Actionable insights for successful China-related business and investment, with a human touch <br/><br/><a href="https://www.baiguan.news?utm_medium=podcast">www.baiguan.news</a>
China Biz Talk - Baiguan Radio
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Actionable insights for successful China-related business and investment, with a human touch <br/><br/><a href="https://www.baiguan.news?utm_medium=podcast">www.baiguan.news</a>
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8/14/2023
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Recent Episodes
August 5, 2026
DeepSeek, LVMH vs Molly Tea, state of economy - Baiguan Radio #39
<p>Episode in brief</p><p>• Louis Vuitton won in court but may be losing with consumers. Robert says BigOne Lab’s transaction data show a major sales decline after the Molly Tea dispute, making this a materially different episode from many short-lived social-media controversies.</p><p>• DeepSeek’s leaked investor call reinforces the image of a mission-driven company. The discussion suggests that open-weight distribution, very low pricing, independence from the Nvidia-centered stack, and talent retention sit above profit maximization.</p><p>• China’s first-half economy remains sharply uneven. Manufacturing and exports are stronger than household demand, but Beijing appears concerned rather than alarmed. Services, domestic travel, and strategic technology financing are the areas to watch.</p><p><strong>Guest perspective:</strong> <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/13973899-olivia-plotnick">Olivia Plotnick</a> is an American entrepreneur and marketing professional who has lived in China for about a decade and writes at <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/72830459-who-what-wai">who what wai</a>. Over the past 18 months, <a target="_blank" href="https://whowhatwai.substack.com/p/what-60-days-in-chinas-lower-tier?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2">she has traveled to nearly 50 Chinese cities</a>, bringing a consumer and brand perspective from beyond the largest urban centers.</p><p>Louis Vuitton vs. Molly Tea: a legal victory, a commercial setback</p><p>What happened</p><p>You may read <a target="_blank" href="https://www.baiguan.news/p/louis-vuitton-lvmh-molly-tea-china-trademark-lawsuit-backlash-toilet-bag-meme-sales-drop-baoxiang-flower-cultural-appropriation-bigone-lab">our previous article</a> on this topic to have a grasp of the incident.</p><p>The data suggest the backlash is commercially material</p><p>Robert says BigOne Lab’s offline transaction data show LV sales declining since the controversy began. That persistence matters. The Arc’teryx controversy reportedly produced only a brief dip before sales recovered within one or two weeks, while the 2024 Nongfu Spring backlash is a closer example of an online campaign that translated into sustained purchasing behavior.</p><p>“They won the legal battle but they’ve lost massively on the business and commercial front.”<strong>Robert Wu</strong></p><p>Why consumers turned against LV</p><p>The podcast rejects the simplest explanation, that this is merely nationalist sentiment. Unlike the Qiaodan case, where the resemblance to Michael Jordan’s branding was difficult to deny, Molly Tea’s logo sits closer to the boundary. Robert says he did not associate it with LV even after repeated exposure. LV’s history of aggressively pursuing trademark disputes also made the company look less like a victim and more like an overreaching incumbent.</p><p>Robert offers a second interpretation: after years of criticism that China under-protects foreign intellectual property, some consumers now worry that courts may be overcorrecting in favor of foreign companies. </p><p>The brand-response problem</p><p>Olivia’s communications advice is not to confuse speed with effectiveness. Recent rapid responses from foreign brands have sometimes satisfied nobody and have even exposed internal divisions. Yet prolonged silence allows other actors to define the story. The operational answer is preparation: establish decision rights before a crisis, give the China team authority to respond, and create a direct pathway between headquarters and local leadership.</p><p>“Staying completely silent for too long leaves a void for people to fill.”<strong>Olivia Plotnick</strong></p><p>Beijing’s message may be indirect</p><p>Robert’s reading is that Beijing is displeased but constrained. Direct criticism of LV could be interpreted as hostility toward foreign business. Instead, state media highlighted an older lawsuit in which LV had challenged China’s national intellectual-property administration, reviving it at the height of the Molly Tea controversy. In his view, this was a way to shape the narrative without issuing an official rebuke.</p><p>“That’s the fascinating thing about Chinese politics: it’s subtle.”<strong>Robert Wu</strong></p><p>Business implications</p><p>• A courtroom win does not protect brand equity when consumers see the enforcement itself as unfair.</p><p>• Online controversy should be measured through sales persistence, not social-media volume alone.</p><p>• Foreign brands need pre-authorized local crisis protocols. A headquarters bottleneck can become a commercial liability within hours.</p><p>• A repeated legal posture can create cumulative reputational damage that a one-off apology cannot repair.