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Glenn Luk

@gluk.bsky.social
560 followers 116 following 339 posts

Co-founder/BoD Healthcare.com | Previously Catalyte | VC/PE Investcorp Technology Partners Tech | Econ Dev | Investing | China/APAC www.readwriteinvest.com

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Reposted by Glenn Luk
Jo Michell @jomichell.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
There are basic but fundamental errors at the heart of the Wolf-Pettis thesis. Most importantly, there is a misunderstanding of the meaning and definition of 'saving'. 1/
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Reposted by Glenn Luk
Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
Another great thread from Glenn, who deserves more followers here IMO. He has been doing yeomen’s work dispelling this kind of nonsense in detail. carnegieendowment.org/posts/2009/1...
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
Since 2009, China's HSR network has served ~22 billion passengers traveling an aggregate ~7.6 trillion kilometers (~348 km/trip). This is equivalent to ~26k round trips to the sun, or ~0.80 light years.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
The U.S.-China trade relationship of the first part of the 21st century was at its core predicated on 🇺🇸 retaining brand/tech/IP value and outsourcing production to 🇨🇳 mfg. partners. In return, 🇨🇳 opened up its domestic market to these high-value 🇺🇸 products.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
GM originally setup its JV with SAIC-GM in 1995 with its 50% contribution to registered capital of ~$800M The equity component might even be less depending on how much the buildout of the plant was funded by local debt.
https://www.economist.com/business/1997/06/05/china-adopts-the-chaebol
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Foreign MNCs aren’t investing in China anymore. Meanwhile Chinese MNCs are driving FDI growth in ASEAN, tightly integrating SE Asia into existing supply chains centered around China. ASEAN is at the frontlines of a major shift in global mfg in the coming decades. 🧵
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Billy moneyballs Gallium Guys, you’re still trying to fight this tech war and hold onto the gallium that China is no longer selling us. I told you, we can’t do it ... and we can’t do it. Now, what we might be able to do is recreate it. Re-create it in the aggregate.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
I wrote this piece seven years ago about the intrinsic value of currency in the context of debates on the value of bitcoin and crypto assets at that time. www.readwriteinvest.com/p/what-is-th...
readwriteinvest.com
What is the intrinsic value of fiat currency?
A derivative value of the issuing nation-state
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
The "Chinese honeypot AI" meme reveals some disturbing misogyny/xenophobia 👇, which again just highlights the toxicity on the other platform. There is also a "main character" level of conceit evident in assumptions they are prime targets in the first place as if this were a James Bond movie.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
A few years ago, I wrote about the story of Qualcomm, Huawei and the "Race to 5G" I discussed the history, technology, and geopolitics of wireless in five Acts leading up to the arrest of Meng Wanzhou in December 2018.
readwriteinvest.com
How will the race to 5G dominance play out between Qualcomm and Huawei?
The history, technology and geo-politics of wireless in five Acts
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
An eye-opening set of charts on Japanese automakers. Japan and the U.S. car markets are the last refuges for Japanese automakers. In retreat most everywhere else in the world due to being laggards on the EV transition.
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Reposted by Glenn Luk
Lauri Myllyvirta @laurimyllyvirta.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
NEW from us: Indonesia's president Prabowo announced last week the ambition to phase out fossil-fuel based power plants by 2040, a major step up in ambition compared with the earlier target of phasing out coal by 2056.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
We’ve really lost the plot when the highlighted solution to “re-industrializing the economy for national security purposes” is framed around the goal of trying to “rebalance China”. Even if it might be better for us that China rebalances, we have little control over it doing so.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Robin Zeng on #Northvolt ❌ Design ❌ Process ❌ Equipment Source: FT
https://www.ft.com/content/8b2a586e-a774-4f9e-9f1b-473691afcaae
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Reposted by Glenn Luk
Tom Hancock @tomhancock.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
US manufacturing sector has become less productive since the 2010s in terms of value of output per hours worked www.economicstrategygroup.org/wp-content/u...
