China's vanishing statistics, Mexico's investment boom, why German carmakers don't want tariffs on Chinese EV & the Rangoon School

Great links, images and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze

Portrait of General Aung San,U Ngwe Gaing,c. 1950−1967

Aung San (13 February 1915 – 19 July 1947) was a Burmese politican, independence activist and revolutionary who led Myanmar’s struggle for independence from British rule, but he was assassinated just six months before his goal was realized. Aung San is considered the founder of modern-day Myanmar and the Tatmadaw (the country's repressive armed forces). He was a life-long anti-imperialist and socialist. He joined the Thakin Society in 1938 and served as its general secretary. He also helped establish the Communist Party of Burma in 1939 but quit shortly afterwards due to vehement disagreements with the rest of the party leadership. He subsequently co-founded the People's Revolutionary Party (later the Burma Socialist Party) with the primary goal of Burmese independence from the British. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Aung San fled Burma and went to China to solicit foreign support for Burmese independence. During the Japanese occupation of Burma, he served as the minister of war in the Japan-backed State of Burma led by Dr. Ba Maw. As the tide turned against Japan, he switched sides and merged his forces with the Allies to fight against the Japanese. After World War II, he negotiated Burmese independence from Britain in the Aung San-Attlee agreement.

Is America’s inflation reaccelerating? Torsten Slok at Apollo is worried.

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China goes dark

Mexico’s investment boom is heavily driven by AMLO’s public projects

An excellent post this by Joey Politano

Mexico's Investment Boom

Why German carmakers don’t want tariffs on Chinese EV imports

The boss of Mercedes-Benz has called on Brussels to lower tariffs on electric cars imported from China, just as the European Commission is considering raising import duties … Increased competition from China would help Europe’s carmakers produce better cars in the long run, said chief executive Ola Källenius, adding that protectionism was “going the wrong way”. … Chinese companies looking to export to Europe was a “natural progression of competition and it needs to be met with better product, better technology, more agility”, he added. “That is the market economy. Let competition play out.” … French carmakers such as Stellantis and Renault, which do not have large businesses in China, have been vocal about the threat of Chinese electric vehicles. However, the probe has faced a backlash from German carmakers that are reliant on China for a significant portion of their sales and profits. German executives fear potential retaliation from Beijing and Chinese consumers at a time when local brands such as BYD have already been grabbing market share … More than one in three Mercedes-Benz cars are sold in China, while the country accounted for 40 per cent of Volkswagen’s car sales last year. Chinese carmakers Geely and SAIC, which is controlled by the Chinese state, own a fifth of shares in Mercedes-Benz. “We did not ask for this [probe],” said Källenius. “… “It has been opening up markets that has led to wealth growth, especially in the economic wonder of China, that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. “If we believe protectionism is the thing that gives us long-term success, I believe history tells us that is not the case.” At present, Chinese EVs are subject to a 10 per cent tariff when imported to Europe. European carmakers pay 15 per cent when exporting to China, which is part of the reason most German models sold in China are made in the country. … Stellantis and Renault have had a rougher ride in China than their German rivals, with the French government actively seeking measures against the Chinese companies. Stellantis’ chief executive Carlos Tavares last year warned that the bloc’s car industry, which employs roughly 13mn Europeans, was at risk of being wiped out by Chinese competition, much like the continent’s once-vibrant solar panel industry. VW’s Porsche, which imports all of its cars sold in China, last year vowed to fight potential new EU tariffs on Chinese carmakers. Its strategy is rare with most foreign carmakers including VW, having largely shifted to local production for the Chinese market.

Source: FT

‘There will be bank failures,’ Fed chief tells lawmakers

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U Ngwe Gaing, Maha Bandula Park 1948

On the history of the Rangoon school

… the 20th-century history of Myanmar painting is similar to the transformations which occurred elsewhere in Asia—Indonesia, Vietnam, and India, for example—whereby local artists began to mix indigenous tendencies with Western influences, arising in unique perceptions. In Myanmar, the formal introduction of international painting occurred with the establishment of the Burma Art Club in 1918. In the 1920s, British club members sent two Burmese painters, Ba Nyan and Ba Zaw, to London to study at the Royal College of Art. Ba Nyan remained in London seven years, where he also studied under the atmospheric realist Frank Spenlove-Spenlove and was influenced by the master painter Sir Frank Brangwyn.

U Ba Nyan At the Jetty 1943 Source: National Gallery Singapore

His training under Spenlove was thorough, and he made the Grand Tour throughout Europe to familiarize himself with the work of the Continent's great masters. Although painters in Burma before Ba Nyan had encountered Western influence from professional British artists who traveled to Myanmar and provided ad hoc instruction—Sir Gerald Kelly and Talbot Kelly, for instance—it was Ba Nyan, when he returned to Yangon in 1930, who established the foundations of a realist and impressionist school of painting, through rigorous apprenticeship of young artists and episodic instruction to mature painters. Ba Nyan and two other painters, Ngwe Gaing and San Win, formed the heart of what might be called the Yangon School—a term which includes many painters in Yangon who did not necessarily study under Ba Nyan, Ngwe Gaing, or San Win but who painted in a realist or impressionist style, sometimes mixing in Traditional effects. When Ba Nyan died at the age of 48, Ngwe Gaing became known as the foremost painter in Myanmar. He was from the southern coast and was of mixed Burmese-Chinese lineage. His early painting instruction came from Ba Ohn and Poe Aung in Dawei, and in Yangon from Ba Sein and ultimately Ba Nyan. In time, Ngwe Gaing became known as "All-Around Ngwe Gaing" for he was a master of pen-work and pencil drawing, watercolour, gouache and oil, and his genres included portrait, landscape, still-life, old Burmese tales and Buddhist themes.

Source: Christies

Barbie Outpaces Oppenheimer in Merchandise Demand by Over 1,190%

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First casualties in Red Sea shipping

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WIPO proposes new Patent Disclosure obligations on Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge

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Self portrait Ngwe Gaing

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