July 23, 2025 • 15 mins
Asian equities climbed for a sixth consecutive day as signs the US will do more trade deals after striking a pact with Japan injected fresh vigor into stocks. Megacap tech is in focus after a number of key earnings reports. SK Hynix outlined plans to quicken spending on advanced memory chip capacity after reporting record earnings, reflecting surging AI demand and a drive to stay ahead of rivals. The South Korean company notched a bigger-than-expected 68% jump in operating income in the June quarter. Stateside, shares of Google parent Alphabet climbed in after-hours trading on better-than-expected revenue. Meantime, CEO Elon Musk warned of a hard year ahead for Tesla, adding to the automaker's woes after reporting one of its worst quarters of the last decade. We get reaction to the Tesla story from Michael Dunne, CEO at Dunne Insights. He speaks with Bloomberg's Shery Ahn and Haidi Stroud-Watts on The Asia Trade.
Plus - in her latest column, Bloomberg Opinion's Karishma Vaswani says hearsay about the inner workings of the Politburo has a long tradition of being wholly inaccurate. With that, intrigue over Chinese President Xi Jinping's future is no less than speculative, and the result of a succession crisis of his own making. She joins us to dissect the coded signals coming out of Beijing, and why the obsession with Xi's fate reflects the West's blind spots about Chinese politics.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to the Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Doug Chrisner. It
certainly is all about earnings and the focus is megacap tech.
After results from sk Heinex, Alphabet and Tesla, plus the
intrigue over President Chi Jinping's future will not cease. Bloomberg
opinion columnist Krishma Vaswani says it's the result of a
(00:30):
succession crisis of she's own making. We'll check in with
her momentarily, but as promised, we begin with those big
tech earnings. Early on Thursday, the Korean chip maker sk
Heinis reported record operating profit for the second quarter. The
six point seven billion dollar haul was driven by the
company's dominance in high bandwidth memory chips. Revenue sixteen point
(00:53):
one billion that was eight percent higher than projections here
in the States, Alphabet beat Wall Street expectations for second
quarter revenue. However, shares were down after the tech giant
warned of higher spending ahead. The Google parent posted sales
of eighty one point seven billion excluding partner payouts, but
capital expenditures are forecast hit eighty five billion dollars in
(01:16):
twenty twenty five. That would be up from seventy five
billion the company previously forecast. Mandeep saying is senior tech
analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
One third of their business is cloud and YouTube and
that's still growing north off twenty five percent. So to
my mind, they are showing ROI on all that AI spend,
and if they have more AI infrastructure capacity, the cloud
business would be growing even faster.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
That is Mandeep saying from Bloomberg Intelligence. And last, but
not least, Tesla's second quarter results fell short of Wall
Street estimates. Revenue was down by twelve percent for the
quarter compared to last year, to twenty two and a
half billion. That is the sharpest sales decline for Tesla
in over a decade and facing the prospect of lost
(02:02):
incentives from the United States, CEO Elon Musk issued this
warning on the earnings call.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
We probably could have a few rough quarters. I'm not
saying it will, but we could.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
That is Elon Musk. And for a closer look at
the Tesla story, we heard from Michael Dunn, CEO at
Dun Insights. He spoke with Bloomberg TV host Cherry On
and Heidi Stroud.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Watts how much of one's view on Tesla and Elon Musk,
by extension, depends on whether you see this as a
straightforward auto company or an AI and robotics company. And
he's that sort of through different lens that you would
have seen these results plus the warning.
Speaker 6 (02:38):
Yes, one hundred percent difference depending on how you see
the company. So a year ago Elon Musk was talking
about extreme capacity building twenty million evs a year. He
doesn't talk about that anymore. He looked down the road
at EV's and said, I don't want to try to
compete with the Chinese on EV's and price. I'm going
a different direction, wide open highway called robotaxis and autonomy.
(03:02):
That's where he's taken all of his chips and placed
him on that bet robotaxis today in Austin, very soon
in places like London, Sydney, Paris, Rome, Los Angeles.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
So it's all about AI and robotics.
Speaker 6 (03:18):
And you'll hear him talk less and less about batteries
and electric cars.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
And you're still saying that there's very few that would
dare best against in La Masque. Even in this uncertain
leadership and regulatory environment, right, there's still plenty of concerns
recently revived. When it comes to how much sort of
political distraction he has at the moment.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
When you think about it, it's almost amazing that Tesla
sold any cars in the most recent quarter. He's managed
to upset both Republicans and Democrats here in the United States.