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Northvolt’s bankruptcy filing highlights the difficulties private capital face in a high-risk, capital-intensive endeavor like batterymaking. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Goldman Funds Take $900 Million Hit on Northvolt, FT Says
Funds managed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management are set to write off almost $900 million on investments in Swedish battery maker Northvolt AB, which filed for bankruptcy protection this week, the Fina...
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
I reviewed the financials for nearly two dozen Chinese EV makers (including incumbent ICE carmakers) and discovered some surprising revelations: 1. High revenue concentration with the top 3 players (BYD, Tesla and Li Auto) accounting for more than half of NEV revenue
https://x.com/GlennLuk/status/1830867112765858078
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Reposted by Glenn Luk
Dake Kang @dakekang.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
A couple thoughts on this story by Elsie Chen and me: -Upper-middle class urban China has become cool and fashionable! Little of that has reached foreign audiences except maybe through TikTok, because of the firewall and all those expelled journalists… apnews.com/article/chin...
apnews.com
In China’s regimented society, youth find release at underground raves
In recent years, space for culture and creativity has been shrinking in China as the authorities have ramped up censorship of concerts, shows, and other cultural events.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Recent @economist.com article argues the middle class is stagnating in Asia, with the key chart showing a noticeable plateau/decline for China. Issue here is conflating the $3-25k HH income group with the “middle class”. China’s number is shrinking because HH incomes are now rising above $25k.
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Reposted by Glenn Luk
Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Huge if true. Indonesia is substantially powered by cheap domestic coal, and so far has been slow to transition. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Indonesia’s Prabowo Vows to Retire All Coal Plants In 15 Years
Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto said the government plans to retire all the nation’s coal power plants within 15 years to help stem global warming.
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Reposted by Glenn Luk
Tom Hancock @tomhancock.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Useful map of EV battery gigafactory projects in Europe, of which many are by Chinese/Korean companies
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Introduce yourself with your worst feedback from school 👇 Hi I’m Glenn. According to my yearbook, my claim to fame in Middle School was being a fan of the New Jersey Nets, which was considered uncommon where I grew up. (Narrator: Glenn grew up in the middle of New Jersey)
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Viewing # tags by user is a great feature. Feels like @bsky.app team is really thinking about this product by systematically fixing all the things that were broken about the old Twitter, keeping the good parts while adding well-thought-out improvements.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Over the past 12 months, China Railway has ↗️ the HSR network by 2,859 km and ridership has ↗️ by 376M trips and 130B passenger-km. The entire Shinkansen is 2,765 km and carries ~386M riders traveling ~100B px-km. So China Railway built an entire Shinkansen in the last 12 months.
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Reposted by Glenn Luk
Tobias Gehrke @tobiasgehrke.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
As the decouplers move into the White House, it’s worth noting that many citizens in middle powers favor China as their trading partner over the US. via @ecfr.bsky.social
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
While the EU can act relatively cohesively as an economic bloc, this thread highlights the issues it has of acting cohesively on core defense matters.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
The “China eliminated poverty” declaration in 2021 was actually based on *extreme poverty, which is at the ~$2 mark. The next level up is regular poverty which is at this $6.85 mark.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
There seems to be much “de-dollarization” attention being paid to this recent $2 billion bond issuance by China’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) on the NASDAQ Saudi Arabia. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
China Set to Issue Dollar Bonds Offshore After Three-Year Hiatus
China is planning to sell dollar bonds in Saudi Arabia next week, its first debt issuance in the US currency since 2021.
