Editor’s note for Wednesday, November 11, 2020

My thoughts today:

While the world’s news media, and especially America’s, remains transfixed by the aftermath of the U.S. election, there’s plenty going on in China.  

Our top two stories today are data points in two of the most important developments that will shape China for years to come: The growing repression of any kind of opposition politics in Hong Kong, and China’s demographic time bomb, often described as the problem of getting old before getting rich.  

Today was the first day of our NEXTChina online conference. We’ll continue tomorrow, November 12, with panel discussions from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST. With opening and closing remarks by Bill Ford, CEO of private equity firm General Atlantic, and former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, we’ll discuss the following topics:

• The Cross-Border Investment Bubble Has Popped. What Is Next in U.S.-China/Global Investment?
• China’s Investments Into the Global South
• Innovations in Digital Finance and How They Will Change the New World Order

If you have not registered yet, you can attend free as an Access member. Use the code NC20ACCESS at this webpage.

You can see a Twitter roundup of today’s panels and follow tomorrow’s discussions at the hashtag #NEXTChina. We’ll also make recordings available to Access members as soon as they are processed.

Our word of the day is [state] pension system (养老保险体系 yǎnglǎo bǎoxiǎn tǐxì).

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief