I’m starting a new series showing photos of Beijing. I hope these seemingly random photos give you a unique perspective on what it is like living in China’s capital.

It isn’t uncommon to see signs and posters like this in clubs and bars in Sanlitun.

In mall bathrooms, you can sometimes find toiled paper dispensers that first need to be scanned with a QR reader before they dispense.

Taken in the same mall as the QR code toilet paper dispenser.

It is right to be fearful of opaque enforcement of law in China, but those who enforce laws are almost always pleasant peasants from some of China’s most rural parts. The two men pictured above were thrilled that I wanted to take their pictures. They each took one with me, and I was the first foreigner they ever talked to.

Beijing’s pace of life is ravenous. The city and its long work hours are soul sucking. Pictured above is someone burning paper. Burning paper is commonly used as a form of familial piety/ancestor worship. It is common throughout the year to burn paper money to provide for dead relatives. I once saw parents burning a paper computer, I’m assuming, to provide digital entertainment to deceased child in the afterlife. The speed of life hasn’t changed China’s most raw traditions.

I love, absolutely unequivocally love, 担担面. Dan Dan Noodles are the best of Chinese noodles. Traditional noodles soaked in a mixture of fiery chili oil, Sichuan pepper corns, sugar, Chinese vinegar, and soy sauce. The silky texture,spicy and complicated, is to die for. I could eat it daily ( I did for a few months). Most versions will include dried and fermented mustard greens- adding a slight sour depth. This is quintessential Sichuan cuisine that should be tried by everyone who can handle heat in their food.

I’ve never had better cocktails than those I had in Beijing. My favorite bar, Bronze (located in Shuangjing), elevates cocktails to fine art.  When in Beijing, DO NOT get cocktails in tourist areas (unless you like liquid garbage, then be my guest). Sanlitun has some good cocktail bars, but wealthy residential areas around and in the central business district have some truly spectacular bars.

On the 20th episode of China Unscripted I said China and the US would not reach a meaningful trade agreement. I’ve written about the reasons here, here, here, here, and here.

The US sought six things: trade deficit reduction, intellectual property protection, end of market distorting subsidies, end of state sponsored hacking, elimination of forced technology transfers, and quarterly meetings to discuss progress.

The economic structure (political structures will be posted in the next blog post) of China ensures that market distorting subsidies cannot be stopped.

1) SOEs are controlled by a single government agency, the SASAC. Imagine if one U.S. agency controlled General Electric, General Motors, Ford, Boeing, U.S. Steel, DuPont, AT&T, Verizon, Honeywell, and United Technologies. Furthermore, imagine this agency were not simply a passive shareholder, but also behaved as a private equity fund would with its holding companies.

2) Central Huijin is the largest shareholder of Chinese banks. Central Huijin is managed today as a wholly run subsidiary of the China Investment Corporation, China’s sovereign wealth fund. Through Central Huijin, the state can order the Big Four to direct funds to serve its policy objectives.

3) The NDRC is in charge of pricing commodities that are not yet completely set by the market. Examples include electricity, oil, natural gas, and water.

4) The Party controls everything.

China, rather intuitively, cannot change the above listed economic structure due to the protest of a foreign country.

I took this photo in 2014. I always thought Beijing was beautiful at night

The US trade deficit with China cannot be managed down, because it is too large. To close the deficit, American exports to China would have to increase $80 billion per year for six years.

Excellent graph by Brad Setser

Even if U.S. exports of oil and gas go from $10 billion to $100 billion over six years ($100 billion is something like 5 mbd of oil and gas equivalent, at a price of between $50 and $60), the United States still needs to find another $300 billion in extra exports to get close.

What about importing manufactures? China’s imports of U.S. manufactures are now about 1 percent of its GDP, and its imports of manufactures from the world (net of parts imports) are under 5 percent of China’s GDP, LESS THAN WHEN CHINA JOINED THE WTO. Made in China 2025 isn’t built upon the idea of increasing manufactured imports.

Again, great work by Brad Setser

There was never going to be a trade deal. China wasn’t going to disband the largest economic entity in the world (the SASAC) because the US was unhappy. The scope of the problem, hundreds of billions of dollars, isn’t going to be mended by one government deal hashed out in a year.

Chongqing 2017

The attitude among Western countries, regarding China has fundamentally shifted as China’s development has changed. The debate in America is not whether to enter a trade war with China, but how large should the conflict be. While it is up to China to choose its policy course, it is others’ choice to take steps to avoid collateral damage. Given Beijing’s current resurgence of a Party-led economic policy approach, a change in US attitude is to be expected.  It is not preventable.

Trade and investment de-coupling could be done in a managed way, rather than through unilateral threats, protectionist measures, retaliation and escalations to intimidate the other side into concessions. It is possible that neither China nor the advanced economies are willing to work toward a convergent future at this time.  That doesn’t have to be cause for war and panic.

Don’t Panic.

About two weeks ago, Dr. Josh Dorfman published the following post on LinkedIn:

Dear presidential candidates: You cannot ignore China! Do you disagree with our current strategy? All of it? Are you sure? You need to be sure. Because I haven’t heard much about it from any of you. It’s sort of like you don’t understand how much the US-China relationship will shape the coming decades. Seriously. A lot. Please, please hire China advisers that value evidence over ideology. Yes, like me. And many much better than me, like Shaun Rein, Jessica Beinecke, Kaiser Kuo, Eric Olander 欧瑞克, Bill Bishop, Dan Harris, Samm Sacks, John Pabon, Benjamin Shobert, Paul S. Triolo, Damien Ma. And I’d be happy to recommend many others. You can’t afford to get China wrong. Seriously. Let us help you. Our proud nation will be forever grateful. Kindest regards, An honest-to-goodness American

Dan Harris disagreed on China Law Blog.

