Today's guest is Yaling Jiang. Yaling is a former journalist who currently uses her research and reporting skills to provide businesses with insights and analysis on the Chinese consumer market. She is the founder of research agency Aperture China, alongside which she runs the newsletter Following the Yuan on Substack, which provides nuanced takes on Chinese consumer trends.

We discuss how Chinese people see themselves as consumers first and political citizens second, the CCP's attempts to influence the consumer market, and how a rise in China's soft power is linked to trends like Chinamaxxing. We also talk about how movements like involution, lying flat, and feminism present in people's lives, and prove once more that Chinese people and Americans are more similar than we think.

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Consumption as identity and politics in China w/Yaling Jiang