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Reposted by Glenn Luk
Mike Bird @birdyword.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
TRADE WARS ARE GAS WARS My piece this week on an under-discussed element of the coming trade clash, particularly between the US and Europe - liquefied natural gas. www.economist.com/finance-and-...
economist.com
Donald Trump’s gas war is about to begin
It could annoy some of his most loyal supporters
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
The extra 20 characters allows people to add pleasantries like “with all due respect” or “I hear what you’re saying but”
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
I've been spending most of my time the last 24 hours going through other people's followers lists to see who I recognize to follow.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
This @wsj.com article was a good reason to update a bunch of #HSR charts. "giant money pit"? 😒 In 2024, China's HSR ridership surpassed all-time highs and China Railway is going to generate ¥1.3 trillion of revenue and ¥400 billion of EBITDA. 🧵
wsj.com
China Is Building 30,000 Miles of High-Speed Rail—That It Might Not Need
The train system is one of the biggest public works in history, and it’s becoming a giant money pit.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
China-Brazil is the fulcrum of China’s economic strategy into South America. Analogous to Indonesia to SE Asia.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Compiling a starter pack for those interested in trains, high-speed rail, metros, etc. (a transfer of old lists from Twitter/X) go.bsky.app/PnVcXEJ
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Networks shouldn’t be evaluated based solely on selected low-traffic nodes. Taken in the aggregate, China’s HSR network is only behind Japan’s in terms of network utilization and has seen utilization rise even as physical length of traffic grew.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Recent @bsky.app spike feels like the New Coke debacle except where a startup came up with Coca-Cola Classic instead.
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Reposted by Glenn Luk
Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
I’m utterly baffled by this.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
People sometimes forget just how protectionist Japan was. Relative market scale drives protectionism in the smaller market. Japan Inc relied on its home market (4x smaller) more than the U.S. did. We are now seeing similar effect with US and EU vs. China for EVs.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Renewables adoption is also growing faster in developing nations as well.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Regional imbalances in China have been shrinking since peaking in the mid-2000s. Source: World Bank thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/26442...
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
China’s October youth unemployment rate was released on Monday, coming in at 17.1%, down from 17.6% in September. This 🧵 provides some additional context into the controversial figure, which was suspended in June 2023 for six months before restarting in Dec. 2023 with a modified methodology.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202411/1323318.shtml
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Reposted by Glenn Luk
Joe Weisenthal @weisenthal.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
Mobile gambling is ravaging Brazil www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
China's current account surpluses have been overstated by hundreds of billions per year over the past two decades. This is a technical 🧵 that discusses the source of the distortion ("factoryless manufacturing"), the scope of the overstatement, and some downstream implications.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
In limited early trials, I have noticed enough engagement here on Blusky to make it interesting. I will still continue to post at Twitter/X but plan to cross-post here as well. If anyone has some good suggestions on tools, please let me know. I did just sign up for Buffer.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Guys, you’re still trying to fight demographics and replace 350 million retiring workers. I told you, we can’t do it ... and we can’t do it. Now, what we might be able to do is recreate them. *Re-create it in the aggregate*
Moneyball OBP scene
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Reposted by Glenn Luk
Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Follow Glenn. He and I may not always agree on China’s economy, but he always has something interesting and insightful to say.
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Tech transfer was always about technology for profits. The EU is absolutely right to pool its leverage to extract the best deal possible, just like China did for decades. It's about being smart and acting in the best interests of your constituencies. www.ft.com/content/f4fd...
ft.com
EU to demand technology transfers from Chinese companies
New requirements will apply to batteries but could be expanded to other green sectors
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Of course that’s your contention. You’re a first-year associate on Morgan Stanley’s international desk. You just finished reading Business Insider and are convinced that the CCP has taken out a trillion dollars of debt …
Good Will Hunting bar scene
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Glenn Luk @gluk.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
2024 content compilation. This is regularly updated throughout the year. For new followers, I typically write about technology, industrial policy, business strategy, clean energy, investing, and economic development. With an occasional meme thread. www.readwriteinvest.com/p/twitter-th...
readwriteinvest.com
Threads Archive: 2024
Ongoing compilation of threads from 2024
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