Controversies around Hong Kong remain, and we look at how the recent undertaking of the NBA is a wider warning sign to the rest of the World. China is often scrutinised as benefitting of a developing country status so we explore the potential of change.

China Bends Another American Institution to Its Will (The Atlantic) By taking on the wildly popular NBA, and especially the even more popular Rockets, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is blowing a whistle on companies and countries around the world that he can easily be destructive using no weapons.

Myth Busted: China’s Status as a Developing Country Gives it Few Benefits in the World Trade Organization (The Conversation) Donald Trump and Australian PM Scott Morrison argue that China is effectively a developed economy that receives unfair benefits by joining the WTO as a developing economy.

The China Cultural Clash (Stratechery) China’s boycott of the NBA is about more than the pro-Hong Kong tweet from the Houston Rocket manager Daryl Morey. The way that the Chinese government influences public opinions from social media apps and the Great Fire Wall is creating an even wider division between the country and the West.

With the US and China, Two Types of Capitalism Are Competing with Each Other (Stigler Center, University of Chicago Booth School of Business) Branko Milanovic’s new book argues against China’s view as a socialist state. The state-led authoritarian capitalism model has hugely contributed to China’s rapid economic growth in the past few decades, and China’s economic success undermines the West’s claim that capitalism and liberal democracy must be linked with one another.