Germans I talked to in Europe, No, we're done with Tesla.
In China, he's surrounded by formidable competitors like Shall me Lee,
Auto Neo and others XPUM, So he's definitely the company's
(04:04):
definitely under pressure and he's done the company no favors
on the public relations front. But never underestimate Tesla's ability
to surprise to the upside through AI, through technology breakthroughs.
Customers are still buying the cars despite all of this friction.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
When it comes to capital free cash flow, when it
comes to really the performance and just metrics, how much
of a dent will it make that the incentives like
the EV tax credits are expected to go away.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
This hurts, no doubt about it.
Speaker 6 (04:37):
And if Elon Musk says differently, well, we'd have to
discount those words because number one, on terrorist there's a
three hundred million dollar hit and number two EV tax
credits are definitely an incentive, especially here in the United States,
for people too who are on the fence to say, yeah,
let me try an EV because I'm going to get
the tax credit that's going away, and that hurts Tesla,
(04:58):
but by extension, it also it hurts all other automakers
in the space. So for that reason, one has to
remain still slightly optimistic about Tesla's chances, just because Elon
Musk is a once in a million years kind of entrepreneur,
(05:18):
and he's in SpaceX and he's in Xai.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
He's doing a lot of things, and it feels like
he's a few steps ahead of us. So that's why
the stock is.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
Still valued up around a trillion dollars, much higher than
any other automaker, including Toyota, which makes amazing profits the
dwarf Teslas today. So investors are still holding their ground, saying, yeah,
we're going to give Elon benefit of the doubt, even
though current sales outlook is not strong.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
You mentioned Toyota, the stock did phenomenally well after we
saw that fifteen percent a tariff agreement with the United States.
How much of a difference does this make for Japanese carmakers,
especially when it comes to relative competitive edge against other
carmakers in other regions.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
Yeah, Toyota and others are popping the champagne today in
Japan because they're just delighted with the outcome. You know,
keep in mind, Japan sells millions of cars into the
United States every year. The US sells a few thousand
back into Japan, So the Japanese negotiators would have been worried,
are they going to slam the door shut? Are they
(06:26):
going to hit us with super high tariffs? That was
not the outcome, and as a result, Toyota and Honda
and other Japanese automakers are feeling really good today.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Welcome don Really good to have you with a CEO
of Done Insight.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Welcome back to the Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Doug Chrisner.
It's time to check in with Bloomberg opinion columnist Krishma
Vaswani has been writing about how the rumors in China
about the political elite are not dying. I'm pleased to
say she joins us now, Kirishima, It's always a pleasure.
Thank you so very much for making the time to
chat with me and I know that this is an
(07:11):
extremely sensitive topic. What is the most important thing to
bear in mind when discussing the ruling class in China?
Speaker 7 (07:19):
Well, I think the most important thing to bear in
mind when we have a discussion about China's political elite
is that historically, hearsay about how the politbureau, the inner
workings of the pollt bureau, there's been a long tradition
of that being wholly inaccurate. You know, we've had rumors
come out from time to time predicting X, Y and
(07:42):
z about the future of certain political figures within the
Chinese Communist Party, and for the most part, you know,
ninety nine percent of the time they've been wrong. And
one really striking example comes to mind back in twenty
eleven when a Hong Kong TV station reported mistakenly that
the former Chinese president Youngsomen had died, and that was
(08:03):
actually eleven years before his actual death in twenty twenty two.
And I think the reason behind these kinds of I
make that point because of the fact that there is
so little that we do know about what's going on
in the inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party that
when these rumors come out, people are quick to sort of,
you know, circulate them. There's a lot of Chinese whispers,
(08:26):
forgive the pun, and there are a lot of conclusions
drawn about what is happening, but they've pretty much always
been inaccurate.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Can you help me understand how this speculation kind of
fits in with the notion that President Chi has been
for a while very involved in kind of anti corruption.
We know, the big campaign that was put in place
a couple of years back. I think it's continuing. Always
helped me understand the context.
Speaker 7 (08:56):
Yeah, so, you know, the intrigue of a president sejen
Ping and what he does in China is no less speculative,
but there are a few things that we are able
to decipher. The other aspect of this, of course, is
the fact that there's no clear succession plan in place
as of now, and I think that also creates an
atmosphere of uncertainty which allows for more of these rumors
to circulate. But specifically to do with the anti corruption
(09:20):
drive that he's put in place during his tenure. I
think one of the things that really struck me was
the quick succession of the defense ministers that have fallen
foul of these new regulations or sort of new norms.
