China Decode: China’s Next 5-Year Plan & Xi’s Possible Successor

In this episode of China Decode, Alice Han and James Kynge break down Xi Jinping’s next five-year plan and the politics behind it, explore the US-China soybean trade war and its impact on American farmers, and dive into the rise of a viral “Chinese Trump” comedian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:26James Kynge?

  I think these five year plans, I mean, they sound like they could be a bit workmanlike, a little bit sort of socialist communist type of terminology, but they're really important way markers for China's development. We've had a five year plan every five years since 1953 and they really show where China's aiming. And as you say, this one I think will be AI, AI, AI. It's really hard to overstate the importance of that.

• 1:58Alice Han?

  Welcome to China Decode. I'm Alice Han.

• 2:00James Kynge?

  And I'm James Kynge.

• 2:02Alice Han?

  Today's episode of China Decode, we're discussing China's Five-Year Plan and Xi's possible successor, how the US-China trade war is hurting soybean farmers, and what a Chinese Trump impersonator says about political satire and the state of comedy in China. All right, let's get right into it. I think it's an exciting time in general in China in October, not just because the first week is the national holiday, but also because you've got some important plenary meetings coming up. Notably, among them, you've got the Fourth Plenum, in which China is going to discuss the next Five-Year Plan, which will cover 2026 through to 2030. The Fourth Plenary Session will be held October 20 to 23, and there should be approval of updates to this new Five-Year Plan, which

• 2:47Alice Han?

  we will soon hear about at the end of October. On paper, it's about rebalancing a slowing economy, boosting consumption, investing in high-tech industries, and trying to shake off a prolonged property slump and deflation. But behind the scenes, this is also about politics, where Chinese President Xi Jinping is personally driving the blueprint, even as questions about his eventual successor and how that transition could reshape China are starting to surface. I'm really excited about what's going to come out of Beijing at the end of October, James. I think that if you look back to the last Five-Year Plan, at least my reading of the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan, which covered 2020 to 2025, China placed

• 3:29Alice Han?

  a lot of emphasis on high-quality growth, mainly in the form of technology. It also placed a lot of emphasis on dual circulation, so boosting the internal demand in the economy, not just the external demand. And we can debate whether or not they've been successful in this last Five-Year Plan, but I'm excited to see what they announce for the next Five-Year Plan. My own sense is that it's going to be about AI, AI, and AI. When I was in China, it was very clear to me that they were using this kind of AI-plus approach to the economy that they did. If you remember, Li Keqiang announced the Internet Plus program several years ago. I think a similar methodology is being applied to AI. And I could see, I

• 4:10Alice Han?

  think, a big push towards trying to boost consumption, trying to boost China's social security safety net, which remains significantly weak. By global standards, but what's your take, James, on the next five year plan? I'm curious to hear.

• 4:24James Kynge?

  Well, like you, Alice, I think these five year plans, I mean, they sound like they could be a bit workmanlike, a little bit socialist communist type of terminology, but they're really important way markers for China's development. We've had a five year plan every five years since 1953, and they really show where China is aiming. And as you say, this one, I think, will be AI, AI, AI. It's really hard to overstate the importance of that. And, you know, if we look at some of the statements that China's made about AI, just in August, there was a big government report that said that AI would be the core engine

• 5:07James Kynge?

  of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. It's quite rare that you get in Chinese documents them using the R word, revolution. I mean, that's normally a word that's reserved for the 1949 Communist Revolution. So to be using that, I think, is quite significant. China is betting really big on this.

• 5:32Alice Han?

  Yes, and the way that I think about these five year plans is it shows what Beijing politically and economically is trying to prioritize. Now, whether or not they reach those targets or those goals remains to be seen. Certainly, you can debate that parts of the last five year plan were not met, but it shows what policymakers will care about moving forward. And I think critical to the last five year plan, I think, was made in China. I think China has been quite successful in meeting many of those goals, especially when it comes to EVs as well as robotics and aviation. But what I think about this next five year plan is that AI is going to be the cornerstone and key to the way that they think about their economic, political and social problems. I was just looking at some of the AI plus plan earlier this week that they've unveiled.

• 6:18Alice Han?

