Good evening. What ever happened to ‘common prosperity’? Our cover story this week looks at the Xi Jinping policy that was absolutely everywhere just three years ago, why it fizzled out, and what, if anything, can be done to reverse China’s economic malaise and glaring inequality. Elsewhere, we have a look at China’s potential sanctions against PVH Corp, owner of fashion brands Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger; an interview with Helen Toner, the former OpenAI board member, on setting the rules for AI; a reported piece on China’s struggling steel industry; and an op-ed from Victor Shih on why China’s latest economic stimulus measures are likely to provide only a temporary boost. If you’re not already a paid subscriber to The Wire, please sign up here.
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Broken Promises
In 2021, after four decades of exponential growth in China’s economy, Xi Jinping revived the party slogan “common prosperity” in order to address the country’s glaring inequality. The policy priority was suddenly everywhere: in speeches, in newspapers and in schools. But now, three years later, it has all but disappeared from public discourse even as the country’s economic inequality festers. What happened? Rachel Cheung reports.
The Big Picture: The Dilemma Facing Calvin Klein
The clothing brand’s owner, PVH Corp., is at the center of controversy in China because it restricts Xinjiang companies from its supplier list.
A Q&A with Helen Toner
Helen Toner is director of strategy and foundational research grants at Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University’s in-house technology policy think tank. A policy researcher by trade who spent a year in China learning about the country’s AI ecosystem, she has also become a leading advocate for AI regulation, most recently testifying before Congress on the issue. Between 2021 and 2023, Toner was also a member of the board of OpenAI, where she was one of four members who voted to remove Sam Altman as CEO last November. In this interview with Eliot Chen, she discusses who is ahead in the U.S.-China AI race and the chances of the two countries working together to regulate the technology.
Helen Toner
Illustration by Lauren Crow
Steeling for Trouble
By launching a raft of stimulus measures last month, the Chinese government is making a huge bet that it can shift the country’s economy out of its current malaise. Nowhere is there more at stake, Yi Liu reports, than in the struggling Chinese steel industry.
Not a Fiscal Bazooka, More like a Machine Gun
China’s latest economic stimulus measures are likely to provide only a temporary boost, argues Victor Shih in this week’s op-ed. Much more fundamental change is needed to shift the country’s growth higher.
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