</p><p>DeepSeek’s leaked investor call: mission, pricing, and strategic independence</p><p>Why the leak matters</p><p>The investor call took place months earlier, but the transcript surfaced only recently. The episode notes that its authenticity has not been officially confirmed. Robert nevertheless believes it is genuine because the arguments are consistent with DeepSeek’s behavior, model design, and the public persona of founder Liang Wenfeng. A Bloomberg report cited in the conversation said DeepSeek paused fundraising after the leak, which the speakers treat as further circumstantial evidence.</p><p>Open weight as the objective, not a marketing tactic</p><p>The most important distinction is motive. Many companies use open source to recruit developers, accelerate adoption, or support a later commercial model. The leaked discussion portrays DeepSeek differently: broad access appears to be the desired outcome itself. Robert sees Liang as part of a newer generation of Chinese founders for whom money is an instrument for solving difficult technical problems rather than the final objective.</p><p>“For DeepSeek, it sounds like open source is the end goal itself, not just a means.”<strong>Robert Wu</strong></p><p>The Nvidia dilemma</p><p>The transcript also makes explicit a strategic direction already visible in Chinese AI: reduce dependence on the US-centered technology stack, especially Nvidia. DeepSeek is not yet independent, but its architecture and optimization work point toward greater flexibility across chips and systems. This creates a three-way misalignment. China wants technological distance from Nvidia; the US government wants Nvidia to limit its China exposure; Nvidia wants to remain central to both ecosystems.</p><p>“China wants distance from Nvidia, the US government also wants Nvidia to keep its distance from China, but Nvidia itself wants to stay in the center of it all.”<strong>Robert Wu</strong></p><p>AI as infrastructure rather than a premium product</p><p>Olivia compares DeepSeek’s low-price strategy with China’s manufacturing playbook: enter cheaply, improve quality, and expand global adoption. Robert sees an analogy but not an exact match. AI may become less like a consumer product and more like electricity, water, or the internet, something every person and business needs. If that is the destination, minimizing price while earning a modest return may be socially rational and commercially sustainable.</p><p>“We’re talking about something that could become genuinely necessary to human life. That’s the key difference.”<strong>Robert Wu</strong></p><p>What happens next</p><p>Robert does not expect a public explanation. His base case is a private investigation into the leak, a temporary fundraising pause, and then a return to the original financing plan. Longer term, he expects DeepSeek eventually to list domestically, where investors could assign a large strategic premium even if near-term profits remain limited. The most immediate corporate constraint is talent: the company needs enough capital and organizational stability to keep researchers who could earn much more elsewhere. This is Robert’s outlook, not a confirmed company plan.</p><p>Investor implications</p><p>• DeepSeek’s core value may be adoption and ecosystem influence rather than near-term pricing power.</p><p>• Nvidia faces pressure from both geopolitics and Chinese substitution, even while commercial incentives pull it toward the China market.</p><p>• Talent retention, fundraising resumption, and any movement toward a domestic listing are the practical milestones to monitor.</p><p>• Chinese open-weight models may function as technology exports and soft power, particularly in cost-sensitive markets.</p><p>China’s H1 economy: strong supply, weak demand, and no dramatic pivot</p><p>The K-shaped data</p><p>The first-half figures cited in the episode show a clear divergence between industrial activity and household demand. Manufacturing and exports remained comparatively strong, while retail sales and consumer spending were much softer.</p><p>Why Beijing is not signaling a September 2024-style pivot</p><p>Robert’s macro takeaway is that Beijing appears concerned, but not alarmed. The Politburo meeting pointed to fiscal spending that had not been completed in the first half and could be deployed later in the year, but it did not signal extraordinary stimulus. Household and investor sentiment are not strong, yet they are less fragile than in 2023 and 2024. People have adjusted to a slower-growth environment, reducing the urgency for a dramatic intervention.</p><p>“Right now it’s not great, but people have adjusted to this new normal.”<strong>Robert Wu</strong></p><p>The service economy is the main bright spot</p><p>The more constructive micro story is services. Robert says service activity has continued to grow at roughly 5% even while retail sales remain tepid. Travel, museums, small towns, and domestic destinations feel busy on the ground. Better infrastructure and discovery through Xiaohongshu and Douyin have made domestic travel easier and more attractive than it was a decade ago. Services also matter because they spread income more broadly than capital-intensive industrial growth.</p><p>“Even as retail sales stay tepid, sometimes negative, the service sector has kept growing at around 5%.”<strong>Robert Wu</strong></p><p>Beijing’s policy reaction function</p><p>If current conditions persist, Robert sees little reason for a large stimulus package. He identifies two practical red lines. The first is capital-market stability, especially the ability of strategic technology companies to raise money and complete major listings. He cites visible support around CXMT’s IPO as an example. The second is social stability: a sharper deterioration in consumer sentiment that produces visible social stress could trigger a response closer to September 2024. Absent those conditions, continuity is more likely than a major pivot.