PERESTROIKA? China’s Xi Seeks to Soothe Anxieties of American CEOs.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, facing a slowing economy and a sharp fall in foreign investment, sought to reassure American chief executives that China’s economy hasn’t peaked and that the country is working to improve its business environment.

In a meeting with a group of more than a dozen U.S. business leaders and scholars on Wednesday, Xi also said the two countries should do more to overcome their differences and increase interactions, according to state broadcaster China Central Television.

The gathering in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing included the heads of two chip makers, Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon and Broadcom’s Hock Tan. Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, insurer Chubb’s Evan Greenberg and FedEx’s Raj Subramaniam also attended, according to readouts and footage from CCTV.

But: “The official readout of Xi’s comments didn’t include any references to the security concerns that foreign business groups had previously raised, including a series of office raids and staff detentions that rattled the foreign business community.”

STILL POETS AMONG US: An Easter special reprint in HillFaith. Besides being a skilled poet, Susan Gates, Ph.D, is the author of “Days of Slaughter: Inside Freddie Mac and Why It Could Happen Again.” She knows, she was there on the inside as it happened.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TRIES TO FURTHER BALKANIZE AMERICANS: OMB has decided to make America’s arbitrary racial classifications even more arbitrary by turning the multi-racial Hispanic ethnic classification into a racial one, and to add a new and entirely incoherent Middle East and North Africa racial classification (which will include Israeli and Mizrahi Jews, Turks, Persians, Arabs, Chaldeans, Kurds, Berbers and more; in fact, given the choice between white and MENA, as a Jew with close ancestral and familial ties to Israel, and no ties to Europe for over a hundred years, I’m going with white AND MENA, as will many Ashkenazi Jews. It’s totally, as I noted, incoherent).

Someone needs to sue to stop these changes. The first is meant to retard Hispanic assimilation by making them into a permanent racial class. The second is meant to settle the question as to whether Arab and Iranian Americans, historically considered white in the US, are really, as leftist activist groups want, “people of color” who can glom on to whatever benefits that status has.

If a lawsuit doesn’t work, a new Trump administration, which already rejected such proposals last time, should reverse them. And the goal should be to eventually largely eliminate government collection of data by race, as it’s often stupid and counter-productive, as, for example, with rules requiring medical researchers to use American racial classifications in their research that have no scientific basis.

Here’s the comment I submitted to OMB opposing turning Hispanic into a racial classification. And here’s the comment I submitted re the MENA classification.

MICHAEL WALSH: What’s Good For General Bullmoose. “Gerald M. Levin, who died last week at the age of 84, will be little noted nor long remembered by the American public, yet his name should live in corporate infamy. As the man who destroyed Time Inc. via a unique combination of ambition, pomposity, luck, greed, unctuousness, and stupidity, Levin is one of the great villains of 20th-century American and journalistic history and a now-deceased exemplar for everything that’s wrong with big business, Wall Street, and the grubby managerial class that controls the lives of millions of people. Look on his Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Don’t mince words, Michael. Say what you really mean here.

Plus: “As John Cassidy wrote in his 2013 post-mortem of the ongoing wreckage in The New Yorker: ‘About the only ones who consistently benefitted from Time Inc.’s transformation into part of a multimedia conglomerate were the bankers and lawyers who put the deals together.’ Not to mention the execs who profited from it. If you’re looking for a point when it all went wrong with the American economy, the murder of Time Inc. at the hands of Levin & Co. is a good place to start.”

Our nation is run by people who live by Rhett Butler’s observation that there’s as much money to be made in tearing down a civilization as in building one up.

WELL, THE READERS HAVEN’T BEEN BOUGHT OFF BY BIG TECH: The NY Times is Skeptical of Jonathan Haidt But Readers Think He Has a Point. “Despite the subtle shade directed at him, most of the readers seem to believe Haidt is on to something with his new book. This is the top comment, upvoted more than 1,800 times:”

I taught high school for nineteen years. I left in 2022. Number one reason: the phones. Students enter class looking at their phones, they walk down the halls looking at their phones, and they sit around the cafeteria and campus after school looking at their phones. It’s only because the handheld digital onslaught occurred over several years that we don’t see it for what it is. Now I teach at a middle school where students never have their phones available. The result? Eye contact, good cheer, lively conversation, laughter, playfulness, and a sense of camaraderie. I left the clouds behind, and now the sun is out again. I’m happy.

I believe it.

THE BIRTH DEARTH: Diaper Maker Won’t Make Them for Japan’s Babies Anymore. “With births at a record low for modern times in Japan, a diaper manufacturer will transition from producing diapers for little ones to those for adults. Call it a late response to the market: Japan’s elderly have used more diapers than the nation’s infants for more than a decade. In a statement, Oji Holdings said its subsidiary, Oji Nepia, hit peak production of 700 million infant diapers in 2001. It now produces far less — about 400 million annually — due to declining sales, the company said, per the BBC. The number of births in the country has fallen steadily, from nearly 1.17 million in 2001 to just 758,631 in 2023.”

WELL, YES: Increasing LNG Permits Is Critical to Sanctioning Russia.

Last month, the Biden administration took aim at its own domestic energy export capabilities by halting all permits for new LNG projects—effectively banning future exports. This came in sharp contrast to the administration’s recent sanctions on shipments of Russian gas from the Arctic LNG 2 terminal. While our allies have already pledged to reduce their Russian gas dependency, this shift hinged on the United States’ ability to promptly supply their alternative.

Japan, the world’s leading LNG importer, which was already in a precarious position due to its reliance on anticipated supplies from Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG 2, is now facing an all-out energy crisis. Top Japanese power generator JERA said they expect the suspension “could affect the LNG security not only for us, but also for Japan and the world.”

Our allies have cause for concern over President Biden’s LNG moratorium, especially at a time when exporters want to add fifty percent capacity by 2026 to meet global demand. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) under President Biden have been notoriously slow in processing permits for LNG exporters—setting the stage for this moratorium. The current eleven-month average processing time under Biden contrasts sharply with the seven-week time frame under the Trump administration and even the six-month duration under Obama.

The Biden Cabal couldn’t figure out how to slam the brakes on American domestic oil production but they’ve certainly put the squeeze on LNG.

RAYMOND IBRAHIM: Who Is Really Behind the Moscow Terror Attack? “There are some overlooked points to consider — especially concerning this last observation — that do lend weight to the view that ISIS is behind the attack.”