Crypto News: Next China: Unusually candid

Welcome to Next China. Each week, we take you inside the economic giant that is China. To subscribe to this newsletter directly, click here.

This week, we delve into China's energetic moves to revive the economy, what might happen in a Trump-Xi phone call and peek over the Great Firewall.

Hi, this is James Mayger in Beijing.

When a big news story breaks, being the person telling the world is a great responsibility — and also incredibly stressful. When the central bank governor of the world's second-largest economy sits down at a hastily called press conference and immediately starts announcing hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus, it's certainly enough to get the adrenaline flowing.

As I blogged just afterward: "My hands were shaking as I sent those headlines. What a bazooka from the central bank. I don't think I've ever seen such an announcement before in China."

PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng at the press briefing in Beijing. Photographer: ADEK BERRY/Getty Images

It certainly was quite the performance by Pan Gongsheng, timed for just before the opening of the stock market to start the day off well for investors. Stocks rallied once investors digested all the different measures, and billionaire investor David Tepper later said he was buying more of "everything" related to China.

The transparency of the briefing resembled that in other countries, especially with Pan staying around afterward to answer a few more questions from journalists, instead of giving prepared answers and then rushing off as is the custom in Beijing. That is especially striking in a country where access to policymakers has been getting harder, not easier, and more and more data have become unavailable.

One big difference is that unlike in the US or elsewhere, we still don't know much about what drives these big changes in China. Nothing that matters happens openly, although Bloomberg reported that the sudden press conference and surprise announcements were the results of growing anxiety among the top leadership over whether they could hit their growth target for this year.

Those decisions in the dark leave everyone at a bit of a loss to understand how the government can go from saying the economy is posting "stable growth" on Sept. 14 to suddenly announcing rate cuts, money for stock investors, bank recapitalizations and steps to help the property market only 10 days later.

Clearly, if officials from President Xi Jinping on down are now in agreement that the country needs all of that, things are much worse than they have been saying. The trillion yuan question now is: Will what was announced be enough or is more stimulus needed?

WATCH: PBOC unveils sweeping of measures to shore up economy

The effect of the adrenaline rush the PBOC delivered quickly disappeared, leaving me feeling deflated and tired.

But days after Pan's big briefing, Xi and his top policymakers gave the economy (and me) another jolt by vowing to support fiscal spending and stabilize the real estate sector.

It's been a memorable week. We'll have to wait and see if it's remembered for helping turn the economy around.

WATCH: Can China sustain stimulus-fueled market rally?

What We're Reading, Listening to and Watching:

PLA holds rare test of ICBM into Pacific to show its might
US hails China's prior notice of ICBM test as 'good thing'
Nuclear-powered sub sank earlier this year, US says
Tesla's potential ' best quarter' in China raises expectations
Malaysian king to seek high-speed rail funds on visit
Listen to podcast on China's efforts to revive its economy
Read an opinion piece on Chinese, US influence in Asia …
And another on big companies looking for the next China
'Wukong' video game sparks tourism frenzy in remote province
Normal China-US trade relations hang in the balance

Donald Trump has promised to call Xi first thing if he wins in November but the Republican nominee shouldn't be surprised if the Chinese leader isn't very cooperative, on trade at least.

The former US president said during a campaign rally this week that he would phone his Chinese counterpart to discuss the so-called phase one trade agreement they reached in early 2020.

Donald Trump campaigns for president. Photographer: Emily Elconin/Bloomberg

Trump accused Xi of failing to honor a deal to buy $50 billion in US agricultural exports. China imported less than 60% of the promised goods and services — covering food, energy and manufactured products through December 2021.

Taking just a few liberties, here's how we thought a chat between the leaders of the two superpowers might go:

Phone rings in Zhongnanhai.

Trump: Pick up … pick up … pick up ...

Xi (picks up on tenth ring): It is good to hear from you again my old friend. I was just about to call you to offer my congratulations on your remarkable victory and offer win-win cooperation in these complicated times unseen in a century.

Trump: Thank you, President Xi. But let's cut to the chase. You made a deal to buy $50 billion worth of our farm products. I'm here to collect on behalf of the American people.

Xi: We have a Chinese saying for this — bi shang liang shan. For you that pretty much means "make me." We had little choice but to agree to avoid more unreasonable tariffs. Have you rolled back your import duties? No. And now you are talking about 60% tariffs on all of our goods. Of course, we would have to retaliate in kind.

Trump: In that case, may the best man — or country — win.

Xi: Later.

Call ends.

Hypotheticals aside, neither country stands to benefit from another prolonged trade war. Bloomberg economist Tom Orlik says an across-the-board tariff of 60% would likely choke off Chinese exports to the US almost entirely, while similar levies on US shipments to China would take US sales down to zero — an annual loss of about $150 billion.

Orlik also wrote that "the next US president would be well-advised to spend more time and energy on speeding America's advance and less on trying to slow China's."

$593 million

That's how much wealth Miniso Group founder Ye Guofu lost when investors dumped shares in his company because it acquired a majority stake in struggling mega-supermarket Yonghui. Ye may take some consolation from another Ye shopping at his stores. The rapper formerly known as Kanye West recently took his kids to an outlet while in the country for a well-attended show.

A weekly look at an item that's been big water cooler news in China.

The recent stabbing death of a Japanese boy while on his way to school in the southern tech hub of Shenzhen has put China's patriotic education system in the spotlight.

Following China's bloody crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the Communist Party decided it needed to do more to ensure its people were loyal. That led to what the party calls "patriotic education" from the youngest students to those in university, something also adopted in Hong Kong.

A woman prays for a Japanese boy stabbed on his way to school.
Photographer: Ichiro Ohara/Yomiuri Shimbun

While some complain the classes are mind-numbingly boring, they're also effective at drilling key facts into youngsters' heads. It's easy to find people who can, for instance, rattle off important dates in what China refers to as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

One of those is Sept. 18, which marks the anniversary of Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931. That date is now National Defense Education Day, a point authorities pound home by sounding sirens in cities across the country. Sept. 18 was also when the 10-year-old child was attacked by an unidentified man in Shenzhen, though authorities have not given his motive and likely never will.

The killing is fueling concern that China's education system is teaching hate that leads to violence. Earlier this year, a Japanese woman and her child were attacked by a Chinese man with a knife, resulting in the death of a school bus attendant. Some American college teachers were also slashed while walking in a park, though fortunately no one died.

WATCH: Tokyo tells China to end anti-Japan hate after fatal attack

China has hit back at the idea that there's a link between what is taught in the classroom and the spate of violence. It has said both incidents involving Japanese people were isolated.

"There is no so-called Japan-hating education in China," Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said this week. "We advocate learning from history, not to perpetuate hatred, but to prevent the tragedy of war from happening again."

To their credit, China's internet authorities have been cracking down on social media accounts that spew anti-Japanese sentiment.

But they are also clamping down on widespread calls by ordinary people to reflect on how they view history and Japan. Censors have even purged a letter by the Japanese 10-year-old's father who said he wouldn't stand behind hate of either China or Japan.

His child's death in Shenzhen – a gleaming city that stands for the best of what China has accomplished in more than four decades of opening up – is a black mark for the ruling Communist Party and what it instills in its people. Muzzling discussion about a better way to teach people important history makes it even worse.

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