Ben

Lawyer/author. Co-Chair, Asian Affairs Comm of @nycbarassn. @econclubny, Institute of Int'l Bankers. Former board of Shanghai FCC. Bylines in WSJ, Nikkei, etc.

[Ben @benjaminqiu]

My opinion piece on Nikkei Asia regarding the recent physical attack on Americans in North China, the handling of such cases by the PRC government including the judiciary, and how it might affect geopolitics. 
https://t.co/mN8XNM5gLS

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Sportswashing is a standard tool of authoritarians, put on a grand stage at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Like the IOC, FIFA doesn’t "stick to sports" when it does this; it provides a propaganda platform. This year's hosts are democracies, but Trump knows the game. My latest:

[Maya Wang 王松蓮 @wang_maya]

7 years ago today, HongKongers went onto the streets. Despite police brutality, they occupied the city for months for democracy.

No official's been held accountable.

Instead, HK govt arrested >10,000 protesters & Beijing crushed the city's freedoms.

https://t.co/19ygLAs1e1

[Mark L. Clifford @MarkLClifford]

Let’s not allow Jimmy Lai to die in a Chinese Jail.

[#FreeJimmyLai @SupportJimmyLai]

The man in these photos is a father, an entrepreneur, and a defender of a free press. His name is #JimmyLai.

For nearly six years, he has been held in solitary confinement for defending democracy. At 78 years old with deteriorating health, he doesn't have much time left.

He deserves to come home.

#FreeJimmyLai

[Ben @benjaminqiu]

Fantastic news for Americans’ 401(k).

[Demetri @AsiaLens]

Donald Trump suggests he may not renew trade deal with Mexico and Canada https://t.co/m17Arjf3zo via @ft

[Ben @benjaminqiu]

Other than treating the U.S. capital market as their own, I’d recommend that open-minded young Chinese co-opt the Japanese national soccer team, and the World Cup, even soccer in general, would go from depressing to exciting.

[Li Yuan袁莉 @LiYuan6]

这周我采访了几位中国年轻人，对于北京收紧海外银行和投资账户，他们中有人问“我的钱到底还是不是我的钱？”有人担心自己美元交易账户的钱有一天会被没收，还有人说：全世界还有那么多券商可以开通，我只要有一个这样的跳板，一个通往全世界的钥匙，我一样能打开海外投资的市场。来听听他们为什么投美股

[Desmond Shum @DesmondShum]

China Risk Is Never Just Financial

It looks like the Wang Qishan, ex Vice President of China, aftershock is still rippling outward.

https://t.co/JDZCtz59hL

Fang Fenglei has been a fixture of Chinese finance for decades. He started at CICC, China’s first foreign joint-venture investment bank, and later held senior roles at Bank of China, ICBC’s investment-banking platform, and Goldman’s China joint venture. He then co-founded HOPU, one of China’s major private-equity funds of that era.

The latest development is that Fang appears to have been removed from the speaker list for the Caixin Summer Summit, after previously being listed. In China, people naturally read this kind of thing as tea leaves — especially when close associates of Wang Qishan have been falling one after another.

For years, Fang was widely seen as someone who advertised his association with Wang. At one point, we asked Wang directly whether that relationship was real. Wang denied it.

But, well, China is China.

What interests me now is how this may affect GLP, China’s largest logistics warehouse operator. HOPU co-led GLP’s 2017 privatization for S$16 billion, then the largest privatization deal in Asian history. I sold my Beijing airport project to GLP for its use of proceeds in IPO, so I know the company reasonably well.

GLP is already under pressure from a heavy debt load. Its debt prices dropped sharply, over 20% in on one week back in March and its perpetual debt is trading at 50 cents on the dollar, amid market rumours that the regulators had told insurance companies to be cautious about buying GLP debt. Whether true or not, the market clearly smells risk.

GLP has been eyeing a USD20B Hong Kong IPO this year, largely to raise capital and reduce leverage. Now there may be another dark cloud over that plan.

This is what China risk looks like. It is not for the faint-hearted. More importantly, it is not for investors who understand spreadsheets but have no idea how Chinese politics works.

You can be hit sideways by a tsunami you never even knew was forming.

[Ben @benjaminqiu]

The Economist got the headline right.

[Ben @benjaminqiu]

Photos of 6/6/19 popped up on phone. Here thousands of lawyers gathered outside Hong Kong Court of Final Appeals for the silent march to govt HQ to request a pause of the extradition (of suspects to Mainland China) bill being rammed through the legislature. Crackdowns followed.

[Ben @benjaminqiu]

Remote work since Covid, and AI, have caused the numbers of weekly biz formation to surge in the U.S.