  It's a three step roadmap for the future of Chinese AI. So they want a penetration rate of 70% of AI integration in six key sectors by 2027, and they want this to cover 90% of the economy by 2030 and have, quote unquote, universal adoption by 2035. I think this fits very well into

• 6:39Alice Han?

  The framework that Xi Jinping announced in 2023, the new quality productive forces, that I think will come up again in the next five-year plan. And I think a lot of emphasis will be placed beyond AI on some of these choke point technologies, whether it's advanced semiconductors, especially for AI, advanced chemicals, advanced pharmaceuticals in the biotech realm, as well as scientific equipment and aviation. These are sort of what they call the choke point technologies, where China still is relatively weak and relies on a lot of imports from the West. I think that that is going to be a key focus and part of Xi Jinping's ideology when it comes to China's technological supremacy and self-reliance. What do you think, James?

• 7:20James Kynge?

  Yeah, I mean, I think you're right to stress the applications of AI. What I sometimes find a bit annoying about commentators on China and AI is that they they never get down to specifics. They're constantly using the word AI as if it's a kind of magic wand.

• 7:36Alice Han?

  Yeah.

• 7:36James Kynge?

  So I think, you know, it's as well to think about actual specific examples. I came across three just the other day. So the latest unitary humanoid robot is powered by AI. And just in the last month, this robot has had a new breakthrough. It can now jump and then do a 360-degree spin in the air and then land on its feet. And if it falls over, it can get back up onto its feet again using what's called an anti-gravity mode. Apparently, all of that stuff, the ability to turn 360 degrees in the middle of the air, apparently that's all powered by AI.

• 8:18James Kynge?

  Last year, there was this extraordinary mission to the dark side of the moon that the Chinese lunar probe Chang'e, Chang'e 6, I think it was, did. And then after it landed on the dark side of the moon, there was a tiny little lunar rover that went walkabout or trundle about on the surface of the moon. And then it turned around and it took a selfie, a historic selfie, of the Chang'e lunar module. Sitting on the moon, on the dark side of the moon, that was all powered by AI entirely, the whole mission. And so that's another example. And then a more kind of down to earth example is in Beijing.

• 9:01James Kynge?

  At the moment, there's an AI hospital at Qinghua University. This is actually like a test hospital. It's not treating real patients yet. But they've got forty two AI doctors. These doctors can see simultaneously thousands of patients because they're just AI. And they have diagnosed already about ten thousand test cases of, you know, people in inverted commas. With ailments and apparently their success rate is about ninety three percent, which compares to, you know, human doctor success rate. So we can see just in those three examples that AI is really across the board.

• 9:41James Kynge?

  Alice, if I have a chance, could I tell you about my experience with a humanoid robot in a hotel in Zhenjiang last year?

• 9:47Alice Han?

  Please do. I'm excited to hear about it. How dystopic on a scale of one to ten is this story gonna be?

• 9:52James Kynge?

  Dystopic. It's not that dystopic, I don't think. But a disclaimer first of all. I met this robot in the hotel lobby. I can't quite call it humanoid because it was on wheels, not on legs. But anyway, I I decided to give it a test. It was sort of hanging around and I thought. Look, um, you know, I'll give it my mobile phone and I'll ask it to deliver my mobile phone to my hotel room. So um, I gave it the mobile phone and it trundled over to the lift and it somehow opened the doors of the elevator. And then it went to the fifth floor and it went all the way down the passageway to my room. And then it opened my hotel door and I politely, being British of course politely, asked it to give it my mobile phone back.

• 10:37James Kynge?

  And um, and it did so. And then I discovered that these humanoid robots, or whatever you call this, are developing a little bit of chutzpah because it then said to me, if you approve of my service, please give me a five star rating.

• 10:53Alice Han?

  Okay. Did you, well, did you give it a five star rating?

• 10:56James Kynge?

  I certainly did. It was worth it.

• 10:57Alice Han?

  Okay. And it seemed like a happy robot.

• 11:00James Kynge?

  Uh, well, it trundled away. It didn't have any complaints.

• 11:04Alice Han?