I think it would be a better way to describe that.
And we've seen stories about the trouble in the sort
(09:43):
of higher echelons of Chinese power, and the biggest consequence
of that is an indication that Sigenping's power has in
fact cemented because he is getting rid of people apparently,
at least from what we can see that he appears
to deem not productive or not consequential to the way
(10:05):
he wants to run the country and in particular the
defense forces. So I think what you can draw from
that is that his power is actually growing for the
most part, and I think that's a really important takeaway
from what we've seen in terms of the political ramifications
and consequences of the inner workings of the polypber.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So, back in March twenty eighteen, as you well know,
the National People's Congress approved the removal of that two
year term limit on the presidency, and that effectively allowed
presidency to remain in powerful life. Is that a part
of the story as well? Do you think?
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Yes?
Speaker 7 (10:41):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (10:42):
And you know, at every.
Speaker 7 (10:43):
Stage Jinping has defied convention to solidify his grip. Some
analysts that I've been speaking to long term China watches.
You know, there's a phrase that I thought was particularly
apt for this conversation, and that you know, the consensus
is that he will likely rule China until he goes
to meet Marx, which means basically until he meets his maker.
(11:08):
And what has been really evident is that he's been
successful in doing this, which goes to show that the
alliances that he's made or the people that he's removed
from power, at every stage, the strategy has appeared to
have worked. And that's despite the fact that, you know,
the economy has been in a weak spot. That's despite
the fact that he is fighting this trade war with
(11:29):
Donald Trump, and that you know, people in the country
are definitely feeling the impact of what highatariffs could mean
for them and their businesses. He seems to have consistently
just been able to cement and solidify his grip on power,
even going so far as to rule past the retirement
(11:50):
age of sixty eight, ignoring previous norms that have indicated
leaders of that age or olders should retire.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
So that's a great point. Do we need to consider
his age in this? And I'm wondering whether we need
to also consider what the aspirations are of the next generation.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
It's hard to.
Speaker 7 (12:07):
Say at this moment, given the fact that all of
these rumors are still circulating. One of the things that
I found really interesting in my research for this column
was the fact that there's been a revival of the
Cold War era practice of something called peaking ology, which
is effectively just reading the tea leaves from the parties
inner circle, and people that are based in China will
(12:29):
tell you as well that reporting on what's going on
there has become a bit of sort of a black
books because it's so hard to decipher or to get
concrete information about what's happening on the ground. But I
think what that shows is that we will continue to
have these sorts of rumors going forward, and for the
most part, none of them will be true.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Can you give me a sense of how this is
being presented to citizens in China visa vise state media?
Speaker 7 (12:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Sure.
Speaker 7 (12:56):
If you look at how sheetin Ping is presented in
state media. There is a cult of personality that is
obvious that they're trying to create around him, and it's
been very very effective, so much so that when he
starts to disappear or there's a perceived absence of his
on in state media. International media tends to draw conclusions
about that. But there's been an interesting study by the
(13:18):
China Media Project assessing whether or not he really had
been downplayed in government publications recently. And the answer actually
is that, according to their reporting, that not only does
he remain dominant, but there are no signs of advancement
by any member of the politbureau standing committee. And what
I think this shows is just how much of a
(13:39):
big figure he continues to remain in state media and
that cult of personality that I was talking about, which
is then parleyed to citizens in China.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
One of the things that you touched on a moment
ago was the trade war that's going on right now
with the United States, and I'm wondering how this has
impacted the feeling of nationalism in China and whether that
is kind of intersecting a little bit with what we're
talking about.
Speaker 7 (14:04):
Yeah, it is in a sense that it's been used
highly effectively, both in some of the rhetoric that you
hear from Siegenping but also other officials and in state
media when describing the trade war with the United States.
