22 March 2024
Whip Roundup: China Edition is a simple digest of China related news, and a great source of interesting ideas and clever thoughts. This newsletter, produced primarily for a China-based audience, aims to ask good questions, provide concise updates on recent news, and engage your curiosity as we head into the weekend.
Asia space race heats up as China, Japan and India reach for the stars
- The future is now. For decades we’ve been hearing about a massive shift of capital from west to east and now we can see that as Asian countries put more resources into space exploration. This investment is likely to grow over the next 10 or 20 years, which should be good for R&D and hi-tech factory space.
- The attached article also says that China does have the financial resources to conduct major space missions on its own, but Japan does not. What percentage of people think the opposite?
China tries to stabilise pig population as pork prices plunge
- In the foreign press we often read about China’s “strategic pork reserves,” which is probably curious to an American audience. America’s most famous reserve is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; most Americans probably don’t think about food security the same way they think about energy security.
- The strategic pork reserves highlight China’s proactive food supply risk management and has gained attention in America. In 2020, David L. Ortega, an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University, wrote an article titled Could China’s strategic pork reserve be a model for the US?
- I am very curious about this article because there is a similar situation in America. When I was in school everyone had to buy a Texas Instruments TI-85 graphing calculator. It was expensive, close to $100 at that time, yet we used it only a few times and later discovered it wasn’t mandatory for the exam.
- Surely now it’s not a calculator but some expensive and required app. When I read stories like this, I wonder… are we preparing our children for the workforce of the future?
Thanks for reading to the end of Whip Roundup.
Whip Roundup is a periodical for valued friends & colleagues. Please share your comments, corrections, and complaints at woconnor@whipconsulting.com. If you know anyone else who would be interested in receiving Whip Roundup, please forward it along!
Yours truly,
Bill O’Connor