  Well, that's interesting, and I think begs the question more broadly about to what extent some of these applications will be an automation as opposed to real integration and application of AI. Certainly, I think that what's really interesting about China's AI ecosystem that doesn't get enough press, I think, is the fact that it's mainly open source. And I think that this creates a more competitive landscape for AI models. We see a lot more AI models cross-proliferating in the Chinese ecosystem. What is interesting to me to see potentially in the five-year plan is the way in which AI is integrated in public governance. So in the public sector, when it comes to medical records or local government records. I think already certain companies like DeepSeek have partnerships and relationships with

• 11:48Alice Han?

  local governments and the central government. So for me, it'll be interesting to see to what extent these AI models are integrated in the public governance capacity, which brings back to, I think, the beginning of the discussion. Well, this all matters because ultimately, the fourth plan historically is when the CCP comes together and talks about party governance, personnel discipline, organizational logistics and whatnot. And as I was preparing for this talk, I was looking at some of the data about purges in China. So we've seen the biggest, I think, purge of the CMC, the Central Military Commission, and the PRC since Mao. There's been a big, I think, rooting out of especially the senior level, the general level of the military.

• 12:32Alice Han?

  So to my mind, it will be interesting to see if we get any glimmers about what is going to happen to the PLA and the CMC structure, how are these people going to be replaced? And secondly, the most important question is, is Xi prepared to groom a successor? Or is he going to continue as president for life? I don't yet see the signs to indicate that Xi Jinping is ready to pass on the baton, so to speak. But I know that people will be watching that closely as well, not just for the five year plan, but also for any glimmers or suggestions as to whether or not Xi Jinping will remain in power. Have you heard anything about this, James?

• 13:05James Kynge?

  This is a total black box. The China analysts that I speak to, everybody says that nobody honestly has a clue about Xi Jinping's plans to stay on or not stay on. I do think that what you mentioned, Alice, about the Central Military Commission and replacing those members of the Central Military Commission that were supposed to be loyal to Xi is interesting and it's a puzzle. And in a sense, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire in the Chinese political system, but we just can't read it accurately. You know, at the same time as looking at signs like that, we also have to acknowledge that

• 13:45James Kynge?

  all seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, so that's the pinnacle of Communist Party power in China, they are all either long-term allies of Xi or have served him loyally over more than a decade. And more than half of the broader, 24 members in the broader Politburo are also his proteges. So I really think that if Xi wants to stay on, he probably can. That's my gut feel. But to be honest, I don't think there's an analyst in the world outside a tiny number of charmed individuals in Beijing who honestly have a clue whether Xi Jinping will stay on or not.

• 14:25Alice Han?

  I mean, I would agree with this, although my money is that he's staying on. He's not too old by American politics standards, he's 71. So if he takes care of his health, he should see, I think, a good solid decade ahead. But everyone will be watching that closely for the political ramifications if anything does come up. All right, we'll be back for more after a quick break, so stay with us.

• 14:51Scott Galloway?

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• 17:09Alice Han?

  Welcome back. Soybeans are the latest flashpoint in the US-China trade conflict. For the first time in years, and this is very startling, China hasn't bought a single soybean from American farmers this season, choosing instead to rely on imports from Brazil and Argentina. Now, that's a huge blow for US farmers, who have long depended on China to buy a huge share of their crop, and it comes as US President Donald Trump vows to raise this issue directly and personally with Chinese President Xi Jinping at this month's APEC summit in South Korea. There have been reports that Trump may actually be going to Beijing earlier than expected, as early as November, and a lot of this probably hinges on whether or not

• 17:53Alice Han?

  some kind of a deal can be ironed out beforehand that involves soybeans and Boeing parts. James, obviously, the soybean story, which is so critical to American agriculture, is also critical to the US-China trade conflict that is still ongoing. How much leverage does Beijing really gain by cutting off US soybeans entirely?

• 18:14James Kynge?

  I think they gained quite a lot of leverage. This is the first time in more than 20 years that Chinese importers have not bought soya beans from the US autumn harvests. So, that's the first point. The next point is that China bought roughly 13 billion US dollars' worth of US soybeans last year. So, if it continues this policy of not buying a single bean, then that obviously removes 13 billion from the pockets of American farmers. The other point is that China has bought 52% of all American soybean purchases, i.e. those purchases that are sold abroad in the past.

• 18:57James Kynge?

  So, this is a really big hit to American farmers, and I don't know a huge amount about American politics, but I think these farming areas in Middle America are really important when it comes to politics. And so far, the price, because China's exited the market effectively...

• 19:15James Kynge?