I think you know, the language has been pretty firm,
like we're not going to stand down. We're going to
(14:25):
defend our rights against what the United States has often
been called a bully in the state media and the
official language there. And I think what that does is
definitely create a sense of national pride on the part
of Chinese citizens because they and it's a familiar narrative, right,
the narrative that the United States is trying to keep
(14:48):
China down, that it's trying to stop its rise. That
feeds into what Siegenping has consistently said about how the
East is rising and the West is in decline. I
think that's a very useful narrative at a time when
the Chinese economy perhaps isn't in the strongest position or
as strong as it has been in the past. Everybody
(15:09):
always needs a bad guy, and in this situation, the
US is a very convenient bad guy.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Karishma will leave it there. Thank you so very much,
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Karishma Vaswani joining us here on the
Daybreak Asia podcast. Thanks for listening to today's episode of
the Bloomberg Daybreak Asia Edition podcast. Each weekday, we look
at the story shaping markets finance and geopolitics in the
(15:34):
Asia Pacific. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, the
Bloomberg Podcast YouTube channel, or anywhere else you listen. Join
us again tomorrow for insight on the market moves from
Hong Kong to Singapore and Australia. I'm Doug Chrisner, and
this is Bloomberg
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to the Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Doug Chrisner. It
certainly is all about earnings and the focus is megacap tech.
After results from sk Heinex, Alphabet and Tesla, plus the
intrigue over President Chi Jinping's future will not cease. Bloomberg
opinion columnist Krishma Vaswani says it's the result of a
(00:30):
succession crisis of she's own making. We'll check in with
her momentarily, but as promised, we begin with those big
tech earnings. Early on Thursday, the Korean chip maker sk
Heinis reported record operating profit for the second quarter. The
six point seven billion dollar haul was driven by the
company's dominance in high bandwidth memory chips. Revenue sixteen point
(00:53):
one billion that was eight percent higher than projections here
in the States, Alphabet beat Wall Street expectations for second
quarter revenue. However, shares were down after the tech giant
warned of higher spending ahead. The Google parent posted sales
of eighty one point seven billion excluding partner payouts, but
capital expenditures are forecast hit eighty five billion dollars in
(01:16):
twenty twenty five. That would be up from seventy five
billion the company previously forecast. Mandeep saying is senior tech
analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
One third of their business is cloud and YouTube and
that's still growing north off twenty five percent. So to
my mind, they are showing ROI on all that AI spend,
and if they have more AI infrastructure capacity, the cloud
business would be growing even faster.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
That is Mandeep saying from Bloomberg Intelligence. And last, but
not least, Tesla's second quarter results fell short of Wall
Street estimates. Revenue was down by twelve percent for the
quarter compared to last year, to twenty two and a
half billion. That is the sharpest sales decline for Tesla
in over a decade and facing the prospect of lost
(02:02):
incentives from the United States, CEO Elon Musk issued this
warning on the earnings call.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
We probably could have a few rough quarters. I'm not
saying it will, but we could.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
That is Elon Musk. And for a closer look at
the Tesla story, we heard from Michael Dunn, CEO at
Dun Insights. He spoke with Bloomberg TV host Cherry On
and Heidi Stroud.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Watts how much of one's view on Tesla and Elon Musk,
by extension, depends on whether you see this as a
straightforward auto company or an AI and robotics company. And
he's that sort of through different lens that you would
have seen these results plus the warning.
Speaker 6 (02:38):
Yes, one hundred percent difference depending on how you see
the company. So a year ago Elon Musk was talking
about extreme capacity building twenty million evs a year. He
doesn't talk about that anymore. He looked down the road
at EV's and said, I don't want to try to
compete with the Chinese on EV's and price. I'm going
a different direction, wide open highway called robotaxis and autonomy.
(03:02):
That's where he's taken all of his chips and placed
him on that bet robotaxis today in Austin, very soon
in places like London, Sydney, Paris, Rome, Los Angeles.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
So it's all about AI and robotics.
Speaker 6 (03:18):
And you'll hear him talk less and less about batteries
and electric cars.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
And you're still saying that there's very few that would
dare best against in La Masque. Even in this uncertain
leadership and regulatory environment, right, there's still plenty of concerns
recently revived. When it comes to how much sort of
political distraction he has at the moment.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
When you think about it, it's almost amazing that Tesla
sold any cars in the most recent quarter. He's managed
to upset both Republicans and Democrats here in the United States.
Germans I talked to in Europe, No, we're done with Tesla.
In China, he's surrounded by formidable competitors like Shall me Lee,
Auto Neo and others XPUM, So he's definitely the company's
(04:04):
definitely under pressure and he's done the company no favors
on the public relations front. But never underestimate Tesla's ability
to surprise to the upside through AI, through technology breakthroughs.
Customers are still buying the cars despite all of this friction.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
When it comes to capital free cash flow, when it
comes to really the performance and just metrics, how much
of a dent will it make that the incentives like
the EV tax credits are expected to go away.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
This hurts, no doubt about it.
