ChinaEconTalk

Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics and Political Science at Berkeley (not to mention one of my favorite authors of accessible yet profound global economics books) recently published his How Global Currencies Work: Past, Present, and Future. We talk about the rise of the US Dollar and how its transition to global leader was slower and more gradual than many have thought. We then turn to the Yuan and the challenges it faces as the government pushes the currency's internationalization.

Max Zhou 周喆吾 is an Uber alum who until November of 2017 was the head of Mobile at Mobike. He is currently working as the co-founder of Meta App.

Max talks about his story coming to the US for an advanced degree, his experience at Uber, why Travis Kalanick is really a Chinese entrepreneur at heart, and his take on China's 'Uber Mafia.'

He then turns to Mobike and Ofo, speaking to the potential monetization pathways for the firms, their global expansion plans, their strategic investors' competing goals and merger prospects. He even shares his own crackpot theory of how the initial investors in Ofo and Mobike may be the ones leaking negative stories about Ofo spending deposit money and senior leadership living lavish lifestyles. We close by talking about his new project, MetaApp, which aims to allow users access to an app's full feature-set without having to download it.

Max also recently appeared on 非诚勿扰, China's leading dating show. His segment starts about twenty minutes in.

Chinese words used:

道德=ethics, morality

线下流量=offline visits

阴谋=conspiracy

Keller Easterling, architect and professor at Yale, discusses her research on free zones (aka Special Economic Zones). We start by discussing the history of free zones and whether the Chinese success stories of SEZs such as Shenzhen drove their proliferation around the world. We also discuss a few more next-generation free zone proposals such as the NEOM project in Saudi Arabia and Refugee Cities.

Peter Lorentzen, professor of economics at the University of San Francisco, talks protests and provincial politics. We start by discussing 'Designing Contentious Politics in Post-1989 China,' which uses game theory to analyze and explain how the CCP responds to on-the-ground protests. Next, we take on his 'Racing to the Bottom or to the Top? Decentralization, Revenue Pressures, and Governance Reform in China' and explore what actually drives municipal responses to orders from on high.

Music this week by 阴三儿, 北京晚报 and 没钱没朋友.

Do note that after this episode was recorded, some protests against "low-end population" removal broke out.

Matt Sheehan is a fellow at the Paulson Institute and writes his own newsletter, "Chinafornia". We discussed the evolving relationship between China and Silicon Valley, their cultural differences and commonalities and, of course, the state of Chinese rap music. Stay tuned until the end of the episode to hear Matt's favorite Chinese rap song in full.