Ryan Etzcorn

Policy analyst in Beijing; former Fulbright studying civil society in Guangdong and trade researcher in DC; drummer in too many bands. Views all my own.

[Neil Thomas 牛犇 @neilthomas123]

Great to see Randy Schriver and @michael_kuiken leading a first @USCC_GOV delegation to China since 2019. Strongly agree on the importance of "seeing the relationship firsthand."

The USCC plays an important role in China policy in Washington DC and it makes a lot of sense for its commissioners and staff to have on-the-ground knowledge to help inform their work.

Earlier this year Jing Qian and I argued in the @nytimes that "U.S. Leaders Need to See What’s Happening in China" and I'm glad more people can do so.

I believe that it helps the United States to compete smarter, safer, and better.

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

@kyleichan Is the “genius” part sarcastic? The graph’s title says “Americans” based on what 10-11% said. 89% said idk. Surprisingly humble for the red white and blue.

[Carlos @agent_of_change]

Volkswagen, China and the breakdown of unequal exchange

The New York Times has a long, mournful piece about how Volkswagen’s troubles “were made in China”. It’s worth reading, because beneath the corporate detail lies the story of an entire imperial economic arrangement beginning to come apart.

For four decades, VW has been a major force in the Chinese car market, and for many years China supplied half or more of the company’s worldwide profits – profits that, as the Times notes, paid for “high salaries and generous benefits” for its workforce back in Germany. Which is another way of saying that a German corporation has been drawing the bulk of its wealth from Chinese labour and the Chinese market, and repatriating it to fund living standards in the imperial core.

This is unequal exchange: the systematic transfer of value from a poorer country to a richer one, even at nominally “fair” market prices.

The arrangement suited the West very well, so long as China remained where it had been assigned, at the lower end of the global value chain – assembling, manufacturing, supplying cheap labour, while design, profit and prestige stayed in the West. What the West never grasped is that China had never agreed to occupy this position on a permanent basis.

The times they are a-changin’. Chinese firms – BYD, Geely, Xiaomi – have overtaken VW not only in China but across Latin America, Africa, and now the European Union itself, VW’s home turf. The company is slashing its model range by half, and reportedly preparing to lay off up to 100,000 workers and close four European factories.

How did China manage this, with no empire to plunder and no colonies to super-exploit? By leveraging the advantages it actually has: those of a vast socialist country with a fundamentally planned economy. The NYT, almost despite itself, lists them – state-controlled banks strategically issuing low-interest capital; local governments backing the new industries; a decades-long, state-directed bet on electric vehicles that Western firms lazily dismissed. This is the patient, planned, production-oriented development that neoliberalism forbids.

That is the real source of the anguish now emanating from the pages of the Western press. It is not simply that Volkswagen built the wrong cars. It is that the mechanism by which the imperial core has been enriching itself at the expense of the periphery is corroding – and a formerly poor, semi-colonised, blockaded nation has shown that the the economic chains of imperialism can be broken.

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

Sent just today by a friend in rural Ethiopia. "BYD are everywhere."

[Bert Hofman（郝福满） @berthofmanecon]

So you don't have to do it: the translation of the Main Indicator Table for the 15th Five Year Plan. You are welcome. A lot of continuity with the 14th Plan, down to the number of indicators. Only 2 dropped, and two new in the 15th Plan compared to the 14th Plan.

[Nikkei Asia @NikkeiAsia]

SoftBank to invest $2bn in Intel to become a top-10 shareholder https://t.co/Lwkpwkol7r

[The China-Global South Project @ChinaGSProject]

China’s Belt and Road Initiative shattered records in early 2025 with $124B in deals, signaling a renewed appetite for large-scale projects, especially in energy, mining, and fast-growing regions like Africa. https://t.co/Epg8Bs9yxp

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

texts from last night

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

Now, they only need basic ID and to sign a paper swearing they aren't blood related. Crazy drama is the new price of bumping up the birth rate in China. https://t.co/UPmfNj4Q1s

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

This is fun. While most of us are distracted by the trade war, China tweaked its marriage regulations...🧵

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

Eloping couples no longer need their family's hukou certificate (household registration) to run off into the sunset together. Previously, this effectively meant you either A) need your parents permission to get married or B) need to swipe it when they aren't looking...

[Nikkei Asia @NikkeiAsia]

China's Xi may visit U.S. in not-too-distant future, Trump says https://t.co/BIJrVBPHKF

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

@laurimyllyvirta

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

I wonder if it will be remembered some day that Beijing's Government Work Report this year promised to extend preschool to all Chinese citizens for the first time - the same year Trump ended federal funding for Head Start.

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

With a "team leader" in every government agency overseeing hiring decisions, is DOGE starting to look a teeny bit like the CCP's Central Organization Department?
https://t.co/6WEF43z1Hv

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

A friend trying to use DeepSeek in mainland China earlier today bumped into some challenges that don’t seem related to censorship. Is the shoestring budget approach to compute power showing limitations? [DeepSeek’s responses say the server is busy and to try again later]

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

@EvanFeigenbaum Or this gem. It's like telling a cruel sibling where you're ticklish, but please don't. https://t.co/fox17F8jGH

[𝙉𝙋𝘾 𝙊𝙗𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧 @NPC_Observer]

🚨 #NPC2024: Full text of Li Qiang's government work report:

- Chinese: https://t.co/Fau7ShtfDy
- English: https://t.co/4RON78DtFQ

A reminder that the report isn't final and subject to (minor) changes.

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

Flash gathering of young people celebrating halloween night in #beijing #drumtower. The police were standing around just watching but looking nervous. Not the best timing for the revelers with LKQ passing…but I guess there almost never “good timing” these days anyway

[Ryan Etzcorn @thosewholeft8]

@miket_32 @MaryGao @profjennabednar @Xiaohong__Xu @cjfariss Yeahhhhh Mikey! So proud.