EU-China; Hong Kong guilty verdict; China in the Pacific, "Mar-a-Hari"

Happy Tuesday!

The EU and China did agree to a joint statement at the EU-China Summit. There was reporting earlier that there might not be a statement as the Chinese were not offering enough about changing economic policies. It looks from the statement that Chinese relented, at least rhetorically.

It is 6 days until the 30th anniversary of the death of Hu Yaobang, the spark that set off the outpouring of grief and remembrances that led to the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests. I was a student at Peking University then, on a semester abroad my junior year, and clueless.

Xi started off this especially sensitive year with that extraordinary meeting on risks, and we are now entering the most politically fraught period of 2019, one that will last through the 100th anniversary of the May 4 Movement, the 30th anniversary of June 4, and the 70th anniversary of the founding of the PRC on October 1.

Expect everything to be on even more of a lockdown than it usually is, and that includes in the econom…