After much thought, I believe Dr. Dorfman’s well-intentioned post about national strategy is misplaced.

Coming decades will be shaped by a clear sense of American values and commitments to the region, situating China within a broader Asia policy. I look forward to hearing candidate alternatives to America First, not who they’re hiring for China.To this end, presidents and presidential candidates would be wrong to prioritize recruiting China specialists.

The Obama administration should be credited for the US Pivot to Asia, which prioritized rebalancing Pentagon resources to Asia. Administration success in resource allocation obfuscated deficiencies in strategy. What was the goal of the pivot? Was China a competitor? Ask John Kerry, Ash Carter, and Susan Rice these questions and there would be three different answers.

The Trump administration has been clear: China is a competitor and we are entering an era of great power rivalry. Tools and resource allocation, however, has been lacking. East Asia policy is not confined to the Pentagon. Congress affirmed this in the recent NDAA (read this). Broader trade and diplomacy guidance (the State Department doesn’t have a permanent Assistant Secretary to East Asia) have been abandoned.

American presidents and presidential candidates should prioritize the administrative responsibility of determining American values and commitments to Asia at large, not China. Consider the ‘China problems’ of fair trade and military conflict in the South China Sea.

American allies Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are just as guilty as China for imbalanced and unfair trade. American approach to Chinese trade, based in national values, should mirror that of our allies.

Presidents should not view Chinese militarization of the South China Sea as a China problem.

Presidents should gather allies and commit the nation’s resources to policy reflecting American values.

The key take away from Chinese propaganda is, rather intuitively, in the messages propagated. This blog post examines the four most common themes: communist party events, morality, prosperity, and Chairman Xi Jinping.

Honestly, I have an unhealthy fascination with Chinese propaganda due to two reasons. First, most foreigners don’t speak Chinese and are unable to differentiate propaganda from normal marketing advertisements.  Second, propaganda in China is everywhere. Let’s look at a few examples.

In 2017 I lived east of Beijing proper in the Tongzhou District (Google maps link). This blog post’s photos were taken in Beijing around that time.

The picture above is an average street in Tongzhou and is indicative of how most tier two cities appear. The posters covering the walls are separate propaganda pieces. How many propaganda posters can you count? This scene, streets lined with propaganda, is a common occurrence in China, and mass volume of propaganda isn’t limited to print. Electronic billboards are used in the center of the city to spread propaganda messages. Note the dozen red backed electronic billboards below (also note the air pollution).

Some propaganda is used to herald Communist Party events. The above signs reads, “喜迎十九大 创造新辉煌” or “Happily greet the 19th Party Congress. Bring about new glory.”  Perhaps what is most impressive about Chinese propaganda is how much the size of medium being used varies to fit into available public space. Propaganda posters are often posted on walls and are the size of standard movie posters found in theaters across the world. Walled off construction sites present a larger space to fill.

中国梦 安全梦 抓好安全生产 建好‘北京城市副中心

Chinese dream – Peaceful dream – Successfully create safety – Build Beijing

中华圆梦 万马奔腾 – Realizing China’s Dream – Full steam ahead

These large posters, again usually lining the walls of construction sites, have always been the most fascinating. This medium has the most room and is much more likely to advertise morality. The left most piece of propaganda in the picture above lists the 12 Socialist Core Values, a topic I will discuss later.

诚信经营 讲诚信有良心

Operate honestly, Speak the truth and be good-hearted

The large, perhaps 18 foot, poster above is fascinating. The moral message is simple: be honest. The bowling ball is labeled “honesty.” The bowling pins are labeled foreign trade scams, pyramid schemes, illegal advertising, fakes, and illegal fund raising.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the 12 Socialist Core Values (Wikipedia link). The values include prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality, justice, rule of law, patriotism, dedication, integrity, and friendship. The poster below has three separate advertisements, all of which list the 12 Socialist Core Values, i.e the characters of the three posters are exactly the same.

In the above photo, again on a large 18ft wall, we can see two propaganda pieces. The left piece lists the Socialist Core Values. The right piece is hard to see clearly. I can clearly infer the characters “邻里守望” or “community watch” across the top. One has to admire fitting a message of morality and call to action for the communist party so casually into daily life.

Most Chinese propaganda isn’t explicitly violent. In fact, the most common message or repeated noun I see is “safety” or “安全” in Chinese. The key to safety, always implicitly, is communist party guidance. The ICBM and dove images above are painted on a community wall. The wall depicts China’s advancements in flight technology, starting at the kite and ending in satellites. These types of images, again, are not common. On a side note, police were called when a Chinese man saw me taking photos of this wall. Community watch indeed.

The last propaganda that I will outline today is Chairman Xi Jinping propaganda. It is constant.  The red banner above reads, “紧密团结在以习近平同志为核心的党中央周围不断开创中国特色社会主义事业新时” or “Closely unite around the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core and continue to pioneer socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.” The Chinese digital landscape is absolutely saturated in quotes extolling Chairman Xi. Here are three news sources that I searched today. I have highlighted the Chairman Xi Jinping news section in green. It is always the top section extolling the same qualities and prowess.

I’m constantly amazed at Chairman Xi propaganda that borders on idol worship:

今年我和习近平握过手  This year I shook hands with Xi Jinping

Before closing, I think it is important to point out that much of the propaganda above is focused on legitimizing the communist party and creating a narrative of national success and optimism. China, through the lens of its propaganda, is unstoppable. It is wholly responsible for all economic prosperity and safety. It is a path, a legacy to be fulfilled. Legacy is not built upon change. Propaganda posters with red heroes stoically facing challenges does not hearken to a government capable of addressing 21st century challenges.  As China enters a new era of change, these propaganda posters and the legacy they claim looms large in my mind.

Thanks for reading.