  The price of soybeans has also been falling. They're now trading at about ten US dollars a bushel. That's down from around thirteen dollars at the start of twenty twenty four. And when you consider that farmers are often on a kind of a knife edge in terms of their profit margins, that's a big hit as well. So this comes at a very inconvenient time for the Trump administration's trade negotiators. As you mentioned, Alice, we've got one important meeting after another, and we've got the end of the so-called tariff truce coming up on the tenth of November. And so something's got to give. We don't really know what, but something I think has got to give on this. Otherwise, those American farmers are really going to be hit.

• 20:01Alice Han?

  Oh, yeah, I agree. And to some extent, I think this is pretty low-hanging fruit for the Chinese to agree to commit to. Although the numbers are startling, just as you cited, James. US total soybean exports are down twenty-three percent year-on-year so far this year. But it's all part of a bigger narrative. Since Trade War One, China has pivoted significantly from US soybeans. And it's largely moved towards Latin America, namely Brazil. So US soybeans now meet about twenty percent of Chinese demand, whereas Brazil is seventy percent. And this pivoting away, I think, is a big strategic shift that has obviously hurt the US agriculture sector. But I think what isn't covered enough is that China is also internally seeing a slowdown in demand of soybeans.

• 20:45Alice Han?

  I was looking at some of the data on the demand side. What is interesting to me is a couple of things. The soybean ratio of hog feed, so basically, you know, how pigs and pork are the big meat industry in China. Hog feed that is largely comprised of something like soymeal, which is a soybean component. That ratio has gone down due to government demands and targets. So actually, soybean meal demand will actually fall in the near term. And China is targeting a cut to soymeal, which is a soybeans used in animal feed, from thirteen percent in twenty twenty-three to ten percent. By 2030. And this is really important because around 70% of total Chinese soybean

• 21:27Alice Han?

  consumption is used in hog soymeal feed. So I think there's a bit of a rude awakening for US agricultural producers because not only has China strategically shifted towards Latin America since Trade War I, but it's also seeing an internal slowdown in its demand for soybean imports. So even although I think the low hanging fruit when it comes to this trade deal is for China to say, okay, US, we're going to buy more of your soybeans, it's going to be very hard for me to see them fully pivoting back to the US or even meeting the same kind of growth as we previously saw in demand in the past because of these internal dynamics. Again, another thing that I thought was interesting as I looked back

• 22:06Alice Han?

  at Trade War I is that China only purchased 58% of the total additional 200 billion in purchases that they agreed to as part of the 2020-2021 first trade war framework deal. Again, it's hard for me to see them fully meeting any kind of increased agricultural purchase commitment that they may decide to promise. But again, when it comes to Trump, a lot of it is about the performance or rather the discussions rather than the real details. So that'll be really interesting to see. I sense that on the Chinese side, they can easily verbally say, look, we'll buy more agricultural products and Boeing products. We've basically greenlit this TikTok deal. I think that paves the way for a Trump

• 22:50Alice Han?

  Xi meeting both in Korea and potentially in China. What do you think, James?

• 22:56James Kynge?

  Yeah, I mean, and you mentioned those US agricultural producers there, Alice. And you know, there's a strange sidelight to this whole story because back in 1985, a young man called Xi Jinping actually visited Iowa. He went as part of a lowly agricultural delegation from China's Hebei province to a town called Muscatine, which has just 24,000 people. And then, just as he was preparing to become president again in 2012, he opted again to go to Iowa, and this time He was received by a farmer there called Rick Kimberly, of course, he was a soybean grower.

• 23:38James Kynge?

  And of course, there was pictures taken of a smiling Xi Jinping sitting behind the wheel of a John Deere tractor. And I just imagine that if Mr. Kimberly and his family are still producing soybeans, they're not going to be at all happy about what's going on right now. My sense of this is very much for some of the reasons you've given, Alice, that actually China does need American soybeans. And China would like to have a full trade deal with the US, obviously, that brings down US tariffs across a number of different sectors. And my sense of it, too, is that the Trump administration has been wrong-footed on several

• 24:22James Kynge?

  occasions so far by these tough tactics, this kind of shadow play that the Chinese have been implementing. So, you know, whether it be on rare earths that we've talked about in previous episodes or on the soybeans, I think China's basically building up its negotiating chips.

• 24:39Alice Han?