</p><p>What business leaders and investors should watch next?</p><p>• <strong>LV recovery and crisis governance:</strong> whether the sales decline persists and whether global headquarters give China teams faster decision rights.</p><p>• <strong>DeepSeek financing and talent:</strong> the timing of a fundraising restart, senior departures, compensation changes, or signs of a domestic listing path.</p><p>• <strong>Chinese model adoption:</strong> global usage, pricing, and the extent to which open-weight models become an export platform in emerging markets.</p><p>• <strong>Services versus goods:</strong> whether travel and other services continue to grow near 5% while retail remains weak.</p><p>• <strong>Policy triggers:</strong> direct support for strategic technology IPOs, a sharper decline in consumer confidence, or language that resembles the September 2024 policy pivot.</p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.baiguan.news/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2">www.baiguan.news/subscribe</a>
February 3, 2026
After Maduro, how does Latin America really see China today - Baiguan Radio #38
<p>In this episode of Baiguan Radio, I speak again with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/bragancajoaop/">Mr. João Philippe de Orléans e Bragança</a>, a Brazilian macro hedge fund manager with long experience living and working in China, about how China is actually perceived on the ground in Brazil and across South America. </p><p>We talk about why Chinese influence in the region looks very different from Europe or the US, how companies like BYD have quietly reshaped public opinion, why Latin America is more complementary than competitive with China, and what Chinese investors often misunderstand about Brazil. This is a conversation about perception versus reality, geopolitics versus everyday economics, and why Latin America is becoming an increasingly important part of China’s global story. </p><p>João is a macro investor and a portfolio manager at <a target="_blank" href="https://absoluteinvestimentos.com.br/">Absolute Investments</a>, Brazil’s largest hedge fund with $11bln in AUM. João lives in São Paulo, but has lived for many years in Asia, mostly in Singapore, but also in Shanghai, which he claims to be his favourite city. (Just to refresh your memory, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.baiguan.news/p/rmb-appreciation-why-its-happening">in our episode #37</a>, João shared his bullish view about RMB, which has been validated since then.)</p><p>We are thrilled for Baiguan Radio to become a forum for all of you to exchange and debate your insights. So please find us whenever you have something to say.</p><p>Table of Contents</p><p>03:40 | How Brazilians see China today</p><p>07:45 | BYD and China’s “Best Ambassador”</p><p>11:20 | Fear of economic invasion</p><p>13:15 | Why Brazil is attracting Chinese capital</p><p>16:10 | Chinese companies in Brazil: reality vs narrative</p><p>20:00 | Latin America and US–China rivalry</p><p>25:00 | Services, technology, and the next phase</p><p>26:55 | The biggest misconception about Latin America</p><p>28:30 | Branding China abroad</p><p>29:50 | The appeal of China’s education sector</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.baiguan.news/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2">www.baiguan.news/subscribe</a>
December 17, 2025
RMB appreciation: why it’s happening, why now, and why it matters - Baiguan Radio #37
<p>After we published the last Baiguan Radio episode <a target="_blank" href="https://www.baiguan.news/p/the-multi-trillion-dollar-question">on RMB appreciation</a>, we were approached by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/bragancajoaop/">Mr. João Philippe de Orléans e Bragança</a>, a long-time reader and listener of Baiguan, who would love to share his take on this topic as well.</p><p>João is a macro investor and a portfolio manager at <a target="_blank" href="https://absoluteinvestimentos.com.br/">Absolute Investments</a>, Brazil’s largest hedge fund with $11bln in AUM. João lives in São Paulo, but has lived for many years in Asia, mostly in Singapore, but also in Shanghai, which is his favourite city.</p><p>We are thrilled for Baiguan Radio to become a forum for all of you to exchange and debate your insights. So please find us whenever you have something to say.</p><p>Table of contents</p><p><strong>00:00 – 07:14 | Why RMB is appreciating</strong></p><p><strong>07:14 – 13:49 | Why now?</strong></p><p><strong>14:11 – 18:20 | How far can RMB go?</strong></p><p><strong>18:20 – 22:05 | Do small currency moves matter?</strong></p><p><strong>22:06 – 28:59 | Will RMB appreciation boost domestic consumption?</strong></p><p><strong>29:00 – 33:26 | What are the implications for investing?</strong></p><p>Written Summary</p><p>1. Why is the RMB appreciating?</p><p>Joao’s starting point is not capital flows or short-term speculation, but <strong>valuation in real terms</strong>.</p><p>His core claim is simple: <strong>China is cheap</strong>.</p><p>Over the past several years, China has experienced close to zero inflation, while most major trading partners have gone through sustained inflation of 2–5%. This inflation differential has accumulated. As a result, China’s relative price level today is meaningfully lower than it was five years ago.</p><p>“China is very cheap.”