[China Commission @CECCgov]

Addressing #TransnationalRepression is a “litmus test” for the country. If the U.S. does not “act quickly, the PRC will continue to push our boundaries.”
Watch @AnnaKwokFY's testimony.👇

[Ben @benjaminqiu]

Alphabet’s lowkey fundraise of 85B, including a big chunk of sale to Berkshire Hathaway, is simply scornful of SpaceX which is trying to raise the same amount based on a shaky business model.

[Ben @benjaminqiu]

The declining new car sales in China, is a side effect of its property crisis which in turn is due to its demographic nosedive and ideological turn. The growing trade war w Europe will add to Beijing’s anxiety that the stuck-up West is “keeping China down” https://t.co/O75Rc4UUat

[Byron Wan @Byron_Wan]

June 4: this woman was arrested for gesturing 6 and 4 in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.

[不明白播客 @bumingbaipod]

#六四事件37周年，向大家推荐观看今年我们与 @JosephTorigian 唐志学教授的对话： https://t.co/np6O6akAQV 当时，前38军军长徐勤先的秘密审判视频流出，唐志学认为庭审最重要的细节是，徐勤先认为不需要动武解决问题。徐勤先说，“采取武力办法来解决，这个搞不好就造成冲突，造成流血事件”。🕯

[China Commission @CECCgov]

In 1989, Arthur Liu stood up to the CCP. Decades later, he and his daughter, #AlysaLiu, faced #TransnationalRepression by the CCP “spies”—a campaign that spans generations and crosses borders. Listen to their story.👇

#June4th #TiananmenMassacre #NeverForget

[Ben @benjaminqiu]

When hearing about the dangers and problems caused by AI, think new professions and opportunities that address those.

[Ben @benjaminqiu]

China is exporting its property crisis in the form of everyone’s de-industrial crisis.

[Desmond Shum @DesmondShum]

China’s Property Crisis Is Becoming Everyone’s Industrial Crisis

Isn’t this crazy?

China’s property collapse is now hurting workers around the world.

The chain is straightforward.

For two decades, real estate development drove a huge part of China’s economic growth. Property absorbed household savings, bank credit, local-government ambition, and fiscal revenue. Land sales funded infrastructure. Rising home prices made households feel wealthier. Developers, local officials, banks, contractors, and consumers were all tied into the same machine.

Then the machine broke in 2021.

Property prices fell. Household wealth shrank. Consumer confidence weakened. Local-government land-sale revenue collapsed. The economy slowed. Families responded rationally: they stopped spending and started saving.

China now has a vast accumulation of household deposits. By September 2025, household deposits had reached around RMB165 trillion, or 122% of GDP, according to the World Bank. Latest estimates now put the number closer to RMB180 trillion — roughly US$25 trillion. That is not a sign of strength. It is a sign of fear. People are not saving because they are optimistic. They are saving because property no longer feels safe, jobs no longer feel secure, and the future looks bleak.

The state’s response has been to push interest rates lower. Major Chinese banks have cut one-year fixed deposit rates toward 1%. The intention is obvious: punish idle savings, lower funding costs, and push capital back into the economy.

But in China, capital does not flow freely to the best market opportunity. It flows where the Party points.

And under Xi, the Party is pointing at manufacturing.

“New productive forces” — 新质生产力 — has become the new master slogan. Since property can no longer deliver growth, jobs, fiscal revenue, and political confidence, Beijing is trying to build a new growth engine through EVs, batteries, solar, chips, robotics, industrial machinery, and advanced manufacturing.

Chinese capital controls make the problem worse. Capital is trapped inside a slowing economy. If households will not consume, and money cannot easily leave the country, then the system has to find another outlet. That outlet is state sanctioned investment in manufacturing.

The IPO data captures the shift. Since the beginning of 2025, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing have listed roughly 177 new companies, and around 95% were manufacturing-related, according to the transcript. The Beijing Stock Exchange alone listed 55 new companies; 54 were manufacturers.

The problem is not that China manufactures. China should manufacture. The problem is that Beijing is trying to solve a demand crisis with another investment drive and another supply-side buildup.

That is where China’s domestic property crisis becomes a global industrial problem.

China’s property bust is not just a domestic balance-sheet crisis. It is being converted into a global manufacturing shock.

China’s property bust is not just a domestic balance-sheet crisis. It is being converted into a global manufacturing shock. Beijing broke the housing machine. Now it wants the rest of the world to absorb the excess output from its expanding factory floor — and call the loss of factories and jobs “free trade.”

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

Open Letter
To the President of the Russian Federation
From the President of Ukraine

When you came to power in Russia more than 26 years ago, many people in Ukraine viewed you positively. That is how it was. But that is now in the past.
Now, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians view it positively that our long-range drones paid a visit to the opening of your forum in St. Petersburg, covering a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers. As you know very well, that distance is not the limit of our capabilities.