, $252B invested in health/schools, rural poverty fell from 30% to 0%

[Ashley (TeamTrump47) @TeamTrump47]

🔻WORLD CUP VISITORS ARE BLOWN AWAY BY REAL AMERICA ⚽️ 🇺🇸

Will Cain is catching all the viral reactions as international fans discover Waffle House magic, Buc-ee’s heaven, ranch dressing obsession, super-fast Wi-Fi, and legendary Southern hospitality.

@WillCainShow

[Cyrus Janssen @thecyrusjanssen]

What is China really like in 2026?

To understand China, you need to get outside the major cities of Shanghai and Beijing and go explore the countryside to see how China’s government is transforming the 4th, 5th, and 6th tier cities

One of the biggest differences between the Chinese government and others, is a real focus on improving the lives of Chinese people. That might sound like propaganda to some people, but if you actually do visit these small villages, you’ll see how technology and infrastructure are changing people’s lives and providing them a higher quality of life for the future

I’m so blessed to have the opportunity to visit, explore and connect with China every year. This is one of the most fascinating countries in the world and I love sharing my travels and journeys through the Middle Kingdom 🇨🇳

[Elsa @elsathora]

Hahahah I actually can’t believe this was my morning

Also American hashbrowns are superior

[Lou 🫦 @LouAZMerrijul]

Read it and then reread it.

This is our Superpower..
Our Love of Country!

If we lose it, we will fall too!

[til polarity's end 🎾⚡Slamdreeva era⚡⚫⚪ @lildarkcage]

Q: "Has Roger texted you by any chance?"

Mirra: "Not yet. Novak did but nothing from Roger yet. I think he's very busy, so no worries."

Aww that would mean the world to her, you can tell. 🥹

[Louie Traub @louietraub]

The World Cup is officially here and seeing all the Euros discover quintessential Americana with wholesome hospitality fills me with pride in a country that has faced some challenging recent years.

It's going to be a fun, unifying tournament. LFG #USMNT!