</p><p>This cheapness is not about wages or nominal exchange rates alone. It reflects a real price adjustment that has not yet been fully reflected in the currency.</p><p>A second supporting factor is <strong>real interest rates</strong>. While nominal rates in China are not high, near-zero inflation means real rates are positive. This contrasts with Japan, where inflation exceeds nominal yields, resulting in negative real rates. </p><p>He also addresses the apparent contradiction between a large trade surplus and a weak currency. A strong export balance does not automatically translate into RMB demand because exporters often keep proceeds offshore, earn higher USD yields, or fund overseas expansion. As a result, trade surpluses alone are insufficient to drive appreciation.</p><p>The key shift comes from the <strong>PBOC fixing</strong>. Since around May, the fixing has consistently hinted at tolerance for RMB strength. While subtle, this signal matters because it changes expectations.</p><p>Once exporters believe depreciation is no longer a one-way bet, they reassess their choices.</p><p>“I can make 4–5% in dollars. But if my currency appreciates 3%, it’s basically the same.”</p><p>At that point, holding USD offshore is no longer an obvious dominant strategy. Behavior starts to shift incrementally.</p><p>2. Why now?</p><p>Joao also lays out several reasons why Beijing may accept, or even welcome, modest appreciation at this moment:</p><p>* <strong>RMB internationalization</strong> has regained importance after geopolitical shocks and a long, strong-dollar cycle.</p><p>* <strong>Industrial upgrading</strong>: a weak currency functions as a hidden subsidy. Allowing appreciation forces firms to confront margins, move up the value chain, and invest in branding rather than relying on FX.</p><p>* <strong>External signaling and diplomacy</strong>: even a small appreciation is noticed by trade partners and can help alleviate the external pressure around trade imbalances.</p><p>* <strong>US-China detente</strong>: Joao interprets the post-Seoul environment as offering a window to experiment without destabilizing expectations.</p><p>3. How far can RMB go?</p><p>Joao is explicit that this is <strong>not</strong> a call for aggressive or sudden appreciation.</p><p>He introduces a useful re-anchoring framework:</p><p>“7 pre-COVID is roughly equivalent to 6 today.”</p><p>This reflects the accumulated inflation differential between China and its trading partners. In real terms, today’s RMB is much weaker than the headline number suggests.</p><p>However, Joao does not argue that RMB should or will quickly move to 6.0. Instead, he frames something like <strong>6.5 over roughly a year or two</strong> as plausible under stable or weaker USD conditions, emphasizing gradualism and control.</p><p>The precise endpoint matters less, in his view, than the shift away from a one-way depreciation narrative.</p><p>4. Do small currency moves matter?</p><p>A central theme of the conversation is that <strong>incremental moves can have outsized effects</strong>.</p><p>At the corporate level, many Chinese exporters operate on thin margins. Even modest currency changes can materially affect profitability, forcing firms to rethink pricing, cost structures, and long-term strategy.</p><p>At the psychological and narrative level, Joao argues that headline numbers matter disproportionately.</p><p>“The headline number — 6, 7, or 8 — changes the dynamics.”</p><p>These numbers shape confidence, expectations, and international perception well beyond their mechanical impact. A move from 7.2 to 6.8 may look small on paper, but it can significantly alter how businesses, investors, and policymakers think about risk and direction, and can also <strong>affect people’s perception of the size of China’s GDP compared with the US.</strong></p><p>5. Will RMB appreciation boost domestic consumption?</p><p>There is an argument that RMB appreciation <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ft.com/content/5bb8edd5-d204-492b-8c4a-eb91bb65c054">could meaningfully boost domestic consumption</a>. Joao is skeptical that RMB appreciation addresses China’s consumption constraints.</p><p>His diagnosis is that China’s consumption problem is not primarily about goods prices or FX. The binding constraints are:</p><p>* high precautionary savings,</p><p>* weak service consumption,</p><p>* labor market insecurity.</p><p>“Consumption is not something FX can really fix.”</p><p>He also notes that current policy priorities place greater emphasis on technology and autonomy, with consumption playing a secondary role.</p><p>6. What are the implications for investing?</p><p>The final part of the conversation turns to markets.</p><p>For <strong>equities</strong>, the key implication is the removal of a major tail risk scenario — namely, a disorderly move toward USD/CNY 8. Even without large appreciation, eliminating that downside changes risk perception and compresses risk premia.</p><p>For <strong>bonds</strong>, low nominal yields look different when combined with near-zero inflation and potential FX gains, improving their attractiveness to global investors.</p><p>For <strong>spillovers</strong>, Joao suggests that a stable or modestly stronger RMB could be supportive for other currencies, particularly in Asia, though the effects will not be uniform.</p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.baiguan.news/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2">www.baiguan.news/subscribe</a>
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