Speaker 6 (04:37):
And if Elon Musk says differently, well, we'd have to
discount those words because number one, on terrorist there's a
three hundred million dollar hit and number two EV tax
credits are definitely an incentive, especially here in the United States,
for people too who are on the fence to say, yeah,
let me try an EV because I'm going to get
the tax credit that's going away, and that hurts Tesla,
(04:58):
but by extension, it also it hurts all other automakers
in the space. So for that reason, one has to
remain still slightly optimistic about Tesla's chances, just because Elon
Musk is a once in a million years kind of entrepreneur,
(05:18):
and he's in SpaceX and he's in Xai.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
He's doing a lot of things, and it feels like
he's a few steps ahead of us. So that's why
the stock is.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
Still valued up around a trillion dollars, much higher than
any other automaker, including Toyota, which makes amazing profits the
dwarf Teslas today. So investors are still holding their ground, saying, yeah,
we're going to give Elon benefit of the doubt, even
though current sales outlook is not strong.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
You mentioned Toyota, the stock did phenomenally well after we
saw that fifteen percent a tariff agreement with the United States.
How much of a difference does this make for Japanese carmakers,
especially when it comes to relative competitive edge against other
carmakers in other regions.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
Yeah, Toyota and others are popping the champagne today in
Japan because they're just delighted with the outcome. You know,
keep in mind, Japan sells millions of cars into the
United States every year. The US sells a few thousand
back into Japan, So the Japanese negotiators would have been worried,
are they going to slam the door shut? Are they
(06:26):
going to hit us with super high tariffs? That was
not the outcome, and as a result, Toyota and Honda
and other Japanese automakers are feeling really good today.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Welcome don Really good to have you with a CEO
of Done Insight.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Welcome back to the Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Doug Chrisner.
It's time to check in with Bloomberg opinion columnist Krishma
Vaswani has been writing about how the rumors in China
about the political elite are not dying. I'm pleased to
say she joins us now, Kirishima, It's always a pleasure.
Thank you so very much for making the time to
chat with me and I know that this is an
(07:11):
extremely sensitive topic. What is the most important thing to
bear in mind when discussing the ruling class in China?
Speaker 7 (07:19):
Well, I think the most important thing to bear in
mind when we have a discussion about China's political elite
is that historically, hearsay about how the politbureau, the inner
workings of the pollt bureau, there's been a long tradition
of that being wholly inaccurate. You know, we've had rumors
come out from time to time predicting X, Y and
(07:42):
z about the future of certain political figures within the
Chinese Communist Party, and for the most part, you know,
ninety nine percent of the time they've been wrong. And
one really striking example comes to mind back in twenty
eleven when a Hong Kong TV station reported mistakenly that
the former Chinese president Youngsomen had died, and that was
(08:03):
actually eleven years before his actual death in twenty twenty two.
And I think the reason behind these kinds of I
make that point because of the fact that there is
so little that we do know about what's going on
in the inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party that
when these rumors come out, people are quick to sort of,
you know, circulate them. There's a lot of Chinese whispers,
(08:26):
forgive the pun, and there are a lot of conclusions
drawn about what is happening, but they've pretty much always
been inaccurate.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Can you help me understand how this speculation kind of
fits in with the notion that President Chi has been
for a while very involved in kind of anti corruption.
We know, the big campaign that was put in place
a couple of years back. I think it's continuing. Always
helped me understand the context.
Speaker 7 (08:56):
Yeah, so, you know, the intrigue of a president sejen
Ping and what he does in China is no less speculative,
but there are a few things that we are able
to decipher. The other aspect of this, of course, is
the fact that there's no clear succession plan in place
as of now, and I think that also creates an
atmosphere of uncertainty which allows for more of these rumors
to circulate. But specifically to do with the anti corruption
(09:20):
drive that he's put in place during his tenure. I
think one of the things that really struck me was
the quick succession of the defense ministers that have fallen
foul of these new regulations or sort of new norms.
I think it would be a better way to describe that.
And we've seen stories about the trouble in the sort
(09:43):
of higher echelons of Chinese power, and the biggest consequence
of that is an indication that Sigenping's power has in
fact cemented because he is getting rid of people apparently,
at least from what we can see that he appears
to deem not productive or not consequential to the way
(10:05):
he wants to run the country and in particular the
defense forces. So I think what you can draw from
that is that his power is actually growing for the
most part, and I think that's a really important takeaway
from what we've seen in terms of the political ramifications
and consequences of the inner workings of the polypber.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So, back in March twenty eighteen, as you well know,
the National People's Congress approved the removal of that two
year term limit on the presidency, and that effectively allowed
presidency to remain in powerful life. Is that a part
of the story as well? Do you think?
