Letter | Romance of the Three Kingdoms in China’s EV market?

April 22, 2024

45 2 minutes read

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About 1800 years ago, the famous battle of the Red Cliff took place. Cao Cao, the most powerful warlord of the north, was squarely defeated by Liu Bei and Sun Quan of the south.

Today, Elon Musk is Cao Cao, and his Tesla could be seen to be competing with two Chinese players. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun is Liu Bei in the current scenario, as the least established player of the three. But Lei has a clear advantage: price.

Although Musk seems to have the upper hand, Lei could laugh all the way to the bank eventually, because Musk is a busy man who has to take care of SpaceX as well as the social media platform X. Lei, on the other hand, is very focused and gearing up to win the electric vehicle battle.

Out of three Chinese car buyers, maybe one will buy a Tesla. But another could be a fan of Lei’s. So we shall see. Tesla’s market capitalisation is slowly melting, and so is its market share. Eventually, history will repeat itself. And then we will have the new Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Li Mingxuan, Selangor, Malaysia

Beijing must prioritise peace and poverty alleviation

I refer to the letters to the editor on April 5: “Former Taiwan leader’s mainland China itinerary holds an important message”, “US foreign policy is grounded in ends justifying means” and “Millions of children in China need help”. They highlighted three important issues.

First, on the conflict between mainland China and Taiwan and the appeal for sanity and peace, I believe that peace is more important than forced reunification. The leadership of mainland China should be prepared to engage in dialogue with any government that is elected in Taiwan, and the Democratic Progressive Party should not be excluded. Dialogue is the best way to resolve conflict and the cheapest way to secure peace.

US governments and unfortunately most American citizens have been manipulated by the capitalist military-industrial complex. The United States will continue to act like a bully without the proper rule of international law.

The only way forward, but one that is difficult to achieve, is not to fight the US and become similar to it, as Russia has, but to unite all other United Nations members, big and small, to form a strong international peacekeeping force under the UN that can counteract the US’ and others’ dictatorial behaviour in the future.

That there are 67 million “left-behind” children in mainland China is a disgrace to China and Chinese everywhere when the country still has so many billionaires. The government should tackle this poverty more forcefully one way or another, even if it has to tax or force these billionaires to contribute to alleviation of the problem. These children are China’s future assets after all.

Dr Ka Sing Chua, Victoria, Australia

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April 22, 2024

45 2 minutes read