HeyJaredThe China Memo
The China Memo decodes Chinese economy, policy, and business for Western audiences. Hosted by a Chinese finance professional based in Switzerland who reads policy documents, earnings calls, and investor forums in the original language. No hype. No politics.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 5
- Latest publication
- Sep 13, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 4, 2026
Latest episodes
19. Tencent: From QQ to Super-App to What Comes Next (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Tencent's arc from a free instant messenger in 1998 to a regulated national platform is one of the more instructive case studies in how Chinese tech companies and the Chinese state negotiate power over time. This episode traces three phases: QQ and the virtual goods model, WeChat and the investment empire, and the post-2020 regulatory reset that produced a new equilibrium. The new implicit social contract, keep WeChat stable, support state priorities, tone down aggressive fintech and gaming mone
18. What Hermès in China Tells Us About the Luxury Divide (opens the original)
Read excerpt
In the first half of 2024, LVMH, Richemont, Burberry, and Kering all reported double-digit revenue declines in Asia. Hermès posted an increase. This episode investigates three competing explanations for that divergence: ultra-HNWI client insulation, the scarcity model creating a demand floor, and the possibility that Hermès is simply experiencing the same slowdown on a delayed timeline. The honest read is that all three contain real content — and that the divergence reflects a stratified Chinese
17. China's Metals Strategy: From Ore to Leverage (opens the original)
Read excerpt
China controls between 50 and 98 percent of midstream refining and smelting across key energy-transition metals — not because it holds the most mines, but because it built the chemistry plants, separation facilities, and accumulated engineering know-how that convert ore into usable materials. Since 2023 it has invested over 120 billion US dollars in overseas mining to extend that position upstream. This episode uses the Stakeholder Map structure to trace who sits where in the system: China runni
16. Lying Flat and Involution: China's Two New Catchphrases Explained (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Neijuan (involution) and tangping (lying flat) are not about laziness, and they are not primarily about political protest. They are the vocabulary a generation has developed to describe a rational recalibration: the experience of running hard on a treadmill that is no longer moving forward at the speed they were promised. This episode takes the moral failure reading seriously — Confucian culture places real weight on effort as virtue — before showing where it stops being sufficient. Housing as a
15. The Glass Backbone: How China's Optical Fiber Feeds the AI Era (opens the original)
Read excerpt
The AI conversation is dominated by chips. But before any compute can do useful work, data has to move — through thin strands of glass called optical fiber. And China makes more of it than the rest of the world combined: over half of global fiber and cable, around 65 percent of fiber-optic components, and a single Wuhan cluster called Optics Valley that accounts for roughly a quarter of the international market. This episode traces the arc from China's first optical fiber, pulled in a Wuhan lab
Publishing over time
Last 90 days. Choose a month to open its work.
Recurring subjects
Named in the text we hold. One piece can cover several.
Audience
No verified audience measurement yet.
About this data
Counts cover the work we have indexed. Tone needs enough text and a confident classification. Excerpts and episode notes are not full articles or transcripts.
Identity or attribution wrong? Suggest a correction.