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Yes?
Speaker 7 (10:41):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (10:42):
And you know, at every.
Speaker 7 (10:43):
Stage Jinping has defied convention to solidify his grip. Some
analysts that I've been speaking to long term China watches.
You know, there's a phrase that I thought was particularly
apt for this conversation, and that you know, the consensus
is that he will likely rule China until he goes
to meet Marx, which means basically until he meets his maker.
(11:08):
And what has been really evident is that he's been
successful in doing this, which goes to show that the
alliances that he's made or the people that he's removed
from power, at every stage, the strategy has appeared to
have worked. And that's despite the fact that, you know,
the economy has been in a weak spot. That's despite
the fact that he is fighting this trade war with
(11:29):
Donald Trump, and that you know, people in the country
are definitely feeling the impact of what highatariffs could mean
for them and their businesses. He seems to have consistently
just been able to cement and solidify his grip on power,
even going so far as to rule past the retirement
(11:50):
age of sixty eight, ignoring previous norms that have indicated
leaders of that age or olders should retire.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
So that's a great point. Do we need to consider
his age in this? And I'm wondering whether we need
to also consider what the aspirations are of the next generation.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
It's hard to.
Speaker 7 (12:07):
Say at this moment, given the fact that all of
these rumors are still circulating. One of the things that
I found really interesting in my research for this column
was the fact that there's been a revival of the
Cold War era practice of something called peaking ology, which
is effectively just reading the tea leaves from the parties
inner circle, and people that are based in China will
(12:29):
tell you as well that reporting on what's going on
there has become a bit of sort of a black
books because it's so hard to decipher or to get
concrete information about what's happening on the ground. But I
think what that shows is that we will continue to
have these sorts of rumors going forward, and for the
most part, none of them will be true.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Can you give me a sense of how this is
being presented to citizens in China visa vise state media?
Speaker 7 (12:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Sure.
Speaker 7 (12:56):
If you look at how sheetin Ping is presented in
state media. There is a cult of personality that is
obvious that they're trying to create around him, and it's
been very very effective, so much so that when he
starts to disappear or there's a perceived absence of his
on in state media. International media tends to draw conclusions
about that. But there's been an interesting study by the
(13:18):
China Media Project assessing whether or not he really had
been downplayed in government publications recently. And the answer actually
is that, according to their reporting, that not only does
he remain dominant, but there are no signs of advancement
by any member of the politbureau standing committee. And what
I think this shows is just how much of a
(13:39):
big figure he continues to remain in state media and
that cult of personality that I was talking about, which
is then parleyed to citizens in China.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
One of the things that you touched on a moment
ago was the trade war that's going on right now
with the United States, and I'm wondering how this has
impacted the feeling of nationalism in China and whether that
is kind of intersecting a little bit with what we're
talking about.
Speaker 7 (14:04):
Yeah, it is in a sense that it's been used
highly effectively, both in some of the rhetoric that you
hear from Siegenping but also other officials and in state
media when describing the trade war with the United States.
I think you know, the language has been pretty firm,
like we're not going to stand down. We're going to
(14:25):
defend our rights against what the United States has often
been called a bully in the state media and the
official language there. And I think what that does is
definitely create a sense of national pride on the part
of Chinese citizens because they and it's a familiar narrative, right,
the narrative that the United States is trying to keep
(14:48):
China down, that it's trying to stop its rise. That
feeds into what Siegenping has consistently said about how the
East is rising and the West is in decline. I
think that's a very useful narrative at a time when
the Chinese economy perhaps isn't in the strongest position or
as strong as it has been in the past. Everybody
(15:09):
always needs a bad guy, and in this situation, the
US is a very convenient bad guy.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Karishma will leave it there. Thank you so very much,
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Karishma Vaswani joining us here on the
Daybreak Asia podcast. Thanks for listening to today's episode of
the Bloomberg Daybreak Asia Edition podcast. Each weekday, we look
at the story shaping markets finance and geopolitics in the
(15:34):
Asia Pacific. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, the
Bloomberg Podcast YouTube channel, or anywhere else you listen. Join
us again tomorrow for insight on the market moves from
Hong Kong to Singapore and Australia. I'm Doug Chrisner, and
this is Bloomberg
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