Too much foreign content in textbooks and on TV; Internet needs more controls; Tech innovation and taxes; Coffin confiscations; Deepening reform meeting

Next Monday is the MId-Autumn Festival 中秋节. China will officially be on Holiday on the 24th but tomorrow should be a very slow day. The newsletter will publish as normal Monday.

In the waning years of the previous Era in China this holiday was an orgy of gift-giving, and the evenings right before the holiday often saw the worst rush hours of the year in Beijing as people scrambled around the city to drop off their gifts.

We used to get tons of mooncakes as friends would receive far too many boxes and so would share. One friend reminded me that officials should always check the mooncake box before re-gifting it, as sometimes they were stuffed not with sweets but with cash and other instruments of bribery. The good old days of go-go Beijing…

There is still no word if Beijing is sending anyone to DC for trade talks, and President Trump may decide to ruin the holiday for some officials with the next round of threatened tariffs. 

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, and don’t overdo it with the mooncak…