  Well, it's funny you say chips because to my mind, I think this Chinese strategy is we'll buy more soybeans if you sell us blackwalled chips from Nvidia. And it may actually work out for them if Trump really believes politically he needs to support US agriculture.

• 24:55James Kynge?

  Brilliant segue there, Alice.

• 24:57Alice Han?

  Yes, yeah. Which I think, you know, chimes with his recent tweets, which have been very much about China needs to buy more soybeans, needs to buy more aircraft from Boeing. But certainly, I think, you know, again, to put it in perspective, I think Latin America and the global south is a big part of this story because, you know, we're seeing record Argentine exports of soybeans to China and other agricultural products. Even though China may promise to buy more goods from the US, I think the bigger picture is that China is diversifying from the US and is increasingly buying commodities and agricultural products from Latin America, where they seem to have an ease of doing business with countries like Brazil and even Argentina.

• 25:39Alice Han?

  Even though Malay is a known ally to Trump. So again, I think in the larger context, it's important not to forget that China has pivoted quite a bit since Trade War I towards the Global South.

• 25:51James Kynge?

  Absolutely, yeah. I mean, you're so right to bring this back to the big picture. Those are the big tectonic shifts of China's trading relationships with the world and very deliberately done by China. I think something like forty-four percent of China's total trade these days is done with countries of the Global South. So China's sort of Uber strategy, looking forward, you know, five, 10 years, is really to engage with the parts of the world that are not in the West and thereby increase its influence with those countries. And of course, those countries make up the vast majority of countries in political organizations like the UN. So if China can get stronger relations with them,

• 26:35James Kynge?

  then it can enlist the voting power of the Global South, all of those countries, to basically get its way in international affairs. So that's an important part of this whole topic. I very much agree.

• 26:48Alice Han?

  Perfect. All right, let's take a quick break. So stay with us.

• 26:57Scott Galloway?

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• 28:06Alice Han?

  Welcome back. So James, this is probably one of my favorite segments of today's discussion. Meet Ryan Chen, better known online as the Chinese Trump. His spot-on impersonations of Donald Trump, complete with the hand gestures, rambling tangents and over-the-top accent, have made him a viral star across China and now the US. Chen says he's not doing politics, just comedy, but his skits are landing at a moment when US-China relations are tense and Trump himself is back at the center of global headlines and global comedy. So let's watch a clip.

• 28:40Speaker 05

  Folks, I'm in China, the Longmen Grottoes, one of the world's heritage sites. It's very beautiful, it's tremendous. Folks, this is what you get when you travel in China on a national holiday. When the Westerners say soup, they often mean something thick, mushy, that's boring, like porridge. But if you really want to drink decent soup, you have to come to China. Of course, some veggie. I like to eat it healthy, right? What I like the most is that the locals, they also have their spry. They call it happy.

• 29:13Alice Han?

  That was great. I have to say that he really nailed a lot of the mannerisms and cadence of how Trump speaks. I think this is a very important and interesting window into China's comedy scene, the way that China thinks about humor and politics. And I want to sort of go back to the history of this, which I've since read up on. You know, growing up, for instance, my family's from Shanghai. So as you know, James, Shanghai is known for its comedy. And in fact, there was a comedian who, back in the day, basically created this new form of stand-up comedy called Qingqiu, in which they were borrowing elements of Western stand-up comedy, making sort of reference to everyday society,

• 29:56Alice Han?

  descriptions about funny characters, using dialects often in Shanghainese. But even if we go back further in time, and I'm sure you have a view on this, James, is you had this kind of cross-talk known as Shangsheng, which is kind of duo act, comedy act, kind of like, you know, Fry and Laurie, Albert and Costello, Lewis and Martin, these sort of two comedians that are dueling with each other, making puns and comic references and descriptions. That has been, I think, a big part of Chinese comedy history. In fact, I've read somewhere that they often have masters and apprentices. They basically train some people from a very young age, as young as five or six, to become one of these Shangsheng cross talk comedians. So there's definitely a history of comedy.

• 30:40Alice Han?

  It's slightly different in China, but I think this is one of the first comedic acts that has both Chinese and global appeal. And obviously, it's been helped by TikTok and Douyin and the rise of social media. But I think this is an interesting, again, entry point into how comedy is used and understood in China and how, to some extent, the West is more interested in it than it ever has been. But James, I'm so curious to hear what you have to say about this.

