Quite a big weekend coming up. I wanted to ask you initially on what
your expectations were, but I think we kind of have an idea of what to expect
or the people you're watching most closely.
Let's start with that. I mean, quite frankly, it's consensus
now, right? Everybody's been talking about what
exactly is going to be playing out, the child, whomever.
And for us, I don't mean to downplay it, but it's moderately irrelevant at this
stage because all of the planning has already been done from post 20th party
Congress up to this stage. What we're heading into and I think
what's going to be most interesting and to be honest ourselves and nobody, quite
frankly, has a clue is how that's actually going to be executed upon.
You know, we can see that it's been a hectic three months since the lockdown
was lifted. Covid ripped through in December.
There was no economic activity then. And then we had January with Chinese New
Year, no academic activity then. And now everybody's sort of getting back
to a level playing field and trying to figure out what steps are next.
So for us, it's the bookmark. It's leaked.
CHANG This weekend and then in roughly two weeks time, you're going to have Lee
Chong, you know, kicking off the whole new five years of what policy is going
to look like. And we're we're excited.
We're gonna be watching it pretty closely like everybody else.
Yeah, we're here because you're based in Shanghai and you live through this
lockdown. You're the right person to ask you about
this, about Lee Chang, given the fact that he oversaw this lot.
I'm sure there's a lot of confidence that's been lost there.
Do you think he's going to set the right tone for multinationals and foreign
businesses that do operate in the financial hub there?
We're already seeing it. You know, it's a it's a rabbit hole to
go down. What when what happened with the
lockdown? Because there was some sort of strongman
drawing drama between, you know, Lee Chong and there were certain factions in
China that really did not want him to go off to Beijing is number two.
And, you know, I won't bore you with all of the gruesome details, but what we can
see right now is the Shanghai government has been going out of its way over the
last year or better since the lockdown, really to engage with various foreign
companies. And, you know, maybe anecdotally, but
I've been shocked at how many people from Hong Kong and Singapore have been
flying up over the last two weeks. I think I've had more direct meetings
with clients in the last two weeks than I have in the last three years combined.
And indeed, what sort of is the mood towards China that you're getting from
those visitors? Well, two things.
Number number one is everybody is trying to keep a relatively low profile.
The firms that we deal with in the financial service realm, everybody who
was committed remains committed. They're just doing it on a much more
lower profile. But then you have the Americans.
The Americans have, you know, taken the bait, as I call it, of the headlines.
They think, you know, China's bad, too much risk.
So on and so forth. And they're being if I'm being
diplomatic, very cautious. Our expectation is you're going to
probably see one heck of a renaissance here, at least in Shanghai in the second
half of the year. And around that time, clarity in policy,
you're going to start seeing a lot more foreign executives travel into the
mainland. Peter, I'm not sure if you've heard our
conversation a few minutes back with the impact kind of markets at city.
And I think one of the first things that he mentioned was they are waiting for
some of their approvals. I think one of their savings are to take
control of one of their entities and and city on the mainland.
The reason I bring that up, you probably know I'm going with this.
Do you think we will see an acceleration of approvals coming through for foreign
firms doing business there? David, we already have.
I mean, that was one of the classic things that happened after the 20th
party Congress. You know, we had J.P.
Morgan, Manulife, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered.
Now, these were applications that were in the queue for a number of years.
But, you know, the last time I was on when everybody was speculating off of
the 20th party Congress, you know, my response to everybody was, let's just
see what action happens. Focus on activity.
Forget about rhetoric. Forget about, you know, hot takes on
air. And it's clear that the foreign
community is being warmly welcome so long as they recognize that the rules of
engagement in China are different than in other markets in which they operate.
And that's been the biggest, I would say, headache that we've been addressing
with our clients over the last couple of months.