Trade deal talk; Hacking; US visa troubles for PRC scholars; Racist AI

Happy 4th National Security Education Day 全民国家安全教育日!

Today is the 30th anniversary of the death of Hu Yaobang, a reformist leader who was sacked in January 1987 from his position as General Secretary in the wake of student protests. His death set off an outpouring of grief and remembrances that ultimately helped spark the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

Few in the current generation of students may know much about him, but today’s anniversary is just one in a series over the next several months that have the authorities even more paranoid and twitchy than normal.

Last week’s credit data seems to indicate policymakers are adding credit growth to all the other stimulative measures like tax cuts, infrastructure spending and preferential policies to keep the economy stable. Q1 GDP is out later this week but I think we know they will hit the target.

More interesting than the official GDP number is that the Chinese appear increasingly confident they have mitigated the effects of US tariffs an…