• 31:07James Kynge?

  Yeah, that's fascinating, Alice. I really, the Chinko stuff, I particularly didn't actually know. That's really interesting. This guy, Ryan Chern, though, really fascinates me. Apparently, he has over 1.5 million followers on his American Instagram and TikTok accounts, and he's got over 1 million followers in China. So he's quite big, actually. And obviously, I just think that the subject matter is the secret of his success. You know, travelling around China, you often hear people referencing Trump. Trump is very much a big figure in Chinese sort of day to day discourse. And also, he's been a target of satire for quite some time.

• 31:50James Kynge?

  His nickname in Chinese is Quanjianguo, which means, Quan obviously is a Chinese word that's supposed to sound like Trump. And then jianguo means to build the country. So I suppose the nickname Quanjianguo could mean Trump, the nation builder. And this is highly satirical because what it means is that all of these trade actions and criticisms of China that Trump has been pushing through have actually backfired on America and in the process of help to build China as a nation. But at the same time, it has to be said that actually, I've found quite a lot of Chinese who rather like Trump.

• 32:35James Kynge?

  They like his style. They like the fact that he, you know, he calls a spade a spade, he shoots from the hip, and he's not a boring politician. I don't know what you think, Alice. I mean, what's your experience? I wouldn't say that Trump is a universally disliked American president in China. What's your sense of that?

• 32:53Alice Han?

  I actually have relatives in Beijing and Shanghai and One half of the family, it's kind of like US politics, James. One half of the family thinks that Trump is the Antichrist, and they don't understand how a lunatic like him could be president. And the other half think that he's kind of cute, and he appeals to the everyday man. He's got this kind of earthiness about him that makes him very memorable and almost adorable, if you can actually describe him as such. So I agree with you, James. He's definitely grabbed the imagination of everyday Chinese people. He's a very memorable figure and a character. And what strikes me as interesting about Ryan Chen is that he is using the Trump impression to basically sell parts of China.

• 33:37Alice Han?

  So if you watch his videos, he's going to an EV car show. He's showcasing Chinese tourism, Chinese food. One of my favorite videos is when he's talking to the president of UFC, Dana White, and they're making shao longbao dumplings together.

• 33:51Speaker 05

  Today we have something to cheer you up. We got some traditional Chinese local delicacies, mainly Shanghai snacks. You're gonna love them, right? Okay. Let's sprinkle some flour here to prevent the dough from sticking. Pick one dough, okay? You press it with your palm, push forward, like spin it. Finally, you seal it. Mine looks like shit. Mine is worse.

• 34:14Speaker 05

  I agree.

• 34:15Alice Han?

  So it's a version of kind of cultural soft power that has been used through the hijacking of a Trump impression that I think is quite interesting. But again, I think it speaks to the fact that there is a comedy scene in China, even although there's a degree of censorship and self-censorship, especially when it comes to politically sensitive topics. But there is a burgeoning comedy scene, and it's moving towards the direction of stand-up, towards the direction of these viral influencers on TikTok. And again, I think that this is a sign that comedy is still alive in China, but it's with Chinese characteristics.

• 34:52James Kynge?

  I suppose Ryan Chen and some of the other comedians in China, the one topic they can't touch is politics, or certainly, you know, China's leaders, right? So I suppose that's perhaps the reason he has to sort of make a virtue out of talking about food and other things like that. Am I right there?

• 35:09Alice Han?

  I think so, and I was watching some stand-up comedy shows. So there's one that's famous in China called Rock and Roast, and it's a reality TV meets stand-up comedy show in which you have everyday normal people who are comedic amateurs come on stage and deliver a stand-up routine. And oftentimes, they will talk about the fact that it's hard to make money, everyone's nagging them about having kids and getting married, and how, you know, modernity is really tough. There was this one guy who made a political commentary, especially about the Chinese military and Chinese nationalism, and that faced a lot of nationalist backlash from everyday viewers. So he got a lot of hate, and I think there was a degree of censorship of that.

• 35:50Alice Han?

  So again, it reminds us that, you know, it's not all fun and games, there's a degree of censorship and self-censorship, but I think it's an interesting entry point into seeing what everyday Chinese people feel. You know, there's quite a degree of candor when you listen to some of these routines about how tough it is to live in a slower-growing China, which we talked about in previous podcasts.

