In December 2020, as the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic drew to a close, Chen Derong wiped away tears of joy while addressing the company he chairs, China Baowu Steel Group Corporation.Baowu is the result of a consolidation of the steel industry with Baosteel and Wuhan Iron & Steel merging, along with Ma Steel. State-owned Baowu had just cracked a major milestone: It had churned out its 100 millionth tonne of steel that year, cementing its lead as the world’s largest steel producer. Chen, a former engineer, reportedly called it a “dream come true.”
Backyard furnaces producing steel during Mao's Great Leap Forward. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
In a year when the pandemic slowed global steel output, Baowu was thriving. Beijing had wheeled out its stimulus playbook, announcing government spending plans worth hundreds of billion dollars and looser borrowing requirements for local governments, with both measures supercharging steel-hungry infrastructure investment. B
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When China announced it was ending quarantine requirements for incoming travelers, Chinese people collectively picked up their phones to search popular travel apps like Ctrip and Qunar. Owned by travel giant Trip.com, these apps helped Chinese travelers explore the world pre-pandemic and facilitated the human-to-human interactions that drove China's rise. But many of today's travelers seem to be sticking closer to home, and their hesitation to get back to the jetsetting habits of the past 20 years has far-reaching implications — especially for Trip.com.
The professor talks about China's real estate bubble; if China can develop a modern financial system without rule of law; and why it's not China that is reshaping the global order, but the world's response...
