The world of Chinese high finance is actually way more stupid and ridiculous than you probably realize. Seriously, sometimes millions or billions of dollars change hands for relatively stupid reasons like, delivery coffee + China, what’s the worst that could go wrong? Pete Sweeney (@petesweeneypro), an opinion columnist for Reuters Breakingviews, gives us a crash course. Also discussed: You might think that journalists report just about everything, but there are many stories that don’t get reported, especially in China.
Pete discusses the strange corner of the world he lives in (2:06), leaving the U.S. to start a beer business in Ecuador (7:51), reinventing himself as a journalist in his 30s (14:20), working at China Economic Review (19:05), a major story in China that never made it into international news (26:05), joining Reuters to cover the huge boom/bust of the Chinese stock market (41:19), his transition to opinion writing (52:57) and takes on the lightning round (1:01:19).
Here are links to some of the things we talked about:
Pete’s column about Luckin Coffee - https://bit.ly/3alhizC
His column about Xinjiang - https://reut.rs/2KkjtJa
Caixin’s English language edition - https://bit.ly/3cysYAz
Archillect on Instagram - https://bit.ly/2XO22c6
Arts & Letters Daily - https://bit.ly/34MRQSB
Thucydides wiki - https://bit.ly/3ezqEew
Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between - https://amzn.to/2ymDgVQ
Pete’s op-ed on raising a pig (page 13) - https://bit.ly/2KgCa0t
BBC TV show Press on IMDb - https://imdb.to/3bm16j8
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Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
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