• 36:12James Kynge?

  And I suppose also, it acts as a bit of a pressure valve, would you say? You've got, what did we say last time, I think, about nearly 20% of urban Chinese youth who can't find a job, and many of those who can find a job, even if they've graduated from university, are ending up in, I don't know, Starbucks or the equivalent in China. So is there a sense that the comedy helps to sort of lance the boil, or it helps to at least release the pressure of a very stressful life, really, in modern-day urban China?

• 36:46Alice Han?

  And again, not to make this too academic, but I've read some pieces in the past about how The central government allows a degree of locally voiced dissent through protests because it, again, to your point, James, it releases some of the pressure valve without it being concentrated on the central government. So they allow a degree of low-level protest and complaint on social media and everyday life because they want to allow this pressure valve to be released, but they don't want it to go too big and at the expense of what they consider a national stability. But I don't know if you've watched this, one of my favorite films last year is a film called Yolo in English, which I think it's something in Chinese.

• 37:29Alice Han?

  And it's about a Chinese female boxer who starts off as a very fat woman and then trains to be an amateur boxer, loses a lot of weight. The director, who was also the main character, lost a lot of weight training, but it's a hugely funny film if you haven't seen it.

• 37:43James Kynge?

  That sounds great. I haven't seen it, actually. I know it did really well. I think it generated something like 3.5 billion renminbi. So it obviously did well. This is a very interesting emerging cultural scene, actually, isn't it? Yeah, there's a great deal more in terms of humor coming out in films and these skits and Ryan Chen himself.

• 38:05Alice Han?

  Yeah, and in a strange way, he's become a diplomat or ambassador for China by impersonating Trump, so go figure. All right, James, prediction time. I'm interested, what's your prediction for the future?

• 38:19James Kynge?

  Okay, well, we were talking about humanoid robots a bit earlier as part of the idea that AI and AI devices would be a big part of the new five-year plan. So my prediction is that Unitree, which is the Chinese humanoid robot company or some other robot maker, will by the end of next year be selling a humanoid robot for about 3,000 US dollars or less. For reference, the current price of the R1, which is a humanoid robot made by Unitree, is 5,900 US dollars at its lowest price.

• 39:00James Kynge?

  And by the way, that is a mere fraction of the cheapest price of a humanoid robot sold anywhere else in the world. But I'm afraid, Alice, you'll have to wait until the end of next year to see whether I'm right about that prediction. Sorry for that.

• 39:15Alice Han?

  Yeah, and you're saying that they will be exporting them globally at that price?

• 39:20James Kynge?

  I reckon they will be, yeah. I mean, we can already find Chinese humanoid robots on sale in London and in other cities in Europe.

• 39:28Alice Han?

  Oh, really?

• 39:28James Kynge?

  Yeah. So this has already started. This is starting right now. China's mass producing humanoid robots as of a few months ago. And we've all seen this movie before. When China gets to mass production, then the prices tend to come down precipitously. So that's the basis of my prediction. Of course, I got no idea whether I'll be right or not, but I think it kind of, what I'm trying to get at really is this is the direction of travel.

• 39:53Alice Han?

  Okay.

• 39:53James Kynge?

  What's your prediction, Alice? What are you seeing in your crystal ball?

• 39:56Alice Han?

  Well, I I sense that there will be more optimism about Chinese tech stocks. We're already seeing, I think, a record degree of enthusiasm this year. You've got the Hang Seng Index up almost forty percent year to date. But I think this bull run, especially when it comes to Chinese tech companies, has longer to run. And I think when we get the announcement of the five-year plan, we'll see equities being priced upwards because of enthusiasm about this AI rollout. That's an easy, I think, cop-ed answer or prediction for this week, but I I think nonetheless could be quite lucrative for some people listening. So keep your eyes peeled for the the five-year plan and what that means for Chinese stocks.

• 40:39Alice Han?

  All right, that's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to China Decode. This is a production of Prof G Media. Our producer is David Toledo. Our associate producer is Eric Janikas. Our research associate is Dan Shalan. Our technical director is Drew Burrows. Our engineer is William Flynn and our executive producer is Catherine Dillon. Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode. Talk to you again next week.